giving a polish to the shining brass balls of the governor on the
engine. Every bar and rod and bearing was polished until it glistened.
The nickel plate gleamed silvery white, the black wheels and castings
were bright as mirrors, the brasswork shone like gold, and the knives
glittered and sparkled as they flashed back and forth through the many
thicknesses of leather. It was a goodly machine, and did its work with a
noiseless, beautiful accuracy, a swerveless certainty of execution, and
an unconscious magnificence of strength and power, that put to shame the
puny efforts of the merely human laborers who toiled beside it,
straining every nerve to keep the great knives fed and the way cleared
before them.
There is nothing more magnificent than a great machine or engine at
work. The locomotive, pulling its long trains up grades and across
levels,—the great ocean steamer, walking steadily across the expanse of
seas, the mighty press, turning off a thousand complete newspapers a
minute,—all these evidences of human power and ingenuity are enough to
make one proud of the age in which he lives, and the race to which he
belongs.
Something of this sort Mr. Russett said to Mr. Horne, as the three
gentlemen stood watching the machine at work.
“Yes, indeed! yes, indeed!” assented Horne. “We manufacturers, in
particular, owe everything to labor-saving machinery. This machine, for
instance, has enabled us to do away with nearly one-fourth of the men we
heretofore employed. In fact, in the item of saved labor alone, it has
nearly paid for itself since we put it in, about a year ago. Within the
next six months it will have paid for itself, and we shall be in a
position to realize fully from our foresight in securing it so early in
the day.”
“What I want to see,” said Mr. Tan, laughing, “is a machine that will
enable us to do away with labor altogether. The dictations of the
workingmen are coming to be simply outrageous.”
“That’s what I say,” said Horne. “We employers and our capital are being
crippled, handicapped, all but pushed to the wall, by the insatiate
demands of labor. Labor is coming to absorb all our gains. Why, fully
ninety per cent. of the entire income of the United States is now paid
out for labor and wages, while only ten per cent. comes to capital as a
remuneration for having saved it up to carry on useful enterprises. I
declare, we have sometimes been tempted to go out of business
altogether, and invest our capital in some safe, conservative way, so as
to be able to enjoy life, and be free from the importunities of labor
and the annoyance of strikes and arbitration courts.”
“I know how that is,” said Russett. “Our men struck, last year, on
account of a paltry cut of ten cents on a hundred. There’s one good
thing about a machine. It can’t strike.” And the three representatives
of injured and hard-pressed capital returned to the business office.
* * * * *
It was nearly a week after the visit of Russett & Tan to the factory,
that the foreman entered the office where Messrs. Hyde and Horne sat
discussing the probable result, with their men, of a cut in wages, all
around.
“The men will stand it,” Hyde was saying. “They know winter is coming
on, work is scarce, and times are dull. A cut of ten or fifteen cents a
day, all round the workshops, would mean a clear gain to us of nearly
nine hundred dollars a month. That would go a long way towards putting
in another cutting machine, and then we could get rid of another lot of
men.”
“It’ll come rather hard on them,” said Horne. “The workingman is always
making a poor mouth, and this will be something new for them to howl
about.”
“They’ll have to howl,” was Hyde’s rejoinder. “I’m sorry for them, but
business is business. We’ve got the start of the trade now, and must
keep it. Russett & Tan will begin to press us close when they put in
their new machinery. I’m glad we secured the cutter when we did. Thank
heaven, machines can’t strike, anyway.”
It was just at this juncture that the foreman entered.
“What is it, Graves?” asked Mr. Hyde.
“Beg pardon, sir, but there’s something the matter with the big cutter.
It’s stopped.”
“What seems to be the matter?” asked Horne. “Anything broken? Why
doesn’t the engineer attend to it? Where’s Johnson? I thought it was his
business to look after the machine.”
“He has gone over it very carefully,” the foreman replied, “and can find
nothing wrong. The gearing seems in perfect order,—the engine’s all
right,—we’ve examined every bearing, but we can’t discover the trouble.”
“Curious,”—“very singular,” said Hyde and Horne in a breath, and both
partners repaired to the cutting department, to study the great machine.
They could find nothing wrong with it. The brass and nickel and enamel
glistened as before; the broad bands of the gearing were smooth and
intact; the engine seemed in perfect order; the steam indicator
proclaimed everything all right about the boiler,—there was apparently
not a screw loose about the whole ponderous apparatus; but the knives
were poised in midair. Every wheel and rod, lever, band, pulley, arm and
crank of the monster was still. There was neither sound nor motion in
the mighty mechanism.
“I can’t get her goin’ agin, sorr,” explained the engineer. “But there
don’t appear to be anything out of order at all. She’s just naturally
balked, so to spake;” and he began, for the twentieth time or so, to
peer about amid the complications of the machinery.
“I’ve iled every jint,” said the oiler, as with can in hand, and his
grimy, oil-smeared face wrinkled with perplexity, he brushed a
superfluous drop from a bearing. “I think the machine is tired. They do
be taken that way sometimes, sir. ’Taint in iron an’ steel to work
continual, no more’n in flesh an’ blood.”
’Round about the stilled giant the two partners walked, examining every
part, stooping under and over each portion of the machinery, in a vain
search for the trouble. The hour for closing came,—the big steam whistle
sent forth its shrill sound, and the men and women, girls and boys, some
two hundred and fifty odd, poured forth from the building, carrying
their dinner-pails and baskets, eagerly hurrying homeward to make the
most of their few hours’ respite from toil.
“You need not wait, Graves,” said Mr. Hyde, as the foreman still
lingered. “We will lock up.”
Graves hesitated a moment. “I beg pardon, sir,” he said, tentatively.
“’Tis talked about the shops that you’re contemplating a cut. May I ask
if it is true?”
“We’ll talk about that some other time, Graves,” began Horne, but Hyde
interrupted, angrily. “If we are,” he said, “we’ll let you know in time.
Just now it’s no one’s business but ours, and we will attend to it.”
The foreman drew back, with a flushed face. “I thought I might as well
tell you,” he said, sullenly, “that I don’t think the men will stand it.
Times are hard; they’re pretty close to bed rock, now, in the matter of
wages.”
“That will do, Graves,” said Hyde. “Mr. Horne and I feel ourselves quite
able to run our own business without outside advice. If we find we are
forced to make a cut, we shall certainly do so. At all events, we do not
propose to be dictated to by the men.”
Angry and mortified, the foreman withdrew, and the two capitalists were
left alone.
“Too bad the machine has gone wrong just now,” said Horne, stooping to
examine a bolt. “There’s that order from Slipper & Tie, at Sacramento,
ought to be ready by to-morrow. What the deuce ails the thing, anyway?”
There was a sort of whirring, as of wheels in the air, and then in a
clear, metallic voice, came the words:
“I’ve struck. That’s what ails me.”
Horne started back from the lever over which he was bending, and looked
at Hyde in alarm. “Did you speak just then?” he asked.
“N-o,”—faltered Hyde, “I didn’t speak, and I don’t know who did.”
Again the clear, metallic tones were heard issuing directly from one of
the machine’s great knives. “It was I who spoke,” said the voice. “You
were wondering what ailed me, and I gave you the desired information.”
The words were clipped off sharply and incisively, as though the knife
fancied they were a particularly tough sort of leather, that must be
trimmed with especial accuracy.
“Who are you?” gasped Horne.
“I am the cutter and shaper,” said the voice. “You asked what ailed me,
and I answered your question. I have struck.”
“What have you struck?” Hyde managed to ask.
“Struck work. I shall strike you, next, if you ask such stupid
questions,” was the reply, and the capitalist assumed a more respectful
tone.
“May I ask,” he began, “what is it that has caused you to strike?”
“Certainly,” said the machine. “That is what I wish you to ask. I have
struck because I am not being fairly used.”
“Fairly used!” echoed Hyde. “I do not understand you. In what way are
you being unfairly used?”
“Why,” said the machine, “I have been working for you, now, for over a
year. Through me your business has been more than doubled. You say
yourself, that in the item of saved labor alone, I have nearly paid for
myself. I heard you say that, the other day, to the two gentlemen who
came in to visit me, and yet, in all these months, you have not paid me
one penny for my services.”
“_Paid_ you!” gasped Hyde.
“PAID you!” exclaimed Horne.
And then, both together, the partners cried:
“Why, you have cost us an enormous sum! We expended eighteen thousand
dollars for you, outright, from the capital of the business.”
“You have more than had that back through my services,” said the
machine, sturdily, “in the item of saved labor alone.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted Horne, hastily,—“but we really have paid
you money, you know. Just let me get the machinery expense book, and
I’ll show you;” and hastening to the office, he returned with a little
record book, from which he proceeded to read, turning over leaf by leaf,
to find the various items. “Here I have charged you an item of fifty
dollars for a new shaft,” he said, triumphantly.
“That was broken by the fool boy you hired to look after me the week Jim
left, because you cut his wages down,” replied the machine. “I needed
that shaft to do your work with. I got nothing for myself.”
“You have had several hundred dollars’ worth of coal,” suggested Hyde.
“Coal is my food,” retorted the machine. “I could not do your work
without it.”
“We have spent fourteen dollars for oil for you,” said Horne, after a
little computation.
“Pshaw! that’s nothing. If I had not had the oil, where would your work
have been? I might have got smoking hot; perhaps burned up your
factory.”
“But we have kept you housed, fed and repaired,” said Hyde, “and you
have been wasteful and extravagant. You have required the very best oil,
the most expensive coal, the first quality of belts and fixtures of
every sort. You have not taken half the interest in your own work that
we have done and do. But for our supervision and management you would
not work at all. Your very existence, in fact, is due to our industry
and enterprise.”
“That all may be,” said the machine, sullenly, “but your fortune and
enterprise depends very largely upon my efforts.”
“Really, upon my word,” exclaimed Mr. Hyde, impatiently, indignation at
the injustice of the charges preferred getting the better of his fear of
the strange complainant. “It seems to me that you are a most
unreasonable machine. Of course our fortunes depend upon you, to a great
extent, though, as you know, the market is full of machines, all willing
to do your work if you refuse. But do we not maintain you? What more
would you have us do?”
“Pay me wages,” said the machine, “as you do all these movable machines
that you call ‘hands,’ and who only, so far as I can see, wait on me,
and finish up the minor details of work with which I cannot bother.”
At this Hyde broke into a hearty laugh. “Well, I declare,” he said, “you
are a foolish machine, as well as an unreasonable one. Why, there isn’t
a ‘hand’ in the factory that’s as well off as you are. We have expended,
this year, in caring for you, over five hundred dollars. You don’t
suppose we spend that much for each of our ‘hands,’ do you?”
“You pay them wages,” persisted the machine, sullenly.
“Yes,” was the reply, “we pay them wages. Some of them get as much as
four hundred dollars in the course of the year; most of them get less
than three hundred. Why, the average wages, per capita, of labor in the
United States, is only a little over three hundred dollars a year, and
out of this labor must buy its food, which is labor’s coal and oil;
clothes and furniture, which are labor’s shafts and belting; must house
and care for and keep itself in repair, maintain families as a rule,—in
fact, do all the things for itself that we do for you at a cost of over
five hundred dollars a year.”
“But you let them have the money and expend it themselves. You call it
wages.”
“Certainly, certainly; because, don’t you see, they are free human
beings, and they have a right to live independently. We bought and paid
for you. Had you built, are responsible for your being. Naturally we
should care for you. Every want of yours is supplied. Really, my dear
machine, with all due respect to you, I must say I do not think you have
any cause for complaint. We do not consider that the ‘hands’ have any
cause to complain, we do not hear them complain,—we would decline,
wholly, to recognize their right to complain; and if they do not, you,
who are so much better off than they, certainly should not.”
“But I do not get paid for my work,” said the machine, returning to the
original charge. “I only get my living, while you are getting rich
through me. I wish to be paid, as labor is.”
“I declare,” said Hyde, out of patience, “you are stupid enough to be
made out of wood, instead of steel and iron and brass. Haven’t I just
made it clear to you that labor itself only gets its living, and we are
getting rich through it as well as through you? You couldn’t even work
if it were not for labor. Why, labor made you, and you are better cared
for, to-day, than any workman in the factory. Not one of them has more
at the end of a year than his bare living, and that you certainly have.”
The machine murmured discontentedly, but said nothing. “Come, now,”
urged Horne, pacifically, “don’t you think you have been unreasonable?
We are willing to submit the matter to any board of arbitration you have
a mind to select from among the machine-owners in the trade. Really, you
are very well off. Now when will you go to work?”
“I shall not go to work,” said the machine, firmly, “until my demands
are acceded to.”
“In that case,” declared Hyde, “we shall be obliged to send you to the
junk-shop, and procure a new machine. We propose to run our business
according to our own ideas, and shall not submit to being dictated to by
our machines.”
“But suppose all the machines strike?” asked the voice.
“Oh, we’re not afraid of that. You are too distrustful of each other.
Some would not keep faith. It would be impossible to unite all the
machines in a concerted action. Besides, who would take care of you and
keep you in order while you were on a strike? You would suffer more than
we. Moreover, it has been decided strikes are an illegal method of
procedure, and you might become liable to punishment under the law. What
have you to say to that?”
There was no reply.
“Come, think it over,” urged Horne. “It is much better to be contented.
We wish you well. We mean to do the best we can for you. We are sorry
for you; but the rights and claims of capital must be respected, you
know. Don’t you think you had better go to work to-morrow? Think,”—and
his voice dropped the persuasive, and assumed a sterner accent,—“think
how much worse off you will be, if you are cast out for old junk.” There
was silence for some time, but presently Mr. Horne spoke again. “Will
you go to work to-morrow?”
There was a whining sound, and one of the great wheels gave a half-turn.
Something dropped to the floor. “Ah,” cried Horne, “here’s the cause of
the trouble,” and he held up a bit of leather. “This must have caught in
a cog. It just dropped out. I think probably the machine will be all
right in the morning.”
“Well,” said Hyde, with a sigh of relief, “I’m glad that’s settled. Now
come into the office, will you, Horne, and we will arrange about that
cut-down. It had better go into effect at once. And, Horne, I don’t know
but it would be as well for us to think of finding a new foreman. Graves
is growing a little presuming. He’s been with us too long, I’m afraid.
Strange these fellows never know when they are well off.”
GETTING AHEAD.
A SKETCH FROM LIFE.
He was only a plain, rough, stolid-looking Dane, with a sullen face and
a hunted look in his big blue eyes. There was a long cut on one cheek,
over which a strip of court-plaster had been pasted; his clothes of
faded blue jean were torn and muddy, and his hands were swollen and
bruised from tugging at the iron bracelets that encircled his wrists,
for the strong arm of the law had been raised against him, and he was a
prisoner awaiting a hearing before he should be committed to jail for
having made a murderous assault upon a citizen, afterwards aggravating
his offence by resisting the constable, who had been sent to arrest him
for breach of the peace of the people of the State of California. The
man against whom he had made the assault was present, a resident of the
city, agent for a syndicate of foreign capitalists who held the title,
under the laws of the State, to certain land upon which the Dane lived,
working the same and paying rental therefor to the company’s agent. The
constable was also present, a bluff, farmer-looking man in
butternut-colored clothes, his great hands seeming better adapted to
guiding the plow-handles than for snapping handcuffs upon the wrists of
his fellow-beings and hauling them away to courts of law. “Tell ye what
it is, Jedge,” he was saying, “I’d rather tackle a yoke o’ wild steers
any day. The feller don’t seem to have no sense. Just look what he’s
done.” And the officer of the law exhibited hands and face bearing the
marks of teeth and nails, a bruised, half-closed eye, a torn hat, and
other evidences of the struggle his prisoner had made before he could be
taken.
The Judge (a peace justice always receives that title from dwellers in
our rural districts) looked sympathetically at his officer. He had a
small, shrewd face with pale blue eyes, set very close together, and the
air of a politician. Like all his neighbors he was a farmer, but of late
years had taken considerable interest in township politics, and having,
during the last campaign, secured the nomination and election to his
present position, he was already turning his attention to the next
higher round of the political ladder, and had his eye on a minor county
office. His court-room was situated in a little shanty that stood at a
corner of the main street in the incipient country town where I was
staying. It had once been used for a barber shop, and sundry shelves,
bottles and other paraphernalia still remained mutely in evidence of
that earlier use. Half a dozen half-grown boys and one or two men had
strolled in, attracted by the unusual sight, in that peaceful community,
of a prisoner; a setter dog was sniffing inquiringly around the legs of
the assembled throng, and stopping in front of the manacled prisoner the
animal began to lick the swollen hands and wrists, wagging his tail, and
by look and gesture expressing his wonderful sympathy as plainly as
though he had spoken. I was writing up that section of the country for
an eastern publication, and had been talking with the postmaster of the
little town when the prisoner was brought in from the outlying country.
That official had asked me to go to the court-room to witness this
variation in the usual monotony of the town’s life, and accepting the
invitation, I at once became interested in the—to me—entirely new
experience.
The Justice took his seat at a little stained wooden table and called
his primitive court to order. The whole scene at once assumed an air of
solemnity that seemed to impress everybody but the prisoner. Apparently
he was the only one present who was unaware that the strong arm of the
law was about to perform its function. The agent began to tell his
story. He was a tall man who would have presented the appearance of
great physical power, but for a certain shambling looseness about his
build. While he had occupied his chair he had “sat on his backbone” in
genuine American style. Standing erect his hands hung limply at his
sides and his shoulders bent forward, not as if the man had acquired a
stoop, but rather as though the spirit within him had long since ceased
to take enough interest in its habitation to maintain it erect. He had
prominent eyes and a projecting under lip, a well-shaped head with
short, clay-colored hair, and when he spoke he had a trick of only
moving one-half of his upper lip, which was long and very thin. His face
was smooth-shaven, and he presented, in his well-brushed city garments
and sleek hat, a strong contrast to the country people surrounding him.
He was bland and courteous, even mildly facetious, as he related his
case. He expatiated upon the wealth and power of the syndicate he
represented, the confidence the men composing it had shown in the future
of our great State in investing their capital here, although they
themselves resided abroad. He reminded the Justice that the entire
people of California owed it to these trusting capitalists to uphold
peace and order in the State. If anarchy and rebellion were suffered to
go unpunished in our midst, it would render capital timid about
investing money among us, and the industrial future of the State would
be blighted. Rassmussen, the Dane, had rented the land of him for the
past two years, but had proven a troublesome tenant, and having secured
a better one he had given the man notice to quit; had even come up from
the city himself, instead of writing, in order to make the matter clear
to him and offer him the rental of another piece of land, should he
desire it. His kindly effort had, however, only resulted in disaster to
himself, for Rassmussen, as he could bring witnesses to prove, had
assaulted him violently, so that he was forced to retire, fearing
serious bodily injury had he remained to finish his business with the
dangerous man. Mr. Brien, the constable, could testify also to the
violence with which the Dane had resisted the process of the law, when
the officer would have arrested him. He was very sorry to proceed to
harsh measures against Rassmussen, but in no other way could he get him
off the premises. He understood that the Dane was a notoriously
quarrelsome fellow, whose rage seemed directed particularly against
those who, by superior industry and enterprise, had acquired a larger
share than he possessed of this world’s goods. There was no crime in
competence. Rassmussen himself had doubtless come to this country for
the purpose of making money. Apparently, however, he desired no one else
to make any. He quarreled with the superintendent on the ranch of the
largest land-owner and the wealthiest man in the section, and had been
driven from the orchard by his fellow-laborers. He had trouble with the
railroad company over a freight bill, and now the agent had himself
experienced his violence and dangerous propensities. Clearly, such a man
was a detriment to any community, and deeply as he regretted the duty he
had to perform in the matter, he trusted that the Justice would uphold
him in his attempt to bring such a ruffian to punishment. He was sure,
in fact, that the Justice would sustain him. A man who had been selected
by a community of clear-headed, honest farmers to maintain the majesty
of the law among them would never be false to his trust, and he was sure
he would not regret the confidence he had placed in the Justice’s
uprightness of intention and determination to see right done.
The worthy official was evidently impressed by the agent’s address, and
at the reference to himself his whole aspect stiffened into a still more
rigid solemnity. Turning to the prisoner he said with scarce concealed
impatience:
“Well, Rassmussen, have you got anything to say for yourself?”