HARLEY SCORES
What Harley had sought in the subornation of Eaton had been as much the
moral effect of his defection as the tangible results themselves. If he
could shake the confidence of the city and State in the freebooter’s
victorious star, he would have done a good day’s work. He wanted the
impression to spread that Ridgway’s success had passed its meridian.
Nor did he fail of his purpose by more than a hair’s breadth. The talk
of the street saw the beginning of the end. The common voice ran: “It’s
‘God help Ridgway’ now. He’s down and out.”
But Waring Ridgway was never more dangerous than in apparent defeat. If
he were hit hard by Eaton’s treachery, no sign of it was apparent in
the jaunty insouciance of his manner. Those having business with him
expected to find him depressed and worried, but instead met a man the
embodiment of vigorous and confident activity. If the subject were
broached, he was ready to laugh with them at Eaton’s folly in deserting
at the hour when victory was assured.
It was fortunate for Ridgway that the county elections came on early in
the spring and gave him a chance to show that his power was still
intact. He arranged to meet at once the political malcontents of the
State who were banded together against the growing influence of the
Consolidated. He had a few days before called together representative
men from all parts of the State to discuss a program of action against
the enemy, and Ridgway gave a dinner for them at the Quartzite, the
evening of Eaton’s defection.
He was at the critical moment when any obvious irresolution would have
been fatal. His allies were ready to concede his defeat if he would let
them. But he radiated such an assured atmosphere of power, such an
unconquerable current of vigor, that they could not escape his own
conviction of unassailability. He was at his genial, indomitable best,
the magnetic charm of fellowship putting into eclipse the selfishness
of the man. He had been known to boast of his political exploits, of
how he had been the Warwick that had made and unmade governors and
United States senators; but the fraternal “we” to-night replaced his
usual first person singular.
The business interests of the Consolidated were supreme all over the
State. That corporation owned forests and mills and railroads and
mines. It ran sheep and cattle-ranches as well as stores and
manufactories. Most of the newspapers in the State were dominated by
it. Of a population of two hundred and fifty thousand, it controlled
more than half directly by the simple means of filling dinner-pails.
That so powerful a corporation, greedy for power and wealth, should
create a strong but scattered hostility in the course of its growth,
became inevitable. This enmity Ridgway proposed to consolidate into a
political organization, with opposition to the trust as its cohesive
principle, that should hold the balance of power in the State.
When he rose to explain his object in calling them together, Ridgway’s
clear, strong presentment of the situation, backed by his splendid bulk
and powerful personality, always bold and dramatic, shocked dormant
antagonisms to activity as a live current does sluggish inertia. For he
had eminently the gift of moving speech. The issue was a simple one, he
pointed out. Reduced to ultimates, the question was whether the State
should control the Consolidated or the Consolidated the State. With
simple, telling force he faced the insidious growth of the big copper
company, showing how every independent in the State was fighting for
his business life against its encroachments, and was bound to lose
unless the opposition was a united one. Let the independents obtain and
keep control of the State politically and the trust might be curbed;
not otherwise. In eternal vigilance and in union lay safety.
He sat down in silence more impressive than any applause. But after the
silence came a deluge of cheers, the thunder of them sweeping up and
down the long table like a summer storm across a lake.
Presently the flood-gates of talk were unloosed, and the conservatives
began to be heard. Opposition was futile because it was too late, they
claimed. A young Irishman, primed for the occasion, jumped to his feet
with an impassioned harangue that pedestaled Ridgway as the Washington
of the West. He showed how one man, in coalition with the labor-unions,
had succeeded in carrying the State against the big copper company; how
he had elected senators and governors, and legislators and judges. If
one man could so cripple the octopus, what could the best blood of the
State, standing together, not accomplish? He flung Patrick Henry and
Robert Emmet and Daniel Webster at their devoted heads, demanding
liberty or death with the bridled eloquence of his race.
But Ridgway was not such a tyro at the game of politics as to depend
upon speeches for results. His fine hand had been working quietly for
months to bring the malcontents into one camp, shaping every passion to
which men are heir to serve his purpose. As he looked down the table he
could read in the faces before him hatred, revenge, envy, fear, hope,
avarice, recklessness, and even love, as the motives which he must fuse
to one common end. His vanity stood on tiptoe at his superb skill in
playing on men’s wills. He knew he could mold these men to work his
desire, and the sequel showed he was right.
When the votes were counted at the end of the bitter campaign that
followed, Simon Harley’s candidates went down to disastrous defeat all
over the State, though he had spent money with a lavish hand. In Mesa
County, Ridgway had elected every one of his judges and retired to
private life those he could not influence.
Harley’s grim lips tightened when the news reached him. “Very well,” he
said to Mott “We’ll see if these patriots can’t be reached through
their stomachs better than their brains. Order every mill and mine and
smelter of the Consolidated closed to-night. Our employees have voted
for this man Ridgway. Let him feed them or let them starve.”
“But the cost to you—won’t it be enormous?” asked Mott, startled at his
chief’s drastic decision.
Harley bared his fangs with a wolfish smile. “We’ll make the public
pay. Our store-houses are full of copper. Prices will jump when the
supply is reduced fifty per cent. We’ll sell at an advance, and clean
up a few millions out of the shut-down. Meanwhile we’ll starve this
patriotic State into submission.”
It came to pass even as Harley had predicted. With the Consolidated
mines closed, copper, jumped up—up—up. The trust could sit still and
coin money without turning a hand, while its employees suffered in the
long, bitter Northern winter. All the troubles usually pursuant on a
long strike began to fall upon the families of the miners.
When a delegation from the miners’ union came to discuss the situation
with Harley he met them blandly, with many platitudes of sympathy. He
regretted—he regretted exceedingly—the necessity that had been forced
upon him of closing the mines. He had delayed doing so in the hope that
the situation might be relieved. But it had grown worse, until he had
been forced to close. No, he was afraid he could not promise to reopen
this winter, unless something were done to ameliorate conditions in the
court. Work would begin at once, however, if the legislators would pass
a bill making it optional with any party to a suit to have the case
transferred to another judge in case he believed the bias of the
presiding judge would be prejudicial to an impartial hearing.
Ridgway was flung at once upon the defensive. His allies, the working
men, demanded of him that his legislature pass the bill wanted by
Harley, in order that work might recommence. He evaded their demands by
proposing to arbitrate his difficulties with the Consolidated, by
offering to pay into the union treasury hall a million dollars to help
carry its members through the winter. He argued to the committee that
Harley was bluffing, that within a few weeks the mines and smelters
would again be running at their full capacity; but when the pressure on
the legislators he had elected became so great that he feared they
would be swept from their allegiance to him, he was forced to yield to
the clamor.
It was a great victory for Harley. Nobody recognized how great a one
more accurately than Waring Ridgway. The leader of the octopus had
dogged him over the shoulders of the people, had destroyed at a single
blow one of his two principal sources of power. He could no longer rely
on the courts to support him, regardless of justice.
Very well. If he could not play with cogged dice, he was gambler enough
to take the honest chances of the game without flinching. No despair
rang in his voice. The look in his eye was still warm and confident.
Mesa questioned him with glimpses friendly but critical. They found no
fear in his bearing, no hint of doubt in his indomitable assurance.