The Shawsheen Mills had been established many years before the opening
of this story by Salome’s grandfather, Newbern Shepard. They constituted
one of the chief manufacturing concerns of Shepardtown. They made more
cloth, and that of a better quality, than any other mill outside the
“City of Spindles.” They employed a much larger force of operatives than
any other factory in the place, and had always held a controlling
interest in town affairs.
When the Shawsheen Mills were first started, blooming girls from all
parts of Massachusetts came swarming to them, glad of a new and
respectable employment,—came with earnest purpose to make this new life
and its outcomes subservient to a better future. The conscientious New
England girl of those days took as much pride in making a perfect web of
cloth as though it were for her own wearing. Aware that her employers
took an interest in her welfare, aside from the fact that she was a part
of the motive power of the mill, she rewarded them with a full
performance of her duty. A mutual goodfellowship had existed, then,
between employer and employed in the years when old Newbern Shepard was
at the head of his mills.
All this had changed. Newbern Shepard had died after a long and
successful career, leaving the business to his son, Floyd Shepard. The
latter, educated at Harvard, with five years of study afterward in
Germany, had developed little taste for an active business life such as
his father had led. He had, consequently, placed the entire business in
the hands of Otis Greenough, a friend of his college-days and a
hard-headed business man. Floyd Shepard had idled the greater part of
his time before reaching the age of fifty in various parts of the world.
Then he came home, married a Baltimore belle, and passed his old age in
his native place.
Even then, he gave little thought to the details of business. He added
to and improved the home of his forefathers, until his house and grounds
were acknowledged to be the finest in the state. After four years of
married life, his young wife died, leaving him one child—a babe of three
days. Then he retired into his study, and lived only among his books.
“Don’t trouble me with the business,” he would say to Otis Greenough, on
the rare occasions when it seemed necessary to consult the owner of the
mills. “I care nothing as to how you manage the works, and know less how
it should be done. Suit yourself as to details, and keep the mills
paying a good profit. I shall be satisfied.”
Upon this principle the mills had been run for thirty years. The agent
and his superintendents had devoted themselves to the problem of getting
out more goods and making more money than their competitors, while
keeping the standard of their wares up to its old mark. They had no time
for the problem of human life involved. The first and principal question
had required a severe struggle, with active brains and sharp wits. What
wonder, then, that the increasing mass of operatives had come to be
considered, every year, less as human beings in need of help and
encouragement, and more as mechanical attachments of the mills?
Only such operatives as had been brought up in the mills realized the
difference. The employes were mostly of the unwashed population,
expecting nothing but a place to earn their living and but scanty pay
for it.
Having, at the outset, no confidence in their employers, and no feeling
of goodwill towards them, they had no conscientious motive behind their
work. On the contrary, they stood on the defensive, watching for
oppression and tyranny, and ready to take arms against them.
This was the state of things when the first regularly organized strike
occurred at the Shawsheen Mills.
Otis Greenough, although an old man, was still at the head of the mills.
Floyd Shepard’s death three years before had made no difference with the
vast business interests in his name. In willing everything he owned to
his daughter, who was already heiress to a large fortune from her
mother’s family, he had provided that Otis Greenough should be chief
agent during the remainder of his life; and that the mills should
continue on the same plan by which they had been run for the past
quarter of a century.
Otis Greenough was an arbitrary man, with that enormous strength of will
which a man must have who is to control and manage two thousand people
and an increasing business.
If, in the march of economic progress, he chose to make changes in the
machinery of the mills, he consulted no one, and cared nothing for the
black looks or surly mutterings of the operative who might fancy himself
injured thereby. Had it been hinted to him that his operatives might be
trained to take a personal interest in the success or failure of new
experiments or, indeed, that they had any right to his brotherly
consideration, he would have flouted the idea.
It was his boast that he never wasted words on the operatives. In short,
he was as indifferent to the rights of Labor as his Lancashire spinners
were to the interests of Capital. Hence the strike.
At noon of the day that Salome Shepard had driven through the factory
street, Otis Greenough sat in his private office with his two
superintendents, the treasurer and cashier of the mills, and one or two
subordinates. As the bell struck for twelve, five men from the various
departments filed in and presented a written document. They were the
committee appointed by the new Labor Union.
Mr. Greenough took the paper with an air that showed him to be in
anything but a conciliatory mood. Without opening it, he burst forth
angrily:
“What, in the name of common sense, is this farce anyhow? What do you
mean by leaving your work and presuming to come here, dictating terms to
_me_?”
“The paper will explain everything, sir,” replied the foremost of the
committee. “We have our rights—or should have them. The time has come
when we propose to get them. Will you read the petition, sir?”
“No,” thundered the choleric old man. “Not in your presence. Villard,
treat with them.” Mr. Greenough was too angry to say more.
Mr. Villard, the younger superintendent, stepped forward.
“I think,” he said, “that you had better leave us for a time. We shall
need to consider your proposals, whatever they may be. Go now, and come
again later—say at four o’clock.” Agreeing to this proposition, the five
men turned and left the office. Mr. Villard sat down again, waiting for
the agent to speak.
“The confounded whelps!” ejaculated Mr. Greenough, as soon as he could
find breath. “Open that paper, Villard—the impudent puppies!”
Without answering, John Villard tore open the envelope, and read the
document aloud:
_Whereas_, we, the undersigned, believing that our interests demand an
organization which shall promote and protect affairs relating to us as
laboring men; and
_Whereas_, we have already organized and maintained such a society; it
is now unanimously agreed that we insist upon the recognition of such
a body by our employers, and upon their making certain concessions for
the benefit of that body.
_Whereas_, there is a ten-hour system established in this state by
law; we hereby _resolve_ that we will refuse to work ten and a half or
eleven hours a day as has been demanded of us.
_Whereas_, we believe the introduction of the new frames are
detrimental to the interests of the mule-spinners; we _resolve_ that
they must be taken out, and the old mules replaced, with a written
agreement that no more of the obnoxious machinery shall be added for,
at least, five years.
_Whereas_, there has been an attempt made to reduce our wages,
especially in the weaving department; we hereby _resolve_ that we will
submit to no curtailment of wages, and to demand payment of all wages
weekly, as is the custom in certain other mills in this state.
Trusting that these our petitions may be granted, our rights
respected, and that harmonious relations will soon be established
between us, we take pleasure in signing ourselves
“MEMBERS OF THE SHAWSHEEN LABOR UNION.”
Before John Villard had finished reading the paper, Mr. Greenough had
risen and was pacing the floor excitedly.
“Shocking!” he exclaimed, as Mr. Villard folded the paper and returned
it to its envelope. “Preposterous! Do they think they can impose upon me
with such a jumble of unreasoning nonsense as that? Labor Union, indeed!
Why, the rascals act as if there were no interests but those of labor.
And a beautiful time they’ve taken to strike—when orders are pouring in
faster than we can possibly keep up with them. A fine time, indeed!”
“I suppose,” said John Villard, fearlessly, “there seems a slight
injustice to them, in cutting down their wages at such a time.”
“What right have they to dictate, I should like to inquire?” answered
the irate agent. “If they were not a bigoted, unreasoning set, they’d
know they never can serve the interests of labor in such a way. They’d
realize that they are only biting off their own noses! They have
probably been worked upon by some crank of an agitator. If they were not
ignorant dogs, they’d know that they could best serve the interests of
labor by being faithful to those of capital. Why,” he concluded, his
face growing redder in his wrath, “is this America? Is this our boasted
New England? Is this a free country? By Jove! I’ve heard of this sort of
thing in England, but in this republican land, this boasted region of
freedom—Great Scott! What are we coming to?”
“It’s this accursed trades-unionism creeping in among us,” put in the
treasurer’s mild voice, as Otis Greenough paused for breath. “I’ve been
expecting it.”
“Blast it, why didn’t you mention it then?” returned Mr. Greenough. But
the treasurer retired in confusion behind his books and did not answer.
“Well, Villard,” continued the agent, “I hope now you will give up the
Utopian schemes you’ve been nursing for the elevation of the laboring
classes. You see just what a foolish, unthinking, unreliable set of men
we have to deal with.”
“On the contrary, sir,” returned the second superintendent, firmly, “I
sympathize, to a degree, with them. I agree that they have taken an
inopportune time to enforce their views, and regret that they could not
have seen fit to keep at work while their petition was being considered;
and I would advise——”
“I want no man’s advice until I ask it,” interrupted the elder man.
“This is our first strike, and it shall be the last so long as I have
authority here. Humph! They think they can intimidate me! They have
chosen this time because they think I _must_ yield now. They little know
me. Otis Greenough has not run the Shawsheen Mills successfully thirty
years, to be brow-beaten and conquered in the end by a pack of ignorant
laborers.”
“But how is this to end?” asked the first superintendent, speaking for
the first time.
“It can end whenever these men will take back their impudent paper and
go to work. Villard, when they show up again—four o’clock did you
say?—you will tell them so. Offer them a chance to go to work to-morrow
morning on the old terms. You needn’t give in to them one inch. Do you
hear? Not a jot or tittle.”
“And what if they do not accept?” asked Villard.
“Why, advertise. Advertise far and near. Get new help. We’ll open the
mills and run them, too, right in their very teeth. I’ll show them that
he who has been master here for thirty years is master until he dies.”