On their way to the hall on the Bowery Gerrit Smith and John Brown
passed through dimly lighted streets along which were drifting scores of
boys and girls, ragged, friendless, homeless, shelterless in the chill
night. The strange old man's eyes were fixed on space. He saw nothing,
heard nothing of the city's roaring life or the call of its fathomless
misery.
He saw nothing even when they passed a house with a red light before
which little girls of twelve were selling flowers. Neither of the men,
living for a single fixed idea, caught the accent of evil in the child's
voice as she stepped squarely in front of them and said:
"What's ye hurry?"
When they turned aside she piped again:
"Won't ye come in?"
They merely passed on. The infinite pathos of the scene had made no
impression. That this child's presence on the streets was enough to
damn the whole system of society to the lowest hell never dawned on the
philanthropist or the man of Action.
The crowd in the hall was not large. The place was about half full and
it seated barely five hundred. The masses of the North as yet took no
stock in the Abolition Crusade.
They felt the terrific pressure of the problem of life at home too
keenly to go into hysterics over the evils of Negro Slavery in the
South. William Lloyd Garrison had been preaching his denunciations for
twenty-one years and its fruits were small. The masses of the people
were indifferent.
But a man was pushing his way to the platform of the little hall
to-night who was destined to do a deed that would accomplish what all
the books and all the magazines and all the newspapers of the Crusaders
had tried in vain to do.
Small as the crowd was, there was something sinister in its composition.
Half of them were foreigners. It was the first wave of the flood of
degradation for our racial stock in the North--the racial stock of John
Adams and John Hancock.
A few workingmen were scattered among them. Fifty or sixty negroes
occupied the front rows. Sam had secured a seat on the aisle. Gerrit
Smith rose without ceremony and introduced Brown. There were no women
present. He used the formal address to the American voter:
"Fellow Citizens:
"I have the honor to present to you to-night a man chosen of God to lead
our people out of the darkness of sin, my fellow worker in the Kingdom,
the friend of the downtrodden and the oppressed, John Brown."
Faint applause greeted the old man as he moved briskly to the little
table with his quick, springing step.
He fixed the people with his brilliant eyes and they were silent. He was
slow of speech, awkward in gesture, and without skill in the building of
ideas to hold the imagination of the typical crowd.
It was not a typical crowd of American freemen. It was something new
under the sun in our history. It was the beginning of the coming mob
mind destined to use Direct Action in defiance of the Laws on which the
Republic had been built.
There was no mistaking the message Brown bore. He proclaimed that the
negro is the blood brother of the white man. The color of his skin was
an accident. This white man with a black skin was now being beaten and
ground into the dust by the infamy of his masters. Their crimes cried
to God for vengeance. All the negro needed was freedom to transform him
into a white man--your equal and mine. At present, our brothers and
sisters are groaning in chains on Southern plantations. His vaulting
metallic tones throbbed with a strange, cold passion as he called for
Action.
The vibrant call for bloodshed in this cry melted the crowd into a new
personality. The mildest spirit among them was merged into the mob
mind of the speaker. And every man within the sound of his voice was a
murderer.
The final leap of the speaker's soul into an expression of supreme hate
for the Southern white man found its instant echo in the mob which
he had created. They demanded no facts. They asked no reasons. They
accepted his statements as the oracle of God. They were opinions,
beliefs, dogmas, the cries of propaganda only--precisely the food needed
for developing the mob mind to its full strength. Envy, jealousy, hatred
ruled supreme. Liberty was a catchword. Blood lust was the motive power
driving each heart beat.
Brown suddenly stopped. His speech had reached no climax. It had rambled
into repetition. Its power consisted in the repetition of a fixed
thought. He knew the power of this repeated hammering on the mind. An
idea can be repeated until it is believed, true or false. He had pounded
his message into his hearers until they were incapable of resistance. It
was unnecessary for him to continue. He stopped so suddenly, they waited
in silence for him to go on after he had taken his seat.
A faint applause again swept the front of the house. There was something
uncanny about the man that hushed applause. They knew that he was
indifferent to it. Hidden fires burned within him that lighted the way
of life. He needed no torches held on high. He asked no honors.
He expected no applause and he got little. What he did demand was
submission to his will and obedience as followers.
Gerrit Smith rose with this thought gripping his gentle spirit. His
words came automatically as if driven by another's mind.
"Our friend and leader has dedicated his life to the service of
suffering humanity. It is our duty to follow. The first step is to
sacrifice our money in his cause."
The ushers passed the baskets and Sam's heart warmed as he heard the
coin rattle. His eyes bulged when he saw that one of them had a pile of
bills in it that covered the coin. He heard the great and good man say
that it was for the poor brother in black. He saw visions of a warm
room, of clean food and plenty of it.
He was glad he'd come, although he didn't like the look in John Brown's
eyes while he spoke. Their fierce light seemed to bore through him and
hurt. Now that he was seated and his eyes half closed, uplifted toward
the ceiling, he wasn't so formidable. He rather liked him sitting down.
The ushers poured the money on the table and counted it. Sam had not
seen so much money together since he piled his five hundred dollars in
gold in a stack and looked at it. He watched the count with fascination.
There must be a thousand at least.
He was shocked when the head usher leaned over the edge of the platform,
and whispered to Smith the total.
"Eighty-five dollars."
Sam glanced sadly at the two rows of negroes in front. There wouldn't
be much for each. He took courage in the thought, however, that some of
them were well-to-do and wouldn't ask their share. He was sure of this
because he had seen three or four put something in the baskets.
Gerrit Smith announced the amount of the collection with some
embarrassment and heartily added:
"My check for a hundred and fifteen dollars makes the sum an even two
hundred."
That was something worth while. Smith and Brown held a conference about
the announcement of another meeting as Sam whispered to the head usher:
"Could ye des gimme mine now an' lemme go?"
"Yours?"
"Yassah."
"Your share of the collection?"
The usher eyed him in scorn.
"To be sho," Sam answered confidently. "Yer tuk it up fer de po' black
man. I'se black, an' God knows I'se po'."
"You're a poor fool!"
"What ye take hit up fer den?"
"To support John Brown, not to feed lazy, good-for-nothing, free
negroes."
Sam turned from the man in disgust. He was about to rise and shamble
back to his miserable pallet when a sudden craning of necks and moving
of feet drew his eye toward the door.
He saw a man stalking down the aisle. He carried on his left arm a
little bundle of filthy rags. He mounted the platform and spoke to the
Chairman:
"Mr. Smith, may I say just a word to this meeting?"
The Philanthropist Congressman recognized him instantly as the most
eloquent orator in the labor movement in America. He had met him at a
Reform Convention. He rose at once.
"Certainly."
"Fellow Citizens, Mr. George Evans, the leading advocate of Organized
Labor in America, wishes to speak to you. Will you hear him?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" came from all parts of the house.
The man began in quivering tones that held Sam and gripped the unwilling
mind of the crowd:
"My friends: Just a few words. I have in my arms the still breathing
skeleton of a little girl. I found her in a street behind this building
within the sound of the voice of your speaker."
He paused and waved to John Brown.
"She was fighting with a stray cat for a crust of bread in a garbage
pail. I hold her on high."
With both hands he lifted the dazed thing above his head.
"Look at her. This bundle of rags God made in the form of a woman to be
the mother of the race. She has been thrown into your streets to starve.
Her father is a workingman whom I know. For six months, out of work,
he fought with death and hell, and hell won. He is now in prison. Her
mother, unable to support herself and child, sought oblivion in drink.
She's in the gutter to-night. Her brother has joined a gang on the East
Side. Her sister is a girl of the streets.
"You talk to me of Negro Slavery in the South? Behold the child of the
White Wage Slave of the North! Why are you crying over the poor negro?
In the South the master owns the slave. Here the master owns the job.
Down there the master feeds, clothes and houses his man with care. Black
children laugh and play. Here the master who owns the job buys labor in
the open market. He can get it from a man for 75 cents a day. From a
woman for 30 cents a day. When he has bought the last ounce of strength
they can give, the master of the wage slave kicks him out to freeze or
starve or sink into crime.
"You tell me of the white master's lust down South? I tell you of the
white master's lust for the daughters of our own race.
"I see a foreman of a factory sitting in this crowd. I've known him for
ten years. I've talked with a score of his victims. He has the power
to employ or discharge girls of all ages ranging from twelve to
twenty-five. Do you think a girl can pass his bead eyes and not pay for
the job the price he sees fit to demand?
"If you think so, you don't know the man. I do!"
He paused and the stillness of death followed. Necks were craned to find
the figure of the foreman crouching in the crowd. The speaker was not
after the individual. His soul was aflame with the cause of millions.
"I see also a man in the crowd who owns a row of tenements so filthy,
so dark, so reeking with disease that no Southern master would allow a
beast to live in them. This hypocrite has given to John Brown to-night
a contribution of money for the downtrodden black man. He coined this
money out of the blood of white men and women who pay the rent for the
dirty holes in which they die."
A moment of silence that was pain as he paused and a hundred eyes swept
the room in search of the man. Again the speaker stood without a sign.
He merely paused to let his message sink in the hearts of his hearers.
"My eyes have found another man in this crowd who is an employer of wage
slaves. He is here to denounce Chattel Slavery in the South as the sum
of all villainies while he practices a system of wage slavery more cruel
without a thought morally wrong.
"I say this in justice to the man because I know him. He hasn't
intelligence enough to realize what he is doing. If he had he would
begin by abolishing slavery in his own household. This reformer isn't
a bad man at heart. He is simply an honest fool. These same fools in
England have given millions to abolish black slavery in the Colonies
and leave their own slaves in the Spittalfield slums to breed a race of
paupers and criminals. Why don't a Buxton or a Wilberforce complain
of the White Slavery at home? Because it is indispensable to their
civilization. They lose nothing in freeing negroes in distant Colonies.
They would lose their fortunes if they dared free their own white
brethren.
"The master of the wage slave employs his victim only when he needs him.
The Southern master supports his man whether he needs him or not. And
cares for him when ill. The Abolitionist proposes to free the black
slave from the whip. Noble work. But to what end if he deprives him of
food? He escapes the lash and lands in a felon's cell or climbs the
steps of a gallows.
"Your inspired leader, the speaker of this evening, has found his most
enthusiastic support in New England.
"No doubt.
"In Lowell, Massachusetts, able-bodied men in the cotton mills are
receiving 80 cents a day for ten hours' work. Women are receiving 32
cents a day for the same. At no period of the history of this republic
has it been possible for a human being to live in a city and reproduce
his kind on such wages. What is the result? The racial stock that made
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts a civilized state is perishing. It is
being replaced from the slums of Europe. The standard of life is dragged
lower with each generation.
"The negro, you tell me, must work for others or be flogged. The poor
white man at your door must work for others or be starved. The negro is
subject to a single master. He learns to know him, if not to like him.
There is something human in the touch of their lives. The poor white man
here is the slave of many masters. The negro may lead the life of a farm
horse. Your wage slave is a horse that hasn't even a stable. He roams
the street in the snows of winter. He is ridden by anybody who wishes a
ride. He is cared for by nobody. Our rich will do anything for the poor
except to get off their backs. The negro has a master in sickness and
health. The wage slave is honored with the privilege of slavery only so
long as he can work ten hours a day. He is a pauper when he can toil no
more.
"Your Abolitionist has fixed his eye on Chattel Slavery in the South. It
involves but three million five-hundred thousand negroes. The system of
wage slavery involves the lives of twenty-five million white men and
women.
"Slavery was not abolished in the North on moral grounds, but because,
as a system of labor it was old-fashioned, sentimental, extravagant,
inefficient. It was abolished by the masters of men, not by the men.
"The North abolished slavery for economy in production. There was no
sentiment in it. Wage slavery has proven itself ten times more cruel,
more merciless, more efficient. The Captain of Industry has seen the
vision of an empire of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. He has seen
that the master who cares for the aged, the infirm, the sick, the lame,
the halt is a fool who must lag behind in the march of the Juggernaut.
Only a fool stops to build a shelter for his slave when he can kick him
out in the cold and find hundreds of fresh men to take his place.
"Two years ago the Chief of Police of the City of New York took the
census of the poor who were compelled to live in cellars. He found that
eighteen thousand five hundred and eighty-six white wage slaves lived in
these pest holes under the earth. One-thirteenth of the population of
the city lives thus underground to-day. Hundreds of these cellars are
near the river. They are not waterproof. Their floors are mud. When
the tides rise the water floods these noisome holes. The bedding and
furniture float. Fierce wharf rats, rising from their dens, dispute with
men, women and children the right to the shelves above the water line.
"There are cellars devoted entirely to lodging where working men and
women can find a bed of straw for two cents a night--the bare dirt for
one cent. Black and white men, women and children, are mixed in one
dirty mass. These rooms are without light, without air, filled with the
damp vapors of mildewed wood and clothing. They swarm with every species
of vermin that infest the animal and human body. The scenes of depravity
that nightly occur in these lairs of beasts are beyond words.
"These are the homes provided by the master who has established 'Free'
Labor as the economic weapon with which he has set out to conquer the
world.
"And he is conquering with it. The superior, merciless power of this
system as an economic weapon is bound to do in America what it has done
throughout the world. The days of Chattel Slavery are numbered. The
Abolitionist is wasting his breath, or worse. He is raising a feud that
may drench this nation in blood in a senseless war over an issue that is
settled before it's raised.
"Long ago the economist discovered that there was no vice under the
system of Chattel Slavery that could not be more freely gratified under
the new system of wage slavery.
"You weep because the negro slave must serve one master. He has no power
to choose a new one. Do not forget that the power to _choose_ a new
master carries with it power to discharge the wage slave and hire a new
one. This power to discharge is the most merciless and cruel tyranny
ever developed in the struggle of man from savagery to civilization.
This awful right places in the hand of the master the power of life and
death. He can deprive his wage slave of fuel, food, clothes, shelter.
Life is the only right worth having if its exercise is put into
question. A starving man has no liberty. The word can have no meaning.
He must live first or he cannot be a man.
"The wage slave is producing more than the chattel slaves ever produced,
man for man, and is receiving less than the negro slave of the South is
getting for his labor to-day.
"Your system of wage slavery is the cunning trick by which the cruel
master finds that he can deny to the worker all rights he ever had as a
slave.
"If you doubt its power, look at this bundle of rags in my hands and
remember that there are five thousand half-starved children homeless and
abandoned in the streets of this city to-night.
"Find for me one ragged, freezing, starving, black baby in the South and
I will buy a musket to equip an army for its invasion--"
He paused a moment, turned and gazed at the men on the platform and then
faced the crowd in a final burst of triumphant scorn.
"Fools, liars, hypocrites, clean your own filthy house before you weep
over the woes of negroes who are singing while they toil--"
A man on an end seat of the middle aisle suddenly sprang to his feet and
yelled:
"Put him out!"
Before Gerrit Smith could reach Evans with a gift of five dollars for
the sick child which he still held in his arms the crowd had become a
mob.
They hustled the labor leader into the street and told him to go back to
hell where he came from.
Through it all John Brown sat on the platform with his blue-gray eyes
fixed in space. He had seen, heard or realized nothing that had passed.
His mind was brooding over the plains of Kansas.