THE TRANSGRESSORS.
STORY OF A GREAT SIN.
A Political Novel of the Twentieth
Century.
By FRANCIS A. ADAMS,
Author of "WHO RULES AMERICA?"
Philadelphia:
Independence Publishing Company.
CONTENTS
BOOK I.
HAIL TO THE SHERIFF OF LUZERNE.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I. Clouds Gather at Wilkes-Barre 1
" II. Harvey Trueman, Attorney 16
" III. Conflicting Opinions 23
" IV. A Quiet Afternoon at Woodward 32
" V. An Unquiet Day at Hazleton 48
" VI. A Stand For Conscience Sake 63
BOOK II.
THE SYNDICATE INCORPORATES.
PAGE.
CHAPTER VII. An Anti-Trust Conference 74
" VIII. A Startling Proposal 81
" IX. Arraignment of The Transgressors 89
" X. The Secret Session 110
" XI. Martha's Premonition 124
" XII. Taking the Secret Oath 135
" XIII. The List of Transgressors 150
BOOK III.
THE SYNDICATE DECLARES A DIVIDEND.
PAGE.
CHAPTER XIV. Birth of a New Party 163
" XV. Choosing a Leader 169
" XVI. Two Points of View 183
" XVII. Opening the Campaign 189
" XVIII. On to New York 197
" XIX. Departure of the Committee 206
" XX. In the Enemy's Stronghold 212
" XXI. The Committee Reports Progress 224
" XXII. Millionaires Sowing the Wind 230
" XXIII. A Day Ahead of Schedule 241
BOOK IV.
IN FREEDOM'S NAME.
PAGE.
CHAPTER XXIV. The Syndicate in Liquidation 256
" XXV. Big News in the Javelin Office 263
" XXVI. On to Wilkes-Barre 276
" XXVII. Sister Martha Averts a Calamity 284
" XXVIII. At the Dead Coal King's Mansion 298
" XXIX. Peace Hath Her Victories 309
" XXX. A Double Funeral 324
" XXXI. The New Era 333
BOOK I.
Hail to the Sheriff of Luzerne!
THE TRANSGRESSORS.
CHAPTER I.
CLOUDS GATHER AT WILKES-BARRE.
There are few valleys to compare with that of the Susquehanna. In point
of picturesque scenery and modern alteration attained by the unceasing
labor of man, the antithesis between the natural and the artificial is
pronounced in many respects; especially at that place in the river where
it runs through the steep banks on which is situated the thriving city
of Wilkes-Barre. Here may be seen the majestic hills standing as
sentinels over the marts of men that crowd the river edge. The verdure
of these hills during the greater part of the year is the one sight that
gladdens the eyes of the miners whose lives, for the most part, are
spent in the coal pits.
The picture would be perfect were it not for the presence of the
Coal-Breakers. These sombre, grizzly structures stand in a long line on
the west bank of the river, and appear to the eye of one who knows their
purpose, as the gibbets that dotted the shores of England and France
must have loomed up before the mariners of the Channel during the
Seventeenth Century, and when the supply of pirates exceeded the number
of gibbets, large as this number was in both lands.
The breaker is a truly modern invention, which, had it existed in the
days of the Spanish inquisition, would have placed in the hands of the
malevolent fanatics an instrument of exquisite torture. It is
constructed to effect a double purpose, the achievement of the maximum
of production and the expenditure of the minimum of human effort. It is
the acme of inventive genius. To work the breakers, a man need have no
more intelligence than the tow-mule that plods a beaten path; and such a
man is the ideal laborer from the standpoint of the owners of the
breakers.
But such men are not indigenous to America; they must be imported, and
that, too, from the most benighted lands of Europe.
What an incubator of warped humanity the breaker has become! It saps
even the attenuated manhood of the aliens it attracts, and when they are
rendered useless for its ends, emits them to be a scourge on the earth.
But the breakers are the monument of the civilization of the Nineteenth
Century, which esteems commercial as superior to mental advancement.
As the drama to be unfolded will be enacted largely in this spot, which
nature fashioned on its fairest pattern, and which man has seared with
his cruel tool, a description of the town of Wilkes-Barre and its
environs is essential. The town is the creation of the Mines. Coal
abounds in the valley of the Susquehanna, and from the first impetus
given the coal industry by the establishment of railroads, the mines at
this place have been worked without intermission. The population of the
town has been increasing steadily for the past thirty years, until
to-day it reaches the proportions of a populous city. There is little
variety in the citizens; but the contrast they present makes up for this
deficiency. Broadly speaking there are but two classes, the magnates and
their mercenaries. The former live in the mansions on the esplanade and
constitute the governing minority. The coal miners and the workers on
the breakers, who eke out their lives in slavery, and who sleep in
quarters that make the huts of the peasants of Europe seem actually
inviting, constitute the vast majority.
The most prosperous business of the town outside of the Coal industry,
which is, of course, monopolized by the magnates, is the Undertaking
business. There are almost as many establishments for the burial of man
as there are saloons to cater to his cheer. In contradistinction to the
custom in this country, the business has been taken up by others than
the worthy order of sextons. That this condition should be, is accounted
for by the fact that there is a paucity of churches in the town, and
that the sextons were unable to accomplish the work that devolved upon
their craft. Death is not attributable, in the main, to natural causes
in Wilkes-Barre; it is brought about by the engines of destruction which
the magnates are pleased to term, Modern Machinery.
Association makes the mind incapable of appreciating nice distinctions
in regard to familiar objects or persons. Thus to the residents of the
town there is nothing abnormal in their condition. It is only to the
observer from without that the horrors of the Pennsylvania town are
apparent. That such a spot should develop in a State high in rank, and
among the oldest of those comprising the greatest republic, seems
incomprehensible. In the very State where the Declaration of
Independence was sent to the world, proclaiming that men are created
free and equal, and that the right of the majority is the supreme law,
how comes it that a settlement can be maintained where the rights of the
majority can be ignored and suppressed at the point of the bayonet? For
an answer to this question, comes the monosyllable--Trusts!
Wilkes-Barre is a typical specimen community which may be taken as the
sample unit for a microscopic investigation of the conditions that have
created the modern institution of _voluntary slavery_. The scrutiny of
the specimen is given through the eyes of a resident of the town, and
the observations are his.
"In a month then, they will shut down three of the mines, and will close
the Jumbo Breaker. You know what that means. I have asked the men of
Shaft Fifteen if they intend to starve, and they answered to a man that
they would sooner be shot than starve like rats in their homes."
"What is that to me? Am I to look after every man who has ever blasted a
ton of coal in my pits or crushed in the breakers?
"You tell the men of Shaft Fifteen, and of every other shaft in the
valley, that if they make a single move that threatens the property of
the Paradise Coal Company I will see that they don't 'starve in their
homes.'"
"Then you will not arbitrate?"
"There is nothing to arbitrate. I have no more work for the men. That
settles it. The world is big, and if they can find no work in
Wilkes-Barre, let them hunt for it elsewhere."
"Mr. Purdy, I give you ample warning. The miners will declare a general
strike if you persist in locking out half of them now that the winter
weather has set in. The pits and the breakers can stand idle while the
demand for coal at an advanced price is created by an artificial coal
famine; but the miners have to be fed. They work like machines; but as
yet they have not learned the lesson of living without food."
"Metz, I have given you my final answer. The mines and breakers close on
the day I stated."
Carl Metz is the foreman of the largest of the Paradise Company's Coal
shafts, the "Big Horn." He is in consultation with Mr. Gorman Purdy, the
president of the company. Their closing remarks as just quoted are
uttered as they stand on the steps leading to the street from the
offices on the main square of Wilkes-Barre.
The men nod to each other, and separate.
"What did he say?" a man demands of Metz, in a weak voice. The
questioner is a typical miner. Death has placed its irrevocable stamp
upon him; he has served his three years in the pits; has been
transferred to the breakers when the signs of failing strength are
perceived by the mine overseer. In another year he will be in the hands
of the mortuary vulture; his last week's earnings will go to pay for the
hard earned grave that is grudgingly given "A Miner."
"He says the mines will close."
"Yes, and we will starve. Well, you can tell him that we won't."
"I told him that the men were desperate."
"And he laughed at you. Why wouldn't he? We have threatened to strike
for three years. It's getting to be an old story. This time it's our
turn to laugh."
"What do you mean, Eric?" is the anxious query of Metz. He detects a
hidden significance in the miner's words.
"Mean! Why I mean that we are _going_ to strike this time, and that it
will be the biggest fight the coal region has ever seen.
"We can't get the mine owners to arbitrate, but we can get the coal
miners to unite. If one man is shut out to starve we will all go out."
"And our places will be filled by imported miners," interjects the
foreman.
"Not this time. We will have our pickets out in all directions, and
every train will be boarded. The men the mine owners bring on will be
told to keep away."
As the men speak they are unconscious of the approach of the Sheriff of
Luzerne County. He has apparently been watching the movements of Metz.
All the morning he has shadowed the mine foreman, now he steals up
behind the two and stands within earshot. He overhears their words.
"Let me tell you one thing," he calls out in a shrill voice, as he steps
up to them, "you don't want to forget that there is a Sheriff in Luzerne
County when you count on winning out in this strike."
"We will do nothing that will require your attention," sententiously
retorts the miner. "We have had one taste of Pennsylvania justice, at
Homestead, and don't want another."
"I have my eye on you two, and if there is any trouble I'll know whom to
hold responsible," continues the Sheriff. Then he walks on towards the
office of the Paradise Coal Company. He enters the building and is soon
in the private office of the President.
The miners walk on in silence towards their homes in the East End of the
town across the Bridge. It is not a time to talk. These sturdy men have
a reverence for words; they use them only when the occasion requires. At
the door of the ramshackle hut that serves as the abode of Eric Neilson,
the men halt.
"Eric!" says Metz, "I hope you will let me know of any steps that are to
be taken by the miners in your section. I have been in this region for
twenty years, and know where the rights of the miners end and the rights
of the mine owners begin. To back our rights we have nothing but our
bare fists; the mine owners have the city, state and Federal
authorities."
"If there is anything to be done that will be of importance to us all,
you will hear from me," are Eric's reassuring words.
Carl Metz knows the value of a promise from his fellow-workman. He is
satisfied.
In the homely parlance of the mines, these men agreed "to keep tabs for
each other on the square." They will let no event of importance go by
without reporting it to each other, and in this way give each full
particulars of the movements of the miners.
Metz turns back towards the centre of the city. He is bent on seeing
Purdy again, and of appealing to him to reconsider his "shut down"
orders.
Hardly has he reached Market Street when he runs across the Attorney of
the Paradise Coal Company, a young and brilliant man who is one of the
products of the town school and academy, Harvey Trueman.
"Good day, Mr. Trueman," is his salutation.
"How now, Metz?" responds the preoccupied lawyer. "Have you some trouble
on your hands?"
"It's the same old story, sir, only this time the men are determined to
strike. I have spoken to Mr. Purdy to-day. He refuses to yield a single
inch.
"I thought it might be a wise thing to see him again and make the truth
clear to him, that the men will unquestionably resort to violence if
they are locked out at the opening of winter."
"You let this matter stand as it is. I shall see Mr. Purdy in an hour or
so, and shall make it my duty to explain the situation. I know what the
men are likely to do, and what concessions will satisfy them. Metz, I
assure you we do not want trouble. If I have any influence with the
Company, matters will be satisfactorily settled."
"When can the men have an answer?"
"Not for a day or two, I suppose."
"But they must know immediately, Mr. Trueman. You are aware that they
are dependent upon the Company Stores for their food. Well, the notice
has been posted that no more credit shall be extended after next
Saturday. This means that, for the men who are laid off, there is
nothing left but starvation."
Trueman is troubled at this statement. He has always been an opponent of
the "Company Store" system; now he sees that it is likely to be the
potent factor in exciting the miners to revolt.
"All I can promise you, is that I shall work in your interests and get
as speedy a reply as possible," he repeats. "By the by," he adds, "will
you come with me to my office now, I want you to go over some of the
details of the 'Homestead Strike' with me. I want to see what lessons I
can gather from it which will help me to advise Purdy in the present
trouble. You were in the Homestead strike, were you not?"
By a nod of his head, Metz answers in the affirmative.
They are seated in the office of the young attorney for the next hour,
during which period they review the events of the great iron strike of
'92; the reasons that led to it, and the similarity of the conditions
that exist in Wilkes-Barre.
Having given Trueman the details of the Homestead affair, Metz explains
the existing grievances of the miners of Wilkes-Barre as follows:
"The question raised by the miners is not one for advanced wages; it is
not one of reduced hours; it is not a demand for proper protection for
themselves in the mines. These things they have asked for time and
again--little enough for men who wear out their lives in the darkness
and damp of the mines. But these things they have never been able to
obtain.
"A bare living is all that the mine owners would concede to the miners.
This living, meagre as it was, sufficed to keep life in the miners and
their families.
"Now the miners are to be deprived of the crust of bread. You cannot
snatch the bone from a hungry dog, without danger. Do you imagine that a
man has less spirit than a beast?
"The whole trouble, Mr. Trueman, arises from the formation of the Coal
Trust. I have all the facts in regard to this matter. And so far as that
goes, there is not a man in the labor organizations of this country who
does not keep in touch with the events of the day. The education of the
masses is a dangerous thing in a land that is ruled by force, fraud and
finesse, as the United States is to-day.
"It is the Coal Trust that has brought on this threatened strike.
"When there were independent coal companies, the condition of the miners
was better by far than it is to-day. The unrestricted operation of mines
made it impossible for any two, or even a considerable number, of the
mine owners to unite for the purpose of reducing the wages of the mine
operatives, and of increasing the price of the coal to the consumer.
"But with the Trust in operation all restraints are removed.
"The illegal traffic rates that the Trust secures, make it impossible
for any mine to be successfully worked that is out of the combine.
"The first step that the Coal Trust took was to limit the supply of coal
at the height of the summer season, when big shipments are ordinarily
made. This afforded a pretext for an advance in the retail price.
"To limit the supply, the Trust shut down work in half of the mines.
"For the past seven years this practice has been followed. Now the
simple miners know what to expect. They have been submissive, because
the suspension of work came in the summer time when they could live on
little, and did not have to withstand the rigor of a Pennsylvania
winter.
"Now the Paradise Coal Company announces that it will close down the
work on three of the mines next Saturday. This throws the men out in the
cold of November. If this plan is carried out it will bring on a long
and bitter strike."
"I quite agree with you," assents Trueman. He puffs meditatively at a
cigar.
"You are too young a man to remember the days of the Molly Maguires,
those awful days when murderers lurked on every road in the anthracite
coal field of this state. It was back in 1876 that the last of the
Maguires was hunted down. Of course there is no excuse for murder; yet
the Maguires were the result of a pernicious condition of wage
depression and degradation of humanity.
"When the just demands of the miners were recognized the reign of terror
ceased.
"But the Trusts have produced another organization of societies in this
state, bent on murder and arson. The Irish, English and Welsh miners,
who predominated in the region twenty years ago, are now supplanted by
Poles, Hungarians, Italians and the worst types of Lithuanians and
Slavs. These newcomers have brought with them the racial prejudices and
institutions that caused them to be enemies in their native lands; they
constitute a dangerous element in the population of this country. So
long as they are able to get food they remain passive, except for the
feuds they carry on amongst themselves. These immigrants are not
inspired to come to this land by reason of an appreciation of the
liberty that our Constitution vouchsafes to all mankind. They have been
brought here by the agents of the Trusts, because they are willing to
work for pauper wage.
"I can tell you, Mr. Trueman, that in the strike that I feel will follow
the lock-out, there will be bloodshed. It may not be at the initiative
of the miners. But the fear of the magnates is now aroused and they will
not hesitate to employ force. Once the appeal to force is made, where is
it to end?"
"All that you have told me, I shall report to Mr. Purdy," Trueman says,
as he extends his hand to grasp that of the plain, earnest miner.
Metz departs, well satisfied with the progress he has made in advancing
the cause of the miners.
Harvey Trueman goes at once to the private office of the President of
the Paradise Coal Company.
He brings the strike matter up for consideration at once; and also the
case of a widow who is bringing suit against the company for the
recovery of damages for the loss of her husband who had been killed in
the mines.
"You are to press the defence of this case for damages to a successful
termination for the company," are Mr. Purdy's last words, supplemented
by the remark, "I shall attend to the strike in person."
CHAPTER II.
HARVEY TRUEMAN, ATTORNEY.
Harvey Trueman steps from the County Clerk's office into the corridor,
on the second floor of the Court House at Wilkes-Barre, with the
absolute knowledge that the case in hand is won.
As he pushes his way down the stairway to the first floor where the
courtroom is located, he elbows through a throng of rough dressed
miners--Polaks, Magyars, and here and there a man of half-Irish
parentage, whose Irish name is all that is left from the Molly Maguire
days to indicate the one-time ascendency of that race in the lands of
the coal region.
Certain victory within his grasp--a minor victory in the long line of
legal fights he has conducted for the Paradise Coal Company--he does not
smile. It is a cruel thing he is about to do. Cruel? He asks himself if
the sanctity of the law does not make the contemplated move right.
Harvey Trueman has a code of morals, an austere code, that has made him
enemies even among the people whose champion he has grown to be in three
years' practice of the law in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
He is a tall, slender, square-jawed man of thirty-six. His forehead is
high and broad and his hair is worn longer than that of other young
men--parted on the side and brushed back. He has thin lips and a mouth
of unusual width. His mouth-line is as straight as a bowstring, and when
he speaks, which is often, or smiles, which is not so frequent, he shows
an even line of large white teeth.
There is something very earnest in the expression of Harvey Trueman's
face--a soberness that is seldom found in men under fifty. A straight,
strong nose, large nostrils and clean shaven upper lip that is
abnormally long; cheek bones that stand out prominently; gray eyes set
rather deep in his head for so young a man; a square chin protruding
slightly; and wearing a frock coat that falls to his knees in limp
folds, Trueman is a commanding figure, full of character.
He is an inch over six feet in height. Among the miners who look
straight into the eye to read character, Harvey Trueman has been
pronounced an unflinching tool of the coal barons--one whose unbending
will means the ultimate accomplishment of any undertaking.
Not one of the miners employed by the Paradise Coal Company has ever
known the young lawyer to take an unfair advantage. But he has upheld
the law for the proprietors of the mines when the men have made a fight
against the "company stores," where they are forced to spend the wages
made by the sweat of their brows down in the mines or on the breakers.
Trueman is looked upon by all the miners of the region as a part and
parcel of the law, and all law is regarded by them as a thing made to
oppress the poor and aggrandize the wealthy.
A simple investigation on the eve of the present battle has placed in
the hands of the young lawyer ammunition which will rout the enemy on
the first volley.
But such an enemy! Above all things, Harvey Trueman is a magnanimous
foe. Now that he has his case won, he feels half humiliated. In the
court room, occupying a front seat while she awaits the arrival of her
lawyer, sits the widow of Marcus Braun, the Magyar miner.
The miner was killed in Shaft Fifteen of the Paradise Company, which is
three miles down the river from the wagon bridge at Wilkes-Barre.
Standing at the bottom of the shaft when an elevator cage fell, upon
which were two loaded coal cars, he was crushed to a pulp. His widow is
suing for damages for the death of her husband. In the front seat with
her, in the court room, is her five-year-old boy, whom she must support,
perhaps by taking boarders at the mines, if the mine superintendent will
permit her to go in debt for the rent of a house in case her litigation
against the company is not successful.
True, the rope by which the cage had been lifted and lowered had worn
thin, and the foreman had warned the superintendent the morning of the
accident that a new one was needed. But the poor Magyar at the bottom of
the shaft did not know it. He had in no way contributed to the
negligence which brought about his death. He knew his work was perilous.
In the law, it is a question whether or not the case can be successfully
defended by the coal company.
Trueman's trip to the Clerk's office has been for the purpose of
ascertaining the miner's standing with reference to his citizenship at
the time of his death. With his experience in the practice, the lawyer
surmised that the Magyar was never naturalized. If he was not
naturalized, his widow has no standing in the court where the suit has
been brought. In that case, it belongs to the Federal Court, and his
widow and orphan, as well as the impecunious lawyer who has taken the
widow's case on a contingent fee, will not have the means nor the
fortitude to begin action in the higher court.
Trueman discovers after a few moments of investigation in the Clerk's
office that his suspicion is well founded. The miner had never taken out
naturalization papers.
Cruel? In the concrete, perhaps. The law is made for the multitude.
"It is a legitimate defense!" Trueman murmurs to himself, as he passes
down the stairs. "The Magyar bore none of the burdens of citizenship.
Neither should he or his, share in the protection which the State of
Pennsylvania affords her citizens."
"Will the Magyar's widow get anything?" asks O'Connor, one of the
half-Irish, half-Italian miners, whose elbow Trueman brushes as he walks
towards the court room.
Trueman befriended O'Connor once in the matter of rent.
"No. He was not naturalized!"
"His blood be on old Purdy's head, then!" says O'Connor. "The mine boss
has said he will put her out in the street. She's already months back in
her rent."
Trueman passes on as if he has not heard O'Connor, who is at the Court
House as one of the witnesses.
As the young lawyer pushes his way into the court room his quick glance
catches the bent form of the woman in the front seat, clad in the
cheapest of black, and the open-eyed boy at her side.
The proceedings are short. Trueman sits down at one of the tables inside
the bar enclosure and hastily dashes off an affidavit containing the
facts he has discovered, and a formal motion to dismiss. The Judge hears
the motion, which is opposed to in a half-hearted way by the lawyer on
the other side. The suit is dismissed.
When she is finally made to understand what has happened, the widow
burst into tears. The boy, at sight of his mother's distress, sets up a
wailing that echoes through the whole Court House. In the hallway, the
bunch of miners from Shaft Fifteen gather about the weeping woman as she
comes out. One more instance of the heartlessness of the law which is
made by the men elected by the Coal Barons, is brought home to them.
To these ignorant men, to whom the first principle of self-preservation
is that limit of erudition set by the coal barons themselves, whose
first and last lessons in life are to read correctly the checks of the
time-keeper and the figures on the "company store" checks which they
receive in payment for their work, what difference does it make that the
dead miner was a Magyar--not a full fledged American?
He lost his life down in a coal mine where he went to dig coal that some
American, way off beyond the hills, might toast his toes on a winter's
evening. His life's work was to help keep the American public warm. In
return, all he asked was very poor food, a straw bed in a hovel, and a
crust for his wife should he be killed in the undertaking.
There is much grumbling already on account of the company stores. The
walking delegate of the miners' union has ordered a strike in Carbon
County, adjoining, unless the Paradise Company shall reduce the price of
blasting powder sold to the miners, fifteen cents a pound.
The miners leave the Court House grumbling. Soothing the Magyar's widow
in their rough way, they form a grim procession and trudge back over the
dusty road to the breaker and the row of hovels on either side of it.
CHAPTER III.
CONFLICTING OPINIONS.
An hour afterward Trueman is seated in his office, in the Commerce
building, on the public square of Wilkes-Barre, in the middle of which
is situated the Court House. On the same floor with his office are the
general offices of the Paradise Coal Company.
Besides giving him distinction as a "corporation lawyer," which has its
effect in drawing outside clients, this proximity to the general offices
of the Coal Barons' syndicate relieves the young lawyer from the payment
of rent. For the convenience of having a shrewd attorney always at his
beck and call, Gorman Purdy, president of the company, is willing that
Trueman shall occupy the office rent free in addition to the liberal
salary which is paid him.
While Trueman is successfully managing the legal affairs of the Paradise
Coal Company and achieving a brilliant reputation at the bar of
Pennsylvania, Gorman Purdy is "trying him out" with an entirely
different object in view. He desires to test the young man's mettle as a
man even more than as a lawyer. To accomplish this end it is most
important that Trueman shall occupy the office next the suite of the
great coal corporation.
Lying on the lawyer's desk is an open envelope, by the side of which is
a check for one thousand dollars, being the amount of his salary from
the coal company for two months. In his ears still ring the plaintive
sobs of the Magyar's widow and the denunciation of O'Connor.
"The mine boss will put her in the street!"
In his mind's eye he pictures the dusty road separating the two rows of
miners' huts, down around the bend in the Susquehanna. He sees the
mountain beyond and the column of steam rising from a more distant
breaker, half way up the slope--a beautiful vision from the distance,
but how squalid in its dull gray misery to those who spend their lives
in its midst.
At this moment the miners who were in attendance at court are trudging
along this highway, chattering their grievances to one another. The
widow and her boy bring up the rear, while the men march solemnly on
ahead, talking of their right to live--just to live.
Across these mountains, in the city of Philadelphia, six score years and
more ago a convention once uttered the identical sentiments being voiced
by these serfs of the coal seams. Harvey Trueman has been a deep student
of the teachings of that convention. On the shelves of his library are
the well-thumbed writings of Washington and the Adamses and Thomas
Jefferson. He is a firm believer of the doctrines enunciated at Faneuil
Hall, and by Henry in Virginia.
To-morrow, perhaps to-night, the widow's paltry chattels will be set in
the middle of that road by the sheriff. She will be dispossessed by the
Paradise Coal Company. A frail woman, pale with poverty of the blood,
shrinking with every breath she draws, because she knows the very air
she breathes comes to her over the lands of the Coal Barons--a haggard
widow of the mines will be deprived of her miserable shelter, not fit
for a beast of burden, by the richest coal corporation on earth. Why?
Because her abject misery is a lesson too graphic in its horrible
details to be constantly before the miners. Allowed to remain there, the
widow will breed trouble among the men who are all risking their lives
every minute of every working day, even as her husband risked his.
Dispossess proceedings do not come under the supervision of Harvey
Trueman, but he has ever been observant. A blind man may not remain in
ignorance of the human suffering in the coal regions of Pennsylvania.
Men in the general offices of the Paradise Coal Company see only the
papers and receive the returns. They ask not "Who put the widow of our
latest victim in the street?"
The sheriff sees to the rest. All hail to the Sheriff of Luzerne! But
Harvey Trueman knows of these things. He has a mind that pierces the
thin walls of the miners' cabins and sees beyond the papers placed in
the sheriff's hands.
"I suppose she will be hungry for three or four days," he tells himself,
"except for the crusts the other women give her. But in a month she will
be married again. If she had recovered a thousand dollars damages for
the life of her husband, one of the other miners would have had it in a
week."
He picks up the check and glances at it for the third time. Then he
folds it and places it in his pocketbook.
"I am paid the thousand dollars," he continues, "for keeping her from
getting it--for two months of my life spent in throwing up legal
barricades to prevent the miners from approaching too near to the
coffers of the Paradise Coal Company. If the Magyar's widow had
collected damages for her husband's death, there would be twenty more
suits filed in a fortnight."
And so he appeases his conscience. He tries to be flippant, as he has
seen the officers of the great corporation flippant about such matters,
but in spite of himself his heartstrings tighten. Harvey Trueman is
acting a lie, and his heart knows it, though his brain has not yet found
it out.
The office door swings open. A man of fifty-five enters--a short man
with a stubby red beard, a round face, and hair well sprinkled with
gray. He is dressed in a gray cutaway business suit and wears a silk
hat. His neckscarf is of English make, his collar is of the thickest
linen and neatest pattern, and his general appearance that of the
aristocratic business man whose evenings in a provincial city are spent
at a club, and in the metropolis at the opera.
It is Gorman Purdy. Trueman's fondest hope--next to the one that at some
distant day, say ten or fifteen years in the future, he may sit in the
United States Senate--is that this man's daughter, Ethel Purdy, renowned
in more than one city for her beauty, may become his wife. Indeed, the
hope of the Senate and of Ethel go hand in hand. With either, he would
not know what to do without the other, and without the one he would not
want the other.
"Trueman, we are going to have trouble with the men." Purdy draws a
chair up to Trueman's desk.
"I've just been talking over the telephone to the mine boss at Harleigh.
The men there and at Hazleton hold a meeting to-night to decide whether
or not they will strike in sympathy with the Carbon County miners,
because of the shut-down.
"Now, we've got to strike the first blow! The men over at Pittsfield and
at the Woodward mines will join the strikers if the Harleigh and
Hazleton men go out. We must get an injunction to prevent the committee
from the affected mines from visiting the other men. If they come it is
for the sole purpose of inducing the men to strike. Isn't that
sufficient grounds for an injunction?"
"You can get your injunction, Mr. Purdy," Trueman replies, "but what
effect will it have if you haven't a regiment to back it up?"
"We have the regiment! The Coal and Iron Police have been drilling in
the Hazleton armory. We can put three hundred men in the field from the
offices of the several works, armed with riot guns."
"You may rely on me to get the injunction, Mr. Purdy," the younger man
says, after a moment's pause, "but I would not advise calling out the
Coal and Iron Police until some act of violence is committed by the
miners themselves. It may lead to bloodshed, may it not?"
"Lead to bloodshed? Why not? For what have we been training the Coal and
Iron Police? The miners of the Pennsylvania coal region need a wholesome
lesson. They have no respect for property rights. Let them be incited to
a strike by the walking delegates and their battle cry is 'Burn!
Destroy!'
"We want no repetition of the Homestead and Latimer riots. They were too
costly to the employers! Coal breakers and company stores are no
playthings for the whimsical notions of so-called labor leaders who do
not know the conditions prevailing in this region. They are too
expensive to be made the food of the strikers' torch.
"Stop the strikers before they have a chance to blacken Luzerne County
with the charred ruins of the breakers! They'll be sacking our homes
next. Already their attitude is almost insufferable. People beyond these
hills do not understand the reign of terror under which these
foreign-born men hold the Wyoming Valley!
"It has come a time when _we_ must shoot first, if there is to be any
shooting! I've had a talk to-day with Sheriff Marlin. It is fortunate
that we have a sheriff who has the grit to stand his ground. He says a
telegram or telephone message will summon him to Harleigh or Hazleton at
a moment's notice, and he will swear our Coal and Iron Policemen in as
deputies.
"Whatever they do then will be legal--_Understand?_"
Trueman looks straight at Purdy several seconds before he replies.
"No," he says, flushing, "not every thing they do. I do not set my
judgment against yours, but I do counsel great caution in placing
Sheriff Marlin in command of the Coal and Iron Police. While you may be
correct in saying we must administer a quick and salutary lesson to the
miners, as deputy sheriffs your men might be tempted to shoot too soon."
"Shoot too soon? If these men gather on mischief bent, we can't shoot
too soon!"
Purdy in turn flushes, as he carefully scrutinizes Trueman's serious
face, which has grown suddenly pale. It is the first time his talented
young protege has ever shown the white feather.
"Oh, yes, yes, Mr. Purdy--they--they can shoot too soon. Even deputy
sheriffs cannot commit murder with impunity. Fight these men with the
law. It's all in your favor! Sheriff Marlin could not step out there in
the street and shoot my fox terrier unless he could show someone's life
was in danger."
With a show of impatience Gorman Purdy arises from his chair. He is
displeased beyond measure with the attitude assumed by Trueman.
"Well, sir!" he says, "you should know there is a difference between
Harvey Trueman's fox terrier, so long as you are general counsel for the
Paradise Coal Company, and a man who marches along the highway with a
revolver in one hand and a torch in the other, his cowardly heart filled
with murder and arson! I am greatly disappointed with your views.
Perhaps it were better that I place the injunction proceedings in other
hands!"
A sharp retort is on Trueman's lips, words not sarcastic, but stinging
in their earnest truthfulness, and wise beyond the years of the man
about to utter them. Each man has discovered that which is repugnant to
him in the other--that which has remained hidden through years of
friendship.
The door of the office is unceremoniously opened, and a girlish voice
says:
"Ah, father--I thought you must be keeping Mr. Trueman. Don't you
remember you promised me at breakfast you would not? Our ride was fixed
for three o'clock. It is now nearly four. Why, you both look positively
serious!"
Ethel Purdy, gowned in a black riding habit which displays a dainty,
enamelled bootleg, and wearing a gray felt hat of the rough rider type,
gracefully poised on one side of her head, smiles incredulously as she
stands, one hand on the knob, looking in through the door at the two
men.
CHAPTER IV.
A QUIET AFTERNOON AT WOODWARD.
Ethel enters Harvey's office just in time to avert a quarrel between the
Coal King and his attorney. In her presence both men resume their normal
reserve of manner.
"So you have come for your afternoon ride?" Purdy inquires, in a
pleasant tone.
"Well, my dear, you shall not be disappointed. The matter Harvey and I
were discussing can be deferred. Go and enjoy an hour's exercise. I
shall be home when you arrive."
"Won't you go with us, papa?"
"Not to-day. I have a Board meeting to attend."
"I do wish you would pay as much attention to your health as you do to
business. You are not looking well. Have you forgotten what the doctor
told you about over-working?"
"No, my dear; I remember his advice; but he does not know what a
responsibility rests upon me as the President of the Paradise Coal
Company. If I did not attend to the details of this business, there
would be a dozen competitors in the coal industry within a year. Even if
I cannot go with you every day, you have Harvey as an escort. You two
will not miss me. When I courted your mother, I should not have insisted
upon a third party accompanying us on our rambles."
"Then we will join you at dinner," says Harvey, as he walks towards the
door.
At the curb in front of the entrance of the office building, a groom
stands holding the bridles of three magnificent hunters.
Harvey assists Ethel to her saddle and springs on to his horse. "Take
Nero back to the stables," Harvey instructs the groom. "Mr. Purdy will
not use him this afternoon."
The riders are soon out on the turnpike that leads to Woodward. For a
November afternoon, the weather is delightful. The prospects of a
bracing canter over the mountain roads could not be brighter. The high
color on the cheeks of Harvey and Ethel show that they are not strangers
to outdoor exercise. Indeed they are types of perfect physical
condition.
Since the day Harvey Trueman became the attorney of the Paradise Coal
Company, and the protege of Gorman Purdy, the young couple have been
constant companions. They have been encouraged to seek each other's
company by Mr. Purdy, who appreciated the worth of Harvey and who
secretly hoped that the brilliant young lawyer would become one of his
household.
"I have spoken to your father," Harvey says, as the horses climb slowly
up one of the rough hills on the pike. "He has given his consent to our
engagement."
"He's such a dear, good fellow, I knew he would not stand in the light
of making me happy!" exclaims Ethel.
"Tell me all he said?" she inquires eagerly.
"He told me that he was glad you thought enough of me to wish to have me
as your partner in life; that he had never had but one fear that you
might fall in love with some worthless snob, who would make you unhappy
and seek only the fortune which you would bring him.
"Your father was kind enough to say that he believed I would continue to
be attentive to my business, and to his interests. What do you think he
is going to give you as a marriage dot?"
"Don't make me guess. You know I am never able to guess a riddle."
"He is going to present you with his new villa at Newport."
"How could he have known that I was wishing for just that one thing? O,
won't it be jolly to go there and spend our honeymoon," Ethel exclaims
gleefully.
"We will make your father come there and spend the summer. He really
must take better care of his health."
Discussing the details of their cloudless future, the lovers enter the
dingy mining town of Woodward. The weather-beaten cottages, which never
have known a coat of paint, do not attract their attention. The groups
of ragged children playing in the dusty road, scurry out of the path of
the horses. On the hillside to the left stands the Jumbo Breaker, the
largest coal crusher in the world. Its rambling walls rise to a height
of several hundred feet up a steep incline. The noise of the machinery
within can be heard distinctly from the roadway. The grind, grind, grind
of the mammoth crushers, which sound as a perpetual monotone to the
townspeople, is lost on the ears of Ethel and Harvey.
Not until they reach the center of the town do they realize they are at
the end of their ride.
"We never rode those five miles so quickly before," says Ethel.
"O, yes we have. Why, it has taken us longer to-day than ever," Harvey
replies, as he looks at his watch.
"But of course it has not seemed long. We have had so much to talk
about. We must make good time on the ride home or we will be late for
dinner."
They turn their horses and are off at a brisk trot back toward
Wilkes-Barre.
On passing through the upper end of Woodward they have not noticed a
clump of men and women standing at the doorway of a miserable hovel,
setting back from the road.
Now the men and women are in the road and block the way.
"I wonder what can have happened," exclaims Ethel.
"Another accident, I presume," is Harvey's answer. "It does seem as
though the Jumbo Breaker injures more men than any other in the
district. It's all through using the new crusher. It's dangerous. I said
so from the moment I inspected the model. But it saves a hundred men's
labor; the company will not abolish its use."
They are now so near the crowd that the horses have to be reigned in.
"Who's hurt?" Harvey asks of a miner.
"Nobody hurt, sir, only the Sheriff putting out Braun's widow."
The scene in the court room looms up before Harvey. He sees the bent
form of the miners' widow as she had bent over her little boy, weeping
at the decision of the Judge who had said that she could not claim
damages for the killing of her husband. He thinks of the check that is
in his pocket--the reward he has gained for winning the case for the
Paradise Company. A blush comes to his cheeks; his inner conscience is
awakened.
In the doorway of the hovel stands Sheriff Marlin. He is superintending
the eviction.
There are several miners in the group who had been at the court house.
They look at Harvey with glances which speak the thoughts they dare not
utter.
Then, as a hunted fawn which will seek shelter of the huntsmen who are
to slay her, the widow rushes from the house. She runs to the head of
Ethel's horse and falls prostrate at the animal's feet.
"In mercy's name, don't let them put me out to freeze," she wails. "It
is not for myself. I don't mind the cold; but little Eric, he will
freeze to death.
"You give your horses shelter; will you let a child die on the roadside?
It is not my fault that the rent is not paid. My husband never owed a
cent in his life. He was killed in the mines, and the company will give
me nothing--nothing. I won't ask for charity. All I ask for is a chance
to work. I can break coal. I can dig it. I am willing to work even in
the Jumbo, till it kills me. Anything to get food and a roof for my
child."
This tragic scene is enacted, before Sheriff Marlin and his deputies
grasp the situation. They do not long stand idly by and see the daughter
of the great Purdy subjected to this annoyance. With a bound the
sheriff, himself, is upon the woman.
"What do you mean by stopping this lady?" he shouts, at the same time
grabbing the poor creature by the throat. "Back to your house and take
out your goods, or I'll burn them on the road."
"Take your hands off that woman," cries Harvey. He stands in his saddle
and waves his hand menacingly at the sheriff.
"Stop choking her! Do you hear!"
With savage energy Marlin hurls the widow to the ground.
"Do not be frightened, Miss Purdy," he says, in obsequious tone. "This
woman will not annoy you again." "You must excuse me, Mr. Trueman," he
adds, turning to Harvey. "But these mining folk cannot be handled like
ordinary people."
The blush of shame has passed from Harvey's face; he is ashen.
"Are you evicting this woman for non-payment of rent?" he asks.
"She has not paid a cent since her husband's death, ten months ago. I
received orders from the company to turn her out to-day. She has been
making trouble here for the past month, and now that she has lost her
suit it's time she got out."
"Mamma, mamma," cries the five year old boy, as he runs to his mother,
laying prostrate in the weeds at the side of the road.
"Are you hurt, mamma, tell me?" and then he bursts into a flood of
tears.
"Take that brat away," Sheriff Marlin says under his breath to a man. As
the deputy starts to pick up the child, it utters a piercing shriek.
"Don't let them hurt the child!" cries Ethel, in utter horror. She has
till now been a mute witness to the heartless acts of the agents of the
law.
Harvey jumps from his saddle, and is at the deputy's side.
"Put that child down. I shall see that it is taken care of," he
declares.
"Excuse me, Mr. Trueman," interposes Sheriff Marlin, "you must not
interfere with us in the execution of our duty."
"Execution of your duty! You mean the execution of a woman and her
child. I shall not stand by and see the law violated. You have authority
to evict the widow for her debts; but you have no authority to assault
her.
"How much does she owe?"
"Eighty dollars," is the surly reply.
"Here is the money," says Harvey, as he takes a roll of bills from his
pocket.
"I cannot accept the money now," protests the sheriff.
Then stepping up to Harvey he says in an undertone:
"Mr. Trueman, the fact is, I have been told to put this woman out of
town; she will cause trouble if she remains. The miners are all in
sympathy with her because she lost the suit."
"Who gave you such orders?"
"Mr. Purdy."
"When?"
"This afternoon. I saw him just after you left the office. He told me to
get the widow out of town this very day, so I took the switch engine and
came out here."
"Well, you will let the matter stand as it is. I intend to pay the rent
for the woman and see that she is placed back in the house."
"You will be opposing Mr. Purdy. He explained the case to me and asked
my advice. We decided that with the widow in the town, the miners would
be more likely to carry out their threat than with her out of sight. You
had better let me carry out my orders."
"I have made up my mind to see the widow restored to her home," Harvey
repeats. "Here is the rent money. I know the spirit of the miners better
than either you or Mr. Purdy."
The sheriff takes the money reluctantly.
Widow Braun is now sitting up, vainly trying to comfort her child.
"You may go back to your home," says Trueman, as he bends over and helps
her to arise. "I have paid your rent and here is some money for food,
and for your next month's rent. I shall see that you get work."
"May God bless you," cries the widow, bursting into tears.
"You are my prisoner," Sheriff Marlin declares, as he places his hand on
the trembling figure.
"On what charge," Trueman demands.
"For getting goods from the company's store on her husband's card when
he was dead, and she had no money to pay for them," the sheriff asserts,
triumphantly.
"But she has money to pay for the food she bought. And her husband's
card is valid until cancelled. You had better take care that you do not
overstep your authority. It is not the Widow Braun you have to deal with
now. I am interested in this case. I am the widow's counsel. She has one
thousand dollars to her credit on the books of the company's store."
Sheriff Marlin is in a fury. He realizes that he cannot serve two
masters and he decides to be faithful to Gorman Purdy.
"It is not my will that you are opposing, Mr. Trueman," he says with
emphasis. "It is your employer's."
The word "employer's" grates on Harvey's ears.
"Mr. Purdy is my employer, but he is not my master. I shall serve my
conscience before I do any man. But I do not believe that Mr. Purdy
would countenance this outrage."
"What do you mean by saying that the widow has a thousand dollars to her
credit?" the sheriff asks.
"I mean that she has this thousand dollars," and Trueman drew the check
from his pocket. "It is to be placed to her credit. I have something to
say about the company stores."
"I shall take this business direct to Mr. Purdy," the sheriff threatens
as he walks off.
The miners and their wives who have witnessed the quarrel between
Trueman and Marlin give expression to their feelings in whispered words
of praise for the young lawyer who bid defiance to the Sheriff of
Luzerne County, the most dreaded man in that part of Pennsylvania.
The widow grasps Harvey's hand and before he can withdraw it she covers
it with kisses. Her tears of gratitude fall on his hand. He appreciates
that it is but tardy justice that he is doing to the poor woman.
"You need have no fear of being turned out of your home," he tells her.
Then he springs back into the saddle.
"Come, Ethel, let us start for home."
The ride is finished in silence. Neither Harvey nor Ethel feels in the
mood to talk. On reaching the Purdy mansion the riders dismount, and go
at once to the library, where Gorman Purely is waiting for them.
"Harvey, I am surprised that you should interfere with my orders," is
Mr. Purdy's salutation. "Sheriff Marlin has just telephoned me. He tells
me that you opposed his evicting the widow, and that the miners are now
likely to make serious trouble. This is the second time to-day you have
attempted to defeat my plans. I cannot understand what object you have
in antagonizing me."
"You certainly misunderstand my motives," replies Trueman. "It is
because I have your interests at heart that I cannot see you pursue a
course that will lead to disastrous consequences."
"Do you put your judgment above mine?" asks the Coal King,
sarcastically.
"In ordinary business matters, in affairs of finance and in the conduct
of the mines I should not presume to dispute your judgment. But on the
propriety of assembling the Coal and Iron Police and of evicting a woman
who has the sympathy of the entire mining district I believe that I am
better able to judge of the effect these acts will have than you are,
for I come into close contact with the people."
"The sheriff tells me you have placed a thousand dollars to the credit
of the widow at the Company's store. Is this so?"
"I intend to do so."
"It shall not be done, sir, not if I have the power to prevent it,"
declares the Coal King emphatically, rising and pacing the floor. "You
must be out of your mind to make such a move, now, of all times, to
offer encouragement to the lawless element."
"He did nothing wrong," interposes Ethel. "He prevented the sheriff and
his men from injuring the woman and her child."
"Not another word!" Gorman Purdy speaks in a tone he has never employed
when addressing his daughter.
"This matter must be settled, once and for all," he continues,
addressing Harvey. "There can be but one head of the Paradise Coal
Company. I wish to know if you will cease interfering with my orders?"
"I have never objected to carrying out any order of yours that was
legal. As long as I am in your employ I shall continue to do as I have
done. But to tell you that I will do your bidding, whether legal or not,
that is something I cannot bring myself to do," Trueman replies, looking
the Coal King squarely in the eye.
"I shall have no one in my employ who cannot obey me," Purdy says. He
then rehearses what he has done for Trueman; how he has advanced him to
the position of counsel to the company. "And all the thanks I receive is
your opposition, now that I need your support," he states, and without
waiting for a reply hurries from the room.
When Ethel and Harvey go to the dining room they find that the irate
Coal King has gone to his private apartment, where his dinner is being
served.
Harvey spends the evening at the mansion.
As he and Ethel sit in the drawing room they discussed the events of the
day, and speculate on the result that will follow the quarrel with her
father.
"My father will regret his hasty words," Ethel says. "He admires you and
places absolute confidence in you. Only yesterday he told me that there
was not another man in the world to whom he would confide his business
secrets as he has done to you."
The lovers go to the music room. Harvey's voice is a remarkably rich
baritone. At Ethel's request he sings a ballad which he has recently
composed.
Standing at her side as she plays the accompaniment, he sings.
"THE SEA OF DREAMS.
"Sing me of love and dear days gone;
Sing me of joys that are fled;
Strike no chord of the now forlorn;
None of the future dread,
Ah, let thy music ring with tone
That speaks the budding year;
The Winter's blast too soon will moan
Through the forest bleak and drear.
Then sing but a line from the dear old days
We sang 'neath the moon's soft beams,
When we were young, in those gladsome days,
While we sailed on the sea of dreams.
There are no songs that reach the heart,
Like those sung long ago.
New singers and their songs depart;
The old ones ne'er shall go.
Nor is it strange that they should be
As balm to the sad heart;
They tell of love when it was young,
And all its joys impart."
At eleven o'clock Trueman leaves the Purdy mansion and goes to his
hotel. To him it is clear that an irreparable breach has been made in
the relations between himself and Gorman Purdy. He knows the unrelenting
character of the President of the Paradise Coal Company.
"It was a question of right and wrong," he muses. "I could not see a
woman and her child thrown out in the highway, when I knew that it was
through my skill as a lawyer that just damages were kept from them. The
law was on the side of the company; but justice was certainly on the
side of the widow.
"Every day I have some nasty work of this kind to perform. It is making
a heartless wretch of me. A man can make money sometimes that comes too
dear."
The next day, at the office, Purdy and Trueman have a long talk. It
results in Trueman withdrawing his objections to the assembling of the
Coal and Iron Police. As to the widow, a compromise is effected. She is
to be set up in business in a neighboring town where her case is
unknown.
The thought that to break with Purely would mean to lose Ethel, turns
Harvey's decision when the moment comes to choose between duty and
policy.
The work of preparing to defeat the pending strike is at once taken up,
Purdy and Trueman working in perfect accord.
CHAPTER V.
AN UNQUIET DAY AT HAZLETON.
Nearly two months have passed, and a mantle of snow covers the ground.
The rigorous December weather has come and is causing widespread
distress among the mining population of Pennsylvania. Forty per cent of
the operatives of the Paradise Coal Company have been laid off, as Purdy
declared they would be. This means that starvation is the grim spectre
in six thousand homes.
The anomaly of miners in one town working at full time, and those of an
adjacent town shut out, must be explained as one of the insidious
methods of the Trust to create an artificial coal famine.
Gorman Purdy, whose word is law in the Paradise Company, had determined
to exact an advance of twenty-five cents a ton from the retail coal
dealers. To do this he had to make it appear that the supply of coal was
scarce. This led him to close the mines in Hazleton. The miners in the
town sought to force the opening of the mines by bringing about a
sympathetic strike in the neighboring towns. To prevent this, the Coal
and Iron Police have been brought to Hazleton to intimidate the miners
and to suppress them by force if they make any concerted move looking
toward bringing on a strike.
Preliminary to enforcing the order that debars such an army of men of
the means of support, the Coal Magnates, at Purdy's suggestion, have
massed three hundred of the Coal and Iron Police in the town of
Hazleton. This mercenary force occupies the armory, built two years
before by the benevolent multi-millionaire Iron King of Pennsylvania,
whose immense mills and foundries are situated some two hundred miles
distant.
Sheriff Marlin is in command of the Coal and Iron Police. He has sworn
them in as deputies, and each bears on his breast the badge of
authority.
The propinquity of Woodward and the other small towns to Wilkes-Barre
saved them from suffering the effects of a close-down. The Magnates did
not desire to have the scenes of distress brought too near their own
homes. So Hazleton and the outlying districts were selected to be
sacrificed to the arbitrary coal famine. Day after day the idle miners
congregate in the Town Hall to discuss their situation and to devise
some means of relieving the starving families. These meetings are under
the strict surveillance of Sheriff Marlin. Every letter that is sent
from the hall is subjected to his scrutiny.
There will be no incendiary appeals addressed to the miners of other
districts.
The newspaper correspondents, though they send accurate stories of the
awful condition of the miners and their families, are disappointed to
receive copies of their respective papers with their articles revamped,
and the essential points expurgated, to meet the approval of the
"conservative reader."
"The committee on rations reports that the allowance for each miner and
his family must henceforth be reduced to two loaves of black bread a
day. As some of the miners have eight and ten children, an idea of the
actual need of relief from some source may be formed."
Paragraphs like the above never reach the printed page of a newspaper
that has sworn allegiance to or is bound to support the Magnates.
It is now December twentieth. The miners resolve to make a final appeal
to the Paradise Coal Company to at least start the mines on half time.
If the company grants this appeal, there will be joy in the miners'
homes for Christmas.
Christmas is no more to the Magnates than any other calender day. The
necessary time for the creation of the coal famine has not elapsed, and
until it has there will not be another ton of coal taken from the pits.
Harvey Trueman is expected to confer with the leaders in the afternoon.
He will deliver the appeal to the company, and the following day,
Sunday, the miners will know if they are to go back to work.
"In the event of Purdy, the final arbiter, refusing to start up on half
time," says Metz, who is now the leader of the Miner's Union, "we can go
to Latimer and Harleigh, to-morrow. The mines will be closed; they are
only working them six days a week now. We will appeal to the men to quit
work unless the Paradise Company gives us a chance to earn our bread."
"If the Harleigh men won't go out, they will at least give us some food
for a Christmas dinner," says a miner whose hollow cheeks tell of long
fasting.
"Peter Gick died last night," a miner states as he enters the hall. "He
went to the ash dumps to pick a basket of _cinders_; on his way back to
his house he fell. He was so weak that he could not get up. The snow is
two feet deep on the road, and it was drifting then; it soon covered him
up. This morning his son, Ernst, found him. Of course he was frozen
stiff."
"Where is his body?" Metz asks.
"Sheriff ordered it buried by the police."
"A public funeral might prove dangerous to the Magnates," observes Metz.
"Our modern rulers have profited by the experience of the ancients."
Promptly at two o'clock Trueman arrives at the hall.
The committee on resolutions present him with their petition.
"I shall do all that I can to make the Company appreciate the condition
in which you are placed. You may depend upon it, there will be work for
you before Christmas," Trueman assures them at parting.
"We shall want an answer by to-morrow morning at ten o'clock," the
miners urge in chorus.
Harvey Trueman leaves for Wilkes-Barre on the mission of appealing to
the humanity of the Coal Magnates.
Miners' wives and children stream to the Town Hall, to receive their
bread and rations.
It is at such times as these, where the miners are ruthlessly shut out
of the mines, that the highest value of the Miner's Union is
demonstrated. From the slender treasury, which is enriched only by the
pennies of the miners during their weeks of employment, the money is
drawn to purchase the rations that must be had to keep the miners and
their families from actually starving when they can no longer buy from
the company store.
To supplement the rations distributed by the Union, the Hazleton miners
have a small supply of medicine. This is as important as food. The
medicine chest was given them by Sister Martha, the ministering angel of
the mines.
Martha Densmore was the daughter of Hiram Densmore, who had owned great
tracts of the coal lands. He had been forced out of the industry by
refusing to enter the combine which resulted in the formation of the
Coal Trust. At the time of his death, of all his fortune there remained
but a small part. Mrs. Densmore had not survived her husband a year.
Martha was left an orphan.
She has an income of $6000, and could live a life of idleness did she so
desire. But it was her purpose from girlhood to be always on missions of
charity. She had loved Harvey Trueman. They had been schoolmates, and
would undoubtedly have wed had not the wreck of Densmore's fortune been
accomplished just as Trueman was leaving college. Gorman Purdy had been
quick to perceive the calibre of the young man and had brought him into
the Paradise Company. With father and mother dead, and with her heart's
longing unappeased, Martha determined to join a sisterhood, and devote
her entire time to ministering to the poor and the sick.
The suffering of the miners of Hazleton attracts her sympathy and she
has come to the town from Wilkes-Barre.
It is her presence in the town hall that makes even Sheriff Marlin curb
his blasphemous tongue.
Her calm face, which wears an expression of contentment, if not of
happiness, is a solace to the miserable men and women who come to ask
for medicine. She always has a word of cheer.
The life she has led for eight years has not aged her, and to judge from
her manner she would not be taken for a woman more than thirty. She is,
however, six and thirty; her natal day being in the month of March, the
same as Trueman's. And they are both the same age. In the school days
they celebrated their birthdays together.
There is not a miner or one of his family who would not give up their
life, if such a sacrifice were necessary, to keep Sister Martha from
being injured. They have seen her enter a mine where an explosion had
occurred, when even the bravest of the rescuing party hesitated. They
have seen her in their own hovels, bending over the forms of their sick
and dying children. The yellow flag of pestilence never makes her
hesitate.
By her practical acts of charity and humanity, she has come to exert a
wonderful influence over the humble citizens of Luzerne County. In this
present crisis Sister Martha is the central figure.
In the Armory the Coal and Iron Police are playing cards and enjoying
themselves as men always can in comfortable barracks.
So the winter night closes. The hearths of the miners are cold, their
larders empty; but the armory is warm, the police are well fed.
"The Company refused to open the mines. They will, however, send thirty
barrels of flour to be distributed for Christmas." This is the message
returned by Trueman, on Sunday morning.
There are sixty miners in the Hall. They decide to go at once to
Harleigh, to exert "moral suasion" on their fellow miners there.
They start from the Hall unarmed, walking two by two. At the head of the
line of sixty men, one carries the Stars and Stripes; another a white
flag. There is nothing revolutionary about the procession. It is a sharp
contrast to the armed force of the Culpepper Minute Men, who, under the
leadership of Patrick Henry, marched to Williamsburg, Virginia, to
demand instant restoration of powder to an old magazine, or payment for
it by the Colonial Governor, Dunmore. The Minute Men carried as their
standard a flag bearing the celebrated rattlesnake, and the inscription
"Liberty or Death: Don't tread on me."
The route to Harleigh is in an opposite direction to the armory. The
little column passes out of the town of Hazleton and is a mile distant
when the Coal and Iron Police learn of their departure.
Instantly there is a bustle in the armory.
"Form your company, Captain Grout," the sheriff orders.
"Give each man twenty rounds. Tell them not to fire until I give the
order. When they do open fire, have them shoot to kill."
The company is formed on the floor of the armory. It receives the
orders; one-third of the force is left to guard the armory.
In column of fours the main body marches out, Captain Grout and Sheriff
Marlin in the lead.
To catch up with the miners the column marches in route step.
"We will head them off at the cross roads this side of Harleigh," the
sheriff explains. "There is a cut in the road there, and we can put our
men on either side. When the miners come within range I shall challenge
them. If they do not turn back, it will be your duty to compel them to
do so."
Unconscious of the approach of the sheriff and his posse, the miners
march on. The road is heavy and they are so much run down by long weeks
of short rations that they cannot make rapid headway.
Sheriff Marlin and his men are now at the cut near the cross roads.
Captain Grout stations his men to command either side of the road. The
banks of the cut are fringed with brush, which affords a complete cover
for the men.
"You keep out of sight, too, Captain," Sheriff Marlin orders. "I will
stop the miners. If they see you and the Coal and Iron Police they may
scatter, and some of them reach Harleigh."
The ambuscade is complete. Five minutes passes. There is no sign of the
miners.
"Can they have been told of our plan to head them off?" asks the
sheriff.
At this moment the head of the procession of miners turns the corner of
the road. The American Flag and the White Flag are still in the van.
The sheriff takes up a position on the side of the road. As the miners
come up to him, he calls them to "halt."
"Where are you going?" he demands.
"To Harleigh," replies Metz.
"Who gave you permission to parade?"
"We are exercising our rights as freemen."
"Well, you cannot march in a body on the highways of Pennsylvania."
"Then we can break up our procession and walk individually."
"_In the direction of Hazelton_," Sheriff Marlin says, significantly. "I
know what you are up to; do you think that I am going to let you cause a
sympathetic strike in Harleigh because you are locked out? Not if I know
myself."
When the miners come to a halt, the men in advance cluster about Metz
and the sheriff.
Now thirty men surround the sheriff.
Some of them are, of course, in advance of him.
"Get back to Hazleton," Sheriff Marlin cries, at the same time raising
his arms above his head and waving them.
He pushes his way through the crowd of miners to the edge of the road.
Off comes his hat
It is the signal which Captain Grout has been expecting.
"Company, attention!"
Two hundred Coal and Iron Police jump to their feet.
"Get back to Hazleton or I'll take you prisoners," shouts the sheriff.
But his words are lost. The miners are terror-stricken. The sight of the
police, armed with deadly rifles, has made the miners insensible to
every thought and impulse but that of self-preservation.
They scatter up and down the road.
"Don't let them escape to Harleigh," shouts the sheriff. Taking this as
an order, the police open fire on the men who have passed the sheriff.
Crack! crack! go the rifles.
Each shot fells a miner. They are practically at the muzzles of the
weapons.
A miner rushes up the bank on the left to get out of the range of the
police on that side. He is riddled by the bullets from the opposite
side.
Another dives into a snow bank; it affords him no protection. "Pot that
woodchuck," shouts Captain Grout to one of his men.
A bullet is sent into the hole. The miner springs to his feet; then
drops dead.
The line of carnage is now stretched out for two hundred yards.
There is no return fire. So the armed police come out from cover and
pursue their victims.
The police have lost all self-control. Each man is acting on his own
responsibility.
Of the ten miners who run toward Harleigh, not one is spared. Three lie
in the road; the snow about them tinged with their life's blood. Another
is clinging with a death grip to a stunted tree, which he caught as he
staggered forward, with three bullets in the back.
"Mercy! mercy!" cry several of the miners. But their wail is lost on the
ears of the Coal and Iron Police. The police are there to kill, not to
grant mercy.
Now a miner falls on his knees and prays to God for protection.
This attitude of submission is not heeded; a bullet topples him over.
With their hands above their head, some of the men walk deliberately
toward the deputies. Indians will recognize this as the sign of
surrender, and will give quarter. But the deputies, with unerring aim,
shoot down the voluntary captive.
It would not be so terrible if the miners were returning the fire, if
they were offering any resistance. But they are absolutely unarmed.
Their mission has been to present a petition to the miners of Harleigh.
The slaves of the South had enjoyed the right of petition. How could
these twentieth century miners anticipate that the sheriff would
massacre them on the highway for seeking to present a petition?
"Have you shot any one?" asks one of the deputies of his nearest
companion.
"Shot any one! Well, I should think I had. I've seen four drop. Here
goes a fifth."
To stand, to run, to fall to the ground, all are equally futile as means
of escape. Extermination is all that will stay the fire of the police.
Sheriff Marlin and Captain Grout stand in the middle of the road. Metz,
O'Connor, and Nevins, a mine foreman, are standing beside them.
O'Connor carries the white flag; Nevins the National emblem.
"Disarm those men," Marlin directs the Captain.
"Disarm them?" Captain Grout repeats, inquiringly.
"Certainly. They have sticks in their hands."
Two deputies, who have exhausted their supply of cartridges in their
magazine rifles, stop reloading and rush upon Nevins. They beat him over
the head with their rifle butts. The flag is snatched out of his hands.
O'Connor is dealt a blow an instant later.
The subjugation of the unarmed miners is accomplished.
One by one the Coal and Iron Police return.
Some of them bring in captives who have escaped death, but who still
have felt the sting of the bullets.
Of the sixty miners, twenty-three are killed outright; ten are mortally
wounded; twenty-one have less serious wounds.
Six have run the gauntlet and are fleeing back to Hazleton.
The triumphant march of the police to Hazleton is begun.
"We will carry the wounded," says the sheriff. "They might get through
to Harleigh and Latimer."
"We will round up the six who escaped," Captain Grout assures the
sheriff. He then details ten men to run down the miners who have eluded
capture.
This is an easy matter, as the footprints of the miners are perfectly
distinct in the soft snow. On the six trails the men set off, as a pack
of hounds on the scent of game.
This man-hunt results in an addition of _six_ to the list of the slain.
Gorman Purdy's orders have been carried out.
His police have been sworn in as deputies; they have met the miners and
have "fired first."
The sanctity of the law enveloped their act. They shot as _Deputies_.
They dispersed a band of miners who were on the highway, armed,
according to the sheriff's version, "with sticks," and bent on creating
trouble in Harleigh.
Did it matter that the "sticks" were flag staffs on which were displayed
the White Flag of truce, and the Emblem of Liberty?
CHAPTER VI.
A STAND FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE.
News of the massacre on the highway can not be suppressed. A wave of
indignation sweeps over the country. Newspapers, clergymen, statesmen,
ordinary citizens are of one opinion, that the sheriff and his deputies
should be made to suffer for their dastardly acts. The result of the
agitation is a call for trial for a case of murder. The Grand Jury of
Luzerne County find an indictment against Sheriff Marlin and Captain
Grout. These men are placed on trial.
Gorman Purdy at first is highly elated over the result of the sheriff's
summary action against the miners. "It has taught the miners a good
lesson," he asserts openly.
The morning after the Grand Jury returns its indictment, Purdy enters
Harvey Trueman's office.
The relationship between Purdy and Trueman is no longer strained. In
three months time Harvey will marry Ethel. He is to live at the Purdy
mansion until his own house can be built.
"You have read the papers this morning?" Purdy asks.
"Yes. It begins to look serious for the sheriff and Grout. I understand
that they are to be imprisoned to-day."
"Now I want to have a talk with you about defending them."
"Defending them!" exclaims Trueman. "You want me to defend them?"
"It was in our interests that they acted," says Purdy, "and the least we
can do is to defend them."
"It was not in my interests, nor was it at my suggestion that the Coal
and Iron Police were sent to Hazleton. You must remember that I
deprecated that step."
"Well, we won't go over that matter anew, Harvey; the defense of the
Sheriff and Captain Grout is essential to the interests of the Paradise
Coal Company. You are the chief counsel of the Company, and I look to
you to secure their acquittal."
"But you cannot want me to defend two men who are guilty of cold blooded
murder," protests Trueman. "I am the last man in the world to ignore the
sanctity of the law. When I see the highest law of the land trodden
under foot by an ignorant and arrogant sheriff, I wish to see the law
enforced against him as it should be against the commonest offender."
"It's all very well to have high ideals of law and justice," Purdy
observes, with a cynical smile, "but you cannot be guided by them when a
commercial interest is involved. The conviction of the sheriff would lay
us open to the violence of the mob."
"You can find a more capable man than I to defend the prisoners."
"There is no one who is as familiar with the mining life as you are; I
have thought the matter over carefully before broaching it to you. There
is no way out of it, Harvey, you must take the case in hand. It is not
the company's request. I make it personal. I want you to do your best to
get these men off."
"Mr. Purdy, I cannot comply with your request."
"You refuse to oblige me?"
"I refuse to defend men who I believe have committed murder."
"I am an older man than you, Harvey Trueman, and I caution you to think
twice before you refuse to obey the request of the man who has made you
what you are." Purdy is white with rage, for he feels that Trueman will
remain obdurate.
"It may seem an act of ingratitude, but I cannot suffer my conscience to
be outraged by defending the perpetrators of an atrocious crime."
"Your conscience will cost you dear. If you do not defend this case you
may consider your connection with the Paradise Coal Company at an end.
You sever all bonds that have united us, and your marriage to my
daughter will be impossible. Is the gratification of a supersensitive
conscience to be bought at such a price?"
"There must be something back of your demand," Trueman declares.
"There is only the just claim that I have on you to work for my
interests."
"Mr. Purdy, I was a man before I met you. I am indebted to you for my
present position; yet I am not willing to pay for its retention by
forfeiting my honor. If you insist on me defending the case, I tell you
I would sooner pay the penalty you name."
Trueman's voice is tremulous. He realizes that his decision has cost him
not alone a position of great value, but all chance of wedding Ethel
Purdy.
"You will live to regret this day, Harvey Trueman," Purdy cries
menacingly. "Whatever is due you from the Paradise Coal Company will be
paid you to-day. Henceforth you will find office room elsewhere.
Remember, sir, I forbid you to have any communication with my daughter."
With these words Purdy walks out of Trueman's office.
"It may be better for me to get out of this damnable atmosphere while I
still have a spark of manhood left," Trueman muses, as he sits at his
desk. "If I remained here many years more I should be as heartless as
Purdy himself.
"I wonder how Ethel will act in this crisis? She loves me, that I would
swear to with my life, but can she sacrifice her fortune to marry me? I
cannot expect her to do so. No, it would be too much. I have money
enough to live but I could not support her in the style to which she has
been accustomed from her birth."
For an hour he sits intently thinking. He reviews the past. At the
recollection of his school days and the first love he had experienced
for Martha Densmore, a sigh escapes his lips.
"I might have been happy, had I married her," he says to himself.
"But then I should not have become a lawyer. What good have I done in
the law? I have been the buffer for a heartless corporation. The
president of the corporation demands of me to do an act that is against
my manhood. I refuse and I am turned out like a worthless old horse.
"I shall henceforth use my talents to some good. The Paradise Coal
Company and every other concern that is waxing rich at the expense of
the people will find that I can be as formidable an antagonist as I have
been defender. How could I have been blind to my duty so long?"
Trueman arises and walks from his office. A thought is forming in his
mind.
"I'll do it," he says aloud, as he reaches the elevator.
"The miners have no one who is capable of prosecuting the case of the
people. The District Attorney and his staff have been bought off. Any
one of the injured miners has standing in the court, and can be
represented by counsel. Yes, there is O'Connor, I shall be his counsel."
Trueman hurries to the east side of the town and hunts up the quarters
of Patrick O'Connor. The miner is still in bed; the fractured skull he
had received by the blow from the rifle barrel nearly proved fatal.
In a few words Trueman explains how he had been driven to leave the
Paradise Coal Company; and how he is now determined to be the champion
of the people.
"I believe you, sir," says O'Connor, feebly, "for you have always been
kind to me. But the rest of the miners think you are to blame for all of
their troubles; especially when they face you in court."
"You will tell them to put faith in me, won't you, O'Connor?"
"Indeed I will, sir."
The door opens to admit Sister Martha.
Harvey Trueman has not been face to face with Martha for eight years.
"You here, Martha!" he exclaims.
"I am here every day. My duty brings me among the sick."
The two playmates of the happy school days walk over to the window and
talk in low tones for half an hour. Trueman tells of his determination
to be an antagonist of the Magnates, one of whom has attempted to buy
his soul for the sordid interests of a corporation.
"You may be sure I shall be pleased to help you all I can," Sister
Martha assures him. "And I have many friends among the miners. It will
be some time before they will accept your protestations in good faith.
You must know that your masterful knowledge of the law has kept many of
them from winning their suit for damages against the Paradise Company.
If you do something to prove your sincerity it will win you many
friends."
"If I appear as the counsel of one of the miners and prosecute the
Sheriff of Luzerne County, will that be sufficient to demonstrate my
sincerity?" Trueman asks.
"It will make you their champion."
"Well, you may tell the miners of Wilkes-Barre that I am to appear as
counsel for Patrick O'Connor in the coming trial. We will meet often
now, I hope?" Harvey asks as he leaves the room.
"Whenever you come to this quarter of the city you will be able to find
me," Sister Martha responds.
Events move rapidly. The trial is set for February first. Between the
day Harvey Trueman left the employ of the Paradise Company and the
opening of the trial he wins the name of "Miner's Friend." Eight damage
suits against the Paradise Coal Company are won for miners by his
sagacity and eloquence.
He has been able to learn of the effect of the break in the friendship
between the Purdy's and himself. Ethel had been prostrated by the event.
For many days she had been actually ill. As soon as her health permitted
she had been sent abroad. She is now in the south of France.
At the trial of Sheriff Marlin and his lieutenants, Trueman
distinguishes himself by the searching line of questions he puts to the
sheriff's deputies and two lieutenants, who are placed on the witness
stand. In cross-examination he succeeds in eliciting the fact that the
only "weapons" carried by the miners were the two flag staffs.
He brings to court as witnesses men who had been shot in the back as
they had run to escape the deadly fire of the deputies.
One of these men, carried to the court room on a cot, testifies that he
ran up the embankment and had fallen at the feet of one of the deputies.
"I begged of him to spare my life; that I had a wife and six children.
He stepped back a pace and pointing his rifle at my head, fired. The
bullet grazed my temple. I rolled over. He thought I was dead. I lay
there motionless for several minutes. Then I was struck in the shoulder
by another bullet."
This testimony causes a tremendous sensation.
The defendants counsel asks for the recall of the witness the following
day. He is brought to court and answers two questions. Then with a groan
he turns on his side and dies in the presence of the crowded court and
before the very eyes of his assassin.
The trial is a travesty on justice. The jury is composed of men known to
be in sympathy with the prisoners. The deputies are in court each day
fully armed. They make no pretext to conceal their pistols. This is done
to influence the jury to believe that the deputies had shot in
self-defense. Both Sheriff Marlin and Captain Grout are acquitted; but
they are not vindicated in the eyes of the people of the United States
or of Wilkes-Barre.
Trueman emerges from the trial as the recognized champion of the people.
It has taken twelve weeks to try the case. The cost of this victory for
the Coal Barons is one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
Sister Martha and Harvey meet frequently. She is a great aid to him in
getting information from the miners. She is inspired by the grand
results that Trueman realizes for the poor miners whose cases he
handles. She hears him mentioned as the candidate for some office, and
asks him if he would accept it.
"I do not wish to mix in local politics," Trueman tells her. "I might
accept the office of Congressman; but it is impossible to elect a
candidate of the miners in Pennsylvania."
Early in May a call is sent out through the several States for delegates
to attend an Anti-Trust Conference in Chicago. This Conference is deemed
urgent as the outgrowth of an atrocious move on the part of the Magnates
who seek to vitiate the laws of the United States as applied to capital.
Martha asks Trueman if he will accept the appointment as a delegate from
the State of Pennsylvania. He signifies his willingness to do so; but
doubts if the miners outside of Wilkes-Barre hold him in high enough
esteem to so honor him.
"I have not done enough yet to redeem myself for the years that I stood
as the barrier to the poor getting their deserts," he declares.
But the election shows that he is recognized as a faithful friend of the
people. At the Conference it is believed he will win recognition for the
claims of the miners, for justice, and for the Federal enforcement of
the laws of common safety in the mines.
The ten months that have passed since the afternoon he won the case
against the Magyar's widow, have been the most momentous in his life.
They have taken him out of the service of a soulless Company and put him
in the position of leader of a million miners.
BOOK II.
The Syndicate Incorporates.
CHAPTER VII.
AN ANTI-TRUST CONFERENCE.
From the hour that Trueman was selected as a delegate to the great
Anti-Trust Conference to convene in the city of Chicago, he has devoted
his hours, day and night, to study. In making his advent in the
conference, he enters the arena of national politics; he means to go
prepared. Martha has prevailed upon him to accept the nomination as a
candidate for the State of Pennsylvania, and he has been elected by the
unanimous vote of the Unions. This exhibition of confidence on the part
of the toilers of the state has made a deep impression on him, and has
fixed his resolve to do something that will be worthy of his
constituents.
The sudden transition he has undergone from being the staunch supporter
of the coal barons, to becoming their bitterest opponent, has left many
of the opinion that he is working some deep scheme for the undoing of
the unionists. Nor is this opinion confined to any small number. "He
changed his views too quickly," is the general sentiment in the ranks of
the small unions where Trueman is not personally known. This lurking
suspicion was what had operated strongly at first against securing
Trueman's consent to be a candidate. Martha has worked quietly,
assiduously, among the men she knew, and who placed absolute faith in
her advice. She has been the direct means of bringing about his
election.
Now he is to leave her, and must face the supreme opportunity of his
life.
It is not without a pang that he bids her farewell. She has come to be a
source of great comfort to him since his enlistment in the ranks of the
humble. The schoolday acquaintance has been renewed. He has learned to
appreciate the fact that he was the cause of her having donned the dress
of the sisterhood. His ambition to rise in the world made it impossible
for him to yield to the dictates of his heart and the mental vista that
opened before him at the close of his college course, did not have her
in it. The woman he saw there must be the favorite of fortune. He had
selfishly abandoned certain love for possible fortune and in the active
life to which he was at once introduced, all thoughts of Martha had been
driven from his mind.
But Martha had had no counteractant to soften or obliterate the thoughts
of her blasted hopes. The refuge of the convent appealed to her as the
one remaining avenue by which she might escape from her youth and its
recollections.
It is impossible for Trueman and Martha Densmore to ever again be
lovers; the inexorable ban of the church is between them. Yet they can
be friends. And Trueman feels that in Martha he has found his firmest
friend and advisor.
"You will hear from me from time to time," she says as they part. "I am
confident that you will do your duty; that you will awaken the finer
instincts in the delegates. With the scenes that have surrounded you in
Wilkes-Barre, you cannot be an advocate of violence as a means of
settling the struggle for the restoration of the rights of the people."
"It shall be my untiring labor to avert the adoption of any measure that
entails an appeal to force," Trueman assures her.
On his arrival at Chicago he finds the convention already in session. An
hour in the hall convinces him that the result will be nugatory. The
radicals are in the majority and the proposals they make are temporary
expedients that look only to appeasing the demand of the masses for
action against the usurpers of the public rights.
With a view to defeating the objects of the conference, the Magnates
have contrived to send a number of their hirelings as delegates. These
are among the loudest in demanding impossible remedies. It is not long
before Trueman discovers who these spies are, and he loses no time in
exposing them in open conference.
This action brings him into prominence.
"Who is this delegate from Pennsylvania?" asks Professor Talbot, a
venerable scholar sent by the Governor of Missouri to represent that
state, of Nevins, a neighboring delegate.
"He is a convert to the cause of the people," comes the quick reply.
"A tool of the Coal Barons, you mean," observes a New Yorker. "I knew
him three years ago when he was the attorney for the Paradise Coal
Company," he continues, "and a more relentless man to the miners never
was known in Pennsylvania."
"Yes, I know. He was once a counsel for the Paradise Company," assents
the champion of Trueman. "I know his record from A to Z. You can't find
a straighter man in this conference. He has come out for the people and
I believe he is sincere."
"Whoever he is, or whatever he has been," says the Professor, "it is
evident that he has the power of reading character. He was not here two
hours before he detected the presence of the goats in our fold."
"Would you like to meet him?" asks Nevins.
"Indeed, I should be pleased to do so."
Professor Talbot and the friendly delegate approach Trueman.
For an hour or more the three are engrossed in animated conversation.
Professor Talbot is delighted to find that Trueman is conversant with
the most complex questions of the hour.
"I shall make it a point to have the chairman call upon you for an
address," he assures Trueman at parting.
For three days the sessions of the conference are devoted to partisan
discourses. There seems to be no hope of reaching middle ground. The
newspapers ridicule the utterances of the speakers as the vaporings of
demagogues. And they are little else.
On the fourth day, true to his promise, Professor Talbot gets the
chairman to call upon Trueman for a fifteen-minute speech.
From his first words Trueman wins the attention of the audience. His
voice is full and far-reaching; his language simple, and it is possible
for every one to grasp his meaning instantly. He chooses to win the
delegates to his way of reasoning by force of the truth he utters rather
than by appealing to their senses by a display of forensic and
oratorical ability.
In the few minutes allotted to him, he reviews the industrial conditions
of a decade and shows where the insidious principle of class legislation
has undermined the prosperity of the people to bestow it upon the few.
In an unanswerable argument he pleads for the restoration of the rights
of the majority; by a rapid review of the causes that have led to the
downfall of the nations of the past, he shows that the unjust
distribution of the fruits of labor must inevitably lead to the
disintegration of the state.
His peroration is a fervent appeal to the delegates to reaffirm the
equality of man; it calls upon them to adopt resolutions advocating the
government control of all avenues of transportation and communication,
and for the strict regulation of all industries that affect the common
necessities of life.
"There is no law above that of the Creator. He did not fashion some of
his children to be damned with the brand of perpetual servitude; He did
not anoint some with omnipotence to place them as rulers over the many.
When He made mankind in His image, it was to have them live in fraternal
relationship. There should be no competition for the mere right to live.
Until God's design is declared to be wrong, I shall never cease to
counsel my brothers to live true to the Divine principles of liberty,
equality and fraternity."
With these words he closes his address.
There is no means for measuring the exact effect of his words. The
plaudits of an audience are an uncertain criterion.
In the final vote that is taken, after three other delegates have
spoken, a resolution is adopted calling for the appointment of a
standing committee of three to continue the investigation of the Trust
question until another year.
This result is not satisfactory to the radicals, yet they make no open
objection. To Trueman it is a source of gratification to know that the
heretical proposals of some of the delegates have been voted down.
The conference is on the point of closing when Delegate William Nevins
moves that the chairman of the special committee be empowered to
increase the number of the committee to forty at his own discretion.
This motion is adopted.
The conference ends. It has exemplified the old adage of the convention
of the mice to discuss the advisability of putting a bell on the cat.
All agreed that it would be for the good of micedom; yet no mouse had a
feasible method to advance for affixing the bell. The papers in every
city tell of the failure of the Anti-Trust conference to agree upon a
plan of action.
The millions of toilers bend lower under their burdens; the Magnates
tighten their grasp on the throat of labor.
In all the United States there is but one man who holds a solution of
the problem of emancipating mankind from commercial servitude. This man
has been a delegate. He has spoken but a few words; he has been present
as an auditor.
His hour for action is soon to come.
CHAPTER VIII.
A STARTLING PROPOSAL.
The special committee has been directed to hold meetings at intervals of
a month and to have a report ready by the first of the following
January. Thirty-seven of the most intelligent and earnest of the
Anti-Trust members have been placed on this committee by its chairman.
The meetings are now secret.
The first meeting is held in the hall that had been used for the big
meetings of the conference. After this the meetings are clandestine.
The comment that was provoked by the conference of the radical leaders
of the Trust opposition died out in the usual way, and then the interest
in the efforts of the special committee was confined to the few people
who realized the earnestness of the men who had decided to take the
Trust problem up and bring it to a speedy settlement.
Day by day the members of the committee met to discuss the phases of the
all absorbing question.
The managers of some of the largest corporations are warned of these
secret deliberations and institute a vigorous investigation. The aid of
the police is secured, and the officers of a dozen of the shrewdest
private detective bureaus are put in possession of the few facts that
have been ascertained. In a hundred directions public and private
sleuths are set in motion. But their untiring efforts are unavailing.
They have to combat a more adroit, more nervy and more intelligent force
than they have ever before been brought in contact with.
The Committee of Forty has its ever watchful sentinels on guard, and
every move of the detectives is anticipated and provided against.
Thus matters progress until on the night of June tenth a startling
climax is brought about by the report of the secretary of the committee.
At this memorable meeting there is a full attendance. The chairman, in
his call for the meeting, has intimated that very important business
will be transacted. He has in mind the discussion of a plan for
awakening the interest of the wage-earners in the effete Eastern States,
and the reading of a report.
What actually transpires is a surprise to him, as it is to all but three
of the committee.
When the routine of business has been gone through with, the chairman
announces that the meeting will proceed to the consideration of new
business, if there is any.
William Nevins, the man who had carried the Stars and Stripes at
Hazleton, now a committeeman who has always taken a subordinate part in
the work, asks to be heard.
Supposing that he is to speak on the one subject uppermost in the minds
of the committee, the chair recognizes him. Rising from his seat in the
back of the room Nevins walks to the front of the hall, and standing
before the chairman, half turns so as to face the men in the assembly.
From his first words it is apparent that he has a matter of grave
concern to impart. The attention of all is engaged.
"Mr. Chairman," he begins, "I am unaccustomed to speech-making; yet on
this occasion I feel that I am capable of expressing myself in a manner
that will be clear and forceful. I am to tell you a few truths, and in
uttering the truth there is no need of depending on rhetoric or oratory.
"As you all know, I am a poor man. How I came to be reduced to a
position little better than beggary is not known by any of you, for I
have studiously avoided airing my troubles to any one. To-day I intend
to tell the story. It will cast some light on the subject that we will
be called upon to discuss later.
"We have no time to hear the life-story of any one," sententiously
observes a man in the front seat.
"But you will have to take time to hear me," retorts Nevins, and he
continues.
"I was a graduate of Yale, in the class of 1884. My name was not Nevins,
then. After a year spent in travel in Europe I returned to the United
States and began to practice my profession of a civil engineer, in the
city of New York. My father had died when I was a child and had left my
mother a fortune of about $40,000. From this sum she derived an income
of $2000 a year. She gave me an allowance of $800 up to the time that I
began to work as an engineer.
"Two years after I had entered the office of a leading railroad I
planned an extensive change in the working of the road and submitted it
to the president. He approved of the suggested changes and put the
matter before the board of directors. Shortly afterward I was informed
that I could proceed with the work. The work was accomplished and the
officials were more than pleased. They made me chief engineer of the
road and a stockholder. I soon had a considerable block of stock. Then a
great Magnate looked at the road with covetous eyes, and ruin came upon
us.
"The stock of the road was depreciated and borne down on the Exchange
until the road became insolvent. All my money was in the road, and when
the crisis came I found myself stranded. The King of the Rail Road
Trust, Jacob L. Vosbeck, bought up the stock and then raised it to even
a higher figure than it had ever before attained.
"Ill-luck followed me and I have gone down, down, until I can scarce
make a living as a draughtsman in a shop. The curse of monopoly has
caused my ruin. I did not succumb to fair competition. I am now enlisted
in a fight against the usurpers of the free rights of the people, and I
declare to you all, that I am in this fight in dead earnest. By an
appeal to justice we can gain nothing.
"I was one of the sixty miners who were attacked on the highway at
Hazleton by the High Sheriff of Luzerne County. I witnessed the mock
trial in Wilkes-Barre. I have thought of all the possible means the
Trusts have left to us, and find that there is but one available.
"They have all the money and all the agencies of the law; they have
intimidated the humble and ignorant workingmen until these poor
creatures are no better than serfs, and to be assured of bread, they
work as voluntary slaves.
"What is there for us to do but to fight the magnates with their own
weapons? Intimidation is their deadliest method. The horrible picture of
a starving family is held up before the wage-earner, and he is asked if
he will vote to put his wife and children on the street. He is told that
if he will accept starvation wages, the Trust will let him make such
wages. In desperation he accepts the terms.
"What I propose is to intimidate the criminal aggressors so that they
will fear to make their fortunes at the expense of the honest, hard
working and credulous people.
"How shall it be done? Ah! it is a simple matter."
Here the voice of the speaker becomes husky, and he turns to face the
chairman of the committee. In almost a whisper he exclaims: "I propose
to give them an object lesson. They have given many to us." Again he
resumes his normal voice.
"Have you not seen mills closed before election time so as to coerce men
to vote as the mill owners directed? Has not this suspension of work
brought distress, starvation, death, to thousands of homes? Is it not
murder for men of wealth to resort to such means to win an election in a
free country?
"Well, I now propose to form a syndicate--a Syndicate of Annihilation!"
"Mr. Chairman," cry half a dozen voices. "Mr. Chairman, Point of order!
Point of order!"
Before the chair can recognize any of the speakers a general commotion
ensues. Men begin discussing with one another excitedly; there is a
perfect bedlam.
All the while Nevins remains standing as if awaiting an opportunity to
resume his speech.
At the expiration of some minutes order is restored so that his voice
can be heard. "Permit me to explain," he cries.
The committeemen, as if acting by a common impulse, cease to squabble,
and are attentive again.
"I propose to hear the circumstances under which each of you has been
brought to the condition that leads you to combine against the Trust;
and if there is sufficient ground for belief that you will be zealous
workers in my syndicate, I will admit you to membership. No man who has
not had a more serious grievance against the Robber Barons than I have
outlined, will be eligible. _I have told you but one incident of my
case._
"The work that I shall outline to you after hearing your stories, will
require stout hearts to carry it into execution.
"It cannot be accomplished by fanatics. It requires the concerted
efforts of men of sound judgment; men of courage. The assassin is a
coward at heart--the political martyr must be valiant."
The novelty of the suggestion that has just been made is the first thing
that appeals to the minds of the committee. They begin to realize the
horrid character of the proposition. Much discussion follows. Men want
to know what Nevins means by a Syndicate of Annihilation. Whom does he
intend to murder? Annihilation and murder are considered synonymous.
To all questions Nevins replies that the details will be given as soon
as the men recite their grievances.
Professor Talbot and Hendrick Stahl, the two men who are in the secret
with Nevins, advise the members of the committee to comply with the
demands.
Then begins the strange, startling recital of the stories of human
distress. Of the forty men of varying professions and trades, there are
those who tell of their efforts to stand up under the weight of the yoke
of commercial despotism. Each man is of impressing character and strong
individuality.
The chairman, Albert Chadwick, is the first to tell his story. It is the
prelude to the concerted cry of the oppressed--the cry which has sounded
through the ages as the one never varying note in the music of the
universe; the dread inharmonic monotone that marks the limitation of
humanity, exhibiting man's inability to convert the world into a
paradise.
CHAPTER IX.
ARRAIGNMENT OF THE TRANSGRESSORS.
Standing upon the little platform which serves as a rostrum, Chadwick, a
man of fifty, seared and bent, lifts his hand to command the attention
of the committee.
He is a figure that would do credit to the brush of a great artist. His
appearance is that of a man who has been deprived of the power of
looking at the world as a place of rest; he is a bundle of nerves, and
at the slightest provocation bursts into a storm of irascibility. A
tortured spirit lurks in his soul and is visible in his stern, tense
features.
As he begins the recital of his grievances against the Trust, it is
apparent that he means to give the audience an embittered story. So the
attention of all is centered upon him.
"Human liberty is the boon which man has sought since the dawn of
creation; it has furnished the incentive for his struggle to reclaim the
earth from the domination of brute force; it is the inherent idea that
the founders of this Republic sought to embody in the Constitution. But
Liberty must have as a complement unhampered opportunity," are his
opening words.
"The man who is dependent upon another for his livelihood is not capable
of enjoying real liberty, or of attaining happiness. When the men of a
nation are debased to a position of minor importance, where they can
only act as servants, they lose the stamina necessary to make them good
citizens. This condition now prevails in the United States.
"My own experience will exemplify this statement.
"Forty years ago I attained my majority. I was a citizen of the state of
Pennsylvania, and considered that I was a freeman. By the death of my
father I had come into a fortune of fifty thousand dollars. I lived in
the oil region, and sought to engage in the oil industry. To this end I
purchased land contiguous to a railroad. On my holdings a well was
located which yielded three hundred barrels of oil a day.
"No sooner had I begun to operate my well than the agents of the Oil
Trust, which had then but recently sprung into existence as a menace to
individual refining, came to me with a proposition to incorporate my
well in the Trust's system. The well was capable of earning a net profit
of seventy thousand dollars a year. The Trust offered me a paltry two
hundred and thirty thousand dollars for my plant. This I refused to
accept, for the actual value was one million dollars.
"Then by crafty insinuation the agents of the Trust intimated that
unless I sold my property and accepted inflated stock in the Trust and
allowed my well to be absorbed in the system, I would find myself
opposed by the mighty consolidation. Still I refused to abrogate my
right to conduct an independent business.
"Failing to allure me by their offers, which would have proved valueless
in the end; or of intimidating me by their threats, the agents reported
to the office of the Trust that I was obdurate and must be disciplined.
"Accordingly pressure was brought to bear on the railroad over which I
sent my product to a market. The railroad discriminated against me; it
gave the Trust a rebate on all oil shipped over the road and made me pay
the full schedule rates. Even against this detrimental condition I was
able to sell my oil at a small profit.
"I might have survived the unequal struggle had not the 'pipe line'
system been introduced. By this the Oil Trust transports its oil to the
sea-board at a cost that enables it to undersell all competitors. And
for a time the price of oil was reduced, and all the minor competitors
were driven into bankruptcy or forced to sell out to the Trust at a
ridiculously low figure.
"Owing to my well being centrally located I was able to hold out longer
than many others.
"John D. Savage, the Oil King, realized that some more potent means had
to be devised to crush me. This means was found in the expedient of
'Sacrifice' sales. At every depot where I sold, the agents of the Trust
offered to sell oil at figures lower than I could possibly sell it. I
lost my trade. In an effort to retrench, my fortune was consumed, and
from a position of affluence I descended to beggary, and had to join the
ranks as an employee. So bitter was the animosity of the Trust that it
sought to rob me even of the opportunity to earn a living. I have been
hounded from post to pillar; my life has been made miserable. I have
seen my family want for bread.
"And all because I withstood the assault of the Oil King.
"As an American I protest against the existence of a corporation that
can set at naught the mandates of the law; a corporation that can, with
utter impunity, resort to arson as a final means of gaining its illegal
end, as the oil Trust has done, again and again.
"I thank God that I still possess my fore-fathers' spirit of resistance
against oppression. There are few men who are in want, or in actual
dread of being thrown out of employment, however unremunerative, who
will assert their right. A nation composed of such men is not free, no
matter what its form of government may be.
"I am ready to do anything that will restore the right to the individual
citizen to engage in business; I am ready to make a stand against the
few plutocrats who now usurp the avenues of human activity; and I
believe that we will be able to enlist men in support of the idea that
the rights of the majority transcend the aggressions of the oligarchy of
American capitalists."
As Chadwick concludes his statement, Hiram Goodel, a delegate from New
Hampshire, obtains the floor.
"Coercion is the word that epitomizes my grievance against the Trusts,"
he begins. "It was by the exercise of coercion that I was driven out of
business. I conducted a retail tobacco store in Concord, in my native
state. My business sufficed to insure me a decent living, and a
comfortable margin to be husbanded as a safeguard for my declining
years. I had a wife and three sons. My sons were all under age, and I
kept them at school to provide them with good educations.
"There was competition in my business; such natural competition as is
met with in all pursuits. It did not, however, prevent my making a
success of my business.
"Then came the Tobacco Trust. It set out to control the retail trade.
This was to be effected by the inauguration of a system of "consigning"
goods to the retail stores with strict provisos that the retailer would
not handle the product of any concern out of the Tobacco Combine. In
order to ingratiate themselves with the store-keepers, the Trust
managers at first offered terms that were so far below the current
prices that a majority of the stores bound themselves to handle the
Trust goods exclusively.
"Three years passed, in which the independent tobacco manufacturers
strove to hold out against the ring. Then came a crash.
"I had opposed the innovation of binding myself to buy from one concern;
for I felt intuitively that as soon as the Trust was all-powerful it
would begin to exercise dictatorial sway over the retailer.
"My fears were soon justified.
"The Trust advanced the price of its goods to the retailer, and
compelled the trade to sell at the same retail figures.
"When this system of extortion was successfully launched the Trust
determined to reward its patrons, as a means of pacifying them for
reduced profits.
"The reward came in the shape of discriminating against the
store-keepers who still handled the goods made by the fast vanishing
opposition concerns.
"I was informed that unless I signed an agreement to use only the Trust
brands of cigarettes and tobacco no more goods would be sold to me. As
the Trust embraced all of the leading brands, that meant that I must go
out of business.
"My puritan blood boiled at the thought that I must submit to the
tyranny of a band of robbers. I determined to fight to the last. Four
years of business at a net loss, drove me into insolvency; then a
mortgage was placed upon my freehold, to be followed by foreclosure. I
still struggled on, under the delusion that I was in a free land and
that the Trust iniquities would not be permitted to crush the individual
citizen forever. The decision of the courts of the several states where
the Tobacco Trust was arraigned, upholding the Trust, disillusioned me.
But it was too late, I was a ruined man.
"My sons were forced to work in the cigar factory of the local branch of
the Trust; and I was obliged to apply for a patrimony from the
Government, as a veteran of the war for the emancipation of man from
slavery. On this slender pension I now live.
"Can anyone blame me for being a volunteer in the crusade against the
most insidious and dangerous foe that has ever assailed a land; a foe
that seeks to entrench itself by emasculating the citizens and degrading
them to a position of servants of mighty and intolerant masters?"
There is a pause. The aged speaker trembles with emotion.
"I am an old man, over seventy years of age, yet whatever vigor remains
in me will be expended in my last battle with the destroyers of free
government.
"What right has Amos Tweed, the Tobacco King, to tax me?
"I was born a free man; I fought to free an inferior race. Alas, I have
lived to see the shackles placed upon the wrists of my own sons. So help
me God, I shall strike a blow to make them free once more."
Overcome with the exertion of delivering his fervent speech, Hiram
Goodel totters. He would fall, did not the strong arms of Carl Metz
support him.
"Where is the man who can view this picture of patriarchal devotion, and
hesitate to give significance to the prayer that freedom may again be
the inheritance of the youth of America," demands Nevins in thrilling
tones.
It is apparent that the recital of the grievances of the members of the
committee is making a deep impression on every man.
Horace Turner, a farmer from Wisconsin, who had migrated to that state
when it was in its infancy, preferring its fertile plains to the rocky
hillside homestead in Vermont, is the next to speak. He is sixty years
of age, well preserved, temperate and fairly well educated.
"I can quote no higher authority than the Holy Bible," are his opening
words. "If in that book we can find authority for complaining against
tyrants; if we can find a prayer that has come down from age to age,
shall we not be justified in uttering it?
"Are these words from the Psalms meaningless? 'Deliver me from the
oppression of Man; so will I keep thy precepts.'
"There is vitality in this cry from the oppressed; because the oppressor
exists. You and I are both victims of oppression.
"I am a producer of wheat, the great staple of this country. You are all
consumers of my product. When I cannot make a living by producing wheat,
and you cannot purchase it without paying tribute to a band of
speculators, there must be in operation a damnable system of oppression
to bring about this condition, for it is not natural.
"The Wheat Trust determines what price I shall receive for my wheat; it
sets the price at which you shall buy it in the form of bread.
"Whether there is a bounteous crop or a short one, the Trust still
controls the wheat and flour and arbitrarily fixes their price.
"When the newspapers assert that the farmers enjoy the advance of the
price of a season's crop, they state an absolute falsehood.
"By the system that prevails in this country to-day, as a result of the
Wheat Trust, crops are sold a year in advance. There are never two years
of exceptionally large crops; so the benefit of the advance of one year
does not go over to the next.
"The farmers of this country are compelled, by the present system, to
pledge their next year's crop to the local wheat factors who control the
elevators. The purchase price is determined by the factor. The farmer
receives a certain number of bushels of 'seed' wheat from the factor,
agreeing to repay him with two or two and a half bushels of the coming
crop; a large percentage of the remainder of the crop is pledged to the
local store-keeper for the goods that the farmer must have to do his
work and to live upon.
"Wheat is the medium of exchange. The Trust's price is the measure of
value. Why? Because the farmer cannot sell to any one except to an agent
of the Trusts, as the Trust has arranged traffic rates with every
railroad; and the wheat, if bought by any one outside of the Trust,
could not be transported to a market and sold at a profit. This
statement is indisputable.
"The Wheat King, David Leach, depresses the market when the crop is to
be sold, and so gives a semblance of reason for the inadequate price he
allows the farmer.
"It is the farmer who does the planting; he has to run the risk of the
loss of the crop by drought, or excessive rain; he has to do the
harvesting. Yet he does not share in the just profits of the sale of his
product.
"And the consumer is made to pay exorbitantly for the bread that keeps
life in his body.
"If there were no Wheat Trust, no speculation in wheat and no
discriminating traffic rates, bread could be sold at a fair profit for
three cents a loaf, and the farmer would still be able to get a higher
price than he averages now.
"I have toiled as a farmer for two score years, and all I have in this
world is a farm of two hundred acres, valued at thirty-six hundred
dollars, on which there is a two thousand dollar mortgage at six per
cent. When the interest is paid and my yearly expenses are defrayed, I
am lucky to have one hundred dollars to my credit in the bank. For the
past six years I have been obliged to send whatever I had remaining to
my son, who has married and who is struggling to live in Milwaukee. He
is engaged as a brakeman on the railroad that exacts thirty per cent. of
the value of every bushel of wheat I raise.
"I am not one of the discontented, homeless vagabonds who the Plutocrats
declare are alone demanding the destruction of Monopoly. I am a citizen
who can foresee the inevitable result that will come from a perpetuation
of Commercial Despotism. I am not afraid to assert my opinions, nor will
I fear to act on any suggestion, that will insure independence to the
farmer and to all the citizens of the Republic."
Donald Harrington, a delegate accredited to Maryland, now begins his
arraignment:
"It will not be necessary for me to take the story of my ruin back to
the beginning; you are interested only in that part which has to do with
the effect of the Trusts upon me.
"I could say that they were the sole cause of my downfall, but in this
statement I should be doing the Trusts an injustice. I felt the first
downward impulse given me when I was a lad of sixteen. I had entered the
employ of a banking house and was a clerk in their counting room. It was
my especial duty to see that the books of the company were put in the
safes at night. This duty I faithfully performed for more than three
years.
"One day I was tempted to steal.
"It was an easy matter for me to take a sum of money from the drawer and
make away with it. I was not detected in the first peculation; this
encouraged me to take more. So matters went on until I was guilty of
having stolen a sum aggregating ten thousand dollars. I knew that I
could not keep the game up much longer, for the annual accounting would
disclose the deficit.
"Of the sums I had taken, I had less than half saved. I did not know how
I was to get out of the position in which I was placed. Then the idea
struck me that I might make the entire sum good if I could make a
successful turn on the Exchange.
"This I determined to try.
"From the first I was successful. Soon I had three times the sum
required to make up my peculations.
"I restored the money to the safe and breathed easily.
"This was my first venture in dealing with other peoples' money.
"The experience led to my entering upon a career as a banker and broker.
"For eight years I was actively engaged in rolling up a fortune. I was
sought out by the Magnates of many of the largest Trusts, and they
extended me unlimited credit.
"When the country was precipitated into a panic in 1893, I was not one
of the sufferers; I was one of the scoundrels active in bringing the
distress upon the people. I aided in the establishment of the
all-powerful Money Trust.
"Later I was interested in a big mining scheme. It appeared to me to be
one of the best things in which to invest money. I put the bulk of my
fortune in the mining stocks, and lost.
"In attempting to retrieve my losses I dissipated my fortune to the last
cent.
"The whole of my career as a banker was of a criminal nature. Nearly
everything I had touched was a speculative venture. The cursed practice
of watering stocks to three and four times their actual value was the
common work of my days.
"At the end I was caught in the net which I had so often thrown out to
ensnare others. My former partner, James Golding, the Napoleon of
Finance, wrought my undoing.
"All of this leads to this conclusion:
"I am an enemy of the Trusts now, because I know their methods; I know
the results that follow the practice of fictitious speculation. Before
you all I acknowledge that my past has been of the darkest and most
disreputable nature.
"I also wish to state that I have experienced a change of heart. It has
not come upon me solely because I have lost my fortune; I have felt it
creeping upon me for the past three years. In my inmost heart I feel a
beating that will not be stilled unless I am engaged in the work of
destroying the power of the accursed Trusts.
"That there is a chance on earth for a man to redeem himself, I am
confident. I have heard the call and have responded to it. I am resolved
to use the rest of my strength in battling with the enemies of the
people. And I am the more in earnest since I can never forget that I am
personally responsible for the distress of hundreds. Widows and orphans,
young and old, all have been my victims.
"What object Nevins may have in getting us to recount our grievances, I
do not know; but if it will lead to any good result, he may depend upon
me to give my untiring aid.
"I have but a word to add. Since my ruin, I have seen my wife and only
child, a daughter of twenty, languish and die before my very eyes. This
has embittered me against the men who have worked the ruin of the masses
more than anything else. I have pledged myself to avenge the sufferings
of humanity. I shall be doing something for the good of the race;
something to atone for the evil deeds I myself have done."
There is nothing in the recital of Harrington's life's history that is
of an exceptional nature. True, no one present is aware that he had at
one time been the head of the great bond issue plot.
But the delegates are looking for something of a far different tone than
a mere recital of crime and a fall from affluence to penury. Several of
the committeemen are on their feet demanding the floor.
Cyrus Fielding, the delegate representing the federation of stone
masons, is recognized by the chair.
Fielding is a man of short stature, his eyes betray a lacklustre that
might be the result of over-indulgence in liquor or want of rest; he is
thin and poorly clad, his face is cleanly shaven. At every pause in his
speech he runs his fingers through his thick dishevelled black hair, and
finishes this mannerism with wiping his forehead with the back of his
hand. His delivery is awkward and these repeated movements intensify
this awkwardness.
"I have a grievance against the Trusts that dates back as far as my
birth. I never had a fair start. My father was a victim of the power of
gold and I inherited his misfortune.
"My first work was as a helper in the great Pennsylvania Iron Trust's
works that are owned by that old man, the self-styled philanthropist,
Ephraim Barnaby, a hypocrite of the first water, who goes about the
world asking people how he can best dispose of his fabulous fortune.
"From the rank of helper I soon rose to the position of foreman of the
moulding shop. This was a most important place and I felt proud that I
had attained it in so short a period as three years.
"It was my ambition to learn all I could relating to the work in the
iron industry. Toward this end I spent four hours every night in reading
and experimenting. At the end of another three years I had a fund of
knowledge that put me in the front rank as a constructing engineer.
"But I was not a graduate of a college of engineering, so I could not
get the degree. The opportunity of utilizing my practical knowledge by
forming a competing company was closed by the bar of traffic rates.
"My employers advanced me to the rank of superintendent of the shops in
the largest iron manufacturing city in the state. I had to be satisfied
with a position under the iron masters.
"Then came the memorable strike that led to the killing of the men by
the paid detectives of the Iron Masters.
"The claims of the men were just, and as a man I could not side against
them. I put my fortune in with them. The details of the strike are known
to you all. The story of the shooting of unarmed mill hands at the
instance of the mill owners will never be forgotten; it has marked an
era in the history of this country.
"Well, I was a conspicuous figure in those days. The strikers hailed me
as a champion; the mill owners first sought to win me over; then they
contrived to do away with me. Three times I was assaulted by murderous
men who had been hired to kill me.
"When their schemes of violence failed they resorted to the most
effective method of destroying me. They discharged me and refused to let
me return after the strike was declared off. Not satisfied with having
turned me away from their mills they dogged my every step. Since that
day I have been unable to get employment in any mill in this country.
"As I am acquainted with the methods of the iron trade I have been able
to give the trade Union many valuable points. It was upon my suggestion
that the amalgamation of the unions was effected.
"From my intimate knowledge of the manufacture of iron I know that the
item of wage is less than fifteen per cent. of the cost of the completed
casting, yet the tariff on manufactured iron is on the average thirty
per cent. Where does the additional fifteen per cent. go? To fatten the
pockets of the favored manufacturer. But that is only half the story.
The fifteen per cent. that is supposed to protect the American laborer,
does it go for this end? Not at all. All of you are familiar with the
wage schedules in the iron industry. They have not been advanced five
per cent. since the imposition of the high tariff. So the manufacturer
gobbles more than ninety per cent. of the tariff bounty.
"It is because I keep telling the iron workers this truth that I am
hounded by the minions of the Trusts.
"We have allowed ourselves to be robbed long enough. I am an American to
the back-bone, and I propose to fight the men who have disputed this
country till I die.
"Let me say that to whatever Nevins may propose I am willing to lend my
support, provided the ends he seeks to obtain are honorable and the
means reasonable.
"As I am talking I cannot keep out of my mind the home which the Iron
Masters destroyed. I had a wife and two children who loved me and were
the idols of my heart. I saw this home destroyed. I saw my children
turned adrift and their mother forced to work to support them; for
during the first three years after the strike I could get nothing to do.
"With these memories which had as a climax the deaths of two nearest and
dearest to me, I have nothing left to live for but the fulfillment of my
resolve to break the power of the Monopolists who have control of this
country."
"This meeting will be protracted to the middle of next week if we all
take a half hour or more to tell our tale of woe," observes one of the
committee who cannot foresee the end of the discussion.
The chairman asks if the members wish to limit the time of the speakers
to five minutes, and this proposition meets with the approval of all.
So the remaining stories are told in short intensive sentences which
describe the heart-breaking history of men who have been trodden down
under the heel of monopoly.
There are examples of every type that can be imagined. Men who have been
defrauded of their ideas and patents; others who have been the victims
of unjust legislation, the dupes of the speculator, the betrayed friends
of men who have ridden to fortune on the backs of those who gave them
their first start.
Under the new ruling, the first man to be recognized is Herman
Nettinger, a man known to all the assemblage as an anarchist. He had
been admitted to the councils on the supposition that the best way to
pacify and placate the Anarchistic element was to offer them full
representation in the work of regenerating the government.
Nettinger had been one of the few men who succeeded in eluding the
police during the days of the reign of anarchy in Chicago in 1885.
He is a man of gigantic build, and of imperturbable placidity. When a
soldier in the German army had provoked him to the point where he had to
fight, this modern Titan had seized his tormenter and without apparent
effort had dashed the man's brains out by butting him against the wall
of the barracks. For this episode Nettinger had been compelled to serve
eleven years in the military prison.
During these years he had familiarized himself with the teachings of the
socialists, for his companions were, many of them, students of
sociology. Upon his release he had come to this country. He invented a
compressed air motor, but the American Motor Trust robbed him of his
patents.
In the space of five minutes Nettinger strives to defend the theory of
anarchy. He denounces all government as a make-shift, and asserts that
man should accordingly dispense with the forms of government and depend
upon animal instinct to regulate the social community. He names Samuel
L. Bell, chairman of the International Patent Commission, as the man who
contrived to rob him of his patent rights.
The meeting adjourns at the conclusion of this harangue.
In the hour that has passed the elements for a political revolution have
been brought together and combined by a master mind.
CHAPTER X.
THE SECRET SESSION.
It is apparent that the views of the men who have the most serious
grievances against the Trusts are yet to be heard. Most of the members
are glad that the meeting of the previous night had adjourned so as to
afford time for them to consider the salient points of the remarkable
proposal that had been sprung by Nevins.
One of the members, who was conspicuous at all of the meetings, a man of
pinched features and diminutive form, a veritable Pope Leo, as it were,
makes a motion, as soon as the meeting opens, that three of the members
be heard, and if their stories in any way coincide with the general
views of the others, the pledge of the remaining men, that they hold
equally strong opinions, be sufficient to admit them to the standing
necessary for the exposition of the plan.
As a means of expediting matters, the committee adopts this resolution
and the three men who are to tell their life's history are chosen. The
first of these is a man of the world, a fallen idol of society, who had
lately joined the ranks of the oppressed as a consequence of dire
financial difficulties.
When he made his advent in the company of the desperate men of Chicago,
he had adopted the name of Stephen Marlow.
This name is sufficient, for the men with whom he comes in contact are
not occupied in searching genealogies. They are working for results.
Marlow is in every sense of the word a leader. He has the grace of
manner and the personal charm that at once attracts men. His physical
development makes him the envy of the male sex and the idol of the
feminine. In stature he is slightly under six feet, with broad shoulders
and a fullness of figure that impresses one with the fact that he is a
good liver, yet withall muscular.
A pale complexion, strongly marked features and high forehead, with dark
brown hair and clear brown eyes, make him a conspicuous figure in any
assemblage.
As he rises to address his fellow-committeemen on this momentous
occasion, a flush of excitement adds to his attractiveness. He is a man
of thirty-five, with the experience of a man of fifty.
"Were I to take the course pursued by those who have already spoken to
you," he begins, "I might take you back to the scenes of my childhood
and portray pictures of affluence and luxury that few of you could quite
appreciate. But the days of my childhood are gone; I am a man and have
to fight the battles of men, so I shall limit myself to the few facts
that are pertinent to the discussion before us.
"In the past six months I have made the sudden transition from the
highest stratum of society to the one in which I am to-day. We cannot,
and do not desire to pose as contented men, or as men who are looking
for mild solutions of the problems that are now pressing for settlement.
I cannot, therefore, affront you when I say that by being among you I
prove that I am a radical reformer.
"What you will be interested in learning will be the reasons that
impelled me to come here.
"There is not a single thing to be hidden from you. I am here for the
purpose of satisfying a revenge.
"My every fibre is quickened by the desire to see the men who caused my
downfall brought to my level.
"I am selfish in my purpose; so deeply rooted are my resolves to be
avenged that I here and now state to you that any thing radical that may
be proposed by this committee shall receive my full support.
"And do you blame me? Listen to my reasons:
"Six years ago I entered the employ of Stephen Steel, the New York
banker. He is a man whom the people of the city and the country at large
look upon as a paragon. His words are constantly quoted in the papers;
his advice is sought by men of affairs.
"My friends told me I was indeed fortunate to be associated with such a
prominent man.
"Well, he was a schemer. At every turn he was on the lookout for a
chance to get at the wealth of others. I had not been in his employ more
than a month when I discovered that he was at the bottom of a plot to
loot the treasuries of three of the largest banks. His scheme was
diabolical. It would have entailed the loss of the savings of thousands
of small depositors.
"With this knowledge in my possession, I did not know just what my duty
was. To shut my eyes to the affair and let it culminate in disaster to
innocent thousands, would have been a simple matter. For several days I
was in a quandary, but my conscience at length conquered. I mustered up
courage enough to speak to my employer. I chose for my time the hour
after his return from church on Sunday. He had passed the plate with the
unction of a saint. Men and women had looked at him and inwardly said:
'What a fine man Mr. Steel is; if there were only more like him.'
"At the first intimation I gave him that I looked upon his plans as
illegal and immoral, if not absolutely criminal, he attempted to prove
to me in a plausible argument that bankers have a right to look out for
themselves, no matter who it hits.
"'This plan of mine,' he said, 'is just a stroke of financiering; it is
what any man would do if put in my place.'
"This did not satisfy me, and the expression of scorn that came over my
face did not escape him.
"From attempting to prove the righteousness of the case, he then took to
berating me for interfering with his business. Had I not enough to do to
attend to my affairs in his office, without prying into his outside
dealing? Was it a matter that he must lay before his manager? These were
the questions he put to me in sharp tones.
"I saw that it would be useless to argue with him so I arose and said:
"'As you will not listen to reason, as you are a hypocrite and a
villain, I shall be compelled to quit your employ. But I wish to inform
you that I shall expose this diabolical plan. It shall not be carried
out if I can prevent it, and you know that I am in possession of the
facts.'
"At this statement his anger knew no bounds. He railed at me as a
trickster. He charged me with wishing to blackmail him. Then seeing that
this was not the way to gain his point, he adroitly shifted his lines.
"Would I not take a share in the profits that were to be made? Did I not
see that banking was a business in which every advantage was to be
seized and worked for all that was in it? At length he offered to let me
in his firm as a partner. This last offer was one that a man would have
been more than human to set aside without weighing.
"He saw me hesitate. It was not the hesitation that comes as a
forerunner of surrender; it was the pause that a man will make when he
has to confront a momentous problem that is to have an effect on his
after-life. I did not intend to accept his alluring terms; it had been
my resolve at the outset to leave his employ should he refuse to abandon
his scheme of loot.
"In the few seconds that I stood facing him, the light of lust came in
his eyes, he became the incarnation of greed. A snake that sees its
quarry edging inch by inch toward the fangs of death could not have had
a more exultant, triumphant look shoot from its treacherous eyes.
"'You will be a man,' said he; 'you will listen to reason.' He uttered
these words not as a query, but as an assertion of fact.
"'I shall do as I have said,' was my reply, and I walked toward the
door.
"'But you do not mean to say that you refuse to become a partner?' he
ejaculated in amazement.
"'That is just what I mean. I tell you once for all that I will not be a
party to such crimes as you propose to commit.' "'Then I warn you, young
man,' he thundered, losing his self control, 'that if you attempt to
thwart me in my business I shall make it uncomfortable for you in this
city.
"'Yes, I tell you now once for all, that you will find me the most
unmerciful enemy that was ever known. I have too much at stake to let a
fool of a man upset me.
"'Do you think that the world will credit the utterances of a nobody as
against mine? Why, you will be lodged in an insane asylum. I shall have
that matter fixed at once.
"'By the way, where are the bonds that I entrusted to your care last
week?'
"'What bonds?' I demanded hotly. For even then I saw the purport of the
question.
"'What bonds? Ah, that will not satisfy a jury.'
"And the banker chuckled at the thought that he had struck upon the
proper weapon with which to crush me.
"In the confidence of his own power, and no doubt as a means of avoiding
publicity, he thought that the affair had gone to a point where he might
appear magnanimous. "'I do not hold any ill will toward you,' he
continued, 'it is as a friend that I speak. You are suffering from a
sensitive conscience, which is out of place in this age and generation.
"'I can pity you, but of course it would be impossible for me to allow
sentiment to rule me in business.
"'We will let this evening pass out of our minds. You will return to
your duties, and in the future let my outside matters be distinct from
your work and concern. But remember, not a word of this to any one.'
"As the last few words were spoken we walked as if by common impulse
toward the door.
"I bade him good-night, and the next minute I found myself on the
sidewalk. It was winter, and the cold bracing air soon made me alive to
the events that had occurred in such quick succession in the banker's
parlor.
"My mind was in a flurry. What was I now to do? Did my silence at
parting indicate that I had accepted his offer to return to work as his
clerk?
"With a muddled brain I walked on and on until I found I had reached the
entrance of the Park at Fifty-ninth street and Fifth avenue. I entered
the park and sank exhausted upon a bench.
"Then I began to review the words of our interview.
"It all became clear to me. I was in the power of an unscrupulous man.
He could throw me into prison at a word; if this was not to be desired
he could have me declared insane and put in an insane asylum. My word
was as naught against his. So I determined to work in his bank until I
could get the evidence that I needed to prove my case.
"I had misjudged my man, for a week later he called me into his private
office and informed me that he had no further use for me.
"_His bank wrecking scheme was successfully carried out._
"In vain I sought to awaken the interest of the press. The story I told
was not credited. I lacked documentary proof. When the crash came the
editors realized that I had told the truth. But it was too late.
"When I began to look for employment, I found that my name had been
blacklisted. Wherever I go, from Maine to California, I am confronted by
an agent of my arch enemy. I cannot even hold a position as a day
laborer.
"The damning brand of the magnate is on me, and employers are warned
against me. And all because I possess a conscience that would not stoop
to crime. I have stood out against retaliating as long as I can. Now my
vow is given to be avenged on Steel and his ilk."
Of all the committeemen none has a more distinguished bearing than
Professor Herbert Talbot. He is a scion of an honorable New England
family; the advantages of refined home surroundings and a college
education have combined to give him a polish that should win him the
respect and admiration of all who know him.
From the day of his graduation from one of the leading universities he
had begun to teach his favorite study, political economy. At fifty years
of age he found himself the recognized authority on economics, a
professor in his alma mater, and the recipient of honors at home and
abroad.
That was in 1894. What a difference a few years has wrought. Now he is
an outcast, driven from his position in the faculty by the order of
Rufus Vanpeldt, the Woolen King, the patron of the university. Talbot is
reviled by his fellow-collegians, and ostracized from the society in
which he had always been a leader; and all because he has had the
manliness to express the truth on the political conditions of the
country.
He has advocated the reduction of the tariff to a reasonable point; he
has been a staunch supporter of the income tax; his views on the money
question are deemed heretical and he is dismissed from the circles of
learning.
From being the submissive hireling and servitor of the educational
institution, he entered the political field as their most powerful
adversary. He is one of the leaders of the Anti-Trust movement. When the
committee of Forty was organized, he had been one of the first selected.
Many of the committee await his speech with lively interest. Whatever
view he takes of the proposition they determine to adopt. He is the next
member to be called upon.
In an impressive, convincing argument he approves of the proposition.
Not that it is faultless, but because it offers the only remedy for the
vicious condition of the country's social condition.
In presenting the arguments in favor of the adoption of the proposition,
Professor Talbot demonstrates that the centralization of capital in the
hands of a few men is the gravest mistake that a republic can permit to
occur. It creates an oligarchy that is more pernicious than one of class
distinction, since such a one can be coped with, while an oligarchy of
wealth possesses so many ramifications that it is practically
unassailable except by direct and physical means.
"It is the common belief that labor-saving inventions are accountable
for much of the distress that exists in this country," he says, "but
this is not so in so far as the inventions themselves are concerned.
"The evils that have followed the introduction of labor-saving machinery
are the results of capitalists seeking to squeeze the last cent of
profit out of their enterprises.
"When an inventor produces any improvement in manufacture he does the
world a good; when the manufacturer who adopts this invention, at the
same time discharges his adult male operatives and substitutes child
labor, he vitiates the good that has been done and works a great harm to
society.
"The crying evil of to-day is _child labor_, and the labor of women in
trades and at work that is manifestly fit only for men.
"I shall make no lengthy appeal to you to adopt a direct means of
securing your rights. I shall set you an example by announcing that I
pledge my support to Mr. Nevins in anything that he may do that has for
its object the emancipation of the women, children and men of this
country from industrial slavery.
"There is a living to be had for every inhabitant on the earth if he
will work. We in America should guarantee more than subsistence to our
citizens. A life of plenty is here for all if the social conditions can
be readjusted."
Peter Bergen, a socialist who represents Kansas, is the last to speak.
His views are those of the radical. Nothing but instant centralization
of all the land and property of the country to be owned and operated by
the people as a whole, appear to him to offer an adequate solution of
the social problem. He is ready to aid in any movement that is
calculated to bring this condition about. He rails against the tyranny
of landlordism.
"What justification is there to the laws that will permit an alien to
hold land idle in this country until American energy improves the
surrounding property? What justification is there in permitting an alien
to withdraw rents from this country without paying a tax toward the
support of the Federal government?
"I have fought for this country; I have paid a land tax on my farm and a
tax on everything I consume. What does the alien land-holder pay?
Nothing.
"I am ready to defend my home and country now. I will ever be loyal to
it, for it is the best in the world.
"Its government is not perfect; it is our duty to make it so.
"Let us confiscate the lands of expatriated Americans as an initial
step.
"The man who will not contribute to the support of the government does
not deserve its protection." His words are uttered with vehemence.
When he concludes this recital of personal grievances against the
Trusts, the chairman announces that at the next meeting the members will
be given full particulars of the purpose of the syndicate.
The forty men separate, each carrying with him the conviction that at
length the time has come when something definite is to be decided upon
in the war against Trusts.
CHAPTER XI.
MARTHA'S PREMONITION.
Trueman remains in Chicago after the close of the Anti-Trust conference
so as to be present at the National convention of the Independence
party. He is one of the delegates at large to this convention, and hopes
to be able to exert an influence over its deliberations, now that he has
won some renown as a speaker.
In the rush of the sessions of the Anti-Trust conference he had had no
time to keep his promise to Martha. Once only had he sent her a note
telling her of his safe arrival in the city. It had not occurred to him
that she would be anxiously awaiting a letter from him containing his
views on the results of the conference. Why should a woman be interested
in such matters?
It is with unbounded surprise therefore that he receives the following
letter from her:
WILKES-BARRE, JUNE 13.
_My Dear Friend:_
It has been so long since I have heard from you that I take
the initiative and write to ask you to forward to me as soon as
possible, an article embodying your views on the recent Anti-Trust
conference. I have a special reason for wishing this
before the assembling of the Independence convention. To
be frank with you, I have a premonition that you will be
honored with the nomination for the Vice-presidency. Your
friends in Pennsylvania, and in the other Eastern states, are
working for you. I am handicapped by being a woman, yet
in some ways it has proven advantageous to me.
By my peculiar intimacy with the families of this district,
I became acquainted with the fact that your name is being
mentioned as a possible candidate for the office. As soon as I
learned this, I set to work to 'boom,' as the politicians would
say, the incipient movement. Last night I was assured by
O'Connor, the local leader, that you were sure of the support
of the delegations of Pennsylvania and New York. For this
reason I can wait no longer for a letter from you.
Let me know at once if you look favorably on the proposition
of being a candidate for the high office.
Are you a member of the Committee of Forty? And what
is this body?
As ever your friend,
MARTHA.
Here is a revelation.
Unknown to him, his friends, and especially Martha, are at work planning
for his nomination as a candidate for the office of Vice-president. The
idea of his achieving such a success has never entered his mind.
How can an unknown delegate hope to receive the support of the
convention. It seems unreasonable, and he is on the point of writing to
Martha that the effort could not help but end in a ridiculous farce,
when an interruption prevents him from doing so. A card is brought to
his room. It bears the simple inscription:
A FRIEND.
"Invite the person up," Trueman tells the servant.
The apartments he occupies are in a quiet boarding house on Lincoln
Avenue. He has been in the house six weeks, during which time no one has
ever called to see him.
A minute passes in which he ransacks his mind in an attempt to think who
can have any business with him. It is half-past eight at night.
A loud rap at the door announces the visitor.
"Come in," calls Trueman.
"Good evening, Mr. Trueman." It is William Nevins who speaks.
"O, it is you, Mr. Nevins," exclaims Trueman.
"I owe you an apology," he continues, "for being surprised at seeing
you; but the fact is I am a stranger in Chicago and have had no
visitors. When your card came I could not imagine who could wish to see
me."
"I am well aware that you are a stranger in this city," Nevins replies.
"And as I am little better off I thought that I would drop in to have a
chat with you."
"We were delegates at the Anti-Trust Conference and will have much to
discuss," says Trueman, in his most affable manner. "I certainly am glad
you thought of me. Take a seat, and make yourself as comfortable as the
quarters will permit."
They seat themselves near the table. A pipe and a jar of tobacco lie on
the table.
"Will you smoke?"
Nevins shakes his head negatively, saying as he does so:
"I cannot talk and smoke at the same time. To-night I want to talk.
"The fact is I have become interested in you since your speech at the
close of the conference.
"You will remember it was I who suggested that the committee appointed
to investigate the Trust question be increased to forty.
"When I made that motion I had an object in view. I was anxious to have
you become one of the committeemen."
"Then the full committee has been appointed?" Trueman asks.
"The forty committeemen have been named. You are not among them, and the
reason is that the chairman is jealous of you."
"He can have no reason to be jealous of me."
"The fact remains that he is. I strove to get him to appoint you. He
flatly refused to do so. I could get no reason from him. So I concluded
that he fears you would outshine him in the work that the committee
contemplates doing. Your speech was masterly. I am not given to
flattery. I say candidly that it was the best delivered at the
conference.
"Since I failed to get you on the committee of forty, I come to see if
you will aid me in a project that will make the committee superfluous; I
have an idea that the trust question, monopoly and the other social
problems can be speedily solved."
"You did not speak at the conference; that was the place to propound
such an idea," interposes Trueman.
"Quite true. But I held my peace there, because it was not a place to
bring forth the plan that I have evolved. You will agree with me if you
will hear me through.
"My plan requires in the first place the services of an honest man--one
who is proof against the blandishments of the Plutocrats--who will spurn
the offers of gold and office that will be tendered him by the men of
wealth when they perceive that he is on the eve of winning the popular
support.
"Such a man is hard to find in this age of commercialism which has all
but quenched the spark of true patriotism in the hearts of the people. I
have sought for the ideal leader in all the States and was on the point
of giving up the quest in despair when I suddenly came upon him. Once I
determined that the man had been found, I set about learning his record.
It appears that he is the product of evolution. From the servant of the
Plutocrats he has come to be their most powerful adversary. In him the
people will recognize the long-looked-for deliverer."
Here Nevins pauses for a moment to let his words sink into the mind of
his interested listener.
"Mr. Trueman," he resumes, "I have decided that you are the man to lead
the people out of their bondage."
"I certainly feel complimented at your estimate of my integrity,"
Trueman replies, "but you greatly overestimate my ability and the hold
which I have upon the people.
"It was by the merest chance that I was elected to the position of
delegate to the conference. I have really little influence with the men
of my own State. This you must know if you have made a careful
investigation."
"I know why you are not the recipient of the full support of the men of
Pennsylvania. They cannot conceive of a man changing his views so
thoroughly as you have. But this lack of perception they will overcome.
"I want you to assure me that you will become the leader of the
Independence Party. If you do this I, in turn, will assure you of the
nomination for the Presidency.
"That I am not speaking of impossibilities you will be able to
understand when I show you the proof of the power I hold to elect the
man I decide upon.
"If I am not mistaken, you are opposed to violence as a means of
rectifying the social conditions of the people of this country."
"It has been my purpose to defeat every proposition that advised force,"
comes the quick response. "I am too vividly acquainted with the horrid
results that follow an appeal to force.
"My hope is that the people will regain their rights by the proper
exercise of the ballot.
"If they discard their all-powerful weapon to take up the sword or the
torch, the end must be the destruction of popular government."
"Were you in the position of the chief executive you would follow this
view? You would be as determined in suppressing violence as you were in
preventing crime of any other sort? Your gratitude to the people for
electing you would not blind you to your duty in preventing them from
instituting a reign of anarchy? I am correct in this supposition?"
Nevins looks Trueman in the eyes with a glance that seems intent on
reading his inmost thoughts.
"I should do my full duty under the constitution," Trueman declares
emphatically.
"But, really," he adds, "I cannot appreciate this situation. It is
inexplicable why you should interest yourself in my behalf to the extent
of seeking to bring about my nomination for the Presidency."
"My reason is not hard to divine. It is not you whom I am working for;
it is the people.
"In you I find the proper agent to fulfil the mission of a leader in an
hour of grave importance.
"Older men lack the power of attracting the masses. Of the young men
whom I have studied, none has the ability, the needed environment that
you have.
"Men are creatures of circumstances only when they permit themselves to
drift. If one cannot propel himself to a given haven of success he
should at least anchor in a place of safety.
"With you it is only necessary that you give me the sign, and you will
become the master of circumstances. You will be the man to lead the
people to the plane of high civilization that their government makes it
possible for them to attain."
For three hours Nevins continues to unfold in detail the plan he has for
accomplishing the nomination of Trueman at the coming convention. He
shows his prospective candidate letters pledging the support of a
majority of the State delegations to the man whom he should designate.
In explanation of his power as a leader Nevins states that he has been
the secret agent of the Allied Unions for three years, that he has been
deputized to select a man to be presented to the convention as a
possible candidate. If the man proves acceptable the delegates
representing the unions will support him.
"The Committee of Forty is working for you," he says in conclusion.
"Their work will bring them in all sections of the country and they will
be able to influence a great number of the people."
He gives no hint of the true mission of the committee. He knows that
Trueman would repudiate the party that would resort to so drastic a
means of rescuing the people.
"Have I your consent to bring about your nomination?" he asks.
"I shall have to give this matter much thought. You shall have my
answer--
"To-morrow night," Nevins interjects. "Delays are dangerous. The
convention meets in two weeks time."
"To-morrow night, then," assents Trueman.
Nevins leaves abruptly. He does not wish to weaken the effect he has
produced on Trueman by further discussion.
When he finds himself alone Trueman walks back and forth in the cramped
room. He is weighing a question that has never before been put to a man.
There is no doubt in his mind as to the sincerity of Nevins. It is clear
that this strange man, who, in a matter-of-fact way, asserts that he
holds the power of a great convention in his grasp, could have used it
for base ends; he could have chosen a man of less inflexible character
than Trueman.
"If I can bring myself to believe that it is because of my honesty that
Nevins has selected me, I shall give him my consent."
Trueman makes this mental reservation, then turns to the table and
writes a long letter to Martha. He sets the matter before her, tells her
he will enter politics, and asks for her advice. Regarding the Committee
of Forty, he tells her all he knows, which is to the effect that it has
been appointed to investigate the work of the Trusts and to make a full
report at the next Anti-Trust Conference.
He then goes to his bed. It is daylight before his mind has exhausted
itself. He sleeps until midday. On awakening he renews the consideration
of Nevins' proposal. At eight o'clock in the evening Nevins arrives.
Where Nevins had been the one to speak the night before, Trueman now
enters upon an exhaustive interrogatory. He asks for the most minute
particulars of the events that have brought him to the notice of Nevins.
To all his questions there is an instant reply. At the conclusion of
three hours Trueman definitely makes up his mind to try for the
candidacy.
"You may work for my nomination," he says, "and be assured if I am
nominated I shall strive to be elected.
"If it is the will of the people to elect me I shall be faithful to the
high duties of the office."
Nevins bids his protege good night, assuring him that they will keep in
constant communication.
The Committee of Forty, which is in session in a hall on the outskirts
of the city in the vicinity of the stock yards, is surprised when, at
midnight, Nevins appears before them to announce that he has selected
Harvey Trueman to be the candidate for the Presidency on the
Independence ticket.
CHAPTER XII.
TAKING THE SECRET OATH.
Eternal vigilance is the policy of the Magnates in keeping their sleuths
ever on the alert for the unearthing of the plans of the anti-trust
advocates. In every city detectives are untiring in their efforts to
discover the work of the Committee of Forty. It is suspected that the
committee is to obtain damaging evidence against some of the most
oppressive of the monopolies and bring the full story of the wholesale
robbery of the people out as a climax in the coming campaign.
By diligent investigation the detectives learn the names of the
thirty-seven men who have been added to the committee by the appointive
power of the chairman. It is also ascertained that the forty men are
still in the city of Chicago.
This fact is open to several interpretations. It may indicate that the
committee has determined to work from a central office; or that the
committee is a blind, intended to mislead the detectives into watching
it while another agency is at work. The importance of discovering the
true mission of the committee is therefore most urgent.
To inspire the detectives to solve the question, the Plutocratic
National Committee secretly offers a reward of $5000 to the man who will
obtain the desired information.
In holding their daily meetings the Forty observe the greatest caution.
Each member goes to the appointed place alone, avoiding as much as
possible attracting the attention of the detectives whom they know are
on the lookout. It is not their intention to have any mystery connected
with their existence, yet they wish to work unhampered by the servants
of the Magnates.
For its semi-monthly conference the committee meets at Drover's hall.
The deliberations are not open to the public; still, no attempt is made
to conceal the fact that there is a meeting.
Nevins and the other leading members decide that the secret meeting at
which he is to develop his plan shall be held in a place where there
will be no possible way for a spy to creep in.
They select a deserted rolling mill on the edge of the river in North
Chicago. This mill was one of the most prosperous in the city prior to
the consolidation of the iron industries. Immediately following the
combine the mill had been closed and the work that should have gone to
it was transferred to the Trust's great plant in Pittsburg.
For eight years the fires in the furnaces have been extinguished; the
incompleted iron work that lies about the ground has been given over to
the ravages of rust; desolation is the master of the mill.
The spot is an ideal one for a secret meeting place. The police never
enter the grounds except at long intervals, when the inspector of the
precinct is on his rounds. This official makes a perfunctory survey of
the mausoleum of dead industry. In his report the entry, "Iron works
vacant," sufficiently describes the place.
On the night of the secret meeting the members arrive at the mill by
various routes. There are three entrances on land and a wharf extends
along the eastern limit of the enclosure. Five of the delegates cross
the river in a skiff.
At nine o'clock all the men are present. They gather on the second floor
of the storage shed, a brick structure one hundred by one hundred and
fifty feet in area, and three stories high. There are no windows in its
bleak walls. On each floor in the wall that faces the interior court of
the mill enclosure are two corrugated iron doors. These doors are
closed, and effectually exclude the light from without, as well as any
light that might be made within. On the floor where the committee meet
there is a rough plank table that was used by the machinists of the
mill.
At this improvised tribunal the Forty meet to discuss the regeneration
of the nation.
Two candles at either end of the ten foot table serve to reveal the
dense darkness rather than to dispel it. The flickering-lights fall on
the faces of the men as they sit on the floor in a semi-circle. Their
eyes are alone perceptible, and the several members are unable to
distinguish one another.
The voice of one speaker after another issues from the darkness,
producing a supernatural effect upon the assemblage. The nerves of even
the most intrepid are at a high tension.
A gust of wind rattling the iron doors causes the men to start; the
lowest whisper is intensified to what seems a sonorous shout. In this
strange theatre, the actors in what is to be the greatest world-drama,
wait to be assigned their parts and to play the first act.
Nevins is the stage manager; he has chosen the settings; has assembled
the caste. Now it is his duty to give the signal for the curtain to
rise. As with the dramatists of old, he decides to introduce his
production with a prologue.
Advancing to the centre of the semi-circle he begins the explanation of
his plan of salvation.
Is it destined to end as many thousands have done, in miserable failure?
"What I propose will strike you as the ravings of a man who has lost his
last grain of sense," he begins. "Yet I am prepared to demonstrate that
the plan is not only feasible, but that it is the only one which can be
put into execution and carried through to a successful issue. The greed
and the power of the Trust Magnates is insatiable. They will not make
the least concession to the people. The day for arbitration is at an
end; the time for the people to act is at hand.
"Every means of defence against the Trusts has been absorbed by them.
What are we to do, surrender meekly, or fight?
"History shows us how terrible a thing war is--especially revolutionary
war. Now, I have thought out a plan by which war and its attendant
calamity can be averted and the people be reinstated in their power.
"There is not a man here who would not enlist to-day at the call for
troops. Many of you have already proven yourselves patriots by your
service in the field and on the ships of the United States.
"Now, it is not always necessary to be on a battlefield in order to show
courage. Men can be heroes in the humble walks of life.
"What I want of you is a pledge that you will stand by me to put out of
existence the deadly foes of this country. I want you to swear that you
will not flinch when the moment comes for you to fight, even to the
death.
"Are any of you unwilling to swear that you would fight the foes of our
country to the bitter end?"
No one speaks. The excited condition of the speaker impresses the men
strangely. They do not know just how to take him.
"I shall at the next meeting name forty men, each of whom has been an
enemy of the United States; each of whom has seen the growth of his
private fortune built upon the ruin of homes; each of whom has opposed
every measure for the alleviation of the condition of the masses of the
people.
"Many of them are known to you as offenders of national notoriety. You
have mentioned them in your recital of grievances.
"You all know of the bloody history of the Czar of the Lakes, Anthony
Marcus. The graves of the murdered sailors and longshoremen are a
sufficient indictment against him.
"Need I tell you of the horrors that have been daily perpetrated by the
ruthless oil magnate, Savage, in my own State of Pennsylvania?
"Is the right to check competition by the use of the torch to be
conceded to him? Is murder for the sake of commercial advantage to be
sanctioned as our national policy?
"The ancients were never so free or so powerful as when their citizens
exercised the right to proscribe unworthy citizens.
"Let us constitute this meeting into a forum and issue our list of the
proscribed. When the list is read I shall be glad to substitute others
for the names I have selected.
"The people are too subservient to aid us in carrying out the edict; so
I propose that we each select a man from this list of forty, and that we
then see that the edict is enforced. _We shall thus rid the earth of its
chief transgressors_.
"When the French revolution was brought on, the world knew nothing of
the possibilities of combined wealth as an agency for the improvement of
the condition of the human race. Now we are familiar with all of the
wonders that can be accomplished by the combining of money into
corporate form.
"We also know that at the present time all of the combined capital of
the world is held in the hands of a mighty ring of magnates. The
civilized world's billion of people slave for the benefit of a few
thousands, who have usurped the prerogatives and the rights of the
whole. Nowhere is this condition more aggravated than in this country.
We were all born freemen and we find ourselves to-day at the mercy of a
few thousand plutocrats. The advantage of improved production is being
kept from the people. We are denied our heritage.
"We cannot fight the magnates in the open, for they have attained
control of the army and the judicial forces of the government. We face
the alternative of submission or revolution.
"What does it avail if we send Representatives to Congress who are tools
of the magnates? What does it avail if Congress enacts laws which the
executive refuses to enforce?
"The ballot has become a weapon to destroy those it should protect.
Elections ruled by coercion are a mockery.
"I am in favor of inaugurating a scientific revolution. There is no need
to raise a guillotine in the city's square and drag to their death those
who are living upon the life's blood of the many. This is the crude way
to reach a desired end.
"The world is never lastingly horrified and deterred from evil by the
mere letting of blood. Crime can be obliterated only by reformation of
the criminal element of society. Condemnation of individuals who are
caught is productive of little good.
"The destruction even of an army momentarily shocks; but in the one
breath the people will cry, 'war is hell; let us have war, for peace
sake.' And when war comes it never affects the cowards, the usurers, the
rogues; they stay at a safe distance from the scenes of action, and,
with the instinct of the hyena, they profit on the nation's calamity.
Our trusts are the result of the jobbing that was started during the
Civil War, and which has never lagged since.
"The fight that I would have you make is against forty cowards and
scoundrels who are sucking the very life out of the country--the forty
who represent the high council of the magnates. Let it be a personal
fight, a tourney; you the Knights Errant who ride against the dragons.
"When the world awakens some morning and reads that at a given hour the
forty Robbers of America were sent to their eternal resting place with
their crimes on their heads, the shock will not pass away in a day. It
will be far different from reading of a battle fought six thousand miles
from Washington. Then will be the time for the men who have the good of
the people at heart to reestablish them in their rights.
"Money is the god that the Nation is asked to worship. It makes fools of
the majority and knaves of the rest.
"It will take some unprecedented occurrence to stir the masses. The
firing on Fort Sumter shook the Nation more than the carnage of
Gettysburg. The Nation has come to be apathetic on a vital question;
even more so than in the ante-bellum days. The dry-rot of Commercialism
is consuming us. We are governed by dividend worshipers. We must act, if
our manifest destiny to be a lasting republic is to be fulfilled.
"If the taking off of the forty men would do the work that I wish to see
done I would be glad; but it will require a sacrifice on our part of
more than our prejudice against taking of life. We shall each have to
kill our man, and then commit suicide."
"What!" ejaculate several.
"We shall be obliged to commit suicide. There is no other course open
for us, for if, on the announcement that the forty men have been
murdered, there is not the still more surprising statement that the
murderer of each is found dead beside the slain, the effect will be
common-place, and everyone will say it is a cowardly plot to kill forty
of the 'best citizens.' There is no way out of it. You would all gladly
fight with an enemy of the country to the death. To rescue the flag from
the enemy you would face a hail of lead.
"This flag of Freedom is defiled to-day by the Magnates. You are asked
to rescue it. It was snatched from my hands on the highway as I went to
present a petition to my fellow citizens.
"When each of us has been allotted his man we will work to the
accomplishment of the plan at the given time. On each there will be
found a letter explaining what led to the killing of the public enemy.
These forty letters will appear in the papers throughout the land; they
will be compared and found to be counterparts; then the public mind will
grasp the significance of the seeming murders. It will then be regarded
as an act of deliverance. In place of being regarded as murderers we
shall be recognized as men whose love of country impelled us to
sacrifice our lives unhesitatingly.
"By the blotting out of forty of the chief despots, and the publication
of the reasons; and by the announcement that the people are determined
to regain their rights, the road to National Ownership and Control of
Public Utilities, and the regulation of the finances and commerce by the
government, will be materially cleared.
"In fact, I am confident that the next election after this object lesson
will find the robbers ready to sell at a just price and the people eager
to come into possession of their own?"
"We will time the execution of our design so that it shall occur on the
13th of October, four weeks before the National election. The
Independence Party will have as its candidate a man who is known for his
honesty and ability; who is an avowed opponent to force either by the
magnates or the people. The people will be eager to entrust their safety
in his hands.
"The dread of a repetition of the edict of Proscription will cause even
the supporters of the Robber Barons to prefer the election of the
people's candidates, than to face the results of the election of a
Plutocrat."
The Chairman interrupts the speaker: "We will not take a vote on this
question to-night, so I should suggest that the meeting be brought to a
close. This will afford us all time to further consider the
proposition."
The meeting closes in silence. There is a stern anxious look on the
faces of many of the men; others look as if they are on the point of
fainting. They reach the court-yard and seem relieved to get a breath of
fresh air.
The two members who represent the Anarchistic element are the most
depressed. They speak to several of the men from the socialistic orders
and try to get at the reason why they shall have to commit suicide for
doing what they believe to be the best thing for the world. No one is
able to give any very good reason, so the two anarchists go to their
homes in any thing but a serene frame of mind.
At the meeting held the following night, the members discuss the
momentous proposition in all its details, the result being that they all
agree to pledge themselves to the carrying out of the edict of
annihilation.
Without unnecessary ceremony each member of the committee takes the
preliminary oath that Nevins demands. The reading of the list of the
proscribed is postponed for a week.
From the time the committee decides to take the serious step, there is a
decided change in the attitude of many of them toward William Nevins.
Some of the men have a vague notion that he is not sincere; that he is
an agent of the Magnates.
Not that he has said a word that would lend color to this belief, for,
on the contrary, it was he who expressed his views freely as originator
of the drastic plan. It comes rather as the result of his being superior
to his colleagues in many ways. His reserve of manner, his invariable
good judgment and the exhibition of his erudition, instead of endearing
him to the members, make them distrustful of him.
A free expression of the feeling that exists is not made, however, until
the evening of the allotment. This is the occasion which the men who
hold Nevins in disfavor have determined shall be made the moment for his
dismissal from the council and for a change in his plan, if not a total
rejection of it.
Before the appointed hour of the meeting, these skeptics meet in secret
conclave.
"It will be our duty to-night to decide upon the means by which the plan
we have been considering may be carried into execution, or abandoned,"
states the chairman of this impromptu meeting in a perfunctory tone. "If
there is any preliminary matter to be discussed, I am ready to entertain
it."
This brings three of the men to their feet.
Coleman, the delegate from California, is recognized.
"Mr. Chairman, I am opposed to allowing any man to take part in this
work who is not in thorough sympathy with the rest of the committee. It
would be a manifest impossibility for this very dangerous and
unprecedented undertaking to be launched with the possible danger of
there being a spy in our company.
"I am not prepared to say that there is such a spy here, yet until it is
satisfactorily demonstrated that we are all of us true friends of the
laboring men of the country, I shall be against proceeding to the
further outlining of the plan.
"It is not enough that a man profess friendship. He must be able to show
by his acts that he has done something for his fellow-men besides
theorize."
These views are quickly seconded. Then follows a talk among the men as
to what each of them has done to establish a record as a friend of the
masses. From the statements and the corroborating testimony of
dissenters, all of the members, with the exception of Nevins, pass
satisfactorily. He has no acts to his credit. No one admits knowing of
him outside of his work as a committeeman. Not one of those in
attendance at this special meeting will speak a word in his behalf.
At this juncture, when it looks as though he is to be ruled out of the
committee and his plan repudiated, Hendrick Stahl asks to be heard.
As Stahl is a member of high standing and the leader of a strong labor
party in Minnesota, he is permitted to speak. In a few forceful words he
denounces the men for their ungenerous suspicion; he tells them that he
has known Nevins as a friend and co-worker for years.
Not without a visible degree of dissatisfaction the objecting members
accept the situation and agree to attend the meeting to hear the reading
of the list of proscribed. The men present do not know that Nevins had
planned the seeming rebellion to test the sincerity of the men whom he
is to take into his full confidence; that he has Professor Talbot and
Hendrick Stahl working as his lieutenants.
Nothing now standing in the way of the plan, the men await the hour for
the night session. They are eager to hear the reading of the list.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LIST OF TRANSGRESSORS.
At length the hour arrives in which the men are to be given the names of
the transgressors. It would be disastrous to have any knowledge of the
affair fall into the possession of the sleuths of the Trusts; so every
precaution for secrecy is observed. The loft of the deserted mill is
again chosen as the place of meeting. A thorough search of the
storehouse is made, and then the committee assembles in the narrow
semi-circle.
After the meeting is called to order, there is an apparent apathy on the
part of a number of the Eastern members. When questioned they freely
admit that they do not believe their constituents would sanction the
drastic measure.
Nevins is absent on his visit to Trueman. He has arranged with Professor
Talbot and Stahl to delay the meeting and put the members through
another test.
The proposition is argued anew.
It is explained that each man is called upon to make an equal sacrifice;
that there is no difference in declaring one's patriotism by enlisting
in the army or navy to fight a common foe, or in being one of a
numerically small and intrinsically strong army of forty. The Trusts and
Monopolies have proven a menace to the people, and can consequently be
looked upon as a foe to the government, to be dealt with accordingly.
A unanimous decision to carry out the plan is reached.
At this juncture Nevins appears.
He asks permission to proceed with the reading of the list of the
proscribed. He is recognized and begins his startling speech.
"In the lapse of years one is apt to forget the springs from which the
wells of human action are fed; it is commonly the lot of man to sink
into a state of mind that is at once unreceptive and unretentive. The
result is that at the age of thirty he finds himself incapable of
grasping new and difficult conceptions. This is the reason why so many
injustices are permitted to exist in the world. Men in their youth are
thoughtless; in their mature and old age they are neglectful or
willingly negligent.
"A degree of success or a degree of failure has a like tendency to blunt
the finer qualities of the mind. A man with a competency will not take
the troubles of his fellow man to heart. The unfortunate man who has not
the wherewithal to support his family is in no position to take the
initiative in a labor movement or in a political revolution.
"So the work devolves upon the few men who have the means and the
inclination to strive for the betterment of humanity.
"Yet even these men are not always capable of judging events by their
true proportions and relations.
"Advancement is the one thing that reformers fear. The ends they would
attain are almost always reconstructive; they are never creative."
Nevins utters these words with impressive emphasis.
"These remarks I have made by way of prelude to the matter I shall now
proceed to discuss directly and earnestly.
"We are each and all convinced that the pernicious system of fostering
monopolies that has been instituted in this country can have but one
result, the undermining of our popular institutions, and in their place
the substitution of moneyed Plutocracy. This result is abhorrent to
every true American.
"Now, there is no way to put an end to monopolies except by the people
rising in their might and reassuming their own.
"The hypocritical advice of the leaders of the great universities, that
the people ostracize the Magnates, has now ceased to satisfy the
exigencies of the case. What sort of ostracism would the President of a
University endowed by the millions of a Magnate, propose to have
enforced against his master?
"Another of the proposals emanating from the hireling counsels of the
Trusts, is that the methods of the Trusts be placed under the
searchlight of publicity. A pretty programme, indeed, were it not for
the fact that the very men who propose this method of dealing with
monopolies would be engaged by the Magnates to defend them from
exposure.
"To invoke the aid of the courts is to be brought face to face with the
servants of the Trusts. Where is the Attorney-General who can
successfully prosecute a Trust? The only one who was ever sincere in his
attempt met an insurmountable barrier in the courts before which he
arraigned the guilty.
"And the votes of the people, do they avail?
"The executives and legislators whom they elect are false to their
pledges.
"The great sin of this country is the worship of gold. Human life is
held as secondary to the dollar.
"Who then shall deliver the people from the bondage that has come upon
them?
"Unguided, they are as a flock of sheep without a shepherd. False
prophets, mercenary leaders, are an abomination. They have been and are
to this day, the clogs in the wheels of progress.
"The work of rejuvenation must be done by an intrepid few. It cannot be
entrusted to visionary men, to fanatics, to men who detest government of
any form or to men who are willing to suffer present ills rather than
face temporary discomfiture.
"To carry on a crusade one must surrender self.
"If our plan did not embrace more than the annihilation of forty of the
Transgressors it would not be raised to a higher plane than wholesale
homicide.
"But we are to follow the course which the Plutocrats have traversed.
They have destroyed individual liberty; they have entrenched themselves
in our halls of legislature by bribery; our executives are their
puppets; our courts are their final buttress. To reclaim the rights of
the people we must reach the powers in control; the actual men who
engineer the scheme of public loot. These men have sacrificed human
lives to attain their ascendency. We must demand, we must enforce an
atonement.
"Because we are to deal with the chief transgressors, who represent a
small number, our deed will be regarded in the light of murder.
"Were the magnates in the field as an open foe our assault upon them
would be hailed as an act of heroism. Shall we be deterred by
consideration of a difference in mere words?
"I propose to vindicate these so-called murders, which we are to commit.
The atonement will be frightful. Will it be more so than the conditions
which necessitate it?
"Are the lives of forty soulless men to be compared with those of
thousands who are yearly sacrificed to sordid commercialism?
"Are we to extend our commerce at the price of a life for every dollar
of foreign trade?
"Men prospered in this country before the reign of the Trust Magnates;
men grew rich through ordinate profits, and the prosperity of the
country was the prosperity of all. To-day men seek to enrich themselves
by preying on the necessities of their fellowmen.
"Can the cry of tyrants and sycophants drown the wail of the innocent
children and women who have been chained to the wildcat car of Modern
Commercialism?
"In compiling the list of Transgressors, I have selected no man merely
because he is possessed of great wealth. There are many millionaires who
have earned their fortunes by honest endeavor and in strict conformity
with the laws of the land. I have discriminated against those who have
prostituted the laws of God and man; not a man whom I shall declare
proscribed but he is known to all men as stained with the blood of
innocents.
"'The voice of the people is the voice of God.' This voice cries to us
from four million mothers' mouths for deliverance from tyrants who
compel them to work for a living even in the hours of their pregnancy.
The child laborers of this land of freedom raise a piteous plea.
"Do you wait for an actual rain of hell-fire as a sign that God's will
is not being done?
"It is our duty to strike a blow at Plutocracy that shall destroy it for
all time. We will act as sovereigns of the land. In us resides the
supreme rights of mankind. Our edict cannot be enforced by the courts,
so we will act for ourselves.
"The names I read are not given in any fixed order; each man is equally
guilty."
Here Nevins takes a slip of paper from his pocket and begins to read:
"By reason of his treasonable act in furnishing the Nation's defenders
poisonous food while they were engaged in actual war, and for continued
vending of deleterious food to the citizens at large; for his
conspicuous participation in the formation of the monopoly of the meat
products of the country, for the purpose of extorting tribute from the
masses, I name Tingwell Fang as one of the transgressors. This man has a
fortune of $200,000,000; more than the life earnings of 2,000 men
engaged in ordinary pursuits for a period of thirty years each.
"Judge if God ordained that one man should be possessed of such fabulous
wealth when His Son gave as our prayer, 'Give us this day our daily
bread.'
"As the controller of the Wheat Trust, by which the grim hand of famine
is laid on the nation, and a tax levied on our subsistence, I name David
Leach as another of the transgressors. He has collected $100,000,000, in
sums of one and two cents from the millions of men, women and children
of this country. He stands between us and our daily bread.
"I need not portray the sufferings that are inflicted on the nation by
the presence of the Coal Trust. From the miners to the consumers the
tale is one of ever-increasing awfulness. Man to-day, who must live in
the northern and temperate regions of our country, cannot endure the
cold of winter without artificial heat. He cannot go to the virgin
forests, for the land is owned by private individuals; he cannot go to
the mines, for they are the property of the coal barons. He must
purchase the coal that is needed to heat his home.
"This makes coal not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life.
"In the hands of the Trust the price is raised to the highest possible
point. The monopoly is complete; the demand perpetual.
"Every home where coal is consumed is a witness to the rapacity of the
Coal Trust. I therefore name as one of the transgressors, Gorman Purdy,
President of the Coal Trust, the man who ordered the massacre of the
miners at Hazleton; who has driven widows and orphans from the mining
towns to let them starve on the highways. He is the possessor of
$160,000,000, the equivalent of the earnings of 10,000 miners for
forty-five years.
"I name as a transgressor, Ebenezer J. Sloat, President of the Leather
Combine. His single fortune is $80,000,000. This man succeeded in
effecting a consolidation of all of the leather producers; now the
nation pays the Trust a royalty on every pair of shoes that is sold.
"He has driven the cobbler out of existence and has set children and
women at the machines which turn out completed shoes, on which not a
single part has to be made by skilled labor.
"It is not in the trades alone that the Transgressors are to be found.
They have developed in high places.
"I name as one of the proscribed, ex-Supreme Court Justice Elias M.
Turner, who, at the demand of the Magnates, recanted his judgment on the
question of constitutional taxation, and left the humble citizens to
bear the burden of taxes while the Trusts and Monopolies go practically
exempt. This act of betrayal to the public weal is the more atrocious as
it was done by a man who had been invested with the highest honor that
the nation could bestow upon the ermine.
"If the wearer of the robe of justice outrages his garment is it to
remain an invulnerable shield against our righteous condemnation? He who
doles justice, must himself be its chief exemplar.
"Another of the high servants of the people who has betrayed his fellow
countrymen, is ex-Attorney General Lax. It was his masterful policy of
inaction that permitted the trusts and monopolies to intrench themselves
during the four years that he stood as their buffer, against all efforts
of the several states to curb them.
"Entering the office as a man of moderate means he left it possessed of
a fabulous fortune--the bribe money of the Magnates. And not content to
retire from office, and cease his nefarious trade, he is to-day the
counsel for the Money Trust. It is his mind that conceives the
interminable means for forcing the Government to issue bonds for the
benefit of the Banking Syndicate?"
"It was Herbert Lax who made me a bankrupt," exclaims one of the
committee. "He caused my brother to commit suicide. If ever there was a
cold-blooded villain, Lax is the man."
"His acts were those of charity compared to some of the Transgressors,"
observes Nevins, before he continues to announce the list. "Is the
bankrupting of men to be compared with the heinous crime of enslaving
children?
"The Cotton King, Herod Butcher of Fall River, who thrives on the life's
blood of ten thousand minors--pitiable slaves of his looms, is one of
the transgressors who must atone for a life-long career as a merciless
infanticide.
"No man is so base that he would stand by and see a child ruthlessly
slain. Yet the nation stands supinely in the presence of a system of
factory labor which tolerates the inhuman employment of children. The
hazy halo of legality is between the transgressor and the people; and
men remain unmoved.
"It was for humanity's sake that our countrymen gave their life
ungrudgingly on the battle-fields of Cuba. But what of the inhumanity at
home? A word spoken against an American manufacturer is a crime in the
eyes of the Magnates, and the offender is chastised accordingly."
"I have three sons who grew to manhood, stunted and untutored, who had
to work for their daily bread in the mills of Herod Butcher," declares
Martin Stark, the Rhode Island committeeman.
"Judas D. Savage is another of the transgressors. A hundred flaming oil
wells lit by the torch of the incendiary, hired by his gold, wrote his
proscription on the scroll of high heaven.
"And Roger Q. Alger, of the defaulting Savings Bank dynasty comes to you
recommended by the cries of anguish that have been uttered by thousands
of widows, orphans, struggling husbands and provident wives, who have
awakened to find their savings distributed as booty to the Barons.
"But what need have I to recount the misdeeds of this list of men. If
the first man or woman whom you meet on the street cannot give you a
description of them that will stand as an indictment, then consider the
men I name innocent!"
He then completes the reading of the list. There is a painful silence
when he ceases to speak. The Forty seem absorbed in deep thought. The
chairman finally speaks:
"You have heard the reading of the list," he says. "If it is your desire
to substitute names for those mentioned, now is the time to propose the
change."
"I move that the list be adopted as read," Carl Metz suggests.
"I second the motion," says Professor Talbot.
Every committeeman votes for the adoption of the list.
The names are written on slips of paper and placed in a hat. As each
committeeman passes the table he draws a slip.
"You have all signified your willingness to carry out the terms of the
edict of annihilation," the chairman explains. "It now remains for you
to redeem your pledges. If there is one of you who regrets the step he
has taken it is not too late to withdraw."
There is profound silence, and the men stand immovable.
"Two months from to-day then, October 13th, our Syndicate of
Annihilation will declare its dividend; this will require the summary
taking off of the Forty Transgressors and our self-immolation." Chadwick
pronounces these words slowly, impressively:
"We will separate to-night never to meet again in this life.
"If we are true to our purpose we will not have died in vain." Without
formal partings the men leave the store-house.
Nevins is the last to depart; he draws the remaining slip. It bears the
name of "James Golding, Bond King; capital, $400,000,000; occupation,
United States Treasury Looter."
BOOK III.
The Syndicate Declares a Dividend.