_WITH The WORKMEN_
I think we first realized the worth of Angus Strachan the year of the
great strike among the mechanics of New Jedboro. That was a terrible
year, and the memory of it is dark and clammy yet. For our whole town,
and almost every man's bread and butter, rose and fell with the industry
or the idleness of our great iron manufactories. To my mind, the cause
of the trouble was twofold: first, that the proprietors were very rich;
and second, that the agitators were very scoundrels. For we had as happy
a class of working men in New Jedboro, take them on the whole, as the
God of work looked down upon. They were in receipt of fair and
considerable wages, their shops were clean and well ventilated, and
their hours reasonably short, especially if compared to those poor
creatures whom greed and selfishness keep behind the counters till
twelve o'clock on a Saturday night. And I have noticed that those who
howl the loudest about long hours are those who postpone their shopping
till ten or eleven of these same Saturday nights.
For the most part, they owned their own homes and the plots of ground
they gardened, and I do contend that the watering-can and the spade and
the pruning knife are a means of grace. Very many of them made twelve
shillings a day, which is three dollars in our good Canadian money, and
some of the highest paid made twice as much. And there was work for them
every working day and every working hour of the day.
The peace was broken when two sleek and well-dressed agitators came to
town, agents for the Central Organization, whose mild and pleasant duty
it was to tell free-born working-men when they were to work and when to
starve.
These gentlemen soon precipitated a general strike, in which they took a
highly sympathetic part, reviving the flagging courage of half-starving
wives and children, exhorting them to endure unto the end; and be it
said to their lasting credit, these aforesaid gentlemen toiled
faithfully to spread their new evangel, desisting only three times a
day, when they repaired to their six-course meals at the Imperial Hotel.
They pointed out, between meals, to the hungry men how well-pleasing was
their hunger in the sight of heaven, for it would help some
fellow-workmen three thousand miles away, and possibly be of benefit to
some few who had not yet been born. Hunger, they pointed out with lofty
ardour, might not be comfortable in every case, but it was glorious,
and in the line of immortal fame. All of this was somewhat marred by
their occasional gulping and hiccoughing, for six-course dinners are not
friendly to ethereal oratory. When one of them got through, the other,
having finished the picking of his teeth, would take the stand and
divulge anew to these underfed immortals the secrets of the Book of
Life.
Then their poor dupes would cheer with a desperate attempt at courage,
but it was to me like the bleating of sheep that are led to the
slaughter. Wearily they sought their once happy homes, to find empty
larders and broken-hearted wives, their wondering children crying for
the necessities they had never lacked before, their clothes in tatters,
and the roses departed from their cheeks.
Many a sick wife and ailing child did I visit then, pining for the
little delicacies their breadwinner could not afford to buy--all of this
at the behest of two bespangled gentlemen, who even then were writing to
their distant wives, enclosing substantial checks, and descanting
eloquently upon the sumptuous fare at the aforesaid Imperial Hotel.
Two sights there are in this panoramic world which greatly madden me,
and they are twins.
The first is the spectacle of a pot-bellied landlord, his wife and
family sated with every luxury, as he smilingly takes across the
bar--have you ever seen a snake swallow its prey, an equally slimy
sight?--the five-cent piece of some poor fellow whose child hath neither
toy nor bread, and whose broken wife, struggling in God's name to shield
her children from indecency and want, will tremblingly explore his
pocketbook at midnight, only to find every farthing of his wages gone.
For the aforesaid smiling landlord hath poured it into the satin lap of
the equally smiling wife at the Travellers' Rest.
And the other sight is the spectacle of a complacent gentleman, organ
for the Trades and Labour Union, who alighteth from his Pullman car to
ply his incendiary trade, living in the lap of luxury, while weeping
wives stroke the famished faces of their hungry bairns and dumbly plead
with God that this cruel strike may soon be over.
It was at such a time as this that Angus first impressed us with his
real power. We had seen much of him in the years that had passed since
he spent his first New Jedboro night beneath our roof. Often and often
he would spend the evening with us, chatting on pleasant topics or
teaching our Margaret the high things of chess, at which he was
well-nigh a master. But I little dreamed then what fateful moves there
may be even in a game of chess, what mating and checkmating and sundry
other operations may be sublimely mingled in that so interesting
struggle.
We heard with pleasure that Angus was making rare progress in his chosen
trade, and even now, although early in his twenties, he was head
draughtsman in all that great establishment. Night schools, with wide
and constant reading, had made his English almost as good as new, and
the shabby lad of six or seven years ago was now a citizen amongst us of
repute and promise.
But that is no rare occurrence in this new world of ours, where men have
better chances than the rigid ways of the old land will afford. For old
Scotland means that her mountains shall remain mountains, and her
valleys she purposes shall be valleys evermore; and I make little doubt
that Mr. Carnegie would have been ranked with the valleys till they
received his dust had he never sought the wider spaces of our Western
World. From which Western World both their hills and valleys have
received his dust in rich abundance.
Passing a crowded hall one night when this industrial storm was at its
height, I heard a voice which seemed familiar addressing the excited
men, and surely there hath never before or since been heard a speech of
greater sense and soundness.
"Are we working men fools enough," he was asking as I entered, "to be
led by the nose at the will of these strangers who want us to strike in
the interests of Chicago or St. Louis or San Francisco? Charity begins
at home, and our first duty is to look after our own. If we are going to
have dictators in this matter, let us choose them from honest workers
among ourselves, and not from high-salaried importations such as these.
Look at their hands the next time you get a chance, and tell me why they
are so smooth and white. None of your diamond-ringed fraternity for me,"
cried Angus with growing passion.
At this point Jack Slater interrupted. Jack was famed for his hearty
resistance to every industrious instinct, resolutely denying himself the
much-lauded sweets of toil. He was the leading Socialist of the town,
hating every man who was an actual toiler with his hands, always
excepting the well-fed agitators, whom he worshipped with ignorant
devotion.
"I just want fer to ask Mr. Strachan one question. What right has them
fellows what owns the foundries to be makin' ropes of money while the
likes of us only gets our two dollars a day? Let us have equality,
that's what I say. Give me equality or give me death. God made one man
as good as another, and it's the devil as tries to make them different.
Let's divide up, that's what I say, and don't have them fellows sportin'
round in their carriages and goin' to Europe, while the rest of us is
sweatin' through the dog days in the shops."
Loud murmurs of approval broke from a hundred sullen lips, and Bob
Taylor, encouraged by Jack's success, jumped to his feet and shouted--
"I hopes as how all the fellers 'll stand firm and bring the bosses up
with the short turn. We kin do it, for we're the lads as makes their
money for them. What them kerridge fellows needs is a bash or two in the
jaw from the horny hand of toil. I goes in fer rotten-eggin' all the
scabs as agrees to work lower nor the wage we set, and if that won't do,
I goes in fer duckin' 'em; and if duckin' won't do, I goes in fer fixin'
'em so's they won't work nowheres. If this is a free country, let's have
our share of the kerridges--I believe in equality the same as Jack."
These views were received with renewed expressions of approval, for to
most of the excited men they seem quite unanswerable.
"That's the ticket; make 'em walk the plank. We're just as good as
them," I heard some burly mechanic mutter.
The eager audience turned towards Angus, awaiting his reply, if haply
reply could be provided. It has been my lot to hear many strong
addresses, but I esteem this answering speech of Angus's among the
strongest utterances I have heard.
"Mr. Slater wishes," he began, "to know by what right our employers make
more money than we do. In answer, let me ask him by what right Bill
Montgomery, the foreman in the moulding shop, gets more money every
pay-day than Tom Coxford, who is one of his men. I suppose he will admit
it is because Bill has more ability and more experience than Tom; he
will also admit that the difference in their wages is a just difference,
and indeed I have never heard any one find fault with it. Well, carry
out that principle, and some one who has more skill than Montgomery will
get more money than he gets. Then there will be some one above him
again, and so on till you get to the head of the firm. If differing
wages are just at all--and every one admits they are--then how can you
deny their legitimate profits to the men whose industry and business
ability have established the concern and guided it along to what it is
to-day?
"Mr. Slater says that men are all equal. I don't agree with him. It is
clear that God means some men to be rich and others to be less rich. If
a man quarrels with the inequality among men, his quarrel is with God.
God makes some men richer than others to begin with. When we see the
highest riches, like those of brains and strength, unequally divided, we
need not wonder to see the lesser riches somewhat unevenly distributed.
God gives one man, or a woman like Jenny Lind, a voice that means a
thousand dollars a night as often as they want to sing, and He gives
another man a voice like an alarm-clock or a buzz-saw. He gives one man
a mind that seems always to be full, and another man a mind, let him do
his best, that is always as empty as a last year's nest. Surely I have
more ground for envying the man who is born with more brains than I than
the man who is born with more wealth than I. And yet God alone is
responsible for the first-named inequality. We hear too much rubbish
about this theory of all men being equal born.
"As for Bob Taylor's hint that we should employ violence to prevent men
working for what wage they please, I have only this to say, that nobody
but a lazy dog like him would suggest such a policy.
"We all know that when the whistle blows in the morning, Bob always
tries how much of it he can hear before he goes in; and when it blows at
night, he tries how much of it he can hear after he gets out. Bob is
always slow at the end where he ought to be quick, and quick at the end
where all honest men try at least to be decently slow; and then he talks
to us about ducking some poor fellow who wants to make an honest living
for his wife and children. I will say this much, too, that if the time
ever comes when a free-born man cannot sell his labour in the market
for what price he likes, then I will turn my back upon the old flag and
leave its soil forever.
"Now, I am going to ask Mr. Slater a question or two about this dividing
up business.
"Do you think, Mr. Slater, if a man has a million dollars, that he ought
to divide up with the man who has very little, if that man happens to be
working for him?"
"Most sartintly," replied Jack.
"Very well, if a man has ten thousand dollars, should he divide up with
a poorer man who works for him?"
"Sure," answered Jack promptly.
"Well, suppose a man has a house and a little garden, and he has a man
hired to help dig it or repair it, should he divide up with this poorer
workman who has neither house nor garden?"