A NEW ARISTOCRACY
Three members of the executive council, Norman, Barbara, and Tom,
began at once the task of assigning work. The problems which
immediately faced the council were overwhelming, but they were urgent
and could admit of no delay. The absolute refusal of every member of
the Brotherhood to do the dirty and disagreeable work brought at once
two issues to a crisis. Either labour must be voluntary or
involuntary. The people who did this work must be induced to agree to
perform it or they must be forced to do it by a superior authority
without their consent.
They could only be led to choose this work by inducements of an
extraordinary nature--the payment of enormously high wages and the
shortening of each day's work to a ridiculous minimum.
If wages were made unequal, the old problem of inequality would remain
unsolved. For equal wages no man would lift his hand.
Confronted by this dilemma the executive council decided at once to
fix wages on an unequal basis rather than reduce its unwilling members
to a condition of involuntary labour, which is merely a long way to
spell slavery.
When this decision was announced, Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
once more lifted his voice in solemn protest:
"I denounce this act in the name of every principle which has brought
us together," he cried, with solemn warning. "You have established a
system far more infamous than the unequal wages of the old society
where the law of the survival of the fittest is the court of last
resort. You have opened the door of fathomless corruption by
substituting the whim of an executive council for the law of nature.
It is the beginning of jealousy, strife, favouritism, jobbery, and
injustice."
"Then what's a better way?" Old Tom asked, with a sneer.
"It's your business to find a better way," cried the man of visions.
Tom glared at the poet with a look of fury and Norman whispered to the
old miner:
"Remember, Tom, you're sitting as a judge in the Supreme Court of
State!"
"Can't help it. I never did have no use for a fool. Ef he can't tell
us a better way, let 'im shet up."
Barbara pressed Tom's arm, and he subsided.
The court at once entered into the question of wages for domestic
service.
It had been agreed, at the suggestion of the Wolfs, that they should
spend their time in quietly investigating the qualifications of each
member of the Brotherhood for the work to be assigned, and make their
reports in secret to the majority of the court, which should sit
continuously until all had been decided.
Neither Norman, Barbara, nor the old miner suspected for a moment the
deeper motive which Wolf concealed behind this withdrawal from the
decision of these cases. They found out in a very startling way later.
The chief cook demanded a hundred dollars a month.
Old Tom snorted with contempt. Norman smiled and spoke kindly:
"Remember, Louis, you only received $75 a month in San Francisco. Here
the Brotherhood provides every man with his food, his clothes, and his
house. Wages are merely the inducement used to satisfy each individual
that labour may still be done by free contract, not by force."
"Well, it'll take a hundred a month to satisfy me," was the stolid
reply. "I didn't come here to cook. I could do that in the old hell we
lived in. I came here to do better and bigger things. I can do them,
too----"
"But we've fixed the salary of the general manager at only
seventy-five dollars a month, and you demand a hundred?"
"I do, and if the general manager prefers my job, I'll trade with you
and guarantee to do your work better than it's being done."
"Yes, you will!" old Tom growled, as he leaned over Barbara and
whispered to Norman.
"Make it thirty dollars a month, and if he don't go to work--leave him
to me, I'll beat him till he does it."
"No, we can't manage it that way, Tom. We must try to satisfy him."
"Hit's a hold-up, I tell ye--highway robbery--the triflin' son of a
gun! Don't you say so, miss?" Tom appealed earnestly to Barbara.
"We must have cooks, Tom--and we want everybody to be happy."
"Make him cook, make him--that's his business--I'd do it if I knowed
how. He's got to take what we give 'im. He can't git off this island.
He enlisted for five years. If he deserts, court-martial and shoot
him."
In spite of old Tom's bitter protest, Norman and Barbara succeeded in
persuading the chief cook to accept eighty-five dollars a month--an
advance of ten dollars over the highest wages he had ever received
before.
When the eighteen assistant cooks lined up for the settlement of their
wages a new problem of unexpected proportions was presented. They had
listened attentively to the case of the chef, and their chosen orator
presented his argument in brief but emphatic words:
"We demand the exact wages you have voted the chef."
"Well, what do ye think er that?" old Tom groaned to Norman. "Hit's
jist like I told ye. Hit's a hold-up."
"We must persuade them, Tom," the young leader replied.
"Let me persuade 'em!" the old miner pleaded.
"How?" Barbara asked, with a twinkle in her brown eyes.
"I'll line 'em up agin that wall and trim their hair with my
six-shooter. I won't hurt 'em. But when I finish the job I'll
guarantee they'll do what I tell 'em without any back talk. You folks
take a walk and make me Chief Justice fer an hour, and when you come
back we'll have peace and plenty. Jest try it now, and don't you butt
in. Let me persuade 'em!"
Norman shook his head.
"Keep still, Tom! We must reason with them."
"Ye 're wastin' yer breath," the miner drawled in disgust.
"Don't you think, comrades," Norman began, in persuasive tones, "that
your demands are rather high?"
"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "We come here to get equal
rights. We don't want to cook. I'm a born actor, myself. I expected to
play in Shakespeare when I joined the Brotherhood. Anybody that wants
this job can have it. If we do your hot, dirty, disgusting,
disagreeable work while the others play in the shade we are going to
get something for it."
"Even so," the young leader responded, "is it fair that an assistant
cook should receive equal wages with the chef?"
"And why not? Labour creates all value. The chef's a fakir. We do all
the work. He never lifts his hand to a pot or pan. He struts and loafs
through the kitchen and lords it over the men. Let him try to run the
kitchen without us, and see how much you get to eat! We stand on the
equal rights of man!"
"But my dear comrade----"
"Don't use them words," old Tom pleaded, "jest let me make a few
remarks----"
Barbara pinched Tom's arm and he subsided.
"Can't you see," Norman went on, "that we are paying the chef for his
directive ability, for his inventive genius in creating new dishes and
making old ones more delicious? You but execute his orders."
"We stand square on our principles. Labour creates all values. The
chef never works. We make every dish that goes to the table. If it has
any value we make it. We demand our rights!"
The court agreed on fifty dollars a month, and the men refused to
consider it.
"We prefer to work in the fields, the foundry, the machine-shop, the
mills, the forests, anywhere you like except the kitchen. Let the chef
do your work. Good day!"
They turned and marched out in a body and sat down in the sunshine.
In vain Norman argued and pleaded. They stood their ground with sullen
determination.
A final clincher which the young leader could not evade always ended
the argument. The spokesman came back to it with dogged persistence:
"What did you mean, then, when you've been drumming into our ears that
labour creates all value? We do all the work, don't we?"
The upshot of it was the eighteen assistant cooks marched back into
the hall, stood before the judges, and all were granted equal wages
with the chef.
Whereupon the chef sprang to his feet and faced the court with blazing
eyes.
"You grant these chumps--these idiots--wages equal to mine? Not one of
them has brains enough to cook an egg if I didn't tell him how. Their
wages equal to mine. I resign!"
Tom spoke vigorously:
"Now will ye leave him to me?"
Norman and Barbara looked at each other in angry and helpless
amazement.
The old miner leaped to his feet, made his way down from the platform,
and with two swift strides reached the chef. He leaned close and
whispered something in the rebel's ear. There was a moment's
hesitation and the chef turned, signalled to his assistants, and amid
cheers marched to the kitchen.
Tom resumed his seat beside Barbara with a smile, quietly saying:
"That's the way to do business, ladies and gentlemen!"
"What did you say to him?" Barbara asked.
"Oh, nothin' much," was the careless answer.
"I hope you didn't threaten him, Tom?" Norman asked with some
misgiving.
"Na--I didn't threaten him. I spoke quiet and peaceable."
"But what did you tell him?" the young leader persisted.
"I jest told him I'd give him two minutes ter git back ter the kitchen
or I'd blow his head off!"
"I'm afraid our table will feel the effects of that remark, Tom,"
Barbara said, doubtfully.
Next to the question of cooks the most urgent issue to be settled was
the case of the scrubbers, cleaners, and drainmen. The women who had
been assigned to the tasks of scrubbing the floors, washing the
windows and dishes, had watched the triumphs of the cooks with keen
appreciation of their own power. It was easy to see that the more
disagreeable and disgusting the character of the work, the more
extravagant the demands which could be made and enforced. The
scrubbers and dishwashers boldly demanded one hundred dollars a month
and six hours for a working day, and refused with sullen determination
to argue the question.
To Barbara's mild and gentle protest their answer was complete and
stunning:
"You have assigned us this dirty job. Do you want it at any price?"
asked their orator. "I'll take yours without wages and jump at the
chance."
Tom lost all interest in the proceedings and drew himself up in a knot
in his chair. Now and then a growl came from the depths of his
throat.
Once he was heard to distinctly articulate:
"This makes me tired."
The court begged and pleaded, cajoled, argued in vain with the
stubborn scrubwomen. Not an inch would they move in their demands. The
floors were becoming unspeakably filthy. They had not been scrubbed
since the arrival of the colony.
Norman turned to Barbara.
"Put the question solemnly to ourselves--we don't want the job at any
price, do we?"
"I couldn't do it!" she admitted, frankly. "Then what's the use? We
must be fair. It's worth what they ask."
The court granted the demands and the scrubwomen and dishwashers
marched to the kitchen and once more the chef tore his hair and cursed
the fate which brought him to such disgrace as to work with stupid
subordinates at equal wages and gaze on dishwashers and scrubwomen
whose wages exceeded his own.
The climax of all demands was reached when the drainman demanded a
hundred and fifty dollars a month and four hours for each working day.
Norman looked at him in dumb confusion. He knew what he was going to
say before he opened his mouth and he had no answer.
The drainman bowed low in mock humility, but the proud wave of his
hand belied his words.
"My calling was a humble one in the old world, Comrade Judges," he
said. "I came here to climb mountain heights and find my way among the
stars. You have sent me back to the sewers. I always felt that I had
missed my true calling. I've always wanted to be a poet----"
The Bard shook his mane and groaned.
"I don't want this job at any price. But the sewers are choked. They
have not been cleaned for two years. It must be done. I've named my
price. I'll gladly yield to any man who envies my luck. If such a man
is here let him speak--or forever hereafter hold his peace."
With a grandiloquent gesture the drainman swept the crowd with his
eye, but no man responded.
The court granted his demand.
The Bard leaped once more to his feet and entered his protest. This
time old Tom listened with interest. His concluding sentence rang with
bitter irony:
"Against these absurd decisions I lift my voice once more in solemn
protest. We came to this charmed island to abolish all class
distinctions. You have destroyed the old classes based on culture,
achievement, genius, wealth, and power. You have created a new
aristocracy on whose shield is emblazoned--a dish-rag and
scrubbing-brush encircled by a sewer pipe! I make my most humble bow
to our new king--the drainman! I hail the apotheosis of the
scrubwoman!"
"Say, you give me a pain--shut up" thundered Tom.
The singer collapsed with a sigh and the crowd laughed.
The foreman of the farm brought two men before the court and asked for
important instructions.
"Comrade Judges," he began, "I had two men assigned to me a week ago
whom I don't want and won't have at any price. I return them to the
Brotherhood with thanks. You can do what you please with them."
"What's the matter?" Norman asked, with some irritation.
The foreman shoved and kicked a man in front of the judges.
"This fool----"
"You must not use such language, Mr. Foreman," Barbara interrupted.
"I beg your pardon, Comrade Judges," he apologized. "This coyote I put
on a mowing-machine yesterday. He said he knew how to run it. He broke
it on a smooth piece of ground the first hour. I gave him another and
he wrecked it before noon. It will take the labour of five men two
days to repair the damage he has done. I don't want him at any price."
"What have you to say?" Norman asked the accused.
"It wasn't my fault. The thing broke itself."
"But how did it happen twice the same day, sonny?" Tom asked.
"I dunno. Hit jist happened," was the dogged answer.
"I've another scoundrel----"
"You must not use such language," Barbara broke in.
"Again begging the pardon of Comrade Judges," the foreman continued:
"This dog"--he kicked another slovenly looking lout before the
judges--"tore to pieces the shoulders of two pairs of horses with
careless harnessing before I found him and kicked him out of the
stables. Those four horses can't work for a month. We'll have to pay
at least $500 for two teams right away to take their places, or lose a
crop of hay."
Tom glared at the culprit.
"What did ye ruin them horses' shoulders fer?"
"I didn't know it," was the sulking answer.
"He's a liar!" cried the foreman. "He put the same collars on their
galled necks three days in succession and beat them unmercifully when
they couldn't pull the load."
"What do you say, Tom?" Norman asked.
The old miner glared at the last culprit and his grim mouth tightened:
"Wall, you kin do as ye please, but any man that'll abuse a hoss will
commit murder. I'd put the fust one in the cow lot to shovellin'
compost. This one I'd quietly lynch--no public rumpus about it--jest
take 'im down by the beach, hang 'im to one of them posts on the pier,
shoot 'im full of holes, and drop 'im into the sea to be sure he don't
come back to life."
Norman conferred with Barbara a moment and rendered the decision:
"Mr. Foreman, the first man is transferred from the field machinery to
the compost-heap in the barnyard. The second man who disabled the
horses will assist in cleaning the sewers. Their wages will remain the
same as before."
A round of applause greeted this decision.
The Bard renewed his attack with unusual zeal. Standing before the
court and shaking his long hair he cried:
"At last the climax of tyranny! Two comrades condemned without a jury
and without defense! I congratulate you. In one day you have
established an aristocracy of filth and created a penal colony without
a hearing or appeal. We are making progress."
The old miner grunted, Barbara smiled tenderly at Norman, and the
court adjourned.