THE ADVANCING COLUMN OF DEMOCRACY
As the two brothers turned into the cross street that led to the hall
where the Industrial League had its headquarters and held its weekly
meetings, Dr. Earl laid his hand on Frank's shoulder.
"Dear old fellow," he said affectionately, "would you mind telling me
what on earth possesses you to come down here to-night? I'm not asking
out of mere curiosity, nor do I believe that is the motive that brings
you."
"Then if I say the pursuit of the good, the true and the beautiful, you
will not believe me?" his brother answered lightly.
"I shall know you do not wish to tell me the real reason, and will drop
it, but I shall not be deceived. I haven't studied my kind for this long
without knowing at least the a-b-c of human nature. You use your cap and
bells and an air of frivolity to conceal your true character from the
world, as other men cloak themselves in an atmosphere of austerity and
reserve."
"Discovered!" cried Frank, with a laugh, "after all these years in which
I flattered myself I had made such a good job of it, too. Truth to tell,
no mask and domino ever afforded such perfect protection as the jingle
of my jester's bells. I am apparently so given up to pomps and vanities
that nobody gives me credit for a serious thought, and so takes no pains
to conceal his own from me. It has long been one of the wonders of my
world how I hold my job."
"Well, since you put it that way, I have asked myself at times how you
have achieved the standing you have in your profession, a standing of
which we are all immensely proud, by the way. But if you are a profound
student, it is something recent; I used to think you learned too easily
ever to know how to study, and law is a vocation."
"Law is one thing and success in the legal profession is another," said
the young man oracularly. "Between our omnipresent legislatures which
spend our time and money repealing what we lawyers already know, and
enacting laws for the courts to set aside, these are what might be
called parlous times for the profession, but my long suit is not in
understanding statutes, but people."
Insensibly he had dropped his flippant tone, and was speaking,
seriously, with conviction. There was a moment's pause and then Jack
said, "And you go to this meeting because----?"
"Because, little as I like it, I am not such a fool that I do not know
that the enfranchisement of women is certain, and it may help me to
understand the new and troublesome element which is to be injected into
public life if I watch the workings from the beginning. Anyhow, it is
part of my business to understand these things, and hence my acceptance
of Miss Holland's invitation. This is the place, isn't it?"
The house differed in no wise from the rest of the block, save in its
air of thrift and cleanliness, and the brass plate on the door bore the
name, "Industrial League House." It was evidently a settlement with
resident workers, for a troop of boys was straggling down into the
basement, where a gymnasium had been established, and several young
women were standing in the hall discussing some matter connected with
sterilized milk. At the right of the wide hall there was a large,
old-fashioned double parlor, with plenty of chairs for a meeting of
sixty or seventy people, and perhaps half that many were already in the
room. They were singing as the two men entered, and Dr. Earl and Frank
stood in the hallway listening to the words sung to the soul-stirring
old tune of "John Brown's Body."
"These are they who build thy houses, weave thy raiment, win thy wheat,
Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into sweet;
All for thee this day--and ever. What reward for them is meet?
Till the host comes marching on."
As they struck into the chorus, the boys downstairs took up the swelling
chords, and it was echoed from the street beyond.
"Hark, the rolling of the thunder;
Lo, the sun! and lo! thereunder
Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,
And the host comes marching on."
"I wonder whether they sing the sixth stanza," said Frank curiously.
Jack looked at him in amazement. "What is the song?" he asked,
conscious that he was getting new sidelights upon his younger brother's
character this evening.
"It's William Morris' 'March of the Workers,' and the verse I'm talking
about begins, 'O, ye rich men, hear and tremble.' Come on in, Jack," and
a moment later John Earl heard his brother's beautiful voice take up the
words:
"Many a hundred years, passed over, have they labored deaf and blind;
Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil might find.
Now at last they've heard and hear it, and the cry comes down the wind
And their feet are marching on.
"On we march, then, we, the workers, and the rumor that ye hear
Is the blended sound of battle and deliv'rance drawing near;
For the hope of every creature is the banner that we bear,
And the world is marching on."
Silvia Holland turned quickly when she heard the strong, unknown voice
join in the ringing words, and fairly gasped when she saw that it was
Frank Earl who was singing, while his brother looked at her with an air
as bewildered as her own. The moment that the song was concluded she
greeted them, and found them comfortable seats where they could see and
hear without being too conspicuous.
"We like to have men come to our meetings, and a few generally drop in.
I expect several to-night, for we have a speaker from Colorado, but we
don't often have the luxury of a baritone note for our music, so we owe
you a special vote of thanks, Mr. Earl," she said to Frank.
He bowed. "Oh, no; it's the other way about," he said lightly. "You
don't know how grateful I am to you for not singing the 'Day of Wrath'
verse, in which all of us who haven't succeeded in swearing off our
taxes hear what is coming to us. How well that girl presides," he added,
as a businesslike young woman dispatched the reading and adoption of
minutes and the reports of committees without a hitch or a moment's
useless delay.
"That is Florence Dresser," explained Miss Holland. "She is one of the
leaders in the Laundry Girls' Association. The secretary," indicating a
young woman who might have been a twelve-year-old child, save for her
sad, careworn face, "has nearly killed herself sewing for sweaters to
take care of her family; we've found homes for the children and she
lives here now; we are trying to make up to her for the lost years, but
it is hard work," and she sighed.
"We have one meeting a month when we have a program," Miss Holland
explained. "At the other three we consider various phases of industrial
life as it affects our own membership or women in general. I am rather
sorry that this happens to be a program night, for you would have had a
better idea of the scope we try to cover at the other kind, but perhaps
this will be more entertaining." She turned more directly to Frank. "A
business meeting here always makes me think of the 'Antis,' and their
twaddle about woman's sphere, which they would like to reduce to a
demi-hemisphere."
Frank nodded. "Of course there's nothing to that with intelligent people
now; woman's sphere is wherever she can make good, but I think it is a
pity that she has to take so large a place in the industrial world, and
I don't believe that voting will help her."
"But it has helped men," Miss Holland replied quickly.
"Not half so much as their unions," he answered. "The thing that helps
is getting together and standing together."
"Now you've lost your whole case," laughed Dr. Earl. "There has never
been anything that brought all sorts and conditions of women together
like the suffrage cause. You see that in England. In fact, you see it
everywhere. Women are waking up, and getting to their feet and
stretching out their hands--to us? Not at all, to each other."
"Oh, I wish you'd say that to my comrades here," said Miss Holland. "We
should all be so glad to hear you. Will you not let me present you for a
few minutes during the informal discussion?"
For an instant he wavered, then the face of Leonora flashed before him,
and he shook his head decisively. "I'm too new at this sort of thing,"
he answered. "Get my brother here to talk to you about Colorado, and let
the audience heckle him."
"We'd be delighted," laughed Miss Holland. "The lady who is to conduct
the question box, which is the main thing to-night, comes from Denver.
Her name is Carroll Renner; do you happen to know her? Will she be able
to hold her own? Sometimes they ask pretty sharp questions."
"Don't give yourself a moment's uneasiness," Frank answered. "There'll
be no twelve baskets needed to remove the fragments of the contumacious
when she gets through. A small blotter will answer."
"You know her very well, then?" Miss Holland said, openly surprised.
"Rather," he answered laconically. "She is the most persistent lobbyist
in the State, and she infallibly discovers the one deadly section in a
bill that you thought so well hidden that no one would ever notice it.
She's the most troublesome woman I know and the best fellow."
Miss Holland and Dr. Earl both turned and looked at the little woman,
who had come in a few minutes before with a party of people, with added
interest. She was very simply gowned in black, and but for a certain
twinkle of the dark gray eyes, and a rather mocking smile, there was
nothing particularly distinctive about her.
"Tell me some more," said Miss Holland curiously. "Sometimes the voting
woman helps and sometimes she hurts; if they're freaky, and of course
some of them are, they hurt dreadfully."
"I've seen her a good deal while I've been watching the Senate," he
said. "I'd been out there for several sessions of the General Assembly
before I located there. She came in one day with a letter from some
national woman's organization--wanted the Beveridge Child Labor Law
endorsed, I think. Anyhow, time was of the essence of the contract, so
we drew up a concurrent resolution, and she got a Republican and a
Democrat to introduce it together, and it slid along on its way to
Washington within forty-eight hours; she and a Mrs. Platt worked it
together. All they said was that the women wanted it."
Miss Holland gasped. "Go on," she said.
He lowered his voice, for the president was introducing a handsome girl
who was to give a reading.
"Another time there was a bill--I don't recollect it, but something
about committing girl prisoners, or something of the sort; I saw her get
pretty white, and shut her lips hard, and then she got up and started to
walk out, and one of the Senators saw her, too. 'Say, you don't like
that bill?' he said, and she answered, as if she could hardly control
her anger, 'It's infamous!' 'Oh, it is, is it?' he said. 'Well, then,
we'll make them adjourn over until we can get a conference and amend the
thing.' No fuss, no talk; just straight goods. That's Carroll Renner."
"And that's what it means to be an enfranchised woman!" said Miss
Holland, with a long breath. "None of us could do that here!"
"Well, that's part of it," acquiesced Frank, and then they listened
silently. The girl who was reading was not particularly well-trained,
but there were passion and pathos in her voice as she told the story of
the eaglet, chained to a log for fear it might fall if permitted to
attempt to fly.
"We also have our dream of a Garden," the strong young voice went on.
"But it lies in a distant future. We dream that woman shall eat of the
tree of knowledge together with man, and that side by side and hand
close to hand, through ages of much toil and labor, they shall together
raise about them an Eden nobler than any the Chaldean dreamed of; an
Eden created by their own labor and made beautiful by their own
fellowship.
"In his Apocalypse there was one who saw a new heaven and a new earth;
we see a new earth; but therein dwells love--the love of comrades and
co-workers.
"It is because so wide and gracious to us are the possibilities of the
future, so impossible is a return to the past, so deadly is a passive
acquiescence in the present, that to-day we are found everywhere raising
our strange new cry, 'Labor, and the training that fits us for labor!'"
"You recognize it, of course?" Silvia said to Dr. Earl, but he shook his
head, and Frank answered, "It's Olive Schreiner, isn't it? She does good
work, but I've never read anything that compared with that book on
'Woman and Economics,' and when an American writer has the whole world
sitting up and taking notice, I don't see why we don't boost her game."
There was a little buzz and stir while slips of paper and pencils were
distributed to the audience, and the questions collected for the next
speaker.
The presiding officer made the usual preliminary remarks, and introduced
Miss Renner, who gathered up the goodly sheaf of white slips in her
hands and ran over them as if looking for some query that would make a
specially apt beginning. Her face lit up as she came across one with
which she was evidently familiar.
"This is a favorite question of mine," she said cheerfully. "I should
miss it dreadfully if it failed to turn up, but it is such a troublesome
and comprehensive question to answer that I have set the reply to music,
and will have it sung for you, in order that you may all remember it.
The question is, 'What have Colorado women done with the ballot?' I
don't, myself, consider that a fair question, since none of us come down
to Philadelphia or New York or Pittsburg or any of the other cities of
sweetness and light and ask what you men have done with your
all-powerful vote, but this seems to be the main one, especially to the
masculine mind."
Dr. Earl laughed, for he had written the question, and seating herself
at the piano, Miss Renner looked up at a merry-faced girl, who began
singing to her rippling accompaniment a song of miraculous changes which
should have ensued upon woman's enfranchisement, and concluded with a
long chant, recounting some of the more notable achievements of the
voting woman, ranging all the way from joint ownership of children and
property, minimum salary laws, juvenile courts, medical inspection of
school children, State institutions built and endowed, equality in
inheritance and a host of other things, up to the adoption by her State
of the initiative and referendum.
After that, Miss Renner had her audience with her until she dropped the
last twist of paper on the table beside her. "You ask me why it took us
so many years to pass a good law regulating child labor, and why we have
failed in limiting the hours of woman's labor. As to the first, it is
true that our law was by no means equal to yours, but we had the means
to enforce it, and as a consequence we have little or no child labor.
You have a good statute, one of the best in the Union"--there was a
ripple of applause--"but in addition to this excellent law prohibiting
child labor," she went on evenly, "you have in this city alone over
twenty thousand child wage-earners.
"When we have gone to our legislatures asking for laws for the
protection of the weak, we have generally obtained them easily, when
they did not interfere with 'big business.' It took Illinois women nine
years to get a State Home for children. We passed such a law without
any effort whatever. In two-thirds of the States of the Union women are
trying to make mothers co-equal guardians of their children, and trying
in vain. That was the first law our enfranchised women wrote upon our
statute books. One only learns to understand these things by experience.
You may find it hard to see why railroads should go into a deal to
defeat an eight-hour law for women, but that statute was flagged by a
Pullman palace car towel and fell asleep at the switch, because that
company complained that it couldn't get a change of sheets unless
laundry girls could be compelled to work overtime. You don't dream when
you talk of 'big business' to what little business it will descend."
There was a sudden hush, and she flung out her hands with an impulsive
gesture, and there was a passionate earnestness in her voice that
gripped her hearers. "Let me tell you something you do not know when you
hold the women in the suffrage States responsible for conditions they
are the first to deplore. A handful of men in this city have more to do
with Western industries and their regulation than have both the men and
women. We have steel works; their policy is dictated from lower
Broadway. We have smelters; they are closed at the order of a syndicate
in this city. We have railroads, all of them controlled by your fellow
citizens, and it was the deals entered into between the representatives
of these interests and our local corporations that defeated the
eight-hour law for women, and every bit of reform legislation pledged to
the people. It was this condition, this failure of alleged democracy,
that made us go on record for real democracy, for the initiative that
makes it possible for us to enact the laws our representatives are
cajoled into pigeon-holing, for the referendum that enables us to scotch
the snake so that the people may have a chance to kill it. This was the
first great fundamental reform which the women demanded, and it was
owing to the work of education they began twenty years ago, and kept up
untiringly, that Colorado has won this great victory. Woman suffrage is
not alone for women, or to enable us to secure certain readjustments of
law. It is for our country, which cannot exist half enfranchised and
half irresponsible, half democracy and half a feudalism; half of it
privileged to shirk or exercise its civic rights, and half denied aught
but the burden of those rights. Women need the franchise if only to make
their influence, of which we hear so much, effective, but more than they
need the ballot, this nation needs the active devotion of its women to
transmute to golden fulfillment its leaden life; it needs, it must have
all that we can give it, your life and mine; if it is to go forward, its
sons and daughters must go forward--together!"
There was generous applause, and the two young men followed Miss
Holland, and she presented Dr. Earl and was about to introduce his
brother, when Miss Renner held out both hands to him.
"Hast thou found me, O mine enemy," she cried. "I'm awfully glad to see
you, Frank. I was much minded to tell how you helped me get my dove bill
through, but I feared they might hold you responsible for the defeat of
the eight-hour law and turn and rend you."
"You promised never to reveal any of my good deeds," he answered. "Keep
it out of the papers, Miss Holland. I can't afford to lose prestige as
the exponent of the Mammon of Unrighteousness."
"Unfortunately, he is a great god with legislatures, East as well as
West," answered Miss Holland, and then they all went out together.