Down in the southwestward district of the far-spreading city a howling
mob of half-drunken men, women, and street-boys had surged through the
freight-yards of a great railway company, and, first looting the
contents, were now setting fire to the cars. Here and there along the
glistening lines on which ordinarily sped the swift express or suburban
trains were toppled now bulky brown boxes, with their greasy, dripping
trucks protruding in air. At adjacent street-corners helmeted policemen,
idly swinging their clubs behind them, looked on and laughed. Where at
sundown the previous day perhaps a thousand angry-looking men and women
had hovered, menacing, above the great crossing of the Central and the
P.Q. & R., ten thousand furies now seemed loose. The triumphant boast of
the strike-leaders that not a wheel should turn on Allison's road had
been laughed to scorn. Not only had Allison, with a force of deputies
and loyal trainmen, cleared his tracks at midnight and sent the famous
Silver Special, full panoplied, on its way, but the armed deputies that
took it to the county line brought in under cover of their Winchesters
and the darkness of early morning three side-tracked trains from the far
West.
And now indeed was there raging and gnashing of teeth. Men thus braved
and thwarted turned to fiends. The sun was not an hour high when the
emissaries of the Railway Union were haranguing the people all along
these outlying districts. The striking railway-men themselves were
redoubling their pleadings with the men who had stood firm, and from
pleadings turned to threats. By eight o'clock the flames were shooting
high from scores of cars, and under the fierce heat rails were warping
and twisting. At half a dozen points the city firemen, gallant fellows,
everybody's friends and defenders, loyal to their duty, had dashed up
with their hose, only to be furiously assaulted and beaten back. And
still the police looked on and laughed. "Like a thief in the night,"
screamed Elmendorf to his audience of strikers and rioters, "the P.Q. &
R. has stolen its trains,--sneaked out its fell purpose. In the hours of
rest and slumber, when honest men, brave men, worthy men, seek their
pillows and the sanctity of their homes, these despoilers of the poor,
these tyrants of a confiding people, conspiring together and corrupting
with infamous gold the brethren who have betrayed us, reckless of their
pledges, false to their promises--when were they ever else?--have
succeeded in running two or three trains through the blockade. Now it
remains with you to say how long, how great shall be their triumph.
Summon from far and near your manhood and your strength. Call to action
every man with a man's heart and a man's arm. See to it that none but
stalwarts go on guard to-night or from this time forth, and be ready to
act when the sun climbs high. Be ready, I say, for noon shall bring you
tidings to make each heart bound in its seat. Be ready, a million strong
if need be, to force your ultimatum down these managerial throats."
Mad with excitement and nervous strain seemed Elmendorf. From point to
point his cab was dashing. He had slept but such catnaps as he could
catch when whirling from one part of the city to another. It was he who
rushed in to announce to the strike-leaders the astounding fact that,
despite his efforts, the P. Q. & R. had pushed out the Silver Special,
and was chagrined to find they knew all about it. It galled him through
the night to realize that, every time he drove with tidings to anybody
else, somebody was sure to be previously informed. He had left Allison's
home to hasten to a point three miles distant to rouse the strikers with
warnings of the proposed sending out of the train, only to find that in
that as in everything else he was too late. With sympathizing spies and
friends in every nook and corner, how could it be otherwise? Yet
Elmendorf could never divest himself of the idea that without him to
warn, advise, or control, chaos would come again. The strikers and their
sympathetic mob of toughs had become dispersed during the night, and
could not in time be reassembled in sufficient force to oppose
successfully all those armed deputies. That was how the road was opened.
But it was closed now, and others, despite the injunctions of United
States courts and the efforts of the Federal officials, found it
practically useless to attempt to force even the mail trains through the
rioting districts. Such was the peril to life and limb that trained
engineers and firemen refused to serve, and those who dared were in some
cases kicked and beaten into pulp. "Damn the United States courts!" said
the mob. "Injunctions don't go here!" And so in vastly augmented numbers
and in fury that vented itself in wrecking miles and miles of railway
property, the mob was reopening the day. "They'll pay for last night's
trick," said an official of the Railway Union, smilingly announcing
another distant road tied up. "There's a higher power in the land than
even the United States courts, and to-night they'll come to any terms we
dictate." And he added, significantly, "Terms are already being
dictated."
A messenger entered at the moment. "Mr. Allison isn't at the office, and
they don't know where he is. He slept awhile and breakfasted at the
club, but left there half an hour ago."
"This is a matter in which probably I can be of more avail than any one
else," promptly said the ubiquitous Elmendorf. "My personal acquaintance
with the gentleman and his family may, and doubtless will, enable me to
give more weight to your dictum than it might otherwise bear. Then, too,
I may reasonably hope to influence him to agree to the proposed terms
and render further harsh measures unnecessary."
The leaders eyed one another and hesitated. Already had they begun to
see that Elmendorf assumed much more than he carried. But no one could
gainsay his eagerness and devotion to the cause. Red-eyed, sleepless,
pallid, he was yet here, eager to devote more hours of effort to the
good cause. At all events, it would get him out of the way for a time,
and he was becoming too prevalent.
"Oh, very well; if you think you can find him, Mr. Elmendorf, and obtain
his written assurance that no further attempt will be made to run a
train on the P.Q. & R., there's no objection. The brotherhood of Railway
Trainmen stands ready and eager to back us, and if we call it out the
managers are simply crushed."
And so, delighted, Elmendorf whisked away on this new mission.
Mr. Allison was not at home, such was the answer by telephone, in the
silvery tones he knew so well.
"Then may I ask you to await my coming, Miss Allison?" said he. "I am
charged with matters of the utmost consequence to him and to his. I will
be there just as fast as a cab can carry me."
The reply was not assuring, but he went, and she waited. Indeed, the
girl was waiting anxiously for her father's return. Squads of
workingmen, passing the house, had shaken their fists at it and cursed
its occupants. The morning wind, sweeping eastward from the lumber-yards
along the North Branch, bore ominous sounds of tumult and uproar even so
far from the great railway properties. Elmendorf bade his cabman wait,
and rang at the bell. The tutor could let himself in with his latch-key:
the envoy of five-hundred thousand embattled freemen very properly sent
his card to the magnate's daughter, and presently she appeared.
Sleepless nights and sorrowing days had begun to play havoc with that
fair complexion, and Florence Allison's feminine friends could not have
failed to remark upon it.
But in the shrouded light of the south parlor these defects were but
faintly visible. Elmendorf was pacing nervously up and down, as was his
wont when deeply moved, and Miss Allison entered so quietly that he did
not hear her, and became conscious of her presence on his return trip
from the east window only in time to avert collision. "I beg pardon,"
he stammered; "I was so deep in thought. Miss Allison, permit me." And
he brought forward a chair.
"Thank you, no. It can hardly take that long."
"As you will," he replied, with shrugging shoulders. "Yet I protest I
deserve less arrogance of manner. Listen to me," he continued, coming
impetuously towards her, whereon she coldly recoiled a pace or two.
"From the heat and fury of the battle I have come here once more to
attest my devotion, my loyalty, to the interests of those under whose
roof I have at least found temporary shelter, if not a home and friends.
I come to you clothed with power to speak and to act, turning from
public duties, abandoning against their protest the control of thousands
of fellow-creatures who lean on me for guidance in this crisis of their
lives. On every side this morning I have heard invective, execration,
denunciation, threats of the most summary vengeance hurled against your
father's name. I tell you, not only does he stand in peril of his life,
but that this household, even you--you, so fair, so gentle, so
delicate--may at any moment become the prey of a populace as frenzied as
ever dragged to the guillotine the shrieking beauties of the Court of
France. Miss Allison, whatsoever may be the injustice with which your
father has treated me, it sinks into nothingness in comparison with my
sense of the peril that threatens you. I am charged with a mission of
most sacred character. I am the envoy of the masses, sent to present
their last plea to the man. You know where he is: my carriage is at the
door: as you would save him and save yourself, I adjure you to accompany
me at once and add your prayers to mine to bend his obdurate heart. Nay,
Florence, I implore----"
But Miss Allison had darted back, a fine flush mounting to her forehead
at the climax of his impassioned address. She had faint appreciation of
histrionics.
"Mr. Elmendorf, I think you're simply crazy," was her eminently
practical way of putting an end to the address. "If you wish to see
pa--my father, you'll find him at the managers' office at half-past ten,
or if you hurry you may catch him at the Lambert." And then she would
have turned; but he sprang to her.
"How can you treat me with disdain?" he said. "Because I have been poor,
is that reason why I may not one day be rolling in wealth? Number you
among your friends my superior in education, in intellect? Is it in the
ranks of these empty-headed officers or these brainless, vapid sons of
vice and luxury that make up the men of your social circle, you are to
be mated? I tell you that this movement means revolution, that within
this very week the long-oppressed people shall be paramount, and we who
reap shall rule. I have long seen it coming, long foretold and long been
ridiculed, but now the hour, ay, the hour and the man have come. Already
I have saved you from the dishonor of alliance with---- Nay, you must
listen," for, with infinite disgust upon her face, she turned angrily
away. But, as she would not listen, he sprang forward and seized her
wrists. "Florence," he cried, "I----"
And then her voice re-echoed through the hall. "Cary!" she screamed, and
far aloft there was a shout of "Coming!" and, six steps at a bound, that
exuberant specimen of Young America came thundering down the broad
spiral of the stairway. The portentous butler, too, hove suddenly in
sight. Elmendorf dropped the subject--and her wrist, whisked his hat off
the hall table, and was out of the house and into his cab before the
wrathful brother could reach him.
Not until cabby had driven blindly for six blocks did Elmendorf poke his
cane through the trap and bid him speed for the Lambert. A carriage
stood at the private entrance, and the driver said it was Mr. Allison's.
The anteroom was open; the glazed doors to the private office were
closed, but excited voices arose from within. He recognized Allison's,
Wells's, and that of the chairman of the board of trustees, in hot
altercation. The chairman seemed siding with Wells, which added to
Allison's wrath, and he wound up with an explosion:
"I've given you more than reason enough. She has been shut up here alone
with him time and again at night; she has been seen going to his rooms
long after dark; she has been seen walking or driving with him as late
as midnight; and the very evening he is due at a gentleman's house at
dinner he sends 'urgent business' as his plea, and is found supping
alone with her at the Belmont. If she stays, I resign."
"And I answer," thundered Wells, "that that girl's as pure-hearted a
woman as ever lived. She has been shut up here with me time and again,
working at my letters until late at night; she has been to my rooms a
dozen times to leave her finished work on her homeward way; she has been
seen, or could have been seen, walking or driving with me late at night,
for I'm proud to say I've taken her home instead of letting her go it
alone in the rain; and as for the Belmont, it's the nearest and neatest
restaurant I know of, and a dozen times when we had work to be finished
in a hurry have I taken her, as Mr. Forrest did, to have her cup of tea
there, instead of letting her tramp two miles to get it at home. I'm a
married man, and he isn't; that's the only difference. You say if she
stays, you resign. All right, Mr. Allison. If she goes, I go."
And then upon this stormy scene entered Elmendorf, the blessed, the
peacemaker.
"It would be idle to assume ignorance of the subject of this
conference," he began, before any one had sufficiently recovered from
surprise to head him off, "and, as it is audible throughout this portion
of the building, I could not but hear and be attracted by it. I am here,
as ever, to take the side of the oppressed, and to say that should that
young woman be punished thus summarily for her--indiscretions, I shall
consider it my duty to make public certain circumstances in connection
with the case, notably Mr. Forrest's relations with certain families in
our midst, that may prove unpleasant reading."
"Enough of this, Mr. Elmendorf," began Wells, angrily. "This young
woman, as you term her, is not to be summarily punished, because she has
done nothing to deserve it, and despite every sneaking endeavor on your
part to cloud her good name. And now, like the double-dealing cad you
are, you come here posing as her defender. She needs none, by God, as
long as my wife and I are left in the land; and I would trust her cause
with Mr. Allison himself at any other time than now, when he is
overstrained and worn out.--Miss Wallen is at home," he continued,
addressing himself to the two trustees, "owing, she explains, to her
mother's severe illness. She, too, is far from well. She has been
looking badly for weeks. I was going up there to see what I could do for
her, when surprised by this visit. Mr. Waldo, as president of the board
of trustees you may understand that I declare these allegations against
Miss Wallen to be utterly, brutally unjust, and that I protest against
the action proposed by Mr. Allison. Most unfortunately our talk has been
overheard by the man whom of all others I distrust in this connection."
"What business have you here, Mr. Elmendorf, anyway?" said Allison,
glowering angrily. "I have forbidden you my doors, yet you follow me."
"My business is with you, sir, not as a suppliant pleading for mercy, as
you seem to think, but as the representative of a great people demanding
immediate answer to their----"
"What? Why, you meddling, insignificant----" scowled Allison, gripping
his cane as though eager to use it.
"Spare your insults and your cane, Mr. Allison. Our relative positions
have been utterly reversed in the last forty-eight hours. At this moment
there is a clamor for your downfall in the throats of three hundred
thousand toil-worn, honest laboring men. Between their victim and their
vengeance no State, no municipal authority will interpose a hand. Last
night, false to your promises to the Brotherhood of Trainmen, you sent
strong bodies of armed men to terrorize the few strikers gathered in the
effort to establish their just claims. You broke their blockade, ran
your trains in and out, and indulged in insolent triumph before the
people in the morning press. At this moment within easy range of your
palatial home ten thousand determined men are assembled, awaiting the
word. Once launched upon their work, not one stone of your railway
buildings, not a shingle on the roofs of your elevators, not one brick
in the walls of your homestead, will be left to show where once they
stood. Only my appeals, only my urgent counsels, have thus far
restrained them. What will be the consequences if you refuse to listen
God alone can tell. Despite my personal wrongs, I have come to you as
mediator, deprecating riots and destruction. All the Union asks of you,
all I implore you to do is to sign a written promise that until such
time as this unhappy controversy be settled the railway company of which
you are the virtual head will make no further attempt to move a single
train."
Allison's face was a sight to see, purpling with wrath and amaze, yet
quivering with sense of the wild absurdity of the situation. Glancing
from one to another, portly Mr. Waldo stood uneasily by. He believed
some escaped lunatic had invaded the Lambert. Even Wells, who had known
Elmendorf for months, seemed unprepared for the sublimity of this
flight. He turned away towards the window to let them settle it between
them. At last Allison spoke, with exaggerated calm:
"And if I refuse this modest request, what am I to expect as the
consequence?"
"The immediate consequence will be the calling out at noon to-day of the
Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen and the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers, thus tying up every road in the country, to be followed
to-morrow by similar action on the part of the Knights of Labor,
involving every industry in the land and turning millions of idle men
loose upon our streets. What will stand between you, your hoarded
wealth, and your cherished ones--your lives--and the wild vengeance of a
long oppressed and starving populace, I leave you to imagine."
"And you actually expect me to believe this trash,--expect me to believe
that the State of Illinois will stand idly by and see----"
"The governor of Illinois," interrupted Elmendorf, "has refused to
interfere. His heart beats in sympathy with that of his people. He knows
their wrongs. He has dared to say that never by his call shall sabre or
bayonet be used to intimidate the workingman in the effort to secure his
rights. The blood of the martyred men you hanged eight years ago as
Anarchists cries aloud for vengeance, and the day of the people has come
at last. They govern the governor; _they_ are the legislature of
Illinois, and when they rise no power on earth can save you."
But Wells could stand it no longer. He was fuming at the great window
overlooking the street, and now burst impetuously into speech. "No power
on earth, you absurd lunatic? do you mean that because this State has a
crank like you temporarily at the top there's nothing beyond or behind
it to save us from pillage and murder and anarchy? Listen to that, you
foreign-born fraud!" and far up the street the morning air was ringing
with shouts of acclaim; "listen to that! There's some American music for
you, you half-witted, stall-fed socialist!" For loud and clear a
trumpet-call echoed down the thoroughfare. "Look at that!" he cried,
throwing aside the lower shutters, "look at that, you mad-brained,
moon-blinded dreamer!"
And there, covering the space almost from curb to curb, a squadron of
regular cavalry came sweeping down the avenue, the guidons fluttering
over the uniforms of dusty blue, the drab campaign hats shading the
stern, soldierly faces, the grim cartridge-belts bulging with copper and
lead, the ugly little brown barkers of carbines and revolvers peeping
from their holsters. Troop after troop, they swung steadily by, the guns
of a light battery following close at their heels. "No power on earth!"
persisted the incensed man of books. "You stuffed owl! Go back to your
mobs and murderers, and when you've told them what you've seen, keep
going until you get back out of this to the country where such as you
belong,--if there is one on earth that'll own you,--and tell them the
United States is a government, a _Nation_,--by the Eternal! and don't
you dare forget it again." And, stupefied, thunderstruck, Elmendorf
turned and fled.
"But this is invasion! this is treason!" he gasped, as he bolted madly
from the room.
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