WHEREIN GRANT ADAMS PREACHES PEACE AND LIDA BOWMAN SPEAKS HER MIND
A war, being an acute stage of discussion about the ownership of
property, is a war even though "the lead striker calls it a strike," and
even though he proposes to conduct the acute stage of the discussion on
high moral grounds. The gentleman who is being relieved of what he
considers at the moment his property, has no notion of giving it up
without a struggle, no matter how courteously he is addressed, nor upon
what exalted grounds the discussion is ranging. It is a world-old
mistake of the Have-nots to discount the value which the Haves put upon
their property. The Have-nots, generally speaking, hold the property
under discussion in low esteem. They have not had the property in
question. They don't know what a good thing it is--except in theory. But
the Haves have had the property and they will fight for it, displaying a
degree of feeling that always surprises the Have-nots, and naturally
weakens their regard for the high motives and disinterested citizenship
of the Haves.
Now Grant Adams in the great strike in the Wahoo Valley was making the
world-old mistake. He was relying upon the moral force of his argument
to separate the Haves from their property. He had cared little for the
property. The poor never care much for property--otherwise they would
not be poor. So Grant and his followers in the Valley--and all over the
world for that matter,--(for they are of the great cult who believe in a
more equitable distribution of property, through a restatement of the
actual values of various servants to society), went into their demands
for partnership rights in the industrial property around them, in a
sublime and beautiful but untenable faith that the righteousness of
their cause would win it. The afternoon when the men walked out of the
mines and mills and shops, placards covered the dead walls of the Valley
and the hired billboards in Harvey setting forth the claims of the men.
They bought and paid for twenty thousand copies of Amos Adams's
_Tribune_, and distributed it in every home in the district,
setting forth their reasons for striking. Great posters were spread over
the town and in the Valley declaring "the rule of this strike is to be
square, and to be square means that the strikers will do as they would
be done by. There will be no violence."
Now it would seem that coming to the discussion with these obviously
high motives, and such fair promises, the strikers would have been met
by similarly altruistic methods. But instead, the next morning at half
past six, when a thousand strikers appeared bearing large white badges
inscribed with the words, "We stand for peace and law and order," and
when the strikers appeared before the entrance to the shaft houses and
the gates and doors of the smelters and mills, to beg men and women not
to fill the vacant places at the mills and mines, the white-badged
brigade was met with five hundred policemen who rudely ordered the
strikers to move on.
The Haves were exhibiting feeling in the matter. But the mines and mills
did not open; not enough strike-breakers appeared. So that afternoon, a
great procession of white-badged men and white-clad women and children,
formed in South Harvey, and, headed by the Foley Brass Band, marched
through Market Street and for five miles through the streets of Harvey
singing. Upon a platform carried by eight white-clad mothers, sat little
Ben Bowman swathed in white, waving a white flag in his hand, and
leading the singing. Over the chair on which he sat were these words on
a great banner. "For his legal rights and for all such as he we demand
that the law be enforced."
For two hours the procession wormed through Harvey. The streets were
crowded to watch it. It made its impression on the town. The elder
Calvin watched it with Mayor Ahab Wright, in festal side whiskers, from
the office of Calvin & Calvin. Young Joe Calvin from time to time came
and looked over their shoulders. But he was for the most part too busily
engaged, making out commissions for deputy sheriffs and extra policemen,
to watch the parade. As the parade came back headed for South Harvey,
the ear of the young man caught a familiar tune. He watched Ahab Wright
and his father to see if they recognized it. The placid face of the
Mayor betrayed no more consciousness of the air than did his immaculate
white necktie. The elder Calvin's face showed no appreciative wrinkles.
The band passed down the street roaring the battle hymn of labor that
has become so familiar all over the world. The great procession paused
uncovered in the street, while Little Ben waved his flag and raised his
clear, boyish voice with its clarion note and sang, as the procession
waved back. And at the spectacle of the crippled child, waving his one
little arm, and lifting his voice in a lusty strain, the sidewalk crowd
cheered and those who knew the tune joined.
Young Joe Calvin stood with his hands on the shoulders of the two
sitting men. "Mr. Mayor, do you know that tune?" said Young Joe.
Mr. Mayor, whose only secular tune was "Yankee Doodle," confessed his
ignorance. "Listen to the words," suggested Young Joe. Old Joe put his
hand to his right ear. Ahab Wright leaned forward, and the words of the
old, old cry of the Reds of the Midi came surging up:
"To arms! to arms!--ye brave!
The avenging sword unsheathe!
March on! March on! all hearts resolved
On victory or death."
When Ahab Wright caught the words he was open mouthed with astonishment.
"Why--why," he cried, "that--why, that is sedition. They're advocating
murder!"
Young Joe Calvin's face did not betray him, and he nodded a warning
head. Old Joe looked the genuine consternation which he felt.
"We can't have this, Ahab--this won't do--a few days of this and we'll
have bloodshed."
It did not occur to Ahab Wright that he had been singing "Onward,
Christian Soldiers," and "I Am a Soldier of the Cross," and "I'll Be
Washed in the Blood of the Lamb," all of his pious life, without ever
meaning anything particularly sanguinary. He heard the war song of the
revolution, and being a literal and peth-headed man, prepared to defend
the flag with all the ardor that had burned in John Kollander's heart
for fifty years.
"I tell you, Mr. Mayor, we need the troops. The Sheriff agrees with
me--now you hear that," said young Joe. "Will you wait until some one is
killed or worse, until a mine is flooded, before sending for them?"
"You know, Ahab," put in old Joe, "the Governor said on the phone this
morning, not to let this situation get away from you."
The crowd was joining the singing. The words--the inspiring words of the
labor chant had caught the people on the sidewalk, and a great diapason
was rising:
"March on! March on!--all hearts resolved
On victory or death."
"Hear that--hear that, Ahab!" cried old Joe. "Why, the decent people up
town here are going crazy--they're all singing it--and that little devil
is waving a red flag with the white one!"
Ahab Wright looked and was aghast. "Doesn't that mean
rebellion--anarchy--and bloodshed?" he gasped.
"It means socialism," quoth young Joe, laconically, "which is the same
thing."
"Well, well! my! my! Dear me," fretted Ahab, "we mustn't let this go
on."
"Shall I get the Governor on the phone--you know we have the Sheriff's
order here--just waiting for you to join him?" asked young Joe.
The Haves were moving the realm of the discussion about their property
from pure reason to the baser emotions.
"Look, look!" cried the Mayor. "Grant Adams is standing on that
platform--and those women have to hold him up--it's shameful. Listen!"
"I want to say to my old neighbors and friends here in Harvey," cried
Grant, "that in this strike we shall try with all our might, with all
our hearts' best endeavors, to do unto others as we would have them do
unto us. Our property in the mines and mills in this Valley, we shall
protect, just as sacredly as our partners on Wall Street would protect
it. It is our property--we are the legatees of the laborers who have
piled it up. You men of Harvey know that these mines represent little
new capital. They were dug with the profits from the first few shafts.
The smelters rose from the profits of the first smelters in the
district. Where capital has builded with fresh investment--we make no
specific claim, but where capital has builded here in this district from
profits made in the district--profits made by reason of cheating the
crippled and the killed, profits made by long deadly hours of labor,
profits made by cooking men's lungs on the slag dump, profits made by
choking men to death, unrequited, in cement dust, profits sweated out of
the men at the glass furnaces--where capital has appropriated unjustly,
we expect to appropriate justly. We shall take nothing that we do not
own. This is the beginning of the rise of the Democracy of Labor--the
dawn of the new day." He waved his arm and his steel claw and chanted:
"March on!--March on!--all hearts resolved,"
And in a wave of song the response came
"To victory or death."
Grant Adams flaunted his black slouch hat; then he sprang from the
platform, and hurried to the front of the procession. The band struck up
a lively tune and the long trail of white-clad women and white-badged
men became animate.
"Well, Ahab--you heard that? That is rebellion," said old Joe, squinting
his mole-like eyes. "What are you going to do about that--as the chief
priest of law and order in this community?"
Five minutes later Ahab Wright, greatly impressed with the dignity of
his position, and with the fact that he was talking to so superior a
person as a governor, was saying:
"Yes, your excellency--yes, I wanted to tell you of our conditions here
in the Valley. It's serious--quite serious." To the Governor's question
the Mayor replied:
"No--no--not yet, but we want to prevent it. This man Adams--Grant
Adams, you've heard about him--"
And then an instant later he continued, "Yes--that's the man,
Governor--Dr. Nesbit's friend. Well, this man Adams has no respect for
authority, nor for property rights, and he's stirring up the people."
Young Joe Calvin winked at his father and said during the pause,
"That's the stuff--the old man's coming across like a top."
Ahab went on: "Exactly--'false and seditious doctrines,' and I'm afraid,
Governor, that it will be wise to send us some troops."
The Calvins exchanged approving nods, and young Joe, having the
enthusiasm of youth in his blood, beat his desk in joyous approval of
the trend of events.
"Oh, I don't know as to that," continued Ahab, answering the Governor.
"We have about four thousand men--perhaps a few more out. You know how
many troops can handle them."
"Tell him we'll quarter them in the various plants, Ahab," cut in old
Joe, and Ahab nodded as he listened.
"Well, don't wait for the tents," he said. "Our people will quarter the
men in the buildings in the centers of the disturbance. Our merchants
can supply your quartermaster with everything. We have about a thousand
policemen and deputy sheriffs--"
While the Mayor was listening to the Governor, Calvin senior said to his
son, "Probably we'd better punch him up with that promise about the
provo marshal," and young Joe interrupted:
"And, Mr. Mayor, don't forget to remind him of the promise he made to
Tom Van Dorn,--about me."
Ahab nodded and listened. "Wait," he said, putting his hand over the
telephone receiver, and added in a low voice to those in the room: "He
was just talking about that and thinks he will not proclaim martial law
until there is actual violence--which he feels will follow the coming of
the troops, when the men see he is determined. He said then that he
expected Captain Calvin of the Harvey Company to take charge, and the
Governor will speak to the other officers about it." Ahab paused a
moment for further orders. "Well," said the elder Calvin, "I believe
that's all."
"Will there be anything else to-day, Joe?" asked Ahab, unconsciously
assuming his counter manner to young Joe Calvin, who replied without a
smile:
"Well--no--not to-day, thank you," and Ahab went back to the Governor
and ended the parley.
The _Times_ the next morning with flaring headlines announced that
the Governor had decided to send troops to the Wahoo Valley to protect
the property in the mines and mills for the rightful owners and to
prevent any further incendiary speaking and rioting such as had
disgraced Market Street the day before. In an editorial the Governor was
advised to proclaim martial law, as only the strictest repression would
prevent the rise of anarchy and open rebellion to the authorities.
The troops came on the early morning trains, and filed into the sheds
occupied by the workmen before the strike. The young militiamen
immediately began pervading South Harvey, Foley and Magnus, and when the
strikers lined up before the gates and doors of their former working
places at seven o'clock that morning they met a brown line of
youths--devil-may-care young fellows out for a lark, who liked to prod
the workmen with their bayonets and who laughingly ordered the strikers
to stop trying to keep the strike-breakers from going to work. The
strikers were bound by their pledges to the Trades Council not to touch
the strike-breakers under any circumstances. The strikers--white-badged
and earnest-faced--made their campaign by lining up five on each side of
a walk or path through which the strike-breakers would have to pass to
their work, and crying:
"Help us, and we'll help you. Don't scab on us--keep out of the works,
and we'll see that you are provided for. Join us--don't turn your backs
on your fellow workers."
They would stretch out their arms in mute appeal when words failed, and
they brought dozens of strike-breakers away from their work. And on the
second morning of the strike not a wheel turned in the district.
All morning Grant Adams moved among the men. He was a marked
figure--with his steel claw--and he realized that he was regarded by the
militiamen as an ogre. A young militiaman had hurt a boy in
Magnus--pricked him in the leg and cut an artery. Grant tried to see the
Colonel of the company to protest. But the soldier had been to the
officer with his story, and Grant was told that the boy attacked the
militiaman--which, considering that the boy was a child in his early
teens and the man was armed and in his twenties, was unlikely. But Grant
saw that his protests would not avail. He issued a statement, gave it to
the press correspondents who came flocking in with the troops, and sent
it to the Governor, who naturally transferred it back to the militiamen.
In the afternoon the parade started again--the women and children in
white, and the men in white coats and white working caps. It formed on a
common between Harvey and South Harvey, and instead of going into Harvey
turned down into the Valley where it marched silently around the quiet
mills and shafts and to the few tenements where the strike-breakers were
lodged. A number of them were sitting at the windows and on the steps
and when the strikers saw the men in the tenements, they raised their
arms in mute appeal, but spoke no word. Down the Valley the procession
hurried and in every town repeated this performance. The troops had
gathered in Harvey and were waiting, and it was not until after three
o'clock that they started after the strikers. A troop of cavalry
overtook the column in Foley, and rode through the line a few times, but
no one spoke, and the cavalrymen rode along the line but did not try to
break it. So the third day passed without a fire in a furnace in the
district.
That night Grant Adams addressed the strikers in Belgian Hall in South
Harvey, in Fraternity Hall in Magnus and on a common in Foley. The
burden of his message was this: "Stick--stick to the strike and to our
method. If we can demonstrate the fact that we have the brains to
organize, to abandon force, to maintain ourselves financially, to put
our cause before our fellow workers so clearly that they will join
us--we can win, we can enter into the partnership in these mills that is
ours by right. The Democracy of Labor is a Democracy of Peace--only in
peace, only by using the higher arts of peace under great provocation
may we establish that Democracy and come into our own.
Stick--stick--stick to the strike and stick to the ways of peace. Let
them rally to their Colonels and their tin soldiers--and we shall not
fear--for we are gathered about the Prince of Peace."
The workmen always rose to this appeal and in Foley where the Letts had
worked in the slag-dump, one of them, who did not quite understand the
association of words implied by the term the Prince of Peace, cried:
"Hurrah for Grant, he is the Prince of Peace," and the good natured
crowd laughed and cheered the man's mistake.
But the _Times_ the next morning contained this head:
"Shame on Grant Adams, Trying to Inflame Ignorant Foreigners.
Declares he is the Prince of Peace and gets Applause from his
Excited Dupes--Will he Claim to be Messiah?"
It was a good story--from a purely sensational viewpoint, and it was
telegraphed over the country, that Grant Adams, the labor leader, was
claiming to be a messiah and was rallying foreigners to him by
supernatural powers. The _Times_ contained a vicious editorial
calling on all good citizens to stamp out the blasphemous cult that
Adams was propagating. The editorial said that the authorities should
not allow such a man to speak on the streets maintained by tax-payers,
and that with the traitorous promises of ownership of the mines and
mills backing up such a campaign, rebellion would soon be stalking the
street and bloodshed such as had not been seen in America for a
generation would follow. The names which the _Times_ called Grant
Adams indicated so much malice, that Grant felt encouraged, and believed
he had the strike won, if he could keep down violence. So triumph
flambeaued itself on his face. For two peaceful days had passed. And
peace was his signal of victory.
But during the night a trainload of strike-breakers came from Chicago.
They were quartered in the railroad yards, and Grant ordered a thousand
pickets out to meet the men at daybreak. Grant called out the groups of
seven and each lodging house, tenement and car on the railroad siding
was parceled out to a group. Moreover, Grant threw his army into action
by ordering twenty groups into Sands Park, through which the
strike-breaking smelter men would pass after the pickets had spoken to
the strike-breakers in their door yards. Lining the park paths, men
stood in the early morning begging working men not to go into the places
made vacant by the strike. In addition to this, he posted other groups
of strikers to stand near the gates and doors of the working places,
begging the strike-breakers to join the strikers.
Grant Adams, in his office, was the motive power of the strike. By
telephone his power was transferred all over the district. Violet Hogan
and Henry Fenn were with him. Two telephones began buzzing as the first
strikers went into Sands Park. Fenn, sitting by Grant, picked up the
first transmitter; Violet took the other. She took the message in
shorthand. Fenn translated a running jargon between breaths.
"Police down in Foley--Clubbing the Letts.--No bloodshed.--They are
running back to their gardens."
"Tell the French to take their places," said Grant--"There are four
French sevens--tell him to get them out right away--but not to fight the
cops. Militia there?"
"No," answered Fenn, "they are guarding the mill doors, and this
happened in the streets near the lodging houses."
"Mr. Adams," said Violet, reading, "there's some kind of a row in Sands
Park. The cavalry is there and Ira Dooley says to tell you to clear out
the Park or there will be trouble."
"Get the boys on the phone, Violet, and tell them I said leave the Park,
then, and go to the shaft houses in Magnus--but to march in
silence--understand?"
Fenn picked up the transmitter again, "What's that--what's that--" he
cried. Then he mumbled on, "He says the cops have ax-handles and that
down by the smelters they are whacking our people right and left--Three
in an ambulance?--The Slavs won't take it? Cop badly hurt?" asked Fenn.
Grant Adams groaned, and put his head in his hand, and leaned on the
desk. He rose up suddenly with a flaming face and said: "I'm going down
there--I can stop it."
He bolted from the room and rattled down the stairs. In a minute he came
running up. "Violet--" he called to the woman who was busy at the
telephone--"shut that man off and order a car for me quick--they've
stolen my crank and cut every one of my tires. For God's sake be
quick--I must get down to those Slavs."
In a moment Violet had shut off her interviewer, and was calling the
South Harvey Garage. Henry Fenn, busy with his phone, looked up with a
drawn face and cried:
"Grant--the Cossacks--the Cossacks are riding down those little Italians
in Sands Park--chasing them like dogs from the paths--they say the
cavalry is using whips!"
Grant stood with bowed head and arched shoulders listening. The muscles
of his jaw contracted, and he snapped his teeth.
"Any one hurt?" he asked. Fenn, with the receiver to his ear went on,
"The Dagoes are not fighting back--the cavalrymen are shooting in the
air, but--the lines are broken--the scabs are marching to the mines
through a line of soldiers--we've stopped about a third from the
cars--they are forming at the upper end of the Park--our men, they--"
"Good-by," shouted Grant, as he heard a motor car whirring in the
distance.
Turning out of the street he saw a line of soldiers blocking his way. He
had the driver turn, and at the next corner found himself blocked in.
Once more he tried, and again found himself fenced in. He jumped from
the car, and ran, head down, toward the line of young fellows in khaki
blocking the street. As he came up to them he straightened up, and,
striking with his hook a terrific blow, the bayonet that would have
stopped him, Grant caught the youth's coat in the steel claw, whirled
him about and was gone in a second.
He ran through alleys and across commons until he caught a street car
for the smelters. Here he heard the roar of the riot. He saw the new
ax-handles of the policemen beating the air, and occasionally thudding
on a man's back or head. The Slavs were crying and throwing clods and
stones. Grant ran up and bellowed in his great voice:
"Quit it--break away--there, you men. Let the cops alone. Do you want to
lose this strike?"
A policeman put his hand on Grant's shoulder to arrest him. Grant
brushed him aside.
"Break away there, boys," he called. The Slavs were standing staring at
him. Several bloody faces testified to the effectiveness of the
ax-handles.
"Stand back--stand back. Get to your lines," he called, glaring at them.
They fell under his spell and obeyed. When they were quiet he walked
over to them, and said gently:
"It's all right, boys--grin and bear it. We'll win. You couldn't help
it--I couldn't either." He smiled. "But try--try next time." The
strike-breakers were huddled back of the policemen.
"Men," he shouted to the strike-breakers over the heads of the
policemen, "this strike is yours as well as ours. We have money to keep
you, if you will join us. Come with us--comrades--Oh, comrades, stand
with us in this fight! Go in there and they'll enslave you--they'll
butcher you and kill you and offer you a lawsuit for your blood. We
offer you justice, if we win. Come, come," he cried, "fellow
workers--comrades, help us to have peace."
The policemen formed a line into the door of the shaft house. The
strike-breakers hesitated. Grant approached the line of policemen, put
up his arm and his maimed hand, lifted his rough, broken face skyward
and cried, "O--O--O, God, pour Thy peace into their hearts that they may
have mercy on their comrades."
A silence fell, the strike-breakers began to pass through the police
lines to join the strikers. At first only one at a time, then two. And
then, the line broke and streamed around the policemen. A great cheer
went up from the street, and Grant Adams's face twitched and his eyes
filled with tears. Then he hurried away.
It was eight o'clock and the picketing for the day was done, when Grant
reached his office.
"Well," said Fenn, who had Violet's notes before him, "it's considerably
better than a dog fall. They haven't a smelter at work. Two shafts are
working with about a third of a force, and we feel they are bluffing.
The glass works furnaces are cold. The cement mills are dead. They beat
up the Italians pretty badly over in the Park."
The _Times_ issued a noon extra to tell of the incident in front of
the smelter, and expatiated upon the Messianic myth. A tirade against
Grant Adams in black-faced type three columns wide occupied the center
of the first page of the extra, and in Harvey people began to believe
that he was the "Mad Mullah" that the _Times_ said he was.
When Dr. Nesbit drove his electric home that noon, he found his daughter
waiting for him. She stood on the front porch, with a small valise
beside her. She was dressed in white and her youthful skin, fresh lips,
glowing eyes and heightened color made her seem younger than the woman
of forty that she was. Her father saw in her face the burning purpose to
serve which had come to indicate her moments of decision. The Doctor had
grown used to that look of decision and he knew that it was in some way
related to South Harvey and the strike. For during her years of work in
the Valley, its interests had grown to dominate her life. But the Valley
and its interests had unfolded her soul to its widest reach, to its
profoundest depths. And in her features were blazoned, at times, all the
love and joy and strength that her life had gathered. These were the
times when she wore what her father called "the Valley look." She had
"the Valley look" in her face that day when she stood waiting for her
father with the valise beside her--a beautiful woman.
"Father--now don't stop me, dear. I'm going to Grant. Mother will be
home in a few days. I've told Lila to stay with Martha Morton when you
are not here. It's always secure and tranquil up here, you know. But I'm
going down in the Valley. I'm going to the strike."
"Going to the strike?" repeated her father.
"Yes," she answered, turning her earnest eyes upon him as she spoke.
"It's the first duty I have on earth--to be with my people in this
crisis. All these years they have borne me up; have renewed my faith;
they have given me courage. Now is my turn, father. Where they go, I go
also." She smiled gently and added, "I'm going to Grant."
She took her father's hands. "Father--Oh, my good friend--you understand
me--Grant and me?--don't you? Every man in the crisis of his life needs
a woman. I've been reading about Grant in the papers. I can see what
really has happened. But he doesn't understand how what they say
happens, for the next few days or weeks or months, while this strike is
on, is of vastly more importance than what really happens. He lacks
perspective on himself. A woman, if she is a worthy friend--gives that
to a man. I'm going to Grant--to my good friend, father, and stand with
him--very close, and very true, I hope!"
Trouble moved over the Doctor's face in a cloud. "I don't know about
Grant, Laura," he said. "All this Messiah and Prince of Peace
tomfoolery--and--"
"Why, you know it never happened, don't you, father? You know Grant is
not a fool--nor mad?"
"Oh, I suppose so, Laura--but he approximates both at times," piped the
father raspingly.
"Father--listen here--listen to me, dear. I know Grant--I've known him
always. This is what is the matter with Grant. I don't think one act in
all his life was based on a selfish or an ulterior motive. He has spent
his life lavishly for others. He has given himself without let or
hindrance for his ideals--he gave up power and personal glory--all for
this cause of labor. He has been maimed and broken for it--has failed
for it; and now you see what clouds are gathering above him--and I must
go to him. I must be with him."
"But for what good, Laura?" asked her father impatiently.
"For my own soul's good and glory, dear," she answered solemnly. "To
live my faith; to stand by the people with whom I have cast my lot; to
share the great joy that I know is in Grant's heart--the joy of serving;
to triumph in his failure if it comes to that!--to be happy--with him,
as I know him no matter what chance and circumstance surround him.
Oh--father--"
She looked up with brimming eyes and clasped his hand tightly while she
cried: "I must go--Oh, bless me as I go--" And the father kissed her
forehead.
An hour later, while Grant Adams, in his office, was giving directions
for the afternoon parade a white-clad figure brightened the doorway.
"Well, Grant, I have come to serve," she smiled, "under you."
He turned and rose and took her hands in his one flinty hand and said
quietly: "We need you--we need you badly right this minute."
She answered, "Very well, then--I'm ready!"
"Well, go out and work--talk peace, don't let them fight, hold the line
calm and we'll win," he said.
She started away and he cried after her, "Come to Belgian Hall
to-night--we may need you there. The strike committee and the leader of
each seven will be there. It will be a war council."
Out to the works went Laura Van Dorn. Mounted policemen or mounted
deputies or mounted militiamen stood at every gate. As the
strike-breakers came out they were surrounded by the officers of the
law, who marched away with the strangers. The strikers followed, calling
upon their fellow workers, stretching out pleading arms to them and at
corners where the strikers were gathered in any considerable numbers,
the guards rode into the crowd waving their whips. At a corner near the
Park a woman stepped from the crowd and cried to the officers:
"That's my boy in there--I've got a right to talk to him."
She started to crowd between the horses, and the policemen thrust her
back.
"Karl--Karl," she cried, "you come out of there; what would papa
say--and you a scab."
She lifted her arms beseechingly and started toward the youth. A
policeman cursed her and felled her with a club.
She lay bleeding on the street, and the strikers stood by and ground
their teeth. Laura Van Dorn stooped over the woman, picked her up and
helped her to walk home. But as she turned away she saw five men walk
out of the ranks of the strike-breakers and join the men on the corner.
A cheer went up, and two more came.
Belgian Hall was filled with workers that night--men and women. In front
of the stage at a long table sat the strike committee. Before them sat
the delegates from the various "locals" and the leaders of the sevens. A
thousand men and women filled the hall--men and women from every quarter
of the globe. That night they had decided to admit the Jews from the
Magnus paint works--the Jews whom the Russians scorned, and the Lettish
people distrusted. Behind all of the delegates in a solid row around the
wall stood the police, watching Grant Adams. He did not sit with the
strike committee but worked his way through the crowd, talking to a
group here and encouraging a man or woman there--but always restless,
always fearing trouble. It was nine o'clock when the meeting opened by
singing "The International." It was sung in twenty tongues, but the
chorus swelled up and men and women wept as they sang.
"Oh, the Brotherhood of men
Shall be the human race."
Then the delegates reported. A Greek woman told how she had been chased
by men on horseback through the woods, in the Park. A Polack man showed
a torn hand that had come under an ax-handle. A Frenchman told how he
had been pursued by a horseman while going for medicine for his sick
child. A Portuguese told how he had brought from the ranks of the
strike-breakers a big fellow worker whom he knew in New Jersey. The
Germans reported that every one of their men in the Valley was out and
working in his garden. Over and over young girls told of insults they
had received. A mania of brutality seemed to have spread through the
officers of the law. A Scotch miner's daughter showed a tear in her
dress made by a soldier's bayonet--
"'In fun,' he said, but I could see na joke."
In all the speeches there was a spirit of camaraderie--of fellowship, of
love. "We are one blood now," a Danish miner cried, in broken English,
"we are all Americans, and America will be a brotherhood--a brotherhood
in the Democracy of Labor, under the Prince of Peace." A great shout
arose and the crowd called:
"Grant--Grant--Brother Grant."
But he stood by the table and shook his head. After a girl picket and a
woman--one a Welsh girl, the other a Manx miner's mother--had told how
they were set upon in the Park by the soldiers, up rose a pale,
trembling woman from among the Hungarians, her brown, blotched face and
her big body made the men look down or away. She spoke in broken,
uncertain English.
"We haf send to picket our men and yet our boys, and they beat them
down. We haf our girls send, and they come home crying. But I say to God
this evening--Oh, is there nothing for me--for me carrying child, and He
whisper yais--these soldiers, he haf wife, he haf mother." She paused
and shook with fear and shame. "Then I say to you--call home your
man--your girl so young, and we go--we women with child--we with big
bellies, filled with unborn--we go--O, my God, He say we go, and this
soldier--he haf wife, he haf mother--he will see;--we--we--they will not
strike us down. Send us, oh, Grant, Prince of Peace, to the picket line
next morning."
Her voice broke and she sat down covering her head with her skirt and
weeping in excitement.
"Let me go," cried a clear voice, as a brown-eyed Welsh woman rose. "I
know ten others that will go."
"I also," cried a German woman. "Let us organize to-night. We can have
two hundred child-bearing women!"
"Yes, men," spoke up a trim-looking young wife from among the
glassworkers, "we of old have been sacred--let us see if capital holds
us sacred now--before property."
Grant leaned over to Laura and asked, "Would it do? Wouldn't they shame
us for it?"
The eyes of Laura Van Dorn were filled with tears. They were streaming
down her face.
"Oh, yes," she cried, "no deeper symbol of peace is in the earth than
the child-bearing woman. Let her go."
Grant Adams rose and addressed the chair: "Mr. Chairman--I move that all
men and all women except those chosen by these who have just spoken, be
asked to keep out of the Park to-morrow morning, that all the world may
know how sacred we hold this cause and with what weapons of peace we
would win it."
So it was ordered, and the crowd sang the International Hymn again, and
then the Marseillaise, and went home dreaming high dreams.
As Grant and Laura walked from the hall, the last to leave the meeting,
after the women had finished making out their list of pickets, the
streets were empty and they met--or rather failed to meet, Mrs. Dick
Bowman, with Mugs in tow, who crossed the street obviously to avoid
Grant and his companion.
Grant and Laura, walking briskly along and planning the next day's work,
passed the smelters where the soldiers were on sentry duty. They passed
the shaft houses where Harvey militiamen were bunked and guarded by
sentinels. They passed the habiliments of war in a score of peaceful
places.
"Grant," cried Laura, "I really think now we'll win--that the strike of
peace will prove all that you have lived for."
"But if we fail," he replied, "it proves nothing--except perhaps that it
was worth trying, and will be worth trying and trying and trying--until
it wins!"
It was half past twelve. Grant Adams, standing before the Vanderbilt
House, talking with Henry Fenn, was saying, "Well, Henry, one week of
this--one week of peace--and the triumph of peace will be--"
A terrific explosion shut his mouth. Across the night he saw a red glare
a few hundred feet away. An instant later it was dark again. He ran
toward the place where the glare had winked out. As he turned a corner,
he saw stars where there should have been shaft house No. 7 of the Wahoo
Fuel Company's mines, and he knew that it had been destroyed. In it were
a dozen sleeping soldiers of the Harvey Militia Company, and it flashed
through his mind that Lida Bowman at last had spoken.