“How are you and the lad, this morning, Mrs. Wycliff?” asked that good
neighbor, Mrs. Clyde.
“Getting along nicely, thank you, and very glad to see you,” replied
Mrs. Wycliff. “But how does it happen that you are not working to-day?”
“The strike. Haven’t you heard of the rag-cutters’ strike? Three
hundred rag-cutters walked out of the Baldwin Mills an hour ago.”
“I didn’t know that the Baldwins ever had a strike in their mills.”
“They don’t often have one, and when they do, the world at large does
not know about it, they have such a strong grip on the newspapers about
here. My son, Tom, works on the Springdale _Democrat_, and he has told
me a lot about these things. Springdale is about fifty miles from here,
and the _Democrat_ pretends to be an independent newspaper, and yet it
never prints any news from Papyrus which can possibly hurt Congressman
Baldwin. Some years ago, Tom began work as correspondent here for the
_Democrat_, and there was a big strike here, in the Liberty Mill, which
belongs to the Baldwin Paper Company. Tom didn’t know any better then,
and he sent them a long article about the strike. Not a word of it was
printed, and the editor wrote Tom that they never printed any news of
that kind about the Baldwins. Then the other Springdale paper, the
_Universe_, is owned by Congressman Baldwin; so, of course, that does
not print a word regarding troubles in the Baldwin Mills.”
“But what was the cause of the strike to-day?” inquired Mrs. Wycliff.
“There were a good many things that had something to do with it,”
replied the neighbor, “but fines were the worst.”
“Fines! Do you have to pay fines?” asked Mrs. Wycliff.
“Yes, in this way. Perhaps you do not understand how fast we have to
work to earn what we get. We earn about one dollar per day, and to do
this we must cut in the neighborhood of one hundred and twenty-five
pounds of rags. Now, in cutting these rags, if we overlook a button, or
a bit of rubber, we are fined a pound of rags.”
“That is, if you put in a piece of cloth having a button on it, no
matter how small, you must cut an extra pound of rags, to punish you
for overlooking that button. Am I right?”
“Yes, you have it exactly right, and it’s just the same if I put in a
piece of cloth which has a bit of rubber in it. And here, see here is
a bit of cloth that came back to me this morning,--just this little
bit of a letter, sewed into the cloth.” And she showed Mrs. Wycliff a
bit of white cloth, on which was a small initial, such as is used in
marking garments.
“There are hundreds of pieces and consequently hundreds of motions we
must make in cutting one pound of rags, for which we receive less than
a cent. Working so rapidly as we are obliged to do, to accomplish
our day’s task, is it any wonder that a piece of cloth, containing a
button, or a bit of rubber, slips through our fingers unnoticed now and
then?”
“And this is what the strike is about?”
“Yes, this is the main thing. We are willing to pay something of a fine
for failure to notice rubber and buttons, but we think that the fine is
now too heavy. There are some other things we don’t like--some brutal
bosses, not fit to drive oxen, let alone women. Our scythes are often
poorly ground. The Baldwins seem to think anything is good enough for
a woman to cut one hundred and twenty-five pounds of rags a day on.
Sometimes it is very dark for our work.”
“Is no light furnished at such times?”
“Never. The office force, or other departments of the mill, may have
lights at noon of a cloudy day, but we are of no account. It is often
too warm in our room. We don’t need much heat because we have plenty of
exercise. We must be kept too warm on account of the ‘lookers over,’
who don’t have much exercise, except when they jump up on the tables,
to get away from a mouse.”
“Couldn’t the ‘lookers over’ have a separate room, which could be
kept warm enough for them, so that your room could be cooler and more
comfortable for you?”
“I don’t know. If the matter of fines is made right, we will say
nothing about the rest. When we make complaints, we are usually told
that the Baldwins could get machines to cut rags, cheaper than we cut
them, and that they only hire us out of charity.”
“I am surprised at the way the rag-cutters are treated,” said Mrs.
Wycliff; “I have always heard that the Baldwins were very generous.”
“They are generous,” replied her visitor, “but they are not just. There
is an old saying, ‘Be just before you are generous,’ which, if lived
up to in Papyrus, would make a wonderful difference in favor of the
working class. How have the Baldwins made their millions? Of course
the whole world knows that they make a very high grade of paper. It
is said that this is due, in some measure, to the pure water found in
Papyrus, which is the gift of God. Then, too, it is claimed that Mack
Baldwin laid the foundation of the Baldwin millions by manipulations
in Wall Street, during the Civil War. But some of those millions are
the fruit of low wages. If the Baldwins pay twenty-five cents a day
less than a fair wage, to two thousand hands, three hundred days in a
year, what is the result? It’s a yearly saving of one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, of money due the laborer, is it not? Then, perhaps,
the Baldwins may spend fifteen thousand dollars a year in pensions to
a very few, and in charity to the working class. Nothing can exceed
the cleverness of the Baldwins, in making one dollar in charity, look
bigger to the laborer, than ten dollars in wages withheld. I think
the time is coming when the law will require the accounts of all such
concerns as the Baldwin Paper Company, to be as open as town accounts,
and then the lion’s share of profits will go to the laborer. But I
guess you have had all the rag-room and paper-mill you want for one
day.”
“No, I have been very much interested, and I wish you women might get
justice,” replied Mrs. Wycliff. “I think there cannot be any harder
or more disagreeable work in the mill than yours, and I wish that you
might have better pay and kinder treatment. The Baldwins are well able
to pay. I hear that this new library that Zechariah Baldwin is giving
to the city of Elmfield will cost a half a million dollars.”
“Yes, I try to restrain my anger, as a Christian woman should,” said
Mrs. Clyde, “but my blood boils every time I see that building. We
poor women must slave in Zack Baldwin’s rag-room, and the money which
ought to go to the mill-help, in higher wages, is given, with a great
flourish of trumpets, to the city of Elmfield, which is already rich
enough. As to our work. If we try to work a bit faster than usual,
we are liable to get cut on the scythes, and there’s many a terrible
gash been got in the rag-room. Then how often do you hear of contagious
diseases spread by the rags of a paper-mill.
“The worst slap the Baldwins ever got was from a wealthy Southern lady,
who visited their mills last summer. She said to Zack Baldwin:--‘The
slaves on my father’s plantation in Georgia, were treated with more
consideration, and were more contented and happy at their work than
your rag-cutters. But the slave-holding system was wrong, and it fell.
I think also, the system under which you Northern millionaires eat the
apple, and give your employees the core, is wrong and will fall, too,’
But I have stayed too long.” And Mrs. Clyde vanished.
John Wycliff sat in his den, within easy ear-shot, and the pith of the
women’s talk was woven into his account of the strike, for the _Star_.
More than two thousand copies of the _Star_ were sold that day in
Papyrus, and its circulation was raised permanently to a point near
those figures.
The Honorable Zechariah Baldwin was furious when he read the _Star’s_
account of the strike. Never before had a local newspaper dared to
print the news of a Baldwin strike, much less to hold those “captains
of industry” up to public criticism, as it had done to-day.
But Terry was happy. He had sold extra thousands of his paper, the
largest edition ever sold of a Berkshire newspaper, and scores of
citizens, in all walks of life, had congratulated him on his bravery in
defying the Baldwins.
The most important result of the _Star’s_ article was that it was
copied, more or less fully, by other papers throughout the country,
owing to Congressman Baldwin’s prominence as a public man. A strike
in his mills is not a good asset for a Congressman, and David Baldwin
telegraphed his brother, from Washington, to grant the rag-cutters’
demands immediately. Zechariah Baldwin reluctantly complied with the
order sent by wire.
The Honorable Zechariah Baldwin appeared, a very angry man, at the
office of the _Star_.
“I want you to discharge that Wycliff,” was his first greeting to Mr.
Terry, the proprietor.
“How long have you owned this office, that you assume to run my
business?” rejoined Mr. Terry.
“But you know that we’re not used to being treated as the _Star_
treated us yesterday,” protested the paper-manufacturer.
“Then the best thing that you can do is to get used to it,” retorted
the publisher, who was now beginning to get angry on his own account.
“You’ve been treated as if you were superior beings, but you are no
better than other people. I have been suppressing the truth about you
millionaires for years, and losing thousands of dollars by doing so.
I might have sold thousands of copies of the _Star_, in Papyrus and
throughout the county, had I not truckled to you Baldwins, like a dog,
instead of being a man. Hereafter the truth is to be published about
you, just the same as about other folks, and Wycliff is under contract
to do it for a year. He is recommended as being entirely competent to
deal with such cases as yours. Perhaps I shall go out and tell you how
to run your mills. There’s the door, Zack Baldwin,” and the proprietor
of the _Star_, now thoroughly angry, motioned the millionaire out.
But the lord of Papyrus, although more surprised than he had been
before in years, was not to be thus easily thwarted.
“What will you take for your newspaper--for the entire plant?” he
asked, in a more conciliatory tone.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” replied the publisher, immediately,
naming a price so far beyond its true value that he felt sure it would
be declined.
“A pretty steep price, isn’t it?” asked Baldwin.
“Who asked you to buy?” retorted Terry.
“Come over to Lawyer Stimson’s and draw the writings,” said the
paper-manufacturer, withdrawing.
Next day John Wycliff received this note:--
“MY DEAR WYCLIFF:
“You’re a jewel. I’ve sold the _Star_ to Zack Baldwin for $25,000.
(It’s actual value is around $15,000.) I didn’t even sign the usual
agreement, not to engage in the same business again in the same city.
“Enclosed you will find check for $1,500, according to agreement by
which I guaranteed you one year’s salary.
“When I first met you, I thought you were a discourteous crank,
but my finances and my self-respect were both badly in need of the
rebuke which you gave me. Your way of dealing with such cattle as the
Baldwins beats mine out of sight.”
“Yours always,
WILFRID TERRY.”