The dreadful winter passed by without change, and without the promised
rise in the price of billets. The Hungerville Savings Bank suspended
business, because deposits were so few; and the Hungerville constables
had their hands full preventing incendiary speeches to the excited
crowds that filled the Hungerville saloons. But all through the long
panting summer the giant mills toiled on, turning out their tens of
thousands of dollars and thousands of tons of steel every day. The
delegations could no longer see the president, for the _Aurora_, the
magnificent single-sticker built for Robert van Rensselaer at a cost of
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was in those days electrifying
the country by her wonderful performances at Newport.
And then came the chill days of autumn and the prospect of another
dreadful winter, with the price of billets three per cent lower yet.
Mr. Robert van Rensselaer's palatial steam yacht, the _Comet_, was about
to start on a trip down the coast of Florida, when he was called to
Hungerville by an urgent telegram, saying that the crisis was at hand.
And truly there was some bad feeling--even the president could see that;
when one walked about the streets of Hungerville, he saw pale, sickly
children, bent and haggard women, and men glaring at him from under
lowering brows. He saw houses out of repair, and starving people being
turned away from them. He saw angry crowds harangued by wild-eyed men,
in Polish and other strange tongues.
These things the president noticed as his carriage whirled through the
streets, but they did not daunt him, and after a long and angry
conference the delegates of the unions came back to report that all
concessions had been refused. The next morning men read in the papers
that the unions had demanded a final conference, and that if nothing was
granted, then there would be a strike, and a war to the end.
X
In the first place, the president was in an angry mood when he went to
that conference. The sailing of the _Comet_ had had to be postponed yet
another day, and besides that a stone had been flung at his head only
five minutes before. I mention the stone particularly because, as I have
said, an unfortunate incident occurred at the conference.
They sat at a long table one October afternoon,--eight men, seven of
them pale and trembling, fingering their hats and gazing about them
nervously, with long agony written on their faces, a certain hunted look
that sportsmen know, but do not heed.
And Mr. Robert van Rensselaer--it has been some time since we have
looked at him. He was a gentleman of forty now, grown somewhat portly
and a little florid, but not too much so. He had always been a man of
distinction--you would have taken him for a diplomat, or a general, at
the very least.
He was a little pale just then about the lips, and he began the
conference in a tone whose calmness any one could have told was forced.
He began at the beginning--he explained the losses of the mills, and how
they were barely established now. He mentioned the new machinery, and
showed the cost of it. He laid before them a great mass of papers, and
made plain how the new machinery had increased the output and been
equivalent to a raise. He went on to the price of billets, he showed the
state of the market with elaborately marshalled figures, and proved what
the price must soon be. To all of which, a speech of nearly two hours,
the men listened fixedly.
Afterward one of the delegates, a little wiry, black-bearded Hungarian,
took up the question. He wandered from the point at once, discussing the
price of food, and the condition of the workingmen, much to the
president's annoyance. The latter tried to bring him back to the point
at issue--he returned to the papers again, and they argued back and
forth for a long time. Several times Mr. van Rensselaer choked down an
angry word.
"You talk to me about the condition of the workingmen," he exclaimed,
tapping on the table with his pencil. "But how can I help the condition
of the workingmen? You say his wages are not living wages--but who can
decide a question such as that? What one man can live on, another
cannot. What if the workingmen spend much of their wages in
intemperance, and then tell me they cannot live? What--" But then the
president stopped, and frowning with annoyance, went on in a different
voice: "But there is no use arguing about such questions as that! I have
tried to explain to you the state of the market, and just what the
Company can do. I can do nothing more. You must remember that we have
trials, also, and that ruin is possible for companies, too. The laws of
economy apply to companies just as well as men; there are living wages
for companies--"
The president stopped, and immediately the argumentative delegate
observed, "We do not see any signs that the Company is afflicted with
poverty."
The president gazed at him sharply. "Hey?" he asked.
"I say," repeated the man in a louder voice, "that anybody can go
through this town and see what is happening to the workingmen. I know of
a child that died yesterday of hunger, but I don't read that any of the
officers of the Company are suffering from want."
A flush shot over the president's face. "Do you mean to be impertinent?"
he cried.
"I mean nothing of the kind," said the man, amid breathless silence.
"But you have not hesitated to talk of the workingman's intemperance--"
And Mr. Robert van Rensselaer clutched the table. "Now," he cried, "this
thing's gone far enough, and we'll settle it right now! You might as
well quit your nonsense and understand this,--that the Hungerville Mills
belong to Robert van Rensselaer, and not to a union, or to anybody else;
and that they're going to be run the way Robert van Rensselaer chooses
they shall be run; that they're run for his profit, that the wages they
pay are the wages he chooses to pay, and that anybody who doesn't like
it is welcome to go wherever else it happens to suit him! And you go out
and give _that_ as my message, and, damn it, don't you ever come up here
into my office to insult me again!"
Then he stopped, purple with rage; and for half a minute the members of
the union stared at him and at each other. Finally they arose and made
their way from the room, leaving the president glaring at the closed
door.