THE GANG
If I'd been making five dollars a day at this time, I wouldn't have
moved from the tenement. In the first place as far as physical comfort
went I was never better off. We had all the room we needed. During the
winter we had used the living room as a kitchen and dining room just
as our forefathers did. We economized fuel in this way and Ruth kept
the rooms spotless. We had no fires in our bedrooms and did not want
any. We all of us slept with our windows wide open. If we had had ten
more rooms we wouldn't have known what to do with them. When we had a
visitor we received him in the kitchen. Some of our neighbors took
boarders and also slept in the kitchen. I don't know as I should want
to do that but at the same time many a family lives in a one room hut
in the forest after this fashion. By outsiders it's looked upon as
rather romantic. It isn't considered a great hardship by the settlers
themselves.
Then we had the advantage of our roof and with summer coming on we
looked forward to the garden and the joy of the warm starry nights. We
had some wonderful winter pictures, too, from that same roof. It was
worth going up there to see the house tops after a heavy snow storm.
If I had wanted to move I could have done only one of two things;
either gone back into the suburbs or taken a more expensive flat up
town. I certainly had had enough of the former and as for the latter I
could see no comparison. If anything this flat business was worse than
the suburbs. I would be surrounded by an ordinary group of people who
had all the airs of the latter with none of their good points. I'd be
hedged in by conventions with which I was now even in less sympathy
than before. I wouldn't have exchanged my present freedom of movement
and independence of action for even the best suite in the most
expensive apartment house in the city. Not for a hundred dollars a
week. Advantages? What were they? Would a higher grade of wall paper,
a more expensive set of furniture and steam heat compensate me for
the loss of the solid comfort I found here by the side of my little
iron stove? Was an electric elevator a fair swap for my roof? Were the
gilt, the tinsel and the soft carpets worth the privilege I enjoyed
here of dressing as I pleased, eating what I pleased, doing what I
pleased? Was their apartment-house friendship, however polished, worth
the simple genuine fellowship I enjoyed among my present neighbors?
What could such a life offer me for my soul's or my body's good that I
didn't have here? I couldn't see how in a single respect I could
better my present condition except with the complete independence that
might come with a fortune and a country estate. Any middle ground,
assuming that I could afford it, meant nothing but the undertaking
again of all the old burdens I had just shaken off.
Ruth, the boy and myself now knew genuinely more people than we had
ever before known in our lives. And most of them were worth knowing
and the others worth some endeavor to _make_ worth knowing. We were
all pulling together down here--some harder than others, to be sure,
but all with a distinct ambition that was dependent for success upon
nothing but our own efforts.
I was in touch with more opportunities than I had ever dreamed
existed. All three of us were enjoying more advantages than we had
ever dreamed would be ours. My Italian was improving from day to day.
I could handle mortar easily and naturally and point a joint as well
as my instructor. I could build a true square pier of any size from
one brick to twenty. I could make a square or pigeonhole corner or lay
out a brick footing. And I was proud of my accomplishment.
But more interesting to me than anything else was the opportunity I
now had as a foreman to test the value of the knowledge of my former
fellow workmen which I had been slowly acquiring. I was anxious to see
if my ideas were pure theory or whether they were practical. They had
proven practical at any rate in securing my own advance. This had come
about through no such pull as Rafferty's. It was the result of nothing
but my intelligent and conscientious work in the ditch and among the
men. And this in turn was made possible by the application of the
knowledge I picked up and used as I had the chance. It was only
because I had shown my employers that I was more valuable as a foreman
than a common laborer that I was not still digging. I had been able to
do this because having learned from twenty different men how to handle
a crowbar for instance, I had from time to time been able to direct
the men with whom I was working as at the start I myself had been
directed by Anton'. Anton' was still digging because that was all he
knew. I had learned other things. I had learned how to handle Anton'.
I had no idea that my efforts were being watched. I don't know now how
I was picked out. Except of course that it must have been because of
the work I did.
At any rate I found myself at the head of twenty men--all Italians,
all strangers and among them three or four just off the steamer. My
first job was on a foundation for an apartment house. Of course my
part in it was the very humble one of seeing that the men kept at work
digging. The work had all been staked out and the architect's agent
was there to give all incidental instructions. He was a young graduate
of a technical school and I took the opportunity this offered--for he
was a good-natured boy--to use what little I had learned in my night
school and study his blue prints. At odd times he explained them to me
and aside from what I learned myself from them it helped me to direct
the men more intelligently.
But it was on the men themselves that I centred my efforts. As soon as
possible I learned them by name. At the noon hour I took my lunch with
them and talked with them in their own language. I made a note of
where they lived and found as I expected that many were from my ward.
Incidentally I dropped a word here and there about the "Young American
Political Club," and asked them to come around to some of the
meetings. I found out where they came from and wherever I could, I
associated them with some of their fellows with whom I had worked. I
found out about their families. In brief I made myself know every man
of them as intimately as was possible.
I don't suppose for a minute that I could have done this successfully
if I hadn't really been genuinely interested in them. If I had gone at
it like a professional hand shaker they would have detected the
hypocrisy in no time. Neither did I attempt a chummy attitude nor a
fatherly attitude. I made it clearly understood that I was an American
first of all and that I was their boss. It was perfectly easy to do
this and at the same time treat them like men and like units. I tried
to make them feel that instead of being merely a bunch of Dagoes they
were Italian workingmen. Your foreign laborer is quick to appreciate
such a distinction and quick to respond to it. With the American-born
you have to draw a sharper line and hold a steadier rein. I figured
out that when you find a member of the second or third generation
still digging, you've found a man with something wrong about him.
The next thing I did was to learn what each man could do best. Of
course I could make only broad classifications. Still there were men
better at lifting than others; men better with the crowbar; men better
at shoveling; men naturally industrious who would leaven a group of
three or four lazy ones. As well as I could I sorted them out in this
way.
In addition to taking this personal interest in them individually, I
based my relations with them collectively on a principle of strict,
homely justice. I found there was no quality of such universal appeal
as this one of justice. Whether dealing with Italians, Russians,
Portuguese, Poles, Irish or Irish-Americans you could always get below
their national peculiarities if you reached this common denominator.
However browbeaten, however slavish, they had been in their former
lives this spark seemed always alive. However cocky or anarchistic
they might feel in their new freedom you could pull them up with a
sharp turn by an appeal to their sense of justice. And by justice I
mean nothing but what ex-president Roosevelt has now made familiar by
the phrase "a square deal." Justice in the abstract might not appeal
to them but they knew when they were being treated fairly and when
they were not. Also they knew when they were treating you fairly and
when they were not. I never allowed a man to feel bullied or abused; I
never gave a sharp order without an explanation. I never discharged a
man without making him feel guilty in his heart no matter how much he
protested with his lips. And I never discharged him without making the
other men clearly see his guilt. When a man went, he left no
sympathizers behind him.
On the other hand I made them act justly towards their employer and
towards me. I taught them that justice must be on both sides. I tried
to make them understand that their part was not to see how little work
they could do for their money and that mine was not to see how much
they could do, but that it was up to both of us to turn out a full
fair day's work. They were not a chain gang but workmen selling their
labor. Just as they expected the store-keepers to sell them fair
measure and full weight, so I expected them to sell a full day and
honest effort.
It wasn't always possible to secure a result but when it wasn't I got
rid of that man on the first occasion. It was very much easier to
handle in this way the freedom-loving foreigners than I looked for;
with the American-born it was harder than I expected.
On the whole however I was mighty well pleased. I certainly got a lot
of work out of them without in any way pushing them. They didn't sweat
for me and I didn't want them to--but they kept steadily at their work
from morning until night. Then too, I didn't hesitate to do a little
work myself now and then. If at any point another man seemed to be
needed to help over a difficulty I jumped in. I not only often saved
the useless efforts of three or four men in this way but I convinced
them that I too had my employers' interests at heart. My object wasn't
simply to earn my day's pay, it was to finish the job we were on in
the shortest possible time. It makes a big difference whether a man
feels he is working by the day or by the job. I tried to make them
feel that we were all working by the job.
Without boasting I think I can say that we cut down the contractor's
estimate by at least a full day. I know they had to do some hustling
to get the pile-drivers to the spot on time.
On the next job I had to begin all over again with a new gang. It
seemed a pity that all my work on the other should be wasted but I
didn't say anything. For two months I took each time the men I had and
did my best with them. I had my reward in finding myself placed at the
head of a constantly increasing force. I also found that I was being
sent on all the hurry-up work. I learned something every day. Finally
when the time seemed ripe I went to the contractor's agent with the
proposition towards which I had all along been working. This was that
I should be allowed to hire my own men.
The agent was skeptical at first about the wisdom of entrusting such
power as this to a subordinate but I put my case to him squarely. I
said in brief that I was sure I could pick a gang of fifty men who
would do the work of seventy-five. I told him that for a year now I
had been making notes on the best workers and I thought I could secure
them. But I would have to do it myself. It would be only through my
personal influence with them that they could be got. He raised several
objections but I finally said:
"Let me try it anyhow. The men won't cost you any more than the others
and if I don't make good it's easy enough to go back to the old way."
It's queer how stubbornly business men cling to routine. They get
stuck in a system and hate to change. He finally gave me permission to
see the men. I was then to turn them over to the regular paymaster who
would engage them. This was all I wanted and with my note book I
started out.
It was no easy job for me and for a week I had to cut out my night
school and give all my time to it. Many of the men had moved and
others had gone into other work but I kept at it night after night
trotting from one end of the city to the other until I rounded up
about thirty of them. This seemed to me enough to form a core. I could
pick up others from time to time as I found them. The men remembered
me and when I told them something of my plan they all agreed with a
grin to report for work as soon as they were free. And this was how
Carleton's gang happened to be formed.
It took me about three months to put all my fifty men into good
working order and it wasn't for a year that I had my machine where I
wanted it. But it was a success from the start. At the end of a year I
learned that even the contractor himself began to speak with some
pride of Carleton's gang. And he used it. He used it hard. In fact he
made something of a special feature of it. It began to bring him
emergency business. Wherever speed was a big essential, he secured the
contract through my gang. He used us altogether for foundation work
and his business increased so rapidly that we were never idle. I
became proud of my men and my reputation.
But of course this success--this proof that my idea was a good
one--only whetted my appetite for the big goal still ahead of me. I
was eager for the day when this group of men should really be
Carleton's gang. It was hard in a way to see the result of my own
thought and work turning out big profits for another when all I needed
was a little capital to make it my own. Still I knew I must be
patient. There were many things yet that I must learn before I should
be competent to undertake contracts for myself. In the meanwhile I
could satisfy my ambition by constantly strengthening and perfecting
the machine.
Then, too, I found that the gang was bringing me into closer touch
with my superiors. One day I was called to the office of the firm and
there I met the two men who until now had been nothing to me but two
names. For a year I had stared at these names painted in black on
white boards and posted about the grounds of every job upon which I
had worked. I had never thought of them as human beings so much as
some hidden force--like the unseen dynamo of a power plant. They were
both Irish-Americans--strong, prosperous-looking men. Somehow they
made me distinctly conscious of my own ancestry. I don't mean that I
was over-proud--in a way I don't suppose there was anything to boast
of in the Carletons--but as I stood before these men in the position
of a minor employee I suppose that unconsciously I looked for
something in my past to offset my present humiliating situation. And
from a business point of view, it was humiliating. The Carletons had
been in this country two hundred years and these men but twenty-five
or thirty and yet I was the man who stood while they faced me in their
easy chairs before their roll-top desks. It was then that I was glad
to remember there hadn't been a war in this country in which a
Carleton had not played his part. I held myself a little better for
the thought.
They were unaffected and business-like but when they spoke it was
plain "Carleton" and when I spoke it was "Mr. Corkery," or "Mr.
Galvin." That was right and proper enough.
They had called me in to consult with me on a big job which they were
trying to figure down to the very lowest point. They were willing to
get out of it with the smallest possible margin of profit for the
advertisement it would give them and in view of future contracts with
the same firm which it might bring. The largest item in it was the
handling of the dirt. They showed me their blue prints and their rough
estimate and then Mr. Corkery said:
"How much can you take off that, Carleton?"
I told him I would need two or three hours to figure it out. He called
a clerk.
"Give Carleton a desk," he said.
Then he turned to me:
"Stay here until you've done it," he said.
It took me all the forenoon. I worked carefully because it seemed to
me that here was a big chance to prove myself. I worked at those
figures as though I had every dollar I ever hoped to have at stake. I
didn't trim it as close as I would have done for myself but as it was
I took off a fifth--the matter of five thousand dollars. When I came
back, Mr. Corkery looked over my figures.
"Sure you can do that?" he asked.
I could see he was surprised.
"Yes, sir," I said.
"I'd hate like hell to get stuck," he said.
"You won't get stuck," I answered.
"It isn't the loss I mind," he said, "but--well there is a firm or two
that is waiting to give me the laugh."
"They won't laugh," I said.
He looked at me a moment and then called in a clerk.
"Have those figures put in shape," he said, "and send in this bid."
Corkery secured the contract. I picked one hundred men. The morning we
began I held a sort of convention.
"Men," I said, "I've promised to do this in so many days. They say we
can't do it. If we don't, here's where they laugh at the gang."
We did it. I never heard from Corkery about it but when we were
through I thanked the gang and I found them more truly mine than they
had ever been before.
Every Saturday night I brought home my fifteen dollars, and Ruth took
out three for the rent, five for household expenses, and put seven in
the ginger jar. We had one hundred and thirty dollars in the bank
before the raise came, and after this it increased rapidly. There
wasn't a week we didn't put aside seven dollars, and sometimes eight.
The end of my first year as an emigrant found me with the following
items to my credit: Ruth, the boy and myself in better health than we
had ever been; Ruth's big mother-love finding outlet in the
neighborhood; the boy alert and ambitious; myself with the beginning
of a good technical education, to say nothing of the rudiments of a
new language, with a loyal gang of one hundred men and two hundred
dollars in cash.
This inventory does not take into account my new friends, my new
mental and spiritual outlook upon life, or my enhanced self-respect.
Such things cannot be calculated.
That first year was, of course, the important year--the big year. It
proved what could be done, and nothing remained now but time in which
to do it. It established the evident fact that if a raw, uneducated
foreigner can come to this country and succeed, a native-born with
experience plus intelligence ought to do the same thing more rapidly.
But it had taught me that what the native-born must do is to simplify
his standard of living, take advantage of the same opportunities, toil
with the same spirit, and free himself from the burdensome bonds of
caste. The advantage is all with the pioneer, the adventurer, the
emigrant. These are the real children of the republic--here in the
East, at any rate. Every landing dock is Plymouth Rock to them. They
are the real forefathers of the coming century, because they possess
all the rugged strength of settlers. They are making their own
colonial history.