almost--yes, sometimes I wholly despair. I love this state, Mr.
Rathbawne, as I love nothing else on earth--not even my girl there, not
even Natalie. You two are the only ones in the world who can understand
what it means when I say that. It has always been so, ever since I was
big enough to know what Alleghenia meant, and more than ever since I
have come to understand her shame, and her vital peril, and her dire
need. I've never tried to explain the feeling; I've never found any one
who seemed to share it with me. I hear other men talk of national
patriotism, and the flag, and all that, and I understand it, and honor
them for it. But--while it may be only a fancy of mine--for me Kenton
City comes even before Washington, and even before these United States
of America the sovereign state of Alleghenia! I would have her courts
incorruptibility itself, her government the perfect commingling of
equity and mercy; her press the vehicle of verity, intelligence, and
watchfulness; her public servants the faithful exponents of loyalty and
diligence; her people, one and all, whatever is best in our
interpretation of the word American--and then, something
more!--Alleghenians!--citizens, not only of the Republic, but of the
state which I would have shine brightest in the field of stars, and be
quoted, from Maine to California, and from Florida to Washington, as the
synonym for law and order, truth, integrity, and justice. You know how
far the dream is from the reality. We are held up to ridicule and
contempt as law-breakers, time-servers, and bribe-takers--and we deserve
it! I can't see help on any hand. I don't believe our people, as a
class, are actually vicious and corrupt--only callous and indifferent,
accustomed so long to the spectacle of political chicanery and depravity
that they have lost their ability to appreciate its significance. But,
so far as results are concerned, it all amounts to the same thing. Once,
I hoped I should be able to do something. But now--I'm a nonentity, Mr.
Rathbawne, as you know, and not only that, but a man who has taken a
false step, from which he can never recover. I'm dead, politically
speaking--as dead as Benjamin Butler!"
He paused, drawing a deep breath.
"We were speaking of your interview," he added, more evenly. "What was
the result?"
"Nothing, beyond what I've told you," answered Rathbawne, shaking his
head. "All I can do is to keep my mouth shut, await developments, and
trust in a Providence which it takes a good bit of obstinacy to believe
hasn't deserted the state of Alleghenia for good and all. It isn't for
my own sake alone, John, that I pray the Union will give in before my
people begin to think of violence. You remember '94 in Chicago? Well,
we don't want anything like that in Kenton City. It would be the last
straw! Alleghenia has a big enough burden of disgrace to carry, as it
is."
A servant entered, even as he was speaking, to summon him to the
telephone, and with an exclamation of impatience he left the room.
Immediately, Natalie stepped from her post at the window, and came
toward Barclay with outstretched hands.
"Oh, Johnny boy," she said, "I'm _so_ sorry. How you've been hurt, dear,
and disappointed, and cruelly wronged!"
The Lieutenant-Governor's hands clenched again at the sound of sorrow in
her voice, and he strove in vain to control the tremor of his lip.
Tenderly he put his arms about her.
"I'm sorry, too, little girl--sorry you were here to see me make a fool
of myself and then squeal when I got hurt as I deserved. I shouldn't
have done that. But I was so proud--so grateful--I thought I was going
to be able"--
"_Johnny--Johnny!_"
They held to each other rigidly for an instant, her face against his
sleeve, in an agony which no tears came to soothe.
"There!" said Barclay presently. "I'm better already. It does one good
to blow off steam, now and again."
His tone lightened perceptibly.
"And look here," he added, "what's most important, after all, is that I
have news for you, and ought to be delivering it."
As yet, they did not dare to meet each other's eyes, but Natalie took
the cue.
"You can spare yourself the trouble, my lord," she retorted, sweeping
him a curtsy. "I can guess what it is, without your aid. You've found
him!"
"How did you know?"
"I didn't. But you will remember that I asked you to find him. The
inference is as plain as a pikestaff."
"Arrogance! But you're right. I have. He has been at my rooms since last
night. He was frightfully shaky, and utterly despondent, but he's taking
something to settle his nerves, and I've no doubt a week or so of good
food and straight living will bring him around into something like his
old form."
"Boy dear! And you're taking care of him?"
"Oh, just directing the cure, that's all! I'll tell you more when I can
report definite progress. Do you suppose there is a single secluded
corner in all this mansion which has not already been preëmpted by
Dorothy and Nisbet?"
He slipped his arm about her again, and together they went out, across
the wide hall, toward the drawing-room. Rathbawne was standing at the
telephone under the stairway, but, as they approached him, he replaced
the receiver, and stepped forth under the light of the chandelier. They
both halted, shocked into speechlessness by the look on his face. The
past ten minutes seemed to have added a decade to his age. His cheeks
were white and drawn, and with his hands he groped before him, as if he
had been stricken blind. As he came close to them, he lifted his head,
and peered first at his daughter, and then at Barclay, seeming barely to
recognize them.
"Dad! What _is_ it?" said the girl, in a voice just above a whisper.
Rathbawne raised his hand, and pushed back the hair from his forehead.
"A message--from Payson--of the 'Sentinel,'" he mumbled. "It seems
there's a fire--a fire on Charles Street--near the mills--one of my
buildings--a shop--a shop. Some one in the crowd--threw a
torch in at the window--there is a great crowd--a throng of
strikers--watching--cheering the flames--hissing the firemen. They've
begun early--and this is only the beginning! My people--my people"----
He stumbled forward, and would have fallen, but that his daughter caught
him. To his dying day Barclay remembered how, as he sprang to aid her,
her hands gleamed, white and slender, against the black of Peter
Rathbawne's coat.
The hush that followed was broken presently by the sound of the old
man's choking sobs, and the low, soothing tones of Natalie, murmuring
against his ear. From the drawing-room came indeterminate scraps of Mrs.
Wynyard's gay chatter, as she regaled Mrs. Rathbawne with the gossip
gleaned in a round of calls. She herself was partly visible, drawing off
her gloves before the fire. From the music-room beyond issued the chords
of Dorothy's none-too-sure accompaniment, and young Nisbet's superb,
full tenor:--
"'Ah, love, could you and I with fate conspire
To grasp the sorry scheme of things entire'"--
But, in the Lieutenant-Governor's imagination, another sound mingled
with and dominated these,--the voice of Michael McGrath, as he had heard
it that morning, through the open door of Governor Abbott's room:--
"It won't be a strike like other strikes, not so long as I'm running it,
that is. It's going to mean business from the word go!"
VIII
THE GOVERNOR UNMASKS
One spotted peach will contaminate an entire basket, one drop of ink
cloud a full glass of clear water. It was so in the case of the strikers
at the Rathbawne Mills. Their unwonted idleness, the long succession of
empty hours, already, among the more improvident, the preliminary
pressure of privation's teeth,--all these made them easy prey for the
sophistries of men like McGrath and his associates. At first they simply
laughed at the arraignments of Peter Rathbawne as a plutocrat, a
slave-master, and an oppressor of the poor, knowing better in their
hearts. But the memory of past kindness is too apt to be the most
fleeting of human impressions. On the one side the gates of the
Rathbawne Mills remained obstinately closed, and, though Rathbawne
himself manifested no intention of resorting to the intolerable
importation of "scab" labor, he persisted in his refusal to treat with
the Union so long as the discharge of the fifteen men remained a subject
proposed for debate. On the other hand, the denunciations of McGrath and
the other Union orators were constant, unavoidable, and sufficiently
plausible to produce an impression, and linger in the mind. And,
meanwhile, to and fro among the strikers, stalked, arm in arm, the
spectres of idleness and starvation, the one smirking openly, the other,
as yet, half-veiled. Altogether it was fertile ground.
After the burning of Mr. Rathbawne's shop, on the first night of the
strike, ensued a week of comparative quiet. The outrage had been
flagrant, the source, if not the very author, of it was known, and the
police did--nothing. For three days the press of Kenton City blazed with
indignation, excepting only the "Record," which openly favored the
strikers, and then all the papers alike suddenly ceased to refer to the
incident at all. For, while McGrath was not in favor of wasting the
funds of the Union, he was as well aware as the next man that a dollar,
as well as a stitch, in time, saves nine.
Herein lay the cardinal peril of Alleghenia. As John Barclay had said,
it was not that her people, as a class, were corrupt or criminal, but
merely that they viewed with easy tolerance evidences of laxity and
lawlessness which would have set the citizens of another state by the
ears, and filled the newspaper columns and the public forums with
indignation and protest. In this respect, the papers of Kenton City were
the most flagrant offenders. Even the most reputable, the "Sentinel,"
could be silenced at practically any moment by those cognizant of the
method, and in a position to command the price, of manipulation. As a
whited sepulchre it was a conspicuous success, being irreproachably
scholarly, dignified, and didactic in tone, and wholly destitute of
principle.
Michael McGrath, demagogue though he was, knew his public as the
physician knows the pulse he feels. It was a feature of the strike at
the Rathbawne Mills that no attempt was made to justify the cause of the
strikers in the eye of the disinterested public of Kenton City. McGrath
himself was fully alive to the slenderness of his pretext, and alive, as
well, to the strength of Peter Rathbawne's case, if it should come to a
discussion of the rights and wrongs involved, wherein his business
probity and his justice to, and consideration for, his employees, would
furnish arguments well-nigh unanswerable. He contented himself,
therefore, with standing upon a simple declaration of the will of the
Union, which was, in effect, his own; and, strong in his reliance, if
not upon the support, at least upon the non-interference of the state
authorities, devoted his attention to holding the press in check, by
methods long since found effectual, and confidently left the public to
think and act as it saw fit.
There could have been no more contemptuous comment upon the moral and
intellectual status of the community than this insolent assumption of
its indifference to the commonest principles of justice, but for a time
his confidence had the appearance of being amply justified. The strike
went its way, characterized by an infinity of petty outrages and a
constant and consistent vilification of Peter Rathbawne, while--with the
exception of that first and promptly quashed protest on the part of the
press--no voice was raised in opposition.
Reduced to its lowest terms, the struggle was one between Rathbawne and
McGrath, and that, not as representatives the one of a great industrial,
the other of a great socialistic organization, but as individuals. The
source of the stream which had thus reached its rapids, and was plunging
on toward its annihilating cataract, lay far back in the early days of
Rathbawne's commercial career. McGrath was a man who practiced neither
the vice of forgetfulness nor the virtue of forgiveness. As plain as the
event of a yesterday lay upon his memory his contemptuous dismissal from
Rathbawne's employ, charged in particular with a petty peculation, and
in general with the indisputable fact of being a bad influence in the
mills. His case had been in many ways identical with that of the men
whose cause he was now, for reasons of his own, espousing.
But Peter Rathbawne, then less shrewd in estimating men than now, had
reckoned without due credit to the vindictiveness and pertinacity of the
man before him. McGrath--brutally handsome in those days, idle,
insolent, and independent--later had developed qualities of which at the
time there was little evidence. He had smiled and shrugged his
shoulders--a habit which had grown upon him--as Rathbawne gave his
verdict, and had instinctively resisted the temptation to threaten
revenge. For that inspiration he had been devoutly grateful ever since.
It had enabled him to work in silence and unseen, like a mole, toward
the goal at which he aimed. He was a poker player, was Michael McGrath,
of the class which pulls victory out of defeat by the aid of its own
personality and a low pair. The calm indifference with which he had
received his dismissal from the employ of Peter Rathbawne seemed to him,
on reflection, to have been the unconscious forerunner of the elaborate
_nonchalance_ with which he now viewed the unexpected filling of a
broken straight. It was certain that the other player had not guessed
the strength of his cards.
He had never forgiven, never forgotten. It had taken a quarter-century
of unremitting effort, of indomitable perseverance, of calculated
ingenuity, to secure to him the position which he now felt to be
assured--that of being able to cope with the man who had been his
adversary, and so overwhelmingly his superior. The fight was on at
last,--a fight in which the odds were not only equal, but, if anything,
in favor of the former mill-hand, thus become one of the most powerful
men in Alleghenia; a fight to be fought to the bitter finish, with an
almost certain triumph as his reward.
Added to these motives was another,--newer, it is true, but none the
less potent,--his hatred for the Lieutenant-Governor. He had been able
to laugh within a half-minute after the words "unmitigated blackguard"
had smitten his ears; but they had rankled for all that. It was not so
much the insult, as the knowledge that it was justified. He was
remarkably candid with himself, was Michael McGrath.
Hence the unparalleled venom of the strike at the Rathbawne Mills.
McGrath's dual sense of wounded vanity prescribed a course of surpassing
vindictiveness. His personal resentment, reinforced by consummate
appreciation of the adversaries with whom he had to deal, dictated a
safe road to revenge, which enabled him to fling wide the floodgates of
his long-stored animosity, secure in his knowledge of having the upper
hand. Disorder, calumny, outrage, even open anarchy--he could venture
upon them unafraid. A corrupt Governor, whom he had created, stood
behind him, smiling tolerantly. An indifferent community would let him
have his will. Only he must proceed by degrees, and be ready at any
moment to take one backward step for the sake of being able presently
thereafter to take two in advance.
Here precisely lay the weak point in his plan of campaign. With the
fatuity incidental on occasions to even the shrewdest minds, he had not
counted upon independence in the host which he believed slave to him, in
thought and word and deed. He rated himself the dictator, the prompter
without whose suggestion no one of all the players in this gigantic
tragedy could speak his line. As a matter of fact, like all leaders of
his class, he could drive his followers forward at will, while totally
unable to hold them back. He was wholly master so long as he used the
spur. The peril lay in the fancied efficacy of the curb. In short, he
was discovering already that he had unwittingly created a monster beside
which Frankenstein's was the veriest doll.
Thus, shortly, the strain began to tell upon the four thousand
unemployed sets of nerves around the Rathbawne Mills. Meetings became
more frequent and more turbulent; drinking and disorder were observably
on the increase; and at the end of another four weeks one of the gates
of the mills was beaten down, and several hundred men and boys paraded
around shop after shop, breaking windows and singing ribald songs. It
was not a very serious demonstration in itself. Its ominous feature lay
in the fact that the police made no attempt to check it. There was
something else about it, to the thinking of McGrath. It was not so much
that events were moving too fast, but that they were moving without
intelligent control.
Two nights later, another building belonging to Peter Rathbawne, and
situated only a half-block from the mills, was burned in the same manner
as the first, watched by an enormous crowd of strikers, who applauded
each fresh burst of flame, as if the fire had been a circus or a play.
Still there was no move on the part of the police.
Then it was that the business men of Kenton City sat up in their office
chairs and began to think. This was an eventuality entirely outside the
calculations of McGrath. But the pachydermatous inertia of the citizens
of Alleghenia had yet its vulnerable spot, where the weapon might enter.
Vaguely these men had known that the state was rotten, but the fact had
never been brought to their attention in a manner so poignantly
suggestive before. Unwittingly McGrath had aroused the suspicion that it
was not the purse of Peter Rathbawne alone which was in danger. If it
was possible for disorder to go to such extremes in the very streets of
Kenton City without fear of interference or rebuke, then no man's
property was safe. That thought was the Achilles' heel of the community.
So it was that a Citizens' Committee, composed of presidents of two
insurance companies, directors from five banks, representatives from the
Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Trade, and, finally, Colonel Amos
Broadcastle, was appointed to wait upon the Mayor. That gentleman, as
was entirely to be expected, referred them to the Governor, and to the
Governor they went.
Barclay was present at the interview. For his own reasons Governor
Abbott had kept his immediate subordinate well to the fore in all
matters pertaining to the strike since the latter's rebuke to
McGrath,--in all matters, that is to say, not involving the exercise of
actual authority. Of that, indeed, the Lieutenant-Governor had had no
hope after the conversation in Peter Rathbawne's library. He met the
representatives of the press, conducted the correspondence with
mill-owners and other negatively interested parties, and at the
Governor's request made what was palpably a farcical inspection of the
entire state militia--to judge of their readiness for strike service!--a
task which consumed a fortnight in constant travel, and visits to
armories all alike in insufficient equipment and utter slovenliness. The
Ninth Regiment alone remained, and this command was to parade for
inspection by the Governor himself that very evening. The coincidence
flashed through Barclay's mind as the Citizens' Committee entered, with
Broadcastle, in his capacity as spokesman, at its head.
The dignity and air of command habitual to the Colonel of the Ninth were
doubly apparent as he advanced toward the Governor's table. Both Barclay
and Abbott rose to receive him, but the latter reseated himself, as soon
as Broadcastle had introduced his fellow-members of the Committee. He
listened to what followed with an air of thoughtfulness, tinged with a
faint and exasperating suggestion of amusement. At a neighboring table,
his official stenographer took down every word which fell.
Colonel Broadcastle was not accustomed to mince matters, when the
occasion demanded brevity and conciseness. Now, he stepped to within a
few feet of the Governor's table, and stood rigidly confronting him,
with his hands clasped before him on the head of his stick, in the
position of parade-rest.
"Governor Abbott," he said, in his curt, dry voice, "these gentlemen and
myself form a Committee appointed by a meeting of the business men of
Kenton City, to protest against the state of affairs now existing in
connection with the strike at the Rathbawne Mills. It is only generous
to presume that other matters have diverted your attention from an
appreciation of these conditions. The situation is without parallel in
the annals of Alleghenia. Disorder is rampant, and destruction of
property is freely indulged in by the strikers without any apparent fear
of molestation. Despite the fact that there is a large police-force, it
makes no effort to check these operations. The sole reply of Chief
Pendle to the protests of those interested in the promotion of law and
order has been that he will not suffer any outside interference in the
control of his department--the which, in view of his responsibility to
the public, can only be regarded as sheer and intolerable insolence! An
appeal to Mayor Goadby has elicited the response that the whole matter
lies in the Governor's hands."
The Colonel paused. The Governor, leaning back in his chair, and
fingering a pencil, smiled slightly and nodded his head.
"I suppose that is so," he said. "Continue, continue, Colonel
Broadcastle."
"It is the sense of the law-abiding element of Kenton City," went on the
Colonel, flushing at the condescension of his tone, "that the limit of
endurance has been reached. If, willfully or otherwise, the police do
not act, my regiment is prepared to act as substitute. I have already
placed it at the service of the Adjutant-General. His reply, like the
Mayor's, was to refer me to you for orders. I am here to receive them,
sir."
"Your offer is appreciated," said the Governor suavely. "We of Kenton
City have reason to be proud of the Ninth, Colonel Broadcastle. I
congratulate myself upon my privilege of reviewing it, to-night. And we
have reason to be proud, as well, of the intelligence which has made
such an organization possible. Your disinterested devotion"--
Broadcastle flung up his chin.
"I am not here to receive compliments, sir!" he said abruptly.
"Nor I to bestow them," answered the Governor, unruffled. "As
commander-in-chief of the state forces, I believe it is not outside my
province to render deserved commendation to a subordinate."
"Oh, do not let us juggle with words, Governor Abbott! It is precisely
as commander-in-chief of the state forces that the time has come for you
to act; it is precisely as your subordinate that I am here to receive
your orders. Assume the responsibility which confronts you, issue the
commands proper to the emergency, and you will have no more tireless
executor of them than I. My regiment can be on duty at the Rathbawne
Mills inside of six hours"--
"But, my good Colonel Broadcastle," broke in the Governor, "the state
has no need of your regiment for the moment! Calling upon the militia is
no light matter, sir. You talk about my ordering out the Ninth as you
would advise me to ring for a messenger-boy!"
"The welfare of the municipality, if not that of the commonwealth,"
replied Colonel Broadcastle firmly, "demands that an immediate stop be
put to this lawlessness. We are dealing with extremities, sir!"
The Governor swung forward, and placed his elbows on the table.
"You will permit me to be the best judge of what the welfare of the
commonwealth may be," he retorted. "Whatever lawlessness exists--and I
think you have grossly exaggerated its extent, Colonel Broadcastle--is
due to the selfish obstinacy of one man. In my opinion, Mr. Rathbawne is
entirely in the wrong. He had fair warning, which he did not choose to
heed. If his property suffers at the hands of the strikers, he has only
himself to blame."
"It is not a question of Mr. Rathbawne, or of any other individual,"
said Broadcastle, "but of the integrity of the state of Alleghenia!"
"The integrity of the state of Alleghenia," answered the Governor dryly,
"has been intrusted, by the vote of her citizens, to me, as chief
executive."
"An action," exclaimed the Colonel, "which I venture to predict they
will shortly have reason most bitterly to regret!"
Governor Abbott rose abruptly to his feet.