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EARL had learned how to use and control the great draft-horse of the
river. At a touch of his finger a belt moved, and up went the push of
the falling waters into a thousand feet of shafting. Other levers could
divide this stream of power into some forty currents guided by leathern
belts to the labor-saving devices of my able friend. These latter had
doubled the capacity of the shop without increasing its working force,
and soon the machines which made “Sal and Sal's Sisters” began to be
regarded as the rivals--and even as the enemies--of labor.
The candidacy of Mr. McCarthy had been announced; the caucuses were
coming on; no sign of opposition had developed.
One morning the gentleman came in with important news.
“They will strike to-morrow,” he said. “I have learned the whole plot.
Gaffney, that little red-headed Irishman who is the boss of the
wrapping-room, is at the bottom of it. They had a secret session last
night and made him spokesman. He will come here to-morrow morning and
ask me to put out the machines. If I refuse, they will quit and fight
me.”
He sat, thoughtfully, tapping with his pencil. In half a moment he said:
“That man Gaffney has quite a head on him. I think I'll promote the
fellow.”
“Promote him!” I exclaimed.
“Yes; I never discharge anybody. I promote people if it becomes
necessary to get rid of them.”
He tapped his call-bell, and said to the errand boy, “Ask Mr. Gaffney to
come here.”
Gaffney arrived presently, a bit embarrassed. “Sit down a moment,” said
Mr. McCarthy. “I said when you came here that I would keep an eye on
you, and I've done it. I'm satisfied that you're too talented for your
position. I'm going to send you to the shop in Troy, where our machines
are made, and keep you there until you've learned all about them. Then
I'll try you as superintendent, at a larger salary, and a 5-per-cent,
interest in the profits. If you 'tend to business you'll make a
fortune.”
Gaffney was dumb with surprise. His face turned red; his hands trembled;
he voiced his gratitude in a stammered sentence.
“I'm glad to do it,” said McCarthy. “Go back to your work, and be ready
to leave Monday morning.”
Gaffney retired, and my friend sent for another man.
“This is a different kind of chap,” said the gentleman. “He's a sore on
the body of poor Sal, and we'll remove him by a gentle sort of surgery.”
His name was Hinkley, and presently in he came.
“Hinkley,” said my friend, “I'm going to promote you. To-morrow you may
go to the plant at Amadam. You shall have a 3-per-cent, interest in the
profits of that enterprise. Go ahead and make them as big as you can.”
Hinkley returned to his bench in a grateful spirit, although a bit
puzzled, as I saw by the look of his face.
When we were alone, McCarthy turned with a smile and said:
“You see, the plant at Amadam is a reformatory for the promoted. Of
course, it doesn't make any money, and as soon as it begins to lose a
hundred dollars a month I shall stop it, and they'll be out in the cold
world. I'm fair with them; they have a chance to make some profit if
they will and keep their jobs. It's their funeral, not mine. If any man
improves there, and develops talent and good-will, I promote him back
to the home shop. If any one is unmanageable, I promote him to the
soap-grease department at Buffalo. There I have a hard boss, and the
probationer will do one of two things--reform or resign. He either
improves or discharges himself. I never discharge any one.” After a
moment's pause, he went on: “Now we'll send for Mr. Horace Bulger and
give him some work to do. He should be able to stop the strike now.
We've done him a great favor.” The Honorable Bulger came soon, and
promptly the hand-made gentleman gave him a word of advice.
“You had better stop this trouble in my factory, if you can,” said he.
“What trouble?”
“The trouble you started some time ago; it's your trouble now. The men
have decided to strike to-morrow. You'll have to make peace, or I'm
defeated and you lose your money.”
Mr. Bulger rose with a worried look.
“Don't say a word to them,” he whispered; “let me do the talking.”
Without further reply, Mr. Bulger hurried into the factory. For the
first time in his life this wily, easy-going gentleman had work to do,
and it gave him no rest. Gaffney helped him, and he kept-the men with
us, although they had gone so far in the way of discontent, upon which
he himself had led them, that Mr. Bulger was in sore trouble.
Old and new forces had begun a conflict which was to last for half a
century. Hand labor _versus_ machines became an issue in the campaign of
James Henry McCarthy, and nearly defeated him. He went to New York and
remained there until Bulger had struggled up to the convention with a
majority of two. When the nomination was secure he told us about one of
the winning votes.
It had been a stubborn fight in the town of Edgewood. The night before
the caucus he knew that he needed one vote to secure his delegate. A
politician of the name of Barber had worked against him, and spent a
good deal of money. Late in the evening he hired a horse and drove to
the house of a certain farmer who lived about a mile from the village.
He had learned that Barber had bought the vote of this man. The farmer
let him in.
“I want to talk with you and your wife about an important matter,” said
he.
Soon they both sat beside him.
“You are supposed to be respectable people,” said Bulger. “You have
some property and two children, and of course you'd like to have a good
name.”
The farmer agreed.
“Well, now, I've come here to inform you that Barber got drunk this
evening, and has been telling down there at the hotel that he had bought
your vote.”
“Then don't you vote for his candidate,” said the wife to her husband.
“If you do, everybody will believe the story.”
“And he voted for our delegate,” said Bulger, as he turned to the
hand-made gentleman. “That's the kind of a fight I've had on my hands,
but now the worst is over.”
“Not yet,” said McCarthy. “There's the shame of such a victory, and that
will fall upon me. I don't like it.”
“Oh, you're one o' them high-moral cusses!” said Mr. Bulger, with a look
of contempt.
Then said the hand-made gentleman: “My morals are just high enough to
believe in fair play.”
“Well, you don't have to answer for my sins,” Mr. Bulger retorted.
“I'm not sure of that.”
“You're in the game of politics, young man,”
Bulger went on. “You've got to take it as it is or keep out. It's as
tricky and full o' bluff as a game o' poker. I'd like to see you make
it better. You'll have a chance by-and-by; go ahead and see what you can
do.”
Well, there was some mud-flinging in the campaign, and Mr. McCarthy was
blamed for the sins of Bulger, and came to his honors by-and-by with
tempered enthusiasm and increased humility. A certain newspaper had
opposed him with cruel vindictiveness. It told of his humble origin, and
called him “Pegleg McCarthy” and “the son of a washwoman” and “a man of
vaulting and unwarranted ambitions.” These were the poisoned arrows of a
rude time, and they scarred the soul of McCarthy and helped to make him
a fighter.
Meanwhile I sat one evening in the shop with Pearl and Barker.
“Mack is a great boy,” said my old friend. “Sat here until midnight the
other evening; said he hated politics, and wished he was out of it. I
called Barker up, and give him a talkin' to right then and there.”
“How about the talented young lady?” I inquired.
“I don't believe he'll marry her. He ain't so green as he used to be--”
He was interrupted by a rap at the basement door. I opened it, and four
masked men crowded over its threshold. I grappled with their leader, for
the truth had flashed upon me--they were after Pearl, “the machine
man.” I fought like a tiger, and stopped them for a second there by the
doorway, and then they stopped me. One of them threw a piece of iron and
struck me in the face with it; but I had saved my friend, with the help
of Mr. Barker, who had seized one by the seat of his trousers. I came to
in a dash of spray. A man had fallen across my legs and another lay near
me. I saw a shaft of water strike a third and lift him off his feet and
hurl him through the open doorway. He went like a leaf in the wind. A
dash of spray put out the lamp. I scrambled to my feet, and stood to my
ankles in water. I could hear the turbine purring like a great cat. In a
second Pearl's electric lamp, that hung from the ceiling, began to glow.
He stood by the pen-stock with a big iron nozzle in his hand. Two men
lay near me. The water had struck like a sand-bag, and knocked the
breath out of them. They had come to, and begun making for the open door
on their hands and knees.
“Good-night, boys,” said the Pearl, pleasantly; “call again.”
He closed the door and bolted it, and took his pistol from a closet and
turned off the light.
“Come on,” he whispered, “we've got to make for a doctor.”
At precisely that moment I began to feel the pain in my nose and
the warmth of my own blood on its way to the floor. We hurried up a
stairway, and through the long hall, and out of the front door.
“Thanks, old boy,” Pearl said, warmly, as he took my arm in his, “you
have won further promotion for meritorious conduct. I make you my hero
as well as my friend.”
“I did little,” was my answer; “but I should like to know what it was
that you did to them.”
“It was the ol' mare o' the river,” said Pearl. “I had her fixed so I
could cut her loose. She just h'isted up her hind legs an' threw 'em
into every corner o' the shop. An' they hit hard. Ye see, I was expectin'
'em. Had a spout rigged at the bottom o' the pen-stock with a double
j'int in the neck of it. The ol' mare jumped through it an' raised”--he
checked himself, and added--“everything in reach.”
My nose had been badly cut and broken, and I was a month in the Albany
hospital undergoing repairs, and came out with this battered visage. I
wept when I saw myself in the mirror.
It was not so very bad, you see, after all, but that day I thought it
bad enough to make a dog bark at me. I gave up all thought of marriage,
but--yes, oh yes, dear child, I loved her more than ever.
I remember the day that Pearl came down to cheer me up. He put his hand
on my head and whispered:
“Don't worry about that, boy. It's your medal of honor, and you can't
hide it under your vest, either.”
We learned that the men had worse injuries, and before a day had passed
their names were known, and within a week they were promoted to the
grease department. They had planned to tar and feather my friend and
carry him out of the village on a fence-rail, and Pearl and his “old
mare” had exposed and kicked them out of favor in their own ranks. The
working-men turned to McCarthy, and always stood by him after that.