“At parting—Andres—said to Don Quixote, ‘For the love of God, Signor
Knight-errant, if ever you meet me again, though you see me beaten to
pieces, do not come with your help, but leave me to my fate, which
cannot be so bad but that it will be made worse by your
worship.’”—CERVANTES.
The Tailoress learned her lesson well. She listened to the Anarchist
until she was convinced that the hard conditions of her class were due,
not as she had always thought, to the will of God, but to the
selfishness of man, and that it was her duty to lead her fellow-workers
in rebellion.
She was shrinking, timid, sensitive, but she nerved herself to her task.
She began by forming a union in her own shop. It spread rapidly, soon
including most of the vest-makers in the city. The few who had good
wages joined for the sake of the many who had not.
The Tailoress did the work of organization admirably, and developed
powers of generalship of which no one had suspected her. Only a little
while after the formation of the union the time for action came. The
monetary depression, which had been causing unusual distress among the
poor, affected trade so seriously that the wages of garment-makers were
cut down everywhere throughout the city. The vest-makers suffered with
the rest.
The Tailoress acted as spokeswoman in the committee appointed by her
union to wait on the contractors for this kind of work. To each she
stated her case of grievances admirably, but no one of them gave her
assurance of redress.
Then she led the vest-makers triumphantly out on a strike.
I have not the heart to give the details of the fight that followed. It
was a case where the employers won a speedy victory, because of the ease
with which this work can be secured. In a few days many of the
contractors had filled their shops with new employés, and the work was
going on as usual, while the Tailoress and her followers were adrift.
Nothing had been ripe for the revolt except the enthusiasm of the
rebels.
I had been sorely puzzled by the problem. The cause I felt was just, but
I found it difficult to face the idea of the misery that failure would
bring. I was hardly heroic enough to agree with the Altruist and the
Anarchist that the defeated strikers would be sufficiently rewarded by
the martyr’s consolation of suffering gloriously for their faith.
Possibly this was because I was acquainted with some of them.
The battle was lost, and the Tailoress was broken-hearted. Her Jeanne
D’Arc courage left her. In her consciousness of the wretchedness she had
caused, she forgot that her impulse had been noble. She shrank from the
prophetess into a nervous, hysterical woman.
We tried every method of consolation. The practical came first, and we
laboured incessantly, seeking employment for the vest-makers thrown out
of work. Two shops, after slight intercession, took back their employés,
in spite of the prejudice roused by the union. Many of the women were
successful in securing new work of a lower grade.
The Altruist, I discovered in an indirect way, sacrificed a large part
of his private income in providing for the many who could find no
employment. The excitement of the occasion afforded him a kind of
painful happiness. The war of liberation had begun. He gave a lecture in
his auditorium on “The Defeat that is Success.”
“I am really beginning to sway these young working-men,” he confided to
me exultantly afterward. “The labour-movement will lose its chief danger
if men who occupy neutral ground between the two parties in the struggle
can act as mediators. It is full of noble impulse that often acts
irrationally, and needs judicious guidance. The labourer fails in
presenting his claims in the right way because he cannot think logically
or speak efficiently. I am coming to think that my mission is to
interpret the mind of the working-man.”
The Doctor, though she breathed out many imprecations against the
strike, helped a score of its stranded victims.
“Do you think that this kind of protest against injustice is always
wrong?” I asked, rather deprecatingly, one day.
“Yes, when it is stirred up by outsiders,” she answered with emphasis.
“With the labour-movement itself, in spite of its terrible mistakes, I
feel deep sympathy. In any demand so persistent, so universal, there
must be a certain justice, a certain right.”
But her next remarks were not so agreeable.
“I cannot understand how employers fail to see the trend of all this
agitation, and to realize that great concessions must be made to the
working-men. The peace of the country is menaced, yet the question at
issue is left, in times of outbreak to the military, in times of quiet
to professional agitators, a class of vagrants who represent neither
labour nor capital, and understand the position of neither employer nor
employé. The burden of responsibility which the business men of the
country refuse to shoulder is taken up by men like our friends the
Anarchist and the Young Reformer. The greatest danger lies there.”
I smiled, thinking that possibly many of the agitators were, like the
Anarchist, not so dangerous as they tried to be.
The news of the relief for her companions in revolt affected the
Tailoress but slightly. She shut herself up in her garret room with her
remorse. We visited her, and attempted consolation, but to no effect.
At last she softened a little. One day the Altruist came to me with a
grieved look.
“Will you ask the Doctor to go and talk with the Tailoress?” he said
gently. “I think the Doctor might reach her as none of the rest can. I
seem to have lost all influence over her.”
I promised to fulfil the request.
“I do not understand,” said the Altruist wistfully, “why I cannot touch
people at times like this. Before this grief came, the Tailoress hung on
every word I said. I sometimes feel a sense of lack, as if I cannot get
near simple human moods. It is much easier for me to cope with
intellectual difficulties.”