THE WALKING DELEGATE
[Illustration: THE WALKING DELEGATE]
The
Walking Delegate
By
Leroy Scott
_With Frontispiece_
New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1905
Copyright, 1905, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
Published May, 1905
_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian_
To My Wife
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON THE ST. ETIENNE HOTEL 3
II. THE WALKING DELEGATE 14
III. THE RISE OF BUCK FOLEY 30
IV. A COUNCIL OF WAR 9
V. TOM SEEKS HELP FROM THE ENEMY 50
VI. IN WHICH FOLEY PLAYS WITH TWO MICE 59
VII. GETTING THE MEN IN LINE 72
VIII. THE COWARD 85
IX. RUTH ARNOLD 98
X. LAST DAYS OF THE CAMPAIGN 111
XI. IN FOLEY'S "OFFICE" 120
XII. THE ELECTION 129
XIII. THE DAY AFTER 145
XIV. NEW COURAGE AND NEW PLANS 153
XV. MR. BAXTER HAS A FEW CONFERENCES 166
XVI. BLOWS 177
XVII. THE ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE 187
XVIII. THE STOLEN STRIKE 203
XIX. FOLEY TASTES REVENGE 210
XX. TOM HAS A CALLER 224
XXI. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 236
XXII. THE PROGRESS OF THE STRIKE 250
XXIII. THE TRIUMPH OF BUSINESS SENSE 257
XXIV. BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 267
XXV. IN WHICH FOLEY BOWS TO DEFEAT 279
XXVI. PETERSEN'S SIN 290
XXVII. THE THOUSANDTH CHANCE 304
XXVIII. THE EXPOSURE 313
XXIX. IN WHICH MR. BAXTER SHOWS HIMSELF A MAN OF RESOURCES 331
XXX. THE LAST OF BUCK FOLEY 338
XXXI. TOM'S LEVEE 348
XXXII. THE THORN OF THE ROSE 364
LIST OF CHARACTERS
BUCK FOLEY, a walking delegate.
TOM KEATING, a foreman.
MAGGIE KEATING, his wife.
MR. BAXTER, President of Iron Employers' Ass'n.
MRS. BAXTER.
MR. DRISCOLL, a contractor.
RUTH ARNOLD, his secretary.
MR. BERMAN, junior partner of Mr. Driscoll.
MR. MURPHY, a contractor.
MR. BOBBS, a contractor.
MR. ISAACS, a contractor.
CONNELLY, Secretary of Iron Workers' Union.
NELS PETERSEN, a "scab."
ANNA PETERSEN, his wife.
PIG IRON PETE, a workman
JOHNSON, a workman.
BARRY, a workman.
MRS. BARRY.
JAKE HENDERSON }
ARKANSAS NUMBER TWO } Members of
KAFFIR BILL } "The Entertainment
SMOKEY } Committee."
HICKEY }
THE WALKING DELEGATE
Chapter I
ON THE ST. ETIENNE HOTEL
The St. Etienne Hotel would some day be as bulky and as garishly
magnificent as four million dollars could make it. Now it was only a
steel framework rearing itself into the center of the overhead
grayness--a black pier supporting the grimy arch of heaven.
Up on its loosely-planked twenty-first story stood Mr. Driscoll,
watching his men at work. A raw February wind scraped slowly under the
dirty clouds, which soiled the whole sky, and with a leisurely content
thrust itself into his office-tendered flesh. He shivered, and at times,
to throw off the chill, he paced across the pine boards, carefully going
around the gaps his men were wont to leap. And now and then his eyes
wandered from his lofty platform. On his right, below, there were roofs;
beyond, a dull bar of water; beyond, more roofs: on his left there were
roofs; a dull bar of water; more roofs: and all around the jagged
wilderness of house-tops reached away and away till it faded into the
complete envelopment of a smudgy haze. Once Mr. Driscoll caught hold of
the head of a column and leaned out above the street; over its dizzy
bottom erratically shifted dark specks--hats. He drew back with a
shiver with which the February wind had nothing to do.
It was a principle with Mr. Driscoll, of Driscoll & Co., contractors for
steel bridges and steel frames of buildings, that you should not show
approval of your workmen's work. "Give 'em a smile and they'll do ten
per cent. less and ask ten per cent. more." So as he now watched his
men, one hand in his overcoat pocket, one on his soft felt hat, he did
not smile. It was singularly easy for him not to smile. Balanced on his
short, round body he had a round head with a rim of reddish-gray hair,
and with a purplish face that had protruding lips which sagged at each
corner, and protruding eyes whose lids blinked so sharply you seemed to
hear their click. So much nature had done to help him adhere to his
principle. And he, in turn, had added to his natural endowment by
growing mutton-chops. Long ago someone had probably expressed to him a
detestation of side-whiskers, and he of course had begun forthwith to
shave only his chin.
His men were setting twenty-five foot steel columns into place,--the
gang his eyes were now on, moving actively about a great crane, and the
gang about the great crane at the building's other end. Their coats were
buttoned to their chins to keep out the February wind; their hands were
in big, shiny gloves; their blue and brown overalls, from the handling
of painted iron, had the surface and polish of leather. They were all in
the freshness of their manhood--lean, and keen, and full of
spirit--vividly fit. Their work explained their fitness; it was a
natural civil service examination that barred all but the active and the
daring.
And yet, though he did not smile, Mr. Driscoll was cuddled by
satisfaction as he stood on the great platform just under the sky and
watched the brown men at work. He had had a deal of trouble during the
past three years--accidents, poor workmen, delays due to strikes over
inconsequential matters--all of which had severely taxed his profits and
his profanity. So the smoothness with which this, his greatest job,
progressed was his especial joy. In his heart he credited this
smoothness to the brown young foreman who had just come back to his
side--but he didn't tell Keating so.
"The riveters are keeping right on our heels," said Tom. "Would you like
to go down and have a look at 'em?"
"No," said Mr. Driscoll shortly.
The foreman shrugged his shoulders slightly, and joined the gang Mr.
Driscoll was watching. In the year he had worked for Mr. Driscoll he had
learned to be philosophic over that gentleman's gruffness: he didn't
like the man, so why should he mind his words?
The men had fastened a sling about a twenty-five foot column and to this
had attached the hook of the pulley. The seventy-foot arm of the crane
now slowly rose and drew after it the column, dangling vertically.
Directed by the signals of Tom's right hand the column sank with
precision to its appointed place at one corner of the building. It was
quickly fastened to the head of the column beneath it with four bolts.
Later the riveters, whose hammers were now maintaining a terrific rattle
two floors below, would replace the four bolts by four rows of rivets.
"Get the sling, Pete," ordered Tom.
At this a loosely-jointed man threw off his slouch hat, encircled the
column with his arms, and mounted with little springs. Near its top he
locked his legs around the column, and, thus supported and working with
both hands, he unfastened the rope from the pulley hook and the column,
and threw it below. He then stepped into the hook of the pulley, swung
through the air to the flooring, picked up his hat and slapped it
against his leg.
Sometimes Mr. Driscoll forgot his principle. While Pete was nonchalantly
loosening the sling, leaning out over the street, nothing between him
and the pavement but the grip of his legs, there was something very like
a look of admiration in Mr. Driscoll's aggravating eyes. He moved over
to Pete just as the latter was pulling on his slouch hat.
"I get a shiver every time I see a man do that," he said.
"That? That's nothin'," said Pete. "I'd a heap ruther do that than work
down in the street. Down in the street, why, who knows when a brick's
agoin' to fall on your head!"
"Um!" Mr. Driscoll remembered himself and his eyes clicked. He turned
from Pete, and called to the young foreman: "I'll look at the riveters
now."
"All right. Oh, Barry!"
There came toward Tom a little, stocky man, commonly known as "Rivet
Head." Someone had noted the likeness of his cranium to a newly-hammered
rivet, and the nickname had stuck.
"Get the other four columns up out of the street before setting any
more," Tom ordered, and then walked with Mr. Driscoll to where the head
of a ladder stuck up through the flooring.
Pete, with a sour look, watched Mr. Driscoll's round body awkwardly
disappear down the ladder.
"Boys, if I was a preacher, I know how I'd run my business," he
remarked.
"How, Pete?" queried one of the gang.
"I'd stand up Driscoll in the middle o' the road to hell, then knock off
workin' forever. When they seen him standin' there every blamed sinner'd
turn back with a yell an' stretch their legs for the other road."
"I wonder if Tom'll speak to him about them scabs," said another man,
with a scowl at a couple of men working along the building's edge.
"That ain't Tom's business, Bill," answered Pete. "It's Rivet Head's.
Tom don't like Driscoll any more'n the rest of us do, an' he ain't goin'
to say any more to him'n he has to."
"Tom ought to call him down, anyhow," Bill declared.
"You let Foley do that," put in Jake Henderson, a big fellow with a
stubbly face and a scar across his nose.
"An' let him peel off a little graft!" sneered Bill.
"Close yer face!" growled Jake.
"Come on there, boys, an' get that crane around!" shouted Barry.
Pete, Bill, and Jake sprang to the wooden lever that extended from the
base of the ninety-foot mast; and they threw their weight against the
bar, bending it as a bow. The crane slowly turned on its bearings to the
desired position. Barry, the "pusher" (under foreman), waved his
outstretched hand. The signalman, whose eyes had been alert for this
movement, pulled a rope; a bell rang in the ears of an engineer,
twenty-one floors below. The big boom slowly came down to a horizontal
position, its outer end twenty feet clear of the building's edge.
Another signal, and the heavy iron pulley began to descend to the
street.
After the pulley had started to slide down its rope there was little for
the men to do till it had climbed back up the rope with its burden of
steel. Pete--who was usually addressed as "Pig Iron," perhaps for the
reason that he claimed to be from Pittsburg--settled back at his ease
among the gang, his back against a pile of columns, his legs stretched
out.
"I've just picked out the apartment where I'm goin' to keep my celluloid
collar when this here shanty's finished," he remarked. "Over in the
corner there, lookin' down in both streets. I ain't goin' to do nothin'
but wear kid gloves, an' lean out the windows an' spit on you roughnecks
as you go by. An' my boodwar is goin' to have about seventeen
push-buttons in it. Whenever I want anything I'll just push a button,
an' up'll hot-foot a nigger with it in a suit o' clothes that's nothin'
but shirt front. Then I'll kick the nigger, an' push another button.
That's life, boys. An' I'll have plush chairs, carpets a foot thick, an
iv'ry bath-tub----"
Pete's wandering gaze caught one man watching him with serious eyes, and
he broke off. "Say, Johnson, wha' d'you suppose I want a bath-tub for?"
Johnson was an anomaly among the iron-workers--a man without a sense of
humor. He never knew when his fellows were joking and when serious; he
usually took them literally.
"To wash in," he answered.
Pete whistled. "Wash in it! Ain't you got no respect for the traditions
o' the workin' class?"
"Hey, Pig Iron; talk English!" Bill demanded. "What's traditions?"
Pete looked puzzled, and a laugh passed about the men. Then his
sang-froid returned. "Your traditions, Bill, is the things you'd try to
forget about yourself if you had enough coin to move into a place like
this."
He turned his lean face back on Johnson. "Don't you know what a
bath-tub's for, Johnson? Don't you never read the papers? Well,
here's how it is: The landlords come around wearin' about a
sixteen-candle-power incandescent smile. They puts in marble bath-tubs
all through all the houses. They're goin' to elevate us. The next day
they come around again to see how we've improved. They throw up their
hands, an' let out a few yells. There's them bath-tubs chuck full o'
coal. We didn't know what they was for,--an' they was very handy for
coal. That's us. It's down in the papers. An' here you, Johnson, you'd
ruin our repitations by usin' the bath-tubs to bathe in."
The pulley toiled into view, dragging after it two columns. Johnson was
saved the necessity of response. The men hurried to their places.
"O' course, Pig Iron, you'll be fixed all right when you've moved in
here," began Bill, after the boom had reached out and the pulley had
started spinning down for the other two columns. "But how about the rest
of us fixers? Three seventy-five a day, when we get in only six or seven
months a year, ain't makin' bankers out o' many of us."
"Only a few," admitted Pete; "an' them few ain't the whole cheese yet.
Me, I can live on three seventy-five, but I don't see how you married
men do."
"Especially with scabs stealin' your jobs," growled Bill, glancing again
at the two men working along the building's edge.
"I told you Foley'd look after them," said Barry, who had joined the
group for a moment. "It hustles most of us to keep up with the game," he
went on, in answer to Pete's last remark. "Some of us don't. An' rents
an' everything else goin' up. I don't know what we're goin' to do."
"That's easy," said Pete. "Get more money or live cheaper."
"How're we goin' to live cheaper?" demanded Bill.
"Yes, how?" seconded Barry.
"I'm for more money," declared Bill.
"Well, I reckon I wear the same size shoe," said Pete. "More
money--that's me."
"And me," "and me," joined in the other men, except Johnson.
"It's about time we were gettin' more," Pete advanced. "The last two
years the bosses have been doin' the genteel thing by their own pockets,
all right."
"We've got to have more if our kids are goin' to know a couple o' facts
more'n we do." Barry went over to the edge of the building and watched
the tiny figures attaching the columns to the pulley hook.
"That's right," said Pete. "You don't stand no chance these days to
climb up on top of a good job unless you ripped off a lot o' education
when you was young an' riveted it on to your mem'ry. I heard a preacher
once. He preached about education. He said if you wanted to get up
anywhere you had to be educated like hell. He was right, too. If you
left school when you was thirteen, why, by the time you're twenty-seven
an' had a few drinks you ain't very likely to be just what I'd call a
college on legs."
"Keating, he thinks we ought to go after more this spring," said Bill.
"I wonder what Foley thinks?" queried another of the men.
"If Tom's for a strike, why, Foley'll be again' it," one of the gang
answered. "You can place your money on that color."
"Tom certainly did pour the hot shot into Foley at the meetin' last
night," said Bill, grinning. "Grafter! He called Buck about thirteen
diff'rent kind."
"If Keating's all right in his nut he'll not go round lookin' for a
head-on collision with Buck Foley," asserted Jake, with a wise leer at
Bill.
Bill answered by giving Jake his back. "Foley don't want no strike," he
declared. "What's he want to strike for? He's gettin' his hand in the
dough bag enough the way things is now."
"See here, the whole bunch o' you roughnecks give me a pain!" broke out
Pete. "You shoot off your faces a lot when Buck's not around, but the
imitation you give on meetin' nights of a collection o' mummies can't be
beat. I ain't in love with Buck--not on your life! You can tell him so,
Jake. But he certainly has done the union a lot o' good. Tom'd say that,
too. An' you know how much Tom likes Foley. You fixers forget when you
was workin' ten hours for two dollars, an' lickin' the boots o' the
bosses to hold your jobs."
There was a short silence, then Johnson put forward cautiously: "I don't
see the good o' strikin'."
Pete stared at him. "Why?" he demanded.
"Well, I've been in the business longer'n most o' you boys, an' I ain't
found the bosses as bad as you make 'em out. When they're makin' more,
they'll pay us more."
"Oh, you go tell that to a Sunday school!" snorted Pete. "D'you ever
hear of a boss payin' more wages'n he had to? Not much! Them kind 'o
bosses's all doin' business up in heaven. If we was actually earnin'
twenty a day, d'you suppose we'd get a cent more'n three seventy-five
till we'd licked the bosses. You do--hey? That shows the kind of a nut
you've got. The boss 'ud buy a tutti-frutti yacht, or a few more
automobiles, or mebbe a college or two, where they learn you how to wear
your pants turned up; but all the extra money you'd get wouldn't pay for
the soap used by a Dago. If ever a boss offers you an extra dollar
before you've licked him, yell for a cop. He's crazy."
Pete's tirade completely flustered Johnson. "All the same, what I said's
so."
Pete snorted again. "When d'you think you're livin'? You make me tired,
Johnson. Go push yourself off the roof!"
The two last columns rose swinging above the chasm's brink, and there
was no more talk for that afternoon. For the next hour the men were busy
setting the last of the columns which were to support the twenty-second
and twenty-third stories. Then they began setting in the cross beams,
walking about on these five-inch beams (perhaps on one with the pavement
straight beneath it) with the matter-of-fact steps of a man on the
sidewalk--a circus act, lacking a safety net below, and lacking
flourishes and kisses blown to a thrilled audience.