FOLEY TASTES REVENGE
Foley's threat that, under cover of the strike, he was going to make Mr.
Baxter suffer, was anything save empty bluster. But twenty years of
fighting had made him something of a connoisseur of vengeance. He knew,
for instance, that a moment usually presented itself when revenge was
most effective and when it tasted sweetest. So he now waited for time to
bring him that moment; and he waited all the more patiently because a
month must elapse ere the beginning of the strike would afford him his
chance.
The month passed dully. Buck had spoken from certain knowledge when he
had remarked to Mr. Baxter that the contractors would not yield without
a fight. During April there were no less than half a dozen meetings
between the union's committee and the Executive Committee of the
employers' association in a formal attempt at peaceful settlement. The
public attitude of Foley and Baxter toward each other for the past two
years had been openly hostile. That attitude was not changed, but it was
now sincere. In these meetings the unionists presented their case; the
employers gave their side; every point, pro and con, was gone over again
and again. On the thirtieth of April the situation was just as it had
been on the first: "We're goin' to get all we're askin' for," said
Foley; "We can concede nothing," said Mr. Baxter. On the first of May
not a man was at work on an iron job in New York City.
During these four weeks Foley regained popularity with an astounding
rapidity. He was again the Foley of four or five years ago, the Foley
that had won the enthusiastic admiration of the union, fierce-tongued in
his denunciation of the employers at union meetings, grimly impudent to
members of the employers' Executive Committee and matching their every
argument,--at all times witty, resourceful, terribly determined, fairly
hurling into others a confidence in himself. He was feeling with almost
its first freshness the joy of being in, and master of, a great fight.
Men that for years had spoken of him only in hate, now cheered him. And
even Tom himself had to yield to this new Foley a reluctant admiration,
he was so tireless, so aggressive, so equal to the occasion.
Tom had become, by the first of May, a figure of no importance. True, he
was a member of the strike committee, but Foley gave him no chance to
speak; and, anyhow, the walking delegate said what there was to be said
so pointedly, albeit with a virulence that antagonized the employers all
the more, that there was no reason for his saying aught. And as for his
position as president, that had become pathetically ludicrous. As though
in opposite pans of a balance, the higher Foley went in the union's
estimation, the lower went he. Even his own friends, while not
abandoning him, fell in behind Foley. He was that pitiable anomaly, a
leader without a following and without a cause. Foley had stolen both.
He tried to console himself with the knowledge that the walking delegate
was managing the strike for the union's good; but only the millionth man
has so little personal ambition that he is content to see the work he
would do being well done by another.... And yet, though fallen, he hung
obstinately on and waited--blindly.
Tom was now in little danger from the entertainment committee, for
Foley's disquiet over his influence had been dissipated by his rapid
decline. And after the first of May Tom gave Foley even less concern,
for he had finally secured work in the shipping department of a
wholesale grocer, so could no longer show himself by day among the union
men.
During April the contractors had prepared for the coming fight by
locating non-union ironworkers, and during the first part of May they
rushed these into the city and set them to work, guarded by Pinkerton
detectives, upon the most pressing jobs. The union, in its turn,
picketed every building on which there was an attempt to continue work,
and against the scabs the pickets waged a more or less pacific warfare.
Foley was of himself as much as all the pickets. He talked to the
non-union men as they came up to their work, as they left their work, as
they rode away on street cars, as they sat in saloons. Some he reached
by his preachment of the principles of trade unionism. And some he
reached by such brief speech as this: "This strike'll be settled soon.
Our men'll all go back to work. What'll happen to youse about then? The
bosses'll kick youse out. If youse're wise youse'll join the union and
help us in the strike." This argument was made more effective by the
temporary lifting of the initiation fee of twenty-five dollars, by which
act scabs were made union men without price. There was also a third
method, which Foley called "transmittin' unionism to the brain by the
fist," and he reached many this way, for his fist was heavy and had a
strong arm behind it.
The contractors, in order to retain the non-union men, raised their
wages to fifty cents a day more than the union demanded, but even then
they were able to hold only enough workers to keep a few jobs going in
half-hearted fashion. There were many accidents and delays on these
buildings, for the workers were boilermakers, and men who but half knew
the trade, and men who did not know the trade at all. As Pete remarked,
after watching, from a neighboring roof, the gang finishing up the work
on the St. Etienne Hotel, "The shadder of an ironworker would do more'n
three o' them snakes." The contractors themselves realized perfectly
what poor work they were getting for so extravagant a price, and would
have discharged their non-union gangs had this not been a tacit
admission of partial defeat.
From the first of May there of course had been several hot-heads who
favored violent handling of the scabs. Tom opposed these with the
remnant of his influence, for he knew the sympathy of the public has its
part in the settlement of strikes, and public sympathy goes not to the
side guilty of outrage. The most rabid of all these advocates of
violence was Johnson, who, after being summoned to Mr. Baxter's office,
began diligently to preach this substance: "If we put a dozen or two o'
them snakes out o' business, an' fix a job or two, the bosses'll come
right to time."
"It strikes me, Johnson, that you change your ideas about as often as
you ought to change your shirt," Pete remarked one day, after listening
to Johnson's inflammatory words. "Not long ago you were all against a
strike."
For a moment Johnson was disconcerted. Then he said: "But since there is
a strike I'm for measures that'll settle it quick. What you got against
smashin' a few scabs?"
"Oh, it's always right to smash a scab," Pete agreed. "But you ought to
know that just now there's nothin' the bosses'd rather have us do.
They'd pay good money to get us to give the hospitals a chance to
practice up on a few snakes."
Johnson looked at Pete searchingly, fearing that Pete suspected. But
Pete guessed nothing, and Johnson went about his duty.
There were a number of encounters between the strikers and the
strike-breakers, and several of these set-tos had an oral repetition in
the police courts; but nothing occurred so serious as to estrange public
sympathy till the explosion in the Avon, a small apartment house Mr.
Baxter was erecting as a private investment. And with this neither
Johnson nor the rank and file, on whose excitable feelings he tried to
play, had anything to do.
Foley's patience mastered his desire for vengeance easily enough during
April, but when May had reached its middle without offering the chance
he wanted, his patience weakened and desire demanded its rights. At an
utterly futile meeting between the committees of the union and the
employers, toward the end of the month, arranged for by the Civic
Federation, the desire for vengeance suddenly became the master. This
was the first meeting since the strike began, and was the first time
Foley had seen Mr. Baxter since then. The contractor did not once look
at Foley, and did not once address speech to him; he sat with his back
to the walking delegate, and put all his remarks to Brown, the least
important member of the strikers' committee. Foley gave as good as he
received, for he selected Isaacs, who was nothing more than a fifth man,
and addressed him as head of the employers' committee; and rather
better, for he made Mr. Baxter the object of a condescending affability
that must have been as grateful as salt to raw and living flesh.
But Foley was not appeased. When he and Connelly were clear of the
meeting he swore fiercely. "He won't be so cool to-morrow!" he said, and
swore again. "An' the same trick'll help bring 'em all to time," he
added.
Foley had already had vengeful eyes upon the Avon, which stood on a
corner with a vacant lot on one side and an open space between its rear
and the next building. Jake had carefully reconnoitered its premises,
with the discovery that one of the two Pinkerton guards was an
acquaintance belonging to the days when he himself had been in the
service of the Pinkerton agency. That night Jake sauntered by the Avon,
chatted awhile with the two guards, and suggested a visit to a nearby
saloon. As soon as the three were safely around the corner Kaffir Bill
and Arkansas Number Two slipped into the doorway of the Avon, leaving
Smoky on watch without. Bill and Arkansas had their trouble: to find
their way about in the darkness, to light the fuse--and then they had to
cut off an unignitable portion of the fuse; and then in their nervous
eagerness to get away their legs met a barrel of cement and they went
sprawling behind a partition. Several moments passed ere they found the
doorway, the while they could hear the sputtering of the shortened fuse,
and during which they heard Smoky cry out, "Come on!" When they did come
into the street it was to see the two Pinkertons not twenty paces away.
Before their haste could take them to the opposite sidewalk the pavement
jumped under their feet, and the building at their backs roared heavily.
The guards, guessing the whole trick, began shooting at the two. A
policeman appeared from around the corner with drawn pistol--and that
night Jake, Bill, and Arkansas slept in a cell.
The next morning, after getting on the car that carried him to his work,
Tom took up his paper with a leisure that straightway left him, for his
eyes were instantly caught by the big headlines sketching the explosion
in the Avon. He raced through the three columns. He could see Foley
behind the whole outrage, and he thrilled with satisfaction as he
foresaw the beginning of Foley's undoing in the police court. There was
no work for him that morning. He leaped off the car and took another
that brought him near the court where the three men were to have their
preliminary hearing.
It was half-past eight when he reached the court. As he entered the
almost empty court-room he saw Foley and a black-maned man of
lego-theatric appearance standing before a police sergeant, and he heard
Foley say: "This is their lawyer; we want to see 'em straight off." Tom
preferred to avoid meeting Foley, so he turned quickly back and walked
about for half an hour. When he returned the small court-room was
crowded, the clerks were in place, the policemen and their prisoners
stood in a long queue having its head at the judge's desk and its tail
without the iron railing that fenced off the spectators.
Tom had been in the court-room but a few minutes when an officer
motioned him within the railing. The court attorney stepped to his side.
"You were pointed out to me as the president of the Iron Workers'
Union," said the attorney.
"Yes."
"And I was told you didn't care particularly for the prisoners in this
explosion case."
"Well?"
"Would you be willing to testify against them--not upon the explosion,
which you didn't see, but upon their character?"
Tom looked at Jake, Arkansas, and Bill, standing at the head of the
queue in charge of the two Pinkertons and a couple of policemen, and
struggled a moment with his thoughts. Ordinarily it was a point of
honor with a union man not to aid the law against a fellow member; but
this was not an ordinary case. The papers had thrown the whole blame for
the outrage upon the union. The union's innocence could be proved only
by fastening the blame upon Foley and the three prisoners.
"I will," he consented.
There was a tiresome wait for the judge. About ten o'clock he emerged
from his chambers and took his place upon his platform. He was a
cold-looking man, with an aristocratic face, deeply marked with lines of
hard justice, and with a time-tonsured pate. His enemies, and they were
many, declared his judgments ignored the law; his answer was that he
administered the law according to common sense, and not according to its
sometimes stupid letter.
The bailiff opened the court, and the case of Jake, Arkansas, and Bill
was called. The two Pinkertons recited the details of the explosion and
the two policemen added details of the arrest. Then Mr. Baxter, looking
pale, but as much the self-controlled gentleman as ever, testified to
the damage done by the dynamite. The Avon still stood, but its steel
frame was so wrenched at the base that it was liable to fall at any
moment. The building would have to be reconstructed entirely. Though
much of the material could be used again, the loss, at a conservative
estimate, would be seventy-five thousand dollars.
Tom came next before the judge's desk. Exclamations of surprise ran
among the union men in the room when it was seen Tom was to be a
witness, and the bailiff had to pound with his gavel and shout for
order. Tom testified that the three were known in the union as men ready
for any villainy; and he managed to introduce in his answers to the
questions enough to make it plain that the union was in no degree
responsible for the outrage, that it abhorred such acts, that
responsibility rested upon the three--"And someone else," he added
meaningly.
"Who's that?" quickly demanded the court attorney.
"Buck Foley."
"I object!" shouted the prisoners' attorney. Foley, who sat back in the
crowd with crossed legs, did not alter his half-interested expression by
a wrinkle.
"Objection over-ruled," said the judge.
"Will you please tell what you know about Mr. Foley's connection with
the case," continued the court attorney.
"I object, your Honor! Mr. Foley is not on trial."
"It's the duty of this court to get at all the facts," returned the
judge. "Does the witness speak from his own knowledge, or what he
surmises?"
"I'm absolutely certain he's at the bottom of this."
"But is your evidence first-hand information?"
"It is not," Tom had to confess. "But I couldn't be more certain if I
had seen him----"
"Guess-work isn't evidence," cut in the judge.
Tom, however, had attached Foley to the case--he had seen the reporters
start at his words as at a fresh sensation--and he gave a look of
satisfaction at Foley as he stepped away from the judge's desk. Foley
gave back a half-covered sneer, as if to say, "Just youse wait!"
Arkansas was the first of the prisoners to be called--the reason for
which priority, as Tom afterwards guessed, being his anomalous face that
would not have ill-suited a vest that buttoned to the chin and a collar
that buttoned at the back. Arkansas, replying to the questions of his
long-haired attorney, corroborated the testimony of the policemen and
the Pinkertons in every detail. When Arkansas had answered the last
query the lawyer allowed several seconds to pass, his figure drawn up
impressively, his right hand in the breast of his frock coat.
The judge bent over his docket and began to write. "This seems a
perfectly plain case. I hold the three prisoners for the grand jury,
each in ten thousand----"
The attorney's right hand raised itself theatrically. "Hold!" he cried.
The judge looked up with a start. Tom's eyes, wandering to Foley's face,
met there a malign grin.
"The case is not ended, your Honor. The case is just begun." The
attorney brushed back his mane with a stagy movement of his hand, and
turned upon Arkansas. "You and the other prisoners did this. You do not
deny it. But now tell his Honor why you did it."
Arkansas, with honesty fairly obtruding from his every feature, looked
nervously at Tom, and then said hesitantly: "Because we had to."
"And why did you have to?"
Again Arkansas showed hesitation.
"Speak out," encouraged the attorney. "You're in no danger. The court
will protect you."
"We was ordered to. If we hadn't done it we'd been thrown out o' the
union, an' been done up."
"Explain to the court what you mean by 'done up'."
"Slugged an' kicked--half killed."
"In other words, what you did was done in fear of your life. Now who
ordered you to blow up the Avon, and threatened to have you 'done up' if
you didn't?"
"Mr. Keating, the president o' the union."
The judge, who had been leaning forward with kindling eyes, breathed a
prolonged "A-a-ah!"
For a moment Tom was astounded. Then he sprang to Arkansas's side. "You
infernal liar!" he shouted, his eyes blazing.
The judge's hammer thundered down. "Silence!" he roared.
"But, your Honor, he's lying!"
"Five dollars for contempt of court! Another word and I'll give you the
full penalty."
Two officers jerked Tom back, and surging with indignant wrath he had to
listen in silence to the romance that had been spun for Arkansas's lips
and which he was now respinning for the court's ears; and he quickly
became aware that newspaper artists had set their pencils busy over his
face. Once, glancing at Jake, he was treated with a leer of triumph.
Arkansas plausibly related what had passed between Tom and himself and
his two companions; and then Bill took the stand, and then Jake. Each
repeated the story Arkansas, with the help of his face, had made so
convincing.
"And now, your Honor," the prisoners' attorney began when his evidence
was all in, "I think I have made plain my clients' part in this most
nefarious outrage. They are guilty--yes. But they were but the all too
weak instruments of another's will, who galvanized them by mortal fear
to do his dastardly bidding. He, he alone----"
"Save your eloquence, councilor," the judge broke in. "The case speaks
best for itself. You here." He crooked his forefinger at Tom.
Tom was pushed by policemen up before the judge.
"Now what have you to say for yourself?" the judge demanded.
"It's one string of infernal lies!" Tom exploded. And he launched into a
hot denial, strong in phrasing but weak in comparison with the
inter-corroborative stones of the three, which had the further
verisimilitude gained by tallying in every detail with the officers'
account of the explosion.
"What you say is merely denial, the denial we hear from every criminal,"
his Honor began when Tom had finished. "I do not say I believe every
word of the testimony of the three prisoners. But it is more credible
than your statements.
"What has been brought out here to-day--the supreme officer of a union
compelling members to commit an act of violence by threat of economic
disablement and of physical injury, perhaps death--is in perfect accord
with the many diabolical practices that have recently been revealed as
existing among trade unions. It is such things as this that force all
right-minded men to regard trade unionism as the most menacing danger
which our nation now confronts." And for five minutes he continued in
his arraignment of trade unions.
"In the present circumstances," he ended, "it is my duty to order the
arrest of this man who appears to be the chief conspirator--this
president of a union who has had the supreme hardihood to appear as a
witness against his own tools, doubtless hoping thereby to gain the end
of the thief who cried 'stop thief.' I hold him in fifteen thousand
dollars bond to await the action of the grand jury. The three prisoners
are held in five thousand dollars bail each."
Jake, Bill, and Arkansas were led away by their captors, and Tom,
utterly dazed by this new disaster that had overtaken him when he had
thought there was nothing more that could befall, was shoved over to the
warrant clerk. And again he caught Foley's eyes; they were full of
malicious satisfaction.
As he waited before the warrant clerk's desk he saw Mr. Baxter, on his
way to the door, brush by Foley, and in the moment of passing he saw
Foley's lips move. He did not hear Foley's words. They were two, and
were: "First round!"
A few minutes later Tom was led down a stairway, through a corridor and
locked in a cell.