A knight of the toilers

I

At a square desk in a large room, at the rear of a suite of commercial offices, there sat a small, nervous man, whose business for the moment was— waiting.

He was not a man who liked to wait. The characteristic of him which was most marked was his swiftness of movement. He was all eye and all leap.

And besides being temperamentally unfitted to wait, Mr. Pattison was a man whose power and authority had accustomed him to say ^^Go^’ or to say ‘‘Come,’’ and to be obeyed quickly. If there were those who tarried, it was his nature instantly to manifest his angry impatience by overt and unmistakable act. He was a great man, and it was like a wound in bis body if his importance were for a moment disregarded.

Yet this morning he waited— if not calmly, yet at least with the outward semblance of composure. The explanation lay in the fact that the man for whom he waited was one whose value— measured even by that severest of tests, actual dollars— was well-nigh indispensable.

While he waited, the great man reviewed once again some documents which lay there on his desk before him.

The documents were interestingdocuments fraught with the only kind of interest that ever got deep into Mr. Pattison’s heart. They concerned a plan for making another fine addition to his already magnificent revenues.

Back in the earlier days of his career, when the magnate had begun to extend the sphere of his business operations, it had been necessary to establish offices in nearly every considerable city of the country, and, of course, to place at the head of each office a manager ; a manager who was an able man. Following the earlier days came the period when competition in commerce became as war to the knife, and knife to the hilt.” Then, any survival whatsoever of the Pattison business depended directly on the energy and the resourcefulness, the zeal and the loyalty, at their various posts, of these managers. But, finally, as triumph had come— that day when competitors had been crushed (the few remaining absorbed) and Pattison himself was able to contemplate the country from the standpoint of his own business.

with the pleasing consciousness that he had a quite perfect monopoly of the trade— then it seemed that one of the many advantages resulting was the ability to dispense with this rather expensive staff of managers— these men who had been associated with him so long in the upbuilding of his business. During the course of the years their salaries of compulsion had crept up into large figures— figures so large, in fact, that the annual aggregate thereof represented an imposing sum.

And the eye of the magnate having once begun to look enviously in this direction, his instincts itched to divert the sum thus paid out back into his private purse. Economy, he said, dictated that high salaries should go. And in having them go, two hundred thousand dollars would be returned to his private purse.

There was, however, an obstructive difficulty; a matter of some pledges— contracts perhaps— made with these men in the days of stress ; agreements whose purport was to protect the managers themselves in a share of that increase in fortune which time and their own energies had helped to bring to pass. In order that Pattison’s eager instinct might be satisfied, it was necessary that these contracts must in some way be gotten over— nullified, disregarded, or whatever was necessary.

It was at this point that the man for whom Mr. Pattison was now waiting was useful— was indeed indispensable. As a past master in discovering the loopholes of escape, in giving the right and effective tone to a plan where either money-saving or money-making was involved, and in those diplomatic niceties necessary to carry out such a plan, Trevor, Mr. Pattison believed, was without a rival.

Trevor was the magnate’s confidential lieutenant.

II

Shoetly Trevor came into his own room, and the magnate joined him.

‘‘Just glance over that,” he said. He placed the document relating to the salary list on Trevor’s desk.

The list included some twenty names, and opposite the names there were three rows of figures. The first row set forth the salaries which the managers' were now drawing. The second row gave the salaries as Mr. Pattison had decided they should be. The last row gave the saving effected by the reduction. The figures were neat and precise, and in the great man’s own hand. The total at the foot of the third column was in red ink, and indicated the amount that the proposed economy would return to the corporation’s treasury.

We must attend to details/’ Mr. Pattison said, with a grin.

It required a glance only for Trevor to understand. Yet Trevor’s eyes lingered over that page as his eyes were rarely accustomed to linger over anything. Slowly he re-read, and then up and down the page again.

It was not in the figures that his interest centered. The first quick glance was enough for that. His interest was in the names. There was Bob Ensignwhole-souled, large-minded, courageous Bob. There was Tom Herron— clever, clear-headed, loyal; and Henry Reed, and Ferd Williams, and old fat Gillicuddy— the clean-souled Irishman, who would fight for his friends as long as breath stayed in his body.

These names— and others on the list as well— were the names of men who had 16 stood to Trevor as friends— as such comrades in the battle of life as he knew. And just now the proposition involving these friends, which Mr. Pattison was making, struck the young man as containing a peculiar measure of iniquity.

Even apart from contracts made with them or pledges given to them, these were the men upon whose energies and brains the Pattison business had been built up. These were the men whose loyalty in the days of stress had made any Pattison corporation possible whatever.

And now it was proposed to reduce them to a clerk’s wage; these men who by now had put their stakes in the ground and had families looking to them for the privileges of life and being; who were important figures in the life of many communities; these men

2 17 who were his friends— to shove them back practically to where they were when they began their battle with life.

That the proposition was like many which had gone before did not seem just now to be pertinent ; nor that the disregard of pledges and of moral responsibility was the natural sequence of a wellestablished principle of business. What Trevor now saw in it was a ruthlessly violated bond given to loyal men ; men, moreover, who were his friends. This was the point as it happened at which he was tender, the point at which his own sensibilities were capable of being awakened.

You see,” the magnate urged, we’ve got things now, to suit ourselves. And,” after a pause, it means two hundred thousand dollars a year. That’s worth saving.”

An expression of contempt spread over Trevor ^s face.

One doesn’t develop a trust for nothing, eh ? ” Mr. Pattison added, a little apologetically.

‘‘ I don’t like the idea,” said Trevor.

Don’t like it? ”

We are pledged to these men.”

Yes,” said Pattison, pledges— pledges are in the day’s work. But a reverberating, chuckling laughter rolled out. Pattison rarely descended into the deep mire but that he strove to give the journey an air of merry pleasantry.

“ This,” he said, ‘Ms a little item of business.”

He moved a step away. “A circular letter,” he said, with an air of authority —an authority which indeed was rare in his relation to the young man— “ a circular letter, I judge, will cover the case.”

And, leaving the papers on Trevor’s desk, the magnate returned to his own room.

III

While Mr. Pattison had stood by, Trevor realized that his own mental processes had been somewhat confused; that he had been slow in conceiving the distinction there was to be made— the distinction upon which a claim could be based, to save his friends.

But when the door connecting the two rooms was closed, the young men understood that emotion of some sort had got into these matters of business. And, incidentally, the conviction dawned upon him that one’s feelings were themselves a legitimate and tangible consideration.

Damn him! ” he muttered. A rude instinct surged in his breast; the instinct to lay hands on the man behind

the door, to do him physical violence, to 21 treat him as the worm, as the slimy, snake-like thing Trevor felt him to be.

Could this man not once act true to men whose nature he was supposed to share ? Could he not once make decent recognition of loyal service Allow an ordinary return where he had profited so much? At the very least, could not that honor which is among thieves survive with him ?

Habit being strong, however, Trevor hesitated. He sat down. He examined the documents once more. And then a smile— a contemptuous, but an intelligent smile— returned to his lips. The issue, after all, was a simple matter of business. Mr. Pattison was acting only as the purpose controlling dictated that he should act. And since Trevor ^s own ox was not being gored, he could say of the others “ it is their own funeral.’ •

His composure being thus restored, be passed into the room of his chief, and was amiably welcomed.

Back there,” the magnate said, valuable men were needed, they had things to do. We had to have men^ men of brains. ’ ’ And he laughed. ^ ^ They had to do pretty much as they could, for all the help we could give them. They had to do as they pleased, and we had to take what they were pleased to do.”

Well, back there, we had to pay these men— high salaries— about as high as they asked. And I guess they were worth it. I have seen the time,” and again he laughed, when more than one of those offices did bigger business and made bigger money than this home office ever thought of making. Salaries crept up, of course.” He paused, smiling reminiscently.

Well,” lie resumed, that was in the days of competition. Things are different now. Those men simply have to take business when it comes to them. Business can’t go anywhere else! There is no call for brains, you see.”

Why,” he went on, laughing again, any office boy can do the work that a branch office stands for to-day; a small clerk, at any rate, at a thousand a year* That’s where combination comes in. There’s no need to pay big salaries. We’ve got things in our own hands. It’s machinery and system now. A few of us here in New York can supply all the brains that are necessary.”

And viewed impartially, Trevor was obliged to admit the entire reasonableness of Mr. Pattison’s point of view. The matter of pledges or contracts or moral obligations was, on the whole, irrelevant.

You fix it up, my boy,’’ Mr. Pattison concluded. If those men want to stay on at the new figures— well, let them. If not, we will put on some of their sub-clerks.”

And, Trevor doing as he was expected to do, the item passed off as another in the routine of a business day.

IV

At the day’s end, and as Trevor drew down the top of his desk, he was conscious of a certain weariness of things.

He was alone.

As he arose from his chair, he walked reflectively to that window which looked out over the great buildings of the city and on toward the river and the bay. The panorama which opened before his eyes was one which always had inspired him ; the great buildings, stretching out in one direction and another— stores, warehouses, offices, exchanges, banks— bespeaking the magniflcence of the commerce of an imperial city ; bespeaking to him also the eager, earnest, intense endeavor of great armies of workers; bespeaking the bold ambitions of strong men and their brilliant triumphs.

And beyond the buildings were the craft of the river and the bay— these, too, the witnesses of a great commerce, and of the enterprise of single-minded, unwavering men. There was a glimpse of the great bridge also, and of the swiftly-coming and swiftly-going trains of cars.

To this scene Trevor had always looked for a renewal of zest in his doing and striving. The sense that it gave him of effort, of energy, of success, the sense which it gave him of relationship and of contest with the thousands of busy workers— all this was as the wine of new life.

But just now, while he was not altogether unresponsive to the inspiration of it, another point of view sought a place in his mind. By a singular fancy, these great buildings, hiving their thousands upon thousands of workers, suggested also myriads of cowardly transactions— like that, for example, which during the day he had been called upon himself to consummate; like those, indeed, which were of the web and woof of each day’s striving, ambitious life, to the nature and significance of which, indeed, he was only now becoming awakened ; the myriads of falsehoods and dishonesties, of tricks and manipulations and frauds, of treacheries and corruption, the inevitable output of that ingrained selfishness which was the central motive of it all.

Nor could the thought be denied of the effect of these things upon the lives of the actors in it ; the depressing infiuence of them as well as the narrowing and hardening infiuence; the debasing consequence of the customs and practices of 28 trade upon the minds and hearts of those whose lives were moulded by them.

For the moment, indeed, new as was this later conception of things, two points of view contested for the control of Trevor’s mind; on the one hand, the idea of the splendor of material achievements— of great work triumphantly done ; on the other, the cost of it to humanity itself ; on the one side the idea of great things reared and established; on the other, of that which was the dignity, nobility, and sweetness of life, slayed in the process.

Shortly, however, the thought habitual to him resumed its ascendency ; the thought of the great buildings, as monuments of the clear-minded singleness of purpose of strong men; the thought of the craft of the river and the bay, the thought of the bridges, the railroad, in- 29 deed, of all the evidences of the city’s greatness, as memorials of men who moved unhesitatingly and unflinchingly to a goal kept unobscured either by the sentiments of the heart or by the moralizing of the sages ; of men who, whether moved by imperious instincts or by resolute wills, were nevertheless the men for whom railroads, bridges, ships, great buildings, and the commerce in whose service these things found the reason of their being, stood as ample justiflcation.

Of what use to speak of arbitrary actions and questionable means ? Of short weights and false measures? Of injustices and manipulations ? The outstanding fact was simply that the magnificence of the city, the glory of it, were memorials of these hard-headed, unswerving men against whom such charges would have to lie.

It was, therefore, rather as a personal matter that he must come back to think of Pattison as one of these men;— that bit of a manikin, that half-snake, halftiger sort of thing still scratching away in the adjoining room. Yet Pattison, in truth, was one of the great magnates. As witness of his power stood a vast business with its ramifications in every city of the land.

^‘And, yet,’’ thought Trevor, one Bob Ensign were worth twenty of him. More, it were worth killing twenty Pattisons that one Bob Ensign might survive. ’ ’

With this reaction of thought, the young man passed out of the office and dovm into the street, to mingle there with the rushing, hurrying slaves of the grim god Trade.

It was this last reflection, however, no doubt, that led Trevor to speak as he did to Arnold, when, a little later, they were dining at the club.

Men would have done better,’’ he said, to have remained under the sway of the fanatics of some mediaeval religion, than to have come under the dominion of the zealots of the religion of trade.”

V

‘‘ Organized labor,’’ said Boyd Protheroe, has just missed understanding what its real resources are. It has disregarded its best opportunities. It has strained itself on efforts which were foredoomed to failure. But,” he emphasized, let organized labor once realize what its real resources are, and the capitalist’s power will be gone in a night.”

Well,” John Trevor smiled superiorly, and what of it? ”

They were the guests of Arnold at a little dinner. The latter had invited Protheroe, because, as an unofficial labor agitator, he was also thought to be something of an entertaining talker.

The gulf between capital and labor will be bridged in a day,” Protheroe

3 33 continued. It is a simple matter of business. Men endured kings for thousands of years, and then— almost between crops— started a Eepublic. Now, let labor —

Trevor, however, was inclined to be bored.

Good, of course,’’ Trevor interrupted, “ but kings were, like enough, good things. And clever fellows, too.”

Then, however, he spoke more seriously.

“ Capitalists,” he said, are capitalists— are the masters of labor, by force of one fundamental thing. They have the brains. They have the character.”

Some things,” he continued, are absolute. A five-foot, thin-limbed, narrow-chested, dyspeptic cannot match himself against a Sullivan or a Sandow. The issue is decided in advance. The one has the muscle and the strength; the other hasn’t. So with labor and capital. The latter has the brains and the character (no matter if bad, it’s strong). The laborer hasn’t. Too bad he hasn’t? Perhaps. Too bad the dyspeptic hasn’t the Sandow muscles. But there you are.”

<< Wrong,” Pr other oe had replied. ‘‘It’s the capitalist who is the dyspeptic, though knowing how to use his fists. The laborer is the muscular giant —but as yet beating the air. One day he will know where to strike his blows.”

“ Why,” he went on, “ there is no point whatever at which the strength of organized labor isn’t greater— vastly greater— even in that point where he least expects, and his enemy least admits— the point of money.

“ Capitalists secure their power and make their money by using money to make money and establish power. Labor uses its money for neither— depends solely on its muscle for both. But it will learn to use its money— and its muscle.

And the capitalist adds to his money, ambition, and to his ambition, cunning, and to his cunning, unscrupulousness, and to these the love of power, and— well, do you think that these will never be aroused in the common man’s breast? ”

‘‘ But,” Trevor interrupted, this use of the laboring man’s money. What is it ? Co-operation ? Co-operation, the fancy of dreamers ? Co-operative commonwealth? Tried— and found wanting. ’ ’

Once again Protheroe was aroused.

<< There is,” he said, ‘‘ co-operation and co-operation. There is, perhaps, a co-operation that begins in the spirit of Apostles’ Creeds and hymns, and winds up its solemn business with a penitential prayer or a church row. There is— there might be— a co-operation that would begin in the spirit of a modern commercial pirate and that would arrive at a pretty climax of rule or ruin. And there is— there might be—”

^^At any rate,” Trevor replied, a little wearily, “ at any rate, it is a something we’ll meet when we get to it.” And so the talk had run on to its end. Sunday morning, however, impressions from that dinner came back to Trevor’s mind with a certain new meaning and with something of a large significance— the more so, perhaps, in light of a step he was about to take in his own life. Dragging himself from bed to bath, from bath to easy chair and to lazy glances at books, and magazines and papers, impressions from that dinner did persistently obtrude themselves upon his mind.

Later in the day as well. Matters of his own to which he was about to attend were delayed while he rehearsed new ideas and weighed them and pondered them. Breaking in on other thoughts were impressions of what Protheroe had said; impressions, too, of the simple figure of the man himself.

Surprising,’’ Trevor thought, in not having been so surprising as one expected.

‘‘And, indeed,” his refiections continued, “ the most surprising thing nowa-days is that we are all so much alike. Come from whatever quarter one will, from any grade of social life, practice whatever vocation, preach whatever doctrine, or profess whatever view. Not a bad chap at all.”

At last, however, he brought himself to the writing of an important letter.

New York.

Dear Mr. Pattison,” so he began. And then he paused.

But why the deuce? ”

By now he was stretched on a couch. The insistence with which these speculations in regard to the problems of labor forced themselves on his mind surprised him exceedingly.

Well,” he said, finally, deuce take the laboring man— and the corporations, too.”

He resumed his letter.

‘‘ Dear Mr. Pattison:—

I herewith resign the position I have held in your employ.

Permit me to take the occasion to thank you for the consideration with which you have treated me while I have been in your service.

Yours very truly, John Trevoe.’’

He sealed the letter.

And,” he reflected, so ends nine years. But—

‘‘ Well, at any rate, I have fifty thousand put by— not every one has that.”

VI

On a hot morning of the late summer, coming from no one quite knew where, there alighted at the grimy railroad station of Barton, a man whose singularly serious face attracted immediate attention. He had come unheralded. He was alone— carrying a light grip-sack in one hand and an umbrella in the other.

The advent of this man, however, was significant. The echo of his step reverberated, as it were, through valleys and over hills, miles to the south and longer miles to the north. The little citv itself was suddenly lifted from its natural obscurity to broad and general importance, by reason of what this man’s coming meant.

A few hours after his arrival this stranger was lodged in small, meagerly furnished rooms in a third-rate hotel. And there, very shortly, he was surrounded by a group— or to be exact, various changing groups— of men, of illiterate men, who, between quaffs of beer and puffs of smoke, told him in tones now pitiful, now sullen, now savage, of grievances, of injustices, of sufferings.

The talks and discussions that followed were sharp and anxious. And in them the assumption was made, that this man could avenge the injustices and alleviate the sufferings. And now in one way, and now in another, he was invited, and urged, and implored to undertake the task.

At the day’s end, this man, through the public press, gave to the world an announcement— in three dozen words. With the announcement there crept into the hearts of two million peaceful people a pervading sense of dread, of anxiety, of fear. A great region was at once awakened and awed.

Indeed, a vast territory, but a moment before peaceful in the innumerable activities which its thriving industries afforded, began now to revolve about that little spot in the third-rate hotel, and its people to find in this lone man, in the dimly-lighted rooms, the centre of their solemn interest.

Pendleton, of course, had come into Barton (and into that Peranian mining region, of which Barton was one of the minor cities) with certain reputation, and with prestige of things masterfully 45 done. The announcement which the press made public was the warning that here in Perania, now, armies of men were to be organized in assertion of rights denied, and a great mass of laboring men to be aroused in grim contest for better share of the earth’s blessings— even as this man had aroused men, and organized men, and led them on, elsewhere.

A spreading anxiety, a deepening fear, was natural. The peace and prosperity, the life indeed, of the two millions of people which comprised the population of Perania were now in« volved in what this man might do. And though editors, lawyers, preachers, more than all else, merchants, came forth to denounce the man and to declare the movement with which he threatened the region an impending calamity, yet the conviction spread that what Pendleton undertook was certain to move forward forcefully and inexorably to some conclusive end. That was the conviction imposed by knowledge of what he had done elsewhere; by the knowledge of phalanxes in other regions which he had led out boldly and triumphantly against the masters of industrial enterprise.

The purpose which had brought Pendleton into Perania was in its last analysis quite his own. Not perhaps that it was his own in the sense of working for any personal aggrandizement or power. Bather, his deepest conviction was, that thousands of men suffering under injustice and tyranny, suffering under poverty and weakness too grievous to resist injustice and tyranny, suffering even as he himself had suffered, 47 were now to be alleviated by what he should do ; were to be relieved and benefited, even though they themselves should prefer that no effort be made in their behalf, even though they were themselves too timid or too cautious to risk a disturbance of the conditions which were established.

But it was a purpose which was born not from some prudent investigations of conditions, or wise balancings of reasons, but of the experiences of Pendleton’s own life, and of the beatings of his own heart ; a heart kept resolute almost to the point of ferocity, because of scarred years ; years of his own boyhood and young manhood; years damned in part by grinding toil, but still more by blighting, irrevocable, irredeemable injustice.

Pendleton had come to Barton itself because in their difficulties just then these Barton miners needed counsel and guidance. He knew that he would he welcome. They needed also a spokesman, a leader, and Pendleton supplied himself for the function. Nevertheless the difficulties over which the miners of Barton were disturbed constituted but a local and, relatively, but a trifling affair.

That larger purpose which was to involve all of Perania originated with Pendleton alone. Barton was but the base for his larger operations.

And Pendleton had formed his’ own plans for carrying his purpose into action.

The Peranian mining region, ^ in the popular mind, was divided into two sections; the southern section on the one hand, the northern on the other. Between the two sections there were in the character of the people, their race and their temperament, and in their material conditions, marked differences. Pendleton knew what these differences were.

The people of the north were conservative ; those of the south were temperamentally restless. The people of the north were cautious; those of the south, impulsive. The people of the north were to a prevailing degree men who had stakes in the ground— homes, families; they were real parts of the life of their communities. The people of the south had suffered most from poverty.

In the northern section, therefore, Pendleton had seen that the obstacles that would be interposed to his purpose would be many, the difficulties to be overcome great. In the southern section, on the other hand, he might fairly rely on a quick response to his appeals. The people there would yield themselves most quickly to the command of a selfconstituted leader.

Pendleton thus had hit upon Barton as a city in the southern section with something of the strategy of a general. And in his plans, his advance from that city onward was outlined with a skill not unlike that with which a Napoleon might pick his course from Elb to Paris. It was to be an advance whose accumulating momentum was to be the lever through which to arouse those farther on ; from Barton to Everdale, where there were feelings that might easily be fanned into flame; from Everdale to Heberton, where old irritations might be reawakened. And so on. In its last stage it was to be a southern section aroused and organized, going into the north to persuade or to demand, as the case might require— to encourage or to intimidate; to enlist or to coerce.

The speed with which he got his purpose into action justified that title to reputation which had been given to him. It was on a Sunday evening that he had appeared before the public as the spokesman of the Barton miners. By the Tuesday following there were added to Barton the miners of eight towns in the surrounding country, and a new organization of workers had been well launched. Everdale and Heberton fell readily into line. Twenty-four hours later a dozen more towns had added themselves to the movement. On the day following, Pendleton visited the cities of Berea and Abington. Ad- 52 dressing meetings of thousands of men, he awakened a sense of rights to he won, even where no sense had been of rights withheld, and of grievances to be adjusted where no sense had been of injustice endured.

Those critics who had attributed to Pendleton a remarkable gift of speech had not erred. His eloquence was his power. In city and town and village he had but to appear and to speak. Great lists of names were added to swell the movement which his purpose alone had determined. In ten days the aggressive assertion of his single mind had aroused and organized near an hundred thousand men. The preparation for a great industrial battle was well advanced.