Part 4

“And I have called you here,” pursued Salome, “to ask each and every one of you to be my assistant and coadjutor. I have not been thinking of nothing, during the last three months. I am a woman, comparatively young, and with absolutely no knowledge of the practical side of a working-man’s life. But I have been thinking, and my conclusions are these: that a strike is a much more serious matter for the working-people than it is for us. We act as if they go out on a strike either to annoy us or to have a good time. I have been down among them—sought the by-ways and hedges, as it were—and I tell you they are having anything but a good time. This strike is the outcome of want and privation, and it has brought the people to still greater want and privation. I believe they are not a set of noisy malcontents on the lookout for an opportunity to create a disturbance. On the contrary, they see in this course the only chance of bringing before the public questions of vital importance to them. They earn their bread by the sweat of their brow—and not always good bread either,—while we, as capitalists, are hoarding up money. At the most, they get very little of what their work really yields. I desire, above all things, sir, that you grant their desires and no longer require them to give up their Labor Union. Capitalists have their Board of Trade, which virtually amounts to the same thing. Let the workmen have their one chance to assert themselves by a combination of their forces. And let each side show to the other that tolerance and Christian charity which each demands from the other.”

“What about the tolerance and Christian charity of the outrage they tried to perpetrate last night?” asked Mr. Greenough.

“I do not believe the Labor Union is responsible for that,” replied Salome, with a far-seeing sympathy in her eyes. “Unfortunately it was an outgrowth of their opinions, passions and prejudices. But you must confess, sir, that had you met them with the tolerance which the growing spirit of the age demands, there is little likelihood that matters would ever have reached the point where such an action could have been planned. I want this strike ended on any terms. I want to see the operatives, every one of them, at work again at fair wages. And then, God helping me, I propose to do something for their elevation—something to help them live better, cleaner, manly and womanly lives—something which shall carry out my grandfather’s noble plans, and help make the factory system of New England one of her grandest achievements.”

“Miss Shepard is right,” said Mr. Burnham: “our factory, like many another, has been run too long on the system of _laissez-faire_. I have come to believe in a political economy which insists upon the liveliest activity on the part of capitalists, to put their employes upon the best possible footing as to the material surroundings of life; that they have all the advantage as to health, morals and happiness which comes from sanitary regulation and practical education. I believe that only when we adopt such a political economy as this shall we draw the largest possible dividends from the products of a community comparatively free from crime, intemperance, poverty and vice of every kind.”

“Yes,” urged Villard, “each one of us, laborer or capitalist, has duties to perform which cannot be shirked or shifted to the shoulders of Fate—another name for the theory of _laissez-faire_. The new political economy will demand that every one who, in his or her public or private capacity, can do anything to relieve misery, to combat evil, to redress wrong, to assert the right, shall do so with heart and soul.”

“You see,” said Salome, delighted that two strong, thinking men thus endorsed and voiced her sentiments, “we have been acting on the Quaker’s advice to his son: ‘Make money—honestly if you can; but make money.’ We have forgotten that Christianity says: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ ‘Do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you,’ ‘Bear one another’s burdens,’ and ‘Love one another.’ But we have practically said: ‘Love thyself; seek thine own advantage; promote thine own welfare; put money in thy purse; the welfare of others is not thy business.’”

“I must confess,” answered Otis Greenough, speaking slowly and huskily, “that I cannot, after a life-long devotion to old-fashioned ideas, take any stock in these new-fangled, impracticable ones. I cannot, at my time of life, change my ideas; and neither can I endorse your proposition to make a public spectacle of ourselves in the future. Mills are run to make money. So long as I hold the position imposed upon me by the late Floyd Shepard, so long shall I refuse to countenance extravagance and quixotism. But I am an old man. No one cares any longer what I think. It is the young people with no experience whose opinions count nowadays. I am an old man who has had his day——”

“Don’t, I beg of you, sir, talk like that,” interrupted Salome. “We do value your opinion; we do intend to refer to your judgment; we——”

“What is that?” cried Mrs. Soule in alarm, from her seat near the window.

“It is some one throwing gravel against the panes,” said the cashier as a second shower came rattling against the window. He parted the curtains and looked out.

“The grounds are full of men. We are mobbed, by George!”

The old agent’s blood was up in a moment, and regardless of the presence of ladies he swore in good, set terms, that the rascals should be arrested and imprisoned for this.

Then, unconscious of danger, in spite of the attempts of Villard and the rest to hold him back, he marched, like an old hero, boldly out on to the veranda which faced a crowd of excited workmen.

They had held a stormy meeting at the Labor Union, and the worst element among them had become desperate, and swore to “bring the old man to terms.” They had gone in a body to the mills, where they hoped to find some of their employers in consultation. There they had found that the whole force of their opponents had gone to the great Shepard Mansion. Nothing daunted, they turned their steps thither, and at every street corner were joined by the element of hoodlumism which is always scattered about over the streets of a large and poorly-governed town.

Hence the mob that confronted the officers of the Shawsheen Mills held all the elements of danger and disturbance.

When Otis Greenough’s bald head appeared before them, the crowd set up a yell of mingled derision and defiance.

“Give us our rights, old Baldy” shouted one voice.

“Give us fair play and fair wages,” called another, while worse epithets were hurled at him, from the roughs in the rear.

Otis Greenough’s face was purple.

“This is outrageous!” he exclaimed in hot haste. “What right have you to come here and defile an honest citizen’s premises with your wretched, polluting presence?”

“Stop that, now!” shouted one of the leaders. “Fair play all round. If you won’t come to us, we’ll come to you, and compel you to make terms, and decent ones, with us. We want——”

But the crowd of street idlers who had come in search of excitement, and not argument, grew restless, and broke in noisily; and when Otis Greenough opened his mouth to speak again, he was struck squarely in the face by a handful of gravel and mud.

Then a sudden hush fell over the mob.

For what was this unexpected white form which appeared in the doorway, and advanced to meet them?

Salome was dressed in a clinging, white, soft serge, with falls of fine lace at the neck and wrists, and under the dim light of the piazza-lamp, she seemed like an angel of retribution, her eyes flaming reproach, and her hands raised in deprecation.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?” she burst forth, in ringing tones. “You, who call yourselves honest men, and loyal citizens! You who come here with a claim for fair play, you who come here to assert the right of every American to be treated with respect by every other; to insult and maltreat an old man with white hair—a man whom, as a long associate in your work, you should honor? Do you come to my house to call forth a man who was even now listening to plans for the improvement of your homes and lives and prospects, simply that you may turn yourselves into a pack of dogs to bark at him? Go home. Lay aside your prejudices and your low, unworthy passions, and think whether we be entirely in the wrong. Think whether you are showing yourselves worthy of being trusted? Go home and weigh calmly your conduct against that of these officers, and decide for yourselves whether you deserve to be met half-way. And I give you my word of honor as owner of the Shawsheen Mills, that when you decide to behave like men and not like beasts, you shall be treated as men. You shall have good places with good pay. You shall find that we are willing to do as much as—yes, more, than you are willing to do for us, and that we will meet you half-way in the open, fair discussion of all points connected with the labor question.”

“Three cheers for the lady!” shouted a hoodlum, who cared not which side he was on, provided he could make a noise.

But the cheers were stayed, and further demonstration was choked in utterance. For Otis Greenough fell suddenly at the feet of the woman who stood there boldly championing him and her sense of right.

The superintendent carried him quickly within and put him on a sofa; a physician was hastily summoned, and in a few words Villard dismissed the mob, now hushed and awe-stricken.

But Otis Greenough in one moment had passed beyond the disturbances of howling malcontents, beyond the petty smallness of his old-fashioned and cramped ideas, out into that world where there is no fear of anarchy and socialism, no disgrace in being a philanthropist, no bounds to the heart of love for all mankind, and no limits to the horizon of a larger, diviner life.

VIII.

Death is never fully realized until he is an actual presence; and Otis Greenough’s sudden demise before their eyes and almost under, if not by, their own hands, solemnized and terrified the mob, and brought the strikers to a sense of the desperate pass to which they had come.

The members of the Labor Union laid their grievances aside for the time, and paid every mark of respect to the old agent now that he had passed beyond the recognition of it. A sudden fit of apoplexy had blotted out his choleric and intolerant behavior, and left only the remembrance that he had been their head for many years.

But when he had been laid away in the new cemetery on Shepard Hill, the smouldering embers of discord began again to break forth into hot flames of prejudice and passion.

Geoffrey Burnham and John Villard were consulting together in the mill office the day after the funeral, when the door opened and the owner of the mills walked in.

“I have come,” she said, in answer to their ill-concealed surprise, “to talk over the situation of the strike. I want the mills re-opened.”

“We shall be only too happy to comply with your wishes, Miss Shepard,” said Burnham, placing a chair in a comfortable light for her. “Upon what terms do you propose it?”

“I want to compromise,” she answered, “and give them a better chance than they have ever had. It may take us some time to decide on the exact terms. Would it be better, do you think,”—she unconsciously turned to Villard—“to take them back on the old terms, re-instate them precisely as they were, and then go on and make our changes?”

“That would hardly do,” he replied. “Experience has proved them very jealous of new methods, and unwilling to consent to untried theories. If we yield everything they demand now, we shall establish a bad precedent; eh, Burnham?”

“Decidedly, and we shall meet with opposition if we undertake any changes. If there is to be a remodeling of the old system, it had better come now.”

“There must be a remodeling, it seems to me,” urged Salome. “Dear Mr. Greenough acted wisely, so far as he could, no doubt; but I feel that the time is come to make decided changes here. Perhaps I am not very clear in regard to them, even in my own mind. But I have some idea of what I want, and I shall be glad to have you both state your convictions and objections, if you have them, relating to everything I propose.”

“It will be no light matter,” said Burnham, “to select a plan and perfect it at once. It must be a work of time and much thought. Still, what is your idea?”

“I want to put the relations between us and the employes,” Salome went on, “on a better footing—an ethical basis, if you like the term. We must combine the question ‘Will it pay?’ with a higher one, ‘Is it right?’”

The two men looked at each other. Burnham bit his lip.

“I do not propose to promise the people an era of absolute prosperity and uninterrupted progress, and let them take it as a blind destiny without exertion or sacrifice or patriotism on their part. I want to teach them to be healthy, intelligent, and virtuous citizens, and to expect from us the treatment such citizens deserve. I believe that such a course is for the pecuniary interests of the mill, as well as for theirs. I have heard enough of the conflicting interests of labor and capital; and on the other hand I do not believe in the twaddle that proclaims them one. I believe they are reciprocal, and that we must take that idea as fundamental.”

“You propose a radical change, I fear.” Geoffrey Burnham’s tone held a new respect for this woman whom he had believed wrapped up in the toils of worldly and shallow aims.

“Yes, I may as well own it; I do,” assented Salome. “Among my grandfather’s manuscripts, I came across, the other day, these sentences: ‘I would like to prove my luminous ideal of what a superintendent may be among his people. I would like to live long enough to show the world that the spirit of the Crucified may rule in a cotton-mill as fully as in the life of a saint.’ That sentence, gentlemen, must speak for me. In those words lies the germ of my plan of action.”

Silence followed her. Geoffrey Burnham told himself that a new era must be dawning,—the era foreshadowing the millennium, since she who held the power could so bravely avow her intentions to make the Shawsheen Mills an experiment in what he called Christian socialism. But John Villard, after a moment, rose and extended his hand to Salome.

“I pledge my hearty co-operation,” he said, “and thank God for the opportunity to prove what a cotton-mill may become by the new Christian political economy.”

“Thank you,” said Salome. “And now let us see just what the strikers demand, and how far we can grant their wishes.”

John Villard produced the paper which had been presented on the first day of the strike, and placed it in Salome’s hands. It was the first time she had seen it. She read it through very carefully.

“It seems to me there was no need of these long months of idleness,” she commented, when she had finished the paper. “Now, let us see. First, they demand recognition, as the Shawsheen Labor Union. I think we may yield that point, safely enough.”

“Without modification?” inquired Geoffrey Burnham.

“Why not?”

“They will take advantage of us. They will dictate and become arbitrary. The Labor Union grows by what it feeds on. It will become an elephant on our hands.”

“Not if they have something better to take its place,” said Salome. “I am fully persuaded that they will meet us half-way, if we give them a union that is better than theirs. Let their union alone for the present.”

“I am with you there,” said Villard. “It devolves upon us to change its character into something that shall be, at least, as helpful as they _want_ to make this one.”

“Next, the ten-hour system,” pursued Salome, who was not yet ready to discuss the improved union. “Certainly there can be no possible objection against granting this clause?”

“Certainly not,” said Burnham, feeling himself appealed to.

“‘The new frames must be taken out and the mules replaced, with a written agreement that no more of the obnoxious machinery shall be added for five years.’ That seems rather arbitrary. How is it, Mr. Villard?”

“It is arbitrary,” he responded. “The frames must be retained. We must be allowed to adopt improved machines and methods, or where shall we be in this age of competition? But I think there will be little trouble with the men, if I am allowed to approach them in the right way. Anyhow, I will try.”

“Do so,” was the reply. “Make them see that improved methods are for their interest as much as for ours. As to the wage-section—were their wages actually cut down?”

“Yes,” replied both men.

“That must not be allowed,” said Salome. “The mills were paying a handsome profit when this was done, weren’t they?”

“They were,” said Villard. “Better than for a year before.”

“Give them their old pay, with the understanding that wages will be increased when work is heavier. I propose to myself a wild scheme of profit-sharing, or a sliding scale of wages, in the future.”

“Good,” cried Villard. “The very thing I’ve been wanting to try. I believe in it heartily. But where did you get the idea of it?”

“Oh, I’ve been reading all the practical articles I could find on political economy, as applied to mills and factories, for some months,” Salome replied, “and I have evolved some queer theories, I fear; but I propose to give them a fair trial, unless you pronounce them too visionary. I am glad you approve of profit-sharing. And you, Mr. Burnham?”

“I approve of making the experiment,” said the more cautious superintendent. “I do not jump at conclusions. Nevertheless, the idea, though new, looks practicable, and I should like to see it tried.”

“They have already tried it in one or two places where it is proving a great success, I believe,” said Salome. “You know the experiment was tried as long ago as 1831, when Mr. John S. Vandeleur put it into effect successfully in County Clare, Ireland. The Paris and Orleans Railway Company began to share profit with its employes in 1844, and the Maison Leclaire, I think, two years before, both of which have proved very successful. I do not see why we cannot adopt it.”

“We can,” asserted Villard, confidently. “It is already being tried on a small scale by several firms in this country. Why should not we join the procession?”

“What are you going to do about the demand for weekly wages?” asked Burnham.

“What objections are there?” Salome asked.

“It will entail extra expense for clerks and book-keepers,” responded Burnham. “That seems unnecessary.”

“The men claim that they have to depend in great measure on the credit system at the stores,” explained Villard. “Their wages coming only once a month, they get short of money. If sickness or other additional expense comes upon them, they are often seriously inconvenienced by lack of their rightful wages. Again, if they are able to put a little money in the savings-bank, why should they not have the benefit of the interest that accrues through the month, rather than we? The money is theirs.”

“On the other hand,” interrupted Burnham, “those men whose first duty, on being paid off, seems to lie in getting gloriously drunk, would have the opportunity just four times as often.”

“We have a work to do in that direction,” said Salome in a pained voice. “In a sense we are our brother’s keepers. I half believe that the solution of the temperance question is largely in the control of the employers of labor; and that the secondary, and often the primary, causes of intemperance are bad and unwholesome food, which create a craving for drink; bad company, which tempts it; squalid houses, which drive men forth for cheerfulness; and the want of more comfortable places of resort which leaves them no refuge but the saloons. It is in our power to remedy all these evils. Give them good sanitation, well-ventilated houses, comfortable homes, and reading-rooms, and coffee-parlors, and only the most depraved will be tempted by the low saloons.”

“But, Miss Shepard, surely you do not propose all these things?” and Geoffrey Burnham looked his astonishment.

“Why not?” was the terse reply.

“Where will your profits come in? You cannot afford it.”

Salome smiled. Her money was her own. Why should she not use it as she pleased?

“No. For the first year or two I shall not pocket an immense profit; that is true,” she assented. “But I am not likely to come to want. And Newbern Shepard’s mills must be put on the basis where he desired, above all things, to see them during his lifetime. He planned a noble scheme. It is my birthright and my duty to carry it into effect. It will cost me something to get the mills where they must be; but it will pay in the end. Of that I feel sure.”

“You are quite right,” said John Villard. “What may we not hope for when the condition of the working-people shall receive that concentrated attention which has hitherto been devoted to the more favored ranks? When charity, which has, for ages past, done so much mischief, shall learn to do good? When the countless pulpits of our country, which have always been so active in preaching Catholicism or Anglicism, Calvinism or Armenianism, and all other isms, shall preach pure and simple Christianity? When, by a healthy environment of the toiling masses, and the exercise of hygienic sense and science, mankind shall be healthy and free from questionable instincts and morbidly exaggerated appetites? I tell you, we cannot even approach an estimate of the extent to which every improvement, social, moral or material, reacts on the nation’s ethical and intellectual progress, and the prosperity of her industries.”

“But you are taking us entirely away from the question in hand,” said Geoffrey Burnham, “which was, shall we grant the demand for weekly wages?”

“Not so far away as you seem to think,” retorted Villard. “The questions of sanitation and morality affect them, and us too, as well as the question of weekly wages. As for the latter, I am in favor of trying it on.”

“So am I,” said Salome. “I am in favor of trying every new method until we can know positively which are the best ones.”

“With modifications,” said Burnham, smiling at her vehemence. “I don’t exactly approve of the weekly system, but the majority are against me, and I may as well cast my vote with yours. Shall we send for their committee, then, and offer them all concessions, except those relating to the spinning frames?”

“Yes, I should do so,” said Salome, “and prepare to open the mills at once, provided they decide to accept our terms.”

“That is practically decided already,” laughed Burnham, “by our accepting theirs. Villard, you may negotiate with them about the frames. They are inclined to listen to you better than to me, for some reason.”

“They know I’ve been in their place,” said Villard. “That makes all the difference in the world to them. They think I understand their side of the question; that is all.”

“Then you will confer with them immediately?” said Salome, rising to go. “And will you make all necessary preparations to open the mills? And then will you confer with me?”

“Most certainly, Miss Shepard.” Geoffrey Burnham spoke for both of them. “But—I beg your pardon, you have not spoken of a new agent. We must have one, you know. I trust you have made some wise selection?”

“I am prepared to surprise you,” Salome replied, buttoning her glove. “You two men will oblige me by transacting all necessary business for the present, in your positions of first and second superintendents, and by looking closely after the thousand details which I do not yet understand. Meanwhile, I shall come to the office every day and, with your co-operation and kind help, shall learn the business. I have too many schemes for the general improvement of the Shawsheen Mills and its operatives, to trust the mills in the hands of a stranger. I propose to be my own agent. Good-morning.”