Part 10

I want to picture out in this chapter one of the hardest fields the minute-man has to labor in. I think there are greater inequalities to be found in our land than in any other, at least a greater variety of social conditions. Times have changed much in the last twenty-five years. The consolidating of great business concerns has made a wide gulf between the employer and employee such as never before existed outside of slavery.

It is not true to say that the rich are growing richer, and the poor poorer; for the poor could not be poorer. There never was a time when men were not at starvation-point in some places. We have to-day thousands of men who never saw the owner of the property that they work upon. There is a fearful distance between the gentlemen and ladies in their four-in-hand turnout and the begrimed men who come up into the daylight out of our great coal-mines, or those who handle the heavy iron ore. I have seen men whose hands could be pared like a horse's hoof without drawing the blood, who were going back to Germany to stay,--men who had been lured over by the promise of big wages, who, as they said, averaged "feefty cent a day." I have seen sixty and seventy men living in a big hut, with two or three women cooking their vegetables in a great iron kettle, and dipping them out with tin ladles. I have seen little boys by the score working for a few cents a day, and four, five, and seven families living in one house, and where all the pay was store-pay, and did not average five dollars a week, and where it was not safe to walk at night, and murder was common,--and you could find within a few miles cities where there were men who would say that the whole of the above was a lie.

When I first talked on these regions, I could think of nothing else; and some good men advised me not to tell of what I had seen. It smacked too much of socialism, they said. I remarked, "You will hear of starving, bloodshed, and riot from that region before long." And so they did. The State troops were called out more than once. And here in the midst of this misery our minute-man went. Before the mines were opened, a little stream of clear water flowed between green banks and through flowery meads; cattle dotted the meadows, and peaceful farm-houses nestled under the trees. But all this was soon changed. The green sod was turned up, the clear stream became a muddy, discolored torrent, and wretched little houses took the place of the farm-houses. Low saloons abounded. Our minute-man was warned that his life would be in danger. On the other hand, he was offered three times the salary he was getting as a missionary if he would become a foreman. But the man is one of the last of that noble army of pioneers that count not their life dear.

When our man tried to find a place to preach, there was none save an old dilapidated schoolhouse. The window-sashes were broken, the panels of the door gone. The place was beyond a little stream, which had to be crossed upon a log. It was nearly dark before his audience arrived. The women, much as they wanted to go, were ashamed of the daylight. Many of the young girls had on but one garment. The men were a rough-looking lot. The place was lighted with candles in lanterns, the flames of which fluttered with the draughts, and gutters of tallow ran down. What a contrast to the church a few miles away, where the seats were cushioned, and a quartet choir sang, "The Earth is the Lord's," with a magnificent organ accompaniment! What a gulf between these poor souls and those who came in late, not because of poor clothes, but because of fine ones! And yet I suppose they did not perceive it, perhaps they did not know. But it does seem to me that when men hear that "The Earth is the Lord's," it ought to make them think how small a proportion of earth they will make when mingled with the dust from which they came.

But to return to our meeting. Our man is not from the colleges, but is a rare man (don't misunderstand me. Nothing is so much needed to-day as well-educated men; and I am not one of those who think that it spoils a razor to sharpen it); and he has not spoken long before the tears fall fast, and many a poor fellow who once sang the songs of Zion comes home to his Father's house. Still, they tell our man it is not safe for him to come; but he does; and under great difficulties he builds a church and parsonage. And then he tries to have a reading-room. Naturally he thinks that the man who is making so much money out of the earth will help him. He offers twenty-five dollars, which our minute-man spurns. He is going to give double that out of his meagre salary, and tells the man so; but the man's excuse is that he pays four hundred dollars a year towards the church music. Think of that. And he pays to hear that "The Earth is the Lord's," and still does not hear. The little room is built and furnished without his help, and saves many a poor fellow from drink.

Our man has several other places to preach in, each worse than the other. In one town it is on Sunday afternoon, but he has to wait for the room until the dance is over. In another town he builds a church; and to this day may be seen the bullet-holes near the pulpit, where men have shot at him, hoping to kill their best friend. As he is passing along the street one day with a companion, a man runs across the road from a saloon, plunges a knife into the heart of the man who is walking with our minute-man, and he drops dead in his tracks. Amid such scenes as this our hero still works. He has been the means of stopping more than one strike; and one would think that the rich companies would at least give more than they do to help these men at the front, who would make Pinkerton's men and State troops unnecessary.

In the meantime the men are here. Can we expect that these men, coming from their huts on the Danube,--seeing our fine houses, the American workingmen's children well clothed and attending school,--are going to be content? Do we want them to be? The worst thing that could happen to them and ourselves would be for them to be content with their present condition. No greater danger could menace the Republic than thousands of Europeans coming here to live, and remaining in their present condition. We condemn them for coming and underworking our men; and we condemn them when they want more, and are bound to get it.

Many say, "Keep them out." But there are several things in the way. Rich corporations, mine-owners, and railways are bound to get them. And would you keep the men from which we sprung in overcrowded Europe, while we have a continent with but seventy millions? Is there any real love in that which sends a missionary to Europe to save souls on the Don, that will not let their bodies live on the Hudson? Do we believe that "The Earth is the Lord's"? Let me close this chapter with a quotation from Roger Williams's letter to the Town of Providence:--

"I have only one motion and petition which I earnestly pray the town to lay to heart, as ever they look for a blessing from God on the town, in your families, your corn and cattle, and your children after you. It is this, that after you have got over the black brook of some soul bondage yourselves, you tear not down the bridge after you, by leaving no small pittance for distressed souls that come after you."

XXIV.

THE DANGEROUS NATIVE CLASSES.

We hear much about the dangerous foreigners that come to us, but little about the dangerous native. There is not a type, whether of poverty or ignorance, but what we can match it. Leaving out the negro, we have over ninety per cent Anglo-Saxon in the South. Here we find a strange lot of paradoxes,--the most American, the most ignorant, the most religious, the most superstitious, and the most lawless. Take the lowest class of Crackers, and we have the whole of the above combined, with millions of mountain whites to match. Yet in this same South land are the most gentlemanly, and the most lady-like, and the most hospitable people in the country. The Cracker classes are descendants of the English, but what kind of English? The offscourings of prison and dockyards, sent over to work on the plantations before slave labor was introduced.

The mountain whites are the descendants of the Scotch-Irish. As many people seem to think this means a Scotch parent on one side and an Irish upon the other, it may be well to state that the Scotch-Irish are the descendants of Scotch people who immigrated to Ireland. But it ought not to be forgotten that the mountain whites are the descendants of Scotch-Irish of two centuries ago, a very different people from the Scotch-Irish of to-day. Here in the mountains we find some three millions, often without schools, and waiting sometimes for years for a funeral sermon after the person has been buried. Towns can be found over seventy years old organized with a court-house and no church.

"Yes," they say, "the Methodists started one some years ago; but the Baptists threw the timber into the Cumberland, and sence then we ain't had no church."

Here one of our minute-men had two horses shot under him, and another missionary was nearly killed.

Here you may find families of twenty and more, living in a wretchedly constructed house, on bacon and corn-meal, hoe-cakes, and dodgers. I started once to stay over night in one of these houses. As we came near to the place, I found that my host was a school-teacher. He had taught twenty-two schools. He meant by this that he had taught that many years. The kitchen was as black as smoke could make it; the butter was stringy, caused by the cows eating cotton-seed; and my seat a plank worn smooth by use, with legs which stuck up through it, which would have been better had they been worn more. I suppose in some way I involuntarily showed my feelings; for the woman noticed it, and said, "Yer oughter put up with one night what we uns have ter all the time."

I said "That's the trouble; I could when I got used to it."

The room I slept in had a hole in the end that you could drive a span of horses through. It had been left for a chimney. As I found out that the day before a rattlesnake had come into the house, and the good woman had to defend herself with the fire-poker, I did not sleep so well as I might. The possibility of a rattler in the dark, and no poker handy, filled me with uneasy thoughts; but as people get up with the sun, the time passed, and I was glad to get back to civilized life.

I noticed that the cotton was ridged up with concave rows of earth, which was covered with rank weeds. This was done to keep the water from running off too quickly. I asked whether sage would not hold the ridges as good as weeds. "Oh, yes!" they said, and it brought a dollar a pound; but they had never thought of that.

Some of the States do not have seventy school-days in the year; and the whole South to-day has not as many public libraries as the State of Massachusetts. A man needs perfect health to enjoy some of the pastoral work which he must do if he intends making a success among the mountain whites. One thing should never be forgotten. The poor whites of the mountains were loyal to the Union, and out from this type came the greatest American we have had, Abraham Lincoln.

Here, then, is plenty of material to work on,--families big enough to start a small church, and who do not send to England for pug-dogs for lack of progeny. Here is the rich fields, and here must the race be lifted before the millions of blacks can have a chance. Education must be pushed; and then will come a period of scepticism, for this people are fifty years behind the times.

Several people were sitting on a large veranda; and one man, a preacher lately from Texas, was telling us of his visit. Among other things he spoke of the cyclone-pits, and said, "Seems to me, brother, a man can't have much faith in God who would go into a pit. I would not; would you?"

"No," replied mine host. "Men seem to me to be losing faith. I once raised a woman up by prayer that three doctors had given up. Aunt Sally, have ye any of that liver invigorator? I kind of feel as if I needed some."

Here was a man who had prayed a woman out of the jaws of death, calling for liver medicine. None of them seemed to see the incongruity of it. One good old deacon that I knew horrified his pastor, who was a strong temperance man, by furnishing the communion with rye whiskey. The old man meant all right; but he had neglected to replenish the wine, and thought something of a spirituous nature was needed, and so brought the whiskey.

It is a fact worth noting, that we have to-day, in the year 1895, millions of men living in conditions as primitive as those of the eighteenth century, while in the same land we are building houses which are lighted and heated with electricity; that some men worship in houses built of logs, without glass windows, and others worship in buildings that cost millions; that in the former case men have lived in this way for over two hundred years, and the latter less than fifty since the Indian's tepee was the only dwelling in sight; that to-day may be seen the prairie schooner drawn by horses, oxen, or mules, and in one case a horse, a cow, and a mule, the little shanty on wheels, the man sitting in the doorway driving, and his wife cooking the dinner. But so it is. We have all the varieties of habitation, from the dugout of the prairie to the half-million summer cottage at Bar Harbor; and from a single Indian pony, we have all kinds of locomotion, up to the vestibuled palace on wheels.

That I may not seem to be over stating the condition of the mountain whites, and the dangers among our own people, I close with a quotation from Dr. Smart's Saratoga address:--

"Let me tell you of just one experiment of letting a people alone, and its result. Shall we trust that American institutions and American ideas, that the press and schools, will ultimately Americanize them? In the eastern part of Kentucky, in the western part of North Carolina and West Virginia, there is a section of country about the size of New Hampshire and New York,--one of the darkest spots on the map of the South. The people living there have been there for over a hundred years, and are of Scotch-Irish extraction. Whole counties can be found in which there is not a single wagon-road. Most of the houses are of one story, without a window, or only a small one; and the door has to be kept open to let in the light. I have it from good authority that when the first schoolmistress went there to teach, she stipulated that she should have a room with a window in it, and a lock to the door. Very few of the people can read or write. They have no newspapers, no modern appliances for agriculture, no connection with the world outside and around them. This is the land of the 'moonshiner.' They love whiskey, and so they manufacture it. The pistol and bowie-knife are judge and sheriff. Bloodshed is common, and barbarism a normal state of society. These men were not slaveholders in the times before the war. They were as loyal to the Union as any others who fought for the old flag, and they served in the Union army when they got a chance. When Bishop Smith in a large and influential meeting spoke of them, he touched the Southern and Kentucky pride, especially when he pointed out what a moral and spiritual blot they were upon the South. Now, why are they there a hundred years behind us in every respect? Why are they sunk so low? Simply because they have been let alone. They are just as much separated from this land, without any share in its marvellous progress, as if a Chinese wall had been built around them. They have been let alone; and American institutions, American schools, and the American press, have flowed around them and beyond them without effect."

XXV.

CHRISTIAN WORK IN A LUMBER-TOWN.

Until a few years ago I knew little or nothing of mill-towns or lumber-camps. I had seen a saw-mill that cut its thousand feet a day when running, and it was generally connected with some farm through which ran a stream. It was a very innocent affair. But in 1889 I saw for the first time the great forests of pine, and became acquainted with part of the immense army of lumbermen. Michigan alone had at that time some forty thousand; Wisconsin has as many; Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana are now engaged in a vast work; and when we add the great States of Oregon and Washington, with their almost illimitable forests, we feel that we are speaking within bounds when we say an immense army.

The one great difficulty of the problem is the transitory character of the work--like Count Rumford's stoves, if they could only have been patented and money made out of them, every house would use them; so if the lumber village had come to stay, many a church would have gone in and built. But more than once a man in authority has said, "Oh, I have looked that field over, and it won't amount to much." No one who has not had experience in the field can form any adequate idea of its vastness or its crying needs. The one great trouble of the whole question is the massing of so many men away from the softening influence of wife and mother. It is unnatural; and nature's laws, as sacred as the Decalogue, are broken in unnatural crimes, and sins unknown to the common run of men.

The lumber business may be divided into three distinct classes of workers,--the mill-men, the camp-men, and the river-men. The last are the smallest company, but the hardest to reach. They flit from stream to river, from the river to the lake, from scenes of sylvan beauty to the low groggery--and worse. Their temporary home is often made of blackened logs papered with _Police Gazettes_, which come in vast numbers, and form the largest part of their not very select reading. Books of the Zola type, but without their literary excellence, are legion. Good books and good literature would be a boon in these camps.

To give you an idea of the rapid march of the lumber-camp, come with me into the primeval forest. It is a winter day. The snow is deep, and the lordly pines are dressed like brides in purest white; one would think, to look at their pendent branches, that Praxiteles and all his pupils had worked for a century in sculpturing these lovely forms. Not a sound is heard save our sleigh-bells, or some chattering squirrel that leaps lightly over the powdery snow; a gun fired would bring down a harmless avalanche. It is a sight of unsurpassed beauty in nature's privacy; but alas, how soon the change!

An army of brawny men invade the lovely scene. Rude houses of logs are quickly erected; and men with axe and saw soon change the view, and with peavey and cant-hook the logs are loaded and off for the rollway. Inside the largest house are bunks, one above another; two huge stoves with great iron cylinders, one at each end, give warmth; while in picturesque confusion, socks and red mackinaws and shirts hang steaming by the dozens. There is a cockloft, where the men write their letters, and rude benches, where they sit and smoke and tell yarns till bedtime. In a few weeks at the farthest the grand old forest is a wreck; a few scrubby oaks or dwindling beech-trees are all that are left. The buildings rot down, the roofs tumble in, and a few camp-stragglers trying to get a living out of the stumpy ground are all that are left; and solitude reigns supreme.

On stormy days hundreds of the men go into the nearest village, and sin revels in excess. In many a small town, mothers call their little ones in from the streets, which are soon full of men drunken and swearing, ready for fight or worse. At such times they hold the village in a reign of terror, and often commit crimes of a shocking nature, and no officer dares molest them. A stranger coming at such a time would need to conduct himself very discreetly or he would get into trouble. A volume might be filled with the outrageous things done in these small lumber-towns. Ireland is not the only place that suffers from absentee landlords.

The condition of the children is pitiable, brought up in an atmosphere of drunkenness and debauchery; swearing as natural as breathing; houses packed so closely that you can reach across from one window to another. The refuse is often emptied between the houses; diseases of all kinds flourish, and death is ever busy. Eight or ten nationalities are often found in these towns,--men who cannot spell their names, and men who went to St. Paul's and admired Canon Liddon, or New York men that went to Beecher's church.

Here a house which cost less than a hundred dollars, and inside of it an organ costing one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and a forty-dollar encyclopædia. The next house is divided by stalls like a stable, with bed in one, stove in another, and kitchen in the third. With a population as mixed as this, and in constant flux, what, you ask, can the church do? I answer, much, very much, if you can only get a church there; but when the church which gives much more than any other gives but a quarter of a cent per day per member, is it any wonder that hundreds of churchless lumber-towns call in vain for help from the sanctuary? Some small villages can be found where every family is living in unlawful relations.

Now, remember this, the lumberman is made of the same clay that we are, and it is his environment that brings to the front the worst that is in him. He is reached by practical Christianity as easily as any other man. The shame and reproach belong to us for neglecting him, and there is no other way that we so dishonor him whom we call Master as to say his commands are not practicable. Is it asking too much from the rich men who get their money by the toil of these men, that out of their millions they should spend thousands for the moral welfare of those who make them rich? And yet too often they do not even know their own foremen, and in many cases have never visited the property they own.

I once asked a rich lumber-man for a subscription for missions, saying I was sorry he was not at the church when I took up my collection. "Jinks! I am glad I was not there," he said; "I gave away ten dollars Saturday night."

Now, this man had been cutting off from his land for thirty years, and had just sold a quarter of a million dollars' worth of it, and still had land left. But on the other hand, be it known that the men in these villages who make no profession of religion actually give dollar for dollar with the Christian church-members to sustain the frontier churches. Saloon-keepers, and often Roman Catholics, help to support the missionary church.

The mission churches of the lumber regions are like springs in the desert, but for which the traveller would die on his way; and thousands of church-members scattered from ocean to ocean were born of the Spirit in some one of these little churches that did brave work in a transient town.

To do work in these places aright, one must drop all denominational nonsense,--be as ready to pray and work with the dying Roman Catholic as with a member of his own church, and do as I did,--lend the church building to the priest, because disease in the town would not permit of using the private houses at the time, and so help to fill up the gap between us and the old mother that nursed us a thousand years.

In every new town, in every camp, should be a standing notice, "No cranks need apply."