CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library PS 2359.M688A8 Adam Clarke, a story of the toilers bein iry of the toilers bein 3 1924 022 036 663 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022036663 ADAM CLARKE A STORY OF THE TOILERS Being a Narrative of the Experiences of a Family of British Emigrants to the United States in Cotton Mill, Iron Foundry, Coal Mine, and Other Fields of Labor By HENRY MANN AutAor of ^^ Ancient and MedicBval Republics,''^ ** T/ie Land We Live In^^ ^^ Handbook for Americetn Citizens^^ Etc. NEW YORK POPULAR BOOK COMPANY 1904 Copyright, 1904 By henry MANN Ml Rights Reserved CONTENTS Introduction vii CHAPTER I The Death of Adam Clarke i CHAPTER H To the Promised Land 15 CHAPTER HI The New York Slave-Market 29 CHAPTER IV Serfs of the Loom 4c CHAPTER V The City of Smoke and Flame 52 CHAPTER VI Harmonyville 67 CHAPTER VII The Slater Club Encourages American Industry 70 CHAPTER VIII Senator Palmitch Addresses a Meeting in Behalf of Protection for the American Workingman 79 CHAPTER IX The Coal Mine 89 CHAPTER X The Hunk's Revenge 93 CHAPTER XI Before the Great Pittsburgh Strike , . . . . 98 iii iv CONTENTS CHAPTER XII The Strike id CHAPTER XIII The Military no CHAPTER XIV Monopoly Tastes Blood Ii7 CHAPTER XV Two Miles of Fire I2S CHAPTER XVI In the Gray of the Morning 131 CHAPTER XVII The Blacklist 133 CHAPTER XVIII Driven from His Native Land 139 CHAPTER XIX Robert Clarke Meets the Reverend Jefferson Jones 147 CHAPTER XX Banker Dilkins Explains the Kind of Sermon He Wants 149 CHAPTER XXI The Banker's Victim 159 CHAPTER XXII An East Side Settlement Feast 162 CHAPTER XXIII The Reverend Jefferson Jones Preaches to Millionaires. 168 CHAPTER XXIV Death of Mrs. Clarke 173 CONTENTS V CHAPTER XXV Robert Clarke's Struggle with Poverty 176 CHAPTER XXVI Turning Off the Gas 179 CHAPTER XXVH The Charity Roundabout Society 183 CHAPTER XXVIII Craddock's Coal Mine on Fire 188 CHAPTER XXIX Robert Clarke Dies, and Adam Turns Newsboy 195 CHAPTER XXX Adam's Leg Crushed — Charley Murphy Goes with Him to the Hospital 199 CHAPTER XXXI Mrs. Clarke Has Some Visitors 204 CHAPTER XXXII Andrew Craig Comes Home Again 207 CHAPTER XXXIII The Conversion of Craddock 211 CHAPTER XXXIV Craig Falls in Love with Craddock's Daughter, Pris- cilla 214 CHAPTER XXXV Charley Murphy Becomes a Member of the Clarke Family 220 CHAPTER XXXVI The Pullman Strike 224 VI CONTENTS CHAPTER XXXVII The Mustache Degree 231 CHAPTER XXXVin The Duchess of Oldtower and Countess of Ruinville. . 234 CHAPTER XXXIX The Usual Strike-Breaking Plot 237 CHAPTER XL An Excuse to Slay 241 CHAPTER XLl The Anti-Murder Strike 245 CHAPTER XUI Cowards Fire on Women 248 CHAPTER XLHI Capitalists Hold a Meeting 252 CHAPTER XLIV Sheriff Macanotchie's New Departure in Securing a Posse 256 CHAPTER XLV The Encounter and Flight ,. . . . . 261 CHAPTER XLVI In the Coeur d'Alene 265 CHAPTER XLVII A Corral for American "Freemen'' 268 CHAPTER XLVIII Two Clarke Brothers Meet 272 CHAPTER XLIX From Mother's Grave to the Wedding of Andrew and Priscilla 277 INTRODUCTION. I have sought, in the following story, simple in its plot, but dealing with some prominent incidents of recent and current American history, to present a true picture of the conditions of labor in the United States. I have taken a respectable British family, a widowed mother and sons and daughters, all brought up in habits of industry and thrift, and traced them through years of faithful effort in various fields of toil. The technical features of the work have been carefully studied. I got up at mid- night in my hotel in Pittsburgh to go into the roll- ing-mills and learn to describe their operations in language that would be correct as well as intel- ligible. The story of the great Pittsburgh riots I obtained from the lips of former Mayor McCarthy of that city, and from others who took an active part in the terrible episode. A long period of ser- vice as a newspaper man in New England gave me an opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with the cotton mills. For information as to Pennsylvania coal mines and the scenes of the Coeur d'Alene, I have had to depend on the usual sources of public information, and I have spared no effort to be accurate. Frequent employment by a well-known religious newspaper to describe con- ditions on the East Side of New York has enabled VIU INTRODUCTION me to form a fair idea, I think, of the methods and motives of the charitable work in that densely pop- ulated section. The Dilkins Settlement is not in- tended as an example of all East Side Settlements. It simply illustrates the self-delusion and hypocrisy of that counterfeit philanthropy which adds to the sting, far more than it relieves, the hardships of poverty. There is a percentage of good work done on the East Side, especially by the Day Nurseries, which are admirable institutions. Apart from the East Side feature I have tried to depict with truthful reality the struggle of a poor and industrious family in the great city, unblessed by any lucky prizes in the lottery of life. Charley Murphy, "the newsboy, is not by any means a rare character in the streets of New York. Nothing is more touching, nothing nobler than the kindness of these little fellows to each other. They often "scrap," but they are willing to share the last crust with a hungry "fellow newsy," and their hearts and pockets are quick to respond to each other's needs. Their persistence in selling their wares, and courage and patience in privation, oflfer examples which their elders well might imitate. As a reporter I have had frequent occasion to at- tend the churches in which the wealthier class of New York listen to the polished periods of their well-paid pastors, and have noted the care with which the pulpit avoids any subject which might grate the nerves of Dives. The Reverend Jefferson Jones, who got into one of these pulpits by a ves- tryman's blunder is, unfortunately for the cause of INTRODUCTION IX vigorous Christianity, an ideal character. In real life he would be as carefully excluded as a ragged stranger from a millionaire's pew. The humbug of a revenue system, which places a high tariff on foreign goods, while permitting the free admission of foreign labor to make so-called American goods, is perhaps inadequately illustrated in the chapter dealing with Senator Palmitch's speech in behalf of protection for American indus- try, addressed to an audience which did not include a single American, or even English-speaking for- eigners. American workers are becoming aroused to the fact that the present system is for the benefit of manufacturers only, and that the workingman in mill, factory and mine has absolutely no protec- tion against the overwhelming competition of a Niagara of foreign labor, much of it objectionable from both physical and moral standpoints, which pours daily in a vast torrent into the United States from all parts of Europe, and even adjoining Asia. If this little book shall serve to excite the real Amer- ican workingman to greater vigilance on this all- important question, to quicken selfish capital to a keener sense of its obligations to those whose toil makes capital productive, and to animate the wealthy with more of the true Christian spirit in dealing with the helpless and unfortunate, it will ac- complish the aim of the author. Henry Mann. ADAM CLARKE A STORY OF THE TOILERS CHAPTER I. THE DEATH OF ADAM CLARKE. "The poor, oppressed, honest man Had never sure been born, Had there not been some recompense To comfort those that mourn.'' — Robert Burns. "I NEED not come again, Mrs. Clarke." The words were spoken bluntly,- yet not un- kindly, as if the speaker felt that he was performing a routine duty, and meant to perform it with a decent amount of regard for the feelings of those whom he doctored at a penny a week — this being the weekly deduction from the pay of every workingman at the Great Western Engine Works, to go towards medi- cal attendance. The woman addressed was about forty-five years of age, slender in build, her dark hair well streaked with gray, and her dark brown eyes wearing that expression of calm, resigned, and almost callous hopelessness so often to be noticed in women who I 2 ADAM CLARKE have struggled to middle age in the lower walks of life. Her attire was neat and poor; her whole ap- pearance indicated that cleanliness was a second nature to her, and, as she brushed away the tears that trickled unbidden at the doctor's brief but crush- ing utterance, her hand, as by unconscious habit, smoothed back the hair from her forehead. "Oh, doctor!" was all she could say; but the eyes brimming over with her small share of the vast ocean of human sorrow, seemed to ask the question that strained at her heart-strings. "Sorry, Mrs. Clarke — sorry," said the physician, in a softer tone than he used before, "but your hus- band is an old man, you know, and I have done the best I could. I suppose you have had the minister? If not, you should call him at once." And Dr. Swinton started away; not altogether without a sense of relief that this case was over — for him. Adam Clarke had lingered for a number of weeks, and consumed a large quantity of medicine. Dr. Swinton attended upon him with regularity and skill, and had nothing to regret in that respect, and, as he was preparing to spend a few weeks on the continent, and when the summer should get warmer, do a little shooting on the Scottish moors, he was not sorry to have Adam Clarke taken off his hands, even by death. As for other slight cases of sickness in the village, his assistant could attend to those. The night was dark, and a warm April shower was dripping down as the physician, drawing on his gloves and raising his umbrella, hurriedly stepped forth from the humble cottage in Victoria Row, THE DEATH OF ADAM CLARKE 3 Somerton, England. The clock in the tower of the Mechanics' Institute tolled the strokes of eleven. The town was asleep, except here and there a belated tippler from the Prince Albert Arms, or where a light, glimmering through the diamond panes in the window of some little home, hinted that the inmates were wasting in grief or pleasure the hours of pre- paration for the morrow's toil. Adam Clarke and his wife were alone together. Married, a bright Devonshire lass, at twenty, to the thrifty and brawny Scotchman of forty, for twenty-five years she had been to him a faithful, loving partner, and he to her a true, devoted hus- band. She had borne him children, washed for him, scrubbed for him, mended his smock-frock when it was torn or worn, patched his every-day clothing, and carefully guarded the Sunday suit in which he took the children to church and to walk on the Sab- bath day. He had become part of her life, and she of his. This cottage was her world, and he its emperor. Amelia — Emily, her husband called her — cared but little for gossip or news. Adam came home every Monday evening with the Somerton Advertiser, and read the affairs of interest at home and abroad. Sometimes he read how happy Queen Victoria was with Prince Albert, and how good Prince Albert was to Queen Victoria, and then Emily, in her honest mind, would think that she did not envy Queen Victoria, for no Prince Albert could be better than her Adam. And children had come, one after the other, until seven were numbered in the family Bible, not count- 4 ADAM CLARKE ing two who died in infancy. Adam, the oldest, proudly named after his father, grew up a promising lad, and learned his father's trade of ' boilermaker. No more expert apprentice was on the pay-roll of the Somerton Iron Works. But young Adam was im- patient and ambitious, and three years before, he had started for London and taken a sailing vessel to Australia. During two years he corresponded regularly with his parents, and then his letters ceased to come. This apparent neglect caused no little grief to Adam and Emily ; but they could spare no time to weep over the indifference of their first- born. The struggle for existence demanded con- tinual exertion, and as Adam advanced in years, the exertion told more and more upon his once rugged frame. Three other sons he had, two of them old enough to be of some assistance, and three daugh- ters, the youngest a flaxen-haired lassie of eight summers and winters, the pet and pride of her father, who saw in her lint-white locks, and eyes as blue as the Northern Sea that broke on the shores of his native Aberdeen, the token of her ancestry. The children were out in the kitchen, leaving, as was their custom, the doctor alone with their mother and suffering father. Adam Clarke seemed unconscious of what was passing. His face was emaciated, his eyes closed, his breathing almost undiscernible, and only an ir- regular heaving of the chest suggested that the spirit had not taken flight. Mrs. Clarke stepped softly towards the bed. She spoke not. With a gulp of agony she fell on her THE DEATH OF ADAM CLARKE 5 knees, and seized her husband's bony hand from under the bedclothes, and kissed it and kissed-it. "Don't take Adam! Oh, Lord, spare my poor husband !" sobbed the stricken wife. A gleam of light — a streak of yellow sheen — a voice as soft as a zephyr of May. — Had an angel come in answer to her prayer ? "Mamma !" said the voice, "Mamma !" — and there was a gentle tug at the mother's dress. The streaming eyes were turned towards the speaker. Well might she have been mistaken for a messenger from on high. Of the fairest type of British loveliness, her features reminded one of the exclamation reluctantly evoked from the great pon- tiff when he saw English children exposed for sale in the market-place of Rome — "Not Angles, but angels." It was Allie, the youngest, the pet of the family, the heart's idol of Adam Clarke. She had quietly opened the door, and stolen in, to learn the fate of the parent she loved. "Mamma," she repeated, "what did the doctor say about father ?" The mother's lips quivered, but did not open. With a mother's true unselfishness she shrank from laying upon her darling any share of the burden which bowed her own heart to suffocation. She was spared that pain. A smile illumined the wasted features of Adam Clarke. He, too, heard the voice of his pet, and it quickened him back to consciousness. His eyes opened; his lips parted. "Is that Allie?" he feebly asked. 6 ADAM CLARKE "Yes, Adam, we are here — Allie and I" answered the wife, sobbing convulsively, as she leaned over to impress a kiss. "Emily," said the dying man, his voice very weak, but clearer than it had been for days, — "I feel that I'm going; and I have a word to say, Emily, to all of you." "Shall I send for the minister, Adam ?" asked the wife. "No, Emily ; not now — ^he was here yesterday, and prayed, and read the Bible, and I felt better in my soul for it. But I feel that the few minutes left, Emily, should be given only to God and to you." The words were not uttered without difficulty, but were plainly intelligible. A whisper to Allie, and in a moment the children, in tears, were at the bedside. The head of the dying man moved slightly on the pillow, as if he would fain raise it to look around once more upon his family circle, upon the wife and the offspring who had so often gathered about the hearth, and pictured fairy castles in the glowing coals of the grate, while their father made them happy with tales and legends of the Scotland they had never seen. The wife understood the motion, and with hand as gentle, as loving, and far more tender than when she smoothed her husband's yellow locks upon their bridal day, she rearranged the pillow so that Adam Clarke could see, at a look, all his dear ones around him — all but one, the son who was away in distant Australia. It was a touching spectacle. There lay the aged THE DEATH OF ADAM CLARKE 7 British workingman, his scant gray hair, his sunken and furrowed cheeks, his mild blue eyes no longer glinting with health and hope but the film of death almost upon them, one bony hand in the clasp of his faithful partner in labor and in affliction, the other outside the bedclothes, betraying in calloused palm and roughened finger-tips what Adam Clarke had been. It was a clean bed; the room had an at- mosphere of tidiness. From the well-scrubbed floor to the engraving over the mantelpiece, not a speck of dirt could be seen. The sick man had evidently not lacked the care that one of the best of wives could bestow. The father's eyes wandered from one face to the other, and the memories of the past crowded upon his brain. His lips moved. He was repeating to himself the lines he had often heard Emily speak, as she leaned over the cot where slept the treasures of their home : "They grew in beauty side by side. They filled one home with glee; Their graves are severed far and wide By mount and stream and sea. "'Twas one fond mother bent at night O'er each fair sleeping brow^- She had each folded flower in sight — Where are those dreamers now?" There stood Robert, the second son, the picture of his mother, good, kind-hearted, faithful Robert, wearing the smock of an apprentice, just as he had hastened home that evening to place in his mother's 8 ADAM CLARKE hand the few shillings which represented his earn- ings for the fortnight; and there was Alexander, next to Robert in years, and but recently bound out to learn the trade of his brothers and of his father. They were both boys with whom any parent might well be satisfied — boys that would make their way in the world, if industry and intelligence and in- tegrity could carve a path for them. And there, at the foot of the bed, sobbing, as if his young soul would burst from his childish breast, was Wallace, sweet little Wallace, still going to the National School, where he was taught every day to sing "God Save Our Gracious Queen," and to bear in mind the duty of every man to keep within his allotted station — young Wallace's allotted station being plainly in- dicated by the spectacle on the bed. Of late, during the father's illness, it had gone hard to pay the threepence a week required as the fee for Wallace's schooling. Threepence would have bought more than one little delicacy for the sick-room, and helped to ease, in many a little way, the monotonous hours of suffering. But Adam Clarke would not have it. "No, wife," he would say, "Wallace must have his schooling — and who knows what the boy may be yet ? No, I will go without the mutton broth to-day, but Wallace must have his schooling." Adam Clarke was not a subject of charity. He scorned, even in extremity, to resort to the parish. Had he been a pauper the parish inspector would have called and have seen him supplied with everv- thing ordered by the doctor; and his case would have been discussed in the Board of Guardians of THE DEATH OF ADAM CLARKE 9 the Poor, and perhaps some generous lady or gentle- man would have called and bestowed a good deal of sympathy and a small amount of assistance. But Adam Clarke was too proud for that. He would die, as he had lived, independent of charity; and when the doctor said that he should have delicacies that cost money to procure, he never hinted that the slender earnings of his apprentice sons were not equal to more than the most frugal fare. Yes, Adam Clarke, in his decent poverty, was proud, and had reason to be — for did he not come from an honorable lineage? Had not his ancestors been burgesses of the grand old city of Aberdeen? Did not his grandfather follow Bonnie Prince Charlie to the fatal field of Culloden? And had not his father served in the wars of Napoleon under the heroic Nelson! And from Wallace the eyes of the father wan- dered to Martha and to Mary — Martha, not blessed or cursed with the hapless gift of beauty, but patient and loving withal, a true pattern of her mother in disposition ; but with a good share of her father's stronger physique. Mary, with the father's will and purpose and the mother's once handsome face. And Allie — lovely, darling Allie, the babe of the ingleside. What thoughts crowded Adam's mind as his gaze rested upon that seraph face ! Again he saw his own Scottish mother, when he was a child, with her pure complexion, her eyes that seemed to mirror the azure of that heaven to which her soul belonged, the flaxen hair that told of the days long past, when the sea-rovers from Scandinavia wooed lO ADAM CLARKE the fair daughters of Aberdeen. AUie — oh! what would become of AlHe? And, at the thought, a shudder ran through his frame, and it seemed as if the frail cord that held him to life was broken. For a moment the eyes were closed. Then they opened again. "Mother," said the dying man, slowly and painfully, "I have a few words to say to you all. Ye ken weel, lass," he said, his tongue going back as that of a dying man is apt to, to the dialect of his youth, "what ye hae been to me, and I to thee." Emily sobbed the reply she was not able to speak. "It's thirty and five years, lass," continued Adam, distinctly, "syne I turned my back to Aberdeen, and my face towards Glasgy. Weel I remember how I sat down on the first milestone out o' Aberdeen, an' did greet an' greet, as if my heart would break. But I got up, and walked on and on, wi sair feet an' a heavy breast. At last I got to Glasgy, and got work easy in the shipyards on the Clyde; for they saw I was a braw mechanic. The years rolled on, lass, an' I did my best, and kept sober, an' read the little Bible my mither gied me when she died." The dying man paused. He had passed the time for tears. But the thoughts of his mother moved him so that he could not recover utterance for a minute or two. "Then a man came to the Clyde from Somerton, an' offered mair wages to any one to come an' work in the shops here. An' I came — an' the rest ye ken yersel, lassie." The mother only sobbed.' "The rest" — those two short words were her life history ; the chords of her very being had their root in "the rest." THE DEATH OF ADAM CLARKE II "Ye ken, lassie, that I hae done the best for thee an' the bairns ; that I could hae done nae mair. I hae worked steady from Monday's dawn thr' a' the week till Sunday. Nae time hae I spent in the Prince Albert Arms, for I always hurried hame to thee, lassie, and right glad I was to put every shilling in thy hand, for I kenned it would be put to the best use for us a'. An' we hae brought up these lads and lassies, mither, in fear o' God ; an' they hae ne'er lacked for schoolin' or for enough to eat o' the puir food we could provide. An' now the end has come, mither, when you and I an' the lads and lassies must part in this warl' — to meet again, as my ain mither -taught me, in the warl' where there'll be nae partin' !" Adam pavised again. The room was silent, save for the convulsive sobs that told of heart-break too crushing for words. "Mither, I hae but little mair to tell thee, but I ask thee to think on't well. Yc ken that Adam went away three years syne to Australia, an' that we hae' na heard frae him for ane year noo. He was strug- glin' then, but he hoped for a brighter time, an' maybe he hae gane farther to seek his fortune. I canna think Adam would forget his auld father an' his guid mither, an' nae doot he means to write when he has a guid word to send us. "Noo, mither," Adam went on, after a short rest, "when the minister was here yestreen, he talked to me aboot the Promised Land, aboot the Land o' Canaan, to which the Laird would lead those who were true to Him, as He led the Israelites of auld. 12 ADAM CLARKE An' I thought to myser why should there nae be a Land o" Canaan here, as there was for the Israelites — why should my bairns be obleeged to live an' toil as I hae done, without any hope in this warl' but to slave on for the Queen, an' the nobles, and the gen- tle-folks, who dance while we are sweatin' to pay the piper. "Mither," added the dying man, as he turned his eyes earnestly towards her, "I think there is a Land o' Canaan here. They say that beyond the sea there is a free land, where ev'ry true man has a fair chance in life; where there is no king, or dukes, or gentle- folks to suck the life-blood out o' Adam Clarke, and to leave him to dee in poverty when he is sucked dry, an' his hairs are gray; where a' men are free an' independent, an' where work is sae plentiful an' sae profitable that no man has, in the language of our own Bobbie Burns, 'to beg a brother of the earth to give him leave to toil.' Mither, when I am deed, and quietly laid away in the kirkyard, I want thee an' the bairns to go to that Land o' Canaan. The insurance will, ye ken, pay ye fifty pounds upon my death. Bury me decently, sell the little belongin's, an' enough will be left to take ye a' to America. Mither, I charge thee — " Adam Clarke had raised his head slightly, forget- ting his weakness in the earnestness with which he spoke. The exertion was too much for him. His head sank back on the pillow. Twice or thrice he breathed heavily. Then all became quiet. "Father, speak!" cried the terrified wife. "Oh, father! father!" cried the children. But no answer came to their agony. THE DEATH OF ADAM CLARKE 1 3 Adam Clarke was dead. The clock in the tower of the Mechanics' In- stitute tolled the hour of twelve. On the Monday following the death of Adam Clarke there were two funerals in Somerton. The remains of young Ildershaw, heir to the manor of Old Somerton, had arrived from Germany, where the young man, after disgracing his family and the army, in which he held a commission, by his career as a prodigal and debauchee, had come to an un- timely, or perhaps a timely end. The rumor was that he had fallen victim to the vengeance of an in- jured husband, but the influence of his relatives and regard for the honor of the army hushed inquiry, and his body was brought home in an air-tight casket to repose among the esquire lords of Old Somerton. The squires of the neighborhood mus- tered in gallant array, and the church bells rang out in doleful knell, as the mortal part of Major Ilder- shaw was borne to the sacred ground, followed to the family vault by the rector of St. Egbert's and a long cavalcade of gentry. For the villain and rake had nominally been a member of the established religion of England, and his bones were therefore entitled to rest in the churchyard of the parish. Not so Adam Clarke. It is true that throughout a long life of weary and ill-paid toil he had done his duty to God, to his family, and to his fellow-men. But Adam Clarke was a dissenter ; and the law of 14 ADAM CLARKE England said, and says to-day, that the body of the dissenter is unworthy of admittance within the en- closure consecrated to the dead of the Church by law established. As the solemn and imposing pageant which ac- companied the remains of the squire's son entered the churchyard gate, another and humbler proces- sion passed on towards the obscure burying-place of the non-conformists. A single carriage followed the hearse, and behind walked the sons and a few friends of the dead. In the carriage was the clergy- man, Mrs. Clarke and her daughters. The church bells clanged on for Ildershaw, as they had clanged the burial knell of his ancestors for many a genera- tion before, and with much ceremony and the usual prayers the costly casket was lowered into the tomb. About the same time the dissenting preacher uttered words of comfort and hope over the cheap wooden coffin of Adam Clarke, and the falling clay, as it rattled on the narrow resting-place of the departed, told that dust had returned to dust. But though denied a grave in consecrated ground, who will say that Adam Clarke will be rejected in the day when all wrongs shall be righted and all hearts uncov- ered ? In that Day, it is certain, the statutes of men will not avail to decide as to the worthy and un- worthy. CHAPTER II. to THE PROMISED LAND. "And they who sail yon fading bark Have turned a yearning eye To the fair land which seems a line Between the sea and sky; "And as that land blends with the sea, Like clouds in sunset light, A soft, low voice breathes on the wind — 'My native land — good-night !' " — Hugh Peters. The sale of the furniture brought more than enough to meet the funeral charges, and Mrs. Clarke had remaining the fifty pounds from the Working- men's Association, of which her husband had been a member. Always a dutiful and obedient wife, she was determined to comply with Adam's dying in- junction, which indeed was in accord with her own inclinations. Emily Clarke knew little of the con- dition of affairs in the vast territory embraced in that word "America." Her life had been spent in an industrious but quiet corner of the "tight little isl- and," and while she was as well informed as the women in general of her class, her ideas were mold- ed and straitened by her surroundings. She had IS l6 ADAM CLARKE heard there were no lords in America, and no squires, and no Queen. Her father, and his fathers before him, had toiled for unnumbered ages to sup- port the squire and the lords, the Queens and the Kings. Ergo, she thought in her simple mind, a country without these crowned and titled drones must be a good country for the poor. It was a nat- ural inference. She little thought— as she was yet to learn — that human character is much the same everywhere, that accumulated wealth in a republic can be as despotic, as grinding, as merciless and inhuman as in a monarchy — that, indeed, it has less to fear in its cruelty and despotism, sustained by subtle interpretations of law, and shielded by cor- rupt officialism, than if it had to deal with a Czar or a Kaiser, able with a stroke of his pen or a flour- ish of his sword to do rude justice to the many by one wholesome, if tyrannical blow at the privileged few. Never having studied history, she did not know that despotic thrones owed their origin, in more than one instance, to popular impatience of the intolerable oppression exercised by wealth and priv- ilege ; that the Roman republic became an empire be- cause the Roman multitude preferred Caesar to the Senate; and that monopolized wealth had thrown up barricades to every step in the onward march of mankind, from the revolt of the Gracchi to the American Revolution. She did not know that in the great struggle for American freedom, the disloy- alty of rich men in the colonies was as great an obstacle to independence as the hired armies of King TO THE PROMISED LAND 1 7 George,* and that the monopoly of wealth to-day is the great and menacing obstacle to the progress of the nation towards true liberty and real equality. Mrs. Clarke knew nothing of this. She was obedi- ent to the wishes of her departed husband, and at- tracted, as multitudes have been attracted, to the New World without Queen or King. Several weeks were consumed in preparation for the journey to America. The manager of the Great Western Engine Works was reluctant to part with two such promising apprentices as Robert and Alex- ander, but he was humane enough to see that it would be harsh to insist upon a separation from their widowed parent, and he granted a release of their indentures. A modest memorial was erected to Adam Clarke, and Allie planted on the grave with her own hands flowers of the kind her father had loved to cultivate in the little plot of ground under their cottage window. Allie noticed one morning a nest in the sprouting grass, near the stone at the head of the grave. She told her mother of it. "It is a good sign," said Mrs. Clarke. "No doubt it's a laverock, as your father called the lark, and it would be bad luck to disturb it." "How glad I am the lark is there!" cried Allie; * "Fortune is the idol in every State. All who are well ofiE are corrupt at heart, and so athirst for peace that this would be wel- comed at any price." — Letters of Beaumarchais to Louis XVI. and the Count de Vergennes, in 1779. I8 ADAM CLARKE "do you think, mamma, when it mounts up to the sky in the morning, that father hears it sing?" A moistened eye was the only answer. But AUie was careful not to disturb the nest of the little song- ster. The day came to take the train from Somerton to Liverpool. Soon after dawn, that they might not be disturbed in their pious pilgrimage, the family paid a final visit to the grave. As they entered the gate the lark rose from its nest and mounted high towards the blue ether, tipped with the ruby glow of sunrise. There aloft it poured forth its melodious notes, and the mother and children accepted the in- cident as a favorable augury for their future beyond the sea. The Persia, of the International Line, was up to the average of steamships that carry emigrants from Great Britain to New York. In wooden bunks be- tween-decks the little family found shelter. It was not a pleasant change from their neat and comfort- able cottage. But they had expected some hardship in the passage, and bore with patience the privations and annoyances to which they were subject. Ac- cording to the rules of the ship, the females occu- pied a compartment separate from the males, and it was only in the daylight that the mother and daugh- ters could be with the sons on deck. The greatest trial of the voyage was the inevitable association with a group of filthy passengers from Hungary and Galicia. They were bound, it was said, for TO THE PROMISED LAND IQ anthracite mines in Pennsylvania, in which there had been a strike. Human in form only, their habits and appearance were disgusting in the extreme. What with visible vermin and encrusted dirt, cleanli- ness seemed repugnant to their natures, and only the threats of the ship's officers could induce them to make a pretext of tidiness in their berths. The women were not less offensive than the men, to whom they showed a slavish submission. The Hun- garians had contrived to bring on board a quantity of intoxicating liquor, of which the women had charge, as their quarters were less likely to be sub- jected to search, in the event of suspicion by the crew. It was the lot of Allie and her mother to occupy a bunk near one of these women, and al- though the language of the Hungarians was for- tunately unintelligible to them, the evidence of de- gradation and neglect, intensified by drunkenness, was revolting. Mrs. Clarke and Allie spent as much time as possible on deck, in order to avoid an asso- ciation that horrified tlieir every instinct. One evening, on deck, occurred an incident, not in itself of a very serious character, but which proved of fateful import to the future of the Clarkes. The Hungarians appeared to be under the direction of one Michael Horgwin, himself a Hungarian, but who had been in the United States, and whose busi- ness in Europe and on the Atlantic was in the inter- est of a prominent mine-owner in the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvanra, to gather and conduct the horde then on their way to the mines. Horgwin was short and brawny, with a massive jaw, a retreat- 20 ADAM CLARKE ing forehead, and beady black eyes, that expressed the cunning of a rat and the cruelty of a rattlesnake. He was part Slav, part Magyar, and conibined the hot passions of the former with the viler character- istics of the low-born Hun ; and in no country in the world, short of the Australian bush and Central Africa, is more abject degradation to be found than among the remote and isolated peasantry of Hun- gary. It happened that the females in the berth next to Allie and Mrs. Clarke were relatives of Horgwin. They had several times attempted to strike up by signs an acquaintance with the Clarkes, and on one occasion tendered to Mrs. Clarke a bottle of whiskey which had just been passing the round among them. The Clarkes, not wishing to give offence to creatures whom they could not avoid, and who might be troublesome, simply pretended not to notice the ad- vances. On the evening in question Allie and her mother were watching the horizon, and wondering how many days more would elapse before the arrival in America. The other members of the family had re- tired below. Some one tapped Allie on the shoulder. She turned. There grinned the ogre visage of Michael Horgwin. The Hungarian had been long enough in America to speak English in a broken way. He had been drinking, and was evidently in a frame of mind to be impudently familiar. "Nice e-ven-ing, miss," he stuttered; "this my wife," he added, indicating a rawboned female of TO THE PROMISED LAND 21 middle age, with a tanned leather face, a red hand- kerchief around her head, and a pair of cowhide boots on her feet. The female also had been drink- ing. Allie clung to her mother, and said not a word ; but her expression of terror and loathing could be interpreted even by the half-drunken Hungarian. Accustomed to have his own way among his own people, the child's attitude of silent repulsion pro- voked him. But few persons were about, for the evening was cool, and Horgwin, emboldened by the vile liquor in which he was steeped, resolved to humble the pretty English girl. "Let me kees the leetle miss," he said, leaning towards Allie, and putting his arm around her, so as to imprison both elbows in his grasp. The rhovement was so unexpected that Mrs. Clarke was dazed, while Horgwin bent low his reek- ing mouth to smother with a kiss the shriek that was bursting from Allie's lips. Suddenly a step was heard; a blow from a clinched fist knocked the Hungarian reeling. "Take that, you scum, and leave the girl alone !" exclaimed a hearty English voice. "Did the fellow hurt thee, miss?" The honest face of a Cornish youth met Allie's grateful glance. He had the dark hair, clear dark eyes and pale complexion of the British Celt. His features were clean-cut and regular, his figure slight, but his fist, still clinched for another blow, if need should be, at the prostrate half-savage, now sprawling to his feet, showed that the young man 22 ADAM CLARKE had the strength of a giant in his muscular hand and arm. , Horgwin got on his legs, assisted by the female he called his wife. A livid spot on his temple told where the blow had made its mark. He evidently did not care to court another encounter. His eyes gleamed with baffled rage. He ground his teeth together. His appearance was that of a hyena from which its prey had been seized by some noble ani- mal it dared not to combat. He muttered Hun- garian curses that happily neither AUie nor her rescuer could understand. "I-hev-revench yet," he hissed, and with a look that, had it been a dagger, would have done murder on the spot, he turned to go below. "Barkin' dogs never bite," remarked the young Cornishman, with a laugh. "We thank thee deeply," said Mrs. Clarke, earn- estly. "The look of that wretch is enough to make me shudder; and to think of his daring to kiss Allie! Again I thank thee," added the mother — and her tones were as warm as her words were heartfelt; for among the simple folk of the west of England, the heart says "thee," and "you" is spoken from the lips alone. Herbert Prynne was the name of the young Cornishman. Born in the county of Cornwall, near where the mighty walls of Castle Treryn tell what the ancient Britons were in the days before the Saxon overwhelmed the land, Herbert's parents had, in his early childhood, removed to Pontypool, in Monmouthshire. There Herbert, when about TO THE PROMISED LAND 23 ten years of age, began life as "trapper" in a coal mine, for such the boys were called to whom was entrusted the care of an air-door, used to turn the air into the proper channel. But let him tell his] own story as he related it on the following day to the Clarkes, while the bright rays of a June sun made a mirror of the broad Atlantic, and the great ship speeded on through the calm waters towards the promised land of America. '"At fourteen," said Herbert, "I was promoted from 'trapper* to driver, and had charge of a horse and train on the horse-road. At four o'clock in the morning we boys were lowered into the mine, the cage going down at the rate of nearly half a mile a minute till the bottom was reached. Then I made the best of my way to the overman's cabin, to show my face and get my share of candles for the day. Then I brought my horse from its stall in a long, dark gallery called the stable, and after it had drunk at the trough, or refused to, I would follow the horse, gripping his tail, to steady myself, with one hand, while I carried a light, which only deepened the darkness, in the other. The animal, with its head held straight out to keep from bump- ing its skull against the roof, which was not so much higher than its shoulders, would pursue its way along the main wagon- road drift to the siding where T had left the cars unhitched on the evening before. The drift was about a mile and a half long, and the railroad single, on account of the narrowness of the road. There, in the dreary blackness, I would have to wait, sometimes many minutes, for a train 24 ADAM CLARKE to pass. And, oh, it was lonesome!" sighed Her- bert. "I would think of all the ghost stories I had ever heard, of the miners who had perished per- haps near the very spot where I was waiting. A low mournful wail would sound in the distance. A noise like the rumble of thunder would break on my ears, and then the creep — ^the slow-grinding movement of the mass of shale above — would make the very marrow in my bones to freeze. But at last I got accustomed to it, although I never could get accustomed to the kicks and curses that the 'putters' used to give me when I happened to be a little late in getting to the station with the empty train. At sixteen I became a 'putter' myself, work- ing the wagons of coal between the hewer, or miner, and the horse-road. And now I am twenty. I heard that in America miners are well treated, and have good wages and easy work, so, having saved enough money for my passage, I just told my old father and mother I would take a journey across the ocean, and see what a strong and expert young Cor- nishman can do over there." Herbert was a young man of more than usual energy and promise. In his spare hours, after com- ing up from the mine about five o'clock in the even- ing, he learned to read and write, and his language was singularly pure from the dialectic peculiarities which make the natives of some British shires so hard to understand. The Cornish youth soon became the favored asso- ciate of Mary Clarke. His timely championship of Allie won for him the good-will and gratitude TO THE PROMISED LAND 25 of all the family; but Mary in particular smiled upon the bold and stalwart miner. First she ad- mired, then by a transition easy in a maiden's na- ture, she learned to love him. Mrs. Clarke saw the growth of affection between the pair; but she had no reason to disapprove it. It might be for the few remaining days of the voyage only; but if the at- tachment should be permanent, she could desire no better husband for her daughter than Herbert Prynne. Her woman's intuition detected the sterl- ing qualities which a man would have learned and acknowledged only after personal experience. They were two days from Sandy Hook. The weather was mild, the ocean smooth, and the vessel making excellent headway. It was the hour of sun- set. Sky and sea revelled in every color of the. rainbow, and the waves, as they broke and surged and dashed in snow-white spray about the steam- ship's prow, seemed to murmur of hope, of happi- ness, of joy and plenty, in the world they were fast approaching. The two lovers — for they were lovers now — gazed in silence at the entrancing picture. Herbert broke the spell, as his arm crept around Mary's waist — a liberty which he first excused on the plea of protecting her from the rolling of the ship, but for which there was no such excuse that evening. "Mary," said Herbert, "I'll feel very lonesome going to that place — Scranton, I think they call it — without kith or kin, or any one to call a friend." "I'm afraid thee will," answered Mary, faintly, as her pulse began to beat at a rate that might, under a6 ADAM CLARKE ordinary circumstances, have indicated a touch of fever. For Mary felt what was coming and was not altogether prepared. "Now, Mary dear," went on Herbert, with a tre- pidation very different from the courage and de- cision he had shown in confronting the Hungarian, "dost thee think thee would like to go to Scranton, too?" Herbert was so paralyzed at the thought of his own impudence in asking the question that he might have fallen but for being anchored to Mary by the arm he had put around her. Not daring to look in her face, but gazing straight down over the bul- warks, as if he expected, like another Jonah, to see a whale waiting to swallow him, he listened for a response. "What use would I be in that place — Scranton, thee calls it ?" answered Mary, demurely. This was not exactly what Herbert expected. He had anticipated something like a direct reply to the question which he had indirectly asked. But instead he had been met with a parry. It took him a mom- ent to summon his wits. "I — Mary dear — I would take care of thee," he stammered. "Thee, Herbert! I am going to America to take care of myself and my mother." "Oh, Mary dear, listen to me," exclaimed Her- bert — made eloquent by desperation, and throwing aside reserve, "thee knows what I mean. Thee knows that I love thee. Thee knows that I can take care of thee, and of thy mother, too, and AUie, if TO THE PROMISED LAND 27 she wishes to come" (the mention of AUie being a shrewd stroke on Herbert's part, which he knew would have its effect on Mary). "I have worked and toiled from childhood, Mary, in the deep, dark mine at Pontypool, and thy father worked and toiled all his long life, so thee hast told me, in the shipyards and the boiler shops. And I might have kept on as he did, and I would be nothing more till the end of my days than Herbert Prynne, the miner, with an insurance to bury me, and an inheritance of poverty for those I might leave behind me. It is to escape this, Mary dear, I am going to America. They say that in that country the rich man is no better than the poor man; that all have an equal chance in life, that the workingman can live com- fortably on his earnings, and put by enough to educate his children, and to be independent when age makes him unfit to work ; that there is no tyranny there, no oppression, no abuse of the toiler by his master. That is why I am going to America. And, Mary darling, I should like to have thee for a companion in my younger days and a companion when I am grown rich and old, and have reaped the reward of industry which they say is certain there. Thee knows I love thee, Mary, and I think that thee loves me. Mary, wilt thou be my wife? Say yes, and we will be wedded as soon as we step ashore." Herbert paused. Mary did not speak. She had listened with a feeling of admiration and surprise to Herbert's eloquent words. Her respect he had won long ago; her love was just unfolding. A few 28 ADAM CLARKE minutes before, she might have hesitated. But his earnest, manly plea carried the outposts of her heart. Her head sank on his shoulder, her chestnut hair with silken touch caressed his cheek, aglow with the first bright flame of youthful love. Herbert raptur- ously accepted the silent consent, and impressed a passionate kiss. "But we must ask mother, Herbert," murmured Mary. "Thy mother will agree, I know," uttered Herbert, confidentially. "I — vill — hev — my — revench." The words, mut- tered indistinctly, like the sudden hiss of an adder in the grass, aroused the lovers from their dream. They turned in time to see the repulsive form of Michael Horgwin disappearing down the gangway. CHAPTER III. THE NEW YORK SLAVE-MARKET. "It was not like a Southern slave-mart, before the war, in Memphis or in New Orleans. Those were kept clean and tidy ; externally, similar to other buildings, and not uncomfortably crowded within. This New York slave-market was known the world over. It was called Castle Garden, although it looked more like an immense cheese-box than a castle, and at the time that the Persia landed the passengers whose fortunes we have followed across the Atlantic, the most tropical imagination could detect no resemblance to a garden. A medley of all nations from Northern, Central and Southern Europe, dusky Asiatics from the Le- vant, and here and there an Arabian or a Moor, thronged the filthy arena, or sought impossible rest on the vermin-infested benches. Vile lazzaroni, spawned in the purlieus of Neapolitan degradation, jostled with the fair children of Scandinavia, and wholesome, cleanly Britons shrank from contact with the swarthy Portuguese and dirt-begrimed Hun. In the Southern slave-house the sexes were apart ; not so in the New York market for humanity. Delicate girls, trained by virtuous mothers, and 29 30 ADAM CLARKE educated by pious pastors in the way that they should walk, were compelled to endure the com- panionship, listen to the offensive talk, and tolerate the repulsive habits of the lowest of human beings, as if they were all, for the time, members of a house- hold in common. Men lay stretched on heaps of bedding, contaminated, perhaps, with the seeds of plague, brought from reeking abodes of wretched- ness and uncleanliness, where plagfues have their breeding-place. Modest mothers were obliged to nurse their hungry babes in full view of hundreds of the other sex, some of whom took a coarse delight in observing the blushes their persistent impudence provoked. Little ones cried for bread, and their parents could obtain it only at an exorbitant price from privileged caterers. From a balcony above, a group of men gazed down on the scene below. Favoritism, or the pay- ment of a petty bribe, had obtained the privilege of entry, and they were there to make their choice from the human cargoes recently dumped into the market. One smooth-faced, black-eyed, and hair-dyed in- dividual, with thick, sensual lips and a loud watch- chain, was well known to the officials at the Garden as a "professor of massage." He came to the emi- grant depot regularly for young girls to be made the victims of his peculiar school of medicine. His neighbors on the avenue could generally tell, by the shrieks and screams emanating from his "school," when another slave had been secured. The gaze of the "professor" rested approvingly on a yellow- haired and blue-eyed daughter of Sweden. She THE NEW YORK SLAVE-MARKET J I seemed to be standing aside, as if she had come alone. The "professor" preferred Scandinavians. Their frank, unsuspicious nature makes them least likely to suspect evil intent ; they are usually of the blond type of beauty, which is the most popular; and unlike the girls from Great Britain or Germany, they are unable to make their wrongs readily known through a language in common use. The "professor" disappeared from the balcony. A moment later he was on the ground-floor, in con- fidential whisper with one of the employes. "Just step upstairs, Billy," the "professor" said, "and I will point her out to you. Friend of hers, you know" (with a. wink) — "the usual racket." A two-dollar bill passed quietly from one palm to the other. A few minutes afterwards the spider and the fly were together. Father and mother, in your far-oflf tomb in dis- tant Scandinavia, could you see your daughter now ! Could you think of the fate in store for the babe you coddled in infancy, and taught to pray at your knee to the God of Luther and of Vasa, whose purity you guarded as the apple of your eye, and for whom you anticipated a future pure and re- spectable, if humble and obscure — would you not strive to burst the bonds of the grave ? Would you not call down the curse of Heaven on a civilization that permits and fosters such infamy? The "professor" and the girl, after a brief con- versation, walked away together. Six months later she was an outcast in the streets of New York. 32 ADAM CLARKE Another figure on the balcony, looking over the throng of immigrants, was that of a man still young, whose naturally good looking features were marred by an assumed air of importance, characteristic of the millionaire who possesses nothing but the "al- mighty dollar" to commend him to public esteem. He had an authoritative way, as one accustomed to have his commands slavishlj' obeyed, and not likely to brook any dissent from his pleasure on the part of those whom fortune compelled to submit to his dictation. He wore plain clothing; for he was rich enough to afford to be unostentatious in this respect. His eye wandered hastily over the crowded arena until it rested where the Hungarians who had come over on the Persia were huddled together. It was not an attractive group, but it seemed to have an attraction for the coal king from Eastern Pennsylvania — for such he was. He gazed at them, while a look of satisfaction took the place of the scowl with which he had regarded the Britons, Germans and Scandinavians. The eyes of Michael Horgwin met those of the mine-owner, and the face of the former broadened with a grin of recognition. The usual talisman, so potent in New York official circles of every trade, soon brought Horgwin and the coal king together in the side room but just before vacated by the "professor" and his victim. "How many have you, Michael?' asked the coal king, without any waste of welcome on a being he heartily despised, partly for the very reason that the Hungarian answered his purposes so perfectly. THE NEW YORK SLAVE-MARKET 33 "Ninety-eighta men an' vifty womans," answered Horgwin, in broken English. "What will they work for?" "Ha!" replied Mike, with a grimace, as if pay was a question of the least moment in the bargain, "anything you gif." '"Very good!" said the coal king, with emphasis. Then, under his breath, "I'll have that other gang out of my place before another year is over. None but 'Hunks' for me hereafter." And the mine lord smiled a grim smile that boded ill luck for some- body. Asa Craddock was of New England birth. His father, possessed of an easy competence, had paid but little attention to certain wild lands in Eastern Pennsylvania, that fell to him from the assets of a Philadelphia merchant whose notes he had en- dorsed. Asa was trained at school and educated at Harvard, with some idea of the law. That is, he graduated at Harvard, being helped through by a convenient coach for whose services he paid some- thing less than the usual price. For Asa's weakness was his cupidity. He indulged in few vices, and even in vice he was penurious. For college learning he had no capacity, and he soon forgot the little he had acquired. Released from the ties of the university, he returned home to find his father on the brink of another world. The old man died in the due course of medicine, and Asa wept moder- ately. He had a sister who wept more. Asa made his last year's college suit answer the purpose of mourning; instead of a silver coffin-plate he used 34 ADAM CLARKE one guaranteed to last a week withotit corrosion, and he overcame his sister's preference for a slab of costly Italian marble by pointing out the more en- during properties of American granite. There was no need of dividing the paternal estate, for the mother had died before, and the sister, whose soul had been wrapped about her parents, now clung with equal affection to Asa. He managed the prop- erty for both, and that meant chiefly for himself. When the sister died, Asa married. His wife was an admirable woman, of the best New England type, and she was gradually but surely bringing out the better points of her husband's character. So far, however, she had not brought about any serious outward change in the man or his methods, save for the tenderness which he showed to the baby girl that had come to sweeten and brighten their lives. There is no more humanizing influence than that of a little child. Asa was not slow to learn the value of the Penn- sylvania lands. The signs of coal were unmistak- able, and Asa formed a company, in which he kept the controlling interest, to sink and operate a mine. Ten years later he was worth several millions of dollars, all dug out of the earth for him by the hundreds of hard-toiling miners who did their work faithfully for a pittance that kept them above want, and never saw daylight during the long months of winter, except on Sundays. For years Asa paid fair wages, because he could not help it. The miners of British, and chiefly of Welsh extrac- tion, were firmly combined to maintain earnings THE NEW YORK SLAVE-MARKET 35 at a living rate for themselves and their families, and the coal king had either to pay that rate or to lose the immense income which he harvested from the coal which God created, and Asa owned. But a new kind of labor appeared. The "Hunks" began to arrive. They were willing to work at any scale of wages, to take anybody's place; and they displayed a degrading servility strangely foreign to the manly self-respect of English-speaking work- ingmen. This was Asa's opportunity. He reduced wages as low as he dared, and filled with "Hunks" the places of those who left. One of these "Hunks," Michael Horgwin, exhibited a craft and subserviency in advance of his fellows, and him the coal king secretly sent abroad to obtain a sufficient number of "Hunks" to take every shift in the mine. "Get them to the depot as quietly and quickly as possible," said Asa to Horgwin, "and I will pay their passage to Scranton." And while hundreds of others, who had not come under any contract to drag down American labor, were required to wait, the "Hunks" were hurried through the formalities, and hastened to Jersey City. It was not without a sense of relief that Herbert Prynne saw them pass out, for the muttered threat of Michael Horgwin made him more uneasy than he cared to acknowledge. "Get away from there — you must not obstruct the way, I tell you !" exclaimed a Garden official at the outer gate. 36 ADAM CLARKE "But I want a chance to tell those people that there is a strike at Fall River," was the answer. "I have been sent here by the committee for that purpose." The speaker was an Englishman, plainly and de- cently dressed, with the pale, worn expression pe- culiar to the operatives in cotton mills. "You must not loaf about here, I tell you !" was the harsh reply. "But I saw Mr. Burden, of the Holden Mills. speak to you just a while ago and pass in." "Didn't I tell you to get out ?" exclaimed the now thoroughly enraged employe, who but a short time before had a $5 bill slipped into his pocket by that very Mr. Burden as an inducement to keep the vicinity clear of strikers. "Here, officer!" And in a twinkling the man from Fall River was in the grasp of a policeman, and spinning at an un- comfortable rate towards the outskirts of the grounds. Meantime, Mr. Burden, agent and chief owner of the Holden Mills, whose operatives were on strike against a reduction that meant an average of $5.75 a week throughout the factory, was leisurely en- gaged in a side room, talking with the heads of a score of families just arrived under contract with Burden's representative, from Preston, Lan- cashire.* He was well pleased to learn that they were out of funds, and, carefully concealing the fact of the strike, soon had them on the way to Fall * The author has seen in New England originals of these con- tracts made in direct violation of the laws of the United States by tariff-protected manufacturers. THE NEW YORK SLAVE-MARKET 3/ River. As half the strikers were already starving, not having received wages enough to save anything, Mr. Burden hoped that, with the aid of the new ar- rivals, the backbone of the movement would be broken, and the mills resume at the reduction. This would ensure his ability to purchase the magnificent Remington estate in Newport, towards which he had for some time cast longing eyes. But why pursue the scenes of the New York slave-market? They were not much different, day in and day out, as the human cargoes arrived. The Clarkes decided, before leaving the Garden, not to remain in New York. Their means were too slender for a distant journey, but work they must all seek immediately, and family ties must yield to the necessities of the occasion. It was agreed, after much tearful discussion, that Herbert Prynne and Mary should not get married for the present, and that Herbert should proceed to Scranton alone, and send for his betrothed as soon as he had a fitting home prepared for her. Mary had a tender parting with her lover in the railway station at Jersey City. The young Cornishman re- newed his vows to the young English girl, whose heart he had completely won. Alone, on the crowd- ed platform, they laid out their plans for the future, when the home in Scranton should be large enough for mother and Martha, Allie and Wallace, as well as themselves. Little the\- knew what the future 38 ADAM CLARKE had in store for that mother and Allie. The engine screeched; the brakemen cried, "All aboard!" and with a hasty and final kiss Herbert leaped on the train. Herbert gazed from the window, and Mary strained her eyes until the train disappeared from view. Then with heavy hearts the Clarkes returned to New York, and sought rest at a cheap hotel. Robert, who was scanning the advertisements in a newspaper next morning, suddenly read aloud : "Wanted, in the Hecla Rolling Mill, Pittsburgh, Pa., puddlers and helpers. Good wages. Apply to Room 43, third floor. No. — Broadway, New York City." "Mother, I'll go to Pittsburgh !" exclaimed Rob- ert, who, like the others, had no idea of where Pittsburgh was, except that it was evidently in the same State as Scranton. "But, my son, you have had no experience in a rolling mill !" urged Mrs. Clarke. "That don't matter. I can soon learn," answered Robert. "It says 'Pa.' for Pennsylvania, so it can't be far from where Herbert is going. I'll go to Pittsburgh, mother, and earn good wages, and then I'll send for you and Allie, and Alexander and Mar- tha and Wallace — and Mary, until Herbert wants her — and you can all live with me. Unless you are willing that Alexander should go with me now." It took a good deal of persuasion to induce Mrs. Clarke to separate from her two sons; but it was obvious that the family could not remain together, unless they wished to live in the crowded city of New York, where every avenue of labor appeared THE NEW YORK SLAVE-MARKET 39 to be thronged by the multitudes continually arriv- ing. Before leaving the Garden Mrs. Clarke had gathered in conversation with the families from Lancashire that work in a cotton factory could be obtained in Fall River. She had never worked in such a factory, but she understood it was not diffi- cult to learn, and she resolved to go there with her other children, obtain employment, and wait to hear from her sons in Pennsylvania. Robert and Alexander applied on the following day at the number on Boadway indicated in the ad- vertisement. They truthfully stated their lack of experience in a rolling mill; but appearances and their acquaintance with iron in the manufacture of machinery favored their application, and the agent advanced their passage to Pittsburgh. That same evening Mrs. Clarke, her daughters and young Wal- lace took the boat for Fall River. CHAPTER IV. SERFS OF THE LOOM. Fall River — the city without homes — ^the city of granite factories, mill-owners' mansions and bar- racks for the serfs of the loom. Gray, solid and forbidding, the big mills seem like so many prisons for the thousands obliged by training and necessity to strain from early sunlight until evening falls, in the monotonous, driving, wearisome work of weaving. It is one ceaseless grind for the bare needs of existence. There is no time among those toilers for enjoyment or recreation. The work is so confining and severe that it needs the application of every nerve, and the hours outside the granite walls are required for rest to recuperate for the mor- row. Were you ever in a weave-room, reader ? Where the life and energy, the grace and spirit are sweated out of men and women, of budding youth — and, yes — of childhood. At the coldest times the tem- perature is kept at 80 degrees, and in summer runs far above that. The atmosphere is laden with dust, the roar of the machinery deafens the ear. Back and forth the shuttles move with lightning-like rapidity across the maze of threads. Every two or three 40 SERFS OF THE LOOM 4I minutes each shuttle requires refiUing with weft, or "filling-in thread." The weaver must fill the shut- tles, mend threads when they break, and keep his looms going at as continuous speed as possible ; for every delay means loss to him or her. A cut of cloth earns the weaver perhaps 19 cents, and six cuts a day is doing well. The work does not require the skill that long course of training only could achieve. Everything is sacrificed to speed, for time is money to the weaver in more than the ordinary meaning. Now and then the flying shuttle darts suddenly from its groove, and perhaps strikes the human part of the machine in forehead or eye. A painful hurt may be inflicted, but the operative — man, or woman, or delicate girl — cannot stop for tears or pain. On, on goes the drive. The overseer and his assistant are here, there, and everywhere, picking flaws, finding fault, and proving their devotion to the mill proprietor by driving and annoying the help. Even the noon hour is robbed of its repose, and machinery is oiled and cleaned by women and children who ought to be at their dinner tables, or quietly resting at home. At length the welcome whistle sounds, and the toilers go forth from the great, hot factory to the wretched rows of granite, wood or brick in which they sleep and eat. These habitations are, as a general thing, owned by the mill corporations. There is not a shred of garden, not a flower, not an exterior ornament of any kind to relieve the severe plainness of the buildings. The serf in the South had his patch of land that he could cultivate in hours that belonged to himself. 42 ADAM CLARKE The Fall River weaver is comforted by no such recreation. He must work for the mill-owner all day, and sleep all night in the mill-owner's barracks, to gain strength for the mill on the morrow. Indeed, a garden would be useless, as he would be too tired to cultivate it. On the day that the Clarke family left New York, Mr. Burden, of the Holden Mills, had arrived in Fall River with his contract operatives from Eng- land. The operatives who had been on a strike against a reduction of two cents a cut had mostly returned to work, for times were dull, and as a rule established by the manufacturers prevented them from getting employment in other mills in that vicinity, they had to take the choice between starva- tion, surrender or departure. A good number chose the last-mentioned course, and started for Lawrence and Lowell. The news telegraphed from New York, that Mr. Burden had succeeded in starting the Lan- cashire weavers for Fall River was a finishing blow to the strike, and the committee at once declared that all who still remained out could return. When Mrs. Clarke and her four children landed in Fall River, therefore, they met with no obstruction in seeking employment at the Holden Mills, where there were still a few empty looms, the new operatives not being sufficient in number to take all the places left vacant by those who had departed to other cities, and by Mr. Burden refusing to receive back the more active leaders of the strike. SERFS OF THE LOOM 43 It had been decided, during the journey to Fall River, that Martha and Mary should seek work, leaving Mrs. Clarke to attend to the household, and allowing Allie and Wallace to go to school. "What art thou crying for, darling?" said Mrs. Clarke to Allie, the first evening after they had got settled in a miserable tenement, recently vacated by a family of Canadians. Allie was sobbing behind her yellow curls as if her heart would break. "Oh, mother, mother," she cried, "I wish — we — had" (sob) "never — left Somerton. We were poor there, mother, but I fear we will be no better here." "Put on a good face, Allie," said the mother, cheerily. "Don't cry, my little darling. Robert and Alexander, thee knows, will send for us soon, and they will earn wages enovigh for us all." "Oh, I hope so, mother," said Allie, brightening a little, "for I don't like this place. It seems like a great prison. You know when father took us down on the excursion to Portland, and they showed us the big gray prison. These factories, mother, are just like it. And everybody seems so tired and worn-out, mother ; and there's no gardens in front of the houses, like there was in England. No flowers like father used to love so dearly." And Allie sobbed again at the thought of her parent gone be- fore. "Oh. mother, what is that?" she cried. A terrible noise across the entry was what ar- rested Allie's attention. A door burst open, and a woman dashed into the Clarke tenement, bearing in her arms a two-year.-old babe. 44 ADAM CLARKE "My God! save the child!" the woman cried, clasping the infant to her breast, and turning a wild look towards the door from which she had come. In a moment a young man appeared on the Clarke threshold. He had a large knife in one hand. There was a glare in his eyes; but it was not that of the drunkard. His pale face bore no sign of dis- sipation, yet madman he was, or had been a moment before. His eyes rested on Mrs. Clarke. He paused. Did a thought of mother come into his mind, to save him, at that critical instant, from being a mur- derer ? The knife dropped to the floor. She who had filed from him read the change as by a lightning flash, and was at his side as quickly. "Oh, Walter, Walter, how could you hurt the baby?'* she sobbed, with one arm around his neck, the other still clasping the wondering little one, which, at first astonished into silence, now smiled and cooed in the face of him who would have slain it but just before. The young man's features assumed a softer ex- pression. He drew his hand across his eyes, as if to clear away some dark shadow that rested there. "I know I was mad, Mary, I know it — God for- give me!" and with a flood of manly tears he en- circled his wife — for such she was — in his arms. "You may thank that lady there," he said, as he impressed a kiss on the lips of the baby, "for saving me — and you. When I saw her the face of mother came back to me, and — and what she taught me SERFS OF THE LOOM 45 when I was a little child,. and — and I could not be a murderer even — even if we are starving. Let us starve together, Millie," he cried, "and die to- gether!" "Oh, no," said Mrs. Clarke, for the first time able to speak ; "we have a little, and you are welcome to share it." The young man smiled grimly. "Walter Bassett has never taken charity, ma'am, thank you, and he won't begm now." "But you must sit down with us," spoke Mrs. Clarke, fimily. "It is not charity ; but only kindness to neighbors. I'm getting supper for my girls, and you will sit down with us." The man hesitated. "But, ma'am, you will only be hurting yourself with the company. Do you know that I'm Blacklisted^'" And as he uttered the word, his eyes again seemed to glare, and his features to assume the expression of the hunted outlaw. Mrs. Clarke was puzzled. What did the word mean? She had never heard it in England. How- ever, there was no time to think. The young wom- an was looking yearningly at her, as if life and death depended on the acceptance of her invitation. The man still held back. Just then the baby saw the pitcher of milk on the table. "Oo — ^ma — ^ma — oo — oo," cried the little one, pointing with extended hand to the milk. The father could no longer resist. The baby's appeal was too much for him. Ready hands invited to chairs at the simple board, and in a moment the baby's face was half plunged in a saucer of milk. 46 ADAM CLARKE Tears came to the young mother's eyes. It was the first nourishment her darling had tasted that day. "Oo — 00 — ^goo," said the little boy, as he smiled thanks, and his blue eyes beamed on Mrs. Clarke. The father and mother ate eagerly. They, too, were evidently hungry. When their appetites had been satisfied, Walter Bassett told his story. "It's now three years," he said, "since Millie and I came over from Manchester to earn our living in America. We were married just before we started, and, as times were dull just then in the old country, we concluded to try our fortune here. We came to Fall River. We were considerably disappointed when we got here, but decided to make the best of it, and when our little Walter came to keep us com- pany we felt a good deal more contented. I worked in the Holden Mills, and, what with taking care of Millie and the baby, and paying the doctor's bill, I had no chance to put anything ahead. One day, when I comes home, about three months ago, what should I see but Millie crying. I said, 'Tell me, lass, what the matter is.' But for a long time she would not tell me. At last she let me know that young Holder Burden, the son of the agent of the mills, had spoken amiss to her; that he had tried to draw her attention two or three times before on the street, and this time he insulted her. I just clapped on my cap, and started for Burden's big house on the hill. Millie, she put on considerably, and didn't want me to go. But go I would. " 'Where is young Mr. Burden ?' I asked at the door. SERFS OF THE LOOM 47 " 'He is not in,' said the flunky, in a kind of im- pudent way. "But I knew he was in, for I saw his face at the bay-window. So I says, loud enough for him to hear, 'You tell young Mr. Burden that if he ever insults mj' wife again, I will break every bone in his body.' And I meant it. "The flunky slammed the door in my face, and I started for home. I heard nothing more about the matter; but I noticed, the next day at the mill, that the second hand had a good deal of fault to find, and the same the next day. He seemed to pay more attention to my looms, and to discover more flaws than in all the rest of the room together ; and when pay-day came I found that nearly half my earnings had gone in fines. "It was a gloomy Saturday, that day, at home. I had promised poor Millie a new hat — she had gone without one to pay the doctor — ^but I wasn't able to get it. But Millie was always a patient lass, and she smiled just as sweetly as if I had brought her the hat ; but I was afraid that the smile covered an aching heart, for Millie, though she didn't speak about it then, and I tried to keep it from her, sus- pected that I was being persecuted at the mill, and suspected what it was for." Bassett paused to repress the choking sensation which rose in his throat. After a moment he re- sumed. "Things kept growing worse and worse with me at the mill. For a long time I did not complain, for I thought that was what they were trying to 48 ADAM CLARKE drive me to, until, one Saturday, after two weeks' hard work, I found I had coming to me just four dollars! Three dollars, after their rent for the den they call a company tenSnent had been taken out, and the fines deducted. I could stand it no longer. 'This is robbery,' I said to the clerk who handed me the envelope. "The elder Mr. Burden was standing near the desk. He turned sharply around. " 'What did the fellow say ?' he asked the clerk. "The clerk whispered a reply. " 'Call him back,' Mr. Burden ordered, for I had moved on to give place to others. " 'Let me see,' he said, 'your name is ?' but he knew my name well enough. " 'Walter Bassett, sir,' I answered. " 'Ha — Bassett — yes — I have heard of you ; one of the worst weavers in the mill. Well, Bassett, you need not come back Monday.' "My anger was now at the top. I could no longer keep in what had been smouldering in my breast for months. And, indeed, there was no occasion to. " 'This,' I cried, 'is for telling your son — ' "I had no chance to say more. An overseer pushed me along and out of the office, but on the street I shouted, loud enough for them to hear in- side, 'This is for telling your son not to insult my wife.' "I came home and laid the four dollars in Millie's lap, and told her I was through at the mill. She did not cry or take on, good girl that she is, but just hugged me and hugged our little Walter, and SERFS OF THE LOOM 49 said that she was glad on't. But I could see a tear glisten in Millie's eye, for she was thinkin' as I was thinkin', about the bljicklist." Mrs. Clarke gave an inquiring look. "Then you don't know what the blacklist is, ma'am? May you never have to feel what it is! You must have lately come to Fall River?" "Only yesterday," replied Mrs. Clarke. "With the others from Preston?" asked Bassett. "No, we are from Somerton, in Wiltshire," re- plied Mrs. Clarke. "No cotton mills there," remarked Bassett. "No," was the answer; "but we heard there was work here, and did not have money to go far, so here we came." "Well, ma'am, the blacklist is well named, for a blacker invention never was devised for crushing the spirit of independence out of human beings. The manufacturers are all united in this section, and they have an arrangement by which, if any operative gives particular offence to the managers of any mill, and is discharged, or discharges himself, his name is sent around to the various other mills, here, and in Providence, Lowell, Lawrence, and other places, and no overseer will even listen to that man's application for work. In this way he is forced to leave the country, or, if he has not money enough to carry him out, he starves, or goes to the poorhouse, or is committed as a vagrant to the workhouse." "But that is shocking!" exclaimed Mrs. Clarke. "I thought only kings and queens, and lords and 5° ADAM CLARKE squires, could be so cruel to the poor ! Is there no law to punish such cruelty ?" "Law! — ha! ha!" and Bassett laughed a hard, bitter laugh. "Law! Laws are not made for the rich in this country. Yes, there is a law. I believe they call it a law against conspiracy. Two years ago,, when the strike occurred at the Grinder Mills, owing to the discharge of three men who had made a re- spectful request for an increase of wages, the com- mittee of strikers sent circulars throughout the coun- try, stating the facts, and asking the public not to buy goods made from Grinder cassimeres. The members of the committee were at once arrested, at the instance of the Slater Club — so the manu- facturers call their organization — on a charge of conspiracy. They were indicted, and convicted by a packed jury — most of whom were summoned directly by the sheriff, for the prosecution would take no chances. They were sentenced each to one year in the prison. I knew one of them well, and shall never forget the shriek his poor wife gave when she heard the sentence. She had a baby in her arms and a little girl by the hand. The poor woman had nothing to live on; she took sick worryin' about her husband, and that same winter, on Christmas Eve, she died. I remember the scene very well — indeed, I shall never forget it. She had been turned out of the company's barracks, barely able to walk, and her little girl had gone to seek for help from a kind spinner who was still in work. But the help came too late. Up there on the hill, where the rich folks live, the woman was found Serfs of the loom 51 dead in the snow, with the baby pressed to her heart. The Httle one was not yet dead, and it was snuggling up to its mother and trying to draw its sustenance from the cold breast that never more would play with its little lips, as mothers are apt to do. With one hand the woman grasped hold of the iron fence that surrounded the grounds of a wealthy manufacturer. It is a queer-looking fence, made like flames of fire. I wonder if it is like the fire that the good Book says is for them that grind the faces of the poor ! "I was one of those that ran to the place when the body was found. We picked up the baby and tried to warm it ; but the little one was too far gone. It died before we had taken it many steps. "Oh yes, there is law — plenty of law — for the poor." And again Bassett laughed that hard, bitter laugh. "And the little girl?" asked Mrs. Clarke, as the tears rolled down her cheeks at thought of what that other mother must have suffered. "A friend of mine — a loom-fixer — took the poor little thing, and promised to take care of her. He was going to somewhere in Rhode Island, and he said he would write to me; but I have not heard from him since. "But I was telling you that Millie and I dreaded the blacklist, and now you see why we dreaded it; for it meant starvation to me, brought up from child- hood in a mill, and not able to do anything else." CHAPTER V. THE CITY OF SMOKE AND FLAME. Smoke — smoke everywhere, over river and street, and hillside, and not the light, vapory smoke of Old England, but a thick, oily, sulphurous substance that stuck to clothing and to skin, and soon marred the fairest complexion, especially that of the stranger who displayed his verdancy by mopping his face. Under this thick, greasy pall, which must surely have been similar to the plague of Egypt, the darkness which, the Holy Book says, might be felt, lay, like a vast forge of Vulcan, the city of Pittsburgh. The tongues of flame which shot ever and anon from factory chimneys, the frequent rumble as of a distant cannonade, the throb, throb, of en- gines that gave power to the mighty machines of industry — all combined to confound and impress the newcomer from abroad. Here and there, as the train flew into the railway station, a glimpse might be caught of the interior of rolling mill or a fur- nace. Half-naked, sinewy men, were tugging with iron bars at the broth of molten cinder, which dribbled, like water from a spring, from the furnace mouth. Their faces shone, in the terrible glare, amid the thick darkness outside, as of beings not 52 THE CITY OF SMOKE AND FLAME 53 earthly, and they seemed as fearless of the ruddy broth, a drop of which would have burned to the bone, as if they were handling harmless merchandise on a wharf or street. The train sped on, and Robert and Alexander at length stepped on the platform at Pittsburgh. Tired with their ride, they sought a cheap lodging- house near the station, in which to spend the night, and prepare their plans for the morrow. Their heads and hearts were full. They were too weary to talk, and sleep soon closed their eyelids. The Hecla Rolling Mills were situated on the south side of the Monongahela River, on the single street which courses along the foot of Mount Wash- ington. Crouched beneath the shelter of the moun- tain, whose bowels, at that particular point, had long ago been dug out, in the search for fuel, now exhausted, and within a few feet of the river bank, where cargoes could readily be landed, the Hecla Mills had important advantages in situation.. The railway sent loaded cars almost to the mouth of the blasting furnace — for the mills combined blasting as well as rolling, under different roofs, but within one ownership and direction. The corporation also owned and let the dwellings inhabited by its em- ployes, and which were so close to the Mills that there would be little occasion for delay in going from one to the other. The children in the tene- ments could look from the entries of their homes at the molten iron, as it poured from the furnace. The sulphur-laden fumes of the slag, or refuse, invaded their windows, and when the helper, or 54 ADAM CLARKE laborer, was not revelling in a stream of liquid fire, directing its flow, and controlling its volume, he was reminded at his meals, and during his sleep, by the invading vapors, that his "shift" was only a matter of time, and that, body and soul, eyes, nose, arms and all the rest of him, whether eating or sleeping, or trying to steal an hour's leisure, he was the property of the Hecla Mills. He ate molten iron — in the form of its fumes — for breakfast — he dined on sulphur with his bacon and greens, and supped on liquefied smoke, mingled with his bread and tea. The corporation was too careful of his character to permit him to run in debt — ^at least for rent — and thoughtfully deducted the cost of his two rooms from his monthly wage. They also did not demand his time on Sunday — in fact, the law prevented them from doing so — ^and the laborer on that day could go to church in a building blackened all over with the soot of a qtiarter century — ^but still a temple of God. Robert and Alexander found that there was but one chance in the Rolling Mills, the other places having been filled on the day before; but that a laborer was wanted in the blast furnace. Work in a blast furnace is of a character that requires strength and endurance. There is no room there, as in a' rolling mill, for a youth to grow up to the occupation. Sinews are requisite from the first. Therefore, Robert chose the harder place at the furnace, leaving to Alexander the opening as helper in the rolling mill. Robert began work at the lowest grade — a laborer THE CITY OF SMOKE AND FLAME 55 engaged in shovelling the coke, the ore and the limestone into the barrows in which the materials were hoisted to the furnace mouth. The Hecla Blast Furnace produced a good quality of iron, and used the best native raw material in its production. Two grades of Lake Superior ore — ^the red ore con- taining about sixty-five per cent., and the brown ore about fifty-five — were brought in railway trucks to the dumping yard. The so-called red ore is rather of a purplish hue, having an attractive effect, in contrast with the rich yellowish brown of the lower grade. For making the better quality of iron this ore is far to be preferred to that of Pennsylvania, in which the percentage of sulphur interferes se- riously with the value and utility of the product. Heaped in an opposite section of the yard was refuse from the rolling mills, containing about fifty per cent, of iron. This refuse had already passed the flames of the blast furnace, and been drawn as molten cinder from the purifying fires of the rolling mill. But the quantity of iron still mingled with the dross made it worth putting through the furnace again. Coke, from Connellsville, and limestone from Lawrence county, were also heaped up, waiting to be raised and dropped with the ore into the de- vouring mass of white, roaring, dazzling, blinding flame, that surged and beat in its narrow confine, like an outlet of the bottomless pit. The furnace resembled a gigantic upright boiler, or flue, rising about sixty feet into the air. Into this cavity the ore, the limestone to purify the ore, and the coke to give heat were fed from above. The 56 ADAM CLARKE fearful heat liquefied these substances almost in- stantly, the heat being kept intense by the blast which gives the name to the process. This blast was kept up by an engine and boilers, which drove heated air into the furnace. First the air was driven into a receiver resembling a great drum, and situated at an elevation of a few feet directly be- hind the furnace. Here the blast was warmed to some extent, and thence it passed into ovens, where it acquired a heat of from 900 to 1000 degrees. Thence the hot blast was forced directly into the furnace, in the midst of the fuel, or slag, but above the range of the liquid iron. The passage of the blast was protected and directed by pipes, known as tweer, or tuyere, pipes, containing water, and thus able to resist the heat of the slag, and to guide the blast into the very vitals of the furnace. These tweer pipes, while able to sustain the intense heat of the fuel without melting, would at once yield to the liquid iron, should it ever splash them, and in this way, as will hereafter be seen, some of the most terrible accidents are caused. Robert inherited the patient industry of his father, with the attractive features of his mother. He ex- pected hard work when he came to America, while, at the same time he expected that here toil would have its reward not only in comfort, but in com- petence. He was willing to undertake his share of the labor, believing that, in this free republic, he would also have his share of the profit, and that, as an honest workingman, he would be looked to and regarded as the equal of any man. He did not get THE CITY OF SMOKE AND FLAME 5/ to work until the afternoon of the day on which he arrived at the furnace. The forenoon he spent with Alexander in obtaining a room in one of the tene- ments adjoining the mills. "You've but lately come?" said Mrs. Margaret Burke, a pleasant, ruddy-faced Irish woman, to whom they had been referred by the foreman. "Yes, ma'am," answered Robert. "It's the best I can do for ye; but it's poor enough," said Mrs. Burke. "My last lodger went yisterday — God bless him, for he was a good young man — and it's good luck for me that the foreman sent ye here, or the children and I might be lookin' for our bread and the rent next Saturday week." Mrs. Burke was a type of the good-natured, easy- going, kind-hearted daughter of the Emerald Isle, with the Celtic disposition to be buoyant amid mis- fortune, and to make the best of wretched surround- ings. A cabin in the clear air of her native hills would hardly have been more forbidding, and less home-like in every way than the tenement into which she ushered the Clarke boys. The gown she wore had evidently seen numerous, if not better days, and yet it was as neat as the hard struggle of her exist- ence permitted; her hands and face were clean, in fact they were bright with the recent application of soap and water, and her rooms were as tidy as they possibly could be under the circumstances. "This is my own apartment," she said, with an emphasis on the word "apartment." The guests looked about them. The low ceiling was black with the smoke that invaded everything; the paper 58 ADAM CLARKE on the wall, originally yellow, was of a dingy brown. At one side of the room was a stove, of a pattern almost antique, and on it sat a shining black pot, whose recesses, judging from the odor, contained an Irish stew. An earthenware teapot sang the frugal welcome of the poor. A bed in one corner, with a frayed quilt, or "comforter," smoothly spread, three chairs, a plain wooden table, and a sacred print of Christ and the Virgin completed the visible furniture. The door of a closet peeping open sug- gested a larder. It was so obscure in the room, owing to the blackness of the ceiling, and the dinginess of the walls, that it took a few moments for the visitors to become accustomed to the dim light. "Mother — mother — who is that?" It was a childish voice, and it seemed to come from under the bed-cover. Robert and his brother turned their faces in that direction. They could only see a tangled mass of raven locks on the pillow. "Mother — is it father?" piped the voice. "Has he come from the stars yet?" "Hush, Chessie, that's a good girl. These are gintlemen come to look at the room," answered the mother, with a touch of huskiness in her voice. "Oh — I thought it was father" — and, with a sigh of disappointment the childish voice sank back into silence and the pillow. "You needn't mind Chessie, gintlemen," said Mrs. Burke, trying to be cheerful, but unable altogether to repress a tinge of sadness. "It's her way. Ever THE CITY OF SMOKE AND FLAME 59 since her father died she's been that way. She was out playing and saw him when it happened, and — and — " Mrs. Burke was applying her sleeve to her face, but the young men, while they listened attentively, pretended not to see her — "she has never been the same girl since. You see the furnace bursted — she was out there playing — and before her father could get out of the way, it was all around him, just like a pool of fire. And Chessie cried, 'Oh, father — father is burning !' — and she would have run to him if they had not stopped her. And just as he sank down he turned and saw Chessie, and reached his arms — and — and — it was all over in a minute. And ever since Chessie has not been the same girl. She thinks her father is coming — says she knows he will come." And Mrs. Burke allowed the tears to flow freely, for they came too fast to be mopped away with her sleeve. The young men had too much respect for her grief to ask any questions. "You see, Chessie is not the same girl. She is sickly now, and her head and back trouble her a good deal — and the idea that her father is coming grows upon her. I tell her that he will wait for us all in Heaven, but she says he wouldn't leave his little Chessie — and I'm afraid she is right — I'm afraid they will be together before long," added the poor mother. "She was her father's pet. He named her 'Ches- ter' — a queer name for a girl — after a gintleman that was very good to us when we first came from the old country. And he used to take her on his 60 ADAM CLARKE knee, and pet her, and Sundays he would sit down there by the furnace, and tell her about Heaven, and how she must be a good girl to get there, and how the gates of Heaven were a bright gold, just like the fire when the furnace door is open, and how the poor and rich would all be equal there, before the throne of God. And of evenings, when he was not at the fire, Chessie would make him tell stories, and explain to her about the things, you know, that children ask about. One night she said, pointing at a big star: 'Papa, is that a furnace?' And he told her no — that was Heaven — and that the good would 'shine as stars for all eternity,' so the Good Book says. 'And will I be like a star, papa?' she asked ; and he said she would, if she was always a good girl. And three days after he was burned, and Chessie thinks now that when he looked at her, and raised his hands, he was pointing to the stars. 'Father will come soon,' she often says, 'and take me to the stars.' And of a bright, clear night she will stand outside and look and look up to the sky, and ask me 'which star is father, mamma.' " They were in the second, the lodgers' room, when Mrs. Burke was telling her pathetic story. A bed, covered with a quilt, a rickety, brown wash-stand, basin, and broken pitcher, comprised the furniture of the room. "I will charge you four dollars a week each, for the board and room, gintlemen," said Mrs. Burke, "and will do what washin' you need, beside." The terms were satisfactory, and after a dinner of Irish stew and tea, Robert and Alexander went THE CITY OF SMOKE AND FLAME 6l forth to work, leaving Mrs. Burke with her grief and her stricken child. When not engaged in loading the barrows with coke, Robert had an occasional interval of rest. Be- smeared with the dust of the coke, he soon presented a very different appearance from the neat, trim young Englishman who had arrived in Pittsburgh the evening before. But he was not afraid of work, and he had become well acquainted with grease and dust in the Great Western Engine Works. At length the hour was approaching to draw the molten iron. The molds in the sand were all pre- pared; along a channel to the right of the furnace the dull, red slag was sluggishly flowing, like a stream of lava, gradually hardening as it reached a pan in the open air just outside the furnace struc- ture. Soon after all the laborers were summoned to the furnace. At intervals along the channel pre- pared to conduct the molten iron, were laid small slabs, to be used as barriers in stopping the flow from running into a set of moulds already full ; for the method is a good deal like irrigation, there being, at regular intervals a main duct, from which the lesser ditches, or molds, branch out laterally. As soon as a duct, and the molds to which it is tributary, are full to the level, the passage to that duct is stopped, and the iron is turned into the next nearer the furnace — and so on, until all are full. It was a brilliant sight, as the door of the furnace opened to release the molten metal from its prison 62 ADAM CLAftKfi of fire. Had it been allowed to flow freely, it would have come with a rush and a volume that would have dealt disaster and perhaps death to the work- men. But one strong man, the sweat pouring from his temples, and his muscular arms strained to their utmost exertion, held back the fiery flood. His weapon was a bar of iron, with a lump of slag, like a great black sponge at the end. With steady hand, and quiet gaze he kept molten tons at bay, and regu- lated the flow, as one might regulate the filling of a basin of water. The molten metal, as it emerged into the rival sunlight, threw out a spray as varied as the colors of a rainbow. These danced and scintillated, and sparkled as if ruby, sapphire, emerald and garnet, in miniature, were tossed by unseen fairy fingers. The golden stream rolled on. One after the other, the molds were full. Then the fivulet began to assume a ruddy tinge. This was the sign of slag, the refuse of limestone, of coke, and of the purified ore. This was speedily turned into the channel already used for the passage of slag. It was a warm day, and while the molten iron was running, the heat seemed awful. Robert felt that every pore in his body was streaming ; he could hardly breathe; his gaze turned yearningly toward the green hillside, visible through the open walls of the furnace building. But he remembered his duty ; he summoned all his fortitude, and bravely took such share as he could in the labors of the hour. THE CITY OF SMOKE AND FLAME 63 Alexander found himself helper to a puddler named Ross — Anderson Ross, a Scotchman, as his name indicated, and whose memory of olden times was awakened, not to Alexander's disadvantage, when he learned that the latter also was a Scotch- man's son. Unlike the blast furnace, the rolling mills were open to the highway. Near each fire was a bin of coal, and the chief labor of the helper was keeping the fire well supplied, and at a good heat with fuel, although he also relieved the puddler at intervals in stirring and raking out the molten cinder. There is something fascinating about ma- chinery, the bright brass and mirrored steel of a railway locomotive, the ingenious and intricate com- bination of parts all working in a wonderful har- mony and with a wonderful effect. It brings out a man's highest intellectual and physical attribute — the creative. The machinist sees gradually growing under his hand a creature of metal, proportioned not only to grandeur but to gracefulness, able to move under the propelling power of steam, and able with greater might than ever attributed to mythical giant or demigod, to draw or propel vast quantities of material. Like the sculptor, the machinist looks with pride, even affection, upon the thing, the being, that he has brought by his skill and his labor from inert and shapeless metal, and — more than the sculp- tor — ^he sees that being move, and hears it speak through its throat of iron, as it majestically speeds on its destined way, bearing as a precious burden, the hopes, the fears, the aspirations, of hundreds of mankind. Not so the rolling mill. Here grime and dust. 64 ADAM CLARKE dirt and heat are the portion of the toiler. From early afternoon until late at night, from before dawn in the morning until far in the day, he labors on, converting the pigs from the blast furnace into iron fit for the machine-shop, or for the railway. His eyes are seared by the white heat, which glares into his face as he stirs and mixes and brews the melted mass, drawing the impurities out in a streamlet of fire, at his very feet. The flames that flare at intervals through the low iron chimney, not unlike a great stove-pipe, coupled with the sounds that echo like a cannon-shot when the white-hot iron is placed in the revolving "squeezer" remind the sleeping city of the vast industries that know no night, and that measure the labor of man without regard to sunrise or sunset. For hours the puddler and his helper persevere. Then a "heat" is ready. The metal has been cooked to the requisite purity, and is now iron in the ordinary commercial meaning. The door of the furnace is thrown wide open. To the unaccustomed eye nothing is visible but white, misty flame, from which rolls forth a blast as with- ering as the breath of Sahara. The puddler sees a glowing lump of purified iron. He draws it out. It falls at his feet, sending forth a shower of sparks, and dripping with a few drops of molten liquid. The iron is seized with large hooks by the puddler and his helper, placed on a barrow, and rapidly dragged to the "squeezer." It passes into that ma- chine, not unlike an immense hopper, and is ground into some shapeliness, much as a coffee-mill grinds and crushes a grain of the fragrant berry. Then the iron passes to another machine, to be rolled into THE CITY OF SMOKE AND FLAME 65 bars. Or again, if the iron is intended for bars of a more than common width, the white lump, as taken from the furnace, is placed under a tremen- dous hammer, and rudely flattened with two or three blows, before being taken to the rolling machine. It was hard work for Alexander, trained in the lighter tasks of an apprentice in a machine-shop; but he shared his brother's spirit of perseverance, and resolved to remain in the rolling mill until he had saved some money, and with Robert, established a home for his mother and sisters. The brothers devoted their leisure time to be- coming acquainted with the city of their adoption, and they lost no opportunity to learn by reading and inquiry what they could of American history and particularl}- of the history of Pittsburgh. They found that the city of great industries had a past of which its people might well be proud, and they gazed with interest on the neglected remnant of old Fort Pitt, so eloquent of the conflict between England and France for the control of North Amer- ica. One Sunday, while walking along the verge of Mount Washington, Robert and Alexander met a young man named Andrew Craig, employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Craig overheard the brothers talking to each other about some point of interest in the panorama before them, and seeing that they were strangers, and evidently respectable, he stopped to explain to them. The brothers were favorably impressed by Craig, and the conversation ended with an invitation given and accepted to visit him in his boarding house on Try Street. Andrew Craig was a native of Pittsburgh. His 66 ADAM CLARKE ancestors emigrated to the place when it was a little town of traders, clustering under the shadow of Fort Pitt. His great-grandfather had served in the Revo- lution, and his father was a veteran of the war for the Union. The family had always been respectable, but never wealthy, and Andrew early in life started to make a living for himself. He carried news- papers when very young, and when he grew towards manhood's years he obtained work in the freight yard of the Pennsylvania Railway. He proved a willing and industrious worker, and after about eight years as freight-handler and brakeman, he was put in charge of a freight train as conductor. He was well informed and intelligent for his sta- tion in life, besides being almost a Samson in muscle and sinew — although there was nothing of the bully in his nature — and his associates therefore looked up to him as a leader and an adviser. A close acquaintance grew between the three young men. He introduced them to his married sister and her husband, Thomas Denny, an indus- trious mechanic, and member of the militia, and they told him about their mother and sisters and brother in Fall River. Craig seemed deeply impressed with what they said of Martha, of how good and true she was to her mother, her sister Mary, and her younger brother and AUie. Robert and Alexander, too, longed to have the family together again, and when Craig offered part of his savings to help them in starting a home, they accepted with the understanding that the money was to be returned from their earnings at a stated sum weekly. CHAPTER VI. HARMONYVILLE. When Bassett had told his story he added man- fully that he could not again be seen in Mrs. Clarke's tenement, as it would only bring on her the wrath of the millionaires, and result in depriving her and her children of a living. Her kind words and treat- ment had brought him back again, he said, to his duty to his wife and child, and as he had no money, they would start from Fall River on foot on the following morning, and try to get work somewhere at something. "You must not go on foot," said Mrs. Clarke. "A man might stand it, but your wife with the baby could not. I have still a few sovereigns left. You can have one of them, and pay your way to Provi- dence, and have enough left to keep you a day or so, while looking for work." Tears spoke the thanks of wife and husband more eloquently than words. When Bassett could speak he said : "This shall be paid back from my first money, Mrs. Clarke, even if I have to go hungry to do it. I have heard of a place called Harmonyville, not far from Providence, owned by a man named James Phelps, Jr., who is 67 68 ADAM CLARKE disliked by the other millowners because he is good to the help, and keeps so many people that speak English in his mills. I will go up on the boat to- morrow morning, and go to Harmonyville, and per- haps I will get work there. At any rate I am told that some others that were blacklisted have got work in Harmonyville. There isn't much left of my fur- niture, but what there is you can take for your kindness, for it may be that I may not get work, and you might never hear of me again." Mrs. Clarke invited the Bassetts to take breakfast the next morning before going, and after a touching parting, the Bassetts started for the Providence boat on their way to Harmonyville. Bassett, his wife and baby arrived safely in the little village late on the same evening on which they had left Fall River. The scene presented a remark- able contrast to the place they had left. Three or four rows of cottages with flower-gardens in front, and bearing every appearance of neatness without and happiness within, recalled the pleasant rural scenes of old England. There was a village hall and library, a green, with a large oak tree growing in the center, a white-painted public school, and in the distance, but not too far away for a pleasant Sunday walk, the church spires of the neighboring town. There was a company store to accommodate those who desired credit on their weekly earnings, but an independent store at the edge of the com- pany's property, was not only tolerated, but en- couraged, and had a busy trade. Bassett was directed to the house of one of the HARMONYVXLLE 69 overseers, who received him kindly. "There will be a place for you next Monday morning," said the overseer to Bassett, "as we are going to send off some of the Turks and Armenians we recently hired, and who don't seem able to learn anything. In the meantime I will find a place for you and your family to board. Mr. Phelps is sick of the Orientals who are being imported to the mills, and means to get rid of them as fast as he can, and have only Eng- lish-speaking help in future. The other manufac- turers are making trouble for him, and he's been summoned to attend a meeting of the Slater Club to-night in Providence, but he will not change his course, he told me, no matter what happens." CHAPTER VII. THE SLATER CLUB ENCOURAGES AMERICAN INDUSTRY. The meeting of the Slater Club was largely at- tended. Manufacturers were present from distant points of New England, and the dingy upstairs room in the Textile Bank building buzzed with conversation long before the appointed hour for opening the proceedings. A subject of especial in- terest was evidently to come up. President Aldridge rapped for order. He looked grave, and as he spoke his eyes glanced sternly tow- ard a corner of the room where sat James Phelps, Jr. "Our meeting this evening," said the President, "is to consider a very serious charge against one of our members. It is evident that many of you have already heard what this charge is, and I sincerely hope that satisfactory explanation will be forth- coming. Otherwise, for the sake of our own in- terests, and in the cause of the protection of Amer- ican industry, we should take prompt and exemplary action. Shall the reading of the minutes of the last meeting be dispensed with? All in favor vote "aye." There was a chorus of "ayes." 70 ENCOURAGES AMERICAN INDUSTRY 7 1 "Then the secretary will proceed to read the charges that have been filed." The charges in substance were that James Phelps, Jr., a member of the Slater Club, organized for the protection of American manufacturing interests, had violated a fundamental rule of the club in taking into employment in his factory at Harmonyville, Massachusetts, a native American of American parentage, named William Williams. The charge was signed, according to the rules, by two members of the club, Jeremiah Sharp and Brayton Dark. "Mr. Phelps has been duly notified," said the President, "and I see that he is here. What have you to say to the charge, Mr. Phelps?" James Phelps, Jr., arose. His cheeks were flushed, but otherwise he showed no sign of unusual feeling as he deliberately spoke. "It is true," said Mr. Phelps, "that I gave work to William Williams. The man's family has lived in Harmonyville for years. He is a descendant, I believe, of Roger Willliams, and his grandfather was of considerable help to my father, when father made his start in the factory business. The Wil- liams' farm was sold under mortgage a year ago, and William Williams had his old mother and para- lyzed father to support, and besides his wife had just had a baby. He came to my house and told me about his condition. I offered him money, but he thanked me and refused it. He said he wanted work. I thought it would be no harm in such a case to break the rule, and give work to an Amer- ican. Besides, my superintendent has found that the 72 ADAM CLARKE Turks and Armenians who were sent to me two months ago by Mr. Dark do not get aiong very well together. They are slow to learn and have spoiled a good deal of work. So I thought for all these reasons I would give Williams a trial. He is a very intelligent and willing worker." "That's the devil of it," exclaimed Mr. Brayton Dark, breaking in angrily. "The more intelligence the more danger. We don't want intelligent people in the mills. As they used to say of the negroes in slave times, we want them to know enough to work, and know nothing else. One American can infect a whole mill. Now, I'm surprised that Mr. Phelps has not been able to get along with Turks and Ar- menians. I have found them very satisfactory. My overseers carry whips, and if they see any lagging or slighting of work, they just give the fellow a slash over the shoulders, or across the back, and he awakens to his task right away. Of course, this would not do with an American. I suppose if Mr. Phelps' friend, Williams, had a whip drawn over him he might hit back, or make a complaint to a magistrate, or start a strike in the mill, or something of that kind." Here Mr. Dark sat down, with a toss of the head toward the offender. "I don't want to be too hard on Mr. Phelps, either," piped Mr. Sharp, in a shrill voice, "but a gentleman of his experience in manufacturing should know that when we spend our money to get a high tariff for the protection of American industry, and have just got part of what we want. ENCOURAGES AMERICAN INDUSTRY 73 'by the skin of our teeth,' as Senator Palmitch told me the other day — and he ought to know, for he handled the funds — it won't do to run any risk by employing firebrands in our establishments, and I tell you that Americans, with their ideas of liberty and equality, are firebrands. For my part, I would even go further than our present rule, and not employ anyone in the mills that can talk the English language. I believe that is the rule in some of the sugar factories, and they get along very well. Who ever hears of a strike in a sugar factory ?" "I don't see any question to discuss," said Mr. Lipton, of Providence. Mr. Lipton had sobered up for this particular occasion, and was anxious to have the meeting over, as three members of his harem were waiting for him in an adjoining cafe. "Mr. Phelps," continued Mr. Lipton, "admits that he has violated a rule of the Club, and he should either apologize and promise to dismiss the American in his employ, or else he should be ex- pelled. That's the sum and substance of the mat- ter. For my part, I don't want to associate with anyone so immoral as to break his pledge the way Mr. Phelps has done — unless he makes amends." "Mr. President," said Mr. Phelps, as he rose with new earnestness in his voice, and a new majesty in his manner, "Mr. Lipton is right when he says there is nothing to discuss. I will frankly tell you that I am so well pleased with the experiment of employing an American in my factory that I will keep on employing him, and add to the number — " 74 ADAM CLARKE Shouts of protest from all parts of the room for a time drowned the voice of the speaker. "Expel him!" cried Dark. "Make an example of him !" roared Lipton. "He's a traitor to American industry!" piped Sharp. Mr. Phelps looked calmly about. The confusion subsided. He resumed: "You know, Mr. Presi- dent and gentlemen, that no one has given a fairer trial than I have to the employment of foreign labor, and no one has been more liberal than I have in contributions to prevent a reduction of the tariff. When Senator Palmitch told us that money was needed to secure the votes of some senators for higher duties I gave thousands where some of you gave hundreds, and if Senator Palmitch did not keep his word as fully as he ought, and looked out for the sugar men when he should have been looking out for us, it was not my fault. "You know, too, that I was with you in trying to have the Chinese Exclusion Law repealed, so that we should have all we wanted of cheap labor from China, and that I have found room for my share of the Turks and Armenians. "But it don't work. My heart and my pocket both cry out against the exclusion of Americans from the mills. Harmonyville don't look like what it used to when my father had it full of Americans. Its all very well to say that if the Americans don't get work they will be starved into going elsewhere. Its not a pleasant sight for me to see my countrymen ENCOURAGES AMERICAN INDUSTRY 75 starving, and their wives and babies hungry, while I am paying out my money to Turks and Armenians, and such like — " "I rise to a point of order," screamed Dark, his face livid, and his voice trembling with rage. "Mr. Phelps is not speaking to the question." "The point is well taken," said President Aldridge, sternly, as he repressed his feelings with manifest effort. "The only question before the Club is the action to be adopted in view of the acknowledgment made by Mr. Phelps, and his declaration that he will continue to defy one of our fundamental rules." "I move that James Phelps, Jr., be expelled from the Slater Club," piped Jerry Sharp, more shrilly than ever. "I think," interpolated the President, with an air of fairness too ostentatious to be sincere, "that you should first decide whether the charge made is sustained. A roar of "ayes" greeted the question, and the charge was formally sustained. Mr. Sharp then repeated his motion to expel Mr. Phelps from the, Club, and it was carried with- out a negative vote. Mr. Phelps put on his hat, and retired. "After this painful scene, gentlemen," said the President, "I would like to adjourn without doing anything more, but there is a matter very near to all of us which I think ought to be attended to. You know that the existing tariff, although in many respects acceptable, could be improved. Besides, 76 ADAM CLARKE the enemies of American industry are always active, and we must be active in its defence. I would urge therefore that, in view of the approaching special session of Congress, meetings be held in every manu- facturing city, town and village, and resolutions passed, demanding in behalf of American labor, higher duties on our classes of goods. The present duties, while they protect us to a certain extent, do not prevent importations sufficiently for our pur- poses. In my own line — that of children's stockings, as you know — I am obliged to use a better quality of material than I would be if the duty were higher. This works against my interests in two ways. I have to pay more for material in order to make stockings that will compete with the foreign article, and as the children wear the stockings longer than they would if the material were poorer, the demand is lessened. I would suggest that your superinten- dents instruct the overseers to hold meetings which will adopt resolutions pointing out the injustice done to the American workingman by the present duties, and the necessity for protecting our American labor from competition with foreign labor." Nods and murmurs of approval greeted the utter- ances from the chair. "I would also add, before adjourning," remarked the President, "that I have received a letter from Senator Bore, assuring me that he will continue his efforts for the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Law. The Chinese Minister and Senator Bore had a con- ference on the subject last week. The minister ENCOURAGES AMERICAN INDUSTRY "]•] Stated that, owing to the decHne of the Chinese tea trade, consequent on the growth of tea-planting in India, Ceylon and Japan, millions of the lower class of Chinese are without their accustomed employ- ment, and would be glad to immigrate to the United States, should the existing prohibition be removed. In the event of its removal, every factory in the United States could be supplied with cheap labor as fast as the immigrants could be brought over from China. Senator Bore expressed his hearty sym- pathy with the Chinese minister's desire to have his countrymen placed on a level with immigrants from Europe, and it is to be hoped that, with these two illustrious statesmen working for a common purpose, the Exclusion Act will yet be repealed." Clapping of hands and exclamations of pleasure followed the President's remarks. After adjournment many members of the Club remained in the room, talking over the unexpected attitude of Mr. James Phelps, Jr. The expelled member had been rather a favorite with his fellows previous to his recent action, and regret was mingled with the almost universal expressions of condemna- tion. Mr. Brayton Dark called a meeting of the Com- mittee on Emergencies, of which he was chairman, and the committee authorized him to take any course that he might deem necessary in the interests of the Club, in regard to the Phelps incident. A private conference followed between Dark and Sharp, and it became known confidentially to a 78 ADAM CLARKE number who yet lingered, that on the following day there would be an inquiry as to Mr. Phelps' financial condition, and possibly a calling in of any loans that might have been made to him in the way of tem- porary accommodation. It was also arranged to have the meetings in behalf of a higher tariff for the protection of American industry held without de- lay. CHAPTER VIII. SENATOR PALMITCH ADDRESSES A MEETING IN BE- HALF OF PROTECTION FOR THE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN. "A MEETING will be held at eight o'clock next Thursday evening, June 23, in the town hall, Dark- ville, in the interests of protection for American in- dustry. All employes in the Darkville Mills are expected to attend. Senator Palmitch will deliver an address." Copies of the above notice were posted in the Darkville mill and the village, and also in the ad- joining village of Sharptown, chiefly inhabited by French Canadians of recent arrival. The Sharp- town factory was formerly operated by immigrants from Lancashire, England, but these had hesitated to submit to a reduction of wages, and suddenly, one morning, a freight train arrived on the railroad siding in the mill-yard, loaded with French Cana- dians, who were marched into the factory. When the former operatives came to work as usual, they found the gate closed, and a notice posted telling them to apply, on the following day, for the money due to them. A strong force of Pinkerton detec- tives, armed with carbines and pistols, were sta- 79 80 ADAM CLARKE tioned about the mill. The locked-out men and women and children, who had no thought of vio- lence, went sadly to their dwellings, and prepared to seek employment elsewhere. Within a few days they were all gone. Those who could afford it went back to England; two young girls, who had no parents and were penniless, sought rest in the mill- pond, some became outcasts, and the remainder were glad to take work at any price grudgingly offered to them in other factories, for they were listed every- where as troublesome, and while not absolutely barred from employment, they were regarded with aversion and suspicion. Meantime, the English tongue was no longer heard in the streets of Sharptown, and the strangers from Canada lived in a frugal fashion that made even reduced wages more than enough to support them, and Jerry Sharp was already thinking of another reduction to the point of bare existence for his operatives. At about the noon hour on Thursday, June 23, the overseers in the Darkville mill gave word around that all the operatives should assemble in the weave- room. The workers were mostly Turks and Ar- menians, with a sprinkling of Poles and Hebrews, sent over by a colonization society in London. They understood just enough English to be able to operate their looms, and no more. All else was Greek to them — or, more comprehensively speaking, Chinese. Two or three of the more intelligent were excep- tions to this rule, and acted as interpreters for the others, and these were now called upon to explain AMERICAN WORKINGMAN 8 1 the details of the coming meeting in behajf of protec- tion for the American workingman, and incidentally for his employer. Mr. Brayton Dark was present to dictate the programme, and to see that his instructions were properly impressed on the motley throng that was to masquerade as intelligent American industry, clamoring for salvation from the pauper labor of Europe. The best of interpreters was Bishmillah Raschid ben Adhem, who had formerly been connected with the harem of the pasha of Trebizond, and who, like most of his peculiar class, was thoroughly submis- sive, and at the same time, crafty, shrewd and sinu- ous. Owing to connection with the kidnapping of a girl from Russian territory Adhem had to fly from Trebizond, and being followed up by the Russian authorities he shaped his flight across the Atlantic, and landed at length in Darkville, along with a number of other Orientals. He soon proved himself useful about the mill office, and rapidly added to the stock of English which he had acquired during his travels. As he also understood Armenian he became the chief go-between in carrying orders, apart from ordinary routine, to the operatives. He was familiarly called "Dam" by superiors, who placed much confidence in him, and looked to him for secret reports regarding the temper and dis- position of his associates. "Dam" was now counted upon to make the meeting of Thursday night a success. With much chattering and Oriental gesticulation 82 ADAM CLARKE .he explained to the Turks and Armenians what they were to do — how when he cheered — and here he imitated in a shrill, feminine voice the American "hurrah" — they were to cheer — and when he hissed they were to hiss, and when he clapped his hands, they were all to do the same — and so forth. Similar instructions were given to the French Canadians in the Sharptown mill, where Lawrence Dorion, a middle-aged man from Montreal, with a. hot temper, and a hatred of everything English, acted as leader of his fellows. Dorion was told to follow strictly and literally the cues to be given by '"Dam," to whom he would be introduced that even- ing. At eight o'clock precisely the town hall of Dark- ville was thronged with mill operatives. The French Canadians from Sharptown occupied one side of the hall. The Turks, Armenians and Poles ' were on the other side. In rear seats were "Dam" and Dorion, in positions where they would command a view of all that was going on, in the audience as well as on the platform. Jerry Sharp presided. Near him sat Brayton Dark and Senator Palmitch. Half a dozen mill overseers, and two or three local poli- ticians gave support to the stars of the occasion, and one of the overseers held in his hand a set of resolutions prepared by Jerry Sharp, and inspected and approved by Senator Palmitch. Palmitch was a handsome, elderly man. Starting in life in a humble capacity he had won hiis way by tact, ability and daring to a prominent place in the busmess and politics of his State. He had a AMERICAN WORKINGMAN 83 fair schooling to begin with, and on this he built a superstructure of self-education, intended espe- cially to make him master of subjects of command- ing interest in national politics. His ambition was higher than his principle. He dreamed at one time even of the White House, but observation convinced him that the Senate was the limit of his achievement. Even with this limitation he might have bequeathed his name to future generations as one of the great statesmen of the latter part of the century — ^but here his fatal weakness — avarice — intervened, and he deliberately sold himself, his fame, his conscience and his name — not for the prospect of higher honors — which might have been pardonable, and as greater men had done before — ^but for money, plain, simple, sordid lucre, the price of the people's betrayal to their worst enemies, the trusts and monopolies. His price was high ; he received it. The vulgar retinue regarded him as fortunate ; his own conscience told him that he was worse than a traitor to his country — he was a Judas to himself. He still continued in a perfunctory way to parade up and down about election, making the oldtime speeches, but without the oldtime feeling, and hearing in every echo of his own voice a reminder of what he might have been, a reproach for what he was. In justice even to Palmitch it should be said that he did not know the character of his audience. In a general way he knew that native Americans were not wanted in the mills of New England, any more than in the mines of Pennsylvania and Ohio. He knew that even foreigners who spoke English were 84 ADAM CLARKE regarded with disfavor by manufacturers because of the spirit of Hberty which seemed inseparable from the language of Cromwell and Washington. He knew that outlandish people from the Orient were being imported to undermine American inde- pendence, pollute American manhood, and substitute Oriental servility for American self-respect. But he did not know that the audience before him was altogether foreign to the very tongue of his an- cestors, and could not understand a word he was about to say. Otherwise even Palmitch might have revolted at the indignity, and have turned with loathing from the scene. The senator was introduced by Sharp with a not unmerited tribute to his ability as a public man. "Dam" put in the applause at the proper place. It is needless to recite the senator's speech. It was his usual deliverance on the subject of protection, with a few local allusions. He mentioned, as illustrating the benefits of a high tariff, the intelligent, pros- perous appearance of the audience before him, "composed of typical American workingmen, show- ing in their looks and demeanor the benefits derived from training in our American public schools, and from the high wages which the tarifif enabled Amer- ican manufacturers to pay to their operatives." "How little you know, my friends," added Sena- tor Palmitch, "of the conditions which prevail in Europe. Brought up, as you have been under the American flag, and enjoying the blessings of Ameri- can liberty, you cannot appreciate the degraded situation of pauper labor abroad. If you did if AMERICAN WORKINGMAN 8$ you did" — repeated the senator with a rising inflection — "you would direct all your energies tow- ard having the tariff raised higher than it is now, and a wall erected that would forever prevent foreign pauper labor from competing with our American labor — you would thank Heaven every waking moment that you were born here in free America, instead of being serfs in a foreign land, compelled to work for starvation wages, and to obey every wink and nod of an employer." As Palmitch sat down "Dam" clapped his hands, Dorion followed, and the audience joined in a gen- eral handclapping. Palmitch bowed and smiled, and "Dam" tried to exclaim "hurrah !" Now it is well known that "hurrah" is the shib- boleth of the British race everywhere, and the jangle of sounds that followed from the nondescript throng in its efforts to throat the word would almost have brought a smile from a Bronx Park hippopota- mus. It betrayed the situation to Senator Palm- itch. He flushed and glanced at Sharp. The latter tried to look composed, and hastened to relieve the strain by motioning to the overseer who held the resolutions to come forward and read them. The resolutions were as follows : "Resolved, That we, the American workingmen of Sharptown and Darkville in meeting assembled, hereby declare ourselves in favor of such an in- crease in the tariff on cotton goods as will enable us to compete with the degraded pauper labor of Europe, and to maintain the present high grade of American labor. 86 ADAM CLARKE "Resolved, That remembering the sacrifices of our forefathers in the Revolution, and believing that we, their sons, should maintain unimpaired the herit- age they transmitted to us, we earnestly and re- spectfully request Congress to save us from the impoverishment and depression that would inevit- ably follow any reduction of the existing tariff, and the consequent increase of competition of for- eign with American labor in manufacturing indus- tries. "Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to foster American labor, by raising the tariff on all goods manufactured in this country." "Dam" made no more effort at hurrahing. He clapped his hands at the close of each resolution, and the audience clapped, too. Sharp promptly put the question. "All in favor of the resolutions will say 'Aye,' " he declared, in an imperative tone. "Dam" was on his feet, ready to give the cue. He opened his mouth to exclaim "Aye !" The word died on his lips ere it was born, and a shriek of terror was uttered in its stead. A heavy hand was on ''Dam's" shoulder. Eyes looked into his, that he recognized, although he had never seen them before. The hand was that of an American detective; the eyes were those of a Rus- sian police agent. "Bishmillah Raschid ben Adhem," spoke the de- tective sternl}-, as he read the name from a warrant, "I have an order for your arrest on the charge of AMERICAN 'WORKINGMAN 87 being a fugitive from justice in Russia, where you were accused of the crime of abducting a girl, a Russian subject." "You identify this person as the man described in the warrant ?" added the detective, turning to the Russian police officer. "I do," answered the Russian officer, in fairl}- good English. "He is undoubtedly the person." The audience was in confusion. As before stated, "Dam," or Adhem, was in a rear seat, where he could see and be heard, without being observed by the rest of the assembh^ The instructions were to follow his utterances implicitly. When "Dam" shrieked in terror many of those present thought it was part of the proceedings, and shrieked, too. Others jumped about in alarm. Orientals scent an official in any guise or disguise, and as most of them who are exiles have done something or other, rendering them liable to penalties at home, the sight of a police agent is very upsetting. As they saw "Dam" in the grasp of an officer the din and terror and Babel grew. Sharp and Dark were dumbfounded, but not frightened, for they knew their human menagerie. Palmitch, on the other hand, thought he had fallen among madmen, and hastened out by the back door in a rather undignified fashion. The Turks and Amienians, whom it was hard to keep from each others' throats under any circumstances, began fight- ing and screeching. The French Canadians huddled together, not as cowards — for they are not cowards 88 ADAM CLARKE — but in utter bewilderment at the strange and sud- den outcome. Dorion got ang^y, and began belabor- ing Turks and Armenians alike with a stout stick which he always carried, while the hall resounded with his "sacr-r-r-e-e-s." Meantime, the officers dragged the pale and trembling Adhem to the lock- up, leaving the meeting of "American workingmen" to fight it out, if it took all night. CHAPTER IX. THE COAL MINE. The miners' huts formed three straggling streets along the bare hillside. They were more wretched than anything that Herbert Prynne had seen in Cornwall, and he shrank, almost with loathing, when a brown-skinned Hungarian greeted him with friendly meaning enough, in almost unintelligible English. The miners were mostly Hungarians, with a small number of Welsh, who kept apart from the others, and into whose company Prynne naturally drifted. The dwellings of the Welsh were neater, both inside and out, than those of the Hungarians, and the Welsh miners were a superior class of workers, and evidently regarded as such both by employers and fellow-workingmen. They were kept on account of their skill. The mine bosses greatly preferred Hungarians when they could get persons of that nationality competent to do the work. The Hungarian could be kicked and cuffed and cheated in a way that the English-speaking miner would not tolerate. Ignorance of the language made it impossible for the Hungarian, or "Hunk," as he was palled at the mines, to make known his troubles to 89 go ADAM CLARKE anyone able to assist him. He was no better than a serf, always kept in debt at the company store, and allowed to earn just enough to prevent the debt from accumulating beyond the company's estimate of his ability to pay. He was, in short, an ideal miner from the standpoint of the mine proprietor. The Welshman, on the other hand, while he did his work thoroughly, kept careful watch of the measurement of the coal, and allowed no trickery if he could detect it. He did his full share of work, and wanted his full share of pay. He was therefore not wanted if he could be spared, and the Welsh were being spared as fast as Hungarians could be taught to take their places. Every week saw the arrival of more Hunks, and the departure of some of the Welsh. Already a Hunk was outside fore- man, and the Welsh engineer at the pit mouth had a Hunk for assistant. The fact that accidents were more frequent than when the Welsh were in charge of the mine seemed to make no difference to tfte ownership. If accidents were more frequent, there was less noise about them than when they were fewer. A dead Hunk more or less was of very little account. Plenty were coming to take his place, and nothing was heard of the matter beyond the miners' shanties. It was possible now to take more risks, and get out coal faster at Craddocksboro, for if the deathlist grew, so did the profits. Asa Crad- dock, if he gave a thought to the right and wrong of the matter, could quiet his conscience with the reflection that the same thing was going on all over Pennsylvania, and that while thousands of miners THE COAL MINE 9 1 were perishing, the wealth of coal magnates was accumulating.* If he went to church the pastor never preached from the text (Genesis, iv. ; lo, ii; "And He (the Lord) said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." One of the mine foremen had been disabled a few days before Prynne's arrival, and the superin- tendent tried a Hunk, who had not proved satis- factory. Prynne easily showed that he understood the inside of a mine, and was told to take the place. On the day before he took charge he started on a thorough inspection of his part of the mine. De- scending in the cage he noticed that it was in fair condition, and had the usual safety catch device to prevent the falling of the cage in the event of the breaking of the rope by which the cage was sus- pended. In a properly constructed cage, it should be understood, the safety catches attached to the cage are held away from the guides in the sides of the * It is a significant and appalling fact that, notwithstanding the modern inventions which, if used, ought to make for greater safety, the number of deaths from coal mine accidents has greatly increased within recent years. The death rate has grown from 2.53 per cent, of employes in 1893 to 3.52 per cent, in 1902. Over twelve thousand lives have been lost in coal mining opera- tions from 1893 to 1902, inclusive. I believe the chief cause to be the vast inpouring of foreign immigration, which makes it unnecessary for the mine-owners to husband the lives of the miners. 92 ADAM CLARKE shaft, while the weight of the cage hangs on the rope, but are released and spring against the guides as soon as the strain is taken from the rope either by its being broken or otherwise. A safety hook detaches the cage from the rope if it is hoisted too far, and "landing dogs" prevent it from being ac- cidentally lowered or dropped into the shaft, when it has been once hoisted above them at the pit head. Prynne found the hoisting engine in charge of a competent Welsh engineer, assisted by a Hungarian who seemed to be learning how to run the engine. Having satisfied himself that everything was in order, above and below, he went back to his board- ing house. CHAPTER X. THE HUNK S REVENGE. Prynne was a watchful foreman. He made it a rule every morning to descend before his men, ar- riving at the pit-head about half-past five, which made it necessary for the engineer or his assistant to be on hand at five, half an hour earlier than their usual time, to get up steam for the cage. The as- sistant engineer, a Hunk named Balassa, had usual- ly to do this extra work, and for that reason did not feel friendly towards Prynne. He was too crafty, however, to make this fact known to Prynne, although it was very evident to the other Hunks. One evening, after supper, there was a knock at the door of the cabin in which Balassa lived, with the family of an old neighbor from Hungary. When the door opened a voice called to Balassa from the darkness. He went out. Ten yards away, his features not clearly dis- cernible in the cloudy night, stood Michael Horg- win. Balassa knew him well, for Horgwin had brought him in a gang from Hungary. They talked, of course, in their native tongue. Balassa inquired where Horgwin had been lately. "I have been here for three days," said Horgwin, 93 94 ADAM CLARKE "although you have not seen me. You know, Ba- lassa, that I was an engineer in Hungary before I found it would pay better to bring people over to America, and I would like to try it again to see if I understand the business. You must be tired start- ing that engine every morning, and losing sleep, and I'll take your place for half an hour to-morrow morning, if you will let me. Here's a dollar." Balassa would have taken the proposal without a dollar, but he readily accepted the money. He gave no thought to Horgwin's motive in making the request, but was content to note that it meant rest for him in the morning at a time when he had not been accustomed to sleep. Horgwin did not wait until five o'clock on the following morning. The wire lifting rope was wound on the drum, the cage was ready, and all in order at the pit-head for the coming day, when Horgwin arrived shortly after four. No one was present as he entered the shed. He went to the winding drum, and with a very sharp knife he began cutting the wire rope, not clean, but with jagged, uneven edge. He did not sever it clear through, but left two or three strands, not strong enough to hold the cage for more than a few seconds after starting. He did the cutting from underneath the drum, so that the damage could not readily be observed from above. Then, about five o'clock, he started the fire in the engine. While steam was getting up Horgwin stepped into the cage, and with a hammer and some small wedges of iron he fixed the safety catches so THE HUNK S REVENGE 95 that they would not, as he calculated, spring against the guides, upon the rope being broken. He did all this as coolly as if he were mending, instead of destroying the devices on which the safety of human life depended. Horgwin had been in many dangerous situations in his life, and although a scoundrel, he was not a coward. His feeling at this time was one of quiet, deliberate satisfaction over his approaching vengeance on the man who had interfered with his lovemaking on the steamer. He already saw, in his mind's eye, Prynne's body at the bottom of the shaft, four hundred feet below. Promptly at half -past five Prynne entered the cage, and called to Balassa, as he supposed, to start the drum. Horgwin kept his back to Prynne, so that the latter did not see his face, but Prynne would probably not have known him if he had. Horgwin turned on steam, the drum began to revolve, and the cage to descend. Horgwin moved away from reach of the rope in case it should spring back with force upon breaking. No one but Prynne had yet arrived at the pit- head. The rope continued to unwind, and the cage to descend. Each second seemed a minute to Horgwin. Was it possible that the two or three strands he had left could hold the cage, because there was only one man in it? About half the rope was unwound, when the snap came. There was a crashing noise from be- low. The wire rope quivered and writhed like an angry serpent. 96 ADAM CLARKE Then all was still. No man could survive that fall of two hundred feet. Horgwin felt sure that he was avenged. Balassa ran up at this instant. He had been com- ing to go to work, and saw that something was wrong. "The rope has broken," said Horgwin, in Hun- garian, "You better run for help, but not tell anyone you were away from the engine. If you do, they will discharge you. Run now !" Balassa raised an alarm, as Horgwin sneaked away, and Welsh and Hunks crowded to the spot. The Hunks were evidently not sorry when they heard that Prynne was dead at the bottom of the shaft. The Welsh worked like Vulcans, and the Hunks had to help in fitting out a temporary lift which was sent down the shaft with two men on board. About two hundred and thirty feet below they found the cage, with Pryne in it, badly shaken, but not seriously injured. The jar caused by the rope snapping had loosened the pieces of iron with which Horgwin had wedged the safety catches, and after dropping a few feet the catches had caught on the guides, and the cage was stopped. The shout of joy from the rescwers was heard at the pit-head, and was echoed to the hillside by the assembled Welshmen. The lift was pulled up, the wire rope was Towered with the lift, and con- nected at the top of the cage, and after the lift had been drawn up, and moved out of the way, the THE HUNK S REVENGE 97 winding drum was started, and the cage brought to the top. Prynne was able to step out unassisted. He sus- pected nothing. He had noticed nothing wrong with the safety catches, and supposed they had been slow to work, and that the rope had broken acci- dentally. Nobody but Michael Horgwin held the secret of his baffled crime. One result of the accident was to convince Her- bert Prynne that it was not good to be alone. As he lay, bruised and sore on his cot in a miner's cottage, he thought he would like to have had the fair hands of Mary Clarke attending to his needs, instead of the kindly but rough ministration of his fellow-miners, and when he got better he wrote to Mary, begging her to come to him. CHAPTER XI. BEFORE THE GREAT PITTSBURGH STRIKE. Mrs. Clarke and her family were thoroughly sick of Fall River, when the mail brought two let- ters, within a few days of each other, one from Robert and Alexander, inviting their mother, sistars and Wallace, to the home they had prepared for them on Mount Washington, Pittsburgh, and an- other from Herbert Prynne, asking Mary to come to Craddocksboro, and fulfil her promise to be his wife. Robert and Alexander told how they were saving a little money, how mother, with Martha to help, could keep house for them, that Mary could stay until she was ready to be Mrs. Prynne, and Wallace could go to an excellent public school. Mrs. Clarke was anxious to take Martha out of the mill. Mary, on her part, could not conceal her pleasure at the thought of joining Herbert, for her heart told her that her love had grown, instead of diminishing, with separation. It was resolved that they should all go to Pitts- burgh together, and that, after a few days, Mary should go to Herbert. A letter inclosing five dollars was received from Bassett, who for himself, his wife and baby, thanked Mrs. Clarke most deeply 98 GREAT PITTSBURGH STRIKE 99 for her kindness to them. This, with the sale of their furniture, and the money that remained of that which they brought to America, enabled them to go to Pittsburgh, where Robert and Alexander met them at the station. Andrew Craig had liked Martha, from her broth- ers' description, before he met her, and liked her better the more he saw of her. The old, old story was repeated, after a few weeks' courtship, and Andrew and Martha began keeping house on Try Street. Mary went to Craddocksboro, and wrote back three days later inclosing a slice of wedding- cake, and a message of love from Mr. and Mrs. Prynne. Mrs. Clarke wept softly over her daugh- ter's letter. She >called Allie and clasped her in her arms, and then wiping away the tears she busied herself getting supper ready for the family still left to her. Things went on in quiet, humdrum fashion — "the short and simple annals of the poor." Mrs. Clarke was happy with her children, and still happier when one day she found herself the grandmother of a little boy born to Andrew and Martha Craig. The little one, she thought, had somethiVig of Adam's look, and she learned to love it fondly, and hoped that it might be as good a man as its grandfather, and more fortunate. Mrs. Clarke began to love America, and to feel that attachment for her adopted country, the home of her children, and the native land of her grand- child, which she had formerly felt for England. The painful impressions caused by what she had seen lOO ADAM CLARKE at Fall River were almost effaced, and she looked forward to an old age of comfort in the companion- ship of her children. One day she noticed, however, that the frank, manly face of Andrew Craig was shadowed with gloomy foreboding. She sought to know if he was in any trouble, and offered to do all she could to help him. He was often absent, too, of evenings, attending meetings of his union, he told Martha, and calmness and content gave way by degrees to anxiety as to the future in the little circle of the Clarkes. The daily papers told that the Pennsylvania rail- road company had reduced the wages of its men ten per cent., and was said to be contemplating some further act that might strain too severely the pa- tience of the employes. The reduction of ten per cent, made a serious difference in the circumstances of the Craigs, and they had to deny themselves comforts which had grown to be seemingly indispensable. But Martha was cheerful as ever, and tried her best to cheer up Andrew, and make husband and baby happy. CHAPTER XII. THE STRIKE. Andrew Craig was moody and silent one evening, as he stepped upstairs to his tenement on Try Street. Martha saw him from the window. She had been on the watch for him, as she was every evening, and she held up little Andrew to greet his father coming home. The baby looked; his bright eyes kindled with intelligence; he saw his papa — he smiled — he turned to his mother. "Pa — pa," he uttered, and smiled again. And then he waited for his father to look up. But Andrew Craig had too much on his mind to remember to throw a kiss to the loved ones. "Why, what is the matter, Andrew?" exclaimed his wife, as the husband and father, with a far- away look, mechanically embraced Martha, and ac- cepted the outstretched arms of the baby. "You are pale and stirred up about something — what has happened ?" "We are going to strike," said Andrew, with gloomy deliberation. "To strike — Andrew!" cried the wife, as she busied herself pouring out the tea, and placing the humble fare before her husband. "You know we can lOI 102 ADAM CLARKE no more than live as things are — ^and a strike would mean nothing to live on." "Better die, perhaps," hissed Andrew, bitterly. "The railway has us by the throat, and it can do no worse than strangle us. Not content with reducing our wages they have redoubled our work. Hear this!" Andrew read the following from an afternoon paper : PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD. Office of General Agent and Superintendent. Pittsburgh Division. Pittsburgh, July i6, 1877. On and after Thursday, July 19, 1877, two trains are to be run on Union and two trains on National line through, between Pittsburgh and Altoona, thir- ty-six cars to a train, a pusher from Pittsburgh to Derry, and a pusher from Conemaugh to Altoona. No passenger engines to be run on freight. Balance of trains to divide at Derry; first in and first out. Derry to be the headquarters eastward where engines will be timed. Between Derry and Pittsburgh all double-headers, thirty-six cars to a train, or as many as they can haul, to be increased or decreased in the judgment of dispatcher — according to lading in cars. Robert Pitcairn, Superintendent. "You see, Martha," Andrew explained, "that or- der, while it provides for 'double-header' trains, does THE STRIKE I03 not provide for increasing the crew. An ordinary train, you know, is eighteen cars and an engine, and a 'double-header' would be thirty-six cars, with an engine at each end. Therefore we who have had our wages already reduced ten per cent, are now to be required to do double work at the reduced wages. Even at that a number of us must go, and maybe I will be one, for doubling the trains without doubling the crews will be the same as doing away with every other man." The tears started in Martha's eyes. "And just to think, Andrew, how nicely we were settled. And then the sewing machine is not paid for yet — and baby's dress — " and she bit her lips to keep down a sob. "Martha," cried her husband, almost wildly; "Martha — don't drive me mad ! Oh, God ! Oh, God ! What were we bom for?" he added, fiercely. "To work for miserable wages, night and day almost, in order to pile up fat dividends for directors to build palaces with — while my baby — while we — struggle and starve." "Mamma — ky — " said the baby, wondering with all his eyes at the unwonted scene, and his lower lip pouting, as if he, too, would join in the weeping directly. "Yes, my darling," went on the father, with words that seemed to taste of the bitterness he felt, "your mother cries, and well she m^y. What else is there for us all but tears. Ground into the dust as we are by these railway monopolies, that care no more for you and me than if we were so much clay from the I04 ADAM CLARKE hillside over the track. I saw Pitcairn yesterday. He was looking over things in the freight yard, and Senator Graft was with him, on a visiting tour, I suppose, and Pitcairn was as mellow and friendly as if Senator Graft was an English lord, and Pit- cairn the steward of his estate. And then Pitcairn looks at us as if we were curs, fed on the scraps from his back-kitchen. I suppose he thinks there are so many poor, hungry men in Pittsburgh that there would be no trouble filling our places if we did strike. But let them have a care — let them have a care — and not make us too desperate. If we con- clude to die, it won't be by starvation !" "Oh, Andrew," spoke Martha, with a shudder, "you make me tremble. You must not talk of dying — you know we have something to live for." And she leaned over, and pressed her lips to baby's cherry mouth. "Yes, I remember, dear — ^but — oh — ^it makes my soul almost burst out when I think that such things can be; and yet they call this a free country, and say that all men are equal here. Equal, indeed! If I didn't take off my cap, and stand like a deaf mute when I went into the superintendent's office I would soon find out the equality. I do believe the worst tyrants in the world are to be found on the soil.of America." Martha listened in deep pain. She thought of her baby, she thought of her husband, she thought of the instalment coming due on the sewing machine. But in her breast she could not blame Andrew. Had he not been a faithful servant to the company for eight long years ? And this was his reward — double THE STRIKE IO5 work and lower pay — and perhaps no work and no pay. The calm that precedes the whirlwind pervaded the crowded city. From East, from West, from North, and farther South hoarse mutterings had come that the giant Industry, bound to the dirt by Liliputs of wealth, was heaving his hairy breast, as if about to arise, and burst the shackles they vainly imagined to -be unbreakable. There was a whisper that, for the first time in American history, labor would unite for its own defence, and capital would find how helpless money might be without men to do its bidding. But the magnates of the Pennsylvania railway, cared nothing for these omens. Had they not, for years past, had their own way in legislature and State? Was the State Executive not at their bidding, and was not the militia under the direction of the Commander-in-Chief? Let a laborer dare to raise a finger against the railroad, and a lesson would be given such as the British monarchy gave to the Chartist agitators ! Monopoly would be sealed and confirmed in blood, and a warn- ing conveyed never again to interfere with the great corporation, whose bands of steel belted the Keystone State. Meantime, the storm was brewing. There was no concert in the agitation; no plot; no conspiracy. The greatest revolutions of history have been accom- plished without plot or conspiracy. The subtle in- fluence which spreads, as b>' electric s)mpathy, from mind to mind, which impresses each and every man I06 ADAM CLARKE with the sense of a common danger or a common duty, is the potent force which sets a multitude in motion towards a common object. What this subtle influence is cannot be readily defined. Since the world began it has existed, and been powerful for good — ^perhaps also for evil. It drew the Children of Israel together to avenge the concubine of the Levite; it thrilled the breast of the English serfs, when Wat Tyler raised in his native Kent the ban- ner of the oppressed ; it flew southward on the wings of the wind that brought from Lexington the clash of contending arms. No plot directed it; no con- spiracy contrived it. And thus it was in Pittsburgh when a few score of hard-worked and under-paid railway employes resolved to make a stand against a corporation with millions in its treasury, and a commonwealth at its beck. On the morning of July 19th the struggle opened. "We will not take out our train," said Andrew Craig, coolly and firmly, to the train-dispatcher. The dispatcher, William Barker, stared and gasped, and stared again. Was it possible that a few, poor, tired, almost homeless men dared to say nay — ^to utter defiance to the Pennsylvania railway? "What?" he found breath to utter. "We will not take out our train, sir," repeated Craig, firmly and respectfully. Had a gang of slaves in a cotton-field in Ala- bama, before the war, announced to the overseer their intention to strike, that individual could not have been more amazed than was the train-dis- THE STRIKE lO/ patcher who represented the majesty of the Pennsyl- vania railroad. "What's the matter?" asked a higher official, curtly and rudely, approaching- Craig and the dis- patcher. "They won't take out the train, sir," said the latter. "Who says they won't?" exclaimed the higher official, with a menace in his voice. "I did, sir," replied Craig, in the same respectful tone. "Then get out! Do you hear? Get out! You are discharged !" roared the official, his cheeks puff- ing with rage, while the red blood showed under the skin away around his neck. "You miserable dog, how dare you interfere with the business of the Company!" with an emphasis as if the word "com- pany" would strike the striker down. And the official approached Craig with clenched fist, and fierce anger in his tone. "Have a care, sir," answered Craig, sullenly, his patience exhausted by the brutal manner of his re- ception. I am here on business, and if you do not act like a man, I may be tempted to forget that I am one. As the eye of the bold hunter is said to overcome the wild beast of the forest, so did the calm, cour- ageous glance of Craig make the enraged railroad satrap halt. There was that in Craig's voice and look that spoke more plainly than his words. The official, accustomed to slavish obedience, to order American citizens about as if they were fellahs of Egypt, to give a command in one moment, and sec it carried out the next, could not understand I08 ADAM CLARKE the change; he could not comprehend that men in the employ of his railway could, or would, dare for a moment to assert their manhood. He stopped irresolute; then afraid that he looked afraid, he again tried the eflfect of shouting. "Get out of this yard, you and your gang!" he roared. And like a man listening for an echo, he stood still to note the effect of his voice on Craig. "We will go when we are ready," replied the lat- ter, deliberately. By this time other crews were abandoning their trains, and giving notice of their refusal to serve. The strikers evinced no excitement; they were as cool and good-humored in manner as they were positive in action. No freight trains, they declared, should leave the yard. The agitation had not yet assumed formidable proportions.* Conciliation on the part of the Com- * The wnter has said on this subject, in another work: "To an unprejudiced observer, without interest in local political contro- versies or jealousies, it seems that the strength of the civil au- thority had not been fully measured or exhausted, when the military were called into action. . . The summons to the military appears to have been hasty as well as urgent, and a disposition was shown to protect the property and assert the rights of a great corporation which, however defensible on the ground of the public convenience and welfare, yet tended to in- flame the popular sentiment against the power of monopoly, and to justify the popular estimate of the ability of monopoly to command that extraordinary aid for which ordirary citi2en3, how- ever grave the exigency and grievous their situation, would have appealed in vain." THE STRIKE lOQ pany might have calmed it ; and time and argument, accompanied by a judicious display of authority, might have subdued it, without the loss of a life, or damage to property. The Mayor of the city, Mc- Carthy, a man of humane instincts, favored a peace- able course, and hoped by the intercession of work- ingmen having influence with the strikers, to induce them to abandon interference with the trains. He comprehended that they were violating the law, and that, should they persist, the violation would be almost as reprehensible and injurious as some of the lesser crimes which railway and other monopolies are daily committing with impunity against the laws of the United States and the rights of the people. He believed in enforcing the law, but did not see any reason for enforcing it more harshly and less mercilessly against the poor driven to extremity than against the wealthy monopolist who robs through' cupidity. But monopoly thirsted for blood, and the thirst must be slaked, CHAPTER XIII. THE MILITARY. "They have called out the military !" spread from mouth to mouth among the strikers camped at the freight yard throughout that memorable night in July. "They have called out the military!" was whisp- ered from mother to daughter, from brother to sister, as the news reached the humble abodes of the work- ers protesting against corporate tyranny. And mothers pressed the babies close to their breasts, and breathed a prayer for the safety of husband and father. Under the shadow of darkness the Sheriff, acting under the direction of the railway authorities, had appealed for rifles and bayonets, and, with the first, faint glimmer of dawn Major-General Pearson is- sued his order commanding the Eighteenth Regi- ment to report for duty at seven o'clock in the morning. But the men of that regiment, and of other com- mands which were speedily summoned to arms, were largely workingmen themselves. They knew something pf the merits of the issue between the millionaire monopolists of the Pennsylvania rail- THE MILITARY 1 1 1 way, and its recent employes, driven to despera- tion. They had no desire to imbrue their hands in the blood of fathers and brothers, whose little ones depended on them for bread. In a word, they were not willing to butcher the poor that monopoly might thrive. Less than three hundred answered the sum- mons of General Pearson. "Not a shot will I fire," remarked Sergeant Evans, who had faced the hail of many a battlefield, and bore the mark of a wound received in one of the most desperate charges of the Civil War. "Let the railway company do its own butchering," grumbled a tall private, usually a model of obedience and of discipline. The same sentiment prevailed through every rank. Even the commissioned officers were affected by it. As when the soldiers of France fraternized with the people engaged in the struggle against a despotism that had become intolerable, so the citizen soldiery of Pittsburgh declined to fire upon their fellow-citi- zens engaged in resisting the dictation of a despotic, millionaire corporation. "You won't fire, Joe — ^you know Andrew's there," said a soft, feminine voice from the throng that lined Smithfield Street, as the Eighteenth passed. Joseph Denny turned, as he trudged along, musket to shoulder. His eyes met the sweet, plaintive face of Martha Craig. "Never fear me," cried Joe, "do you think I'd hurt his daddy?" and he jerked his head toward the baby that nestled in her arms. The little fellow, his big eyes half marvelling, half afraid at the 112 ADAM CLARKE unusual array, recognized his "unky," even in the novel accoutrements. "Unky— Joe— ma — ma— oo — dere — " he uttered, pointing to the soldier. Other soldiers heard and saw, and the smile that lit their faces showed that they, too, had a thought for the little ones at home. That baby's smile spiked every musket in the company. The militia found the strikers passive, but im- movable — ^not doing any violence, but resolute that no freight trains should leave the yard. The com- mands were stationed in positions where they would be ready for action in the event of an imperative need for .their services. It was not yet too late for arbitration. Arbitration ! — Pah ! — Might as well talk of sooth- ing a panther with skim-milk! Blood and blood alone could satiate the slave-drivers, whose serfs had impudently turned against the lash, and had refused to accept the usual dictum — "Starve or obey!" Let us enter a mansion, reader, in one of the fash- ionable streets of Philadelphia. It can hardly be called a home of refinement. The signs of wealth are too gross and barbarous. Every door-knob, every mantel, every piece of furniture from the story beneath the attic to that above the kitchen is osten- tatious with the evidence of the owner's riches. The paintings on the walls — such works as great artists THE MILITARY II 3 exchange for the gold of the parvenu — are osten- tatiously hung, just where the visitor will be likely to notice them, and, of course, to ask the price, which the lord of all this wealth has ready at the end of his tongue. In a parlor, on the first floor, around a rosewood table with feet of gold, shaped like the paws of a lion — fit emblem of monopoly — sat four men. One was of middle age, with regular, dark feat- ures, bright, dark eyes, and the severe expression of a master accustomed to deal decisively and even harshly, with those under his control. Opposite him sat a younger man, evidently not of the same posi- tive character, and who might be suspected of hav- ing humane sentiments when they did not interfere with politics. The two others, apparently sub- ordinates of the person first described, were both also young men, accustomed, like him, to command, but, unlike him, also to obey. They had that look, peculiar to low tyrannical natures, which can change with the rapidity of the chameleon, from subser- viency to rudeness, from rudeness back to subser- viency. "So you say the troops will not fight?" spoke the chief of the party — he with the severe expression. "Yes, Colonel," was the answer, "they have no spirit in this thing. I understand by telegram, as I have told you, that the soldiers positively refuse to fire on the strikers." "Indeed," muttered the Colonel. "How would it do to shoot a soldier or two for an example — to encourage the others, you know, as they say in 1 14 ADAM CLARKE France?" and he smiled — if a fierce grin could be called a smile. "Colonel Bruce," responded the other, with de- ference, but with more firmness than his face indi- cated him to be capable of, "they say things in France, and they do things in France which can- not yet be done over here. I say — yet — for I hope and believe the time will come when, if a rabble of workingmen dares to show its teeth, we can plant cannon on the street corners, and mow them — ^yes, mow them." The Colonel nodded. "But it has not come to that, yet," pursued the other, "though I believe it will before long. Just at present, in a city like Pittsburgh, the militia is a little too close to the working people. It will not be so after a while, when the city is bigger, and the class in it disconnected from ordinary mechanical labor becomes numerous enough to give us all the militia we need. Now, here in Philadelphia, you see " The Colonel nodded again. A thought had struck him. "Here in Philadelphia," repeated the speaker, "we have a militia closely connected with the wealthy class, and directly associated with, and dependent on that class for support. Not a lot of mechanics in uniform — as in Pittsburgh." "Then," said the Colonel, slowly and deliberately, "why not send the Philadelphia troops to Pitts- burgh?" A cloud passed over the face of the former speak- THE MILITARY , II5 er. He seemed anxious to please; yet he did not like the idea. "Why not try conciliation?" he suggested. The Colonel almost leaped from his chair. "Never," he cried, "never will I yield the thou- sandth part of an inch to that rabble I" "Ah," he murmured, "for half an hour of Na- poleon Bonaparte!" No one spoke for a few moments. Then the Col- onel resumed : "These men must have a lesson — I say — a lesson, and not a lesson written in black, either. They must have a lesson that will be remembered for all time. What is the use of carrying the legislature on our shoulders — what is the use of taking the share we do in the politics of Pennsylvania, if a rabble of a few hundred workingmen are to be allowed to say that they will not work for the wages we choose to give and on the terms we choose to make? These men after awhile will want to share the profits of the Company !" And the Colonel fell back, astonished to silence at the thought. "Now is the time," he added, "now is the time to cure this evil, once for all. And there is only one way to do it." "The Governor," ventured the first speaker, "would alone have authority to order troops from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh; and he is absent." "I have sent to the Governor to return home im- mediately," remarked Colonel Bruce. "But think of the slaughter, if the strikers should be fired on !" said the other. "You know what the General Court of Massa- 1 16 ADAM CLARKE chusetts said, when they hanged the Quakers?" re- plied Colonel Bruce. "That if they had not come to Massachusetts, they would not liave been hanged. Therefore, they were guilty of suicide. You see?" "Well," said the other, with a sigh, for he saw that remonstrance was unavailing, "I am sorry for their wives and families." "If they choose to leave their wives and families destitute that's their own fault, is it not ?" asked the Colonel. "From all that I can hear, they were little better than destitute before the strike," muttered the other, under his breath. "What did you say ?" snapped the Colonel, quick- ly. "Nothing," was the reply. "I was merely about to remark that I could not see my way clear to be of any farther service. It all now rests with the Governor. By the way. Colonel, I wish to thank you for the renewal of my annual pass, which I received yesterday." The Colonel inclined his head in recognition, and rose to accompany his visitor to the door. Return- ing, he busied himself a few moments with paper and pen. Then, after blotting, he enclosed a letter in an envelope and addressed it. Turning to one of the young men in waiting, he said: "See, Mr. , that this reaches the Gov- ernor to-night. You need not come back." "You, Mr. ," he added to the other, "will have to accept the hospitality of my roof for the present, as it is necessary to have a trustworthy man at hand until the trouble is over." CHAPTER XIV. MONOPOLY TASTES BLOOD. Throughout Friday the strikers kept their vigil in the freight yard of the Pennsylvania railroad. No violence was done or attempted. They relieved each other in brief visits to their homes, and occa- sionally a female form might be seen flitting about, anxious to see whether any harm had come to the bread-winner. It was an impressive spectacle. A few hundred weary, overworked men, in grimy, tattered attire, and the frayed caps that denoted their servitude, camped on the tracks of a corpora- tion that had long boasted its supreme control over a great and populous commonwealth. Many of the local military had wandered off to their homes. The few who remained were on the hillside, awaiting in sleep, or wakeful anxiety the approach of morning. It was a sultry summer night, and no fires were needed to keep the soldiers' bivouac. The city slept, save where the red glow of fur- nace, and the flame leaping from some factory chimney told of the industries that know no rest. Little did Pittsburgh dream of the terrible events of the morrow. Little did some mothers dream that 117 1 18 ADAM CLARKE they were clasping their loved ones for the last night on earth ; that the husband would never again rest by their side in life. It is well that we cannot imagine the future. It is a merciful provision of the All-seeing that permits ignorance to the last for struggling, suffering humanity. Andrew Craig moved here and there among the strikers. "Whatever happens, friends," he said, "let us have no bloodshed." "It is well enough to talk so, Andrew," answered a gaunt Irishman, with high cheek bones and bull- dog jaw, "but I, for one, don't propose to be clubbed or bayoneted for nothing." "You may be sure there will be no bayoneting," rejoined Andrew. "The boys up there are not go- ing to bayonet their fellow-workmen, when they don't know but what it may be their own turn next." "But what if they bring troops from somewhere else?" asked the Irishman, sullenly. "They won't dare to do it," remarked Andrew. "Pittsburgh is able to take care of its own affairs, and if left alone, everything will be settled all right." Ihe Irishman shook his head. Craig, however, persisted in throwing his influence for peace and order. With the rising sun the news arrived, and flew from shop to forge, from forge to furnace — "The Philadelphia troops are coming to shoot dc«Vn the strikers !" MONOPOLY TASTES BLOOD 1 19 The puddler, trickling with sweat, blackened with smoke, looking more like a being of Tartarus than a man, paused in his round of toil. The machinist left the factory, the blacksmith his anvil ; the laborer on the wharf turned from unloading the impatient steamer. From voice to voice sped the report : "The Philadelphia troops are coming !" It was no longer a question of work and wages. Monopoly had summoned to its aid the bullet and bayonet from abroad. The pampered holiday militia of the second city of the Union were to be pitted against the brawn and muscle of Pittsburgh. Thousands of workingmen felt that it was their cause also, and hastened to the scene of the conflict that was to come. Many of them were armed. Few were without some weapon. Still Andrew Craig pleaded for peace. "Let us not strike the first blow," he said, and his words were not without their effect. No city in the country has more of the slumbering lion than Pittsburgh. Eastern centres of industry are mainly dependent on the manufacture of cloth. It is a species of toil that does not bring out the sinew of wire and the chest of oak. As a rule cotton and woollen operatives are not specimens of manly strength, and the tendency of such employment is to create puny, unhealthy men and women. Not so the iron mills of the Vulcan City. The men who move in the grime and dirt and smoke, who toss great iron bars as if they were playthings, and handle the white-hot iron as the grocer weighs out molasses, are not puny men. However wretched 120 ADAM CLARKE their surroundings, however ill-requited their labor, their physical strength is at a high development, and once excited, their passions once aroused, they are terrible foes. The day rolled on, and every hour brought nearer the military who expected to enjoy a holiday at the expense of the strikers in Pittsburgh. The hillside above the tracks was thronged with men and women and children, many of the latter attracted by anx- iety for the fate of fathers, of husbands and brothers and sons below. The train with the troops rolled into the Union Station. They were weary and hungry. Their holiday was proving tiresome. Some of them ex- pressed a wish that they were back in Philadelphia. The railway company had a warm lunch ready, and thus refreshed, the militia started for the freight yard. They looked handsome in their gay accoutre- ments, their bayonets glancing back the warm rays of the July sun, their belts as neat as if they were about to attend an annual inspection, or a military picnic on the Schuylkill. The crowd on the hill gazed eagerly and curious- ly. "Halt! Right — face!" cried the commanding officer. The troops halted, with their faces toward the hill. The strikers were silent, save for here and there a shout of derision or execration. "Charge bayonets !" shouted the commander. The troops attempted to advance. The strikers MONOPOLY TASTES BLOOD 121 remained immovable. A volley of stones from the hillside fell among the military, bruising some, and damaging the natty uniforms of others. The sol- diers halted irresolutely. At that moment the voice of a high railway of- ficial was heard. "Tell them to fire " he uttered hoarsely. "Fire!" Hardly was the word out than it was obeyed. The soldiers discharged a scattering volley, in no particular direction, but mostly toward the people on the hill. Nothing was heard for about a minute but the irregular rattle of rifles. Then above everything, above the groans and moans of the wounded, the pitiful pleas of the dying, the curses of men and the wails of women, arose a shriek, so curdling, so piercing, so despairing that it sent back the blood, for a moment, from every cheek. "My child, my child is killed !" It was the voice of Martha Craig. As a lion leaps to the rescue of his whelps, An- drew Craig, in a few terrific bounds, cleared the distance between the strikers and his wife on the hillside. Martha was on her knees, her hands uplifted to Heaven. Before her lay their boy, the blood gush- ing from his side, his chest quivering with the final breath, the brightness of his eyes, which were turned with pitiful gaze toward his mother, sinking away before the film of mortality. 122 ADAM CLARKE "Oh, God, let me die, too!" she cried, in her agony. ******** Other scenes there were as pitiful and as heart- rending. A little boy of seven years was among the victims of the slaughter. They bore him ten- derly away. "Send for mother! " he feebly moaned. A messenger hastened to bring the parent to the side of her child. But death was a swifter messenger; the boy felt his life ebbing through the fearful wound. "Please listen," he said feebly to the kind ones who hovered over him. "If I die before she comes, tell mother to meet me in Heaven " and then the eyes closed, never again in this world to be opened on the parent he loved. Nearby lay an aged workingman, in grimy shirt and smoky trousers, the damp of death on his brow, his gray hairs dabbled with the scarlet stream that flowed from a wound in his temple. Nearly a score of persons, most of them inno- cent spectators, lay in the agonies of death, and scores of wounded dragged themselves, or were helped away to their homes and to hospitals. Andrew Craig, from an apostle of peace, had be- come, in a moment, a tiger hot for revenge. Will- ing hands bore away his fainting wife and his MONOPOLY TASTES BLOOD 123 murdered boy. For him there was no time to mourn. The murderers of his child were before him. Seizing a bar of iron from an irresolute on- looker he darted at the phalanx of bayonets. Be- fore the soldiers, already terrified by the onward surge of the multitude, and demoralized by the lamentable evidence of what their firing had done, could summon presence of mind for resistance, Craig had seized a gun from one of them and dashed the man's brains out with the iron bar. His action was the signal for a general onslaught. The mob rushed with irresistible fury upon the military. The latter turned and fled. The wide doors of the round-house offered a welcome refuge. There they found shelter for the moment. Close on their heels came the enraged pursuers. The sliding doors were pushed together. One soldier remained outside. "Kill him! Let me brain him! Death to the murderers !" were the cries from a score of throats, as men climbed on each other to get at the shivering wretch, a few brief minutes ago a gay peacock in regimentals. A dozen weapons were upheld to inflict the final blow. The soldier, a mere youth, whose tender appearance showed that he had come from a deli- cate home, fell on his knees. "Spare me!" he uttered, in quivering tones. "Spare me, for my mother's sake!" "Back men — ^back " shouted the voice of An- drew Craig, as with almost superhuman energy he 124 ADAM CLARKE broke his way through the mass. "What — a boy! We are fighting men, not children. We leave that to the militia. For your mother's sake, did you say?" Then, as he placed himself in front of the trem- bling youth, he shouted again : "I have lost a boy to-day ; but he who harms this boy must reckon with me!" And, as the mob fell back, Andrew Craig led the soldier to the hill, beyond the confines of the riot, and pointed him to a house where he might hide in safety. Then Andrew Craig hastened back to the scene of conflict. CHAPTER XV. TWO MILES OF FIRE. From river to river, through street and lane and alley, and across to the South Side and the sister city, flew the word that the soldiers were slaughter- ing the people. From every hand the workingmen hastened, with weapons and without, to the rescue of their fellows. From garrets and cellars, also, crawled forth those birds of prey, those buzzards of civilization who live on the offal of society, and for whose existence and degradation society itself is chiefly responsible. Few men are willing Ish- maelites. It is not in human nature to be a pariah by choice. The condition is an abnormal one, and its cause must be sought for somewhere outside of the natural or acquired depravity of the outcast. The outlaw in rags may often be only the victim of the higher outlaw in broadcloth, and that the former should, when occasion offers, avenge him- self upon the latter, is but in accord with the grain and texture of all the sons of Adam. They thronged to the scene, as the unclean bird scents the battlefield — these Ishmaelites of Pitts- burgh. They skirted the front of danger; they stood ready to plunder, and, if need be, to burn and destroy. But the riot now needed no stimulus. I2S 126 ADAM CLARKE The men who had seen innocent lives taken on the shadow of provocation, who for the first time com- prehended fully the merciless character of the mon- opoly with which they were dealing, were deter- mined that the visible signs of that monopoly should be erased from the map of Pittsburgh. Toward the military as the tools of prostituted authority, whose rifles had been the weapons of death, the strikers felt a deep and vengeful animosity; and they planned at the same time to destroy the property of the railway, and drive the soldiers from the city. Shut in the round-house, a stout building of brick, with substantial portals of wood, the militiamen felt that they could bid defiance for a time to the raging multitude that filled the yard and the streets, and covered the adjoining hill. They hoped that per- haps the mob would disperse; that rescue would come from some quarter, and in any event the mus- kets and pistols in the hands of their enemies could make no impression on the walls of their fortress. And the lull that followed the closing of the doors lent color, for a time, to their hopes. But Andrew Craig was not to be baffled. He had spared the life of a boy; only because he was too manly to seek revenge except upon men. "We must not stay our hands," he cried to his fellows, "until the city is clear of these murderers, and until every building and every car belonging to the Peimsylvania Railway Company is de- stroyed." The yell that answered him came from the throats of men who had the strength and will to carry out their purpose. TWO MILES OF FIRE 127 "What means that break?" said a soldier, look- ing irom a window of the round-house," the mob seem to be going up the track." "Perhaps they have had enough," remarked Cap- tain Westover, head clerk in a Philadelphia dry goods house, and who felt that he had enough him- self. "Look there!" cried a militiaman. All eyes that could were strained at the windows commanding a view of the tracks. A tongue of flame shot up from a burning car; explosion followed explosion. What ! The car, now a mass of. fire, is approaching the round-house. Once there and they will be smothered and roasted like rats in the wall of a burning barn. Faster — faster it comes ! Great God — is there no escape ! "Death while fighting would be better than this," exclaimed a young corporal, whose soldier experi- ence had heretofore been confined to a military fair and ball, where he pressed the waist of one of the belles of the Quaker City. The rioters gave a yell — a yell of triumph, of vengeance about to be gratified. They deploy about the round-house, so as to cut off any who may run forth to escape. "Thank God !" Never was the exclamation more sincere, more deeply heartfelt. The car had run off the track within fifty feet of the round-house. It might scorch, but it would not destroy. It would obstruct other cars, should more fire-ships of the rail be sent down on a mission of destruction. That terrible danger was averted. 128 ADAM CLARKE One after another came down the blazing cars, like swift-rolling pillars of fire; but they could not pass the first, which stood directly in their path, and the heat was too fearful for the rioters to make any attempt to remove the obstruction. "A cannon ! — a cannon !" shouted Craig. A hundred men were off to obey the order. Mean- time, awaiting the arrival of the artillery, a desul- tory fire was kept up on the soldiers in the round- house. The inmates did not return the fire. They did not know how long a siege might be before them, and prudently reserved their ammunition. An hour passed without any change in the situation, except that flames and smoke shooting up from the track as far as Shady Side told that the Company's prop- erty was being utterly destroyed. At length an opening appeared in the ranks of the rioters, and the commander of the militia saw the muzzle of a cannon trained on the round-house. A discharge of that cannon would make the round- house untenable, destroy the lives of some, and place those of all at the mercy of men too far pro- voked to show any mercy. There was but one course for a soldier to pursue. Twenty of the best marksmen were posted at the windows, where their rifles would command the cannon. "The first man who attempts to discharge that gun will be shot dead!" shouted the chief of the military. Andrew Craig leaped forward to pull the lan- yard. Half a score of rifles rattled almost in unison. TWO MILES OF FIRE 1 29 Craig's right arm fell powerless to his side, his grim\' shirt stained by the oozing blood. A dozen men rushed to assist their leader. "It is nothing," he exclaimed — only a flesh-wound. I can use the left arm yet." And he stepped toward the cannon. "No — we cannot afford to lose you — you have risked your life — let some one else take the turn !" cried the gaunt Irishman, who had discussed the strike with Craig two nights before, as, aided by a dozen ready hands, he forced Craig back into the throng, and compelled him to submit to the binding up of his wound. "Now, for me !" said the Irishman, as he jumped for the lanyard. They were his last words. Ten rifles spoke again. The aim was truer this time, and the Irishman fell, shot through the brain. Two others who had fol- lowed him too closely also bit the dust; one shot through the thigh, the other receiving a fatal wound in the lungs. The rioters were enraged, not cowed, by the slaughter of their comrades. Half a dozen rushed forward, determined that the artillery should be discharged. Ten rifles again dealt out the hail of death. Not one of the men reached the lanyard. Then reluctantly the cannon was withdrawn.* Night descended on the scene of massacre and fire; a quiet, calm, July night, with the stars blink- * This incident occurred almost as related. Three times the ground was strewn with dead and wounded before the artil- lery was taken away. 130 ADAM CLARKE ing, as they had blinked for thousands of years on the miseries and struggles of humankind ; and, while the bloodshed and strife and burning went on, a gleam of silver moonlight looked in and wrapped in limpid halo the face of an unconscious woman in a little tenement on Try Street. Glasped to her breast was the cold form of a little babe. And the husband was abroad, avenging his dead child by helping to make other fathers childless, and other children fatherless. And who was responsible for all this? Speak, ye monopolists, who grind the faces of the poor ! CHAPTER XVI. IN THE GRAY OF THE MORNING. In the gray of the morning, when many of the rioters, weary after the work of the night and the day before, had relaxed into fitful sleep, the doors of the round-house were quietly rolled apart, and the militiamen crept forth. The contrast between their wretched and cowed appearance, and the jaunty, su- perior air with which, in gaudy uniforms, and with silken palms, they marched to the freight yard on Saturday, was as pitiable as it was striking. What- ever their feeling toward the goaded and desperate workingmen, it was no longer one of contempt. They had challenged the issue, and cried enough. The strikers were satisfied with the retreat of the militia. "They confess defeat," said Andrew Craig ; "and, as far as they are concerned, I am satisfied. Let them depart in peace, with their dead and wounded." A few hot spirits refused to accept this advice, and the retreating military were harassed for some distance by occasional shots from vengeful pursuers, who hung on the flanks of the companies or dis- 131 132 ADAM CLARKE charged their weapons from the cover of side streets. "Now for the railway buildings !" cried Andrew Craig. From structure to structure the torch was borne until every building belonging to or connected with the railway corporation — except the station at the Point — was in flames. The strikers had done their work. They had taught a lesson not likely to be forgotten in this or many succeeding ages. Now, frenzy took the place of reason, and they who lit the conflagration found they could no longer control it. As the farmer who fires the weeds and stubble in order to enrich his land sees the flames he has started leaping from tree to tree, and rushing like a simoom over his neighbors' fields, so the strikers saw the mob, who hung like vultures about the scene of conflict, now prepared to deal destruction and devastation throughout the city. In this extremity the workingmen proved them- selves as true to the cause of order, as they were hostile to oppressive monopoly ; and, with their aid, and largely through their efforts, the supremacy of law was restored, and the city was saved from the disaster which the murderous bullets of the military had provoked and incited. Andrew Craig was unable to take any part in the work of dispersing the plunderers. The pain of his wound and the reaction consequent upon his fearful share in the struggle with the Philadelphia soldiery, were too much for him, and before noon on Sunday he sought his now desolated home. CHAPTER XVII. THE BLACKLIST. The strike was over. The popular tumult had subsided. The strikers were ready to go to work again; and then came the railway's opportunity. Then was seen the evidence of the relentless power of combined capital to grind and punish anyone who had defied its will, and dared to assert the rights of American manhood in opposition to its plans. From one railroad office to another, throughout the length and breadth of the land, word was passed that not one of the strikers should be permitted to work again on an American railway. Lists of their names were distributed, not to railroads only, but also to other large corporations. The men who had "ittempted to break the shackles of industrial slavery were virtually sentenced to exile or vagrancy ; their homes were to be broken up, their wives and daugh- ters driven on the street, compelled perhaps to sell themselves into servitude worse than death; it was to be a crime to give them employment, to grant to anyone of them the poor privilege of earning their bread in the sweat of their brows. It was not the first time that such action had been taken; it was not the first time that the victims of 133 134 Adam cl'arke corporate oppression had been sent forth branded with the stigma of corporate hate. The country roads were thronged with such men, engaged in vain search for work ; the rivers of the great cities swal- lowed up many a tale of despair, yielding now and then to the Potter's Field the body of some poor fellow, some woman, who preferred to end all sooner than prolong a wretched career by bartering away her honor. Thus, in numerous instances, the death penalty was paid for the guilt of striking for higher wages, or refusing to submit to intolerable wrongs. Nothing pleased the magnates of trusts and cor- porations more than the news that some striker had been driven by poverty to crime. They lolled it under their tongues at their club lunches, and it added new zest to their champagne. Tighter and tighter they drew the coils which bound the work- ingman to their service, and more rigidly arrogant they grew as it became more and more evident that nothing could resist their dictation. They resolved to make an example of the Pennsylvania strikers that would sear terror into the heart of labor. No criminal action was taken against the men who had fought the militia. The railways and their tools in public office had no desire to have their methods exposed in a public trial. It was resolved to deal with them through a power superior to the law, to the Constitution, to the people — ^the power of monopoly combined in one grand conspiracy against any person or persons who should incur THE BLACKLIST 1 35 its hostility. The rights of citizenship, the guaran- tees of the fundamental law, the presumption of in- nocence when guilt is not legally proven, were to be annulled by the secret ukase of the trusts. The striker was marked as one to be driven from the face of the earth — or at least from the face of the United States. He was to be hounded from city to city, from town to town ; trailed, if need be, by hired detectives. No pity was to be shown to him; the ban was to be as inexorable and irrevocable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. Andrew Craig was one of the marked men. The dawn of the day after the night of fire and blood found him penniless. All the weary hours of day- light he sat by his stricken wife and his dead child. After dark they went forth with the little body in a bundle, and made their way quietly to a suburban cemetery. There Andrew dug a shallow grave with a stove shovel, which he had brought with him, and laid within the narrow space the remains of the babe, whose joyous prattle had been the sunshine of his life. The spot chosen was obscure, the excitement in the city had drawn watchers away from the grave- yard, and no one intruded on the humble obsequies. The father and mother uttered a silent prayer as the tears rolled down their cheeks, and who will say that the humble funeral was not regarded by angels' eyes with as much mercy and sympathy as the pom- pous parade which escorts the pampered dust of a millionaire ? Mrs. Clarke knew nothing of the death of her 136 ADAM CLARKE beloved grandchild. Her sons, Robert and Alex- ander, took no part in the struggle between strikers and militia. They remained in the home on Mount Washington to guard their mother and younger sis- ter and brother from harm in the event of disorder spreading to that section, and not until the city was pacified and afifairs resumed their ordinary channels did they learn of the blow that had fallen on the family of Andrew Craig. They were surprised to learn, at the end of the week, that they, too, were blacklisted simply because they were related by marriage to the strike leader. Their pay envelopes contained a notice that their services would be no longer required, and sympa- thizing fellow-workers told them that it would be useless to seek work where they could be known and identified. They determined to move to New York, and sought to persuade Andrew and Martha to go with them; but Andrew said that he was bom in Pittsburgh, and would not be driven from the city of his ancestors until he had proven by experience that no chance remained of making a living there. Mrs. Clarke and her stricken daughter parted with tearful pledges to meet again as soon as circum- stances should permit. In vain Andrew sought employment. His name, which he would not deny, was enough. Business men who would have given him work, if left to themselves, were menaced with loss of trade if they should give way to their sympathies. On every side he was rebuffed. One by one the little belongings THE BLACKLIST I37 of the home went to the pawn shop. Martha grew weaker day by day. She received her husband with a brave smile when he came home each evening from his weary quest for employment; but Andrew saw behind the smile that which made him shudder. His wife was slowly starving to death. He was unable to buy her food to make her strong, and of the little they did get she insisted on his taking the better part — to keep him ready for work, she said. One evening, about three months after the strike, Craig came home after dark. There was no light in the window as usual when he was late. Anxious- ly he entered the door. Martha was there. She was sitting down. She was paler than ever. She tried to rise. There was a smile on her lips as she stretched out her hands. "Andrew — Andrew, dear, please forgive me," she muttered, almost in a whisper. "I haven't got the tea ready, Andrew. I didn't feel — I didn't feel — T was not quite well. But — I'm better now, Andrew, dear. I'm glad you came." She tottered into his extended arms. Her lips met his. He heard a deep-drawn sigh. Her arms seemed to relax. Her head fell to his bosom. The once strong man cried out in his agony: "Martha! Martha!" Martha Craig was dead — starved to death. The Moloch of monopoly had claimed another victim. Andrew Craig was too proud to beg for himself, and he had not fully realized before the degree to 138 ADAM CLARKE which his wife denied herself that he might keep up his strength. He understood now the extent of the sacrifice. Proud as he was he could not bear to see his loved Martha in a pauper's grave. A few stanch friends, made aware for the first time of his dire necessity, gave him the means to pay for a de- cent interment, and Craig chose the spot where the babe already reposed for the final resting place of the mother. Then he went forth into the world alone. CHAPTER XVIII. DRIVEN FROM HIS NATIVE LAND. "Please give me work; I want work. No, not that — not money. I need food, but I can get it if I have work." It was a November afternoon, in the freight of- fice of a railway at Cincinnati. The voice was that of Andrew Craig, but broken and weak, compared with the once virile tones which commanded the obedience of an infuriated mob. "I can't. I'm really sorry I can't find a place for you," was the answer of the person addressed, an official of the railway company. There seemed to be genuine sympathy in his tone, as he still held out the half dollar he had proffered to his visitor. "But why not?" replied Craig. "I know you've been looking for freight handlers, and I was just told out there that you were in pressing need of them." The official looked confused. He glanced again at a memorandum book from his side pocket to make sure that he had the name right. It was there — Andrew Craig, Pennsylvania striker, and this man said his name was Andrew Craig, and he was from 139 140 ADAM CLARKE Pittsburgh. To hire him would be to forfeit his own place. Of course, he did not tell Craig this. "I see by my memorandum book," he said to Craig, "that the places have all been filled. I'm very sorry for you, my man — very sorry. Take this half dollar. You're hungry, I'm afraid, and this will get you a ineal and a bed, and then you can look elsewhere." Craig took the half dollar reluctantly. He was hungry. He got supper and a bed, and he started next morning to make his way to Chicago by walk- ing and riding on freight trains. The experiences of Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were repeated, with variations. "We don't want you here — you're a striker and a disturber" — was the answer of one railway agent. "There's no use wasting your time and ours. You can't get work on any railway in this town," said another. The refusals were not always so blunt, but they were always positive. Craig tried to get work on a steamboat wharf, but he seemed to be known there too. He stood in a line of applicants, many of whom were promptly engaged. When his turn came he noticed that the agent or superintendent had a book on his left, toward which he glanced occasionally. "Residence ?" was the query, when Craig gave his name. "Pittsburgh," he replied. The questioner looked up at Craig, then at the book, and said, "I don't think you'll do." DRIVEN FROM HIS NATIVE LAND I4I "Can't you give me a chance?" asked Craig. The agent shook his head and called, "next." A month later Craig was in St. Louis. His ap- pearance was now against him. The once neat workingman bore the stamp of vagrancy. He re- mained temperate and did not associate with tramps, but he looked like one. He got work, however, as a roustabout on a steamer for New Orleans. Just as the vessel was about to start a man stepped on board and went at once to the clerk's office. Two minutes later Craig was ordered off the boat. That night Craig rested in the lodging-room of a police station. He was hungry and sleepless, and could not help overhearing the conversation of two unfortunates near him. "It's no use, mate," said one, "I was in the strike in the Burlington a year ago, and from that day to this I haven't been able to get a day's regular work. They've got everyone of us spotted, and I hear there's detectives in every large city has a list of our names, and watches to see we're not employed long anywhere. I know I got work once with the oil refinery at Columbus, and I wasn't there but half a day when some one had me bounced. I hear the oil and the railway people are very thick, and one won't give work to anyone the others don't like. I was born right here in Missouri, and my father be- fore me, and I hadn't done anything wrong. We only asked for higher pay, and struck when we didn't get it, and tried to persuade other people not to take our places. That's all ; and that's no crime. 142 ADAM CLARKE But if I can't be allowed to make a living in this countr5»' I've got to leave it, and I'm going to. I intend to stow away to-morrow on a steamer for New Orleans, and then work my way to Mexico. I guess the railways will be satisfied with my leav- ing the United States. "I hear that Jim Hill, up on the Great Northern," continued the speaker, "has some men on the road who were in our strike, but I'm told they got the places under false names, but that Jim Hill winks at it out of pity for them.* I'm not going to give up my name, however, when I have done no wrong. I'll leave the country first." The whole truth now struck home forcibly to Craig. He saw why he had been refused work, and he perceived the evident hopelessness of attempting to live in the United States without the permission of the great corporations, one of which he had of- fended. He had suspected before that his share in the Pittsburgh strike was the cause of his failure to obtain employment, but he had not known that he was the victim of a general decree issued by the railway corporations — of a law superior to the laws * A newspaper man from St. Paul mentioned recently to the writer, as remarkable evidence of the courage and independence of President James J. Hill, of the Great Northern Railway, that Mr. Hill had given employment to men who had been engaged in the Chicago railway strike of 1894, and who had been "black- listed" by railways throughout the United States. The men thus .employed gave assumed names, presumably to protect the Great Northern Railway from being called to account for giving them a chance to live. DRIVEN FROM HIS NATIVE LAND 143 of the land ; of a power which handled the courts as its puppets, and knew no rule of conduct, but the supreme will of capital, combined to crush out per- sonal freedom, and to mold the individual citizen into a part of its working machinery. He had sup- posed that Andrew Craig was being punished and starved and hounded as Andrew Craig, and not as one of thousands of poor men who had dared to assert their rights as free men. Now his eyes were opened to the full extent of the vast conspiracy which had driven him and the unfortunates near him into a St. Louis police station for shelter, which had decreed that he and any other workingman who dared to offend the trusts should be a wanderer and an outcast, even though born American citizens, and though their ancestors had offered their lives to gain that liberty which was now being denied to their children. "My God !" groaned Craig, as he tossed in almost feverish hunger on his bed of boards, "has it come to this, that I must leave my native land — the land where Martha and baby are buried — ^because I dared to ask for higher wages ! Is it not enough that the capitalists murdered my innocent boy, and starved my poor wife to death — they must blacklist, and fol- low and persecute me until I am done to death too ; they must prevent me from getting work, while there is work all around me, and deny me a crust of bread, while they wallow in champagne and every luxury that money can buy — and all to give warn- ing to other workingman to be passive, obedient 144 ADAM CLARKE slaves, or be treated as I am being treated ! I, too, will leave my native land, for a time, and labor else- where for the living denied me here ; and if fortune attends me I will come back again and strive to over- throw this new system of slavery." Convinced that his two neighbors in the lodging- room were honest men like himself, Craig spoke to them. He told them, as far as he thought proper, who he was, and whence he came, and expressed his willingness to join in the journey to Mexico. It was arranged that all three should stow themselves away on a steamer to New Orleans next day, and show themselves after the vessel was well started, and offer to work their passage. They had little doubt that the offer would be accepted, for hands were scarce on the levee, and they would take care to get on board unnoticed by any shadowing detec- tive. The plan was carried out as designed. Craig and his companions managed to earn a meal before they went on the steamer, and were in a condition to work when they presented themselves to the sec- ond sffiicer. The latter accepted their services, and while the labor of loading and unloading at the land- ings was very hard, and ol a sort to which Craig had not been accustomed, the food was wholesome and abundant, and the three men reached New Or- leans in much better condition than when they started. They did not leave the steamer at once upon its arrival, but helped at unloading, and they were agreeably surprised at being summoned to the DRIVEN FROM HIS NATIVE LAND I45 clerk's office before their departure, and presented each with the sum of ten dollars. This money enabled Craig and his comrades — whose names were Tennessee Mathews and Wil- liam Carter — to make themselves presentable, and look deliberately for an opportunity to go to Mex- ico. They found a schooner destined for the mouth of the Rio Grande, whose captain was willing to take them, they agreeing to assist in loading and lighterage, and to make themselves useful during the voyage. The sail across the Gulf, with its flying fish, its sportive porpoises, and monster turtles floating on the bosom of the deep, its ever-varying tints of sea and sky, its sudden blows and tropical calms, was full of interest for Craig. It enlarged his ideas of the world; it presented a new and fascinating side of nature. The balmy zephyrs seemed to have a softening influence on his troubled soul. Some- times he dreamed on deck under the bright southern stars that he would like nothing better than to spend the remainder of his existence in a climate so fair, beneath skies so enchanting. He would forget for- ever the inhospitable North, from which he had been driven, and live a new life in the land of the Aztec, the palm and the orange grove. But no. A vision rose before him of a little tene- ment on Try Street, Pittsburgh; a little, loving woman and a cooing babe — and then of a lonely mound in the cemetery, where his loved ones were sleeping. No; he would not desert them. He would see 146 ADAM CLARKE Pittsburgh again. He would see that grave again. He would strive manfully in the southland for the fortune that would enable him to be free and in- dependent in his native North. Three weeks later Andrew Craig was working on a ranch in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas, watching for an opportimity to go to the silver mines of Guanajuato. CHAPTER XIX. ROBERT CLARKE MEETS THE REVEREND JEFFERSON JONES. Mrs. Clarke and her children travelled to New York in the ordinary carriages. They felt that they could not afford parlor or sleeping cars, and made themselves as comfortable as possible without those luxuries. Opposite Robert sat a young man of earnest expression and pleasant features, whose attire indicated him to be a clergyman. There was nothing sombre or distant in his manner, and he was evidently one of those who are sincerely de- voted to the work of the Gospel, and who do not view their calling merely as a means of living. The grandeur of the scenery, as the train sped on through the mountainous region of Western Pennsylvania, easily led to conversation. Robert won the preach- er's sympathy with the story of his family's un- happy experiences, and the young clergyman frank- ly told of his own personality and mission. He was the Reverend Jefferson Jones, he said, a min- ister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, recently relieved from his charge in Chicago for having too frankly followed the example of Christ in admon- ishing wrong-doers, without regard to their worldly estate. He had been warned that he was disturb- ing the pillars of the church, that contributions were 147 148 ADAM CLARKE falling off, and that the mites coming in larger quantity from the poor were not sufficient to make up for the missing cheques of the rich. As he per- sisted in refusing to adapt his sermons to the con- sciences of wealthy pewholders, he had been re- quested to resign by influential parishioners, and although urged by many of the poorer members to remain, he chose to retire rather than cause dis- sension in the church. After being for several weeks inactive, he had been surprised by receiving an invitation, accompanied by an offer of liberal compensation, to preach in one of the leading churches of New York, on the following Sunday, and was on his way to that city in obedience to the summons, which was signed by one of the vestry- men of the church, J. Hilton Dilkins, at whose house he was to call upon his arrival. The clergyman ex- pressed a hope that Robert would find time to hear his sermon. Robert replied that he did not belong to the Protestant Episcopal creed, but would be pleased nevertheless to be present at the services on the day in question. The Reverend Jefferson Jones was a broad- minded as well as an earnest Christian, and Robert was open and simple-hearted. In the long talks between the two before they parted at New York, Robert learned well the truth, so clearly expressed in Whittier's verse : "That they who differ pole-wide, serve Perchance the common Master, And other sheep He hath than they Who graze one narrow pasture." CHAPTER XX. BANKER DILKINS EXPLAINS THE KIND OF SERMON HE WANTS. The Reverend Jefferson Jones had seen some splendid homes in Chicago, but the residence of J. Hilton Dilkins, on one of New York's leading avenues, was more magnificent than any of them. The first view within the door was of tall Corin- thian columns, inclosing an Italian sunset. The woodwork was in gold, and the ceiling of cloth of gold. Leopard skins covered the floor. This was the reception-room, and here Mr. Jones was invited to await his host. Dilkins did not keep him waiting long. Stout, rather above medium height, his dark hair streaked with gray, and his purple-tinted cheeks and nose showing that he was familiar with the pleasures of the table, Dilkins was a typical prince of finance. He was reserved and courteous in his greeting, as to one whom he did not exactly regard as a ser- vant, nor, on the other hand, as an equal. It was too late for luncheon and too early for dinner, and Dilkins, after the usual inquiries about his visitor's health and journey, promptly entered on the subject of their meeting. 149 150 ADAM CLARKE "You see," said Dilkins, settling in an arm-chair, and motioning the Reverend Jefferson Jones to an- other, "the vestry has decided to invite you to de- liver a sermon next Sunday, and if your address is satisfactory it may result in a call to become rector of the church. It is, as you know, the next in im- portance to Trinity in New York City, and prob- ably includes among its members more men of wealth, more of the class to whom Divine Provi- dence has intrusted the great corporate interests of the United States, such as coal mines, gas plants, railways, etc., than any other church in the country. What we need is a conservative minister, one who devotes himself to subjects of real religious value, such as the proper interpretation of the Scriptures, and particularly the Old Testament, and who avoids the offensive and sensational utterances in which so many preachers, who care only for vulgar no- toriety, seek to indulge." "Hem," said the Rev. Mr. Jones, a little con- fused as to the exact meaning of his host. "You would like me to preach from the Sermon on the Mount, for instance?" Dilkins' face clouded. "No — ^not that, Mr. Jones. That is often used as a text by the very class I con- demn, and had better, therefore, be avoided, or at least very cautiously treated. I have heard your sermons on the real nature of the megatherium, the species of the whale that swallowed the prophet Jonah, and similar subjects, very favorably com- mented on by our late beloved rector. Dr. Smug, and that was the chief reason that prompted us to BANKER DILKINS EXPLAINS 15! invite you to the church. Have you ever read any of Dr. Smug's sermons ? No ? Here is one printed in pamphlet form. It was delivered the Sunday after the so-called Shipping Trust disclosures, when some of the lower class of city preachers took ad- vantage of that occasion to excite the masses against the pillars of law and order, as represented by the managers of our great corporations. Dr. Smug preached that Sunday from Second Kings, chapter 2, verse 24, "And there came forth two ' she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them." I will read you some extracts, Mr. Jones, from that excellent sermon. It will be a model for you : "A subject of deep interest to all of us, and one which should command earnest and devout consid- eration, is the species of she-bear that devoured the children that mocked the prophet Elisha. We know from natural history that in the ursidas, or bear fam- ily, are included not only the true bears, but also badgers, gluttons and wolverines, raccoons, coati- mondis, binturongs, etc. Walking on the whole sole of the foot, the animals of this family are not, in general, capable of running very swiftly, and it is probable, therefore, that the bears took the chil- dren by surprise, wliile the attention of the latter was concentrated on Elisha's bald head, and tore them to pieces before they had a chance to run away. I am satisfied, after a thorough study of the sub- ject, that the bears which were sent by Heaven to destroy these wicked children, were not gluttons or wolverines, as these animals are not found so far 152 ADAM CLARKE south as Palestine. Neither were they raccoons, or the other species I have mentioned. I have con- sulted a number of authorities to ascertain whether any species of bear has become extinct within his- toric times. Remains x)f several extinct species of bear have been discovered in caves in the Old World, some of which appear to have been larger than the present bears of that hemisphere, and of more decided carnivorous propensities. I can find no evidence, however, that these bears survived up to the time when the prophet Elisha lived, and I am obliged to conclude that the bears in question be- longed to the species known as the Syrian bear. This bear is sometimes destructive to flocks, and would no doubt just as readily destroy children as sheep. I claim no special credit for having solved this important question, but shall feel encouraged by the result of my researches to pursue in future sermons further inquiry into the proper interpreta- tion of Scriptural terms." After this very interesting introduction. Dr. Smug went on to discuss why the children were torn to pieces by the bears. "There is a deep lesson," he said, "in this text. What the prophet Elisha was to Israel, the great financiers, presidents of railway corporations and other eminent men, of whom I see so many before me in this congregation, are to the masses to-day. They are, as Mr. Baer has so clearly expressed it, divinely appointed to take charge of and control the resources of this great country, this modern Israel, and those who mock or assail them, in news- BANKER DILKINS EXPLAINS 1 53 papers, on platforms, and in the pulpit, should be destroyed and annihilated, as the children that mocked Elisha were destroyed by the she bears." "Now, what do you think of that, Mr. Jones?" asked Dilkins, with a broad smile of satisfaction, as he handed the pamphlet to the young minister. "Is it not admirably worded?" The Reverend Mr. Jones was silent. Evidently there was a mistake; but what, he asked himself, could have caused it? How could he, the young minister out of a charge because he had dared to speak as Christ his Master spoke to the grinders of the faces of the poor, have been knowingly in- vited to a pulpit from which such sermons had been preached and were expected? While he was hesitating, a knock at the door came to his relief. "Come in," said Dilkins. A footman entered, standing with the obsequious air of an English flunkey, and waited for the com- mand to speak. "Well, Robert, what is it?" asked Dilkins, with some impatience. "Beg pardon, sir, but there's a woman h'at the door basked to see you, sir." "Who is she? What does she want? If's she's a beggar, turn her away. What do you bother me for? Did you smell her breath? You know I told you when a beggar comes, always to smell their breath, and if they're in liquor, call a policeman and have them arrested for intoxication. Beggars that haven't been drinking, you know, are to be referred to the Charity Roundabout Society." 154 ADAM CLARKE "She says 'er name his Mrs. Vandeveer, of 13 Sands Street, Brooklyn, sir," answered the footman. "She don't seem hexactly a beggar, sir. She says has 'ow she lost hall 'er money hin the Pyrite Trust, hof which you was president, hand she wanted to see you, has she hand 'er children hare starving, sir." The Reverend Jones was at once interested, like the true minister of Christ that he was, in the starv- ing mother and children. He made no sign, but took mental note of the name and street number. "Starving, eh!" exclaimed Dilkins, more impa- tiently. "Didn't that show she was a beggar ? How dare you bring such a message to me? Follow my orders, or take your wages, and get out! Smell her breath, and if she has been drinking, as is very likely, have her arrested. She'll be quiet for six months on the island, and then she will know bet- ter than to come to my house making a disturb- ance." "You see, Mr. Jones, the .continual annoyances we have to endure because we happen to be promi- nent in the world of finance, and how important it is for the pulpit to inculcate sound and conservative principles in these days when anarchy dares to in- vade the very threshold of wealth." Mr. Jones had been listening and thinking, and the resolve which he had come to was indicated by his reply. He recalled now the Rev. Joseph Jones, whose sermon on "The Megatherium and its place among the Fauna of Noah's Ark" had attracted attention among the upper claseee of Chicago and BANKER DILKINS EXPLAINS I55 the newspapers representing that class, on account of what they called its timely interest, and whole- some, conservative tone. Evidently, a letter in- tended for the wealth-favored clergyman, who dis- cussed the megatherium had been delivered by mis- take to him, the poor, young servant of Christ, ostracized by the pews because he dared to follow the teachings of the Saviour in dealing with living men and vital problems of to-day. He could not but think that the error was Providential, and it gave him opportunity to do good which he should not neglect. "I have heard Dr. Smug's utterances with deep interest," he said, "and will no doubt be able to profit by them." Dilkins smiled patronizingly. "I would like very much to show you the Dilkins Memorial Settlement on Henry Street," added Dil- kins. "As you see by the name, I was the principal founder. It is maintained by the church, or rather under its auspices, and the late Dr. Smug spent much of his time there. The object of the Settle- ment is the rescue and education of the children of the neighborhood, which is almost altogether com- posed of the poorer class of Jews. We teach them the catechism and New Testament, and give each who attends a piece of bread and coffee every noon. In this way we really educate them to be Christians. The coffee and bread is a great idea. It was sug- gested by Dr. Smug. Before that we had almost no attendance, but since then quite a number of children cwne in to take lessons. They used to 156 ADAM CLARKE come in only at noon, about bread and cof5fee time, but we made it a condition that only those should get bread and coffee who had been there from 9 A.M. ; so they have to stay or do without. They are mostly very hungry, and perhaps that is all some of them get to eat. We think of giving them tea and bread at 3 o'clock also, on condition that they stay during the afternoon. At Christmas we have a Christmas tree, and give candy to every child that is able to recite a verse of the New Testament. To- morrow is church visitors' day, and I would be glad to have you with us at the Settlement. In the mean- time, I will take pleasure in showing you through my house." Dilkins led the way to the art gallery. "This picture," said Dilkins, pointing to a mas- terpiece, "cost me twenty thousand dollars," and he looked at the Western minister to see the impres- sion this statement made on him. "And this one," he continued, pointing to an- other, "cost me only ten thousand. It is really worth twenty-five thousand, but I got it from the widow of the late General Strongbow at less than half price. She needed the money, as her husband left her in much poorer condition than had been supposed." And Dilkins smiled as he thought of the bargain he had made. And so he went around the gallery. Not a word about the merits of the creations of matchless genius" which were in his possession ; not a word from the standpoint of an art-lover; but thought and utter- BANKER DILKINS EXPLAINS 1 5/ ance all centred on the dollars represented in the treasures before him. The Reverend Jones listened with pain and dis- gust he could barely conceal. Then they visited other apartments of this met- ropolitan palace. The walls of the dining-room were covered with sixteenth century tapestries descriptive of hunt- ing scenes, and the magnificent sideboard was laden with cups, each one a beautiful and costly specimen of art. Behind the dining-room was a fountain ; and myriad lights, thrown from the shell back- ground of opalescent glass, were reflected on the goldfish in the pool. In the front basement was the "Sunset Den." It was old Dutch, posted in orange leather, figured in black, with floor of teak wood. In the panels of the wall were heads of animals, and above the frieze were stuflfed birds, set in a background of their native haunts. Next the dining-room was the Turkish room. Its lights were shaded. In the centre was a shaft dropping gracefully from a chandelier, and around it coiled a living, non-poisonous snake, the strange pet of the mistress of the house, then absent on a visit to Europe. On the top floor was an apartment known as the "Geisha room." Wistaria entwined the walls, and from the ceiling hung an immense parasol, studded with lights. Everything was in silk, and here the hostess, when at home, received her guests at tea in Japanese costume. 158 ADAM CLARKE The doors of the principal bedroom were three hundred years old. The bed cost many hundreds of dollars. The decorations of the room were in red and gold, and the fittings of the tub in the bath- room adjoining were of gold metal. The minister's thoughts, as he looked on all this luxury, went back to the Acts of the Apostles, and to Christ's answer to the one who came to him seek- ing to know how he might have eternal life. CHAPTER XXI. THE BANKERS VICTIM. Five minutes after leaving the Dilkins mansion the Reverend Jefferson Jones was inquiring from a policeman the way to 13 Sands Street, Brooklyn. The two little rooms in the third story of the Sands Street tenement were cleaij from ceiling to floor. The stove shone with polish, the plain table had no cover, but likewise no dirt, and through the door from the kitchen could be seen the neat bedroom, with bed and cot, also as clean as they were scant of blankets and coverlet. All the furni- ture in the place would not have brought ten dollars at auction. Mrs. Vandeveer received her visitor with a man- ner that showed good breeding. He promptly told his errand. "I am Jefferson Jones," he said, "a Western min- ister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, on a visit to New York. It came to my knowledge, accident- ally, that you and your family are in serious want. I Rave fifteen dollars more than is needed to pay my expenses here and my way back. I ask your permission to offer you ten of it, and that done, my visit is over." IS9 ,l60 ADAM CLARKE "Are these your children?" he added, as he stroked the heads of two little girls of six and eight, who looked up at him wonderingly. Mrs. Vandeveer was so speechless that she could not even ask her visitor to sit down. She motioned him to one of the cheap wooden chairs. A woman of about thirty, naturally good-look- ing, but with her face bearing already the wrinkled marks of care and want — she had seen so much of the world's cruel side of late that the words of kind- ness from a complete stranger almost stunned her. She sank to a chair. "I do not know you, sir," she sobbed, as tears welled from her eyes, "but it is true — ^too true — ^that we are starving. The little ones and I (mother-like, the little ones were first in her heart and on her lips) — we have eaten nothing to-day. I spent our last ten cents going to see Mr. Dilkins, who was president of the Pyrite Trust, in which we lost our money, to ask him to help us, but I was turned away with abuse." The tears came in a flood, and she clasped to her knees the little ones, who were beginning to cry too. When she calmed she said: "My husband was Captain Vandeveer, well-known for years on the Hudson. He died five years ago, leaving me about eighteen thousand dollars. The Pyrite Trust was started about that time, and the papers spoke so well of it, and Mr. Dilkins stood so high, and was at the head of it, that I put the money into Pyrite common stock, thinking it would give me a good in- come. Instead of that it went down, and whetl THE banker's victim i6i there was no income at all from it, I pledged it to get means to live on, and when the loan came due, having no money to redeem it, I lost everything. Three days ago I paid all but my last dollar for rent, and that dollar has gone too. I suppose I am no worse off than many others, but, oh — when I think of my little girls — I feel — I feel that it is more than I can bear." A fit of sobbing interrupted Mrs. Vandeveer's pathetic recital. Then she resumed: "I have never begged. I have never asked anyone for that which did not be- long to me. But, oh, while I could go hungry my- self, for the sake of these little ones I will accept your kindness, and repay it when, if ever, I shall be able to do so." There was moisture in the eyes of Jefferson Jones, and something glistened on his cheeks as he handed Mrs. Vandeveer the ten-dollar bill. "Madam," he said, "hurry and get the food you need. I am going. Here is my address in Chicago. I will be back there in three or four days. Write to me about your condition, and I know there are true Christians in New York whom I can ask to help you." He rose, and, bending over, kissed the little girls. Then, with a hearty handshake to the mother, he hurried away. CHAPTER XXII. AN EAST SIDE SETTLEMENT FEAST. The old Knickerbocker family that first lived in that house on Henry Street could little have imag- ined its future. When the tide of immigration be- gan to sweep in heavily in the forties they gave up their home and retreated north to what was then fashionable high-water mark, and their former dwelling was let to tenants of Irish extraction. Germans succeeded the Irish, and held their own until the flood from southern and eastern Europe began pouring into New York in the eighties, and has kept up since in ever-increasing volume. The house then became tenanted by Russian Hebrews, and the vicinity was thronged with that persecuted race. Churchmen selected it as a fitting site for a settlement to carry on, under cover of philanthropy, the work of alienating Jews from their ancient creed, and Dilkins, having been prominent in con- tributing, or inducing others to contribute the neces- sary funds, the Settlement was named after him. The visitors — about a dozen altogether — were mostly there when Jefferson Jones arrived. They were women, as well as men, most of them evident- ly bent on a slumming expedition, not from motives 162 AN EAST SIDE SETTLEMENT FEAST 1 63 of charity, but to be able to gratify their self-com- plaisancy, and enjoy the pleasure of witnessing the unhappiness of others ; for there is no essential dis- tinction between the motive which leads a crowd to a hanging, or to run after the patrol wagon and stare at its unhappy passengers, and that which at- tracts handsomely attired men and women, ennuyed with luxury and self-indulgence, to gaze at the wretchedness of the slums. They go there for a new and piquant sensation, and nothing more. A table with an abundant luncheon was laid out in the rear of the lower room, at which the visitors were gorging themselves, while in the front on benches sat fourteen or fifteen ragged children, watching with hungry eyes the feasting going on, their mouths watering as slices of chicken and cold mutton, with potatoes and other vegetables, disap- peared down the distended throats of their benev- olent patrons. Near the lower end of the table sat a fat vestryman, whose face steamed with the exer- tion of feeding. On the upper bench — and there- fore not far from the vestryman — was a thin-faced, thinly-clad boy, whose features betokened his Jewish origin. The half-starved child, with two hours yet to wait for his bread and coffee, became fascinated by the spectacle of the gorging vestryman. As the vestryman lifted his fork and dumped chicken into his capacious maw, the child's mouth would open and close in unison, and he seemed in imagination to be a partner in the feast. Suddenly a teacher, noticing that the child's mind was not on his les- sons, sharply recalled him to the realities of his 164 ADAM CLARKE surroundings. The boy's jaws stopped working, the entranced look left his face, and he settled down again to the Christian catechism, and two weary hours' wait for coffee and bread. The feast over, the visitors were invited to in- spect the children, who were told to stand up and answer questions. "Come, Purington," said Dilkins, "as he picked chicken out of his teeth, "let us see some of your scholars." Purington Peek was the superintendent of the Settlement, and lived there with his wife, a hard- featured woman, of whom the school children, and also Peek himself, stood in considerable dread. At other times Mrs. Peek managed the school, but on visiting days Mr. Peek had to make a pretence of being the real as well as nominal head. Peek him- self was a long, lanky New Englander, with a vapid smile, which his wife, in her fits of temper, which were quite frequent, called idiotic. "Yes, sir," said Peek, looking around with anxious gaze for a cue from his wife as to whom to select. He did not get it, however, as Mrs. Peek's sharp eyes were just then measuring the amount of luncheon left over, and estimating how much she would get for it from a nearby restaurant. "Come up here," said Peek, at hazard, to a- boy in one of the front seats, who, he thought from his intelligent look, might be able to answer questions satisfactorily. "What's your name?" asked Dilkins, addressing 'the boy. AN EAST SIDE SETTLEMENT FEAST 165 "Abraham Rosenstein," was the answer. "Where do you Hve?" asked Dilkins. The boy gave his address. "What does your father do?" "He's a carpenter, sir." "Where does he work?" "He isn't working, sir ; he has been out of work three weeks." "How long have you been coming to the school ?" "Three weeks, sir." After some further questioning Dilkins turned to the Reverend Jefferson Jones, who, arriving late, had made that an excuse for not joining in the luncheon, and asked him if he would like to address the children. "I am only a guest here," said Mr. Jones, "and I hope you will not regard me as presumptuous in making a suggestion. It is that the children be in- vited at once to consume what is left of the luncheon." Dilkins looked surprised. Something stronger than surprise was reflected on the face of Mrs. Peek. To the other visitors the idea of these ragged children sitting at the same table and eating the same luncheon as they — 'the favored of fortune — seemed little short of anarchy. Besides, it would deprive their visit of its chief pleasure — that of see- ing others suffer from hunger, while their own stomachs were full. They all looked at Dilkins, while the children looked with unutterable gratitude at Jones. Dilkins was in the habit of deciding quickly. His 1 66 ADAM CLARKE business required it. He must humor Jones for the present, and curb him later, should he need curbing. "Mr. Jones is right," said Dilkins. "Let the chil- dren come up to the table. Peek." The children did not rush forward like wolves, a spectacle witnessed only at luncheons in high so- ciety. They marched in order to the table, and fell to. There was plenty for all; for the luncheon had been provided on a liberal scale by Mrs. Peek, with an eye to the disposal of what might remain. She watched with repressed anger the disappearance of her anticipated profits into the stomachs of the chil- dren, while the visitors, the Rev. Mr. Jones ex- cepted, looked on as they might gaze in a menagerie at feeding time. Suddenly Mrs. Peek leaped toward the table. "You little scamp, what do you mean by stealing bread!" she exclaimed, as she struck a small boy with her hand. The boy put back on the table the slice of bread he had been trying to slip into his pocket, and burst into tears. "I always brings father and mother my bread," he said, sobbing. "What's that, my boy ?" said Mr. Jones kindly. "Father's got no work and no money, so I only drinks the coffee and brings home the bread." "Then I will assume the responsibility of telling you to take any food on the table that the other chil- dren do not want," rejoined Mr. Jones, looking severely at Mrs. Peek. AN EAST SIDE SETTLEMENT FEAST 1 67 When the children had done eating, Mr. Jones addressed them briefly. He told them that, how- ever poor they might be, they were no worse off than some of those who had won high places in American history. He spoke of Lincoln, Garfield, and other great Americans, and of their early struggles, and he saw the pinched young faces light up, and the eyes brighten as he spoke. He told them to honor their fathers and mothers, and be true to the teachings of their ancestral faith; that this was a land of freedom of conscience, and that all were equal before the law. He spoke with ten- der feeling of the self-sacrifice of the boy who went hungry and brought home the bread to his father and mother, and he said that in an act like this there was a noble inspiration for everyone, whatso- ever their station in life. He closed with his best wishes for all sincerely interested in promoting the welfare of their fellows. Then, as if to avoid introductions, the young minister said that he had an appointment with a brother clergyman that would prevent his longer stay, and he hoped to meet the patrons of the Set- tlement at church on the following Sunday. CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVEREND JEFFERSON JONES PREACHES TO MILLIONAIRES. The Reverend Jefferson Jones was promptly at the church at the appointed hour for services to be- gin. This punctuaHty was intentional on his part, as he wished to avoid introductions, but it was dis- appointing to a number of the congregation, who were anxious to meet personally the well-known minister, the fame of whose sermons on antediluvian and other safe subjects had preceded him, and who was warranted not to cause a nerve quiver or dis- turb the equanimity of any financier in the pews. In a seat in the gallery sat Robert Clarke. The new minister went through the ritual with a heart and an emphasis that seemed to give fresh and living meaning to the familiar words, and contrasted vividly with the sing-song style of the late venerable Smug. Then he ascended the pulpit to preach, while visions of the dinosaurus, the leviathan, and other pre- Wall Street topics arose before the mental gaze of the audience. Every pew framed a photograph of smug-faced self-satisfaction. Suddenly a thrill ran through the congregation. Men sat bolt upright and stared, as if eyes were ask- ing if ears deceived them; when, with a voice al- i68 JONES PREACHES TO MILLIONAIRES 169 most angry in holy denunciation, the preacher shot forth : " 'My house shall be called the house of prayer ; but ye have made it a den of thieves.' Gospel of St. Matthew, twenty-first chapter, fourteenth verse." The women stopped looking at each other's hats ; the men — or many of them — quailed as they felt that this shot was for one and each of them. Guilty consciences recognized the accusation which Christ had addressed to their prototypes nearly nineteen centuries before. "Ye who conspire in the stock market to rob the widow and orphan of their savings," the preacher went on, in language that seemed like the lightning of God's own wrath, "ye who plot to raise the price of the bread and meat with which the poor man feeds his family, and the cotton with which he clothes them; ye who bribe legislators to violate their oaths, who treat the laws of the land as if they were gossamer webs, and live in luxury unexampled among the pagans of ancient Rome for whom at least there was the excuse that they knew not Christ or His teachings — how can ye sit in the temple of the Most High without crying out openly for mercy on your guilty souls ! "How can ye enjoy the riches you have amassed far beyond the ability of honest and lawful gain, and load your wives and daughters with jewels and silks, and furs, while your brethren and sisters for whom Christ died, suffer for lack of the humblest raiment, and their children cry in vain for bread! What fatuity possesses you to suppose that the hap- 170 ADAM CLARKE piness of Heaven is for those who have wallowed in the very mire of worldly gratification, blind and deaf to the misery that in this great city of New York is almost within a stone's throw of any of your mansions? Has not Christ declared that not a sparrow falls unseen by Our Heavenly Father? And think you that the thousands who perish yearly in this modern Rome and Nineveh for lack of the care that your surplus riches could easily bestow, die unnoticed by the Creator of all ? Rather do their tongues, though silent in death, plead to Heaven for vengeance on those who grind the faces of the poor, and trample their less fortunate fellowmen like worms beneath their feet. "Unless you are repentant, you have no place in the Church of God, no right to sit in this temple, and to mock the holy forms of religion. If you are penitent, then show it by 'your works, by returning to the people in general, and to each brother and sister in particular, that out of which you have de- frauded them, and by making that use of your sur- plus wealth which Christ and His apostles have clearly taught as the duty of every Christian. "If, on the contrary, you are determined to per- sist in your iniquity, to keep illgotten gains, to close your eyes and shut your ears to the sufferings of your fellows, then at least cease to be hypocrites. Do not come here to mock God. Stay in your palaces and your money dens, and no longer make the church a moral charnel-house. I cannot whip you from the temple as Christ did the money-chang- ers of Jerusalem. But if words can sear and burn JONES PREACHES TO MILLIONAIRES IJI until even your consciences are touched to the quick, I shall not spare them. Even as I was at the house of one of your vestrymen last night, a woman, beg- gared by that vestryman's operations, came to the door, and was answered with a threat of arrest and prison. Is it not true that a man holding high of- fice in one of your leading New York churches, turned away to starve in the street, and commit sui- cide, a woman with whom he lived for many years as wife, in order that he might marry another woman ? Is it not true that this man, who is before high Heaven a murderer, goes unrebuked by his pastor, who spends in prating about political reform, and in hunting for motes in the eyes of the poor and unfortunate, the time he might well devote to the beams of iniquity that confront him in his own con- gregation ? To such I say, in the words of Christ : 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves that appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.' How many such graves are before me in this church to- day? Did I not read in your newspapers but yes- terday that a young woman cashier in a Wall Street restaurant was discharged because she refused to receive the offensive attentions of a wealthy patron of the place, and conmiitted suicide as a result? Perhaps that man, that murderer, is sitting in one of these pews. Whether he is or not, it is safe to say that he is the associate in business and so-called so- ciety of some of you. Far better that you should associate with a physical leper than with a monster capable of thus driving an innocent girl to her death." 1/2 ADAM CLARKE Suddenly, as the minister was pouring forth his lava flood of truth and wrath, Robert saw a man in one of the rear pews stand up and lean forward, gazing intently at the preacher "My Grod," exclaimed the man, "it's Jefferson Jones!" "Yes," replied the minister, pausing in his dis- course, "I am Jefferson Jones. I received in good faith the invitation you addressed to the Reverend J. Jones, of Chicago, and which was intended, I have since learned, for the Reverend Joseph Jones, of that city. I have not given you the sermon you ex- pected, and that the Reverend Joseph Jones would probably have delivered, but I have no apology to make for preaching the Word of God in a building intended to be the temple of God." Jefferson Jones then stepped from the pulpit, laid aside his clerical robes, and retired from the church without a godspeed or a goodbye. CHAPTER XXIV. DEATH OF MRS. CLARKE. Taught b^ the experience of others and their own, Mrs. Clarke and her children, after their re- turn to New York, said nothing about having lived in Pittsburgh. They took a floor in a tenement house on the upper East Side, and Robert and Alex- ander went forth to seek work. They said they were immigrants from England, which, of course, was true, and that the family had been connected with the Great Western Engine Works at Somer- ton. Robert obtained employment as a laborer about the yard of the Bronx Short Line Railway, and Alexander got a job as a handler of freight. The earnings of the two young men were enough to keep the home comfortable in the humble fashion to which they had been accustomed, and they would have been happy but for the thought of the dead Martha and the tragic fate of her baby, the darling of them all. Mrs. Clarke had never recovered from the loss of her little grandson, and when the news of Martha's death came to her, in a last letter from Andrew Craig before he started from Pittsburgh, it was too much for her. The fact that Martha died of starvation was withheld by Craig, but the blow, 173 T74 ADAM CLARKE without this, was enough. Mrs. Clarke sank grad- ually and uncomplainingly, and although no physical disease was apparent, her case became hopeless. She died of a broken heart. Her children managed to give her a decent burial, and to pay for a granite slab to mark her resting place in a cemetery beyond the outskirts of Brooklyn, where lots could be got cheaply, and then they settled down to face life as best they could without the care and counsel of the mother, who had been more than a mother to them. Alexander was restless. He saw no future for himself in the East, and resolved to seek better op- portunities in the region beyond the Far West, the land of gold and silver and copper, of whose teem- ing wealth he had heard from childhood, and where, he understood, labor was in demand at profitable wages. He would never have thought of taking such a step had his mother lived, but that tie was gone, and he felt that Allie and Wallace would be safe with Robert. Besides, Robert, he knew, had for some time been keeping company with a re- spectable young woman employed in one of the large department stores, and they had agreed to be married as soon as Robert's family affairs would permit. The intended wife, who was of old Amer- ican origin, and in every way a desirable helpmate, had saved a little money — enough to furnish a mod- est home, and was willing to treat Allie and Wal- lace as her own children. Alexander felt, therefore, that he could be spared, and that none of those dear to him would suffer on account of his departure. His railway acquaintance enabled him to procure DEATH OF MRS. CLARKE 175 the privilege of working his way through to the mining regions of Colorado, and he bade goodbye with tears and many an embrace to the loved ones left behind in the great city. Before going on his journey he visited his mother's grave, and laid upon it a thistle and a rose, in memory of the native lands of his mother and father. Then he knelt and kissed the green sod beneath which she slept, and repeated the prayer she had offered up every evening at his bedside, when he was a child. A few hours later he was on his way to the Eldorado of his boyhood's dreams. CHAPTER XXV. ROBERT Clarke's struggle with poverty. Mildred Lee^ Robert Clarke's wife, was about two years his junior, fair of face, devoted to home and to her husband, and as kind as a mother could be to Wallace and Allie. Their home was not far from the tenement in which Mrs. Clarke had died, and the two children continued to go to the same public school. When a letter was received from Mary Prynne, Robert's sister, telling that so far no little one had come to bless their home, and how she longed to have Wallace with her for company, when Herbert was down in the mine all day, and some- times part of the night, it was with deep pain that Robert and his wife consented to let Wallace go to Craddocksboro. The boy was placed safely on the train, ticketed through, and committed to the care of the conductors in whose trains he would be car- ried. In due time a telegram from Herbert told of Wallace's safe arrival. The household was smaller now, but in the course of a year a little boy came to bind Robert and Mil- dred in closer ties of love, and they called him Adam. Three years later another boy made his ap- pearance, and they named him Robert. 1^6 CLARKE S STRUGGLE WITH POVERTY 1/7 Robert worked harder than ever to support the household, and as the task grew heavier his wife's smile seemed brighter and more encouraging. She never met him with a gloomy look. The day might have been one of severe and exhausting toil, with all its surroundings tending to gloom, but Robert knew that at home, at least, there was sunshine, and his heart got lighter as his steps brought him nearer the threshold. Robert never had a strong constitution, however, and one day the doctor of the lodge to which he be- longed told him that he must stay at home for some weeks if he wished to avoid fatal consequences. Robert did not heed the warning, for he could not endure the thought of depriving his family of his weekly earnings. The result was that he fell seri- ously ill. The sick benefit was enough to pay the rent and bring a little food into the house, but on other ex- penses the family soon fell behind. Robert Clarke's illness took a favorable turn that surprised the attending physician. It was will power — a resolve to live and struggle again for his dear ones — that enabled him to shake off for a time the grasp of disease, and he got out of bed one day and told Mildred he was going back to work. That evening he returned with the crushing news that there had been a reduction of force at the rail- way yard, and there was no place for him. Then AIHe fell sick. The young girl, whose bud- ding beauty fulfilled the promise of her infant charms, had worried herself into illness over her 178 ADAM CLARKE brother s condition, and his agony over loss of work threw her into a fever. She had been taught to call Robert and Mildred father and mother, and no child could have been more devoted to parents than she was to them, while they, on their part, regarded her as the angel of the household. With Allie sick, her two little boys to care for, and her husband out of work, the lot of Mildred Clarke seemed hard, indeed; but she bore up like a true American mother, and her brave smile kept gloom from turning into despair. CHAPTER XXVI. TURNING OFF THE GAS. Allie Clarke was very ill. She had been get- ting weaker and weaker as the food supply in the house grew shorter ; but she never complained. In- stead, she tried to cheer up her brother and Mil- dred — father and mother — as she had learned to call them. "You'll be all right yet, father," she would say, when Robert returned, haggard and disappointed, from his quest for work. Then she would wind her arms around his neck and give him a kiss, which seemed to bring new light to Robert's eyes, and a smile to his thin, drawn lips. When the scant meal was laid on the table Allie would say that she wasn't hungry, and she seemed to be happy watching Robert and Mildred and little Adam and baby Robert eat what would have been her share. "I'm not hungry a bit, mother," she said, when urged to come to the table. I don't feel like eating an37thing. You eat it right up so it won't be wasted." But Allie grew paler and thinner, and one morn- ing she reeled and fainted. 179 l8o ADAM CLARKE There was no money for a doctor, but Dr. Jenks, who lived on the next block, was kind-hearted, and willing to wait for his pay. "The child is starving," he said, after a brief ex- amination. Get her some broth — chicken broth, to begin with — then follow it, when she gets stronger, with eggs and other nutritious food." Chicken broth ! There was still half a dollar left in the house, the remainder of a dollar which the father had earned by an odd job two days before. Mrs. Clarke hurried around to the butcher and suc- ceeded in getting half a chicken for that price. She hastened home. Taking a pan she prepared to make the broth. There was a knock at the door of the flat. "Here's your gas bill. It's overdue two weeks. I must turn it off at once unless you pay !" "Please don't," begged the mother. "I have no money now, but I'm just going to cook something for my sick little girl. Please put it off a week !" "Can't. Orders are to turn off if I don't get the money — two dollars and sixty cents!" "Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!" cried the wretched Mildred. "Go to the office and tell 'em, and perhaps they'll order it turned on again," said the man, as he went to the meter, turned off the gas, and walked out. "I can't leave Allie ! Run, Adam, run to the gas office, and ask them to turn on the gas ! Tell them your sister's very sick." Adam toddled off as fast as his little legs could carry him. TURNING OFF THE GAS l8l "Mamma wanth to know if you'll turn on the gath," he said to the first clerk he saw. "Thitherth very thick," he went on, when he perceived that the clerk was listening. "Gas has been turned off, eh?" remarked the clerk. "Mr. Rundle," said the clerk, turning to the man- ager, who stood near, "here's a boy says his sis- ter's sick, and he asks to have the gas turned on." The manager shook his head. "The fact is," he replied, "I was hauled over yesterday by Mr. Stone- filler, our president, for being too easy. He says the gas must be turned off in all cases where bills are not promptly paid." "Can't do it, my boy," added the manager, nodding to Adam, "unless you pay the bill." Adam turned away. He knew that turning off the gas was bad for AUie and the family. He did not know that the manager's words were a sentence of death for Allie. He trotted home. His mother stood expectant, the chicken in cold water on the range. "They won't turn it on, ma," he said, "unless we pay the money." "Mother, can I have the broth now?" said a faint voice from the bed. I — I can hardly speak, mother." "It isn't — it isn't ready yet, Allie," answered the heartbroken mother, stifling a sob. "I'll run to Dr. Jenks — perhaps he will get some- one to help us. Adam, stay till I come back." She flew to the doctor's office. "Well, have j-ou given her the broth yet?" asked the doctor. 1 82 ADAM CLARKE "Oh, doctor, they've turned oif the gas!" cried Mrs. Clarke, as the tears burst forth. Dr. Jenks had a good soul. He knew what the words meant. "I'll go back with you," he rejoined, and slipping a vial of brandy into his pocket, he hurried to Mrs. Clarke's home. The figure on the bed was quiet. The doctor felt the pulse — then the heart. "It's too late, Mrs. Clarke," he said gently. "She's gone where hunger will not trouble her. Half an hour ago she might have been saved — but it's all over now." And as Robert Clarke came home that evening, after at length obtaining work, he picked up from the street a discarded evening newspaper. He read in broad lines the heading: "Grandchild of Stone- filler, the great gas millionaire, is dead of scarlet fever." And later in the night, as he clasped his own darling dead to his bosom, he muttered the words he had read in the Sacred Book: "Venge- ance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay."* * It may be of interest to the reader to know that, shortly after the pages describing the cutting off the gas and the life of a sick child were written, I learned through a member of my family of an instance of peculiar heartlessness on the part of the Standard Gas Company, chiefly or largely owned by John D. Rockefeller, the Standard Oil millionaire. An employe of the company was sent to a tenement where the gas bill was unpaid with an order to cut off the gas. The woman of the house pointed to h.er babe, dying of pneumonia, and asked to bg spared until the following Monday. Hardened as the agent CHAPTER XXVII. THE CHARITY ROUNDABOUT SOCIETY. The Reverend Pdrsecloth sat in the handsomely upholstered offices of the Charity Roundabout So- ciety, of which he was Secretary and Treasurer. He had just returned from luncheon, and felt satis- fied with himself and things in general. Before him lay several letters. He opened one. It had a crest — a lion and a tiger — the tiger reclining list- lessly, as if in secure contempt of the king of beasts. The lion was supposed to be rampant, and the tiger couchant, so a dealer in cast-off coats-of-arms had informed the late Mr. Spigott, the wealthy brewer of Carmansville, when, for a valuable considera- tion, he transferred to that gentleman the heraldic was to scenes of misery, he was touched by this, and he wrote on the back of the bill that, if it were not paid on the following Monday, he would pay the amount out of his own pockets He then went away without turning off the gas. One of the gas company's officials noticed on the returns that the gas had not been turned off at the tenement in question, and called the employe to account. The latter explained the circumstances, and pointed to the entry on the back of the bill. The superior refused to accept any excuse, however, and the humane employe was dismissed from the service of the company for disobedienee of orders. ^3 184 ADAM CLARKE design which he had spent an evening in construct- ing, and assured him that it was the identical mark of nobility bestowed on a Spigott of two hundred and odd years before, whose sister had the high honor of being waiting maid to Nell Gwynne dur- ing the amours of the latter with Charles II. In- deed, the dealer in heraldry even thrilled Mrs. Spig- ott with a mysterious hint and a wink to the effect that the Merry Monarch had been known to smile on the sister in question ; and that, perhaps — well — ah — sometime he might have an opportunity to delve farther into the subject. And then Mr. Spigott handed over the honorarium — as the pro- fessor of armorial lions and tigers called it — and felt ashamed that he had done no more for a man who had brought him into such intimate connec- tion with royalty — him, who had first seen life through the barred window of a House of Refuge, and received the first name that came to the mind of a rather maudlin and very illiterate nurse. But the Reverend Pursecloth knew nothing and cared nothing about the heading of the letter. He was interested most in the cheque, rather an un- usual amount for Mrs. Spigott's quarterly contri- bution to the Charity Roundabout Society, and he read with more attention than common the follow- ing note that came with it : My Dear Mr. Pursecloth : I hereby inclose my quarterly donation to the ex- cellent work of your society. You know it is mv invariable rule to refer all applicants for aid to yow, Tlili CIIAKITY ROUNDABOUT SOCIETY iSj and in accord with that rule I take the Hberty of caUing your attention to a case that came under my observation yesterday. My gardener informs me that a family named Clarke, livmg on East Eighty- sixth Street (I think he gave the number as 343), is in great destitution, and had then — about two days ago — had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours. At first I thought of assisting them directly, as my gardener is a trustworthy man, and could be relied upon as to the circumstances of the family, to the extent of a dollar for immediate necessities; but remembering that I would send in my quarterly contribution to-day, I concluded to wait and call your attention to the case, at the same time having full confidence in the discretion of the Charity Roundabout Society, and of yourself, its excellent secretary. My daughter, Carita, having come of age, I add fifty dollars in her behalf. I am. Reverend and Dear Sir, Your sister in the Gospel, Amanda Spigott. "Twenty-four hours — two days yesterday — four days — well, they can wait a few hours longer" mused the Reverend Whiting Pursecloth, "and if its too late the Board of Charities and Hart's Island can save us further expense. Nothing like patience and deliberation for bringing fraud to the surface. There was that Livingston, who pretended to be blind. I was sure he wasn't. Too proud to go to the Board — he knew they would detect the fraud — so he cut his throat one day. That ended it — sui- l86 ADAM CLARKE cide is confession. If I had helped him he would have gone on pretending to be blind. True, doctor at post-mortem said the fellow was blind, but that makes no difference, how could a dead man be any- thing else. See about this family after dinner." Then the Reverend Pursecloth opened another letter. The handwriting was evidently familiar, and a faint trace of something like natural affection, not unmixed with anxiety, might be noticed on the sleek and meek features of the charity dispenser. "Dear father," read the letter, which was dated at Narragansett Pier, "Mother and I are having a splendid time." Then it rattled on with an account of parties, entertainments, and some slight intima- tions of pleasant drives and rides with a young man who had been for some time a favored companion of Miss Pursecloth. A P. S. added that the funds in hand were running short, and "would dear papa," etc., etc. It did not take long to indorse Mrs. Spigott's cheque, and inclose it in a letter addressed to Mrs. Vandereen Pursecloth, Hotel Judith, Nar- ragansett Pier. "United States Senate — eh ! Wonder who that's from. Ah, Senator Mute! No cheque — what does he want?" "Rev. Mr. Pursecloth, Secretary of the Charity Roundabout Society, "Dear Sir — A man who used to be coachman for my late father, and who is now between seventy- five and eighty years of age, is bothering me for help. His name is Rogers, and he lives at 502 THE CHARITY ROUNDABOUT SOCIETY 1 8/ Charlton Street, New York City, according to his letters. He is annoying me very much. I am, as you know, a regular subscriber, and will send my usual cheque in a few days. "Yours truly, "George Peasoul Mute." Pursecloth promptly rang his bell, and an in- dividual with a face that would have made the average business man instinctively lock his money drawer, made his appearance. "Hardy," said Pursecloth, "I want you to go to 502 Charlton Street at once, and find a man named Rogers. He's seventy-five or eighty years old, so }'ou ought to tell him easily. Impress on him that if he writes again to Senator Mute asking help, we will have him sent to the island." "Yes, sir," replied Hardy, "I'll attend to it at once." Then Pursecloth went on with the rest of his mail in the usual fashion, and forgot all about the starving Clarkes. But the Clarke family did not perish. A kind- hearted saloonkeeper, hearing of their condition, and of the sad death of Allie, hung a subscription- box on an electric pole in front of his barroom, with a brief statement of the circumstances, and collected in about two hours enough, along with a generous contribution from himself, to give the dead child decent burial, and to supply the family's needs until Clarke would bring home his earnings. CHAPTER XXVIII. craddock's coal mine on fire. Shortly after his unsuccessful attempt to mur- der Herbert Prynne by cutting the rope of the cage, Michael Horgwin went on another journey to Europe to gather in more Hunks for the coal mines. His task was more difficult than before, as news had begun to dribble back even to the remoter villages of the Magyars and Slovaks, and other Hungarian nationalities, that life was held cheap by the American mine owners, and that while wages were high from the European standpoint, they did not go as far as the lower wages of Hungary, when paid in the form of indebtedness to a company store. Horgwin, however, found places where the people were still ignorant of the conditions to which he was inviting them, and he managed to obtain the necessary number, who were duly drilled in the replies they were to make upon landing in America, so as to avoid detention as contract laborers. After the usual journey, which passed without incident, the Hunks were landed at Craddocks- boro. Horgwin found the ill feeling between his craddock's coal mine on fire 189 countrymen and the Welsh much stronger than be- fore his absence. The strict and impartial discipline enforced by Herbert Prynne — who was regarded by the Hunks as a Welshman — had much to do with this animosity, which showed itself more in angry looks and muttered imprecations than in any menace of violence. Horgwin could have quieted the Hunks with a word. It was part of his duty to his employer to keep the element to which he belonged orderly and obedient, and to restrain those disposed to miscon- duct. But instead of doing this he fanned the smouldering fire into flame. He hated Prynne all the more intensely because he had failed in his plan to bring about Prynne 's death, and at the same time he shrank, partly through fear, and partly through superstition, from making another attempt on Prynne's life. Coming from a region where the werewolf, the vampire and the witch are as real to the peasant mind as they were to the peasantry of Western Europe three hundred years ago, and su- perior to his fellows only in cunning, while equally imbued with their grossly degraded ideas of the supernatural, Horgwin half believed that Prynne's escape, when the rope parted and the cage fell, was not due altogether to natural causes, and this feel- ing was strong enough, coupled with dread of de- tection and punishment, to make him stay his hand when his thoughts again turned to murderous re- venge. He was not unwilling, however, to excite others to a pitch of hostility toward the Welsh in 1 90 ADAM CLARKE general, and Herbert Prynne in particular, that would be likely to result in the revenge he thirsted for, without any action on his part. He spared no occasion to inflame the animosity of his countrymen against the miners from Britain, and he did this with a cunning and subtlety that concealed his per- sonal motive from those whom he influenced. In- sensate hate crystallized at length in a scheme of wholesale murder, of which Horg^in was fully aware, although not active in the attempt to carry it out. In the forenoon of the day selected by the plot- ters for their crime, every Hunk, on one pretence or another, was out of the mine, while nearly two hundred Welshmen, with Herbert Prynne in charge, were toiling in the depths, six hundred feet below. Suddenly a fire started in the breaker, and gained quick headway, as if oil had been used to promote the conflagration. The breaker boys made their escape, while the flames consumed the wire rope of the cage, and went roaring down the main shaft. Great volumes of smoke poured down, as well as up, and threatened to suffocate everyone in the mine. The Welshmen were at work in several different galleries that were being cut into the great walls of coal. The red glow from above first told them of their danger. The fans stopped working, and the current of pure air ceased coming to them. Their lamps went out, and from fear of fire-damp they did not dare to relight them. There seemed no escape from death, but not a voice was raised in fear or frenzy. CRADDOCK S COAL MINE ON FIRE I9I David Owen, who led in hymns at the Httle Welsh chapel, started to sing one of the familiar tunes. From gallery to gallery were echoed the words of praise and submission to the will of the Most High, as clear and heartfelt as when the Men of Harlech marched against the Saxon, singing the songs of their native bards. Suddenly there was a hush. The voice of Herbert Prynne rang out in words of command. "Every man follow me," he cried. "Those in the farthest gallery first, and the others in order. Keep close behind each other, and speak low, so as to hear me. There is an old, unused passage — the Mongol Vein, it used to be called — and we will have to follow it for about three miles, but it will take us back to our families. Close order now, but not too close !" A faint cheer went up from the miners. They were no longer awaiting death. A chance remained to return to the upper air and their loved ones. Herbert Prynne had not wasted his morning visits to the mine. In his explorations he had found this old passage, discarded many years before, and knew exactly its location. He had also passed through it far enough to be satisfied that it could be used as an exit. Upon inquiry from an old resident of the neighborhood he had learned that the Mon- gol Vein had been the first opened in the Craddocks- boro mine, and was given up when it v/as found that a more abundant supply could be obtained at the present workings. 1 92 ADAM CLARKE Under Prynne's leadership the men made their way along the galleries, until they reached the open- ing to the old tunnel. It was a long and difficult journey, and attended by much stumbling and many bruises, but the miners emerged safe into the open air, about three miles from the main shaft, from which heavy clouds of black smoke could be seen ascending. They knew that their wives and children were near that shaft, with its vomit of smoke and flame, bewailing fathers, husbands and sons supposed to be lost forever. They were impatient to start for their dear ones, but Prynne cried in commanding tone: "Stand, and be counted !" One was missing, Walter Davies, the youngest and weakest of the miners. "His old mother will be waiting for him," said Prynne, "and I'm going back for him. The rest of you start for the shaft."' Several of the miners volunteered to accompany Prynne, but he refused their offers, saying that he could easily carry young Davies alone, if he needed to be carried, and he had no doubt of returning in safety. Prynne made his way back in the old tunnel fully a mile in the darkness, feeling about him and below him for a prostrate form. At last he stumbled on Walter Davies. Some- thing wet and clotty about the boy's hair told Prynne he was hurt, and he was evidently sense- CRADDOCKS COAL MINE ON FIRE I93 less. Prynne lifted him gently on his back, and stumbled along until he reached the opening. As he emerged with his burden, Mary rushed forward with a cry, and almost fell at his feet. The mother of Davies clasped her unconscious son and gave his deliverer an old Welsh blessing that, he felt, more than rewarded him for any risk he had run. Davies, it appeared, was last in the line groping along the tunnel, and had stumbled and struck his head on a piece of coal, causing insensibility. He was soon brought to consciousness, and proved to be not seriously hurt. Half an hour later smoke began to pour out through the opening of the Mongol Vein, showing that the mine interior was on fire. Months passed before the Craddocksboro mine was again in condition to be worked. Meantime, on the night of the day following the fire a meeting of Welshmen was quietly held at Prynne's cottage. Several of them had acquired some knowledge of Hungarian, and one of these testified to having heard talk between the Hunks indicating that the breaker was fired intentionally for the purpose of destroying the Welsh miners by suffocation, the expectation being that the fire would do no serious damage beyond this. Prynne laid the evidence before Craddock. That mine-owner had been strongly in favor of Hunk labor, and had spent much money to procure it, but the destruction of his property so exasperated him 194 ADAM CLARKE that he ordered every Hunk from Craddocksboro and refused to Jiear any defence from Michael Horgwin, whom he regarded as especially respon- sible for the crime of his countrymen, and whom he dismissed from his service forever. Prynne was promoted to assistant superintendent, and was able to make his home more comfortable and to send Wallace to school in Scranton. CHAPTER XXIX. ROBERT CLARKE DIES, AND ADAM TURNS NEWSBOY. Robert Clarke toiled hard and faithfully in the Spuythaven Iron Works, but wages were low, and when a little money had been laid by it was con- sumed in sickness or a strike. The immigration from Scandinavia, then at its height, brought in a vast number of skilled mechanics, and it was dif- ficult for unions to maintain their control of the labor market in face of the free admission of foreign workers, which was encouraged by the very manu- facturers who demanded and secured an almost prohibitory tariff on foreign goods on the plea of protecting the American workingman. Strikes, therefore, were frequent, and often disastrous to the strikers. In the course of one of these periods of idleness and privation, Robert Clarke fell ill. Anxiety about his family, which had been increased by the arrival of a little daughter, whom they named Emily; made the illness worse, and the doc- tor's prescriptions were not supplemented by a suf- ficiency of nouridiing food. One morning Mrs. Clarke woke up, after a short sleep following on a night's vigil by her husband's bedside, to find him dead. He had been unconscious for some hours 195 196 ADAM CLARKE before, and while her weary eyelids were closed, he passed quietly away. The union treasury was very low, but enough was spared to save Robert Clarke from Potter's Field, and Mrs. Clarke was left to face the world, with three yoiuig children, and without resources, for Robert Clarke had never been an acceptable insurance risk. It is a common condition among the struggling masses of the New World metropolis, but not less pathetic because it is common. The day after the funeral Mrs. Clarke sat weep- ing, with baby Emily at her breast, and little Rob- ert at her knee. "I'll help you mother," said Adam; "don't cry. I can sell papers, and earn perhaps forty or fifty cents a day. That will buy bread and milk, mother, and some meat, sometimes, for you and Robert and baby." "You're too young, Adam," answered the mother, clasping him in her arms. "You must go to school and learn. I would sooner starve than have you not to learn, my boy." "Why, mother, I'm eleven, you know," replied Adam, as he kissed her, "and I can sell the papers early in the morning and after school." The mother tried to speak again, but her voice choked, and she did not answer. She thought of her little baby, to which she was hardly able to sup- ply nutriment ; she thought of the bread and tea of that day's dinner ; of Adam handing her the crusts, and saying he was not hungry, when she knew he was starving, and her feelings were too much ADAM TURNS NEWSBOY IQ/ for words. The last penny was gone, and there was nothing for supper and no trust at the grocer's. Adam started out. On his way to Eighth Ave- nue he passed a fat officer of the Charity Round- about Society, who looked at him as if he might be a subject for investigation. A kindhearted news- dealer let the boy have twenty papers on his honest face, and he started eagerly to selling. Little Adam's voice was weak, and he was not able to cry his wares as loud as some of the other boys. He had sold five or six papers, and it was approaching dark. The brave little fellow could not repress a tear, as he thought that he would have to go home to his mother without the money he had hoped to earn. He raised his sleeve to wipe the tear away. "Hello, Johnny, wot 'er yer tryin' for?" asked a cheery voice beside him. "You're a greeny, and can't sell yer papers, eh ? Well, let me help yer." And a good-natured Irish face beamed on Adam. The owner of the face was about fourteen, and looked as if he had a good home and plenty to eat. In truth he had no home, but the Newsboys' Lodg- ing House; but he knew how to sell papers and made money enough to buy clothes and keep his stomach full. He took Adam's bundle of papers, dashed here and there, seeming to be known every- where, and soon disposed of the lot. Then he counted out the change to Adam. "Yer hungry. I can see it. Come an' take sup- per with me — I'll stand treat," said the boy, whose name was Charley Murphy. igS ADAM CLARKE "Not now," said Adam, "thank you. I must pay for the papers, and go home to mother. She's got nothing to eat!" "Wot! How much yer got? — twenty cents; pay for papers — ^ten cents left — go home to buy supper for yer mudder wid dat!" exclaimed Murphy. Adam did not answer. The look of agony on his pinched, drawn face told his story. "See here, kids," cried Murphy, turning to the other boys. "This kid's only got ten cents sellin' papes, an' his mudder's starvin.' I'll chip in a quarter for him!" They all chipped in, for the newsies knew what it was to be hungry, and some of them had known what it was to be friendless in the great city. A dollar was raised altogether, and when the news- dealer who had let Adam have the papers heard the story he refused payment for them. That night the Clarkes feasted on bread and milk, and had some change left over. CHAPTER XXX, Adam's leg crushed — charley murphy goes with him to the hospital. Adam got up early in the morning, and paid twenty cents for papers, which he sold with the help of Charley Murphy. The two boys became inseparable, and Adam insisted on Charley coming to the "house" and seeing his mother. Charley promised to go, and a Sunday afternoon was set for the visit. There would be no papers to sell then. It was on the Fiiday before that Adam was run- ning across Eighth Avenue to meet a prospective customer. He passed in the rear of one "trolley" car, as the electric cars are called in New York, and did not see another coming. His eyes were on the customer. The motorman saw him, and made des- perate efforts to stop the car. He was quick enough to save Adam's life, but a wheel was almost resting on Adam's right leg, crushing the bone, as the car came to a halt. A policeman ran to wheie the boy lay, and a large throng of spectators gathered, expecting to see the little newsboy dead under the car. Women shrieked and wept, and angry men threatened the motor- man. 199 200 ADAM CLARKE The policeman found that Adam could be taken from under the car without sutfering further in- jury, and he lifted the little body and tenderly car- ried him into a neighboring store, at the same time telling a spectator to call up an ambulance. Adam was conscious when taken from under the car. "Don't tell mother," he whispered, as the pain of his crushed limb proved too much for him, and he passed into unconsciousness. The ambulance arrived, and Adam was lifted into it. A boy elbowed his way through the crowd. "Lemme go, too ! I want to go with Adam !" he cried. "Who are you?" asked the ambulance surgeon. "I'm his pal — I'm Charley Murphy," replied the boy eagerly. "Please lemme go — he'll want to see me when he wakes." "Better let him go, too,'' said the policeman, kind- ly, "if you have room. I guess he'll be a help to you." Charley was bundled into the ambulance, and it started off. Examination at the hospital quickly showed that Adam's leg was crushed beyond saving, just below the knee, and that the sooner it would be amputated the more speedy and certain his recovery Charley Murphy asked to be allowed in the oper- ating-room. He promised to be quiet and not inter- fere, and the surgeons, touched by his devotion to his friend, allowed him to be near the table. Mean- ADAM S LEG CRUSHED 20I time, while the arrangements were being made, Adam recovered consciousness. As his eyes opened they met the anxious, pleasant face of Charley Mur- phy. "Where am I?" asked Adam, faintly. "Ye're in the horspittle," replied Charley, as soft- ly as he knew how. "An' don't be scared. Ye'll come out all right. Yer fell under a car, but it didn't kill yer — only crushed yer leg." "Does mother know it?" asked Adam. "No; I don't think she does," answered Charley. "Anyhow, I haven't told where you lived. I'm goin' to tell her myself, as soon as I see ye thro' all right." "Poor mother," said Adam — and his eyes seemed to swim — "she'll get no money to-night." "Yes, she will," spoke Charley quickly. "I've been savin' 'mun' to get a suit of close wid to go to yer house Sunday. It's six dollars, an' I'll give it all to yer mudder. An', Adam, I'll take 'er my mun ev'ry day till yer out of the horspittle. So don't worry, yer mudder '11 be all right." "Oh, Charley, how good you are — how good you've been to me" — and tears rolled down Adam's pale face. Charley had hard work keeping the tears back too. Just then the doctors came up to apply anaesthe- tics and begin the operation. When Adam revived Charley was there. Adam gave his pal a look of recognition, but was too weak to speak. The doctors assured Charley Murphy 202 ADAM CLARKE that everything was favorable to the ultimate recov- ery of his friend, and he could go and carry the news to Adam's mother. Mrs. Clarke was getting anxious. Adam had never stayed so late before. She had a treat for him that evening — apple dumplings — a luxury they could rarely afford ; but Adam had made sixty cents on his papers the day before, and she had earned forty cents sewing. A knock came, and she opened the door. A boy stood there she did not know. He had a winning face, and that Mrs. Clarke saw, but she did not see that he had been crying. "Are yer Adam's mudder, mum ?" he said, taking off his cap. "Yes, my boy, where is he? Who are you?" "I'm his pal — Charley Murphy, mum. He can't come home to-night, so he sent yer this six dollars, mum." "Come in, Charley. How often I've heard Adam speak of you, and how good you've been to him! Six dollars! Where is he? Where did he get six dollars?" cried the anxious and excited mother. "He's been hurt, mum, an' he's in the horspittle; but he's out of danger, mum ; the doctors told me to tell you he'll be all right!" answered Murphy, in hesitating tones, as he saw the effect on the mother. Little Robert ran up as she tottered and fell, cry- ing, "Oh, mamma, what is the matter with Adam?" Murphy caught her in his arms arid gently drew her to a chair, still holding her. She had not fainted; she was like a woman ADAMS LEG CRUSHED 203 stunned. Recovery came at last, and she was able to think and speak. "Oh, tell me what has happened to Adam?" she cried. "Where is my brave, my noble boy? Oh, why did I let him sell papers ?" Fortunately, tears burst out, and saved the mother's reason. "The doctors don't want you to see him yet, mum," said Charley, softly. "It would only hurt him now. They'll tell you when to come. You take this mun. It's mine, and you can have it for Adam's sake, and if you'll let me stay here till Adam comes back I will be very glad to.'' The widowed mother clasped Charley to her breast. "Stay, and welcome," she said. "But, oh, when can I see my boy ?" Charley told her Adam was all right that night and needed rest, and he would find out next day when she could see him. This pacified Mrs. Clarke for the time, and Charley told her as gently as pos- sible of the accident. He also repeated his offer to bring his earnings into the household until Adam recovered, and after, too, if Adam's mother should be willing, and Mrs. Clarke felt that she had an- other son. On the next morning Charley telephoned from the nearest drug store to the hospital, and learned that Adam was still weak, but progressing favor- ably, and that it would be best for visits to be de- ferred for a day or two, so as to save him from ex- citement. CHAPTER XXXI. MRS. CLARKE HAS SOME VISITORS. Shortly after breakfast, when Charley had gone to sell his morning papers, Mrs. Clarke had a visi- tor. It was the fat officer from the Charity Round- about Society. "Hum," he said, with a mixture of pomposity and sternness, mingled with an offensive leer at the good-looking widow, "what is your name?" Mrs. Clarke thought the man was perhaps from the hospital, and answered him. "Do you use intoxicating liquors?" was the next query. Mrs. Clarke thought the question insulting, but supposing that she would help her boy and please the hospital authorities, she answered that and further queries, among which were : "How many children have you?" "Was your husband ever in prison ?" "Why don't you go out scrubbing?" and so forth. The visitor finally said : "I am an official of the Charity Roundabout Society, and if, after further investigation, which will probably occupy about two weeks in obtaining necessary details, we find you 204 MRS. CLARKE HAS SOME VISITORS 205 worthy, we will be prepared to assist you upon proper application." "Assist me!" exclaimed Mrs. Clarke, angrily. "What do you mean? I have asked for none of your assistance. This is an outrage and an imper- tinence." "Well, I have only done my duty. The attention of Reverend Pursecloth, secretary of the Charity Roundabout Society, has been called to the story in the papers about your son being injured by a trolley car, and I have been instructed to make a preliminary investigation regarding you. If you are found worthy, the Reverend Pursecloth will submit your case to the Charity Committee of St. Thomas's vestry." Mrs. Clarke, her grief and weakness overpowered by anger at the arrogance and impudence of her caller, cast a glance toward a broom in the corner. The agent of the Charity Roundabout Society noticed the look, and hastily retired. In the early afternoon another knock came. This visitor looked more like a clergyman, with his face shaven but for side-whiskers, his white tie and coat of clerical cut. He looked at Mrs. Clarke through gold-rimmed eyeglasses, as he said: "I am the district visitor, madam, of the Poverty Investigation Guild. I understand from the news- papers that an accident has happened to your son, a newsboy, and that you are in indigent circum- stances. Mr. Bellows, president of our Guild, is preparing a paper to be read before the American Association of Poverty Investigation Guilds, next 206 ADAM CLARKE month, on "Tlie Ancestral Degeneracy of the Poorer Classes," and he thinks that some facts as to your origin and ancestry might be of value to him." A rubicund face appeared in the open doorway, with a jolly expression that suddenly became a frown. "Get out of the way — what are you botherin' the woman for !" said the owner of the face as he seized the clerical-looking individual by the neck, and with a quick jerk threw him out on the landing. "Here's twenty dollars that the district leader sent you, ma'am," said the latest arrival, "and the grocer at the corner's been told to trust you five dollars a week till I tell him to stop. Beg pardon, ma'am, I'm in a hurry, for I belong in the pool-room around on the avenue, and its almost time for the races to come in. No, thanks — don't cry" — as he handed over the money. "If you need any more help just send around to the pool-room, and ask for Tim, the marker." CHAPTER XXXII. ANDREW CRAIG COMES HOME AGAIN. Two decades had passed since the great Pitts- burgh railway strike. A middle-aged man, bronzed and erect, with a streak of gray in his tawny hair, got off a train from New York in the Union Sta- tion in Pittsburgh. He was well-dressed and seemed prosperous. He carried a satchel, and ordered his baggage to be sent to the Monongahela Hotel. He then entered a carriage, and told the driver to take him straight to a suburban cemetery. Half an hour later Andrew Craig knelt before the grave of Martha and his boy. It was unmarked, but he re- membered the spot through its nearness to another burial lot, in which stood a monument, of which he had taken note when his boy and his wife were in- terred. Andrew Craig did not weep. His grief had long ago become absorbed in the deep, lasting determina- tion which possessed his soul to overthrow the sys- tem of industrial slavery, two of whose victims lay in that humble grave. He registered anew over the dust of his dear ones the vow which he had often uttered to himself in his camp in the Mexican hills, and in the depth of Mexican mines, that he would 2Cf3 208 ADAM CLARKE not rest until the people — ^the plain, common people of the United States — should again be their own masters in fact as well as in name, and until the enormous conspiracy of trusts and corporations against the life of the republic should be shattered and ground beneath the tread of triumphant Amer- icanism. Andrew Craig was no longer a poor man. He was not enormously wealthy, but fortune had been kind to him in his exile. When the bloodhounds of vengeful monopoly took their fangs from his throat and his natural talents were allowed to exert them- selves freely under an alien flag, his progress had always been upward. He quickly acquired a knowl- edge of the Spanish-American language, and it was not long before he was master of the simple methods of Mexican mining, and able to improve upon them. He had the tact "to do in Rome as Rome does," and not to offend the susceptibilities of those above him or below him. His abilities as a leader of men be- came apparent to the mine owners, and he was grad- . ually promoted from one place of trust to another, until he received a salary only second to that of the chief manager of one of the largest silver mines in Guanajuato. His expenses were small, and his savings accumulated until he was comparatively rich. The improvement in the internal condition of Mexico under the rule of President Diaz was be- coming more and more manifest, and the Federal authorities saw in Craig a man well qualified to take part in the suppression of brigandage, which had ANDREW CRAIG COMES HOME AGAIN 2O9 been, the bane of the mining regions. He was put in command of the rural police of his district, and learned in this capacity the use of arms and military discipline. He had several encounters with the for- midable bands of robbers who lived by the plunder of mining camps and treasure trains, and his per- sonal courage, his skill and strategy, fully justified the confidence placed in him. Brigandage disap- peared from the vicinity in which he operated, and industry prospered and progressed under the pro- tection of law, severely and impartially enforced. Had Craig chosen to give up forever all thoughts of return to his native land he might have risen to high honors in Mexico. But his mind never swerved from its purpose. Behind every squalid Mexican brigand his mental vision saw the more dangerous brigands of monopoly, who preyed upon American manhood and womanhood, and revelled in the wealth wrung from the toiling American masses. The picture of his dying boy, shot to death by the uniformed minions of corporate tyranny, the vision of his faithful wife, starved to death by mon- opoly's blacklisting decree because he — her husband — had dared to disobey the mandate of a powerful railway, were ever before him, and with every sun- set and sunrise he renewed to those sacred memories his pledge to do what he could toward the redemp- tion of his people. At length Craig felt that the time had come for his return. He had in recent years subscribed for two leading American newspapers, and kept him- self well informed as to the social and political 2IO ADAM CLARKE changes which were going on in the United States. From pubHc and private information he became convinced that the time was ripe for action, that the trusts had strained the popular patience almost to the breaking point, and that even the most simple were beginning to perceive that a struggle between the people and their despots was inevitable. He saw that without organization all efforts on the part of the people would be hopeless, while, on the other hand, the popular will, molded and welded into a hammer of Thor, would crush into dust any an- tagonist that should d^re to face its descending blow. He resolved to go back to the United States and do his part in the work of deliverance. Craig had nearly one hundred thousand dollars on deposit in the Bank of Mexico, and taking a suf- ficient amount in money for his traveling expenses, and the remainder in letters of credit, he started for his old home in Pittsburgh by the way of steamer for New York. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE CONVERSION OF CRADDOCK. After visiting the grave of his wife and child Andrew Craig sought out his relatives, the Dennys, with whom he had corresponded while in Mexico. Their joy at meeting him need not be described. Denny, being in the local militia, had not taken part with the strikers in their struggle against the Penn- sylvania Railway, and his relationship to Craig, through his wife, Craig's sister, being but little known, he had escaped the blacklist. He and his family were in a comfortable home, and as a skilled mechanic he had regular employment. Denny told his brother-in-law of Prynne's well-earned good fortune at Craddocksboro, and a longing to see some member of the family to which his dead but still loved wife belonged, moved Craig to visit that place. It was a very different village from that which had met the eyes of young Prynne more than twenty years before. Prynne had for several years been superintendent of the Craddocksboro mine, and pos- sessed the fullest confidence and esteem of his em- ployer, who had learned and profited by the lesson 212 ADAM CLARKE that cheap labor is not always cheap, and that min- ers should not be treated merely as machines for dig- ging out coal. As energetic as ever in the pursuit of profit, Craddock was no longer blind to every- thing save greed and gain. He spent money in im- proving the village, and in converting it from a group of cabins on the bleak hillside into a pic- turesque cluster of neat and happy homes, contrast- ing most favorably with the average mining town. He built a residence for himself near the village, at which he spent much of his time, and where Mrs. Craddock, a New England woman of superior type, devoted herself to making home pleasant for her husband and children, and spreading sunshine in the homes of her husband's employes. Indeed, Craddock's marriage to this excellent woman had been the turning point in his career, and her influ- ence, tactfully exercised without dictation or irrita- tion, was the principal agency in preparing him to take a kinder attitude toward his fellowmen of humbler fortune. Years had passed before Mrs. Craddock was able to make an impression on her husband's character and conduct, but almost insen- sibly to him his harsh disposition absorbed a share of her sweetness, and her true womanhood grad- ually molded him into a man worthy to be her com- panion. Two stalwart sons, of sixteen and twenty, had blessed their union, but the sunlight of the Crad- dock household was their daughter of twenty-three, recently returned from Vassar, and who had not THE CONVERSION OF CRADDOCK 2 1 3 sacrificed even one sweet womanly quality on the altar of higher education. Priscilla Craddock had her mother's charm of manner and refinement of feature. She loved to help her mother in the house- work — for the Craddocks kept few servants — and was not the less expert with broom or bread pan be- cause she could read the Iliad in Greek, and was versed in the mysteries of Euclid. CHAPTER XXXIV. CRAIG FALLS IN LOVE WITH CRADDOCK'S DAUGH- TER, PRISCILLA. It was to this homelike home that Herbert Prynne introduced Andrew Craig the evening fol- lowing the arrival of the latter at Craddocksboro. Asa Craddock was absent, but Mrs. Craddock gave Prynne and his friend her usual gracious re- ception. Priscilla had met Prynne before, and her mother now introduced her to Craig. Craig never in his youth looked handsomer than he did in his erect, virile, independent middle age. He was the ideal of a man who had wrung fortune from fate, who had passed through danger and ad- venture. He had the quiet speech of him who has really known what peril is, and it was with a mod- esty all the more captivating because it was so gen- uine that he answered the queries of the fair New England maiden about his career in Mexico. For Priscilla was fair indeed, and Craig was quick to perceive it. Her brown hair clustered around a face as charming as her mother's had been at her age. Her features were of the clear and regular Puritan type, her hazel eyes beamed maidenly grace 214 CRAIG FALLS IN LOVE 21 5 and intelligence, and her voice was as musical as that of any Mfexican senorita — to Craig's ears far more musical. His reserve broke down before her unconscious assault, and he found himself relating his share in deeds of daring achievement, wMch, apart from her spell, he would have shrunk from mentioning. And she, for her part, plied him with questions when he flagged, and seemed enthralled in his story. Mrs. Craddock was busy talking over with Prynne some proposed improvement in the village, and Priscilla and Andrew were left to themselves. Neither of them seemed to regret it, and when An- drew Craig withdrew it was with an earnest invi- tation from Priscilla to call again and tell her the result of some encounter with brigands which he was relating when Prynne reminded him of the late- ness of the hour. Craig had intended to stay but a day or two in Craddocksboro, but he remained two weeks. In the daytime he went about with Prynne, or with Wal- lace Clarke, now a foreman in the mine, and his evenings were frequently spent at the mansion of Asa Craddock. He was welcome there, for besides finding that he was a man of good family, and of excellent personal habits, Mrs. Craddock had been informed by Prynne of Craig's pecuniary indepen- dence. Priscilla was, it need hardly be said, the magnet that drew Craig to the Craddock home. Her interest in him and his history seemed to grow with every visit. Interest budded into sympathy, and sympathy is the chrysalis of love. Craig's feel- 2l6 ADAM CLARKE ing of devotion to Priscilla was not the less deep because he had loved before, because the memory of Martha was still precious in his heart, and be- cause he knew that the difference in their years might well have been that of father and daughter. Nor was her attachment any less sincere because it was the first love of a pure young woman for a man of mature age, for one who would be a pro-- tector as well as a lover, whose manhood had been tried and not found wanting in the ordeal of an ex- perience that would have crushed a nature less virile and resolute. Craig might have said with Othello : "She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd, And I lov'd her that she did pity them." But Priscilla's love was more than that of Desde- mona, and Craig's more than that of the Moor. Each found in the other qualities which deserved and commanded that mutual confidence and reliance which is the foundation of serious and lasting love — that love which is neither an ephemeral rapture nor a jealous craze. Craig was far from being an ignorant man, even from the standpoint of college learning, for his spare time had always been given to the reading of such useful books and magazines as were within reach, while he found, as others may find, that news- papers also contain for him who looks for it, a rich fund of past and present knowledge on almost all subjects which go to the making of a so-called lib- eral education. He made it a point to obtain all the information he could about anything within his range of observation and experience, and this made CRAIG FALLS IN LOVE 21/ him able to talk intelligently and clearly. If he was a little lame on the Romans, he could tell all about the Aztecs, and if he could not describe the ruins of the Colosseum, he was able to picture in vivid word- painting the ruined cities of Mexico. And Priscilla, being a thorough American girl, found these Amer- ican topics interesting. Besides, she loved him. Priscilla, on her part, did not air her classics in company. She would as soon have thought of wear- ing to the reception-room and in her walks around the garden the diamonds her father had given her on her birthday. She valued what she had learned for its refining and educating influence on herself and not as a means of exhibiting her superiority to others. But Priscilla had something in her of the tease. The woman who has not is lacking in a valuable feminine attribute. It prevents a sweet disposition from being too sweet, and gives a piquant flavor to otherwise monotonous incidents. Priscilla felt, when Craig had called on her about a dozen times, that something was coming; that he was mustering courage for a proposal, and that she should be ready with a reply. Her mother liked Craig, and she be- lieved that her father would also, if he were at home, but it was for her to ascertain whether her lover had any weakness of temper that would be a bar to happiness, should she accept him as com- panion for life. She had not teased him so far, but she determined now to see how he would stand it. When Craig made his next call he found Priscilla busy with a book. She did not raise her eyes, and 2l8 ADAM CLARKE seemed absorbed in study, simply nodding recog- nition as he took a chair. Craig was nervous — a good deal more nervous than when he faced Mexican brigands. Priscilla knew it without looking up. "Priscilla," he said, "I— I would like to talk to you" "Menin aeide thea," read Priscilla, as if she did npt hear him. "Priscilla, please listen," he pleaded. "Peleiadeo Achilleos" continued Priscilla, still reading from Homer's Iliad in the original Greek. "Priscilla, can't you stop and listen," continued Craig more earnestly. "Can't you read that when I'm gone!" "I'm surprised, Mr. Craig," spoke Priscilla at last, lifting her eyes with an injured air. "This is my Greek lesson. You know I must not forget my Greek. I have sixty lines of Homer to recite. Oh, how charming it is to read about those old heroes — Achilles, Hector, and the rest!" she added, with an assumption of rapture that made her look more fas- cinating than ever. "Oulomenen e muri" she went on, when Craig again broke in. "Oh, Priscilla, please let me speak just for once. They've been dead a long time, and you'll have no trouble finding 'em where you left 'em; but I'm alive, Priscilla." "I see you are," said Priscilla, demurely; "but perhaps you wbuld prefer I should read Vergil—^ CRAIG FALLS IN LOVE 2I9 here he is — that lovely Aeneid — all about Aeneas and Dido" "Anna virumque cano" she went on, pick- ing up Vergil. Craig was almost in despair. He felt like going and never returning. As he rose he gave one Par- thian glance at the woman he adored. It struck the mark. There was a laughing twinkle in her eye that revealed the truth. "Priscilla!" he cried, stepping forward with ex- tended arms. Homer and Vergil fell to the floor as Priscilla's face was hidden on Andrew's breast. The Vassar girl was a woman. Two days later Andrew Craig started for New York, with a view to investing a part of the money he had made in Mexico. He was a happier man than when he arrived in Craddocksboro, for he had received the promise of Priscilla Craddock to be- come his wife, provided her father and mother should consent ; and the mother had consented. CHAPTER XXXV. CHARLEY MURPHY BECOMES A MEMBER OF THE CLARKE FAMILY. Adam Clarke came out of the hospital in due time, crippled by the loss of a leg, but otherwise sound. Charley Murphy had been more than a son to Mrs. Clarke during the absence of her injured boy. He sold papers with more energy and success than ever, and brought every cent to Adam's mother and, with the money sent to her by the district leader and others with whom charity was not mere- ly a cover for hypocrisy and "graft," Mrs. Clarke was able to receive her son into a comfortable home. The day after Adam returned Mrs. Clarke noticed that Charley looked worried and pale, and that something like a tear trickled down his cheek. When he saw she was observing him he hastily wiped the tear away and tried to smile. "What is the matter, Charley?" she asked, anx- iously. "Ye know Adam's back now, ma'am, and it wouldn't be right for me to stay any longer, ma'am. He needs the bed, an' I'll go back to the Newsboys' BECOMES A MEMBER OF THE FAMILY 221 Lodgin' House. I'll bring ycr the mun just the same, 'cept wot I pays for grub, an' Adam an' I'll sell papes togedder just as we uster. You're his mudder, an' you must take care of him first, so I'll not bodder you stayin' here. I'm only a kid widout fadder or mudder, an' I ain't got no rite to have ennywun bodderin' about me" and Charley choked down a little gasp, and tried to smile again. "What, leave us, my boy!" cried Mrs. Clarke. "Never, while I can keep a home for you! You've got a mother, Charley — I'm your mother — and Adam and little Robert are your brothers, and Emily's your sister. I'll get another bed for you, and we'll all try to be happy together. You've been too good to Adam and all of us for us ever to let you go out in the world alone." Charley shook his head at first. He was afraid he would be too much "bodder," but when Adam pleaded too he yielded, and his face became sun- shine again. Charley's story was a simple one. It had its trag- edy, too, but the result of that tragedy is an oft- repeated experience among the poor of New York. His father was an Irish immigrant, employed in the street cleaning department. The scow on which he accompanied a load of refuse out beyond the Lower Bay parted from its tugboat in a storm, and was lost, with those on board. Charley's mother worked herself to death trying to support herself and child, and he, a babe of three years, was found crying with hunger and fear by the cold body of his parent. 222 ADAM CLARKE He was sent to a Roman Catholic institution, his father and mother having belonged to that creed, and was well taken care of. Being anxious to go out in the world and make a living for himself, he ran away from the institution at twelve years of age, and became a newsboy. His bright eyes and pleasant smile and manner won him success from the start, and while he learned the slang of the street, he never forgot the lessons of honesty taught him by the good sisters. Being large for his age he was not troubled by truant officers, and as he had never known what home was, he never felt that he was unfortunate in not having a home. Mrs. Clarke's humble quarters were a new world to him. Her motherly care awakened emotions that had been dormant in his nature, and the thought of leaving her and going back to his lonely bed in the Lodging House and his meals at a lunch-stand, seemed like banishment from a heaven on earth. But Charley had grit, and when he believed it was time to go he got ready to go, even though it should break his heart. Equally great was his de- light when convinced that he was welcome to re- main. The little household struggled along, and years passed without any serious incident breaking the monotony of existence. Adam and Charley became partners in a newstand, and began to have an ac- count in the savings' bank, and Robert grew to be a tall, sinewy youth, able to help in the maintenance of the home. Robert got employment in the freight BECOMES A MEMBER OF THE FAMILY 223 depot of the Bronx River Railway, and as his strength and stature made him look much older than he really was, he earned the wages of a grown-up man. With income sufficient for comfort, and with a surplus for needs that might arise in the future, the Clarke family did not complain of their lot. They had no expensive tastes, and their recreations were in accordance with their means. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE PULLMAN STRIKE. Meantime distinction of class in New York, as in other great communities, East and West, were becoming more acute. Men whose recent ancestors had followed the honorable occupations of farm laborers, truck drivers, waiters, etc., but who had themselves grown rich by more or less questionable, and often criminal means, sought to make them- selves out a separate and superior part of the Amer- ican people; their carriages stamped with armorial bearings, to which they had no title ; their daughters sold to impoverished and degenerate foreigners, who did have titles, and their dwellings rich in objects of art, the meaning of which they could not under- stand. They made their servants wear uniforms like the retainers of English nobility, and they aped in dress and manners, and even in speech, the style of European countries. National and State administrations were domi- nated by the monopolies known as trusts, which controlled every branch of industry and manipulated prices at will, protected from competition at home by conspiracies maintained in defiance of law, and from competition abroad by a tariff which exacted 224 THE PULLMAN STRIKE 22$ a heavy charge on imported goods, while permitting the free admission of imported labor, thus enabling the manufacturer to place his own price on the product of his factories, and at the same time dic- tate labor's share of the profit by having at hand an unlimited labor supply. Higher prices were charged in America for American goods than were charged in Europe for the same American goods, with the cost of exportation added. Thus vast fortunes were accumulated at the expense of the ordinary people, and the holders of these fortunes, surrounded by rings of sycophants, anxious to glean some share of the golden harvest, imagined themselves to be different from the run of mankind. The Mordecai that sat at the king's gate as the Haman of monopoly passed along was labor union- ism, and to crush and humiliate labor unions every effort of wealth and its obedient tools was applied. In the early summer of 1894 occurred the great Pullman strike, made memorable more by the events of national consequence which attended it than by the interests at stake in the original struggle. The town of Pullman, established by George M. Pull- man, the sleeping-car magnate, was one of those places which are always offensive to the indepen- dent spirit of the American worker, where paternal- ism is a substitute for wages, and the workingman not only works, but eats, drinks and sleeps accord- ing to rules laid down by his employer. The Amer- ican workingman rightfully believes that his em- ployer has no claim on him outside of working hours ; that he has a right to live where he pleases, 226 ADAM CLARKE and spend his money and time as he pleases, for himself and his family, when his duty to the man who pays him for his labor is fulfilled. The pa- ternal experiment, sometimes well meant, more often prompted by arrogance and avarice, has al- ways proved a failure in the free air of America, and Pullman, perhaps the most pretentious example of industrial feudalism, was the most conspicuous failure of all. Wages had been reduced at the Pullman Works to a point at which the men were unable to support their families decently, even with the closest economy. When they organized as members of the American Railway Union, and sent a committee to make respectful request for better compensation, three members of the committee were "laid off" as a punishment for daring to address the company on such a subject. A strike followed, and the Amer- ican Railway Union refused to handle Pullman cars. For the first time in American history the Na- tional authority was used to sustain capital in a con- flict with labor, President Cleveland claiming that be was justified in taking the course he did by the Constitution and the laws of Congress. The powers and duties of the President of the United States are fully set forth in the Federal Constitution, which also provides that "the United States shall guaran- tee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and on application of the Legisla- ture, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence." THE PULLMAN STRIKE '227 It is also provided in the Constitution that the Pres- ident "shall take care that the laws be faithfully ex- ecuted." The use by order of President Cleveland , of United States troops, in the summer of 1894, to suppress the anti-railway riots in Chicago evoked a strong protest from the Governor of Illinois, who addressed the President as follows : "I submit that local self-government is a funda- mental principle of our Constitution. Each com- munity shall govern itself so long as it can and is ready and able to enforce the law, and it is in har- mony with this fundamental principle that the statute authorizing the President to send troops into States must be construed. Especially is this so in matters relating to the exercise of police power and the preservation of law and order. "The question of Federal supremacy is in no way involved. No one disputes it for a moment, but under our Constitution Federal supremacy and local self-government must go hand in hand, and to ig- nore the latter is to do violence to the Constitution." President Cleveland briefly replied : "Federal troops were sent to Chicago in strict ac- cordance with the Constitution and laws of the United States, upon the demand of the Post Office Department that obstruction of the mails should be removed, and upon the representations of the ju- dicial officers of the United States that process of the Federal courts could not be executed through the ordinary means, and upon abundant proof that conspiracies existed against commerce between the States. To meet these conditions, which are clearly 228 ADAM CLARKE within the province of Federal authority, the pres- ence of Federal troops in the city of Chicago was deemed not only proper but necessary, and there has been no intention of thereby interfering with the plain duty of the local authorities to preserve the peace of the city." As a similar crisis may arise at any time, it may be of interest to quote the law under which the President acted. His authority is derived from Sec- tions 5298 and 5299, of the Revised Statutes of the United States. The latter section became a law April 20, 1871. The former provides that "whenever, by reason of unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages of persons, or rebellion against the au- thority of the Government of the United States, it shall become impracticable, in the judgment of the President, to enforce, by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, the laws of the United States within any State or Territory, it shall be lawful for the President to call forth the militia of any or all the States, and to employ such parts of the land and naval forces of the United States as he may deem necessary to enforce the faithful execution of the laws of the United States, or to suppress such rebel- lion, in whatever State or Territory thereof the laws of the United States may be forcibly opposed, or the execution thereof forcibly obstructed." Section 5299 is as follows : "Whenever insurrection, domestic violence, un- lawful combinations, or conspiracies in any State so obstructs or hinders the execution of the laws thereof, and of the United States, as to deprive any THE PULLMAN STRIKE 229 portion or class of the people of such State of any of the rights, privileges, or immunities, or protec- tion, named in the Constitution and secured by the laws for the protection of such rights, privileges, or immunities, and the constituted authorities of such State are unable to protect, or, from any cause, fail in or refuse protection of the people in such rights, such facts shall be deemed a denial by such State of the equal protection of the laws to which they are entitled under the Constitution of the United States ; and in all such cases, or whenever any such insur- rection, \'iolence, unlawful combination, or con- spiracy, opposes or obstructs the laws of the United States, or the due execution thereof, or impedes or obstructs the due course of justice under the same, it shall be lawful for the President, and it shall be his duty, to take such measures, by the employment of the militia or the land and naval forces of the United States, or of either, or by other means, as he may deem necessary, for the suppression of such in- surrection, domestic violence, or combinations."* Even assuming that President Cleveland's action * It is an interesting fact that the law of April 20, 1871, under which President Cleveland acted in sending Federal troops to Illinois, was passed by a Republican Congress to enable a Republican President to crush opposition to negro rule in the South, and after being in disuse for many years after recon- struction, was revived by a Democratic President to subdue white labor agitation in the North. Any clear mind can per- ceive that it places in the hands of a President bold enough to use it a weapon of omnipotence. There is practically no limit to the power of the chief magistrate acting under authority of this statute. 230 ADAM CLARKE was justified by the Federal Constitution and laws, it is noteworthy that when the conditions were re- versed, when ten years later, American citizens, members of a labor union, were deprived of "the rights, privileges and immunities named in the Con- stitution," and the State authorities of Colorado re- fused to protect those, citizens in their rights, the National authority failed to interfere and remained indifferent, while American workingmen, guiltless, and not even accused of crime, were deported from Colorado as if they were alien criminals. It is no wonder that the toiler, with such disheart- ening evidence of disregard by constituted authority of the rights of the workingman, while the same au- thority is vigilant and aggressive when capital is assailed, occasionally forgets that he is bound to obey the laws which his employers are free to ignore. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE MUSTACHE DECREE. The height of impudence and arrogance seemed to be reached when at a meeting of railway magnates in New York City it was resolved to es- tabHsh and enforce a rule that all employes below the grade of assistant managers should have their faces at all times clean-shaven; that is, that they should wear neither beard nor mustache, and thus be readily distinguished from their superiors, who could wear mustaches and beards as they pleased. This rule had long been maintained in the case of domestic servants, lackeys and footmen, imported from abroad, and attired in some degrading form of livery in imitation of the menials of foreign aristocracy. These were regarded with a mixture of pity and amusement by the genuine American, as they sat perched behind dog-carts, or with low salaams received the visitors at some vulgar social function, in which the lack of noblesse oblige and good breeding was masked by a lavish display of luxury. Their "beef-eater" legs were the admira- tion of the women present on such occasions, con- trasting, as they generally did, with the lean and shrunken shanks of the average denizen of Fifth 231 232 ADAM CLARKE Avenue, who had sacrificed muscle as well as health in the acquisition of his hoard. This contrast caused no small amount of mortification to the lean-legged millionaires, but while they could make their lack- eys dispense with mustaches they could not make them shave off their calves, and they had to bear the ordeal with assumed indifference, or else resort, as many did, to tailor or costumer for a sup- ply of personal padding. The mustache decree — which led to the mustache riot — was the outcome of a disagreeable experience on the part of an individual who held in his hands the reins of powerful combinations, controlling rail- ways, gas and oil, and also the water supply of sev- eral cities and towns. This persdn, who had achieved, by dint of craft and wire-pulling, one of the highest offices in the gift of the people, wore a handsome mustache on a well-rounded, epicurean face, and prided himself on what he regarded as an imposing presence. It happened that a lobbyist, who had never been in the imposing presence before, visited the person- age in question to solicit a favor. A clerk who an- swered the description of the august politician and railway lawyer, happened to be in the ante-room, having come on a message from another office. The lobbyist mistook him for the man he had come to see, and saluted him effusively, making him the de- positary of several weighty secrets intended only for the inner circle of monopoly, and the knowledge of which by anyone outside of that circle might prove embarrassing. THE MUSTACHE DECREE 233 The corporation statesman was deeply hurt on learning the character of the blunder. Thinking the subject over, he determined that no clerk or other railway employe should be mistaken for him in the future, and he suggested to the railways in which he was interested the adoption of a rule re- quiring every employe below the rank of assistant superintendent to have a clean-shaven face. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DUCHESS OF OLDTOWER AND COUNTESS OF RUINVILLE. 'Railway workers were indignant when thejr heard of the mandate, and most of them resolved to defy it. On the following Monday, when the men were to appear shaven, nearly all of them had at least their usual display of beard and mustache, while some who had been clean-shaven by choice in the past, now showed several days' growth of hair on their faces. It was a question whether trains would run and the work of construction and repair go on, or the railways withdraw from their foolish and unwarranted invasion of personal rights. The railway authorities, after consultation, determined to make an example of a few as a warning to the others, and to discharge those who were growing beards after having been clean-shaven before. This was done. No sooner did the news spread than every railway employe on the trains and in the shops and yards went on strike. They sent deputations to the offices of the leading roads demanding the withdrawal of the mustache order, and the rein- statement of all men discharged for refusing to obey the order. 234 THE DUCHESS OF OLDTOWER 23S The chief owners of two of the railways Hved abroad, one being the Duchess of Oldtower, and the other the Countess of Ruinville, both American born. These women derived an income of several millions yearly from their American properties, which they expended in maintaining a splendor that dazzled and amazed, and also disgusted the thrifty Briton and Frenchman. While the railway of which she was part owner was neglected as to paint and other provisions for safety, and the poor work- ingman and workingwoman had their knees jammed and were pushed and crowded because cars were not provided with sliding doors, the Countess of Ruinville was building a magnificent mansion in Paris with wealth earned by American labor, and derived in a large degree from franchises which ought to have belonged to the American people. "It is said to have cost three millions of dollars," said a dispatch from Paris, "and it will be opened with a fete that will cost at least $100,000 more. The complete company of the Comedie Parisienne has been engaged for the occasion, and there will be a ballet, the like of which has not been seen in Paris, even at the Opera. This is to be merely the first of the fetes to inaugurate the Parisian palace, built by American millions." The new palace, it was further stated, was planned in imitation of the Grand Trianon — that architectural chef d'ceuvrei of the rotten and declining Bourbon monarchy, em- blematical of all that is hideous and obnoxious to a free and virtuous people. All this the miserably- paid employes of the Countess's railway had read 236 ADAM CLARKE before coming to work that morning, and combined with the scheme to degrade them to the level of the serfs of Europe's decayed nobility, it aroused and maddened them. The employes of another railway read in the news of the same date how the American Duchess of Oldtower, after the expenditure of millions in re- pairing a dilapidated English property, had fixed upon a new way of spending the earnings of her countrymen in reviving falconry, the favorite pas- time of the royal debauchee, King Charles the Sec- ond. Between the Grand Trianon and King Charles's falcons it seemed, indeed, that the absentee beneficiaries of wealth extracted from the sweat and toil and skill of Americans were not ready to halt at any extravagance, however alien to Amer- ican principles and hostile to American traditions, in their ambition to merge themselves in the un- savory noblesse of the Old World. The Duchess of Oldtower and Countess of Ruin- ville were both consulted by cable as to the situa- tion, and the course to be pursued. The reply in both instances was that the rule requiring the faces of workingmen to be clean-shaven should be insisted upon. The message from the Duchess of Old- tower read: "Just shown dispatch to the Earl of Barsinistre and Duke of Mudlothian ; both strongly approve shaving rule for working class." CHAPTER XXXIX. THE USUAL STRIKE-BREAKING PLOT. Thus fortified in their attitude, the managers de- termined to crush the strike. Two hundred detec- tives from a private agency were hired to guard the trains and stations, and were secretly instructed to spare no effort to goad the strikers into a demon- stration of violence. Five detectives from the same agency were appointed to organize a fictitious con- spiracy, with bombs and dynamite, and to prepare to blow up the chief passenger station and a train or two. Strikers were, if possible, to be made in- toxicated and drawn into the plot, and the conversa- tions with the drunkards were to be duly recorded and witnessed. At an appropriate time, when all would be ripe for action, the plot was to be discovered by those who had planned it, and to be made known with a great flourish to the newspapers, and public opinion thus turned against the strikers, on the ground that they were dynamiters and anarchists, and capable of any outrage. .The scheme had been operated before with some success, and it might have succeeded on this oc- 237 238 ADAM CLARKE casion but for a mistake on the part of the detec- tives. On the evening of the day which witnessed the beginning of the strike, Robert Clarke was ap- proached by a stranger, who asked him if he was a striker. Clarke answered that he was. "I'm in thorough sympathy with the strike," re- marked the stranger warmly. "It's an outrage to force the workingmen to shave. These railways should be taught a lesson." Clarke nodded. "Come in and have a drink," added the stranger. "I'm in no hurry to go home." Clarke assented, and went with his new acquain- tance into a saloon. The stranger chose a table in a remote corner. Two other strangers happened to enter and take seats nearby. "What will you have?" asked Clarke's com- panion, and without waiting for an answer the lat- ter called for whisky. When the bottle came he poured out a full glass for Clarke, and a very small allowance for himself. All the time his tongue was running on about the strike, and about employers being brought to terms on a similar occasion, in the West, by dynamite. Clarke became suspicious. He did not take the whisky, but he pretended to be pleased, and agreed with the stranger that dynamite was the right thing. The two strangers at the adjoining table joined in the conversation, and earnestly indorsed the dyna- mite plan. THE USUAL STRIKE-BREAKING PLOT 239 Clarke and his new acquaintances parted witli the understanding that they should meet in the same place on the following evening. The strangers — who were detectives — hurried to report progress to their employers, and Clarke went to call on one of the oldest strikers — James Bristed — with whom he was on intimate terms, and who had the reputation of being well-informed and sagacious. Clarke told him about the strangers and the dynamite. Bristed smiled grimly. He had heard of similar plots before, and rather expected something of the kind. Indeed, he had from the first regarded it as the chief menace to the success of the strike, and was glad to see an opportunity of baffling the schemers. "Hoist them with their own petard," said Bristed ; "it's the only way to do. Get out warrants in the morning, or during court hours, for all three of them, calling them "John Doe," and whatever other names they gave you. Don't tell the magistrate you're a striker ; or he might not be inclined to grant the warrant. He'll naturally think you're acting for the company. Have the officer with the warrants come in plain clothes to the saloon. Some of us will be handy when he makes the arrests, to help, if necessary, and to carry the story ta the newspaper offices." The plan worked well. The detectives were stricken dumb when put under arrest, and the ar- resting officer was almost equally surprised when they exclaimed that they were the company's men. 240 ADAM CLARKE Several strikers had managed to overhear the con- versation which preceded the arrest, and which fully sustained Clarke's allegations. They did not wait for the court proceedings on the following day, but at once hastened to the newspapers with the report of the plot and counter-plot. Next morning the news columns of the independent press gave in tremendous headlines the story of the discomfiture of the detectives, and although the latter were dis- charged by the magistrate, their usefulness as plant- ers of dynamite bombs was ended. CHAPTER XL. AN EXCUSE TO SLAY. One resort yet remained for discrediting the strikers. They must be provoked to violence. In view of the boomerang effect of the dynamite plot, however, it was obviously requisite that the provo- cation should be within the law. Long the man- agers and their advisers sat in council on this problem. "Hire Chinamen!" exclaimed Deboe, chief hench- man to the Duchess of Oldtower, and virtual head of the railroad. "Chinamen could not operate the road," replied a director. "We don't want them for that purpose," rejoined Deboe, significantly. The plan was agreed upon without further dis- cussion, and one hundred Chinamen were quietly gathered into vans on promises of five dollars a day each and board for doing nothing. The railway managers felt sure that they would be needed only for one day. Railway men are, as a rule, intelligent, and when the four vans emptied out the Chinese one block 241 242 ADAM CLARKE from the railway depot, the strikers present did not raise a hand. They did not even hoot. They knew that the Orientals would be of no practical use to the railway, and they suspected the purpose which inspired the move on the part of their late em- ployers. Not so with the rabble, however, which commonly gathers upon any occasion of public excitement. Some boys threw stones at the Chinamen and shouted terms of derision. One youth seized an Oriental by the queue. Others pushed and hustled the frightened aliens. The Chinamen started to run. The Macfarland detectives held them back. The Asiatics had been brought there to excite a riot, and were to be used to the utmost in that direction. The hooting and hustling continued, while strik- ers stood apart from the disturbance. "Fire!" exclaimed the chief detective. Rapidly three volleys, from a dozen Winchesters, were discharged, not among the disturbers, but di- rectly into the crowd of quiet and lawabiding strik- ers. Seven of the latter fell — three dead, and the others wounded. ' The Macfarlands rested, and, as a cry of rage and horror went up from the comrades of the mur- dered workingmen, they prepared to renew the shooting. Before the Macfarlands had time to level their rifles the strikers were upon them, unarmed, save with a fury that no arms could resist. AN EXCUSE TO SLAY 243 The hired murderers were borne back, over- whelmed, crushed by the terrible onset. The chief detective had his brains beaten out with the stock of his own rifle. Nine others lay in the Streets with broken limbs or strangled throats. Two succeeded in escaping unhurt. Even in their rage the strikers did not touch the helpless and cowering Chinese. The affair lasted not more than fifteen minutes. A squad of police arrived on the double-quick. There had been no sign of disorder half an hpur before, and the railway managers, meanmg to nave a free field for their mercenaries, had assured the police that there was no need of an extraordinary display of authority. Hence the absence of police- meiL during the riot. As the police arrived the strikers fell back. Many of them hurried out of sight, but the majority re- mained, and submitted quietly to arrest. It happened that a reporter for a newspaper in- dependent enough to tell the truth was on the scene when the riot began. He had seen the Chinamen loaded into the vans, and followed them. He saw that the Macfarland mercenaries fired at the strik- ers, although the latter had taken no part in an- noying the Chinese, and he hastened to telephone the facts to his paper. An hour later — before the railways managers could circulate false reports through the organs of monopoly — the truth was known to all New York, and was sent broadcast by special dispatches throughout the land. 244 ADAM CLARKE The general verdict was that the Macfarlands had got no worse than they deserved, and that the strik- ers, in avenging their fallen comrades, had acted in self-defense. Public opinion was so strongly against the rail- way that the latter decided to withdraw the mus- tache order altogether, and wait for a more favor- able opportunity for branding workingmen as serfs. The mustache riot passed into the history of labor. CHAPTER XLI. THE ANTI-MURDER STRIKE. I Soon after the mustache riot the extraordinary spectacle was witnessed in tlie city of Brooklyn of hundreds of men on strike against being compelled to commit murder. This is a true description of the so-called Brooklyn trolley strike. It seems wonderful — to Europeans it may seem incredible — that in one of the chief cities of the United States, a community noted for its churches and the thrifty and generally lawabiding character of its people, the law should be violated day after day, and hun- dreds of lives destroyed in the most cruel manner by corporations holding public franchises, and no criminal prosecution supervene, not one of the really responsible criminals be called upon to pay the penalty of his guilt. Yet this is a true statement of hideous facts. Through streets thronged with thoughtless, innocent children, the motormen of Brooklyn were ordered to run at a speed which not only violated law, but which also meant death for scores of human beings — a death the very thought 245 246 ADAM CLARKE of which causes a shudder — a death as horrible and barbarous as that to which Roman tyrants doomed their victims thrown to the wild beasts in public shows. The cars went coursing through the streets at unlawful, murderous speed. If a motorman failed to keep up the speed he was discharged, and some one less squeamish put in his place. Com- plaisant officials were conveniently blind to the re- peated tragedies and the criminality responsible for those tragedies, and when at length the em- ployes of the electric lines went on strike against being required to be agents in deliberate murder for dividends, the militia was called out to intimidate and coerce them. The anti-murder strike failed as a strike, but it taught the electric lines a lesson not easily forgot- ten, and it awoke somnolent official consciences to a realization of the fact that large subscriptions to church-building and Pharisaic pretensions of inter- est in the spiritual welfare of Hottentots could not atone before God or man for negligent complicity in the slaughter of the innocents. Hundreds of little mounds in Brooklyn cemeteries hold the re- mains of victims offered to the Moloch of monopoly. The ancient idolaters had the palliation of ignor- ance when they placed little children in the arms of their sanguinary idol to satiate his appetite for blood. The corporations and their wretched tools in public office, who murdered hundreds of Brook- lyn children as a sacrifice to Wall Street, and to raise the price of stocks, had not the excuse of ig- THE ANTI-MURDER STRIKE 247 norance. They knew and understood the infamy and cruelty of their acts, and their guilt is, there- fore, immeasurably more heinous than that of the benighted idolaters for whose conversion to Chris- tianity some of these whited sepulchres ostentatious- ly contribute. CHAPTER XLII. COWARDS FIRE ON WOMEN. The struggle between a heartless few, deter- mined to wring every possible advantage out of the necessities of the many, and the many seeking sim- ply to earn reasonable wages for honest work, went on with varying outcome. Strikes sometimes failed of the object which prompted them, but their de- feat was often a Pyrrhic victory for capital. The stubbornness of labor in asserting its claims was more and more resented by unprincipled employ- ers, while others, of the humane and considerate type, were willing to meet labor on a level of equity and justice between man and man. The lattei', sus- tained by public sentiment, were in a fair way to bring about lasting peace between employer and employed in certain important lines of industry, when an outbreak, as tragical as it was without ex- cuse on the part of those who provoked it, aroused popular passion to a high pitch, and but for the cool counsel and determined attitude of one man, might readily have flamed into anarchy rivalling that of the draft riots. A large New York factory, employing about twelve hundred women and girls, made a sweeping 248 COWARDS FIRE ON WOMEN 249 reduction in wages. A deputation of women em- ployes visited the superintendent and represented to him that they would be unable to live from their earnings at the reduced rate. He replied, almost with a sneer, "that there were other ways of mak- ing a living if the wages were not sufficient." The women and girls at once withdrew from work, and assembled in front of the establishment, intending to proceed to a hall and talk over their grievances and the gross insult contained in the superinten- dent's reply. Angry at their refusal to yield to his brutal sneers with the meekness he expected, and hoping to force them into submission, the superintendent appealed to the police to drive them from the street. The police refused to act, giving as a reason that the crowd was not disorderly. This enraged the superintendent more than ever, and, determined to carry his point, he telephoned to Colonel Plumton, commander of the Eightieth New York, that a riot was in progress with which the police were unable to deal. Colonel Plumton did not wait for superior orders. His command was in the armory at drill, and he at once double-quicked them to the scene of the alleged disturbance. The arrival of the militia was greeted with cries of ter- ror by the women, who could not understand what the demonstration meant. Colonel Plumton was at the head of his forces and looked fierce enough to have led the advance on Santiago— ^if Santiago had been garrisoned by women and children. 2SO ADAM CLARKE "You hear those cries of defiance, my brave men !" he shouted. "Stern measures are necessary — ready — aim — fire!" The rifles blazed forth. Women and girls lay writhing on the street, some of them in the agony of death. The others, comprehending too late what their assailants meant, fled in every direction from the assassins in uniform. Colonel Plumton wore a look of triumph as he gazed at the fleeing forms and listened to the shrieks of mortal pain. At last he was on a field of action — ^at last he had tasted blood. "Well done, my brave men," he cried. "The Eightieth has acq^uitted itself nobly. The rioters are dispersed. We will now march back to the armory." A cry of horror was echoed from block to block. Men began to gather — men — some with ragged coats, it is true, but stalwart arms — real men. They looked threatening. Some of them hurled missiles at the militia. Colonel Plumton turned pale. A glance to right and a glance to left showed him that the mob was growing formidable. He ordered a double-quick. The mob pressed harder. Plum- ton began running. His men ran too, but Plumton reached the armory in advance of them. All got inside safely, and the great gates clanged against the pursuers. Slowly the mob dispersed, for they could make no impression on the armory, and the militia threat- ened to fire from the embrasures. COWARDS FIRE ON WOMEN 25 1 That afternoon a call went forth for a gathering of working-men in Battery Park to demand justice on the murderers of women and children. Thou- sands attended, many with arms, and violent coun- sels were urged. Andrew Craig read all this in an evening news- paper as his train neared New York and while he was crossing the ferry. He resolved on his course, and acted promptly. Hastening to Battery Park his manner and ap- pearance, and the word that he was the Andrew Craig who led labor in the Pittsburgh conflict many years before, quickly secured him a hearing. "Workingmen," he urged, "you are not law- breakers or assassins. What you want is justice for those who are lawbreakers and assassins. The Con- stitution guarantees to you who have arms the right to bear them, but do not use them unlawfully. Go home for the night, and come together here in the morning, and march to the City Hall, where, after demanding the punishment of the guilty, we will disperse, and give the authorities an opportunity to carry out the law without fear or favor." Craig's counsel prevailed, and the assembled workingmen went to their homes, resolved to make a demonstration on the morrow that would prove alike their respect for law and their determination that the law should be impartially enforced. CHAPTER XLIII. CAPITALISTS HOLD A MEETING. Meantime another call went the rounds for a special meeting at the Chamber of Commerce, to which capitalists, lawyers and others not members were invited, to be held on the following forenoon, to consider such measures as might be necessary in view of the gravity of the situation, and the popular unrest, and to invoke the authorities to preserve the peace. It was a grave crisis, and the ablest leaders and tools of the trusts were gathered at the appointed hour to meet it if they could. Prominent among the tools was Charles Anderson, editor of the Daily Ray. Anderson was at heart a coward, and while he tried to seem cool, his ashen skin and the scared look in his beady eyes betrayed the fear that was consuming his soul. Anderson started in life full of generous ambition to help his fellowmen, and to give a noble example of altruism. He was attracted to newspaper work, for which he had natural abili- ties, and he gradually earned distinction in that field. He did some service during the civil conflict as a high-class spy, and was much aggrieved when a distinguished commander, who had tolerated his 352 CAPITALISTS HOLD A MEETING 253 nauseous intrusion in war, simply out of a sense of military duty, failed to recognize him as a friend and protege in peace. Anderson's malignant and Satanic nature could not forgive this neglect to re- ward a man for being a nuisance, and he devoted his paper to the most unstinted abuse of the great general and everyone associated with him. As the sale of his sheet was dwindling under the onus of unpopularity, he sought some means of restoring Its circulation, and finally surrendered its columns to unbridled and offensive sensation. This deprived him of the friends whom his earlier reputation as a man of ability and culture had brought to him, but it attracted a wide circle of readers belonging to the tainted class which revels in unwholesome news. He championed every public scoundrel who was able to pay for the favoring, and let no private crim- inal escape who was rich enough to be blackmailed. From being in his youthful days an embodiment of enthusiasm in the cause of human brotherhood and social reform hfe became in his old age the in- carnation of selfishness, the mercenary hireling of anyone able to purchase his polluted support, and the unscrupulous foe of everything to which his masters — the trusts — were opposed. His sulphuric pen was aimed as his patrons directed against every movement tending to liberate the toiler from indus- trial bondage, and he felt that in the hour of just retribution he would not be forgotten. At present, he was concerned more for his own personal safety than for the trembling capitalists whom he saw around him, and on whom he could no longer lean 254 ADAM CLARKE with any sense of security, and he had given orders to his editorial writers to tone down their utterances in defence of the trusts, and even to speak favorably of the popular cause. Present also were several officers of the militia, distinguished for their devotion to home and fire- side in time of war and their truculent readiness to shoot down unarmed workingmen in time of peace. Prominent among these was Colonel Plumton, in a brand new uniform, looking more serious than on former occasions, when his only antagonists were half-starved strikers and women and children. The capitalists clustered around this redoubtable warrior as if he were another Grant or Lee. They had often heard his brave Answers to military toasts at fox- hunting dinners and commercial gatherings, and they knew the gallantry with which his regiment had charged on two men on their way home from a saloon one night, while guarding a horse car bam, shooting down one, and putting the other to flight. Colonel Plumton would surely lead the attack upon the mob now camped in the Battery Park, and pre- paring to march up Broadway. "Gentlemen," declared Colonel Plumton pomp- ously, but with a quiver in his tones that was not altogether reassuring, "I am prepared to do my full duty, and to die, if need be, at the head of my regi- ment. (Applause.) In this crisis I have resolved to give my attention at once to the best plan for de- fense against the mob that is menacing us (applause, and cries of 'Bravo, Colonel Plumton!') and I will leave for Albany within an hour to consult with the CAPITALISTS HOLD A MEETING 255 Governor as to what shall be done." (Abject si- lence. ) "I will accompany Colonel Plumton, gentlemen," said Editor Anderson, "for I feel that it is necessary to bring all the pressure we can upon the Governor to induce him to join with us in resolute and un- flinching determination to enforce law and order." "Might it not be best, Colonel, to put off the trip to Albany until to-morrow, and lead your regiment against the mob to-day?" ventured one of the larg- est owners of trust stock, with a mansion worth mil- lions on Fifth Avenue. "My regiment is at the armory," replied Colonel Plumton, "prepared to defend that place to the last drop of its blood. If the mob dares to attack the armory it will find my gallant men ready for the struggle." CHAPTER XLIV. SHERIFF MACANOTCHIE'S NEW DEPARTURE IN SE- CURING A POSSE. There was a commotion at the door. "The sheriff, gentlemen, the sheriff !" exclaimed a banker who had met that official before. All eyes were directed toward the visitor, and amid the buzz and shuffling which attended the sheriff's arrival. Col- onel Plumton and Editor Anderson slipped out. The sheriff, Macanotchie, was a man of the peo- ple, and suspected — to put it mildly — of sympathy with their cause. There was a natural anxiety, therefore, to know why he had come, and this feel- ing was not unmingled with gratification over the proof that he was bestirring himself. Sheriff Maca- notchie was known to be absolutely fearless, never shrinking from any task which duty required him to undertake, and dreaded by the sturdiest law- breakers. "Gentlemen," said the sheriff, "I mean to keep the peace (hearty applause), and to protect prop- erty (heartier applause), with all the power at my command (loud murmurs of approval). I mean to 256 SHERIFF MACANOTCHIE'S NEW DEPARTURE 257 raise a force of brave, stout-hearted civilians to aid my deputies, who, as you know, are few in number, and incapable of coping with a powerful mob, armed, as I understand some of the men in Battery Park are armed, and veterans, many of them, of the war with Spain. The law permits me to summon civilians to my aid, and swear them in as my depu- ties. Hearing that there was a gathering here of the leading capitalists of New York, men who have the largest interests at stake, and who are no doubt willing to incur risk and danger in defence of their interests, I concluded that this would be the best place to begin swearing in my 'posse comitatus.' Gentlemen, I have here my chief clerk, who is a notary public, and five of my deputies are at the door. I call upon everyone here present to assist me in preserving the peace. The swearing in of special deputies will begin." It would have been amusing — if the affair were not so serious — to watch the change which came over the crowd in the room as the sheriff proceeded with his address. First came silence ; then could be heard breathing quick and hard, half-suppressed ex- clamations and groans of protest, while nearly every face turned pale. Not a word was spoken. "I'm glad to see you all so ready, gentleman, to do your duty as citizens," continued the sheriff, with a suspicion of sarcasm in his voice. "It's a very dangerous undertaking — very dangerous, in- ' deed — and I fear some lives will be lost before we get through, but you will at least have the consola- tion, if it should be the misfortune of any of you 258 ADAM CLARKE to be fatally injured, to know that the family of the sufferer will not be left penniless, as in the case of a poor man losing his life in the same circum- stances. "I must add, gentlemen," added the sheriff with sternness in his tone, "that I will have to preserve a rigid discipline. When all of you shall have been sworn in, you will proceed, under guard of my armed deputies, to the sheriff's office, where a load of arms has arrived for your use. The next hour you will spend in drill instruction, and after luncheon, which will be brought into the sheriff's office, we will march down Broadway to the Bat- tery, and compel the mob there congregated to dis- perse. We can expect no assistance from the police, who are held in reserve to prevent outbreaks in dif- ferent parts of the city." "But — Mister-r-r Sheriff-iff," exclaimed a shiv- ering voice in the rear of the room "these fell-ows- ows '11 mur-der-er us." The sheriff could hardly restrain a smile. "I hope not," he replied briefly. "You must do your duty anyhow. I'll give you instructions when to shoot." "Oh, Johnny, I wish I hadn't come," groaned one to another in a teeth-chattering whisper. "Mr. Sheriff, I'm over sixty. Can I be required to serve?" asked a vigorous-looking banker, with gray hair. "There's no age limit for a sheriff's posse," re- plied that officer. "Everyone whom I deem to be in good condition will be obliged to come." "I wonder if Lawyer Shoat couldn't get us out SHERIl'T MACANOTCHIE'S NEW DEPARTURE 259 of this on a writ of habeas corpus," remarked the chief of a large financial institution to a magnate of the Stock Exchange. The latter shook his head. "The hearing would probably be put down for to-morrow," he replied, dejectedly, "and we may all be dead this afternoon. It looks like a scheme to get us all slaughtered. But what can we do? It was stupid to hold this meeting." "Who ever heard of a sheriff calling on capital- ists to face a mob of strikers !" said another with as much wrath as he thought might escape the sheriff's notice. "He should have made up his posse from laborers and clerks, and that sort of people who wouldn't be missed. I was going to run down to Maine this evening, and stay until this aifair was over," and he almost broke down. "And I would have started for Newport," re- marked the person addressed. A bright idea struck a rich man from Riverside Drive. "Sheriff," he said, "my coachman served in the British army, and is a first-class soldier. Couldn't you allow him to go in my place?" Hope gleaned in a number of eyes at this sugges- tion, but the light went out quickly when the sheriff announced : "No substitutes will be taken." The swearing-in showed two hundred and thirty present. Of these twelve were allowed to go on proof that they were cripples or otherwise unfitted to do duty as deputies. The remainder were escorted to the sheriff's office. There each man re- 260 ADAM CLARKE ceived a breech-loading rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition, and Deputy Sherifif Carson, a war vet- eran, gave instruction in marching, loading and firing. Coffee and sandwiches were served for luncheon, and those who smoked and did not have cigars were supplied with them. CHAPTER XLV. THE ENCOUNTER AND FLIGHT. Sheriff Macanotchie arrayed his force in two divisions. He headed the first division himself. In its ranks were the capitaHsts whom he had im- pressed into the service. "I will give you the place of honor," he said, "as becomes men of your stand- ing, and of your large financial interests, and I have no doubt you will behave like true supporters of law and order in the present trying circumstances. Any man showing cowardice or endeavoring to shirk under fire will be promptly shot down. Don't be provoked into shooting too soon. Wait till you see the whites " "What's the matter with that man, Fetterson?" exclaimed the sheriff sharply to one of his aides, as he pointed to a noted banker of vigorous years, who was shaking like a sapling in an April blast. "He says he's chilly, sir," answered Fetterson. "And that one behind him?" added the sheriff, still more sharply, as another well-dressed individual showed signs of collapse. "He complains of sunstroke, sir," rejoined Fetter- son. 261 262 ADAM CLARKE It was like Rudyard Kipling's "Hanging of Danny Deever." "'What makes the front rank breathe so hard?' said Files- on-Parade. It's bitter cold, it's bitter cold,' the color-sergeant said. 'What makes the rear-rank man fall down?' said Files-on- Parade. 'A touch o' sun, a touch o' sun,' the color-sergeant said." "The mob is coming — ^they are marching up Broadway," cried an excited messenger to the sherifif. "Then we will wait and receive them here," an- swered that officer. Every window was alive with silent faces as the so-called mob approached, with regular step, and some of them with gleaming rifles. Not a word, not a sound, but the steady tramp of marching feet came from the stalwart array. The American flag was borne in front of the line, and by the side of the color-bearer stepped a well-knit, brown-faced, blue-eyed man of about middle age. This leader was Andrew Craig. "Steady, men, steady !" cried Sheriff Macanotchie as his first division showed signs of commotion. "Don't be in too great a hurry to fire. Wait until you see the whites of their eyes. What's that! Who's firing, Fetterson?" shouted the sheriff, angrily. "It's Lawyer Diddle," answered Fetterson, naming the chief of a leading firm of corporation THE ENCOUNTER AND FLIGHT 263 lawyers. "His gun fell out of his hand and went oil accidentally, sir." "I'm wounded — I'm wounded," shrieked a Wall Street broker, clapping his hand to the rear of his trousers and rolling in agony on the street — "I'm as good as dead," cried the injured man. "Take me home ; oh, this is murder, nothing but murder ! I'm dying! I'm gone!" and he fainted away. One of the doctors summoned by the sheriff to attend the wounded ran to the aid of the sufferer. He turned him over and examined him. "Nothing more than a flesh scratch," the doctor exclaimed, in a disgusted tone. "The bullet from that other man's gun seems to have ploughed the skin and drawn a little blood. The man's fit for duty," added the doctor, retiring. Deputy Fetterson hastened forward and applied the point of his sword to the denser portion of the broker's anatomy. The latter leaped to his feet. "How dare you?" he cried. "I'll be square for this indignity ! I'll sue the sheriff ! I'll, I'll " A blow on the mouth from Fetterson's fist si- lenced the raving financier, and he took his place again in the ranks. "Prepare to fire!" cried the sheriff. "Those in the front rank will drop on one knee to allow the second rank to fire over their heads." Craig and his force were in sight. Nearer and nearer came that steady tramp, tramp, of marching men. It seemed like the tick-tock of doom to the corralled capitalists. They looked at each other. The same thought was in many minds. To en- 264 ADAM CLARKE counter that approaching phalanx meant destruc- tion; in running for safety there was a chance of life. Not a word was said. Each seemed to know by intuition what the other was thinking about. There was a rattle of guns on the pavement, a rush for the side streets, and before Sheriff Macanotchie and his aides could stop them, the millionaires were running like frightened sheep in every direction but toward the so-called mob. The sheriff seemed very excited and indignant, but those near him said after- ward that there was a suspicion of a grin on his lips as he dashed about, calling on the flying men to halt and do their duty. His personal aides pur- sued the fugitives a short distance, firing in the air, and thereby adding to their terror, and hastening their flight. Craig and his followers lined up in front of the City Hall. There resolutions were read by Craig, calling upon the authorities of the city and county to prosecute those responsible for the killing of women and children on the previous day, and to enforce the laws without fear or favor against all criminals, whatsoever their station in life. The resolutions were adopted with ringing ac- clamation, not only from those in line, but from an immense multitude of spectators. Then the workingmen quietly dispersed, and the demonstration was over. Craig attended to the business which had brought him to New York, and hurried back to Priscilla, deferring until a future time his intended visit to Mrs. Robert Clarke and her family; CHAPTER XLVI. IN THE COEUK D ALENE. Alexander Clarke easil;^ found work in the mining regions, first of Colorado and later of Wy- oming and Idaho. He was sober, reliable and God- fearing, and the time had passed when such a man was regarded as the butt of bully and braggart in Western mining camps. Indeed, the pictures of even earlier life in the Far West are in this respect most unfairly exaggerated. There never was a time on the frontier where the decent, temperate, lawabiding worker could not get along peaceably. The outlaws preyed, as a rule, on their own class, and rarely troubled those who did not seek trouble with them. Most of the pioneers of farm and mine had the usual wholesome training of the American or British home, and the occasional ruffian and des- perado was a freak instead of a type. Yet writers pandering to the appetite for sensation have chosen to make him a type. Alexander Clarke worked and tried to save; but labor was no longer so scarce as in the early days, and wages were correspondingly lower, while provisions were dear, not having gone down in 26s 266 ADAM CLARKE price in proportion to the decline in wages — a very common condition in American communities, polit- ical economists to the contrary notwithstanding. Alexander, therefore, was not getting rich, although he had a few hundred dollars in bank at Boise City in the winter of 1898-99. He was then in the placer gold fields of the Boise Basin, but hearing of better wages in the mines of the Coeur d'Alene region, he drew part of his money from the bank, and made his way to that section of Idaho. He had long been a member of the miners' labor organization, and found prompt employment at Coeur d'Alene. In the mine in which Clarke was employed nearly all were native Americans. Clarke was the only Englishman, never having taken out naturalization papers, and there was, besides, a Spanish-American from Costa Rica, who had drifted to the mining region from San Francisco, and who was known as the "Dago," otherwise by his real name of Antonio, abbreviated to "Tony." Antonio was of the better class in his native land, but had to leave it on account of an insurrection in which he was concerned, and had not thought it safe to return. He had recently learned, however, that his friends were again in power, and he pro- posed to go back as soon as he had saved money enough to pay his way and make a decent appear- ance at home. Meantime, he adapted himself to American ways, and had been admitted to the min- ers' organization. At the time of Alexander's arrival in the Coeur d'Alene there were rumblings of coming trouble IN THE COEUR d'aLENE 26/ between certain mine owners and the miners. The former were impatient of the restrictions placed by the labor unions on employment in the mines, and wanted to throw them open to any labor they might choose to employ at any wages they might choose to give. To this the miners' union presented a reso- lute opposition, and when one of the mine owners, a man with large political influence at Washington, attempted to introduce non-union workers into his mines, the union men at once went on strike; CHAPTER XLVII. A CORRAL FOR AMERICAN "fREEMEN." The usual methods of casting discredit on labor seeking for reasonable compensation followed. Mysterious outrages were perpetrated, or stories of outrage concocted and heralded by telegraphic news service to all parts of the land, and the Governor of the State was induced to apply to the President of the United States for aid in putting down an al- leged "insurrection." The mines were closed, and many hundreds of men were thrown into idleness. Alexander Clarke had taken no part in any dem- onstrations, although loyal to his obligations as a union man, and refusing to work except on union terms. He was, like the large majority of the min- ers, lawabiding and orderly. He saw the arrival of the troops, the establishment of a military head- quarters, and the stationing of guards at the en- trance of the mines. All this, however, he looked upon as not concerning him, save as it concerned any lawabiding citizen or resident, and the same was the view taken by his fellow-miners, either on strike or shut out from the mines. He had read tne Constitution of the United States, and he be- 268 A CORRAL FOR AMERICAN "FREEMEN" 269 lieved that to enjoy its protection it was necessary only to obey the law and abstain from crime. He had observed soldiers busy building a corral near the mining settlement, but he and others supposed it was' for use as a mihtary camp or for a temporary garrison, and gave no special attention to it. Clarke was sleeping soundly on a cool May night at his boarding house, where ten or twelve other miners also lived, when he was awakened by a loud knocking at the front door. It sounded as if some- body was pounding the door with a heavy stick of wood, and a voice shouted: "Open at once ; we are here by General Merriam's order!" The door was quickly opened. There stood a sergeant, two corporals, and some twenty privates of the regular army. Between the ranks were about thirty miners, evidently prisoners. They showed signs of having been suddenly aroused from sleep. "Every man in this house dress and fall in," cried the sergeant as the door opened. "I give you just five minutes." "What have we done?" asked a miner, putting his head out of a window. "Irt with your head, or I'll blow it off !" cried a corporal. "No talk; you have just five minutes to dress, and one is up. Then, dressed or undressed, you go along." There was no further talk. In five minutes' time every miner in the house was at the door. Alexander Clarke was hurried into line along with the rest. As the troops and their captives were 270 ADAM CLARKE about to Start, a mounted officer came dashing along. "What's the delay here, sergeant?" cried the of- ficer. "Every other detachment is on its way to the corral." "The corral," thought Clarke; "so that is what they were building the corral for." The sergeant saluted the officer and explained that he had given the prisoners five minutes to dress. "After this, let them carry their clothes along from the next house," rejoined the officer. The command was obeyed, and the miners in the next house,, the last one assigned to the detachment which had taken Clarke and his fellow-boarders, were hurried off without an opportunity to put on more than their boots and had to carry their clothes. "Double-quick!" cried the sergeant, starting his men and the prisoners for the corral. Clarke stumbled. "Hurry up!" cried a corporal, prodding Clarke with his bayonet. "I'm a British subject," said Clarke aloud, "and I'll complain to the British Government." The sergeant heard the utterance. Turning to the corporal he whispered: "Don't do that again. If he's a British subject there'll be trouble about it." A miner, whose appearance and voice stamped him as a New Englander, asked to be allowed to walk slow. He had weak lungs, and had come West to get the benefit of the climate, while work- ing for a living. He had had an easy place in the mines, and was far from being well. The sudden A CORRAL FOR AAUERICAN "fREEMEN" 2/1 waking up and forcing out into the chill night air made him ill. "I feel faint," he said. "Please let me rest." "Hurry up, I tell you!" cried the corporal who had prodded Clarke to the sick man, and with a fierce oath, he added : "Hurry up, or I'll put the bayonet through you!" The corporal pushed his bayonet so forcibly against the sick miner as to break the skin of his back, and provoke a groan of agony. The sergeant looked inquiringly. "He's only an American," said the corporal. The prisoners were driven, like so many cattle, into the corral, where several hundreds of other prisoners were already gathered. There was no accommodation — nothing but the bare, damp ground — and no answer was returned to those who dared to inquire on what charge they were held. CHAPTER XLVIII. TWO CLARKE BROTHERS MEET. In the morning meagre rations were distributed to the captives, who were divided into messes, as in a military camp. One brave woman pushed her way into the cor- ral along with her husband, and as she refused to leave except in his company, the military authori- ties were obliged by very shame to release the hus- band.* * The confinement in a corral as prisoners of Americans citizens not charged with any crime, which was done by military authority in the Coeur d'AIene region, was one of the gravest outrages ever perpetrated on freemen. General Merriam, who was in command of the troops, issued a proclamation declaring organized labor to be a criminal conspiracy, and forbidding mine-owners to give employment to anyone who belonged to a labor organization. This action aroused general indignation among the working-people of the United States, but has never been repudiated by the government at Washington. Since the foregoing pages were written outrages of even a graver character have been perpetrated in the State of Colorado by militia acting under the authority of a Republican governor. Miners have been imprisoned and deported from the State, on 272 TWO CLARKE BROTHERS MEET 2/3 the charge that they belonged to a labor union. A number of the victims who are British subjects have appealed to that gov- ernment for redress. A dispatch under date of June 21, 1904, from Pueblo, Col- orado, stated: "John Yates and Peter Styler, miners, residents of Victor, confined in the bull-pen for weeks, tell a tale of barbarous torture by the militia under General Bell, and the condition of their arms, which may have to be amputated, lends credence to their story. They assert that they were strung up by the thumbs by General Bell and another officer, and that while sus- pended they were beaten with the flat of swords and brutally kicked. They are in the hospital here, and attorneys who have heard their statements are preparing to bring suit against the State Government. "Penniless and nearly starved, they reached here in a box car from the New Mexico line. Yates told the story while lying on a cot in the County Hospital. *We worked in the mines,' he said, 'and had no trouble until about four months ago, when we were told to give up our union cards. We refused, and were discharged. Then came the explosion that killed the scabs at the Victor depot. As God is my judge, we were innocent, but that night we were arrested in our homes, taken without being allowed to kiss our wives good- by and hurried to the pen. 'General Bell and his soldiers asked us a lot of questions and then we were taken into a room with high rafters and the General in gold lace and another they called Major Naylor raved at us and finally ordered that we be strung up. *They tied knots around our thumbs and pulled us up, and while we hung there they cursed and beat us with the flat of their swords and kicked us. I do not know how long it lasted, for my head began to swim in a few minutes and everything became black. The next I remember is standing in the sunshine, so that it must have been at least four hours. We were struck with a bayonet, forced in a box car with a lot of others and then the pain was so bad that we forgot everything.' "General Bell's latest statement is to the effect that the labor troubles in Colorado are over. He denied that there is a pos- 274 ADAM CLARKE Alexander Clarke had noticed that when he de- clared himself a British subject on his way to the corral he had been treated more humanely. He re- solved to communicate as soon as possible, there- fore, with the British consul at San Francisco, and ask the intervention of that official in his behalf. The woman who was released with her husband bore a message intrusted to her by Clarke, to be telegraphed from the nearest station beyond the control of the military, stating that Alexander Clarke, a British subject, not accused of any crime, was held a prisoner in the corral at Coeur d'Alene, and asking that action be taken to secure his libera- tion. Ten days later an officer entered the corral. By his side walked a gray-haired man in civilian's at- tire. Alexander Clarke was called forward. "Are you the Alexander Clarke who caused this telegram to be sent to the British consul?" asked the civilian visitor. "I am," said Alexander. sibility of the whole State of Colorado being put under martial law, but said that if such a necessity did arise he would not hesitate to do it." Not a word of remonstrance from Washington against these worse than Russian wrongs, although the Constitution of the United States — the supreme law of the land — provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated," and further provides that the President "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." TWO CLARKE BROTHERS MEET 275 "My name happens to be Clarke, too — Adam Clarke," rejoined the civilian, with a smile. "I am employed in the consul's office, and have been sent to verify your claim, and if satisfied that you are a British subject, to procure your release." "Adam Clarke!" cried Alexander. "That was my father's name, and the name of my oldest brother, who left our home at Somerton for Aus- tralia, and has not been heard from in many years." The visitor quivered. "I lived in Somerton," he replied, tremulously. "I am Adam Clarke, the son of Adam Clarke, of that place, and you — and you must be my little brother, Alexander!" The two brothers were clasped in each other's arms, and there was moisture in the officer's eyes as he witnessed the meeting. There was no need of further verification, and Adam and Alexander walked out of the corral to- gether. As they passed from the gate another military officer entered the corral, accompanied by a dark- skinned man with a gold-braided cap. The dark- skinned man was the new consul at San Francisco for Costa Rica, and he bore an order tor the release of "Tony" the "Dago." With that manly generosity characteristic of the real American, the miners cheered their liberated companions, while feeling all the more keenly the injustice of treating as prisoners and convicts American citizens guiltless of crime. A few feet outside the gate of the corral the of- 276 ADAM CLARKE ficer who was accompanying the Costa Rica consul and Tony was met by a deputy marshal who offered him a paper. ■ "What's this ?" asked the officer curtly. "A writ of habeas corpus," replied the marshal, "from the judge of the United States " "It don't go here," answered the officer, waving the deputy aside, and passing on. CHAPTER XLIX. FROM mother's GRAVE TO THE WEDDING OF AN- DREW AND PRISCILLA. What Alexander told Adam has been mostly re- lated in these pages. The story of Adam Clarke contained no startling incidents. He had gone to Australia with high hopes of fortune-making, and not meeting the success he expected he had ceased writing home, intending to resume correspondence when in better circumstances. He found that with- out capital his chances as a miner were poor, and he sought and obtained employment in a mercantile house at Melbourne. This house had a branch at Shanghai, to which he was sent. There he ac- quired some knowledge of Chinese, and was offered a place as an assistant in the office of the British Consul-General. Thence he was transferred to the San Francisco consul's office. He had written to his father's former address at Somerton, about ten years before, but the letter was returned to him undelivered. He had never married. Alexander travekd with Adam to Boise City, and drew the remainder of his money from the bank, and then went with his brother to San Francisco. Letters to Mrs. Robert Clarke in New York, and 277 278 ADAM CLARKE to Mary and Wallace in Craddocksboro were quick- ly answered, with earnest invitations to Adam and Alexander to visit their relatives in the East. Adam obtained a long leave of absence, and the two brothers started on their journey. Adam desired that their first stop should be at Pittsburgh, so that he could visit the grave of their sister, Martha, and her baby. A neat monument, raised by An- drew Craig since his return from Mexico, to the memory of his wife and child, marked the long- neglected resting place, and the tears of the two brothers fell freely as they thought of the hapless fate of their sister and her boy. Adam and Alexander had a happy welcome at Craddocksboro. There they were introduced to Craig and to his promised wife, Priscilla, for Asa Craddock, although reluctant to share his daugh- ter's love with anyone but her mother, felt that in Andrew Craig she had chosen a man who would not only be a faithful husband, but also an able and prudent guardian of the interests she would ulti- mately inherit. And Craig, on his part, felt that in becoming allied to a family in control of large min- ing properties and employing hundreds of men, he would be all the better qualified to carry into prac- tical effect his plans for the fair treatment of labor, for the Golden Rule between employer and em- ployed. He loved Priscilla with a love the more deepseated and enduring because it was that of a man mature enough to know his own heart and not to mistake a shadow for the reality, the whim of an hour for the passion of a lifetime. But for all FROM MOTHER S GRAVE TO WEDDING 2/9 his love he would not give up the aim which liad become the lodestar of his career, and she loved him too truly to wish him to be recreant to the cause which Martha and her baby had sanctified by their death. With her mind broadened by her Vassar training, she entered sincerely and intelli- gently into his plans, and he knew that, with her at his side, he would be doubly strong for his chosen task. Andrew Craig accompanied Adam and Alexan- der to New York, where their first visit, after greet- ing their living relatives, was to the grave of Mrs. Clarke, beyond the outskirts of Brooklyn. The two brothers and Andrew knelt and prayed, and laid fresh flowers on the humble plot. As they rose to go a bluebird warbled sweetly from an adjoining tree. Its soft note reminded them of the gentle voice of the mother who had gone before, and they hoped and believed that from the life beyond she looked down upon her children, to whose welfare she had given her earthly existence. Andrew and the brothers spent a glad week with Mrs. Robert Clarke, their two nephews, Adam and Robert, and their young niece, Emily, now growing to beautiful girlhood. Charley Murphy was made to come forward, although he wanted to stay in the background when the visitors arrived, and his pleasant face blushed rosier than ever as Mrs. Clarke told of his goodness in the time of her need, and of Adam's sad accident. Adam, senior, and Andrew Craig oflfered to help the young men along in the world, but they said that they pre- 280 ADAM CLARKE ferred to make their own way; that their newspaper stand was profitable, and they intended soon to establish themselves in a book and stationery store. They all promised to go to Craddocksboro and at- tend the marriage of Andrew and Priscilla, after which Adam would go back to San Francisco and Alexander would again seek fortune in the mines of the Northwest, to which region he had become attached, notwithstanding his rough experience at Coeur d'AIene.