Cornell Universily I ihrary HD8390.W46 Full up and ted up; the worker's mind in 3 1924 002 788 325 DigitizQd.b^:W(^mjr>ft&i: lA/H (xo - THE MARTIN P. CATHERWOOD LIBRARY OF THE NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY Digitized by Microsoft® This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation witli Cornell University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in limited quantity for your personal purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partial versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commercial purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® FULL UP AND FED UP Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® El w K^^.i^Ji^^^^^^^KMIfS^^^^^^B B^^!f^? |B m , 'I*.. 1 HHpPk^^v^^ ■SBBHfi|^K^^^^^H '^ -^^^^H^^fij^^^H , ' ^^ 4 J^^^l ^ ^m ^^Btu^^^B ^m^^'''^^SalB^^^^^^^B^ f^^- iM^^bi^i^B a ^^^^^Bk^^^^H CO Pi I— I I < o H !> O Digitized by Microsoft® FULL UP AND FED UP THE WORKER'S MIND IN CROWDED BRITAIN/ i BY WHITING WILLIAMS ATTTHOB OF "WHAT's ON THZ WOBKBB'b MIMd" WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK CHARLES SClii^,^NER'S SONS Digitized by 1921 ^f, ' ' Micro^^i OOFTBIOHT, 1021; BT OHABIJiB BOBIBNBB'S SONB FabUBbed October, 1921 3 6^7^07 6 UL • <''■-■- THE BCRIBNEH PBEM ^. ' Digitir&d by^'wlicrosffc® . ,, , Property, of, MARTIN P. CATHERWOOD LIBRARY NEW VefiK STATE S1:K331 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATlQtiS Cornell University FOREWORD Nobody could have been more surprised than myself to find that the months of 1919 spent in the labor gangs of America made ahnost unavoidable a few months of 1920 in the labor gangs of Great Britain. In this wise: Following the return to white-collared ways, the country gave surprising approval to the following "Big Fgur" factors which lay, in my behef, at the bottom of the labor problem here in our own country: I. The huge importance to the working man — ^and that means to us all — of that prayer of the industrial era: "Give us this day our daily Job !" The job it is which affords to each of us the platform upon which we stand as members of the modern industrial commonwealth. The job it is which coimects each of us up with the doings of others in a way to make us important to them and so to ourselves. The job it is which serves as a crank-shaft by which we get the satisfaction of seeing the forces of our own hves glared up with the forces of others for tuming the wheels of the world's work — ^and so for finding ourselves not altogether valueless. Job gone? — then the rightness of the rest of the circle of our interests gives us little satisfaction---in spite of such testimony as that of the hopeful wife who got out to inspect the rear tire and reported, "Well, John, it is quite flat at the bottom. But the rest of it is fine!" II. The importance of the part played by oiu- bodies, as the result of their effort to adapt themselves to the con- ditions of working and living imposed by the job. Espe- cially the power for industrial and civic evil possessed and wielded by those unheavenly twins of "Tiredness and Digitized by 'Microsoft® vi FOREWORD I Temper" — the TNT that causes so many explosions m the trenches of both the family and the factory life. Ill* The importance of the mental conditions of the man on the job— the threat of wide-spread evil to be fomid in the huge volume of misimderstandiag between modem employer and modem employee. IV. The vital importance of what can be called the spiritual conditions which all of us hope to find wrapped up in our job: the deep-down mainspring of our desire to "be somebody" and to "count" most of all by reason of the thing we do — to show ourselves men by virtue of show- ing ourselves work-men. Something like these four factors, so it has appeared to me, furnish a means of breaking up the problem of indus- trial relations and so of locating the particular cause of the difficulty in any one case. When a man feels that his body, mind, and spirit are all connected up with each other and with that crank-shaft of the job, then he laughs the laugh of joy. Then, too, he laughs the laugh of scom not only at the agitator but also at those who would try to persuade him that work is a cruel hang-over from the days when our common ancestor was thrust out of the Garden of Do- nothing for eaming his bread with the sweat of his brow. At least something like that, I am sure, is tme for America and Americans. But is that because we are Americans or because we are hiunans? To answer the question required the rather reluctant doiming of the overalls and the undergoing of the discom- forts of the labor gang in some other country. To what extent the experiences reported in these pages answer the question which carried me into them — ^and to what extent they appear to make it desirable to try to get the feelings of the workers of France or Germany, or Italy' and Spain — ^the reader may decide. Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS PART I— WITH THE WORKERS CBAPTEB FABB I. Into Strange Watbes — ^fbom a London Dock ... 3 II. By the Smelters and Stoves of Sottth Wales ... 26 III. "Back to the Mines" and the "Bolshies"! ... 61 IV. ''What's the Matter with Glasgow?" 123 V. With the 'Ands on SMELTiNa Stage, Cinder Pit and Castled 170 VI. Midst the Minebs and Machinists of the Mild Mid- lands 205 VII. Living the Double Life in London 234 VIII. The Worst Job tet 275 PART n— ONE INTERPRETATION IX. "Full Up!" 285 X. "Fed Up!" . 294 XI. How Many Jobs to a Nation? 301 XII. The Domestic Pat Envelope and "International Creative Evoltjtion" 308 XIII. Can We Get "the Air" to the "Working Faces" in the World Factory Mine? 318 ■^ I Digitized byl9licrosoft® Digitized by Microsoft® ILLUSTRATIONS Over 200,000 of Britain's 1,200,000 coal-miners live in the famous South Wales District Frontispiece FACIHO PAOB Dockers imloading copra or cocoanut-meat for making oil, cattle- food, and oleomargarine at a London dock 18 f They tells us as 'ow we should sive our money. So 'ere we are I". 18 Blast-furnaces of this hand-charged type are now being replaced by machine-charged furnaces of newer and larger type .... 28 Salt firemen of Northern England . 94 f'E been now," his wife said, "as good a mon as 'e been bawd be- fore — awnd no one could say more than thot !" 94 "Dirty Dick's my name, but I'm not dirty-minded " .... 94 A saloon or "pub" in London's East End as a "neighborhood centre" to which the babe in arms is becoming accustomed early 134 Qhildren in a crowded Glasgow district 134 Crowds listening to the smooth-tongued salesmen of "riot, racing, or religion — ^representatives of a better chance in either this world or the world to come'' 168 The crowd waits as the bookies mark up their preferences at the week-end whippet races 168 Separating the "pigs" from the "sow" in a Middlesbrough "cast- bed" 182 The author as he is and as he was when in search of work in Britain 266 Digitized by ffficrosoft® Digitized by Microsoft® PART I WITH THE WORKERS Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE WORKERS CHAPTER I INTO STRANGE WATERS— FROM A LONDON DOGE Whitechapd, East End, London, June 29, 1920. The most surprising thing is the interest every one here shows in my plan, queer and strange though it seems to them. The head of a group of manufacturers has ahready given his expert approval of the idea to begin in the South Wales tin-plate and coal districts; go thence to the Clyde bank, near Glasgow, where the very numerous radical workers are taken much more seriously than their less active though louder-taUdng comrades among the Welsh workers; ending up with the more conservative and newer steel centre of the British Pittsburgh, Middlesbrough, near Newcastle, and finally the older Sheffield district. This adviser is a college man and seems to feel that the freemasonry of college men — evidently more marked over here — ^would require hin\ to help me if nothing else. In that connection he said yester- day that the English worker is likely to be suspicious of me because: "It will seem a bit odd to them, you know, that your friends are willing to let you go so low. That wouldn't be done over here. A decent job, you see, would be found for you by some one if for nothing else than to save a fellow member of one's own class." But he seemed to think that I might meet all that by letting on that I was a hard drinker ! 3 Digitized by Microsoft® 4 FULL UP AND FED UP Similarly the head of a big firm of engineers and equippers of steel plants was not at all of the suspicious sort that some friends at home had made me think I might en- counter: "Your plan of first-hand study of this labor problem is odd enough, but it certainly has enormous possibilities, and I want to help every bit I can." Then he proceeded to ask if I wouldn't do him the favor of doing a few days' work among the bricklayers who are in his employ build- ing a big glass plant, and who are said to represent one of the hardest trades to get along with in the empire. Inas- much as the job is near by, in London, it seems a proper way of repaying the various courtesies he will extend dur- ing the summer. In one sense this country seems to be in a very bad way in this matter of labor, in another not so bad. The sub' ject does not seem on people's tongues to the same extent as in Aiperica. The fact that it is all put over into politics appears to give the man on the street the idea that it is by way of being worked out. Then the fact that the imions are so much on the job further supports the idea that it will somehow take care of itself without the ordinary citi- zen's bothering. "Practically every one of our workers is in some union or other," was the way an official of an iron and steel manu- facturers' association put it. "With every one of these unions where it is at all feasible we have had for the last thirty years an agreement to pay wages on the basis of ton- nage, and also on a sliding scale according to the selling price of the product. In the case of the one solitary strike of any consequence in these thirty years, everything was settled by the establishment of this rule of sliding scale. This the makers had heretofore held out against in that particular connection. Since then there has been no trouble anywhere of any size — ^that is, with the steel men. We do Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 6 have trouble occasionally with the special trades, like the steam-fitters, machinists, and others. You see, to them steel is only a side issue. Of the distinctly steel imions the representatives go over the company's sales books every three months. In that way they make sure that the selling price for the three months' period has been as represented, and on the basis of any change of price the wage agreement! is continued. In America I understand this sliding-scale arrangement is practised, at least so far as steel is concerned, only in the steel-sheet industry. I presume it is in opera- tion there as the direct result of your importation of our Welsh 'sheet-workers.' " Among the workers in general labor matters appear far from quiet and contented. The Labor Party in its annual session at Scarborough has just now pubUcly stated that, in its opinion, "In spite of all kinds of conciliation ma- chinery the relations between the workers and the owners were never worse." It intimates that all the idealism of the war has been completely lost, with nothing done in any way to make the war worth its prodigious cost. The party is apparently very strongly for nationaUzation of coal and all sorts of things. In several of its proposals it is said to be doing a certain amount of pussyfooting, as befits an organization which must keep its eye on the votes — ^which, by the way, Mr. Gompers and Mr. J. P. Frye of our own A. F. of L, give as the reason why they oppose the Labor Party idea for America. The party also turns down government purchase of the hquor trade and eschews prohibition, but does go on record for local option, evidently having in mind that this is the way things began to happen with us. A well-known American official, by the way, remarked to-day that in his belief this coimtry would go dry in five years — largely as the result of getting the wet- and-dry issue into the field of good or bad industry here as at home. Digitized by Microsoft® 6 FULL UP AND FED UP But, even though the average citizen here doesn't seem as keen to talk about the labor problem as in "the States," still two things come strongly into the view of the newcomer. For one thing, the country is certainly having a great time with strikes— I should say at least quite as bad if not worse than we. The day we landed, the National Union of Gas- Workers was threatening strike in a very serious way. They wanted a forty-foiur-hour week (now forty-seven), double time for Sundays, week-ends, etc., with ten shillings a week immediate advance. Gas seems to seU already at ten or twelve shillings for 1,000 cubic feet ! The wireless men on the big liners were also preventing sailing because of a strike. The dockers have lately got a very successful award of two shillings an hour — quite high here — ^but are now wanting more work badly. In fact, my pet idea about the imt)or- tance of the job was upheld before the end of my very first EngUsh newspaper page! There stood the words: "The dockers' great need is not for registration, not for govern- ment measures, not even for a rise in wages. The dockers' great need is regtular work." Even the notably happy workers of Lord Leverholme at Port Sunlight have been announced as having a dispute on. Of course, the strike of the mimition workers in Ireland and the civil war in Londonderry have also been much in the papers. Besides the political factors in the Irish taix- up, it seems that much of the trouble has its roots in the economic problem. One correspondent says that serious trouble always starts when the sons of the Catholics have difficulty getting good jobs with the Ulstermen, who are reported at the head of most of the business concerns in "Derry," and in many other factory cities. The small number of Irish factory cities, especially in the most im- happy part of Ireland, is given as one reason why so little interest seems to be taken in the whole Irish problem by the average business man here. The possibility of an Irish Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 7 rail strike seems to be very much on the mind of J. H. Thomas, the conservative head of the Railway Men's Union. The papers have also been carrying word of a threatened strike of the (unionized) bank clerks of Scotland and else- where. In near-by colunms appears a statement of the Minister of Labor that "Food in May was 146 per cent over pre-war; in Jime 155 per cent." (This is not quite the same as the cost of hving, into which other items must be figured with appropriate "weighting.") The same minis- try also stated that the percentage of unemployed among workers covered by the insurance list was 2.68 on May 28 and 2.80 on April 30, with conditions good in most trades except boot and shoe and the weaving section of the cotton trade. Weekly wages of about 1,700,000 work-people showed a total increase 750,000 pounds sterling. This represents those increases recently secured by the dock laborers, also others won by the buildiag trades, dress- making, and cotton and woollen, operatives. About 250,- 000 workers also lessened their working week by about two and a half hours. Altogether it would look as though labor matters were moving. The second of these noticeable things is the general con- viction in public and business circles that the English worker is lying down on the job disgracefully — and that nothing can be done about it. "You'll find all our workers taking things jolly easy," appears to be the imiversal testimony except when it is: "Well, you'll find our men doing much less in a day than yours." Usually the blame is placed upon the union. "We can't sell our furnaces on the basis of the men it will save, because the unions make everybody use so many men for so many furnaces, whether or no. So we can only talk the saving of coal," said a salesman from America. Digitized by Microsoft® 8 FULL UP AND FED UP How this will turn out to be in actuality it will be highly interesting to see. Of one thing I am pretty sure — ^namely, that the roots of whatever loafing there is — ^and perhaps also of the ap- parently universal membership in the union— will be foimd very close to the same thing that is on the mind of the dock workers — the daily job, "regular work." That seems to be one reason why the tmions are not apparently defending the government's Employment Exchanges, now imder criti- cism as expensive. They pretty generally want to handle the getting of jobs for their men themselves as a funda- mental service for their members. "We said to our bricklayers," said my engineering friend, " ' here we are paying you more than the union rate and yet you throw us down whenever you joUy please, or when some other local asks you to. Why don't you chuck the union ? ' They tm*ned around on us at once and said : ' Can you guarantee us a job for every day in the year we need one?'" Well, we shall see what we shall see. I'm sure it's going to be worth while, anyway — ^whatever happens. Because from this set-up it is evident, surely, that the problem isn't so different as to prevent my experiences here from being useful in giving a better light into our problem back home. And now good night to get ready for moseying noncha- lantly around onto that bricklayer's helper^s job to-morrow. Later — ^June 30th. Am told to-day that the uneasiness noticed in the cur- rent papers comes from a very distinct increase of unem- ployment within the last two or three weeks — since the period covered by the Labor Ministry's figures. People are evidently having much the same scare we had back home two months ago. Should have mentioned last night, also, the doings on Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 9 shipboard coming over. Though the boat was c^erating under American registry, 'most of the men were English and reflected English rather than American conditions. The stewards had a near-strike because they were being worked over ten hours per day with no extra pay whatever for overtime. The difficulty was narrowly averted by the steward's promising the extra pay. The second engineer was as black as coal when he took me down into the stoke- hole, but the thing that worried him most — ^it came to his lips time after time — ^was his beloved, though I must say, bedraggled-looking, engine: "We used to be able to get in a few coal-passers, and have every rod as clean as yoiur face around here. But it can't be done now — ^against union rules to bring 'em in and the men themselves won't do it, not even when we're in port, and they've nothing else to do !" Whitechapel, London, July 1, 1920. A long and slow-moving, but very worth-while day. Like many others of its kind it has been a demonstration of the way men wear their hearts, if not on their sleeves, then at least much closer to the siu-face than we white-coUared folk are apt to think. In the morning I got again into my old clothes, with many misgivings, feeling myself very much a stranger in a far country, and even less able to guess what might happen to me in these parts than when the other start was made a year and a half ago. In the restaurant where I got eggs, bacon, a pot of tea, and bread and butter for the surprising price of one and ten pence — ^about thirty-five cents accord- ing to the present exchange which gives nearly five shillings to the dollar — I felt sure I was dressed too badly for the place, until some others who looked still tougher and nearer the edge of things were good enough to come in. One of Digitized by Microsoft® 10 FULL UP AND FED UP these asked the girl for tea and one egg, and then proceeded to unwrap some pieces of bread he had brought with him. When I finally got to the bricklayer's helper's job, I was again pleased with the way the other unskilled workers who lined up waiting for a chance at similar jobs took me in without an instant's delay. The boss of the job, how- ever, turned me down cold — ^nicely but firmly: "Matter of fact, I've got more men than I know what to do with now." "Yer see, it's the skilled men as is wanted — ^bricklayers and the Ukes o' that. So they cawn't take more of us," one of my fellow applicants explained. There were so many kinds of workers all about the plant that was being erected for making bottles by machinery according to an American patent, that no one seemed to object to my loafing around to see and hear all possible. I must say that there seemed extremely little loafing by the bricklayers or their assistants who brought them the hod-loads of bricks and mortar up the ladders from below. Still there was a good deal of eating of an occasional sandwich and drinking from a tea or cdffee can. The yoimg American in charge of the installation of the patent process — ^he either didn't think I was an American or else was un- willing to admit it for fear I'd strike him for a job — ^is quite sure that these workers do not get as much done in a day as ours. But they all kept on the job very well, except the carpenters, who would not work as long as it continued "rainin' quite tidy, you know." One of the machine- fitters was evidently loafing and ready to talk with a stranger in explanation of the furnace he was fixing for carrying the moulded bottles through on a continuous chain. His partner berated him for sitting there "like a bloomin' log," while he went in search of a stick long enough to make a measurement. "For every one o' these things we got to go find a new stick. If only we'd save 'em we'd save our- Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 11 selves, too; But what's the odds?" About that time he made me feel as if I was back home on some factory job as he exclaimed: "Ah, there's the Mogul! I mustn't sit here like this !" Whereupon he caught up a handy wrench and went throiigh the motions of tightening a bolt! Of course, to help him fool his boss I sauntered away. The plans of the plant represent the last word in labor and time-saving machinery, but the contractors are cer- tainly using many hand-woimd or horse-drawn windlasses 'for cltmisily raising all sorts of materials to the high plat- forms. The finished plant is expected to turn out some- thing like 5,000 gross of all kinds of bottles every twenty- four hours — ^without a glass-blower in the place ! "There's nothin' in the wye of a job to be got outside, an3rm'here3 now, and that's the truth." That was the bur- den of the conversation an hour later when I dropped into a cheap eating-plade in Woolwich near the government ship- yard, ah(i about a mile from the arsenal. "Yes, I took a -few days off — told the Colonel I was re- signin' for a week, ye xmderstand — ^and looked and looked everywhere and no good it was to me, so I came back," a red-haired man from "the West of Ireland" put in with a bitter smjle. "Unemployment insurance? Yes, fifteen bob a week! That 'ardly pays for your fags ! What good does it do you, hi?" That was the way a serious-looking chap with an attractive face and a linen duster of a clerk's coat put it. , "But no wonder there's the 'igh cost of livin' with all the money's bein' spent by the government — ^3,000,000 pounds they're talkin' about now fer givin' the soldiers a bally lot o' scarlet dress uniforms that's no good to nobody." "An' all the waste and the loafin' there in the shipyard ! Why, if I was asked to destriye all the stuff that many men's asked to destriye right over there — ^war stuff, you know, like the tables that was used by the Ge^an prisoners, and Digitized by Microsoft® 12 FULL UP AND FED UP that's havin' their legs knocked off so they can pack 'em away nice and regular aiid military like, you know — ^well, I'd fair tell 'em they could have my job I Wy, we all spend hours in there movin' stuff from here over to there, and from there over to that place, and then, after we go along, a new gang moves 'em from there to back where they was when we found 'em. And even at that, not one of us does a decent and self-respectin' day's work." "But when you 'ave your money," breaks in the clerk again, "your three-pound-fourteen a week, what 'ave you got ? If you 'ave childern, a man simply can't live." When he added that, for one thing, there was too much class idea in it all, I expected to see it take a different turn from the Irishman's cut-in: "You've said it ! W'y, let a man walk down street with his workin' clothes on, and out of a dozen girls he passes not two of 'em will give him so much as a look, to say nothing of answering his how do you do ! But when he's got some good clothes on as a clerk and rubs two shillings to- gether then they come his way nice enough !" "Well, I'm off for Canada the end of the simamer," he went on as he produced a letter from a pal who reported with great detail the values he was getting for his money over there in the way of laundry, meals, etc. The letter concluded with " — ^and in four or five years of this I'm com- ing back home to buy the finest 'pub ' you got in your whole blamed country and take life easy." The evident effect of the reading was so strong that it coincided with my earlier observations that it is by means of such first-hand testimony that most of the decisions of the workers — ^if not of most of the rest of us — ^are made from day to day. "My brother, he over here, send for me," the foreign-bom workers in America were alwaj^ say- ing in explanation of their comings over or their movings from one place in the coimtry to another. Such com- Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 13 munications serve as the great means of instruction about things they cannot see, just as the eyes of their daily ex- perience teach them from moment to moment what to think about the things goihg on around them. Much of the whole attitude of the workers toward goverimient there at home, I found thus based not so much on what they read in the papers as on what they saw going on around them on their job. Said one of this group: "Well, I tried hard enough to buy one of the cases they make for carryin' the parts of a cannon — cost three pounds to make, they did, and they're seUin' 'em at auction for two ehillin' ! 'But, of course,' they says to me, 'we can't sell 'em in less 'n lots of fifty!' And then Lloyd George and the rest of 'em comes down and pats us on the back — and wouldn't know us from Adam any other time — ^no, nor care." "Well, let me tell you, we'll all be lucky to have our jobs this winter. It's goin' to be a 'ard time, in my opinion," broke in a very sedate and quiet person of the head-ma- chinist type. "I don't know what brings you over here," the red-haired and fiery-dispositioned man from Ireland confided after- ward when he hailed me on the street and we were alone. "But for Heaven's sake, don't think o' working here! Everybody loses aU his ambition here — they hold onto the same job exactly now that they had twenty year ago. W'y, you know, even the tramway men call out, 'Convalescent's Home!' or 'Saint's Rest!' when they stop here or at the arsenal! I give you my word, they just don't remember how to work after they's been here a few years. It's aw- ful! Of course, you'll get your three-poimds-fourteen, hut you'll be disrespected — by yourself and everybody else! Here am I — nothin' but common labor — at the bottom of the whole pile and shootin' match! And I've had forty- seven public appearances ridin' the best horses in the coun- Digitized by Microsoft® 14 FULL UP AND FED UP try! That's what the war has done for me! Now, my friend in Canada — ^he's better circumstanced than I — that is, he's not married. But my wife — well, she's young but she's wise, you imderstand. I was sayin' to her last night, 'Now here we are, we're fairly comfortable.' We live with her old man and that helps, so we can save about fifteen shillin' a week besides takin' care of our three-year-old. 'We can go to a show when we want to,' I says, 'and have a drink when we want it. And we're as good as a lot of the rest of the people here in this town,' I says. 'But where wOl we be in ten years from now— when I'm forty years old? Where'll we be then?' I says. An' she says she's game, so I'm goin' to be lookrn' up a White Star liner one of these days and see if I can't get started as a steward or something. Somehow or other I got to make somethin' of myself. I'll fair die if I got to stick around and be gen- eral labor aU my life. And I'm gettin' old just worryin' about what I should do — till I think I could fair shoot Llide George if he was standin' there now." And then he proceeded to hand me a jolt: "Course that — even that — ^wouldn't be so bad for me. My brother and me — ^well, we murdered a polic^nan in Ireland only last winter. You see, he was arrestin' a man and we tried to take the man away from him and my brother he tapped him too hard with ah iron pipe he had. And after he was down I kicked him in the face — and he seemed to be done for worse than we thought for. So the rest of 'em said we didn't ought to leave him in /his misery that way. So we all went at it and finished him off. That's the way they do it in Ireland — ^they doji't beUeve in lettin' people he in their misery — ^and everybody helps. The jury disagreed three times, so we was let off. My mother she thinks I'm pretty bloody bad and writes for me not to come home now that so many gangs is gettin' together and doin' mostly nothin' but murderin'. No, I'd not advise you to look for ^o^gW^ev^%e^.^rosoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 15 "But there's too much bloody misiBry right here — ^and that's a fact — ^and that's what's worryin' me. There, look at those fellows in fine clothes! This one's getting exactly eight bob a week less than I, but he's payin' his father nothin' a week for his board, so he can loaf and get along. The same with these dressed-up chaps over there — and all their wound stripes will only get 'em more trouble findin' work — there's 250,000 soldiers out of work here now* and 75,000 in Canada. And these fellows, at that, can't save much even if they ain't married. The trouble with a married man is that if he does save, there's always something happening to use up the coupla quid (pounds) he thought he had laid away, for good — the baby's got to have some shoes you hadn't counted on or something — and after that's happened a few times and you see you're no better off than you were before, w'y then you chuck the whole bloody idea! Well, there's the bell and I'll have to go in and support the government by movin' things around some more — or destriyin' 'em. Good luck to you." Yesterday I was told that Woolwich arsenal is in charge of a very progressive man who is much interested in the plan of keeping the organization going by making engines and similar suppUes in between wars, as it were. The place now keeps something like 17,000 men busy, with all their operations as compared with 90,000 in war time. Across the river at the Prince Albert docks I watched some very big strong men let a helper swing back and forth great quarters of beeves, as they came along suspended from monorail conveyers off a great boat which had brought 7,000 tons of them from the Argentine. When they swung high enough so the men could get their shoulders under them, they marched with them up the incline and pitched them jaimtily down into the hold of a barge or lighter which would doubtless require the services of other men to take them out^p^^f^gt^^.^g^gj^iver in London. 16 FULL UP AND FED UP "Three thousand of 'em in a day — ^and fifty bob (shillmg) a day a man for doin' it (two poimds ten or $12.50 at ordi- nary exchange). Why, the fellows that has done this too regular ain't (pronounced eyent) the size of a half a man now. Not a woman as would look at 'em ! Well, I've been everywhere — ^in the States, AustraUa, New Zealand! But I guess I like this better than all. And this job keeps m^ fit — only when the lighter sets as high as this and you have to go up the incline — ^that's what tykes it out of you. But this job — ^well, it makes you go at a big steak this way — gobble, gobble ! It's f^ medicine for me, this job." He had been three years and four months in the army — as everybody among the workers and I guess everybody else, for that matter, seems to have been — and was as big and handsolfie and attractive a worker as I've seen in a long time. I kept wanting to say that we needed men like him in my coimtry, I thought he might be a hard drinker — ^and perhaps he is — ^but he surprised me. Tha;t was when, after he had expressed his wish for a drink instead of the cup of tea which the company furnishes the gang, he came out with: "Yes, I'd like to see it dry over here, too. And there's many others as would say that here if they spoke their minds. Why, right over there in that boat there from America there's men that'll tell you, 'Why, in the country we come from we've got friends as was in the gutter, and now, by God, they're wearin' a collar and tie.' " If the workers can have an abundance of such "demon- stration" the world won't be long going dry! With that he ran off to take his turn at the tpa, beer not being available on the dock. Tea is served to all the clerks in London offices at four as regular as clockwork. Some of the heads have told me that an amazing amount of work is done between that and closing time at five-thirty. I would give a lot to know the fuU details of the major Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 17 factors in the life of the next man who topped off my day. He was old and thin and badly we&ther-beaten, but evi- dently still very active, as we got to talking on the foot- bridge going over the railway near the docks* "Yes, I'm a docker now. An' diu-ing the war t'was a good job — ^with men scarce and wages 'igh. Now there's plenty o' work but plenty o' men, too. It's five weeks since I been able to pay me union dues. Thot's saxpence the 'week. There's been nothin' fer me to do but take the chawnce of pickin' up" a coupla bob 'ere carryin' somun's bags or boxes — and a-sleepin' wherever I could at night. I 'aven't 'ad a chawnce ter wash me face the day to-day. That's after forty years knockin' around on the sea in 'windbags' and steamers — ^all kinds o' ships and ivery part of the world — ^in the stoke-hole and on the decks since I wuz fifteen years old. Me family? Ah, they've all flew away, ivery wan of thim-^with two sons thot went down with the army. I'm the only wan left — and I suppose I'll be agoin' wan of these days; they say iverybody's got to. Yis, it's been worth while — with a lot of knockin' about." And then his soul seemed to blaze up, as, with shaking finger, he shouted: "But they's men in there — thousands of 'em — thot's 'ad a job ivery day fer weeks — ^iVery day for weeks ! Thot's not right ! They should tike their turn — ^iverybody shoidd divide up and iveiybody 'ave his share o' work. Look at this fellow a-closin' of 'is gates afore the trine is near! Well, he's got 'is job and 'e's goin' ter do 'is duty and everybody else can look out fer 'imself !" As I said good-by I told him I could ask him in for a drink but thought he might be able to use the bob to good advantage to himself, and that I could spare it before get- ting a cattle boat back to the States. If ever face and arms and voice spoke thanks with the quickness of a flash his did, as he grabbed for my hand with his: "Oh ! Oh !" Digitized by Microsoft® 18 FULL UP AND FED UP In an instant his eyes were commencing to be full. "Why, this'll buy me a real bed to-night;!" And again his hand — a homy hand it was of all that I have ever clasped — and again his: "Oh ! Oh ! That'll b]iy me a real bed — Good- by to ye and good luck to ye. I'll think of > ye this night on me bed ! Good-by." So, as I've been riding back to my quarters on top of a bus, past mile after mile of gray slmns, I've kept repeating to myself: "Men are so much better at bottom than they appear on the surface — so much truer when you get a good close-up, local connection than by the .ordinary 'long-dis- tance' contacts of this speciahzed and classified old world — so much better." V Whiteehapel, London, July 3, 1920. It has been a day of getting closer to the Far East than ever before — down in the midst of the odd cargoes and the medley of British and Indian workers and the strange Oriental smeUs which the big ships bring into the East India dock. It gave a chance to jtmip down into the Ught- ers and to heft the huge ivory tusks, some of them nearly* twelve feet long from their sharp points to where they seem / to have been torn out by the roots — some of them colored like a fine old pipe, others carved fancifully to show a crocodile swallowing a Jong snake which in turn is swal- lowing a frog — ^tons and tons of these tusks thrown care- lessly out of the big East Indian liner into the waiting barge, by which most of the freight seems to be taken to the various markets or storage places farther up in Lon- don. A short distance away it was possible to taste the "foot sugar" from Madras or the copra or cocoanut shell and cocoanut "meat" from various Oriental places — hardly any tastier than the sheeps' wool, the worn-out auto tires, the jute, or the coffee. All these things seem to look good to the dockers or ' Digitized by Microsoft® DOCKERS UNLOADING COPRA OR COCOANUT-MEAT FOB MAKING OIL, CATTLE-FOOD, AND OLEOMARGARINE AT A LONDON DOCK. ^ '^!^S^* .A^^t*Mi^ %% ■■■j^^l Mjk ^■P^|£^**C^f ^p H ^^■^v ^^Hi W^BMh^' ,,,i|^B ^HhHHHP^^^ ^^r ^^ /«^i_^j^^Hr Hi ^^^^^^Bi^Hn? sl l]mHBiH.j ^^^^HHH gj^miiji^ liriflBI^^^^^^I "THEY TELLS US AS 'OW WE SHOULD SIVE OUR MONEY. SO 'ERE WE ARE!" Getting bits of coal from the ash heap in an industrial centre. (With the instinct of the eternal feminine, the lady has removed her cap in order to be at her best.) Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 19 stevedores, for they spell bread and butter — or, at worst, "marge" as they call oleomargarine — at the rate of sixteen bob a day of eight hours. FromHjhe Way they put their shoulders under the great bags, many of them weighing two hundred pounds, I'd say they aren't afraid of work by a long shot. As soon as the winch — or the hydraulic crane — ^has deposited the load of bales and bundles on the dock,' they seem to tear into them in proper style. In a moment they get their truck loaded and off down the way to the lighter, indulging occasionally in banter and language that would make even my old friends on the open-hearth floor take off their hats — some of it too curdled for an Amer- ican to imderstand without more practice than I've had yet. "Thanks fer calling me a dog," came out in one dispute. "Well, if 'arf of us wuz dogs, 'twould be a better warrld than 'tis now, becuz dogs is true and men eyent." One thing is sure, it is impossible to get very far away from the thought of the job — the steady job— while mov- ing around among these chaps, whether inside the great dock's stone gate or out. My ease in talking things over with them grew greater after several of them came up and after reaching behind their ears to produce an inch or inch and a half of cigarette, coolly took a Ught from mine with- out a word. The shortness of the treasured cigarettes may possibly be explained by the story which is said toi be popidar among the district's schoolboys — "The other day I went into a tobacconist's to get me a cigar and a man trod on me fingers." "There's bloody Uttle work around 'ere now," was the testimony of an old man of seventy who repeated the general complaint. "Diuin' thfe war they was enough fer all — but ye can see all the men that's witin' fer somethin' 'ere to-dye. Yuss" — ^with amazing fervor when I mentioned the husky piece-workers of yesterday afternoon,— "yuss, Digitized by Microsoft® 20 FULL UP AND FED UP I know them piece-work fellies ! They gets their fifty bob a dye aU light by a-doin' of the work of two or three good men— a puttin' bread and jam inter their beUies and sayin' 'Chuck you, Jack,' to the rest of us. But that's like the rest o' the world now. Forty years ago I was a devil fer work meself, but I'd alius share a shillin' with ^ny one and they with me. But nowadays they see a man in the gutter and let hUa bloody well lie ! . . . But I got me pension now — ten bob a week — and with the other ten bob I can pick up I gets along — ^just as I hev since I wuz fourteen and started off ter sea — without no schooUn' after I was seven. " "See them Lascars?" said a red-faced, imshaven fellow in badly soiled coat, greasy handkerchief for necktie, spotted corduroy pants, and the heaviest of boots, all in very great contrast with the East Indian's bare feet, gray denim trousers and jumper, black beard and dish-rag of a turban. "The law's been lettin' them things and liie^ Chinks get the places on the boats that should belong to us. 'Taiat right." "Ye '11 'ave trouble findin' work and that's the truth," a man in charge of one of the lighters informed me. He was well dressed and looked intelligent. "Of course the reason is that so many has listened to this 'ere propagander about more production ! 'More production !' the mawsters say. // there wasn't a good many as didn't 'eed it, there' d be no job fer nobody now 'ereabouts." Before lunchiag in one of the worst-looking emporiums of fried fish that could be conceived, I took a glass of what he called "ile" (ale) with my old friend. I hoped to find that my old Imnber hobo was right when he testified that booze made you "mind the dirt and the flies less." At the table of the "fish and chips" place a bright-looking Jewish boy was good enough to insist that I share with him from a great loaf of bread he drew from his pocket. It helped a Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 21 lot to put down the half-cooked fish and the greasy pota- toes. He added his own to the general testimony that American employers are better than the English and was evidently well pleased with his present job with one of them. "Two days o' work I've 'ad this week and only one lawst week," was the sad testimony of another worker who was not a member of the union, but looked rather pros- perous. "If you've got a card and are well known in these parts, mebbe," was the sufficiently pointed reply of a laborer who was outside the gates of another dock a mile or so away where I asked about the chances. "Now (no), never 'awve Ah been to the stites," answered a thin-faced and sUght-framed man of broad accent at still another dock as we stood opposite the pohcemen who were examining the packages of some of the passengers just in from Alexandria. "But otherwise, I've been much around the wawrrld — as a firemon like yourself. But ye '11 never Tse a-gettia' awve a boat from 'ere. Ye shoiild try the Surrey or the Tilbury Docks." "Two mont's here since come from Alexandria — fire- man" a black-bearded man who said he was an Egyptian and certainly looked it in spite of his English clothes and his stoker's or fireman's sweat-rag about his neck. "Mostly sleep on streets nights, " he added sadly. It may, of course, be that some of them are telling as large tales as I am. But when they take me for a fellow fireman, share their bread with me, and accept the Ught of my cigarette without (asking for it, it can be put down pretty certainly that their tales are not meant to secure the sympathy they might expect for the right kind of a story if we were not pals together. At any rate they seem to accept without reservations my tale of having made "a bit of money over in the States workin' in steel, y' un- Digitized by Microsoft® 22 FULL UP AND FED UP derstand, and wanted to come over for a look 'round, like; worked me passage with a lot of cattle" (true enough and twice true but twenty years and more ago), "was promised a free go on the boat back in three weeks, but meanwhile, ye see, I'm out of money and wh,ere the devil can I get a job, huh?", Well, it all looks like a hard life, but there may be some compensations, judging by the free and easy way mdst of them seem to take it all — ^including, especially, their "ile" in the big glasses holding a full pint. WMtechapel, Saturday, July 3, 1920. 'Twas a breath of home to read the Times' very friendly American Fourth of July supplement and its editorial this morning— very much in line with the words of a great tall chap encountered this afternoon over by the docks: "It's 'awnd in 'awnd we should go, you Johnny Browns and we Johnny BuUs. I can bloody well see that it's you and not us as is goin' ter 'ave the biggest nivy, and we don't want yer comin' over 'ere ner us a 'avin' ter go over there, neither." "Fer the Daily Mirror', hye?" my docker friends of yes- terday all called good-naturedly to me as I aimed my camera at them to-day. I was better dressed than yes- terday and they didn't recognize me. In the "public house " money and beer flowed fast and furious, seeing that all had been paid off for the week of forty-four hours. The war- time restrictions seem still to keep the places closed till twelve, then open till two-thirty and again open from five till ten. AH the workers so far assure me that "Every- body tikes enough ter last 'im inbetweens and they's more beer drunk now than before." But I doubt it. So far I've seen less drunkenness than on my other trip here. Still that may be because of the complaint everybody makes of the prohibitive cost of spirits for the poor man. Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 23 "A bloody revolution there'll be if ever they try to tike our hberty — ^and our beer — ^away from us as they did over there!" is the general testimony, apparently, in the pubs. Of course, they don't mean necessarily that blood would flow. The adjective is merely a manner of speaking, as it were. "Wy, Ga blime, they's enough bloody tar in them laces," explains one friend, when a boy calls out, "Penny lapiece," "to run a bleedin' rileway trine! A bloke cam't put on 'is bloody boots fer the bloody tar, 'e cam't." "Work? Sure, there's work — ^if yu've got a good berth," says an elderly person of fairly comfortable looking type, while his profane partner pokes fun at him for the years in Canada denoted by his "Sure!" "Me!" he continues, "I've got me job now fer life — now thet I've been reinstated fer me pension that I lost after the last strike. — ^Aye, a foreman I was — once. No, not a dye of schooUn' 'ave I 'ad. I went to work when I was nine, when me father died.i I'm sixty-eight. A good dozen o' childern I got, too. Me daughter's married— the oldest — ^and runs a big boardin' 'ouse. But it's years since she's spoke a word to me — ^not since the time she found me makia' love to a woman when me second wife was layin' dead in the front room. 'Course she was mad. But blood will flow, won't it, I asks yer? Nature will 'ave its way, now won't it?" "Pilferin'? Wy, of course there's pilferin' on the docks. Yer see, they puts so much cargo in 'ere durin' the war," explained one of his friends, as we were pushed up together at the bar by the rush of incomers, "that they was fruit from Califomy all over the pUce. Wull, with all the bloody rats a-eatin' all the bleedin' hbels (labels) off, yer 'ad ter open 'um up and 'ave a look an' a tyste ter tell wuz they pineapples er plooms." "Two quid (poimds)_ ighte (eight) shillm' Ah've mide this week on them,'' testified a great hulk of a fellow who seemed to know my friends well, as we got to talking about the way Digitized by Microsoft® 24 FULL UP AND FED UP so many people seem to put money on the horses that ap- pear to race every day. "No fear aw've it's getting inter the bank," he added in answer to my question — "not with five chicks ter buy shoes fer. " They were still treating each other to their great black pints when I said good-by. Later I was lucky enough to come upon an unusually intelligent worker with a clean white collar, waiting with his boy of nine for his tram. "Yes, my line is stevedoring — ^not at this dock — ^and I'm not like most of these chaps here. They're casuals. That's bad. And working one day and no job the next makes them lazy, too. I'm in a imion of dock, dredge, river, and general workers that has an agreement with stevedore contractors that pay us each three pounds ten a week, whether we work or not, and sixteen shillings a day \^hen we do. And if there's no work at one dock they transfer us to another. The union always plays square and we cap trust them to work everything out to everybody's satisfac- tion without our having to do more than pass a vote. Of coiu'se there's some of these here Kussians running about talking about their line, but I don't think they're getting far with it. Now look at these people all waiting for their turn at the seats here in the bus. Could you do better than that in America? . . . Yes, I think we'll have it dry here one of these days. But I see a lot of the men coming over from your country on the boats — the workers, you know — ^that drink a lot of spirits — ^not beer like we do — when they get over here. ' ' ' It would look as though he was the type that men say make the back-bone of the country. He certainty demon- strates splendidly the dignity which comes to the proud possessor of the steady job. It's ahnost inconceivable that he does the same kind of work as the others I've been mixing with. There will probably be more of this type following the legislation which the bright Jewish young Digitized by Microsoft® INTO STRANGE WATERS 25 worker told me of yesterday. That will provide for keep- ing boys in school till sixteen and then, within seven years, or as soon as the facilities may be provided, until they're eighteen. That looks good, taken in connection with the care yomig children are said to be given by the health authorities from several weeks before they are born up till school age at five when they will start coming in for an annual health examination by the school authorities. Well, those docks are certainly interesting — ^with their international angles of both trade and the labor problem. Hope to get off Monday to Wales, though it looks rather scary whether there will be any job, with the business world so unhappy about the proposed "Excess Profits Duty" tax of sixty per cent — in addition to the present in- come tax of six shillings to the pound. Anyway, it lessens the tendency to homesickness to see all the papers here excited about the same old American items of the govern- ment's "squandermania"; the London Coimty Council's six per cent housing bonds under criticism for going into houses too expensive for the workers — ^and not being sub- scribed for; labor-unions getting jumped on for not being representative, with 4,000,000 workers in and 9,000,000 out, etc., etc. It does look odd and far from home to read, at the same time, of bank clerks' unions securing annual increases of $15,000,000 and Peterborough Cathe- ' dral celebrating its 800th aimiversary! Good night ! Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER 11 BY THE SMELTERS AND STOVES OF SOUTH WALES Cardiff, South Wales, Tuesday, July 6, 1920. The day has refused a job, but it has given a very weary pair of legs, — ^also a full pair of ears and eyes, not to men- tion a mind full of the satisfaction of getting closer to the summer's quarry because closer to the fiery fronts of open- hearths, charging-machines, cinder pits, "stoves," and such- like old friends. The train was fast and the third-class compartment car very comfortable for the three hours' trip — quite, without any real need, I'd say, of the support of the large glasses of whiskey taken by the two middle-aged ladies and their gentleman relative. At the station here we waited for the poUcemen to bring somebody along, and behold, King Manuel of Portugal, handsome and smiling, with an ex- tremely stylish yoimg lady! How they happened to be here I'll have to wait until the morning paper to find out. The crowd evidently had no idea who they were. "Aye, they're 'and charged, all right. That's why we 'as our job," the rough and dust-covered worker I sat down ^ beside in the pubUc house answered my inquiry about the three blast-furnaces visible from where we sat. He was a member of a union, getting something over four pounds a week and evidently doing the hardest kind of work up on the cupola. He was drinking his third great pint of ale and stoutly refusing the ^u■g^lgs of his chum to 'ave another, be- cause of his trip to Bristol some years ago, when the 'Digitized by^icrosoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 27 party went to see a "pantomine" — "they wuz 'av'n' a good time over there in them days, you see" — ^got to drinking whiskey; forgot about the pantomime, got half-way back to the station — "and from then on I cawn't recollect a siagle thing except that I woked up in bed back 'ome — ^and don't like wiskee never since." On his strong suggestion I went boldly over to ask for the Irish-American in- charge of the furnaces, and on my second go found it easy to get into the plant (about 12,000 men) past the policeman. By assiuning the inde- pendence urged by my barroom friend, I sauntered coolly along past the gas producers and found myself standing again on an open-hearth floor and talking to an old first helper ("first hand" here). He had been a puddler back in the Calumet district around Chicago, had seen the ton- nage rate for puddling fall from fourteen shiUings to six shil- lings six pence hapeimy, left it and was now happy in his dignity as the boss of his furnace and earning around ten pounds a week. "We calls these furnaces smelters or melters 'ere. No, they's not water-cooled doors — ^ye see, these furnaces are twenty-five years awld and more and only forty-ton size. That chargin'-machine there was the first laid down in South Wales, years and years ago, of a Wellman patent — (Cleveland, U. S. A !) Down farther there ye'U find a Tal- bot furnace, as good as any — ^holdin' 175 tons and over here ye'U see a first-class pit." ■ Sure enough the pit was orderly as could be; the floor was a fearful mess and the furnaces most forlorn looking. Alto* gether it made me glad that when I finally fotmd the man in charge he was "full up" and could offer no job. The rate of two shilUngs one penny per hour seemed good for ^ the easy shovelling the labor gang was doing on the Talbot, which had fallen in after a good long service. The boss is a shrewd-looking young Welshman who Digitized by Microsoft® 28 FULL UP AND FED UP seemed more than willing to swap information about Eng- lish steelmakihg for the same about American. He seems to have the highest regard for the imions into which a worker must go as soon as he is promoted up out of the "general labor" gang. ("We mustn't say 'common labor' since the war.") "They keep their agreements with satis- faction and are quite reasonable. '' ''The twelve-hour day? Well, you wouldn't find any- body in the coimtry — employer or employee — ^who would be willing to go back to it, not even on a temporary Jjasis. No, no, -that was too long. . . . No, I can't say that we have fewer spills or accidents since the change, but- we never did have 'em often here, anyway. But everybody's hap- pier. Of course you fellows'U come to it. But I notice that your costs are getting up very fast. Well, we're getting ready to catch up with you chaps and pass you. We've, got some distance to go, I grant you, but we're getting ready to go fast — ^with that Talbot, for instance, when she's goin' right she certainly puts out the steel — ^and we're putting in more, with a big mixing furnace soon. Ten thousand tons a week, that's what we're after." He was much interested in my account of our tar guns at Stackton, natural gas, etc., and was very tmhappy at the present low quality of coal coming from the company's collieries a few miles away. The man from America in charge of as tumble-down a collection of blasts and "stoves" as could be imagined, is also siire the eight-hour day is coming in America. The old way is too long, everybody is persuaded here, especially when the work is as hard and dirty and continuous as on a "floor" or aroimd the "stoves." Everybody here has a maximxun of forty-seven hours, with some only forty-four, though the laborers often get week-end work at time and a half which puts their earnings well beyond five pounds. Every third week all are required to take a double turn of Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 29 sixteen hours in order to allow their shift to come each week at a different period of the twenty-four. Both these gentlemen seem to feel well pleased with the way the "ton workers" "put their backs to their jobs" in the shorter day. "First hands in some places where things are working right are getting their twenty to thirty pounds every week." But the day or time workers are making them very unhappy by their easy-going methods ever since the war. "Why, they're putting up plants to- day covering twice the space but designed for the same out- put — ^just because these chaps can't be made to work ex- cept by a tonnage rate — ^and how can you do that with the 'general laborers'?" Over in the river were numerous boats unloading car- goes of 1,700 tons or thereabouts of ore from Bilbao, Spain, or from South African fields. Fom* men (in place of a usual six) were doing a wondrous fine job of shovelling the heayy stuff into a small bucket holding about a ton. This an- other man lifted with a hydraulic winch according to the directions of another man who lay on some tarpaulins and yelled mutterings to "Lower!" or "Haul away!" and then bore it over to a little railway car built for twenty tons (!) where still another man unloosed it — ^altogether an extremely wasteful use of man-power, so far as the eye could judge. Some of the ships seemed to be using " clam-shells." A boy said they could not be used to "grab" up this particular kind of ore, and that the gang of men working through the twenty-four hours, could unload by their shovels about 400 tons. To my surprise, I learned that these men below were working only three and a half hours per day, though even then they were lifting the extremely heavy stuff so fast and sweatily that they were earning six "quid" a week. The boy loosing the bucket earned only two pounds, two shillings. "Well, ye see, we're all ex-service men and we've been Digitized by Microsoft® 30 FULL UP AND FED UP taken on only because everybody's asked to give us jobs. So we work only while the other regular gangs on longer hours are eatin', or in between their shifts. Of ^ those fotir down inside, all are~too old to take the regular turns except one. A man has to be an ox to shovel that stuff for ten hours, and then he's an old man at thirty-five — ^with the help of booze. I'm twenty — ^after two "years and ten months in the army. And I come home to find nothing to do ! That's all a 'grateful king' and coimtry' can do ! And down the dock there you'll find a lot o' Chinks and 'niggers' doin' a man's work on the boats just because they'll do it a Uttle cheaper, y' understand? "No, I couldn't learn a trade because my old man he 'went out,' you know, and we all had to dig in. Here you can't get a skilled job unless you got a pocket full o' papers — that's what the unions of yoiir mates do for you. Years of work, they mean, these certificates of indenture, years of work at five or six shillings the week! No, it's a rotten old country to go through hell for — ^and to lose two of your brothers for. Nobody cares for the workin' man nowadays." As I walked out I met a black-faced coal handler whose greatest complaint was of his fellow workers reported to be lying down on their job in South Wales mines. "If these miners cawn't do the work to get out the coal, they should get out of the collieries and l^et somebody else in. Without us 'aviu' the coal 'ere to send out, we cawn't get no work on the docks ter do, yer see. That's the bane av this work. Yer never know one day to another whether ye 'ave a job or not. Ye go down and' 'ave a look 'round to see where you're goin' to 'ave a chawnce, and if a gang gets together the mon comes along and simply takes a half dozen or dozen of us as we 'appen to come. 'Twould seem to me the finest kind o' world thot ony mon could want — to get up outa bed in the momin' and know a job was witin' for ye! Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 31 "I fair worry meself near sick every day to ,know 'ave I a job or no. 'Twould be wort' a good pound a week less to 'ave somethin' steady like. . . . The out-of-work money? Well, it's not much — ^fifteen shillin' a pay (week) and ye must give hours to signin' the book every day, when ye might be tryin' to find work. An' if ye take a day's job and then don't find another fer the rest o' the fortnight, y' understand, then ye cawn't get yer thirty shillins.' Thot's the law — ^no money except for the whole fortnight out o' work. No, I don't bother about it; only the undersirables do — or the old uns. Sickness money? Well, that's only fifteen bob too; that's not much nowadays, but it's a lot when ye're sick and got no thin !" He was happy in a new job and a fairly steady one for the time being, as fireman for a cold-storage plant on the dock. As we got oflf the car to walk down the street, he apologetically stopped into an alley to untie the strings around his trousers just under his knees. "I'd forgot all about them, you know. They keep a man's trousers from getting under his feet." Very carefuUy he turned them up to keep them off the ground, a process which would have worn them out ^t the bottom much faster than if tied, or, after the manner of most workers, strapped, at the knee. When at several hotels they told me, one after another, they were "full up," I wondered whether it was because of my three days' beard. I hardly blamed them. Later I , have had the pleasure of sitting here in the parlor of a "temperance hotel" and hearing the proprietor tell some inquirer every few minutes up tUlnow — 11.30 P. M. — the same thing — "Full up, fuU up; not a free bed in the 'ouse." I'm in only because the bed of a regular boarder is not working while he's on a holiday. How many others be- sides himself have used it since his departure I don't know, but, judging from the looks of the no, it's not Hnen, that's sure ! — I could guess it w?is sever&l. No, the bed is Digitized by Microsoft® 32 FULL UP AND FED UP not changed during the week — or, perhaps the fortnight. Judging from the appearance of the landlord, however, I'll gamble the beds are uninhabited, anyway — ^and that's some- thing. He is young, but has been a seaman for nearly twenty years. "After getting hit by torpedoes three times and missed twice, I promised the old lady I was fed up on sea-farin' and would settle down as soon as the war was over, d' ye see? So here I am. D' ye think, sir, that those two gentle- men and their wives were respectable people? I try to stand in with the police and never accept any man and wo- man that drives up in a taxi, never. But it's hard to know whether your judgment's right oftentimes. You know how it is, sir." Which reminds me that the majesty of the law gave «ie a rather curdly moment this afternoon. As I sat in the "pub" a young, thin-faced fellow of nervous build sat down quickly beside me and whispered something very hur- riedly about "this book 'ere" as he shoved a small blue tablet and lead-pencil under me, then as hurriedly stood up to the bar with a manifestly nonchalant expres^on. I came to a quick understanding of it all an instant later. Two policemen entered the room! I had a quick picture of the embarrassment of explaining to them what I was doing with the aforesaid book. Instinctively I reached for my pocket to see if I had anything by which I could prove my real identity, and realized keenly the disadvantages of liv- ing a double life. But they passed both my nervous friend and all the rest of /Us — ^including a nervous American — and ■ the book was soon back in its owner's pocket. It seems that being a "bookie" is against the law, but they are ex- tremely numerous for all that — ^with many bets placed in their hands in lavatories and such places. There are doz- ens of publications which are read zealously by most of the workers for their "dope" on "Silver Badge" or "Shin- Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 33 ing Star." Some of my educated friends there in London tell me it comes close to being the national vice and flom-- ishes among the women as well as the men of all classes. I surely feel a long, long way even from those friends I left back there in the East End in London— and so extreme- ly distant from the good friends back in clean, bright,' hope- ful America that — ^well, the less I think about that, the better for my happiness at this moment. And now it's up two flights to the room of the "attic simplicity" we used to talk about in Greek architecture — only this is spelled with a small "a" — there to "wrap the drapery of my couch about me as one who lies down to pleasant dreams" — I don't think! Swansea, S. Wales, Wednesday, July 7, 1920. "First off" I want to apologize for the aspersions I cast on that room of the "attic simphcity." In the first place it gave me a perfectly good night's sleep in spite of its baU-wadded pillow and mattress. In the second place, it was miles higher up the hill of respectability than where I sit now with my tablet on my knee, writing with the aid of the fading dayUght at nine o'clock. Hotel after hotel was "full up," until I felt lucky to get any place at all, especially at a public house be&,ring the appetizing name of "Leg of Lamb." But with the painted sign the appetizing idea comes to its finish — its sad finish. When the barnaaid assigned me to "number ten" I bUthely asked for the key and was told that it was "quite 9.II right" without it. A httle later I brought my heavy bag up the stairs to find in my supposedly pri- vate room four of the dirtiest and smelliest mattresses and cots it has been my lot to see in a long time — those four and nothing more! I have just made a careful inspection for the cleanest of the four, but the prospect is not good with Digitized by Microsoft® 34 FULL UP AND FED UP even the best. The girl has just told me that aheady two others are booked up for the room, and the last appUcants I noticed were particularly bum-like. It surely makes a poor prospect for the night. Still it all goes, I suppose, with the bed I've chosen £o lie on for the summer, so I can't complain. Only it does not make a pleasant pros- pect after a day of tramping about in my old clothes through the mud and rain of what looks like an extrranely busy factory district up and down the Swansea valley. My companions in the hostelry — ^and presmnably my roommates for the night — ^are interesting. On the whole, they represent the lowest platform of "disrespectability" I've come close to siuce the down-and-out "stiffs" or "regulars" of the Boston-Liverpool cattle boats of the col- lege vacations twenty years ago. The one I spoke to first there iu the back or special and private room of the pubhc house I took for an American. He is English in spite of fifteeii years of running from one casual job in limiber-camps and elsewhere between New York and Portland, Oregon. At this moment I am imdecided what he is. Diiring the afternoon and evening he has grown constantly drimker, and his stories of his various accompUshments steadily more vivid. I guess he's a deck-hand on a trawler which goes out for fish, when he is not absorbing whiskies — eight at last accounts to-day — and beers, about ten pints so far, with another hour's run still to make before closing time at ten. A respectable and hard-working young Welshman who is keeping him company carefully stated that he has no pride in it, but: "To-day already I've 'ad about fifteen pints, and now — ^mind ye, I don't sye it to boast, but merely to state God's truth — ^before I go to bed at eleven, I'll have without doubt — ^and it's not boasting at all, I am, y' oonderstawnd — without doubt, twenty more! No, and it will not be a-mykin' me at all out av me 'ead at all. Ye see, I likes the stuff and the stug, dQ,^§^igy ^y^^gj^f^t sye, to like me." BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 35 That was about five o'clock. A little while ago he was progressiag satisfactorily with his programme — except that, judging from his all-iaclusive friendliness to the gentlemen assembled and his repeated successes in kissing Sarah, the barmaid, I'd say he was fairly well intoxicated. It has been quite hg,rd to sit and talk with the trawler man and a young and intelligent-looking miner while our friend has been boasting loudly near by, and two yoimg boys at an- other table have been entreating a young friend to: "Come on. Jack, 'ave a Uttle tea and then we'll all carry on. Now that's a good bye." To which Jack, with his head on the table^ murmurs in- coherently about the pain in his head or else gets rid of his overload of alcohol by vomiting on the floor — ^without the slightest notice from barmaids or others ! Altogether about the lowest party it has ever seemed necessary for me to sit in. "No," says the trawler man, "if you ask me I'U tell you that even my mother wasn't sorry to see me go 'way from the house — the fine house — there in London where she and my brothers live. And of course ythey weren't. They can't 'get' me — ^not they. And I can't 'get' them, not them. Well, you see, I've got to have the stuff — I get drunk every day I'm on shore and there's no way out of it. And then my nerves are all shot and I have to take a , dose or two of some dope to get some sleep. Not a dope fiend, y' understand. No, sir, not by a long shot. And if I could get back to the States I'd get some money — a himdred and fifty dollars — I got in a bank there and never come back to this island. Why any man like you should come over here I don't know. Over there any Chink will give a down-and-outer a sandwich and here they put him in jail." The strange thing is that he has, none of the appearance of a down-and-outer, his face being as tanned and strong looking and his eve. as stoaightas one could wish. 36 FULL UP AND FED UP "I fink I'll not stay long in Swansea," says a pathetic- looking lad in the shabbiest of coats, a torn shirt, and be- draggled soft collar — ^in a language which I have seen quoted but never heard before. "I don't want Swansea (don't hke it) and that's God's trufe. No, I'm never touch-in' of the stuff. I 'ave me 'character' right 'ere in me pocket — 'of gude character, sober and iadoostrious' it sye, 'sober and indoostrious' — and I'm not for the los- in' o' it, you know, no more nor anyfink. In furniture, I am. We was paid to-day — six quid; so I 'ave bought me a suit — 'ere, ye can see the waistcoat. It's second-'dnd, but i' God's trufe, brawnd-new. Free (three) pound eighteen I paid for it. I'U 'ave it on me in the morning, I will, if nofink 'appens." '•'Of one hundred men ye'll meet 'ere in South Wales — at least among the colliers (miners)," says the white- coUared Mr. Powell, who admits with some pride that he has worked his years "inside" and is now the local presi- dent or chairman of the miners' union in a near-by colliery, "Of one hundred of them 'ere ye'll find nine and ninety Socialists. We want an end put to private profit and we want more coal got out for the people. Ye see, 'tis like this — do ye folly me? — 'ere must be twenty yards left this side the boundary of a private property and then twenty yards the other side — that's forty good yards left below that the covmtry will need — ^and that the country could 'ave, d' ye see? if 'twas government done. Then if there's a fall in an entry, the chawnces are that the masters will leave it lie while they goes on into another part — ^and that fall and the coal behind it never gets out in this world." "May I interrupt you? Will you permit me 'ere to sye," says the colliery clerk of the thirty' pints going on thirty- five, " that I'na a-fearin' we mye not be so 'appy with nashul'- zation— I can't sye it quite correct, gentlemen; it's a 'ard word fer a sober man and I ahm still sober! The colliers Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 37. mye not like government operation for themselves, I sye, but it's God's truth' that the shot-fire-men — I wuz one fer many years, I wuz — the shot-fire-men, they ought to be paid by the guv'ment. Because mony times I've fired shots, so 'elp me, I 'ave, w'ere I took big chawnces for blowin' everybody oop. Now gov'ment shot-fire-men would not tyke chawnces. And that's God's truth, it is, gent'men." "We 'ave figures to show," says the red-haired union official, "that the owners — ^the masters — ^in this district make a good 18/6 per ton. We colliers get fer a ton o' coal two shillin'; we buy it from the company for our own use for six and six. The pubUc pays over two pounds! That's w'y we're not workin'. Too much profit." "Yes, I know the telegraft is government operated and 'tis- not good. And 'ere's a case to prove yer p'int, sir. Last mont' I got a tellygram at seven o'clock that me brother'd sent at nine that mornin' — 'e bein' four mile aways from me. On account of the delaye, ye see, I 'ad to take a trap 'at twelve shillin' sixpence, bein' as all the trines wuz gone. The next dye the girl confesses 'twas 'er fault and awsks me not to sye nothin' — ^w'ich I promises to do if she pyes me twelve bob and sixpence w'ich I'd paid for the trap, y' oonderstawnd? — ^w'ich she did." A fairly canny Welshman — I submit — ^probably with a whiff of Scotch ancestry ! During the day I asked a worker how about the coal men's holding up busLaess kt the ports: the objection of my black-faced docker friend of yesterday was supported by a morning paper's statement of increased cost of living 131 per cent, increased wages of miners 155 per cent, with increased wage cost per ton of coal produced, 267 per cent. His answer was as immediate as it was definite: "Wull, wot about all the bloody profits av the thievin' mawsters, hye? Them as sets in their sUks and satins somer's down in London and never r'ises a bloody 'awnd'ter Digitized by Microsoft® 38 FULL UP AND FED UP do a dye's work! Wye should the colliers break their bawcks ter pile up the pounds for thum?" "It's little enough worrk there is, aroond 'ere in the port," said a laborer waiting in the rain. "And, God strike me dead, uf it eyent nothin' but a bluudy go of the mawsters ter brike the unions ! ' Now's the time ! ' that's w'at they're syia', all of 'um. Strike me, but it nukes me sick ter see the wye all these bluudy Welshmen beUeve every bleedin' word Llide George syes to 'um. And the king ! — ^widl, I never lays eyes on 'im and never wants to, but from 'is pictures I'll sye 'e looks like nothin' but a bluudy im- becyle, God strike me ! I'm fair fed up on this country, I am." I took some supergreasy " 'am and eggs" ia a super- greasy and dirty coffee-house ia the hop* of further con- versations, but in vain. Through the rain I got out to a nest of big steel and tin-plate works, going on from there to a plant, still farther up the beautiful valley to which I had been referred as one of the biggest makers of tin plate in England. I fovmd the new "welfare man" in charge of a neat-looking small building of -restaurants, lavatories and first-aid. He apparently gives most attention to the town's boy scouts — ^all the town's families which cover the valley's sides are the "works' families." He hopes to help me see his superior Friday. Whether it will be possible or wise for even the boss to let an unidentified stranger into the fold of the httle community and its suspicions of 'outsiders and their sharing of the commimity's limited supply of jobs, appears, according to the welfare man, to be a seiiious question. Anyway, I'll hope. Hope, that's the word to take with me into one of those dreadful beds — ^after I go down and see how my pals, drunk and sober, are prospering down- stairs. Digitized'by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 39 Thursday Night, July 8th, The committee can certainly report progress ! The trawler man was far gone and claimed to be making barrels of money from covert sales of a dnjg that "will cure every d disease you ever heard of, and more." That bank-account is now reported at $350! The master of the thirty-five pints was singing, toasting everybody in sight and kissing Sarah every second time she passed him, though still claiming that no amount of beer affected him. In further evidence of what the modern psychologists would probably call his highly active though somewhat temporary and unstable "superiority complex" he was relating and re-relating how: "Me brother-in-law been a bookie, y' understawnd ! Well, on the very day o' the rice 'e wires me the tip. So I tikes 10 pounds — ^awnd I gets me me 330 ! Of coiurse when I leaves the plice, I 'ad only three of them left on me, awnd I was a bit unsteady like. But all me friends been 'appy —I'll say that for them — awnd for meself , too. 'Ere, Miss ! a pint o' mild all round ! 'Yes,' I say to meself, 'I'll take this tip fer once!' Me brother-in-law bein' a bookie, ye see, awnd mikin' a cool fifty thousand on it, too" — etc., etc., to the accompaniment of many a "Wull now !" or "I sye !" from the admiring and envious crowd of us about him. "Before the war I wuz a good mon and never cared for this stuff," a young man assured me when the publican had refused to give him a bed without seeing his money. "But if ye've money and respect yerself, let me tell you to keep aways from the army, and from liquor." Sarah, of the gentle face, very certainly, I regret to re- port, gave a pronounced "hie" with her "yes" when I asked about leaving my bag in the kitchen instead of tak- ing it up to the alleged bedroom. Digitized by Microsoft® 40 FULL UP AND FED UP Up in the "dormitory" I joined my sleeping pals by get- ting into the one empty bed — ^not the one I had picked as the least shocking. After I had removed my shoes and laid my coat inside the covers where I could l^eep my hand on it, I tried to keep my imagination from following too far back into the past of the inescapable smell of bum carried by the dirty blanket — ^nor too far forward into the night. Strangely enough, nothing kept any of us awake except the ominous coughings of the old man. In the morning it was possible to take a wash and a shave in the pubUc lava- tory where a worlfer advised me that " Yer cawn get every sort of job in Birmingham. In the Tyre Works I mykes ten quid a week, now that I can turn out good tyres." I helped turn up the sleeves of two one-armed near-bums — ^the lavatory's keeper was also one-armed. I noticed that they seemed to feel as much as any one could the inde- cency of their imshaved faces. Later, the worker refused my offer of razor with "Thanks, but I wouldn't want an- other to use mine, so I wouldn't use yours. This country's too full o' disease." The view-poiat of the miners hereabouts is said to hit closely on the troubles which American boats are having in obtaining cargoes of coal. Their waits often run up to 45 day of demurrage cost at, sometimes, $600 per day ! The waits now average 24/^ days. Some coal "mjtsters" have told close friends of enormous war profits: "In two weeks we made enough from our export coal to equal an ordinary year's profits." Another told of -pre-war wage costs of 11 shillings per ton, post-war 38 shillings, with post-war ex- port price of 105 shilhngs ($26). That woiild make the red-haired coUier's statement of 18/6 of profit seem mild. Local house coal sells at 60 shillings ($12) per ton with an additional 50 cents for putting into the cellar. On the other hand, the papers give reports of, for instance, 1,200 miners out of 2,000 as paying income tax on 10 pounds a week. Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 41 An American official from a near-by port is very thought- fully on his job, which involves, in turn, the whole matter of other people's jobs. "The American sailor expects all the 'comfort of home on board ship. Several lately complained to me of having eggs , for breakfast only twice a week. I have had to tell them how we've not had eggs twiqe a quarter at my home. At foiirpence eachj I can't afford it — I guess it's because I work in yoiu" collier friend's nationaUzed industry ! All that the Chambers of Commerce and the other com- mercial interests have persuaded our employer — ^Uncle Sam — to do, is to increase oxir wages by twenty-nine per cent since pre-war! "So far almost no Americans are going to sea. Seldom will a crew of fifty show as many as ten born or natural- ized Americans. . . . No, the LaFollette Act simply says that twenty-five per cent must know enough to under- stand ordinary English commands: — it says nothing' about American citizenship. Then Article 1 lets even that go by saying that in foreign ports a captain can fill vacancies with anybody he can get of equal or better standing as sailors. So to-day here an American boat is paying off its Americans and also paying their wages, fare, and subsis- tence back to the original port where booked, taking on Chinese here in their places for a nm into the Orient, — and saving money." Like practically all officials I've ever seen of the same type, he is hard-worked, with assistants promised but still lacking, with facts hard to get in what claims to be the metallurgical centre of the world. / Partly because from where I stood she could not see my rough-looking trousers, a landlady gave me a room to-day at a better hotel, where the sheets are not changed over- often, but nevertheless -infinitely better than the "Leg of Lamb." Digitized by Microsoft® 42 FULL UP AND FED UP Have been inquiring about tin-plate works which are reported to be practically household affairs and to use waterwheels, but so far in vain. HaVe just found that the collier on vacation is, according to schedule, well toward his thirty-ninth pint and drunk enough to be boasting that "The proprietor — 'e's a friend of mine, y' uhderstawnd — 'e 'as promised me two drinks av brawndy after closin' time at ten to-night." He also speaks with a combination of manly pride and due emotion of his having had seven children and lost five, the two remaining living with his father. "Not till me money roons out," he says when yoii ask how soon he goes back to work. Friday, July 9, A fine combination of trains, buses, and a lot of walking between the beautifully patterned and verdant hills up to the plant and the welfare worker for the hoped-for job as "general labor." "Now that you've asked me," the owner said, "I must refuse in order not to appear to be spying on my men. Otherwise, I'd have had no objections." The trouble is that as a bum I'd have had no chance with any of his offi- cials without his 0. K. It's hard luck, but I hope not tjrpical. The head of the committee made up of representatives of the six unions in the plant, whom the owner then arranged for me to see, was most worth while — a middle-aged ca- pable, well-spoken clear-eyed Welshman, properly proud of his having worked up in thirty years to his position in charge of the teraning or poiuiag of all the steel into the ingot moulds ia the "pit" of the "smelting shop" or open- hearth department (at about nine or ten poimds per week). "Entirely right you are," he interjected, quick as a flash, whw I said I bdieved that men's attitudes toward pol- Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 43 itics and almost everything imaginable were largely the result of their job and its conditions. "We 'ave mony Socialists 'ere, si^, but they don't work at it, as ye might say. 'Tis because of the friendly relations between the owners 'ere and aU av us men— with never 'ardly any- thing that cannot be straightened out. Now down at Briton's Ferry I've always said the best supporter of the Independent Labor Party is "a certain employer who's al- ways calling it names and knockin' it about. As long as 'e does so every worker knows 'e ought to be for it, that unpopular 'e is. i "The most trouble we 'ave 'ere is from the engineers unions and such, that get their orders from outside of ste^l. Everthing else we can generally settle on — ^and usually ■win — ^with the masters. The tin-plate workens are now asking f oir a six-hour tiu^ and fifty per cent hourly increase '—with tonnage rates on the cold rolls, not box rates. But mony workers, especially if they're Marxians, don't want piece rates. Here we're mostly on six-hour turn — ^in the sheet mill — ^but we can't find enough men to run full. In the smelting shop where the job is irregular we've been on eight hours so long I can 'ardly remember the long turns. In betweens, the boys will play cards — and I'm wanting a room near by where they can do it and be 'andy when wanted — with mebbe meals served there, seein' that al- most nobody conaes 'ere to the canteen (restaurant). Just as nobody ever comes to the first-aid room 'ere. "Safety work we don't 'ave, and what they call 'wel- fare' is only just starting in the country. We've all been too busy talkin' wages, wages. But now we're seeing that more wages is impossible unless the masters will do away with some of their obsolete works. . . . Yes, two drink- ia' fountains we 'ad, a long time ago, and the boys stole 'em, so we never 'ad 'em since. . . . Yes, wages and hours we've been getting. Better conditions must come Digitized by Microsoft® 44 FULL UP AND FED UP next — bright 'ere we 'ave some of the most democratic em- ployers in all England, I wiU say, but a very, very old shop and equipment." The metallurgist says any outsider in the village at- tracts stares and other attentions for months — ^most im- pleasantly — ^also that an EngUshman is hardly less for- eign than an American. Outside the technical men like himself who hav^ to be taken where foimd, the better jobs here in Wales are supposed to be pretty jealously taken by Welshmen, with the lowest jobs of "general labor" left to the Irish and the Enghsh ! He finds the ease with which any and aU of the workers can get to the owners over the department heads trying; with the head melter likely to refuse point-blank to make steel any other way than what "is the wye we been doin' it for ten year. " He says the union representatives make a welfare man rather needless in the matter of wage rates and iadustrial rela- tions generally, so \that he mainly looks out for the youths at a very considerable salary. A very clean-cut, high- minded chap the metallurgist seems, with rather a sur- prisingly friendly disposition toward government service because of the much greater security of the civil-service job than one with private employers. Which reminds me that the best educated of imiversity young men in London spoke of the very stiff exams given by the government for assigniag the highest winners to London "berths," the next best to the provinces like India, Egypt, etc. . . . "They pay as much as 350 to 400 poxmds ($1,750-$2,000) with small increases each year — ^which is very good, you know." All of which appears to mean that the job constitutes over^here a form of property which is immensely more im.- portant than at home — so much so that once obtained it is httle likely to be given up as blithely as with us, and considerably more likely to be passed down to the children like a .piece of land. Apparently, too, the imions have, Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 45 pretty much succeeded in exercising at least as much con- trol as "the masters" over the job so as to give the indi- vidual holder of it the utmost assurance of security which market conditions will permit. The foreman's right to discharge without the approval of the union doesn't seem to exist at all, at all. "At Port Talbot, ye'U find a brand-new smelting shop. I'd try it if I was you," advised a young English worker who was complaining of the old-fashionedness of the works with its tumble-down equipment, its little, numbered tin cups in which it was handing out the weekly pay of about $40,000, and its general air of being a small-town, family party for sitting tight on the best jobs against all outsiders from such foreign ports as America, England, etc ! Swansea, Sunday, July 11. It's a sordid picture yesterday gave of this district's work- ing and community life. Jt will be worth a lot of dis- comfort to see if the two parts of that picture are the blood relatives of cause and effect, and if so, how. After an hour of the train's waiting, changing, and mov- ing I "got down" at Llanelly-^(pronounced by the Welsh somewhat as though spelled "Klanecklay" — the "Kl" comes from putting the tongue to the roof of your mouth and going like a gander) — ^famous as another centre of the tin-plate industry. While getting an extra half-sole on my shoes, the cobbler and a caller did the honors: "Me fawther worked at B in Indiana, for some years right after the McKinley tariff began to bring the sheet and tin-plate mills here to a standstill, and to take the^ workers away from here to America by the thousands. He brought us back with him when I was twelve. He's a roller boss now and wants to stick, though me mother'd start back to-morrow, and so would I. It's all class here. Digitized by Microsoft® 46 FULL Up\nD FED UP A bo5>^ that's a clerk won't see you when you're on the street, though he will when yotfre on the job — dnd no common worker ever breaks into college here — though I am goin' to night school this winter. "If a man don't drink in the pubs there's nothin' to do at all — except the movies. We're teetotallers now. Lots o' the boys come back from the army drinkin' more than ever before — ^regular wasters they are now, a disgrace to their old friends." "Awnd uf they don't dr-r-ink," put in the cobbler as he ate the bread and fried fish his wife had brought hiin, "then they dr-r-ess. I'm not fer mykin' more money thon to get me lodgins and meals, awnd I don't like to see such spendin's and carryin's on as some of the army byes- Aye, I notice that if they go wye to America, they stawnd up better with their chistout — ^fifty per cent better, than before. I fancy 'tis because they 'awve the chawnce ter be more monly and independent thon 'ere." "Well, you've better education, there," added the boy again, "and education is what the working man needs. Still, what's the use of it where I am if never can a worker get into the offices and responsibility? My brother stayed in school for years longer than I and he comes up this week for his captaincy exam. If only some 'im had made me stay in school ! But I wanted to earn money. I wanted to be a man ! "Say, how'd you like to see the place where I work?" It was almost too good to be true — thus to have a guide right into the mills. He said it was the biggest of its kind in the town, but it had only a few fairly small single mills for small sheets which could be put from the back door into sailing boats direct for Liverpool. It was surprising to see all the "opening," or separating of the rolled-together sheets done by girls equipped with leather hand holds with pieces of lead where they separated the comers. Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 47 They worked fast and seemed to find slight use for knives. Ahnost none of the rollers, including the "heaver-over" or "behinder," as they call the catcher who returns the sheets to the roUer or "rougher," and the finishers or "dockers," seemed to use any gloves — ^and to date I've seen no canvas gloves anywhere. "They won't believe me when I tell about their chang- ing rolls in a half-hoxu- or so in America. Here it takes ten or twelve hours — ^the Gantry crane doesn't seem equipped for it. The union heads of the steel workers, the en- gineers, steam and electricity men, and two or three others work everything out with the manager — ^he's a 'washout' that everybody hates. If two men fight they lose their job. That sometimes happens because the rule about bringin' in beer is practically not enforced since the war, so anybody can get it. But outside o' that, / don^t know anybody that's ever been fired around 'ere since I came. A man gets his job and sticks to it, generally. Every roller boss manages his men, too, with almost nothing for the master to say, though the roller don't pay 'em here as in some places. If we have any complaints we go to our roller boss and he goes to the \mion head, who goes to the chairman of their committee and if it ain't yet straightened out, he goes to the manager." No drinking-fountains nor any signs of sanitary or safety matters were evident. The crane was very busy, but en- gine^ equipment, and building were all in poor condition. The "washout" came up to us but gave no sign. There was no gate policeman. So we walked calmly into another plant where small roUs were handling very small sheets with a great crowd of girls about fifteen and sixteen years old — earning about, thirty or forty shillings — separating them, sortiQg and packing quite vigorously. Here they had an ancient engine of the old upright or vertical vintage. "When they want to oil it, they have to stop it — ^and Digitized by Microsoft® 48 FULL UP AND FED UP they do about three times a turn," my guide said. One of the workers said he had worked some years in Youngs- town. It certainly seemed an old-time plant, with the necessity of considearable "engineering revision" before more wages or more comfort and efficiency would be easy for the employers on anything but a "seller's market" ready to pay high for its goods. Altogether the town, with a large part of its workers going black-faced through the dirty streets or into its dingy shops for the high-priced but second-rate foods displayed, gave, I must say, a bad impression. It seemed unbeUev- able that it could claim over 30,000 souls. I was glad to get away, though sorry to part from my- attractive young worker and the older and more serious cobbler — ^the latter was properly proud of his having sold "ahnost tons av roobber 'eels — ^awnd Ah've fifty pounds' worth a-comin' in now." Both confirmed the stories that the Welsh look down upon the Enghsh. For one thing "Wales was Wales be- fore England was England — ^when WiUiam the Conqueror subdued the EngUsh, he merely drove the Welsh back into' these moimtains and let them alone — ^he couldn't subdue us." Both are little hopeful of getting out of their group, but seem to feel shght bitterness and think little Sociahsm about it. Back in town here, was glad to find many magazines and quite a few readers in the pubhc hbrary. After supper the streets were jammed. Before dark I took courage to go down what is called the Strand, where murders are said to be frequent. I saw more male and female wrecks of human- ity, drunk and sober, with dirty children about them, than ever in my life. One middle-aged woman was singing when she wasn't swearing, while another old hag scarcely three feet high had to bend her neck wofuUy from a fear- ful crook in her back in order to let the passer-by see her Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OP SOUTH #ALES 49 horrid puffy cheeks and her chin covered by an inch-long yellow beard ! Policemen have orders never to come down here except in twos. Up on the maia streets every so often — ^and with increas- ing frequency as the evening grew — the crowd would gather to see a drunken brawl or to let the police trundle away on a two-wheeled stretcher some dead-drunk worker. It gave me a shock to see one drunken woman step out of a pub to browbeat her sober husband for^noney. When she got it she re-entered the saloon to get still dnmker, while her husband walked on shamefacedly. At about eleven nearly every young man that passed me at the upper end of the main street was reciling, if he wasn't sing- ing drunkenly or explaining: "Ah'm a-goili' 'ome to me mother (hie) — me lovin' mother — ^it's 'er that's waitin' fer me noo (hie)." "Oi'm a-lovin' o' that mOn in there ! It's 'e thot gov me this !" screamed a drunken hag, pointing in to the pub and disclosing a bottle of whiskey under her indescribably filthy coat. About the only sober people dining the later hours after pub-closing at ten seemed to be the numerous young girls talking to the boys and "ta-ta"-ing their yoxmg and mostly unsteady friends good night. Singing and reeling along would come whole platoons of boys and young men help- ing to hold each other up. The streets jyere filled with the soimd of singing of either the groups on the sidewaUs or in the chars-^-bancs. (These are huge trucks fitted with rows of seats for as many as thirty or fifty persons. At low rates they run holiday trips in every direction, evidently with great success, in spite of the serious accidents caused often by the drivers taking too gl-eat advantage of the fre- quent stops at the roadside ipvhs.) But for all the music, the impression from the combined reports of ear and eye is not one of a happy people. Digitized. by Microsoft® 50 FULL UP AND FED UP "In the army, sure we got rum in winter three times a day," my trawler man explained earUer in the evening, "with a special dose before every action. The Germans were always drunk when they came over — ^and I've seen himdreds of their beer bottles on their battle-fields. Of course, the English navy has booze, too." I induced him and a drunken friend, who also blames the army for his taste for drink and also for making his home town too dull, to take a walk so as to get away from the constant: "Fill 'em up again, miss! — two pints o* mild aiid a half pint o' bitters!" It was worth while to see the trawler man straighten up with the pride of his' job as he told us the fine points of one of his beloved trawlers as we stood on the dock above it. "Here's where I kiiow what I'm talkin' about, you betcher life ! To hell with the British navy ! 'Twas these trawlers won the war ! They kept cleanin' up the sea for the bigger boats. Now, you see that? Well, that's how you pull the fish in and sort 'em. And there — the fish in that box everybody turns in and skins and then sells 'em to the low-down fried-fish joints — ^where I eat, too d — often, I'll say. And the money goes to the crew. And there, ye see that — " etc., etc. "But there we was with them low-down foreigners," says our drunken partner as they head toward another pub, "and stili they could talk more languages than we bloody English ! Somethin's wrong, I tell you, with our education, or we wouldn't have to go to war to find how much we fellows here don't know." "Well, I'm for the army," says the trawler man, "all except the bloody fightin' ! But it's more education we all wanv — ^not more rehgion — ^more educatioii, and better." Yes, there's something good in such men. The sur- prising thing is how that something good seems to keep moving about in them more boldly when they're drunk ' Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 51 than when they're sober! "Oh, I sye, if only me mother, me poor mother, could see me now!" our third man kept saying oftener and oftener the drunker he grew. But what I want to know is how far the job of earning a living in a factory town such as Llanelly or Swansea, and how far the job of fighting for their coimtry in the army or navy, is responsible for these men and for such an un- pleasant picture of degraded hiunanity as last night gave of Swansea, the cradle of the world's tin-plate industry. Monday, July 12, 1920. Few days could crowd in more of information and opin- ion from a wide variety of standpoints than to-day. Such vibrating between the workers and the experts or "the knowers" gives a better understanding of the whole indus- trial problem than being just a worker. It is, of course, much more necessary where, as here, the view-points of both groups are equally unknown to a stranger. One rather prominent citizen who has lived in America agreed that while many residents feel that drunkenness has considerably lessened, there is, nevertheless an amoimt of it that is sickening to a newcomer. His daughter had to come to Swansea to see her first drunken, man. The local chief constable here spent most of his evenings at the' same hotel and usually walked out at closing time on very unsteady legs ! The number is considerable, however, and increasing, he said, of teetotallers — they're called "tee- "What your working friends say about imsatisfactory education here is certainly true, I believe. The school books .my children bring home are, I'm sure, away below, in printing, in contents, in method, the worst I had as a child, and far below what your children are doubtless enjoying now. Everybody tells me I must not think of sendijig them Digitized by Microsoft® 62 FULL UP AND FED UP to the 'board' or city school here, but to a boarding-school — it's called the pubUc school, though it's very expensive and private — ^at the age of eleven. By George, I'll teach them myself before I'U let them go through that critical period of adolescence outside of our family circle. I don't care if that is the method among the best families here !" Later I saw figures which told the tale of the trouble caused this district by the McKinley tariff. The thousands of hundredweights of tin plate shipped to America tumbled suddenly from five and six to one and two,. commencing in 1896, .the slump being made up gradually by increased shipments to Japan and other countries. "The best thing that ever happened to us!" was the comment of an official of a manufacturer's group a few minutes later. "That McKinley tariff made us go out and sell our sheets to so world-wide a market that now nothing less than a world-wide disturbance could hurt more than a fraction of our present total trade. We used to be too dependent on one market — ^the American." His ruddy face and forceful language show that he has been through the game of steel-making pretty much from the bottom — with some of the shortcomings as well as the strength of that experience, as when he added that "Well, no, we'll never be diy here because, you see, the workers near the furnaces simply can't get through their eight-hour turns, and shouldn't be expected to, without the extra stimulus and strength that comes from a couple of pints of beer." That idea of alcohol as a food used to prevail at home; it appears to be very general here. "The continuation schools have been authorized by Par- liament, but every district has the liberty of voting the 'appointed day' which puts them into local operation. My group is to help the school authorities work out the local time and method by which the pupils are to get their Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 53 280 and 320 hoyrs a year of schooling along with their work. It will probably take a long time before the addi- tional space can be provided. Meanwhile, every employer having a certain number of boys of thirteen, or mostly fourteen, has to have a welfare man to provide them with sports, gyms, etc. No, we're not much in favor of classes in the works for anybody. You see, we must keep 'em all- round men — ^and no, there isn't a great deal of chance for the workers to get into the management. "No, I don't think the Socialism of the worker chaps is very deep, but the big pound-a-day wages of the munitions workers and the large profits of the employers durin' the war has got 'em on edge and nobody is workin' hard now. 'W'y should we stand up 'ere and sweat our guts out be- fore this bloody fiuTiace for the mawster ter myke 'is pile !' That's the way they put it. And the miners that used to work twelve hours a day and lived like rats in a drain — well, they're trying to even up now by lying down on the job. Even at that, the majority is not for putting the mines over to the goverimient, even though the leaders are. . . . But many of these things you'll be finding better in Eng- land, because most of our mines and steel plants here are pretty old-fashioned and backward." "Never, never did we work all the twelve hours," a group of laborers assured me most strenuously a couple of hours later near the "jinnies" or regenerators — our "checker- chambers" — ^in a 2,000-man steel and tin-plate plant back in Llanelly where I walked boldly into the plant. "Of course we 'ad the twelve-hour shift — from six till six. But, of course, we 'ad a 'arf-hour awf fer breakfast and then an hoxu: and a 'arf fer dinner — that mykes lOJ^ hours work. . . ^. But that's a long time ago." Their disgust at the thought of twelve full hours of work daily was wondeifful to behold — ^although they did seem to thiiJs extra hours after Saturday noon or on Sunday with Digitized by Microsoft® 54 FULL UP AND FED UP double pay were one of the advantages of their job as com- pared with that of the fourth hand or helper on the furnaces. That position is supposed to represent a promotion, but its regular hours with little chance at extra pay, thfey say, make some of them hesitate to accept it. This gang comes on duty at seven, takes a half-hour for breakfast about 8.30 and an hour for dinner at one and quits at 5.30 so as to get in forty-seven hours with a Saturday "'arf 'oliday." With a fair amount of extra hoiu-s they manage to get their six or, with better luck, seven pounds per week. "In this coontry the members do run our unions, they do," one of the older men explains. "We elect our rep- resentatives of every 'local' to sit with the officers whilst they bargain with the owners, and these can veto the action of the officers when they know we won't stawnd fer some- thin'. . . . Aye, mon, uf a mon won't join the union after 'is fust pay, we chucks 'im oot and awf the job quick- like. An no mon'U tike the plice of a striker in another department. We do awll stawnd together, we do, and we 'as no 'black-legs' (scabs) amongst oos!" They were sure enough a happy-go-lucky lot. They seemed to think they could go much farther before they would discourage the industrial goose from laying her golden eggs — ^and before they would be overpaid for work in the hot "checkers." There "soomtimes oor clothes do catch on fir're — Oh, aye! Awnd sometimes in the soakin' pits we 'as ter line up, joomp in, give six strokes with the sledge and joomp oot, qmck-like, w'ilst another joomps in ter do the sime!'^ Some of those I saw working about the hot ingots with the end of their sweat towels in their mouths were as hot as any men I've ever seen. In the hot-miUs where the sheet bar is rolled into the sheets, all seemed unhappy at the thought that laborers with the help of extra time could make more than they-* Digitized by Microsoft® t , BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 55 also very hopeful that the conference would get their de- mand for a six-hour turn, three additioiud helpers paid by the company and fifty per cent increase per hour! "We used to slave 'ere on this job," said an expert "dou- bler" who, besides doubling the hot sheets together, also kept the fires and charged the furnace, "but now we're going to take it easy — ^and get more money. See?" The troop of small boys and girls of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years, who put the small sheets through the cold rolls — called "greasers" and certaijoly looking the part — were as frisky and mischievous as could be imagined, but made a depressing sight none the less. It is amazing to think of spending from noon till after eight o'clobk thus talking with the workers without a word from the authorities. But from all reports these would, according to the current plant etiquette here, only put a question about me to a foreman. This foreman would himself perhaps be a member of a imion and would think I was a friend of one of his pals and so probably tell the authority to mind his own business. Meanwhile I stood ready to ask for the gaffira*, or foreman, and then for a job, though as long as I could get so close to the workers with- out it, it did not seem necessary to try too hard. In Amer- ica the job was indispensable to the desired closeness to the workers. "Oh, we've got the owners so scared here they don't trouble usj and it's just our good consciences thot mykes us work at all, at aU," said one. It looks as though he spoke the truth. It's a queer situation. The most hopeful thing about it is that the boys seem to take it all as rather a good joke. And now the evening paper adds its word: "Not fit for, pigs to live in — Llanelly District houses. The local doctor prescribes tents in preference to putting eight persons in two small rooms as he has found them in certain shacks long ago ordered d^troyed. In the absence Digitized by Microsoft® 56 FULL UP AND FED UP of the tents he has asked places for the residents m the workhouse." "Women police wanted for Llanelly' . . . Lady R and the local committee report that our streets are no longer fit for respectable women and girls to walk about," etc., etc. It's worth calling a day ! -. Swansea, Tuesday, July 13. All day I've been asking for work in this mill and that, getting the usual "Full up!" and then forgetting about it a moment later when the various workers have, as usual, started talking about their relatives in America and then, as usual, about their own jobs here. "We' awve to be ter get 'em, yer see," chorussed three bright lads in a t'lg plant more like a well-run American establishment than any yet seen, though many of its colos- sal rolls and cranes are German made. The boys were de- Ughted to stop their work of cleaning out the "jinnies" when I asked them why, with all their advantages of se- cmlty from the foreman's firing, their short hours and high wages, health and unemployment insm-ance, etc., they still cared to call themselves Sinn Feiners and Bolshevists. "We 'awve ter be ter get 'em!" They could certainly roU off the regulation phrases about the "capitaUst class," the "capitalist-kept press," etc., etc., and were extremely proud that they and their leaders had, by their strong-arm mea- sures got "more wages and more power than the steel work- ers ia any other part of the islands, bar none." "Hide George" is a "twister" who doesn't keep his promises, though still popular with the "chapel folk" (church peo- ple) who rule Wales. J. H. Thomas is no longer extreme enough to suit his railway union's constituency. The real power they respect most is the Triple AUiance of Miners, Railway, and Transport Workers. The King is " 'armless Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 57 enough, but look at the money 'e spends on all the princes and the princesses ! Wot good does 'e do, hye?" "We must stop all chawnce fer private profit and let the people 'ave the profit. Look w'at we'll sive by cuttin' out all the middlemen, with the government runnin' all the country's business, in a sense o' speakin'." But another worker, ambhng up, asked if they were sure there'd be a profit to divide when the government took it over. Altogether he showed that they themselves were not so sure of their own arguments as they let on to be. They all seemed, also, ready to admit that the present situation of the industrial owner or manager is, at least in South Wales, well-nigh impossible. "Yes, oiu: yoimg boss comes along about once a day to see how the job is comih'. But if 'e comes oftener, we makes it uncomfortable fer 'im. If there's a bit too much bossin' we 'down tools' on 'im. . . . This eyen't so bad; we gets 195 per cent war bonus on our pre-war si3q)ence ha'penny the hour — ^that's about one and ninepence, and with all the 'blows' (rests) we tykes w'en no boss is aroimd, we don't work so much as 'arf ovu* eight hours." "That's it, education!" all chorussed again when I hap- pened to mention it as giving the worker a chance for ris- ing. Besides the night schools the Independent Labor Party furnishes classes to workers in various subjects in local groups and the Ruskin Labor College also offers classes for the more ambitious, with still others maintained by the Workers' Educational AUiance. But whether these are mainly for propaganda rather than education, or whether the class lines are too set to be vaulted even by the educated, in any event they apparently feel strongly that these facilities offer very Uttle chance of carrying a man up into the group which they believe has in its control the industry, the government, and everything else worth owning. Digitized by Microsoft® 58 FULL UP AND FED UP Up on the open-hearth floor or "smelting stage" the hands or helpers laughed when I spoke of the young rad- icals I had talked with in the checkers below. Still they, too, agreed that the "sample passer," or head melter, as 'we caU him, in charge of the stage, had to go easy with his orders or they "downed tools" on him at once. But they were intent on their job and could evidently be pretty well trusted to get out their tonnage for their pay — ^much the same as the gas men handling the ga^ producers across the way. It is impossible to overstate their disgust at hearing of the men in America who stiU work the ten and fourteen haui turns on the furnaces. None here in this part of the country seem ever to have done it. The price of clothes — about twice in America what it is here, of board and room almost ditto, the comparative chances to become an official, the hours, the kind of edu- cation — these seem to be the things of chief concern. The international range of their interests is mo^t surprising — the result of the same kind of letters as the one shown by the red-headed Irishman back there in the restaiirant in Woolwich. AU seem to have brothers or cousins writing back — or visiting back — ^from America, Canada, Aus- tralia, New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, etc., etc. (India, I judge, gets people more from the educated and official group.) The influence of these facts about clothes, jobs, laundry, as thus given, appears to me hard to over- estimate largely because of the unbounded confidence placed in their source. This is sufficient to cause easy dis- counting of most of the published or other more general testimony to the contrary. This is especially the case in a coimtry where the situation favors blaming the "capital- ist press" for any imwelcome news or opinion of whatever sort. Thus our personal relations and the confidence we have in those aroimd us come to play a vital part as a sort Digitized by Microsoft® BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 59 of sieve or screen to determine what particular set of facts, opinions, and experiences out of all those around us really get through to us and so determine our whole attitude to- ward everythip^g else inoaginable. "Oh, aye! I'm sorry I didn't go with th' intention av remainin' in America," said one big helper. "Me brothers do be proprietors at a big worrks there .noo." "To Africa I'm goin' next ^winter," said a young man who had been an apprentice in el^ciaicity for four years and was now helping to get into shape the conveying mar chinery for the two new huge blast-furnaces. He thought the manager had a pretty hard time trying to get on with , the fourteen imions engaged in getting the place ready. Fourteen unions in South Wales ! I pity the poor "super" ! Yes, whether we recognize it or not, the labor problem is growing more and more international. The queer thing is that with all these international friends and relatives and their market quotations on the going rate of muscle and sweat and skill, so many of the workers have been on the same job here for decades and decades and speak a language so hard to understand. When I asked one helper to-day what an. old smelter was trying to tell me, saying I couldn't understand him, the answer was disconcerting: "Well, 'e do sye as 'ow 'e doon't oonderstand ye." A few minutes ago I was glad to help put the trawler man — ^his name is Bolton — on board his trawler, ready to set off for a two weeks' trip to-morrow. He is fairly sober, though he says he's eaten nothing in five days and owes the proprietor of the pub five "quid" for the beer and whiskey he's been drinking in place of food. ^ "And I'll pay him, too, when I get back if I have to sell my shirt. Lots o' these Welshmen won't. I've not got many principles, but I've got that one at least. "Well, I've had a bad education," he said when I tried to solve the mystery of his remarkable fund of information. Digitized by Microsoft® 60 FULL UP AND FED UP his air of culture, and. his drunkenness. "As a youngster I was taught to be a yes-sir, no-sir kid — ^with no mind of my own. Then I went off to a 'public' school. After that I went, according to proper etiquette, into 'chambers.' There I was suddenly my own boss with my own key and everything, and started to hve fast and raise cain. . . . Now I can't stick at anjrthing — I get fed up, d' ye see? I got to try something else — ^I get fed up too quick, that's the trouble. Now, my brothers, they're good boys and they stay in the office till 4.30 every day of their lives. I'd stay the first day and then I'd leave at four and the next day at 3.30, see? . . . Go to the movies? No, ye see, unless I got more beer in me than I have now they bore me. If I'm sober I can't cry or get anything out of them, so what's the use of going? No, I'm no good and I know it. Well, here we are — good-by and good luck to you! And to-morrow when they'll give me not a single drop of whiskey or even beer, I'll go through the torments of the damned ! Ta-ta." I'd certainly like to see him again. He's a wreck worth salvaging. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER III "BACK TO THE MINES" AND THE "BOLSHIES"! A Rhondda Valley Coal Town, S. Wales, July 15th. For -the last few hours I've been feeUng myself some males farther beyond "the jumping-off place" than ever in my life before — even farther than one homesick day when we got aboard the dirty httle Chilean steamer and with our supply of chicken and beef crowing and bellowing forlorn- ly, headed down from Panama to Callao and Lima, Peru. A job here was certainly far enough away from all prob- abilities yesterday when I left Swansea. Following a chance suggestion it looked worth while to come up from Cardiff and visit a school of mines in order to ask some questions about the district's chief industry, coal. Within a half- hour it was arranged that one of the professors there would find me a job in a big mine whose officials are friends of his. Before sunset one of these told his superintendent that I was a "friend of a friend" of his who needed a job but was also interested in studying a typical Welsh mine before re- turning -to America for further study. So I'm all set for appearing at the pit-head to-morrow morning at 6.30. Also as lonesome and far-away-some as could be conceived, surrounded — almost overwhelmed — by these great towering mountains, these foreign-speaking Welsh, and these forlornly bleating sheep that nose for morsels of food in the ash cans and garbage boxes of the little coal town's main street which mounts rapidly up to the head of the valley and the "tip" or tipple of the big colliery. 61 Digitized by Microsoft® 62 FULL UP AND FED UP It must be this strangeness of sights and sounds which gives this far-away feeling, for strangely enough the other "feel" which exists right along with it is the' amazing friendliness of the people here. I can't imagine anything to exceed the hearty neighborliness and hospitality of the master mechanic and of the wife he brought back after his several years in America, to the total stranger introduced to them by the superintendent — ^he had told me it would be much liarder to find me lodgings than work. The mechanic was plainly sorry that the wife was too hard worked to be wiUing to take on a new family member for the length of my stay, but he was quite too much the man of character to insist. America had treated him well — ^with his best job in the Pullman works just before the World's Fair — " 'ard work it been, sip — 'arder than men work over 'ere, a lot — ^but with good pay awnd good chawnces." To recover from an attack of fever he had come back to the home valley and town to find his father anxious to turn over to him his job as head blacksmith of the mine — ^and so had stayed ever since. Evidently the mother had fallen into the hard-working ways which ap- pear to be the lot of all the women of the town. The boss, .as she called him, was glad when she annoimced that it would be quite possible to find me a place beneath the roof of their tidy company house for the night at least. "Aye, he shall sleep with the boss!" she exclaimed with great definiteness and satisfaction when she had thought it all through. "Oh, aye, he shall sleep with the boss — ^and I shall sleep with SaUie — that's my oldest daughter." "Aye, now that will be fine!" assented the husband. '"Ye can take a swill now, and then we'll have a sip o' tea before we go out to look up a place for ye. 'Tis sorry I am that we cawn't '^ve ye 'ere regular. But ye see she be'n't as strong as she were," he added to me as the wife went up to make all ready. Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 63 I judged finally what the "swill" referred to in the way of ablutions in the tin basia and managed to take clean hands as well as hungry lips to the table for the bread and butter and jam and tea. These seemed to have changed only in price from the days of twenty years ago. Certainly no old friend could have given me a better recommendation than he when we started down the street into the bottom of the valley. But it was slow work in the crowded town, until he finally turned the job over to one of his assistants. I understand "the boss" has under him sixty men in the blacksmith shop and the other places for keeping up the mine equipment. On all sides the men and women of the town spoke to him with the greatest re- spect and good-wUl though with none too much familiarity. "Tidy people they are. Ye'U fawncy that place!" they both exclaimed this morning when word came that a place had been foimd with tiie "night-overman" of a near-by pit. The night with them and the good breakfast in the" kitchen certainly proved the simplicity and cleanliness of their own housekeeping and made me sorry not to be stay- ing longer. " 'Twill insult us if ye say another word in regards to thot !" they chorussed when I wanted to pay something for their solid hospitality. "We do too much fawncy sharing with any one from America, we do, to take money from 'em. And ye must roon up often to see us, too." Already I have foimd a great many of the townspeople have relatives or close friends in America and seem to'know the country's geography surprisingly well. I only hope they are properly informed when they take such care to pass onto me the tale of the surpassing success which has attended the careers of these overseas members of the fam- ily. All are interested in my having had a grandfather who emigrated to the States from the very next county to this one. All that being true, it is amazing to notice the extent Digitized by Microsoft® 64 FULL UP AND FED UP to which ordinary conversation is carried on in Welsh— among the children as well as the grown-ups. It is easy to see, too, from the glances and the introductions, that visit- ing strangers are rare indeed in the town and tha,t any one who is not able to talk the local language is looked upon as a foreigner whether froih America, England, or elsewhere. I hope that no danger bodes even though the place is, said to be the very hottest centre of the Bolshevistic unrest which affects the whole South Wales district and which in turn is said to be the most disturbed of all Great Britain outside Scotland's Clyde district. It is a dehght to find that this is the very town, and I am to work in the very pit, in which the men were reported in the London paper of a few days ago to have walked out against orders and, in their black faces and working clothes, to have marched one thousand strong to the funeral\of a comrade. It would look as thouigh a sojourn in their midst ought to be inter- esting quite apart from the "insight into Welsh mining methods" referred to so frequently by the boss in his vari- ous introductions. In actuaUty, of course, the men them- selves and their ways mental and spiritual constitute ex- actly the "methods" I am after. The house where I'm settled at this moment looks clean, with a hard-working woman of less than thirty-five engaged in the town's chief pastime of chasing dirt from off the door stones and "pawsages" just inside, as also from the floor of the kitchen which serves as pantry, dining-room, and bathroom for the town's bread-winners. All the houses are of brick or stone, placed right on the street, and of the same plan and pattern as almost all the others of the town, with which, indeed, they are all connected imder the line of roofs unbroken except at the street intersections. With their four or six rooms, the water faucet or "tap" inside the kitchen, and with the toilet plmnbing under the same roof or across the alley, it is better housing than I saw in -— - Digitized by Microsoft® ^ "BACK TO THE MINES!" 65 many American mine towns. The rent seems to run from fom* to six and seven dollars, including water and almost a ton of coal a month. In spite of the attempt at cleanliness which is so evident, I find that I must add to the multitudinous bites of the fleas of Swansea — ^for purposes of simplicity I find it easier to ascertain their total number by multiplying at the rate of twenty per leg or arm ! — the more serious flaming calling- cards of the beast that uses the reddest of blood-red ink to sign his name. Perhaps it is these cards which are responsible for my present conviction that this particular way of getting an insight into the labor problem has its moments of demoral- izing discomfort and forlornness. Anyway, I'll walk out for another view of the splendid mountains and for another enjoyment of the pleasantly rushing and murmuring stream by the side of the main street, and hope to have plenty of active and interesting things — and if possible plenty of real, live Bolshevists — to cheer me up to-morrow down in the deep, dark entries "inside." A Rhondda Coal Town July 16. First the booming whistle from the pit-head. Then the bang-bang on the front door of every house in the town by the ofiicial "knocker-up." Then the soimd of the wooden and iron shod feet of hurrying men. All this started the day at 5.30 and got me down to the eggs and the strong bacon which the landlady had bought on my directions — she would not board me for a fixed sum with prices so un- steady. Shortly after, t started off with some sandwiches in a paper and some water in a whiskey bottle for the day's work. Health insurance, etc., had been signed for the day be- fore — I wish they would frame the question differently from "To what person should word be sent in case of ac- Digitized b^ Microsoft® 66 FULL UP AND FED UP cident?" So my safety lamp and number came without trouble, though it was evident that the stranger was attract- ing a surprising lot of attention. I was certainly not expert enough to follow the lead of all the others who immediately took their lamp and, after revolving it in a way to test the lock, blew upon it above the glass and watched to see if by any chance the flame would show it. In that case, I presume, they would return it. At the top of the shaft all wicks and lamps got a further inspection by a pre- sumable expert. All this care gave an impleasant feeling of unmistakable gassiaess in the pit below. No one gave the slightest sign of haviag read the night before of the falling of a cage in a mine just a few miles away, with the serious injuring of twenty men. When our turn came to be counted into the hoist by the "banksman" I had to shut my eyes to keep oui( the dirt as the engineer gave us a quick plunge down the thousand feet to the "bottom." It was a pretty dark place in spite of the few electric lights — ^very different from the whitewashed and bril- hantly illuminated "central station" of the second mine of last year, back in Pennsylvania. A few inquiries got me to some sort of boss who called to another to take me down to "Evans, in 18," so we '^started past the crowds of boys and men who seemed to be waiting for "pit eyesV before starting off toward their locations. Our oil-flame lamps gave little enough light, though mostly we walked in groups with every one's lamp carried near the ground. In addi- tion to the timbers which had to be watched foi* bumps, there were also, every few yards, the iron haaigers for carry- ing the steel "ropes" or cables by which the cars of coal are brought to the bottom for sending up on the hoist. The coal seam has been so disturbed here that the same seam is to be foimd at a variety of depths. This means that — as I found to my surprise and my sorrow — ^we were climb- ing first up hill then down as we walked along the main Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 67 headings to our destination. These ups and downs would have made it very risky for nijen to ride to their districts in the "man-trip," or train, as T^e did in one of the Penjisyl- vania mines. Finally after we had walked close to two miles up and down, I was given, after another disconcert- ingly careful inspection of oiu- lamps, into the hands of Evans, the repair man. With another laborer we started off through some very tumble-down portions of the "return air passage" for the fixing of a "gob" or heap of slate and "muck" so held in place by our wall of stone as to carry some of the weight of the roof when the timbers should give out. We had moved only a few of the rails and ties there after we had sat down to "take a blow" to rest from the long and I must say imusually tiring, walk, before a fireman (fire boss in America) came hurriedly to say that a fall had just occured in a near-by heading. It was evidently up to us to fix it up before the expected fall of further parts of the roof occurred and so prevent coal from being taken out from "by there," as the Welsh put it. So with each of us carrying his proper share of the picks ^and shovels, sledges and bars, we made our way— with many bumps for the least expraienced — ^through some very dreary pas- sages to the place where we tried to keep one eye on the work of oxir shovels in throwing the fallen slate away and another on a nasty-looking piece of "top," as the repairer called it. "Stawnd you, quick, by there, not by 'ere!" Evans said when he had looked it all over carefully and expertly. "By 'ere, if it fall, it 'ave to bounce by there." With the same sort of skill he chose the exact place where he should stand for striking a half-fallen rock with his heavy iron bar until finally it came thundering dowia — after he had counselled the other two of us to stand wdl back under the timbers. With similar "know-how," too. Digitized by Microsoft® 68 FULL UP AND FED UP he showed how to take note of the grain of the great rock so as to make the strokes of our sledges count for breaking it into pieces small enough to be pushed and carried to one side. When the big and handsome draft-horse came along and got past without let or danger with its tram of coal — these Welshman call it "dram" — ^we shouldered our tools again and went back with the feeling that the successful maintenance of way and so the moving of coal pretty much depended upon us, in spite of our having the humblest job in the mine outside of the work given to boys. I wish I could paint the picture presented an hour or so later when Powell, the under-manager or under-superin- tendent, came along to look us and our work over and the conversation got qiiickly aroimd to the recent funeral dem- onstration. All the Ught, of course, came from our safety- lamps suspended by their hooked handles from the edges of the upturned or "tiunbled" "dram," with the darkness making a heavy frame aroimd the gray figures and the coal-covered, sweaty faces of the four of us. Evans was on his knees — ^the result of old habits favored by the thin seams of coal he had met and mastered in his forty-three years of work in this one pit ! His face showed the lines of a lot of Uving and working and also of a good deal of tl^inking. Powell, Sanders, Evans's buddy, and I sat or stood about, with the shadows of our heads sprawling over the rough rock of the low "top," which almost touched us. "To 'elp the other fellow a great mon the dead chap was. 'Twas for thot we fawncied goin' to 'is funeral," argued Evans. "Public-spirited 'e was, d'ye see? Besides a good mon on our deputations to the management." "Well, poor respect to such a man, I call it, to go to his fimeral without so much as washing your face!" answered PoweU. "And any of you who were his friends could have got permission to get off in time for a swill before you saw him buried if you had asked for it, you know." Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 69 "Ah, but two carriages they said "Was all to be furnished and what chawnce would I 'ave 'o bein' in 'em? No, when ye refused us to come ojit at the regular time all of us 'ad to support each other's dirty faces in the payin' of oor re- spect." "Well, then, you should have supported each other in coming home again with proper decorum instead of singing and skylarking disgracefully as you did. A thousand men of you! For shame!" ,"To play the mon — that's me motto and as the good Book says, 'Do imto others' and 'Bear ye one another's burdens.' Thot's what all of us must do, dead or alive," the old man fairly shouted when the dispute grew hotter. "And all thot's the last thing the company do be a thinkin' 'av these days, I tell 'oo, Mr. Powell! These extremists, mind ye, go too far. But more perse-oo-asion — thot's what we should 'awve around 'ere in the whool place. There's noon av us thot wants a bit more than proper joostice. Thot — ^with more perse-oo-asion — ^and all would be 'appy 'ere aboot." "All I know," said the much-tried under-manager when things had cooled down just as they came closest to boil- ing over, "all I know is that there's no pleasure in a job like mine about the place these days — ^when everybody seems to want a fair sight more than justice for themselves and to give a fair sight less than justice to others around them. I'm fair sick of it all, I joUy well know that." "It's not so much what the boys do 'awve to-day as what their forefathers in the mine been 'awving," explained the old miner when we had started back to our "gob" after the hour's strenuous discussion. "Mony and mony av us 'awve worked our furtnight by some place, ye oonderstand, and then 'ahd to pay our buddies more than we earned ourselves. Too much 'All right. Let it lie ! ' there been around by 'ere, too, from a certain official some years ago Oigitized by Microsoft® 70 ' FULL UP AND FED UP and now. A fiieman I was, but it was too much the lash av my tongue thot was to drive me men for me to stay on it. I believe too much in the good of fair words for the workin' man — I know 'ow they gets the best out av me, ye oonder- stand. The new manager been more for this nor the old un, but 'e's 'ahd to go way, fair sick and like to die o' the worry av it all — ^with the 'Bolshies' and aU, these months." His other helper, Sanders, is a clean-cut young man who seems to have little sympathy with the Bolshies, though willing to give their arguments a fair hearing. He sings the leading part in a home-talent comic opera now on the boards and is a teetotaller. "Sixteen year it been," put in the stalwart repairer, "since drink been on me lips. Me woman it been thot do the job. Pity thot I marry only when forty years been pawssed. Oop till by then, there been nothin' av evil but I been the doer av it — short of murderin' and thievin'. . . . 'Twas when me older brother died and me mother been '^rd 'it — she land me fawther 'ad no chawnce to lay by a peimy, ye' oonderstawnd — 'twas then I told 'er I'd play the part av a mon so far as in me lies. "Thot brother went to work by 'ere in this pit when 'e been seven. Carried in each morning by me fawther, 'e been, to 'elp with the doors and such so the family could get the money from the ' drams.' At nine 'twas me. . . . No, never no schoolin'. Mony's the week I've come in afoor sun oop ahd gone oot after sundown — ^and then been too done in to care whether the sun been oop or down the Simday. Twelve hours, usual — ^for ye could stay in as long as ye Uked and we 'ad to stay long enough to get the drams we needed for oor bread and keep. Twelve hours, with often a steady go from Friday mornin' till Saturday night to try to get a'ead a bit, . . . Yes, thot been in mony minds av those who listen now X^ the Bolshies— though they do think they go too far, ye obnderstawnd." Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 71 "Studying and reading we are," explained a member of the Bolshie group this evening at the public house, "so now we're fit and ready to govern. We're educated now, ye see, just like the Russian peasants that before the Great War was ignorant. Now see how well they're ruling: fit they are now and educated. . . . Well, that's because ye read the capitalistic press; we 'ave information direct from Russia by unprejudiced sources all about the wonderftil way the working class is governing. We 'ave classes in Marx and all the others right 'ere and now we're ready to take over the job of runnin' the country. First off, we must make the company by 'ere so much trouble that they will give over the mines to the government. . . . Now ye'U 'ave another pint wi' me. Yes, this is my fifth." Well, it "do look" like an interesting place. The mak- ings of trouble are surely in the air. Whether anything breaks out before I get away is a question, but the chances look good. With all the smoke there should be some fire, especially when there appears to be plenty of heat behiad the smoke. Anyway, that "gob" and that "fall" gave me arms and shoulders that can appreciate a bed imtil that strenuous and unforgetting "knocker-up" starts on his noisy roimds to-morrow early. Same Place Saturday, July 17,. ' To-day I got my lamp and got down to the bottom with- out attracting so much attention as yesterday. Old Evans tpld me the reason: "I been fair surprised at ye yesterday. Ye see, no nuner do use the overalls, as ye call them, such as ye do wear yesterday. To-day ye look like a goodish miner man, wi' yer box awnd yer Jack ia yer pocket like." The tin box was lent me by "the boss" and keeps your Digitized by Microsoft® 72 FULL UP AND FED UP sandwiches from being eaten by the rats that infest the mine — ^also your coat, for they often eat that ia trying to get at the food. The Jack is the name for the tin water- bottle or flask which, to show you're a regular miner, must be earned in the coat pocket. It was positively comical to see how insistent my pal Sanders was yesterday in giving me instructions as to exactly what and how and when I must do to-day so as to show myself like the rest. After he had critically examined my jersey he very considerately opined that it would do, without the muffler which would otherwise have been the proper form. Of course, he agreed with Evans that the machinist suit of overalls which the local storekeeper put over on me would never do, because never worn there by anybody who ever did any actual work. "In the old days," went on Evans, "we did used to 'ave 'andsome ' Yorks' of fine leather with sUver buckles on 'em to catch up our pants wi' below the knees, instead o' these 'ere strings as now. Awnd silver buttons, too, been on our wide-flarin' pants at the bottoms, some'at hke s'ilors. But I guess we gives such things the attention like thot because we was wearin' 'em, those days, near all the bowers (hours) o' the day. 'Twas Simdays only thot we did used to jHrear the reg'lar ones, and seldom then." The surprising thing is, not so much the exact particular- ity of the requirements which go with every job in the working world, but rather how largely these requirements for good form are evidently the result of long experience. Most of these in this connection come from that old fact that the miner works hard while he's at it and then "takes a blow" for a short loaf. That means that he must be pre- pared easily to peel off the coat and vest and shirt and have on only an imdershirt and pants for the heavy sweating re- quired to rip the coal from "the face" and get it into the "dram," or car, before the "haulier" comes to get it out to the^ switch or "parting " with his handsome big horse. Any- Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 73 thing like shoulder overalls that lessen the ease of this peeling off for the work, or the later covering up when the walk back to the bottom brings you more and more iato the strong draft of the fans, is sure to be taboo among miners and — quite properly. Just now, at least, there seems to be a great deal of con- versation going on in the headings — considerably more con- versation than perspiration. This morning we were shovel- ling our "muck" of stone and refuse into the gob pretty well, but it was "down tools" for quite a while when a "bradish man" (bratticer or partition and door fixer) came along. After speaking of the pride he had in doing a "good job" of air-tightness on the door near us, he pro- ceeded to help us talk over the present tense situation be- tween the management and the men. "It's goin' too far these Bolshies be. Aye, we must 'ave order o' some kind, you know. But then we must all 'ave the chawnce to play the mon, too. The manager 'e do forget thot. Of coorse, 'e 'ave worked oop from the bottom like, but 'e do think too much we been now the same as w'en he tell us always: 'If ye do-unt like it, let it Ue and takfe yer tools and go.' And our leaders ra Parlia- ment, too — ^wull, if they do start armis-representin' us, then 'tis for us to show 'imi by direct action. And if thot costs a few livies it do only show the value of what we do gain from ut — ^for things valooable do always cost some'at, whatever, doim't they? . • . Still, where will*law and or- der be then, I do wonder, I do." In such talks "inside" as well as elsewhere above ground^ in this part of the coimtry, the great complaiat seems to be that the once radical leaders grow conservative the moment they get to Parliament or otherwise comie into serious re- sponsibiUty. Thereupon their former constituents begin to think disorder the only way of getting their way — their radical way. In any event, or, as these people say, "what- Digitized by Microsoft® 74 FULL UP AND FED XJP ever," the extremists are quite evidently getting a pretty respectful hearing at the hands of the older workers here who are much puzzled what to think of it all. About half the usual amount of coal is coining out of the pits. Fully eighty per cent of the "colliers" or hewers of coal at the face are said to have abandoned all effort to get out a de- cent amount of coal per day and are taking the TniTiim tiTii wage established by law — ^about five poimds seven per week — ^without really earning it. As a result, accurate weights are no longer of interest to the men. So the local imion is reported to have dismissed, quite without previous notice and without further responsibiUty to them, the old men who for years have served their fellow-workers faithfully as check weighmen. These officials are hired by the union to verify the weights of each as sent up and credited to the proper collier. These here are now beseeching the manage- ment for jobs, but they are too old to handle tools. Every- body, whether worker or official, seems to be about as un- happy over it all as the under-manager reported himself yesterday. Undergroimd the hours go by with fair speed, partly be- cause we have the seven-hour day "from bank to bank" — that is, from outside to outside, including the two-mile walk each way. Outside, the women seem never to finish their work with the threshold stones, nor the children their play in the streets. Strangely enough, these last seem at one and the same time the dirtiest and worst dressed and the happiest and least quarrelsome lot imaginable — ^also the most undertoothed and ill-toothed. Am told that this is because dentists have not yet come into the vaUey except rarely, with tooth-brushes an equal rarity. Until recently a toothache here has meant appealing first to a doctor, who felt fussing with people's dirty teeth beneath his dig- nity, and then going to a certain miner who — ^without wash- ing up after his day in the pit — ^would reach for his pliers Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 75 while the victun showed him which tooth was guilty, and perhaps asked the doctor to hold his head ! All the young- sters seem to come naturally by a fondness for singing. One little tike, of less than four with a big chest and bigger stomach, stands up and sings as though he was the prize- taker at an Eisteddfod, as doubtless he will be some day. The moimtains seem to be in different mood every time we come up out of the pit — though mostly they seem to be weeping rain and cold mists which make a fellow appreciate the mass of heavy clothes the landlady piles on the bed. Which reminds me that that "goaf" or "gob" in the pit, in spite of all the day's dissertations on governmejft, gave a wearisome day that makes pushing a pen less attractive than "hitting the hay." Bliondda Valley Monday, July 19. Well, it certainly looks as though things were going to break loose aroimd these parts! How matters can go on like this much longer I'm sure I don't know — ^imless the management turns philanthropist and sends the men down into the pit merely to get away from the constant rain we have on top ! For all day down in the headings 1,000 feet below it has been little but a succession of Bolshevist meet- iags. Although the miner, or collier, to whom I have been transferred, and I did almost a fair day's work in the fill- ing of our trams, the others at the face near us were eitlier arguing lustily or singing most of the day about the beauty of the "red flag of revolution" to the tune of "Maryland, my Maryland!" "Ta-k-e.. Tark-e No-t-ice!" It was the voice of the town crier yesterday afternoon that followed the ringing of the bell and started the excitement. " Ta-k-e no-t-ice ! A- gen-er-al meet-ing will be held this af-ter-noon at four o'c-lock to discuss the summon:ses." Of course, I made Digitized by Microsoft® ; ; 76 FULL UP AND FED UP sure to be there, although it was intended only for the mem- bers of the local union. It seems that some weeks ago the Monday-morning shift refused to go down to work because the Sunday-night shift had not gone in, due to their wanting extra jmy for the Sunday-night hours. The Monday workers figured, of course, that the constant falls from a mine roof make it harder to work after every shift that has failed to take its turn. This refusal for three Mondays had been met by sixty miners being "smnmonsed" for the damages caused the^company by their not working without proper reason — all according to the Mines Act of the realm. "Thot's joost it ! Nobody cawn oonderstand it, so 'twill surely puzzle and embarrass the management — ^which is exactly w'at we want — so they will countermand the sum- monses," the chairman was explaining to the hall of about four himdred miners. "The more contradictory these rules we're makin' now, the better." " So, then, men, 'tis understood by each and every one and we 'ave all voted and approved the rules to be read now by the secretary. 'No collier is to tumble 'is tram (hft it off the rails so that a full car may pass). No collier is to fill a tram not providedx with the proper pins (for hold- ing in the end board safely). No 'aulier is to leave 'is 'orse, etc., etc' And all this is to be done even though it means sabotage and the sending out of no coal at all, at all. And now, gentlemen, please note, *In no case is any collier to mark his number or the location of the coal he can send oop after due regardin' av these rules.'" The rules certainly seemed to cover every possible move, even to the non-handhng of the "posties" (posts) by the timbermen except under certain conditions. On the whole, . too, the votes showed a pretty unanimous raising of hands, with the biggest objections, apparently, coming from the still more extreme workers who wanted a definite vote of Digitized by IVIicrosoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 77 "down tools," so as the better to uphold their religion of "direct action." Whether for or against, it is certain that every one puts into the whole matter an immense amount of earnestness and feeUng — ^and soreness against the man- agement. Something has surely been eating at these men, young and old: the ugliest words with the most fervor be- hind them are likely to get the most handclappings and whistlings. ' The high animation of the meeting was still going on this morning when we lined up to be counted into the cage at the "bank." On the way up the steep lull to the "tip" in the pouring rain, by the way, I foimd myself catching the spirit which underlies the miner's strange satisfac- tion in his work far down below wind and weather: I noted with unconcern my sopping wet clothes and thought how pleasant — ^how dry and warm — ^it would be down there a thousand feet inside! "All them rules be constitootional and aecordia' to the Miaes Act,'^ said my new boss called Williams the North Walesian, to distinguish him from the nmnberless other William WiUiamses of the town. "But this 'ere not markin' o' the drams: av thot I do be ooncertain." He has been here in this pit over forty years — ^an old chum of my friend the repairer. It kept me busy joining him in his greetings of "How be?" and "Shumei!" as we passed the crowds waiting at the different "splits" or "partings" of the headings. The way these men can name a man yards and yards off down the black entry simply by the way his lamp swings is marvellous ! When necessary, he explained to his friends that I was studying mining with him (aU of them have shown themselves extremely^friendly, especially now that I wear proper miner's togs.) Though both fat and old, "William" can rip down enough coal from the long waU assigned us to keep me properly busy with my shovel and my "curlin' box," — a sort of three- Digitized by Microsoft® 78 FULL UP AND FED UP sided wash-pan or scoop for carrying it to the tram. In- stead of putting us iato a "room" by ourselves this system of "long) wall" mining gives us a wide "stall" where only a brattice or partition of canvass separates us from a dozen and more others working at the same face. WhUe we have kept going, these others seem to have given the turn mostly to discussing the new rules and damning the management — ^and 'most everything else. "But, av coorse, religion be only a cloak to cover and pro- tict the capitalists while they rob the workin' classes," says one in rebuttal of the driller. The latter is Salvation Army exhorter on week-ends. He quotes the Good Book about "do unto others" and shakes his puzzled head with his "WuU, I been Jair woonderin' whether Jesus Christ been Bolshie were 'e 'ere the noo." "War 'ave wokened the worker, ye oonderstand, to know 'is trimindyoos power. To a degree — 'tis only thot, to a degree — we know oor power n6w. And I do be thinkin' thot war between oos awnd the United States would wike the workpeople av the whool worrld, becoose 'twould wike the worrkers of the two countries thot dom- ineer the worrld, ye oonderstand. Av coorse, the capital- ists do be clever in niver goin' quite too far in their oppres- sions. 'Twould be better if they did. But the worrld war be the oondoin' av them, whatever." My listenings get a sharp word from William as he places some enormous chimks of coal in a position to raise the walls of the tram, thus requiring a tremendous swing for me to get my box of coals or "curls" to the top. Since we are working in the "two foot nine" seam that swing generally means a bimap on my head, even though the seam where we are now is thicker than its name. With a final "Three Cheers for the Revolution!" from the others, the Salvation Army man turns to holding his driU to the hole in the hard stone roof while his buddy keeps up a steady, Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 79 ringuig succession of sledge blows upon it — for these two are day or job men, not colliers, and therefore not so free to decide whether they will work or not. Of course William and I took our "blow" after we had walked the two miles to our location past some bad bumps on my head and under some awful pieces of ".top." In one of these he turned, and after pointing to some dreadful look- ing roof, touched his Ups to coimsel silence for fear of caus- ing a fall. That's one reason why I've not liked th6 lusty songs about the Revolution; it makes the roof vibrate and drop slivers of slate on old William and me as we work! In other places he would indulge in occasional listening to make sure that no part of it was "working." Laboring from about eight and then startiag back on the long tire- some trudge to the bottom at one or 12.45, with an hour instead of the theoretical twenty minutes out for eating and dozing, does not leave a great amoimt of time for actual work, especially when the hauUer is seldom on hand with his horse as soon as the tram is ready. But while it lasts it is hot work, especially when the collier has to kneel and with mighty pick strokes and heavy grunts "nick his cor- ner," that is, cut the farther end of our stall away from the solid pillar of coal that seems to grip the face near it with the tightness of stone. It seems that the long-wall method of working is favored partly because of its» easier venti- lation and partly because the elastic kind of roof we hav;e here serves to push the coal forward toward the collier in a way which permits the ripping off of grfeat bulging yards of it except where it connects up with the seam at the "corners," where the roof is Still supported by the un- mined vein. No machine cutting is needed, and no explo- sive charge. The unpleasant part is that this more elastic roof is said also to be more dangerous ! "By 'ere! Quick, mon, quick!" Under the timbers!" John yelled with all his might at me this morning as a huge Digitized by Microsoft® 80 FULL UP AND FED UP shelf or cliff of the black stuff responded to his pick and started to fall in a way to knock out the timbers nearest the face, and so to endanger the top above us. I certainly did some scrambling ! "Ye'll be knowing the meanin' o' this?" he later asked, when on our way out we came by a long gray box the size of a coflBn in one of the silent headings and he lifted his lamp to show the stretcher inside it. I thought of it — indeed I doubt if I'll ever forget it's gray and silent sombre- ness — a few minutes later, when we came nearer the bottom by the hoist and found the wire cables humming and swing- ing dangerously as they pulled up to the bottom the small number of trams the day's work had turned out. "These do daunt me some'at," he shouted above the roar of the "ropes." "The overman 'ere mony a year is in bed be- cause of 'um now." While we waited for our turn at the hoist a yoimg worker with a very bright face told of his seven living children with two others dead, and of his start in the mining at the age of eleven years and eight months-^also of his broken leg from one of these same ropes on his second day. About the Bolshies he said under his breath: "They're overproud of themselves and their extremes. But, after all, they're the mouthpiece of the whool crowd of us, for all of us are fair un'appy." From him and others at the pit-head we learned that in some districts or parts of the mine the colliers had marked their trams, while in others they had refused to mark them, and so been told to leave for the day. Without the mark- ing of the location the company is, of course, powerless to know where the coal comes from and so to what landowners to pay the royalties of so much per ton. Evidently the first day's battle had been a draw. Some new move will doubtless be the plan of the leaders for to- morrow. There it is now! The belj of the crier and his Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 81 ominous "Tarke no-ti-ce. A general mee-t-ing will be held at six o'clock — ^to discuss the summonses." It wouldn't be suiprisiag if some pretty rough proposals ^■possibly, even, some bloody ones — ^were put forth, judg- ing from some of the whispers against the management heard to-day: "Millions the company 'awve mide durin' the war! Millions ! . . . A tyrant 'e is and alius been, this hagent (agent is the term for a sort of general manager). It's a^ petition we should get oop fer awskin' of 'im to leave the town. . . . Self-made 'e been, but a self mon too, all for number one, 'e been, never a farthin' for the other chap !" When men grow as "fair un'appy" on their jobs as these, they seem to care amazingly little what happens to them in the other sectors' of their living. That's perhaps the dynamic which gets the work of the world done, but it can also be the dynamite which may blow the top off when things go wrong with the job. Well, we shall see what we shall see. Anyway, I wouldn't leave the place right now for a life royalty on all the coal in the whole country! It is these ton royalties, by the way, that contribute greatly to the current unhappiness in coal circles generally. It seems that the famous Sankey Coal Commission of some years ago revealed that the bulk of these royalties, aggregating huge sums, went to a comparatively few great families made great by some Kingly grant centuries ago. July 20th. The war is on — ^with the tide turning in favor of the Bolshies ! This morning we all obeyed the appeals of the leaders at last night's meeting to "carry on" and so went down in the pit as usual — only to attend a succession of meetings at each of the junction points for the discussion of the Digitized by Microsoft® 82 FULL UP AND FED UP question, "to mark or not to mark the trams." As near like the factory soviet meetings of Russia as anything imaginable these gatherings certainly are — ^as the men put their lamps on the groimd or suspend them from their knees while they sit there in groups, ia the black and silent headings, talking now EngUsh and now Welsh but always with fervor. A husky lot of men they are, assuredly, in their heavy wooden or cobbled shoes, ragged coats, black- ened mufflers or neckei-chiefs and grimy trousers, with huge leather belts, and tied beneath their knees by their string "yorks." Though some of them seem to have spent too many hours away from the sim, their faces are strongly drawn and well endowed, with strong cheek-bones, good noses, and forward chins. Public opinion seems to have been doing a lot of work — in favor of the meetings and their resolutions. Says my old buddy to the crowd in his great deep voice: "This not markin? o' the drams is child's play and I be not gpin' along wi' it, ye opnderstawnd. But I do'un't like a black-leg. Last night at the Park pUb there been them as says to me: 'Wot mean ye bloody duffers in two foot nine by a-markin' o' yer drams, hye?' . . . No, I cawnt think av the rest o' the by^ 'ere ar-pointin' of their fingers at me — ^and the youngsters on the street, mebbe, a-hootin' at me kids after I been dead and gone ! Thot do fair daunt me. Aye. So I'm not armarkin' o' me drams to-day — ^and be damned to 'um!" When the horses and the hauliers came along as if noth- ing was wrong, we broke up the meeting and proceeded farther down the heading to another split or switch, where we found another group in the midst of heated arguments and denunciations of the company and the black-leg's. Then, perhaps, on again until finally there came back from farther on a group that said the inspector in our district "will na' lock oor lamps!" So every one could Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 83 feel that they had "carried on" according to instructions to "Go in Until the company turns ye back — ^and we'll claim damages from the mawsters later for refusin' to let us work without due cause." When we came down in a body to the butts or main passages at the bottom by the shaft, many were singing lustily — ^and most musically, too, about ,the "blood-red banners of the hoped-for ne^ order." As the legs of one hoist load disappeared above us we heard a naighty shout — ^with the other two of the "Three cheers for the revolution!" drowned by the roar of the>p-caught cage. Of course the pubs have been crowded. Doubtless the excitement has justified many an additional pint. "Aye, my principles do cost me a quid a week or more," said a young and rather serious collier who came up to me with an offer to treat in apology for his words of the morn- ing that had showed how tense the situation was becoming. He had, in fact, given me one of the thickest instants of the summer so far. Down in the mine while others were going out I had asked some one where I could find the "under-super" for a question or two. Lucidly I could not find him. When I rejoined a group I heard this man ask angrily of the leader of the meetings: "W'at about this 'ere foreigner American a-workin' and a-takin' of om: jobs w'ilst we fight for our rights?" I could do nothing but watch the face of the leader and wait. Luckily the leader saw me and laughed his "W'y mon, right 'ere 'e is!" ' "Aye," my apologist went on, "wi' the staill I 'as Tcould easy mike more nor the minimum, but 'twould not be fair to the others. And we must get away from piece-work thot mikes differences between comrades — ^besides mikin' men old before their time." Here one of his chums came up with his pint and his apology to my friend. "Hi be 'e as spoke in 'aste and Digitized by Microsoft® 84 FULL UP AND FED UP anger to ye this momin', Thomas, when ye called this mon a foreigner. For well ye know that' amongst us of the International Fraternity all nation do be one. Only dif- ferences of clawss do comit -to divide men. But too sharp Hi spoke, and 'ere's me 'awnd on't. Thou know'st I do mean it." "The w'ip of the mawsters, 'tis thot thot we be makin' shorter now and this be the wye to fight 'um through the lessenin' of output. Sabotage is a tool thot ony mon of principle can wield — ^and must." That seems to be the general philosophy. Outside the pit, a few minutes ago, I met a bright young son of an educated Continental father and Welsh mother who is said to be the leader of the more intellectual of the Bolshies. He is without doubt a clever thinker in the meetings and in an argument one of the best talkers and arguers I have seen in a long time. It would seem proper in a way, too, to say that he is an idealist. He has a well- modelled face, sensitive but strong chin, eye-glasses, and thick black hair. His reasoning shows how many ways there are to arrive at a conclusion if it but be in the line of oiu- desires. * Here, I submit, is 'a strong road to follow for landing in a soviet: \ "Well, I may be wrong, but I am gambling the next ten or twelve years of my life on my confidence that Rus- sia has found the solution of the whole problem of modern industrial life. That solution is the soviet: If that i^ true then Russia is going to make every other nation of the world adopt the same plan or be beaten by the competition and the pressure of right methods in business and govern- ment. Of course, the successful adoption of that method means the same cost of life of those that sigh for the old flesh-pots of class privilege here as it meant in Russia. There must be the drenching before the firm seating of the proletariat. But that is only a temporary stage. Even Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 85 now — before the drenching is finished — they are giving better conditions to the people as a whole in Russia than anywhere on earth — that we know by our secret channels of information. ". . . The great success of the revolutionary propaganda throughout the world is due more than anything else to its clear-cut opposition to alcohol. Drink does more harm to the English worker than all other factors together. One reason why I am so much of a pussyfooter (anti- drink propagandist) is this: during the war when the pubs were closed more than now we had full classes studying Karl Marx and all sorts of revolutionary books and sys- tems of economics down at my rooms knd elsewhere. The moment the boys could spen^d more time with their pints, the classes fell off badly. ... If we can get all to stand together without flinching, our sabotage will soon make the masters reahze that their operation of the mines is unprofitable. You see, output is where they Uve, of course. . . . And we shall then be ready for taking them over for the workers to operate. "With the coming of the minimum-wage law in 1911 a man can always be sure of a living and things are not so bad — especially now that practically all the colliers are off of piece-work. But up till then — ^well, often and often a man could ^weat and sweat and still not earn anything from a bad place and besides, was likely to be told by this agent we have here — ^and have had for nearly forty years — ^that he could go if he liked, for there^were always job- less men ready to take his place. Up till then it has been a dog's life, especially here in Wales where the masters are making milUons though their equipment and methods are fifty years behind the times." I'd give a lot to know to what extent the philosophiz- ings at his maturity have been influenced by the hurt feeUngs of his youth and childhood, following upon his Digitized by Microsoft® 86 PULL UP AND FED UP birth as an illegitimate or, as it's called here, a "chance" child. It would not be strange if the war had badly em- bittered him. After finally being made legitimate, as a youth, the war necessity of knowing who every citizen was, put him back into the status of the illegitimate. ' Wednesday, July 21st. It's not strange that it happened. Sooner or later it was bound to come. By some, of course, it is regretted as being the work of a drunken rowdy — "A sober mon would not throw bricks through the hagent's window!" By others the bricks are seriously — ^though rather silently — approved as indicating to the management the feeling of the town without, at the same time, resulting too seriously. Anyway, the assault is on everybody's tongue. There are two or three imported constables in the streets, and the whole situation is even tenser than before. Last night the deputation sent to see the general manager of all the company's pits reported to the meeting that they had been given no consideration at all and that it was of the utmost importance to keep up the fight in the bitterest possible form. All seemed to agree with the committee, especially when word came that the stipen- diary, or judge of the Coimty Court, in charge of such cases had sustained the "summonses." That meant that the thousand miners at the two local pits would be required to give over to the company, out of their wages, damages for the three Mondays of lost work totalUng more than 2,000 pounds ! At this there was a babel of whistles, hoots, jeers, and calls of "For shime!" It was not surprising to see a great deal of bitterness come out during the meeting between the men themselves, the majority of the workers of one pit having gone against the vote of the majority and "stabbed their comrades in Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 87 the back" by continuing to work and to mark their trams. It would not be easy to imagine more impassioned appeals than were made to these to show unity of purpose — "if jiot for yourselves then for the next generation to follow ye. We speak to the better man in ye!" Nor more deadly earnestness than that with which some of the offenders pleaded their case because of their personal debts, on the one hand, or, on the other, their all but fanatical convic- tion that they must oppose every plan which was not out and out strike and direct action. "Mr. Chairman and fellow-workmen! Mr. Chairman and fellow-workmen ! !" His voice shook with his earnest- ness and emotion as one old fellow pleaded for his con- science. "A mon do 'awve alius the dooty of 'is convic- tions. I protest thot I be not a moral criminal in the markin' o' me drame! Now w'y don't we down tools? In thot case I would do aught thot ony mon could wish." It was more than evident, too, from nmnerous questions that to many of them the thought of their share of the 2,000 pounds sterling was nothing short of terrifying. I know of no way in the world for finding the value of money equal to attending such a meeting where, men's voices ring with both anger and the tenderest of emotion when they name what seem very moderate sums, knowing that those sums represent the difference between comfort and suffering for their wives and childreuw The vote to carry on was unanimous — so much so that practically every one in our pit felt certain that it would only be a, matter of marching this morning up the hill that leads away from the bottom of the pit, telling the over-man that we would not mark tlie trams and then marching down again and going back up to the bank in the hoist. And so it was — except for a few meetings again on the way, with the safety-lamps shining into faces more than ever determined to take every chance for conviac- Digitized by Microsoft® 88 FULL UP AND FED UP ing the "mawsters" of the futility of trying to collect the )ieavy charge assessed and sustained by the court. I only wish I. could draw the picture of those determined faces, the gray and silent rocks, and timbers of the roof, the safety-lamps, suspended across well-patched, swarthy knees or leaned against heavy wood-soled shoes, the glints of their light reflected back from the flashing eyes of troub- led men, the walls of coal or the tin boxes and jacks in an occasional pocket — ^the soUd frame of darkness enclosing all. All day, of course, it has been more talking. One group was made up of three of the oldest and most serious of all those I have met or listened to. "Two bawd it be," said one, "thot the manager do not move from out the toown. W'y> the other day, his deputy be down in me district and 'e tell me 'Tom, thot be a good job.' I tell 'im, 'In over forty year 'ere thot be the first time thot ony mon fer the company do sye to me, "Tom, thot be a good job.'" " 0, aye ! W'y, for a good word," cut in one of the others, "a mon o' sensibihty do work 'is guts out ! But no dog be- 'ave well for a mawster with a w'ip, and for a man of feelin' the w'ip of the tongue and the lash of the lip been worse nor ony w'ip on ony dog. For thot we 'awve so much o' this lash this forty year we do follow as we do these ex- tremists, though where we do be a-comin' at 'tis fair 'ard to say in such a hower (hour) as this." "These Bolshies no oonderstood Bible," put in a North Walesian rock-driUer who had learned his English too late to get his tenses. "I think Jesus Christ no Bolshie. . . . But I see my family starve befoor go in for work one more day against majority, like yesterday !" "Oh, aye! Thou knowst!" assents a companion. "I do know thy neighbor Evan Thomas do say yesterday as 'e do 'awve 'is eye on thee ! . . . Yet 'e would na' wish thee 'arm, whatever." Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 89 Again there is to be a meeting to-night — ^with the pos- sibility of news from another deputation that has been in conference with the management, under the leadership of one of the union's wisest county officials. Again the second of the pits has been working, although our own has been entirely out. Regret at the failure of the attempt on the official's Ufe is amazingly outspoken. Close knots].of men are always to be seen and the women seem to have much to whisper to each other from their door-steps, even though the everlasting scrubbing of the stones continues imabated. One of the country's new women justices of the peace spoke the other night while we Waited to hear from a depu- tation. She made a fervent appeal that the wife of the worker should enjoy all the comforts of electric equipment the same as the finest ladies of the land. I could not make out whether she secretly realized where some of the trouble lay when she passed on to urge that the miners here pass the two-thirds vote necessary by law to compel the com- pany to put in pit-head baths for an up-keep charge on the men of only threepence per week. For her electric equip- ' ment would seem to have small chance when local opinion seems to^be so divided upon the matter of changing the present habits and traditions which keep the women forever scrubbing up after their men have brought all the dust and grime of the mine into the house. "Just when I have succeeded in gettin' cleaned oop, then 'usband comes 'ome and starts disorderin' things with 'is bathin'" (pronounced "bath-in"), says the wife of the repairer with whom I have just had tea. So it seems to be everywhere in the town as well as here in this house. Luckily there is a "bosh," or trough, where the "tap" nms, and for the ordinary wash the hot water is poured into it after it has served for the washing of the dishes and every- thing else in, the household. I found it embarrassmg that. Digitized by Microsoft® 90 FULL UP AND FED UP first day to know just when the young wife of the over- man was going to leave off helping me with the tub of hot water for the bath that is inseparable from the niin- er's work, and so allow me to continue the process in pri- vacy. On all sides I learn now that hardly a woman in the town but has grown up from childhood perfectly accustomed to seeing her father and brother doing their "bath-in" un- concernedly in the kitchen, which usually serves also for general dining-room and sitting-room. "A greater cause of immorality it be than all else to- gether — this kitchen bath-ih," is the way all the young men support the statement of the woman speaker. The obstacles in the way of the two-thirds votejor the pit-head baths are considerable, apparently. At a recent national meeting a miner who proposed putting all the cost on the employers admitted that at some mines only fifteen per cent of the miners used them and at the most successful installation only fifty per cent. "How can a mon get his clothes dry — or mended?" "'E do be sure to take cold a-coomin' 'ome." These are the points heard, besides, of course, the one imported long ago from these regions into our American mines, namely, that it is de- cidedly unsafe and unhygienic for a miner to wash his back! Last night I met a youngster next to me in the meeting with whom this question had got past the stage of argument., "WeU, I know w'at 'appens. With me 'tis no argument. Both 'ave I tried, washin' and no washin'. And I know that washin' do give me a cold! So there ye are!" It would seem to me that nothing would do so much to improve the men's respect for themselves as to put an end to this constant passing up and down the street in black- ened clothes and faces. Certainly nothing would do so much to lessen the heavy burden on the women. Town sentiment certainly requires the housewife to have her Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 91 threshold on the street well soapstoned and aU the brasses shining to the limit if she is t6 hold her head up among her neighbors — I wonder, by the way, if that's the reason why the greatest complioient to the standing of a family and their respectabiUty here is: "Tidy people, they are. Aye, fine and tidy they be!" The strange thing is that the social reqturements seem quite fully to allow the keeper of the shining stones and brasses to appear at nearly all hours of the day as the last word of personal sloppiness and disorder. If it is true, as it very well may be, that the two requirements of b^h domestic and personal tidi- ness are mutually exclusive, it seems odd that there should not have been a strike against the domestic in favor of the personal cleanliness. At the very least, it would look as though the wives should get up a movement in favor of the pit-head baths. But it is altogether probable that they are as much the victims of the traditions of the op- position as are their husbands — ^and would be probably as much so in the matter of electricity, too. At any rate, the mothers are not the only ones who pay the price of hard work for those traditions which favor daily dirty faces on the street and perennially dirty backs in the kitchen — ^unless wives or daughters wash them. The yoxmg girls help with the scrubbing, with a coarse waist, generally black, around them and a piece of rough sacking over their short skirts, their soapstones and brushes clasped firmly in hand. The stiU younger sisters are quite likely to be "nursing" the baby — ^with the yoimgster held to their waist by their way of folding a "nursin' shawl" about them so as to give a free arm. In some cases the young nurse is scarcely larger than the nursed — ^using all her childish strength to lift her precious load to her Uttle shoulder. How it can fail to stunt some of the loyal maids I cannot see. Just at this moment — ^and for some days back — I must Digitized by Micrtsoft® 92 FULL UP AND FED UP confess I have been the victun of the bad mood which all this work induces in the bodies and minds of the women and children of the place. On all these days my land- lady's temper — ^but perhaps it is something in me that helps my surrounding circumstances to put me on edge here in the house when I eat my meals in the Uttle room where I can hea^ her scolding and shouting ^it her whimpering little girl of abput a year and a half. Anyway, I'll not trust myself to blame her nor to tell more of it imtil I am less weaiy — ^and touchy — than at present. Perhaps, too, we are all of us a little on edge with th^ uncertainty of the situation generally. At any rate we are all hoping that the meeting to-night will give news that matters have taken a turn more favorable to quiet — also to work and wages. And now to the crier's party. Thursday, July 22nd. Peace — or, at least, near-peace — ^at last! Nearly everybody seemed to be glad to get back to work again this morning. On the whole, more coal prob- ably went up to-day than when the trouble was first start- ing. It's not over yet, but at any rate the deputation brought back to last night's meeting the news that the head ofiicials had agreed to reduce the damages to the small sum of 150 pounds, with several weeks for the pay- ment of it. At the same time the coimty leader of the imion who was mainly responsible for the settlement of the affair told the meeting that they were all "down the drain" in the likelihood of their getting any damages from the company for sending them out of the mine after they refused to mark their cars. But nobody seemed to take that very hard as long as he and the others of the depu- tation had made it possible for everybody to go back to earning their money without losing their face, seeing that the management had given in and lessened the damages. Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 93 "Well, this do be a good thing, for it do show tha low sort of leadefs we do 'ave 'ereabouts, " was the way some of the older and more conservative men put it this morn- ing as we all walked our long black and hilly way into the "two foot nine." "Child's play this been, I tell 'oo, all of it except the parts thot been constitootional, " put in another; "but no matter, when we all do make decision then we did ought to go together." "Aye, this county mon thot speaks us all so fair lawst night, 'e do go as do all the others. W'y, once 'e been the wildest Red in all the kentry — ^Lq jail 'e been, for months for cause of the Pandy riots. And now 'e do tell us to be reasonable and constitootional — ^now thot 'e 'ave the plan to be an M. P. (Member Parliament) and do get 'is ten pound the week from all on us." Thus some of the leaders tried to get back at their cooler-headed adviser though he had got them out of their hole in what I thought a very considerate way. "While I agree with the county secretary," was the genteel way Caproni, the best educated of the Bolshevists, put it, "that imder ordinary circumstances we should keep to the constitution apd the law, I insist that we are now in a state of war with the management, so that any- thing we can think of to embarrass them is, in a manner of speaking, constitutional, because in line with our fixed and determined policy of sabotage." But of course the point of it all is that with the threat of that dreadful 2,000 pound sterling damages no longer staring the crowd in the face, the Bolshies were powerless to get anything like the majority on their side for continu- ing the fight. As nearly as I can discover, after making myself a living question-mark all over the mine and the town, just that is typical of th^ whpl? situation. Everywhere the men have Digitized by Microsoft® 94 FULL UP AND FED UP trotted out their phrases of the "proletariat," "class con- sciousness and class discipUne," "operation for public ser- vice and not for private profit," etc., etc. — ^all with very marked pride in their manifest learning. But only a few questions have been needed to imcover in most cases some hidden sense of hurt and soreness arising out of some \m- pleasant experience with the management, a few months or a few years ago. In some cases the experience had happened, not to the worker himself at all, but to some one close to him, but nevertheless was causing the sore spot in his own mind and the squint in his own view-point. And in most of these cases the present manager has played a part and too often an unworthy part. "Well, mony the time I 'ave 'ad a bawd place, ye oonder- stand, awnd w'en I spoke to 'im 'e'd only say 'right you are, let it lie !' So for me it was on wi' the work or leave the town." "Oh, aye, there be mony in the town as paid the twenty- one shiUin' a month to buy the 'ouse from the company. And on account of no work, ye oonderstand — sometimes it did used to be, back in them days, only six or seven turns a fortnight's pay — they do lose all they pay." Some- thing like this would come in rebuttal of the remarkable rent of company houses at a pound a month with sixteen hundredweight of coal thrown in. "A six months' strike we 'ave just a twelvemonth after our marriage," said Mrs. Evans. "Long time it seemed for the two of us and this girl 'ere now. Without the shop- keepers to carry us, I don't know where we'd been." She speaks good English, having been born a "foreigner" to these pants — ^that is, in Birmingham. "As good a man he been now as he been bad before," she whispers about her husband as I take opportunity to express my admiration of her man. "And any one in town will tell you that I couldn't say more than that," she 9,dds with some pride — Digitized by Microsoft® SALT FIREMEN OF NORTHERN ENGLAND. Workers everywhere were delighted to be "snapped" in their working togs, and always offered their addresses for copies. American sailors had evidently made it appear perfectly proper for an American worker to carry a camera. 'E been now," his wife said, "as good a mon as 'e been bawd before — awnd no one could say more than thot I ' 'Eirty Dick's my name, but I'm not dirty-minded." Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 95 pardonable in view* of the report that she is the cause of her man's enjoying every one's respect for the past twenty years and more. (He will come into a pension of ten shilling weekly at seventy from the government, added to by the company to the extent of three or five shillings weekly according to his record and standing.) Altogether it looks a good deal like the Irish question — present unhappiness induces the searching of the near and distant past for the fuller justification of its mood. In the old days, too, the constant fatigue of the long hours of ripping a living from the black face of the coal seam must undoubtedly have helped to rub in deep what- ever difficulties the workers may have had with those about them, whether in the management or out. The day cer- tainly puts me in a position to beheve that "having" coal in a deep mine is hard work. Any one will believe that who will dome along and, after walking in the two miles from the "bottom," take his "curlin' box" in hand and follow after his buddy for trip after trip from the face to the tram, never perhaps straightening up because of the lowness of the seam, throwing the box high upon the "rise" or built- up sides of the piled-up tram, without daring to raise his head because of the low stony "top," or else carrying some great lump carefully so as not to spoil its possibiHties as a comer for the "rise" — always in a darkness which tires the eyes in spite of the oil safety-lamps and nearly always in the midst of a great deal of coal dust. Somehow all this has been much more tiring here than in the mines of America. Perhaps one reason is the narrower seam with the constant stooping. Of course the depth accoimts for the greater heat, which is quite noticeable. The earth is said to grow hotter by one degree with every fifty feet of depth, and this mine is certainly not ventilated enough to offset its distance down as against the 300 and 400 feet depths in ^hicb we worked last year. Outside the smell of the coal Digitized by Microsoft® 96 FULL UP AND FED UP dust or the gas to be met with in the "back passages" where we worked last week, the other distinctive smell of these mines is undoubtedly the smell you get the moment you come near a miner — ^sweat, sweaty bodies, and sweat- drenched clothes. This afternoon a yoimg miner who was sleeping in the reading-room of the workmen's institute or hall said he thought most of the men were well tired every day. It is easy to believe that this sweat there in the darkness — which, by the way, with the dim oil lamps is reported by many to cause a great deal of eye trouble* — Phelps make the mineworkers hard to get on with for the management. To-day I'll swear it must also make them hard to get on with in their homes. This afternoon I had a lot of sympathy with old William Williams, of the North — old and fat he is — ^as he growled that he'd "ruther load another dram o' coal than walk these bloody miles down to the bottom." My own back and shoulders were aching because we had started off with- out stopping for a "blow" after we had piled the last tram high in double-quick time. After my kitchen "bathin"' and all through my lonely meal here at the house I have wanted to do some strenuous growling myself, not at the baby, for the little one seems to me quite good, but at the mother, who continues to-day her screams and shouts at the poor little tike. "Shut up !" she yells at what seems very moderate baby- ish whimperings. "No, you cawn't 'ave it. So there you are!" — followed a moment later by the "Well, take it and be quiet!" of despairing surrender. "Baby! Baby!" again a few moments later as some- thing fresh is started. "Oh, I shall fair perish with you, * This disease of the eyes, I learn, is called "n3retagmus," and has been the subject of many investigations by royal commissioiis. It is practically unlqiown ^mon^ America miners, Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 97 you little slut!" (The woman is usually refined. It ap- pears that usages vary in dififerent parts of the English- speaking world.) This is what has been wearing on me more than any- thing else, coming as it has on top of the ache of fatigue, the concentration of listening and recalling the conversa- tions of the day, and a variety of other discomforts. I pre- sume it is this constant scrubbing and washing up which is in turn at the bottom of the woman's taking the poor child so hard, though something more serious would seem to be at the back of it. Anyway, one thing is certain; no- body in the town appears to have quite such a soft time as some of the papers make out, even if the men are for the present in no mood to work as hard as they used to — ^and are not likely to — ^until a lot of obstacles to their better understanding with the management are cleared up. It appears to me stiU certain, however, that men gener- ally—and miners particularly — ^prefer to work hard rather than to loaf unless they have for some reason or other got into a "jam" with each other or with the "gaffers," as they call the bosses. To-day when we joined some of Willmn's old pals on the way out, he apologized for his puffings by boasting that: "WuU, in me day, I'll do any job under- ground wi' onybody, bar none !" A moment later it looked as though there might be blows between him and another old man who was certain Willum couldn't make any show- ing in comparison with himself in handdriUing a powder- hole in the roof "an inch and a 'alf to start and three inches wide, oonderstawnd, two feet in.", "Swanking," both of them, I suppose, but they were certainly taking pleasure in their workmanship, even though they tell me here that the best workers are the last to boast of it in public be- cause of the tradition against manifest conceit. But at least it is a reassuring sign when, in such an upset situation as this, old men will refrain from their sabotage long enough Digitized by Microsoft® 98 FULL UP AND FED UP to boast of their prowess as workers — even if they have to go back into the past to get their basis for it. Well, it is a reUef to have no crier for a "General Meet- ing !" this evening. I must say the man does his job with as good a voice and enunciation as could be hoped for. "A sovereign a time 'e gets for it. Not bad, is it?" says my weary landlady. So I guess I can go over for a cup of tea with the profes- sor who is responsible for my beiag here — ^a fine man he is ia every way, and most learned with regard to coal and many other matters. Friday, July 23, Rhonda Coal Field^. The biggest impression of the day — next to my aching arms and shoulder-blades — ^is of mud and rain. When I asked one of the miners — ^they are calling me Charlie very familiarly now — the why of the fearful mud of the yard about the pit-head he exploded: "Seven deputations we have had on this bloody mud — and only been iosvdted for our paias. I tell you, you can't get nothing here except by force — and this week proves it." "Five times I've been to them on the deputations," said black-haired Caproni. "Each time they've told us it was well irrigated by nature, — ^and ended by asking me why I kept making mischief. The thiag they can never understand, these masters, is that we agitators cannot possibly make mischief. All we' can do is to call attention to it when they themselves furnish its with it!" Such words are exactly in line with my earher belief that an agitator is "a man who earns his salt by rubbing it into the sore spots which the rest of us allow to exist on our body poUtic — or industrial." I hope, however, that the man was wrong when he continued: "Yes, we are back at work again — and I think we owe it to the man who threw the brick through the agent's window. The only language Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 99 they can understand, these owners, is the language of force and violence, else why did they issue the summons in the first place?" I "dunno" what the answer is, but I am mighty sure that the fellow is no fool. He told me this morning he had been working hard for a living since he was nine. That, in addition to his illegitimacy, would make him resemble most agitators, in having been pinched severely in "the fell clutch of circmnstance." It is pretty certain that he would be very glad if the coming ballot would defeat the eflPort to raise the dues of membership in the Miners Federation of Great Britain to a shilling weekly. This would set 'the Welsh miners free to nm themselves — ^with their more radical leadership in control. They would also be free to get a higher daily wage than other miners if they insisted on the local pre-war arrangement whereby wages went up or down with the selling price of coal, an arrange-y ment very advantageous now to the Welsh, who mine most of the high-priced export coal. Such^ separation would be a blow ^in the back to the "M.F.G.B." now that it has recently voted to demand of the government the rescind- ing of the fourteen shiUings twopence allowed the coal producer and seller on every ton of coal for British use and the addition of two shillings per day to the wages of all miners — ^besides threatening to "down tools" if this is not granted. In addition, the same conference stated that it will pay no attention whatever to the law in case the government passes the proposed Mines Act for setting up joint management and workers' committees and for regu- lating wages and other conditions according to areas, thus getting away from the need of dealing with the national union. At the face the day passed quite quickly and with a lot of work done because old Willum goes to-night on a " 'oli- day." So far he has not given me a chance at a pick. Digitized by Microsoft® 100 FULL UP AND FE^D UP He's not to blame so much for that, if I am right in ob- serving that a greenhorn might easily get in great danger by loosening more of the great coal cliff than he bargained for. But though he believes in teaching only by the method of "watch me, thot's the best ye cawn do," he is at least always hard on the job of looking out for my safety. That's not a good subject to write about from day to day because it isn't wise to speak too soon — at least it would not seem so in this district where every day's paper has a head-line or two hke yesterday's "ENTOMBED 10 HOURS!" or "Merthyr Hauher's Death Mystery." But I guess I'm nekr enough through to thank the old man for his call to me to-day, for instance, with his kindly "Go you now away from a-'elpin' o' them drillers. Bad roof it is — dangerous even for them wi' experience," as also for his earlier injimctions to "Alius keep your cap on: ye nae can tell." As we have walked out the miles to the bottom together the men have been quick to yeU to me when the trains or "journeys" ("trips" in American mines) have come thunder- ing along in the black headings: < "Into the manhole! Quick wi' ye!" followed, perhaps, by "Like the 'Irish Mail' they do coom. . . . The coort will be decidin' to-morrow whether Jack Jones gets dam- ages for bein' 'urted even w'en 'e wuz in one o' them bloody man'oles." (Young Sanders tells with great relish of the miner on a spree in Cardiff who saw a group of West Indian negroes approaching and called to his chum: "Quick, Jock, 'ere cooms a journey o' coal ! Into the monhole wi' ye !") The professor says that the same roof which permits the "long wall" system here also furnishes greater danger than anywhere in the British Isles — "and so requires more intelligent workmen," which hardly includes me! The wire "ropes," he also says, constitute another factor of great danger and walking near them when m action is f or- Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 101 bidden by law. I will confess they have frightened me with their roar just above my head in the darkness. But the men pay no attention to them and walk out when they are in action. The observance of the law would make them wait till the end of the shift in the unlighted places quite distant from the shaft. As it is, they line up by the himdreds a good half-hour before the hoist stops tak- ing up the loaded trams of coal — ^in spite of all the manage- ment can do to get them to give a better day's work. With the trams of coal finally brought to the shaft and then "caged up" to the surface, we line up for our turn at the cage, after braving the whirrings of the ropes at one spot and pausing to listen for any further doings in the "top" at some point where rock has fallen on the tracks within the previous half-hour. Then I notice the colliers — the real getters of coal — taking a certain amount of pre- cedence over the hauliers and us day men — ^as becomes those whom, in a sense, all the others of us serve. I wonder if that is likely to continue in case the Bolshies bring about the extinction of piece-work, for that will make the coUier's earnings no longer larger than the others. In a mine it is impossible to imagine anything like the constant supervision over the effort of the workers from hour to hour which is reUed upon in many factories to make up for the urging which is suppUed ordinarily by piece rates. In a coal-mine everybody is working more or less by him- self, with the five or six hundred workers who use the same shaft spread over several miles of territory. If he wants to, a man can spend the whole day hardly turning, a hand — ^and then frame some excuse to the over-man later. This same difficulty is also at the bottom of the trouble with piece rate or tonnage; they call it here "payment by results." In the old days, it appears, the "master" had only a few workers and could easily take a look at the face of the coal seam when a man complained that it was re- Digitized by Microsoft® 102 FULL UP AND FED UP quiring more than ptoper effort to earn a fair weekly pay. The master knew his man and his man knew him. If it was agreed that the location was bad the man would be allowed to "work on the con" — ^that is, be given special considera- tion for his unsatisfactory place. When the mine grew too big to permit such relationships, a foreman or "gaffer" had to make the decision and the old face-to-face relationship was ending and industrial troubles were beginning.* There were many instances of managerial tyranny. This finally brought the imion's demand — the miners' union began as early as 1841 — for the recognition of "abnormal" places. There is always much diflSculty in agreeing just when a place is reaUy abnormal, for when a place goes harder than usual the miner is often apt to do considerably less than his best in order to make his case as good as possible. Now, after years of the unsatisfactoriness following on that real difficulty, the minimum wage has been put into opera- tion. Theoretically it was to take care only of the worker who has an "abnormal" place, but at the present moment it is being taken advantage of as a payment, not for those who have bad places, but for any who do not care to work ! Also by the Bolshies who claim that it can't be right for the fortxmate man to put himself above a brother worker who may be working harder than he in some less remuner- ative location. The question I am anxious to ask the heads of the miners' union is whether they believe the miner can be reUed upon, under either private or public operation, to give, without the spur of payment by results, enough coal in a day's work to hold the circle of British industry together. Unless something can be found to get better relations ihan at pres- * The asBignment of the location by the supermtendent can, of courae, make or break a miner. The way ia therefore open to the plajring of favor- ites or the venting of spites, as also, sometimes, the purchasing of the virtue of the miner's wife. Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 103 ent, I don't see how it can be done. Why any one ^hould suppose that the presence of miners' representatives on the National Board of Control would make government opera^ tion much more efficient than now in the "phones" and telegraph I cannot understand. The sad thing is, that as in the case of the union's check — ^weighman in America or the coimty imion official here — these "high up" representatives become distrusted by the rank and file, as soon as they begin to react to their responsibilities, by growing conser- vative. I am more than ever convinced to-night that "there's a reason" behind even the strangest ideas and actions of our fellow humans. When understood, this reason makes the conduct of any one of us about as logical as that of any other of us. A London alienist. Dr. Hart, shows for in- stance how the behavior of the iasane is perfectly reasoned arid logical, granting only the reasonableness of just one tiny idea or conception which for some definite reason gets itself into the patient's train of thought and so proceeds to provide a perfectly logical cause of all the others that follow. To-night I feel as though I had found the reason for my fret- ful landlady. As a result of that diagnosis which is always the biggest step toward cure, I have tried my best to help her avoid the tragedy which looms ahead of. her and her family. "Ah, it's tired I am all the. time now — ^and not carin' —except to die." So she has explained, perhaps realizing the strain of her shoutings at the baby, though she is prob- ably quite unconscious of the multitude of times I have heard her repeating " Oh dear ! Oh dear ! " under her breath with the deepest of sighs, as she served my everlasting bacon and eggs in the morning. "Often and often John says: 'Shan't we go out as we used to?' But never do I 'ave the courage. 'So it 'as been ever since the twins came — after eight years with no child Digitized by Microsoft® 104 FULL UP AND FED UP at all. . . . Hours and hours I sit by the stove 'ere and cry and cry — cry me eyes out — and never for no reason at all. Yes, it was a bye we wanted and when both 'e and the girl come, we was the 'appiest in the world. But I do be thinkin' it was too good. . . . 'Twas a Simday night I noticed first. All night I sat up with 'im in me arms. And on Tuesday 'e was dead. . . . Per'aps some time 'twill be another — and a bye. But per'aps I'll be dead then, too, I'm sure I don't care — I'm too tired out to care. Never a day 'ave I enjoyed life since they were bom — and not because I 'aven't loved them. ... I don't know why. The doctor says I just need a rest, but you can see there's none of that 'ere — ^with the dirt and all." As she talked I felt sorry for the times these last few days when I had leaned wearily on the edge of the kitchen "bosh," or porcelain sink, preparatory to the "bathin" after the day in the pit, and wanted to scream when the mildest kittens would let out the mildest feline inquiries and appeals — ^and felt positively relieved, a moment later, that the wife had herself yelled to the poor pussy: "Oh you shut up !" For her to yell seemed somehow to relieve me of the strain. It is perfectly plain that in the course of a year or two the ambitious husband will begin to be more conscious of the unsatisfactoriness of his once handsome wife (so I judge from her picture) and begin to sigh for some more sympathetic companion. She is already, of course, visit- ing on him her bad temper — or, at least, her unhappy mood following from this continual weariness. It hardly seems too much to say that what was an attractive and happy yoimg married woman less than two years ago is becoming at this moment, before the eyes of her husband and friends, a very shrew. I have urged a specialist, with all my might, ]but both that and the rest prescribed by the local doctor are apparently equally unlikely. Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 105 At least I'm glad I did hold my temper this afternoon and the other times when I have wanted to make some sort of a nasty "come-back," not to the whimpering baby but to its troubled mother. By George, but this combination of body and soul into what we call a person is an interesting matter! It does look as though we ought to give more study to this com- bination than we have yet given if we are going to find ways of helping it into better and nobler living. And the start of all that would appear to be, for all of us who have to deal with other humans, whether in small groups or great, to hang upon the walls of our minds the legend "There's a reason!" It's bedtime even though it is still fairly light. Like most other nights here, apparently, it is raining and cold — ^with a continuous new supply of raiu clouds blowing over the mountains at the top valley and down right into the town. The only living things that appear to like the constant chill and mud are the numerous flock of dirty gray geese that noisily parade the streets and alleys. A perfect picture of misery is made by the piteously bleating sheep and lambs that wander forlornly from one garbage pile to the other afeout the place at all hours of the day and night. Just outside the window now some lonely wool- clad youngster — ^bom into the world merely to furnish a reason for his due portion of mint sauce! — is ma-a-ing piteously in a voice amazingly like a boy soprano's. The poor thing evidently feels as far from its friends as a certain other person who could be named ! Rhondda Begion, Sunday, July 25. Thanks to my good friend the professor, have had a wonderful ride in a motor all over this southeastern part of Wales. Beautiful country it is, too. With him was one of the company officials and owners here, a man who has Digitized by Microsoft® 106 FULL UP AND FED UP lived all his life in this town and has gone from the bottom to the head of one of the country's most successful coUier- ies. To take the drive without being observed by my buddies it was necessary to stay out of the pit Saturday and join them a Uttle outside the town. Among other places we saw the only pit-head shower baths in Wales — in full operation on husky, coal-black bodies which certainly looked as though they needed them. Un- fortimately the capacity of the building does not permit serving more than a third of the workers — due mainly to the shortage of room for the clothes, which are hung upon hooks and then drawn up for drying in the warm air near the ceUiug. Was glad to be told by some of the "bath-eirs" — our "bathers" is a word which refers only to those who are taking a sea or river bath, or as the saying here is, a sea or river "bathe" — that many more would like to use the accommodations if they could, although there are still many who are afraid of taking cold. At all the other collieries of the company the officials were quite discouraged with the attitude of the workers: "What can we do when a dozen men refuse to work Sunday for the repairing of the sheaves?" [The sheaves are the pair of wheels always visible at the top of a mine tipple, serving as pulleys for the wire cables which run from the winding drum inside the engine-house, down into the shaft.] "By that they make it necessary for five himdred of their companions to lose two eight-hour shifts! . . . More machinery? Yes, but the men will refuse to work with the machine for imdercuttiag the coal. That in spite of the fact that actual experience has shown that the col- liers earn more with the help of it wherever its use is practi- cable!" The tour only emphasized the impression, gained ear- lier from the train through this district, that the housing conditions are much better than would easily be found in Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES 1" 107 an American colliery area. All the houses are closely built of brick and stone. Except for a few bad back streets they are quite fairiy attractive and all seem to have some sort of indoor plmnbing. For miles and miles we were scarcely out of sight of one of the well-built and bustling mine towns. "Most of the houses we are renting to our officials and workers were buUt," says the head official, "nearly fifty years ago and represented an investment of only sixty or eighty pounds each. That's why we can rent them so cheaply. . . . Over 1,500 of our 5,000 men own their own homes and some 2,000 of them have been with us as much as twenty-five years or more." Whether the men or the managers are to blame, the con- ditions of work inside the mine seem to me less attractive here than in the mines I saw in America. The managers here are said to be quite slow to adopt either the mechan- ical conveyors used at the face on the long-wall system in many mines, or the water system for packing the muck into the goaf or gob for the later support of the mine roof. Of course the better this is packed the less material has to be taken up and out onto the dumps, which not only represent costly handling but also everywhere disfigure the hand- some landscape. Also the less the countryside is bothered by the subsidence of the ground when the timber supports give way. You certainly get an impression of the age of the coaJ industry here when you see the hugeness of some of these dumps — ^also when you see the old upright engines which still operate at some of the pits with a conical drum. This was an old attempt to give maximum pulling power on the cage when at the bottom, and maximum speed when the cage is just descending from the top. My two companions have certainly shown me every imaginable courtesy. More hospitable or friendly people — ^more Christian in every way — could not be thought of. Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 108 FULL UP AND FED UP They are sony there is not tune to get acquainted with "the back-bone of the Rhondda" — the miners who are beyond middle age, own their own homes, never drink, seldom go to the union meetings, and never absent them- selves from the chapels or the churches. They agree, however, that something like a year's sojourn would be required to get close to them — also that during last week these in our town and at our pit accepted the leadership of the Bolshies. Still they contend that very few of this old type work in that particular pit, partly because the living conditions I have thought so good are much worse than those in the other part of the town. But I am quite willing to agree with them that the typi- cal Welsh miner is a mighty fine citizen, anxious to do the right and play fair as he is able to see fairness. I am pos- itively blue at the thought of saying good-by to-morrow or next day to some of the good friends I have made here, including particularly the professor and his dear wife, the official, then "the boss" of that first forlorn and home- sick night among these great hills and by no means the last, the repairer and his wife. These folks of the valley, whether high or humble, are not ashamed to show their friendly feelings — ^that's sure. Big-handed and big-hearted men they seem to be, with a strain of sentiment that has to have, I judge, the additional outlet of Welsh poetry and song. The authors of some of the poetry appearing in the local papers are often very humble miners. A male chorus from the local coUieries here once got the national prize, sang before the Queen, toured America, and *so on. They think rather badly of our American taste when some second-rater here goes out to us and in a few years writes back that he is at the head of musical interests in some Middle Western or Eastern town ! Cleaner of speech they all are, too, than most American workers as I have seen them. Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 109 Most of these men seem to me worthy, I must say, of those words the wife said of "the boss" that first day here: "He would do good to all men that 'e do know, 'e would," It was when we were looking at the chromos of the fa^iily in the sacred — ^and unused — parlor there in what the men called "Gaffer's Row" of company officials' houses. Sacred the parlor really is in that house because it shows the faces of the two children — the boy of seventeen and the girl of twenty-one — who had died within the last year or two. "Ah, when the bye went it fair knocked the boss. Ever since thot 'e been gettin' old fast." But even she is puzzled by the times and the spirit grow- ing up around them — ^as doubtless are a great many of the fine old type. "More wickedness there is now than before, I don't know why. Oh, aye, they bet on the 'orses and on every- thing else — ^Uke the number o' the next tram thot coomes. They even bet on what the minister's text will be — and then even on the number o' the 'ymns! Awnd why they been so restless and trouble-makin' I'm fair put to it to know." Her puzzlement is pretty much my own at this moment. Whether they are numerous or not, the more radical work- ers undoubtedly do have a lot of influence in this whole neighborhood. Every day's conversations make it plainer that in this particular pit they are clever enough to make use of the unfortunate experiences most of them appear to have had with that same agent or superintendent earher mentioned. Elsewhere in the district something else must be, found to account for the spirit of unrest so general in South Wales and especially in the South Wales coal-fields. It can hardly be simply the black past of two generations ago in mining in general, because that would be equally true for the fields in the English Midlands, reported much i^QT^ conservative. It may be that, as ope of the rev- Digitized by Microsoft® 110 FULL UP AND FED UP olutionists suggested the other day, these mountains tie everybody to a very narrow groove and make the local miner less open to the currents of national and international interest which are evidently blowing on the faces of the miners of England. One thing I have noticed — ^that to most of the radicals the whole thing seems to have that deUghtfvd simphcity which appears only to the eye of the ignorant. As we came out of the pit the other morning, the same chap who had told how the Russians had "got educated since the war, so why shouldn't we?" — ^all, be it ob erved, in the twin- kling of an eye! — went on very knowingly to show how simple the whole change was here: "You see, afore the war we used to earn our livin' by 'ere" (pointing to his arm), "but now we does it by 'ere!", (with a very impressive finger to his head !) He is the same one who is perfectly sure that the larger use of coke and its by-products is giving the operators even larger profits than before. Evidently he has not the faintest idea that not all coals are cokable and very few from this region. In short, his arguments are those of a man who has been primed by leaders and teachers who evidently talked now about the present, now about the past, and again about the future without telling him when they were shiftiag gears from one into the other. The one sure thing is that he is greatly impressed with his information, though he has constantly to refer to his "teachers" for the exact details: "They'll tell ye the exact number o' millions o' profit. I cawn't recall 'em." All of which makes me wish that the employers would think more about education and less about force as the way out and over the present misunderstanding. In view of all that has already happened, however, it isn't strange that neither side feels like stopping the fight. "We have to decide," said a high official, "whether w» Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" Ill will give in to the men and give over all thought of manage- ment — ^and profit — or, on the contrary, make a fight for every inch. The slightest show of good-will is taken either as a surrender to their superior force or as some sham for getting them into our toils. 'If the management proposes it, it must be bad for us !' they say — ^as, for instance, when we proposed to make a gift toward the hospital. It's now going up over there — some six years after they first started fighting it." A moment later my heart sank as he continued: "And when things cool off a hit we'll summon them all for damages for those missed days this past week." When I made bold to suggest that they require their trouble-making official to restrict himself to the duties of his recent promotion and put more authority to deal with the men onto his subordinates, the answer was discouraging: "But no one can possibly know the men or be more sjrm- pathetic with them than he; for he used to he one of them!" (Which isn't necessarily true at all, and is often the re- verse.) Then he went on: "And besides many of our sub- ordinate officials we can't trust — ^not so much as we can many of our workers !" 'Twould appear that the chief factor in the trouble — if any of my "Big Four" are here — is not to be found in the unsteady job. Ordinarily the mines run very regularly, so I'm told. Car supply is so good that if a mine stops on that account it is wired all over the coimtry. "Tiredness and temper from bad working or living conditions" is hardly a main cause of the local trouble, though it helps. The mental factor of misunderstanding certainly figures con- siderably in spite of the fact that these men and managers have all grown up together. For the local problem, at least, it appears evident that the chief trouble is caused by the men's feeling that the agent and their self-respect cannot get on together; at least that feeling is evidently giving the Digitized by Microsoft® 112 FULL UP AND FED UP Bolshies their handle and, judging from the attitude of my official friend, is likely to continue to do so for some time. Altogether it looks pretty hopeless — especially consider- ing that the Bolshies will probably do their utmost to keep the management from taking the game out of their hands by any efforts, to get into good relations with the men. Meanwhile, partly because of this situation and partly because of the government's effort to restrict the export- ing of coal, ships cannot "bunker" nor find return cargoes after bringing in trom France the pit timber for the mines or from Spain the iron for the mills. This increases freight rates and thus raises the cost of living. The same England that used to export coal all over the world is getting it now from Africa, the United States, and even from Australia, 12,000 miles away — ^with China waking up and breaking in- to things with the newly arranged deUvery of 100,000 tons of the black fuel at Marseilles and 10,000 tons sold to the Danish state railways! It looks as though England's "key commodity" was in a bad way. Mention is often made of the amount of coal we have iu America that can be worked by the steam shovels in our open-pit mines, yet it does seem odd that our tons per man per year should be so much more than they are here — with our 735,000 miners getting out something like 700,000,000 tons against Great Britain's 1,200,000 miners getting only about 230,000,000 tons! And on top of that, there is a serious possibility that a strike of all the miners here will be declared before the end of August ! Also a six-hour day instead of seven comes, I understand, into effect automatically next summer ! With the seven-hour day 220,000 miners here in Wales have produced a million tons less than 207,000 miners produced last year on an eight-hour day. If the present feeling here against piece-work or tonnage pajmaent gets its way, the whole industry as I see it will commit hari-kari — ^with its pick and ghoy^l ng it were, Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 113 And, as I see it, little enough salvation is to be expected from govermnent operation, too many workers are expect- ing to go easy and " tike no chawnces" then. If the leaders play into the hands of the Bolshevists by working for this flat-day rate, the dispute will ife quieter but the mines will be duller. In any event, it is certainly urgent that some means be taien to get the men into a better mood. Per- haps one way would be for the govermnent to call a con- ference and while it asks the men to give a better day's work, ask the owners to take steps to improve their methods of operation. This latter, however, would probably meet the opposition of the great mass of workers. They appear pretty generally to believe that every man bom in a mine town has a more or less inalienable right to a miner's job and the enjoyment of a miner's full year's pay, even if machinery inight get the work done with only four or five days' work each week. It would also get slight favor from the operators. Naturally they feel skittish about investing millions in equipment with the sword of nationalization hanging over their heads. So, as everybody over here says in a pinch, "And there you a'y!" Which, being inter- preted, means "And there you aren't!" 'Twill be fine to see the EngUsh coal-fields and the feel- ings of the men that work them. A fellow can't live in this district — or for that matter in Britain anywhere, without getting coal pretty deep into his system. The pillars of British trade and commerce — indeed of British life — ^rest on these seams of British coal — ^and so upon the muscles and the "mentals" of the hardy men that shovel these precious seams to the surface and into the country's ships and fire-boxies. But more about coal when we get to Yorkshire. Digitized by Microsoft® 114 FULL UP AND FED UP Newport, S. Wales, Wednesday, July 27. It was a weary day yesterday; with the strain of the pits behind it, it made a movie here last night look attractive. But get away from the labor problem ! No bloomin' fear — as the expression goes here. Just when the plot was getting interesting, with the villain about to get his proper handling, a slide came on, announcing in a hurried scrawl: "In view of the strike of the laborers at the municipal generating station, the lights and power of the trams and all the city will be turned off in foiu* noinutes. Good Night!" Everybody"' went to bed by candle-light. Even this morning the good nature of everybody has been amazing. A majority of the workers of the town of 30,000 people is said to be put out of work because eighty maintenance-of- way men — ^practically unskilled labor — ^are asking for 2/1 per hour. That is several pence in advance of workers of the same grade in neighboring cities. Over in the great dock district steamers from Japan or Australia are to be seen alongside sailing boats, or "wind- jammers," from the Argentine. The trouble is that there is nothing like the proper niunber of them. Everybody is complaining. The reason is coal — ^no coal. A prom- inent M. P. of Cardiff states pubUcly that an additional reason is the high rates and low energies of the district's unionized workers. These, he claims, are driving many ships to get their repairing done at Antwerp and Rotter- dam, especially now that no bunkers can be filled with coal except after the greatest and most annoying and ex- pensive delay. Some 3,000 dockers and other ship workers here are said to be facing starvation. It is a sad sight to see himdreds of them there at the hiring offices by the gate of the huge dock. "Bloody few they're tykin' on, with all them a comin' Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 115 out," said one big fellow as we saw about thirty coming from the hiring office to rejoin their fellows in the crowd. "Not hvin', I eyen't — ^just bloody lingerin', I calls it," an- swered another hotly when I asked if he made his living there on the docks. "Not one bloody hower of work 'awve I 'ad in ten weeks!" It seems a heavy price to pay for the sabotage and un- happiness of my recent buddies. These docks must have been a busy place in war time when many cruisers and torpedo-boats came here for over-' hauling, and when 5,000 girls worked at repairing the boxes for holding shell cartridges, returning them in good order to the munitions factories and the front. This last week a man was cleaning up the weeds that now grow there — ^they are threatening now to grow on the docks themselves ! The poor fellow cut into a stray shell which proceeded to kill him and wound his mate. Yesterday a visit to one of the district's noted steel towns permitted a good look at the long valley-filling plant which has lately been claiming the largest blast-furnaces in the world and promising "the cheapest steel in the world." Largest in Europe proves the correct title: the two big furnaces are being put up according to American patents by American contractors. Most of the steel is made by Bessemers which wHl get their "hot metal" from these furnaces. Thirty thousand men work there, though most of them dig coal from right under the plant. The open- hearths are small and hand-charged. The papers say, how- ever, that a million pounds sterling is being spent in new equipment and development, in addition to the opening up of a new ore-field in Northamptonshire to increase the supply now being got from Spain. The open-hearth helpers or "hands" on the "smelters" were heartily glad to be done, since a year ago in March, with the twelve-hour shift. They do not seem to have Digitized by Microsoft® 116 FULL UP AND FED UP known it in its prime, that is, with the seven-day week, for they used to knock off for week-end and only take an occa- sional Sunday or Saturday afternoon turn looking after the gas. Sounds mighty pleasant ! Strangely enough, the manager of the smelting stage was the only man still working the long turn-in order, I suppose, to share his responsibility and his income with only one assistant. "Not for two jobs like this would I give up my member- ship in the Union of Smelters and in the Officials Associa- tion!" was his surprising answer. The general manager of the plant is said to be one of the coming men of the country. One of his assistants is try- ing to put into operation his ideas about better industrial relations, and has about 4,000 workers paying twopence per week toward a sports field, some classes, etc., while the majority of the officials are sure the plan won't work, and the workers mostly wonder what dodge the manager is up to now. The working conditions looked to me quite bad. "The biggest reason we can't treat the men as well as we'd like at the pay window, for instance, is because our pay-dlerks like so jolly well to rub int6 the other workers their own superiority. All of these clerks are, of course, members of the clerks' union themselves, so that we have to be jolly careful what we say." This was the answer of a young official to whom the assistant was good enough to introduce me. An energetic young man in charge of coal operations stopped off with two years' study at Boston Tech largely because EngUsh law requires of all operating officials a full five years of actual mine experience. That evidently discourages full scientffic study by making full preparation too long. "Yes, you can get work, I dare say," people in the town Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 117 and at the furnaces said, "but it's a bally sight harder to find lodgin's. Men leave every day on that accoxmt." "Wanted — Men for France, Malay States, Gold Coast, Nigeria and Nyasa Land," was the note on the Ministry of Labor's Exchange. "We'll put you in touch with the London office of these foreign employers if you wish," the clerks told me when I inquired, "but you'll have no trouble getting on here at the works 2 you like." I shook my headj having in mind both the apparent impossibility of getting a bed in the town and the necessity of getting acquainted with other parts of Britain. A young laborer who called himself a navvy and looked it, spent the twenty miles or so into Newport boasting of his luck in picking up a street laborer's job in twenty minutes. But he said he would only "stick it" the week because of the costliness and slowness of the trains back and forth. Meanwhile I feel with the man yesterday on the train near Northhyr-TidvUle who Uves in a very poverty-stricken looking steel town in this district: "I want to go back to America where I fought at San Juan Hill and saw Admiral Cervera's boats get knocked up, one by one — ^and where a man's kiddies get a much better chance than here. This country's bad for two reasons, taxes and weather." So endeth the First Episode. If the others are anything like it, I'll be wanting to tell every employer in America something like this: "Be care- ful you don't play into the hands of the unions by trying to keep your relations with great groups of workers entirely on the old individualistic basis, denying them the right of some kind of collective or representative dealing through shop committees or otherwise. But don't let any form of representative dealing, whether with shop committees or Digitized by Microsoft® 118 FULL UP AND FED UP unions, cause you to forget for one moment the prime importance of maintaining close personal and individual contacts and relationships between yom* workers and the company as personified to the men in your carefully chosen and continuously trained foremen. Continue to build these representatives of the company and to hcdd up their hands so that through them the men will know what the company itself looks like---and so that they will like its looks. Consider every individual grievance that comes to the committees a proof of a failure of those representatives of you and the company*— that is, of every foreman and other oflScer to perform properly his true fimction as contact- point interpreters. In other words, have the committees or the union as a guarantee of your good faith, but try to make them, so far as possible, unnecessary to the happiness and self-respect and efficiency of the men. If you can't do this, don't blame the leaders too much for building up the collective plan into a wall between yourselves and your individual constituents." That may soimd reactionary. I don't believe it is as I mean it. At any rate, it is sure to occur to any one who sees the extent to which management and the individual workers are walled off from each other here — to the en- dangering of the whole country's industry and life. Saturday, July 31st, Whitechapel, London. Within a few hours the train starts for pastures new. Am glad to be carrying away at least one answer to that puzzUng question: "Is something wrong with education here, that the undersized boys in the steel and coal towns of South Wales seem to think it absurd to keep at it after their fourteenth birthday?" "Well, why should they stay longer?" says an Oxford graduate at the settlement where I have been staying. Digitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 119 "Just as a miner stated to me: 'If I give my boy more schooling he'll not earn a farthing more as a miner for it, and all he can become is a clerk [pronoimced "elark"] or a teacher. And at either of these he'll earn considerably less than as a miner. So there you are !' . . . Ah, yes, the shortage of jobs, even for men of advanced education, is most serious, I do assure you. Unless he goes into civil service here or in the Oblonies— at low salary, though with considerable security and a pension-^there's very little a highly educated man can do. I think I may say that my war service in the - — ^ Department was rather exceptional, but whenever I talk with any oflScial about an opening in trade along lihat line, I am assured that they are held either for relatives of influential people, or for those few — ^very few, I assure you — ^who may work up from the bottom. I am told on all sides that I could get a very good berth in America with my experience, but with my sisters I can't very well pull up." There seems to be general agreement with him, which makes it again apparent that educational facihties do not amoimt to a great deal in a coimtry unless there are also opportunities for the use — the profitable use of them — that means in terms of jobs. Part of the trouble, no doubt, comes from the fact that the higher education here is mostly classical. At the RoUing Mills, in Ohio, some tests showed that the chief trouble makers were men who were doing hand jobs when they were fittedt aiid anxious to do head jobs. I wonder if by any chance some of the "intel- lectuals" here who are at or near the head of the Socialist and similar labor groups, even though they are well-tor-do and have never worked, are men who fitted themselves in the universities for the most important kind of intellectual work, and then failed to find it. Whether this is so or not, I am certain that in America we must keep an eye on the invention of machijieiy and the constant improvement of Digitized by Microsoft® 120 FULL UP AND FED UP jobs as well as of our educational facilities in order to avoid trouble. The two must go hand in hand — education and the jobs that give opportupity for those who have taken advantage of it. By one of the secretaries to Lloyd George — thanks to a letter of introduction, I had tea with him yesterday — ^it was stated that this whole industrial situation is now improv- ing since the war, because the university graduates are more and more going into business here as in the States. The secretary looks like an idealist, but a very practical one — altogether a very fine type of yoimg man. He thinks that in spite of Bolshevism's cliaims, the world has pretty much established the general principle of political democ- racy, with attention now required only fqr the details of better representation, etc. The really big job, therefore, is some workable and properly productive establishment of industrial democracy. This is going to be not a national but an international problem. For instance, the Inter- national Miners Conference this very week is proposing at Geneva, Switzerland, the universal adoption of the six- hour day and five-day week, a world-wide "down-tool" for miners to stop war, etc. (Tom Shaw, a British Labor M. P., who is the chairman there, by the way, speaks French and German fluently !) "The labor party here, of course, can't faU to have its policy on all sorts of international problems, because these all come so close to the British worker. ... On the matter of our following America in going dry, I wish you would let me have a memo of your ideas and suggestions after you have seen conditions in Scotland, and I'll send them to Lady Astor. She is very keen on it;" "Your secretary friend's boss, Lloyd George, is getting away from the people by giving imdue hearing to the opin- ions of such men as Carson and Bonar Law, because they can control votes in the House," said later the newspaper Qigitized by Microsoft® "BACK TO THE MINES!" 121 iiino. whose suggestion in Kansas City is responsible for my being over here. Then he added, following his recent trip to Ireland: "Things seem to be getting worse instead of better in the Irish muddle. Still I am in close touch with some of the leading Sum Feiners, who tell me they would consent to Dominion Home Rule except for the promise they have given to the American servant girls, who have invested several million dollars in the bonds of the Irish Republic, and they can't back down until they're fought down." "We almost never have any cases of discharge of a sort that would give any basis for the workers' appeal," said the manager of a big department store the same afternoon. Apparently the discharging of a person from any job here in England is. an enormously more serious thing than at home. Of course it should be, because getting a job is so much more serious. "Our working people are leaving the unions," said a noted French engineer and manufacturer met at dinner. "The extremists got control and tried to have a general strike on May 1. But the power was not off three minutes because every citizen had quietly been told his position to assume when the workers went out. And that citizens' organization — it is smiled at, or what you say, winked at, by the government — ^is now permanent, and the workers say now: 'Let us bargain. What is the use to strike?'" At the play afterward the comedians imparted the in- formation that as a matter of fact "Madam Butterfly" was the mother not of one but of thirteen children ! — ^because — "Well, you see, their father was an American, and natxirally, of course, he beheved in mass production !" Anyway, I stood up straighter this afternoon and lifted my hat when the bus drove by the new St. Gaudens statue, whose pedestal bore no date and no statement of any sort. Digitized by Microsoft® 122 FULL UP AND FED UP only the name "Abraham Lincoln." The papers are print- ing — ^just to show how so many things go back to jobs— the splendid letter he wrote to the Lancashire cotton-mill workers, expressing gratitude for their loyalty to the cause/ of freedom for the slaves, even though the blockade of the Southern ports was closing the mills and threatening them with starvation. I only wish more Americans could foil a certain American newspaper owner and the Irish anti-British propagandists generally, by going through the chapels of Westminster Abbey and so coming to feel how definite is our inheritance of mapy splendid memories via England, and so a part of our own as well as Britain's history. It's the best place for stretching hands across the centuries as well as across the seas I know, also the best sixpence worth of good his- tory in the world. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER IV "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?. 'J Glasgow, Saturday, August 7. Mighty poor, for sure, are the prospects for getting any job in these parts. A letter from a London official to one of the biggest steel men here secured good treatment, but the "labor super- intendent" was unwilling to risk trouble with his men by putting me into the plant as a laborer. So to-morrow I am to meet his shop-steward, a man elected by the workers, in what seems to b^ the largest and most progressive steel plant of the city. The official says it was during the war that he was put in charge of all wage disputes, as well as all hirings and firings. Of these last I'll warrant "they ain't any." Jufet last week I was told that the railway workers who had been convicted of long-continued stealing, — the thefts in- cluding five-hundred-dollar pianos, — had, nevertheless, been kept on the job at the insistence of the National Union of Railwaymen! It appears that during the war this steel company got the reputation of having the most unruly workers of this whole unruly district. At present the "labor superintendent" is quite certain that this group is much happier and is helping to make the whole district more quiet. His men rim well into the thousands. "We are trjdng to fix everything now so that the extrem- ists have no bad conditions to point to, though that some- times requires my 'letting a foreman or superintendent down' where he's done wrong. We try to keep grievances Digitized byWicrosoft® 12i FULL UP AND FED UP' from getting so far along as to call for union treatment. But we are lucky in having in British steel a conservative and reliable general- union — outside the tradesmen's unions like the engineers, builders, etc. What we'll have when Hodges, Pugh, and the other good leaders die, I don't know, but anyway, we must play with them and we are glad to play with them. . . . I'm trying to get away from the term 'payment by results,' or 'piece-work.' The men don't like it because they say it pulls them apart when one man manages to get a lot more — or less— than the chap right next to him. But they are liking our plan of 'Co- operative or Group Bonus.' By means of this the whole gang shares the results of the whole gang's production. By it they'll get more than the union gives, provided they all work together to get out the steel." At another big plant, in a sort of steel suburb, a letter got me to the works manager. But both he and his big deputy manager (formerly a union representative) were unwilling to take any chance of upsetting their good relations with their workers by putting on the job any one who might be thought a spy. "Most of our several thousand men are in the general steel worker's imion, and ye could na stay long wi'out joining. In thirty years it's no trouble we have had — except with the tradesmen's unions. If a man has com- plaint it is decided by two representatives from both sides, and two neutral chairmen. It has worked well. The Clyde district? Ah, thot's dufferent. Most 6f the trouble there has come from the general (common) laborers, and they are largely Irish. . . . And there, too, it is so im- portant to give the men no cause, ye oonderstand, thot it is fair oonlikely that ony employer wiU hire ye." The surprising thing over here is the way a distance of twelve miles, as in this case, seems to make the situation entirely different. These officers must surely have reason Digitized by Microsoft® "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?" 125 for thinking that they are not in the Clyde-bank class at all, at all. It is a Uttle easier to understand when I recall the niunber of miner folk back in the Rhondda for whom the longest trip of their lives took them perhaps to Cardiff or Swansea ! On the way back to town it was hardly possible to under- stand the Scotchiness of some colliery boys who were coming in for this afternoon's field sports. By dint of highly concentrated hstening it became, finally, possible to learn that a "guid mon and a braw worker — ^at the face, ye mind, ha? — gets his sax (6) poon' (poimd) the week. Uf he gi'ed muir coal nor thot, he'd ha' his rate coot. Nae mon do muir nor thot, awnd most do only the meenemum of seventeen shillin' the day." Earl Haig's continued appeals for jobs for the 200,000 soldiers still jobless makes the prospect of finding work without puU pretty punk, and now it looks equally hope- less with pull. Well, anyway, I haven't altogether lost time in trjdng to learn if "there's a reason" why the Clyde-bank shipbuild- ers and dock workers have the reputation in London, at least, of being the most restless and radical of all British workmen. It is apparently impossible for any one to be here many hours without running ijito one complicating factor — namely whiskey. After getttag here late Thursday night I sallied forth last evening to see if the town was as bad for drunkenness as current reports would make it. With my first step onto the street I saw two drunken men reeling along through the crowd — it was very near the centre of the city — ^with two more encountered in my first fifty yards. Ten feet farther there was a crowd watching — with evident enjoyment! — a poor creature of a sottish, middle-aged woman, picking herself up from the sidewalk and with unctuous care dust- ing off her filthy and bedraggled skirts. Finally, with a. Digitized by Microsoft® 126 FULL UP AND FED UP labored assumption of the magnificent dignity and extreme hauteur of a much-flialigned but still imsullied perfect lady, she lurched in the direction of a dnmken man who hap- pened to be passing, and when he unexpectedly stopped to show her his good-will, she bumped full into hita, and then caromed off of him across the street and up an alley out of sight. Font more — and then f ouf more-^-drunken labored were encountered in the next two or three short blocks on the way up to a big group collected in the middle of the street. There the speaker was pWposing seriously that "while our British army is in Poland killing our brother Bolshevists, we will rise — ^and then call the soldiers back to a London and a Glasgow Soviet !" A good proportion of his hearers appeared delighted, and yelled "Hear! hear!" with gusto. In a very modem and handsome movie theatre Pussyfoot Johnson was caricatured in a play Which showed him and all his, colleagues dead drunk at the uproarious end of their highly hectic crusadings. By that time it was nine, and the pubs were closing. A crowd was \n^atching — ^with the eyes of connoisseurs — a. poor chap in the cap and suit of a steamship's engineer, slowly pick himself up from the side- walk and lean against the building, blood running from his nose. Two yoimg girls of about seventeen evidently thought it a perfectly lovely joke. Across the street in an alley- way — ^by this time the police had come and ordered the engineer on by threat of arrest — the crowd was gathering for the enjoyment of a fight. The thin but wiry boy had the ragged clothes, dirty neck muffler, long, front hair and much-soiled shirt of the laborer; he was not too drunk to complain, that his opponent had kicked him seriously and unfairly, but he was too drunk to take the advice of the pair of policemen to drop his quarrel. So they hustled him off. One of the bystanders protested that "they would na do Digitized by Microsoft® "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?" 127 thot uf he was no' a workin' mon, ye mind. Uf 'e 'ad mbney they would 'a' 'elpied 'im — noo they stand oop fer 'is tonnentors — awnd thfey gets part o' 'is fine!" Here's the tale of my interpreter: "Me mother is a droonkard — ^thot's w'y I'm 'ere. A perfect vixen she is, too, when she's in liquor. Fifteen year ago me father left her — ^he'd met her, ye see, in a restaurant where she was a, waitress. Mony chances 'e give '6r, too, I will say, but she couldn't do Setter. Where 'e is noo, I don't know. If it wasn't for keepin' an eye on 'er in the town 'ere, I think I'd try Canada. Or I could go back to the army — ^and do well, too, after six year of it; but I want to try civil life again— an' take a look after 'er, too, y' oonde-r-stawnd? No, I can't live with 'er — she's fair impossible. But 'ere at this Salvation Army 'ostel — 'model,' they call it — you can get a fair bed for a shillin'. But there's a 'alf-dozen in the same room, d 'ye see, an' no place to change or 'ave any baggage. I 'ope to get a decent job to-morrow — with good luck. . . . There's too mony people 'ere. Thot's the trouble. Why, before the war you could rent ony 'ouse you wanted — and now — ^nothing. It must be thot they imported a lot of cheap labor — ^Eyetalians and all them yellow and black races, ye mind ? — ^to do the work w'ile we was fightin' and now they're oonwillin' to give us back our jobs. I'm fair sick of it — these people in here, in the 'model,' they 'ave no refinement w'atever — ^it's nothin' but booze an' filth with 'em all the time. No ambi- tion they got to be onybody, and they throw their children out on the streets. Oh, I'm fed up on it, I can tell ye. Somebody's makin' too much off us workers. They say exchinge is bad. Now why should we bother about dollars and francs and a' thot — ^an' everybody — every nation — joost mind its own business ! Why should we let exchinge bother us — thot's w'at I want to know! One eighth o' the people works and the rest is parasites! Out o' fifty Digitized by Microsoft® 128 FULL UP AND FED UP people 'ere on the streets, I give ye my worS, forty-nine, of 'em's crooks an' leeches an' prostitutes! That's 'onesi — forty-nine of 'em ! Awnd uf ye get into one o' these crowds on Bath Street, arwaitchin' the performers or a-'earin' the arguments, pick-pockets will be dippin' in yer pockets sure. . . . Wull, take a look to-morrow in the Citizen. Ye're sure to find some skilled jobs there — thot's the trouble. All skilled and no general labor wanted. Good night awnd good luck awnd a good job to ye!" Though it was getting late the crowds were still watching some boy acrobats on Bath Sti^eet and Bolshevism was being argued back and forth in groups where men massed around the disputants, pushing their best ears in as far as possible. "Propaganda— thot's it. They take the American offer for the ten thousand ton of rails here on oor streets, not to save thot thirty thousand poon' (pounds) but to scare oos workers into bein' more tractive like. Why couldn't they pay ten thousand poon' more uf 'twould pay oos workers — oos workers thot won the war!" "More regularity in work it is as does it in America. It must be, for if they pay good wages, then they must plan to make as miwjh profits in a year as here. Ah, they're cunning, these capitaUsts! Only they don't discharge 10,000 men over there on a moment's notice like they do here." "Why was there only one bid from all the Scotch awnd EngUsh companies oonless 'twas propoganda?" asks the other. "Ah, but they'll all bid here for steel as soon as ever they have every thing, set — ^just as the Americans won't sell you certain things, like watches — ^I'm a watchmaker and I know — until they're ready. There's some reason — ^and besides, capitaHsts are bound together all over the world! Profit knows no patriotism, you know." Digitized by Microsoft® "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGQW?" 129 "But did na Germany in the heich o' the warr show thot communism canna be beaten? By linkin' its labor and its nateral resoorces all together for the state it stood off the worrld!" And so on, without end, and without any apparent arrival anywhere. The chief trouble was thai! in time nearly every argument was entered into by the same drunken fellow who wanted to be taken very seriously but did little more than repeat — ^without any attention to his answerers — the same question with a drunken leer of cuiming, as though he had cornered everybody. That done, he would perhaps denounce all the world's supply of capitaUsts'in language of most frightful blasphemy and obscenity. At all times, the breaths of the whole crowd were terrible to suffer for the sake of one's ears. All of which seems to be an ordinary evening in Glasgow. I wonder if it's a cause or an effect — or only a symptom — of Glasgownian unrest. Glasgow Sunday night, August 8, 1920. "That's where Glasgow blows off steam." A table companion has just now given that description of "Glasgow Green," where I've been listening to more Radicalism this afternoon than I heard ia my whole seven months of job-searching in America. The meeting advertised was to promote the policy of the big national unions of Great Britain to "down tools" rather than fight with Russia or give the various wars on the Continent any help whatever. Wlien I finally got my ear into the first big crowd, it was a great surprise to hear the speaker calling the Archbishop of Canterbury a liar because he had said something unfriendly to betting on races. It gradually became evident that the speaker was trying to sell a racing sheet which he guaranteed infallible Digitized by l\/licrosoft perfect Madonna though she was extremely drunk. "Well, you see, I've been suspended for givin' the thirsty boys too much beer on my night turns at the 'ospital. And just now Digitized by Microsoft® "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?" 165 I've done twenty-one days — seven for being drunk and fourteen for assaultin' the bloody officer, y' understand? . . . Yes, I can kick a man pretty precise when I try, d' ye see ? . . . No, I don't want to be seen smokin' this cigarette on the street. You see, I was born a sergeant's daughter, yes, sir, right over there in your coimtry— ^in Alabama. . . . I'll smoke it later. 'Why, 'ello, 'usband Jack, back again !' ... I caU 'im 'usband — ^the court makes 'im pay me a pound a week for my baby. Yes, if I smoked it right now everybody 'round 'ere would talk," And from that she led into a serious and intelligent though half-drunken discussion of world poUtics! Verily, of all the traffic cops to be encountered at the multitudi- nous streets and intersections of the labyrinthine comings and goings of us hiunans, the strangest by far, as well as the strongest, with all its arbitrary and compelling alternations of "Stop!" and "Go!" is that one deep down within the heart of every one of us known as SeK-Respect ! People standing at their doors, like rats over their drains, to see a neighbor's funeral, made a heart-sickening sight of degraded and broken-down humanity. One of the be- draggled wrecks, and not the worst of them either, came up to ask help for a "pen'n-orth o' bread "for her gray hairs. There and in other parts of the city the heart felt the pathos of such as the ragged child with one of his legs hardly thicker than his little cane, and of the numerous other piti- ful possessors of bent or crippled little legs and backs. It does seem certain that the general or common laborer over here, though English-speaking, is of a lower grade and level than even our lowest workers among the foreign-bom. I wonder if the reason is that our lowest workers have, per- haps, a livelier hope — a larger faith that a better job may come, and with it a better life. The question is whether regularity of employment, if and when this is increased by the present national efforts, will be able greatly to help Digitized by Microsoft® 166 FULL UP AND FED UP these near-wrecks of the dock districts, their wives and families, as long as bad housing and "booze" continue to flourish as they do — with also the "bookie" to be named as the third of the destructive trio. In Edinburgh Friday night a very sweet-faced woman swore softly and smiled sweetly in the strangest of com- binations as she staggered into the car, and the capable anti-rent-strike woman speaker Was interrupted by the usual drunken listeners. "Yus, awnd a bonnie-lookin', bloo-ody objeck 'e wuz, too!" exclaimed one when Pussyfoot Johnson was men- tioned. Later the policeman explained that all was very quiet because everybody had been having a week's holiday and so had no money to "get up the pole." That is the same reason given for a comparatively quiet Saturday night here in Middlesbrough yesterday, though the drunken laborers and clerks could be counted by the dozen ! Just as I write these words at the lodging-house dining- table, in walk some footballers from Glasgow — ^mostly in- toxicated in preparation for a match near by. They in- sist that they will vote either for no license or more license — that is, for Sunday opening. But on pressiu-e they admit that the whiskey-beer, not the Sunday closing, accounts for the greater drunkenness there in Scotland than here. One of them explained: "In London a Scotchman wa' asked by the barmaid: 'Jock, w'y do ye no' drink beer alone or whuskee alone?' and he says to 'er, he says: 'Uf Ah drinks whuskee aloon, then Ah'm dronk afoor Ah'm foo' (full). Uf Ah drinks beer aloon, then Ah'm foo' afoor Ah'm droonk. Wi' whus- kee avmd beer, Ah'm joost fet (fit) — ^Ah'm both droonk awnd foo'!'" For economical adaptation of means to end, efficiency engineers could hardly beat that I Digitized by Microsoft® ! "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?" 167 Yesterday afternoon brought a "close-up" with the "bookies." After standing all morning in the vestibule of a crowded train from Edinburgh, and making the acquain- tance of a whippet dog and its interesting owner, it seemed altogether proper to witness the races in which the attrac- tive animal was entered. Everything about it is calculated to make whippet- racing an exciting occasion. Inside the fence hundreds of dogs, mostly in handsome blankets, are tugging wildly at their chains, barking and howling at the top of their lungs, with occasionally an almost human piercing scream of hysteria. Nearly two score "bookies" are displaying their wageivboards and shouting^: "Two to one on the Blue! Two to one on the Blue !" while men and boys rush up with their wagers of a "bob" or a "quid" (pound). When the starter's whistle sounds the holders or "slippers," each with his dog, take their places at the upper end of the string runways, each of these being about three feet in width. Then the "runners-out" endeavor to fix the atten- tion of the held but howling, barking, shrieking, and squirming canine contestant upon the towel in their handsl WaviQg it wildly and shouting and whistling madly, these runners-out back off down the one hundred and ninety yards to the fiinish-line. With the count, the slippers grasp their dogs by the scruff of the neck and their tails, arms far back, Mr. Dog's hind legs high in the air. Ready! Bang ! goes the pistol ! Forward go the slippers' arms and, like brown streaks, down the lanes fun the dogs — really at marvellous speed — each to grab the towel from its runner- out, or failing this to start a howl and a fight for one which a near-by contestant holds and shakes in its mouth. Up goes the flag for the — ^yes, by George, for the Red not the Blue! "Thot's a bit of orl right, eh, wot, mate!" Down surges the crowd in glee while, with impassive faces, the bookies hand out the winnings from their money satchels. Digitized by Microsoft® 168 PULL UP AND FED UP Few of the crowd of working men or clerks seemed to watch the races for themselves very closely; the judge's flag was evidently enough to show them either to get their winnings or how to mark their performance records so as to make them a help to more successful wagers later. Yesterday there were nine dogs entered for each of sixty- five heats ! Imagine the yelping of that aggregation, each one of them on the verge of nervous prostration in its desire to start for the towel! A prize of sixty-five pounds will reward the winner and the gains or losses will reward or punish the himdreds of gamblers on every heat. " Some dogs stop 'alf way. gome don't. Some get mad. Some don't. We study the character of the dogs and those that 'andle them — the ways and 'abits as well as the per- formances of all of them," a bookie explained. "We can't lose. The figures will get 'em — ^bound to, if they keep at it long enough. Yes, that's true with the dogs and the 'orses both. . . . But still, I just couldn't live without gambling — ^impossible. ^ And I've got a boy who 'as more of a 'ead for figures than I 'ave. 'E'U be a wonder at this busi- ness." \ Well, for that "fed up" feeling of this morning, the only paUiative seems to be a Uberal appUcation of that life-saver: "It's a great Hfe^forlom humans, fleas, and all — ^if you don't weaken!" So I guess I can "stick it" a few more weeks. / Anyway, the whole country appears this morning to be much fed up itself. All the papers, including the par- ticular weekly murder-and-scandal sheet which outsells all others combined, are viewing most seriously the possibility of a huge, national disaster in the miner's strike ballot now proceeding toward a probably unfavorable outcome. In addition, the Electrical Trades Union goes further in its threat to strike and so tie up all industries because the National Federation of Employers continues to stand be- Digitized by Microsoft® THE CKOWD WAITS AS THE BOOKIES MARK UP THEIR PREFERENCES AT THE WEEK-END WHIPPET RACES. CROWDS LISTENING TO THE SMOOTH-TONGUED SALESMEN OF "RIOT, RACING, OR RELIGION— REPRESENTATIVES OP A BETTER CHANCE IN EITHER THIS WORLD OR THE WORLD TO COME." Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?" 169 hind a Sheffield firm in refusing (since July 2) to require union membership of their foremen! Dockers at London and almost aU other points are reported in constantly worse condition foUoVing wide-spread lack of work — partly be- cause the high wages have attracted many into that field. All city employees in Cardiff have doAvned tools in sym- ■ pathy with the city's track-layers; these make the same de- mand as put their friends off the job there that night at Newport. Every-where the dockmen's imions are lam- basting the miners' imions for their "ca-canny" methods of sabotage. The general secretary of the "Middle Classes Union" also comes out against the evil ways of the miners. Smaller strikes all over the country are too numerous to mention. In Newcastle the employees of the Co-opera- tive Wholesale Society are striking against their employers. These employers, of course, are themselves union leaders and workers. All this confusion is worse confounded by the fact that many of the Lords and other leaders who fulminate against the unreasonableness of labor also proclaim heat- edly that the present government (party) is possessed of "Squandermania," is inefficient in controlling the cost of living as well as in handling the Mesopotamia situation, and is altogether unworthy of respect. This, of course, is taken by many of the labor leaders to justify their philosophy of "Direct Action," that is, of using industrial strikes to op- pose and undermine the government party when their votes fail to do it. Meanwhile the government has inter- cepted and published wireless messages showing that the Bolsheviks in Moscow consider labor's paper, the Herald, one of their "institutions abroad." The next four weeks look like exciting ones. Meanwhile the next few days should reveal something about the happi- ness or imhappiness of this Pittsburgh of Great Britain. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER V • WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE, CINDER PIT ~ AND CAST BED Middlesbrough, Yorkshire,^ August 25th. "Full up ! Not a chance ! Full up !" Mtejr getting that from a number of "gaffers" in charge of the various blast-furnaces and smelting stages which make this district famous, I'm for seconding the motion of the fellow-boarder here last night. "It's all very well to be told by this Vihap and that: 'There's a good berth 'ere and a finte crib there!' When you get there it's always just let out and they're 'Full up!' Always 'Full up!'" This is certainly the land of the strangle-hold on the job; If the Englishman's home is his castle, then the English- man's job is the portcullis and drawbridge thereof, for carefully reeling up and stowing carefully away inside the castle every night. "Since the war, y' understand, the unions 'ere 'as got much more powerful," a mechanic explained one factor of this matter of scarce jobs, especially the skilled ones. With his helper he was taking a long loaf at the foot of the hoist at one of the big hand-charged blast-furnaces. "At some works the union agents will be waitin' for ye outside the gates and will warn ye away if ye're not one o' them. If ye gets past them into the line, or 'market,' that stands over there every day just before the shift goes on, the gaffer's likely to save 'imself later trouble by takin' the union men first. . . . Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 171 "My boy, 'e's apprenticed now to a joiner," he con- tinued with what is certainly a real demonstration of the shape this problem takes there in the very castle of the worker, " 'E's only fourteen and 'e cawn't be finished till 'e's twenty-one. But, ye see, I daren't wait till 'e's sixteen, 'cause there mightn't be any place for 'im then and there 'appens to be qne now. Ye see, that's the point. Yes, thot'U be meanin' seven years as apprentice instead of five from his start at a pound a week with a few shillin' added every birthday. But — ^weU, 'e's sure of a place now fer life — and there's always work for joiners — always. Say, ye'd think 'e was savin' the 'ole family from ruin, thot im- portant 'e is." This quick jump "from the cradle to the union" — out of short pants into overall^ — sounds like the way some of our American millionaires are said to telegraph certain famous boys' schools engaging a place the moment the nm-se whispers: "Masculine gender, sir*!" "But I'm thinkin' serious o' gettin' a labor job myself," the mechanic went on. "The rises (raises) ain't been fair, like. Now, 'ere's my 'elper. AH the war awards 'as raised 'im 195 per cent above pre-war, w'ile they've raised me only 125 per cent, d' ye see ? Thot makes 'im draw almost the same as me. But if any job's wrong, it's me that gets all the blame, not 'im. Now, thot's wrong, all wrong. And then 'ere's these dockers and all sorts of laborers besides. No six or seven years of apprentiqin', d' ye understand? nor anything, and they gettin' their sixteen bob a day! Thot's wrong, all wrong." This same matter of comparative standings and relative wages has been at the bottom of much unhappiness among the workers at home. And for much the same reason — the comparatively rapid, or over-rapid; increase in the pay of the unskilled worker due to the war's demand for munitions. On a machine which had been made fool-proof by the skill Digitizes^ by Microsoft® 172 FULL UP AND FED UP of the inventor the unskilled worker could turn out a huge number of pieces and so could show earnings which upset all the previously established levels of earnings and other importances by which the skilled machinist or electrician enjoyed the sense of his superiority — and his wife's and family's superiority — in the working community. Appar- ently this important difference between the earnings and standings of the unskilled and the skilled worker is much less here now than in America, whether so largely due to the war or not. It sounds strange, for instance, to hear that with the dockers getting two shillings, bricklayers draw less thpii three shillings per hour. If the irregularity of the docker's work is given as the reason for the two shil- lings, it could also be urged on behalf of the bricklayer. On the smelting-stage the first and second hands make their fifteen and twenty pounds a week against their labor- ers' five to seven. This serves as a sort of bait for keeping the less fortunate workers hard on the job, guarding strenu- ously their position in the line — ^with its established chance at the higher jobs when they open up. The managers say that the high wages of the first and second hands prove how hard it is to get the worker to consent to a reduced wage under any circumstances. For after originally es- tablishing the high tonnage rates, they later took away the necessity of the old and hard work of hand charging the furnaces by installing the electric charging cranes. Then the managers took from the first hand the need of paying his helpers out of his own pay. Next the industry increased his tonnage by enlarging the furnaces. Finally, it became desirable to lessen his responsibility and need of skill by putting a "sample passer" over him. But all this failed to permit any chance of seriously decreasing his tonnage rate. Hence the larger and larger weekly earnings. All this money at the top helps to put onto the smelting stage — ^with a fair go at something like a career with its Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 173 opportunity up — such a worker as I met yesterday: '* Yuss, I wore homed in thus bloo-ody furnace, 'ere ! Thirty bloo-ody years . . . but I'm mikin' good money now." From fields where the larger earnings at the top are lacking in comparison with other lines, men keep moving out. As a well-educated boy in a very antique smelting shop put it to-day: "For five years I was in the 'lab' here — testia' samples, you know. But what's the use? You can never do any- thing but make analyses all your life — nothin' else. So 'ere I am third 'and on the smelters — ^and 'opin' to be first, one of these days with good luck. That chap over there — 'charge-wheeler' 'e is — shoveUin' that lime and heavy iron-stone into the 'chargin' pans' all day — ^well, 'e's just left the 'lab' after ten years. Ten years as good as lost, in spite of all 'is br^rins." Yes, it looks as though the job's future possibilities are about as important as its hourly rates. Of course, there is the danger that this may mean the discouragement of in- itiative by putting too high a value upon the mere passing of time by the holders of the various places in the line, with the deadening results so often noted in civil service. Doubt- less, the managers here, however, require a certain amount of ability in addition to the serving of the time as a condi- tion to taking the next step up. Still, it looks certain, too, that management here does give men more assurance of their job with less strictness than in America, judging from the way I can walk all through these plants and loaf in them by the hour without getting into any trouble and also from the way all the workers, for instance, shrug their shoulders about coming into the works and onto the job with a good deal of whiskey and beer in their^ bodies and more or less in their clothes without apparently much danger of the "call-down" they would be sure to get in "the States." "It's not so bad as it used to be when we'd Digitized by Microsoft® / 174 FULL UP AND FED UP bring in beer along with us to work — ^by the gallon," is about the best the workers can say. The testimony among • them, however, is mainly to the effect that a worker who is discharged for being drunk on the job is likely to "get the sack" without the union's possessing the power to put bim back for a long time, at least. More than a few of the older workers, besides the mechanic quoted, appear much troubled by the union's insistence that a boy turned twenty-one shall be paid the same daily rate as the oldest in the trade. So the result of all this comes pretty close, on the whole, to establishing in in- dustry here as well as in government something like civil service, especially in the fields where piece rates or payment by results cannot be practised. This is caused, at least partly, by the unions, though mainly, I should say, by the comparative scarcity of jobs. At any rate,' if you couple it with the big difference in the education of the workers and of the "masters," which it in turn helps to cause, you are pretty sure to have the cause of the class lines which so definitely mark off the workers from much hope of entering the group of management in particular or the "master" class in general. In other words, the class line is largely an equipment line which follows as the night the day, upon what looks to me like a nation-wide scarcity of jobs. So it comes that the system of civil service or near civil service, when once estabhshed in industry for making oversure of the job, tends in turn to discourage education, initiative, and ambition by making them more or less valueless on the job — or, if valuable, then valuable only if you take a lot of risk of losing your place in the Une. In that connection it is very surprising to hear the work- ers discuss seriously among themselves the question of whether they get the best treatment from the gaffers who have worked up from the bottom or from the others — ^from the rankers op the toppers. I don't remember ever to h^\^ Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 175 heard it discussed by the workers in my seven months of laboring at home. " Yer see 'e knows all the tricks and wants ter alius be showin' as 'ow yer cawn't pull 'is leg," one of the workers at one big smelting shop settled the discussion against too much promotion from the ranks. A soldier on a train last week — ^he was himself a petty official — ^was the strongest in his opposition: "Hi never seen a ranker make a good hofficer yet — awnd Hi've 'ad 'em over me a lot — ^hadjutants and aU. In the hexercises and heverywhere it's alius 'Hi've been there meself, boys, and it cawn't be done. Hi'm too wise, boys.' You know 'ow it is. No, sir, never one." They might be right, judging from one manager of open ■ hearths, who, after the usual "Full up!" made his view- point sound pretty sane, too: "If the company wanls me to run this place I can't let the union do it for me — nor the men, now, can I ? And if they pull my leg once or twice, I'm done in for good and I ought to get the sack myself. So I'm on the lookout for all the dodges I used to help the boys work when I was one of them. That's wby you could take, your time about join- ing the union so far as I'm concerned if I had a job for you. But there's no chance." Another "super" with something of the same experience in his tweAty-five years around a blast-furnace from bot- tom to top. Was equally sure — after he also had shaken his head for the everlasting "Full up !" — that the men working on time and not tonnage are a lot of first-class loafers who come with woozy heads onto the job every day after spend- ing most of their money at the pubs: "It's not such workers but the new American furnaces — like that one we're building over there — that we've got to look to for cheaper iron. They require about one man to th^ ten or twelve that these old tanks have to have. Of Digitized by Microsoft® 176 FULL UP AND FED UP course, you know that 'gun' there — for putting in the plug after the furnace has been tapped for the 'cast' — ^is Amer- ican, too. It saves labor and is much safer, too." Down in the checker-chambers, up on the "stage," over by the rolls — every place where I've been talking these ~ last two days — ^most of the workers seem surely to have picked up the idea — ^mainly from the experience of their relatives and friends — ^that America somehow gives a better- chance to "get on" and "be somebody." That being so, it is almost comical to watch their faces when I tell them that most of the steel workers in America are still working the long twelve-hour day and the full week, many of them working a double or twenty-four-hour shift every other Sunday, instead of the regular week-end stoppage which is regular here everywhere except in the blast-furnaces. All the variations of incredulity, surprise, disgust, and &ially British pride, run over their features before they ob- tain enough answers to their questions to support the com- prehension and acceptance of the amazing news. "No! — Now? — ^Twelve hours without time out for lunch or break- fast! — In America? — ^And seven days a week! Well, hail Britannia! I supposed we was bloo-ody well the lawst! Blime, yer don't sye ! Wull, now. Hi sye ! — " and so on ad infinitum. "Proper slavery it was afore we changed 'ere," a fire- heater put it. "Bloo-ody murder — ^nothin' less! Awnd after the long double turns for chingin' the shifts — twenty- fojur bloo-ody hours — ^a feller would 'ave ter stop in fer a pint or two. Then the fust thing 'e knowed, 'e wuz done fer. 'Course 'e wuz all done ia ter start with, like." It is amazing to learn that the eight-hour turn was ob- tained for the majority of the country's blast-furnace men as far back as 1897 ! "Twenty-five per cent more we been gettin' out of the bloomin' furnaces, too, since the change," was the claim Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE *ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 177 made by one of the men who remembered the old days. There is doubtless considerable room to doubt the accu- racy of his figures after so long a time. In general the attitude toward America appears a very good indicator of a man's general information and prej- udices here. If he is certain that the whole of our country is in the hands of a dozen super-corrupt and, therefore, super-wealthy men he's pretty sure to be close to the rad- icals and the Bolsheviks, or, at least, the extreme Socialists. Of these, the two days of listening here would seem to in- dicate surprisingly few — certainly, at least, ia comparison with South Wales and the Clyde bank. Yesterday after- noon permitted several hours out in the open fields up above the/furnaces and at the entrance to the mines that gave the district its start by giving it its Cleveland "iron-stone," or iron-ore. "Cleveland iron" is one of the industry's basic terms. From the mouths of thes^ mines half-way up the range of hills you can see with one sweep the scores of plants in the level — and lovely — ^plain below, and the rea- sons for them in the shape of the ore beneath your feet, the coal-mines of both Yorkshire and Durham near by, the lime- stone only a few miles away, and, finally, the, well-dredged channel of the Tees River which brings big boats from all over the world into Middlesbrough harbor for the steel and the numberless other products of the Leeds districts farther inside. At the "winding-house" (electric) of one of the "drifts," or horizontal mine-mouths, on the hillside, good luck brought me into conversation with a pair of the best-informed work- men met anywhere yet on the job. "All too far the big leaders down in London are goin' — Bob Smillie and all. . . . Oh, aye, it's probably as unsafe for labor to have aZZ the power as for capital. Co-operation between 'em's best. Co-operation and not nationalization. No, not nationalization. Why, if one of the post-office Digitized by Microsoft® 178 FULL UP AND FED UP clerks or one at the income-tax office was to say 'Thank you,' we'd fair fall over dead! They're aB"on their jobs 'for the duration,' like, you know, so what do they care? , . . No, the Independent Labor Party is a lot of one-sided extremists." "Oh, aye!" they both exclaimed when told of my ob- servation that few of the workers seemed to read much of the daily newspapers outside of the sporting news, after they had amazed me with their own daily reading of the doings of Parliament. ' ' Few o' the miners understand about this strike that's planned — ^though they do see this company puttin' up plants with money that should go to Excess Profits Tax. "4nd you're right about your 'booze and bookies,' too! They're the greatest enemies of the working class. Fair disgusting it was when the war brought a beer shortage. Queues a quarter mile long outside every public 'ouse with people inside fightin' their way up to the bar, swiUin' down as much as they could 'old— fair eatin' it up, you under- stand — ^goin' out to vomit it up and tiien gettin' back into the line again ! One man that was standin' for Parliament jumped in durin' one shortage and with the 'elp of his in- fluence got three barrels sent into a thirsty district as a special favor. You can believe me or not, but it got 'im 'is seat in the 'ouse! Yes, sir! Disgustin'^air disgustin' — itaUis!" "Fair astonishing" it was to learn a few moments later that they were both officials in the local iron-stone miners' union ! So all questions to date have supported the report en- countered in London that this is a conservative and com- paratively quiet sector on Britain's industrial and political front. The reason is beyond me — so far, at least. But there is a reason, without doubt. Perhaps it will be a whole fam- ily of reasons as there on the Clyde bank — ^hope it can be Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 179 found, too, without requiring too many of my rapidly di- minishing store of weeks. After the final days here and in Sheffield it won't be par- ticularly heart-breaking to part with all my/ faithful little bed fellows — though it does give da;ily pleasure to note my constantly increasing skiU as a hunter and slayer. Every morning now permit* its boast of at least one trophy won by quickness of eye or speed of finger. Yesterday it was four ! It was almost as good a setting-up exercise for my "mentals" as my ordinaify gymnastics are for my "phys- icals." Somehow it made the day look certain to be suc- cessful I However, they contrive to beat me when it comes to results. Last night I counted up to a hundred uncom- fortable bites before growing too disgusted and homesick for further mathematical research. Perhaps, come to think of it, it was this depressing arith- metic of discomfort and disrespectability that made it sound so trifling when the highly self-conscious minister last Sunday night thundered and pounded so hard to prove that the only way England can solve her present serious troubles is for everybody to be "washed in the blood of the Lamb." He made a great point of the fact that "sin has a way of coming home to roost on the head of the offender — ^that's always the nature of sin !" He appeared unwilling to granli that the same is equally true for virtue, the dif- ference being, indeed, that we call our doings good or bad, sinful or virtuous, according as their results are observed, in the long run, to "come home to roost" in happy and de- sired, or unhappy and undesired ways. What he seemed to think least worth noticing is that one of the most important of all the "roostings" that may follow upon this or that line of doings is the resultant standing or lack of standing in the eyes of our neighbors and fellow citizens. So it is our own attitudes of praise or blame or indifference that are deter- mining to a very considerable es;tent the conduct of our Digitized by Microsoft® 180 FULL UP AND FED UP fellows. For that reason, at least one very present and practical function of the church is evident. So while he spoke I wondered whether he would ever discover any con- nection between the great number of drunken men and women streaming at the moment out of the open pubs, and a church preoccupied with the refinements of a mystical process whereby "white robes" are to be achieved by the almost unrecognizable world he was describing, a world in which such things as the Great War and the great war weariness, the Indispensable Job and the equally Indispens- able Self-Respect, evidently had no part. If such a church assigns but Uttle social stigma to the drunkeimess and gambling which are favored by the limitations of the job, and if these limitations mean that sobriety and initiative can bring comparatively little above the hourly wage-rate of the twenty-one-year-older — ^well, what difference to the eye of the worker is visible between the roosting manners of the brood of current morals and immorals? The church and the "working class" here are certainly a long way apart — ^farther, on the whole, probably, than at home. But we certainly have nothing to brag about in America. There the ordinary pastor seems to miss the point of both the driving compulsiohs and restrictions of the job upon the lower worker and also the rewarding op- portunities possessed by the higher worker, the employer and the executive for finding in his job the satisfactions of a practical idealism which makes the pastor's emphasis upon his obscure and mystical blood-washing technicalities soimd impractical, unrelated, and trivial. Till the church learns better how much more — ^how in- finitely more — our jobs are influencing our thinking than our thinking is influencing our jobs, both the earners of daily bread and the earners of daily jam and cake are likely to be less interested than they might in the kind of salvation so laboriously represented by salesmen who ap- Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 181 pear to realize so slightly where their "prospects" live and move and have their being — there on the job in the midst of its complex but absorbing aggregation of compulsions and rewards. But all this more or less querulous philosophizing may me^n merely that it's time to ring the bell for bed — now j that I've done as I find myself doing every night in a sort 'of unconscious effort at "protective behaviour," namely, staying up as long as feasible in order to be as tired as possi- ble when finally "I lay me down to sleep" in those dirty sheets in that vile room up-stairs. Middlesbrough, Thursday, August 26th. A single day here can bring a most surprising ctimbina- tion of modem and old-fashioned estabUshments, all com- peting with each other in the same district. It seems strange that with good jobs so near by, men can be found wilUng to work where, for instance, two of them have to put all their strength together every time they want to open a furnace- door, as at one of the oldest "stages" in the place, or where the firemen have to sweat all day in the half-darkness of some salt-furnaces. The outstanding thing is how regularly the attitude of the man at the bad place reflects his surroundings — ^partly, of course, because the worst conditions usually get the worst man, other things being anything like eqiial, and partly because these bad working conditions are sure to affect the worker's feelings and, therefore, of course, his attitudes; as, with darkness at their backs and the blazings in their faces, these firemen threw shovelful after shovelful into their roaring fire-beds beneath the salt-pans, they looked like creatures of another world. Their caps were tight-fitting and their trousers came only to their knees. Their stockings were heavy and their shoes rough. They had been at the work many years, and reported that they were Digitized by Microsoft® 182 FULL UP AND FED UP very glad to greet the eight-hour day. Their minds were not well informed on the coal strike and the other issues of the day though their convictions were very definite and very "anti." Though they said they could take a "blow" after getting their fires going, it was evident that the dim elec- tric lights were unfavorable to reading — or to pleasant thoughts about anything. The loaders up-stairs around the tanks were stripped to the waist and wqrking like mad. But they were in a light room and they knew that as soon as they emptied the tanks and put the clean white salt, still warm, into the trucks or railway cars, they could go home — ^with good pay for a fuU day in their pockets. It Was impossible to stop for a chat with them," but I would wager real money that their ideas would be less radical than those of their mates in the dark passageway before the fires down-stairs. Practically always, too, the piece- rate worker feels himself enormously more the captain of his soul than does the time-worker. At practically aU the local blast-furnaces the casting of the long pigs of iron is done in sand-beds without any cover knywhere except in the shanty, for a little loaf in between jobs. "It's no place for a proper mon on a wintry day w'en yer fice is burnin' and yesr back's in a bloody freeze, like," a red'^faced but husky worker put it. Up on the platform at the very top of the big blast-furnace the "mon" and his helper emptied the hand-^arts of coke, "iron-stone," and limestone into the cupola. Then when the "bell," or cover, was raised the tons of materials for the charge, or "bur- den," disappeared in the huge maw of the great upright iron beast as the flame and smoke roared out and up to the sky — ^while we stood off and hunched our shoulders to keep the mass of cinders from going down our backs. Except when in the tiny shed that houses the weights which con- trol the "bell," the two men are exposed to every wind that blows. Digitized by Microsoft® V 5 H !>. o S « f, h 3 : ^ OJ O a (U 1 fll H ;q W H C5 ^ i H << Ph [^ FULL UP AND FED UP the explosion point a little later when I tried to get in touch with a company executive by using the telephone at the cen- tral post-office. There are only two 'phones there at the centre of a dis- trict of about 140,000 people. One of those is usually en- gaged with "Toll." The other has to be properly wooed with the ringing of the handle at the side and the pressing of the receiver at your ear. When with good luck you get a chance to give the number and are exhorted to "Hold on!" you feel that at least the right expression is used for the maximum of grim patience and everlasting pertinacity required. One by one you press the two or three single pennies into the slot for the ringing of the bell and if all is working well you are again admonished to "Hold on!" A little later when you have raised your voice to its maxi- mum carrying power, the clerk at the other end advises sweetly that you should "Speak a bit louder, please. You see, they can't hear you, sir!" "Be good-natured imtil ten o'clock. The rest of the day will take care of itself." If that sign were on any desk here, as it used to be a long time ago at home, I think it would be wise to put off the use of the goverimient 'phone until, say, eleven, at the earliest. Of course, there ere enough makers of telephone com- plaints at home. The cure of such would doubtless proceed rapidly if they could be given a short treatment here, be- ginning with the search past numberless shops and apothe- caries for the very rare station at some newsdealer's — ^with, usually, the admonition that for "trunk" or toll caUs you must go to the central post-office! — ^followed next by the search for the pocketful of pennies required to make more than one or two calls. Probably it is just as well for the preservation of the proverbial British evenness of keel and temper that VCTy slight use is apparently made of the 'phone here. The number-book for this whole district con- Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 191 tains only eighteen pages, at about 150 subscribers to the page — ^a total of 2,700 for about 140,000 of population — about two per hundred. Somehow or other I must find out how that compares with an average city at home — and, also, if possible, the cause of what is most obviously behind much of the trouble, namely, very bad equipment. From aU that can be learned, charges are felt to be extremely high. Wonder if either the inefficiency or the reputed ex- pensiveness of the service can be traced in any way back to that source of so many other evils, "Full up !" It would be easy to think of such telephones as one cause of the general criticism of the government, operated as they are by it, except for the fact that, in the nature of the case, compara- tively few of the general body of citizens can afiford to have much to do with it. Perhaps this very abstinence is one of the reasons behind the fact that every day — even such a weary and near- explosive one as to-day — ^increases the original impression that the district contains comparatively few radicals or revolutionaries. So far, there hasn't been a sign of the street discussions of matters political and economic such as filled so many streets in Glasgow — ^as also both the working and non-working hours in the Welsh mine! A good many of the homes I find are pretty bad. The worst of them, how- ever, are pretty sure to belong to stevedores and other dock workers, even though they are located quite close to the steel plants down in the very dirtiest and smokiest part of the town. There, by the way, is one of the vilest eating places yet encountered on the whole trip. I was amazed to find how soon I got used to the awfullest of smells and had no difficulty making a fearful aggregation of meat and potatoes take the edge off a very sharp appetite. Neverthe- less, it is fairly certain that the families who live down there — ^and doubtless have lived there a long time — are con- siderably less happy than those who live in the other parts Digitized by Microsoft® 192 FULL UP AND FED UP ^ ' of the city where the dirt is much less, though it is scarcely what anybody would call a spotless town. Some of the youngsters who followed me along the street as I ate a few cakes out of a newspaper sack were certainly more than grateful for the share they got of them. The men about the docks appear to think an average earning of 13-16-0 extremely good — ^taking good days with bad. They were getting bothered by jobless men drifting onto the docks from other parts of the country where the mills are less busy. Every night appears to bring its contacts with the drink problem — ^right on the main street, too, not more than a few rods from the boarding-house on a side street. "Twenty pounds a week that roller there is a-mikin' noow!" a well-dressed young mechanic exclaimed last night with a nudge as we passed a neat-appearing and well-built working man. "A level-'eaded chap, 'e is, that's sure. See 'ow strite 'e's waJkin' ! As sober as you or me ! On twenty pounds a week ! Well, if thot was me, you'd see me rollin' 'ome now in a taxi — ^if it wasn't my friends a-tikin' me — ^me and the load I'd be carryin' ! . . . Well, of course, I learned most of me drinkin' in the army. In the army there's nothin' else to do, ye see, whether ye're 'ere, at 'ome, or abroad, but drink." Thfe hags that once were women are depressing enough — you come upon them in the back streets, perhaps, just as they are getting up from the gutter where some drunken would-be lover has knocked them, shouting dreadful and obscene sex profanities after their abusers or at the calm and capable "bobbies" who are trying to urge them home in quietness and decency. So, also, are the men who show plainly enough that their better and soberer days are now in a far-distant past. But easily the worst of all for what they have to say about the future are the well-dressed and dapper young men with their white collars or clean, neat mufflers as they stagger by and call out their indelicate Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 193 flippancies to the still younger girls who blush and giggle as they parade up and down past the lighted windows in their very yconscious efforts to attract attention of this beau or that, sober, if possible, but, at any rate, a beau. It isn't as bad as it will be Saturday night or Sunday — or Friday — and, except on those nights, the vomitings seem fairly well restrained. But the policeman says that the week has been showing more drunkenness each night as it progresses, owing to the fact that last week was mainly a holiday, with, therefore, a little time required before the usual gait can be attained ! "Oh, aye! I 'as a family oop Newcastle wye," a very muddled Northerner answered last night as we found our- selves together admiring a fine piece of Scotch woollens labelled, "Only ninety shillings the suit !" "No, there's no job fer a mon 'ere — ^not as I knows of. Oonless yer could get a berth on a boat, mebbe. Awnd fer thot a mon mqost, o' course, be a British citizen awnd 'ave 'is pipers (papers) right 'andy like. Awnd 'ere I am wi' me own bloody pipers lost, too, since I came to this town !" "That's fair 'ard luck. Then you and me is a long way down the drain — ^besides one of us bein' well 'up the pole' (drunk)," was the best that I could do for him. "Well, I'm bloo-ody glad thot the Poles is gettin' on a bit, onywyes!" was his own brilliant and cosmopoUtan repartee as he lurched out into the street there to miss a motor by the hair's breadth of the proverbial drunken man's luck. On the whole, the wisest way of trying to get a more in- spirational view of things is to go up-stairs to bed, now that, as usual, I've stayed up as long as custom seems to per- mit. Perhaps if I don't light my candle I can forget the color of' those sheets. With all the successful executions I've been staging these last few mornings, prospects ought to be fairly good for a restful night. Digitized by Microsoft® 194 FULL UP AND FED UP Middlesbrough, Friday Evening, August 27th. Everybody here, apparently, is willing to admit that the London steel people were right when they named this place as the centre of Britain's iron and steel industry. Ac- cording to the local legend, it all started from a fellow- townsman's toe — ^possibly in combinatioii with a certain amount of temper. While hunting, this man gave his toe an unusually painful stubbing on what he had a right to re- sent as an unusually hard piece of rock. It is easy to imag- ine how, as he gritted his teeth with the pain, he first made a grab for the poor toe; then how his pain gave way, a mo- ment later, perhaps, to indignation at his clumsy — ^and pain- ful — ^awkwardness; how that, in turn, was perhaps assuaged by the determination to save his face, as it were, by learn- ing if that particular piece of stone could not be shown harder and heavier than it had any normal right to be, in which case there would be more excuse for his otherwise unpardonable awkwardness ! Anyhow, the story goes that he took the offending rock to a man for assaying and in that way discovered that the stuff was really not stone at all but iron! Anybody that has ever shovelled the stuff knows how heavy it is ! One of the most successful of all the local companies now bears the hunter's name as its founder and successful head. The forty-three blast-fur- naces which nightly Ught the district's skies and throw their glare upon the city's streets are all so many brilliant monu- ments to his good protestant toe and questioning disposition if not his temper. Doubtless the owner of these properties of body and mind also had considerable to do with the great improvement on the Tees River by means of the use of the slag, for straightening its channel down to the near-by sea. It was on the shores of that sea, by the way, that the first ore-mining is said to have been done — ^by men going about with no other mining tools than two hands and an open bag I This same district al|ia,sij,w the jjastsllation of the world's WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 195 first steam-railway system. It was the foresight of two Quakers renowned for their level-headed shrewdness — ^Ed- ward and Joseph Pease, by name — ^that helped the inventor, George Stephenson, to establish the country's first rail service. For many years the original engine ran between the near-by towns of Stockton and Darlington. " Hi've seed men thot was drivers themselves on the old hengine, mind ye," an old fellow in one of the pubs assured me, while one of his ancient mates added with a nod that in the old days they used to start the fire with the help of a sun-glass. In that case, it is to be hoped that under such cloudy skies the train did not have to depend exclusively on that for the making of its schedule. The chief difficulty with which the district has to con- tend is that both the quantity and the quality of the local ore are running out. "Unfortunately local or 'Cleveland' iron stone is very low-grade stuff — ^about 33- per cent — ^when we do get it. When the price of steel products goes down, we'll hardly be able to bother with it and the costliness of the labor of get- ting it, in spite of its nearness. . . . The minimum wage gives the miners here a minimum of seventeen shillings for a seven-hour day." The same group of executives in one of the large companies where I established contact went on from this statement to a very frank discussion of the local labor situation: "Labor has probably been somewhat spoiled by having almost every one of its demands complied with for the sake of winning the war. Some of the leaders see now the neces- sity for accepting some of the setbacks that business in general expects to have to accept — lower prices, lessened profits, and all that. But for the rank and file, the only way will probably be the way of losing this or that fight for higher or even the same wages as before. That's quite likely to be the result of the miners' strike now on the way. "In our opinio]j,^.^^%y^^^le trade, or craft, or 196 FULL UP AND FED UP company, or industry, for that matter — ^will sufifer in the long run if its policies are not worked out to produce long- run fairness and to show long-run consideration. For in- stance, take the engineers and [the more skilled mechanics. During the war they decided that they must not be asked to go to fight because they were too much needed at home. That was their own decision, you understand. Well, at the same time, we had to work out machines for getting the munitions faster than they were willing to give them to us — automatic a^d what you call fool-proof machines that a general laborer could get big results from — ^and big pay, too. Sometimes, of course, this general laborer could run several machines. Then the engineer fellows tried to stop that by insisting on 'One machine, one man!' They, of course, tried all the harder when they saw unskilled men who had never gone through any period of apprenticeship getting more on payment by results than they were getting working on time, after they had resisted piece-work, you see. But most of us felt that it was because of their own overselfish short-sightedness. In general, you'll find that those unions have lost standing not only with the masters (owners) but also with the workers in general. ' "The unions as a general thing want to be quite fairly reasonable if treated with understanding; it is the manage- ment's fault where it loses control of its own shop to the unions. Of course, giving a man the sack is a very serious thing-^-especiaUy if he has worked up to be, say, a first or second hand on the smelters. If he has to leave here then he has to start at the bottom — at or near general labor — ^in the other shop, for none of those there should be set aside in order to give him a place up the line. That being so, perhaps it's not so bad, you know, for the union to watch that nobody gets the sack unjustly. Where we have found a man loafing and have sacked him, we have often been able to in»st upon his crowd's showing more energy before Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 197 we will consent to reinstate him. In one case where the men asked that 300 pieces should constitute a full day's work, we officers ourselves went out and showed that 1,000 was easy. The men's representative laughed, and the next day his men — just to show what poor workers we officer chaps were — did 5,000 ! We were perfectly glad to agree on 1,000, however. "Yes, if a man has got drunk, has, stolen, or committed some other crime before the law, we have to be rather quick, you know, to show our displeasure by discharging him. If we wait until after the court has sentenced him, the union is likely to insist that he has been punished twice, just as in the case of the railway men who stole the pianos. "The claim of the Electrical Trades Union that a worker should retain his union membership when he becomes a foreman is a bit more complicated than it looks. You see, if he gave up his membership and then happened to lose his job he would probably have to start at geberal labor before he could get another job. At least he would have to compete with other men who had the same experience on their cards as he and then had union cards in addition. And for the most part, in steel when we need men we ask the union officer to supply them. Generally they are used more by the iron and steel employers than the govermnent's labor exchanges. Besides this trouble with the job, there- fore, the worker-foreman who left his union would also lose the union's old-age annuity benefits — ^after paying into them, perhaps for thirty years. So we generally have them con- tinue here in the union but without attending meetings — which the men, as well as we, find quite all right." After talking during the last day or two with a number of other employers, the reasonableness of their view-point seems tjrpical of the whole district, at least so far as iron and steel are concerned. All seem to agree that the old twelve-hour day was too long — ^also that the short day has Digitized by Microsoft® 198 FULL UP AND FED UP been in operation for too short a time to show how it can iacrease output, the higher positions which require ordi- narily a number of years of training now being "diluted" with workers who had to be moved up the line rapidly in order to fill the additional third shift. At one big estab- lishment a dispute is now on with the rollers. It seems that a new set of rolls has just been put into operation — ^much bigger and more modem than anything in the district. In view of its huge cost as an extremely intricate and sensitive piece of machinery, the management claims that responsi- bility for its operation and up-keep must be given to a highly trained mechanic or fitter. The union insists that, being a pair of rolls, it must inevitably be under the charge of a roller. "And there you are ! But considering that it is our ma- chine and represents our capital, we shall insist that it is for us and not our workers to say. That is a quite reason- able claim, is it not?" The splendid thing is that no one of these officials, whether they are regular superintendents or in one or two cases labor managers, appears to fear that between them and the shop committees which comprise the union representatives there is any great probability that any issue will be settled wrongly for either side. Such confidence is, of course, the very be- ginning of justice and fair dealing because it cuts the' ground from under the feet of fear — feet which can always be counted upon to run in the direction of the fightings and bickerings and meannesses called out whenever self-preser- vation is apparently threatened. Apparently, too, this con- fidence is the splendid flower of thirty years or more of friendly relations between the managers and the men. This same impression of remarkably reasonable and peaceful relations on what long has been a very hectic sector of the industrial front in America is bom out of my chat this morning with one of the heads of the blast-furnace- Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 199 men — a. big, heavy-mustached possessor of a body made strong and husky and a head made level, if not highly tutored, ^ by twenty years of hard work around the cast- house and the pig-bed. "Ever since 1897 we 'ave 'ad the three shifts on the fur- naces; the first in the land was 'ere, too. Awful it was be- fore then! Awful! We used to fall asleep right there on the job — over our food, perhaps. Often. Many times, too, I've seen me cryin' with the blood on my 'ands — ^and me that doon in," , He is a Socialist but does not seem to be "working at it," possessing as he does a great respect for all the leaders among the local manufacturers and feeling that his group of workers have more than maintained themselves in wages and hours and general prestige in comparison with the other workers of the country. His union enrolls most of the coim- try's blast-furnacemen but is apparently one of the com- paratively few remaining unaffiliated with the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation. "They're too autocratic. My men can give me the sack on three months' notice. The 'eads of the confederation we think too sure of their jobs — too independent and too fond o' London." ; "Besides the three stiifts — ^and we believe that has in- creased output by 25 per cent — ^the other big thing is good wages — our men have increased 250 per cent over pre-war — and the sliding scale for payment by results. By that, when the cost of hving goes up, the selling price of our standard Cleveland iron stone generally goes up with it. That takes up our tonnage wage rates automatically, as you might say. Then we have good arrangements for settling all disputes. Our union representative, for one* thing, must be a worker there at the job — right at the furnace, one of the men — ^not what you call a walking delegate. The men at the plant elect him. He goes first to the manager after the foreman has been unable to fix something that's gone wrong. After \ Digitized by Microsoft® 200 FULL UP AND FED UP that the manager is asked to see a deputation, perhaps froiri the local council made up of the delegates from all the local shops. After that it's taken up by two chosen from the council and two from the managers. Then it goes up for arbitration by a national group. But it seldom gets half that way, now that We've come better to understand each other." As one might judge after going about in the blasts with , their uncovered cast beds, he seemed to have thought lit- tle about conditions of work outside the shorter hours — probably because the pressure from the men has kept him too busy on wages and such matters. "No, we're not for the men bathin' at the plant, though they do often come 'ome wet through from workin' in the 'eat an' the rain. Men don't take proper changes of clothes for the bathin' — and they use too much 'ot water. A friend an' pal o' mine died that way. No, we're not for that." "Prohibition? No, we're not for that, either! You see, all 'ot workers — ^furnacemen and smelters — they must have their beer, you know. Still, I will say, there's too many that's big earners but drink it all up. I regret to say, also, that in some classes we started 'ere among the men, in chemistry and iron-makin', you know, the Irish and the Scotchmen stuck it out and the English quit." According to a worker in a cinder-pit the other day, one reason John Barleycorn is such an enemy of the worker is that nowadays, besides being much more expensive, "the stuff's so weak that ye 'ave ter drink twice as much of it as befoor. In the old days ye cood get drunk on a shillin'; now it costs nearer a pound ! Some o' them as 'as more money than ever afoor the war fair swill it, but 'tis not so / bad — the drunkenness, ye oonderstawnd — ^riow as 'twas ten, twenty year ago, not by fair odds. It costs too much !" Somehow or other beer or whiskey seems to get into nearly Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 201 every discussion. Of all the comments yet encountered that to-day from one of the executives is the oddest — that prohibition here is likely to lead to race suicide for the rea- son that any sober working man would hesitate to bring children into such bad conditions of living as naany of the country's cities furnish ! The only answer to that would seem to be the thought that either those conditions be ended with better houses which men might build, with less chance for drink, or else that the number be decreased of those who are bom into them to crawl about on the bent and weazened little legs that bespeak that distemper of poverty which one of the continental iiations has been unkindly observant enough to call "the English disease." Well, at least, it's hopefiil to see that managers and workers are immensely nearer to each other here than any- where yet encountered, even though it might be wished that they dififered somewhat more in their attitude on what appears to an outsider as such a complication in the whole problem. Evidently the industry as a whole here has not yet run into the hard times which some of the financial leaders see coming. In a new plant here is to be seen such a collection of the most modern and up-to-date electrical equipment of roUs and furnaces as any establishment in the world would be proud to show. And near by are workers living in a brand-new model town with pretty streets curv- ing about attractive four-rfooms-and-bath homes built to sell at 700 to 900 pounjis— only $2,800 at the pound ster- ling's present vgJue. They appear well constructed, too, around a framework of angle-iron fabricated in the town's own steel plant. Altogether this whole place gives a fellow hope. If these employers and thesp workers can get together as well as they h&ve, then it ought to be possible elseVhere. Here are reasonable, f^, and fpri^rard-looking leaders both of Digitized by Microsoft® 202 FULL UP AND FED UP men and managers — ^and here, it certainly must be evident, are more than a few reasons for the same. Evidently nothing of this reassuring sort has as yet been found in the coal-fields, at least nothing substantially calm and cool enough to offset the radicalism of my old buddies back there in Wales. Every day the outlook for the walk- out of the miners in the whole country grows worse; though, as might be imagined, nearly all the workers, as well as the citizens in general, dread it greatly and hope that somehow it may be avoided. According to the morning papers Swan- sea had begun to buy coal from America! Swansea there almost at the mouth of the great Welsh coal district — Swansea, of all places! Well, it will be worth while to- morrow over at Barnsley, the capital of the Yorkshire coal area, to see what can be learned in this absorbing — ^yes, I'll say this thrilling — game of trying to find the connection between men's working conditions and their active, their working convictions, between the state of their body's mus- cles and the coolness or the "het-up-ness'' of their soul's "mentals." Barnsley is a pretty long jump from here as distances go, so here's hoping for a better than usual night's Laier. Of all the luck! Before facing those sheets up-stairs — even in the candle's light — ^it looked good to take a turn 'round. Outside a workmen's store or shop for selling and distributing Social- ist and siniilar literature I happened onto two interesting- looking men, one of them a member of the local Socialist council. They are quite thoughtful fellows and were greatly interested in my coming from America; they reported all the British Socialists as setting great store by Jack London, of whose writings the shop sold large quantities. They seem to think it hopeless to try to change the present order of affairs gradually by any attempt to mxike any diagnosis Digitized by Microsoft® WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 203 of the causes of the world's present unhappiness — "There's 17,000 tons of soot and cinders falling into this town every year. Now what can a man do with that!" But, neverthe- less, after we had got each other's confidence, one of them in the hearing of his pal told his troubles — ^and my ears were deUghted as he told them, too. "Well, I'm fair puzzled over it all. 'Ere I work the 'ole of a bloody year. Awnd what do I get to show for it? Nothin' ! All the time tryin' to get these bloody steel men into the radical organizations for givin' ourselves a fair, start alongside of the wonderful things they've done — the workin' men, ye understawnd — ^in Russia. But not a lopk do these steel fellows give me, not one. I'm fair like to lose me job unless I can get some of them in for my report." With the nods, and for the most part the general assent, of his pal, who has grown up in Middlesbroiigh, it was agreed between us that "there's a reason" for such commu- nity view-points, and that in this particular case these rea- sons were very close to such as the following, to wit: First, the steadiness of the Middlesbrough steel jobs; seqond, the absence of "tiredness and temper" favored by the shortness of these same jobs on the three-shift system and the comparative comfort of the town's four and six rooni houses, built frequently with bath, thirty instead of a hundred and thirty years old, as in some cases on the Clyde bank; thirdly, the poor chance for suspicion and distrust which grows up where worker and "mawster" are on such good terms as in Middlesbrough; and, fourthly and finally, the seK-respect which grows up out of such regularity, such good, decent surroundings, and such good confidence and sharing, especially when these are aided by good wages which, by means of the sliding scale, automatically keep pace — ^and more than pace — ^with the cost of Uving. As a parting shot they asked how it comes about that there are so many SociaUsts — and such active ones — "over Digitized by Microsoft® 204 FULL UP AND FED UP Lancashire way" where they have such "good wages, good gaffers, and all." Luckily I could alibi myself out of an- swering the question because I hadn't visited that part of the country and if they'd give me a chance I'd sure enough find that "reason there, too — ^bad liyin' conditions, ir- regular work, or somethin'." No, I'in going stronger than ever on hunmn nature and on the general proposition that "Men are square!" And that, too, in spite Of the fact that the evening paper says that "fifty thousand war widows have been found by the goveriunient to be living with unmarried men in order not to lose the pension of 20/ given widows under 40, the 26/8 given to those over 36, etc., etc." At least this can be said: that there is no great underly- ing difference within human nature itself in the ''different countries. Such a difference surely could not exist, and still favor the amazing way a man hears the same senti- mental announcement every time a crowd of boys and girls go singing by whether here or back in Swansea or the mine towns of Wales or farther back in those other mine camps of Pennsylvania, to the effect that "Wedding-beUs will ring so mer-ri-ly," etc. I wonder if the children of the unmarried war widows will grow up to join these same groups when they change as regularly as they seem to, to "That old-fash-ioned mo-ther of mi-ne!" Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER VI MTOST THE MINERS AND AIAGHINISTS OF THE MILD MIDLANDS Barnsley, Yorkshire, Sunday night, August 29, 1920. British industry can certainly give us Americans some pointers on the week-end holiday. Of course, we are gradu- ally getting the idea but certainly very few of our steel workers, for instance, would have the courage to insist upon closing down the open-hearth furnaces from the last tapping Friday night until a fresh charge Sunday evening, as appears practically universal here. One of the steel men's leaders here has said, too, that few changes would be op- posed more bitterly than any effort to eliminate this week- end lay-off. About 2,000,000 workers are a],§o said to have agreements giving holidays of three to fourteen days with pay, accordiag to length of service. Yesterday afternoon it was an exhilarating sight to see here a crowd of about 10,000 miners turn put from all the country round to see a football game between a local team of miners and a team of Sheffield steel men. A good game it was, too, as anybody with half an eye would testify. A weU-dressed and altogether prosperous-loojsing crowd they were. Such a sea of neat caps and clean, fresh neck mufflers they made — and such quick and unerring judges, too, of good foot work or head work in the drooling of the ball or the guarding of the goal. Ind^d, for head work the ball sometimes went the length of the field by being butted skilfully from one man's head to another's ! In an open field on the way to the game, a half-dozen men and boys were taking chances on their pigeons. One Digitized byWicrosoft® 206 FULL UP AND FED UP with his watch in hand would wait very intently for the rijght second as his friend, the starter, held the bird in his right hand far back and ready for tossing high in the air. At his "Go !" the bird would be thrown perhaps thirty feet, there to get its wing, and, after a circle or two, dart off like a flash for the home cote in another part of the town, dodging the wires and spires and chimneys id a splendid effort to cover the distance. Evidently the starting times had been agreed upon in advance, so that the instant of arrival would be noted and the bird's performance duly recorded with a view to a successful wager when some more important event was arranged. Apart from the amount of money won or lost, it looks like an enjoyable sport — ^and one ia which the necessary investment can hardly be so very high. For one thing, at least, it can be enjoyed with less wear and tear upon the ears than the whippet racing. Perhaps |t is partly because the short stay here and the necessity of getting into touch with both the mine owners and the mine workers has required the return to the white sheets and other comforts of a fairly good hotel — ^at any rate, it is easy to feel a long distance away from Middles- brough and the other busy cities of industiial England. It is hard to imaguie a more peaceful and comfortable scene than that enjoyed yesterday when a table acquaintance and I lolled on the grass of the town park and looked across the countryside. Beautiful meadows with their thick car- pets of green dotted with lazy cattle or picnicking families or strolling lovers, great patterns outlined by the pleasant hedges around squares of yellow grain, smoke curliag up indolently from prosperous though simple cottages, church spires or colliery "tips" rising above the clumps of trees — all make it look like a very happy combination of worthy work and pleasurable living, made possible, evidently, by means of a thorough domestication and humanization of the local industry, underground though that is. Almost Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 207 anybody could imagine himself lying there in the grass and coming into sufficient exaltation of spirit — if not into suf- ficient energy of muscle — for the finding of the paper and the guiding of the lazy pencil for exiH-essing some such senti- ment as Goldsmith's: f How pleasant then in shades like these To crown a youth of labor with an age of ease I " But it became very shortly evident that nature and hu- man nature have to co-operate in order to do the whole job of making people happy. My new-found acquaintance was moved by the beauty of the scene to reveal his ideas about his job and his fellow workers on it. ! "No, I can hardly say that my education has done much for ine, you know, in my present responsibilities as the man- ager of my father's business. Like every other boy born in my class, I spent the years between twelve and fourteen at a pubUc school — I suppose you Americans would call it anything but a public school, because it is the sort of school attended only by the sons of the upper classes — like the chaps you read^tiibout, you know, at Harrow and Eton — schools where the Iron Duke said the battle of Waterloo was won, and all that sort of thing. Well, at these public schools the studying is mostly Latin and sUch things — ^very classical and all that. The chap who is remembered longest at such places is the one who is best in some line of ath- letics — ■ ' Oh, yes, I recall him ! Made a jolly good record in cricket and at the sculls, didn't he? Yes, quite so, fine chap, I remember!' Of course, it does give a man a fine lot of acquaintances with the others of the same set about the country, and I dare say that's worth while. "But now, of course, my job is to get on, not with that set but with our workers, isn't it? Well, as a matter of fact, I have quite such a problem on just now. Many of the men in our paper factory have been with us as much as Digitized by Microsoft® 208 FULL UP AND FED UP fifty yeaxs and we've always got on with them quite all right. But during the war the younger ones organized them all into a strong body for iacreasing and increasing — ^always increasing — their weekly pay. And now it's simply im- possible to pay them what they ask for the small amount of work they give, you know — ^and still make any profit out of the business. So I've been taking a Uttle vacation to think out a plan and here it is, if you would care to know it. I shall accept an offer from one of our competitors to take over the whole business and so close up the place pending final negotiations. After the men have spent a few weeks wondering whether they stand a chance of being continued at their places, I shall say to the oldest and most thought- ful of them that if I can have their co-operation — ^^nd their services at a reduced rate, you understand? — ^perhaps I can somehow or other wangle it to get things going again for the old crowd, especially the oldest of them — the old- est and most reasonable, you see. Of course, this sale I speak of will only be bogus, though I shall take pains, you may be sure, to give every evidence to convince them that it is a quite bona-fide affair and in every way quite all right, you know." As he set forth his plan the words of a very thoughtful SociaHst encountered there on the smelting stage last week in Middlesbrough came back to me: "Yes, the worker is much to blame. He often goes too far in his demands and too often he refuses to raise his standard of living and his personal equipment and capacity — too often he spends his additional earnings on drink in- stead of furniture. (Personally I don't drink or smoke.) But with all that, I think we must- have a new system of society simply for this one reason: Management and Capital just can't be trusted. With the lure of profits, you under- stand, it finds it too easy to be dishonest — ^just personally dis- honest with the worker and with society in general." Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 209 It is very unpleasant to have my "public-school" ac- quaintance give such good support to my smelting-stage friend. The only reply appears to be that there must al- ways be motive, whether financial or otherwise, in order to get individual response and energy, and that in all times and under any system, men will be tempted to "short-circuit" their way to the overquick and unrighteous and unjust re- ward — ^with always the need, accordingly, at all times and under any system, of the restraint which comes from the moral soundness that is content to rest its case on those "mills which grind right slowly yet exceeding sure." A clipping of a day or two ago, by the way, tells of the discon- solate stone-breaker by one of these wonderful roads re- plying to the minister's greeting with: "Ugh, they stones be as bad as the Ten Commandments. Ye can keep on breakin' 'em but ye can't get rid of 'em." Of course, it is just such ruses that enormously complicate the whole matter for the employer who would deal justly. In many cases his men have been trained by exactly such dishonest practices into the settled conviction that honesty for the employer is as impossible as the eye of the needle for the rich. The strange thing is that the employer who is entirely persuaded of his own honesty fails too often to understand how any of his employees can be so hard-hearted and ungrateful as to question his motives. At the same time, if he himself runs into a small number of disagree- able experiences with his workers, he is quite as quick to come to certain definite and adamantine convictions with regard to all employees everywhere as is the worker after a few unpleasant experiences with this or that employer. In either case, that conviction, built though it ordinarily is on a highly illogical, because highly emotional, foundation constitutes a veritable Chinese wall for preventing both groups from having a fair go at each other and each other's confidence. Digitized by Microsoft® 210 FULL UP AND FED UP Yesterday's travelling, by the way, demonstrated in a new manner how this difficulty of getting on with each other is connected with the desire of every one oif us to keep tight hold, throughout every waking moment of the day, of the feeling that we are holding our own and getting a cer- tain amount of respect and recognition from the other fellow. After I had been told for the fourth or fifth time to change cars in order to make the trip here, I came close to a little "run-in" witli one of the station guards. He apr peared to me at the time extremely officious. Now that I've cooled off, it looks as though the chief trouble was that a stranger is extremely likely to feel touchy and easily aggrieved in a strange land. In the nature of the case his ignorance leads him to a sense of helplessness if not of actual shame for his childish ignorance in finding his way through a new country. The result in lost "face" is much the same as if he had lost his self-confidence and so in- creased his temper and touchiness by reason of fatigue in- stead of by inexperience — ^with the chances good for a few explosions of irritability which affect international attitudes and relationships instead of the more usual jars within the circle of the factory or the family. At a number of stations men and boys, just out from the colUeries for the Saturday-afternoon holiday, got on with their grimy clothes and black faces for riding up to their homes in the next town or so. Several of the boys are very sore that the London papers are making so much fuss about their votes, as though they were certain to favor a strike in order to get a bit of excitement even though that means pushing the coimtry toward the brink of disaster. Both their own thirst for the vacation which the strike might give and also the reported carelessness of the union officials in giving out and collecting the votes are being grossly ex- aggerated, they are certain, by the daily press. " 'Tis for our fawthers to do the decidin'," said one of the Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 211 blackest of them. " So I rolled mine up. 'Twon't be counted one way or another." The same type of boy — ^many of them scarcely turned fourteen and inclined, apparently, to be small for their years — ^was in the crowd last night at what seemed a com- bination of carnival, fair, and market. With their girl friends, still wearing their hair down their backs, they made part of the great crowds that patronized the swing or the merry-go-round with its labored but melodious grinding of the popular tunes, or else stood up to the counters with the flaring torches to eat with the help of fingers and much vinegar from the great piles of cold pickled tripe, pigs' knuckles and toes, or cows' heels. The girls were young — surprisingly young — ^and especially when the swings rose highest or the merry-go-round went merriest, were suf- ficiently prodigal and friendly with their young waists and arms. In a number of cases, it must be said with regretj the boys were staggering, particularly at ten after the pubs were closed and the lights began to dim and the crowds, with their wooden-soled mine shoes and many a cheery "Good neet!" (good night) began to thin out — cleaving much depleted the piles of cookies, candies, vegetables, shoes, stockings, etc., etc. While the crowd was at its height a sightseer was bound to foUow in the direction of a street where, among a number of pubs, the sign of "Musical Tavern" supported the im- pression of the ears that "a good time was being had by one and all." It certainly is a popular place, in spite of the fact that the Muse suffers from much the same troubles that afflict the speechmaker on Bath Street in Glasgow. Over by the piano a perfectly sober and spotlessly neck- mufflered miner with a shining face — except for that thin, telltale ring of unreachable grime close to the imnost cir- cle of his eyes — ^waits as the woman accompanist gives the Digitized by Microsoft® 212 FULL UP AND FED UP chord and the voice of a friend calls: "Ple-a-se, gentlemen, pl&-a-se!" "I of-ten think of Mo-ther." So far so good. The miner evidently has a good voice and the prospect looks good that most of his audience will soon be weeping, especially those already helped farthest on toward the stage of tears by the brimming glasses set down hurriedly before them by the overworked and almost breathless, sweet-faced — ^also pink shirt-waisted and red- beribboned — ^young barmaid. But by this time the inter- est of one whose sentiment has already got the better of him is on the job of helping the singer: "Thank ye, gents, one and all!" he roars out to every- body. It's all off ! The miner has to start over again — ^just at the instant, unluckily, that his friend — ^his sober friend — ^im- plores with another: "Please! Order, gents, order!" "I of-ten think of Mo-ther-^ — " "I thank ye, gents. One and all, I thank ye !" roars the drunken listener. Whereupon friend, singer, pianist, and drunken admirer all go ahead without pajnng any attention to each other — and all the rest of the crowd gives itself to its glasses while the big red-faced and red-mufflered feUow with the leather leggings — ^he was selling sheep there in the main square in the afternoon — stops the barmaid long enough to whisper some of those confidential importances of which a drunken man seems always full, and the black-haired old woman with the few big teeth and the many gums and stumps — also the crumpled-up millinery of unfortunate but still struggling respectability — laughs her pitiful and maudlin laugh till her tears are running down the back of her more sober gentle- man escort against whom she leans. After so much noise and excitement this morning was a long expanse of empty-streeted silence and serenity. To- Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 213 night it has been fairly active again after the early closing of the Sunday evening session of the pubs, with fairly numer- ous drunken boys and men among the crowds— also, for some reason, a surprising number of young girls with lots of hair braids on their shoulders and a good deal of boy in their eyes. A long walk took me out into the lanes by the hedges where the moon and the pleasant meadows appeared to be exercising a very potent influence upon all who had been lucky enough to plan a meeting, making it, on the whole, no place for a soHtary and lonesome husband. America seems to afford no opportunity for rendezvous quite comparable to this combination of meadow and moon, lane and hedge, darkness and limitless sky. It would be interesting to know whether this has anything to do with a certain realism in the writings of the modem school of EngUsh novelists which we Americans find unexpected. Here's hoping that to-morrow sees some progress toward getting at least some of the local opinion on the -matter of coal; it is certainly being taken jby the country in general as a burning subject indeed. At any rate, getting the cars to the mines so as to permit regular operation appears to be no problem here, because, doubtless, of the distribution of the mines and the consequent shortness of the haul in a small Country. A few days ago a Welsh colliery was men- tioned as laying off 2,000 men on account of lack of "trucks." American papers could hardly print anythtag else if they were to record the same misfortune in our mines from day today. Monday, August 30th, Bamsley, Yorkshire. It's amazing the way the day has supported exactly the impression given Saturday and Sunday by the hillside's re- assuring combination of hedgerow, church spire, coal tipple, and cottage clumney. Strangely enough, the only jarring notes came from the pessimism of some of the owners. One Digitized by Microsoft® 214 FULL UP AND FED UP of thfese represents several generations of mine managers. He thinks that his industry has abeady gone over onto the basis of practical nationalization — ^with the chances against its ever coming back. "I'd be joUy glad to sell aU our properties to the govern- ment to-morrow. Then I'd 'hop it' off to the Argentine or some place where governments give men a freer and hap- pier hand." i Another — ^more in the nature of a self-made man — is equally certain that there is no way out of the coimtry's coal troubles except to go through a lot of panicky times which can be counted on finally to result in lower wages and a more hmnole worker — ^much the same thing that is being said, doubtless, at this same moment, by many of those American employers who are called "hard boiled." StiU another, of much the same group believes that most of the fault lies upon the employer's side, even though that is the side with which he is actively connected. "Most of the bickerings back and forth are for pblitical purposes — ^whether by labor or capital. In it all the gov- ernment simply watches its chance to turn every possible eventuality into profit and prestige for itself. That is its entire policy — ^that and raising the prices of coal and every- thing else. For instance, take this telephone. It's awful! One 'phone and one branch cost fifty pounds the year. Two regular 'phones cost one hundred pounds — ^here ia this small place! How can progressive industry stand such strains as that?" All of these seem to agree that the laboring man aU but resists opportunities to put himself into a better group or to raise the standard of his living. One man told of a miner who found himseK having to pay what he considered very large taxes because his earnings — ^for the first time in his life — ^were running pretty well over fifty pounds a quarter. As a result he definitely decided to earn less. So some Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 215 weeks now he works only three days. "You see, he's not used to paying taxes and feels that it is just plain robbery. The only way to stop it is to earn less !" "The Urban Council here pays the fare of boys back and forth from the neighboring towns for taking certain tech- nical courses in the night schools here. The council has been anxious to get as many boys to make use of this ad- vantage as possible. But after all we've done the boys taking it in the district niimber only nine!" The surprise of the day was to get such good and hopeful words from the workers. "The best employers in the 'ole of merry England, we got right 'ere in the district," was the way an old and retired employee put it as he nursed a rheumatic leg in the kitchen where I found him. The house certainly looks thrifty and comfortable with its nice Uttle pantry garden in the back and an "allotment," or war garden plot, as we would call it, across the alley in the rear. "Yes, me father offered me more education and, like the foolish one J was, I said no. Well, ye see, the crowd — that is all me boys and pals here in the place — ^was going regular underground when they was twelve. Of course, we all be- gun at trappin' — that's mindin' the mine doors, y' under- stand? A twelvepence it was we got, the day of twelve hours. Never did we see the light until Sunday — that early we 'ad to be in and that late out, the six days of the week. I'll never forget me first pay. They gave me two shillin'. E\ery step o' the way 'ome I ran to show it to me mother! Of course, in them days, a pound of sugar you could get for three ha'pence and for meat, weU, for a prime and special cut, y' understand, 'twould be sixpence the pound. Of course, too, the seams 'ere are good — ^three feet five and four feet six. . . . "Since twenty years never a drop 'as passed me lips. Before that 'twas twenty or thirty shilhn' the week that floated down me throat in the beer an' all. 'Tis likely for Digitized by Microsoft® 216 FULL UP AND FED UP that that I don't 'ave ter work now — ^with eleven children to carry on fer me, though for ten year me wife would be no good — the rheumatism 'as 'er worse 'n me." Among the most thoughtful minded women seen in Eng- land I think I would place the wife of a union official whose view-point was, perhaps, in a way, more representative of the district's workers than if her husband had been speak- ing. She was in school until she was eighteen and has both a lively and an intelHgent interest in everything going on in the country as well as in the district. Both her father and her husband have been or are union officials. "No, I'd say the Bolshies are here but they have no fol- lowing. The reason is that our employers have Uved here all their Uves and their fathers before them. Every one trusts them. And you can see the kind of houses the min- ers live in, with rent in the town from six and sixpence up to nine shillings for the newest, also for the several hundred soon to be built. Besides that there is free coal from the mine — eight or ten tons of it, I suppose, in the year. "Even the boys here are voting against this strike, partly because they think they're getting along pretty well and partly because the Miners' Federation let them down last year when this district thought it had a grievance and went out by itself. My husband gives out the ballots most carefuUy, I assure you. The results are carefully guarded in every way. How it is in other districts of the country, I don't know. . . . The government seems to me just stupid. My cousin is trying to go out to join her brothers and sisters in the colonies. With all the overplus of workers and especially of women here, you'd think the government would help, but only last week she almost de- cided to give it up— that troublesome they were at the Emigration Office and all." Unfortunately Vice-President Smith of the Miners' Federation is not at his home here. One of his assistants, Digitized by Microsoft® 1 MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 217 however, is appaxently to be counted on for straight think- ing — ^and kindly. "It's the distrust on both sides, so we all believe, that makes any further efforts to work out the present situation on any modification of the present system impossible. Masters and men have come to such a point of suspicion and misunderstanding that the mining industry is at a dead standstill. The only way out is nationaUzation — an en- tirely new stand all the way 'round. It's the only way to save the industry. Perhaps nationaUzed mines have not succeeded very well in other countries where they have been tried, but this will be the first time that nationalization will come as a direct result of the workers in the industry want- ing it themselves. That will make a great difference. For one thing that will allow the better technical equipment which the mines must have if the men are to keep up pro- duction. Production per man has been decreasing as the operators claim, but you see that's because most of our British mines are old and the equipment and engineering have got farther and farther out of date. It's not strange, either, that the owners hesitate to spend the necessary mil- lions for improving them, with the threat of nationaliza- tion over their heads. And, you know, we miners our- selves don't agree as to whether the owners should be paid well or even at aU for their properties. "The Joint Council plan proposed by the government — you know, where owners and miners would have represen- tation on a mine committee and then on district and na- tional committees and councils — ^has not worked well in experience. Partiy because, I'm bound to say, the operator is amazingly short-sighted in so many cases. One committee here in the district, for instance, assessed fines on all the absentees — ^all the men who stayed away] from work. The result was to lessen it to a point quite amazing. But one day the fine was assessed on the company for §ome of the Digitized by Microsoft® 218 FULL UP AND FED UP officials. My word ! — ^what did they do but refuse to pay it! A fine, mind you, of ten shillings! Of course, that broke up the whole thing. I dare say the company lost hundreds and hundreds of pounds from the absences that began the next morning after the plan-and with it the committee — smashed, "A higher standard of living for our miners — that is the job to which the whole country and especially the union officials should give themselves. Always it is higher wages — higher wages: that is the men's demand. But unless the workers themselves get to living better, either production falls^because of the lessened amount of work or else the men giye themselves to more gambling and drinking. Of course, the men themselves must want this higher standard of living or all the efforts of their leaders or their fellows are in vain. Just how that is to be accomphshed it is hard to say. But I do know that the leaders must resist somehow the pressure always brought on them for higher wages with- out respect to larger production or to the enjoyment of better and wider Uving." This last seems to me very much the crux of the whole sit- uation. Certainly, the district proves the influence of such a higher standard of living upon the men's value both as workers and as citizens. That, in turn, has much to do, doubtless, with the feeling of the local district leaders, noted as they are throughout the country for their reasonable- ness. It is impossible to believe that such testimonies as to-day's could have been encountered among workers in, for instance, the Scotch coal area. There, in fact, right in the country where Robert SmiUie was bom and raised, 28,000 families out of a total of 35,000 are said still to be living in one-room houses. In that case, it is quite con- ceivable that "Bob" grew up in conditions which made it extremely easy to set fire to the tinder of his boyish pur- poses and idealisms by the stories that might easily have Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 219 been told him by his father and grandfather. Such stories would doubtless have reflected such conditions as are de- scribed in a book given me by one of the Welsh mine owners and operators as representing a fair and, on the whole, con- servative statement of the British coal problem.* As there related, a parliamentary commission of long ago discov- ered that in 1842 the mines were quite innocent of anything like the ventilation the mines know to-day. The men were usually, therefore, entirely naked, oftentimes lying for the long twelve and fourteen hour day on their sides, getting down the coal out of an eighteen-inch seam ! When women were not employed the business of dragging the tubs of coal from the workers out to the shaft was often done by girls of nine or ten and eleven, wearing nothing but a shirt and dragging the "coals" by means of a heavy chain which ran from the iron belt around their waists out between their legs as they crawled on hands and knees through passage- ways of only twenty or thirty inches' height 1} Some of the children were found by the commission to be working ankle-deep in water or crawling through pools. Once a Httle girl of seven years of age, who was supposed to be watching an air gate upon the proper working of which the safety of all ia the mine might have depended, was found asleep, her lamp having gone out and the rats having eaten her meal of bread and cheese. In addition there seems to have been quite general in certain areas the practice of apprenticing — ^by which paupers or orphans were put completely in the power of the "butty" — doubtless the original "buddy" — ^who was a contractor * "The British Coal Industry," by Gilbert Stone. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London and Toronto. t "Thus Mary Barnett, aged 14: 'I work always without stockings, or shoes, or ^trousers; I wear nothing but my shirt; I have to go up to the head- ings (i. e., coal-face) with the men; they are aU naked there; I am got well used to that, and don't care much about it; I was afraid at firat and did not like it.'" (Pp. 23 and 24.) Digitized by Microsoft® 220 FULL UP AND FED UP for the owner and, as such, was in practical control of the working force. Between eight and nine years these boys were sent on trial from the workhouses or poor-farms and, if satisfactory, were bound as apprentices for twelve years — in spite of the fact that there is little in the coal-mines to learn requiring more than a few months of practice and ex- perience. Naturally the treatment which these boys re- ceived at the hands of some of their "butties" makes most unpleasant reading. They were given no wages of any kind and were simply kept in clothes and food by their masters, besides being given the most difficult and dangerous of tasks. It is easy to believe that part of Britain's troubles at this moment are the heritage of such a black and dreadful his- tory. What is most important to observe, however, is that this history evidently "carries on" to-day for the most part, only where the blackness itself still continues in the ghape of bad living conditions or of other unhappiaesses years and years after the joint efforts of Parliament, employers, and imionized employees have succeeded in putting an end to such miseries in the working conditions underground and in denying such labor to women and children. Doubtless the mines in this district were, in the old days, quite as bad as in Scotland, yet it is Scotland's one-room houses of to-day that have given the movement much of its fervor in the person of the crusader, rather than the usual type of local leader, Bob Smillie. J. H. Thomas is certainly right in feeling that the shortage of houses in the country generally is a contributing factor to "immorality, vice, Bolshevism, and the spread of social unrest." More and more the criticism of the papers and also of the government officials is directing itself against the de- cision by the miners that such-and-such a price must be charged by the government and such-and-such limits must be set upon the government's profits, even though these are Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 221 in lieu of the ordinary taxes paid by the other individually controlled industries. It seems highly questionable that the iMners can stand out for the right of the workers in any in- dustry to determine what taxes that industry will pay as well as what prices and wages it will establish. Certainly the whole coimtry seems pretty generally backing the gov- ernment on its insistence that at least the matter of taxa- tion is something which the govenmient itself must be free to determine. It's a shame not to have time to become a worker here and get the feel of the underground — ^and the extraordinary confidence and heart-to-heart conversation favored by the close contact of the filling of the tram there at the face. But, with the way the conversations with the workers on the streets and in the pubs have supported the words of the leaders and the others, it seems better to start for the steel mills of Sheffield. It would be enjoyable also to "stick around "^ longer if only to get closer to the Yorkshire dialect, which must be behuad the "good neet!" (good night) or "gimme a leet" (light) so frequently heard on the streets. One householder tells of the perplexity produced in the family by a York- shire maid who came to ask : "Maunie mak shet?" After some moments, and the calling in of an older inhabitant, it was discovered that she was asking: "Shall I make shut?" that is, close the doors and windows for the night. Che local paper adds the country's usual jab at govern- ment service by telling of the man who boasted of "follow- ing public work" and being asked if he ever overtook it. Sheffield, Thursday, September 2nd. "Full up!" was certainly the word here a night or two ago when the train got in from Bamsley at what looked like a sufficiently early hour for finding a bed, but wasn't. The Digitized by Microsoft® ^ 222 FULL UP AND FED UP daily need of making the circuit of the gates in search of a job, and the clothes that go with that necessity, made im- possible any of the first or second class hotels. The crowded condition of the town just about made everything else equally closed. In spite of the help of numerous "bobbies," several advertisements, a lot of carfare, and an immense amount of leg work, all efforts brought no words more con- soling than the ubiquitous "Full up! Not a bed in the 'ouse!" with occasionally an additional "Sorry." Finally, after nearly twenty askings, it was just sheer goodness of heart that made a landlord of a commercial house, with the help of his two intelligent-faced and kindly dispositioned daughters, give me a pair of comforts on an antique lounge in a third-story hallway — ^a very open-faced bedroom it was as the maids passed along to their early duties. Cer- tainly few of their guests ever made a larger return in grati- tude. The question is whether I can prevail upon them to allow so tough-looking a customer to hang around a place which, though it is far from first class, is still nules above the status of a man so evidently in need of a job. A day here, however, certainly makes it look as though the factories were just as crowded as the boarding-houses and rooming-places. "Naught doin' but muckin' abaht." That seems to be the situation of the men here out of jobs. "Awnd there's 'undreds 'ere that's bein' turned off now, too." Over in a very slummy part of town — ^the weekly rent they said was "six bob and a tanner," that is, six and six- pence — the front rooms, as seen through the open door- and over the well-soapstoned threshold, were crowded with a red-covered table, a fireplace with a teapot sitting near the coals, a bureau chest of drawers, sideboard, — ^wax, flowers under a large glass, a few chromos, not to mention the cat, with perhaps a dog also, before the fireplace. For ten shil- lings, they said, a feUow could get a regular house with a Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 223 bath. The factories near by represent a very old school of both construction and production. From the glimpses through grimy windows permitted to a jobless iaa.n, the dim lights, the smoke, and the flaming metal being cut or pounded into such things as knives or hammers and axe- heads, make a pretty unattractive picture. Indeed, the al- ways depressing effects of the refusals of the job, coupled with the unattractive interiors and the cold rain or fog and mild of the district, put my state of mind away down below anything like par. Once I tried to pass a brick wall that made the side of a furnace in one of the factories, I found myself backed up against its splendid warmth taking note of its surrounding geography with the thought in my mind: " 'Twill be fine to come back here if the winter finds me still out of work !" So far can a fellow's mood run the current of his thinking and planning out of its normal channel ! A few minutes later it was a huge pleasure to notice that the working men were accepting my plea for a job as a man who " 'ad just coom down from up Middlesbrough way." \ " 'E says 'e wants a general laborer's job," my friend ex- plained to another, adding that "as a fellow worker 'ere from Middlesbrough we 'ad ought to do all we can. Still there's almost no bloo-ody chawnce. They're stoppin' them off now by 'undreds, with 'undreds more expecting to be stopped this week — ^with the engineers' strike an' all. 'Im as were 'ere just lawst night were sayin' thot a mon with no job to-day is only like wot most of the world will be soon enough." As we had a glass together in the pub, I found it too late to explain that I was an American — ^for under the belief that I was British they had made their comment that "America, I see by the papers, is after rulin' the seas noow and will be wantin' every bloo-ody ha'penny from the war." What was worse, however, was that being thought a Brit- isher made impossible, without danger of disagreeable com- Digitized by Microsoft® 224 FULL UP AND FED UP plications, the asking of any questions about the general situation. So I find it best to be taken for the American I am — ^the American worker in hard luck. The best of their Suggestions was to try the gas-works. There, unfortunately, I found later, they had just taken on eight laborers that afterncJon — ^at three pounds ten or twelve the week, with board for laborers costiag generally twenty-five shillings. Luckily, I was able to answer that I was used to shovelling and that I thought I could stand the loading of "coal and coke all day, for, after all," as I added, "coal is fairish-Ught after the iron stone I'd been used to handlia' in America." On the way out after my discourag- ing talk with the gaffer, a worker was glad to show with considerable jpde how the gas is made, though he was sad ,. to think that "more and more by machinery it is, and that means stoppin' off more men." "So easy it is now to turn on a leet 'ere in the 'omes of Sheffield and give never a thought 'ow it must be made and washed and scrubbed and stored and all — ^never a thought where it cooms from or 'ow. Seven milUon cubic "feet there is over there in that tank. As ye can see, something is bound to 'appen in Sheflfield w'en we men 'ere stops off. . . . WuU, try to-morrer — a good place it is for ye all winter — awnd warm!" Mighty little pleasure a couple of boys in the parcel-room at the station seemed to be getting out of their jobs, partly because of the misbehavings of the public. "Everybody 'grouses' because we charge a thruppence for a package now instead of a tuppence, when everything else in the 'qle country 'as gone up 150 per cent instead of our 50 per cent. 'Tis the red tape of government that for- bids us 'elpin' people on the platforms like we used to do. The rules forbid it now, because, you see, it lessens the number of jobs. From what I can see 'ere We got a full 30 per cent more men than we need around the station. Of Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 225 course, that gives everybody easy work but it raises the taxes — ^and there you are!" Even in such a disreputable pub as I loafed in last night, the conversation seems to be naainly that of men who can count upon steady work and fairish homes. Certainly the bartender felt his responsibility for making the place a sort of conversational salon rather than a mere place for drinking. "Wat the bloo-ody 'ell is this Irish mayor a-starvin' o' 'imself for? I'd like to see 'em set grapes and such afoor me ! Besides, there's no sense to it. Carlisle, 'e goes in fer 'ard labor and then 'e gets out and talks id the streets and gets in again, but 'e doesn't commit suicide and 'e does 'elp 'is cause." "I see a judge says if the plaintiff 'as the gout, then 'e's rich enough to pay 'is rates," says another. "A gaffer 'as naught in a union meetin'," avers another when the everlasting question arises as to the probability of the machinists' strike. "Goin' back like as not, 'e would, to tell 'is mawsters. Bloo-ody unreasonable they are, these mechanic chaps and these bloo-ody miners the sime." "O' course there been no anti-rent strike doon this wye. W'y should there be? Rent is the only thing of all that 'asn't gone up at least 100 per cent or more." The strike in Glasgow — ^and Scotland — ^was a pretty big affair, with a procession and trouble only narrowly averted, according to the papers. On the whole, however, Scotland appeared to feel the effort a good deal of a failure. This going about from plant to plant — ^"Well, what is it?" just like in America — ^and from public house to public house is a big lot harder than it looks, mainly, I guess, be- cause hard luck and hopelessness have to be my passport and stock in trade as it were — ^with it getting, without de- lay, into my very vitals. The surprising thing is the num- ber of factories in which it is possible to enter without diffi- culty in the search of the gaffer — ^and the job he may be Digitized by Microsoft® 226 FULL UP AND FED UP able to give. To-morrow the route must lie farther out of the city where the newer and better, also bigger, plants are said to be. Meanwhile the most interesting person in Shef- field to date is the blind newspaper man who stands upon a near-by comer. "In one way these poor fellows that have been blinded by the war or perhaps on their jobs, you know, are worse off than I am. Their Uves, you see, have been blasted by knowing what they're missing now. I don't. You tell me about a blue sky. That means nothing to me — nor does a yard or a nule. Still I am getting about by myself — ^though I ,will say that the worst experience I ever had was that first month or two when I started to get about alone. Never will I forget it, I assure you. "Of course, my two children have good eyes. Why? Why, because we gave them good care and didn't show them to the neighbors. Ah, yes, 'tis that that makes the trouble. You see, here the first thing done with a new baby is to take it out around to the neighbors — ^yes, even on the coldest of nights. Believe it or no, but I've seen it many and many times. You see, it's'a great event and they think it is honoring the poor young chap — even though it may be ruining his eyes, just as it did mine. "Yes, I tried handing my customer tlie paper with my fingers while he dropped the pennies into my pahn, but expensive experience has taught me that every coin must pass the inspection of my fingers — ^not my hand — ^before I can make sure of letting go the paper. I'm sorry. Still, stealing a paper from a blind man's not as mean as during the war raids. \ You know, it sometimes happened in Lon- don that the very ones who were taken in off the streets from the bombs and all to the shelter of a roof or a cellar for the night turned around and stole their papers from their hosts — that is, the records that] gave them their war allow- ances and so on. Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 227 "During the war, of course, I could not return any unsold papers; I can now. But in those days if your supply gave out beforfe those who worked late came along, then they'd buy elsewhere and you lost their patronage, didn't you? Yes. Then if you had too many the next day you lost youf money. So you lost either way, and there you are !] "No, I'm against labor running the government — ^you see, they don't read and think enough. I find they buy mostly the Herald — ^and not for its labor news but for its sporting news. StUl I don't like the coahtion government either. I'm against arbitration, too, because it never set- tles anything — ^it only compromises, and all matters are either right or wrong — ^not half right or half wrong. That's why I'm against the unions, too. Mainly they're too sel- fish. We should all find our best good by helping the other fellow. 'Twon't hurt us, will it, if we help him ? No. And, of course, the same should be between nations as between us~ single individuals, shouldn't it? "WeU, I hope some day to gefsome education in music. You see, I can always tell what key people talk in — or play or sing. I seem to have, somehow, absolute pitch. I only wish that a musical college might give me a chance. Well, good morfejig, and please look me up again, won't you? Yes." If you don't keep looking at his ball-less sockets, you have to make an effort to figure that he is losing Very much out of life, considering the range of his thinking and the whole- someness of his feeling. The question is, perhaps,, whether he really is missing anything after all. Certainly, at least, he has a very great and iapparently a very considerate chentele. I can imagine they all enjoy both the tone of his voice and the sincerity of the greeting he gives to every one who buys his wares. Digitized by Microsoft® 228 FULL UP AND FED UP Saturday, Sept. 4th, Sheffield. The fear of the lay-off sure to follow upon the strikes threatened both by the electrical trades unions and by the coal-miners hangs heavier upon the district than the usual smoke — ^and smoke consumers would be one of the best improvements conceivable for this whole district. "Everybody's striking around the whole bloo-ody coun- try if you don't say good morning in the right tone of voice," according to one of the men in a huge and modem smelting estabUshment where it was possible to loaf a num- ber of hours in between occasional inquiries for work at the hands of a gaffer — ^and equally occasional refusals. "They're discharging even the foremen over there," said a young girl clerk in a grocery-store near by later. "Nothing to do but this all day" — ^with her hands on her hips. "They're pushing all the luck away from themselves and from us by their everlasting 'striking. For myself, I was privately tutored for typing. Lost my place when things got slow. Now there's no chance. Every girl ia the country is studying for typing, so there's quite too many. I see by the paper that the Labor Ministry says there's al- ready too many women also in dressmaking, nailUnery, and upholstery. Still I want to get away from this kind of work. . . . No, there's not a bathroom in the neighborhood, though the houses are pretty new, too. I think all houses should have them, don't you?" "If there's to be a strike, 'twill be a bloody revolution, thot's sure," came from several workers outside the gates of one of the district's largest plants, where, by the way, a number of bookies were doing a very prosperous business at the noon-hour either with the men themselves or with Johnny and Mary who had been sent with the necessary shilling or half-crown together with the folded-up piece of paper carrying the scribbled name of the day'g favorite Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 229 horse. "Tell 'iip. 'e's not to let any one see it, missy," one youngster was cautioned as the bookie gave her covertly a special dope sheet. " 'Tis the bloody lads that's doin' it, naught else. Of course, these miners works 'ard, but they're selfish and avaricious, as I sees it. I'd 'op it quick for Canada except for me mother, but 'ere, as it is, I near gi' up me wages in fines awnd stoppages. No smokin', no this, and no thot — awnd the 'Lloyd George' (health and unemployment insur- ance premiums taken out of the pay) . Especially since we've only two turns the week 'tis naught now of the good screw we 'ad in war times. An' w'en we went down Monday to find a plice roonin' full like, y' know, they tellt us they're fuUup!" "The radicals are gettin' 'em these un'appy days when the work there is looks like runnin' out," said one of the local officials of the general workers union, after he had told of the amazing variety of benefits paid its men for total or partial disablement, lockouts or strikes, victimization, wrongful discharge, funeral, etc., etc. "I used to be a rad- ical myself so I can understand when I think about it how every labor leader 'as to suffer from the distrust of 'is men. Still the men here should 'ave more wages. Back in 1914 the standard was below the proper level, and though we're better off now than then, still the miners and other unskilled men are gettin' too much in comparison. Perhaps the new mayor will 'elp us, though most of the workers think 'e's too conservative. He and many others of us still believe in gettin' on by collective bargaining, with the strikes and all that, but the majority is more for political action — ^also, of coiirse, direct action. . . . The Welshmen? Oh, they always act first and think afterward — just the opposite of your Yorkshire miner friends." It is easy to believe that thousands of workers here are extremely grateful that the city is lucky enough to suffer Digitized by Microsoft® 230 FULL UP AND FED UP from the great clouds of smoke, for these at least mean work — ^jobs. The newspapers, however, certainly do give sup- port for a cloudy mood in what seems to iae a slumpy Sheffield Saturday, properly so called. The Manchester and Liverpool printers are rebeUing against their own national union by going out on strike. Those papers are now being printed in London or elsewhere. A. crisis appears to be threatening in the pottery trade in its relations with its 70,000 men making additional wage demands. In Scotland two unions — ^the National Union of Railway Men and the Blacksmiths Union — ^are at swords' points. The Yorkshire farmers are striking for six pounds a week — much to the disgust of my steel-making friends who get more — "but look at our work in the 'eat and all !" In spite of all these difficulties one of the leading steel employers here gave me his opinion that crushing the unions would be the very last conceivable thing for the employer or the company to desire, least of aU in steel, where union and employer have each other's confidence. "It is inefficiency and the 'go-slow' policy on the job^as practised by many non-union men, as well as unionists, that threa^ns the well-being of the district's industry and work- ers. For instance, we nmke a bid for some of our products, estimating seventy hours of labor on it. The men take one hundred and twenty. That means we must ask higher prices of our customers. Our customers, in turn, must ask more from their customers, and these happen to be the pub- lic. So the cost of living is made higher. The wages we pay are higher, yes, but the worker has not earned more in buying power. Also, we stand a greater chance of missing the next contract when we bid again, and then the district's workers lose the chance of doing the job. Here in Eng- land we are the most individualistic nation in the world. If we coiild add to that a greater invididual productive- ness and efficiency, we could be paramount in the trade of all the world. Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 231 "No. It's not unions that stand in the way, but the oc- ciasional selfish or self-seeking leader near the top or the less important leader who has been made unhappy and venge- ful perhaps by some employer's carelessness. Sometimes, too, these second-rate leaders drink too much during im- portant conferences for settling difficult points. But I am sure the way out is not to think of putting industry under the government's management. While serving in London during the war, iq charge of important govenmient ac- tivities, I saw men being promoted practically as the direct result of their inefficiency. You see, the laws forbid any one being given the sack without the most elaborate ar- rangements. It also forbids a person's being changed to any other job which pays less than his present position. Accordingly, you see, when a department head wants to rid himself of some poor stick he gives notice to other de- partment heads of his desire to transfer this worker at not less than such^nd-such a salary. Many times I've seen these men, after weeks and weeks of waiting for a transfer at the same figure, finally, transferred to a much higher salary!" "^ An American business man here has also been keeping his eyes and ears open: "For years and years visitors here from America and the Continent have figured that Shefiield, with its old dark factories and its old hand processes, would last about three months longer in competition with the cutlery manufac- turers of the rest of the world. Well, I've been here a long time, and as near as I can make out Sheffield's old industries are going just a little stronger than ever. You see, the cutlery workers here are mostly high-skilled men— the best artisans in the world for the tempering of special steels — on the same job, lots of them, for generations — father and son and grandson, all together. One of the oldest firms here, with the most antique methods, exports just about twice Digitized by Microsoft® 232 FULL UP AND FED UP as much as all the newer chaps combined with all their new plants. Lately there has been a little opposition to the better working conditions urged upon some o£ the old manufacturers because they say it will make the costs too far above American steel. That, of course, tends to lower American stock with the workers, and now that America has gotten out from under the fine things which President Wilson said, America is not so popular as it was, though the farther down the line you go the more popular it is. One of the quips on the stage has been: " 'Jack, how fast does sound travel?' " 'Oh, I should say about five seconds to the roild.' " 'Well, how far is America from here?' " 'Oh, about 3,200 or 3,300 miles.' " 'Well, there's something wrong with your mathematica then, old chap, or why is it that the bugle blown here in 1914 wasn't heard over there until April, 1917?' " He believes that there is justice in the frequent claim that drinking is not so heavy as it used to be. He is not so certain that the Char-a-banc trips are to be accounted an educational factor, considering the advantage taken of the fact that British law permits travellers to be given liquor even in the hours when the pubs are closed to the ordinary citizens. He also feels that a tremendous amount of time and thought is given to racing; his experience did not per- mit him to add any others to my list as made in a recent shop: "Stable Whispers," "The Racing SpringCT," "Pad- dock Secrets," "The Early Bird," etc., etc. Nor to my recollection of the great piles of publications for the woraen as lately noticed in a news-stand: "Peg's Paper — ^The Price of a Kiss," "Home Mirror— Her Hateful Lover," "Forget- Me-Not Novels," "Smart Fiction," "Mizp^ Novels— A Young Wife's Secret," etc., etc. So I guess, on the whole, I'll not worry about SheflBeld's ability to take care of herself or, for that matter, of England Digitized by Microsoft® MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 233 in general, seeing that all the rest of the world seems to be about the same distance up in the air. Must catch a train / for Sunday up in Lemington and then hope for some inter- esting days before the catching of a boat — if possible, one that will give me a chance to work my passage and so get a little closer to that problem of the American merchant ma- rine — namely, the American sailor man. Later. The lad who helped me to the station has, like all the others, his eye on the job. "Y' see, I had to leave' school and the farm when I was thirteen. Then at fourteen I was making shells for the war — ^at four pounds the week — ^not bad, y' know. Now I'm learning all about runniag a licensed house — ^how to serve whiskey and gin and all the various drinks, y' see. After that, I can get a job anywhere. One thing's certain, your friend Pussyfoot would 'cop it' here in Sheffield! It's a fine house where I am now — ^and where you've been. They treat even the lowest of the maids as members of the fam- ily." Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER yil LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON Tuesday, Sept. 7th, WHtechapel District, London, East End. Three hundred years ago to-day the Pilgrim fathers sailed put of Plymouth harbor for the New World and evi- dently this part of the world, at least, thinks they did a good job. Too bad that they failed so often to give to the Quakers, Baptists, witches, Puritans, and others full por- tions of the same freedom they were seeking for themselves. Perhaps, however, their shortcoming makes it easier to understand how the modem labor problem grows up at the hands of the foreman, superintendent,, or manager who only a few years ago may have himself hoped for larger free- dom as a worker. It is undoubtedly easier over here than in America to understand how infinitely numerous and com- plex are the factors in this matter of right relations between employee and employer. To an extent unusual with us the average employer here is forced by the world-wide char- acter of his market to keep his eye — ^and base his policies — upon the selUng prices, market conditions, money and ex- change rates, etc., etc., of countries all around the globe. The attitude of the government, not only of Britain but of Italy or Spain, Australia or America, can apparently — ^and without half -trying — "ball up" the whole matter of a steady or an unsteady job, a happy or an unhappy worker, to say nothing of a happy or unhappy employer. Even the interest or apathy of some strange people three thousand miles away may complicate the whole situation — ^just as our own unwillingness to eat rice and the English unwillingness Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 235 to eat corn tremendously complicated the world's food prob- lem in the days of the submarines. On the way down here yesterday from Coventry and Leamington our compartment brought together several of those threads which tie the world together here in. the manner sure to strike an American. "A fair place for a man or woman is New Zealand," said the sailor boy on leave from his ship — "that is, if they've no kiddies. But there's no chance for 'ome in two years — with two rooms a-costin' them two pounds a week. Every job 'as a union for it and every man must stick to 'is job — and every woman. A cook can only cook and a maid can only maid. A bartender daren't move from one bar to an- other, even under the'same roof. There in New South Wales the coal miners have been on strike eighteen months with six of the mines now flooded — ruined, you might say. You see, they were promised more money after the war and the gov- erimient has delayed. "Servant-girls work only seven and one-half hours and get their thirty shillin' a week besides bein' 'found.' But o' course there's little manufacturing in Australia and prac- tically none in New Zealand. Still, I'm wondering what the New Zealand fam?ers would do if they should hear that the 10,000 tons of butter for which they get around two bob a pound is sold in London for six. Well, anyway, I've, got my job sure because I've served my apprentice and am an able-bodied seaman, and they're gettin' scarce, y' know." The young and pretty mother was kept too busy by her three children to give him the attention he wanted, and when he got out at the station she only nodded with what must have been a disappointing smile to his cheerful "Ta-ta !" She took more interest in the young coal miner as he waxed enthusiastic over his job as foreman of the machine-cutters in a Midland coal-mine — ^his job and his last piece of good fortune. Digitized by Microsoft® 236 FULL UP AND FED UP "Well, y'^ee, I just 'ad an accident — a nawsty one, though a bit of luck wi' it, too. Y' see, as we was workin' at the face a fall came very sudden and I was pinned beneath it. When finally they took me out me left foot was fair smashed to smithereens, ye might say. But all thot did fer me was to give me a new foot, and 'ere ye can see it's a fine one." He had us all guessing as, in a ji£fy, he had his shoe off and was demonstrating with great pride the very latest thing in artificial feet. "So ye can see 'tis much better than if me real foot 'ad a been there. I would 'ave left it there in the mine if I 'adn't left it across the Channel on Flanders field, ye might say, though we wasn't there just then. Now I get me disabU- ity pension from the government and that keeps me in ale money — ^and, in a manner of speakin', fresh feet!" From that the talk goes to the wound, the snake-bite the quiet yoimg man's cousin got last month in India — ^also the cost of clothes and rent out there. The splendid thing is to see how sure everybody feels of himself the moment he can find a place that allows him to connect up the general poUtical or other gossip with some of his own — or at least a relative's or close friend's — actual experience, particularly the experience connected with his job. The surprising thing again, a few days later, is to see how httle this vivid and compelling, "close-up" movie of our own personal, six-days- the-week experience there on the job is taken so httle note of on the seventh day by the teachers of the art of living in the chiu-ches. To be sure, the minister last Sunday in talking to a group of boys gathered at a mission called work "God's greatest gift to man." The difficulty was that he failed to find any- thing to say about it indicating that he thought it really attractive in spite of the fact that most of the youngsters are probably teasing the life out of their fathers and moth- ers to let them quit school and show themselves men by Digitized by Microsoft® \ LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 237 getting a job. Still if he had aroused enthusiasm for his subject instead of a sense of unpleasant duty, the words of me hymn would have made it seem hardly worth whUe to pother about it: "A few more days the cross to bear, And then with Christ a cross to wear; A few more marches weary, Then we'll gather 'ome. O'er Time's rapid river, Soon we'll rest forever;^ No more marchings weary, When we gather 'ome." Luckily the boys weren't troubled by the words enough to prevent their handling the tune most lustily — so lustily, in fact, that when the prayer followed, it was hard to follow: ' " Oh, Lord — Hi sye now, boys, are we goin' to 'ave a bit of silence? Now then — Oh, Lord, we thank thee that — Now, 'ere, Hi teU ye I won't be fooled with — ^you boys on the back seat there ! Now — Well — Oh, Lord " Still it is easy to expect great things from a crowd that come so close to taking the roof off with their enthusiastic : " 'Ail 'im ! 'Ail 'im ! 'Ail 'im oo sives you by 'is grice." A day or so in Coventry gives a good promise for the way into a better industrial situation. This is the Detroit of Great Britain. The newness of the motor industry has per- mitted the building of splendidly lighted and well-planned factories for the building of various well-known motor-cars, ordnance, and the making of machine tools. With the large adoption of piece-work the earnings are said to average, at least in certain of the motor 'plants, seven pounds ten per week. According to one executive the union heads, for the most part, are earnest, honest, and fairly easy to get along with. There is evidently a good deal of discussion back and forth on the engineers' demand of "one man, one machine" Digitized by Microsoft® 238 FULL UP AND FED UP together with the accompanying insistence that every ma- chine must have a skilled man. Most attractive are the workers' homes and these are, of course, Immensely helped by the remarkable cleanliness of the atmosphere. This, in turn, is due to the very up-to- date plan whereby practically all the local factories buy their power of the city electric-light plant — at an extremely low cost. From the huge stacks of this estabhshment — called by leading citizens "the most efficient electric plant in England"-— not a wisp of smoke is to be seen. The Labor party's proposal for cheapening production and im- proving life throughout the industrial cities of the country by locating such plants at mine mouth certainly look good after weeks in such places as Swansea, Glasgow, Middles- brough, and Sheffield — ^not to mention Cleveland, Pitts- burgh, South Chicago, etc. Coventry is said to set the pace for the country on wages, though considered more or less of a law unto itself with so much emphasis on piece-work, skilled men, and exceptional living and working conditions. Certainly there is an ex- ceptional looking lot of men in the plants visited. If any outstanding unhappiness is peculiar to the place it might come from that feeling that the pay for the skilled men is unduly low in comparison with the unskilled — e^ecially likely where as here a threat is being constantly made upon skilled jobs by the rapid advance of the machine tools which permits— in fact, favors — ^the increasing use of non- skilled or semi-skilled men. Of course, a careful labor diagnosis might discover unreasonable or unfair employers. This is greatly to be doubted, considering the up-to-date- ness of the plants and the way in which most of the em- ployers appear to be alive to the labor problem and at work upon it by means of carefully organized labor departments. One man connected with one of these does feel that the workers are not doing enough to keep the standard of their Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 239 living up to their increased earnings: "Men who drank penny pre-war beer now try to demonstrate their progress by drinking shilling whiskey — ^if not thirty-five-shilling cljampagne!" , jFew cities of the country surely could give a more in- teresting representation of the newer and more hopeful domestication of the modem industrial system by managers and men working and living steadily and normally under good conditions of air and sunlight and homes and wages and the old historic days of the guilds and the Lady Godivas ^-also the bell-ringers. In the grand old cathedral the an- cient deacons evidently know something about the way men like to feel, that what they are doing is contributing some- thing worth while to the world's history and happiness. Just imagine the satisfaction it must be to the grandchil- dren and great-grandchildren who doubtless come occa- sionally to look at the tribute paid, their progenitors in the, handsome!^ painted statement which, with others, adorns the vestibule: *'To celebrate the glorious victory of Lord Wellington over the French at Salamanca, a peal was rung on these bells on Mon,day 17th August, 1812, consisting, of 5,000 changes of Oxford Treble Bob Royal ia three hours and 33 minutes by the following persons: Geo. Hawkes, Treble N Will-" Phillips, 2nd Treble etc., etc. "N.B. The above peal was composed and called by Joseph Keene." The "reverse English" of such honorable recognition is suggested hardly more than fifty yards away by an ancient pair of disconcertingly well-worn stocks. They were used, in the city's market-place, until 1865 ! Digitized by Microsoft® 240 FULL UP AND FED UP I wonder if there is any connection between our failure to understand how thoroughly everybody wants recognition when he rings the bell or fires the seething furnace and the general feeling that all the world is walking over a mine. In the laying of that mine by the messing up of oiu* relations with each other, the war appears to have played a much greater part than we at home have realized. I hate to be- lieve the stories told about the loafing done by many work- ers in those hectic days when "if a man carried a hammer he was considered to be doing hard work," or "every man in his gang paid him a quid a week simply to wake them up at night when the boss came out to have a look" or when "they played cards or cricket or football right there in the mill, with him getting an extra quid for watching out for the boss." "And all because everybody got the idea that the government's purse was bottomless — and is — ^and right to-day when a man comes from the employment office with the crowd to where you made application for a man, every blessed one of them shoves out his card to you with his 'sign there to show you're "suited" ' — ^with your signature saying that you don't need him because you've already found a man, he can go back to get his unemployment dole —while others refuse the job unless you can promise at least a week of it because otherwise the one-dsiy or two-day job with you may prevent their getting their unemployment dole for the fuU two weeks." Back here in London again in the Whitechapel boarding- house it is hard to know where the answer is — especially with J. H. Thomas sayiag that in his opinion the past few weeks have been the most momentous iu the whole history of the British labor movement ! Laier. The fireman of the train that brought us into town ought not to be forgot. For himself it's easy enough: "Most of the time sittin' right on this box 'ere, a-coastin' down from Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 241 off the Chiltern 'ills." But for his engine : " W'y> it's a shame to treat an engine like this one's bein' treated. 'Ere's to- day, for instance. We come from Oxford up to Wolver- 'ampton and then from Wolver'ampton 'ere to London. From 'ere she goes back at two o'clock and then on through Banbury to Oxford. But never a w'imper comes from 'er. Like a top she runs, y' know. . . . "But it's all from the short- age on account of the war." Thursday, Sept. 9th, Whitechapel, London. Great good luck has made it possible to see most of the country's labor leaders perform all at once — down at the great national labor conference at Portsmouth to-day. Representatives of over four and a half millions of the country's workers are there up to their eyes — their very seri- ous eyes — ^in the effort to plan the moves which should fol- low what their chairman, Mr. J. H. Thomas, has called "the most momentous weeks in the history of the British labor movement." They make a group of very intelligent-looking men — also one which knows how to get business done. Mr. Thomas never got "fussed" and never seemed to swerve from his desire to keep on the steel rails of reason- able and practicable affairs — yet always with an aggressive- ness of manner and of voice which meant that if these steel rails could not be laid, then possibly other emergency ma- terials might be used for the meeting of what he evidently considers is a genuine emergency. Mr. Clynes, Member of Parliament, in spite of his quiet manner, had no difficulty in getting a splendid hearing at the hands of the whole great thousand — ^a self-possessed man, evidently respected thoroughly for his sincerity and sense. Mr. Bevans quite disagreed with him as to the par- ticular method, but was thoroughly certain that the labor movement now requires a sort of general staff of all the unions which will not only serve to direct the whole nation Digitized by Microsoft® 242 FULL UP AND FED UP in the time of a nation-wide strike — ^in the manner of the Council of Action — ^but will also work continuously for the avoidance of strikes. A very forceful speaker Mr. Bevans certainly is, and much respected for his victory last spring in obtaining the two-shillings-an-hour wage for the dockers and longshoremen. The best attention of all was given to Arthur Henderson. In fact, it was a regular ovation for his return from a re- tirement caused by illness. He used to be a Methodist local preacher and is felt to have stood only for what he considers the fairest of Christian dealings throughout his thirty-seven years of connection with the labor move- ment. He praised the ^irit of labor's political [andj in- dustrial activities of the past few months directed as^they were at securing peace among the nations and made a very short but moving appeal for the continuation of the extraor- dinary unity which has distinguished all the labor groups in their opposition to. the possibility of war with Russia. If the Labor party comes into power they will certainly have in both him and Mr. Thomas men of ideals, square- ness, and strength-^mentill and moral. George Lansbury, editor of the Herald, was on hand, and smiling in spite of the general public's — though not labor's — acceptance of the government's charges that mem- bers of the Helrald's staff have been receiving large sums of money and jewels from the Bolshevists — ^Ln fact, that Mr. Lansbury's own son has been in direct contact with the Bol- shevist emissaries for placing the Herald's columns at their disposal. Lansbury represents a very remarkable combina- tion of highly religious and Christian beliefs and scruples with a highly revolutionary political philosophy. His great word is "love" and he appealed to his audience not to hate capitalists but to consider them only the sad victims of the capitalistic system. He sees the revolutionary move- ment as a highly spiritual "drive" for bringing into immedi- ate or early opGia.^f^j^ ^i^hfrho^^ of man. The orgy LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON _ 243 of blood caused by the killing of those whose presence would compUcate or endanger the new regime, he appears to re- gard as a highly unfortunate but inevitable first step toward the reign of good-will which the London Soviet will direct. His view-point made it easier for me to see how the "Bol- shy" leader there in the South Wales mine came into his own willingness to "devote twelve years of my life for the saving of England against the competition of Soviet Russia!" A rather weak-voiced representative of the co-operative movement reported the strong and steady increase of the co-operative enterprises and called attention to the way in which these are fighting the capitaUst regime by^constantly reducing the amount of money available for investment for competitive profit. Among the various "fraternal delegates" the one from Canada appeared surprisingly refined and gentlemanly, but was hardly able to make himself heard. He assured the convention that the "0. B. U.," or One Big Union idea is not so important in Canadian labor matters as its repre- sentatives claim. He also appealed to his feUow workers to discount among the workers in the cities and provinces of Great Britain the over-attractive pictures of Canadian life painted by Canadian employers' associations. These pre- paid the passage of workers, but generally produced, within a very few weeks, a greatly disappointed immigrant. Unfortunately it must be confessed that the two fraternal delegates sent by our own great union movement were far below the generality of speakers. They were given the scant hearing which both the text and the delivery of their greetings deserved. Without respect to nationality the crowds at the edges of the zone of good hearing complicated the situation for the weak-voiced speakers and for the other listeners with their scarcely suppressed: "We cawn't 'ear," "Wat 'ave we done to deserve this?" Digitized by Microsoft® 244 , FULL UP AND FED UP "Good Lord, 'ere we go for another 'arf 'curl" "Lead 'im out!" etc., etc. "It is greatly to be regretted that such a huge hall with the acoustics none too good requires such huge physical effort that it always plays into the hands of the demagogues, trained as they are in the art of making their great voices carry to the farthest comers," one pf the leaders on the plat- form whispered to me. "That discourages, you see, the serious and thoughtful discussion which is needed at every convention and particularly at such a critical time as this." The words of one of the best orators on the programme were lost, not because of acoustics, but because as a representa- tive of the General Federation of Workers of France he spoke in French. It must be said, however, that the crowd came in with its applause quite properly at the end of a highly moving peroration on behalf of a pretty extreme programme whereby all the nations of the world should take over immediately the various indu^stries, beginning first with coal and transportation. When a very distinguished- looking representative of the union of musicians offered the translation, several cheerful listeners called to him to "Why not set it to music?" The Dutch secretary of the International Federation of Trade Unions made a very masterly speech in English, but was not slow to urge the whole group to rise up against the capitalistic masters. " 'Britains never will be'slaves,' so your poet sings, but nevertheless that is what they are unless they can take ad- vantage of the present unity to put an end — ^a victorious end — ^o the class struggle ! "Without the British unions and their aggressive and united leadership the proletariat movement of the world cannot build the world progress and the world peace which is envisaged in the eyes of working men throughout the Forld." Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 245 Mixed in the applause that followed were a number of cheers of: "We are for socialism!" Later this same representative told a small group of us about the disunity of the 261,000 Dutch workers, with 100,000 of them in one general union, 60,000 others in a Catholic union, another 60,000 in a body of anti-revolution- aries, etc., etc. "Seventeen different parties make up our country's Congress, including four different kinds and varieties of Socialists!" He is greatly disappointed that Mr. Gompers, while opposing political action and organiza- , tion for the American Federation of Labor, nevertheless is perfectly willing to have the various Federation conven- tions break in upon European poUtics with this or that resolution regarding Ireland and other parts of the world ! He told how international relationships between great bodies of men can be complicated by extremely small, if not trivial, frictions. It seems that in recent international congresses much bad temper has been caused because the American delegates would not follow the rule that any person wishing the floor must send up his name to the chairman and so re- ceive his assignment of time and place. As a result the American delegates-would get up and insist upon speaking, calling out finally in their irritation before the gavel finally banged them down: "Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman! I insist I have the floor. . . . But I see no one else using it ! Why do you refuse me my right to speak? I have tried now six times," etc., etc. Partly as the result of such misunderstandings and partly as the result of its conviction that the International Federation of Trade Unions is more revolutionary than it cares to be, the American Federation of Labor has not sent i|i its recent dues and is, accordingly, hkely to be barred out from the convention next year. Dutch labor, it says, is almost entirely Socialist. The country has practically no iron and steel industry, though there are 50,000 workers in Digitized by Microsoft® 246 FULL UP AND FED UP the metal trades; most of the country's workers make the textiles that go to Java and similar colonies; the diamond workers in Amsterdam are still the leaders of the skilled workers of the country, though they, too, have fallen some- what behind as compared with their pre-war pre-eminence over the less skilled and the unskilled workers. It was possible to meet a number of what, I presume, might be called the intellectuals— men who, like Phillip Snowden, are in politics as leaders of the Independent Labor party, or who are giving their private means and their Uves and their Mucated minds to the advancement of the labor movement. Because these are often not oflBcials, many of them seem to have no representation on the floor, though their names are to be seen at the bottom of such important matters as reports on the cost of living or plans for a tax upon capital instead of income, etc., etc. A group of these expressed to me the beUef that American education misses a considerably larger proportion of American children than we patriotic Americans Uke to believe. Also that we are highly negligent in allowing the situation to continue where- by a few captains of industry can become so enormously wealthy while so many other thousands and millions con- tinue poor. There seems to be no group in America quite comparable to such a group of "Assistants to the Labor Movement." Even the editors of some of our most labor-favoring papers reaUze that any efforts to help the American laborer to fight his battles at such a convention would be met with little other than jeers by workers who insist upon their^ abiUty to look out for themselves. The reason is, perhaps, that the workers at home have not yet begun to fight on the political as well as on the industrial side. In the nature of the case an outsider is hardly in a position to help di- rectly toward settling an industrial dispute unless given an unmistakable and urgent invitation. Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 247 One of the men whose face was distinguishable in the multitude but who had little to say, though he is a member of Parliament and a Privy Counsellor of jfche realm, is John Hodge, leader, with Arthur Pugh, of the highly successful Iron and Steel Trades Confederation. He is reported to have grown up out of the worst and hardest of steel and iron jobs and to have nothing in common with those leaders who have been educated at Ruskin College. It is the highly intellectual training of these last that is said by some to have overimpressed many American investigators with the vision and constructive thoughtfulness of the English labor movement. On the whole, however, no one can watch for even a short time the deliberations of these representatives of their working millions without coming to feel that, what- ever may be said for the American working man as compared with the British, the English labor leader is without doubt to be considered a better-trained and better-educated man than the American leader. It is one of these leaders that gave me the best summing up of the evils of the irregular job yet encountered. "Of course, the average employer or citizen is not so far off when he says that the average docker or longshoreman does not want a steady job. It is true that in many cases the men can hardly stand the strain of, say, three weeks of steady work. But this is because the man has been phys- ically and morally demoralized by years and years of never knowing from one.day's end to another whether to-morrow's sun will find him at work." Then he added a phrase ■ which I am inclined to think must somehow get itself written upon the heart of every citizen in Christendom who would wish genuinely to help solve the problem of unhappy workers: "Irregular work always makes an irregular worker. And an irregular worker is always bound to be an irregular citizen." Digitized by Microsoft® 248 FULL UP AND FED UP That strikes me as one of the most vital and deep-going generalizations yet heard in all my travels and adventures. It goes right to the heart of the matter because it goes right to the heart of the worker, and the heart of the worker is — ^because it must be in an industrial era — the heart of the man and the citizen. It's safe to say that a very large proportion of the trans- actions of such a conference as to-day's, and an even larger percentage of all the words spoken there in more or less bitterness of feeUng, would have been made uimecessary if the world could somehow have contrived for, say, the last twenty years, to have worked on that nineteen-word proposition of his. I grow daily more certain that there are millions of workers in the world whose real need is a steady job. By long experience most of these have learned that the only appeal which gets the ear either of the em- ployer or of the public is the appeal which has that appeal for steady work camouflaged, either as an appeal for more wages or for fewer hours, in order that whatever work there is may be spread about as evenly as possible for the benefit of the greatest nimiber of work-needing workers. When I think of that and of the number of men here who are looking for jobs — ^and according to the papers it is in- creasing daily — I ahnost hesitate to go down-town to-morrow to see about working my passage home. Pretty certainly, the mmiber of others desiring the same opportunity will be large — disquietingly large. Later. The day should not close without mention of Portsmouth's glory, the old wooden flagship. Victory, where the visitor can see the spot marked, "Here Nelson fell at Trafalgar," or look upon the tables there, on one of the lower after- decks, where the wounded were operated on with only the hght of candles. On those scarred but sohd decks, too, you can learn again the old truth that desire is at, the Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 249 bottom of our doings, as when Nelson, given orders to re- tire from the battle of Copenhagen, put the telescope to his eye and reported, "I can see no signal!" and kept on until the fight was won. He had been looking with his blind eye ! "I'd like to see America and Britain stand together with never more a word of jangle between us," said the Old Salt who rowed us out, and who boasted of knowing "every bloo-ody seagull in the 'arbor 'ere by nime." "Your Presi- dent there \pth you, wull, 'e earns 'is wiges, 'e do. But oors, wuU, 'e's the biggest pauper we got, ye might sye. 'E costs us four million poon' a year, 'e do, and 'e eyen't worth it. Maybe some dye we'll 'ave a President 'ere." WWtechapel, London, Friday, Sept. 10. Talk about living a dayful of the double life ! This morning passed dismally enough for the motley, unshaved crowd of us sitting, hour after hour, in the sea- men's room in the basement of the American Consulate, ready to spring to our feet the moment any respectable- looking stranger, even faintly resembling a ship's skipper, might enter the room. Many of the men have been here weeks and weeks, spendiag every day in these same end- less hours of waiting, some of them being boarded at near-by places by the Consulate, according to our seamen's law, until a return ship happens along to offer a job home. A package of cigarettes helped wondrously for making almost 100 per cent of acquaintance — ^in fact, so much prosperity seemed to give to one or two of the worst off a hope that I might contribute a shilling or sixpence to their absolutely exhausted finances. Fortunately, the cleanliness of their morning shave contrasted so strongly with my own condi- tion that a proper alibi was easy for me. Certainly few places could stage discussions of a more world-wide character. Digitized by Microsoft® 250 ^ FULL UP AND FED UP Outside of the usual discussion of jobs, nothing appeared to have quite so universal an interest as the discussion of the world's seaports and their opportunities for vice. Cer- tainly, too, every one tried his best to sidestep the low rating given by the crowd to the man with the fewest ad- ventures along this line. Nor did such conversation elicit any remonstrance from the clerk as being contrary to the numerous signs insisting upon "No violent language or boisterous conduct permitted in the room." At least it was something of a satisfaction to hear again men ^saying, "Well, I'U teU the world!" "I sure do," or "Some party, believe me!" Later on, down on the docks, a stevedore treated me as a friend as he brought out a lot of onions from his capa- cious pockets to add to the bread and cheese and beer and salt thiat made our humble— ^so highly dirty and sloppy — repast. His "Hi got 'em off the bloo-ody lighter we're unloadin' 'ere!" recalled my earlier friend and his need of telling the difference between the pineapples and the plums in the absence of "the bleedin' labels eaten off by the bloo-ody rats." As we left the place together a young lady with exceed- ingly high heels came mincing by. His words followed with amazing quickness upon the report of his eyes: "Hi pities the bloody bloke that marries 'er. Hi do! All she wants is ter read a bleedin' novel all the blinkin' dye!" After that — ^also after a bath and a shave — the use of the telephone made possible a call upon one of the coim- try's leading scholars, thinkers, and writers: "America, it seems to me, is remarkable for attaining a quick pre-eminence in this or that subject, but in a rather spotty way. Since my first visit over there, twenty years ago, you have made amazing progress. Indeed you have achieved almost pre-eminence in architecture, painting, and in certain fields of science. But, oddly enough, you have Digitized by IVHcrosoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 251 not yet furnished for these present times great philosophers or poets. I * "I was struck, also, by finding that many of your high school boys, as, indeed, some of your college seniors, have stiU no idea of what they are going to do — ^what field they will enter. Before I was seven I began to absorb the idea that I was to ^o in for the intellectual life. My brother was apparently judged a little less quick with his mind, so he was at a similarly early age practically brought up for the life of busiuess. Our young men at nineteen are probably two years older than yours. On the other hand, you have four times as many students in your secondary schools, and eight times as many in your colleges and universities as we, although your population is only twice ours. "As you know, our civil service permits intellectual workers to earn a Hving. That and our 'Old Gold' — ^the one hundred or several hundred pounds of yearly income inherited from some old inheritance which may have been in the family for generations. This permits a man to take a place in a government office or a part-time university appointment at a salary below what he might need, and stiU devote considerable time to the following of his real desires along his own particular line. The trouble just now, however, is that we have what we are calling 'the new poor' — ^people whose bonds, though safe, have lessened in real value through the lessened value of the pound. The 'new rich' have, by the same token, come in with the high dividends permitted by the war. Thus, those who went m for security are finding themselves poor, while those who took risks are rich. . . . What all of us could wish here is that society will either change into a definite system in which service shall be the aim rather than profit, or that more and more business men may go in, as they seem to me to be going in there in America, for combining service with business, and with moderate profit." Digitized by Microsoft® 252 FULL UP AND, FED UP Still later in the day the leader of one of the most con- servative organized groups of employers in the country made the astonishing statement that, so, far from wishing that the unions might be done away with, as an American official in a corresponding office would probably have wished: "We want more power — not less — ^for the union heads, Then we can work out together the best possible agreements for the various industries and be sure that those agreements will be kept, without so much troublesome pressure fjroni the union members, who have not had the opportunity to think the whole thing through. It is unthinkable that Britain should ever go back to an industry in which the individual employer competes with other employers of the country, each fighting out with his own workers the ques- tion of wages, hours, conditions, etc. Stronger unions rather than fewer unions is what British industry needs." Unfortunately another group of officials of an employers' group, dealing with the representatives of one group of unions, reported continued difficulty with members of the building-trades unions. In one case this had resulted in their getting important pieces of work done by union offi- cials themselves, who worked after hours secretly and at rates considerably below the union terms. It was one of these officials — of the Employers' Associatidn — who ex- pressed the feeling so generally encountered here, namely the feeling of the advantage of security given the government's civil-service jobs as compared with the ordinary business job: "Of course it was a quite serious decision, you know. But in spite of the security of the government service, and in spite, too, of the rather unusual social recognitions which come to the men of the state or diplomatic department as compared with a business man, earning perhaps three times as much, still I left it after a number of years and took a Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 253 chance. You see, that meant giving up my pension and all the career my place offered. With my education, you see, also, I was able to take the senior exam instead of the junior exam, which is open only to men who have had comparatively little schooling but have worked up from the bottom." To-day's telephomng brought forth a great flood of mur- derous designs upon the equipment, and also some answers from other sufferers as to the why of such awful equipment and arrangements. But it is too late to go into that now, especially in view of the need of being on hand early to begin the morning's discussion at the seamen's room of the comparative faciUties of Buenos Aires, Singapore, and Hamburg for dulling the edge of a sailor's lonesomeness. Sunday night, Sept. 12, Whitechapel, London. A short ride farther east into Canning Town gave an interesting morning with London's unionized lightermen, also with their officials, including, best of all, Mr. Harry Gosling, one of their thoughtful and powerful xepresentatives in the Triple AUiance. Mr. Goshng has evidently been one of the workers, for his manner is very much that of his members, most of whom appeared quite steady citizens in their Sunday clothes. His seriousness of manner made any large voice or strenuousness of action unnecessary. Ahnost every word spoken by him or his associates dis- closed again how thoroughly the immediate conditions of| the job constitute the chief compulsion which must be at- tended to by the workers. "This unemployment question, friends, is with us a question not so much of the existence of jobs. It is more a question of the distribution of the jobs that exist. To-day men are coming to the union offices by scores and scores in search otwork — ^men who 'ave 'ad no place for ten, sixteen, Digitized by Microsoft® 254 FULL UP AND FED UP and twenty weeks. At the same time others — and some of you chaps 'ere to-day — ^are working overtime. Gentlemen, let the man in you tell you that's not right. If everybody, after 'is six turns, we'll say three days and three nights, would stop and give these others a chawnce, then all would be right. Of course, I know that the reason you don't do it is because you're not keen to cut out the five shillings for the overtime for yourselves nor to save that penalty to the employers. I know, too, that if I was to ask you, all of you who 'ave 'ad more than six turns the week could give willingly to buy food and shoes for the poor chaps with no pkce. But still you're not willing to let them 'ave your turn in the line. But, men, I tell you, a job is food-r-it's bread and shoes, it's respectability, everything, all the good things you know." His every word spoke to me of a sincerity which no one could be dull enough to doubt, yet one or two there were who rose to ask: "Is it true that the honorable secretary signs agreements with our employers in secret?" About another less important leader a near-by member muttered under his breath: "Thot mon 'e tikes all the work 'e can get all around the clock — every stitchin' hour." "'Ow about these 'ere boys wot comes in and tikes a mon's job? 'Ow about it, Mr. Secretary? I guess thot's right, not 'arf !" called another. Apparently that sixteen "bob" a day, with special over- time pay, attracts men down to the docks in very serious numbers the first moment jobs grow scarce in any part of the industrial world. Even though only badgemen are sup- posed to be taken on by the foremen, some of these, even though members of unions, are apparently careless. Mean- while the nature of the job seems, as always, to have suf- fered change along with the growth of the lighters or barges and the whole industry: "Time was, as the older of you well do know, w'en a Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 255 barge that 'eld fifty tons was big. W'y I've seen the 'ole firm get out to make a fuss over a 'undred tonner!' And now they're three 'undred tons and more — ^and nobody troubles except the small crew tryin' to 'andle 'em. In those days, too, our employers knew us all, and we them. Now it's a company, and that company is, perhaps, the Great Western Railway. And the Great Western Railway, they say, is the P and Steamship Line. And that's capi- talism, and capitalism 'as its roots and its stations all over the world. And further, men, while they work together J we working men work by ourselves, everybody tryin' to get all the work 'e can. We're all too individualistic. That's the weakness of us workers. "Now it is those combined employers that threaten our comcrades, the miners. They want to first break them down to lower levels of livin'. Then 'twiU be our turn. ... Of course, the miners are producin' less. But that's because the owners are workia' the worst possible seams as long as the government 'as control. To 'elp them we must stand together — ^just as you saw by the papers we did in all the meetin's there at Portsmouth last week. Not a word of dissent was there in the papers. Now that the govermnent's buyin' up all the papers, we can get practically no space for explainin' labor's side of the miner's controversy." Altogether such words spell a serious situation just ahead. Yet I "came away from my new friends feeling sure they ' could be trusted to show much reasonableness, even in the most trying of eventualities. At noon my table companion at a greasy East End eating-place showed a much higher head of steam — ^with less assurance of similar reasonableness in case of increased pressure: '"Fit for 'eroes to live in' — thot's wot they told us afore we was let out from the bloo-ody war ! Awnd 'ere's me out o' work fer months and months. Not a plice in tlie 'ole Digitized by Microsoft® 256 FULL UP AND FED UP - bleedin' country fer onto ten months! — ^me thot alius had a good berth and money m me pocket, pre-war. Awnd ■wfould be still lookin' but fer a friend, a personal friend, y' understawnd? thot gives me a bit o' work now and then— with me arm that 'as two elbows — 'ere! see w'ere 'twas broke by the governor on the tank's engine awnd 'ad ter be set three times. "I tell ye, it's the government thot's at the bottom of it all— the government with the police, the police thot's alius tryin' to do yer dirt. Pair villains they are, Ga blime! It's like this: 'ere ye are awnd ye've met up with a few friends, y' see? Awnd ye 'ave a drink with Jack awnd then ye 'ave a drink with Joe, awnd then with yerself, o' course. Yer f eelin' fit again and 'appy — ^more like a bloody 'ero than ye've felt before fer weeks, y' understawnd? — with yer 'avin' no plice awnd all. Not drunk, mind ye? It tikes, I'll sye, seven bob to get me drunk. Because, as I sees it, a mon's not drunk joost becus 'e staggers a bit — not till 'e's 'elpless — ^fair 'elpless. and 'opeless, like, y' under- stawnd? Then I'll sye 'e's drunk. Some folks cawn get drunk on a few 'arf-piots awnd some thinks they's drunk when they eyen't. Well, yer steps out onto the street and 'ere's a bobby, and 'e syes to yer: 'Pass along, there, Jack! Pass along!' Well, ye pass along, but not so fast as the government would like, so 'e steps on yer 'eel. Then yer syes somethin' about it to yer government — thot's the pohceman, y' understawnd? "Ere!' yer syes, "Ere! wot yer doin', eh?' — awnd 'e locks yer oop. Awnd there yer gets three months "ard.' I've seen it dozens and dozens o' times! 'Fit fer 'eroes to live in!' Not 'arf !" His constant reference to pints of beer rather than drinks of whiskey is in Une with most of my observations to date, namely that any regime of "beer and light wines" would stop far short of solving the drink problem here, whatever it might do in America. As a matter of fact, a newly _ Digitized by IVficrosoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 257 issued government report states that of 1,605 persons charged with drunkenness, 45 per cent were due to beer alone, to "spirits" alone 42 per cent, and to both together 13 per cent. As we came out into the street crowd — it included some ndldly intoxicated young boys and girls repeating certain obscene words in lieu of conversation — one of the most disreputable of "masculine hags" yet seen was being told by a passer-by: "Dirty Dick's yer name — or bloo-ody well should be" — only to receive his reply: "Well, I'm not dirty-minded like yerself, anyway, you ," for two moments of perfectly unprintable epithet. This evening the candles inside the starched lace cur- taiQS of most of the district's front windows disclosed the celebration of the Jewish New Year's eve. On all sides men with great beards and long, black, alpaca coats betook themselves in reverend and solemn manner to the syna- gogue, while others filled the saloons, among them a large matronly lady, who could be seen from the street to stand treat to a sizable group, of which a new daughter-in-law was evidently the centre. Three or four well-dressed and modest young Jewish girls of fourteen or fifteen, when poUtely approached, were willing to give their interpreta- tions of their surroundings: "Not one in a hundred of the Jewish people here drink — ^like the English do. It's terrible!" one of theni, with the face and eyes of a poetess, explained as a woman came Mong, nursing a hungry baby, and sat down wearily on the steps of the pub, jiggling a second baby nervously as she watched the door. "But I think it's quite plaia why the Jews live such fine fives. You see it's because every good Jew prays to Jehovah. Every day and every morning every good Jew prays, and, you see, that gives him com-- Digitized by Microsoft® , 258 FULL UP AND FED UP age. Without courage it is hard to hve well, don't you think?" A few minutes later, and much to my amazement, they all advised me as one interested in seeing how London's unfortunates Uve: "Why don't you visit a London slum?" Still, hardly more than a turn around the comer "from them, an hour or so later, brought me upon three of the most dishevelled, degraded, and depressing wrecks of womanhood that one could wish never to behold. Crum- pled up, they were upon the low stonework of a church's iron fence — ^with heads sunk upon ^ their chests and eyes shut hard, as though in the effort to shut off thought of their crumpled lives. Here, too, as in Glasgow, amazement and loathing stepped hard upon the hopeful heels of pity when, before I was ^st, one of them announced herself a member of the most ancient of trades: "For all their fine clothes the tarts ye'U find in Picadilly are no better!" With a jerk she opened the most dis- reputable of greasy great-coats upon the filthiest of corsets ! Then the compulsion of somebody else's job came along to rob her and her companions of the fence's scanty com- forts. "Ye see, I've got to keep 'em movin' off the main streets," explained the policeman. "If I didn't somebody might come along and find 'em sleepin' there, or mebbe find 'em dead — ^mebbe dead for hours, as they 'ave been found be- fore this. Then it would be me before the captain with 'im sayin': 'Oho, so you wasn't passin' thot way? Off yer beat, was ye? Well, thot'U be so many days off fer ye!' So there ye are! In a cellar-way, mebbe, they'll not be so easy seen. "But at that the place 'as much improved in twenty year. 'Twas right over there — ^where ye're lookia' now — that Jack the Ripper did some of his jobs. Good night to ye." Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 259 It is amazingly easy here, I must say, for all to see such awful living and moving pictures of the dreadful depths to which men and women can sink when they lose their hold on the job. Perhaps that is one cause of the serious words of those Ughtermen and stevedores this morning. They trace the honor of their profession back to the days when — in the absence of the modem cranes — ^the disposers or placers of the cargo had to be skilled artisans, and they still take great responsibility for their huge barges. So it is not strange, I suppose, that they feel that the status to which they have now attained must be guarded by eternal vigilance, aided-^unfortunately — ^by that alert distrust and suspicion which comes from fear in the effort at self- preservation. At any rate it makes a fellow's heart heavy, even though that heart still insists that at all these levels, high or low and in between, men and women seem about equally hard on the job of trying to persuade themselves that, somehow or other, life is worth living, and that the next turn of the wheel will bring a better day. ' Monday, Sept. 13th. A package of American cigarettes did wonders this morning as a maker of friends in the seamen's room. "Yes, I'm English hotn, and I've been workin' at en- gineerin'. But 'ere you've got to have a pedigree before you can get a job. So I'm tryin' to get back for a go at salesmanship in the States again. 'Avin' only my first papers, God knows when I'U get a ship. Last week, 'ere, the clerk 'anded me a pen to sign on. Just then along comes a chap that wants the place, and because 'e's a full Ameri- can and I've only first papers, 'e gets it. That's fair, I suppose, but tough. And now I'd 'ave trouble to get onto a 'lime-juice' boat (British) because of those same first papers. What I can do I don't know. I've pnly thr§Q pounds left!" Digitized by Microsoft® 260 FULL UP AND FED UP "While we were waiting for our boat out there on the Baltic," said a bright-faced young sailor of Australian birth, "the Bolshevists came along and made us go to prison." With that, of coiirse, we aU gathered 'round. His voice and manner were enough to convince all of us at least of the truth of his tale. "Days and days we were cooped up in a house — ^nobody knew what for. One night the soldiers came into the room and knocked two old women in the heads with their mus- kets. So we all went out with the soldiers — excepting some of the best-looking young women. They cried out to me to help them, and if it would have done any good I'd have laid down my life, I swear to God. But what could I do with a penknife in my pocket? For weeks we all had to stay with hundreds of others- in a wire barricade in one of the Russian towns out in the country. . . . Soldiers? I should say not ! Why, they tore the clothes off the women and made pants by wrappin' them around their own legs ! Anything to keep wapn ! I gave my coat to a young woman, and if she didn't fall right down and kiss my ifeet ! I took off some of my underclothes for a baby, and I swear to God the mother worshipped me for days ! Women — taken away from their families and husbands — ^were all the time having babies there right out in the open air ! Of course they all died, and we buried them. If only some of the Bolshie agitators here could see what I seen ! "Get out? Well, we couldn't stay there and die, could we? A big Swede — ^more than six feet tall he was — and strong! — ^well, I'll say he broke twenty big stones drivin' a railway spike with 'em through a shbrt heavy piece of wood. And aU the time he was chucklin' or swearin' under his breath — ^you kiiow what I mean, schemin' his plan. There was a guard on each side of the square — ^just like this, see? Well, here was the guard just outside. My Swede friend, he goes up and talks to him a bit — ^with his spiked stick Digitized by Microsoft® LiviNG THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 261 ./ under his coat. Pretty soon he calls out to one of the brightest of the girls — a Fianish girl, she was. And when the guard comes up close to the fence to talk to her, par- ticular like, y' understand? — the Swede he pushes his arm out quick through the barbed wire. It cut him somethin' terrible. It was all sore for daysi But he grabs Mr. Guard around the neck and pulls him over to him with his arm — like this, see? — ^and then all at once he drives this spike — on that short, heavy stick, y' understand? — aright into his head. I'll bet you it went in this far — a full two inches. Say, I'll never forget the sound of it crunchin' through the poor devil's skuU and into his brains if I Uve to be ninety ! Well, we all walked out — the five of us in the scheme — ^and maybe we wasn't happy when we walked to Helsingfors!" It made a big impression, but everybody had his mind too much on his own troubles to forget them long. "On the beach at B. A. (Buenos Aires) I vas," said a fellow citizen born in Germany. "Only two-t'ree boats a mont' from dere, dey vas. Awful. I dink I starve dere. New York I vant now." "Well," testified another, "I was in the hospital here longer'n that, and they don't give a man no food worth mentionin'. Yes, I had the old stuff bad, all right — and so did the whole ship's crew of us — every blinkin' one. But they was poor devils there that will never get out except they're carried out, y' understand? And those that do get out — ^if they does — they'd shoot themselves if they had any sense. Awful they was ! Awful ! "Yes, I've seen vice in every country, from th^ Esquimaux to the New Zealand and Australian natives. But it takes a woman of Denmark to find a sailor that's lost his money and sleepin' on a park bench, maybe, without nothin' in the world, and take him to her room and give him food and a night's lodging, and wash his clothes for him and have 'em all dry w'en he gets up in the mornin', and no Digitized by Microsoft® 262 FULL UP AND FED UP charge, mind ye. I calls that Christianity even if she wasn't wot you'd call a moral woman. . . . I'm forty-two years old now. It's only two years since I began to dissi- pate, but, believe me, I've kept it goin' ever siace." If possible at all, I'll hope to see if he has as definite a reason for his turning to the left at forty as my old friend, the repairer in the South Wales miae, had for his turning to the right at the same mile-post. The conversation of these men is certainly wonderful for wearing seven-league boots. In every three sentences they travel down to the depths of moral degradation, or up to the heights of strong men's rugged hopes and back — ^beside going four times 'round the world. As to that, I did pretty well myself. For the next half-hour sent me miles and miles in terms of psychological distance: after a quick change in a public wash-room, I sat down to lunch with an American captain of commerce whose success is world- known. "Somehow or other," he said, "fear must be put out of men's minds as the chief motive to get them to work. If we could do that then the whole problem of industrial rela- tions would be infinitely simplified. But employers have little right to try to lessen the power of the unions until they themselves can agree to lessen the worker's fear and the need of the protection which the unions afford. So the obstacle is in the short-sighted employers as much as in the short- sighted workers and leaders- of workers." Still later a labor leader of international fame showed that he had been doing some thinking about the newest phases of this problem of jobs as between the various peoples: "I am for common sense — ^not Bolshevism. I want to see the country grow up — ^not blow up. Some of my Italian Socialist friends say to me: 'England should give us its coal — ^and no charge. You British have no right to possess such things in such unfair quantities. No nation has. Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 263 That makes the enmity and war in the world. They shouM all be pooled.' I tell them: 'Will you pray to God to move our coal mountains to Italy, or will you have me persuade my Welsh friends to get it out for you for nothing?'" Then he gave in a maimer helpful to long remembrance, a statement of this whole huge complex human problem, which has Ipeen caused, after all, more or less by the fixed- ness of nature's disposition of coal and ore, wheat land and forest or desert, rivers, harbors, or precipices: "We can only raise enough food here to support about seven of our nearly fifty million people. In order to get the food for the other forty, or forty-three, we must give — we must export — ^the things other people need from us. That's mostly coal. If we can't export coal, then in order to get both jobs and food for those other millions, we must export our last resource — ^and our first liability — our human flesh!" ' ' As we discussed how rapidly labor is becoming an inter- national problem just because the himoan flesh of the laborers can, if necessary, be so easily transferred from one country to another — ^more easily than the mountains and coal-mines — a secretary came to his elbow with her: "Please sign this letter for the Continent, sir, for the evening Aero Post!" Verily these be thrilling times ! i Wednesday, September 15. - The threatened coal strike is very unpopular in the basement of the American Consulate. The shortage of stocks is causing many American boats either to delay their sailing or to go to the Continent to fill their bunkers. So for all of us the chances look poor for getting home via the forecastle route. Daily the crowd in the chairs and on the window ledges, tables, and boxes grows more discon- Digitized by Microsoft® 264 FULL UP AND FED UP solate — and more and more anxious to talk of other times and climes: "Nobody can't make no fun in Hamburg — even with feefty'marks to the dollar and good champagne for dollar- feefty. We bring last month frozen meat cargo from South America. Fellow can't talk — ^must alia time joost stand at bar for get droonk; then go home to bed. No fun" — according to a naturalized sailor of Belgian birth. "A cargo of champagne — ^that's wot we had," in the words of another. "And at San Francisco we was sixty-eight cases short — ^with bottles all over the boiler-room that took us hours throwia' 'em out onto the grates." "There in the Bering Sea we done salmon-fishin'. With a little yeast and some squeezed fruit and a secret still we had in the fo'c'stle, everybody wondered how was we gettin' so fearful stewed. Finally we had to take and distil beans. Say, when you took a sip o' that stuff, yoii knew you had a drink ! "Why should a man bother with passports and such rot — ^a man who's been goirt' thirty years without 'em?" His red face, gray hair and oilskin coat certainly looked the part. "I tell you I been out there twenty years m the Northwest fishin' and sealin' ia steamers and wind-jammers • full of lumber, and here two years on a tug and all. Second mate's ratia' I got, I tell you. And now they want a pass- port!" "Why can't a man go anywhere's he Ukes?" said a tall, lean, husky fellow with an evil eye. "I tell you the world was made for folks, and not for governments. It's all the same everywhere. We've got to work too blinkin' bard. Why don't we learn from the Hindus? Out there it takes ten men to do one man's work» Then everybody would beg us to take a job everywhere. Out in Australia there's a police-station every few miles. You've got to keep movin', but you do get the eats until you get a job." Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 265 "Well," said another, "in Denmark there's only a few million workers, but, believe me, they keep everybody else but — 'and all to protect their jobs." To-day when a fine-looking ship's ca|ptain appeared, the talk; stopped instantly, and in a moment everybody was on his feet crowding around him. When he finally took on a cook, the rest of us stood up, drinking in every word and trying, as it were, to absorb the virtue of the ceremony vicariously, like a lot of bridesmaids at a wedding. Every one of us figuratively licked our chops at the bare sight of a man getting a job. When the lucky dog was finally signed on, the skipper gave him a few shillings for paying his debts and reporting on board. The fellow's last words as he passed out from us proudly with our congratulations gavefus all a little hope: "Well, for a pound here a fellow can get pickled to the eyebrows. I wonder what I can do with this." So maybe the captain will be back for another cook to- morrow. After going about the district for a long time in searclb of a restaurant which matched the level of my obvious dis- respectability, a fairly decent one had finally to be entered. At sight of myseK in the glass, wearing an amazingly mean set of jaw and eye in the midst of better-dressed people, it was easy to recall the words of a boy the other day: "Of course I gotta stop at New York City to get some clothes before I want my folks to see me." Also easy to understand how meanness of visage goes so generally with meanness of vestments. It is undoubtedly a means of what might be called "spiritual self-protection." It is a man's way of saying: "Of course all you guys in your good clothes think you're a lot better than me. But I tell you, it ain't so. You may fool yourselves and others, but you can't fool me." That declaration requires effort, and the effort shows in the lines which make that expres- Digitized by Microsoft® 266 FULL UP AND FED UP sion. I wonder if this same running up the flag of inde- pendent and aggressive self-belief under trying circumstatices does not explain much the same look upon the face of a young woman who is perfectly well-dressed but whose conscience brings those same gnawings of doubt which are caused by such clothes as mine. The same general motive, also, I am sure, is behind the generous tip by means of which I unconsciously tried to impress the young lady with my innate rightness in spite of all appearances. It is also pretty siurely the reason why the poor so generally think it necessary to go the full lim^t in the matter of, say, a funeral. Just as I felt this noon, they feel, doubtless, that they start far behind the line and that, therefore, they must make a real splurge which leaves no doubt of the full rightness of their intentions. At all these restaurants, good and bad, all classes of men seem to spend a lot of time talking about their various wagers on this horse or that. A daily paper, by the way, gives the opinion of a judge that: "Betting is particularly rife in congested industrial com- munities such as . The streets are infested by betting touts and agents aboimd in the workshops. Daily, thou- sands of bets are ixiade, and thousands of pounds wagered. No class or section of the community is free from indul- gence in it. . . . The presence of bookmakers' agents in the workshops is a matter which has long been the subject of bitter complaint by the leading employers of the town. Not only is time wasted by the men in discussing betting chances among themselves, and in making bets with these agents, but the whole system is productive of slackness: frequently the foremen are inclined to wink at what is going on, as they themselves are doing a bit of wagering. Betting on football results is carried on on a large scale, and although the law has now made coupons illegal, that fona of speculation is now going on in a different form. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 267 The prmted coupon cannot be distributed but a 'coupon' can be written out and sent to the proper quarter." Around the noon-hour, too, the competition for the very scarce public 'phones is largely caused by the placing of wagers. Which reminds me of recent listenings as to the trouble there. It appears that the government has lost on the last fiscal year, almost exactly the four million pounds which the 'phones were making for their private owners when taken over a few years ago. General testimony is that little, if any, new equipment has been put in, and one inform- ant says that the government's first step was to dismiss al- most all the technical experts drawing more than 800 pounds a year. Every village and city postmaster is, accordingly, the man of last authority over an enterprise which requires a huge amount of scientific knowledge and oversight for its efficient maintenance and development. This is in line with what appears a quite general lack here of respect for the technician and scientist. As a tele- phone exchange grows in size, the cost of handling each in- dividual call increases instead of decreases. This, accord- ingly, requires a constantly increasing charge on patrons unless it can be offset by increasmgly scientific short cuts and arrangements. These are hardly favored by the post- master's training, by the certainty of the postmaster's Ufe job as a civil servant, or by the general absence of the usual motive of financial profit. Whatever the cause, business men here certainly lack one of the facilities enjoyed by their American competitors. I understand that there are two 'phones per one hundred of population here as against twelve in the States. The strange fhing is that while the business man here apparently accepts such handi- caps so calmly, he is quick to see the thrust of competition when a big order of coal or machinery fails to be captured by British mills — ^as in the case of a big electric plant re- Digitized by Microsoft® 268 FULL UP AND FED UP cently ordered from Berlin by one of the large cities of Wales. Called this afternoon on Robert Williams of the National Transport Union. Unlike the docker's union official of last week at Portsmouth, he is unwilling to admit that the irregularity or other conditions of the docker's job have any particular influence on their yiewrpoints: "When tempta- tion and opportunity jibe, then a man falls — ^that's all there is to it." He completely sidesteps all thought that the leaders should work to regularize the living of their members by working to regularize their jobs: "You see, they all like to work when they Uke to — ^and there you are !" After we had got into a dispute about Marxianism and I had backed out in order to avoid unpleasant complications, he gave a very good statement of the union official's respon- sibiHty as a spear-head rather than a projector: "We leaders are but the puppets of the pressure from beneath. That pressure depends upon our members' mood. That mood — that temper — in turn, changes from month to month, and season to season, according to the pressure of circumstances upon them at the time — ^like the high cost of living, possible war with Russia, etc., etc." It was well this came as soon as it did, else I should have lost it; for when, a moment later, I asked whether he did not think tha,t this pressure might be disastrous unless the leaders thought more about the worker's education, he gave me an unpleasant look, said somethiiig very pointed about the "wrong pew," and got up — ^and I shrugged my shoulders and walked out. He is one of the recent labor visitors to Russia who came back completely convinced of the success of Bolshevism. Some of his friends say that while he is very revolutionary in his spoken views, he is quite cool and conservative when Digitized by Microsoft® LINING THE, DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 269 it coines actually to taking the radical step. It is easy to see that if he wishes to continue as a radical leader, he must have the backing of a radical membership. In that case the last thing he ought to do would be to work toward regu- larizing that membership's jobs. For that would hardly fail to make his members less radical — and then they'd "give him the s^ck." "Governesses' Benevolent Institution" was the name of an unusual association, or union, noted shortly after. Near it was a sign of the "Adult and Juvenile Funeral Society" — doubtless for making sure that a person's last public appearance is accompUshed with due respect and ceremony. "I have lost five months of work looking for a house," a woman testified at the Marylebone court yesterday. The cause is evidently the same absence of building during the war as makes trouble at home. The sa,le of municipal bonds for furthering the erection of homes throughout the coun- try appears to go slowly. Daily the certainty of the coal strike, set now for Sep- tember 22, grows greater. The lack of coal has already caused so many empty bottoms that the frei^t rate on bacon and other incoming foods has had to be raised. This, with the lowered value of the pound resulting from lessened exports, is raising prices and making serious com- plications generally. Orders for American automobiles are being cancelled right and left: the exchange makes them entirely ' too expensive. Evidently our friends over in Detroit and Cleveland are going to pay the price of the un- happiness of my "buddies" there in the South Wales coal- mines and ports. So it looks as though, whether they are conscious of it or not, the laborers of the world — ^also the capitaUsts — depend for their bread and butter — or jam and cake — ^upon the well-being of not only their fellow laborers, but also their fellow capitalists all over the world. Digitized by Microsoft® 270 FULL UP AND FED UP Thursday afternoon, September 16th. "The bloo-ody rine (rain) don't mike no difference to the bleedin' gulls, do it?" said a husky worker, waiting in the line to cany the empty fish boxes back to the waiting lighters there at Billingsgate early this morning. ' Apparently the laborers come here from all over London. Many of them have lurid tattoo marks on their husky arms, others wear the coat of an old soldier, or perhaps the sweat- rag of the fireman, with, occasionally, a smashed-in derby or dicer in memory of better days. Most of the carriers wear a huge hat heavily padded, nevertheless the strain on the neck and shoulders must be great enough when a fellow starts off with a box weighing 150 pounds or so, which it has taken two men to lift up onto his crown. The place is surely a lively combination of the aroma of steaming crabs or lobsters, sloppy floor, dripping oilskins, sweating work- ers and yelling salesmen: '"Ere you are, sir ! Sixpence the pound ! Right 'ere!" "Wotcheer, there, Bill?" "Gangway! Gangway, please!" — ^with perhaps a "Thank you!" as you turn to find a man about ready to throw his box of fish at your feet. Before the middle of the morning it is almost as quiet as the old church next door. In the effort to secure that empty bunk in the forecastle, I followed the advice of the clerk in the seamen's room to visit the American boats in the harbor, away down the river. But with them all coal appears too important and time too unimportant: "Well, we shan't be in Hamburg more than a month — that 'is, if we don't bunker there. But if the strike comes on, we'll have to," was the testimony gained on board a big merchantman, full of lumber from Scandinavia and the Baltic. "D — d slim, I'd say," said the chief engineer of another Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 271 big freighter, when asked about the chance of getting back to God's country. "Two weeks from now at least before we sail for home via Holland." "Nine months we've been out of San Francisco — ^with lumber to South America, and then frozen meat from there," said a group of four clean-cut but homesick American boys in a very decent-looking "fo'c'sle." "That's too long with- out a sight of home. Thank God, we're paid off to-night. . . . Yes, there's bedbugs all over the place now, though we've worked hard to stop 'em. But they give us pretty good food, and these quarters aren't bad. Hot and cold water you'U find in the showers across there, with clean towels and everything." Everybody on all the boats to-day, and at the seamen's room all week, is sure that the American sailor now enjoys the best conditions of any in the world. The difficulty seems to be that with jobs ordinarily so plentiful in America, the months away from home appear to spell the height of unhappiness and dislocated Uving. Alongside these boys were Norwegians, who have been away from home uninterruptedly for seven years, without apparently minding it in the least. "Gotta make a Uvin' somehow, don't you?" one of them put it after he had told of keeping in fairly close touch with his friends, from one of whom he'd had a nice long letter — six years ago! On the way back into the city a negro told of his birth in French territory on the African Coast, and of his last seven years and British citizenship in the British army: "My friend in jail" — ^business of thumb to mouth with head thrown back to indicate the reason. "Fined seven shillings, sixpence. I go up to pay and get him out. Cana- dian he is. Know him only one week, but he speak to me nice language — ^friendly, you know? . . . Wiskey is bad Digitized by Microsoft® 272 FULL UP AND FED UP for poor man. . . . But me, I (|rink four w'iskies and no get drunk. Get out here. Good-by." Later an electrician got into the compartment: "There's a big difference, I tell you, out there in America-v- I mean Canada. , You go right up to a foreman and talk to 'im like Tom, Dick, or Harry. 0' course, you know 'e's a foreman, and you respects 'im, but there's none of this 'ere clawss idea. "And when they puts in machinery, they don't let it wear itself out like of old age — you know what I mean? They expects to ride with the times and scrap it when a better one comes along. 'Ere they use it till it's worn out. I've seen it many times as old as the factory. Old, they are, and slow — and dangerous. ... I came back from there durih' '15. Slack work there was out there, and all closed down like a drum. They refused me in the army here. For why? I don't know. "Anyway, our union — the Electrical Trades, it is — 'as progrefeed by leaps and bounds. The leaders are playing big right now. They're going to make us the key industry, 'though the mawsters are plain nawsty, with the lock-out and all, up North. There's points on both sides, and that's ]part of the inquiry they're going to make. The govern- ment's too wise to set its 'ead against us right now." "Fed up! I don't care a rap what happens now. Coal strike or not — ^what's the use?" This was the wail of a fairly prosperous-looking passenger at a station where a change had to be made. "J. H. Thomas, it looks like to me, is on both sides — ^runs with the hares and hunts with the hounds. SmilUe wants nothing but Bolshevism. I have a friend just back from Russia. He says it's awful. Conscripting labor and no two laborers from the same town allowed together in the same gang so that 'townies' can't get together and get their wind up." (Make trouble.) At any rate the experience of ten or fifteen days' work on Digitized by Microsoft® LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 273 the ocean home is apparently to be denied — ^for longer waiting is _ impossible. At that, I guess I can get along with having done it twice in college days — ^though, of course, the cattle puncher's work is different from the deck-hand's or the oiler's job that I've been hoping for. Later. — ^The hoped-for ship seems to have come at last ! have just learned by 'phone that an American skipper is there at this moment taking on a fuU crew for an immediate start for New York ! So here goes to taste again the joys of the fo'c'sle. Here's hoping that all the stories and sights of this morning are correct in painting huge improvement in the life on the bounding main over that of twenty years ago. Friday, September 17th. For a moment yesterday afternoon it looked as though everything was all set for departure Saturday on board a big freighter. Everybody in the seamen's room was smiling the proud smile of self-respecting holders of real jobs by the time I got therej^ "Oiler, mes^man, or deck-hand," was the catalogue I gave of my seafariog abiUties when the skipper asked if I was a full-fledged American and had had experience. "All right, we'll take you on as an oiler. Got your pass- port? Well, bring it here to-morrow morning at nine all ready to sign on. We sail Saturday at ten." All the way between hiin and the door I was seeing my- self in the hot engine-room, listening to the hopes and fears of my fellow Workers in between the throbs of the big en- gine of the great boat through all the hours of the next fifteen days — or would it be fifteen, or only ten, or maybe even twenty? "New York?" said the skipped when I went back to ask him. "Why, we get to New York quite shortly. Digitized by Midrosoft® 274 PULL UP AND FED UP First we go to Antwerp and then to New York — via South America!"^ And to think that if I had signed on and then had failed to turn up this morning, I could have been arrested and sent to jail as a deserter ! Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER VIII THE WOEST JOB YET Friday, September 24th, On board S.8. Mawetania. The chief event of this luxurious passage home has been the suddenness of the shift of my psychological gears from high to low — ^and reverse — ^yesterday afternoon. As a matter of fact, it came mighty close to "stripping" them. One-thirty saw me enjoying all the gastronomical mag- nificence of Mrs. Mauretania's French chef — good luck and friends got me on board here in spite of trying for my first-cabin ticket only one day before sailing. Two o'clock found me ui 9ld pants and shirt and sweat-rag, shovel in hand, taking lessons in the strenuous art of stoking. Talk about high dives ! That was the tallest and quickest dive from tip-top luxury to bottom-scraping hard labor my imagination can picture ! Strenuous and bottom-scraping — ^these surely are the words! I never knew that even half an hour could be so tragically long, nor the three-minute interval of the gaffer's shovel on the ship's steel bottom so disastrously short! The first bangety-bang of that shovel makes you jump to shut off the drafts and swing open the great door of the first — ^and highest — of the three cavernous furnaces assigned you. , With the light of the roaring holocaust burning out your eyes and scorching your forearms, you catch up your shovel and throw pounds and pounds from the floor at your feet into the flames until you have filled up the entire opening. "Let 'em slide off-like, for'rd — there, like that!" Then quick ! you drive the great poker iato the mass near the grates and lift it carefully so as to help the air throu^, 275 Digitized by Microsoft® 276 FULL UP AND FED UP Quick again — ^for every instant of open doors means told air for the cooling of the water and the lessening of the precious steam — quick, to close doors and turn on blasts, and then on to feed the burning hunger — ^and feel the fear- ful heat — of fire number two. At last it is fed, closed, and given the draft — ^but your heart sinks as the gaffer's shovel bangs it into you that you^re losing time ! You double your speed on number three and with that done you hurry to open number one again. With your long, heavy rake you put all the strength of your, shoulders and front trunk into the work of pushing the coals back toward the far end of ^he bed. Now you're about even with your job. A short, pause, a quick catching of your breath, a dry spitting out of cotton-like coal-dust, the glimpsing of the whites of black-rimmed eyes and of shining sweat streams down the blackened faces of your fellows moving through the dust- filled darkness, and then again the bangety-bang of the gaffer's signal. Again the heat on eyes, and face and arms, and again the shovel, remembering to use your back-swing to give it distance, and then to let it slide off "easy-like," without pushing the shovel too high. "AUus keep 'er pushed back, with a good body — ^aboiit four inches from the top — that's wot gets us into port. There, she's just right," your buddy yells into your ear above the noise. "Come on, now — ^wot's the idea? A little more sweat there now on the rake," calls the gaffer to a group of black, sweat-striped backs. "Gangway! (gangway!" shouts the trimmer as he emerges from the dusty blackness of the bunkers. "Clangety-clang!" summons the gaffer's signal. "More coal!" roars out of the open door of fire number two. "Wha-n-g!" whines your shovel on the ship's steel floor before it gets its load. Digitized by Microsoft® THE WORST JOB YET 277 After hardly an hour of such muscular effort as I think I never experienced befpre I was almost finished. Shortly the fire had to be "drawn." That meant getting the hot coals all to one side, then raking down to the front the huge clinkers; some of them jwere bigger than the door and so had to be broken with the poker. With one foot upon the pile of hot clinkers already fallen on the floor, you put your whole back and body into bringing the others down to the mouth after you have swung the great rake as far back as it will go. Then you spread your fire over the grates, and then again more coal. Later the ashes, still hot at your feet, must be shovelled into the mechanical, ejector, for carrying to the boat's side and out into the water. It was. a shameful moment when finally I had to asjt for transfer to the trimmer's job for fear that my first week on shore would be in bed. The difference is hardly as great as might be wished. Somehow or other the heavy wheel- barrow has to be got into the narrow place where the curved ribs and side of the boat make awkward pockets in which the shovelling of coal is extremely difficult. You can scarcely see your buddy a few feet away for the black dust. Then the' iron barrow must be pushed out onto the floor of the fire-room. With a run and a yell you use your skill to overend the heavy load at precisely the right spot for the fireman to find his pile. On either job there is a good deal of air from the venti- lators if you stand exactly at the right place beneath the ventilators. But elsewhere — especially before the open doors or near the hot ashes — ^phew ! "If ye find it 'ot 'ere ye should come with me of a nice summer's dye down to the Red Sea, where there's never a breath of a breeze. Twenty-eight year I've 'ad of this, and I'm tellin' ye, this is the coolest and comfortablest yet ! Twenty-eight year and seven times over the seven seas and Digitized by IVIierosoft® 278 FULL UP AND FED UP all! Only once on an oil-burner — with a *ard time tryin' to keep awake." The most comfortable sensation enjoyed in years came from the cool air of the deck, after what seemed miles of ladders to the showers of the second cabin, before daring to show my face back in the first cabin. Bums of arms and face and hands, also of the foot which got against the huge poker on the floor, will keep me in remembrance of the after- noon for quite some time — ^to say nothing of dead-tired muscles all over my body. Luckily, the labor did not bring "the bends." These arfe the bane of the fireman's life. When their sudden knotting of the muscles across the stomach follows suddenly on that back-breakiag pull-down upon the rake, men are said to fall and writhe in agony on the floor, insensible to the lesser pains of all the bums in- flicted by the red-hot ashes.' To-day I hardly knew whether to feel glad or mad as the result of my further study of this worst of jobs. Back among the stokers I inquired this afternoon how they can stand such fierce exertion, even for the four hours on and the eight hours off. Here's the answer: "WuU, if a mon goes along with the gang, as 'e should, 'e cawn't lawst. What yer do is ter do number one fire with yer coal and all. Then yer' opens up number two, like this, ye see? There ye are, ready, like. Then yer tikes a look to see if the gaffer's lookin'. Like as not 'e eyen't. Then yer close up number two door and thot's done! Then yer opens up number three and if Mr. Gaf- fer's not lookin', yer slams 'er shut and turns on the air 'ard, like, and then yer through — ^awnd witin' on the lead- er's shovel. Course yesterday yer couldn't do thot 'cause yer mon was the only one of the boat as tikes 'is /three fires regular like. The best fireman on the boat, 'e is, we'U all sye, though 'e eyen't 'ad a sober dye on land in twenty year. Digitized by Microsoft® THE WORST JOB YET 279 "Wull, o' course we trinuners, wuU, our job would be bad — ^lookin' after six firemen — ^if it wasn't that they eyen't goin' through full, like 'e syes to yer. Then, too, if they 'as British coal it's bad, but on Yankee coal — thot's better — that is, better for us, y' understawnd? — because the bloo-ody stuff's got dirt in it — ^it won't burn, so it lawsts longer I "Yes, on American boats they're 'found' in towels and soap with bed-linen weekly, with shower-baths and good food. 'Ere yer furnishes yer own soap and towels, and knife and fork, and so on — ^a steward 'as just swiped an outfit for me from the third class — mine bein' missin', y' under- stawnd? Worst of all, yer fights 'ere for yer food. They brings it on in one big dish, y' see, and the best getter gets it. Yer gets a big fine, too, for bringin' booze on board — or a knife or a pistol. And yer gets two days off and five bob for talkin' back to an engineer, to say nothin' of twenty poxmds and two or three months for jumpin' a boat before the voyage is ended — ^and ye're caught the minute ye gets back on the next trip, and yer can't get onto another boat without yer book givin' the years of yer service and all. And yer can't get that from yer company except when yer gets back from yer trip. So how to get onto another job in any other country, I don't know." Among them was a chap whose hand was the most awful collection of bums, blisters, and yellow sores my eyes have ever seen. Ever since the dreadful sight my own hand has been all but twitching and my shoulders contracting at the memory of it. That's because once yesterday I started to pick up what looked like a perfectly cold — ^be- cause ^perfectly black — ^poker. Luckily a yell from a friend gave warning. Since then I ha4 thought that even at the worst I could have dropped it too quickly to have received any serious burn. My friend this afternoon lifted his dread- ful hand to give a fearful testimony: Digitized by Microsoft® 280 FULL UP AND FED UP "Drop it? 0' course I tried to drop the bloo-ody poker ! But I couldn't ! The bleedm' thing 'ad burned so far into me 'and that' all the fat of me stuck to it and 'eld it there a^burrdn' all the bloo-ody w'ile! My God, 'twas awful! Now I'm laid off and two others 'ave to 'do a deuce' for it. Each of them, y' see, does six hours instead of four — and not a penny extra for it, either." , Those were, perhaps, the two I saw, stripped in the showers and all but dead to the world with their fatigue after their six hours. And there are 250 of these men on board — ^less than usual because one of our four huge funnels, with its six boilers and their forty-eight fires is not working — con- juring up the steam required to take aU these tons and tons of ease and comfort into port. No wonder that men are anxious to see the oil-burners come in, even though that some of my friends will wonder "w'ere the bloo-ody 'ell's a mon's goin' to get a job, eh?" For some, the first news of the new burners will mean a drinking bout — ^the drinking bout which follows hard upon either good news or bad, unpleasant anticipations or otherwise: "The first time in a long time it was thot I was droonk. Well, y' see, the 'ole blinkin' voyage yer cawn't drink nothin'. Then yer gets on shore and yer wants ter buy somethin' fine fer the wife and yer cawn't do as well for 'er as ye'd like. So yer ends oop by mikin' a bloo-ody beast of yerself — ^awnd in the momin' all yer money's gone!" Well, if I were to land at home after days and weeks of such work — ^perhaps with such a hand and the memory of that poker sticking tight to it — ^that horrible poker that would not drop ! — I wonder what I'd do. Involuntarily my shoulders register uncertainty. To-morrow there will be the landing — ^unless, as one of the sailors put it, "unless this bleedin' fog piles us up on Digitized by Microsoft® THE WORST JOB YET 281 the bloo-ody beach!" What different things that landing will mean to us all — ^by reason of the different parts of the boat our different jobs have permitted us to occupy ! For one worker — the imposing-looking deck-steward: "This trip 'as been a royal 'oliday. That's because every- body dresses for dinnerr-and eats it — ^in the dining-room. That gives us a chawnce to put everything away and get to bed at a fair hour." , Saturday evening, Sept. 25th, New York City. What prosperous people these Americans appear to be! Every shop girl or stenographer must have a week's wages on her back ! How many automobiles there are in the world ! All day I've been scared for my life every time I've crossed the street. No wonder many of them have the protection of a bumper both at front and back — ^in line with the incred- ulous query of a South Wales mine manager. How rapid the elevators are! It's a wonder that they stop at the top and bottom without a smash. What a delight it is to telephone with only one coin to be put into the slot ! And not a drunken man or woman to be seen on the streets ! What a Babel of languages is spoken here in between the occasional English — or American ! And how similar are the problems here, according to the taxi-driver froni the dock: "Here's my brother. Helped to make the world safe and all that — ^and got a bad wound over there. And what does he get for it? Nothin' but a bum job — ^after leavin' a good one to go." Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® PART II ONE INTERPRETATION Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® ONE INTERPRETATION CHAPTER IX "FULL UP'; Cleveland, Ohio, July, 1921. "tHE past few months have been among the most critical in British history. Is there any interpretation of Ihe ex- periences and testimonies of the foregoing pages which will throw light upon these months, and at the same time help to a better understanding of the more fundamental and permanent factors of both Britain's and America's indus- trial problems? Those well-known angels who "fear to tread" in difficult places, fly circles around my pen as I attempt that inter- pretation after so short a contact with the unskilled laborer in so small a sector of the country's entire industrial front. All I can do is to promise to give to other interpretations the same open-minded considerations which I bespeak for this one. "FuUup!" These two words supply, in my opinion, the key for understanding modem British life. This modern British life is lived in a crowded country. In this crowded country jobs are scarce. The summer's ubiquitous "Fulhup!" was much more than merely the result of the war. For a very long time Britain has been the self-acknowledged land of the narrow margin between the number of available jobs and the num- ber of people who need them for their daily bread and butter. It evidently expects to be so for a long time to come. British life — social and political as well as indus- trial — ^is largely what it is to-day as the result of this tra- Digitized by^crosoft® 286 FULL UP AND FED UP ditional condition, this acknowledgment, and this, expeo- tation. "No, sir, yer eyen't got no office-boy, gov'ner! — ^not unless yer tikes me on — cause 'e's just been runned over I" The story tells why the ordinary British factory needs no employment office bigger than the gaflfer's hat. It is matched by a more recent statement of the same pressure at the other end of the social scale: "All of us appUcants for one of the best 'berths' in the whole civil service — ^it pays more than 1,000 pounds — ^had first to go through a sort of oral elimination contest. Cer- tain physical or other obvious defects barred one com- pletely. Lack of a war record was completely insurmount- able. If a chap volunteered in September, 1914, he was asked the cause of his delay! A large number, of coiirse, dropped out. Nevertheless there still remained of us who took an examination which required the highest educational and cultural equipment possible to obtain in England, a totalof nearly 300!" "When my engagement to Mr. Asquith was announced," writes the author of the famous diary, "a niunber of my friends asked me if I did not consider that I was doing a very unsafe thing to marry a man who, though brilliant at the law, was nevertheless entirely dependent for his living upon his earnings." So also in the world of British buaness the son who succeeds to the management of the long-established con- cern is counselled by the same general scarcity of "berths" to a policy of marked conservatism. Otherwise he may endanger the family's inherited guarantee of both their sustenance and their social rank. For still others the same situation, strange as it may seem, makes j complete leisure almost imperative. "You see," explaiaed an American woman whose brother is one of the comparative few with us who find themselves Digitized by Microsoft® "FULL UPl" 287 in somewhat the same i situation, "he could not get a busi- ness position of the importance required by his social stand- ing without investing rather heavily. But if he did that, then he might lose the whole of his share of our father's estate. That gives him enough to live on in comfort ■pro- vided he does not lose it." It is these various considerations which give the reason for the importance of our philosopher friend's "Old Gold." But the old gold thus represented by the possession of a busi- ness or of stocks and bonds furnishes 'more than a guaran- tee of economic safety and more than a selfish prohibition of work. The appreciation of that universal "Full up I " means that any one who does not need a job ought not to take one. If he does, he thereby lessens by that much the chances of those who do need one. Where, therefore, the old gold is sufficient, the supposedly lucky owner is almost forced into either poUtics or sport if he would enjoy some sense of dis- tinction in ways worthier than merely by conspicuous ex- penditure. As a matter of fact the popularity or good-will gained in sport in a sport-loving country may quite easily be capitahzed at the polls for the start of a worthy political career. All these various considerations, also, make it plain enough how he who lacks the old gold of past earning power comes to consider that the family job makes a perfectly good form of property for passing earning power on down to his children, and his children's children. Thus a success- ful Amferican ship-builder: ^ "'If this berth has been good enough for me for forty years — ^and for my father before me — I don't see why it isn't good enough for you,' That's what my father back in Scotland said to mie when I told him I wanted to take a chance and try my fortune abroad. I had just passed, at twenty-one, the examination which showed that I could expect to succeed him without difficulty as head of a small Digitized by Microsoft® 288 FULL UP AND FED UP r government shipyard. So, in a way, I was a made manJ That meant, of course, not only security but a lot of social prestige. As to that, even when I became a fol*eman a few years earlier, the older men among whom I had grown up as a boy immediately stopped calling me Tom — ^from that very day it was always 'Mr.' And if I had — ^after that day — asked one of them to ride home with me, I would have lost 'face' all over the place. Following my refusal of my father's job — that was twenty years ago — the old gentleman has never spoken a single word to me!" Thus from bottom to top a whole people finds it necessary to adjust itself in one way or another to the whip of that "Full up!" As a result — ^and a far-reaching result — a. whole people comes naturally to give its chief attention to security rather than to opportunity. Those who like to "take a chance" it tends to consider not courageous but as foolhardy and almost dangerous citizens. In a word, the whole people combines to make by its universal approvals the greatest of social virtues out of the art — ^and the science — of "playing safe." The holding of the job thus comes enormously to exceed in importance the making and the development of it. Thus the earning of a living comes to be robbed of the spirit of adventure: it is too serious a matter to permit the pleasures of risk. The satisfaction of the exploit — the thrill of excite- ment which comes from playing with not too dangerous uncertainties and the exercise of skill and judgment in their handling — ^these may be found elsewhere, if necessary, but surely not on the job. If you should lose or endanger that, what then? — ^not only for yourself and your bread and butter, but for your children and your children's children ! It is this, without doubt, which largely accounts for the national institution of the "bookie." The winning of that lucky thirty-three to one shot had practically no financial value for my miner friend there ia the South Wales "pub" Digitized by Microsoft® "FULL UP!" 289 after he left the course. But it is one of his life's "high spots." Up to the day of his death he will lick the chops of his pride with the sweet pleasure of the homage of his admiring and envious friends and listeners. Here at home we get much the same excitements and the same pleasures. But we get them mainly from our business — our job. With us the day's work is much more of a game. We forget that we are much freer to play this game only because if we lose we are so much freer to find other opportunities to start over again. One of our large institutions for corre- spondence study has received in the course of a compara- tively few years, tuitions totalUngmore than $100,000,000 1 In a very real sense these are the wagers laid down by thousands and thousands of young-men gamblers. But they are gambling on themselves and their own possibiH- ties! The chances are that they are too intent upon this game to care to give much time for the horses, the whippets, the pigeons, or even "the 'ymns." Likewise in the matter of the nation-wide popularity of John Barleycorn. Bad jobs, with their usual accompani- ment of bad living conditions, and with, especially, poor prospects of getting a "jimap" or other chance up and out of them into lines guarded by that closed door of the gaf- fer's "Full up!" — ^it is these that furnish the source of the thirst of millions of men. It is these that give to John Barleycorn a smiling face in the eyes of millions of the world's least successful workers. For to these he promises those dehghtful satisfactions of successful exploit which are always hungered for in the hearts of even the lowliest men, but which their jobs refuse. To such as these old Blear- Eyed John promises a dehghtful short-circuit into exactly that golden age of comfort, self-respect, and achievement which their conditions deny. "The drunker ye be, the less ye'll be a-mindin' o' the flies and the bugs," according to my near down-and-out Digitized by Microsoft® 290 FULL UP AND FED UP friend of the Northwest's construction camps. "And when ye sober up, ye're used to 'em. See?" "I just like to drink enough," said old Uncle Zeke, who knew, as long as he was sober, that his best working-days in the steel plant were gone, "I just like to drink enough to get the feeUn' of me old position back, like." From that same fundamental factor also of scarce jobSj chronically scarce jobs, comes that division of "class" — that everlasting "Workin' clawss, we are, ye know!" When you can get, at fourteen or at twenty-one, th« job which you can pretty confidently expect— with good luck — to hold on to until you're old and pensioned, then you have the makiags of class lines. At least you have the retention of them instead of that destruction of them which might be expected in any industry which offered fuU opportunity for men to rise in responsibility as rapidly as their abiUtie? and capacities developed. Nothing is more important to understand, and at all times to remember, than this: that among an industrial people social levels — ^the level of the worker, and particularly the standing of his wife and family in the community — ^tend to follow job levels. So where the demonstration of ability can be counted upon to bring recognition and the chance at a better job, there a man will always endeavor to finish his industrial career at a social level above that of the stage of entrance. Those who auc- ceed in this are playing the game of the job successfully; they caimot know much about the restrictions of "class," because their developing abilities and their expanding re- sponsibilities cause their "class" from year to year, or decade to decade, to change ! Education will, of course, have much to do with the ability of such men to expand their powers as rapidly as the job may require. But we undoubtedly assign too great an importance to the schools when we assume that differ- ences of education are, in themselves and alone, mainly Digitized by Microsoft® "FULL UP!" 291 responsible for the ordinary differences of "class." Edu- cational facilities have to depend for their effectiveness upon their use. They will not be used if their users find no "berth" which permits the practical — and the properly recognized — ^application of the newly developed abilities. This depends upon the width or narrowness of that margin between the number of jobs and the number of persons who need them. In the same way this same national margin must be kept constantly in mind in trjdng to understand the p3,rt played by the labor unions. He confuses results with causes who considers them the most important and compelling part of modern British industry. They are, perhaps, the most out- standing. They do, perhaps, try to exert too strong a pressure in certain directions. But, after all is said and done, they must be seen as organized agencies by which the worker aims to adapt himself to that scarcity of the job, and to that scarcity of both social and industrial oppor- tunity which follows close upon it. Finding the job and then holding it against the possibility of all arbitrary tyranny — ^the prime importance of at least these two ser- vices of the union is driven home into men's very souls every time the gaffer shrugs his shoulder and utters that dreadful but decisive "Full up !" But these two functions of the union are only the begin- ning. At every stage the worker — ^like everybody else- is facing the question of method raised by his self-respect: "You wish, of course, to 'get on' and 'count' and be somebody if at all possible. All right. But howf Will you try it by yourself or with your fellow workers? Will you go it alone or with your trade, your class, or, in short, your union?" Ordinarily the man who finds the going good "on his own" seldom feels the necessity of joining his group, even though he has to meet the heavy pressure ex- cited to obtain his class loyalty. Where, however, jobs Digitized by Microsoft® 292 FULL UP AND FED UP are so scarce that it is over-risky to leave one place in the hope of a better, then the only elevator up is likely to appear the one which his group, or class, is able to organize. Thus the craft or trade-union develops for maintaining the indus- trial and social status of the steamfitters, for instance, in comparison with the electrical workers, and for advancing the standing of them both in comparison with all the rest of us. The nation-wide acceptance of the British union can, therefore, be seen as a practical acknowledgment of the lessened opportunity of the individiial. Only one form of opposition to these group, or class stairways will, in the long run, succeed in directing into other channels the huge pressure of men's wish ,to beUeve in themsfelves and their individual worth — their increasing individual worth. That is the form which arranges to furnish so large a measure of opportunity to each individual, as an individual, as to make hiTvi unwilling to accept the mass measures of the union at the price asked. In the same way, also, the causes of wide-spiead restriction of output go down deep, not simply into unionism, but to the more fundamental conditions which call forth the de- sire for unionism and its works. Let a man live for years under the daily pressure of that narrow margin between job and no job, let him observe, day after day, that when some men work it appears to mean that for exactly that reason other men cannot work, then the most important factor in his whole life is sure to be the conviction that there simply isn't enough work to go 'round. To us it may seem very selfish that such a man is unwilling, under the circumstances, to give himself the satisfaction of a good day's work. Personally I am sure that the averageiworker would rather have that satisfaction every night than to carry home his dinner pail with the knowledge that he has spent his day in shirking. The ambitious but unhappy Digitized by Microsoft® "FULL UP!" 293 worker at the gate of the Wdolwich arsenal is only one among scores of others whom I can recall in both countries. The trouble is that, especially in Britain, but also, to an enormously greater extent than ought to be true, in America, the worker has been taught by his own sad experience to consider that such spiritual satisfaction for himself may rob some other fellow worker of his very bread and butter ! Still further, and finally, it is that same "Full up!" which makes the craft strike an extremely costly tool for the holding of established class or trade advantages, or the gaining of new ones. In the nature of the case, the strike's seriousness -to the worker increases very rapidly where the margin of living is already very narrow in his particular field, and more or less non-existent in other related lines into which he might beat a retreat. This means that these narrow-margin workers will make great effort to strengthen themselves by amalgamation with their friends who pos- sess both the wider margins and the greater influence of more skilled jobs. It also means that in a country of nar- row margins such an amalgamation will try to save the cost of the strike wherever possible by developing the power of its political influence. , It is necessary, as we have seen, to have this latter devel- opment very much in mind in order to imderstand the set- ting pf the present stage of British industry. Doubtless it is even more necessary to keep it in mind in connection with the near future. But before discussing that we ought to ask this question: "If these various considerations have followed upon the gradual lessening of industrial opportunity under the pres- sure of the gaffer's 'Full up!' during the course of many years, what has happened to give this chronic situation so acute a phase at this particular tinae?" Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER X "FED UP I" The answer to that question appears to me to be this: The British citizen in general — ^also the British worker in particular — ^is tired. Tired and therefore touchy — danger- ously touchy — "Fed up 1" This condition is due partly to the long continuance, in certain districts, of such living conditions as Glasgow's. These, in turn, are one result of the country's age. Build- ings erected a hundred years ago in a growing city are more difficult of renovation than we Americans find it easy to understand. Ancient working conditions, likewise, in Lq- dustries operated for generations are not easily replaced with up-to-date arrangements. The same pressure of the scanty job which holds a man to a "berth" in spite of its bad con^ditions, holds him also to the same tenement — ^all the unhappier, perhaps, at the thought of his luckier friends employed in one of the country's garden-factory-cities. Upon such a worker the ease of access to the sport fields, op the attractive meadows surrounding the average town ov small city is a moderating influence of great importance. The influence of the "pub" and its position as the social centre of the community is, on the whole, distinctly bad. Between the condition of our muscles and the moral con- victions of our "mentals" a very close connection is con- titiuously maintained by those ever-present and ever-active liaison officers known as our feelings. As the result of theii efforts we should expect that the physical conditions under which a considerable proportion of Britain's unskilled workers live and work would induce moral convictions more Digitized byWicrosoft® "FED UP!" 295 or less antagonistic if not revolutionary. During the course of years and decades, however, the depressed groups born and raised into the manifest fixedness of their condition, and dulled by the dreary and deceptive ministrations of John Barleycorn, would probably grow less and less artic- ulate. Such groups would require something in the nature of a crisis to bring their misery into any unmistakable form of utterance. The war has furnished this crisis. Its strains have come in every plane, physical, mental, and spiritual. These have brought the usual result of "Tiredness and Temper." As might be expected, this "T and T," or "T 'n' T," has demonstrated its usual pres- sure toward some explosive outlet. The outbreaks of un- rest and of disorder have been the result. One great spiritual barrier between America and Europe is that we have found it so difficult to comprehend the intensity of the "Great Fatigue." This is undoubtedly among the most important spiritual factors in the whole present European situation. To be sure, we have ourselves experienced an extreme "let-down" from the high elations of our great enterprise — a let-down which shows itself in practically every department of our Uving. Nevertheless, it is certain that we have largely failed to appreciate the full intensity of the war weariness which has followed from the strains of the war upon peoples for whom it was not only much longer but also infinitely more serious and vital than for us. The colossal physical strains of the long years of conflict and the spiritual elations required for enduring them,, these together have set the stage for nation-wide — ^yes, world- wide — disappointment and unhappiness. By millions the fighters of the victorious nations came home to enjoy the blessings of peaceful and, therefore, presumably, of normal, comfortable life. Almost everywhere the post-armistice Digitized by Microsoft® 296 FULL UP AND FED UP political campaigns promised that comfort, improvement, and general amelioration which, in the hearts of all, was required to make the world worth all the blood which had been shed to save it. Every country was to be made "fit for heroes to live in." So we all, as it were, turned down the covers preparatory to the first good snooze in years, anticipatiag our waking in the new era of our war-bought aspirations. And then it happened! Just at that very moment our weary ears were assailed with the wailings and waulings of those unruly war babies known as the high cost' of liviug, dislocated and demoralized economic statuses and relationships, perplexed statesmen, puzzled leaders, and, finally, to cap the climax, millions of balky buyers ! The Great P ace has brought not peace but a mass of social, political, and economic problems of such a breadth and depth and height as the civilized world has never seen before. Those problems require for their solution wider information, broader experience, and deeper sympathy than has ever been given to the most thoughtful citizen or the most experienced statesman. That in itself would be bad enough. What is much worse is this: the problems brought us by the Great Peace have to be solved with the depleted physical, moral, and spiritual strength left us by the Great War. New and unexpected difficulties and obstructions have been piled upon the older ones. The imwonted and mis- understood wearinesses and weaknesses of the war have been piled high upon the weaknesses and wearinesses of genera- tions. In Britain hundreds of thousands of those young men who have been regularly trained and counted upon to play their part in working difficult things out, hkve never yet re- turped from the day they marched off as volunteers to death ! The situation, surely, is enough to try men's patience. Yes, and to break it ! So it is not strange if that "pressure from beneath," which is exerted by milUons of workers in such a time and Digitized by Microsoft® "FED UP!" 297 in such a mood, comes to have, m Britain, a cutting edge— ^ or, perhaps better, a needle-point which has threatened to prick the deUcate fabric of the whole great dirigible of the nation's life. For exactly this, threat came in the form of the great coal strike. The lengths to which that ever-present pres- sure from beneath may go when the mood of men is bad, was never better demonstrated than by the unwilUngness of the strikers — against the advice of their leaders — to allow the manning of the mine pumps. That meant that they were desperately willing to run the risk of ruining not only their country's but their own means of hveUhood. As might be expected, my buddies and fellow workers in the Rhondda mine figured conspicuously in the cabled accounts of the assaults made on the volunteers sent in to serve the pumps. That strike has finally been settled, not by nationalization but by recourse to "standard wages, standard profits, and profit-sharing" — ^phrases of which much more is likely to be heard in future. But the pressure of the lower part of the British working world has by no means been completely relieved. "Bob" Smillie would doubtless say again, as before, that it is still "a race between sociaUsm and revolu- tion," not to mention the established order as another con- testant. The question is, can the pressure which arises out of men's moods under the compulsions of that chronic "Full up!" be given in these critical and acute "Fed up!" days an outlet suflScient to avoid explosion? "Aye, we moost 'ave order," one of my miner friends used to say. His mood represents the traditional tendency of the Briton. This traditional view-point can be expected to stand strain far beyond the point where other workers might blow up. On the other hand, there is at the moment of writing a new danger factor. That is the joblessness of millions of British workers. This, as I well know, is capable Digitized by Microsoft® 298 FULL UP AND FED UP of driving the most conservative of men into desperation through the deadliness of its demoralization — ^its daily, cumulative demoralization. Still further, this joblessness takes away from the worker the use of his usual industrial tool of the strike. It accordingly favors the use of political, instruments — ^and more than a few of the labor leaders are convinced that even these are too cxmibersome for getting the relief demanded by workers who are too fagged and "Fed up" to be squeamish about method. On the T^hole, however, revolution is hardly likely, at least for the present. Of course it is quite conceivable that such an acute situation will result in putting the Labor party in power. But that is a much less extreme matter than we in America are apt to assume. With such a man as Arthur Henderson or J. H. Thomas for its Prime Minister any sudden modification of social or economic policy is hardly to be expected. The real question is: "After the Labor party, what?" For imdoubtedly the millions who exert that pressure from beneath will be disappointed by what the Labor party's leaders will be able quickly to accomplish in re- modelling the complicated situation of these present days into something nearer to the heart's desire of the nation. Those who have never carried responsibility for solving great problems generally assume that the possession of the power is all that is needed. They have seen |ihe govern- ment make the wheels of the whole country go round for the successful winning of the war. They are convinced that Lloyd George and his associates possess to-day all the power for the curing of the country's iUs. The difficulty is that the hands of these are withheld from the act of curing because their own personal selfishness and greed are served by this withholding. Disappointment is, accordingly, sure to come when the workers put their leaders into full posi- tion to apply their sympathetic hands for the sovereign Digitized by Microsoft® "FED UP!" 299 cure and then behold them, for some Strange reason, hesi- tant — ^with the ills of high cost of living, unemployment, etc., still persisting ! In such a case I can hear my friends sajring over their beer: "A fair wash-out they are — like all the rest of 'um ! Speakin' us fine words till they get their canes and their fine clothes and all, and then forgettin' of us!" "True enough," will then come the answer of the extrem- ists and the revolutionists. " They've let you down, all right. Now give us the chance !" The worker's answer to that appeal will depend not so much upon his thinking as upon his feeling at the moment — ^upon his mood. That mood, in turn, will depend upon the ability of the leaders of the present and the early future — ^whether they are of the Labor Party or of the present government — to assuage by degrees the acuteness of that dangerous "Fed up" spirit and to direct its pressure into constructive channels for the betterment of the Hfe of all the country's workers. This, it appears to me, can only be accompHshed by lesseniag ra some way the pressure of that everlasting "Full up !" With hardly a moment's hesitation the great majority of Britain's labor leaders and also of its "iatellectuals" would reply that there is only one way to do this: either eliminate entirely or enormously restrict the possibihty of private profit. Accoi-ding to a few, one way to do this would be by means of the guild socialism which would or- ganize the different fields of commerce and industry into a democracy practically free from the "mawster" and his profits. According to more, the better way is to so enlarge the powers of government in combination with the work- ers as to eliminate the present inequaUties due to capitalism, and at the same time avoid the wastes and inefficiencies of ordinary bureaucratic control. Such weeks as those already described make it very easy Digitized by Microsoft® 300 FULL UP AND FED UP 'for any one to sympathize with those who feel that the established arrangement of matters social and industrial in Britain must somehow be made to show improvement on behalf of millions of humans — ^huge improvement. At the same time the same short weeks make an observer wonder whether those who hope and work for radical change ar^^ not too close to see fully the complications tutroduced into the problem by two considerations — two considerations which appear to a visitor particularly to distinguish the in- dustrial situation in Great Britain. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER XI HOW MANY JOBS TO A NATION? Of these two considerations the first is this: Within the last few 'years the socialization of the job by means of the sociaUzation of the state has become more a matter of in- ternational relations and policy than of national. This has special bearing on the case of Great Britain. It is only necessary to Uve where jobs are scarce in order to learn that the job is one of the realest and most vital forms of prop- erty. Those who live where this appreciation is general come altogether easily to the belief that government should con- cern itself immensely more with the property of jobs — with wages, hours, and other job conditions — and unmensely less with the property of bricks and acres, stocks and con- tracts. Inhere on the job is where most men Uve — especially those whose most compeUing fact is the narrowness of their money margin. It must be said that the law-makers find it difficult to meet the workers there. These, on the other hand, find it very difficult to see any coimection between their pay envelopes and the country's commissioner of commerce at the capital, or its ambassador abroad — ^mat- ters which appear of so much concern to the law-makers. Nevertheless, it is to-day impossible to talk about the maintenance of jobs, and of the conditions of living which depend upon them, without keeping in mind, at the same time, the exigencies of commercial competition, with other nations. Thus labor and government come in these present days to have about as much trouble understanding each other as labor and capital. "Before the war it cost in wages 6s. lid. to produce a Digitized byWicrosoft® 302 FULL UP AND FED UP ton of coal," said Lloyd George to the British people, in the effort to convince them that the wages and profit^ men- tioned by the miners are not constants like "a" or "b," but highly undependable and uncertain "x's" in the Equation of the nation's jobs and economics, and therefore of its government. "Last year it cost 25s. 9d. in wages to pro- duce a ton, and by February that had gone up to 27s. That is, ft costs four times as much in wages to produce a ton as it did before the war. That does not mean that the wages hav^ gone up four times, but that the output per man has come down. Before the war one maxL would turn out in a day twenty-one hundredweight. Last year one man turned out fifteen and one-half hundredweight. Think of that over hundreds of thousands of men — increased wages, diminished hours, diminished output, impaired efficiency, costs all around going up. How can we compete in the markets of the world with that goiag on? Fpr one reason and another the output in^ America has gone up, very largely due to improved machinery and to the fact that the coal seams in America are very much thicker than ours. You cannot use machinery in our coal pits that you can use in some of the American pits. That makes it more incumbent that vs^e should do everything to reduce the cost in this country. It is our only chance." It is easy for the worker to believe that he would have a steady job every day if only the present system did not make it to the "mawster's" interest occaSonally to close down his plant in order to let consumption catch up with production. Following that it is stiU easier to make "the great assumption" — ^namely, that when private profit is' taken out of industry by means of govemipent operation, then all motive and all cause for unemployment ceases. Unfortunately, however, the question remains for the gov- enunent or for the private manager: "Can coal be raised ia South Wales on a basis which will permit, first, successful Digitized by Microsoft® HOW MANY JOBS TO A NATION? 30^ competition with other ^coal in the world's markets, and second, a fairly normal and comftirtable Ufe to the miner?" The answer need not necessarily be a matter of wages and hours. That is a national or even a local affair. It must, however, be a question of something quite different, namely of wages per ton — of labor costs per unit of production. That is not only a matter of international interest, but of the most vital national and local importance. There is, to be sure, one way in which the disagreeable compulsions of this situation can be avoided. That is by seeing to it that all the competing nations arrange to socialize, or, as it were, "de-profit-ize" themselves at the same time, and so adapt their various relationships upon the basis entirely of ser- vice. As long as the prospects for this are as remote as they appear at the present moment, the disagreeable fact remains that dopaestic operation must depend upon inter- national competition as determined, in turn, by that ty- rannical factor of wages per ton. And that has now ev- erywhere become, like modern warfare, a matter of the organization of pretty much the entire resources of the nation. So the covering of those bottoms leaving the South Wales ports may demand the strength, the good-will, and the intelligence not only of the country's miners,' owners, and managers, but also of the nation's inventors, economists, psychologists, philosophers, and statesmen. The successful meeting of this vital challenge is undoubt- edly aided by the co-operative movement. This is now said to serve something like a third of the population, and doubtless increases to a definite extent the buying power of the wage dollar. On the other hand, the challenge is not in the least dodged or lessened in the long run by the na- tional- institution of unemployment insurance. As has only recently been demonstrated, the whole of British industry comes to a halt shortly after its exports, become no longer salable abroad. With British industry halted, the income Digitized by Microsoft® 304 FULL UP AND FED UP for the pajdng of the unemployment "doles" comes shortly to an end. Neither employer, employee, nor government can pay its share. At the same time it is conceivable that the plan may help to get from aU these interested parties the attention needed for solving the real problem — the problem, namely, of increasing the number of jobs — regular jobs. ' Definite steps in this direction of lowering production and distribution costs are said to be receiving the attention of the country. These include the projected tunnel under the English Channel, plans for obtaining cheap power from the tides of Bristol Bay, from the watercourses of Scotiland and other parts of the country, and the "Cross Canal" for connecting practically all parts of industrial England. It is quite conceivable, also, that the government might plan early and extensive developments for transforming coal into electric power at or near pit-head, in line with the pro- posals of the Labor party. But it must be said that any government is pretty sure^ to find the early future unfriendly to these proposals, how- ever helpful they may prove in the long run to the reduc- tion of unit costs. For such projects are sure to call for additional increases in budgets already staggering. My weeks in the mine town made me feel certain that such expenditures would be a long time in appealing to the workers and^their pockets, even though their value might be apparent to their party leaders. For the most part, accordingly, the number of British jobs win have to depend upon the condition of British in- dustry as a whole. That, in turn, must depend almost entirely upon the opportunities for British sales in the markets of the world. The real question then remains as before, whether these sales can be best advanced by means of the governmental or the private operation of such basic industries as coal, transportation, etc. Digitized by Microsoft® HOW MANY JOBS TO A NATION? 305 The second consideration stands in the way of success by the first of these methods and to a less extent in the way of success by the second. It is this: All groups of people in Britain seem still to accept and practise the old "lump of labor" theory as propounded by the early English econoroists. The whole British pubUc, that is, tends to assume that in any country the number of jobs must, in the nature of the case, be definitely limited and fixed — ^must be an "a" or a "b" instead of an "x." This backs up that manifest "Full up!" and provides the social justification of the leisure class, and of the division between one's real interests and one's job. It also helps to the more or less general practice and acceptance of the idea of the restric- tion of output. Following close upon all this goes what might be called the "lump of trade" idea — that the busi- ness of the world also runs within strictly limited boun- daries. Thus a certain distributor encountered a great deal of opposition to his establishing a distribution centre in London. It was assumed that his entry would subtract just exactly that much business from those already there. As a matter of fact, by the exhibition of an amazing amount of imagination in creating new wants in the minds of the district's buyers he felt that he had considerably increased their total expenditures not only for the benefit of himself but also of his competitors. To be sure, this tradjitional "lump of labor" theory is substantiated by the fixedness of class lines. For a most serious factor of this fixedness is that it comes to mean a fixedness of class abihty to develop wants and needs, and, therefore, to consume goods. Nothing is more certain than that the consumer is after all the employer of the employer and all his employees. The number of a country's jobs, ac- cordingly, becomes in a considerable degree fixed and lim- ited the moment the consmnptive power is fixed for any large number of its inhabitants. In addition to this eco- Digitized by Microsoft® 306 FULL UP AND FED UP nomic evil of "class" a serious count of the sau^e sort can be made against John Barleycorn. Without doubt he serves immensely to prevent that expansion of consumptive power which might otherwise normally be expected to fol- low upon the increased earning power and purchasing power which has come to the British worker as the result of the war. The vicious circle of all this is given a still further twist by that national approval of flaying safe — of holding jobs. One of the forms of this is the wide-spread overvaluation of experience as compared with study. This results in building a wall of discouragepaent to keep out those who might try to get onto the job by the paths of scientific train- ing. This discouragement of the scientific view-point, when taken into consideration with the non-expanding wants of great groups, thus produces in actuality a situa- tion which appears thoroughly to justify the theory of the fixedness of jobs and opportunity. Increasing the skill of the manager and the inventor through better technical and commercial education would appear one real way of breaking the hold of that vicious circle. -Luckily more and more of the country's young men are entering the technical schools, and more and more of the university-bred men are entering business. If the uni- versities could introduce more courses for the psychology of trade and its relationships, a very real gain would doubt- less be made. For the graduates of such coui'ses would wish to do more than simply maintain the industrial enter- prise in the same conditions and within the same limits as inherited. That would mean taking a risk — setting at naught the national insistence upon security. But the enjoyment of that risk would be necessary in order to make life interesting to the young man who came into the fac- tory or office with a full quota of technical training or prac- tical psychology itching for application. In the face of Digitized by Microsoft® HOW MANY JOBS TO A NATION? 307 urgent national necessity the unions would also doubtless diow reasonable wil|lingness to relax their present restric- tions. Without doubt, further greatly increased scientific at- tention could well be paid to increasing the country's ability to raise 'food — ^and so to increase those seven millions now fed by the country's agriculture. Just what has become of Iloyd George's original efforts to attack this problem ^by increasing land values and land taxes, nobody seems fully to understand. It is doubtless one of the larger casualties of the war. Perhaps the most valuable of the results following upon such steps would be the lessened pressure for jobs and the consequently greater opportunity; for the public to see how their number may be affected by planning. Such observa- tion might help displace the old idea of their fixedness. Such displacement appears to me of the highest importance not only to the maintenance of a proper standard of living for Britain''s workers, but also to nothing less than the peace of the world. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER XII THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE AND "INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE EVOLUTION" The British nation has secured its commercial pre^ eminence mainly by means of its ability to compete success- fully in the international market. This has come largely, in turn, from the world-wide investment of British capital. International financing has greatly helped to the indis- pensable international selling. Without doubt, also, a very considerable factor has come from the low price of British goods, gained largely by the low wages paid British labor. That cheapness has heretofore made it largely uimeces- sary for the British manufacturer to cut corners in costs per ton by means of either scientific production or scientific distribution. The war has now put an end to cheap British labor. All the force of the British workers has been strongly organized to make effective resistance toward any attempt to maintain British goods in world markets by means of a return to the cheap British labor of pre-war times. The question of continuing in foreign world markets by means of low unit costs together with high daily wages presents, therefore, to the British nation one of the most serious situations it has ever known. One of its university philos- ophers has lately said that within a hundred years or so England would be a clean, smokeless, residential district, to which the successful employers and officials of the provinces would retire. The manufacturers of goods and the work- ing population would have left England and gone out to the colonies for their raw materials. After the reduction and fabrication of these into the goods of commerce, they Digitized by Microsoft® THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 309 would be shipped directly to the point of need. Word comes from England at this moment that the necessity of exporting a considerable part of the population is already receiving more serious'^attention than ever before. This in itself is made more than ordinarily difficult as the result of the high cost of ships — and therefore of transportation, following the high cost of labor. Unfortunately, too, the colomes as well as practically every other part of the world, are equally afflicted just now with unemployment. But we must not here be led off into discussing the far future, nor into too close a consideration of the present and more or less transitory phase of unemployment in both Great Britain and the rest of the world. Doubtless within a year or two the present general unemployment will pass. Even after that, however, Great Britain will continue to be a land of scarce jobs, and also, probably, a land where the lump of lalpor and the liunp of trade theory will be at the base of much pf the country's thought about itself and its international competitors. It is not tpo much to say that the peace of the world will be a difficult matter unless this idea of the fixed limitation of the number of jobs can somehow be robbed of its inten- sity not only in Great Britain but in other countries of Europe. This can probably only be accompKshed by a substitution. Such a substitution would put in the place of the lump of labor and the lump of trade ideas the philos- ophy of what might be called "Creative Evolution in Busi- ness." This philosophy would propose that there can be lio fixed and limited number of jobs in the world, and there- fore in any nation, simply because there can be no fixed and limited mmiber of human needs and human demands for goods and services. To increase industrial jobs, it is only necessary to make sure to^ allow the free development of human needs. An industrially crowded country, accord- ingly, is not a matter of too many people per square mile, Digitized by Microsoft® 310 FULL UP AND FEB UP / bull rather too many potential producers in comparison with the consumption powers of the accessible local or forei^;. markets. Who can say that 1930 may not see the development of some now unknown field which, like the motor industry, will satisfy an entirely new himaan need and give jobs to its thousands and tens of thousands? Who knows but that the masses of China or the islands of the sea may, ten years from now, consume millions of pounds sterling of goods which, though perfectly familiar to us to-day, are yet perfectly unheard of by them, or at least quite definitely outside their present powers of consumption. If this is true, then any people has much to do if it is to make sure that the consumptive powers of all its groups are constantly helped to enlarge up to the limits permitted by that indispensable competitive cost per ton, and by the equally insistent need of cheap capital to be obtained from their savings. la addition, every people through its gov- ernment or otherwise, must give close attention to thfe con- servation of its natural resources. For these provide, to a great extent, the natural reservoir out of which the nation digs its jobs. Still further, it will be forced to give close attention to its relations with the outer world. Otherwise it will be unable to put its industries into effective contact with either those fully developed nations or with those hinterland peoples of the world which, from year to year, emerge at the margin of interests and demands which favor their consumption of modem machine-made goods. Such an evolving demand must, of course, be met by constantly increased scientific operation and scientific man- agement unless the competitive success is to be won merely by cheap labor. That alternative is, by all means, to be avoided. In the nature of the case, it has to be paid for in terms of the decreased consumption powers of the local or domestic working millions. Digitized by Microsoft® THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 31J All this will not at all prevent increased competition among the nations, but such increased competition will find itself tin contact with constantly larger and larger markets built jip by constantly increased human needs. As long as the piaximum of such needs is in a position to express itself, a successful competitor might easily succeed either in de- veloping new demands, or in cheapening his products to new levels of availability. This would, perhaps,' mean not a lessening but an increase of the business of others. In- ternally, accordingly, each people will have the responsi- bility of advancing the general well-being by seeing that within the national area the results of the evolving maxi- mum of needs are shared with the maximimi of fairness between producers, distributors, and consumers at all points of the circle. The moiAent the interests of any of these ajre unfairly affected the interests of all are bound to suffer. It is entirely conceivable that something like "standard wage, standard profit, and profit-sharing" will be found to assist effectively toward such fairness. A variety of plans for fuller co-operation between the different groups could be named. In any event, when such fairness has been ob- tained, the process of the creative evolution becomes a circle beneficent at every point — ^more busdng power for the tnasses, more demands for goods, more jobs, more skill for permitting low labor costs without low wages, cheaper products, more buying power, more demands, etc., etc. At present the tendency of governments to build up navies opposes all this. It is assumed that these navies serve their piu^jose only when the situation becomes acute-;- that they are more or less useless until their guns are fired. As a matter of fact, the mere existence of those guns is utilized for its psychological power from day to day to back up the interests of the country's producers and distributors in foreign markets. The moment, then, that a nation's ability to meet international competition becomes en- Digitized by Microsoft® 312 FULL UP AND FED UP dangered, whether through the lack of properly scientific processes of production or distribution, the tendency is constantly to depend more and more upon the psychologi- cal assistance of armaments. Quite naturally, therefore, the next wprld war will be a war for jobs — ^unless the world can somehow cease to consider that the number of jobs is definitely fixed and limited. The great opportunity, therefore, for the League of Nations — or its substitute — ^is to provide a means whereby to help develop the needs of the various races, and then to aid in making the circle of their satisfaction through the industries of their own or other countries as universally fair and beneficent as possible. If it did nothing more than gather and distribute, on a world-wide basis, information regarding the needs, the resources, and the capacities of the different parts of the complex world circle of needers and servers, it would become indispensable, for this of itself, would serve enormously to develop those international ser- vices which are only the reverse side of international needs. Such information and the resultant adjustment of services and benefits might of itself suffice to develop such under- standings as would prevent the need of protecting jobs by killing off or "hog-tying" competitors with the help of cannon. Even such an information service would also make it enormously easier than now for all of us to see that the circle of unlimited creative evoliition means that the well- being — ^the maximum well-being — of every nation is a mat- ter of genuine concern to every other nation. The can- celled automobile orders from Great Britain brought the first "lay-offs" for America's workers in Detroit and Cleve- land in the fall of 1920. Those cancellations followed di- rectly upon the lowered value of the pound sterling. This in turn was one direct result of the unhappiness of my miner friends in South Wales. Every country is now on the Digitized by Microsoft® THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 313 watch against the admittance of the Bolshevist agitator. But he does no harm unless he finds an audience among great groups of listeners who are "fair oon'appy," as in the Rhondda mining town. The roof of Great Britain cannot suffer the cracks and strains produced by those revolution- ary songs of my miner friends on "the bottom" without threatening the jobs of Anierica,n workers. And nothing threatens the normal current of men's thinking and convic- tions so much as the threatening of their jobs. No one knows at this moment how many months of unemployment in America will be required before millions of men may get into that same dangerous "Fed up !" mood. In every part of the world the workers here must have consumers there. For ourselves it is said that our productive capacities, in- creased as they have been by th6 war, cannot be fully occu- pied unless fully 20 per cent of our output is exported. "British Strike's End Helps Cotton Here. Final Prices Show Gain of 19-31 Points," according to a Wall Street head-line of June 29. The labor problem has thus become before our eyes a problem of the relations no longer between the employees, the employers, and the pubUc within the national unit, but in- stead a problem of the relations between producers, dis- tributers, and consumers located and expressing themselves and their needs throughout the whole world circle. Unless these relations are maintained froni month to month and year to year by that highly fragile twine of international understanding, ^ the hold of the huskiest palm upon the heaviest shovel in the most remote ditch must be looseiied. There can to-day, therefore, be no understanding of the essentials of the labor problem except as we see it in terms of .the international conditions which favor the increased development of world-wide human well-being. That, and that alone, is bound to bring with it that development of increased human needs which is indispensable to the de- Digitized by Microsoft® 314 FULL UP AND FED UP velopment of increased facilities of produtetion and dis- tribution for meeting them — ^in other words, of jobs. The complexity of this new phase of not only world com- merce but of domestic coromerce as well has been , de-, posited upon the door-step not only of the ordinary modem factory but also of the ordinary modem home. It is enough to peiplex the most intelligent of statesmen, politi- cal or industrial. It is hardly to be solved simply by the laborers taking over full responsibility for the solution. Not at least as long as the average working man — ^as also, for that matter, the average college graduate — sympathizes so thoroughly with the complaint of my Glasgow friend: " W'y should we bother with exchynge? W'y not let every nation have its francs or its dollars and we 'ave our pounds and pence — ^and everybody go his own wye and be 'appy?" As a matter of fact, I beUeve the American worker has a much greater desire to share the satisfactions of the steady and self-respecting properly appreciated job than he has to share the management of the enterprise that gives the ^job. The British worker, being more unhappy with his job and its chances, feels more generally that the only way to obtain the larger satisfaction of the steady job is for him to displace the inefficient capitalist manager. On the whole, it is my belief that Jhe average American worker woiild come closer to succeeding on the job of management than would the British worker of the game or corresponding status. On the other hand, I am perfectly sure that both would exhibit amazing progression their abiUty to h^idle increased responsibility if given norw a larger opportunity to share the satisfactions of the daily job and its doing. Such a gradual development of responsibility is more likely to furnish a practicable way of advance because its progress and its speed will depend upon the ability of both managers and workers to secure each other's confidence through the closer relations and the demonstration of their dependa- Digitized by Microsoft® THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 315 bility pennitted by constantly growing co-operation there at the normal point of contact, the job^ "It is idle to argue," so Mr. Hoover has said,, "that there are no conflicts between the employer and the em- ployee. But there are wide areas of activity in which their interests should coincide, and it is the part of statesmanship to organize this identity of interests." I venture to assert that there are not 5 per cent of Ameri- can factories which could not save great sums of money if they could obtain those suggestions for improving even the simplest of their jobs which would be gladly given by em- ployees whose good-will and self-respect had been increased by means of greater security and responsibility in the doing of the daily job. The same identity of interests between the various na- tions is to be found not within the factory, but within the world market. Certainly that world market is large enough to permit the utmost of friendship between Great Britain and ourselves. Nothing so threatens the peace of the world at this moment as the recent diflEiculties of understanding between these two nations. Altogether it would look as though the threat made by the Sinn Feiner there at Glas- gow had been put into operation and the definite attempt made to further war between the two countries. But if Great Britain and ourselves, with all that both the present and the past have to say about the identity of our inter- ests, cannot live in peace with each other, then this old world is not worth saving and the late war is proven the most tragic joke of history ! It is worth noticing, however, that it is in trade and not in politics that sore spots between these two — ^and between all other twos — ^will threaten. These will threaten all the more quickly if we fail to appreciate that America, in com- parison with Great Britain, is the land of the abundant job. In all humility, too, we should appreciate that we live in Digitized by Microsoft® 316 FULL UP AND FED UP the land of the abundant job, not so much because of the American view-point as because of the American raw ma- terials, not so much because of our initiative and imagina- tion as of our iron ore and mountains of copper — ^because of our natural rather than our spiritual resources. Our own problems have been comparatively easy because until re- cently men could find a way out of the evil conditions of a factory or a faptory city 1 y going out to the free land of the frontier. Our frontier in America is now gone. We have therefore entered a new era in our national life. That era brings with it, and will increasingly bring with it, prob- lems much more nearly resembUng those of a crowded country than any we have ever known before. Luckily our producers and our distributers have given to the proc- esses of both production and distribution an unparalleled study. This study has included the phenomena of the finest and most sensitive reactions having to do with the development and direction of human needs in the midst of the human relations of modem trade and commerce. As a result of this, American competitors to-day accept and practise to an extent unknown elsewhere the doctrine of creative evolution. To an extent unparalleled elsewhere, the sword points of competitive business have been beaten into ploughshares for cultivating fresh crops of buyers. These crops, however, have been grown mainly in the home fields. As we grow closer to the condition of "Full up !" we must more and more take interest in the problem of the successful cultivation of foreign markets. Li all ways, accordingly, our problems will approach those of Great Britaiii to-day. There it comes about naturally enough that the worker pays too much in terms of Oppor- tunity for his Security. Here we pay too much in terms of Security for our Opportunity. And, incidentally, most of us assume too blithely that the opportunity of the old con- tacts in the small machine-shop is carried over by some Digitized by Microsoft® THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 317 strange magic ^nd still exist in our huge plants without the necessity of organized attention. Somewhere between these two extremes lies the efficient and happy nation. , All of us wish there were some easy way of achieving just this. That wish is the father of a vast deal of thinking about this system or that — somethipg that will somehow work while we sleep. But "there ain't no such animal!" The reason is that no scheme of itself will work except as we — ^all of us — ^put behind it all the resources of both our minds and our sjrmpathies in the form of an inteUigent and kindly public opinion. > And there's the rub ! Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER XIII CAN WE GET "THE AIR" TO THE "WORKING FACES" IN THE WORLD FACTORY MINE? Let me put it this way: In college days I worked my passage to Europe as "seo* ond assistant scullion" on a cattle boat. After every meal the pantryman would push back onto the galley tables the dripping-pans of the roasts and other foods left after the first-cabia passengers had been served. "Give that to the engineer's mess to-morrow. This for first-cabin soup to-night." So old Peter, the chef, would decree, like the czar he was. "And that — ^into the 'black pan' with it!" By night the "black pan" would be piled high with a conglomeration of cutlets, potatoes, cabbage, etc., etc. — perfectly good food in the particular, but highly unappetiz- ing in the mass. At eight o'clock there would be a hesi- tating knock at the galley door. "'Tis oor turn for the black pan, sir!" would come in a whisper from a sailor, a stoker, or an oiler. "Black-pan night" was feast night in the forecastle! During the voyage the sailors mildly protested and marched past the captain showing the day's food as provided. They asked for fresh bread once a day ! That instead of the tiny loaves served only twiqe a week — I recall that the first loaf I ever saw when served me as a cattleman the summer preceding looked like salvation from starvation, because the food had beeti practically uneatable. I heard the pantryman say, the night of the "mutiny" that before he'd Digitized by Microsoft® CAN WE GET "THE AIR"? 319 serve fresh bread daily, he'd "see the bloody devils in 'ell first!" Every night of the voyage my mouth watered as I watched him eating the ice-cream which never was allowed to enter the galley. How could such amazing differences in conditions exist on shipboard after they had been so largely abolished else- where? Because a ship suffers always from a bad case of what can be called "compartment-itis." Public opinion on board would correct the s tuation quickly if it had the information, but pubhc opinion was deaf, blind, and dumb — therefore powerless — ^because on the ordinary ship it did not have the facts. The eason it did not have the facts is because steel partitions keep all the different groups apart — smiles apart psychologically, though often scarcely an eighth of an inch apart in actuality. Now the problem of successful ship operation does'not require suddenly asking the stokers to come up and sit in the passengers' chairs, nor to have them and the sailors and the oilers form a committee to supplant the captain. It does involve, doubtless, some plan of representative dealing whereby each group as a whole can have something to say about the conditions of its work — ^that is, about the giving of its golden egg of service. It also requires making sure that the passengers themselves in one form or another, contribute their just quid pro quo for their leisurely enjoy- ment of the chairs. But most of all, the successful opera- tion and safety of the ship-^and that means everybody Jon it — requires that each shall have an inteUigent and sympa- thetic understanding of the service performed by all the others, and so be able to award iH-oportionate recognition of that service in terms of wages, hours, conditions, leisure, and partnership — all the forms that finally spell satisfactions. Without this proportionate recognition of our worth as obtained by the demonstration of our service, the main- spring wthin each and all of us refuses to release its energy. Digitized by Microsoft® 320 FULL UP AND FED UP Each of us continues to lay the golden egg of our service only as long as we observe "a satisfactory proportion between our individual effort and our individual result. A better balance of interests in that circle of needs and services is urgently called for. But neither government, maa- agers, statesmen, workers, nor consumers can work out this matter of balanced recognitions of comparative services by themselves alone. Laws may or may not help-^in the long run it requires an intelligent and sympathetic public opin- ion. In whatever form of society we adopt, the whole ad- justment of the machine will depend upon that. What we have failed to see is that this, in itself, has be- come Wi amazingly difficult affair within the past few years. As the heirs of all the ages, and especially of an dndustriahzed and internationalized world, present-day society suffers from as bad a case of "compartment-itis" as the worst and the oldest of ocean liners. The Uving compartment of the worker is made enormously difficult of access by his working compartment in modern specialized industry. Yet somehow or other that propor- tionate recognition must be got through to the worker at his work if he is to be happy in making his contribution — his indispensable contribution. Take the coal-ncdner, for instance. He constitutes, in my opinion, one of the most pressing and dangerous prob- lems in modem society. The real reason is that his job takes him away off into a separate town in an isolated part of the country, and then carries him, first, a thousand feet into the ground, and then a mile or two back into a dark, small room. By the necessities of his service he lives, as it were, in our very cellars — ^we cannot live without him. Yet we never see him. How can we get through jrom him our understanding of the compulsion of his job, which de- termines, the conditions not only of his living, but of his thinking? And then how can we get through foi him our Digitized by Microsoft® CAN WE GET "THE AIR"? 321 consequent recognition of his worth and his right to a normal life? Well, the mining engineers have had the same problem with ventilation. In the old days it was considered enough, in a small and simple mine, to change the air in the main butts and headings. To-day the miner who feels any stop- page of air "at the face" immediately stops work. It |is there that the gas comes from the coal; it is from there it must be removed. Elaborate laws lay down the number of feet at which' a "break-through" must -be placed whereby the air is continuously circulated right up to the face and away. The "bradish-man," or carpenter, knows that the greatest of disasters can come if, by his carelessness, some door leaks and the air can short-circuit itself in other chan- nels than up to and past the "working faces." To-day all of us millions who earn our living above ground are working ia a vast and complicated array of rqoms in the world-wide mine of modern industry. In the main butts and headings — at the town hall, the polls, the school, cham- ber of commerce, the club, the church — we meet each other and come to know and be known. Our doings there give sUght chance for danger. But at the "working faces" away back ia the darkness of some highly specialized job — ^like the docker's or the hobo's, or the twelve-hour steel worker's — men put their picks into the tiny pockets of danger-gas. SUght volatile little sensations of fatigue or discouragement, unsatisfied hopes, misunderstandings, suspicions — these can never be carried away until somehow we can get the air of pubUc understandings — ^and recognitions — ^better circulated than at present. Because of this, public thinking finds it difficult to under- stand the thoughts of men, not only on their jobs but in their more general lives as citizens. For in these days it is impossible for men to show their qualities as citizens very far apart from their qualities as workers. We live our way, Digitized by Microsoft® 322 FULL UP AND FED UP it cannot be repeated too often, into all the rooms of our thinking infinitely more than we think our way into the rooms of oiu* Uving. For practically everybody, compara- tively speaking, the most driving part of the living of our life is there in the rooms where we earn our living. At this moment there is huge danger in the world factory mine because ventilation has not kept up with the elabora- tion of modem life and work. A vast quantity of men's recognition and understanding of each other is being short- circuited away from "the working faces." As the result, men are showing less interest in their jobs. Then other mil- lions use that lessened activity as an argument to prove that men never want to work anyway — ^that human beings always follow the line of least resistance. That is a lie! Men fol- low the line, not of least resistance, but the line of utmost recog- nitions and satisfactions per unit of effort expended. When the recognitions are short-circuited away from the face, then, of course, men think of laying aside their tools. , The public controls. The public must imderstand its job just now is to get the circulation restored. It must have a larger faith in those who are too far away for it to see. It must fortify that faith wii;h a better understanding of their service, and it must get the manifestation of that larger faith in terms of recognition to the workers at their work. In any system of society it will be just as essential and just as difficult. It is too late to try to solve the prob- lem by going back to the point where every worker was an individual craftsman working in his own shop on the open street. That meani too high costs — and these meant the denial of great fields of service to millions. It is the de- mands of those needs of inexpensive services which, after all, are at the bottom of our "compartment-itis." We must accept it but conquer and subdue it. "Alius mind thot ye keep goin' with the air in yer face !" said the old repairer, down in the darkness one day, when I Digitized by Microsoft® CAN WE GET "THE AIR"? 323 asked how a fellow could get out of a mine after he had lost his light. Men will march by miUions straight up to the cannon's mouth, if only as they move they can feel upon their faces the breath of your recognition and mine of the glory of their exploit — an exploit, made possible only by th^ nobility of their souls. The same hope and hunger is in the same hearts when men arise for the daily job while the whistle blows or the "knocker-up" pursues his noisy way. These men them- selves are no different from the craftsmen and artificers of old. Their prayer— and therefore their power — ^is the same. It is we and our distance from them on the other side of those thin steel compartments of modern life who make more difficult the answer of that prayer. And with- out some answer to that prayer the whole great wheel of the world's life and happiness begins to slow down. "Let us now praise famous men Even the artificer and workmaster, That passeth his time by night as by day; They that cut gravings of signets, And his diligence is to make great variety; He setteth his heart to preserve likeness in his portraiture, And is wakeful to finish his work. So is the smith sitting by the anvil, And considering the unwrought iron; The vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, And in the heat of the furnace doth he wrestle with his work; The noise of the hammer is ever in his ear, And his eyes are upon the pattern of the vessel. He setteth his heart upon perfecting his works. And is wakeful to adorn them perfectly. So is the potter sitting at his work, And turning the wheel about with his feet, ' Who is always anxiously set at his work, Digitized by Microsoft® 324 FULL UP AND FED UP And ail his handiwork is by measure; He f ashioneth the clay with his arm, \ And bendeth its strength in front of his feet; He applieth his heart to finish the glazing, 4nd is wakeful to make clean the furnace.^ All these put their trust in their hands. And each becometh wise in his own works. Yes, though they be not sought for in the council of the people, Nor be exalted in the assembly; Though they sit not on the seat of the judge, Nor understand the covenant of judgment; Though they declare not instniction and judgment, And be not found among them that utter dark sayings; Yet without these shall not a city be inhabited, Nor shall men sojourn or walk up and down therein. Far these maintain the fabric of (he world And in the handiwork 0/ (Aeir craft is their prayer." — Ecdesiaaticua, Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Date Due BRODAP; INC, Cat. No. 23 233 F rinted in U S A Cornell University Library HO 8390. W46 Full up and fed up; the worker's mind in 3 1924 002 788 325 Digitized by Microsoft® Hd Digitized by Microsoft®