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The Web of Life, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Part 1 - Chapter 15 |
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_ Part I Chapter XV These days there were many people on the streets, but few were busy. The large department stores were empty; at the doors stood idle floor-walkers and clerks. It was too warm for the rich to buy, and the poor had no money. The poor had come lean and hungry out of the terrible winter that followed the World's Fair. In that beautiful enterprise the prodigal city had put forth her utmost strength, and, having shown the world the supreme flower of her energy, had collapsed. There was gloom, not only in La Salle Street where people failed, but throughout the city, where the engine of play had exhausted the forces of all. The city's huge garment was too large for it; miles of empty stores, hotels, flat-buildings, showed its shrunken state. Tens of thousands of human beings, lured to the festive city by abnormal wages, had been left stranded, without food or a right to shelter in its tenantless buildings. As the spring months moved on in unseasonable, torrid heat, all the sores of the social system swelled and began to break. The bleak winter had seen mute starvation and misery, and the blasts of summer had brought no revival of industry. Capital was sullen, and labor violent. There were meetings and counter-meetings; agitators, panaceas, university lecturers, sociologizing preachers, philanthropists, politicians--discontent and discord. The laborer starved, and the employer sulked. "The extravagant poor are unwilling to let the thrifty reap the rewards of their savings and abstinence," lectured the Political Economist of the standard school. "The law of wages and capital is immutable. More science is needed." "The rich are vultures and sharks," shrieked the Labor Agitator. "And will ye let your brother starve?" exhorted the Preacher. "For it is as clear as the nose on your face that corporations corrupt legislatures, and buy judges, and oppress the poor," insinuated the Socialist. "It's that wretched free trade," howled the hungry Politician, "and Cleveland and all his evil deeds. See what we will do for you." "Yes, it's free trade," bawled one newspaper. "It's nefarious England," snarled another. "It's the greed of Wall Street, the crime against silver, the burden of the mortgage," vociferated a third. "It's 'hard times,'" the meek sighed, and furbished up last year's clothes, and cut the butcher's bill. "Yes, it's 'hard times,' a time of psychological depression and distrust," softly said the rich man. "A good time to invest my savings profitably. Real estate is low; bonds and mortgages are as cheap as dirt. Some day people will be cheerful once more, and these good things will multiply and yield fourfold. Yea, I will not bury my talent in a napkin." Thus the body social threw out much smoke, but no vital heat; here and there, the red glare of violence burst up through the dust of words and the insufferable cant of the world. The first sore to break, ironically enough, was in the "model industrial town" of Pullman. That dispute over the question of a living wage grew bitterer day by day. Well-to-do people praised the directors for their firm resolve to keep the company's enormous surplus quite intact. The men said the officers of the company lied: it was an affair of complicated bookkeeping. The brutal fact of it was that the company rested within its legal rights. The unreasonable people were dissatisfied with an eighth of a loaf, while their employers were content with a half. Then there was trouble among the mines, and the state troops were called out. Sores multiplied; men talked; but capital could not be coerced. But while politicians squabbled and capitalists sulked and economists talked, a strong tide of fellowship in misery was rising from west to east. Unconsciously, far beneath the surface, the current was moving,--a current of common feeling, of solidarity among those who work by day for their daily bread. The country was growing richer, but they were poorer. There began to be talk of Debs, the leader of a great labor machine. The A. R. U. had fought one greedy corporation with success, and intimidated another. Sometime in June this Debs and his lieutenant, Howard, came to Chicago. The newspapers had little paragraphs of meagre information about the A. R. U. convention. One day there was a meeting in which a committee of the Pullman strikers set forth their case. At the close of that meeting the great boycott had been declared. "Mere bluff," said the newspapers. But the managers of the railroads "got together." Some of them had already cut the wage lists on their roads. They did not feel sure that it was all "bluff." * * * * * It was the first day of the A. R. U. boycott. Sommers left the Athenian Building at noon, for Dr. Lindsay's clients carried their infirmities out of town in hot weather. He took his way across the city toward the station of the Northwestern Railroad, wondering whether Debs's threats had been carried out, and if consequently he should be compelled to remain in town over Sunday. On the street corners and in front of the newspaper offices little knots of men, wearing bits of white ribbon in their buttonholes, were idling. They were quiet, curious, dully waiting to see what this preposterous stroke might mean for them. In the heavy noonday air of the streets they moved lethargically, drifting westward to the hall where the A. R. U. committees were in session. Oblivious of his engagements, Sommers followed them, hearing the burden of their talk, feeling their aimless discontent, their bitterness at the grind of circumstances. This prodigal country of theirs had been exploited,--shamefully, rapaciously, swinishly,--and now that the first signs of exhaustion were showing themselves, the people's eyes were opening to the story of greed. Democracy! Say, rather, Plutocracy, the most unblushing the world had ever seen,--the aristocracy of THOSE WHO HAVE. Thus meditating, he jostled against a group of men who were coming from a saloon. All but one wore the typical black clothes and derby hats of the workman's best attire; one had on a loose-fitting, English tweed suit. In this latter person Sommers was scarcely surprised to recognize Dresser. The big shoulders of the blond-haired fellow towered above the others; he was talking excitedly, and they were listening. When they started to cross the street, Sommers touched Dresser. "What are you doing here?" he demanded abruptly. "What are _you_ doing? You had better get out of town along with your rich friends." He motioned sneeringly at the bag in Sommers's hand. "I fancied you might be up to something of this kind," Sommers went on, unheeding his sneer. "I had enough of that job of faking up text-books and jollying schoolteachers. So I chucked it." "Why did you chuck me, too?" "I thought you might be sick of having me hang about, and especially now that I am in with the other crowd." "That's rot," Sommers laughed. "However, you needn't feel it necessary to apologize. What are you doing with 'the other crowd'?" "I'm secretary of the central committee," Dresser replied, with some importance. "Oh, that's it!" Sommers exclaimed. "It's better than being a boot-licker to the rich." "Like the doctors? Well, we won't quarrel. I suppose you mean to give 'us' a hard time of it? Come in when it is all settled, and we will talk it over. Meantime you've got enough mischief on your hands to last you for some months." "I don't blame you," Dresser said benignantly, "for your position. Perhaps if _I_ had had the opportunities--" "That's just it. Your crowd are all alike, at least the leaders; they are hungry for the fleshpots. If _they_ had the opportunities, _we_ should be served as they are now. That's the chief trouble,--nobody really cares to make the sacrifices. And that is why this row will be ended on the old terms: the rich will buy out the leaders. Better times will come, and we shall all settle down to the same old game of grab on the same old basis. But _you_," Sommers turned on the sauntering blue-eyed fellow, "people like you are the real curse." "Why?" "Because you are insincere. All you want is the pie. You make me feel that the privileged classes are right in getting what they can out of fools and--knaves." "That's about enough. I suppose you are put out about the money--" "Don't be an ass, Dresser. I don't need the hundred. And I don't want a quarrel. I think you are playing with dynamite, because you can't get the plunder others have got. Look out when the dynamite comes down." "It makes no difference to me," Dresser protested sullenly. "No! That's why you are dangerous. Well, good-by. Get your friends to leave the Northwestern open a day or two longer." "There won't be a train running on the Northwestern to-morrow. I've seen the orders." "Well, I shall foot it home, then." They shook hands, and Dresser hurried on after his friends. Sommers retraced his steps toward the station. Dresser's vulgar and silly phrase, "boot-licker to the rich," turned up oddly in his memory. It annoyed him. Every man who sought to change his place, to get out of the ranks, was in a way a "boot-licker to the rich." He recalled that he was on his way to the rich now, with a subconscious purpose in his mind of joining them if he could. Miss Hitchcock's wealth would not be enormous, and it would be easy enough to show that he was not "boot-licker to the rich." But it was hard to escape caste prejudices, to live with those who prize ease and yet keep one's own ideals and opinions. If this woman had the courage to leave her people, to open a new life with him elsewhere--he smiled at the picture of Miss Hitchcock conjured up by the idea. The streets were filthy as always, and the sultry west wind was sweeping the filth down the street canons. Here in the district of wholesale business houses a kind of midsummer gloom reigned. Many stores were vacant, their broad windows plastered with play-bills. Even in the warehouses along the river a strange stillness prevailed. "Nothing was doing," in the idiom of the street. Along the platforms of the railroad company's train house, however, a large crowd of idlers had assembled. They were watching to see whether the trainmen would make up the Overland Limited. Debs had said that this company would not move its through trains if it persisted in using the tabooed Pullmans. Stout chains had been attached to the sleepers to prevent any daring attempt to cut out the cars at the last moment. A number of officials from the general offices were hurrying to and fro apprehensively. There was some delay, but finally the heavy train began to move. It wound slowly out of the shed, in a sullen silence of the onlookers. In the yards it halted. There was a derisive cry, but in a few moments it started again and disappeared. "I guess it's all bluff," a smartly dressed young man remarked to Sommers. "There's the general manager getting into the Lake Forest two-ten, and Smith of the C., B. and Q., and Rollins of the Santa Fe, are with him. The general managers have been in session most of last night and this morning. They're going to fight it out, if it costs a hundred millions." The young man's views seemed to be the popular ones in the Lake Forest train. It was crowded with young business men, bound out of town for their holiday. Not a few were going to the country club at Lake Forest. In this time of business stagnation they were cultivating the new game of golf. There was a general air of blithe relief when the train pulled out of the yards, and the dirty, sultry, restless city was left behind. "Blamed fools to strike now," remarked a fat, perspiring stockbroker. "Roads aren't earning anything, anyhow." The conductor who was taking the tickets smiled and kept his own counsel. "Good time to buy rails, all the same," his companion answered. "I guess this'll yank old Pullman back to town," another remarked, glancing up from his paper. "You don't know him. It won't bother _him_. He's keeping cool somewhere in the St. Lawrence. It's up to the railroads now." "Let's see your clubs. Did you get 'em straight from Scotland? That's a pretty iron." Older men were chatting confidentially and shaking their heads. But the atmosphere was not gloomy; an air of easy, assured optimism prevailed. "I guess it will all come out right, somehow, and the men will be glad to get back to work.... If Cleveland and his free trade were in hell!..." And the train sped on through the northern suburbs, coming every now and then within eyeshot of the sparkling lake. The holiday feeling gained as the train got farther away from the smoke and heat of the city. The young men belonged to the "nicer" people, who knew each other in a friendly, well-bred way. It was a comfortable, social kind of picnic of the better classes. Most of the younger men, and Sommers with them, got into the omnibus waiting at the Lake Forest station, and proceeded at once to the club. There, in the sprawling, freshly painted club-house, set down on a sun-baked, treeless slope, people were already gathered. A polo match was in progress and also a golf tournament. The verandas were filled with ladies. One part of the verandas had been screened off, and there, in a kind of outdoor cafe, people were lunching or sipping cool drinks. At one of the tables Sommers found Miss Hitchcock and Mrs. Porter, surrounded by a group of young men and women who were talking and laughing excitedly. "Ah! you couldn't get the twelve-thirty," Miss Hitchcock exclaimed, as Sommers edged to her. "We waited luncheon for you until the train came; but you are in time for the polo. Caspar is playing--and Parker," she added in a lower tone. "Let us go down there and watch them." Miss Hitchcock detached herself skilfully from the buzzing circle on the veranda, and the two stepped out on the springy turf. The undulating prairie was covered with a golden haze. Half a mile west a thin line of trees pencilled the horizon. The golf course lay up and down the gentle turfy swells between the club-house and the wind-break of trees. The polo grounds were off to the left, in a little hollow beside a copse of oak. There were not many trees over the sixty or more acres, and the roads on either side of the club grounds were marked by dense clouds of dust. Yet it was gay--open to the June heavens, with a sense of limitless breathing space. And it was also very decorous, well-bred, and conventional. As they strolled leisurely over the lawns in front of the club-house, Miss Hitchcock stopped frequently to speak to some group of spectators, or to greet cheerfully a golfer as he started for the first tee. She seemed very animated and happy; the decorative scene fitted her admirably. Dr. Lindsay came up the slope, laboring toward the ninth hole with prodigious welter. "That's the way he keeps young," Miss Hitchcock commented approvingly. "He's one of the best golfers in the club. I like to see the older men showing that they have powers of enjoyment left." "I guess there's no doubt about Lindsay's powers of enjoyment," Sommers retorted idly. They passed Mrs. Carson, "ingeniously and correctly associated," as Miss Hitchcock commented, and little Laura Lindsay flirting with young Polot. Miss Hitchcock quickened her pace, for the polo had already begun. They saw Caspar Porter's little pony fidgeting under its heavy burden. It became unmanageable and careered wildly up and down the field, well out of range of the players. Indeed, most of the ponies seemed inclined to keep their shins out of the melee. Sommers laughed rather ill-naturedly, and Miss Hitchcock frowned. She disliked slovenly playing, and shoddy methods even in polo. When the umpire called time, Parker Hitchcock rode up to where they were standing and shook hands with the young doctor. As he trotted off, his sister said earnestly: "You have done so much for him; we can never thank you." "I don't believe I have done so very much," Sommers replied. He did not like to have her refer to his mission in New York, or to make, woman-wise, a sentimental story out of a nasty little scrape. "I think polo will help him; papa agrees with me now." "Indeed!" Sommers smiled, "What is it that you don't say?" the girl flashed at him resentfully. "Merely, that this is a nice green paddock for a young man to be turned out in--when he has barked his shins. Do you know what happens to the ordinary young man who is--a bit wild?" "Well, let us not go into it. I am afraid of you to-day." "Yes, I am in one of my crude moods to-day, I confess. I had no business to come." "Not at all. This is just the place for you. Nice people, nice day, nice sporty feeling in the air. You need relaxation badly." "I don't think I shall get it exactly here." "Why not?" The girl looked out over the shaven turf, dotted with the white figures of the golfers, at the careering ponies which had begun the new round in the match, up the slope where the club verandas were gay with familiar figures,--and it all seemed very good. The man at her side could see all that and more beyond. He had come within the hour from the din of the city, where the wealth that flowered here was made. And there was a primitive, eternal, unanswerable question harassing his soul. _ |
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