The Co-Citizens Part 10

If by some miracle a modern man should awaken some morning to find himself thrust back a hundred years in time, although in the same place where he had always lived, he could not believe in the reality of a single thing he saw. Every man and every woman would be merely characters in an historical romance. Every sentence he would hear would sound like fiction. All manners and customs would seem exaggerated, sentimental, and he himself would give the impression of being a monster without breeding or a single attribute becoming to proper manhood.

If, on the other hand, he should by some incantation be projected forward only fifty years in time, still in the place of his birth, the effect of unreality would be even more startling, especially if those things should have happened which prophets predict and toward which all progress tends. Conditions would be unendurable, manners offensive. No man would seem quite a man. No woman would seem modest. Clothes, customs, beliefs, ambitions, and ideals would all have changed. And he himself would seem to them a pitiable reversion to type, ludicrously unequal to meeting the emergencies of advanced civilization. In short, there are no lasting standards of living. Education, morals, economics, finance, and politics are only the cards we play every generation in the progressive euchre of evolution. The honesty with which we play the game determines the worth of society.

At the end of a month Jordantown had not undergone so great a metamorphosis as fifty years would make, but it was in the throes of a frightful evolution. The changes already wrought were so amazing that the author may be excused if this record fails to convince the reader of their reality. At least half the citizens themselves did not and could not believe that they were not walking in a hideous nightmare from which they hoped to awaken and find their womankind properly subdued and returned to the less conspicuous sphere of womanhood.

The first bomb exploded when Samuel Briggs resigned as director of the National Bank. Mr. Briggs had been elected to represent the stock owned by the Mosely Estate. He had not only resigned, but he had ventured to propose the name of Mrs. Susan Walton as a suitable person to represent the same stock which was now owned and controlled by the Co-Citizens'

Foundation Fund. He did not add that he had been able to retain his position as agent only by signing a contract with the Board of Trust to obey every instruction given him with all the energy and influence he possessed in the town. This demand, that he should resign as director in favour of Mrs. Walton, was the first test made of his obedience.

Having offered his suggestions Briggs leaned back in his chair, smoked, and stared at the ceiling, while the eleven other directors stared at him with the horror of honest men contemplating an armed traitor.

"If this is going to be a hencoop instead of a bank, I'll draw every dollar I have in it out, and sell my stock to the lowest bidder!"

exclaimed a frowsy old man, clawing his whiskers. This was Thaddeus Bailey. He owned three grocery stores in Jordantown, and had a monopoly on that trade.

"I don't know how much money you have on deposit, Thad, but it will take more stock than you own to satisfy that mortgage you owe to this new-fangled female suffrage fund," answered his neighbour.

"What'll we do with her if we elect her?" asked Acres.

"Better ask what she'll do with the bank?" some one replied.

"She'll run it, that's what! Didn't she run her husband for Congress till his tongue hung out? Ain't she running the whole female population of this county at the present time?"

"Hang it! I'd rather close the doors of this bank than elect that woman a director!" exclaimed Coleman.

"Come to the same thing if you didn't," replied Briggs. "Take it from me, the trustees will withdraw the last dollar they have invested in it. You couldn't pay. And then they'd declare you insolvent, appoint Susan Walton receiver, and take the whole thing over!"

"I move we let her in, gentlemen, and appropriate fifty dollars to add a ladies' dressing-room. Susan's looking up. She'll need it. She's beginning to powder her nose, and she's bought a new bonnet, thank G.o.d!"

said Bob Sasnett with his usual laugh.

When the directors were leaving the bank after indignantly electing Mrs.

Walton to the board, Coleman looked at Sasnett suspiciously.

"Where do you stand in this d.a.m.n business, anyhow, Bob?" he demanded.

"Oh, I'm not standing at present, Stark, I'm crawling on my umbilicus same as the rest of you; the only difference is that I retain the charm and radiance of my countenance."

"When do you purpose to announce your candidacy for representative?"

Sasnett looked at him so quickly that even his smile scarcely veiled the shrewdness of his glance.

"Waiting for the women to settle Mike Prim," he answered. "If they don't, you fellows may elect him. Mike's so deep rooted in your affairs a man couldn't dig him up without soiling his hands."

"Think the women can?"

"Not a doubt of it if they get wise to him, and they are so navely unscrupulous, bless their hearts, that they'll do some things to accomplish their purpose a man can't afford to do."

"And if they settle Mike, you'll run on the crinoline ticket, I suppose?" Coleman answered.

"Can't say yet, Stark; don't want to give myself away, but I'm buying my collars at the Co-Citizens' Cooperative League Emporium!" he said, winking his eye and drawing up the corner of his mouth in a most offensive manner.

This reference to the women's cooperative store was far from being a joke.

The first floor of the old Mosely residence had been divided in half with a part.i.tion. The walls between the rooms on each side had been fitted up in a modern and expensive manner with shelves and counters, middle-aisle showcase, and so forth. The right-hand division was a drygoods and millinery department, with such a display of hats and finery as never had been seen before in Jordantown. The left division contained everything necessary to thrifty existence, from horse collars to hams, sugar and mola.s.ses, flour and corn meal.

The upper rooms of the house were used as offices for the female trustees of the Fund, and for the various committees, of which there were an amazing number in order that as many women as possible should have prominent and executive relations to the Co-Citizens' movement.

The whole front of the place was ablaze every night with electric signs.

"_The Co-Citizens' League Headquarters_," winked across the front of the upper story. Beneath that "_The Women's Cooperative Department Stores_"

winked in blue, red, and white light splendour.

This was not the worst of it: Susan Walton, aided and abetted by John Regis, had secured the services of foreign female talent, expert saleswomen, bookkeepers, and a general manager, also a female. With the a.s.sistance of these experienced persons they had purchased such a stock and a.s.sortment of goods as no merchant in Jordantown could afford. They paid cash, and counted the discount as part of the profit. They figured to a cent the cost of the stock and the expense of running the store, and they sold without reference to making any profit at all. What they lost or failed to collect was charged up as "campaign expense" against the Foundation Fund!

"This store is a kind of suffragist flypaper put out to catch as many as we can by offering bargains and credit to possible voters," said Susan to Judge Regis.

"But, my dear woman, bribing voters is a penal offence," exclaimed the Judge, laughing.

"This is not bribery, John. This is a premium we are offering to get men to vote on this measure at all. That is going to be the great difficulty. Even if we get enough of them to sign the pet.i.tion to hold the election, they may outwit us by remaining away from the polls. When men have employed every other argument to get their way with women, they cease to argue, back their ears, plant their fore feet, and balk. We shall cause it to be known that credit can be had at this store only by persons who furnish sufficient a.s.surance that they will vote in the election!" she explained.

"But in case they vote against suffrage?" he asked, smiling grimly.

"Before time for the election we shall have convinced the men of this county of so many financial disasters to follow upon such perfidy, that the majority will not dare cast their ballots against us," she retorted.

"Intimidation is also a penal offence at the polls, Susan!"

"Do you think men will ever admit that they have been intimidated politically by women? Never! It was you yourself who said influence is not influence, it's power! We've got that. Before the spring season is over, we shall have forced all the merchants in this town into bankruptcy, or we shall have proper a.s.surance of their support. When Acres and the rest have kicked against the p.r.i.c.ks long enough to realize the situation, we will let them know upon what conditions only this store will charge regulation prices for goods. We may offer to sell out to them. The mercantile life does not appeal to me. This store is not a financial venture. It is a political guide to the polls of the county!"

"Well, you must hurry the issue, Susan. Twenty thousand dollars will not last six months the way you are spending it. That suffragist motor car we bought last week cost twenty-two hundred dollars!" he warned.

"If we win at all we shall do it in less than six months," answered the valiant old termagant.

Meanwhile all was confusion in the stores on the avenue. Drays piled high with boxes and barrels were drawn up before the doors of the League store. A perfect thunder of industry went on within, while the ladies of the town crowded the street from one end of the block to the other. They talked, they inspected, they matched samples as fast as the laces and dress goods were placed upon the shelves and counters. They compared prices; they were excited, elated beyond measure. On the square trade was not exactly languis.h.i.+ng yet, but it stood with hands raised in dumb astonishment. Business men had not been informed of the projected store.

They did not conceive of such outrageous compet.i.tion until the thing was actually ready to open its doors. Even then they were not prepared for the cut in prices. Acres continued to sell fifteen pounds of sugar for a dollar a week after the Cooperative Store began to sell twenty pounds for the same price. Percale that could be bought for ten cents a yard on the avenue, sold on the square for fifteen cents.

"They can't keep it up!" Acres predicted. "Just shows how unfit women are for business."

"But a damphule ought to know that ham can't be sold for twelve and a half cents per pound!" cried Thad Bailey furiously.

They had both failed to get the usual spring loan from the National Bank, due entirely to the fact that at the first directors' meeting, the new director had demanded to know exactly how much they owed already, and she refused to sanction the advance of another dollar to any merchant in Jordantown.

"Gentlemen, I have reason to know that these men will not be able to pay the interest upon the loans this bank has already made to them. We cannot afford to risk another advance," she explained.

Fortunately, the two victims had absented themselves from this meeting.

But no argument or appeal from the others could move her.

Every one suspected the worst, but no one really knew what was on foot, for up to this time not a word was heard of suffrage for women.

Only one man besides Judge Regis seemed to know what was going forward.