Helen of the Old House Part 31

"The truth is that all did it--that each individual worker, whether he toiled with his hands or with his brain, was dependent upon all the others as all were dependent upon those who lived and labored in the ages that have gone before, as all are dependent at the last upon the forces of nature that through the ages have labored for all. And this also is true, sir, whether you like to admit it or not; just as we--you and I and Pete Martin and the others--all together built the Mill, so we all together built it for all. You, Adam Ward, can no more keep for yourself alone the fruits of your labor than you alone and single-handed could have built the Mill."

The Interpreter paused as if for an answer.

Adam Ward did not speak.

A flare of light from, the stacks of the Mill, where the night s.h.i.+ft was sweating at its work, drew their eyes. Through the darkness came the steady song of industry--a song that was charged with the life of millions. And they saw the lights of the business district, where Jake Vodell was preaching to a throng of idle workmen his doctrine of cla.s.s hatred and destruction.

The Interpreter's manner was in no way aggressive when he broke the silence. There was, indeed, in his deep voice an undertone of sorrow, and yet he spoke as with authority. "You were driven here to-night by your fear, Adam Ward. You recognize the menace to this community and to our nation in the influence and teaching of men like Jake Vodell. Most of all, you fear for yourself and your material possessions. And you have reason to be afraid of this danger that you yourself have brought upon Millsburgh."

"What!" cried the Mill owner. "You say that I am responsible?--that I brought this anarchist agitator here?"

The Interpreter answered, solemnly, "I say that but for you and such men as you, Adam Ward, Jake Vodell could never gain a hearing in any American city."

Adam Ward laughed harshly.

But the old basket maker continued as if he had not heard. "Every act of your business career, sir, has been a refusal to recognize those who have worked with you. Your whole life has been an over a.s.sertion of your personal independence and a denial of the greatest of all laws--the law of _dependence_, which is the vital principle of life itself. And so you have, through these years, upheld and exemplified to the working people the very selfishness to which Jake Vodell appeals now with such sad effectiveness. It is the cla.s.s pride and intolerance which you have fostered in yourself and family that have begotten the cla.s.s hatred which makes Vodell's plans against our government a dangerous possibility. Your fathers fought in a great war for independence, Adam Ward. Your son must now fight for a recognition of that _dependence_ without which the _independence_ won by your father will surely perish from the earth."

At the mention of his son, the Mill owner moved impatiently and spoke with bitter resentment. "A fine mess you are making of things with your 'dependence.'"

"It is a fine mess that you have made of things, Adam Ward, with your '_in_dependence,'" returned the Interpreter, sternly.

"I can tell you one thing," said Adam. "Your unions will never straighten anything out with the help of Jake Vodell and his gang of murdering anarchists."

"You are exactly right," agreed the Interpreter. "And I can tell you a thing to match the truth of your statement. Your combinations of employers will never straighten anything out with the help of such men as McIver and his hired gunmen and his talk about driving men to work at the point of the bayonet. But McIver and his principles are not endorsed by our American employers," continued the Interpreter, "any more than Jake Vodell and his methods are endorsed by our American union employees. The fact is that the great body of loyal American employers and employees, which is, indeed, the body of our nation itself, is fast coming to recognize the truth that our industries must somehow be saved from the destruction that is threatened by both the McIvers of capital and the Vodells of labor. Our Mill, Adam Ward, that you and Pete Martin and I built together and that, whether you admit it or not, we built for all mankind, our Mill must be protected against both employers and employees. It must be protected, not because the owners.h.i.+p, under our laws, happens to be vested in you as an individual citizen, but because of that larger owners.h.i.+p which, under the universal laws of humanity, is vested in the people whose lives are dependent upon that Mill as an essential industry. The Mill must be saved, indeed, for the very people who would destroy it."

"Very fine!" sneered Adam; "and perhaps you will tell me who is to save my Mill that is not my Mill for the very people who own it and who would destroy it?"

The voice of the Interpreter was colored with the fire of prophecy as he answered, "In the name of humanity, the sons of the men who built the Mill will save it for humanity. Your boy John, Adam Ward, and Pete Martin's boy Charlie represent the united armies of American employers and employees that stand in common loyalty against the forces that are, through the destruction of our industries, seeking to bring about the downfall of our nation."

Adam Ward laughed. "Tell that to your partner Billy Rand over there; he will hear it as quick as the American people will."

But the man in the wheel chair was not disturbed by Adam Ward's laughing.

"The great war taught the American people some mighty lessons, Adam Ward," he said. "It taught us that patriotism is not of one cla.s.s or rank, but is common to every level of our national social life. It taught us that heroism is the birthright of both office and shop. Most of all did the war teach us the lesson of comrades.h.i.+p--that men of every rank and cla.s.s and occupation could stand together, live together and die together, united in the bonds of a common, loyal citizens.h.i.+p for a common, human cause. And out of that war and its lessons our own national saviors are come. The loyal patriot employers and the loyal patriot employees, who on the fields of war were brother members of that great union of sacrifice and death, will together free the industries of their own country from the two equally menacing terrors--imperialistic capital and imperialistic labor.

"The comrades.h.i.+p of your son with the workman Charlie Martin, the stand that John has taken against McIver, and the refusal of the Mill workers' union to accept Vodell's leaders.h.i.+p--is the answer to your question, 'Who is to save the Mill?'"

"Rot!" exclaimed Adam Ward. "You talk as though every man who went to that war was inspired by the highest motives. They were not all heroes by a good deal."

"True," returned the Interpreter, "they were not all heroes. But there was the leaven that leavened the lump, and so the army itself was heroic."

"What about the moral degeneracy and the crime wave that have followed the return of your heroic army?" demanded Adam.

"True, again," returned the Interpreter; "it is inevitable that men whose inherited instincts and tendencies are toward crime should acquire in the school of war a bolder spirit--a more reckless daring in their criminal living. But again there is the saving leaven that leavens the lump. If the war training makes criminals more bold, it as surely makes the leaven of n.o.bility more powerful. One splendid example of n.o.ble heroism is ten thousand times more potent in the world than a thousand revolting deeds of crime. No--no, Adam Ward, the world will not forget the lessons it learned over there. The torch of Flanders fields has not fallen. The world will carry on."

There was such a quality of reverent conviction in the concluding words of the man in the wheel chair that Adam Ward was silenced.

For some time they sat, looking into the night where the huge bulk of the Mill with its towering stacks and overhanging clouds seemed to dominate not only the neighboring shops and factories and the immediate Flats, but in some mysterious way to extend itself over the business district and the homes of the city, and, like a ruling spirit, to pervade the entire valley, even unto the distant line of hills.

When the old basket maker spoke again, that note of strange and solemn authority was in his voice. "Listen, Adam Ward! In the ideals, the heroism, the suffering, the sacrifice of the war--in sh.e.l.l hole and trench and b.l.o.o.d.y No Man's Land, the sons of men have found again the G.o.d that you and men like you had banished from the Mill. Your boy and Pete Martin's boy, with more thousands of their comrades than men of your mind realize, have come back from the war fields of France to enthrone G.o.d once more in the industrial world. And it shall come that every forge and furnace and anvil and machine shall be an organ to His praise--that every suit of overalls shall be a priestly robe of ministering service. And this G.o.d that you banished from the Mill and that is to be by your son restored to His throne and served by a priesthood of united employers and employees, shall bear a new name, Adam Ward, and that name shall be WORK."

Awed by the strange majesty of the Interpreter's voice, Adam Ward could only whisper fearfully, "Work--the name of G.o.d shall be Work!" "Ay, Adam Ward, WORK--and why not? Does not the work of the world express the ideals, the purpose, the needs, the life, the _oneness_ of the world's humanity, even as a flower expresses the plant that puts it forth? And is not G.o.d the ultimate flowering of the human plant?"

The Mill owner spoke with timid hesitation, "Could I--do you think--could I, perhaps, help to, as you say, put G.o.d back into the Mill?"

"Your part in the building of the Mill is finished, Adam Ward," came the solemn answer. "You have made many contracts with men, sir; you should now make a contract with your G.o.d."

The owner of the new process sprang to his feet with an exclamation of fear. As one who sees a thing of horror in the dark, he drew back, trembling.

That deep, inexorable voice of sorrowful authority went on, "Make a contract with your G.o.d, Adam Ward; make a contract with your G.o.d."

With a wild cry of terror Adam Ward fled into the night.

The Interpreter in his wheel chair looked up at the stars.

It seems scarcely possible that the old basket maker could have foreseen the tragic effect of his words--and yet--

CHAPTER XX

THE PEOPLE'S AMERICA

At his evening meetings on the street, Jake Vodell with stirring oratory kindled the fire of his cause. In the councils of the unions, through individuals and groups, with clever arguments and inflaming literature, he sought recruits. With stinging sarcasm and withering scorn he taunted the laboring people--told them they were fools and cowards to submit to the degrading slavery of their capitalist owners.

With biting invective and blistering epithet he pictured their employer enemies as the brutal and ruthless destroyers of their homes. With thrilling eloquence he fanned the flames of cla.s.s hatred, inspired the loyalty of his followers to himself and held out to them golden promises of reward if they would prove themselves men and take that which belonged to them.

But the Mill workers' union, as an organization, was steadfast in its refusal to be dominated by this agitator who was so clearly antagonistic to every principle of American citizens.h.i.+p. Jake Vodell could neither lead nor drive them into a strike that was so evidently called in the interests of his cause. And more and more the agitator was compelled to recognize the powerful influence of the Interpreter.

It was not long before he went to the hut on the cliff with a positive demand for the old basket maker's open support.

"I do not know why it is," he said, "that a poor old cripple like you should have such power among men, but I know it is so. You shall tell this Captain Charlie and his crowd of fools that they must help me to win for the laboring people their freedom. You shall, for me, enlist these Mill men in the cause."

The Interpreter asked, gravely, "And when you have accomplished this that you call freedom--when you have gained this equality that you talk about--how will your brotherhood be governed?"

Jake Vodell scowled as he gazed at the man in the wheel chair with quick suspicion. "Governed?"

"Yes," returned the Interpreter. "Without organization of some sort nothing can be done. No industries can be carried on without the concerted effort which is organization. Without the industry that is necessary to human life the free people you picture cannot exist.

Without government--which means law and the enforcement of law--organization of any kind is impossible."

"There will have to be organization, certainly," answered Vodell.

"Then, there will be leaders, directors, managers with authority to whom the people must surrender themselves as individuals," said the Interpreter, quietly. "An organization without leaders.h.i.+p is impossible."

The agitator's voice was triumphant, as he said, "Certainly there will be leaders. And their authority will be unquestioned. And these leaders will be those who have led the people out of the miserable bondage of their present condition."

The Interpreter's voice had a new note in it now, as he said, "In other words, sir, what you propose is simply to subst.i.tute _yourself_ for McIver. You propose to the people that they overthrow their present leaders in the industries of their nation in order that you and your fellow agitators may become their masters. You demand that the citizens of America abolish their national government and in its place accept you and your fellows as their rulers? What a.s.surance can you give the people, sir, that under your rule they will have more freedom for self-government, more opportunities for self-advancement and prosperity and happiness than they have at present?"