Читать книгу The Transgressors - Francis Alexandre Adams - Страница 6

There are few valleys to compare with that of the Susquehanna. In point of picturesque scenery and modern alteration attained by the unceasing labor of man, the antithesis between the natural and the artificial is pronounced in many respects; especially at that place in the river where it runs through the steep banks on which is situated the thriving city of Wilkes-Barre. Here may be seen the majestic hills standing as sentinels over the marts of men that crowd the river edge. The verdure of these hills during the greater part of the year is the one sight that gladdens the eyes of the miners whose lives, for the most part, are spent in the coal pits.

The picture would be perfect were it not for the presence of the Coal-Breakers. These sombre, grizzly structures stand in a long line on the west bank of the river, and appear to the eye of one who knows their purpose, as the gibbets that dotted the shores of England and France must have loomed up before the mariners of the Channel during the Seventeenth Century, and when the supply of pirates exceeded the number of gibbets, large as this number was in both lands.

The breaker is a truly modern invention, which, had it existed in the days of the Spanish inquisition, would have placed in the hands of the malevolent fanatics an instrument of exquisite torture. It is constructed to effect a double purpose, the achievement of the maximum of production and the expenditure of the minimum of human effort. It is the acme of inventive genius. To work the breakers, a man need have no more intelligence than the tow-mule that plods a beaten path; and such a man is the ideal laborer from the standpoint of the owners of the breakers.

But such men are not indigenous to America; they must be imported, and that, too, from the most benighted lands of Europe.

What an incubator of warped humanity the breaker has become! It saps even the attenuated manhood of the aliens it attracts, and when they are rendered useless for its ends, emits them to be a scourge on the earth.

But the breakers are the monument of the civilization of the Nineteenth

Century, which esteems commercial as superior to mental advancement.

As the drama to be unfolded will be enacted largely in this spot, which nature fashioned on its fairest pattern, and which man has seared with his cruel tool, a description of the town of Wilkes-Barre and its environs is essential. The town is the creation of the Mines. Coal abounds in the valley of the Susquehanna, and from the first impetus given the coal industry by the establishment of railroads, the mines at this place have been worked without intermission. The population of the town has been increasing steadily for the past thirty years, until to-day it reaches the proportions of a populous city. There is little variety in the citizens; but the contrast they present makes up for this deficiency. Broadly speaking there are but two classes, the magnates and their mercenaries. The former live in the mansions on the esplanade and constitute the governing minority. The coal miners and the workers on the breakers, who eke out their lives in slavery, and who sleep in quarters that make the huts of the peasants of Europe seem actually inviting, constitute the vast majority.

The most prosperous business of the town outside of the Coal industry, which is, of course, monopolized by the magnates, is the Undertaking business. There are almost as many establishments for the burial of man as there are saloons to cater to his cheer. In contradistinction to the custom in this country, the business has been taken up by others than the worthy order of sextons. That this condition should be, is accounted for by the fact that there is a paucity of churches in the town, and that the sextons were unable to accomplish the work that devolved upon their craft. Death is not attributable, in the main, to natural causes in Wilkes-Barre; it is brought about by the engines of destruction which the magnates are pleased to term, Modern Machinery.

Association makes the mind incapable of appreciating nice distinctions in regard to familiar objects or persons. Thus to the residents of the town there is nothing abnormal in their condition. It is only to the observer from without that the horrors of the Pennsylvania town are apparent. That such a spot should develop in a State high in rank, and among the oldest of those comprising the greatest republic, seems incomprehensible. In the very State where the Declaration of Independence was sent to the world, proclaiming that men are created free and equal, and that the right of the majority is the supreme law, how comes it that a settlement can be maintained where the rights of the majority can be ignored and suppressed at the point of the bayonet? For an answer to this question, comes the monosyllable—Trusts!

Wilkes-Barre is a typical specimen community which may be taken as the sample unit for a microscopic investigation of the conditions that have created the modern institution of voluntary slavery. The scrutiny of the specimen is given through the eyes of a resident of the town, and the observations are his.

"In a month then, they will shut down three of the mines, and will close the Jumbo Breaker. You know what that means. I have asked the men of Shaft Fifteen if they intend to starve, and they answered to a man that they would sooner be shot than starve like rats in their homes."

"What is that to me? Am I to look after every man who has ever blasted a ton of coal in my pits or crushed in the breakers?

"You tell the men of Shaft Fifteen, and of every other shaft in the valley, that if they make a single move that threatens the property of the Paradise Coal Company I will see that they don't 'starve in their homes.'"

"Then you will not arbitrate?"

"There is nothing to arbitrate. I have no more work for the men. That settles it. The world is big, and if they can find no work in Wilkes-Barre, let them hunt for it elsewhere."

"Mr. Purdy, I give you ample warning. The miners will declare a general strike if you persist in locking out half of them now that the winter weather has set in. The pits and the breakers can stand idle while the demand for coal at an advanced price is created by an artificial coal famine; but the miners have to be fed. They work like machines; but as yet they have not learned the lesson of living without food."

"Metz, I have given you my final answer. The mines and breakers close on the day I stated."

Carl Metz is the foreman of the largest of the Paradise Company's Coal shafts, the "Big Horn." He is in consultation with Mr. Gorman Purdy, the president of the company. Their closing remarks as just quoted are uttered as they stand on the steps leading to the street from the offices on the main square of Wilkes-Barre.

The men nod to each other, and separate.

"What did he say?" a man demands of Metz, in a weak voice. The questioner is a typical miner. Death has placed its irrevocable stamp upon him; he has served his three years in the pits; has been transferred to the breakers when the signs of failing strength are perceived by the mine overseer. In another year he will be in the hands of the mortuary vulture; his last week's earnings will go to pay for the hard earned grave that is grudgingly given "A Miner."

"He says the mines will close."

"Yes, and we will starve. Well, you can tell him that we won't."

"I told him that the men were desperate."

"And he laughed at you. Why wouldn't he? We have threatened to strike for three years. It's getting to be an old story. This time it's our turn to laugh."

"What do you mean, Eric?" is the anxious query of Metz. He detects a hidden significance in the miner's words.

"Mean! Why I mean that we are going to strike this time, and that it will be the biggest fight the coal region has ever seen.

"We can't get the mine owners to arbitrate, but we can get the coal miners to unite. If one man is shut out to starve we will all go out."

"And our places will be filled by imported miners," interjects the foreman.

"Not this time. We will have our pickets out in all directions, and every train will be boarded. The men the mine owners bring on will be told to keep away."

As the men speak they are unconscious of the approach of the Sheriff of

Luzerne County. He has apparently been watching the movements of Metz.

All the morning he has shadowed the mine foreman, now he steals up

behind the two and stands within earshot. He overhears their words.

"Let me tell you one thing," he calls out in a shrill voice, as he steps up to them, "you don't want to forget that there is a Sheriff in Luzerne County when you count on winning out in this strike."

"We will do nothing that will require your attention," sententiously retorts the miner. "We have had one taste of Pennsylvania justice, at Homestead, and don't want another."

"I have my eye on you two, and if there is any trouble I'll know whom to hold responsible," continues the Sheriff. Then he walks on towards the office of the Paradise Coal Company. He enters the building and is soon in the private office of the President.

The miners walk on in silence towards their homes in the East End of the town across the Bridge. It is not a time to talk. These sturdy men have a reverence for words; they use them only when the occasion requires. At the door of the ramshackle hut that serves as the abode of Eric Neilson, the men halt.

"Eric!" says Metz, "I hope you will let me know of any steps that are to be taken by the miners in your section. I have been in this region for twenty years, and know where the rights of the miners end and the rights of the mine owners begin. To back our rights we have nothing but our bare fists; the mine owners have the city, state and Federal authorities."

"If there is anything to be done that will be of importance to us all, you will hear from me," are Eric's reassuring words.

Carl Metz knows the value of a promise from his fellow-workman. He is satisfied.

In the homely parlance of the mines, these men agreed "to keep tabs for each other on the square." They will let no event of importance go by without reporting it to each other, and in this way give each full particulars of the movements of the miners.

Metz turns back towards the centre of the city. He is bent on seeing Purdy again, and of appealing to him to reconsider his "shut down" orders.

Hardly has he reached Market Street when he runs across the Attorney of the Paradise Coal Company, a young and brilliant man who is one of the products of the town school and academy, Harvey Trueman.

"Good day, Mr. Trueman," is his salutation.

"How now, Metz?" responds the preoccupied lawyer. "Have you some trouble on your hands?"

"It's the same old story, sir, only this time the men are determined to strike. I have spoken to Mr. Purdy to-day. He refuses to yield a single inch.

"I thought it might be a wise thing to see him again and make the truth clear to him, that the men will unquestionably resort to violence if they are locked out at the opening of winter."

"You let this matter stand as it is. I shall see Mr. Purdy in an hour or so, and shall make it my duty to explain the situation. I know what the men are likely to do, and what concessions will satisfy them. Metz, I assure you we do not want trouble. If I have any influence with the Company, matters will be satisfactorily settled."

"When can the men have an answer?"

"Not for a day or two, I suppose."

"But they must know immediately, Mr. Trueman. You are aware that they are dependent upon the Company Stores for their food. Well, the notice has been posted that no more credit shall be extended after next Saturday. This means that, for the men who are laid off, there is nothing left but starvation."

Trueman is troubled at this statement. He has always been an opponent of the "Company Store" system; now he sees that it is likely to be the potent factor in exciting the miners to revolt.

"All I can promise you, is that I shall work in your interests and get as speedy a reply as possible," he repeats. "By the by," he adds, "will you come with me to my office now, I want you to go over some of the details of the 'Homestead Strike' with me. I want to see what lessons I can gather from it which will help me to advise Purdy in the present trouble. You were in the Homestead strike, were you not?"

By a nod of his head, Metz answers in the affirmative.

They are seated in the office of the young attorney for the next hour, during which period they review the events of the great iron strike of '92; the reasons that led to it, and the similarity of the conditions that exist in Wilkes-Barre.

Having given Trueman the details of the Homestead affair, Metz explains the existing grievances of the miners of Wilkes-Barre as follows:

"The question raised by the miners is not one for advanced wages; it is not one of reduced hours; it is not a demand for proper protection for themselves in the mines. These things they have asked for time and again—little enough for men who wear out their lives in the darkness and damp of the mines. But these things they have never been able to obtain.

"A bare living is all that the mine owners would concede to the miners. This living, meagre as it was, sufficed to keep life in the miners and their families.

"Now the miners are to be deprived of the crust of bread. You cannot snatch the bone from a hungry dog, without danger. Do you imagine that a man has less spirit than a beast?

"The whole trouble, Mr. Trueman, arises from the formation of the Coal Trust. I have all the facts in regard to this matter. And so far as that goes, there is not a man in the labor organizations of this country who does not keep in touch with the events of the day. The education of the masses is a dangerous thing in a land that is ruled by force, fraud and finesse, as the United States is to-day.

"It is the Coal Trust that has brought on this threatened strike.

"When there were independent coal companies, the condition of the miners was better by far than it is to-day. The unrestricted operation of mines made it impossible for any two, or even a considerable number, of the mine owners to unite for the purpose of reducing the wages of the mine operatives, and of increasing the price of the coal to the consumer.

"But with the Trust in operation all restraints are removed.

"The illegal traffic rates that the Trust secures, make it impossible for any mine to be successfully worked that is out of the combine.

"The first step that the Coal Trust took was to limit the supply of coal at the height of the summer season, when big shipments are ordinarily made. This afforded a pretext for an advance in the retail price.

"To limit the supply, the Trust shut down work in half of the mines.

"For the past seven years this practice has been followed. Now the simple miners know what to expect. They have been submissive, because the suspension of work came in the summer time when they could live on little, and did not have to withstand the rigor of a Pennsylvania winter.

"Now the Paradise Coal Company announces that it will close down the work on three of the mines next Saturday. This throws the men out in the cold of November. If this plan is carried out it will bring on a long and bitter strike."

"I quite agree with you," assents Trueman. He puffs meditatively at a cigar.

"You are too young a man to remember the days of the Molly Maguires, those awful days when murderers lurked on every road in the anthracite coal field of this state. It was back in 1876 that the last of the Maguires was hunted down. Of course there is no excuse for murder; yet the Maguires were the result of a pernicious condition of wage depression and degradation of humanity.

"When the just demands of the miners were recognized the reign of terror ceased.

"But the Trusts have produced another organization of societies in this state, bent on murder and arson. The Irish, English and Welsh miners, who predominated in the region twenty years ago, are now supplanted by Poles, Hungarians, Italians and the worst types of Lithuanians and Slavs. These newcomers have brought with them the racial prejudices and institutions that caused them to be enemies in their native lands; they constitute a dangerous element in the population of this country. So long as they are able to get food they remain passive, except for the feuds they carry on amongst themselves. These immigrants are not inspired to come to this land by reason of an appreciation of the liberty that our Constitution vouchsafes to all mankind. They have been brought here by the agents of the Trusts, because they are willing to work for pauper wage.

"I can tell you, Mr. Trueman, that in the strike that I feel will follow the lock-out, there will be bloodshed. It may not be at the initiative of the miners. But the fear of the magnates is now aroused and they will not hesitate to employ force. Once the appeal to force is made, where is it to end?"

"All that you have told me, I shall report to Mr. Purdy," Trueman says, as he extends his hand to grasp that of the plain, earnest miner.

Metz departs, well satisfied with the progress he has made in advancing the cause of the miners.

Harvey Trueman goes at once to the private office of the President of the Paradise Coal Company.

He brings the strike matter up for consideration at once; and also the case of a widow who is bringing suit against the company for the recovery of damages for the loss of her husband who had been killed in the mines.

"You are to press the defence of this case for damages to a successful termination for the company," are Mr. Purdy's last words, supplemented by the remark, "I shall attend to the strike in person."