II.
The Shawsheen Mills had been established many years before the opening of this story by Salome’s grandfather, Newbern Shepard. They constituted one of the chief manufacturing concerns of Shepardtown. They made more cloth, and that of a better quality, than any other mill outside the “City of Spindles.” They employed a much larger force of operatives than any other factory in the place, and had always held a controlling interest in town affairs.
When the Shawsheen Mills were first started, blooming girls from all parts of Massachusetts came swarming to them, glad of a new and respectable employment,—came with earnest purpose to make this new life and its outcomes subservient to a better future. The conscientious New England girl of those days took asmuch pride in making a perfect web of cloth as though it were for her own wearing. Aware that her employers took an interest in her welfare, aside from the fact that she was a part of the motive power of the mill, she rewarded them with a full performance of her duty. A mutual goodfellowship had existed, then, between employer and employed in the years when old Newbern Shepard was at the head of his mills.
All this had changed. Newbern Shepard had died after a long and successful career, leaving the business to his son, Floyd Shepard. The latter, educated at Harvard, with five years of study afterward in Germany, had developed little taste for an active business life such as his father had led. He had, consequently, placed the entire business in the hands of Otis Greenough, a friend of his college-days and a hard-headed business man. Floyd Shepard had idled the greater part of his time before reaching the age of fifty in various parts of the world.
Then he came home, married a Baltimore belle, and passed his old age in his native place.
Even then, he gave little thought to the details of business. He added to and improved the home of his forefathers, until his house and grounds were acknowledged to be the finest in the state. After four years of married life, his young wife died, leaving him one child—a babe of three days. Then he retired into his study, and lived only among his books.
“Don’t trouble me with the business,” he would say to Otis Greenough, on the rare occasions when it seemed necessary to consult the owner of the mills. “I care nothing as to how you manage the works, and know less how it should be done. Suit yourself as to details, and keep the mills paying a good profit. I shall be satisfied.”
Upon this principle the mills had been run for thirty years. The agent and his superintendents had devoted themselves to the problem of getting out more goods and making more money than their competitors, while keeping the standard of their wares up to its old mark. They had no time for the problem of human life involved. The first and principal question had required a severe struggle, with active brains and sharp wits. What wonder,then, that the increasing mass of operatives had come to be considered, every year, less as human beings in need of help and encouragement, and more as mechanical attachments of the mills?
Only such operatives as had been brought up in the mills realized the difference. The employes were mostly of the unwashed population, expecting nothing but a place to earn their living and but scanty pay for it.
Having, at the outset, no confidence in their employers, and no feeling of goodwill towards them, they had no conscientious motive behind their work. On the contrary, they stood on the defensive, watching for oppression and tyranny, and ready to take arms against them.
This was the state of things when the first regularly organized strike occurred at the Shawsheen Mills.
Otis Greenough, although an old man, was still at the head of the mills. Floyd Shepard’s death three years before had made no difference with the vast business interests in his name. In willing everything he owned to his daughter, who was already heiress to a large fortune from her mother’s family, he had provided thatOtis Greenough should be chief agent during the remainder of his life; and that the mills should continue on the same plan by which they had been run for the past quarter of a century.
Otis Greenough was an arbitrary man, with that enormous strength of will which a man must have who is to control and manage two thousand people and an increasing business.
If, in the march of economic progress, he chose to make changes in the machinery of the mills, he consulted no one, and cared nothing for the black looks or surly mutterings of the operative who might fancy himself injured thereby. Had it been hinted to him that his operatives might be trained to take a personal interest in the success or failure of new experiments or, indeed, that they had any right to his brotherly consideration, he would have flouted the idea.
It was his boast that he never wasted words on the operatives. In short, he was as indifferent to the rights of Labor as his Lancashire spinners were to the interests of Capital. Hence the strike.
At noon of the day that Salome Shepardhad driven through the factory street, Otis Greenough sat in his private office with his two superintendents, the treasurer and cashier of the mills, and one or two subordinates. As the bell struck for twelve, five men from the various departments filed in and presented a written document. They were the committee appointed by the new Labor Union.
Mr. Greenough took the paper with an air that showed him to be in anything but a conciliatory mood. Without opening it, he burst forth angrily:
“What, in the name of common sense, is this farce anyhow? What do you mean by leaving your work and presuming to come here, dictating terms tome?”
“The paper will explain everything, sir,” replied the foremost of the committee. “We have our rights—or should have them. The time has come when we propose to get them. Will you read the petition, sir?”
“No,” thundered the choleric old man. “Not in your presence. Villard, treat with them.” Mr. Greenough was too angry to say more.
Mr. Villard, the younger superintendent, stepped forward.
“I think,” he said, “that you had better leave us for a time. We shall need to consider your proposals, whatever they may be. Go now, and come again later—say at four o’clock.” Agreeing to this proposition, the five men turned and left the office. Mr. Villard sat down again, waiting for the agent to speak.
“The confounded whelps!” ejaculated Mr. Greenough, as soon as he could find breath. “Open that paper, Villard—the impudent puppies!”
Without answering, John Villard tore open the envelope, and read the document aloud:
Whereas, we, the undersigned, believing that our interests demand an organization which shall promote and protect affairs relating to us as laboring men; and
Whereas, we have already organized and maintained such a society; it is now unanimously agreed that we insist upon the recognition of such a body by our employers, and upon their making certain concessions for the benefit of that body.
Whereas, there is a ten-hour system established in this state by law; we herebyresolvethat we will refuse to work ten and a half or eleven hours a day as has been demanded of us.
Whereas, we believe the introduction of the new frames are detrimental to the interests of the mule-spinners; weresolvethat they must be taken out, and the old mules replaced, with a written agreement that no more of the obnoxious machinery shall be added for, at least, five years.
Whereas, there has been an attempt made to reduce our wages, especially in the weaving department; we herebyresolvethat we will submit to no curtailment of wages, and todemand payment of all wages weekly, as is the custom in certain other mills in this state.
Trusting that these our petitions may be granted, our rights respected, and that harmonious relations will soon be established between us, we take pleasure in signing ourselves
“Members of the Shawsheen Labor Union.”
“Members of the Shawsheen Labor Union.”
“Members of the Shawsheen Labor Union.”
“Members of the Shawsheen Labor Union.”
Before John Villard had finished reading the paper, Mr. Greenough had risen and was pacing the floor excitedly.
“Shocking!” he exclaimed, as Mr. Villard folded the paper and returned it to its envelope. “Preposterous! Do they think they can impose upon me with such a jumble of unreasoning nonsense as that? Labor Union, indeed! Why, the rascals act as if there were no interests but those of labor. And a beautiful time they’ve taken to strike—when orders are pouring in faster than we can possibly keep up with them. A fine time, indeed!”
“I suppose,” said John Villard, fearlessly, “there seems a slight injustice to them, in cutting down their wages at such a time.”
“What right have they to dictate, I should like to inquire?” answered the irate agent. “If they were not a bigoted, unreasoning set, they’d know they never can serve the interests of labor in such a way. They’d realize thatthey are only biting off their own noses! They have probably been worked upon by some crank of an agitator. If they were not ignorant dogs, they’d know that they could best serve the interests of labor by being faithful to those of capital. Why,” he concluded, his face growing redder in his wrath, “is this America? Is this our boasted New England? Is this a free country? By Jove! I’ve heard of this sort of thing in England, but in this republican land, this boasted region of freedom—Great Scott! What are we coming to?”
“It’s this accursed trades-unionism creeping in among us,” put in the treasurer’s mild voice, as Otis Greenough paused for breath. “I’ve been expecting it.”
“Blast it, why didn’t you mention it then?” returned Mr. Greenough. But the treasurer retired in confusion behind his books and did not answer.
“Well, Villard,” continued the agent, “I hope now you will give up the Utopian schemes you’ve been nursing for the elevation of the laboring classes. You see just what a foolish, unthinking, unreliable set of men we have to deal with.”
“On the contrary, sir,” returned the second superintendent, firmly, “I sympathize, to a degree, with them. I agree that they have taken an inopportune time to enforce their views, and regret that they could not have seen fit to keep at work while their petition was being considered; and I would advise——”
“I want no man’s advice until I ask it,” interrupted the elder man. “This is our first strike, and it shall be the last so long as I have authority here. Humph! They think they can intimidate me! They have chosen this time because they think Imustyield now. They little know me. Otis Greenough has not run the Shawsheen Mills successfully thirty years, to be brow-beaten and conquered in the end by a pack of ignorant laborers.”
“But how is this to end?” asked the first superintendent, speaking for the first time.
“It can end whenever these men will take back their impudent paper and go to work. Villard, when they show up again—four o’clock did you say?—you will tell them so. Offer them a chance to go to work to-morrow morning on the old terms. You needn’t give in to them one inch. Do you hear? Not a jot or tittle.”
“And what if they do not accept?” asked Villard.
“Why, advertise. Advertise far and near. Get new help. We’ll open the mills and run them, too, right in their very teeth. I’ll show them that he who has been master here for thirty years is master until he dies.”