CHAPTER V.
“HOW are you and the lad, this morning, Mrs. Wycliff?� asked that good neighbor, Mrs. Clyde.
“Getting along nicely, thank you, and very glad to see you,� replied Mrs. Wycliff. “But how does it happen that you are not working to-day?�
“The strike. Haven’t you heard of the rag-cutters’ strike? Three hundred rag-cutters walked out of the Baldwin Mills an hour ago.�
“I didn’t know that the Baldwins ever had a strike in their mills.�
“They don’t often have one, and when they do, the world at large does not know about it, they have such a strong grip on the newspapers about here. My son, Tom, works on the SpringdaleDemocrat, and he has told me a lot about these things. Springdale is about fifty miles from here, and theDemocratpretends to be an independent newspaper, and yet it never prints any news from Papyruswhich can possibly hurt Congressman Baldwin. Some years ago, Tom began work as correspondent here for theDemocrat, and there was a big strike here, in the Liberty Mill, which belongs to the Baldwin Paper Company. Tom didn’t know any better then, and he sent them a long article about the strike. Not a word of it was printed, and the editor wrote Tom that they never printed any news of that kind about the Baldwins. Then the other Springdale paper, theUniverse, is owned by Congressman Baldwin; so, of course, that does not print a word regarding troubles in the Baldwin Mills.�
“But what was the cause of the strike to-day?� inquired Mrs. Wycliff.
“There were a good many things that had something to do with it,� replied the neighbor, “but fines were the worst.�
“Fines! Do you have to pay fines?� asked Mrs. Wycliff.
“Yes, in this way. Perhaps you do not understand how fast we have to work to earn what we get. We earnabout one dollar per day, and to do this we must cut in the neighborhood of one hundred and twenty-five pounds of rags. Now, in cutting these rags, if we overlook a button, or a bit of rubber, we are fined a pound of rags.�
“That is, if you put in a piece of cloth having a button on it, no matter how small, you must cut an extra pound of rags, to punish you for overlooking that button. Am I right?�
“Yes, you have it exactly right, and it’s just the same if I put in a piece of cloth which has a bit of rubber in it. And here, see here is a bit of cloth that came back to me this morning,—just this little bit of a letter, sewed into the cloth.� And she showed Mrs. Wycliff a bit of white cloth, on which was a small initial, such as is used in marking garments.
“There are hundreds of pieces and consequently hundreds of motions we must make in cutting one pound of rags, for which we receive less than a cent. Working so rapidly as we are obliged todo, to accomplish our day’s task, is it any wonder that a piece of cloth, containing a button, or a bit of rubber, slips through our fingers unnoticed now and then?�
“And this is what the strike is about?�
“Yes, this is the main thing. We are willing to pay something of a fine for failure to notice rubber and buttons, but we think that the fine is now too heavy. There are some other things we don’t like—some brutal bosses, not fit to drive oxen, let alone women. Our scythes are often poorly ground. The Baldwins seem to think anything is good enough for a woman to cut one hundred and twenty-five pounds of rags a day on. Sometimes it is very dark for our work.�
“Is no light furnished at such times?�
“Never. The office force, or other departments of the mill, may have lights at noon of a cloudy day, but we are of no account. It is often too warm in our room. We don’t need much heat because we have plenty of exercise. We must be kept too warm on account of the‘lookers over,’ who don’t have much exercise, except when they jump up on the tables, to get away from a mouse.�
“Couldn’t the ‘lookers over’ have a separate room, which could be kept warm enough for them, so that your room could be cooler and more comfortable for you?�
“I don’t know. If the matter of fines is made right, we will say nothing about the rest. When we make complaints, we are usually told that the Baldwins could get machines to cut rags, cheaper than we cut them, and that they only hire us out of charity.�
“I am surprised at the way the rag-cutters are treated,� said Mrs. Wycliff; “I have always heard that the Baldwins were very generous.�
“They are generous,� replied her visitor, “but they are not just. There is an old saying, ‘Be just before you are generous,’ which, if lived up to in Papyrus, would make a wonderful difference in favor of the working class. How have the Baldwins made their millions? Of coursethe whole world knows that they make a very high grade of paper. It is said that this is due, in some measure, to the pure water found in Papyrus, which is the gift of God. Then, too, it is claimed that Mack Baldwin laid the foundation of the Baldwin millions by manipulations in Wall Street, during the Civil War. But some of those millions are the fruit of low wages. If the Baldwins pay twenty-five cents a day less than a fair wage, to two thousand hands, three hundred days in a year, what is the result? It’s a yearly saving of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, of money due the laborer, is it not? Then, perhaps, the Baldwins may spend fifteen thousand dollars a year in pensions to a very few, and in charity to the working class. Nothing can exceed the cleverness of the Baldwins, in making one dollar in charity, look bigger to the laborer, than ten dollars in wages withheld. I think the time is coming when the law will require the accounts of all such concerns as the Baldwin Paper Company, to be as openas town accounts, and then the lion’s share of profits will go to the laborer. But I guess you have had all the rag-room and paper-mill you want for one day.�
“No, I have been very much interested, and I wish you women might get justice,� replied Mrs. Wycliff. “I think there cannot be any harder or more disagreeable work in the mill than yours, and I wish that you might have better pay and kinder treatment. The Baldwins are well able to pay. I hear that this new library that Zechariah Baldwin is giving to the city of Elmfield will cost a half a million dollars.�
“Yes, I try to restrain my anger, as a Christian woman should,� said Mrs. Clyde, “but my blood boils every time I see that building. We poor women must slave in Zack Baldwin’s rag-room, and the money which ought to go to the mill-help, in higher wages, is given, with a great flourish of trumpets, to the city of Elmfield, which is already rich enough. As to our work. If we try to work a bitfaster than usual, we are liable to get cut on the scythes, and there’s many a terrible gash been got in the rag-room. Then how often do you hear of contagious diseases spread by the rags of a paper-mill.
“The worst slap the Baldwins ever got was from a wealthy Southern lady, who visited their mills last summer. She said to Zack Baldwin:—‘The slaves on my father’s plantation in Georgia, were treated with more consideration, and were more contented and happy at their work than your rag-cutters. But the slave-holding system was wrong, and it fell. I think also, the system under which you Northern millionaires eat the apple, and give your employees the core, is wrong and will fall, too,’ But I have stayed too long.� And Mrs. Clyde vanished.
John Wycliff sat in his den, within easy ear-shot, and the pith of the women’s talk was woven into his account of the strike, for theStar.
More than two thousand copies of theStarwere sold that day in Papyrus, and its circulation was raised permanently to a point near those figures.
The Honorable Zechariah Baldwin was furious when he read theStar’saccount of the strike. Never before had a local newspaper dared to print the news of a Baldwin strike, much less to hold those “captains of industry� up to public criticism, as it had done to-day.
But Terry was happy. He had sold extra thousands of his paper, the largest edition ever sold of a Berkshire newspaper, and scores of citizens, in all walks of life, had congratulated him on his bravery in defying the Baldwins.
The most important result of theStar’sarticle was that it was copied, more or less fully, by other papers throughout the country, owing to Congressman Baldwin’s prominence as a public man. A strike in his mills is not a good asset for a Congressman, and David Baldwin telegraphed his brother, from Washington, to grant the rag-cutters’ demands immediately. Zechariah Baldwin reluctantlycomplied with the order sent by wire.
The Honorable Zechariah Baldwin appeared, a very angry man, at the office of theStar.
“I want you to discharge that Wycliff,� was his first greeting to Mr. Terry, the proprietor.
“How long have you owned this office, that you assume to run my business?� rejoined Mr. Terry.
“But you know that we’re not used to being treated as theStartreated us yesterday,� protested the paper-manufacturer.
“Then the best thing that you can do is to get used to it,� retorted the publisher, who was now beginning to get angry on his own account. “You’ve been treated as if you were superior beings, but you are no better than other people. I have been suppressing the truth about you millionaires for years, and losing thousands of dollars by doing so. I might have sold thousands of copies of theStar, in Papyrus and throughout the county, had I not truckled to youBaldwins, like a dog, instead of being a man. Hereafter the truth is to be published about you, just the same as about other folks, and Wycliff is under contract to do it for a year. He is recommended as being entirely competent to deal with such cases as yours. Perhaps I shall go out and tell you how to run your mills. There’s the door, Zack Baldwin,� and the proprietor of theStar, now thoroughly angry, motioned the millionaire out.
But the lord of Papyrus, although more surprised than he had been before in years, was not to be thus easily thwarted.
“What will you take for your newspaper—for the entire plant?� he asked, in a more conciliatory tone.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,� replied the publisher, immediately, naming a price so far beyond its true value that he felt sure it would be declined.
“A pretty steep price, isn’t it?� asked Baldwin.
“Who asked you to buy?� retorted Terry.
“Come over to Lawyer Stimson’s anddraw the writings,� said the paper-manufacturer, withdrawing.
Next day John Wycliff received this note:—
“My dear Wycliff:“You’re a jewel. I’ve sold theStarto Zack Baldwin for $25,000. (It’s actual value is around $15,000.) I didn’t even sign the usual agreement, not to engage in the same business again in the same city.“Enclosed you will find check for $1,500, according to agreement by which I guaranteed you one year’s salary.“When I first met you, I thought you were a discourteous crank, but my finances and my self-respect were both badly in need of the rebuke which you gave me. Your way of dealing with such cattle as the Baldwins beats mine out of sight.�“Yours always,Wilfrid Terry.�
“My dear Wycliff:
“You’re a jewel. I’ve sold theStarto Zack Baldwin for $25,000. (It’s actual value is around $15,000.) I didn’t even sign the usual agreement, not to engage in the same business again in the same city.
“Enclosed you will find check for $1,500, according to agreement by which I guaranteed you one year’s salary.
“When I first met you, I thought you were a discourteous crank, but my finances and my self-respect were both badly in need of the rebuke which you gave me. Your way of dealing with such cattle as the Baldwins beats mine out of sight.�
“Yours always,Wilfrid Terry.�