CHAPTER IV
_The Watched Pot Begins to Boil_
Of all classes of people under the sun, the so-called labouring man hasbest cause to pray for deliverance from his friends. His friends are, orrather were, of three classes. The first, ardent but wingless angels ofmercy, who fail to comprehend the fact that the unlovely lot of theirwould-be wards is the result of conditions imposed more largely fromwithin than from without; the second, those who care neither for lotsnor conditions, regarding the labourer as a senseless tool with which tohew out his own designs; the third, those who adroitly knock togetherthe heads of the labourer and his employer and impartially pick thepockets of each in the general _melee_ which is bound to follow.
The past _were_ is designedly contrasted with the present _are_, for itis a fact that conditions all around are changing for the better;slowly, perhaps, but nevertheless surely.
The philanthropic friend of the labourer is learning to developbalancing tail-feathers of judgment wherewith to direct the flights ofwings of mercy. The employer is beginning to realise the beneficialresults of mutual understanding and of considerate co-operation, and theindustrious fomenter of strife is learning that bones with richer marrowmay be more safely cracked by sensible adjustment than with grievousclubs wielded over broken heads.
Even so, the millennium is yet far away, and now, as in the past, thepath that leads to it is uphill and dim, and is beset with manyobstacles. There are no short cuts to the summit. In spite ofpessimistic clamours that the rich are growing richer and the poorpoorer, frothy yowls for free and unlimited coinage at sixteen to one,or for fiat paper at infinity to nothing, the fact remains that, whereaskings formerly used signets for the want of knowledge to write theirnames, licked their greasy fingers for lack of knives and forks, andstarved in Ireland with plenty in France, the poorest to-day can, ifthey will, indite readable words on well-sized paper, do things inhigher mathematics, and avoid the thankless task of dividing eight intoseven and looking for the remainder.
Potatoes are worth fifty cents a bushel. Any yokel can dig a hole in theground and plant the seed and in due time gather the ripened tubers. Theengineer who drives his engine at sixty miles an hour, flashing bywarning semaphores, rolling among coloured lights, clattering over frogsand switches, is no yokel. Therefore, because of this fact, with thecompensation of one day he can, if he so elects, buy many potatoes, oremploy many yokels.
Had Sir Isaac Newton devoted to the raising of potatoes the energy whichhe gave to astronomy, he might have raised larger potatoes and more tothe hill than his yokel neighbour. But, his conditions having beenpotatoes, his reward would have been potatoes, instead of the deathlessglory of the discovery and enunciation of the law of gravity. Theproblem is very simple after all. The world has had a useless deal oftrouble because no one has ever before taken the trouble to state theproblem and to elaborate it. It is just as simple as is the obvious factthat _x_ plus _y_ equals _a_.
There is a possibility, however, that we have been going too fast, andhave consequently overlooked a few items of importance. We forgot forthe moment, as often happens, that the factors in the problem are nothomogeneous digits with fixed values, but complex personalities withdecided opinions of their own as to their individual and relativeimportance, as well as pugnacious tendencies for compelling anacceptance of their assumptions by equally pugnacious factors whichclaim a differential valuation in their own favour. This considerationpresents a somewhat different and more difficult phase of the problem.It really compels us to defer attempts at final solution, for the timebeing, at least; to make the best adjustment possible under presentconditions, putting off to the future the final application, much on thesame principle that communities bond their present public possessionsfor their own good and complacently bestow upon posterity the obligationof settling the bills. Considered in this light, the end of the strugglebetween capital and labour is not yet. Each is striving for the solepossession and control of things which belong to neither alone. Eachlooks upon the other not as a co-labourer but as a rival, instead ofmaking intelligent and united effort for an object unattainable byeither alone. If capital would smoke this in his cigar and labour thesame in his pipe, the soothing effects might tend to more amicable andeffective use of what is now dissipated energy.
However, universal panaceas are not to be hoped for. The mailed fistputs irritating chips upon swaggering shoulders, and the unresentfulturning of smitten cheeks is conducive to a thrifty growth of gelatinousnincompoops.
The preceding _status quo_ existed in general at the Rainbow mines andmill, besides having a few individual characteristics peculiarly theirown. Miners and millmen, for the most part recent importations from allcountries of Europe, had come from the realms of oppression to the landof the free with very exaggerated notions of what freedom really was.The dominant expression of this idea was that everyone could do as hepleased, and that if the other fellow didn't like it, he, the otherfellow, could get out. The often enunciating of abstract principles ledto their liberal application to concrete facts. In this application theyhad able counsel in the ambitious Morrison.
"Who opened these mountain wilds?" Morrison was wont to inquire, not forinformation, but for emphasis. "Who discovered, amidst toils and dangersand deprivations and snowslides, these rich mines of gold and silver?Who made them accessible by waggon trail and railroads and burros? Whobut the honest sons of honest toil? Who, when these labours areaccomplished, lolls in the luxurious lap of the voluptuous East, reapingthe sweat of your brows, gathering in the harvest of hands toiling forthree dollars a day or less? Who, but the purse-proud plutocrat who sitson his cushioned chair in Wall Street, sending out his ruthless minionsto rob the labourer of his toil and to express his hard-won gold to thestanchless maw of the ghoulish East. Rise, noble sons of toil, rise!Stretch forth your horny hands and gather in your own! Raise high uponthese mountain-peaks the banner of freedom's hope before despairing eyesraised from the greed-sodden plains of the effete East!"
Whereat the sons of toil would cheer and then proceed to stretch forthhands to unripened fruits with such indiscriminating activity that bothmine and mill ceased to yield expenses to the eastern plutocrat, andeven the revenues of the Blue Goose were seriously impaired, to thegreat distress of Pierre.
These rhodomontades of Morrison had grains of plausible truth as nuclei.The workmen never, or rarely, came in personal contact with their realemployers. Their employers were in their minds men who reaped whereothers had sown, who gathered where they had not strewn. The labourergave no heed to costly equipment which made mines possible, or at bestweighed them but lightly against the daily toil of monotonous lives.They saw tons of hard-won ore slide down the long cables, crash throughthe pounding stamps, saw the gold gather on the plates, saw it retorted,and the shining bars shipped East. Against this gold of unknown value,and great because unknown, they balanced their daily wage, that lookedpitifully small.
The yield of their aggregate labour in foul-aired stopes and roaringmill they could see in one massive lump. They could not see theaggregate of little bites that reduced the imposing mass to a tinydribble which sometimes, but not always, fell into the treasury of thecompany. They would not believe, even if they saw.
For these reasons, great is the glory of the leaders of labour who arerising to-day, holding restraining hands on turbulent ignorance andtaking wise counsel with equally glorious leaders who are striving toenforce the truth that all gain over just compensation is but a sacredtrust for the benefit of mankind. These things are coming to be soto-day. But so long as sons of wealth are unmindful of theirobligations, and so long as ignorance breathes forth noxious vapours topoison its victims, so long will there be battles to be fought andvictories to be won.
Thus was the way made ready for the feet of one of the labourer'smistaken friends. Morrison was wily, if not wise. He distinguishedbetween oratory and logic. He kindled the flames of indignation andresentment with the one and fed them with the other. But in theper
formance of each duty he never lost sight of himself.
Under the slack management of previous administrations, the conditionsof the Rainbow mine and mill had rapidly deteriorated. In the mine ahundred sticks of powder were used or wasted where one would havesufficed. Hundreds of feet of fuse, hundreds of detonators, and poundsof candles were thrown away. Men would climb high in the mine to theirwork only to return later for some tool needed, or because theirsupplies had not lasted through their shift. If near the close of hours,they would sit and gossip with their fellow-workmen. Drills and hammerswould be buried in the stope, or thrown over the dump. Rock would bebroken down with the ore, and the mixed mass, half ore and half rock,would be divided impartially and sent, one-half to the dump and one-halfto the mill.
At the mill was the same shiftless state of affairs. Tools once usedwere left to be hunted for the next time they were wanted. On the nightshift the men slept at their posts or deserted them for the hilariousattractions of the Blue Goose. The result was that the stamps, unfed,having no rock to crush, pounded steel on steel, so that stamps werebroken, bossheads split, or a clogged screen would burst, leaving thehalf-broken ore to flow over the plates and into the wash-sluices withnone of its value extracted.
Among the evils that followed in the train of slack and ignorantmanagement not the least was the effect upon the men. If a rich pocketof ore was struck the men stole it all. They argued that it was theirs,because they found it. The company would never miss it; the company wasmaking enough, anyway, and, besides, the superintendent never knew whena pocket was opened, and never told them that it was not theirs. Thesepilfered pockets were always emptied at the Blue Goose. On theseoccasions the underground furnace glowed ruddily, and Pierre would stowthe pilfered gold among other pilfered ingots, and would in due timeemerge from his subterranean retreat in such cheerful temper that he hadno heart to browbeat the scared-looking Madame. Whereupon Madame wouldbe divided in her honest soul between horror at Pierre's wrong-doing andthankfulness for a temporary reprieve from his biting tongue.
The miners stole supplies of all kinds and sold them or gave them totheir friends. Enterprising prospectors, short of funds, as is usuallythe case, "got a job at the mine," then, having stocked up, would callfor their time and go forth to hunt a mine of their own.
The men could hardly be blamed for these pilferings. A slack land-ownerwho makes no protest against the use of his premises as a publichighway, in time not only loses his property but his right to protest aswell.
So it happened at the Rainbow mine and mill that, as no locks wereplaced on magazines, as the supply-rooms were open to all, and as noprotest was made against the men helping themselves, the men came tofeel that they were taking only what belonged to them, whatever use wasmade of the appropriated supplies.
These were some of the more obvious evils which Firmstone set aboutremedying. Magazines and supply-rooms were locked and supplies wereissued on order. Workmen ceased wandering aimlessly about while onshift. Rock and ore were broken separately, and if an undue proportionof rock was delivered at the mill it was immediately known at the mineand in unmistakable terms.
The effect of these changes on the men was various. Some took an honestpride in working under a man who knew his business. More chafed andfumed under unwonted restrictions. These were artfully nursed by thewily Morrison, with the result that a dangerous friction was developingbetween the better disposed men and the restless growlers. This feelingwas also diligently stimulated by Morrison.
"Go easy," was his caution; "but warm it up for them."
"Warm it up for them!" indignantly protested one disciple. "Them fellersis the old man's pets."
Morrison snorted.
"Pets, is it? Pets be damned! It's only a matter of time when the oldman will be dancing on a hot stove, if you've got any sand in yourcrops. The foreman's more than half with you now. Get the unionorganised, and we'll run out the pets and the old man too. You'll neverget your rights till you're organised."
At the mill, Firmstone's nocturnal visits at any unexpected hour madenapping a precarious business and visits to the Blue Goose not to bethought of.
The results of Firmstone's vigilance showed heavily in reduced expensesand in increased efficiency of labour; but these items were onlynegative. The fact remained that the yield of the mill in bullion wasbut slightly increased and still subject to extreme variations. Theconclusion was inevitable that the mill was being systematicallyplundered. Firmstone knew that there must be collusion, not only amongthe workmen, but among outsiders as well. This was an obvious fact, butthe means to circumvent it were not so obvious. He knew that there wereworkmen in the mill who would not steal a penny, but he also knew thatthese same men would preserve a sullen silence with regard to thepeculations of their less scrupulous fellows. It was but the grown-upsense of honour, that will cause a manly schoolboy to be larruped to thebone before he will tell about his errant and cowardly fellow.
Firmstone was well aware of the simmering discontent which his rigiddiscipline was arousing. He regretted it, but he was hopeful that thebetter element among the men would yet gain the ascendant.
"He's square," remarked one of his defenders. "There was a mistake in mytime, last payroll, and he looked over the time himself." "That's so,"in answer to one objector. "I was in the office and saw him."
"You bet he's square," broke in another. "Didn't I get a bad pair ofboots out of the commissary, and didn't he give me another pair in theirplace? That's what."
If Morrison and Pierre had not been in active evidence Firmstone wouldhave won the day without a fight.