In November a strike of the street-railway employees broke out. The company, which had applied for and obtained a seven-cent fare six months earlier, had now asked for the right to raise it to ten cents. The city council refused; whereupon the company, alleging its inability to carry on at even a modest profit under the existing costs, declared a twenty per cent. cut in wages, and the employees struck. The clash was fierce and there was much violence. The company imported strike-breakers from Chicago, they were mobbed, there were deaths, the militia was called out, and a few empty cars with shattered windows ran occasionally up and down the city streets. Stacey was not particularly interested, having other things to think about. He barely glanced at the news headlines and smiled ironically as he did so, knowing that Colin Jeffries, who had a controlling interest in the stock of the street-railway company, also virtually owned the evening (Republican) paper and was engaged in many business enterprises with the owner of the morning (Democratic) paper. As for the editorials, he would no more have read them than he would have read the latest novel by Harold Bell Wright. But sometimes his father read them aloud at table in a tone of fierce assent, and thus Stacey learned that they were all about “one hundred per cent. Americanism” and the duty of labor to yield something, just as capital was yielding something.
However, one afternoon Edwards, whom Stacey had not seen for a week, suddenly entered the office.
“Hello!” cried Stacey cordially. “Come in. Where have you been?”—then broke off at sight of the other’s appearance.
Edwards was unshaven and rather dirty, and his eyes glowed darkly in his tense face. He shut the door behind him, then sat down opposite Stacey at the desk.
“I want to talk to you, Carroll,” he said. “It’s about the strike.”
“All right,” said Stacey. “I hardly know anything about it, haven’t followed it.”
Edwards’ eyes suddenly blazed. “No,” he cried, “of course not! What’s it all matter to you? You’re all right! You’re not your brother’s keeper! It—”
“Now look here,” said Stacey, firmly but pleasantly enough, “cut out the class business, will you? You know that’s not the way you feel about me or you wouldn’t be coming here to see me. I haven’t a doubt but that the men are right in this strike, but the reason I’ve kept off the subject as much as possible is because I don’t see what in the world I can do about it, and I don’t know anything worse than futile sentimental sympathy.”
“I apologize, Carroll,” Edwards returned moodily. “I didn’t mean that, of course. And I’d probably better apologize in advance for anything else I may break loose and say. I haven’t had much sleep lately.”
“That’s all right,” Stacey replied. “Go as far as you like.”
“Carroll,” said Edwards painfully, “we’re beaten. I mean, on every big thing. There isn’t going to be any change in the rotten system, not for now. There isn’t going to be any revolution. There isn’t going to be a beginning of socialism, all men sharing tasks, each according to his capacity. There’s just going to be the same tyranny there’s always been, the same exploitation of a lot of men by a few. I tell you, I’m broken-hearted!” He paused, his face set.
“You must be,” said Stacey, “if you hoped for that.”
“Oh, I did and I didn’t! I thought maybe—but now this strike,” he went on sharply. “Six months ago there’d have been a general strike in sympathy. Every workman in the city would have downed tools. Not—now! We’re beaten, I tell you! There are thousands of unemployed, winter’s here, coal costs what you know, the men don’t dare. Beaten! You’ve heard what one of the big employers said openly—that pretty soon the men would be eating out of their hands! And here am I fighting for this puny little thing—that men be doled out enough to exist on! And fighting in vain!”
Stacey looked at him with silent sympathy.
“Here!” said Edwards, tearing papers from his pocket. “Here are the figures. Here’s what it costs a family of three to live—Government statistics. Here’s what the men were getting. Here’s what they’re to get now if they yield.” He pushed the papers across the table.
Stacey fingered them, but kept his eyes on his friend. “I know,” he said. “I can imagine without studying them. What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Edwards nervously. “I’d thought of two or three things. If you were to print the facts—just the facts—with your name signed to them, in one of the papers. . . .”
Stacey smiled bitterly. “Fat chance! How much of a power in this town do you think I am? Don’t you know that Colin Jeffries, who owns the street-railway, controls the papers?”
“Yes, I know that, damn him!” Edwards burst out. “He’s everywhere! You can’t get out from under his shadow.”
“And even if I could get such an article printed, what would it accomplish? When did the public ever budge? Inert mass of sheep! And all the time the papers harping on the idea that the street-railway company can’t pay its stock-holders even a nominal interest on their investment under current conditions.”
“Well,” Edwards fairly shouted, “and if they can’t! Do you know anything about that company? I do. I’ve looked into it with a lawyer. Way over-capitalized. Three millions of water, Carroll,—three cool millions into private pockets! So men must starve, must they, to pay interest on that stock?”
Stacey’s face was grim. “No,” he said shortly, “I hadn’t looked into it, but it doesn’t surprise me. I’ll tell you what I could do,” he said hesitatingly after a moment. “I—er—the only available income I have is what I make here at the office. I could turn over—say two hundred and fifty dollars a month of it to the union. And I might—that is, I don’t know what my sister does with her income—gives most of it away, I fancy—but I dare say she’d put in as much more.”
Edwards stared. “Say,” he said shakily, “that’s decent! I thought you had—well, it’s none of my business. But it wouldn’t be any use, Carroll. Not a hundredth part enough. But—thanks!”
“Oh!” said Stacey deprecatingly, then fell to thinking. “Look here,” he remarked finally, “there’s only one thing I can think of, and it will have to be you to do it rather than I. Also it’s only a faint chance. Now my father is an honest man—set in his beliefs, but honest. And he’s also influential. Colin Jeffries probably defers as much to him as to any one living, because father’s very likely the only thoroughly honest, disinterested friend Jeffries has. Father believes in the principles Jeffries only exploits to make money out of. If you can get him—my father, I mean—on your side, he might take the matter up to Jeffries personally.”
Edwards’ face expressed extreme dislike of the suggestion. “Can’t say I care much for the idea—like begging for what you’ve a right to.”
“I didn’t suppose you would. But I estimate that what you’re out for is to save a living wage for these men—by any means.”
“Yes,” Edwards muttered, “I’d do anything. But how on earth could I swing your father into line?”
“Well,” said Stacey slowly, “come out to the house this evening at eight-fifteen, just when dinner’s over, and talk to him, always about the personal side, the facts of it, show him the figures, and keep away from all discussion of principles! Appeal to his sense of fair play to get him to go down with you to-morrow morning and see the men themselves.”
Edwards reflected. “All right,” he said sullenly, and rose.
“Mind now!” Stacey called after him, “no principles!”
Stacey made himself very agreeable at dinner that evening. He was keyed up by anticipation, his eyes glowed, and he looked younger. There was an added warmth in the harmony that had been lately achieved in the Carroll house. But Stacey saw Catherine glance at him wonderingly. It wasn’t possible to hide feelings from Catherine.
He caught her alone for a moment on the way to the library. “Now listen!” he said. “You stick by me. Don’t budge from the library. And support me in every way you can.”
Her dark eyes were curious, but her lips curved faintly into a smile—perhaps at his tone of command, that was so unlike his customary tone with her.
He would explain nothing, however; only marched her on down the hall. And a very few minutes later Parker came in to say that a Mr. Edwards had called.
“Oh, yes,” Stacey exclaimed, “he’s a friend of mine! Bring him in, Parker,—or, no, I’ll go get him myself,” and he went out. “Take it easy now, and no principles,” he growled to Edwards, as he piloted him in.
“Father,” Stacey remarked, “this is my friend, Edwards,—was commander of the Legion post, you know. Mrs. Blair, Mr. Edwards.”
“How do you do, sir?” said Mr. Carroll, shaking hands. His face had assumed its keen yet non-committal business-look. Mr. Carroll knew something about Edwards, of course, and disapproved of what he knew, but he was a courteous gentleman in his own house; such a man as Mr. Latimer, artistically conscious of every attitude, could not have expressed the situation more nicely.
“I wanted to say a few words to you, sir, about this strike,” Edwards began, sitting down awkwardly in the chair toward which Stacey had impelled him.
Mr. Carroll did not reply at once. He gnawed at his moustache, his eyes grew harder, and he shot one swift angry glance at Stacey.
Up to now Stacey had been rather pleased with himself; he thought he had engineered things well. It suddenly struck him that, instead, he had made a mess of them. His father was angry with him, and therefore more hostile to Edwards. And Edwards was nowhere near at his best; he was gauche, heavy, impressed by his surroundings—it had never occurred to Stacey that he might be,—and correspondingly resentful. Oh, Lord! Stacey looked across helplessly at Catherine.
She had poured out another cup of coffee and now handed it to the guest. “Will you have sugar, Mr. Edwards?” she asked.
“No—no, thank you!” he replied, startled, and took the cup gingerly. He looked as though he would much rather have refused it had he dared.
Mr. Carroll turned his eyes back to the young man. “I have no connection with the street-railway company, Mr. Edwards,” he said deliberately, choosing his words with care. “On the basis of such information as I have been able to obtain in regard to the strike my sympathies are with the company. I fail to see why capital should have to make all the sacrifices and labor none. But since you—and Stacey—wish it, I shall be glad to hear you state the men’s side of the case. I should think, however, that some official of the street-railway company would be the proper person to hear it.”
Edwards, who had flushed, made a quick angry gesture. But this almost upset the fragile cup that he held; so he was forced into restraint. He drank his coffee hastily before replying.
“Well, sir,” he began then, “Carroll—I mean Stacey—thought if I could give you the facts as............