Part 19 (1/2)
”Now, really----”
”That's not asking too much.”
”It is,” the lips pursed grimly. ”It's pledged, alas, to the Uplift of the Underdog, the Castigation of the Capitalist Canine, the Manufacture of the Millennium, the Fas.h.i.+oning of the Future's Fascinating Feminism----”
”Enough, enough! But to no single heart,” in pleading insistence.
”Nor to no married one neither,” she laughed.
”Content, i' faith! Now you may go home to single blessedness and that supper you thoughtlessly promised to grace.” But Pelham wondered, more than once, whether the girl's last light retort had hidden a dig at his friends.h.i.+p with Dorothy. Well, Jane had said less than he deserved, at that.
The convention came closer and closer; and still Paul had not had time to prepare the speech, when the son made his requests. The work at the third ramp, and the planning of an opening on the newly purchased crests beyond, kept Pelham's hands exceptionally busy, so that he did not find much time to wonder at his failure to see the expected address.
Three days before the convention, Jane met him with a worried face.
”Something's rotten in the environs of the iron Copenhagen, Pelham. I learned about it from comrade Hernandez. One of the few socialist delegates, a Birrell-Florence miner named Jensen--I don't think you've met him--has been offered a direct bribe to oppose the mining bill.
Somebody's busy, that's sure.”
”That does sound discouraging. Let's go over your mining reports, so that I can get the facts straight. I ought to understand the situation, at least.”
They went over the figures together. He began to visualize what the cla.s.s struggle meant, here in the quiet, placid South. There had been four large mine explosions in the state the year before, the one at Flagg Mines killing a hundred and ninety-two----”And all of it useless, Pelham! The simplest mine safeguards----”
”The owners can't know of them!”
She shut her lips. ”They cost something. Every cent cuts down profits.
It's cheaper to kill men.”
”It's horrible!” In dejected impotence he clenched his hands. The unemotional rows of figures began to acquire a breathing significance.
His vivid imagination pictured mangled forms, the bursting h.e.l.l of explosions, the isolated horror of lonely accident and death, the pallid faces of starving mothers and babies, staining the broad margins of the cheap white paper.
She looked up from the pamphlets, her brows creased. Pelham smothered an impulse to kiss away the slight gravure of worry. ”The West, bad as it is in some things, at least has modern laws and safeguards.” An unmeant accusation drove in her tones. ”The creaky old laws here are not even followed! When was the last inspection of your mines?”
”More than a month ago. The inspector wasn't very thorough, I noticed.
They were p.r.o.nounced safe.”
”It ought to be done weekly, at least, beside a daily inspection by your forces. Gas can collect in the coal mines, flaws and cracks in the roofing anywhere--only close inspection will do.... And, then, think of the wages paid here! Can a man live--decently, I mean, so that he can send his children to school, and all, on what you pay? And Judge Florence gets seventy-five thousand salary--outside of his dividends.”
”My father gets fifty.”
”It's compulsory starvation and death for the ones who really produce the wealth.... We'll see what the convention does.”
Pelham missed the opening sessions; but Jane gave him reports of the meetings she witnessed, supplemented by what Hernandez and Jensen told him. It was a heated gathering. Big John Pooley was accused outright of dishonest accounting, by one violent structural iron worker. The oily eloquence of Robert E. Lee Bivens smoothed this over. Each of the administration officials--”the boodle gang,” as the noisy radical minority called them--was flayed; the editor of the _Voice of Labor_ received an especial las.h.i.+ng from Jensen, who charged him with deliberately selling out labor's paper to the corporations.
The machinery rolled smoothly. All protests were tombed in safely packed committees.
At last came the final night, with Paul's speech, and consideration of the mining bill afterward, as the only unfinished business.
Pooley, using his gavel vigorously, secured general quiet. He spoke of the honor paid by having as their distinguished visitor the wide-awake vice-president of the Birrell-Florence-Mountain Mining Company. ”Every act in his life marks Paul Judson as a friend of labor. Many of you do not know that he holds a union card--the printers elected him to honorary members.h.i.+p more than a year ago. He is one of us. His problems are our problems. He is turning the splendid force of his intellect to a solution of the labor question which will help employer and employee alike. A gentleman of sterling integrity, a leader among leaders----”
The fulsome eulogy continued for a quarter of an hour.