Part 16 (1/2)
At two o'clock we pa.s.sed through Springfield, stopping only a moment at the hotel to inquire for mail. Leaving Springfield we followed the main road towards Worcester, some fifty miles away.
The road is winding and over a rolling country, but for the most part very good. The grades are not steep, there are some sandy spots, but none so soft as to materially interfere with good speed. There are many stretches of good gravel, and here and there a piece--a sample--of State road, perfectly laid macadam, with signs all along requesting persons not to drive in the centre of the highway,--this is to save the road from the hollows and ruts that horses and narrow-tired wagons invariably make, and in which the water stands, ultimately wearing the macadam through. We could not see that the slightest attention was paid to the notices.
Everybody kept the middle of the road, such is the improvidence of men; the country people grumble at the great expense of good roads, and then take the surest way to ruin them.
While it is true that the people in the first instance grumble at the prospective cost of these well-made State roads, no sooner are they laid than their very great value is appreciated, and good roads sentiment becomes rampant. The farmer who has worn out horses, harness, wagons, and temper in getting light loads to market over heavy roads is quick to appreciate the very material advantage and economy of having highways over which one horse can pull as much as two under the old sandy, rough, and muddy conditions.
A good road may be the making of a town, and it increases the value of all ab.u.t.ting property. Already the question is commonly asked when a farm is offered for sale or rent, ”Is it on a State road?” Lots will not sell in cities unless all improvements are in; soon farmers will not be able to sell unless the highways are improved.
One good thing about the automobile, it does not cut up the surface of a macadam or gravel road as do steel tires and horseshoes.
At the outskirts of the little village of West Brookfield we came to a stand-still; the spark disappeared,--or rather from a large, round, fat spark it dropped to an insignificant little blue sparklet that would not explode a squib.
The way the spark acted with either or both batteries on indicated pretty strongly that the trouble was in the coil; but it is so seldom a coil goes wrong that everything was looked over, but no spark of any size was to be had, therefore there was nothing to do but cast about for a place to spend the night, for it was then dark.
As good luck would have it, we were almost in front of a large, comfortable, old-fas.h.i.+oned house where they took summer boarders; as the season was drawing to a close, there was plenty of room and they were glad to take us in. The machine was pushed into a shed, everybody a.s.sisting with the readiness ever characteristic of sympathetic on-lookers.
The big, clean, white rooms were most inviting; the homely New England supper of cold meats and hot rolls seemed under the circ.u.mstances a feast for a king, and as we sat in front of the house in the evening, and looked across the highway to a little lake just beyond and heard the croaking of the frogs, the chirping of crickets, and the many indistinguishable sounds of night, we were not sorry the machine had played us false exactly when and where it did.
The automobile plays into the hands of Morpheus, the drowsy G.o.d follows in its wake, sure of his victims. No sleep is dreamless.
It is pretty difficult to exhaust the three billions of cells of the central nervous system so that all require rest, but ten hours on an automobile in the open air, speeding along like the wind most of the time, will come nearer putting all those cells to sleep than any exercise heretofore discovered. The fatigue is normal, pervasive, and persuasive, and it is pretty hard to recall any dream on waking.
It was Sunday morning, September 1, and raining, a soft, drizzly downpour, that had evidently begun early in the night and kept up --or rather down--steadily. It was a good morning to remain indoors and read; but there was that tantalizing machine challenging combat; then, too, Worcester was but eighteen or twenty miles away, and at Worcester we expected to find letters and telegrams.
A young and clever electrician across the way came over, bringing an electric bell, with which we tested the dry cells, finding them in good condition. We then examined the connections and ran the trouble back to the coil. There was plenty of current and plenty of voltage, but only a little blue spark, which could be obtained equally well with the coil in or out of the circuit, and yet the coil did not show a short circuit, but before we finished our tests the spark suddenly appeared.
Again, it would have been better to remain and find the trouble; but as there was no extra coil to be had in the village, it seemed fairly prudent to start on and get as far as possible. Possibly the coil would hold out to Worcester; anyway, the road is a series of villages, some larger than Brookfield, and a coil might be found at one of them.
When within two miles of Spencer the spark gave out again; this time no amount of coaxing would bring it back, so there was nothing to do but appeal to a farmer for a pair of horses to pull the machine into his yard. The a.s.sistance was most kindly given, though the day was Sunday, and for him, his men and his animals, emphatically a day of rest.
Only twice on the entire trip were horses attached to the machine; but a sparking coil is absolutely essential, and when one gives out it is pretty hard to make repairs on the road. In case of necessity a coil may be unwound, the trouble discovered and remedied, but that is a tedious process. It was much easier to leave the machine for the night, run into Worcester on the trolley which pa.s.sed along the same road, and bring out a new coil in the morning.
Monday happened to be Labor Day, and it was only after much trouble that a place was found open where electrical supplies could be purchased. In addition to a coil, the electrician took out some thoroughly insulated double cable wire; the wiring of the machine had been so carelessly done and with such light, cheap wire that it seemed a good opportunity to rewire throughout.
The electrician--a very competent and quick workman he proved to be--was so sure the trouble could not be in the coil that he did not wish to carry out a new one.
When ready to start, we found the trolley line blocked by a Labor Day parade that was just beginning to move. The procession was unusually long on account of striking trades unionists, who turned out in force. As each section of strikers pa.s.sed, the electrician explained the cause of their strike, the number of men out, and the length of time they had been out.
It seemed too bad that big, brawny, intelligent men could find no better way of adjusting differences with employers than by striking.
A strike is an expensive luxury. Three parties are losers,--the community in general by being deprived for the time being of productive forces; the employers by loss on capital invested; the employees by loss of wages. The loss to the community, while very real, is little felt. Employers, as a rule, are prepared to stand their losses with equanimity; in fact, when trade is dull, or when an employer desires to make changes in his business, a strike is no inconvenience at all; but the men are the real losers, and especially those with families and with small homes unpaid for; no one can measure their losses, for it may mean the savings of a lifetime. It frequently does mean a change in character from an industrious, frugal, contented workman with everything to live for, to a s.h.i.+ftless and discontented man with nothing to live for but agitation and strife.
It is easy to acquire the strike habit, and impossible to throw it off. A first strike is more dangerous than a first drink; it makes a profound and ineradicable impression. To quit work for the first time at the command of some central organization is an experience so novel that no man can do it without being affected; he will never again be the same steady and indefatigable workman; the spirit of unrest creeps in, the spirit of discontent closely follows; his life is changed; though he never goes through another strike, he can never forget his first.
In the long run it does not matter much which side wins, the effect is very much the same,--strikes are bound to follow strikes. Warfare is so natural to men that it is difficult to declare a lasting peace. But some day the men themselves will see that strikes are far more disastrous to them than to any other cla.s.s, and they will devise other ways and means; they will use the strength of their organizations to better advantage; above all, they will relegate to impotency the professional organizers and agitators who retain their positions by fomenting strife.
It is singular that workmen do not take a lesson from their shrewder employers, who, if they have organizations of their own, never confer upon any officer or committee of idlers the power to control the trade. An organization of employers is always controlled by those most actively engaged in the business, and not by coteries of paid idlers; no central committee of men, with nothing to do but make trouble, can involve a whole trade in costly controversies. The strength of the employer lies in the fact that each man consults first his own interest, and if the action of the body bids fair to injure his individual interests he not only protests, but threatens to withdraw; the employer cannot be cowed by any a.s.sociation of which he is a member; but the employee is cowed by his union,--that is the essential difference between the two. An a.s.sociation of employers is a union of independent and aggressive units, and the action of the a.s.sociation must meet the approval of each of these units or disruption will follow. Workingmen do not seem to appreciate the value of the unit; they are attracted by ma.s.ses. They seem to think strength lies only in members; but that is the keynote of militantism, the death-knell of individualism. The real, the only strength of a union lies in the silent, unconsulted units; now and then they rise up and act and the union accomplishes something; for the most part they do not act, but are blindly led, and the union accomplishes nothing.
It was interesting to hear the comments of the intelligent young mechanic as the different trades pa.s.sed by.
”Those fellows are out on a sympathetic strike; no grievance at all, plenty of work and good wages, but just out because they are told to come out; big fools, I say, to be pulled about by the nose.