Part 30 (2/2)

”Two good legs, Adam Ward, two good legs,” returned the old basket maker.

Again Adam Ward was at a loss for an answer. In the shadowy presence of that old man in the wheel chair the Mill owner was as a wayward child embarra.s.sed before a kindly master.

When the Interpreter spoke again his deep voice was colored with gentle patience.

”Why have you come to me like this, Adam Ward? What is it that you want?”

Adam moved uneasily. ”Why--nothing particular--I just thought I would call--happened to be going by and saw your light.”

There had been no light in the hut that evening. The Interpreter waited. The surrounding darkness of the night seemed filled with warring spirits from the gloomy Flats, the mighty Mill, the glittering streets and stores and the cheerfully lighted homes.

Adam tried to make his voice sound casual, but he could not altogether cover the nervous intensity of his interest, as he asked the question that was so vital to the entire community. ”Will the Mill workers'

union go out on a sympathetic strike?”

”No.”

The Mill owner drew a long breath of relief. ”I judged you would know.”

The Interpreter did not answer.

Adam spoke with more confidence. ”I suppose you know this agitator Jake Vodell?”

”I know who he is,” replied the Interpreter. ”He is a well-known representative of a foreign society that is seeking, through the working people of this country, to extend its influence and strengthen its power.”

”The unions are going too far,” said Adam. ”The people won't stand for their bringing in a man like Vodell to preach anarchy and stir up all kinds of trouble.”

The Interpreter spoke strongly. ”Jake Vodell no more represents the great body of American union men than you, Adam Ward, represent the great body of American employers.”

”He works with the unions, doesn't he?”

”Yes, but that does not make him a representative of the union men as a whole, any more than the fact that your work with the great body of American business men makes you their representative.”

”I should like to know why I am not a representative American business man.” It was evident from the tone of his voice that the Mill owner controlled himself with an effort.

The Interpreter answered, without a trace of personal feeling, ”You do not represent them, Adam Ward, because the spirit and purpose of your personal business career is not the spirit and purpose of our business men as a whole--just as the spirit and purpose of such men as Jake Vodell is not the spirit and purpose of our union men as a whole.”

”But,” a.s.serted the Mill owner, ”it is men like me who have built up this country. Look at our railroads, our great manufacturing plants, our industries of all kinds! Look what I have done for Millsburgh! You know what the town was when you first came here. Look at it now!”

”The new process has indeed wrought great changes in Millsburgh,”

suggested the Interpreter.

”The new process! You mean that _I_ have wrought great changes in Millsburgh. What would the new process have amounted to if it had not been for me? Why, even the poor old fools who owned the Mill at that time couldn't have done anything with it. I had to force it on them.

And then when I had managed to get it installed and had proved what it would do, I made them increase their capitalization and give me a half interest--told them if they didn't I would take my process to their compet.i.tors and put them out of business. Later I managed to gain the control and after that it was easy.” His voice changed to a tone of arrogant, triumphant boasting. ”I may not be a representative business man in _your_ estimation, but my work stands just the same. No man who knows anything about business will deny that I built up the Mill to what it is to-day.”

”And that,” returned the Interpreter, ”is exactly what Vodell says for the men who work with their hands in cooperation with men like you who work with their brains. You say that you built the Mill because you thought and planned and directed its building. Jake Vodell says the men whose physical strength materialized your thoughts, the men who carried out your plans and toiled under your direction built the Mill. And you and Jake are both right to exactly the same degree. The truth is that you have _all together_ built the Mill. You have no more right to think or to say that you did it than Pete Martin has to think or to say that he did it.”

When Adam Ward found no answer to this the Interpreter continued.

”Consider a great building: The idea of the structure has come down through the ages from the first habitation of primitive man. The mental strength represented in the structure in its every detail is the composite thought of every generation of man since the days when human beings dwelt in rocky caves and in huts of mud. But listen: The capitalist who furnished the money says he did it; the architect says he did it; the stone mason says he did it; the carpenter says he did it; the mountains that gave the stone say they did it; the forests that grew the timber say they did it; the hills that gave the metal say they did it.

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