Part 39 (2/2)

McIver evidently saw from her manner that there was still something in the amazing situation that they had not yet touched upon. Coming back to his desk, he said, ”I don't think I understand, Helen. Why were you in such a hurry to see me? Besides, don't you know that I would have gone to you, at once, anywhere?”

”I know, Jim,” she returned, slowly, as one approaching a difficult subject, ”but I couldn't tell you what I had seen. I couldn't talk to you about these things at home.”

”I understand,” he said, gently, ”and I am glad that you wanted to come to me. But you are tired and nervous and all unstrung, now. Let me take you home and to-morrow we will talk things over.”

As if he had not spoken, she said, steadily, ”I wanted to tell you about the terrible, terrible condition of those poor people, Jim. I thought you ought to know about them exactly as they are and not in a vague, indefinite way as I knew about them before I went to see for myself.”

The man moved uneasily. ”I do know about the condition of these people, Helen. It is exactly what I expected would happen.”

She was listening carefully. ”You expected them to--to be hungry and cold and sick like that, Jim?”

”Such conditions are always a part of every strike like this,” he returned. ”There is nothing unusual about it, and it is the only thing that will ever drive these cattle back to their work. They simply have to be starved to it.”

”But John says--”

He interrupted. ”Please, Helen--I know all about what John says. I know where he gets it, too--he gets it from the Interpreter who gave you this crazy notion of going alone into the Flats to investigate personally. And John's ideas are just about as practical.”

”But the mothers and children, Jim?”

”The men can go back to work whenever they are ready,” he retorted.

”At your terms, you mean?” she asked.

”My terms are the only terms that will ever open this plant again. The unions will never dictate my business policies, if every family in Millsburgh starves.”

She waited a moment before she said, slowly, ”I must be sure that I understand, Jim--do you mean that you are actually depending upon such pitiful conditions as I have seen to-night to give you a victory over the strikers?”

The man made a gesture of impatience. ”It is the principle of the thing that is at stake, Helen. If I yield in this instance it will be only the beginning of a worse trouble. If the working cla.s.s wins this time there will be no end to their demands. We might as well turn all our properties over to them at once and be done with it. This strike in Millsburgh is only a small part of the general industrial situation.

The entire business interests of the country are involved.”

Again she waited a little before answering. Then she said, sadly, ”How strange! It is hard for me to realize, Jim, that the entire business interests of this great nation are actually dependent upon the poor little Maggie Whaleys.”

”Helen!” he protested, ”you make me out a heartless brute.”

”No, Jim, I know you are not that. But when you insist that what I saw to-night--that the suffering of these poor, helpless mothers and their children is the only thing that will enable you employers to break this strike and save the business of the country--it--it does seem a good deal like the Germans' war policy of frightfulness that we all condemned so bitterly, doesn't it?”

”These things are not matters of sentiment, Helen. Jake Vodell is not conducting his campaign by the Golden Rule.”

”I know, Jim, but I could not go to Jake Vodell as I have come to you--could I? And I could not talk to the poor, foolish strikers who are so terribly deceived by him. Don't you suppose, Jim, that most of the strikers think they are right?”

The man stirred uneasily. ”I can't help what they think. I can consider only the facts as they are.”

”That is just what I want, Jim,” she cried. ”Only it seems to me that you are leaving out some of the most important facts. I can't help believing that if our great captains of industry and kings of finance and teachers of economics and labor leaders would consider _all_ the facts they could find some way to settle these differences between employers and employees and save the industries of the country without starving little girls and boys and their mothers.”

”If I could have my way the government would settle the difficulty in a hurry,” he said, grimly.

”You mean the soldiers?”

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