Part 64 (2/2)
”But if we fail,” he replied, ”it proves nothing--except perhaps that it was worth trying, and will be worth trying and trying and trying--until it wins!”
It was half past twelve. Grant Adams, standing before the Vanderbilt House, talking with Henry Fenn, was saying, ”Well, Henry, one week of this--one week of peace--and the triumph of peace will be--”
A terrific explosion shut his mouth. Across the night he saw a red glare a few hundred feet away. An instant later it was dark again. He ran toward the place where the glare had winked out. As he turned a corner, he saw stars where there should have been shaft house No. 7 of the Wahoo Fuel Company's mines, and he knew that it had been destroyed. In it were a dozen sleeping soldiers of the Harvey Militia Company, and it flashed through his mind that Lida Bowman at last had spoken.
CHAPTER XLVII
IN WHICH GRANT ADAMS AND LAURA VAN DORN TAKE A WALK DOWN MARKET STREET AND MRS. NESBIT ACQUIRES A LONG LOST GRANDSON-IN-LAW
Grant Adams and Henry Fenn were among the first to arrive at the scene of the explosion. Henry Fenn had tried to stop Grant from going so quickly, thinking his presence at the scene would raise a question of his guilt, but he cried:
”They may need me, Henry--come on--what's a quibble of guilt when a life's to save?”
When they came to the pile of debris, they saw d.i.c.k Bowman coming up--barefooted, coatless and breathless. Grant and Fenn had run less than fifteen hundred feet--d.i.c.k lived a mile from the shaft house. Grant Adams's mind flashed suspicion toward the Bowmans. He went to d.i.c.k across the wreckage and said:
”Oh, d.i.c.k--I'm sorry you didn't get here sooner.”
”So am I--so am I,” cried d.i.c.k, craning his long neck nervously.
”Where is Mugs?” asked Grant, as the two worked with a beam over a body--the body of handsome Fred Kollander--lying near the edge of the litter.
”He's home in bed and asleep--and so's his mother, too, Grant, sound asleep.”
During the first minutes after the explosion, men near by like Grant and Fenn came running to the scene of the wrecked shaft by the scores, and as Grant and d.i.c.k Bowman spoke the streets grew black with men, workmen, policemen, soldiers, citizens, men by the hundreds came hurrying up. The great siren whistles of the water and light plants began to bellow; fire bells and church bells up in Harvey began to ring, and Grant knew that the telephone was alarming the town. Ten minutes after the explosion, while Grant was ordering his men in the crowd to organize for the rescue, a militia colonel appeared, threw a cordon of men about the ruins and the police and soldiers took charge, forcing Grant and his men away. The first few moments after he had been thrust out of the relief work, Grant spent sending his men in the crowd to summon the members of the Council; then he turned and hurried to his office in the Vanderbilt House. For an hour he wrote. Henry Fenn came, and later Laura Van Dorn appeared, but he waved them both to silence, and without telling them what he had written he went with them to the hall where the Valley Council was waiting in a turmoil of excitement. It was after two o'clock. South Harvey was a military camp. Thousands of citizens from Harvey were hurrying about. As he pa.s.sed along the street, the electric lights showed him little groups about some grief-stricken parent or brother or sister of a missing militiaman. Automobiles were roaring through the streets carrying officers, policemen, prominent citizens of Harvey. Ahab Wright and Joe Calvin and Kyle Perry were in a car with John Kollander who had come down to South Harvey to claim the body of his son, Fred. Grant saw the Sands's car with Morty in it supporting a stricken soldier. The car was halted at the corner by the press of traffic, and as Grant and Laura and Henry pa.s.sed, Morty said under the din: ”Grant--Grant, be careful--they are turning Heaven and earth to find your hand in this; it will be only a matter of days--maybe only hours, until they will have their witnesses hired!”
Grant nodded. The car moved on and Grant and his friends pressed through the throng to the hall where the Valley Council was waiting. There Grant stood and read what he had written. It ran thus:
”For the death by dynamite of the militiamen who perished at midnight in shaft No. 7 of the Wahoo Fuel Company's mines, I take full responsibility. I have a.s.sumed a leaders.h.i.+p in a strike which caused these deaths. I s.h.i.+rk no whit of my share in this outrage. Yet I preached only peace. I pleaded for orderly conduct. I appealed to the workers to take their own not by force of arms but by the tremendous force of moral right. That ten thousand workers respected this appeal, I am exceedingly proud. That one out of all the ten thousand was not convinced of the justice of our cause and the ultimate triumph by the force of righteousness I am sorry beyond words. I call upon my comrades to witness what a blow to our cause this murder has been and to stand firm in the faith that the strike must win by ways of peace.
”Yet, whoever did this deed was not entirely to blame--however it may cripple his fellow-workers. A child mangled in the mines denied his legal damages; men clubbed for telling of their wrongs to their fellow-laborers who were asked to fill their places; women on the picket line, herded like deer through the park by Cossacks whipping the fleeing creatures mercilessly; these things inflamed the mind of the man who set off the bomb; these things had their share in the murder.
”But I knew what strikes were. I know indeed what strikes still are and what this strike may be. I sorrow with those families whose boys perished by the bomb in shaft house No. 7. I grieve with the families of those who have been beaten and broken in this strike. But by all this innocent blood--blood shed by the working people--blood shed by those who ignorantly misunderstand us, I now beg you, my comrades, to stand firm in this strike. Let not this blood be shed in vain. It may be indeed that the men of the master cla.s.s here have not descended as deeply as we may expect them to descend. They may feel that more blood must be spilled before they let us come into our own. But if blood is shed again, we must bleed, but let it not be upon our hands.
”Again, even in this breakdown of our high hopes for a strike without violence, I lift my voice in faith, I hail the coming victory, I proclaim that the day of the Democracy of Labor is at hand, and it shall come in peace and good will to all.”
When he had finished reading his statement, he sat down and the Valley Council began to discuss it. Many objected to it; others wished to have it modified; still others agreed that it should be published as he had read it. In the end, he had his way. But in the hubbub of the discussion, Laura Van Dorn, sitting near him, asked:
”Grant, why do you take all this on your shoulders? It is not fair, and it is not true--for that matter.”
He answered finally: ”Well, that's what I propose to do.”
He was haggard and careworn and he stared at the woman beside him with determination in his eyes. But she would not give up. Again she insisted: ”The people are inflamed--terribly inflamed and in the morning they will be in no mood for this. It may put you in jail--put you where you are powerless.”
He turned upon her the stubborn, emotional face that she rarely had seen but had always dreaded. He answered her:
”If anything were to be gained for the comrades by waiting--I'd wait.”
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