Loe raamatut: «In the Heart of a Fool», lehekülg 30

For the toll of death in the Wahoo Valley was cruel and inexorable. The mines, the factories, the railroads, the smelters, all were death traps, and the maimed, blind and helpless were cast out of the great industrial hopper like chaff. Every little neighborhood had its cripple. From the mines came the blind–whose sight was taken from them by cheap powder; from the railroad yards came the maimed–the handless, armless, legless men who, in their daily tasks had been crushed by inferior car couplings; the smelters sent out their sick, whom the fumes had poisoned, and sometimes there would come out a charred trunk that had gone into the great molten vats a man. The factories took hands and forearms, and sometimes when an accident of unusual horror occurred in the Valley, it would seem like a place of mourning. The burden of all this bloodshed and death was upon the laborers. And more than that,–the burden of the widows and orphans also was upon labor. Capital charged off the broken machinery, the damaged buildings, the worn-out equipment to profit and loss with an easy conscience, while the broken men all over the Valley, the damaged laborers, the worn-out workers, who were thrown to the scrap heap in maturity, were charged to labor. And labor paid this bill, chiefly because capital was too greedy to provide safe machinery, or sanitary shops, or adequate tools!

Nathan Perry, first miner, then pit-boss and finally superintendent, and always member of Local Miners’ Union No. 10, knew what the men were vaguely beginning to see and think. When some man who had been to court to collect damages for a killed or crippled friend, some man who had heard the Judge talk of the assumed risk of labor, some man who had heard lawyers split hairs to cheat working men of what common sense and common justice said was theirs, when some such man cried out in hatred and agony against society, Nathan Perry tried to counsel patience, tried to curb the malice. But in his heart Nathan Perry knew that if he had suffered the wrongs that such a man suffered, he too would be full of wrath and class hatred.

Sometimes, of course, men rose from the pit. Foremen became managers, managers became superintendents, superintendents became owners, owners became rich, and society replied–“Look, it is easy for a man to rise.” Once at lunch time, sitting in the shaft house, Nathan Perry with his hands in his dinner bucket said something of the kind, when Tom Williams, the little Welsh miner, who was a disciple and friend of Grant Adams, cried:

“Yes–that’s true. It is easy for a man to rise. It was easy for a slave to escape from the South–comparatively easy. But is it easy for the class to rise? Was it easy for the slaves to be free? That is the problem–the problem of lifting a whole class–as your class has been lifted, young fellow, in the last century. Why, over in Wales a century ago, a mere tradesman’s son like you–was–was nobody. The middle classes had nothing–that is, nothing much. They have risen. They rule the world now. This century must see the rise of the laboring class; not here and there as a man who gets out of our class and then sneers at us, and pretends he was with us by accident–but we must rise as a class, boy–don’t you see?”

And so, working in the mine, with the men, Nathan Perry completed his education. He learned–had it ground into him by the hard master of daily toil–that while bread and butter is an individual problem that no laborer may neglect except at his peril, the larger problems of the conditions under which men labor–their hours of service, their factory surroundings, their shop rights to work, their relation to accidents and to the common diseases peculiar to any trade–those are not individual problems. They are class problems and must be solved–in so far as labor can solve them alone, not by individual struggle but by class struggle. So Nathan Perry came up out of the mines a believer in the union, and the closed shop. He felt that those who would make the class problem an individual problem, were only retarding the day of settlement, only hindering progress.

Rumor said that the truce in the Wahoo Valley was near an end. Nathan Perry did not shrink from it. But Market Street was uneasy. It seemed to be watching an approaching cyclone. When men knew that the owners were ready to stop the organization of unions, the cloud of unrest seemed to hover over them. But the clouds dissolved in rumor. Then they gathered again, and it was said that Grant Adams was to be gagged, his Sunday meetings abolished or that he was to be banished from the Valley. Again the clouds dissolved. Nothing happened. But the cloud was forever on the horizon, and Market Street was afraid. For Market Street–as a street–was chiefly interested in selling goods. It had, of course, vague yearnings for social justice–yearnings about as distinct as the desire to know if the moon was inhabited. But as a street, Market Street was with Mrs. Herdicker–it never talked against the cash drawer. Market Street, the world over, is interested in things as they are. The statuo quo is God and laissez faire is its profit! So Market Street murmured, and buzzed–and then Market Street also organized to worship the god of things as they are.

But Mr. Brotherton of the Brotherton Book & Stationery Company held aloof from the Merchants’ Protective Association. Mr. Brotherton at odd times, at first by way of diversion, and then as a matter of education for his growing business, had been glancing at the contents of his wares. Particularly had he been interested in the magazines. Moreover, he was talking. And because it helped him to sell goods to talk about them, he kept on talking.

About this time he affected flowing negligee bow ties, and let his thin, light hair go fluffy and he wrapped rather casually it seemed, about his elephantine bulk, a variety of loose, baggy garb, which looked like a circus tent. But he was a born salesman–was Mr. Brotherton. He plastered literature over Harvey in carload lots.

One day while Mr. Brotherton was wrapping up “Little Women” and a “Little Colonel” book and “Children of the Abbey” that Dr. Nesbit was buying for Lila Van Dorn, the Doctor piped, “Well, George, they say you’re getting to be a regular anarchist–the way you’re talking about conditions in the Valley?”

“Not for a minute,” answered Mr. Brotherton. “Why, man, all I said was that if the old spider kept making the men use that cheap powder that blows their eyes out and their hands off, and their legs off, they ought to unionize and strike. And if it was my job to handle that powder I’d tie the old devil on a blast and blow him into hamburger.” Mr. Brotherton’s rising emotions reddened his forehead under his thin hair, and pulled at his wind. He shook a weary head and leaned on a show case. “But I say, stand by the boys. Maybe it will make a year of bad times or maybe two; but what of that? It’ll make better times in the end.”

“All right, George–go in. I glory in your spunk!” chirped the Doctor as he put Lila’s package under his arm. “Let me tell you something,” he added, “I’ve got a bill I’m going to push in the next legislature that will knock a hole in that doctrine of the assumed risk of labor, you can drive a horse through. It makes the owners pay for the accidents of a trade, instead of hiding behind that theory, that a man assumes those risks when he takes a job.”

The Doctor put his head to one side, cocked one eye and cried: “How would that go?”

“Now you’re shoutin’, Doc. Bust a machine, and the company pays for it. Bust a man, the man pays for it or his wife and children or his friends or the county. That’s not fair. A man’s as much of a part of the cost of production as a machine!”

The Doctor toddled out, clicking his cane and whistling a merry tune and left Mr. Brotherton enjoying his maiden meditations upon the injustices of this world. In the midst of his meditations he found that he had been listening for five minutes to Captain Morton. The Captain was expounding some passing dream about his Household Horse. Apparently the motor car, which was multiplying rapidly in Harvey, had impressed him. He was telling Mr. Brotherton that his Household Horse, if harnessed to the motor car, would save much of the power wasted by the chains. He was dreaming of the distant day when motor cars would be used in sufficient numbers to make it profitable for the Captain to equip them with his power saving device.

But Mr. Brotherton cut into the Captain’s musings with: “You tell the girls to wash the cat for I’m coming out to-night.”

“Girls?–huh–girls?” replied the Captain as he looked over his spectacles at Mr. Brotherton. “’Y gory, man, what’s the matter with me–eh? I’m staying out there on Elm Street yet–what say?” And he went out smiling.

When the Captain entered the house, he found Emma getting supper, Martha setting the table and Ruth, with a candy box before her at the piano, going over her everlasting “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ahs” from “C to C” as Emma called it.

Emma took her father’s hat, put it away and said: “Well, father–what’s the news?”

“Well,” replied the Captain, with some show of deliberation, “a friend of mine down town told me to tell you girls to wash the cat for he’ll be along here about eight o’clock.”

“Mr. Brotherton,” scoffed Ruth. “It’s up to you two,” she cried gayly in the midst of her eternal journey from “C” to “C.” “He never wears his Odd Fellows’ pin unless he’s been singing at an Odd Fellows’ funeral, so that lets me out to-night.”

“Well,” sighed Emma, “I don’t know that I want him even if he has on his Shriner’s pin. I just believe I’ll go to bed. The way I feel to-night I’m so sick of children I believe I wouldn’t marry the best man on earth.”

“Oh, well, of course, Emma,” suggested the handsome Miss Morton, “if you feel that way about it why, I–”

“Now Martha–” cried the elder sister, “can’t you let me alone and get out of here? I tell you, the superintendent and the principal and the janitor and the dratted Calvin kid all broke loose to-day and I’m liable to run out doors and begin to jump and down in the street and scream if you start on me.”

But after supper the three Misses Morton went upstairs, and did what they could to wipe away the cares of a long and weary day. They put on their second best dresses–all but Emma, who put on her best, saying she had nothing else that wasn’t full of chalk and worry. At seven forty-five, they had the parlor illuminated. As for the pictures and bric-a-brac–to-wit, a hammered brass flower pot near the grate, and sitting on an onyx stand a picture of Richard Harding Davis, the contribution of the eldest Miss Morton’s callow youth, also a brass smoking set on a mission table, the contribution of the youngest Miss Morton from her first choir money–as for the pictures and bric-a-brac, they were dusted until they glistened, and the trap was all set, waiting for the prey.

They heard the gate click and the youngest Miss Morton said quickly: “Well, if he’s an Odd Fellow, I guess I’ll take him. But,” she sighed, “I’ll bet a cooky he’s an Elk and Martha gets him.”

The Captain went to the door and brought in the victim to as sweet and demure a trio of surprised young women and as patient a cat, as ever sat beside a rat hole. After he had greeted the girls–it was Ruth who took his coat, and Martha his hat, but Emma who held his hand a second the longest, after she spied the Shriner’s pin–Mr. Brotherton picked up the cat.

“Well, Epaminondas,” he puffed as he stroked the animal and put it to his cheek, “did they take his dear little kitties away from him–the horrid things.”

This was Mr. Brotherton’s standard joke. Ruth said she never felt the meeting was really opened until he had teased them about Epaminondas’ pretended kittens.

For the first hour the talk ranged with obvious punctility over a variety of subjects–but never once did Mr. Brotherton approach the subject of politics, which would hold the Captain for a night session. Instead, Mr. Brotherton spun literary tales from the shop. Then the Captain broke in and enlivened the company with a description of Tom Van Dorn’s new automobile, and went into such details as to cams and cogs and levers and other mechanical fittings that every one yawned and the cat stretched himself, and the Captain incidentally told the company that he had got Van Dorn’s permission to try the Household Horse on the old machine before it went in on the trade.

Then Ruth rose. “Why, Ruth, dear,” said Emma sweetly, “where are you going?”

“Just to get a drink, dear,” replied Ruth.

But it took her all night to finish drinking and she did not return. Martha rose, began straightening up the littered music on the piano, and being near the door, slipped out. By this time the Captain was doing most of the talking. Chiefly, he was telling what he thought the sprocket needed to make it work upon an automobile. At the hall door of the dining room two heads appeared, and though the door creaked about the time the clock struck the half hour, Mr. Brotherton did not see the heads. They were behind him, and four arms began making signs at the Captain. He looked at them, puzzled and anxious for a minute or two. They were peremptorily beckoning him out. Finally, it came to him, and he said to the girls: “Oh, yes–all right.” This broke at the wrong time into something Mr. Brotherton was saying. He looked up astonished and the Captain, abashed, smiled and after shuffling his feet, backed up to the base burner and hummed the tune about the land that was fairer than day. Emma and Mr. Brotherton began talking. Presently, the Captain picked up the spitting cat by the scruff of the neck and held him a moment under his chin. “Well, Emmy,” he cut in, interrupting her story of how Miss Carhart had told the principal if “he ever told of her engagement before school was out in June, she’d just die,” with:

“I suppose there’ll be plenty of potatoes for the hash?”

And not waiting for answer, he marched to the kitchen with the cat, and in due time, they heard the “Sweet Bye and Bye” going up the back stairs, and then the thump, thump of the Captain’s shoes on the floor above them.

The eldest Miss Morton, in her best silk dress, with her mother’s cameo brooch at her throat, and with the full, maidenly ripeness of twenty-nine years upon her brow, with her hair demurely parted on said brow, where there was the faintest hint of a wrinkle coming–which Miss Morton attributed to a person she called “the dratted Calvin kid,”–the eldest Miss Morton, hair, cameo, silk dress, wrinkle, the dratted Calvin kid and all, did or did not look like a siren, according to the point of view of the spectator. If he was seeking the voluptuous curves of the early spring of youth–no: but if he was seeking those quieter and more restful lines that follow a maiden with a true and tender heart, who is a good cook and who sweeps under the sofa, yes.

Mr. Brotherton did not know exactly what he desired. He had been coming to the Morton home on various errands since the girls were little tots. He had seen Emma in her first millinery store hat. He had bought Martha her first sled; he had got Ruth her last doll. But he shook his head. He liked them all. And then, as though to puzzle him more, he had noticed that for two or three years, he had never got more than two consecutive evenings with any of them–or with all of them. The mystery of their conduct baffled him. He sometimes wondered indignantly why they worked him in shifts? Sometimes he had Ruth twice; sometimes Emma and Martha in succession–sometimes Martha twice. He like them all. But he could not understand what system they followed in disposing of him. So as he sat and toyed with his Shriner’s pin and listened to the tales of a tepid schoolmistress’ romance that Emma told, he wondered if after all–for a man of his tastes, she wasn’t really the flower of the flock.

“You know, George,” she was old enough for that, and at rare times when they were alone she called him George, “I’m working up a kind of sorrow for Judge Van Dorn–or pity or something. When I taught little Lila he was always sending her candy and little trinkets. Now Lila is in the grade above me, and do you know the Judge has taken to walking by the schoolhouse at recess, just to see her, and walking along at noon and at night to get a word with her. He has put up a swing and a teeter-totter board on the girls’ playgrounds. This morning I saw him standing, gazing after her, and he was as sad a figure as I ever saw. He caught me looking at him and smiled and said:

“‘Fine girl, Emma,’ and walked away.”

“Lord, Emma,” said Mr. Brotherton, as he brought his big, baseball hands down on his fat knees. “I don’t blame him. Don’t you just think children are about the nicest things in this world?”

Emma was silent. She had expressed other sentiments too recently. Still she smiled. And he went on:

“Oh, wow!–they’re mighty fine to have around.”

But Mr. Brotherton was restless after that, and when the clock was striking ten he was in the hall. He left as he had gone for a dozen years. And the young woman stood watching him through the glass of the door, a big, strong, handsome man–who strode down the walk with clicking heels of pride, and she turned away sadly and hurried upstairs.

“Martha,” she asked, as she took down her hair, “was it ordained in the beginning of the world that all school teachers would have to take widowers?”

And without hearing the answer, she put out the light.

Mr. Brotherton, stalking–not altogether unconsciously down the walk, turned into the street and as he went down the hill, he was aware that a boy was overtaking him. He let the boy catch up with him. “Oh, Mr. Brotherton,” cried the boy, “I’ve been looking for you!”

“Well, here I am; what’s the trouble?”

“Grant sent me,” returned the boy, “to ask you if he could see you at eight o’clock to-morrow morning at the store?”

Brotherton looked the boy over and exclaimed:

“Grant?” and then, “Oh–why, Kenyon, I didn’t know you. You are certainly that human bean-stalk, son. Let’s take a look at you. Well, say–” Mr. Brotherton stopped and backed up and paused for dramatic effect. Then he exploded: “Say, boy, if I had you in an olive wood frame, I could get $2.75 or $3.00 for you as Narcissus or a boy Adonis! You surely are the angel child!”

The boy’s great black eyes shone up at the man with something wistful and dream-like in them that only his large, sensitive mouth seemed to comprehend. For the rest of the child’s face was boy–boy in early adolescence. The boy answered simply:

“Grant said to tell you that he expects the break to-morrow and is anxious to see you.”

Mr. Brotherton looked at the boy again–the eyes haunted the man–he could not place them, yet they were familiar to him.

“Where you been, kid?” he asked. “I thought you were in Boston, studying.”

“It’s vacation, sir,” answered Kenyon.

Brotherton pulled the lad up under the next corner electric lamp and again gazed at him. Then Mr. Brotherton remembered where he had seen the eyes. The second Mrs. Van Dorn had them. This bothered the man.

The eyes of the boy that flashed so brightly into Mr. Brotherton’s eyes, certainly puzzled him and startled him. But not so much as the news the boy carried. For then Mr. Brotherton knew that Market Street would be buzzing in the morning and that the cyclone clouds that were lowering, soon would break into storm.

CHAPTER XXXVI
A LONG CHAPTER BUT A BUSY ONE, IN WHICH KENYON ADAMS AND HIS MOTHER HAVE A STRANGE MEETING, AND LILA VAN DORN TAKES A NIGHT RIDE

The next morning at eight o’clock, Grant Adams came hurrying into Brotherton’s store. As he strode down the long store room, Brotherton thought that Grant in his street clothes looked less of a person than Grant in his overalls. But the big man rose like a frisky mountain in earthquake and called:

“Hello there, Danton–going to shake down the furnace fires of revolution this morning, I understand.”

Grant stared at Brotherton. Solemnly he said, as he stood an awkward moment before sitting. “Well, Mr. Brotherton, the time has come, when I must fight. To-day is the day!”

“Yes,” replied Brotherton, “I heard a few minutes ago that they were going to run you out of the district to-day. The meeting in the Commercial Club rooms is being called now.”

“Yes,” said Grant, “and I’ve been asked to appear before them.”

“I guess they are going to try and bluff you out, Grant,” said Brotherton.

“I got wind of it last night,” said Grant, “when they nailed up the last hall in the Valley against me. One after another of the public halls has been closed to me during the past year. But to-day is to be our first public rally of the delegates of the Wahoo Valley Trades Council. We have rented office rooms in the second floor of the Vanderbilt House in South Harvey, and are coming out openly as an established labor organization, ready for business in the Valley, and we are going to have a big meeting–somewhere–I don’t know where now, but somewhere–” his face turned grim and a fanatic flame lighted his eyes as he spoke. “Somewhere the delegates of the Council will meet to-night, and I shall talk to them–or–”

“Soh, boss–soh, boss–don’t get excited,” counseled Mr. Brotherton. “They’ll blow off a little steam in the meeting this morning, and then you go on about your business.”

“But you don’t know what I know, George Brotherton,” protested Grant as he leaned forward. “I have converted enough spies–oh, no–not counting the spies who were converted merely to scare me–but enough real spies to know that they mean business!” He stopped, and sitting back in his chair again, he said grimly, “And so do I–I shall talk to the men to-night, or–”

“All right, son; you’ll talk or ‘the boy, oh, where was he?’ I’ll tell you what,” cried Mr. Brotherton; “you’ll fool around with the buzz saw till you’ll get killed. Now, look here, Grant–I’m for your revolution, and six buckets of blood. But you can’t afford to lose ’em! You’re dead right about the chains of slavery and all that sort of thing, but don’t get too excited about it. You live down there alone with your father and he is talking to spooks, and you’re talking to yourself; and you’ve got a kind of ingrown idea of this thing. Give the Lord a little time, and he’ll work out this pizen in our social system. I’ll help you, and maybe before long Doc’ll see the light and help you; but now you need a regulator. You ought to have a wife and about six children to hook you up to the ordinary course of nature! And see here, Grant,” Mr. Brotherton dropped a weighty hand on Grant’s shoulder, “if you don’t be careful you’ll furnish the ingredients of a public funeral, and where will your revolution be then–and the boys in the Valley and your father and Kenyon?”

While Brotherton was speaking, Grant sat with an impassive face. But when Kenyon’s name was uttered he looked up quickly and answered:

“That is why I am here this morning; it’s about Kenyon. George Brotherton, that boy is more than life to me.” The fanatic light was gone from Grant’s eyes, and the soft glow in them revealed a man that George Brotherton had not seen in years. “Mr. Brotherton,” continued Grant, “father is getting too old to do much for Kenyon. The Nesbits have borne practically all the expense of educating him. But the Doctor won’t always be here.” Again he hesitated. Then he went ahead as if he had decided for the last time. “George Brotherton, if I should be snuffed out, I want you to look after Kenyon–if ever he needs it. You have no one, and–” Grant leaned forward and grasped Brotherton’s great hands and cried, “George Brotherton, if you knew the gold in that boy’s heart, and what he can do with a violin, and how his soul is unfolding under the spell of his music. He’s so dumb and tongue-tied and unformed now; and yet–”

“Well–say!” It came out of Mr. Brotherton with a crash like a falling tree, “Grant–well, say! Through sickness and health, for better or for worse, till death do us part–if that will satisfy you.” He put his big paw over and grabbed Grant’s steel hook and jerked him to his feet. “You’ve sure sold Kenyon into bondage. When I saw him last night–honest to God, man–I thought I’d run into a picture roaming around out of stock without a frame! Him and me together can do Ariel and Prospero without a scratch of make-up.” Grant beamed, but when Brotherton exclaimed as an afterthought, “Say, man, what about that boy’s eyes?” Grant’s features mantled and the old grim look overcast his face, as Brotherton went on: “Why, them eyes would make a madonna’s look like fried eggs! Where did he get ’em–they’re not Sands and they’re not Adams. He must take back to some Peri that blew into Massachusetts from an enchanted isle.” Brotherton saw that he was annoying Grant in some way. Often he realized that his language was not producing the desired effect; so he veered about and said gently, “You’re not in any danger, Grant; but so long as I’m wearing clothes that button up the front–don’t worry about Kenyon, I’ll look after him.”

Five minutes later, Grant was standing in the front door of Brotherton’s store, gazing into Market Street. He saw Daniel Sands and Kyle Perry and Tom Van Dorn walking out of one store and into the next. He saw John Kollander in a new blue soldier uniform stalking through the street. He saw the merchants gathering in small, volatile groups that kept forming and re-forming, and he knew that Mr. Brotherton’s classic language was approximately correct when he said there was a hen on. Grant eyed the crowd that was hurrying past him to the meeting like a hungry hound watching a drove of chickens. Finally, when Grant saw that the last straggler was in the hall, he turned and stalked heavily to the Commercial Club rooms, yet he moved with the self-consciousness of one urged by a great purpose. His head was bent in reflection. His hand held his claw behind him, and his shoulders stooped. He knew his goal, but the way was hard and uncertain, and he realized the peril of a strategic misstep at the outset. Heavily he mounted the steps to the hall, entered, and took a seat in the rear. He sat with his head bowed and his gaze on the floor. He was aware that Judge Van Dorn was speaking; but what the Judge was saying did not interest Grant. His mind seemed aloof from the proceedings. Suddenly what he had prepared to say slipped out of his consciousness completely, as he heard the Judge declare, “We deem this, sir, a life and death struggle for our individual liberties; a life and death struggle for our social order; a life and death struggle for our continuance to exist as individuals.” There was a long repetition of the terms “life and death.” They appealed to some tin-pan rhythmic sense in the Judge’s oratorical mind. But the phrase struck fire in Grant Adams’s heart. Life and death, life and death, rang through his soul like a clamor of bells. “We have given our all,” bellowed the Judge, “to make this Valley an industrial hive, where labor may find employment–all of our savings, all of our heritage of Anglo-Saxon organizing skill, and we view this life and death struggle for its perpetuity–” But all Grant Adams heard of that sentence was “life and death,” as the great bell of his soul clanged its alarm. “We are a happy, industrial family,” intoned the Judge, the suave Judge, who was something more than owner; who was Authority without responsibility, who was the voice of the absentee master; the voice, it seemed to Grant, of an enchanted peacock squawking in the garden of a dream; the voice that cried: “and to him who would overthrow all this contentment, all this admirable adjustment of industrial equilibrium we offer the life and death alternative that is given to him who would violate a peaceful home.”

But all that Grant Adams sensed of his doom in the Judge’s pronouncement was the combat of death with life. Life and death were meeting for their eternal struggle, and as the words resounded again and again in the Judge’s oratory, there rushed into Grant Adams’s mind the phrase, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and he knew that in the life and death struggle for progress, for justice, for a more abundant life on this planet, it would be finally life and not death that would win.

As he sat blindly glaring at the floor, there may have stolen into his being some ember from the strange flame burning about our earth, whose touch makes men mad with the madness that men have, who come from the wildernesses of life, from the lowly walks and waste places–the madness of those who feed on locusts and wild honey; who, like St. Francis and Savonarola, go forth on hopeless quests for the unattainable ideal, or like John Brown, who burn in the scorching flame all the wisdom of the schools and the courts, and for one glorious day shine forth with their burning lives a beacon by which the world is lighted to its own sad shame.

Grant never remembered what he said by way of introduction as he stood staring at the crowd. It was a different crowd from audiences he knew. To Grant it was the market place; merchants, professional men; clerks, bankers,–well-dressed men, with pale, upturned faces stretched before him to the rear of the hall. It was all black and white, and as his soul cried “life and death” back of his conscious speech, the image came to him that all these pale, black-clad figures were in their shrouds, and that he was talking to the visible body of death–laid out stiffly before him.

What answer he made to Van Dorn does not matter. Grant Adams could not recall it when he had finished. But ever as he spoke through his being throbbed the electrical beat of the words, “I am the resurrection and the life.” And he was exultant in the consciousness that in the struggle of “life and death,” life would surely win. So he stood and spoke with a tongue of flame.

“If you have given all–and you have, we also have given all. But our all is more vitally our all–than yours; for it is our bodies, our food and clothing; our comfortable homes; our children’s education, our wives’ strength; our babies’ heritage; many of us have indeed given our sons’ integrity and our daughters’ virtue. All these we have put into the bargain with you. We have put them into the common hopper of this industrial life, and you have taken the grain and we the chaff. It is indeed a life and death struggle. And this happy family, this well-balanced industrial adjustment, this hell of labor run through your mills like grist, this is death; death is the name for all your wicked system, that shrinks and cringes before God’s ancient justice. ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ was not spoken across the veil that rises from the grave. It was spoken for men here in the flesh who shall soon come into a more abundant life. Life and death, life and death are struggling here this very hour, and you–you,” he leaned forward shaking his steel claw in their faces, “you and your greedy system of capital are the doomed; you are death’s embodiment.”