“If you were in my place, Julie, would you push it?”
“I guess so. I want to see church people do something instead of talk and argue and get mad at each other.”
“Well, to answer your question, the trustees are not happy with the Community Center. Or with me. They think I’ve become a crusader, that I’m neglecting other church matters. But, thanks to your father’s newspaper copy and the way people have responded to the Center, I don’t think they’ll give me any trouble.” As a prophet, he was far off the mark.
Spencer Meloy scheduled a dedication service with an open house afterward for Sunday afternoon, July 7, at three o’clock. Invitations would go to all workers and contributors; announcement posters were to be displayed on every street in the Lowlands.
My parents gladly offered our home of an evening to prepare this promotion and publicity. I invited Margo, who took a night off from her waitress job at the Stemwinder. And Graham, of course. He was now working in his father’s store and the two of us had begun dating once a week. A chastened Bryan McKeever had called me to apologize for his graduation night behavior, so I invited him. Even Tim and Anne-Marie pitched in.
Soon we had spread out all over the floor stacks of old magazines, scissors, pots of paste, poster paint, and brushes, all of which mingled with lounging bodies and gangling legs. Boy, now a rambunctious puppy of not quite four months, was in the midst of everything. After he had left his paw marks on several of our posters, he was banished to the yard, notwithstanding Anne-Marie’s protests.
Mother and Dad joined us before we had finished, and so they were there when Bryan stunned us with his remarks. He had been sitting quietly most of the evening, lettering posters with surprising skill. Then out came a typical Bryan statement.
“I think we’re wasting our time fixing up that old house in the Lowlands.”
“Why, Bryan?”
“Because it will be washed away in the next flood.”
Dad, who had been polishing his reading glasses, turned sharply toward Bryan. “Why so negative?”
Bryan shrugged. “That’s the way my father reacts. He won’t face the facts either.”
“What facts?”
“That the mining companies, the steel company, and the Hunting and Fishing Club have so messed up this area that we’ll have nothing but floods from now on, each one worse than the last.” All of us were staring at Bryan in amazement. “How did you come to that conclusion?” Dad finally asked.
“I’ve studied the terrain, its history. The Indians knew best: they believed that nature served man if left alone. Both Brady Creek and Sequanoto River used to be four times as wide. What happened? Yoder’s been dumping hot slag from the steel mill along the banks. Slag hardens like rock, so the river channels just become smaller and smaller. So we have worse and worse floods.” My father’s face was alive with interest. “Bryan, have you ever said these things to your father—and grandfather?”
“Sure. Dad listens some. Grandfather just gets mad at me. Especially when I said his dam was going to break one of these days.”
“You told him that!”
Bryan suddenly became a little uneasy. “I guess I shouldn’t be so outspoken.”
Dad was leaning forward in his chair, as intense as I had ever seen him. “Why do you think the dam will break, Bryan?”
The pimply-faced high school boy shuffled his feet nervously. “This is just my opinion, you understand. But I don’t think the spillways are properly constructed, especially when they built in those iron gratings to keep the fish from escaping over the dam. This puts too much extra pressure on the dam. I also think the road they built over the dam has weakened it.”
“Have you said anything about this to your father?”
“Yes. He’s concerned too. But he can’t sell Grandpa on anything today. They argue all the time.”
I looked at the others to see if they were as startled by Bryan’s statements as I was. Outside of Dad and myself, they were not. Bryan was such a known troublemaker that no one took him seriously.
But I did.
After the Sunday morning service at Baker Memorial, Spencer Meloy was more ebullient than usual while greeting his members as they filed out. To me he whispered, “The crowd at the dedication may be bigger than we expected. We’ll have it outside.”
Our whole family arrived at the Center an hour early, bringing cookies and lemonade. The inside of the small structure was jammed with people. Outside, under bright sunshine, Spencer was setting up a portable speaker’s stand at the top of the front steps.
We had expected an audience of mostly women and children because even on Sundays so many men were at work. Yoder, like all steel mills, had to run seven days a week; thus every other weekend each worker had to take what was called the long turn. As a result, many men missed both church and family events on any given Sabbath.
To our surprise, men began to show up with their families. Fifteen minutes before the starting time, the yard and street were jammed with people. Margo grabbed my arm, panic in her voice, “There’s not enough refreshments.”
“It’s too late to get more.”
“Not if we go now—to the Stemwinder.”
I found Dad, got the keys to the Willys, signaled Graham Gillin, and the three of us raced off. When we returned, I had to park the car blocks away because of the crowd. Hundreds were packed together in front of the Center. As we circled around the crowd with sacks of cookies and extra drinks, I heard Spencer’s voice:
“In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in Thy righteousness.
Bow down Thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be Thou my strong rock, for a house of defense to save me.
For Thou are my rock and my fortress . . .”
The words of the psalm reminded me of that scary drive with Bryan down Seven Mile Mountain. But I wondered how many of those listening understood English well enough to receive the message. Yet looking at the hushed intentness of the upturned faces, I knew that something was getting through.
By the time Margo, Graham, and I had deposited our sacks of food in the kitchen, Meloy had started on his message:
Dear friends, we have a God who loves all His children in every nation and no matter what their station in life. This is the God to whom we are dedicating this little Community Center today. Whatever your native tongue is, whether you worship Him with the help of a rosary or a Prayer Book or an old family Bible handed down from Lutheran or Catholic, Presbyterian or Methodist or Baptist parents, is not the important thing. What’s important is that you do worship Him.
This building is to be His building, meant for every one of you . . .
Before the closing prayer of dedication, Spencer did something quite spontaneous. Perhaps feeling alone up there in this unusual setting, he asked my father, who was standing on the edge of the crowd, and Neal Brinton to come and stand shoulder to shoulder with him, supporting and praying silently together. I’m sure he would have wanted one of his church officers to be a part of this too, but not one of them seemed to be present.
Without another word being said, the two men took positions beside Spencer, shoulders touching, a physical token of solidarity and support.
With his “Let us pray,” the rustle of voices ceased, and the people stood reverently silent.
And now, Father in heaven, we dedicate this building to You and to Your purpose for it. First cleanse our hearts of any unworthy motives in relation to it. Then we ask You to cleanse the building itself as we set it aside from all common use for Your purposes.
Let this become Your house of worship, of teaching, of ministering to human hearts, of meeting needs, of caring for little children. Let joy reign here and good fellowship.
Let this place be as a light on a lampstand, a beacon on a hill, shining out for all to see. In Thy name we pray. Amen.
With both his arms upraised, Spencer Meloy’s voice rang out, “God bless each of you. We invite you now to s
ee the Center for yourselves and to have some punch and cookies.”
The crowd swarmed forward. Our church project was no longer an idea and a dream, but a reality.
After the triumphant opening of the Community Center, the question was: would the Lowlands people consider the building as truly their own place?
On Monday night my father and I returned to the Center to retrieve some serving dishes and help out as needed. Neal Brinton was already there. He and several local women had been given keys to open and close the house whenever it was used.
Suddenly Neal’s brother, Cade Brinton, strode into the house. More accurately I should say blew in because there was an air of determined gustiness about him. Dressed in denim overalls over a gray flannel sweatshirt, he also had on a black cap with a long visor, which he did not remove. For a long moment he stood there in the center of the front room staring intently at us.
My father stepped forward. “Can we do something for you, Cade?” he asked.
“Just wanted to see for m’self what you’ve done to my house.”
“By all means, look around,” Dad said. “We hoped you’d come.”
“This house wasn’t worth fixin’.”
“We don’t feel that way,” was the Editor’s reply. “People all over town helped restore this place.”
Before Cade could reply, Neal appeared from the upstairs. “Cade! You here—?”
“Yeah, Neal. Gotta know what’s goin’ on around here.” He sounded defensive. “And I need to talk to Wallace here about Yoder’s pretty little booklet.”
Neal looked embarrassed. “Cade,” he said softly, “I’m not s-sure this is the time or place . . .”
“Look, Neal, I’ll pick my own time and place.”
“Before we talk, would you like to see the rest of the house?” Dad suggested.
Cade shrugged and followed him, while I went to the kitchen to fix punch and cookies. Five minutes later I heard Cade’s voice trailing Dad back down the stairs. “I hear tell you’ve already run off two printings of the ERP booklet.”
The Editor’s voice was patient. “That’s right, Cade, and I think there are some good things about the plan. I like the idea of employees electing their own representatives to talk to management about grievances. Isn’t that a step in the right direction?”
“Ain’t what it seems. I knew you was fooled.”
“Would you like some refreshments, Mr. Brinton?” I interrupted.
The intense man looked at me suspiciously, but sat down at the table and accepted the glass and plate of cookies I handed him. Then he turned back to the Editor. “So y’think that pretty little booklet reads nice, do you?” he continued. “I know just how it reads,” he went on caustically. “‘It’s for your good, men. You are to become Yoder Industrians.’” Then he quoted several passages. With his inflection the phrases sounded insincere, almost sinister.
Coming on the heels of his workingman’s English, the big words rolling so sonorously off Cade’s tongue took me by surprise. Then it hit me: this man had as sharp a mind as Neal did, but his prejudices limited its use. Cade’s voice rolled on, “‘You Industrians will have a large voice in shaping the policy of this company. See it, men! The basic idea of ERP is to apply to industry the mechanism of Republican government in political life.’ Oh, yeah?!”
As Cade paused for some punch, Neal seized the opportunity. “S-sarcasm isn’t the way to handle this, Cade. If you’ve got anything to s-say, tell it s-straight and cut out the double-talk.” Cade glared at his brother. “Okay, okay. What’s wrong is, ERP’s nothin’ but a front to keep real unions out.”
“How can you be sure of that, Cade?” Dad asked.
“Sure? Because Yoder and all the big-shot industrialists see nothin’ but the devil and the Bolsheviks in what they call outside unions. ERP is their last-ditch stand against us. Beginning with Carnegie, Charlie Schwab, J. P. Morgan, coming right on down to the McKeevers, they’d move heaven and earth and the government too to keep us men from organizing to put a decent roof over our heads and a little more bread on our tables.”
The Editor remained unconvinced. “Cade, I’m no authority on ERP. But it does call for an election by secret ballot. Workers can choose their own representation to an assembly. That way, good talkers like you can be elected to present the workers’ case to management. Isn’t that a lot better than long strikes, with men out of work earning nothing?”
“Yeah, Cade,” Neal cut in again. “And when you think of how many workers can’t even s-speak English at Yoder, anything that gets us talking has got to be a s-step in the right direction.”
Cade pushed his chair back and faced his brother. “Yeah, talkin’s okay. But it’s gonna take more’n talk to get a nine-hour day and a wage one can live on. Yoder steelworkers make about $600 a year. They need twice that to pay their bills.”
Then he looked at my father. “Go home and read Section Eight of that pretty little booklet. They buried that part. Hoped nobody’d notice. There’s a sentence there that says that the Board of Directors of the company can ‘veto or annul’—yeah, they use those two very words—anything the assembly decides on. There’s where the whole thing’s phony. Read Section Eight for yerself, Wallace.”
Dad looked at Cade thoughtfully. “I’ll read it again, Cade. If you’re right about that clause, then it should be rethought. But as for me, I’m acting only as the printer. I have no voice in Yoder Steel policies. Why appeal to me?”
“Because you’re a publisher, and your paper prints stuff for people to read, don’t it? Newspapers can start people thinkin’, stir ’em up, can’t they? Ain’t that what newspapers are for?”
Dad nodded. “Yes—that, and to print the news.”
“Well, there’s plenty of news today about how companies are shafting the workers. People are behind us now. Congress just passed a labor bill that gives us workers the right to organize. You can forget ERP. We’re gonna have an independent union at Yoder within a year.”
Cade was referring to the Wagner Act (or National Labor Relations Act) signed the past week (July 5) by President Roosevelt. As Dad and I drove home that night, he explained that this new law not only barred unfair labor practices but affirmed the right of employees to “form, join or assist labor organizations to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.”
“Then Cade’s right. The ERP plan’s a dead issue,” I said.
“Not necessarily. Labor has no real leadership yet. Companies will push ERP harder than ever now to try and stop the unions.”
My sympathy was all with the worker. That night I resolved to do some research of my own about the union movement.
In the local library on the table farthest away from the main desk, I assembled my materials. One book traced the ERP concept to a 1913 episode between owners and miners in Colorado. In the place of Yoder Steel and the McKeevers, as I pictured it, this earlier scenario substituted the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company and the Rockefellers.
It seemed that Colorado miners, like Yoder steelworkers, had high-rent company housing in a place called Mine City, situated in a winding canyon often knee-deep in mud. For the twelve-hour work span of steelworkers handling dangerous molten metal in a suffocating shed, one could substitute a dark, chilly underground so laden with coal dust that black-lung disease was all but inevitable.
I discovered that some miners worked in low-coal canals less than four feet wide, two to three feet high, where the men had to wield their picks while kneeling or lying prone. The misuse of explosives to loosen coal, plus improperly constructed mine roofs with resultant cave-ins, resulted in one of the highest industrial accident-and-death rates in the country.
On other counts the miners in 1913 had it worse than the steelworkers: they never saw cash, since the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company would pay them only in scrip. This despite the fact that Colorado law had abolished the scrip system, thus giving the families of miners the right to shop outside of what the wo
rkers called the pluck-me company stores.
On the Colorado statute books were other major laws which the company had steadily refused to put into effect. Though the eight-hour day had been law since 1905, it had so many loopholes that the coal companies could ignore it. Another law had given the miners the right to belong to a union and to be paid semi-monthly instead of monthly. The company paid no attention to it.
With each fact gleaned in my research, my sympathy for the miners increased. The coal diggers were paid only for the amount of marketable coal they brought out. Thus much of each day’s labor was what miners called dead work. I could scarcely believe all that dead work had included: laying the track, drilling holes for the explosives, clearing away the debris after the explosion and removing rocks to make way for the mine cars, even removing the slate and rock from the coal that had been dug.
Given so much backbreaking dead work, the weighing of the coal, which would decide each man’s paycheck, became an emotional issue indeed. Though workers, by state law, could have their own man on hand to check the weighing of each load of coal, they estimated they were robbed of 700 to 1,400 pounds of coal per carload because of inaccurate scales. But any miner who protested was told, “Down the canyon for you,” meaning that he was fired.
In April 1912, the Colorado Bureau of Labor Statistics put the coal miner’s average take-home pay at $1.98 per day!
When the company refused to change their policies or talk with the miners about these grievances, a strike was called for Tuesday, September 23, 1913. By September 22, 95 percent of the miners had quit work.
Eviction notices, effective September 23, were sent to all miners on strike. The union’s answer was to provide a tent city some miles away at Ludlow, Colorado, for 9,000 miners, their wives and children.
As I pored over this piece of American history, I could picture that cold, rainy September day as the miners vacated their homes. There were not enough mule-drawn wagons, nor even pushcarts. Mounds of furniture, clothes, pots and pans, had to be moved out of the houses and dumped in the street, now deep in mud. Women and children could only wait, perched on soggy mattresses in the rain, until their turn came for a wagon.
Julie Page 21
