Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “But,” I asked, “do you really think they have any just grievances?”

  “Of course not, as a business man,” said the banker. “If I were a working-man, I should probably think differently. But we will suppose, for the sake of argument, that their day is too long and their pay is too short. How do they go about to better themselves? They strike. Well, a strike is a fight, and in a fight, nowadays, it is always skill and money that win. The working-men can’t stop till they have put themselves outside of the public sympathy which the newspapers say is so potent in their behalf; I never saw that it did them the least good. They begin by boycotting, and breaking the heads of the men who want to work. They destroy property, and they interfere with business — the two absolutely sacred things in the American religion. Then we call out the militia and shoot a few of them, and their leaders declare the strike off. It is perfectly simple.”

  “But will it be quite as simple,” I asked, reluctant in behalf of my projected romance, to have the matter so soon disposed of— “will it be quite so simple if their leaders ever persuade the working-men to leave the militia, as they threaten to do, from time to time?”

  “No, not quite so simple,” the banker admitted. “Still, the fight would be comparatively simple. In the first place, I doubt — though I won’t be certain about it — whether there are a great many working-men in the militia now. I rather fancy it is made up, for the most part, of clerks and small tradesmen and book-keepers, and such employés of business as have time and money for it. I may be mistaken.”

  No one seemed able to say whether he was mistaken or not; and, after waiting a moment, he proceeded: “I feel pretty sure that it is so in the city companies and regiments, at any rate, and that if every working-man left them it would not seriously impair their effectiveness. But when the working-men have left the militia, what have they done? They have eliminated the only thing that disqualifies it for prompt and unsparing use against strikers. As long as they are in it we might have our misgivings, but if they were once out of it we should have none. And what would they gain? They would not be allowed to arm and organize as an inimical force. That was settled once for all in Chicago, in the case of the International Groups. A few squads of policemen would break them up. Why,” the banker exclaimed, with his good-humored laugh, “how preposterous they are when you come to look at it! They are in the majority, the immense majority, if you count the farmers, and they prefer to behave as if they were the hopeless minority. They say they want an eight-hour law, and every now and then they strike and try to fight it. Why don’t they vote it? They could make it the law in six months by such overwhelming numbers that no one would dare to evade or defy it. They can make any law they want, but they prefer to break such laws as we have. That ‘alienates public sympathy,’ the newspapers say; but the spectacle of their stupidity and helpless wilfulness is so lamentable that I could almost pity them. If they chose, it would take only a few years to transform our government into the likeness of anything they wanted. But they would rather not have what they want, apparently, if they can only keep themselves from getting it, and they have to work hard to do that!”

  “I suppose,” I said, “that they are misled by the un-American principles and methods of the Socialists among them.”

  “Why, no,” returned the banker, “I shouldn’t say that. As far as I understand it, the Socialists are the only fellows among them who propose to vote their ideas into laws, and nothing can be more American than that. I don’t believe the Socialists stir up the strikes — at least, among our working-men; though the newspapers convict them of it, generally without trying them. The Socialists seem to accept the strikes as the inevitable outcome of the situation, and they make use of them as proofs of the industrial discontent. But, luckily for the status, our labor leaders are not Socialists, for your Socialist, whatever you may say against him, has generally thought himself into a Socialist. He knows that until the working-men stop fighting, and get down to voting — until they consent to be the majority — there is no hope for them. I am not talking of anarchists, mind you, but of Socialists, whose philosophy is more law, not less, and who look forward to an order so just that it can’t be disturbed.”

  “And what,” the minister faintly said, “do you think will be the outcome of it all?”

  “We had that question the other night, didn’t we? Our legal friend here seemed to feel that we might rub along indefinitely as we are doing, or work out an Altruria of our own; or go back to the patriarchal stage and own our working-men. He seemed not to have so much faith in the logic of events as I have. I doubt if it is altogether a woman’s logic. Parole femmine, fatti maschi, and the logic of events isn’t altogether words; it’s full of hard knocks, too. But I’m no prophet. I can’t forecast the future; I prefer to take it as it comes. There’s a little tract of William Morris’s, though — I forget just what he calls it — that is full of curious and interesting speculation on this point. He thinks that, if we keep the road we are now going, the last state of labor will be like its first, and it will be owned.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that will ever happen in America,” I protested.

  “Why not?” asked the banker. “Practically, it is owned already in a vastly greater measure than we recognize. And where would the great harm be? The new slavery would not be like the old. There needn’t be irresponsible whipping and separation of families, and private buying and selling. The proletariate would probably be owned by the state, as it was at one time in Greece; or by large corporations, which would be much more in keeping with the genius of our free institutions; and an enlightened public opinion would cast safeguards about it in the form of law to guard it from abuse. But it would be strictly policed, localized, and controlled. There would probably be less suffering than there is now, when a man may be cowed into submission to any terms through the suffering of his family; when he may be starved out and turned out if he is unruly. You may be sure that nothing of that kind would happen in the new slavery. We have not had nineteen hundred years of Christianity for nothing.”

  The banker paused, and, as the silence continued, he broke it with a laugh, which was a prodigious relief to my feelings, and I suppose to the feelings of all. I perceived that he had been joking, and I was confirmed in this when he turned to the Altrurian and laid his hand upon his shoulder. “You see,” he said, “I’m a kind of Altrurian myself. What is the reason why we should not found a new Altruria here on the lines I’ve drawn? Have you never had philosophers — well, call them philanthropists; I don’t mind — of my way of thinking among you?”

  “Oh yes,” said the Altrurian. “At one time, just before we emerged from the competitive conditions, there was much serious question whether capital should not own labor instead of labor owning capital. That was many hundred years ago.”

  “I am proud to find myself such an advanced thinker,” said the banker. “And how came you to decide that labor should own capital?”

  “We voted it,” answered the Altrurian.

  “Well,” said the banker, “our fellows are still fighting it, and getting beaten.”

  I found him later in the evening talking with Mrs. Makely. “My dear sir,” I said, “I liked your frankness with my Altrurian friend immensely; and it may be well to put the worst foot foremost; but what is the advantage of not leaving us a leg to stand upon?”

  He was not in the least offended at my boldness, as I had feared he might be, but he said, with that jolly laugh of his: “Capital! Well, perhaps I have worked my candor a little too hard; I suppose there is such a thing. But don’t you see that it leaves me in the best possible position to carry the war into Altruria when we get him to open up about his native land?”

  “Ah! If you can get him to do it.”

  “Well, we were just talking about that. Mrs. Makely has a plan.”

  “Yes,” said the lady, turning an empty chair near her own toward me. “Sit down and listen.”

  X

 
I sat down, and Mrs. Makely continued: “I have thought it all out, and I want you to confess that in all practical matters a woman’s brain is better than a man’s. Mr. Bullion, here, says it is, and I want you to say so, too.”

  “Yes,” the banker admitted, “when it comes down to business a woman is worth any two of us.”

  “And we have just been agreeing,” I coincided, “that the only gentlemen among us are women. Mrs. Makely, I admit, without further dispute, that the most unworldly woman is worldlier than the worldliest man; and that in all practical matters we fade into dreamers and doctrinaires beside you. Now, go on.”

  But she did not mean to let me off so easily. She began to brag herself up, as women do whenever you make them the slightest concession.

  “Here, you men,” she said, “have been trying for a whole week to get something out of Mr. Homos about his country, and you have left it to a poor, weak woman, at last, to think how to manage it. I do believe that you get so much interested in your own talk, when you are with him, that you don’t let him get in a word, and that’s the reason you haven’t found out anything about Altruria yet from him.”

  In view of the manner in which she had cut in at Mrs. Camp’s, and stopped Homos on the very verge of the only full and free confession he had ever been near making about Altruria, I thought this was pretty cool; but, for fear of worse, I said:

  “You’re quite right, Mrs. Makely. I’m sorry to say that there has been a shameful want of self-control among us, and that, if we learn anything at all from him, it will be because you have taught us how.”

  She could not resist this bit of taffy. She scarcely gave herself time to gulp it before she said:

  “Oh, it’s very well to say that now! But where would you have been if I hadn’t set my wits to work? Now, listen! It just popped into my mind, like an inspiration, when I was thinking of something altogether different. It flashed upon me in an instant: a good object, and a public occasion.”

  “Well?” I said, finding this explosion and electrical inspiration rather enigmatical.

  “Why, you know, the Union Chapel, over in the village, is in a languishing condition, and the ladies have been talking all summer about doing something for it, getting up something — a concert or theatricals or a dance or something — and applying the proceeds to repainting and papering the visible church; it needs it dreadfully. But, of course, those things are not exactly religious, don’t you know; and a fair is so much trouble; and such a bore, when you get the articles ready, even; and everybody feels swindled; and now people frown on raffles, so there is no use thinking of them. What you want is something striking. We did think of a parlor-reading, or perhaps ventriloquism; but the performers all charge so much that there wouldn’t be anything left after paying expenses.”

  She seemed to expect some sort of prompting at this point; so I said: “Well?”

  “Well,” she repeated, “that is just where your Mr. Homos comes in.”

  “Oh! How does he come in there?”

  “Why, get him to deliver a Talk on Altruria. As soon as he knows it’s for a good object, he will be on fire to do it; and they must live so much in common there that the public occasion will be just the thing that will appeal to him.”

  It did seem a good plan to me, and I said so. But Mrs. Makely was so much in love with it that she was not satisfied with my modest recognition.

  “Good? It’s magnificent! It’s the very thing! And I have thought it out, down to the last detail—”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted. “Do you think there is sufficient general interest in the subject, outside of the hotel, to get a full house for him? I shouldn’t like to see him subjected to the mortification of empty benches.”

  “What in the world are you thinking of? Why, there isn’t a farm-house, anywhere within ten miles, where they haven’t heard of Mr. Homos; and there isn’t a servant under this roof, or in any of the boarding-houses, who doesn’t know something about Altruria and want to know more. It seems that your friend has been much oftener with the porters and the stable-boys than he has been with us.”

  I had only too great reason to fear so. In spite of my warnings and entreaties, he had continued to behave toward every human being he met exactly as if they were equals. He apparently could not conceive of that social difference which difference of occupation creates among us. He owned that he saw it, and from the talk of our little group he knew it existed; but, when I expostulated with him upon some act in gross violation of society usage, he only answered that he could not imagine that what he saw and knew could actually be. It was quite impossible to keep him from bowing with the greatest deference to our waitress; he shook hands with the head-waiter every morning as well as with me; there was a fearful story current in the house, that he had been seen running down one of the corridors to relieve a chambermaid laden with two heavy water-pails which she was carrying to the rooms to fill up the pitchers. This was probably not true; but I myself saw him helping in the hotel hay-field one afternoon, shirt-sleeved like any of the hired men. He said that it was the best possible exercise, and that he was ashamed he could give no better excuse for it than the fact that without something of the kind he should suffer from indigestion. It was grotesque, and out of all keeping with a man of his cultivation and breeding. He was a gentleman and a scholar, there was no denying, and yet he did things in contravention of good form at every opportunity, and nothing I could say had any effect with him. I was perplexed beyond measure, the day after I had reproached him for his labor in the hay-field, to find him in a group of table-girls, who were listening while the head-waiter read aloud to them in the shade of the house; there was a corner looking toward the stables which was given up to them by tacit consent of the guests during a certain part of the afternoon.

  I feigned not to see him, but I could not forbear speaking to him about it afterward. He took it in good part, but he said he had been rather disappointed in the kind of literature they liked and the comments they made on it; he had expected that with the education they had received, and with their experience of the seriousness of life, they would prefer something less trivial. He supposed, however, that a romantic love-story, where a poor American girl marries an English lord, formed a refuge for them from the real world which promised them so little and held them so cheap. It was quite useless for one to try to make him realize his behavior in consorting with servants as a kind of scandal.

  The worst of it was that his behavior, as I could see, had already begun to demoralize the objects of his misplaced politeness. At first the servants stared and resented it, as if it were some tasteless joke; but in an incredibly short time, when they saw that he meant his courtesy in good faith, they took it as their due. I had always had a good understanding with the head-waiter, and I thought I could safely smile with him at the queer conduct of my friend toward himself and his fellow-servants. To my astonishment he said: “I don’t see why he shouldn’t treat them as if they were ladies and gentlemen. Doesn’t he treat you and your friends so?”

  It was impossible to answer this, and I could only suffer in silence, and hope the Altrurian would soon go. I had dreaded the moment when the landlord should tell me that his room was wanted; now I almost desired it; but he never did. On the contrary, the Altrurian was in high favor with him. He said he liked to see a man make himself pleasant with everybody; and that he did not believe he had ever had a guest in the house who was so popular all round.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Makely went on, “I don’t criticise him — with his peculiar traditions. I presume I should be just so myself if I had been brought up in Altruria, which, thank goodness, I wasn’t. But Mr. Homos is a perfect dear, and all the women in the house are in love with him, from the cook’s helpers, up and down. No, the only danger is that there won’t be room in the hotel parlors for all the people that will want to hear him, and we shall have to make the admission something that will be prohibitive in most cases. We shall have to make it a dollar.”
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  “Well,” I said, “I think that will settle the question as far as the farming population is concerned. It’s twice as much as they ever pay for a reserved seat in the circus, and four times as much as a simple admission. I’m afraid, Mrs. Makely, you’re going to be very few, though fit.”

  “Well, I’ve thought it all over, and I’m going to put the tickets at one dollar.”

  “Very good. Have you caught your hare?”

  “No, I haven’t yet. And I want you to help me catch him. What do you think is the best way to go about it?”

  The banker said he would leave us to the discussion of that question, but Mrs. Makely could count upon him in everything if she could only get the man to talk. At the end of our conference we decided to interview the Altrurian together.

  I shall always be ashamed of the way that woman wheedled the Altrurian, when we found him the next morning, walking up and down the piazza, before breakfast — that is, it was before our breakfast; when we asked him to go in with us, he said he had just had his breakfast, and was waiting for Reuben Camp, who had promised to take him up as he passed with a load of hay for one of the hotels in the village.

  “Ah, that reminds me, Mr. Homos,” the unscrupulous woman began on him at once. “We want to interest you in a little movement we’re getting up for the Union Chapel in the village. You know it’s the church where all the different sects have their services; alternately. Of course, it’s rather an original way of doing, but there is sense in it where the people are too poor to go into debt for different churches, and—”