SALOME SHEPARD, REFORMER.

I.

Salome Shepard gazed wonderingly at the crowd of people in the street, as she guided her pony-phaeton through the factory precincts.

“What can be the matter with these people?” she thought. “I’m sure they ought to have gone to their work before this.”

It was a wet October day. The narrow street was slippery with the muddy water that oozed along to the gutters. The factory boardinghouses loomed up on either side, dingy and desolate. Even the mills looked larger and coarser, in the gloomy air of the morning.

2As she drove by them, the fair owner listened in vain for the rumble of machinery. Inside, the great, well-lighted rooms looked dreary and barn-like in the gray mist that struggled through the windows.

One hour before, the machinery, shrieking and groaning, had voiced the protest of the “hands” against their fancied and their real wrongs. One hour before, every employe had been in his or her place. But the gloom of the atmosphere could not obscure the suppressed excitement of the morning. Shortsighted and blind to their best interest, they might have been; but there was not a man among them who did not feel a tremendous underlying principle at stake.

And so, at precisely ten o’clock, the machinery had suddenly and mysteriously stopped, and every man, woman and child, without a word, had left the mills.

All this had happened while Salome Shepard was calling on an elderly friend of her mother’s at the other end of the town. It had been a delightfully cosy morning in spite of the rain; and, after a gossipy fashion, they had passed it in discussing, as women will, the newest 3pattern of crochet, the last society-novel, the coming concerts in town.

Salome’s mood was the comfortable one conduced by such soothing intellectual food, as she set forth on her homeward drive. The rain had ceased, and only along the river did the mists hover, suggesting to her idle fancy the thick smoke which hangs over a smouldering fire.

But the fire which had been creeping under the life of the Shawsheen Mills had but just burst into flames, which mounted higher and higher as the day wore on.

All through the factory precincts the unwonted excitement was manifest. Groups of employes were everywhere—on the street-corners, in front of tenements and boardinghouses, in the middle of the street;—and all were engaged in absorbing discussion of one exciting theme—the strike.

Men without coats or hats; women with shawls thrown loosely over their heads; girls, bonnetless and neglectful of dress; unkempt old women, who were perhaps the home-makers for these hard-worked and ill-paid people; all were indifferent save to one subject.

4Even the quick passage, through their midst, of the pony-phaeton and its mistress failed to attract attention beyond an occasional surly glance from the men or an envious one from the women. Unmindful of the long days in store, when there would be ample time to discuss their wrongs, they remained huddled in excited groups in the wet October air, talking over the strike,—the famous strike of the Shawsheen Mills.

“I declare!” muttered the young woman who was hurrying the pony out of these disagreeable surroundings; “it must be a strike! Nothing else would crowd them into the street so. I wonder what they want? Dear me! what nuisances these work-people are. Why can’t they be sensible, and when they are earning a living, be content? Dear me! if I had the making over of this world I would make everybody comfortably off, and nobody rich—unless it were myself,” she added, laughing; for absolute truthfulness was a necessity of Salome Shepard’s nature, and she knew perfectly well that she could not do without the luxuries to which she had always been accustomed.

5“If I had the making over of the world!”

The words repeated themselves in her mind. If any human being has the power of making over the world in any smallest degree, something whispered, that person must be a young, attractive woman, with a vast property and absolute control of several hundred people, besides two millions of dollars in her own right.

“Dear me!” she said aloud, as she drove up the graveled road under the dripping yellow beeches. “How positively dreadful it must be to be a reformer! How would I look in a bloomer costume and black bombazine bonnet? No. Let things alone, keep to your sphere, young woman,—the proper, well-regulated, protected and chaperoned sphere of a delicate young lady, and let the world right its own wrongs.”

She jumped lightly from the phaeton, tossing the reins to James, and showing her fine, well-turned figure to excellent advantage as she ran up the broad steps.

The massive doors turned noiselessly at her approach. She passed through the fine old hall and went directly up the broad oak staircase to her room.

6“How comfortable this is,” she said to herself, as the blazing wood-fire threw flickering shadows over the dainty hangings, the warm rugs and the choice pictures.

But even as she drew a long sigh of contentment with her lot, a picture of wet and muddy streets, thickset with groups of brawny men and bedraggled, unkempt women, intruded itself, and the sigh changed its tenor.

“If I only had the making over of the world!” she said again aloud; and added resolutely, “but I haven’t.”

II.

The Shawsheen Mills had been established many years before the opening of this story by Salome’s grandfather, Newbern Shepard. They constituted one of the chief manufacturing concerns of Shepardtown. They made more cloth, and that of a better quality, than any other mill outside the “City of Spindles.” They employed a much larger force of operatives than any other factory in the place, and had always held a controlling interest in town affairs.

When the Shawsheen Mills were first started, blooming girls from all parts of Massachusetts came swarming to them, glad of a new and respectable employment,—came with earnest purpose to make this new life and its outcomes subservient to a better future. The conscientious New England girl of those days took as 8much pride in making a perfect web of cloth as though it were for her own wearing. Aware that her employers took an interest in her welfare, aside from the fact that she was a part of the motive power of the mill, she rewarded them with a full performance of her duty. A mutual goodfellowship had existed, then, between employer and employed in the years when old Newbern Shepard was at the head of his mills.

All this had changed. Newbern Shepard had died after a long and successful career, leaving the business to his son, Floyd Shepard. The latter, educated at Harvard, with five years of study afterward in Germany, had developed little taste for an active business life such as his father had led. He had, consequently, placed the entire business in the hands of Otis Greenough, a friend of his college-days and a hard-headed business man. Floyd Shepard had idled the greater part of his time before reaching the age of fifty in various parts of the world.

Then he came home, married a Baltimore belle, and passed his old age in his native place.

9Even then, he gave little thought to the details of business. He added to and improved the home of his forefathers, until his house and grounds were acknowledged to be the finest in the state. After four years of married life, his young wife died, leaving him one child—a babe of three days. Then he retired into his study, and lived only among his books.

“Don’t trouble me with the business,” he would say to Otis Greenough, on the rare occasions when it seemed necessary to consult the owner of the mills. “I care nothing as to how you manage the works, and know less how it should be done. Suit yourself as to details, and keep the mills paying a good profit. I shall be satisfied.”

Upon this principle the mills had been run for thirty years. The agent and his superintendents had devoted themselves to the problem of getting out more goods and making more money than their competitors, while keeping the standard of their wares up to its old mark. They had no time for the problem of human life involved. The first and principal question had required a severe struggle, with active brains and sharp wits. What wonder, 10then, that the increasing mass of operatives had come to be considered, every year, less as human beings in need of help and encouragement, and more as mechanical attachments of the mills?

Only such operatives as had been brought up in the mills realized the difference. The employes were mostly of the unwashed population, expecting nothing but a place to earn their living and but scanty pay for it.

Having, at the outset, no confidence in their employers, and no feeling of goodwill towards them, they had no conscientious motive behind their work. On the contrary, they stood on the defensive, watching for oppression and tyranny, and ready to take arms against them.

This was the state of things when the first regularly organized strike occurred at the Shawsheen Mills.

Otis Greenough, although an old man, was still at the head of the mills. Floyd Shepard’s death three years before had made no difference with the vast business interests in his name. In willing everything he owned to his daughter, who was already heiress to a large fortune from her mother’s family, he had provided that 11Otis Greenough should be chief agent during the remainder of his life; and that the mills should continue on the same plan by which they had been run for the past quarter of a century.

Otis Greenough was an arbitrary man, with that enormous strength of will which a man must have who is to control and manage two thousand people and an increasing business.

If, in the march of economic progress, he chose to make changes in the machinery of the mills, he consulted no one, and cared nothing for the black looks or surly mutterings of the operative who might fancy himself injured thereby. Had it been hinted to him that his operatives might be trained to take a personal interest in the success or failure of new experiments or, indeed, that they had any right to his brotherly consideration, he would have flouted the idea.

It was his boast that he never wasted words on the operatives. In short, he was as indifferent to the rights of Labor as his Lancashire spinners were to the interests of Capital. Hence the strike.

At noon of the day that Salome Shepard 12had driven through the factory street, Otis Greenough sat in his private office with his two superintendents, the treasurer and cashier of the mills, and one or two subordinates. As the bell struck for twelve, five men from the various departments filed in and presented a written document. They were the committee appointed by the new Labor Union.

Mr. Greenough took the paper with an air that showed him to be in anything but a conciliatory mood. Without opening it, he burst forth angrily:

“What, in the name of common sense, is this farce anyhow? What do you mean by leaving your work and presuming to come here, dictating terms to me?”

“The paper will explain everything, sir,” replied the foremost of the committee. “We have our rights—or should have them. The time has come when we propose to get them. Will you read the petition, sir?”

“No,” thundered the choleric old man. “Not in your presence. Villard, treat with them.” Mr. Greenough was too angry to say more.

Mr. Villard, the younger superintendent, stepped forward.

13“I think,” he said, “that you had better leave us for a time. We shall need to consider your proposals, whatever they may be. Go now, and come again later—say at four o’clock.” Agreeing to this proposition, the five men turned and left the office. Mr. Villard sat down again, waiting for the agent to speak.

“The confounded whelps!” ejaculated Mr. Greenough, as soon as he could find breath. “Open that paper, Villard—the impudent puppies!”

Without answering, John Villard tore open the envelope, and read the document aloud:

Whereas, we, the undersigned, believing that our interests demand an organization which shall promote and protect affairs relating to us as laboring men; and

Whereas, we have already organized and maintained such a society; it is now unanimously agreed that we insist upon the recognition of such a body by our employers, and upon their making certain concessions for the benefit of that body.

Whereas, there is a ten-hour system established in this state by law; we hereby resolve that we will refuse to work ten and a half or eleven hours a day as has been demanded of us.

Whereas, we believe the introduction of the new frames are detrimental to the interests of the mule-spinners; we resolve that they must be taken out, and the old mules replaced, with a written agreement that no more of the obnoxious machinery shall be added for, at least, five years.

Whereas, there has been an attempt made to reduce our wages, especially in the weaving department; we hereby resolve that we will submit to no curtailment of wages, and to 14demand payment of all wages weekly, as is the custom in certain other mills in this state.

Trusting that these our petitions may be granted, our rights respected, and that harmonious relations will soon be established between us, we take pleasure in signing ourselves

Before John Villard had finished reading the paper, Mr. Greenough had risen and was pacing the floor excitedly.

“Shocking!” he exclaimed, as Mr. Villard folded the paper and returned it to its envelope. “Preposterous! Do they think they can impose upon me with such a jumble of unreasoning nonsense as that? Labor Union, indeed! Why, the rascals act as if there were no interests but those of labor. And a beautiful time they’ve taken to strike—when orders are pouring in faster than we can possibly keep up with them. A fine time, indeed!”

“I suppose,” said John Villard, fearlessly, “there seems a slight injustice to them, in cutting down their wages at such a time.”

“What right have they to dictate, I should like to inquire?” answered the irate agent. “If they were not a bigoted, unreasoning set, they’d know they never can serve the interests of labor in such a way. They’d realize that 15they are only biting off their own noses! They have probably been worked upon by some crank of an agitator. If they were not ignorant dogs, they’d know that they could best serve the interests of labor by being faithful to those of capital. Why,” he concluded, his face growing redder in his wrath, “is this America? Is this our boasted New England? Is this a free country? By Jove! I’ve heard of this sort of thing in England, but in this republican land, this boasted region of freedom—Great Scott! What are we coming to?”

“It’s this accursed trades-unionism creeping in among us,” put in the treasurer’s mild voice, as Otis Greenough paused for breath. “I’ve been expecting it.”

“Blast it, why didn’t you mention it then?” returned Mr. Greenough. But the treasurer retired in confusion behind his books and did not answer.

“Well, Villard,” continued the agent, “I hope now you will give up the Utopian schemes you’ve been nursing for the elevation of the laboring classes. You see just what a foolish, unthinking, unreliable set of men we have to deal with.”

16“On the contrary, sir,” returned the second superintendent, firmly, “I sympathize, to a degree, with them. I agree that they have taken an inopportune time to enforce their views, and regret that they could not have seen fit to keep at work while their petition was being considered; and I would advise——”

“I want no man’s advice until I ask it,” interrupted the elder man. “This is our first strike, and it shall be the last so long as I have authority here. Humph! They think they can intimidate me! They have chosen this time because they think I must yield now. They little know me. Otis Greenough has not run the Shawsheen Mills successfully thirty years, to be brow-beaten and conquered in the end by a pack of ignorant laborers.”

“But how is this to end?” asked the first superintendent, speaking for the first time.

“It can end whenever these men will take back their impudent paper and go to work. Villard, when they show up again—four o’clock did you say?—you will tell them so. Offer them a chance to go to work to-morrow morning on the old terms. You needn’t give in to them one inch. Do you hear? Not a jot or tittle.”

17“And what if they do not accept?” asked Villard.

“Why, advertise. Advertise far and near. Get new help. We’ll open the mills and run them, too, right in their very teeth. I’ll show them that he who has been master here for thirty years is master until he dies.”

III.

The choleric agent’s blood was fairly up, and he now set himself to plan for the coming warfare. When the committee from the labor union made its appearance at four o’clock, the agent refused to treat directly with them. He retired to his inner office, whence issued a moment later an “open letter to the employes of the Shawsheen Mills.” The circular was composed and written entirely by himself, and was quite characteristic of his high-handed authority. It stated that “as the control of an owner over his property was guaranteed by the law of the land, and was of such unquestionable character as ought not to be meddled with by any other individual or combination of individuals, the agent of the Shawsheen Mills, acting for their owner, would brook no such interference as had been attempted.” 19But, in bombastic language, he went on to say that, on account of the pressure of work, he offered to take back into the mills such operatives as, after a day’s idleness and a night’s calm reflection, might decide to come back peacefully, and accept the old conditions. The

circular closed by adding that all returning operatives must renounce their connection with the new Labor Union, and stating that the Shawsheen Mills would be immediately re-opened.

This letter, as might have been expected, only served to fan the smouldering embers of discord. It was taken at once to the quarters of the new Union, and angrily discussed. A stormy meeting was held that evening, and scores of new members were added to the organization, all unanimously agreeing, not only to keep away from the mills themselves, but to prevent other operatives from entering them. The trouble which might have been met at the outset and subdued by candid discussion and a fair acknowledgment on each side of the claims of the other, was changed into a barricade of danger between labor and capital over which a battle was to be fought, involving money and 20credit and losses on one side, and daily bread for two thousand people on the other.

“Come,” said Otis Greenough, emerging from his “den” after the committee had left the office. “I want you, Villard, and you, too, Burnham,” he added, turning to the other superintendent, “to go with me this evening, to the owner of these mills, and lay before her the proceedings of the day, and our reasons for taking a firm stand. Although, precious little difference it will make with her, I imagine, how many strikes we have, until her income is affected! Will you be so good as to state, Villard, what you are smiling at.”

“I was thinking, sir, that it is a queer state of affairs, when a person owning large and influential mills like these, need not know of the strike or be consulted with regard to it, until it is half over,” answered Villard. He had no fear of the agent, with whom he was a favorite, in spite of his seeming harshness. “It seems to me, if I were a young woman, with unlimited leisure and wealth, I should care to know something of so tremendous an interest as the Shawsheen Mills represent—that is, if I owned them.”