Charles Sheldon French

“ Hulbert.
“She made an early and unfortunate marriage, I believe?”
“Yes; she left the hills, and came down into this dull valley. She brought the sparkle of the mountain brook, and the melody of the bobolinks with her. Wherever she went there was a ripple of laughter, a burst of sunshine, a peal of music. Such a girl could not be without admirers. She had plenty of them. And then,—what did she do? Deliberately picked out the worst one in the whole lot,—a drunken libertine, a man with whom scarcely any other respectable woman would be seen crossing the street.” ”

“ The very fact that the Baldwins have been able, through the labor of others, in the paper industry, to pile up millions and tens of millions, for themselves and their descendants, while incidentally giving a few millions in so-called charity, this very fact, I say, is evidence that they might have paid their workmen more liberally. I tell you, Stimson, the time is coming, though you and I may not live to see it, when the lion’s share of the profits in any industry will go, not to the employer, but to the worker. ”

“ CHAPTER I. THE snows had begun to disappear from the far-famed valleys of Berkshire; the mountain-tops and slopes were still white; in the softening air was the promise of the return of birds and flowers; Nature was relenting from her winter harshness, but man was less kindly than Nature.
On Beauna Vista, one of the hillocks rising slightly above the level of the Housatonic Valley, the day’s work was done, and John Wycliff, a farm-laborer, was awaiting the pay for his last month’s work before returning home. ”

“ Work on the new streets at Maple Heights, will not be the only job held up to the unemployed as a bribe and a threat in this election. The cry is already raised by the Baldwin agents: ‘Elect Sharp, and the Baldwins will build a sewer for Papyrus; defeat Sharp, and the Baldwins will defeat the sewer.’ This cowardly sort of bribery and threat is permitted by Massachusetts Law, and the Baldwins know full well how to use it. Still, if you wish to run against Sharp for Selectman, I will place your name before the voters of Papyrus, through the columns of the Elmfield Star. ”

“ And now I am a slave to these sleek villains, the Baldwins. The tears [109] come to my eyes whenever I think of those old times; and of those sleek cattle that had been petted so much by my wife and the girls that it seemed like sacrilege to sell them; they seemed to belong to the family.” And Uncle Jerry burst into tears at his own recital of former glories.
“To think that I should have come to this,” exclaimed Uncle Jerry. “To be a slave,—a poor, despised, down-trodden slave for the Baldwins,—and I used to be a king of two hundred acres in Sprucemont. ”

“ There is a New York gentleman who will gladly pay me every dollar my interest in the Baldwin Mills is worth. He will not be a cipher in the concern as I have been, and he has opinions of his own as to the rights of workingmen. He will not see his employees’ interests trodden under foot without uttering a protest which will be heard, not only throughout the State, but throughout the Nation. ”

“ Ford Hulbert, a real estate and insurance agent, was an occasional caller.
“You knew Wells Boardman, who was recently killed in an accident on the Papyrus Electric Street Railway?” asked Hulbert.
“Yes, very well; an old neighbor when we lived out in the country. His daughter, Lena, was one of the best girls I ever met. Her laugh would do one more good than medicine sometimes. A half hour with her was a sure cure for the blues.”
“I don’t need to tell you much about her, then.”
“No, you do not. I have known her from the cradle up. A better girl or woman was never raised on the hills. ”

“ There may be something to be said for a man like Deacon Surface, who serves the devil for a fat salary, but you serve him for nothing. The Baldwins despise you, as such men always despise their slaves, and the public despises you, too. And what do you get out of it? You complain that you are selling only one thousand papers in Papyrus. Why not give the facts that the people are entitled to know, and sell fifteen hundred?”
Terry was angry, but the money was what he was after, and possibly Wycliff [46] was right, after all, in what he said. ”

“ You’ve been treated as if you were superior beings, but you are no better than other people. I have been suppressing the truth about you millionaires for years, and losing thousands of dollars by doing so. I might have sold thousands of copies of the Star, in Papyrus and throughout the county, had I not truckled to you [64] Baldwins, like a dog, instead of being a man. Hereafter the truth is to be published about you, just the same as about other folks, and Wycliff is under contract to do it for a year. ”

“ The methods which usually succeeded in driving a workingman out of town—blacklisting him in all the Baldwin industries and warning other employers not to hire him—these methods had failed utterly in the case of John Wycliff.
“We cannot tolerate him much longer,” said Zack Baldwin. Certainly not. Where one workingman [135] dares to do his own thinking and to express his own opinions there is danger that others will catch the distemper. What if they should form a union and demand the same wages paid elsewhere for the same work? ”

“ Wycliff replied at length, “I will do my best for you, and it will be a congenial task. Everything that I know of you is in your favor; but [27] I fear that your very honesty will be used against you. Our leading citizens do not want a thoroughly honest man in the office of Assessor. They want the property of the town assessed at only a fraction of its true value, so that the town will not have to bear its just share of state and county taxes. It is strange that men who are leaders in the church and in society, will argue the longest for a dishonest valuation.” ”

“ Congressman Baldwin’s railway takes a life worth fifteen hundred dollars a year to the victim’s family, and offers that family one hundred and five dollars a year in full settlement. And yet Congressman Baldwin says that human life is cheap,—in the South. Under Massachusetts law a railway company cannot be obliged to pay more than five thousand dollars for [105] taking a human life, while under a just law, like that of New York, a railroad corporation has been compelled to pay one hundred thousand dollars for a human life, lost through its negligence. ”

“ This temple shall again be filled with glad worshippers, as of old. The electric railway, which is leveling the hills everywhere, shall bring to these beautiful heights the tired and dusty dwellers in the city, for summer rest. ”

“ There is at least one crisis in a man’s life when he is too full of satisfaction himself to suspect anyone of wrong-doing.”
Just then the telephone bell rang.
“Is this David Baldwin?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is Ralph Cutter at Springdale. I am sorry for you in your experience of last night. If you will excuse an old-fashioned country expression, you are barking up the wrong tree. You are entirely wrong in your charge against Wycliff. Your nephew, Jehu, is the real culprit. ”

“ Papyrus and political independence was not tolerated among the workmen. Few workingmen had ever remained long in Papyrus after showing in any way their independence of the Baldwins.
Zechariah Baldwin defended the position of the paper manufacturers in this way:
“We have built up the town; we own it and we claim the moral right to drive out of it any man who is offensive to us. That one-eyed Wycliff is a mischief-maker and trouble-breeder and he has got to get out.” ”

“ He says: ‘The Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not guarantee to its mill-hands, who may be legal voters, the right to vote in town-affairs. The paltry two-hour provision only makes a farce of free government in mill-towns. It does not apply to town-meetings. In some towns the workman’s full rights are secured by shutting down the mills on town-meeting day, and in others by holding the business meeting, for appropriations, in the evening. ”

“ The Baldwins are well able to pay. I hear that this new library that Zechariah Baldwin is giving to the city of Elmfield will cost a half a million dollars.”
“Yes, I try to restrain my anger, as a Christian woman should,” said Mrs. Clyde, “but my blood boils every time I see that building. We poor women must slave in Zack Baldwin’s rag-room, and the money which ought to go to the mill-help, in higher wages, is given, with a great flourish of trumpets, to the city of Elmfield, which is already rich enough. As to our work. ”

“ Wycliff had once said to Deacon Surface, “does not stand for righteousness. It will whitewash any wrong done by its wealthy members. Our pastor is eloquent in condemning the disfranchisement of the negroes of the South, but does not say one word to condemn the disfranchisement of mill-hands in Papyrus. Employees in the Baldwin Mills are prevented from voting appropriations for schools, roads, street-lights, and other [16] public benefits in their own town. ”

“ It is said that this is due, in some measure, to the pure water found in Papyrus, which is the gift of God. Then, too, it is claimed that Mack Baldwin laid the foundation of the Baldwin millions by manipulations in Wall Street, during the Civil War. But some of those millions are the fruit of low wages. If the Baldwins pay twenty-five cents a day less than a fair wage, to two thousand hands, three hundred days in a year, what is the result? It’s a yearly saving of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, of money due the laborer, is it not? ”

“ We, who own the town, ought to say what its taxes should be. Our employees, who pay only poll taxes, should not vote taxes for us to pay. If the appropriations for town expenses were made at an evening session, as they are in some Massachusetts towns, our workmen could [81] vote, and load us down with taxes. Under Massachusetts law, mill-hands can remain away from their work only two hours. This law does not apply to town-meeting, but we give our workmen the benefit of it. Our workmen can come and vote for town-officers by secret ballot, and get back to the mills within the two hours. ”

“ The speaker did not occupy a minute more than the time allotted to him. For a minister, or any other speaker, to take time which belonged to others, Ralph Cutter considered no better than any other kind of stealing, and he never practiced it. He always kept within his allotted time. He had saved a few minutes in which to consider the future of the town.
“Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and every hill shall be made low.” ”

“ I remember a young man— (do you remember him?) —who was a great admirer of the Springdale Democrat, which [184] has been called the New England Bible. It is eloquent, in season and out of season, in advocating equal rights for the Southern negro and the Filipino, but never asks equal rights for the mill-hands of Papyrus. It does not hesitate to criticise the President of the United States, but its millionaire idol, Congressman Baldwin, is exempt from criticism. Can you defend this course?
“Let me urge one consideration which cannot fail to have weight with you. ”

“ You have never allowed the facts to be presented in your publication regarding the partial disfranchisement of workingmen in Papyrus, by which all mill-hands are prevented from having any voice in town-government, except to vote for town-officers, being shut out from voting for appropriations. ”

“ Many of the mill-hands in Papyrus are little better than slaves when it comes to voting. [76] Under the Australian ballot, they may vote for the men they prefer for town-officers, but not for town-appropriations and other measures, without making themselves liable to the wrath of their employers. The Baldwins never ceased their ancient policy of discharging and driving out of town, if possible, any of their workmen who opposed their policy in town-affairs by voice or vote. ”

“ Not only this, but the working people in the cities shall be able to reach them. The time is coming, when the poorest one of our millions of laborers shall be able to enjoy a summer vacation, with his family, on these hills, or at the sea-shore, or wherever else on God’s beautiful earth he chooses to spend [127] it. The multitudes, now scarcely earning their daily bread, shall not always toil to maintain the few in idleness and luxury. ”

“ In private circles, particularly among his own workmen, in those small circles where the laborer dared to speak his honest feelings, he was oftener spoken of as a “skinflint,” or simply a “skin,” a term in common use which is full of meaning, and that not of the best kind. Zechariah Baldwin was the last to raise the wages of his help and the first to cut them down.
David Baldwin was rarely known, where the decision lay with himself alone, to refuse any reasonable request of a workingman. ”

“ Wycliff; “I have always heard that the Baldwins were very generous.”
“They are generous,” replied her visitor, “but they are not just. There is an old saying, ‘Be just before you are generous,’ which, if lived up to in Papyrus, would make a wonderful difference in favor of the working class. How have the Baldwins made their millions? Of course [59] the whole world knows that they make a very high grade of paper. ”

“ He was a keen-looking man, who wasted no time in ceremony.
“John Wycliff, I believe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am Wilfrid Terry, of the Elmfield Star. We are not satisfied with our sales in Papyrus. We sell only a thousand papers here, whereas we ought to sell fifteen hundred. We are told that you [43] have had experience in newspaper work, and a gentleman who is acquainted with your former work, thinks you could bring our sales in Papyrus up to what they ought to be.”
“I don’t believe that I could work for you.”
“Indeed, and why not?”
“As I have learned it, good journalism is no respecter of persons. ”

“ It has always seemed to be the Baldwin policy to build up the other end of the town, at the expense of this end. Certainly the Baldwins have played the part of the ‘dog in the manger,’ in regard to East Papyrus. They will neither build mills here themselves, nor will they sell the property so that anyone else can build here. The Wessons, who own the paper-mills at Papyrus Center, would have built mills here, giving employment to a large number of people, if they could have secured the property. ”