A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST

Sally hesitated before going into Marrin’s that Monday morning. A blinding snow-storm was being released over the city, and the fierce gusts eddied about the corner of Fifth Avenue, blew into drifts, lodged on sill and cornice and lintel, and blotted out the sky and the world. Through the wild whiteness a few desolate people ploughed their way, buffeted, blown, hanging on to their hats, and quite unable to see ahead. Sally shoved her red little hands into her coat pockets, and stood, a careless soul, in the white welter.

From her shoulder, some hundred feet to the south, ran the plate-glass of Marrin’s, spotted and clotted and stringy with snow and ice, and right before her was the entrance for deliveries and employees. A last consideration held her back. She had been lying awake nights arguing with her conscience. Joe had told her not to do it that it would only stir up trouble but Joe was too kindly. In the battles of the working people a time must come for cruelty, blows, and swift victory. Marrin was an out-and-out enemy to be met and overthrown; he had made traitors of the men; he had annihilated Izon; she would fight him with the women.

Nor was this the only reason. Sally felt that her supreme task was to organize the women in industry, to take this trampled class and make of it a powerful engine for self-betterment, and no women were more prepared, she felt, than the shirtwaist-makers. She knew that at Marrin’s the conditions were fairly good, though, even there, women and young girls worked sometimes twelve hours and more a day, and earned, many of them, but four or five dollars a week. What tempted Sally, however, was the knowledge that a strike at Marrin’s would be the spark to set off the city and bring out the women by the thousands. It would be the uprising of the women; the first upward step from sheer wage-slavery; the first advance toward the ideal of that coming woman, who should be a man in her freedom and her strength and her power, and yet woman of woman in her love and her motherhood and wife-hood. Industry, so Sally knew, was taking the young girls by the million, overworking them, sapping them of body and soul, and casting them out unfit to bear children, untrained to keep house, undisciplined to meet life and to be a comrade of a man. And Sally knew, moreover, what could be done. She knew what she had accomplished with the hat-trimmers.

Nevertheless, she hesitated, not quite sure that the moment had come. Joe’s words detained her in a way no man’s words had ever done before. But she thought: “I do this for him. I sharpen the edge of his editorial and drive it home. Words could never hurt Marrin but I can.” She got under the shelter of the doorway and with numb hand pulled a copy of The Nine-Tenths from her pocket, unfolded it, and reread the burning words of: “Forty-five Treacherous Men.” They roused all her fighting blood; they angered her; they incited her.

“Joe! Joe!” she murmured. “It’s you driving me on it’s you! Here goes!”

It was in some ways a desperate undertaking. Once, in Newark, a rough of an employer had almost thrown her down the stairs, man-handling her, and while Marrin or his men would not do this, yet what method could she use to brave the two hundred and fifty people in the loft? She was quite alone, quite without any weapon save her tongue. To fail would be ridiculous and ignominious. Yet Sally was quite calm; her heart did not seem to miss a beat; her brain was not confused by a rush of blood. She knew what she was doing.

She climbed that first flight of semi-circular stairs without hindrance, secretly hoping that by no mischance either Marrin or one of his sub-bosses might emerge. There was a door at the first landing. She passed it quickly and started up the second flight. Then there was a turning of a knob, a rustling of skirts, and a voice came sharp:

“Where are you going?”

Sally turned. The forelady stood below her large, eagle-eyed woman, with square and wrinkled face, quite a mustache on her upper lip. Sally spoke easily.

“Up-stairs.”

“For what?”

“To see one of the girls. Her mother’s sick.”

The forelady eyed Sally suspiciously.

“Did you get a permit from the office?”

Sally seemed surprised.

“Permit? No! Do you have to get a permit?”

The forelady spoke roughly.

“You get a permit, or you don’t go up.”

“Where’s the office?”

“In here.”

“Thanks for telling me!”

Sally came down, and, as she entered the doorway, the forelady proceeded up-stairs. Sally delayed a second, until the forelady disappeared around the bend, and then quickly, quietly she followed, taking the steps two at a time. The forelady had hardly entered the doorway on the next landing when Sally was in with her, and treading softly in her footsteps.

This was the loft, vast, lit by windows east and west, and hung, this snow-darkened morning, with many glittering lights. Through all the space girls and women, close together, bent over power-machines which seemed to race at intolerable speed. There was such a din and clatter, such a whizzing, thumping racket, that voices or steps would well be lost. Then suddenly, in the very center of the place, the forelady, stopping to speak to a girl, while all the girls of the neighborhood ceased work to listen, thus producing a space of calm the forelady, slightly turning and bending, spied Sally.

She came up indignantly.

“Why did you follow me? Go down to the office!”

Many more machines stopped, many more pale faces lifted and watched.

Sally gave a quick glance around, and was a trifle upset by seeing Mr. Marrin coming straight toward her. He came with his easy, tripping stride, self-satisfied, red-faced, tastefully dressed, an orchid in his buttonhole. Sally spoke quickly.

“I was only looking for Mr. Marrin, and here he is!”

As Mr. Marrin came up, more and more machines stopped, as if by contagion, and the place grew strangely hushed.

The forelady turned to her boss.

“This woman’s sneaked in here without a permit!”

Marrin spoke sharply.

“What do you want?”

Then in the quiet Sally spoke in a loud, exultant voice.

“I only wanted to tell the girls to strike!”

A sudden electricity charged the air.

“What!” cried Marrin, the vein on his forehead swelling. “You come in here ”

“To tell the girls to strike,” Sally spoke louder. “For you’ve made the men traitors and you’ve blacklisted Izon.”

Marrin sensed the danger in the shop’s quiet.

“For God’s sake,” he cried, “lower your voice speak to me tell me in private ”

“I am,” shrieked Sally. “I’m telling you I want the girls to strike!”

He turned.

“Come in my private office, quick! I’ll talk with you!”

Sally followed his hurried steps.

“Yes, I’ll tell you there,” she fairly shrieked, “that I want the girls to strike!”

Marrin turned.

“Can’t you shut up?”

And then Sally wheeled about and spoke to the two hundred.

“Girls! come on out! We’ll tie him up! We’re not like the men! We won’t stand for such things, will we?”

Then, in the stillness, Jewish girls here and there rose from their machines. It was like the appearance of apparitions. How did it come that these girls were more ready than any one could have guessed, and were but waiting the call? More and more arose, and low murmurs spread, words, “It’s about time! I won’t slave any more! He had no right to put out Izon! The men are afraid! Mr. Blaine is right!”

Marrin tried to shout:

“I order you to get to work!”

But a tumult drowned his voice, a busy clamor, an exultant jabber of tongues, a rising, a shuffling, a moving about.

Sally marched down the aisle.

“Follow me, girls! We’re going to have a union!”

It might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin whistling up the rats there was a hurrying, a scurrying, a weird laughter, a blowing about of words, and the two hundred, first swallowing up Sally, crowded the doorway, moved slowly, pushed, shoved, wedged through, and disappeared, thundering, shouting and laughing, down the steps. The two hundred, always so subdued, so easily bossed, so obedient and submissive, had risen and gone.

Marrin looked apoplectic. He rushed over to where the forty-four men were sitting like frightened animals. He spoke to the one nearest him.

“Who was that girl? I’ve seen her somewhere!”

“She?” the man stammered. “That’s Joe Blaine’s girl.”

“Joe Blaine!” cried Marrin.

“Look,” said the man, handing Marrin a copy of The Nine-Tenths, “the girls read this this morning. That’s why they struck.”

Marrin seized the paper. He saw the title:

FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN

and he read beneath it:

Theodore Marrin, and the forty-four who went back to work for him: Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship. Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade. Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees.

And then farther down:

No decent human being would work for such a man. He has no right to be an employer not in such hands should be placed the sacred welfare of men and women. If I were one of Marrin’s employees I would prefer the streets to his shop.

Marrin looked up at the forty-four. And he saw that they were more than frightened they were in an ugly humor, almost ferocious. The article had goaded them into a senseless fury.

Marrin spoke more easily.

“So that’s your friend of labor, that’s your Joe Blaine. Well, here is what your Joe Blaine has done for you. You’re no good to me without the girls. You’re all discharged!”

He left them and made madly for the door. The men were chaotic with rage; they arose; their voices went sharp and wild.

“What does that Joe Blaine mean? He takes the bread out of our mouths! He makes fools of us! He ought to be shot! I spit on him! Curse him!”

One man arose on a chair.

“You fools you listened to that man, and went on strike and now you come back, and he makes you lose your jobs. Are you going to be fools now? Are you going to let him get the best of you? He is laughing at you, the pig. The girls are laughing at you. Come on! We will go down and show him we will assemble before his place and speak to him!”

The men were insane with rage and demon-hate. Vehemently shouting, they made for the stairs, rushed pell-mell down, and sought the street, and turned south through the snow. There were few about to notice them, none to stop them. Policemen were in doorways and odd shelters. And so, unimpeded, the crazed mob made its way.

In the mean time Marrin had come out in his heavy fur coat and stepped into his closed automobile. It went through the storm, easily gliding, turned up West Tenth Street, and stopped before Joe’s windows. Marrin hurried in and boldly opened the office door. Billy jumped up to intercept him.

“Mr. Blaine ” he began.

“Get out of my way!” snapped Marrin, and stepped up to Joe.

Joe was brooding at his desk, brooding and writing, his dark face troubled, his big form quite stoop-shouldered.

“Well,” said Joe, “what’s the matter, Mr. Marrin?”

Marrin tried to contain his rage. He pointed his cane at Joe.

“You’ve made a mistake, Mr. Blaine.”

“It isn’t the first one.”

“Let me tell you something ”

“I will let you.”

Marrin spoke with repression.

“Next time don’t attack both the boss and the men. It’s bad policy. Take sides.”

“Oh, I did take sides,” said Joe, lightly. “I’m against anything treacherous.”

Marrin exploded.

“Well, you’ll get yours! And let me tell you something! I’ve a good mind to sue you for libel and shut up your shop.”

Joe rose, and there was a dangerous light in his eyes. His hands were open at his sides, but they twitched a little.

“Then,” said Joe, “I’ll make it worth your while. If you don’t want to be helped out, get out!”

“Very well,” sputtered Marrin, and turned, twirling his cane, and made an upright exit.

The sad Slate was paralyzed; Billy was joyous.

But Joe strode into the kitchen, where his mother was quietly reading at the window.

“What is it, Joe?”

“Mother,” he said, “that fellow Marrin was in threatening to sue me for libel.”

“Could it hurt you?”

“It might. Speaking the truth is always libelous.”

Joe’s mother spoke softly.

“Your father lost an arm in the war. You can’t expect to fight without facing danger. And besides,” she laughed easily, “you can always get a job as a printer, Joe.”

Joe paced up and down moodily, his hands clasped behind his back.

“If it was only myself ” he murmured, greatly troubled. “I wonder where Sally is this morning.”

“Didn’t she come, Joe?”

“No. Not a word from her. I’d hate her to be sick.”

“Hadn’t you better send over and see?”

“I’ll wait a bit yet. And yet ” he sighed, “I just need Sally now.”

His mother glanced at him keenly.

“Sally’s a wonder,” she murmured.

“She is ” He spoke a little irritably. “Why couldn’t she have come this morning?”

There were quick steps, and Billy rushed in, his eyes large, his cheeks pale.

“Mr. Joe!” he said breathlessly.

“Yes, Billy.”

“There’s a lot of men out on the street, and they’re beginning to fire snowballs!”

Nathan Slate came in, a scarecrow of fear, teeth chattering.

“Oh, Mr. Joe,” he wailed. “Oh, Mr. Joe!”

Joe’s mother rose, and spoke under her breath.

“Mr. Slate, sit down at once!”

Slate collapsed on a chair, trembling.

Joe felt as if a fork of lightning had transfixed him a sharp white fire darting from head and feet and arms to his heart, and whirling there in a spinning ball. He spoke quietly:

“I’ll go and see.”

It seemed long before he got to the front window. Looking out through the snow-dim pane, he saw the street filled with gesticulating men. He saw some of the faces of the forty-four, but mingled with these were other faces the faces of toughs and thugs, ominous, brutal, menacing. In a flash he realized that he had been making enemies in the district as well as friends, and it struck him that these were the criminal element in the political gang, hangers-on, floaters, the saloon contingent, who were maddened by his attempt to lead the people away from the rotten bosses. As if by magic they had emerged from the underworld, as they always do in times of trouble, and he knew that the excited East Side group was now flavored with mob-anarchy that he had to deal, not with men whose worst weapon was words, but with brutes who lusted for broken heads. Some of the faces he knew he had seen them hanging about saloons. And he saw, too, in that swift scrutiny, that many of the men had weapons; some had seized crowbars and sledges from a near-by street tool-chest which was being used by laborers; others had sticks; some had stones. An ominous sound came from the mob, something winged with doom and death, like the rattling of a venomous snake, with head raised to strike, ready fangs and glittering eyes. He could catch in that paralyzing hum words tossed here and there: “Smash his presses! Clean him out! Lynch him, lynch him! Kill kill kill! ”

A human beast had coiled at his door, myriad-headed, insane, bloodthirsty, all-powerful the mob, that terror of civilization, that sudden reversion in mass to a state of savagery. It boded ill for Joe Blaine. He had a bitter, cynical thought:

“So this is what comes of spreading the truth of really trying to help of living out an ideal!”

A snowball hit the window before him, a soft crash and spread of drip, and there rose from the mob a fiendish yell that seemed itself a power, making the heart pound, dizzying the brain.

Joe turned. His mother was standing close to him, white as paper, but her eyes flashing. She had not dared speak to Joe, knowing that this fight was his and that he had passed out of her hands.

He spoke in a low, pulsing voice.

“Mother, I want you to stay in back!”

She looked at him, as if drinking her fill of his face.

“You’re right, Joe,” she whispered, and turned and went out.

Billy was standing at the stove, a frightened boy, but he gripped the poker in his hand.

“Billy,” said Joe, quietly, “run down and tell Rann to keep ’em out of the press-room.”

Billy edged to the door, opened it, and fled.

Joe was quite alone. He sat down at his desk and took up the telephone.

“Hello, Central!” his voice was monotonous in its lowness and tenseness.

“Hello!”

“Give me police headquarters quick!”

Central seemed startled.

“Police ? Yes, right away! Hold on! Here they are!”

“Hello! Police headquarters!” came a man’s voice.

“This is Joe Blaine.” Joe gave his address. “There’s a riot in front of the house a big mob. Send over a patrol wagon on the jump!”

At that moment there was a wild crash of glass, and a heavy stone sang through the air and knocked out the stove-pipe pipe and stone falling to the floor with a rumble and rattle and from the mob rose murderous yells.

So Joe was able to add:

“They’ve just smashed my window with a stone. You’d better come damn fast.”

“Right off!” snapped Headquarters.

Joe put down the telephone, and stepped quietly over the room and out into the hall. Even at that moment the hall door burst wide and a frenzied push and squabble of men poured forth upon him. In that brief glimpse, in the dim storm-light, Joe saw faces that were anything but human wild animals, eyes blood-shot, mouths wide, and many fists in the air above their heads. There was no mercy, no thought, nothing civilized but somehow the demon-deeps of human nature, crusted over with the veneer of gentler things, had broken through. Worse than anything was the crazy hum, rising and rising, the hoarse notes, the fierce discord, that beat upon his brain as if to drown him under.

Joe tried to shout:

“Keep back! I’ll shoot! Keep back!”

But at once the rough bodies, the terrible faces were upon him, surrounding him, pushing him. He seized a little man who was jumping for his throat seized and shook the little beast.

“Get back!” he cried.

Fists pushed into his eyes, blows began to rain upon his body and his head. He ducked. He felt himself propelled backward by an irresistible force. He felt his feet giving way. Warm and reeking breath blew up his nostrils. He heard confused cries of: “Kill him! That’s him! We’ve got him!” Back and back he went, the torn center of a storm, and then something warm and sweet gushed over his eyes, earth opened under him and he sank, sank through soft gulfs, deeper and deeper, far from the troublous noise of life, far, far into an engulfing blackness.

The flood poured on, gushing down the stair-way, at the foot of which
Rann and his two men stood, all armed with wrenches and tools.

Rann shouted.

“I’ll break the head of any one who comes!”

The men in advance tried to break away, well content to leave their heads whole, but those in the rear pushed them on. Whack! whack! went the wrench the leader fell. But then with fierce screams the mob broke loose, the three men were swept into the vortex of a fighting whirlpool. Some one opened the basement gate from the inside and a new stream poured in. The press-room filled crowbars got to work while men danced and wildly laughed and exulted in their vandal work. Then suddenly arose the cry of, “Police!” Tools dropped; the mob turned like a stampede of cattle, crushed for the doors, cried out, caught in a trap, and ran into the arms of blue-coated officers....

When Joe next opened his eyes and looked out with some surprise on the same world that he was used to, he found himself stretched in his bed and a low gas-flame eyeing him from above. He put out a hand, because he felt queer about the head, and touched bandages. Then some one spoke in his ear.

“You want to keep quiet, Mr. Blaine.”

He looked. A doctor was sitting beside him.

“Where’s mother?” he asked.

“Here I am, Joe.” Her voice was sweet in his ears.

She was sitting on the bed at his feet.

“Come here.”

She took the seat beside him and folded his free hand with both of hers.

“Mother I want to know what’s the matter with me every bit of it.”

“Well, Joe, you’ve a broken arm and a banged-up head, but you’ll be all right.”

“And you are you all right?”

“Perfectly.”

“They didn’t go in the kitchen?”

“No.”

“And the press?”

“It’s smashed.”

“And the office?”

“In ruins.”

“How about Rann and the men?”

“Bruised that’s all.”

“The police came?”

“Cleaned them out.”

There was a pause; then Joe and his mother looked at each other with queer expressions on their faces, and suddenly their mellow laughter filled the room.

“Isn’t it great, mother? That’s what we get!”

“Well, Joe,” said his mother, “what do you expect?”

Suddenly then another stood before him bowed, remorseful, humble. It was Sally Heffer, the tears trickling down her face.

She knelt at the bedside and buried her face in the cover.

“It’s my fault!” she cried. “It’s my fault!”

“Yours, Sally?” cried Joe, quite forgetting the “Miss.” “How so?”

“I I went to Marrin’s and got the girls out.”

“Got the girls out?” Joe exclaimed. “Where are they?”

“On the street.”

“Bring them into the ruins,” said Joe, “and organize them. I’m going to make a business of this thing.”

Sally looked up aghast.

“But I I ought to be shot down. It’s I that should have been hurt.”

Joe smiled on her.

“Sally! Sally! what an impetuous girl you are! What would I do without you?”