The Coal War (11 page)

Hal happened to run into Miss Betty, coming out of a confectioner's; and what a snapping of black eyes there was! She could not quite refuse to speak to him, and he thought it proper to make friendly inquiry after Percy; he was very anxious for a chat with Percy!

“Percy's where you can't get hold of him!” was Miss Betty's response.

“Where's that?” queried Hal.

“You find out!” the young lady replied, as she stepped into her electric. He helped her in, as he was duty-bound to do, but she did not thank him—she started up the smooth-running, aristocratic machine, and glided haughtily away. And Hal made inquiry and learned that Percy was indeed quite safe. He was traveling with his mother and sisters—just now taking his ease where palm-branches rustle and ukuleles charm the air!

On one of the busiest corners of the business district of Western City stood a tall brown office building, and if you went in and studied its directory, you discovered that the eleventh and twelfth floors were occupied by the General Fuel Company. The “G.F.C.” had no need of flaring signs to advertise its presence—it was the master, and if you wanted it, you found out where it was. So Hal came; outwardly calm, but inwardly trembling, he entered the elevator and ascended to the twelfth floor, and walked along the corridor to a door with the sign: “Office of the President.” He turned the knob, and entered the Coal King's ante-chamber.

A page took his card, and pretty soon a smooth and decorous young chamberlain appeared—a chamberlain having the modern title of secretary. Mr. Warner desired to see Mr. Harrigan personally? What was the nature of his business? Mr. Warner reminded the secretary that he was known to Mr. Harrigan; and would the secretary kindly present the card? The secretary answered that he would do so; although Mr. Warner must realize that Mr. Harrigan was extremely busy at this time.

Hal took a chair; and presently the secretary came back. He was sorry to have to report that Mr. Harrigan was too busy to see Mr. Warner. He was so very busy that he feared he would not be able to make an appointment to see Mr. Warner. Could not Mr. Warner explain his business to the secretary? The young man said this with perfect politeness, and without a quiver of an eyelash; Hal answered, with the same politeness, and the same absence of quiver, that he would not be able to explain the matter to anyone but Mr. Harrigan. He went out, and retraced his steps to the street; John Harmon's letters were still unanswered!

[6]

The convention of the miners was to meet in Sheridan on Monday morning, and Billy Keating was going down on Friday, to report the situation for the next day's paper. He had suggested that Hal go with him; it would be safer travelling in pairs. So they set out—in the smoking-car, where there was education to be got.

The car was crowded with passengers, of a type easily recognized by one who had lived in the coal-country. Rough, evil-faced fellows with revolvers and whiskey-bottles bulging their pockets, they sprawled over the seats, filling the air with the odors and sounds of the bar-room; they leered at the women passengers, making jests and singing ribald songs. There went a load of them every trip, said the conductor. There had been a fight on the last trip, and two had been thrown off the train.

Billy Keating knew more than one of these “huskies”. In his capacity as reporter he had frequented their haunts, and could tell anecdotes about them. They were in the pay of the Schultz Detective Agency. The great Schultz himself had come to Western City, and made his headquarters in a basement-room of the Empire Hotel, where the “tough” citizens of the West were welcome; there were free cigars, and to a limited extent, free liquor. The ward politicians, who marshalled the gangs to stuff the ballot-boxes and slug the reformers on election-day, were now recruiting for Schultz, and no man who was handy with his gun need go thirsty. From top to bottom, the political machine was being got ready for service; even up to the Governor, a gentleman who had been given his nomination at a secret dinner conference in Old Peter's home, and who would now have a chance to pay for that costly dinner.

In the course of the day's ride, Hal got into a chat with half a dozen of these “huskies”. There was no shyness about them, they were entirely willing to tell about themselves, their histories, and their intentions. One could gather wild tales of adventures in every corner of the world; there was an ex-policeman from South Africa, discharged for drunkenness; an ex-soldier, who had demonstrated the “water cure” upon Filipinos; an adventurer from Central America, who had fought wherever there was loot; a pickpocket from the “Barbary Coast” of San Francisco; a couple of gangsters from “Hell's Kitchen”, in New York-men who had not been out of prison long enough to grow their hair. Only one question was asked by the Schultz Detective Agency: “Do you know how to shoot?”

Arriving in the evening at Sheridan, the travelers found the station crowded with outgoing parties. There was no reason why any man should stay and face the coming trouble, if he had the price of a ticket to some other job; so here were miners and their families, natives of a score of lands, with huge bundles on their heads or slung upon their backs; there was pushing and jostling, messages of farewell in many tongues, crying babies, shouts of hack-drivers. Not far away was a street-meeting, with an Italian orator haranguing a cheering throng.

Hal and Billy drove to the headquarters of the union, where they found another Babel; swarms of people who had been turned out of their homes and had no place to go, with distracted union officials trying to make them understand why the union had not provided a place. Old Johann Hartman, secretary of the Sheridan “local”, and Tim Rafferty, his assistant, were besieged. They had not slept for the last four nights, said Tim; the telephone never stopped ringing—and they had reports to make out, letters and telegrams to answer, a hundred organizers to keep in touch with, and twice as many spies and detectives to dodge.

Hal sought out Jim Moylan, the district secretary, a long, tall, black-haired Irish boy, who had come to take charge of this chaos and bring it to order. Eager and sensitive, Moylan was a fountain of news, poured out in a torrent. He made you see it and feel it—the enthusiasm, the pent-up energy, the thrill in the souls of these toilers, who were hoping, daring for the first time in their lives. His black eyes would blaze as he told of some fresh outrage; but then he hastened to add a word of caution—one must not believe everything, for there were no end of spies posing as miners, and they too had stories to tell. Now and then one would come in to headquarters, declaring that he had been robbed or beaten, and must have a gun to protect himself. Would not the union give him a gun? Or perhaps he had discovered a
cache
of weapons belonging to the operators, and wanted some of the miners to form a raiding-party to take possession of this treasure!

[7]

Billy Keating made notes, and then with Hal went out to wander about the streets. There were meetings on every block, it seemed—the ordinances of the town of Sheridan had been temporarily forgotten. A man stood upon the tail of a truck, addressing a little group in some strange tongue, and as Hal came near and made out the orator's face, he exclaimed: “It's Mike Sikoria!”

They stood and listened to the flood of Slovak eloquence. All Hal knew of the language was its commoner swearwords, but he had heard Old Mike discuss short weights and coal-company graft in English, so he had no trouble in imagining the speech. Presently at a pause, he hailed the orator—and then what a time there was! The old fellow clambered down from his platform, and gave Hal one of his grizzly-bear hugs, and half a dozen of his tickling, hairy kisses. “My buddy! My buddy!”

He shouted something to his fellow-countrymen; and again Hal could imagine the words—here was the rich young fellow who had come to North Valley and got a job and helped the miners! The other Slovaks grinned, and Mike patted Hal on the back, and would have had him make a speech—he was so proud of his American “buddy”! But the “buddy” lured him away by the suggestion of a lunch room. Was Mike hungry?
Pluha biedna!

Billy Keating went to the hotel, to lock himself up in a room and get his story ready; and meantime Hal and his old instructor sat gossiping away. Mike heard with amazement that Hal had been abroad, and had come back for the strike. So that was the way these rich fellers did—running about over the world! Mike had done some travelling himself—but after the fashion of poor fellers. It was the old story, he said; he could not keep his tongue still while he was being robbed. But now was the chance of his life—he could talk about his grievances all he pleased, and there were throngs on the street to listen. “And I talk to them, you bet!”

“Have a hunk of apple-pie?” said Hal; and Old Mike grinned and nodded. His mouth was full of “sinkers” and coffee.

“I fill myself up,” he said—“if you think you got money enough.” He had thrown up his job at Barela because he would not miss this convention; he had started before dawn, and walked all the way—having only forty-two cents in his pocket, his balance on the pay-roll of the mine. He had worked there five months, worked like a mule, by Judas; but there was a son-of-a-gun of a pit-boss, that had charged him twenty dollars for his job, and then gone ahead and loaded him up with “dead work”. And the worst of it was, the union wouldn't pay strike-benefits until the strike had been on for a week! They must have made that rule for some other part of the country, where a man could get a week's living ahead!

The old Slovak accepted a loan of two dollars from Hal, but he declined to stay at the hotel with him; he was lousy, he said—they charged you a dollar a month for wash-house privileges at Barela, but all they had was one tub to wash in, and when you saw the diseases some of them fellers had, you'd rather keep your own dirt, by Judas!

[8]

All day Saturday the human floods poured down the canyons; and in the afternoon there was a great procession, with a brass band at the head, and painted signs to proclaim men's feelings. Alone, they had been helpless, but in this throng, with the big national organization of miners behind them, they would assert their self-respect and win their rights. Men whose shoulders were bowed, whose figures were deformed by a life-time of cruel toil, marched here with their heads up, making the street to ring with their “union song”:

“We'll win the fight today, boys,

We'll win the fight today,

Shouting the battle-cry of union!”

All Saturday and Sunday there was oratory; and on Monday, the day of the convention, few orators went back to the camps. It would be of no use, for there were spies watching them, making lists. So they thronged into the convention-hall and listened to the proceedings, and backed up the delegates with their applause. One could feel their excitement, the pressure of feeling that burst forth in murmurs of indignation, cries of resolve.

Those who came as delegates to the convention had been chosen by secret ballot, and knew that their appearance here meant the expulsion of their families from their homes. Nevertheless they came—more than two hundred men, sober and determined, driven by a sense of intolerable wrong. They came as representatives of eleven thousand toilers, who sent to the great world outside an average of eleven million tons of coal each year.

They were uneducated men, with no gifts of oratory, no experience in affairs. To them this gathering was the event of a life-time, the moment when they were called upon the platform a mighty crisis. But this also was a duty; one by one they came forward, and in the best English they could muster told the story of their grievances. They came from two hundred different camps, their destinies were under the control of more than seventy different companies—yet the stories they told were all alike! Hal Warner sat and heard them, and found himself thinking that if he had shut his eyes, he would have been unable to tell which of them was the delegate from North Valley.

There was, first of all, the issue of poor pay, the inability of a man to earn a living for his family. Said Delegate Gorden, “There's too much rock in the mine. When I was working there, I couldn't make my day's wages in the place I was in.” Said Delegate Obeza, “If a man goes to work at three o'clock in the morning, he can make three dollars a day. If he goes to work at seven o'clock he make about a dollar fifty, because all his time is taken up cleaning rock on the roads.” Said Delegate Lamont, “The little children go bare-footed and are half clad.”

There was the old story of “short weights”, with its endless variations. Said Delegate Talerbeg, “The cars hold from forty to forty-two hundred, they give us from twenty-six to twenty-nine hundred.” Said Delegate Dominiche, “We have from seven to eight hundred pounds of coal stolen every day, and we don't get paid for laying tracks.” Said Delegate Miller, “When they're in need of coal for the boilers, they stop a trip near the boiler-room and unload coal off the miner's cars.” Said Delegate Madona, an Italian with a grin, “Never load by the ton; load by the acre.”

These men, like Hal Warner, had made test of the check-weighman law. Said Delegate Harley, “I know of four men who asked for a check-weighman and were fired.” Said Delegate Duran, “Never ask for a check-weighman, because we would be fired if we did. Weight is very bad.” And Delegate Salvine revealed a new device: “Pay thirty-five cents a month to company check-weighman. The boss put him up there, and we pay him.”

There were the complaints of miscellaneous grievances, stories to which Hal had listened on so many occasions from all over the district. Said Delegate Costo, “House is in bad condition, when it rains we have to get under the bed to keep from getting wet.” Said Delegate Fernandez, “Conditions are very bad. We can't travel through the man-way, and have to risk our lives going through the haulage-way.” Said Delegate Miller, “There's a company saloon, grocery-store, and doctor in that camp. This doctor has caused a number of people to be cripples.”