XIV
John Dawson, organizer of the National Federation of Miners, picked his way through the raw grayness of the Union Depot, in the muscle-cramped crowd that came in on the day coaches of the 5:10, until he reached the station itself. His eyes picked out the hesitant clot of four men off to one side. "You the committee?"
Serrano introduced them briefly: Jack Bowden, state agent of the miners; Ben Wilson and John McGue, of the strike committee. Dawson clenched each hand in a vast paw, then beckoned them away from his two grips. "Wait a minute." His alert eyes sieved the crowd. "See them two boys in gray hats? They've followed me all the way from Wilmington. Hope they've had a nice trip; I do love detectives...." He motioned them away. "Naw, I carry my own." Adjusting the two big valises carefully, he smiled, "Let's move."
They went out through the truck entrance, and across the gusty avenue, clanging with cars filled with early workers. Depot idlers stared at the group; the tall heavy-loaded man in the center would hold attention anywhere.
Serrano stopped half a block away, at a flamboyant entrance displaying "Mecca Hotel" in dirty white letters above. The clerk, a limp young man without a collar, shoved over the tobacco-stained page. Dawson signed it, forming each letter painstakingly. They walked up one flight to the room.
Dawson looked around critically.
"Biggest room they have. They'll put in the other two beds to-day."
"Some of the boys may have to spend the night here. I'm glad it's near the station, if any quick getaway has to be made." The organizer smiled, his lips curling back over big front teeth; there was something disquieting and unsmiling in the look.
Serrano got rid of the rest of the committee, and went into an elaborate detail of the situation.
Dawson was able to help him out. "You'll find I know the land pretty well. I worked three years in the West Adamsville mines; they ran me out in the strike of '04. Who can you count on?"
He listened attentively, checking certain names in a thick yellow notebook.
"I know this Jack Bowden kind. We find 'em all over. In West Virginia we amputated a bunch like that. We've got 'em in Chicago, Indianapolis, New York.... Give 'em a few days, and they'll show yellow; then it's easy to fire 'em. Bowden looked fishy. These labor tin Jesuses make me sick! Better than anybody else, and sold out in advance. Who's this Judson?"
The energetic bricklayer told of the recent convert, and the Arlington Hall meeting.
"He can talk? We'll use him. But you can't trust them fellows too far. I'm not a socialist, you know; don't believe in voting worth a damn. Never got nowhere, never will get nowhere. But in a strike, they help."
They went over the morning paper. "Mmm—only a few hundred out——What's the straight goods?"
"Over five hundred from the Judson mines, six fifty from the Birrell-Florence, and about four hundred others from the mines on either side. We haven't touched West Adamsville yet, or Irondale. If only the furnaces could be called out...."
"Won't come. We can try; but mine strikes don't get 'em. No organization. These men all joined?"
"Joined or joining."
"This says scabs from Pittsburgh.... No law to stop 'em?"
"Ben Spence, our lawyer, says there isn't. In the last street-car strike we tried the law; the courts wouldn't enforce it."
"How do the boys feel?"
"They want to fight like hell. They'll stop the scabs."
"Got to be careful there. That sort of thing is dynamite; it blows both ways. Company won't hear the committee?"
"Young Judson's father's the reason. Says he won't allow a union man in his shop hereafter. No committees, nor nothing."
"Let's see the place."
They walked from the end of the car line. The roads through the property had been made city streets, when Hillcrest Addition was thrown open to the public, and the party could not be stopped. Dawson paused to shake hands with the groups of pickets on the various cross roads. He had a personal word for each, and a concentrated way of getting the details he needed out of the incoherent members of the working body.
Joined by Ben Wilson and several of the pickets, they passed into the company estate, and by the entrances to the gap drifts and the second ramp. Only a few negroes were at work in the gap; it was not until the second big slope that the white workers appeared. Dawson looked a question at stocky Wilson, hardly up to his vest pocket.
"Convicts. Almost three hundred of them."
"Any niggers go out?"
"Half a dozen. You met one, Ed Cole, picketing by Thirtieth Street."
A red-faced Irishman walked out of a knot of workers and greeted the tall organizer. "Hello, Dawson. Remember me?"
"Your mug's familiar. Lemme see—your name's Hewin, ain't it?"
The superintendent grinned. "You ought to remember it. You beat hell out of me in the Coalstock strike for staying on as foreman."
"Scab then, eh, and still at it." Dawson's tolerance had a touch promising danger.
"That's what you'd call it. I'm in charge here. Mind your own business, or I'm not the one who'll get beat up this time." He turned with grinning ugliness and climbed back to the opening.
They cut over to the railroad track, and entered Hewintown by the back way. Dawson studied the land carefully. "That's the way they'd bring the train from Pittsburgh, of course. And that's a pretty narrow cut beyond that dinky little house. Who lives there?"
"Mr. Judson, the vice-president."
"This ain't no place for a mine-owner."
Dawson's comment on the shack town was a string of profanity. "Even in West Virginia they had better dumps than those! I wouldn't let my pig live there. Company houses, as always."
"Yes."
"This crew out?"
"All but two or three. The convict stockade is on the next hill; the niggers live in Adamsville, or in Lilydale, over yonder." His pudgy fingers pointed through the trees to the south.
They passed company detectives and guards, in clusters of two or three, at every corner. "These always here?"
"Most of them new."
"We'll help 'em earn their money.... Take me by number three, and the hospital you mentioned. I want to see it all."
They were not allowed to go down this ramp; guards with shotguns refused to allow any ingress. "You might get blowed up too, buddy."
Serrano left them, to pass around the word of the meeting that night. Dawson listened to the vivid hatred of the company all the way down the hill. A vigorous nod punctuated his opinion. "That's what they are; a bunch of lousy murderers. It's no worse here than other places; you've got to fight for what you get, anywhere. Pretty bunch of uglies here already! And when they try to run in Pittsburgh scabs——" He did not finish.
The momentum of the strike grew day by day. Most of the papers continued unfriendly; but the Register, which made a point of claiming to stand for the man in the shop as well as the man in the office, insisted that public sentiment was with the strikers, especially because of the recent memory of the accident horror.
The packed meetings in Arlington Hall were reported favorably in this paper; and they were emotional successes. John Dawson was not a graceful speaker; but his harsh bellow meant business, and his imperative magnetism shone through the awkwardest gesturings. Bowden contributed suave appeals, and Big John Pooley, the state president, took the floor the second night to remind that organized labor stood behind their efforts. "I am sure," he boasted, "that you will win, and even sooner than you expect. You have the companies practically beaten now."
Serrano turned to Dawson, puzzled. "What's he getting at, with that stuff?"
The enormous organizer looked at him searchingly. "If you watch a snake hole, you're liable to see the snake crawl out sooner or later."
During the rest of Pooley's speech, the huge organizer, head sprawled back against the wall, chin upraised, studied the speaker with a hungry intentness, as if investigating for that weak spot he had found every man to possess. The bricklayer chairman phrased and rephrased to himself his introduction for the next speaker, one of the negro miners. It was always risky, this opening the union doors to the black workers. Of course, as a socialist Serrano always urged it, arguing that labor's only safety lay in having this convenient surplus labor force within its own ranks, as protection against black scabbing; but there was some division in the local about it, and the southern unionist took slowly to the idea; occasional revivals of racial intolerance, based upon dislike of sharing work with the darker cousin, split unions and federations, delaying solidified strength for years and decades.
Pooley ended with lame vehemence; and the voice of the Italian chairman thundered another plea for labor's unity, introducing a black man to show that no boundaries of nation or race counted in the centuries' long battle. "I'm going to call on Will Cole to speak to you. Will is a black man, who was in Number Eight entry when the dynamite murder took place. His dead comrades talk to you through his living lips. Come on, Will, tell us why you don't look for a pay check this week."
They laughed at the rude jesting at the invariable boomerang effect of their sole weapon of protest—a laugh that quieted to respect, as the grimy overalled negro was urged up the side steps and to the center of the stage. His eyes blinked at the dazzle of the lighting until the whites showed; his shoulders hunched deprecatingly. He could not speak to them as man to man, that he knew; the difference in color was ever in his mind, and in his audience's.
"Ah'm only a nigger," he began diffidently. "You-all white folks don't want niggers in yo' unions, you-all don't want us to wu'k whar you do. Some er you don't lak us havin' our own union. An' niggers is crazy too; Ah kaint make dat wu'thless gang in number two come out, nohow.
"But Ah come out. You-all know Jim Cole was in Number Six when de mine oxploded; you-all know he's dead now. Ah live on dat mountain, same as Mister Judson. Dere ain't no more reason why me 'n' mah brudder should a got killed in dem mines dan why he should'a. Ah done jined dis union, an' Ah'll die befo' Ah'll scab. An' any scab dat comes mah way had better have his ears all aroun' his haid!"
They chuckled at the conclusion, but it made its effect. "When you all unite, white and black, you can snap your fingers at all the Paul Judsons in the world!" Serrano never lost a chance to drive home a point.
Next afternoon's headlines promised the arrival of a trainload of workers during the night. This lent an added air of uncertainty to the meeting following. Dawson's pleas to the men to hold fast, to convert the scabs with arguments, not bricks, were as strong as ever; but despite the ample audience, even he was a little upset by the fact that the whole Bowden-Pooley crowd were absent from their stage seats.
When he got around to Machinists' Hall later in the same evening, for the conference over the next day's activities, he found the state labor organization present in full force. The ornate double rows of mahogany-stained chairs, arranged in a hollow diamond shape, to accommodate the fraternities that met in the hall, with raised seats at the four points of the diamond for the officers, were half filled with the Pooley followers. Dawson called the meeting to order.
Jack Bowden rose, spit carefully into the shiny brass cuspidor, placed there to preserve the long-haired red carpet, and began. "Men, the strike is won! We've been in consultation with Mr. Judson and Mr. Kane, and the whole thing is to be called off to-morrow morning! They agree to consider every one of our demands, provided only we don't insist on the demand for unionization. We can't win, with this trainload of detectives and workers from up north; I think we're lucky to beat 'em this way." He turned to Dawson. "You've done mighty fine work, John Dawson; and the state treasury of the mining union will be glad to foot your bill comin' here and goin' back."
Dawson was out of the chair, his throat palpitating, almost too choked to get out a word. "I've been waiting for you and your kind to show your hands, Bowden. I'm glad you've done it this soon. Did Mr. Judson say he would grant all demands, except unionization?"
Pooley shifted his lame leg, and spoke up. "Mr. Kane it was we talked to to-night."
Dawson's clear-thrown tones fired the next question at him. "Did Mr. Kane promise to grant every demand, except only unionization?"
"He said they'd consider 'em. It's the best——"
"It's nothing, and you know it! Fire me and the real union men who are making the trouble, and turn the whole thing over to you yellow-livered double-dealers—a fine way to run a strike! With us gone, and the strike broken, then your Mr. Kane, who isn't even a boss, would agree to consider the demands. Are you damned fools, or plain ordinary crooks?"
He paused for a moment. Bowden started to reply, but was checked by fear of injury, as Dawson took one tremendous step toward him. Pelham Judson, seated to the right, caught his eye. "If that there Judson's son had spilled this soft-soap, I could get it; you might expect it from he and his class." Pelham winced at the scorn. "But you—a union card dirtied in your pocket, you, a Judas to your kind—you got no place in a room with decent men."
Pooley tried to bolster up Bowden's pallid protest, blustering, "You look here, Dawson. The State Federation of Labor——"
"Damn the State Federation of Labor! If any organization, labor or otherwise, stands in the way of our beatin' a fight, we'll smash it! We're going to win, do you get me? You keep out. As for you, Bowden——" He came close to the local agent, bending down from his towering six feet and a half to bring his face near the other's. "You better get out, before I have the national office down on your neck. This is final: from now on, you stay out. We'll run the strike without any talk from you. Go back and tell your Mr. Kane that there's a bunch here he can't double cross, or buy out! Now git!"
Three times the suave agent started to speak. His fingers wandered uncertainly up and down the shiny buttons of his fancy vest, his eyes glanced away from the brutal dominance in the huge face before him. At last he turned to Pooley. "Goin', John?"
Pooley noted the cringe, and his nostrils lifted slightly. He spoke definitely. "There's no hard feelin' about this, Dawson? You understand that——"
"Yes, I understand." The sudden burst of anger had gone; there was a vast patience in every syllable. "I understand; you needn't explain." He turned dispassionately to the others. "Now, boys, what's the reports for to-day?"
The work was finally done; they started out. At the door they were stopped by half a dozen newspaper men, who had been held up by the doorman until the conference was over. "Anything special for to-morrow, Mr. Dawson?"
The big miner grinned amicably. "You might say everything's coming our way. With twenty two hundred men out, and five of the mines stopped, things are lookin' up."
The reporter for the Advertiser pushed out a question. "Did you advise violence in stopping these workers from the North?"
"Good God, no, man! That's the very thing I'm fighting against. You heard me—in every speech. We're law abiding. If there's any lawbreaking to be done, let the companies do it." He smiled grimly. "They're itching for us to give 'em an excuse to bring on the militia, as they did in '04, when they massacred the miners. They'll fail; we'll fight within the law."
He scribbled vigorously. "Is it true you were driven out of Montana and West Virginia, and almost lynched in Michigan?"
Dawson's neck swelled, his eyes smouldered. "Yes, it's true, every bit of it. And I was driven out of this state in '04. I expect it in my business. You might say things is changing, and it may be Mr. Paul Judson who's driven out next time."
There was a chorus of appreciation from the committee.
"I guess that's all."
One reporter—it was Charley Brant, of the Register—called Pelham aside. "Gotten any word from the mountain recently ... to-night?"
"No; why?"
"That trainload of workers is arriving; there's trouble, rioting or something."
"Are you sure?" Excitement blazed in his face. "Tell John Dawson so."
He called him over at once.
"We got a phone message from a man on the ground. It's on the mineral line, halfway between Mr. Judson's house and the viaduct, if you know where that is. Our man said it was serious."
"I'm going." Dawson sliced his words off briskly.
"Use my car; it's quicker," snapped Pelham.
Jensen, McGue, Dawson, and the reporter got inside; two others of the committee hung to the running boards.
Pelham drove at top speed out the Thirty-Eighth Street road, and circled around the crest. "I know the place," he explained. "We'd better come up from behind, if anything's doing. They might stop us."
He turned from the county road to a cool country lane cutting through tall long-leaf pine, in the middle of Shadow Valley. The car's lights danced unreally on the crowding trunks ahead, the wheels slipped and skidded over the sprinkling of carpeting needles. He whisked to the right, and took the hill toward the mountain. They had heard no noise as yet.
Up a gravelly hogback to a level a hundred feet from the tracks,—and they were in the midst of it. The uncertain rumble from men massed blackly in front of and all around the stalled engine's headlight, broke over them; they saw the train, somber and illy lit, stopped midway of the deep cut through the next chert hill—an ideal place for an ambuscade.
They heard single voices, broken by the spurty wind. Then the men in front of the car dissolved, into the blackness on both sides of the track. Now they could see the piled mound of huge stones, cross ties, tree trunks, which had stopped the engine. Close below the headlight was a moving shadow they finally made out as company men, they could not tell how many. The red gleam of the headlight on dull metal shone on the far side. Before the mound of rocks and stumps two men still stood.
"Get off that track," the words came clearer now, from one of the men just below the headlight. "Or we shoot."
It happened so quickly that they hardly had time to get out of the car. A voice came from one of the two upon the track, the pleasant, velvety richness of a negro voice. "Ah reckon Ah kin walk on dis track ef Ah wants to."
"You black——"
He did not finish. From the deeper shadow below the tender, two rifles popped together, with a thin hollow noise, like playthings. There was a shrieking medley from all sides. For one instant, etched black against the light thrown by the unwinking eye of the engine, the two figures stood. One of the negroes plunged wildly to the side, clattering and tumbling down the seventy foot fill to the bottom of the sharp declivity. The other stood alone, a black break on the lighted area. He screamed once like a kicked dog. He slid to the ground. His body huddled across a rail.
"God!" Dawson exploded. Tumbling out of the car, they started pelting toward the track.
They stopped, still thirty feet from the lighted area, as half a dozen men plunged toward them, scattering to the safety of the woods. One came at them—Ben Wilson, who should have been with the committee.
"For God's sake, don't go there—they're shooting to kill——"
Dawson caught him by the collar, shook him bitterly. "What hell of a mess is this! We've got to stop it——"
Wilson made a gesture of hopeless exultation, touched with something sublime. "You can't stop it now!"
Dawson stared at him in amazement.
The cries became louder, from all around the motionless train; they looked back. Protected by the guns under the headlights, a line of hesitating men were cursed forward to where the obstacle lay crudely across the tracks. The leader of the guards, rifle cached on his left forearm, pointed this way and that.
The reluctant line of workers burrowed into the mound. Boulders of ore, a broken wagon, old cross-ties were pulled out and sent bounding into the seventyfoot gulley, each starting a rocketing train of pebbles and rocks after it. The front row of gunmen had moved silently forward, and menaced the threatening darkness.
Suddenly there was a shock of breaking glass, and a herd scream from the front car just behind the tender. A cloudburst of stones rained against the length of the train from the gap's crests on both sides. Windows were caved in, rocks bounced noisily off the roof, there were gulped outcries from the penned men inside the cars. At a command, the rifles flared wildly toward the tops of the cut.
Wilson pulled out a pistol, dropped to his knees, aimed carefully at the leader of the gunmen, standing awkwardly in the exposing glare.
Dawson jerked the pistol from his hand, and sent the man tottering sideways. "Not that way."
The track was cleared now. Even the first negro's body was laid hurriedly on the south-bound rail. But the wild bombardment of the train had had its effect. The bewildered engineer started backing into the gap, in whose deeper shadows the reinforced strikers had further advantage.
One boulder, two-thirds the height of a man, was sent lumbering down, gathering momentum. It leapt against the side of a car; for a moment the car tottered. The head gunman, seeing his men deserted by the train, stumbled down the cross-ties toward it.
"Hey, stop! Damn you, stop, I say!"
His voice cracked; he began again.
It was a rout for the company forces, a clear victory for the strikers.
Then with a whirr like giant mechanical wings the belated guard automobiles, four of them, swung around the curving crest of the road fifty feet behind and above the cut. The trees and underbrush had been cleared for just this purpose. The huge searchlights, one to each car, wavered, then poured their blinding flood on the dark gap summits.
"Oh, God! The deppities——"
The light itself seemed to stagger those who had been triumphant in the dark. They diverged sharply from the point of advantage. Those on the far side cleared back toward the east. Those on the near side halted uncertainly for a fatal second, before they ran toward the two ends of the cut.
"Let 'em have it!"
An intermittent sheet of flame broke from the guard automobiles. The defenseless workers stopped and tumbled grotesquely. To Dawson's horrified imagination it seemed that more than a dozen lay flat and twitching in the hellish flare of the searchlights.
"Come on!"
"Got 'im, Jim!"
"Take that, you damned——"
With savage yells the new attackers, firing whenever they saw a moving target, covered the slope, and halted above the train.
"Hey, there," bellowed the man in the lead, addressing the train crew below. "Whatcher stop for?"
"We're going on."
"Why 'n' cher go on, then?" he parroted in irritation.
The whistle wailed, the engine and cars shuddered forward toward Hewintown. The first attack was over.
"Well," Dawson led the way back to the low gray car hidden in the shadows. "Hell's loose this time!"