CHAPTER I—A Decision to Fight
The little city of Wauchung straggled over and between and almost burrowed under a chain of sand-hills—shining yellow hills with tops entirely bald save for a spear of rank grass here and there or a dwarfed pine. Outside the mouth of the river was Lake Michigan; behind the little city were the pine forests of the Lower Peninsula. And the one interesting object of this whole region was a man—for houses and shops were commonplace, streets were ill-paved, the railroad was wanting in energy and capital, the inhabitants were mostly leveled down to the colourless monotony of the sand-hills—a man named Martin L. Higginson.
There was one imposing building of granite and red bricks on the business street—a glance showed the name of Higginson over the entrance. Two large mills stood by the river, surrounded by piles of lumber on the land, fronted by rafts of logs in the water, sending out their droning hum all day long (and frequently all night long); inside, men were bustling and pushing in the effort to keep up with the drive of work outside, the long runways were active with men and with moving lumber—and on each of the mills was the name Higginson. Two steamers lay at the Higginson wharves—lake carriers, both, of the Higginson line. A logging railroad ran back some twenty miles into the forest; it ran over Higginson land to Higginson land, to bring what logs the little river could not bring—for the Higginson property extended far to north, south and eastward. There was, in fact, one rich man in the little city—one man who had done what he could to keep the railroad busy, to keep the harbour dredged, to keep the streets in better condition, to make Wauchung a real city, awake, energetic, proud—one man who represented Wauchung to the outside world: Mr. Higginson.
An elderly gentleman he was, a man who had passed the fighting age, who would have stopped to rest any time these last six or eight years if the business had permitted it; but it had stood until recently that the one man in Wauchung who did not take his vacation every year was Mr. Higginson. As it often falls out, however, one of his severest misfortunes had brought its blessing. For five years and more he had looked for a man, for the man, whom he could trust to take up the burden that was beginning to weigh so heavily; and for five years he had failed. He liked young Crosman, the head clerk in the office; but Crosman, though welcome enough at the house as Mamie Higginson's regular caller, hardly showed administrative qualities—his limitations were marked. And so the search had gone on: he had tried them, young “men and middle-aged men”—and he had found that all of them wanted money, and none of them wanted work. And what he had to offer was work, little else—hard work, work for head and hands, much thinking of the business, little thinking of self: the spirit that would live for the business, that would take its pride in the quality of the Higginson work, that would strive, as he had striven, to make the name of Higginson a synonym for honest work, work done on time, work done a little better than the contract demanded. Where could he find a man like this?
And then, after five years, through a shipwreck of all occurrences, he had found him. He knew him at once, as he had thought he should. Looking down from the heights of character and accomplishments, on a world of little persons, foolish persons, earnest, weak persons, dishonest persons, pompous, empty persons—all the sorts that go to make up a man's world, and nearly all that he is likely to see, unfortunately, from the heights—looking out and down and all about, he had seen a young man's head and shoulders climbing up above the rabble. The young man had not yet climbed very high; but he was climbing, and that was enough. So Mr. Higginson had come to think more lightly of the rheumatism, the failing eyes, the many signs of age that had been brought sharply to his notice by that shock and exposure on the west coast.
At the time of this chapter, Mr. Higginson and Halloran were seated in the office—Halloran before his desk, Mr. Higginson beside it—looking at a typewritten letter or statement. Twenty-four hours earlier Mr. William H. Babcock, of G. Hyde Bigelow & Company, had taken the train for Chicago, leaving this document behind him; and now the time had come to answer it.
This was the culmination of a long series of letters and interviews. The beginning had been when this same Mr. Babcock had endeavoured to buy the Wauchung mills in the interest of Mr. Bigelow. It seemed that Mr. Bigelow was about to enter the lumber business. His genius for combination, for exploitation, was to be given a new direction. Kentucky Coal, New Freighters, Northwest Chicago, all his various interests were prospering, thanks to the name of Bigelow, and now the lumber business was to be vitalized, to be vivified. Just how it was to be done, or what was to be done, was not known; that secret was kept close in the Bigelow office. Each newspaper published its own version, to be believed or disbelieved at the discretion of the reader. All Mr. Higginson knew was that the Bigelow firm could never buy him out, that he had not spent his years in building up a business for the benefit of Mr. Bigelow. The business was his life, and he meant to keep it for himself and his family and his legitimate successors. So the first refusal had been a simple matter—a plain, emphatic no had sufficed.
Then for a time there had been silence; until one day Halloran learned that the Pewaukoe Lumber Company, twenty-odd miles up the shore, had succumbed to the blandishments of the low-voiced Mr. Babcock, and had sold out mills, standing timber and all. It had not been a prosperous company, thanks to the shiftless management of the children of the original owner; but there was no reason why it should not do well in good hands. There was no question now that, whatever he meant to do next, Mr. Bigelow had a footing in the lumber trade, and Halloran had been watching him closely.
The document on the desk was a statement of the “understanding” or secret agreement that was henceforth to be law among the lumber producers of Lake Michigan. It had been presented and accompanied with much confidential talk from Mr. Babcock—all tending to show that the lumbermen, with the sole exception of Mr. Higginson, were already united to forward this agreement, that the business would be organized as never before, that great economies would be brought about in the carrying side of the trade, that the strain of competition' would be avoided, that prices would be maintained at a somewhat higher figure (a main point, this) under penalty of fines, that—much more low talk and friendly disinterested confidences. For their interests were identical, said Mr. Babcock; and there was room for them all. Efficiency was the keyword—efficiency, productiveness, economy, identity of interests, good prices. And lastly there had been friendly, almost deferential intimations that G. Hyde Bigelow & Company held the key to the situation, that the combination was already a fact, and that a firm which might decide to stay out must take the consequences.
Simplified, the whole matter came to this: Within the combination, prosperity in plenty, but always subject to the guiding judgment of G. Hyde Bigelow, hence a certain loss of identity and of control to self-respecting heads of companies; without the combination, a fight to a finish against the combined power and momentum of Bigelow & Company and the “Lumber Trust.” Just how great was this momentum no one exactly knew: but Bigelow was a magic name, no doubt of it.
“You have gone over it, have you, Mr. Halloran?” said Mr. Higginson.
His voice was disturbed and his expression showed worry and trouble. For a year Mr. Higginson had been changing, very slightly but none the less perceptibly to one as close to him, day after day, as Halloran was. Until he had assured himself that his assistant was able to take up the burden, he had kept up; but after that moment he had seemed, in a measure, to let go. On routine matters he was as strong as ever, but his mind refused to work automatically through new problems; there were sometimes gaps in his reasoning that he found it difficult to bridge over, and this worried him. So it had come about that a tacit agreement existed between the older man and the younger, that in questions where vigour was needed, of body or mind, the younger man should take the lead; and Mr. Higginson mildly deceived himself by giving more attention than formerly to routine matters and trivial details. It was Halloran, therefore, who had spent the better part of a night thinking out this question, whether to yield or fight. And it was Mr. Higginson, naturally enough, who had put the question:
“You have gone over it, have you, Mr. Halloran?”
“Yes. The Bigelow part of it is what I like least. I am not sure that he is just the man you would want to stand responsible for this business, and therefore he certainly is not the man to take charge of all the companies together—and that is pretty nearly what this paper means.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, he isn't solid. He's been lucky, and just now he's on the top of the wave. But his interests and investments are spread out so wide that a run of bad luck might upset him. I don't know that it would, but it might. And then I have seen a little of him.”
“You know him personally?”
“Yes. I cut his grass for two summers in Evanston, and did odd jobs for him.”
Mr. Higginson pondered, and Halloran went on: “On the other hand, his resources are large, and if we decide to stand out it may mean a long, hard fight. It might be harder than we think.”
Mr. Higginson was still thinking hard, forcing his mind to take up one phase of the question after another; and the worried expression, so frequently on his face nowadays, was more noticeable than ever. Finally he said:
“Then you are in favour of declining to join the combination?”
This was the direct question that Halloran had partly foreseen. He hesitated, marking at random with a pencil while his thoughts came fast. At this moment he saw more clearly than he had seen at any time during the night what a refusal would mean. Wealthy as Mr. Higginson was, his wealth lay in the lumber lands, the logging railroad, in the mills and the steamers, and in Wauchung property; to a certain extent the whole town of Wauchung had grown up around Mr. Higginson and was directly or indirectly dependent upon him; and all these interests, hanging as they did on the lumber business, must suffer when this business was attacked. But he caught himself—if he ran on into this way of thinking he was lost.
“Yes,” he replied; “I think we had better decline.”
Mr. Higginson arose.
“I will leave the letter to you,” he said; and then went out with a face that seemed to express downright-dread. Honest old gentleman, he had thought to take a rest; and instead he found himself facing the hardest fight of his career.
Halloran took up his pen and made the attitude of Higginson & Company plain in three lines.