“Very well,� laughed Sturgis, “that new Vesuvius road machine spent only that one night in Papyrus. It was taken on trial, proved unsatisfactory, and was next day returned to Elmfield and exchanged for another.�
“But you are not going to exact the whole pound of flesh, the whole hundred thousand?� asked Lawyer Stimson.
“Not if you will do the fair thing. If the Star will publish a suitable retraction of its charge against Wycliff, and an admission that the attack upon Congressman Baldwin was part of a conspiracy to drive Wycliff out of town, then we will cut our claim to ten thousand dollars. Otherwise we shall insist on the whole sum.�
“I think Zack Baldwin had rather pay the whole demand than to make the acknowledgement you ask,� said Stimson.
“So do I,� responded Sturgis. “I never knew a Baldwin to acknowledge an injustice he had done, or to make any compensation for it unless obliged to do so by law, and being multi-millionaires, they cannot usually be compelled to do justly. Senator Dawes, the greatest advocate that ever faced a Berkshire jury, in describing a particularly mean man, once coined the expression, ‘natural cussedness.’ I suppose that the orthodox term, ‘total depravity,’ would have sounded more smoothly, but smoothness was not what the great Senator was after. When I think of the great conspiracy against my client I cannot help using the words of the Senator. Natural cussedness is a proper term to apply to the meanness of Zack Baldwin. The words fit.�
“You are rather uncharitable toward my client, are you not?� asked Stimson, laughing, and stepping to a window. Lawyer Sturgis’ office was on the upper floor of the highest block in the city of Elmfield, and commanded a fine view of the city.
“Come here, Sturgis,� said the other, and Sturgis stepped to the window. “There is a side of Zechariah Baldwin’s character which you do not appreciate. There is the finest gift ever made to the city. Who gave that splendid building to Elmfield?�
Before them stood the Elmfield Public Library, given to the city by the Honorable Zechariah Baldwin and representing, with its contents, an expenditure of more than half a million dollars.
“You will probably think me a crank, Stimson,� Sturgis replied, “but I believe the half million dollars put into that building had better have gone to the Baldwin employees. One thousand each, in cash or in a home, to five hundred workmen, would have done more good than half a million in this palatial building, in my way of thinking. It would be nearer just.
“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. To accomplish this it may be necessary for the government to become the employer.�