"No," said Dulac.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Next morning the whole city breakfasted with Bonbright Foote. His name was on the tongue of every man who took in a newspaper, and of thousands to whom the news of his revolutionary profit-sharing or minimum-wage plan was carried by word of mouth. It was the matter of wages that excited everyone. In those first hours they skipped the details of the plan, those details which had taken months of labor and thought to devise. It was only the fact that a wealthy manufacturer was going to pay a minimum wage of five dollars a day.
The division between capital and labor showed plainly in the reception of the news. Capital berated Bonbright; labor was inclined to fulsomeness. Capital called him on the telephone to remonstrate and to state its opinion of him as a half-baked idiot of a young idealist who was upsetting business. Labor put on its hat and stormed the gates of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, seeking for five-dollar jobs. Not hundreds of them came, but thousands. The streets were blocked with applicants, every one eager for that minimum wage. The police could not handle the mob. It was there for a purpose and it intended to stay…. When it was rebuked, or if some one tried to tell them there were no jobs for it, it threw playful stones through the windows. It was there at dawn; it still remained at dark.
A man who had an actual job at Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, was a hero, an object of admiring interest to his friends and neighbors. The thing touched him. There had been a miraculous laying on of hands, under which had passed away poverty. So must the friends and acquaintances of a certain blind man whose sight was restored by a bit of divine spittle have regarded him.
Malcolm Lightener did not content himself with telephoning. He came in person to say his say to Bonbright, and he said it with point and emphasis.
"I thought I taught you some sense in my shop," he said, as he burst into Bonbright's office. "What's this I hear now? What idiocy are you up to? Is this infernal newspaper story true?"
"Substantially," said Bonbright.
"You're crazy. What are you trying to do? Upset labor conditions in this town so that business will go to smash? I thought you had a level head. I had confidence in you—and here you go, shooting off a half-cocked, wild-eyed, socialistic thing! Did you stop to think what effect this thing would have on other manufacturers?"
"Yes," said Bonbright.