And I say to my money, "Now be faithful: for God's sake be faithful: don't slip off and desert me and leave me alone in the world." She looks jealously at me. "Alone?" she says; "how about that mettle of yours, you're so fond of?" "Ah, my dear," I say sadly, giving her an affectionate squeeze, "my mettle is no better than she should be. I don't like to talk of it. You are the one that I expect to comfort me in my dark moments; and I hope you and I will be here together long after my mettle has gone."
There you have my ménage. It's been difficult. But I cannot complain. As a bigamist I suppose on the whole I've been fairly successful. Yet I know I'd have more money to-day—I think a great deal more money—if I had been more faithful to Mammon, as they call the poor creature. And similarly I might have led an heroic, ardent life with my mettle, if I had ever trusted it fully.
That's the trouble with bigamy.
The Revolt of Capital
Once upon a time all the large corporations were controlled by labor. The whole system was exactly the opposite of what it is now. It was labor that elected the directors, and the officers too. Capital had no representatives at all in the management.
It was a curious period. Think of capital having no say, even about its own rates! When a concern like the United Great Steel Co., was in need of more capital, the labor man who was at the head of it, President Albert H. Hairy, went out and hired what he wanted on the best terms he could. Sometimes these terms seemed cruelly low to the capitalists, but whenever one of them grumbled he was paid off at once, and his place was soon taken by another who wasn't so uppish. This made for discipline and improved the service.
Under this régime—as under most others—there was often mismanagement. Those in control paid themselves too well—as those in control sometimes do. Failures and reorganizations resulted from this, which reduced the usual return to the workers and made them feel gloomy; but as these depressions threw capitalists out of employment, and thus made capital cheaper, they had their bright side.
The capitalists, however, grumbled more and more. Even when they were well paid and well treated they grumbled. No matter how much they got, they felt they weren't getting their dues. They knew that labor elected the management; and they knew human nature. Putting these two premises together, they drew the conclusion that labor was probably getting more than its share, and capital less. President Hairy, of the Steel Co., explained to them this couldn't be true, because the market for capital was a free and open market. He quoted a great many economic laws that proved it, and all the professors of economy said he was right. But the capitalists wouldn't believe in these laws, because they weren't on their side, nor would they read any of the volumes the professors composed. They would read only a book that an old German capitalist wrote—a radical book which turned economics all upside-down and said that capital ought to start a class war and govern the world.
Discontent breeds agitation. Agitation breeds professional agitators. A few unruly loud-voiced capitalists climbed up on soap-boxes and began to harangue their quiet comrades, just to stir up needless trouble. When arrested, they invoked (as they put it) the right of free speech. The labor men replied by invoking things like law and order. Everybody became morally indignant at something. The press invoked the Fathers of the Republic, Magna Charta, and Justice. Excited and bewildered by this crossfire, the police one evening raided a Fifth avenue club, where a capitalist named M. R. Goldman was talking in an incendiary way to his friends. "All honest law-abiding capitalists will applaud this raid," said the papers. But they didn't. They began to feel persecuted. And presently some capitalists formed what they called a union.