Success and How He Won It

by E. Werner

"Must there be war between us? I do not mean the present strife, which must come to an end sooner or later. I mean that secret embittered warfare which hard treatment and oppression on the one side, and rancour and hatred on the other, feed and foster continually. It has been so all these years, I know, and it will be so again, if you submit only through compulsion. We ought to make peace before there is blood shed on either side. We can still do it. As yet, nothing has happened to make the breach irreparable; in a few days it may be too late."

With all its quietness there was something in the young master's voice which went home to the hearer's heart, and the emotion visible in Hartmann's face showed that he had not been insensible to it. Accustomed to rule over his equals, he was the more keenly alive to any supercilious treatment on the part of his superiors, and also to any evidence of an ill-concealed fear.

Now he found himself raised to a position which had never yet been assigned him. He knew well that Arthur would not have so spoken to any other of the men employed, perhaps not to any of the officials; he felt it was solely due to his own personal qualities that he was dealt with thus. The owner of the works spoke to him as man to man, on a matter upon which the ill or well being of both depended, and he would surely have carried the day had he been any other than Arthur Berkow. Ulric's nature was too untrained, too passionate, for him to do justice there where his hate was fully roused.

"Our confidence has cost us dearly," said he bitterly. "Your father made such a claim upon it during all those long years that we have none left now for his son. I believe you don't make the offer out of fear, Herr Berkow, I should not believe it of any one else, but I do of you. But, as we have set about helping ourselves, I think we had better fight it out to the last. Let it be decided this way or that. One of us must win in the end."

"And your comrades? Will you take upon yourself the responsibility of all the care, the want, the chances of defeat, which this 'fighting it out' may bring with it?"

"I can't help it. It is done for their sake."

"No, it is not done for their sake," said Arthur firmly; "but for the sake of their leader's ambition. He wishes to get the domination over them into his hands, and, were he to get it, he would prove a worse despot than their former masters ever were. If you still have faith left in your so-called mission, Hartmann, you can no longer impose on me with it; for I see that you throw aside as worthless all that I declare myself ready to do for the improvement of the people's condition, and you keep steadily the one aim and end in view, the true bearing of which I understand but too well. You wish to make me and my agents powerless for the future, helpless in face of any resolution you may be pleased to adopt, or any insurrection you may stir up. Now that you speak in the name of the masses, blindly obedient to your dictates, you wish to arrogate to yourself all the rights of a master, and, with the empty title, leave me nothing but the onus of the position. You do not wish for a recognition of your party; you wish for a subjugation of every other. That is why you stake all upon a throw, and, believe me, you will lose it."

This was a bold speech to be addressed to such a man; it stung Ulric to fury.

"Well, as you seem to know so much about it, Herr Berkow, you may know more for all I care! You are right. This is not a question of higher wages or of a trifle more safety in the mines. That may be enough for those who concern themselves only about their wives and children, and think of nothing else all their lives long; the men of spirit among us require more. We want to have the reins in our hands, to have our rights as equals acknowledged and respected. It may be a hard lesson to learn for those who have had unlimited authority up to this time, but they will have now to treat with us. We have begun to understand at last that it is we who toil and you who enjoy the fruits of our labour. You have made use of our arms for this slavish work long enough, now you shall learn to feel them."

He hurled forth these words with exceeding violence, as though each of them were a weapon with which he would strike down and slay his enemy. All his outrageous passion burst forth anew, and the rage, which included an entire class, concentrated itself for the time being on the individual member of it now before him. As he stood there with clenched fists, the veins in his forehead swelling, he seemed ready to follow up his words with deeds.