After settling the estate of Gorman Purdy, and turning over to the workingmen the mines, furnaces and breakers that were owned by the late Coal King, Harvey and his wife go to live in a comfortable villa in the suburbs.
By her voluntary surrender of the $160,000,000 which the criminal practices of Gorman Purdy had amassed, Ethel becomes the idol of the people, not only of Wilkes-Barre, but of the entire country. She gives substantial proof of the sincerity of her promise made at the grave of her father. This act of altruism does much to avert any reaction of the turbulent elements of the large cities.
The prospect of regaining the public utilities by purchase and the establishment of governmental departments to control them in the interests of the people as a whole, is made bright by the magnificent example that is furnished by the towns of Pennsylvania.
Harvey Trueman establishes the leaders of the Unions as the managers of the mines and breakers. Under his direction the profits of the business are divided proportionately among all the inhabitants of the town in which the works are located; those who work receive as their wage one-half of the net proceeds from the sale of their products. The remaining fifty per cent, is turned into the public treasury.
Had the millions of the Purdy fortune been distributed to the people by a per capita allotment, each man and woman of Wilkes-Barre might have been made independently rich. But this would defeat the ends which Ethel and Harvey wish to attain. They desire to see every citizen prosper according to his or her personal effort. So when every one in Wilkes-Barre is set to work at a profitable trade or occupation, the residue of the fortune, some $125,000,000, is used to establish a similar system of co-operation in neighboring mining districts.
In the thirty days that intervenes between the acts of annihilation and the election, two hundred and fifty thousand miners and other operatives in Pennsylvania are benefiting by the disbursement of the Purdy millions. This army of prosperous men makes the state certain of going to the Independents. The electoral votes of the Keystone state, it is certain, will decide the election.
As an object lesson which speaks more eloquently than words, Harvey adopts a suggestion which Sister Martha had made at the opening of the campaign and which had not been used because of lack of funds.
Biograph pictures of happy and contented miners in Pennsylvania, under the co-operative system, showing them at their work and at their decent homes, surrounded by their families, well fed, and clothed, are obtained in manifold sets. To contrast with these, there are pictures taken from the actual scenes in other parts of the country, showing women harnessed to the plow with oxen; women at work in the shoe factories, the tobacco factories, the sweat-shops. Pictures of the children who operate the looms in the cotton mills and the carpet factories are obtained to be contrasted with those which exhibit children at their proper places in the school room and on the lawns of the city parks.
The pomp of the Plutocrats and the destitution of the masses is portrayed by these striking contrasts.
With this terrible evidence the Independents carry their crusade into every city. The principal public squares of the cities are used to exhibit the biograph pictures. Night after night the crowds congregate to view the pictorial history of the Plutocratic National Prosperity. That which arguments cannot do in the way of weaning men from party prejudice the picture crusade accomplishes.