Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

The people with anxious eyes watched for the storm to break and made such hurried preparations as they could. They heard the dull, muttering sound of its heavy voice and looked at one another in silent dread or talked, neighbor to neighbor, in low tones. A strange hush was over this community of American citizens. In their work, in their pleasures, in their home life, in their love and happiness, in their very sorrows, they felt the deadening presence of this dread thing that was sweeping upon them from somewhere beyond the borders of their native land. And against this death that filled the air they seemingly knew not how to defend themselves.

This, to the Interpreter, was the almost unbelievable tragedy—that the people should not know what to do; that they should not have given more thought to making the structure of their citizenship stormproof.

"The great trouble is that the people don't line up right," said Captain Charlie to John and the Interpreter one evening as the workman and the general manager were sitting with the old basket maker on the balcony porch.

"Just what do you mean by that, Charlie?" asked John. The man in the wheel chair was nodding his assent to the union man's remark.

"I mean," Charlie explained, "that the people consider only capital and labor, or workmen and business men. They put loyal American workmen and imperialist workmen all together on one side and loyal American business men and imperialist business men all together on the other. They line up all employees against all employers. For example, as the people see it, you and I are enemies and the Mill is our battle ground. The fact is that the imperialist manual workman is as much my enemy as he is yours. The imperialist business man is as much your enemy as he is mine."

"You are exactly right, Charlie," said the Interpreter. "And that is the first thing that the Big Idea applied to our industries will do—it will line up the great body of loyal American workmen that you represent with the great body of loyal American business men that John represents against the McIvers of capital and the Jake Vodells of labor. And that new line-up alone would practically insure victory. Nine tenths of our industrial troubles are due to the fact that employers and employees alike fail to recognize their real enemies and so fight their friends as often as they fight their foes.

"The people must learn to call an industrial slacker a slacker, whether he loafs on a park bench or loafs on the veranda of the country club house. They have to recognize that a traitor to the industries is a traitor to the nation and that he is a traitor whether he works at a bench or runs a bank. They have to say to the imperialist of business and to the imperialist of labor alike, 'The industries of this country are not for you or your class alone, they are for all because the very life of the nation is in them and is dependent upon them.' When the people of this country learn to draw the lines of class where they really belong there will be an end to our industrial wars and to all the suffering that they cause."

"If only the people could be lined up and made to declare themselves openly," said John, "Jake Vodell would have about as much chance to make trouble among us as the German Crown Prince would have had among the French Blue Devils."

Charlie laughed.

"Which means, I suppose," said the Interpreter, "that there would be a riot to see who could lay hands on him first."