Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

"My terms are the only terms that will ever open this plant again. The unions will never dictate my business policies, if every family in Millsburgh starves."

She waited a moment before she said, slowly, "I must be sure that I understand, Jim—do you mean that you are actually depending upon such pitiful conditions as I have seen to-night to give you a victory over the strikers?"

The man made a gesture of impatience. "It is the principle of the thing that is at stake, Helen. If I yield in this instance it will be only the beginning of a worse trouble. If the working class wins this time there will be no end to their demands. We might as well turn all our properties over to them at once and be done with it. This strike in Millsburgh is only a small part of the general industrial situation. The entire business interests of the country are involved."

Again she waited a little before answering. Then she said, sadly, "How strange! It is hard for me to realize, Jim, that the entire business interests of this great nation are actually dependent upon the poor little Maggie Whaleys."

"Helen!" he protested, "you make me out a heartless brute."

"No, Jim, I know you are not that. But when you insist that what I saw to-night—that the suffering of these poor, helpless mothers and their children is the only thing that will enable you employers to break this strike and save the business of the country—it—it does seem a good deal like the Germans' war policy of frightfulness that we all condemned so bitterly, doesn't it?"

"These things are not matters of sentiment, Helen. Jake Vodell is not conducting his campaign by the Golden Rule."

"I know, Jim, but I could not go to Jake Vodell as I have come to you—could I? And I could not talk to the poor, foolish strikers who are so terribly deceived by him. Don't you suppose, Jim, that most of the strikers think they are right?"

The man stirred uneasily. "I can't help what they think. I can consider only the facts as they are."

"That is just what I want, Jim," she cried. "Only it seems to me that you are leaving out some of the most important facts. I can't help believing that if our great captains of industry and kings of finance and teachers of economics and labor leaders would consider all the facts they could find some way to settle these differences between employers and employees and save the industries of the country without starving little girls and boys and their mothers."