"Put it that way if it pleases you," replied Bennington. "I say that you strike simply to show how strong your power is. It is a fine thing to have power, but it is finer by far to use it only when justice makes a cause. But power is a terrible weapon in the hands of those who can not direct it wisely. Let me come to facts. Your wages are the highest in the city, five per cent. above the union scale; your hours are the shortest; there is no Sunday-night shift; you have at your pleasure a gymnasium and a swimming-pool; you are each of you given a week's vacation in the summer on full pay, a thing no other concern of the kind in the state does; all the machinery is flawless, minimizing your chances of danger; in fact, you draw pay fifty-two weeks in the year in the squarest shop in the world. If any man wishes to deny these things, let him stand forth."
But there was neither sound nor movement from the men.
Bennington continued. "Men, you have no grievance. This man Chittenden, the alleged cause of your striking, takes no food or pay from your mouths or your pockets; he interferes with you in no manner whatever. The contrivance he is trying to complete will not limit the output, but will triple it, necessitating the employment of more men. But your leader says that the present output is wholly sufficient, and you are taking his word for it. Mr. Chittenden represents progress, but you have taken it into your heads that you will have none of it. He refuses to join the union, and I refuse to discharge him on that ground. I do not say that this shall not be a union shop; I say that I shall employ whom I will for any purpose I see fit. It is your say, so say it; yours is the power; use it. ... Patience, just a little longer. I have shown much of it during the past year."
The men swayed restlessly, and then became still again when they saw that he was going to read something.
"I have here the last letter my father ever wrote me. As I received it after his death, I might say that it is a voice from the grave. I will read that part which affects the shops.
"'And so, my son, I leave you this last request. Day after day, year after year, I have toiled honestly, with the will and the foresight God gave me. I die prosperous and contented, having acquired my riches without ill to any and without obligation. I have never wronged any man, though often the power to do so has been in my hands. But reason always cools hot blood, and I have always kept a strong curb on all my angry impulses. Some day the men will strike again, what about I know not; but this I do know: it will be without justice. I have bent to them nine out of ten times. Nine of their demands were not wholly unreasonable, but the tenth was. And this demand was that I should have no non-union men in the shops. This strike lasted four months. You will recall it. I do not know how long it might have gone on, had not the poor devil, who was the cause of it, died. I and the men came together again. We patched up our differences, covertly, so to speak. The men appeared at the gates one morning, and I let them in without referring by a single word to what had taken place. The principle of unionism is a noble thing, but ignoble men, like rust in girders, gnaw rapidly into principles and quickly and treacherously nullify their good.
"'The destroyer is everywhere. The apple has its worm, the rose its canker, the steel its rust. It is the ignorant and envious man who misuses power that, rightly directed, moves toward the emancipation of the human race. There are cruel and grasping and dishonest employers, who grind the heart and soul out of men. The banding together of the laboring men was done in self-defense; it was a case of survive or perish. The man who inaugurated unionism was a great philanthropist. The unions began well; that is because their leaders were honest, and because there was no wolf in the fold to recognize the extent of power. It was an ignorant man who first discovered it, and for the most part ignorance still wears the crown and holds the scepter. The men who put themselves under the guidance of a dishonest labor leader are much to be pitied. The individual laboring man always had my right hand, but I have never had any particular reason to admire the union leader.
"'There were two hundred and twelve strikes last year, of which only six had cause. The others were brought about by politicians and greedy unions. Dishonesty finds the line of least resistance in greed. Now, I have studied the strike problem from beginning to end. There can be no strike at the Bennington shops for a just cause. Had I lived long enough, the shops would have been open-shop. My son, never surrender once to injustice, for if you do you will establish a precedent, and you will go on surrendering to the end of time. I leave the shops to you. There is but one thing I demand, and that is that you shall never sell the shops; Bennington or nothing. If you have difficulties with the men, weigh them on the smallest scales. You will be master there—you alone. It is a big responsibility, but I have the greatest confidence in you. When the time comes, show that you are master, even to the tearing down of every brick and stone that took me so long to erect. I shall be where such disasters will not worry me in the least.'"
Bennington refolded the letter slowly. The men stood absolutely motionless, waiting.
"Men, if you go out this day, not one of you will ever find employment here again. My sense of justice is large, and nothing but that shall dictate to me. I shall employ and discharge whom I will; no man or organization of men shall say to me that this or that shall be done here. I am master, but perhaps you will understand this too late. Stay or go; that is as you please. If you stay, nothing more will be said on my part; if you go ... Well, I shall tear down these walls and sell the machinery for scrap-iron!"