“I must confess,” said Villard, “that I do not see it. I have seen several strikes, and know that generally both sides lose sight of reason, and determine to fight it out regardless of cost. I am afraid, with the course you propose to adopt, sir, that we shall go on until the losses on our side or the suffering and privation on theirs will become unbearable; and then one side or the other will be forced to yield. If it should be they, a smouldering resentment will be left, ready to break out anew at the first convenient season. If we, they will feel encouraged to try still more arbitrary measures in the future. Or if a compromise be effected, it will be one that might as well be made to-morrow.”
“You talk well for a young man,” admitted Mr. Greenough. “How did you come by your exceedingly humane and sympathetic views?”
“I began as an employe myself,” answered Villard, “and I know how they feel to some extent. I know what it is to work at the lowest drudgery of a mill, and can imagine how it must seem to have no hope of ever rising to a higher position. Hard, unremitting toil, long hours with endless years of hopeless work in prospect, the lowest possible wages, a large and rapidly increasing family, with perhaps an aged parent or invalid wife to support—I tell you lots of those fellows have all that to bear, knowing the utter impossibility of ever saving anything, or of raising their own condition. I say, sir, looking at life from their standpoint, it’s mighty hard.”
“Well, well,” put in Mr. Greenough, testily, “a great many of them want nothing better. They would not know what to do with a better chance for life, as you call it, if they had it.”
“Simply put yourself in their place, sir,” said Villard. “What if you were forty years younger than you are, and condemned to a life of toil at the looms, for instance, would you not claim the right to combine with others of like occupation and interests and ask for a better chance? These men of ours have taken an unreasonable way of asserting themselves, but I think they are entitled to our respect, and should be dealt with as men. An open, fair discussion of the wage question or the ten-hour law can result in nothing but good for both sides.”
“You are young,” Mr. Greenough replied, “and believe everything in this world can be made to run exactly as you want it. When you are older, you’ll realize better the indifference and general mulishness of the world, and of operatives in particular. I do not believe in meeting and deferring to them as equals. They are not worth our efforts, and so long as they are under the influence of hot-headed devils who pose as labor reformers, just so long we are going to see trouble.”
“If we were to make a fair compromise with them,” Mr. Burnham was speaking for the first time, “and let them see that we, as humane employers, have a greater desire for their interest than any foreigner can have, wouldn’t it work a reaction in our favor? From a strictly business point of view, perhaps it would be money in our pockets.”
“Yes,” urged Villard, “if we were to show ourselves willing to consider an intimate knowledge of their needs and thus prove ourselves their best friends, it would be only a case of practical philanthropy, and one which would raise our profits every year, I believe. It is only the first step that costs, you know.”
“I don’t believe it,” stoutly maintained the agent. “In my day there has been very little talk of managers and owners deferring to their help. I hire my own operatives and reserve the right to raise, or lower, their wages as I please.”
“But, Mr. Greenough,” broke in Salome eagerly, “don’t you consider their circumstances at all? Don’t you, for instance, in a driving time, pay them any higher wages than in dull times? I think there would be nothing but fairness in that.”