“Miss Shepard is right,” said Mr. Burnham: “our factory, like many another, has been run too long on the system of laissez-faire. I have come to believe in a political economy which insists upon the liveliest activity on the part of capitalists, to put their employes upon the best possible footing as to the material surroundings of life; that they have all the advantage as to health, morals and happiness which comes from sanitary regulation and practical education. I believe that only when we adopt such a political economy as this shall we draw the largest possible dividends from the products of a community comparatively free from crime, intemperance, poverty and vice of every kind.”
“Yes,” urged Villard, “each one of us, laborer or capitalist, has duties to perform which cannot be shirked or shifted to the shoulders of Fate—another name for the theory of laissez-faire. The new political economy will demand that every one who, in his or her public or private capacity, can do anything to relieve misery, to combat evil, to redress wrong, to assert the right, shall do so with heart and soul.”
“You see,” said Salome, delighted that two strong, thinking men thus endorsed and voiced her sentiments, “we have been acting on the Quaker’s advice to his son: ‘Make money—honestly if you can; but make money.’ We have forgotten that Christianity says: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ ‘Do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you,’ ‘Bear one another’s burdens,’ and ‘Love one another.’ But we have practically said: ‘Love thyself; seek thine own advantage; promote thine own welfare; put money in thy purse; the welfare of others is not thy business.’”
“I must confess,” answered Otis Greenough, speaking slowly and huskily, “that I cannot, after a life-long devotion to old-fashioned ideas, take any stock in these new-fangled, impracticable ones. I cannot, at my time of life, change my ideas; and neither can I endorse your proposition to make a public spectacle of ourselves in the future. Mills are run to make money. So long as I hold the position imposed upon me by the late Floyd Shepard, so long shall I refuse to countenance extravagance and quixotism. But I am an old man. No one cares any longer what I think. It is the young people with no experience whose opinions count nowadays. I am an old man who has had his day——”
“Don’t, I beg of you, sir, talk like that,” interrupted Salome. “We do value your opinion; we do intend to refer to your judgment; we——”
“What is that?” cried Mrs. Soule in alarm, from her seat near the window.
“It is some one throwing gravel against the panes,” said the cashier as a second shower came rattling against the window. He parted the curtains and looked out.
“The grounds are full of men. We are mobbed, by George!”
The old agent’s blood was up in a moment, and regardless of the presence of ladies he swore in good, set terms, that the rascals should be arrested and imprisoned for this.
Then, unconscious of danger, in spite of the attempts of Villard and the rest to hold him back, he marched, like an old hero, boldly out on to the veranda which faced a crowd of excited workmen.