Salome Shepard, reformer

by Helen M. Winslow

“You men have labor to sell,” said Villard, “and we buy it. We have the products of your labor to sell, and the commission merchants and others buy it. As much courtesy and fair dealing should exist between us, as I like to have between us and the men to whom we sell. We would not take insolence from a broker’s clerk; you need not put up with the tyranny of an overseer.”

These words, repeated to the other employes, were the most powerful preventive against strikes ever tried in the Shawsheen Mills.

As the summer advanced, other new cottages were built on the hill to accommodate the growing demand from the operatives. All those built the previous year were occupied, and many of them had been bought on the installment plan. Although the community around the Shawsheen factories, as it now existed, had come suddenly into its new relation, it already represented almost an ideal one. It was already a practical lesson in social economics, which many a reformer and many a capitalist would do well to study. To be a capitalist even in a small way is to learn to respect capital. The fact that these men owned their small plots of ground and their cottages (even if they were mortgaged for the greater part of their value) was already dignifying the laborer by the tangible proof of his own value.

By this time, Salome had come to know every family who were in the employ of the mills. Was there trouble coming to any household, was there sickness, was there affliction among them, they all turned to her for help and sympathy, encouragement or congratulation. The smallest events—the birth of a baby, the progress of measles, the love affairs of the young, the querulous complaints of the old—were all of interest to her; and they, in return, appreciated her kindness and returned it with a loyalty of service that did her soul good.

Salome often declared, laughingly, that her relations to them were truly patriarchal. An atmosphere of content and friendliness prevailed where there had been jealousy and bickering.

The popular entertainments were kept up during the summer. There were concerts, at which local talent (often some operative who possessed the faculty of singing a song) appeared. Salome, herself, often presided at the piano, and Marion frequently lent her voice; their theory being that young people who took little or no vacation in summer needed some sort of recreation in summer as in winter.

Towards the close of the summer, as Salome came out of the Hall one evening, one of the young men came up to her side, and asked if he might speak to her alone.

“Certainly,” she said; “Mr. Fales, will you walk ahead with Marion, while O’Donovan walks home with me?”

She remembered the young fellow perfectly. She had seen him first during the strike, a handsome young dare-devil who seemed, in fact, to be one of the ringleaders among the younger men. When the mills had re-opened, she had taken an uncommon interest in him. He was a faithful and industrious man, and when, after a few weeks of sneering at the “new-fangled notions,” he had settled into harmony with the strange atmosphere, he had tried to improve himself in many ways. When Villard took charge of the evening school, he had held aloof for a few weeks, but at last joined one of Fales’ classes. In their entertainments and dances, he had taken leading parts; and that day, Villard had offered him the post of overseer in one of the minor departments at the mills. It was quite a step up for the young man, and Villard had been surprised at his hesitation in accepting the offer.

Salome knew all this; and as she heartily liked the fellow, she determined to influence him for his own interest.