The Rising of the Tide: The Story of Sabinsport

by Ida M. Tarbell

And so it happened, one morning in January, that the men coming to work found in conspicuous places around the yards and through the mills, a notice calling for a floor meeting at one o’clock the next day (you will note that Cowder and Mulligan were not taking the time for the gathering out of the men’s noon hour), to discuss a question which concerned both the executive and laboring ends of the mill, preparatory to taking a vote.

There was not an inkling in the broadside of what the question to be discussed was; and when one o’clock of the day set came there was not a man of all the 1800 in the wire mill that could be spared from his post, who did not appear on the floor of the main building of the plant. They were a sight for sculptors and painters, gathered there around the great machines in the dusky light which filled the immense building—labor in all of its virile strength, men from a dozen nations, in greasy, daubed garb lifted their strong, set faces to Jake Mulligan, who, from a cage dropped to a proper level by a great crane, addressed them.

He put it direct. “Boys,” he said, “you know as well as I do that there’s a lot of talk going up and down this mill about the wickedness of making things for war. Now, I never did, and never will, ask a man to do a thing that is against his conscience; and Mr. Cowder and I have concluded that we would like to know whether this is just talk or whether there is some of you fellows that really are doing something that you think is wrong. We have decided to take a vote on it, to find out how many of you think we ought to give up this contract.

“Of course you know—or you ought to know—that giving it up means shutting down the mill. There are no contracts for barbed wire to be had at present, except for war. I don’t say that we will shut down even if you vote against it, but what we will do is to give you boys a chance to get another job somewhere else and we will get a new set of men. Or, if the most of you want to go on with the jobs that you are in, and a few of you really feel hurt about this thing, we will do the very best we can to find you something else to do. I don’t say we will give you as good wages as we are giving you here. You know there is nothing else around this country that is paying like this mill, can’t afford to.

“We want this to be a square vote. To-morrow night, when you leave the plant, the same time you punch the time clock, you are to put a ballot in a box at the gate. Nobody will know how you vote. The only thing we want is that everybody votes. It seems to me that’s fair. That’s all. Now you may go back to work.”

The men, taken by utter surprise by the proposition, separated almost in silence. The crane dropped the cage containing Mulligan and Cowder to the floor, and the two walked out, saying, “Hello, Bill!” “Hello, John!” as they went along, as naturally as if nothing unusual had taken place.

There was a great buzz in Sabinsport that afternoon and the next day over this revolutionary procedure. At the banks and in the offices, Cowder and Mulligan were roundly condemned—not that there was much fear of how the men would vote. Business cynicism was strong in those circles. They felt sure that the wire-workers were like themselves, not going to give up a good thing for what they called an impractical ideal. What they did object to was the precedent. “You get this started,” they told the pair, “and what does it mean for all of us? We cannot run our own business any longer. Putting things up to day laborers! I tell you it’s a dangerous thing you have started in Sabinsport.”

The maneuver had all the disquieting effect on Ralph that Cowder and Mulligan had anticipated. He felt very doubtful of the result, but he spent himself in an eloquent harangue to vote against the nefarious business into which capitalism had thrust them. Among the men the same kind of mistrust of the procedure that prevailed in financial and managing circles cropped out. The procedure was too new for them; and the suspicion that there was a trick somewhere which they did not see, ran up and down the shop. “Don’t give up the job. They are trying to put something over on you.” They did not give up the job. When the votes were counted, it was found that exactly ninety-eight per cent, were in favor of continuing the making of wire for war purposes.

But, even if the management had, as Jake claimed, “put one over” on the Argus and its sympathizers, it had also given Ralph a text—an appealing text, too. “How? How?” said Ralph, “could you expect men whose bread and butter depend on day labor and who are told that the only labor to be had in this town where they live and have their families is making munitions of war, to give it up? What can they do?” And Ralph went far at that opportune moment to argue with his Socialist friend, John Starrett. His arguing was not heeded. For Sabinsport the matter was settled—ninety-eight per cent, of the wire workers had decided for going on with the work. Ralph found himself again outwitted. He realized that he must get another line of attack.

Zest and a bit of mystery was added to the discussion in the spring of 1915 by an incident which set the town to gossiping, but of which few ever knew all the facts—Dick, and Ralph through him, being among the few. It began by a rumor that Reuben Cowder had thrown a man out of his office! There was a suspicion that Otto Littman was the man, but that few believed—“It couldn’t be!” Something had happened, however, and Cowder went about for days in one of the black moods which men knew only too well. He held a long conference with Rupert Littman, Otto went to New York for a time. It was said that there had been trouble over a munition contract.