“But would a strike occur with no union organisation?”
“Yes, in a minute. You know Simon Legree who owns these mills. If a disturbance occurred here now the old devil wouldn’t hesitate to close every mill next day and beggar fifty thousand people.”
“Why would he do such a stupid thing?”
“Just to show the brute power of his fifty millions of dollars over the human body. The awful power in that brute’s hands, represented in that money, is something appalling. Before the war he cracked a blacksnake whip over the backs of a handful of negroes. Now look at him, in his black silk hat and faultless dress. With his millions he can commit any and every crime from theft to murder with impunity. His power is greater than a monarch. He controls fleets of ships, mines and mills, and has under his employ many thousands of men. Their families and associates make a vast population. He buys Judges, Juries, Legislatures, and Governors and with one stroke of his pen to-day can beggar thousands of people. He can equip an army of hirelings, make peace or war on his own account, or force the governments to do it for him. He has neither faith in God, nor fear of the devil. He regards all men as his enemies and all women his game.
“They say he used to haunt the New Orleans’ slave market, when he was young and owned his Red River farm, occasionally spending his last dollar to buy a handsome negro girl who took his fancy.
“Look at him now with his bloated face, beastly jaw, and coarse lips. He walks the streets with his lecherous eyes twinkling like a snake’s and saliva trickling from the corners of his mouth practically monarch of all he surveys. He selects his victims at his own sweet will, and with his army of hirelings to do his bidding, backed by his millions, he lives a charmed life in a round of daily crime.
“How many lives he has blasted among the population of the multitude of souls dependent on him for bread, God only knows. It is said he has murdered the souls of many innocent girls in these mills—”
“Surely that is an exaggeration,” broke in Halliday.
“On the other hand I believe the picture is far too mild. I tell you no human mind can conceive the awful brute power over the human body his millions hold under our present conditions of life.”
There was a tinge of deep personal bitterness in the man’s words that held Halliday in a spell while he continued, “Under our present conditions men and women must fight one another like beasts for food and shelter. The wildest dreams of lust and cruelty under the old system of Southern slavery would be laughed at by this modern master.”