He struck a match and lighted a cigarette.
“Let me see,” replied Paddock soberly, “whether I can explain just what my idea really is. I don’t propose to lift the whole mass with my little lever. It seems to me that the books on these subjects are just a lot of phrases. I don’t know anything about the deep philosophy of our social organization—I can’t understand those things. I haven’t the brains to debate social questions with people who don’t see them my way. I can’t talk to people who say my kind of work is futile; I can’t discuss it with them or defend my idea, for two reasons: one is that I don’t even understand their phraseology; and the other is that they make me so hot that I want to beat their brains out with a featherduster. There, you see, old man, the wild Indian in me isn’t all dead yet; I’m far from being a saint. I don’t believe that even the most ignorant and depraved are going to be spoiled, as you say, by being treated like human beings. I don’t think the taste of cakes and ale will send them up into the East End to kill and loot. I may be mistaken, but I believe that those singed and scorched fellows in the steel mills are just as good as I am. I don’t recognize class distinctions. I positively decline to allow any sociologist to classify me and pin me on a card like a new kind of flea. But every man is a social class by himself as I look at it. I’m not big enough or strong enough morally or intellectually to try to pull up one of the social strata and transplant it; but I can go out and find some poor devil who is down on his luck or who has got into the gutter, and I can put my poor individual lever under him and pull for all I’m worth and maybe, by the grace of God, I can lift him up a little, just a little bit. Now, you think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“No,” said Wayne, “not in the least. You’re worse; you’re a blooming sentimentalist. But you’re a good fellow anyhow, and I don’t think you ought to be discouraged. I’d like to contribute——” and he glanced toward a check-book that lay on his desk.
“No you don’t!” cried Paddock. “I don’t want your money. I suppose you could give me a good-sized sum and never miss it; but I don’t want that kind of money. I accept contributions not as a favour to me but as a favour to the giver; you see, there’s a large difference. The richest churchwarden in Pittsburg came out with a party of ladies the other Sunday. He sent me a check for a thousand dollars the next day and advised me to ventilate my chapel; he didn’t like the smell of my congregation. I sent him back his check. A girl who works in a laundry for six dollars a week offered me one of those dollars to help pay for the refreshments to-night and I took it!”
“By George, you have it bad! I suppose the laundry girl’s money carried with it the idea of purification. I do wish they would keep chemicals out of my shirts. Perhaps if you would reason with them, Jimmy, you could stop the havoc.”
“You illustrate the individual in his most selfish aspect,” laughed the minister. “You see only your own torn shirt. Your remedy lies not with the girl but with her employer. You tell him you want better work and that unless he raises the wages of his employees you’ll carry your shirts elsewhere.”
“That would be far too much trouble; it’s a lot easier to buy new linen.”
“That’s the secret of the whole situation we’re talking about; it’s easier to buy a new shirt than to take care of the one you’ve got. By the same token it’s easier to wear out a coal miner and throw him away when you can’t use him any longer than to preserve the men who are digging our coal to-day. They all go on the rubbish heap—they’re just old scrap. I’ve been up in the anthracite districts where children under the age limit are employed in the breakers; and in the churches of the towns up there men devoutly thank God every Sunday for so kindly putting all this mineral wealth in the hills of the State of Pennsylvania so they may give their own children comforts and luxuries won by the blackened hands of other men’s children.”
“We have laws that cover such cases; enforce the laws. I’m for that,” said Wayne.
“But we don’t want to do it that way! We must do it not by law but by love,” and the minister smiled his sad smile.