And Mr. Bohlmann, Christian though he was, as he read his paper that evening cried, “Och! Dod Beder Stirling he always does say chust der righd ding!”
CHAPTER LVI.
CUI BONO?
Of the further doings of that day it seems hardly necessary to write, for the papers recorded it with a fulness impossible here. The gathering crowds. The reinforcement of the militia. The clearing and holding of Forty-second Street to the river. The arrival of the three barge-loads of “scabs.” Their march through that street to the station safely, though at every cross street greeted with a storm of stones and other missiles. The struggle of the mob at the station to force back the troops so as to get at the “rats.” The impact of the “thin line” and that dense seething mass of enraged, crazed men. The yielding of the troops from mere pressure. The order to the second rank to fix bayonets. The pushing back of the crowd once more. The crack of a revolver. Then the dozen shots fired almost simultaneously. The great surge of the mob forward. The quick order, and the rattle of guns, as they rose to the shoulder. Another order, and the sheet of flame. The great surge of the mob backwards. Then silence. Silence in the ranks. Silence in the mob. Silence in those who lay on the ground between the two.
Capital and Labor were disagreed as to a ten per cent reduction of wages, and were trying to settle it. At first blush capital had the best of it. “Only a few strikers and militia-men killed,” was the apparent result of that struggle. The scabs were in safety inside the station, and trains were already making up, preparatory to a resumption of traffic. But capital did not go scot-free. “Firing in the streets of New York,” was the word sent out all over the world, and on every exchange in the country, stocks fell. Capital paid twenty-five million dollars that day, for those few ounces of lead. Such a method of settlement seems rather crude and costly, for the last decade of the nineteenth century.
Boys all over the city were quickly crying extras of the “Labor-party” organ, the first column of which was headed:
BUTCHER STIRLING
THE NOMINEE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
SHOOTS DOWN UNARMED MEN
IN
COLD BLOOD.
This was supplemented by inflammatory broadsides. Men stood up on fences, lamp-posts, or barrels, wherever they could get an audience, and shrieked out invectives against police, troops, government, and property; and waved red flags. Orders went out to embody more regiments. Timid people retired indoors, and bolted their shutters. The streets became deserted, except where they were filled by groups of angry men listening to angrier speakers. It was not a calm night in New York.
Yet in reality, the condition was less serious, for representatives of Capital, Labor, and Government were in consultation. Inside the station, in the Directors’ room of the railroad, its officials, a committee of the strikers, and an officer in fatigue uniform, with a face to match, were seated in great leather-covered chairs, around a large table. When they had first gathered, there had been dark brows, and every sentence had been like the blow of flint on steel. At one moment all but the officer had risen from their seats, and the meeting had seemed ended. But the officer had said something quietly, and once more they had seated themselves. Far into the night they sat, while mobs yelled, and sentries marched their beats. When the gathering ended, the scowls were gone. Civil partings were exchanged, and the committee and the officer passed out together.
“That Stirling is a gritty bull-dog for holding on, isn’t he?” said one of the railroad officials. “It’s a regular surrender for us.”