John Marvel, Assistant

by Thomas Nelson Page

"All right, have your way. It can't do any harm. If you succeed, I shall be quite willing to foot the bills."

"No, this is my treat," said the girl, "though I shall put your name in too."

So, that day Miss Eleanor Leigh spent inspecting and getting prices on turkeys, and by night she had placed her order with a reliable man who had promised to provide the necessary number of baskets, and, what is more, had gotten interested in her plan. She had enlisted also the interest of John Marvel, who worked like a Trojan in furtherance of her wishes. And I, having learned from John of her charitable design, gave my assistance with what I fear was a less unselfish philanthropy. Happily, disease is not the only thing that is contagious. It was impossible to work shoulder to shoulder with those two and not catch something of John Marvel's spirit, not to mention the sweet contagion of Eleanor Leigh's charming enthusiasm. I learned much in that association of her cleverness and sound sterling sense as she organized her force and set them to work. And I was fortunate enough to get one of her charming smiles. It was when she said, "I want one of the best baskets for Mrs. Kenneth McNeil," and I replied, "I have already sent it." Thus, in due time, on the day before Thanksgiving Day, a score of wagons were busily at work carrying not only the turkeys ordered by Miss Leigh, as a Thanksgiving present for each family in her father's employ, but with each one a basket of other things.

It happened that that night a great meeting of the operatives was held.

It was largely attended, for though the object had not been stated in the call, it was well known that it was to consider a momentous subject; nothing less than an ultimatum on the part of the men to the Company, and this many of the men felt was the same thing with a strike. The name of David Wringman, the chief speaker, was a guaranty of this. He was a man who had forged his way to the front by sheer force, mainly sheer brute force. From a common laborer he had risen to be one of the recognized leaders in what had come to be known as the workingmen's movement. He had little or no education, and was not known to have technical training of any kind. Some said he had been a machinist; some a miner; some a carpenter. His past was, in fact, veiled in mystery. No one knew, indeed, where he came from. Some said he was Irish; some that he was Welsh; some that he was American. All that was known of him positively was that he was a man of force, with a gift of fluent speech and fierce invective, which rose at times and under certain conditions to eloquence. At least, he could sway an assemblage of workingmen, and, at need, he was not backward in using his fists, or any other weapon that came to hand. Speaking of Wringman, Wolffert once said that not the least of the misfortunes of the poor was the leaders they were forced to follow. His reputation for brute strength was quite equal to his reputation as a speaker, and stories were freely told of how, when opposition was too strong for him in a given meeting, he had come down from the platform and beaten his opponents into submission with his brawny fists. It was rumored how he had, more than once, even waylaid his rivals and done them up, but this story was generally told in undertones; for Wringman was now too potent and dangerous a man for most men of his class to offend personally without good cause. His presence in the city was in itself a sign that some action would be taken, for he had of late come to be known as an advanced promoter of aggressive action. To this bold radicalism was due much of his power. He was "not afraid of the capitalists," men said. And so they established him in his seat as their leader. To his presence was due a goodly share of the shadow that had been gathering over the workingmen's part of the section of the town which I have noted.

Thus, the meeting on the evening I speak of was largely attended. For an hour before the time set for it the large hall in the second story of a big building was crowded, and many who could not get in were thronging the stairways and the street outside. A reek of strong tobacco pervaded the air and men with sullen brows talked in undertones, broken now and then by a contentious discussion in some group in which possibly some other stimulant than tobacco played a part.

Wolffert and Marvel had both been trying to avert the strike, and had, I heard, made some impression among the people. Marvel had worked hard all day aiding Miss Leigh in her friendly efforts, and Wolffert had been arguing on rational grounds against a strike at the beginning of winter. I had been talking over matters with some of my mill-friends who had invited me to go with them; so I attended the meeting. I had been struck for some time with the change that had been going on in the workingmen's districts. As wretched as they had been before they were now infinitely more so.

The meeting began, as the meetings of such bodies usually begin, with considerable discussion and appearance of deliberation. There was manifest much discontent and also much opposition to taking any steps that would lead to a final breach. A number of men boldly stood forth to declare for the half-a-loaf-better-than-no-bread theory, and against much hooting they stood their ground. The question of a resolution of thanks for Miss Leigh's baskets aroused a little opposition, but the majority were manifestly for it, and many pleasant things were said about her and her father as well, his liberal policy being strongly contrasted with the niggard policy of the other roads. Then there appeared the real leader of the occasion, to hear whom the meeting had been called: Wringman. And within ten minutes he had everything his own way. He was greeted with cheers as he entered, and he shouldered his way to the front with a grim look on his face that had often prepared the way for him. He was undoubtedly a man of power, physical and mental. Flinging off his heavy overcoat, he scarcely waited for the brief introduction, undertaken by the Chairman of the occasion, and, refusing to wait for the cheers to subside, he plunged at once into the midst of his subject.

"Workingmen, why am I here? Because, like you, I am a working man." He stretched out his long arm and swept it in a half circle and they cheered his gesture and voice, and violent action, though had they considered, as they might well have done, he had not "hit a lick" with his hands in a number of years. Unless, indeed, a rumor which had begun to go the rounds was true, that he had once at least performed work for the government in an institution where the labor was not wholly voluntary.

Then came a catalogue of their grievances and wrongs, presented with much force and marked dramatic ability, and on the heels of it a tirade against all employers and capitalists, and especially against their employer, whom he pictured as their arch enemy and oppressor, the chief and final act of whose infamy, he declared to be his "attempt to bribe them with baskets of rotten fowls." Who was this man? He would tell them. He held in his hand a paper which pictured him in his true character. Here he opened a journal and read from the article I had written for Kalender—the infamous headlines of the editor which changed the whole. This was the man with whom they had to deal—a man who flung scraps from his table for famishing children to wrangle over with dogs. There was but one way to meet such insolence, he declared, to fling them back in his face and make him understand that they didn't want favors from him, but justice; not rotten fowls, but their own hard-earned money. "And now," he cried, "I put the motion to send every basket back with this message and to demand an increase of twenty-five per cent. pay forthwith. Thus, we shall show them and all the world that we are independent American workmen earning our own bread and asking no man's meat. Let all who favor this rise and the scabs sit still."