Commerce ceased rubbing its hands. Its alter ego, Business, 325was obviously getting ready to say something, but was only whistling for the station, and the crowd knew it would be a minute before his stuttering speech should arrive. Patriotism was leaning forward with its hands back of its ears, smiling pleasantly at what he did not understand, and Industry, who saw the strings in which his world was wrapped up for delivery, cut, and the world sprawled in confusion before him by the preacher’s defiance, was pulling his military goatee solemnly when Science toddled in, white-clad, pink-faced, smoking his short pipe and clicking his cane rather more snappily than usual. He saw that he had punctuated an embarrassed situation. Only Religion and Patriotism were smiling. Science brought his cane down with a whack and piped out:
“So you are going to muzzle John Dexter, are you–you witch-burning old pharisees. I heard of your meeting, and I just thought I’d come around to the bonfire! What are you trying to do here, anyway?”
At last Business which had been whistling for the station was ready to pull in; so it unloaded itself thus: “We are p-protesting, Doc, at th-th-th-th m-m-m-man Adams–this l-l-labor sk-sk-skate and s-s-socialist occupying J-J-John Dexter’s p-pulp-p-pit!”
Science looked at Business a grave moment, then burst out, “What are you all afraid of! Here you are, a lot of grown men with fat bank accounts sitting around in a blue funk because Grant Adams does a little more or less objectionable talking. I don’t agree with Grant much more than you do. But you’re a lot of old hens, cackling around here because Grant Adams invades the roost to air his views. Let him talk. Let ’em all talk. Talk is cheap; otherwise we wouldn’t have free speech.” He grinned cynically as he asked, “Haven’t you any faith in the Constitution of the fathers? They were smart enough to know that free speech was a safety valve; let ’em blow off. Then go down and organize and vote ’em afterwards according to the dictates of your own conscience. Politics is the antidote for free speech!” The Doctor glared at the Courts, smiled amiably at Business and winked conspicuously at Religion. Religion blushed at the blasphemy and as there seemed to be nothing 326further before the house the Doctor and John Dexter left the room.
But the honest indignation of Market Street that an agitator should appear in a pulpit–that an agitator for anything, should appear in any pulpit–waxed strong. For it was assumed that religion had nothing to do with social conduct; religion was solely a matter of individual salvation. Religion was a matter concerned entirely with getting to heaven oneself, and not at all a matter of getting others to heaven except as they took the narrow and individual path. The idea that environment affects character and that society through politics and social and economic institutions may change a man’s environments and thus affect the characters and the chances for Heaven of whole sections of the population, was an idea which had not been absorbed by Market Street in Harvey. So Market Street raged.
That evening when Grant Adams returned from work he received two significant notes. One was from John Dexter and ran:
“Dear Grant: Fearing that you may hear of the comment my invitation to you to speak in my pulpit is causing and fearing that you may either decide at the last minute not to come or that you will modify your remarks out of consideration for me, I write to say that while of course I may not agree with everything you advocate, yet my pulpit is a free pulpit and I cannot consent that you restrict its freedom in saying your full say as a man, any more than I could consent to have my own freedom restricted. Yours in the faith–J. D.”
The other note ran: “Father says to tell you to tone it down. I have delivered his message. I say here is your chance to get the truth where it is most needed, and even if for the most part it falls on stony ground–you still must sow it.–L. N. VD.”
Sunday evening saw a large congregation in the pews of the Rev. John Dexter’s church. In the front and middle portion of the church were the dwellers on the Hill, those whose lines fell in pleasant places. They were the “Haves” of the town,–conspicuous and highly respectable with rustle of silks and flutter of ribbons.
327And back of these sat a score of men and women from South Harvey, the “Have-nots,” the dwellers in the dreary valley. There was Denny Hogan, late of the mines, but now of the smelter–with his curly hair plastered over his forehead, and with his wife, she that was Violet Mauling holding a two-year-old baby with sweaty, curly red hair to her breast asleep; there was Ira Dooley, also late of the mines, but now proprietor of a little game of chance over the Hot Dog Saloon; there was Pat McCann, a pit boss and proud of it, with Mrs. McCann–looking her eyes out at Mrs. Nesbit’s hat. There was John Jones, in his Sunday best, and Evan Hughes and Tom Williams, the wiry little Welsh miners who had faced death with Grant Adams five years before. They were with him that night at the church with all the pride in him that they could have if he were one of the real nobility, instead of a labor agitator with a little more than local reputation. And there were Dick and his boy Mugs and the silent Mrs. Bowman and Bennie her youngest and Mary the next to the youngest. And Mrs. Bowman in the South Harvey colony was a person of consequence, for she nodded to the Nesbits and the Mortons and to Laura and to Mrs. Calvin and to all the old settlers of Harvey–rather conspicuously. She had the gratification of noting that South Harvey saw the nobility nod back. With the South Harvey people came Amos Adams in his rough gray clothes and rough gray beard. Jasper Adams, in the highest possible collar, and in the gayest possible shell-pink necktie and under the extremest clothes that it might be possible for the superintendent of a Sunday School to wear, shared a hymnal, when the congregation rose to sing, with the youngest Miss Morton. There were those who thought the singing was merely a duet between young Mr. Adams and the youngest Miss Morton–so much feeling did they put into the music. Mr. Brotherton was so impressed, that he marked young Adams for a tryout at the next funeral where there was a bass voice needed, making the mental reservation that no one needed to look at the pimples of a boy who could sing like that.