The Nine-Tenths Part 4

So they went down together. A jam of poor people was crowding the doors, and a string of automobiles drew up and pa.s.sed at the curb. Joe and Fannie got in the throng. There was no room left in the orchestra and they were swept with the flood up and up, flight after flight, to the high gallery. Here they found seats and looked down, down as if on the side of the planet, on the far-away stage filled with the speakers and the committees, and on that sea of humanity that swept back and up through the boxes to themselves. All in the subdued light, the golden light that crowd sat, silent, remorseful, stirred by a sense of having risen to a great occasion; thousands of human beings, the middle cla.s.s, the rich, the poor; Americans, Germans, Italians, Jews. But all about him Joe felt a silent hatred, a still cry for vengeance, a cla.s.s bitterness. Many of these were relatives of the dead.

It was a demonstration of the human power that refuses to submit to environment and circ.u.mstance and fate; that rises and rebukes facts, reshapes destiny. And then the speaking began: the bishop, the rabbi, the financier, the philanthropist, the social worker. They spoke eloquently, they showed pity, they were constructive, they were prepared to act; they represented the "better cla.s.ses" and promised the "poor,"

the toilers, that they would see that relief and protection were given; but somehow their eloquence did not carry; somehow that ma.s.s of commonest men and women refused to be stirred and thrilled. There was even a little hissing when it was announced that a committee of big men would see to the matter.

Joe had a dull sense of some monstrous social cleavage; the world divided into the rulers and the ruled, the drivers and the driven. He felt uncomfortable, and so did the throng. There was a feeling as if the crowd ought to have a throat to give vent to some strange, fierce fact that festered in its heart.

And then toward the end the chairman announced that one of the hat-trimmers, one of the girls who worked--in another hat factory, would address the meeting--Miss Sally Heffer.

A girl arose, a young woman with thin, spa.r.s.e, gold-glinting hair, with face pallid and rounded, with broad forehead and gray eyes of remarkable clarity. She was slim, dressed in a little brown coat and a short brown skirt. She came forward, trembling, as if overcome by the audience. She paused, raised her head and tried to speak. There was not a sound, and suddenly the audience became strangely still, leaning forward, waiting.

Then again she tried to speak; it was hardly above a whisper; and yet so clear was the hush that Joe heard every word. And he knew, and all knew, that this young woman was overcome, not by the audience, but by the pa.s.sion of the tragedy, the pa.s.sion of an oppressed cla.s.s. She was the voice of the toilers at last dimly audible; she was the voice of a million years of sore labor and bitter poverty and thwarted life. And the audience was thrilled, and the powerful were shaken with remorse.

Trembling, terrible came the words out of that little body on the far stage:

"I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good-fellows.h.i.+p. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are to-day: the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here in the fire-trap structures that will destroy us the minute they catch on fire.

"This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in this city.

Every week I learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers.

Every year thousands of us are maimed. _The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred!_ There are so many of us for one job, it matters little if sixty of us are burned to death.

"We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers and brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the strong hand of the law is allowed to press heavily down on us.

"Public officials have only words of warning to us--warning that we must be intensely orderly and intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings.

"I can't talk fellows.h.i.+p to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-cla.s.s movement."

Joe heard nothing further. There were several other speakers, but no words penetrated to his brain. He felt as if he must stifle. He felt the globe of earth cracking, breaking in two under his feet, and for the first time in his life he was acutely aware of the division of humanity.

All through his career he had taken his middle-cla.s.s position for granted; he tacitly agreed that there were employees and employers; but in his own case his camaraderie had hidden the cleavage. Now he saw a double world--on the one side the moneyed owners, on the other the crowded, scrambling, disorganized hordes of the toilers--each one of them helpless, a victim, worked for all that was in him, and then flung aside in the sc.r.a.p heap. And behold, this horde was becoming self-conscious, was beginning to organize, was finding a voice. And he, who was one of the "good people," was rejected by this voice. He had been "tried" and found wanting. He was on the other side of the fence.

And it was the fault of his cla.s.s that fire horrors and all the chaos and cruelty of industry arose. So that now the working people had found that they must "save themselves."

In an agony of guilt again he felt what he had said to Myra: "From now on I belong to those dead girls"--yes, and to their fellow-workers.

Suddenly it seemed to him that he must see Sally Heffer--that to her he must carry the burden of his guilt--to her he must personally make answer to the terrible accusations she had voiced. It was all at once, as if only in this way could he go on living, that otherwise he would end in the insanity of the mad-house or the insanity of suicide.

He was walking down the stairs with Fannie, and he was trembling.

"Do you know this Sally Heffer?"

"Know her? We all do!" she cried, with all a young girl's enthusiasm.

"I want to see her, Fannie. Where does she live?"

"Oh, somewhere in Greenwich Village. But she'll be up at the Woman's League after the meeting."

He went up to the Woman's League and found the office crowded with women and men. He asked for Miss Heffer.

"I'll take your name," said the young woman, and then came back with the answer that "he'd have to wait."

So he took a seat and waited. He felt feverish and sick, as if he could no longer carry this burden with him. It seemed impossible to sit still.

And yet he waited over an hour, waited until it was eight at night, all the gas-jets lit.

The young woman came up to him.

"You want to see Miss Heffer? Come this way."

He was led up a flight of stairs to a little narrow hall-room. Sally Heffer was there at a roll-top desk, still in her little brown coat--quiet, pale, her clear eyes remarkably penetrating. She turned.

"Yes?"

He shook pitifully,... then he sat down, holding his hat in his hands.

"I'm Joe Blaine...."

"Joe Blaine ... of what?"

"Of the printery ... that burned...."

She looked at him sharply.

"So, you're the employer."

"Yes, I am."

"Well," she said, brusquely, "what do you want?"

"I heard you speak this afternoon." His face flickered with a smile.

"And so you ...?"

He could say nothing; and she looked closer. She saw his gray face, his unsteady eyes, the tragedy of the broken man. Then she spoke with a lovely gentleness.

"You want to do something?"

"Yes," he murmured, "I want to give--all."

She lowered her voice, and it thrilled him.

"It won't help to give your money--you must give yourself. We don't want charity."

He said nothing for a moment; and then strength rose in him.

"I'll tell you why I came.... I felt I had to.... I felt that you were accusing me. I know I am guilty. I have come here to be"--he smiled strangely--"sentenced."

She drew closer.

"You came here for _that_?"

"Yes."