Youth Challenges Part 3

But Malcolm Lightener--he dominated the room as the Laoc.o.o.n group would dominate a ten by twelve "parlor." His size was only a minor element in that impression. True, he was as great in bulk as Bonbright and his father rolled in one, towering inches above them, and they were tall men. It was the jagged, dynamic, granite personality of him that jutted out to meet one almost with physical impact. You were conscious of meeting a force before you became conscious of meeting a man. And yet, when you came to study his face you found it wonderfully human--even with a trace of granite humor in it.

Bonbright was really curious to meet this man, whose story had reached him even in Harvard University. Here was a man who, in ten years of such dogged determination as affected one almost with awe, had turned a vision into concrete reality. In a day when the only mechanical vehicles upon our streets were trolley cars, he had seen those streets thronged with "horseless carriages." He had seen streets packed from curb to curb with endless moving processions of them. He had seen the nation abandon its legs and take to motor-driven wheels. This had been his vision, and he had made it reality.

From the place of a master mechanic, at four dollars a day, he had followed his vision, until the world acknowledged him one of her richest men, one of her greatest geniuses for organization. In ten years, lifting himself by his boot straps, he had promoted himself from earnings of twelve hundred dollars a year to twelve million dollars a year.... He interested Bonbright as a great adventurer.

To Hilda Lightener he was presented last. He had expected, hoped, to be unfavorably impressed; he had known he would be ill at ease, and that any attempts he made at conversation would be stiff and stilted. ... It was some moments after his presentation when he realized he felt none of these unpleasant things. She had shaken hands with him boyishly; her eyes had twinkled into his--and he was at his ease. Afterward he studied over the thing, but could not comprehend it.... It had been as if he were encountering, after a separation, a friend of years--not a girl friend, but a friend with no complications of s.e.x.

She was tall, nearly as tall as Bonbright, and she favored her father.

Not that the granite was there. She was not beautiful, not even pretty--but you liked her looks. Bonbright liked her looks.

At table Bonbright was seated facing Hilda Lightener. His father at once took charge of the conversation, giving the boy a breathing s.p.a.ce to collect and appraise his impressions. Presently Mr. Foote said, impressively:

"This is an important day in our family, Lightener. My son entered the business this morning."

Lightener turned his ma.s.sive, immobile face toward the boy, his expression not inviting, yet the seeing might have marked the ghost of a twinkle in his gray eyes.

"Um.... Any corrections, amendments, or subst.i.tutions to offer?" he demanded.

Bonbright looked at him, obviously not comprehending the sarcasm.

"Most young spriggins I take into MY business," said Lightener, "think a whole day's experience equips them to take hold and make the whole thing over.... They can show me where I'm all wrong."

Bonbright smiled, not happily. He was not accustomed to this sort of humor, and did not know how to respond to it.

"It was so big," he said. "It sort of weighed me down--yet--somehow I didn't get interested till after the whistle blew."

Lightener grunted.

"That's what interests most of 'em--getting out of the place after the whistle blows."

"Dad!" said Hilda. "What was it interested you then, Mr. Foote?"

"The men," said Bonbright--"that great mob of men pouring out of the gates and filling the street.... Somehow they seemed to stand for the business more than all the buildings full of machinery.... I stood and watched them."

Interest kindled in Lightener's eyes. "Yes?" he prompted.

"It never occurred to me before that being at the head of a business meant--meant commanding so many men... meant exercising power over all those lives.... Then there were the wives and children at home...."

Bonbright's father leaned forward icily. "Son," he said, coldly, "you haven't been picking up any queer notions in college?"

"Queer notions?"

"Socialistic, anarchistic notions. That sort of thing."

"I don't believe," said Bonbright, with utter honesty, "that I ever gave the workingman a thought till to-day.... That's why it hit me so hard, probably."

"It hit you, eh?" said Lightener. He lifted his hand abruptly to motion to silence Mr. Foote, who seemed about to interrupt. "Leave the boy alone, Foote.... This is interesting. Never saw just this thing happen before.... It hit you hard, eh?"

"It was the realization of the power of large employers of labor--like father and yourself, sir."

"Was that all?"

"At first.... Then there was a fellow on a barrel making a speech about us.... I listened, and found out the workingmen realize that we are sort of czars or some such thing--and resent it. I supposed things were different. This Dulac was sent here to organize our men into a union--just why I didn't understand, but he promised to explain it to me."

"WHAT?" demanded Bonbright Foote VI, approaching nearer than his wife had ever seen him to losing his poise.

"You talked to him?" asked Hilda, leaning forward in her interest.

"I was introduced to him; I wanted to know.... He was a handsome fellow. Not a gentleman, of course--"

"Oh!" Lightener pounced on that expression. "Not a gentleman, eh?...

Expect to find the Harvard manner in a man preaching riot from a potato barrel?... Well, well, what did he say? How did HE affect you?"

"He seemed to think the men resented our power over them. Just how correctly he stated their feeling I don't know, of course. They cheered his speech, however.... He said father had the power to buy mother a diamond necklace to-morrow, and cut their wages to pay for it--and they couldn't help themselves."

"Well--could they?"

"I don't know. I didn't understand it all, but it didn't seem right that those men should feel that way toward us. I want to talk to father about it--have him explain it to me."

Lightener chuckled and turned to Mr. Foote. "I don't suppose you appreciate the humor of that, Foote, the way I do. He's coming to you for an unbiased explanation of why your employees--feel that way....

Young fellow," he turned to Bonbright again--"I could come closer to doing it than your father--because I was one of them once. I used to come home with grease on my hands and a smudge on my nose, smelling of sweat." Mrs. Foote repressed a shudder and lowered her eyes. "But I couldn't be fair about it. Your father has no more chance of explaining the thing to you--than my wife has of explaining the theory of an internal-combustion engine.... We employers can't do it. We're on the other side. We can't see anything but our own side of it."

"Come now, Lightener, I'm fair-minded. I've even given some study to the motives of men."

"And you're writing a book." He shrugged his shoulders. "The sort of philosophical reflections that go in books aren't the sort to answer when you're up against the real thing in social unrest.... In your whole business life you've never really come into contact with your men. Now be honest, have you?"

"I've always delegated that sort of thing to subordinates," said Mr.

Foote, stiffly.

"Which," retorted Mr. Lightener, "is one of the reasons for the unrest.... That's it. We don't understand what they're up against, nor what we do to aggravate them."

"It's the inevitable warfare between capital and labor," said Mr.

Foote. "Jealousy is at the root of it; unsound theories, like this of socialism, and too much freedom of speech make it all but unbearable."

"Dulac said they must organize to be in condition to fight us."

"Organize," said Mr. Foote, contemptuously. "I'll have no unions in my shop. There never have been unions and there never shall be. I'll put a sudden stop to that.... Pretty idea, when the men I pay wages to, the men I feed and clothe, can dictate to me how I shall conduct my affairs."

"Yes," said Lightener, "we automobile fellows are non-union, but how long we can maintain it I don't know. They have their eyes on us and they're mighty hungry."

"To-morrow morning," said Mr. Foote, "notices will appear in every department stating that any man who affiliates with a labor union will be summarily dismissed."

"Maybe that will end the thing this time, Foote, but it'll be back. It 'll be back."

Hilda leaned forward again and whispered to Bonbright, "You're not getting much enlightenment, are you?" Her eyes twinkled; it was like her father's twinkle, but more charming.

"How," he asked, slowly, "are we ever to make anything of it if we, on the employers' side, can't understand their point of view, and they can't understand ours?"

Mrs. Foote arose. "Let's not take labor unions into the other room with us," she said.