Youth Challenges Part 5

Presently he turned to his desk and wrote some personal letters--as a distraction. He did not know what else to do. There was nothing connected with the plant that he could set his hand to. It seemed to him he was just present, like a blank wall, whose reason for existence was merely to be in a certain place.

He was conscious of voices in his father's room, and after a time his father entered and bade him a formal good morning. Bonbright was acutely conscious of his father's distinguished, cultured, aristocratic appearance. He was conscious of that manner which six generations of repression and habit in a circ.u.mscribed orbit had bestowed on Bonbright Foote VI. Bonbright was unconscious of the great likeness between him and his father; of the fact that at his father's age it would be difficult to tell them apart. Physically he was out of the Bonbright Foote mold.

"Son," said Bonbright Foote VI, "you have made an unfortunate beginning here. You have created an impression which we shall have to eradicate promptly."

"I don't understand."

"It has been the habit of our family to hold aloof from our employees.

We do not come directly into contact with them. Intercourse between us and them is invariably carried out through intermediaries."

Bonbright waited for his father to continue.

"You are being discussed by every man in the shops. This is peculiarly unfortunate at this moment, when a determined effort is being made by organized labor to force unionism on us. The men have the notion that you are not unfriendly toward unionism."

"I don't understand it," said Bonbright. "I don't know what my feelings toward it may be."

"Your feelings toward it," said his father with decision, "are distinctly unfriendly."

Again Bonbright was silent.

"Last evening," said his father, "you mingled with the men leaving the shops. You did a thing no member of our family has ever done--consented to an interview with a professional labor agitator."

"That is hardly the fact, sir.... I asked for the interview."

"Which is worse.... You even, as it is reported to me, agreed to talk with this agitator at some future time."

"I asked him to explain things to me."

"Any explanations of labor conditions and demands I shall always be glad to make. The thing I am trying to bring home to you is that the men have gotten an absurd impression that you are in sympathy with them.... Young men sometimes come home from college with unsound notions. Possibly you have picked up some socialistic nonsense. You will have to rid yourself of it. Our family has always arrayed itself squarely against such indefensible theories.... But the thing to do at once is to wipe out any silly ideas your indiscretion may have aroused among our workingmen."

"But I am not sure--"

"When you have been in this business ten years I shall be glad to listen to your matured ideas. Now your ideas--your actions at least-must conform to the policy we have maintained for generations. I have called some of our department heads to my room. I believe I hear them a.s.sembling. Let us go in."

Bonbright followed his father mechanically. The next room contained some ten or twelve subordinate executives who eyed Bonbright curiously.

"Gentlemen," said the elder Foote, "this is my son, whom you may not have met as yet. I wish to present him to you formally, and to tell you that hereafter he and I share the final authority in this plant.

Decisions coming from this office are to be regarded as our joint decisions--except in the case of an exception of immediate moment. ...

As you know, a fresh and determined effort is afoot to unionize this plant. My son and I have conferred on the matter, but I have seen fit to let the decision rest with him, as to our policy and course of action."

The men looked with renewed curiosity at the young man who stood, white of face, with compressed lips and troubled eyes.

"My son has rightly determined to adhere to the policy established many years ago. He has determined that unionism shall not be permitted to enter Bonbright Foote, Incorporated.... I state your sentiments, do I not, my son?"

At the direct challenge Bonbright raised his eyes to his father's face appealingly. "Father--" he said.

"I state your position?" his father said, sternly.

Against Bonbright's will he felt the acc.u.mulated power of the family will, the family tradition. He had been reared in its shadow. Its grip lay firm upon him. Struggle he might, but the strength to defy was not yet in him.... He surrendered, feeling that, somehow, his private soul had been violated, his individuality rent from him.

"Yes," he said, faintly.

"The first step he has decided upon," said his father, "and one which should be immediately repressive. It is to post in every room and department of the shops printed notices to the effect that any man who affiliates himself with organized labor, or who becomes a member of a so-called trade-union, will be summarily dismissed from his employment.... That was the wording you suggested, was it not?"

"Yes," said Bonbright, this time without struggle.

"Rangar," said Mr. Foote, "my son directs that these cards be printed AT ONCE, and put in place before noon. It can be done, can it not?"

"Yes, sir," said Rangar.

"I think that is all, gentlemen.... You understand my son's position, I believe, so that if anyone questions you can answer him effectively?"

The department heads stirred uneasily. Some turned toward the door, but one man cleared his throat.

"Well, Mr. Hawthorne?" said the head of the business.

"The men seem very determined this time. I'm afraid too severe action on our part will make trouble."

"Trouble?"

"A strike," said Hawthorne. "We're loaded with contract orders, Mr.

Foote. A strike at this time--"

"Rangar," said Mr. Foote, sharply, "at the first sign of such a thing take immediate steps to counteract it.... Better still, proceed now as if a strike were certain. These mills MUST continue uninterruptedly....

If these malcontents force a strike, Mr. Hawthorne, we shall be able to deal with it.... Good morning, gentlemen."

The men filed out silently. It seemed as if they were apprehensive, almost as if they ventured to disagree with the action of their employers. But none voiced his disapproval.

Bonbright stood without motion beside his father's desk, his eyes on the floor, his lips pressed together.

"There," said his father, with satisfaction, "I think that will set you right."

"Right?... The men will think I was among them last night as a spy!...

They'll despise me.... They'll think I wasn't honest with them."

Bonbright Foote VI shrugged his shoulders. "Loyalty to your family," he said, "and to your order is rather more important than retaining the good will of a mob of malcontents."

Bonbright turned, his shoulders dropping so that a more sympathetic eye than his father's might have found itself moistening, and walked slowly back to his room. He did not sit at his desk, but walked to the window, where he rested his brow against his hand and looked out upon as much of the world as he could see.... It seemed large to him, filled with promise, filled with interests, filled with activities for HIM--if he could only be about them. But they were held tantalizingly out of reach.

He was safe in his groove; had not slipped there gradually and smoothly, but had been thrust roughly, by sudden attack, into it.

His young, healthy soul cried out in protest against the affront that had been put upon it. Not that the issue itself had mattered so much, but that it had been so handled, ruthlessly. Bonbright was no friend to labor. He had merely been a surprised observer of certain phenomena that had aroused him to thought. He did not feel that labor was right and that his father was wrong. It might be his father was very right.... But labor was such a huge ma.s.s, and when a huge ma.s.s seethes it is impressive. Possibly this ma.s.s was wrong; possibly its seething must be stilled for the better interests of mankind. Bonbright did not know. He had wanted to know; had wanted the condition explained to him.

Instead, he had been crushed into his groove humiliatingly.

Bonbright was young, to be readily impressed. If his father had received his uncertainty with kindliness and had answered his hunger's demand for enlightenment with arguments and reasoning, the crisis probably would have pa.s.sed harmlessly. His father had seen fit not to use diplomacy, but to a.s.sert autocratically the power of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Bonbright's individuality had thought to lift its head; it had been stamped back into its appointed, circ.u.mscribed place.

He was not satisfied with himself. His time for protest had been when he answered his father's challenge. The force against him had been too great, or his own strength too weak. He had not measured up to the moment, and this chagrined him.

"All I wanted," he muttered, "was to KNOW!"