Read Ebook: The Transgressors. Story of a Great Sin. A Political Novel of the Twentieth Century by Adams Francis A Francis Alexandre

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Ebook has 1974 lines and 76488 words, and 40 pages

"When can the men have an answer?"

"Not for a day or two, I suppose."

"But they must know immediately, Mr. Trueman. You are aware that they are dependent upon the Company Stores for their food. Well, the notice has been posted that no more credit shall be extended after next Saturday. This means that, for the men who are laid off, there is nothing left but starvation."

Trueman is troubled at this statement. He has always been an opponent of the "Company Store" system; now he sees that it is likely to be the potent factor in exciting the miners to revolt.

They are seated in the office of the young attorney for the next hour, during which period they review the events of the great iron strike of '92; the reasons that led to it, and the similarity of the conditions that exist in Wilkes-Barre.

Having given Trueman the details of the Homestead affair, Metz explains the existing grievances of the miners of Wilkes-Barre as follows:

"The question raised by the miners is not one for advanced wages; it is not one of reduced hours; it is not a demand for proper protection for themselves in the mines. These things they have asked for time and again--little enough for men who wear out their lives in the darkness and damp of the mines. But these things they have never been able to obtain.

"A bare living is all that the mine owners would concede to the miners. This living, meagre as it was, sufficed to keep life in the miners and their families.

"Now the miners are to be deprived of the crust of bread. You cannot snatch the bone from a hungry dog, without danger. Do you imagine that a man has less spirit than a beast?

"The whole trouble, Mr. Trueman, arises from the formation of the Coal Trust. I have all the facts in regard to this matter. And so far as that goes, there is not a man in the labor organizations of this country who does not keep in touch with the events of the day. The education of the masses is a dangerous thing in a land that is ruled by force, fraud and finesse, as the United States is to-day.

"It is the Coal Trust that has brought on this threatened strike.

"When there were independent coal companies, the condition of the miners was better by far than it is to-day. The unrestricted operation of mines made it impossible for any two, or even a considerable number, of the mine owners to unite for the purpose of reducing the wages of the mine operatives, and of increasing the price of the coal to the consumer.

"But with the Trust in operation all restraints are removed.

"The illegal traffic rates that the Trust secures, make it impossible for any mine to be successfully worked that is out of the combine.

"To limit the supply, the Trust shut down work in half of the mines.

"For the past seven years this practice has been followed. Now the simple miners know what to expect. They have been submissive, because the suspension of work came in the summer time when they could live on little, and did not have to withstand the rigor of a Pennsylvania winter.

"Now the Paradise Coal Company announces that it will close down the work on three of the mines next Saturday. This throws the men out in the cold of November. If this plan is carried out it will bring on a long and bitter strike."

"I quite agree with you," assents Trueman. He puffs meditatively at a cigar.

"You are too young a man to remember the days of the Molly Maguires, those awful days when murderers lurked on every road in the anthracite coal field of this state. It was back in 1876 that the last of the Maguires was hunted down. Of course there is no excuse for murder; yet the Maguires were the result of a pernicious condition of wage depression and degradation of humanity.

"When the just demands of the miners were recognized the reign of terror ceased.

"But the Trusts have produced another organization of societies in this state, bent on murder and arson. The Irish, English and Welsh miners, who predominated in the region twenty years ago, are now supplanted by Poles, Hungarians, Italians and the worst types of Lithuanians and Slavs. These newcomers have brought with them the racial prejudices and institutions that caused them to be enemies in their native lands; they constitute a dangerous element in the population of this country. So long as they are able to get food they remain passive, except for the feuds they carry on amongst themselves. These immigrants are not inspired to come to this land by reason of an appreciation of the liberty that our Constitution vouchsafes to all mankind. They have been brought here by the agents of the Trusts, because they are willing to work for pauper wage.

"I can tell you, Mr. Trueman, that in the strike that I feel will follow the lock-out, there will be bloodshed. It may not be at the initiative of the miners. But the fear of the magnates is now aroused and they will not hesitate to employ force. Once the appeal to force is made, where is it to end?"

"All that you have told me, I shall report to Mr. Purdy," Trueman says, as he extends his hand to grasp that of the plain, earnest miner.

Metz departs, well satisfied with the progress he has made in advancing the cause of the miners.

Harvey Trueman goes at once to the private office of the President of the Paradise Coal Company.

He brings the strike matter up for consideration at once; and also the case of a widow who is bringing suit against the company for the recovery of damages for the loss of her husband who had been killed in the mines.

"You are to press the defence of this case for damages to a successful termination for the company," are Mr. Purdy's last words, supplemented by the remark, "I shall attend to the strike in person."

HARVEY TRUEMAN, ATTORNEY.

Harvey Trueman steps from the County Clerk's office into the corridor, on the second floor of the Court House at Wilkes-Barre, with the absolute knowledge that the case in hand is won.

As he pushes his way down the stairway to the first floor where the courtroom is located, he elbows through a throng of rough dressed miners--Polaks, Magyars, and here and there a man of half-Irish parentage, whose Irish name is all that is left from the Molly Maguire days to indicate the one-time ascendency of that race in the lands of the coal region.

Certain victory within his grasp--a minor victory in the long line of legal fights he has conducted for the Paradise Coal Company--he does not smile. It is a cruel thing he is about to do. Cruel? He asks himself if the sanctity of the law does not make the contemplated move right. Harvey Trueman has a code of morals, an austere code, that has made him enemies even among the people whose champion he has grown to be in three years' practice of the law in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

He is a tall, slender, square-jawed man of thirty-six. His forehead is high and broad and his hair is worn longer than that of other young men--parted on the side and brushed back. He has thin lips and a mouth of unusual width. His mouth-line is as straight as a bowstring, and when he speaks, which is often, or smiles, which is not so frequent, he shows an even line of large white teeth.

There is something very earnest in the expression of Harvey Trueman's face--a soberness that is seldom found in men under fifty. A straight, strong nose, large nostrils and clean shaven upper lip that is abnormally long; cheek bones that stand out prominently; gray eyes set rather deep in his head for so young a man; a square chin protruding slightly; and wearing a frock coat that falls to his knees in limp folds, Trueman is a commanding figure, full of character.

He is an inch over six feet in height. Among the miners who look straight into the eye to read character, Harvey Trueman has been pronounced an unflinching tool of the coal barons--one whose unbending will means the ultimate accomplishment of any undertaking.

Not one of the miners employed by the Paradise Coal Company has ever known the young lawyer to take an unfair advantage. But he has upheld the law for the proprietors of the mines when the men have made a fight against the "company stores," where they are forced to spend the wages made by the sweat of their brows down in the mines or on the breakers.

Trueman is looked upon by all the miners of the region as a part and parcel of the law, and all law is regarded by them as a thing made to oppress the poor and aggrandize the wealthy.

A simple investigation on the eve of the present battle has placed in the hands of the young lawyer ammunition which will rout the enemy on the first volley.

But such an enemy! Above all things, Harvey Trueman is a magnanimous foe. Now that he has his case won, he feels half humiliated. In the court room, occupying a front seat while she awaits the arrival of her lawyer, sits the widow of Marcus Braun, the Magyar miner.

The miner was killed in Shaft Fifteen of the Paradise Company, which is three miles down the river from the wagon bridge at Wilkes-Barre. Standing at the bottom of the shaft when an elevator cage fell, upon which were two loaded coal cars, he was crushed to a pulp. His widow is suing for damages for the death of her husband. In the front seat with her, in the court room, is her five-year-old boy, whom she must support, perhaps by taking boarders at the mines, if the mine superintendent will permit her to go in debt for the rent of a house in case her litigation against the company is not successful.

True, the rope by which the cage had been lifted and lowered had worn thin, and the foreman had warned the superintendent the morning of the accident that a new one was needed. But the poor Magyar at the bottom of the shaft did not know it. He had in no way contributed to the negligence which brought about his death. He knew his work was perilous. In the law, it is a question whether or not the case can be successfully defended by the coal company.

Trueman's trip to the Clerk's office has been for the purpose of ascertaining the miner's standing with reference to his citizenship at the time of his death. With his experience in the practice, the lawyer surmised that the Magyar was never naturalized. If he was not naturalized, his widow has no standing in the court where the suit has been brought. In that case, it belongs to the Federal Court, and his widow and orphan, as well as the impecunious lawyer who has taken the widow's case on a contingent fee, will not have the means nor the fortitude to begin action in the higher court.

Trueman discovers after a few moments of investigation in the Clerk's office that his suspicion is well founded. The miner had never taken out naturalization papers.

Cruel? In the concrete, perhaps. The law is made for the multitude.

"It is a legitimate defense!" Trueman murmurs to himself, as he passes down the stairs. "The Magyar bore none of the burdens of citizenship. Neither should he or his, share in the protection which the State of Pennsylvania affords her citizens."

"Will the Magyar's widow get anything?" asks O'Connor, one of the half-Irish, half-Italian miners, whose elbow Trueman brushes as he walks towards the court room.

Trueman befriended O'Connor once in the matter of rent.

"No. He was not naturalized!"

"His blood be on old Purdy's head, then!" says O'Connor. "The mine boss has said he will put her out in the street. She's already months back in her rent."

Trueman passes on as if he has not heard O'Connor, who is at the Court House as one of the witnesses.

As the young lawyer pushes his way into the court room his quick glance catches the bent form of the woman in the front seat, clad in the cheapest of black, and the open-eyed boy at her side.

The proceedings are short. Trueman sits down at one of the tables inside the bar enclosure and hastily dashes off an affidavit containing the facts he has discovered, and a formal motion to dismiss. The Judge hears the motion, which is opposed to in a half-hearted way by the lawyer on the other side. The suit is dismissed.

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