The Coal War

by Upton Sinclair

“Is it because you’re afraid of the truth, Mr. Harrigan? Afraid of the hours you have to spend alone—”

  Old Peter had got up from his chair and begun to pace the room. Suddenly he turned upon his tormentor. “I’ve had enough of this!” he exclaimed. “You’ve no business forcing yourself in here, meddling in things you don’t understand.”

  “You mean, Mr. Harrigan, that I understand too well!”

  “There’s no use arguing any more! I’ll not give way! I’ll not see him!”

  “Mr. Harrigan, I want you to hear how he was treated when he asked for a check-weighman—”

  “He didn’t ask for a check-weighman! He started a conspiracy in my camp.”

  “How do you know, Mr. Harrigan?”

  “I know the whole story. I had a full report on it.”

  “In other words, you had your subordinates write out what they wanted you to believe. Now come and find out whether your subordinates told you the truth!”

  [13]

  They wrangled on: check-weighman and the check-weighman law, camp-marshals and those who assassinated them, superintendents who were mayors of coal-company towns and enforced their will and called it “law”. Each time Lucy May would come back to her demand that Hal should be brought in to tell the hidden facts; and each time Old Peter would shout, No, no! He would not see the young puppy! He would have the young puppy put out of his house! He would not permit a woman to intrude into his home and browbeat him. It was an outrage—and the old Caliban-monster would do his best to blow fire and smoke. But Lucy May only smiled patiently, and told him that she was the voice of his conscience, of his better self, his true and real self. She had come for one purpose—to persuade him to hear her brother-in-law’s story; she would stay there all night, if necessary, until she had accomplished that purpose. Mr. Harrigan must understand that a woman was an obstinate creature; that when she had got her head set—

  “Look here, ma’am,” said Old Peter, “I’ve stood a lot from you—more than I’ve ever stood from anybody in my life. I know you’re a lady, and that your emotions have run away with you; but I’ve had enough now, and you’ve got to quit.”

  “I can’t, Mr. Harrigan—things are in such an awful way! Just think, down in those tent-colonies—”

  “I tell you to go, ma’am!”

  “There’s going to be more fighting, Mr. Harrigan—”

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind these days, ma’am. I have to be at my office at seven every morning, so I keep regular hours—my doctor’s orders—”

  “But it would take such a little time, Mr. Harrigan! If you will let Hal come—”

  “I give you fair notice, ma’am. I propose to go to bed.”

  “Only half an hour, Mr. Harrigan—”

  “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m going to undress.”

  “Let me call him myself. Please! Please!”

  “You’re in my private room, ma’am, and you refuse to get out. So—” And Old Peter finished the sentence by beginning to untie his neck-tie.

  Lucy May took one glance; then she sprang to her feet. “Mr. Harrigan!” she cried, wildly.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve told you it’s my bed-time.” And off came the long string tie.

  “Don’t forget yourself!” exclaimed the little lady.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s the time I always do it.” And he unfastened his low collar.

  “You are no gentleman, sir!”

  “I never pretended to be, ma’am. I’m just a rough old fellow—started life as a pack-peddler, you know.” And he began to slip out of the worn brown smoking-jacket, exposing a shameless spread of white shirt.

  Tears of rage came into the eyes of the little lady. She saw that she was going to be beaten—and oh, how she hated to be beaten—she, the daughter of colonial governors and of duchesses from over seas! “Mr. Harrigan, stop!” she cried.

  But Old Peter had sat down in his chair, slipped off the ragged green carpet-slippers, and begun to tug at one sock. “Any time you want to go, ma’am—” said he.

  Lucy May stood clenching and unclenching her hands. Such an indignity! Such a grotesque, an unthinkable ending to her desperate emprise! And while she stood agonizing, the sock came off, exposing a horrible old pink foot, veined with purple and covered with black hairs, suggestive of who shall say what other Caliban-monstrosities? The little lady gave a scream, and turned her back, and stood choking back a sob, while the old monster took off the other sock, and stood up to unbutton his shirt. “I’m truly sorry, ma’am,” he said; “but there was no other way.” And he added, with delicate consideration, “I hope you won’t turn around again, ma’am.”

  The little lady did not turn round. She stalked to the door; but before she opened it, she stopped, and stood until she had controlled herself and found her voice. Then, in a tone of withering scorn she spoke: “I might have known what would happen. You are a low, vile, common man!” And with that she opened the door and went out, shutting it behind her with as much decision as is permitted to a lady of her social position.

  [14]

  Hal Warner returned to Horton, and learned that on the previous evening, while he had been inspecting the marble mantel from Ferrara and the tapestries of the popes at Avignon, the militiamen had been making another “search” of the tent-colony. A woman had come to the militia-camp, complaining that her husband, a strike-breaker, had been assaulted; Lieutenant Stangholz, guardian of order, had come over with a dozen of his men to seek the culprit, and had ordered out all the strikers from the tents. Most of them had been in bed, but no matter—dressed or undressed, they had to come. They were herded out into a field with blows and curses, and compelled to file one by one past the Lieutenant and the woman who had made the complaint; and all this for nothing—the man they sought had never been near the tent-colony! And meantime others of the militiamen were prowling about in the tents, insulting women and young girls, helping themselves to anything of value they could find. If they were caught breaking open a trunk they had always an answer—they were “searching for arms”.

  The militia were now making these “searches” at any time the fancy took them; they would carry off money, food, cigars, clothing. Many of the strikers had now got arms, and so they were more reluctant to have these searches made. So the tension became greater each time; the hatred which had come to exist seemed a thing un-human, belonging to a world of devils. You would see a group of militiamen come walking down the road, and where they went every activity would cease, every voice would fall silent, every eye would follow, glaring. You could imagine that the strikers’ hair rose up, as on the back of a snarling dog.

  Hal got another bit of news—old Patrick Burke had run away from North Valley, and was again in the colony. He had not found life as a strike-breaker the delightful thing it had been pictured; they had not been interested in keeping him drunk, but had insisted upon his getting out coal. He had developed a tooth-ache, and got permission to come down to Pedro—and so had made his escape. The strikers had welcomed him like the hundredth sheep which has gone astray; all save Mary—who had taken advantage of his humiliation to arrange that his three dollars a week should be paid to her! She would see that it went for food instead of for liquor, and there would be less chance of her father’s being lured away again.

  Hal talked with the old fellow and heard his description of North Valley, which was become a place of terror. Alec Stone, the pit-boss, had been turned by the harassments of the strike into a sort of demon. He was declaring that he would kill any man who tried to get away owing money to the company; and of course everyone owed money to the company. Also the guards told harrowing stories about the mishandling of runaways by the strikers; so that between two fears the men stayed on and worked for nothing. At Reminitsky’s they were living like pigs in a pen; they would reach onto the tables and grab pieces of meat with their hands, and if you were not one of the first grabbers, you got no meat at all. Yes, Old Patrick had had enoug
h of “scabbing”. They might trust him from now on—and so would Joe Smith try to get him at least a part of his three dollars? That girl of his was getting to be so hard, there was no doing anything with her anymore!

  [15]

  Hal sat that evening talking with Old Patrick’s girl in the door-way of the hospital-tent. Inside was John Edstrom, still ill from his beating; Kerzik, a Slavish fellow who had got a bayonet through his arm trying to defend his trunk from a “search”; Zanelli, a young Italian with a broken scalp, and Haggard, an English miner, dying of tuberculosis. Such were Mary’s charges, and sitting by the tent-door in the moonlight, Hal could see that she was worn almost to exhaustion.

  Yet she was happy that evening. Hal discovered the reason—because she could hold her head up, could look her fellow-strikers in the eye. Lieutenant Stangholz might insult her, the militiamen might call her any names they pleased—but at least nobody could say that her father was a “scab”!

  Hal told her the news from Western City; about the “pianos”, and about Mr. Wilmerding’s martyrdom, and about the interview with the Coal King. Mary listened awe-stricken to this last narrative; for of course to her Peter Harrigan was a far-off, mythological monster, and the idea that “Joe Smith” had been in his home on the previous evening endowed him with superhuman qualities. So Hal got a painful sense of his own worldly greatness—painful to one who had sworn to root snobbery out of his soul, to have nothing to do with the glamor of wealth, but to be in all things a democrat!

  Once more there was strife in his soul, a war of impulses. He was sorry for Mary, who looked so pitiful, sitting in the moonlight with her hands in her lap and her shoulders sunk, her grey eyes dark with fatigue. He had vividly in mind the picture of Jessie Arthur in her stately electric—that most royal of devices, which, if you watch closely, you may see evolving a costume and manner, even a cast of countenance for its users! Jessie had been pitiful too, but she had not failed to remain lovely; Hal realized that no matter how deeply she might suffer because of his neglect, she would never lose that loveliness—she would never fail to take herself through the processes necessary to preserve her charms.

  These charms were real to him; the memory of them held him, even while his mind rebelled against them. They were costly to the point of cruelty; and their purpose was to hold his admiration, the admiration of men in general. He, who called himself a democrat, who told himself that he wished to root snobbery out of his soul—he nevertheless was in the snare! He admired and craved the woman who led an easy life, who took care of herself, who sleeked and smoothed herself like a well-fed house-cat! He recalled what Mary had said about Jessie, when she had come up to North Valley in the midst of grief and horror; she had seemed “like a smooth, sleek cat that has just eaten up a whole nestful of baby chicks, and has the blood of them all over her mouth!”

  Hal had said that he was not thinking about Mary Burke; and that had been true at the time—but it was not true now. In the moonlight of this soft spring evening, he had the old impulse to put out his hand to Old Patrick’s daughter, to touch her, to say words of comfort, of tenderness. And what was it that kept him from doing so? The smooth, sleek cat-women counted upon the power of snobbery, the glamor of their worldly greatness. Would it not be a worthy action to shake them out of their cynical self-assurance? A revolutionary event, indeed—if he, Hal Warner, the desired of ladies, were to give his affections to a woman who was willing to neglect her beauty and her charm to make herself haggard and thin in a struggle for other people’s rights.

  [16]

  The hour grew late, and the moonlight waned. “Mary,” said Hal, suddenly, “what have you been thinking about me?”

  “About you, Joe? How?”

  “I mean—about you and me.”

  There was a silence. When the girl spoke, her voice was low. “We weren’t going to talk about that, Joe.”

  “I know, Mary; but I’ve been thinking about it—a lot. There’s something I want to tell you. I had a talk with Jessie yesterday.”

  He saw her hands clench suddenly. It was the first time the name of Jessie had been spoken between them for perhaps a year.

  “I told her, Mary, that I’d made up my mind that we could not make each other happy, and I thought we ought to part.”

  “Joe!” exclaimed the girl; her voice had sunk to a whisper.

  “She asked me to wait and think it over. But I’ve thought, all I need to think. I’m free.”

  She was staring at him, her eyes wide with wonder. And the old impulse came again; his hand went out and took hers. And it was as if he had given her an electric shock. She drew it back sharply. “Joe! Ye must not do that!”

  “Why not, Mary?” He leaned towards her, gazing into her eyes. “Why not?”

  She was at a loss for words, because of the suddenness of his attack. “I’ve not let meself think about it, Joe!”

  “You still care for me, Mary?”

  She caught her breath, and he saw that a storm of emotion was sweeping her. He put out his hand again, touching her arm. But again she shrank away. “Don’t do that way, Joe! I want to think!”

  So he sat, and she sat gazing at him, as if her eyes would pierce into his soul. “Ye must not make any mistake, Joe. Ye have to be thinkin’, too!”

  “It’s come to seem simple to me, Mary.”

  “Such things are never simple, Joe. It seemed that way to me in North Valley, but I found it was not. And since then, I’ve thought about a lot more difficulties.”

  “Tell me what’s in your mind, Mary.”

  She hesitated, then began: “For a long time—more than a year—I’ve known ye’d never be happy with Jessie Arthur. And I’ve wanted ye so—it’s been all I could do to hold meself in! But I said, ‘No, I’ll leave it to him! I’ll do nothin’, nothin’!’ And I haven’t, Joe. I can say that for sure.”

  “Yes, Mary,” he said.

  “And now, listen; there’s somethin’ else I got to say. A couple of years ago, when I come to know ye at North Valley, I was hopeless, desperate, ready to throw meself away. But now—now it’s different; I’ve got somethin’ to live for. To be sure, ’twas you gave it to me—but now it’s mine. I’m worth somethin’ to meself, and maybe to the world. So I can’t throw meself away.”

  “Of course not, Mary!”

  “Ye know what they say about us, Joe. But our knowin’ it ain’t true makes a difference, our friends knowin’ it ain’t true makes all the difference. If we—if we was to do that—we’d be puttin’ ourselves in the hands of the enemy, we’d be killin’ our work.”

  “Don’t misunderstand me, Mary,” he said. “I meant that we should go and get married.” He said this quite firmly and decidedly. So one is swept along in a tide of revolutionary events—he wanted to take her in his arms, he wanted it desperately. But when he tried, she shrank away again. “Wait, Joe! Wait!” And she glanced about swiftly, to see if any of her patients were being disturbed by this revolutionary tumult. “Come out here!” she said, and went away from the tent a bit.

  [17]

  The girl stood there, looking very beautiful and pathetic in her fright, her desperate desire to keep her self-control. She waited for Hal to come close, but not too close; then, with her hands half extended in appeal, “Joe,” she whispered, “I don’t want to make any mistake! Help me, won’t ye—let’s talk it out fair!”

  “I’ll do what I can, Mary,” he answered, gently.

  It was silent all about them, for the colony had gone to rest, save for one baby that was crying somewhere in the distance. But they had to be circumspect, not knowing when some prowler might come along.

  Mary waited, until she had forced her voice into calm. Then she began: “Joe, ye talk about marryin’. Have ye really thought what it would mean if ye were to marry me?”

  “Would I have asked you if I hadn’t, Mary?”

  This was a rank evasion, of course; and it did not help him. “Ye might very easily, Joe. Ye might be havin’ a su
dden fit of wantin’ me. Is that it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about the matter for a long time, Mary.”

  “But ye don’t realize, Joe! Ye can’t know what ye’re saying! To go and get married to your friend’s parlor-maid!”

  “Don’t talk like that!” he exclaimed—for the words hurt.

  “But it’s the way everbody that knows ye would talk, Joe!”

  “Well, damn them—that’s all I can say.”

  “You’d have to be saying it, Joe—think how many years! And to how many people! Ye’d be burning your last bridge, Joe Smith. As it is, ye can go back whenever ye please and be Hal Warner; they’d forget all this craziness, they’d call it a new kind of wild oats. But if ye were to go and get yeself married to Mrs. Wyatt’s parlor-maid, then ye’d be done for! There’d be no more dinner-parties, no more clubs! Go ask your people about it, Hal!”

  He could not help laughing. “You’re too humble, Mary. You’ve been reading romances about the aristocracy! They’d take you in after a bit—truly!”

  “Maybe I’m not so humble as ye think, Joe. Maybe I’d not want to be ‘taken in’. Maybe I’d rather stay what I am—a workin’ girl.”

  “Well,” said he, “if you can manage to forget that I was ever a gentleman, I’ll agree never to ask you to be a lady.”

  “Don’t joke about it, Joe!” she pleaded.

  “It does no harm to meet one’s troubles with a smile,” he answered. “I assure you I’m serious enough. The fact that I’ve lived all my life without working, that I’ve travelled on the backs of you and your people, that all the culture, the power and prestige you’ve stood in awe of, have come out of your unrequited labor—that is something I might well be ashamed of; something you might fairly distrust me for, too!”

  He paused.

  “And as for your going in and learning to ‘do’ society—what I’d want you to do, Mary, would be to brand a sign on your forehead: ‘I’m a miner’s daughter!’ Just as a soldier puts on a uniform—so as to give fair notice to the enemy! So, when you go and meet the grand ladies of my world, and they try to snub you, because they know the names of silks and jewels and wines, and you don’t—because they can quote French and eat peas with a fork, and you can’t—well, you’ll not need to give them quarter!”