The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 90

Colonel Stirling turned on him, his face blazing with scorn.

"Votes," he cried. "Do you think I would weigh votes at such a time? There is no sacrifice I would not make, rather than give the order that ends a human life; and you think that paper ballots can influence my action? Votes compared to men's lives!"

"Oh," cried Doggett, "don't come the heavy n.o.bility racket on us.

We are here for business. Votes is votes, and you needn't pretend you don't think so."

Colonel Stirling was silent for a moment. Then he said calmly: "I am here to do my duty, not to win votes. There are not votes enough in this country to make me do more or less."

"Hear him talk," jeered one of the crowd, "and he touting round the saloons to get votes."

The crowd jeered and hissed unpleasantly.

"Come, Colonel," said Kurfeldt, "we know you're after votes this year, and know too much to drive them away. You ain't goin' to lose fifty thousand votes, helpin' scabs to take the bread away from us, only to see you and your party licked."

"No," shouted a man in the crowd. "You don't dare monkey with votes!"

Colonel Stirling turned and faced the crowd. "Do you want to know how much I care for votes," he called, his head reared in the air.

"Speak up loud, sonny," shouted a man far back in the ma.s.s, "we all want to hear."

Colonel Stirling's voice rang quite clear enough, "Votes be d.a.m.ned!" he said, and turning on his heel, strode back past the sentries. And the strikers knew the fate of their attempt to keep out the scabs. Colonel Stirling's "d.a.m.n" had d.a.m.ned the strike as well as the votes.

Dead silence fell on the committee and crowd. Even Company D. looked astounded. Finally, however, one of the committee said, "There's no good wasting time here." Then a reporter said to a confrere, "What a stunning headline that will make?" Then the Captain of Company D. got his mouth closed enough to exclaim, "Oi always thought he could swear if he tried hard. Begobs, b'ys, it's proud av him we should be this day. Didn't he swear strong an' fine like? Howly hivens! it's a delight to hear d.a.m.n said like that."

For some reason that "swear-word" pleased New York and the country generally, showing that even an oath has its purpose in this world, so long as it is properly used. Dean Swift said a lie "was too good to be lavished about." So it is of profanity. The crowd understood Peter's remark as they would have understood nothing else. They understood that besides those rifles and bayonets there was something else not to be trifled with. So in this case, it was not wasted.

And Mr. Bohlmann, Christian though he was, as he read his paper that evening cried, "Och! Dod Beder Stirling he always does say chust der righd ding!"

CHAPTER LVI.

CUI BONO?

Of the further doings of that day it seems hardly necessary to write, for the papers recorded it with a fulness impossible here. The gathering crowds. The reinforcement of the militia. The clearing and holding of Forty-second Street to the river. The arrival of the three barge-loads of "scabs." Their march through that street to the station safely, though at every cross street greeted with a storm of stones and other missiles. The struggle of the mob at the station to force back the troops so as to get at the "rats." The impact of the "thin line" and that dense seething ma.s.s of enraged, crazed men. The yielding of the troops from mere pressure. The order to the second rank to fix bayonets.

The pus.h.i.+ng back of the crowd once more. The crack of a revolver. Then the dozen shots fired almost simultaneously. The great surge of the mob forward. The quick order, and the rattle of guns, as they rose to the shoulder. Another order, and the sheet of flame. The great surge of the mob backwards. Then silence. Silence in the ranks. Silence in the mob.

Silence in those who lay on the ground between the two.

Capital and Labor were disagreed as to a ten per cent reduction of wages, and were trying to settle it. At first blush capital had the best of it. "Only a few strikers and militia-men killed," was the apparent result of that struggle. The scabs were in safety inside the station, and trains were already making up, preparatory to a resumption of traffic. But capital did not go scot-free. "Firing in the streets of New York," was the word sent out all over the world, and on every exchange in the country, stocks fell. Capital paid twenty-five million dollars that day, for those few ounces of lead. Such a method of settlement seems rather crude and costly, for the last decade of the nineteenth century.

Boys all over the city were quickly crying extras of the "Labor-party"

organ, the first column of which was headed:

BUTCHER STIRLING

THE NOMINEE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

SHOOTS DOWN UNARMED MEN

IN

COLD BLOOD.

This was supplemented by inflammatory broadsides. Men stood up on fences, lamp-posts, or barrels, wherever they could get an audience, and shrieked out invectives against police, troops, government, and property; and waved red flags. Orders went out to embody more regiments.

Timid people retired indoors, and bolted their shutters. The streets became deserted, except where they were filled by groups of angry men listening to angrier speakers. It was not a calm night in New York.

Yet in reality, the condition was less serious, for representatives of Capital, Labor, and Government were in consultation. Inside the station, in the Directors' room of the railroad, its officials, a committee of the strikers, and an officer in fatigue uniform, with a face to match, were seated in great leather-covered chairs, around a large table. When they had first gathered, there had been dark brows, and every sentence had been like the blow of flint on steel. At one moment all but the officer had risen from their seats, and the meeting had seemed ended. But the officer had said something quietly, and once more they had seated themselves. Far into the night they sat, while mobs yelled, and sentries marched their beats. When the gathering ended, the scowls were gone. Civil partings were exchanged, and the committee and the officer pa.s.sed out together.

"That Stirling is a gritty bull-dog for holding on, isn't he?" said one of the railroad officials. "It's a regular surrender for us."

"Yes, but we couldn't afford to be too obstinate with him, for he may be the next governor."

One of the committee said to the officer as they pa.s.sed into the street, "Well, we've given up everything to the road, to please you. I hope you'll remember it when you're governor and we want things done."

"Gentlemen," said Peter, "for every surrender of opinion you and the railroad officials have made to-night, I thank you. But you should have compromised twelve hours sooner."

"So as you should not have had to make yourself unpopular?" asked Kurfeldt. "You needn't be afraid. You've done your best for us. Now we'll do our best for you."

"I was not thinking of myself. I was thinking of the dead," said Peter.

Peter sent a despatch to headquarters and went the rounds to see if all was as it should be. Then spreading his blanket in the pa.s.senger waiting-room, he fell asleep, not with a very happy look on the grave face.

But the morning-papers announced that the strike was ended by a compromise, and New York and the country breathed easier.

Peter did not get much sleep, for he was barely dreaming of--of a striker, who had destroyed his peace, by striking him in the heart with a pair of slate-colored eyes--when a hand was placed on his shoulder.

He was on his feet before the disturber of his dreams could speak.

"A despatch from headquarters," said the man.

Peter broke it open. It said:

"Take possession of Printing-house Square, and await further orders." In ten minutes the regiment was tramping through the dark, silent streets, on its way to the new position.

"I think we deserve a rest," growled the Lieutenant-Colonel to Peter.

"We shan't get it," said Peter, "If there's anything hard to be done, we shall have it." Then he smiled. "You'll have to have an understanding hereafter, before you make a man colonel, that he shan't run for office."

"What are we in for now?"

"I can't say. To-day's the time of the parade and meeting in City Hall Park."

It was sunrise when the regiment drew up in the square facing the Park.

It was a lovely morning, with no sign of trouble in sight, unless the bulletin boards of the newspapers, which were chiefly devoted to the doings about the Central Station, could be taken as such. Except for this, the regiment was the only indication that the universal peace had not come, and even this looked peaceful, as soon as it had settled down to hot coffee, bread and raw ham.

In the park, however, was a suggestive sight. For not merely were all the benches filled with sleeping men, but the steps of the City Hall, the gra.s.s, and even the hard asphalt pavement were besprinkled with a dirty, ragged, hungry-looking lot of men, unlike those usually seen in the streets of New York. When the regiment marched into the square, a few of the stragglers rose from their rec.u.mbent att.i.tudes, and looked at it, without much love in their faces. As the regiment breakfasted, more and more rose from their hard beds to their harder lives. They moved about restlessly, as if waiting for something. Some gathered in little groups and listened to men who talked and shrieked far louder than was necessary in order that their listeners should hear. Some came to the edge of the street and cursed and vituperated the breakfasting regiment.

Some sat on the ground and ate food which they produced from their pockets or from paper bundles. It was not very tempting-looking food.

Yet there were men in the crowd who looked longingly at it, and a few scuffles occurred in attempts to get some. That crowd represented the slag and sc.u.m of the boiling pot of nineteenth-century conditions. And as the flotsam on a river always centres at its eddies, so these had drifted, from the country, and from the slums, to the centre of the whirlpool of American life. Here they were waiting. Waiting for what?

The future only would show. But each moment is a future, till it becomes the present.