Youth Challenges Part 8

CHAPTER VI

Malcolm Lightener was not a man to send messages nor to depend upon telephones. He was as direct as a catapult, and was just as regardful of ceremony. The fact that it was his and everybody else's dinner hour did not hold him back an instant from having himself driven to the Foote residence and demanding instant speech with Mr. Foote.

Mr. Foote, knowing Lightener, shrugged his shoulders and motioned Bonbright to follow him from the table.

"If we asked him to be seated and wait," said he, "Lightener would burst into the dining room."

They found their visitor not seated, but standing like a granite monolith in the center of the library.

"Well," he said, observing no formalities of greeting, "you've chucked a brick into the hornets' nest."

"Won't you be seated?" asked Mr. Foote, with dignified courtesy.

"Seated? No, I've got no time for seats, and neither have you, if you would wake up to it. Do you know what you've done with your bullheadedness? You've rammed the automobile manufacturers up against a crisis they've been dodging for years. Needlessly. There was no more need for this strike at this time than there is for fur overcoats in h.e.l.l. But just when the hornets were stirred up and buzzing, you had to heave your brick.... And now we've got to back your play."

"I am not aware," said Mr. Foote, icily, "that we have asked a.s.sistance."

"If the house next to mine catches fire the owner doesn't have to holler to me for help. I've got to help to keep the blaze from spreading to my own house.... You've never thought beyond the boundaries of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated--that's what's the matter with you. You're hidebound. A blind man could see the unions look at this thing as their entering wedge into the automobile industry. If they break into you they'll break into us. So we've got to stop 'em short."

"If we need any help--" Mr. Foote began.

"Whether you need it or whether you want it," said Lightener, "you get it."

"Let me point out to you," said Mr. Foote, with chilly courtesy, "that my family has been able to manage its business for several generations--with some small success.... Our relations with our employees are our own concern, and we shall tolerate no interference.

... I have placed my son in complete charge of this situation, with confidence that he will handle it adequately."

"Huh!" grunted Lightener, glancing at Bonbright. "I heard about THAT.

... What I came to say princ.i.p.ally was: This thing can be headed off now if you go at it with common sense. Make concessions. Get to this Dulac. You can get your men back to work--and break up this union thing."

"Mr. Lightener, our course is decided on. We shall make no concessions.

My son has retained O'Hagan, the strike breaker. To-morrow morning the mills start up as usual, with new men. We have them camped in the yards now. There shall be no compromising. When we have the strikers whipped into their places we'll talk to them--not before."

"What's the idea of putting up the boy as stalking horse? What do you expect to get by hiding behind him?"

"My son was indiscreet. He created a misapprehension among the men as to his att.i.tude toward labor. I am merely setting them right."

"And sewing a fine crop of hatred for the boy to reap."

Mr. Foote shrugged his shoulders "The position of my family has not been doubtful since the inception of our business. I do not propose that my son shall make it so. Our traditions must be maintained."

"If you'd junk a few traditions," said Lightener, "and import a little modern efficiency--and human understanding of human beings--you might get somewhere. You quit developing with that first ancestor of yours.

If the last hundred years or so haven't been wasted, there's been some progress. You're wabbling along in a stage coach when other folks use express trains.... When I met the boy here last night, I thought he was whittled off a different stick from the rest of you.... I guess he was, too. But you're tying a string of ancestors around his neck and squeezing him into their likeness."

"My son knows his duty to his family," said Mr. Foote.

"I didn't have a family to owe duty to, thank G.o.d," said Lightener, "but I spent quite some time figuring out my duty to myself.... You won't listen to reason, eh? You're going to bull this thing through?"

"My son will act as my son should act," said Mr. Foote.

Lightener turned to where Bonbright stood with set face and eyes that smoldered, and studied him with an eye accustomed to judging men.

"There'll be rioting," he said. "Probably there'll be bloodshed.

There'll certainly be a devil of a lot of suffering. Your father is putting the responsibility for it on your shoulders, young fellow. Does that set comfortably on your mind?"

Bonbright was slow to answer. His position was difficult, for it seemed to him he was being asked by a stranger to criticize his father and his family. His own unrest under the conditions which were forced upon him was not to be mentioned. The major point--the conflict between capital as represented by Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, and labor--as represented by the striking employees--he did not understand. He had wanted to understand it; he had felt a human interest in the men, but this was forbidden to him.... Whatever he felt, whatever he thought, whatever dread he might have of the future as it impended over himself--he must be loyal to his name. So when he spoke it was to say in a singularly unboyish voice:

"My father has spoken for me, Mr. Lightener."

For the first time Lightener smiled. He laid a heavy hand on Bonbright's shoulder. "That was well done, my boy," he said. Bonbright was grateful for his understanding.

A servant appeared. "Mr. Bonbright is wanted on the telephone," she said.

It was Rangar. "There's rioting at the plant," the man said, unemotionally. "I have notified the police and taken the necessary steps."

"Very well," said Bonbright. He walked to the library, and, standing in the door, stirred by excitement so that his knees quivered and a great emptiness was within him, he said to his father, "There's rioting at the plant, sir."

Then he turned, put on his coat and hat, and quietly left the house.

There was rioting at the mills! Bonbright was going to see what rioting was like, what it meant. It was no impulse, no boyish spirit of adventure or curiosity, that was taking him, but a command. No sooner had Rangar spoken the words over the telephone than Bonbright knew he must go.

"Whatever is happening," he said to himself, "I'm going to be blamed for it."

With some vague juvenile notion of making himself unrecognizable he turned up the collar of his coat and pulled down his cap....

When still some blocks from the mills a patrol wagon filled with officers careened past him, its gong emitting a staccato, exciting alarm. Here was reality. Bonbright quickened his step; began to run.

Presently he entered the street that lay before the face of the factory--a street lighted by arc lamps so that the scene was adequately visible. As far as the main gates into the factory yards the street was in the possession of the police; beyond them surged and clamored the mob, not yet wrought to the pitch of attack. Bonbright thought of a gate around the corner. He would enter this and ascend to his office, whence he could watch the street from his window.

Before the gate a man sat on a soap box, a short club dangling by a thong from his wrist. As Bonbright approached he arose.

"What you want?" he demanded, taking a businesslike grip on his weapon.

"I want to go in," said Bonbright. "I'm Mr. Foote."

The man grinned. "To be sure, Mr. Foote. Howdy, Mr. Foote. You'll be glad to meet me. I'm Santa Claus."

"I tell you I'm Mr. Foote. I want to go inside."

"And I tell you," said the man, suddenly dropping his grin, "to beat it--while you're able."

Youthful rage sent its instant heat through Bonbright. For an instant he meditated jerking the man from that gate by the nape of the neck and teaching him a lesson with his athletic foot.... It was not fear of the result that deterred him; it was the thought that this man was his own employee, placed there by him for this very purpose. If the guard made HIM bristle with rage, how would the sight of the man and his club affect the strikers? He was a challenge and an insult, an invitation to violence. Bonbright turned and walked away, followed by a derisive guffaw from the strike breaker.

Bonbright retraced his steps and approached the rear of the police.

Here he was stopped by an officer.

"Where you goin'?"