The Dream of Debs
I awoke fully an hour before my customary time. This in itself wasremarkable, and I lay very wide awake, pondering over it.Something was the matter, something was wrong - I knew not what. Iwas oppressed by a premonition of something terrible that hadhappened or was about to happen. But what was it? I strove toorient myself. I remembered that at the time of the GreatEarthquake of 1906 many claimed they awakened some moments beforethe first shock and that during these moments they experiencedstrange feelings of dread. Was San Francisco again to be visitedby earthquake?I lay for a full minute, numbly expectant, but there occurred noreeling of walls nor shock and grind of falling masonry. All wasquiet. That was it! The silence! No wonder I had been perturbed.The hum of the great live city was strangely absent. The surfacecars passed along my street, at that time of day, on an average ofone every three minutes; but in the ten succeeding minutes not acar passed. Perhaps it was a street-railway strike, was mythought; or perhaps there had been an accident and the power wasshut off. But no, the silence was too profound. I heard no jarand rattle of waggon wheels, nor stamp of iron-shod hoofs strainingup the steep cobble-stones.Pressing the push-button beside my bed, I strove to hear the soundof the bell, though I well knew it was impossible for the sound torise three stories to me even if the bell did ring. It rang allright, for a few minutes later Brown entered with the tray andmorning paper. Though his features were impassive as ever, I noteda startled, apprehensive light in his eyes. I noted, also, thatthere was no cream on the tray."The Creamery did not deliver this morning," he explained; "nor didthe bakery."I glanced again at the tray. There were no fresh French rolls -only slices of stale graham bread from yesterday, the mostdetestable of bread so far as I was concerned."Nothing was delivered this morning, sir," Brown started to explainapologetically; but I interrupted him."The paper?""Yes, sir, it was delivered, but it was the only thing, and it isthe last time, too. There won't be any paper to-morrow. The papersays so. Can I send out and get you some condensed milk?"I shook my head, accepted the coffee black, and spread open thepaper. The headlines explained everything - explained too much, infact, for the lengths of pessimism to which the journal went wereridiculous. A general strike, it said, had been called all overthe United States; and most foreboding anxieties were expressedconcerning the provisioning of the great cities.I read on hastily, skimming much and remembering much of labourtroubles in the past. For a generation the general strike had beenthe dream of organized labour, which dream had arisen originally inthe mind of Debs, one of the great labour leaders of thirty yearsbefore. I recollected that in my young college-settlement days Ihad even written an article on the subject for one of the magazinesand that I had entitled it "The Dream of Debs." And I must confessthat I had treated the idea very cavalierly and academically as adream and nothing more. Time and the world had rolled on, Gomperswas gone, the American Federation of Labour was gone, and gone wasDebs with all his wild revolutionary ideas; but the dream hadpersisted, and here it was at last realized in fact. But Ilaughed, as I read, at the journal's gloomy outlook. I knewbetter. I had seen organized labour worsted in too many conflicts.It would be a matter only of days when the thing would be settled.This was a national strike, and it wouldn't take the Governmentlong to break it.I threw the paper down and proceeded to dress. It would certainlybe interesting to be out in the streets of San Francisco when not awheel was turning and the whole city was taking an enforcedvacation."I beg your pardon, sir," Brown said, as he handed me my cigar-case, "but Mr. Harmmed has asked to see you before you go out.""Send him in right away," I answered.Harmmed was the butler. When he entered I could see he waslabouring under controlled excitement. He came at once to thepoint."What shall I do, sir? There will be needed provisions, and thedelivery drivers are on strike. And the electricity is shut off -I guess they're on strike, too.""Are the shops open?" I asked."Only the small ones, sir. The retail clerks are out, and the bigones can't open; but the owners and their families are running thelittle ones themselves.""Then take the machine," I said, "and go the rounds and make yourpurchases. Buy plenty of everything you need or may need. Get abox of candles - no, get half-a-dozen boxes. And, when you'redone, tell Harrison to bring the machine around to the club for me- not later than eleven."Harmmed shook his head gravely. "Mr. Harrison has struck alongwith the Chauffeurs' Union, and I don't know how to run the machinemyself.""Oh, ho, he has, has he?" said. "Well, when next Mister Harrisonhappens around you tell him that he can look elsewhere for aposition.""Yes, sir.""You don't happen to belong to a Butlers' Union, do you, Harmmed?""No, sir," was the answer. "And even if I did I'd not desert myemployer in a crisis like this. No, sir, I would - ""All right, thank you," I said. "Now you get ready to accompanyme. I'll run the machine myself, and we'll lay in a stock ofprovisions to stand a siege."It was a beautiful first of May, even as May days go. The sky wascloudless, there was no wind, and the air was warm - almost balmy.Many autos were out, but the owners were driving them themselves.The streets were crowded but quiet. The working class, dressed inits Sunday best, was out taking the air and observing the effectsof the strike. It was all so unusual, and withal so peaceful, thatI found myself enjoying it. My nerves were tingling with mildexcitement. It was a sort of placid adventure. I passed MissChickering. She was at the helm of her little runabout. She swungaround and came after me, catching me at the corner."Oh, Mr. Corf!"' she hailed. "Do you know where I can buy candles?I've been to a dozen shops, and they're all sold out. It'sdreadfully awful, isn't it?"But her sparkling eyes gave the lie to her words. Like the rest ofus, she was enjoying it hugely. Quite an adventure it was, gettingthose candles. It was not until we went across the city and downinto the working-class quarter south of Market Street that we foundsmall corner groceries that had not yet sold out. Miss Chickeringthought one box was sufficient, but I persuaded her into takingfour. My car was large, and I laid in a dozen boxes. There was notelling what delays might arise in the settlement of the strike.Also, I filled the car with sacks of flour, baking-powder, tinnedgoods, and all the ordinary necessaries of life suggested byHarmmed, who fussed around and clucked over the purchases like ananxious old hen.The remarkable thing, that first day of the strike, was that no onereally apprehended anything serious. The announcement of organizedlabour in the morning papers that it was prepared to stay out amonth or three months was laughed at. And yet that very first daywe might have guessed as much from the fact that the working classtook practically no part in the great rush to buy provisions. Ofcourse not. For weeks and months, craftily and secretly, the wholeworking class had been laying in private stocks of provisions.That was why we were permitted to go down and buy out the littlegroceries in the working-class neighbourhoods.It was not until I arrived at the club that afternoon that I beganto feel the first alarm. Everything was in confusion. There wereno olives for the cocktails, and the service was by hitches andjerks. Most of the men were angry, and all were worried. A babelof voices greeted me as I entered. General Folsom, nursing hiscapacious paunch in a window-seat in the smoking-room was defendinghimself against half-a-dozen excited gentlemen who were demandingthat he should do something."What can I do more than I have done?" he was saying. "There areno orders from Washington. If you gentlemen will get a wirethrough I'll do anything I am commanded to do. But I don't seewhat can be done. The first thing I did this morning, as soon as Ilearned of the strike, was to order in the troops from the Presidio- three thousand of them. They're guarding the banks, the Mint,the post office, and all the public buildings. There is nodisorder whatever. The strikers are keeping the peace perfectly.You can't expect me to shoot them down as they walk along thestreets with wives and children all in their best bib and tucker.""I'd like to know what's happening on Wall Street," I heard JimmyWombold say as I passed along. I could imagine his anxiety, for Iknew that he was deep in the big Consolidated-Western deal."Say, Corf," Atkinson bustled up to me, "is your machine running?""Yes," I answered, "but what's the matter with your own?""Broken down, and the garages are all closed. And my wife'ssomewhere around Truckee, I think, stalled on the overland. Can'tget a wire to her for love or money. She should have arrived thisevening. She may be starving. Lend me your machine.""Can't get it across the bay," Halstead spoke up. "The ferriesaren't running. But I tell you what you can do. There's Rollinson- oh, Rollinson, come here a moment. Atkinson wants to get amachine across the bay. His wife is stuck on the overland atTruckee. Can't you bring the Lurlette across from Tiburon andcarry the machine over for him?"The Lurlette was a two-hundred-ton, ocean-going schooner-yacht.Rollinson shook his head. "You couldn't get a longshoreman to landthe machine on board, even if I could get the Lurlette over, whichI can't, for the crew are members of the Coast Seamen's Union, andthey're on strike along with the rest.""But my wife may be starving," I could hear Atkinson wailing as Imoved on.At the other end of the smoking-room I ran into a group of menbunched excitedly and angrily around Bertie Messener. And Bertiewas stirring them up and prodding them in his cool, cynical way.Bertie didn't care about the strike. He didn't care much aboutanything. He was blase - at least in all the clean things of life;the nasty things had no attraction for him. He was worth twentymillions, all of it in safe investments, and he had never done atap of productive work in his life - inherited it all from hisfather and two uncles. He had been everywhere, seen everything,and done everything but get married, and this last in the face ofthe grim and determined attack of a few hundred ambitious mammas.For years he had been the greatest catch, and as yet he had avoidedbeing caught. He was disgracefully eligible. On top of his wealthhe was young, handsome, and, as I said before, clean. He was agreat athlete, a young blond god that did everything perfectly andadmirably with the solitary exception of matrimony. And he didn'tcare about anything, had no ambitions, no passions, no desire to dothe very things he did so much better than other men."This is sedition!" one man in the group was crying. Anothercalled it revolt and revolution, and another called it anarchy."I can't see it," Bertie said. "I have been out in the streets allmorning. Perfect order reigns. I never saw a more law-abidingpopulace. There's no use calling it names. It's not any of thosethings. It's just what it claims to be, a general strike, and it'syour turn to play, gentlemen.""And we'll play all right!" cried Garfield, one of the tractionmillionaires. "We'll show this dirt where its place is - thebeasts! Wait till the Government takes a hand.""But where is the Government?" Bertie interposed. "It might aswell be at the bottom of the sea so far as you're concerned. Youdon't know what's happening at Washington. You don't know whetheryou've got a Government or not.""Don't you worry about that," Garfield blurted out."I assure you I'm not worrying," Bertie smiled languidly. "But itseems to me it's what you fellows are doing. Look in the glass,Garfield."Garfield did not look, but had he looked he would have seen a veryexcited gentleman with rumpled, iron-grey hair, a flushed face,mouth sullen and vindictive, and eyes wildly gleaming."It's not right, I tell you," little Hanover said; and from histone I was sure that he had already said it a number of times."Now that's going too far, Hanover," Bertie replied. "You fellowsmake me tired. You're all open-shop men. You've eroded myeardrums with your endless gabble for the open shop and the rightof a man to work. You've harangued along those lines for years.Labour is doing nothing wrong in going out on this general strike.It is violating no law of God nor man. Don't you talk, Hanover.You've been ringing the changes too long on the God-given right towork . . . or not to work; you can't escape the corollary. It's adirty little sordid scrap, that's all the whole thing is. You'vegot labour down and gouged it, and now labour's got you down and isgouging you, that's all, and you're squealing."Every man in the group broke out in indignant denials that labourhad ever been gouged."No, sir!" Garfield was shouting. "We've done the best for labour.Instead of gouging it, we've given it a chance to live. We've madework for it. Where would labour be if it hadn't been for us?""A whole lot better off," Bertie sneered. "You've got labour downand gouged it every time you got a chance, and you went out of yourway to make chances.""No! No!" were the cries."There was the teamsters' strike, right here in San Francisco,"Bertie went on imperturbably. "The Employers' Associationprecipitated that strike. You know that. And you know I know it,too, for I've sat in these very rooms and heard the inside talk andnews of the fight. First you precipitated the strike, then youbought the Mayor and the Chief of Police and broke the strike. Apretty spectacle, you philanthropists getting the teamsters downand gouging them."Hold on, I'm not through with you. It's only last year that thelabour ticket of Colorado elected a governor. He was never seated.You know why. You know how your brother philanthropists andcapitalists of Colorado worked it. It was a case of getting labourdown and gouging it. You kept the president of the South-westernAmalgamated Association of Miners in jail for three years ontrumped-up murder charges, and with him out of the way you broke upthe association. That was gouging labour, you'll admit. The thirdtime the graduated income tax was declared unconstitutional was agouge. So was the eight-hour Bill you killed in the last Congress."And of all unmitigated immoral gouges, your destruction of theclosed-shop principle was the limit. You know how it was done. Youbought out Farburg, the last president of the old AmericanFederation of Labour. He was your creature - or the creature ofall the trusts and employers' associations, which is the samething. You precipitated the big closed-shop strike. Farburgbetrayed that strike. You won, and the old American Federation ofLabour crumbled to pieces. You follows destroyed it, and by sodoing undid yourselves; for right on top of it began theorganization of the I.L.W. - the biggest and solidest organizationof labour the United States has ever seen, and you are responsiblefor its existence and for the present general strike. You smashedall the old federations and drove labour into the I.L.W., and theI.L.W. called the general strike - still fighting for the closedshop. And then you have the effrontery to stand here face to faceand tell me that you never got labour down and gouged it. Bah!"This time there were no denials. Garfield broke out in self-defence -"We've done nothing we were not compelled to do, if we were towin.""I'm not saying anything about that," Bertie answered. "What I amcomplaining about is your squealing now that you're getting a tasteof your own medicine. How many strikes have you won by starvinglabour into submission? Well, labour's worked out a scheme wherebyto starve you into submission. It wants the closed shop, and, ifit can get it by starving you, why, starve you shall.""I notice that you have profited in the past by those very labourgouges you mention," insinuated Brentwood, one of the wiliest andmost astute of our corporation lawyers. "The receiver is as bad asthe thief," he sneered. "You had no hand in the gouging, but youtook your whack out of the gouge.""That is quite beside the question, Brentwood," Bertie drawled."You're as bad as Hanover, intruding the moral element. I haven'tsaid that anything is right or wrong. It's all a rotten game, Iknow; and my sole kick is that you fellows are squealing now thatyou're down and labour's taking a gouge out of you. Of course I'vetaken the profits from the gouging and, thanks to you, gentlemen,without having personally to do the dirty work. You did that forme - oh, believe me, not because I am more virtuous than you, butbecause my good father and his various brothers left me a lot ofmoney with which to pay for the dirty work.""If you mean to insinuate - " Brentwood began hotly."Hold on, don't get all-ruffled up," Bertie interposed insolently."There's no use in playing hypocrites in this thieves' den. Thehigh and lofty is all right for the newspapers, boys' clubs, andSunday schools - that's part of the game; but for heaven's sakedon't let's play it on one another. You know, and you know that Iknow just what jobbery was done in the building trades' strike lastfall, who put up the money, who did the work, and who profited byit." (Brentwood flushed darkly.) "But we are all tarred with thesame brush, and the best thing for us to do is to leave moralityout of it. Again I repeat, play the game, play it to the lastfinish, but for goodness' sake don't squeal when you get hurt."When I left the group Bertie was off on a new tack tormenting themwith the more serious aspects of the situation, pointing out theshortage of supplies that was already making itself felt, andasking them what they were going to do about it. A little later Imet him in the cloak-room, leaving, and gave him a lift home in mymachine."It's a great stroke, this general strike," he said, as we bowledalong through the crowded but orderly streets. "It's a smashingbody-blow. Labour caught us napping and struck at our weakestplace, the stomach. I'm going to get out of San Francisco, Corf.Take my advice and get out, too. Head for the country, anywhere.You'll have more chance. Buy up a stock of supplies and get into atent or a cabin somewhere. Soon there'll be nothing but starvationin this city for such as we."How correct Bertie Messener was I never dreamed. I decided that hewas an alarmist. As for myself, I was content to remain and watchthe fun. After I dropped him, instead of going directly home, Iwent on in a hunt for more food. To my surprise, I learned thatthe small groceries where I had bought in the morning were soldout. I extended my search to the Potrero, and by good luck managedto pick up another box of candles, two sacks of wheat flour, tenpounds of graham flour (which would do for the servants), a case oftinned corn, and two cases of tinned tomatoes. It did look asthough there was going to be at least a temporary food shortage,and I hugged myself over the goodly stock of provisions I had laidin.The next morning I had my coffee in bed as usual, and, more thanthe cream, I missed the daily paper. It was this absence ofknowledge of what was going on in the world that I found the chiefhardship. Down at the club there was little news. Rider hadcrossed from Oakland in his launch, and Halstead had been down toSan Jose and back in his machine. They reported the sameconditions in those places as in San Francisco. Everything wastied up by the strike. All grocery stocks had been bought out bythe upper classes. And perfect order reigned. But what washappening over the rest of the country - in Chicago? New York?Washington? Most probably the same things that were happening withus, we concluded; but the fact that we did not know with absolutesurety was irritating.General Folsom had a bit of news. An attempt had been made toplace army telegraphers in the telegraph offices, but the wires hadbeen cut in every direction. This was, so far, the one unlawfulact committed by labour, and that it was a concerted act he wasfully convinced. He had communicated by wireless with the armypost at Benicia, the telegraph lines were even then being patrolledby soldiers all the way to Sacramento. Once, for one shortinstant, they had got the Sacramento call, then the wires,somewhere, were cut again. General Folsom reasoned that similarattempts to open communication were being made by the authoritiesall the way across the continent, but he was non-committal as towhether or not he thought the attempt would succeed. What worriedhim was the wire-cutting; he could not but believe that it was animportant part of the deep-laid labour conspiracy. Also, heregretted that the Government had not long since established itsprojected chain of wireless stations.The days came and went, and for a while it was a humdrum time.Nothing happened. The edge of excitement had become blunted. Thestreets were not so crowded. The working class did not come uptownany more to see how we were taking the strike. And there were notso many automobiles running around. The repair-shops and garageswere closed, and whenever a machine broke down it went out ofcommission. The clutch on mine broke, and neither love nor moneycould get it repaired. Like the rest, I was now walking. SanFrancisco lay dead, and we did not know what was happening over therest of the country. But from the very fact that we did not knowwe could conclude only that the rest of the country lay as dead asSan Francisco. From time to time the city was placarded with theproclamations of organized labour - these had been printed monthsbefore, and evidenced how thoroughly the I.L.W. had prepared forthe strike. Every detail had been worked out long in advance. Noviolence had occurred as yet, with the exception of the shooting ofa few wire-cutters by the soldiers, but the people of the slumswere starving and growing ominously restless.The business men, the millionaires, and the professional class heldmeetings and passed resolutions, but there was no way of making theproclamations public. They could not even get them printed. Oneresult of these meetings, however, was that General Folsom waspersuaded into taking military possession of the wholesale housesand of all the flour, grain, and food warehouses. It was hightime, for suffering was becoming acute in the homes of the rich,and bread-lines were necessary. I knew that my servants werebeginning to draw long faces, and it was amazing - the hole theymade in my stock of provisions. In fact, as I afterward surmised,each servant was stealing from me and secreting a private stock ofprovisions for himself.But with the formation of the bread-lines came new troubles. Therewas only so much of a food reserve in San Francisco, and at thebest it could not last long. Organized labour, we knew, had itsprivate supplies; nevertheless, the whole working class joined thebread-lines. As a result, the provisions General Folsom had takenpossession of diminished with perilous rapidity. How were thesoldiers to distinguish between a shabby middle-class man, a memberof the I.L.W., or a slum dweller? The first and the last had to befed, but the soldiers did not know all the I.L.W. men in the city,much less the wives and sons and daughters of the I.L.W. men. Theemployers helping, a few of the known union men were flung out ofthe bread-lines; but that amounted to nothing. To make mattersworse, the Government tugs that had been hauling food from the armydepots on Mare Island to Angel Island found no more food to haul.The soldiers now received their rations from the confiscatedprovisions, and they received them first.The beginning of the end was in sight. Violence was beginning toshow its face. Law and order were passing away, and passing away,I must confess, among the slum people and the upper classes.Organized labour still maintained perfect order. It could wellafford to - it had plenty to eat. I remember the afternoon at theclub when I caught Halstead and Brentwood whispering in a corner.They took me in on the venture. Brentwood's machine was still inrunning order, and they were going out cow-stealing. Halstead hada long butcher knife and a cleaver. We went out to the outskirtsof the city. Here and there were cows grazing, but always theywere guarded by their owners. We pursued our quest, followingalong the fringe of the city to the east, and on the hills nearHunter's Point we came upon a cow guarded by a little girl. Therewas also a young calf with the cow. We wasted no time onpreliminaries. The little girl ran away screaming, while weslaughtered the cow. I omit the details, for they are not nice -we were unaccustomed to such work, and we bungled it.But in the midst of it, working with the haste of fear, we heardcries, and we saw a number of men running toward us. We abandonedthe spoils and took to our heels. To our surprise we were notpursued. Looking back, we saw the men hurriedly cutting up thecow. They had been on the same lay as ourselves. We argued thatthere was plenty for all, and ran back. The scene that followedbeggars description. We fought and squabbled over the divisionlike savages. Brentwood, I remember, was a perfect brute, snarlingand snapping and threatening that murder would be done if we didnot get our proper share.And we were getting our share when there occurred a new irruptionon the scene. This time it was the dreaded peace officers of theI.L.W. The little girl had brought them. They were armed withwhips and clubs, and there were a score of them. The little girldanced up and down in anger, the tears streaming down her cheeks,crying: "Give it to 'em! Give it to 'em! That guy with the specs- he did it! Mash his face for him! Mash his face!" That guywith the specs was I, and I got my face mashed, too, though I hadthe presence of mind to take off my glasses at the first. My! butwe did receive a trouncing as we scattered in all directions.Brentwood, Halstead, and I fled away for the machine. Brentwood'snose was bleeding, while Halstead's cheek was cut across with thescarlet slash of a black-snake whip.And, lo, when the pursuit ceased and we had gained the machine,there, hiding behind it, was the frightened calf. Brentwood warnedus to be cautious, and crept up on it like a wolf or tiger. Knifeand cleaver had been left behind, but Brentwood still had hishands, and over and over on the ground he rolled with the poorlittle calf as he throttled it. We threw the carcass into themachine, covered it over with a robe, and started for home. Butour misfortunes had only begun. We blew out a tyre. There was noway of fixing it, and twilight was coming on. We abandoned themachine, Brentwood pulling and staggering along in advance, thecalf, covered by the robe, slung across his shoulders. We tookturn about carrying that calf, and it nearly killed us. Also, welost our way. And then, after hours of wandering and toil, weencountered a gang of hoodlums. They were not I.L.W. men, and Iguess they were as hungry as we. At any rate, they got the calfand we got the thrashing. Brentwood raged like a madman the restof the way home, and he looked like one, with his torn clothes,swollen nose, and blackened eyes.There wasn't any more cow-stealing after that. General Folsom senthis troopers out and confiscated all the cows, and his troopers,aided by the militia, ate most of the meat. General Folsom was notto be blamed; it was his duty to maintain law and order, and hemaintained it by means of the soldiers, wherefore he was compelledto feed them first of all.It was about this time that the great panic occurred. The wealthyclasses precipitated the flight, and then the slum people caughtthe contagion and stampeded wildly out of the city. General Folsomwas pleased. It was estimated that at least 200,000 had desertedSan Francisco, and by that much was his food problem solved. Welldo I remember that day. In the morning I had eaten a crust ofbread. Half of the afternoon I had stood in the bread-line; andafter dark I returned home, tired and miserable, carrying a quartof rice and a slice of bacon. Brown met me at the door. His facewas worn and terrified. All the servants had fled, he informed me.He alone remained. I was touched by his faithfulness and, when Ilearned that he had eaten nothing all day, I divided my food withhim. We cooked half the rice and half the bacon, sharing itequally and reserving the other half for morning. I went to bedwith my hunger, and tossed restlessly all night. In the morning Ifound Brown had deserted me, and, greater misfortune still, he hadstolen what remained of the rice and bacon.It was a gloomy handful of men that came together at the club thatmorning. There was no service at all. The last servant was gone.I noticed, too, that the silver was gone, and I learned where ithad gone. The servants had not taken it, for the reason, Ipresume, that the club members got to it first. Their method ofdisposing of it was simple. Down south of Market Street, in thedwellings of the I.L.W., the housewives had given square meals inexchange for it. I went back to my house. Yes, my silver was gone- all but a massive pitcher. This I wrapped up and carried downsouth of Market Street.I felt better after the meal, and returned to the club to learn ifthere was anything new in the situation. Hanover, Collins, andDakon were just leaving. There was no one inside, they told me,and they invited me to come along with them. They were leaving thecity, they said, on Dakon's horses, and there was a spare one forme. Dakon had four magnificent carriage horses that he wanted tosave, and General Folsom had given him the tip that next morningall the horses that remained in the city were to be confiscated forfood. There were not many horses left, for tens of thousands ofthem had been turned loose into the country when the hay and graingave out during the first days. Birdall, I remember, who had greatdraying interests, had turned loose three hundred dray horses. Atan average value of five hundred dollars, this had amounted to$150,000. He had hoped, at first, to recover most of the horsesafter the strike was over, but in the end he never recovered one ofthem. They were all eaten by the people that fled from SanFrancisco. For that matter, the killing of the army mules andhorses for food had already begun.Fortunately for Dakon, he had had a plentiful supply of hay andgrain stored in his stable. We managed to raise four saddles, andwe found the animals in good condition and spirited, withal unusedto being ridden. I remembered the San Francisco of the greatearthquake as we rode through the streets, but this San Franciscowas vastly more pitiable. No cataclysm of nature had caused this,but, rather, the tyranny of the labour unions. We rode down pastUnion Square and through the theatre, hotel, and shoppingdistricts. The streets were deserted. Here and there stoodautomobiles, abandoned where they had broken down or when thegasolene had given out. There was no sign of life, save for theoccasional policemen and the soldiers guarding the banks and publicbuildings. Once we came upon an I.L.W. man pasting up the latestproclamation. We stopped to read. "We have maintained an orderlystrike," it ran; "and we shall maintain order to the end. The endwill come when our demands are satisfied, and our demands will besatisfied when we have starved our employers into submission, as weourselves in the past have often been starved into submission.""Messener's very words," Collins said. "And I, for one, am readyto submit, only they won't give me a chance to submit. I haven'thad a full meal in an age. I wonder what horse-meat tastes like?"We stopped to read another proclamation: "When we think ouremployers are ready to submit we shall open up the telegraphs andplace the employers' associations of the United States incommunication. But only messages relating to peace terms shall bepermitted over the wires."We rode on, crossed Market Street, and a little later were passingthrough the working-class district. Here the streets were notdeserted. Leaning over the gates or standing in groups were theI.L.W. men. Happy, well-fed children were playing games, and stouthousewives sat on the front steps gossiping. One and all castamused glances at us. Little children ran after us, crying: "Hey,mister, ain't you hungry?" And one woman, nursing a child at herbreast, called to Dakon: "Say, Fatty, I'll give you a meal foryour skate - ham and potatoes, currant jelly, white bread, cannedbutter, and two cups of coffee.""Have you noticed, the last few days," Hanover remarked to me,"that there's not been a stray dog in the streets?"I had noticed, but I had not thought about it before. It was hightime to leave the unfortunate city. We at last managed to connectwith the San Bruno Road, along which we headed south. I had acountry place near Menlo, and it was our objective. But soon webegan to discover that the country was worse off and far moredangerous than the city. There the soldiers and the I.L.W. keptorder; but the country had been turned over to anarchy. Twohundred thousand people had fled from San Francisco, and we hadcountless evidences that their flight had been like that of an armyof locusts.They had swept everything clean. There had been robbery andfighting. Here and there we passed bodies by the roadside and sawthe blackened ruins of farm-houses. The fences were down, and thecrops had been trampled by the feet of a multitude. All thevegetable patches had been rooted up by the famished hordes. Allthe chickens and farm animals had been slaughtered. This was trueof all the main roads that led out of San Francisco. Here andthere, away from the roads, farmers had held their own withshotguns and revolvers, and were still holding their own. Theywarned us away and refused to parley with us. And all thedestruction and violence had been done by the slum-dwellers and theupper classes. The I.L.W. men, with plentiful food supplies,remained quietly in their homes in the cities.Early in the ride we received concrete proof of how desperate wasthe situation. To the right of us we heard cries and rifle-shots.Bullets whistled dangerously near. There was a crashing in theunderbrush; then a magnificent black truck-horse broke across theroad in front of us and was gone. We had barely time to noticethat he was bleeding and lame. He was followed by three soldiers.The chase went on among the trees on the left. We could hear thesoldiers calling to one another. A fourth soldier limped out uponthe road from the right, sat down on a boulder, and mopped thesweat from his face."Militia," Dakon whispered. "Deserters."The man grinned up at us and asked for a match. In reply toDakon's "What's the word?" he informed us that the militiamen weredeserting. "No grub," he explained. "They're feedin' it all tothe regulars." We also learned from him that the militaryprisoners had been released from Alcatraz Island because they couldno longer be fed.I shall never forget the next sight we encountered. We came uponit abruptly around a turn of the road. Overhead arched the trees.The sunshine was filtering down through the branches. Butterflieswere fluttering by, and from the fields came the song of larks.And there it stood, a powerful touring car. About it and in it laya number of corpses. It told its own tale. Its occupants, fleeingfrom the city, had been attacked and dragged down by a gang of slumdwellers - hoodlums. The thing had occurred within twenty-fourhours. Freshly opened meat and fruit tins explained the reason forthe attack. Dakon examined the bodies."I thought so," he reported. "I've ridden in that car. It wasPerriton - the whole family. We've got to watch out for ourselvesfrom now on.""But we have no food with which to invite attack," I objected.Dakon pointed to the horse I rode, and I understood.Early in the day Dakon's horse had cast a shoe. The delicate hoofhad split, and by noon the animal was limping. Dakon refused toride it farther, and refused to desert it. So, on hissolicitation, we went on. He would lead the horse and join us atmy place. That was the last we saw of him; nor did we ever learnhis end.By one o'clock we arrived at the town of Menlo, or, rather, at thesite of Menlo, for it was in ruins. Corpses lay everywhere. Thebusiness part of the town, as well as part of the residences, hadbeen gutted by fire. Here and there a residence still held out;but there was no getting near them. When we approached too closelywe were fired upon. We met a woman who was poking about in thesmoking ruins of her cottage. The first attack, she told us hadbeen on the stores, and as she talked we could picture that raging,roaring, hungry mob flinging itself on the handful of townspeople.Millionaires and paupers had fought side by side for the food, andthen fought with one another after they got it. The town of PaloAlto and Stanford University had been sacked in similar fashion, welearned. Ahead of us lay a desolate, wasted land; and we thoughtwe were wise in turning off to my place. It lay three miles to thewest, snuggling among the first rolling swells of the foothills.But as we rode along we saw that the devastation was not confinedto the main roads. The van of the flight had kept to the roads,sacking the small towns as it went; while those that followed hadscattered out and swept the whole countryside like a great broom.My place was built of concrete, masonry, and tiles, and so hadescaped being burned, but it was gutted clean. We found thegardener's body in the windmill, littered around with empty shot-gun shells. He had put up a good fight. But no trace could wefind of the two Italian labourers, nor of the house-keeper and herhusband. Not a live thing remained. The calves, the colts, allthe fancy poultry and thoroughbred stock, everything, was gone.The kitchen and the fireplaces, where the mob had cooked, were amess, while many camp-fires outside bore witness to the largenumber that had fed and spent the night. What they had not eatenthey had carried away. There was not a bite for us.We spent the rest of the night vainly waiting for Dakon, and in themorning, with our revolvers, fought off half-a-dozen marauders.Then we killed one of Dakon's horses, hiding for the future whatmeat we did not immediately eat. In the afternoon Collins went outfor a walk, but failed to return. This was the last straw toHanover. He was for flight there and then, and I had greatdifficulty in persuading him to wait for daylight. As for myself,I was convinced that the end of the general strike was near, and Iwas resolved to return to San Francisco. So, in the morning, weparted company, Hanover heading south, fifty pounds of horse-meatstrapped to his saddle, while I, similarly loaded, headed north.Little Hanover pulled through all right, and to the end of his lifehe will persist, I know, in boring everybody with the narrative ofhis subsequent adventures.I got as far as Belmont, on the main road back, when I was robbedof my horse-meat by three militiamen. There was no change in thesituation, they said, except that it was going from bad to worse.The I.L.W. had plenty of provisions hidden away and could last outfor months. I managed to get as far as Baden, when my horse wastaken away from me by a dozen men. Two of them were San Franciscopolicemen, and the remainder were regular soldiers. This wasominous. The situation was certainly extreme when the regularswere beginning to desert. When I continued my way on foot, theyalready had the fire started, and the last of Dakon's horses layslaughtered on the ground.As luck would have it, I sprained my ankle, and succeeded ingetting no farther than South San Francisco. I lay there thatnight in an out-house, shivering with the cold and at the same timeburning with fever. Two days I lay there, too sick to move, and onthe third, reeling and giddy, supporting myself on an extemporizedcrutch, I tottered on toward San Francisco. I was weak as well,for it was the third day since food had passed my lips. It was aday of nightmare and torment. As in a dream I passed hundreds ofregular soldiers drifting along in the opposite direction, and manypolicemen, with their families, organized in large groups formutual protection.As I entered the city I remembered the workman's house at which Ihad traded the silver pitcher, and in that direction my hungerdrove me. Twilight was falling when I came to the place. I passedaround by the alleyway and crawled up the black steps, on which Icollapsed. I managed to reach out with the crutch and knock on thedoor. Then I must have fainted, for I came to in the kitchen, myface wet with water, and whisky being poured down my throat. Ichoked and spluttered and tried to talk. I began saying somethingabout not having any more silver pitchers, but that I would make itup to them afterward if they would only give me something to eat.But the housewife interrupted me."Why, you poor man," she said, "haven't you heard? The strike wascalled off this afternoon. Of course we'll give you something toeat."She bustled around, opening a tin of breakfast bacon and preparingto fry it."Let me have some now, please," I begged; and I ate the raw baconon a slice of bread, while her husband explained that the demandsof the I.L.W. had been granted. The wires had been opened up inthe early afternoon, and everywhere the employers' associations hadgiven in. There hadn't been any employers left in San Francisco,but General Folsom had spoken for them. The trains and steamerswould start running in the morning, and so would everything elsejust as soon as system could be established.And that was the end of the general strike. I never want to seeanother one. It was worse than a war. A general strike is a crueland immoral thing, and the brain of man should be capable ofrunning industry in a more rational way. Harrison is still mychauffeur. It was part of the conditions of the I.L.W. that all ofits members should be reinstated in their old positions. Brownnever came back, but the rest of the servants are with me. Ihadn't the heart to discharge them - poor creatures, they werepretty hard-pressed when they deserted with the food and silver.And now I can't discharge them. They have all been unionized bythe I.L.W. The tyranny of organized labour is getting beyond humanendurance. Something must be done.
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
