Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California
The chairman at length rose with the tabulated sheet in his hand and faced his audience.
"Comrades," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that old saying I'll have to repeat, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!' Beyond the shadow of a doubt we shall have to try this election again. If I didn't know by the serious look on your faces that you mean it I'd say off-hand that you were trying to put up a joke on me."
He paused, and a painful silence followed.
"Give us the ballot!" growled the Bard.
Norman looked at the list he held, and in spite of himself, as he caught the gleam of mischief in Barbara's eye, burst into laughter and sat down.
Wolf ascended the platform, glanced over the list and whispered:
"It's a waste of time. Call for the election of an executive council with full powers."
"We'll try once more," Norman insisted, quickly rising.
"Comrades, I'm sorry to say there is no election. We must proceed to another ballot, and if the industries absolutely necessary to the existence of any society are not voted into operation, we must then choose an executive council with full power to act. I appeal to your sense of heroism and self-sacrifice – "
"Give us the ballot! Read it!" thundered the offended poet.
"Yes, read it!"
"Read it!"
The shouts came from all parts of the hall. The crowd was in dead earnest and couldn't see the joke.
Once more the young chairman raised the fateful record of human frailty before his eyes, paused, and then solemnly began:
"In the first place, comrades, more than six hundred ballots out of the two thousand cast are invalid. They have been cast for work not asked for. They must be thrown out at once.
"Three hundred and sixty five able-bodied men choose hunting as their occupation. I grant you that game is plentiful on the island, but we can't spare you, gentlemen!
"Two hundred and thirty-five men want to fish! The waters abound in fish, but we have a pound-net which supplies us with all we can eat.
"Thirty-two men and forty-six women wish to preach.
"We do not need at present hunters, fishermen, or preachers, and have not called for volunteers in these departments of labour.
"Three hundred and fifty-six women wish to go on the stage, and one hundred and ninety-five of them choose musical comedy and light opera. I think this includes most of our female population between the ages of fourteen and thirty-five!"
A murmur of excitement swept the feminine portion of the audience.
"Allow me to say," he went on, "that the most urgent need of the colony at this moment cannot be met by organizing a chorus, however beautiful and pleasing its performances would be. We need, and we must have, waitresses and milkmaids. The chorus can wait, the cows cannot.
"I asked for one editor. One hundred and seventy-five men and sixty-three women have chosen that field. Seventy-five men and thirty-two women wish to be musicians."
"We have looked in vain among the ballots for a single hod-carrier, or ploughman, ditcher, cook, seamstress, washerman or washerwoman, stableman, scrubber, or cleaner. The Brotherhood cannot live a day without them. Remember, comrades, we are to make the great experiment on which the future happiness of the race may depend. Let us forget our selfish preferences and think only of our fellow men. I call for heroes of the hod, heroines of the washtub and the scrubbing-brush and milk-pail, knights of the pitchfork, spade, and shovel. Let hunters, fishermen, preachers, and chorus-girls forget they live for the present.
"This is not a joke, comrades, though I have laughed. It's one of the gravest problems we must face. It has been suggested that we hire outside labour to do this disagreeable work for a generation or two. The moment we dare make such a compromise we are lost forever. We must solve this problem or quit. A second ballot is ordered at once."
Again the orchestra played, the ushers passed the boxes, the vote was taken, and all for naught. Not a single hero of the hod appeared. Not a single heroine of the washtub, the scrubbing-brush, or the milk-pail.
The young chairman's face was very grave when Barbara handed him the results.
She bent and whispered:
"Away with frowns and doubts and fears! There's a better way. A leader must lead. Their business is to follow."
Norman's face brightened. He turned to the crowd, and in tones of clear, ringing command announced:
"Comrades, I had hoped you could choose your work of your own accord. The attempt has failed. Six divisions of labour, each of them absolutely essential to the existence of society in any form above the primitive savage, have not a single man or woman in them."
"We must elect an executive council of four who shall sit as a court of last resort in settling the question of the ability of each comrade and the work to which he shall be assigned. Under our temporary charter the general manager will preside over this court and cast the deciding vote. Nominations are in order for the other four. We want two men and two women in this council. In all our deliberations woman shall have equal voice with man."
The Bard made a speech of protest against the action about to be taken, in the sacred name of liberty.
"This act is the first step on the road to a tyranny more monstrous than any ever devised by capitalism!" he shouted, with hands uplifted, his long hair flying in wild disorder.
Tom Mooney, an old miner, who had met Norman and become his friend during a visit to one of his father's mines, sprang to his feet and made a rush for the excited poet. Confronting him a moment, Tom inquired:
"Kin I ax ye a few questions?"
"Certainly. As many as you like."
"Kin ye cook?"
"I cannot."
"Kin ye wash?"
"No!"
"Kin ye scrub?"
"No, sir."
"Ever swing a hod?"
"I have not."
"Ever milk a cow?"
"No!"
"Are ye willin' to learn them things?"
"I didn't come here for that purpose."
"Then, what t' 'ell ye kickin' about?" Tom cried, and, glaring at the poet, he thundered fiercely:
"Set down!"
The man of song was so disconcerted by this unexpected onslaught, and by the roars of laughter which greeted Tom's final order, that he dropped into his seat, muttering incoherent protests, and the balloting for the executive council proceeded at once amid universal good humour.
A dozen names were proposed as candidates, and the four receiving the highest votes were declared duly elected.
The election resulted in the choice of Herman Wolf, Catherine, Barbara Bozenta, and Thomas Mooney.
Tom was amazed at his sudden promotion to high office, and insisted on resigning in favour of a man of better education.
Norman caught his big horny hand and pressed it.
"Not on your life, Tom. You've made a hit. The people like your hard horse-sense. You will make a good judge. Besides, I need you. You're a man I can depend on every day in the year."
"I'll stick ef you need me, boy – but I hain't fitten, I tell ye."
"I'll vouch for your fitness – sit down!"
The last command Norman thundered into Tom's ears in imitation of his order to the poet, and the old miner, with a grin, dropped into his seat.
As Norman was about to declare the meeting adjourned, the steward ascended the platform and whispered a message.
The young leader turned to the crowd and lifted his hand for silence.
"Comrades, a prosaic but very important announcement I have to make. I have just been informed that there is no milk for supper. The cows have been neglected. They must be milked. I call for a dozen volunteer milkmaids until this adjustment can be made. Come, now! – and a dozen young men to assist them. Let's make this a test of your loyalty to the cause. All labour is equally honourable. Labour is the service of your fellow man. Who will be the first heroine to fill this breach in the walls of our defence?"
Barbara sprang forward, with uplifted head, laughing.
"I will!"
"And I'll help you!" Norman cried, with a laugh. "Who will join us now? Come, you pretty chorus-girls! You wouldn't mind if you carried these milk-pails on the stage in a play. Well, this is the biggest stage you will ever appear on, and all the millions of the civilized world are watching."
A pretty, rosy-cheeked girl joined Barbara.
An admirer followed, and in a moment a dozen girls and their escorts had volunteered. They formed in line and marched to the cow lot with Norman and Barbara leading, singing and laughing and swinging their milk-pails like a crowd of rollicking children.
When they reached the pasture where the cows were herded, Norman asked Barbara, with some misgivings:
"Honestly, did you ever milk a cow?"
"Of course I have," she promptly replied. "I spent two years on a farm once. Do you think I'd make a fool of myself trying before all these kids if I hadn't?"
"I didn't know but that you made a bluff at it to lead the others on. What can I do, for heaven's sake?"
Norman looked at her in a helpless sort of way while Barbara rolled up her sleeves. For the first time he saw her beautifully rounded bare arm to its full length. He stood with open-eyed admiration. Never had he seen anything so white and round and soft, so subtly and seductively suggestive of tenderness and love.
"For heaven's sake, what do I do?" he repeated, blankly.
"Get some meal in that bucket for my cow, and see that her calf don't get to her – I'll do the rest."
Norman hustled to the barn with the other boys, got his bucket of meal, placed it in front of the cow Barbara had selected, and stood watching with admiration the skill with which her deft little hands pressed two streams of white milk into the bucket at her feet.
"Goodness, you're a wonder," he cried, admiringly. "But where's the calf I'm supposed to be watching?"
"I think that's the one standing close to the gate in the next lot watching me with envy. The first time the gate's opened he'll jump through if he gets half a chance – so look out!"
"I'll watch him," Norman promised, without lifting his eyes from the rhythmic movement of the bare white arms.
He had scarcely spoken when a careless boy swung the gate wide open, and the lusty calf, whose soft eyes had been watching Barbara through the fence, made a break for his mother. In a swift, silent rush he planted one foot in Barbara's milk-pail, knocked her over with the other, switched his tail, and fell to work on his own account without further concern. It was all done so suddenly it took Norman's breath. He sprang to Barbara's side and helped her to her feet.
Norman grabbed the calf by the ear with one hand and by the tail with the other, and started toward the gate.
The animal suddenly ducked his head, plunged forward, jerked Norman to his knees, and dragged him ten yards before he could regain his feet. The young leader rose, tightened his grip, and started with a rush toward the gate, but the calf swerved in time to avoid it, gaining speed with each step, and started off with his escort in a mad race around the lot, galloping at a terrific speed, bellowing and snorting at every jump.
The others stopped their work to laugh and cheer as round and round the maddened little brute flew with the tall, heroic leader galloping by his side.
Norman had no time to call for help. He couldn't let go and he couldn't stop the calf.
As he made the second round of the lot, upsetting buckets, smashing milk-pails, and stampeding peaceful cows, a boy yelled through the roars of laughter:
"Twist his tail! Twist his tail an' he'll go the way you want him!"
Norman misunderstood the order, loosened the head and grabbed the tail with both hands. With a loud bellow the calf plunged into a wilder race around the lot, dragging his tormentor now with regular, graceful easy jumps. He made the rounds twice thus, single file, amid screams of laughter, suddenly turned and plunged headlong through an osage hedge, and left Norman sitting in a dusty heap on the ground among the thorns. He rose, brushed his clothes sheepishly, and looked through the hedge at the calf which had turned and stood eyeing him now with an expression of injured innocence.
Barbara came up, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes.
"I've learned something new," Norman quietly observed. "All labour may be equally honourable. It's not equally expedient. I wish you'd look at that beast eyeing me through the fence! It's positively uncanny. I believe he's possessed of the devil. I don't wonder at that belief of the ancients. I've tackled many a brute on the football field – but this is one on me!"
The brilliant young leader of the new moral world led the procession of milkmaids back to the house as the shadows of evening fell, a sadder but wiser man for the day's experience.
CHAPTER XVIII
A NEW ARISTOCRACY
Three members of the executive council, Norman, Barbara, and Tom, began at once the task of assigning work. The problems which immediately faced the council were overwhelming, but they were urgent and could admit of no delay. The absolute refusal of every member of the Brotherhood to do the dirty and disagreeable work brought at once two issues to a crisis. Either labour must be voluntary or involuntary. The people who did this work must be induced to agree to perform it or they must be forced to do it by a superior authority without their consent.
They could only be led to choose this work by inducements of an extraordinary nature – the payment of enormously high wages and the shortening of each day's work to a ridiculous minimum.
If wages were made unequal, the old problem of inequality would remain unsolved. For equal wages no man would lift his hand.
Confronted by this dilemma the executive council decided at once to fix wages on an unequal basis rather than reduce its unwilling members to a condition of involuntary labour, which is merely a long way to spell slavery.
When this decision was announced, Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, once more lifted his voice in solemn protest:
"I denounce this act in the name of every principle which has brought us together," he cried, with solemn warning. "You have established a system far more infamous than the unequal wages of the old society where the law of the survival of the fittest is the court of last resort. You have opened the door of fathomless corruption by substituting the whim of an executive council for the law of nature. It is the beginning of jealousy, strife, favouritism, jobbery, and injustice."
"Then what's a better way?" Old Tom asked, with a sneer.
"It's your business to find a better way," cried the man of visions.
Tom glared at the poet with a look of fury and Norman whispered to the old miner:
"Remember, Tom, you're sitting as a judge in the Supreme Court of State!"
"Can't help it. I never did have no use for a fool. Ef he can't tell us a better way, let 'im shet up."
Barbara pressed Tom's arm, and he subsided.
The court at once entered into the question of wages for domestic service.
It had been agreed, at the suggestion of the Wolfs, that they should spend their time in quietly investigating the qualifications of each member of the Brotherhood for the work to be assigned, and make their reports in secret to the majority of the court, which should sit continuously until all had been decided.
Neither Norman, Barbara, nor the old miner suspected for a moment the deeper motive which Wolf concealed behind this withdrawal from the decision of these cases. They found out in a very startling way later.
The chief cook demanded a hundred dollars a month.
Old Tom snorted with contempt. Norman smiled and spoke kindly:
"Remember, Louis, you only received $75 a month in San Francisco. Here the Brotherhood provides every man with his food, his clothes, and his house. Wages are merely the inducement used to satisfy each individual that labour may still be done by free contract, not by force."
"Well, it'll take a hundred a month to satisfy me," was the stolid reply. "I didn't come here to cook. I could do that in the old hell we lived in. I came here to do better and bigger things. I can do them, too – "
"But we've fixed the salary of the general manager at only seventy-five dollars a month, and you demand a hundred?"
"I do, and if the general manager prefers my job, I'll trade with you and guarantee to do your work better than it's being done."
"Yes, you will!" old Tom growled, as he leaned over Barbara and whispered to Norman.
"Make it thirty dollars a month, and if he don't go to work – leave him to me, I'll beat him till he does it."
"No, we can't manage it that way, Tom. We must try to satisfy him."
"Hit's a hold-up, I tell ye – highway robbery – the triflin' son of a gun! Don't you say so, miss?" Tom appealed earnestly to Barbara.
"We must have cooks, Tom – and we want everybody to be happy."
"Make him cook, make him – that's his business – I'd do it if I knowed how. He's got to take what we give 'im. He can't git off this island. He enlisted for five years. If he deserts, court-martial and shoot him."
In spite of old Tom's bitter protest, Norman and Barbara succeeded in persuading the chief cook to accept eighty-five dollars a month – an advance of ten dollars over the highest wages he had ever received before.
When the eighteen assistant cooks lined up for the settlement of their wages a new problem of unexpected proportions was presented. They had listened attentively to the case of the chef, and their chosen orator presented his argument in brief but emphatic words:
"We demand the exact wages you have voted the chef."
"Well, what do ye think er that?" old Tom groaned to Norman. "Hit's jist like I told ye. Hit's a hold-up."
"We must persuade them, Tom," the young leader replied.
"Let me persuade 'em!" the old miner pleaded.
"How?" Barbara asked, with a twinkle in her brown eyes.
"I'll line 'em up agin that wall and trim their hair with my six-shooter. I won't hurt 'em. But when I finish the job I'll guarantee they'll do what I tell 'em without any back talk. You folks take a walk and make me Chief Justice fer an hour, and when you come back we'll have peace and plenty. Jest try it now, and don't you butt in. Let me persuade 'em!"
Norman shook his head.
"Keep still, Tom! We must reason with them."
"Ye 're wastin' yer breath," the miner drawled in disgust.
"Don't you think, comrades," Norman began, in persuasive tones, "that your demands are rather high?"
"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "We come here to get equal rights. We don't want to cook. I'm a born actor, myself. I expected to play in Shakespeare when I joined the Brotherhood. Anybody that wants this job can have it. If we do your hot, dirty, disgusting, disagreeable work while the others play in the shade we are going to get something for it."
"Even so," the young leader responded, "is it fair that an assistant cook should receive equal wages with the chef?"
"And why not? Labour creates all value. The chef's a fakir. We do all the work. He never lifts his hand to a pot or pan. He struts and loafs through the kitchen and lords it over the men. Let him try to run the kitchen without us, and see how much you get to eat! We stand on the equal rights of man!"
"But my dear comrade – "
"Don't use them words," old Tom pleaded, "jest let me make a few remarks – "
Barbara pinched Tom's arm and he subsided.
"Can't you see," Norman went on, "that we are paying the chef for his directive ability, for his inventive genius in creating new dishes and making old ones more delicious? You but execute his orders."
"We stand square on our principles. Labour creates all values. The chef never works. We make every dish that goes to the table. If it has any value we make it. We demand our rights!"
The court agreed on fifty dollars a month, and the men refused to consider it.
"We prefer to work in the fields, the foundry, the machine-shop, the mills, the forests, anywhere you like except the kitchen. Let the chef do your work. Good day!"
They turned and marched out in a body and sat down in the sunshine.
In vain Norman argued and pleaded. They stood their ground with sullen determination.
A final clincher which the young leader could not evade always ended the argument. The spokesman came back to it with dogged persistence:
"What did you mean, then, when you've been drumming into our ears that labour creates all value? We do all the work, don't we?"
The upshot of it was the eighteen assistant cooks marched back into the hall, stood before the judges, and all were granted equal wages with the chef.
Whereupon the chef sprang to his feet and faced the court with blazing eyes.
"You grant these chumps – these idiots – wages equal to mine? Not one of them has brains enough to cook an egg if I didn't tell him how. Their wages equal to mine. I resign!"
Tom spoke vigorously:
"Now will ye leave him to me?"
Norman and Barbara looked at each other in angry and helpless amazement.
The old miner leaped to his feet, made his way down from the platform, and with two swift strides reached the chef. He leaned close and whispered something in the rebel's ear. There was a moment's hesitation and the chef turned, signalled to his assistants, and amid cheers marched to the kitchen.
Tom resumed his seat beside Barbara with a smile, quietly saying:
"That's the way to do business, ladies and gentlemen!"
"What did you say to him?" Barbara asked.
"Oh, nothin' much," was the careless answer.
"I hope you didn't threaten him, Tom?" Norman asked with some misgiving.
"Na – I didn't threaten him. I spoke quiet and peaceable."
"But what did you tell him?" the young leader persisted.
"I jest told him I'd give him two minutes ter git back ter the kitchen or I'd blow his head off!"
"I'm afraid our table will feel the effects of that remark, Tom," Barbara said, doubtfully.
Next to the question of cooks the most urgent issue to be settled was the case of the scrubbers, cleaners, and drainmen. The women who had been assigned to the tasks of scrubbing the floors, washing the windows and dishes, had watched the triumphs of the cooks with keen appreciation of their own power. It was easy to see that the more disagreeable and disgusting the character of the work, the more extravagant the demands which could be made and enforced. The scrubbers and dishwashers boldly demanded one hundred dollars a month and six hours for a working day, and refused with sullen determination to argue the question.
To Barbara's mild and gentle protest their answer was complete and stunning:
"You have assigned us this dirty job. Do you want it at any price?" asked their orator. "I'll take yours without wages and jump at the chance."
Tom lost all interest in the proceedings and drew himself up in a knot in his chair. Now and then a growl came from the depths of his throat.
Once he was heard to distinctly articulate:
"This makes me tired."
The court begged and pleaded, cajoled, argued in vain with the stubborn scrubwomen. Not an inch would they move in their demands. The floors were becoming unspeakably filthy. They had not been scrubbed since the arrival of the colony.
Norman turned to Barbara.
"Put the question solemnly to ourselves – we don't want the job at any price, do we?"
"I couldn't do it!" she admitted, frankly. "Then what's the use? We must be fair. It's worth what they ask."
The court granted the demands and the scrubwomen and dishwashers marched to the kitchen and once more the chef tore his hair and cursed the fate which brought him to such disgrace as to work with stupid subordinates at equal wages and gaze on dishwashers and scrubwomen whose wages exceeded his own.
The climax of all demands was reached when the drainman demanded a hundred and fifty dollars a month and four hours for each working day.
Norman looked at him in dumb confusion. He knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth and he had no answer.
The drainman bowed low in mock humility, but the proud wave of his hand belied his words.
"My calling was a humble one in the old world, Comrade Judges," he said. "I came here to climb mountain heights and find my way among the stars. You have sent me back to the sewers. I always felt that I had missed my true calling. I've always wanted to be a poet – "
