Part 53 (1/2)
The seats were filled long before the hour set for the meeting and every available foot of standing room was occupied, the corridors of the building were filled, and the streets outside were thronged with groups discussing the possibility of some settlement in low and earnest tones, broken now and then by some strident note of contention or sullen growl of hate. Knowing the interest in the movement throughout the quarter where I lived, and having some curiosity besides to hear what Coll McSheen and the Rev. Dr. Capon had to say, I went early in company with Wolffert and John Marvel, the former of whom was absolutely sceptical, the latter entirely hopeful of permanent results. Wolffert's eyes glowed with a deep but lambent flame as he spoke of ”Dr. Caiaphas.” On arrival at the hall he left us and moved to the front rows. The crowd on the platform represented the leaders in many departments of business in the city, among whom were a fair sprinkling of men noted for their particular interest in all public charities and good works, and in a little group to one side, a small body composed of the more conservative element among the leaders of the workingmen in the city. The whole affair had been well worked up and on the outside it gave a fair promise of success. A number of boxes were filled with ladies interested in the movement and I had not been in the hall five minutes before I discovered Eleanor Leigh in one of the boxes, her face grave, but her eyes full of eager expectation. It was with a sinking of the heart that I reflected on the breach between us, and I fear that I spent my time much more in considering how I should overcome it than in plans to relieve the distress of others.
The meeting opened with an invocation by the Rev. Dr. Capon, which appeared to strike some of the a.s.semblage as somewhat too eloquent, rather too long, and tinged with an expression of compa.s.sion for the ignorance and facility for being misguided of the working cla.s.s. When he began the a.s.semblage was highly reverent, when he ended there were murmurs of criticism and discussion audible throughout the hall. The introductory statement of the reason for the call was made by the Hon.
Collis McSheen, who, as mayor of the city, lent the dignity of his presence to the occasion. It was long, eloquent, and absolutely silent as to his views on any particular method of settlement of the question at issue, but it expressed his sympathy with all cla.s.ses in terms highly general and concluded with an impartial expression of advice that they should get together, provided all could get what they wanted, which appeared to him the easiest thing in the world to do. Following him, one of the magnates of the city, Mr. James Canter, Sr., delivered a brief business statement of the loss to the city and the community at large, growing out of the strike, expressed in figures which had been carefully collated, and closed with the emphatic declaration that the working people did not know what they wanted. One other thing he made plain, that in a strike the working people suffered most, which was a proposition that few persons in the hall were prepared to deny. Then came the Rev. Dr. Capon, who was manifestly the chief speaker for the occasion. His manner was graceful and self-a.s.sured, his voice sonorous and well modulated, and his tone was sympathetic, if somewhat too patronizing. His first sentences were listened to with attention. He expressed his deep sympathy somewhat as the mayor had done, but in better English and more modulated tones, with all cla.s.ses, especially with the working people. A slight cough appeared to have attacked one portion of the audience, but it stopped immediately, and silence once more fell on the a.s.semblage as he proceeded.
”And now,” he said, as he advanced a step nearer to the edge of the platform, and, having delivered himself of his preliminary expressions of condolence, threw up his head and a.s.sumed his best pulpit manner, ”under a full sense of my responsibility to my people and my country I wish to counsel you as your friend, as the friend of the poor”--the slight cough I have mentioned became audible again--”as the friend of the workingman whose interests I have so deeply at heart.”
At this moment a young man who had taken a seat well to the front on the main aisle, rose in his seat and politely asked if the doctor would allow him to ask him a question, the answer to which he believed would enable the audience to understand his position better. The pleasant tone of the young man led the doctor to give permission, and also the young man's appearance, for it was Wolffert.
”Certainly, my dear sir,” he said.
Wolffert suddenly held up in his hand a newspaper.
”I wish,” he said, ”to ask you where you dined last Friday night; with whom?”
The question provoked a sudden outpour of shouts and cheers and cries of derision, and in a moment pandemonium had broken loose. The doctor attempted to speak again and again, but about all that could be heard was his vociferation that he was their friend. Wolffert, whose question had caused the commotion, was now mounted on a chair and waving his arms wildly about him, and presently, moved by curiosity, the tumult subsided and the audience sat with their faces turned toward the man on the chair. He turned, and with a sweep of his arm toward the stage, he cried:
”We don't want to hear you. What have you done that you should give us advice? What do you know of us? When have you ever hearkened to the cry of the dest.i.tute? When have you ever visited the fatherless and the widows in affliction, unless they were rich? When have you ever done anything but fawn on Herod and flatter Pontius? Whom are you here to help and set free to-day? These people? No! High-priest of wealth and power and usurpation, we know you and your friends--the Jesus you ask to free is not the Nazarene, but Barabbas, the robber, promoter of vice and patron of sin!”
His long arm pointed at the platform where sat McSheen, his face black with impotent rage. ”If we are to have a priest to address us, let us have one that we can trust. Give us a man like John Marvel. We know him and he knows us.” He turned and pointed to Marvel.
The effect was electrical. Shouts of ”Marvel! Mr. Marvel! Marvel!
Marvel! John Marvel!” rang from their throats, and suddenly, as with one impulse, the men turned to our corner where John Marvel had sunk in his seat to escape observation, and in an instant he was seized, drawn forth and lifted bodily on the shoulders of men and borne to the platform as if on the crest of a tidal wave. Coll McSheen and Dr. Capon were both shouting to the audience, but they might as well have addressed a tropical hurricane. The cries of ”Marvel, Marvel” drowned every other sound, and presently those on the stage gathered about both McSheen and the rector, and after a moment one of them stepped forward and asked John Marvel to speak.
John Marvel turned, stepped forward to the edge of the platform, and reached out one long arm over the audience with an awkward but telling gesture that I had often seen him use, keeping it extended until, after one great outburst of applause, the tumult had died down.
”My friends,” he began. Another tumult.
”That is it. Yes, we are your friends.”
Still the arm outstretched commanded silence.
He began to speak quietly and slowly and his voice suddenly struck me as singularly sympathetic and clear, as it must have struck the entire a.s.sembly, for suddenly the tumult ceased and the hall became perfectly quiet. He spoke only a few minutes, declaring that he had not come to speak to them; but to be with them, and pray that G.o.d might give them (he said ”us”) peace and show some way out of the blackness which had settled down upon them. He bade them not despair, however dark the cloud might be which had overshadowed them. They might be sure that G.o.d was beyond it and that He would give light in His own time. He was leading them now, as always--the presence of that a.s.sembly, with so many of the leading men of the city asking a conference, was in itself a proof of the great advance their cause had made. That cause was not, as some thought, so much money a day, but was the claim to justice and consideration and brotherly kindness. He himself was not a business man.
He knew nothing of such matters. His duty was to preach--to preach peace--to preach the love of G.o.d--to preach patience and long-suffering and forgiveness, the teaching of his Lord and master, who had lived in poverty all His life, without a place to lay His head, and had died calling on G.o.d to forgive His enemies.
This is a poor summary of what he said very simply but with a feeling and solemnity which touched the great audience, who suddenly crushed out every attempt to contradict his proposition. Something had transformed him so that I could scarcely recognize him. I asked myself, can this be John Marvel, this master of this great audience? What is the secret of his power? The only answer I could find was in his goodness, his sincerity, and sympathy.
”And now,” he said in closing, ”whatever happens, please G.o.d, I shall be with you and take my lot among you, and I ask you as a favor to me to listen to Dr. Capon.”
There was a great uproar and shout; for Dr. Capon had, immediately after John Marvel got control of his audience, risen from his seat, seized his hat and coat and cane, and stalked with great majesty from the platform.
There were, however, a number of other speeches, and although there was much noise and tumult, some advance was made; for a general, though by no means unanimous, opinion was shown in favor of something in the nature of a reconciliation.
As I glanced up after John Marvel returned amid the shouts to his seat, I saw Miss Leigh in one of the boxes leaning forward and looking with kindled eyes in our direction. Thinking that she was looking at me, and feeling very forgiving, I bowed to her, and it was only when she failed to return my bow that I apprehended that she was not looking at me but at John Marvel. If she saw me she gave no sign of it; and when I walked the streets that night, strikes and strikers occupied but little of my thoughts. Unless I could make up with Eleanor Leigh, the whole world might go on strike for me. I determined to consult John Marvel. He had somehow begun to appear to me the sanest of advisers. I began to feel that he was, as Wolffert had once said of him, ”a sort of Ark of the Covenant.”
x.x.xIV
THE FLAG OF TRUCE
My acquaintance was now extending rapidly. I had discovered in the turgid tide that swept through the streets of the city other conditions and moods than those I first remarked: dark brooding shadows and rus.h.i.+ng rapids catching the light, but fierce and deadly beneath; placid pools and sequestered eddies, far apart where the sunlight sifted in and lay soft on the drift that had escaped the flood, touching it with its magic and lending it its sweet radiance. I had found, indeed, that the city was an epitome of the world. It took a great many people to make it and there were other cla.s.ses in it besides the rich and the poor. It was in one of these cla.s.ses that I was beginning to find myself most at home.