The Conflict [17]
theirs and regulating their own affairs.
She resumed fixing her hair for the night. Her glance bent steadily downward at one stage of this performance, rested unseeingly upon the handbill folded printed side out and on top of the contents of the open drawer. She happened to see two capital letters-- S. G.--in a line by themselves at the end of the print. She repeated them mechanically several times--``S. G. --S. G.--S. G.''--then her hands fell from her hair upon the handbill. She settled herself to read in earnest.
``Selma Gordon,'' she said. ``That's different.''
She would have had some difficulty in explaining to herself why it was ``different.'' She read closely, concentratedly now. She tried to read in an attitude of unfriendly criticism, but she could not. A dozen lines, and the clear, earnest, honest sentences had taken hold of her. How sensible the statements were, and how obviously true. Why, it wasn't the writing of an ``anarchistic crank'' at all--on the contrary, the writer was if anything more excusing toward the men who were giving the drivers and motormen a dollar and ten cents a day for fourteen hours' work--``fourteen hours!'' cried Jane, her cheeks burning--yes, Selma Gordon was more tolerant of the owners of the street car line than Jane herself would have been.
When Jane had read, she gazed at the print with sad envy in her eyes. ``Selma Gordon can think--and she can write, too,'' said she half aloud. ``I want to know her--too.''
That ``too'' was the first admission to herself of a curiously intense desire to meet Victor Dorn.
``Oh, to be in earnest about something! To have a real interest!
To find something to do besides the nursery games disguised under new forms for the grown-up yet never to be grown-up infants of the world. ``And THAT kind of politics doesn't sound shallow and dull. There's heart in it--and brains--real brains--not merely nasty little self-seeking cunning.'' She took up the handbill again and read a paragraph set in bolder type:
``The reason we of the working class are slaves is because we haven't intelligence enough to be our own masters, let alone masters of anybody else. The talk of equality, workingmen, is nonsense to flatter your silly, ignorant vanity. We are not the equals of our masters. They know more than we do, and naturally they use that knowledge to make us work for them. So, even if you win in this strike or in all your strikes, you will not much better yourselves. Because you are ignorant and foolish, your masters will scheme around and take from you in some other way what you have wrenched from them in the strike.
``Organize! Think! Learn! Then you will rise out of the dirt where you wallow with your wives and your children. Don't blame your masters; they don't enslave you. They don't keep you in slavery. Your chains are of your own forging and only you can strike them off!''
Certainly no tenement house woman could be lazier, emptier of head, more inane of life than her sister Martha. ``She wouldn't even keep clean if it wasn't the easiest thing in the world for her to do, and a help at filling in her long idle day.'' Yet--Martha Galland had every comfort and most of the luxuries, was as sheltered from all the hardships as a hot-house flower. Then there was Hugo--to go no further afield than the family. Had he ever done an honest hour's work in his life? Could anyone have less brains than he? Yet Hugo was rich and respected, was a director in big corporations, was a member of a first-class law firm. ``It isn't fair,'' thought the girl. ``I've always felt it. I see now why. It's a bad system of taking from the many for the benefit of us few. And it's kept going by a few clever, strong men like father. They work for themselves and their families and relatives and for their class--and the rest of the people have to suffer.''
She did not fall asleep for several hours, such was the tumult in her aroused brain. The first thing the next morning she went down town, bought copies of the New Day--for
She resumed fixing her hair for the night. Her glance bent steadily downward at one stage of this performance, rested unseeingly upon the handbill folded printed side out and on top of the contents of the open drawer. She happened to see two capital letters-- S. G.--in a line by themselves at the end of the print. She repeated them mechanically several times--``S. G. --S. G.--S. G.''--then her hands fell from her hair upon the handbill. She settled herself to read in earnest.
``Selma Gordon,'' she said. ``That's different.''
She would have had some difficulty in explaining to herself why it was ``different.'' She read closely, concentratedly now. She tried to read in an attitude of unfriendly criticism, but she could not. A dozen lines, and the clear, earnest, honest sentences had taken hold of her. How sensible the statements were, and how obviously true. Why, it wasn't the writing of an ``anarchistic crank'' at all--on the contrary, the writer was if anything more excusing toward the men who were giving the drivers and motormen a dollar and ten cents a day for fourteen hours' work--``fourteen hours!'' cried Jane, her cheeks burning--yes, Selma Gordon was more tolerant of the owners of the street car line than Jane herself would have been.
When Jane had read, she gazed at the print with sad envy in her eyes. ``Selma Gordon can think--and she can write, too,'' said she half aloud. ``I want to know her--too.''
That ``too'' was the first admission to herself of a curiously intense desire to meet Victor Dorn.
``Oh, to be in earnest about something! To have a real interest!
To find something to do besides the nursery games disguised under new forms for the grown-up yet never to be grown-up infants of the world. ``And THAT kind of politics doesn't sound shallow and dull. There's heart in it--and brains--real brains--not merely nasty little self-seeking cunning.'' She took up the handbill again and read a paragraph set in bolder type:
``The reason we of the working class are slaves is because we haven't intelligence enough to be our own masters, let alone masters of anybody else. The talk of equality, workingmen, is nonsense to flatter your silly, ignorant vanity. We are not the equals of our masters. They know more than we do, and naturally they use that knowledge to make us work for them. So, even if you win in this strike or in all your strikes, you will not much better yourselves. Because you are ignorant and foolish, your masters will scheme around and take from you in some other way what you have wrenched from them in the strike.
``Organize! Think! Learn! Then you will rise out of the dirt where you wallow with your wives and your children. Don't blame your masters; they don't enslave you. They don't keep you in slavery. Your chains are of your own forging and only you can strike them off!''
Certainly no tenement house woman could be lazier, emptier of head, more inane of life than her sister Martha. ``She wouldn't even keep clean if it wasn't the easiest thing in the world for her to do, and a help at filling in her long idle day.'' Yet--Martha Galland had every comfort and most of the luxuries, was as sheltered from all the hardships as a hot-house flower. Then there was Hugo--to go no further afield than the family. Had he ever done an honest hour's work in his life? Could anyone have less brains than he? Yet Hugo was rich and respected, was a director in big corporations, was a member of a first-class law firm. ``It isn't fair,'' thought the girl. ``I've always felt it. I see now why. It's a bad system of taking from the many for the benefit of us few. And it's kept going by a few clever, strong men like father. They work for themselves and their families and relatives and for their class--and the rest of the people have to suffer.''
She did not fall asleep for several hours, such was the tumult in her aroused brain. The first thing the next morning she went down town, bought copies of the New Day--for