The Iron Puddler [31]
needed iron more than we needed education. The proverb says, "Strike while the iron is hot." The country was building, and I gave it iron to build with. Railroads were still pushing out their mighty arms and stringing their iron rails across the western wheat lands. Bridges were crossing the Mississippi and spanning the chasms in the Rocky Mountains. Chicago and New York were rising in new growth with iron in their bones to hold them high. My youth was spent in giving to this growing land the element its body needed.
Now that body was sick. What was the matter with it? Lacking an education, I was unprepared to say. When I left school my theory was that every boy should learn a trade as soon as possible. Now I saw that a trade was not enough. A worker needs an education, also. The trade comes first, perhaps, but the education ought to follow on its heels.
During the next ten years of my life I was a worker and a student, too. My motto was that every one should have at least a high-school education and a trade.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE PUDDLER HAS A VISION
That caravan of railroad cars bearing the happy lodge members to their meeting in the Rockies, had started a train of thought that went winding through my mind ever after. In fancy I saw the envious Bannerman shaking his fist at his thriftier, happier brothers. Should I denounce the banding together of men for the promotion of fun and good fellowship? Were these men hastening the downfall of America as the communist predicted? Is not good fellowship a necessary feeling in the hearts of civilized men?
Love of comrades had always been a ruling passion with me. I joined my union as soon as I had learned my trade, the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers of North America. It was a long name, and we liked every word in it. We felt the glow of brotherhood, and as I said before, we used to share our jobs with the brother who was out of work. The union paid a weekly benefit to men who had to strike for better working conditions. At that time there were no death benefits nor any fund to educate the children of members killed in the mills. When such a death happened, the union appointed a committee to stand at the office window on pay-day and ask every man to contribute something from his wages. There is a charitable spirit among men who labor together and they always gave freely to any fund for the widow and orphans. This spirit is the force that lifts man above the beasts and makes his civilization. There is no mercy in brute nature. The hawk eats the sparrow; the fox devours the young rabbit; the cat leaps from under a bush and kills the mother robin while the young are left to starve in the nest. There is neither right nor wrong among the brutes because they have no moral sense. They do not kill for revenge nor torture for the love of cruelty, as Comrade Bannerman would in praying that the train be wrecked and the rich men burned to death in the ruin. The beasts can feel no pity, no sympathy, no regret, for nature gave them no conscience. But man differs from all creation because he has a moral sense, he has a conscience. My conscience has been a very present thing with me through all my life. I am a praying man. I never take a doubtful step until I have prayed for guidance.
"You'll never get anywhere, Jim," fellows have said to me, "as long as your conscience is so darn active. To win in this world you have got to be slick. What a man earns will keep him poor. It's what he gains that makes him rich." If this is so, the nation with the lowest morals will have the most wealth. But the truth is just the opposite. The richest nations are those that have the highest moral sense.
But this was a great problem for a young uneducated man. To be told by some of my fellows that dishonesty was the only road to wealth, and to be shown in communist documents that the capitalists of America were stealing everything from the workers, put a mighty problem up to me. And that's what made me pray for guidance. I pray because I want an answer, and when it
Now that body was sick. What was the matter with it? Lacking an education, I was unprepared to say. When I left school my theory was that every boy should learn a trade as soon as possible. Now I saw that a trade was not enough. A worker needs an education, also. The trade comes first, perhaps, but the education ought to follow on its heels.
During the next ten years of my life I was a worker and a student, too. My motto was that every one should have at least a high-school education and a trade.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE PUDDLER HAS A VISION
That caravan of railroad cars bearing the happy lodge members to their meeting in the Rockies, had started a train of thought that went winding through my mind ever after. In fancy I saw the envious Bannerman shaking his fist at his thriftier, happier brothers. Should I denounce the banding together of men for the promotion of fun and good fellowship? Were these men hastening the downfall of America as the communist predicted? Is not good fellowship a necessary feeling in the hearts of civilized men?
Love of comrades had always been a ruling passion with me. I joined my union as soon as I had learned my trade, the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers of North America. It was a long name, and we liked every word in it. We felt the glow of brotherhood, and as I said before, we used to share our jobs with the brother who was out of work. The union paid a weekly benefit to men who had to strike for better working conditions. At that time there were no death benefits nor any fund to educate the children of members killed in the mills. When such a death happened, the union appointed a committee to stand at the office window on pay-day and ask every man to contribute something from his wages. There is a charitable spirit among men who labor together and they always gave freely to any fund for the widow and orphans. This spirit is the force that lifts man above the beasts and makes his civilization. There is no mercy in brute nature. The hawk eats the sparrow; the fox devours the young rabbit; the cat leaps from under a bush and kills the mother robin while the young are left to starve in the nest. There is neither right nor wrong among the brutes because they have no moral sense. They do not kill for revenge nor torture for the love of cruelty, as Comrade Bannerman would in praying that the train be wrecked and the rich men burned to death in the ruin. The beasts can feel no pity, no sympathy, no regret, for nature gave them no conscience. But man differs from all creation because he has a moral sense, he has a conscience. My conscience has been a very present thing with me through all my life. I am a praying man. I never take a doubtful step until I have prayed for guidance.
"You'll never get anywhere, Jim," fellows have said to me, "as long as your conscience is so darn active. To win in this world you have got to be slick. What a man earns will keep him poor. It's what he gains that makes him rich." If this is so, the nation with the lowest morals will have the most wealth. But the truth is just the opposite. The richest nations are those that have the highest moral sense.
But this was a great problem for a young uneducated man. To be told by some of my fellows that dishonesty was the only road to wealth, and to be shown in communist documents that the capitalists of America were stealing everything from the workers, put a mighty problem up to me. And that's what made me pray for guidance. I pray because I want an answer, and when it