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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Better days, by Thomas Fitch
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Better days
-       or, A Millionaire of To-morrow
-
-Authors: Thomas Fitch
-         Anna M. Fitch
-
-Release Date: April 14, 2022 [eBook #67835]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading
-             Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
-             images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTER DAYS ***
-
-
-
-
-
-                              BETTER DAYS:
-                                  OR,
-                      A Millionaire of To-morrow.
-
-
-                                   BY
-
-                    THOMAS FITCH AND ANNA M. FITCH.
-
-
-                   “Philosophy consists not
-           In airy schemes, or idle speculations;
-           The rule and conduct of all social life
-           Is her great province. Not in lonely cells
-           Obscure she lurks, but holds her heavenly light
-           To Senates and to Kings, to guide their counsels,
-           And teach them to reform and bless mankind.”
-
-
-                          SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.:
-                       BETTER DAYS PUBLISHING CO.
-                                 1891.
-
-
-
-
-        Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891,
-                            BY THOMAS FITCH,
-    In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.
-
-
-                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-
-
- =PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY,
-             OAKLAND, CAL.
-   PRINTERS, ELECTROTYPERS, BINDERS.=
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-                                  TO THE
-
-                  EIGHT THOUSAND MILLIONAIRES OF AMERICA
-
-                         THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED.
-
-  IF, THROUGH A PERUSAL OF ITS CONTENTS, ONE AMONG THEM ALL SHALL BE LED
- TO SO DISPOSE OF A PORTION OF HIS FORTUNE AS TO HELP THE WAGE-WORKERS OF
- OUR LAND TO HELP THEMSELVES, THEN THESE PAGES WILL NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN
-                                 IN VAIN.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER I.
-              “The earth trembled underneath their feet.”
-
-
-“Chicago,” said Professor John Thornton, “Chicago, my dear doctor, is
-the typical American city. New York and San Francisco may be classed as
-metropolitan. Philadelphia, St. Louis, and New Orleans are local to
-their surroundings; Boston is—Boston, but Chicago is _sui generis_.
-Notwithstanding its large permanent foreign population, and the presence
-of the throngs of strangers attracted by the Columbian Exposition,
-Chicago remains intensely and distinctively an American city.”
-
-“I quite believe you, professor,” said Dr. Eustace. “Certainly in all
-the world elsewhere there is no race track for locomotives, no place
-where iron horses are speeded, and purses of gold and diamond badges
-awarded to the winners.”
-
-“It is an innovation certainly, doctor, but just such a one as might
-have been expected in Chicago. The people of this city have not yet
-passed the _noblesse oblige_ period. You know that in all large cities
-there is liable to come a time when the citizens divide into separate
-communities, usually with separate interests, and without any general
-public spirit. In New York, for instance, Madison Square takes no pride
-in the East River bridge, Avenue A does not care whether the Grant
-monument shall ever be completed, and the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe’s
-Island is as strange to many a resident of Harlem as if she were planted
-on the banks of the Neva. But the people of Chicago, though locally
-divided into Northsiders, and Southsiders, and Westsiders, are joined in
-interest for Chicago against the world. Any project that promises glory
-or profit for the Lake City will cause her citizens to open their pocket
-books. These Illinois Don Quixotes never tire of sounding the praises of
-their Dulcinea, and are ever ready to break a lance in her honor.”
-
-“Is not this race,” said Dr. Eustace, “under the auspices of the
-National Exposition?”
-
-“Not at all,” replied the professor. “As I am informed, a party of
-speculators leased a thousand acres of land here, ten miles from the
-city limits. They have, as you see, inclosed it and provided it with the
-usual buildings, including seats for one hundred thousand spectators.
-The race course is circular in form, four miles in length, and seven
-railroad tracks are laid around it. The officers of the leading railroad
-corporations of the country readily consented to send locomotives and
-engineers here to compete for the prizes offered, and—you witness the
-result. This is the third day of the races, and still the interest seems
-undiminished.”
-
-It was late in the month of July, 1892, and although the World’s
-Exposition was not yet formally opened, tens of thousands of strangers
-thronged the hotels of Chicago and added to the gayety of her streets.
-The great attraction of the day was the locomotive railroad race, and
-about twenty acres of people, representing all nations, filled the
-benches and spread over the outer circle of the great four-mile track.
-
-Seven of the largest locomotives in America, selected or constructed for
-this race, were steaming up and down the tracks, waiting for the signal
-to range themselves under a white cable, which was stretched diagonally
-across the race course at such an angle as to equalize the difference of
-length of inner and outer tracks. Each locomotive was draped with its
-distinguishing colors, worn also by its attendant engineer and fireman.
-The favorite engine in the pool rooms was the Chauncey M. Depew, entered
-by the New York Central Railroad Company.
-
-The furnishings of this engine were of polished silver, with draperies
-of blue silk, and the engineer and fireman wore shirts and caps of the
-same color.
-
-The engine which most attracted the admiration of the throng was the
-Collis P. Huntington, entered by the Southern Pacific Company. All the
-furnishings as well as the wheels of this locomotive were gilded and
-burnished for the occasion. The attendants wore shirts and caps of
-crimson, and the drapery consisted of ropes of crimson roses, the
-freshness of which, while coiled around smoke stack and boiler, was
-accounted for by the fact that they were cut from asbestos cloth made
-and tinted for the purpose.
-
-The directors of the railroad corporations centering in Chicago had
-readily extended aid and co-operation to the company organized in that
-city for the construction and conduct of a locomotive race track, for it
-was conceded that no more instructive school for engineers and firemen
-could have been devised, and that there was no better field in which to
-make experiments in machinery, tests of fuel consumption, and economical
-creation and application of dynamic force. Almost every railroad company
-in the United States and Canada entered one or more locomotives for the
-races, which were advertised for the last week of July, 1892, and,
-notwithstanding the large sums offered for premiums, and the great
-expense of building and maintaining the race course, the enterprise
-proved exceedingly profitable to its projectors.
-
-Among the one hundred and fifty thousand spectators of the contest was
-Professor John Thornton, of Boston, who, ten years before, had been the
-hardworking principal of the Denver public schools, but who, through the
-death of an uncle, inherited a fortune of five millions of dollars, and
-was now one of the solid men and social magnates of the Hub.
-
-During the years of poverty and struggle which antedated Professor
-Thornton’s introduction to the ranks of wealth, he had grown to regard
-very rich men with aversion and contempt. He was fond of quoting the
-aphorism that the Lord expressed his opinion of money by the kind of men
-he bestowed it upon, and he was stout in the belief that any man who, in
-this world of human misery, could make and keep five millions of
-dollars, was too selfish, if not too dishonest, for an associate. He did
-not carry his opinions so far as to refuse the estate which fell to him,
-but he was exceedingly generous with his income, and he never ceased to
-criticise the millionaires.
-
-Professor Thornton was generally regarded by his friends as a Crœsus
-with the instincts of a Bohemian, a sort of gilded _sans-culotte_, with
-very radical opinions and a very conservative bank account.
-
-The professor was accompanied to the race course by his family physician
-and old friend, Dr. Eustace. This gentleman, unlike the professor, was
-optimistic in his views of life. Pessimism, according to his belief,
-might be sometimes necessary for ballast, but as a rule he preferred to
-throw the sand and rocks overboard, and load up with the silks and
-spices of Cathay.
-
-“What a country!” ejaculated the doctor, as, amid the cheers of the
-multitude, one of the locomotives dashed up the track to try her speed.
-
-“It is a great country,” said Professor Thornton, “but will its peace
-and prosperity endure?”
-
-“Why not?” sententiously interposed Doctor Eustace.
-
-“Are we,” replied the professor, “so much wiser than the people of the
-republics which once encircled the Mediterranean, that we can afford to
-disregard the lesson imparted by their history?”
-
-“Do you pretend to compare the ancient civilizations with ours?” queried
-the doctor.
-
-“It may not be gainsaid,” rejoined Thornton, “that our civilization is
-superior to that of the ancients in control and utilization of the
-forces of nature, and it is also true that in the relations of the
-individual to his government the former has gained in freedom and in
-security of personal rights. But otherwise we seem to be traveling the
-same round of national life from infancy to decay, which marked the
-course of Assyria, of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome.”
-
-“But conditions were different with them,” remonstrated the doctor.
-“Rome, even when a republic, was such only in name. There was never any
-basis of universal suffrage. The government of Rome was always a
-military despotism, and her prætorian guard sold the imperial purple,
-and rich men bought it, and she fell because of her corruption.”
-
-“And we have legislators and bosses who sell offices, and ambitious
-incapables who buy them,” answered the professor. “And we are having now
-the same vast accumulations of fortune in individual hands that have
-ever proven the forerunners of national destruction elsewhere. Wealth,
-corruption, weakness, decay, the mob, and the despot have been the six
-stages of national life with other republics, and I doubt whether by
-harnessing steam and electricity to our chariot we shall do more than
-expedite the journey.”
-
-“Professor, you should go out as a missionary to millionaires,”
-interposed the doctor, “and preach to them the doctrines of
-nationalism.”
-
-“Doctor, you are satirical,” replied the professor, “but I am not so
-sure that events are not fast making missionaries of some such doctrine.
-Certainly the pressing problem of the hour is that of dealing wisely and
-justly with the new and unparalleled conditions which vast wealth has
-created throughout the world, and especially in these United States.”
-
-“We shall prove equal to the problem,” said the doctor cheerfully. “A
-people who, North and South, were adequate to the achievements and
-sacrifices of our Civil War, will never allow their government to be
-overturned by a mob, or their politics to be always ruled by a few
-thousand wealth owners. And then the personnels of the pauper and the
-capitalist are ever changing. We have no law of entail by which the
-founder of a fortune can perpetuate it in his descendants. The vices and
-the brainlessness of the sons of rich men will come to our aid, and in
-the third or fourth generation the boatman’s oar and the peddler’s pack
-will be resumed. Let the millionaires add to their millions without
-molestation, say I. They cannot take their gold away with them. It must
-remain here, where it will again be distributed.”
-
-“Doctor,” said the professor solemnly.
-
-“Now, John,” interrupted the doctor, laying his hand familiarly on his
-friend’s shoulder, “possibly the country may be going to ruin, but we
-shall have time to see the race out. They are bringing the locomotives
-in line ready to start. If they should come out close together at the
-end, how are they going to tell which wins?”
-
-“The judge of this race, doctor,” explained the professor, “is
-electrical and automatic and cannot make a mistake. As soon as the
-engines are arranged in line for starting, a wire will be stretched
-across the track behind them. This wire will connect with a registering
-apparatus, dial, and clock in front of the grand stand, and each track
-is numbered. At the signal bell for starting, the clockwork will be put
-in motion. The first locomotive that crosses this wire will, in the act
-of crossing, telegraph the number of its track, close the circuit, and
-stop the clock, thus registering the number of minutes, seconds, and
-quarter seconds consumed in the run.”
-
-“How clever!” said the doctor. “Well, there sounds the signal bell—they
-are off!”
-
-With a shrill shriek of challenge from their throats of steel, like
-unleashed hounds the giants bounded away, gaining speed as they ran. In
-thirty-eight seconds they rounded the curve by the half-mile post
-without much change in their relative positions. The next mile was made
-in fifty-five seconds, with the Chauncey M. Depew, which had the inside
-track, fifty yards ahead of the Collis P. Huntington, and the others all
-the way from fifty to one hundred yards behind. At the third mile post
-the Huntington and the Depew rounded the curve almost side by side, with
-trails of fire streaming from their smoke stacks, and mingling in a
-luminous cloud, which hovered above their distanced competitors.
-
-Then, with thunderous leaps and bounds, they came down the home stretch,
-the one a streak of blue and silver, the other a streak of gold and
-crimson, and the roar of the multitude fairly drowned the shrieking of
-the whistles as engineer James Flanagan, of the Southern Pacific
-Company—his crimson cap gone, his black hair streaming in the wind, and
-his red flannel shirt open at the breast and almost blown from his
-massive white shoulders—rode across the signal wire five feet ahead of
-his competitor, winning the first prize of $10,000 for his company and
-the diamond badge for himself, making the run of four miles in three
-minutes nine and one-quarter seconds, or at a rate of over eighty miles
-an hour.
-
-“It was nothing, sor,” said Flanagan to the vice president of the
-Southern Pacific Company, who climbed upon the cab of the locomotive to
-shake hands with his engineer. “If it wasn’t for the time lost in
-getting under way I’d engage to sind the Collis P. around the four-mile
-track in two minutes and a half. Sure, the machine was never built that
-could catch her on a straight run. She’s a dandy and a darlin’ and a
-glory to old California,” and he patted the throttle valve
-affectionately.
-
-“Flanagan,” said Vice President Crocker, “the owners of this race track
-have made one mistake They give the diamond badge, worth $1,000, to the
-engineer, and the purse of $10,000 to the company. Suppose we trade and
-let the company take the badge and you take the purse.”
-
-“Oh, more power to you, Misther Crocker,” said the delighted engineer.
-“It’s thrade I will, and may you live until I offer to thrade back, and
-whin you die may you go straight up, wid never a hot box to delay you on
-your run to glory. I’ll give twinty-five hundred dollars of the money to
-Dan Nilson, that shoveled the coals unther the boiler, like the good man
-he is, and wid the balance I’ll buy a chicken ranch in Alameda that will
-be the makin’ of Missis Flanagan and the kids.”
-
-On the bench behind the professor and the doctor two men were seated
-engaged in earnest conversation.
-
-“I am not asserting,” said one, “that the ore is so very rich. It will
-average fifteen per cent in copper carbonates, and that is good enough
-for anybody. But I do say that the lode is an immense one.”
-
-“How long do you suppose it would last, Bob, with a dozen forty-ton
-furnaces at work on it?”
-
-“Last? why, if you had Niagara for a water-power, and the State of
-Colorado for a dumping-ground, and hades for a smelting furnace, you
-couldn’t work that ledge out in a million years.”
-
-“Well, Bob,” laughed the other man, “I will go and look at your mine.
-Can you start to-night?”
-
-“Your time is mine,” was the response.
-
-“Very good; shall we go by the Iron Mountain route, or by Kansas City?”
-
-“I will have to go by some other route than either,” was the reply. “I
-cannot cross the State of Missouri; I am honorably dead there.”
-
-“Honorably dead?”
-
-“Yes, sir. It was this way: I lived at Atchison for a while when I was a
-young fellow, and Abe Simmons and me were always at outs about
-something, and at last we quarreled in dead earnest about a girl, and he
-sent me a challenge to fight a duel. I always held that dueling was a
-fool way to settle things, but I wasn’t going to take water for no
-Missourian, and so I placed myself in the hands of my second, as they
-call it among the chivs.
-
-“Well, Abe’s second and my second were good friends of both of us, and
-they were in for a sort of a lark, and they fixed it up to paint two
-life-sized pictures, one of Abe and one of me, on the door of an old
-stable, and we was each to fire at the picture of the other at the word.
-They had three doctors to examine the wounds on the paintings, and if
-they decided that the wound was mortal, then the fellow whose picture
-was killed had to consider himself honorably dead, and was to leave
-Missouri and never return. If the wound was not mortal, he had to lay up
-and keep his bed for such time as the doctors agreed would be necessary.
-
-“Well, sir, they made a circus of us, that’s a fact. We both signed a
-paper agreeing on honor to carry out the arrangement, and we went out
-one broiling afternoon in August in pursuit of each other’s gore. The
-boys had passed the word, and we played to a bigger audience than was
-ever at a Democratic barbecue. I was the best shot, but I was getting
-ashamed of the whole business, and I fired in a hurry, and only plugged
-Abe’s picture through its gambrel joint. He took a dead sight and shot
-my picture plumb through the heart. I wanted three days to settle my
-business, but the doctors decided that the weather was so hot I wouldn’t
-keep more than twelve hours, and accordingly I lit out for Pike’s
-Peak—as it was then called—the next morning, and I have never touched
-the soil of Missouri since.”
-
-“How about Abe?”
-
-“The doctors agreed that he had to go on crutches for three months, and
-the boys laughed at him—so I heard—so much that at the end of the second
-week he limped out to his father’s ranch, and stayed there until his
-time was up, when he went to St. Louis.”
-
-“And the girl?”
-
-“Well, of course I was a corpse, and she had no use for me, and Abe had,
-before the duel, invited her to a dance, and, naturally, being a
-cripple, he couldn’t go, and she allowed that she would neither go to a
-dance or tie herself for life to a man with a lame leg, and she married
-another fellow altogether. But you see I cannot honorably go into
-Missouri unless I can travel on a corpse ticket.”
-
-“Well, Bob, your remains shall not violate your pledge. We will keep out
-of Missouri this trip.”
-
-“All right, Mr. Morning.”
-
-The professor turned at the sound of the name, and, looking his neighbor
-in the face, exclaimed:—
-
-“David Morning, have you altogether forgotten an old friend? True, it is
-nearly ten years since I saw you last, in Denver, but surely I have not
-changed so very much since then?”
-
-“Forgotten you, Professor Thornton?” replied the party addressed, as he
-shook hands warmly, “forgotten you? no, indeed. I do not need to ask if
-you are well—and your wife and daughter? Are they both with you?”
-
-“Both are in Boston, and well, thank you. Do you remain long in
-Chicago?”
-
-“I leave to-night for the West. Pray convey to your family my
-remembrances and regards.”
-
-“I will not fail to do so.”
-
-“The crowd seems to be going, professor; I suppose we must say good-by.”
-
-“Good-by, then, and a pleasant journey to you.”
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER II.
-               “The light that shone when hope was born.”
-
-
-In the early dawn of an August day in the year of grace eighteen hundred
-and ninety-two, David Morning stepped through the French window of his
-bedroom out upon the broad and sheltered piazza of the railroad station
-hotel at Tucson, Arizona.
-
-A mass of straight brown hair crowned rather than shaded a broad, high
-brow, over the surface of which thought and time had indented a few
-lines which gave strength and meaning to the face. Eyes of sea gray hue,
-as candid and as translucent as the deeps which they resembled, were
-divided by a nose somewhat too thick at the base for perfect features
-but running to an aquiline point, with the thin and flexible nostrils of
-the racer. A short upper lip was covered with a luxuriant chestnut brown
-mustache, shading a chin which, though long and resolute and firmly
-upheld against the upper lip, was yet divided by a deep dimple which
-quivered with sensitiveness. A thick-set but graceful and erect figure,
-clothed in a suit of dark blue flannel, completed the _tout ensemble_ of
-the subject of our sketch, who, with thirty-two years of human
-experience behind him, had stepped five hours before from the West-bound
-Pullman sleeper.
-
-David Morning—the only child of a Connecticut father and a Knickerbocker
-mother—was born and passed the days of his boyhood in the city of New
-York, where he was a pupil of the public schools, and where he was
-making preparation for entering upon a course at Yale, when, at sixteen
-years of age, the sudden death of his father, followed within a
-fortnight by that of his mother, compelled him to surrender his studies
-and seek a means of livelihood.
-
-A distant relative offered him a place as clerk in a general merchandise
-store in Southern Colorado, whither the lad journeyed. For two years he
-faithfully served his employer. Always of an exploring and adventurous
-disposition, he had, while “geologizing”—as he called it—in the
-neighboring hills, in company with a prospector who had taken a fancy to
-“the kid,” discovered a quartz lode, which his companion located on
-joint account, David being under age. This location was soon afterwards
-sold to an Eastern company for the sum of $20,000, of which the lad
-received one-half. Declining several friendly offers to invest the money
-in promising mines, he wisely determined to return East and resume the
-studies which had been interrupted by the death of his parents; but,
-guided by his Colorado experience, and having a strong inclination for
-the vocation of a mining engineer, he determined to study in special
-lines which were outside of the usual collegiate course. He had not
-deemed it necessary to leave his own country to obtain the necessary
-instruction, and, four years later, he found himself with $5,000 left of
-his capital, with no knowledge of the Greek alphabet and but small
-acquaintance with Latin, yet able to speak and write fluently French,
-Spanish, and German, and possessed of a good knowledge of geology,
-metallurgy, chemistry, and both civil and mechanical engineering, and
-with a cultivated as well as a natural taste for politico-economic
-science.
-
-At twenty-two years of age, having completed his studies, David Morning
-located in Denver, adopted the profession of a civil and mining
-engineer, and promptly proceeded to fall in love with the only daughter
-of Professor John Thornton, the principal of the Denver public schools.
-
-Ellen Thornton at seventeen gave abundant promise of the splendid
-womanhood that was to follow. Above the middle height, slender in form,
-and graceful in carriage, with a broad, low brow crowned with silky,
-lustrous, dark hair, and eyes of chestnut brown, that, in moments of
-inspiration, grew radiant as stars, she captivated the young engineer
-and was readily captivated by him in turn. An engagement of marriage
-followed, to be fulfilled as soon as the clientage of Morning should be
-sufficient to warrant the union.
-
-But business comes slowly to young men of two and twenty, and Ellen’s
-mother grew impatient of the fetters which she deemed kept her charming
-daughter from more advantageous arrangements. Ellen was proud-spirited
-and ambitious, and, although she was earnest and conscientious, she was
-not so stable of purpose as to be unaffected by the arguments and
-appeals of her mother. At times she was sure that she loved David
-Morning, and at other times she was not so sure that her love was of
-that enduring and devoted character which a wife should feel for her
-husband. Her reading had created in her mind a conception of an ideal
-passion which she could not feel had as yet come into her life. She
-believed that her affianced had undeveloped powers that would some day
-bring him fame and fortune, and again she was not so sure that he
-possessed the tact and persistence to utilize his powers to the best
-advantage. This doubt would not have deterred her from fulfilling her
-engagement of marriage if she had been entirely certain of her love for
-him. But she was divided by doubts as to whether the affection she felt
-was really the ideal and exalted passion of her dreams, or only a strong
-desire for a companionship which she found to be exceedingly pleasant.
-
-She was not quite certain in all things of her affianced, not quite
-certain of herself, not quite certain of anything, and one day, yielding
-to an irresistible impulse of doubt and hesitancy, she asked to be
-released from her engagement.
-
-Morning was amazed, indignant, and almost heartbroken at her request.
-Had he been of riper age and experience he would have known how to allow
-for the doubts and self-questionings of a young girl in her first love
-affair, but he was as unsophisticated as she, and more secure in his own
-possession of himself. Frank and proud, he took her at the word, which
-she regretted almost as soon as it was uttered. He neither sued nor
-remonstrated, but with only a “God bless you” and a “good-by,” and
-without even a request for a parting kiss, which, if given, might have
-opened the way to a better understanding, he hurriedly left the house.
-
-The next day he was on his way to Leadville, in fulfillment of a
-professional engagement, and when he returned two weeks later he found
-that his former affianced had accompanied her parents to Boston, where
-Professor Thornton had been suddenly called by the death of a relative,
-to whose large fortune he succeeded.
-
-Our hero did not despair, and, having no natural inclination for
-dissipation, did not make his rejection an excuse and an opportunity for
-self-indulgence. He was of an intense and earnest nature, and he was
-really in love with the girl who had discarded him, but life was not
-dead of duty or achievement to him because of her loss, which he looked
-upon as final, for her newly-acquired position as a wealthy heiress made
-it impossible to his self-respect to seek a reconciliation. He applied
-himself with assiduity and industry to his profession, and soon became
-an exceedingly skillful and reliable mining expert.
-
-Ability to comprehend the story written upon the rocks cannot always be
-gained by study or experience. At last it is a “faculty,” rather than
-the result of reading or training. Fire and flood, oxygen and
-electricity, the tempests of the air and the volcanic throbbings of the
-earth, have been busy for ages with the quartz lode, and have left their
-marks upon it. It is possible sometimes to decipher these hieroglyphics
-so as to answer with a degree of accuracy the ever-recurring question,
-“Will it pay to work?” Yet such possibility cannot be reduced to a
-science. Professors of geology and metallurgy are often wrong in their
-conclusions, and even old prospectors are frequently at fault.
-
-Go across a piece of marsh land on a spring morning accompanied by a
-bull-dog and a Gordon setter. The former will flush no snipe save those
-he may fairly run over as he trots along. But the fine nose of the dog
-with the silky auburn coat will catch the scent of the wary bird, and
-follow it here and there around tufts of marsh grass and across strips
-of meadow, until the sagacious canine shall be seen outlined against
-earth and sky. It is difficult to be certain of anything in this world
-of human deceptions, but one may be absolutely sure under such
-circumstances that the dog will not lie, and that he cannot be mistaken.
-There is a snipe within a few yards of that dog in the direction in
-which his nose is pointed. If the sportsman fails to secure the bird,
-the fault will be with his aim or his fowling-piece—the dog has done his
-part.
-
-Some men—even among experienced miners—have the bull-dog’s obtuseness,
-and some have an eye for quartz equal to the nose of a pointer for
-snipe. David Morning was of this latter class, and to the thorough
-training which he had received during his four years’ studies he
-speedily added that practical knowledge of the rocks which, guided by
-natural aptitudes and intuitions, will enable the wooer of the hills to
-gain their golden favors. His honesty, good judgment, and fidelity
-caused his services to be eagerly sought by the mining companies,
-which—after the Leadville discoveries—abounded in Colorado, and at the
-date at which our narrative opens he had acquired a fortune of about
-$300,000, which was invested mainly in mortgages upon business property
-in Denver. But he made no attempt at further attendance on Cupid’s
-court, and, indeed, gave but little attention to society.
-
-Yet, while the physical Ellen Thornton thus passed out of the young
-man’s life, there came into his soul instead an ideal, whose influence
-was ever an inspiration to higher thinking, purer life, gentler
-judgments, and loftier deeds. Well has the poet said, “’Tis better to
-have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” No man can be
-possessed by love for a good woman without being thereby moved upward on
-all the lines of existence. Damps cannot dim the diamond; its facets and
-angles of fire will never permit the fog to abide with them. From the
-hour that his heart is touched with the electric passion, the lover is
-in harmony with all delights.
-
-The waters tinkle and the lark sings for him with sweeter notes, while
-the sunlight is more radiant, and the hills are robed with a softer
-purple. The woman who has evoked the one passion of a man’s life may
-become as dead to him as the occupant of an Etruscan tomb, but the love
-itself will abide with him to enrich his life, and journey with him into
-the other country.
-
-David Morning found in books the most pleasant and absorbing
-companionship, and those who gained admittance to his library were
-surprised to learn that there was a dreamy, speculative, poetical side
-to the busy, practical mining engineer. All the great authors on mental,
-moral, and political economy were well-thumbed comrades, and the covers
-of the leading English and German poets and essayists were free from
-dust. Especially was he a close and interested student of social
-science, and he had his theories concerning changes of various natures
-in society and governments which might ameliorate the condition and
-elevate the lives and purposes of mankind.
-
-In religion Morning was neither an accepter nor an agnostic. His reading
-taught him that all religions inculcate the righteousness of truth,
-honesty, and unselfishness, and that any form of faith in the hereafter
-is better for the world than no faith at all. The Persian who bowed
-devoutly to the highest material sign of Deity, the sun, was thereby
-filled with a spirit which made him readier to relieve the misery of his
-brother. The Egyptian who brought tribute to the priests of Isis and
-Osiris, was the better for his self-denial. The Greek who believed in
-Minerva was a closer student. Odin’s followers scorned a lie. Confucius
-taught love of home and kindred. Mahomet prescribed temperance, and the
-pure and gentle faith of Buddha in its benefactions to the human race
-has been exceeded only by the benign power of the religion of Jesus.
-
-Skeptics strengthen their scoffings by recounting the wars and
-cruelties—in bygone centuries—of zealots insane with fervor. But these
-are only spots upon the sun. The rusty thumbscrews of the Inquisition,
-and the ashes of the fires amid which Servetus perished—fires unkindled
-and dead for three hundred years—may be forgotten when one considers the
-hospitals, and schools, and houses of shelter which now link their
-shadows across continents.
-
-A few days before, while attending the locomotive races in Chicago,
-Morning had met an old mining friend, at whose earnest insistence he had
-been induced to visit and examine, with a view of purchasing, a large
-and promising ledge of copper in the Santa Catalina Mountains. It was
-the pursuit of this purpose that had brought him to Tucson.
-
-From his seat on the hotel piazza David Morning gazed into the little
-triangular garden beneath, with its splashing fountain guarded by
-fragrant honey locust trees, its close-knit, dark green lawn of
-Australian grass, and its collection of weird and ugly cacti,
-transplanted from their native sand for the edification of passing
-tourists.
-
-Then, raising his eyes, he beheld the ancient adobe pueblo, with a few
-belated saloon lights blinking through the murk, which was now slowly
-changing into ashen dawn. In the east a pencil line of light was
-beginning to glow, and to the northward the blackish purple of the Santa
-Catalina Range upreared itself against the night sky.
-
-In yonder mountains, as tenantless, as forbidding, as inaccessible, and
-almost as unexplored as when they were first upheaved from the tortured
-breast of chaos, there reposed the golden power which, in the hands of
-David Morning, was to change the economic and social relations of
-mankind, and, possibly, the governments, the boundaries, and the history
-of nations.
-
-Nothing of these ripening purposes of Omniscience were then revealed to
-the soul of our hero; none of them even rested in his dreams. Yet the
-nations, weary of centuries of error, centuries of wrong, centuries of
-toil and tears and martyrdom, were waiting, even as he was waiting
-before commencing his work, for the light which every moment grew
-brighter in its scarlet beauty against the eastern horizon—the light
-which was to guide humanity to its destiny of better days.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER III.
-                “The storm is abroad in the mountains.”
-
-
-The Santa Catalina Mountains, although commonly designated as a part of
-the Sierra Madres, are, in truth, a small, isolated range, towering to a
-height of seven or eight thousand feet above the surrounding plains.
-They are steep, rugged, and practically inaccessible, except at the
-eastern end, where they may be entered through a long, narrow, crooked
-canyon, which runs from the plain or mesa to within a short distance of
-the summit. This canyon widens at intervals into small valleys, few of
-which exceed a dozen acres in extent, and through it the Rillito, a
-mountain stream, carrying, ordinarily, about five hundred miner’s inches
-of water, tumbles and splashes. Along and above the bed of this stream,
-at a height of fifty feet or more, in order to avoid the freshets
-created by the summer rains, runs a very primitive wagon road, which was
-constructed for the purpose of allowing supplies to be transported to
-the miners, who, during the era of high prices for copper, were engaged
-in taking ore from the carbonate lodes which exist in abundance in a
-range of hills half way to the summit and ten miles from the mouth of
-the canyon.
-
-The lower hills of the Santa Catalinas are covered with a scant growth
-of mesquite and palo verde, along the Rillito there is a fringe of
-willows and cottonwoods, and near the summit is a large body of pine
-timber, but its practical inaccessibility and distance from any
-available market have protected it from the woodman’s ax. The absence of
-any extent of agricultural or grazing land in the Santa Catalinas has
-proven a bar to their occupation by settlers, and their isolation,
-rugged nature, and unpromising geological formation, have deterred
-prospectors from thoroughly exploring them. Such searchers for treasure
-as visited them always returned with a verdict of “no good,” until a
-_quasi_ understanding was reached by the miners and prospectors of
-Arizona that it was useless to waste time looking for gold or silver in
-their fastnesses.
-
-Above the copper belt no prospector was ever able to find trace or color
-of any metal, and the low price of copper and the high charges for
-railroad freight which prevailed in 1883 and succeeding years, caused
-abandonment of the rude workings for that metal, and at the date of the
-opening of our narrative it might have been truly said that the entire
-Santa Catalina Range was without an occupant.
-
-At the western and southern end of the range its summit and rim consist
-of a huge basaltic formation, towering perpendicularly one thousand
-feet, upon the apex of which probably no human footstep was ever placed,
-for its character excluded all probability of quartz being found there,
-even by the Arizona prospector, who will climb to any place that can be
-reached by a goat or an eagle, if so be silver and not scenery entice
-him.
-
-In the spring of 1892 Robert Steel, who, in years gone, had acted as
-superintendent of a copper company operating in the Santa Catalinas, and
-was familiar with the ground, had been inspired by a considerable
-advance in the price of copper to visit the scene of his former labors
-and relocate the abandoned claims. It was at his solicitation and
-representations that David Morning, who had known him well in Colorado,
-was induced to take a trip to Arizona to examine the properties.
-
-Robert Steel was designated by those who knew him best as “a true
-fissure vein.” With hair that was unmistakably red, and eyes that were
-blue as the sky, with the upper part of his face covered with tan and
-freckles, and the lower part disguised by a heavy brick-red beard, his
-personal appearance was not entirely prepossessing to the casual
-observer. But under the husk of roughness was a heart both tender and
-true, a loyalty that would never tire, a thorough knowledge of his
-business as a miner, and a tried and dauntless courage that, in the
-performance of duty, would, to quote the vernacular of the Arizonian,
-“have fought a rattlesnake, and given the snake the first bite.”
-
-He carried his forty years with the vigor of a boy, and his occasional
-impecuniosity, which he accounted for incorrectly by saying that he “had
-been agin faro,” was in fact the result of continued investments in
-giving an education to his two young brothers, and furnishing a
-comfortable home and support for his parents and sisters in Wisconsin.
-
-There are many Robert Steels to be found among the prospectors of the
-far West. They are the brightest, bravest, most generous, enterprising,
-and energetic men on earth. They are the Knights Paladin, who challenge
-the brute forces of nature to combat, the soldiers who, inspired by the
-_aura sacra fames_, face the storm and the savage, the desert and
-disease. They crawl like huge flies upon the bald skulls of lofty
-mountains; they plod across alkaline deserts, which pulse with deluding
-mirages under the throbbing light; they smite with pick and hammer the
-adamantine portals of the earth’s treasure chambers, and at their “open
-sesame” the doors roll back and reveal their stores of wealth.
-
-They are readier with rifle or revolver than with scriptural quotation,
-and readier yet with “coin sack” at the call of distress, and they are
-not always unaccustomed to the usages of polite society, though they
-scorn other than their occasional exercise. Under the gray shirts may be
-found sometimes graduates from Yale, and sometimes fugitives from Texas,
-but always hearts that pulse to the appeals of friendship or the cries
-of distress, even “as deeps answer to the moon.”
-
-Among these pioneers no one man assumes to be better than another, and
-no man concedes his inferiority to anybody. In the last forty years they
-have carried the civilization, the progress, and the power of the
-nineteenth century to countries which were beforetime unexplored. In
-their efforts some have found fortune and some have found unmarked
-graves upon the hillside. Some with whitened locks but spirits yet
-aflame continue the search for wealth, and some, wearied of the search,
-patiently await the summons to cross the ridge. Wherever they roam, and
-whether they spin the woof of rainbows upon this or upon the other side,
-they will be happy, for they will be busy and hopeful, and labor and
-hope carry their heaven with them evermore.
-
-Two days after the arrival of David Morning at Tucson he left for the
-Santa Catalinas. The party consisted of Morning and Steel and two miners
-who were employed for the expedition. A wagon drawn by four serviceable
-mules was loaded with tools, tents, camp equipages, saddles and bridles,
-provisions, and grain for the animals sufficient for a week’s use. Late
-in the afternoon of the second day the site of the copper locations was
-reached, and a camp made upon the mesa a few hundred feet from and above
-the bed of the stream.
-
-A cursory examination of the copper locations made before nightfall
-satisfied Morning that before he could form any judgment upon which he
-would be willing to act in making a purchase, it would be necessary to
-clean out one of the old shafts, which had, since the mines were
-abandoned, been partially filled with loose rock and earth. This work it
-was estimated could be performed by Robert Steel and his two miners in
-about three days, and while it was being done Morning proposed to
-explore, or at least visit, the source of the stream, near the summit of
-the range ten miles away. Assuring Steel that he was an old mountaineer,
-and that no apprehensions need be felt for his safety if he did not
-return until the end of two or three days, Morning saddled one animal,
-and, loading another with blankets, camp equipage, a pick, a
-fowling-piece, and three days’ provisions, he departed next morning,
-after an early breakfast, for the trip up the cañon.
-
-Above the old copper camp the wagon road came to an end, and only a
-rough trail running along and often in the creek took its place.
-Following the trail, Morning proceeded, driving his pack mule ahead,
-until, at a point about six miles from where he had left his companions,
-further progress with animals was found to be impossible.
-
-One hundred feet above the bed of the stream, which here emerged with a
-rush from a narrow gorge, was a plateau of probably ten acres in extent,
-on which were a number of large oak trees, and the ground of which was
-at this season covered with a heavy growth of alfilaria, or native
-clover. Here Morning unloaded and tethered his mules, and made for
-himself a temporary camp under a huge live oak tree.
-
-After eating his luncheon, he buckled a pistol about his waist, that he
-might not be altogether unprepared for a possible deer, and, using a
-pole-pick for a walking staff, he climbed out of the cañon and commenced
-the ascent of the mountain to the southward. It appeared to be about a
-thousand feet in height, and upon its summit towered, one thousand feet
-higher, the basaltic wall which Morning recognized as that which was
-visible from Tucson, and which formed the southern and western rim of
-the Santa Catalina Mountains. His purpose was to reach at least the base
-of this wall, and ascertain if there were any means of ascending it to
-its summit, from which it might be possible to obtain an extended view
-of the country.
-
-After half an hour’s hard climbing, our adventurer gained this wall and
-found along its base a natural road, with an ascent of probably three
-hundred feet to the mile. Slowly plodding his way among the loose rock
-and débris, which had, during many ages, scaled and fallen from the
-basalt, he soon reached an opening about sixty feet in width.
-
-Supposing that this might be a cañon or gorge that would furnish a means
-of ascending the wall, he turned into it. In a little more than a
-quarter of a mile it came to an abrupt termination. It was a _cul de
-sac_, a rift in the wall made in some convulsion of nature. It ascended
-very slightly, being almost level, and at both sides and at the end the
-basalt towered for a thousand feet sheer to the summit, without leaving
-a break upon which even a bird could set its foot. It was now midday,
-but the rays of the sun did not penetrate to the bottom of this rift,
-and the atmosphere and light were those of an autumn twilight.
-
-After ascertaining the nature and extent of the gorge, Morning turned,
-and, plodding through the sand and loose rock to its entrance, resumed
-his journey along the base of the great wall. The ascent of the little
-ridge or natural road grew steeper and steeper, until at length the top
-was reached, and our explorer stood upon the summit of the great
-basaltic formation, a mile in width and ten miles in length, which forms
-the southwestern rim or table of the Santa Catalinas. From near the
-outer edge spread as grand a prospect as was ever vouschafed to the eye
-of mortal. Tucson, seven thousand feet below and fifteen miles away,
-seemed almost at the foot of the mountain. To the southeast stretched a
-narrow, winding ribbon of green, the homes of the Mexicans, who, with
-their ancestors, have for more than two centuries occupied the valley of
-the Santa Cruz. Farther yet to the southward the lofty Huachucas
-towered. Northward a higher peak of the Catalinas cut off the view, but
-to the southwest broad mesas and billowy hills stretched for more than a
-hundred and fifty miles, until at the horizon the eye rested upon the
-blue of the Gulf of California, penciled against an ashen strip of sky.
-
-As Morning gazed in awe and delight, there appeared in the sky, scudding
-from the south, flecks of cloud, chasing each other like gulls upon an
-ocean, and remembering that this was the rainy season, and feeling
-rather than knowing that a storm was about to gather, Morning retraced
-his steps. He had proceeded on his return to a point about five hundred
-yards above the mouth of the rift which he had visited on his upward
-journey, when the rapidly-darkening clouds and big plashes of rain drops
-warned him that one of the showers customary in that section in August
-was about to fall.
-
-Such storms are usually of brief duration, but are liable to be
-exceedingly violent, the water often descending literally in sheets. It
-would have been impossible for Morning to reach the camp where he had
-left the animals in time to avoid the storm, and a hollow in the basalt
-wall—a hollow which almost amounted to a cave—offering just here a
-complete shelter from the rain, which was approaching from the south,
-over the top of the wall, he sought the opening, and was soon seated
-upon a convenient rock, while his vision swept the slope to the cañon a
-mile below, and thence followed the meanderings of the Rillito until it
-vanished from sight.
-
-And the clouds grew and darkened. Like black battalions of Afrites
-summoned by the “thunder drum of heaven,” they trooped from distant
-mountains and nearer plains to gather upon the summit of the Catalinas.
-The south wind—now risen to a gale—swooped up the fogs from the distant
-gulf, and hurried them upon its mighty pinions, shrieking with delight
-at the burden it bore up to the summit of the basalt, above which it
-massed them.
-
-Then the demons of the upper ether reached their electric-tipped fingers
-into the dense black watery masses, and whirled them into a denser
-circle, whirled them into an hour glass, whose tip was in the heavens
-and whose base was carried by the giant force thus generated slowly
-along and just above the top of the great wall.
-
-Whirled in a demon waltz to the music of the shaking crags, yet touching
-not those peaks, for to touch them would have been destruction, the
-circling ocean in the air sailed, roaring and shrieking, to the
-eastward, growing denser and more powerful, and black with the blackness
-of the nethermost pit, as it journeyed on. At last it reached the blind
-cañon so lately visited by our explorer. The air—imprisoned between the
-earth and the clouds—rushed with a tortured yell down the rift in the
-mountain. The wall of water sank as its support tumbled from beneath it;
-its base touched the ragged rocky edges of the cleft; the compactness of
-the fluid mass was broken, and the forces fled and left to its fate the
-watery monster they had engendered.
-
-Then, with a roar louder than a thousand peals of thunder, with throbs
-and gaspings like the death rattle of a giant, the waterspout burst, and
-its vast volume descended into the gorge, down which it seethed with the
-power of a cataclysm.
-
-Out of the mouth of the _cul de sac_ a torrent issued, or rather a wall
-of water hundreds of feet in height. Down the mountain side it sped,
-tearing a channel deep and wide, and crumbling into a thousand cataracts
-of foam, which spread and submerged the slope. A deep depression or
-basin on the side of the mountain just southward of the bed of the
-Rillito deflected the torrent for a few hundred yards, and it rushed
-into this basin and filled it, and, leaving a small lake as a souvenir
-of its visit, went roaring down the cañon, which it entered again about
-a quarter of a mile below the spot where Morning had tethered his mules.
-
-Not more than fifteen minutes had elapsed since the bursting of the
-waterspout when the storm was over, the sun was shining, the water had
-departed down the cañon, and our awe-stricken witness to this mighty
-sport of elemental forces started to retrace his steps. He had witnessed
-the deflection of the water wall, and knew that his animals were safe,
-and he also knew that no harm would come to his companions down the
-cañon, for their camp was hundreds of feet above the bed of the ravine.
-
-A few minutes’ walk brought Morning to the mouth of the gorge which he
-had visited an hour or more before. From it a small stream of water—the
-remains of the waterspout—was yet running, and, being curious to observe
-the effects produced upon the spot which first received the fury of the
-waters, he descended into the channel which had been torn by the
-torrent, and again entered the rift.
-
-The tremendous force of the vast body of water precipitated into the
-gorge had excavated and swept through its opening the fallen and
-decomposed rock and sand and bowlders which had been accumulating for
-centuries. The channel rent by the waters as they emerged was quite
-twenty feet in depth and sixty feet in width, and Morning found that the
-floor of the box cañon had been torn away to a similar depth.
-
-The waterspout had accomplished in one minute a work that would have
-required the industrious labor of one thousand men for a month. The
-gorge was swept clean to the bed rock, which showed blue limestone, and
-in the center of this limestone bed there now stood erect, to a height
-of twelve feet, a ledge of white and rose-colored quartz of regular and
-unbroken formation, forty feet in width, running from near the entrance
-of the rift to the end of it, where it disappeared under the basalt
-wall.
-
-The experienced eye of Morning taught him at a glance that this was a
-true fissure vein of quartz, and a brief examination of some pieces
-which he knocked off with his pole-pick convinced him that it was rich
-in gold. But for the waterspout which had swept away the sand, gravel,
-and loose rocks which ages of disintegration of the face of the wall had
-deposited over this lode, its existence must ever have remained
-undiscovered for there were no exterior evidences of the existence of
-quartz, to tempt a prospector to sink a shaft.
-
-The primal instinct of the miner is to locate his “find,” and Morning
-proceeded forthwith to acquire title to “the unoccupied mineral lands of
-the United States” so marvelously brought to light. His notebook
-furnished paper for location notices, and an hour’s work enabled him to
-build location monuments of loose stone, in which his notices were
-deposited.
-
-It was now more than two hours since the waterspout had expended its
-force. Morning conjectured that Steel and his miners, after the flood
-had passed them, would probably set out in search of him, and he did not
-wish his location to be discovered until he should have perfected it by
-recording at Tucson, and possibly not then. But he knew that it would
-require at least three hours for the men at the copper-camp to reach
-him, and, though the light in the cañon was beginning to grow dim, he
-determined not to leave there without further examination of the ledge.
-
-Accordingly, he walked around it and climbed over it. From its summit
-and its sides at twenty different places he broke off specimens, which
-he deposited in his pockets until they were full to bursting. It was
-beginning to grow dark when he emerged from the rift and started along
-the base of the basalt. He had not proceeded a hundred yards from the
-mouth of the rift, when he beheld three figures a quarter of a mile
-distant, rapidly picking their way along the channel which had been worn
-by the torrent in its descent of the mountain.
-
-Five minutes more in the gorge and his secret would have been
-discovered.
-
-He shouted to his friends, who responded to his hail, and in a few
-minutes they met and descended the mountain together to the plateau
-under the trees, where the tethered animals, surfeited with alfilirea,
-were whinnying loudly for human companionship.
-
-It was too late to attempt to return to the copper-camp that night, and,
-indeed, daylight was needed for the journey, for the trail had been in
-many places washed away by the flood.
-
-After a supper, which made havoc with the three days’ rations, a large
-fire was built, more for cheerfulness than for warmth, blankets were
-divided, and all retired.
-
-Morning slept less soundly than his fellows, for his quick and accurate
-brain was filled with an idea of the colossal fortune and the mighty
-trust that the events of that day had placed in his hands.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER IV.
-                  “Gold is the strength of the world.”
-
-
-Morning concluded it would be unwise to make another trip to his
-location, lest suspicion might be excited and discovery follow, so,
-breaking camp early the next day, he returned with his comrades to the
-copper-lodes, which they reached before noon.
-
-Work was resumed by Steel and his two miners in clearing the old shaft,
-and Morning, taking a fowling-piece, avowed his purpose to look for
-quail down the ravine. Having reached a point where he felt secluded
-from observation, he began a critical examination of the quartz
-specimens, which until now he had not dared to withdraw from his
-pockets.
-
-As with his microscope he scrutinized piece after piece, he grew pale
-with excitement and astonishment. With the habit of a mining expert, he
-had sampled the ledge as for an average, and the average value of the
-twenty different specimens of quartz, taken from twenty different
-localities, enabled him to determine the true value of the property with
-great accuracy. He discovered that the amount of gold in each one of the
-twenty specimens would not vary materially from the amount of gold in
-proportion to the quartz in each and all of the others. In other words,
-the entire body of quartz was uniformly impregnated with gold, and,
-therefore, of uniform richness and value.
-
-There was no better judge of quartz in all Colorado than David Morning.
-He had been accustomed, after careful inspection, to estimate within ten
-or twenty percent of the value per ton of free milling gold quartz, and
-his accuracy had often been the subject of amicable wagers among his
-friends. He was able in this instance to say that each one of the ore
-specimens carried not less than five hundred ounces of gold to the ton
-of quartz, or that the entire lode would yield, under the stamps, an
-average of $10,000 per ton.
-
-This was marvelous! unprecedented! phenomenal! No such deposit for
-richness and extent had ever been found in the history of the world.
-
-Ten thousand dollars in gold, distributed through two thousand pounds of
-quartz, may not make much of a showing in the quartz, for in bulk there
-is fifty times as much quartz as gold; but one hundred tons of such
-quartz would yield a million dollars, and the ledge uncovered by the
-waterspout was forty feet in width and thirteen hundred and sixty feet
-in length to where it ran under the basalt wall. It cropped twelve feet
-above the ground, and extended to unknown depths below the surface.
-Thirteen feet of rock in place will weigh a ton. In that rift in the
-mountain there was now in sight above the surface, all ready to be
-broken down and sent to the stamps, six hundred and fifty thousand cubic
-feet, or fifty thousand tons, of quartz, containing gold of the value of
-$500,000,000.
-
-What was to be done with the vast amount of gold which might be
-extracted from the Morning mine? How was it to be placed in circulation
-without unsettling values, reducing the worth of all bonds, inaugurating
-wild speculation, and revolutionizing the commerce and the finances of
-the world?
-
-Would not the nations, so soon as they should be made aware of the
-existence of this deposit, hasten to demonetize gold, make of it a
-commodity, change the world’s standard money to silver exclusively, and
-so lessen the value of the Morning mine to a comparatively small amount?
-
-Under the plea that increased production of silver necessitated a change
-in relative values, that metal was demonetized in 1873 in Europe and in
-the United States, and its value reduced one-third. Might not gold now
-be similarly dealt with, and, with such a vast deposit known to be in
-existence, be diminished by demonetization to the value of silver or
-less?
-
-The entire production of gold in the world for the last forty years, or
-since the California and Australia mines began to yield, had been but
-$5,000,000,000, and as much might be extracted from the first one
-hundred and twenty feet in depth of the Morning mine. All the gold money
-of the world was but $7,600,000,000, or less than might be excavated
-from the first two hundred feet in depth of this marvelous deposit. The
-total money of the world—gold, silver, and paper—was but
-$11,500,000,000, and a similar sum might be extracted from the first
-three hundred feet in depth of the mine.
-
-If the ledge extended downward a thousand feet, it contained as much
-gold as three times the sum total of all the gold, silver, and paper
-currency of the world, and its value was equal to the value, in the year
-eighteen hundred and ninety, of one-half of all the real and personal
-property in the United States.
-
-How much of this gold could be added to the circulation of the world
-with safety? and how could the existence of the vast quantity held in
-reserve be kept secret?
-
-His studies in political economy had taught David Morning that gold,
-like water, if fed to the land in proper proportions, would stimulate
-its fertility and add to its power of beneficent production, but if
-precipitated in an unregulated and mighty torrent, would, like the
-waterspout, prove a destructive power.
-
-Knowledge of the existence of the gold, if generally diffused, would be
-nearly as injurious to the world as to extract it and place it in the
-channels of finance. Yet how could the secret be kept? The ledge as it
-stood could not be worked without half a hundred men knowing its extent
-and value. No guards or bonds of secrecy would be adequate. The birds of
-the air would carry the tale. Even now a vagrant prospector or wandering
-mountain tourist might reveal the secret to the world.
-
-Not in any spirit of self-seeking did David Morning ask himself these
-questions. All his personal wants, and tastes, and aspirations might be
-gratified with a few millions, which could easily be mined and invested
-before knowledge of his discovery could destroy or lessen the value of
-gold. But the purpose now beginning to take possession of him was to
-use, not merely millions, but tens and hundreds and thousands of
-millions, to bring peace, and progress, and prosperity to the nations,
-to ameliorate the conditions under which humanity suffers, to raise the
-fallen, to aid the struggling, to curb the power of oppressors, to
-remedy public and private wrongs, to solve social problems, to uplift
-humanity, and comfort the bodies and souls of men. To accomplish this
-work it was necessary that he should have vast sums at his command, and
-it was also necessary that his possession of vaster reserves should not
-be known.
-
-The discoveries in California and Australia by which in ten years
-fourteen hundred millions of gold dollars were added to the world’s
-stock of the precious metals was a beneficent discovery. It lifted half
-the weight from the shoulders of every debtor; it made possible the
-payment of every farm mortgage; it delivered manhood from the evil
-embrace of Apathy, and wedded him to fair young Hope; it invigorated
-commerce, it inspired enterprise, it led the armies of peace to the
-conquest of forest and prairie; it caused furnaces to flame and spindles
-to hum; it brought plenty and progress to a people.
-
-But this addition to the gold money of civilization was gradually made,
-and the product of forty years of all the gold mines in the world was
-not equal to the sum which in less than four years might be taken from
-the Morning mine.
-
-If, as a consequence of Morning’s find, gold should not be demonetized,
-if it should be permitted to remain as a measurer of all values, and the
-extent of the deposit should be made known to the world, the inevitable
-result would be to quadruple the prices of land, labor, and goods, and
-to reduce to one-fourth of their present proportions the value to the
-creditor of all existing indebtedness. The farmer whose land was worth
-$10,000 would find it worth $40,000, and the man who had loaned $5,000
-upon it would find his loan worth but $1,250 practically, because the
-purchasing power of his $5,000 would be reduced to one-fourth of its
-present capacity.
-
-All government bonds of the nations, all county, city, and railroad
-bonds, and all the mortgages and promissory notes and book accounts in
-the world, would, if all of Morning’s gold should be poured at once into
-circulation, without preparation or warning, be reduced at one blow to
-one-fourth of their present value, and all the owners of land, and
-implements, and horses, and cattle, and merchandise would find their
-value at once increased fourfold. The laborer who had only his hands or
-his brains would remain unaffected. His wages would be quadrupled, and
-so would the cost of his living.
-
-Knowledge of the extent of the Morning mine would immediately enrich the
-debtors and ruin the creditors of the world, unless the governments of
-earth should demonetize gold, deny it access to the mints, refuse to
-coin it, and so degrade it to a commodity.
-
-An illustration in a small way of the operations of this immutable law
-of finance may be found in the history of San Francisco. The foundations
-of some of the great fortunes of that city may be traced to the days of
-the Civil War, when San Francisco wholesale merchants paid their Eastern
-creditors in legal tender currency, the while they diligently fostered a
-public sentiment which made it discreditable to the honesty and ruinous
-to the credit of any California retailer who should attempt to pay his
-debt to them in the despised greenbacks. The interior storekeeper glowed
-with pride when Ephraim Smooth & Company gathered in his golden
-twenties, and commended his honesty for “paying his debts like a man, in
-gold, and not availing himself of the dishonest legal tender law.” But
-Smooth & Company paid their New York creditors in greenbacks, and
-pocketed the difference.
-
-Inflation of the currency, or an increase of the money of a nation, if
-it can be gradually made, need not prove disastrous to the creditors,
-and must prove a benefaction to the debtors of the world. The relation
-of wages to the cost of living, whether the volume of money in a country
-be contracted or inflated, practically remains the same. It may be
-claimed that the workman who receives an increase of wages, and whose
-cost of living is correspondingly increased, is no better off at the end
-of the year, yet economy brings to him larger apparent accumulations,
-and he is thereby encouraged to practice frugality.
-
-The American mechanic who wandered to the Canary Islands, where he
-received $400 a day in the local currency for his wages, was enabled to
-save $100 a day by denying himself brandy and tobacco, and but for this
-dazzling inducement he might have surrendered to temptations that would
-have made him a proper subject for the ministrations of the W. C. T. U.
-
-But though an inflation of values which should be beneficent might
-follow the discovery and working of the Morning mine, clearly the first
-thing for the discoverer to do was to take effectual measures to conceal
-from human knowledge the extent of his discovery.
-
-David Morning remained for some time in deep thought, and then, rising
-from his seat upon a bowlder behind the manzanita bushes, he tore into
-fragments the paper upon which he had been making calculations, and,
-excavating with his foot a hole in the sand, he dropped into it and
-covered the specimens of gold quartz which he had taken from the ledge,
-and, retracing his steps, was soon at the copper-camp, where, in answer
-to the queries of his companions, he replied truthfully that during his
-absence he had not seen a single quail.
-
-Two days elapsed, and, the shaft having been cleaned out and the copper
-lode thoroughly exposed, Morning took samples of it, and also of
-croppings of the other lodes included in the ground located by Steel,
-and the party broke camp and started for Tucson, where they arrived
-early in the afternoon of the second day.
-
-Making an appointment with Steel for that evening, Morning deposited his
-copper samples with an assayer, and, walking to the Court House, he
-filed the notice of location of the Morning mine with the county
-recorder. Two hours later he had the report of the assayer upon the
-copper samples, showing an average of twelve per cent of carbonate
-copper in the ore. This was not so rich as had been predicted by Steel,
-but was of sufficient value to warrant the purchase of the copper
-prospects at the low price which had been fixed upon them, provided that
-arrangements could be made for economically working them, and Morning
-had already formulated in his own mind a plan of action by which the
-working of the copper lodes could be made to advance his project of
-working the gold lode so as to conceal the extent of its yield.
-
-Morning calculated that the amount of money needed for labor, supplies,
-machinery, and buildings, to work the mines in accordance with his
-plans, would be about $300,000, and his first thought was to obtain this
-money by breaking down, and shipping to reduction works in California or
-Colorado, about thirty tons of the quartz before he should commence the
-work which he projected for the concealment of the ledge.
-
-With his own hands he could mine and sack such an amount of ore in a
-fortnight, and with the aid of half a dozen pack animals, managed by
-himself, transport it a mile or two from the rift, where it might be
-thrown into the channel cut by the waterspout, and, with a blast or two,
-be covered with rocks and dirt until teams should be brought from Tucson
-for it.
-
-With this idea uppermost, he sought the freight agent of the railroad
-company of Tucson.
-
-Then he came in contact with the system in vogue on the Pacific
-Coast—and possibly elsewhere—that of a one-sided railroad partnership
-with the producer, on the basis that the producer furnish all the
-capital and suffer all the losses, the railroad company providing
-neither capital, experience, nor services, but taking the lion’s share
-of the profits.
-
-“What,” said Morning, “will your freight charges be for three car loads
-of ore to Pueblo or San Francisco?”
-
-“What kind of ore?”
-
-“Gold-bearing quartz in sacks.”
-
-“What does your ore assay?” inquired the agent.
-
-“What has that got to do with it?” questioned Morning sharply.
-
-“Everything,” answered the official. “We charge in car-load lots $12 per
-ton to San Francisco, or $24 per ton to Pueblo, and $2.00 per ton in
-addition for each $100 per ton of the assay value of the ore.”
-
-“Very well,” said Morning, “I believe I will ship thirty tons to San
-Francisco.”
-
-“Have you it here?” said the agent.
-
-“It will not be ready for some weeks yet,” replied Morning.
-
-“You did not mention its value,” said the agent.
-
-“I will state its value at $100 per ton,” said Morning.
-
-“All right,” said the agent, “we will take it at that, subject, of
-course, to assay according to our rules by the assayer of the company at
-your expense.”
-
-“Well, I don’t know that I care to trouble the assayer of your company,”
-replied Morning. “In fact, the ore is a good deal richer than $100 per
-ton. But I will ship it at that valuation, and release the company from
-all liability for loss or damage beyond that. In brief, I will take all
-the chances, and if the ore shall be lost, or stolen, or tumbled off a
-bridge, or overturned into a river, the company will only account to me
-for it at $100 per ton. I suppose that will be satisfactory?”
-
-The agent shook his head.
-
-“It looks as if it ought to be satisfactory,” said he, “but my orders
-are imperative. The ore must be assayed, and you will have to pay two
-per cent of its value.”
-
-“But this,” replied Morning, with some heat, “is unreasonable and
-outrageous. If the tax of two per cent is to be regarded in the light of
-a charge for insurance, I am sure there is not a marine or fire
-insurance company in the world that would charge one-fourth of one per
-cent for such a risk.”
-
-“Company’s orders,” said the agent.
-
-“Suppose you wire headquarters at my cost, and say that David Morning
-wishes to ship thirty tons of gold-bearing quartz from Tucson to San
-Francisco, at a valuation of $100 per ton. Say that he will prepay the
-freight, and load and unload the cars himself if permitted. Say that he
-does not wish the railroad company to take any of the risks of mining,
-transporting, or reducing the ore, nor to share any of the profits of
-the business. Say that he will release the company from all liability
-even for gross negligence or theft, beyond $100 per ton. Say that he
-does not wish to acquaint the company’s assayer or the company’s freight
-agent with the value of the ore, or permit either of them to form any
-accurate judgment for speculative or other purposes as to the value of
-the mine from which the ore was taken. Say that he wishes the privilege
-of conducting his own business in his own way. Say that if the railroad
-company will kindly fix a rate at which it will consent to carry the
-freight he offers, without sticking its meddlesome, corporate nose into
-his business, he will then consider whether he will pay that rate or
-refrain from shipping the ore at all.”
-
-“Mr. Morning,” said the agent, “if I were to send such a telegram as
-that, it would cost me my place, and, indeed, my orders are not to
-communicate remonstrances made by shippers at the company’s rules,
-except by mail. Of course you can send any message you like over your
-own name to the head office, but I can inform you now that they will
-only refer you to me for an answer, and I can only refer to my general
-instructions, and there the matter will end.”
-
-“Well,” replied Morning, “I will ship the ore by ox teams or not ship it
-at all before I will submit to the injustice of your general
-instructions. I suppose I am without remedy in the premises?”
-
-“You might build another road, Mr. Morning,” said the agent, with a
-slight tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
-
-Morning answered slowly, as he turned away:—
-
-“I may conclude to do so, or to buy up this road, and if I do I will run
-it on business principles that shall give the shipper some little
-chance.”
-
-“When will that halcyon hour for the public arrive, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“By and by,” rejoined our hero, “and then you may look for better days.”
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER V.
-            “The rich man’s joys increase the poor’s decay.”
-
-
-“Forty-five years ago, doctor,” said Professor John Thornton to his
-friend, Dr. Eustace, “do you remember that, as barefooted boys, we
-fished for pickerel together in this very pond, and from this very
-spot?”
-
-“And caught more fish with our bamboo poles and angleworm bait than we
-appear likely to capture to-day with this fancy tackle,” remarked the
-doctor.
-
-“Everything about this lovely little lake seems unchanged,” resumed the
-professor, “but elsewhere the great world has indeed rolled on. Then
-there were less than one hundred millionaires in this republic—now,
-doctor, there are more than eight thousand.”
-
-“And then,” said the doctor, “we came here in a rickety old stage wagon,
-and we were ten hours in making the same journey which to-day we
-achieved in an hour while seated in a parlor car. Then the telegraph was
-in its infancy, the electric light was unknown, the great manufacturing
-cities were unconstructed, the petroleum of Pennsylvania and the gold of
-California and Australia were undiscovered, the great Western railroad
-lines were unbuilt, and the web of complex industries with which the
-land is now laced was unspun. The victim of a raging tooth or a crushed
-limb was compelled to suffer without relief from chloroform or ether,
-and it was a crime punishable with social ostracism to question the
-righteousness of human slavery, the curative virtues of calomel, or the
-beneficence of infant damnation. I never could think, John, that the
-good old times, whose loss you are always bemoaning, were nearly so
-comfortable times to live in as those amid which we now dwell.”
-
-“Dr. Eustace,” said the professor, “you attach undue importance to a few
-physical comforts and conveniences. If our fathers lacked the advantages
-of our later civilization, they were also without its vices. In the good
-old times which you deride, wrecking railroads, stealing railroads, and
-watering stocks were unknown. Senatorships and subsidies were not
-procured by bribery; the legislator who sold his vote made arrangements
-to leave the country, and bank burglars and bank defaulters kept, in the
-public estimation, the lock step of fellow-criminals.”
-
-“And what, in your opinion was the cause of our descent from this high
-estate of public virtue and whale-oil lamps?”
-
-“The main cause, Dr., of the corruption of the human race
-everywhere,—gold. It was the gold of California that revolutionized the
-finances, the business methods, and the morals of the nation. After the
-year 1849 the advance of values, the aggregation of wealth, the increase
-of population, and the magical growth of the West, made additional
-facilities for inland travel and transportation a necessity. This
-necessity caused the rapid construction of new lines of railroad. The
-differences and difficulties of local management suggested the
-advantages of consolidation—and then the reign of the centripetal forces
-commenced.”
-
-“But all the millionaires of the country are not railroad men, John.”
-
-“Concentration of capital began with them, doctor, and their example was
-soon followed by others. The Civil War broke down local prejudices, made
-East and West homogeneous, introduced communities to each other on the
-battle-field, obliterated State lines, and made individual effort in
-business, in finance, in manufactures, and even in politics, less
-advantageous to the individual than participation in aggregated effort,
-where his gains were increased, though his personality was submerged.”
-
-“I have always thought that our civil war was a moral education to this
-people and to the world,” remarked the doctor.
-
-“War was an educator,” conceded the professor, “yet the tree of
-knowledge with its crimson leaves yielded evil fruit as well as good.
-The moral nature of the American people has, I fear, reacted from the
-tension of generous and patriotic sacrifice which war evolved. Some of
-the very men who helped to strike shackles from black slaves have been
-busy ever since forging other shackles for white slaves, and in
-twenty-five years from the days when we freely paid lives and treasure
-to preserve the existence of the nation, and free it from the wrong of
-slavery and the rule of a slave-holding oligarchy, we have passed under
-the sway of other despots, more selfish, more sordid, more relentless,
-and more rapacious of dominion. The dusk-browed tyrant of Egypt has been
-overthrown, but in his place Plutus reigns.”
-
-“I grant you,” interposed Dr. Eustace, “that the wealth owners are the
-rulers of our later civilization, but, so far as I have observed,
-instead of endeavoring to curb or overthrow them, we are all doing our
-best to join their ranks and participate in their power. You appear to
-be the only living millionaire who declaims against his class. I know of
-no other man who is brave enough to defy the power of money, great
-enough to ignore it, or strong enough to resist its influence, and I
-dare say you would change your views if you were to lose your millions.
-We all defer to the plutocrats. The Spanish nobleman who, for his
-ancestor’s services, was permitted to remain with his head covered in
-the presence of his sovereign, would have been sure to take off his hat
-if he had entered the office of the president of a country bank, with a
-view of negotiating a small loan on doubtful security. There was a great
-truth inadvertently given to the world in the programme of a Fourth of
-July procession, wherein it was announced that the line would end with
-bankers in carriages, followed by citizens on foot.”
-
-“This subservience to King Gold, and pursuit of his favors, must cease,
-Dr. Eustace, or this republic will be lost. The people must be taught to
-assume a more independent and manly attitude toward the owners of
-money.”
-
-“Ah, John, money is so necessary, and it is so hard to turn one’s back
-upon it! This way lies comfort, ease, luxury—that way deprivation and
-sacrifice. This way ‘the primrose path of dalliance trends’—that way
-‘the steep and thorny road.’ This way the wife and children beckon and
-sue for safety and peace—that way only rocks, and bruises, and hunger,
-and loneliness summon. What wonder that the Christ, voicing the cry of
-the human to the infinite Father, placed as the central thought of the
-Lord’s prayer the words, ‘Lead us not into temptation’! But, John,
-honestly now, do you think the eight thousand millionaires you rave
-about are such an utterly bad lot as you make them out to be?”
-
-“Individually I dare say they are good husbands, fathers, and
-neighbors,” replied the professor, “but they conceal their selfishness
-and rapacity, and exercise their despotism from behind the shields of
-corporations which they create and govern, and tyranny is none the less
-tyranny because it is decreed not by kings, but by entities which fear
-neither the assassination of man nor the judgment of God.”
-
-“Professor, pardon me, but you generalize a good deal, and I fear
-somewhat loosely. It would make a difference to me, in my feelings, at
-least, whether I was knocked down by a ruffian, or by an electrical
-machine.”
-
-“Doctor, your simile was not considered as carefully as are your
-prescriptions. If the machine be guided by the ruffian, what matters it
-whether you be struck by his hand, or with an electric current directed
-by his hand? If our great newspapers, which are influential, which claim
-to be independent, and which ought to be free, are restrained from
-publishing articles advocating postal telegraphy, or criticising the
-management of a news corporation, what matters it that the freedom of
-the press is choked by a board of directors rather than a government
-censor? If the citizen dare not give voice to his views on public
-affairs, what matters it whether his utterances be choked by the
-knuckles of a king, or the polite menaces of an employer? If the voter
-cast his ballot against his own convictions, and in accordance with the
-will of another, what matters it whether he be coerced by a soldier with
-a musket or a station agent with a freight bill? If the settler lose his
-land, what matter whether the despoiler be a personal bandit armed with
-a rifle, or a corporate robber equipped with a land-office decision? If
-capital exempt itself from taxation, and place the burden of sustaining
-government upon the broad back of labor, will it alleviate the pain of
-the load to know that it is not the law of feudal vassalage but of
-modern politics which accomplishes the exaction?
-
-“Hallo! I have a bite! Ah! ha! my boy, your eagerness to swallow that
-minnow has brought you to grief!”
-
-And the speaker lifted a twenty-ounce pickerel from the placid waters of
-Nine Mile Pond, and deposited it, struggling and shining, upon the green
-turf at his feet.
-
-“Well, John,” inquired the doctor, “what are you going to do about it
-all?”
-
-“We will have him split down the back and broiled for luncheon,” replied
-the professor absently.
-
-“Broil who?” queried the doctor, “Jay Gould?”
-
-“Eh? No; the pickerel I mean, though I am not sure that similar
-treatment might not be accorded to Gould, with advantage to the
-country.”
-
-“You ask,” continued the professor, “what shall be done about it all?
-The wealth owners themselves should be able to see that existing
-conditions must sooner or later find cessation either in relief or in
-revolution. Monopolies in transportation, intelligence, land, light,
-fuel, water, and food—all concealed in the impersonality of private
-corporations—now sit like vampires upon the body of American labor, and
-suck its life blood, and they have grown so bold and so rapacious that
-they even neglect to fan their victims to continued slumber.”
-
-“Why, John, you seem to have an attack of anticorporation rabies. You
-talk like a sand-lot politician who is trying to sell out to a railroad
-company. What is the matter with you? What have these much berated
-entities done?” said the doctor.
-
-“Done?” replied Professor Thornton. “What have they not done? They have
-torn the bandages from the eyes of American justice and fastened false
-weights upon her scales. They have turned our legislative halls into
-shambles where men are bought and honor is butchered. They have written
-the word ‘lie’ across the Declaration of our fathers. They have struck
-the genius of American liberty in her fair mouth, until, with face
-suffused with the blushes and bedewed with the hot tears of shame, she
-turns piteously to her children to hide if they cannot defend her.”
-
-“John Thornton,” ejaculated the doctor, “your remarks would be admirable
-in substance and style for an address before some gathering of work
-shirkers, organized to procure lessened hours of labor and larger
-schooners of beer, but to me you are talking what our transatlantic
-cousins call ‘beastly rot.’ I deny that a majority, or even any
-considerable number, of the capitalists of this country are dishonest,
-or unpatriotic, or indifferent to the rights and needs of their
-fellow-men.”
-
-“I have not said that they were, doctor,” replied the professor.
-“Indeed, if such were the case, we might cry in despair, ‘God save the
-commonwealth!’ for only Omniscience could work its salvation. What I
-claim is that it is full time for the conscientious millionaires who
-love their country and their kind, to seriously consider a situation the
-perils of which they are every day augmenting by their indifference.”
-
-“What perils do you mean, professor? How, for instance, would anybody be
-hurt or periled if I were to become a millionaire?”
-
-“A great fortune is a great power, doctor, and not every man is fit to
-be intrusted with great power. To-day no second-class power in Europe
-can negotiate a treaty or make even a defensive war without the consent
-of the Rothschilds, while in America the owner of fifty millions is more
-powerful than the president of the United States, and the owner of ten
-millions more influential than the governor of a State.
-
-“And so he ought to be,” interposed the doctor. “The man who can by fair
-means make $10,000,000 is more useful to the community in which he lives
-than a dozen governors of States.”
-
-“But look at the danger to the people, doctor, of these great fortunes.
-There are ten men in the United States whose aggregate wealth amounts to
-$500,000,000, and who represent, and control, and wield the influence of
-property amounting to $3,000,000,000. If these men should choose to
-settle their rivalries and combine their interests and efforts, they
-could about fix the prices of every acre of land, every barrel of flour,
-every ton of coal, and every day’s wages of labor between Bangor and San
-Francisco. They could name every senator, governor, judge, congressman,
-and legislator in twenty States. They could rule a greater empire than
-any possessed by crowned kings. They could promulgate ukases more
-absolute, more despotic, and more certain of being enforced, than any
-which ever went forth from St. Petersburg to carry desolation to a race.
-They could say to the laborer in the grain-fields, ‘Henceforth you shall
-be reduced to the condition of your brother in England or Scotland, and
-eat meat but once a week.’ They could say to the toiler in the humming
-factory or over the red forge, ‘Henceforth you must toil twelve hours in
-each twenty-four.’ They could say to every wageworker in the land,
-‘Henceforth we will take all the results of your labor, and give you
-only the slave’s share—existence and subsistence.’”
-
-“All you need, Professor John Thornton,” said Dr. Eustace, “is a long
-beard, a woman with green goggles and a tamborine, a fat boy with a
-snare drum, and a pair of bellows in your chest, to be a Salvation Army
-seeking recruits for the church of Anarch. You know just as well as I do
-that you are talking nonsense, and that the capitalists of our country
-would be neither so inhuman nor so unwise as to push their power as you
-indicate.”
-
-“Maybe not, doctor, maybe not, but their ability to so use their power
-if they choose is a menace to a free people, and a standing inducement
-to disorder, and unless the plutocrats cease their aggressions the
-people may invoke the motto, ‘_Salva republica suprema lex_,’ and tax
-all great fortunes out of existence.”
-
-“What aggressions do you refer to, professor? For the life of me I
-cannot see that this country or this people have any just cause of
-complaint. The census returns of 1890 show that in the preceding ten
-years there was added to our national wealth, values amounting to nearly
-$20,000,000,000.”
-
-“The census returns tell only a part of the story, doctor. The cottages
-of the land will tell you that while as a nation we may have grown of
-late years very rich and prosperous, yet among the individuals composing
-the nation its wealth is possessed and its prosperity enjoyed within a
-very narrow circle. The value of all the property in the United States
-in the year 1890 was $66,000,000,000. Do you know that $40,000,000,000,
-or sixty per cent of the wealth of America, is owned by less than forty
-thousand people? Do you know that in the last twenty years the laborers
-of the United States have added to the general wealth of the nation,
-values amounting to $30,000,000,000?”
-
-“Well, what is there to complain of in that fact?” questioned the
-doctor.
-
-“The complaint is that the money has not been divided among the ten
-million workers who earned it. The complaint is that it has not
-furnished each of ten million households with a $3,000-shield against
-the assaults of poverty. The complaint is that as fast as created it has
-been seized by the centripetal tendency which now dominates our
-civilization and hurried into the strong boxes of ten thousand
-Past-Masters of the art of accumulating the earnings of other people.”
-
-“The complete answer, professor, to your diatribe is that the
-accumulations of which you speak are not the earnings of other people.
-The greater portion of this wealth has been developed from the bounty of
-nature in ways which could not have been pursued without large
-combinations of capital.”
-
-“That is a mere assumption, doctor.”
-
-“Not at all, professor. The money taken from gold, silver, copper, lead,
-iron, and coal mines, has come from the treasure vaults of nature, and
-has not been filched from the earnings of anybody.”
-
-“Mining is the one exception to the rule, doctor.”
-
-“I beg your pardon, professor, but it is not. Another avenue to wealth
-has been the organization and reorganization of great industries on
-unwasteful and remunerative principles. For instance, the beef and pork
-packing establishments of the West supply the retail butchers of the
-land with meat at a less price than is paid for the live cattle.”
-
-“Where, then, doctor, do these philanthropists of whom you speak make
-their money?”
-
-“They make it, professor, by scientific utilization of the hoofs and
-horns, bones and blood, which in small butcher shops are necessarily
-wasted.”
-
-“You believe, then, in the rightfulness of monopolies and trusts, do
-you, doctor?”
-
-“John, there are no monopolies. No restrictions are placed by law on any
-man who chooses to embark in any reputable business. As for the
-much-abused ‘trusts,’ they have all resulted in higher wages and more
-constant employment to the workman, and lower prices and better goods to
-the consumer. I suppose you will not claim that the capitalists alone
-are responsible for all the crime and pauperism of the land?”
-
-“No,” replied the professor, “for the ignorant and vicious poor play
-into the hands of the selfish and vicious rich, and between the two the
-honest and industrious body of the people is being ground as between the
-upper and nether millstone. Indeed, I do not know which is the greater
-curse to the country, the stock thieves, whose dens are under the shadow
-of Trinity Church spire, and who combine to corrupt courts, juries, and
-legislators, or the dynamiters and anarchists who would involve the
-innocent and the guilty in one common wreck of social order. I hope I am
-no senseless alarmist, Dr. Eustace, but I am sure we must have relief,
-or there will be national ruin.”
-
-“From what source, professor, do you expect relief to come?” inquired
-the doctor.
-
-“Frankly, I don’t know,” was the reply.
-
-“Maybe your next National Convention will relieve the situation,”
-insinuated the doctor, slyly.
-
-“I am sure that relief will not come,” said the professor, “from
-existing political parties, whose orators grow earnest and belligerent
-over the ghosts of dead issues, and travel around and around over the
-same path, like an old horse on an arrastra, forever going somewhere and
-never getting anywhere, neither knowing or caring whether he is grinding
-pay rock or waste rock, conscious only of the whip of his driver, and
-hopeful only of his allowance of barley.”
-
-“Why, John, I thought you were a devoted partisan,” said the doctor.
-
-“Did you?” was the retort. “Well, you were mistaken. What can be hoped
-from political parties when legislators who are not free from suspicion
-of venality are voted for and elected year after year, because Grant
-captured Vicksburg, or Lincoln issued a proclamation of emancipation, or
-Stonewall Jackson was killed more than twenty-five years ago? Must the
-people forever submit to the rule of brawlers, and vote sellers, and
-trust betrayers, because such men hurrah for some flag which other men
-once carried into battle? Must the masses lie down in the path of
-Juggernaut and invite him to crush them, because the evil-visaged god
-parades his devotion to party issues which were long ago remitted to the
-limbo of things lost on earth?”
-
-“The people will right all the evils of which you complain, professor,
-so soon as they see that it is to their interest to do so.”
-
-“How can they doubt that it is their interest to right them? It is they
-who suffer both in purse and pride for every unjust exaction and every
-dishonest evasion. The poorest do not escape the consequences; it all
-comes out of their toil in the end. It depletes their pockets in a
-hundred unobserved ways. They pay for it in enhanced taxation of their
-homes, in the fuel which cooks their food, in a greater cost of the
-necessaries of life, in a higher rent, in the nails which hold their
-houses together, and in the increased cost of the blows of the hammer
-which drives them. I do not need to tell you, doctor, that labor must
-bear the burdens of the State. Labor at last pays all and capital pays
-nothing—all burdens of government, all expenses of courts and juries,
-and prisons and police, all cost of armies and navies. The diamonds
-which glitter upon the shirt front of the purchased legislator, the wine
-which hisses down the throat of the lobbyist, the steel doors and locks
-which guard watered stock and stolen bonds, the very powder and bullets
-which shoot out the life of maddened and insurgent labor, are all paid
-for out of the toil of the laborer.”
-
-“While there is much truth in what you say, professor,” observed the
-doctor, “yet where is the immediate necessity for you to work yourself
-into such a state of mind about it?”
-
-“Your remark, doctor, is a representative one,” replied Professor
-Thornton, “and the general indifference which it expresses is the most
-discouraging feature of the existing situation. Like the villagers who
-cultivate their vineyards at the base of Vesuvius, we heed not the
-rumblings of the volcano. Like the citizens long resident in Cologne, we
-scent the tainted air without discomfort. We cry with the French king,
-‘After us the deluge,’ and we seem to care very little what may happen
-so long as it shall not happen to us.”
-
-“There is the mate to your pickerel,” said the doctor, as he landed a
-fish upon the grass at his feet. “Two of the millionaires of Nine Mile
-Pond have succumbed to their own greed and the patience and cunning of
-intelligent labor.”
-
-“Many of our millionaires,” resumed the professor, not to be driven from
-his theme, “and some of the most active and powerful of them all, are as
-selfish, as rapacious, as arrogant, as ignorant, as corrupt, and as
-despotic as Russian Boyars or Turkish Bashans. At the same time they are
-unaware of their danger, are utterly obtuse to their social and moral
-responsibilities, and conceited with the invulnerable conceit of
-self-made men. They do not seem to recognize that they are unprotected
-by an army, or a strong government, or spies, or the machinery of
-despotism, or any traditions or practices of rule, and they appear to
-take no thought of the infinite possibilities of disaster which line the
-path of every to-morrow.”
-
-“You really fear, then, the fulfillment of Macauley’s prophecy,
-professor?”
-
-“What thoughtful man does not? There is in every large city of our land
-a multitude unindustrious, unfrugal of life, uncurbed of spirit,
-undisciplined, uneducated, fretful of small gains, accustomed to freedom
-of speech and action, jealous of anything which looks like oppression or
-class rule, unaccustomed to restrictions of any kind, irrreligious,
-materialistic, discontented, idle, envious, and often drunken.”
-
-“In brief, a powder magazine,” said the doctor. “Great cities have
-always presented the same problem to rulers, yet civilization lives,
-nevertheless.”
-
-“Because,” rejoined the professor, “in monarchial Europe the magazine is
-guarded by trained armies and watchful sentinels, while in our country
-it is left open and unguarded, and anarchists with lighted torches pass
-to and fro. In Europe the train of government is built of
-carefully-selected materials, it is officered by experienced engineers,
-and at every station the testing hammer rings against the wheels. Here
-we put in any piece of crystallized iron for wheel or axle, and give the
-control of the engine to any loud-voiced braggart who can climb into the
-cab, or any ambitious dotard who chooses to hire the tricksters of the
-caucus to hoist him there. Then we throw the brakes off, the
-throttle-valves open, and go screaming down the grade.”
-
-“And how do you propose, John, to avoid a smash-up?” queried the doctor.
-
-“We shall have passed the danger point,” replied the professor, “and
-entered upon an era of safer and better life for the republic, only when
-the great millionaires of America shall elect to consider themselves not
-merely as conquerers on the field of finance, entitled to the spoils of
-victory, but as trustees for humanity, as suns whose mission it is to
-draw the waters of affluence from overflowing lake and stream, not to
-hold those waters above the earth forever, but to distribute them in
-bounteous and fertilizing showers.”
-
-“And do you suppose, John Thornton, that the people would either
-appreciate or respond to such seraphic unselfishness on the part of your
-regenerated and beatified millionaires?
-
-“Dr. Eustace, let me tell you that when the great, industrious,
-intelligent, patriotic body of workers shall be made to feel that there
-is no necessary conflict between labor and capital, —when they shall be
-made to know that any considerable number of our millionaires are
-seeking further wealth not merely to add to their personal luxury and
-power, but in order that labor may be helped in turn to higher planes of
-life, when it can be said truthfully—
-
-                  “‘Then none was for a party,
-                    Then all were for the State;
-                  Then the great man helped the poor
-                    And the poor man loved the great’—
-
-In that day professional labor agitators will lose their vocations, the
-workingman who never works will be without influence among his fellows,
-and the brotherhoods of beer and brawling which infest the purlieus of
-our larger cities, and clamor for bread or blood—meaning always somebody
-else’s bread or somebody else’s blood—will find occasion to disband. I
-do not despair of relief, I know that it must come. Whether it shall
-come through ‘a preserving or a destroying revolution,’ whether it shall
-come in wrath or in peace, is a question which the capitalists of this
-country must answer and answer speedily.”
-
-“John, you dear old dreamer,” said the doctor, “I know of one
-millionaire whose gold has not corroded his humanity. I hope there are
-many such, but I fear that if the world looks to its wealth owners to
-lead it in a crusade of unselfishness, it will wait a long, long time.
-But I do not diagnose the disease as you do. You resemble a boy who has
-stubbed his toe. To him there is no world and hardly any boy outside of
-that sore toe. Yet if the cure be left to nature, in time the pain will
-abate and the toe recover. I do not believe that any law framed by man
-can make a pound of flour out of half a pound of wheat, or that any
-scheme of government can equalize the inevitable inequalities of human
-life.”
-
-“Then you do not believe in the wisdom and beneficence of compelling the
-rapacious rich to aid the deserving poor?”
-
-“No; I believe in the wisdom and beneficence of exact justice. I believe
-that the skillful and rapid bricklayer is entitled to higher wages and
-greater opportunities of employment than his stupid and slothful
-associate, and that to deny the former his rightful advantage is an
-outrage upon justice, whether such outrage be perpetrated by an employer
-or a trades union. I believe that every man is fairly entitled to all
-the fruits of his labor, his skill, his good judgment, and his good
-luck. The pickerel at your feet came by chance to your hook and not
-mine, and therefore it is your fish and not my fish.”
-
-“But by the law of nature, doctor, there is no difference between a
-beggar and a king.”
-
-“There is where you are wrong, professor. The law of nature is a
-universal statute of equality of opportunity and inequality of result,
-and man distorts her purposes and violates her statutes when he places
-an unearned crown on the head of a king, or an unearned crust in the
-mouth of a beggar.”
-
-“Do you think, then, that man has no excuse for his shortcomings,
-doctor?”
-
-“He has many. He is controlled by the occult power of race
-transmissions, by laws which he did not help to make, by customs which
-he did not help to form, by organizations and environments beyond his
-power to change or combat. But because of these he should have no
-license to plunder his wealthier neighbor, for, in this republic, it is
-within the power of the people to change laws, and alter customs, and
-secure to every man the result of his own toil and skill—and that is all
-any man is entitled to.”
-
-“But the wealth owners, doctor, have monopolized nearly all the
-resources of nature.”
-
-“Nonsense. There is not a hungry idler in the purlieus of New York City
-but might catch fish enough at the nearest wharf to keep him from
-starvation, or find within a day’s walk a piece of land he could
-cultivate on ‘shares.’ The resources of nature are inexhaustible. If
-every adult male in the land were to build for himself a marble palace,
-there would be no perceptible diminution in nature’s supply of marble.
-If every farmer were to devote his energies and his acres to the
-production of wheat, until enough wheat should have been harvested to
-feed the world for five years, yet the capacity of soil and sun, water
-and air to produce more wheat would be neither exhausted nor impaired.
-For thousands of years the men of every civilization have been hewing
-forests, and smelting iron, yet the forests which are untouched and the
-mines which are unopened are practically limitless.”
-
-“Doctor, a man cannot stir the earth without a spade, or cut down a tree
-without an ax, or mine iron ore without a pick, and the owners of the
-spades, and picks, and axes, exact from the laborer an undue share of
-his labor for their use.”
-
-“Who is to determine whether the share exacted be an undue one? My own
-opinion is that the laborer’s share of results has grown larger, and the
-capitalist’s share smaller, during the last twenty years. At least, the
-rate of interest on money is not much more than half what it was before
-the war. But whether this be so or not it is not nature’s fault. Nature
-is not only implacably just, she is impartially generous. No suitor is
-denied the chance to gain her favors, and none is refused any favor he
-may have earned. There are floods and tornadoes, frosts and fevers,
-burning suns and chilling winds. Yet these, as well as the fruitage and
-the harvests, are the offspring of inexorable law, and science now
-interprets the law. It warns us of cyclones ten thousand miles away; it
-predicts the date of arrival, speed, and duration of hurricanes; it
-brings the ladybug from Australia to combat and destroy the scale-bug in
-California; it promises to conquer drought by exploding dynamite bombs
-in the air or by chemical production of rain; it restrains floods by
-diverting rivers; it destroys malarial germs by planting groves of
-eucalyptus; it analyzes soils; it selects seeds; it fertilizes with
-electric wires, and it ploughs and plants and harvests fields with
-iron-limbed and steam-lunged servants. A hundred years ago one man with
-spade and sickle slowly wrested from the earth the sustenance for his
-little household, with only sufficient surplus to scantily compensate
-the weaver, who, with hand loom, constructed a few yards of cloth
-between daylight and dark. Now a girl guides the spindles and shuttles
-and makes thousands of yards of cloth in a day, and the labor of one man
-industriously applied to so much land as he can advantageously cultivate
-with the aid of improved machinery, will in one year produce one
-thousand bushels of wheat, or their equivalent in agricultural
-products—enough to feed fifty men for a year.”
-
-“I grant you, doctor, that the production of wealth has greatly
-increased. The problem of the hour is how to provide for a more equal
-and just distribution of it.”
-
-“John, the solution of the problem is not difficult. Allow every man to
-have that which he earns, and compel every man to earn that which he
-has. Accord every man the opportunity to work or starve, with the
-assurance that for his work he will receive full value, and for his
-idleness a hunger that no public or private charity will alleviate. Hard
-labor and hard fare for the criminal, generous diet and tender care for
-the sick, an ax or a pump handle for the tramp, and allow no healthy man
-to eat his supper until he has earned it. Consider sporadic and
-indiscriminate charity as great an evil as injustice. Accord every man
-his dollar and demand from every man your dollar, and give and exact
-shilling for shilling. Emulate and copy the inexorable justice of
-nature.”
-
-“Doctor,” said the professor, “I am silenced but not convinced. The sun
-is getting too high for further fishing. Come, let us go to luncheon.”
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER VI.
-                “No man can tell what he does not know.”
-
-
-“Bob,” said Morning, as they lighted their cigars, and seated themselves
-after supper upon the piazza of the railroad hotel at Tucson, “the
-copper assays are not up to your expectations, still I am inclined to
-buy the property if I can arrange to employ men at rates that will
-enable me to work it. What are miners’ wages hereabouts?”
-
-“Three dollars and a half a day for ten hours,” replied Steel.
-
-“And how much for unskilled laborers for road building, wheeling, and
-aboveground work?” said Morning.
-
-“Two dollars and a half; but for work of that kind you can get Chinamen
-at $1.50 a day, Mexicans at $1.25, and Papago Indians for $1.00, if you
-wish to employ them, though I reckon you would have trouble about
-getting white men to work with either.”
-
-“I don’t wish to cut wages on miners, Bob, for they earn all they get,
-but if I buy that property, there will be a lot of road building, and
-grading for furnace sites, and wheeling, and other work of the same
-nature, and unless such work can be done cheaply, it will not pay to
-hire miners for underground work, or, indeed, to work the copper mines
-at all. I shall want these unskilled laborers for only a short time, and
-I have especial reasons for not hiring either white men or Mexicans,
-neither do I care to employ Chinamen if I can avoid it. Could I, think
-you, obtain enough Indians for this preliminary work?”
-
-“Plenty of them at the San Xavier reservation, nine miles from here. I
-patter their lingo a little and can get you a gang if you want them.”
-
-“I may want to drill and blast down a lot of basalt rock to build the
-foundations of furnaces and ballast the road with,” said Morning. “Will
-they do that kind of work?”
-
-“Yes, until it comes to firing the blasts. You will need a white man for
-that. You will also need a white man for blacksmith work—sharpening
-picks and drills. The Indians cannot work at a forge, and they are
-nervous about ‘big shoots,’ as they call them.”
-
-“Bob, if I take those copper prospects of you at your price, will you
-hire a gang of Papagoes for me, and take them up there and work them for
-two or three months under my direction, you and I sharpening the tools
-and preparing and firing the blasts, I paying you say $10 a day for your
-services?”
-
-“Well, Mr. Morning, I don’t quite like such a job as that, but I am
-anxious to sell those copper prospects, and I will do it. But if you are
-going to hire Indian labor, I advise you to do first all the work that
-you intend to do with it. I mean, it will be best to get through with
-the Papagoes before you take any white men in there, or else there may
-be a row, and the white men will drive away the Indians.”
-
-“All right, Bob, I will take your advice. You may consider the trade
-made. I will take your deed for the copper locations and give you a
-check to-morrow for $10,000 on the First National Bank at Denver, or I
-will arrange to get you the coin from the bank here if you desire it.”
-
-“Your check is good enough for me, Mr. Morning.”
-
-“Very well. Then you can go to the San Xavier reservation early in the
-morning and make a bargain with the Papagoes for three months. Obtain
-forty good men and agree to furnish them with rations and pay them $1.25
-a day. They have ponies, I suppose, and can take their squaws along if
-they choose. It will make them more contented to stay. You might
-contract with them also to furnish enough cattle to supply themselves
-with fresh meat. They can drive them along, and there is now plenty of
-grass in the ravines. Don’t let them come to Tuscon, for I don’t wish
-the people here to know what I am doing. The Indians can strike across
-from San Xavier by Fort Lowell and meet us, or wait for us at the mouth
-of the Rillito. You can return here as soon as you start them, and we
-will buy teams and load them with supplies, and drive them out
-ourselves. We will do all the blacksmith work and blasting ourselves.
-And, Bob, keep your own counsel strictly about everything. I have
-reasons for secrecy which I will explain to you later.”
-
-“All right, Mr. Morning. I don’t clearly see what you are driving at.
-It’s a queer way to open a copper mine, but you are the captain, and
-I’ve known you a long time, and whatever you say goes with Bob Steel.”
-
-It was three o’clock the next afternoon before Steel returned from San
-Xavier. He was well known to the Papagoes, having often purchased grain
-and animals from them for mining companies with which he had been
-connected as superintendent. His mission was successful, and Manuel
-Pacheco, a leader among the Indians, had agreed to have the necessary
-force at the place designated on the third “sun up.”
-
-Tuscon, although not a mining town, is a commercial center for a dozen
-mining camps, and there was nothing in the outfitting of a party of
-miners calculated to attract especial notice. Two wagons and twelve
-mules were purchased, with all needed supplies, and Morning and Steel
-drove away to their destination, where they met the Indians and
-proceeded to the old copper-camp. After supper Morning opened the
-conversation which he had determined to have with Steel.
-
-“Bob,” said he, “to tell the truth, I do not intend to work this copper
-property at present, though I shall need it by and by for a purpose I
-will not now explain. I bought it mainly because I knew you intended to
-sell it to somebody, and I wished to keep others away from this
-vicinity. I have another use for the powder and the Indians, and, if you
-will accept the offer I am about to make, I have another service for
-you. I selected you because I know you are as true and as bright as your
-name. If you will work with me and for me in this cañon as I require, I
-will give you a salary of $1,000 a month for three years, and at the end
-of that time I will pay you—don’t think I am crazy—I will pay you
-$1,000,000. What do you say to my proposition?”
-
-“You take away my breath,” rejoined Steel. “If I did not know you so
-well, I should say that you had been boozing on mescal, or were
-otherwise off your nut. But you don’t talk usually without meaning what
-you say, and I reckon you are in earnest. But there is nothing that I
-can do to earn $1,000,000, or $1,000 a month either.”
-
-“Oh, yes, there is,” said Morning, “as you will agree when you know all,
-or at least all that I intend to tell you! Listen: When I was up the
-cañon while we were here last week, I discovered and located a rich gold
-quartz lode that was uncovered by the waterspout. It is very rich and
-extensive—indeed, there are many millions in sight in the croppings. It
-was through my coming here to look at your copper lodes that I was led
-to its discovery, and in a certain way I consider you have a right to
-some profit from it, and I can well afford to give you a million dollars
-for your services and your silence, or several millions, if you want
-that much. The ledge is so rich that the first thing to do is to conceal
-it. No person but myself knows its extent or value, and I shall not
-disclose these even to you. When I commence working it and turning out
-bullion, people will be curious, and they will badger you to tell them
-all about. The elder Rothschild is credited with the aphorism that no
-man can tell what he does not know, and if you really don’t know the
-extent of the Morning mine, it will be a good deal easier for you to
-baffle the curious. I propose that you shall not look at the ledge or go
-into the box cañon where it is. Will you agree to that?”
-
-“Oh, I am agreeable!” said Steel. “I appreciate your reasons, and,
-anyway, it’s none of my business.”
-
-Morning then explained to Steel the situation of the cañon where he had
-found the lode, and the manner of its discovery, but was silent as to
-its dimensions or the quantity of gold contained in the rock. He
-informed him as to his plan of operations, which was to pack all the
-supplies and tools on the backs of the animals as far up the cañon as it
-was possible thus to go, and there make a permanent camp. The Indians
-were then to carry the tools, powder, and a supply of provisions upon
-their backs up to the summit of the basalt wall near the rift, where
-another camp would be made.
-
-Two Indians were to be left at the copper-camp, with directions if
-anyone appeared there to run up the cañon and inform Steel or Morning.
-Two Indians were to be placed in charge of the permanent camp and the
-animals, four Indians were to carry water in kegs to the top of the wall
-for the use of the main party there, two Indians to procure firewood and
-prepare food and attend to the camp at the summit, and thirty Indians to
-work at drilling holes in the basalt at the summit on both sides of the
-rift, and at a distance of about ten feet from the edge of it.
-
-The squaws were to be suffered to make such disposition of their time as
-their social and domestic duties and inclinations might suggest. Steel
-and Morning would keep the drills sharpened at the portable forge,
-which, with a supply of charcoal, would be transported to the summit
-camp, and as often as the drill holes were ready they would place and
-explode the blasts.
-
-It was intended thus to throw rocks from the summit down into the gorge,
-and this was to be repeated until its bottom should be covered to a
-depth of many feet, and all signs of the existence of the quartz lode
-obliterated. From the height of one thousand feet the lode could not be
-seen at all, unless one were to crawl to and look over the edge of the
-precipice, and then its nature could not—except by an experienced miner
-or geologist—be discerned from that of the neighboring rock. The Indians
-below would not be apt to disobey orders, leave their posts, and go into
-the cañon amid tumbling rocks, and the general stolidity and lack of
-interest of the Papagoes would lead them to attribute the entire work to
-the eccentricity of their white employer.
-
-The plan formed by Morning was carried into effect. Drills of different
-length had been provided, and the work was systematized. At six o’clock
-each morning the Indians commenced work; from eleven to twelve they were
-allowed for dinner and rest. At five o’clock drilling was suspended, and
-the work of preparing the blasts was performed. The Indians then retired
-to a distance, and Morning and Steel would explode the blasts.
-
-At the end of two months’ hard labor the rift was filled with rock and
-débris to a depth of thirty feet, and the lode completely covered from
-view. Morning then made a relocation of the mine on the basalt wall
-above and on the mountain side below. He located extensions, side
-locations, and tunnel locations in every direction for a mile or more,
-so as to completely appropriate all approaches to the original location,
-and prevent others from obtaining any vantage-ground from which drifts
-might be run under his property. He also located the necessary mill
-sites, the waters of Rillito Creek, and the timber upon the mountains.
-
-The plateau where he had tethered his horses on his first visit was,
-with the available adjacent slopes, chosen as a site for buildings he
-intended to have constructed for the use of the miners and their
-families, and a rock and earth dam was built in the Rillito several
-hundred feet above, from whence the water should be piped to the
-buildings. The Indians were then set to work constructing a wagon road
-to the mouth of the Rillito.
-
-The work being completed, the entire party now journeyed to Tucson, and
-the Indians were paid off and returned to the reservation, where they
-doubtless regaled their tribe with an account of the work they had
-performed at the instance of the white lunatic who had paid them over
-four thousand “pesos” in silver to tumble rock into a hole. Yet it is
-doubtful if such information ever extended beyond members of their
-tribe, for, on parting with them, Morning presented each worker with a
-high silk hat, and each squaw with red calico for a gown, and Bob Steel
-made a speech to them in the Papago tongue, and asked them to agree not
-to tell the Indian agent, or any white man, where they had been working
-or what doing, beyond the statement that they had been “building wagon
-road.” The Indians—naturally secretive—readily gave the required
-promise.
-
-Having recorded his new location notices, Morning telegraphed to San
-Francisco for a portable sawmill. He loaded the wagons with a fresh
-supply of provisions and tools and sent them with a gang of
-wood-choppers in charge of Steel to the upper camp on the Rillito, with
-directions to get out logs and haul them to the site of the proposed
-sawmill.
-
-While awaiting the arrival of the sawmill, Morning visited the
-neighboring mining camps of Tombstone, Globe, and Bisbee, and selected
-with great care—after watching them at work and informing himself as to
-their habits and antecedents—one hundred miners, to whom he agreed to
-give a steady job for several years, working in eight-hour shifts, at
-$4.00 per day. He preferred and obtained married men, each man being
-promised a comfortable cabin, with transportation for his family and
-effects from Tucson.
-
-In ten days the portable sawmill arrived, and with it and a full outfit
-of building material, tools, and pipe, Morning, accompanied by a gang of
-carpenters, was again _en route_ for the mine.
-
-It was busy times at Waterspout, for such was the name given to the new
-camp, for the next six weeks. By that time the sawmill and shingle
-machine had turned out sufficient material, and with the carpenters and
-a number of the wood-choppers who were drafted for the purpose, eighty
-comfortable board houses had been constructed, with large buildings for
-shops and offices, and a suitable edifice for a schoolhouse. Water was
-piped to the little plaza about which the buildings were gathered, and
-all was ready for the miners.
-
-The sawmill was now set to work getting out timbers for a mill, and for
-timbering tunnels. The men were all alive with curiosity to know where
-was the mine for the working of which all these preparations were made,
-but both Morning and Steel were reticent, and those who were too
-pressing in their inquiries were quietly given to understand that a
-continuation of questioning might cause their services to be dispensed
-with.
-
-All being ready, the teams were sent to Tucson at the appointed time and
-returned with the miners and their household effects, a number of wagons
-chartered for the purpose bringing the women and children. Twenty or
-more adventurers on horseback and in wagons accompanied the party, as by
-this time curiosity was all ablaze at the proceedings of Morning, whose
-location notices had been read by hundreds, and been made the subject of
-frequent comment in the Tucson papers.
-
-Numerous prospecting parties were dispatched to the Santa Catalinas
-during the next few months, and their members climbed all over the
-mountains, examined Morning’s location monuments, and returned to Tucson
-with the report that the Colorado man was clean crazy, that there was
-not a sign of quartz, or any place where quartz could exist, and that
-Morning’s friends—if he had any—would do well to appoint a guardian for
-him.
-
-The plan of production upon which Morning had settled was to extract
-sufficient gold to gradually substitute that metal for paper, or to make
-it instead of bonds or credits the basis for paper money in all the
-civilized world, and to increase the circulation of all countries to the
-volume _per capita_ of the country having the largest amount.
-
-He learned from the statistics with which he had supplied himself that
-the money circulation of France, the most prosperous and the most
-commercially active nation in Europe, was $42.15 _per capita_, of the
-United States $24.10, of Great Britain $20.40, of Italy $16.31, of Spain
-$14.44, and of Germany, $14.23. In the Asiatic, semi-Asiatic and South
-American countries the money circulation was still less, being but $5.20
-_per capita_ in Russia, $3.18 in Turkey, $4.02 in British India, $4.90
-in Mexico, $4.29 in Peru, $1.79 in Central America, and $1.29 in
-Venezuela.
-
-Morning noticed that the greater the money circulation of a country, the
-greater the civilization, prosperity, and refinement of the people; and
-metallic money, or paper currency calling for metallic money, being the
-best money, it would be sure wherever obtainable to drive out all other
-currency. He proposed, therefore, to increase, as rapidly as was
-possible, the metallic money of the United States and Europe to the
-standard _per capita_ of France, beginning with the United States,
-following with England, and then proceeding to the Continent.
-
-The process of accomplishing this was to be exceedingly simple. He would
-ship gold bars to the mints of the country whose currency he proposed to
-increase, and ask that they be coined into the money of the country. The
-coin received he proposed to deposit in the banks of that country for
-investment or use therein.
-
-The one danger against which he had to provide was demonetization of
-gold by the nations. He could only effectually guard against this by
-withholding all knowledge of the extent of his mine until he should have
-accumulated a vast deposit of gold bars—say $2,000,000,000 worth—and
-then deposit these for coinage suddenly and simultaneously at the mints
-of the world before any law could be enacted depriving gold of its
-quality as a money metal. Yet it would take several years for the mints
-to coin so large a sum, and in the meantime gold might be demonetized.
-In order for Morning to place his gold beyond the reach of such
-legislation, it was essential to have it coined, or put in form of money
-having a legal tender value. A slight change in the currency and coinage
-laws would effect this. In the United States it might be accomplished by
-an act of Congress requiring the government to receive gold bars, and to
-issue legal tender gold notes thereon, without actually coining the gold
-at all. The mints of the United States, working to their full capacity
-on gold alone, could not turn out more than $50,000,000 in coin per
-month, while a government printing press could issue $500,000,000 in a
-day.
-
-Morning concluded that one of his earliest duties would be to visit
-Washington while Congress was in session, and promote the necessary
-legislation.
-
-Of the gold which he produced he could ship to the mints openly about
-one bar in twenty-five. The other twenty-four bars he could keep at the
-mine until he could build a smelting furnace and manufacture pigs of
-copper, which should be hollow, and in which gold bars should be
-concealed, and thus shipped to financial centers, where they could be
-stored ready for any occasion.
-
-Morning estimated that the production of $100,000,000 per month would
-require the activity of two hundred stamps, and that with the aid of
-improved machinery he could reach the ledge and commence the production
-of gold in about three months. He had now expended for labor, machinery,
-and supplies about $25,000, and as much more would be required to meet
-the labor expenses of the next sixty days, while the quartz mills he
-proposed erecting would require nearly $200,000 more. As the business
-methods of the railroad company prevented him from keeping his secret,
-and at the same time realizing any money by shipping ore, he determined
-to obtain the necessary funds by a sale of his mortgage securities, and,
-leaving Robert Steel in charge of the work, David Morning departed for
-Denver.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER VII.
-                          “Sick to the soul.”
-
-
-On his return to Denver, Morning found no difficulty in speedily closing
-up his business and converting his mortgages into money. In about ten
-days he was ready to depart for San Francisco, where he intended
-purchasing the necessary machinery for five mills of forty stamps each.
-His sole remaining business in Denver was the execution and delivery to
-the purchaser of a conveyance of some city property which he had sold.
-
-While breakfasting at the Windsor that morning, his appetite was not
-increased by reading from the Associated Press telegrams the following:—
-
-                         “MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.
-
-                                             “BOSTON, February 13, 1893.
-
-  “There was celebrated this morning at the residence of the bride’s
-  father, Professor John Thornton, in Roxbury, the nuptials of one of
-  Boston’s greatest heiresses and acknowledged belles, the beautiful and
-  accomplished Miss Ellen Thornton, to the Baron Von Eulaw. The happy
-  couple will sail on the _Servia_ to-morrow, and will proceed directly
-  to Berlin. It is intimated that our fair countrywoman may be restored
-  to us after a season by the appointment of the Baron Von Eulaw as
-  envoy at Washington from the German Empire.”
-
-Forgotten? Ah, no! there are experiences in life that may never be
-forgotten. Time rolls by, and against the door of the mausoleum where we
-buried our dead out of sight the years have piled events and emotions
-and distractions, and the passion which we once thought immortal becomes
-now an episode, and by and by a dream, and at last a vague and shadowy
-remembrance, and one day some new and mighty fact stalks forward, and
-sweeps away all obstructions, and the doors of the tomb are reopened,
-and the dead of our heart come forth, bringing to us sometimes the joys
-of life’s morning, and sometimes the bitterness of a new death.
-
-David Morning walked from the hotel to his office without noticing many
-of the friendly greetings bestowed upon him, for his thoughts were busy
-with the past, and there was a dull, dead pain tugging at his heart
-strings.
-
-The notary who had taken Morning’s acknowledgment to the deed whose
-delivery would complete his business in Denver, brought the instrument
-to Morning’s office, and, not finding him in, slipped the paper in the
-top of a desk with a circular cover. This desk was one of Morning’s
-first possessions in the way of office furniture, and, finding it
-convenient and commodious, he had caused it to accompany every change of
-quarters which his increasing business had from time to time rendered
-necessary.
-
-Entering his office, Morning hurriedly threw back the cover of the desk,
-not noticing the deed in the top of it until it was too late to prevent
-the paper from being carried by the revolving cover into the interior of
-the desk, where it could only be reached by removing a portion of the
-back. The services of a mechanic from a neighboring furniture store were
-procured, the back of the desk was removed, and Morning recovered the
-deed.
-
-He also recovered another paper. It was an unopened letter addressed to
-himself, which had doubtless reached its resting-place in the old desk
-through the same process as that which carried the deed there. The
-envelope was covered with dust; it was postmarked “Boston, Mass.,
-February, 1883”—ten years before—and the superscription was in the
-handwriting of Ellen Thornton, now the Baroness Von Eulaw.
-
-Dispatching the recovered deed to its destination, Morning closed the
-door of his private office, and, with breath coming thick and fast,
-proceeded to open and peruse the missive. It read as follows:—
-
-                                          ROXBURY, Mass., Feb. 13, 1883.
-
-  MY DEAR MR. MORNING: This letter may bring you a moment of surprise;
-  if it be not a surprise mixed with chagrin, I am less justly repaid
-  than perhaps I deserve for that which may seem my instability of
-  purpose. But I have heard you say that you scarcely knew which was the
-  weaker, the man who changed his mind too often or who never changed it
-  at all, and in this recollection I find refuge.
-
-  With men as intuitive as yourself, explanations are almost
-  superfluous. Nevertheless, you will bear with me while I pass under
-  review a few of the causes which have led to this action.
-
-  After the change in my father’s fortunes and our subsequent removal to
-  Boston, life began to open up new possibilities, and what with the
-  increased demands upon my time, and the many beguilements of
-  flattering tongues, together with—let me confess it—an unresting
-  desire to forget the act of folly which had shut out every ray of
-  sunshine from my heart, as I found too late, I at length fixed my
-  footing to the artificial conditions of the situation, and for a brief
-  time flattered myself that you were forgotten.
-
-  My letter, if written at all, ought to stop here. But thus much I have
-  learned—that passion tinctured with sorrow is the greatest of
-  egotists, and that the feeling that brooks no measure of repression or
-  discouragement inspires a degree of courage little short of defiance.
-  Thus stimulated, I feel a growing joy in being able to surmount
-  artificial restraint and to address you as I know you would wish an
-  honest girl who loves you with her whole heart, should speak.
-
-  What will you think of me? Will you call me fickle and unworthy?
-  unwomanly? In a word, will you misunderstand me? How could I know till
-  my eyes were opened that there was but one sun? that the whole world
-  to me was adjusted to your simple, noble qualities? How could I know
-  that the music of the spheres meant the remembered tones of your
-  voice, that your face should haunt alike every scene of splendor and
-  every secret shadow, or that I would give my patrimony to be able to
-  pass my fingers through your brown locks for ever so brief a moment?
-
-  What am I writing? I dare not read it. How confident I feel, how
-  transported with the thought that you may in remembering me forget my
-  much-repented dictum, or at least relegate it to the Quixotic realm to
-  which it belongs.
-
-  As I near the close of my letter, I am possessed with a new fear.
-  Shall I dare send it? What if you shall have discovered new powers in
-  yourself, new persons out in the broad world, which shall make you
-  glad of your escape? It is so long since I have heard of you, and life
-  is so full of new things, I forget that you too have quite the right
-  to change your mind. If this be your condition, do not, I beg of you,
-  write me. I could not bear the humiliation as your great heart bore
-  yours. Consign my letter, then, to the great silence, and only
-  remember me as ever and always your sincere friend,
-
-                                                                  ELLEN.
-
-What was his colossal fortune to David Morning now? Out of the past came
-this message of life and love; of a love gone forever, and a life which
-now seemed barren of purpose and hope.
-
-What is time but a name? The intervening years shriveled into
-nothingness, and he was again bathing in the light which shone from the
-eyes of the woman he loved, the one woman on earth or in heaven for him,
-yesterday and to-day and forever. Again he walked with her under the
-whispering foliage along the brow of the hill which crowns the Queen
-City of the plains, and watched the burning sunsets illumine the
-lavender mountains and change the clouds into embers of glory. Again he
-sat beside her, reading some tender or beautiful or stirring passage
-from poet or essayist. Again, at the good-night going, he felt her
-dainty kiss, thrilling his soul to ecstasy.
-
-And she was lost to him now, lost through his pride, lost through his
-vanity, lost through such dense and inexcusable stupidity as never
-before possessed or afflicted a man. He had taken her girlish doubts as
-final. He had thought to exhibit his manly pride—which was, after all,
-only conceit of self—as an offset to her presuming to question the
-possibility of her being possessed by a great love for him. Coward that
-he was to surrender this glorious creature without an effort. Dolt that
-he was to so mistake her maidenly hesitancy.
-
-And she—dear heart—had loved him after all. She had condescended to
-summon him, and he had never received the message. What had she thought
-of his failure to respond? What must she have thought of him, save that
-he was a cruel, conceited creature unworthy of her love? What
-humiliation his unexplained silence must for a time have brought to her
-gentle spirit! What wreck and misery had not this miscarriage of her
-missive brought to his life!
-
-If he could have identified the clerk or postman whose carelessness had
-misplaced her letter, he would have beaten him in his fury, and he
-wished for an ax that he might hew and batter to splinters the inanimate
-desk whose machinery had been instrumental in wrecking two lives.
-
-Were they hopelessly wrecked? He caught his breath at the thought. He at
-least was free, and whatever else might come never would he be
-otherwise. Never should wile of woman enchant him, never should desire
-for home and love and perpetuation of race and name beguile him. He
-would walk lonely to the gates of the eternal morning, and wait for her
-beyond the portal, and carry her soul upon the pinions of his immortal
-love to the uttermost confines of ether, where no entrapments or
-environments of earth could follow or molest them, and in the glow of
-the astral light he would claim her as his own, and give himself to her
-forever and ever.
-
-Ellen’s letter released the passion which had been locked for ten years
-in the silent chambers of David Morning’s soul, and it possessed the
-man, and mastered him with throes of bitter agony and throbs of ecstatic
-delight. His cheeks were wet with the tears of disappointment, and again
-to the very center of him he laughed with joy as he covered the letter
-with kisses.
-
-“She loved me, my darling, my own, she loved me!” he cried. “Maybe she
-loves me yet!” and again his heart beat wildly. “For ten years she
-remained unmated. But yesterday she married this German nobleman, this
-Baron Von Eulaw. Surely love could not have moved her to the union.
-Surely with her nature she could not have forgotten her first love. She
-was outraged and humiliated and incensed at the silence and seeming
-indifference of the man she really loved, and so she married, for
-reasons common enough in society.”
-
-Was this tie irrevocable? Could it not be severed? Might it not be
-possible that happiness should yet be in store on this earth for his
-darling and himself? He was now in possession of the lever that moves
-the world. Should he not use this power for her and for himself, as well
-as for the benefit of mankind?
-
-Who was this German baron that he should stand against him? There were
-hundreds of barons, but only one owner of the Morning mine. He would use
-millions piled upon millions to bring his Ellen to his arms.
-
-Napoleon divorced Josephine and married Maria Louisa. Cæsar put away one
-wife and married another. David placed Uriah in the front of the battle.
-Many kings had used their power to readjust to their liking their own
-domestic relations and those of their subjects.
-
-He was a mightier king than Darius. He ruled greater armies than any
-ever commanded by Bonaparte. Not the Kaiser or the Romanoff upon their
-imperial thrones could exercise so great a power as David Morning.
-
-He would bid his golden armies serve their master. Walpole had
-truthfully said that “every man has his price,” and the Baron Von Eulaw
-probably had his. How many millions would this titled Dutchman take for
-his wife? ten? fifty? a hundred? a thousand?—he should have them
-multiplied again and again.
-
-Morning smiled grimly at the grotesque fancy. Von Eulaw aspired to the
-American embassy. Mayhap he was not covetous but ambitious. Very well,
-he would ask the Hohenzollern to name his figures for offices and
-ribbons and rank to be accorded to the baron in exchange for a surrender
-of his American wife. He would pay off the national debt of Germany if
-necessary. Or he would buy the baron a kingdom. There were always
-thrones for sale for cash or approved credit in the Danubian country.
-That of Servia was just now in the market, and even that of Spain or
-Portugal might be purchased.
-
-Maybe the baron loved his wife. How could he help loving her? Curse him,
-what right had he to love her? What if Morning emulated the example of
-the Psalmist and caused the Baroness Von Eulaw to be made a widow? Money
-would accomplish this, and none be the wiser.
-
-None? Ah, what of the God that rules worlds and directs the eternities,
-the God that was in and a part of David Morning, the God that punishes
-and pities, the God that smote David, that struck down Cæsar, that gave
-Napoleon to an exile’s death, and Henry Tudor to centuries of infamy?
-
-If Morning gained his Ellen’s arms through wrong to another, through
-wrong to his own imperial and impartial conscience, there would be
-bitterness in her kisses, and misery in his soul; they would go maimed
-and chained to the gates of death, and in the other land they should
-meet not again.
-
-And, inch by inch and minute by minute, Ohromades and Ahriman fought for
-the soul of David Morning. The ebon-plumed spirit of darkness and the
-silver-armored essence of light battled along the lines of heaven and
-hell, and the light triumphed, and darkness was hurled from the
-battlements, and peace and strength came to the aching soul.
-
-He would wait. He would not even jeopardize her peace by righting
-himself in her esteem. He would offer no explanation. He would wait,
-wait for the decree of the Father, wait for the hour of meeting in
-honor. If it came on earth, well; if it came only through the help of
-death, still well, for “life is short but love immortal.” In the other
-land there would be readjustments, and each soul not mated truly here
-would find its true mate there, in a mating that should be prevented by
-no power, and limited by no death, but should endure so long as the
-planets circle in their orbits.
-
-How did he know this? Not through any evidence presented to the material
-senses, nor through any logic of the schools. It is the spiritual sense
-of man that perceives his spiritual life. No priest can give him his
-intuitions, no scoffer can take them from him, and the querulous
-questionings of science are but as the babblings of infancy in the
-august presence of the soul.
-
-And for full five minutes David Morning sat with his face between his
-hands, then rose and went forth a conqueror.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER VIII.
-                       “Conceal what we impart.”
-
-
-Before leaving Colorado Morning employed a force of skilled workmen,
-necessary for the successful conduct of both quartz mills and
-copper-smelting furnaces. It was his design to make Waterspout a little
-world in itself, the members of which should consent to remain in the
-cañon for three years, communicating with the world outside only by
-mail. To this end physicians, school-teachers, and a clergyman were
-secured, and a library, musical instruments, and theatrical scenery
-purchased, with the confident expectation that local histrionic talent
-would be developed; for where is the American community of five hundred
-souls which does not contain the material both for Hamlet and burnt-cork
-opera?
-
-From Denver Morning proceeded directly to San Francisco, where the
-leading iron works were soon busy constructing quartz-crushing
-machinery. By the 15th of April everything was on the ground, and in one
-month thereafter the stamps were ready to drop. This result was achieved
-by working nights by electric light, the Rillito furnishing power for
-the dynamos.
-
-In ordering the mining work Morning had arranged for a double-track
-tunnel, which would reach the lode at a depth of about one hundred and
-fifty feet from the surface, and there was now a broad, well-ventilated
-and well-lighted underground road to and along the entire length of the
-quartz lode, at a point five feet from it. From this tunnel Morning
-could cause to be run as many crosscuts into the lode as he desired, and
-thus control the amount of quartz extracted, and keep within his
-exclusive knowledge the true dimensions of the mineral deposit.
-
-Conjecture was rife, and the general opinion questioned the sanity of a
-man who made such costly and elaborate preparations for extracting and
-reducing quartz in a place where no quartz or sign or promise of quartz
-was visible. But Superintendent Robert Steel kept his own counsel, the
-wages of the men were paid promptly, all bills were cashed on
-presentation, and the prevailing sentiment was voiced by big Jim
-Stebbins, the boss of shift No. 3, who interrupted and terminated a
-discussion among his men as to Morning’s movements by saying:—
-
-“Dave Morning is no mining shark or stock-board stiff. His money is
-clean money; he dug it out of the ground; and if he chooses to buck it
-off agin a syenite dike, a payin’ you fellers $4.00 for eight hours’
-work, which is a sight more than some of you is worth, why, I reckon
-it’s nobody’s business but his own. It’s only five minutes to shift
-time; put out your pipes, and get a move on you.”
-
-The mills were built on the side of the mountain below the tunnel, and
-were inclosed—as was the entrance to the tunnel—with a high fence,
-within which none were permitted except workmen on duty.
-
-A light narrow-gauge road was built from the mill yard at Waterspout
-down the cañon, past the copper smelters, to the mouth of the Rillito.
-The wagon road was destroyed, and the stream dammed in several places,
-so that the only means of reaching Waterspout was by rail; and, without
-a pass from Superintendent Steel, no person was permitted to ride on the
-cars. Tourists, prospectors, and seekers for information who should
-overcome these difficulties, and walk, climb, or swim to Waterspout,
-would need to carry also their own provisions and bedding, for they
-would find neither shelter, food, nor welcome, and could not gain access
-to mine or mill.
-
-These discouragements stained the reputation of Morning for hospitality,
-but they helped to keep his secret, and proved effective against
-everybody except a special reporter of a San Francisco journal, who,
-disguised as a Papago Indian, journeyed to Waterspout, and remained
-there several days. He might have made a longer stay, but a Papago
-squaw, hearing of his presence, sought him with a view to connubial
-felicity. The reporter would have faced death for his journal, but he
-drew the line at matrimony and fled. He did not gain access to mine or
-mill while there, but he picked up considerable information, the
-publication of which might have proved damaging to Morning’s plans.
-
-It happened that the sagacious manager of the great daily, before
-ordering publication, frankly communicated with Morning—who happened to
-be in San Francisco—and, being persuaded by that gentleman that the
-public interest would be subserved by silence concerning the great gold
-mine in the Santa Catalinas, the notes of the reporter were not sent to
-the composing room.
-
-At last all was in readiness. The men whose duties ended with the
-construction of mills, furnaces, railroad, and buildings, were sent with
-the teams to Tucson and paid off. All idle, dissatisfied, and
-unsatisfactory men were discharged, and their places supplied with
-others. The best mining and milling machinery obtainable was in place
-and ready to run. Supplies of all kinds, sufficient for months, were in
-the storehouses, five crosscuts, twenty feet apart, had been run to
-within one foot of the ledge, and the doors of the treasure caverns were
-ready to open, when the owner of the mine directed that all the men
-assemble on the little plaza at Waterspout in front of the company’s
-offices.
-
-“My friends,” said David Morning, “I have called you together that we
-may have a more perfect understanding before entering upon the most
-important part of the labor that lies before us. You have doubtless felt
-surprised at the extent of the work which has been done in this cañon
-without there being any ore, or indications of ore, in sight. But your
-surprise will change to astonishment when you know, as you soon must
-know, how extensive and rich a body of gold quartz is here. It has been
-and still is my desire to withhold from the world any knowledge, or, at
-least, any accurate knowledge, of the amount of gold that will be
-produced. I conclude that the best method for securing secrecy is to
-make it in the interest of all concerned to keep the secret, and I
-desire to say now that each one of you, whether miner, millman,
-mechanic, laborer, teacher, clerk, clergyman, or physician, every man
-who is or who may be on the pay-rolls, who shall faithfully discharge
-the duties for which he was employed, and shall remain in such
-employment for one year, without in the meantime leaving this cañon, and
-who shall not by letter, or otherwise, communicate any information
-concerning the working or yield of the mine, will be presented by me at
-the end of the year with the sum of $5,000 in addition to his pay. Those
-who remain until the end of the second year will receive a further
-present of $10,000, and those who remain until the end of the third year
-will receive a still further present of $15,000. Those who choose to go,
-or who may be compelled to leave here because of either misconduct or
-misfortune, will receive nothing but their pay. Should any die, the
-present for that year will, at the expiration of the year, be paid to
-his family—if here. If strangers visit this cañon, I shall expect you
-not to entertain them or converse with them. Those of you who correspond
-with friends will please say nothing whatever as to any facts concerning
-this property, or any opinions you may have about it or about me. It is
-only with your co-operation and good faith that the secrets of this mine
-can be kept. Any one of you may, to a certain extent, betray those
-secrets. Should he do so, he will not only defeat my plans but deprive
-himself of the fortune which I expect to pay each of you as the price of
-three years of work and reticence.”
-
-The proposition of Morning was agreed to with unanimity, and with an
-enthusiasm and gratitude which can be comprehended when it is understood
-that even the sum of $5,000 represented to the most industrious and
-frugal workman the savings of from five to twenty years.
-
-Three days afterwards the crosscuts were in ore, cars loaded with the
-yellow-seamed quartz began to discharge into the chutes and feeders, and
-the music of two hundred stamps resounded in the Santa Catalinas.
-
-Morning’s estimate of the value of the ore, which he made from the
-specimens taken by him at the time of the discovery, proved singularly
-accurate. The quartz contained $10,000 in gold per ton, of which amount
-ninety-five per cent was saved in the mill. The reduction power was two
-tons to each stamp per _diem_, and the yield of the mine was quite
-$4,000,000, or eight tons of gold, each day. The necessity of resting
-one day in seven was observed at Waterspout, both as a sanitary measure
-and because of the suggestions of the race germs that Morning had
-received from his Connecticut ancestors.
-
-The disposition of the gold bars produced was made in accordance with
-Morning’s plans previously made. Each day the product of the copper
-furnaces, cast in hollow moulds, was brought upon the railroad, to the
-lower part of the mill yard, where were situated the gold-melting
-furnaces. Under the personal supervision of Steel, assisted by a few men
-specially selected for the work, a gold bar was placed inside each
-copper mould, the slight spaces filled with dry sand, a half inch of dry
-sand placed upon the end of the gold bar, and the mould then filled with
-melted copper.
-
-When completed there was to all appearance a pig of black copper or
-copper matte worth commercially $18 or $20. In truth there was a gold
-bar worth $40,000, which a few minutes’ work with a cold chisel would
-release.
-
-The gold bars intended for open shipment were cast one-half the size of
-those intended for imprisonment in the copper pigs. Of these small bars
-Morning had eight prepared each day, making the ostensible yield of the
-mill and mine $160,000 per day, or about $4,000,000 per month. Of the
-large bars he had eighty prepared each day, which were shipped as copper
-pigs. Their real value was about $4,000,000 per _diem_, or $100,000,000
-per month. These were allowed to accumulate in the warehouse at Rillito
-Station until Morning should procure suitable places for their deposit
-in Eastern cities.
-
-On the 1st of August, 1893, everything had been running smoothly for
-several weeks, and gold shipments amounting to millions had been made.
-Morning concluded that the running of the mill and mine no longer
-required his personal attention, while his projects demanded his
-presence at the great financial centers. Robert Steel was in full
-possession of the plans of his friend and employer, who, leaving
-everything in his charge, bade good-by to all and departed for Tucson to
-take the train for the East.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER IX.
-             “And then hid the key in a bundle of letters.”
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                                 BERLIN, March 18, 1893.
-
-MY DEAR MOTHER: Really I hardly feel equal to a detailed description of
-our trip over the ocean. Why is it that I remember only the painful
-things about our journey? Surely there were pleasant people, cultivated
-men and graceful women, such as one always meets in these days of free
-interchange between different nations. But I have observed that some
-temperaments catch first and make most visible the shadows upon the
-landscape. Much as I love the hues and tints of the changeful waters, I
-seem to remember only the rolling ship, and between me and the thought
-of the blue skies and the splendid sunsets which I would have carried
-away as a treasured memory, comes some trifling but harassing
-recollection. So narrow and individual is the composing-stone upon which
-our impressions are made up.
-
-I assume, dear mother, that you remember our serious conversation that
-last night before my marriage, as, sitting upon my couch and looking
-into my sleepy eyes, you half chided me for that which you called—for
-want of a better term—indifference.
-
-Pardon me, ’tis a word with a sex. A woman may love, she may hate, she
-may dissemble, but, pose as she will, there is no profile in her
-passion. I do not deny I am going to school to my own heart. I am
-honestly endeavoring to follow your advice. I am learning to love. Let
-me say in the beginning it is a mistake to believe that men love deeply.
-If ever they do, the object of their passion is themselves. Is this a
-sound foundation to build domestic faith upon? However, as I have said,
-I shall try very earnestly to do my part.
-
-The baron told me this morning that as Americans were a nation of
-plebeians, I would naturally suffer many disabilities even as the
-Baroness Von Eulaw, to which I replied rather hotly that honor and
-courage required no purple swaddlings to hide their proportions, and
-that we Americans sprang full created from the brain of regenerate
-thought, whereupon his manly fist gathered muscle for a moment, then as
-speedily relaxed, and he only slammed the door of his dressing-room
-between us. Believe me, my dear mother, I was very sorry for the scene,
-and I have no excuse to offer save the gaping wound to my patriotism,
-which I find much more sensitive over here than at home.
-
-We have constant engagements, and I feel a little worn, though otherwise
-quite well. Can you pardon a letter wholly devoted to myself? and in
-return will you not tell me all about yourself, dear papa, and everybody
-you know?
-
-                                 Always faithfully your own,      ELLEN.
-
-
-         _From Mrs. Perces Thornton to the Baroness Von Eulaw._
-
-                                          ROXBURY, Mass., April 2, 1893.
-
-MY DEAR DAUGHTER: I have your first letter written from Berlin, but how
-sad! That dreadful sea must have made you bilious. It has always just
-such an effect on your father; he sees the whole earth through smoked
-glasses.
-
-But I can only imagine you as in a constant succession of raptures. Such
-a marriage for an American girl! A baron with such deportment, and such
-a delightful accent! I have no doubt, too, he is much richer than he
-represented. I assure you, the young ladies of Boston’s high circles
-have turned all hues of the rainbow with envy, and you ought to find
-great pleasure in that recollection alone. Besides, such opportunities
-as you are having to meet crowned heads, and feel yourself as one among
-the titled people of Europe! What elevation! What distinction! You must
-not forget to make the most copious notes, so that you will be able to
-impress your superiority upon the world of society when you return.
-
-Really, you should be, as I know you are, very happy. Of course “scenes”
-are unpleasant to one like yourself, not foreign bred. But I am told
-that such experiences are the real thing with nobility, especially if
-there is an American wife. And it is reasonable to suppose that high
-blood should feel intolerant toward all forms of assertiveness on the
-part of women, especially American women.
-
-Therefore, be a little discreet, my dear, and remember what an English
-woman said to you, that it is not good form to be either clever or
-artistic, and above all patriotic.
-
-You speak of shadows in your life. It was only the other day I read from
-one of your own books on the Newtonian theory of color, that dark
-objects were such as absorbed the light and reflected only somber tints,
-and I am sure it is so with your life; it is holding the light within
-itself.
-
-I will not write more to-day, for your correspondence will be large, and
-time precious with you. How radiant you must look with your graceful
-gowns and your classic face; almost equal to a born princess! Believe
-me, my dear child, I am very proud of your noble marriage and of your
-dutiful conduct in making such an one largely, let me confess, to please
-me. And of all things, do not trouble yourself too much about the love
-business—that will all come about in good time, and if it does not—well,
-I can only say you will have a majority with you.
-
-Greet your noble husband with the pride and joy that I feel in him, and
-present your loving father, who so seldom writes. Send fresh photos of
-your dear self, the baroness, and the baron, and do not permit them to
-exaggerate his nose, which is quite full enough at best, though a true
-sign of the blood.
-
-                                    Your devoted mother,
-                                                        PERCES THORNTON.
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                                 BERLIN, April 20, 1893.
-
-MY DEAR MOTHER: So far from the monopolizing effect of minor matters of
-which I complained in my last, I seem to be losing my individuality
-altogether. Have you ever possessed your mind of one subject or object
-to the absolute exclusion of even yourself? What an unpleasant condition
-of mind it is! The baron I find to be a man most peculiarly constituted.
-The somewhat dominant manner which you suppose to be foreign breeding,
-as you expressed it, seems to have developed into an engrossing
-self-consequence, which appears to draw its vitality, if I may be
-pardoned for saying so, largely from his new marital connection.
-
-For instance, at the opening of the season we attended the Emperor’s
-Easter ball. According to our customs, after concluding the first dance
-with the baron, I accepted a waltz with an English nobleman, whom I had
-met on some previous occasion. We were resting for a moment after a
-round of the spacious ballroom when I felt my arm seized from behind,
-and with a muttered oath the baron commanded my instant release and
-return home.
-
-What should I have done? Disregard him and precipitate a scandal?
-Impossible. I made excuse in some hypothetical disarrangement of my
-dress and retired. I am only able to write because it is my left arm
-which suffered the accident. The subsequent explanations of the baron
-were, of course, frivolous, but I was too relieved by any form of
-apology to add words, which, without reference to their significance,
-always irritate him. I mention this little incident in order to show you
-how it is that my visible life is subordinated, albeit my spirit is in
-no way depressed though severely harassed.
-
-As I write I am doubtful if I ought to speak of these things at all. I
-do not ask myself what is due to my rank here, for that was conferred by
-him, but is it womanly to stand before the world an intelligent and
-willing indorser of his character and conduct, having given my public
-vows for better or worse, and then, cowering behind his faults, denounce
-such acts as only, at worst, affect me? Indeed, I must exercise more
-courage and less candor. One thing is certain, I am constantly looking
-for the better traits in his nature, and am making every effort to call
-them forth. Thus I escape self-reproach at least. But I am self-abashed
-at my attitude, for I abhor dissembling. The baron loves to taunt me
-with this trait, which he calls rudeness, and declares it to be the
-result of my “Yankee training.” I only smile at this, for, as I have
-said, he cannot brook discussion.
-
-But, my dear mamma, enough of this, for you will think my marriage a
-failure, and contribute my experiences to the building up of Mona
-Caird’s theories. By the way, how shocked I felt at reading them,
-although I now divine some meanings that I had overlooked! But never can
-I tolerate the thought that there are not people—ideal, if you
-please—whose marriages might be too sublimated for earthly contract, and
-are, therefore—according to the proverb—made in heaven. Dear mother,
-pardon me, there is something wanting in your letters. You promised me
-to mention everybody we ever knew, or something to that effect. I am
-absolutely famishing for news of our old friends. By the way, how
-peculiar it is, I seem to remember with singular pertinacity the people
-we knew before we came to Boston, and dear, beautiful Denver is ever
-before my eyes. Please remember everything, and above all your
-affectionate
-
-                                                                  ELLEN.
-
-
-_From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Miss Fanny Fielding, Denver, Colorado._
-
-                                                    BERLIN, May 1, 1893.
-
-MY DEAR OLD SCHOOLMATE: Your kind letter makes me homesick. Can you
-imagine a homesick bride? Even before fruitage appears from the orange
-bloom, dismated for the decking of my nuptial robes, or even the
-fragrance departed from the yellowing buds on the garniture laid away to
-rest and rust, I am sitting with an unwilling face to the open door of
-the future, and groping with a blind but eager hand among the rustling
-leaves of a near past, for some familiar touch or sound to summon back
-the half-tasted joys which I so ruthlessly flung away.
-
-You ask me for some advice concerning marriage, illumined, as you
-tersely put it, by experience. My sweet friend, what a useless task you
-impose upon me. Whenever was woman directed by the experiences of
-others, however wise or however bitter such experiences may have been?
-Always some suggestion or exception to change the verdict. “Mine has
-black eyes, yours has blue, which makes all the difference.” Or, “one is
-fat, the other lean.” Or, “this one walks, the other rides”—so infinite
-the variety of excuses, so single the faith of woman.
-
-What else, then, shall we call marriage but destiny? The heart knows its
-wants and we know its plaintive cry, as a mother knows the wail of her
-famishing babe; yet for some frivolous fancy or conceit, some wound to
-our vanity, some plethoric ambition, or some glittering paste or bauble,
-we stifle the natural cry of the human heart, and wait for the mystic
-note upon which is to be constructed the music of our future. Alas! in
-the metaphor you understand so well, we too often touch only the
-diminished seventh, and the sure, complete, resolving chord is never
-sounded.
-
-Somewhat, too, our institutions of marriage are at fault, or at least
-the laws and customs which control them. With a nation of men, free,
-rational, and liberal, we have a nation of women enslaved, dishonest,
-and miserable, and it is among her noblest and most common phases of
-fate that she goes mutely to her grave, a victim of such weak social
-prejudices as have grown to be even a subject of satire among Europeans.
-
-Conscientiousness is a boasted virtue among Boston people of certain
-high cult, yet how many of her beautiful women go to the altar with a
-lie upon their maidenly lips? Why?—For the reason that there is some man
-whom she loves and dares not declare it. For the reason that society
-sets a seal upon her lips and turns her life into a drain-channel for
-misbegotten vows. For the reason that she cannot break the frost-bound
-usages of cowardly error with one stroke of her puny fist, and openly
-propose to join fortunes with the man after her own heart and her own
-high convictions. And so she rakes over the cold, unfruitful soil in her
-own soul, and plants the germ of a falsehood or a folly, and waits for
-the accident of some quickening power, in slavish and unheroic patience.
-
-Witness the result: Some masculine hand, more or less clumsy or more or
-less cunning, little matter if it bring a wedding ring, sheds ephemeral
-warmth upon the unsanctified ground, and the victim starts upon her
-lonely, loveless journey toward race building and sacrifice.
-
-As I indicated, dear Fanny, I have not drawn for my picture largely upon
-individual experiences, neither are my opinions stimulated by any
-observations taken from this side the water. Indeed, I even prefer, of
-kindred evils, the insipid method which leaves the marriage question in
-the hands of the parents. But let me leave this for subsequent
-discussion, for my letter is already too long, and I have not gossiped
-at all, and I remember, dear girl, how you do love innocent gossip.
-
-Write to me often and I will fill my letters with the sweetest of
-nothings if you will. Love and adieu and think of me as your devoted
-friend,
-
-                                                                  ELLEN.
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                                   BERLIN, May 10, 1893.
-
-DEAREST MOTHER: “Let fate do her worst, there are moments of joy,” and
-such moments I owe to my fondness for music. What would have been all
-these dreary weeks and months of shallow acting, if the depths of my
-soul had not been stirred by the genius of that creative force which,
-mocking at our own crude disguises, rehabilitates pain with the fair
-seeming of pleasure, which relegates near sorrows to the realms of
-tradition, and illusionises common care?
-
-Art, in any form, I conceive to be the benefactor of the human race. If
-truth, shorn of its infinitude of possibilities, constitutes the
-religion of the civilized world, if the _deus et machina_, as Æschylus
-somewhere has it, unlyrical and unleavened by beauty of device, by
-rhetoric or action and climax, be persuasive and instructive and
-inspiring, then how ineffably shall truth have gained by the development
-of its powers through visible forms of dramatic conceit, through
-association with the elements of art, through characterization, through
-skillful adaptation, through harmonized mediæ of appeal to the sense or
-the sentiment, the sympathies or the imagination?
-
-I am reminded here of an incident which occurred in our box at the Grand
-Opera House, during a late performance of Die Meistersinger, which
-resulted—as is not unusual in these days—unpleasantly. My husband, as
-you may remember, affects music solely for the paraphernalia of the
-stage, for the glitter and show of boxes and stalls, for the exposed
-shoulders of the diamonded dames of fashion, for the numbers of men with
-eyeglasses and uniforms—anything, in fact, but the music, which rather
-bores him.
-
-Therefore it is I apprehend that he discusses music so
-incomprehensibly—to say the least—I would not say irrationally.
-Somewhere during the development of the plot I was struck with the
-similarity of the dramatic motive with that of the Greek tragedies,
-especially the choral odes, where occurs the element of transition which
-some scholars call the evolutionary or perhaps the re-incarnating period
-of the ancient drama. This similarity—in some ways identical—I
-inadvertently alluded to in a more or less critical review of the opera
-and its construction, which I ventured between acts, in the presence of
-a party of Americans who were our guests for the occasion.
-
-Suddenly as thought, the baron’s face was aflame. But “what it were
-unwise to do ’twere weaker to regret,” and I prepared to defend my
-position as best became me. “You call my divine countryman a
-plagiarist,” he hissed between his teeth. Our male guest glowered, and
-the ladies with heightened color looked at the orchestra.
-
-“I beg your pardon, sir,” said I, with an assumed smile, “I did not say
-so, though I admit that my suggestion was unfortunate in its inference.”
-
-The baron sprang to his feet and stood over me, his arms akimbo and the
-well-known look of suppressed rage upon his face.
-
-“You called my divine countryman a plagiarist,” he repeated, gazing out
-over the audience, and feeling for my slippered foot with his heel,
-which he settled firmly upon my silken-clad instep. The hurt made me
-wince, but I could not remove my foot from the vise. Then, in order to
-mollify his temper, which I had grown to know too well how to deal with,
-I added laughingly, though half wild with pain as he deadened his weight
-upon my poor instep:—
-
-“If your countryman were amenable to the charge of plagiarism, so also
-is our Shakespeare, for in the comedy of Trinummus, Megaronides says,
-‘The evil that we know is best. To venture on an untried ill,’ etc., and
-Shakespeare, two thousand years later, said, ‘Rather bear the ills we
-have than fly to others that we know not of.’”
-
-“You call my divine countryman a plagiarist,” half-childishly,
-half-insanely repeated my noble lord, grinding my foot beneath his heel.
-A cry of pain escaped me, which a timely crash of cymbals in the
-orchestra had the effect to drown.
-
-“Well, what of it” blurted the American, throwing his full weight, as if
-by accident, against the baron’s shoulder, and then turning to me with
-an apology resumed his place. Now while I never take refuge in my sex
-for at least a verbal retaliation of the wrongs I receive from my
-husband, it goes without saying that the man who visits brutality in any
-form upon a woman is a coward. But I had never seen the baron insulted,
-and was therefore wholly unprepared for the profuseness with which he
-apologized to our guests, and the blandness with which he offered his
-hand as he bade them good-night. But the most humiliating part of this
-humiliating affair was the fact that I was forced to repeat an apology
-fashioned by himself, the entire length of our journey home, even until
-the carriage stopped at the door.
-
-It is not clear to me, my dear mother, that I am justified in rehearsing
-to you, or to anyone, details of my life, which may seem trivial, but
-for which I am able to offer no other excuse than your own solicitous
-insistence. I am always promising myself that every next letter shall be
-dictated in more cheerful spirit. Till then adieu. Present me with
-kindest love and beg papa to write me. I do so long for a sight of his
-letters. Love to those who love me.
-
-                                   As ever, devotedly yours,      ELLEN.
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                                  BERLIN, June 21, 1893.
-
-MY DEAREST MOTHER: How shall we account for our various moods? Yesterday
-I was miserable; to-day I am joyful; to-morrow I may be hopeful or
-heartbroken, according as—oh! I forgot to say I am all alone; the baron
-has gone to St. Petersburg. I am supposed to have accompanied him, and
-so nobody comes. But I am not lonely; now that I am left to myself I see
-how beautiful is the world about me.
-
-This morning I looked from my windows upon the river. The sharp lights I
-had watched so often swiftly changing to shadows, the warring glances
-suggestive only of inner strife, with all its complexity of passion,
-were lost in the soft peaceful flow of the waters as they hurried on to
-the ultimate sea. And I thought how much of this mood is due to fancy,
-that untenable, mercurial, and sublimated quality of the mind, half
-trickery, half truth, and altogether elusive as vapor. But how
-profligate of that precious sense of pleasure so steadily withheld from
-my heart these later months! Too precious, indeed, for the operations
-and experiments of the mental laboratory to which I seemingly so
-recklessly submitted it, and so I dismissed analysis and clung to my
-fancies, which at least made me happy in the present.
-
-After my breakfast I prepared myself for a walk, with only my little
-fox-terrier for a companion. Poor little Boston, how grateful he seemed!
-I could see him laugh with joy as his little brown lips quivered with
-flexible feeling. Notwithstanding his many years, he could scarcely find
-footing for his bounding steps for looking back at me to search my
-laughing eyes. You remember who gave me my terrier, away out in Denver?
-how he was brought to me in two strong, guardful arms, a little
-loose-skinned, wise-eyed puppy, so quiet and serenely happy in the warm
-embrace—where was I? oh, yes! talking about Boston—so we pulled some
-roses, Boston and I. But never looked roses so red, or green so tender
-or so vivid, and I longed to find the secret of their voluptuous bloom
-and half-suffocating fragrance, but that I guessed all was again fancy;
-only an easy, translatable pinch of dust and a resolvable stain; a
-simple stroke of creative power and a dash of ether—only a rose.
-
-How easy seem the processes of nature with harmonized material for
-working out the thought! Nature never experiments; gravitation is her
-law, deflection is anarchy, and defiance a destroyer. Love, I deem, is
-only obedience to this law. Obscure as are its operations and subtle as
-its teachings are, any smallest portion of scholarship, leveled at the
-finding out, divested of preconceived ideas and personal bearings, but
-persistently and conscientiously agitated by scientific and organized
-effort, might revolutionize a world of error, and establish a sure basis
-for sentiment and social reform.
-
-For I believe that unhappy marriages are a direct result of ignorance.
-Passions called by various names go to make up the system. Sordidness,
-vanity, interdependence, weak abeyance to custom, contribute to the sum
-of human misery. But ignorance is the basis of the organized error. For
-what manner of men or women would deliberately entail upon themselves
-the shackled conditions of a loveless marriage, which has no alternative
-but subordination or rebellion? For only in love—another name for
-harmony—may be found that unity which leaves no room for sacrifice or
-misconceit.
-
-But, dearest mother, what can you think of my letters? I began to tell
-you of my one happy day and have spread my speculations over the whole
-human race. I started to take you for a promenade along Unter den
-Linden, and to rest by the cool fountain in the Lustgarten, and have
-ended with a few feeble remarks upon the possible sources of sentiment
-and sorrow.
-
-But Boston is waiting for his dinner, for he dines with me to-night.
-What a jolly day we’ve had, eh, Boston? and we will sleep and dream of
-you, dear mamma, and many more, for none but bidden guests must fill my
-room to-night. By the way, I do wonder if the poor, weak brain of my
-little terrier is in any degree susceptible of being stirred by memories
-of his old friends? In any event, I envy him, for he is not amenable to
-the necessities of a false life, “a liar of unspoken lies.”
-
-Dear mamma, a sweet good-night. I am sending you a few pictures picked
-up at Lepkes. The group I am sure you will enjoy, though I like better
-the portrait by Van Dyck. There is a haunting sort of look about it,
-reminding me of someone I have known somewhere. I wonder if you will
-discern it? Probably it was only a passing fancy, one of such as have
-filled my brain all day long.
-
-                                     Again love and good-by.      ELLEN.
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                        MENTONE, Italy, August 10, 1893.
-
-DEAREST MOTHER: How rebellious my heart and impatient my pen as I take
-it up to write words which only your mother’s ear should catch from my
-lips!
-
-Where shall I begin to tell you the history of the past month? Really,
-my memory seems too surcharged with a sense of bitterness and wrong to
-do me service. But I must lead you step by step, reluctant as I know you
-are to follow me behind the gilded arras.
-
-After his return from St. Petersburg, the baron developed more
-pronounced signs of jealousy than had ever appeared hitherto. Perhaps
-this feeling was stimulated by my last letter to you, which I
-inadvertently left unmailed, and which he opened and read. Suspicious
-husbands you know are as jealous of moods as of men, and not to be
-miserable “when the Sultan goes to Ispahan” is indeed a crime. I believe
-there are few jealous husbands who are themselves guiltless. I do not
-think, however, that this test applies to my own sex, albeit I do not
-take refuge in the exception—Heaven save the mark!
-
-But the baron came home, as I said, quite confirmed in many unpleasant
-ways I had remarked before. Without any apparent cause he stole about my
-room in unslippered feet, and listened furtively at the keyholes. He
-locked the doors whenever he passed through, and spoke to the servants
-through a crevice. Instead of his usual violence he whined his
-complaints of my demeanor toward him in the weakest and most supine
-fashion. But that which exasperated me most was, and is still, his
-unaccountable pertinacity. He would place his chair close by me and hold
-his knee against mine, or his elbow, or his foot, while, with purpling
-face and hanging mouth, he entreated me not to leave him, until, in half
-insane protest, I would break clear of him and throw open a window, or
-bathe my hands and face in utter exhaustion, or—I had almost said—sense
-of contamination. In his fits of rage there is something genuine from an
-animal, if not from a manly, point of view. But how shall I deal with
-this new phase? Ah, well! let me get on with my letter, for I have much
-to say, and that is why I am dallying.
-
-I consented to come to Mentone on account of my health. Finding myself
-growing weak and failing, the physicians ordered an immediate change,
-and recommended the old cure virtually—to take myself out of their
-hands. The baron loves to play, and I suspect is a little too well known
-in gaming circles in Berlin.
-
-Therefore when he proposed Mentone so early in the season, or, indeed,
-altogether out of season, I—quite knowing that it meant Monte
-Carlo—accepted, and with valet and maid and dear old Boston we came.
-
-Result, financial ruin! The baron played recklessly. Each time when I
-saw him he was feverish and abstracted. I did not ask the cause, whether
-he were winner or loser, for, like most women, I believe that everybody
-finally loses, but I was not prepared for the dénouement, for he has
-absolutely lost not only all his ready money, but is heavily in debt,
-and will need to resort to further mortgage of his landed estates.
-
-Weak and foolhardy as he was, I pity him, for what must have been his
-feelings as, driving down the Corniche road overhanging the old sea, he
-reflected how many men had sought forgetfulness for just such acts of
-folly in the tideless waters. Only that the baron has other ideas about
-reparation, for he came home and first proposed that I write my father
-for money to make good his losses. Taking courage from my silence, he
-suggested that I cable my message at once.
-
-This latter I proposed not to do, as I informed him in very few words.
-He has left the hotel in a terrible fit of rage, vowing revenge with his
-last accents. And I am writing this letter while I wait, meanwhile
-wondering how much I ought to blame myself for my unhappy life, or if I
-ought not to lock the secret in my own breast, even from you, my mother.
-But a secret is a dumb devil, and so long as there is another hand to
-glance the dart, it rarely wounds to death. I will mail this at once in
-order that it shall not fall into his hands.
-
-Dearest mamma, are these letters never to cease? I think I notice that
-your replies are more reserved, and I have thought full of pain and
-discouragement. But do not feel discouraged. I realize the resources
-within me, and I have a fund of reserved power which I may summon in an
-exigency. I have not fairly contemplated anything in the future; to deal
-with the present has been my purpose. Each joy and each sorrow in its
-turn, so shall no preconceived action operate to the ends of injustice
-or unfairness. I close this in haste but lasting love.
-
-                                    As always your daughter,      ELLEN.
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                      MENTONE, Italy, September 1, 1893.
-
-O MY BELOVED MOTHER: While I feel always sure of your earnest
-sympathies, how shall I expect you to appreciate the sentiment of horror
-which this new and fiendish device for torturing my feelings visits upon
-me! How can I write it?—my poor little Boston is dead.
-
-That fact, with a few silent tears, and a day or two of depression, I
-could have borne as the end of all things mortal. But he was as foully
-murdered as ever was the victim of the most infernal plot, for he was
-given no poorest or most unequal chance to fight for his life, which was
-as dear to him as mine to me—and that is the least possible to be said.
-I am in no condition of mind to discuss ethics, or to philosophize upon
-the events which led to this tragical termination of differences, of
-which poor little Boston’s life paid the forfeit.
-
-It may be that I was wrong, certainly I would have made any terms to
-have saved my poor terrier from his terrible fate, few as were the years
-he would have lived at most.
-
-I am not unaware that there are certain concessions, and certain acts of
-graciousness, which, in a limited sense, may properly be expected of
-every wife toward a reasonable husband. Not his boasted superiority by
-any means, but the fact that she is measurably relieved from financial
-stress or responsibility, constitutes an unwritten law among
-well-thinking wives everywhere, I believe, and makes the demand upon
-her. But I considered nothing but the enormity of my husband’s
-exactions, and erred in my estimate of the possibility of my husband’s
-brutality. I wish there were a stronger word which I might politely use.
-
-Shall I give you briefly the harrowing details of this ruffianly act of
-cowardice? I think I told you in my last how the baron had left the
-house, filled with vindictive rage at my refusal to demand of my father
-large sums of money for his gambling losses. In about an hour he
-returned and renewed his proposition with increased violence, at the
-same time seizing a pen and writing a cablegram, which he commanded me
-to sign.
-
-Remembering that I had given him considerable sums of money from time to
-time, amounting to many thousands of dollars, I entreated him to wait
-for a day, while he should make me understand the condition of his
-financial affairs. This proposition he received with the most frightful
-oaths. He declared that he would take my life, and would begin by
-killing my pet dog. No sooner said than done. He rushed to the veranda,
-where poor little Boston lay stretched upon his cushion asleep in the
-sun, and, seizing him by the neck, he dashed him violently to the ground
-below. A few minutes later my little friend was brought to me still
-feebly conscious, but mangled, bleeding, dying.
-
-How can I ever forget, who ever did who has ever witnessed it forget
-that last questioning, beseeching look of affection and dumb fright
-which a dying animal turns upon the face of someone he has loved? Is it
-less than human or more? Not till the mists gathered across his pretty
-brown eyes was that last eloquent appeal swept away. “What have I done?”
-“What have I done?” was the question he was asking of me. Who shall say
-whether he received his answer in some later and easier translatable
-speech than mine, in some new and disenthralled state of being? Who
-shall say that he did not carry away with him a love which was all love,
-with no taint of selfishness or ulterior thought, quickened by no new
-speculation, or tradition, or sanction, or human edict? Who shall say
-that the attributes of faith, and self-surrender, and charity, and
-forgiveness, and loyalty are lost because in one incarnation they were
-tongue-tied? For myself I want to see my dogs again. They were my loved
-companions, as are my books or my works of art. And if the fire destroy
-them, are their contents naught or worthless because an unlettered man
-could not read them? At best an after life is a problem, but let us put
-the problems together and one may help to solve the other, for half a
-truth is oftenest a lie.
-
-I have sought distraction in these comments, but my sorrow returns to
-me, dear mother, and my eyes are too full of tears to be able to see the
-lines. _Vale_, poor Boston, and a grateful throb of gladness that I have
-a dear mother to whom I can tell my grief.
-
-                                     Your loving but unhappy      ELLEN.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER X.
-                         “Lo! the poor Indian.”
-
-
-Imperfect definition and classification, followed by hasty, inaccurate,
-and unwarranted generalization, are fruitful sources of popular error.
-To the misinformed or uninformed mind the Indian is a noble savage,
-whose hunting-grounds and corn-fields have been taken from him by the
-ruthless paleface, and who passes his time pensively leaning upon his
-rifle, with his face to the setting sun, the while he makes touching
-appeals to the Great Spirit, and mourns the disappearance of his race.
-
-In the country west of the Rocky Mountains and south of Green River, the
-sentimental Indian with whom Cooper doped American literature, has
-absolutely no existence. Uncas and Chingachgook never journeyed so far
-westward as the Rio Grande, and prosy old Leather Stocking, with his
-Sunday-school soliloquies, and his alleged marvelous marksmanship on
-knife blades at three hundred yards, would have been elected president
-of the Arizona Lying Club by acclamation.
-
-Many tribes of Indians in that section of the country have scarcely any
-belief in a future state of existence, and no words in their jargons to
-represent the ideas of gratitude, of female chastity, or of hospitality.
-Their opportunities of obtaining food have been in nowise lessened by
-white occupation of the land. There never were any buffalo there, they
-never hunted bears or any combative animal, the fish and small game and
-pine-nuts are nearly as plentiful as ever, and the bacon-rinds and
-decayed vegetables to be found near every mining camp furnish the noble
-reds with a food supply more agreeable to their indolent habits than the
-hard-won trophies of the chase.
-
-Yet there are Indians and Indians, as there are Christian bank
-presidents and unsanctified bank robbers, and it is as incorrect to
-class the devilish Chiricahua Apache with the dirty but gentle Yuma as
-it would be to similarly couple a hook-nosed vender of Louisiana lottery
-tickets with a blonde-haired solicitor for a church raffle.
-
-In the mountains of Eastern Arizona and Western New Mexico, occupying a
-country hundreds of miles in area, a country which, for their benefit,
-has been reserved from miner, settler, and grazier, live the White
-Mountain Apaches during the winter months, when they are not “on the war
-path,” as their pillaging and murdering expeditions are somewhat
-bombastically designated.
-
-Whatever may be said of other savages in other localities, the Arizona
-Apaches are without a single just cause of complaint against the
-government, or against any of the Caucasian race. No cruel white men
-have ever invaded their hunting-grounds, or given them high-priced
-whisky in exchange for low-priced peltry. Red-handed and tangle-haired
-have these marauders and their ancestors lived for centuries in their
-mountain lair.
-
-Since the United States of America became, forty years ago, the nominal
-suzerain of the territory occupied by these peripatetic “vermin
-ranches,” they have been unprovoked invaders, thieves, and assassins,
-and their summer raids upon the miners, teamsters, and cattle ranchers
-of Arizona and New Mexico, have been as regular as their winter
-acceptance of the bacon and blankets with which a generous but mistaken
-policy feeds and warms them, at a cost equal to that of providing each
-savage with a suite of rooms at a fashionable hotel.
-
-It is but a few years since a small party of the most vicious and
-untamable of these bandits, who were captured with the scalps of their
-victims at their belts, were declared by the authorities at Washington
-to be not answerable to trial or punishment by the courts of the
-Territory whose people they have robbed and murdered with impunity for
-many years. But, partly in deference to outraged public sentiment, and
-partly in apprehension of the acts of a possible committee of vigilance,
-these Indians were condemned for their crimes to imprisonment in a
-government fortress in Florida.
-
-Unlike white prisoners who were condemned to labor and isolation, these
-tawny murderers were allowed to be accompanied in their journey across
-the country by their wives and concubines, who were transported, fed,
-clothed, and made comfortable, at government cost. Arrived at their
-destination, it was found, after a few months’ sojourn, that the humid
-air, lower altitude, and uncongenial surroundings of Florida, and,
-later, of North Carolina, disagreed with the digestion and disgruntled
-the disposition of the noble reds, and, upon a proper showing that their
-health demanded a return to their former homes, lest confirmed nostalgia
-should set in, and possibly remove them permanently from the scene of
-human activities, they were surreptitiously returned by the government
-to their old reservation, where they promptly expressed their
-appreciation of the clemency accorded them by breaking out once more and
-heading for the Mexican Sierras, marking their track with burning ranch
-houses and murdered settlers.
-
-In the summer of 1893 a party of about forty of these Apaches, headed by
-the most cruel, malignant, and treacherous of savages—the
-thrice-pardoned and faith-breaking Geronimo—left the reservation for
-their annual raid. The military post at Fort Lowell having been
-abandoned and the troops removed in the interest of government
-parsimony, the savages found it convenient to make a detour by the
-valley of the Santa Cruz, so as to cross the railroad track in the
-vicinity of Tucson, and reach their mountain fastnesses in Sonora by the
-Arivaca Pass.
-
-It chanced that David Morning, on his departure from Waterspout for New
-York, while riding from the Rillito station into Tucson, and riding by
-night, to avoid the heat of an Arizona sun, was seen by the Indians,
-who, having emerged from a defile in which they had been concealed
-during the day, were now stealthily and swiftly journeying in the same
-direction. The opportunity to murder a white man was one not to be
-neglected, but the report of a rifle might attract attention and
-instigate speedy pursuit, so two of Geronimo’s followers were detailed,
-armed only with bows and arrows, to follow the wayfarer through the
-dusk, and bring back a scalp, that might be obtained without danger and
-without noise.
-
-If Morning had been riding a horse, this tale might have had sudden
-ending, but he had found for his necessarily frequent journeys between
-the mine and Tucson no such convenient and comfortable mode of
-transportation as a seat upon the back of Julia. The equine in question
-was a large jet black saddle mule bred at the ranch of Señor Don Pedro
-Gonzales, which was situated at the foot of the mountain, on the
-opposite side of the Rillito Valley, about three miles from the road.
-
-The mule, as an animal, is often both misrepresented and misunderstood.
-No creature tamed by man has keener instincts or greater sagacity, or is
-governed to so great an extent by intelligent self-interest. A mule is
-always logical. His ordinary reasoning is a syllogism without a flaw. A
-horse impelled by high spirit, and patient even unto death, will travel
-until he drops from exhaustion, and will pull or carry without complaint
-a load that causes his every muscle to pulse with the pain of weariness.
-
-But where lives the man who was ever able to impose upon a mule? Strap
-an unaccustomed or unjust load upon the back of this animal of
-unillustrious paternity, and he will not move except in the direction of
-lying down. Attempt to ride or drive him past his rightful and usual
-resting-place, and there may be retrogression, and there may be a
-circus, but there will be no advance.
-
-In addition to his other virtues a mule has an exceedingly keen scent.
-He seeks no close acquaintance with either grizzly bears or Indians. He
-will get the wind of either of his aversions as quickly as a hound will
-whiff a deer, and, like the hound, he will give his knowledge to the
-world, in a voice that is resonant, magnetic, and—on the whole—musical.
-The bray of an earnest mule is not after the Italian but the Wagnerian
-school. It is not the sweet, tender tenor of Manrico, it is Lohengrin
-sounding his note of power. It is not, perhaps, equal to an orchestra of
-nightingales, but it has a rhythm, and passion, and power, and
-sweetness, nevertheless.
-
-The quick instinct of Julia caught the scent of the Apache assassins,
-and as they crept up she was engaged in a struggle with her rider, who,
-with voice and spur, was vainly endeavoring to induce and compel her to
-proceed along the usual road.
-
-“Why, Julia,” soliloquized Morning, “you must have been browsing on
-rattle-weed! What is the matter with you?”—and he tugged vainly at her
-bridle.
-
-Whizz! whizz! went the arrows. With one shaft quivering in her flank,
-the mule fairly sprang into the air, while the other transfixed the left
-arm of David Morning, and pinned it to his side.
-
-And then his question was answered, and he knew what was the matter with
-Julia.
-
-The frenzied animal leaped the Rillito at a bound, and swept across the
-valley to the corral adjoining the Gonzales ranch house. Once within the
-inclosure, she stopped and uttered her most melodious notes of delight.
-With a crescendo of welcome a dozen of her kindred greeted Julia, and
-the swarthy major-domo of the ranch, accompanied by half a dozen
-vaqueros with lights, rushed out, and Morning, weak from pain and loss
-of blood, was half-led and half-carried into the ranch house.
-
-The Señor Don Pedro Gonzales a year before had journeyed into Paradise,
-from the effects of an attack of mountain fever, aggravated by too
-copious use of mescal, and left his ranch houses and corral, his two
-hundred mules and horses, his two thousand cattle, his brand of G on a
-triangle, and his rancho Santa Ysbel to his señora, the Donna Maria,
-who, with her family, continued to occupy the place.
-
-Messengers dispatched to Tucson returned with physicians, who cut out
-the arrow and found that the wound was severe, and its result might be
-fatal. They agreed that for Morning to endeavor to travel with such a
-wound would be simply suicide, and that he must not attempt to leave the
-shelter and care which the hospitable Gonzales family were glad to
-accord him.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XI.
-                          “It is only mirage.”
-
-
-A long, low, adobe building, roofed with tiles of pottery clay, situated
-near the banks of the river Santa Cruz. Long rows of cottonwood-trees
-spread their branches nearly over the little stream, and the graceful
-masses of pepper, combed to a fringe, drop their courtesied obeisance to
-every passing breeze, and throw their uneasy shadows well over the
-walls, neatly stuccoed with cobblestones.
-
-The air curdles with the heat rising from the arid plain, and hangs, a
-shimmering sheet of translucent vapor, between the eye and the
-ever-lengthening distance, which softly melts into the Santa Rita
-Mountains.
-
-Is that a lake out of which rises the well-outlined range of nearer
-hills? or a sea, throwing up billows of foam and shadow, with islands of
-green glimpsing their shapes in the placid waters that encircle their
-feet? And ships, with well-fashioned hulls and wide-spreading sails, and
-pictured rocks, and beating breakers, and lifeboats with men tugging at
-the oars. No! it is only mirage, a pretty picture written with the
-electric pen of nature upon the parchment hot from the press of her
-untongued fancies. In her luring tale strong men have trusted themselves
-to fatal deception, and beasts, with lapping tongues, and knotted with
-water greed, have gnashed their teeth at her beautiful garments of
-fateful film, and lain down to die. Art has been outvied in pictorial
-effects, for she filters her shadows from daintiest clouds, and borrows
-her bath of oscurial glints from the unfathomed deeps of heaven. Even
-austere science hides his forged shackles shamedly away, and turns with
-unsatisfied scorn from the flitting gleam of her mocking brow.
-
-“It is only mirage, one of nature’s cleverest tricks; and what more is
-life?” comes once and again from parched lips and longing eyes. For,
-although water, sweet and cool, drips from an _olla_ near at hand, yet,
-stretched upon a bed carefully prepared of finely-stripped rawhide,
-placed upon the well-beaten and smooth earth, under the sheltering roof
-of a _ramada_ connecting two sections of the Gonzales _casa_, lies David
-Morning, hot with fever, and still unable to leave his couch.
-
-A little apart, and softly swaying in her hammock of scarlet and gold,
-one foot lightly touching the ground, half reclines the small,
-undulating figure of Murella Gonzales.
-
-The ancient blood of Castile had never been suffered by the Gonzales
-family to mingle, with the sanction of the church, with ignobler
-currents. The late Señor Don Pedro, although only possessed of the
-estate of a prosperous Mexican cattle rancher, was yet a Hidalgo of
-Hidalgoes, who could have covered the walls of his _casa_ with his
-quarterings. As for his wife, was she not an Alvarado? and—Santa
-Maria!—what more would you have in the way of blood? Certainly, from her
-arched instep to her wealth of blue-black hair, the Señorita Murella was
-a wondrously beautiful maiden.
-
-“Murella,” spoke the sick man, turning his emaciated face toward the
-girl, “during the early days of my illness, I gave you a letter to mail,
-do you remember?”
-
-“Si, señor.”
-
-“Do you remember how many days ago, Murella?”
-
-“Si, señor, seventeen day,” and the small ears deepened red behind the
-creamy oval face.
-
-“Did you give Jose the letter to post?”
-
-“Si, señor.”
-
-“You are very kind, señorita, and I thank you.”
-
-The girl glanced swiftly across the court at an open door wherein stood
-the madroña, the customary shawl of black Spanish lace drawn tightly
-across her mouth, leaving two shining black eyes fixed steadily upon
-her.
-
-“A few days more, and I shall be leaving your hospitable roof,”
-continued Morning.
-
-“Why will you not take a me with you?” said Murella, with imperturbable
-gravity, and with no change of expression.
-
-The man illy concealed his look of surprise, as he tucked the richly
-embroidered pillow more firmly beneath his head, and replied kindly:—
-
-“Such a thing could not possibly be, little girl, for more reasons than
-your pretty head could contain.”
-
-“Then you do not a lof me, and you told a me a lie,” and the dark eyes
-lit with a flame of Vesuvian fires like the red light in those of a
-tiger.
-
-“What do you mean, señorita?” and a faint flush overspread his own pale
-face.
-
-“I mean you call me your beloved Ella, such name as Americans give a me,
-and you hold me close in your arms, and say you will never part from me,
-not for one hour—only ten day ago—and now you leave a me!”
-
-This was an awkward situation, and Mr. Morning recognized its full
-significance upon the moment. In his delirium he had used the too
-familiar name, and had coupled with its use endearments which had been
-compromisingly misappropriated. He reflected a moment. There was nothing
-left but to tell the truth and accept the consequences. Another girl
-would laugh. What would Murella do?
-
-“Señorita,” he began slowly, “I have, as you know, been very ill, and on
-several occasions have lost my way in delirium, and have been wandering
-over scenes belonging to other days. Can you not forgive me if I have
-called you by a name which you mistook for your own prettier one? Can
-you not pardon me if in my fevered imagination I gave you for the moment
-a place long ago sanctified and dedicated to forgetfulness?”
-
-“Then why cannot you lof a me? Am I not as lofely as she?”
-
-“You are very beautiful, Murella.”
-
-“Machacha!” shrieked the duenna from the entrance to the _ramada_, “what
-are you saying?” and then followed invective in every key, and words of
-scorn in every cadence, until, pale with anger and chagrin, the girl
-sprang from her hammock and ran swiftly away.
-
-For a long time our hero lay lost in speculation. After all, it was only
-a misunderstanding, and not liable to be remembered overnight. In any
-event, he had not compromised the maiden, and finally he concluded—as
-was indeed the truth—that the cunning señorita was all the while
-cognizant of the situation, and not at all deceived, and so he dismissed
-the subject from his mind.
-
-And what was the first move of the panic-stricken maiden? Speeding
-swiftly over the ground, she sank in the shadow of the ocotilla hedge
-inclosure, which formed the corral, and drew cautiously from her pocket
-the letter committed to her care by Morning. Reopening it, for the
-envelope, sealed only with mucilage, had been carefully broken, she drew
-forth a picture of the Baroness Von Eulaw, older by many years than the
-name she now bore, and much thumbed and worn beside.
-
-This unconscious incendiary Murella first regarded disdainfully for an
-instant, and then deliberately spat upon it. She then proceeded to
-possess herself of the contents of the letter, which was brief, and,
-regarded as a wholesome irritant for a recent wound, rather ineffectual.
-She spelled it out laboriously, and it read as follows:—
-
-  _To the Baroness Von Eulaw, Berlin._
-
-  You may have forgotten that several years ago, and through wholly
-  legitimate means, let me say in self-defense, a specimen of art, of
-  inestimable value to me, came into my possession. I have hitherto
-  deemed it no breach of honor to retain it. Finding myself very ill,
-  however, and warned by my physicians of the probable fatal termination
-  of my malady, I esteem it prudent and not less just to return to you
-  the last token of a mutual recognition which I have the faith to
-  believe is among the things that are undying.
-
-  It is, perhaps, unwillingness to pass the veil which enshrouds the
-  great mystery, without first vindicating myself in your esteem, that
-  impels me to tell you that which I have heretofore thought to keep
-  secret—that your letter, written in February, 1883, was accidentally
-  mislaid in an old desk, and was never opened or perused by me until
-  the day after you became the Baroness Von Eulaw.
-
-                                                 Always yours sincerely,
-                                                         DAVID MORNING.
-
-Murella spread the letter upon the ground and pondered. Plainly it was
-not a love letter, as she had expected—almost hoped! for she missed the
-ecstasy and exhilaration of that desire for vengeance which is the
-stimulus to passion in the breast of any true scion of the Spanish race,
-and devoid of which life has little zest.
-
-It might have been written to his grandmother for all she could gather
-from its contents, and the thought suggested the duenna, with her cruel
-eyes and hard, wrinkled mouth, whose duty it was to watch her from all
-points of the compass. So she folded the letter, and, taking up the
-picture, again scrutinized it. “Devil! devil! devil!” she broke out, as
-she smote the pasteboard with her tiny soft fist. Then, folding it away
-with the letter, she slipped them into her pocket, and, gliding around
-the ocotilla palings, she entered her apartment through an outer door,
-where she resealed the missive, and, summoning the messenger Jose, bade
-him forthwith journey to Tucson, and deposit it in the post office
-there.
-
-The sun was sinking behind Tehachape Mountains, and its parting rays,
-full of the color of leaf and bough, fell brightly upon the prostrate
-form of the invalid, and as Murella dropped softly to the ground before
-a low window, which opened upon the _ramada_, she parted her muslin
-curtains and gazed devouringly upon the well-knit, shapely form, and the
-broad-browed, tinted face, while the light faded, and soft voices grew
-higher as the family supper hour approached, and tinkling sounds from
-mandolin and guitar filled the night with music. Then, taking a last
-look, she arose, and, stamping her foot upon the ground, impatiently she
-ejaculated:—
-
-“Oh, bah! He too good for anyting.”
-
-She joined the family group at supper with a look of high disdain on her
-beautiful face, but otherwise undismayed, and ate her _frijoles_ and
-_tortillas_, and scrambled for the whitest _tomales_ among her younger
-brothers, very much as if David Morning had overruled his physicians,
-and departed for Tucson in an ambulance the day after he was wounded, as
-he had once determined to do, instead of having lain there for a month,
-drawing first upon her pity, and then upon her fancy, and stirring
-things in her imagination generally.
-
-Late in the moon-lit night, the soft summer winds still busy among the
-boughs, a sweet girlish voice, melodiously attuned to the notes of the
-mandolin, ran through the dreams of David Morning, carrying the
-passionful refrain, “Oh, illustrissimo mia,” and he awoke, and still the
-sweet refrain, “Oh, illustrissimo mia.”
-
-Several days went by, summer days full of work and growth and promise
-outside, and still Morning was unable to leave the Gonzales ranch. His
-pulse, which the doctors declared had never regained its normal beat,
-was low and intermittent, and the hectic flush never left his cheek. At
-length typhoid fever was developed, and for weeks he lay at the verge of
-death, and for as many weeks Murella Gonzales sat at his head by day,
-and made her bed at the foot of his couch by night. The señora, the
-madroña, even the cocoanut brown _machacha_ of all work, each brought
-fruit and drink and delicacies to dissuade him from his delirium and
-tempt him back to health, but Murella sat always with her graceful head
-resting lightly against his pillow, silent, languid, and lovely.
-
-Sometimes the doctors remonstrated and begged her to leave him, but she
-only said, “_Mañana, mañana_,” and to-morrow never came. But it proved
-to be only a question of time, and before the gray linings of the poplar
-had slid into umber, or the pomegranate had gained its full meed of
-sweet juices, David Morning was brought a picturesque basket of Indian
-workmanship, quite filled with letters which had found him out, calling
-him back with the imperative voices of business demands, to take his
-place again with the rank and file of affairs.
-
-So the last day came, and Murella, abandoning her customary hammock, sat
-all the morning upon a thick rug spread upon the ground, exhibiting her
-irritable feeling by nervously tossing the clinging folds of her lace
-mantilla back over her shoulder, or tracing the figures of the rug
-absently. Morning seemed lost in reverie for a long time; finally he
-spoke, evidently a little doubtful where to begin.
-
-“I do not need to tell you, señorita,” said he, “that I feel the
-greatest gratitude toward the inmates of this household, and I ask you
-to tell me, not what you would wish me to do for you, but what is the
-wish most dear to you if I were not in the world?”
-
-“Oh, if Señor Morning die, I shall die too.”
-
-“Oh, no! if some fairy should wave its wand, or some Fortunatus should
-drop uncounted gold at your feet, what would you do first?”
-
-The soft eyes of Señorita Gonzales flamed as never eyes of Saxon maiden
-burned, and she quickly replied, rising and drawing nearer:—
-
-“I would have a _casa grande_.”
-
-“And where would you have a grand _casa_, here?”
-
-“No, no!” giving her hand a truly Delsarte sweep of motion. “Long time
-ago my mother take a me to Yuma, and there I hear much talk about Castle
-Dome; it is twenty, thirty miles up the great river Colorado. One time
-we sail up there in steam a boat, and such a rancheria—beautiful! Great
-trees, and rocks, and the Indians have been show how by the padres long
-time ago, and they have beautiful trees of figs, and oranges, and lemon,
-and great vines. And I have tink about it always. When I am rich a I
-shall drive the Indians away, and give money for make a them not hungry,
-and make a _casa_ all like a same in picture.”
-
-“We all have our castles in Spain. Why not you, Murella?” and he drew
-forth a pencil, and, spreading paper upon the table, asked her to sit
-down.
-
-“Now,” said he, “we will build this fine house upon paper. What shall we
-do first?”
-
-“We shall have a dance-house.”
-
-Morning smiled grimly; the mining camps enjoy a monopoly of literary
-phrasing, and the compound word was familiar, so he only said, “All
-right, a salon for dancing.”
-
-“Si, señor, saloon,” repeated Murella gravely, “and a grande saloon for
-beautiful flowers.”
-
-“A conservatory, of course, though that will be superfluous,” he added,
-“in a country itself a hotbed for tropic bloom. Why not hanging gardens
-like those of Babylon?”
-
-“Oh, beautiful!” clasping her little fingers in ecstasy.
-
-“Very well,” looking into her face, pencil suspended.
-
-“And a beautiful room for a you,” and she paused for a moment, “with,
-with what you call, wall like the sky before the sun a come, and morning
-glory flower go all around the top,” pointing to the frieze, “a like a
-your name, Señor Mia.”
-
-Morning suddenly discovered something upon the toe of his boot, and the
-girl struggled on in very bad English, but with charming enthusiasm. She
-planned and he interpreted. They first laid out the grounds, availing
-themselves of the groves already planted by the Indians. They covered
-acres of ground with rare exotics, studding them with statuary in
-creamiest marble, chiseled from designs of their own, with a Psyche and
-Cupid to guard the main entrance to the park.
-
-“What is that ting she a hold in her hand?”
-
-“That is a torch,” explained Morning. “Psyche is the soul, and Cupid is
-love, and she is going in search of him.”
-
-“And did she find a him?” archly questioned the girl.
-
-“I think not,” said Morning, gloomily drawing forth a fresh sheet of
-paper.
-
-“And about the _casa grande_,” continued Morning, “of what shall it be
-built?”
-
-The señorita rested her pretty chin between her two palms and meditated.
-Finally she decided it should be like the cupids, of shining marble,
-with agate or onyx for columns, and garnets—found in quantities in
-Arizona—for smaller decorations. This most elaborate plan having been at
-length crudely completed, Mr. Morning folded it, quietly saying he would
-submit it to an architect.
-
-“Not truly?” said the girl, springing to her feet with shining eyes and
-hands crossed upon her breast.
-
-“Yes, really and truly, for your own sweet self, and for your hospitable
-family; and with my kindest regards and deepest gratitude.”
-
-Murella turned very pale. Dreams were not dreamed to be so realized. Was
-he teasing her?
-
-Hitherto her self-love had made her the central figure in her own mind.
-All things about her had been dwarfed and become inconsequent in her
-egotistic life, because she was wholly ignorant of any possibilities
-outside of the power she wielded through her beauty and her grace.
-
-But a new element had been added to her limited experience, and it had
-developed into a magician, or had it done so really? The doubt took
-momentary possession of her, and she arose in an attitude of defiance,
-her flashing eyes resting upon the amused but open countenance of David
-Morning.
-
-Then she knew that she looked into the face of her god, and she fled to
-her room, and, sinking upon the floor, she covered her face with her
-mantilla, and sobbed convulsively.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XII.
-              “Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.”
-
-
-It was October when Morning arrived in New York City. Steel had been
-prompt in shipping the gold not covered with copper, and Morning’s bank
-accounts in New York now amounted to sixteen millions of dollars, while
-the fame of the Morning mine as a producer of four millions of gold bars
-per month had already created a marked sensation in financial and
-business circles, and in the newspaper world, but none suspected the
-immense actual production.
-
-Morning visited Washington, and bought a stone warehouse near the foot
-of Sixth Street. He purchased a similar building in Philadelphia, near
-the Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot, and he bought a third warehouse
-alongside the track of the New Jersey Central at Hoboken. He caused
-switches to be constructed into each of these warehouses, and provided
-each of them with heavy iron shutters and doors. He employed four
-watchmen for each building, divided into day and night-watches of six
-hours each. He arranged that the copper-pigs containing gold should be
-loaded on the cars at Tucson by his own men, who were themselves unaware
-that they were handling anything but copper, and the cars locked and
-sent in train-load lots through, without change or rehandling, to New
-York, Philadelphia, and Washington, where they were run into his
-warehouses and there unloaded. It was given out that he was at the head
-of a copper syndicate, and was storing the surplus product of the mines
-for higher prices. His plans worked with perfect smoothness, and his
-wealth accumulated openly at the rate of four millions per month, and
-secretly at the rate of one hundred millions per month, with a vast
-amount of newspaper comment concerning the four millions, and no
-suspicion anywhere as to the real sum.
-
-The advocates of free coinage of silver, who were defeated in the
-Congress of 1889–90, renewed their contest in the Congress of 1891–92,
-and in February, 1892, a free coinage law passed, but it was vetoed by
-President Harrison. The silver men carried the fight into the
-presidential election of 1892, and were so far successful that Congress,
-in February, 1894, enacted a law the text of which was as follows:—
-
-“From and after July 1, 1894, any person may deposit at the treasury of
-the United States in Washington, or at either of the sub treasuries in
-Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St Louis, New Orleans, Denver,
-or San Francisco, gold or silver bars of standard fineness, and receive
-the coined value thereof in United States treasury notes. The secretary
-of the treasury is authorized and directed to prepare and keep on hand a
-sufficient amount of treasury notes to comply with the provisions of
-this act.”
-
-The influence of Morning as the largest single producer of gold in the
-world, as the owner already of thirty millions of dollars, and, if his
-mine should hold out for five years, of a sum that would cause him to
-outrank any millionaire in the world, was very great, and that
-influence, legitimately exercised in behalf of free coinage, proved very
-potent with senators and representatives, and did much to reconcile the
-adherents of a single gold standard to the overthrow of their system.
-
-It was argued that if the gold supply of the world was to be increased
-forty per cent per annum by the yield of the Morning mine, that would
-diminish relatively the production of silver, and the ancient parity of
-the metals might be restored “without danger to our financial interests,
-Mr. Speaker.”
-
-Thus reasoned the Honorable Senile Jumbo, who represented a New England
-district in the House. Jumbo was a banker at home, and because he was a
-banker was supposed to know something about finance, and was, in
-consequence, accorded a leading position on the House Committee on
-Banking and Currency.
-
-In fact, Jumbo only knew a good discount from a poor one. His definition
-of a banker would have been that of the Indiana editor, who described
-such a functionary as “a gentleman who takes the money of one man
-without interest, and loans it to another upon interest, and places both
-depositor and borrower under obligations.”
-
-By his small shrewdness Jumbo had gained a large fortune, and secured a
-seat in Congress; but of the laws which govern finance in its
-politico-economic relations he had no more knowledge than has a
-locomotive fireman about the law of dynamics, or a drygoods clerk about
-the culture of the silkworm. Yet the Honorable Senile Jumbo looked wise,
-and talked from the pit of his stomach, and respected the views of other
-rich men, and as a congressman he averaged with his colleagues.
-
-What strange distortion of brain is it that causes men conspicuously
-unfit for public life, to seek elevations which can only expose their
-intellectual poverty? One who does not comprehend the French tongue or
-know anything about science, would be laughed at for seeking to be
-elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences, yet senatorial togas
-and congressional seats are constantly sought by gentlemen whose
-previous pursuits have unfitted them to “shine in the halls of high
-debate,” and who, indeed, would be puzzled to put together, while on
-their feet, ten sentences of grammatical English.
-
-The great and growing wealth of Morning caused his society to be
-courted, and many a managing mamma was not unmindful of the fact that
-the “Arizona Gold King,” as he began to be called, was a bachelor. This
-man did not “wear his heart upon his sleeve,” and did not proclaim that
-his bachelorhood was confirmed, or had any special reason for its
-existence, but all plotting against him was in vain, for the Ellen lost
-to him was the constant companion of his thoughts, and to all movements
-and plans and purposes of life he applied instinctively the test, “What
-would she think of it?”
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XIII.
-                    “Hopeless grief is passionless.”
-
-
-It was the anniversary of one of the great victories achieved by Germany
-in the war of 1870, and Berlin had scarcely known a day so filled with
-noise, and glitter, and color, and esprit as this day had been.
-
-The Baroness Von Eulaw, the beautiful American, was more sought for than
-ever, and the too arduous round of social duties and engagements were
-beginning to tell upon her delicate constitution. Cards had been
-received by the baron and his wife for a reception at the palace, and
-such an invitation could scarcely be overlooked, especially as no
-entertainment seemed acknowledged by her friends to be complete without
-the presence of the baroness. Therefore, retiring a little earlier this
-evening than was usual from her own drawing rooms, the baroness was well
-advanced with her toilette when she discovered letters which the footman
-had left upon her table during her absence, and among them one bearing
-the postmark of Tucson, Arizona, and addressed in a well-known hand.
-
-She felt too excited to trust herself farther, and, before tearing the
-envelope, she sent her maid with a message of her sudden indisposition,
-which she begged the baron to deliver in person to the emperor, and
-asked, furthermore, not to be disturbed.
-
-It was all one to the baron at this hour, and though he speedily
-departed for the imperial palace, it is doubtful whether the high
-officials in waiting deemed it advisable to admit him to the imperial
-presence.
-
-Dismissing her servants, the baroness was left alone for the night. Then
-she turned to her dressing-table and stood while opening the letters,
-glancing hurriedly at their contents, all but one, and this she turned
-over many times. What was the burden of its mission, and what did it
-contain? Finally her trembling fingers picked absently at the envelope,
-as if she had forgotton how to proceed. She might be unafraid, for there
-was his own handwriting before her.
-
-With this thought a thrill went through her heart, and with a sudden
-motion she tore the envelope quite apart, and her own photograph fell to
-the floor. She did not stoop for it, for her eyes were fixed upon the
-page. Slowly she read word by word, lingering over the last, and cutting
-it away from its context, as if fearful that another word should
-overwhelm her reason.
-
-She finished, and an awful silence fell upon her. She could hear her
-heart beat against her rich corsage, and her breath crackled as it came
-through her dry lips. What was the purport of that letter? She had
-already forgotten. Something surely had left a heavy pain at her heart.
-Just as slowly she read it through again.
-
-Then he was not dead—or, stay, he might be, for did he not say
-“probably,” not “possibly”? Then, still standing before the
-dressing-table, she leaned forward, and, putting her face close to the
-mirror, she muttered, looking into her own deep eyes the while, “Great
-God! what did I do?” For a full moment she stood thus, then, lifting the
-powder-puff from the jeweled case, she mechanically swept her cheeks and
-brow and sat down. Then she caught the letter and read it again, this
-time more clearly and calmly, “the probable fatal termination,” and
-again, “until the day after you became the Baroness Von Eulaw.”
-
-She looked at her toilette. What was she doing bejeweled and brocaded
-that night? Where were the sackcloth and ashes she had earned? She arose
-and pulled the diamonds from their places, and the beautiful robe from
-her lovely shoulders, and put on a gown of creamy plush, bordered with
-some dark, rich fur, and, slowly tying the cords, her eyes fell upon the
-picture at her feet.
-
-She took it between her fingers as if it were a dead thing, and thought
-at the moment that it weighed a pound at the least. And this was Ellen
-Thornton! Then she thought how old-fashioned her dress looked, and for a
-moment she felt glad that she had gotten the picture back. Another
-revulsion of feeling as she looked upon the torn envelope. What would
-she not suffer for the hope, the uncertainty, she had clung to when she
-tore that paper half an hour ago?
-
-If only the doctors could have said “possibly,” not “probably;” perhaps
-that was what they meant, and not “probably,” she repeated. Doctors are
-so clumsy—especially some—and they do so exaggerate in order to magnify
-the importance of their case, and for a moment she took unction in such
-logic.
-
-Suddenly a new thought took possession. The baron—“where did he come
-in?” as he himself would have expressed it, and she half smiled at the
-grotesqueness of the thought. Was she not married? and did she not owe
-him allegiance as a woman of honor? If she had told him all that her
-soul held in keeping for another, would he have made her the Baroness
-Von Eulaw?—Very likely, but she was not prepared to believe it. She had
-no right to hold him responsible for offenses against her while she was
-holding perfidy to her heart, and she marveled that she had failed to
-make this argument a shield against the shafts of her great sorrow and
-her almost greater chagrin.
-
-She would destroy both the letter and the picture, and put away all
-thought of the unhappy occurrence. But, examining the picture again, she
-discovered two little punctures just through the pupils of the shadowy
-eyes, and she thought and queried for the cause of such an accident.
-
-Finally she concluded that her old lover had made them inadvertently in
-fastening the picture to his wall or mirror frame, and so, pressing her
-lips warmly to the tiny wounds on the unconscious paper, where she
-fancied his fingers had rested, she locked both the photo and letter in
-her desk, and, just as daylight broke, long after the clanging of the
-locks had ceased and the brightness was withdrawn, she braided her hair
-as she had worn it so many years ago when the image was made, and, with
-a long look in the mirror to find a trace of her old self, she turned
-away to her couch, and disposed herself for an hour of sleep.
-
-But the last among her sea of speculations was this: “I wonder who made
-those pin-holes in my eyes!”
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XIV.
-                    “In the name of God, take heed.”
-
-
-The Hod-Carriers’ Union and Mortar-Mixers’ Protective Association, of
-San Francisco, adopted a resolution in February, 1894, to fix the rate
-of wages of its members at $3.00 per day, and admitting no new members
-for a period of one year. The immediate cause of this resolution was the
-letting, by certain capitalists, of contracts for the construction of
-several blocks of buildings on Market Street, including the new
-post-office building.
-
-Phelim Rafferty, in proposing the resolution, said:
-
-“The owners and the contractors, Mr. Prisident and gentlemen, are min of
-large means, sor, yit they propose to pay us, the sons of honest toil,
-sor, widout whose brawny muscles they could not build at all, sor, they
-propose to pay us a beggarly $2.00 a day, sor. Why, the min in the
-public schools who taich the pianny to our gurls, sor, recaive more nor
-that! Now, sor, if we pass this risolution we put our wages to $3.00 a
-day, and hould them there. We have the mortal cinch on the contractors,
-sor, for if any mimber of our union works for less than $3.00 we’ll
-expel him; and by passin’ this risolution we’ll keep min from the East
-away, and keep the mimbership in San Francisco shmall, and we’ll be sure
-of a job.
-
-“Faith! the bosses will have to be mighty civil to us to git us at all,
-sor. And if they thry to put to work min who are not mimbers of the
-union, their buildings will niver rise out of their cellars, sor, for
-the other thrades are compilled to sthand by us, sor.”
-
-Mr. Lorin French, the millionaire contractor and owner of the great San
-Francisco Iron Works, read in the journal next morning an account of the
-action taken by the Hod-Carriers Union and Mortar-Mixers’ Protective
-Association, and he smiled a grim smile. That day he sent invitations to
-a number of capitalists and contractors to attend a meeting at his
-offices, and the result of the conference was the formation of a
-Manufacturers’ and Builders’ League, of which Mr. Lorin French was
-chosen permanent president.
-
-The daily papers the next morning contained the following
-advertisement:—
-
-                                 WANTED.
-
-  On the first day of next month, two hundred hod-carriers and
-  mortar-mixers to work on the new post-office block. Three dollars per
-  day will be paid until further notice. Men who have applied for and
-  been refused admittance to membership in the Hod-Carriers’ Union will
-  be preferred.
-
-                                                           LORIN FRENCH.
-
-  _1099 Market Street._
-
-This base attempt of capital to coerce or bribe the worker into allowing
-another worker an equal chance of obtaining employment, was denounced by
-Rafferty the next night in a ringing speech at a special meeting of the
-Hod-Carriers’ Union, which meeting resulted in a convention of the
-Federated Trades being ordered.
-
-At this convention it was resolved by a three-fourths majority, after a
-hot debate, that no member of any trade organization would, on penalty
-of expulsion, be permitted to work in or upon or in aid of the
-construction of any building, or in any shop, mill, foundry, or factory,
-or in or upon any work where any person not a member of some
-trade-organization was employed, or where any material was used which
-had been manufactured by non-union labor.
-
-“My frent from the Plumbers’ Association speaks of this resolution, Mr.
-President, as a poomerang,” said Gustave Blather, a labor lecturer, who
-on this occasion represented the Dishwashers’ Lagerbund. “I don’t know
-as such languitch is quite broper coming from him, for a goot many
-beople haf their doubts whether plumbing is really a trate or only a
-larceny. But, my fellow pret-winners, if the resolution is a poomerang,
-it is one that will knock the arrogance out of the ploated
-wealth-owners, and teach them that in this republic—established by the
-ploot of our fathers [Blather’s great-grandfather was a Hessian soldier
-in the British army, and returned to Darmstadt after the surrender of
-Cornwallis]—in this republic the time is close at hand when suppliant
-wealth will be compelt to enture the colt and hunger it has gifen to
-labor for many years.” And, amid a storm of applause, Blather sank to
-his seat.
-
-The post office block was begun on the day appointed, with a force of
-men, all of whom were members of the trade organizations, and the work
-progressed steadily for a week. At the Saturday-night meetings of the
-several trade organizations, the members congratulated themselves that
-“old French” had concluded not to carry out his programme, and in
-several lodges it was proposed to signalize the magnificent victory of
-labor over capital by demanding a general advance of twenty per cent in
-the wages of all mechanics; but some of the wiser heads discouraged the
-movement as premature, and one pessimistic house carpenter observed,
-amid expressions of dissent from his colleagues, that if all the
-mechanics followed the example of the hod carriers, it would “bust wide
-open every builder and contractor in Frisco, or else put a stop to all
-building.”
-
-On the next Monday morning there appeared on the scene ten men clad in
-blouses and overalls. Three of them worked at mixing mortar, three of
-them carried hods, three of them commenced laying brick, while the tenth
-man directed the labors of the other nine. Each had buckled about his
-waist in plain sight a cartridge belt from which hung a dragoon
-revolver.
-
-As soon as their presence and labors became known, word was sent to
-labor headquarters, and Delegate Brown was deputed to interview the
-strangers and ascertain the situation.
-
-Pap Brown was a journeyman stone cutter on the other side of the
-sixties, who did not often work at his trade. The salary he received
-from the trade unions was sufficient for his support, and he fully
-earned his salary. He was shrewd, suave, and persistent, and his
-fatherly way with “the boys,” and deferential manner to employers, often
-secured to the former favorable adjustments of contests that would have
-been denied to the “silver-tongued” Raffertys and Blathers.
-
-Pap Brown approached one of the men who was engaged in mixing mortar,
-and inquired whom he was working for. The man addressed made no reply,
-but signaled the foreman, who came forward and curtly answered:—
-
-“We are all working for Mr. Lorin French.”
-
-“What wages do you get?” asked Brown.
-
-“Well,” replied the foreman after a pause, “strictly speaking, I don’t
-know as that concerns you, but I have no objection to telling you. The
-mortar-mixers and hod-carriers get $3.00 a day, the bricklayers $4.00,
-and I get $5.00.”
-
-“Them’s union wages,” said Brown, approvingly. “You are strangers in
-Frisco, I jedge?”
-
-“We arrived last Friday night from Milwaukee,” replied the foreman.
-
-“Have you got your cards as members of the union?” said Brown.
-
-“No,” replied the party addressed, “we belong to no union.”
-
-“Hum! I suppose you are calkilatin’ to jine the unions here?” inquired
-Brown in a persuasive accent.
-
-“I am told,” replied the foreman, “that so far as the Hod-Carriers’
-Union is concerned, we cannot join if we wish to; that they have
-resolved to admit no new members.”
-
-Pap Brown slowly revolved his tobacco quid in his mouth, and rapidly
-revolved the situation in his wise old brain. “Hum!” said he at length,
-“I reckon that can be arranged for ye, so that ye can all jine.”
-
-“Well,” replied the man from Milwaukee, “I may as well tell ye that we
-don’t calculate to jine anyhow. We don’t much believe in unions
-nohow—too many fellers a settin’ around drinkin’ beer, which the fellers
-that work have to pay for.”
-
-“Mebbe you don’t know,” said Pap Brown, “that only union men will be
-allowed to work here.”
-
-“Who will stop us?” said the stranger.
-
-“There are a good many thousand of the brotherhood in this city,” said
-Delegate Brown, still persuasively, “and there are only ten of you.”
-
-“Well, we ten are fixed to stay,” said the foreman, glancing
-significantly at his cartridge belt.
-
-“Hum!” remarked Pap Brown, as he walked away.
-
-That night there was a conference at the labor headquarters of the
-Executive Committee of the Federated Trades, and Delegate Brown was
-called upon to report.
-
-“I find,” said he, “that these ten men have all worked at their trades
-somewhere, and our watchers say that they are good workmen; but clearly
-they have been hired more as fighters than as hod carriers or masons. I
-jedge, from what I hear, that there is an organized force behind them.
-They sleep and take their meals in old French’s building on Market
-Street, and don’t go out to the saloons, and we can’t very well get at
-them. Old French is as cunning as Satan, and he has fixed the job upon
-us, and put these men to work to bring things to a point. There is a big
-force of Pinkerton’s men in the city all ready to be sworn in as deputy
-sheriffs in case of a row, and I reckon it is put up to call in the
-soldiers at the Presidio and from Alcatraz in case of trouble, for the
-post-office building, where the men are working, is government
-property.”
-
-“What action do you suggest we should take, Mr. Brown?” said the
-chairman.
-
-Pap Brown rolled his quid from one cheek to the other, and then solemnly
-deposited it in the cuspidor.
-
-“It won’t do,” he replied, “to monkey with Uncle Sam; my jedgment is to
-jist let them ten men alone.”
-
-“But,” interposed a member of the committee, “old French will never stop
-there. Those ten men are merely the small end of a wedge with which he
-intends to split our labor unions to pieces. He will not give us the
-sympathy of the people by lowering wages, but he will put on scabs, a
-dozen at a time, and discharge our members, until the city is filled
-with new workmen, the unions broken up, and we can all emigrate to
-Massachusetts or China.”
-
-“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Pap Brown, “but violence to them ten men
-would simply be playin’ into old French’s hand. He has figgered for a
-fight, but we mustn’t give it to him.”
-
-“We will carry out,” said the Chairman, “in a peaceful way, the
-resolution adopted by the Congress of Federated Trades.”
-
-“That,” said Pap Brown, “means a gineral strike and an all-around
-tie-up, that’s what it means, jest at the beginnin’ of the buildin’
-season, with our union treasuries mostly empty, and our brethren East in
-no fix to help us, for the coke strikes and the shettin’ down of the
-cotton factories and iron foundries this winter have dreened them all. I
-was agin that resolution of the Federated Trades at the time, and I’m
-mighty doubtful about it’s workin’ any good to us now. It was well
-enough for a bluff, but if we are called down we haven’t got a thing in
-our hands, that’s a fact.”
-
-“Well, what can we do, Mr. Brown?”
-
-“I believe that the best thing all around would be to give in to old
-French now, repeal that fool resolution, and wait for a better time to
-strike.”
-
-“What! surrender without a blow? That, Mr. Brown, we can never do.”
-
-“Well, then,” rejoined Pap Brown, “I reckon we’ve got a long siege
-ahead.”
-
-The Executive Committee appointed a delegation to wait on Mr. Lorin
-French and inform him that unless the employment of the ten non-union
-men was discontinued, the resolution of the Federated Trades would be
-enforced, and all Trade Union members working for him, or for any member
-of the Manufacturers’ and Builders’ Union, would quit work.
-
-Mr. French received the committee very curtly.
-
-“Those ten men,” said he, “will continue their labors though they shall
-be the only ten men at work in the city of San Francisco. If one, or one
-thousand, or ten thousand of you are fools enough to quit work at the
-high wages you have yourselves fixed, simply because I have given work
-at the same wages to men who don’t choose to join one of your bullying
-unions, why, you can quit. You can’t hurt me by quitting as much as you
-will hurt yourselves. My money will keep and your work won’t. But take
-notice that every man who does quit work will be blacklisted, and he can
-never get another job in this city from me, or any of the gentlemen who
-are members of the association of which I am president, and we include
-about all the large employers of labor in this city.”
-
-“You know, Mr. French,” said the Chairman of the committee, “that if you
-insist on keeping these ten non-union men at work we can order a general
-strike.”
-
-“Yes, I know it,” replied French. “I know that you can bite off your own
-noses to spite your own faces. I feel sorry for you workingmen at times,
-you are such unreasoning and unreasonable and everlasting fools. When
-you order a strike, you order the absolute destruction of the only
-property you have—your labor—and you do this in order to prevent a few
-men from selling their labor; a few men whose only offense is that they
-don’t believe with you in the wisdom of harassing and plundering
-capitalists.”
-
-“Well, I suppose we have a right to strike, haven’t we?” said the
-Chairman angrily.
-
-“No,” said French, “you have not. The worker who joins a strike faces at
-least the possibility of capital closing its works and retiring from the
-field, and the men who have been extravagant, idle, unthrifty, or
-unfortunate, and most of you have been one or the other, have no moral
-right to bring upon themselves or those dependent upon them, either
-suffering or mendicancy.”
-
-“Mr. French,” said the Chairman, “you know a good many things, but you
-don’t know the power of the labor organizations of the land. If we
-willed it, we could in one day stop production and transportation all
-over the United States.”
-
-“You would do well to think three or four times,” replied French,
-“before exercising any such power as that. You workingmen are
-overstepping the bounds not only of moderation, but of common justice
-and common sense. Suppose you should do what you threaten, what do you
-suppose the capitalists would do in turn? You don’t know? Well, I can
-tell you. We would say that we were weary of your exactions, your
-interference, and your airs. We would say to you: ‘You have stopped the
-wheels; very well, we will not start them. You have extinguished the
-furnace fires, we will not rekindle them. You have disabled the engines,
-we will not repair them. With the downward stab of your vicious knife
-you have cut our surface veins, but you have received the force of the
-blow in your own vitals—bleed to death at your leisure. We will retire
-for a while and nurse our scratches.’
-
-“You don’t know what you are talking about,” continued the old man. “You
-don’t conceive the misery and ruin that would result from sixty days’
-stoppage of labor in the fields and foundries and factories and
-furnaces, and sixty days’ suspension of traffic over the railroads of
-our land. With the disabled engines in the roundhouses, and the cars
-covered with dust in the deserted yards; with ships and steamers lying
-idle at the wharves or sailed away to trade between the ports of other
-lands, whose governments, wiser or more powerful than ours, would not
-suffer the moral law to be violated by either individuals or societies;
-with moss gathered upon the turbines; with chimneys towering smokeless
-to the skies; with the music of forge and anvil hushed; with almshouses
-crowded, asylums filled, and jails overflowing; with men suffering and
-women growing gaunt from hunger, and little children sobbing themselves
-to the fevered sleep of famine; with the furniture in the auction room,
-trinkets and clothing in the pawn shop, and families once comfortable
-wandering shelterless under the stars; with even disease welcomed as a
-friend who should pilot the sufferer to the deliverance of death, would
-you find consolation for it all in the reflection that you had, maybe,
-carried your point and prevented non-union men, who are as good as
-yourselves in every way, from working alongside you at the same wages
-you demanded for yourselves?”
-
-“Mr. French,” said the Chairman, “what do you wish us to do?”
-
-“I don’t care what you do,” was the response, “but if you have any
-sense, you will go home and repeal your fool resolution to strike if
-non-union workers are employed.”
-
-“That, Mr. French,” said the spokesman, “we cannot and will not do.”
-
-“No?” replied the millionaire. “Well, you must go to destruction then in
-your own way. Goodmorning.”
-
-At noon the next day the hod-carriers dropped their hods, not only at
-the post-office block, but at all buildings in process of construction
-by any capitalist or contractor belonging to the Builders’ and
-Manufacturers’ Union. The brick-masons stopped work because they would
-not lay brick with mortar mixed or carried by a non-union laborer. The
-house carpenters declined to drive a nail in aid of the erection of any
-building in which a brick should be laid by one not belonging to the
-Bricklayers’ Union. No plumber or gasfitter would carry his tools to a
-building whose timbers had been put in place by a scab carpenter. The
-teamsters would not haul sand, brick, lime, or lumber for use in any
-building to be erected by any member of the association of which Lorin
-French was president. The iron-moulders abandoned in a body the great
-shops, rather than work on columns or fronts which had been ordered for
-the tabooed buildings. Engineers and firemen struck, rather than attend
-to the running of machinery in factories where non-union men were
-employed, and all workers engaged in any factory, foundry, mill, shop,
-or business owned, in whole or in part, by any member of the Builders’
-and Manufacturers’ Union, joined the general strike, while the railroads
-were compelled, in self-protection, to refuse freight offered by any
-member of the organization of which Lorin French was president.
-
-No attempt was made by French or his colleagues to supply the places of
-the strikers with non-union workers, although every mail from the East
-brought hundreds of applications for employment, but each factory,
-foundry, and shop was closed, one after the other, as the workers joined
-the strike. The ten men whose labors on the post-office building had
-begotten all this commotion, continued steadily at work. They were
-surrounded each day, while at their labors, by hooting thousands, who
-gathered in the vicinity, but any near approach to them was prevented by
-a company of Pinkerton’s men, armed with Winchesters, who had been sworn
-in as deputy sheriffs, and who escorted them to and from their labors,
-to French’s building, No. 1099 Market Street, where they, as well as
-their guards, were accorded quarters, and in the upper story of which
-Mr. Lorin French had, under existing circumstances, deemed it expedient
-to establish his residence as well as his offices.
-
-After a fortnight had elapsed these ten men were withdrawn from their
-labors, in deference to the request of the Mayor of San Francisco and
-the governor of California.
-
-A committee from the Federated Trades then waited upon Lorin French, and
-informed him that, as the _causa belli_ had been removed by the
-withdrawal of the ten obnoxious non-union laborers, the strikers were
-willing to resume work. His reply was that whenever work should be
-resumed generally, the ten “obnoxious” men, as well as all other
-non-union men he might see fit to employ, would resume work; and so
-negotiations came suddenly to an end.
-
-At the close of the third week of the strike the Congress of Federated
-Trades assembled and declared a boycott against all members of the
-Builders’ and Manufacturers’ Union, and against all who should violate
-the boycott; the boycott to run also against any railway or steamship
-line that should accord them or their families transportation out of San
-Francisco.
-
-It was expected that this last and most drastic measure would bring the
-capitalists to terms, for its enforcement would deprive them and their
-families of the necessities of life. Their employes left them under the
-pressure, and their offices and places of business were closed. Their
-house servants departed, and they were unable to obtain substitutes even
-among the Chinese, for the Celestial who should labor for a boycotted
-household was given his choice between exile and death. Hotel
-proprietors were compelled to refuse a boycotted person as a guest, or
-lose their own waiters, cooks, and chambermaids. The restaurant
-proprietor who should serve one of them with a meal would be compelled
-to close his doors for the want of help; and the grocer, fruiterer,
-butcher, baker, or provision dealer who sold supplies for their use,
-would be posted, and lose his other customers, for the boycott was
-declared against all who violated the boycott.
-
-Mr. French was equal to the exigency. He caused representations to be
-made, and influence exerted at Washington, and the United States steamer
-_Charleston_ was detailed for special service. The members of the
-Builders’ and Manufacturers’ Association, with their families, were
-taken on board of the war-ship, guarded by the Pinkerton men, and
-carried to Vancouver, where they were dispatched East over the Canadian
-Pacific Railroad. Lorin French, with a few of his fellow-members,
-refused to go, but, establishing themselves comfortably on the upper
-floor of the building No. 1099 Market Street, they managed to provision
-themselves and their guards, despite the boycott, and announced their
-determination to see the contest out.
-
-It was the last week in April, 1894, and the tenth week of the great
-strike. Business was almost suspended in San Francisco. Thousands of the
-strikers had wandered out into the country, and every farmhouse within a
-hundred miles of San Francisco was besieged by men glad to work for food
-and shelter, while the highways were crowded with tramps. In the city
-the streets were filled with idle thousands, and at the daily meeting at
-the sand lots twenty or thirty thousand auditors were addressed by
-favorite speakers.
-
-The orators made no appeals which were calculated to incite violence,
-and there was no police interference with the meetings. Indeed, there
-seemed logically no place or opportunity for violence. The offending
-employers had done absolutely nothing that the workers could even
-denounce. They had discharged nobody, and they had not attempted to fill
-the places of those who reluctantly left. They had simply suspended
-operations. They had accepted the refusal of the workers to work,
-apparently, as final. They had locked up their factories and places of
-business, and, with their families, had left the State.
-
-The strikers generally regarded Lorin French as the prime mover against
-them, but his property they could not reach for the purposes of
-destruction if they had been so inclined. It consisted of mines in
-Nevada and Utah and Montana, of sheep and cattle in New Mexico and
-Arizona, of vineyards and orchards and grain-fields in California, of
-mortgages and bonds, and of unimproved real estate in San Francisco. On
-this latter he was now preparing to erect business blocks. But the
-buildings were in embryo. The mob could neither burn nor dynamite an
-unbuilded structure, and there was no visible property upon which to
-wreak vengeance.
-
-Yet the most ample provisions had been made against any mob uprising.
-Two batteries of artillery, with guns shotted with grape and canister,
-two companies of cavalry, and four companies of infantry of the
-California National Guard, were in readiness, a portion being under
-arms, and signals were arranged for calling the entire force together at
-the armories, ready for action, on less than half an hour’s notice.
-
-On Saturday night, late in April, 1894, the Congress of Federated Trades
-again met, and, after a short debate, it was sullenly resolved to accept
-the situation. The strike was declared at an end, and all the
-resolutions adopted since the preceding February, including the original
-resolution of indorsement of the action of the Hod-Carriers’ Union, were
-rescinded, and it was enacted that hereafter the employment of non-union
-workers should not be a cause of strike except by workers associated in
-the same work, and against the same employer.
-
-A committee of three, to consist of the President of the Congress of
-Federated Trades, the Mayor of San Francisco, and the Chief of Police,
-was appointed to wait, early next morning, upon Mr. Lorin French,
-communicate to him the action taken by the Federated Trades, and receive
-his reply.
-
-It was surrender on the part of the workers—absolute and unconditional.
-It was a blow to their pride, and a relinquishment of that which, with
-many of them, was a cherished principle; it was brought about by hunger
-and suffering, and they gave up the contest utterly, and placed
-themselves at the mercy of the conqueror. Only a brute could have
-misused the vanquished, but Lorin French had worked himself into a
-relentless fury during the progress of the strike, and, unfortunately,
-he had been left in full charge and invested with plenary power by the
-departed members of the Builders’ and Manufacturers’ Association.
-
-At nine o’clock the next morning, in the sunshine of an April Sabbath,
-the committee appointed by the Federated Trades was permitted to pass
-the Pinkerton guard, and mount the five flights of stairs—for the
-elevator service had long been discontinued—which led to the top story
-of the building No. 1099 Market Street, where they were received by
-Lorin French, who arose from his breakfast table to greet them. He
-listened without changing his countenance while the Mayor, as Chairman
-of the committee, communicated to him the substance of the resolution
-adopted the night before by the Congress of Federated Trades.
-
-“I expected exactly such a result,” said French; “it would have saved a
-great deal of money and a great deal of suffering to these Federated
-fools if they had adopted a similar course two months ago.”
-
-“Well, Mr. French,” said the Mayor, “these misguided men, with their
-families, have been the greatest losers and the severest sufferers by it
-all. I will not discuss the rights and wrongs of it with you. There is
-more than one side to it, and we might not agree. I am rejoiced, for
-their sake and yours, and for the sake of the city and State, that it is
-all over, and that the workers can now return to their work, and
-business resume its usual channels.”
-
-“These misguided men, as you call them, Mr. Mayor,” said French, “will
-be compelled to transfer their opportunities for future misguidance to
-some other locality. They are all blacklisted here. Their own signatures
-to receipts for wages when they quit, constitute the blacklist. Not one
-of them shall ever earn another day’s wages in this city in any
-enterprise owned, controlled, or influenced by me.”
-
-“But, Mr. French,” remonstrated the Mayor, “this is unworthy of you.
-These men have homes here; they have families to support; the long
-strike has left many of them utterly without resources, either to go
-away with or to establish themselves elsewhere. The industries of San
-Francisco need them. Why bring in others to take their places? They have
-abandoned their strike. They have already been sufficiently punished for
-that which was, after all, only an error of judgment. If work be refused
-them, they will starve.”
-
-“Let them starve,” savagely replied the millionaire; “not one of them
-shall ever get a job of work from me.”
-
-The President of the Congress of Federated Trades, who was one of the
-committee, had hitherto been silent. He was an iron worker by trade,
-who, in twenty years of residence in San Francisco, had almost lost the
-Scotch burr which, as a lad, he had brought with him from Glasgow. In
-moments of feeling or excitement it returned to him. He addressed
-himself to French:—
-
-“Oh mon,” said he, “but thou art hard; and thou art a fool as well! ’Tis
-a mad wolf that cooms oot of the mountain shingle to make a trail
-through the heather for the hoonds. Gin ye hae no mercy for God’s poor,
-hae ye no fear frae the divil’s dogs that your words may loosen on ye?
-Dinna ye ken there be ten, aye, twenty thousand men on the sand lots
-this blessed Sabbath morn, who love ye not, and who, if they get your
-words just spoken, and get them they maun, unless ye recall them, would,
-if they but reach ye, and reach ye they will, for a’ your guards and
-guns, would send ye to God’s throne wi’ your bad heart a’ reekin’?”
-
-“Go and tell the loafers and brawlers of the sand lots exactly what I
-have said,” shrieked French. “It is what I mean to say, and mean for
-them to hear. If you don’t take the message I will send it through the
-press. Let them do their worst. I do not fear the blackguards, and I am
-ready for any who choose to visit me,” and the old man snapped his
-fingers as the members of the committee sorrowfully departed.
-
-Half an hour later a speaker who was addressing an audience of thirty
-thousand people from the central stand at the sand lots, paused as he
-saw the President of the Congress of Federated Trades making his way
-through the crowd. The orator had been commenting on the resolutions
-adopted by the Workers’ Congress the previous night, and had been
-congratulating the people upon the approaching end of the distress
-occasioned by the long strike, and on the days of peace and plenty which
-were in store for them, and it was with beaming faces and glad shouts
-that the multitude welcomed the man who was to announce to them a
-resumption of their labors in factory and shop.
-
-“My friends,” said the tall Scotchman, “I have just come from an
-interview with Lorin French, and I am vara vara sorry to bear you the
-message with which I am charged. He bids me tell you that the notice he
-gave to us all before the strike begun shall be carried out, and that no
-man who quit work then shall ever again have work in this city, if he
-can help it.”
-
-The temper of the vast multitude changed in an instant. Shrieks and
-yells of anger filled the air, and for many minutes the crowd gave way
-to demonstrations of rage and indignation. All at once there walked to
-the front of the central platform a tall, angular woman dressed in a
-gown of plain black stuff. Her features were unprepossessing, to the
-verge of ugliness, but a wealth of white hair crowned a low brow,
-surmounting eyes of fierce blue. As she stretched forth a long arm, the
-multitude hushed to silence, for they recognized the renowned female
-agitator, Lucy Passmore.
-
-“Friends, brethren, men,” said she, in a voice whose magnetic quality
-vibrated to the farthest edges of the crowd, “it seems that it is the
-malignant will of one man which savagely condemns thousands to suffering
-and starvation. If the rattlesnake is coiled for ye, will ye strike
-first or wait for him to strike? If the wolf is waiting upon your
-doorstep, will you feed to him the babe he is seeking or will ye give
-him the knife to the hilt in his hot throat? The death of Lorin French
-would end this struggle, and your wives would cease to weep and your
-children to cry with hunger. Men, since God has so far forgotten you as
-to suffer this devil to live so long, why do you not remedy God’s
-forgetfulness? Are you ready to march now or do you want an old woman to
-lead you?”
-
-A yell arose from the surging crowd, as, with one mind, thousands
-comprehended and were ready to act upon the suggestions of Lucy
-Passmore.
-
-Most of the men had long before furnished themselves with arms of some
-sort, and their lodge organizations had provided them with elected
-leaders, who usually attended the sand-lot meetings. As if by magic they
-formed themselves into companies and battalions and marched, an orderly
-and almost an organized army, forth from the sand lots, and down to the
-building No. 1099 Market Street, which they speedily surrounded.
-
-The iron shutters of the upper story were at once closed, and the
-muzzles of rifles pushed through loopholes previously prepared for such
-purpose. An attempt was made from the inside to close the iron gate in
-front of the main staircase, but the mob surged past the guard, took
-possession of the lower hall, and started up the stairs. They were met
-at the top, just below the first landing, by twenty Pinkerton men
-standing upon the top five steps—four on each step—who, after vainly
-warning the ascending crowd to desist, at last lowered the muzzles of
-their Winchesters, and opened a murderous fusillade, which covered the
-stairs with dead and dying.
-
-The mob hesitated for an instant, but only for an instant, for those
-below pushed forward those who were above. A hundred revolvers were
-fired at the Pinkerton men, half of whom fell, and the other half were
-borne down, shot, clubbed, and stabbed as the mob rushed past and over
-them, and gained the first landing. The crowd continued to push from
-below, and in the same way, with great loss of life on each side, they
-gained successively the third and fourth stories. By this time, however,
-the forces on the fifth floor had opened fire on the mob outside. Two
-riflemen at each of the eighteen windows commanded the main entrance to
-the building, and such a rapid and accurate fire was maintained that
-Market Street for a hundred feet on each side of the entrance was piled
-with bodies, and further re-inforcements prevented from reaching those
-within the building.
-
-At this juncture Battery X came galloping into Market Street from
-Fourth. Two guns were placed in position, and one, loaded with
-grapeshot, was fired just above the heads of the crowd. The whistling of
-the shot in the air above them gave notice to the mob of what was
-coming, and, with cries of terror, they fled, panic-stricken, into the
-adjacent streets. The assailants inside the building, hearing the noise
-of the cannon, followed by the triumphant shouts of the Pinkerton men in
-the upper story, and finding no further pressure or re-inforcements from
-below, desisted from further assault, and, turning from the fourth
-landing, fled down the stairs.
-
-Lorin French, from a loophole in an iron shutter, watched the firing,
-and the dispersion of the mob outside, and in a few minutes he was
-informed by a Pinkerton sergeant that the contest was over.
-
-“It’s a sorry day’s work, sir,” said the officer; “we have lost over
-thirty of our best men, and there must be two hundred rioters dead and
-wounded on the stairs and in the halls, beside those killed in the
-street.”
-
-“I will help you with the wounded,” said French, starting for the
-passage.
-
-“Better remain here, sir,” said the officer. “It may not be quite safe
-for you yet in the lower halls.”
-
-“Nonsense,” replied French, “the fight is over,” and so saying, he
-walked out into the hall, and descended the stairs to the fourth story.
-He paused in horror at the sight which met his eyes. The floor was wet
-and slippery with blood, and the cries of the wounded pierced his ears.
-He stood for a moment as if dazed, and then, turning his back upon the
-scene, prepared to ascend the staircase and gain his room.
-
-And as he turned, a man who was sitting propped up against the wall
-twenty feet away, raised a revolver which had been lying in his lap,
-and, clearing with his left hand the blood which obscured his eyes, took
-rapid yet careful aim and fired.
-
-The bullet struck Lorin French in his backbone, which it shattered, and,
-with a cry of agony and fear, the owner of $20,000,000 fell forward upon
-his face on the stairway.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XV.
-                    “Is this law? Aye, marry is it?”
-
-
-“In the matter of the estate of Lorin French deceased, the application
-of Louis Browning for letters executory is before the court. Who
-represents the applicant?”
-
-“The firm of Bruff & Baldwin, your honor,” replied a tall gentleman with
-spectacled nose and a beardless face.
-
-“Are there contestants?” said the Court.
-
-Then from their seats within the bar of the court room there arose a
-decorous multitude of lawyers, short and tall, old and young, fat and
-lean, the white-bearded Nestors, and the complacent, chirping chipmunks
-of the bar, and in various forms of expression it clearly appeared that
-there were contestants.
-
-“I think,” said his Honor with a weary smile, “that my associates might
-have sent this case to another department, for I have had a surfeit of
-contested will cases. Proceed, Mr. Bruff.”
-
-“In behalf of the Society of Bug Hunters, who are legatees under a
-former will,” said a sepulchral voice, proceeding from the rotund
-diaphragm of a bald-headed and full-bearded gentleman, “I have
-twenty-three objections to offer to the admission to probate of the
-alleged will of Lorin French, and—”
-
-“Will my learned brother Lester permit me to interrupt him for a
-moment,” twanged a catarrhal tone, “while I state that I wish my
-appearance entered here on behalf of the recognized natural son of the
-deceased, and I protest—”
-
-“On the part of the Australian cousins of Lorin French,” shrieked a lean
-man with red hair, “I have a preliminary objection to offer to the will
-being read in court at all, and—”
-
-“I object!”
-
-“I except!”
-
-“Will your honor please note the exception of the Nevada heirs?”
-
-“I demand to be heard!”
-
-Then from the entire front of the bar came cries of excited counsel,
-learned in all law save that of decorum, while the Court rapped for
-order.
-
-“Gentlemen,” said he, “you will all please be seated. The Court itself
-would like to be heard. The will of our deceased fellow-citizen, Lorin
-French, who was never more regretted by me than at this moment, or”—and
-the Court smiled deprecatingly—“the paper which purports to be his will,
-is presented here by our Brother Bruff. Now, unless some gentleman
-denies the death of Lorin French, it occurs to me that the reading of
-the paper offered as his will can but tend to our common enlightenment—”
-
-The deep-voiced Lester, with his twenty-three objections, sustained by a
-“brief” which covered ninety pages of manuscript, arose.
-
-“I have not yet finished,” said the Court. “It is apparent that many of
-the objections urged will be against the reading of the will. Such
-objections may be discussed more intelligently if the Court can be
-suffered to gain some knowledge of the contents of the paper offered,
-and I shall ask, gentlemen, that you suspend argument or motions while
-the clerk reads the will. It will then delight the Court to devote the
-remainder of the term to hearing arguments why the will ought never to
-have been read. Mr. Clerk, proceed, and I will send to jail for contempt
-any member of this bar who shall interrupt you until the reading shall
-be completed.”
-
-There was silence in the crowded court room as the clerk opened and read
-the document:—
-
-In the name of God, Amen, I, Lorin French, of San Francisco, California,
-being of sound and disposing mind and memory, but being assured by my
-physicians that the wound received by me must within a few days prove
-fatal, do make, publish, and declare this my last will and testament,
-revoking all wills previously made by me.
-
-The free use of my hand enables me to make this will holographic, and
-this labor I undertake in order to more completely demonstrate to the
-court where it may be offered for probate, that it is altogether my own
-act, and that I am sane, clear of mind, and fully possessed of my own
-memory and judgment.
-
-The near approach of the world into which my spirit is about to journey,
-brings, possibly, a clearer judgment, and I think now that if my
-decision to employ no strikers had not been communicated to the mob, I
-should have reconsidered such decision. However, my approaching death,
-which will incidentally result from that decision, afflicts me less than
-the fate of those who fell in the affray, for my own life was drawing to
-a close.
-
-If the example I shall offer in attempting to adjust the relations of
-capital and labor shall be followed by others, it will result in
-advantage to the workers of this land, and great permanent good may thus
-grow from the bitter struggle which ended with the wound which will
-terminate my life on earth.
-
-I am unmarried and childless, and my nearest living relatives are
-cousins of remote degrees, with whose names and places of residence I am
-scarcely acquainted. No relation of mine has any moral or rightful claim
-upon my estate, and the disposition I am about to make of my property
-will work injustice to no living creature.
-
-I appoint as executor of this my last will and testament, my friend
-Louis Browning, to serve without bonds, and I direct that for his
-services as executor, and in lieu of all commissions, he receive the sum
-of $50,000 out of my estate.
-
-I direct my said executor to forthwith pay to the widows, or next of
-kin, of each man slain in the late riot, the sum of $10,000, to each man
-permanently disabled by wounds received therein, the sum of $5,000, and
-to each man wounded but not permanently disabled, the sum of $1,000.
-
-I direct my said executor to proceed as speedily as possible to
-prudently dispose of all my estate, and convert the same into money, to
-be paid over by him to the corporation hereinafter named.
-
-I request that my said executor, Louis Browning, shall, in co-operation
-with the Governor of California, the Mayor of San Francisco, and my
-friends David Shelburn, Lawrence Slayter, George Morrow, and Francis
-Dalton, proceed forthwith to form a corporation under the laws of this
-State, to be entitled the ‘Lorin French Labor Aid Company,’ to which
-corporation, when organized, I direct that the proceeds of my estate be
-transferred, to be used by it in providing capital for the use of such
-co-operative and profit-sharing corporations as may, from time to time,
-be organized to avail themselves of its aid.
-
-The Lorin French Labor Aid Company will not itself engage in any
-industrial enterprise, but will confine itself strictly to loaning money
-at three per cent per annum to such organizations of mechanics as may
-seek its assistance and comply with its rules. Those rules must require
-that one-fourth of the wages and all the profits of the members of the
-borrowing corporation shall be paid to the Lorin French Labor Aid
-Company, until the debt due the latter is discharged, and that the
-borrowing corporation shall be organized and conducted in accordance
-with certain conditions and rules.
-
-My meaning may be made more clear by the following illustration:—
-
-Suppose that five hundred men shall desire to establish a co-operative
-foundry. They will make a preliminary organization and apply to the
-officers of the Lorin French Labor Aid Company for the capital necessary
-to conduct the enterprise. Those officers will—after careful
-inquiry—ascertain that the buildings, land, machinery, and plant of such
-a foundry will cost $900,000, and that it will require a cash capital of
-$100,000 to carry the current business. They will purchase such a
-foundry, taking title in the Lorin French Labor Aid Company in trust,
-and will select a general manager, who will employ and discharge men,
-fix the rate of wages and hours of labor, and have full charge of the
-works. After the indebtedness of the Foundry Company to the Aid Company
-shall have been fully paid with interest, the members of the Foundry
-Company may elect their own general manager, but, until then, that
-officer shall be chosen by, and be subject to the control of, the
-directors of the Aid Company.
-
-Each man employed in the works, from the general manager to the
-lowest-paid helper in the yard, must be a shareholder, the number of
-shares to be held by each being regulated by his wages. If a workman
-should die, or leave employment, either on his own motion or because of
-his being discharged, his shares would be turned over to his successor,
-who would be required to make good to the outgoing man or his widow or
-heirs whatever amount had been paid upon the shares, and the money for
-such payment might be advanced when necessary out of a fund for such
-purpose provided by the Foundry Company, the shares standing as security
-for the advance. No shares could be transferred except to a
-successor—employed in the foundry.
-
-A portion, say one-fourth, of the shares of the corporation should be
-reserved for allotment to workmen whose employment might be required by
-the growth of the works, though it will be the object of the directors
-of the Lorin French Labor Aid Company to encourage the continued
-organization of new co-operative labor corporations rather than the
-enlargement of old ones. Yet such encouragement must be prudently
-granted, having reference to the natural growth of business and the
-demands of a healthy trade, and overproduction must not be stimulated,
-for it is my main purpose to help the laborer to rid himself of the
-payment of high interest and large commissions, to bring him as nearly
-as possible in direct communication with the consumer, to save him the
-waste of strikes, and the salaries of the brawlers who foment
-difficulties between laborers and their employers, to make him his own
-employer and his own capitalist, to encourage him in sobriety and thrift
-and the possession of such high manhood as of right belongs to
-citizenship of our republic.
-
-The capital stock of such an iron-workers’ co-operation might be fixed
-at the sum borrowed from the Lorin French Labor Aid Company, say
-$1,000,000, divided into shares of the par value of $10 each.
-
-Thus, five hundred men properly managed, working industriously, and
-allowing one-fourth of their wages and their entire profits to
-accumulate, might be able in five years to own a plant of the actual
-value of $1,000,000, with the good-will of a business worth as much
-more, and thereafter the worker might receive full wages and an
-additional income from dividends, which, if placed in endowment
-insurance, or in similar safe investments, would enable him to retire,
-if he wish, in fifteen years with an assured competence.
-
-The $20,000,000 which will be received from the sale of my property, all
-of which I hereby give, devise, and bequeath to the Lorin French Labor
-Aid Company, ought to, and I doubt not will, be sufficient to establish
-co-operative iron foundries, sawmills, woolen factories, glass works,
-brick yards, and other industrial enterprises, in San Francisco,
-sufficient to provide remunerative employment for fifteen thousand men.
-The fund will be invested safely, for it will be based upon the security
-which is the creator and conservator of all property and property
-rights, industrious and intelligent labor. The accretions to the fund,
-even at the moderate rate of interest of three per cent per annum, will
-add, probably, a thousand workers each year to the number of its
-beneficiaries, while the repayment and re-investment in similar ways of
-the original fund, will add several thousand more each year.
-
-The practical operation of the plans I have endeavored to outline will
-work no injustice to the owners of existing manufacturing
-establishments, for it will be in the interest of the workmen to
-purchase such plants and business at their value, rather than to build
-up new and rival establishments. It is true that some persons now making
-a profit off the labors of others will be compelled to enlist their
-capital and energies in other lines; but this, if a hardship, will not
-be an injustice, and individual convenience must be subservient to the
-general good.
-
-“I think I have made clear the purposes to which I hereby devote the
-fortune I have accumulated by fifty years of toil and care—yet in the
-accumulation of which I have found great enjoyment. The details of my
-plans I must leave to those who now are, or who hereafter may be,
-charged with the execution of this trust. In the life upon which I am
-about to enter—for I have never so questioned the wisdom of the
-Originating and Ultimate Force of the Universe as to suppose that the
-death of this body of flesh will be the end of all conscious individual
-existence—in the life upon which I am about to enter, I hope to derive
-satisfaction from the fulfillment of the objects of this my last will
-and testament, to which I hereby affix my signature and seal, this
-thirtieth day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-four.
-
-                                                    LORIN FRENCH [SEAL].
-
-We, William Jelly and Thompson Blakesly, declare that Lorin French, in
-our presence and on the thirtieth day of April, eighteen hundred and
-ninety-four, in the city of San Francisco, California, signed the
-foregoing document, which he then declared to each of us was his last
-will and testament, and we then, at his request and in his presence, and
-in the presence of each other, sign our names hereto as witnesses.
-
-                                                     WILLIAM JELLY,
-                                                     THOMPSON BLAKESLY.”
-
-The voice of the clerk ceased, and for a few seconds there was a hush in
-the court room, which was broken by the harsh, cold tones of Counselor
-John Lyman.
-
-“I submit to your Honor,” said he, “in behalf of the Public
-Administrator for whom I appear, and who asks that he be accorded
-administration of the estate of Lorin French. I submit that this
-so-called will, although rhetorically and otherwise a very interesting
-attempt at unpractical philanthropy, is—as a will—simply waste paper. In
-spirit and in letter it is an utter violation of two sections of the
-civil code of California. Section 1275 of that code provides that
-‘corporations—except those formed for scientific, literary, or
-educational purposes—cannot take under a will, unless expressly
-authorized by statute.’ The proposed Lorin French Labor Aid Company is,
-in its plan, a corporation, neither scientific, literary, nor
-educational. Considered as a benevolent corporation, it is not now in
-existence, and is, of course, not authorized by statute to receive this,
-or any bequest—”
-
-“How is it,” interrupted Mr. Bruff, “that the Society for the Prevention
-of Cruelty to Animals, the Sisters’ Hospital, and other corporations,
-have received bequests?”
-
-“Simply because they have been expressly authorized by act of the
-Legislature to do so,” was the reply.
-
-“Then if I wish to leave a sum of money to found and support an asylum
-for one-lunged lawyers, or one-eyed baseball umpires, I am unable to do
-so, am I?” said Bruff.
-
-“You can go to Sacramento and have a law passed to enable your one-eyed
-and one-lunged corporations to take your bequest,” said Lyman.
-
-“How much,” said Bruff, sarcastically, “would I probably be obliged to
-pay the statesmen for passing such a law?”
-
-“My party is not in power,” rejoined Lyman. “I do not know the latest
-market quotations for votes in your caucus.”
-
-“Order, gentlemen, order,” said his Honor, grimly.
-
-“And suppose,” said Bruff, “the Legislature were not in session, would
-it be necessary that I wait a year or two before I could make a valid
-will, with the chance of dying in the meantime?”
-
-“Possibly,” replied Lyman, “you might make a bequest to a corporation
-not empowered at the time of such bequest, to receive it, but which
-might subsequently be expressly authorized by statute to do so.”
-
-“I have led my learned friend to the very point desired,” said Bruff.
-“Why, then, I ask him, can the corporation which the will of Lorin
-French proposes shall be created, not be authorized by the California
-Legislature, at its next session, to receive his bequest? I do not
-apprehend that the most docile Democratic lamb, or the most fearless
-Republican boodle hunter, would dare to refuse his vote for such a law.”
-
-“But the corporation proposed by the late Lorin French,” said Lyman, “is
-not only unempowered to receive, it is not yet in existence as a
-corporation. It may never be created, and a bequest to either a natural
-or an artificial being, not even quickened with incipient life, not even
-conceived at the time of the bequest, may be questioned as of doubtful
-validity. But it is profitless to discuss these questions, because there
-is another section of the civil code which disposes completely of this
-so-called will. I refer to section number 1313. Thirteen is certainly an
-unlucky number for the workers of San Francisco. By that section it is
-provided that no will devising property for charitable or benevolent
-uses, shall be valid unless made at least thirty days before the death
-of the testator, and that in no event can a man bequeath more than
-one-third of his estate for such purpose, if he have natural heirs. It
-is also provided that all dispositions of property made contrary to the
-statute shall be void, and the property go to the residuary legatee,
-next of kin, or heir, according to law.”
-
-“That was one of the wise laws that the sand-lot statesmen gave us,”
-said Bruff, sarcastically.
-
-“Deed, and it wasn’t a sand-lot law at all,” interrupted a stalwart,
-red-bearded attorney with a slight Milesian accent. “It was passed away
-back in the seventies. Old Moriarty was down with typhoid fever, and
-Father Gallagher was pressin’ him every day to save his soul by lavin’
-his millions to the Jesuit College and Hospital. But before the priest
-could get the old man in condition, Mike Moriarty slipped Nat
-Bronton—the king of the lobby—up to Sacramento with $20,000 rint money
-that Mike collected while his father was ill, and the bill was rushed
-through under suspinsion of the rules. Two days after the bill became a
-law, Father Gallagher coaxed and dhrove old Moriarty into signing a will
-that cut Mike off wid $50,000, and left $3,000,000 to the church, and
-the next week they buried the old man, with masses enough to put him
-through purgatory in an express train. They say that there was a
-scrappin’ match between Father Gallagher and Mike when the priest found
-that he had been outgeneraled, and Mike lost the top of his left ear,
-but he saved his father’s estate. Sure, the whole case is reported in
-the fortieth California, under the title of the Society of Jesus against
-Moriarty, and it decides this will of French’s sure enough.”
-
-When the ripple of laughter which this interruption provoked had
-subsided, Mr. Lyman resumed:—
-
-“My learned friend Casey is right, your Honor; the case he quoted does
-decide this one. If this will had been made more than thirty days before
-the death of Mr. French, it could at most have disposed of but one-third
-of his property. But it was made only two days before his death, and,
-under section 1313 of the code, is utterly void,” and the speaker
-resumed his seat.
-
-The Court turned to the attorney who had offered the will for probate.
-
-“What have you to say to this, Mr. Bruff?” he inquired. “All the
-claimants for the estate will doubtless agree with the position taken by
-the attorney for the public administrator. They are joined in interest
-in overturning the will. You alone defend the beneficent purposes of the
-dead man. What have you to say?”
-
-“What can I say, your Honor?” said Bruff, bitterly. “It is another
-instance of a man conceited and obstinate enough to attempt making his
-own will. If my old friend French had called me in, I would have told
-him that courts and juries in California seldom allow a man to dispose
-of his own estate, if it be a large one, and he must give his savings
-away in his lifetime if he wishes to prevent his sixth cousins from
-rioting on them. I would have had Lorin French convey his vast property
-to trustees to carry out his plans, and have affected the transfer
-completely while he was yet alive. But he, great and simple soul,
-supposed, naturally enough, that he had a right to do as he pleased with
-his own, and that, being without near kindred, and no person having any
-claim upon him, he could help the poor with the money it had taken him
-half a century to accumulate. He was originally educated to the law,
-and, although he had been out of practice for thirty years, he knew how
-to formulate a will. But he was not aware of the ravages committed by a
-California Legislature among the time-honored principles of the common
-law. Mark the result of legislative folly and individual inadvertence.
-Twenty millions of dollars, which their owner proposed to devote to a
-grand and comprehensive experiment for adjusting the vexed relations of
-labor and capital, will now be consumed in court costs and witness fees,
-divided among a horde of attorneys, and finally scattered in selfish
-enjoyment, and in ways unuseful to man, all over the world from
-Australia to Elko. It’s the law, I suppose, and neither your Honor nor I
-can help it, but it’s an accursed shame, nevertheless.”
-
-And Mr. Bruff, pale with excitement, resumed his seat.
-
-“The Court can not only pardon your emphatic language, Brother Bruff,”
-said his Honor, “but indorses it. If I could discover any loophole which
-might be crawled through, or any way by which I could break down or
-climb over the legislative barrier, and validate the bequest of Lorin
-French, I would certainly do so. I will reserve for further
-consideration the question of the validity of the legacies to the
-wounded, and the families of those killed in the riot. I am inclined to
-think that portion of the will may be good, and so carry with it the
-right of Louis Browning to letters testamentary. For the present,
-however, I am reluctantly compelled to sustain the objection of the
-attorney for the public administrator, and refuse the will admission to
-probate. It is ordered accordingly. Mr. Clerk, note the exception of Mr.
-Bruff to my ruling. I will take my summer vacation now, and go fishing.
-I shall adjourn court for one month, and the further hearing of this
-case for two months. In the meantime, if the gentlemen who represent the
-various applicants for letters of administration, will leave their
-papers with the clerk, I will, upon my return, give them careful
-attention.”
-
-“Does your Honor desire that I leave all my papers?” queried the
-sepulchral-voiced Lester.
-
-“All,” replied his Honor and he paused for a moment, and glanced at the
-ninety pages of manuscript lying in front of counsel learned in the law,
-“all except your brief, Mr. Lester.”
-
-The proceedings of the day in the superior court were reported fully,
-and commented upon freely, by the newspapers throughout the country, and
-a fortnight afterwards the proposed executor of the rejected will
-received the following letter:—
-
-                                OFFICES OF DAVID MORNING, 39 Broadway, }
-                                       New York City, June 10, 1894.   }
-
-  MR. LOUIS BROWNING, San Francisco, Cal.—_My Dear Sir_: Such a wise and
-  noble plan as that of the late Lorin French ought not to lack
-  accomplishment for want of money to execute it. If you, and the
-  gentlemen named by him as your associates in the trust which he vainly
-  endeavored to create, will organize such a corporation as he proposed,
-  I will devote to it a sum equal to the value of his estate, which I
-  understand to be, in round numbers, twenty millions of dollars.
-
-                                   Very truly yours,      DAVID MORNING.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XVI.
-           “The conscience of well doing is an ample reward.”
-
-
-              [From the _New York World_, July 15, 1895.]
-
-Manhattan Island, west of Broadway and south of Trinity Church, was,
-during the last century, occupied by the substantial mansions of the
-ancient Knickerbockers, and as late as the first third of the present
-century was not relinquished as a place of residence by people of
-aristocratic pretensions. Before the civil war, the annual fairs of the
-American Institute were held in Castle Garden, within whose walls Grisi
-and Mario and Jenny Lind sang, and on summer afternoons children,
-accompanied by nursemaids, romped upon the grass under the grand old
-trees on the Battery. Then the Bowling Green Fountain, with its
-picturesque pile of rocks, was still an ancient landmark; and the goat
-pastures above Fifty-ninth Street were being cleared for the planting of
-Central Park.
-
-After the war the few remaining occupants of pretentious residences fled
-to the northward of Madison Square, and the sightliest and most
-picturesque portion of New York City was abandoned to saloons, emigrant
-boarding houses, warehouses, and shops, for, unlike the down-town
-section east of Broadway, it was not invaded and colonized by bankers,
-brokers, and importing houses.
-
-Mr. David Morning, now widely known as the Arizona Gold King, selected
-this portion of New York City for the experiment of organizing pleasant
-and economical home lives for a class of dwellers in cities not
-ordinarily the subject of elemosynary effort.
-
-The poverty of the very poor, who sometimes lack even for food or
-shelter, is hardly more distressing to the sufferers than the poverty of
-men who struggle to maintain a respectable position upon incomes
-inadequate, even with the most economical management, to meet their
-expenses. How is a married man, having an income of one, two, or even
-three thousand dollars per annum, derived from work which must be
-performed by him, as clerk, journalist, physician, or lawyer, upon
-Manhattan Island, to live there with such surroundings as are befitting
-his education and position?
-
-He will be compelled to pay one-third or one-half of his income for a
-flat; an entire house is out of the question, unless he betake himself
-to such a locality in the city as will exile his family from social
-consideration. If he live in the suburbs, he must arise at daylight and
-stumble along unlighted lanes to the railroad station, and pass two or
-three hours of his time each day standing in a crowded ferryboat, or
-hanging to the straps of a jammed car, alternately frozen and roasted,
-and always stifled with the reeking perfume of unventilated vehicles and
-unsavory fellow-travelers, for while it may be true that all men are
-politically equal, they are not always equally well washed.
-
-The alternative is to bring up his family in the brawl and small scandal
-of a boarding house. His wife requires always a certain amount of
-dresses and bonnets to maintain herself in a respectable position in the
-estimation of her friends, and dresses and bonnets entail an uncertain
-amount of expenditure. A man’s tailor will inform him in advance exactly
-how much his garment will cost, and one can contract for a bridge across
-the Mississippi at an agreed sum, but there is no force known in nature
-that will induce or drive a dressmaker into foregoing an opportunity for
-advantage taking, or persuade her to fix in advance a price for the
-making and trimming of a gown.
-
-The married bookkeeper or salesman on a salary in New York City, is
-forever upon the ragged edge of embarrassment, unable to save the amount
-of the payments necessary for adequate life insurance, or to provide a
-fund for a rainy day. The laborer or mechanic who earns six hundred to
-nine hundred dollars per annum is, in comparatively easy circumstances,
-for he can live in a tenement house in a cheap neighborhood without loss
-of caste, and caste is of almost as much consequence in free America as
-in the Punjaub.
-
-After some thought, Mr. David Morning devised a trial scheme for the
-relief of married men of small incomes, whose duties required their
-daily presence in New York City, below Canal Street, and in the autumn
-of 1894 his agents began to quietly purchase the real estate between
-Rector Street and the Battery, and bounded by Greenwich Street and the
-Hudson River. Some months were consumed in the acquisition of title to
-the realty, and in a few instances long prices were exacted by sagacious
-and selfish owners, who held out until the others had sold, but the bulk
-of the property was purchased at about its value, and the brokers were
-finally instructed to close with all persons willing to sell, without
-haggling as to price.
-
-It required about $15,000,000 to complete the purchase, and for this sum
-sixteen hundred lots were secured of the orthodox dimensions of
-twenty-five by one hundred feet each. Electric lights turned night into
-day, and several thousands of men and hundreds of vehicles, divided into
-three armies of eight-hour workers, were at once employed in the work of
-demolition. Temporary railroad tracks were laid from the land to the
-North River piers, and the material and débris not needed to fill
-cellars and vaults was carried on cars to barges, which were towed to
-the Jersey flats, where their contents were dumped upon ground
-previously acquired by Mr. Morning for that purpose, and by the first of
-February, 1895, the lower part of Manhattan Island west of Greenwich
-Street was as bare as a picked bird.
-
-The work, although generally prosaic, was not without its romantic and
-interesting incidents. In a stone house on Greenwich Street, which was
-once the colonial mansion of Diedrich Von Wallendorf, a walled chamber
-was opened. The rugs and hangings it had contained were fallen to
-shreds, but the Queen Anne cabinets, tables, and bedstead were in as
-good condition as when the room was closed with solid stone masonry, two
-centuries ago, without any reason now apparent for the strange
-proceeding.
-
-Under the cellar floor of another house an earthen “crock” was found
-filled with sovereigns, coined in the last century, and through the
-destruction of an old wall cabinet, there came to light a package of
-letters from Lord North to Sir Henry Clinton, letters which indicated
-that the British Ministry of that day had been in negotiation with other
-patriot leaders than Benedict Arnold for a surrender of the
-revolutionary cause.
-
-The consent of the city authorities to a resurvey and remodeling of the
-streets and avenues of the destroyed section of New York, was obtained
-without difficulty since Mr. Morning was now the sole owner of the land
-affected thereby, and the rearrangements proposed by him were made at
-his own cost, and insured greater uniformity and greater convenience to
-the public than those which were superseded.
-
-The land was platted into blocks four hundred feet in length and eighty
-feet in width, running north and south, thus giving to the occupants of
-the new buildings either the morning or the afternoon sun. These blocks
-are divided by streets of a uniform width of one hundred feet, having a
-park thirty feet wide in the center of each street, with lawn, shrubs,
-ornamental trees, and a fountain in the center of each block. Gas,
-water, and sewer pipes, and electric light and pneumatic tubes, have
-been laid in the new streets, and by means of a powerful pumping engine,
-erected on the Battery, the sewers are flushed every day with sea water.
-The new streets are paved with asphalt, with sidewalks of cement. The
-city received from Morning land at the foot of Canal Street purchased by
-him, in exchange for Castle Garden and vicinage, and the Battery—filled
-with fountains, statues, and increased acreage of lawn and garden—is
-restored to its ancient functions, and more than its ancient glory.
-
-The buildings erected upon each of the one hundred blocks thus created,
-are of uniform size and style. Each building—occupying an entire
-block—is four hundred feet long, eighty feet wide, and seventeen stories
-high. The roofs are covered with glass, making the structures eighteen
-stories aboveground. One-half of the area of the eighteenth story in
-each block is laid out in plots filled with ten feet of rich soil in
-beds of perforated cement, the other half in broad walks of plate
-glass—guarded by copper netting—so as to admit light to the seventeenth
-story and to the large air shafts.
-
-In each of the buildings are one hundred and fifty suites of five rooms,
-each suite having a floor area of sixteen hundred square feet, and every
-room having an outlook upon the street. A broad hall runs through the
-center of the building on every floor, lighted by means of plate-glass
-windows at each end, and also by three shafts, one hundred feet apart,
-running from cellar to roof. Every room is provided with steam, dry, and
-gas heat, and with gas and incandescent lights. Each suite has a
-household pneumatic tube service connecting with the store rooms in the
-basement, and with the kitchen and dining rooms in the seventeenth
-story. Each suite has also a cooking closet, with gas range, hot water,
-and steam pipes, porcelain-lined sinks, and pneumatic tubes for carrying
-away garbage.
-
-Six hydraulic elevators furnish ample accommodations for reaching every
-floor at any hour of the day or night. A network of perforated steel
-pipes is concealed in the walls and floors, with separate connections
-for each room with the great tanks on the roof, which are in turn
-connected both with the Croton water system, and with the great steel
-water main bringing water from Rockland Lake. In case of fire the walls
-and floors of one room, or of any number of rooms, can instantly be
-saturated with water, and twice in each week, at an appointed hour, a
-warm, gentle rain is made to descend for a sufficient length of time
-upon the trees and shrubs in the roof garden.
-
-Each suite has separate sewer connections, and each room is provided
-with registers in the wall, from which either hot air or cold air can be
-turned on or off at will, the hot air ascending from the furnaces, and
-the cold air being forced by a pumping engine from the refrigerating
-room in the basement. Those whose fate it has been to swelter on
-Manhattan Island in the dog days can appreciate the latter luxury. The
-fortunate occupant of a room in one of the Morning Blocks commands his
-temperature. Whether the thermometer registers thirty degrees below or
-one hundred degrees above zero outside, he can arrange the climate in
-his own room to suit himself, and _pater familias_ can connect a wire
-with the register in the parlor, and, if “Cholly” protracts his visits
-to Gladys to an improper hour, he can shut off the hot air, turn on a
-current from the refrigerator, and in ten minutes make the young man
-choose between departure and congealment.
-
-These buildings were planned for the relief of women. The great source
-of waste and care in our American domestic life is in the kitchen, and
-it is impossible to organize a more advantageous trust for both producer
-and consumer than a “kitchen trust.” The daily history of every American
-family is one of almost unavoidable waste. In food, in fuel, in the
-labor of cooking, and in many other details of housekeeping, there is
-uneconomic use of both labor and materials. Probably one-fourth of the
-expenditure of every American householder who is able to keep one or
-more servants is unnecessary and wasteful, and where only one servant,
-or none at all, is employed, the health and beauty and life of the wife
-are expended in kitchen drudgery, and her opportunities of growth and
-culture are lost.
-
-The Morning Blocks were designed as theaters of experiment, which, if
-successful, will be copied elsewhere, for freeing the household from the
-waste and vexation and tyranny of the kitchen. Mr. Morning’s plan for
-bringing about this beneficent result is both simple and effective. The
-kitchen, or general cooking room for the block, is situated in the
-seventeenth story, where there is one large, and one hundred and fifty
-small dining rooms. Each dining room is lighted either from the street
-or the roof, is perfectly ventilated, and has an electric bell and
-pneumatic tube service connecting it with the kitchen, with the market
-house in the basement, and with the suite of apartments below, of which
-it is an adjunct.
-
-The happy householder in one of the Morning Blocks will have his choice
-of methods. He and family may take their meals at the restaurant or
-general dining room in the seventeenth story, either by the carte, meal,
-or week. He may use the general dining room, or his private dining room,
-or dine in his apartments below—the pneumatic tube service extending to
-all, and a private waiter will be furnished at a fixed price per hour.
-He can purchase cooked provisions by weight, delivered at either place,
-or purchase his own supplies at the market house in the basement and
-have them cooked in the general kitchen, or use his own cooking closet,
-where, without waste of fuel—gas being used—his selections may be
-prepared for the table and served either there or sent by pneumatic tube
-to his dining room above.
-
-Prices for everything furnished, whether of materials or labor, are
-fixed from time to time by the manager, and all bills are required to be
-paid every Monday, on penalty of the tenant losing his privilege of
-occupancy. The prices charged are less than those demanded for similar
-service or material elsewhere. An account will be kept of each
-householder’s disbursements, and his proportion of the profits made will
-be returned to him at the end of the year, according to the usual
-co-operative process, the object being to furnish each occupant of the
-block with whatever he needs of food or service at actual cost.
-
-The rent asked for the apartments in the Morning Blocks has been
-adjusted upon the basis of paying taxes, insurance, repairs, and three
-per cent per annum upon the capital invested in the enterprise.
-
-Mr. Morning has conveyed the one hundred blocks to the governor of New
-York, the mayor of New York City, and the president of the New York
-Chamber of Commerce, who, with their official successors, are made
-perpetual trustees of this munificent gift. In the trust deed it is
-provided that the three per cent interest on cost, received from
-tenants, shall be invested in an endowment fund, payable, with its
-accumulations, to the tenant whenever he leaves the building, or to his
-widow or legal representative in the event of his death while a tenant.
-
-The tenant in a Morning Block will be supplied with hot and cold air,
-hot and cold water, steam, gas, electric light, food, and service at
-actual cost. His rooms will be provided him at the cost of taxes,
-insurance, and repairs, and he and his family will be made the
-beneficiaries of a fund, which he will be required to create for the
-contingency of his death or departure from the building. To guard
-against overcrowding, no one suite of apartments will be rented to any
-family of more than five adults, and no subletting or hiring of
-apartments will be permitted.
-
-The cost of the land is estimated at $16,000,000, and of clearing it and
-erecting the new buildings at $30,000,000. The taxes, with insurance,
-repairs, employes, and such other expenses as are in their nature
-incapable of apportionment among the tenants, will amount to $810,000
-per annum. This sum divided by fifteen thousand, the number of suites of
-apartments in the one hundred Morning Blocks, will give $54 as the
-annual sum to be paid by each tenant for his apartments, and he will pay
-$108 additional annually toward a fund for his own benefit. In all he
-will pay about $14 a month for accommodations that it would be difficult
-to obtain elsewhere for five times the amount.
-
-The manager of each block will receive a salary of $3,000 per annum, and
-will, in the first instance, be selected by the Board of Trustees, but
-on the first Monday of January, 1897, and each year thereafter, the
-occupants of each block, by a majority vote, can elect a manager, who
-will, however, in the discharge of his duties, and in the employment of
-assistants, be subject to the direction and supervision of the trustees.
-
-Mr. Morning in the trust deed conveying the Morning Blocks has named the
-qualifications of tenants as follows: The applicant must be of good
-moral character, married, over the age of twenty-five and under sixty.
-He must have been at the time of his application for more than one year
-previously in the employment of some person, firm, or corporation
-engaged in a reputable business in the city of New York south of Canal
-Street, and be in receipt of a salary of not less than $1,000 or more
-than $3,000 per annum. If a lawyer, physician, dentist, architect, or
-civil engineer, author, clergyman, or journalist, his net income must be
-of a similar amount.
-
-Applicants for suites of apartments must file their applications and
-references at the office of the Morning Blocks prior to 12 o’clock noon
-on the fifteenth day of August, 1895. The credentials of all applicants
-will be examined and careful inquiry made as to their habits,
-characters, and antecedents, and only those will be accepted as eligible
-for tenancy who can strictly comply with the requirements.
-
-Should there be, as is most likely, approved applications in excess of
-the suites to be rented, the fifteen thousand who can be accommodated
-will be selected by lot, and the others registered, and whenever
-vacancies occur a tenant to fill such vacancy will be selected by lot
-from the list. Apartments will be apportioned by lot among the
-successful applicants. Tenants will be permitted to exchange apartments
-by amicable arrangement, but no transfer of apartments from a tenant to
-one who is not a tenant will be permitted. The tenant can surrender his
-right to occupy his apartments at pleasure, but he cannot assign it, or
-sublet the whole or any part of the premises accorded him.
-
-Should six tenants who are heads of families on any floor make complaint
-against one of the other four tenants on that floor that he is
-obnoxious, and that in the general interest his tenancy ought to be
-terminated, a jury of fifteen tenants of that building, selected by lot,
-one from each of the other floors, shall be made up to try the accused,
-who shall have opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him,
-and to present his defense. The manager shall preside and preserve
-order, and if twelve of the fifteen jurors shall concur in finding that
-the tenancy of the accused ought to terminate, he may appeal to the
-Board of Trustees, and unless they unanimously exonerate him, his
-tenancy must cease.
-
-Our reporter interviewed Mr. Morning, who was found at his offices in
-lower Broadway, and inquired of that gentleman if it were true, as
-rumored, that he intended to erect similar buildings on another part of
-Manhattan Island.
-
-“I have secured,” replied that gentleman, “all the land for a hundred
-blocks in and about the locality known as ‘the Hook,’ and I propose the
-erection of buildings there that will accommodate forty thousand
-families of mechanics and laborers. There will, of course, be less room
-for each occupant than in the blocks just completed, and less expensive
-arrangements in many particulars, but the rent and cost of living will
-be less, and the premises will be rented and conducted substantially on
-the same plan, with only such difference in rules as may be necessary.”
-
-“What will be the cost of these latter buildings, Mr. Morning?” said our
-reporter.
-
-“With the land, about $30,000,000,” was the reply.
-
-“It is a pity,” commented our reporter, “that every city in the land
-cannot count a David Morning among its citizens, with a gold mine at his
-command.”
-
-“The mine is not necessary,” said Morning. “There are a dozen men in
-every large city of our land who, without any gold mine, could do what I
-have done. I hope,” continued the speaker, “not to be alone in the work
-of helping the people both to employment and homes.”
-
-“None of our millionaires,” said the reporter, “have thus used their
-money.”
-
-“It must be remembered,” rejoined Morning, “that the very, great
-fortunes of this country have mainly been created during the last
-twenty-five years, and in the eager and necessarily selfish strife
-incident to their acquisition, their owners have not always considered
-that their possession is a great trust which brings with it duties as
-well as rights.”
-
-“But I see the dawn of a better day and a better feeling,” continued Mr.
-Morning. “I hear of many gentlemen in different parts of the country who
-are proposing to use millions for the erection of homes, and the secure
-establishment of co-operative industries for the benefit of the workers
-of the land. My idea is that no man should be accorded an unearned
-dinner who has refused a chance to earn it, but that it is the duty of
-society to provide every man with an opportunity of earning. Of what
-value at last is wealth unless one can use it for the benefit of his
-fellow-men? Charon will not transport gold across the Styx at any rate
-of ferriage. Of what use is money here except in one form and another to
-give it away? No man can expend on his own legitimate and proper
-comforts and pleasures the interest on $1,000,000 at five per cent per
-annum.”
-
-“There are many men, Mr. Morning, who expend a good deal more than
-$50,000 a year.”
-
-“Not in the sense of personal expenditures. Mansions, laces, diamonds,
-furniture, horses, carriages, and the like are investments rather than
-expenditures. Receptions and banquets may be classed with gifts. He must
-be an industrious man who can, with his family, eat, drink, and wear out
-$50,000 worth each year.”
-
-“But is there not the pleasure of accumulation itself, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“I suppose so,” replied that gentleman, “or men would not pursue it; but
-it is a cultivated and not a natural taste. Every man for instance,
-requires a pair of trousers and a hat, but after he has acquired enough
-of such articles for the use of himself and his family for life, and a
-generous supply for his descendants, why work the balance of his days to
-fill warehouses with trousers and hats? I do not know,” continued Mr.
-Morning—and our reporter thought that there was a deeper shade in his
-sea-gray eyes—“I do not know that I shall ever marry, but if I had boys
-I would leave them no fortunes larger than would suffice for a generous
-support.”
-
-“Will you, then,” queried our reporter, “expend in your own lifetime all
-the great revenues of the Morning mine?”
-
-“All that I can find time, strength, and opportunity to expend in ways
-that will help the world,” rejoined the Arizona Gold King.
-
-
-              [From the _New York Times_, July 17, 1895.]
-
-Mr. David Morning is engaged in works of apparent charity, which to many
-thoughtful men will seem an injury rather than a benefit to the world.
-Capitalists are entitled to receive interest upon their investments, and
-if inducement to accumulation be taken away by the competition of such
-Utopians as Mr. Morning, then frugality may cease to be accounted a
-virtue.
-
-On the whole, wouldn’t it be better for the business world, and the
-stability of property and property rights, if the tenants of the Morning
-Blocks were compelled to pay the full rental value of their apartments?
-
-
-            [From the _New York Socialist_, July 19, 1895.]
-
-Dave Morning is endeavoring to throw dust in the eyes of the working
-masses of the country, by erecting seventeen-story palaces for boodle
-bookkeepers, and twenty-story tenement houses for mechanics. He has
-filled San Francisco, Chicago, and several other cities with his humbug
-Co-operative Labor Aid Societies. He is evidently plotting for the
-presidency in 1896, and expects to reach the White House by a golden
-path.
-
-“The poor of this country should accept no employment as a boon, nor
-consent to engage in any wage-saving and profit-sharing corporation that
-will force them to accumulate, and they should take no such favors from
-the rich as cheap rents or free homes. Let the unnatural accumulations
-of rich scoundrels be distributed among the people. No man is honestly
-entitled to have or hold anything except the fruits of his own labor. It
-would be better for the world, and for the great cause of socialism
-which the pseudo philanthropy of Morning delays and obstructs, if this
-Arizona Gold King could be tumbled head first down one of his own
-shafts, and his seventeen-story marble-paved Edens be dynamited out of
-existence.”
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XVII.
-                “Plans of mice and men gang aft aglee.”
-
-
-Morning’s business offices were on the west side of Broadway, below
-Trinity Church, but he gave attention to his large and increasing
-correspondence in his rooms at the Hoffman House, where he had a suite
-of apartments fronting on Broadway.
-
-The largest room of the suite had always been reserved by the
-proprietors for a private dining room, but Morning insisted upon its
-constituting a part of his suite, and as he permitted the hotel keepers
-to name their own price, it was reluctantly surrendered to him. In this
-room Morning had a large-sized phonograph receiver fitted into the wall
-opposite his desk, the instrument itself being placed upon a long table
-against the partition in the adjacent room. A cord which swung over the
-desk was fastened to a lever connected with an electric motor, also in
-the next room.
-
-It was Morning’s habit each day after breakfast to seat himself at his
-desk, open his letters, pull the cord which started the electric motor,
-and “talk” his replies to the phonograph receiver. The instrument in the
-next room was arranged to hold a cylinder of sufficient length to
-receive a communication an hour in length. After Morning had completed
-this portion of his daily labors, it was the duty of his secretary to
-remove the cylinders, and place them in other phonographs, where two and
-sometimes three clerks received their contents, and reduced the same to
-typewriter manuscript.
-
-This simple contrivance had still another use. Morning knew that there
-was no such fruitful source of business difficulties and consequent
-litigation as that which emanated from misunderstanding or
-misrepresentation of verbal communications. He endeavored, therefore, to
-conduct all important business conversations in this room, and all the
-utterances of either party were recorded by the faithful and unerring
-phonograph, and the cylinders upon which they were reported were
-properly labeled, dated, and stored away. He did not fail in any
-instance to inform the person with whom he was conversing that all their
-words were thus finding accurate record.
-
-One day in October, 1895, while Morning was in Chicago—where he had gone
-to perfect the organization of a Labor Aid Corporation—the great
-financier, Mr. Arnold Claybank, stopped at the Hoffman House on his way
-down town, and ordered a choice dinner for three to be served at seven
-o’clock that day.
-
-“And have it served in the room fronting upon Broadway, where we always
-dine,” said the millionaire.
-
-“Very sorry, Mr. Claybank,” answered the clerk, “but that room is at
-present rented to Mr. David Morning, as a part of his suite, and when he
-is in town he uses it as a room in which to receive and answer his
-correspondence; at present he is in Chicago.”
-
-“If he is in Chicago,” replied the Wall Street magnate, “you can have
-our dinner served in the room as usual. It will not disturb him,
-certainly, even if he should know of it, and he is not likely to know of
-it unless you tell him. I have dined in that room with my friends at
-least once a week during the last twenty years, and, not supposing you
-would ever rent it for other purposes, I have already invited them to
-meet me there this evening. I don’t like to change, in fact, I won’t
-change, and if you will not accommodate me I will take my patronage
-elsewhere.”
-
-After some hesitation, the clerk agreed to have dinner served in the
-room desired, and at seven o’clock that evening Mr. Arnold Claybank,
-with his guests, Mr. Isaiah Wolf and Mr. John Gray, assembled to discuss
-both the menu and the subject of their gathering.
-
-Not until the last course was removed, the Burgundy on the table, the
-cigars lighted, and the waiter excused from further attendance, did the
-great capitalists approach the real object of their meeting. Mr.
-Claybank observed that they might need writing materials, and, stepping
-to Morning’s desk, he seated himself thereat, and pulled what he
-supposed to be a bell cord that would summon a waiter. No waiter
-appeared in answer to the supposed summons, and Claybank, taking a
-notebook and pencil from his pocket, remarked that they would serve his
-purpose.
-
-These three gentlemen had dined well, and should have been in a pleasant
-frame of mind toward the world, for good dinners are, or ought to be,
-humanizing in their tendencies. Yet there are natures which will remain
-unaffected even by terrapins, Maryland style, and roasted canvas-back
-duck, assimilated with the aid of Lafitte and Pommery Sec., and no
-tigers crouching in the jungle were ever more merciless and
-conscienceless in their rapacity than these three black-coated
-capitalists.
-
-Mr. Arnold Claybank was the leading spirit of the conclave. His wealth
-was popularly estimated at $100,000,000. He had inherited none of it. At
-thirty-five years of age he was a dry goods merchant in an interior city
-in Ohio, possessed of less than $100,000. During his frequent visits to
-New York to purchase goods he was in the habit of “taking a flyer” in
-the stock market. These flyers proved so continuously successful, and
-added so largely to his capital, that in a few years he closed out his
-dry goods business, removed permanently to the metropolis, bought a seat
-in the stock board, and soon became known as one of the boldest and
-shrewdest operators in the street.
-
-He was rapid and usually accurate in judgment, and always possessed of
-the courage of his convictions. He was as cunning as the gray fox, to
-which he was often likened. He was suave in manner but merciless in the
-execution of his plans. He was identified in the public mind with
-several of the boldest and most unscrupulous operations in the history
-of Wall Street, and his millions had steadily and rapidly increased,
-until now, at sixty years of age, he was one of the acknowledged kings
-of New York finance.
-
-Isaiah Wolf was, as his name indicated, of Hebrew origin. He was about
-the same age as Claybank, and had many of the qualities of that
-gentleman, lacking, however, his courage and his quickness of
-comprehension and movement. He was a gambler by birth, education, and
-instinct, and a gambler who never failed to use all advantages possible.
-
-Thirty years before he had been a clothing merchant and dealer in city,
-county, and legislative warrants at Portland, Oregon. He furnished the
-impecunious legislators, when they came down from the mountain counties,
-with an outfit of clothing; he discounted their salaries at three per
-cent per month; he was usually the custodian of the lobby funds, and he
-could always introduce senator or assemblyman to a quiet game of “draw,”
-where, whenever a huge “pot” was in dispute, Isaiah could usually be
-found safely entrenched behind the winning hand.
-
-When the Comstock mines began to yield their great output of silver in
-1875–77, the Wolf Brothers located in San Francisco, made their homes on
-Pine and California Streets, and gambled in mining stocks from the
-vantage-ground of secret knowledge, for in every mine were one or more
-miners under pay, not only from the mining company, but from Isaiah
-Wolf. In 1879, when the transactions in the stock board of San Francisco
-had dwindled to a tithe of their former magnitude, and when the sand-lot
-agitators succeeded in grafting their ideas of finance and taxation upon
-the organic law of California, Isaiah Wolf and his brother Emanuel
-gathered their assets together and joined the exodus of millionaires. In
-New York City they opened a bankers’ and brokers’ office, and were now
-accounted as jointly the possessors of $80,000,000, the management of
-which was left almost exclusively to Isaiah.
-
-John Gray was an insignificant-looking old man of seventy. From his
-unkempt beard, watery eyes, shrinking manner, and small stature, he
-might have been taken for a congressional doorkeeper who had seen better
-days. In truth, there was, under his ignoble exterior, one of the
-broadest, wiliest, and best-informed minds in America. He was the
-acknowledged leader of Wall Street in ability and resources. His wealth
-was estimated at quite $150,000,000, and it had been created by himself
-in about forty-five years.
-
-He began life as a Vermont peddler, but at the age of twenty-five
-carried his New England education, his capacity for calculation, his
-retentive memory, his frugal habits, and his tireless energy into New
-York City, where he began as porter and messenger in the office of a
-broker. He soon learned the history and methods of the principal
-operators of the Wall Street of that day, and his savings were shrewdly,
-quietly, and boldly invested on “points” which he picked up while
-delivering messages or awaiting replies. He soon accumulated a large sum
-of money, yet he kept his humble place, and his employer never suspected
-when he paid the faithful porter his $40 at the end of each month, that
-the quiet and deferential young man could have purchased not only his
-employer’s business, but the building in which it was conducted.
-
-Gray remained as porter and messenger for five years, declining all
-offers which were made to him of promotion to a desk and a higher
-salary. The place he held gave him opportunities which could be obtained
-in no other way. None suspected the quiet and stolid-looking man, who
-seemed so dull of comprehension when any verbal message was intrusted to
-him; and words were dropped and conversations held in his presence
-which, when fitted by his quick and comprehensive brain into other words
-and conversations held in other offices, often enabled him to forecast
-events. The man who by any means is accurately advised of the real
-intentions of the leaders of Wall Street a day or even an hour before
-their execution, has a key to wealth, and Gray used this key, conducting
-all his operations through one broker, who was pledged to secrecy.
-
-At the time of the great deal in Harlem, so successfully engineered
-before the war by Commodore Vanderbilt, Gray was still occupying his
-place as messenger. He overheard a conversation held in the commodore’s
-private office between that gentleman and his confidential clerk, and,
-comprehending the magnitude of the opportunity, he directed that all his
-resources, which then amounted to nearly $200,000, be placed in Harlem
-stock. He was enabled, under the system of margins which prevailed in
-Wall Street, to purchase $2,000,000 worth of the stock, which he sold at
-an average advance of fifty per cent, clearing $1,000,000 by the
-operation.
-
-The old commodore, who had himself made $6,000,000 by the deal, found
-that somebody had been sharing profits with him to the extent of
-$1,000,000, and, not supposing that this was the result of guesswork, he
-used means to discover who was the cunning operator and what were the
-sources of his information. Without much difficulty he traced the
-transactions to John Gray, and, remembering the presence of that young
-man in the anteroom at the time of giving directions to his confidential
-clerk, he was not at a loss to determine how it came about.
-
-The commodore considered that Gray had gained $1,000,000 which should
-have come to his own coffers, and he determined to “give the young
-fellow a lesson, sir,” as he said to his confidential clerk. That
-morning Gray’s employer received—to his great surprise—a call from
-Vanderbilt, who, to his greater surprise, informed him of the true
-status of his messenger, who had become a millionaire. Gray’s employer
-readily promised to assist in the scheme which Vanderbilt formed for
-punishing Gray and “stripping him of his ill-gotten gains, sir.”
-Vanderbilt required only that Gray’s employer should next day send Gray
-to Vanderbilt’s office, with a verbal message, inquiring, “What is to be
-done about Erie?”
-
-The next day Gray called and delivered his message to the commodore in
-his private office.
-
-“Take a seat, young man, until I can write a reply,” was the direction,
-and Gray deferentially seated himself upon the edge of a chair, and
-gazed at the carpet stolidly, while the commodore penned the following:
-“Buy all the Erie offered at market rates up to fifty-three. C. V.” This
-note the commodore placed in an envelope, which he directed, but
-apparently forgot to seal, and handed it to Gray, who thereupon
-departed. As the door closed behind the messenger, the veteran bull
-smote himself upon the sides, and threw his head back and laughed.
-
-Gray noticed that the envelope was not sealed, and before he reached the
-bottom of the stairs, he possessed himself of its contents.
-
-Then he fell into a train of thought. Erie was selling at $37, and Gray
-was thoroughly posted as to the resources, liabilities, and business of
-the road, and knew very nearly who were the principal stockholders. He
-knew that the commodore held fully one-third of the capital stock of
-Erie, which had cost him not more than $30 a share, and he also knew
-that the old gentleman had been for some time selling his stock at $37
-as fast as he could do so without breaking the market. Thirty-seven was
-really a nursed price for the stock; it was more than the condition and
-prospects of the road warranted, and Gray did not believe that
-Vanderbilt intended to purchase any great quantity, even at $37, or that
-it would be possible for him to run the stock to $53 without purchasing
-the entire amount.
-
-Gray delivered the note to his employer, and asked that gentleman if he
-might be excused for half an hour to attend to some matters of business
-of his own. Leave of absence was graciously granted, and Gray was
-watched to the door of the office of the broker who had bought and sold
-his Harlem stock. Then Gray’s employer walked to the office of the
-expectant commodore and informed him that the young man had swallowed
-the bait, for he had gone to the office of his broker, probably to order
-large purchases of Erie.
-
-Vanderbilt thanked the broker, assured him that in the division of the
-spoils he should not be forgotten, and authorized him in furtherance of
-their project to purchase all the Erie offered up to $42, to which
-figure Vanderbilt proposed to run the stock before letting it drop.
-
-Gray directed his broker to purchase Erie in one-hundred-share lots,
-beginning at $37, and to follow the market up to $53 if it reached that
-figure, but not to purchase more than five thousand shares in all.
-Having given this direction, he walked into the back office of a firm of
-brokers, who, although leaders in the market, had never succeeded in
-obtaining any business from Vanderbilt, and between them and that
-gentleman there was a business feud of long standing. The quiet
-messenger was well known to the head of the firm, who greeted him
-pleasantly.
-
-“What can I do for you, Gray,” said he.
-
-“I would like to take your time for not more than five minutes,” said
-Gray.
-
-“I am pretty busy,” said the gentleman, “but I will try and oblige you,”
-and he led the way to an inner office.
-
-The broker’s eyes distended with astonishment as Gray rapidly told how
-he had made such use of his opportunities as porter and messenger as to
-accumulate, by speculation, a large sum of money, and that he desired
-now to employ their firm in an operation which, for reasons of his own,
-he did not care to intrust to his regular broker.
-
-The gentleman smilingly agreed to accept Mr. Gray’s business, and opened
-his eyes still wider when Gray took from his pockets large packages
-containing bonds and securities to the amount of half a million dollars,
-and, depositing them as collateral, directed the broker to sell all the
-Erie for which he could find buyers at forty and over, and to buy it
-whenever it went below thirty-three.
-
-That day Erie mounted, under the pressure of Vanderbilt’s purchases, and
-the flurry created thereby, to $43, at which figure an immense quantity
-changed hands. Then it fell rapidly, point by point, back to $37, and,
-under the influence of a temporary panic, went down to $32, at which
-figure it rallied and mounted to $35, where it stood at the close of the
-day.
-
-Mr. Gray’s regular broker reported to him purchases of five thousand
-shares Erie at prices ranging from $37 to $42, and averaging about $39.
-He regretted that Mr. Gray had not authorized a sale at $43.25, which
-was the highest point reached, and at closing figures Mr. Gray must lose
-about $20,000.
-
-And Mr. Gray’s new brokers reported to him sales of eighty thousand
-shares of Erie, at an average of $41.50, which had been repurchased at
-an average of $34.50, with a profit to Mr. Gray of $540,000, which they
-held, subject to his check.
-
-And when the returns were all in at the office of the old commodore, and
-that white-whiskered, choleric, kind-hearted, and courageous old bull
-found that he owned more Erie than ever, at higher prices than those for
-which he had sold a small part of his holdings, and that the rattan
-which he had prepared for Gray had fallen upon his own shoulders, he
-stormed for a while and clothed himself with cursing as with a garment,
-and then he cooled off and laughed. Then he sent a note, this time not
-to John Gray’s employer, but to John Gray himself, which read as
-follows: “Young fellow, you are a genius. Come and dine with me at six
-o’clock to-day, at Delmonico’s. C. V.”
-
-The friendship cemented at that dinner, between the great capitalist and
-the ex-messenger—for Gray returned no more to his duties as a
-porter—continued until the day of the commodore’s death.
-
-Gray continued to operate in Wall Street, both in small and large ways,
-and seldom made a loss. When the first loud mutterings of the civil
-conflict began to shake the land, he became a heavy purchaser of tar,
-resin, and cotton, and, later, of gold. When the Union armies were
-defeated and the day looked darkest, and gold mounted to two hundred and
-eighty premium, he never faltered in his belief in the ultimate triumph
-of the nation, and he sold gold and bought government bonds, and
-margined one against the other, and risked little and gained much.
-
-A year after the sun went down upon Appomattox, the Yankee peddler was
-worth $20,000,000, and ten years later he was worth $50,000,000. He
-abandoned such stock operations as were dependent for their success upon
-other men’s movements and plans, and only engaged in such as he could
-absolutely control. He gambled only with marked cards and loaded dice.
-He bought a control of the stocks and bonds of badly-managed and
-bankrupt railroads. He consolidated them, re-equipped them, built
-feeders, opened new sources of traffic, and so doubled, trebled, and
-quadrupled his investments. He sold short the stock of a prosperous
-railroad, and obtained, by purchase of proxies, the control of its
-management. He cut rates, diminished traffic, enlarged expenses, and
-passed dividends until he depreciated the value of the stock to a point
-where he could gain millions by covering his shorts, and other millions
-by again restoring the road to prosperity. In one instance, by his paid
-emissaries, he promoted a general strike, until, through riot and fires
-and suspension of traffic, the stock of the afflicted corporation was
-depreciated to the price at which he desired to purchase a controlling
-interest.
-
-John Gray was an exemplary father and husband, a good neighbor, and, in
-a small way, generous and charitable; but in his larger dealings with
-mankind he was a moral idiot, without conscience or perception. The
-world is no better for his life; the youth of the land are the worse for
-his example of successful scoundrelism, and those who wish well to their
-country and their kind, will have a right to stand beside his coffin and
-thank God that he is dead.
-
-“I suppose,” said Mr. Arnold Claybank, “that we all understand the
-general outlines of our project, and that this meeting is for the
-purpose of talking over details.”
-
-“Our purpose,” said Mr. Wolf, “of I gomprehent it, is to use the bower
-dot we haf in our hants, to make for ourselves about fifty millions of
-tollars apiece. Is not dot apout vot it vas, eh?”
-
-“We need not, I think, discuss that question,” said Gray suavely.
-
-“Exactly,” said Claybank. “Now I propose that we list the securities
-which we shall place in our pool, at the closing quotations of the Stock
-Exchange to-day, each one of us being credited with his contributions.
-The stocks contributed will aggregate in value about $150,000,000, at
-present market prices, and, as nearly as possible, will be contributed
-by us equally. It is also understood that the stocks and bonds placed in
-the pool will constitute the entire holdings of each and all of us, in
-that class of property. Am I correct?”
-
-“Quite so,” said Mr. Gray.
-
-“Dot is also my unterstanting,” said Wolf.
-
-“Very well,” resumed Claybank, “these securities are to be placed in the
-offices of different brokers, and turned into cash as rapidly as
-possible without breaking the market. The public will, I think, take
-them easily in a week, for the market is rising, and permanent as well
-as speculative investment is in order.”
-
-“Ont then we lock up the gash for which we sells the stock, ain’t it?”
-said Wolf.
-
-“Not immediately,” rejoined Claybank, “it must be left in the banks in
-the usual channels for a time, or there will be no money for them to
-loan to the buyers of stocks. Having sold our own securities, we will
-next proceed to sell short at ruling prices to as large an extent as
-possible.”
-
-“Your plan is admirable,” said Mr. Gray. “We will next arrange at the
-banks for borrowing all the money that they can spare without suspending
-payment, and we will compel them to withdraw all loans now out. Through
-our joint and separate control of, and influence with, the officers and
-directors, we ought to be able to borrow in this city, and in Boston and
-Philadelphia, as much as $150,000,000, which, added to $150,000,000
-received from sale of our stocks, will give us control of $350,000,000
-in cash.”
-
-“Will dey loan so much as $150,000,000 even upon the personal security
-of such men as we?” said Wolf.
-
-“They will not be asked to do so,” said Gray. “The money borrowed can be
-sealed up and left as special deposits in their vaults as security for
-itself, with a small margin of one or two per cent to cover interest.”
-
-“Dot inderest, of we borrow for thirty days at six per cent, on
-$150,000,000 will amount to three kevawters of a million of tollars; ont
-that amount we lose out of our bockets; ont the interest on our own
-$150,000,000 which will be itle for a month will be another three
-kevawters of a million. It makes US$500,000 each to lose. It is a great
-teal of money to lose,” said Wolf.
-
-“That,” said Claybank, “is all we lose, and is practically all we risk.
-It is essential to the success of our plans that for a brief period we
-shall withdraw from the channels of commerce a large portion of the
-money of the country. We cannot withdraw it unless we control it; we
-cannot control it unless we borrow it; and we cannot borrow it without
-paying bank rates of interest upon it.”
-
-“How,” said Gray, “do you propose to supply the necessary margins for
-the stock which we sell short? When you borrow stock on a
-rapidly-falling market, the loaner expects at some time a reaction, and
-an equally rapid advance, and you will have to give him a pretty big
-margin beyond the money which you receive from a sale of the borrowed
-stock.”
-
-“We shall have for that purpose,” replied Claybank, “the $150,000,000
-received from the sale of our own stock. This, at fifty per cent fall in
-prices, will margin borrowings of three hundred millions of stock, and
-this money we can arrange to have locked up in special deposits as well
-as the money we borrow.”
-
-“Ont to how low a point shall we put brices before we commence to
-cover?” said Wolf.
-
-“That,” replied Claybank, “will be a matter for future consideration. My
-present impression is that we can by thus locking up the currency bear
-the market one-half. We must not proceed so far as we might go, or we
-will ruin everybody, so that there will be no investors to purchase
-stocks when we wish to sell them again after we have loaded up for a
-rise.”
-
-“Ont how much we makes by bearing fifty per cent?” asked Wolf.
-
-“It is easily calculated,” replied Claybank. “If our plans succeed, we
-sell one hundred and fifty millions of our own holdings at present
-prices. In order to bear the market fifty per cent below present prices,
-we must continue to sell down, diminishing the quantity we sell as
-prices recede, and when we begin to cover, we must buy all we can at the
-lowest point, diminishing our purchases as prices advance. Those not
-familiar with such things would be surprised to know that the ebb and
-flow of values in the stock market is almost as regular, and can be
-almost as certainly predicted, as the movement of the tides. Such a
-movement as we propose is artificial, yet, to an extent, it will be
-similarly controlled by the influences of human nature. If we sell one
-hundred and fifty millions of stock at an average of say one hundred,
-and three hundred millions at an average say of eighty, and buy it all
-back at an average of sixty, we will gain one hundred and twenty
-millions, and that, I think, is about all we can calculate upon.”
-
-“But have you considered, gentlemen, the other side of the question?”
-said Gray. “Have you fully considered whether there may not exist
-influences that will defeat us? Depend upon it, once we inaugurate this
-raid, our rivals in business will plot to overthrow us. Such great
-newspapers as are not in our control will denounce us. The Treasury
-Department at Washington, which is under the control of the Farmers’
-Alliance party, will use every effort to break down our combination, and
-we shall be howled at generally as ghouls and villains. I do not care
-much about the public or the newspapers, but we must take every possible
-precaution against failure.”
-
-“That is right,” said Claybank. “I have considered all these things and
-I do not see how our plan can be defeated. The newspapers may denounce
-us but cannot overthrow our plan, which, at last, is very simple. We
-produce a panic and depression of prices by locking up the circulating
-medium, and prices can only be advanced by unlocking the money and
-restoring it, or other money in its place, to the channels of commerce.
-The money which we lock up in special deposits must remain in the bank
-vaults until we release it. No bank officer would for any reason or
-under any pressure dare to touch a special deposit. It would be a
-penitentiary offense to tamper with it.”
-
-“Are you sure,” said Gray, “that other capitalists may not combine, and
-provide other money to take the place of that which we lock up?”
-
-“The only other very large sum of money in the country within the
-control of anybody,” replied Claybank, “is $300,000,000 in the treasury
-vaults at Washington. The laws authorizing government deposits in banks,
-as well as the law authorizing bond purchases in the discretion of the
-secretary of the treasury, have, as you know, been repealed. There are
-absolutely but two ways to get that $300,000,000 out of the treasury
-vaults. One is by the ordinary disbursements of government, which would
-take a year or more, and the other is by somebody depositing, under the
-law of 1894, gold or silver bars to that amount, and nobody in the world
-is able to command three hundred, or one hundred, or even fifty millions
-of dollars in gold or silver bullion.”
-
-“The new mining capitalist, David Morning, might supply the bars from
-his mine in Arizona if we gave him a few years’ time,” said Gray.
-
-“Yes, and if we gave him time he would be crank enough to do it,”
-replied Claybank. “But we won’t give him time. How much does his mine
-yield, anyhow?”
-
-“Four millions a month in solit golt,” said Wolf. “It has yieltet that
-sum now for teventy months. I hear that it is nearly worked out, but
-nopoty can get into it, and you can’t tell anything apout it. If it
-continues to yielt at that rate for a few years, dot fellow is going to
-make us all some trupple. He is crazy as a loon, though he has taken out
-of his mine over eighty millons of tollars.”
-
-“Even his $80,000,000, if he has them in money, might disarrange our
-plans,” said Gray.
-
-“He has plown them all in, puilding plocks for glerks ont poor people,
-ont he disgriminates against Hebrews, or his trustees do. A Jew knows a
-goot thing when he fints it, ont there were eighteen thousant
-applications from Jew glerks for the prifilege of renting apartments in
-the Morning Blocks, ont the committee made up a mean drick to get rit of
-them. They requiret every man who applied for rooms to answer whether it
-was easier to fill to a bob-tail flush or a sequence, ont those who
-answered the question they refused to pass, on the grount that they knew
-too much apout draw poker to haf goot moral characters.”
-
-“I do not see,” said Claybank, after the laughter at Wolf’s indignation
-had subsided, “that we need take Mr. Morning into consideration as a
-disturbing element in our present plans. If the present output of his
-mine shall continue, it must, by and by, greatly advance prices of
-stocks and all other property, but that is in the future.”
-
-“Have we anything further to consider?” said Gray.
-
-“I think,” replied Claybank, rising, “that we understand each other
-perfectly. I will have triplicate memorandums made of our agreement,
-which we can execute in my office to-morrow morning at nine o’clock,
-where we will have our stocks brought at the same time. This Burgundy is
-the genuine article, Clos Voguet, vintage of 1875. I propose as a
-parting toast, ‘Success to our enterprise.’”
-
-And the phonograph needle in the adjoining room wrote in mystic
-scratches upon the wax, “Success to our enterprise.” Then came the
-shuffling of feet, the sound of a closing door, and the faint buzz of
-the electric motor until it ceased, and silence reigned.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XVIII.
-                       “Uncle Sam to the rescue!”
-
-
-David Morning returned to New York three days after the dinner party
-described in the last chapter. His typewriters were in attendance as
-usual, and he began opening his accumulated correspondance, when his
-secretary knocked at the door communicating with the next room, and,
-entering, said to his employer:—
-
-“Mr. Morning, pardon me for disturbing you, but will you please step
-into the phonograph room. There is a good deal of matter on the
-cylinders which has been placed there by others in your absence, and, I
-judge, placed there inadvertently. I think you had better hear it
-yourself before it is transcribed.”
-
-Morning walked into the other room and was for half an hour an
-interested auditor of the revelations of the wonderful phonograph. He
-directed his secretary to remove, label, and lock up the cylinders
-containing the dinner-party conversation, and said in conclusion:—
-
-“Mr. Stephens, somebody has evidently been having a dinner party in this
-room during my absence. It was not a nice thing for the proprietors to
-do, but I shall not notice it. Try to find out who dined here, without
-disclosing that I am aware that the room was occupied. I think I
-recognize the voices of the occupants, but I wish to be sure.”
-
-By inquiring among the waiters, the secretary ascertained, and reported
-to Mr. Morning, that the guests were Claybank, Wolf, and Gray.
-
-That night our hero departed for Washington, and early next morning he
-was closeted with the secretary of the treasury, to whom he revealed the
-knowledge gathered from the phonograph cylinders.
-
-“It is an infamous piece of business,” said the secretary warmly, “but
-what, Mr. Morning, can I do about it?”
-
-“Mr. Secretary,” said Morning, “will you pardon me for saying frankly
-that it is your duty to baffle these conspirators and restore values to
-their normal condition. It is the business of the government to provide
-a supply of money for the needs and uses of commerce. These scoundrels
-will bring about a panic by locking up in the vaults of New York,
-Philadelphia, and Boston banks, $300,000,000, which ought to be in
-circulation among the people. You have three hundred millions of coin
-and paper money in the treasury. Why not pour this money into Wall
-Street, break the back of this conspiracy, and relieve the people?”
-
-“But I have no authority, Mr. Morning, as you must know, to use one
-dollar of this money for any other purposes than those designated by
-law. If I had the power, believe me, I would be only too glad to
-exercise it as you desire.”
-
-“Does not the Act of Congress of February, 1894, known as the free
-coinage law, permit you, Mr. Secretary, to substitute gold or silver
-bars of standard fineness, for the coined money and paper money in the
-treasury vaults?”
-
-“Yes,” replied the secretary, “but I do not see how that law can be
-invoked to relieve the situation. There are not three hundred millions
-of gold and silver ingots in private ownership in the country, or,
-probably, in the world. The very large output of $1,000,000 in gold per
-week from the Morning mine will not serve us in this exigency. It would
-require six years’ yield of your mine, Mr. Morning, to furnish enough
-gold to release the money now in the treasury, and baffle Messrs. Gray,
-Claybank, and Wolf. Three hundred millions of dollars is a good deal of
-money, Mr. Morning—a good deal of money.”
-
-“Relatively it is, Mr. Secretary, but I have five times that sum in gold
-bars here, in Philadelphia, and New York.”
-
-The secretary glanced at the Arizona Gold King, and looked uneasily at
-the bell cord which hung above his desk.
-
-“No, I am not crazy,” said Morning with a laugh, “though I do not blame
-you for thinking so. The time has come somewhat sooner than I expected
-for intrusting you with my secret. The Morning mine is a phenomenal
-deposit of gold. It is so large that, fearing any general knowledge of
-its extent might cause demonetization of gold by the nations, I took
-measures to conceal its true yield, and for every ounce of gold which I
-shipped to New York or London as the ostensible product of the mine, I
-shipped twenty-five other ounces disguised as pig-copper to this city,
-or New York, or Philadelphia, or Liverpool. In the latter place
-$1,000,000,000 are stored, and there are $500,000,000 in each of the
-American cities I have named. A month ago I sent four of my trusted men
-from the mine to this city, where they have since been busy with cold
-chisels, releasing the gold bars from their copper moulds. They will go
-from here to Philadelphia and New York, and thence to Liverpool, for
-similar labors. I did not intend, Mr. Secretary, to offer any of this
-gold for coinage or sale until able to present it simultaneously at
-European and American mints. But the present exigency induces me to turn
-over to the United States for coinage, the five hundred millions of gold
-bars now ready for delivery in this city. I may add, Mr. Secretary, to
-quiet the apprehensions which your deep interest in the commercial
-prosperity of the country might lead you to entertain, that I have not
-intended, and do not now intend, to throw $2,500,000,000 of new money
-immediately into the channels of commerce. I shall change the gold bars
-into money at once, in order that the present value may not, by
-demonetization, be taken away from gold; but, once transformed into
-money, it will be fed gradually to the world, and not precipitated upon
-it.”
-
-“But, Mr. Morning, it will require the constant labor for a long time of
-the mint and all its branches to coin this large sum, and you require
-the money at once.”
-
-“I propose, Mr. Secretary, to avail myself of the law of February, 1894,
-and claim treasury notes for my ingots. That Act of Congress will enable
-you to print in two or three days enough bills of large denomination to
-cover the whole sum.”
-
-“You astound me, Mr. Morning, but I suppose I must believe you.”
-
-“If you will ride with me to the foot of Sixth Street, Mr. Secretary, I
-will exhibit to you $500,000,000 in gold bars.”
-
-“But, Mr. Morning, even $500,000,000 suddenly poured into Wall Street
-will create a wilder panic and precipitate worse results, than those
-which may come from the pending conspiracy.”
-
-“I do not think so,” said Morning quietly. “It is contraction and not
-inflation that hurts. A flood may be disastrous to the crops in places,
-but a general drought will surely kill them all.”
-
-“If Congress were in session, Mr. Morning, it would be likely to
-demonetize gold. It would never suffer fifteen hundred millions of money
-to be thus added to the present currency. Why, such an amount will
-double at once the entire paper and metallic money of the country!”
-
-“But Congress is not in session, Mr. Secretary, and you will pardon me
-for saying that, whatever may be your individual opinion as to
-consequences, you have no power to refuse to issue gold notes as fast as
-you can cause them to be engraved, for any amount of gold bars that I
-may offer.”
-
-“True,” replied the secretary.
-
-“But I repeat, Mr. Secretary, that I hope to guard against the evils you
-apprehend. I should be an unworthy custodian of the great trust which
-has come into my hands, if I could misuse it to harm either my country
-or my fellow-men.”
-
-“I believe you, Mr. Morning.”
-
-“For the present I can only use the ingots which are here in Washington.
-The New York and Philadelphia hoards will be ready in about a month,
-when I shall require treasury notes for them, but before I offer them to
-you, and before their existence shall be known generally, I shall
-endeavor to place in the mints at London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Milan,
-Vienna, and St. Petersburg, and in the banks of the principal cities of
-Europe simultaneously, in exchange for metallic and paper money of those
-countries, the one thousand millions now in Liverpool.”
-
-The secretary bowed.
-
-“Will you order three hundred millions of gold notes, of the
-denomination of $1,000 each, printed at once, and arrange to weigh,
-test, and receive the five hundred millions of bars in my warehouse at
-the foot of Sixth Street? If it be not irregular, you might receive the
-ingots where they are, deliver to me at once the two hundred millions of
-paper money now in the treasury vaults, and the remaining three hundred
-millions when printed. The gold bars can be removed to the treasury
-vaults at your convenience. I ask that this method be followed because,
-if I am to relieve the situation in New York, I must be on hand there
-with the actual currency. Ordinarily treasury drafts would answer the
-purpose, but, under present circumstances, they would be useless, as no
-bank could cash them, and they are not a legal tender. These bandits
-will have locked up all the money in special deposits, and their
-well-devised scheme can only be baffled by one who has—outside of any
-channel within their control, and outside of their knowledge—a vast sum
-in actual money.”
-
-“How, may I ask, do you propose to defeat their plans, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“My brokers will purchase for cash all the stocks they offer, and, on
-deposit of sufficient margin, loan them the stocks back again, to be
-again sold to me. In brief, I will take all their ‘shorts,’ and all the
-stocks sold by others which their conspiracy will force upon the market.
-When they have forced prices down to a point where they are ready to
-cover their shorts and buy for an advance, I will suddenly jump prices
-to the level they occupied before the conspirators commenced their
-operations, and thus commend to their own lips the bitter draught they
-have prepared for others. I shall know—for I have many sources of
-information, Mr. Secretary—I shall know what portion of my purchases of
-stock will come from the conspirators, and what portion from men who
-will be forced by the panic to part with their holdings. I shall
-subsequently make good to those others all their losses. The one or two
-hundred millions which I may by this process extract from Mr. Gray, Mr.
-Claybank, and Mr. Wolf, I shall not”—and Morning smiled—“restore to
-them. I shall devote it to founding and maintaining industrial schools.”
-
-“Your plan, Mr. Morning, is a brave and gigantic one. Is there no chance
-of its failure?”
-
-“Not if I can have your co-operation, Mr. Secretary, in keeping secret
-for a week or ten days the fact that you have, under the law of
-February, 1894, received five hundred millions of ingot gold, and issued
-treasury notes therefor. These scoundrels will have locked up all the
-available money in the great financial centers. They know that, under
-the present law, the three hundred millions of paper and coin money in
-the government vaults cannot be released so as to flow into the channels
-of commerce except by deposits of gold or silver bullion to take its
-place. My secret has been carefully kept, and they do not dream of the
-existence in private ownership of five hundred millions, or even fifty
-millions, in gold bars. If I can keep this secret from them until the
-hour to strike arrives, I will give them a lesson that will cure them
-for the future of any disposition to lock up money and constrict the
-arterial blood of commerce for the purposes of private gain.”
-
-“But will not their losses be largely on paper, Mr. Morning? What if
-they refuse to pay?”
-
-“I shall not go into court with them, Mr. Secretary, and it will not be
-necessary. Let me further illustrate. They sell one thousand shares say
-of Northwestern at $110, and I buy it. They take the $110,000 received
-by them from my broker and add to it ten or twenty thousand dollars for
-margin, and borrow from me the one thousand shares of Northwestern just
-sold me, depositing the one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty
-thousand dollars as security for the return of the borrowed stock. When
-Northwestern, under the pressure of their sales, descends to $100, they
-put up additional margin for the stock borrowed, and borrow more stock
-on the same terms. If they continue this process until they have forced
-Northwestern down to $80 or $70, and could then buy enough to replace
-the borrowed stock and call in the money they had deposited as ‘margin,’
-they would make as profit the difference between the low price at which
-they purchased and the average of their sales. But if Northwestern
-should suddenly jump in price to a point higher than the value to which
-they had margined it, then my brokers would purchase, at this high rate,
-enough Northwestern to make good the stock loaned to them, using for
-that purpose the money deposited by the conspirators as ‘margin.’ I
-propose to let these gentlemen have all the rope they want, and when
-they attempt to turn and become buyers, I will spring stocks at once to
-their original price, and confiscate all their margins.”
-
-“I will aid you, Mr. Morning, as you request, by keeping our
-transactions secret as far as possible, though I can’t promise you
-success in that. At least a dozen men will be required to print the gold
-notes in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and those men will know
-of the issuance of so vast a sum as $300,000,000. Half a dozen more must
-know of the removal of the two hundred millions of paper money now in
-the treasury vaults, and at least a dozen men will be needed to weigh
-and remove the gold bars from your warehouse. What is known to thirty
-men will soon, I fear, be known to the world. I will detail only
-discreet men, who shall work under pledges of secrecy, the violation of
-which shall cost them their places, but, after every precaution shall
-have been taken, who shall baffle the ubiquitous newspaper reporter in
-search of a ‘scoop’? He will crawl through the coal hole or the area
-railings. He will walk with the cats on the top of spikes and broken
-bottles. He will act as a car-driver, a barber, or a purchaser of old
-clothing. I verily believe that if he had lived in the olden days he
-would have coaxed Cæsar to reveal the plan of his next campaign, and
-wrested from the Egyptian Sphinx her secret. I fear, Mr. Morning, that
-the reporters will prove too much for us.”
-
-“I have had some experience in keeping secrets, Mr. Secretary, and if
-you will permit me to direct the details of the movement, I will
-undertake that no inkling of it shall reach the ears of the reporters.”
-
-“How will you avoid it, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“Anticipating your consent and co-operation, Mr. Secretary, I directed
-the captain of my steam yacht, the _Oro_, to come here from New York
-without delay, and by to-night she will be moored in the Potomac,
-opposite the warehouse at the foot of Sixth Street. I propose that, with
-the officials and men whose duty it will be to test and weigh the gold
-bars, you shall examine them where they are in the warehouse. You will
-take the keys and take possession, and, if you desire, will detail
-guards for the warehouse who will not know what they are guarding. As
-soon as satisfied of the quality and quantity of the gold, you will
-direct the printing of three hundred millions of treasury notes, and
-will deliver me the two hundred millions of paper money now in the
-treasury vaults. The three hundred millions can be printed in bills of
-the denomination of $1,000, and may be packed in five good-sized trunks.
-The $200,000,000 now in the treasury, being in bills of smaller
-denominations, will require fifteen trunks for their accommodation. My
-four trusted men, who have been busy here for the past month cutting the
-gold bars out of their copper jackets, will procure fifteen trunks of
-different makes and marks, and after they have been filled with currency
-at the treasury vaults, will carry them in an express wagon, which I
-will purchase, to the railroad depot, and check them for New York in
-four different lots, purchasing two or three passage tickets for New
-York for each lot of trunks. They will go as ordinary baggage to New
-York, and there be taken to my office on Broadway, without exciting
-suspicion or comment. Two of the men will return from New York here, and
-a similar plan can be pursued with the $300,000,000, which will be
-printed in the meantime.”
-
-“I do not yet see, Mr. Morning, how you propose to close the mouths of
-the treasury officials engaged in the business here.”
-
-“I ask, Mr. Secretary, that for all this work you will select reliable
-men, unmarried, and who can be absent from their places of abode for a
-fortnight without comment. Inform each man selected that he will be
-employed in a matter requiring secrecy, and that it will involve an
-ocean trip. I propose that every man connected with the transaction,
-except yourself, Mr. Secretary, every man, from the official who tests
-the gold, to the official who packs the currency into the trunks, shall,
-from the time he enters upon the performance of his duty, until it is
-completed, remain in place. I will have food, and, if need be, cots for
-sleeping at the warehouse, and the placing of the currency in the trunks
-will not require more than an hour or two of time. Each man, as he
-completes his duty, will go on board the _Oro_, and when all are on
-board, the steamer will put to sea, with orders to cruise for two weeks
-and then return here. Each of the gentlemen taking this voyage will be
-presented by me with the sum of $1,000 for his services. The examination
-and weighing of the gold bars in the warehouse, and the packing and
-shipment of the two hundred millions of paper money now in the treasury,
-can, I think, be completed by to-morrow, and the _Oro_ steam out
-to-morrow night, with a passenger list including the names of all those
-who have any knowledge of the fact that two hundred millions of treasury
-notes are on their way to New York, and that the government has
-$500,000,000 worth of gold bars in its vaults.”
-
-“And how about the three hundred millions of notes ordered printed?”
-
-“Those engaged in the printing can be similarly detailed, similarly
-instructed, and similarly dealt with. I have chartered the _New
-Dominion_, now lying at Norfolk, for a voyage to Port au Prince, on the
-island of Santa Domingo. She has steam up, awaiting orders. She will be
-here in time, and all those who have knowledge of the printing or
-shipment of the other three hundred millions, will, on the completion of
-their duties, go on board of her for a trip to Hayti, and, on their
-return a fortnight afterwards, receive the same gift of $1,000 each for
-his services.”
-
-“Your plan is ingenious, yet simple, Mr. Morning, and seems likely to be
-effective. So far as this department is concerned, its execution will
-involve a departure from all rules and precedents, and I shall not
-escape hot criticism if I order it, especially from the New York papers
-controlled by the conspirators. But I see nothing really wrong or
-objectionable in it, and ‘nice customs courtesy to great kings,’ and you
-are a great king, Mr. Morning.”
-
-“Say rather that the exigency is a great king, Mr. Secretary. You will
-then aid me as I ask you.”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“Thank you, Mr. Secretary. In the future any favor you may ask of me,
-personal or official, will not be denied.”
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XIX.
-            “The arms are fair when borne with just intent.”
-
-
-It was blue Monday in Wall Street. It was the beginning of the second
-week of the most disastrous panic ever known in the history of finance.
-Capital fled, affrighted, to its strong boxes, and refused to come forth
-at any rate of interest, or upon any security. Values had been going
-downward without reaction for six days. The yellings and shoutings in
-the stock board were such as might have been indulged in by escapees
-from an asylum for violent lunatics. Fortune after fortune had been
-swept into the vortex in a vain attempt to stay the current. Stocks
-which had ranked for years as among the most reliable of investments,
-descended the grade as rapidly as the “fancies.” Northwestern had fallen
-from $112 to $60; Western Union from $80 to $45, and Lackawana from $138
-to $70, and even at these prices more stock was apparently offered than
-found purchasers.
-
-The conspirators were, apparently, successful. Three men whose combined
-wealth already aggregated $300,000,000, had produced this storm of
-disaster merely to increase their millions, regardless of ruined homes.
-They sold their own stock as they had plotted, seventy-five millions of
-it at full rates, and seventy-five millions at an average reduction of
-fifteen per cent, early the preceding week, and before Morning had
-perfected his arrangements, or appeared upon the scene. Their subsequent
-short sales were made at lower prices than they had estimated, for
-others came in competition with them, as vendors. They locked up both
-the currency received from their sales, and the currency they had
-borrowed, so effectually that merchants, brokers, and others, who were
-unable to obtain the usual banking accommodations, were compelled to
-throw upon the market their holdings of bank, railroad, and telegraph
-stock.
-
-Wolf, who personally led the bear raid in the board, followed prices
-down with fresh lines of shorts, to an amount beyond that originally
-intended, and at the close of the previous week, the short sales of the
-conspirators amounted to $400,000,000. In one particular they had
-miscalculated, for, after stocks had fallen twenty per cent, the brokers
-who purchased them refused to loan them again for resale on the
-customary margin, but believing, or affecting to believe, that prices
-would advance with greater celerity than they had receded, they demanded
-an amount of money as margin equal to the difference between the
-existing market price of the stock loaned and the market price that
-ruled before the break.
-
-This demand was made under the direction of Morning, who did not appear
-in public, but, from his private office on Broadway, sent orders to a
-dozen different brokers whose services had not been engaged by the
-Gray-Claybank-Wolf syndicate. After the first break, Morning was the
-purchaser of nine-tenths of the stock sold, and after each purchase the
-money paid for the stock, with the margin added, was locked up in the
-vaults of one of his brokers, or in banks not under the control of the
-conspirators. In this way the syndicate had been compelled to add
-$60,000,000 to the $140,000,000 they had received from the sale of their
-own stock.
-
-On the morning of the second Monday of November, 1895, the “Gold King”
-was the owner, by purchase, of stocks which had cost him $400,000,000,
-but which were worth, at the prices which prevailed before the raid,
-$600,000,000.
-
-These stocks had been loaned to the conspirators by Morning, repurchased
-by him, loaned and repurchased again, until he now held in his control
-two hundred millions of money, put up by the syndicate as margin, or
-security, for the delivery to him of stocks which needed only to be
-restored to their former value to cause the conspirators to lose
-$200,000,000, and Morning to gain that sum. If, however, prices could be
-kept at panic figures until the conspirators could turn buyers, and
-cover their shorts, they would gain $200,000,000, which would be filched
-from whomsoever had been compelled to sell.
-
-There were $400,000,000 at stake on the game. The bear syndicate thought
-they were playing with loaded dice, and so they were, but the load was
-against them, instead of being in their favor.
-
-On Sunday night a private conference was held at Mr. Claybank’s
-residence, on Fifth Avenue.
-
-“To-morrow,” said Gray, “let us stop selling and begin buying, and cover
-as rapidly as possible. There are some features of the situation which
-fill me with uneasiness.”
-
-“Ont so I thinks, Misder Gray,” said Wolf. “I don’t gomprehent where the
-money comes from on Fritay and Saturtay with which our sales were met.
-As I figure it, we hat every tollar locked up on Thurstay that was
-anywhere available, but so much as a huntret, or, maby, a huntret and
-fifty millions of new money came into the street on yesterday and
-Fritay.”
-
-“It probably came from Chicago,” said Claybank.
-
-“No,” replied Wolf. “Chicago sent only fifty millions, ont it vas all
-here by Wednesday. It buzzles me, ont I ton’t like it, ont I believe it
-is full time to commence closing the deal.”
-
-It was, accordingly, agreed to close it, and on Monday morning these
-three worthies appeared in their seats in the Stock Exchange, for they
-were all members of that body, although they seldom or never
-participated in its proceedings, preferring to transact their business
-through other brokers.
-
-Morning was also a member of the Stock Exchange, having purchased a seat
-a year previously, but he did not often appear there, and had never
-bought or sold a share of stock himself in open board. Even amid the
-excitement of the panic, his presence gave interest to the occasion, for
-his sobriquet of the “Gold King” attached legitimately to his ownership
-of a mine that was yielding $4,000,000 per month, with the probability
-of making its owner in a few years the greatest billionaire in the
-world.
-
-There were probably few among the active members of the Stock Exchange
-who did not, at this time, know nearly as much about the causes of the
-panic as even the three men who produced it, and among all the brokers,
-except those in the employment of the syndicate, only indignation was
-expressed at the operations of Wolf, Claybank, and Gray. The New York
-stockbroker is neither a Shylock nor a miser. He is usually a genial,
-generous sort of fellow, who prefers a bull market to a bear raid. He
-likes to make money himself and have everybody else make it. A boom is
-his delight, and a panic his abhorrence. If a majority of the board of
-brokers could have had their way, they would have hung the members of
-the syndicate to the gallery railings, and the question of reaching them
-in some lawful way, and relieving the board from the effects of their
-conspiracy, had been informally discussed.
-
-But nothing was attempted, because nothing seemed really practicable. It
-was well known that the existing condition of things had been produced
-by locking up the currency. So long as it remained locked up, prices
-must remain at whatever figures the conspirators might choose to place
-them. Only the power that withdrew the money from circulation, could
-restore it to the channels of commerce. There was absolutely nothing for
-those not already ruined to do except to hide in the jungle until the
-three tigers should have fully gorged themselves. When Claybank, Gray,
-and Wolf should graciously permit the money to be unlocked, then stocks
-would advance to their real value, business would resume its proper
-channels, and the panic would be over—and not until then.
-
-In the Exchange, stocks were called alphabetically, and the first upon
-the list of railroad securities was the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe.
-This was not a dividend-paying or favorite investment stock, and,
-probably, three-fourths of it had been held in the street for years, in
-speculative and marginal holdings. Morning had special reasons for
-securing control of this road in addition to his general purpose of
-thwarting the conspirators. Prior to the panic, Atchison, Topeka, and
-Santa Fe had vibrated for months between $27 and $33, and on the
-Saturday previous to the Monday which saw the beginning of the bear
-raid, it had closed at $30. Under the operations of the conspirators, it
-had been hammered down to $15, at which figure it closed on the previous
-Saturday.
-
-One of the syndicate brokers who sat by Wolf, opened the ball by
-offering two hundred shares of Atchison at $15.
-
-“Taken,” cried Morning, from his seat.
-
-“Five hundred Atchison at $15½,” said the broker.
-
-“Taken,” replied Morning.
-
-A shade of uneasiness covered the features of the broker, but, in
-response to a gesture from Wolf, he called again:—
-
-“One thousand Atchison offered at $16.”
-
-“Taken,” said Morning.
-
-The broker dropped into his seat and mopped his face with his
-handkerchief.
-
-“Any further offers of Atchison for sale?” cried the caller.
-
-And there was no reply.
-
-“Two hundred Atchison, Brown to Morning, at $15; five hundred Atchison,
-Brown to Morning, at $15½; one thousand Atchison, Brown to Morning, at
-$16. Are there further bids for Atchison?” said the caller.
-
-Wolf arose and cried, “Fifteen dollars is offered for one thousand
-Atchison.”
-
-There was no higher offer, but the caller did not proceed to cry the
-next stock on the list. Somehow everybody seemed to feel that a crisis
-had been reached; it was in the air, and, amidst a hushed and expectant
-silence unprecedented in the history of the New York Stock and Exchange
-Board, the voice of David Morning rang out like a trumpet.
-
-“I will give,” said he, “$30 per share for the whole or any portion of
-the capital stock of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad
-Company.”
-
-Then pandemonium reigned. The quick wit of the stockbrokers comprehended
-the situation in an instant. It was all as clear to them as if it had
-been written and printed. They knew that Claybank, Wolf, and Gray had
-joined forces, locked up the currency, brought about a panic, broken
-down the market, and ruined half the street. They knew that the country
-was prosperous, the mines prolific, and the crops good. They knew that
-the depression in prices was wholly artificial, and that it must, sooner
-or later, be followed by a reaction and restoration of values, and they
-had so advised their customers, but they supposed that the period of
-such reaction was wholly within the control of Gray, Claybank, and Wolf.
-
-They had no reason to expect that relief would come from any other
-source, and the appearance and action of Morning burst upon them like a
-revelation. Here was a man who was a new-comer to fortune and to
-finance, a man who had devoted the immense revenues of his mine to
-beneficent rather than business purposes, and who was above the
-necessity or the temptation of increasing his wealth by speculation. His
-presence in the Board, and his bid of $30 a share for Atchison,
-demonstrated that he knew of the Claybank-Gray-Wolf conspiracy, and that
-he proposed to baffle it. He must have measured the forces of the
-members of the syndicate and be advised as to the amount of money
-necessary to meet them. Possibly he had found a way to unlock the
-federal treasury, or had from some source obtained the necessary
-millions. Certainly he had obtained them or he would never have thus
-challenged the magnates of Wall Street to combat. Clearly, the panic was
-at an end, the man from Arizona was about to lead them out of the
-wilderness.
-
-And they shouted, and roared, and cried, and hugged each other, and
-mashed each others’ hats, and marched up and down and around the floor,
-and joined hands and danced around Morning, and disregarded all calls to
-order, and were finally quieted only when Morning, escorted by the
-President of the Stock Exchange, ascended the stand.
-
-The President, as soon as silence was secured, said:—
-
-“Gentlemen, it seems to be the general wish that the regular call shall
-be temporarily suspended, and that we shall hear from Mr. David
-Morning.”
-
-That gentleman, after the roar of greeting had subsided, said:—
-
-“GENTLEMEN: I think you will agree with me in believing that the prices
-of securities listed on this exchange have, during the past week, ruled
-altogether too low. I propose to put an end to this condition of things,
-which ought never to have been brought about, and I have authorized my
-brokers here to offer, during to-day and to-morrow, and for the rest of
-this week, to purchase, to the extent of $700,000,000, any and all
-railroad stocks listed on this Exchange, at the prices which ruled at
-the close of the board on Saturday week, before the panic began.”
-
-A great cheer went up from the throats of the multitude, and, after it
-subsided, Isaiah Wolf, livid with rage and excitement, arose and
-exclaimed:—
-
-“Does this lunatic then expect to make fools of us all? Is it to be
-beliefed dot this crazy man has got seven huntret millions of tollars in
-cash to buy stocks mit? His golt mine has turned his prain. It vos
-better dot we don’t all pe too fresh apout this pizness.”
-
-Morning quietly continued:—
-
-“Anticipating that my purchases of stock might possibly be large to-day
-and during the week, I have made arrangements to dispense with the
-customary methods, and so will avoid the usual delays in receiving and
-paying for stock. I have quadrupled my usual force of clerks, and my
-offices on Broadway will be open every day this week from nine o’clock
-in the morning until nine o’clock at night. No checks, certified or
-otherwise, will be issued by me, but the stocks bought by my brokers
-will be paid for on delivery at my offices at any time during the hours
-named, and paid for in treasury and national bank notes.”
-
-“Where,” roared Wolf, “did you get such a sum of money as seven huntret
-millions of tollars? You are either a liar, a lunatic, or a
-counterfeiter.”
-
-“Two hundred millions of dollars of the money which I hold,” replied
-Morning, “was deposited by you and your colleagues in the conspiracy, as
-security for the return of stocks which I bought of you, and then loaned
-to you to sell to me again and again. Under the rules of the stock board
-these $200,000,000 will be forfeited to me unless you restore the
-borrowed stocks on the usual notice. The notices will be served on you
-to-day, and when you begin to buy in to cover your shorts, you will be
-compelled to pay full value. I think I can count upon your $200,000,000
-to aid in paying for to-day’s purchases, Mr. Wolf.” And, amid continued
-cheers and laughter, Morning descended from the caller’s stand, and
-started for his seat.
-
-Claybank and Gray had left the hall, but Wolf remained, and as Morning
-passed along the aisle, the Jew, with face white and twitching, and with
-foam on his mustache, stepped out and confronted him.
-
-“You have made a beggar of me,” said he with a curse, “but I will have
-your heart’s blood for this,” and he reached for Morning’s throat.
-
-But the man from Arizona stepped backward and then forward, and at the
-same moment his right arm went swiftly forth from his shoulder.
-
-“Smack! smack! smack!” and the nose of Wolf was spread over his face,
-and the crazed man was hustled and hurried by the crowd, and greeted
-with oaths and blows as he went, until, with torn clothing and battered
-face, he was literally kicked into the street.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XX.
-                “These are things which might be done.”
-
-
-             [From the _New York Times_, November 20, 1895.]
-
-                                FINANCIAL.
-
-  Holders of stock and bonds in the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe,
-  Denver and Gulf, Kansas City and Chicago, Lakeshore and Michigan
-  Southern, New York and Erie, and New York and New England Railroads,
-  who desire to dispose of their holdings, will find a purchaser in me
-  at the rates prevailing at the close of the Stock Exchange yesterday.
-  I already own a majority of the capital stock of the roads named, and
-  intend to consolidate them in one company without any bonded
-  indebtedness, with the intention of providing the public with a
-  double-track road between Portland, Maine, and San Francisco,
-  California, _via_ Boston, New York, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas
-  City, and Denver, with a branch to Galveston. This consolidated road
-  will not be run with a view to profit beyond four or five per cent per
-  annum above operating expenses. In making this experiment I deem it
-  only right to relieve the present holders of stock and bonds from
-  loss, and this offer of purchase will remain open for one month.
-
-                                                      DAVID MORNING,
-                                              _39 Broadway, N. Y. City_.
-
-  _2 sq. 1 m., November 19._
-
-We copy from our advertising column the foregoing, which presages the
-most important event of the century. Whatever may be thought of the
-wisdom of Mr. Morning’s plans in any direction, there can now be no
-question as to his ability to carry them forward. The brilliant
-strategetical movement by which he bagged two hundred millions of
-piratical money from Gray, Claybank, and Wolf, and, while defeating
-them, restored values and prosperity, is still fresh in the public mind,
-and his subsequent course in searching out all other persons who lost by
-the panic, and reimbursing them the amount of their losses, will not
-soon be forgotten.
-
-The brave and sagacious action of the Secretary of the Treasury in going
-outside of the channels marked by red tape in order to promote Mr.
-Morning’s plans, is generally commended by the public, and meets with no
-criticism except from the baffled syndicate of scoundrels.
-
-Whatever action, if any, Congress may take next month when it assembles
-with regard to the demonetization of gold, and whatever may be the
-course pursued by the German Reichstag, the French Chamber of Deputies,
-and the British Parliament, all of which are now wrestling with the
-great economic problem which the vast gold yield of the Morning mine
-presents, yet one thing is certain, David Morning has quietly and
-shrewdly placed two thousand five hundred millions of gold in the mints
-and treasuries of Europe and America, and obtained therefor money, the
-legal tender quality and value of which, no future legislation can
-impair.
-
-It is fortunate for the world that this vast sum is in the hands of a
-man who seems to comprehend the nature of the problems which its
-existence, its introduction to circulation, and its subsequent use, will
-create, and who also seems disposed to treat his great treasure-trove as
-a public trust rather than a personal possession. It is a curious fact
-that some statesmen who have, without much reflection, been
-characterized as visionary, urged vainly for years upon the public
-attention the wisdom and feasibility of creating vast sums of fiat
-money, which were to be loaned upon land and crop values. It will not
-escape notice that the Congress of the United States might, at any time
-within the past few years, by passing a land and property loan law, have
-created the same conditions, whether they prove to be conditions of
-prosperity or disaster, which are now upon the world by reason of Mr.
-Morning’s gold discovery. But it is not our purpose to attempt
-discussion of the situation generally. We intend only to give to the
-public a reliable account of the railroad projects of Mr. Morning. On
-reading his advertisement, we dispatched a reporter, who found him, as
-usual, frank and communicative. No comment of ours would add force or
-importance to the utterances of the Arizona Gold King, and we will let
-him tell his story in his own way.
-
-“My plan,” said Morning, “is not complicated, and not original with me.
-I only supply the means to try an experiment which it has often been
-suggested should be tried by the United States Government. If successful
-it will be of incalculable benefit to the people of this country. It
-will require not more than $250,000,000 to carry it out, and its failure
-would not involve a loss of more than $50,000,000.
-
-“I marvel,” continued the gentleman, “that public opinion did not years
-ago act upon Congress so as to cause it to deal with the transportation
-question in the interest of the people. I marvel that some of our great
-capitalists have not joined efforts, and devoted a portion of their
-possessions to providing the people with cheap transportation. Suppose
-that a dozen of them should have together made a pool of $200,000,000,
-and undertaken a work—not of charity, but of helping the toilers to help
-themselves. It would not have taken one-third of their possessions; it
-would have deprived neither them nor their children of a single luxury,
-and yet it would have allayed the disquiet and antagonism of multitudes,
-and, more than bronzes or marble shafts, it would have linked their
-names to immortality.”
-
-“Will not Messrs. Gray, Claybank, and Wolf have supplied the funds for
-your experiment?” queried the reporter.
-
-Morning laughed as he answered: “Well, in a way, yes; and if I had not
-already devoted their contributions to founding and maintaining
-industrial schools, there would be a sort of poetical justice in making
-such application of that fund.”
-
-“Will you give me, for the _Times_, the details of your plans, Mr.
-Morning?”
-
-“Certainly,” replied that gentlemen. “I have nothing to conceal. The
-railroad lines of this country, especially the transcontinental lines,
-were built when material and labor were much higher than now, and some
-of them when gold was at a high premium. Stock and bonds of many roads
-have been watered, and in paying present market prices for them I shall
-probably pay much more than the sum for which the roads could be
-duplicated if constructed honestly and economically at present cost of
-labor and materials, and allowing nothing for subsidies, bounties,
-stealings, and profits of speculators, contractors, and legislators. But
-it would not, I think, be right to punish present holders of stocks and
-bonds for the sins of their predecessors in interest, and I therefore
-propose to pay the present inflated value of these securities. I shall
-not, however, attempt to make the reorganized road carry the burden of
-paying interest and dividends upon the sums which I shall pay.”
-
-“What do you estimate to be the present market value of the roads you
-propose to purchase, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“At present market rates, and I shall pay no more, the total amount that
-will be required to buy in both stocks and bonds, will be, in round
-numbers, $150,000,000. I am advised by experts that the cost of widening
-roadbed and bridges, and laying additional iron, so as to make four
-tracks from New York to Kansas City, and a double track from the
-Missouri River to the Pacific, will, with the necessary buildings and
-shops, be about $70,000,000.”
-
-“Then the proposed line, when completed, will have cost you about
-$220,000,000?”
-
-“Exactly, less the sum which may be received for rolling stock, which I
-propose to sell. But I am informed by my engineers that a similar line
-might be built now for $150,000,000, and I therefore take $150,000,000
-as the actual value of the roadbed, station buildings, and shops for
-repairs, and I estimate traffic charges upon that basis.”
-
-“Why do you sell the rolling stock? How can a road be used without
-locomotives or cars?”
-
-“I propose that the company I will cause to be organized shall, except
-in certain contingencies, run no trains whatever on the road except
-repair trains. The roadbed will be open at uniform tolls to any person,
-firm, or corporation who may wish to run trains upon it. The tolls will
-be fixed upon such a basis as will provide means sufficient to keep the
-roadbed up to the highest standard, and pay five per cent per annum upon
-the actual value of the road, which, in the first instance, will be
-fixed at $150,000,000.”
-
-“Will not the value of the road advance, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“I expect so,” was the reply. “All values will advance with the increase
-of standard money, caused by the yield of the Morning mine, and there
-will be a revaluation of the roadbed each year, by disinterested and
-competent engineers. If the amount received for tolls in any one year
-shall exceed the sum of five per cent on the valuation of the previous
-year, the tolls will be reduced for the next year. If it shall fall
-short of that sum, the tolls will be increased for the next year.”
-
-“Will not the ownership of the roadbed by one company, and the ownership
-and management of rolling stock by a dozen or a hundred other companies,
-be productive of confusion and accidents?”
-
-“Not at all. On the contrary, accidents will be almost impossible.
-Switches and side tracks, capable of accommodating from one to a dozen
-trains or more, will be provided every five miles, with buildings for
-receiving freight and passengers, at every station. Between Boston and
-Kansas City two tracks will be devoted to passenger trains and two to
-freight trains, and a uniform rate of speed be established, of
-thirty-five miles per hour, including stoppages on the main track, for
-passenger trains, and fifteen miles an hour for freight trains. Between
-Kansas City and San Francisco, so long as there shall be only one double
-track, on which both freight and passenger trains must run, a uniform
-rate of speed of twenty miles an hour for both freight and passenger
-trains will be established, except on mountain grades, where the speed
-must be lessened. There will be an interval of not less than fifteen
-minutes between trains east of the Missouri, and half an hour west of
-it, and whenever a train leaves or passes by a station, its passage over
-the rails at that station will, through an electric wire, be made to
-ring a bell, set a signal, and close a switch at the next station behind
-it, and no train will be allowed to leave or pass by a station until a
-signal shall be received that the preceding train has passed by the
-station ahead.”
-
-“Suppose a train conductor or engineer should proceed without receiving
-the signal, and in defiance of orders from the station master?”
-
-“His train would be automatically shunted off upon a side track, where
-it would run up against elastic buffers of rubber, filled with air. The
-main track would not be clear until the train passed the station ahead.
-Until then the switch leading to the side track would be open.”
-
-“And how would that switch be again opened, after being closed?”
-
-“Automatically, by the passage of the train over the rails ahead of it.”
-
-“That is a very ingenious and original idea, Mr. Morning.”
-
-“Ingenious and simple, but it is not my own. A similar contrivance was
-in use on the Italian roads twenty years ago, although the idea was
-suggested to me by an Arizona rancher, who was averse to having cattle
-straying in his alfalfa fields, through which several public roads ran.
-In order to avoid the cost of fencing the roads, he put up automatic
-gates. The weight of the horses and vehicle upon a platform a few yards
-from the gate, on either side, operated upon a lever, and swung open the
-gate, which was released automatically by the passage of the wagon, and
-so swung shut.”
-
-“You seem, by these arrangements, to have secured the safety of
-passengers and train hands, but how about the speed? Will the traveling
-public be content with twenty miles an hour between Kansas City and San
-Francisco?”
-
-“I do not know. If they shall not be, still the speed would be
-satisfactory to the freighters. My own belief is that the greater safety
-and lower rates of passage that will prevail on this road will attract
-to it a large share of the passenger traffic. Those who are in haste can
-travel over one of the other lines.”
-
-“Your object seems to be to give to the public cheaper railroad
-service.”
-
-“It is partly that and partly to give the railroad employes better pay
-and greater regularity and permanency of employment. I will try to
-divide the benefits equitably.”
-
-“Will not those who run trains upon your road defeat your object by
-combinations among themselves, to put up the price of freight and
-passage, and put down the wages of railroad hands?”
-
-“It will be practicable, I think, to guard against both these things. If
-the Brotherhoods of Locomotive Firemen, and Locomotive Engineers, and
-Train Hands, will establish and maintain reasonable rates of
-compensation and hours of labor, and will enable all qualified workers
-to become members at will, then the directors of the company owning the
-roadbed will only allow its use to trains managed by Brotherhood
-members. If persons or companies owning rolling stock shall advance
-freight or passenger rates beyond maximum, or reduce them below minimum,
-rates, fixed by the directors of the Railway Company, they will lose
-their right to run trains, and if a combination should be made to
-diminish facilities to shippers or travelers, then the Roadbed Company
-will itself place a freight and passenger service on the track.”
-
-“Will you expect to personally superintend this great work, Mr.
-Morning?”
-
-“No, I must leave it to others. Once it shall be well started I have
-other projects which will require my attention.”
-
-“Who will run it, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“The Board of Directors will, in the first instance, consist of the
-governor of each State through which the roadbed shall be constructed,
-from Maine to California. To these fifteen or sixteen governors will be
-added thirty experienced railway managers, who will be selected by me.
-Each governor will serve as director only during his term as governor,
-and will be succeeded as director by his official successor as governor.
-The thirty directors appointed by me will receive liberal salaries, will
-not be permitted to be interested in any other railroad, and will serve
-until they resign, or die, or are removed for cause by a two-thirds vote
-of the other directors. Vacancies thus occurring will be filled by a
-similar vote. Subject to the principles of management I have endeavored
-to outline, the control of the affairs of the company will be with the
-Board of Directors.”
-
-“Will not the vast sums of money which the yield of the Morning mine
-must add to the standard currency of the world so inflate values as to
-make difficult any equitable adjustment of freight or passenger rates,
-or of the wages of railroad workers?”
-
-“Freight and passenger rates, and wages, will necessarily advance with
-the increase of all values. It will be like the tide at the Dardanelles,
-which never ebbs. No man who has any knowledge, or exercises any care,
-need be overwhelmed or hurt by it, and all men who try can guide their
-barks to prosperity upon its swell.”
-
-“Would you consider it really a healthful state of affairs if, by an
-inflated currency, prices were so increased that a dinner which one can
-now buy for fifty cents should cost $5.00, and a $20 coat sell for
-$200?”
-
-“Why not if prices were similarly advanced over all the world? People
-indulge in a good deal of loose talk about inflated currency, debased
-currency, and fiat money. In truth, all money is fiat money, for a bar
-of gold is not a legal tender, and inflation of values is the law of
-commercial growth. In the middle ages a penny was the price of a day’s
-wages or of a bushel of wheat. Money which has for its basis either
-precious metals or substantial property in lands or merchandise is good
-money, while money lacking such basis is bad money. Clipped shillings,
-French assignats, and Continental and Confederate currency, were no more
-fiat money than are American double eagles or five-pound Bank of England
-notes. It is the stamp of the government, the fiat of its power, that
-turns the metal or the paper into money.”
-
-“But do not all financiers consider inflation a disaster, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“Inflation,” replied the gentleman, “whether of metallic or paper
-currency that is accepted by the world or by a great commercial nation
-as a legal tender, can do no harm except to those who loan money. A
-dollar is a mere term. You pay now five dimes, or fifty cents, or five
-hundred mills, for your dinner. Suppose by large continued increase in
-the production of gold and silver, the money of all countries shall be
-inflated so that you must pay fifty dollars instead of fifty cents, or
-five hundred dimes in place of five hundred mills, for your dinner. What
-of it? You could carry as much paper money as now. It would need only to
-increase the denomination of the bills. All property and services would
-advance proportionately. Only the loaners of money would be left, and
-they would soon find it to their interest to put their money into
-property, which would necessarily advance in value, rather than in
-loans, which would, in their relation to property, necessarily decrease
-in value. Under such conditions interest would not compensate the money
-owner for the depreciation of his principal, and the loaning of money,
-except for brief periods, would cease, while property of all kinds would
-always be saleable for cash, because always sure to increase in value,
-while idle money would not so increase.”
-
-“What will be the effect of your project on the other railroads, Mr.
-Morning?”
-
-“My hope and expectation is that the successful working of my project
-will induce large aggregations of capital to acquire and conduct all the
-railroads in the country under one management, which should itself be
-under the direction and control of the Federal Government. Four thousand
-millions of dollars would purchase and free from bonded indebtedness all
-the interstate railroad and telegraph lines in the United States, and
-$1,000,000,000 more would improve such property to the highest point of
-efficiency. A company with a capital of $5,000,000,000, having no bonded
-debt and economically and honestly managed, could pay dividends of five
-per cent per annum on its stock, which stock might be increased in
-amount as other values increased. Present railroad bondholders would be
-transformed into railroad stockholders, and the stock of the United
-States Consolidated Railroad Company, guaranteed by the United States
-Government to pay five per cent per annum, and so conducted as to earn
-that dividend, above cost of repairs and construction of new lines,
-would be a favorite investment. Such stock might be made the basis of
-currency issued thereon to national banks. It could be held by
-benevolent and educational institutions, and trust funds could be
-invested in it. It would take the place of the present United States
-bonds as a lazy fund, and it would not be a lazy fund, for it would be
-an investment in earning property. It would substitute the earned
-increment of labor for the unearned increment of interest. Interest on
-money at best belongs to conditions which are passing away. It is an
-attribute of a former civilization, and I predict that during the next
-century it will come to an end altogether.”
-
-“How would the United States Consolidated Railroad Company affect
-railway patrons and railroad employes?”
-
-“By adjusting freight and passenger charges, and wages of employes, so
-as to produce an income of five per cent on the investment, and by
-discontinuing non-paying lines, building new ones, and developing
-profitable connections—in brief, by running all the railroads in the
-land as one company under one management, in such manner as to produce
-from earnings a net income of five per cent, on a capitalization of all
-existing stocks and bonds at their market value to-day—the prices of
-freight and passage would be reduced, and the wages of railroad workers
-increased.”
-
-“I think,” continued the Arizona Gold King, “that the entire system
-should be under government supervision, or even under government
-direction, and, depend upon it, nobody would be harmed, except about
-forty thousand people, who now own sixty per cent of all the real
-property in America, and even the damage to them would be slight, for
-they could purchase stock in the Consolidated Company, and learn to be
-satisfied with five per cent and no stealings.”
-
-“You spoke of a provision being made in your company for the future of
-railroad employes. How would that be done?”
-
-“In the company which I propose each employe will be required to agree
-that not less than fifteen per cent of his wages shall be withheld from
-him and annually invested in the stock of the company, which stock shall
-be non-transferable. It will be delivered with its dividends, likewise
-invested, at his death to whomsoever he may designate, or, if he live to
-the age of sixty, it will be paid to him.”
-
-“Do you think that the worker needs this sort of compulsory
-guardianship, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“I certainly do. For one of them who lays up for a rainy day, nine are
-possessed by the very genius of unthrift. I have known miners to work
-for months, and mining is the hardest work in the world, and then draw
-their wages and expend hundreds of dollars in one spree. Where the
-worker uses liquor—as most of them do—he lives from hand to mouth, and
-even among the temperate, it will be the rare exception to find one who
-has enough savings to support his family for six months.”
-
-“Is it only the workers who are imprudent, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“No, the habit of careless unthrift is common to all men. It is not
-confined to the worker. It appears more frequently in him only because
-his necessities are more urgent and apparent, and, in this respect, he
-lives more in public. But extravagance is a part of the original savage
-man, the leaven which has survived all civilization. I have known
-lawyers, and doctors, and divines, and journalists who, with their
-families, might have been saved from embarrassment and suffering if
-there had been some power every month to seize a portion of their
-earnings or income and make a compulsory investment of it for their
-future benefit.”
-
-“But,” said the speaker, “to return to my subject. There is yet another
-advantage to be considered. If the United States operated, or even
-supervised, all the railroads, it would not be difficult—by requiring
-each railroad hand to report for drill and practice one day in each
-month—it would not be difficult to provide the nucleus and material for
-a great army, if such should ever again be necessary.”
-
-“Will the time ever come when armies can be dispensed with, Mr.
-Morning?”
-
-“I think it has come. I am about to have made some experiments with the
-new explosive ‘potentite,’ which, if successful, will, I think,
-demonstrate to the world that hereafter war will mean simply mutual
-annihilation, and that in conflict there will be small odds between the
-weakest and the most powerful of nations. But I wander into the domain
-of speculation, and you newspaper men require only facts.”
-
-“Do you propose any reform or changes in the present methods of railroad
-management, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“Several.”
-
-“For instance?”
-
-“There will be a uniform rate per mile for passage, all tickets will be
-transferable, no inducements will be offered to travelers to perpetrate
-falsehood and forgery, and freighters will not be required to expose
-their business secrets to the officers of the railroad company.
-
-“Do you know,” said Mr. Morning, “that a demand has actually been made
-upon me by the railroad companies for freight at regular express gold
-bullion rates on $2,500,000,000 worth of gold bars which they carried
-from Arizona to the East disguised as copper? For freight on the
-supposed copper I paid their regular rates of charges, amounting to
-about $200,000. They say that if I had shipped it as gold their charges
-would have been six and one-quarter millions, and they claim the
-difference.”
-
-“But you shipped it as copper at your own risk, did you not, Mr.
-Morning?”
-
-“Of course I shipped it as copper at my own risk, and on ten bars, worth
-really $400,000, which were lost from the ferryboat in transporting
-freight during the flood at Yuma, I collected from the company only
-their supposed copper value of $320, and I had no end of trouble and
-delay in making the collection. But they assert that in covering the
-gold bars with copper sheaths, I worked a ‘gold brick swindle’ on them,
-and they want the difference.”
-
-“Will you pay the $6,000,000 claimed, Mr. Morning?”
-
-“Not if I can help it,” smiled the gentleman. “I have other uses for the
-money. I have in view several other reforms in railroad management.
-Railroad employers who, through no fault of their own, are hurt in
-railroad accidents caused by the negligence of a fellow employe, shall
-have the same right of recovery at law against the company as an injured
-passenger would have. Train men, in stopping at country stations, shall
-consult the convenience of passengers rather than their own, and shall
-not halt the baggage car in a sheltered spot, while they compel
-disembarking passengers to wade through the mud. Brass-mounted
-conductors shall not glower at question-asking passengers, and, to all
-requests for information, answer flippantly, ‘Damfino,’ and small dogs
-shall not be torn from their friends and suffered to wail their strength
-away in mute despair in a strange and comfortless baggage car, without
-bones to beguile or friendly faces to encourage them; but every
-reputable lapdog who pays his fare, and abides noiseless and contented
-in the same seat with his mistress, shall be left in peace.”
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XXI.
-          “Their country’s wealth, our mightier misers drain.”
-
-
-It was a bright, warm day in December, 1895, when a tall man, with iron
-gray hair surmounting a wrinkled and careworn face, paused for a moment
-before the plate-glass front of the Tenth National Bank of Birmingham,
-Alabama.
-
-Making his way into the building, he walked to the cashier’s office in
-the rear, which he entered without knocking. A short, stout gentleman of
-forty years looked up from the desk at which he was writing, and
-inquired of the stranger who it was that he wished to see?
-
-“I kem in, suh, to see the Kashyea,” was the reply.
-
-“I am the cashier of this bank, sir. What can I do for you?”
-
-“Well, I allowed to bowwow some money foh to stock my fahm foh a cotton
-crap, and to cahy me ovah the season, suh, and I heard as how the money
-might be had heah.”
-
-“Take a seat, sir. What is the name?”
-
-“John Turpin is my name, suh.”
-
-“And what amount do you wish to obtain, Mr. Turpin?”
-
-“I reckon about $3,000 would answer the puppus, suh.”
-
-“Where is your property, Mr. Turpin, and what does it consist of?”
-
-“It is on the White Creek, in Madison County. There are foh hundred
-acres of cotton land. There is a house, bahn, and outbuildings in faih
-condition, suh, but I don’t count them as much, in a money way.”
-
-“What do you estimate to be the value of the land?”
-
-“Befo the wah it sold for fohty dollahs an acre. Land went very low
-aftahwuds, but the land has not been crapped, and of late yeahs,
-business has picked up mightily in old Alabama, and it ought to be wuth
-as much now as it ever wor.”
-
-“How long have you been farming it there?”
-
-“Well, not at all, suh. The place was owned by my uncle, and he jest
-lived there since the wah, and never tried to make a crap. He was
-Captain of Company K of the Ninety-third Alabama. He was wounded at
-Chickamauga. Both of his sons were killed at the second battle of the
-Wilderness; his wife died while they were all away, and when he kem back
-he seemed to lose all interest like. He couldn’t abide free niggahs
-ever, and there were no othahs, and foh twenty-seven yeahs he jest moped
-around the old place, raisin’ only a little cohn, and a few hogs and
-some geyahden truck. Last spring he died, and the place has fallen to
-me. There is no debt on it, and it’s prime cotton land, but it will take
-right smaht of money to clean off the land and put in a crap.”
-
-“Are you farming elsewhere, Mr. Turpin?”
-
-“No, suh, I have been wuking for several yeahs for the Louisville and
-Nashville Railroad Company, as their station agent at Coosa, but I was
-raised on a cotton plantation, and I know all about the wuk. I have two
-likely boys; one is twenty and the othah eighteen. My wife is a wohkah,
-and so is our daughtah. We all want to go on the old plantation and live
-thar.”
-
-“Will $3,000 clear the land and stock it?”
-
-“Yes, suh. It will buy us mules and fahm implements, and seed, and
-supply us with provisions and foddah, and pay the wages of such niggahs
-as we will hiah to help us.”
-
-“How soon could you repay the $3,000.”
-
-“Well, in the old times we could moh than pay it with one crap, but thar
-ain’t the money in cotton that thar used to be. Cotton is powerful low,
-I do allow.”
-
-“And it costs more to raise it now than it did when you had slaves to
-work for you, does it not, Mr. Turpin?”
-
-“Well, I allow that don’t make much diffahence, suh. I can hiah niggahs
-now for $16 a month, and they find their own keep, while befoh the wah
-we had to pay that much and moah, and feed them beside. The interest on
-the value of a good niggah then was nigh onto as much as we pay him now
-foh wages. The niggah don’t get much moah now than he did when he was in
-slavery. He just gets his keep and a few clothes: No, suh, I can raise
-cotton now cheaper than I could befoh the wah, but cotton kain’t be sold
-foh no such prices. Still, thar is some money in cotton, and my boys and
-I can pay off the $3,000 with interest, out of the profits on the craps,
-in three yeahs, and if we live powerful close mebbe we can do it in two
-yeahs.”
-
-“Why do you not get the money you want from the bank at Huntsville?”
-
-“Well, suh, I went thar before I kem yeah, and the kashyea thar tole me
-that they wah not fixed to make any but shote loans. He said as how they
-wah a nayshunal bank, and couldn’t loan money on land nohow, and he
-advised me to come heah, suh.”
-
-“But this is also a national bank, and subject to the same restriction,
-Mr. Turpin.”
-
-“Yes, suh, I know; so he tole me, suh. But he said as how you wah also
-loan agents for Northern capitalists, who had money to invest in long
-loans, on good security.”
-
-“We are such agents, but our instructions do not permit us to loan on
-anything but improved city property. Our clients do not like to put
-their money in plantations.”
-
-“But, suh, what will become of the cities if the people do not help
-those in the country? My place is wuth easily foh times the money I want
-to bowwow, and every dollah of the money bowwowed will go into the
-place.”
-
-“It does look, Mr. Turpin, as if money ought to be had for such
-purposes. But all of our local capitalists have their money tied up in
-the city, and outsiders won’t loan on farms.”
-
-“Then I kain’t bowwow the money, suh?”
-
-“I am afraid not, Mr. Turpin. You might try elsewhere, but, to be candid
-with you, I do not believe you will succeed.”
-
-“Well, suh, then I will have to go back to my wuk at the railroad
-station, and let the land lie idle. Why kain’t the govuhment loan us on
-our fahms the money needed to cultivate them? ’Pears like I hearn tell
-thar was a man out in Calafohnea what wanted the govuhment to do that
-likes.”
-
-“Yes,” replied the cashier, “there is such a scheme, but it is totally
-impracticable. Of course the government cannot embark in the business of
-loaning money on landed security.”
-
-“But ain’t the govuhment in the loanin’ business now, suh? Whar do you
-get the circulatin’ notes of youah bank? Don’t you bowwow them of the
-govuhment, without interest, by puttin’ up United States bonds as
-security?”
-
-“Oh, that, you know, is quite a different thing,” answered the cashier,
-smilingly.
-
-“Whar’s the difference in principle?” persisted the man from Coosa. “If
-a govuhment bond foh $1,000 air good secuhity foh $900, what is the
-reason that a piece of land wuth $1,000 kain’t be good secuhity foh
-$500?”
-
-“The bond,” said the cashier, “could always be sold at par. It is not so
-easy to find a purchaser for land, even at half its value; it might be
-worthless, you know.”
-
-“I am not supposin’, suh, that the govuhment would loan money on
-wuthless land any moah than on counterfeit bonds. I’m talkin’ about sich
-land as ain’t wuthless, and kain’t evah be wuthless. I’m talkin’ about
-land that has an airnin’ capacity, when human labor is applied to it. I
-allow that sich land, when valooed honestly, and not countin’ any
-buildings or improvements, or anything that can be burned up or carried
-away—I allow that sich land is just as good security foh a loan of half
-its value, as any govuhment bond is security foh a loan of nine-tenths
-its valoo. If the land ain’t wuth nothin’, I’d like to know what the
-bond is wuth? As I argefy, all the valoo’s on the yearth, suh, bonds and
-banks and govuhments theyselves rest upon the land and the labah that
-tills it.”
-
-“But the amount of national bank notes that can be issued on government
-bonds is limited by law,” remonstrated the cashier.
-
-“Suppose they be. Kain’t the govuhment limit the amount of greenbacks it
-would loan on the fahms? Kain’t it allot jest so much to each State or
-to each county, or to each numbah of folks? I don’t see no use of a
-limit nohow. Govuhment don’t limit the bales of cotton or bushels of
-cohn, or numbah of hogs a man can raise, noh the tons of ihon he shall
-smelt, noh the numbah of days’ wuk he shall do in a yeah. What foh do
-they want to limit the numbah of dollahs that shall be made? Why not
-leave that to be settled outside of papah laws? If you raise cohn for
-which there is no demand you kain’t sell it, and if you print dollahs
-for which there is no demand you kain’t lend them. A dollah ain’t got no
-nateral valoo nohow. Ye kain’t eat it, noh drink it, noh weah it. Ye
-kain’t sleep on it, noh ride it, noh drive it around. A dollah is just a
-yahdstick foh the cloth, a scale foh the sugah, a quart measure foh the
-vinegah. Suppose govuhment went to limitin’ the numbah of weighin’
-scales and yahdsticks and gallon cans thar should be in the land, and
-then didn’t allow enough to be made foh to go around!—A nice fix the
-country stohs would be in wouldn’t they? You city folks would corral all
-the yahdsticks, and all the scales, and all the pint pots that the
-govuhment allowed to be made. You’d organize measurin’ companies and
-bowwow all the scales that the govuhment made, and pay nothin’ to the
-govuhment for the use of them; and then you’d hiah them out to folks at
-a big rent, and make the folks as hiad them leave half the measures on
-deposit with you, and you’d hiah that half again to other folks, and
-you’d squeeze the people, and squeeze ’em, and squeeze ’em, until you
-turned every man who wasn’t an ownah of measurin’ tools into a puffeck
-slave to them as was ownahs. That’s what you hev been a doin’ with us
-right along. I mean no disrespeck to you, suh, puhsonally, for you have
-treated me moh politely than a bankah usually treats his bowwowin’
-customahs; but you bankahs and capitalists have jest been a monkeyin’
-with the currency until you have got every fahmah, and wukin’ man, and
-stoahkeepah in the country tied hand and foot, with no chance to wuk at
-all unless they wuk foh you. We have been a lot of everlastin’ fools,
-suh, to stand it, and we aint a goin’ to stand it much longah.”
-
-“What will you do about it, Mr. Turpin?” said the cashier, quietly, but
-with a shade of satire in his tone.
-
-“I allow, suh, that we’ll tell the yawpers who run political conventions
-to get along without our votes, and we’ll elect men to the Legislatoor
-and to Congress, and mebbe a President, who’ll take their ideahs from
-the fahmas and wukahs of the Sooth and West, and who won’t go to Wall
-Street foh ohdahs; and we’ll give all the old questions a rest, and
-we’ll make it lonesome for the politicians who fight us, and we’ll kind
-o’ resolute that so long as this govuhment won’t let any State or any
-puhson go into the business of manufacturing money to supply the
-necessary wants of the people, it is likely that the govuhment itself
-ought to do it, and we’ll fix it so that no man who is willin’ to wuk as
-I am, and knows how to wuk as I do, and has land to plow as I have, will
-have to see his land lie fallow, and his boys loafin’ around, just
-bekase he kaint bowwow from nobody, even at ten per cent a yeah,
-one-fifth of the valoo of his land, to buy a few mules, and a plow or
-two, and some seed cohn.”
-
-“You will compel the government to go into the business of printing and
-loaning all the money that anybody wants, will you?” said the cashier.
-
-“Well, suh, I’m no bankah, and no lawyah, but I take it that it is the
-business of govuhment to provide all the money necessary foh the use of
-the people, and if the govuhment itself won’t do it, then let it untie
-the cohds it has put around States and people, and suffah them to do it
-foh theyselves.”
-
-“You would go back to the days of State banks and unlimited currency,
-Mr. Turpin, with a wild-cat bank at every crossroads, when the man who
-traveled never knew whether the bank bill he got in change, when
-purchasing his breakfast in Alabama, would buy him a supper in
-Tennessee,” said the cashier.
-
-“Well, suh, I remembah those days, and while they may not have been so
-agreeable foh those that traveled, they war a heap better foh folks as
-stayed at home. A wild-cat bank at the crossroads on White Creek, that
-would let me have $3,000 of its missuble money, which my neighbors would
-take in exchange foh mules, and the stohkeepah would take for goods, so
-that I could put in a crap on foh hundred akahs of the puttiest cotton
-land in Noth Alabama, would be a heap bettah foh me just now, suh, than
-a national bank with a plate-glass front, in Buhmingham, that won’t even
-look at the security I offah foh a loan. Good-day, suh.”
-
-And Mr. John Turpin, of White Creek, arose, and, with a heavy and
-sorrowful step, walked out of the Tenth National Bank of Birmingham,
-Alabama, and the rotund cashier smiled at the episode, and adjusted his
-gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and resumed his interrupted labors.
-
-Yet relief was in store for Mr. John Turpin, for on that very day the
-mail from New York to Washington carried the following communication:—
-
-                                         OFFICES OF DAVID MORNING,     }
-                                     39 Broadway, N. Y., Dec. 15, 1895.}
-
-  _To the President of the United States_—
-
-  SIR: Under certain conditions I will donate to the Government of the
-  United States the sum of $2,400,000,000 in gold bars, which I will
-  deliver to the treasury department at the rate of $100,000,000 per
-  month, during the ensuing two years.
-
-  The money coined from, or issued upon, these gold bars, shall
-  constitute a perpetual fund, to be loaned at two per cent per annum to
-  the farmers of the country, the fund never to be diminished or
-  appropriated for any other purpose, although the interest received
-  from it may be used to aid in defraying the ordinary expenses of
-  government.
-
-  The amounts to be loaned may be apportioned among the several States
-  and Territories, according to their populations as given by the last
-  census, but the loaning must proceed from, and be under the control of
-  a department of the Federal government, to be created by Congress for
-  that purpose. Loans may be made payable at any time, at the option of
-  the borrower, and may remain indefinitely, so long as the interest is
-  paid, and must be secured by pledge of productive land.
-
-  Not more than one-half the actual cash value of the land, without
-  estimating improvements, must be loaned, or more than $10,000 to any
-  one borrower, or more than $20 per acre in any case.
-
-  The celerity with which Congress, during the War of the Rebellion,
-  created an effective system of revenue and finance, leads me to the
-  conclusion that it will be equally apt in the creation of the
-  necessary legal machinery to speedily effectuate a permanent and safe
-  system for making loans to the people. I shall trust implicitly to the
-  wisdom and patriotism of Congress to carry out details if my gift is
-  accepted, as I think I may assume it will be, and I shall attempt no
-  interference with its action, even by suggestion, beyond stating the
-  conditions upon which the fund of $2,400,000,000 will be provided.
-
-  It will, possibly, not be out of place for me to assign here a few of
-  the reasons why I require that loans be limited to the owners of
-  productive land, and why I do not permit dwellers in towns and cities,
-  and those engaged in commerce and manufactures, to share in the
-  opportunity for procuring cheap money.
-
-  To this very natural inquiry I might answer that I have already
-  arranged in San Francisco, in Chicago, and in New York, for aiding
-  co-operative labor corporations to procure, at a low rate of interest,
-  the money necessary for their use; that I design extending similar aid
-  in other localities, and that I hear of several instances of other
-  gentlemen conveying large sums in trust for such purposes.
-
-  But the duty of aiding the farmers to cheap money is so great, and so
-  pressing, and extends to so many persons, and over so large an area,
-  that any concerted effort in such direction is not only beyond the
-  capacity of individual wealth owners, but requires the machinery and
-  power of government for its adequate discharge.
-
-  The farmers, of all men, most need the aid of capital, and of all men
-  they find it most difficult to secure such aid. For years before the
-  accidental, or, rather, providential, discovery of an immense deposit
-  of gold-bearing quartz in the Santa Catalina Mountains in Arizona
-  enabled me to attempt alleviation of some of the evils under which the
-  world suffers, I had observed that even when the manufacturing and
-  commercial interests of the land were in a fairly prosperous
-  condition, the farmers did not share in the general bounty, and I
-  observed that usually the produce of the farmers’ land could only be
-  sold at such low prices as left them, at the close of the season, a
-  little more in debt, and much more discouraged.
-
-  The official report of the Illinois State Board of Agriculture for
-  1889 exhibited the distressing fact that the corn crop of that State
-  for that year actually sold for $10,000,000 less than it cost to
-  produce it, and conditions since then have only slightly improved.
-  Even as I write, there are thousands of families all over the land,
-  not merely in a few localities where the crops have failed, but on the
-  virgin prairies of Dakota, on the rich soil of the Mississippi
-  bottoms, and in the fertile valleys of Virginia, who are in distress,
-  not because they have been idle or dissolute, but because their last
-  crops did not sell for enough to pay the cost of their production and
-  transportation to market, including interest at six, eight, and ten
-  per cent per annum on the value of the land.
-
-  Low prices, according to all standard writers on political economy,
-  are the direct results of a contracting currency, and a consequent
-  increasing scarcity of money, and the cost of production is not only
-  greatly increased by inability of the producer to obtain money except
-  at high rates of interest, but the terms upon which money can be had
-  at all are often so exacting as to discourage permanent improvement.
-  The farmer will not cultivate except for immediate crops if he sees no
-  hopeful outlook for the future, and not only fears but expects that
-  the mortgage he has given will, in the end, cause his home to be
-  transferred to a purchaser at sheriff’s sale.
-
-  The yield of the Morning mine has already largely increased the volume
-  of standard money all over the world, and this may do much toward
-  removing some of the unfortunate conditions to which I have referred;
-  but such yield may also have a tendency to discourage the loaning of
-  money on long loans, for men who have means to invest may prefer to
-  place them in property, the value of which must advance with the
-  increase of the volume of money, rather than in loans, the value of
-  which must remain stationary absolutely, and cannot but diminish
-  relatively.
-
-  It has been and will continue to be my purpose to use the gold
-  produced at the Morning mine, either in the purchase of existing
-  loans, or the making of new loans, so that whatever of loss may come
-  from diminution of the purchasing power of a dollar may fall not
-  altogether upon those who have loaned money, but in part upon those
-  who have deliberately or accidentally caused such increase. I suggest
-  that if such increase in the currency be caused by the government, a
-  similar moral obligation would rest upon it.
-
-  The addition of $2,400,000,000 to the currency of the country will
-  unquestionably largely increase all values. It will at the same time
-  encourage—nay, almost compel—capital to seek investment in active
-  industries rather than in dormant funds. For the present it will
-  supply those who can use money to advantage with a sure and convenient
-  method of obtaining it at a cheap rate of interest, while its ultimate
-  tendency must be to eliminate interest on money from the world’s
-  transactions, and bring money to what I conceive to be its true
-  function—a measurer of values only.
-
-  When no interest can be obtained for the use of money, then money will
-  cease to be the most valuable and become the least valuable form of
-  property, and the investor will be required to share the risk, if not
-  the labor, of producing values, instead of leaving this to others,
-  while he absorbs the profits to himself.
-
-  I believe that civilization is ready for this forward step. The
-  discovery of gold enough to compel it may have precipitated the
-  movement, but the movement would have come all the same if the Morning
-  mine had never been discovered.
-
-  There is not a single benefit which the donation of twenty-four
-  hundred millions of gold will confer upon the people of the United
-  States that might not equally be conferred by an act of Congress
-  providing for the issuance and loaning of the same number of paper
-  dollars, not based upon gold at all.
-
-  The credit of this great government used for the purpose of
-  accommodating the business, increasing the resources, and stimulating
-  the industrial activity of this great people, and, supported by the
-  indestructible and undepreciable security of land, would be quite as
-  solid a basis for twenty hundred millions of paper dollars as five
-  thousand tons of yellow metal.
-
-                             I am, Mr. President, your obedient servant,
-                                                         DAVID MORNING.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XXII.
-                 “The product of ill-mated marriages.”
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                               BERLIN, November 1, 1895.
-
-DEAREST MOTHER: What an insufferable egotist I must appear to you. A
-life made up of local coloring—a central figure with no accessories—a
-record of ways and means unwisely, perhaps, submitted to you, since they
-may only pain you. Better a gray and monotonous sea, without sail or
-sound, if so I could spare you the burden of apprehension which every
-anxious mother must feel for a destiny she has helped to direct.
-Following the train of argument, think you the loving Father acquits
-himself of responsibility when a helpless soul is launched for eternity?
-Truly no! and this conviction sustains my courage, and makes me unafraid
-to do my heart’s bidding.
-
-It has been an observation that the thing we most condemn in others, we
-shall find in ourselves. Many years ago I conceived a prejudice against
-the popular cry concerning the wrongs of woman, a movement affirmatively
-named “woman’s rights,” for while it undoubtedly aided some women in
-obtaining justice, its aim was largely the gratification of some
-hysterical ambition or some love of conspicuousness.
-
-Thus I am brought to question if, in my individual case, I am not
-exaggerating evils and magnifying wrongs by placing them under the
-strong light, if not of worldly criticism, at least of self-love and
-secret pride; if, instead of dealing soberly and wisely with flesh and
-blood, I am not following an ideal, or whether my matrimonial point of
-view is not interrupted by such inappreciable angles as seldom vex the
-eye of faith and perfect love.
-
-All these questions, and many more, I wish to make clear to my own
-conscience and your mind, that you may be able to advise me when, if
-ever, the time shall come for me to ask your loving counsel.
-
-To speak more personally, I conclude, after mentally reviewing the
-characteristics peculiar to my husband, the baron, that his faults are
-less of malice than of temperament, and that he would not really
-sacrifice any actual interest of his wife, not even her permanent peace
-of mind, any more than I would compromise those of the baron. If it were
-not so, I could less well afford the many hours of thought I give toward
-the fashioning of apologies for him, lest in my own mind I do him an
-injustice.
-
-But, so believing, I must take many things on trust, and, after all, I
-am full of faults myself, no doubt of it. You know it is a popular
-theory over here that American girls must be broken like bronco horses
-before they are fit for wives, and I must say that my own mouth is a
-little tender to the foreign bit already.
-
-We have invitations to a grand ball, although I have not yet seen them.
-Kindest love to papa, and a heart full of devotion for you, as always.
-When will you write to tell me you are coming to your affectionate
-daughter
-
-                                                                  ELLEN.
-
-
-         _From Mrs. Perces Thornton to the Baroness Von Eulaw._
-
-                                              BOSTON, November 10, 1895.
-
- _To my daughter, the Baroness Von Eulaw._
-
-DEARLY BELOVED CHILD: In these revolutionary times, the air thick with
-maledictions and curses, “the putrid breath of poverty, and the beetling
-brow of labor,” to quote the press, hot with greed for the ground they
-are slowly but surely losing—in these times I say, I am thankful that
-you, my child, are resting in the security of strong and wise rule.
-
-There seems to be no end to the vindictiveness of the common people
-here. Your father, as you are aware, is president of the new Aerial
-Navigation Company, and, although, as he says, his policy is
-unaggressive, and his weight of counsel unswervingly in the direction of
-the interests of the poor and the laboring classes, they seem determined
-to make the breach as wide as possible, and go so far as even to demand
-a division of the proceeds of every enterprise, based upon the labor of
-either brawn or brain, and insolently propose to tax the companies to
-the extent of what they call their “labor investment.”
-
-What nonsense! It makes me so mad I don’t know what to do. Papa says—he
-is always so conservative, you know—that the poor fellow who effected
-the invention of air navigation, really ought to have been paid better
-for it, but that he was a genius, with no common sense—none of them
-have, you know—and nearly starved, at that; that there is a man out
-West, whose name I have not heard, who is going to make it very warm for
-men concerned in such transactions as this, which he denounces as
-highway robbery, and in a short speech, wherein he maintained that labor
-was as much a factor and an investment as capital, in all successful
-enterprise, he called one Jack Spratt, and the other Jack Spratt’s wife,
-which simile pleased me immensely. We don’t know where it is going to
-end, but hope for the best.
-
-Now, my darling, I want to say how gratified I am at the contents of
-your last letter. In it I discern a spirit of what Christians call
-humility, very consistent and very encouraging, considering the noble
-personage whom you are so lucky as to have captured by your charms and
-graces alone, for of course your fortune had nothing whatever to do with
-it.
-
-If your husband were an American, I would advise you to stand up for
-your rights. American husbands, uxorious though they are, and they have
-earned the name, bring you no title, have no legitimate entrée to
-foreign courts, and even the most stupendous fortunes only inoculate and
-leave a scar. Really, the only clean business is an out and out
-marriage, love or no love, though, for the matter of that, one must feel
-toward the dear baron as the hero-worshiping woman said concerning the
-wife of Henry Ward Beecher, that she ought to be proud to bow her head
-and allow the great divine to pluck every individual hair out by the
-roots. “A most touching test of devotion,” I hear you say.
-
-Do write, my dear, and tell me all the court gossip. Since the
-California practice of shooting obnoxious editors has been introduced in
-Boston, there has grown up a virtual censorship of the press hereabouts,
-and the newspapers are as dull as death. Every woman’s character is kept
-in a glass case, and one would suppose the men graduated from a
-meetinghouse. In fact, the reading public who lived upon scandals are
-dying of _ennui_, hence, I have no news to write you to-day. Present me
-with continued assurance of high respect to the baron, and receive,
-yourself, my undying love.
-
-                                                            As ever,
-                                                        PERCES THORNTON.
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                              BERLIN, November 20, 1895.
-
-MY DEAR MOTHER: The grand ball, the mention of which seems to catch your
-fancy, is to be given at the Chateau d’Or, a magnificent edifice on the
-heights overlooking the river. Its turrets, and domes, and roofs, and
-arches, and balustrades, glitter against the background of bluest skies
-like shining gold—hence its name. Indeed, its architectural device is so
-cunningly conceived as to catch and fill the eye with radiant color like
-the facets of a diamond, while its proportions suggest all the beauties
-of form to be found in the scale of harmonized effects.
-
-It is just completed, and is a wonder. Its occupants are not much talked
-about; indeed, I do not even know who they are, though I fancy the baron
-does, for I recall that he replied curtly to my question concerning
-them, that I should not wish to know them, by which I fancied they might
-be Americans.
-
-Neither can I give you any idea of the bidden guests, although, of
-course, it promises to be a magnificent affair. As you know, in
-compliance with custom, I could, in no event, make excuse for
-non-appearance with my husband. Such women as accept their titles and
-position from their lords, are expected to follow, unquestioning, his
-leadership through all social labyrinths, and I am no exception to the
-rule.
-
-Dear mother, forgive me, if I say I feel very disinclined to these
-gayeties. Since our experiences at Mentone, I decided to give over all
-control of the exchequer into the hands of the baron, accepting only a
-regular stipend. I find this the only means of securing harmony and
-altercations weary and depress me overmuch. Wherefore it is I have lost
-interest in handsome toilets, and therefor it is I shall have nothing
-new for the occasion.
-
-Did papa receive my letter acknowledging and thanking him for his
-munificent gift? and does it occur to you that it is a good deal of
-money to invest in methods of pacification? But what is the remedy? This
-is a question I am puzzling my head about to a much larger extent, let
-me say, than about what I shall wear to the ball.
-
-The baron dines at home to-day, so I will close, in order not to be a
-moment late. You see I am growing to be a model wife, if not a heroic
-woman. I see the baron from my window beating a poor dwarf, at the
-entrance of the alley. He has lost at play. In haste and love, dear
-ones, adieu.
-
-                                        Faithfully your own,      ELLEN.
-
-
-         _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton._
-
-                                               BERLIN, December 2, 1895.
-
-DEAR MOTHER: Is there but one depth for a creature like him I call
-husband? What mockery in a name! What have I suffered for him, and what
-concealed in my pride! And this is my reward!—To have been made the dupe
-of a dastardly plot to ensnare cowardly victims! to have sullied my
-skirts with the dust of a usurer’s and gambler’s den! to have my name
-blazoned side by side with the modern Cora Pearls in every court journal
-in Europe! to have been led into the lair blindly, by one who is sworn
-to be my protector! to have followed in faith the man who could load the
-dice of his self-imposed despair, with a wife’s dishonor!
-
-But I must remember that all this is a riddle to you, and must read like
-the ravings of a maddened brain, so I will give you the story of my
-shame and rage, albeit it has probably already been telegraphed over two
-continents. Verily, it is too sweet a morsel to escape the newspapers.
-
-As I believe I mentioned to you, invitations were issued for a ball, to
-be given at the Chateau d’Or. I noticed that the occurrence was making
-rather a stir, and especially that the baron was unwontedly nervous over
-the event, insomuch that when I proposed sending regrets, he fell into a
-violent rage, and declared that I would ruin him, past and future.
-Naturally, I did not comprehend his meaning, but, seeming to take it so
-much to heart, I readily consented to accompany him, asking no further
-questions.
-
-Arrived at the place of what later proved to be a scene of the most
-disgraceful orgies, we entered the salon, and instantly my heart misgave
-me. There was present a mixed assemblage of people, among them a few
-whom I had met in the best circles—a few who seemed equally out of place
-with myself—and many of that nondescript quality found in every society,
-who defy comment. But not until we were presented to the receiving
-party, was my amazement at its climax. I am not yet sufficiently in
-possession of myself, to describe the magnificent apartments of the
-interior of this most superb mansion. All that wealth could bring from
-the uttermost ends of the earth, contributed to the sumptuousness of
-these most artistic apartments. No smallest detail had been forgotten in
-the programme for this entertainment, even to the grottoes with singing
-birds, and floes of ice in seas of wine.
-
-But the recollection is hateful, and I hurry on. The host was a tall,
-sinewy, middle-aged man, with a strongly-marked Hebraic cast of face,
-and an oily, obsequious manner, quite at variance with his prominent
-features. He greeted us with an air of the most profuse cordiality, and
-passed us along to a bevy of much-painted and overdressed, or, rather,
-underdressed women, who vied with each other in chattering society
-phrases.
-
-From the first moment, an undeniable air of dissoluteness pervaded the
-entire place, and I looked to the baron for an explanation. He pressed
-my arm nervously, and politely warned me to hold my tongue. There was no
-mistaking the animus of this party. It was revelry, riot, unrestraint.
-Answering a sign from the host, the baron soon left my side, and joined
-the convivialists, I being politely led to the main salon, where there
-was dancing.
-
-Pleading indisposition, I declined to take part, and remained aside
-observing the dancers. I noticed that many of the women were singularly
-lovely and exquisitely attired, but generally lacking in grace of
-movement and aplomb. I observed, also, groups of women, some of them
-deathly pale, others flushed with indignation, evidently discussing the
-situation, and the truth slowly dawned upon me that these were women of
-the demi-monde, and that I had been tricked into an attendance upon this
-reception.
-
-After two or three attempts I succeeded in bringing the baron to my
-side, much the worse for wine but quite docile. I demanded to be led to
-my dressing-room, and at first he temporized. Finding me insistent, he
-begged me to remain, promising to be among the first to depart at the
-proper hour. His conduct was unusually conciliatory, and when I referred
-to the character of the entertainment, his manner was full of conscious
-guilt, while he assured me that he would explain everything later, but
-that he dared not precipitate a scene by taking me home.
-
-At this juncture Count Volenfeldt, whom we knew, accompanied by the
-Prince of Waldeck, came our way, and, saluting, faced us, and, remarking
-somewhat satirically upon the unexpected numbers in attendance, gave me
-an opportunity to ask if his wife were present.
-
-“The countess is not here to-night,” replied the count, a little dryly.
-“She is not well.”
-
-“And my wife is here,” put in the prince bluffly, “but she will not be
-longer than till I shall have made my way through this crush.”
-
-“Let us join the prince’s party and leave this place at once,” said I.
-
-Meanwhile the music had for the moment ceased, and loud laughing and
-shrill voices, mingled with smoother tones and words of entreaty, were
-heard, and there was a simultaneous movement toward the dressing-rooms
-and places of exit. Suddenly word came back that the doors were locked,
-and the frightened lackeys had fled from their posts, with orders that
-no one should be allowed to leave the house. Then followed a scene of
-consternation and confusion,—wives demanding redress from their
-husbands, and husbands denouncing the violation of hospitality by their
-host, and through all the din the guttural tones and the piping taunts
-of the unsainted.
-
-Presently the tall form of Herr Rosenblatt showed, a head above the
-crowd, adding to his length the height of a fauteuil, upon which he
-balanced, with a drunken man’s nicety of poise, for he was drunk but
-coherent.
-
-“Gentlemen,” said he, “we have met together, as we have met before, for
-the purpose of proving which man among us has the staying qualities, and
-who is willing to risk his money in this little game. You come to me and
-say, ‘Open your doors, my lady wishes to go,’ but how many of you dare
-to go when I say to those who will go, ‘To-morrow I shall expose you,
-to-morrow you will sign over your estates to me, to-morrow you shall be
-ruined and I shall be winner.’ I did not make this party for your
-money—nor that you shall play, at my tables and lose, for that you have
-already done, but one thing I want which money will not buy,—social
-recognition,—and that you shall give me. You will not leave my house,
-gentlemen, till morning. The ladies will not talk about this
-entertainment. It is too beautiful; they will not attempt to describe
-it. Now, gentlemen, I bid you to stay and I shall make myself sure that
-you enjoy yourself. These remarks make it long for the champagne to
-wait, and the ladies, poor things, will be wanting refreshments. And
-such refreshments! Oh, _mon Dieu_, that the gods could sup with us,” and
-the speaker was helped caressingly to the floor.
-
-My dear scandalized mother, what did I do? I, an American girl, with the
-blood of heroes in my veins? Why, I remained and supped and smiled with
-the others, for not a man even tried the doors. Thereafter there was no
-restraint. It was, as I have said, a night of orgies. Each man felt that
-he was no more deeply involved than his neighbor, and that Herr
-Rosenblatt had told the truth when he said to all, that he held their
-fates in his fist, otherwise they would not have been there.
-
-He was right, the affair was not talked about except among themselves.
-But some mischievous astral,—some ubiquitous spirit of a reporter,—was
-floating about, and before twenty-four hours had elapsed, the court
-journals had published an account of the whole affair, comments
-included.
-
-Dearest mother, this letter is long, and I can write no more to-night. I
-have decided upon nothing so far. So soon as I have done so, I will
-write, but I must have time for reflection. In tears and love adieu.
-
-                                              As ever yours,      ELLEN.
-
-
-       _From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Professor John Thornton._
-
-BERLIN, December 5, 1895.
-
-MY DEAR, DARLING PAPA: I have your telegram telling me to come home
-without delay, also message for the American Minister in case I should
-need it, as well as that to my banker. Wise and loving provisions all,
-for my fortune is squandered, my home dishonored, and my heart more than
-broken, in that I perfidiously assumed to give a love which was not mine
-to give, and if I had obeyed my first impulse I should have been on the
-way to your arms, and to the dear old hearth I so thoughtlessly
-deserted. But can you understand me when I say that all this I have
-brought upon myself? I was not a child; I had a fitting experience and
-was of sound judgment. I knew I did not love this man as it was in me to
-love, indeed, I felt for him neither the admiration nor esteem which
-must form the basis of genuine passion. I respected, aye, coveted his
-position, his title, and I brought myself feebly to hope that some day I
-should be a devoted wife. I staked my future, as he staked my fortune,
-and lost. If the money was not his own to lose, neither was my heart
-mine to lose.
-
-One other test I have applied, and the result is in his favor. If I did
-love the baron as I might love another, would I be so ready with my
-revenge?—Verily, no; I would wear my life out in the effort to cancel or
-correct the wrong against myself. Sacrifice is the residue found in
-love’s crucible; passion is the flux which passes off in the process of
-retorting. In my crucible, alas! I find nothing but dross—the more the
-pity.
-
-And so I have decided to remain in Berlin for the present. I am
-sketching out my plans for the future, but they are crude and unformed,
-and are of a sort of lighthouse quality, meant to warn people of the
-rocky places. But more of this anon. Tell my mother, dearest papa, how
-condemned I feel to give her so much agony on my account. Don’t worry; I
-will be quite happy now that my mind is settled. Possibly we shall come
-over in a few weeks, but only possibly. I am sorry I wrote my last to
-mamma with so much feeling. Good-night, and good-by.
-
-                                               Your devoted,      ELLEN.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XXIII.
-                  “Happy peace and goodly government.”
-
-
-“Shut that door!” thundered the baron from over the washbowl in a
-Pullman car, as he stood half-dressed in a small apartment, taking his
-morning bath.
-
-“Who are you addressin’?” answered a pale-faced young man—who was
-passing—from under a broad, stiff-brimmed hat, the crown of which was
-encircled with the skin of a huge rattlesnake. “I reckon you want your
-nose set back about an inch anyhow, and I’m the man that can perform
-that little blacksmithin’ job right here.”
-
-The baron glanced at the gray-clad figure, with its gleaming silk
-’kerchief knotted carelessly, and arms akimbo, then down at the high
-boots with their fair-leather tops, behind which gleamed the ebony and
-silver handle of a bowie knife, and then, meeting the steady, mild blue
-eyes of the Arizona cowboy, said apologetically:—
-
-“Beg pardon. I thought it was the madam. She just left the compartment.”
-
-“You did, did you?” said the youth. “That’s what I allowed, en that’s
-why I tuk an interest in ye. Look a yer. That woman ain’t no slouch, and
-Gila monsters like you ain’t popular nohow, yearabouts, so you jest keep
-a civil tongue in your mutton head, an’ it’ll be all right.” And with
-the movement of a leopard, he glided quietly away, while the baron,
-after softly closing the door, sank into the nearest sofa, and awaited
-the return of his wife.
-
-“Benson,” shouted the keen-eyed brakeman. “Change cars for Tombstone,
-Nogales, Hermosillo, Guaymas, and all points on the Gulf of California.
-Passengers for Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San
-Francisco remain in the car.”
-
-The baron’s party consisted of the baroness and her maid, Professor and
-Mrs. Thornton, Doctor Eustace, who had accompanied the Von Eulaws from
-Europe, and Miss Winters, an old friend of the baroness and a graduate
-of a woman’s law school, who had left a thriving practice in Denver
-rather than sacrifice her life in the pursuit of a profession for which
-no woman is really fitted either mentally or physically. The party was
-_en route_ to Coronado Beach—the baron as one of a score of
-representatives selected by the emperor of Germany to attend the
-“dynamic exposition,” as it was generally designated.
-
-Six weeks or less before the Prime Minister of every recognized
-civilized power had received a letter couched in the following phrase.
-
-                                     OFFICES OF DAVID MORNING,         }
-                                 39 Broadway, N.Y., January 1, 1896.   }
-
-  To ................
-
-  I respectfully invite your government to appoint so many
-  representatives, not exceeding twenty in number, as it may desire, to
-  be present in San Diego, California, during the first week of April
-  _proximo_, to observe and report upon experiments which will then be
-  made in aerial and submarine navigation, and use of the new explosive
-  “potentite.” It is my hope to demonstrate that hereafter international
-  differences should be submitted for adjustment to a Congress or Court
-  of Nations, and that land and naval warfare—as at present
-  conducted—must come to an end.
-
-  The gentlemen who may be credentialed by you will be my guests upon
-  their arrival in San Diego—if they will so honor me—and I beg to be
-  informed at your early convenience, by cable, of the names of those
-  who may be expected.
-
-  I take the liberty of inclosing exchange on London for twenty thousand
-  pounds, to defray such expenses as your government may incur in
-  complying with my request.
-
-  I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
-
-                                                          DAVID MORNING.
-
-The fame of Morning, as the greatest wealth owner in the world, was now
-coextensive with civilization, and his invitation had been promptly and
-generally accepted. The Emperor Wilhelm II. chose for the German
-delegation, five of his most distinguished field marshals, five high
-officials of the German navy, five great civil engineers, and five
-members of the diplomatic corps. Among the latter was the Baron Von
-Eulaw, who was indebted for his appointment—although he did not know
-it-to an urgent unofficial representation made by the American envoy to
-the German Chancellor, to the effect that, for certain personal reasons,
-Mr. David Morning greatly desired the attendance of the Baron and
-Baroness Von Eulaw. Such a request from such a source was favorably
-considered, and the baron—greatly to his astonishment, for he had not
-been in favor at court since the affair at the Chateau d’Or—received the
-appointment.
-
-Professor Thornton and Doctor Eustace had received invitations to
-attend, and the baron, finding it convenient to leave Berlin in advance
-of the other members of the German delegation, sailed from Hamburg late
-in January, and, after a brief visit with his wife’s parents at Roxbury,
-the party journeyed to the Pacific Coast, to enjoy its climate and
-scenery for a month or more in advance of the “dynamic exposition.”
-
-“I feel,” said the baroness, as the train rolled out of Benson, “as if I
-had a renewed lease of life; these delicious airs stir the blood like
-wine, and, entranced with the perfume of almond and oleander and jasmine
-bloom, I forget that it is still midwinter in the East.”
-
-“You are drugged, madame,” said the doctor, slowly passing his finger
-scrutinizingly over the soft flesh upon his hand. “You could be lured to
-your death in a few hours by—I wonder what ails my hand?” he broke off
-meditatively, still feeling for the insidious and evasive little hair.
-
-“Cactus, sir,” put in an “old-timer” across the car, “and you ain’t got
-no use to look for it, if it does feel like an oxgad. I could hev tole
-you when I see you foolin’ around them fine flowers at the station, but
-you fellers hev all got to try it once; another time you’ll know
-better.”
-
-“This is Mr. Morning’s state, I believe,” observed the doctor, after the
-laugh at his expense had subsided, and all sat dreamily looking away to
-the dimly-outlined mountains in the distance, “and we must be nearing
-the place of the wonderful gold deposit, with the results of which he is
-rapidly revolutionizing the world.”
-
-“You are right, sir,” said a bright-eyed, smooth-shaven, portly
-gentleman, of forty years of age, who occupied an adjoining seat. “It is
-Morning’s state in every sense of the word. He has made it—industrially,
-politically, and socially. His enterprise and money have constructed
-great reservoirs, and laced the land with irrigating canals, and changed
-its wastes into orchards, and its deserts into lawns. He is the idol of
-its people, as he ought to be, and his ideas are embodied in our
-constitution and laws. They are all the product of his thought, from
-marriage contract-laws to abolition of trial by jury.”
-
-“Abolition of trial by jury,” said Doctor Eustace.
-
-“Yes, sir; at least the jury is composed of judges, instead of men who
-don’t know the plaintiff from the defendant, and we have no Supreme
-Court.”
-
-“No jury, and no Supreme Court!” observed Miss Winters. “What a capital
-idea. I shall come here to practice.”
-
-“Well, miss, if you practice law here, and wish to patronize the twelve
-men in a box, or enjoy the luxury of an appeal, you must bring your case
-in the United States Court, or take it there. In our State courts we
-have dispensed with all that ancient rubbish.”
-
-“Rubbish!” exclaimed the doctor.
-
-“Even so,” rejoined the stranger. “The judicial system in vogue
-elsewhere than in Arizona is as much a relic of barbarism as slavery or
-polygamy. It is no more fitted to the wants and enlightenment of the age
-than the canal boat for traveling, or the flint lock musket for shooting
-pigeons. Suppose you wish to recover a piece of land from a jumper in
-California or Maine, and one side or the other demands a jury trial.
-Every good citizen who is busy shirks duty as a juryman. Every
-intelligent citizen who reads the newspapers forms an opinion and is
-excused. From the residue—which is sure to contain both fools and
-knaves—you get twelve clerks, mechanics, laborers, merchants, farmers,
-and idlers—none of whom have any training in untangling complicated
-propositions, weighing evidence, remembering principles of law and
-logic, and according to each fact its just and relative importance.
-
-“After these twelve men have listened to a muddle of testimony,
-objections, law papers, and speeches, concluding with bewildering
-instructions, which half of them fail to remember, and the other half
-fail to understand, they retire to the jury room and guess out a
-verdict. The losing party appeals, and, after wearisome delay, the
-Supreme Court decides that ‘someone has blundered,’ and, without
-attempting to correct the error by a proper judgment, sends the case
-back for another trial, another batch of blunders, and another appeal.”
-
-“And how does your Arizona system correct the evils you depict?” queried
-the doctor.
-
-“We commence at the other end of the puzzle,” said the stranger. “We
-place the Supreme Court in the jury box. We have a preliminary court of
-three judges in each judicial district. Every plaintiff must first
-present his case informally to this court. He states on oath the facts
-he expects to prove, and gives the names of his witnesses. Any willful
-mis-statement of a material fact, is perjury. If the evidence would, if
-uncontradicted, entitle him to recover, an order is issued giving him
-leave to sue. In practice, not one-half of the proposed suits survive
-the ordeal. The saving of time and money is great. Under the old system,
-after a jury had been impaneled, and days consumed, the plaintiff might,
-after all, be nonsuited. Now it is all disposed of in an hour or two.
-The preliminary court practically puts an end to all blackmailing
-litigation.”
-
-“And when leave to sue is granted, what is the next step?” inquired the
-doctor.
-
-“The case is brought under the same rules of procedure as of old,”
-replied the stranger, “with only such changes as were necessary to adapt
-litigation to the new conditions. We have three judicial districts in
-the State, and nine judges for each district. Upon questions of law
-arising during the trial, the judges pass by a majority vote, and in
-making the final decision, from which there is no appeal, seven judges
-must concur.”
-
-“Does this system satisfy litigants?” asked the doctor.
-
-“Much better than the old method,” replied the stranger. “What honest
-litigant would not prefer to have his rights determined by nine men, who
-were trained to sift truth from error, who were honest and just, and
-without other duties to distract them, rather than by twelve men such as
-ordinarily find their way into the jury box? The judgment of seven out
-of nine judges will be as nearly right as human conclusions can well be,
-and people affected by it are better satisfied—even when they lose—than
-by the guess of a stupid and sleepy jury.”
-
-“Can the courts you have organized attend to all the business?” asked
-the doctor.
-
-“Easily,” was the rejoinder. “No time is consumed in procuring juries,
-and much less in objections to testimony. Arguments are abbreviated, and
-instructions eliminated. In practice, four cases out of five are decided
-from the bench.”
-
-“Are not the salaries of so many judges a heavy tax upon you?” asked the
-doctor.
-
-“The system costs the public treasury less than the old one,” was the
-reply. “Many court expenses are dispensed with, and the expense to
-litigants is reduced, although the loser is now compelled to pay the fee
-of his opponent’s attorney, which is fixed by the court.”
-
-“As you have no court of appeals, I suppose no record is made of court
-proceedings,” remarked the doctor.
-
-“Oh, yes, each court room is provided with one of the new automatic
-noiseless receiving and printing phonographs.”
-
-“And how about lawyers who have bad cases?”
-
-“They endeavor to take them into the United States Court, where the old
-practice prevails.”
-
-“Beg pardon, ma’am,” said the Pullman conductor, approaching Mrs.
-Thornton, “but we are passing over the new line, which runs north of
-Gila River, and a view may be had of the sleeping Montezuma now, and the
-passengers generally like to see it.”
-
-“The sleeping Montezuma! What is that?” asked the lady addressed.
-
-“It is the giant figure of an Indian resting on his back on the top of
-the mountain. You can see it now quite plainly from the right-hand
-windows of the car.”
-
-And across the plain—in centuries gone densely peopled by some
-prehistoric race, and then for centuries a waste, and, since the
-completion of the Gila Canal, a checker-board of orchard, vineyard, and
-meadow, the eye looked upon the lavender-tinted mountains to the
-northward, and it required no aid from the imagination to behold, upon
-the summits of those mountains, the profile of a stately figure and
-majestic face, with a crown of feathers upon the brow, lying upon its
-back.
-
-Once there lived, in the shadow of this giant, a race, of which traces
-may still be found in mounds containing pottery, and in the ruins of
-great aqueducts, and in stone houses seven stories in height, a portion
-of the walls of which are still standing.
-
-“The Indians hereabouts have a story,” said the conductor, “to the
-effect that Montezuma went to sleep, when the sun dried up the waters,
-and his people died, and they say now that Morning’s canal is making the
-country green again, the old chief will awaken.”
-
-“You were saying,” said Doctor Eustace, by way of suggestion to the
-stranger, “that there are some peculiar marriage contract laws here.”
-
-“It is all expressed, sir, in the preamble to the law, and in the law
-itself, a copy of which I happen to have with me, as I am on the way to
-attend court at Yuma. Here it is,” and he offered the book to Professor
-Thornton.
-
-“Read it aloud, professor,” said the doctor, and the professor read:—
-
-“The Senate and Assembly of the State of Arizona recognizes the truth
-that not easy divorce laws, but easy marriage laws, are at the root of
-the conjugal evil; that men and women have been accustomed to marry,
-disagree, and divorce in less time than should have been allowed for a
-proper period of betrothal; that the loose system now prevailing often
-results in children destitute of the inherent virility of virtue and
-affection; that no adequate defenses have hitherto been builded for the
-protection of young females too unthoughtful and too trusting; that the
-laws underlying the physical as well as the mental constitution, with
-their multiple of subtile, gravitating, and repellant forces, have
-hitherto been wholly unstudied, or disregarded; that the arbitrary
-conditions of society compel woman to accept marriage, in violation of
-her higher aims; that in certain human organizations the conditions
-created by propinquity are altogether false and ephemeral; that certain
-other human organizations are, by nature, filled with inordinate vanity
-and self-love, which qualities, beguiling the judgment, constitute
-fickleness and instability of purpose, and that the true solution of the
-great social problem is likely to be found in preventive rather than in
-remedial laws. Therefore, be it enacted”—
-
-“Hold up, John,” said Dr. Eustace. “That is all my mentality can
-assimilate without a rest. Are you not reading from an essay by Mona
-Caird, or a novel by Tolstoi? Is that really and truly the preamble of a
-law enacted by a Western Legislature? Have all the cranks, and all the
-theorists, and all the moonstruck, long-haired, green-goggled reformers
-on earth, been turned loose in Arizona?”
-
-“Doctor,” said the professor solemnly, “the truth is a persistent fly,
-that cannot be brushed away with the wisps of ridicule. The Arizona
-legislators have fearlessly attempted to deal with conditions which
-every close observer of our social life knows to be existent.”
-
-“Papa,” said the baroness, interestedly, “in what way is it proposed to
-deal with the problem? Please read further.”
-
-“The law is too lengthy,” said the professor, after glancing over a few
-pages, “to be read in detail, but I will summarize it for you. Marriages
-are declared void unless the parties procure a license, which can only
-be issued by an examining board of men and women, composed in part of
-physicians, and in part of graduates of some reputable school, dedicated
-to physiological observations and esoteric thought and investigation.”
-
-“Anything about ability to boil a potato or sew on a button?”
-interrupted the doctor.
-
-“Peace, scoffer,” said the professor. “It seems to be required that all
-applicants for license shall have had an acquaintance of at least one
-year, and be under marriage engagement for six months, and shall pass
-examination by the board upon their mutual eligibility, as expressed
-through temperament, complexion, tastes, education, traits of character,
-and general conditions of fitness.”
-
-“Is red hair, or a habit of snoring, or a fondness for raw onions,
-considered a disqualification?” queried the doctor.
-
-The professor, ignoring the interruption, continued: “It is required
-that one or both of the applicants shall possess property of sufficient
-value, to support both of them for one year, in the manner of life to
-which the proposed wife has been accustomed.”
-
-“A gleam of common sense at last in a glamour of moonshine,” said the
-doctor. “But how can such a marriage law be enforced?”
-
-“The act provides,” said the professor, “that children born to parties
-who have no license, shall be deemed born out of wedlock, and all such
-children, as well as all children born to extreme poverty or degrading
-influences, may be taken from their parents and educated at the public
-expense.”
-
-“How does this experiment of turning the State into a moral kindergarten
-for adults, and wet-nursery for infants, succeed?” said Doctor Eustace
-to the stranger.
-
-“The law was enacted only a few weeks since,” replied the gentleman,
-“and it is too soon to answer your question.”
-
-“Humph! have you any more of such revolutionary legislation?”
-
-“Nothing so important as the marriage contract act, but on page 72 you
-will find some provisions of law which may interest you.”
-
-The doctor read:—
-
-“Women who perform equal service with men shall be entitled to recover
-an equal sum for their labor, and all contracts made in derogation of
-this right shall be void.”
-
-“Good!” applauded Miss Winters.
-
-Again the doctor read:—
-
-“The men who represent the State of Arizona in the United States Senate
-shall be chosen by a majority of the voters, and not by the Legislature,
-as in other States of the Union, and no man, however favored, shall be
-eligible for the position whose property interests, justly estimated,
-exceed in value the sum of $100,000.”
-
-“That will exclude Mr. Morning from the millionaires’ club, will it
-not?” queried Dr. Eustace.
-
-“Yes, sir,” answered the stranger, “but he favored the law. Of course,
-under the United States Constitution, this section is not legally
-operative; but it is morally binding, and the Legislature has always
-elected to the Senate gentlemen who were previously designated by the
-people at the polls, and thus far no man suspected of solvency has
-ventured to be a candidate. Arizona is friendly to progressive
-legislation. You will find our law for the prevention of cruelty to
-animals on page 56; it may interest you.”
-
-The professor read:—
-
-“Any person or persons convicted of having beaten, abused, underfed,
-overworked, or otherwise maltreated any horse, mule, dog, or other
-animal of whatever kind, may thereafter be assaulted and beaten by any
-person who may desire to undertake such task, without the assailant
-being responsible civilly or criminally for such assault.”
-
-“That,” said the doctor, “to quote a Boston girl on Niagara Falls, ‘is
-neat, simple, and sufficient.’ Have you any further novelties in the way
-of legislation to offer?”
-
-“Our law of libel is in advance of all other states,” said the stranger;
-“you will find it on page 163.”
-
-The professor read:—
-
-“Any man or woman or newspaper firm lending themselves to the
-dissemination of scandal, or defamation of private character, to the
-moral detriment of innocent parties, shall, on conviction, be adjudged
-outlaws, and may be lawfully beaten or killed at the pleasure of the
-party injured.”
-
-“Lord,” said the doctor, piously raising his eyes, “now lettest thou thy
-servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have beheld thy glory.”
-
-“We take a great deal of pride in that libel law,” said the stranger.
-“It has inspired a degree of courtesy on the part of Arizona editors
-that would have made Lord Chesterfield ashamed of himself. The Yuma
-_Sentinel_, which was accustomed to personal journalism, lately alluded
-to a convicted highwayman as ‘a gentleman whose ideas on the subject of
-property differ from those of a majority of his fellow-citizens;’ and
-the Tucson Star, which used to be the chief of slangwhangers, reviewed a
-sermon and spoke of Judas Iscariot as ‘that disciple whose conduct in
-receiving compensation in money from the Romans for his services as a
-guide, has caused his memory to be visited by all religious
-denominations with great, and probably not altogether undeserved,
-criticism.’ But we are at Yuma, sir, and I must bid you good-by. Boats
-run up the river from here to Castle Dome. There is an excellent hotel
-here. Tourists usually stop over to visit the Gonzales place, and I
-suppose you will not neglect the opportunity. The house is a marvel of
-beauty. It was built by direction of Mr. Morning.”
-
-“Does he live there when at home?” queried the baroness.
-
-“Oh, no, madame! The Gonzales family nursed Morning through an attack of
-fever, after he was shot by the Apaches near the old Gonzales hacienda
-several years ago. The Señorita Murella never left his bedside for
-weeks. Really, the doctors say the girl saved his life. He was,
-naturally, very grateful, and, when he recovered, he bought the Castle
-Dome rancheria from the Indians, and had a rock tunnel run into the
-Colorado River, and took out the water and carried it in irrigating
-canals over a thousand acres of land, which he had planted in oranges,
-lemons, vines, olives, and other fruit. It will pay a princely revenue
-to the Gonzales people in a few years.
-
-“Morning ordered built upon the dome overlooking the river the most
-beautiful marble palace on the coast, and they say it is not surpassed
-anywhere on earth. The whole business must have cost him several
-millions, but money is nothing to him. The place is kept up in princely
-style by the Señora Gonzales and her daughter. They entertain a great
-deal of company, and are always delighted to welcome strangers who may
-visit the place.”
-
-“And I suppose that Aladdin is a constant visitor at his palace?”
-sneered the baron.
-
-“Morning? Oh, no; strangely enough, he has never been near the place
-since its completion, two years ago! Too busy, I suppose, helping the
-world out of the mud. But he is on the coast now, preparing for his
-‘dynamite exposition,’ and may put in an appearance here.”
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XXIV.
-                  “A hospitable gate unbarred to all.”
-
-
-“All aboard for Castle Dome,” and the baron’s party filed up the
-carpeted gang plank, and looked smilingly about them.
-
-“I have often heard of the sumptuousness of the Mississippi steamers,
-now grown traditional, but this exceeds even their reputation,”
-commented Miss Winters.
-
-“This is the Morning line, madame,” answered the gaudily-dressed steward
-boastfully, “and they do nothing by halves, you know,” and he pompously
-led the way to the ladies’ saloon.
-
-“Except by half millions,” returned the doctor jocosely.
-
-“These steamers were built for the accommodation of the people who came
-to the World’s Fair at Chicago,” explained the steward. “Morning’s a
-queer sort of fellow”—and he grew confidential. “He could have brought
-his air ships and new-fangled things, such as he had on exhibition at
-the fair, but he wouldn’t. He said it was kind o’ throwing off on
-nature, that God never made but one Colorado River, and he for one
-hadn’t the brass to discount it.”
-
-“Do you have many visitors belonging to the nobility?” asked Mrs.
-Thornton, evidently inclined to change the conversation from its
-personal trend.
-
-“Oh, lots of ’em! There’s a Spanish count and an Italian prince stopping
-up at the Gonzales place now. The Italian has been there some time,
-making himself solid with the señorita, I reckon. And we are expecting a
-party this week, Baron Von Boodle, or some such name, with his
-friends”—here the baron rose abruptly and walked out of the saloon—“at
-least Mr. Morning telegraphed the captain from San Diego that when this
-party arrived he meant to run over here and make his first visit to
-Castle Dome, which will be an event, for, after all the millions of
-money he has spent on the place, he has never been near it, and
-everybody is wondering at it.”
-
-After a night’s rest at the great Rio Colorado Hotel, built upon the
-bluff at Yuma, the party had made an early start, and had been on board
-the _Undine_ for some time before the line was thrown in and the steamer
-began to move.
-
-The steward bustled away, and the baroness rose, with a deep breath of
-relief, and walked to the mirror. It may have been observed of many
-women that any new or sudden sensation or condition or emotion suggests
-a looking-glass. Not that they see or are thinking of themselves, but
-they seem thus best able to collect their thoughts. So it was with this
-woman, only that now she did observe two very bright eyes and a radiant
-face, with the swift blood coursing back from her cheeks, across the
-smooth white surface of her neck, to the closely-defined growth of
-hair—that oracle of beauty which no ugly woman ever wore, whatever her
-features. She turned quickly away, and, following the doctor and her
-father, the three ladies went out to view the scenery.
-
-“You observe this bend in the river,” a voice was saying, “where many a
-poor fellow has gone to his death, for there swoops the most fatal pool
-of eddies, perhaps, to be found in the whole channel of these whimsical
-waters.”
-
-The baroness turned to look for the speaker, whose voice seemed
-familiar, and there, under the shade of the awning, in full silhouette,
-looking in the face of her husband, with whom he was pleasantly
-conversing, stood David Morning.
-
-Her first thought was to retreat to the saloon and wait for him to
-present himself, but as his swift eye swept the deck, he caught sight of
-her face, and came quickly over, followed by the baron, saying, as he
-cordially took her hand, and held it closely for a long time, “I enjoy
-one advantage over you, baron, my acquaintance with the baroness dates
-back of yours. I hope she has not forgotten me.”
-
-The woman made no reply to this remark; she simply said, “How do you do,
-Mr. Morning,” and presented him to her friends.
-
-The brief trip up the river among the cliffs and cascades and whirlpools
-and caves and cañons and towering cathedral rocks, furnished prolific
-and auspicious topics for conversation, but it need not be said that
-neither the baroness nor Mr. Morning knew altogether what they were
-talking about. She could not fail to see the pupils of his sea-grey eyes
-grow very large when he looked at her, and he in turn observed that she
-scarcely looked at him at all.
-
-The professor talked a little dryly at first, and Mrs. Thornton sat
-apart, evidently nursing her chagrin, for Mr. Morning was at this moment
-not only the wealthiest but the most famous and powerful man in all the
-world, and, had he sought it, could have obtained orders of high
-nobility from every crowned head in Europe. The baron, who would have
-seen “Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt,” if that brow possessed the
-attribute of Midas, looked at the situation from an altogether different
-standpoint, and was thinking at what period of the new-formed
-acquaintance it would be prudent to ask the loan of a few, or, possibly,
-more than a few, thousand pounds.
-
-Presently the boat rounded into a little cove and stopped. The brief but
-eventful journey was over, and the party stepped from the boat to a
-flight of marble-flagged steps, leading up to shining floors, out of
-which arose columns supporting a light roof in Pagoda style. Easy
-swinging seats, with hammocks and tables, with a few racks and stands,
-completed the pretty “Rest” for the landing, and the party began to look
-about for the path of ascent.
-
-Suddenly a tinkling sound was heard, and, softly as if it fell from the
-clouds, a car, sumptuously carpeted, cushioned, and canopied, appeared
-before them. It was, evidently, meant for the accommodation of the
-party, and one by one they stepped in. Morning was the last to follow,
-and as he came aboard and closed the plate-glass door, it shut with a
-tinkle, and the car arose, moving proportionately aslant as the grade of
-the terrace—which had been fashioned and grown in the short space of two
-years—inclined.
-
-“My invention works like a charm,” Morning was heard to mutter to the
-outer air, as they neared the summit and surveyed the height. The
-awe-filling overhanging crags, thousands of centuries old, had been
-blasted and chiseled and coaxed into shelves, and steps, and nooks, and
-resting-places, softly carpeted with moss, and decorated with growing
-ferns and lichens. The wind came down the river and shook the leaves
-above their heads, and stirred the birds into a flood of song, and larks
-sat upon the twigs and warbled with joy.
-
-“Only two years,” said Miss Winters, as they stepped from the car; “’tis
-not so long in which to make a beautiful world.”
-
-“It is much more difficult to people it with the right sort,” mused
-Morning.
-
-“The first builders had to try that two or three times, if my memory
-serves me,” remarked the doctor.
-
-“Are these people of the right sort?” asked Mrs. Thornton significantly.
-
-The baroness shot a quick glance at Morning, and looked over at her
-rather too loquacious maternal.
-
-“I am too much of an ingrate to answer for them,” said Morning,
-undismayed. “I only know that I owe them my life, and that I have never
-had the grace to come and thank them.”
-
-They had now arrived at the main entrance to the grounds, and the scene
-presented was one of indescribable beauty and splendor. The dazzling
-proportions of the structure rose into the air with such exceeding
-lightness and grace of outline, melting away against the silvery
-softness of the clouds, that it seemed swinging in the ambient air, and
-only for the cornices and columns and spires and turrets of onyx and
-agate which defined the outlines against the sky, one would look to see
-it float away like dissolving views of the Celestial City. The
-magnificent dome was rounded with bent and many-colored glasses, the
-eloquent figures storying events of history both classic and local, in
-pigments not known since the days of Donatello, who went mad because his
-figure could not speak. And there, upon its pedestal of purest
-alabaster, stood the chaste statue of Psyche, just as Morning had hewn
-it out of his captious fancy so long ago, and Cupid opposite, half
-eager, half evasive, and restless. Ah, well! and he looked into the
-deep, appreciative eyes of the woman by his side, and said not a word.
-
-Having selected the most thoroughly skilled architects, artists, and
-artisans, and no limit having been placed to expenditure, it was evident
-that every detail of Morning’s plan had been faithfully executed. But
-beyond this his power, or, rather, his supervision or direction, had
-ceased. At last it was the estate and home of the Gonzales family and
-not his own, and concerning its management, or the manner in which they
-should enjoy it, he did not offer even a suggestion. Morning’s
-instructions, left with the Bank of California more than two years
-before, were to pay all checks signed by the Señora or the Señorita
-Gonzales, no matter what amount, and charge them to his account.
-
-The Gonzales family had taken their good fortune with great equanimity.
-Their inclinations led them to a generous and exceedingly promiscuous
-hospitality, and they had not hesitated to arrange the ménage of their
-household without regard to conventionalities. Instead of the solemn and
-ubiquitous functionary at the open door, there was vacancy, while the
-party stood upon the tessellated floor of the broad vestibule for
-several minutes.
-
-Presently a young Spaniard in boots and clanking spurs, with
-silver-laced sombrero and flaming tie, threw wide the door, and
-simultaneously Morning caught a glimpse through an open court of a
-female figure leaning upon the rosewood balustrade, mounted with a cable
-of silver, which surrounded a corridor, and idly tossing with her fan
-the light, half-curling locks of a man who sat upon a low seat, resting
-his head against her knee.
-
-It was only a glance as the sun strikes against the steel, sharply
-cutting its way upon the eye, or like the incisive impress of some
-exceptional face in passing, whereby one seizes every detail of color
-and form, void of conscious effort. It was easy to recognize the
-graceful outline of the swaying figure as she sat poised under the
-sunlight, and swift and unbidden even as the _coup d’œil_ was, the
-senses of David Morning thrilled with gladness. Was it the sight of
-Murella again that sent that shaft of ecstasy through his soul? or was
-it the all up-building, all-leveling lesson that the Señorita Gonzales
-was being amused?
-
-The arrival of the party had been manifestly unexpected, and no formal
-announcement was made, but no sooner had they entered the magnificent
-reception hall at one extremity than Señorita Gonzales appeared at the
-other. She entered with a movement of the most exquisite grace, robed,
-rather than dressed, in a gown of acanthus green satin, flowing in the
-back from the half-bared neck to the gold-embroidered border of the
-demi-train. The front was gathered at the shoulder and fell with lengths
-of creamy lisse to the perfect foot, with its slippers of gold. A
-corselet of rich embroideries rounded the waist. The sleeves were
-loosely puffed and draped with softest lace to the white and flexible
-wrist, while the web-like lace of her mantilla rested lightly upon the
-shining coils of her abundant hair.
-
-As Mr. Morning advanced toward the center of the room to greet his
-beautiful hostess, she drew an audible breath, and lifted her
-finely-arched brows, but no sign betrayed other emotion. Mr. Morning
-presented his friends in the most casual and easy manner, but when the
-Baroness Von Eulaw came forward, taller by some inches than the Señorita
-Gonzales, and with an exquisite manner was about to speak, the little
-hostess, with an air of special affability and simplicity, asked,
-showing her small white teeth the while:—
-
-“To who owe I a the honor of this visite of a noble baroness?”
-
-It was a bombshell in satin and lace which fell at the feet of Morning,
-and for an instant he saw no way to the rescue of the baroness. Then,
-rallying, he quickly replied:—
-
-“To the reputation for hospitality of the fair owner of this house, and
-that of her charming family.”
-
-“I no know if my name travel so long time a,” she rejoined, looking at
-Morning.
-
-The baron then came forward, and, politely holding her fingers, said in
-Spanish, “I hope that the Señorita and Señora Gonzales are quite well,
-as who should not be in this Italy of rare delights?”
-
-“Oh, Italy! that is the home of my parteekler friend. He paint Italia,
-he sing Italia, and he make me promise for go many times.”
-
-“That settles it,” Morning muttered sententiously, but no one heard.
-
-Then the conversation became general, the baroness commenting kindly
-upon the encroachments upon the time of the señorita in receiving
-curious visitors.
-
-“Oh,” retorted Murella with pretty nonchalance, “I no care! I lofe amuse
-myself,” leading the way to the main saloon. “I haf always parteekler
-frent, same as baroness, ess it not?” and she sank indolently into the
-cushioned depths of a primrose sofa, waving the baroness to a place
-beside her, and leaving the party to make choice of seats.
-
-A glance at the original design and superb appointments of this interior
-suggested the incongruity of hammocks and _ollas_, yet here they were
-many times repeated, for “ice is the devil’s nectar,” runs a Spanish
-proverb, and the _olla_ has no rival save the mescal jug.
-
-Every well-to-do Mexican family keeps beneath its roof a corps of female
-retainers, who are neither servants nor guests, but something between
-the two. They dine—except on occasions—at the family board, and mingle
-always at the family gathering, but they assist in the household labors,
-and sometimes, though not often, receive a stated money compensation.
-They are usually relatives, more or less distant, of the mistress of the
-household. The beautiful casa and great wealth of the Gonzales family
-had nearly depopulated the neighboring Mexican State of Sonora of all
-the needy Alvarados who could claim kinship with the Donna Maria, and a
-dozen of these señoritas now appeared shyly at the doors, their
-mantillas closely drawn, though the day was warm, and many voices and
-excellent music were heard from all quarters of the house and grounds.
-
-After a few moments the Señora Gonzales, with her brother, Don Manuel
-Alvarado, who acted as major-domo of the estate, were presented, but the
-señora soon glided away unobserved, leaving her brother to the honors of
-guide over the mansion.
-
-“You are very beautiful,” spoke Murella with apparent naiveté, as they
-arose to follow the party who had preceded them.
-
-The smile of the baroness was tinged with bitterness as she turned to
-look into the Madonna face beside her, and ventured to reply.
-
-“And Señor Morning lofes you like heaven and the angels,” she continued
-unctuously.
-
-“Señorita, you forget that I have a husband.”
-
-“Is he jealous?”
-
-“Surely no,” replied the baroness sincerely.
-
-“Then I no know what you mean a.”
-
-“I mean that I owe a wife’s duty to the baron,” slowly, with rising
-color.
-
-“And what you owe a to the other fellow?” meaning Morning.
-
-The baroness was too much confused to speak.
-
-“You know him a long time?”
-
-“Before I married the baron and went abroad.”
-
-“And you lofe him all these a year? Oh thunner!”
-
-Murella’s English must be taken with many grains of allowance. The
-strongest words in a foreign or unfamiliar tongue seem ineffectual and
-weak.
-
-“I must plead the indulgence of a guest,” laughed the baroness, “and
-withdraw myself from the searching operations of your cunning catechism,
-or turn the lights upon you. How long have you known—”
-
-But the señorita had softly glided away, standing apart and giving
-hurried orders for luncheon.
-
-Morning was in a dilemma. It will have been observed that, after the
-first moment of greeting, Murella had given him no farther thought.
-Gratitude is not with the Spaniard one of the cardinal virtues, as he
-was aware, so that was an unvexed question. If his name had not been so
-prominently before the world, doubtless they would—the entire family
-included—have forgotten it ere this. But was it pique, was it pride, or
-was it embarrassment, that led Murella to thus overlook him?
-
-Certainly she had recognized the baroness at the first glance, to his
-amazement and bewilderment, for the episode of her examination and
-temporary custody of the photograph was unknown to him, and just so
-surely her first impulse had been to render that lady as uncomfortable
-as possible. But, with her usual swift sagacity, she had, with an eye
-single to her own cunning tactics, quite changed her base of action,
-and, with admirable finesse, proceeded at once to make a friend of the
-baroness, through her charming frankness and unsophisticated
-confidences. The steady, unflinching eye of Morning, therefore, while
-trained as the eagle’s to catch the fiercest rays of the noonday sun,
-could no more follow the erratic and elusive movements of the elfish
-fancy of this fascinating woman than the eye of his horse could follow
-the flash of a meteor.
-
-“Come, señora,” said Murella to the baroness a moment later, “I know the
-ting you was ask a me, how long time I know Señor Morning lofe a you.”
-
-The baroness knew that she had not meant to ask any such question, but
-rather how long the señorita had known Mr. Morning. But she had scarcely
-opened her lips when Murella talked on.
-
-“You tink I no know lof when a I see a? Eh! what that on his face when
-he a tak a your hand for make a me know you Baroness Von Eulaw? Eh? what
-you call proud, courage, lof, beautiful life!” and her flashing eyes
-burned like stars in heaven’s night.
-
-Strange caprice! the track was cold over which she had set out to run
-the race for a life, and many a prize had been won and thrown away since
-then, and now she was burning with the wish that her rival should gain
-that which she had lost. Was it magnanimity, or was it a natural-born
-desire to defraud some man of his marital rights, and give some woman a
-victory?
-
-“Now we will go to the Morning room so I call a;” and together they
-walked over the exquisite mosaic floors, and halls of parquetry, and
-stairway glittering as the sun, and figures of classic art looked down,
-and fold on fold of hues of soft-blent shadows dropped from tinted panes
-and fell around them. In apparently the most casual way they passed a
-studio filled with light and color, where, in violet velvet blouse, and
-cap upon his poetic locks, worked and smoked the master of Italian art.
-
-“This is my parteekler fren—the Baroness Von Eulaw, Señor Fillipo,” and
-they hurried on.
-
-Arrived at the suite, they first entered the dressing room. It was
-plainly finished in French gray, with gold and blue enamel, the same
-colors repeated in drapery and cushions. But one piece attracted
-particular attention. It was an alabaster fountain, the elaborate
-accessories half concealing a full-sized bust of Morning, the identity
-of which could not be mistaken. It was exquisitely chiseled, and falling
-jets, and icy foam, and cascades like cobwebs, built up masses of soft,
-misty whiteness, shutting back all save an incidental glimpse of
-outline, and thickening by contrast the boldness of the water plants at
-the base.
-
-“A very pretty conceit,” said the baroness, approvingly. “Who is the
-designer?”
-
-“Me,” said the señorita, coldly, leading the way to the main chamber, to
-which apartment Murella carried the key. Unlocking the door, the
-baroness had scarcely time to take in the mute, indescribable effects of
-the auroral tints on the walls, stippled and faded into thinnest ether,
-with its golden sky overspread with winged cherubs in high relief, laid
-in tints such as are only painted on angels, when the baron’s party were
-heard approaching. One thing, however, had struck the baroness, even at
-a cursory glance. The dust lay thick and undisturbed over all the
-furniture of the room. A superb curtain of corn-colored brocade hung
-over one end of the apartment, which also showed signs of not having
-been disturbed at least for a term of many months. A gesture of
-impatience was made by Murella as she spoke, in an irascible tone of
-voice, “What for a he bring a they here?”
-
-However, the party, following their guide, entered, expressing surprise
-at finding the ladies had preceded them.
-
-The baron at once walked over and engaged their pretty hostess in
-conversation, laughing genuinely at her piquant expressions and
-unworldly-wise ways, while Morning talked about some irrelevant thing
-with Miss Winters, and the rest of the company sauntered to the remoter
-quarters of the apartments. Mrs. Thornton, however, coveted a view
-behind the maize curtain, and to this end plied the major-domo with such
-blandishments as were at her command, and using vigorously the little
-Spanish she possessed. The Spaniard turned to look for the señorita—she
-had momentarily disappeared with the baron—and he flung aside the fatal
-curtain.
-
-There, in a regal frame, in a painting by the famous hand of Prince
-Fillipo Colonna, master of arts in the Royal Academy at Rome, appeared
-two full-sized figures. They were those of David Morning and Señorita
-Gonzales. It was an interior of an adobe house. The saints upon the mud
-walls, with rosaries suspended beneath them, and the crude decorations
-about the fireplace, with the hammocks in the shadow were dimly visible.
-Light came in through a low window, and fell upon the white face of
-Morning, just tinged with returning health. One hand held suspended a
-pencil, while with the other, just discernible from out the shadows, he
-clasped the girlish figure of Murella Gonzales.
-
-It was a master work of art, and more than condoned all malicious or
-vain intent on the part of the author. The expression upon Morning’s
-face was one of placid amusement, while that upon the girl’s was anxious
-and arch, questioning and trusting, open, yet elusive, like the mimosa
-growing sturdily from the potted earth in the rude casement, which
-receded at a sound of the human voice. The noble artist had evidently
-caught an inspiration from the local color—filtrated through the hot
-brain of the lovely señorita—and had touched the face of Morning with
-the light of his lovely companion.
-
-Mr. Morning had just crossed over to catch a word with the baroness when
-the tableau was unveiled. Her whitening face frightened him, and he
-looked quickly over her shoulder at the picture. At the same moment a
-piercing shriek, and Señorita Murella rushed wildly down the room.
-
-“_Madre de Dios!_” she yelled. “What a you do that a for?” and she
-menaced the poor Spaniard with her small fist.
-
-“It was I, it was I,” pleaded Mrs. Thornton. “Don’t blame him.” But
-Murella turned from her with high scorn.
-
-“Fool, I will kill a him,” she shrieked, again turning to the place
-where the man had stood.
-
-But Señor Don Manuel Jose Maria Ignacio Cervantes Alvarado, knowing
-something of the temper of his niece, had attended not upon the order of
-his going, but slipped away, and in his place stood Morning. For one
-brief moment Murella looked at him, then, drawing a pearl-handled
-stiletto from beneath her girdle, she gashed and stabbed the unconscious
-canvas in twice a dozen places, crying all the time, “Take a that, and a
-that, and a that!”
-
-Morning thought that his time had come, but he manfully stood his
-ground, secretly smiling at the bloodless assassination, until,
-exhausted, Murella fell upon the carpet in a genuine hysterical rage.
-After a moment he lifted her to her feet, placed her hand within his
-arm, and led her unresistingly from the room.
-
-An hour later she stood at the boathouse, leaning upon the arm of Prince
-Fillipo, and gayly waving an adieu to the party, Morning among them;
-then, with the artist’s arm about her waist, they slowly returned up the
-terrace steps, while the decorated steamer went out of sight around the
-cove.
-
-And the Baroness Von Eulaw guessed now who it was that had made the pin
-holes in her eyes.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XXV.
-              “No more shall nation against nation rise.”
-
-
-The Congress of 1892 builded even better than it knew, when it dropped
-partisan prejudices, and arose superior to local fetterings, and, in a
-truly national spirit, secured for the United States of America dominion
-of the seas and control of the commerce of the world.
-
-The Act of Congress which guaranteed the payment of five per cent bonds
-of the Nicaragua Canal Company to the extent of $100,000,000, and which
-provided that the canal tolls upon American ships should never be more
-than two-thirds the amount charged the vessels of other nations, enabled
-the company to construct the canal with unexpected rapidity, without
-calling upon the United States for a dollar of the guaranty, while, more
-than any subsidy or favorable mail contract, it aided to place the Stars
-and Stripes at the mastheads of the vast fleet of ships and steamers
-which, upon the completion of the canal in the autumn of 1895, began to
-pass between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
-
-The local traffic developed by the canal proved something phenomenal.
-Early in the history of its construction it became generally known that
-the country, for hundreds of miles about Lake Nicaragua, was not an
-unhealthy tropical jungle, but an elevated, breezy table-land, environed
-and divided by snow-clad mountains, with an average temperature only a
-few degrees warmer than that of California, and with a much more even
-distribution of rainfall.
-
-A knowledge of these advantages was followed by a large incursion of
-American settlers. There is perhaps no product of field or forest more
-profitable than the coffee plant. Steadily the demand for the fragrant
-berry is upon the increase, while, beside having few enemies in the
-insect world, the area within which coffee can be advantageously grown
-is very limited. While the coffee plant does not require an
-exceptionally hot climate, it will not thrive where frost is a
-possibility. The hill slopes and table-lands of Nicaragua were found to
-be peculiarly adapted for its growth, and thousands of acres of young
-plantations were already thriving where for centuries only wild grasses
-had waved. Short lines of railroad, centering on Lake Nicaragua, and
-running in every direction, had made accessible a large extent of
-country. The scream of the gang saw was heard amid forests of dyewoods,
-rosewood, and mahogany. Mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, and coal
-were opened. Cotton, sugar, and indigo plantations were developed, and
-Millerville, on Lake Nicaragua, when the war ships passed through the
-canal to attend David Morning’s dynamic exposition, was already a city
-of fifty thousand people, provided with electric lights and cable roads.
-
-The advantages to the people of the United States of the completed
-Nicaragua Ship Canal were almost incalculable. The freight-carrying
-business of the world between the east coast of Asia and Europe was
-rapidly transferred to American bottoms. The iron manufacturers of
-Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia were given an opportunity, previously
-denied them, of marketing the product of their furnaces and foundries on
-the Pacific Coast of North America. The dwellers in the Mississippi
-Valley could now send their cotton, meats, and manufactures to
-trans-Pacific and Antipodean markets, and California redwood and Puget
-Sound fir and cedar lumber could be sent over all the Northwest.
-
-On the Pacific Coast the canal added twenty-five per cent to the
-productive value of every acre of grain and timber land. The cost of
-sacking, and half the cost of transporting wheat was saved to the
-farmer, and the freight upon all machinery and heavy goods brought from
-the East was greatly lessened.
-
-On Puget Sound the construction of a ship canal, costing less than
-$2,000,000, connecting the fresh waters of Lake Washington with the salt
-water in Elliott Bay, gave to Seattle such facilities for warehousing,
-loading, and dry-docking, and such independence of tides and teredos,
-that a commercial rival of San Francisco was spreading over the hills of
-the fir-fringed Queen of the New Mediterranean, while at the extreme
-southwestern corner of the republic the city of bay and climate—San
-Diego—was rapidly regaining the population and prestige which
-temporarily slipped from her grasp at the subsiding of the boom which,
-during 1886 and 1887, enkindled the imagination, and beguiled the
-judgment, and encrazed with the fever of speculation, the people of
-Southern California.
-
-Even during the dull times which annihilated so many promising fortunes
-in Southern California, the attractions of Coronado Beach were
-sufficient to secure for it exemption from the dire distress which
-overtook other localities.
-
-The company owning this enterprise successfully defied not only a
-bursted boom but the very forces of nature, for they riprapped the beach
-in front of their hotel, and baffled the Pacific Ocean, which, after
-gnawing up the lawn and shrubbery which fronted its restless waters, had
-set its foam-capped legions at work to undermine the foundations of the
-great ballroom.
-
-Parks, avenues, and streets were improved, museums and gardens
-developed, and races and hops and fishing and boating parties
-encouraged. Excursions from neighboring cities were organized, the East
-was flooded with pamphlets praising Coronado, and the pleasure-loving
-and health-seeking world was in every way reminded that in this land of
-rare delights it could pick ripe oranges and enjoy surf bathing in
-midwinter, while Boston was shivering and New York swept with blizzards.
-
-The band at the hotel was kept playing every day at luncheon and dinner,
-and it discoursed sweet music in the ballroom regularly upon hop nights
-to auditors, who found—as all people can find—more of the physical
-comforts and delights of life at Coronado Beach than anywhere else in
-the world, for nowhere else is there such music in the sea, such balm in
-the air, such sunshine, and fragrance, and healing, and rest.
-
-The faith and patience of the owner of the great hotel were, in the end,
-rewarded. Month by month and year by year did the numbers of his guests
-increase, until, in 1895, the capacity of the house was more than
-doubled, by the addition of a building something over a quarter of a
-mile in length, and the great hotel could now accommodate quite two
-thousand guests.
-
-David Morning selected Coronado Beach for his dynamic experiments, and,
-with some difficulty, chartered the entire hotel for one month, during
-which time it was reserved exclusively for his guests. He also leased
-the northerly end of the Coronado Beach peninsula for the construction
-and equipment of his air ship, and for a laboratory for the manufacture
-of potentite.
-
-The real Coronado Islands are within the territorial jurisdiction of
-Mexico, situated about sixteen miles south and west from San Diego Bay,
-and were, except in cloudy weather, distinctly visible from Coronado
-Beach. Irregular and ragged masses of red sandstone a few thousand acres
-in extent towered to a height of several hundred feet above the ocean,
-faintly staining the horizon with patches of blue, resembling an
-unfinished sky in water color.
-
-These islands were destitute of water and vegetation, and never
-inhabited save by a few laborers who were engaged in quarrying rock
-there, and Morning found no difficulty in purchasing them from their
-owners, and removing all the occupants.
-
-On the northern end of the Coronado Beach peninsula, Morning caused to
-be erected a laboratory for the manufacture of potentite, with which to
-load the steel shells to be carried by the air ship. This new dynamic
-force, or, rather, storehouse of force, consisted of a combination of
-explosive gelatine with fulminate of mercury, and possessed a power
-equal to thirteen hundred tons to the square inch, or sixty times that
-of common blasting gunpowder, and nine times that of dynamite, and fifty
-pounds of it properly directed would sink any ironclad afloat. It is
-quite safe for manipulation, because it is unexplosive, except when
-brought in contact with a chemical substance—also non-explosive except
-by contact—which is only added immediately before using.
-
-The _Petrel_, the air ship used at the dynamic exposition, was built by
-the Mount Carmel Aeronautic Company at their works in Chicago, and sent
-by rail in sections to Coronado Beach, where she was put together. She
-was cigar-shaped, one hundred feet in length and twenty feet in
-diameter, and was built of butternut—the toughest of the light woods.
-Her engines, with their fans and propellers, as well as the gas
-generator and tank for benzine, were all constructed of tempered
-aluminum, made by the new Kentucky process, at a cost of only eight
-cents per pound. Being stronger and tougher than the finest steel, and
-only one-third the weight of that metal, aluminum was especially adapted
-for the construction of air ships.
-
-The machinery of the _Petrel_ was propelled by a gas generated from
-benzine. The fluid was carried in an air-tight aluminum tank, from which
-it passed, drop by drop, to the generator. This gas, almost as powerful
-as the vibratory ether discovered by Mr. Keely, was much safer because
-more certainly controlled.
-
-The _Petrel_, with all her machinery in place, with two tons of benzine
-in her tanks, and ten men on board of her supplied with sufficient water
-and food for use for fifteen days, weighed but ten tons, and the force
-generated from two tons of benzine was sufficient to lift her, with a
-freight of ten tons more, to a height of five thousand or even ten
-thousand feet, and, without any aid from her folding aluminum parachute,
-was able to maintain her there for a fortnight, at a speed—in a still
-atmosphere—of fifty miles per hour. No balloon was attached to the
-_Petrel_, as she relied entirely upon her paddles and wings both for
-propulsion and as a means of maintaining herself in the air.
-
-She was constructed upon the principle of aerial navigation furnished by
-the wild goose. That bird maintains himself in the ether during a flight
-of hundreds of miles without a rest, simply because his strength, or
-muscular power, is greater, in proportion to his weight, than that of
-creatures who walk upon the ground. Man could always have constructed
-wings of silk and bamboo which would have enabled him to fly if he had
-only possessed the strength to flap his wings.
-
-Aerial navigation never presented any other problem than that of
-procuring power without weight. Once able to obtain the power of a
-ten-horse engine, with a weight, including machinery, of less than one
-ton, one might fly all over the world, and, by taking advantage of the
-air currents, a knowledge of which will soon be gained, fly at a speed
-of fifty or even one hundred miles an hour. The recent discovery of the
-immense power of a gas which it is possible to generate from benzine
-without the use of fuel, has made the air as available for the purposes
-of rapid transit by man as the ocean or the land. The great cost of
-locomotion by this means will doubtless prevent its use for the
-transportation of freight, or, indeed, of passengers, except for those
-who can afford the luxury, and for them it will supplant all other
-methods.
-
-The _Petrel_ was provided with the new patent condensed fuel, one pound
-of which for cooking and heating purposes is equal to ten pounds of
-coal. She was furnished with parachutes made of thin sheets of aluminum
-closely folded one above the other. These, when not in use, formed an
-awning or canopy over her deck, while, in case of accident, they could,
-by pulling a convenient lever, be instantly spread over an area large
-enough to insure her a gradual and safe descent, and should such descent
-be into the water, she was so constructed as to float as buoyantly as a
-cork upon its surface, while, by lessening the number of revolutions per
-minute of her aluminum propellers, they could be used as paddles for her
-propulsion through the water.
-
-The freight of the _Petrel_ consisted of two hundred shells of
-potentite, weighing one hundred pounds each, and the result to the
-Coronodo Islands of their falling upon it from a height of a mile or
-more, was predicted long in advance of the experiment. “If,” it was
-said, “fifty pounds of this explosive will destroy an ironclad, what
-will twenty thousand pounds of it do to an island of rock? What would a
-dozen _Petrels_ accomplish, hurling two hundred and forty thousand
-pounds of it upon an army, a city, or an enemy’s fortress?”
-
-They could level Gibraltar with the sea; they could extirpate an army of
-a million men; they could obliterate London or Berlin or New York from
-the face of the earth. A fleet of a hundred _Petrels_ could ascend from
-New York, cross the Atlantic in three days, destroy every city in the
-United Kingdom in six hours, and, leaving England a mass of ruins, with
-two-thirds of her people slain, return in three days to New York, with
-unused power enough to go to San Francisco and back without descending.
-
-England, or any other nation, could likewise destroy America, for
-neither aerial navigation nor the manufacture of potentite are secrets
-locked in any one man’s brain.
-
-“If Mr. Morning’s dynamic exposition,” it was said, “shall fulfill its
-promise, he can, if he chooses, as the possessor of so complete an air
-ship and so powerful an explosive, be the ruler of the world. Emperors
-and Parliaments must, for the time, be the subjects of the man who can
-destroy cities and camps, and who can make such changes in the map of
-the world as he may choose.”
-
-“If the experiment this day to be made at Coronado,” said the President
-of the United States, “shall be successful, armies may as well be
-disbanded, for there can be no more war, and governments all over the
-world must, henceforth, rest upon the consent of the governed.”
-
-Before sending the _Petrel_ upon her mission, an examination of the
-territory to be devastated was in order, and the Hotel del Coronado was
-nearly emptied of its guests, for the _Charleston_, the _Warspite_, and
-the _Wilhelm II._, steamed away to the Coronado Islands, where the
-American, British, German, French, Russian, Italian, Mexican, and
-Brazilian engineers, with their assistants, landed, took measurements
-and altitudes, and a number of photographic views, and examined the
-islands thoroughly, verifying the accuracy of the topographical maps and
-profile models in clay previously made by engineers employed by Morning.
-It was projected to make another survey and set of maps after the
-potentite had done its work, so as to preserve an accurate and
-unimpeachable record of the result of what our hero modestly called his
-“experiment.”
-
-The vessels returned to their moorings about three o’clock in the
-afternoon of the first day of the exposition, in ample time for their
-passengers and officers to attend the dinner given by Morning that
-evening to his royal and imperial majesty Edward the Seventh, king of
-Great Britain and emperor of India. This sagacious prince, rightly
-conceiving that the dynamic exposition of citizen David Morning was
-likely to be the preliminary of an entire change in the methods of
-government, if not in the governments themselves, of the civilized
-world, determined to head in person the British delegation, which was
-brought on the _Warspite_ from Vancouver to San Diego.
-
-The manner in which King Edward has impressed the American people may be
-deduced from a remark made at the dinner by a shrewd observer and
-leading citizen of San Diego.
-
-“That king,” said he, “is a dandy. He is credited with being the
-cleverest and most adroit politician in England, and I believe it, or he
-could never have steered his canoe out of that baccarat whirlpool. If
-Dave Morning’s dynamics should sort of blow him out of a job at home,
-let him come over here, and in one year I will back him at long odds to
-get the nomination for the best office in the county from either the
-Democratic or Republican convention, and, maybe, from both. What a
-roaring team he and Jack Dodge and Sam Davis would make for a county
-canvass! Jack to do the fiddling and dancing, Sam the all-around lying,
-and Edward the hand shaking and the setting ’em up for the boys!”
-
-The ample gardens of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, and Santa
-Barbara were stripped for the decoration of the banquet hall. All day
-flowers were arriving by the train load, and several hundred floral
-artists were at work in the great dining room. The effect was
-surpassingly beautiful. Suspended from the great dome by ropes of smilax
-was a gigantic figure of Peace, wrought in white calla lilies, bearing
-in her right hand a branch from an olive tree, while her left held to
-her lips a trumpet of yellow jasmine. On the walls the arms of all
-nations were wrought in camellias, carnations, fleur-de-lis, and roses
-of every hue. The music and the menu were both incomparable, and, in
-accordance with the later and better practice of great dinners, formal
-speech making was altogether dispensed with.
-
-The next morning the shores of Coronado Beach were black with people,
-and in the great hotel every piazza and window facing southward or
-westward was occupied. There was a light breeze blowing from the north
-as the _Petrel_ left her berth and rapidly mounted in the air to a
-height of seven thousand feet, which altitude she achieved with her fans
-in seven minutes’ time. She then put her propellers in motion and was
-soon a mere speck against the cloudless sky, scarcely discernible by the
-most powerful glasses.
-
-But though out of sight she soon made her existence and her work known
-to the multitude. In thirty-five minutes from the time she left her
-berth, she had compassed a mile and a half in height and sixteen miles
-of distance and was hovering over Coronado Islands. In twenty minutes
-more six men on board of her had thrown over the two hundred potentite
-shells, and in half an hour thereafter the aerial wonder was again
-resting quietly on the peninsula.
-
-It was a clear day, and the islands were distinctly visible. Sight
-travels more swiftly than sound, and before any noise was heard, the
-immense mass of rock, crown shaped, from which the islands take their
-name, was seen by the gazers on the beach to leap from its place and
-fall into the sea. Other masses in swift succession followed; then came
-roars of sound, as if heaven and earth were coming together; roars of
-sound which rattled the doors and casements of the hotel as if shaken
-with a high wind. For twenty minutes this awe-inspiring exhibition
-continued, and when the tremendous cannonading ceased, the Coronada
-Islands—in the form in which they had previously existed—were no more.
-
-The work of resurveying and making new topographical maps was
-subsequently performed, as a part of the duty of those connected with
-the dynamic exposition, but it needed no measurements to demonstrate the
-awful power of the potentite. An area of solid rock a mile square was
-rent into fragments for a depth of one hundred feet.
-
-Many improvements in machinery and management were suggested to the
-officers of the _Petrel_, but the experiment was conceded by all the
-great engineers who witnessed it, to be so completely successful as to
-practically eliminate land warfare from the future of nations.
-
-“It is fortunate,” said the Marquis of Salisbury, who was one of the
-British delegation—“it is fortunate that the manufacture of even a small
-quantity of potentite requires months of time, great skill, and a costly
-and extensive laboratory, so that it will be not impracticable to
-prevent its preparation by private persons. But given a piece of land
-anywhere in the civilized world large enough to permit of the building
-of air ships and the manufacture of potentite, and sufficiently defended
-to afford to its garrison three months’ time in which to perfect the
-making of that explosive, and any power, however insignificant, could,
-with a hundred air ships, destroy in three days all the great cities in
-Europe.”
-
-“As it now appears,” continued the Marquis, “this method of warfare
-would not be so available against a moving object on the sea, such as a
-war ship. But if the submarine torpedo boat, whose operations we are to
-witness to-morrow, shall be anything nearly as effective as Mr.
-Morning’s air ship, it seems to me that a convention of civilized powers
-to adjust international relations and provide for a Congress and Court
-of Nations, to which all international differences must be submitted,
-will be an absolute necessity in the future,”
-
-“And how would the decrees of such a court be enforced, your lordship,”
-inquired Prince Bismarck, who was listening.
-
-“By the only aerial war vessels equipped with potentite which the allied
-nations would suffer to exist, your highness, and which vessels would be
-subject to the orders of the Court of Nations. If any nation refused to
-obey such decree, it could be disciplined, and if any nation attempted
-to put a potentite air ship under way, it would be necessary, in
-self-defense, for the allied powers, after adequate warning, to
-extirpate the offending parties.”
-
-“Might not a potentite air ship be secretly fitted out, your lordship?”
-asked the prince.
-
-“Hardly,” replied the Marquis, “for, with the aid of a corps of
-observation air ships, and of international detectives in every center
-of population, the world, both savage and civilized, could be adequately
-policed at a very small cost.”
-
-“And what, in your lordship’s opinion, will be the condition in or
-before the Congress of Nations, of a people who desire separate
-government and who have been unable to obtain it?” said Mr. Michael
-Davitt, who was standing by.
-
-The Marquis looked the Irishman squarely in the eye and replied slowly:
-“I think it will be quite out of the power of any government to retain
-by force under its rule any considerable number of people, who, with or
-without, a grievance, are practically unanimous for a separate
-government. The Congress of Nations will, or at least ought to, require
-that any people seeking separation shall be nearly unanimous. But do you
-think, Mr. Davitt, to be candid, that the people of Ulster and the
-people of Galway would ever be brought to agree to any proposition on
-earth?”
-
-“Begorra, your lordship, if you don’t mind me takin’ the answer to your
-question out of the mouth of Misther Davitt,” said the Honorable Bellew
-McCafferty, Home Rule member from Mayo—“begorra, there’s one great
-principle upon which Oireland is, and ever will be, united. Catholic and
-Protestant, Fardowner and Corkonian, Priest and Peeler are all heart and
-soul agreed”—
-
-“To do what?” queried his lordship.
-
-“Never,” replied the McCafferty, “never to pay any rint.”
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XXVI.
-            “’Tis less to conquer than to make wars cease.”
-
-
-The _Siva_ steamed out of San Diego harbor at nine o’clock on an April
-morning in the year 1896, carrying as passengers the naval and ordnance
-officers commissioned by the various European and American governments
-to examine and report upon the result of the dynamic exposition. The
-civil and diplomatic representatives were apportioned among the
-different members of the fleet, which had gathered from the Pacific
-squadrons of every naval power in the world, and was now lying in San
-Diego Bay. The success of the air ship the day before in almost
-obliterating the Coronado Islands, filled every mind with eager
-anticipation of the results likely to be achieved by the torpedo boats,
-and there was an especial pressure for places on board the _Siva_, which
-carried the novel engines of destruction.
-
-The _Siva_ had been built at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco, from
-plans and models furnished by engineers employed by Morning, and no
-expense had been spared to make her the largest, swiftest, and
-best-appointed war vessel afloat. Indeed, every other consideration had
-been sacrificed to speed, and, as a result, a ship was constructed of
-ten thousand tons’ burden, drawing but twenty-one feet of water when
-fully loaded, and able, when under a full head of steam, to make
-twenty-six knots an hour. Relying upon her speed to keep out of range of
-the guns of an enemy, and intended rather for a carrier of torpedo boats
-than a war vessel, she was, for her size, neither heavily armed nor
-heavily armored, yet she was covered with steel plates of sufficient
-thickness to resist the largest ordnance, and she was equipped with
-rifled cannon and pneumatic dynamite guns, equal in size and range to
-any constructed. Her cost was $8,000,000, and it was Morning’s avowed
-intention to present her to the alliance of nations which he expected
-would result from the dynamic exposition. The _Siva_ rode the seas like
-a gull, and was as graceful and beautiful as a swan.
-
-Forward of her engines the hull of the vessel was devoted to
-accommodations for housing, launching, and rehousing the two torpedo
-boats, the _Etna_ and _Stromboli_. Each of these was cigar-shaped, one
-hundred feet in length and twenty feet in diameter. They were built of
-steel, with an inner and outer shell. The admission of water between
-these shells would cause the submersion of the boat to any depth
-required for the purposes of destroying an enemy, while by the expulsion
-of water they were enabled to ascend to the surface. In the inner shell
-was an electric engine, with sufficient power stored in its dynamos to
-propel the boat under water at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour for
-a period of five hours. Enough compressed air was stored in steel tanks
-to supply the needs of ten men for eight hours, and the _Etna_ had, on
-several occasions, as a test, remained submerged with her crew for four
-hours without coming to the surface.
-
-The construction of torpedo boats for harbor defense was no longer a
-novelty, but this was the first attempt made to demonstrate that a
-submarine torpedo vessel could be used on the high seas to overtake and
-destroy a flying enemy. The _Etna_ and the _Stromboli_ each carried one
-hundred shells, each shell being loaded with five hundred pounds of
-potentite. Chain cradles for holding these shells were suspended to huge
-fans of finely-tempered steel, shaped like pincers, and the machinery
-for fastening one or more of these cradles to the bottom of the vessel
-it was intended to destroy was both simple and ingenious, as were the
-arrangements for exploding them when fastened. A fuse or wire attached
-to a steamer running away at the rate of a mile in three minutes would
-have been impracticable, and the inventor had therefore arranged a time
-or clockwork cap, which could be set to explode at any given number of
-minutes from the time the shell should be fastened.
-
-The _Siva_, containing Mr. Morning, the foreign engineers, and the
-ordnance officers of the American Navy detailed for the service, left
-her moorings at nine o’clock and steamed down the bay, followed by the
-_Warspite_, flying the British flag, the French corvette _Garronne_, the
-Russian frigate _Tsar_, the Italian ironclad _Victor Emanuel_, the
-Spanish ship _Pizarro_, the Chilean man-of-war _Cero del Pasco_, the
-Swedish sloop-of-war _Berdanotte_, the American iron batteries
-_Charleston_ and _San Francisco_, and the great German steel war ship
-_Wilhelm II._ It was intended that this latter vessel should follow the
-_Warspite_, but there was some delay in getting her under way, and she
-was the last in the naval procession, being followed only by the
-_Esmeralda_—the vessel to be destroyed.
-
-At the termination of the Chilean insurrection it was found that the
-_Esmeralda_—the war ship controlled by the insurgents—was, though not
-unseaworthy, yet too badly damaged by a contest with gunboats to be
-serviceable for the purposes for which she was constructed, and she was,
-therefore, sold by the Chilean Government to Mr. Morning for
-$1,000,000—something less than one-third her cost.
-
-He purchased her for use as a transport in connection with the
-construction of the Nicaragua Canal, in which he was interested, and he
-now devoted her to destruction, as a test of the power of the new
-explosive, and the efficiency of the submarine torpedo boats.
-
-The _Esmeralda_ was an ironclad steamer of the largest size, capable of
-a speed of twenty miles an hour. She was armored with steel plates, and
-in every way staunch. On this occasion she carried only sufficient force
-to navigate her, and she towed a large steam launch, into which her crew
-would be transferred and conveyed to a place of safety so soon as the
-torpedoes should be fastened to her. Two lifeboats were also swung,
-ready for launching in case of accident.
-
-Baron Von Eulaw had been indulging the previous night in deep potations,
-and was, consequently, so belated that the carriage containing the
-baroness and himself did not reach the Coronado wharf until the _Siva_
-had steamed away, and was being followed by the other vessels in the
-order described. The launches and small steamers, with the guests
-apportioned among the different vessels of the fleet, had also left the
-wharf, and two-thirds of the vessels which were to accompany the _Siva_,
-with their steam up and whistles blowing, were impatiently awaking the
-signal to move, and were uneasily churning into a foam the placid waters
-of the harbor.
-
-Hastily summoning a boat lying at the wharf, the baron escorted the
-baroness on board, and, seating himself beside her, directed the crew to
-row for “that ship,” pointing to the _Esmeralda_. It will never be known
-whether this direction was the result of accident or design, for the
-_Esmeralda_, in size and general appearance, strongly resembled the
-_Wilhelm II._, which was anchored just ahead of her in the stream, and
-it was the _Wilhelm II._ to which the Baron Von Eulaw, as one of the
-representatives of the German Empire, had been assigned.
-
-Arrived at the _Esmeralda_, however, the anchor of which was then being
-hoisted, the baron was politely informed by the officer in charge of the
-deck that no arrangements had been made to receive guests on board the
-vessel, as she was destined to destruction. The baron, with real or
-affected dismay, remarked that the _Wilhelm II._ was already under way;
-that it would be impossible for him now to gain her deck, and, unless
-permitted to board the _Esmeralda_, and remain upon her, they would lose
-altogether the great spectacle they had, by designation of his imperial
-majesty Wilhelm II., come all the way from Berlin to San Diego to
-attend.
-
-He would be in lasting disgrace at home if compelled to admit that,
-through his own negligence and error, he had not witnessed the
-destruction of the _Esmeralda_ at all. Might not the baroness and
-himself, under the circumstances, be suffered to trespass upon the
-hospitalities of the officers of the _Esmeralda_ until the time came for
-abandoning the vessel, when they could join the officers and crew on the
-steam launch, and be placed on board the _Wilhelm II._, or one of the
-other vessels of the fleet, or return on the launch to San Diego, as
-might be most convenient?
-
-With some hesitation, the deck officer of the _Esmeralda_, after brief
-consultation with his superior, consented to the request of Von Eulaw,
-and, apologizing for the condition of the cabin, which, in anticipation
-of the destruction of the vessel, had been stripped of everything save
-the standing furniture and a few chairs, he invited them to make
-themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit.
-
-With salvos of cannon and music of bands, the gaily-decked fleet sped
-out to sea. Through the narrow channel they steamed, past Point Loma,
-with brow of purple and feet of foam. When they reached the open sea,
-they spread out in line abreast, the _Siva_ taking a position on the
-extreme north, and slackening her speed a little so as to accommodate it
-to that of her companions.
-
-Arrived at the scene of the proposed experiment, sixteen miles west of
-San Diego bar, the speed of all the vessels was slackened so as to
-afford only steerage way, and the _Esmeralda_ was signaled to leave her
-position next the _Siva_, and steam away at full speed to the north.
-Simultaneously with this order, the hatches on the _Siva_ were opened,
-chains and ropes tightened, the vast power of the engines applied, and
-the _Stromboli_, with her crew and cargo in place, was lifted from the
-hold of the _Siva_, swung over the side, and launched in the ocean.
-
-It was four minutes from the time the whistle sounded until the launch
-of the _Stromboli_, and in the meantime the _Esmeralda_ steamed quite
-one mile away. The _Siva_ was a few hundred yards ahead of the other
-vessels, and the _Stromboli_ was launched form her port side, so that
-the launch was witnessed by those who thronged the starboard side of the
-other vessels. The entire fleet then resumed its former rate of speed,
-and the distance between it and the _Esmeralda_ was soon placed at one
-mile, at which it was subsequently maintained.
-
-The _Stromboli_ glided away for a minute on the surface of the sea, and
-then, admitting water to the space between her steel shells, rapidly
-sank to a depth of forty feet. The _Esmeralda_ was still at full speed,
-and making twenty knots an hour, but the _Stromboli_ was pushing her way
-under the sea, propelled by her powerful electric engines, at the rate
-of twenty-five knots an hour, and in fifteen minutes had overtaken the
-doomed vessel, and was preparing to make fast the torpedo which should
-destroy her.
-
-One pair of great steel claws, holding a chain basket containing five
-hundred pounds of potentite set by clockwork to explode in sixty
-minutes, was, by the power of the electric engine, raised above the
-cigar-shaped steel monster gliding through the cool, quiet waters, and
-driven through the plates of the _Esmeralda_, just forward of the stern
-of that vessel. A second was placed amidship, and a third near the bow.
-
-The upper deck of the _Stromboli_ had a dozen plate-glass openings,
-through which a number of powerful electric lights illuminated the
-depths of the ocean, and enabled the men in charge of the machinery to
-direct with accuracy the work of fastening the torpedoes. If it had been
-necessary, men in submarine armor, fastened to steel arms projected from
-the _Stromboli_, and supplied with air through rubber tubes, could have
-been placed at work on the bottom of the _Esmeralda_, and maintained
-there for hours, even while she was coursing through the seas. But it
-was not necessary to invoke this process, for, by the aid of the
-ordinary machinery of the _Stromboli_, the three great shells were
-fastened in twenty minutes’ time, and the _Esmeralda_ was proceeding on
-her journey with fifteen hundred pounds of potentite fastened to her
-keel. The officers and crew of the _Esmeralda_ all subsequently
-testified that this work was performed noiselessly and without jar, or
-any evidence that it was going forward.
-
-But had they possessed all knowledge, they could not have prevented it.
-No rate of speed possible to the doomed vessel would have enabled her to
-outrun the speedier submarine torpedo boat, and no machinery or
-appliance could have reached her under the keel of the _Esmeralda_, or
-prevented her work, and once the potentite shells were in place, it was
-beyond the power of man to remove them, and no human skill could prevent
-the explosion taking place at the appointed time.
-
-The introduction of this deadly force into naval warfare was not
-intended to be unaccompanied with some merciful provisions for
-preventing unnecessary destruction of human life, and a code of signals
-had been prepared for all naval powers, to be used whenever a vessel was
-to be destroyed.
-
-The _Stromboli_, having performed her duty, glided from under the keel
-of the _Esmeralda_, and, at a distance of a few hundred yards, shot up a
-signal pipe above the surface of the ocean, and with her electric
-whistle shrieked through it a succession of signals that were heard by
-the multitude upon the fleet a mile away.
-
-“Submarine torpedo boat has been underneath your keel,” said one short
-shriek, and one more prolonged.
-
-“Fifteen hundred pounds of the most powerful explosive known to science
-are fastened to you,” said fifteen short shrieks.
-
-“Make ready to count your minutes of life,” said one long and two short
-shrieks.
-
-“In thirty-six minutes your ship will be hurled in fragments into the
-air,” said thirty-six short shrieks.
-
-“Leave your ship to her inevitable fate. Launch your boats and save your
-lives. Your enemy will pick you up and receive your honorable
-surrender,” said one shriek, continued for five minutes.
-
-Standing on the deck of the _Warspite_, King Edward the Seventh looked
-at his watch. If in thirty-six minutes the _Esmeralda_ should sink
-beneath the waves, the navies of England, with those of all other
-powers, would be as obsolete for the purposes of attack or defense upon
-the high seas as the galleys of Cæsar, or the barge of Cleopatra.
-Another Trafalgar would be as impossible as another Actium. The little
-_Stromboli_ and _Etna_, carried in the hold of the _Siva_, could destroy
-every ironclad afloat. The latter vessel, with her immense speed, could
-keep out of range of the enemy’s guns, and she could send forth the
-torpedo boats and destroy ship after ship. She could pick up the torpedo
-boats, recharge their storage batteries, refit their magazines with
-potentite shells, and their tanks with compressed air, and send them
-forth again and proceed with such work of destruction until not a ship
-should live on any sea, except by license of the _Siva_, and subject to
-her rule.
-
-What revolutions and what changes would this dynamic exposition not
-precipitate upon the mistress of the seas? India would give her new
-emperor the choice between walking out and being potentited out, and
-Canada, and Australia, and every other colony, would be taking leave.
-And Ireland—well, here was a state of things! Ireland would have
-whatever Davitt, and McCarthy, and Dillon should agree upon asking, or
-else every British war ship would be blown up, and every Irishman who
-could raise the money, would try the effect of a balloon loaded with
-potentite, upon his friends across the channel. Of course, it was a game
-in which one could give blows as well as take them, but that is a very
-unequal game between an anarchist and a king. It looked as if King
-Edward might be compelled to “rustle” to keep the British crown on his
-royal brow. It might be well to look up a good cattle range in Colorado
-where he and nephew William, with the Hapsburgs, the Bourbons, and the
-Romanoffs might retire, should it be necessary.
-
-Among the stores of the _Esmeralda_ which had not been sent ashore was a
-decanter of brandy, which the baron found in the cabin, and to which he
-devoted himself so assiduously that when the whistles sounded,
-announcing that the torpedoes were fastened to the ship, he was, from
-the combined effects of past and present potations, in a condition
-closely bordering upon delirium tremens.
-
-The first officer proceeded to the cabin, where Von Eulaw and the
-baroness had withdrawn, and, attempting to open the door, found it
-locked. The voice of the baroness in a pleading tone was heard, followed
-by oaths and maniacal laughter from the baron.
-
-“The torpedoes are fastened to us, and in thirty-four minutes this ship
-will be in the air,” said the officer through the closed door. “Our
-orders are to leave the vessel ten minutes before the explosion. You had
-better go on board of the launch at once.”
-
-“Is that so?” yelled the baron. “Well, we will go into the air along
-with the ship, my American wife and myself. My estates are all gone. The
-Queen of Diamonds has seized them and given them to the Jack of Spades.
-This earth has nothing more for me, and we will take now a trip to the
-stars above.”
-
-The officer comprehended the situation in an instant. “He has the
-jimjams, sure enough,” he muttered, “Best way is to humor him.” “All
-right, baron,” said he, in a conciliatory tone. “But you don’t want your
-wife to go with you, you know. Open the door and let her come with us.”
-
-“Ah, no!” said the maniac. “The Baroness Von Eulaw will go to heaven
-along with her dear husband, that she loves so much, so much!”
-
-“Madam,” said the officer, “can you not unlock the door? If not, I will
-have it broken down.”
-
-“No,” shrieked the baron, “she cannot unlock the door, for I have thrown
-the key into the sea through the window, and if anybody makes any
-trouble with the door, I have a little pistol, and I will shoot first my
-beloved American wife, and then the man at the door, and at last myself,
-and we will all go to the skies in one trip.”
-
-“Madame,” said the officer, “is he armed?”
-
-“He is, and will, I fear, do as he threatens,” replied Ellen, with
-trembling voice.
-
-“The situation is serious,” said the officer. “The torpedoes won’t wait
-for us, and the crew will be getting nervous. In fact, I am nervous
-myself,” added the officer, _sotto voce_. “Suppose one of those infernal
-machines should go off ahead of time?”
-
-“Leave us, sir,” said the baroness. “If I can get the pistol from him by
-persuasion, I will discharge it as a signal, and you can then break down
-the door. If I cannot do this, you must save yourselves without us. It
-would be useless for you to jeopardize your lives for us, for he will
-surely kill me, and will probably shoot you if you attempt to force the
-door now.”
-
-“What is the matter there aft, Mr. Morton?” shouted the captain.
-
-“Dutch baron crazy drunk, sir. Has locked the door, and swears he will
-be blown up with the ship. Has a pistol, and will kill his wife if we
-try to force the door, sir.”
-
-“Get a rifle, Mr. Morton, and stand ready to shoot him through the
-skylight. But I will first signal the _Siva_ for orders.”
-
-“_Aye_, aye, sir,” said the first officer cheerily.
-
-
-“Something wrong on board the _Esmeralda_, sir; she is signaling us,”
-said the first officer of the _Siva_ to the captain.
-
-Morning, who was conversing with a Russian admiral, overheard the
-speaker and came forward to where the signal officer—the code spread
-before him—had just answered, “Ready to receive signal.”
-
-The little scarlet flag in the hand of the signal officer on the foretop
-gallant yard of the _Esmeralda_ rapidly spelled out the message.
-
-“Baron Von Eulaw and wife came on board as we were starting. He has
-delirium tremens, and is locked in cabin with her. Refuses to board
-launch, and threatens to shoot her if we break down door. We can kill
-him with a rifle through the skylight. We wait orders.”
-
-The face of David Morning was white with the whiteness of death, but,
-with a voice in which there was scarcely a tremor, he addressed himself
-to the commander of the _Siva_.
-
-“Captain, how far are we from the _Esmeralda_?”
-
-“About a mile, sir.”
-
-“How long will it be before the explosion?”
-
-“Twenty-two minutes, sir.”
-
-“Is there any way by which the torpedoes now fastened to her can be
-removed, or their explosion prevented, captain?”
-
-“None whatever, sir.”
-
-“Captain, signal the _Esmeralda_ to have riflemen in place, but not to
-shoot the baron unless he offers violence to his wife. Signal her also
-to slacken speed while we run down to her. Signal the fleet to slacken
-speed, and fall behind. Get out a boat with crew to put me on board the
-_Esmeralda_.”
-
-There was a rapid fluttering of scarlet flags from main and foretops,
-and the orders were obeyed.
-
-“I will go with you, Mr. Morning,” said the captain of the _Siva_.
-
-“And so will I, and I, and I,” came in chorus from a dozen officers and
-guests who had remained breathless auditors of the conversation.
-
-“No,” said Morning quietly, “I will go alone. I do not propose to risk a
-single one of these valuable lives, or this ship.”
-
-Morning picked up a coil of light rope from where it hung on a belaying
-pin, and descended into the boat, which, with crew in place, was now
-suspended a few feet from the water. “Captain,” said he, “as soon as we
-are launched you will steam away with the _Siva_, and rejoin the fleet:
-The steam launch towed by the _Esmeralda_ will be sufficient to provide
-for the safety of all. Run us as close to the _Esmeralda_ as you can,
-captain, before you drop us,” and Morning rapidly knotted a slip noose
-in the rope.
-
-Clang! clang! clang! sounded the signal to reverse the engines; the
-_Siva_ glided alongside and within three hundred feet of the
-_Esmeralda_, and the boat containing David Morning dropped gently into
-the foaming water. Clang! again went the gong, and by the time David
-Morning sprang up the ladder at the companion-way of the _Esmeralda_,
-the _Siva_ was half a mile away.
-
-As the foot of Morning touched the deck of the doomed vessel, it lacked
-thirteen minutes of the time set for the explosion.
-
-“What is the situation?” said Morning to the captain of the _Esmeralda_.
-
-“Through the skylight we can see that the baroness has evidently
-abandoned all effort to move the baron, and is on her knees in the
-corner, apparently in prayer. The baron is walking up and down the cabin
-floor flourishing a cocked revolver, and muttering to himself. The first
-officer with three gunners, each with a Winchester rifle, are at the
-skylight with sites drawn on the baron, anxious to fire as soon as they
-get the order, and six men with a piece of timber are in place, ready to
-burst open the cabin door. It is only twelve minutes to the blow-up,
-sir, and the men are getting uneasy. Shall we shoot and rescue the lady,
-sir?”
-
-“Not yet, captain. Can you open the skylight from above noiselessly?”
-
-“Yes, sir.”
-
-“Do so at once.”
-
-With his noosed rope coiled in hand, Morning approached the skylight.
-Often in Colorado he had, from love of sport, attended rodeos and
-learned the trick of the lasso. His skill with it was the admiration of
-the cowboys. “Kin Dave Morning handle a riata?” said one of his
-enthusiastic admirers to a correspondent of an Eastern newspaper. “Well,
-stranger, I should smile! Kin he? He kin throw his lariat a matter of
-forty feet around any part of a jumping steer, hoof or horn. He kin
-throw a bull buffalo at the head of the herd. He kin make a buckin’
-broncho turn two somersaults, and land him on head or heels, just as he
-likes. He kin stop a jacksnipe on the wing if he don’t fly too high. Oh,
-I’m talkin’ to ye, stranger! Often I’ve seen him, when he felt right
-well, throw his little lasso across the room of the big hotel at
-Trinidad, and smash a fly on a window pane without breaking the glass.
-Oh, you can laff, of course! I ain’t got nothin’ agin your hilarity, but
-if any gentleman feels inclined to doubt the entire truth of anything
-I’ve been a sayin’, or has anything to say agin Dave Morning, either as
-a vaquero or a man, he kin get his gun ready, for my name is Buttermilk
-Bill from the San Juan Range.”
-
-Poising his improvised riata, Morning looked down through the open
-skylight. The baron, attracted by the shadow, stopped in his nervous
-walk and looked up. As he did so the noose dropped over his head and
-shoulders, and pinioned his arms to his side, and he was thrown to the
-floor, while the cocked pistol he held in his hand was harmlessly
-discharged. Like a cat, Morning dropped from the skylight upon the floor
-of the cabin, followed by the first officer and the gunners, all of whom
-proceeded—none too tenderly—to wrap and tie the rope around the arms and
-legs of the baron.
-
-“Now, then,” sounded the voice of the second officer outside the cabin
-door; “now, then, my hearties, once, twice, thrice, and away!” and, with
-a crash, the door flew from its hinges nearly across the cabin.
-
-Morning half supported and half carried the baroness to the launch,
-which was now lying alongside with steam up, and they descended to the
-deck, followed by the crew and officers of the _Esmeralda_ and the crew
-of the boat from the _Siva_.
-
-“Where is the baron,” said the baroness faintly.
-
-The captain looked at the first officer, who made reply, “He is in the
-cabin, sir.”
-
-“We have still five minutes if anybody chooses to bring him aboard,”
-said the captain.
-
-And after a pause of a few seconds nobody stirred.
-
-Ellen looked at Morning.
-
-And Morning leaped upon the deck of the _Esmeralda_, followed by the
-captain, first officer, and one of the men.
-
-In less than a minute the Baron Von Eulaw, writhing, cursing, and
-foaming at the mouth, was deposited on the deck of the launch, which
-steamed away rapidly in a direction opposite to that taken by the doomed
-vessel.
-
-There were just two minutes to spare. The wheel of the _Esmeralda_ had
-been lashed so as to head her away from the fleet. Her chief engineer
-was the last man to leave the engine room, and just before he left, he
-pulled the lever to increase her speed, so that in the two minutes which
-passed after the steam launch and the _Esmeralda_ separated, they were
-quite a mile apart.
-
-Suddenly a dull sound like the throb of a great muffled drum was heard.
-An immense arch of water arose in air. Upon its summit was the
-_Esmeralda_, broken into a dozen fragments, which writhed like a python
-twisting in the agonies of death. For a moment the cloven mail of the
-giant flashed and scintillated in the sun, and then, with a sound of
-sucking water—the death gurgle of those engulfed by the sea—each
-fragment went out of sight forever, and great billows of foam rolled
-over the spot where the mighty ship went down.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XXVII.
-                   “As a guide my umpire conscience.”
-
-
-Morning accompanied as far as Chicago the special trains containing
-those of the European guests whose official duties required their
-immediate departure, but very many, including the Baron Von Eulaw and
-his party, remained at Coronado.
-
-With a good deal of effort, the episode of the baron’s conduct, and the
-circumstances of the rescue of his wife and himself, were kept out of
-the press reports, yet the affair was, nevertheless, one of those open
-secrets with which many people enliven conversation.
-
-Mrs. Thornton was, for once, disinclined to suffer her admiration for a
-title to induce her to overlook the homicidal freak of her son-in-law,
-and she urged Ellen in vain to formally separate her life from that of
-her husband. Possibly her appreciation of the fact that Morning was now
-more renowed than any European potentate, and outranked any king on
-earth, and her comprehension of the further fact that he was still
-deeply in love with her daughter, may have influenced her counsel.
-
-Moved by some impulse, which perhaps she could not have explained to
-herself, she took occasion when thanking Morning for saving her
-daughter’s life, to confide to him the history of how Ellen’s marriage
-had been brought about, to which she added the story of her married
-life, and concluded by pressing upon him for perusal, a package of her
-daughter’s letters. These Morning carried with him to Chicago, and their
-reading induced him, after parting with his distinguished guests, to
-hasten his return to Coronado, where he was advised that the Von Eulaw
-party would remain for some weeks.
-
-On a delicious afternoon the baroness, with Mrs. Thornton and Miss
-Winters, sat in the gallery overhanging the old music hall on the sea.
-Although a new and costlier edifice had been built, with improved
-acoustics and elaborate design, the little gem at the corner of the
-hotel, long washed by the waves and threatened by the breakers, seemed
-still a favorite resort for concert and afternoon recitals, and thither
-came many who sought for a restful hour under the eloquent discourse of
-the old white-haired professor’s violin.
-
-“It is a pity for the world,” said Miss Winters, during a pause in the
-performance, “that so few are able to look into the soul of Tolstoi’s
-labors. In one of his chapters he expresses the epitome of all musical
-sensations in half a dozen lines.”
-
-“I hope you are not referring to the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ Miss Winters,”
-broke in Mrs. Thornton.
-
-Miss Winters smiled rather than spoke reply. But the baroness took
-greater liberty and rejoined rather saucily, “The regular thing, dear
-mother, is to ask for some palliative to remove the taste from your
-mouth after the mention of the much-abused ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’”
-
-Mrs. Thornton replied with a look of high disdain and much fluttering of
-ribbons.
-
-“I am not punctilious, but I could not sit and listen to a defense of
-that man.”
-
-“I am not defending him, though I might, especially if he were my
-client,” laughed Miss Winters. “I am only deploring that the world will
-not forgive his truths nor forget his faults in the universal power of
-his genius.”
-
-It was well that the next on the programme was Beethoven’s seventh
-symphony, and that the men strolled in soon afterwards, for nothing is
-so prolific of enmities as the subject of Tolstoi, unless it be that of
-tariff.
-
-The enchanting numbers were ended, and the ladies left the hall, the men
-taking another direction. At the foot of the stairway they were accosted
-by David Morning, who, after a greeting, turned and joined the baroness.
-
-“When did you return?” said she, looking full into his bronzed face, and
-again at his traveling clothes.
-
-“Only this moment. And how are you? and has the baron entirely
-recovered?”
-
-“Completely, I believe, and for me, one could not be so ungrateful as to
-be ill in this place.”
-
-“I trust not,” replied Morning absently.
-
-There was silence for a moment, then, turning shortly, and looking into
-the handsome face of the baroness, he said, without calling her by name,
-but earnestly, and it may be added a little peremptorily, “I wish to
-have a few moments’ conversation with you after dinner, if you will be
-good enough to consent.”
-
-“For what purpose? When? Alone?”
-
-“Your first question let me answer later. Here, under the palms, on the
-beach, anywhere, but alone, certainly.”
-
-Each question was superfluous, of course, but she was gaining time. At
-length she answered slowly, “I could wish you had not asked me for this
-meeting, Mr. Morning.”
-
-“But I am going away. Will you, knowing this, still refuse?”
-
-“I will come,” she said after a pause. “We will sit here upon the
-veranda, after eight. The others are going, I believe, to look at the
-dancers.”
-
-And, thanking her, he lifted his hat and withdrew.
-
-The halls were not ablaze on this night, for there is not light enough
-in the world to coax the sullen shadows from their lurking-places in a
-modern interior. But the arches of heaven, albeit moonless, were more
-obedient, and the electric scintillations searched and filled every rood
-of ground with their unwarm but willing light, or chased with exact
-pencil the willful outlines of orange and oleander, or the more tender
-ways of acanthus, pepper, and palm.
-
-Morning had wheeled a luxurious easy-chair alongside of his veranda
-“shaker,” and sat with his hands upon the upholstered back, waiting for
-the one woman in the world to him, while the promenaders, in full
-evening toilet, filed in pairs along the thronged corridors, and the
-soft strains of “La Paloma” floated down from the balcony and mingled
-with the plash of the sea.
-
-“Engaged,” spoke Morning curtly, as a youthful lord, accompanying the
-British delegation, attempted to move the fanteuil aside.
-
-“Beg pardon, I wish I were,” retorted the scion of a noble house,
-striding away with the fair one upon his arm.
-
-“There is hope for that fellow,” Morning muttered.
-
-“I left the baron to be taken to his room by his valet,” explained the
-baroness approaching. “He is a little tired and nervous,” and she
-loosened the lace about her throat impatiently.
-
-“Yes,” dryly, was the only comment.
-
-“He said he might get around here before he retired. I hope you would
-not mind, he is so very capricious, you don’t know.”
-
-“Oh, no, I don’t mind, but if he comes I am going, for I ‘don’t mind’
-saying also I’ve had enough of that fellow!”
-
-The baroness looked up with surprise, but Morning went on excitedly:—
-
-“Oh, I know I ought not to say this to you, but I must say it, and a
-great deal more, unless you stop me! I say you are in deadly terror of
-that man, and you hate him beside, as you ought.”
-
-“How can you—who told you this? Surely you are assuming—”
-
-“No, pardon me, I am assuming nothing. I read your letters.”
-
-“Who gave you my letters?” asked the baroness in amazement.
-
-“Your mother urged them upon me, and I was disloyal enough to read them,
-every line,” a little triumphantly. He arose hastily and walked away for
-a few paces, drying and fanning his face with his handkerchief, then,
-returning, he leaned upon the back of her chair, and, dropping his
-voice, said huskily, and with quite uncontrollable emotion:—
-
-“Ellen—let me call you so this once, it remains with you whether I ever
-utter the name again—dear Ellen, answer this from your own sweet lips,
-have you a spark of love for that beas—man?” correcting himself too
-late. “I know how capricious the heart of a woman is, and perhaps—but
-no! take your time to answer, only give me your word,” and he walked
-swiftly away, and looked out on the sea, and saw the waves beat their
-soft white arms upon the sands, then returned.
-
-The woman had turned to ashen paleness. The ever-repeating and
-distributing electric light had forgotten the delicate tints of her
-dainty gown, and the color of her hair and brows, with the roses upon
-her bosom, and only the waxen face, with its dark eyes filled with
-glistening tears, uprose whiter than the beams.
-
-“Poor heart!” said he, noting the quiver of the sensitive mouth. “It
-ought not to be so difficult to speak the truth.”
-
-At length the tortured woman found voice:—
-
-“David Morning,” she said, in tremulous tones, “I am not meaning to
-question your right to give challenge to my despair, though, for reasons
-you can understand, it is from you, more than from all the world, I
-would have disguised it. You ask me if I love that man? I answer, No,
-no, a thousand times no! But my sense of obligation as his wife is as
-much stronger than my hate as misery is stronger than the social bars
-which contain it, and I deem it neither noble nor just to utter
-complaints against one who is, whatever may be said, my legal protector
-before the world. I do not deny that I have suffered untold agonies, but
-I may as well bear them in one cause as another.”
-
-“I confess,” said Morning, with a manner suddenly grown cold, “I do not
-fully understand you. You speak of ‘obligations,’ and ‘social bars;’ you
-cannot mean that you would deliberately sacrifice your woman’s soul,
-with all its honor and its aims, to a life of dishonor and deceit—for so
-I dare to name it—for dread of the idle dictum of a malicious social
-scarecrow?”
-
-The baroness winced, but quickly rallied, and, leaning forward in her
-chair, so near that he caught the perfume of the roses on her corsage,
-she replied:—
-
-“No! though I will say in passing that, whatever I might do, no woman,
-be she termagant or angel, has ever lived long enough to escape the
-opprobrium arising from the poisonous effluvia of the divorce courts!
-However, that is not the subject under discussion, and my unhappy feet
-are placed upon more tenable ground. I confess myself, then, not strong
-enough to defy the convictions of a life given much—the maturer portion,
-at least—to an examination of the ethics of the question. And I
-resolutely affirm that, in my own mind, I am convinced that to seek to
-evade the results of my own deliberate action, would be sinful, and in
-violation of my own conscientious perceptions—‘a grieving of the
-Spirit,’ in the language of a very old author, and, therefore, a sin
-against the Holy Ghost.”
-
-Is it possible, thought Morning, forgetful for the moment of the purpose
-that had brought him there, that in this evening of the nineteenth
-century a cultivated woman, herself the victim of a system fiendish in
-its power to forge public opinion, and cruel as the Inquisition, should
-have the courage thus to look her awful destiny in the face tranquilly,
-and smilingly set upon it the cold white seal of conscience? And for a
-brief moment he wondered if she were a saint or a lunatic.
-
-Then he thought of the many shafts of argument that might be let loose
-to pierce the diseased cuticle of her morbid philosophy, but he had not
-the heart, or, rather, he lacked entire faith in their efficacy, so he
-sat silently counting his heart beats. Finally, taking alarm at his
-protracted silence, she resumed:—
-
-“Do not misunderstand me; I am not narrow enough to convict, or egotist
-enough to try to convert, others to my way of thinking; I only speak for
-myself.”
-
-“Your missionary seed would fall upon stony ground if you were so
-disposed,” he answered quickly, almost rudely. “Ellen Thornton,” he
-continued, ignoring the hateful title that seemed to have engulfed her
-body and soul for all of him, “for thirteen years fate has been
-circumventing our lives. I have heard your name over seas as you have
-heard mine, familiar to all but each other. I have loved you with hope
-and without it. Great wealth has been my portion, yet I would be a
-beggar to-night if you would but share my crust with me, with love like
-mine.”
-
-Into the eyes of the woman, fierce with resolution and despair, there
-came tears, half of pity, half of joy—pity for his fate and hers, joy
-for that the love she had deemed lost and gone from their lives was
-here, tireless and strong as the sea, immortal and sweet as the morning,
-and the voice of the man whose head was bent near her own thrilled her
-with its music.
-
-“During all the years of parting,” continued Morning, “I have been
-neither despairing nor misanthropic, but I knew that the passion of my
-life had glowed and burned, and—as I thought—died to ashes upon the
-altar whose goddess was the dark-eyed maiden whom my young manhood
-adored. When, less than a fortnight ago, I was able to deliver you from
-the awful death that madman would have inflicted upon you, my exultation
-had but one sting, that I had saved you for another, and for such a
-fate; and then, in my insane rage, I cursed myself that I had not let
-you die under my dizzy eyes, and so have rounded my despair.
-
-“But I have come near to you now, our paths have crossed. O God, how I
-have waited for the hour! and how can I let you go? If I do, our ways
-will again diverge, and every remove will bring us farther apart. Do you
-know what this means to me? It is the dividing of my soul from my body,
-of my heart from my brain; it means a galvanized life, a career of
-eviscerated motives, a gibbering, masquerading existence, emasculate of
-manly and fruitful purpose, a hopeless love”—and his voice trembled and
-sank—“ashes and dust and nothing more.”
-
-The baroness listened with passion tearing at her heart, while her white
-lips were fashioning word of wise restraint. Could she trust herself to
-speak? She envied in her soul the women she had known abroad, women of
-convictions, with uncoddled consciences, charming, virtuous women too,
-but without the monitor to guide the wayward thought, a sky without a
-polar star, a ship without a rudder, and then she recalled the burning
-words of the man beside her.
-
-“I know,” said she at length, “that I owe you my life, and, in the logic
-of natural sequence, I should give back that which you won. But it is
-love’s sophistry, and, in truth, perhaps for no better reason than
-because I so much desire it, I dare not. One phase of your argument
-pricks my conscience in turn. You tell me that your usefulness must pay
-the penalty of my decision. Unsay those words, I entreat you”—and she
-leaned far toward him. “God has singled you out for a great destiny.
-Fulfill it. You have the world at your feet; let that suffice you for
-the present. I do not ask you to forget me!”—and her lips grew
-tremulous. “I should die if I thought you could. But work on, as you
-have been doing, for the sake of humanity, and wait heroically, as you
-have done.”
-
-“Wait for what? for somebody to die?” broke in Morning hotly. “For
-somebody to die, that is the English of it. Most lives are made what
-they are by some woman. She may be a mother, a sister not likely. Since
-I received that long-lost letter—anathemas upon that circular desk,” and
-he pounded the “shaker” arm with his fist—“I have had but one
-inspiration in my projects, one question always ringing in my
-ears,—‘What will she think of it?’ Now I have found you only to hear
-from your own lips that my life is a failure, and yours a moral suicide,
-which I seem as helpless to prevent as I am to put a stay upon yonder
-waves that lash themselves to spray upon the rocks.”
-
-“David Morning,” and her voice was firm now, “I think I owe it to you as
-well as myself to tell you, even with the marriage ring upon my finger,
-that I wish I were free from the yoke of this fateful marriage; that if
-I could be delivered from the body of this death, then could I mount
-with glad wings the great height to which your love would raise me. But
-I could have no weight of a crying conscience upon my feet, no wail of
-wounded justice behind me, and so I will bear it to the end.”
-
-“You say, even with that marriage ring upon your finger. What care I,”
-said he, rising and standing before her, “for that circlet of gold upon
-your beautiful hand? I know it is a mockery, so do you, and but for it
-that hand might have been mine, and all these years have been saved to
-love and the heart’s gladness. What signifies the sanction of the law if
-you have not the sanction of your own soul? I shall not seek to dissuade
-you more, but one question I will ask of you, and if wealth could buy
-words eloquent enough to couch it in, I would surrender my possessions
-and delve for it again, if need be, in the depths of the earth. But
-truth is simple, and so I beg of you to answer from your soul, and
-thereafter I will do as you bid me. Do you love me, darling? do you?”
-and he bent over her chair.
-
-She lifted a face radiant with beautiful light. “Dearest,” said she
-softly, and David Morning thrilled with delight—“dearest, I am glad that
-this meeting and this understanding have come to us just here, where
-hundreds of eyes are upon us, for, if it were otherwise, I should forget
-all else except my desire to comfort you, and should place my arms about
-your neck, and ask you to seal upon my lips your forgiveness of me for
-all that I have made you suffer. God help me, I do love you, and I never
-loved any other. You are my hero, my darling, and my heart’s delight.
-All these years I have loved you, until the hour of death I shall love
-you, and beyond the gates I shall love you forever, and forever more.”
-
-Only a great sob came from the breast of David Morning.
-
-“Noble man,” she continued, “you have accomplished a great work in the
-world. God has selected and armed you for the deliverance of his
-nations. You have other and greater work to do. In the doing it the
-luster of your shield shall never be tarnished, as it would be were we
-to wrong another now. Go forth, my hero, my life, and my darling; go
-forth panoplied in your high manhood to your duty. In spirit I shall be
-with you ever. I shall rejoice in your mighty deeds. I shall live in
-your nobler thoughts. Day and night, my beloved, will my soul dwell with
-yours. Only in perfect honor and faith can I join you. If the hour for
-such union shall ever be given to us on earth, come to me and you will
-find me waiting. If it come only in the other land, I shall still be
-waiting. But here, my darling, my own, my heart’s solace, here we must
-meet not again.”
-
-And she placed her ungloved fingers in his.
-
-The man and the woman sat silently hand in hand. The music floated out
-from the lighted ballroom, where “the dancers were dancing in tune;” the
-sea curled its beryl depths to crests of foam, and sounded in musical
-monotones upon the beach which lay a white line upon the edge of the
-dusk, and the old, old world, the sorrowful, disappointing world, the
-weary world, was as sweet and young as when the first dawns were
-filtrated from chaotic mists.
-
-She broke the silence and withdrew her hand: “Yonder comes the baron.”
-
-“Good-by,” said he, and he walked away into the night, and as he reached
-the edge of the balcony overhanging the beach, and felt the sting of the
-salt spray in his eyes, he muttered something. It might have been a
-good-night prayer, but it sounded like, “Damn the baron.”
-
-               [From the San Diego _Union_, May 15, 1896.]
-
-  We regret to announce the death yesterday, at the Coronado Hotel, of
-  Baron Frederick Augustus Eulaw Von Eulaw, eleventh Count of
-  Walderberg, eighth Baron of Weinerstrath, and Knight Commander of the
-  order of the Golden Tulip.
-
-  The immediate cause of the baron’s death was hyperemia of the brain,
-  but he never recovered from the nervous prostration induced by heat
-  and long exposure to the sun, while in the performance of his duty as
-  one of the representatives of the German Empire, on the occasion of
-  the dynamic exposition.
-
-  This distinguished nobleman, during his brief sojourn among us, had
-  endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact, by the
-  gentleness and grace of his manner, his kindly sympathies, and
-  unselfish courtesy. The _Wilhelm II._ has been detailed to receive his
-  remains, which will be embalmed for transportation in state to Berlin,
-  where they will be interred with fitting pomp.
-
-  The baroness, who to the last was devoted in her attentions to the
-  late baron, will, it is understood, remain in this country in the home
-  of her parents, Professor and Mrs. John Thornton.
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
-                      “All’s well that ends well.”
-
-
-It was a lovely morning in June, in the year of our Lord eighteen
-hundred and ninety-seven, when a carriage containing a red-headed and
-red-bearded man drove rapidly down upon Pier No. 2, North River, where
-the occupant emerged from the equipage, and, elbowing his way through
-the throng, approached the gangway of an immense steamer gaily decorated
-with flags of all nations.
-
-He was stopped by two officials in uniform, one of them saying civilly
-that no strangers were allowed on board.
-
-“Is not this Mr. Morning’s steam yacht the _Patience_?” said the
-stranger.
-
-“Yes, sir, if the largest and finest vessel in the world can be called a
-yacht. Certainly this is Mr. Morning’s ship.”
-
-“I was told at the hotel that he would sail to-day for Europe.”
-
-“Your information is quite correct; he goes as one of the three
-delegates appointed by the President to represent the United States at
-the Congress of Nations, which will meet in Paris next month.”
-
-“Well, I want to see him before he sails,” replied the stranger.
-
-“It is too late, sir, even if you had a card of admission. His friends
-are now bidding good-by to the bridal party, and in a few minutes the
-order will be issued of ‘all ashore.’”
-
-“Bridal party? Whose? Not Morning’s?”
-
-“Haven’t you heard of it? Why, the papers have been full of it for days.
-He was married yesterday, in Boston, to the Baroness Von Eulaw.”
-
-“Well,” said the stranger, “I only arrived this morning from Arizona. I
-am the superintendent of his mine there, and am here on business of
-importance. He will be mightily disappointed if I don’t see him. Suppose
-you send word to him that Bob Steel is here and wants to see him before
-he sails. I reckon he’ll give orders to admit me.”
-
-The request of Steel was complied with, and directions given for his
-admittance. After exchanging greetings with Morning and being presented
-to the bride, Steel stated that he had business of importance to
-communicate. The whistle had sounded “all ashore,” and the guests were
-rapidly departing. Morning quietly instructed the captain not to have
-the lines cast off until he should have finished his interview with
-Steel, and then, summoning the latter to follow him into a private
-salon, said:—
-
-“Well, Bob, what is it?”
-
-“Mr. Morning,” replied Steel, “the news ain’t good, but it is so
-important I did not dare to trust to mail or wire, so I left the mine in
-charge of Mr. Fabian, and came on myself. We didn’t find no ore last
-month on the new level at two hundred feet, and I set three shifts to
-work at every station, and—I’m afraid to tell you the result.”
-
-“Out with it, Bob. I was married yesterday, and you can’t tell me any
-news bad enough to hurt me much.”
-
-“Well, Mr. Morning, there ain’t no ore in the mine below the one hundred
-and fifty feet level. _The quartz has come to an end._ We are at the bed
-rock, and the syenite is as solid and close-grained as the basalt wall
-where we did our first work, you and I, blasting with the Papago
-Indians.”
-
-Morning whistled. “How much do we lack, Bob, of the $2,400,000,000 I
-donated to the United States?”
-
-“About eight hundred millions, sir; but there is more than enough ore
-not stoped out in the upper levels to pay that twice over. We have
-seventeen hundred millions at least.”
-
-“That,” said Morning, “will finish the payment to the government,
-complete all the enterprises I have projected, give you ten millions,
-and all the men who have stood by us from the start half a million each.
-It will serve also to make some donations I have in mind, and will leave
-over six hundred millions for the Morning family. It is not so much
-money now as it was when I made the discovery, but it will keep the wolf
-from the door. Bob, the whistles are sounding and I shall have to bid
-you good-by and send you ashore. There is no possibility, I suppose, of
-this being only a break, or a horse? No chance of the ore coming in
-again lower down?”
-
-“None in the world, Mr. Morning. In that formation it is impossible. The
-Morning mine, as a mine, has _petered_!”
-
-“Bob,” said our hero, extending his hand with a smile, “put it there!”
-
-And Robert Steel and David Morning clasped hands with the clasp of men.
-
-“Bob,” said Morning, “on my soul I am glad of it. The problem of
-overproduction of gold will no longer vex the world, and now I shall
-have a chance to pass a few hours in quiet with my wife.”
-
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-                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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- 1. P. 282, changed “the fasces of a diamond” to “the facets of a
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- 2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
-      spelling.
- 3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
- 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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