King Coal quotes

“But I walked all the way up here!”

“You’ll find it easier walkin’ back.”

“Scared of the dark, kid?” inquired Bill, facetiously.

“I’ll tell you the truth, if you’ll let me.” Then, as the other did not forbid him, “I’m a college boy, and I wanted to see life and shift for myself a while. I thought it would be a lark to come here.”

“Well,” said Bill, “this ain’t no football field. It’s a coal-mine.”

Hal saw that his story had been accepted. “Tell me straight,” he said, “what did you think I was?”

“I wanted to work while I was young,” said he, “but now I’m cured, an’ fer good.”

The world had come to seem to him a place especially constructed for the purpose of making him work, and every faculty he possessed was devoted to foiling this plot.

Sitting by a campfire near the stream which ran down the valley, Hal had a merry time pointing out to “Dutch Mike” how he worked harder at dodging work than other men worked at working.

When Hal wondered if this were not against the law, “Cut it out, Bo!” said his companion. “When you’ve had a job for a while, you’ll know that the law in a coal-camp is what your boss tells you.”

The hobo went on to register his conviction that when one man has the giving of jobs, and other men have to scramble for them, the law would never have much to say in the deal.

Hal judged this a profound observation, and wished that it might be communicated to the professor of political economy at Harrigan.

The mule is notoriously a profane and godless creature; a blind alley of Nature, so to speak, a mistake of which she is ashamed, and which she does not permit to reproduce itself.

The thirty mules under Hal’s charge had been brought up in an environment calculated to foster the worst tendencies of their natures. He soon made the discovery that the “colic” of his predecessor had been caused by a mule’s hind foot in the stomach;

the filthiness which their minds had spawned was incredible to one born and raised in the sunlight. They alleged obscenities of their mothers and their grandmothers; also of the Virgin Mary, the one mythological character they had heard of.

Poor little creatures of the dark, their souls grimed and smutted even more quickly and irrevocably than their faces!

Hal had been advised by his boss to inquire for board at “Reminitsky’s.”

The method of getting out the coal was to “undercut” it with a pick, and then blow it loose with a charge of powder. This meant that the miner had to lie on his side while working, and accounted for other physical peculiarities.

Thus, as always, when one understood the lives of men, one came to pity instead of despising.

Here was a separate race of creatures, subterranean, gnomes, pent up by society for purposes of its own. Outside in the sunshine-flooded canyon, long lines of cars rolled down with their freight of soft-coal;

“I’ve been surveying my empire,” said he.

“My empire. The land belongs to the company, but the landscape belongs to him who cares for it.”

She tossed her head a little. “Where did ye learn to talk like ye do?”

He had meant nothing more by this than to keep the conversation going. But her answer turned the tide of their acquaintance.

“Ye can never be sure, lad. Perhaps tonight a storm may come and blow it to pieces. Perhaps if ye’d pulled it and been happy, ’twould ’a’ been what the rose was for.”

Whatever of unconscious patronage there had been in the poet’s attitude was lost now in the eternal mystery. Whether the girl knew it—or cared—she had won the woman’s first victory. She had caught the man’s mind and pinned it with curiosity.

“You don’t like the place?” he asked; and he was amazed by the effect of this question, which was merely polite. It was as if a storm cloud had swept over the girl’s face.

“I hate it! ’Tis a place of fear and devils!”

He hesitated a moment; then, “Will you tell me what you mean by that when I come?”

Did they have a vision of a future, great and wonderful, which was to grow out of their ill-requited toil? Or were they simply fools or cowards, submitting blindly, because they had not the wit nor the will to do otherwise?

Curiosity held him, he wanted to understand the inner souls of these silent and patient armies which through the ages have surrendered their lives to other men’s control.

So they became too good for their lot in life; and then a wandering agitator would get in, and all of a sudden there would be hell.

Therefore in every coal-camp had to be another kind of “fire-boss,” whose duty it was to guard against another kind of explosions⁠—not of carbon monoxide, but of the human soul.

The immediate duties of this office in North Valley devolved upon Jeff Cotton, the camp-marshal.

“Oh! Them wops! Nobody counts them—they live any way they happen to fall. But you started at Reminitsky’s, and ’t would not be healthy for them that took ye away.”

“I see,” laughed Hal. “There seem to be a lot of unhealthy things hereabouts.”

“Sure there be! They sent down Nick Ammons because his wife bought milk down the canyon. They had a sick baby, and it’s not much you get in this thin stuff at the store. They put chalk in it, I think;

And his wife made haste to add, “If they let peddlers and the like of them come in, ’twould be no end to it, I suppose. We find they treat us here as well as anywhere.”

“ ’Tis no joke, the life of workin’ men, wherever ye try it,” added the other; and when young Tim started to express an opinion, they shut him up with such evident anxiety that Hal’s heart ached for them, and he made haste to change the subject.

“And is it so easy to get skilled men?”

“It don’t take much skill to get out coal. The skill is in keepin’ your bones whole⁠—and if you can stand breakin’ ’em, the company can stand it.”

They had come to the little cabin. Mary stood for a moment in silence. “I’m talkin’ bitter again!” she exclaimed suddenly. “And I promised ye me company manner! But things keep happening to set me off.” And she turned abruptly and ran into the house.

“And you didn’t get your half day’s pay?”

“Sure I get nothin’. Boss do just as he please in coal mine.”

Would a man undertake to build a dam, for example, with no chance to measure the ground in advance, nor any way of determining how many cubic yards of concrete he had to put in?

Would a grocer sell to a customer who proposed to come into the store and do his own weighing⁠—and meantime locking the grocer outside?

Merely to put such questions was to show the preposterousness of the thing; yet in this district were fifteen thousand men working on precisely such terms.

“You mean they would fire him?” asked Hal.

“Maybe!” was the answer. “Maybe they make him fire himself.”

“They make his life one damn misery till he go.”

But he was willing to pay for the privilege of a clean home and clean food. To his amusement he found that in the eyes of his Irish friends he was losing caste by going to live with the Minettis.

There were most rigid social lines in North Valley, it appeared.

The Americans and English and Scotch looked down upon the Welsh and Irish; the Welsh and Irish looked down upon the Dagoes and Frenchies;

But here she broke into the conversation; her voice came suddenly, alive with scorn:

“The trouble with the miner is that he’s a slave!”

“Ah, now—” put in the old man, protestingly.

“Ah, now—” put in the old man, protestingly.

“He has the whole world against him, and he hasn’t got the sense to get together⁠—to form a union, and stand by it!”

There fell a sudden silence in the Rafferty home. Even Hal was startled—for this was the first time during his stay in the camp that he had heard the dread word “union” spoken above a whisper.

“ ’Tis all very well,” said the old man. “When ye’re young, and a woman too—”

“A woman! Is it only the women that can have courage?”

“Sure,” said he, with a wry smile, “ ’tis the women that have the tongues, and that can’t he stopped from usin’ them. Even the boss must know that.”

“ ’Tis not much ye know of a coal-camp, Joe Smith,” she said.

“Can’t ye imagine what it’s like⁠—bein’ a woman in a place like this? And a woman they think good-lookin’!”

“Oh, so it’s that!” said he, and was silent again. “Someone’s been troubling you?” he ventured after a while.

“Oh, so it’s that!” said he, and was silent again. “Someone’s been troubling you?” he ventured after a while.

“Sure! Someone’s always troublin’ us women! Always! Never a day but we hear it. Winks and nudges⁠—everywhere ye turn.”

“The bosses, the clerks—anybody that has a chance to wear a stiff collar, and thinks he can offer money to a girl. It begins before she’s out of short skirts, and there’s never any peace afterwards.”

But, Joe, ’tis not more drudgery I want, ’tis somethin’ fair to look upon—somethin’ of my own!” She flung out her arms suddenly like one being stifled.

“Oh, I want somethin’ that’s fair and clean!”

Again he felt her trembling. Again the path was rough, and having an impulse of sympathy, he put his arm about her. In the world of leisure, one might indulge in such considerateness, and he assumed it would not be different with a miner’s daughter.

“Possibly,” ventured the other, “they’d have said you got what you deserved.”

“Yes, that seems to be their attitude. That’s the rule they apply to all the world⁠—if anything goes wrong with you, it must be your own fault. It’s a land of equal opportunity.”

“And you’ll notice,” said the organiser, “that the more privileges people have had, the more boldly they talk that way.”

“Yes, that seems to be their attitude. That’s the rule they apply to all the world—if anything goes wrong with you, it must be your own fault. It’s a land of equal opportunity.”

“And you’ll notice,” said the organiser, “that the more privileges people have had, the more boldly they talk that way.”

Hal began to feel a sense of comradeship with this stranger, who was able to understand one’s family troubles! It had been a long time since Hal had talked with anyone from the outside world, and he found it a relief to his mind.

To his mind the path was clear and straight.

“They must be taught the lesson of solidarity. As individuals, they’re helpless in the power of the great corporations; but if they stand together, if they sell their labour as a unit⁠—then they really count for something.”

He paused, and looked at the other inquiringly. “How do you feel about unions?”

Hal found this an entirely new argument.

“People don’t realise that idea⁠—that men have to be organised to get their legal rights.”

And the other threw up his hands with a comical gesture. “My God! If you want to make a list of the things that people don’t realise about us miners!”

If, as Old Mike and Johannson and the rest maintained, the bosses would “make your life one damn misery” till you left—then he would be ready to make a few damn miseries for the bosses in return!

“It would be an adventure,” said Hal, suddenly.

And the other laughed. “It would that!”

He watched with curiosity and pity the struggle that went on; a struggle as old as the soul of man—between the voice of self-interest, of comfort and prudence, and the call of duty, of the ideal.

No trumpet sounded for this conflict, only the still small voice within.

After a while Jerry asked what it was Hal and Olson had planned; and Hal explained that he wanted to make a test of the company’s attitude toward the check-weighman law. Hal thought it a fine scheme; what did Jerry think?

He answered:

“That’s more than any ant can know. Mary. All they know is to go in. They cling to each other’s bodies, even in death; they make a bridge, and the rest go over.”

“I’ll step one side!” she declared, fiercely. “I’ll not throw meself away.”

“I’ll step one side!” she declared, fiercely. “I’ll not throw meself away.”

“You may step one side,” answered the other⁠—“but you’ll step back into line again. I know you better than you know yourself, Mary.”

There was silence in the little cabin. The winds of an early fall shrilled outside, and life suddenly seemed to Hal a stern and merciless thing. He had thought in his youthful fervour it would be thrilling to be a revolutionist;

“Nothing at all, sir. I never pay much attention to politics—it ain’t in my line.”

“Well, that’s the way I like to hear a miner talk!” said the pit-boss, with heartiness. “If they all had sense enough to leave politics to the politicians, they’d be a sight better off. What they need is to tend to their own jobs.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Hal, meekly—“like I had to tend to them mules, if I didn’t want to get the colic.”

“What?” smiled Hal. “In this free American republic?”

“In this part of the free American republic a man is free to dig coal, but not to vote for a skunk like MacDougall.”

Then, having tied up the sugar, the “J.P.” whittled off a fresh chew from his plug, and turned to Hal. “What’ll you have?”

“Oh, I see,” said Hal, naively. “You stuff them worse!”

“Sometimes we stuff the boxes, and sometimes we stuff the voters.”

There was an appreciative titter from the others, and the “J.P.” was moved to reminiscence. “Two years ago I was election clerk, over to Sheridan, and we found we’d let ’em get ahead of us—they had carried the whole state. ‘By God,’ said Alf.

Once a newcomer, having misunderstood the orders, came to the front door and knocked; and Hal noted that everyone started, and some rose to their feet in alarm. Again he recognised the atmosphere of novels of Russian revolutionary life.

He had to remind himself that these men and women, gathered here like criminals, were merely planning to ask for a right guaranteed them by the law!

The last to come was an Austrian miner named Huszar, with whom Olson had got into touch. Then, it being time to begin, everybody looked uneasily at everybody else.

For a while they heard the spy behind them, but finally his footsteps died away, and after they had moved on for some distance, they believed they were safe till daylight.

Hal had slept out many a night as a hunter, but it was a new adventure to sleep out as the game!

At dawn they rose, and shook the dew from their blankets, and wiped it from their eyes. Hal was young, and saw the glory of the morning, while poor Mike Sikoria groaned and grumbled over his stiff and aged joints.

Edstrom was obliged to go down to see to his wife’s funeral; and it was obvious that if Mike Sikoria were to lay off work, he would be providing the boss with an excuse for firing him.

The law which provided for a check-weighman had failed to provide for a check-weighman’s bodyguard!

Hal had announced his programme in that flash of defiance in Cartwright’s office. As soon as work started up, he went to the tipple. “Mr. Peters,” he said, to the tipple-boss, “I’ve come to act as check-weighman.”

The other’s eyes flew open.

This was not a revolt, it was a revolution!

“Who the hell’s messenger boy do you think I am?” he demanded.

Hal stood for a bit, until he had made sure of his composure. After which he strolled over towards the scales.

A difficulty had occurred to him for the first time⁠—that he did not know anything about the working of coal-scales.

But he was given no time to learn. The tipple-boss reappeared. “Get out of here, fellow!” said he.

just as there is a peculiar psychology incidental to straining your back and breaking your hands loading coal-cars in a five foot vein; and another, and quite different psychology, produced by living at ease off the labours of coal-miners.

In a jail, you have first of all the sense of being an animal; the animal side of your being is emphasised, the animal passions of hatred and fear are called into prominence, and if you are to escape being dominated by them, it can only be by intense and concentrated effort of the mind.

So, if you are a thinking man, you do a great deal of thinking in a jail; the days are long, and the nights still longer—you have time for all the thoughts you can have.

the animal side of your being is emphasised, the animal passions of hatred and fear are called into prominence, and if you are to escape being dominated by them, it can only be by intense and concentrated effort of the mind.

So, if you are a thinking man, you do a great deal of thinking in a jail; the days are long, and the nights still longer⁠—you have time for all the thoughts you can have.

The bench was hard, and seemed to grow harder. There was no position in which it could be made to grow soft. Hal got up and paced about, then he lay down for a while, then got up and walked again;

“No, thank you,” said Hal, quietly.

“I do not smoke. But I like to be invited.”

There was a pause, while the two men measured each other.

The marshal smiled grimly.

“So long as there are sheep,” said he, “there’ll be wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

“I see,” said Hal. “And you leave them to feed on the lambs!”

The marshal had said he was “long-winded!” Well, to be sure, he had talked a lot; but what could the man expect—having shut him up in jail for two nights and a day, with only his grievances to brood over!

Was that the way real agitators were made⁠—being shut up with grievances to brood over?

Hal recalled his broodings in the jail. He had been embittered; he had not cared whether North Valley was dominated by labour unions. But that had all been a mood, the same as his answer to his brother;

A dogfight, with no faith or humanity anywhere! Don’t think I’m sneering at you—I’m talking out of my heart to you. I’m not so young, nor such a fool, that I haven’t had the dogfight aspect of things brought to my attention.

But there’s something in a fellow that insists he isn’t all dog; he has at least a possibility of something better.

Take these poor underdogs sweating inside the mountain, risking their lives every hour of the day and night to provide you and me with coal to keep us warm—to ‘keep the wheels of industry a-roll’—”

it was necessary, the bosses said, but to Hal it seemed the climax of horror. To seal up men and boys in a place of deadly gases!

There was something peculiarly torturing in the idea of men caught in a mine; they were directly under one’s feet, yet it was impossible to get to them, to communicate with them in any way!

The people on top yearned to them, and they, down below, yearned back. It was impossible to forget them for even a few minutes. People would become abstracted while they talked, and would stand staring into space;

Few people slept in North Valley during those two nights. They held mourning parties in their homes or on the streets. Some housework had to be done, of course, but no one did anything that could be left undone.

The children would not play; they stood about, silent, pale, like wizened-up grown people, over-mature in knowledge of trouble.

The nerves of everyone were on edge, the self-control of everyone balanced upon a fine point.

“Truly, Mary,” he went on. “Life isn’t so terrible everywhere as it is here. Come away! Hard as it is to believe, you’ll forget all this.

People suffer, but then they stop suffering; it’s nature’s way⁠—to make them forget.

”

But she broke in, “What makes it so hard to bear is knowin’ there’s so many wonderful things in the world, and ye can never have them!

’Tis as if ye had to see them through a pane of glass, like in the window of a store.

Just think, Joe Smith—once, in a church in Sheridan, I heard a lady sing beautiful music; once in my whole lifetime! Can ye guess what it meant to me?”

Or I’ll go out and work at some job, and earn my share. And I’ll make ye this promise—if ever ye get tired and want to leave me, ye’ll not hear a word of complaint!”

She made no conscious appeal to his senses; she sat gazing at him honestly through her tears, and that made it all the harder to answer her.

What could he say? He felt the old dangerous impulse—to take the girl in his arms and comfort her. When finally he spoke it was with an effort to keep his voice calm. “I’d say yes, Mary, if I thought it would work.”

The suggestion struck fire, and they agreed to set to work that same evening.

It would be a relief to do something, to have something in their minds but despair.

They passed the word to Mary Burke, to Rovetta, Klowoski, and others;

And from this great world would come an answer, a universal shout of horror, of execration, that would force even old Peter Harrigan to give way!

So Hal mused⁠—for he was young, and this was his first crusade.

He was so happy that he was able to think of himself again, and to realise that he had not eaten that day.

Hal looked at him blankly. He had taken it for granted the publication of the facts would force the company to move. But Keating explained that the Gazette read mainly by working-people, and so had comparatively little influence.

“We’re an afternoon paper,” he said; “and when people have been reading lies all morning, it’s not easy to make them believe the truth in the afternoon.”

“But won’t the story go to other papers—over the country, I mean?”

The family were afraid to use the dining-room of their home, but spread a little table in the upstairs hall. The distress of mind of MacKellar’s wife and daughter was apparent, and this brought home to Hal the terror of life in this coal-country.

Here were American women, in an American home, a home with evidences of refinement and culture; yet they felt and acted as if they were Russian conspirators, in terror of Siberia and the knout!

The reporter was gone a couple of hours; when he came back, he brought news. “You can prepare for trouble, young fellow.”

“I am,” said the other. “I know it’s all fake, but just the same, it makes my little heart go pit-a-pat.

I always want to think they’re as lovely as they look.

”

Next to Mrs. Curtis sat Reggie Porter, with a rose in the buttonhole of his dinner-jacket. Hal knew the role in which Reggie was there—a kind of male chaperon, an assistant host, an admirer to the wealthy, a solace to the bored.

Poor Reggie lived other people’s lives, his soul perpetually a-quiver with other people’s excitements, with gossip, preparations for tea-parties, praise of tea-parties past.

And always the soul was pushing; calculating, measuring opportunities, making up in tact and elegance for distressing lack of money. Hal got one swift glimpse of the face;

The possibility that his own world, the world of Hal Warner, might find him out as Joe Smith, the miner’s buddy—that was a possibility which had never come to his mind.

He was like a burglar, working away at a job in darkness, and suddenly finding the room flooded with light.

He had gone into the adventure, prepared to find things that would shock him; he had known that somehow, somewhere, he would have to fight the “system.”

“But where could I go, Percy?

Somebody owns everything. If it’s a big thing, it’s almost certain to be somebody we know.

”

“Yes,” he said, “but it’s all the same.

They toil, and we live on their toil, and take it as a matter of course.

”

“No, they shot at Joe Smith, a miner’s buddy.

They won’t shoot at the son of a millionaire⁠—not in America, Jessie.

”

“I can keep a secret,” said Little Jerry. After a moment’s pause he added, dropping his voice, “

You gotta keep secrets if you work in North Valley.

”

As for the other lads, there was a law that said they were too young to work.

Mrs. Rafferty thought there should be someone to put a little sense into the heads of them that made the laws⁠—for if they wanted to forbid children to work in coal-mines, they should surely provide some other way to feed the children.

Hal listened, agreeing sympathetically, and meantime watching her, and learning more from her actions than from her words. She had been obedient to the teachings of her religion, to be fruitful and multiply;

Certainly not while he had been in her house! Even now, while praising the Rafferty God and blaming the capitalist lawmakers, she was getting a supper, moving swiftly, silently, like a machine.

She was lean as an old horse that has toiled across a desert; the skin over her cheekbones was tight as stretched rubber, and cords stood out in her wrists like piano-wires.

And now she was cringing before the spectre of destitution. He asked what she would do about it, and saw the shadow of terror cross her face again.

And now she was cringing before the spectre of destitution. He asked what she would do about it, and saw the shadow of terror cross her face again.

There was one recourse from starvation, it seemed⁠—to have her children taken from her, and put in some institution!

At the mention of this, one of the special nightmares of the poor, the old woman began to sob and cry again that the doctor was wrong;

It was not necessary to consider the possibility of boring anyone, for these were patient and long-suffering men, and now desperately in earnest.

They were going to have a union; they were going to do the thing in regular form, with membership cards and officials chosen by ballot.

So Hal explained to them, step by step. There was no use organising unless they meant to stay organised. They would choose leaders, one from each of the principal language groups;

They were going to have a union; they were going to do the thing in regular form, with membership cards and officials chosen by ballot. So Hal explained to them, step by step.

There was no use organising unless they meant to stay organised.

They would choose leaders, one from each of the principal language groups;

Edward did not answer, and Hal persisted, “I mean to know these things!

I’m not going to be blind any more!

”

Hal sat staring in front of him, silent.

Was it a fact that every man had something in his life which palsied his arm, and struck him helpless in the battle for social justice?

When he spoke again, it was in a low voice. “Edward, I’m thinking about a young Irish boy who works in these mines. He, too, has a father; and this father was caught in the explosion.

“

I can tell you the reason for that, Edward⁠—a man like you can shut his eyes, but he can’t shut his ears!

”

The young Irishman smiled, rather sadly. “You’re new at this game,” he said. “

If a mine-disaster was enough to win a strike, God knows our job would be easy.

In Barela, just down the canyon from you, they’ve had three big explosions—they’ve killed over five hundred men in the past year!”

“Well, you will, if you stay at this business. There hasn’t been a minute since our office was opened that we haven’t had half a dozen on the other side of the street.

Every man that comes to see us is followed back to his camp and fired that same day.

They’ve broken into my desk at night and stolen my letters and papers; they’ve threatened us with death a hundred times.”

Every man had to make his sacrifices, to pay his part of the price.

The thing of importance was that every man who was discharged should be a spark of unionism, carrying the flame of revolt to a new part of the country.

Let each one do his part, and there would soon be no place to which the masters could send for “scabs.”

You’re going to work and keep your jobs, and get ready for the big strike. And you’ll tell the other men what I say. I can’t talk to them all, but you tell them about the union.

Remember, there are people outside planning and fighting for you.

We’re going to stand by the union, all of us, till we’ve brought these coal-camps back into America!” There was a cheer that shook the walls of the room. Yes, that was what they wanted—to live in America!

Hal gave these men his real name and address, and made them promise to let him know how they got along. He would help a little, he said; in his mind he was figuring how much he ought to do.

How far shall a man go in relieving the starvation about him, before he can enjoy his meals in a well-appointed club?

What casuist will work out this problem—telling him the percentage he shall relieve of the starvation he happens personally to know about, the percentage of that which he sees on the streets, the percentage of that about which he reads in government reports on the …

… problem—telling him the percentage he shall relieve of the starvation he happens personally to know about, the percentage of that which he sees on the streets, the percentage of that about which he reads in government reports on the rise in the cost of living.

To what extent is he permitted to close his eyes, as he walks along the streets on his way to the club?

To what extent is he permitted to avoid reading government reports before going out to dinner-dances with his fiancée? Problems such as these the masters of the higher mathematics have neglected to solve;

“All right,” she said, “Joe ye shall be. ’Twill remind ye of a pretty adventure—bein’ a workin’ man for a few weeks. Well, that’s a part of what I have to tell ye.

I’ve got my pride, even if I’m only a poor miner’s daughter; and the other day I found out me place.

”

“Now,” concluded Mary, with clenched hands, and a voice that corresponded, “now, I’ve had it out.

I’m no slave; I’ve just as good a right to life as any lady.

I know I’ll never have it, of course; I’ll never wear good clothes, nor live in a decent home, nor have the man I want; but I’ll know that I’ve done somethin’ to help free the workin’ people from the shame that’s put on them.

“Perhaps not, Mary.

But when a man knows he’s never paid for any of the things he’s enjoyed all his life, surely the least he can do is to be ashamed.

I hope you’ll try not to hate me as you do the others.”

“Sure, lad,” she answered. “

There’s no fairies in coal-camps⁠—unless ’tis meself, that washes it at night, and dries it over the stove, and irons it next mornin’.

”