THE TOIL OF THE LABORER A TRILOGY

I

THE toil of the laborer is artless. There is in it neither form, nor color, nor tone. For months I have been working as only workingmen work, and in the dreary round of the hours it has come to me that the thing which is wearisome and disheartening about it is that it is utterly devoid of art. In the construction of a building, for instance, whereat we labored for three long months, I discovered that with each day’s labor I was in contact only with that which was formless and colorless and toneless. Huge, misshapen, disheartening piles of brick; commonplace, indifferent and colorless masses of stone, wood, iron, sand, cement; bone and sinew of what was to be, but in themselves devoid of all that could appeal to the eye or touch the heart, and scattered about in such an aimless way as to bring to the mind nothing but a wearying sense of disorder. This disorder, however, as soon became clear to me, was not apparent in a definite way to all those who worked amidst it. These mixers of mortar and carriers of brick toiled in the grime and dust without seeming to realize that it was a wretched condition, hard, grim and, so far as the sum of their individual lives was concerned, but meagerly profitable. Carpenters, masons and iron-workers went sturdily about their labors, but the artless and unlovely nature of their work was over it all, and despite their seeming unconsciousness to it one felt the drag of its absence, their eagerness to get away, their innate yearning to be where things were not in the making, the urge to be out in the larger and more perfect world where form and color and tone do abound.

For, after all, in the main, things do stand complete, as we see them. The hills have their enduring roundness, the trees their perpetual forms. Landscapes and skylines are not torn and scraped as in the vicinity of some (comparatively) minute constructive labor. Nature is nearly always cunningly pleasing to the eye on the surface, whatever may go on below, whereas the average constructive processes are so often discordant, broken, disordered.

Seeing this, and not being able in my own consciousness to explain why, my heart was sad and I wondered why life should be thus grimly organized; why formlessness in the parts of the thing to be formed; why tonelessness in that which when laboriously organized would be all tone; why colorlessness in that which in the end would enliven the heart with color and dance before the eye a perfect thing.

In the progress of the work, however, it was given me to see that, in the production of all things here, there is at bottom this very formlessness innate. For to organize and perfect one thing we must take from and destroy another; and in doing that we fly in the face of that which we most desire: order and harmony. Therefore, if we would have that which the inexplicable urge for something new and more beautiful commands, we must apparently steel our hearts against the old and destroy it, although, having committed the offense of destruction, we must repay or balance by the labor of construction.

It is not given to all of us to follow the ramifications of Nature’s planning nor to see wherein justice or the seeming injustice lies. Most of those about me—average short-reasoning creatures—took their labor drearily enough and were not able to see in any definite inspiriting way the approaching beauty of that which their hands were building. It did not concern them. Many of them came and labored but a little while, doing but a minute portion of that which was to be the whole, seeing only the mass and chaos of it without ever obtaining one glimpse of the loveliness which was to be.

But when the labor had been completed, when the mortar had been mixed and the brick and stone removed from their uneven masses and set in order, when the wounds of the earth had been smoothed over, the scattered débris removed and the grass allowed to grow, when in the light of the restful evening there rose, in this instance, high in the air a perfect tower, buttressed, arched and pinnacled, with here a window reflecting the golden Western glow and there a pillar standing out in delicate relief against the perfect background of the sky, the meaning of the chaos came home. Here it was: color, form, tone, beauty. The labor of the excavator, the toil of the iron-worker, the irritating beats of the carpenters’ hammers, the mess and disorder of the field of action, had all blended together finally and made this perfect thing—only they were no longer a part of it. To most of them it was all but meaningless. Having labored on but portions of it they could scarcely conceive it as a whole.

And yet as I looked my heart rose up, and I, for one, was thankful to have been in part a worker, to have worked a little, to have wearied a little, to have sighed a little, that so lovely a thing might be.

II

The toil of the laborer is thoughtless. There is in it neither conception nor initiative nor the development of that which is new. Though the hands labor and the body bend, the heart is not in it. It is all a weariness and a travail of the flesh, and the profit is unseen.

In a certain factory, not far from the heart of the city of New York, I worked as a laborer. My duty was to carry shavings and lumber and to sweep the floor. All day, from the blowing of the whistle at seven in the morning to its welcome blast at six at night, my body was busy bending and lifting in the effort to keep the floor clean of shavings and supplying a half-dozen machines with lumber. The slow, unchanging, imperative nature of the work, the fact that I went on whether one man came or another one stayed away, the dreary persistence with which it was necessary to repeat the same motion day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, was, to the thinking and restless mind, maddening.

In this factory at the time there ruled a foreman well fitted to the scheme of things. He was a strange, egotistic, vainglorious soul, with a mind so set up by the fact that he had been foreman of this little shop that there was no living with him. He was arbitrary; his word was law. With an air that might have become a tragedian, he walked about his domain and glared upon each and all, meditating upon his exalted position. Every word was either a command or a reproof, and in times of excitement or depression, such as naturally flow from the hurry or the lack of work, he was always about, venting his humor or wrath, as his mood dictated.

This situation, coupled with the meager wages, the enormous wealth of the corporation which controlled it all, the utter indifference of those who sat at the top to those who worked at the bottom, was a difficult thing to endure. It was so very apparent to any one who thought that the work of those at the bottom was entirely without point save as a means of subsistence. To lift and carry, to move along given lines and within certain limits—this was the sum and substance of wisdom required, and it mattered little who did it. Some small personal characteristics figured in, such as whether a man was naturally quick or slow, good-humored or ill-humored and the like, but the main point was to do the work as conceived, planned, initiated and developed by some one above. And this could be acquired until it was not a matter of thought but of rote. What you thought or how you felt was not involved.

One of its pathetic aspects was that it was involved with the maintenance of a condition which was not necessarily beneficial or worthy of approval. So many of the owners, for whom these thousands upon thousands of individuals labored, were mere idlers in society, social loafers, daily bulletined as the chief factors in a dozen trivial amusements, and as wholly unconscious of this under-condition which made for their situation and pleasure as if it did not exist at all. For every motion and bending here, some one else was deriving the privilege not to move or bend there. It was as if some untoward power were momentarily taking something from each of these and giving it to some one who did not even know whence it came.

And the saddest part of it was that these toilers, born for the most part to a condition and with brains unsuited to anything much better, were still not so dull that they could not see, and that rather plainly, how scurvily Nature was using them, with what a vast, contemptuous indifference. It was little to Her whether they lived or died, did poorly or well. Most of them were mere machines who had acquired the little they knew by observing others, who, if they were capable of thinking at all, were restricted by the nature of their labor in utilizing thought, and yet they could see so plainly that those above them did very little or nothing, and received much, so much more. It was one of those situations in which labor, a mere round of motions, took the place of thought and left them weary and disinterested at the close of the day, not fit to originate a thought if it had been possible or necessary.

And yet, after a time, it occurred to me that it was not, perhaps, so much the thoughtlessness of it that was so wretched as that any human being, toiling to his full capacity, should not receive more of the legitimate profits of his labor. These men, ignorant and, in a way, valueless without direction, were nevertheless useful creatures and, in this sense if no other, were deserving of a far more reasonable share of the profit which their efforts created. That it should not be so, that despite their willing or non-willing they should be driven early and late to create a surplus which was not directly applied to the pressing needs of society as a whole, but to the frittering amusements of the few, not much better in the main than themselves, seemed hard.

And yet sometimes when I looked out upon the world as it glimmered before my windows—when I saw, as it so chanced, the waters of the river flowing by, the splendid boats riding at anchor or steaming peacefully past, and the wonder of the hills and hollows, all set suggestively before the eyes—it came to me that, perhaps, in spite of the seeming injustice involved in this situation, variety was as essential to happiness as so-called justice or equation, and that the very inequalities I was bemoaning were the things which I was admiring in Nature. To blot out the light and the shadows, to remove the hills and dales, to take away the far reaches which spread between luxury and want, idleness and toil—might not these be the things which after all would rob life of much of its value and charm? Might they not?

But as I turned again to the weariness of my labor and saw once more the routine, the comparative slavery, the drag of almost endless hours, I could not help wishing for each that there might be some better solution than this necessity for variety—that perhaps the heights and hollows need not after all be so vast. To survey a mountain, to view a desert—was not this the privilege of but a few? And might not the true beauty of life exist in the way-places where are neither heights nor depths but only a tender and appealing undulation? I wondered, and still do, for in spite of endless personal inconvenience I have never been able to believe that an unbreakable dead level of equality should maintain, that none should suffer overmuch, that none should want to the extreme. And yet at this time, in this place, the less varied seemed the all-to-be-desired. That it was not to be found in so starkly diversified a world as here offers did not lessen the pain of the labor or the value of the ideal in the least. To work, to wait, to hope, to pray for some such change—how important these loomed in the hour of weariness! And yet the charm that hope cast over effort was as though the difference had already in part been bridged and that the realization of the ideal was almost at hand.

III

The toil of the laborer is without mercy, its grim insistence unrequited by anything save the meager wages wherewith it is paid. There is no true beauty in it, no tenderness. There is no thought of anything save what muscle and the strength of the individual can be made to yield. More than this, the sum of what is accomplished passes almost entirely into other hands. There is no provision made for those who will be as tattered remnants when the things for which they labored have been accomplished.

For several months I worked with the laborers for a great railroad. It was the kind of labor that falls to the lot of every man who is unskilled and whose sense of honesty or compulsion or duty or need commands that he labor. Those with whom I worked were employed to carry lumber, load brick, shovel earth and mix mortar. The work was requited at the rate of fifteen cents an hour, and nothing more than this was allowed for overtime. We worked nine or ten hours a day, as the light permitted. There was no rest for those here employed save in a form of subterfuge, which was as wearisome as the toil itself to one not accustomed to it by long years of practice. To be sure one might delay in the carrying of anything; it was possible to be deliberate, to hang first on one foot and then the other; there was a way of resting on one’s pick before lifting it; but the gain was scarcely worth the pains. At the close of the day the sum of idleness thus secured would not be sufficient to produce a restful feeling, and the knowledge that a watchful foreman was well aware of the spirit of your labor was not conducive to comfort.

We were under a foreman whose conception of life was that it meant toil, and who himself was perfectly equipped physically to meet it. He did not stop to parley or temper the necessities with tenderness but shouted and cursed his commands, the fulfilling of which was as much of a burden on his mind as upon our bodies. Work there was in plenty, vast quantities of labor extending into the weeks and years, and the only thought which the conclusion of one hard day’s toil could bring was that there was another exactly like it tomorrow. It had no end for the individual save in arbitrary cessation on his part, the ending of his pay, or in disintegration and death. And need drove so many to continue day after day, without rhyme or reason in so far as the individual was concerned.

I could not help pondering over this from time to time, wondering at the lust of the controlling powers at the top for money and place, the fierceness of Nature in placing such an impulse in them, the fierceness of the temper of our immediate masters (general managers, superintendents, foremen and the like), the persistence of their frowns, the manner in which, when anything was delayed or the work went wrong, they visited the blame upon the heads of those beneath them, the urge and blame finally falling with sharp effect upon the carriers and serfs at the bottom. Life did not seem to require or justify it, I often thought. The rewards achieved by those at the bottom at least were too inconsiderable. The enormous and almost useless surplus of this great corporation flowering out into exotic social forms at the top was proof that it was an unjust exaction. A man should be a man in spite of the orders of his superiors. Mercy and tenderness should qualify our every deed.... So it looked from the bottom.

And then one day I was made a foreman.

I was determined that I, as foreman, would hold persistently, through whatever wearinesses might come, to this earlier creed of courtesy and consideration. I told myself that I would do better than these others. There should be no harshness in my tone. I would not swear. A moderate effort would be demanded of my men, but nothing more. So much for good intentions.

In this new capacity I found that my duties were of a different nature from those of my former. Here, instead of running at the beck and call of another, I had men running for me. I had from a dozen to fifteen men under me, as the work varied, and my principal duty was to see that they did not shirk.

I accepted this with a light heart. It seemed easy enough, something which could be accomplished in the most gracious spirit. All I had to do was to take my position beside my gang, humming a tune, and to watch (as I thought) their progress with a gentle and merry heart.

How speedy and how sad was my disillusionment!

Before one day was gone I was made to feel that the pressure which was on me from above must be transferred to those who were below, regardless. There were orders to be complied with, periods to be observed, standards of quality to be maintained in certain kinds of work, which my men did not always understand. Nor did an explanation or a simple request always result in understanding or ready willingness to comply. They were often tired, a night’s rest not always apparently repairing the weariness of the day before. None were so dull that they could not see that many reaped where they had not sown, took joy in that for which they had never paid, while others like themselves sweated under a load which they had never willed to carry. Dark looks, dark moods, dark wishes were as common as ever, yet if my own position or my superior’s good will were worth anything to me I could not allow them to fall below their quota of toil. It was necessary to achieve a given result, or resign, and at every turn there were rules, rules, rules.

How hard I tried to adjust my new relationship to the ideal which had previously been mine, and at the same time comply with the rules of the company, I will not say. For a time I did manage to keep a cheerful attitude and to speak gently. I tried to overlook the indifference and subterfuge which I knew they were practicing and which before, in part at least, had seemed justifiable but which must also in part be overcome, if life were to go on at all. For Nature, as I had come to see, had established these inequalities, the smallness of mind in some, the strength and vision in others. Who was I to set about establishing exact justice or equation, where I had not created? Or how or where? Or I might smile and smile and urge with pleasant compliments, but how did that justify or make amends? And although for a time it seemed as though I might succeed in avoiding all difficulty, still the memory of my own recent feelings was too fresh not to influence me deeply.

Then came a day when the pressure of work to be done was so much greater than it had been before that the usual subterfuge of the men became an irritation to me. They were painfully and exasperatingly slow, if not without reason, and the pressure on me from above was heavy also. A heavy rain had washed the earth into a long trench which we had been excavating. It was necessary to hurry the reopening of this in order not to delay other work. Concrete had to be prepared, a large foundation set by a given date. We were under urgent surveillance from our superiors and could but follow out their orders or resign.

In this situation I confess that I did not do much parleying with my sense of equation or justice. Although I knew these men to be in the main underpaid and overworked, and in so far as the corporation was concerned mere machines to be pushed to the limit of their capacity and discharged when no longer useful, still I stood beside them and ordered and commanded, urging first one and then the other with shouts and gruff words, until at last they were as wrought up and as harried by me as they had been by any one of whom I had previously complained. They were driven, harassed by me, until one, irritated by the anachronism of it all, no doubt, my previous enthusiasm for better conditions, turned on me with: “Yes—hurry! Hurry! You didn’t work so hard yourself, though!”

I paused in my ordering and walked aside a little space to consider. How true was the thing he said! I had not worked so. It had been a constant complaint with me, in my own mind at least, that so much insistence and heartless driving had never been justified by the reward offered, that the men were entitled to more than they received for the grudging toil they gave. And here was I outdoing these drivers who to me had seemed most brutal!

For that day then, and for many others, I tried to discover just how it was that I had drifted into so rough and exacting an attitude. Did I not know now, as well as before, that the corporation for which we were all working was enormously rich? Had I not more evidence than before that the men were overworked and underpaid, my own demands proving it? Could I not see in the orders given me that there was no consideration for them, but only the thing to be accomplished at the least possible expense?

I acknowledged freely that this was absolutely true, and yet I now pleaded with myself that I saw no way to remedy it and that if I did not fulfill the company’s orders some one else would. The work had to be done. There was no way of permitting these men to shirk and take their time, without noticeably delaying the work. If the corporation was to be run, its present efficiency maintained and the public served, it would of course have to be done at a profit which would induce men of initiative and skill at the top to serve; otherwise no man would undertake the matter, and there would be no labor at all for any of these men at the bottom. For Nature apparently went on the theory of great reward for those who could or would originate and conduct in a large way, little for those who could not; and these at the bottom did not and apparently could not originate. Their reasoning powers were not as yet sufficiently developed for that. They were, by reason of their mental equipment, hewers of wood and drawers of water.

After a time I felt that I could no longer go on without making a definite choice: I must serve them or their masters wholeheartedly. The retort of the laborer had proved too great a shock, and it was long before I recovered my exterior equanimity, and never again my internal peace, here. Plainly I was not one called by nature to this task. Reason as I would, the two elements of capital and labor, exacting strength and helpless weakness, would not adjust themselves within my consciousness save in some such rough way as I here saw operating, and so because of my natural sympathy for these underlings I was forced in spite of myself to choose sides. Either I must relinquish my former attitude of sympathy for the men and opposition to the indifference of the company, or I must side with them. There could be no middle ground, and until I should choose my conscience would give me no peace.

It was after a particularly hard day’s work and because of some special conditions that I managed finally to reach a decision, which, however much it may have benefited me, helped them in no least way. We had been mixing concrete and, a touch of my old cynical uncertainty dominating me, I had been driving them all the day long, urging one to shovel faster, calling to another to bring the wheelbarrows of stone almost before they were needed, sending this one for water and that one for cement, until the men were running about like ants. About four o’clock of this long day it began to rain. It had been gray and lowery all day but now the moisture descended in a fine drizzle and we were compelled to work or leave unfinished the batch of concrete we were just beginning. In a sullen mood, because of my own dreary part in this, I stood and held them to their task, not caring much what became of them or myself either, until at last the work was completed. At dusk, damp and dreary, I took my lunch-box and tramped doggedly along the tracks toward the depot, comforted by one thought only: that the day was over and I myself was free.

It was at that hour when the traffic outward from the great city assumes its most imposing aspect. Along this magnificent highway of steel were speeding the trains of one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. Limiteds were passing, their splendid interiors aglow with half a hundred lights. Seemingly more prosperous citizens than we were reclining there in comfort. Others were gazing out idly. The dining cars of various trains were set with silver and white linen.

As I paused near the station to turn my eye on this truly appealing scene and to gather its significance as contrasted with that which I had just left, there passed by, going in my direction, the little procession of Italians over whom I ruled, bearing with them the tools with which they had been laboring. There was Philip, whom I had often noted as I stood beside the trench in which he was working, his body all twisted and bent from long years of unremitting toil; there was Angelo, old and leathern in feature, whose one boast was that he had never missed a day’s work in seventeen years; there was Matteo, thin, spare, worn-looking, whose eye was alight with a kindly humor and whose willingness to work I had never been able to question; there were John and Collarbrace (as we called one Calabrian), Mussolin and Jimmie, all trudging patiently onward like cattle, the day of their labor having brought forth nothing but a night of weariness.

And as I stood there looking at them I could not help contrasting the weariness of their labor with this (one of many, many), flowers which it, or labor like it, had produced at the top. Here was this immerse corporation with its magnificent equipment, its palatial depots, its comfortable trains speeding onward bearing their burdens of the comfortable (?) and the more fortunate (?), and here at the very bottom were these humble trudgers making their way homeward in the night and the rain. And as I thought of the meagerness of their wages, the manner in which I had driven them, and the profitless luxury, in so far as they were concerned, to which their labor trended, I resolved that I, for one, would have nothing more to do with it.

Not to drive where I could not ease, not to urge where I could not repay, not to be a tool in the hands of their indifferent masters who could not or would not interest themselves in them, was something, even though my ceasing could not relieve them of their toil.