vandeveer_19160818 / Their United Influence

putterings 451a < vandeveer_19160818 index

Esther Vandeveer. “Their United Influence”

Esther Vandeveer. “Their United Influence; A Story for Labor Day”
The News-Herald (Ravena, New York; August 18, 1916) : 2
NYS Historic Newspapers : link

entirety below —

John Bryan began to support himself at twelve years of age, doing odd chores In the Pollard Manufacturing company. Johnny was an ambitious boy and a bright boy as well. He knew that if he were ever to occupy one of the mahogany desks provided for the chiefs of departments he must get some education. He had not received much schooling as yet, for he had been needed at home, and now that he was at work during the day his opportunity for study was not considerable. However, he made the most of what there was. A couple of hours a day was all he could afford for the purpose, but he used those hours regularly.
Johnny was fond of machinery, which led him to study about machinery. This led him into fields with which machinery is connected. The metals and woods of which machiner is made naturally interested him, and he studied about these and the locations where they are found and the processes of obtaining them and fitting them for use.
The different steps by which Johnny during twent years ascended to the position of general manager are not pertinent to this story. When he was twenty-five years old he was given one of the mahogany desks that he had regarded so long as the object of his ambition, but after he attained it he found the realization not what he had expected. Indeed, be used it very little, preferring tbe more active work of superintending the department he managed. But as time passed and he mounted higher in the scale of the company’s officers be found it necessary to remain where he could be readily reached and could communicate with any and all who relied upon him for instructions.
Bryan, on being transferred from laborer to manager, was necessarily a changed man. Not that he ceased to sympathize with the workman, but he was now in a position to see both sides of the labor question. He was no longer grimy and greasy, but dressed like a man of fashion. Occasionally on meeting men beside whom he had worked in overalls he fancied they regarded him as one who in becoming a manager had become also something of a renegade. But this was doubtless due to his own sensitiveness. Any sensible laborer knows that there are different requirements for different duties, and with such Bryant had an advantage in having been one of them.
When John was placed in a position to take sides in labor contentions knowing as he did both sides he always place himself in a judicial position, determined upon what was practicable — even if it did not coincide with abstract justice — and once his mind was made up he was immovable.
Bryan had not been general manager long before a demand was made for higher wages. There had been [a] strike while he was manager of a department, but at that time he had not been consulted by the officers as to the stand they should take. They had been forced to yield in every instance, and now that a new demand was made it was suggested by one of them that they try John as their representative and place the whole matter in his hands. He spent a week going over the accounts of the company to learn what it could afford to do and proved conclusively to himself that if this new demand were granted it would cut off the last remnant of funds for dividends, and the capital of the concern, being unproductive, would seek other means of investment. This would take away from the operatives the opportunity afforded to make a living. When the committee were referred to Bryan they were very pleased, supposing that, having been one of them, he would grant their demands. What was their surprise to meet with a flat refusal. Upon their asking the causes of this refusal he declined to give it to them, stating that it would be prejudicial to the interests of the company to do so.
This unheard of action on the part of one who had worked as they were working produced a very bitter feeling. The operatives were at once called out and the works shut down.
Miss Adeline Withers, a wealthy maiden lady of thirty, who had interested herself in the welfare of laborers, called one morning to see Bryan on behalf of the strikers.
“Mr. Bryan,” she said, “I have called to see if something cannot be done to end this dreadful strike. I have visited a number of your working people and find them in distress. It is not only the fathers of families who are suffering, but the wives and, what is most pitiful, the children.”
"Will you tell me why?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“When the representatives of the American people ask for information of the president on any given matter which he declines to give, he says that it would be incompatible with the welfare of the nation. My reply is much the same. To make known the financial condition of this company would be to give our competitors points of which they might take advantage to drive us out of business. Indeed, to grant what the men ask or give a reason why it is refused would kill the goose that lays their golden egg.”
This was not satisfactory to Miss Withers, and she told Bryan so, at the same time reproaching him for refusing to help his former fellow laborers. Upon this he informed her that he had nothing further to say on the subject, which statement she could not but consider a dismissal.
The strike continued, the mills were idle, tbe operatives suffered. One day Mary Boyd, one of the hands, a girl of twenty, visited Bryan in his office and said to him:
“Mr Bryan, some of the children are literally starving. If the strike is not soon ended there will be many deaths among them.”
“If I grant the demands,” replied the general manager, “I shall be doing the operatives an injury.”
“Why so?”
“I have refused to answer that question to others, but I will answer it to you on your promise not to reveal it.”
“I promise.”
“Very well. We are barely making the dividends, and so far as we can look ahead will run behind on the next season’s manufactures, and there will be no dividends at all. A trust has been formed to produce our goods, and their policy is to shut down half of the mills they can get into it. They are now scheming to get possession of these works, and as soon as they do will discharge every operative. Parties who hold the majority of the stock are debating whether to sell the control to the trust or hold on, hoping for a change in the market for our manufactures. If they sell the wages you have all been getting will be lost to you. Is it not better to keep what you have than get a little more for a time, then lose the whole?”
“I understand,” said Mary, “but since you have sealed my lips what am I to do?”
“Only one thing is practicable, tell the leaders that you have seen me, that you have confidence I am doing the best for the operatives as well as for the company.”
“They will not believe me. At any rate they will not withdraw their demands.”
“They will believe anything you say to them; that is they will believe that you have confidence in me.”
“If you could tell them what you have told me, they would withdraw their demands for the present.”
“I could not tell them all, and those who have engineered this matter do not happen to have my confidence. They would consider what I told them a bluff and would not keep the secret.”
Bryan went to the safe, opened it, and took out a package of bank bills.
“Take this,” he said, “and make it go as far as you can in relieving distress, but do not tell that it comes from me.”
“I wish,” said Mary, “that they knew you as well as I. They would do anything you ask.”
“I believe they will do anything you ask.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they know you to be a noble girl.”
Whether there was something in the tone of voice in which these words were spoken or the look that accompanied them a slight color came to Mary’s cheek. She was a child when Bryan was passing from the workman’s bench to the mahogany desk, but she had known him in both spheres and he had been her idol. Without another word, she left him, resolved to make a strong effort to utilize her personal influence over the men to induce them to withdraw, for a time at least, demands that would deprive them of ability to make a living through the Pollard Manufacturing company.
She began at once, ignoring the leaders of tbe strike, making her appeal to certain conservative persons whom she knew to be friendly to the general superintendent. She told them that he had convinced her that in refusing their demands he was acting in their best interest. She begged them to call off the strike and wait for a more favorable opportunity to make another demand, assuring them that when it was best he would favor them.
The persons to whom she appealed talked with others, and they with others. Without their leaders’ sanction they called a meeting, and Mary addressed them, repeating to the many what she had said to the few. When she had finished there was a protracted talk, the operatives gathering in groups and debating whether, first, to trust the speaker, and, second, the man she represented. Before the final adjournment the meeting was called to order and a resolution was offered:
Whereas, we have implicit trust in our former fellow workman, John Bryan, and our companion, Mary Boyd, therefore resolved that we who constitute this meeting return to work at once.
More than half the operatives of the company were present, and seven-eights of them voted to sustain the motion. It was carried, and the meeting adjourned with cheers for the best man and the best woman in the world. The action of these operatives influenced the rest, and the strike was ended.
That was the last strike of the employees of the Pollard Manufacturing company. One year from that time John Bryan increased his influence with them by marrying Mary Boyd, and on the day of the wedding a request for the readjustment of all wages was granted, resulting in a far more satisfactory arrangement for both sides than had ever existed before.
John Bryan is now president of the company.

1 August 2024