Workers - An Experiment in Reality: The West — Chapter 4 - Part I - A Hand-Truckman in a Factory

No. -- BLUE ISLAND AVENUE, CHICAGO,

Wednesday, February 3, 1892. At half-past five this afternoon I completed seven weeks of service as a hand-truckman in a factory.

Mrs. Schultz, my landlady, tells me that she is sorry that I am going away; and now that the long-looked-for end is come, I am not in the least elated, as I thought that I should be.

But the days are lengthening markedly with the promise of the coming spring, and I am forcefully reminded that the time grows short for the study at close range of much that still awaits me in this great working city before I can well set out again upon my westward journey.

Seven weeks as a factory-hand is very little.

Like all phases of my experiment, it is but the lightest touch upon the surface of the life which I seek to understand.

Strong and infinitely appealing are the basal elements of existence, and yet mysterious, evasive, receding like a spectre from your craving grasp.

And in the secret of its veiled presence speaks a Voice: “Only through living is it given unto men to know; none but the heaven-sent may know otherwise.

Not by experiment, but only through the poignancy of real agony and joy is my secret learned.

” As a witness of certain external conditions and as a sharer in them, I may tell nothing but the truth, and yet the whole truth reaches far beyond the compass of my vision--the joys and creature comforts of men whose birth and breeding and life-long training fit them smoothly to circumstances which seem to me all friction; the blind human agony of these men, as necessity bears hard upon them, and, helpless, they watch the sufferings of their wives and children, and have no hope nor any escape but death; the unconscious delight in living intensely in the present with easy adjustment to homely surroundings, and no anxious thought for the future and no morbid introspection; the sharply conscious endurance of grim realities, which baffle the untrained reason and paralyze the will, and make of a strong man a terrified child in the grip of the superstitious horrors of disease, and loss of work, and the “bad luck” which plays so large a part in that sordid thing which he calls life.

For seven weeks I have worked daily in the company of two thousand hands, and have lived with half a score of them in a tenement-house near the factory, and yet I am leaving them with but the slenderest knowledge of their lives.

It was one bitter cold morning a little past the middle of December that I was taken on.

I had had a good supper on the night before and a sound night’s sleep; and the pleasure of being set to work once more, of being caught up again into the meaningful movement of men, was tempered only by a lack of breakfast and a long walk through the cold gray dawn.

Crist was my boss.

Crist is foreman of the gangs of men who load the box-cars which flank the long platforms beside the warehouses of the factory.

Wide sloping eaves project from the buildings’ sides to a point nearly over the edge of the platforms, and under these are stored the new mowers and reapers and harvesters, gay in gorgeous paint, and reduced to the point of easiest handling, their subordinate parts near by in compact crates and boxes, all ready for immediate shipment.

The proper loading of the cars is a work requiring great skill and ingenuity on Crist’s part; for the men it is the mere muscular carrying out of his directions.

Under Crist’s guidance the superficial area of a car is made to hold an incredible amount.

By long practice he has learned the greatest possible economy of space, in the nice adjustments of varying bulks, so that each load is a maximum, in point of number, of complete machines.

[Illustration: LOADING THE BOX-CARS UNDER CRIST’S GUIDANCE.

] There was like shrewdness, I thought, in his handling of the men.

After his first orders to me I came almost not at all under his direct control through the few days in which I worked in his department.

But I had many opportunities then and later, too, of observing him.

A

tall, old, lithe Norwegian, with a certain awkward, lanky efficiency of movement, he had the mild manner and the soft, low speech of the hard-of-hearing.

He never blustered, certainly, and apparently he never swore, but the men under him worked without hurry and without intervals in a way which told superbly in the total work accomplished.

A gang of six or eight laborers under his direction was just beginning the loading of an empty box-car when I was taken on.

They were stalwart, hardy workmen for the most part, their faces aglow in the cold, their muscular bodies warmly clothed, and the folded rims of their heavy woollen caps drawn down to protect their ears.

Over their work-stained overalls some of them wore thick leather aprons which were darkened and polished by wear to the appearance of well-seasoned razor-strops, and on their hands they all wore stout gloves or mittens, which, through long use, had reached a perfect flexibility and fitness to their work.

“John,” said Crist, addressing one of the gang, a short, rather slender Irishman, with a smooth-shaven, sallow face, “John, you take this man and fetch down the dry tongues from the paint-shop.

There’s the wagon-truck,” and he pointed to a vehicle whose heavy box, open at both ends, and rising at the sides to a height of three feet, was supported on two small iron wheels, while an iron leg under the heavier end kept the bottom of the truck horizontal.

“Yes, sir,” came instantly from John, as he stepped alertly from among the men and joined me, his small, gray eyes looking inquisitively into mine and showing in their sudden light the pleasure which he felt in being thus singled out for special work and put in charge of a new hand.

“Come this way,” he said to me.

“Me and you is partners.

What’s your name?

My name’s John, John Barry.

Some calls me Jake, but my name’s John,” he concluded, with an emphasis which made it clear that he had a rooted objection to “Jake.

” Barry’s Christian name I considered a poaching upon my preserve, and I was feeling about for a new handy prænomen; but without waiting for an answer he continued swiftly on his loquacious way, calling me “partner” the while, as Clark had done, and “partner” I remained through the days of our co-labor.

Barry was an old hand; he knew his way about the factory perfectly.

We pushed the truck before us into a warehouse and through a long, dim passage between piles of various portions of the various machines which rose to the ceiling in compact stacks on both sides of us as we walked the great length of the building.

It was as dark as a tunnel, except where an occasional gas-jet burned brightly in the centre of a misty halo.

The cold, unchanging air that never knew the sunlight chilled us to the bone, and near the gas we could see our breath rising in clouds of white vapor.

We came at last to an elevator, and, having pushed our truck aboard, we rose to the next landing.

Then down another long, dark, damp passage we passed until we reached a covered bridge, a run-way, as the men call it, which sloped upward to the paint-shop in the main building of the factory.

The spring-doors at the head of the bridge flew open to the sharp ram of our truck, and we followed into a large room which was flooded with sunlight from its serried windows.

There appeared to be hundreds of “binders” in the room, all painted white and extending in long, straight rows on wooden supports which held them a few feet from the floor.

Among these rows moved the men who “stripe” the binders.

Their hands and clothing were daubed with paint, and even as we passed we could see the slender, even lines of brilliant color appearing as by magic along the white surface of the machines under the swift, sure stroke of these skilled painters.

This is their sole occupation.

Along a side-wall of the room moves slowly, on a ceiling-trolley, a long line of steel binders, all grimy from the hands of the men who join the different parts.

In one corner is a tank of white paint, and by a system of pulleys each binder, as it passes, is lowered to the bath, completely immersed, and then drawn dripping back to the trolley.

Presently it is lowered to a support, and is there allowed to dry.

The stripers move down the lines, following close upon the drying of the paint, and the machines, soon ready for shipment from their hands, are transferred to the packing-rooms, the vacant places being quickly occupied by binders fresh from the bath.

This is one phase of the endless chain of factory production under high division of labor.

Barry and I passed on through a communicating door to another room of about equal size and of equal light and airiness with the last.

The temperate air was pungent with the smell of varnish and new paint.

It passed with a pleasant sense of stinging freshness down into our lungs.

We had reached our destination; for large sections of the room were closely stacked with tongues of various sizes, all standing on end in an ingenious system of grooves on the floor and ceiling.

Some were newly come from the turning-mill; others had been painted, and now awaited varnishing; some had passed both of these processes, and were ready for the stripers; while in one corner stood those which had been painted and varnished and striped, and which were dry and ready to be taken to the platform, where Crist had ordered Barry and me to stack them.

[Illustration: IN THE FACTORY.

] Barry soon taught me how to load them properly, and, having filled the truck, we descended by an elevator to the ground-floor and passed out again into the bracing air of the open platforms, where we carefully stacked the tongues under the eaves, convenient to the loading of the cars.

Round after round we made, going always and returning by the same course, loading the truck and stacking the tongues as quickly as we could.

The work was not hard.

There was a knack in the proper handling of the tongues, but it was readily acquired, and then one could settle down easily to the routine of work, whose monotony was broken by the recurring trips.

One incident checked us in the way.

It was our happening to meet the timekeeper on his rounds.

Barry dropped everything until he had made assurance doubly sure that his presence had been duly noted in the book.

Seeing that I was a new hand the timekeeper quickly took my name, and then passed on with a parting word of caution to me about the proper record of my time.

Barry was evidently in high enjoyment of the situation.

The work suited him, and the directing of a novice was hugely to his taste.

There was little stay in the even current of his talk.

I began to feel not unlike a “new boy” at school, for, with the air of a mentor, he pointed out to me all the sections of the factory, and the different occupations of the men, and the individual foremen as we chanced to see them.

Once, as we were busily stacking tongues, his voice fell suddenly to a confidential tone, and his task was plied with tenser energy.

“Do you see that man talking to Crist?

” he said to me, almost in a whisper, and with his eyes intent upon his work.

I had noticed someone who seemed to be a member of the managing staff.

“That’s Mr. Adams,” Barry continued.

“He ain’t the head boss, but he’s next to the head.

He’s an awful nice man.

He was a workingman himself once.

I’ve heard that he was a carpenter in the factory when the old man was alive, and that he was promoted to be next to the head boss.

He knows what work is, and he’s awful nice to the men, but you don’t never want to let him catch you idle.

” We had just finished stacking the load and had started again for the warehouse, when we caught sight of a neatly dressed man of medium height who was crossing a temporary bridge, which joined the platform by the main building over the railway-track to the one where we were at work.

I felt the truck shoot forward at a speed which I had to follow almost at a run.

In the dark passage of the warehouse Barry was soon talking again, and again in an awed undertone.

“That was the head boss,” he said, impressively.

“That was Mr. Young himself.

” And he looked surprised that I did not stagger under the announcement, although, to do him justice, I did feel a good deal as the new boy might, brought unexpectedly for the first time into the presence of the head master.

“He ain’t never worked a day in his life,” Barry was continuing.

“Only he’s a terrible fine superintendent.

You bet he gets big wages.

They say he can see when he ain’t looking, and he comes down like a thousand of brick on any man who shirks his work.

He ain’t never worked himself, and so he don’t know what it is.

” The noon-whistle sounded soon after this, to my great relief, for a fast of eighteen hours was telling on me.

Barry left the truck where it stood, and broke into a run.

I followed him.

In a moment the whole building and the outer platforms were echoing to the tread of running feet.

When I reached the factory yard I found crowds of men streaming from every door and pressing swiftly through the gate.

A stranger to the scene might at first sight have supposed the building to be on fire and that the men were escaping, but a second glance would have corrected the idea.

There was no excitement in their mood; nor was there any playfulness; but with set, serious faces they were running for the careful economy of time.

Barry had explained to me that, in order to quit the day’s work at half-past five, the hands take but half an hour for their mid-day meal, and that I must, therefore, be careful to be within the factory gates by half-past twelve.

[Illustration: CROWDS OF MEN STREAMING FROM EVERY DOOR AND PRESSING SWIFTLY THROUGH THE GATE.

] Interesting as was the scene, I had no time to note it carefully, for I had caught the contagion of feverish hurry, and with the greater need on my part, for in that half hour I must get food if I was to return to work.

The situation was a little difficult.

I had no money and no knowledge of any neighboring boarding-house.

On the avenue, immediately opposite the wide entrance of the factory, was a line of cheap three-storied wooden tenements, the ground-floors occupied by saloons or shops, and the upper ones used evidently as the homes of factory-hands, for I could see the men entering the dark passages where narrow staircases connected the dwelling-rooms with the street.

Quite at random I walked into a barber-shop.

“Can you direct me to a boarding-house near by?

” I asked the barber, who, dressed in soiled white, sat reading a newspaper beside the stove.

“Sure,” he said, obligingly, as he rose to his feet and came to the door and opened it.

“You just go up them steps,” he added, pointing to the entry next door, “and you’ll find a lady that keeps boarders.

Her name’s Mrs. Schulz.

You tell her that I sent you.

” At the head of the landing I stood irresolute for a moment.

It was dark after the unclouded mid-day.

The light that entered came through the narrow opening of a door at the end of the passage, which stood ajar and which communicated with a front room, where there seemed to be a flood of sunlight.

The prospect in the other direction was not so bright.

I was beginning to see faintly, and could eventually make out the figures of a dozen or more workingmen, who sat about a table in a dim dining-room, eating hurriedly their dinner, with a noise of much clatter, and with bursts of loud talk and of hearty laughter.

In a deeper recess, and through a short, dark, communicating passage, was a kitchen full of steam and the vapors of cooking food, through which came the light from the rear windows with the effect of shining vaguely through a fog.

Summoned, I know not how, Mrs. Schulz stepped out into the passage.

I knew instantly that I should be provided for.

I could not see her clearly, but her quiet, self-respecting manner was reassuring from the start.

“I’ve just got a job in the factory,” I explained at once.

“Can you take me as a boarder?

” “I guess I can,” she answered, cordially.

“Do you want your dinner?

” “Yes,” I said, and tried not to say it too eagerly.

“Then come right in.

You haven’t any too much time,” she added, considerately.

At the vacant place which she indicated for me at the table I sat down between a workman of my own age and a hunchback operative who was probably ten years our senior.

“How are you?

” said the first man, in the midst of the momentary lull which fell upon the room, while I passed my first inspection.

My reply was drowned for farther ears than his in the recurrent flow of talk about the table.

The men had just finished their first course, but Mrs. Schulz brought in for me a plate of hot vegetable soup, steaming with a savoriness which was reviving in itself.

My cordial neighbor dropped out of the general conversation and devoted himself to me.

Nothing could have been more agreeable.

He was as natural as a child, and genial to the point of readiest laughter.

Like most of the other men, he sat coatless in his working-clothes, his face and hands black with the grime of the machine-shop where he worked, and his eyes shining with a light all the merrier for their dark setting.

A young American, a farmer’s son, he was recently come to Chicago from his home in central Iowa, and was making his way as a factory-hand and liked it greatly.

His name was Albert.

All of this information I gathered in barter for an equal share of my personal history, exchanged while we both ate heartily of a dinner of boiled meat and mashed potatoes, and stewed tomatoes and bread and coffee, and finally a slice of pumpkin pie, all of them excellent of their kind and most excellently cooked; and, although not neatly served, yet with as great a regard to neatness as the circumstances allowed.

My interest through the meal, aside from the food, was chiefly in Albert, but I caught, too, the drift of the general talk.

It was directed at one Clarence, a fair-haired, fair-skinned, well-mannered youth who sat opposite us and at an end of the line.

One noticed him immediately in the contrast which he made with the other men, for he was dressed in a “boiled” shirt and a collar, and he wore a neat black coat and a black cravat.

It appeared that he had been promoted, on the day before, from a subordinate position in one of the machine-shops to the supervision of the tool-room of the factory.

On this morning for the first time he had gone to work dressed, not in the usual blue jeans, but as one of the clerical force.

The men were chaffing him on the change.

Curiously enough, from their point of view, his working-days were over.

There was no least disturbance in their personal attitude to the man nor in their feeling for him as a fellow.

They recognized the change of status as a promotion, and you readily caught the note of sincere congratulation in their banter, and the boy bore his honors modestly and like a man.

Yet it was a change of status most complete, for he had ceased to be a worker.

To their way of thinking there may be forms of toil which are hard and even exhausting, but only that is “work” which brings your hands into immediate contact with the materials of production in their making from the raw or in their transportation.

The principle is a broad one, incapable of application in full detail, but, as a principle, it figures in the minds of the workers as an unquestioned generalization that men work only with their hands and in forms of begriming labor.

Like Albert, Clarence, too, was an American, a youth from a village home in Ohio, and with the promise of a successful hazard of his fortunes in the city.

I employ my versions of their Christian names because these were the only appellations in use about the table.

The meal was far too short for any general acquaintance among the men, and at its end we all hurried back to the factory.

Barry was awaiting me beside the truck; as we began the rounds of the afternoon’s work he questioned me with interest about my success in getting a dinner.

For another five continuous hours we carted tongues and stacked them.

The hands had been working by gas-light for nearly an hour when the time came for quitting the day’s labor.

There was no rush now in leaving the factory.

We crowded out through the gate, but under no high pressure, and the moving mass disintegrated and disappeared as magically as it had formed in the early morning.

Beside the entrance idle men were again waiting, but their number was very few in contrast with the morning crowds, and their apparent purpose was a personal interview with the superintendent.