The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
"Do you know," she said calmly, "that I have thought of all that,
too. There are so many of us in the world, and so little happiness
that like flowers it cannot go around--some must go without."
She held his hand tightly as if she did not want him to go.
"My child, I must go out of your life--go--and stay. I see--I
see--and I only make you wretched. And I have no right to. It is
ignoble. It is I who should bear this burden of sorrow--not you. You
who have never sinned, who are so young and so beautiful. In time you
will love a nobler man--Clay--"
She looked at him, but said nothing. She knew for the first time the
solution of her love's problem. She was silent, holding his hand.
"Child," he said again. "Helen, you must do as I say. There is
happiness for you yet when I am gone--when I am out of your life and
the memory and the pain of it cease. Then you will marry Clay--"
"Do you really think so? Oh, and he has loved me so and is so
splendid and true."
Travis was silent, waiting.
"Now let me go," she said--"let me forget all my madness and folly in
learning to love one whose love was made for mine. In time I shall
love him as he deserves. Good-bye."
Then she broke impulsively away, and he watched her walk back through
the shadows and under the clouds.
At the turning of the path across the meadow, he saw another shadow
join her. It was Clay, and the two went through the twilight
together.
Travis turned. "It is right--it is the solution--he alone deserves
her. I must reap my past, reap it and see my harvest blighted and
bound with rotten twine. But, oh, to know it when it is too late--to
know that I might love her and could be happy--then to have to give
it up--now--now--when I need it most. The Deed," he said--"we are the
deed of all we think and feel."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE MODEL MILL
The discovery of coal and iron made both the old Bishop and
Westmoreland rich. Captain Tom sent James Travis to West Point and
Archie B. to Annapolis, and their records were worthy of their names.
And now, five years after the great fire, there might be seen in
Cottontown, besides two furnaces, whose blazing turrets lighted the
valley with Prosperity's torch--another cotton mill, erected by the
old Bishop.
Long and earnestly he thought on the subject before building the
mill. Indeed, he first prayed over it and then preached on the
subject, and this is the sermon he preached to his people the Sunday
before he began the erection of The Model Cotton Mill:
"Now, it's this way, my brethren: God made cotton for a mill. You
can't get aroun' that; and the mill is to give people wuck an' this
wuck is to clothe the worl'. That's all plain an' all good, because
it's from God. Man made the bad of it--child labor, and overwuck and
poor pay and the terrible everlastin' grind and foul air an' dirt an'
squaller an' death.
"The trouble with the worl' to-day is that it don't carry God into
business. Why should we not be kinder an' mo' liberal with each other
in business matters? We are unselfish in everything but business.
All social life is based on unselfishness. To charity we give of our
tears an' our money. For the welfare of mankind an' the advancement
of humanity you can always count us on the right side. Even to those
whose characters are rotten an' whose very shadows leave dark places
in life, we pass the courtesies of the hour or the palaverin'
compliments of the day. But let the struggler for the bread of life
come along and ask us to share our profits with him, let the dollar
be the thing involved an' business shrewdness the principle at stake,
an' then all charity is forgotten, every man for himse'f, an' the
chief aim of man seems to be to get mo' out of the trade than his
brother.
"Now the soul of trade is Selfishness, an' Charity never is invited
over her doorway.
"I have known men with tears in their eyes to give to the poor one
day an' rob them the nex' in usurious interest an' rent, as cheerful
as they gave the day befo'. I have known men to open their purses as
wide as the gates of hades for some church charity, an' then close
them the nex' day, in a business transaction, as they called it--with
some helpless debtor or unexperienced widder. The graveyard is full
of unselfish, devoted fathers an' husbands who worked themselves to
death for the comfort an' support of their own families, yet spendin'
their days on earth tryin' to beat their neighbors in the same game.
"It's funny how we're livin'. It's amusin', it is--our ethics of
Christianity. We've baptised everything but business. We give to the
church an' rob the poor. We weep over misfortune an' steal from the
unfortunate. We give a robe to Charity one day and filch it the
nex'. We lay gifts at the altar of the Temple of Kindness for the
Virgin therein, but if we caught her out on the highways of trade an'
commerce we'd steal her an' sell her into slavery. An' after she was
dead we'd go deep into our pockets to put up a monument over her!
"We weep an' rob, an' smile an' steal, an' laugh an' knife, an' wring
the hand of friendship while we step on her toes with our brogans of
business. Can't we be hones' without bein' selfish, fair without
graspin', make a profit without wantin' it all? Is it possible that
Christ's religion has gone into every nook an' corner of the worl'
an' yet missed the great highway of business, the everyday road of
dollars an' cents, profit an' loss!
"So I am goin' to build the mill an' run it like God intended it
should be run, an' I am goin' to put, for once, the plan of salvation
into business, if it busts me an' the plan too! For if it can't stand
a business test it ought to bust!"
He planned it all himself, and, aided by Captain Tom, and Alice, the
beautiful structure went up. Strong and airy and with every comfort
for the workers. "For it strikes me," said the old man, "that the
people who wuck need mo' comforts than them that don't--at least the
comforts of bein' clean. The fust thing I learned in geography was
that God made three times as much water on the surface of the earth
as he did dirt. But you wouldn't think so to look at the human race.
It takes us a long time to take a hint."
The big mountain spring settled the point, and when the mill was
finished there were hot and cold baths in it for the tired workers.
"For there's nothin' so good," said the old man, "for a hot man or a
hot hoss as a warm body-wash. It relaxes the muscles an' makes them
come ag'in. An' the man that comes ag'in is the man the worl' wants."
In the homes of the workers, too, he had baths placed, until it grew
to be a saying of the good old man "that it was easier to take a bath
in Cottontown than to take a drink."
The main building was lofty between floor and ceiling, letting in all
the light and air possible, and the floors were of hard-wood and
clean. As the greatest curse of the cotton lint was dust, atomizers
for spraying the air were invented by Captain Tom. These were
attached to the machinery and could be turned off or on as the
operators desired. It was most comfortable now to work in the mill,
and tired and hot employees, instead of lounging through their noon,
bathed in the cool spring water which came down from the mountain
side and flowed into the baths, not only in the mill, but through
every cottage owned by the mill. And as the bath is the greatest
civilizer known to man, a marked difference was soon noticed in every
inhabitant of Cottontown. They were cleanly, and cleanliness begets a
long list of other virtues, beginning with cleaner and better clothes
and ending with ambition and godliness.
But it was the old Bishop's policy for the wage-earners, which put
the ambition there--a system never heard of before in the ranks of
capital, and first tested and proved in his Model Cotton Mill.
"There are two things in the worl'," said the Bishop, "that is as
plain as God could write them without tellin' it Himself from the
clouds. The first is that the money of the worl' was intended for all
the worl' that reaches out a hand an' works for it.
"The other is that every man who works is entitled to a home.
"It was never intended for one man, or one corporation or one trust
or one king or one anything else, to own more than his share of the
money of the worl', no matter how they get it. Every man who piles up
mo' money than he needs--actually needs--in life, robs every other
man or woman or child in the worl' that pinches and slaves and
starves for it in vain. Every man who makes a big fortune leaves just
that many wrecked homes in his path."
In carrying out this idea the old bishop had the mill incorporated at
one hundred thousand dollars, which included all his fortune, except
enough to live on and educate his grandchildren; for he never changed
his home, and the only luxury he indulged in was a stable for Ben
Butler.
The stock was divided into shares of ten dollars each, which could be
acquired only by those who worked in the mill, to be held only during
life-time, and earned only in part payment for labor, given according
to proficiency and work done, and credited on wages. In this way
every employee of the mill became a stockholder--a partner in the
mill, receiving dividends on his stock in addition to his regular
wages, and every year he worked in the mill added both to his stock
and dividends. At death it reverted again to The Model Cotton Mill
Company, to be obtained again, in turn, by other mill workers coming
on up the line. This made every mill worker a partner in the mill and
spurred them on to do their best.
But the home idea of the bishop was the more original one, and a far
greater boon to the people. Instead of paying rent to the mill for
their homes, as they had before, every married mill worker was deeded
a home in the beginning, a certain per cent of his wages being
appropriated each month in part payment; in addition, ten per cent of
the stock acquired, as above, by each individual home owner, went to
the payment of the home, and the whole was so worked out and adjusted
that by the time a faithful worker had arrived at middle age, the
home, as paid for, was absolutely his and his children's, and when he
arrived at old age the dividends of the stock acquired were
sufficient to support him the balance of his life.
In this way the mill was virtually resolved into a corporation or
community of interests, running perpetually for the maintenance and
support of those who worked in it. The only property actually
acquired by the individual was a home, his savings in wages, and the
dividends on his stock acquired by long service and work.
Some wanted the old man to run a general store on the same plan of
community of interest, the goods and necessities of life to be bought
at first cost and only the actual expenses of keeping the store
added. But he wisely shook his head, saying: "No, that will not do;
that's forming a trust ag'in the tillers of the earth an' the workers
in every other occupation. That's cuttin' in on hones' competition,
an' if carried out everywhere would shut off the rest of the worl'
from a livin'. We're makin' our livin'--let them make theirs."
The old bishop was proud of the men he selected to carry out his
plans. Captain Tom was manager of the Model Mill.
"Now," said the old man, after the mill had run two years and
declared a semi-annual dividend, both years, of eight per cent each,
"now you all see what it means to run even business by the Golden
Rule. Here is this big fortune that I accidentally stumbled on, as
everybody does who makes one--put out like God intended it sh'ud,
belonging to nobody and standing there, year after year, makin' a
livin' an' a home an' life an' happiness for over fo' hundred people,