Free The Coal War by Upton Sinclair

movements?
    Here is one of the inconveniences incidental to the adopting of revolutionary ideas by a member of the leisure-class—that the member can no longer take the most obvious things of his life for granted. Of course a man cannot change the system all at once; but he will change as much as he can—and feel uncomfortable because he cannot change more! If he is befriending a revolutionary parlor-maid, and trying to be entirely democratic, he will find himself asking why the daughter of a banker should go to Europe, while the daughter of a miner remains at home. Under real democracy, obviously the daughters of all men would have equal access to the opportunity of going to Europe; if the purpose of the going be a study of the Socialist and Syndicalist movements, then the question of who should go would be determined by some kind of competitive examination. But here there had been no examination; Jessie was going, because she had the money, and Mary was staying, because she hadn’t.
    But Hal found that Mary had not thought of anything like that; the parlor-maid was not that revolutionary! Her only thought was of him—that he was being lured away from his work. His family was getting him under the spell of Jessie, with her softness and her clingingness, her beautiful clothes and her expensive charms. They would have their way with him, they would tone him down!
    She did not say any of this; she would not mention Jessie to him. But there was pain in her face as she bade him good-bye. “Ye’ll not be forgettin’ the miners, Joe?”
    â€œNo, Mary,” he answered, with conviction. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
    â€œThey’ll be needin’ ye so bad, Joe! Perhaps they’ll call ye back.”
    â€œI made them a promise, Mary; just as you did. We’re going on working and studying, so we can give them the kind of help they need.”
    â€œJoe,” she cried, with passion, “sometimes I think it’s more than I can do to stay here, where things are beautiful and clean, and I have all the good food I want.” She turned to her mistress, who was in the room. “Don’t think I’m not grateful, Mrs. Wyatt; but ’tis bound to be so when ye’ve lived among people that never have enough of anything.”
    â€œI understand,” said Adelaide, gently.
    â€œYe can’t get them out of your thoughts! The men ye know that go down into the pits, and may come out on a plank! Ye think of them, this time and that—now they’ll be going down in the cage, now they’ll be eatin’ their dinners, now they’ll be comin’ out. Ye tremble when ye pick up a newspaper—ye think maybe there’ll be a piece, somewhere off in a corner, about another mine-disaster, and some woman ye know will be lonely all the rest of her days, and her young ones will be hungry and cold! Think of them, Joe, the men that went back to work at North Valley, after the strike! They’re waitin’ for ye to keep the promise ye made! They’ll not forget ye, what ye did for them; they’ll think: ‘What’s he doin’ now? When’s he comin’ back to us?’”
    Hal did not fail to think of them; Europe would make no difference, he assured Mary. He pledged his faith anew—and then he went off to Jessie, to try to share her holiday mood, to admire her travelling trinkets! Jessie wanted him for herself, and Mary wanted him for the miners; the two of them pulled and tugged at his thoughts. A trying thing for a young man to be so very much in demand!

[20]
    The day before the party set out for New York, something occurred to bring the miners and their struggle even more vividly into Hal’s thoughts. The mail brought a note from one of his workingmen friends, whom he had not heard of for a long while—Tom Olson, the organizer who had come to North Valley and given Hal his first impulse towards