uldn't get over the idea that he must have a big
percentage on his outlay, in rents. He wanted his men to be happy, but
he wanted them to pay big prices. Another thing he wanted was for them
not to think, but to let him do all the thinking. For a few years they
were happy, but they kept getting in debt; he cut down on wages, but
kept rents up, and the price of gas and water never went down. If they
did not like it they could go somewhere else, and leave some of the
furniture to square up, if they were behind in rent, but usually the
bookkeeper took it out of the wages. Then they traded at his stores,
attended his theater, and he got most all the velvet. They stood it
as long as possible, and asked for more wages, and more work, and his
agents--Pullman was never there himself, he had an island in the St.
Lawrence, and residences everywhere except at his Utopia--told them to
hush up and go to work, and be mighty quick about it, or he would fire
them bodily out of the town. Then they struck, and wanted to arbitrate,
but Pullman telegraphed that there was nothing to arbitrate, and then
the Utopia became a Tophet, which it had resembled for some time.
Everything was closed up, men saw their children hungry, and they were
moved away by charity to new places, where they might get some work. The
cold-blooded proposition that is not popular with American citizens
was that if men would get on their knees, apologize, and beg, the
authorities would see what could be done for them. Men became desperate,
troops were sent to guard the premises and to jab with bayonets these
happy workmen that did not move along fast enough. Pullman himself
stayed at his island, or at the seashore, and the men who had dared to
think without a dog license were growing thinner, and by and by nearly
all were gone; others took their places, but the old town was not what
it used to be. Workmen preferred to live miles away, in attics, or
anywhere, in preference to the Pullman cottages. Then, one morning
Pullman died, quick action, at his house and millionaire neighbors
buried him. Few flowers were sent by the old laborers. His boys, twins,
had developed a partiality for jags, and having been cut off with little
money in his will, they have wandered around, from one drunk cure to
another, marrying occasionally, and otherwise enjoying themselves, until
their poor mother was almost crazy, and the Pullman works are run by men
who happened to be in on the ground fl