VIII

THE GOVERNOR UNMASKS

One spotted peach will contaminate an entire basket, one drop of ink
cloud a full glass of clear water. It was so in the case of the strikers
at the Rathbawne Mills. Their unwonted idleness, the long succession of
empty hours, already, among the more improvident, the preliminary
pressure of privation's teeth,--all these made them easy prey for the
sophistries of men like McGrath and his associates. At first they simply
laughed at the arraignments of Peter Rathbawne as a plutocrat, a
slave-master, and an oppressor of the poor, knowing better in their
hearts. But the memory of past kindness is too apt to be the most
fleeting of human impressions. On the one side the gates of the
Rathbawne Mills remained obstinately closed, and, though Rathbawne
himself manifested no intention of resorting to the intolerable
importation of "scab" labor, he persisted in his refusal to treat with
the Union so long as the discharge of the fifteen men remained a subject
proposed for debate. On the other hand, the denunciations of McGrath and
the other Union orators were constant, unavoidable, and sufficiently
plausible to produce an impression, and linger in the mind. And,
meanwhile, to and fro among the strikers, stalked, arm in arm, the
spectres of idleness and starvation, the one smirking openly, the other,
as yet, half-veiled. Altogether it was fertile ground.

After the burning of Mr. Rathbawne's shop, on the first night of the
strike, ensued a week of comparative quiet. The outrage had been
flagrant, the source, if not the very author, of it was known, and the
police did--nothing. For three days the press of Kenton City blazed with
indignation, excepting only the "Record," which openly favored the
strikers, and then all the papers alike suddenly ceased to refer to the
incident at all. For, while McGrath was not in favor of wasting the
funds of the Union, he was as well aware as the next man that a dollar,
as well as a stitch, in time, saves nine.

Herein lay the cardinal peril of Alleghenia. As John Barclay had said,
it was not that her people, as a class, were corrupt or criminal, but
merely that they viewed with easy tolerance evidences of laxity and
lawlessness which would have set the citizens of another state by the
ears, and filled the newspaper columns and the public forums with
indignation and protest. In this respect, the papers of Kenton City were
the most flagrant offenders. Even the