"Bosh! Don't we own the mill? Can't we keep wages where we like by threatening to bring in nigger labor?"
"No, you can't, permanently," Maxwell disputed, "for they sometime will call your bluff."
"Let 'em call," said Taylor, "and we'll put niggers in the mills."
"What!" ejaculated the landlords in chorus. Only Maxwell was silent. "And kill the plantation system?"
"Oh, maybe some time, of course. But not for years; not until you've made your pile. You don't really expect to keep the darkies down forever, do you?"
"No, I don't," Maxwell slowly admitted. "This system can't last always--sometimes I think it can't last long. It's wrong, through and through. It's built on ignorance, theft, and force, and I wish to God we had courage enough to overthrow it and take the consequences. I wish it was possible to be a Southerner and a Christian and an honest man, to treat niggers and dagoes and white trash like men, and be big enough to say, 'To Hell with consequences!'"
Colonel Cresswell stared at his neighbor, speechless with bewilderment and outraged traditions. Such unbelievable heresy from a Northerner or a Negro would have been natural; but from a Southerner whose father had owned five hundred slaves--it was incredible! The other landlords scarcely listened; they were dogged and impatient and they could suggest no remedy. They could only blame the mill for their troubles.
John Taylor left the conference blithely. "No," he said to the committee from the new mill-workers' union. "Can't raise wages, gentlemen, and can't lessen hours. Mill is just started and not yet paying expenses. You're getting better wages than you ever got. If you don't want to work, quit. There are plenty of others, white and black, who want your jobs."
The mention of black people as competitors for wages was like a red rag to a bull. The laborers got together and at the next election they made a clean sweep, judge, sheriff, two members of the legislature, and the registrars of votes. Undoubtedly the following year they would capture Harry Cresswell's seat in Congress.
The result was curious. From two sides, from landlord and white laborer, came renewed oppression of black men. The laborers found that their political power gave them little economic advantage as long as the threatening cloud of Negro competition loomed ahead. There was some talk of a strike, but Colton, the new sheriff, discouraged it.
"I tell you, boys, where the trouble lies: it's the niggers. They live on nothing and take any kind of treatment, and they keep wages down. If you strike, they'll get your jobs, sure. We'll just have to grin and bear it a while, but get back at the darkies whenever you can. I'll stick 'em into the chain-gang every chance I get."