The Coal War by Upton Sinclair Read Free Book Online Page A

the manner of speech, above all the purse of a workingman, and go into one of the centres of industry and see the labor problem for himself.
    Because of the arguments he had had with Percy Harrigan, he chose for his experiment one of Old Peter’s mountain fortresses. He saw all the evils of which Dan Hogan had told; and when the mine disaster took place, and he saw men penned up and left to die, he set out to rescue them—and so quite suddenly, what had begun as a sociological experiment was turned into a battle of the class-war. Before that battle was over, Hal had made pledges to his fellow-workers which he knew would change the whole future of his life.

[13]
    Back in college again, Hal was trying in vain to persuade himself that he was interested in the Greek enclitic, in the membership of fraternities and the “line up” of a football team. There came letters from the coal-country—from Mary Burke, giving details of the war of bludgeon and revolver which the companies were waging against organizers; from Mrs. Jack David, telling how union literature in half a dozen languages had been smuggled into North Valley and distributed; from Mike Sikoria, the old Slovak whose “buddy” Hal had been, telling how he had sought a job in four camps in succession, and been met with a fist in his face; from Johann Hartman, secretary of the union local in Sheridan, telling of the “kangarooing” of Little Jerry’s father.
    How was it possible to preserve the academic ideal, the “passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence”, with such images as this in a man’s mind? Hal became more than ever a disturber of the classic halls of Harrigan. He got some of the rebels together, and forced the issue of free speech, proposing the organization of a “Social Study Club”. When this project was vetoed by the chancellor, there was another controversy, more vehement than before. Somehow the facts were whispered to Hal’s friend Billy Keating, a reporter on the Western City “Gazette”, which spread the whole story upon its front page, and called for a mass-meeting of citizens to protest against the state appropriation of money for coal-company colleges! So the chancellor weakened again, and there was a gathering in Hal’s rooms every Friday night—not a “Socialist” gathering, but one which discussed unacademic questions, and in a manner far from passionless. It was pledged to have no outside speakers, but there was no way to keep the spirit of a one-eyed old labor-agitator from coming to cast its shadow over the proceedings!
    In the Easter holidays Hal went home, to get the reaction of these events upon his relatives and friends: more especially upon the Arthur family.
    He was very much under the spell of Robert Arthur’s beautiful daughter. She was the thrill and rapture of first love to him; mysteries lurked in her fair hair, swift emotions chased one another across her features, like shadows of April clouds across a mountain lake. In chaste and secret whispers he heard in her presence the voice of new life, craving to be; as for Jessie, when she saw him after long absence, she went faint with excess of happiness.
    He came to her as a young hero, robed in light. But now this light was dimmed, and the April clouds threatened showers of tears. Laurence Arthur had “told on” Hal, how he was making himself president of a club of “rough-necks” and “goats”, leading a revolt against good society at Harrigan!
    Hal tried to explain, but there was no making Jessie see that a Socialist “goat” was different from any other kind of “goat”. A cheap and obvious device for people to attain prominence in college-life! Hal himself was generous, naive; he had no conception of the horrid insincerities of some people, their craving to thrust themselves forward, to make the acquaintance of their betters. Why, there was a Jew