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_ Not being favored by chance in getting acquainted with Dede
Mason, Daylight's interest in her slowly waned. This was but
natural, for he was plunged deep in hazardous operations, and the
fascinations of the game and the magnitude of it accounted for
all the energy that even his magnificent organism could generate.
Such was his absorption that the pretty stenographer slowly and
imperceptibly faded from the forefront of his consciousness.
Thus, the first faint spur, in the best sense, of his need for
woman ceased to prod. So far as Dede Mason was concerned, he
possessed no more than a complacent feeling of satisfaction in
that he had a very nice stenographer. And, completely to put the
quietus on any last lingering hopes he might have had of her, he
was in the thick of his spectacular and intensely bitter fight
with the Coastwise Steam Navigation Company, and the Hawaiian,
Nicaraguan, and Pacific-Mexican Steamship-Company. He stirred
up a bigger muss than he had anticipated, and even he was
astounded at the wide ramifications of the struggle and at the
unexpected and incongruous interests that were drawn into it.
Every newspaper in San Francisco turned upon him. It was true,
one or two of them had first intimated that they were open to
subsidization, but Daylight's judgment was that the situation did
not warrant such expenditure. Up to this time the press had been
amusingly tolerant and good-naturedly sensational about him, but
now he was to learn what virulent scrupulousness an antagonized
press was capable of. Every episode of his life was resurrected
to serve as foundations for malicious fabrications. Daylight was
frankly amazed at the new interpretation put upon all he had
accomplished and the deeds he had done. From an Alaskan hero he
was metamorphosed into an Alaskan bully, liar, desperado, and all
around "bad Man." Not content with this, lies upon lies, out of
whole cloth, were manufactured about him. He never replied,
though once he went to the extent of disburdening his mind to
half a dozen reporters. "Do your damnedest," he told them.
"Burning Daylight's bucked bigger things than your dirty, lying
sheets. And I don't blame you, boys... that is, not much.
You can't help it. You've got to live. There's a mighty lot of
women in this world that make their living in similar fashion to
yours, because they're not able to do anything better.
Somebody's got to do the dirty work, and it might as well be you.
You're paid for it, and you ain't got the backbone to rustle
cleaner jobs."
The socialist press of the city jubilantly exploited this
utterance, scattering it broadcast over San Francisco in tens of
thousands of paper dodgers. And the journalists, stung to the
quick, retaliated with the only means in their power-printer's
ink abuse. The attack became bitterer than ever. The whole
affair sank to the deeper deeps of rancor and savageness. The
poor woman who had killed herself was dragged out of her grave
and paraded on thousands of reams of paper as a martyr and a
victim to Daylight's ferocious brutality. Staid, statistical
articles were published, proving that he had made his start by
robbing poor miners of their claims, and that the capstone to his
fortune had been put in place by his treacherous violation of
faith with the Guggenhammers in the deal on Ophir. And there
were editorials written in which he was called an enemy of
society, possessed of the manners and culture of a caveman, a
fomenter of wasteful business troubles, the destroyer of the
city's prosperity in commerce and trade, an anarchist of dire
menace; and one editorial gravely recommended that hanging would
be a lesson to him and his ilk, and concluded with the fervent
hope that some day his big motor-car would smash up and smash him
with it.
He was like a big bear raiding a bee-hive and, regardless of the
stings, he obstinately persisted in pawing for the honey. He
gritted his teeth and struck back. Beginning with a raid on two
steamship companies, it developed into a pitched battle with a
city, a state, and a continental coastline. Very well; they
wanted fight, and they would get it. It was what he wanted, and
he felt justified in having come down from the Klondike, for here
he was gambling at a bigger table than ever the Yukon had
supplied. Allied with him, on a splendid salary, with princely
pickings thrown in, was a lawyer, Larry Hegan, a young Irishman
with a reputation to make, and whose peculiar genius had been
unrecognized until Daylight picked up with him. Hegan had Celtic
imagination and daring, and to such degree that Daylight's cooler
head was necessary as a check on his wilder visions. Hegan's was
a Napoleonic legal mind, without balance, and it was just this
balance that Daylight supplied. Alone, the Irishman was doomed
to failure, but directed by Daylight, he was on the highroad to
fortune and recognition. Also, he was possessed of no more
personal or civic conscience than Napoleon.
It was Hegan who guided Daylight through the intricacies of
modern politics, labor organization, and commercial and
corporation law. It was Hegan, prolific of resource and
suggestion, who opened Daylight's eyes to undreamed possibilities
in twentieth-century warfare; and it was Daylight, rejecting,
accepting, and elaborating, who planned the campaigns and
prosecuted them. With the Pacific coast from Peugeot Sound to
Panama, buzzing and humming, and with San Francisco furiously
about his ears, the two big steamship companies had all the
appearance of winning. It looked as if Burning Daylight was
being beaten slowly to his knees. And then he struck--at the
steamship companies, at San Francisco, at the whole Pacific
coast.
It was not much of a blow at first. A Christian Endeavor
convention being held in San Francisco, a row was started by
Express Drivers' Union No. 927 over the handling of a small heap
of baggage at the Ferry Building. A few heads were broken, a
score of arrests made, and the baggage was delivered. No one
would have guessed that behind this petty wrangle was the fine
Irish hand of Hegan, made potent by the Klondike gold of Burning
Daylight. It was an insignificant affair at best--or so it
seemed. But the Teamsters' Union took up the quarrel, backed by
the whole Water Front Federation. Step by step, the strike
became involved. A refusal of cooks and waiters to serve scab
teamsters or teamsters' employers brought out the cooks and
waiters. The butchers and meat-cutters refused to handle meat
destined for unfair restaurants. The combined Employers'
Associations put up a solid front, and found facing them the
40,000 organized laborers of San Francisco. The restaurant
bakers and the bakery wagon drivers struck, followed by the
milkers, milk drivers, and chicken pickers. The building trades
asserted its position in unambiguous terms, and all San Francisco
was in turmoil.
But still, it was only San Francisco. Hegan's intrigues were
masterly, and Daylight's campaign steadily developed. The
powerful fighting organization known as the Pacific Slope
Seaman's Union refused to work vessels the cargoes of which were
to be handled by scab longshoremen and freight-handlers. The
union presented its ultimatum, and then called a strike. This
had been Daylight's objective all the time. Every incoming
coastwise vessel was boarded by the union officials and its crew
sent ashore. And with the Seamen went the firemen, the
engineers, and the sea cooks and waiters. Daily the number of
idle steamers increased. It was impossible to get scab crews,
for the men of the Seaman's Union were fighters trained in the
hard school of the sea, and when they went out it meant blood and
death to scabs. This phase of the strike spread up and down the
entire Pacific coast, until all the ports were filled with idle
ships, and sea transportation was at a standstill. The days and
weeks dragged out, and the strike held. The Coastwise Steam
Navigation Company, and the Hawaiian, Nicaraguan, and
Pacific-Mexican Steamship Company were tied up completely. The
expenses of combating the strike were tremendous, and they were
earning nothing, while daily the situation went from bad to
worse, until "peace at any price" became the cry. And still
there was no peace, until Daylight and his allies played out
their hand, raked in the winnings, and allowed a goodly portion
of a continent to resume business.
It was noted, in following years, that several leaders of workmen
built themselves houses and blocks of renting flats and took
trips to the old countries, while, more immediately, other
leaders and "dark horses" came to political preferment and the
control of the municipal government and the municipal moneys. In
fact, San Francisco's boss-ridden condition was due in greater
degree to Daylight's widespreading battle than even San Francisco
ever dreamed. For the part he had played, the details of which
were practically all rumor and guesswork, quickly leaked out, and
in consequence he became a much-execrated and well-hated man.
Nor had Daylight himself dreamed that his raid on the steamship
companies would have grown to such colossal proportions.
But he had got what he was after. He had played an exciting hand
and won, beating the steamship companies down into the dust and
mercilessly robbing the stockholders by perfectly legal methods
before he let go. Of course, in addition to the large sums of
money he had paid over, his allies had rewarded themselves by
gobbling the advantages which later enabled them to loot the
city. His alliance with a gang of cutthroats had brought about a
lot of cutthroating. But his conscience suffered no twinges. He
remembered what he had once heard an old preacher utter, namely,
that they who rose by the sword perished by the sword. One took
his chances when he played with cutting throats, and his,
Daylight's, throat was still intact. That was it! And he had
won. It was all gamble and war between the strong men. The
fools did not count. They were always getting hurt; and that
they always had been getting hurt was the conclusion he drew from
what little he knew of history. San Francisco had wanted war,
and he had given it war. It was the game. All the big fellows
did the same, and they did much worse, too.
"Don't talk to me about morality and civic duty," he replied to a
persistent interviewer. "If you quit your job tomorrow and went
to work on another paper, you would write just what you were told
to write. It's morality and civic duty now with you; on the new
job it would be backing up a thieving railroad with... morality
and civic duty, I suppose. Your price, my son, is just about
thirty per week. That's what you sell for. But your paper would
sell for a bit more. Pay its price to-day, and it would shift
its present rotten policy to some other rotten policy; but it
would never let up on morality and civic duty.
"And all because a sucker is born every minute. So long as the
people stand for it, they'll get it good and plenty, my son. And
the shareholders and business interests might as well shut up
squawking about how much they've been hurt. You never hear ary
squeal out of them when they've got the other fellow down and are
gouging him. This is the time THEY got gouged, and that's all
there is to it. Talk about mollycoddles! Son, those same
fellows would steal crusts from starving men and pull gold
fillings from the mouths of corpses, yep, and squawk like Sam
Scratch if some blamed corpse hit back. They're all tarred with
the same brush, little and big. Look at your Sugar Trust--with
all its millions stealing water like a common thief from New York
City, and short-weighing the government on its phoney scales.
Morality and civic duty! Son, forget it." _
Read next: PART II: CHAPTER VIII
Read previous: PART II: CHAPTER VI
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