not looked for the
incredible spectacle of a public official deliberately precipitating the
incalculable distress which has followed in the wake of the strike at
the Rathbawne Mills. Overburdened with the cares of office, in a single
instance the Governor of Alleghenia turned over a question of vital
significance to the lieutenant from whom he had every reason to expect
compliance and support. Even so, he was careful to point out a line of
action by which the impending calamity might readily have been avoided.
And what was the result? Not only in total disregard of plain duty, but
in direct disobedience of the orders of his superior, the
Lieutenant-Governor of Alleghenia threw his influence into the scale to
outweigh law and order, and brought about the deplorable destitution now
facing the families of four thousand martyrs to principle. When men are
driven to desperation, when women turn to shame in order to maintain
life, when children are heard crying in our streets for bread, to whom
shall we point as the author of it all? To Peter Rathbawne, a poor,
doddering old man, barely responsible now, if rumor is to be believed,
for what he does? No! To John Hamilton Barclay, Lieutenant-Governor of
Alleghenia!"

This, and much more in the same strain, while passed over as sensational
bombast by the better element, did not fail of its effect upon the
strikers. A mass-meeting, held that morning, denounced Barclay in a set
of resolutions, as a traitor to his office and as the avowed enemy of
labor, and demanded his impeachment on the ground of neglect of duty.
During the day, half a score of threatening letters came to his office.
But what hurt him most, though he almost smiled at his own
sensitiveness, was that the doormen and porters at the Capitol greeted
his morning nod with a stare, and even the little office-boy, bending
low over his table in the ante-room, did not look up for the customary
wink. For his mother was a trimmer at the Rathbawne Mills.

Once in his office, the Lieutenant-Governor found it impossible to
concentrate his mind upon the work before him. Sentence after sentence,
the words of his arraignment marched through his mind, as he sat with
his elbows on the desk and his chin in his doubled fists. A single
reading seemed to have stamped them indelibly and forever upon his
memory. Baffled by conflicting reflections he began, for the first time,
to doubt whether his had been the course of conscience, or merel