There was no fooling him.In those days the slaves were braver than now, and they were always trying for their freedom.And Sly Vange was everywhere, in all their schemes and plans, bringing their schemes and plans to naught and their leaders to the electric chair.It was in 2255that his name was next changed for him.It was in that year that the Great Mutiny took place.In that region west of the Rocky Mountains, seventeen millions of slaves strove bravely to overthrow their masters.Who knows, if Sly Vange had not lived, but that they would have succeeded? But Sly Vange was very much alive.The masters gave him supreme command of the situation.In eight months of fighting, one million and three hundred and fifty thousand slaves were killed.Vange, Bill Vange, Sly Vange, killed them, and he broke the Great Mutiny.And he was greatly rewarded, and so red were his hands with the blood of the slaves that thereafter he was called "Bloody Vange." You see, my brothers, what interesting things are to be found in the books when one can read them.And, take my word for it, there are many other things, even more interesting, in the books.And if you will but study with me, in a year's time you can read those books for yourselves--ay, in six months some of you will be able to read those books for yourselves.
Bloody Vange lived to a ripe old age, and always, to the last, was he received in the councils of the masters; but never was he made a master himself.He had first opened his eyes, you see, in a slave pen.But oh, he was well rewarded! He had a dozen palaces in which to live.He, who was no master, owned thousands of slaves.He had a great pleasure yacht upon the sea that was a floating palace, and he owned a whole island in the sea where toiled ten thousand slaves on his coffee plantations.But in his old age he was lonely, for he lived apart, hated by his brothers, the slaves, and looked down upon by those he had served and who refused to be his brothers.The masters looked down upon him because he had been born a slave.Enormously wealthy he died; but he died horribly, tormented by his conscience, regretting all he had done and the red stain on his name.
But with his children it was different.They had not been born in the slave pen, and by the special ruling of the Chief Oligarch of that time, John Morrison, they were elevated to the master class.And it was then that the name of Vange disappears from the page of history.It becomes Vanderwater, and Jason Vange, the son of Bloody Vange, becomes Jason Vanderwater, the founder of the Vanderwater line.But that was three hundred years ago, and the Vanderwaters of to-day forget their beginnings and imagine that somehow the clay of their bodies is different stuff from the clay in your body and mine and in the bodies of all slaves.And I ask you, Why should a slave become the master of another slave? And why should the son of a slave become the master of many slaves? I leave these questions for you to answer for yourselves, but do not forget that in the beginning the Vanderwaters were slaves.
And now, my brothers, I come back to the beginning of my tale to tell you of Tom Dixon's arm.Roger Vanderwater's factory in Kingsbury was rightly named "Hell's Bottom," but the men who toiled in it were men, as you shall see.Women toiled there, too, and children, little children.All that toiled there had the regular slave rights under the law, but only under the law, for they were deprived of many of their rights by the two overseers of Hell's Bottom, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster.
It is a long story, but I shall not tell all of it to you.I shall tell only about the arm.It happened that, according to the law, a portion of the starvation wage of the slaves was held back each month and put into a fund.This fund was for the purpose of helping such unfortunate fellow-workmen as happened to be injured by accidents or to be overtaken by sickness.As you know with yourselves, these funds are controlled by the overseers.It is the law, and so it was that the fund at Hell's Bottom was controlled by the two overseers of accursed memory.
Now, Clancy and Munster took this fund for their own use.When accidents happened to the workmen, their fellows, as was the custom, made grants from the fund; but the overseers refused to pay over the grants.What could the slaves do? They had their rights under the law, but they had no access to the law.Those that complained to the overseers were punished.You know yourselves what form such punishment takes--the fines for faulty work that is not faulty; the overcharging of accounts in the Company's store; the vile treatment of one's women and children; and the allotment to bad machines whereon, work as one will, he starves.
Once, the slaves of Hell's Bottom protested to Vanderwater.It was the time of the year when he spent several months in Kingsbury.One of the slaves could write; it chanced that his mother could write, and she had secretly taught him as her mother had secretly taught her.So this slave wrote a round robin, wherein was contained their grievances, and all the slaves signed by mark.And, with proper stamps upon the envelope, the round robin was mailed to Roger Vanderwater.And Roger Vanderwater did nothing, save to turn the round robin over to the two overseers.Clancy and Munster were angered.They turned the guards loose at night on the slave pen.The guards were armed with pick handles.It is said that next day only half of the slaves were able to work in Hell's Bottom.They were well beaten.The slave who could write was so badly beaten that he lived only three months.But before he died, he wrote once more, to what purpose you shall hear.
