.
Читать онлайн книгу.
me about her illness.” King felt himself shuddering inwardly. He hoped it wasn’t as bad as some of the stories he’d been told about disintegrating jawbones from the long-term contact with phosphorous. One woman had choked to death from the puss of her abscesses. Another he had talked to had no lower jaw and told King that she’d pulled out her own jawbone – that’s how bad the infection had been.
“Well, first she had a toothache and then her jaws began to ache and finally her whole face was swelled up like!” The woman showed with her hands how big the swelling had been. “She went to the hospitals for two operations, but it did no good. In the end she was blind. And then, she d… d… d… ” the woman faltered and could no longer speak.
King wrote everything down. He knew that white phosphorous caused painful and horrible death through phosphorus necrosis. Permitting such industrial conditions was intolerable. His report and subsequent bill would make a difference.
Office of the Minister
Department of Labour, Ottawa
September 22, 1911
King picked up the human jawbone of one of the victims and prepared to pack it into box along with the other items that had been on his desk.
“Hideous,” he muttered.
The Act to Prohibit the Manufacture, Importation and Sale of Matches Made With White Phosphorous would not be passed in 1911. On September 21, 1911, the Laurier government had lost the election and so had King. These and other bills would have to remain dreams – for the time being.
“But they will happen,” he promised.
King (with cane) and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1915.
4
Duty, Death
Colorado, United States
April 3, 1915
“No, no, don’t get up.” Willie protested. His brother Max sank down on the sofa. “You’re looking much better,” Willie noted. Max had moved to Colorado in an attempt to recover from tuberculosis – a dreaded and often fatal disease. “How’s the book coming?” King cheerfully asked the ill man.
“Wonderfully well,” Max replied. “I’m so glad, Billy, that you encouraged me. There is so much people can learn about how to beat TB.”
Max’s wife, May, came into the room, two boys, twins, toddling beside her. “Go see your uncle, Arthur,” she encouraged. “Lyon, it’s your Uncle Willie, the one you’re named after!”
King, on his knees, hugged his nephews.
He spent some time with the family, catching them up to date on how his work was going. One of the reasons he was in Colorado was related to some of the investigations of conditions in mines he was doing for his new employer, the Rockefeller Foundation. A huge benefit to this trip was that he could visit his dear brother.
King looked at Max, who with his curly hair and light blue eyes had inherited so much of Grandfather’s looks. He also seemed to have a lot of his fighting Scottish spirit. Yet, with a flush in his cheeks his little brother appeared so fragile.
They exchanged some stories about the times they had spent together in Ottawa. Then King lovingly embraced his brother, before returning to his hotel.
The next morning, King awoke to the sound of the telegraph boy knocking on the door. The message he delivered spun King into action. Bella was ill. They were summoning him home. King had checked the train timetables, contacted Max, and begun to pack by the time the second telegraph arrived. This telegraph caused him to sit down and cry. It was too late. Bella was dead.
“If only she had listened!” he told Max. “Her heart would not have worn out.”
“I tried to get her to rest more,” Max rued, “to give up the nonsense of working as a clerk at the bank. With Mother and Father to look after, and her heart as weak as it is – was–” Max corrected himself, “it was all just too much. Our poor, dear gracious sister.”
“She was such a good Christian, so loving to everyone. To Mother, to Father, to us, to the children she helped through St. Andrews Church. I simply can’t believe it,” Willie shook his head, “Why now? Just when I was beginning to earn enough to be able to help lift her burden substantially.”
King bade farewell to his brother and rushed to catch the train, thoughts flooding his brain. Dark and senseless the waves came, too fast and powerful to be stopped. My sister My big sister Dead. No children, no spouse. I have just said goodbye to my brother. My little brother. Ill as he is, he gathers strength in the loving arms of his wife and children. I am over forty. What sort of life will I find? What sort of end? Bella. Why did you have to be taken now?
Colorado, United States
September, 1915
There was war in Europe, but the mood in the hall on this spring evening was one of optimism. The fiddlers were pushing the tempo. Someone yelped “Yahoo!” and the dancers on the floor stepped up their pace.
A handsome, compact man, with devilish dark eyes and a wicked smile, whirled his partner around, laughing gaily. The man was John D. Rockefeller, Junior, the richest person in the United States of America. The woman was the wife of one of his employees.
The year before, women and children had died violently in Ludlow, Colorado. The problems had begun in 1913 when the miners started protesting the conditions and the lack of union recognition at the coal mines in which Rockefeller was the largest shareholder. The workers left the company town and installed themselves and their families in tents, watched by the state militia and company guards. On the morning of April 20, 1914, men shooting rifles and machine guns attacked the tent village. They threw paraffin onto the tents and lit them on fire. Eleven children and two women had been burned to death and three camp leaders shot. The American nation had been shocked and had demanded action.
At the dance, the man who had succeeded in bringing change, William Lyon Mackenzie King, sat on the sidelines, sipping punch and chatting with the dancer’s husband. Tonight he was enjoying one of his biggest successes.
At more than forty years of age and too old to fight in the war in Europe, King had had to find a job after the Liberals had lost the last election. He was looking after an increasing number of the bills for his parents and even for Max. His work at the Canadian Liberal and other small jobs didn’t cover expenses. Nor did money from his friends. King had found a sympathetic patron, Violet Markham, an intelligent and wealthy British woman with a social conscience. He’d impressed Violet when he met her in 1905 and in the correspondence they’d established since. She was quite willing to help Rex financially while he was out of Parliament, in hope that he would soon return to power and advance the cause of the underprivileged. But King needed more money so that he could help his family. He felt it was necessary to take the well-paying job in the United States. As director of industrial investigations for the Rockefeller Foundation, he started at a $12,000 per year salary that in 1914 seemed sent from heaven. More importantly, King was not just carrying out an academic study of labour relations. He believed he could make a difference in the lives of many people.
He had several goals in mind when he took his New York job: one was remaining Canadian. He even conducted some business on letterhead