The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, 1899-09-16

drank herself to death. His blood va
heated and his reason distorted betor
he was born. he was crippled before tn,
fight began. His brain is fired by
Russian exile who had boen implicated
In plot to kill the Czar and who hat
seen his wife hanged In the streets O
Moscow. Etienne incites the miner
to revolt and the strike which follow,
is the raisOn d'etre OF the book. VIVA
can revolt Of labor under the present
conditions Of society mean, and how
must 1t end? That is the problem
which M. lola takes up. The strike Il
best followed through the fortunes oI
the Mahue family. Father Mahue |,
the best workman in the mine, sober
orderly, law-abiding, industrious. Hi
ancestors have been miners for c,n
turtles, they have lain on their bellies
pecking at the coal until they have
hewn out gallery after gallery, under
mined the country mile upon mile. All
OF them, men and women have lived Ia
the darkness. in the foul air below the
surface Of the earth, where nature
buries her dead OF the ages and hides
the secrets OF her past. They have been
covered with the CRIME of the mines
and marked with soft soap until the
hair Of the race has become bleached
and the skin discolored. Mahue's old
father, who worked for fifty years in
the mines. still lives with him, and
Mahue himself has seven children,
most Of them too young to work. The
comeliness and intelligence Of the family
are 10 the daughter, Catharine, who
fills car in the mine. The family has
run little into debt and owes q hun.
dred sous and cannot pay it, Every
pay day their immediate necessities
swallow up their earnings, leaving moth.
ing for the debt. Wages are cut, de.
spair siezes father Mahue, and he joins
the strikers. Then comes the step from
half loaf tn no bread. Every want
and necessity is reduced to one, bread.
The Mshues, who were once 60 self
reliant and proud. send their children
out to beg upon the highway. Mother
Mahue pawns her betrothal gifts, the
little ones clothes. the cooking utensils.
Nothing is left in the home but the
colored picture of the Emperor on the
wall. The children steal from each
other and one boy becomes prec ocious
criminal. One OF the girls dies. but the
Mshues never weaken. Wnen the
strikers charge on the soldiers mother
Mshue. with her child at her breast
taunts her husband with cowsrdice
when he lags behind. He 10 shot down
at her feet. Then only the young,
helpless children and the mother are
left. and the old, old man, who has
witnessed 90 many tragedies and seen
the mine swallow up generation after
generation Of his race. In every other
family in the village the rsvages OF the
strike are equally terrible. Etienne
stands appalled, at the desolstion Of the
hurricane Of revolt he had raised, heart.
sick at the ruin OF the Mahues. whom
he loved. Still mother Mshue sits by
her dead, famished. and curses Cath
arine who beys to be allowed to return
to the mine to earn bread for the little
children. Then, in the midst Of ell
this misery, it dawns upon Etienne that
when capital and labor war, capital
can wait. while labor starves. That is
what CAPT al means; something ahead.
He recalled the words OF his Russian
friend, Jouvarine: