The division between capital and labor showed plainly in the reception of the news.  Capital berated Bonbright; labor was inclined to fulsomeness.  Capital called him on the telephone to remonstrate and to state its opinion of him as a half-baked idiot of a young idealist who was upsetting business.  Labor put on its hat and stormed the gates of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, seeking for five-dollar jobs.  Not hundreds of them came, but thousands.  The streets were blocked with applicants, every one eager for that minimum wage.  The police could not handle the mob.  It was there for a purpose and it intended to stay. ...  When it was rebuked, or if some one tried to tell them there were no jobs for it, it threw playful stones through the windows.  It was there at dawn; it still remained at dark.

A man who had an actual job at Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, was a hero, an object of admiring interest to his friends and neighbors.  The thing touched him.  There had been a miraculous laying on of hands, under which had passed away poverty.  So must the friends and acquaintances of a certain blind man whose sight was restored by a bit of divine spittle have regarded him.

Malcolm Lightener did not content himself with telephoning.  He came in person to say his say to Bonbright, and he said it with point and emphasis.

“I thought I taught you some sense in my shop,” he said, as he burst into Bonbright’s office.  “What’s this I hear now?  What idiocy are you up to?  Is this infernal newspaper story true?”

“Substantially,” said Bonbright.

“You’re crazy.  What are you trying to do?  Upset labor conditions in this town so that business will go to smash?  I thought you had a level head.  I had confidence in you—­and here you go, shooting off a half-cocked, wild-eyed, socialistic thing!  Did you stop to think what effect this thing would have on other manufacturers?”

“Yes,” said Bonbright.

“It’ll pull labor down on us.  They’ll say we can afford to pay such wages if you can.”

“Well,” said Bonbright, “can’t you?”

“You’ve sowed a fine crop of discontent.  It’s damned unfair.  You’ll have every workingman in town flocking to you.  You’ll get the pick of labor.”

“That’s good business, isn’t it?” Bonbright asked, with a smile.  “Now, Mr. Lightener, there isn’t any use thrashing me.  The plan is going into effect.  It isn’t half baked.  I haven’t gone off half cocked.  It is carefully planned and thought out—­and it will work.  There’ll be flurries for a few days, and then things will come back to the normal for you fellows. ...  I wish it wouldn’t.  You’re a lot better able than I am to do what I’m doing, and you know it.  If you can, you ought to.”

“No man has a right to go ahead deliberately and upset business.”

“I’m not upsetting it.  I’m merely being fair, and that’s what business should have been years ago.  I’m able to pay a five-dollar minimum, and labor earns it.  Then it ought to have it.  If you can pay only a four-dollar minimum, then you should pay it.  Labor earns it for you. ...  If there’s a man whose labor earns for him only a dollar and seventy-five cents a day, and that man pays it, he’s doing as much at I am ...”