Bold Sons of Erin Read Online Free PDF

He let no drunkards into his mines. He used the stoutest timbers in his gangways, nor did he rob old pillars to the danger-point. His deepest breasts and galleries had proper ventilation, and but a few workmen were killed or maimed each year. His coal was clean, and known in Philadelphia. Like Mr. Johns, his fellow Welshman, he stood a very model of Christian probity. Although he had become a Congregationalist, for reasons of his own, I always believed his heart remained with Methodism.
    Yet, there was more to come of Mr. Evans. That was the autumn when my heart was crushed.
    As the street door slammed behind Mr. Heckscher and his fancy companion, I introduced myself anew to Mr. Gowen, who was ruffled and found my visit unwelcome from the first. He bid me sit down, politely though impatiently, but when I had barely begun to describe my petition, the fellow exploded in anger.
    He called me names, which is a childish thing.
    And yet, I like to remember him the way he was that day, a confident young man. With his future all before him and our little city enlivened by modern war’s appetite for coal. He seemed a man for our times, did Mr. Gowen. Our Navy’s ships fed the highest grade of Schuylkill White Ash Lump Steamboatinto their boilers, at four-dollars-and-ninety-cents the ton, wholesale and government rate. We had been in a frightful slump before Fort Sumter was attacked, but the foundries and forges, the ships and locomotives, and all the great steam engines that increase the devastation of modern war demanded the one thing our county had to offer. We had entered the Age of Coal, which I predict will last a hundred years. Fortunes were being made between lunch and dinner, although intemperate men might still go bust.
    I like to remember Mr. Gowen the way he was that morning, despite his sour demeanor toward myself. He seemed fit to conquer the world. And, in his time, he nearly did. It took all of J.P. Morgan’s might to bring him and his Reading Railroad down. But that was far in the future, the stuff of high finance and not of war. It is better to recall Mr. Gowen hopeful and hale, in 1862, than as I would find him in the Year of Our Lord 1889, dead by his own hand in a Washington hotel room.
    But let that bide.
    “DAMN IT, Jones, are you even listening to me?” I thought he would pound the desk with his fist, but Mr. Gowen did not. Instead, he took out his watch, then put it back.
    “Yes, Mr. Gowen. It is listening I am.”
    And listening I was. But I had decided to let him blow his steam. Although I am Welsh born and talk is our cakes and ale, I have learned that there is often a great deal to be said for not saying a great deal.
    “Well, I want to know just what you thought you were doing by sneaking up there in the dead of night to dig up the grave of one of our citizens?”
    “Was he a citizen, Mr. Gowen? This Daniel Patrick Boland who was not in his grave?”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “Well, then, I will tell you. It seems young Mr. Boland voted, as a proper citizen should, for his name is listed on the county rolls. I have examined them, see. And I suspect he voted theDemocratic ticket. But when the commissioner attempted to register the men of Cass Township for the draft, it appears young Mr. Boland remembered that he was not a citizen, after all, and thereby was not liable for the draft.”
    “What are you implying?”
    “I am not ‘implying,’ Mr. Gowen. I have only asked you a question.”
    “No. No, I don’t believe that quite. I think you’re suggesting electoral fraud. Well, I’ll have you know that I won this position by one-thousand, six-hundred and thirty votes, the largest majority of any candidate in this county.”
    “I did not suggest misconduct. Look you. I have only asked after Mr. Boland’s citizenship. Since you are so concerned with the lot of citizens.”
    I know I should have shunned all confrontation. I needed to gather allies, not to make enemies. The truth is that