The result of
the Consolidated move had been in effect to turn over, temporarily, its two
rich mines to be looted by the pirate, and to make him very much stronger
than before with his allies, the unions. By his own imprudence, Harley had
made a bad situation worse, and delivered himself, with his hands tied,
into the power of the enemy.
In the days of turmoil that followed, Waring Ridgway's telling blows scored
once and again. The morning after the explosion, he started a relief fund
in his paper, the Sun, for the families of the dead miners, contributing
two thousand dollars himself. He also insisted that the Consolidated pay
damages to the bereaved families to the extent of twenty thousand dollars
for each man killed. The town rang with his praises. Mesa had always been
proud of his success; had liked the democratic spirit of him that led him
to mix on apparently equal terms with his working men, and had backed him
in his opposition to the trust because his plucky and unscrupulous fight
had been, in a measure, its fight. But now it idolized him. He was the
buffer between it and the trust, fighting the battles of labor against the
great octopus of Broadway, and beating it to a standstill.
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