A Citizen (advancing; a bearded Pole). "How will you vote, hey? Tell us that! How? Hey?"
A Second Citizen (a Jew). "You"re a no-good, you robber. I know you for ten years now already. You cheated me when you were in the grocery business."
A Third Citizen (a Swede. In a sing-song voice). "Answer me this, Mr.
Pinski. If a majority of the citizens of the Fourteenth Ward don"t want you to vote for it, will you still vote for it?"
Pinski (hesitating).
The Five Hundred. "Ho! look at the scoundrel! He"s afraid to say. He don"t know whether he"ll do what the people of this ward want him to do. Kill him! Brain him!"
A Voice from Behind. "Aw, stand up, Pinski. Don"t be afraid." Pinski (terrorized as the five hundred make a rush for the stage). "If the people don"t want me to do it, of course I won"t do it. Why should I?
Ain"t I their representative?"
A Voice. "Yes, when you think you"re going to get the wadding kicked out of you."
Another Voice. "You wouldn"t be honest with your mother, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
You couldn"t be!"
Pinski. "If one-half the voters should ask me not to do it I wouldn"t do it."
A Voice. "Well, we"ll get the voters to ask you, all right. We"ll get nine-tenths of them to sign before to-morrow night."
An Irish-American (aged twenty-six; a gas collector; coming close to Pinski). "If you don"t vote right we"ll hang you, and I"ll be there to help pull the rope myself."
One of Pinski"s Lieutenants. "Say, who is that freshie? We want to lay for him. One good kick in the right place will just about finish him."
The Gas Collector. "Not from you, you carrot-faced terrier. Come outside and see." (Business of friends interfering).
The meeting becomes disorderly. Pinski is escorted out by friends--completely surrounded--amid shrieks and hisses, cat-calls, cries of "Boodler!" "Thief!" "Robber!"
There were many such little dramatic incidents after the ordinance had been introduced.
Henceforth on the streets, in the wards and outlying sections, and even, on occasion, in the business heart, behold the marching clubs--those sinister, ephemeral organizations which on demand of the mayor had cropped out into existence--great companies of the unheralded, the dull, the undistinguished--clerks, working-men, small business men, and minor scions of religion or morality; all tramping to and fro of an evening, after working-hours, a.s.sembling in cheap halls and party club-houses, and drilling themselves to what end? That they might march to the city hall on the fateful Monday night when the street-railway ordinances should be up for pa.s.sage and demand of unregenerate lawmakers that they do their duty. Cowperwood, coming down to his office one morning on his own elevated lines, was the observer of a b.u.t.ton or badge worn upon the coat lapel of stolid, inconsequential citizens who sat reading their papers, unconscious of that presence which epitomized the terror and the power they all feared. One of these badges had for its device a gallows with a free noose suspended; another was blazoned with the query: "Are we going to be robbed?" On sign-boards, fences, and dead walls huge posters, four by six feet in dimension, were displayed.
WALDEN H. LUCAS
against the
BOODLERS =========================== Every citizen of Chicago should come down to the City Hall
TO-NIGHT MONDAY, DEC. 12 =========================== and every Monday night thereafter while the Street-car Franchises are under consideration, and see that the interests of the city are protected against
BOODLEISM ========= Citizens, Arouse and Defeat the Boodlers!
In the papers were flaring head-lines; in the clubs, halls, and churches fiery speeches could nightly be heard. Men were drunk now with a kind of fury of contest. They would not succ.u.mb to this t.i.tan who was bent on undoing them. They would not be devoured by this gorgon of the East. He should be made to pay an honest return to the city or get out. No fifty-year franchise should be granted him. The Mears law must be repealed, and he must come into the city council humble and with clean hands. No alderman who received as much as a dollar for his vote should in this instance be safe with his life.
Needless to say that in the face of such a campaign of intimidation only great courage could win. The aldermen were only human. In the council committee-chamber Cowperwood went freely among them, explaining as he best could the justice of his course and making it plain that, although willing to buy his rights, he looked on them as no more than his due. The rule of the council was barter, and he accepted it. His unshaken and unconquerable defiance heartened his followers greatly, and the thought of thirty thousand dollars was as a b.u.t.tress against many terrors. At the same time many an alderman speculated solemnly as to what he would do afterward and where he would go once he had sold out.
At last the Monday night arrived which was to bring the final test of strength. Picture the large, ponderous structure of black granite--erected at the expense of millions and suggesting somewhat the somnolent architecture of ancient Egypt--which served as the city hall and county court-house combined. On this evening the four streets surrounding it were packed with thousands of people. To this throng Cowperwood has become an astounding figure: his wealth fabulous, his heart iron, his intentions sinister--the acme of cruel, plotting deviltry. Only this day, the Chronicle, calculating well the hour and the occasion, has completely covered one of its pages with an intimate, though exaggerated, description of Cowperwood"s house in New York: his court of orchids, his sunrise room, the baths of pink and blue alabaster, the finishings of marble and intaglio. Here Cowperwood was represented as seated in a swinging divan, his various books, art treasures, and comforts piled about him. The idea was vaguely suggested that in his sybaritic hours odalesques danced before him and unnamable indulgences and excesses were perpetrated.
At this same hour in the council-chamber itself were a.s.sembling as hungry and bold a company of gray wolves as was ever gathered under one roof. The room was large, ornamented to the south by tall windows, its ceiling supporting a heavy, intricate chandelier, its sixty-six aldermanic desks arranged in half-circles, one behind the other; its woodwork of black oak carved and highly polished; its walls a dark blue-gray decorated with arabesques in gold--thus giving to all proceedings an air of dignity and stateliness. Above the speaker"s head was an immense portrait in oil of a former mayor--poorly done, dusty, and yet impressive. The size and character of the place gave on ordinary occasions a sort of resonance to the voices of the speakers.
To-night through the closed windows could be heard the sound of distant drums and marching feet. In the hall outside the council door were packed at least a thousand men with ropes, sticks, a fife-and-drum corps which occasionally struck up "Hail! Columbia, Happy Land," "My Country, "Tis of Thee," and "Dixie." Alderman Schlumbohm, heckled to within an inch of his life, followed to the council door by three hundred of his fellow-citizens, was there left with the admonition that they would be waiting for him when he should make his exit. He was at last seriously impressed.
"What is this?" he asked of his neighbor and nearest a.s.sociate, Alderman Gavegan, when he gained the safety of his seat. "A free country?"
"Search me!" replied his compatriot, wearily. "I never seen such a band as I have to deal with out in the Twentieth. Why, my G.o.d! a man can"t call his name his own any more out here. It"s got so now the newspapers tell everybody what to do."
Alderman Pinski and Alderman Hoherkorn, conferring together in one corner, were both very dour. "I"ll tell you what, Joe," said Pinski to his confrere; "it"s this fellow Lucas that has got the people so stirred up. I didn"t go home last night because I didn"t want those fellows to follow me down there. Me and my wife stayed down-town. But one of the boys was over here at Jake"s a little while ago, and he says there must "a" been five hundred people around my house at six o"clock, already. Whad ye think o" that?"
"Same here. I don"t take much stock in this lynching idea. Still, you can"t tell. I don"t know whether the police could help us much or not.
It"s a d.a.m.ned outrage. Cowperwood has a fair proposition. What"s the matter with them, anyhow?"
Renewed sounds of "Marching Through Georgia" from without.
Enter at this time Aldermen Ziner, Knudson, Revere, Rogers, Tiernan, and Kerrigan. Of all the aldermen perhaps Messrs. Tiernan and Kerrigan were as cool as any. Still the spectacle of streets blocked with people who carried torches and wore badges showing slip-nooses attached to a gallows was rather serious.
"I"ll tell you, Pat," said "Smiling Mike," as they eventually made the door through throngs of jeering citizens; "it does look a little rough.
Whad ye think?"
"To h.e.l.l with them!" replied Kerrigan, angry, waspish, determined.
"They don"t run me or my ward. I"ll vote as I d.a.m.n please."
"Same here," replied Tiernan, with a great show of courage. "That goes for me. But it"s putty warm, anyhow, eh?"
"Yes, it"s warm, all right," replied Kerrigan, suspicious lest his companion in arms might be weakening, "but that"ll never make a quitter out of me."
"Nor me, either," replied the Smiling One.
Enter now the mayor, accompanied by a fife-and-drum corps rendering "Hail to the Chief." He ascends the rostrum. Outside in the halls the huzzas of the populace. In the gallery overhead a picked audience. As the various aldermen look up they contemplate a sea of unfriendly faces. "Get on to the mayor"s guests," commented one alderman to another, cynically.
A little sparring for time while minor matters are considered, and the gallery is given opportunity for comment on the various communal lights, identifying for itself first one local celebrity and then another. "There"s Johnnie Dowling, that big blond fellow with the round head; there"s Pinski--look at the little rat; there"s Kerrigan.
Get on to the emerald. Eh, Pat, how"s the jewelry? You won"t get any chance to do any grafting to-night, Pat. You won"t pa.s.s no ordinance to-night."
Alderman Winkler (pro-Cowperwood). "If the chair pleases, I think something ought to be done to restore order in the gallery and keep these proceedings from being disturbed. It seems to me an outrage, that, on an occasion of this kind, when the interests of the people require the most careful attention--"
A Voice. "The interests of the people!"
Another Voice. "Sit down. You"re bought!"
Alderman Winkler. "If the chair pleases--"
The Mayor. "I shall have to ask the audience in the gallery to keep quiet in order that the business in hand may be considered." (Applause, and the gallery lapses into silence.)
Alderman Guigler (to Alderman Sumulsky). "Well trained, eh?"
Alderman Ballenberg (pro-Cowperwood, getting up--large, brown, florid, smooth-faced). "Before calling up an ordinance which bears my name I should like to ask permission of the council to make a statement. When I introduced this ordinance last week I said--"
A Voice. "We know what you said."