CHAPTER 23

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Early in the fall Jurgis set out for Chicago again. All the joy

went out of tramping as soon as a man could not keep warm in the

hay; and, like many thousands of others, he deluded himself with

the hope that by coming early he could avoid the rush. He

brought fifteen dollars with him, hidden away in one of his

shoes, a sum which had been saved from the saloon-keepers, not so

much by his conscience, as by the fear which filled him at the

thought of being out of work in the city in the winter time.

He traveled upon the railroad with several other men, hiding in

freight cars at night, and liable to be thrown off at any time,

regardless of the speed of the train. When he reached the city

he left the rest, for he had money and they did not, and he meant

to save himself in this fight. He would bring to it all the

skill that practice had brought him, and he would stand, whoever

fell. On fair nights he would sleep in the park or on a truck or

an empty barrel or box, and when it was rainy or cold he would

stow himself upon a shelf in a ten-cent lodginghouse, or pay

three cents for the privileges of a "squatter" in a tenement

hallway. He would eat at free lunches, five cents a meal, and

never a cent more--so he might keep alive for two months and

more, and in that time he would surely find a job. He would have

to bid farewell to his summer cleanliness, of course, for he

would come out of the first night's lodging with his clothes

alive with vermin. There was no place in the city where he could

wash even his face, unless he went down to the lake front--

and there it would soon be all ice.

First he went to the steel mill and the harvester works, and

found that his places there had been filled long ago. He was

careful to keep away from the stockyards--he was a single man

now, he told himself, and he meant to stay one, to have his wages

for his own when he got a job. He began the long, weary round of

factories and warehouses, tramping all day, from one end of the

city to the other, finding everywhere from ten to a hundred men

ahead of him. He watched the newspapers, too--but no longer was

he to be taken in by smooth-spoken agents. He had been told of

all those tricks while "on the road."

In the end it was through a newspaper that he got a job, after

nearly a month of seeking. It was a call for a hundred laborers,

and though he thought it was a "fake," he went because the place

was near by. He found a line of men a block long, but as a wagon

chanced to come out of an alley and break the line, he saw his

chance and sprang to seize a place. Men threatened him and tried

to throw him out, but he cursed and made a disturbance to attract

a policeman, upon which they subsided, knowing that if the latter

interfered it would be to "fire" them all.

An hour or two later he entered a room and confronted a big

Irishman behind a desk.

"Ever worked in Chicago before?" the man inquired; and whether it

was a good angel that put it into Jurgis's mind, or an intuition

of his sharpened wits, he was moved to answer, "No, sir."

"Where do you come from?"

"Kansas City, sir."

"Any references?"

"No, sir. I'm just an unskilled man. I've got good arms."

"I want men for hard work--it's all underground, digging tunnels

for telephones. Maybe it won't suit you."

"I'm willing, sir--anything for me. What's the pay?"

"Fifteen cents an hour."

"I'm willing, sir."

"All right; go back there and give your name."

So within half an hour he was at work, far underneath the streets

of the city. The tunnel was a peculiar one for telephone wires;

it was about eight feet high, and with a level floor nearly as

wide. It had innumerable branches--a perfect spider web beneath

the city; Jurgis walked over half a mile with his gang to the

place where they were to work. Stranger yet, the tunnel was

lighted by electricity, and upon it was laid a double-tracked,

narrow-gauge railroad!

But Jurgis was not there to ask questions, and he did not give

the matter a thought. It was nearly a year afterward that he

finally learned the meaning of this whole affair. The City

Council had passed a quiet and innocent little bill allowing a

company to construct telephone conduits under the city streets;

and upon the strength of this, a great corporation had proceeded

to tunnel all Chicago with a system of railway freight-subways.

In the city there was a combination of employers, representing

hundreds of millions of capital, and formed for the purpose of

crushing the labor unions. The chief union which troubled it was

the teamsters'; and when these freight tunnels were completed,

connecting all the big factories and stores with the railroad

depots, they would have the teamsters' union by the throat.

Now and then there were rumors and murmurs in the Board of Aldermen,

and once there was a committee to investigate--but each time

another small fortune was paid over, and the rumors died away;

until at last the city woke up with a start to find the work

completed. There was a tremendous scandal, of course; it was

found that the city records had been falsified and other crimes

committed, and some of Chicago's big capitalists got into

jail--figuratively speaking. The aldermen declared that they had

had no idea of it all, in spite of the fact that the main

entrance to the work had been in the rear of the saloon of one of

them.

It was in a newly opened cut that Jurgis worked, and so he knew

that he had an all-winter job. He was so rejoiced that he

treated himself to a spree that night, and with the balance of

his money he hired himself a place in a tenement room, where he

slept upon a big homemade straw mattress along with four other

workingmen. This was one dollar a week, and for four more he got

his food in a boardinghouse near his work. This would leave him

four dollars extra each week, an unthinkable sum for him. At the

outset he had to pay for his digging tools, and also to buy a

pair of heavy boots, since his shoes were falling to pieces,

and a flannel shirt, since the one he had worn all summer was in

shreds. He spent a week meditating whether or not he should also

buy an overcoat. There was one belonging to a Hebrew collar

button peddler, who had died in the room next to him, and which

the landlady was holding for her rent; in the end, however,

Jurgis decided to do without it, as he was to be underground by

day and in bed at night.

This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove him more

quickly than ever into the saloons. From now on Jurgis worked

from seven o'clock until half-past five, with half an hour for

dinner; which meant that he never saw the sunlight on weekdays.

In the evenings there was no place for him to go except a

barroom; no place where there was light and warmth, where he

could hear a little music or sit with a companion and talk.

He had now no home to go to; he had no affection left in his

life--only the pitiful mockery of it in the camaraderie of vice.

On Sundays the churches were open--but where was there a church

in which an ill-smelling workingman, with vermin crawling upon

his neck, could sit without seeing people edge away and look

annoyed? He had, of course, his corner in a close though

unheated room, with a window opening upon a blank wall two feet

away; and also he had the bare streets, with the winter gales

sweeping through them; besides this he had only the saloons--and,

of course, he had to drink to stay in them. If he drank now and

then he was free to make himself at home, to gamble with dice or

a pack of greasy cards, to play at a dingy pool table for money,

or to look at a beer-stained pink "sporting paper," with pictures

of murderers and half-naked women. It was for such pleasures as

these that he spent his money; and such was his life during the

six weeks and a half that he toiled for the merchants of Chicago,

to enable them to break the grip of their teamsters' union.

In a work thus carried out, not much thought was given to the

welfare of the laborers. On an average, the tunneling cost a

life a day and several manglings; it was seldom, however, that

more than a dozen or two men heard of any one accident. The work

was all done by the new boring machinery, with as little blasting

as possible; but there would be falling rocks and crushed

supports, and premature explosions--and in addition all the

dangers of railroading. So it was that one night, as Jurgis was

on his way out with his gang, an engine and a loaded car dashed

round one of the innumerable right-angle branches and struck him

upon the shoulder, hurling him against the concrete wall and

knocking him senseless.

When he opened his eyes again it was to the clanging of the bell

of an ambulance. He was lying in it, covered by a blanket, and

it was threading its way slowly through the holiday-shopping

crowds. They took him to the county hospital, where a young

surgeon set his arm; then he was washed and laid upon a bed in a

ward with a score or two more of maimed and mangled men.

Jurgis spent his Christmas in this hospital, and it was the

pleasantest Christmas he had had in America. Every year there

were scandals and investigations in this institution, the

newspapers charging that doctors were allowed to try fantastic

experiments upon the patients; but Jurgis knew nothing of

this--his only complaint was that they used to feed him upon

tinned meat, which no man who had ever worked in Packingtown

would feed to his dog. Jurgis had often wondered just who ate

the canned corned beef and "roast beef" of the stockyards; now he

began to understand--that it was what you might call "graft

meat," put up to be sold to public officials and contractors,

and eaten by soldiers and sailors, prisoners and inmates of

institutions, "shantymen" and gangs of railroad laborers.

Jurgis was ready to leave the hospital at the end of two weeks.

This did not mean that his arm was strong and that he was able to

go back to work, but simply that he could get along without

further attention, and that his place was needed for some one

worse off than he. That he was utterly helpless, and had no

means of keeping himself alive in the meantime, was something

which did not concern the hospital authorities, nor any one else

in the city.

As it chanced, he had been hurt on a Monday, and had just paid

for his last week's board and his room rent, and spent nearly all

the balance of his Saturday's pay. He had less than seventy-five

cents in his pockets, and a dollar and a half due him for the

day's work he had done before he was hurt. He might possibly

have sued the company, and got some damages for his injuries,

but he did not know this, and it was not the company's business to

tell him. He went and got his pay and his tools, which he left

in a pawnshop for fifty cents. Then he went to his landlady,

who had rented his place and had no other for him; and then to his

boardinghouse keeper, who looked him over and questioned him.

As he must certainly be helpless for a couple of months, and had

boarded there only six weeks, she decided very quickly that it

would not be worth the risk to keep him on trust.

So Jurgis went out into the streets, in a most dreadful plight.

It was bitterly cold, and a heavy snow was falling, beating into

his face. He had no overcoat, and no place to go, and two

dollars and sixty-five cents in his pocket, with the certainty

that he could not earn another cent for months. The snow meant

no chance to him now; he must walk along and see others

shoveling, vigorous and active--and he with his left arm bound to

his side! He could not hope to tide himself over by odd jobs of

loading trucks; he could not even sell newspapers or carry

satchels, because he was now at the mercy of any rival. Words

could not paint the terror that came over him as he realized all

this. He was like a wounded animal in the forest; he was forced

to compete with his enemies upon unequal terms. There would be

no consideration for him because of his weakness--it was no one's

business to help him in such distress, to make the fight the

least bit easier for him. Even if he took to begging, he would

be at a disadvantage, for reasons which he was to discover in

good time.

In the beginning he could not think of anything except getting

out of the awful cold. He went into one of the saloons he had

been wont to frequent and bought a drink, and then stood by the

fire shivering and waiting to be ordered out. According to an

unwritten law, the buying a drink included the privilege of

loafing for just so long; then one had to buy another drink or

move on. That Jurgis was an old customer entitled him to a

somewhat longer stop; but then he had been away two weeks,

and was evidently "on the bum." He might plead and tell his

"hard luck story," but that would not help him much; a saloon-keeper

who was to be moved by such means would soon have his place

jammed to the doors with "hoboes" on a day like this.

So Jurgis went out into another place, and paid another nickel.

He was so hungry this time that he could not resist the hot beef

stew, an indulgence which cut short his stay by a considerable

time. When he was again told to move on, he made his way to a

"tough" place in the "Levee" district, where now and then he had

gone with a certain rat-eyed Bohemian workingman of his

acquaintance, seeking a woman. It was Jurgis's vain hope that

here the proprietor would let him remain as a "sitter." In

low-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers would

often allow one or two forlorn-looking bums who came in covered

with snow or soaked with rain to sit by the fire and look

miserable to attract custom. A workingman would come in, feeling

cheerful after his day's work was over, and it would trouble him

to have to take his glass with such a sight under his nose; and

so he would call out: "Hello, Bub, what's the matter? You look

as if you'd been up against it!" And then the other would begin

to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, "Come

have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so they would

drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently

wretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have

two; and if they were to discover that they were from the same

country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the same

trade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two in

talk--and before they got through the saloon-keeper would have

taken in a dollar. All of this might seem diabolical, but the

saloon-keeper was in no wise to blame for it. He was in the same

plight as the manufacturer who has to adulterate and misrepresent

his product. If he does not, some one else will; and the

saloon-keeper, unless he is also an alderman, is apt to be in debt to

the big brewers, and on the verge of being sold out.

The market for "sitters" was glutted that afternoon, however,

and there was no place for Jurgis. In all he had to spend six

nickels in keeping a shelter over him that frightful day, and

then it was just dark, and the station houses would not open

until midnight! At the last place, however, there was a

bartender who knew him and liked him, and let him doze at one of

the tables until the boss came back; and also, as he was going

out, the man gave him a tip--on the next block there was a

religious revival of some sort, with preaching and singing,

and hundreds of hoboes would go there for the shelter and warmth.

Jurgis went straightway, and saw a sign hung out, saying that the

door would open at seven-thirty; then he walked, or half ran,

a block, and hid awhile in a doorway and then ran again, and so on

until the hour. At the end he was all but frozen, and fought his

way in with the rest of the throng (at the risk of having his arm

broken again), and got close to the big stove.

By eight o'clock the place was so crowded that the speakers ought

to have been flattered; the aisles were filled halfway up, and at

the door men were packed tight enough to walk upon. There were

three elderly gentlemen in black upon the platform, and a young

lady who played the piano in front. First they sang a hymn, and

then one of the three, a tall, smooth-shaven man, very thin, and

wearing black spectacles, began an address. Jurgis heard

smatterings of it, for the reason that terror kept him awake--

he knew that he snored abominably, and to have been put out just

then would have been like a sentence of death to him.

The evangelist was preaching "sin and redemption," the infinite

grace of God and His pardon for human frailty. He was very much

in earnest, and he meant well, but Jurgis, as he listened, found

his soul filled with hatred. What did he know about sin and

suffering--with his smooth, black coat and his neatly starched

collar, his body warm, and his belly full, and money in his

pocket--and lecturing men who were struggling for their lives,

men at the death grapple with the demon powers of hunger and

cold!--This, of course, was unfair; but Jurgis felt that these

men were out of touch with the life they discussed, that they

were unfitted to solve its problems; nay, they themselves were

part of the problem--they were part of the order established that

was crushing men down and beating them! They were of the

triumphant and insolent possessors; they had a hall, and a fire,

and food and clothing and money, and so they might preach to

hungry men, and the hungry men must be humble and listen! They

were trying to save their souls--and who but a fool could fail to

see that all that was the matter with their souls was that they

had not been able to get a decent existence for their bodies?

At eleven the meeting closed, and the desolate audience filed out

into the snow, muttering curses upon the few traitors who had got

repentance and gone up on the platform. It was yet an hour

before the station house would open, and Jurgis had no

overcoat--and was weak from a long illness. During that hour he

nearly perished. He was obliged to run hard to keep his blood

moving at all--and then he came back to the station house and

found a crowd blocking the street before the door! This was in

the month of January, 1904, when the country was on the verge of

"hard times," and the newspapers were reporting the shutting down

of factories every day--it was estimated that a million and a

half men were thrown out of work before the spring. So all the

hiding places of the city were crowded, and before that station

house door men fought and tore each other like savage beasts.

When at last the place was jammed and they shut the doors, half

the crowd was still outside; and Jurgis, with his helpless arm,

was among them. There was no choice then but to go to a

lodginghouse and spend another dime. It really broke his heart

to do this, at half-past twelve o'clock, after he had wasted the

night at the meeting and on the street. He would be turned out

of the lodginghouse promptly at seven they had the shelves which

served as bunks so contrived that they could be dropped, and any

man who was slow about obeying orders could be tumbled to the

floor.

This was one day, and the cold spell lasted for fourteen of them.

At the end of six days every cent of Jurgis' money was gone;

and then he went out on the streets to beg for his life.

He would begin as soon as the business of the city was moving.

He would sally forth from a saloon, and, after making sure there

was no policeman in sight, would approach every likely-looking

person who passed him, telling his woeful story and pleading for

a nickel or a dime. Then when he got one, he would dart round

the corner and return to his base to get warm; and his victim,

seeing him do this, would go away, vowing that he would never

give a cent to a beggar again. The victim never paused to ask

where else Jurgis could have gone under the circumstances--where

he, the victim, would have gone. At the saloon Jurgis could not

only get more food and better food than he could buy in any

restaurant for the same money, but a drink in the bargain to warm

him up. Also he could find a comfortable seat by a fire, and

could chat with a companion until he was as warm as toast. At

the saloon, too, he felt at home. Part of the saloon-keeper's

business was to offer a home and refreshments to beggars in

exchange for the proceeds of their foragings; and was there any

one else in the whole city who would do this--would the victim

have done it himself?

Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar.

He was just out of the hospital, and desperately sick-looking,

and with a helpless arm; also he had no overcoat, and shivered

pitifully. But, alas, it was again the case of the honest

merchant, who finds that the genuine and unadulterated article is

driven to the wall by the artistic counterfeit. Jurgis, as a

beggar, was simply a blundering amateur in competition with

organized and scientific professionalism. He was just out of the

hospital--but the story was worn threadbare, and how could he

prove it? He had his arm in a sling--and it was a device a

regular beggar's little boy would have scorned. He was pale and

shivering--but they were made up with cosmetics, and had studied

the art of chattering their teeth. As to his being without an

overcoat, among them you would meet men you could swear had on

nothing but a ragged linen duster and a pair of cotton

trousers--so cleverly had they concealed the several suits of

all-wool underwear beneath. Many of these professional

mendicants had comfortable homes, and families, and thousands of

dollars in the bank; some of them had retired upon their

earnings, and gone into the business of fitting out and doctoring

others, or working children at the trade. There were some who

had both their arms bound tightly to their sides, and padded

stumps in their sleeves, and a sick child hired to carry a cup

for them. There were some who had no legs, and pushed themselves

upon a wheeled platform--some who had been favored with

blindness, and were led by pretty little dogs. Some less

fortunate had mutilated themselves or burned themselves, or had

brought horrible sores upon themselves with chemicals; you might

suddenly encounter upon the street a man holding out to you a

finger rotting and discolored with gangrene--or one with livid

scarlet wounds half escaped from their filthy bandages. These

desperate ones were the dregs of the city's cesspools, wretches

who hid at night in the rain-soaked cellars of old ramshackle

tenements, in "stale-beer dives" and opium joints, with abandoned

women in the last stages of the harlot's progress--women who had

been kept by Chinamen and turned away at last to die. Every day

the police net would drag hundreds of them off the streets, and

in the detention hospital you might see them, herded together in

a miniature inferno, with hideous, beastly faces, bloated and

leprous with disease, laughing, shouting, screaming in all stages

of drunkenness, barking like dogs, gibbering like apes, raving

and tearing themselves in delirium.

Read next: CHAPTER 24

Read previous: CHAPTER 22

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