CHAPTER 25

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Jurgis got up, wild with rage, but the door was shut and the

great castle was dark and impregnable. Then the icy teeth of the

blast bit into him, and he turned and went away at a run.

When he stopped again it was because he was coming to frequented

streets and did not wish to attract attention. In spite of that

last humiliation, his heart was thumping fast with triumph.

He had come out ahead on that deal! He put his hand into his

trousers' pocket every now and then, to make sure that the

precious hundred-dollar bill was still there.

Yet he was in a plight--a curious and even dreadful plight, when

he came to realize it. He had not a single cent but that one

bill! And he had to find some shelter that night he had to

change it!

Jurgis spent half an hour walking and debating the problem.

There was no one he could go to for help--he had to manage it all

alone. To get it changed in a lodging-house would be to take his

life in his hands--he would almost certainly be robbed, and

perhaps murdered, before morning. He might go to some hotel or

railroad depot and ask to have it changed; but what would they

think, seeing a "bum" like him with a hundred dollars? He would

probably be arrested if he tried it; and what story could he

tell? On the morrow Freddie Jones would discover his loss,

and there would be a hunt for him, and he would lose his money.

The only other plan he could think of was to try in a saloon.

He might pay them to change it, if it could not be done otherwise.

He began peering into places as he walked; he passed several as

being too crowded--then finally, chancing upon one where the

bartender was all alone, he gripped his hands in sudden

resolution and went in.

"Can you change me a hundred-dollar bill?" he demanded.

The bartender was a big, husky fellow, with the jaw of a prize

fighter, and a three weeks' stubble of hair upon it. He stared

at Jurgis. "What's that youse say?" he demanded.

"I said, could you change me a hundred-dollar bill?"

"Where'd youse get it?" he inquired incredulously.

"Never mind," said Jurgis; "I've got it, and I want it changed.

I'll pay you if you'll do it."

The other stared at him hard. "Lemme see it," he said.

"Will you change it?" Jurgis demanded, gripping it tightly in his

pocket.

"How the hell can I know if it's good or not?" retorted the

bartender. "Whatcher take me for, hey?"

Then Jurgis slowly and warily approached him; he took out the

bill, and fumbled it for a moment, while the man stared at him

with hostile eyes across the counter. Then finally he handed it

over.

The other took it, and began to examine it; he smoothed it

between his fingers, and held it up to the light; he turned it

over, and upside down, and edgeways. It was new and rather

stiff, and that made him dubious. Jurgis was watching him like a

cat all the time.

"Humph," he said, finally, and gazed at the stranger, sizing him

up--a ragged, ill-smelling tramp, with no overcoat and one arm in

a sling--and a hundred-dollar bill! "Want to buy anything?" he

demanded.

"Yes," said Jurgis, "I'll take a glass of beer."

"All right," said the other, "I'll change it." And he put the

bill in his pocket, and poured Jurgis out a glass of beer,

and set it on the counter. Then he turned to the cash register,

and punched up five cents, and began to pull money out of the drawer.

Finally, he faced Jurgis, counting it out--two dimes, a quarter,

and fifty cents. "There," he said.

For a second Jurgis waited, expecting to see him turn again. "My

ninety-nine dollars," he said.

"What ninety-nine dollars?" demanded the bartender.

"My change!" he cried--"the rest of my hundred!"

"Go on," said the bartender, "you're nutty!"

And Jurgis stared at him with wild eyes. For an instant horror

reigned in him--black, paralyzing, awful horror, clutching him at

the heart; and then came rage, in surging, blinding floods--

he screamed aloud, and seized the glass and hurled it at the other's

head. The man ducked, and it missed him by half an inch; he rose

again and faced Jurgis, who was vaulting over the bar with his

one well arm, and dealt him a smashing blow in the face, hurling

him backward upon the floor. Then, as Jurgis scrambled to his

feet again and started round the counter after him, he shouted at

the top of his voice, "Help! help!"

Jurgis seized a bottle off the counter as he ran; and as the

bartender made a leap he hurled the missile at him with all his

force. It just grazed his head, and shivered into a thousand

pieces against the post of the door. Then Jurgis started back,

rushing at the man again in the middle of the room. This time,

in his blind frenzy, he came without a bottle, and that was all

the bartender wanted--he met him halfway and floored him with a

sledgehammer drive between the eyes. An instant later the screen

doors flew open, and two men rushed in--just as Jurgis was

getting to his feet again, foaming at the mouth with rage,

and trying to tear his broken arm out of its bandages.

"Look out!" shouted the bartender. "He's got a knife!" Then,

seeing that the two were disposed to join the fray, he made

another rush at Jurgis, and knocked aside his feeble defense and

sent him tumbling again; and the three flung themselves upon him,

rolling and kicking about the place.

A second later a policeman dashed in, and the bartender yelled

once more--"Look out for his knife!" Jurgis had fought himself

half to his knees, when the policeman made a leap at him, and

cracked him across the face with his club. Though the blow

staggered him, the wild-beast frenzy still blazed in him, and he

got to his feet, lunging into the air. Then again the club

descended, full upon his head, and he dropped like a log to the

floor.

The policeman crouched over him, clutching his stick, waiting for

him to try to rise again; and meantime the barkeeper got up, and

put his hand to his head. "Christ!" he said, "I thought I was

done for that time. Did he cut me?"

"Don't see anything, Jake," said the policeman. "What's the

matter with him?"

"Just crazy drunk," said the other. "A lame duck, too--but he

'most got me under the bar. Youse had better call the wagon,

Billy."

"No," said the officer. "He's got no more fight in him, I

guess--and he's only got a block to go." He twisted his hand in

Jurgis's collar and jerked at him. "Git up here, you!" he

commanded.

But Jurgis did not move, and the bartender went behind the bar,

and after stowing the hundred-dollar bill away in a safe hiding

place, came and poured a glass of water over Jurgis. Then, as

the latter began to moan feebly, the policeman got him to his

feet and dragged him out of the place. The station house was

just around the corner, and so in a few minutes Jurgis was in a

cell.

He spent half the night lying unconscious, and the balance

moaning in torment, with a blinding headache and a racking

thirst. Now and then he cried aloud for a drink of water,

but there was no one to hear him. There were others in that same

station house with split heads and a fever; there were hundreds

of them in the great city, and tens of thousands of them in the

great land, and there was no one to hear any of them.

In the morning Jurgis was given a cup of water and a piece of

bread, and then hustled into a patrol wagon and driven to the

nearest police court. He sat in the pen with a score of others

until his turn came.

The bartender--who proved to be a well-known bruiser--was called

to the stand, He took the oath and told his story. The prisoner

had come into his saloon after midnight, fighting drunk, and had

ordered a glass of beer and tendered a dollar bill in payment.

He had been given ninety-five cents' change, and had demanded

ninety-nine dollars more, and before the plaintiff could even

answer had hurled the glass at him and then attacked him with a

bottle of bitters, and nearly wrecked the place.

Then the prisoner was sworn--a forlorn object, haggard and

unshorn, with an arm done up in a filthy bandage, a cheek and

head cut, and bloody, and one eye purplish black and entirely

closed. "What have you to say for yourself?" queried the

magistrate.

"Your Honor," said Jurgis, "I went into his place and asked the

man if he could change me a hundred-dollar bill. And he said he

would if I bought a drink. I gave him the bill and then he

wouldn't give me the change."

The magistrate was staring at him in perplexity. "You gave him a

hundred-dollar bill!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, your Honor," said Jurgis.

"Where did you get it?"

"A man gave it to me, your Honor."

"A man? What man, and what for?"

"A young man I met upon the street, your Honor. I had been

begging."

There was a titter in the courtroom; the officer who was holding

Jurgis put up his hand to hide a smile, and the magistrate smiled

without trying to hide it. "It's true, your Honor!" cried

Jurgis, passionately.

"You had been drinking as well as begging last night, had you

not?" inquired the magistrate. "No, your Honor--" protested

Jurgis. "I--"

"You had not had anything to drink?"

"Why, yes, your Honor, I had--"

"What did you have?"

"I had a bottle of something--I don't know what it was--something

that burned--"

There was again a laugh round the courtroom, stopping suddenly as

the magistrate looked up and frowned. "Have you ever been

arrested before?" he asked abruptly.

The question took Jurgis aback. "I--I--" he stammered.

"Tell me the truth, now!" commanded the other, sternly.

"Yes, your Honor," said Jurgis.

"How often?"

"Only once, your Honor."

"What for?"

"For knocking down my boss, your Honor. I was working in the

stockyards, and he--"

"I see," said his Honor; "I guess that will do. You ought to

stop drinking if you can't control yourself. Ten days and costs.

Next case."

Jurgis gave vent to a cry of dismay, cut off suddenly by the

policeman, who seized him by the collar. He was jerked out of

the way, into a room with the convicted prisoners, where he sat

and wept like a child in his impotent rage. It seemed monstrous

to him that policemen and judges should esteem his word as

nothing in comparison with the bartender's--poor Jurgis could not

know that the owner of the saloon paid five dollars each week to

the policeman alone for Sunday privileges and general favors--

nor that the pugilist bartender was one of the most trusted henchmen

of the Democratic leader of the district, and had helped only a

few months before to hustle out a record-breaking vote as a

testimonial to the magistrate, who had been made the target of

odious kid-gloved reformers.

Jurgis was driven out to the Bridewell for the second time. In

his tumbling around he had hurt his arm again, and so could not

work, but had to be attended by the physician. Also his head and

his eye had to be tied up--and so he was a pretty-looking object

when, the second day after his arrival, he went out into the

exercise court and encountered--Jack Duane!

The young fellow was so glad to see Jurgis that he almost hugged

him. "By God, if it isn't 'the Stinker'!" he cried. "And what

is it--have you been through a sausage machine?"

"No," said Jurgis, "but I've been in a railroad wreck and a

fight." And then, while some of the other prisoners gathered

round he told his wild story; most of them were incredulous,

but Duane knew that Jurgis could never have made up such a yarn

as that.

"Hard luck, old man," he said, when they were alone; "but maybe

it's taught you a lesson."

"I've learned some things since I saw you last," said Jurgis

mournfully. Then he explained how he had spent the last summer,

"hoboing it," as the phrase was. "And you?" he asked finally.

"Have you been here ever since?"

"Lord, no!" said the other. "I only came in the day before

yesterday. It's the second time they've sent me up on a

trumped-up charge--I've had hard luck and can't pay them what

they want. Why don't you quit Chicago with me, Jurgis?"

"I've no place to go," said Jurgis, sadly.

"Neither have I," replied the other, laughing lightly. "But

we'll wait till we get out and see."

In the Bridewell Jurgis met few who had been there the last time,

but he met scores of others, old and young, of exactly the same

sort. It was like breakers upon a beach; there was new water,

but the wave looked just the same. He strolled about and talked

with them, and the biggest of them told tales of their prowess,

while those who were weaker, or younger and inexperienced,

gathered round and listened in admiring silence. The last time

he was there, Jurgis had thought of little but his family;

but now he was free to listen to these men, and to realize that he

was one of them--that their point of view was his point of view,

and that the way they kept themselves alive in the world was the

way he meant to do it in the future.

And so, when he was turned out of prison again, without a penny

in his pocket, he went straight to Jack Duane. He went full of

humility and gratitude; for Duane was a gentleman, and a man with

a profession--and it was remarkable that he should be willing to

throw in his lot with a humble workingman, one who had even been

a beggar and a tramp. Jurgis could not see what help he could be

to him; but he did not understand that a man like himself--who

could be trusted to stand by any one who was kind to him--was as

rare among criminals as among any other class of men.

The address Jurgis had was a garret room in the Ghetto district,

the home of a pretty little French girl, Duane's mistress, who

sewed all day, and eked out her living by prostitution. He had

gone elsewhere, she told Jurgis--he was afraid to stay there now,

on account of the police. The new address was a cellar dive,

whose proprietor said that he had never heard of Duane; but after

he had put Jurgis through a catechism he showed him a back stairs

which led to a "fence" in the rear of a pawnbroker's shop, and

thence to a number of assignation rooms, in one of which Duane

was hiding.

Duane was glad to see him; he was without a cent of money,

he said, and had been waiting for Jurgis to help him get some.

He explained his plan--in fact he spent the day in laying bare to

his friend the criminal world of the city, and in showing him how

he might earn himself a living in it. That winter he would have

a hard time, on account of his arm, and because of an unwonted

fit of activity of the police; but so long as he was unknown to

them he would be safe if he were careful. Here at "Papa"

Hanson's (so they called the old man who kept the dive) he might

rest at ease, for "Papa" Hanson was "square"--would stand by him

so long as he paid, and gave him an hour's notice if there were

to be a police raid. Also Rosensteg, the pawnbroker, would buy

anything he had for a third of its value, and guarantee to keep

it hidden for a year.

There was an oil stove in the little cupboard of a room, and they

had some supper; and then about eleven o'clock at night they

sallied forth together, by a rear entrance to the place, Duane

armed with a slingshot. They came to a residence district,

and he sprang up a lamppost and blew out the light, and then the two

dodged into the shelter of an area step and hid in silence.

Pretty soon a man came by, a workingman--and they let him go.

Then after a long interval came the heavy tread of a policeman,

and they held their breath till he was gone. Though half-frozen,

they waited a full quarter of an hour after that--and then again

came footsteps, walking briskly. Duane nudged Jurgis, and the

instant the man had passed they rose up. Duane stole out as

silently as a shadow, and a second later Jurgis heard a thud and

a stifled cry. He was only a couple of feet behind, and he

leaped to stop the man's mouth, while Duane held him fast by the

arms, as they had agreed. But the man was limp and showed a

tendency to fall, and so Jurgis had only to hold him by the

collar, while the other, with swift fingers, went through his

pockets--ripping open, first his overcoat, and then his coat,

and then his vest, searching inside and outside, and transferring the

contents into his own pockets. At last, after feeling of the

man's fingers and in his necktie, Duane whispered, "That's all!"

and they dragged him to the area and dropped him in. Then Jurgis

went one way and his friend the other, walking briskly.

The latter arrived first, and Jurgis found him examining the

"swag." There was a gold watch, for one thing, with a chain and

locket; there was a silver pencil, and a matchbox, and a handful

of small change, and finally a cardcase. This last Duane opened

feverishly--there were letters and checks, and two

theater-tickets, and at last, in the back part, a wad of bills.

He counted them--there was a twenty, five tens, four fives, and

three ones. Duane drew a long breath. "That lets us out!" he

said.

After further examination, they burned the cardcase and its

contents, all but the bills, and likewise the picture of a little

girl in the locket. Then Duane took the watch and trinkets

downstairs, and came back with sixteen dollars. "The old

scoundrel said the case was filled," he said. "It's a lie, but

he knows I want the money."

They divided up the spoils, and Jurgis got as his share

fifty-five dollars and some change. He protested that it was too

much, but the other had agreed to divide even. That was a good

haul, he said, better than average.

When they got up in the morning, Jurgis was sent out to buy a

paper; one of the pleasures of committing a crime was the reading

about it afterward. "I had a pal that always did it," Duane

remarked, laughing--"until one day he read that he had left three

thousand dollars in a lower inside pocket of his party's vest!"

There was a half-column account of the robbery--it was evident

that a gang was operating in the neighborhood, said the paper,

for it was the third within a week, and the police were

apparently powerless. The victim was an insurance agent, and he

had lost a hundred and ten dollars that did not belong to him.

He had chanced to have his name marked on his shirt, otherwise he

would not have been identified yet. His assailant had hit him

too hard, and he was suffering from concussion of the brain;

and also he had been half-frozen when found, and would lose three

fingers on his right hand. The enterprising newspaper reporter

had taken all this information to his family, and told how they

had received it.

Since it was Jurgis's first experience, these details naturally

caused him some worriment; but the other laughed coolly--it was

the way of the game, and there was no helping it. Before long

Jurgis would think no more of it than they did in the yards of

knocking out a bullock. "It's a case of us or the other fellow,

and I say the other fellow, every time," he observed.

"Still," said Jurgis, reflectively, "he never did us any harm."

"He was doing it to somebody as hard as he could, you can be sure

of that," said his friend.

Duane had already explained to Jurgis that if a man of their

trade were known he would have to work all the time to satisfy

the demands of the police. Therefore it would be better for

Jurgis to stay in hiding and never be seen in public with his

pal. But Jurgis soon got very tired of staying in hiding. In a

couple of weeks he was feeling strong and beginning to use his

arm, and then he could not stand it any longer. Duane, who had

done a job of some sort by himself, and made a truce with the

powers, brought over Marie, his little French girl, to share with

him; but even that did not avail for long, and in the end he had

to give up arguing, and take Jurgis out and introduce him to the

saloons and "sporting houses" where the big crooks and "holdup

men" hung out.

And so Jurgis got a glimpse of the high-class criminal world of

Chicago. The city, which was owned by an oligarchy of

businessmen, being nominally ruled by the people, a huge army of

graft was necessary for the purpose of effecting the transfer of

power. Twice a year, in the spring and fall elections, millions

of dollars were furnished by the businessmen and expended by this

army; meetings were held and clever speakers were hired, bands

played and rockets sizzled, tons of documents and reservoirs of

drinks were distributed, and tens of thousands of votes were

bought for cash. And this army of graft had, of course, to be

maintained the year round. The leaders and organizers were

maintained by the businessmen directly--aldermen and legislators

by means of bribes, party officials out of the campaign funds,

lobbyists and corporation lawyers in the form of salaries,

contractors by means of jobs, labor union leaders by subsidies,

and newspaper proprietors and editors by advertisements. The

rank and file, however, were either foisted upon the city, or

else lived off the population directly. There was the police

department, and the fire and water departments, and the whole

balance of the civil list, from the meanest office boy to the

head of a city department; and for the horde who could find no

room in these, there was the world of vice and crime, there was

license to seduce, to swindle and plunder and prey. The law

forbade Sunday drinking; and this had delivered the saloon-

keepers into the hands of the police, and made an alliance

between them necessary. The law forbade prostitution; and this

had brought the "madames" into the combination. It was the same

with the gambling-house keeper and the poolroom man, and the same

with any other man or woman who had a means of getting "graft,"

and was willing to pay over a share of it: the green-goods man

and the highwayman, the pickpocket and the sneak thief, and the

receiver of stolen goods, the seller of adulterated milk, of

stale fruit and diseased meat, the proprietor of unsanitary

tenements, the fake doctor and the usurer, the beggar and the

"pushcart man," the prize fighter and the professional slugger,

the race-track "tout," the procurer, the white-slave agent, and

the expert seducer of young girls. All of these agencies of

corruption were banded together, and leagued in blood brotherhood

with the politician and the police; more often than not they were

one and the same person,--the police captain would own the

brothel he pretended to raid, the politician would open his

headquarters in his saloon. "Hinkydink" or "Bathhouse John,"

or others of that ilk, were proprietors of the most notorious dives

in Chicago, and also the "gray wolves" of the city council,

who gave away the streets of the city to the businessmen; and those

who patronized their places were the gamblers and prize fighters

who set the law at defiance, and the burglars and holdup men who

kept the whole city in terror. On election day all these powers

of vice and crime were one power; they could tell within one per

cent what the vote of their district would be, and they could

change it at an hour's notice.

A month ago Jurgis had all but perished of starvation upon the

streets; and now suddenly, as by the gift of a magic key, he had

entered into a world where money and all the good things of life

came freely. He was introduced by his friend to an Irishman

named "Buck" Halloran, who was a political "worker" and on the

inside of things. This man talked with Jurgis for a while, and

then told him that he had a little plan by which a man who looked

like a workingman might make some easy money; but it was a

private affair, and had to be kept quiet. Jurgis expressed

himself as agreeable, and the other took him that afternoon

(it was Saturday) to a place where city laborers were being paid off.

The paymaster sat in a little booth, with a pile of envelopes

before him, and two policemen standing by. Jurgis went,

according to directions, and gave the name of "Michael

O'Flaherty," and received an envelope, which he took around the

corner and delivered to Halloran, who was waiting for him in a

saloon. Then he went again; and gave the name of "Johann

Schmidt," and a third time, and give the name of "Serge

Reminitsky." Halloran had quite a list of imaginary workingmen,

and Jurgis got an envelope for each one. For this work he

received five dollars, and was told that he might have it every

week, so long as he kept quiet. As Jurgis was excellent at

keeping quiet, he soon won the trust of "Buck" Halloran, and was

introduced to others as a man who could be depended upon.

This acquaintance was useful to him in another way, also before

long Jurgis made his discovery of the meaning of "pull," and just

why his boss, Connor, and also the pugilist bartender, had been

able to send him to jail. One night there was given a ball, the

"benefit" of "One-eyed Larry," a lame man who played the violin

in one of the big "high-class" houses of prostitution on Clark

Street, and was a wag and a popular character on the "Levee."

This ball was held in a big dance hall, and was one of the

occasions when the city's powers of debauchery gave themselves up

to madness. Jurgis attended and got half insane with drink,

and began quarreling over a girl; his arm was pretty strong by then,

and he set to work to clean out the place, and ended in a cell in

the police station. The police station being crowded to the

doors, and stinking with "bums," Jurgis did not relish staying

there to sleep off his liquor, and sent for Halloran, who called

up the district leader and had Jurgis bailed out by telephone at

four o'clock in the morning. When he was arraigned that same

morning, the district leader had already seen the clerk of the

court and explained that Jurgis Rudkus was a decent fellow, who

had been indiscreet; and so Jurgis was fined ten dollars and the

fine was "suspended"--which meant that he did not have to pay for

it, and never would have to pay it, unless somebody chose to

bring it up against him in the future.

Among the people Jurgis lived with now money was valued according

to an entirely different standard from that of the people of

Packingtown; yet, strange as it may seem, he did a great deal

less drinking than he had as a workingman. He had not the same

provocations of exhaustion and hopelessness; he had now something

to work for, to struggle for. He soon found that if he kept his

wits about him, he would come upon new opportunities; and being

naturally an active man, he not only kept sober himself, but

helped to steady his friend, who was a good deal fonder of both

wine and women than he.

One thing led to another. In the saloon where Jurgis met "Buck"

Halloran he was sitting late one night with Duane, when a

"country customer" (a buyer for an out-of-town merchant) came in,

a little more than half "piped." There was no one else in the

place but the bartender, and as the man went out again Jurgis and

Duane followed him; he went round the corner, and in a dark place

made by a combination of the elevated railroad and an unrented

building, Jurgis leaped forward and shoved a revolver under his

nose, while Duane, with his hat pulled over his eyes, went

through the man's pockets with lightning fingers. They got his

watch and his "wad," and were round the corner again and into the

saloon before he could shout more than once. The bartender, to

whom they had tipped the wink, had the cellar door open for them,

and they vanished, making their way by a secret entrance to a

brothel next door. From the roof of this there was access to

three similar places beyond. By means of these passages the

customers of any one place could be gotten out of the way, in

case a falling out with the police chanced to lead to a raid;

and also it was necessary to have a way of getting a girl out of

reach in case of an emergency. Thousands of them came to Chicago

answering advertisements for "servants" and "factory hands," and

found themselves trapped by fake employment agencies, and locked

up in a bawdyhouse. It was generally enough to take all their

clothes away from them; but sometimes they would have to be

"doped" and kept prisoners for weeks; and meantime their parents

might be telegraphing the police, and even coming on to see why

nothing was done. Occasionally there was no way of satisfying

them but to let them search the place to which the girl had been

traced.

For his help in this little job, the bartender received twenty

out of the hundred and thirty odd dollars that the pair secured;

and naturally this put them on friendly terms with him, and a few

days later he introduced them to a little "sheeny" named

Goldberger, one of the "runners" of the "sporting house" where

they had been hidden. After a few drinks Goldberger began, with

some hesitation, to narrate how he had had a quarrel over his

best girl with a professional "cardsharp," who had hit him in the

jaw. The fellow was a stranger in Chicago, and if he was found

some night with his head cracked there would be no one to care

very much. Jurgis, who by this time would cheerfully have

cracked the heads of all the gamblers in Chicago, inquired what

would be coming to him; at which the Jew became still more

confidential, and said that he had some tips on the New Orleans

races, which he got direct from the police captain of the

district, whom he had got out of a bad scrape, and who "stood in"

with a big syndicate of horse owners. Duane took all this in at

once, but Jurgis had to have the whole race-track situation

explained to him before he realized the importance of such an

opportunity.

There was the gigantic Racing Trust. It owned the legislatures

in every state in which it did business; it even owned some of

the big newspapers, and made public opinion--there was no power

in the land that could oppose it unless, perhaps, it were the

Poolroom Trust. It built magnificent racing parks all over the

country, and by means of enormous purses it lured the people to

come, and then it organized a gigantic shell game, whereby it

plundered them of hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Horse racing had once been a sport, but nowadays it was a

business; a horse could be "doped" and doctored, undertrained or

overtrained; it could be made to fall at any moment--or its gait

could be broken by lashing it with the whip, which all the

spectators would take to be a desperate effort to keep it in the

lead. There were scores of such tricks; and sometimes it was the

owners who played them and made fortunes, sometimes it was the

jockeys and trainers, sometimes it was outsiders, who bribed

them--but most of the time it was the chiefs of the trust. Now

for instance, they were having winter racing in New Orleans and a

syndicate was laying out each day's program in advance, and its

agents in all the Northern cities were "milking" the poolrooms.

The word came by long-distance telephone in a cipher code, just a

little while before each race; and any man who could get the

secret had as good as a fortune. If Jurgis did not believe it,

he could try it, said the little Jew--let them meet at a certain

house on the morrow and make a test. Jurgis was willing, and so

was Duane, and so they went to one of the high-class poolrooms

where brokers and merchants gambled (with society women in a

private room), and they put up ten dollars each upon a horse

called "Black Beldame," a six to one shot, and won. For a secret

like that they would have done a good many sluggings--but the

next day Goldberger informed them that the offending gambler had

got wind of what was coming to him, and had skipped the town.

There were ups and downs at the business; but there was always a

living, inside of a jail, if not out of it. Early in April the

city elections were due, and that meant prosperity for all the

powers of graft. Jurgis, hanging round in dives and gambling

houses and brothels, met with the heelers of both parties,

and from their conversation he came to understand all the ins and

outs of the game, and to hear of a number of ways in which he

could make himself useful about election time. "Buck" Halloran

was a "Democrat," and so Jurgis became a Democrat also; but he

was not a bitter one--the Republicans were good fellows, too,

and were to have a pile of money in this next campaign. At the last

election the Republicans had paid four dollars a vote to the

Democrats' three; and "Buck" Halloran sat one night playing cards

with Jurgis and another man, who told how Halloran had been

charged with the job voting a "bunch" of thirty-seven newly

landed Italians, and how he, the narrator, had met the Republican

worker who was after the very same gang, and how the three had

effected a bargain, whereby the Italians were to vote half and

half, for a glass of beer apiece, while the balance of the fund

went to the conspirators!

Not long after this, Jurgis, wearying of the risks and

vicissitudes of miscellaneous crime, was moved to give up the

career for that of a politician. Just at this time there was a

tremendous uproar being raised concerning the alliance between

the criminals and the police. For the criminal graft was one in

which the businessmen had no direct part--it was what is called a

"side line," carried by the police. "Wide open" gambling and

debauchery made the city pleasing to "trade," but burglaries and

holdups did not. One night it chanced that while Jack Duane was

drilling a safe in a clothing store he was caught red-handed by

the night watchman, and turned over to a policeman, who chanced

to know him well, and who took the responsibility of letting him

make his escape. Such a howl from the newspapers followed this

that Duane was slated for sacrifice, and barely got out of town

in time. And just at that juncture it happened that Jurgis was

introduced to a man named Harper whom he recognized as the night

watchman at Brown's, who had been instrumental in making him an

American citizen, the first year of his arrival at the yards.

The other was interested in the coincidence, but did not remember

Jurgis--he had handled too many "green ones" in his time, he

said. He sat in a dance hall with Jurgis and Halloran until one

or two in the morning, exchanging experiences. He had a long

story to tell of his quarrel with the superintendent of his

department, and how he was now a plain workingman, and a good

union man as well. It was not until some months afterward that

Jurgis understood that the quarrel with the superintendent had

been prearranged, and that Harper was in reality drawing a salary

of twenty dollars a week from the packers for an inside report of

his union's secret proceedings. The yards were seething with

agitation just then, said the man, speaking as a unionist. The

people of Packingtown had borne about all that they would bear,

and it looked as if a strike might begin any week.

After this talk the man made inquiries concerning Jurgis, and a

couple of days later he came to him with an interesting

proposition. He was not absolutely certain, he said, but he

thought that he could get him a regular salary if he would come

to Packingtown and do as he was told, and keep his mouth shut.

Harper--"Bush" Harper, he was called--was a right-hand man of

Mike Scully, the Democratic boss of the stockyards; and in the

coming election there was a peculiar situation. There had come

to Scully a proposition to nominate a certain rich brewer who

lived upon a swell boulevard that skirted the district, and who

coveted the big badge and the "honorable" of an alderman. The

brewer was a Jew, and had no brains, but he was harmless, and

would put up a rare campaign fund. Scully had accepted the

offer, and then gone to the Republicans with a proposition. He

was not sure that he could manage the "sheeny," and he did not

mean to take any chances with his district; let the Republicans

nominate a certain obscure but amiable friend of Scully's, who

was now setting tenpins in the cellar of an Ashland Avenue

saloon, and he, Scully, would elect him with the "sheeny's"

money, and the Republicans might have the glory, which was more

than they would get otherwise. In return for this the

Republicans would agree to put up no candidate the following

year, when Scully himself came up for reelection as the other

alderman from the ward. To this the Republicans had assented

at once; but the hell of it was--so Harper explained--that the

Republicans were all of them fools--a man had to be a fool to be

a Republican in the stockyards, where Scully was king. And they

didn't know how to work, and of course it would not do for the

Democratic workers, the noble redskins of the War Whoop League,

to support the Republican openly. The difficulty would not have

been so great except for another fact--there had been a curious

development in stockyards politics in the last year or two, a new

party having leaped into being. They were the Socialists; and it

was a devil of a mess, said "Bush" Harper. The one image which

the word "Socialist" brought to Jurgis was of poor little

Tamoszius Kuszleika, who had called himself one, and would go out

with a couple of other men and a soap-box, and shout himself

hoarse on a street corner Saturday nights. Tamoszius had tried

to explain to Jurgis what it was all about, but Jurgis, who was

not of an imaginative turn, had never quire got it straight; at

present he was content with his companion's explanation that the

Socialists were the enemies of American institutions--could not

be bought, and would not combine or make any sort of a "dicker."

Mike Scully was very much worried over the opportunity which his

last deal gave to them--the stockyards Democrats were furious at

the idea of a rich capitalist for their candidate, and while they

were changing they might possibly conclude that a Socialist

firebrand was preferable to a Republican bum. And so right here

was a chance for Jurgis to make himself a place in the world,

explained "Bush" Harper; he had been a union man, and he was

known in the yards as a workingman; he must have hundreds of

acquaintances, and as he had never talked politics with them he

might come out as a Republican now without exciting the least

suspicion. There were barrels of money for the use of those who

could deliver the goods; and Jurgis might count upon Mike Scully,

who had never yet gone back on a friend. Just what could he do?

Jurgis asked, in some perplexity, and the other explained in

detail. To begin with, he would have to go to the yards and

work, and he mightn't relish that; but he would have what he

earned, as well as the rest that came to him. He would get

active in the union again, and perhaps try to get an office, as

he, Harper, had; he would tell all his friends the good points of

Doyle, the Republican nominee, and the bad ones of the "sheeny";

and then Scully would furnish a meeting place, and he would start

the "Young Men's Republican Association," or something of that

sort, and have the rich brewer's best beer by the hogshead, and

fireworks and speeches, just like the War Whoop League. Surely

Jurgis must know hundreds of men who would like that sort of fun;

and there would be the regular Republican leaders and workers to

help him out, and they would deliver a big enough majority on

election day.

When he had heard all this explanation to the end, Jurgis

demanded: "But how can I get a job in Packingtown? I'm

blacklisted."

At which "Bush" Harper laughed. "I'll attend to that all right,"

he said.

And the other replied, "It's a go, then; I'm your man." So Jurgis

went out to the stockyards again, and was introduced to the

political lord of the district, the boss of Chicago's mayor. It

was Scully who owned the brickyards and the dump and the ice

pond--though Jurgis did not know it. It was Scully who was to

blame for the unpaved street in which Jurgis's child had been

drowned; it was Scully who had put into office the magistrate who

had first sent Jurgis to jail; it was Scully who was principal

stockholder in the company which had sold him the ramshackle

tenement, and then robbed him of it. But Jurgis knew none of

these things--any more than he knew that Scully was but a tool

and puppet of the packers. To him Scully was a mighty power, the

"biggest" man he had ever met.

He was a little, dried-up Irishman, whose hands shook. He had a

brief talk with his visitor, watching him with his ratlike eyes,

and making up his mind about him; and then he gave him a note to

Mr. Harmon, one of the head managers of Durham's--

"The bearer, Jurgis Rudkus, is a particular friend of mine, and I

would like you to find him a good place, for important reasons.

He was once indiscreet, but you will perhaps be so good as to

overlook that."

Mr. Harmon looked up inquiringly when he read this. "What does

he mean by 'indiscreet'?" he asked.

"I was blacklisted, sir," said Jurgis.

At which the other frowned. "Blacklisted?" he said. "How do you

mean?" And Jurgis turned red with embarrassment.

He had forgotten that a blacklist did not exist. "I--that is--I

had difficulty in getting a place," he stammered.

"What was the matter?"

"I got into a quarrel with a foreman--not my own boss, sir--and

struck him."

"I see," said the other, and meditated for a few moments. "What

do you wish to do?" he asked.

"Anything, sir," said Jurgis--"only I had a broken arm this

winter, and so I have to be careful."

"How would it suit you to be a night watchman?"

"That wouldn't do, sir. I have to be among the men at night."

"I see--politics. Well, would it suit you to trim hogs?"

"Yes, sir," said Jurgis.

And Mr. Harmon called a timekeeper and said, "Take this man to

Pat Murphy and tell him to find room for him somehow."

And so Jurgis marched into the hog-killing room, a place where,

in the days gone by, he had come begging for a job. Now he

walked jauntily, and smiled to himself, seeing the frown that

came to the boss's face as the timekeeper said, "Mr. Harmon says

to put this man on." It would overcrowd his department and spoil

the record he was trying to make--but he said not a word except

"All right."

And so Jurgis became a workingman once more; and straightway he

sought out his old friends, and joined the union, and began to

"root" for "Scotty" Doyle. Doyle had done him a good turn once,

he explained, and was really a bully chap; Doyle was a workingman

himself, and would represent the workingmen--why did they want to

vote for a millionaire "sheeny," and what the hell had Mike

Scully ever done for them that they should back his candidates

all the time? And meantime Scully had given Jurgis a note to the

Republican leader of the ward, and he had gone there and met the

crowd he was to work with. Already they had hired a big hall,

with some of the brewer's money, and every night Jurgis brought

in a dozen new members of the "Doyle Republican Association."

Pretty soon they had a grand opening night; and there was a brass

band, which marched through the streets, and fireworks and bombs

and red lights in front of the hall; and there was an enormous

crowd, with two overflow meetings--so that the pale and trembling

candidate had to recite three times over the little speech which

one of Scully's henchmen had written, and which he had been a

month learning by heart. Best of all, the famous and eloquent

Senator Spareshanks, presidential candidate, rode out in an

automobile to discuss the sacred privileges of American

citizenship, and protection and prosperity for the American

workingman. His inspiriting address was quoted to the extent of

half a column in all the morning newspapers, which also said that

it could be stated upon excellent authority that the unexpected

popularity developed by Doyle, the Republican candidate for

alderman, was giving great anxiety to Mr. Scully, the chairman of

the Democratic City Committee.

The chairman was still more worried when the monster torchlight

procession came off, with the members of the Doyle Republican

Association all in red capes and hats, and free beer for every

voter in the ward--the best beer ever given away in a political

campaign, as the whole electorate testified. During this parade,

and at innumerable cart-tail meetings as well, Jurgis labored

tirelessly. He did not make any speeches--there were lawyers and

other experts for that--but he helped to manage things;

distributing notices and posting placards and bringing out the

crowds; and when the show was on he attended to the fireworks and

the beer. Thus in the course of the campaign he handled many

hundreds of dollars of the Hebrew brewer's money, administering

it with naive and touching fidelity. Toward the end, however,

he learned that he was regarded with hatred by the rest of the

"boys," because he compelled them either to make a poorer showing

than he or to do without their share of the pie. After that

Jurgis did his best to please them, and to make up for the time

he had lost before he discovered the extra bungholes of the

campaign barrel.

He pleased Mike Scully, also. On election morning he was out at

four o'clock, "getting out the vote"; he had a two-horse carriage

to ride in, and he went from house to house for his friends, and

escorted them in triumph to the polls. He voted half a dozen

times himself, and voted some of his friends as often; he brought

bunch after bunch of the newest foreigners--Lithuanians, Poles,

Bohemians, Slovaks--and when he had put them through the mill he

turned them over to another man to take to the next polling

place. When Jurgis first set out, the captain of the precinct

gave him a hundred dollars, and three times in the course of the

day he came for another hundred, and not more than twenty-five

out of each lot got stuck in his own pocket. The balance all

went for actual votes, and on a day of Democratic landslides they

elected "Scotty" Doyle, the ex-tenpin setter, by nearly a

thousand plurality--and beginning at five o'clock in the

afternoon, and ending at three the next morning, Jurgis treated

himself to a most unholy and horrible "jag." Nearly every one

else in Packingtown did the same, however, for there was

universal exultation over this triumph of popular government,

this crushing defeat of an arrogant plutocrat by the power of the

common people.

Read next: CHAPTER 26

Read previous: CHAPTER 24

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