ROOMS BY THE NIGHT 25c.
BEDS BY THE WEEK 60c.
BEDS BY THE NIGHT 10c.
There were several similar houses in the immediate vicinity, but this
one seemed to secure most of the stragglers who came by during the ten
or fifteen minutes I watched it from the opposite side of the street.
The reasons for its popularity were not to be spelled out of the sign,
so I crossed over and climbed the ladder-like stairs upon which the
street door opened.
I knew just about what was inside before I mounted a step. Everybody
knows who's travelled on the Third Avenue L at night and looked out of
the windows of the train anywhere below Ninth Street.
It was one o'clock in the morning when I left the Club, so it must have
been quite two when I entered the "Columbian," but even at that hour the
smoking-room was more than comfortably filled.
A cloud of malodorous smoke so lowered the ceiling that one
involuntarily stooped to avoid contact with it. Occasionally some
current of air would draw a funnel-shaped drift from this cloud and
whirl it like an inverted sea-spout toward the steam-screened windows
and out of the cracks at their top, and occasionally the draught in the
red-hot stove sucked down a whiff of it. Otherwise it hung motionless
like some heavy, breathless canopy.
A long, narrow table filled the centre of the room, reaching almost from
the windows in the front to the stove in the rear. Around this sat or
lounged a score of men, and perhaps as many more occupied chairs about
the stove and along the wall. Half a dozen were reading newspapers,
tattered and greasy through constant handling, but the rest of the
company stared idly at each other, or at nothing, talking little, but
smoking almost to a man.
An artist could have found a study for almost every emotion in the
figures and faces of that dimly-lighted room. Excitement in the
expression of the fair-haired lad following with his finger the
closely-printed "ads.," and quickly noting the promising ones on a scrap
of paper by his side.--Anxiety on the face of the handsome fellow with
the pointed beard, turning the pages of the long-coveted newspaper to
find his particular "want column."--Indifference in the attitude of the
strong but unhealthy looking man with hands in pockets, his outstretched
legs forming a V, as he lolled back in his chair, pipe in mouth, his
eyes on vacancy.--Despair in the huddled bit of humanity at the head of
the table, with head on arms--his hair showing very white against the
black coat-sleeve.
I walked into the room and took a seat at the long table, near the front
windows. My entrance attracted no attention, either owing to the smoke
in the room or the indifference of its occupants. But I viewed the
neglect with complacency, whatever the cause.
"What are they waiting for--why don't they go to bed?" I asked in a low
tone of my neighbour at the table--a rough but shrewd looking fellow.
"Who's _they_?" he replied surlily--"What's yer waiting for yourself?"
"Nothing," I answered--"not sleepy, that's all."
"Well, that's what the rest's waiting for--for nothing--not sleepy
nor--nor anything." He gave a sharp glance at my face, and then,
appearing to see a puzzled look on it, added, "Say, d'yer mean ter tell
me yer don't know what's bitin' this crowd?"
"No," I replied, and my voice must have demonstrated my ignorance, for
he exclaimed:
"Then yer must be a jay, sure. Why, they're waiting for the morning
papers, of course. Do yer think yer'll ever get a job if yer wait till
the noospapers gets on the stands? Well, yer will--I guess not! Where in
hell did yer drift from, anyway?"
"Hist--there he comes," exclaimed a man opposite.
I glanced towards the door, and saw a man standing with his hand on the
door-knob. His tall figure was so slight as to be almost emaciated, and
his clean though threadbare clothing hung loosely, as if it had once
fitted a far stouter frame. His face was refined, and had that look of
calmness which now and again follows some great storm of mind and rack
of body. The skin was drawn tightly over the cheek bones, making the
eyes seem disproportionately large in their sunken sockets. His mouth
and chin were strong, and the prominent, slightly hooked nose gave the
clean-shaven face a sternness which contrasted rather oddly with his
abundant light-yellow hair.
He closed the door, moved to the table, and seated himself at it near
the centre of the room. Almost every eye had been fixed upon him as he
entered, but no greetings were given, and the interest in the newcomer
flagged the moment he opened a book and began to read.
"Who is he?" I ventured to ask my neighbour.
"Schrieber," he replied, and then in a bored tone, as though remembering
my greenness--"the fellow who's been talkin' at the lodgin'-houses for
the last two weeks or so--at the 'Crescent,' and the 'Owl,' and the
'American,' and all of 'em."
I desisted from asking the further questions that immediately suggested
themselves, for my informant turned his back on me and rested his head
on the table, as though to discourage further conversation.
"Here comes Bill Nevins," announced the man opposite, but just whom he
addressed could not be gathered from the faces around me. His remark,
however, referred to an individual who entered with a "Howdy!" directed
to the room in general.
"Cold morning, boys!" he exclaimed, as he walked towards the stove
rubbing his hands together.
No one responded, but this did not seem to affect the speaker, who stood
smiling cheerfully at the crowd, with his back to the red-hot stove. A
healthy, well-fed, kindly-looking man, with vigour in his limbs and
character in his genial face, he looked like some good-natured priest
or head-groom.
"What's the news, Bill?" called out a man with his chair tipped against
the wall.
"Well, they strike to-morrow at noon, unless the companies concede
something, but, as everybody knows they won't, I might just as well
say--they strike to-morrow at noon."
The voice was clear and the tone cheery, though decisive. All the
newspapers seemed to have been drained of their contents, for everyone
was staring at the speaker--some with interest, others listlessly. But
no answer or comment greeted the news.--The silence was solemn or
absurd--one scarcely knew which.
"And as this strike's on," continued Nevins, "the question for us
is--will we aid the men, or help to defeat 'em? If we want to beat 'em,
we've just got to take the places they're givin' up. Things has got to
be pretty bad when a working-man leaves his job these days--you know
that--so there's no use discussin' why they strike. Of course you know
the answer of these car companies, and all other companies--'supply and
demand.' And I'll tell you what rules the 'supply and demand.'--It's the
supply of stock and the demand for dividends. It's greed that makes this
demand, and it's poverty and sickness, and many mouths to feed, that
makes the supply. It's greed, and not decent competition, that milks the
companies and busts them, and drags men down to lower wages, or throws
them out of work altogether. What we've got to do is to demonstrate
which side we're on. If we're for the men, we must stand off and
persuade others to do the like; and if we're for our children, we must
do the same thing. But if we don't give a damn either for our own people
or anybody else, we'd better go and take the places until the companies
decide on the next reduction!"
The determination in his voice would have been fierce but for the smile
accompanying the words. Half-muffled applause and ejaculations of
approval could be heard from different parts of the room.
The man Schrieber looked up, his glance travelling from one face to
another down the long room until it reached Bill Nevins and settled
on him with an intensity that compelled an answering glance.
"You say, my friend," he began slowly, "we must demonstrate on which
side we stand. So say I. We must demonstrate--but not by waiting. We
must make a great spectacle--but not by idle tableaux. You think you
will compel these rich corporations to give in to these men by
withholding your services? It is an empty dream. There will come other
men from other places--you cannot prevent them from coming or the
companies from hiring them. The disease is body-spread--you cannot
doctor it locally. The longer we sit idle the fiercer will the disease
ravage, the deeper will it enter. Idle waiting will not do,--no, nor
throwing stones. That will only make a holiday for the militia--stories
for their armouries--child's play, forgotten by the children when the
game is over. It does not turn the attention of prosperous humanity
towards its suffering brothers, but it gives a pretext for 'man's
inhumanity to man.' It only costs a little money--a very little
money--easily saved by the corporations in the decreased wages, and made
up to the State by increased taxation. It will not do, I tell you. We
need a much bigger and a dearer demonstration."
The speaker had risen, and was gazing into the faces of his auditors.
As he paused and brushed the light hair away from his eyes, the air
disturbed by the movement sent the smoke cloud blowing about his head.
"Now, that's just what we don't want, Schrieber!" broke in Nevins
impatiently. "You go 'round raisin' a row and gettin' up a riot, and
you'll turn all the sympathy of the press and the public against the
people we're tryin' to help."
The man did not reply at once, but stood gazing at the labour leader as
though struggling to keep back some retort.
"You do not understand me," he said at length--"I counsel no violence--I
do not advocate riot. But not because I fear to lose the sympathy of the
press and the public. You have had that, and with what result? Aren't
wages lower than ever, and isn't work more difficult to get every day we
live? And who is your 'public'? The few well-to-do who never think
unless their comfort's disturbed? I tell you the real public is the
many poor, the constantly increasing poor, and not the few rich! Your
demonstration must teach the rich to think--it must redeem the poor from
themselves!"
His glance turned from the faces before him, and seemed to centre beyond
and above them. The listening men drew closer to the speaker. The room
was so still I could hear the empty cable rattling in the street below.
"It is an awful disease--a disease of the blood--to be cured by
blood--the only price the rich cannot afford to pay--blood, the
redemption of the world throughout all generations--the blood of the
Lamb."
He spoke the words dreamily, as though to himself. Then, with gathering
energy and rapidity--
"Wait as you have waited, and you will see the disease spread--the
public you are trying to reach grow blind to your affliction, deaf to
your cries. Riot, and you will only lend virtue to oppression and
injustice. The hour is at hand for a great sacrifice--the time is ripe
for redemption. The public you would propitiate fears death--loathes
blood. For these alone will it stop and think--all else touches only
what money can cure. But death arrests--blood you cannot buy. Make them
take what they cannot return--make them shed blood they cannot wash out.
No, not with their tears!"
He paused again and gazed into the faces half hid by the smoky
atmosphere. Mystic, dreamer, lunatic--what you will,--he held the men in
weird fascination. They crouched, rather than sat before him. Had he
spoken in whispers, not a word would have been lost. His eyes shone with
a new light, and his voice softened as he continued:
"We are on the verge of another battle in the great conflict over
the right to live. Battles without number have been fought in this
conflict--blood without stint has been poured upon its fields.--With
what result? Here, in this land of plenty, the hosts are gathering for
a contest of such magnitude that, compared to it, all former conflicts
will seem mere skirmishes. Why? Because the sword never has touched,
and never can touch, the soul of man--because blood not shed in
consecration cannot heal. The eyes of the world must look upon a
blameless death-devotion to a cause. If I am mad, it is a madness
learned of Christ. Are your lives so valuable that you fear to lose
them? Is death a terror to you who die daily? Humanity bleeds from
every pore--do you shudder at blood? Civilisation calls upon you, her
outcasts, for salvation. Will you answer her--you who, here in the City
of New York, see the rich digging a gulf between themselves and the
poor--a gulf that may be a grave for countless thousands--a trench for
oceans of blood that a few drops shed now may save? We must demonstrate
which side we are on--we must make a great spectacle! I want volunteers
for death--volunteers for the death that redeems!"
With hands spread out in appeal--the fine head thrown back--he stood
like the shade of some great Being encircled by the mists of unreality.
From out of the smoke there staggered and stumbled toward him a man who
grasped the outstretched hand--
"I volunteer!" he cried.
Schrieber's calm face bespoke a benediction.
"My brother," he answered, simply.
The recruit was Sandy McWhiffle.
I started to my feet with a cry of protest on my lips, but the great
smoke bank above seemed suddenly to descend and envelop me, choking and
stifling me. For a moment I fought it, gasping for breath, but only
drawing the foul air deeper down into my lungs. Then I remembered
nothing more. They said at the hospital it was nicotine poisoning.