“_Reform: A t’ing what the wise guys gits busy at--when the other
push is holdin’ the jobs._”
CHIP NOLAN’S DEFINITION.
OLD Mrs. Coogan, who was distantly related to Mary, opened the door for
her and Mason. Mrs. Coogan had been there since the old man’s death, as
a sort of chaperon and housekeeper, and vastly pleased was she with the
arrangement. Larry in his shirt sleeves came out of the sitting room as
they entered:
“Hello, back so soon!” exclaimed he. Then, seeing Mason, he added
surprisedly: “Mr. Mason, how are youse?”
“Mr. Dwyer advised me to come to see you,” said Mason, shaking
hands; “but I had not the slightest notion that I should meet an old
acquaintance.”
Mary left them to themselves; and Mason plunged at once into the matter
in hand. He explained in detail the nature of the scheme on foot
and then continued: “Now the local reform organization has resolved
to fight this thing, and wants to enlist as many men acquainted with
practical politics as possible.”
“Sure,” said Larry. “That’s the first crack out o’ the box every time
youse hear from ’em. Say, I’ll give it to youse straight: reform’s all
to the good, but the reformers give me a pain.”
Mason grew a little red, and looked nettled.
“Don’t take that to yerself,” said Larry, noticing this; “I ain’t
a-backheelin’ you or any other man; it’s the reformers as a bunch
that I’m hittin’. When they hear of a crooked job they start to kick
up the dust, hold meetin’s at the Academy of Music and do other
red-hot stunts; then the first t’ing youse know they’re backin’ up
the worst kind of a gang of tin horn pipes who are on’y fightin’ the
administration because they ain’t in on the rake-off. If they win out,
the pipes git the plums and work ranker jobs than the other bunch ever
thought of, and then the reformers flop over into the other camp and
trot the race all over again. Ain’t I right?”
“There is some truth in this,” said Mason, “but then fusion is our
only hope; we have not the strength to name and elect a man of our own.”
“As long as youse t’ink that ye’ll be easy game. Say, the people who
wants the cards dealt square in the city’s got the bulge, but they’re
dead leary on gettin’ their hands dirty; a man with aces in his fist is
beat if he don’t use ’em at the show down.”
“I take it that you would support a reform delegation providing you
were satisfied it was controlled by reformers.”
“Not on yer life! Le’me tell youse somethin’. Some o’ the fiercest guys
what ever broke into politics, started their turn as reformers, and I
don’t take no chances on havin’ a confidence game worked on me, see?
The man what goes to the convention from this division stands to do a
certain t’ing; he’s sent there to do it by the voters and he does it.
Nobody outside’s got anyt’ing to say.”
“That’s as it should be,” said Mason. “But in how many divisions or
wards is that the case? The ring controls the primaries in nine out of
ten of them; the voice of the man with the ballot is seldom or never
heard. Slavery was a liberal institution compared with the electoral
serfdom that exists in some of our municipalities.”
Mason’s warmth led him into exaggeration; but Larry had views upon this
particular subject himself and proceeded to unburden himself.
“Youse’re dead right!” declared he. “I was talkin’ to the old coon what
peddles calamus root to the avenoo, the other day, an’ he said that he
wished he was a slave again, pickin’ cotton an’ dancin’ the buck. He
says that he got a skin full o’ corn pone then, but that it keeps him
scratchin’ with both hands these days to git next to anything with more
stick in it than water. Say, the Uncle Tom racket wasn’t a bad graft
when ye look at it right, and maybe it’ed been a good t’ing for the
wool growers if Uncle Abe had changed his mind.”
Mason smiled at Larry’s literal interpretation of his words and made a
vague remark regarding the blessings of liberty. But the other received
it with contempt.
“That’s got moss on it,” said he. “Liberty’s all right, but it don’t
put beef and beans into a man. There ain’t a mug in this ward that
ain’t got it to lose; but they don’t lay in bed in the mornin’
thinkin’ about it, either, when the whistles are a blowin’; they have
to climb down the street, eatin’ their breakfast out o’ one hand and
buttonin’ their overalls with the other.”
“But the slave,” protested Mason, “before the Civil War also had to
work.”
“Sure!” exclaimed Murphy. “I didn’t t’ink that the main squeeze took
off his coat and drove mules, while they sat on the porch an’ spit at
their boots. A young Willie, what had the Sunday-school class what I
went to onct, told us that the slave owner’d open up a hand with a
black snake whip, if he looked cross-eyed, and that it was the reg’lar
t’ing to hang the cook up by the t’umbs if she broke a plate. But,
say, that sassy t’ing was a-stringin’ me cold; because when a guy put
up a thousand plunks for a bogie he wasn’t goin’ to lam the life out
o’ him like they do in the show. I don’t say that he was stuck on him,
mind youse, but I do say that the price worried him some, and that the
worsted motto what his wife worked, and hung up in the parlor read:
‘T’ink twice before youse slug a nigger onct.’
“The gang down in Washin’ton,” proceeded Larry, “riffled the deck in
’62 an’ made a new deal; the coons looked at their hands and t’ought
they had the pot cinched; they stood pat on the Fourteenth Amendment
and waited for the guys with the dough to buck up. But they’re waitin’
yet. They never git their eyes on any o’ the blessin’s o’ liberty cept
at ’lection time--and then they must deliver the goods. Liberty ain’t
a bad game; but youse want to size up the dealer from start to finish,
so’s he don’t stack the cards. There’s lots o’ people in the liberty
line what used to carry a lead pipe in their pockets, but made the
change because the gilt grew thicker and there wasn’t so much chance
for doin’ time.”
“Some one, long ago,” remarked Mason, “said something about the ‘crimes
committed in the name of liberty,’ and, unfortunately, it holds good
to-day.”
“That’s no pipe dream! Now look here; there’s lots o’ guys right in
this division, what’s swingin’ a pick for a dollar an’ a half a day,
an’ hangin’ up their hats in a third story back where they have to
stand on the stove and hold the kid while their wives make the bed. If
a slave got sick his owner hustled in a doctor, for if the coon went
up the flue it was good money goin’ to the bad. But if the pick swinger
gits down on his back, the main guy cashes his time ticket, hires a
Polack, an’ don’t care a picayune if his friends are invited to meet at
two an’ go at t’ree, an’ he has a plain black box and an undertaker’s
wagon, with a drunken carriage washer to drive it.”
“But all employers are not so unfeeling; some are heard of, now and
then, who help their people out of the hard places.”
“That might be right,” agreed Larry; “but I never piked off one that
was out o’ breath through handin’ out money. His daughter belongs to
a flower mission, maybe, and if she t’ought of it she might send the
sick man a bunch of hyacinths done up in a waxed paper; but she’d stop
the kids from cryin’ quicker if she trotted out a beef stew done up in
a tin kettle, an’ that’s no joke. Say, as Chip Nolan ’ed say: It’s no
wonder the coons are all whistlin’ ‘Lemme take me clothes back home.’”
Mason managed to head him off at this point and began an earnest plea
for his support; but Larry would not bind himself to the support of
anyone at that time.
“I’m leary on makin’ promises,” said the latter, as Mason, at length,
arose to depart; “t’ings’ll be dead ripe by the night o’ the primaries;
so after that I kin talk to youse.”
The bell had rung a few moments before, without their noticing it; and
now Mrs. Coogan opened the sitting room door, saying: “Sure, here is
Mr. McQuirk, as large as life.”
“Murphy,” said the visitor, as he stepped into the room, “I hope I
didn’t interrupt ye? I can wait if you’re busy.”
It was Tom McQuirk, the boss of the ward, a big-bodied, pleasant-faced
man, well-dressed and of assured manner.
“Hello,” said Larry, “glad to see ye, Tom. Sit down.”
McQuirk glanced toward Mason and a smile of recognition crossed his
face.
“Mr. Mason, how d’ye do!” exclaimed he, reaching out his hand.
Mason shook hands with him without enthusiasm. He had sat too long at
the feet of the sages of the Civic Club not to believe that this man
and his kind were the very bacillus of corruption. He had met him a
year or two before at a conference held with a view to allying the
Democrats and the reformers in favour of an independent candidate for
city treasurer. But McQuirk had been against the fusion--and it had
failed.
And Mason, after he had taken his departure and walked homeward,
admitted to himself, with some bitterness, that McQuirk’s voice, in
this ward at least, would very likely be the deciding one in the matter
in hand.