It was a rough, raw, Chicago day. The snow came in spurts, cold and
cutting from the north and the scantily dressed strikers were obliged to
dance about and beat their hands to keep warm. Special mounted police
were riding up and down the streets that paralleled the Burlington
tracks, and ugly looking armed deputies were everywhere in evidence. The
forced quiet that pervaded the opposing armies served only to increase
the anxiety of the observing. Every man who had any direct interest in
the contest seemed to have a chip on his shoulder.
At ten o'clock the strike was to be extended to all connecting lines,
the switching yards and stock yards. When the hour arrived the switchmen
threw up their caps and quit. Now the different companies made an effort
to replace the strikers and trouble commenced. The deputies, who had
been aching to get a whack at the strikers for countless cursings which
they had received, now used their guns unmercifully upon the unprotected
heads of the men, and the police, who disliked and refused to associate
with the deputies, used their clubs upon all who resisted them. By
eleven o'clock the whole city was in a state of riot and men bruised and
bleeding were loaded into wagons and hurried away until the jails were
filled with criminals, bums, deputies and strikers. The police courts
were constantly grinding out justice, or decisions intended to take the
place of justice. Mothers were often seen begging the magistrates to
release their boys and wives praying for the pardon of their husbands.
These prayers were often unanswered and the poor women were forced to
return to a lonely home, to an empty cupboard and a cold hearth.
In the midst of the rioting on this wild day came Patsy Daly strolling
up the track singing:
"_Always together in sunshine and rain
Facing the weather atop o' th' train.
Watching the meadows move under the stars
Always together atop o' th' cars._"
"Hello! there!" came from a box car.
"Hello to you," said Patsy as he turned out to see what the fellow was
in for. "Now, what the divil you doin' caged up in this car?"
"I'm hidin' from the strikers," said the man, peeping cautiously out.
"Faith, and I'm one of them myself," says Patsy, "and I suppose you're
after takin' my place, ye spalpeen; I have a right to swat your face for
you, so I have."
"You couldn't do it if I was opposed," said the stranger opening the
door.
"Oh! couldn't I? then let yourself drop to the ground till I take a
little of the conceit out of you."
"No, I won't fight you," said the man, "I like your face and I want you
to help me out."
"And I like your nerve; now, what's your pleasure? Have you been
working in this strike?"
"I started to work this morning only to get something to eat on."
"Are you a railroad man?"
"I'm a switchman. I was foreman in the yards at Buffalo, had a scrap
with the yard-master who had boasted that he would not have a switchman
he couldn't curse, an' got fired."
"Did you lick him?"
"Yes."
"Good and plenty?"
"Yes."
"Go on with your story."
"Well," said the man, seating himself in the door of the car, "I started
out to get work--had my card from the Union and felt sure of success. I
had only been married a year, but of course I had to leave my wife in
Buffalo until I got located. When I applied for work I was asked for
references and I had none. I told them where I had worked; they asked
me to call later, and I called, only to learn that they didn't need any
more men. This performance was repeated in every town I struck, until I
began to believe that I had been blacklisted. In time my money gave out.
I wrote to my wife and she sent me money. When that was gone I sent for
more, not stopping to think that she had to eat, too, and that I had
given her but ten dollars when I left home; but she sent me money.
"Then there came a time when she could not send me anything; I could not
keep up my dues in the Union, so was expelled. After that I found it
hard to get passes. Lots of times I had to steal them, and finally--for
the first time in my life--I stole something to eat. Say, pardner, did
you ever get so hungry that the hunger cramped you like cholera morbus?"
"No."
"Then I reckon you've never stole, or what's worse, scabbed?"
"No."
"Well--I've done both, though this is the first time I've scabbed. As I
was sayin' I got down so low that I had to steal, and then I thought of
my wife, of how terrible it would be if she should have to steal, or
maybe worse, and the thought of it drove me almost crazy. She was a
pretty girl when I married her, an orphan only eighteen and I was
twenty-eight. I determined to go home at once, but before I could get
out of town I was arrested as a vag and sent up for sixty days. I
thought at that time that my punishment was great,--that the mental and
physical suffering that I endured in the workhouse was all that I could
stand,--but I've seen it beaten since. At last they told me that I could
go, but that I would be expected to shake the city of Chicago before the
sun rose on the following day, and I did. I hung myself up on the trucks
of a Pullman on the Lake Shore Limited and landed in Buffalo just before
dawn. As I hurried along the old familiar streets I noticed a crowd of
people standing by a narrow canal and stopped to see what the excitement
was. I saw them fish the limp and lifeless form of a woman out of the
muddy water and when the moonlight fell upon her face it startled me,
for it was so like her face. A moment later I got near enough to see
that the victim was a blonde, and my wife was brunette. Presently I came
to the house where we had lived, but it was closed and dark. I aroused a
number of the neighbors, but none of them knew where the little woman
had gone.
"'Shure,' said an old woman who was peddling milk, 'I don't know phere
she's at at all, at all. That big good-fur-nothin' man o' hern has gone
along and deserted of her an' broke the darlint's heart, so 'e 'as an'
the end uv it all will be that she'll be afther drownin' 'erself in the
canal beyant wan uv these foine nights.'
"All through the morning I searched the place for her, but not a trace
could I find. It seemed that she had dropped out of the world, utterly,
and that no one had missed her. Finally I was so hungry that I begged a
bite to eat and went down by the canal and fell asleep. Here a strange
thing happened. I had a dreadful dream. I dreamed that I saw my wife
being dragged from the dark waters of the canal. She had the same sad,
sweet face, but not the same hair. I awoke in a cold sweat. I was now
seized with an irresistible longing to look once more upon the face of
the dead woman whom I had seen them fish from the foul waters that
morning, and I set out for the morgue. I entered unnoticed and there lay
the dead woman with her white hands folded upon her dead breast. She had
the same sad, sweet face, but not the same hair, but it was she--it was
my wife."
The vag let his head fall so that his eyes rested upon the ground. Patsy
fished something from his vest and holding it out to the man, said:
"Here's a one-dollar bill and a three-dollar meal ticket--which will you
have?"
"Gi' me the pie-card."
"Which shows you're not a regular bum," said Patsy.
"No," said the man, eyeing the meal ticket with its twenty-one unpunched
holes. "I never cared for liquor, only once in a while when a bum makes
a lift I take a nip just to stop the awful gnawing, cramping pain of
hunger, but it only makes you feel worse afterwards. But it's
interesting," said the tramp, thoughtfully. "If it were not for the
hunger and cold this new life that I have dropped into wouldn't be half
bad. You get a closer glimpse of the miseries of mankind and a better
notion of the causes that bring it all about. It educates you. Now take
this fight for instance. You fellows feel sure of success, but I know
better. Only two men of all the vast army of strikers have deserted so
far, but wait. Wait till the pain of hunger hits you and doubles you up
like a jack-knife, and it's sure to come. Behind the management there
are merciless millions of money: behind the strikers the gaunt wolf of
hunger stalks in the snow. Can you beat a game like that? Never. And
after all what right have you and your people to expect mercy at the
hands of organized capital? Does the Union show mercy to men like me? To
escape the blight of the black-list I changed my name. Three times I
found work, but in each instance the company were forced to discharge me
or have a strike. I was not a Union man and so had to steal a ride out
of town. Once I asked a farmer for work and he set me to digging post
holes and every time a man came by I hid myself in the grass. 'What you
hidin' fur?' the farmer asked. Then I told him that I didn't belong to
the Union.
"'What Union?' says he.
"'The post-hole Union' says I--'in fact, I don't belong to any Union.'
"'They ain't no post-hole Union,' says the farmer indignantly, 'an' you
know it. What you're givin' me is hog-wash--you've been stealin'. Here's
a quarter fur what you've done--now git.'
"I tried to reason with him, but he only shook his thick head and began
whistling for his dog, and I got. Yes, pardner, it seems to me that the
tyranny of organized capital and the tyranny of organized labor are
close competitors, and in their wake come the twin curses--the
black-list and the boycot. Hand in hand they go, like red liquor and
crime. But you can't right these wrongs the way you're headed now," said
the philosopher. "Everything is against you. Wealth works wonders. The
press, the telephone through which the public talks back to itself, is
hoarse with the repetition of the story of your wrong-doings. Until the
Government puts a limit to the abuses of trusts and monopolies, and
organized labor has learned that there are other interests which have
rights under the Constitution, there will be no peace on earth, no good
will toward man. When the trusts are controlled, and labor submits its
grievances to an impartial, unbiased board of arbitration, then there
will be peace and plenty. The wages that you are now losing and the
money squandered by vulgar and ignorant leaders, will then be used in
building up and beautifying homes. The time thrown away in useless
agitation and in idleness will be spent for the intellectual advancement
of working men, and the millions of money lost in wrecked railroads will
find its way to the pockets of honest investors."
While this lecture, which interested Patsy, was being delivered the two
men had become oblivious of their surroundings, but now the wild cry of
a mob in a neighboring street, the rattle of sticks and stones and the
occasional bark of a six-shooter brought them back to the business
before them.
Wave after wave the rioters rolled against the little band of officers,
but like billows that break upon a stony shore they were forced to roll
back again. Like the naked minions of Montezuma, who hurled themselves
against the armored army of the Spaniards, the strikers and their
abetters were invariably beaten back with bruised heads and broken
bones. If a luckless striker fell he was trampled upon by the horses of
the mounted police or kicked into unconsciousness by the desperate
deputies.
"Can you get me out of this so I can have a go at this pie-card?" asked
the man.
"Yas," said Patsy, leaping into the car. "Skin off your coat."
When the two men had exchanged coats and caps the vag strolled leisurely
down the track and in a little while Patsy followed. He had not gone
three cars before the mob saw him and with the cry of "The scab! the
scab!" sent a shower of sticks and stones after the flying brakeman. A
rock struck Patsy on the head and he fell to the ground. The cap, which
he had worn well over his eyes, fell off, and he was recognized by one
of the strikers before his ribs could be kicked in. "Begad," said the
leader of the mob, "it's the singin' brakeman. Th' bum have robbed 'im
uv 'es clothes an' giv' us the slip," and they picked Patsy up and
carried him away to the hospital.