Divided Interests
Instead of calling on the Mayor the next morning as he had planned to
do, Orlando Vickery found himself hailed before the Special Commissioner
and put on the grill. But he took refuge behind the corporation for
which he claimed to be acting as attorney and refused to admit or
confess to any transactions of a financial nature, or incriminate in any
way the officials whom he had approached. He was arrested on the charge
of extortion, however, and that gave the prosecution a chance to shut
him up, while they arranged for an investigation before the grand jury
(which was already being impaneled) into the schemes of the Boulevard
Railway Company with the city councilmen. These proceedings were
conducted as quietly as possible, but in spite of all precautions, the
newspapers that evening flamed with head-lines, which varied as usual in
size and sensationalism with the character of the sheet which used them;
and before Roma retired for the night, the whole city was stirred by the
prospect of a most spectacular fight. One half the citizens were
congratulating themselves that at last, corruption and the spoilsmen
were to be uprooted, while the other half revelled in the excitement and
turmoil which always attends the witnessing of a deadly combat.
And meanwhile, the few,--the "ring,"--were in anxious consultation. "How
much do you know?" was the question that stirred them. Under an assumed
coolness and indifference, and acting in secret, there were those who
saw to it that a high and mighty representative of the Boulevard Railway
Company came on to arrange bail for Vickery. The board of aldermen was,
apparently, most indifferent of all, and refused to talk of the new
sensation either to reporters or to any one else,--except among
themselves when no outsiders were near. For as yet, none of them could
determine how any information had leaked out or just who had been
implicated.
While events had been leading up to this point, the women of Roma had
not been idle. Even before the "Progressive Workers" had thought of
putting up their candidate for the mayoralty, they had been interested
in the subject of pure food--and this, too, was before Senator Heyburn
had introduced his famous bill to the United States Congress. One of
the liberal churches in the city had called a woman to its pulpit some
years ago; and the story of what she accomplished among the young people
of her parish is too long and too complicated to be incorporated here.
Suffice it to say that one day she was "discovered" by a "P. W." and
invited to join the club. Too earnest and active a worker to sit by and
listen to literary exercises and discussions that did not get anywhere,
she had almost at the beginning of her membership cast about for some
definite work which she--and the rest--might do.
Now, she was a housekeeper on her small salary, and therefore must go to
market for herself. Like thousands of other club women, she had come
away from her provision store or grocery, half nauseated by what she had
seen, or experienced through her olfactory sense. But unlike the average
woman, she refused to endure these things patiently. She began,
quietly, to investigate. She visited the city abattoir, the wholesale
markets, the cattle-pens. Even before the municipal election, she had
laid out a thorough campaign in the interests of pure food, which she
presented to the "Progressive Workers." The previous spring there had
been an exhibition prepared by the club of foods and food-products, pure
and adulterated. This exhibition had been attended by thousands of
housekeepers and by a few men, and had served to awaken a semblance of
interest in the question of pure food.
When Gertrude was fairly installed in office, the Reverend Martha
Kendall had called at City Hall and laid before the Mayor a definite
plan, the result of which was that the woman minister was made Inspector
of Markets, there being such an office provided for in the old City
Charter, although it had remained a dead letter on the books. And no
sooner did the Reverend Martha Kendall receive her appointment than she
went to the club and asked to have a special committee appointed from
that organization to work with her for clean markets and pure food.
When the women of any city show beyond question that they want pure
food--or any other definite thing--they are going to get it, and without
delay. Although there was some grumbling among the marketmen, the
provision stores were soon put through such a course of scrubbing and
whitening as to make the old-fashioned "spring house-cleaning," which
has been the bugbear of _pater familias_ and one of the chief assets of
the paragrapher for so many years, a process of incomparably mild
flavor. At the abattoir it had not been so easy to effect a reform, but
with such women as Mrs. Bateman, Mrs. Albert Turner and the Reverend
Martha Kendall coming down there to inspect and to demand cleanliness
and wholesome conditions, the butchers who shone before the public as
"wholesale meat producers" did not dare to refuse the improvements asked
for; so that by the time the grand jury began to look into the methods
of the aldermen with the street railway system, there were both friends
and enemies of the new administration ready to take a hand, if
necessary.
Then, too, there were the men who owned, and the men who ran, the
questionable resorts; the gambling dens; the saloons; the houses of
which good women are popularly supposed to know nothing. All of these
had been problems which Gertrude had been thinking about and planning
for, before her election was settled. These matters she had talked over
with few, if any, of her advisers; for she had her own ideas--or perhaps
her father's. When she was fairly established in the Mayor's chair she
had appointed a reliable man as police commissioner--one who would carry
out her plans. There were no spectacular raids, with their round-ups and
the subsequent laxity which allows such places to flourish in the same
spots and with no lapse of time (and profits). She abolished the
"drag-net system" by ignoring it; but she broke up gambling, closed the
wine-rooms, and the other questionable resorts, simply by stationing a
trusty policeman in uniform on the steps of every one of these places,
whose duty it was to take the name and address of every person who
entered them; and to turn this list into the City Hall every morning and
every night. As a consequence, some of these property owners and
"managers" had found their income vanishing. The latter were leaving
town in bevies; but the former were nursing their grievances and were
fast getting into line as open or secret enemies of the reform
administration which the "woman's movement" had now fairly inaugurated.
It must not be thought, either, that the women of Roma stood solid for
the woman-mayor. As long as there are husbands and wives, the latter
will be guided, in greater or less degree, by the opinions of the
former. The women who do not read, the women who do not care, the women
who do not think, invariably take the opinions of the men nearest them,
no matter how ignorant and unintelligent these men may be; and the women
who do read and care and think,--but it may be as well to carry the
argument no farther.
So it happened that the women of Roma were as divided as the men on the
subject of city reform; although, as Gertrude noted with pride, most of
the educated, thinking women could be counted on to support her in every
effort she was making for the betterment of their civic conditions. It
was the women like Mrs. Bella's "wash-lady" who were most opposed to
her; and those other women of the underworld who do not recognize the
friend of her own sex when she appears clothed in the garb of a
reformer.
Thus it came about when the investigation was actually begun and
occupied the most prominent place in the public interest at Roma, there
were almost as many against the new mayor as there were actively or
passively for her. Because, too, there was the large contingent of
citizens who cannot make up their minds in a hurry, but must wait for
popular opinion to crystallize before they can adopt it.
As always, the _Atlas_ came out strongly for the administration of
justice:
"At last" it proclaimed editorially, "Roma has a Mayor with the
courage of conviction. At last, corruption is not only detected, but it
is to be dragged forth to meet its judge; at last, it is not going to be
shared by our public officials. It behooves every man and every woman in
Roma to uphold the present investigation and the new mayor."
But the "ring sheet" spoke otherwise:
"After months of promising to 'reform' something, the woman-mayor
and the lady-like gentlemen who are supporting her, are going to
do something great. They have--by crooked and devious ways--
discovered (so they affirm) Graft, with a big, big G. It is
hinted that the Mayor herself is to go on the witness stand to
prove that men who know a hundred-fold more about running a
municipality are dishonest boodlers. Just like a woman! She has
got beyond the rudiments of municipal financiering and into the
sub-divisions which she cannot understand and there she cries
'Graft.' She is beyond her depth and so she imagines there is
fraud. Well, let her prove it; in the meantime, while she is
trying to do so, she will demonstrate--exactly as we predicted
last fall--what a dangerous thing it may be to a city to let a
woman loose upon its administrative functions. Women were never
intended for public officials. Perhaps--as the opposite party
piously claim--the hand of Providence put her there; just to
prove to Roma and her voters what a dangerous thing a little
power may be in the hands of the incompetent and inexperienced
public servant."
Gertrude read all these editorial sayings and smiled or sighed according
to her mood. Sometimes they helped her gird on her armor all the more
bravely, ready to do battle for her principles to the last breath.
Again, "that other Gertrude Van Deusen" came to the front and she wished
in secret that she were a quiet, protected home woman, with a husband
who loved her and little children to lead along the right paths. But why
should John Allingham always come into her mind just there?