“Tell me the truth, now!” commanded the _The Jungle

“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 card-case. 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 card-case 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 business men,

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 business men 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 business men 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 business men; 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 “Lêvée.” 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 bawdy-house. 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 business men 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 quite 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 brick-yards 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 naïve 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.

CHAPTER XXVI

After the elections Jurgis stayed on in Packingtown and kept his job.

The agitation to break up the police protection of criminals was

continuing, and it seemed to him best to “lay low” for the present. He

had nearly three hundred dollars in the bank, and might have considered

himself entitled to a vacation; but he had an easy job, and force of

habit kept him at it. Besides, Mike Scully, whom he consulted, advised

him that something might “turn up” before long.

Jurgis got himself a place in a boardinghouse with some congenial

friends. He had already inquired of Aniele, and learned that Elzbieta

and her family had gone downtown, and so he gave no further thought to

them. He went with a new set, now, young unmarried fellows who were

“sporty.” Jurgis had long ago cast off his fertilizer clothing, and

since going into politics he had donned a linen collar and a greasy red

necktie. He had some reason for thinking of his dress, for he was

making about eleven dollars a week, and two-thirds of it he might spend

upon his pleasures without ever touching his savings.

Sometimes he would ride down-town with a party of friends to the cheap

theaters and the music halls and other haunts with which they were

familiar. Many of the saloons in Packingtown had pool tables, and some

of them bowling alleys, by means of which he could spend his evenings

in petty gambling. Also, there were cards and dice. One time Jurgis got

into a game on a Saturday night and won prodigiously, and because he

was a man of spirit he stayed in with the rest and the game continued

until late Sunday afternoon, and by that time he was “out” over twenty

dollars. On Saturday nights, also, a number of balls were generally

given in Packingtown; each man would bring his “girl” with him, paying

half a dollar for a ticket, and several dollars additional for drinks

in the course of the festivities, which continued until three or four

o’clock in the morning, unless broken up by fighting. During all this

time the same man and woman would dance together, half-stupefied with

sensuality and drink.

Before long Jurgis discovered what Scully had meant by something

“turning up.” In May the agreement between the packers and the unions

expired, and a new agreement had to be signed. Negotiations were going

on, and the yards were full of talk of a strike. The old scale had

dealt with the wages of the skilled men only; and of the members of the

Meat Workers’ Union about two-thirds were unskilled men. In Chicago

these latter were receiving, for the most part, eighteen and a half

cents an hour, and the unions wished to make this the general wage for

the next year. It was not nearly so large a wage as it seemed—in the

course of the negotiations the union officers examined time checks to

the amount of ten thousand dollars, and they found that the highest

wages paid had been fourteen dollars a week, and the lowest two dollars

and five cents, and the average of the whole, six dollars and

sixty-five cents. And six dollars and sixty-five cents was hardly too

much for a man to keep a family on, considering the fact that the price

of dressed meat had increased nearly fifty per cent in the last five

years, while the price of “beef on the hoof” had decreased as much, it

would have seemed that the packers ought to be able to pay it; but the

packers were unwilling to pay it—they rejected the union demand, and to

show what their purpose was, a week or two after the agreement expired

they put down the wages of about a thousand men to sixteen and a half

cents, and it was said that old man Jones had vowed he would put them

to fifteen before he got through. There were a million and a half of

men in the country looking for work, a hundred thousand of them right

in Chicago; and were the packers to let the union stewards march into

their places and bind them to a contract that would lose them several

thousand dollars a day for a year? Not much!

All this was in June; and before long the question was submitted to a

referendum in the unions, and the decision was for a strike. It was the

same in all the packing house cities; and suddenly the newspapers and

public woke up to face the gruesome spectacle of a meat famine. All

sorts of pleas for a reconsideration were made, but the packers were

obdurate; and all the while they were reducing wages, and heading off

shipments of cattle, and rushing in wagon-loads of mattresses and cots.

So the men boiled over, and one night telegrams went out from the union

headquarters to all the big packing centers—to St. Paul, South Omaha,

Sioux City, St. Joseph, Kansas City, East St. Louis, and New York—and

the next day at noon between fifty and sixty thousand men drew off

their working clothes and marched out of the factories, and the great

“Beef Strike” was on.

Jurgis went to his dinner, and afterward he walked over to see Mike

Scully, who lived in a fine house, upon a street which had been

decently paved and lighted for his especial benefit. Scully had gone

into semi-retirement, and looked nervous and worried. “What do you

want?” he demanded, when he saw Jurgis.

“I came to see if maybe you could get me a place during the strike,”

the other replied.

And Scully knit his brows and eyed him narrowly. In that morning’s

papers Jurgis had read a fierce denunciation of the packers by Scully,

who had declared that if they did not treat their people better the

city authorities would end the matter by tearing down their plants.

Now, therefore, Jurgis was not a little taken aback when the other

demanded suddenly, “See here, Rudkus, why don’t you stick by your job?”

Jurgis started. “Work as a scab?” he cried.

“Why not?” demanded Scully. “What’s that to you?”

“But—but—” stammered Jurgis. He had somehow taken it for granted that

he should go out with his union. “The packers need good men, and need

them bad,” continued the other, “and they’ll treat a man right that

stands by them. Why don’t you take your chance and fix yourself?”

“But,” said Jurgis, “how could I ever be of any use to you—in

politics?”

“You couldn’t be it anyhow,” said Scully, abruptly.

“Why not?” asked Jurgis.

“Hell, man!” cried the other. “Don’t you know you’re a Republican? And

do you think I’m always going to elect Republicans? My brewer has found

out already how we served him, and there is the deuce to pay.”

Jurgis looked dumfounded. He had never thought of that aspect of it

before. “I could be a Democrat,” he said.

“Yes,” responded the other, “but not right away; a man can’t change his

politics every day. And besides, I don’t need you—there’d be nothing

for you to do. And it’s a long time to election day, anyhow; and what

are you going to do meantime?”

“I thought I could count on you,” began Jurgis.

“Yes,” responded Scully, “so you could—I never yet went back on a

friend. But is it fair to leave the job I got you and come to me for

another? I have had a hundred fellows after me today, and what can I

do? I’ve put seventeen men on the city payroll to clean streets this

one week, and do you think I can keep that up forever? It wouldn’t do

for me to tell other men what I tell you, but you’ve been on the

inside, and you ought to have sense enough to see for yourself. What

have you to gain by a strike?”

“I hadn’t thought,” said Jurgis.

“Exactly,” said Scully, “but you’d better. Take my word for it, the

strike will be over in a few days, and the men will be beaten; and

meantime what you can get out of it will belong to you. Do you see?”

And Jurgis saw. He went back to the yards, and into the workroom. The

men had left a long line of hogs in various stages of preparation, and

the foreman was directing the feeble efforts of a score or two of

clerks and stenographers and office boys to finish up the job and get

them into the chilling rooms. Jurgis went straight up to him and

announced, “I have come back to work, Mr. Murphy.”

The boss’s face lighted up. “Good man!” he cried. “Come ahead!”

“Just a moment,” said Jurgis, checking his enthusiasm. “I think I ought

to get a little more wages.”

“Yes,” replied the other, “of course. What do you want?”

Jurgis had debated on the way. His nerve almost failed him now, but he

clenched his hands. “I think I ought to have’ three dollars a day,” he

said.

“All right,” said the other, promptly; and before the day was out our

friend discovered that the clerks and stenographers and office boys

were getting five dollars a day, and then he could have kicked himself!

So Jurgis became one of the new “American heroes,” a man whose virtues

merited comparison with those of the martyrs of Lexington and Valley

Forge. The resemblance was not complete, of course, for Jurgis was

generously paid and comfortably clad, and was provided with a spring

cot and a mattress and three substantial meals a day; also he was

perfectly at ease, and safe from all peril of life and limb, save only

in the case that a desire for beer should lead him to venture outside

of the stockyards gates. And even in the exercise of this privilege he

was not left unprotected; a good part of the inadequate police force of

Chicago was suddenly diverted from its work of hunting criminals, and

rushed out to serve him. The police, and the strikers also, were

determined that there should be no violence; but there was another

party interested which was minded to the contrary—and that was the

press. On the first day of his life as a strikebreaker Jurgis quit work

early, and in a spirit of bravado he challenged three men of his

acquaintance to go outside and get a drink. They accepted, and went

through the big Halsted Street gate, where several policemen were

watching, and also some union pickets, scanning sharply those who

passed in and out. Jurgis and his companions went south on Halsted

Street; past the hotel, and then suddenly half a dozen men started

across the street toward them and proceeded to argue with them

concerning the error of their ways. As the arguments were not taken in

the proper spirit, they went on to threats; and suddenly one of them

jerked off the hat of one of the four and flung it over the fence. The

man started after it, and then, as a cry of “Scab!” was raised and a

dozen people came running out of saloons and doorways, a second man’s

heart failed him and he followed. Jurgis and the fourth stayed long

enough to give themselves the satisfaction of a quick exchange of

blows, and then they, too, took to their heels and fled back of the

hotel and into the yards again. Meantime, of course, policemen were

coming on a run, and as a crowd gathered other police got excited and

sent in a riot call. Jurgis knew nothing of this, but went back to

“Packers’ Avenue,” and in front of the “Central Time Station” he saw

one of his companions, breathless and wild with excitement, narrating

to an ever growing throng how the four had been attacked and surrounded

by a howling mob, and had been nearly torn to pieces. While he stood

listening, smiling cynically, several dapper young men stood by with

notebooks in their hands, and it was not more than two hours later that

Jurgis saw newsboys running about with armfuls of newspapers, printed

in red and black letters six inches high:

VIOLENCE IN THE YARDS! STRIKEBREAKERS SURROUNDED BY FRENZIED MOB!

If he had been able to buy all of the newspapers of the United States

the next morning, he might have discovered that his beer-hunting

exploit was being perused by some two score millions of people, and had

served as a text for editorials in half the staid and solemn

business-men’s newspapers in the land.

Jurgis was to see more of this as time passed. For the present, his

work being over, he was free to ride into the city, by a railroad

direct from the yards, or else to spend the night in a room where cots

had been laid in rows. He chose the latter, but to his regret, for all

night long gangs of strikebreakers kept arriving. As very few of the

better class of workingmen could be got for such work, these specimens

of the new American hero contained an assortment of the criminals and

thugs of the city, besides Negroes and the lowest foreigners—Greeks,

Roumanians, Sicilians, and Slovaks. They had been attracted more by the

prospect of disorder than by the big wages; and they made the night

hideous with singing and carousing, and only went to sleep when the

time came for them to get up to work.

In the morning before Jurgis had finished his breakfast, “Pat” Murphy

ordered him to one of the superintendents, who questioned him as to his

experience in the work of the killing room. His heart began to thump

with excitement, for he divined instantly that his hour had come—that

he was to be a boss!

Some of the foremen were union members, and many who were not had gone

out with the men. It was in the killing department that the packers had

been left most in the lurch, and precisely here that they could least

afford it; the smoking and canning and salting of meat might wait, and

all the by-products might be wasted—but fresh meats must be had, or the

restaurants and hotels and brownstone houses would feel the pinch, and

then “public opinion” would take a startling turn.

An opportunity such as this would not come twice to a man; and Jurgis

seized it. Yes, he knew the work, the whole of it, and he could teach

it to others. But if he took the job and gave satisfaction he would

expect to keep it—they would not turn him off at the end of the strike?

To which the superintendent replied that he might safely trust Durham’s

for that—they proposed to teach these unions a lesson, and most of all

those foremen who had gone back on them. Jurgis would receive five

dollars a day during the strike, and twenty-five a week after it was

settled.

So our friend got a pair of “slaughter pen” boots and “jeans,” and

flung himself at his task. It was a weird sight, there on the killing

beds—a throng of stupid black Negroes, and foreigners who could not

understand a word that was said to them, mixed with pale-faced,

hollow-chested bookkeepers and clerks, half-fainting for the tropical

heat and the sickening stench of fresh blood—and all struggling to

dress a dozen or two cattle in the same place where, twenty-four hours

ago, the old killing gang had been speeding, with their marvelous

precision, turning out four hundred carcasses every hour!

The Negroes and the “toughs” from the Lêvée did not want to work, and

every few minutes some of them would feel obliged to retire and

recuperate. In a couple of days Durham and Company had electric fans up

to cool off the rooms for them, and even couches for them to rest on;

and meantime they could go out and find a shady corner and take a

“snooze,” and as there was no place for any one in particular, and no

system, it might be hours before their boss discovered them. As for the

poor office employees, they did their best, moved to it by terror;

thirty of them had been “fired” in a bunch that first morning for

refusing to serve, besides a number of women clerks and typewriters who

had declined to act as waitresses.

It was such a force as this that Jurgis had to organize. He did his

best, flying here and there, placing them in rows and showing them the

tricks; he had never given an order in his life before, but he had

taken enough of them to know, and he soon fell into the spirit of it,

and roared and stormed like any old stager. He had not the most

tractable pupils, however. “See hyar, boss,” a big black “buck” would

begin, “ef you doan’ like de way Ah does dis job, you kin get somebody

else to do it.” Then a crowd would gather and listen, muttering

threats. After the first meal nearly all the steel knives had been

missing, and now every Negro had one, ground to a fine point, hidden in

his boots.

There was no bringing order out of such a chaos, Jurgis soon

discovered; and he fell in with the spirit of the thing—there was no

reason why he should wear himself out with shouting. If hides and guts

were slashed and rendered useless there was no way of tracing it to any

one; and if a man lay off and forgot to come back there was nothing to

be gained by seeking him, for all the rest would quit in the meantime.

Everything went, during the strike, and the packers paid. Before long

Jurgis found that the custom of resting had suggested to some alert

minds the possibility of registering at more than one place and earning

more than one five dollars a day. When he caught a man at this he

“fired” him, but it chanced to be in a quiet corner, and the man

tendered him a ten-dollar bill and a wink, and he took them. Of course,

before long this custom spread, and Jurgis was soon making quite a good

income from it.

In the face of handicaps such as these the packers counted themselves

lucky if they could kill off the cattle that had been crippled in

transit and the hogs that had developed disease. Frequently, in the

course of a two or three days’ trip, in hot weather and without water,

some hog would develop cholera, and die; and the rest would attack him

before he had ceased kicking, and when the car was opened there would

be nothing of him left but the bones. If all the hogs in this carload

were not killed at once, they would soon be down with the dread

disease, and there would be nothing to do but make them into lard. It

was the same with cattle that were gored and dying, or were limping

with broken bones stuck through their flesh—they must be killed, even

if brokers and buyers and superintendents had to take off their coats

and help drive and cut and skin them. And meantime, agents of the

packers were gathering gangs of Negroes in the country districts of the

far South, promising them five dollars a day and board, and being

careful not to mention there was a strike; already carloads of them

were on the way, with special rates from the railroads, and all traffic

ordered out of the way. Many towns and cities were taking advantage of

the chance to clear out their jails and workhouses—in Detroit the

magistrates would release every man who agreed to leave town within

twenty-four hours, and agents of the packers were in the courtrooms to

ship them right. And meantime trainloads of supplies were coming in for

their accommodation, including beer and whisky, so that they might not

be tempted to go outside. They hired thirty young girls in Cincinnati

to “pack fruit,” and when they arrived put them at work canning corned

beef, and put cots for them to sleep in a public hallway, through which

the men passed. As the gangs came in day and night, under the escort of

squads of police, they stowed away in unused workrooms and storerooms,

and in the car sheds, crowded so closely together that the cots

touched. In some places they would use the same room for eating and

sleeping, and at night the men would put their cots upon the tables, to

keep away from the swarms of rats.

But with all their best efforts, the packers were demoralized. Ninety

per cent of the men had walked out; and they faced the task of

completely remaking their labor force—and with the price of meat up

thirty per cent, and the public clamoring for a settlement. They made

an offer to submit the whole question at issue to arbitration; and at

the end of ten days the unions accepted it, and the strike was called

off. It was agreed that all the men were to be re-employed within

forty-five days, and that there was to be “no discrimination against

union men.”

This was an anxious time for Jurgis. If the men were taken back

“without discrimination,” he would lose his present place. He sought

out the superintendent, who smiled grimly and bade him “wait and see.”

Durham’s strikebreakers were few of them leaving.

Whether or not the “settlement” was simply a trick of the packers to

gain time, or whether they really expected to break the strike and

cripple the unions by the plan, cannot be said; but that night there

went out from the office of Durham and Company a telegram to all the

big packing centers, “Employ no union leaders.” And in the morning,

when the twenty thousand men thronged into the yards, with their dinner

pails and working clothes, Jurgis stood near the door of the

hog-trimming room, where he had worked before the strike, and saw a

throng of eager men, with a score or two of policemen watching them;

and he saw a superintendent come out and walk down the line, and pick

out man after man that pleased him; and one after another came, and

there were some men up near the head of the line who were never

picked—they being the union stewards and delegates, and the men Jurgis

had heard making speeches at the meetings. Each time, of course, there

were louder murmurings and angrier looks. Over where the cattle

butchers were waiting, Jurgis heard shouts and saw a crowd, and he

hurried there. One big butcher, who was president of the Packing Trades

Council, had been passed over five times, and the men were wild with

rage; they had appointed a committee of three to go in and see the

superintendent, and the committee had made three attempts, and each

time the police had clubbed them back from the door. Then there were

yells and hoots, continuing until at last the superintendent came to

the door. “We all go back or none of us do!” cried a hundred voices.

And the other shook his fist at them, and shouted, “You went out of

here like cattle, and like cattle you’ll come back!”

Then suddenly the big butcher president leaped upon a pile of stones

and yelled: “It’s off, boys. We’ll all of us quit again!” And so the

cattle butchers declared a new strike on the spot; and gathering their

members from the other plants, where the same trick had been played,

they marched down Packers’ Avenue, which was thronged with a dense mass

of workers, cheering wildly. Men who had already got to work on the

killing beds dropped their tools and joined them; some galloped here

and there on horseback, shouting the tidings, and within half an hour

the whole of Packingtown was on strike again, and beside itself with

fury.

There was quite a different tone in Packingtown after this—the place

was a seething caldron of passion, and the “scab” who ventured into it

fared badly. There were one or two of these incidents each day, the

newspapers detailing them, and always blaming them upon the unions. Yet

ten years before, when there were no unions in Packingtown, there was a

strike, and national troops had to be called, and there were pitched

battles fought at night, by the light of blazing freight trains.

Packingtown was always a center of violence; in “Whisky Point,” where

there were a hundred saloons and one glue factory, there was always

fighting, and always more of it in hot weather. Any one who had taken

the trouble to consult the station house blotter would have found that

there was less violence that summer than ever before—and this while

twenty thousand men were out of work, and with nothing to do all day

but brood upon bitter wrongs. There was no one to picture the battle

the union leaders were fighting—to hold this huge army in rank, to keep

it from straggling and pillaging, to cheer and encourage and guide a

hundred thousand people, of a dozen different tongues, through six long

weeks of hunger and disappointment and despair.

Meantime the packers had set themselves definitely to the task of

making a new labor force. A thousand or two of strikebreakers were

brought in every night, and distributed among the various plants. Some

of them were experienced workers,—butchers, salesmen, and managers from

the packers’ branch stores, and a few union men who had deserted from

other cities; but the vast majority were “green” Negroes from the

cotton districts of the far South, and they were herded into the

packing plants like sheep. There was a law forbidding the use of

buildings as lodginghouses unless they were licensed for the purpose,

and provided with proper windows, stairways, and fire escapes; but

here, in a “paint room,” reached only by an enclosed “chute,” a room

without a single window and only one door, a hundred men were crowded

upon mattresses on the floor. Up on the third story of the “hog house”

of Jones’s was a storeroom, without a window, into which they crowded

seven hundred men, sleeping upon the bare springs of cots, and with a

second shift to use them by day. And when the clamor of the public led

to an investigation into these conditions, and the mayor of the city

was forced to order the enforcement of the law, the packers got a judge

to issue an injunction forbidding him to do it!

Just at this time the mayor was boasting that he had put an end to

gambling and prize fighting in the city; but here a swarm of

professional gamblers had leagued themselves with the police to fleece

the strikebreakers; and any night, in the big open space in front of

Brown’s, one might see brawny Negroes stripped to the waist and

pounding each other for money, while a howling throng of three or four

thousand surged about, men and women, young white girls from the

country rubbing elbows with big buck Negroes with daggers in their

boots, while rows of woolly heads peered down from every window of the

surrounding factories. The ancestors of these black people had been

savages in Africa; and since then they had been chattel slaves, or had

been held down by a community ruled by the traditions of slavery. Now

for the first time they were free—free to gratify every passion, free

to wreck themselves. They were wanted to break a strike, and when it

was broken they would be shipped away, and their present masters would

never see them again; and so whisky and women were brought in by the

carload and sold to them, and hell was let loose in the yards. Every

night there were stabbings and shootings; it was said that the packers

had blank permits, which enabled them to ship dead bodies from the city

without troubling the authorities. They lodged men and women on the

same floor; and with the night there began a saturnalia of

debauchery—scenes such as never before had been witnessed in America.

And as the women were the dregs from the brothels of Chicago, and the

men were for the most part ignorant country Negroes, the nameless

diseases of vice were soon rife; and this where food was being handled

which was sent out to every corner of the civilized world.

The “Union Stockyards” were never a pleasant place; but now they were

not only a collection of slaughterhouses, but also the camping place of

an army of fifteen or twenty thousand human beasts. All day long the

blazing midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations:

upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors

stank and steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn

railroad tracks, and huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose

labyrinthine passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them;

and there were not merely rivers of hot blood, and car-loads of moist

flesh, and rendering vats and soap caldrons, glue factories and

fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the craters of hell—there were also

tons of garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the

workers hung out to dry, and dining rooms littered with food and black

with flies, and toilet rooms that were open sewers.

And then at night, when this throng poured out into the streets to

play—fighting, gambling, drinking and carousing, cursing and screaming,

laughing and singing, playing banjoes and dancing! They were worked in

the yards all the seven days of the week, and they had their prize

fights and crap games on Sunday nights as well; but then around the

corner one might see a bonfire blazing, and an old, gray-headed

Negress, lean and witchlike, her hair flying wild and her eyes blazing,

yelling and chanting of the fires of perdition and the blood of the

“Lamb,” while men and women lay down upon the ground and moaned and

screamed in convulsions of terror and remorse.

Such were the stockyards during the strike; while the unions watched in

sullen despair, and the country clamored like a greedy child for its

food, and the packers went grimly on their way. Each day they added new

workers, and could be more stern with the old ones—could put them on

piecework, and dismiss them if they did not keep up the pace. Jurgis

was now one of their agents in this process; and he could feel the

change day by day, like the slow starting up of a huge machine. He had

gotten used to being a master of men; and because of the stifling heat

and the stench, and the fact that he was a “scab” and knew it and

despised himself. He was drinking, and developing a villainous temper,

and he stormed and cursed and raged at his men, and drove them until

they were ready to drop with exhaustion.

Then one day late in August, a superintendent ran into the place and

shouted to Jurgis and his gang to drop their work and come. They

followed him outside, to where, in the midst of a dense throng, they

saw several two-horse trucks waiting, and three patrol-wagon loads of

police. Jurgis and his men sprang upon one of the trucks, and the

driver yelled to the crowd, and they went thundering away at a gallop.

Some steers had just escaped from the yards, and the strikers had got

hold of them, and there would be the chance of a scrap!

They went out at the Ashland Avenue gate, and over in the direction of

the “dump.” There was a yell as soon as they were sighted, men and

women rushing out of houses and saloons as they galloped by. There were

eight or ten policemen on the truck, however, and there was no

disturbance until they came to a place where the street was blocked

with a dense throng. Those on the flying truck yelled a warning and the

crowd scattered pell-mell, disclosing one of the steers lying in its

blood. There were a good many cattle butchers about just then, with

nothing much to do, and hungry children at home; and so some one had

knocked out the steer—and as a first-class man can kill and dress one

in a couple of minutes, there were a good many steaks and roasts

already missing. This called for punishment, of course; and the police

proceeded to administer it by leaping from the truck and cracking at

every head they saw. There were yells of rage and pain, and the

terrified people fled into houses and stores, or scattered

helter-skelter down the street. Jurgis and his gang joined in the

sport, every man singling out his victim, and striving to bring him to

bay and punch him. If he fled into a house his pursuer would smash in

the flimsy door and follow him up the stairs, hitting every one who

came within reach, and finally dragging his squealing quarry from under

a bed or a pile of old clothes in a closet.

Jurgis and two policemen chased some men into a bar-room. One of them

took shelter behind the bar, where a policeman cornered him and

proceeded to whack him over the back and shoulders, until he lay down

and gave a chance at his head. The others leaped a fence in the rear,

balking the second policeman, who was fat; and as he came back, furious

and cursing, a big Polish woman, the owner of the saloon, rushed in

screaming, and received a poke in the stomach that doubled her up on

the floor. Meantime Jurgis, who was of a practical temper, was helping

himself at the bar; and the first policeman, who had laid out his man,

joined him, handing out several more bottles, and filling his pockets

besides, and then, as he started to leave, cleaning off all the balance

with a sweep of his club. The din of the glass crashing to the floor

brought the fat Polish woman to her feet again, but another policeman

came up behind her and put his knee into her back and his hands over

her eyes—and then called to his companion, who went back and broke open

the cash drawer and filled his pockets with the contents. Then the

three went outside, and the man who was holding the woman gave her a

shove and dashed out himself. The gang having already got the carcass

on to the truck, the party set out at a trot, followed by screams and

curses, and a shower of bricks and stones from unseen enemies. These

bricks and stones would figure in the accounts of the “riot” which

would be sent out to a few thousand newspapers within an hour or two;

but the episode of the cash drawer would never be mentioned again, save

only in the heartbreaking legends of Packingtown.

It was late in the afternoon when they got back, and they dressed out

the remainder of the steer, and a couple of others that had been

killed, and then knocked off for the day. Jurgis went downtown to

supper, with three friends who had been on the other trucks, and they

exchanged reminiscences on the way. Afterward they drifted into a

roulette parlor, and Jurgis, who was never lucky at gambling, dropped

about fifteen dollars. To console himself he had to drink a good deal,

and he went back to Packingtown about two o’clock in the morning, very

much the worse for his excursion, and, it must be confessed, entirely

deserving the calamity that was in store for him.

As he was going to the place where he slept, he met a painted-cheeked

woman in a greasy “kimono,” and she put her arm about his waist to

steady him; they turned into a dark room they were passing—but scarcely

had they taken two steps before suddenly a door swung open, and a man

entered, carrying a lantern. “Who’s there?” he called sharply. And

Jurgis started to mutter some reply; but at the same instant the man

raised his light, which flashed in his face, so that it was possible to

recognize him. Jurgis stood stricken dumb, and his heart gave a leap

like a mad thing. The man was Connor!

Connor, the boss of the loading gang! The man who had seduced his

wife—who had sent him to prison, and wrecked his home, ruined his life!

He stood there, staring, with the light shining full upon him.

Jurgis had often thought of Connor since coming back to Packingtown,

but it had been as of something far off, that no longer concerned him.

Now, however, when he saw him, alive and in the flesh, the same thing

happened to him that had happened before—a flood of rage boiled up in

him, a blind frenzy seized him. And he flung himself at the man, and

smote him between the eyes—and then, as he fell, seized him by the

throat and began to pound his head upon the stones.

The woman began screaming, and people came rushing in. The lantern had

been upset and extinguished, and it was so dark they could not see a

thing; but they could hear Jurgis panting, and hear the thumping of his

victim’s skull, and they rushed there and tried to pull him off.

Precisely as before, Jurgis came away with a piece of his enemy’s flesh

between his teeth; and, as before, he went on fighting with those who

had interfered with him, until a policeman had come and beaten him into

insensibility.

And so Jurgis spent the balance of the night in the stockyards station

house. This time, however, he had money in his pocket, and when he came

to his senses he could get something to drink, and also a messenger to

take word of his plight to “Bush” Harper. Harper did not appear,

however, until after the prisoner, feeling very weak and ill, had been

hailed into court and remanded at five hundred dollars’ bail to await

the result of his victim’s injuries. Jurgis was wild about this,

because a different magistrate had chanced to be on the bench, and he

had stated that he had never been arrested before, and also that he had

been attacked first—and if only someone had been there to speak a good

word for him, he could have been let off at once.

But Harper explained that he had been downtown, and had not got the

message. “What’s happened to you?” he asked.

“I’ve been doing a fellow up,” said Jurgis, “and I’ve got to get five

hundred dollars’ bail.”

“I can arrange that all right,” said the other—“though it may cost you

a few dollars, of course. But what was the trouble?”

“It was a man that did me a mean trick once,” answered Jurgis.

“Who is he?”

“He’s a foreman in Brown’s or used to be. His name’s Connor.”

And the other gave a start. “Connor!” he cried. “Not Phil Connor!”

“Yes,” said Jurgis, “that’s the fellow. Why?”

“Good God!” exclaimed the other, “then you’re in for it, old man! _I_

can’t help you!”

“Not help me! Why not?”

“Why, he’s one of Scully’s biggest men—he’s a member of the War-Whoop

League, and they talked of sending him to the legislature! Phil Connor!

Great heavens!”

Jurgis sat dumb with dismay.

“Why, he can send you to Joliet, if he wants to!” declared the other.

“Can’t I have Scully get me off before he finds out about it?” asked

Jurgis, at length.

“But Scully’s out of town,” the other answered. “I don’t even know

where he is—he’s run away to dodge the strike.”

That was a pretty mess, indeed. Poor Jurgis sat half-dazed. His pull

had run up against a bigger pull, and he was down and out! “But what am

I going to do?” he asked, weakly.

“How should I know?” said the other. “I shouldn’t even dare to get bail

for you—why, I might ruin myself for life!”

Again there was silence. “Can’t you do it for me,” Jurgis asked, “and

pretend that you didn’t know who I’d hit?”

“But what good would that do you when you came to stand trial?” asked

Harper. Then he sat buried in thought for a minute or two. “There’s

nothing—unless it’s this,” he said. “I could have your bail reduced;

and then if you had the money you could pay it and skip.”

“How much will it be?” Jurgis asked, after he had had this explained

“Tell me the truth, now!” commanded the other, sternly.