chapter 26 after the elections jurgis stayed on inpackingtown and kept his job. the agitation to break up the policeprotection of criminals was continuing, and it seemed to him best to "lay low" for thepresent. he had nearly three hundred dollars in thebank, and might have considered himself entitled to a vacation; but he had an easyjob, 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, andlearned that elzbieta and her family had gone downtown, and so he gave no furtherthought to them. he went with a new set, now, youngunmarried fellows who were "sporty." jurgis had long ago cast off his fertilizerclothing, and since going into politics he had donned a linen collar and a greasy rednecktie. he had some reason for thinking of hisdress, for he was making about eleven dollars a week, and two-thirds of it hemight spend upon his pleasures without ever touching his savings. sometimes he would ride down-town with aparty of friends to the cheap theaters and
the music halls and other haunts with whichthey were familiar. many of the saloons in packingtown had pooltables, and some of them bowling alleys, by means of which he could spend his eveningsin petty gambling. also, there were cards and dice. one time jurgis got into a game on asaturday night and won prodigiously, and because he was a man of spirit he stayed inwith the rest and the game continued until late sunday afternoon, and by that time hewas "out" over twenty dollars. on saturday nights, also, a number of ballswere generally given in packingtown; each man would bring his "girl" with him, payinghalf a dollar for a ticket, and several
dollars additional for drinks in the course of the festivities, which continued untilthree or four o'clock in the morning, unless broken up by fighting. during all this time the same man and womanwould 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 packersand 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 ofthe skilled men only; and of the members of the meat workers' union about two-thirdswere unskilled men. in chicago these latter were receiving, forthe most part, eighteen and a half cents an hour, and the unions wished to make thisthe general wage for the next year. it was not nearly so large a wage as itseemed--in the course of the negotiations the union officers examined time checks tothe amount of ten thousand dollars, and they found that the highest wages paid had been fourteen dollars a week, and thelowest two dollars and five cents, and the average of the whole, six dollars andsixty-five cents.
and six dollars and sixty-five cents washardly too much for a man to keep a family on, considering the fact that the price ofdressed meat had increased nearly fifty per cent in the last five years, while the price of "beef on the hoof" had decreasedas much, it would have seemed that the packers ought to be able to pay it; but thepackers were unwilling to pay it--they rejected the union demand, and to show what their purpose was, a week or two after theagreement expired they put down the wages of about a thousand men to sixteen and ahalf cents, and it was said that old man jones had vowed he would put them tofifteen before he got through.
there were a million and a half of men inthe country looking for work, a hundred thousand of them right in chicago; and werethe packers to let the union stewards march into their places and bind them to a contract that would lose them severalthousand dollars a day for a year? not much! all this was in june; and before long thequestion was submitted to a referendum in the unions, and the decision was for astrike. it was the same in all the packing housecities; and suddenly the newspapers and public woke up to face the gruesomespectacle of a meat famine.
all sorts of pleas for a reconsiderationwere 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 andcots. so the men boiled over, and one nighttelegrams went out from the union headquarters to all the big packingcenters--to st. paul, south omaha, sioux city, st. joseph, kansas city, east st. louis, and new york--and the next day atnoon between fifty and sixty thousand men drew off their working clothes and marchedout of the factories, and the great "beef strike" was on.
jurgis went to his dinner, and afterward hewalked over to see mike scully, who lived in a fine house, upon a street which hadbeen decently paved and lighted for his especial benefit. scully had gone into semi-retirement, andlooked nervous and worried. "what do you want?" he demanded, when hesaw jurgis. "i came to see if maybe you could get me aplace during the strike," the other replied.and scully knit his brows and eyed him narrowly. in that morning's papers jurgis had read afierce denunciation of the packers by
scully, who had declared that if they didnot treat their people better the city authorities would end the matter by tearingdown their plants. now, therefore, jurgis was not a littletaken aback when the other demanded suddenly, "see here, rudkus, why don't youstick 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 heshould go out with his union. "the packers need good men, and need thembad," continued the other, "and they'll
treat a man right that stands by them. why don't you take your chance and fixyourself?" "but," said jurgis, "how could i ever be ofany 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 electrepublicans? my brewer has found out already how weserved him, and there is the deuce to pay." jurgis looked dumfounded.
he had never thought of that aspect of itbefore. "i could be a democrat," he said. "yes," responded the other, "but not rightaway; 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--inever yet went back on a friend.
but is it fair to leave the job i got youand come to me for another? i have had a hundred fellows after metoday, and what can i do? i've put seventeen men on the city payrollto clean streets this one week, and do you think i can keep that up forever? it wouldn't do for me to tell other menwhat i tell you, but you've been on the inside, and you ought to have sense enoughto 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 beover in a few days, and the men will be
beaten; and meantime what you can get outof 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 invarious stages of preparation, and the foreman was directing the feeble efforts ofa score or two of clerks and stenographers and office boys to finish up the job andget them into the chilling rooms. jurgis went straight up to him andannounced, "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 morewages." "yes," replied the other, "of course.what do you want?" jurgis had debated on the way. his nerve almost failed him now, but heclenched his hands. "i think i ought to have' three dollars aday," he said. "all right," said the other, promptly; andbefore the day was out our friend
discovered that the clerks andstenographers and office boys were getting five dollars a day, and then he could havekicked himself! so jurgis became one of the new "americanheroes," a man whose virtues merited comparison with those of the martyrs oflexington and valley forge. the resemblance was not complete, ofcourse, for jurgis was generously paid and comfortably clad, and was provided with aspring cot and a mattress and three substantial meals a day; also he was perfectly at ease, and safe from all perilof life and limb, save only in the case that a desire for beer should lead him toventure outside of the stockyards gates.
and even in the exercise of this privilegehe was not left unprotected; a good part of the inadequate police force of chicago wassuddenly diverted from its work of hunting criminals, and rushed out to serve him. the police, and the strikers also, weredetermined that there should be no violence; but there was another partyinterested which was minded to the contrary--and that was the press. on the first day of his life as astrikebreaker jurgis quit work early, and in a spirit of bravado he challenged threemen of his acquaintance to go outside and get a drink.
they accepted, and went through the bighalsted street gate, where several policemen were watching, and also someunion pickets, scanning sharply those who passed in and out. jurgis and his companions went south onhalsted street; past the hotel, and then suddenly half a dozen men started acrossthe street toward them and proceeded to argue with them concerning the error oftheir ways. as the arguments were not taken in theproper spirit, they went on to threats; and suddenly one of them jerked off the hat ofone of the four and flung it over the fence.
the man started after it, and then, as acry of "scab!" was raised and a dozen people came running out of saloons anddoorways, a second man's heart failed him and he followed. jurgis and the fourth stayed long enough togive themselves the satisfaction of a quick exchange of blows, and then they, too, tookto their heels and fled back of the hotel and into the yards again. meantime, of course, policemen were comingon a run, and as a crowd gathered other police got excited and sent in a riot call. jurgis knew nothing of this, but went backto "packers' avenue," and in front of the
"central time station" he saw one of hiscompanions, breathless and wild with excitement, narrating to an ever growing throng how the four had been attacked andsurrounded by a howling mob, and had been nearly torn to pieces. while he stood listening, smilingcynically, several dapper young men stood by with notebooks in their hands, and itwas not more than two hours later that jurgis saw newsboys running about with armfuls of newspapers, printed in red andblack letters six inches high: violence in the yards!strikebreakers surrounded by frenzied mob!
if he had been able to buy all of thenewspapers of the united states the next morning, he might have discovered that hisbeer-hunting exploit was being perused by some two score millions of people, and had served as a text for editorials in half thestaid 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, hewas free to ride into the city, by a railroad direct from the yards, or else tospend the night in a room where cots had been laid in rows.
he chose the latter, but to his regret, forall night long gangs of strikebreakers kept arriving. as very few of the better class ofworkingmen could be got for such work, these specimens of the new american herocontained 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 theprospect of disorder than by the big wages; and they made the night hideous withsinging and carousing, and only went to sleep when the time came for them to get upto work.
in the morning before jurgis had finishedhis breakfast, "pat" murphy ordered him to one of the superintendents, who questionedhim 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, andmany who were not had gone out with the men. it was in the killing department that thepackers had been left most in the lurch, and precisely here that they could leastafford it; the smoking and canning and
salting of meat might wait, and all the by- products might be wasted--but fresh meatsmust 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 cometwice to a man; and jurgis seized it. yes, he knew the work, the whole of it, andhe could teach it to others. but if he took the job and gavesatisfaction he would expect to keep it-- they would not turn him off at the end ofthe strike? to which the superintendent replied that hemight 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 dayduring 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 killingbeds--a throng of stupid black negroes, and foreigners who could not understand a wordthat was said to them, mixed with pale- faced, hollow-chested bookkeepers and
clerks, half-fainting for the tropical heatand the sickening stench of fresh blood-- and all struggling to dress a dozen or twocattle 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 leveedid not want to work, and every few minutes some of them would feel obliged to retireand recuperate. in a couple of days durham and company hadelectric 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 inparticular, and no system, it might be hours before their boss discovered them. as for the poor office employees, they didtheir best, moved to it by terror; thirty of them had been "fired" in a bunch thatfirst morning for refusing to serve, besides a number of women clerks and typewriters who had declined to act aswaitresses. it was such a force as this that jurgis hadto 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 hislife before, but he had taken enough of them to know, and he soon fell into the spirit of it, and roared and stormed likeany old stager. he had not the most tractable pupils,however. "see hyar, boss," a big black "buck" wouldbegin, "ef you doan' like de way ah does dis job, you kin get somebody else to doit." then a crowd would gather and listen,muttering threats. after the first meal nearly all the steelknives 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 achaos, jurgis soon discovered; and he fell in with the spirit of the thing--there wasno reason why he should wear himself out with shouting. if hides and guts were slashed and rendereduseless there was no way of tracing it to any one; and if a man lay off and forgot tocome back there was nothing to be gained by seeking him, for all the rest would quit inthe meantime. everything went, during the strike, and thepackers paid. before long jurgis found that the custom ofresting had suggested to some alert minds the possibility of registering at more thanone 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 thepackers counted themselves lucky if they could kill off the cattle that had beencrippled in transit and the hogs that had developed disease. frequently, in the course of a two or threedays' trip, in hot weather and without
water, some hog would develop cholera, anddie; and the rest would attack him before he had ceased kicking, and when the car was opened there would be nothing of him leftbut the bones. if all the hogs in this carload were notkilled at once, they would soon be down with the dread disease, and there would benothing to do but make them into lard. it was the same with cattle that were goredand dying, or were limping with broken bones stuck through their flesh--they mustbe killed, even if brokers and buyers and superintendents had to take off their coatsand help drive and cut and skin them. and meantime, agents of the packers weregathering gangs of negroes in the country
districts of the far south, promising themfive 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 advantageof the chance to clear out their jails and workhouses--in detroit the magistrateswould release every man who agreed to leave town within twenty-four hours, and agents of the packers were in the courtrooms toship them right. and meantime trainloads of supplies werecoming in for their accommodation,
including beer and whisky, so that theymight not be tempted to go outside. they hired thirty young girls in cincinnatito "pack fruit," and when they arrived put them at work canning corned beef, and putcots for them to sleep in a public hallway, through which the men passed. as the gangs came in day and night, underthe 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 roomfor 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, thepackers were demoralized. ninety per cent of the men had walked out;and they faced the task of completely remaking their labor force--and with theprice of meat up thirty per cent, and the public clamoring for a settlement. they made an offer to submit the wholequestion 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 bere-employed within forty-five days, and that there was to be "no discriminationagainst union men." this was an anxious time for jurgis.
if the men were taken back "withoutdiscrimination," 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 themleaving. whether or not the "settlement" was simplya trick of the packers to gain time, or whether they really expected to break thestrike and cripple the unions by the plan, cannot be said; but that night there went out from the office of durham and company atelegram to all the big packing centers, "employ no union leaders."
and in the morning, when the twentythousand 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 outand walk down the line, and pick out man after man that pleased him; and one after another came, and there were some men upnear the head of the line who were never picked--they being the union stewards anddelegates, and the men jurgis had heard making speeches at the meetings.
each time, of course, there were loudermurmurings and angrier looks. over where the cattle butchers werewaiting, jurgis heard shouts and saw a crowd, and he hurried there. one big butcher, who was president of thepacking trades council, had been passed over five times, and the men were wild withrage; 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, continuinguntil 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, andshouted, "you went out of here like cattle, and like cattle you'll come back!" then suddenly the big butcher presidentleaped 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 newstrike on the spot; and gathering their members from the other plants, where thesame trick had been played, they marched down packers' avenue, which was thronged
with a dense mass of workers, cheeringwildly. men who had already got to work on thekilling beds dropped their tools and joined them; some galloped here and there onhorseback, shouting the tidings, and within half an hour the whole of packingtown was on strike again, and beside itself withfury. there was quite a different tone inpackingtown 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 incidentseach day, the newspapers detailing them, and always blaming them upon the unions.
yet ten years before, when there were nounions in packingtown, there was a strike, and national troops had to be called, andthere were pitched battles fought at night, by the light of blazing freight trains. packingtown was always a center ofviolence; in "whisky point," where there were a hundred saloons and one gluefactory, there was always fighting, and always more of it in hot weather. any one who had taken the trouble toconsult the station house blotter would have found that there was less violencethat summer than ever before--and this while twenty thousand men were out of work,
and with nothing to do all day but broodupon bitter wrongs. there was no one to picture the battle theunion leaders were fighting--to hold this huge army in rank, to keep it fromstraggling 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 themselvesdefinitely to the task of making a new labor force. a thousand or two of strikebreakers werebrought 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 menwho had deserted from other cities; but the vast majority were "green" negroes from the cotton districts of the far south, and theywere herded into the packing plants like sheep. there was a law forbidding the use ofbuildings as lodging-houses unless they were licensed for the purpose, and providedwith proper windows, stairways, and fire escapes; but here, in a "paint room,"
reached only by an enclosed "chute," a roomwithout a single window and only one door, a hundred men were crowded upon mattresseson the floor. up on the third story of the "hog house" ofjones'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 aninvestigation into these conditions, and the mayor of the city was forced to orderthe enforcement of the law, the packers got a judge to issue an injunction forbiddinghim to do it! just at this time the mayor was boastingthat he had put an end to gambling and
prize fighting in the city; but here aswarm of professional gamblers had leagued themselves with the police to fleece the strikebreakers; and any night, in the bigopen space in front of brown's, one might see brawny negroes stripped to the waistand pounding each other for money, while a howling throng of three or four thousand surged about, men and women, young whitegirls from the country rubbing elbows with big buck negroes with daggers in theirboots, while rows of woolly heads peered down from every window of the surroundingfactories. the ancestors of these black people hadbeen savages in africa; and since then they
had been chattel slaves, or had been helddown by a community ruled by the traditions of slavery. now for the first time they were free--freeto gratify every passion, free to wreck themselves. they were wanted to break a strike, andwhen it was broken they would be shipped away, and their present masters would neversee them again; and so whisky and women were brought in by the carload and sold tothem, and hell was let loose in the yards. every night there were stabbings andshootings; it was said that the packers had blank permits, which enabled them to shipdead bodies from the city without troubling
the authorities. they lodged men and women on the samefloor; and with the night there began a saturnalia of debauchery--scenes such asnever before had been witnessed in america. and as the women were the dregs from thebrothels of chicago, and the men were for the most part ignorant country negroes, thenameless diseases of vice were soon rife; and this where food was being handled which was sent out to every corner of thecivilized world. the "union stockyards" were never apleasant place; but now they were not only a collection of slaughterhouses, but alsothe camping place of an army of fifteen or
twenty thousand human beasts. all day long the blazing midsummer sun beatdown upon that square mile of abominations: upon tens of thousands of cattle crowdedinto pens whose wooden floors stank and steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad tracks, and hugeblocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine passages defied a breath offresh air to penetrate them; and there were not merely rivers of hot blood, and car- loads of moist flesh, and rendering vatsand soap caldrons, glue factories and fertilizer tanks, that smelt like thecraters of hell--there were also tons of
garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the workers hung out todry, and dining rooms littered with food and black with flies, and toilet rooms thatwere open sewers. and then at night, when this throng pouredout into the streets to play--fighting, gambling, drinking and carousing, cursingand screaming, laughing and singing, playing banjoes and dancing! they were worked in the yards all the sevendays of the week, and they had their prize fights and crap games on sunday nights aswell; but then around the corner one might see a bonfire blazing, and an old, gray-
headed negress, lean and witchlike, herhair flying wild and her eyes blazing, yelling and chanting of the fires ofperdition and the blood of the "lamb," while men and women lay down upon the ground and moaned and screamed inconvulsions of terror and remorse. such were the stockyards during the strike;while the unions watched in sullen despair, and the country clamored like a greedychild for its food, and the packers went grimly on their way. each day they added new workers, and couldbe more stern with the old ones--could put them on piecework, and dismiss them if theydid not keep up the pace.
jurgis was now one of their agents in thisprocess; and he could feel the change day by day, like the slow starting up of a hugemachine. he had gotten used to being a master ofmen; 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 avillainous temper, and he stormed and cursed and raged at his men, and drove themuntil they were ready to drop with exhaustion. then one day late in august, asuperintendent ran into the place and shouted to jurgis and his gang to droptheir work and come.
they followed him outside, to where, in themidst 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 thetrucks, and the driver yelled to the crowd, and they went thundering away at a gallop. some steers had just escaped from theyards, and the strikers had got hold of them, and there would be the chance of ascrap! they went out at the ashland avenue gate,and over in the direction of the "dump." there was a yell as soon as they weresighted, men and women rushing out of houses and saloons as they galloped by.
there were eight or ten policemen on thetruck, however, and there was no disturbance until they came to a placewhere the street was blocked with a dense throng. those on the flying truck yelled a warningand the crowd scattered pell-mell, disclosing one of the steers lying in itsblood. there were a good many cattle butchersabout just then, with nothing much to do, and hungry children at home; and so someone 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 manysteaks and roasts already missing.
this called for punishment, of course; andthe police proceeded to administer it by leaping from the truck and cracking atevery head they saw. there were yells of rage and pain, and theterrified people fled into houses and stores, or scattered helter-skelter downthe 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 wouldsmash in the flimsy door and follow him up the stairs, hitting every one who camewithin reach, and finally dragging his squealing quarry from under a bed or a pileof old clothes in a closet.
jurgis and two policemen chased some meninto a bar-room. one of them took shelter behind the bar,where a policeman cornered him and proceeded to whack him over the back andshoulders, 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, abig polish woman, the owner of the saloon, rushed in screaming, and received a poke in the stomach that doubled her up on thefloor. meantime jurgis, who was of a practicaltemper, was helping himself at the bar; and
the first policeman, who had laid out hisman, joined him, handing out several more bottles, and filling his pockets besides, and then, as he started to leave, cleaningoff all the balance with a sweep of his club. the din of the glass crashing to the floorbrought the fat polish woman to her feet again, but another policeman came up behindher 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 thecash drawer and filled his pockets with the contents.
then the three went outside, and the manwho was holding the woman gave her a shove and dashed out himself. the gang having already got the carcass onto the truck, the party set out at a trot, followed by screams and curses, and ashower of bricks and stones from unseen enemies. these bricks and stones would figure in theaccounts of the "riot" which would be sent out to a few thousand newspapers within anhour or two; but the episode of the cash drawer would never be mentioned again, save only in the heartbreaking legends ofpackingtown.
it was late in the afternoon when they gotback, and they dressed out the remainder of the steer, and a couple of others that hadbeen killed, and then knocked off for the day. jurgis went downtown to supper, with threefriends who had been on the other trucks, and they exchanged reminiscences on theway. afterward they drifted into a rouletteparlor, and jurgis, who was never lucky at gambling, dropped about fifteen dollars. to console himself he had to drink a gooddeal, and he went back to packingtown about two o'clock in the morning, very much theworse for his excursion, and, it must be
confessed, entirely deserving the calamitythat was in store for him. as he was going to the place where heslept, he met a painted-cheeked woman in a greasy "kimono," and she put her arm abouthis waist to steady him; they turned into a dark room they were passing--but scarcely had they taken two steps before suddenly adoor 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 thatit was possible to recognize him. jurgis stood stricken dumb, and his heartgave 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 hadsent 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 sincecoming back to packingtown, but it had been as of something far off, that no longerconcerned him. now, however, when he saw him, alive and inthe flesh, the same thing happened to him that had happened before--a flood of rageboiled up in him, a blind frenzy seized him.
and he flung himself at the man, and smotehim between the eyes--and then, as he fell, seized him by the throat and began to poundhis head upon the stones. the woman began screaming, and people camerushing in. the lantern had been upset andextinguished, and it was so dark they could not see a thing; but they could hear jurgispanting, and hear the thumping of his victim's skull, and they rushed there andtried to pull him off. precisely as before, jurgis came away witha piece of his enemy's flesh between his teeth; and, as before, he went on fightingwith those who had interfered with him, until a policeman had come and beaten himinto insensibility.
and so jurgis spent the balance of thenight in the stockyards station house. this time, however, he had money in hispocket, and when he came to his senses he could get something to drink, and also amessenger to take word of his plight to "bush" harper. harper did not appear, however, until afterthe prisoner, feeling very weak and ill, had been hailed into court and remanded atfive hundred dollars' bail to await the result of his victim's injuries. jurgis was wild about this, because adifferent magistrate had chanced to be on the bench, and he had stated that he hadnever been arrested before, and also that
he had been attacked first--and if only someone had been there to speak a good wordfor 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 theother--"though it may cost you a few dollars, of course.but what was the trouble?" "it was a man that did me a mean trickonce," 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, "thenyou'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 thelegislature! phil connor! great heavens!"jurgis sat dumb with dismay. "why, he can send you to joliet, if hewants to!" declared the other. "can't i have scully get me off before hefinds 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 runaway 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 minuteor two.
"there's nothing--unless it's this," hesaid. "i could have your bail reduced; and thenif you had the money you could pay it and skip.""how much will it be?" jurgis asked, after he had had thisexplained more in detail. "i don't know," said the other."how much do you own?" "i've got about three hundred dollars," wasthe answer. "well," was harper's reply, "i'm not sure,but i'll try and get you off for that. i'll take the risk for friendship's sake--for i'd hate to see you sent to state's prison for a year or two."
and so finally jurgis ripped out hisbankbook--which was sewed up in his trousers--and signed an order, which "bush"harper wrote, for all the money to be paid out. then the latter went and got it, andhurried to the court, and explained to the magistrate that jurgis was a decent fellowand a friend of scully's, who had been attacked by a strike-breaker. so the bail was reduced to three hundreddollars, and harper went on it himself; he did not tell this to jurgis, however--nordid he tell him that when the time for trial came it would be an easy matter for
him to avoid the forfeiting of the bail,and pocket the three hundred dollars as his reward for the risk of offending mikescully! all that he told jurgis was that he was nowfree, and that the best thing he could do was to clear out as quickly as possible;and so jurgis overwhelmed with gratitude and relief, took the dollar and fourteen cents that was left him out of all his bankaccount, and put it with the two dollars and quarter that was left from his lastnight's celebration, and boarded a streetcar and got off at the other end ofchicago. >
chapter 27 poor jurgis was now an outcast and a tramponce more. he was crippled--he was as literallycrippled as any wild animal which has lost its claws, or been torn out of its shell. he had been shorn, at one cut, of all thosemysterious weapons whereby he had been able to make a living easily and to escape theconsequences of his actions. he could no longer command a job when hewanted it; he could no longer steal with impunity--he must take his chances with thecommon herd. nay worse, he dared not mingle with theherd--he must hide himself, for he was one
marked out for destruction. his old companions would betray him, forthe sake of the influence they would gain thereby; and he would be made to suffer,not merely for the offense he had committed, but for others which would be laid at his door, just as had been done forsome poor devil on the occasion of that assault upon the "country customer" by himand duane. and also he labored under another handicapnow. he had acquired new standards of living,which were not easily to be altered. when he had been out of work before, he hadbeen content if he could sleep in a doorway
or under a truck out of the rain, and if hecould get fifteen cents a day for saloon lunches. but now he desired all sorts of otherthings, and suffered because he had to do without them. he must have a drink now and then, a drinkfor its own sake, and apart from the food that came with it. the craving for it was strong enough tomaster every other consideration--he would have it, though it were his last nickel andhe had to starve the balance of the day in consequence.
jurgis became once more a besieger offactory gates. but never since he had been in chicago hadhe stood less chance of getting a job than just then. for one thing, there was the economiccrisis, the million or two of men who had been out of work in the spring and summer,and were not yet all back, by any means. and then there was the strike, with seventythousand men and women all over the country idle for a couple of months--twentythousand in chicago, and many of them now seeking work throughout the city. it did not remedy matters that a few dayslater the strike was given up and about
half the strikers went back to work; forevery one taken on, there was a "scab" who gave up and fled. the ten or fifteen thousand "green"negroes, foreigners, and criminals were now being turned loose to shift for themselves. everywhere jurgis went he kept meetingthem, and he was in an agony of fear lest some one of them should know that he was"wanted." he would have left chicago, only by thetime he had realized his danger he was almost penniless; and it would be better togo to jail than to be caught out in the country in the winter time.
at the end of about ten days jurgis hadonly a few pennies left; and he had not yet found a job--not even a day's work atanything, not a chance to carry a satchel. once again, as when he had come out of thehospital, he was bound hand and foot, and facing the grisly phantom of starvation. raw, naked terror possessed him, amaddening passion that would never leave him, and that wore him down more quicklythan the actual want of food. he was going to die of hunger! the fiend reached out its scaly arms forhim--it touched him, its breath came into his face; and he would cry out for theawfulness of it, he would wake up in the
night, shuddering, and bathed inperspiration, and start up and flee. he would walk, begging for work, until hewas exhausted; he could not remain still-- he would wander on, gaunt and haggard,gazing about him with restless eyes. everywhere he went, from one end of thevast city to the other, there were hundreds of others like him; everywhere was thesight of plenty and the merciless hand of authority waving them away. there is one kind of prison where the manis behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is anotherkind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.
when he was down to his last quarter,jurgis learned that before the bakeshops closed at night they sold out what was leftat half price, and after that he would go and get two loaves of stale bread for a nickel, and break them up and stuff hispockets with them, munching a bit from time to time. he would not spend a penny save for this;and, after two or three days more, he even became sparing of the bread, and would stopand peer into the ash barrels as he walked along the streets, and now and then rake out a bit of something, shake it free fromdust, and count himself just so many
minutes further from the end. so for several days he had been goingabout, ravenous all the time, and growing weaker and weaker, and then one morning hehad a hideous experience, that almost broke his heart. he was passing down a street lined withwarehouses, and a boss offered him a job, and then, after he had started to work,turned him off because he was not strong enough. and he stood by and saw another man putinto his place, and then picked up his coat, and walked off, doing all that hecould to keep from breaking down and crying
like a baby. he was lost!he was doomed! there was no hope for him!but then, with a sudden rush, his fear gave place to rage. he fell to cursing.he would come back there after dark, and he would show that scoundrel whether he wasgood for anything or not! he was still muttering this when suddenly,at the corner, he came upon a green- grocery, with a tray full of cabbages infront of it. jurgis, after one swift glance about him,stooped and seized the biggest of them, and
darted round the corner with it. there was a hue and cry, and a score of menand boys started in chase of him; but he came to an alley, and then to anotherbranching off from it and leading him into another street, where he fell into a walk, and slipped his cabbage under his coat andwent off unsuspected in the crowd. when he had gotten a safe distance away hesat down and devoured half the cabbage raw, stowing the balance away in his pocketstill the next day. just about this time one of the chicagonewspapers, which made much of the "common people," opened a "free-soup kitchen" forthe benefit of the unemployed.
some people said that they did this for thesake of the advertising it gave them, and some others said that their motive was afear lest all their readers should be starved off; but whatever the reason, the soup was thick and hot, and there was abowl for every man, all night long. when jurgis heard of this, from a fellow"hobo," he vowed that he would have half a dozen bowls before morning; but, as itproved, he was lucky to get one, for there was a line of men two blocks long before the stand, and there was just as long aline when the place was finally closed up. this depot was within the danger line forjurgis--in the "levee" district, where he
was known; but he went there, all the same,for he was desperate, and beginning to think of even the bridewell as a place ofrefuge. so far the weather had been fair, and hehad slept out every night in a vacant lot; but now there fell suddenly a shadow of theadvancing winter, a chill wind from the north and a driving storm of rain. that day jurgis bought two drinks for thesake of the shelter, and at night he spent his last two pennies in a "stale-beerdive." this was a place kept by a negro, who wentout and drew off the old dregs of beer that lay in barrels set outside of the saloons;and after he had doctored it with chemicals
to make it "fizz," he sold it for two cents a can, the purchase of a can including theprivilege of sleeping the night through upon the floor, with a mass of degradedoutcasts, men and women. all these horrors afflicted jurgis all themore cruelly, because he was always contrasting them with the opportunities hehad lost. for instance, just now it was election timeagain--within five or six weeks the voters of the country would select a president;and he heard the wretches with whom he associated discussing it, and saw the streets of the city decorated with placardsand banners--and what words could describe
the pangs of grief and despair that shotthrough him? for instance, there was a night during thiscold spell. he had begged all day, for his very life,and found not a soul to heed him, until toward evening he saw an old lady gettingoff a streetcar and helped her down with her umbrellas and bundles and then told her his "hard-luck story," and after answeringall her suspicious questions satisfactorily, was taken to a restaurantand saw a quarter paid down for a meal. and so he had soup and bread, and boiledbeef and potatoes and beans, and pie and coffee, and came out with his skin stuffedtight as a football.
and then, through the rain and thedarkness, far down the street he saw red lights flaring and heard the thumping of abass drum; and his heart gave a leap, and he made for the place on the run--knowing without the asking that it meant apolitical meeting. the campaign had so far been characterizedby what the newspapers termed "apathy." for some reason the people refused to getexcited over the struggle, and it was almost impossible to get them to come tomeetings, or to make any noise when they did come. those which had been held in chicago so farhad proven most dismal failures, and
tonight, the speaker being no less apersonage than a candidate for the vice- presidency of the nation, the politicalmanagers had been trembling with anxiety. but a merciful providence had sent thisstorm of cold rain--and now all it was necessary to do was to set off a fewfireworks, and thump awhile on a drum, and all the homeless wretches from a milearound would pour in and fill the hall! and then on the morrow the newspapers wouldhave a chance to report the tremendous ovation, and to add that it had been no"silk-stocking" audience, either, proving clearly that the high tariff sentiments of the distinguished candidate were pleasingto the wage-earners of the nation.
so jurgis found himself in a large hall,elaborately decorated with flags and bunting; and after the chairman had madehis little speech, and the orator of the evening rose up, amid an uproar from the band--only fancy the emotions of jurgisupon making the discovery that the personage was none other than the famousand eloquent senator spareshanks, who had addressed the "doyle republican association" at the stockyards, and helpedto elect mike scully's tenpin setter to the chicago board of aldermen!in truth, the sight of the senator almost brought the tears into jurgis's eyes.
what agony it was to him to look back uponthose golden hours, when he, too, had a place beneath the shadow of the plum tree! when he, too, had been of the elect,through whom the country is governed--when he had had a bung in the campaign barrelfor his own! and this was another election in which therepublicans had all the money; and but for that one hideous accident he might have hada share of it, instead of being where he was! the eloquent senator was explaining thesystem of protection; an ingenious device whereby the workingman permitted themanufacturer to charge him higher prices,
in order that he might receive higher wages; thus taking his money out of hispocket with one hand, and putting a part of it back with the other. to the senator this unique arrangement hadsomehow become identified with the higher verities of the universe. it was because of it that columbia was thegem of the ocean; and all her future triumphs, her power and good repute amongthe nations, depended upon the zeal and fidelity with which each citizen held up the hands of those who were toiling tomaintain it.
the name of this heroic company was "thegrand old party"-- and here the band began to play, and jurgissat up with a violent start. singular as it may seem, jurgis was makinga desperate effort to understand what the senator was saying--to comprehend theextent of american prosperity, the enormous expansion of american commerce, and the republic's future in the pacific and insouth america, and wherever else the oppressed were groaning.the reason for it was that he wanted to keep awake. he knew that if he allowed himself to fallasleep he would begin to snore loudly; and
so he must listen--he must be interested! but he had eaten such a big dinner, and hewas so exhausted, and the hall was so warm, and his seat was so comfortable! the senator's gaunt form began to grow dimand hazy, to tower before him and dance about, with figures of exports and imports. once his neighbor gave him a savage poke inthe ribs, and he sat up with a start and tried to look innocent; but then he was atit again, and men began to stare at him with annoyance, and to call out invexation. finally one of them called a policeman, whocame and grabbed jurgis by the collar, and
jerked him to his feet, bewildered andterrified. some of the audience turned to see thecommotion, and senator spareshanks faltered in his speech; but a voice shoutedcheerily: "we're just firing a bum! go ahead, old sport!" and so the crowd roared, and the senatorsmiled genially, and went on; and in a few seconds poor jurgis found himself landedout in the rain, with a kick and a string of curses. he got into the shelter of a doorway andtook stock of himself. he was not hurt, and he was not arrested--more than he had any right to expect.
he swore at himself and his luck for awhile, and then turned his thoughts to practical matters.he had no money, and no place to sleep; he must begin begging again. he went out, hunching his shoulderstogether and shivering at the touch of the icy rain. coming down the street toward him was alady, well dressed, and protected by an umbrella; and he turned and walked besideher. "please, ma'am," he began, "could you lendme the price of a night's lodging? i'm a poor working-man--"then, suddenly, he stopped short.
by the light of a street lamp he had caughtsight of the lady's face. he knew her.it was alena jasaityte, who had been the belle of his wedding feast! alena jasaityte, who had looked sobeautiful, and danced with such a queenly air, with juozas raczius, the teamster! jurgis had only seen her once or twiceafterward, for juozas had thrown her over for another girl, and alena had gone awayfrom packingtown, no one knew where. and now he met her here! she was as much surprised as he was."jurgis rudkus!" she gasped.
"and what in the world is the matter withyou?" "i--i've had hard luck," he stammered. "i'm out of work, and i've no home and nomoney. and you, alena--are you married?""no," she answered, "i'm not married, but i've got a good place." they stood staring at each other for a fewmoments longer. finally alena spoke again. "jurgis," she said, "i'd help you if icould, upon my word i would, but it happens that i've come out without my purse, and ihonestly haven't a penny with me: i can do
something better for you, though--i cantell you how to get help. i can tell you where marija is."jurgis gave a start. "marija!" he exclaimed. "yes," said alena; "and she'll help you.she's got a place, and she's doing well; she'll be glad to see you." it was not much more than a year sincejurgis had left packingtown, feeling like one escaped from jail; and it had been frommarija and elzbieta that he was escaping. but now, at the mere mention of them, hiswhole being cried out with joy. he wanted to see them; he wanted to gohome!
they would help him--they would be kind tohim. in a flash he had thought over thesituation. he had a good excuse for running away--hisgrief at the death of his son; and also he had a good excuse for not returning--thefact that they had left packingtown. "all right," he said, "i'll go." so she gave him a number on clark street,adding, "there's no need to give you my address, because marija knows it."and jurgis set out, without further ado. he found a large brownstone house ofaristocratic appearance, and rang the basement bell.
a young colored girl came to the door,opening it about an inch, and gazing at him suspiciously."what do you want?" she demanded. "does marija berczynskas live here?" heinquired. "i dunno," said the girl."what you want wid her?" "i want to see her," said he; "she's arelative of mine." the girl hesitated a moment.then she opened the door and said, "come in." jurgis came and stood in the hall, and shecontinued: "i'll go see. what's yo' name?""tell her it's jurgis," he answered, and
the girl went upstairs. she came back at the end of a minute ortwo, and replied, "dey ain't no sich person here."jurgis's heart went down into his boots. "i was told this was where she lived!" hecried. but the girl only shook her head."de lady says dey ain't no sich person here," she said. and he stood for a moment, hesitating,helpless with dismay. then he turned to go to the door. at the same instant, however, there came aknock upon it, and the girl went to open
it. jurgis heard the shuffling of feet, andthen heard her give a cry; and the next moment she sprang back, and past him, hereyes shining white with terror, and bounded up the stairway, screaming at the top ofher lungs: "police! police!we're pinched!" jurgis stood for a second, bewildered. then, seeing blue-coated forms rushing uponhim, he sprang after the negress. her cries had been the signal for a wilduproar above; the house was full of people, and as he entered the hallway he saw themrushing hither and thither, crying and
screaming with alarm. there were men and women, the latter cladfor the most part in wrappers, the former in all stages of dishabille. at one side jurgis caught a glimpse of abig apartment with plush-covered chairs, and tables covered with trays and glasses. there were playing cards scattered all overthe floor--one of the tables had been upset, and bottles of wine were rollingabout, their contents running out upon the carpet. there was a young girl who had fainted, andtwo men who were supporting her; and there
were a dozen others crowding toward thefront door. suddenly, however, there came a series ofresounding blows upon it, causing the crowd to give back. at the same instant a stout woman, withpainted cheeks and diamonds in her ears, came running down the stairs, pantingbreathlessly: "to the rear! quick!" she led the way to a back staircase, jurgisfollowing; in the kitchen she pressed a spring, and a cupboard gave way and opened,disclosing a dark passageway. "go in!" she cried to the crowd, which nowamounted to twenty or thirty, and they
began to pass through. scarcely had the last one disappeared,however, before there were cries from in front, and then the panic-stricken throngpoured out again, exclaiming: "they're there too! we're trapped!""upstairs!" cried the woman, and there was another rush of the mob, women and mencursing and screaming and fighting to be first. one flight, two, three--and then there wasa ladder to the roof, with a crowd packed at the foot of it, and one man at the top,straining and struggling to lift the trap
door. it was not to be stirred, however, and whenthe woman shouted up to unhook it, he answered: "it's already unhooked.there's somebody sitting on it!" and a moment later came a voice fromdownstairs: "you might as well quit, you people.we mean business, this time." so the crowd subsided; and a few momentslater several policemen came up, staring here and there, and leering at theirvictims. of the latter the men were for the mostpart frightened and sheepish-looking. the women took it as a joke, as if theywere used to it--though if they had been
pale, one could not have told, for thepaint on their cheeks. one black-eyed young girl perched herselfupon the top of the balustrade, and began to kick with her slippered foot at thehelmets of the policemen, until one of them caught her by the ankle and pulled herdown. on the floor below four or five other girlssat upon trunks in the hall, making fun of the procession which filed by them. they were noisy and hilarious, and hadevidently been drinking; one of them, who wore a bright red kimono, shouted andscreamed in a voice that drowned out all the other sounds in the hall--and jurgis
took a glance at her, and then gave astart, and a cry, "marija!" she heard him, and glanced around; then sheshrank back and half sprang to her feet in amazement. "jurgis!" she gasped.for a second or two they stood staring at each other."how did you come here?" marija exclaimed. "i came to see you," he answered."when?" "just now.""but how did you know--who told you i was here?"
"alena jasaityte.i met her on the street." again there was a silence, while they gazedat each other. the rest of the crowd was watching them,and so marija got up and came closer to him."and you?" jurgis asked. "you live here?""yes," said marija, "i live here." then suddenly came a hail from below: "getyour clothes on now, girls, and come along. you'd best begin, or you'll be sorry--it'sraining outside." "br-r-r!" shivered some one, and the womengot up and entered the various doors which
lined the hallway. "come," said marija, and took jurgis intoher room, which was a tiny place about eight by six, with a cot and a chair and adressing stand and some dresses hanging behind the door. there were clothes scattered about on thefloor, and hopeless confusion everywhere-- boxes of rouge and bottles of perfume mixedwith hats and soiled dishes on the dresser, and a pair of slippers and a clock and awhisky bottle on a chair. marija had nothing on but a kimono and apair of stockings; yet she proceeded to dress before jurgis, and without eventaking the trouble to close the door.
he had by this time divined what sort of aplace he was in; and he had seen a great deal of the world since he had left home,and was not easy to shock--and yet it gave him a painful start that marija should dothis. they had always been decent people at home,and it seemed to him that the memory of old times ought to have ruled her. but then he laughed at himself for a fool.what was he, to be pretending to decency! "how long have you been living here?" heasked. "nearly a year," she answered. "why did you come?""i had to live," she said; "and i couldn't
see the children starve."he paused for a moment, watching her. "you were out of work?" he asked, finally. "i got sick," she replied, "and after thati had no money. and then stanislovas died--""stanislovas dead!" "yes," said marija, "i forgot. you didn't know about it.""how did he die?" "rats killed him," she answered.jurgis gave a gasp. "rats killed him!" "yes," said the other; she was bendingover, lacing her shoes as she spoke.
"he was working in an oil factory--at leasthe was hired by the men to get their beer. he used to carry cans on a long pole; andhe'd drink a little out of each can, and one day he drank too much, and fell asleepin a corner, and got locked up in the place all night. when they found him the rats had killed himand eaten him nearly all up." jurgis sat, frozen with horror.marija went on lacing up her shoes. there was a long silence. suddenly a big policeman came to the door."hurry up, there," he said. "as quick as i can," said marija, and shestood up and began putting on her corsets
with feverish haste. "are the rest of the people alive?" askedjurgis, finally. "yes," she said."where are they?" "they live not far from here. they're all right now.""they are working?" he inquired. "elzbieta is," said marija, "when she can.i take care of them most of the time--i'm making plenty of money now." jurgis was silent for a moment."do they know you live here--how you live?" he asked."elzbieta knows," answered marija.
"i couldn't lie to her. and maybe the children have found out bythis time. it's nothing to be ashamed of--we can'thelp it." "and tamoszius?" he asked. "does he know?"marija shrugged her shoulders. "how do i know?" she said."i haven't seen him for over a year. he got blood poisoning and lost one finger,and couldn't play the violin any more; and then he went away."marija was standing in front of the glass fastening her dress.
jurgis sat staring at her.he could hardly believe that she was the same woman he had known in the old days;she was so quiet--so hard! it struck fear to his heart to watch her. then suddenly she gave a glance at him."you look as if you had been having a rough time of it yourself," she said."i have," he answered. "i haven't a cent in my pockets, andnothing to do." "where have you been?""all over. i've been hoboing it. then i went back to the yards--just beforethe strike."
he paused for a moment, hesitating."i asked for you," he added. "i found you had gone away, no one knewwhere. perhaps you think i did you a dirty trickrunning away as i did, marija--" "no," she answered, "i don't blame you. we never have--any of us.you did your best--the job was too much for us."she paused a moment, then added: "we were too ignorant--that was the trouble. we didn't stand any chance.if i'd known what i know now we'd have won out.""you'd have come here?" said jurgis.
"yes," she answered; "but that's not what imeant. i meant you--how differently you would havebehaved--about ona." jurgis was silent; he had never thought ofthat aspect of it. "when people are starving," the othercontinued, "and they have anything with a price, they ought to sell it, i say. i guess you realize it now when it's toolate. ona could have taken care of us all, in thebeginning." marija spoke without emotion, as one whohad come to regard things from the business point of view."i--yes, i guess so," jurgis answered
hesitatingly. he did not add that he had paid threehundred dollars, and a foreman's job, for the satisfaction of knocking down "phil"connor a second time. the policeman came to the door again justthen. "come on, now," he said."lively!" "all right," said marija, reaching for herhat, which was big enough to be a drum major's, and full of ostrich feathers. she went out into the hall and jurgisfollowed, the policeman remaining to look under the bed and behind the door."what's going to come of this?"
jurgis asked, as they started down thesteps. "the raid, you mean?oh, nothing--it happens to us every now and then. the madame's having some sort of time withthe police; i don't know what it is, but maybe they'll come to terms before morning.anyhow, they won't do anything to you. they always let the men off." "maybe so," he responded, "but not me--i'mafraid i'm in for it." "how do you mean?" "i'm wanted by the police," he said,lowering his voice, though of course their
conversation was in lithuanian."they'll send me up for a year or two, i'm afraid." "hell!" said marija."that's too bad. i'll see if i can't get you off." downstairs, where the greater part of theprisoners were now massed, she sought out the stout personage with the diamondearrings, and had a few whispered words with her. the latter then approached the policesergeant who was in charge of the raid. "billy," she said, pointing to jurgis,"there's a fellow who came in to see his
sister. he'd just got in the door when you knocked.you aren't taking hoboes, are you?" the sergeant laughed as he looked atjurgis. "sorry," he said, "but the orders are everyone but the servants." so jurgis slunk in among the rest of themen, who kept dodging behind each other like sheep that have smelled a wolf. there were old men and young men, collegeboys and gray-beards old enough to be their grandfathers; some of them wore eveningdress--there was no one among them save jurgis who showed any signs of poverty.
when the roundup was completed, the doorswere opened and the party marched out. three patrol wagons were drawn up at thecurb, and the whole neighborhood had turned out to see the sport; there was muchchaffing, and a universal craning of necks. the women stared about them with defianteyes, or laughed and joked, while the men kept their heads bowed, and their hatspulled over their faces. they were crowded into the patrol wagons asif into streetcars, and then off they went amid a din of cheers. at the station house jurgis gave a polishname and was put into a cell with half a dozen others; and while these sat andtalked in whispers, he lay down in a corner
and gave himself up to his thoughts. jurgis had looked into the deepest reachesof the social pit, and grown used to the sights in them. yet when he had thought of all humanity asvile and hideous, he had somehow always excepted his own family that he had loved;and now this sudden horrible discovery-- marija a whore, and elzbieta and thechildren living off her shame! jurgis might argue with himself all hechose, that he had done worse, and was a fool for caring--but still he could not getover the shock of that sudden unveiling, he could not help being sunk in grief becauseof it.
the depths of him were troubled and shaken,memories were stirred in him that had been sleeping so long he had counted them dead. memories of the old life--his old hopes andhis old yearnings, his old dreams of decency and independence!he saw ona again, he heard her gentle voice pleading with him. he saw little antanas, whom he had meant tomake a man. he saw his trembling old father, who hadblessed them all with his wonderful love. he lived again through that day of horrorwhen he had discovered ona's shame--god, how he had suffered, what a madman he hadbeen!
how dreadful it had all seemed to him; andnow, today, he had sat and listened, and half agreed when marija told him he hadbeen a fool! yes--told him that he ought to have soldhis wife's honor and lived by it!--and then there was stanislovas and his awful fate--that brief story which marija had narrated so calmly, with such dull indifference! the poor little fellow, with hisfrostbitten fingers and his terror of the snow--his wailing voice rang in jurgis'sears, as he lay there in the darkness, until the sweat started on his forehead. now and then he would quiver with a suddenspasm of horror, at the picture of little
stanislovas shut up in the desertedbuilding and fighting for his life with the rats! all these emotions had become strangers tothe soul of jurgis; it was so long since they had troubled him that he had ceased tothink they might ever trouble him again. helpless, trapped, as he was, what good didthey do him--why should he ever have allowed them to torment him? it had been the task of his recent life tofight them down, to crush them out of him; never in his life would he have sufferedfrom them again, save that they had caught him unawares, and overwhelmed him before hecould protect himself.
he heard the old voices of his soul, he sawits old ghosts beckoning to him, stretching out their arms to him! but they were far-off and shadowy, and thegulf between them was black and bottomless; they would fade away into the mists of thepast once more. their voices would die, and never againwould he hear them--and so the last faint spark of manhood in his soul would flickerout. chapter 28 after breakfast jurgis was driven to thecourt, which was crowded with the prisoners and those who had come out of curiosity orin the hope of recognizing one of the men
and getting a case for blackmail. the men were called up first, andreprimanded in a bunch, and then dismissed; but, jurgis, to his terror, was calledseparately, as being a suspicious-looking case. it was in this very same court that he hadbeen tried, that time when his sentence had been "suspended"; it was the same judge,and the same clerk. the latter now stared at jurgis, as if hehalf thought that he knew him; but the judge had no suspicions--just then histhoughts were upon a telephone message he was expecting from a friend of the police
captain of the district, telling whatdisposition he should make of the case of "polly" simpson, as the "madame" of thehouse was known. meantime, he listened to the story of howjurgis had been looking for his sister, and advised him dryly to keep his sister in abetter place; then he let him go, and proceeded to fine each of the girls five dollars, which fines were paid in a bunchfrom a wad of bills which madame polly extracted from her stocking.jurgis waited outside and walked home with marija. the police had left the house, and alreadythere were a few visitors; by evening the
place would be running again, exactly as ifnothing had happened. meantime, marija took jurgis upstairs toher room, and they sat and talked. by daylight, jurgis was able to observethat the color on her cheeks was not the old natural one of abounding health; hercomplexion was in reality a parchment yellow, and there were black rings underher eyes. "have you been sick?" he asked."sick?" she said. "hell!" (marija had learned to scatter herconversation with as many oaths as a longshoreman or a mule driver.)"how can i ever be anything but sick, at
this life?" she fell silent for a moment, staring aheadof her gloomily. "it's morphine," she said, at last."i seem to take more of it every day." "what's that for?" he asked. "it's the way of it; i don't know why.if it isn't that, it's drink. if the girls didn't booze they couldn'tstand it any time at all. and the madame always gives them dope whenthey first come, and they learn to like it; or else they take it for headaches and suchthings, and get the habit that way. i've got it, i know; i've tried to quit,but i never will while i'm here."
"how long are you going to stay?" he asked."i don't know," she said. "always, i guess. what else could i do?""don't you save any money?" "save!" said marija."good lord, no! i get enough, i suppose, but it all goes. i get a half share, two dollars and a halffor each customer, and sometimes i make twenty-five or thirty dollars a night, andyou'd think i ought to save something out of that! but then i am charged for my room and mymeals--and such prices as you never heard
of; and then for extras, and drinks--foreverything i get, and some i don't. my laundry bill is nearly twenty dollarseach week alone--think of that! yet what can i do?i either have to stand it or quit, and it would be the same anywhere else. it's all i can do to save the fifteendollars i give elzbieta each week, so the children can go to school." marija sat brooding in silence for a while;then, seeing that jurgis was interested, she went on: "that's the way they keep thegirls--they let them run up debts, so they can't get away.
a young girl comes from abroad, and shedoesn't know a word of english, and she gets into a place like this, and when shewants to go the madame shows her that she is a couple of hundred dollars in debt, and takes all her clothes away, and threatensto have her arrested if she doesn't stay and do as she's told.so she stays, and the longer she stays, the more in debt she gets. often, too, they are girls that didn't knowwhat they were coming to, that had hired out for housework. did you notice that little french girl withthe yellow hair, that stood next to me in
the court?"jurgis answered in the affirmative. "well, she came to america about a yearago. she was a store clerk, and she hiredherself to a man to be sent here to work in a factory. there were six of them, all together, andthey were brought to a house just down the street from here, and this girl was putinto a room alone, and they gave her some dope in her food, and when she came to shefound that she had been ruined. she cried, and screamed, and tore her hair,but she had nothing but a wrapper, and couldn't get away, and they kept her halfinsensible with drugs all the time, until
she gave up. she never got outside of that place for tenmonths, and then they sent her away, because she didn't suit. i guess they'll put her out of here, too--she's getting to have crazy fits, from drinking absinthe. only one of the girls that came out withher got away, and she jumped out of a second-story window one night.there was a great fuss about that--maybe you heard of it." "i did," said jurgis, "i heard of itafterward."
(it had happened in the place where he andduane had taken refuge from their "country customer." the girl had become insane, fortunately forthe police.) "there's lots of money in it," said marija--"they get as much as forty dollars a head for girls, and they bring them from allover. there are seventeen in this place, and ninedifferent countries among them. in some places you might find even more. we have half a dozen french girls--isuppose it's because the madame speaks the language.french girls are bad, too, the worst of
all, except for the japanese. there's a place next door that's full ofjapanese women, but i wouldn't live in the same house with one of them." marija paused for a moment or two, and thenshe added: "most of the women here are pretty decent--you'd be surprised. i used to think they did it because theyliked to; but fancy a woman selling herself to every kind of man that comes, old oryoung, black or white--and doing it because she likes to!" "some of them say they do," said jurgis."i know," said she; "they say anything.
they're in, and they know they can't getout. but they didn't like it when they began--you'd find out--it's always misery! there's a little jewish girl here who usedto run errands for a milliner, and got sick and lost her place; and she was four dayson the streets without a mouthful of food, and then she went to a place just around the corner and offered herself, and theymade her give up her clothes before they would give her a bite to eat!"marija sat for a minute or two, brooding somberly. "tell me about yourself, jurgis," she said,suddenly.
"where have you been?" so he told her the long story of hisadventures since his flight from home; his life as a tramp, and his work in thefreight tunnels, and the accident; and then of jack duane, and of his political career in the stockyards, and his downfall andsubsequent failures. marija listened with sympathy; it was easyto believe the tale of his late starvation, for his face showed it all. "you found me just in the nick of time,"she said. "i'll stand by you--i'll help you till youcan get some work."
"i don't like to let you--" he began. "why not?because i'm here?" "no, not that," he said."but i went off and left you--" "nonsense!" said marija. "don't think about it.i don't blame you." "you must be hungry," she said, after aminute or two. "you stay here to lunch--i'll havesomething up in the room." she pressed a button, and a colored womancame to the door and took her order. "it's nice to have somebody to wait onyou," she observed, with a laugh, as she
lay back on the bed. as the prison breakfast had not beenliberal, jurgis had a good appetite, and they had a little feast together, talkingmeanwhile of elzbieta and the children and old times. shortly before they were through, therecame another colored girl, with the message that the "madame" wanted marija--"lithuanian mary," as they called her here. "that means you have to go," she said tojurgis. so he got up, and she gave him the newaddress of the family, a tenement over in the ghetto district.
"you go there," she said."they'll be glad to see you." but jurgis stood hesitating."i--i don't like to," he said. "honest, marija, why don't you just give mea little money and let me look for work first?""how do you need money?" was her reply. "all you want is something to eat and aplace to sleep, isn't it?" "yes," he said; "but then i don't like togo there after i left them--and while i have nothing to do, and while you--you--" "go on!" said marija, giving him a push."what are you talking?--i won't give you money," she added, as she followed him tothe door, "because you'll drink it up, and
do yourself harm. here's a quarter for you now, and go along,and they'll be so glad to have you back, you won't have time to feel ashamed.good-by!" so jurgis went out, and walked down thestreet to think it over. he decided that he would first try to getwork, and so he put in the rest of the day wandering here and there among factoriesand warehouses without success. then, when it was nearly dark, he concludedto go home, and set out; but he came to a restaurant, and went in and spent hisquarter for a meal; and when he came out he changed his mind--the night was pleasant,
and he would sleep somewhere outside, andput in the morrow hunting, and so have one more chance of a job. so he started away again, when suddenly hechanced to look about him, and found that he was walking down the same street andpast the same hall where he had listened to the political speech the night before. there was no red fire and no band now, butthere was a sign out, announcing a meeting, and a stream of people pouring in throughthe entrance. in a flash jurgis had decided that he wouldchance it once more, and sit down and rest while making up his mind what to do.there was no one taking tickets, so it must
be a free show again. he entered.there were no decorations in the hall this time; but there was quite a crowd upon theplatform, and almost every seat in the place was filled. he took one of the last, far in the rear,and straightway forgot all about his surroundings. would elzbieta think that he had come tosponge off her, or would she understand that he meant to get to work again and dohis share? would she be decent to him, or would shescold him?
if only he could get some sort of a jobbefore he went--if that last boss had only been willing to try him! --then suddenly jurgis looked up.a tremendous roar had burst from the throats of the crowd, which by this timehad packed the hall to the very doors. men and women were standing up, wavinghandkerchiefs, shouting, yelling. evidently the speaker had arrived, thoughtjurgis; what fools they were making of themselves! what were they expecting to get out of itanyhow--what had they to do with elections, with governing the country?jurgis had been behind the scenes in
politics. he went back to his thoughts, but with onefurther fact to reckon with--that he was caught here. the hall was now filled to the doors; andafter the meeting it would be too late for him to go home, so he would have to makethe best of it outside. perhaps it would be better to go home inthe morning, anyway, for the children would be at school, and he and elzbieta couldhave a quiet explanation. she always had been a reasonable person;and he really did mean to do right. he would manage to persuade her of it--andbesides, marija was willing, and marija was
furnishing the money. if elzbieta were ugly, he would tell herthat in so many words. so jurgis went on meditating; untilfinally, when he had been an hour or two in the hall, there began to prepare itself arepetition of the dismal catastrophe of the night before. speaking had been going on all the time,and the audience was clapping its hands and shouting, thrilling with excitement; andlittle by little the sounds were beginning to blur in jurgis's ears, and his thoughts were beginning to run together, and hishead to wobble and nod.
he caught himself many times, as usual, andmade desperate resolutions; but the hall was hot and close, and his long walk and isdinner were too much for him--in the end his head sank forward and he went offagain. and then again someone nudged him, and hesat up with his old terrified start! he had been snoring again, of course! and now what?he fixed his eyes ahead of him, with painful intensity, staring at the platformas if nothing else ever had interested him, or ever could interest him, all his life. he imagined the angry exclamations, thehostile glances; he imagined the policeman
striding toward him--reaching for his neck.or was he to have one more chance? were they going to let him alone this time? he sat trembling; waiting--and then suddenly came a voice in his ear, a woman's voice, gentle and sweet, "if youwould try to listen, comrade, perhaps you would be interested." jurgis was more startled by that than hewould have been by the touch of a policeman.he still kept his eyes fixed ahead, and did not stir; but his heart gave a great leap. comrade!who was it that called him "comrade"?
he waited long, long; and at last, when hewas sure that he was no longer watched, he stole a glance out of the corner of hiseyes at the woman who sat beside him. she was young and beautiful; she wore fineclothes, and was what is called a "lady." and she called him "comrade"! he turned a little, carefully, so that hecould see her better; then he began to watch her, fascinated.she had apparently forgotten all about him, and was looking toward the platform. a man was speaking there--jurgis heard hisvoice vaguely; but all his thoughts were for this woman's face.a feeling of alarm stole over him as he
stared at her. it made his flesh creep.what was the matter with her, what could be going on, to affect any one like that? she sat as one turned to stone, her handsclenched tightly in her lap, so tightly that he could see the cords standing out inher wrists. there was a look of excitement upon herface, of tense effort, as of one struggling mightily, or witnessing a struggle. there was a faint quivering of hernostrils; and now and then she would moisten her lips with feverish haste.
her bosom rose and fell as she breathed,and her excitement seemed to mount higher and higher, and then to sink away again,like a boat tossing upon ocean surges. what was it? what was the matter?it must be something that the man was saying, up there on the platform.what sort of a man was he? and what sort of thing was this, anyhow?--so all at once it occurred to jurgis to look at the speaker. it was like coming suddenly upon some wildsight of nature--a mountain forest lashed by a tempest, a ship tossed about upon astormy sea.
jurgis had an unpleasant sensation, a senseof confusion, of disorder, of wild and meaningless uproar. the man was tall and gaunt, as haggard ashis auditor himself; a thin black beard covered half of his face, and one could seeonly two black hollows where the eyes were. he was speaking rapidly, in greatexcitement; he used many gestures--he spoke he moved here and there upon the stage,reaching with his long arms as if to seize each person in his audience. his voice was deep, like an organ; it wassome time, however, before jurgis thought of the voice--he was too much occupied withhis eyes to think of what the man was
saying. but suddenly it seemed as if the speakerhad begun pointing straight at him, as if he had singled him out particularly for hisremarks; and so jurgis became suddenly aware of his voice, trembling, vibrant with emotion, with pain and longing, with aburden of things unutterable, not to be compassed by words.to hear it was to be suddenly arrested, to be gripped, transfixed. "you listen to these things," the man wassaying, "and you say, 'yes, they are true, but they have been that way always.'or you say, 'maybe it will come, but not in
my time--it will not help me.' and so you return to your daily round oftoil, you go back to be ground up for profits in the world-wide mill of economicmight! to toil long hours for another's advantage;to live in mean and squalid homes, to work in dangerous and unhealthful places; towrestle with the specters of hunger and privation, to take your chances ofaccident, disease, and death. and each day the struggle becomes fiercer,the pace more cruel; each day you have to toil a little harder, and feel the ironhand of circumstance close upon you a little tighter.
months pass, years maybe--and then you comeagain; and again i am here to plead with you, to know if want and misery have yetdone their work with you, if injustice and oppression have yet opened your eyes! i shall still be waiting--there is nothingelse that i can do. there is no wilderness where i can hidefrom these things, there is no haven where i can escape them; though i travel to theends of the earth, i find the same accursed system--i find that all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poetsand the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized andpredatory greed!
and therefore i cannot rest, i cannot besilent; therefore i cast aside comfort and happiness, health and good repute--and goout into the world and cry out the pain of my spirit! therefore i am not to be silenced bypoverty and sickness, not by hatred and obloquy, by threats and ridicule--not byprison and persecution, if they should come--not by any power that is upon the earth or above the earth, that was, or is,or ever can be created. if i fail tonight, i can only try tomorrow;knowing that the fault must be mine--that if once the vision of my soul were spokenupon earth, if once the anguish of its
defeat were uttered in human speech, it would break the stoutest barriers ofprejudice, it would shake the most sluggish soul to action! it would abash the most cynical, it wouldterrify the most selfish; and the voice of mockery would be silenced, and fraud andfalsehood would slink back into their dens, and the truth would stand forth alone! for i speak with the voice of the millionswho are voiceless! of them that are oppressed and have nocomforter! of the disinherited of life, for whom thereis no respite and no deliverance, to whom
the world is a prison, a dungeon oftorture, a tomb! with the voice of the little child whotoils tonight in a southern cotton mill, staggering with exhaustion, numb withagony, and knowing no hope but the grave! of the mother who sews by candlelight inher tenement garret, weary and weeping, smitten with the mortal hunger of herbabes! of the man who lies upon a bed of rags,wrestling in his last sickness and leaving his loved ones to perish! of the young girl who, somewhere at thismoment, is walking the streets of this horrible city, beaten and starving, andmaking her choice between the brothel and
the lake! with the voice of those, whoever andwherever they may be, who are caught beneath the wheels of the juggernaut ofgreed! with the voice of humanity, calling fordeliverance! of the everlasting soul of man, arisingfrom the dust; breaking its way out of its prison--rending the bands of oppression andignorance--groping its way to the light!" the speaker paused. there was an instant of silence, while mencaught their breaths, and then like a single sound there came a cry from athousand people.
through it all jurgis sat still, motionlessand rigid, his eyes fixed upon the speaker; he was trembling, smitten with wonder.suddenly the man raised his hands, and silence fell, and he began again. "i plead with you," he said, "whoever youmay be, provided that you care about the truth; but most of all i plead withworking-man, with those to whom the evils i portray are not mere matters of sentiment, to be dallied and toyed with, and thenperhaps put aside and forgotten--to whom they are the grim and relentless realitiesof the daily grind, the chains upon their limbs, the lash upon their backs, the ironin their souls.
to you, working-men!to you, the toilers, who have made this land, and have no voice in its councils! to you, whose lot it is to sow that othersmay reap, to labor and obey, and ask no more than the wages of a beast of burden,the food and shelter to keep you alive from day to day. it is to you that i come with my message ofsalvation, it is to you that i appeal. i know how much it is to ask of you--iknow, for i have been in your place, i have lived your life, and there is no man beforeme here tonight who knows it better. i have known what it is to be a street-waif, a bootblack, living upon a crust of
bread and sleeping in cellar stairways andunder empty wagons. i have known what it is to dare and toaspire, to dream mighty dreams and to see them perish--to see all the fair flowers ofmy spirit trampled into the mire by the wild-beast powers of my life. i know what is the price that a working-manpays for knowledge--i have paid for it with food and sleep, with agony of body andmind, with health, almost with life itself; and so, when i come to you with a story of hope and freedom, with the vision of a newearth to be created, of a new labor to be dared, i am not surprised that i find yousordid and material, sluggish and
incredulous. that i do not despair is because i knowalso the forces that are driving behind you--because i know the raging lash ofpoverty, the sting of contempt and mastership, 'the insolence of office andthe spurns.' because i feel sure that in the crowd thathas come to me tonight, no matter how many may be dull and heedless, no matter howmany may have come out of idle curiosity, or in order to ridicule--there will be some one man whom pain and suffering have madedesperate, whom some chance vision of wrong and horror has startled and shocked intoattention.
and to him my words will come like a suddenflash of lightning to one who travels in darkness--revealing the way before him, theperils and the obstacles--solving all problems, making all difficulties clear! the scales will fall from his eyes, theshackles will be torn from his limbs--he will leap up with a cry of thankfulness, hewill stride forth a free man at last! a man delivered from his self-createdslavery! a man who will never more be trapped--whomno blandishments will cajole, whom no threats will frighten; who from tonight onwill move forward, and not backward, who will study and understand, who will gird on
his sword and take his place in the army ofhis comrades and brothers. who will carry the good tidings to others,as i have carried them to him--priceless gift of liberty and light that is neithermine nor his, but is the heritage of the soul of man! working-men, working-men--comrades! openyour eyes and look about you! you have lived so long in the toil and heatthat your senses are dulled, your souls are numbed; but realize once in your lives thisworld in which you dwell--tear off the rags of its customs and conventions--behold itas it is, in all its hideous nakedness! realize it, realize it!
realize that out upon the plains ofmanchuria tonight two hostile armies are facing each other--that now, while we areseated here, a million human beings may be hurled at each other's throats, striving with the fury of maniacs to tear each otherto pieces! and this in the twentieth century, nineteenhundred years since the prince of peace was born on earth! nineteen hundred years that his words havebeen preached as divine, and here two armies of men are rending and tearing eachother like the wild beasts of the forest! philosophers have reasoned, prophets havedenounced, poets have wept and pleaded--and
still this hideous monster roams at large! we have schools and colleges, newspapersand books; we have searched the heavens and the earth, we have weighed and probed andreasoned--and all to equip men to destroy each other! we call it war, and pass it by--but do notput me off with platitudes and conventions- -come with me, come with me--realize it!see the bodies of men pierced by bullets, blown into pieces by bursting shells! hear the crunching of the bayonet, plungedinto human flesh; hear the groans and shrieks of agony, see the faces of mencrazed by pain, turned into fiends by fury
and hate! put your hand upon that piece of flesh--itis hot and quivering--just now it was a part of a man!this blood is still steaming--it was driven by a human heart! almighty god! and this goes on--it issystematic, organized, premeditated! and we know it, and read of it, and take itfor granted; our papers tell of it, and the presses are not stopped--our churches knowof it, and do not close their doors--the people behold it, and do not rise up inhorror and revolution! "or perhaps manchuria is too far away foryou--come home with me then, come here to
chicago. here in this city to-night ten thousandwomen are shut up in foul pens, and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live.and we know it, we make it a jest! and these women are made in the image ofyour mothers, they may be your sisters, your daughters; the child whom you left athome tonight, whose laughing eyes will greet you in the morning--that fate may bewaiting for her! to-night in chicago there are ten thousandmen, homeless and wretched, willing to work and begging for a chance, yet starving, andfronting in terror the awful winter cold! tonight in chicago there are a hundredthousand children wearing out their
strength and blasting their lives in theeffort to earn their bread! there are a hundred thousand mothers whoare living in misery and squalor, struggling to earn enough to feed theirlittle ones! there are a hundred thousand old people,cast off and helpless, waiting for death to take them from their torments! there are a million people, men and womenand children, who share the curse of the wage-slave; who toil every hour they canstand and see, for just enough to keep them alive; who are condemned till the end of their days to monotony and weariness, tohunger and misery, to heat and cold, to
dirt and disease, to ignorance anddrunkenness and vice! and then turn over the page with me, andgaze upon the other side of the picture. there are a thousand--ten thousand, maybe--who are the masters of these slaves, who own their toil. they do nothing to earn what they receive,they do not even have to ask for it--it comes to them of itself, their only care isto dispose of it. they live in palaces, they riot in luxuryand extravagance--such as no words can describe, as makes the imagination reel andstagger, makes the soul grow sick and faint.
they spend hundreds of dollars for a pairof shoes, a handkerchief, a garter; they spend millions for horses and automobilesand yachts, for palaces and banquets, for little shiny stones with which to decktheir bodies. their life is a contest among themselvesfor supremacy in ostentation and recklessness, in the destroying of usefuland necessary things, in the wasting of the labor and the lives of their fellow creatures, the toil and anguish of thenations, the sweat and tears and blood of the human race! it is all theirs--it comes to them; just asall the springs pour into streamlets, and
the streamlets into rivers, and the riversinto the oceans--so, automatically and inevitably, all the wealth of society comesto them. the farmer tills the soil, the miner digsin the earth, the weaver tends the loom, the mason carves the stone; the clever maninvents, the shrewd man directs, the wise man studies, the inspired man sings--and all the result, the products of the laborof brain and muscle, are gathered into one stupendous stream and poured into theirlaps! the whole of society is in their grip, thewhole labor of the world lies at their mercy--and like fierce wolves they rend anddestroy, like ravening vultures they devour
and tear! the whole power of mankind belongs to them,forever and beyond recall--do what it can, strive as it will, humanity lives for themand dies for them! they own not merely the labor of society,they have bought the governments; and everywhere they use their raped and stolenpower to intrench themselves in their privileges, to dig wider and deeper the channels through which the river of profitsflows to them!--and you, workingmen, workingmen! you have been brought up to it, you plod onlike beasts of burden, thinking only of the
day and its pain--yet is there a man amongyou who can believe that such a system will continue forever--is there a man here in this audience tonight so hardened anddebased that he dare rise up before me and say that he believes it can continueforever; that the product of the labor of society, the means of existence of the human race, will always belong to idlersand parasites, to be spent for the gratification of vanity and lust--to bespent for any purpose whatever, to be at the disposal of any individual will whatever--that somehow, somewhere, thelabor of humanity will not belong to
humanity, to be used for the purposes ofhumanity, to be controlled by the will of humanity? and if this is ever to be, how is it to be--what power is there that will bring it about? will it be the task of your masters, do youthink--will they write the charter of your liberties? will they forge you the sword of yourdeliverance, will they marshal you the army and lead it to the fray? will their wealth be spent for the purpose--will they build colleges and churches to
teach you, will they print papers to heraldyour progress, and organize political parties to guide and carry on the struggle? can you not see that the task is your task--yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute? that if ever it is carried out, it will bein the face of every obstacle that wealth and mastership can oppose--in the face ofridicule and slander, of hatred and persecution, of the bludgeon and the jail? that it will be by the power of your nakedbosoms, opposed to the rage of oppression! by the grim and bitter teaching of blindand merciless affliction!
by the painful gropings of the untutoredmind, by the feeble stammerings of the uncultured voice! by the sad and lonely hunger of the spirit;by seeking and striving and yearning, by heartache and despairing, by agony andsweat of blood! it will be by money paid for with hunger,by knowledge stolen from sleep, by thoughts communicated under the shadow of thegallows! it will be a movement beginning in the far-off past, a thing obscure and unhonored, a thing easy to ridicule, easy to despise; athing unlovely, wearing the aspect of vengeance and hate--but to you, the
working-man, the wage-slave, calling with avoice insistent, imperious--with a voice that you cannot escape, wherever upon theearth you may be! with the voice of all your wrongs, with thevoice of all your desires; with the voice of your duty and your hope--of everythingin the world that is worth while to you! the voice of the poor, demanding thatpoverty shall cease! the voice of the oppressed, pronouncing thedoom of oppression! the voice of power, wrought out ofsuffering--of resolution, crushed out of weakness--of joy and courage, born in thebottomless pit of anguish and despair! the voice of labor, despised and outraged;a mighty giant, lying prostrate--
mountainous, colossal, but blinded, bound,and ignorant of his strength. and now a dream of resistance haunts him,hope battling with fear; until suddenly he stirs, and a fetter snaps--and a thrillshoots through him, to the farthest ends of his huge body, and in a flash the dreambecomes an act! he starts, he lifts himself; and the bandsare shattered, the burdens roll off him--he rises--towering, gigantic; he springs tohis feet, he shouts in his newborn exultation--" and the speaker's voice broke suddenly,with the stress of his feelings; he stood with his arms stretched out above him, andthe power of his vision seemed to lift him
from the floor. the audience came to its feet with a yell;men waved their arms, laughing aloud in their excitement. and jurgis was with them, he was shoutingto tear his throat; shouting because he could not help it, because the stress ofhis feeling was more than he could bear. it was not merely the man's words, thetorrent of his eloquence. it was his presence, it was his voice: avoice with strange intonations that rang through the chambers of the soul like theclanging of a bell--that gripped the listener like a mighty hand about his body,
that shook him and startled him with suddenfright, with a sense of things not of earth, of mysteries never spoken before, ofpresences of awe and terror! there was an unfolding of vistas beforehim, a breaking of the ground beneath him, an upheaving, a stirring, a trembling; hefelt himself suddenly a mere man no longer- -there were powers within him undreamed of, there were demon forces contending, age-long wonders struggling to be born; and he sat oppressed with pain and joy, while atingling stole down into his finger tips, and his breath came hard and fast. the sentences of this man were to jurgislike the crashing of thunder in his soul; a
flood of emotions surged up in him--all hisold hopes and longings, his old griefs and rages and despairs. all that he had ever felt in his whole lifeseemed to come back to him at once, and with one new emotion, hardly to bedescribed. that he should have suffered suchoppressions and such horrors was bad enough; but that he should have beencrushed and beaten by them, that he should have submitted, and forgotten, and lived in peace--ah, truly that was a thing not to beput into words, a thing not to be borne by a human creature, a thing of terror andmadness!
"what," asks the prophet, "is the murder ofthem that kill the body, to the murder of them that kill the soul?" and jurgis was a man whose soul had beenmurdered, who had ceased to hope and to struggle--who had made terms withdegradation and despair; and now, suddenly, in one awful convulsion, the black andhideous fact was made plain to him! there was a falling in of all the pillarsof his soul, the sky seemed to split above him--he stood there, with his clenchedhands upraised, his eyes bloodshot, and the veins standing out purple in his face, roaring in the voice of a wild beast,frantic, incoherent, maniacal.
and when he could shout no more he stillstood there, gasping, and whispering hoarsely to himself: "by god! by god! bygod!"
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