A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [80]
“Why?”
“Because it’s a privilege.”
“Privilege! Humpf!” sneered Katie.
“Now, for instance, if you had a poodle and it died, what would you do?”
“What would I do with a poodle in the first place?”
“Can’t you make out like you have a dead poodle just for the sake of conversation?”
“All right. My poodle’s dead. Now what?”
“You go around to Headquarters and the boys will take it away for you. Suppose Francie wanted to get working papers but was too young.”
“They’d get them, I suppose.”
“Certainly.”
“Do you think that’s right to fix it so little children can work in factories?”
“Well, supposing you had a bad boy who played hooky from school and was getting to be a loafer hanging around street corners but the law wouldn’t let him work. Wouldn’t it be better if he got faked working papers?”
“In that case, yes,” conceded Katie.
“Look at all the jobs they get for voters.”
“You know how they get them, don’t you? They inspect a factory and overlook the fact that they’re violating the factory laws. Naturally, the boss pays back by letting them know when they need men and Tammany gets all the credit for finding jobs.”
“Here’s another case. A man has relatives in the old country but he can’t get them over here on account of a lot of red tape. Well, Tammany can fix that up.”
“Sure, they get them foreigners over here and see to it that they start in on their citizenship papers and then tell them they must vote the Democratic ticket or go back where they came from.”
“No matter what you say, Tammany’s good to the poor people. Say a man’s been sick and can’t pay his rent. Do you think the organization would let the landlord dispossess him? No sir. Not if he’s a Democrat.”
“I suppose the landlords are all Republicans, then,” Katie said.
“No. The system works both ways. Suppose the landlord has a bum for a tenant who gives him a punch in the nose instead of the rent. What happens? The organization dispossesses him for the landlord.”
“For what Tammany gives to the people, it takes from them double. You wait until us women vote.” Johnny’s laugh interrupted her. “You don’t believe we will? That day will come. Mark my words. We’ll put all those crooked politicians where they belong—behind iron bars.”
“If that day ever comes when women vote, you’ll go along to the polls with me—arm in arm—and vote the way I do.” He put his arm around her and gave her a quick hug.
Katie smiled up at him. Francie couldn’t help noticing that Mama was smiling sidewise, the way the lady did in the picture in the school auditorium, the one they called Mona Lisa.
Tammany owed much of its power to the fact that it got the children young and educated them in the party ways. The dumbest ward heeler was smart enough to know that time, no matter what else it did, passed, and that the school boy of today was the voter of tomorrow. They got the boys on their side and the girls, too. A woman couldn’t vote in those days but the politicians knew that the women of Brooklyn had a great influence on their men. Bring a little girl up in the party way and when she married, she’d see to it that her man voted the straight Democratic ticket. To woo the children, the Mattie Mahony Association ran an excursion for them and their parents each summer. Although Katie had nothing but contempt for the Organization, she saw no reason why they shouldn’t take advantage of the good time. When Francie heard that they were going, she was as excited as only a ten-year-old, who had never been on a boat before, could be.
Johnny refused to go and couldn’t see why Katie wanted to go.
“I’m going because I like life,” was her strange reason.
“If that racket’s life, I wouldn’t take it with coupons,” he said.
But he went anyhow. He figured the boat trip might be educational and he wanted to be on hand to educate the children. It was a hot sweltering day. The decks teemed with kids, wild with excitement, racing up and down and trying to fall