The Titan [268]
vote, hey? Tell us that! How? Hey?"
A Second Citizen (a Jew). "You're a no-good, you robber. I know you for ten years now already. You cheated me when you were in the grocery business."
A Third Citizen (a Swede. In a sing-song voice). "Answer me this, Mr. Pinski. If a majority of the citizens of the Fourteenth Ward don't want you to vote for it, will you still vote for it?"
Pinski (hesitating).
The Five Hundred. "Ho! look at the scoundrel! He's afraid to say. He don't know whether he'll do what the people of this ward want him to do. Kill him! Brain him!"
A Voice from Behind. "Aw, stand up, Pinski. Don't be afraid." Pinski (terrorized as the five hundred make a rush for the stage). "If the people don't want me to do it, of course I won't do it. Why should I? Ain't I their representative?"
A Voice. "Yes, when you think you're going to get the wadding kicked out of you."
Another Voice. "You wouldn't be honest with your mother, you bastard. You couldn't be!"
Pinski. "If one-half the voters should ask me not to do it I wouldn't do it."
A Voice. "Well, we'll get the voters to ask you, all right. We'll get nine-tenths of them to sign before to-morrow night."
An Irish-American (aged twenty-six; a gas collector; coming close to Pinski). "If you don't vote right we'll hang you, and I'll be there to help pull the rope myself."
One of Pinski's Lieutenants. "Say, who is that freshie? We want to lay for him. One good kick in the right place will just about finish him."
The Gas Collector. "Not from you, you carrot-faced terrier. Come outside and see." (Business of friends interfering).
The meeting becomes disorderly. Pinski is escorted out by friends --completely surrounded--amid shrieks and hisses, cat-calls, cries of "Boodler!" "Thief!" "Robber!"
There were many such little dramatic incidents after the ordinance had been introduced.
Henceforth on the streets, in the wards and outlying sections, and even, on occasion, in the business heart, behold the marching clubs--those sinister, ephemeral organizations which on demand of the mayor had cropped out into existence--great companies of the unheralded, the dull, the undistinguished--clerks, working-men, small business men, and minor scions of religion or morality; all tramping to and fro of an evening, after working-hours, assembling in cheap halls and party club-houses, and drilling themselves to what end? That they might march to the city hall on the fateful Monday night when the street-railway ordinances should be up for passage and demand of unregenerate lawmakers that they do their duty. Cowperwood, coming down to his office one morning on his own elevated lines, was the observer of a button or badge worn upon the coat lapel of stolid, inconsequential citizens who sat reading their papers, unconscious of that presence which epitomized the terror and the power they all feared. One of these badges had for its device a gallows with a free noose suspended; another was blazoned with the query: "Are we going to be robbed?" On sign-boards, fences, and dead walls huge posters, four by six feet in dimension, were displayed.
WALDEN H. LUCAS
against the
BOODLERS =========================== Every citizen of Chicago should come down to the City Hall
TO-NIGHT MONDAY, DEC. 12 =========================== and every Monday night thereafter while the Street-car Franchises are under consideration, and see that the interests of the city are protected against
BOODLEISM ========= Citizens, Arouse and Defeat the Boodlers!
In the papers were flaring head-lines; in the clubs, halls, and churches fiery speeches could nightly be heard. Men were drunk now
A Second Citizen (a Jew). "You're a no-good, you robber. I know you for ten years now already. You cheated me when you were in the grocery business."
A Third Citizen (a Swede. In a sing-song voice). "Answer me this, Mr. Pinski. If a majority of the citizens of the Fourteenth Ward don't want you to vote for it, will you still vote for it?"
Pinski (hesitating).
The Five Hundred. "Ho! look at the scoundrel! He's afraid to say. He don't know whether he'll do what the people of this ward want him to do. Kill him! Brain him!"
A Voice from Behind. "Aw, stand up, Pinski. Don't be afraid." Pinski (terrorized as the five hundred make a rush for the stage). "If the people don't want me to do it, of course I won't do it. Why should I? Ain't I their representative?"
A Voice. "Yes, when you think you're going to get the wadding kicked out of you."
Another Voice. "You wouldn't be honest with your mother, you bastard. You couldn't be!"
Pinski. "If one-half the voters should ask me not to do it I wouldn't do it."
A Voice. "Well, we'll get the voters to ask you, all right. We'll get nine-tenths of them to sign before to-morrow night."
An Irish-American (aged twenty-six; a gas collector; coming close to Pinski). "If you don't vote right we'll hang you, and I'll be there to help pull the rope myself."
One of Pinski's Lieutenants. "Say, who is that freshie? We want to lay for him. One good kick in the right place will just about finish him."
The Gas Collector. "Not from you, you carrot-faced terrier. Come outside and see." (Business of friends interfering).
The meeting becomes disorderly. Pinski is escorted out by friends --completely surrounded--amid shrieks and hisses, cat-calls, cries of "Boodler!" "Thief!" "Robber!"
There were many such little dramatic incidents after the ordinance had been introduced.
Henceforth on the streets, in the wards and outlying sections, and even, on occasion, in the business heart, behold the marching clubs--those sinister, ephemeral organizations which on demand of the mayor had cropped out into existence--great companies of the unheralded, the dull, the undistinguished--clerks, working-men, small business men, and minor scions of religion or morality; all tramping to and fro of an evening, after working-hours, assembling in cheap halls and party club-houses, and drilling themselves to what end? That they might march to the city hall on the fateful Monday night when the street-railway ordinances should be up for passage and demand of unregenerate lawmakers that they do their duty. Cowperwood, coming down to his office one morning on his own elevated lines, was the observer of a button or badge worn upon the coat lapel of stolid, inconsequential citizens who sat reading their papers, unconscious of that presence which epitomized the terror and the power they all feared. One of these badges had for its device a gallows with a free noose suspended; another was blazoned with the query: "Are we going to be robbed?" On sign-boards, fences, and dead walls huge posters, four by six feet in dimension, were displayed.
WALDEN H. LUCAS
against the
BOODLERS =========================== Every citizen of Chicago should come down to the City Hall
TO-NIGHT MONDAY, DEC. 12 =========================== and every Monday night thereafter while the Street-car Franchises are under consideration, and see that the interests of the city are protected against
BOODLEISM ========= Citizens, Arouse and Defeat the Boodlers!
In the papers were flaring head-lines; in the clubs, halls, and churches fiery speeches could nightly be heard. Men were drunk now