Chapter 7

He intended to cross Fourth Avenue and then push on to Third Avenue, in order to reach Tammany Hall by that route, but he was doomed to disappointment, for the human stream simply carried him down Fourth Avenue as far as Union Square, where it ceased moving for a time. Presently it got under way again, proceeding even more slowly than before, and Robertson soon found himself in the middle of the square, being suddenly pushed against the basin of the fountain upon which he climbed for the double purpose of regaining his breath and of looking around to see if it were possible to make his way through to Tammany Hall. In vain! His eyes were greeted by an interminable sea of heads and hats, which did not offer the slightest chance of his being able to slip through. The trees, the statues and the fountain in the square appeared to be buried to a height of two yards in a black flood. He looked longingly across Sixteenth Street over to Third Avenue, but nowhere could he find an opening.

He felt like a ship-wrecked mariner cast ashore on a desert island. The sullen roar of the crowd echoed against the buildings enclosing the square like the dull boom of the surf. Over on Third Avenue the yellow lights of the elevated cars crossed the dark opening of Sixteenth Street at regular intervals, and recalled to Robertson a piece of scenery at a fair, where a lighted train ran continually between the mouths of two tunnels in the mountains. He pulled out his note-book and by the light of the electric arc-lamp made a note of the observation.

Then he jumped down from the ledge where he had taken refuge and once more joined the human stream. The latter, as if animated by a common purpose, was moving downtown, and if Robertson's neighbors were properly posted, it was headed for the Chinese quarter. It was evident that they intended to vent their fury for the present on these allies of the Japanese. This longing for revenge, this elementary hatred of the yellow race kept the crowd in Union Square in motion and shoved everyone without discrimination towards Broadway and Fourth Avenue. The square resembled a huge machine, which by means of some hidden automatic power forced tens of thousands of unresisting bodies into the narrow channels. The crowd rolled on unceasingly. Here and there a hat flew off into the air, came down again, bobbed up and down once or twice, and then continued its journey somewhere else on the surface. It was fortunate that those who had become insensible from the dreadful noise and the foul, dusty air were unable to fall down; they were simply held up by the close pressure of their neighbors and were carried along until a few blocks farther on they regained consciousness. Nevertheless a few fell and disappeared in the stream without leaving a trace behind them. No pen could describe their terrible fate; they must have been relentlessly ground to pieces like stones on the rocky bed of a glacier.

Above this roaring stream of human beings there swept unceasingly, in short blasts like a tearing whirlwind, the hoarse cry of a people's passion: "Down with the yellow race! Down with the Japanese! Three cheers for the Stars and Stripes!" The passionate cry of a crowd thirsting for revenge rose again and again, as if from a giant's lungs, until the cheers and yells of "down" turned into a wild, deafening, inarticulate howl which was echoed and re-echoed a thousand times by the tall buildings on both sides of the avenue. Now and then an electric street-car, to which clung hundreds of people, towered like a stranded vessel above the waving mass of heads and hats.

Robertson decided to give up the idea of reaching Tammany Hall and to drift with the crowd to the Chinese quarter. At Astor Place a branch of the human stream carried him to the Bowery, where he found himself on the edge of the crowd and was scraped roughly along the fronts of several houses. He stood this for another block, but determined to escape at the next corner into a side street. Before he could reach it, however, he was crushed violently against the wall of a house and turned round three or four times by the advancing throng; during this maneuver his right coat-tail got caught on something and before he knew it, he had left the coat-tail behind. At last he reached the corner and clung tightly to a railing with his right hand, but the next moment he flew like a cork from a champagne-bottle into the quiet darkness of Fifth Street, bumping violently against several men who had been similarly ejected from the current and who pushed him roughly aside.

Robertson was bursting with rage, for just before he had been propelled into Fifth Street, he had caught a glimpse of the grinning face of Bob Traddles, of the _Tribune_, his worst competitor, only a few feet away. The latter showed clearly how delighted he was at this involuntary discomfiture of his rival in the mad race for the latest sensational news. Robertson attempted for a while to get back into the current, but all of his efforts proved futile. Then he tried at least to find out what the people intended to do, and in spite of the contradictory information he received, he was pretty well convinced that they were really going to make an attack on the inhabitants of the Chinese quarter. Although hopelessly separated from Tammany Hall by the countercurrent of the human stream, he at last succeeded in reaching the Eighth Street station of the Second Avenue Elevated, where he took an uptown train to Forty-second Street. Then he walked over to Third Avenue and took a downtown train, which was crowded to suffocation, as far as Grand Street, for the purpose of reaching the Chinese quarter from the uptown side. The trip had consumed fully two hours. At the crossing of Grand and Mott Streets he found the entrance to the latter barred by a line of policemen standing three deep. He showed his badge to a sergeant and received permission to pass.

The dead silence of Mott Street seemed almost uncanny after the noisy roar of the mob, the echoes of which still rang in his ears. The basements of the houses were all barricaded with shutters or boards, the doors were locked, and there was scarcely a light to be seen in the windows of the upper stories. A person paying his first visit to this busy, bustling ant-hill of yore would, if he had not been reminded by the peculiar penetrating smell of the yellow race of their proximity, scarcely have believed that he was really in the notorious Chinese quarter of New York.

The policeman who acted as Robertson's guide told him that they had known all about the movements and intentions of the mob long before it had reached the police headquarters, by way of the Bowery and Elm Street, and begun to force its way from the Bowery through some of the side streets into the Chinese quarter. Fearing that the latter would be set on fire, the chief of police had given orders to protect it from the irresponsible mob by barricading the streets with all the available members of the force. In this attempt, however, they had been only partially successful. It was out of the question for six hundred men to hold out against tens of thousands; the enormous pressure from the rear had hurled the front rows like driftwood against the thin chain of policemen, which, after a stubborn resistance, had simply been broken through at several spots.

A hand-to-hand fight had ensued and shots were soon fired on both sides, so that the police had to content themselves with an effort to check the worst excesses. Then, too, the spirit of patriotism was just as rampant in the breasts of the police as it was in the breasts of those who urged on the mob. As it was impossible to catch hold of the treacherous invaders themselves, their natural allies should at least not escape unscathed. The Chinese were of course prepared for such an attack. The howling, raging mob found barricaded doors and windows wherever they went, and even when they did succeed, after considerable labor, in breaking these down, it was usually only to find that the birds had flown, that the occupants had made their escape in time. Wherever resistance had been offered by the Chinese, the mob had gone beyond all bounds in its frenzy.

"Several hundred Chinamen must have been killed," said the policeman, "and it would be best for the papers to hush up what went on inside the houses." Robertson and his companion stopped near a lamp-post, and the former hurriedly made some shorthand notes of all the information he had received.

"Look," said the policeman, "Judge Lynch has done his work well," and he pointed with his club to a lamp-post on the other side of the street from which two dark bodies were hanging. "Simply hanged 'em," he added laconically.

As the policeman would not allow him to enter any of the houses because, as he said, it meant certain death, Robertson decided to go to the nearest telephone pay-station in order to 'phone his story to the paper. The policeman went with him as far as the police-station. By the uncertain light of the street-lamps they stumbled along the pavement, which was often almost entirely hidden by heaps of rubbish and regular mountains of refuse. They saw several more bodies suspended from lamp-posts, and the blood on the pavement before many of the mutilated houses testified eloquently to the manner in which the mob had wreaked its vengeance on the sons of the Celestial Kingdom. Ambulance officers were carrying away the wounded and dead on stretchers, and after Robertson had stayed a little while at the police-station and received information as to the number of people killed thus far, he walked in the direction of Broadway, having found the entrance to the Subway closed.

At Broadway he again came upon a chain of police, and learned that the troops had been called out and that a battalion was marching up Broadway.

Robertson plunged once more into the seething human whirlpool, but made little progress. For about fifteen minutes he stood, unable to move, near a highly excited individual, who, with a bloody handkerchief tied around his head and with wild gesticulations was reciting his experiences during the storming of a Chinese house. This was his man. A momentary lull in the roar around him gave him a chance of getting closer to him and screaming into his ear: "I'll give you two dollars if you'll step into the nearest hallway with me and tell me that story!"

The man stared at him in astonishment but when Robertson added, "It's for the _New York Daily Telegraph_," he was posted at once. They made their way with considerable difficulty to the edge of the crowd and managed to squeeze into a wide doorway full of people, whose attention, however, was not directed to the doings on Broadway, but rather to a meeting that was being held in a large rear room. Robertson managed to find an unoccupied chair in a neighboring room, which was packed to the door, and sitting astride it, proceeded to use the back of the chair as a rest for his note-book. The story turned out to be somewhat disjointed, for every time a push from the crowd sent the man flying against the hard wall, he uttered a long series of oaths.

"For Heaven's sake," said Robertson, "quit your swearing! Make a hole in the wall behind you and hustle with your story!"

"This'll mean at least a column in the _Telegraph_," mused Robertson as the story neared its end. But he was already listening with one ear to what was going on in the big room, whence the sharp, clear tones of a speaker could be heard through the suffocating tobacco fumes. Over the heads of the attentive crowd hung a few gas-lamps, the globes of which looked like large oranges. Robertson gave his Mott Street hero the promised two dollar bill and then made his way to the rear room. Standing in the doorway, he could clearly distinguish the words of the speaker, who was apparently protesting in the name of some workmen against a large manufacturer who had at noon dismissed three thousand of them.

The orator, who was standing on a table in the rear of the room, looked like a swaying shadow through the smoke, but his loud appeal completely filled the room, and the soul-stirring pictures he drew of the misery of the workmen, who had been turned out on the streets at the word of the millionaire manufacturer, caused his hearers' cheeks to burn with excitement.

"--and therefore," concluded the speaker, "we will not submit to the absolutely selfish action of Mr. Hanbury. As leader of our Union I ask you all to return to work at the factory to-morrow at the usual hour, and we will then assert our right to employment by simply continuing our work and ignoring our dismissal. Of course the simplest and most convenient thing for Mr. Hanbury is to shut down his plant and skip with his millions to the other side. But we demand that the factory be kept running, and if our wages aren't paid, we'll find means for getting them. Our country cannot fight the enemy even with a thousand millionaires. When the American people take the field to fight for the maintenance of American society and the American state, they have a right to demand that the families they are compelled to leave at home shall at least be suitably cared for. Again I say: We'll keep Mr. Hanbury's factory open."

The air shook with thunderous applause, and a firm determination lighted up hundreds of faces, wrinkled and scarred from work and worry. And who would have dared oppose these men when animated by a single thought and a common purpose? Again and again enthusiastic shouts filled the room, and the speaker was assured that not a man present would fail to be on hand the next morning.

Leaning against the door-post, Robertson made notes of this occurrence also and then looked round in a vain endeavor to find a means of escape from the suffocating atmosphere. While doing so his glance fell on the spot where only a few moments before he had observed the swaying shadow of the speaker. The latter's place had been taken by another, who was making a frantic but vain effort to secure quiet and attention. With his arms waving in the air he looked through the murky atmosphere for all the world like a quickly turning wind-mill.

Gradually the applause ceased, while everybody in the room, Robertson included, was startled by the announcement of the chairman that Mr. Hanbury was most anxious to address the assemblage. A moment of astonished silence and then Bedlam broke loose. "What, Mr. Hanbury wants to speak?" "Not the old one, the young one!" "He must be mad. What does he want here?" "Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Down with him! We don't want him here, we can manage our own affairs!" "Let him speak!" "Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Be quiet, damn you, why don't you shut up?" These and other similarly emphatic shouts reached Robertson's ears. He hunted for his last pencil in his vest-pocket, and when he looked up again, he saw through the cloud of smoke a tall, refined person standing on the table.

"We don't want to be discharged! Don't let our wives starve!" the voices began again, and it was some time before it became possible for the speaker to make himself heard.

"Is that really Mr. Hanbury?" Robertson asked one of his neighbors.

"Yes, the son."

"It seems incredible! He's taking his life in his hands."

Gerald Hanbury's first words were lost in the uproar, but gradually the crowd began to listen. He spoke only a few sentences, and these Robertson took down in shorthand:

"--The demand just made by your speaker, and supported by all present, that my father's factory should not be shut down in these turbulent times, was made by myself this very morning, the moment I heard the news of the base attack on our country. I don't want any credit for having presented the matter to my father in most vigorous fashion, and I regret to say I have accomplished nothing thus far. But the same reasons which you have just heard from the lips of Mr. Bright have guided me. I, too, should consider it a crime against the free American people, if we manufacturers were to desert them in this hour of national danger. I am not going to make a long speech; I have come here simply to tell you that I shall go straight to my father from here and offer him the whole of my fortune from which to pay you your wages so long as the war lasts, and not only those employed in the factory, but also the families of those who may enter the army to defend their homes and their country."

Such an outburst of passionate enthusiasm, such wild expressions of joy as greeted this speech Robertson had never witnessed. The crowd screamed and yelled itself hoarse, hats were thrown into the air, and pandemonium reigned supreme. Mr. Hanbury was seized by dozens of strong arms as he jumped down from the table and was carried through the room over the heads of the crowd. After he had made the rounds of the hall several times and shaken hundreds of rough hands, the group of workmen surrounding the foreman on whose shoulders young Hanbury was enthroned marched to the entrance, while the whole assembly joined in a marching song.

By pure chance Robertson found himself near this group as they came to a halt before the door, just in time to save Mr. Hanbury from having his skull smashed against the top. So they let him slide down to the ground, and then the whole crowd made a rush for the Broadway entrance. Such a jam ensued here, that another meeting was held on the spot, which, however, consisted chiefly in cheers for Mr. Hanbury.

Suddenly some one shouted: "We'll go with Mr. Hanbury to his father!" Inch by inch they moved towards Broadway, whence a terrific roar and wild shouts greeted the ears of the closely packed mass at the entrance.

Robertson was standing close to Mr. Hanbury, whose face shone with happy excitement. Just as they reached the entrance to the street, the crowd outside suddenly started to run north in mad haste.

"This is the proudest day of my life as an American citizen!" said Robertson to Hanbury. Hardly had he finished the sentence, when a crashing sound like thunder rent the air and resounded down the whole length of Broadway, as if the latter were a cañon surrounded by precipitous walls of rock.

"They're firing on the people," burst from thousands of lips in the wildest indignation.

Some one shouted: "Pull out your revolvers!" and in response red sparks flashed here and there in the crowd and the rattle of shots greeted the troops marching up Broadway. The mob seemed to be made up largely of Russians.

Just in front of Robertson and Gerald Hanbury a young woman, who had been wounded by a stray shot, lay on the pavement screaming with pain and tossing her arms wildly about.

"Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" came the loud cry once more from the entrance. At this instant a big workman, apparently drunk, and dressed only in shirt and trousers, stepped in front of the door, and swinging the spoke of a large wheel in his right hand shouted: "Where's Mr. Hanbury?" And some one shouted as in reply: "The blackguard has turned three thousand workmen out on the streets to-day so that he can go traveling with his millions." The workman yelled once more: "Where is Mr. Hanbury?" Gerald moved forward a step and, looking the questioner straight in the eye, said: "I'm Mr. Hanbury, what do you want?"

The workman glared at him with wild, bloodshot eyes and cried in a fierce rage: "That's what I want," and quick as a flash the heavy spoke descended on Hanbury's head. The terrific blow felled Gerald to the ground, and he sank without uttering a sound beside the body of the wounded woman lying at his feet.

Robertson flew at the drunken brute as he prepared for a second blow, but some of the other laborers had already torn his weapon out of his hand, and, as if in answer to this base murder, the troops discharged a fresh volley only a hundred yards away, which was again received with shots from dozens of revolvers.

Robertson felt a stinging pain in his left arm and, in a sudden access of weakness, he leaned for support against the doorway. His senses left him for a moment, and when he came to, he saw a company of soldiers passing the spot where he stood. The next instant the butt-end of a musket pushed him backwards into the doorway.

"This is madness!" he cried. "You're firing on the people."

"Because the people are murdering and plundering downtown!" answered an officer. Gradually the tumult calmed down. Another company passed by Robertson, who had sat down on the step before the door. He examined his arm and found that he was uninjured; a stone splinter must have struck his left elbow, for the violent pain soon disappeared. The mob was quickly lost to view up Broadway, while some ambulance surgeons appeared on the other side of the street. Robertson called over to them and told them Mr. Hanbury had been murdered, whereupon they crossed the street at once.

Gerald Hanbury's corpse was lifted on a stretcher.

"How terrible, they've broken in his skull," said one of the surgeons, and taking a gray shawl from the shoulders of the charwoman who was writhing with agony, he threw it over the upper part of Gerald's body.

"Where shall we take it?" asked one of the surgeons.

"To Mr. Hanbury's house, two blocks north," directed Robertson, and going up to one of the surgeons he added: "I'll take your place at the stretcher, for you can make yourself useful elsewhere."

"How about her?" asked one of the ambulance attendants, pointing to the woman on the ground.

"I'm afraid we can't do much for her," replied one of the surgeons, "she seems to be near death's door."

Then the men lifted their burden and slowly the sad procession walked up Broadway, which was now almost deserted.

A few shots could still be heard from the direction of Union Square; to the left the sky was fiery red while clouds of smoke traveled over the high buildings on Broadway, shutting out the light of the stars. Robertson looked back. The street lay dark and still. Suddenly far away in the middle of the street two glaring white lights appeared and above them flared and waved the smoky flames of the petroleum torches, while gongs and sirens announced the approach of the fire-engines. And now they thundered past, the glaring lights from the acetylene lamps in front of the fire-engines lighting up the whole pavement. Streams of light and rushing black shadows played up and down the walls of the buildings. Next came the rattling hook and ladder wagons and the hosecarts, the light from the torches dancing in red and yellow stripes on the helmets of the firemen. And then another puffing, snorting engine, with hundreds of sparks and thick smoke pouring out of its wide funnel, hiding the vehicle behind it in dark clouds. They're here one moment, and gone the next, only to make way for another hook and ladder, which sways and rattles past. The clanging of the gongs and the yells of the sirens grow fainter and fainter, and finally, through the clouds of sparks and smoke the whole weird cavalcade was seen to disappear into a side-street. Little bits of smoldering wood and pieces of red-hot coal remained lying on the street and burned with quivering, quick little flames.