CHAPTER XVI.

GALLING YOKES OF CIVILIZATION.

In one of the large wholesale houses, a junior partner, much interested in municipal affairs and whose endorsement was sought by many a candidate seeking election--for the junior partner wielded a vast interest in both the secular and Christian life--was presented to Chiquita and she spent many an hour, at convenient times, discussing the affairs of mutual interest, he seeking to establish the superiority of the ways of education and civilization, she accepting the teachings and attempting to persuade herself that he was right and that savagery was nothing more nor less than animal life in the woods.

"Mr. Dunbar," she said one day, "the red man of the forest is sometimes a gambler, and when the spirit moves him he seeks one of his kind and they spread a blanket under a tree or near the wigwam and there follow their inclination, open and above board, without fear of police interference. I am told that the young white man sometimes has a similar temptation in the big city, but that you have laws which forbid gambling. Nevertheless, because of political influence, there are booths and rooms where gambling in its civilized conditions can be found. Will you take Chiquita to a gambling den that she may see the class of men found at the tables?"

The brows of the merchant contracted, he hesitated and stammered as he attempted to reply.

"Why--er--my dear Senorita, you know I am a pillar of the church, an active member in one of the largest wholesale houses in the west, and my example to my young men, if I were to appear in a gambling room, would be horrifying. I--er--"

"Oh, never mind if it would prove such a heinous offense; but why, Mr. Dunbar, is it allowed, if respectable people can not go there without contaminating themselves? Is it possible that the people of a great city like this make laws and elect men to enforce those laws, and yet take no notice of law breakers except to protect them?"

"Senorita, it is useless to make any defense. Our officeholders are corrupt. The blush of shame rises to the face of respectable citizens when they have to acknowledge that they elect men to office simply because the candidate stands for party principles, only to make use of the office for private gain or personal spite. Of course, there are exceptions, but men do not go into political battles without expecting a reward, and that reward must be a greater inducement than the one offered in private life. But I will escort you to a gambling den and we will see for ourselves."

"You certainly are brave to attempt it, and I shall thank you so much."

At ten o'clock a carriage drove up to a corner. Mr. Dunbar and Chiquita alighted--"an English tourist and his valet." It was but a few steps to the middle of the block where a pair of green covered swinging doors, on polished brass hinges, continually but noiselessly opened and closed. The bright glare of arc lights made the street as midday. The throngs of pedestrians glanced at the green doors, and either passed by without comment, or one would say to the other, "Great game up in Doll's." "Why don't the police shut it off?" "Got a pull with the high chief now."

Mr. Dunbar and his protege found themselves in a long entry at the head of the stairs which led to a door at its farther end, where at a little window sat a fat gentleman with gray mustache.

"Walk in, right this way. No danger. Suppose you are looking for a little game. Go through the doors at the right."

The great baize covered screens opened as if by magic, revealing a large square room, carpeted with velvet and smothered with deep piled rugs. Magnificent landscapes by Bierstadt, Colby and Elkins hung from the walls, depicting the Rocky Mountains and the plains. Immense chandeliers, festooned with prisms which scintillated the colors of the rainbow, hung from the ceilings. Mahogany and rosewood sideboards glistened with cut glass decanters, tumblers and fine chinaware, while the sable attendant served dainty refreshments and thirst-assuaging liquids to those who asked for them. Leather upholstered tete-a-tetes graced corners and bay windows, while in an anteroom long racks were filled with files of newspapers and magazines. A wainscot of highly polished black walnut surrounded the room, and rich India draperies deadened the walls. At a table near the entrance were three young men playing poker, while the keeper of the game, in accents harsh, urged newcomers to "take a hand, only a quarter to draw cards." At a side table five cattlemen, just from the stock yards, were killing time in a game of draw, while on the opposite side a roulette wheel spun round and round until the little ball settled into its space and the announcement "the red wins" was greeted by clicking of chips as the croupier paid out or raked in.

But the great throng was at the far end of the room, where, around a table some seven feet long and four feet wide, were men three to five deep, craning, pushing, reaching, to place a bet or receive their chips on a winning card. The air was close and hot, just the slightest murmuring, the low indistinct utterings of questions asked and answered: "How many times has the queen been loser?" "The tray is a case," "Copper the jack for a blue chip," "Play ace to lose and king to win," "Last turn in the box, gentlemen, four for one on the call." A scruffing of feet, a sigh of relief, the tension eased up for a few moments while the dealer shuffles his cards. Some change seats, others quit the game, new ones buy chips, and again the "soda" card appears and another deal is on. The suppressed excitement is again apparent in feature and action; the flushed face of the winner and the cold sweat on the brow of the loser make no impression on the calm, self-satisfied face of dealer or lookout, each of whom wears a light slouch hat, the brim shading the eyes. Both are dressed neatly and in good taste, except for the enormous diamonds they show in shirt bosoms and on the little finger. There is no tragedy here. The sequel of the life in a city gambling den is the wife at home without food, or suffering from dyspepsia because of its plenteousness, or perhaps in the counting-room of some Board of Trade office, directors' room of a bank, or a police station, to which the embezzler is taken after the confession. The mining camp and frontier gambling dens differ in respect to lawlessness, but the atmosphere after all is about the same.

"I am ready to go, Mr. Dunbar," said Chiquita.

"While we are at it, suppose we take in one of the theater restaurants and then at midnight see the worst sink hole of iniquity on the American continent," replied Mr. Dunbar, a look of "do or die'" changing his usually kind face to that of uncompromising severity.

"I trust, Mr. Dunbar, I have not offended by asking a sacrifice of your self-respect, and--"

"No, no, do not mention it," interrupted he, quickly. "I am glad of this opportunity. To be sure it has taken a great deal of resolution on my part, not only to satisfy my consciousness of the propriety in the first place, but to feel that it is consistent with a Christian life to allow one's self on any pretext to come in contact with evil just to gratify curiosity. I am not in sympathy with the so-called slumming parties, either for the good such investigations may bring about, or for the benefit that such visitations might result in to the inmates. There are other methods by which the same end may be accomplished and not appear so drastic. I have sometimes wondered if there are really any grounds for the flings made at Chicago, and if there be any truth in the oft heard remark, 'Chicago's down town resorts have no counterpart in any other city in the world.' Of course I expect we will see a mild form of dissipation and possibly one or two who may have taken a drop too much, but as those stories go from one to another they are exaggerated until one has to make allowance for these word pictures. But here we are."

"Have a private room, sir?" asked an attendant, for they had stepped into a hallway leading to private dining rooms up stairs. "We have nice rooms for private parties. If you expect ladies you can wait for them there."

Just then a lady, unaccompanied, came through the swinging doors and darted to the elevator. In a low tone she told the attendant to show her to No. 7, where she would wait. Mr. Dunbar and Chiquita rather undecidedly followed into the elevator and were whisked up to the second floor, where they sauntered along toward an open door. Merry peals of laughter wafted over transoms and a sudden opening of one door showed a party of five seated round a table, while a sixth member, one of the fair sex, was standing on the table. Then the door shut out the scene. Mr. Dunbar gasped a little, but concluded to go back to the ground floor and have a lunch in the main restaurant. They were shown seats well back from the front of the place, in a position commanding a good view of the tables, all of which seemed crowded.

"While we are waiting for our lunch we can study the people," said Chiquita. "I guess the rooms up stairs are used by theatrical people and they give little dramas of their own."

"Yes, I should judge it to be dramatic," answered Mr. Dunbar grimly. "Do you notice at every table in the room some one is drinking, either a malt beverage or wine, and at a majority of the tables some one is smoking?" asked he of Chiquita.

"Yes, I presume they came here to forget the dark spots of a day's life and to drown sorrow in drink and music. You have not spoken of the classic strains coming from that harp and two fiddles."

Mr. Dunbar smiled audibly at the reference to music.

"Well, I don't consider this such an awful place for a wicked man, a man of the world; every one is well behaved and there is no loud noise, but these scenes lead to others still worse and the temptations offered here require a goodly sized purse and larger salaries to support this extravagance than the average man commands. But it is midnight and we must make our way to the resort in the next block."

Descending a steep stairway they found themselves at the end of a long room. The air was reeking with the fumes of smoke, stale beer and sickening perfumery. Shouts and loud guffaws mingled with shrill peals of screamy laughter. Glasses tinkled amid the disconsolate strains of a discordant piano, but above all other sounds were the harsh orders of waiters. "Draw six," "one green seal," "two martinis," "four straight whiskies," "high ball and two gin fizzes." Down the long line of tables they passed men and women who leered at each other, drinking to each other's health, both sexes smoking cigarettes, some singing, some arguing, some swearing such oaths that the visitors fain would have fled the place. At the foot of the staircase, commanding the whole place and surrounded by painted creatures in the latest wraps, sat the proprietor, a man of fifty, dark and swarthy, with black curly hair and mustache. His face was filled with lines, the accumulations of years of debauchery. Upon his hands were diamond rings, seemingly too numerous to count, a watch fob with more gems than a fashionably dressed ball attendant would wear, hung below his vest, and his shirt front was literally ablaze with "sparklers." The poor dupes about him in this whirling vortex of hell were receiving their infamous commissions for inducing men who visited the resort to purchase drinks.

"And from whence come these sisters and daughters?" asked Chiquita.

"Go to the great sales counters of some of the cheaper grade of stores and follow the life of some poor unfortunate; seek the divorce court and find a victim of misplaced affection; go to the political fountain and gaze at the high chief whose influence restrains the guardian of the public peace from interfering with these dens of vice where voters congregate to do honor to the chief. Seven thousand saloons in the city, with a following of twenty to each saloon to vote for their master who wields the baton of wide-open hell holes to the end of obtaining blood money from those who are protected! Senorita, this is the black spot on our fair Christian land. It is so to a greater or lesser degree in all cities, in all lands, where civilization endures. This bartering of and in human souls within the business districts of Chicago must come to an end. Now we will step into the police headquarters, only a block away, while I ask the desk sergeant a couple of questions."

As they started up the steps leading to the central detail headquarters a cab drove up to the curb, and a young man, whom Mr. Dunbar immediately recognized, stepped to the walk, followed by a detective in plain clothes. They lifted a good-sized sack of something from the cab and carried it past the late visitors. A clinking of silver was easily recognized and Mr. Dunbar became interested. He presumed the young man had just been arrested and naturally inquired the cause.

"Tommy, are you in trouble that you come in with an officer at this hour?" inquired Mr. Dunbar of the supposed prisoner.

Tommy stopped and walked up to the speaker. It was some seconds before he recognized Mr. Dunbar in the disguise of a tourist. When he did so he hesitated to confide the truth of the circumstances, but finally acknowledged, under promise that the informant should never be known, that the sack contained over five thousand dollars, which had been collected from the proprietors of just such dens of vice as Mr. Dunbar had just visited.

"And my business is to count it, divide it into halves and quarters and deliver the respective bundles to those who are high on the throne of police authority."

"How often are you called upon to make this collection, division and delivery?" asked Mr. Dunbar.

"Oh, once every six weeks or so."

With that Mr. Dunbar stepped up to the desk and with a bow naively asked, "Can you tell me where there is a first-class gambling hall? I am a stranger to the calling, but would like to visit one of these dens said to be run in Chicago."

"An' who be ye thot ye want a gamblin' house at this time o' night? Get out o' here, there be's not a gamblin' din in all Chicago fer the last three years thot I've been on the cintral detail, is there, Jawn?"

And Mr. Dunbar took his departure with Chiquita. In her diary Chiquita entered this: "Visited the most horrible dens of vice imaginable, the refinement of educated debauchery, literally sitting in the lap of political lechery, hurling defiance at virtue, decency and respectability."

During her hospital career Chiquita had many experiences outside of the varied occurrences in the life of a nurse, which added to rather than detracted from the perplexities of civilizing her people. These other scenes enacted in the great empire of industry swept all minor attractions away, leaving a dreadful negative photographed indelibly upon her sensitive mind, whose films reproduced with startling detail not only the foreground of drastic events, but the background reproduction of unswerving determination on the part of political demagoguery which brought ruination to millions of people and even threatened the financial fabric of the entire world; a photograph more in accord with the despotic days of fiddling Nero than those of advanced civilization under the constitution of the new republic.

While waiting for a car that would take her to the hospital, Chiquita noticed numbers of men in rather shabby attire approach better clad individuals and after a little conversation each would go his way. In some instances the better dressed speaker put his hand in his pocket and handed the other a coin. Then the latter waited a time before accosting another and then another. Oftener would the better dressed individual shake his head, even savagely repulsing the appeal of his less fortunate brother. One of these solicitors-at-alms, for such they were, approached Chiquita, and as she presented no frowning or repellant mien, he politely doffed his cap and explained in a few words his mission.

"Pardon me, lady, I am unfortunate, I am out of work and have no place to sleep tonight. I have three cents; for five cents I can get a bed. Will you give me a penny? I will get another somewhere."

Closely scanning the man's face she saw not the hardened lines of dissipation, not the pallor of the convict nor the attenuated features of a cripple, but a young man in good health, decently clad, though in rather threadbare clothing. Chiquita had seen hundreds of men brought into the hospital of all grades and callings and had become an adept as a student of human nature. The man before her did not shift his eyes nor stand irresolute, but the mournful voice and drooping mouth told only too plainly that discouraging, despondent tale thrust so suddenly upon a prosperous nation in 1893.

"Why are you without work?" asked Chiquita.

"Canceled orders and help laid off indefinitely," replied the young man.

"Why were the orders canceled?"

"I don't know exactly, but Wall street and free silver had something to do with it."

"Had you no money saved up to fall back upon at such a time?"

"Yes, ma'am; but the savings bank went to the wall and my three hundred, which I had been five years getting together, went with it."

"Can't you get a job as porter rather than beg?"

"There's a thousand men waitin' for all the 'porter' jobs. Lady, you don't know it, but half the population of this country is out of work."

"Where can you get a bed for a nickel?" asked Chiquita, dubiously.

"On the west side at one of the 'Friendship' houses."

"You mean a whole bed and room by yourself?"

"Oh, no, lady, just a shelf to lie on, perhaps an old quilt to cover up with. This costs a nickel; in some places we get a 'claim' on the floor for two cents."

"You say a 'claim' on the floor; you don't pay for sleeping on the floor?" said Chiquita, drawing back in amazement.

"Yes, we have to pay for everything but air in Chicago. We pick out our claim, first come, first served, and put down a newspaper for bed, cover up with another, all for two cents; but I don't like the floor. The other fellows step on you when they come in late."

"Are these places clean?" timidly inquired Chiquita.

"Not very, ma'am; not like the hospital."

"Well, my poor fellow, here is a quarter; I hope it will do you some good."

"Thank you, lady."

Instead of going to the hospital Chiquita made a pilgrimage to one of those well-known better class lodging houses, not far from the Board of Trade. Here she saw every chair of a hundred or more occupied by men similarly dressed and evidently looking for work. Of the numbers accosted all told the same tale of misfortune and all emphasized the deplorable condition of the great manufacturing industries throughout the United States. There was no work to be had at any price. Large firms reduced their forces to the lowest capacity possible. Many curtailed the working hours of all rather than discharge half the number, while one colossal corporation ran their works at a loss, despite the wide spreading distrust prevalent during the panic, which crippled every occupation, profession and calling. Banks closed their doors, regardless of the suffering inflicted, business houses, shorn of their credit, dropped all attempts to sustain relations with the world, and armies of men thrown out of employment had to provide for themselves and their families as best they could.

Money could not be borrowed. Even the gold-bearing bonds of the United States fell under the ban of suspicion; and nothing but gold, gold, gold, had any intrinsic value. The new word which wrought such dire disaster was _Coin_, and the bank notes presented day after day by Wall street sapped the gold of the treasury until repudiation seemed inevitable. The one man upon whose shoulders the burden of disaster fell, took the oath of office as President of the United States, on March 4th, 1893, the responsibility of a bond issue being thrown upon him by the outgoing administration. The new official refused to declare his policy. Wall street wanted knowledge positive as to the issuance of bonds with which to buy gold to maintain the reserve. Day followed day before the tension was relieved by a bond issue, which was succeeded by other bond issues. The harm had been done. Financial institutions bridged the torrent at one place only to succumb and plunge into the yawning abyss at another. Stagnation followed disaster. Had the new administration declined to give gold for the "coin" notes and tendered silver, could any greater ruin have overtaken American commerce?

Following in the wake of the ghastly spectre of commercial ruin, that cruel, remorseless and vindictive vulture, discontent, swooped down upon a far reaching industry, shrieked its defiant and soul curdling edict "_Strike_," and to the consternation of the world, labor organizations refused to temporize. The steam pulses ceased to beat, machinery came to a standstill, the great factory doors closed against wage earners and the stupendous battle between iron handed men of toil and iron gloved employer was on.

Aided by sympathetic city and state officials the wage earners grew insolent and arbitrary. Pitying the unfortunate, misguided mechanic, artisan and laborer, the iron gloved employer awaited until the devouring flame of jealousy and strife consumed itself. It was under a broiling July sun that Chiquita and Jack visited the scene to see for themselves the effects of newsboys' hoarse cries, "_Extra! Extra!_ All about the bloody strike! The Stock Yards in danger!"

Regiments of soldiers were bivouacked about the postoffice, on the lake front, and at the yards. Dismantled, untrucked, costly palace cars blocked railroad tracks from Van Buren street to the city limits. In the vicinity of Thirty-ninth street turbulent masses of muttering, riotous, eye-inflamed sympathizers congregated to watch the incoming United States troops from Fort Sheridan.

Women, carrying babies, mingled with the angry, unruly, drink-maddened throng, urging, aye, even commanding more devastation, more wrecking of property. As the snail moving train of army equipment was pulled along the siding, coupling pins were drawn by the lawless, and as one car was recoupled another was detached. Soldiers, in United States uniform, endured insults of every nature.

A woman, acting as bodyguard to a crowd of jeering, taunting idlers, stepped up to a guard and spat in his face, then slapped him and in vulgar language derided him for wearing the uniform of liberty. The soldier was powerless to resent the affront, and this emboldened the vindictive throng to acts of greater violence. Turning to Chiquita, Jack said, with shamefaced candor, "Never did I expect to see my country's flag humiliated in such a manner."

The officer of the day approached. It was the seeming signal for an outbreak; a hundred throats responded to the one voiced cry, "The torch!" "Burn the train!" "Burn the Yards!" The woman pushed the man in front of her along the railroad track to within a few feet of the officers. The crowd behind drew closer, their jeers dropped to sullen, discontented murmurings. The officer held up his hand.

"Halt! Disperse!"

He waved his hand for the mob to go back, but they made no movement. The woman cried out, "You have no business to stop us;" the man in front made a rough remark and roared to his followers, "Come on, we'll show 'em." The officer backed away, calling to a guard to take a position on a near-by fence. "Load with ball, make ready, aim," pointing his sword at the oncoming law-breaking, infuriated ruffian who had stopped a sword's length away. The striker heard the words of the officer.

"When I count three I shall give the command, '_Fire!_' if you and your mob have not obeyed my order to disperse. One--two"--

The man looked at the soldier, at the carbine and the cold gray eye that followed along the barrel as the muzzle sought the breast of the leader, he measured the distance, he heard the word "two," then with despairing yell turned and fled.

The success of the mob at another place met with cheers and shouts of approval as an engineer was borne from the cab of his engine to a saloon across the way, a new recruit to the army of disorganized, rebellious workmen, fed by the ever ready impromptu orator seeking opportunity to air his views--a near friend and close imitator of the agitator commissioned "walking delegate."

"Jack," said Chiquita, "are these scenes, these property-destroying conflicts between employer and employe necessary for the advancement of civilization and fulfillment of that commandment that 'Ye love one another?'"