Part 4

Congress received the petition, and a member from New York introduced the bill proposed. Never was a stronger proof given of the truth of the old saying, “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” Instead of hastening the passage of the bill, which asked an increase of only twenty-five thousand men for the army,--making its total strength but fifty thousand,--Congress delayed any consideration of it for two weeks. When it finally secured a hearing in the “committee of the whole House,” it was met by the familiar outcry against the danger to the Republic of a great standing army. For three weeks more the “Congressional Record” was filled with high-sounding and attenuated repetitions of that outworn demagogism. One hundred and thirty-two speeches were delivered, during these three weeks, upon a measure the importance of which was manifest upon its face, and the necessity for which it had not taken a convention of business men as many days to agree upon. Before this eruption of cheap eloquence had ceased flowing, the time for useful action had passed. The blow had been struck.

VII.

THE REVOLUTIONISTS’ MASTER-STROKE.

By the latter part of July a considerable portion of the population had returned to Chicago, many of its business houses were open again for trade, and others were in process of rapid re-erection. The wharves were crowded with vessels bringing materials and supplies. The streets rang with the sound of workmen hurrying forward the construction of the new city. An intense rivalry sprang up between the proprietors of different stores as to which should be ready first for business. The workmen were pushed to the utmost; and it was not uncommon to see a whole street brilliantly illuminated by electric lights from sunset to sunrise, while work was pushed twenty-four hours in the day and seven days in the week. This moment was seized by the mysterious “Council of Seven” for the grand _coup_. The former riot had been only a rehearsal; the curtain was now rung up on the drama itself.

At noon on the 18th of July a large majority of the workmen employed upon the new buildings laid down their tools and compelled those who were not in the plot to do the same. Their plea was that no man had the right to exact over eight hours work for a day’s wages, while many of them were compelled to work twelve hours, and that for seven days in the week. They demanded fifty per cent increase of wages or a reduction in the hours of work. In their anxiety to complete their tasks, a few builders yielded. But the particular “strikers” who had thus won their case refused to begin work again till all the builders and contractors of the city should have agreed to their demand. This, too, was finally brought about. By that time the arrogance of the “strikers” had increased,--rather, their orders from “The Old Man,” as they called the revolutionist head, had been modified,--and they refused to take up hammer or trowel till the city council should pass an ordinance making eight hours a day’s work, with no deductions for holidays or for absences by reason of sickness, and with double pay for all night and Sunday work, whether of necessity, mercy, or caprice.

Roused at last to a conviction that they were being played with, and that the demands of their men were merely pretexts, a secret movement for the collection of fresh workmen from abroad was begun by certain contractors. It was manœuvred with so much secrecy and success that no news of the scheme escaped till the 10th of August, three weeks after the beginning of the strike. On that day two long trains loaded with workmen from neighboring cities rolled into Chicago, and the jubilant contractors who had secured them led them to the unfinished buildings, which loomed amid skeletons of scaffolding in various parts of the city, and set them at work.

The news spread like wildfire among the “strikers,” and angry crowds gathered before every building on which work had been begun by the strangers. The interlopers were ordered to lay down their tools and leave the city. They treated these demands with contempt; and the superintendents, owners, and contractors, armed with revolvers, succeeded for a time in keeping the crowds at bay while the “strikers” waited for orders. Late in the afternoon the orders came. Messengers were seen forcing their way through the sullenly biding crowds, and issuing directions on either side as they passed. In an instant the aspect of affairs changed. The men, who had thus far shown no deadlier weapons than sticks or occasional bricks and paving-stones, suddenly drew the revolvers with which they were secretly armed, and began a deadly attack on the workmen who had refused to drop work at their bidding.

It would be useless to relate in detail the story of what ensued. The socialists, having formed an alliance with the Irish societies, had also absorbed the trades-unions,--another of the curses with which foreign immigration had endowed the country,--and had chosen them as the means through which to precipitate this second revolt. Once more the city was delivered up to a lawless and ravening mob, fourfold more vindictive and ferocious than that of the April _émeute_.

The Government was again appealed to for troops. But the army was among the mountains and plains of the farthest West, engaged in the most desperate Indian war which had yet been waged. Congress was besought to do something. It continued to emit vast quantities of eloquence (?), unmingled with common sense, over the dangers attending an increase of the army. The President issued a proclamation and sent a message to Congress asking for instructions and authority to summon volunteers.

During the wearisome and fruitless debates with which Congress had occupied the previous month, bands had been formed in several of the larger cities, under the title of “Protective Associations,” or “Protectors,” to defend local interests in case outbreaks should occur before an increase in the army could be secured. In despair of securing efficient aid from any other source, the Governor of Illinois--for the Mayor of Chicago had long since shown himself unwilling to take any action against the revolutionists--sent an appeal to such cities in the West as had organized these associations, begging for whatever help they could send him. His appeal met with a ready and generous response. Detachments started with all speed for Chicago from Cincinnati, St. Louis, Louisville, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburg, Rochester, Buffalo, and other cities. They were undisciplined, but fully armed, and animated as one man with the determination to crush the revolutionists so utterly that they should cause no further danger to Chicago within a generation. Among them were many who had seen service in the Union army during the great rebellion. The detachments which first arrived found the enemy stronger than they had supposed, and discovered that their task was likely to be a severe and costly one. It was determined to summon still more men; and New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston were called upon. From all, the response was prompt and loyal. Fully fifty thousand men converged upon the environs of Chicago.

It does not seem to have occurred to any of those who thus gallantly hastened to the relief of their sister city that in so doing they were exposing their own homes, defenceless, to the danger of attack from domestic organizations in sympathy with the Chicago rioters and acting under the same direction. But this was the very event for which the master-spirit of the combined revolutionists had waited; the one which he had foreseen; the one upon which he had based his plans. While the trains bearing the last of the reinforcements from New York and Boston to the “Protectors” before Chicago were flying across the Illinois prairies, he issued his final order, and struck his long-delayed but crushing blow. Its effects were instantly and simultaneously felt in every quarter of the land.

As the little army of citizens, aided by a few national troops which the Government had been able to gather from forts along the Atlantic coast, were busily preparing for a movement upon the revolutionists, telegrams began to pour in upon them from New York, Boston, and the other cities which they had left, announcing the rising of mobs in each one and the impossibility of resisting them in the absence of so many of the natural militia at Chicago. The truth dawned, with the suddenness of lightning and with equal distinctness, upon the entire country. It was seen that the revolutionists had waited till a large proportion of those citizens bound together for the defence of law and the maintenance of order had been massed in another direction. They had then, in accordance with a thoroughly understood plan, risen in every city and begun the work of destruction for which their souls had long thirsted.

From East and West and South flashed over the shuddering wires dire tidings of riot, rapine, pillage, murder, anarchy. Destructive and insatiate mobs ruled in what had been the seats of order and prosperous trade and happy homes. Every city in the Union was turned into a veritable gateway of Gehenna. The scenes of barbarous vandalism which had made the name of Chicago a reproach in the ears of the world were re-enacted in scores of her sister towns. Leaving Chicago to its fate, the men who had been summoned to its aid hurried frenziedly homeward in the hope of saving their families or their possessions from utter annihilation. The nation stood aghast, panic-stricken, and bereft of its usual energies before this great horror of incredible wickedness which had burst with volcanic suddenness and havoc upon the land. From Boston to Galveston, from Savannah to Minneapolis, the heavens were thick with the smoke of burning cities bearing upwards in its coils the reek of innocent blood.

VIII.

THE REIGN OF ANARCHY.

At last Congress and the executive departments awoke. The act for an increase of the army, asked for two months before, was hastily passed. It was even amended so as to give the President power to call out a hundred thousand volunteers from the natural militia of the States, if such a measure should in his judgment become necessary. But the action, which might possibly have been useful in the early summer, came too late at the end of August.

The war which had broken forth was such a combat as had never before been waged. There have been civil wars in other times and other countries, but they always have been more or less sectional. Whether eventually successful or not, there always has been a part of the land involved in which the friends of existing government were in the majority, and which could be relied upon as a base for operations against insurgents. But this revolt was at every man’s door. Except in a few rural and sparsely populated districts, all forms of government were disrupted or blocked. The law-abiding citizens found themselves suddenly without organization and at the mercy of predatory bands, which fell upon them one after another. The anarchists, by a strange paradox, were the best disciplined and the best organized.

Here and there hasty levies were made among the friends of good order; but they did not know whom to trust. A man’s nearest neighbor, who never had been suspected of sympathy with the socialists, was not unlikely to prove their agent and propagandist in secret, and in communication with them, revealing the intentions of their opponents. Volunteers, who under other circumstances and to repel any other form of attack would have flocked to the Government’s service from the smaller villages and country towns, dared hardly stir out of their own fields, from fear of attacks on their homes.

In the midst of this panic, and uncertainty, and lack of organization, the telegraph lines between the chief centres of communication were cut. It was made impossible for the authorities to transmit information or to perfect arrangements. Despatches from the National Government to the governors of different States or to its own subordinates were stopped by agents of the revolutionists and reported to their own chiefs. These leaders in some instances acted upon the intelligence thus secured in defeating the Government’s plans. In other cases they sent back misleading answers, purporting to come from the officials addressed; thus doubly confusing the Government’s operations.

In many cities and towns the very officers whose duty it was to preserve order and repress riots felt themselves dependent upon the votes of the mob for their positions, and dared not do any active work against it. Wherever it was possible to call out the local militia, the citizen soldiery were found true, except in a few of the larger cities where the socialistic contagion was rankest. But the panic which had fallen on other citizens had not failed to affect these young men, many of whom had entered the militia for amusement rather than any more serious purpose, and who were nicknamed by their opponents “holiday soldiers.” Nowhere were they called into service till it was too late for anything but overwhelming force to prevail,--such overwhelming force as they could not muster. Nowhere were the civil magistrates willing to apply heroic treatment till more pacific measures had been tried. The revolutionists, drunk with fanatic frenzy and elated with the success of their first days of destruction and pillage, rushed on the militia, whenever a collision became inevitable, with reckless bravery and desperation. The result was that a score of regiments in as many different States were actually cut to pieces by raging mobs, while pallid-lipped mayors or aldermen were reading the riot act or expostulating with them in the hope of inducing them to disperse. It would have been as sensible to harangue a jungle full of hungry tigers, or to read the riot act against an inundation of the lower Mississippi.

In a few of the smaller places, especially those near which detachments of the regular army were stationed, a sort of precarious order was restored. In all the larger cities the revolutionists soon held complete power. City and State governments were overthrown. The leaders among the rioters established themselves in the offices of public administration. “Universal liberty” was proclaimed, and the abrogation of all law. “Property is robbery” had been the cry of the socialists from the beginning. The residences of such citizens as had been known for their wealth were taken possession of as the barracks of first one and then another band of marauders. Such storehouses and shops as had escaped the pillage of the first days were thrown open, and every one bidden to help himself from their contents to that which he needed. The poorer people were generally unmolested. If they had nothing worth stealing they were advised to remain in their homes, and told that the revolution was for them. There should be no more wealth; consequently, argued the socialists, there could be no more poverty. All men were declared equal in point of rights, of duties, and of possessions. Nothing belonged to any one, for everything was the common property of all. But it was observed that the socialist leaders did not fail to secure possession of all the silver and gold upon which they could lay their hands,--“to be used in the public defence, if needed,” they said.

IX.

ATTEMPTS TO SAVE THE GOVERNMENT.

The alliance between the socialistic societies and the various Irish organizations had for some time been impossible of concealment. Still the Irish had taken a less active part in the bloody inauguration of the revolution than had the others. The Government at Washington found communication with the various State Governments practically shut off. It was helpless for offence or defence. With such troops as it had been able to collect from Fortress Monroe and a few other neighboring garrisons, it had barely kept down the revolutionists in Washington. A band of some ten thousand now set out from New York and Philadelphia to reinforce them and seize the capital. At a Cabinet meeting held to consider the situation it was decided to call on the Irish members of Congress to use their influence with Irish organizations throughout the country, either to detach them altogether from the revolutionists, or to bring about some understanding by which a peace might be patched up till the next national election should afford the people an opportunity to pass upon the whole matter.

These Irish members had distinguished themselves, during the long debates which had dragged through the early summer and the heated tirades which had succeeded the first outburst of the revolutionists, by sitting unmoved in their seats, taking no part in the proceedings except when some chance allusion by another speaker afforded them the pretext for uttering a fierce demand that the United States undertake “the cause of Ireland.” They seemed to have lost all sense of American citizenship, and to have become engrossed by the mania that their only duty was, _fas aut nefas_, to aid the rebellion which was smouldering in Ireland. This had been the general opinion regarding their motive. But now it was seen at last that they had been acting in accordance with a consistent plan to do nothing and say nothing which could be construed as unfriendly to the revolutionists. How much influence did they possess with their own compatriots and with the revolutionary leaders? That was the question which the Cabinet determined to settle. They were summoned to the White House, and their good offices besought by the President in person.

In other times, the spectacle of the President of the United States begging a dozen Irish politicians to intercede with a mob for the safety of the Republic would have been received with derision. But the people never heard of this last shame upon them. The newspapers, excepting those whose sympathies were with the revolutionists, had been among the first to go down in the general wreck. The ordinary means of spreading information among the people had ceased to exist, and whatever news was published was colored and distorted by the prejudices of the socialist and Irish editors, who alone were allowed to continue their business.

The Irish members thus appealed to asked time for consideration and for consultation with other Irish leaders; but they promised that there should be no disturbance of the Government in Washington till their answer was ready. Transportation was irregular and slow. The railroads had suffered not only in material and men, but in the practical annihilation of their business by the riots. The Irish members set out for New York by such routes as were most practicable, arriving there the second morning after leaving Washington. A hastily called meeting of Irish leaders in the metropolis heard their statements of the condition of affairs at the capital. The conference lasted all that day and far into the following night. Messengers were constantly hurrying around the city, summoning additional advisers from among the best known of the dynamiters. Several prominent socialists and a few not so well known at the time were seen to enter the hall where the conference was held.

On the fifth day after their first summons to the White House the ambassadors returned to Washington. They were tired out and travel stained, but they repaired at once to the executive mansion. The President met them with an anxious face. During their absence nothing had arrived from the States to give him encouragement. Instead of being able to offer the National Government any assistance, the State Governments, many of them in flight from their own capitals, were anxiously calling on it to extricate them from their own difficulties.

Without any attempt to smooth over or disguise the harshness of their message, the Irish members laid before the President the ultimatum of the Irish societies. They demanded the appointment of O’Halloran “Patsy,” of New York, as Secretary of State, and Cincinnatus Wagner, of Illinois, as Secretary of War, in place of the then incumbents. O’Halloran had for some time been known as the real executive head of the Irish societies. His appointment would conciliate them. The appointment of Mr. Wagner they believed would be received as an overture of peace by the socialistic organizations. They professed to have no authority to speak for these latter, but insisted upon Mr. Wagner’s appointment as strenuously as upon that of Mr. O’Halloran. With these two men in the Cabinet, they had no doubt the revolutionists would meet the Government half way in arranging at least a truce upon the basis of the _statu quo_. Anyhow, if the terms suggested were accepted, and the President agreed to be governed by the advice of the men named, they were willing to guarantee that in twenty days the Irish societies alone would furnish the Government with a force sufficient to protect itself and to begin the task of re-establishing order. If the terms proposed were not accepted, they felt bound to warn the Government that it must prepare to defend itself from immediate and powerful attack.

Astounded at the audacity of the demand thus made upon him, the President at first peremptorily refused to consider it. Congressman Hagarty, of Chicago, who acted as spokesman for the party, replied only by calling his attention to the hopeless situation the Government was in without the aid offered. The President sought to temporize. Was it not possible to modify the terms proposed? He was told that modification was out of the question; that the proposition made him was the result of a conference with nearly all the leaders of the various Irish societies; and that the men who had acted merely as messengers were powerless to alter it in any way. The President asked how it was possible to reach O’Halloran and Wagner and secure their presence in Washington in time to be of avail. He was informed that O’Halloran had returned from New York with the Irish members, and was at that moment waiting to know whether he should remain or return to New York, while Wagner had been telegraphed before they left New York to meet the President at Washington, and would arrive in the course of a few hours. The President still refused to accept the Irish proposition, but was persuaded to consult with the Cabinet before returning a definite answer.

The Irish members retired, and messengers summoned the President’s advisers to the White House. The Cabinet meeting was a long and gloomy one. From no quarter of the political heavens was a single ray of light apparent. Plan after plan was proposed, discussed, and abandoned as impracticable. Day was breaking in the east when the Secretary of State, with a firm voice but a haggard face, rose and expressed his belief that no chance remained unless by the acceptance of the Irish terms to gain perhaps a little time. It was not possible, he said, that the revolutionists comprised a majority of the people. They would grow constantly weaker, and the internal dissensions which were sure to arise would divide them, perhaps set them fighting among themselves. Every day’s delay offered at least a chance to strengthen the Government and unite the friends of good order, still in a scattered and demoralized condition. He advised that the Irish terms be accepted, and O’Halloran and Wagner invited to the Cabinet. His resignation was at the President’s disposal. The Secretary of War briefly expressed his agreement, and also tendered his resignation.