Chapter 23

by Upton Sinclair

　　Early in the fall Jurgis set out for Chicago again. All the joywent out of tramping as soon as a man could not keep warm in thehay; and, like many thousands of others, he deluded himself withthe hope that by coming early he could avoid the rush. Hebrought fifteen dollars with him, hidden away in one of hisshoes, a sum which had been saved from the saloon-keepers, not somuch by his conscience, as by the fear which filled him at thethought of being out of work in the city in the winter time.He traveled upon the railroad with several other men, hiding infreight cars at night, and liable to be thrown off at any time,regardless of the speed of the train. When he reached the cityhe left the rest, for he had money and they did not, and he meantto save himself in this fight. He would bring to it all theskill that practice had brought him, and he would stand, whoeverfell. On fair nights he would sleep in the park or on a truck oran empty barrel or box, and when it was rainy or cold he wouldstow himself upon a shelf in a ten-cent lodginghouse, or paythree cents for the privileges of a "squatter" in a tenementhallway. He would eat at free lunches, five cents a meal, andnever a cent more--so he might keep alive for two months andmore, and in that time he would surely find a job. He would haveto bid farewell to his summer cleanliness, of course, for hewould come out of the first night's lodging with his clothesalive with vermin. There was no place in the city where he couldwash even his face, unless he went down to the lake front--and there it would soon be all ice.First he went to the steel mill and the harvester works, andfound that his places there had been filled long ago. He wascareful to keep away from the stockyards--he was a single mannow, he told himself, and he meant to stay one, to have his wagesfor his own when he got a job. He began the long, weary round offactories and warehouses, tramping all day, from one end of thecity to the other, finding everywhere from ten to a hundred menahead of him. He watched the newspapers, too--but no longer washe to be taken in by smooth-spoken agents. He had been told ofall those tricks while "on the road."In the end it was through a newspaper that he got a job, afternearly a month of seeking. It was a call for a hundred laborers,and though he thought it was a "fake," he went because the placewas near by. He found a line of men a block long, but as a wagonchanced to come out of an alley and break the line, he saw hischance and sprang to seize a place. Men threatened him and triedto throw him out, but he cursed and made a disturbance to attracta policeman, upon which they subsided, knowing that if the latterinterfered it would be to "fire" them all.An hour or two later he entered a room and confronted a bigIrishman behind a desk."Ever worked in Chicago before?" the man inquired; and whether itwas a good angel that put it into Jurgis's mind, or an intuitionof his sharpened wits, he was moved to answer, "No, sir.""Where do you come from?""Kansas City, sir.""Any references?""No, sir. I'm just an unskilled man. I've got good arms.""I want men for hard work--it's all underground, digging tunnelsfor telephones. Maybe it won't suit you.""I'm willing, sir--anything for me. What's the pay?""Fifteen cents an hour.""I'm willing, sir.""All right; go back there and give your name."So within half an hour he was at work, far underneath the streetsof the city. The tunnel was a peculiar one for telephone wires;it was about eight feet high, and with a level floor nearly aswide. It had innumerable branches--a perfect spider web beneaththe city; Jurgis walked over half a mile with his gang to theplace where they were to work. Stranger yet, the tunnel waslighted by electricity, and upon it was laid a double-tracked,narrow-gauge railroad!But Jurgis was not there to ask questions, and he did not givethe matter a thought. It was nearly a year afterward that hefinally learned the meaning of this whole affair. The CityCouncil had passed a quiet and innocent little bill allowing acompany to construct telephone conduits under the city streets;and upon the strength of this, a great corporation had proceededto tunnel all Chicago with a system of railway freight-subways.In the city there was a combination of employers, representinghundreds of millions of capital, and formed for the purpose ofcrushing the labor unions. The chief union which troubled it wasthe teamsters'; and when these freight tunnels were completed,connecting all the big factories and stores with the railroaddepots, they would have the teamsters' union by the throat.Now and then there were rumors and murmurs in the Board of Aldermen,and once there was a committee to investigate--but each timeanother small fortune was paid over, and the rumors died away;until at last the city woke up with a start to find the workcompleted. There was a tremendous scandal, of course; it wasfound that the city records had been falsified and other crimescommitted, and some of Chicago's big capitalists got intojail--figuratively speaking. The aldermen declared that they hadhad no idea of it all, in spite of the fact that the mainentrance to the work had been in the rear of the saloon of one ofthem.It was in a newly opened cut that Jurgis worked, and so he knewthat he had an all-winter job. He was so rejoiced that hetreated himself to a spree that night, and with the balance ofhis money he hired himself a place in a tenement room, where heslept upon a big homemade straw mattress along with four otherworkingmen. This was one dollar a week, and for four more he gothis food in a boardinghouse near his work. This would leave himfour dollars extra each week, an unthinkable sum for him. At theoutset he had to pay for his digging tools, and also to buy apair of heavy boots, since his shoes were falling to pieces,and a flannel shirt, since the one he had worn all summer was inshreds. He spent a week meditating whether or not he should alsobuy an overcoat. There was one belonging to a Hebrew collarbutton peddler, who had died in the room next to him, and whichthe landlady was holding for her rent; in the end, however,Jurgis decided to do without it, as he was to be underground byday and in bed at night.This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove him morequickly than ever into the saloons. From now on Jurgis workedfrom seven o'clock until half-past five, with half an hour fordinner; which meant that he never saw the sunlight on weekdays.In the evenings there was no place for him to go except abarroom; no place where there was light and warmth, where hecould hear a little music or sit with a companion and talk.He had now no home to go to; he had no affection left in hislife--only the pitiful mockery of it in the camaraderie of vice.On Sundays the churches were open--but where was there a churchin which an ill-smelling workingman, with vermin crawling uponhis neck, could sit without seeing people edge away and lookannoyed? He had, of course, his corner in a close thoughunheated room, with a window opening upon a blank wall two feetaway; and also he had the bare streets, with the winter galessweeping through them; besides this he had only the saloons--and,of course, he had to drink to stay in them. If he drank now andthen he was free to make himself at home, to gamble with dice ora pack of greasy cards, to play at a dingy pool table for money,or to look at a beer-stained pink "sporting paper," with picturesof murderers and half-naked women. It was for such pleasures asthese that he spent his money; and such was his life during thesix weeks and a half that he toiled for the merchants of Chicago,to enable them to break the grip of their teamsters' union.In a work thus carried out, not much thought was given to thewelfare of the laborers. On an average, the tunneling cost alife a day and several manglings; it was seldom, however, thatmore than a dozen or two men heard of any one accident. The workwas all done by the new boring machinery, with as little blastingas possible; but there would be falling rocks and crushedsupports, and premature explosions--and in addition all thedangers of railroading. So it was that one night, as Jurgis wason his way out with his gang, an engine and a loaded car dashedround one of the innumerable right-angle branches and struck himupon the shoulder, hurling him against the concrete wall andknocking him senseless.When he opened his eyes again it was to the clanging of the bellof an ambulance. He was lying in it, covered by a blanket, andit was threading its way slowly through the holiday-shoppingcrowds. They took him to the county hospital, where a youngsurgeon set his arm; then he was washed and laid upon a bed in award with a score or two more of maimed and mangled men.Jurgis spent his Christmas in this hospital, and it was thepleasantest Christmas he had had in America. Every year therewere scandals and investigations in this institution, thenewspapers charging that doctors were allowed to try fantasticexperiments upon the patients; but Jurgis knew nothing ofthis--his only complaint was that they used to feed him upontinned meat, which no man who had ever worked in Packingtownwould feed to his dog. Jurgis had often wondered just who atethe canned corned beef and "roast beef" of the stockyards; now hebegan to understand--that it was what you might call "graftmeat," put up to be sold to public officials and contractors,and eaten by soldiers and sailors, prisoners and inmates ofinstitutions, "shantymen" and gangs of railroad laborers.Jurgis was ready to leave the hospital at the end of two weeks.This did not mean that his arm was strong and that he was able togo back to work, but simply that he could get along withoutfurther attention, and that his place was needed for some oneworse off than he. That he was utterly helpless, and had nomeans of keeping himself alive in the meantime, was somethingwhich did not concern the hospital authorities, nor any one elsein the city.As it chanced, he had been hurt on a Monday, and had just paidfor his last week's board and his room rent, and spent nearly allthe balance of his Saturday's pay. He had less than seventy-fivecents in his pockets, and a dollar and a half due him for theday's work he had done before he was hurt. He might possiblyhave sued the company, and got some damages for his injuries,but he did not know this, and it was not the company's business totell him. He went and got his pay and his tools, which he leftin a pawnshop for fifty cents. Then he went to his landlady,who had rented his place and had no other for him; and then to hisboardinghouse keeper, who looked him over and questioned him.As he must certainly be helpless for a couple of months, and hadboarded there only six weeks, she decided very quickly that itwould not be worth the risk to keep him on trust.So Jurgis went out into the streets, in a most dreadful plight.It was bitterly cold, and a heavy snow was falling, beating intohis face. He had no overcoat, and no place to go, and twodollars and sixty-five cents in his pocket, with the certaintythat he could not earn another cent for months. The snow meantno chance to him now; he must walk along and see othersshoveling, vigorous and active--and he with his left arm bound tohis side! He could not hope to tide himself over by odd jobs ofloading trucks; he could not even sell newspapers or carrysatchels, because he was now at the mercy of any rival. Wordscould not paint the terror that came over him as he realized allthis. He was like a wounded animal in the forest; he was forcedto compete with his enemies upon unequal terms. There would beno consideration for him because of his weakness--it was no one'sbusiness to help him in such distress, to make the fight theleast bit easier for him. Even if he took to begging, he wouldbe at a disadvantage, for reasons which he was to discover ingood time.In the beginning he could not think of anything except gettingout of the awful cold. He went into one of the saloons he hadbeen wont to frequent and bought a drink, and then stood by thefire shivering and waiting to be ordered out. According to anunwritten law, the buying a drink included the privilege ofloafing for just so long; then one had to buy another drink ormove on. That Jurgis was an old customer entitled him to asomewhat longer stop; but then he had been away two weeks,and was evidently "on the bum." He might plead and tell his"hard luck story," but that would not help him much; a saloon-keeperwho was to be moved by such means would soon have his placejammed to the doors with "hoboes" on a day like this.So Jurgis went out into another place, and paid another nickel.He was so hungry this time that he could not resist the hot beefstew, an indulgence which cut short his stay by a considerabletime. When he was again told to move on, he made his way to a"tough" place in the "Levee" district, where now and then he hadgone with a certain rat-eyed Bohemian workingman of hisacquaintance, seeking a woman. It was Jurgis's vain hope thathere the proprietor would let him remain as a "sitter." Inlow-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers wouldoften allow one or two forlorn-looking bums who came in coveredwith snow or soaked with rain to sit by the fire and lookmiserable to attract custom. A workingman would come in, feelingcheerful after his day's work was over, and it would trouble himto have to take his glass with such a sight under his nose; andso he would call out: "Hello, Bub, what's the matter? You lookas if you'd been up against it!" And then the other would beginto pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, "Comehave a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so they woulddrink together, and if the tramp was sufficientlywretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might havetwo; and if they were to discover that they were from the samecountry, or had lived in the same city or worked at the sametrade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two intalk--and before they got through the saloon-keeper would havetaken in a dollar. All of this might seem diabolical, but thesaloon-keeper was in no wise to blame for it. He was in the sameplight as the manufacturer who has to adulterate and misrepresenthis product. If he does not, some one else will; and thesaloon-keeper, unless he is also an alderman, is apt to be in debt tothe big brewers, and on the verge of being sold out.The market for "sitters" was glutted that afternoon, however,and there was no place for Jurgis. In all he had to spend sixnickels in keeping a shelter over him that frightful day, andthen it was just dark, and the station houses would not openuntil midnight! At the last place, however, there was abartender who knew him and liked him, and let him doze at one ofthe tables until the boss came back; and also, as he was goingout, the man gave him a tip--on the next block there was areligious revival of some sort, with preaching and singing,and hundreds of hoboes would go there for the shelter and warmth.Jurgis went straightway, and saw a sign hung out, saying that thedoor would open at seven-thirty; then he walked, or half ran,a block, and hid awhile in a doorway and then ran again, and so onuntil the hour. At the end he was all but frozen, and fought hisway in with the rest of the throng (at the risk of having his armbroken again), and got close to the big stove.By eight o'clock the place was so crowded that the speakers oughtto have been flattered; the aisles were filled halfway up, and atthe door men were packed tight enough to walk upon. There werethree elderly gentlemen in black upon the platform, and a younglady who played the piano in front. First they sang a hymn, andthen one of the three, a tall, smooth-shaven man, very thin, andwearing black spectacles, began an address. Jurgis heardsmatterings of it, for the reason that terror kept him awake--he knew that he snored abominably, and to have been put out justthen would have been like a sentence of death to him.The evangelist was preaching "sin and redemption," the infinitegrace of God and His pardon for human frailty. He was very muchin earnest, and he meant well, but Jurgis, as he listened, foundhis soul filled with hatred. What did he know about sin andsuffering--with his smooth, black coat and his neatly starchedcollar, his body warm, and his belly full, and money in hispocket--and lecturing men who were struggling for their lives,men at the death grapple with the demon powers of hunger andcold!--This, of course, was unfair; but Jurgis felt that thesemen were out of touch with the life they discussed, that theywere unfitted to solve its problems; nay, they themselves werepart of the problem--they were part of the order established thatwas crushing men down and beating them! They were of thetriumphant and insolent possessors; they had a hall, and a fire,and food and clothing and money, and so they might preach tohungry men, and the hungry men must be humble and listen! Theywere trying to save their souls--and who but a fool could fail tosee that all that was the matter with their souls was that theyhad not been able to get a decent existence for their bodies?At eleven the meeting closed, and the desolate audience filed outinto the snow, muttering curses upon the few traitors who had gotrepentance and gone up on the platform. It was yet an hourbefore the station house would open, and Jurgis had noovercoat--and was weak from a long illness. During that hour henearly perished. He was obliged to run hard to keep his bloodmoving at all--and then he came back to the station house andfound a crowd blocking the street before the door! This was inthe month of January, 1904, when the country was on the verge of"hard times," and the newspapers were reporting the shutting downof factories every day--it was estimated that a million and ahalf men were thrown out of work before the spring. So all thehiding places of the city were crowded, and before that stationhouse door men fought and tore each other like savage beasts.When at last the place was jammed and they shut the doors, halfthe crowd was still outside; and Jurgis, with his helpless arm,was among them. There was no choice then but to go to alodginghouse and spend another dime. It really broke his heartto do this, at half-past twelve o'clock, after he had wasted thenight at the meeting and on the street. He would be turned outof the lodginghouse promptly at seven they had the shelves whichserved as bunks so contrived that they could be dropped, and anyman who was slow about obeying orders could be tumbled to thefloor.This was one day, and the cold spell lasted for fourteen of them.At the end of six days every cent of Jurgis' money was gone;and then he went out on the streets to beg for his life.He would begin as soon as the business of the city was moving.He would sally forth from a saloon, and, after making sure therewas no policeman in sight, would approach every likely-lookingperson who passed him, telling his woeful story and pleading fora nickel or a dime. Then when he got one, he would dart roundthe corner and return to his base to get warm; and his victim,seeing him do this, would go away, vowing that he would nevergive a cent to a beggar again. The victim never paused to askwhere else Jurgis could have gone under the circumstances--wherehe, the victim, would have gone. At the saloon Jurgis could notonly get more food and better food than he could buy in anyrestaurant for the same money, but a drink in the bargain to warmhim up. Also he could find a comfortable seat by a fire, andcould chat with a companion until he was as warm as toast. Atthe saloon, too, he felt at home. Part of the saloon-keeper'sbusiness was to offer a home and refreshments to beggars inexchange for the proceeds of their foragings; and was there anyone else in the whole city who would do this--would the victimhave done it himself?Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar.He was just out of the hospital, and desperately sick-looking,and with a helpless arm; also he had no overcoat, and shiveredpitifully. But, alas, it was again the case of the honestmerchant, who finds that the genuine and unadulterated article isdriven to the wall by the artistic counterfeit. Jurgis, as abeggar, was simply a blundering amateur in competition withorganized and scientific professionalism. He was just out of thehospital--but the story was worn threadbare, and how could heprove it? He had his arm in a sling--and it was a device aregular beggar's little boy would have scorned. He was pale andshivering--but they were made up with cosmetics, and had studiedthe art of chattering their teeth. As to his being without anovercoat, among them you would meet men you could swear had onnothing but a ragged linen duster and a pair of cottontrousers--so cleverly had they concealed the several suits ofall-wool underwear beneath. Many of these professionalmendicants had comfortable homes, and families, and thousands ofdollars in the bank; some of them had retired upon theirearnings, and gone into the business of fitting out and doctoringothers, or working children at the trade. There were some whohad both their arms bound tightly to their sides, and paddedstumps in their sleeves, and a sick child hired to carry a cupfor them. There were some who had no legs, and pushed themselvesupon a wheeled platform--some who had been favored withblindness, and were led by pretty little dogs. Some lessfortunate had mutilated themselves or burned themselves, or hadbrought horrible sores upon themselves with chemicals; you mightsuddenly encounter upon the street a man holding out to you afinger rotting and discolored with gangrene--or one with lividscarlet wounds half escaped from their filthy bandages. Thesedesperate ones were the dregs of the city's cesspools, wretcheswho hid at night in the rain-soaked cellars of old ramshackletenements, in "stale-beer dives" and opium joints, with abandonedwomen in the last stages of the harlot's progress--women who hadbeen kept by Chinamen and turned away at last to die. Every daythe police net would drag hundreds of them off the streets, andin the detention hospital you might see them, herded together ina miniature inferno, with hideous, beastly faces, bloated andleprous with disease, laughing, shouting, screaming in all stagesof drunkenness, barking like dogs, gibbering like apes, ravingand tearing themselves in delirium.