More Powerful Than Dynamite

by Thai Jones

  The president faced a diplomatic quandary. He could relent—as American business interests were howling for him to do—and belatedly acknowledge the ruling clique, or he could throw his support to the rebels, a disparate array of revolutionaries and banditos. Neither side lived up to his high moral standards for governance. It was more or less impossible to differentiate between them. “This unspeakable conflict is not a political quarrel, but a mere fight for power and plunder,” a reporter wrote. “It is Jesse James against Tammany.”

  Unwilling to adopt either faction as an ally, Wilson chose to remain aloof and hope the situation would resolve itself. Thus began a period of “watchful waiting,” which lasted throughout 1913 and into the new year. During this time, he had demanded the strictest neutrality, refusing to sell arms to either side and standing firm against ever-more-strident demands for action. When it came to foreign affairs, he was determined to be more than just a director of policy; he would be the self-appointed conscience-in-chief for the nation. But his rectitude did not impress the Mexican combatants, and procrastination was not a program. The president’s cool detachment looked like indecisiveness. Friends began to murmur. Opponents sensed weakness and moved to exploit it. Critical committee reports and resolutions appeared daily in Congress. “We have been informed by the President of the United States that the policy of ‘watchful waiting’ would bring peace results in Mexico,” a Republican senator had complained a few days earlier. Instead, Wilson’s inaction had “resulted in a ‘deadly drifting,’ if not in merely wishing.”

  Finally, in early February, the president relaxed his position by lifting the arms embargo and allowing American firms to supply weapons to the Mexican rebels. If he had hoped this would bring a quick termination to the conflict, that wish was soon dashed. The insurgents had indulged in a spree of atrocities of their own, further eroding their standing as a potential ally in the cause of democratic progress. As March began, only one alternative remained. The United States could cease acting through untrustworthy proxies and involve itself directly. Publicly, Wilson still refused to consider any move toward invasion. At a White House press conference he reminded those “clamoring for armed intervention” to recall the sacrifice involved, urging them “to reflect what such action would mean to brothers, sons, and sweethearts.” But a subtle change had shifted in his stance. No longer did he dismiss outright the calls for action. The situation may not have warranted such a move just yet, but if the provocations continued the time might come to adopt “a drastic course.”

  * * *

  IN NEW YORK CITY, the longed-for thaw came on March 3, and—finally—the grimy ice began to yield before ten thousand shovels. Pedestrians stayed to the middle of streets to avoid the deadly icicles that “dropped tinkling to the sidewalks.” High-piled snow wagons creaked through the avenues, swerving between trolleys that were running again after days of inactivity. No one talked anymore about a coal shortage, or of milk and egg famines. The heaps of week-old trash began to smell. Stockbrokers, typists, and clerks resumed their commutes.

  In the late afternoon, runoff from the remaining piles of gray slush coursed in dark streams through Rutgers Square. Scores of men hid from the wind in doorways; others drifted toward the plaza. By 6:30 P.M., when Tannenbaum paced decisively through the ranks, hundreds were waiting, drawn by the news of his successes. They cheered and gathered in close as he leapt onto the granite rim of the fountain to announce that he had arranged food and shelter for the night. Clambering down again, he shoved his charges into a column two abreast, snarling, “Get in line and be decent,” as they left the square and headed west on Canal Street.

  Lower Manhattan, hectic with the evening rush, paused to stare at the parade. Thousands of office workers watched it pass; traffic locked up as it went by. “There was a prophetic, peculiarly, significant aspect in the entire affair,” an observer thought, “that caused many ordinarily indifferent to the pleadings of the poor to turn and watch the little procession until it faded away in the distance.” In the ranks some began to sing “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum,” till Frank told them to pipe down. And then they marched in silence toward the Bowery Mission, where more than a hundred men queued on a breadline.

  “Is this the I.W.W.?” shouted someone from the sidewalk as they drew close.

  “Yep,” came the response. “Come on along, we’re going to church.”

  “Jump in, boys!” another marcher shouted. “Get in the real breadline and see what’s comin’ t’you.” Dozens of new recruits rushed to join the parade, leaving only a few grumblers behind to beg a handout.

  Turning downtown again and now numbering more than two hundred, they arrived at the parish house of St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Chapel, at Broadway and Vesey Street, where women church workers passed around pots of coffee as well as platters of bananas and corned-beef sandwiches. “We are entitled to champagne, roast turkey and a shower bath,” Frank said this time.

  Every one of us should have a room with a couch and all the comforts of home. Rockefeller and a lot of other people would break the law in a minute if they had to sleep on the floor. We are going to break the law and go to jail if necessary to get what we are entitled to. We are the workers of the world, but we can’t get work. I suppose I’ll be arrested before this is over. I expect to be, but I’d sooner spend my time in jail, where at least it’s warm and where there’ll be something to eat, than be put out in the cold without shelter or food or work.

  The lights were put out at ten P.M, and the halls quieted down. Across the street, a dozen police officers hid in the shadows, away from sight. Plainclothesmen had been with the men right along—in the crowds at Rutgers Square, on the march to St. Paul’s—and their vigil continued still; the ranking officer, hoping for a chance to act, planned to wait throughout the night, “in case he might be needed.”

  VACATIONING IN THE Adirondacks, Mayor Mitchel was snowbound by the blizzard. His staff could not reach him by telephone; downed wires left him stranded and helpless to intervene in the growing crisis. Without him, the Tannenbaum problem was getting beyond control. Four nights. Four churches. Clergymen panicked. Editorial writers apoplectic. While the mayor went ice-skating on Lake Placid, the unemployed had established “a condition of terror and brigandage” in his streets, and gangs of professional agitators were “terrorizing public assemblies from the Battery to Harlem.”

  In the mayor’s absence, Commissioner Kingsbury had served as the administration’s voice on unemployment. And an overflowing font he had been, issuing contradictory statements, flashing from project to project, accomplishing naught. Labor conditions were “abnormal,” he confessed, but did not require converting the armories into shelters or opening the churches. “Such action,” he believed, “would only bring more unemployed to this city and further complicate the situation.” Only so much assistance could be offered; too much would foster indigence. “Relief, like cocaine, relieves pain,” he said, “but it creates an appetite.” The Municipal Lodging House had already received twice as many applicants as in any previous year of its existence. He had expanded the facility, and even if it still didn’t have enough beds, it offered every man a meal and “a more comfortable place to sleep than he can find in the basement of any church.”

  Mayor Mitchel in the Adirondacks.

  These were temporary measures. Lasting solutions would have to wait until the administration had a comprehensive, scientific understanding of “why some individuals become homeless drifters instead of capable workers”—and that would take at least two weeks. For fourteen straight nights, Kingsbury directed research experiments on the residents at the Municipal Lodging House. On March 2, at the very moment when Tannenbaum was leading his aching cold men into the cozy warmth of St. Mark’s chapel, the initial 143 subjects were being selected from the city shelter’s inmates. Thirty specialists—ten physicians, ten sociologists, ten psychologists—as well as a regiment of stenographers awaited in telephone-booth-sized consultation
rooms. The human subjects were asked probing questions: Did you desert your wife? Have you ever been convicted of a crime? They were measured and prodded by the physicians, and required to recite the days of the week forward and backward. “When the work is finished,” Kingsbury promised, “we expect to know the who, the what, and the why of the unemployed problem. Then we will know just how the situation sums and we will know how to go about the work of devising remedies.11

  But Kingsbury’s ideas were just exasperating now, his ruminations about as welcome as the incendiary speeches of the anarchists. His experiment had a touch of absurdity to it; not even the most committed social scientists really believed that a few questions to a random group of subjects could elicit any fruitful results. The editors of the New York Herald were just as sick of “sociological investigators” as they were of “professional agitators.” Radical critics joined in, too. “The great man in the City Hall investigates, investigates,” sneered the socialist Call. “Mayor Mitchel and Kingsbury are largely responsible for present conditions.” Big Bill Haywood, the leading national spokesman for the Industrial Workers of the World, stormed to reporters via telephone: “But they are in exactly the same boat with ex-president Taft. He said ‘God knows’ when asked what ought to be done to remedy conditions. These officials have made no provisions.”

  It was not until March 4 that Mitchel’s overnight train finally sighed into Grand Central Terminal. In public he downplayed the Tannenbaum issue. “I don’t think that there is any situation,” he reassured reporters. “As a movement, I think it is played out. If it isn’t, we’ll deal with it, but there is no situation with a capital ‘S,’ as far as I can see.” In private, though, he conceded that action was necessary. Hauling his police commissioner, Douglas McKay, down to City Hall, he insisted on a firmer stance. Afterward, the chastened commissioner told reporters, “I will not stand for any high-handed measures by the I.W.W., or any other organization. As soon as they commit any act demanding police action I will be in a position to use the police.”

  FRANK SET DOWN the morning newspapers on March 5, feeling like the hunt’s prey. They were after him now. The editorials bawled for blood, for his arrest, for the police to come and club him down. All week, he had felt those batons hovering. The cops had always been there, waiting, infiltrating, hoping to provoke some trouble that could justify his arrest. Of course, he had given them no excuse. It was against no law to point out the hypocrisy of church and government. Still, the master class would get him. He had always known how his protests would end. In the afternoon he met with Haywood, who couldn’t participate himself but who urged Frank to “keep up the damned agitation.” And that’s what he intended to do—but as he walked once again through the mired streets toward Rutgers Square, it was with the intuition of looming disaster.

  The largest gathering yet awaited him. A thousand men, maybe more, applauded his approach, cheering again as he climbed the fountain. Interspersed amongst them, though, was also a large detail of police: detectives whose faces had grown as familiar as his friends’, plainclothesmen who stood out from the gray crowd, as well as blue-uniformed regulars who had never been more apparent. “I’m sorry for you fellows,” he called to them. “You are only slaves like ourselves.” But he knew it was vain to try and reconcile them; the grim cops stood unmoved, waiting.

  Tannenbaum climbed down and ordered his men into ranks. He led them along Canal Street past the Bowery, walking quickly. He made no announcements about where they were going, and appeared to be deciding as he went. He turned north onto West Broadway; his followers stretched out over three blocks behind. The police detectives were right beside him, ready to react to whatever he did. He could just give it over for the night and try again some other time. But no, it was better to play it out, as Haywood had said, to “keep up the damned agitation.”

  Halfway up the block, on the left, Frank’s eyes lighted on a church. Drawing level with the stone stairs, he turned without warning and ran up toward the doors. Two plainclothesmen had been marching with him pace by pace, twitchy and sharp for any movement he might make. When he reached the entrance and turned to face his men, the detectives were right behind. His parade had stopped, and the stragglers were still catching up, massing around the foot of the steps. The detectives urged him on, and Frank entered the dimly lit nave of St. Alphonsus’ Catholic Church. The policemen followed. The door closed behind them.

  Inside, statues of the saints loomed by the doors. It was too dark to see more than a few paces ahead. Frank walked down the center aisle, startling some kneeling worshipers. He didn’t have any clear plan. He was just reacting now; the police were in control of the situation. It was the detectives who went and found the priest—the authorities arranged everything.

  “Father,” said the detective sergeant, “this is Frank Tannenbaum. He wants to speak to you.”

  “All right, just one moment,” said Frank, asserting some free will. “My name is Tannenbaum, and I’ve led my army here to make one request of you. We want to sleep in the church tonight. Can we do it?”

  “No, you cannot.”

  St. Alphonsus’ Catholic Church.

  “But we’re starving. We’ve come here to spend the night.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Do you call this living up to the teachings of Jesus Christ?”

  “I don’t intend to argue with you on ecclesiastical matters,” snapped the priest. “You’ve got to get out.”

  “Well, will you give us money to buy food?”

  “No.”

  “Will you give us work?”

  “No.”

  Frank offered his hand. “All right, no hard feelings,” he said. “We’ll go away.” The priest refused to shake, and Tannenbaum walked a few steps, before turning to say again, “All right, no hard feelings, now, remember.”

  They went back into the main hall of the church, which was now crowded with the unemployed. More protesters were filing in. The policemen by the door let them in gladly—once inside, however, no one was permitted to leave. Frank offered to lead the men back to the street, but the detectives told him to stay put. They were being sealed up, trapped. The intruders and the assistant priests were hollering at each other. The men still outside were shouting. Bells tolled on approaching police wagons. The photographers’ flashbulbs were firing off like ammunition. It was all so ugly and ridiculous that Frank had to laugh. “This is fine,” he said to himself with a wan smile. “This is the best meeting I’ve had yet.” A detective who had disappeared now slipped back inside through the guarded entrance. It was almost a relief when he shouted out, “Frank Tannenbaum! Step forward! You are under arrest for unlawful entry, by order of the commissioner.”

  “All right,” Frank said, and submitted to being led out through the doors into the riotous street. Traffic was blocked. Scores of police officers cordoned off the steps, or filtered through the crowds that had spilled from the nearby tenements to watch. He heard them shouting at him—or for him, he couldn’t tell which—as he descended to the street. The detectives lifted him into the green patrol wagon that was backed up to the foot of the stairs, and for a moment he was alone. Then the next prisoners got shoved in with him, and then still more. When the benches were filled, and men were crouching on the floors, the van jolted forward, picking its way through the jammed avenue. At the station house on MacDougal Street, his name was entered in the blotter. For a couple hours they left him waiting in the holding cell while the others were booked, and finally the detectives escorted him uptown to be arraigned.

  It was after eleven P.M, when Frank, pale and trembling from exhaustion, was led into a courtroom for the first time in his life. He fidgeted anxiously at the stand, wiping an old kerchief across his face, unconsciously fussing with his wavy hair. Around him, obscure officials spoke in murmurs. “Is that the judge?” he asked the detective, pointing to the court clerk. Then, when the doors opened and the actual magistrate ascended the bench, he was unmistak
able—massive and remote, beefy jowls overspreading the high collar of his black robe. He read the charge: inciting to riot, a felony that carried a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

  “Do I have to plead now?” asked Frank. The judge was explaining his options, but he couldn’t follow. Panic rising. He couldn’t answer any of the questions; he didn’t know what to do. It was a relief to hear that the proceeding was rescheduled for the following afternoon, but when the bail was announced—$5,000—the sum hit Frank like a hurled weight, and he staggered and gasped. He looked around for friends. But he was alone. The officers led him out from the courtroom to his cell and locked him away for a sleepless night.

  IT WAS A late evening—and a long one—for Police Commissioner McKay as well. That morning, he had issued general orders to his men to keep tabs on Tannenbaum. Then he had spent all day detailing his resources for a comprehensive response. Every conceivable precaution was taken. After dark, he lingered at headquarters, waiting by the telephone. Finally, the call. It was Detective Sergeant Gegan. Tannenbaum was at St. Alphonsus’ on West Broadway. McKay ordered out the reserves, every precinct—Greenwich Street, Elizabeth Street, Mulberry Street, MacDougal Street, Charles Street, Mercer Street, Beach Street—all of them. And then he jogged to his official car and sped to the scene. By the time he arrived, more than seventy-five officers were in action, and the patrol wagons were already being loaded.