by Thai Jones
REFERRING TO MY EARLIER TELEGRAM, WERE ANY OF THE PEOPLE KILLED OR INJURED OR ANY OF THOSE TAKING PART IN THE DISTURBANCES OF THE LAST TWO OR THREE DAYS PRESENT OR FORMER EMPLOYEES OF THE FUEL COMPANY? PLEASE WIRE FULL REPORTS DAILY
Bowers’s reply—NONE OF OUR EMPLOYEES INJURED NOR PROPERTY DESTROYED YET—was either willfully or wistfully inaccurate. Concerned by Rockefeller’s preoccupation with the victims, Bowers tried to recall his attention to workaday matters. MUCH LESS DISTURBANCE TO-DAY THAN WAS ANTICIPATED, he wrote on April 24. TRAIN WITH SOLDIERS ON WAY TO STRIKE DISTRICT IS CAUSING ANXIETY. FEARING DYNAMITING OR OTHER MISCHIEF.
Meanwhile, the censure had already begun. In Mother Earth, Alexander Berkman called for vengeance: “What are the American workingmen going to do? Are they going to palaver, petition and resolutionize? Or will they show that they still have a little manhood in them, that they will defend themselves and their organizations against murder and destruction? This is no time for theorizing, for fine-spun argument and phrases. With machine guns trained upon the strikers, the best answer is—dynamite.”
And Berkman, for once, was not the only recriminatory voice. Even the Times conceded the enormity of what had occurred in the coalfields. “Somebody blundered,” wrote the stunned and anxious editors after catching the first horrific rumors of the bloodletting. “Worse than the order that sent the Light Brigade into the jaws of death, worse in its effect than the Black Hole of Calcutta, was the order that trained the machine guns of the State Militia of Colorado upon the strikers’ camp of Ludlow, burned its tents, and suffocated to death the scores of women and children who had taken refuge in the rifle-pits and trenches.”
Labor radicals, who had for years preached the righteousness of violence against capital, would now see their doctrines justified. Each street-corner agitator who had ever denounced the Rockefellers as murderers would believe that judgment confirmed. Before Ludlow, revolutionists had occasionally attacked with bomb and flame and pistol. And now the government had responded in kind. After “a sovereign State employs such horrible means,” the editors asked, “what may not be expected from the anarchy that ensues?”
III
This is no time for theorizing, for fine-spun argument and phrases. With machine guns trained upon the strikers, the best answer is—dynamite.
—ALEXANDER BERKMAN
The Lid
The illuminated sign for Rector’s cabaret rose seventy feet above the entrance on Broadway at Forty-eighth Street. At night, keen crowds pressed against the doors: “They jammed, fought, and tore to get inside.” Those with reservations squeezed past the crush into the lobby. Coats and hats were tossed away; eager feet flew forward, through the French doors, into the main dining room—and chaos. “Bedlam was nothing. This was a twin Bedlam.” People who had worked for decades in the city’s kitchens had never seen anything like the 1914 class of patron: “Nobody went into Rector’s to dine,” the owner recalled. “All they wanted to do was dance.” To placate them, four bands played in relay, beginning with afternoon thés dansants and carrying on almost till dawn. “The diners would drop their knives and napkins the minute the orchestra broke loose, and stampede for the dancing area.” Chefs abandoned the stoves; waiters paired up with coatroom girls. Guests swirled together until “the couples were jammed back to back, elbow to elbow, and cheek to neck.”
Boasting “the finest ball-room in America,” Rector’s was more infamous than Jack’s, the scene of many a scandal, and more profitable than Delmonico’s. The Girl from Rector’s, a 1909 sex farce, had been so outrageous that it took three rewrites before it could be performed in Boston. And a 1913 Ziegfeld hit had only added allure with its prophecy that
A lot of men would pony up a lot of alimony
If a table at Rector’s could talk.
Sarah Bernhardt and Enrico Caruso were favored guests, but anyone was welcome who could spend $7.50—the equivalent of a tenement family’s weekly rent—on a quart of Pol Roget 1900. It was the premier restaurant in the Tenderloin, “the spot where Broadway and Fifth Avenue met.”
On April 21, advertisements in all the major newspapers touted the evening’s entertainment, which included a “Spectacular Sword Dance” and “many other superb attractions.” Cocktails and tango kept the patrons enthralled until the last ones staggered through the doors to find a taxi at 3:30 in the morning. Outside, an undercover policeman noted the exact moment—which was two and a half hours after the legally mandated closing time for cabarets in New York City.
EVERYONE KNEW THAT restaurants brazenly flouted the curfew law. “Poor Old Father Nick is supposed to stop eating, dancing and drinking at 1 A.M.,” a columnist for the World observed, and yet “more people are to be found after that hour in restaurants … that are legally closed than in the streets, which are legally open.” But it was equally notorious that the statute, as it stood, was in need of reform. One in the morning was just too early, especially in the theater district. If a show ran late, audience members were left with scant time for supper. “A man gets into a restaurant after midnight and must get out by 1 o’clock,” a cabaret owner complained. “What chance has he to masticate his food?”
The previous mayor had been in his sixties, and in poor health, and such arguments had failed to engender his sympathy. He had put “the lid” on tight, ordering police to drag patrons from their tables, if necessary, so that the last guest would be in a taxi home by the stroke of one. But Mitchel was only thirty-four, and an eminent practitioner of the tango to boot, and he was convinced that his predecessor’s “stringent measures” had gone too far. “I don’t believe in taking any diner by the shoulder and shoving him into the street,” he explained. “It is one extreme to put people out of restaurants at 1 A.M. It is another extreme to let the restaurants run wild.” Understanding that “all rules must be enforced with common sense,” his administration hoped to chart a middle course.
Back in January, Mitchel had assigned Arthur Woods the task of finding a satisfactory solution. Woods had then spent weeks consulting with department commissioners, the district attorney, magistrates and aldermen, temperance advocates and cabaret owners. In March he presented his conclusion: that the curfew for cabarets should be extended by one hour, to two A.M., “for the purpose of giving plenty of time for persons after the theatre to get a comfortable supper without being hurried.”
An array of clamoring citizens, with various complaints, hurried to voice their opposition to the plan. “This proposed extension is not for good morals,” a leader of the Church Temperance Society remonstrated, “not for good order and the quiet of the city, but in the interests of undesirable things and undesirable persons.” The waiters union testified that shifts already stretched sixteen or seventeen hours, and later closing times would only mean longer and more inhumane workdays. Proprietors of Bowery dives complained that the mayor was unjustly favoring the wealthy entrepreneurs of Broadway. “There are hundreds of strangers who come to this city who can’t afford to pay $3 for a meal,” an East Sider argued, “and if only the big restaurants are allowed to keep open, it isn’t fair. I’d call it class legislation.”
Cabaret owners kept quiet while the opposition railed, confident their interests would be protected in the end. The clientele they served made their status sacrosanct. For years they had enjoyed special privileges—violating the liquor laws, affronting public decency—and hardly any action had been taken against them. While high society blithely gambled thousands of dollars in their private back rooms, police had busied themselves elsewhere, “raiding corner saloons and arresting sailors for shaking dice for five-cent beers.” As the restaurateurs expected, the administration spent two weeks listening to all objections, and then proceeded to ignore them, officially confirming the two A.M. extension. “The vote showed that the hotel and restaurant men got nearly everything that they asked for,” the Times concluded. “The objections of church representatives, reformers, and temperance workers did not figure in any compromi
se.”
The government then began vetting applicants for the extended licenses. Each prospective restaurant would be “investigated in two separate ways,” Arthur Woods explained, “one by the Inspector in command of the district and the other by the Special Squad under the command of the First Deputy Commissioner.” Beginning in early April, the detectives began their clandestine visits.
At 10:30 P.M. on April 7, an investigator entered the Marlborough-Blenheim, on Thirty-sixth Street. “The patrons … appear to be respectable people,” he observed. “There were no unaccompanied women present and no drunkenness or disorder.” That same week, an inspector visited the Kaiserhof, a German restaurant on Thirty-ninth Street. “The place is well managed,” he observed. “The food is good and prices reasonable.” He was especially impressed by the “very good string orchestra.”
Most restaurants fell short of these standards. At Café Regent, the entertainment was not in good taste. “A female with transparent drapings and her hair down her back performed a dance that consisted mostly of kicking,” an inspector complained. “Another female sang a tiresome ballad.” In Bustanoby’s, the patrons consisted of “a respectable class, mingled with showgirls and prostitutes.” At the Princess, on Twenty-ninth Street, an agent griped that one of the coat-check girls “flirts with patrons.”
But the worst evaluations went to eateries that catered to working people. Schulz Café, on Fiftieth Street, was “frequented by many women of questionable character.” The Circle Hotel was dismissed as “a typical corner saloon.” At the Whip, a rathskeller in Brooklyn, the inspectors observed that “the patronage is not high-class.” Six sailors and two soldiers were present, and though “all were well behaved,” he nevertheless urged denial of a permit.
Then, one night in early April, the official made his quiet entrance into Rector’s. It was a relief to be back amongst “wealthy and respectable people,” even if they were enjoying themselves a little freely. “While no persons were present who could properly be said to be drunk, there were a number that were mellow and happy,” he observed. While he watched, one young couple almost fell down the stairs. The entertainment was “high class vaudeville.” Dancing was close but not particularly indecent. “The food and drink is of the best and the prices while moderately high are not prohibitive.” On the whole, the investigator concluded, “This is a desirable and high class place.”
Rector’s was granted its extended license, and policemen were detailed to ensure it honored its commitment to close at 2:00 A.M. Officers waited outside to record the minute when the final patrons departed: 5:00 A.M., 5:15 A.M., 3:30 A.M., 2:45 A.M., 2:25 A.M. Again and again, Rector’s was among the last cabarets to close. In September, despite “friendly admonishings and warnings,” it defied the curfew on eighteen out of thirty nights. “Some of the other restaurants have violated their agreement in this respect but none so bad as Rector’s,” a detective reported. “It is the most flagrant violator of the two o’clock stipulation.” Chief Inspector Max Schmittberger recommended to Arthur Woods that the restaurant’s extension “BE REVOKED, for the reason that said provision has been persistently violated.”
But even the most senior policeman in the city could not prevail against the tango gang. Rather than closing down, Rector’s expanded. On September 28, nearly a thousand celebrities and socialites attended the grand opening of the restaurant’s new colossal “Ballroom de Luxe.” The walls were decorated in gaudy pink and gold; distinguished and eminent guests waltzed beneath “a maze of colored lights,” while bartenders distributed slingers and manhattans.
It was six in the morning when the last patron left.
6.
Free Silence
Spring had not arrived with the equinox, and April was proving to be “a dreary period of chill rains and raw winds.” A brilliant Easter, a few teases of sunshine: These did little against the run of pinched and pallid days. Weeks passed without a hint of change, particularly in those districts where no greenery survived to mark the rhythms of nature. “New York’s landscape is red,” observed a tenant on Thirty-fourth Street, “brick red or brownstone red … Manhattan spring is red.” A month of this had sapped the city’s patience. “When after a long and bitter winter,” an editor at the World complained, “the calendar promises grateful relief, and the elements deliberately proceed to falsify the season’s prospects, a harassed people have a moral right to rebel.”
When renewal began to appear, it came gradually and in private moments: “with a bit of slanting sunlight,” the Evening Post suggested, or “the glimpse of some flower on a windy street-corner.” Warmth interspersed among chill days as “little by little, the sun was getting the better of his enemies.” The starlings were singing again near Riverside Drive. On Broadway, “fur coats alternated with gray flannel suits,” and winter hats gave way to derbies. The tune of hand organs brought dancing children to the East Side streets. “It was that time of the year when all the world belongs to poets,” Upton Sinclair had written in one of his early novels. “There are two weeks, the ones that usher in the May, that bear the prize of all the year for glory.”
The hazel was thriving at the uptown end of Central Park, near 110th Street, where Sinclair and his second wife had recently taken an apartment at the extortionate rate of ten dollars a week. Eight years had passed since the publication of The Jungle, and the dividends from that success were gone. His writings had brought stingier advances—and critical praise, too, had diminished. A review of his latest novel in McClure’s had ended by reflecting: “You may search your soul for a tenable reason why Mr. Sinclair thrust this impossible brew upon the public.”
He was thirty-five years old, bookish and slight, with “large, earnest eyes” and an “almost girlish face.” Rarely wasting a thought on his unkempt hair or clothes, he was modest in manner, “by instinct shy.” He had no fondness for “the turmoil of the crowd,” and yet he always ended up at the center of controversy. He possessed an empathy and anger that overruled his reticence, compelling him out into the forum whenever injustice appeared. “I clench my hands,” he wrote, “and bite my lips together and turn on the fierce and haughty and powerful men with a yell of rage.”
His zealous interventions were a constant exasperation for his allies. To Walter Lippmann, who had known him since their days in the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, these passionate furies had become embarrassing. “Mr. Upton Sinclair’s intentions are so good,” the cynical, aloof Lippmann had written, “his earnestness so grim, and his self-analysis so humorless” that he “is forever the dupe of his own sincerity.” Victor Berger, the Socialist congressman from Wisconsin, was even less charitable. “Sinclair is simply an ass,” he confided to reporters. “He is not recognized by any Socialists that I know of as their representative.” The writer’s antics were a godsend to reporters, who made him “the butt of countless jokes and the target of much ridicule.” Everything he did, they turned against him; “the fact that Upton is for it makes one loathe it,” sneered a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Nor had he helped his own good name with a quest for perfect health that had embraced prolonged fasting, frequent sanitarium stays, and a brief experiment with the “monkey and squirrel diet.”
Upton Sinclair.
In April 1914, Sinclair celebrated the one-year anniversary of his second marriage, to Mary Craig Kimbrough—or Craig—an aspiring writer who came from an aristocratic Mississippi family. They had met during one of his sanitarium stays, and she had already spent much of their married life restraining her husband’s crusades. Then, on April 27, he attended a meeting of socialists at Carnegie Hall, where Laura Cannon—wife of the president of the Western Federation of Miners—told the story of the Ludlow Massacre. Sinclair had been following the events in Colorado, but he had not yet heard the pathos of the details. Along with three thousand other members in the audience, he jeered and hissed at every mention of “Rockefeller.”
Sinclair’s novels featured figurative characters, each
representing broad social categories. Workers were innocent and often heroic, bosses were cynical or brutal; whatever their personal qualities, individuals stood for large ideas. He thought of John D. Junior, in his office above Broadway, blithely condemning hundreds of families to starvation and death. He recalled that the man professed himself a Christian, and even led a Bible class to teach morality to others. Here was a character worth confronting. Picturing this parasite, this hypocrite, Sinclair had the nearly uncontrollable desire “to wait for Mr. Rockefeller at the entrance of his office and publicly horsewhip him.”
Back home in the apartment, at 50 110th Street, near Madison Avenue, Sinclair declared that that night’s supper would be his last: Henceforth, he would fast in solidarity with the strikers. Pacing and ranting, he flatly refused to come to bed. His wife tried to calm his excitement, but he was already planning his next outrages. Visions formed in his imagination: a picket line in front of the Standard Oil Building, grave and picturesque protesters mourning the deaths in Colorado. Junior would become a pariah, abandoned by friends, unwelcome in society. “Now, we don’t need to kill Rockefeller,” he decided, “no, not even if the worst thing his worst enemy might think of him should be true. Giving him the ‘social chill’ will count more than death would.”
“They will surely arrest you,” Craig observed.
“Of course they will; and that is what is needed.”
She reminded him of the state of their bank account: There were no funds left to pay the fines. “Someone will put up the money,” he reassured her. Finally, she offered a compromise. Rather than picketing, they should go together and pay a visit to Rockefeller in person. If he refused to see them privately, then they could demonstrate in public. Grudgingly agreeing, Sinclair finally permitted himself some sleep.