“Hey there, Jim!” Isaac yelled over the noise. “Hold your horses.” Isaac’s hands flew over the machine and the mechanical arms whizzed overhead as the letters found their way home. The machine clanked to a halt.
“Listen, Ziggy, I’m going out to cover a story,” said McGraw. “Wanna come along?”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Sure, I’m almost done.” Isaac’s fatigue was instantly gone. “What’s the story?”
“Reverend Du Val and his Social Reformers are holding a rally at the Winnipeg Theater. It’s gonna be huge. They’ve booked Westminster Church for the overflow and looks like they’ll fill that, too. Word is that the holy-rollers are whippin’ this election campaign into a frenzy and Mayor Arbuthnot is on his way out after all these years.”
“You think so? He’s been elected three times already. I thought he was very well liked.”
“He is liked, if you don’t take into account this moral crusade,” said McGraw. “The word on the street is that Reverend Du Val has all the support he needs to push city council to shut down the bawdy houses. The reformers are looking to blame Arbuthnot for letting the problem go so long and they’ve built up a lot of steam. The way I see it, the flesh pots are going to bring this mayor down.”
“I thought the morality problem was about drinking and the number of saloons around, not, well, not those women.” Isaac’s cheeks went bright red.
“Whores!” McGraw said loudly, pronouncing it HOO-ers, the way it was commonly said in Winnipeg. “Whores, they are, lad.” He laughed out loud. “Well, yes, right you are my friend, the hard drinking in this town is a much bigger problem, but the way Du Val and his followers have it, the brothels are a major part of that booze trade, so they figure on getting rid of the Thomas Street bawdy houses and the inmates therein, and in so doing, they are counting on cutting down on the boozing.”
“What do you, figure, Jim?”
“I figure it’s going to make for an interesting shouting match at the rally tonight. Those ladies have been conducting business out on that road for more than twenty years and they aren’t going to take this lying down, if you pardon the pun.” McGraw guffawed and snorted at his own humor. “When are you gonna be outta here?”
“Just wrapping up the last page now. Give me ten minutes,” answered Isaac, grinning broadly.
“Make it five. I’ll meet you out front.”
Isaac scrambled into his coat and tugged his hat onto his head as he flew from the building to find McGraw chewing on a cigar and chatting with a beat cop outside the Star’s front door.
“Hey, Ziggy. Meet my buddy, Officer McLanahan,” McGraw greeted his friend. “This is Isaac Zigman.”
“Glad to know you.” The cop towered over them, resembling a bear in his heavy buffalo coat and fur hat.
“I was just telling the officer here that with your sense of a good story, I’m betting you’ll end up writing for this rag one day,” said McGraw.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” answered Isaac, surprised and pleased at the compliment. “I think I might be a lawyer and that you’ll be writing about me one day, McGraw.”
The men all had a laugh and McLanahan raised his hand in a wave as he continued on his patrol.
“Here’s the dope,” McGraw told Isaac, as the two started their walk to the theater. “McLanahan says extra forces have been called in tonight to keep the rally from getting out of hand. This Du Val is a real hellfire and brimstone kind of preacher. He’s got a way with words, he does.”
“I don’t understand.” Isaac jammed his hands into his pockets and hurried along to match the pace of the reporter. “I thought that the brothels had been left alone because they are out on the edge of town and segregated from the rest of the population. What’s all the fuss?”
Jim turned and looked at Isaac. “Well, whadda ya know, the lad has a feel for the predicament of the ladies of the scarlet sin. Yes. The good and solid leaders of the fine City of Winnipeg have indeed turned a blind eye to the goings-on over on Thomas Street.”
“What do you mean a blind eye? Aren’t prostitutes legal if they stay out there in the brothel district?”
“Well now, that takes us right to the heart of the matter,” answered McGraw. “Segregate the prostitutes and there’s no problem. Out of sight, out of mind.” He waved his hands as though pretending to be addressing a crowd and then turned to look Isaac in the eye. “Yes, that’s most definitely the policy the city fathers adopted. But no, it ain’t legal. It’s against the criminal code for gawd’s sake!”
“So if it is not legal, why don’t they just enforce the law?” Isaac was confused.
“Isaac.” McGraw stopped and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I gotta tell you that you are just dumber than shit.” McGraw shook his head and started to hoot with laughter.
Deeply embarrassed, Isaac shrugged him off and sharpened his tone. “Well, if I’m so stupid, why are you taking me along?”
“Aw, c’mon. I’m just bustin’ your chops.” McGraw slapped playfully at his friend’s cap. “Look, here’s how it is. I’ll explain it slowly so you can understand.”
Isaac snapped. With a yell, he tucked his head down and charged full force into McGraw, slamming him into a snow bank.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” McGraw rolled and twisted around to grab Isaac’s fists.
“Don’t you make fun of me!” Isaac was faster, and slipping through his grasp, pinned his opponent face down in the snow. With his knee planted between McGraw’s shoulder blades he grabbed his right arm and wrenched it as hard as he could.
“YOWCH! All right, all right! Lemme loose!”
“Stop insulting me! I’m not a kid.” Isaac gave McGraw one more shove and stood up.
“You’re an asshole! Look at, me! I’m all covered in snow!”
Isaac raised his fists. “Say you’re sorry!” he shouted, weaving and bobbing, ready with his next punch.
“Oh, for gawd’s sake.” McGraw plopped back down onto the snow. “Stop it, Isaac.”
“Say you’re sorry!”
“All right! I’ll say it,” McGraw held his hand up and Isaac helped him to his feet. “I’m sorry you’re an asshole.”
Isaac rushed him again, but this time McGraw was ready. Dodging out of the way, he stuck his foot out and sent Isaac flying.
Now, both covered in snow like two small boys, they started to laugh.
“Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, Isaac! Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“I had lots of practice in the schoolyard.”
“All right. I give up. You hear? So, let’s be friends and be on the same side, eh?” McGraw held his hands up to signal a truce. “Turn around and I’ll brush the snow off your coat. We gotta move along here. I’ll explain the whole story.”
They quickened their pace to the theater while Jim, with a new respect for Isaac, outlined the history of the brothel problem.
“You see, this town is pretty much the ‘Wild West’ that easterners read about in their dime novels. You don’t have to look hard to see how men outnumber women by a substantial margin.”
Isaac nodded his head. Even in school, there were very few girls in Isaac’s grade twelve class.
“All those fellas comin’ west for jobs just ain’t gonna find an abundance of decent and eligible women around to marry. So, this gives rise, you should pardon the expression, to a rather lucrative industry for the sportin’ women who are more than willing to offer up paid entertainment to an endless supply of strong healthy men who want to blow off a little steam. Now, from the city’s point of view, you have to know, this also brings in a lot of money. Think about it! If our good city fathers ever are successful in shuttin’ them bawdy houses down, how much money is gonna be chopped right out of the Winnipeg economy? Those whores like to spend a dollar. Believe me, some of our department stores just about throw out a red carpet to greet ’em.”
“But how can the city just decide to n
ot enforce the law?” Isaac couldn’t make sense of it. “How do you turn away from the Criminal Code of Canada?”
“You already lawyerin’ up with those books, Ziggy?” McGraw shook his head. “Man, oh, man, do you ever need to have a little fun. Holy cow, you’re wasting your youth with all that hard work.”
Isaac turned red, and McGraw gave him a shove and laughed. “Here’s how it came to be. Bear with me here, Ziggy, I figure this stuff isn’t in those law books you read in your spare time. In 1870, there was no Winnipeg. There was a little fur trading settlement here at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers that was called Fort Garry. It was home to about two hundred people, fur traders and Indians mostly.
“Three years later, the population had exploded to almost two thousand people and Winnipeg was incorporated as a city. Think about it. That’s only thirty years ago. Well, way back when Winnipeg was startin’ to attract all this population, a group of enterprising women set up a nice little string of whore houses on Colony Street near Portage Avenue. A bunch of ‘em had come up from South Dakota, from a place called Deadwood Gulch—famous for its gamblers and gunslingers.
“Anyhow, Winnipeg continues to grow like crazy, real estate prices go through the roof, and suddenly there’s a need to build Manitoba College. Where’d they decide to put it? Right next to those little houses on Colony Creek. No one said much at first, but soon enough it came out that the students were getting a little distracted and there was a big ol’ fuss about the fallen women fallin’ all over the fine young men of the moneyed class. It hit the newspapers, and suddenly everyone in town knew there were prostitutes among us. Good God, Almighty! The citizenry was all just shocked right down to their toenails to learn of it!” McGraw threw up his hands to emphasize his point.
“So what happened?”
“So, they sent in the police chief to push them whores out of there. He was a new man, by the name of John Ingram. And you know what happened?” McGraw started to snicker like a schoolboy.
“They fought him off?” guessed Isaac.
“No, sir, they set him up! The doxies made him real welcome. So, good old John thought he’d sample some of the delectable pleasantries offered, and there he was, caught with his pants down, and I mean it in the most direct way possible.”
McGraw laughed and slapped Isaac on the shoulder. “The mayor and council ran his sorry ass right out of town.”
“Then what happened? Did they close down the brothels?”
“Well, we finally got some order restored when City Council decided the thing to do was just push the problem out of sight. So they segregated the women in a brothel district out on Thomas Street. It’s a full two miles west of downtown, and at the time, it was out on the bald-ass prairie. Not a bad location, especially because the streetcar service ran all the way down Portage to their establishments. Everything was just tickety-boo for more than twenty years. The cops kept an eye on the prairie nymphs and made sure they kept to themselves. Women who drifted into downtown were quickly treated to a clear explanation of the rules and sent in the right direction and somehow everything remained in balance.”
“So, why did it change?” Isaac asked.
“Where’ve you been for the last few years, Ziggy? Hiding under a rock? When did you come to Winnipeg?”
“1897.”
“And what do you suppose the population was six years ago when you jumped off that train with your eyes all wide and innocent?”
“Somewhere around thirty-five thousand.” Isaac set his jaw and tried to ignore the insult.
“Very good. I oughta know that if anyone would keep track of shit like that, it would be a bookworm like you. Anyhow, yes, that’s right, thirty-five thousand. And now going into 1904, we stand at something more than sixty-five thousand.
“Now you tell me, when we add thirty thousand people in just six years, where’re we gonna put ’em all? I’ll tell you where. One street after another has been built heading west out there toward Thomas Street until the city grew right up to the front doors of those whorehouses. Thomas Street ain’t out on the prairie any more.
“That’s the whole problem, you see. All those decent church-going women living out that way are madder than hell because their little kiddies are playing in yards just a stone’s throw away from cowboys haulin’ up their drawers and snappin’ their suspenders after a bit of frolic with the floozies.”
Isaac was hanging on every word as they hustled through the fresh snow, his head swimming with images he’d never entertained before.
“You with me so far, Ziggy?”
“Oh, yes.” Isaac’s head bobbed up and down.
“So, enter one little fireball of a preacher with rather fine chin whiskers by the name of Reverend Frederic Du Val.
“Now, Ziggy, when you see him, you’re going to think this man is just not big enough to cause any trouble at all. But, don’t be lettin’ his small stature cloud your judgment. This man stands tall among the righteous. Educated at Princeton, winner of all kinds of oratorical contests, he is not a narrator to ignore. Yes, sir, you are in for one fine speech tonight. He has those temperance women fainting in the aisles the second he opens his mouth.”
“He’s the one I’ve been reading about as leading all the city pastors in the moral reform movement.”
“Yes! He is the very one. And he’s well cut out for the job. The man could run for mayor and beat out all the competition. Do you know that yesterday alone he got more than eight hundred men to stick around after church services for his blistering speech on what they’re now all callin’ the Scarlet Sin? He got that audience so wound up that they decided to have this big rally at the Winnipeg Theater tonight. So, now the good preacher has got himself a regular army of do-gooders bangin’ the drum for this crusade of his. And they can all hold an audience, I tell ya. These are great speakers, these preachers. Men like Reverend Charles Gordon and J.B. Silcox. They’re all pounding the same message. It’s expected to be standing room only, tonight, and the place holds over fourteen hundred people. How do you like them apples?”
“Do you think Mayor Arbuthnot is going to be re-elected?”
“Not a chance,” answered McGraw. “This Du Val has a lot of influence right now and he’s favoring Alderman Thomas Sharpe because he promised to actually close out the Thomas Street houses.”
“Well, maybe that would be good for Winnipeg, to move the prostitutes out of town.”
“I don’t know if Sharpe has the guts to do it. Besides, according to the cops, it’s only going to cause even more problems if all these social reformers get their way.”
“How so?” asked Isaac.
“The cops I talk to say the women are just not gonna leave town like Du Val is insisting. You know what’ll happen, Ziggy? The whores are going to quietly move into the heart of the city and carry on business in decent neighborhoods everywhere. They’ll be scattered all over tarnation and believe you me, all manner of complaints are going to come up about the whores sullying the fine image of Winnipeg by being on every street corner through town.
“You wait and see. This is just a real bad idea, and it looks like there is no way to stop it. It won’t be any time at all before we get farmhands coming into town, and gettin’ good and liquored up, then looking for a little bump and grind. You wait for the fireworks then. You’re gonna see all manner of decent women being mistaken for sporting gals. It’s going to be hellfire and damnation of a whole new kind.” McGraw rubbed his hands with glee. “I can’t wait!”
They rounded the corner and came upon a mob of people pushing to get through the doors of the Winnipeg Theater.
“Wow,” said Isaac. “You sure are right about the crowd.”
“Yeehaw! Hold onto your hat, Ziggy. History will be written tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rupert’s Secret Investment
December 9, 1903
Rupert rose early the morning after the election. He sat alone at the table in the
breakfast room, poring over a stack of newspapers neatly piled next to his coffee. The good news was that he had held on to his seat as alderman, though it was the narrowest victory in the entire slate of winning candidates. The hard news was that his friend and colleague, John Arbuthnot, was no longer mayor. In fact, Arbuthnot had been forced by fire-breathing moral crusaders to withdraw from the race altogether.
It was a mess. Reverend Dr. Du Val, that power hungry little zealot, had practically carried Mayor-elect Thomas Sharpe into office on his own shoulders. Not that Sharpe was a bad sort, but this moral crusade of his had grown completely out of control. Good God! Du Val had no idea what a hornet’s nest he was stirring up.
Now council would have to go through the ugly business of shutting down the Thomas Street resorts. What did the reformers know of the workings of the brothel trade? If the population was so frenzied to get rid of the girls, why had the turnout at the polls been so pitifully low? The entire vice issue had been blown right out of proportion. That’s why.
All this malarkey that the bawdyhouse inmates would be driven from town by the simple act of shutting down the Thomas resorts was so much naïve nonsense.
The worst of it was that all this scrutiny had brought Rupert to the very precipice of a political scandal that could ruin him. As the owner of five of the houses rented out to the madams on Thomas Street, Rupert lived in fear of being discovered. This was so much worse than the quiet matter of sending blackmail money to his wretched father. For more than three years, the checks to Ira Volinsky had been cashed every month with not a word, or a hint of trouble, since the arrangement began.
The problem of potential political ruin, however, was monumental by comparison. To hide the truth, Rupert had been forced to appear to be in support of the ridiculous moral crusade.
Then there was the matter of having to use his own son to distance himself from the segregated colony. Though Alfred didn’t know it, Rupert had transferred all five of his whorehouses into his son’s name. It was sound advice from his old real estate friend, Percival Wright, who had helped him in his purchase of Ravenscraig Hall so many years before. He had hated to do it, particularly since he had no intention of telling Alfred, but if a problem erupted, Alfred would have to take the fall. It was simply the only solution. It wouldn’t be so bad. He was a good lad with a lot of ability. He could start again down east. He had much less to lose, after all, than Rupert did. No, starting over would not be difficult for him, if it ever came to that, and Toronto would suit him well.
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