“Right you are. Seventy per cent growth,” said Jim. “Think about what that means. It’s only natural the typhoid numbers would reflect that growth. More immigrants, more typhoid. That’s all there is to it. It’s all about arithmetic.” Jim bit into his sandwich. “Sorry, kid. There’s no story here.”
“Jim, just listen to me. Yes, it was a terrible summer. On the face of it, it seems to all be due to the exploding population. But there is a lot more to it than that. The new immigrants almost all end up in cheap housing in the North End, and that causes a bunch of problems.”
“I’m waiting to hear something new here, Ziggy,” Jim looked at his watch.
“Would you stop talking and let me finish?” Isaac snapped. “Yes, it’s true that most newcomers end up in the North End because the housing is cheapest there. The slums grow larger, and boarding houses are bursting into the streets. With hardly any sewer connections in the North End, everywhere you look the outhouses are overflowing in the lanes.” Isaac’s eyes were flashing. “Last summer, the flies were thick as carpets on what amounted to open sewage and all that made for the right conditions for typhoid to spread, along with a host of other diseases. It was a terrible summer. We both know these facts. These stories have been in the papers for months.”
“Okay, professor.” Jim held up his hands. “I can’t help it. You are killing me with details and I’m getting bored with all of this background. You got a point to make?”
“Yes. The spread of disease did not stop at the end of the summer. I’m talking about another six hundred typhoid cases after a hard frost, which normally kills the flies and halts the spread of the disease. We’ve had twelve hundred typhoid cases this year, Jim. That makes Winnipeg the typhoid capital of the Western world, maybe the whole world.”
Jim stopped eating, impressed with Isaac’s research. “That’s right.” His eyebrows pulled together in concentration. “Where are you going with this?”
“That’s why I think the big October fire is directly connected,” Isaac spread his hands on the table and looked around again to see if anyone was listening. “The cause has got to be contaminated drinking water.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What are you? A scientist now?” Jim sat back with his arms across his chest. “Are you telling me that Isaac Zigman, an eighteen-year-old kid from the North End, can figure out the source of contamination that caused hundreds of people to get sick with typhoid when the provincial health inspector missed it? Give your head a shake. I’ll bet your brains have rattled loose.”
“Well, now, you don’t need to be so insulting before you even hear how we can prove it, Jim!” Isaac’s anger flushed his cheeks as he jumped from his seat to grab his coat. “Thanks for the sandwich. I’ll see you around.”
“Whoa! Hey, hold on, Ziggy. I’m sorry.” Jim hopped up and put his hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “I’m way outta line. Maggie’s mom took sick and I guess I’m a little off my game. It’s got me worried for her whole family.”
“Typhoid?” asked Isaac.
“Not likely from the symptoms she has, but they’re all pretty worried over there. Maggie’s sister is a nurse and they know how to look after each other. Gee, I’m sorry I’ve been so rough on you, Ziggy. Let’s sit down. I want to hear what you have to say. Please, just sit.”
Calmed by the apology, Isaac eased back into his seat. “All right. As you taught me, Jim, we start with what we know. We know all the sewage pipes empty into the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. No one on earth thinks it’s a good idea to drink water that has sewage in it.”
“For Gawd’s sake, Ziggy. No one is drinking sewage-tainted water. The Winnipeg supply comes from artesian wells.”
“Yes, but there is still the old pumping station in Armstrong’s Point. It allows water from the Assiniboine to come into the water mains.”
“It’s never used. It’s shut down. Has been for almost five years now.”
“No. That is not true,” Isaac countered, poking his index finger in the air. “I was right there the night of the fire when Mayor Sharpe gave the order to boost the water pressure by pumping in extra water from the Assiniboine. Alderman Willows was the one who thought of it and was quite insistent that it was the best solution at hand. The mayor didn’t like it, but he went for it.”
Jim’s eyes narrowed as he thought back to the night of the fire.
“That’s right,” he acknowledged, thinking hard to remember the details. “I forgot about that. Well, they had no choice. They needed the water pressure to save the city from the fire. We could have lost the whole damn thing, just like Chicago when it burned down.”
“Well, the price of saving the city was the typhoid epidemic,” Isaac said evenly.
Jim put his sandwich down and swallowed hard against his skepticism. The kid was young, but he had good instincts and a very sharp brain. “Go on.”
Isaac quickly laid out the facts he had gathered.
“It starts with the hospital story and your insistence that the number of rich folks getting typhoid was highly unusual. The hospital isn’t big on giving out the numbers, but from what I’ve been able to get, I can tell you that there are many more typhoid cases in the better neighborhoods in the South End than there are in the foreign quarter. In fact, since October, hardly any of these cases are north of the tracks. It’s never been that way in any of the outbreaks before.”
“So what? We’ve also never had a winter outbreak of typhoid like this before. What if it just turns out the rich neighborhoods are unlucky? Maybe the typhoid is being delivered to their homes in the milk supply. There’s all kinds of talk about that. All those milk wagons travel all over town. Maybe one of ’em is carrying disease around but the folks in the foreign quarter got a break, that’s all.”
“Jim, you are missing the point. I’d bet my last dollar that the milk wagons have nothing to do with the problem. It’s the water mains that are carrying the typhoid into the wealthy neighborhoods,” Isaac stated emphatically. “The foreign quarter is the land of outhouses and well water. There are very few water connections, and that’s why the area is largely protected from this outbreak. That’s my theory.”
“Ziggy, I dunno. I think what you got here is real interesting, but, how is it possible you’re the only one onto this idea? The papers are full of theories from every guy who every earned a university degree or complained about taxes, and no one’s talkin’ about this.”
“Maybe they don’t want to see it,” Isaac answered. “It would be pretty embarrassing for the city. Look, it’s common knowledge that typhoid is carried in many ways, so there are a dozen ways for the city to blame everything but their own actions. I say the water mains pumped disease straight into the kitchen taps of homes with running water.” Isaac stopped talking.
Jim shook his head and sipped his coffee. “They tested the water. There was no problem.”
“They tested the water too late. After the fire, they closed off the Assiniboine pumping station. The well water eventually flushed out the dirty water, so there was no evidence to be found by the time they did their tests.” Isaac sipped his coffee.
McGraw rubbed his jaw and considered how to let his cub reporter down easily. This kid had a lot of gumption, and one day it would serve him well, no matter what job he had. “I admire your enthusiasm, Ziggy, but there’s no story here. We can’t prove your theory, so you got nothing.”
“You go ahead and make fun of me, Jim.”
“Hey, hothead, no one is makin’ fun of you! I’m just tellin’ ya this ain’t a story.”
“I am right, and the proof will come up on its own in ten days to two weeks!” Isaac spat back. “You don’t want the story, no problem, maybe I can write it myself.”
“What proof?”
“Look, it’s really simple,” said Isaac. “There have been only two occasions that the fire department tapped into the Assiniboine River to increase water pressure for fire fighting. I went over there and talked to the fire ch
ief, and he confirmed it. There was the big fire on October 11th, and now this one last night on Main Street. If I’m right, within the next couple of weeks, we will see another spike in the number of typhoid cases, and just like the last time, there won’t be a lot of them coming out of the North End.” Isaac looked at Jim.
Jim sat back and whistled through his teeth. Then he placed his hands behind his head and stretched back looking at the ceiling while he processed his young friend’s hypothesis. He eased the chair away from the table, balancing on its two back legs. The creaking of the wood filled the void in their conversation. Suddenly the chair dropped with a bang and McGraw was in Isaac’s face.
“Holy crap, Ziggy!” Jim saw the full potential of the story and lowered his voice. “This is some situation. Did you know the city is fixing to spend a ton of money to bring in a big name biologist from Chicago to solve this so called mystery? Professor Edwin Oakes Jordan. I had a long talk on the telephone with him last week. He confirmed he got a call from the good mayor of Winnipeg. Not only that. When I talked with him, he mentioned contaminated drinking water as one possible source of the disease that would have to be investigated. He also talked about sewers, the milk supply and sanitary conditions and a few other potential causes, but I think you are onto something, Ziggy.”
Isaac felt his heart pounding with excitement. “So, we have one big story to write. We could save the city all kinds of money and stop people from getting sick by exposing the danger in the drinking water.” Isaac’s hands were flying as he talked.
“Now, just hold on, Ziggy. No one is gonna be writin’ anything about this unless they are lookin’ to get their sorry asses fired right off of the paper.”
“What?” Isaac was astonished. “What are you talking about?”
“Think about it. If you’re right and we run this story a whole bunch of folks are gonna look bad. It could get Mayor Sharpe tossed out of office. Like you said, he’s the one who gave the order to use the water from the Assiniboine. Then there are all kinds of other folks who would be out for blood if this gets out. Who do you think owns this paper? Or any paper in Winnipeg for that matter. All those rich guys who run the Board of Trade and the Stock Exchange. If we go after the city fathers and their cronies, they’ll run us right out of town. Not one of them good old boys wants to see Winnipeg’s fine reputation harmed with headlines in newspapers saying the city deliberately poisoned folks with drinking water and caused the worst outbreak of typhoid ever seen in the Western world. You see what I mean?”
“So, we have to sit back and watch people get sick and die?” Isaac couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What about Professor Jordan? He’ll find out the truth. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Ah! Don’t count on it. You know that slogan about all the news that’s fit to print? I can guarantee you that if this Dr. Jordan turns up anything really bad, the papers will just decide it is unfit to print. I’ve seen it lots of times. This is where you will see our dear editors at the Star get into a little creative writing. They aren’t in business to tell the truth. They are in business to sell advertising. The news should never get in the way of a good profit, or in the way of an opportunity to promote the good name of Winnipeg. Believe me, the editors of the Star, and likely all of the other papers, will bury the truth in stories that are as confusing as possible so that it won’t look so bad for the guilty.”
“They can’t do that.” Isaac felt his cheeks getting hot.
“They can and they will and I tell you they do it all the time. None of these fellas that own newspapers in Winnipeg is looking to be ringing alarm bells that this is a bad place to live. Confuse the readers, and nobody will ever know who to blame. That’s the way they do it. It ain’t gonna change because Isaac Zigman thinks it’s wrong.”
“I can’t believe it.” Isaac shook his head. “It is wrong. It’s immoral.”
“It is. But it doesn’t matter. They don’t care,” said Jim.
“So what do we do about the story?”
“We wait and see if your theory is correct and if there is a jump in the number of cases in the next couple of weeks.”
“Then what?”
“Then we see if we can get an editor on side to allow the story to go forward,” said Jim. “I need my job. We play this one by the rules.”
Isaac sighed. “All right. I don’t like it, but I understand. And hey, Jim, do me a favor and make sure you only drink boiled water. Would you do that?”
“Now, how would you have this advice, Dr. Zigman?”
“My cousin is studying to be a doctor and that’s what she said,” answered Isaac.
“She?” Jim was astonished.
“Oy, I meant, he.” Isaac caught himself on the verge of disclosing Maisie’s secret. He was carrying a letter from her in his pocket telling of the troubles at Alderman Willows’ house. “Guess I’m not getting enough sleep.”
“Well, you can sleep better now, my friend, knowing that I will take that advice,” said Jim. “Maggie’s already told me the same. ‘Just in case,’ is what she said. I sure hope you are wrong on this one. Hey, look at the time. I gotta get Maggie. Hey, I didn’t tell you! She and I are gonna get married in April!”
“Jim! Mazel Tov! I mean congratulations. I am so very happy for you.”
“I want to see you dancing at our wedding, Ziggy, so you better start working on finding a date,” Jim teased as he smacked Isaac’s shoulder and headed for the door.
Jim left and Isaac pulled on his coat, taking his time to arrange his scarf to protect his face for the walk home. As he walked, he prayed that his theory was wrong. How could the city pump disease-laden water into the homes of its citizens? He went over the conversation with Jim in his head, and felt dread crawl into the pit of his stomach as he thought of what Jim said about losing his job if he wrote the story.
It was only as he was rounding the corner onto Selkirk Avenue that the solution came to him, and he all but whooped for joy at the thought of it. It was so simple. None of the stories published ever carried the name of the reporter or editor who wrote it. As a compositor, he could just include the story in the paper without ever running it by an editor. No one ever looked over his shoulder to see what he was tapping into the Linotype machine. Why not just slip it in?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Elliot’s News
December 29, 1904
Emma stood at the door of her mother’s suite and listened carefully. At first there was only silence, and her breath quickened as she twisted and bruised the flower stems in her hand. When she finally heard her mother’s voice, her fears lessened and she knocked quietly.
“It’s all right, Miss Emma. She’s awake, and she has been asking for you.” Maisie smiled as she opened the door. Emma peeked into the room over her shoulder.
“Is she really all right, Maisie?” Emma asked as she retreated into the hallway, motioning to Maisie to come out so they could talk privately. Maisie closed the door behind her and the two sat together on the settee outside Beth’s door. Emma played with the flowers that she had gathered into a posy for her mother. “Is she going to die?”
“No, she is getting well, Emma.” Maisie was surprised at the question and gripped the child’s hand. “Why ever would you ask such a thing?”
“I had a dream. A terrible nightmare, Maisie. I dreamt that I was getting ready for my debutante party and that mother was not anywhere to be found. I was so scared, Maisie.” Emma’s tears started to fall and she dropped her head into Maisie’s lap.
“You poor thing. Please, don’t be frightened.” Maisie hugged her. “Now, look at me. You know what your brother James has said. She is well past the worst of the illness and is recovering very well. He is going to be a wonderful doctor, Emma, and you should be very proud. Your mother’s appetite is improving, and she is getting stronger every day. Come in with me and you will see for yourself.”
“It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen her. Does she look awf
ul?”
“She looks tired and she’s thinner, but you’ll see how happy she will be to see you.”
A tinkling bell could be heard from within the bedroom suite.
“Come. She’s ringing for me. “Maisie pushed the door open and stepped aside to let Emma lead the way.
“Emma! Oh, my dear, sweet daughter! Come here, darling,” Beth called with as much strength as she could muster. She was dressed in afternoon clothes and was seated on a chaise lounge near the window.
“Mummy, I can’t tell you how I’ve missed you,” Emma cried as she rushed into her mother’s arms. She held on tightly and wept as Beth stroked her hair.
“Oh, darling, you mustn’t cry. I am fit as a fiddle.”
Emma saw the color in her mother’s cheeks and was filled with relief. “How we’ve all missed you, Mother.”
“I’m under very good care with your brother’s orders and with Maisie here,” Beth nodded at the blushing maid. “I do believe I owe much to her for my recovery. Oh, I’ve missed you more than you will ever know, Pet. It was so annoying to be restricted to chatting with you from the other side of a door. Now, let me look at you! My, how lovely you look in your new dress. Is that the one Elliot sent to you?”
“Yes, it is. Do you like it?” Emma felt her heart soar. Mother was just as she always had been; full of joy and with her concerns about fashion rising over everything around her.
“I do like it very much, Emma.” Beth admired the painstaking detail of the stitching. “I think you will be the talk of the town in this frock. Now, you must tell me that you have kept your promise to me and not told your brother of my illness,” Mother said sternly.
“Yes, I have, Mother. I’ve not said one word about it.” Emma looked down into her hands. “It was so hard for me not to write to Elliot about your trial, Mother. I was so terribly worried, and it is such a comfort to me to share my troubles with him,” she said.
“Emma, dearest, I am so sorry to have put you through all of this. I really can’t imagine how it was that I, of all people, was lucky enough to fall ill. But if you had told your brother, then what would have happened? He would have left his architecture studies and rushed home to my bedside for no reason. You see? Here I am, perfectly fine and almost as good as new.”
Ravenscraig Page 35