Death at Pullman

by Frances McNamara

  “It’s Mr. Pullman,” she told me, with a furtive look at the closed door. “Miss Addams had only just arrived back when he came in. He sounds very angry.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I sent Miss Giles and her toddlers out to the kitchen for cookies. The loud shouting coming from the library was muffled but alarming. I took a deep breath and clenched my teeth, then opened the door and stepped in.

  Miss Addams was seated behind her small desk opposite the door. George Pullman stood in the middle of the room facing her. He wore neither hat nor gloves and his cravat hung slightly off center. I had only met him that once, at his home, but he seemed like a shrunken version of himself. Perhaps it was the pasty color of his skin, replete with brown age spots, or his slightly disheveled hair, which was much whiter than I remembered. He held a silver- topped cane that he swung around wildly as he spoke. He was no longer the immovable rock that he had appeared to be on our first meeting.

  “You will cease and desist from your interference, madam. You will stop it now. What right have you to complain of my actions? What business is it of yours?” He was shouting, but the tirade, which had apparently been going on for some time, flowed over Miss Addams. She saw me, however, and appeared glad for the interruption.

  “Emily, Mr. Pullman is seeking his children, his younger children. It seems they have had a disagreement and left home. You will remember Miss Cabot, Mr. Pullman. She has been running the relief station down in Kensington, providing food and medicine for the people. Perhaps your sons and younger daughter have gone there.” I shook my head and she hurried on. He stood with his voice barely restrained, ready to start raving again. “I regret it very much if I have done anything to displease you, Mr. Pullman. It is the duty of each of us to try to understand and alleviate the suffering of our fellow man. We try . . . ”

  “Suffering, suffering. Who are you to judge suffering? What do you know about it? I built this company from the ground up. I employed these people. I took them away from the dirt and temptation of the city to a town conceived and built by me. I saved them from the squalid surroundings where you choose to live. Where do you and these union agitators come from that you think you can tell me how to run my business? The town of Pullman is named for me. It is my town, my company. You have no say in the running of it. None at all and neither do Debs or his radical extremist followers.

  “Don’t you see what you have done?” He gestured with the cane towards me, raising his voice even louder. “If those people are without food it is your doing and the doing of those vicious radicals who have infiltrated the works and bribed the men with false hopes.” He whacked his walking stick on the wooden floor as if he would beat his message into it. “Ingrates. Never have there been such ingrates. I cannot work in my own offices for they are closed. I cannot use my own desk. I cannot entertain at the hotel named for my own daughter for fear of actions by these violent strikers.”

  “Oh, really, Mr. Pullman,” I interrupted. “I have been staying at the Florence myself. I assure you no harm has come to me. The actions of the strikers have been greatly exaggerated.”

  But he spread his arms widely and screamed, “Will you let me speak? Will you hear me out? Can I not even speak once without contradiction?” His aspect was wild and he quivered with rage. Miss Addams clucked, waving her hands gently as if to tell me to be quiet. I obeyed, fearing for the man as his face reddened and his eyes protruded.

  “I, who have built this company with my own hands over thirty years, cannot even go to my club without being spurned. To the society of this city, which I have helped to flourish, I am no longer welcome. I am a pariah. Where is gratitude now? Who remembers my contributions now? No one. It is all because of the despicable lies about me from men and women who would never have had the homes they live in if I had not built them. Do they thank the provider of these good things? No, they demand MORE! They refuse to work unless they may dictate the terms. To me—ignoring the fact that without me they would still live in these miserable slums.” Here he made a wide gesture to encompass our neighborhood. “These slums where you and your like come to stir up envy and discord. Well, they can go back. You may have them back, all of them. But you may NOT have MY CHILDREN.” Another crack of the stick on the floor.

  My face was burning. It was only with a great effort, clenching my teeth painfully, that I kept myself from yelling back at these accusations. But Miss Addams gave me a stern look and rose from her seat behind the delicately carved desk in the corner. “Mr. Pullman, I assure you again that I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of any of your children. But, please, I can see that at this time you too are suffering from this awful situation, just as your people in the town of Pullman are. Please, will you allow me—or Mayor Hopkins, or someone else, anyone of your choosing—to begin a conversation, to call all the parties to sit down together to arbitrate this disagreement? I know in my heart that, if we can only begin to talk, all other obstacles will fall away before us.”

  She stood and walked towards him with her arms outstretched, but even Miss Addams could feel the waves of rage emanating from him, as he stood there glaring. She stopped before she reached him.

  I thought he would burst. His face was so red the word apoplexy popped into my mind. He struggled wordlessly for a moment, gripping the cane so fiercely in one hand that his knuckles were white. His other fist was clenched and he raised both fists before his face, shaking them like a baby. “There is NOTHING . . . TO . . . ARBITRATE.” It was a bellow that made me fear he would explode, and collapse from the effort, but he abruptly banged his stick on the wooden floor a final time and dashed from the room.

  Miss Addams and I rushed to the window to see him fling himself into his carriage, which then hurried away. She returned to her seat wearily. I could not even think of any response to the display we had just witnessed. She buried her face in her hands and I noticed the black-banded stationery on which she had been writing.

  “Miss Addams, you were trying to reach your sister in Wisconsin . . . ”

  She raised her head. “Poor Louisa passed away before I could reach her.”

  “I am so very sorry.” I remembered how I had been called to my mother’s bedside in the spring. How would I have felt if a train strike had kept me from her deathbed? I would have been furious. It had given me some peace to be there at the end. “I am so sorry these circumstances kept you from her. I know how very hard that must be for you. I wish I could do something for you and your family.”

  There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Emily. We are grateful for the prayers of all of our friends. But I understand that you have come for more supplies for the people of Pullman. You must return with them. Tell me about it.” She generously put aside her own grief to hear my report, and then said, “You must start back as soon as possible. This is a great tragedy.”

  “It could have been so good,” I couldn’t help complaining. “He is right about the slums. The town is so much better. But they are truly starving.”

  She sighed. “Mr. Pullman thought out in his own mind a beautiful town. He had the power with which to build this town, but he did not appeal to, nor obtain, the consent of the men who were living in it. There is an arrogance inherent in philanthropy that can completely spoil the offering. And when that happens, the loss seems worse than the original lack it was meant to help. It is truly tragic.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Jake and Pauley, the two men who brought me up from Pullman, were happy enough to stay the several days it took me to organize supplies. At least at Hull House they were fed, which was better than down in Pullman. When we finally loaded up the wagon I was disappointed at the paucity of the amount I had been able to purchase. It appeared to be so little, when I knew that the need that would meet us at the other end would be so great. But it would have to do. At any rate, it would be an improvement over the completely empty shelves I had left behind. I thought even the Hull House residents were happy to see me leave, so demanding had I b
ecome with my begging.

  It was a hot and dusty ride back down to Pullman. We did not see any of the mobs so feared by the people who read the newspapers. When we arrived it was easy to recruit some of the weary men in the meeting room to help carry the supplies up to my relief station. They were only too quickly unloaded and I gave a small amount of food to my helpers to take home, saying the rest would be distributed the next day when I had managed to round up my committee, who would once again oversee the fair distribution of the goods.

  I locked the doors and descended to the clinic on the second floor to let Dr. Chapman know that I had returned. His door was shut but in the corridor, on the hard bench, there was a single waiting patient. I felt a thrill of recognition.

  “Raoul.”

  He looked around as if in a fog. I was so glad to see him. I was so tired of being angry, of having to hammer at people to make them understand the crisis. I was so happy to be able to tell him that I had returned with supplies. Not enough, perhaps, but at least it was something. I longed to feel his arm around my shoulders in a confidential manner, as when we had last met. I was so excited to reconnect that I sat down close beside him and put a hand on his arm. I had worried I would feel embarrassed, seeing him after the kisses he had surprised me with the last time, but now my scruples seemed ridiculous to me. He had a warmth and an enthusiasm that I felt a great need for. He still had hope for success and I needed to feel that. It seemed that he was one of the few who felt the same passion for this situation as I did.

  But he looked at me, as if I were a stranger, then looked down at my hand on his arm and moved away from me, pointedly sliding several inches to the side with a distinct frown on his face. I was mortified. It was such a forward thing I had done, sitting practically on top of him, touching him. I was so wrong about how I assumed he felt about me and it was all obvious to me in that second. I jumped to my feet in a useless attempt to hide my shame.

  “Mr. LeClerc. I have just returned from the city. I have managed to bring back some supplies. Not much. Not enough, but some. Is there news of the strike? Is there any hope of it ending?”

  He looked sullen. It was so unlike him. In the weeks since I had first met him, his hair had gotten longer and so had his moustache. He had let a small goatee grow on his chin. He looked more foreign than ever, I thought. More like the idea of a wild-eyed anarchist. But his eyes were not wild. They were dull under the lowering brow of his frown.

  “I cannot say at this time. It doesn’t matter what we do, they lie. They provoke trouble to blame the unions and Debs. They want to crush us but it will come at a cost to them. They want to gag us, but we will be heard. They are turning the full force of the government and the money people against us, but they will learn. They will find out that the workingman will fight back.”

  At that moment the door to the office opened and Dr. Chapman ushered out a very ill-looking Fiona MacGregor. I realized Raoul was in the corridor because he was waiting for her. The doctor seemed angry. Fiona was very pale as she shuffled forward, leaning on his arm. Raoul leaped up and took over solicitously, with one arm around her as he gave her support.

  “She needs bed rest. Complete bed rest,” the doctor said. “There is nothing else I can do for her. Take her home. I have nothing else to say to you.” Then he turned and went back into his office, closing the door with a bang. I jumped.

  “Miss MacGregor, you’re ill. I’m so sorry to hear it. I . . . I’ve brought back some supplies from Hull House. I was going to come and see you, to get our committee together.” She looked at me vaguely and slumped against LeClerc. “But don’t worry. I will gather the others. You go home and rest, like the doctor said.” LeClerc was taking her to the stairs, ignoring me. Soon I was left alone in the corridor. It was the end of the day, dusk coming on, so all of the doctor’s patients were finally gone. I stepped over and knocked on his door.

  “Come in.”

  I opened the door and left it open, as it usually was. He had his back to me, tidying up instruments on a table in the corner of the room.

  “Dr. Chapman. I came to let you know that I’ve returned from the city . . . with some supplies.” I thought he would approve of my actions. “I saw Mr. LeClerc in the hallway. Poor Miss MacGregor. She’s ill, it seems?”

  He banged a metal instrument into a container, his neck red. It made me wonder whether he was angry that Fiona had gone away with Raoul LeClerc. It seemed to me that he had some affection for her. Was he disappointed by her so obvious admiration for Mr. LeClerc? The doctor and Fiona MacGregor? But she was so young, and so uneducated. Yet clearly he was moved by some strong emotion. It shocked me.

  “Miss MacGregor is ill and presumably she will recover if she rests. It is not something to be discussed. This miserable town and this miserable strike. They do nothing but drive people to awful choices. Men like Pullman and Debs are only too willing to sacrifice the ordinary people in their quest for power.”

  “I believe that Mr. Debs and the ARU are trying to build a better future for all of the workers. How can they fight back against someone like Pullman without such an organization?” I thought he was more angry for the effect on little Fiona than for anything else. He really was angry on her account. But it was Raoul who was comforting her and taking care of her now. I felt the need to swallow my own disappointment about the feelings I’d thought Mr. LeClerc had for me. There was a greater good to be considered. The doctor was wrong about the ARU at least. “I’m sure Mr. LeClerc continues to want to help the people of Pullman.”

  “LeClerc! He’ll help them to hell if he can.”

  He was jealous of Raoul. I would never have thought it of the doctor. So much was happening before my eyes without my understanding any of it. Of course, the doctor had proposed marriage to me before all of this began. I turned him down believing he made the offer only from pity. And I was mortified to find I was correct. Perhaps in Fiona MacGregor, he had found a woman who truly raised his affections, only to lose her to the union man. I felt a knot in my throat.

  “Dr. Chapman.” Alden appeared in the doorway. “Oh, Emily, I didn’t see you. I haven’t seen you since the clock tower incident. I tried to write that up the way it happened, by the way, but they changed it . . . they edited it.”

  “‘Dictator Debs’, Alden? Instead of exposing how the Pullman Company used that Pinkerton man to trick those men, it becomes a condemnation of the strikers, as if they planted the bomb. It was all Jennings and Stark.”

  “I know, Emily, but the newspapers are all against them. They were with the strikers while it was just Pullman, but once the ARU got involved, they turned against them.”

  “Do you know what Stark did, Alden?”

  “Shot Mooney? Yes, I heard.”

  “And he still got away with it. Whitbread hid him in a wagon and drove him out of the police station so the crowd couldn’t get him.”

  “He had no choice, Emily. That’s his job.”

  “To save a murderer?”

  “To protect him from a mad crowd. They would have torn him apart. You know Whitey couldn’t let that happen. Stark has to be dealt with by the law—although that’s not going to happen ’til this is all over. Right now he has the protection of having been deputized by Sheriff Arnold. But if he killed Brian O’Malley, you know Whitbread will get him in the end.”

  “If he killed him. What else could have happened? Jennings and Stark planned the bomb plot. Brian O’Malley was going to tell on them, so they killed him and hung him up with the spy sign so they could blame the strikers.”

  “Whitbread will have to prove it—but that will have to wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For the end of this.”

  “The strike? You see an end in sight? Well, good, because I don’t. I don’t see how any of this will end. What have you heard?”

  “Same thing that you’re hearing. Listen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen, don’t you hear tha
t?” He ran to the window and threw up the sash. There was a pounding noise and some shouting, but regular—not confused—shouting, then more pounding, tramping. I stepped over to stand beside him at the window.

  There were rows of men in dark blue coats, with rifles on their shoulders, marching down the street. Stamp . . . stamp.

  “It’s the army,” Alden explained. “The president sent the army.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “President Cleveland ordered them in. It’s supposed to be to protect the mails,” Alden told us. “Attorney General Olney got an injunction against Debs and the ARU. They haven’t arrested them, but they can’t talk to any of the unions or send messages. All communication is banned. If you see any ARU people, they’re not supposed to be here.”

  I remembered how distant Raoul LeClerc had seemed. He was not supposed to be here in Pullman. His presence would be taken as an effort by the ARU to communicate with the Pullman strikers. I tried to excuse his coldness to me with that thought. But, if that was the case, why had he come? For Fiona?

  I could not believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. The files of men were stamping past below us. “But how can they do this? How can they bring the army into Chicago? By what authority?”

  “They haven’t called it martial law yet, but it’s close. At first they had the police—Detective Whitbread, in fact—directing the local militia. But they were being sent out whenever there were problems at the railroad crossings. The Pullman Company people and the railroad managers complained. They want their property protected. They complained so much that General Miles came down, having ordered in the regular troops from Fort Sheridan. Now the police and sheriff all have to report to the local military man. City Hall is furious. We heard Governor Altgeld has protested, too. But what can they do? It was Olney in Washington. He had a federal judge issue an injunction based on interference with the U.S. mails and then they ordered the troops in. It was the general managers. They demanded it.”