Reluctantly she turned back to the news columns, and when she came to May—oh, dear! How could she have been so unaware of what was going on in the world! For in May the strike violence broke out in America, and not only in America, but in Chicago!
Chicago was only a few hours from South Bend by train. Uncle Dan went to Chicago all the time, and Sven sometimes, to the Studebaker Repository on Michigan Avenue. Violence there was violence close to home, far too close for comfort. Surely it couldn’t spread here—not in such terrible form, at least.
The trouble this time, she read, had begun with a strike by garment workers at Montgomery Ward, the big mail-order company. In sympathy, the big, powerful Teamsters’ Union refused to haul goods for Montgomery Ward. Hilda found herself unable to follow the confusing details, but the accounts sounded as though matters had got entirely out of control. Teamsters stopped their wagons in the middle of intersections, bringing all traffic to a halt. Policemen tried to bring order, but rocks were thrown and clubs came out and—Herre Gud! thought Hilda. It was as bad as St. Petersburg, or nearly, and right there in Chicago. She put down the papers, sick from the details, but she couldn’t help remembering other episodes, violent ones, in the past.
The fact was, labor unrest was nothing new. Neither was anarchist sentiment, the anarchists often making use of the strikers’ legitimate grievances to further their own ends. Only a few years ago the anarchist Leon Czolgosz had come to South Bend, shortly before he assassinated President McKinley. John Bolton, coachman at the Studebaker family’s Tippecanoe Place where Hilda had worked at the time, had met him, and so had some of Hilda’s friends. And the next year, the Anthracite Coal Strike had gone on for months and had brought great suffering to much of the country.
Hilda was, generally speaking, on the side of the workers. She knew about poverty; her family had been desperately poor on their farm in Sweden. She knew, too, that America, where immigrants had thought to find gold in the streets, had its own brand of dreadful poverty. Friends had told her about brutally long working hours in filthy, unsafe conditions, about children working for a few pennies a day in near-starvation while their bosses lived in fine houses and grew fat on luxurious food.
Hilda and her family were some of the fortunate ones. They hadn’t experienced those terrible conditions once they came to America. The Studebakers, by whom several of them were or had been employed, were fair to their people, and the Wilson Shirt Factory, where Mama worked, was at least clean and the management humane. But even in South Bend, Hilda knew, some men and women, yes, and children, too, lived in great poverty. She had seen some of their homes, not very far away from her own. Hilda could understand the fierce compulsion to better one’s lot in life, to force employers into treating their workers like human beings.
Now, of course, having married Patrick, with his good job and fine paycheck, Hilda had no money worries. She even had servants of her own.
A thought struck her. She took a damp handkerchief out of her sleeve, wiped her brow, and reached for the bell-pull. When Eileen appeared, Hilda gestured for her to sit down.
Warily, Eileen sat, on the very edge of a hard chair.
“Eileen, do you get enough to eat?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The girl’s voice was questioning.
“And does Mrs. O’Rourke let you get enough sleep?” The cook, Hilda knew, was something of a tyrant.
“Yes, ma’am. ’Cept these last few nights, it’s been too hot to sleep.”
Hilda slapped the arm of the chair. “Hot! Of course! I should have thought. I will ask Mr. Cavanaugh to buy another electric fan and put it in your room.”
“There’s no need for that, ma’am. I’m ascared o’ them electric contraptions.”
“They are quite safe, Eileen, although they are noisy. But if you put cotton in your ears, you can sleep well. And you must get your sleep. You work very hard. Is the work too hard, Eileen? Do you need help?”
“I can do the work, ma’am! Is Mrs. O’Rourke sayin’ I’m shirkin’? ’Cause it’s a lie, if she is.” Color was rising in the maid’s face.
Hilda realized she had gone about this the wrong way. “No, Eileen. I am sorry. I did not mean to worry you. It is just that I have been reading about all these strikes, and I wondered if I am good enough to the people who work here. I know what it is to be a servant.”
Eileen’s anxiety found relief in tears. “Oh, ma’am, you’re the best mistress in town. Leastways, now you’re back to yourself. You took me away from that awful job I had before, and you treat me like I was your own daughter, and I’d niver want to go noplace else.”
“Anyplace else, Eileen. Well, then, bring some lemonade for both of us. I want to talk to you about these strikes.”
“Mrs. O’Rourke needs me, ma’am, to do the vegetables. But I’ll bring you the lemonade, and welcome.”
“Very well. But tell Mrs. O’Rourke—ask Mrs. O’Rourke to come in for a minute when she can.”
Time was when Hilda would have marched into the kitchen to get her own lemonade and speak to the cook. She knew better now. Mrs. O’Rourke was an excellent cook and housekeeper, but was very protective of her domain. The master and mistress of the house invaded it at their peril.
Hilda sat and waited for the lemonade and the cook to arrive.
4
ALL WATCH GOMPERS
Both Sides in Strike Have Eyes on Leader
—South Bend Tribune, May 17, 1905
Yes, ma’am?” Mrs. O’Rourke’s face wore what was nearly a scowl, and her voice said clearly what her words did not: that she was in the middle of preparations for supper, that the kitchen was hot and she was tired, and that she certainly had no time for a talk with the lady of the house.
Hilda heard all of the unspoken dialogue. “Mrs. O’Rourke, I know you are busy, and I am sorry to take you away from your work. I wanted to ask, would you and Mr. O’Rourke like an electric fan in your bedroom? And perhaps in the kitchen? I will ask Mr. Cavanaugh to get them, if you wish.”
The cook hesitated. She disliked accepting favors from Hilda, who was, in her opinion, still just a housemaid pretending to be a grand lady. But this heat wave had gone on forever, it seemed. The kitchen was hot and she, Mrs. O’Rourke, was neither as young nor as thin as she used to be. “Not in the bedroom, ma’am. Mr. O’Rourke can’t abide a draft. But in the kitchen, now...”
“Good. You will have it tomorrow. And would you please send Eileen to me as soon as she is free after supper? Thank you, Mrs. O’Rourke.”
Having thus assuaged her conscience and staved off, she hoped, any threat of rebellion and uprising in her own household, Hilda sat back with her cool drink to wait for Andy.
Andy had been one of Hilda’s chief sources of information for some time, now. A little older than Erik, he had worked at the grand Oliver Hotel since it opened, to help support his family. Although he had but little formal schooling, he was bright and had taught himself to read and write. He and his friends at the hotel were Hilda’s “Baker Street Irregulars,” her eyes and ears on the world. Especially now that she was confined to her home, Hilda needed Andy’s help.
He arrived just as Hilda was beginning to look for Patrick’s return. The day was at its hottest, and Hilda was lying on the couch in a fitful nap when Eileen came in and spoke softly to her. “He’s here, ma’am. That boy. He says you want to see him.”
One day, Hilda thought drowsily, she would ask Eileen why she disliked Andy. “That is fine, Eileen. Show him in. And would you bring us a fresh pitcher of lemonade, please?”
Eileen sniffed, but did as she was told.
Andy came warily into the parlor. It was nothing like as grand as the lobby of the Oliver, but the hotel was Andy’s domain. There he wore a snappy uniform and had some status. Here he was only a poor boy in shabby clothes, calling on a lady. No matter that she had been a servant. She was a lady now, and an obviously pregnant lady at that, and Andy felt shy. He was still more uneasy when Eileen returned
with a tray with lemonade and fine glasses and a plate of cookies. He wasn’t used to being waited on.
“Sit down, Andy. Do you have time to stay for a few minutes?”
“I got to get home soon, ma’am. Ma’ll be needin’ me.”
“I will give you some lemonade then, to cool you, and I will be quick. Andy—what is your last name? I have never known it.”
“Mueller, ma’am.” He stood, twisting his frayed cap in his hands.
That explained Eileen’s attitude, then. The Irish and the Germans in South Bend didn’t mix. Hilda would have to talk to her about that. Later.
“Andy, I need your help. Did Erik tell you what I am doing?”
“He says you’re lookin’ into the train wrecks, ma’am, and what I say is, you hadn’t better. Sorry if I’m not bein’ perlite, but that’s no business for a lady to get herself mixed up in.”
“Sit down, Andy, and have a cool drink. You are not impolite, and it is kind of you to want to protect me, but what harm can come to me here in my own home? And I need to find out what I can, because my mother and Mr. Cavanaugh’s aunt have both asked me to. Now, I want to know what you have heard.”
Reluctantly, Andy sat and accepted a glass. “Ma’am, I’ve heard enough to know this is pretty risky business, no doubt about it. Some men was talkin’ in the lounge just last week. They never pay me no mind, just like I didn’t have ears or somethin’.”
Hilda nodded. “I know. It was like that for me, too, when I was a servant. It made me very angry, but it was sometimes useful. What did these men say?”
“They’d been drinkin’, see, and they wasn’t watchin’ their words. One of ’em, he says, ‘It’ll do the trick, you mark my words. Every railroad man in the state’ll sign on soon as they hear of it.’”
Hilda frowned. “That does not make sense to me. What did they mean?”
Andy squirmed in his chair. “It’s not for me to say, ma’am.”
“Andy! This is me, Hilda! Why will you not talk to me? You used to tell me everything. Are you no longer my friend?”
“Well, see, it’s like this, miss. I ain’t forgotten how good you’ve been to me. But these men—they’re nasty. I seen a lot of men, in and out of the hotel, what you’d call gentlemen, and the other kind. And these guys, they give me the willies. I reckon they’re gangsters, or the next thing to it, and I don’t want nothin’ to do with ’em. Nor I don’t want you havin’ nothin’ to do with ’em.”
Hilda looked at him thoughtfully. He was as pale as his sunburned complexion would allow. “You are frightened.”
“You bet I am! And I ain’t usually scared of nothin’, you know that.”
“I know you are brave. Can you tell me why these men frighten you?”
“It’s nothin’ you can put your finger on, miss—ma’am.”
“Call me ‘miss,’ Andy, as you used to. It is more friendly.”
“Yes, miss. These guys—it’s just sort of the way they talk. Not loud, but kind of hard, like they’re used to gettin’ their own way. And they dress fancy, but not like real gentlemen. Too fancy, sort of. And—I dunno, miss. I think any one of ’em’d kill you as soon as look at you, and that’s the truth.” He looked at her anxiously.
Hilda frowned and bit her lip, and suppressed a small yelp as the baby kicked her, hard.
“Miss?”
“It is nothing. A little trouble with my stomach.” Too late she remembered that the stomach was not mentioned in polite society, any more than a baby’s movements. Perhaps Andy didn’t know that either.
“Andy, did anyone know that you were coming here today?”
“No, miss. Leastways, I didn’t tell nobody, and this house is on my way home, sorta. And I gotta be gettin’ along, miss.”
“Yes. There is one more thing I need to know, Andy. No, two. Do you think these men are anarchists?”
Andy shook his head slowly. “I don’t rightly know what they might look like, miss, but the pictures I seen of that guy, the one who killed the president, you know?”
Hilda nodded.
“Well, these men don’t look nothin’ like him. He looked kinda wild-like, you know? These guys look fancy, like I said.”
“I understand. But then why did you tell Erik you thought it was anarchists who planned the train wrecks?”
“That wasn’t me, miss. Some of the other boys, they got to arguin’ about it. The bell captain, he told ’em to shut up, ’cause they were gettin’ to talkin’ too loud. But I never thought that.”
“Could they be union organizers, do you think? The troubles this year in Russia and in Chicago started when the police tried to stop the unions.”
“Maybe, I guess. Only I’ve seen some of them union men, when they come through town, Mr. Debs and Mr. Gompers and them, and they didn’t look like—well, I dunno. And I gotta go, miss, really! Ma’ll be worryin’ about me.”
“Take the cookies with you. And come back tomorrow, if you can. I need you to ask the other boys some questions, and to keep your eyes open.”
But, Hilda admitted to herself when he had gone, she knew very little she hadn’t known before. And she had, at the moment, no idea what to ask the bellboys to do.
And who were Mr. Debs and Mr. Gompers?
She asked Patrick when they sat down to supper.
“You’re slippin’, me girl. I thought you read the papers. Pass the potato salad, would you, darlin’?”
“I remember something about someone named Gompers when I went through the papers today, but I did not read very carefully.” Hilda passed him the bowl of salad, after taking a second helping for herself.
“Samuel Gompers is only the leadin’ union man in the whole country, that’s all. He’s president of the American Federation of Labor, and he’s fought for the rights of the workin’ man for years. Last month he went to Chicago to try to make both sides see reason and settle the strike, but it’s still goin’ on, last I heard.”
“They are not still killing people on the streets?” Hilda’s tone was horrified, and Patrick hastened to reassure her.
“Not that I’ve heard, darlin’ girl. Why are you all of a sudden so interested in Gompers, and strikes, and all?”
“Patrick! Do you not read the newspapers?” She flung his taunt back at him with a mischievous grin that reminded him of his beloved Hilda, the one who had seemed to be missing for the past several months.
He beamed back at her. “That I do, darlin’, but I still don’t see what you’re gettin’ at. My brain never did work as fast as yours.”
“Ja, I am smart, but you are smart, too. You know it was a strike that began the riots in Russia, and strikes have begun riots in Chicago, and where there are riots other things may happen, things like train wrecks.”
He frowned. “You’re not sayin’ union men—”
“No! I believe in unions. But when there are crowds and riots, things can happen that were never meant to happen. Things get—what do you say when there is no control? Gone from the hand?”
“Out of hand?”
“Yes! That is what I meant. Things get out of hand, and then angry men can get ideas to use the confusion and turn it into madness.”
“Hmm. Somethin’ in what you say.” Patrick thoughtfully cut up his ham.
Hilda smiled again. “Yes. So tell me now about Mr. Debs.”
“Now him you should know for sure, me girl. Eugene Debs is—”
“Oh! Eugene Debs. I did not think of him—Andy just said his last name. Of course I know who he is. He wanted to be president!”
“Still wants to, is my guess. He’s not made the grade in two elections, so far—barely made waves, in fact. But he’s a sticker; he’ll try again. And he’s a union man, too, and a pretty fiery one. Has a lot to do with the railroads—Hilda! With the railroads!”
Hilda’s eyes widened. “But he would not—not a man who could maybe be president—would he?”
“Dunno, darlin’ girl. I don’t think he’d go so far, but.
..wait, let me think a minute.” Patrick put down his fork. “There was somethin’ a long time ago. I was only a boy, meself, and hadn’t been in America long enough to hardly know which way was up, but there was a strike or a riot or somethin’, havin’ to do with the railroads, and Debs was in on it. I’ll have to ask me mother, or Uncle Dan. They’ll know.”
Hilda looked down at her plate and found it empty. “Patrick, I would like some of the slaw, please, and some more ham.” He passed her the dishes, and she helped herself. “I am wondering about Uncle Dan,” she said when she had swallowed another several mouthfuls.
“What about him?”
“He is...Patrick, do not lose your temper, but he is a rich man with many people working for him. He is a very good man, but is he...does he...what does he think about unions?”
Patrick had stopped eating in surprise. Hilda was not known for hesitancy in speech, or in thought or action, for that matter. “What d’you mean by that?”
“Patrick! I mean what I asked! What does Uncle Dan think about unions?”
That was more like Hilda. Patrick shrugged. “More or less what everybody thinks, I guess. He thinks they can do good where they’re needed, and harm when they get too big for their britches.”
“Does the store have a union? No,” she added as Patrick opened his mouth, “I mean, do the workers at the store belong to a union?”
“No need. Uncle Dan pays fair wages and treats the shop girls right. I guess the delivery-men might belong to the Teamsters. I never asked. Why d’you want to know?”
This time she looked him straight in the eye. “I want to know if he will be fair when you ask him about Mr. Debs and the railroad.”
If Patrick’s mouth hadn’t been full, he might have hit the ceiling. By the time he had swallowed his food, he had also swallowed most of his anger. Here was Hilda, interested at last in something besides herself. She had eaten a large supper. She was acting normal.
And she was over six months pregnant, and should not be upset. “Dan Malloy is always fair,” he said briefly.
Murder in Burnt Orange Page 3