by John Jakes
“Well—all right.” Fritzi didn’t like the idea. She handled the note as if it had a bad odor, and left.
Outside, evening clouds—swift-moving, dark gray—began to hide the sun. Ilsa rocked slowly, meditating as the light faded. Soon she sat in darkness relieved only by the glow from street lamps. She prayed Pauli’s youthful fling would work itself to a conventional end. If that should not be the case—if he was truly serious about the girl—the Vanderhoffs would intervene, and it would mean heartbreak for him. Heartbreak, or something worse …
42
Paul
IN THE PAPERS AND in conversation, the Pullman boycott became the Pullman strike. Paul couldn’t avoid reading or hearing about it. At Crown’s they talked about little else.
After work every day, Joe Junior insisted they stop at Uhlich’s Hall, which had become the headquarters for Debs and his men. The atmosphere was best characterized by the word bedlam. Union men argued and made announcements; journalists loitered and scribbled notes; breathless runners raced to the telegraph office every few minutes. When Paul asked an official what all these runners were doing, the man explained that the A.R.U. sent a hundred or more telegrams every day, to other locals of the brotherhood.
“We got to brace ’em up. Make sure they hold firm without resorting to violence. Gene won’t tolerate that.”
“Bet he will before it’s over,” Joe Junior said after the official left. “There’s no other way to win.”
It was at Uhlich’s on the night of June 28, with the boycott two days old, that the cousins saw Mr. Debs storm out of the conference room where his executive committee sat in continuous session.
Debs’s vest was buttoned, his cravat neatly tied; rolled-up sleeves were his only concession to the hot weather. His expression said there was bad news.
A couple of reporters left their table. Debs said to them, “I was just on the telephone. The G.M.A. has ordered that any man who won’t handle Pullman cars will be fired.”
“What are you going to do, Gene?”
“Stand fast. What else?”
After a few nights, the men at Uhlich’s Hall began to recognize Paul and Joe Junior. And Debs took notice of them. One evening when runners were scarce, he asked the cousins for help; Joe Junior leaped at the chance to tear off to the telegraph office, shouting for Paul to wait where he was. An hour later he made a second run. The cousins got back to Michigan Avenue at half past ten. Aunt Ilsa was in the kitchen, in her nightrobe. She’d been anxious about them, and wanted to know where they’d been. Without hesitation, Joe Junior said, “No place special. Just walking. Talking. It’s a nice evening.”
Paul couldn’t believe his cousin would lie so baldly to Aunt Ilsa. She seemed to accept the explanation, though not without a comment:
“I suppose it’s all right, you are young men. Strong. But I hate to think of you in the streets with all this strike trouble. You must be careful.”
“Sure, Mama,” Joe Junior said, hugging her.
“Go to bed, please, tomorrow’s a workday.”
They hurried upstairs. Paul had trouble going to sleep. With that lie, it seemed to him that Joe Junior’s relationship with his parents had taken a new turn; a bad one.
Next evening, a heavy rainstorm depleted the number of men at Uhlich’s Hall. Joe Junior and Paul were there, wet but faithful. Joe Junior was sent to the telegraph office, and Paul sat wishing someone would ask him to run.
The hall was unusually quiet. One reporter dozed at his table. A man was chalking numbers on a large blackboard set on an easel.
EST. TONNAGE LAST WEEK—40,000
EST. TONNAGE THIS WEEK—10,000
The night before, when they’d seen the blackboard for the first time, an official had explained that many long-distance trains were made up with a combination of freight and Pullman cars. The blackboard tallied freight tonnage in and out of Chicago; the boycott was having an impact.
The door to a back room opened and Debs came out with another man. There was a savory aroma of frying bacon. The reporter woke up. “Anything new, Gene?”
Debs shook his head. The reporter collected his umbrella and shuffled out. Paul yawned but suddenly grew alert when Debs spoke to the other man in a familiar language. After a short conversation the man put on his cap, walked up the aisle and out. Paul realized he was the last person in the hall, though men were still meeting in the conference room; their shadows moved on its frosted glass window.
Debs waved to Paul and started for the back room. Curious, Paul jumped to his feet. “Herr Debs? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
“Ja, sett vielen Jahren. Ich hab’ es von meinem Vater gelernt. Französisch auch. Er ist aus dem Elsass, am Rhein, gekommen.” Debs had said he spoke French as well as German, his father had taught him. His father came from Alsace, near the Rhine River.
“You’re German?” he asked, still in that language.
“Yes, sir.”
“And that young chap I sent off with the wire—who is he?”
“My cousin. I am waiting for him.”
“He should return soon. If you have an appetite, come on back, I’m frying some eggs and bacon.” Paul followed him eagerly.
The room in back was an improvised bedroom and kitchen. There was a cot, and some books piled on a crate beside it. There were stacks of Chicago newspapers on the floor, and writing materials on a rickety table. On a small claw-footed stove in the corner, a bacon slab was sizzling and blackening in a skillet. Debs quickly lifted it out with a fork and dropped it on a plate. He took some eggs from a paper sack, broke them and pushed at the transparent whites with a wooden spoon.
“Clear those things from the table, make yourself comfortable,” he said, still in German. He had a pleasant, gentlemanly way of speaking. He hardly seemed satanic, as the newspapers portrayed him. Paul took to him at once.
Debs gestured to the frying eggs. “My wife Kate is a superb cook, but I’m not so bad myself. I worked at the stove a lot, helping my mother, when I was a boy in Terre Haute. Do you cook?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s useful to know how. When you travel as much as I do, you get tired of hash house food. I always try to stay at a boardinghouse where I can use the stove. Two nights ago, when we had quite a crowd in here, I fixed steaks and asparagus with a vinaigrette sauce. I’m afraid eggs and bacon is the best I can do tonight.”
“Anything will be fine, sir. I have worked all day, it’s been a long time since our noon meal.”
“Where do you work?”
“Crown’s brewery. The owner is my uncle. My name is Paul Crown.”
“Very pleased to meet you, brother Crown.” Debs shook his hand. “I’ve drunk Crown lager a time or two. Excellent stuff. Are eggs over all right?”
“Certainly. If I may say so, you speak German very well.”
“My father was never a wealthy man, but he was rich with learning. He came to America in 1849, penniless, and taught himself English. Every evening, he read great authors aloud to our family, often in the original language. I heard Goethe and Schiller in German and, in French, the greatest of them all, Victor Hugo. My middle name is Victor because my father admired him so.”
“How did you come into this union work, may I ask?”
“Very gradually. I quit high school when I was fourteen and took a job in the Terre Haute railroad yards, cleaning grease off the trucks of freight engines. A year later I stepped into a cab as a fireman for the first time. I learned how it feels to work all night, freezing one minute, broiling the next, shoveling coal for very little money, with no protection against injury or sickness, no matter whose fault. I made a bad decision, leaving school so early. But work was a great teacher in its own way. So was Appleton’s Encyclopedia; I read every word.” Deftly he slid the eggs from the skillet onto plates, then halved the bacon with a knife. The aromas made Paul ravenous.
Debs put the plates on the table and served two cups of coffee. “My greatest, most profound teach
er of all was Hugo. Have you read Les Misérables?”
“No, we didn’t have French novels in our home in Germany.”
“Too bad. I advise you to read that book. It’s the story of a poor starving fellow who’s hounded all of his life for stealing a loaf of bread. The story tells you everything you need to know about the way the world runs. That is, the way the world runs unless and until men stand up for their rights—justice. Victor Hugo is probably the reason I became a union organizer.”
They heard the street door open and close, then footsteps in the main aisle. Paul went to the door. “Here we are, Joe.”
Joe Junior was soaked, and astonished to find Paul sitting at a table sharing food with the leader of the Pullman strike. Debs formally introduced himself. Then he broke two more eggs and dropped them into the skillet with more bacon.
It was inevitable that they talk about the strike. Joe Junior said he supported it. So did Paul, though a little less fervently.
“Arbitration is the best way to improve the lot of workingmen,” Debs said. “I’ve never been strong for strikes, but if a strike does become necessary—if the owners absolutely refuse to bargain—then the strike must be peaceful. No lawbreaking, no bloodshed. Violence is always wrong. What’s more, if you employ violence, you lose public sympathy. You endanger the very cause we’re all working so hard to promote.”
Paul looked at his cousin. Joe Junior kept his eyes on his plate.
When they left the hall, the rain had stopped. Joe Junior walked along the wet and deserted streets with his head down and his hands in his pockets.
Eating eggs and bacon cooked by Mr. Debs gave the strike new importance. Paul read every inch of newspaper copy, however slanted. He borrowed papers at the brewery, even picked them up from trash barrels.
The strike was biting deep into the commerce of Chicago. Freight tonnage continued to drop. The papers stepped up their cries for action against the strikers, and the General Managers Association maneuvered to promote it by putting forth a new argument. The railroads were public institutions. The A.R.U. was therefore attacking every American citizen.
Under the direction of the G.M.A. strike manager, Egan, rail lines began to make up their trains differently. Pullman cars were coupled to freight trains that didn’t usually have them, or to short-run locals carrying commuters to the suburbs. Mail cars were coupled behind Pullman coaches, thereby proving the strike was interfering with government property.
Aided by Chicago’s chief of police, Brennan, the G.M.A. continued to recruit special deputies to protect railroad property and move the mail. A lot of them were street toughs, but many were railroaders: engineers, firemen, brakemen.
The United States Attorney General, Richard Olney, made a hurried trip to Chicago to assess the situation. Uncle Joe spoke of it at supper:
“Olney’s a Boston man. Very conversant with railroad law because he holds directorships on the Atchison, the CB & Q, and at least one other. He’ll settle this.”
Eugene Debs at Uhlich’s Hall saw it otherwise: “The G.M.A. is intriguing to bring Washington into it. It wants the boycott viewed as a confrontation between union men and the federal government.”
The strategy worked. President Cleveland declared that the mails must go through. “If it takes every dollar in the Treasury, or every soldier in the U.S. Army, to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that postal card will be delivered.”
Weather reminiscent of Turkish baths settled on the city. Days of white haze, Lake Michigan smooth and bright as a sheet of tin, no breeze stirring. Smells of garbage and sewage fouled even the best streets. Fights broke out at the brewery.
In the midst of this, on July 2, Monday, the government acted. Judge Peter Grosscup of the Chicago federal bench issued an injunction restraining Debs et al. from interfering with the mails, interstate commerce, and the conduct of business of any of twenty-three railroads the injunction named.
The cousins were at Uhlich’s that night, when Debs emerged from the conference room to address a large crowd. Paul thought Mr. Debs looked thinner and noticeably worn.
“The gauntlet is down,” Debs said to the hushed audience. “Never before in history has the process of injunction been perverted to apply to workingmen making an honest and lawful protest. This injunction denies us the right to picket. It specifies that any such activity is a felony. For all such alleged crimes, we are denied trial by jury. Judges will determine punishment. And what judge can you name who is friendly to our side?” For the first time, Paul heard rage in Debs’s voice.
“Do you see the position into which they have maneuvered us? If we obey the injunction and await a court test of it, months from now, the strike is broken. If we don’t obey, the law is broken.”
A loud call from the gallery: “Then what’s your next move?”
Debs wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He managed a smile. “Why, we’re going ahead. The executive board has voted to call a general strike of all railroad brotherhoods, everywhere.”
Amid the tumult of cheers and foot-stamping, Paul and Joe Junior left the hall. Paul’s cousin was jubilant. It was Paul’s turn to be silent. Little by little, the strike seemed to be slipping toward the violence Mr. Debs so abhorred.
On the roof next day, the temperature must have been over ninety. The roof was deserted except for Paul. His forehead dripped sweat. The heat sapped him. His mood was sour.
He hadn’t seen Julie for three Sundays in a row. The Vanderhoffs were home; he knew because he’d loitered outside the house one night. Had Julie been seized by another of her illnesses? She’d told him about them, but never in detail. She only spoke of “blinding headaches” or “feeling gloomy for days.” He was reminded of Aunt Lotte’s moods. Julie said hers was an inescapable “female problem,” common to all women. Was that true?
He had no appetite for the wurst and bread in his lunch sack. He unfolded a Tribune. The front-page headline leaped at him. THE STRIKE IS WAR!
A man came out the door at the head of the stairs. Sam Traub, the tax agent. He too had a newspaper. He spread one sheet on the coping next to Paul. Traub’s cravat was tightly and carefully tied, held in place by his buttoned vest. There was a translucent coat of talc on his cheeks. He looked cool and dry and waxy.
Traub took a small apple from his pocket and cut it in half with his clasp knife. He munched the apple and leafed through the remaining pages of his paper.
“Here’s another one gone ’count of this damn weather. Makes seven so far.”
He showed Paul.
MRS. ELSTREE SUCCUMBS
Arrangements Pending for Spouse
of Department Store Heir
Her Sudden Death
Attributed to Heat
Paul swabbed his neck and face with his bandana. He wasn’t surprised that people were dying.
To the southeast he noticed a rising plume of black smoke. “What is that?”
“Bet you it’s more freight cars. Six or seven burned at Blue Island last night.”
“The strikers are burning freight cars?”
Traub gave him a sly smile. “Not exactly. The special deputies tip ’em over and torch ’em. Makes the strikers look bad. It’s what the damn reds deserve.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Mr. Traub.”
“What do you know? You’re a greenhorn, brand new to things in this country. I’d advise you to keep your nose out of it.”
Paul gazed at the black and sinister banner of smoke. Bombs, fires, threats, special police—mein Gott, it was all going the way Cousin Joe predicted.
The strike is war, said the Tribune, and so it became. Copies of the injunction were nailed to telegraph poles all over the city. Federal marshals presented a copy to Debs, who accepted it calmly. Less calm were two thousand protesters who gathered for a mass meeting at the Blue Island yards of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific line. Arnold, the chief federal marshal, arrived with a squad of lawyers and deputies. He read the injunction aloud amid
curses and catcalls, then ordered the crowd to disperse. The protesters refused, shouting threats. Rocks and bottles flew. Arnold and his men fled. On Independence Day, a Wednesday, four companies of the 15th Infantry from Fort Sheridan marched to the lake front and encamped. President Cleveland had answered the call for federal troops.
That night, mobs roamed. Almost fifty freight cars burned in the Illinois Central yards. Rail traffic was disrupted by switches thrown and signal lights changed. Trains were stoned by strikers protected by darkness.
General Nelson Miles arrived to command the U.S. troops. He established his headquarters at Michigan and Adams, in the Pullman Building. Business leaders and newspaper editorialists were relieved and happy.
At the brewery, Joe Crown had set aside a large room as a lounge and wash area for his men. Individual wooden lockers lined one wall. Since the start of the heat wave, Paul had kept a second blue work shirt in his locker; a shirt he could wear all day, and sweat out, and hang up to dry overnight.
Sometimes the room was crowded and noisy at the end of the day, sometimes not. At the close of work on Thursday, Paul pushed the door open and heard someone singing. He recognized Benno’s voice before he saw him.
Benno stood at the wash trough. The shoulder straps of his overalls were down on his hips, and his work shirt was unbuttoned to the waist. He was swabbing his chest with a wet rag and singing to himself. There was no one else in the room.
Paul nodded to Benno and went to his locker. Benno stopped washing himself and grinned. “You don’t look so happy, Mr. Pauli.”
“It is hot as hell. I’m tired.”
Paul opened his locker, pulled off his shirt, and began to dry himself with a towel.
From his locker Benno pulled a twist of wax paper. “Want a licorice?”
“No thank you, I am not hungry.”
Benno shrugged, raised his hand to put the licorice back on the shelf. Somehow he dropped it. He bent over and something fell out of his shirt, landing on the sweating concrete between his heavy shoes.