The American: A Middle Western Legend (13 page)

He could not deny that he was a success, nor could he tell himself that he did not enjoy the very practical fruits of success. All of his life, until now, he had fought for these things; born with nothing, raised with a lash, he had broken through; he was here. He was in his stone house, secure and comfortable. There were beautiful things in his house; there was food, many kinds of food, all of it very good to eat, and if he should want other food, he had only to say so. There was warmth in the house; there was comfort too. There was his wife, so very good-looking and well bred, and there were the many friends she had made for him, also well bred, people of substance if in some cases tedious, and they accepted him and did not remind him of his origins, and played cards with him and gave him their legal business. Nor did his wife resent his having friends of another kind, like Joe Martin, the gambler, or Schilling, the labor leader, or Bro Kelly, the ward-heeler who was a political genius; and all of his friends, even Schilling, paid tribute to his success and position. What if he had memories! All men had memories and memories were as impractical as abstract justice. Why did he resent Armour's bluntly pointing out that these things he had were retained by the grace of certain individuals, and that his compact with those same individuals must be a real one, not an illusory one?

Yet, in the essence of it, he hated not so much Armour as what Armour stood for; and now this hatred burned through all his thoughts. Reason he might—but in the end what came out? He was a dirty, cheap political climber. He had to tell himself, “Accept that, Altgeld, accept it!” He stood up and paced back and forth, watching the clock. Then he sat down in his chair, still watching the clock. The minutes ticked off, and during one of those minutes, four men died.

His wife called him to lunch, but he ate only a few mouthfuls. Then he went back to his study.

XV

Joe Martin stretched out his feet to the fire and lit a cigar. As he took the first few puffs, he watched Altgeld shrewdly. Then it was a little after two o'clock.”

“What time did they die?” Altgeld asked.

“About noon.”

“Was it bad?”

“The first time I saw an execution. The last too.”

“It was that bad?”

“Well, that's a peculiar way to put it. I don't like executions. I can see men die, but not after they've known about it for months, and also know just when the trap's going to be sprung.”

“What about Parsons?”

“He died game. They all did.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Last words? I don't know. There were about two hundred people in there, watching. I was in back with Kelly. Just about that time, Kelly was asking me if I thought any of them was Catholic; I didn't know. Afterward someone said that Parsons demanded that they let him speak, and then they sprung the trap. But I heard Spies. He sounded off right across the yard. Do you know what he said?”

“What?”

“He said, there will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today. You know, funny thing about those damn reds, they got a kind of guts I never seen. Take Parsons; I went into his cell this morning with Wertzer of the
Tribune.
Wertzer said he was going to sketch him today, come hell or high water. I felt funny about it, but Wertzer said, you want to see this character, don't you, you want to be able to tell your grandchildren you seen him. There was also the little matter that Wertzer couldn't get in without me pulling the strings. So we come in there, and this Parsons—he could go on the stage with that face of his—is sitting there at a little table, dressed, shaved, wearing slippers, and writing. Al, the guard says, Al, there's a guy here from the
Tribune
to draw you. Meanwhile, the guard nudges me. Pete, I felt mad, so damn mad I could have laid out him and Wertzer, right there. I never liked Wertzer; he's a little snotnose, and I felt like a damn fool for being pulled into this. But Parsons isn't disturbed. He puts down his pen, turns to face us, smiles a little, and begins to roll a cigarette. I feel you can tell a lot from the way a man rolls; Parsons does it carefully and slowly; doesn't lose any tobacco, seals it with one swipe, and lights it on one match. I want to sketch you, Mr. Parsons, Wertzer says. This is the last chance to break the news—the little son of a bitch! But Parsons takes it calmly. I have some work to do, he says, and not much time. Wertzer says, It's a living, Mr. Parsons. I got to come in with my assignment, or I'll be out of a job too. So Parsons nods and says, all right. I know what it is to have to take an assignment. And all the time Wertzer sketches him, I'm standing there—my God, Pete, I never felt like that before. Once Parsons looks at me kind of peculiar and says, You're Joe Martin? I say, Right. I met you once, he says, but I guess you don't remember. But I swear to God, Pete, he was not afraid. Look, I don't like a communist any better than the next man, but I wouldn't have the guts to sit there and know that I was going to die in a few hours, and then carry it off the way he did.”

“You're a gambler—”

“Sure, but you're not playing for a break when you got a rope around your neck.”

Altgeld rose, went to the fire, and poked it alive. Then, still crouched, he faced Martin, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “Joe, I want you to tell me the truth. You know it, if any man does. Did the police murder Lingg?”

Martin leaned back and puffed on his cigar. Altgeld straightened up and stood there, one arm on the mantel, looking at the sheeplike features of Augustus.

“Well?”

“That's a hell of a question, Pete. What do you think?”

“I know what I think. I know what anyone with any brains in this city thinks. I know what happened too. But when you've sat on a. bench for even a month, you know what circumstantial evidence is worth. There were eight so-called anarchists tried and condemned to death to begin with. The public opinion began to be felt; it's as amusing as hell that we still have something left in this country which is called public opinion and which can be felt, but we have. So the sentences of three of these men, Fielden, Schwab, and Neebe are commuted. They can rot in jail, but jail is one thing and legal murder is another, and public opinion is appeased—just a little. And no harm is done, since the two they want to get, Parsons and Spies, are still on their way to the gallows. But then, there's more of this public opinion, mass meetings, petitions, pleas, messages from other countries. And then, very suddenly, Louis Lingg is found dying in his cell, half his face blown off by a dynamite fuse, and little bombs are cached all over his cell. So public opinion is diverted, and it is proved that once a bomb-thrower always a bomb-thrower, even if he throws them into his own mouth and closes it forever. Don't smile. I'm a judge; and I say this man committed suicide until it is proved otherwise.”

“What do you want, a signed statement?” Martin asked softly.

“I asked you a question.”

“It's still one hell of a question. Suppose I knew. Suppose I even knew who threw the bomb. Would I tell you, Pete? I like you; I've said it and I'll say it to your face—there's only one politician in Illinois I trust, and that's Pete Altgeld; but I don't trust you that much. I play my cards, you see, but I hold them close. My. big stake is down there in City Hall; I never ratted on anyone, Pete.”

“That's all?”

“No. I'll tell you what I think; I think that before a man killed himself by putting a dynamite charge in his mouth, you'd have to club him quiet and pry his jaws open. All right. These four gents are dead. I watched them die. And in the past year, I heard a lot of loose talk about them. But I don't talk loose; I found it pays off to keep your mouth shut. A lot of big operators will sleep sound tonight. I may hate their guts, but I got no quarrel with them. I'm just a gambler—a tinhorn gambler.”

“And I'm a tinhorn politician.”

“Some might say that,” Martin agreed softly.

For a while, Martin smoked placidly and quietly, Altgeld watching him from his place by the mantel. Then the Judge walked to a chair, sat down, and said, very precisely:

“Joe, what kind of a stake would you play me for?”

“A damn big one.”

“How far do you think I'll go?”

“If you keep your head and play it level, a long way.”

“How far?”

“How far do you want to go? If you were born in this country, I'd say maybe to the White House. As it is, the Senate, if you want that, or the governor's mansion.”

“How do I play it?”

“You play it for all it's worth, that's all. Or you play it safe. Sometimes they play it safe, and the big operators like that better.”

“But either way, it's the big operators?”

“What do you think?” Joe Martin said.

XVI

This took place on Friday; the next day, newspapers, in addition to detailed accounts of the execution and many editorials on the men who had died, law and order, democracy, the Constitution and its many amendments—some of which are called the Bill of Rights—the Revolution, the Founding Fathers, and the War Between the States, carried notices of the funeral. The city authorities had allowed relatives and friends to reclaim the bodies of the five dead men, Lingg, who had died in his cell, Parsons, Spies, Engel, and Fischer. The city permitted these same friends and relatives to hold a public funeral, if they so pleased. Mayor Roche named a series of streets along which the funeral procession might proceed on its way to Waldheim Cemetery. The hours were from twelve to two o'clock. No music except funeral dirges might be played; no arms were to be borne; no signs or banners were to be displayed. It was to be expected, the newspapers said, that even though these men were the proven enemies of society, criminals, murderers, a few hundred people might well turn out to witness the last rites. And in accordance with that part of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of religion, it was only just to allow those rites to take place.

On Sunday, the Judge told his wife that he was going out for a stroll; and though Emma suspected where the stroll would take him, she said nothing, nor did she remark that it was curious, his wanting to go out alone on a Sunday morning. As a matter of fact, it was not so curious; making for the line of march, he realized that he was only one of many, many thousands of Chicago citizens; and presently it seemed that nearly half the city would be lined up along the drab, dirty streets, waiting for the procession.

It was a cold morning; that and the fact that he had little desire to be seen made him turn up the collar of his coat and pull his hat down. He jammed his hands into his pockets, shifted from one chilled foot to another, and waited.

Presently, the funeral procession came into sight. It was not what he might have expected; certainly not what the city authorities expected when they granted permission for the funeral to be held. There was no music, no sound other than the slow tread of feet and the soft sobbing of women. And with that, all other sounds, all other noises appeared to die away, as if a great and woeful pall of silence overhung the whole city.

First, there came a man with a flag, the only flag in the whole procession, a worn and faded. Stars and Stripes that had marched proudly at the head of a regiment in the Civil War; and the man who carried it was a veteran, a middle-aged man with a face like gray stone.

Then came the hearses and the caskets; then the carriages in which the families rode. They were old, open carriages. In one of them Altgeld saw Lucy Parsons, sitting with her two children, staring straight ahead of her.

Then came the close friends, the comrades of those who had died. They walked four abreast, and their faces too were gray, like the face of the Civil War veteran.

Then came a group of well-dressed men and women, many of whom Altgeld knew and recognized. They were lawyers, judges, doctors, teachers, small businessmen, and many others who had come into the fight to save the five dead men.

Then came the workers, and to them, apparently, there was no end. They were from the packing houses, the lumber yards, the McCormick plant, and the Pullman plant; they were from the mills, the fertilizer pits, the railyards, and the canneries; they were from the flophouses of the unemployed, from the road, from the wheatfields, from the streets of Chicago and a dozen other cities. Many were in their best, the one good suit, the black suit in which they were married; many had their wives with them; children walked with them too, and some carried children in their arms. But there were enough who had no other clothes than the clothes they worked in, and they wore their overalls, their blue jeans, and their flannel shirts. There were cowhands who had ridden five hundred miles and more to Chicago, thinking that where men believed and willed, this thing could be stopped; and when it had not been stopped, they stayed to walk in the procession in their awkward, highheeled boots. There were red-faced farmers from the prairies about the city, there were locomotive engineers, and there were sailors from the Great Lakes.

There were also hundreds and hundreds of policemen and Pinkerton operatives along the line of march, but when they saw this they stood quietly, put away the guns they had in their hands, and stared at the ground.

For the workers were quiet. You could hear their breathing and you could hear the crunching tread of their feet, but there was no word you could hear. No one spoke; not the men, not the women, not even the children. Nor did any of the people who lined the streets break the silence.

And still the workers came on. For an hour Altgeld stood there, and still they came, shoulder to shoulder, their faces like stone, the tears running slowly and unwiped. Another hour, yet there was no end to them; how many thousands had passed, he could not guess, nor could he guess how many thousands more were to come; but he knew one thing: that never before in the history of the land, not even when the most beloved of all leaders, Abe Lincoln, had died, was there such a funeral as this.