第216章 Chapter LXI The Cataclysm(2)

Most of them, even if they were lucky, would never make the half of that in a lifetime. They don't expect to be returned to the Chicago City Council. Once is enough. There are too many others behind them waiting to get their noses in the trough. Go into your respective wards and districts and organize meetings. Call your particular alderman before you. Don't let him evade you or quibble or stand on his rights as a private citizen or a public officer. Threaten--don't cajole. Soft or kind words won't go with that type of man. Threaten, and when you have managed to extract a promise be on hand with ropes to see that he keeps his word. I don't like to advise arbitrary methods, but what else is to be done? The enemy is armed and ready for action right now.

They're just waiting for a peaceful moment. Don't let them find it. Be ready. Fight. I'm your mayor, and ready to do all I can, but I stand alone with a mere pitiful veto right. You help me and I'll help you. You fight for me and I'll fight for you."

Witness hereafter the discomfiting situation of Mr. Simon Pinski at 9 P.M. on the second evening following the introduction of the ordinance, in the ward house of the Fourteenth Ward Democratic Club. Rotund, flaccid, red-faced, his costume a long black frock-coat and silk hat, Mr. Pinski was being heckled by his neighbors and business associates. He had been called here by threats to answer for his prospective high crimes and misdemeanors.

By now it was pretty well understood that nearly all the present aldermen were criminal and venal, and in consequence party enmities were practically wiped out. There were no longer for the time being Democrats and Republicans, but only pro or anti Cowperwoods --principally anti. Mr. Pinski, unfortunately, had been singled out by the Transcript, the Inquirer, and the Chronicle as one of those open to advance questioning by his constituents. Of mixed Jewish and American extraction, he had been born and raised in the Fourteenth and spoke with a decidedly American accent. He was neither small nor large--sandy-haired, shifty-eyed, cunning, and on most occasions amiable. Just now he was decidedly nervous, wrathy, and perplexed, for he had been brought here against his will. His slightly oleaginous eye--not unlike that of a small pig--had been fixed definitely and finally on the munificent sum of thirty thousand dollars, no less, and this local agitation threatened to deprive him of his almost unalienable right to the same. His ordeal took place in a large, low-ceiled room illuminated by five very plain, thin, two-armed gas-jets suspended from the ceiling and adorned by posters of prizefights, raffles, games, and the "Simon Pinski Pleasure Association" plastered here and there freely against dirty, long-unwhitewashed walls. He stood on the low raised platform at the back of the room, surrounded by a score or more of his ward henchmen, all more or less reliable, all black-frocked, or at least in their Sunday clothes; all scowling, nervous, defensive, red-faced, and fearing trouble. Mr. Pinski has come armed. This talk of the mayor's concerning guns, ropes, drums, marching clubs, and the like has been given very wide publicity, and the public seems rather eager for a Chicago holiday in which the slaughter of an alderman or so might furnish the leading and most acceptable feature.

"Hey, Pinski!" yells some one out of a small sea of new and decidedly unfriendly faces. (This is no meeting of Pinski followers, but a conglomerate outpouring of all those elements of a distrait populace bent on enforcing for once the principles of aldermanic decency.

There are even women here--local church-members, and one or two advanced civic reformers and W. C. T. U. bar-room smashers. Mr.

Pinski has been summoned to their presence by the threat that if he didn't come the noble company would seek him out later at his own house.)

"Hey, Pinski! You old boodler! How much do you expect to get out of this traction business?" (This from a voice somewhere in the rear.)

Mr. Pinski (turning to one side as if pinched in the neck). "The man that says I am a boodler is a liar! I never took a dishonest dollar in my life, and everybody in the Fourteenth Ward knows it."

The Five Hundred People Assembled. "Ha! ha! ha! Pinski never took a dollar! Ho! ho! ho! Whoop-ee!"

Mr. Pinski (very red-faced, rising). "It is so. Why should I talk to a lot of loafers that come here because the papers tell them to call me names? I have been an alderman for six years now.

Everybody knows me.

A Voice. "You call us loafers. You crook!"

Another Voice (referring to his statement of being known). "You bet they do!"

Another Voice (this from a small, bony plumber in workclothes).

"Hey, you old grafter! Which way do you expect to vote? For or against this franchise? Which way?"

Still Another Voice (an insurance clerk). "Yes, which way?"

Mr. Pinski (rising once more, for in his nervousness he is constantly rising or starting to rise, and then sitting down again). "I have a right to my own mind, ain't I? I got a right to think. What for am I an alderman, then? The constitution..."

An Anti-Pinski Republican (a young law clerk). "To hell with the constitution! No fine words now, Pinski. Which way do you expect to vote? For or against? Yes or no?"

A Voice (that of a bricklayer, anti-Pinski). "He daresn't say.

He's got some of that bastard's money in his jeans now, I'll bet."

A Voice from Behind (one of Pinski's henchmen--a heavy, pugilistic Irishman). "Don't let them frighten you, Sim. Stand your ground.

They can't hurt you. We're here."

Pinski (getting up once more). "This is an outrage, I say. Ain't I gon' to be allowed to say what I think? There are two sides to every question. Now, I think whatever the newspapers say that Cowperwood--"

A Journeyman Carpenter (a reader of the Inquirer). "You're bribed, you thief! You're beating about the bush. You want to sell out."