Chapter X Bowery Politics
The death-knell of divedom had been sounded by the legislature. Albeit, it had been sounded before, without stopping the dives from resurrecting themselves. But vice had become so rampant, so nauseating that the righteous of the city braced their backbones a trifle stiffer than usual and insisted on having a committee of investigation appointed.
All the daily papers heralded the coming of the inquisitors in big head lines, and the inhabitants of divedom began to quake in their shoes like fallen angels on the eve of judgment day.
Shortly before the beginning of the upheaval, I had overcome one of my many spells of lassitude and gentlemanly idleness and had accepted the position of bouncer in the “Slide,” the most notorious dive which ever disgraced a community.
When a body is covered with a cancerous growth, the most dangerous ulcer is the first to receive the surgeon’s attention. For that reason, the “Slide” was the first to be put under the prying probe. The investigation was thorough. The investigators and prosecuting officials, stimulated by fear of public censure and thoughts of political advancement, were merciless, and, as a consequence, the “Slide” was closed forever and the nominal proprietor sent to jail.
Without waiting for further developments, the other dive-keepers retired from business and a general cleansing process struck all quarters of the city.
The immediate effect of this was that a shifting of quarters of the vicious began. The harlots, bereft of their known places of business, hid themselves in the obscurity of virtuous surroundings, and the male element of the lowest dives congregated on the Bowery, ever the dumping-ground of human scum and offal. In a short time, the Bowery was full of a muttering crowd of able-bodied men, each one cheating the world out of an honest day’s labor, all proclaiming loudly at the injustice which deprived them of their “living.” Even the recollection is loathsome.
In company with a number of fellows who, like me, were “thrown out of work” by this “uncalled-for interference,” we established headquarters in a ginmill owned by a legislator. As a matter of course, the “back-room,” seemingly a legislative annex, was very much in evidence, and by no means subdued in its proceedings. If anything, the business behind the “partition” had increased in volume since the other dives, operated by less influential citizens, had been obliged to close. So we have here another of the many paradoxes of our political conditions. While his fellow-legislators were scouring the city with really commendable zeal to rend the evil-doer limb from limb, this being of their kin could be seen daily in front of his hall, sunning himself in the radiance of his increased prosperity and influence, and looking with self-satisfied smile across Chatham Square at the closed windows of minor dives.
Yes, as the Romans clothed the men of wisdom and love of country in the flowing robes of dignity and called them patriots, statesmen and senators, so do we take—take by the will of the people—the men fat of jowl and fat of paunch from beneath us and place them above us in the seats of the mighty and give them power over us. And if you would growl at my saying “from beneath us to above us,” and would wrathfully confront me with the slogan of political and other equality, I would not wish to stand in your way of being their equal, but would have trifling respect for your integrity. As I tell the stars by seeing them and find but small difference in their lustre, so do I tell the rascals by their rascality, and there is small difference in the degrees of rascality.
Senators! Rome and Albany! Would the difference of time, of centuries, were the only one between them!
In all governments by and for the people, the making of the nation lies with the common people; that great mass, which you would call “rabble” were it not for the continental sound of the word and the danger of being quoted. An ever-watchful press keeps its eye on you, and would readily pillorize you as an offender against the most sacred of our possessions and privileges; our sacred freedom; our sacred equality; our sacred franchise, and, by no means lastly, our sacred screaming eagle, screaming ofttimes from veriest agony. The buncombe of press and loud-mouthed gabbers has decreed it to be treason to see the truth and to speak it, and you must, to be above suspicion of being a traitor to the land you love, on the Fourth of July let off in sissing streams of pyrotechnics your patriotism, which, after its one gala day, is forgotten for the rest of the year in the strenuous pursuit of getting all you can out of “what’s in it.”
The common people of the fields and meadows plow, sow and reap their harvest. They pluck the weeds from out among the useful growth and stamp them under foot. The common people of our cities live “downtown”—that vague and indefinite region—in tenement and barracks. (Notice how “down” and “common” always run together).
They have no knowledge of agriculture, and, with their seldom sight of plant or flower, even the stink-weed, for it is leafed and green, finds a welcome and place among them through their ignorance. Yes, more, it is cared for and nurtured until, as all ill-weeds, it grows to tremendous proportions, overshadowing and dwarfing those who have spared its life instead of plucking it out by the roots and pressing the heel upon it.
Who plants the weeds? Who is their sower? They care not.
Does not the same blessed sunshine and dew of heaven fall upon them as on the corn and roses? And do they not get more of it than the flower and the fruit-bearing plant? For they are greedy and strive for that which is not theirs according to merit.
Not most, but all the men, who played their part in our history so well as to be immortalized forever were self-made from the field and farm. Remember that there they destroy the weeds!
Not most, but all the men, who have made it a risk to a fair name and reputation to become actively engaged in the affairs of one’s own country and state were self-made from the slums and gutters, with their only chance of immortalization via Rogues’ Gallery. We of the city do not destroy the weeds!
They of the gutter, who have been forced upon and above the multitude, if not caught or not too notoriously prominent, keep the data of their success and formulative period secret. If, however, they run foul of the calcium, which often strikes, unexpectedly, dark places, they become arrogantly defiant in their ill-gotten might. Even against the scorn of the decent and to the awe of their own kind, they swing themselves onto the pedestal of the self-made man and strike their pose. All that is intended as a parallel to several rail-splitting and canal-boating men in our little history, who, as a “patriot” remarked, deserve a whole lot of credit “even if they was farmers.”
Then, when forced into the public focus from their disturbed obscurity, is theirs the cry of repentance? Do they sob and cry: “Peccavi! Yes, I have sinned! I have wronged you and my country! Have mercy and forgive!”
If it were that it would be the cry of a tortured soul, rotten and distorted, yet still a soul and worthy of the chance of atonement. No; what reaches us from the usurped pedestal is the self-satisfied grunt of the swine: “Look and behold! You know or can surmise what I have been! Look now and wonder at what I am and how I got there!”
Surely this affront is resented and the daring knave pulled from his lofty perch to be punished for his insults and ill deeds? Some are foolish and un-American enough to suggest such a course of proceeding. But what really does happen is a taking up of that refrain of self-adulation by the admiring throng. There in almost worshipping attitude, we find that the chicaning game of politics makes mates of all sorts and conditions of men, and pickpocket and tax-paying citizen, cut-throat and that very peculiar animal, the intelligent workingman, all kneel in equal humility before the rum-soaked idol of their own creation.
A subject for deep guesswork is where the workingman keeps his well advertised intelligence. To claim to be one thing and then prove yourself the opposite, which, in this case means a fool, is a rather absurd proceeding. Presumably a good part of that intelligence is occupied in defending their rights, which nobody assails. Howling and haranguing do not require much intelligence, and of both the “intelligent” workingman does more than enough and to no purpose. When the time of his usefulness approaches—although it should be the time for him to assert himself—he stops his howling and listens to the strongly flavored persuasion of the wily politician—the weed he permitted to grow and to prosper—and becomes the gently led sheep, to awaken after election and find himself the twin brother of the donkey. They will not recognize that far better, by virtue of his sincerity, would be the sincere demagogue as leader than the dishonest politician of the gutter breed.
No man can choose his birthplace. Mansion and tenement have each furnished their quota of honest and dishonest men. If he of the gutter gets above it and gets there by means which are those of a man and an American, he will not lack the respect and esteem of those whose ranks he has fought to join. That is what proves this the land of opportunities and therein lies true equality.
There is another way to get out of the gutter, and that was the way employed by statesmen of the stamp of the Hon. Michael Callahan, of the State Legislature.
Mike Callahan’s place in horticulture was most decidedly among the rankest weeds. “Lucky” Callahan, as he was sometimes called, had escaped the inconvenient calcium of public opinion, and, on that account, little was known about his origin, except by his intimates. Perhaps bootblack, perhaps newsboy, he had early learned to make himself subservient to his superiors, genial to his equals and condescending to his inferiors. Of course, these social lines were drawn by him according to his viewpoint.
Mike’s striving for political recognition was aggressive from the start, and, having no other aim or ambition, he threw himself into the game of intrigue and wire-pulling with all his energetic intensity. Never questioning, always obeying, he became the ideal plastic mass to be molded by the enterprising chiefs of the organization. His promotion from ward heeler to captain, and from captain to the leadership of the district was his logical reward.
Yet, even in spite of his usefulness, his ascendancy to the leadership was not accomplished in a day. He did not mind this much, his bulldog tenacity keeping him alive to his ultimate purpose. His manhood and individuality, whatever they might have been, had long been sacrificed.
To strengthen his own power in the district it was necessary to weaken the influence of the incumbent leader, and, to effect this, knowing nothing of diplomacy, Callahan resorted to plain treachery. The fact that the leader to be deposed had been his benefactor and stanch friend was of small moment. Certainly Mike was sorry, but what could he do? Take a back seat and beat himself out of his chances? “Not much,” said he, and invented the useful and often quoted phrase, “Friendship in poker and politics don’t go.”
Mike’s assumption of the leadership was worked by decisive methods. There was no vagueness about him. The great leaders in the history of nations were endowed with attributes and traits of the highest and noblest order. Mike’s most pronounced attribute in his functions as leader was directness. It was this that enabled some of the brilliant young men of the party press to apostrophize him as “rugged, bluff, stalwart, frank and straightforward.”
The district contained a population in which the intelligent workingman was not greatly represented. The few of them who lived in the many lodging houses had very little belief left in the dignity of labor and toiled only enough to “square” themselves with their landlords and liquor dealers. Still, they were of use. They could talk beautifully about the rights of labor, and were encouraged—before election day—to spout grandiosely about the tyrannical oppression of the American workingman by the opposing faction.
The great majority of the voters in the district belonged to the class of grafters, and for that reason if no other, the Hon. Michael Callahan of the State Legislature was their born leader.
Callahan was at his best shortly before election. Then no man or woman—unfortunately the ladies of the district would indulge too strongly—had to linger in the throes of the law. It was the sacred duty of the leader to call daily at the police court to save his constituents and their “lady friends” from their impending fate.
On the eve of election no time had to be wasted in speculating on how much the free and independent voter could expect to receive for the exercise of his sacred franchise. According to the amount sent down from the headquarters of the organization, Mike’s ultimatum would settle the market price of votes. One or one and a half, or two dollars were the rates paid, although the last named rate was only given to liquidate the voter’s claim at the most critical periods. In this way the voter could figure with certainty, and with very little interruption resume his dissertation on the betterment of municipal and national politics.
The most important events in our history were conceived amidst surroundings of severest simplicity. No marble hall, no lofty council chamber, just the Common with its green sward and sturdy oak was the favorite meeting place of our forefathers. In the shadow of the mighty tree they spoke of liberty, of the rights of man and of the welfare of our country, and we reap to-day the benefit of their integrity, in spite of the machinations of politicians, whose very thoughts are a pollution of patriotism.
A careful and thoughtful student of American history, the Honorable Mike tried to live up to tradition as much as possible. Customs have changed, civilization has progressed, real estate has risen in price, and the political leader of to-day has felt himself obliged to substitute the gin-mill and the dive for the Common of old. Besides, “there is not much in Commons,” excepting when the city fathers, in the goodness of their charitable hearts, decide to create another breathing place and playground for the poor children of the East Side, and, thereby can get a “chance at” the property owners of the site.
When one is a leader, one must do as leaders do. Mike could not swerve from the accustomed practice, and, nolens volens, found himself the proprietor of a dive. But, forced into this, he had at least the satisfaction of opening this adjunct to his legislative office on the Common, or Square, as it is now called. True, there was no sturdy oak and no green sward, but there were elevated railway pillars and their shadows were quite sufficient for the practice of side issues in politics. The oak bears only acorns. The pillars and their shadows bore better fruit of silvery and golden sheen, and their sturdiness was often welcome to the backs of the many weary pilgrims who had traveled far to imbibe the pure draught of American patriotism as dispensed by the Hon. Michael Callahan of the State Legislature.
With the characteristic modesty of great men, Mike refrained from making the exterior of his place too showy. This superficial attraction to his resort was absolutely needless, as his more lasting fame—some detractors called it “disgraceful notoriety”—was firmly established. Did he not have several fist-fights with “officious” police officers to his credit, and, did he not openly dare and defy all known authorities to “monkey” with him. He feared no man but one, and that one only, because he was a more successful thug than himself and the Great Leader and Chieftain.
Dives of a certain kind make no effort to attract transient trade by bright, or, at least, neat and clean exteriors. Their business is not supplied by the honest man, who is looking for an honest place to have an honest drink. They depend on that flotsam and jetsam that can find a dive blindfolded. Callahan’s place was more suggestive than attractive in its front and the interior was fairly dazzling in its austere plainness. Sawdust and traces of former expectorations were the most evident features in the bar-room, which only ran the length of the bar. At the end of it a partition jealously claimed the rest of the space for the back-room. There, and not in front, was the real business transacted. The front, a pretense of respectability; the back, without any pretense whatsoever.
I cannot tell you what furnished the real attraction of the back-room. A minimum clearance of space in the centre of the room was reserved for dancing and surrounded by tables and chairs which were nightly occupied by young men and women, many of whom had been born and brought up in the immediate neighborhood, under the very eyes of the legislating dive-keeper. But that fact made no difference to this vile thing, empowered by our sanction to make laws which were to safeguard homes, property and life.
And there, safe in the protecting radius of our friend and statesman, we found a resting-place; for our enforced retirement from dive activity, and there, in all my uncleanness, there came to me the sweet messenger of a newer, better life, and took me from it by the all-powerful persuasion of an unquenchable love.
Before telling you how this miracle transformed me in a way, which will tax my power of description to the utmost, I must relate to you the one and only attempt we, myself and two cronies, made to get away from a life which was the only one we knew.