Chapter XX On the Sand-Lots
City Hall Avenue and the vacant lots below it bustled with the activity of an arriving circus. Two bonfires blazing fiercely sent the crackling sparks flying skyward, and cast so warm a glow on the faces of those who approached them, that even the small boys, who dared one another to feed the flames, shielded their eyes with uplifted arm, and made their bows before the altar of the God of Fire in reverse of the customary attitude of respect.
A wooden platform had been erected near the lower end of the triangle of vacant lots, and a row of gasoline torches blazed about it. Groups of men were gathered here and there about the sandy space, listening to impromptu orators arguing in dissonant chorus over the significance of the eastern riots, or denouncing the Chinese as the source of all industrial and social woes.
The groups were in a state of flux, swelling where the voices rose loudest, and melting away where the discussion sank to a conversational monotone. But the most active elements of the crowd were the bands of young men, hardly more than boys, who formed into gangs of ten to twenty, and roughly pushed and jostled their way through the crowd with cries that indicated their disesteem for the Chinese, their regard for Kearney and for the Pittsburgh rioters, and their especial disapproval of the police.
Behind the bonfires and torches, the dark groups and eddying streams of men, rose the half-built New City Hall. Touched here and there with the red glow of the bonfires in front, and framed in silhouette by the dying shimmer of the sunset behind, it looked like some ancient, majestic ruin—far different in outline from the ruin it was to become, when thirty years later it was racked by earthquake, and swept by a mighty conflagration—yet one that furnished a striking background for the turbulent scene enacted before it.
As I entered the crowded space from the Market Street side, I had noted these details before I discovered Parks standing by the platform and glancing impatiently about him.
“Hampden,” he cried, “I am glad to see that you have joined this great outpouring of the people. You shall have a seat with me on the platform.”
“I wouldn’t miss the fun for fifteen cents. But what are you going to do? What’s your plan?”
“We shall follow the wishes of our fellow-citizens,” said Parks, with a nod of mystery, importing designs that could not be revealed until the moment of execution. “But the first thing is to have the speeches delivered, and we are away behind time. The meeting ought to have been called to order twenty minutes ago, but the procession is late, of course. I never knew one that wasn’t.” And he looked irritably into Market Street, and made some unfavorable comments on the marshals of the parade.
“Here it comes now!” exclaimed another member of the group, as a blare of horns, the thump of a drum and a confused sound of cheering disturbed the air.
The procession soon came into sight as it advanced up Market Street and turned into the sand-lots. At its head marched a brass band, and scattered here and there in the trailing line were a few hundred torches—spoil from the election campaign of the preceding year. While the attention of all was fixed on the manoeuvers of the marching clubs, I felt my sleeve plucked, and turned to find Clark beside me. Without looking at me he slipped a piece of paper into my hand, and moved away. I held the paper under one of the gasoline torches, and read:
Some mischief ahead. Jim Morgan has been hiring men. Had 20 or 30 young fellows cooped up near hdqrs. this p.m. They are marching up with the clubs.
I puzzled for a little over the particular variety of mischief that was imported by this activity of Bolton’s agent, and then stepping behind Clark, said:
“Keep as close to the gang as you can. If you find out what they are up to, bring me word at once. I’ll be on the platform here.”
Without appearing to notice me, Clark gave a signal that he understood, and as he moved away Parks tapped me on the shoulder.
“Here! We must start this thing now,” he said. “We’re over half an hour late. Come up on the platform. Where in the name of Halifax can Kearney be? He hasn’t come up with the clubs, and he hasn’t sent any word.”
I suggested the theory of sickness.
“He’s sick of the job—that’s my opinion,” said Parks savagely. “He’s full of fighting talk when there’s no trouble in sight, but when there’s a chance to strike a blow for the people, he’s for hanging back. He hasn’t had any ginger in his talk about this meeting. You heard him last night. He was about as warm as a fish then, and his pulse has been going down ever since. Well, we can’t wait any longer, so here goes.” And pushing to the front of the platform, he pounded on an improvised desk and called for order.
It was by the eye rather than by the ear that he caught the attention of the throng, for in the babel of amateur oratory that filled the square, his voice was lost. But at his appeals, silence spread in concentric rings about the platform, until the arguing groups melted into the mass of humanity that pressed toward the speakers’ stand.
I paid but perfunctory attention to the speeches. Under Parks’ guidance a man named D’Arcy was chosen chairman of the meeting, and speaker vied with speaker in expressing sympathy with their brave brethren of Pittsburgh, in declaring admiration for the courage with which they had beaten down the hireling soldiery of the brutalized money lords, in denouncing the policy that had called out the troops to settle a mere business dispute between workmen and employers, in bewailing the hard lot of the workmen of San Francisco, and in assailing the Chinese as the cause of the local industrial woes. It was not the inflammatory speeches that drew the major part of my attention, nor even the riotous applause that followed those speakers who expressed their approval of violence as a cure for low wages or no wages. Some subtle sense of divination drew my eyes and thoughts to certain currents and eddies in the crowd, where lines of men appeared to move with common purpose through the great gathering. The lines would grow in length as they proceeded, then would swirl into a group, and break or unfold into two or three new lines that would push out in different directions to form new centers of excitement. Some plan of action was evidently preparing.
In the midst of a speaker’s appeal to the sacred rights of labor against the wrongs of coolie immigration, a man swung himself over the back rail of the platform and whispered to Parks.
“What’s that?” demanded Parks incredulously.
The man repeated his statement.
“When did it happen?”
“About seven o’clock.”
Parks’ face grew black with suppressed storm, and the man continued:
“He said you could rouse the town about it if you thought best, but for himself he didn’t want the course of the law interfered with.”
“What do you think, Hampden?” said Parks, in my ear. “Kearney’s arrested!”
“What’s he been doing now?”
“Oh, it’s his Nob Hill speech. He threatened to hang Stanford and Crocker, you know; and they’ve jailed him for that.”
“Well,” I said cheerfully, “are you going to follow your example by leading the mob to rescue him?”
“I’d take five thousand men down to the City Prison and have him out in half an hour, if I was sure he hadn’t contrived this arrest himself,” replied Parks darkly.
“What put that into your head?” I asked in surprise.
“Never mind,” said Parks with an angry shake of his head. “I’ve a right to my suspicions.” Then he turned to his messenger and growled: “Don’t say anything about this. I’ll announce it later if it seems best. I’ll have to think it over a little. I’ll wait till Reddick has spoken, anyhow.”
Reddick, as the mouthpiece of the Council of Nine, gave a speech filled with denunciations of social and industrial conditions, and with the roars of applause that he evoked, the currents and eddies of men grew stronger. As he drew toward the close of his address, I felt a touch from behind, and turned to find Clark beckoning for attention. As I bent to him, he whispered in my ear:
“Those fellows of Morgan’s are trying to stir up a rumpus. They are going through the crowd now passing the word that it’s time to burn out the rich fellows that have brought in the Chinese, and that the place to begin is on Van Ness Avenue, and finish with Nob Hill and Chinatown. There’s going to be trouble as soon as the meeting breaks up.”
This alarming information revealed Bolton’s purpose, whatever might be the plans of the Council of Nine, and though the meeting seemed likely to be prolonged for an hour or two more, I scribbled a note on the back of one of Wharton Kendrick’s cards and handed it to Clark, saying:
“Get down to the Old City Hall, see Chief Ellis, or whoever is in charge, and tell him that Kendrick’s place is to be attacked. Ask him to send as many men as he can spare to keep the avenue clear. That card will get you a chance to speak with him, and you can tell him what the gang is doing. I am going up to Kendrick’s before the meeting closes and get ready for trouble.”
“I’ll do the best I can, sir,” said Clark, with evident doubt of his power to influence so important a man as the chief of police, and in a moment had disappeared into McAllister Street.
While I had been engaged with Clark, Reddick had ended his speech with a fiery peroration that brought a roar of applause, during which a stout, red-faced man climbed to the platform and took his place.
“This is all wrong, men,” were the first words I heard from the new speaker. “We can’t help the cause of labor by getting into a row with the police. We can’t get more wages by hunting a fight with the militia. We can’t even get a better job by punching a Chinaman’s head.”
“Who the devil is this?” cried Reddick angrily. “He’s a hell-hound of plutocracy. Who asked him to speak?”
“Stop him, D’Arcy,” said Parks. “He’ll be a wet blanket on the meeting.”
So far from being a wet blanket, the speaker had a remarkably enlivening influence on the crowd. The elements that had been roused to enthusiasm by fiery speeches, culminating in Reddick’s red-pepper harangue, were in no mood to listen to this sort of talk, and catcalls, hoots and cries of dissent drowned his words.
“This agitation don’t do us no good,” shouted the volunteer orator. “It hurts us. It scares away capital. I lost two jobs by it myself.”
“Sit down! Dry up! Get off the platform!” came in volleys from the audience, and the chairman, with a pull at the speaker’s coat tails, paraphrased the demand.
“I won’t sit down!” shouted the unknown. “I’m an American citizen and as good as any of you.”
“Throw him off!” cried Reddick; and suiting action to word, he seized the speaker about the waist.
The unknown resented this interference by whirling about, and planting a blow on Reddick’s face that sent him to the floor with a thump. But the militant friend of order was seized by a dozen men before he could make another movement, and with a struggle was hustled to the side of the platform and dropped over the rail.
The scene of violence was contagious. During the altercation on the platform the signs of disorder in the crowd had multiplied, and at the sight of the blow that laid Reddick on his back, a mighty roar rose on the air, and the whole throng appeared to break into tumultuous motion. The great mass was shaken to its confines with a sudden blind impulse of conflict, the thousands of faces tossed and eddied about like sea waves ruffled by cross-currents, and a surge of men broke against the platform.
“Hold on,” shouted Parks, springing to the front. “There’s four more speakers to be heard, and the resolutions to be passed.” But in the uproar his voice was overwhelmed, and in a moment the hoodlum mob was upon us. A conflux of wolfish faces centered upon the platform, and with cries of “Kill the Chinese! Down with the coolie-lovers!” they tore at the supports. The platform went down with a crash of breaking boards and screaming men, and the flaming gasoline torches that lighted the stand fell forward with the uprights to which they were fastened, only to be raised in the van as the standards of the hoodlum mob.
The downfall of the platform sent half the group sprawling on the ground among its ruins. But at the first warning crack I had seized Parks as he was about to be pitched forward under the feet of the attacking forces, and dragged him to the back rail. This frail support held for a space against the wrench of the falling front, and offered us a moment’s safety.
“This is an outrage!” cried Parks, as we scrambled to the ground. “The money of the railroad or the Six Companies has paid for this assault on a peaceable meeting. But I am not going to be silenced by a pack of hoodlums. Come up to the City Hall steps, and we will finish our speeches and pass our resolutions.”
“Better let bad enough alone,” I said. “You’d much better come with me to see to Miss Fillmore’s safety.”
But Parks had not waited to hear the end of my words, and was already on his way to the Hall of Records, shouting at the top of his voice, “Follow me, all members of the International Clubs!” while I struggled to press my way through the division of the mob that was sweeping up Leavenworth Street. As I reached the corner I heard one of the leaders shout:
“Come on, youse fellows! We’ll burn out Millionaire’s Row on Van Ness Avenue. They’s the ones that gets rich by bringing in the coolies!” And his suggestion was approved with a roar.
This was, I could no longer doubt, a part of the scheme that had been hatching in the fertile brain of Peter Bolton. It was for this that Jim Morgan had hired and trained his ruffians, and the objective point of the mob in front of me was the home of Wharton Kendrick.
It was of this that my sixth sense had warned me, even before Clark had spoken; and yet I had loitered in the belief that there was plenty of time to reach the place before the close of the meeting should loose the forces of disorder. And now, with a sudden gust of passion all evil things had thrown away restraint, the mob with roars of rage was swarming in different directions, smashing doors and windows, and shouting its war-cries with cheers and curses, while I was still by the City Hall, trying to force past the throng that streamed up Leavenworth Street.
I had got as far as Tyler Street (later to become famous as Golden Gate Avenue), when I found the way blockaded. The crowd had halted, packed into a dense mass about the corner, and shouts and yells, the crash of breaking wood and the tinkle of falling glass told that the wild beast had found an object on which to vent its rage. By the light of the street-lamps and the flare of the torches carried by the mob, I saw that the point of attack was a low, wooden building, and a painted sign above the door told that therein Ah Ging did washing and ironing.
I had barely discerned so much when the sign disappeared, and a moment later the form of a Chinaman was framed in the doorway above the crowd, amid a gang of hoodlum captors. For an instant I could see the wild, terror-stricken face, its brown skin turned to a sickly yellow, its eyes rolling in the red glare of the torches with the instinct of the animal seeking despairingly some path of escape. Then at a blow from behind the Chinaman gave a scream and plunged headlong down the steps.
The end was shut out from my sight, but I was shaken by the qualms of deathly sickness at this wanton barbarity, as the maelstrom of struggling bodies closed in upon its victim, and his death-cries were drowned in the chorus of yells, jeers and animal ejaculations of rage with which the collective beast accompanied the murder of Ah Ging.