Theodore Dreiser - The Titan

“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.”

The Bony Plumber . “Yes, you crook! You want to get away with thirty thousand dollars, that’s what you want, you boodler!”

Mr. Pinski (defiantly, egged on by voices from behind). “I want to be fair—that’s what. I want to keep my own mind. The constitution gives everybody the right of free speech—even me. I insist that the street-car companies have some rights; at the same time the people have rights too.”

A Voice . “What are those rights?”

Another Voice . “He don’t know. He wouldn’t know the people’s rights from a sawmill.”

Another Voice . “Or a load of hay.”

Pinski (continuing very defiantly now, since he has not yet been slain). “I say the people have their rights. The companies ought to be made to pay a fair tax. But this twenty-year-franchise idea is too little, I think. The Mears bill now gives them fifty years, and I think all told—”

The Five Hundred (in chorus). “Ho, you robber! You thief! You boodler! Hang him! Ho! ho! ho! Get a rope!”

Pinski (retreating within a defensive circle as various citizens approach him, their eyes blazing, their teeth showing, their fists clenched). “My friends, wait! Ain’t I goin’ to be allowed to finish?”

A Voice . “We’ll finish you, you stiff!”

A Citizen (advancing; a bearded Pole). “How will you vote, hey? Tell us that! How? Hey?”

A Second Citizen (a Jew). “You’re a no-good, you robber. I know you for ten years now already. You cheated me when you were in the grocery business.”

A Third Citizen (a Swede. In a sing-song voice). “Answer me this, Mr. Pinski. If a majority of the citizens of the Fourteenth Ward don’t want you to vote for it, will you still vote for it?”

Pinski (hesitating).

The Five Hundred . “Ho! look at the scoundrel! He’s afraid to say. He don’t know whether he’ll do what the people of this ward want him to do. Kill him! Brain him!”

A Voice from Behind . “Aw, stand up, Pinski. Don’t be afraid.” Pinski (terrorized as the five hundred make a rush for the stage). “If the people don’t want me to do it, of course I won’t do it. Why should I? Ain’t I their representative?”

A Voice . “Yes, when you think you’re going to get the wadding kicked out of you.”

Another Voice . “You wouldn’t be honest with your mother, you bastard. You couldn’t be!”

Pinski . “If one-half the voters should ask me not to do it I wouldn’t do it.”

A Voice . “Well, we’ll get the voters to ask you, all right. We’ll get nine-tenths of them to sign before to-morrow night.”

An Irish-American (aged twenty-six; a gas collector; coming close to Pinski). “If you don’t vote right we’ll hang you, and I’ll be there to help pull the rope myself.”

One of Pinski’s Lieutenants . “Say, who is that freshie? We want to lay for him. One good kick in the right place will just about finish him.”

The Gas Collector . “Not from you, you carrot-faced terrier. Come outside and see.” (Business of friends interfering).

The meeting becomes disorderly. Pinski is escorted out by friends—completely surrounded—amid shrieks and hisses, cat-calls, cries of “Boodler!” “Thief!” “Robber!”

There were many such little dramatic incidents after the ordinance had been introduced.

Henceforth on the streets, in the wards and outlying sections, and even, on occasion, in the business heart, behold the marching clubs—those sinister, ephemeral organizations which on demand of the mayor had cropped out into existence—great companies of the unheralded, the dull, the undistinguished—clerks, working-men, small business men, and minor scions of religion or morality; all tramping to and fro of an evening, after working-hours, assembling in cheap halls and party club-houses, and drilling themselves to what end? That they might march to the city hall on the fateful Monday night when the street-railway ordinances should be up for passage and demand of unregenerate lawmakers that they do their duty. Cowperwood, coming down to his office one morning on his own elevated lines, was the observer of a button or badge worn upon the coat lapel of stolid, inconsequential citizens who sat reading their papers, unconscious of that presence which epitomized the terror and the power they all feared. One of these badges had for its device a gallows with a free noose suspended; another was blazoned with the query: “Are we going to be robbed?” On sign-boards, fences, and dead walls huge posters, four by six feet in dimension, were displayed.

WALDEN H. LUCAS

against the

BOODLERS

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Every citizen of Chicago should come down to the City Hall

TO-NIGHT

MONDAY, DEC. 12

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