The Jungle
habit kept him at it. Besides, Mike Scully, whom he consulted, advised
him that something might “turn up” before long.
Jurgis got himself a place in a boardinghouse with some congenial
friends. He had already inquired of Aniele, and learned that Elzbieta
and her family had gone downtown, and so he gave no further thought to
them. He went with a new set, now, young unmarried fellows who were
“sporty.” Jurgis had long ago cast off his fertilizer clothing, and
since going into politics he had donned a linen collar and a greasy red
necktie. He had some reason for thinking of his dress, for he was
making about eleven dollars a week, and two-thirds of it he might spend
upon his pleasures without ever touching his savings.
Sometimes he would ride down-town with a party of friends to the cheap
theaters and the music halls and other haunts with which they were
familiar. Many of the saloons in Packingtown had pool tables, and some
of them bowling alleys, by means of which he could spend his evenings
in petty gambling. Also, there were cards and dice. One time Jurgis got
into a game on a Saturday night and won prodigiously, and because he
was a man of spirit he stayed in with the rest and the game continued
until late Sunday afternoon, and by that time he was “out” over twenty
dollars. On Saturday nights, also, a number of balls were generally
given in Packingtown; each man would bring his “girl” with him, paying
half a dollar for a ticket, and several dollars additional for drinks
in the course of the festivities, which continued until three or four
o’clock in the morning, unless broken up by fighting. During all this
time the same man and woman would dance together, half-stupefied with
sensuality and drink.
Before long Jurgis discovered what Scully had meant by something
“turning up.” In May the agreement between the packers and the unions
expired, and a new agreement had to be signed. Negotiations were going
on, and the yards were full of talk of a strike. The old scale had
dealt with the wages of the skilled men only; and of the members of the
Meat Workers’ Union about two-thirds were unskilled men. In Chicago
these latter were receiving, for the most part, eighteen and a half
cents an hour, and the unions wished to make this the general wage for
the next year. It was not nearly so large a wage as it seemed—in the
course of the negotiations the union officers examined time checks to
the amount of ten thousand dollars, and they found that the highest
wages paid had been fourteen dollars a week, and the lowest two dollars
and five cents, and the average of the whole, six dollars and
sixty-five cents. And six dollars and sixty-five cents was hardly too
much for a man to keep a family on, considering the fact that the price
of dressed meat had increased nearly fifty per cent in the last five
years, while the price of “beef on the hoof” had decreased as much, it
would have seemed that the packers ought to be able to pay it; but the
packers were unwilling to pay it—they rejected the union demand, and to
show what their purpose was, a week or two after the agreement expired
they put down the wages of about a thousand men to sixteen and a half
cents, and it was said that old man Jones had vowed he would put them
to fifteen before he got through. There were a million and a half of
men in the country looking for work, a hundred thousand of them right
in Chicago; and were the packers to let the union stewards march into
their places and bind them to a contract that would lose them several
thousand dollars a day for a year? Not much!
All this was in June; and before long the question was submitted to a
referendum in the unions, and the decision was for a strike. It was the
same in all the packing house cities; and suddenly the newspapers and
public woke up to face the gruesome spectacle of a meat famine. All
sorts of pleas for a reconsideration were made, but the packers were
obdurate; and all the while they were reducing wages, and heading off
shipments of cattle, and rushing in wagon-loads of mattresses and cots.
So the men boiled over, and one night telegrams went out from the union
headquarters to all the big packing centers—to St. Paul, South Omaha,
Sioux City, St. Joseph, Kansas City, East St. Louis, and New York—and
the next day at noon between fifty and sixty thousand men drew off
their working clothes and marched out of the factories, and the great
“Beef Strike” was on.
Jurgis went to his dinner, and afterward he walked over to see Mike
Scully, who lived in a fine house, upon a street which had been
decently paved and lighted for his especial benefit. Scully had gone
into semi-retirement, and looked nervous and worried. “What do you
want?” he demanded, when he saw Jurgis.
“I came to see if maybe you could get me a place during the strike,”
the other replied.
And Scully knit his brows and eyed him narrowly. In that morning’s
papers Jurgis had read a fierce denunciation of the packers by Scully,
who had declared that if they did not treat their people better the
city authorities would end the matter by tearing down their plants.
Now, therefore, Jurgis was not a little taken aback when the other
demanded suddenly, “See here, Rudkus, why don’t you stick by your job?”
Jurgis started. “Work as a scab?” he cried.
“Why not?” demanded Scully. “What’s that to you?”
“But—but—” stammered Jurgis. He had somehow taken it for granted that
he should go out with his union. “The packers need good men, and need
them bad,” continued the other, “and they’ll treat a man right that
stands by them. Why don’t you take your chance and fix yourself?”
“But,” said Jurgis, “how could I ever be of any use to you—in
politics?”
“You couldn’t be it anyhow,” said Scully, abruptly.
“Why not?” asked Jurgis.
“Hell, man!” cried the other. “Don’t you know you’re a Republican? And
do you think I’m always going to elect Republicans? My brewer has found
out already how we served him, and there is the deuce to pay.”
Jurgis looked dumfounded. He had never thought of that aspect of it
before. “I could be a Democrat,” he said.
“Yes,” responded the other, “but not right away; a man can’t change his
politics every day. And besides, I don’t need you—there’d be nothing
for you to do. And it’s a long time to election day, anyhow; and what
are you going to do meantime?”
“I thought I could count on you,” began Jurgis.
“Yes,” responded Scully, “so you could—I never yet went back on a
friend. But is it fair to leave the job I got you and come to me for
another? I have had a hundred fellows after me today, and what can I
do? I’ve put seventeen men on the city payroll to clean streets this
one week, and do you think I can keep that up forever? It wouldn’t do
for me to tell other men what I tell you, but you’ve been on the
inside, and you ought to have sense enough to see for yourself. What
have you to gain by a strike?”
“I hadn’t thought,” said Jurgis.
“Exactly,” said Scully, “but you’d better. Take my word for it, the
strike will be over in a few days, and the men will be beaten; and
meantime what you can get out of it will belong to you. Do you see?”
And Jurgis saw. He went back to the yards, and into the workroom. The
men had left a long line of hogs in various stages of preparation, and
the foreman was directing the feeble efforts of a score or two of
clerks and stenographers and office boys to finish up the job and get
them into the chilling rooms. Jurgis went straight up to him and
announced, “I have come back to work, Mr. Murphy.”
The boss’s face lighted up. “Good man!” he cried. “Come ahead!”
“Just a moment,” said Jurgis, checking his enthusiasm. “I think I ought
to get a little more wages.”
“Yes,” replied the other, “of course. What do you want?”
Jurgis had debated on the way. His nerve almost failed him now, but he
clenched his hands. “I think I ought to have’ three dollars a day,” he
said.
“All right,” said the other, promptly; and before the day was out our
friend discovered that the clerks and stenographers and office boys
were getting five dollars a day, and then he could have kicked himself!
So Jurgis became one of the new “American heroes,” a man whose virtues
merited comparison with those of the martyrs of Lexington and Valley
Forge. The resemblance was not complete, of course, for Jurgis was
generously paid and comfortably clad, and was provided with a spring
cot and a mattress and three substantial meals a day; also he was
perfectly at ease, and safe from all peril of life and limb, save only
in the case that a desire for beer should lead him to venture outside
of the stockyards gates. And even in the exercise of this privilege he
was not left unprotected; a good part of the inadequate police force of
Chicago was suddenly diverted from its work of hunting criminals, and
rushed out to serve him. The police, and the strikers also, were
determined that there should be no violence; but there was another
party interested which was minded to the contrary—and that was the
press. On the first day of his life as a strikebreaker Jurgis quit work
early, and in a spirit of bravado he challenged three men of his
acquaintance to go outside and get a drink. They accepted, and went
through the big Halsted Street gate, where several policemen were
watching, and also some union pickets, scanning sharply those who
passed in and out. Jurgis and his companions went south on Halsted
Street; past the hotel, and then suddenly half a dozen men started
across the street toward them and proceeded to argue with them
concerning the error of their ways. As the arguments were not taken in
the proper spirit, they went on to threats; and suddenly one of them
jerked off the hat of one of the four and flung it over the fence. The
man started after it, and then, as a cry of “Scab!” was raised and a
dozen people came running out of saloons and doorways, a second man’s
heart failed him and he followed. Jurgis and the fourth stayed long
enough to give themselves the satisfaction of a quick exchange of
blows, and then they, too, took to their heels and fled back of the
hotel and into the yards again. Meantime, of course, policemen were
coming on a run, and as a crowd gathered other police got excited and
sent in a riot call. Jurgis knew nothing of this, but went back to
“Packers’ Avenue,” and in front of the “Central Time Station” he saw
one of his companions, breathless and wild with excitement, narrating
to an ever growing throng how the four had been attacked and surrounded
by a howling mob, and had been nearly torn to pieces. While he stood
listening, smiling cynically, several dapper young men stood by with
notebooks in their hands, and it was not more than two hours later that
Jurgis saw newsboys running about with armfuls of newspapers, printed
in red and black letters six inches high:
VIOLENCE IN THE YARDS! STRIKEBREAKERS SURROUNDED BY FRENZIED MOB!
If he had been able to buy all of the newspapers of the United States
the next morning, he might have discovered that his beer-hunting
exploit was being perused by some two score millions of people, and had
served as a text for editorials in half the staid and solemn
business-men’s newspapers in the land.
Jurgis was to see more of this as time passed. For the present, his
work being over, he was free to ride into the city, by a railroad
direct from the yards, or else to spend the night in a room where cots
had been laid in rows. He chose the latter, but to his regret, for all
night long gangs of strikebreakers kept arriving. As very few of the
better class of workingmen could be got for such work, these specimens
of the new American hero contained an assortment of the criminals and
thugs of the city, besides Negroes and the lowest foreigners—Greeks,