The Jungle
here, in a “paint room,” reached only by an enclosed “chute,” a room
without a single window and only one door, a hundred men were crowded
upon mattresses on the floor. Up on the third story of the “hog house”
of Jones’s was a storeroom, without a window, into which they crowded
seven hundred men, sleeping upon the bare springs of cots, and with a
second shift to use them by day. And when the clamor of the public led
to an investigation into these conditions, and the mayor of the city
was forced to order the enforcement of the law, the packers got a judge
to issue an injunction forbidding him to do it!
Just at this time the mayor was boasting that he had put an end to
gambling and prize fighting in the city; but here a swarm of
professional gamblers had leagued themselves with the police to fleece
the strikebreakers; and any night, in the big open space in front of
Brown’s, one might see brawny Negroes stripped to the waist and
pounding each other for money, while a howling throng of three or four
thousand surged about, men and women, young white girls from the
country rubbing elbows with big buck Negroes with daggers in their
boots, while rows of woolly heads peered down from every window of the
surrounding factories. The ancestors of these black people had been
savages in Africa; and since then they had been chattel slaves, or had
been held down by a community ruled by the traditions of slavery. Now
for the first time they were free—free to gratify every passion, free
to wreck themselves. They were wanted to break a strike, and when it
was broken they would be shipped away, and their present masters would
never see them again; and so whisky and women were brought in by the
carload and sold to them, and hell was let loose in the yards. Every
night there were stabbings and shootings; it was said that the packers
had blank permits, which enabled them to ship dead bodies from the city
without troubling the authorities. They lodged men and women on the
same floor; and with the night there began a saturnalia of
debauchery—scenes such as never before had been witnessed in America.
And as the women were the dregs from the brothels of Chicago, and the
men were for the most part ignorant country Negroes, the nameless
diseases of vice were soon rife; and this where food was being handled
which was sent out to every corner of the civilized world.
The “Union Stockyards” were never a pleasant place; but now they were
not only a collection of slaughterhouses, but also the camping place of
an army of fifteen or twenty thousand human beasts. All day long the
blazing midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations:
upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors
stank and steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn
railroad tracks, and huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose
labyrinthine passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them;
and there were not merely rivers of hot blood, and car-loads of moist
flesh, and rendering vats and soap caldrons, glue factories and
fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the craters of hell—there were also
tons of garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the
workers hung out to dry, and dining rooms littered with food and black
with flies, and toilet rooms that were open sewers.
And then at night, when this throng poured out into the streets to
play—fighting, gambling, drinking and carousing, cursing and screaming,
laughing and singing, playing banjoes and dancing! They were worked in
the yards all the seven days of the week, and they had their prize
fights and crap games on Sunday nights as well; but then around the
corner one might see a bonfire blazing, and an old, gray-headed
Negress, lean and witchlike, her hair flying wild and her eyes blazing,
yelling and chanting of the fires of perdition and the blood of the
“Lamb,” while men and women lay down upon the ground and moaned and
screamed in convulsions of terror and remorse.
Such were the stockyards during the strike; while the unions watched in
sullen despair, and the country clamored like a greedy child for its
food, and the packers went grimly on their way. Each day they added new
workers, and could be more stern with the old ones—could put them on
piecework, and dismiss them if they did not keep up the pace. Jurgis
was now one of their agents in this process; and he could feel the
change day by day, like the slow starting up of a huge machine. He had
gotten used to being a master of men; and because of the stifling heat
and the stench, and the fact that he was a “scab” and knew it and
despised himself. He was drinking, and developing a villainous temper,
and he stormed and cursed and raged at his men, and drove them until
they were ready to drop with exhaustion.
Then one day late in August, a superintendent ran into the place and
shouted to Jurgis and his gang to drop their work and come. They
followed him outside, to where, in the midst of a dense throng, they
saw several two-horse trucks waiting, and three patrol-wagon loads of
police. Jurgis and his men sprang upon one of the trucks, and the
driver yelled to the crowd, and they went thundering away at a gallop.
Some steers had just escaped from the yards, and the strikers had got
hold of them, and there would be the chance of a scrap!
They went out at the Ashland Avenue gate, and over in the direction of
the “dump.” There was a yell as soon as they were sighted, men and
women rushing out of houses and saloons as they galloped by. There were
eight or ten policemen on the truck, however, and there was no
disturbance until they came to a place where the street was blocked
with a dense throng. Those on the flying truck yelled a warning and the
crowd scattered pell-mell, disclosing one of the steers lying in its
blood. There were a good many cattle butchers about just then, with
nothing much to do, and hungry children at home; and so some one had
knocked out the steer—and as a first-class man can kill and dress one
in a couple of minutes, there were a good many steaks and roasts
already missing. This called for punishment, of course; and the police
proceeded to administer it by leaping from the truck and cracking at
every head they saw. There were yells of rage and pain, and the
terrified people fled into houses and stores, or scattered
helter-skelter down the street. Jurgis and his gang joined in the
sport, every man singling out his victim, and striving to bring him to
bay and punch him. If he fled into a house his pursuer would smash in
the flimsy door and follow him up the stairs, hitting every one who
came within reach, and finally dragging his squealing quarry from under
a bed or a pile of old clothes in a closet.
Jurgis and two policemen chased some men into a bar-room. One of them
took shelter behind the bar, where a policeman cornered him and
proceeded to whack him over the back and shoulders, until he lay down
and gave a chance at his head. The others leaped a fence in the rear,
balking the second policeman, who was fat; and as he came back, furious
and cursing, a big Polish woman, the owner of the saloon, rushed in
screaming, and received a poke in the stomach that doubled her up on
the floor. Meantime Jurgis, who was of a practical temper, was helping
himself at the bar; and the first policeman, who had laid out his man,
joined him, handing out several more bottles, and filling his pockets
besides, and then, as he started to leave, cleaning off all the balance
with a sweep of his club. The din of the glass crashing to the floor
brought the fat Polish woman to her feet again, but another policeman
came up behind her and put his knee into her back and his hands over
her eyes—and then called to his companion, who went back and broke open
the cash drawer and filled his pockets with the contents. Then the
three went outside, and the man who was holding the woman gave her a
shove and dashed out himself. The gang having already got the carcass
on to the truck, the party set out at a trot, followed by screams and
curses, and a shower of bricks and stones from unseen enemies. These
bricks and stones would figure in the accounts of the “riot” which
would be sent out to a few thousand newspapers within an hour or two;
but the episode of the cash drawer would never be mentioned again, save
only in the heartbreaking legends of Packingtown.
It was late in the afternoon when they got back, and they dressed out
the remainder of the steer, and a couple of others that had been
killed, and then knocked off for the day. Jurgis went downtown to
supper, with three friends who had been on the other trucks, and they
exchanged reminiscences on the way. Afterward they drifted into a
roulette parlor, and Jurgis, who was never lucky at gambling, dropped
about fifteen dollars. To console himself he had to drink a good deal,
and he went back to Packingtown about two o’clock in the morning, very
much the worse for his excursion, and, it must be confessed, entirely
deserving the calamity that was in store for him.
As he was going to the place where he slept, he met a painted-cheeked
woman in a greasy “kimono,” and she put her arm about his waist to
steady him; they turned into a dark room they were passing—but scarcely
had they taken two steps before suddenly a door swung open, and a man
entered, carrying a lantern. “Who’s there?” he called sharply. And
Jurgis started to mutter some reply; but at the same instant the man
raised his light, which flashed in his face, so that it was possible to
recognize him. Jurgis stood stricken dumb, and his heart gave a leap
like a mad thing. The man was Connor!
Connor, the boss of the loading gang! The man who had seduced his
wife—who had sent him to prison, and wrecked his home, ruined his life!
He stood there, staring, with the light shining full upon him.
Jurgis had often thought of Connor since coming back to Packingtown,
but it had been as of something far off, that no longer concerned him.
Now, however, when he saw him, alive and in the flesh, the same thing
happened to him that had happened before—a flood of rage boiled up in
him, a blind frenzy seized him. And he flung himself at the man, and
smote him between the eyes—and then, as he fell, seized him by the
throat and began to pound his head upon the stones.
The woman began screaming, and people came rushing in. The lantern had
been upset and extinguished, and it was so dark they could not see a
thing; but they could hear Jurgis panting, and hear the thumping of his
victim’s skull, and they rushed there and tried to pull him off.
Precisely as before, Jurgis came away with a piece of his enemy’s flesh
between his teeth; and, as before, he went on fighting with those who
had interfered with him, until a policeman had come and beaten him into
insensibility.
And so Jurgis spent the balance of the night in the stockyards station
house. This time, however, he had money in his pocket, and when he came
to his senses he could get something to drink, and also a messenger to
take word of his plight to “Bush” Harper. Harper did not appear,
however, until after the prisoner, feeling very weak and ill, had been
hailed into court and remanded at five hundred dollars’ bail to await
the result of his victim’s injuries. Jurgis was wild about this,
because a different magistrate had chanced to be on the bench, and he
had stated that he had never been arrested before, and also that he had
been attacked first—and if only someone had been there to speak a good
word for him, he could have been let off at once.
But Harper explained that he had been downtown, and had not got the
message. “What’s happened to you?” he asked.
“I’ve been doing a fellow up,” said Jurgis, “and I’ve got to get five
hundred dollars’ bail.”