One Way Out Part 14

"Then," I said, "why not educate the young politicians? Get to know Rafferty--he's young and simple and honest now. Help him to advance honestly and keep him that way."

He shook his head doubtfully but he agreed to have a talk with Dan. In the meanwhile I had a talk with Dan myself. I told him what my scheme was.

"Dan," I said, "you must decide right at the beginning of your career whether you're going to be just a tool of Sweeney's or whether you're going to stand on your own feet."

"Phot's the mather with Sweeney, now?" he asked.

"In some ways he's all right," I said. "And in other ways he isn't.

But anyhow he's your boss and you have to do what he tells you to do just as though he was your landlord back in Ireland and you nothing but a tenant."

"Eh?" he said looking up quick.

I thought I'd strike a sore spot there and I made the most of it. I talked along like this for a half hour and I saw his lips come together.

"He'd knife me," he said finally. "He's sore now 'cause I'm afther wantin' to run for the council this year."

I had heard the rumor.

"Then," I said, "why don't you pull free and make a little machine of your own. Some of the boys will stand by you, won't they?"

"Will they?" he grinned.

With that I took him around to the settlement house. Dan listened good naturedly to a lot of talk he didn't understand but he listened with more interest to a lot of talk about the needs of the district which it was now getting cheated out of, which he did understand. And incidentally the man who at first did all the talking in the end listened to Dan. After the latter had gone, he turned to me and said:

"I like that fellow Rafferty."

That seemed to me the really important thing and right there and then we sat down and worked out the basis of the "Young American Political Club." Our object was to reach the young voter first of all and through him to reach the older ones. To this end we had a "Committee on Boys" and a "Committee on Naturalization." I insisted from the beginning that we must have an organization as perfect as that of any political machine. Until we felt our strength a little however, I suggested it was best to limit our efforts to the districts alone. We took a map of the city and we cut up the districts into blocks with a young man at the head of each block. He was to make a list of all the young voters and keep as closely in touch as possible with the political gossip of both parties. Over him there was to be a street captain and over him a district captain and finally a president.

All this was the result of slow and careful study. All the workers down here fell in with the plan eagerly and one of them agreed to pay the expenses of a hall any time we wished to use one for campaign purposes. At first our efforts pa.s.sed unnoticed by either political party. It was thought to be just another fanciful civic dream. We were glad of it. It gave us time to perfect our organization without interference.

This business took up all the time I could spare during the winter.

But instead of finding it a drag I found it an inspiration. They insisted upon making me president of the Club and though I would rather have had a younger man at its head I accepted the honor with a feeling of some pride. It was the first public office I had ever held and it gave me a new sense of responsibility and a better sense of citizens.h.i.+p.

In the meanwhile Dan made no open break with Sweeney but it soon became clear that he was not in such good favor as before. Although we had not yet openly endorsed his candidacy we were doing a good deal of talking for him. I received several visits from Sweeney's lieutenants who tried to find out just what we were about. My answer invariably was "No partisans.h.i.+p but clean politics."

When it came time to register I was forced to register with one of the two parties in order to take any part in the primaries. I registered as a Democrat for the first time in my life. I also attended a primary for the first time in my life. I also felt a new power back of me for the first time in my life. Little by little Dan had come to be an issue. Sweeney did not openly declare himself but it was soon evident that he had come to the primaries prepared to knife Rafferty if it were possible. Back of Dan stood his large personal following; back of me stood the balance of power. Sweeney saw it, gave the nod, and Dan was nominated.

Six weeks later he was elected, too. You'd have thought he had been elected mayor by the noise the small boys made. Rafferty came to me with his big paw outstretched,

"Carleton," he said, "the only thing I've got agin ye is thot ye ain't an Irishmon. Faith, ye'd make a domd foine Irishmon."

"It's up to you now," I said, "to make a d.a.m.ned fine American."

It wasn't more than two months later that Dan came to me to ask my opinion on a request of Sweeney's. It looked a bit off color and I said so.

"You can't do it, Dan," I said.

"It manes throuble," he said.

"Let it come. We're back of you with both feet."

Dan followed my advice and the trouble came. He was fired from his job as foreman under Sweeney.

But you can't keep down as good a foreman as Dan was and he had another job within a week.

A few months later I had another job myself. I was made foreman with my own firm at a wage of two dollars and a half a day. When I went back and announced this to Ruth, she cried a little. Truly our cup seemed full and running over.

CHAPTER XIV

FIFTEEN DOLLARS A WEEK

My first thought when I received my advance in pay was that I could now relieve Ruth of some of her burdens. There was no longer any need of her spending so much time in trotting around the markets and the department stores. Nor was there any need of her doing so much plotting and planning in her endeavor to save a penny. Furthermore I was determined that she should now enjoy some of the little luxuries of life in the way of better things to wear and better things to eat.

But that idea was taken out of me in short order.

"No," she said, as soon as she recovered from the good news. "We mustn't spend one cent more than we've been spending."

"But look here," I said; "what's the good of a raise if we don't use it?"

"What's the good of a raise if we spend it?" she asked me. "We'll use it, Billy, but we'll use it wisely. How many times have you told me that if you had your life to live over again you wouldn't spend one cent over the first salary you received, if it was only three dollars a week, until you had a bank account?"

"I know that," I said. "But when a man has a wife and boy like you and d.i.c.k--"

"He doesn't want to turn them into burdens that will hold him down all his life," she broke in. "It isn't fair to the wife and boy," she said.

I couldn't quite follow her reasoning but I didn't have to. When I came home the next Sat.u.r.day night with fifteen dollars in my pocket instead of nine she calmly took out three for the rent, five for household expenses and put seven in the ginger jar. I suggested that at least we have one celebration and with the boy go to the little French restaurant we used to visit, but she held up her hands in horror.

"Do you think I'd spend two dollars and a half for--why, Billy, you wouldn't!"

"I'd like to spend ten," I said. "I'd like to go there to dinner and buy you a half dozen roses and get the three best seats in the best theater in town," I said.

She came to my side and patted my arm.

"Thank you, Billy," she said. "But honest--it's just as much fun to have you want to do those things as really do them."

I believe she meant it. I wouldn't believe it of anyone else but for a week she talked about that dinner and those flowers and the theater until she had me wondering if we hadn't actually gone. d.i.c.k thought we were crazy.

And so, just as usual, after this she'd take her basket and start out two or three mornings a week and walk with me as far as the market.

She'd spend an hour here and then if she needed anything more she'd go down town to the big stores and wander around here for another hour.

But Sat.u.r.day nights was her great bargain opportunity. If I couldn't go with her she'd take d.i.c.k and the two would plan to get there at about nine o'clock. From this time on she often picked up for a song odd ends of meat and good vegetables which the market men didn't want to carry over to Monday. In fact they _had_ to sell out these things as their stock at the beginning of the week had to be fresh. I suppose marketing at this time of day would be a good deal of a hards.h.i.+p for those living in the suburbs but it was a regular lark for her. Most everyone is good natured on Sat.u.r.day night if on no other night. The week's work is done and people have enough money from their pay envelopes to feel rich for a few hours anyway. Then there were the lights and the crowd and the shouting so that it was like twenty country fairs rolled into one.

After the excitement of coming home Sat.u.r.days with so much money wore off, I began to forget that I _was_ earning fifteen instead of nine.

If Ruth had spent it on the table I'm sure I'd have forgotten it even more quickly. I was getting all I wanted to eat, was warm and had a good clean bed to sleep in and what more can a man have even if he's earning a hundred a week? I think people are very apt to forget that after all a millionaire can spend only about so much on himself. And after the newness of fresh toys has worn off--like steam yachts and private cars--he is forced to be satisfied with just what I had, no matter how much more money he makes. He has only his five senses and once these are satisfied he's no better off than a man who satisfies these same senses on eight dollars a week. Generally he's worse off because in a year or so he has probably dulled them all. Rockefeller himself probably never in his life got half the fun out of anything that I did in just crawling into my clean bed at night with every tired muscle purring contentedly and my mind at rest about the next day. I doubt if he knows the joy of waking up in the morning rested and hungry. The only advantage he had over me that I can see is the power he had to help others. In a way I don't believe he found any greater opportunity even for that than Ruth found right here.

For those interested in the details I'm going to give another quotation from Ruth's note book. But to my mind these details aren't the important part of our venture. The thing that counted was the spirit back of them. It isn't the fact that we lived on from six to eight dollars a week or the statistics of how we lived on that which makes my life worth telling about if it _is_ worth telling about. In the first place prices vary in different localities and s.h.i.+ft from year to year. In fact since we began they have almost doubled. In the second place people have lived and are living to-day on less than we did. I give our figures simply to satisfy the curious and to show how Ruth planned. But no one could do as she did or do as we did merely by aping her little economies, or accepting the result of them. Either they would find the task impossible or look upon it as a privation and endure it as martyrs. In this mood they wouldn't last a week. I know that people who read this without at least a germ of the pioneer in them will either smile or shrug their shoulders. I've met plenty of this sort. I met them by the dozen down here. As I said, you can find them in every bread line, in every Salvation Army barracks or the a.s.sociated Charities will furnish you a list of as many as you want.

You'll find them in the suburbs or you'll find them marching in line the next time there is a procession of the unemployed.