The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (easy to read books for adults list TXT) 📕

jail; it was Scully who was principal stockholder in the company which had sold him the ramshackle tenement, and then robbed him of it. But Jurgis knew none of these things⁠—any more than he knew that Scully was but a tool and puppet of the packers. To him Scully was a mighty power, the “biggest” man he had ever met.

He was a little, dried-up Irishman, whose hands shook. He had a brief talk with his visitor, watching him with his ratlike eyes, and making up his mind about him; and then he gave him a note to Mr. Harmon, one of the head managers of Durham’s:⁠—

“The bearer, Jurgis Rudkus, is a particular friend of mine, and I would like you to find him a good place, for important reasons. He was once indiscreet, but you will perhaps be so good as to overlook that.”

Mr. Harmon looked up inquiringly when he read this. “What does he mean by ’indiscreet’?” he asked.

“I was blacklisted, sir,” said Jurgis.

At which the other frowned. “Blacklisted?” he said. “How do you mean?”

And Jurgis turned red with embarrassment. He had forgotten that a blacklist did not exist. “I⁠—that is⁠—I had difficulty in getting a place,” he stammered.

“What was the matter?”

“I got into a quarrel with a foreman⁠—not my own boss, sir⁠—and struck him.”

“I see,” said the other, and meditated for a few moments. “What do you wish to do?” he asked.

“Anything, sir,” said Jurgis⁠—“only I had a broken arm this winter, and so I have to be careful.”

“How would it suit you to be a nightwatchman?”

“That wouldn’t do, sir. I have to be among the men at night.”

“I see⁠—politics. Well, would it suit you to trim hogs?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jurgis.

And Mr. Harmon called a timekeeper and said, “Take this man to Pat Murphy and tell him to find room for him somehow.”

And so Jurgis marched into the hog-killing room, a place where, in the days gone by, he had come begging for a job. Now he walked jauntily, and smiled to himself, seeing the frown that came to the boss’s face as the timekeeper said, “Mr. Harmon says to put this man on.” It would overcrowd his department and spoil the record he was trying to make⁠—but he said not a word except “All right.”

And so Jurgis became a workingman once more; and straightway he sought out his old friends, and joined the union, and began to “root” for “Scotty” Doyle. Doyle had done him a good turn once, he explained, and was really a bully chap; Doyle was a workingman himself, and would represent the workingmen⁠—why did they want to vote for a millionaire “sheeny,” and what the hell had Mike Scully ever done for them that they should back his candidates all the time? And meantime Scully had given Jurgis a note to the Republican leader of the ward, and he had gone there and met the crowd he was to work with. Already they had hired a big hall, with some of the brewer’s money, and every night Jurgis brought in a dozen new members of the “Doyle Republican Association.” Pretty soon they had a grand opening night; and there was a brass band, which marched through the streets, and fireworks and bombs and red lights in front of the hall; and there was an enormous crowd, with two overflow meetings⁠—so that the pale and trembling candidate had to recite three times over the little speech which one of Scully’s henchmen had written, and which he had been a month learning by heart. Best of all, the famous and eloquent Senator Spareshanks, presidential candidate, rode out in an automobile to discuss the sacred privileges of American citizenship, and protection and prosperity for the American workingman. His inspiriting address was quoted to the extent of half a column in all the morning newspapers, which also said that it could be stated upon excellent authority that the unexpected popularity developed by Doyle, the Republican candidate for alderman, was giving great anxiety to Mr. Scully, the chairman of the Democratic City Committee.

The chairman was still more worried when the monster torchlight procession came off, with the members of the Doyle Republican Association all in red capes and hats, and free beer for every voter in the ward⁠—the best beer ever given away in a political campaign, as the whole electorate testified. During this parade, and at innumerable cart-tail meetings as well, Jurgis labored tirelessly. He did not make any speeches⁠—there were lawyers and other experts for that⁠—but he helped to manage things: distributing notices and posting placards and bringing out the crowds; and when the show was on he attended to the fireworks and the beer. Thus in the course of the campaign he handled many hundreds of dollars of the Hebrew brewer’s money, administering it with naive and touching fidelity. Toward the end, however, he learned that he was regarded with hatred by the rest of the “boys,” because he compelled them either to make a poorer showing than he or to do without their share of the pie. After that Jurgis did his best to please them, and to make up for the time he had lost before he discovered the extra bungholes of the campaign-barrel.

He pleased Mike Scully, also. On election morning he was out at four o’clock, “getting out the vote”; he had a two-horse carriage to ride in, and he went from house to house for his friends, and escorted them in triumph to the polls. He voted half a dozen times himself, and voted some of his friends as often; he brought bunch after bunch of the newest foreigners⁠—Lithuanians, Poles, Bohemians, Slovaks⁠—and when he had put them through the mill he turned them over to another man to take to the next polling-place. When Jurgis first set out, the captain of the precinct gave him a hundred dollars, and three times in the course of the day he came for another hundred, and not more than twenty-five out of each lot got stuck in his own