Divided Interests
Instead of calling on the Mayor the next morning as he had planned to do, Orlando Vickery found himself hailed before the Special Commissioner and put on the grill. But he took refuge behind the corporation for which he claimed to be acting as attorney and refused to admit or confess to any transactions of a financial nature, or incriminate in any way the officials whom he had approached. He was arrested on the charge of extortion, however, and that gave the prosecution a chance to shut him up, while they arranged for an investigation before the grand jury (which was already being impaneled) into the schemes of the Boulevard Railway Company with the city councilmen. These proceedings were conducted as quietly as possible, but in spite of all precautions, the newspapers that evening flamed with head-lines, which varied as usual in size and sensationalism with the character of the sheet which used them; and before Roma retired for the night, the whole city was stirred by the prospect of a most spectacular fight. One half the citizens were congratulating themselves that at last, corruption and the spoilsmen were to be uprooted, while the other half revelled in the excitement and turmoil which always attends the witnessing of a deadly combat.
And meanwhile, the few,—the "ring,"—were in anxious consultation. "How much do you know?" was the question that stirred them. Under an assumed coolness and indifference, and acting in secret, there were those who saw to it that a high and mighty representative of the Boulevard Railway Company came on to arrange bail for Vickery. The board of aldermen was, apparently, most indifferent of all, and refused to talk of the new sensation either to reporters or to any one else,—except among themselves when no outsiders were near. For as yet, none of them could determine how any information had leaked out or just who had been implicated.
While events had been leading up to this point, the women of Roma had not been idle. Even before the "Progressive Workers" had thought of putting up their candidate for the mayoralty, they had been interested in the subject of pure food—and this, too, was before Senator Heyburn had introduced his famous bill to the United States Congress. One of the liberal churches in the city had called a woman to its pulpit some years ago; and the story of what she accomplished among the young people of her parish is too long and too complicated to be incorporated here. Suffice it to say that one day she was "discovered" by a "P. W." and invited to join the club. Too earnest and active a worker to sit by and listen to literary exercises and discussions that did not get anywhere, she had almost at the beginning of her membership cast about for some definite work which she—and the rest—might do.
Now, she was a housekeeper on her small salary, and therefore must go to market for herself. Like thousands of other club women, she had come away from her provision store or grocery, half nauseated by what she had seen, or experienced through her olfactory sense. But unlike the average woman, she refused to endure these things patiently. She began, quietly, to investigate. She visited the city abattoir, the wholesale markets, the cattle-pens. Even before the municipal election, she had laid out a thorough campaign in the interests of pure food, which she presented to the "Progressive Workers." The previous spring there had been an exhibition prepared by the club of foods and food-products, pure and adulterated. This exhibition had been attended by thousands of housekeepers and by a few men, and had served to awaken a semblance of interest in the question of pure food.
When Gertrude was fairly installed in office, the Reverend Martha Kendall had called at City Hall and laid before the Mayor a definite plan, the result of which was that the woman minister was made Inspector of Markets, there being such an office provided for in the old City Charter, although it had remained a dead letter on the books. And no sooner did the Reverend Martha Kendall receive her appointment than she went to the club and asked to have a special committee appointed from that organization to work with her for clean markets and pure food.
When the women of any city show beyond question that they want pure food—or any other definite thing—they are going to get it, and without delay. Although there was some grumbling among the marketmen, the provision stores were soon put through such a course of scrubbing and whitening as to make the old-fashioned "spring house-cleaning," which has been the bugbear of pater familias and one of the chief assets of the paragrapher for so many years, a process of incomparably mild flavor. At the abattoir it had not been so easy to effect a reform, but with such women as Mrs. Bateman, Mrs. Albert Turner and the Reverend Martha Kendall coming down there to inspect and to demand cleanliness and wholesome conditions, the butchers who shone before the public as "wholesale meat producers" did not dare to refuse the improvements asked for; so that by the time the grand jury began to look into the methods of the aldermen with the street railway system, there were both friends and enemies of the new administration ready to take a hand, if necessary.
Then, too, there were the men who owned, and the men who ran, the questionable resorts; the gambling dens; the saloons; the houses of which good women are popularly supposed to know nothing. All of these had been problems which Gertrude had been thinking about and planning for, before her election was settled. These matters she had talked over with few, if any, of her advisers; for she had her own ideas—or perhaps her father's. When she was fairly established in the Mayor's chair she had appointed a reliable man as police commissioner—one who would carry out her plans. There were no spectacular raids, with their round-ups and the subsequent laxity which allows such places to flourish in the same spots and with no lapse of time (and profits). She abolished the "drag-net system" by ignoring it; but she broke up gambling, closed the wine-rooms, and the other questionable resorts, simply by stationing a trusty policeman in uniform on the steps of every one of these places, whose duty it was to take the name and address of every person who entered them; and to turn this list into the City Hall every morning and every night. As a consequence, some of these property owners and "managers" had found their income vanishing. The latter were leaving town in bevies; but the former were nursing their grievances and were fast getting into line as open or secret enemies of the reform administration which the "woman's movement" had now fairly inaugurated.
It must not be thought, either, that the women of Roma stood solid for the woman-mayor. As long as there are husbands and wives, the latter will be guided, in greater or less degree, by the opinions of the former. The women who do not read, the women who do not care, the women who do not think, invariably take the opinions of the men nearest them, no matter how ignorant and unintelligent these men may be; and the women who do read and care and think,—but it may be as well to carry the argument no farther.
So it happened that the women of Roma were as divided as the men on the subject of city reform; although, as Gertrude noted with pride, most of the educated, thinking women could be counted on to support her in every effort she was making for the betterment of their civic conditions. It was the women like Mrs. Bella's "wash-lady" who were most opposed to her; and those other women of the underworld who do not recognize the friend of her own sex when she appears clothed in the garb of a reformer.
Thus it came about when the investigation was actually begun and occupied the most prominent place in the public interest at Roma, there were almost as many against the new mayor as there were actively or passively for her. Because, too, there was the large contingent of citizens who cannot make up their minds in a hurry, but must wait for popular opinion to crystallize before they can adopt it.
As always, the Atlas came out strongly for the administration of justice:
"At last" it proclaimed editorially, "Roma has a Mayor with the courage of conviction. At last, corruption is not only detected, but it is to be dragged forth to meet its judge; at last, it is not going to be shared by our public officials. It behooves every man and every woman in Roma to uphold the present investigation and the new mayor."
But the "ring sheet" spoke otherwise:
"After months of promising to 'reform' something, the woman-mayor and the lady-like gentlemen who are supporting her, are going to do something great. They have—by crooked and devious ways—discovered (so they affirm) Graft, with a big, big G. It is hinted that the Mayor herself is to go on the witness stand to prove that men who know a hundred-fold more about running a municipality are dishonest boodlers. Just like a woman! She has got beyond the rudiments of municipal financiering and into the sub-divisions which she cannot understand and there she cries 'Graft.' She is beyond her depth and so she imagines there is fraud. Well, let her prove it; in the meantime, while she is trying to do so, she will demonstrate—exactly as we predicted last fall—what a dangerous thing it may be to a city to let a woman loose upon its administrative functions. Women were never intended for public officials. Perhaps—as the opposite party piously claim—the hand of Providence put her there; just to prove to Roma and her voters what a dangerous thing a little power may be in the hands of the incompetent and inexperienced public servant."
Gertrude read all these editorial sayings and smiled or sighed according to her mood. Sometimes they helped her gird on her armor all the more bravely, ready to do battle for her principles to the last breath. Again, "that other Gertrude Van Deusen" came to the front and she wished in secret that she were a quiet, protected home woman, with a husband who loved her and little children to lead along the right paths. But why should John Allingham always come into her mind just there?