Children of the Market Place

by Edgar Lee Masters

We went out to walk through the city. Yarnell was amazed at the growth of Chicago. We wandered over to the Wigwam where the convention was to be held. It was a huge frame structure, seating ten thousand people. The city was swarming with delegates and visitors. All the hotels were filled; the saloons roared with drinking crowds. How many thousand cigars were lighted every minute! Stubs decorated the floors, the spittoons, the sidewalks. The houses of ill fame were riotous with men let loose upon a holiday.

At the Richmond House there was much champagne, for that was the headquarters of the New York crowd. Yarnell took me here and introduced me about to his friends. He was well known. He had money for the occasion, and was esteemed in that light. It was a different crowd here from that I had seen in St. Louis years before, but its spirit was the same. "If you don't nominate Seward, where will you get your money?" Yarnell was saying this here and there. Some one at our side says: "This railsplitter Lincoln, who carries the purse for him?" "The tariff carries it," is the answer. "There's more money in the tariff than all that Seward can rake together." "Very well, Seward is for the tariff. Give us the tariff and Seward, then we will have the tariff money and Seward's money too."

Yarnell and I left the Richmond House on our way to look again at the crowds. Bands of music were playing everywhere. Men were marching. Tom Hyer, the great prize fighter, was leading a club of rough and handy men. They were preceded by a noisy band. They shouted. The staring crowd shouted. Hyer had come for the purpose of lifting a lusty voice for Seward at the critical moment. He and his men had good fists too to use in a case of doubt on a question of votes or of a right of entrance to the hall. They pass, the band dies away; other marchers follow. Some paraders are carrying rails bearing the banner with the words "Honest Old Abe" That reminds me of something. We go over to the office of the Chicago Times to see in the windows some rails which Lincoln split when he was working on the bottoms of the Sangamon River, thirty years before.

"I should think Greeley would be for Lincoln," I said to Yarnell. "I saw the Tribune yesterday and it slants toward Edward Bates of Missouri."

"That old slicker," sneered Yarnell. "Why who can depend on him? He's been for every one and everything, and then against them. He hates Seward. We kept him off the New York delegation. Now he's got on the delegation from Oregon, got some one's proxy, and he's here to make trouble. But it won't do him any good. We will put Seward over on the first ballot."

We came to the Times' window and looked at the rails. "Well," I said, "if they nominate Lincoln, we'll have another log-cabin campaign."

"Yes, that's what it will come to. What's all this talk anyway about Honest Old Abe? Every man is honest enough, and no man in politics much more honest than another. We don't need that kind of dramatics to elect Seward. There is enough to the man to elect him. We mean to have a clean-cut, high-toned campaign with a great man to lead us, who is known to the whole country. The day is past for this log-cabin business. It's now a stone front and champagne."

I went back with Yarnell to the Richmond House, then turned my own way to study the crowds. Chicago was a carnival of unlicensed spirits. What thousands of blue flies already swarmed upon the fresh carcass of this new political party! A few years before and it was poor, but of flesh that was fresh. Now it was beginning to stink. Tariffs, railroads, all powerful moneyed interests, special privileges, were settling upon it, blowing it full of eggs. All the old Whigs now long hungry, the old Federalists in disguise, the old plotters and schemers long defeated, were here. The motley elements that Douglas had derided as anti-Masonics, Know-nothings, Abolitionists, Spiritualists, where were they? Sunk in silence, out shouted, out talked, outnumbered by office seekers and monopolists. Tom Hyer was bawling, Garrison could not be heard. The New England manufacturers were here. Whittier was singing their songs and did not know it. I began to think of Rabelais, and of life as gluttony, eating and drinking, digestion and evacuation. I had a vision of all these hordes of men dead at last, their buttocks exposed to driving rains, upturned to a dark sky which breathed futility and contempt upon ended plots and hungers!

That night I started out again with Abigail and Aldington. There had not been anything like the same amount of drinking at Charleston. Harlots staggered through the streets, their arms interlocked with those of howling men. Tom Hyer passed, leading his gang of toughs, the gayly liveried band swelling the air with great horns and drums. Again the rails and banners for "Honest Old Abe." Rumors caught us as we passed: the Germans were for Lincoln; Greeley wanted Douglas elected President and was scheming to defeat Seward for the nomination. We went to the Richmond House. I wanted Abigail and Aldington to see the smoking, drinking, gabbling delegates from New York. We ran into Yarnell. He was preoccupied, and was a little in drink. He stood with us for a moment, and then was buttonholed and taken away. We returned to the streets to watch the marchers.

Yarnell was good enough to get tickets for Abigail, Aldington, and me, asking us with a half smile not to cheer for any one unless we cheered for Seward.