“That’s as it should be,” said Mason. “But in how many divisions or wards is that the case? The ring controls the primaries in nine out of ten of them; the voice of the man with the ballot is seldom or never heard. Slavery was a liberal institution compared with the electoral serfdom that exists in some of our municipalities.”
Mason’s warmth led him into exaggeration; but Larry had views upon this particular subject himself and proceeded to unburden himself.
“Youse’re dead right!” declared he. “I was talkin’ to the old coon what peddles calamus root to the avenoo, the other day, an’ he said that he wished he was a slave again, pickin’ cotton an’ dancin’ the buck. He says that he got a skin full o’ corn pone then, but that it keeps him scratchin’ with both hands these days to git next to anything with more stick in it than water. Say, the Uncle Tom racket wasn’t a bad graft when ye look at it right, and maybe it’ed been a good t’ing for the wool growers if Uncle Abe had changed his mind.”
Mason smiled at Larry’s literal interpretation of his words and made a vague remark regarding the blessings of liberty. But the other received it with contempt.
“That’s got moss on it,” said he. “Liberty’s all right, but it don’t put beef and beans into a man. There ain’t a mug in this ward that ain’t got it to lose; but they don’t lay in bed in the mornin’ thinkin’ about it, either, when the whistles are a blowin’; they have to climb down the street, eatin’ their breakfast out o’ one hand and buttonin’ their overalls with the other.”
“But the slave,” protested Mason, “before the Civil War also had to work.”
“Sure!” exclaimed Murphy. “I didn’t t’ink that the main squeeze took off his coat and drove mules, while they sat on the porch an’ spit at their boots. A young Willie, what had the Sunday-school class what I went to onct, told us that the slave owner’d open up a hand with a black snake whip, if he looked cross-eyed, and that it was the reg’lar t’ing to hang the cook up by the t’umbs if she broke a plate. But, say, that sassy t’ing was a-stringin’ me cold; because when a guy put up a thousand plunks for a bogie he wasn’t goin’ to lam the life out o’ him like they do in the show. I don’t say that he was stuck on him, mind youse, but I do say that the price worried him some, and that the worsted motto what his wife worked, and hung up in the parlor read: ‘T’ink twice before youse slug a nigger onct.’
“The gang down in Washin’ton,” proceeded Larry, “riffled the deck in ’62 an’ made a new deal; the coons looked at their hands and t’ought they had the pot cinched; they stood pat on the Fourteenth Amendment and waited for the guys with the dough to buck up. But they’re waitin’ yet. They never git their eyes on any o’ the blessin’s o’ liberty cept at ’lection time—and then they must deliver the goods. Liberty ain’t a bad game; but youse want to size up the dealer from start to finish, so’s he don’t stack the cards. There’s lots o’ people in the liberty line what used to carry a lead pipe in their pockets, but made the change because the gilt grew thicker and there wasn’t so much chance for doin’ time.”
“Some one, long ago,” remarked Mason, “said something about the ‘crimes committed in the name of liberty,’ and, unfortunately, it holds good to-day.”
“That’s no pipe dream! Now look here; there’s lots o’ guys right in this division, what’s swingin’ a pick for a dollar an’ a half a day, an’ hangin’ up their hats in a third story back where they have to stand on the stove and hold the kid while their wives make the bed. If a slave got sick his owner hustled in a doctor, for if the coon went up the flue it was good money goin’ to the bad. But if the pick swinger gits down on his back, the main guy cashes his time ticket, hires a Polack, an’ don’t care a picayune if his friends are invited to meet at two an’ go at t’ree, an’ he has a plain black box and an undertaker’s wagon, with a drunken carriage washer to drive it.”