Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow

by Thomas Fitch; Anna M. Fitch

“Go and tell the loafers and brawlers of the sand lots exactly what I have said,” shrieked French. “It is what I mean to say, and mean for them to hear. If you don’t take the message I will send it through the press. Let them do their worst. I do not fear the blackguards, and I am ready for any who choose to visit me,” and the old man snapped his fingers as the members of the committee sorrowfully departed.

Half an hour later a speaker who was addressing an audience of thirty thousand people from the central stand at the sand lots, paused as he saw the President of the Congress of Federated Trades making his way through the crowd. The orator had been commenting on the resolutions adopted by the Workers’ Congress the previous night, and had been congratulating the people upon the approaching end of the distress occasioned by the long strike, and on the days of peace and plenty which were in store for them, and it was with beaming faces and glad shouts that the multitude welcomed the man who was to announce to them a resumption of their labors in factory and shop.

“My friends,” said the tall Scotchman, “I have just come from an interview with Lorin French, and I am vara vara sorry to bear you the message with which I am charged. He bids me tell you that the notice he gave to us all before the strike begun shall be carried out, and that no man who quit work then shall ever again have work in this city, if he can help it.”

The temper of the vast multitude changed in an instant. Shrieks and yells of anger filled the air, and for many minutes the crowd gave way to demonstrations of rage and indignation. All at once there walked to the front of the central platform a tall, angular woman dressed in a gown of plain black stuff. Her features were unprepossessing, to the verge of ugliness, but a wealth of white hair crowned a low brow, surmounting eyes of fierce blue. As she stretched forth a long arm, the multitude hushed to silence, for they recognized the renowned female agitator, Lucy Passmore.

“Friends, brethren, men,” said she, in a voice whose magnetic quality vibrated to the farthest edges of the crowd, “it seems that it is the malignant will of one man which savagely condemns thousands to suffering and starvation. If the rattlesnake is coiled for ye, will ye strike first or wait for him to strike? If the wolf is waiting upon your doorstep, will you feed to him the babe he is seeking or will ye give him the knife to the hilt in his hot throat? The death of Lorin French would end this struggle, and your wives would cease to weep and your children to cry with hunger. Men, since God has so far forgotten you as to suffer this devil to live so long, why do you not remedy God’s forgetfulness? Are you ready to march now or do you want an old woman to lead you?”

A yell arose from the surging crowd, as, with one mind, thousands comprehended and were ready to act upon the suggestions of Lucy Passmore.

Most of the men had long before furnished themselves with arms of some sort, and their lodge organizations had provided them with elected leaders, who usually attended the sand-lot meetings. As if by magic they formed themselves into companies and battalions and marched, an orderly and almost an organized army, forth from the sand lots, and down to the building No. 1099 Market Street, which they speedily surrounded.

The iron shutters of the upper story were at once closed, and the muzzles of rifles pushed through loopholes previously prepared for such purpose. An attempt was made from the inside to close the iron gate in front of the main staircase, but the mob surged past the guard, took possession of the lower hall, and started up the stairs. They were met at the top, just below the first landing, by twenty Pinkerton men standing upon the top five steps—four on each step—who, after vainly warning the ascending crowd to desist, at last lowered the muzzles of their Winchesters, and opened a murderous fusillade, which covered the stairs with dead and dying.

The mob hesitated for an instant, but only for an instant, for those below pushed forward those who were above. A hundred revolvers were fired at the Pinkerton men, half of whom fell, and the other half were borne down, shot, clubbed, and stabbed as the mob rushed past and over them, and gained the first landing. The crowd continued to push from below, and in the same way, with great loss of life on each side, they gained successively the third and fourth stories. By this time, however, the forces on the fifth floor had opened fire on the mob outside. Two riflemen at each of the eighteen windows commanded the main entrance to the building, and such a rapid and accurate fire was maintained that Market Street for a hundred feet on each side of the entrance was piled with bodies, and further re-inforcements prevented from reaching those within the building.

At this juncture Battery X came galloping into Market Street from Fourth. Two guns were placed in position, and one, loaded with grapeshot, was fired just above the heads of the crowd. The whistling of the shot in the air above them gave notice to the mob of what was coming, and, with cries of terror, they fled, panic-stricken, into the adjacent streets. The assailants inside the building, hearing the noise of the cannon, followed by the triumphant shouts of the Pinkerton men in the upper story, and finding no further pressure or re-inforcements from below, desisted from further assault, and, turning from the fourth landing, fled down the stairs.