He was strangely interested in this little universe of his. It had within a few blocks everything life offered. He could find religion—intense, fanatical, grafting, self-sacrificing. He could find prostitutes and thieves, stevedores, masons, laborers, and porters. Thus his blocks were a pulsing world, and in them there was always plenty to do—a donation to the church when the mortgage interest was about due; charity for the old women whose sons and daughters had wandered off; help and a physician for the sick and those who had fallen and broken hip or leg or had been run over by automobile trucks; shoes and old clothes for school children, bail for criminals; drinks for tramps; rent for the dance hall; food for the wild-eyed wastrels; and always, jobs, jobs, jobs for the workers.
When the new colored grocery was started, Matthew had to corral its customers, many of whom he had bailed out for crime, The police were his especial care. He gave them information, and they tipped him off. He restrained them, or egged them on. He warned the gamblers or got them new quarters. He got jobs for men and women and girls and boys. He helped professional men to get off jury duty. He sent young girls home and found older girls in places worse than home. He did not judge; he did not praise or condemn. He accepted what he saw.
Always, in the midst of this he was organizing and corralling his voters. He knew the voting strength of his district to a man. Nine-tenths of them would do exactly as he said. He did not need to talk to them—a few words and a sign. Orators came to his corners and vociferated and yelled, but his followers watched him. He saw this group of thousands of people as a real and thrilling thing, which he watched, unthrilled, unmoved. Life was always tense and rushing there—a murder, a happy mother, thieves, strikers, scabs, school children, and hard workers; a strange face, a man going into business, a girl going to hell, a woman saved. The whole organism was neither good nor bad. It was good and bad. Rickety buildings, noise, smells, noise, work—hard, hard work—
“How’s Sammy?” he would hear them say.
“How many votes do you want? Name your man.”
Thus he built his political machine. His machine was life, and he stood close to it—lolling on his favorite corner with half-closed eyes; yet he saw all of it.
Above it all, on the furthermost corner, on the top floor, were his bare, cold, and dirty rooms. He could not for the life of him remember how people kept things clean. It was extraordinary how dirt accumulated. He never had much money. Sammy handed him over a roll of bills every now and then, but he spent it in his charities, in his gifts, in his bribings, in his bonds. There was never much left. Sometimes there was hardly enough for his food.
Long past midnight he usually climbed to his bare rooms—one of them absolutely bare—one with a bed, a chair, and a bureau—one with an oil stove, a chair, and a table.
Then in time the aspect of his rooms began to change. A day came when he went in for his usual talk with the secondhand man. Old Gray was black and bent, and part of his business was receiving stolen goods, the other part was quite legitimate—buying and selling secondhand stuff. Towns strolled in there and saw a rug. He had forgotten ever having seen a rug before then. Of course he had—there in Berlin on the Lützower Ufer there was a rug in the parlor—but he shook the memory away with a toss of his head.
This rug was marvelous. It burned him with its brilliance. It sang to his eyes and hands. It was yellow and green—it was thick and soft; but all this didn’t tell the subtle charm of its weaving and shadows of coloring. He tried to buy it, but Gray insisted on giving it to him. He declared that it was not stolen, but Towns was sure that it was. Perhaps Gray was afraid to keep it, but Towns took it at midday and laid it on the floor of the barest of his empty rooms. Connors, who was a first-class carpenter when he was not drunk, was out of work again. Towns brought him up and had him put a parquet floor in the bare room. He was afterward half ashamed to take that money from his constituents, but he paid them back by more careful attention to their demands. Then in succeeding months of little things, the beauty of that room grew.
VI
The Honorable Sammy was by turns surprised, dumbfounded, and elated. He could not decide at various times whether Towns was a new kind of fool or the subtlest of subtle geniuses; but at any rate he was more than satisfied, and the efficiency of his machine was daily growing.
The black population of Chicago was still increasing. Properly organized and led, there were no ordinary limits to its power, except excited race rancor as at the time of the riot, or internal jealousy and bickering. Careful, thoughtful manipulation was the program, and this was the Honorable Sammy’s long suit. First of all he had to appease and cajole and wheedle his own race, allay the jealousies of other leaders—professional, religious and political—and get them to vote as they were told.
This was no easy job. Sammy accomplished it by following
