She concentrated on The Lash, whose editors had sharp tongues and wide pockets and kept them flaying Sammy and the Republicans. She went after her women’s clubs and cajoled and encouraged them by every device to stand strong. She made every possible use of the women’s organizations connected with the fraternal societies. She already belonged to everything that she could join, and was Grand Worthy Something-or-other in most of them. She pushed the idea of uniforms and rituals, for these things appeal naturally to folk whose lives are gray and uneventful. She had a uniformed Women’s Marching Club and a Flying Squadron with secret ritual which she used for political spy work.
All these things carried new dimensions to the lives of a class of colored women who had been hitherto bound chiefly to their kitchens and their churches. Woman’s “new sphere,” of which they had read something in the papers, had hitherto meant little to them. They were still under the spell of the old housework, except as they raised money in the churches. Here was work newer and more interesting than church work. The colored ministers protested, but were afraid to protest too much, because many of Sara’s political followers were still their best church workers, and they dared not say or do too much to alienate them.
Sara worked feverishly during March because she knew perfectly well that the real difficulty lay ahead. The election of Matthew might involve voting not only against Sammy’s machine but against the Republican ticket and with the Farmer-Labor group, and possibly even voting with the Democrats. Casual white outsiders cannot understand what this problem is. These colored women were born Republicans, even more than their fathers and brothers, because they knew less of the practical action of politics. Republicanism was as much a part of their heritage as Methodism or the rites of baptism. They were enthusiastic to have a colored man nominated by the Republican Party. But could she so organize and concentrate that enthusiasm that it would carry these women over into the camp of hereditary political and economic enemies?
They looked upon the white labor unions as open enemies because the stronger and better-organized white unions deliberately excluded Negroes. The whole economic history of the Negro in Chicago was a fight for bread against white labor unions. Only in the newer unions just organized chiefly among the foreign-born—and fighting for breath among the unskilled or semiskilled laborers—only here were colored people welcomed, because they had to be. Of course, the very name of the Democratic Party was anathema to black folk. It stood for slavery and disfranchisement and “Jim Crow” cars. Well, Sara knew that she had a desperate task, and she was fighting hard.
She was in touch with the labor unions and soon sensed their right and left wings. The right wing was easy to understand. They were playing her game and compromising here and there to obtain certain selfish advantages. Sara was sure she could take care of them. The extreme left group was more difficult to understand. She did not know what it was they really wanted, but she quickly sensed that they had astute leadership. The international president of the Box-Makers, who lived in New York, was evidently well educated and keen. Sara had written her in the hope of avoiding contact with the local union. Her answers showed her a desperately earnest woman. Sara did everything to induce her by letter to wield her Chicago influence for Matthew, but so far had seen no signs of success. This left group was meantime clamoring, pushing their claims and asking promises and making inconvenient suggestions. So far Sara had avoided meeting them.
One thing, one very little thing, Sara kept in her mind’s eye, and that was Doolittle and his health. If anything happened to Doolittle before the primary election—well, if it happened, Sara wanted to know it and to know it first.
And it was precisely here that Sammy made his second mistake. He calculated that the news of any change in Doolittle’s health would reach him first, because Doolittle’s valet was a staunch member of his machine. Indeed, he got him the job. Now Sara knew this as well as Sammy, and she worked accordingly. Doolittle lived officially on the South Side but actually in Winnetka, away up on the North Shore, in a lovely great house overlooking the blue lake. Sara had careful and minute knowledge of his household. Of course, his servants were all colored. That was good politics. Sara again had recourse to that maid who had told her first of the plan to renominate Doolittle. She had the maid at tea on one of her Thursday “at homes,” and was careful to have in some of her most expensive friends—the doctor’s wife, the banker’s daughter, the niece of the vice president of Liberty Life.
Sara did not say that the quiet and well-behaved stranger was simply a maid, and by this very reticence tied the maid to her forever. Also, Sara pumped her assiduously about Doolittle’s health without directly asking after it. She easily learned that it was much more precarious than the public believed. Immediately, through the maid, Sara got in touch with the valet. She picked him up downtown in her car and brought him to luncheon one day, when Matthew was away from home.
“I do not want you to think, Mr. Amos, that I have anything against the excellent Mr. Doolittle.”
“No, ma’am, no, ma’am, I’m sure you ain’t. I am sorry he’s running again. He oughtn’t to done it. He ain’t in no fit condition to make a campaign. He wouldn’t of done it if he
