Part 31 (1/2)
”I'd like to see a priest, Teddy,” he whispered, ”and, if ye don't o up to Mount Vernon an' tell raphin' her if ye don't Break it aisy, if ye will Don't let 'er think there's anything serious There's no need av it I'm naht hurted so bad as aall that”
I promised, and the next moment one of the doctors shot a spray of cocaine into his hip to relieve what he knew must be his dreadful pain
A few moments later he lost consciousness, after which I left him to the care of the hospital authorities and hurried away to send the priest and to tell his wife
For a week thereafter he lingered in a very serious condition and finally died, blood-poisoning having set in I saw hi to sympathize with his condition, I frequently spoke of what I dee carelessness of the engineer in charge of the hoisting engine He, however, had no cos,” was his only coo unhurted I niver lost a s, ye see”
Mighty Rourke! You would have thought the whole Italian population of Mount Vernon knew and loved him, the way they turned out at his funeral
It was a state affair forthe little brick church at which he was accustoed and sore, but sorrowful; and Jihly subdued He was all sorrow, and sniveled and blubbered and wept hot, blinding tears through the dark, leathery fingers of his hands
”Misha Rook! Misha Rook!” I heard him say, as they bore the body in; and when they carried it out of the church, he followed, head down As they lowered it to the grave he was inconsolable
”Misha Rook! Misha Rook! I work-a for him fifteen year!”
_A Mayor and His People_
Here is the story of an individual whose political and social exa (the ), should have been, at the tireatest importance to every citizen of the United States Only it was not Or was it? Who really knows? Anyway, he and his career are entirely forgotten by now, and have been these many years
He was the land mill towns in northern Massachusetts--a bleak, pleasureless realm of about forty thousand, where, froe of thirty-six to seek his fortune elsewhere, he had resided without change During that time he had worked in various of the local mills, which in one way and another involved nearly all of the population He was a mill shoe-maker by trade, or, in other words, a factory shoe-hand, knowing only a part of all the processes necessary to make a shoe in that fashi+on Still, he was a fair workhteen dollars a week at tiion By temperament a humanitarian, or possibly because of his own hunizance of the difficulties of others, he finally expressed his ation of socialish to have a candidate and look for political expression of some kind, he was its first, and thereafter for a nu time, or until its ht political attention, its ular American, unintellectual custom) were looked upon by the rest of the people as a body of harmless kickers, filled with fool notions about a man's duty to his fellowman, some silly dream about an honest and economical administration of public affairs--their city's affairs, to be exact We are so wise in Aardful of his welfare They were so small in number, however, that they were little more than an object of pleasant jest, useful for that purpose alone
This club, however, continued to put up its candidate until about 1895, when suddenly it succeeded in polling the very modest number of fifty-four votes--double the nu any previous year A year later one hundred and thirty-six were registered, and the next year six hundred Then suddenly the mayor on that year's battle died, and a special election was called Here the club polled six hundred and one, a total and astonishi+ng gain of one In 1898 the perennial candidate was again nominated and received fifteen hundred, and in 1899, when he ran again, twenty-three hundred votes, which elected hiistered casually here, it was not so regarded in that typically New England land--its Puritan, self-defensive, but unintellectual and selfish psychology? Although this poor little snip of a mayor was only elected for one year, men paused astounded, those who had not voted for hiious order, wedded to their church and all the routine of the average puritanic mill town, actually cried No one knew, of course, who the new mayor was, or what he stood for There were open assertions that the club behind hi new in America--and that the courts should be called upon to prevent his being seated And this from people ere as poorly ”off” coht well be
It was stated, as proving the worst, that he was, or had been, a rocery clerk--both at twelve a week, or less!! I of all employers to pay as much as five a day to every laborer (an unheard-of sueneral constraint and subversion of individual rights (things then unknown in America, of course), loomed in the minds of these conventional Americans as the natural and immediate result of so modest a victory The old-time politicians and corporations who understood nificance of this straere runtled, but satisfied that it could be undone later
An actual conversation which occurred on one of the outlying street corners one evening about dusk will best illustrate the entire situation
”Who is the er whom he had chanced to rocery clerk, they say”
”Astonishi+ng, isn't it? Why, I never thought those people would get anything Why, they didn't even figure last year”
”Seems to be considerable doubt as to just what he'll do”
”That's what I've been wondering I don't take much stock in all their talk about anarchy A man hasn't so very much power as ive hiht I should like to see hi I know hi, ain't he?”