A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago Part 22

There were speakers who talked of the dead man's virtues, his love for people, scholars.h.i.+p and the arts, his keen brain and his genius. Mr.

Darrow sat listening to the eulogy of his dead friend and tears filled his eyes. Poor George Foster--gone, in a coffin; to be buried out of sight in a few hours. Then some one whispered to Mr. Darrow that a few words were expected of him.

It was Mr. Darrow's good-bye to his dear friend. He stood up and his loose figure and slyly malicious face wore an unaccustomed seriousness. The audience waited, but the facile Mr. Darrow was having difficulty locating his voice, his words. His eyes, blurred with tears, were still staring at the coffin. Finally Mr. Darrow began. His dear friend. Dead. So charming a man. So brilliant a mind. Dead now. He had been so amazingly alive it seemed incredible that he should be dead. It was as if part of himself--Mr. Darrow--lay in the coffin.

The eulogy continued, quiet, sincere, stirring tears in the audience and filling their hearts with a realization of the grief that lay in Mr.

Darrow's heart. Then slowly the phrases grew clearer.

"We were old friends and we fought many battles of the mind," said Mr.

Darrow. "And we were to have debated once more next week--on 'Is There Immortality?' It was his contention," whispered Mr. Darrow, "that there is immortality. He is gone now, but he speaks more eloquently on the subject than if he were still with us. There lies all that remains of my friend George Burman Foster--in a coffin. And had he lived he would have argued with me on the subject. But he is dead and he knows now, in the negation and darkness of death, that he was wrong--that there is no immortality--"

Mr. Darrow paused. He had after many years won his argument with Prof.

Foster. But the victory brought no elation. Mr. Darrow's eyes filled again and he turned to walk from the stage. But before he left the mourners sitting around him heard him murmur:

"I wish poor George Foster had been right. There would be n.o.body happier than I to realize that his soul had survived--that there was still a George Foster. But--if he could come back now after the proof of death he would admit--yes, admit that--that there is no immortality."

And Mr. Darrow with his head bowed yielded the platform to his inarticulate and vanquished friend and debater.

WORLD CONQUERORS

The hall is upstairs. A non-committal sign has been tacked over the street entrance. It discloses that there is to be a discussion this night on the subject of the world revolution. The disclosure is made in English, Yiddish and Russian.

A thousand people have arrived. They are mostly west siders, with a sprinkling of north and south side residents. There seem to be two types.

Shop workers and a type that cla.s.sifies as the intelligentsia. The workers sit calmly and smoke. The intelligentsia are nervous. Dark-eyed women, bearded men, vivacious, exchanging greetings, cracking jokes.

The first speaker is a very bad orator. He is a working-man. An intensity of manner holds the audience in lieu of phrases. He says nothing. Yet every one listens. He says that workingmen have been slaves long enough.

That there is injustice in the world. That the light of freedom has appeared on the horizon.

This, to the audience, is old stuff. Yet they watch the talker. He has something they one and all treasured in their own hearts. A faith in something. The workingmen in the audience have stopped smoking. They listen with a faint skepticism in their eyes. The intelligentsia, however, are warming up. For the moment old emotions are stirring in them.

Sincerity in others--the martyr spirit in others--is something which thrills the insincerity of all intelligentsia.

Suddenly there is a change in the hall. Our stuttering orator with the forceful manner has made a few startling remarks. He has said, "And what we must do, comrades, is to use force. We can get nowhere without force.

We must uproot, overthrow and seize the government."

Scandal! A murmur races around the hall. The residents from the north and south sides who have favored this discussion of world revolution with their uplifting presence are uneasy. Somebody should stop the man. It's one thing to be sincere, and another thing to be too sincere and tell them that they should use force.

Now, what's the matter? The orator has grown violent.

It is somebody in the back of the hall. Heads turn. A policeman! The orator swings his arms, and in his foreign tongue, goes on. "They are stopping us. The bourgeoisie! They have sent the polizei! But we stand firm. The police are powerless against us. Even though they drive us from this hall."

The orator is all alone in his excitement. The audience has, despite his valorous p.r.o.nouncements, grown nervous. And the policeman walking down the aisle seems embarra.s.sed. He arrives at the platform finally. He hands a card to the orator. The orator glances at the card and then waves it in the air. Then he reads it slowly, his lips moving as he spells the words out. The audience is s.h.i.+fting around, acting as if it wanted to rise and bolt for the door.

"Ah," exclaims the orator, "the policeman says that an enemy of the revolution has smashed an automobile belonging to one of the audience that was standing in front of the hall. The number of the automobile is as follows." He recites the number slowly. And then: "If anybody has an automobile by that number standing downstairs he better go and look after it."

A substantial looking north sider arises and walks hurriedly through the hall. The orator decides to subside. There is a wait for the chief speaker, who has not yet arrived. During the wait an incident develops.

There are two lights burning at the rear of the stage. A young woman calls one of the officials of the meeting.

"Look," she says, "those lights make it impossible for us to see the speaker who stands in front of them. They s.h.i.+ne in our eyes."

The official wears a red sash across the front of his coat. He is one of the minor leaders among the west side soviet radicals. He blinks. "What do you want of me?" he inquires with indignation. "I should go and turn the lights out? You think I'm the janitor?"

"But can't you just turn the lights off?" persists the young woman.

"The janitor," announces our official with dignity, "turns the lights on and he will turn them off." Wherewith the Tarquin of the proletaire marches off. Two minutes later a man in his short sleeves appears, following him. This man is the janitor. The audience which has observed this little comedy begins to laugh as the janitor turns off the offending lights.

The chief speaker of the evening has arrived. He is a good orator. He is also cynical of his audience. A short wiry man with a pugnacious face and a c.o.c.ksure mustache. He begins by asking what they are all afraid of. He accuses them of being more social than revolutionary. As long as revolution was the thing of the hour they were revolutionists. But now that it is no longer the thing of the hour, they have taken up other hobbies.

This appears to be rather the truth from the way the intelligentsia take it. They nod approval. Self-indictment is one thing which distinguishes the intelligentsia. They are able to recognize their faults, their shortcomings.

Now the speaker is on his real subject. Revolution. What we want, he cries, is for the same terrible misfortune to happen in this country that happened in Russia. Yes, the same marvelous misfortune. And he is ready.

He is working toward that end. And he wishes in all sincerity that the audience would work with him. Start a reign of terror. Put the spirit of the ma.s.ses into the day. The unconquerable will to overthrow the tyrant and govern themselves. He continues--an apostle of force. Of fighting. Of shooting, stabbing and barricades that fly the red flag. He is sardonic and sarcastic and everything else. And the audience is disturbed.

There are whispers of scandal. And half the faces of the intelligentsia frown in disapproval. They came to hear economic argument, not a call to arms. The other half is stirred.

It is almost eleven. The hall empties. The streets are alive. People hurry, saunter, stand laughing. Street cars, store fronts, mean houses, shadows and a friendly moon. These are part of the system. Three hours ago they seemed a powerful, impregnable symbol. Now they can be overthrown.

The security that pervades the street is an illusion. Force can knock it out. A strange force that lies in the ma.s.ses who live in this street.

The audience moves away. The intelligentsia will discuss the possibility of a sudden uprising of the proletaire and gradually they will grow cynical about it and say, "Well, he was a good talker."

The orator finally emerges from the building. He is surrounded by friends, questioners. For two blocks he has company. Then he is alone. He stands waiting for a street car. Some of the audience pa.s.s by without recognizing him.

The street car comes and the orator gets on. He finds a seat. His head drops against the window and his eyes close. And the car sweeps away, taking with it its load of sleepy men and women who have stayed up too late--including a messiah of the proletaire who dreams of leading the ma.s.ses out of bondage.

THE MAN FROM YESTERDAY

"You'll not use my name," he said, "because my family would be exceedingly grieved over the notoriety the thing would bring them."

Fifty or sixty or seventy--it was hard to tell how old he was. He looked like a panhandler and talked like a scholar. Life had knocked him out and walked over him. There was no money in his pocket, no food in his stomach, no hope in his heart. He was asking for a job--some kind of writing job.

His hands were trembling and his face twitched. Despair underlay his words, but he kept it under. Hunger made his body jerked and his eyes s.h.i.+ne with an unmannerly eagerness. But his words remained suave. He removed a pair of cracked nose-gla.s.ses and held them between his thumb and forefinger and gestured politely with them. Hungry, dirty, hopeless, his linen gone, his shoes torn, something inside his beaten frame remained still intact. There was no future. But he had a past to live up to.

He was asking for a job. What kind of job he didn't know. But he could write. He had been around the world. He was a cosmopolite and a rhymester and a press agent and a journalist. He pulled himself together and his eyes struggled hard to forget the hunger of his stomach.

"In the old days," he said, enunciating in the oracular manner of a day gone by--"ah, I was talking with Jack London about it before he died. Dear Jack! A great soul. A marvelous spirit. We were in the south seas together. Yes, the old days were different. Erudition counted for something. I was Buffalo Bill's first press agent. Also I worked for dear P. T. Barnum. I was his publicity man.

"Doesn't the world seem to have changed, to you?" he asked. "I was talking to George Ade about this very thing. Strange, isn't it? George and I are old friends. Who? d.i.c.kie Davis of the Sun? Certainly--a charming fellow.

Stephen Crane? Genius, my friend, genius was his. That was the day when O.

Henry was in New York. There was quite a crowd of us. We used to foregather in some comfortable grog shop and discuss. Ah, life and letters were talked about a great deal in those days."