Frances E. Willard. Maternal Aunt of Josiah Flynt
The excursion was the first of the kind ever permitted in Russia's Central Asia possessions. It was really a commercial undertaking on the part of a tourists' agency in London, but because it was unique in Central Asian history and also on account of Kuropatkin's hospitality, it received a significance, social as well as political, which does not ordinarily accompany such enterprises. The tourist agency had gathered together thirty-odd Britons at the last moment, two lone Americans, a Southern lady from South Carolina, who, when reaching Samarcand and learning that she was almost directly opposite Charleston, South Carolina (on the other side of the world), cheerfully said: "How dear!"—and myself. The British Foreign Office was asked to appeal to the Russian Foreign Office to let us into the forbidden country—forbidden in the sense that one required a special passport from the Russian War Office before he was allowed to cross the Caspian. At least this was the story told in those days, and Englishmen were eager to believe it because the Russians had pushed their southern frontier so affectionately toward Afghanistan and India. It seemed to be their idea that the Russians were afraid to let them see what they (the Russians) were doing on their side of the Afghanistan fence. The Russian WarOffice communicated with Kuropatkin at Askabad, asking him whether he was afraid to let the Britons see how the Russian side was getting on. Kuropatkin replied: "Let them come in."
I joined the party at Tiflis, crossing the Black Sea from Sebastopol to Batum. On the steamer were two of the Britons. One evening we were all sitting in the smoking room. The Britons spoke their English with all its accents, and some of it I could not help listening to, trying nevertheless not to mind that they spoke it after the "We own the World" fashion. One of the Britons made up his mind that I was a Russian spy. On several occasions he looked at me as if I had no right on any ship that carried him. He also made blasphemous remarks about me to his friend. I learned later that he representedThe Standardof London. He wrote several letters to his paper about the trip, and, on one occasion, even tried to send a dispatch concerning an interview the newspaper correspondents had with Kuropatkin at Askabad. I have been told since that only a few of his articles ever reached their destination. I have seldom met a man so submerged in the world of suspicion.
Kuropatkin received us at Askabad, the administrative Russian town. How he looked and acted during the Russian-Japanese War I do not know, but he looked thefoxysoldier in every detail at Askabad. I sayfoxyadvisedly. He had a detective's eyes, the reserve of a detective's chief, and the physique of a man who could stand much more punishment than his uniform would give him room for. Since the Japanese War it has been said that he is a thief—or a grafter, if that be more euphemistic. Certain persons claim that he is five million rubles winner as a result of the war. What certain persons say in Russia, and, I am sorry to say, out of it, also, so far as many of the dispatches to American newspapers is concerned, is really nothing but gossip. Fortunately, the Russians know what gossip is, and merely let it drip. Unfortunately for readers of American newspapers certain correspondents do not make the slightest effort to distinguish between gossip and facts.
Our party spent seventeen days all told in Kuropatkin's bailiwick, or Trans-Caspia as it is officially called. We lived in a special train, stopping at the different places of interest for a few hours, or overnight, as circumstances required. The train was in "command" of a colonel. The diplomatic side of the journey was attended to by a representative of the Foreign Office, attached to Kuropatkin's staff.
Trans-Caspia is no longer theterra incognitothat it was forty to fifty years ago, thanks to numerous travelers and writers, among them our countryman, the war correspondent, MacGahan. It consequently does not behoove me, a mere skimmer, to attempt here much more than the statement that our party traveled from Krasnovodsk to Samarcand and back, and saw such places as Geok-tepe, Merv, Bokhara and the River Oxus. Geok-tepe in 1897 consisted principally of the fragments left by Skobeleff and Kuropatkin after their forces had slaughtered some twenty-odd thousand Turcomans—men, women and children. The siege of the fort lasted a full month, although the Turcomans had anticipated forms of defense. Before the Russian campaign against them was over Skobeleff had to begin the present Trans-Caspian Railroad in order to keep in touch with his base of supplies. Kuropatkin was his chief of staff. They went to war with the natives with the notion that one everlasting thrashing was imperative to teach the Turcomans to knuckle under. The slaughter at Geok-tepe proved very instructive, the Turcomans of to-day being a foolish people—docile, at least, so long as the Russians can continue to impress them. Skobeleff is long since dead, and Kuropatkin, the other "butcher," as he has been called, is under a cloud.
I had various glimpses and talks with this soldier, perhaps the most interesting glimpse taking place at Askabad during an outdoor religious service on St. George's Day. The men in our party had to appear at this service in dress suits early in the morning. The service was accompanied by the usual Greek orthodox paraphernalia and was interesting to those who had never before been present on such occasion. What interested me was the short, stocky general, standing bareheaded on a carpet near the officiating priests. For one solid hour he stood at "Attention," not a muscle in his body moving that I could see. I made up my mind then (and I have never changed it) that he was endowed with stick-at-iveness to a remarkable degree—a fact bolstered up by his persistency in the Manchurian retreats.
The most interesting interview I had with Kuropatkin was, one morning, when the three correspondents, including myself, were summoned to Government House at Askabad and given an official reception. Kuropatkin sat behind a large desk covered with pamphlets and official papers. We correspondents were given three chairs in front of the desk. The interpreter (Kuropatkin spoke neither English nor German) stood at our left.
"And I want you to know," Kuropatkin went on, after informing us somewhat about the Russian occupation of Trans-Caspia, "that our intentions here are eminently pacific. We have land enough. Our desire is to improve the holdings we now possess. You can go all over Russian Central Asia unarmed." I thought of Geok-tepe. No doubt Kuropatkin believed that that butchery had cowed the natives for all time.
"Our desire here is economic peace and prosperity."
This was the upshot of his words, translated for us by the interpreter. Was he telling the truth or not? There was not a correspondent present who could have answered this question.
My impression was that the man was trying to give us an official version of the alleged truth, and that he was proud of what he had been able to accomplish as an administrative officer, after demonstrating his ability as a human butcher. I have often since thought that, if the Philippines are to be attended to quicklya la Russe, Kuropatkin could do the job very neatly.
As a mere man shorn of his grand titles, I liked him and didn't like him.
I asked him if he remembered MacGahan, the American correspondent. He looked at me sharply, always more or less as if he were still listening to that St. George's Day sermon, and said: "It pleases me to hear that name mentioned. I knew him well."
I asked the interpreter to ask him if he couldn't think of an anecdote or two about MacGahan that I could send to my paper. I realized that there was a sorry task ahead of me writing about far-off Trans-Caspia—trulyterra incognitoto most Americans—unless America could be dragged into the story somehow. But Kuropatkin was not in the anecdotal mood. "When MacGahan and I were together," he said, "there were too many other things to think about and remember."
This is the upshot of my intercourse with Kuropatkin. Had there not been something about the man and his surroundings that took hold of my imagination this slim report would not have been made here. Throughout my journey in Trans-Caspia I thought of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. At Merv we were told that there, once upon a time, Genghis had slaughtered one million people. At Samarcand, we were shown Tamerlane's tomb. As a modern representative of might and force Kuropatkin seemed to be an improved edition of Genghis and Tamerlane. Whatever else he was, or was not doing, he was plainly trying to experiment with civilization before resorting to the sword. His schools, railroads and agricultural experiments were all indicative of his constructive ability. For this side of his character I liked him.
I disliked his career in butchering, and I was not pleased with his hard face. Nevertheless, there was something so companionable and soldier-like in his parting "Bonne Chance," when we bade him good-by, that, for me, there was more in him to like than to scold about. As regards the alleged five million rubles he is supposed to have "grafted" in Manchuria, I can merely say that he did not look like a thief to me.
A police raid that I attended in St. Petersburg, although not directly connected with any tramp experience there, has remained memorable, and, after all, was due to my interest in tramp lodging houses. I explored the local vagabonds' resorts pretty carefully during my investigations, visiting among others the notorious Dom Viazewsky, the worst slum of the kind I have ever seen anywhere. On a winter's night in 1896 (the conditions have not changed, I am told), 10,400 men, women and children slept in five two-story buildings enclosed in a space about the size of a baseball diamond. Only a hundred paces away is the Anitchkoff Palace. The inmates of the Dom Viazewsky are the scum of the city's population, diseased, criminal and defiant.
On one occasion, a woman belonging to the Salvation Army was met in the dead of night by a police sergeant and some patrolmen, as she was leaving the most dilapidated of the buildings. She had been doing missionary work.
"My God!" the sergeant exclaimed, seeing her unattended. "You in here alone?"
"Oh, no, not alone, officer," the intrepid little woman replied. "God is with me."
"Huh," the officer grunted. "I wouldn't come in here alone with God for a big sum."
The raid which I attended was made on a smaller lodging house, not far from the Alexander Nevsky monastery. In a way, it was got up for my benefit, I fear, and I was later very sorry about it all. The then chief of detectives was a pleasant old gentleman, called Scheremaityfbsky. I told him that it would interest me to see how his men "worked," and he introduced me to a stalwart chap—I forget his name—who kindly offered to show me how a suspicious place was raided.
We all foregathered first at the precinct station house nearest the place of the raid, at about nine o'clock in the evening. A Scotch friend accompanied me. Here were the so-called detectives, or policemen, in citizens' clothes. A squad of uniformed patrolmen had already been sent on ahead to surround the lodging house and prevent any departures. Pretty soon we followed after them in single file, and I could hear passers-by on the sidewalk whisper, "Polizie! Polizie!" The way they used the word and stopped to stare at us might have given a stranger the impression that we were on a portentous mission, which might involve the arrest of the entire city. Arriving at the lodging house, the gates were closed behind us, and we assembled in a lower corridor, where all hands received candles. The patrolmen outside forbade both entrance and escape.
Clumsily, the tallow from the candles dripping on ourhands, we climbed the dingy stairway to the men's quarters. A dismal lamp burned in the center of the room, throwing a weird light over the awakened lodgers. What a medley of humanity that vile-smelling room contained! Old men barely able to climb out of their bunks; rough middle-aged ruffians, cowed for the moment, but plainly full of vindictiveness and crime; youngsters just beginning the city life and quaking with fear at the unannounced visitation—never before have I seen human bodies and rags so miserably entangled.
The method of the raid was simple enough. Each inmate was made to show his passport. If it was in order, well and good; he could go to sleep again. But if his papers were irregular, or, still worse, if he hadn't any at all, below he went to join the others who were guarded by the policemen. The worst that was found that night I fancy were some hiding peasants, who had run away from their villages and were loafing around begging in the city. One poor old man took me for an officer. I was passing around between the beds, holding my candle high so that I could see the faces of the lodgers. The old man—he must have been eighty—held out a greasy scrap of paper, doubtless his passport, and tried to tell me how little he had done in the world that was wrong. There was an appealing look in his faded, ancient eyes, like that in those of a mongrel who would fain beg your mercy. I was glad to learn that his papers were all right.
Later, the women's ward was also inspected. Herewas practically the same bundle of human flesh and rags. Like the men, the women had to identify themselves or go to the station house. One young peasant girl lost her head, or perhaps she could not read. She handed the detective her pass confidently enough, but when he asked her her name she gave a different one from that on the passport.
"Go below, you little ignoramus," ordered the officer, and below she went, obviously wondering why all names were not alike—at least when it came to identification.
The inspection over, we returned to the room below to count the "catch." Over a score had been drawn into the net. They were lined up outside between two rows of policemen, the candles were put out, and the inspector gave the order to march. The weird, gloomy picture they made in the dark, as they trudged forward in their rags, is one that I do not care to see again. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that the scene told the sad, sad truth about Russia.
"A nation on tramp," I murmured, as my friend and I went on alone down the Nevsky.
An actual arrest is perhaps the most exciting adventure I have to relate about my tramp experience in Russia. By rights the arrest should never have taken place, but what do rights count for in Russia? It came about in this fashion.
General Kleigels, at that time (1897) prefect of St. Petersburg, had given me a general letter to the police of that city, reading about like this: "The bearer of this is Josiah Flynt, an American citizen. He is here,in St. Petersburg, studying local conditions. Under no circumstances is he to be arrested for vagabondish conduct." The word "vagabondish" was the nearest English equivalent my friends could find for the Russian word used; it was underscored by the general himself. I was told by an American resident in Russia that with such a letter in my possession I could almost commit murder with impunity, but I succeeded in getting arrested for a much less grave offense.
The actual tramping in the city was over, and I was back in my own quarters again, cleaned up and respectable. One night, three of us, an Englishman, myself and another American, started out to see the city on conventional lines. My tramp experience had not revealed much to me about the local night life, and I boldly took advantage of the opportunity offered by the American's invitation to see the town as he knew it. In the end, there was not much to see that I had not looked at time and again in other cities, but before the end came there was a little adventure that proved very amusing. During our stroll together the Englishman, a diminutive little chap who had just bought a new pot hat and wanted everybody to know it, got separated from us. We looked high and low up and down the street where we had missed him, but he could not be found. We were about to go to the police station and give an alarm, when, as we were passing a rather dark stairway, who should come shooting down it but the Briton, his hat all battered in and his face bleeding.
"Look at my new Lincoln and Bennett, will you?"he snarled, on reaching the street, "Sixteen bob gone to the devil!"
We asked him what the row had been about. He didn't know. He merely remembered that he had gone up the stairs and had been politely received at the door. "I went into the parlor," he said, "called for drinks, and sat down. After a while I thought it would be fun to open my umbrella and hold it over my head. I guess the light must have dazzled me. The next thing, I was shooting down those stairs. They're bally quick here with their bouncer, ain't they!"
The American was strong in Russian, and also stood well with the police in his district, and he was determined that the proprietor of the establishment should give an account of himself. While he and the Englishman went up the stairs I remained below in the street, according to agreement, and called at the top of my voice for agvardovoi(policeman). Twodvorniks(gate-keepers, but also police underlings) came running up, and most obsequiously begged thegospodeento tell them what was the matter. Forgetting their police power, I pushed one of them aside, declaring that I wanted a patrolman and not a house porter. General Kleigels, himself, could not have taken umbrage at my indiscretion any more hot-headedly. Thedvorniksreached for me instantly, but I ran up the steps to get under the sheltering wing of the American. Thedvorniksfollowed me, and there was a long, heated discussion, but in the end I had to go to the police station, where I absolutely refused to say a single word. The officer searched me,finding in one of my coat pockets the little Englishman's card. He rubbed it on my nose, saying: "Vasch? Vasch?" (Yours? Yours?) but I held my tongue and temper. The man never looked into my hip pockets. In one of them I had a well-filled cardcase, and in the other might have carried a revolver.
He did not seem to know that hip pockets existed. Pretty soon my companions joined me, and a long parley ensued between my fellow-countryman and the officer. Finally my valuables were returned to me, and I was paroled in my friend's custody until I could produce General Kleigels' letter. I did this that same day, about three o'clock. It was plain to read in the officer's face that the document gave him pause. It was probably the first of the kind that he had ever handled, or that General Kleigels had ever issued. But he had insulted me, and knew it, and he apparently reasoned that making any great ado over me or my letter would not help matters if I intended to make him trouble. So, after he had noted down the date and number of the letter, he handed it back to me and pronounced me free to go where I pleased. I shook hands with him, for some strange reason, and I shall never forget the queer way he looked at me and the manner he had of doubling two fingers in his palm when taking mine. If this was meant as a secret sign or signal, it was lost on me.
The wind-up of this little affair with the police was more amusing than the arrest. Not long afterwards, in company with the American Minister and a Scotch friend, I went on a fishing and camping trip to NorthernFinland. While we were in camp I received word that I was wanted on a criminal charge in St. Petersburg, but that there was "no need to worry about it." I proceeded leisurely with our party up to the Arctic Circle, and then back to St. Petersburg, when I immediately made inquiry of my house porter about the summons or indictment. The porter laughed. "It was nothing, sir, nothing," he assured me. "One week came the indictment, and the next week the announcement of your acquittal. It was a very simple matter."
I was sure that both proceedings could refer to nothing more serious than the fracas with thedvornikson the night of my arrest, and I determined to learn what had happened to my two friends, if anything. The American I found at hisdatschaon one of the islands.
"Did you receive an announcement of your indictment on a criminal charge?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said; "my crime was whistling in a police station."
It seems that the officer in charge, anxious to have his revenge on one of us, selected the resident American, because he thought it best not to press any charge against me and he was unable to locate the little Englishman. The American had whistled unwittingly, and entirely by way of exclamation. I recalled the incident. On the fateful night, while he was pleading with the officer for my release, the latter made several astounding statements, and at one of them my friend could not repress a slight whistle of amazement. I asked him how he came out with the case.
"Loser," he said. "I put the matter in the hands of a lawyer, and he mussed things so that I was fined twenty-five rubles. How did you make out?"
I told him of my acquittal. "There's Russia for you," he declared. "You are at heart the technical villain and go free. I, the poor Samaritan, am fined. That's just about as much rhyme and reason as they show in this country in everything they do."
"And the little Englishman," I asked, "the one who really caused the entire trouble—where is he?"
"The last I heard of him he was out on one of the Pacific Islands, having a fine time."
In such ways were spent some of my student days in Europe. That I learned about Europe and its people during these unconventional experiences as I never could have learned about them had I spent all of my time in libraries and the lecture room, seems to me undeniably true. Some of my wanderings were, in all truth, a submission on my part to the all-demanding passion for wandering. Yet, as they came along in connection with my university studies, which kept my mind seriously inclined, I think they did me more good than harm. I learned to know England, Germany and Russia during these trips. It was also a good thing for me to be let loose every now and then into the jungle of Europe's vagabond districts and then vent such lingeringWanderlustas my temperament retained.
Political economy as a more immediate field of exploration was at times neglected. Professors Schmoller and Wagner were not listened to as attentively as theydeserved to be. The German university idea of serious work was frequently disregarded. Perhaps it is furthermore fair to say that in continuing, as at times I did, my vagabondish explorations in Europe, I was assisting in perpetuating roving habits. I can now solemnly declare here that the real roaming habits of former days, roaming habits in the sense that I was willing at any time whenDie Fernecalled, to put on my hat and chase after her—received a complete chill during the European vagabond life. That it will pay one who desires to know Europe in the underground way, to make tramp trips such as I did, and to get acquainted before they leave home, with those millions of emigrants who come to us from Europe, I firmly believe. Neglected though my political economy was on many a journey, forgotten though were many of the books, I am not sure that I did not read my Europe, if not my political economy and other bookish things, better than I could have done it in written form.
Naturally during my tramp trips and experiences in Europe I made use of them for purposes of newspaper correspondence, magazine articles and incidentally for the preparation of such a comprehensive book as I thought I could write on tramp life in general. In this way these wanderings may again be called useful, because they helped to increase my powers of observation from a writer's point of view, and to give a serious purpose to such investigations on my part. I have no reason to regret any tramp trip made in Europe, but I am glad now that they are over and done with.
Such training in writing as the reporter gets on his newspaper, I got on returning to my home in Berlin, and having my "copy" most rigidly cut to pieces by my mother.
Of course this was not newspaper training in the sense that I had to report, and to a city editor. But it was all the training I ever had in writing that amounted to anything, until in after years I was interested enough in the business to observe for myself, in such examples of good writing as came to my hand, how, as Robert Louis Stevenson indicates in one of his books, language may be made to fit most tightly around the subject matter in hand.
In the early spring of 1898 I made up my mind once and for all that it was high time for me to leave Europe and get back to my own country if I ever intended to get to work with young men in my profession, or in any other activity in which I might be able to hold my own.
Europe had not palled on me—far from it! To have lingered on in Berlin, in Rome or in Venice would have pleased me at that time, had I possessed the necessary means to linger, wander and observe. Had I had financial independence and no sense of responsibility, I might have been in Europe to-day as a resident.
In 1898 our country went to war with Spain. How the rumors of war affected other young Americans studying, traveling, or on business in Europe at that time, I do not know. In me the rumors of war created an uncontrollable desire to return to my native land. Perhaps I thought I could go to war in her defense. It is impossible for me now to analyze, as I should like to do, my determination in 1898 to get away from Europe, university studies and all that the life abroad had meant to me, just as quickly as possible. My mother wasaghast at this resolution on my part. She said to me: "If you were going to China, Kamtchatka, Tibet or almost any other place but America, I could easily think it a very natural thing to do. But America! I feel as if I should lose all touch with you."
I suppose that my mother was fearful that on returning to America I would also return to all the unpleasantness, devilishness and lawlessness which I had pretty successfully run away from when I shipped as a coal-passer in Hoboken in 1889, on the poor old steamshipElbe. Furthermore, I think it not unlikely that my mother herself had lived so long in Europe, and had been able to keep such close track of me there, that she had a notion that we were always to live in Europe, and that there I must somehow win or lose. Then, again, there is no doubt that it disappointed my mother very much that I would not continue in the university and take my degree.
But something impelled me on my course, and in the spring of 1898 I said good-by to the university, to Berlin, to Germany and to all Europe as places in which I desired to cast my lot.
As a mere visitor, I have been back in Europe on several occasions since 1898, but I have never regretted my stubborn decision in that year to return to my country and make it my abiding place.
In retrospect, it occurs to me, first of all, that the general experience in Europe, on account of its prolongation, lost for me that personal touch with young men of my own age who were making their way ahead inAmerica, and which accounts for so much in getting into the swim of things, making those friends that avail so much in business or in the professions—in a word, in growing in your own community with your own people. I stayed too long in Europe for my own good.
In 1898, in spite of the mysterious and uncontrollable desire to get back to America, I was for months after my arrival in New York the most Europe-homesick person imaginable. Whom did I find that knew me? Only a few friends settled there who had been at my mother's home in Berlin, or that I had met during my travels. I did not know one of them in any business capacity here, and not one of them had been acquainted with me in any of my American homes. I had got acquainted with them in Europe, "on the march," so to speak.
I think it unfortunate that a boy or young man should linger so long in lands far removed from his own, when, in the end, he usually must try to amount to something.
It is again that question of camping, which I referred to in an earlier part of my story, which is preëminently noticeable in all such American colony life abroad as I have observed. The colonies are for the most part nothing but camps, the colonists being only too obviously mere birds of passage.
I do not believe it is a good thing for a young man, whose life is afterwards to be taken up again in his native land, to spend so much time out of it as I did. I lost touch with my home generation; I spent the most formative years of my life in countries where, as it proved, I was not to live and make my way; I got intolackadaisical ways of looking at things, and I fell to thinking that living in bachelor quarters on five hundred dollars a year would be an enviable achievement.
Yet Europe, and particularly Germany, also did me a certain good for which I must always be grateful. I have already hinted at some of the benefits which I think I appreciated at the time of their bestowal, and have learned never to forget. I must certainly thank Europe for a quieting effect on my fiery unwillingness to see inexorable truths as they must be seen sooner or later. I must also thank Europe for some most delightful friends and acquaintances. But where are they now? The great majority are scattered no doubt all over the world, only a few remaining in my own country for me to enjoy. This is the pathos of the whole business as I have been through it.
Taking up life anew in New York City, after many years abroad, is not an easy game. In my case it was particularly disagreeable, because for a while I had a homesick feeling for Europe, and I suppose for my particular house in Berlin. I shall never forget the uncomfortable feeling I had while my ship was docking as to the outcome of myself and my affairs in this new country—my country, it is true, but to me a country which I knew very little about from the beginner's point of view. That I was a beginner, psychologically and financially, is pretty plain from what I have before said.
I had one consolation. It was a letter from L. F. Loree, then general manager of the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburg, asking me to go to Pittsburg and see him on a matter of business, the nature of which his letter did not reveal. There had been a previous letter from this gentleman, received in Stettin, Germany, just as I was sailing for St. Petersburg, suggesting a meeting in Pittsburg. This was a number of weeks before my final departure from Germany for the United States.At that particular time I did not give the letter its due attention. Russia seemed still to hold out promises which I thought more attractive than those located in other parts of the world.
On arriving in New York City in 1898, with fifty dollars in my pocket and no more in sight, I naturally bethought myself of the letter received from Mr. Loree. I notified him of my modest home-coming, and said that I would be glad to hear more about the business for me that he had in mind. His reply was to the effect that I should meet him in Pittsburg, and would there learn about the matter which he was minded to take up with me. I spent three days in New York City at the home of a friend. During this time I was "put up" at a certain club by a friend whom I had learned to know through the writing business. At this club I met various editors, writers, and, I suppose, publishers. I was so elated with my sudden elevation into club standing in the writing business in New York City, that I immediately went back from the club to the home of my host, and told him in glee what a fine beginning I had made. Neither he nor his wife seemed to care very much for my sudden rise in the literary world in New York,viathe club end of it. I remember that they looked at each other very significantly on my telling them with happiness how I had been so happily received by the writers' craft.
That look made it very pleasant for me to consider other pastures, and the invitation to proceed to Pittsburg was accepted with alacrity. Arriving there, I hada few of my fifty dollars left. But there was no immediate prospect of their remaining in my pocket.
It is not always easy, even though invited to meet him and expecting to meet him, to find the general manager of a railroad. In my case, what happened? I found my man out on the road, seeing to it that certain repairs were made, and that he personally should know that they were made quickly, and that I must wait a while, perhaps two or three hours, perhaps longer. Pittsburg and its gloom did not make any plainer to me, during this waiting spell, what I was in Pittsburg for. I remember that I went to a hotel, and tried to write an article on that poor miserable creature, the Russian workingman. In the course of a few hours I was notified by telegram that I was to proceed to where the repairs were being made, and there make the general manager's acquaintance. I followed out these instructions, and I learned to know a man to whom I am indebted for my start in life at home after those wonderland years in Europe and Asia. I remember that I met my benefactor in a signal tower where he was patiently waiting for confirmation that his instructions had been carried out. I remember how he looked at me. No chief of police has ever "sized me up" the way that general manager did. He looked into my personality as it is not pleasant to have any one's personality looked into, unless he believes that he is doing the right thing. This is only a small incident in our acquaintance, but I have never forgotten it.
Before long the repairs were completed, the requiredconfirmation of instructions delivered was received, and Mr. Loree and I returned to Pittsburg in his car. On the car not a word was said about the business that he had in mind, and I was careful enough not to disturb a man who had probably attended to ten things to my one during that day.
In Pittsburg, after supper at the club, we went to the theater and there saw a light play. Naturally, I could not help guessing about the business that the general manager had in mind for me. The play over, we returned to the club, and there, for the first time, I learned what the gentleman wanted.
As I remember his words now, he said to me: "The tramp trouble in the United States has interested me as a railroad man. I take it that it has interested you temperamentally and, perhaps, as a student of economics.
"It occurred to me, on taking hold of this railroad property as a general manager, that I would see whether I could not help to eliminate the tramp trouble for the railroad as well as for the public. It was not a question in my mind about the possibility of the tramp being as bad a man as some have painted him, nor was it the question of doing the honest but unfortunate and penniless train-rider an injury. The thing I had in mind to do, and have tried to do, was to clear the property intrusted to my hands of that riffraff population which has been infesting American railroads for so many years.
"I feel like this. Taken any way you like it, a railroad in a State is one of its biggest citizens. My position as general manager did not call upon me to exercisethe theoretical notion of a railroad's position as a citizen in a State. Nevertheless, I said to myself: 'If I clean up my property as regards this riffraff population I am possibly contributing to the fulfillment of my citizenship.'"
At these words I looked at my possible employer pretty carefully. I have never had any reason to believe that as a citizen he has not struggled to do what, in his mind, seemed to be the right thing. He then and there made an impression upon me which I shall never forget. Mind you, I had just come over to this country. It was my business to find something that would make money for me as soon as possible. Mind you, I had gone to a man who knew and managed thirty thousand men.
He said to me: "What I wish you would do is to go over the property under my management, and make such a report as you see fit about the tramp conditions."
I said to him: "What do you think that will be worth?"
He said: "Well, what do you think it will be worth?"
I needed the money, there was not much more in sight at that time, whether I went on tramp or not anyhow, and I replied: "Well, I suppose that ten dollars a day would be an even price."
The general manager replied: "I think that's fair. I suppose you know how to proceed?"
"I think that I can get back in the old line without much trouble," I returned.
The general manager said: "Go ahead, and find out whatever you can. Whether the police force that I have instituted has been successful or not in stopping the tramp evil, I do not know. I say that I do not know because I cannot possibly be personally on every spot, covering five States, including thirty thousand men. It is pretty hard to keep track of all that you order to be done. I am speaking to you purely from the point of view of a railroad manager. It's pretty hard to run a railroad as you would like to have it run. This tramp business, this riffraff, this slum population that I find on my lines is, of course, a detail in the work that has been set before me.
"In my endeavor to keep my lines as clean as possible, not only as a citizen, but also as a railroader, I have tried to build up a railroad police. The States through which my lines run protect me only incidentally. I find that when your friends, the tramps, are arrested by town or village officials they are easily turned loose. I wanted to know how the situation could be changed, and I proceeded to look into the matter. The result was that I made up my mind that the railroad companymust protect itself. I found that certain men, called detectives, were, at times, endeavoring to keep tramps off trains on our lines. I found, furthermore, that these men, or detectives, were not attending to their duty as I believe it should be attended to.
"Consequently I got to wondering how this matter could be better attended to. I looked over the expense accounts for police purposes, and found that our peoplewere paying what seemed to me an exorbitant sum for very poor service. It seemed to me that police matters on a railroad, on account of the negligence on the part of villages and towns, should be organized and given a standing, which, on account of our lackadaisical procedure against crime in this country, was justified.
"You will find on our property a certain number of qualified policemen. Perhaps I should say 'patrolmen.' We do not use the word detective on this property. They are divided up according to divisions, and the moral deportment of the different communities in which they are placed. My idea has been to try to police our property just as a city is policed.
"What I should like to have you do is to go over our property and see whether our police force has been successful in ridding our lines, and, to some extent, the communities which they touch, from tramp immigration. How do you feel about the matter?"
Here was a problem which led right back into all that land ofWanderlustwhich I supposed that I had given up in so far as it applied to tramp life. However, as so many well-known people say: "Beggars cannot be choosers," I undertook the job of finding out for the general manager exactly what the tramps had to say about his lines as protected by his police. Eighteen years before this interview, the general manager's lines, to my own knowledge, were so littered up with tramps, and tramp camps that the Fort Wayne road in particular then was known as an "easy" road to beat between Chicago and Pittsburg. It was as bad as the Baltimoreand Ohio Railroad, which in those days was called "The Dope."
These roads were ridden promiscuously by all kinds of men, women and children who did not pay fare. When they got into a box car they thought much nonsense. The things that were done and said among all these people at that time would make too scandalizing reading now. If there are slums in our cities, there are no greater slums anywhere in the world, barring no crime, passion, or idiosyncracy, than were found on the "Dope" and the Fort Wayne roads in my tramp days.
I looked over the general manager's property. Dressed as a tramp, acting as a tramp, living and sleeping as a tramp, I surrounded his lines until I knew what the tramp world had to say about his railroad police idea. I found wherever I went, in Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, Wheeling, or Pittsburg, that tramps said: "There are easier roads to beat than the Fort Wayne."
It was hard work to go back into tramp life. I had some hard knocks, as regards storms and other misadventures in various places. Yet, with it all, it brought back to me a number of remembrances of earlier tramp days.
At the end of one month on the "Road" I went to the general manager and told him that I had no desire to ride his trains—that there were so many other trains and roads that were easier. I believed that, in order to complete my investigations, if he cared to have me proceed further, I should have a pass, good on every movable thing that he had on his property. We discussed thismatter in some detail. Eventually, the general manager consented to my proposition, and I was given a pass, good over all his lines, and I had with me the moral support of his position.
I tackled the tramp problem from a new point of view. It was my privilege to ride on practically every passenger train, every freight train, and on all engines that it should be my fate to meet. The general manager also gave me a letter instructing his employees to let me pass. I now know that it puzzled the general manager's police force to comprehend my compromising position on the road. The police force said: "Who is this young fellow out here looking us up?"
I was called to order one night, in Ohio, by a captain of the newly instituted police force, for riding on a caboose of a freight train. I was getting off the caboose to find out about something which was a matter of detail at the time, and had got back to the steps of the caboose, when the captain stepped up to me and said: "What are you doing on this train?" I looked at him. He looked at me. We then and there decided that there was no particular disagreement between us. But I have to say that during the second month of my investigations for the general manager, his police force could not make out why I was on the property with all my credentials, and my confusing diminutive form and face. One of my best friends to-day, who was then at the head of the police, was interested in my proceedings.
As an illustration of how men keep track of each other, he had his men keep track of me. At the sametime, I think he must have realized that our superior officer was behind such an errand as I was on. He had the good sense to say to himself: "Well, if that is the Boss's work, I'd better leave it alone." But he kept his men looking out for me, which is only human nature.
One of the experiences that I had during this second month in the interests of railroading, so far as its traffic applies to tramps, occurred in Ohio. During my extraordinary privileges as a railroading tramp, and with all my credentials from the general manager's office, I picked up a freight train going west of Mansfield, Ohio, upon which I nevertheless found myself in difficulties. I saw three tramping negroes on this train. I saw them get on the train—largely a coal train so that one could see from the caboose window exactly what was going on—and went after them, car after car full of coal, until I reached the biggest of the three. The train was going at the rate of about twenty miles an hour. I snatched the hat of the biggest one that I could see and said, with some reminiscences in mind, I must confess: "You have your nerve with you, riding on this road. Hit the gravel."
The negro looked up at me, as if all the majesty of the law had been suddenly invested in my humble person, and said, with a truly pathetic tramp touch: "Cap, the train is going a little too hard." He received back his hat, and he and his two companions were asked by me, in no uncertain terms, to leave the train at a certain siding.
I made up my mind that those three negroes shouldget no train leaving the siding—a resting place for tramps, and for trains that needed coal and steam to go farther on. I went to the signal tower and telegraphed east and west for an officer to get to the signal tower in question and arrest the trespassers as soon as possible. This may seem a hard thing for a man to do, who had been through what I had. But I was responsible to the general manager of that property. I was also responsible to my own idea of integrity, and I believed in my inmost soul that it was the thing to do.
The negroes wanted to fight me. I was carrying a toothbrush at the time. While at the coaling station the negroes lingered around and made every effort to catch every freight train that was going out their way. I rode every one of these going in their direction to within about one hundred yards of their waiting place. Finally, the last "run," as they well knew, had gone. As I dropped off the last freight train that they were not swift enough to catch, I walked toward them, and was greeted with these words: "Do you think you run this road? If you do, you'll get a bullet hole through you so soon that you won't know what struck you."
I thought of my toothbrush as the only weapon I had. I thought also of the willingness on the part of those negroes to revenge themselves, and I thought still more closely about the distance between where I stood and the coaling station. It so happened that my bluff went. I said to the negroes: "If there is any shooting to be done here I'll begin it." The negroes left me alone, and I left them alone. I could not, however, get over the ideathat they had infringed on my territory as investigator, police officer, or anything else that you want to call it. The result of the experience was that the police officer that I had telegraphed for toward the east appeared at the coaling station as soon as he could, and that we rode on together to the next village. There I said to him: "I think we will catch those negroes not very far away from here." He picked up the town marshal and away we went down the track to find those negroes. We found them.
Dusk was just coming on, and they were sitting alongside the track. The policeman from the east drew his revolver, went up to them, and said, much to their surprise: "I place you under arrest." The negroes wilted, and all of us went to the station house of the nearest village. They were given an immediate hearing. They said that they had not been seen on any train, other than a passenger train on which they had paid their fares, during all the years of their existence. The justice said: "Do you suppose that that man is going to come here and tell me that he saw you on a certain freight train when he didn't see you on that freight train?"
One of the negroes replied: "I never saw that man before in my life." This was the man whose hat I had taken when I told him to get off the train. The justice gave all three a thirty-day sentence to the Canton Workhouse. The next morning, the negroes were prisoners of the local authorities. By these local authorities they were handcuffed, put on a train, and started for their destination. Foolishly, I not only followed them inCanton, but I went up with them, in the street car, to the workhouse. During that ride I heard all the hard things that can possibly be said about any one.
This experience and my participation in it may not seem so very creditable to one who had himself been a tramp. But what did I learn about those negroes? They had been employees of a circus, had got drunk and into a row, and had left their positions as circus men. So far as I have been able to make out, they had no right to have a free ride anywhere.
This is merely one of the incidents that fell to my lot during the second month. Of course there were many others, which interested me at the time, to think over, but which would not interest the reader.
The main thing I learned to believe in and expect in my general manager was a great efficiency. All through my tramp experiences at his request, I found, even intramplife, that the great thing is getting there and doing something. My report to him about the general ability of the police force, which he and his subordinates had got together for the purpose of completely ridding the property of the tramp nuisance, was that I thought he had at least got the Fort Wayne road so cleaned up, in that respect, that no "respectable" tramp would ride on it. In making this report I said to the general manager: "They are stealing coal on the Lake Shore Railroad. There is a man who told me that on the Lake Shore Railroad every twentieth train, before it gets forty miles out of Buffalo, gets dug into." On that same expedition for the general manager I ran up against two tramp campsat the end of one of the "Short Lines" at Ashtabula. My interest at that time was not to disturb either camp at all. I went down to the Lake Shore Railroad, toward their coal chutes, and there I found two camps. The fires of these were being bountifully supplied by coal taken from the adjoining railroad company. My position was peculiar. Tramps, and criminals for that matter, do not like to have any one approach what they believe to be their property. I went to one of the camps, and sat down on a railroad tie. Pretty soon a person of unquestionable importance in his own tramp line, said to me: "Have you a match?"
"I think I have. I'll see."
"If you find one, go over and build your own fire."
I did so, and was left more or less in peace
At that time there was a collection of men, called the "Lake Shore Push." These men thought that they had the Lake Shore Railroad in their hands, from the criminal end of it, or, perhaps, I should say, the hold-up end of it. Their history is a matter hard to explain. They had been known on or about the Lake Shore Railroad, to my knowledge, for twenty years easily.
They are worth while considering in a paragraph or two as showing how criminal "mobs" are made up.
The Lake Shore Railroad for some reason or other has been infested with box-car robbers, hold-up men, for about the number of years suggested. For some reason, the Lake Shore gang found it convenient to organize itself in so far as organization is possible in criminal life. Criminals of different types got together, and said: "We will run this road as we think it should be run according to our ways of looking at things." The management of the road had nothing to say that was of any use.
So the Lake Shore gang proceeded, and robbed cars, even threw a steer off a car when it wanted to hold abarbecue, held up the polite Ohio politician beating his way to the extent of forty cents, had all those plants supposed to be between Buffalo and Chicago, and generally made themselves a criminal nuisance.
The Lake Shore gang consisted of the following types: the desperate laboring man (?) who is willing to grapple with your throat on account of a dollar or two—I mean the hold-up man that you hear so much about in the Middle West; the discouraged criminal who knew that he was discouraged, but thought he might possibly, under spurious cover, get a "stake" on professionally criminal lines; the hard-up man who was led along by the other conspirators in the game; the boy of eighteen, who had made some miserable mistake in his home, had to get away from that home, and had fallen into the hands of scheming men; and the woman of the street who had her reasons for knowing anything about the Lake Shore gang. The Lake Shore gang, it can be said, grew out of the idea that when you can be imposed upon, you will stand for it. What they are doing now I do not know. It may be that they are amusing themselves as in days of old. All I want to say here is that this was the company I had good chances of falling in with when striking the general manager's terminals on the lakes. The Lake Shore Railroad and the Nickel Plate, as it was called, took up the full responsibility of all tramp nonsense after certain department heads had done their best to relieve both of these roads of pronounced deficiencies and crimes.
As I have said, I found that, at Ashtabula, the trampswere burning up the Lake Shore Company's coal, the Nickel Plate Company's coal—put the two together and call them the Vanderbilt lines if you like—and that the Lake Shore gang were robbing people right and left on every freight train that went over the Vanderbilt lines. I found also that the Vanderbilt lines did not pay the slightest respect to the protection of their patrons, as regards pickpockets and other gentry of that character, on their passenger trains, otherwise than by employing a man who feverishly ran up and down their territory—let us say between Toledo and Cleveland—took his lunches where he could buy them for from ten to twenty-five cents, and tried to carry out the whole game for the Vanderbilt interests between the points mentioned. This man was supposed to be the police force of that district. The reason he took so many quick lunches is because he had too much to do. In some ways, I believe that he tried to serve the Vanderbilt interests. But no man can cover such a district, if he be all alone—as it is alleged that he was—and attend to all of the details that will come up in police life on the Vanderbilt lines or on any other line.
This man I did not meet. I heard about him, from time to time, taking hungry lunches on the Lake Shore trains, passenger and freight.
This man, so far as the public is concerned, passenger or freight, did no more to protect the public than does a mosquito in New Jersey when it tries mercenary intentions upon an innocent suburbanite. In my opinion, the Lake Shore Railroad, in its employ of this one man tocover so much territory, did not honestly stand up as a citizen in our United States.
My employer, the general manager, had in mind something else.
He is the man, who, when the Johnstown flood occurred, built the railroad bridge over the turbulent river in twenty-four hours. In saying that he built it, I mean that he knew how to get men to help him build it.
The same determination that he had in building that bridge, the same character, came out in his determination that his railroad line, so far as he could effect it, must be free of the riffraff population which was disturbing it. So he organized a police force and therewith proceeded to take care of that riffraff population. He did it to a nicety. He put a man at the head of it whose name I shall mention later on. He got hold of this man through the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
The big fellow went into the game prepared to fight his particular game to a finish. The general manager sat off and wondered.
The whole world knows, more or less, the history of the Pullman strike. It was a strike fought, perhaps, with certain rightful labor interests in view. It was a strike, however, which was as cruel as any that has been known in this country. It was a mean thing on the part of employer, and on the part of employees. The wonder is that there was not more bloodshed. Men who undertake what the strikers of the Pullman Company did undertake, are most certainly considering trouble in its worst features. However they went ahead,as a last forgiveness, they asked the sympathy of the public and were by the mercy of the then considerate, all-wise, all-grasping Pullman Company, turned over to the mercies of the United States Government troops.
General Miles appeared in Chicago with his troops.
He was approached by the general manager, and asked this question: "What are your troops out here for if they are not going to stop the ruin of our property?"
"That is my business," said General Miles.
"True enough, but they are burning up my cars, and so far as I can see, your troops are not doing one thing to defend United States property."
Again General Miles replied that what he was doing was wholly within his province. The general manager did not attempt to indicate to General Miles that his line of business conflicted with the general's.
Here were two men, both of them masters in their own lines. Mr. Cleveland had ordered the United States troops to Chicago. General Miles had nothing else to do but to obey. He went to Chicago with his troops. There was no shooting done. The question is, whether there should not have been some shooting done. Labor in this country has arrived at a point where it is so arrogant that it must be shot at. If it thinks that trade unionism will protect it, it is much deceived.
I must tell a story of something that happened during the Pullman strike at Chicago.
A big man thought that he could proceed against one of the regulars. He started to do so. The regular said to him: "You must keep off this property."
The big man said: "Huh! You don't run the whole world."
The regular said: "Get off this property, or I will make trouble for you."
The big man said: "Huh! You have another guess coming."
The regular said: "Get off this property quick."
The big man seemed to want to linger, and the regular went after him with his bayonet and struck him where he understood that he had received his due attention.
The strike was finished. Millions of dollars had been lost. The general manager returned to his ordinary business, and settled down to ordinary work again.
General Miles doubtless retired to his retreat.
There is a point to be made here about the efficiency of the militia and the regulars. What did the militia do during all this unfortunate experience? Not enough to let an ordinary suburban train go on its quiet way. Mr. Grover Cleveland saw the necessity of immediate protection for the United States mail, and ordered the regulars to Chicago. The regulars, merely by their presence, did more than the whole militia of the State of Illinois could have done or would have done. The militia are too afraid of shooting brothers and sisters. The regulars are soldiers, and obey the commands. My friend, the general manager, later on had to take care of the body of President McKinley. What did he do? The special train was there, the special policemen were there, and the special orders were there. President McKinley's body went to Washingtonwith as cleverly appointed a bodyguard as one can ordinarily find. Poor man, he lay in his coffin not caring whether he was protected or not. A man stood on the front of the train, a man was on a middle platform, a man was on the rear end, and one or two men were inside. So this man was taken home, guarded by Democrats, and I think Socialists in theory.
This is what the general manager of a road did to get an assassinated President to the National Capital. It was only a small courtesy, because the man was dead. But it was one of those courtesies which can never be forgotten by a man's friends, and by any whom we have taken an interest in. To have done this thing efficiently was something worth doing. There are people who, to-day, think that they can rob the tomb of Lincoln. They tried it not so very long ago. Their intentions were most completely balked.
To frustrate people who might try to do any injury to a President of the United States while in transit over his road strikes me as being a highly creditable proceeding on the part of any general manager.
During my acquaintance with the general manager I learned to know his then chief of police, Mr. C. E. Burr. Mr. Burr had kept track of me during my investigations for the general manager, but had not made any particular effort to locate me. He knew his men pretty well, he knew his idea of railway police organization pretty well, and, after that, believing that he was giving a square deal to his employer, he did not care who was looking over his territory.
More about Mr. Burr, whom I have to thank for my first genuine introduction to graft and its practitioners. Without him and his assistance I could have hardly gotten so quickly into this subject.
My report to the general manager delivered, after two months of pretty hard work, I returned to New York City to take up the next promising thing that came to hand.