The Brass Check: A Study of American JournalismSinclair, Upton
General
The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism
Sinclair, Upton
Associated Press; Journalism -- United States; Press -- United States
For two weeks the “lady” from the far South marshalled the
demonstration, walking side by side with eminent poets from California,
and half-starved Russian Jews from the East side slums, and gigantic
lumber-jacks from the Oregon forests. If those Russian Jews and Oregon
lumber-jacks had tried such a stunt on Broadway by themselves, they
would have had their scalps split open in the first five minutes. But
the lady in the white military cape was there—never speaking, but
looking firmly ahead; and so for two weeks the New York police
department devoted itself to keeping everybody else off the sidewalks in
front of 26 Broadway, so that our “free silence” advocates might have
room to walk up and down undisturbed. They even had mounted policemen to
clear lanes in the street, so that the cars might get through; and when
some one hired thugs to try to pick quarrels with us and cause a
disturbance, the police actually drove the thugs away. I feel quite
certain that this was the first time in New York City’s history that
thugs employed by a great corporation to terrorize strike-pickets had
met with opposition from the police.
And lest you think that M. C. S. is still a snob, and got a sense of
triumph from all this, I ought to add the humiliating truth—that each
day after going through with her ordeal, she would come home at night
and cry! She would talk quietly and firmly to the reporters who came to
our apartment; but after they had gone, she would be in a nervous fever
of rage, because we had had to do such a “stunt,” in order to get the
truth into the rotten newspapers.
Ladies in the South are, of course, not accustomed to having their
husbands in jail; so on the third day M. C. S. collected all our most
respectable-looking “mourners,” Leonard Abbott, George Sterling, Frank
Shay and Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Walker, and put them on duty. Then she betook
herself to the Criminal Courts Building, where she caused much
embarrassment to several gentlemen in high station. The
District-Attorney told her what to do, and helped her to make out the
necessary papers; then she set out to find the judge. But the Criminal
Courts Building is confusing to strangers; there is a central balcony,
and all four sides of it look exactly alike, and M. C. S. got lost. She
stopped a gentleman coming out of a court-room, and asked where she
could find Justice So-and-so. “He is in room seventeen,” was the answer.
“But I can’t find room seventeen,” said M. C. S. “Please show me.” “What
do you wish with Justice So-and-so?” inquired the gentleman, politely.
“Why,” said M. C. S., “some imbecile of a judge has sent my husband to
jail.” “Madam,” said the gentleman—still politely, “I am the judge.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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