Sara had, of all concerned, the most difficult road and the most brilliant prospects. She saw wealth, power, social triumph ahead if she could elect Matthew to Congress. But she knew just how difficult it would be to beat the Republican machine with its money and organization. Her first task was to hold the Negro vote back of Matthew. That was easy so long as he was a regular Republican. When he bolted Sammy’s machine, Sara had to capitalize race pride and resentment against Doolittle and Sammy. She continued to insist that Matthew was a good Republican but not a Sammy Scott henchman. For a while her success here was overwhelming, but could she hold it three months with hungry editors and grafting henchmen?
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 had been left alone; but there’s his wife full of ambition and the big bosses full of plans.”
“I do wish Sammy had stood pat and insisted on the nomination,” said Sara thoughtfully.
“I’ll never forgive him,” said Mr. Amos. “It was sheer lack of backbone and an itching palm.”
“You are a great friend of his, I know.”
“Well,” said Mr. Amos, “I don’t like him as well as I use to, although I know he got me my job. Tell you what, ma’am, I wish your husband could get the nomination.” They talked on. When finally he stood at the front door, Sara was saying:
“I hope, of course, that all will go well, for Doolittle is a deserving old man, but if anything should change in his physical condition I’d like to know it before anybody else, Mr. Amos; and I’m depending on you.” And her dependence was expressed in the shape of a yellow bill which she slipped in Mr. Amos’ hand. He took occasion to examine it under the electric light as he was waiting for the bus. It was a bank note for five hundred dollars. Mr. Amos missed two buses looking at it.
Less than a week later, while Sara was at her desk one morning, about to send out notes for one of her innumerable committee meetings, the telephone rang. The low voice of Mr. Amos came over it:
“Mr. Doolittle has had an attack. He is quite ill.”
She thanked him softly and hung up.
The next morning Sara went down to Republican headquarters, where she used to be well known. She was regarded with considerable interest this morning, but remained unperturbed. She asked for a certain gentleman who was always busy, but Sara wrote a note and sent it in to him with a card. He found time to see her.
“Mr. Graham,” she said, “what do you think of Congressman Doolittle’s health?”
Mr. Graham looked at her sharply, took off his glasses, and polished them carefully, as he continued to look.
“I have every reason to suppose,” he said slowly, “that Mr. Doolittle’s health is excellent.”
“Well, it isn’t,” said Sara.
“I suppose your source of information—” But Sara interrupted him.
“Frankly, Mr. Graham—suppose that Congressman Doolittle should die before the primary election.”
“We’d be in a hell of a muddle,” blurted out Mr. Graham.
“You would,” said Sara. “You could hardly nominate Sammy, because Sammy is very unpopular just now among colored voters.”
“Thanks to you,” said Mr. Graham.
“No, Mr. Graham, thanks to you. Now my husband Mr. Matthew Towns, is both popular and—intelligent.”
“Especially,” added Mr. Graham, “with the Farmer-Labor reformers and the Bolsheviks.”
“Not a bad bunch of votes to bring to the Republican Party just now.”
“Well, any colored candidate would have to bring in something to offset the hullabaloo which the Klan would raise in this town if we nominated a Negro and a—one with your husband’s record, to Congress.”
“Precisely, and I am calculating that the support of the reform groups and the solidarity of the colored vote would much more than offset this and make the election certain.”
“In any case, Mrs. Towns, I take it that your husband has been promised the support of the Farmer-Labor group only on condition that he stand on their platform.”
“He has given them to understand,” said Sara carefully, and with a smile, “that he sympathizes with their ideals.”
“Well,” said Mr. Graham crisply, “that puts him out of the running for the Republican nomination, even in the extremely unlikely event that Mr. Doolittle for any reason should not or could not receive it.”
“I wonder,” said Sara. “You know quite well that the intellectuals in the Farmer-Labor group are bound to support Republican policies up to a certain point. Their financial interests compel them; now it would be good politics for the Republicans to go a step beyond that point in order to attract, by some show of liberality, as large a group as possible of the liberals. Then, having split off their leaders and their thinkers, we might let the rest of the radicals go hang. What I am proposing in fine, Mr. Graham, is this: that the nomination of my husband (in the unlikely event that Mr. Doolittle should not be well enough to accept) might be a piece of farsighted politics on your part and bring you the bulk of the liberal vote, while at the same time paralyzing and splitting up the power of the radicals.”
Mr. Graham fingered his mustache.
“I will not forget this visit, Mrs. Towns,” he said.
Sara walked out; taking a taxi, she quietly slipped over to the Democratic headquarters. She asked to see Mr. Green of Washington.
“Mr. Green?” asked the porter, doubtfully.
“Yes, he is in town temporarily and making his headquarters here. I will not keep him long. Here is my card. I have met him.”
After a while another gentleman came out.
“Mr. Green is only calling at this office. Just what is your business with him?”
“Please tell him that once in Washington he signed a petition for me that helped release Matthew Towns from Joliet. Mr. Towns is my husband and is now running for Congress.”
A few minutes later Sara was closeted with Mr. Green, a high official of the Klan. He looked at her with interest.
“And what can I do for you this time, madam?”
“You remember me?”
“Perfectly.”
“I trust you have not regretted helping me.”
“No.”
“Have you followed Mr. Towns’ career?”
“I know something of it.”
“Well, he may be nominated for Congress by the Republicans, and he may not. If he does not get the nomination, he will run independently on the Farmer-Labor ticket. Any help that the Democrats could give us in such a campaign would greatly impede the Republicans.”
Mr. Green smiled, but Sara proceeded:
“In the unlikely event that he should be nominated by the Republicans I have come to ask you if it would not be possible for you to restrain any anti-Negro campaign against him or any undue reference to his jail sentence. You see, with the Republican and Farmer-Labor support he would probably be elected, and if that election came with your silent help, he would be even more disposed to look with favor upon you and your help than he is now. And he feels now that he owes you a great deal.”
Mr. Green looked at her curiously. Finally, as he arose, he shook hands with her and said:
“I am glad you came to me.”
Sara was a little exhausted when she reached home, but she still had some letters to write. The maid said that the telephone had rung and that some Mr. Amos would call her later. Sara sat down by her well-ordered desk and inserted a new pen-point. Soon the telephone rang. Mr. Amos’ voice came over the wire:
“Mr. Doolittle is some better, but still in bed.”
Sara looked at the clock. It was four. She ordered dinner and went back to her writing. The hours passed slowly. At half-past five Matthew came in, and they ate silently at six. While they were eating the telephone rang again.
“Mr. Doolittle has gone out for a short drive. He is better, but far from well.”
They finished dinner. Matthew stood about restlessly a while, smoking. Then with a muttered word he went out. Sara sat down beside the telephone and waited. The messages came at intervals, each shorter than the other.
“Mr. Doolittle has returned.”
“He has taken a chill.”
“The physicians are working over him.”
“He is sinking.”
Eight, nine, and ten o’clock chimed on Sara’s gilt desk clock, and then:
“Congressman Doolittle is dying.”
Sara waited no longer. It was March 20. The primary election was to take place April 8. She took a taxi for Republican headquarters.