Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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! — T*' 13 - ■ , ‘^ v ********##«*******ff*ff**f*ffffffsf*s*isff ‘The REFORMER By CHARLES M. SHELDON. Mkor of “tails Steps,” Robert Hardy’s Seven Days.” Etc. CbpvrtoW, 1901, by Cfcarie* M. Sheldon #**♦♦*♦*****#***#**»*»» CHAPTER X. Jfwt A ndrcw* place'! her finnan on his arm. IT ATE V Ell else Tom my Randall lacked, he did not lack the most absolute confi dence in his position 18, As he came up of which Miss An as boss qf Ward to the little trroup drews was- the central figure not even her thorough knowledge of ttie man’s peculiarly insidious hold on the situa tion was sufficient to give her a real In sight into the motive which prompted him to face her and John Gordon at a moment when he knew their indigna tion against him was at its highest. He took off his hat as he bowed. “How do, Miss Andrews? I’ve got some good news for you, and thought maybe you wouldn’t object to my bringing it. Lots 17, 19 and 21 back of the settlement have changed hands since the fire. Maybe you didn’t know it, but I’ve had my eye on those lots for some time. Now, I don’t mind tell ing you that 1 admire your pluck. You’ve been doing good here, and I want to help in a small way. So I’ve decided to give the settlement those lots. I understand you’ve been want ing more room to build on a new hall. This will give you a chance.” He stopped very suddenly and his shifty gray eyes, still fastened on Miss Andrews, had a look of such malignant satisfaction in them that John Gordon wanted to strike him across the mouth. He did not do that, but he did say, as he stepped in front of Miss Andrews, directly between her and Randall: “When we want any donations from you, we will let you know it. Better take your gifts where they’re better appreciated." The man gave Gordon one evil look. “Am I talking to you? My offer was made to the head of the house. If you are authorized”— “Miss Andrews is not going to enter Into any conversation with you." Gor don spoke with a rising tide of wrath in him that was nearer to actual vio lence that he had ever been. But the man in front of him was a visible rep resentative of the most corrupt, vi cious, damnable political system that was directly responsible for practically every dwarfed child, every ruined girl, every debauched soul in the district. There was no room left in John Gor don’s heart for anything but over whelming indignation toward the man who stood for all that monstrous wrong. He wanted to strike some thing. His soul was bursting with compassion for the hundreds of help less lives in that hell of misery and with supreme auger against the man who got his living out of it. “Oh, Mr. Gordon!” Miss Andrews spoke almost timidly. Luella, watch ing every tone and gesture, noted her apparent willingness to let John Gor don have his way. And indeed, with the exception of those three words ad dressed to him, \Jiss Andrews did not speak again during the whole of the strange encounter. “By your leave, Miss Andrews, I will do the talking, and unless you say otherwise I will take the whole respon sibility of refusing any gifts Mr. Ran dall may, for his own reasons, make the settlement. We know perfectly well how lots 17, 19 and 21 changed hands. We do not care to be receivers of stolen goods.” He said the words looking straight into Tommy Randall's face. Tommy Randall knew as he tried to return the look that here was one man who was not afraid of him, come what might. Nevertheless the boss of Ward 18 had been ruler so long, he hud grown so ac customed to regard the methods by which he extorted revenue from his subjects as a legitimate part of the ex isting political system, that Gordon’s almost brutally frank denunciation caused him only a feeling of contempt. “Just as you say," he answered cool ly enough. “Lots in Hope House block are not given away every day. I know plenty of men who will buy them. I suppose, seeing you are so particular about the lots, you will be overpartlct^ lar about who gets them." He said it with a deliberate sugges- rttveness so full of p Uble evil that Gordon was jy^ain tempted, to kpock him down. Nothing but the knowl edge of Miss Andrews’ presence pre vented him. Tommy Randall felt his own power and went a step further. "Perhaps you would be interested to look at my plans.” The suggestion was so profoundly insolent that no one said a word. Tommy Randall unrolled the blue print and spread it out before them. With the same degree of fas- cination that they might have felt In looking at a battlefield during the slaughter Tohn Gordon and Grace An drews followed the grimy hand of the boss as he described his plan. Mrs. Penrose, Archie and Luella looked on as interested spectators, but to them, especially to Luella, the main interest of the occasion lay not in the dirty blue print, but in the expression and attitude of the settlement workers. “Here,” said Tommy, indicating with a much soiled thumb the spot where he and Gordon had been standing when Miss Andrews and her visitors came out. “is ray first building. It is a model tenement, five stories, brick with terra cotta front, all modern improvements. Over here on this corner is to be a sa loon and vaudeville. Back here a—the workingmen need recreation. No one understands that so well as you do, Miss Andrews. Two blocks west is another tenement. Apartments in these tenements, by the way, are already all spoken for. Corner lot 71, northeast, over here, is to be occupied by another saloon and vaudeville. Give the people plenty of amusement. Another tene ment over here; same style and size as first one. Over there”—he shifted the blue print a little and brought the cen ter of the drawing into plainer view— “is going to be a hall which will be used as headquarters for the ward workers, office, restaurant, etc. We need some accommodation of that sort. Down here, southwest corner district, another tenement, and Avitzcn puts up his saloon here on this corner. Then over here another tenement, same size, same style. These tenements will re lieve the congestion now found around Bowen street. I have in contemplation three, four, five, six, possibly seven. Ground will be broke for the first one over there’’—he pointed to the block from which he had come—“tomorrow. I am planning to get everything in closed before winter. Pretty good plan, eh?” Miss Andrews’ blue eyes gazed at him with their profound look of un measured sadness. So might an un sullied angel of light have looked upon one who had denied his fellowship with the shining hosts of heaven. But John Gordon had no history of past defeats and long accumulated wrongs to keep him silent like this woman who knew the utter useless ness of threat or appeal. He was at the white heat of passion, and, while he hold himself in check and spoke coldly enough outwardly, he was really trembling, and Luella began to fear some tragic end to the scene. “In laying out your measurements for the double decker over there, Mr. Randall, you have not made any al lowance for space between front and rear of lot.” ‘‘No," said Randall coolly. “We don’t want to waste any ground. It’s too valuable.” “But how about the city ordinance which provides for a space of twenty- five feet between front and rear houses? I understand your proposed double decker will be four stories in height. The law distinctly says”— “The law be”— Mr t Tommy Randall did not say what the law might be on account of ladies being present, but bis abrupt silence was no less expressive. He himself broke it with a coarse laugh. “Young man, you must be very young not to know that Tommy Randall is a law for himself in Ward 18. If he wants to put up a tenement on the whole lot, he does it. and the law ain’t going to make any difference.” “You miserable”— John Gordon’s wrath flowed over, and he took a step toward the boss. Miss Andrews placed her fingers on his arm as gently and as momentarily as he had placed his on hers, and he stopped us if u bar of steel had been flung up in front of him. Luella, watching everything with observant eyes, saw it all. So did Ar chie Penrose, and his face expressed a sneering sort of pleasure. Tommy Randall held his ground and began to roll up his blue print. “Well, I must get along back to my work," he said as he gave the .whole company a comprehensive Ic^k of tri umph. “If yo« want to buy* uy lots, why, you know where to come. I un derstand you’ve got a little money to invest.” “Look here!” Gordon stopped him. "You say yqu don’t care for the law, but I give you warning that I will bring to bear every process known in this city to prevent your violation of these building ordinance “Go ahead, young man,” said Tommy good naturedly. “I wish you success.” “If there is any such thing as justice left in an American city, I will have it served on you. I will set the wbolo machinery of the law in motion against you.” “Oh, you make me tired, young fellow. What is the law to me? Do you own the courts’/” “No; do you?" “Some of ’em.” The answer came with absolute effrontery. “How about Justice Chambers?" Mrs. Penrose asked the question in a sweet voice that startled everybody. "Justice Chambers? I—I—don’t re call—ah. yes. the new justice in Dis trict 9.” There was a note of uneasi ness in Tommy’s voice that Gordon was quick to detect. “Mr. Chambers is a cousin of mine— a very brilliant, rising young lawyer." Mrs. Penrose again spoke in her sweet, cultured voice, and again every one, in cluding the boss, stared at her. “It makes no difference.” The voice of Tommy Randall rose again rough and assertive. “Law or no law, I know what I am doing. Good day. Miss An drews. Sorry you don’t see fit to take the lots. I admire j'our grit.” And he undoubtedly did. He turned and walked back to the workmen engaged in making measure ments. and John Gordon turned to Miss Andrews, exclaiming bitterly: “If this had occurred in fiction, wouldn’t we have laughed at it as wildly improba ble? Yet here it occurs in one of the greatest cities on the American con tinent, and we are obliged to accept it as a part of our municipal system of government. Before God, Miss An drews, can we do less than vow war on all that such a creature represents? Bear me witness,” he exclaimed, and he was one of the last men in the world to resort to dramatic poses or heroics, "I will exhaust every resource known to man in an attempt to have Tommy Randall obey the laws of this city. He may have robbed us of our proposed plan for parks and playgrounds, but he shall not murder little children and helpless women in these hells of double deckers." They all walked silently back to Hope House and went into the library. “I don't think any one knows the full extent of Tommy Randall’s power,” Miss Andrews said quietly. “I thought once, a few years ago, that I knew, but I don’t. Nobody does, not even himself.” “Of course you have tried to have these building ordinances obeyed?” Gordon spoke it looking at her in great trouble. Miss Andrews smiled her patient smile that told the story of countless battles, of countless defeats, of heart sick failure to arouse a civic con science, of corrupt courts and packed juaies, and the whole city lying in a contemptuous apathy that owned no god but Mammon and felt no indigna tion except that of wrath over the fall of stocks or the thwarting of personal schemes for glory. “What can be done?” Gordon asked it, but had no answer. “Of what use is our gift from Mrs. Effingham? Even if Randall would sell the lots he has bought he would demand outrageous prices that we could not pay. It is maddening to think that he has so cho sen the places for his tenements, his saloons and vaudeville halls that even if we owned all the rest of the district we could do comparative!3’ little to car ry out our plan. The ward clubhouse means, of course, the intrenebment of Tommy Randall in the heart of bis ter ritory. Can you think of anything ex cept a spider who has artfully spun his web and sits waiting in it for victims? O God of the children, is there no way in all this great so called municipality that these wrongs can be righted?” He had never expressed himself so strongly, and Luella, looking at him, had never felt so much real emotion. She was sitting by the window, and as Gordon finished and slowly turned away from Miss Andrews, to whom he had put the question,' Luella also turned and glanced out the window. "Why don’t you put the law on him?” Mrs. I’enrose exclaimed impatiently. “There must be some way of executing the ordinances of this city!” “1 have used every method within my power during the last twelve years to prevent the violation of these city ordi nances relating to the tenement house construction. In every instance, with out one exception, we have been thwart ed when the case came into court. Mrs. Penrose, you have no conception of the tremendous political and social power back of Tommy Randall. It is an abso lute dictatorship. It is true, as he un- blushingly says, he or the powers back of him own courts, judges, Juries, at torneys. All our appeals to the people themselves have been in vain. As the years have gone on my work has grown to be that of some alleviation of misery; it is not a contribution to the removal of causes. The misery flows on. The best we can do seems to be to make life a little more bearable for children, to put a little light and good cheer into these darkened, saddened lives, to alleviate ever so little their wretchedness. Sometimes 1 have thought this was all we ever shall do.” Miss Andrews spoke with her usual quiet Intensity. There was no whining, not even complaint; simply indomita ble patience in the face of everlasting and unrelieved defeat of purposes by a power so grimly fortified with money and social entanglements and vice and appeals to all human passions that it seemed hopeless even to expect relief from its dominating grip on the situa tion. “Do you know Julius Chambers?” Mrs. Penrose asked after a moment of thoughtfulness. During that moment she noted with a gleam of quiet satis faction that John Gordon had gone over by the window and was talking in a low tone to Luella, while Archie, who unfortunately hud seated himself the other side of Miss Andrews, bad the length of the room and the big library table between him and the two at the window. “I have begun to hear about him, as most of us have done here," Miss An drews answered. "Let Mr. Gordon see him. There Is some hope In that direction, I believe. Julius was a peculiar fellow In college and law school. He has got Into his present position, ns you know, through a very unusual set of circumstances, and it would be Just like him to do something. At any rate be has the ability to do remarkable things.” “It is worth considering.” Miss An drews looked thoughtfully at this wo man who had apparently come down to Hope House, like scores of other fine visitors, just to look at a social experi ment. but with ao deeper or more seri ous purpose. Would Mrs. Penrose go any further than that? Would she use influence and social place to put a leverage under a wrong and help over turn it? Mrs. Penrose slowly and carelessly got up and said: “Archie and I would like to look over the house, Miss An drews, if you can show us. Can you? Come, Archie. Oh, Miss Marsh seems to be interested in her discussion with Mr. Gordon. He can bring her along wit h him when they are through. What a delightful, old fashioned hall you have here! I remember hearing my father speak of the time when the Ross family built this mansion. Very inter esting.” She preceded Miss Andrews into the ball and beckoned to the disgusted Archie, who did not dare disobey. She slowly inspected the new coffee room and then asked to be shown the recent improvements in the people’s assembly hall at the top of the building. She liu- r \\ \ “Luella! Can you not see that 1—that you—arc the one 1 lovcf' gered over everything that Miss An drews had to describe, and it was all of twenty minutes before she entered the library again, the wretched Archie scarcely concealing his jealousy and uneasiness. In twenty minutes a good deal can be said to a fleet the future of two peo ple who for various reasons have not fully understood each other and are still conscious of an interest in each other that separation seems to inten sify. “What will you do with the money that has been given you if you do not succeed in stopping Mr. Randall's building his tenements?” Luella had asked when Gordon had first stepped up to the window near her. “We shall succeed in stopping him.” “How?” "I don’t know. But if there is a God, and if there is a conscience in this city and I am spared to do the work God has called me to do. Tommy Randall shall not go on defying all heaven, as he has done these many years. Does that sound like boasting, Luella?” lie used her name so naturally that neither gave it any significance at first. Then slowly Luella blushed and looked down. She had never admired Gordon’s manhood more than right then. "No, I don't think it’s boasting. I like to hear you-~l mean I like to hear any man speak as if he expected to do great things.” John Gordon bent over a little nearer. Mrs. Penrose had risen and was lead ing the way with Miss Andrews and Archie out into the hall. "Luella, is it too late? I have thought —I might possibly have frightened you by too sudden a test”— He spoke hur riedly, then, as he saw the room was empty of any but Luella and himself, he Bi>oke with more reserve, but with more freedom ns well—“Luella I can not give you up. You see something of our great problem here. It’s a gigantic struggle; it is apparently hopeless. But think of the children, Luella, whose lives are at stake. Isn’t it worth a life like yours? I never meant to speak like this to you, least of all here. But the sight of your dear face in the sur roundings has told me again how much I need you. God surely did not wish us to go on our ways alone. The fight is so hard, Luella, alone. I need compan ionship.” This story will be continued in next Friday’s issue of The Ledger. The X-Rays. Recent experiments, by practical tests and examination with the aid of the X Rays, establish it as a fact that Catarrh of the Riomach is not a dls- east of Itself, but that it results from repeated attacks of indigestion. ‘ How Can I Cure My Indigestion?" Kodol Dyspepsia Cure la curing thousands. It will cure you of Indi gestion and dyspepsia and prevent or cure Catarrh of the Htomach. Kodol digests what you eat- makes the stom ach sweet. Bold by Cherokee Drug Co. Why Is a lazy dog like a hill? Be cause be is a slow pup. (Blope-up ) You never heard of any one using Foley’s Hooey and Tar and not being Continues to m&Re Miraculous Cures READ THIS LETTER: ALMOST A MIRACLE. . Dillon, 8. C., Aug. 18th, 1908. , b ;s ;°„ r % feet touched my hips. I was as helpless as a bahy fo? nea?ly twelve mont^ The muscles of my arms and lejrs were hard and shriveled Sp lluffered death Marion, but none of them could do me any frood, K uutiTDr.V.^Ewln(r.'of^filon! ** ^. h ® dma cide." He got me one bottle no symptoms of rheumatism. I regard "RnrcMAoini” w rnomrirnf 0 !! r ,! 1 ?,b 1 * natl u m on t * 1 ® market. I cannot say too much^for it. I have recommended it to others since and It has cured them. <• rr e U*1 u 11 to wa,k in about six days after I began to take totAke ft I could ® ad i )f crut <-h«;8; in about three months after I began to take it, I could walk as good as anybody, and went back to work again. Very truly, JAMES WILKES. All Druggists, or sent express prepaid on receipt of $1.00. Bobbitt Chemical Co., - - Baltimore, fid. ‘For sale by the Cherokee Drug Company. FOR BILIOUSNESS The liver roust be gently stirred so that the bile will be thrown off In the right channel; the system at the same time should be invigorated by a tonic that Nature may begin her work and complete the cure. LIVER PILLS anqTONIC PELLETS VsVSitl£S*V/V\S V. Form the modern mild power cure that completely does Ibe work, without shock or injury to any part 0! the eystem. Booklets and samples free of any dealer, or complete treatment, Twenty-five Doties, 25c. BROWN MFG. CO. NEW YORK AND OREENEVILLE. TENN, For sale by Cherokee Drug Company. “Money Saved Is Money Made” I can save you money on anything in the various lines I handle. You should see my “Superb” line of Clothing two and three piece suits. Pretty line of Straw and Fur Hats just received tor Men, Months and Children. 1 am still headquar ters for all kinds of Footwear—see me when in need of Shoes of any kind. 1 have just opened up a beautiful lot of Negligee Shirts from 50c to $1. Nice assortment of Lawns, Organdies, Piques, Madras Cloths, Batiste, etc. My stock of Heavy and Fancy Groceries is selected with great care and I can save you money in this line. 1 carry a big line of Tobacco from 26c lb. up. TeiincH^oe JsSorglmm. I have it in 5 and 10 gallon kegs and in half brls. and brls. at prices that move it out. 1 handle everything for the farm or farmer, such as Plows, Plow Stocks, I lames, Traces, Collars, Bridles, Wagon and Buggy Harness, Etc. While it is too wet to plow come and let me get up that hill of farming tools and also load your wagon with some of my brands of Fertilizer which you must have. I handle only the best grades and guarantee prices. See me before buying. Respectfully, < ALL COOKS IRE SndwkrifTSI * '/M LARO: COMPOUND ((OnceTried Always Use A AYOj>EY7sAV^^ ' v Gives Perfect Setisfactioii\. FOR INFORMATlbN ADDRESS L. The Southern Cotton Oil Co, ,, S A ( savaInnah, GA. — the :z, GAFFNEY, S. C.