From
The Jungle.
It was quite marvelous to see what a difference twelve months had
made in Packingtown--the eyes of the people were getting opened!
The Socialists were literally sweeping everything before them
that election, and Scully and the Cook County machine were at
their wits' end for an "issue." At the very close of the campaign
they bethought themselves of the fact that the strike had been
broken by Negroes, and so they sent for a South Carolina
fire-eater, the "pitchfork senator," as he was called, a man who
took off his coat when he talked to workingmen, and damned and
swore like a Hessian. This meeting they advertised extensively,
and the Socialists advertised it too--with the result that about
a thousand of them were on hand that evening. The "pitchfork
senator" stood their fusillade of questions for about an hour,
and then went home in disgust, and the balance of the meeting was
a strictly party affair. Jurgis, who had insisted upon coming,
had the time of his life that night; he danced about and waved
his arms in his excitement--and at the very climax he broke loose
from his friends, and got out into the aisle, and proceeded to
make a speech himself! The senator had been denying that the
Democratic party was corrupt; it was always the Republicans who
bought the votes, he said--and here was Jurgis shouting
furiously, "It's a lie! It's a lie!" After which he went on to
tell them how he knew it--that he knew it because he had bought
them himself! And he would have told the "pitchfork senator" all
his experiences, had not Harry Adams and a friend grabbed him
about the neck and shoved him into a seat.
The Jungle Chapter 31