Having read The Metropolis by the author, the characters - Allan Montague, Laura Hegan and her father Jim Hegan, and Robert Grimes - are familiar by name, some more than by name. This work, unlike his usual novel format, is in format of a play. It follows The Metropolis in timeline, in fact The Metropolis is summed up is a dialogue of Allan Montague, but in a puzzling avoidance of a detail amounting to Laura Hegan having cut him - here she says he distanced himself - and it's unclear if it predates the other one, The Moneychangers.
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The play is short, and jumps right in.
"JACK : Built for the proletariat, and inhabited by cranks.
"LAURA : Is that the truth?
"JULIA : It's certainly the truth about this one. Below me are two painters and a settlement worker, and next door is a blind Anarchist and a Yiddish poet.
"LAURA : What's the reason for it?
"JULIA : [Going to room off left with LAURA's things.] The places are clean and cheap; and whenever the poor can't pay their rent, we take their homes."
They tell her they are expecting Allan Montague.
"JACK : It was last election day, in a polling place on the Bowery. I was a watcher for the Socialists, and this Montague was one of the watchers for the reform crowd. The other one was drunk, and so he had the work all to himself. It was in the heart of Leary's district, and the crowd there was a tough one, I can tell you. It was a close election.
"LAURA : Yes; I know.
"JACK : There'd been all kinds of monkey-work going on, and the box was full of marked and defective ballots, and Montague set to work to make them throw them out. I didn't pay much attention at first. I was only there to see that our own ballots were counted; but pretty soon I began to take interest. He had everyone in the place against him. There was a Tammany inspector of elections and four tally clerks... all in with Tammany, of course. There were three or four Tammany policemen, and, outside of the railing, the worst crowd of toughs that ever you laid eyes on. To make matters worse, there were several men inside who had no business to be there... one of them a Judge of the City Court, and another a State's attorney... and all of them storming at Montague.
"JULIA : What did he do?
"JACK : He just made them throw out the marked ballots. They were willing enough to put them to one side, but wanted to count them in on the tally sheets. And, of course, Montague knew perfectly well that if they ever counted them in they'd close up at the end, and that would be all there was to it. He had the law with him, of course. He's a lawyer himself, and he seemed to know it all by heart; and he'd quote it to them, paragraph by paragraph, and they'd look it up and find that he was right, and, of course, that only made them madder. The old Judge would start up in his seat. “Officer!” he'd shout (he was a red-faced, ignorant fellow... a typical barroom politician), “I demand that you put that man out of here.” And the cop actually laid his hand on Montague's shoulder; if he'd ever been landed on the other side of that railing the crowd would have torn him to pieces. But the man stayed as cool as a cucumber. “Officer,” he said, “you are aware that I am an election official, here under the protection of the law; and if you refuse me that protection you are liable to a sentence in State's prison.” Then he'd quote another paragraph."
Allan Montague arrives, and he is startled to see Laura. They talk about the Tammany Hall, Laura lauding the heroic act.
"MONTAGUE : Make him tell you about some of his own adventures.
"JULIA : Would you ever think, to look at his innocent countenance, that he had helped to hold a building for six hours against Russian artillery?
"LAURA : Good heavens! Where was this?
"JULIA : During the St. Petersburg uprising.
"LAURA : And weren't you frightened to death?
"JACK : [Laughing.] No; we were too busy taking pot-shots at the Cossacks. It was like the hunting season in the Adirondacks.
"LAURA : And how did it turn out?
"JACK : Oh, they were too much for us in the end. I got away, across the ice of the Neva... I had the heel of one shoe shot off. And yet people tell us romance is dead! Anybody who is looking for romance, and knows what it is, can find all he wants in Russia."
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Jim Hegan arrives, and there is a disturbance from Annie Rogers next door. Jim asks about it.
"JACK : [Quietly, but with suppressed passion.] Tens of thousands of girl slaves are needed for the markets of our great cities... for the lumber camps of the North, the mining camps of the West, the ditches of Panama. And every four or five years the supply must be renewed, and so the business of gathering these girl-slaves from our slums is one of the great industries of the city. This girl, Annie Rogers, a decent girl from the North of Ireland, was lured into a dance hall and drugged, and then taken to a brothel and locked in a third-story room. They took her clothing away from her, but she broke down her door at night and fled to the street in her wrapper and flung herself into Miss Patterson's arms. Two men were pursuing her... they tried to carry her off. Miss Patterson called a policeman... but he said the girl was insane. Only by making a disturbance and drawing a crowd was my friend able to save her. And now, we have been the rounds... from the sergeant at the station, and the police captain, to the Chief of Police and the Mayor himself; we have been to the Tammany leader of the district... the real boss of the neighborhood... and there is no justice to be had anywhere for Annie Rogers!
"HEGAN : Impossible!
"JACK : You have my word for it, sir. And the reason for it is that this hideous traffic is one of the main cogs in our political machine. The pimps and the panders, the cadets and maquereaux... they vote the ticket of the organization; they contribute to the campaign funds; they serve as colonizers and repeaters at the polls. The tribute that they pay amounts to millions; and it is shared from the lowest to the highest in the organization... from the ward man on the street and the police captain, up to the inner circle of the chiefs of Tammany Hall... yes, even to your friend, Mr. Robert Grimes, himself! A thousand times, sir, has the truth about this monstrous infamy been put before the people of your city; and that they have not long ago risen in their wrath and driven its agents from their midst is due to but one single fact... that this infamous organization of crime and graft is backed at each election time by the millions of the great public service corporations. It is they...
"MONTAGUE : [Interfering.] Bullen!
"JACK : Let me go on! It is they, sir, who finance the thugs and repeaters who desecrate our polls. It is they who suborn our press and blind the eyes of our people. It is they who are responsible for this traffic in the flesh of our women. It is they who have to answer for the tottering reason of that poor peasant girl in the next room!"
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Allan Montague visits Laura at her invitation, and they talk over the interim period.
"LAURA : You were concerned in some important deal with my father, were you not?
"MONTAGUE : I was.
"LAURA : Then you withdrew. Was that because there was something wrong in it?
"MONTAGUE : It was, Miss Hegan.
"LAURA : There were corrupt things done? MONTAGUE : There were many kinds of corrupt things done.
"LAURA : And was my father responsible for them?
"MONTAGUE : Yes.
"LAURA : Directly?
"MONTAGUE : Yes; directly.
"LAURA : Then my father is a bad man?
"MONTAGUE. [After a pause.] Your father finds himself in the midst of an evil system. He is the victim of conditions which he did not create."
Which makes one think this play follows The Moneychangers in timeline.
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"MONTAGUE : The vice graft serves for the police and the district leaders and the little men; what really pays nowadays is what has come to be called “honest graft.”
"LAURA : What is that?
"MONTAGUE : The business deals that are trade with the public service corporations.
"LAURA : Ah! That is what I wish to know about! MONTAGUE : For instance, I am running a street railway...
"LAURA : [Quickly.] My father is running them all!
"MONTAGUE : Very well. Your father is in alliance with the organization; he is given franchises and public privileges for practically nothing; and in return he gives the contracts for constructing the subways and street-car lines to companies organized by the politicians. These companies are simply paper companies... they farm out the contracts to the real builders, skimming off a profit of twenty or thirty per cent. One of these companies received contracts last year to the value of thirty million dollars.
"LAURA : And so that is how Grimes gets his money? MONTAGUE : Grimes' brother is the president of the company I have reference to. LAURA : I see; it is a regular system.
"MONTAGUE : It is a business, and there is no way to punish it... it does not violate any law...
"LAURA : And yet it is quite as bad!
"MONTAGUE : It is far worse, because of its vast scope. It carries every form of corruption in its train. It means the prostitution of our whole system of government... the subsidizing of our newspapers, and of the great political parties. It means that judges are chosen who will decide in favor of the corporations; that legislators are nominated who will protect them against attack. It means everywhere the enthronement of ignorance and incompetence, of injustice and fraud.
"LAURA : And in the end the public pays for it?
"MONTAGUE : In the end the public pays for everything. The stolen franchises are unloaded on the market for ten times what they cost, and the people pay their nickels for a wretched, broken-down service. They pay for it in the form of rent and taxes for a dishonest administration. Every struggling unfortunate in the city pays for it, when he comes into contact with the system... when he seeks for help, or even for justice. It was that side of it that shocked me most of all... I being a lawyer, you see. The corrupting of our courts...
"LAURA : The judges are bought, Mr. Montague?
"MONTAGUE : The judges are selected, Miss Hegan.
"LAURA : Selected! I see.
"MONTAGUE : And that system prevails from the Supreme Court of the State down to the petty Police Magistrates, before whom the poor come to plead."
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Montague informs Laura about Annie Rogers, who killed herself; Laura confronts her father. She attempts to make him change, and informs him that she'll leave him and his money if he doesn't instantly drop the next step in his course of action, which he cannot; Allan Montague comes to know of it, and is finally able to declare his suit for her, which she is deliriously happy to accept.
Funny, Upton Sinclair seems to have forgotten Lucy Dupree! She isn't mentioned as the victim, even, much less an old friend.
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