by S. L. Stoner
Sage had closely followed the Portland Council’s efforts in the legislature that prior spring. It had lobbied hard to get nine-hour days for the laundry women but, in the end, the state labor union federation judged a three-hour reduction in the workday would be a step too far for the legislature. They decided to try for a two-hour reduction instead.
Leo too, was familiar with the reasoning behind the shorter reduction request because he said, “As you know, the state federation decided we had to get the camel’s nose under the tent. First get ten hours for women, then get nine hours for everyone—men and women—in a subsequent session. They believed asking for nine hours, for men and women, right off the bat, would stir up too much political opposition since the standard at that time was twelve hours.”
He chuckled ruefully and looked Sage in the eye. “All of which is a long way of saying the Council has unanimously voted to support the laundry gals in their nine-hour demand.”
“Well, that’s good news. Did they vote on any action?”
That question lit Leo’s face with another grin, “Matter of fact, they did. They are going to do two things right off the bat. The first is to raise every union member’s monthly dues a penny for a strike fund. Now, we know the gals don’t want to strike. But who knows what Cobb and his buddies will do?
“And,” here Leo paused for dramatic effect—clearly he had something monumental to impart, “it looks like they’re going to sell shares so they can start their own cooperative laundry.”
“Wow, that’s a clever idea. Who thought of it?” Sage asked.
The red flush flooding Leo’s face answered that question. “Well,” he said, “Some of us have been talking about how hard that work is and we thought maybe we could make it easier on the ladies and still turn a fair profit. So, if Cobb locks them out, there’ll be work for them at the cooperative laundry.”
“And, the Council’s going to do it? Start a laundry?”
Leo nodded. “They’re taking it back to their unions and going to get authorization to buy shares. We figure that we can count on union households to use the union laundry. So, that’s a ready market.”
“Heck, I’ll buy into that,” Sage said.
This time Leo’s response was a shake of his head. “Nope, they decided that only unions and union members can buy shares. Even then, they are going to limit just how many shares can be bought by any one person or union.”
“Sounds like it was an involved discussion,” Sage mused. He’d heard of union cooperatives before but, still, it was a new idea for Portland. It would certainly raise the laundry women’s spirits when they heard of the plan.
“One other thing,” he said to Leo, “Would you let the Council know that the president of the laundry delivery drivers’ union has refused to support the women?”
Leo’s face turned grim. “That L.D. Warder is a pain in everybody’s backside. He’s nothing more than the bosses’ mouthpiece all down the line. He makes every driver negotiate a separate contract with his boss. ‘Course that butt-kissing means that Warder can guarantee that his favorite buddies will get the best pay and routes. I’m not surprised he won’t cooperate. I’ll be sure and let the Council know.
“Well, I better get back to work,” Leo said, standing up and slapping his cap onto his head, “Don’t want to discourage Mackey’s newfound good nature.”
Just as Sage turned toward the door, Leo stopped him with a call, “Say, Adair, I almost forgot. Someone I trust says that Laundryman’s Association brought in a New York City fellow, name of James Farley. Says Farley hires strike breaking scabs and sends them around the country. Summons them to new jobs using telegrams. Since the bosses will pay double wages to scabs, he always finds plenty of takers. If Farley is in town, you and your friends better watch your step. He’s not fussy about what kind of animal he hires. Leastways, that’s what my friend told me.”
Someone must have warned Cobb about the women’s two-hour protest because, when Mae arrived at the steam laundry two hours late, she and the others found the doors locked. The few delivery men still around said that Cobb had been there early so they could load up the finished laundry and get on with their deliveries. That done, he’d locked himself inside the building.
Mae eyed the group of women, particularly the new girl, Caroline. If someone warned Cobb, it was likely her. Even now the girl was coolly observant rather than upset like the other women. Once again, suspicion flared white hot. Just who was this young woman?
Half an hour later, the foreman exited the locked washroom and stood on the stoop. He wasn’t a bad sort for a foreman. He took no obvious pleasure in hectoring the women to work faster. In fact, he spent most of his time looking apologetic and lending an awkward hand wherever he could. This morning, he looked grim.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Mr. Cobb has instructed me to inform you that the laundry will remain closed for another hour.” That pronouncement made, he turned to go back inside.
“Why is he keeping us out?” called one of the women.
The man looked embarrassed when he turned around to answer, “He said that’s your ‘punishment’ for abandoning your jobs last night and this morning. Says he’s docking your pay five hours.”
“They amputated my sister’s hand last night!” shouted Debbie’s sister. “Does Cobb know that?”
The foreman’s voice was soft as he said, “Sadie, I was there with you at the hospital. Of course, he knows. I told him.”
“Doesn’t he even care?” asked another woman.
The foreman removed his cap and ran his fingers through a thatch of graying hair. “Gloria, I really can’t say,” came his honest answer. Mae pitied his dilemma.
They milled around in the empty lot near the willow tree, waiting for the laundry door to open so they could return to work. For a long time, nothing happened then the door opened once again and the foreman stepped out. This time he carried his metal lunch bucket.
“Where you going, Harry?” called one of the girls.
“I just quit,” he responded and strode off down the street, his step jaunty—like he was heading off to a party.
They looked at each other, dumbfounded. Before anyone could speak, the washroom door banged open. Cobb stood in the doorway in his shirt sleeves, hands on his hips. “Anyone planning to work today better get themselves in here, this minute. Otherwise, this door is getting locked and you’re out of a job.”
Wordlessly they all filed into the washroom and donned their aprons.
Chapter Five
He stood and stared. The lunch bell hadn’t rung. But, there she was, coming straight toward him. It was Saturday. The laundry would run all day long. So why was she out on the street late morning and dressed like that? Normally, she wore faded gingham dresses with hemlines a good two inches above heavy work boots. Not today. Today it was a neat, dark blue outfit like clerks wore in department stores—a long skirt and a high-necked white blouse covered by a short jacket the same color as the skirt. She’d tied a jaunty red scarf around her neck, shiny walking shoes covered her feet, and a yellow straw hat perched atop her curly black hair.
He stepped toward a shop entrance, turning his back, aware his surprised reaction might draw attention—especially from her. One couldn’t stand on the boardwalk, gawping at strange women and go unnoticed. That was the last thing he wanted, today in particular. He quickly stepped inside the rundown hardware store. Sunlight streaming through the filthy windows dimly lit its interior. An eager clerk approached him, asking “May I assist, sir?”
“Umm, ah, I was needing a wrench,” he said, his eyes flicking toward the window. She would pass by any second.
“Certainly. Our wrenches are right back here. We have some fine ones in stock. Did you desire a pipe or a buggy wrench?” the clerk asked, turning to bustle away toward the rear of the store. When he glanced back, to make further conversation, all he saw was the outer door closing behind his would-be customer.
Once back
outside, the man from Chicago followed her down the boardwalk. He’d never seen her out of her drab working clothes and heavy boots. For the first time, he realized that she had a trim little figure and, while her features were too strong to call her pretty, she was far from ugly. Handsome was the word. A little bit of face paint and she’d be striking. She had the kind of face you’d notice first in a room full of pretty women—an iris among the tulips.
She’ll be good little earner—wherever she ends up, he mused. That thought gave way to image he tried to ignore, that of a dingy whorehouse servicing the Panama Canal’s construction crews amid the heat and swarms of mosquitoes.
In God’s hands, he reassured himself. Just like they’d told him. All in God’s hands, not his.
Half a block ahead, she paused to speak with the slow man selling pencils from a corner packing box stand. The man from Chicago halted, pretending to study a warehouse window, as if reading something posted there. There were so many homeless job seekers flooding the street he could play at being just one more.
The pencil peddler and the woman exchanged words and smiles before she walked on. Holding his breath, he followed. Maybe, for the first time, she’d go down the alley to reach her boarding house. It was, after all, broad daylight.
She paused at the alley’s opening to peer down its length. He again turned aside, just in case she looked back. She didn’t. Instead, his sidewise glance caught her shrug just before she boldly stepped into the opening. He fingered the bottle in his coat pocket. If he acted fast, that shortcut would be her last act on Portland’s streets. He sped up.
Sage paused in the dining room entrance admiring, not for the first time, the tall straight figure of Angus Solomon. The Portland Hotel’s maitre’d stood at his podium like a benevolent ruler surveying his troops, And, in a way, he was exactly that. This dining room was the most exclusive one in the city, even more so than Mozart’s Table. Certainly, it offered the city’s most skilled wait staff. The black waiters, recruited from the Carolinas, were an attribute the hotel used to justify advertising itself as the most elegant establishment on the west coast. Solomon himself had been enticed away from service in a Carolinian governor’s mansion to oversee the new dining room.
When Solomon spied Sage standing at the back of the line he nodded toward the room’s least desirable table—one next to the kitchen and behind a drooping palm. Sage stepped out of line, seated himself and ordered coffee from the waiter who appeared at his shoulder. It would be a while before Solomon would be free to talk. So, Sage settled back in his customary seat and mentally replayed the discussion he’d had earlier in the day with three of his fellow conspirators.
They’d delayed their meeting until early Sunday afternoon because Mae needed to sleep after six days working in the laundry. Once she was ‘up on her pins’ as she liked to say, they’d gathered in his third floor room above Mozart’s. It had been just the four of them around the alcove table: Herman Eich the ragpicker, Fong Kam Tong, Mozart’s ostensible houseman who was also Sage’s teacher and Mae Clemens.
Sage started off by addressing his mother. “So, nothing happened yesterday? Like Cobb giving the women his response to their nine-hour day demand?”
“He told Rachel that he still hadn’t had a chance to ‘confer’ with the other laundry owners.” Contempt coated her words.
“Well, that’s a lie. I saw him with at least three of the other laundry managers yesterday morning. They had every opportunity to ‘confer’,” Sage said.
She nodded glumly, “Yes, that’s what we figured. He’s just stalling.” She told them about the foreman quitting, adding, “They tell me that Cobb spent more time on the shop floor yesterday, than he did all the whole month before.”
“The question is, why is Cobb stalling?” Sage wondered aloud. “We know he’s got something planned that he said will ‘up the game’. He mentioned it to Finley.”
Mae knew about Cobb’s visit to Finley at the United States Laundry and what Sage had overheard, but Fong and Eich didn’t so Sage filled them in. As he did so, he studied the two men.
Fong was short, slender and, although raised in Canton, his was the narrow, angular face of a northern Chinese. When he’d arrived at Mozart’s kitchen door, he’d wanted an opportunity to work in the restaurant so he could learn how to run one of his own. He discarded that idea once he discovered Mae and Sage’s undercover work for St. Alban. Fong had joined in their missions and been crucial to their success. He was also teaching Sage the deadly Asian fighting art he called the “snake and crane.”
Herman Eich was just as unlikely a comrade as Fong. Yet, he too, had proven himself invaluable. Tall, where Fong was short, Eich was an oft seen figure on Portland’s streets, pulling his creaky, two-wheeled cart from dust bin to dust bin, collecting discarded items to fix up and sell to those of small means. The ragpicker liked to quote poetry, his or someone else’s. Lately, he’d turned sweet on Mae and Sage suspected the feeling was mutual. He dare not ask. His mother could be surly as a mother bear when it came to her personal business.
“If I may give a summation of our understanding at this point?” Eich asked, before continuing at everyone’s nod. “The laundry workers are waiting for Cobb to accept or reject their nine-hour day proposal—he appears to be deliberately withholding that response. Cobb has threatened another laundry owner with retribution should that laundry not join the association’s position. Cobb has also indicated that he has something up his sleeve but we know not what. There appears to be a man in town, name of Farley, who might be a union buster working for the laundry association. If he is here, there is every chance he has or, will, import other miscreants as well. Finally, the city’s unions appear to be rallying behind the laundry workers’ cause and taking steps to assist. The only exception is the union that represents the laundries’ delivery drivers. There is also a new laundry worker, Caroline, whose behavior seems suspicious. Oh, and the decent washroom foreman has quit his job.”
“Good summation, Herman,” Sage said. “It underscores that there is still much we don’t know.”
Fong, who’d stayed silent, moved to add more tea to everyone’s cup. As he poured, he said, “They will attack fast like viper. Maybe many vipers at same time. We must learn all about vipers. ”
Fong’s analysis and strategy, as always, was both sobering and accurate. There was nothing more to add.
“Tell me, Mae, is there any one woman whose absence would wound the laundry workers’ efforts, discourage them from pursuing their goals?”
Eich’s question brought a vigorous nod from Mae. “Rachel Levy is their chosen leader. She’s brave, outspoken, smart, humble and kind. I think they’d follow her anywhere. If she were gone, I can’t say they wouldn’t give up. But then, I haven’t been looking around to see if there is anyone who can fill her shoes.”
Eich ran gnarled fingers through his beard, his brow furrowed in thought. “Perhaps, Mae, you might start looking for Rachel’s understudy and get to know more about that Caroline woman? If everyone’s agreeable, I’ll appoint myself Rachel’s invisible guardian and general observer of the laundry building. That way, if she or the others appear in any danger, I can intercede and sound the alarm.”
“Her boarding house is about ten blocks from the laundry. It stands on pilings in the ravine that runs along Southeast Eighth. She’ll be leaving there tomorrow morning about six. That’s a tad early to haul your cart all the way across town.” Mae said. Eich lived in a lean-to alongside the Marquam ravine, south of downtown, on the west side of the Willamette River.
“Ah, but that is the beauty of these hot summer days. I can bed down in one of the fields on the eastside, not far from her boarding house. As long as I stay away from the mosquitoes infesting the river marshes, I will be quite comfortable,” he assured her.
“My cousins and I will look for Farley’s strike-breakers. Some cousins who work in hotels may know of other newcomers.” Fong’s offer was welcome because the efforts
of “cousins” proved invaluable many times in the past. These men were not Fong’s blood relatives but, instead, were members of his fraternal organization, what the Chinese called a “tong.” The cousins were effective informers because they performed Portland’s lowest paid work in rich people’s homes and in hotels, restaurants, bordellos and drinking establishments. In their lowly servant roles, they went unnoticed by the whites.
Sage heaved a sigh. “Okay, then. I’ll take on Cobb and the other association members. I’ll keep tailing Cobb when he leaves the laundry. And, I will also try to find that union-buster boss from New York. I suspect he likes to travel high on the hog, especially since he has some boss paying his expenses. That means a visit to Angus Solomon,” he said, as though that prospect was onerous.
His theatrical gambit didn’t get past Mae. “Ha, poor you. Fong’s going to creep around town, risking a thump on the head. Herman’s going to rest his weary bones in a field, I’m going to continue slaving in that sweatshop of a laundry and you, poor Sage, will be forced to sit and stuff your face in the luxurious Portland Hotel dining room.”
They’d all laughed—appreciating that humor ended the meeting
So, here I am, Sage thought as he gazed around the “luxurious” dining room. Mae wasn’t wrong in her use of the word. Linen cloths, heavy silver cutlery, crystal glasses, carpeted floor and plenty of light streaming through the tall glass doors from the hotel’s covered veranda made for an elegant scene. Belt-driven overhead fans caught and whirled the air flowing in through the open doors. This was a much cooler place to dine than Mozart’s these days. Not for the first time, Sage questioned whether his opposition to electrifying the restaurant wasn’t but a simple case of stubbornness. It looked as though electrification was here to stay.
