Free The American: A Middle Western Legend by Howard Fast

king-pin in Savannah; Joe Martin had sketched that out once, saying: “I would have stayed. County attorney, state legislature, congress, senate. The place for a big frog, if he’s smart, is a small puddle.” “And you?” Pete Altgeld asked. “Well,” his friend answered, “some big frogs want to be bigger.” But that was not entirely the case with Pete Altgeld when he threw over a good job, a job he had sweated for, fought for, suffered for too, to come to Chicago with one hundred dollars or so in his pockets and not a friend in the world, just a small-town, small-time lawyer, such as were a dime a dozen in the queen of western cities. It was more than that, for Chicago was sending out a call that could be heard a long way, a sound in which the clink of silver dollars mingled with the meshing gears of machines, the squealing of stuck pigs, the cry of many thousand voices, and somewhere, lost in it almost yet not entirely, an echo of the old western warwhoop. Chicago asked for men like Pete Altgeld. When he called it his mother, he was not far from wrong, for it was as much a mother as anything he had known, and sometimes it was not unkind to men who could hold on and suck at those swelling teats. How many days had he spent in his first small office standing at the window and watching the wonder that America had made and which only America could have made. The few cases he got in those days were not enough to keep him busy; he lived in his office, worked there when there was work, and uncertainly at first, but soon more confidently, reached out his fingers to take the pulse of the city.
    It was not a very clean game he was playing; honesty and perseverance had a place, but they were strictly limited; of more importance were the people you knew, the way you used them, and the way you allowed them to use you. Nor were most of the cases that came his way fine struggles of jurisprudence; more often they were miserable pieces of the whole wretched melodrama the city presented. Divorce, or petty thievery, or for example the case which brought him the friendship of Joe Martin. Martin ran a high-class gambling parlor. A client came to Altgeld complaining of a good-sized loss at Martin’s house, and asking Altgeld to recover for him, as was then possible within the law. Altgeld sent his demands to Martin, and when Martin came to see him, he called Altgeld’s client a liar, labeled Altgeld’s action as part of a big blackmail racket, and stated that, the client had never lost a dime at his place. Altgeld liked Martin’s looks, a small, ruddy-faced, loudly dressed, and well-groomed man. So while he took the money, he questioned the client until he had determined that this time Martin was in the right; he threw out his client, returned the money to Martin, and made one of the best friends he had, better than the friends he made when he learned the method of political deals, when he learned that no lawyer has to starve if he climbs onto one or another of the political bandwagons. And he had climbed on. He had grown with Chicago.
    As he sat back now, wiping his lips after the coffee and a crisp little kaiser roll, warm and full of melted butter, he took refuge in the thought that, for better or worse, he was Chicago, this fine house he lived in, jurisprudence, the legal bench, a handsome wife, and many other solid and substantial things. Yet for all of that, he wanted to put his justification into words, talk to someone who would understand all of his position and agree with it. So he said to his wife, “Emma, you’ll call on Joe Martin and ask him to drop around.” And as an afterthought and defense, added, “About that North Side property.”
    â€œBut Schilling is coming,” she said.
    â€œSchilling? This morning?”
    â€œHe called and said he would be here a little before nine. I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you.”
    â€œWhy did you forget to tell