Assassination, espionage, war, and vigilante violence.
Welcome to Chicago in 1917.
Within this cauldron of intrigue and deceit, live nearly half a million Irish and German American immigrants, among them Irish-born lawyer Conor Dolan and his wife Maureen. The Dolans are among thousands of immigrants marked as “hyphenated Americans,” their reluctance to support the war cry branding them “enemy aliens.”
When one of the legendary Chicago Newsboys takes a lethal bullet from a German Luger during a warehouse break-in, his mysterious companion escapes, and Conor is determined to find the killer. He discovers instead a link between the burglary and the murder of a prominent Chicago arms broker with ties to the Allied powers and possibly the mob. Despite warnings from a powerful group of government-backed vigilantes and a suspicious lack of cooperation from the police, Conor presses on at his own peril to root out the boy’s killer.
Was it a German agent? An Allied agent? The mob? Or maybe even the police themselves by some deceitful plan? The closer he gets to the answer, the greater the danger to those he loves.
To Pledge Allegiance Excerpt
All Conor could think of was the new Selective Service Act. Wilson was increasing the size of the army with a national draft as war loomed. Conor forced himself from the chair and grabbed Dillon by the collar. Fastening the leash, he said, “That’s enough information for tonight. It’s late but I may stop at Scanlon’s with Dillon on the walk to thank him. Don’t worry. I’ll deal with Saint Bridget’s High School, and we’ll continue our conversation about the Clan tomorrow.”
With so much on his mind, the cold air and brisk walk helped clear his head. Conor still considered himself American but supported neutrality as much as his wife. Like most of the Chicago Irish-Americans, he bore no ill will toward Germany and retained a deep resentment for all things British. He saw no conflict in that complicated tangle of sentiments. Until recently, they’d both done their part for the IRB and the rebellion in Ireland through the Clan-na-Gael, but it was too dangerous these days and the pipeline had dried up. He hoped Germany would win quickly now with Russia in disarray and talk of the Czar’s abdication. The Russians would surely capitulate in the coming weeks. Maureen might not. Her hatred of England ran deep and with good reason. But, if she couldn’t keep her head down and her trap shut now, there would be trouble enough to go around.
He wondered sometimes if Maureen felt any spark of loyalty whatsoever to their adopted country. Before meeting Conor, she had known only poverty and injustice here since emigrating from Ireland under horrific circumstances about which they hadn’t spoken in years; the elephant in the room.
It took Dillon forever to get down to business as they walked west on Thirty-Second Street, but he got the job done before they reached Tommy Scanlon’s Saloon. The proprietor was a Clare man from Listoonvarna. Their kids often played together and Scanlon shared Conor’s conflicted opinions about war and about “God’s one, true Church.” The saloon keeper was also an executive committee member of the Clan-na-Gael, technically anyway, as the organization only existed in the minds of Irish Americans these days.
Unlike Conor’s old friend, Dog, Dillon didn’t like saloons; maybe it was the smoke or the racket of fiddles and flutes; more likely he had no taste for beer. Still, the two had become attached, inseparable, the neighbors would say. Their common passion was music. Often, as Conor would unwind in the evening with a whiskey at the grand piano, Dillon would lie quietly at his feet listening, even piping in with a melodic harmony on occasion. Conor tied the mut outside and went in.
In a way, the news about Patrick’s school trouble was the worst of the lot, especially in light of the changing political winds. Unlike young Liam, Patrick was his stepson, but he loved the boy as his own and had helped raise him that way. If war came, Patrick’s wild streak and his lust for adventure could prove an existential disaster. The boy was too much like his mother. Patrick and his friends already talked about enlisting, going to Europe and finishing off the “Huns.” Poor Maureen lived in fear of the ultimate nightmare. Conor had hoped that by now the lad would have expressed interest in becoming a lawyer like his old “Pa,” but the boy was in transition to manhood, strong-headed and would need to find his own way.
Their youngest boy, Liam, twelve, would thankfully never die a soldier. The boy’s Polio caused him to limp badly, maybe even require a crutch at some point, according to the doctors, but his mind was curious and his future bright.
He stepped up to Scanlon’s bar and noticed the folded republican newspaper, The Gaelic American, on the bar. It was hard to get ahold of a copy these days as the paper had disappeared from the newsstands. The front page had nothing of the Zimmerman Telegram as it required a few days to ship from New York but could still be found in every Irish saloon in Chicago, a large number, indeed. The headline announced what might prove to be the last hanging execution in connection with the 1916 Easter Rising.
Conor could put a name to every one of the dozen or so night drinkers at the horseshoe-shaped bar, mainly Irish-born with a few Irish-Americans and Germans for variety. As he exchanged greetings, Scanlon placed a bowl of water on the bar as usual. “And how is our teetotaling Dillon tonight?”
“Don’t ask and I’ll tell you no lies. Quick stop tonight, Tommy. I wanted to thank you for your help today.”
“Think nothing of it, my friend.” While Scanlon poured drinks, Conor took the bowl outside for Dillon.
He stayed only long enough to down his drinks. There were dangerous days ahead—for Conor, for his family, and for everyone who openly rejected the clamor of fife and drum.
Robert W. Smith
Bob was raised in Chicago, enlisting in the Air Force in 1968. Following four years of service as a Russian Linguist in the Security Service Command, a branch of the NSA, Bob attended DePaul University and The John Marshall Law School. With over thirty years of experience as a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago, Bob brings a lifetime of understanding and experience to his novels. His Running with Cannibals is the Grand Prize winner of the CIBA 2022 Hemingway Award for best 20th-century wartime fiction.
The author lives in the Chicago area.
http://www.robertsmithbooks.com
Also, by Robert W. Smith
To Pledge Allegiance by Robert W. Smith
From the Courtroom into the Time Capsule
“What were your goals and intentions in writing this book and how well do you feel you achieved them?” It’s the most common question at book club events. If folks really enjoyed a book, they want to know more. Why did you write it? Are the characters based on real people?
I have written different books for different reasons, but I have never written a book on contract, for example, without any articulable motivation beyond money. As a retired person, I enjoy the freedom to write what I like. So I wrote this new book, To Pledge Allegiance for the most elementary and simplistic reason I can imagine: My old characters and Chicago’s rich history dragged me back to become a fly on the wall as they and their city face off in those tumultuous days in Spring of 1917 leading up to the Declaration of War against Germany. Will Conor’s and Maureen’s experiences in 1903 have equipped them to survive the perils of “hyphenated-American” status as the McKinley Administration moves to quash the national peace movement, especially in New York, Seattle and the Windy City that has become their home?
During my research, the obvious parallels with 2024 global dynamics leapt from the pages of newspapers, memoirs and long forgotten historical records of assaults on our democracy. Within this forgotten history, vigilante gangs under the authority of our Justice Department roam the streets, the workplace, even the schools in search of dissenting friends and neighbors. Speaking out against the war has become a de facto act of treason.
My own ancestors walked those streets in 1917; they suffered the taunts, the abuses, eventually joining the stampede to crush “The Hun.” My grandfather volunteered for wartime service and survived the slaughter only to send his own son off to the beaches of Normandy, a ritual repeated for the next generation in 1968. Always they came back to Chicago.
For all these reasons, writing this book became for me a journey in a time capsule with the goal of walking the streets they walked, feeling the stigma of social neglect and injustice in hopes of discovering the things that drove them forward, the things that sustained them through heartbreak and setbacks.
So did I achieve my goals in writing this novel? I may never know. That is a conclusion best left to readers. But I think I understand this complicated city a little better. People are harder to understand, especially people who died before your time. My best answer is that I am getting warmer, closer to knowing family I never met and to better understanding family I did know. Perhaps Conor Dolan himself summed it up best when describing loneliness, poverty and rejection in the unforgiving city by the lake. “…Sometimes it filters out the pettiness, idle temptations, and vices…of men who have too much and give too little. This can be a mean city.”
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