Ragtime: Chapter 35 Summary & Analysis

Coalhouse’s strategy looks insane to most everyone following the story, and indeed, taking over the library wasn’t exactly what he intended. The band had hoped to hold J. P. Morgan himself for ransom—but Morgan is halfway across the Atlantic, heading toward Egypt. Moreover, the Black youths Coalhouse sent to case the mansion mistook the library for the residence. By the time Younger Brother realized this critical mistake, it was too late, so they occupied the library. When the police arrive on scene, Morgan’s aides have already cabled his ship asking for instructions. The police set up a temporary command post on the ground floor of a nearby mansion and as more and more people arrive on the scene, authority switches hands until New York District Attorney Charles S. Whitman is in charge.

Whitman has political ambitions and, although he’s supposed to be spending the weekend at Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish’s upstate cottage, he considers it important for his prospects to put on a good show in this crisis. He sends a police officer to infiltrate the garden, climb up to the roof, and reconnoiter the number of militants inside. But the militants have mined the garden, and the police officer dies as soon as he sets foot inside it.