Summary

In Chapter 17, Barry uses the story of what happened in Philadelphia beginning on September 7, 1918, as a model for what would happen in other parts of the country. At that time in Philadelphia, there were 1.75 million people in the shipyards and factories for the war. The government was badly run and there were few social services for the poor. Republican state senator Edwin Vare was the “boss” of the city. Workers and even the city’s mayor paid him kickbacks. One of his companies was paid $5 million to clean the streets, work that was not done. The streets in the slums were particularly dirty. Unsanitary conditions were frequent in the slums.

As soon as men began getting sick in Philadelphia, Lieutenant Commander R. W. Plummer, a physician and chief health officer for the Philadelphia naval district, had the men quarantined. Everything the men...