The Coalhouse Invasion

In Ragtime, Coalhouse’s invasion of Morgan’s treasure trove culminated in the Coalhouse boys being allowed to escape while Coalhouse himself got captured. What other possible outcomes could there have been? Was there a better way of dealing with the situation?

 

Essentially this invasion was a hostage situation. Though there was no person being kept prisoner, Morgan had kept countless priceless treasures. Coalhouse said they had Morgan since they had his property. Hostage situations are very delicate, especially with so many unknowns (size of the force, how far they are willing to take this, etc.). Given the situation, I think Whitman handled it okay, despite not wanting to concede anything at first. However, there were some things that could have gone much better. Father went back and for as a message bearer for a time and even Booker T. Washington went in. Questioning Washington on what he saw was a little bit harder, but Father was purposely working with Whitman and could have been questioned after every visit to give more information, get rid of more unknowns.

 

If Whitman knew how many people there were and knew there was a white man (younger brother) in blackface, what could he have done? There was always someone sitting over the detonation box so attacking was not an option. The entire operation was based around time since the resources of Coalhouse were limited (food, water). If it went on for long enough Coalhouse could have requested food and water but it could easily have been poisoned, or at the very least drugged to make them all sleep. Coalhouse didn’t want to blow up the house, their original goal was just to get the car fixed and get retribution on the fire chief. This makes them much more willing to reach some sort of compromise (part of why Conklin did not end up dead). To add on to that, although Coalhouse himself is resigned to die after this whole affair ends, he doesn’t want the rest of the Coalhouse gang to die.

 

Getting the car fixed is the one hill that Coalhouse has consistently shown he is ready to die on. He blames Conklin for indirectly causing Sarah’s death and did attempt to kill Conklin before that but at the end of the day Conklin did not kill Sarah. Though Whitman did not know about Sarah, he should have realized that killing Conklin just for messing up Coalhouse’s car was completely unreasonable and tried to bring Coalhouse’s demands down sooner. Whitman refused to see this, instead over the course of the whole incident there was greater damage to the surrounding area and a police officer’s life was lost due to a landmine. Had Whitman put away his pride and thought about this more rationally as if this was a hostage situation the losses could have been avoided. That said, the end result of Conklin fixing the car himself and the Coalhouse boys getting an hour's head start to run was the best ending for everyone.

 

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