Bunny didn’t expect to find Paul, but there he lay, flat on his back, with several people bending over him. His left eye was a mass of blood, and seemed as if destroyed by a blow; he lay, limp and motionless, and when Bunny called his name he did not answer. But he was alive, gasping with a kind of snoring sound.
A doctor! A doctor! There were several in the neighborhood, and people rushed away to look for them. From the days of Bunny’s residence in Beach City he knew the name of a surgeon, and hurried to a phone, and was so fortunate as to find the surgeon at home. Bunny told what had happened, and the other said he would come at once; in the case of injury to skull or other bones, X-ray pictures would be needed, so he gave the name of doctors who did such work, and Bunny did more telephoning, and arranged for one of these to be at his laboratory and await developments. Also he ordered an ambulance from a hospital.
Then back to the hall, where Paul lay in the same condition. Rachel had laid a clean handkerchief over the battered eye, and put a pillow under his head. The other victims had been carried away, and the door of the wrecked hall shut against the curious crowd.
The surgeon came, and said it was concussion of the brain. There was evidence of a heavy blow at the base of the skull—either Paul had been struck in the eye, and had hit the back of his head in falling, or else he had been knocked down by a blow from behind, and later struck or trampled over the eye. The first thing was a picture; so the unconscious body was taken to the X-ray laboratory, and pictures were made, and the surgeon showed Bunny and Rachel the line of a fracture at the base of the skull, running to the front above the oral cavity. There was nothing to be done, it was impossible to operate in such a place. It was a question of how the brain had been affected, and as to that only time could tell. They must keep the patient quiet.
There was a private hospital in the town; so before long Paul was lying on a bed, with a bandage over his eye, and his head in a sling to avoid pressure on the injured place; and Bunny and Rachel were sitting by the bedside, gazing mournfully. Womanlike, Rachel was reading his thoughts. “Dear heart, are you going to blame yourself all your life because you didn’t rush in and get your skull broken, too?” No, he couldn’t have prevented the harm, he knew it; but oh, why did it have to be Paul’s brain—the best brain that Bunny had ever known! He sat with a horrified, brooding stare.
But there was another ordeal to be faced. Rachel reminded him, “We’ve got to tell Ruth.” She offered to attend to it, to spare his feelings. She got her brother Jacob on the phone—he had just got home from a committee meeting, and now he must call a taxi, and drive to Ruth’s home and bring her to the harbor.
Two hours later Ruth came running up the stairs, her face like a mask of fright. “How is he? How is he?” When she entered the room, and saw Paul, she stopped. “Oh, what is it?” And when they told her—“Is he going to live?” She drew nearer, never taking her eyes off his face. Her hands would stretch out to him, and then draw back, because she might not touch him; they would go out again, as if they had a will of their own. Suddenly her knees gave way, and she sank to the floor, and covered her face with her hands, sobbing, sobbing.
They tried to comfort her, but she hardly knew they were there. She was alone, in the dreadful corridors of grief. Bunny, watching her, felt hot tears stealing down his cheeks. It wasn’t natural for a girl to feel that way about a brother, Vee had said; but Bunny knew how it was—Ruth was back in those childhood days on the lonely hills of Paradise, when Paul had been her only friend, a refuge from a family of fanatics, with a father who beat her to make her think like him. Back there she had known that Paul was a great man, and had followed him all these years; she had watched his mind unfolding, and learned everything she knew from it—and now, to see it destroyed by a brute with a piece of iron pipe!
It was long after midnight; and Rachel sought to draw Bunny away. There was nothing more they could do, either for Paul or his sister. There was a small hotel a few doors away, they would get a room there, and rest, and the hospital nurse would notify them if there were any change. And Bunny yielded: he must not be unfair to Rachel. He knew there was something unnatural about his own devotion to Paul, the subjection of his mind to everything that Paul thought, the exactness of his memory of everything Paul had said. Yes, Bertie had told him that, and then Vee—and now Rachel!
He could not sleep. So, lying a-bed in the hotel room, he explained it to her; how Paul had come when Bunny was groping for something different and better in his life. Paul had given him an ideal—something stern and hard—self-sufficiency, independence of judgment, determination to face life and understand it, and not be drawn away in pursuit of money or pleasure. Bunny had not been able to follow that ideal—no, he had lived in luxury, and gone chasing after women; but he had had the vision, the longing to be like Paul.
And then, at each new crisis in his life, Paul would come along, a sort of standard by which Bunny could measure himself and what he was doing, and realize how little success he was having. Paul had taught him about the workers, and how they felt; Paul had been the incarnation of the new, awakening working-class. Paul’s mind had been a searchlight, illumining the world-situation, showing Bunny what he needed to know. Now the light was out, and Bunny would have to see by his own feeble lantern!
“Dear, he may get well,” Rachel whispered; but Bunny moaned, no, no, he was going to die. Like a jagged flash of lightning before his mind was that X-ray picture of the crack at the base of Paul’s skull. The light was out, at least from this world; a brute with a piece of iron pipe had extinguished it.
Rachel put her arms about him and sought to beguile him with caresses. And she succeeded, of course; he could not refuse her love. So presently he slept a little. But Rachel did not sleep, she lay holding him in her arms, because he would jump and start in his sleep, his limbs would quiver—just the way she felt when the great guns went off!
What was Bunny doing? Fighting those brutes with their clubs and hatchets and iron pipe? Or back in the old days, when he had hovered over Paul and Ruth, watching events that wrung his soul? Watching Dad deprive the family of their land; watching the oil operators crush the first strike; watching the government tear Paul away and make him into a strike-breaker for Wall Street bankers; watching Vernon Roscoe throw Paul into prison; watching capitalism with its world-wide system of terror drive Paul here and there, harry him, malign him, threaten him—until at last it hired the brute with the iron pipe!
Morning came, and they went back to the hospital room. Nothing was changed. Paul still lay, breathing hoarsely; and Ruth sat in a chair by the bedside, her eyes fixed upon him, her hands clasped tightly. She was whiter, that was all, and her lips were quivering, never still. The hospital nurse begged her to lie down and rest, but she shook her head. No, she was used to watching the sick; she was a nurse too. The other answered that all nurses slept when they could; but no, please—Ruth wanted to stay right here.
The surgeon came again. There was nothing he could do, time would have to tell. Bunny took him aside and asked what were the chances. Impossible to say. If Paul were going to get well, he would return to consciousness. If he were going to die, there might be a meningitis, or perhaps a blood clot on the brain.
Rachel said the family ought to be notified. So Bunny sent a telegram to Abel Watkins at Paradise, telling him to engage an auto and bring the family at Bunny’s expense. He debated whether it was his duty to telegraph Eli, and decided not to. Old Mr. Watkins might do it, but Bunny would be guided by what Paul would have wished. Then he got the morning papers, and read their exultant account of the night’s events: the reds had been taught a much-needed lesson, and law and order were safe at the harbor.
It was the morning of election day: the culmination of a campaign that had been like a long nightmare to Bunny. Senator LaFollette had been running, with the backing of the Socialists, and the great issue had been the oil steals; the indicted exposers of the crime against the criminals in power. At first the exposers had really made some headway, the people seemed to care. But the enemy was only waiting for the time to strike. In the last three weeks of the campaign he turned loose his reserves, and it was like a vast cloud of hornets, the sky black with a swarm of stinging, turning, poisoning lies!
It was the money of Vernon Roscoe and the oil men, of course: plus the money of the bankers and the power interests and the great protected manufacturers, all those who had something to gain by the purchase of government, or something to lose by failure to purchase. Another fifty million dollar campaign; and in every village and hamlet, in every precinct of every city and town, there was a committee for the distribution of terror. The great central factories where it was manufactured were in Washington and New York, and the product was shipped out wholesale, all over the land, and circulated by every agency—newspapers and leaflets, mass-meetings, parades, bands, red fire and torchlights, the radio and the moving picture screen. If LaFollette, the red destroyer, were elected, business would be smashed, the workers would be jobless; therefore vote for that strong silent statesman, that great, wise, noble-minded friend of the plain people known as “Cautious Cal.” And now, while Paul Watkins lay gasping out his life, there was a snow-storm of ballots falling over the land, nearly a thousand every second. The will of the plain people was being made known.
It was a day like midsummer, and the windows of the hospital room were open. Next door, some twenty feet away, was an apartment house, and in the room directly across this space, by the open window, was one of the two hundred thousand radio sets which are in use in the state of California. The occupant of the apartment was one of those two hundred thousand housewives who are accustomed to perform their domestic duties to the tune of “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” or else of “Flamin’ Mamie, Sure-fire Vamp.” There are a dozen broadcasting stations within range, and some are always going, and you can take your choice. This housewife had catholic tastes, and the watchers at Paul’s bedside were beguiled by snatches from the Aloha Hawaiian Quartette, and the Organ Recital of the First Methodist Church, and the Piggly Wiggly Girls’ Orchestra, and Radio QXJ reporting that a large vote was being cast in the East, and Radio VZW offering second-hand automobiles for sale, and an unidentified orator exhorting all citizens to hurry to the polls, and Miss Elvira Smithers, coloratura soprano, singing, “Ah loves you mah honey, yes Ah doo-oo-oo-oo.”
There came telephone calls from the Workers’ party, and from the wobblies at the harbor. And newspaper reporters, who politely listened to Bunny’s indignation at the raid, and made a few notes, but published nothing, of course. The newspapers of Angel City have a policy which any child can understand—they never print news which injures or offends any business interest.
A telephone call from Paradise; Meelie Watkins, now Mrs. Andy Bugner, calling. Her father and mother, with Sadie, had gone to attend a revival meeting. Meelie didn’t know just where it was, but would try to locate them. How was Paul? And when Bunny told her, she asked had they summoned Eli. Whether they believed in him or not, it was a fact that Eli was a great healer; he had cured all sorts of people, and surely should have a chance with his own brother! So Bunny sent a telegram to Eli at the Tabernacle, telling him of Paul’s condition; and two hours later a large and expensive limousine stopped at the hospital door.
Eli Watkins, Prophet of the Third Revelation, wore a cream white flannel suit, which made his tall figure conspicuous. He had adopted a pontifical air in these days of glory and power. He did not shake hands with you, but fixed you with a pair of large, prominent, bright blue eyes, and said, “The blessings of the Lord upon you.” And when he was in the presence of his brother, he stood gazing, but asking no questions; he was not interested in X-ray pictures of skulls, the Lord knew all that was needed. Finally he said, “I wish to be alone with my brother.” There was no evident reason for denying that request, so Bunny and Rachel and Ruth went out.
It didn’t make any difference to Ruth where she was—there was nothing to do but stare in front of her, with that terrible quivering of her lips, that wrung your heartstrings. A picture of dreadful grief! The doctor of the hospital begged her to drink a little milk, and the nurse brought a glass, and Ruth tasted, but she could not swallow it. There came a rush of tears to her eyes. You couldn’t talk to her, or do anything with her at all.
Eli went away without saying a word; the ways of the Lord being not always understandable by common mortals. There was no apparent change in Paul’s condition. Ruth went back to her vigil; but now the doctor gave an order, she must take a sleeping powder and lie down; he would not permit her to kill herself in his establishment. Being trained to take the orders of doctors, Ruth was led away, and Bunny and Rachel kept the vigil.
Night fell. The householder who occupied the apartment opposite their window came home and had his supper, and now, comfortable in his shirtsleeves, with pipe in mouth, he sat in a deep wicker chair in front of his radio set, and proceeded to explore the circumambient ether. So the watchers by Paul’s bedside got the news of the election without leaving their posts. Owing to difference in time, California gets returns from the east before it gets its own; but it was all the same this Tuesday evening, east and west, the fifty million dollar campaign fund had done its work, and wherever you listened, you learned that more voters had cast their ballots for the strong silent statesman than for all his opponents put together. And since that was the thing ardently desired by the broadcasting stations, and the great newspapers and churches and temples and tabernacles which own them, there was a tone of jocularity in the announcements, and after you had learned that Massachusetts was going three to one for her favorite son, you would hear the Six Jolly Jazz Boys proclaiming, “Got a hot little gal in a railroad town!”—or perhaps the Chicago Comet, chuckling, “My cutie’s due at two-to-two!” It made a cheerful atmosphere to die in; but unfortunately Paul wasn’t hearing it.
The Tabernacle of the Third Revelation on the air. Eli’s followers were not concerned with elections, being soon to wing their way to celestial regions which are conducted upon the monarchical principle. They opened with an organ recital, and the householder didn’t care for that, but preferred Radio VKZ, program sponsored by the Snow Baby Soap Company, introducing the first appearance in Angel City of the Pretty Pet Trio, singing their latest popular melody hit, “My Little Jazz-baby, Razz-baby Coon.” But later the householder tried the Tabernacle again, and there was the bellowing voice of Eli, that all California householders love. So Bunny and Rachel learned what had been the meaning of Eli’s visit.
“Brethren, the Lord has vouchsafed a wonderful proof of His mercy to me. Glorious tidings He gives to the world tonight! I have an older brother, the helpmate of my boyhood, Paul by name, and he was brought up in the fear of the Lord; the voice of the Most Highest was familiar to him on the lonely hills where we tended our father’s flocks together. Shepherd boys we were, sitting under the stars, awaiting a sign of the Lord’s mercy, and praying for the lost ones of this world to be saved from the devices of the great Tempter.
“Brethren, this brother grew up, and he strayed from the faith of his childhood, he fell into evil company, and became a scoffer at the Lord’s Word. The love of our Savior Jesus Christ was no longer in his heart, but hatred and strife and jealousy of those to whom the Lord has revealed His Truth. And, brethren, the ruin which this misguided brother sought to bring upon others has fallen upon his own head, and tonight he lies dying, struck down by the evil passions which he himself incited. It was my painful task to go to his bedside, and see him lying in a stupor.
“But oh my friends, who can foresee the Wisdom of the Lord? Who can understand His ways? It was His Will to answer my prayers, and permit my lost brother to open his eyes, and hear the voice of the Lord speaking by my lips, and to answer, and confess his transgressions, and repent, and be healed, and washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Glory hallelujah! Glory! Though thy sins be as scarlet they shall become as white as snow, blessed be the name of the Lord! Brethren, rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”
All through this discourse you were aware of the murmur and stir of a great crowd. They would break into ejaculations at every pause in the prophet’s words; and now at the end they drowned him out with a chorus of rejoicing, “Glory! Glory, hallelujah!” And in the doorway of the hospital room stood Ruth Watkins, having awakened from her sleep. She was staring at Bunny with horrified eyes, and whispering, “Oh, what a lie!”
Yes, Bunny suspected that it was a lie; but he could not prove it; and even if he could, what then? The radio is a one-sided institution; you can listen, but you cannot answer back. In that lies its enormous usefulness to the capitalist system. The householder sits at home and takes what is handed to him, like an infant being fed through a tube. It is a basis upon which to build the greatest slave empire in history.
The householder shifted his dial. The returns from California were beginning to come in. “Radio VXZ, the Angel City Evening Howler, Angel City, California.” The announcer had a soft, caressing voice, worth a thousand dollars a month to him; it had a little chuckle which caused the children to adore him—he went by the name of “Uncle Peter,” and told them bed-time stories. Now he was applying his humor to the returns. “Rosario, California. Hello! The home town of Bob Buckman, secretary to the Chamber of Commerce! Let’s see what Bob’s been doing! Rosario, 37 precincts out of 52 give LaFollette 117, Davis 86, Coolidge, 549. Well, well! If Bob Buckman is listening in on VXZ, congratulations from Uncle Peter—you’re a great little booster, Bob!”
And then, startling the watchers by the bedside—“Paradise, California. Now what do you think of that? The location of the Ross Junior oil field, owned by Bunny Ross, our parlor Bolshevik! Bunny’s the boy that bails out the political prisoners, as he calls them; he publishes a little paper to dye our college boys and girls pink. Let’s see what Little Bunny’s town has to say to him. Paradise, California, 14 precincts out of 29 give LaFollette 217, Davis 98, Coolidge 693. Well, well, Bunny—you’ve got some more boring from within to do!”
The householder shifted again. “Radio QXJ, the Angel City Evening Roarer, banjo solo by Bella Blue, the Witch of Wicheta.” Plunkety-plunkety—plunkety-plunkety—plunk-plunk-plunk-plunk!
Paul’s lips were beginning to move. There was a trace of sound, and Ruth bent close to him. “He’s coming back to life! Oh, call the doctor!” The hospital doctor came, and listened, and felt Paul’s pulse; but he shook his head. It was merely a question of what areas of the brain were affected; the speech areas might be uninjured. The sounds were incoherent, and the doctor said Paul didn’t know what he was saying. He might stay that way for days, even for a week or two.
But Ruth continued to listen, and try to catch a word. Paul might be there, somehow, trying to speak to her, to convey some request. She whispered, in an agony of longing, “Paul, Paul, are you trying to talk to me?” The sounds grew louder, and Rachel said, “It’s a foreign language.” Bunny said, “It must be Russian”—the only foreign language Paul knew. It was strange, like a corpse talking, or a wax doll; the sounds seemed to come from deep in his throat. “Da zdrávstvooyet Revolútziya!” over and over; and Bunny said, “That must mean revolution.” And then, “Vsya vlast Soviétam!”—that must have something to do with the Soviets!
For an hour that went on; until suddenly Ruth exclaimed, “Bunny, we ought to find out what he’s saying! Oh, surely we ought to—just think, if he’s asking for help!”
Rachel tried to argue with her; it was just a delirium. But Ruth became more excited—she didn’t want Rachel to interfere. Rachel had saved her man, and what did she know about suffering? “I want to know what Paul’s saying! Can’t we find somebody that knows Russian?” So Bunny got Gregor Nikolaieff on the phone, and asked him to jump on the car and come down here.
When Bunny returned to the room, Paul was talking louder than ever, but still moving only his lips. The Angel Jazz Choir were shouting, “Honey-baby, honey-baby, kiss me in the neck!” And Paul was saying again and again, “Nie troodyáshchiysia da nie yest!”
“Oh, Bunny,” pleaded Ruth, “We ought to write down what he says! He might stop—and never speak again!” Bunny understood—Ruth had been brought up to believe in revelations, in words of awful import spoken on special occasions, in strange languages or other unusual ways. The doctors might call it delirium, but how could they be sure? Things that were hidden from the wise were revealed to babes and sucklings. So Bunny got out his notebook and fountain-pen, and wrote down what Paul’s words sounded like, as near as he could guess. “Hliéba, mira, svobódy!” And when Gregor came in, an hour or so later, he was able to say this meant, “Bread, peace, freedom,” the slogan of the Bolsheviks when they took possession of Russia: and “Dayesh positziyu!”—that was a war-cry of the red army, commanding the enemy to give up the position. The other things Paul had been saying were phrases of the revolution, that he had heard first in Siberia, and then in Moscow. No, Paul was not trying to talk to his sister; he was telling the young workers of America what the young workers of Russia were doing!
“Radio VXZ, the Angel City Evening Howler, Winitsky’s orchestra, in the main dining-room of the Admiralty Hotel, broadcasting by remote control.” And then presently “Radio QXJ, the Evening Roarer,” giving election returns—big figures now. “Republican Campaign Headquarters in New York, in a bulletin issued at 1 A. M., estimates that Calvin Coolidge has carried Massachusetts by 400,000 plurality—hooray for the Old Bay State! And New York by 900,000—three cheers for the Empire State—ray, ray, ray! And Illinois by—wait a minute there, somebody’s knocked my glasses off—they’re pulling the rough stuff in this studio. Behave yourselves, girls, don’t you know the world’s listening in on QXJ tonight? Illinois by 900,000. Whoopee! That noise you hear is the Chicago Comet yelping for his home state! It’s time we heard the Chicago Comet again—sing us a hot one, Teddy—that little warble about the street car comin’ along. You know what I mean?” A broad, jolly Negro voice answered, “Yessah, Ah knows! Yessah, hyar Ah goes!” Plunkety-plunk—
“Ah had some one befoah Ah had youAn’ Ah’ll have someone aftah you’s gone,A street car or a sweetheart doan’ mattah to me,There’ll be another one comin’ along!”
“Ah had some one befoah Ah had youAn’ Ah’ll have someone aftah you’s gone,A street car or a sweetheart doan’ mattah to me,There’ll be another one comin’ along!”
“Ah had some one befoah Ah had youAn’ Ah’ll have someone aftah you’s gone,A street car or a sweetheart doan’ mattah to me,There’ll be another one comin’ along!”
“Ah had some one befoah Ah had you
An’ Ah’ll have someone aftah you’s gone,
A street car or a sweetheart doan’ mattah to me,
There’ll be another one comin’ along!”
Six or seven years ago the people of the United States in their sovereign wisdom had passed a law forbidding the sale of alcoholic liquor for beverage purposes. But the advocates of law and order reserve to themselves the privilege of deciding which laws they will obey, and the prohibition act is not among them. All ruling class America celebrates its political victories by getting drunk. Bunny knew how it was, having got drunk himself four years ago when President Harding had been elected; he could smile appreciatively when the announcer of QXJ tripped over his syllables—“Thass not polite now, Polly, quit your shovin’ this micro-hiccrophone!”
The householder next door was a workingman, or clerk, or such humble being, denied the royal privilege of breaking the law at ten dollars a quart for gin and thirty for champagne. But he could sit here till after midnight, and turn from one studio to another, and enjoy a series of vicarious jags. “Radio VXZ, the main dining-room of the Admiralty Hotel.” A chanteuse from the Grand Guignol in Paris was singing a ballad, and you could hear the laughter of those who understood the obscenity, and those who pretended to understand it, and those who were too drunk to understand anything but how to laugh. Bunny was there in his mind, because it was in this dining-room that he had been drunk, and Dad had been drunk, and Vee Tracy and Annabelle Ames and Vernon Roscoe—and Harvey Manning sound asleep in his chair, and Tommy Paley trying to climb onto the table, and having to be kept from fighting the waiters. There were three hundred tables in that hall, all reserved a month in advance, and all with occupants in the same condition; the tables stacked with hip-pocket flasks and bottles, strewn with the ashes of cigarettes, the stains of spilled foods, flowers and confetti, and little rolls of tissue-paper tape thrown from one table to another, covering the room with a spider’s web of bright colors; toy balloons tossing here and there; music, a riot of singing and shouting, and men sprawling over half-naked women, old and young, flappers, and mothers and grandmothers of flappers.
There would be election returns read, more of those triumphant, glorious majorities for the strong silent statesman; and a magnate who knew that this victory meant several million dollars off his income taxes, or an oil concession in Mesopotamia or Venezuela won by American bribes and held by American battleships—such a man would let out a whoop, and get up in the middle of the floor and show how he used to dance the double shuffle when he was a farm-hand; and then he would fall into the lap of his mistress with a million dollars worth of diamonds on her naked flesh, and the singer from a famous haunt of the sexual perverts of Berlin would perform the latest jazz success, and the oil magnate and his mistress would warble the chorus:
What do I do?I toodle-doodle-doo,I toodle-doodle-doodle-doodle-doo!
What do I do?I toodle-doodle-doo,I toodle-doodle-doodle-doodle-doo!
What do I do?I toodle-doodle-doo,I toodle-doodle-doodle-doodle-doo!
What do I do?
I toodle-doodle-doo,
I toodle-doodle-doodle-doodle-doo!
Paul moved one hand: and again Ruth cried in excitement—he was coming back to life! But the nurse said that meant nothing, the doctors had said he might move. They must not let him move his head. She took his temperature, but told them nothing.
Paul’s hands were straying over the sheet that covered him; aimlessly, here and there, as if he were picking at insects on the bed. His voice rose louder—Russian, always Russian, and Gregor would tell what the words meant. They were in the red square, and saw the armies marching, and heard the working masses shouting their slogans: they were on the playing fields with the young workers; they were in Siberia, with Mandel playing the balalaika, and having his eyes eaten out by ants. “Da zdrávstvooyet Revolútziya!”—that meant “Long live Revolution!” “Vsya vlast Soviétam!—All power to the Soviets!”
And from there they would be swept to the ballroom of the Emperor Hotel, Angel City, Radio RWKY, the Angel City Patriot broadcasting by direct control. Or was it to the heart of the Congo, where the naked savages danced to the music of the tomtom, their black bodies, smeared with palm oil, shining in the light of blazing fires? For a hundred centuries these savages had paddled the river, and never to the mind of one of them had come the thought of an engine; they had stood on the shores of mighty lakes, and never dreamed a sail. The weight of nature’s blind fecundity rested upon them, stifling their minds. And now capitalist civilization, rushing to destruction with the speed of its fastest battle-planes, cast about to find a form of expression for its irresistible will to degeneracy, and chose the tomtom of the Congo for its music, and the belly-dances of the Congo for its exercise, and so here was America, Land of Jazz.
A voice from the megaphone, raucous, shrill, and mocking:
“There’s where mah money goes,Lipsticks and powderpuffs and sucha things like that!”
“There’s where mah money goes,Lipsticks and powderpuffs and sucha things like that!”
“There’s where mah money goes,Lipsticks and powderpuffs and sucha things like that!”
“There’s where mah money goes,
Lipsticks and powderpuffs and sucha things like that!”
And Bunny was in that great “Emperor” ballroom, where he had danced so many a night, first with Eunice Hoyt and then with Vee Tracy. All his friends would be there tonight—Verne and Annabelle and Fred Orpan and Thelma Norman and Mrs. Pete O’Reilly and Mark Eisenberg—the cream of the plutocracy, celebrating their greatest triumph to date. There would be American flags and streamers on the walls, and some would wave little flags—a great patriotic occasion—nothing like it since the Armistice—ray for Coolidge, keep cool with Cal! The room would be crowded to suffocation, and by this hour nine-tenths of the dancers would be staggering. Large-waisted financiers with crumpled shirt-fronts, hugging stout wives or slender mistresses, with naked backs and half-naked bosoms hung with diamonds and pearls, red paint plastered on their lips and platinum bangles in their ears, shuffling round and round to the thump of the tomtom, the wail of the saxophone, the rattle and clatter of sticks, the banging of bells and snarl of stopped trumpets. “She does the camel-walk!” shrilled the singer; and the hip and buttock muscles of the large-waisted financier would be alternately contracted and relaxed, and his feet dragged about the floor in the incoordinate reactions of locomotor ataxia and spastic paraplegia.
Paul had begun to thresh his arms about: it was necessary to hold him, and when they tried it, he began to fight back. Did he think the strike-guards at Paradise had seized him? Or was it the jailors at San Elido? Or the Federal secret service agents? Or the French gendarmes? Or the sailors of the fleet? Or the thugs with hatchets and iron pipe? He fought with maniacal fury, and there was Bunny holding down one arm and Gregor the other, with Ruth and Rachel each clinging to one foot, while the nurse came running with a straight jacket. So with much labor they tied him fast. He would make terrific efforts; his face would turn purple, and the cords would stand out in his neck; but the system had got him, he could not escape.
Meantime, through the open window, Radio VXZ, the main dining-room of the Admiralty Hotel; a blended sound of many hundreds of people, shouting, singing, cheering, now and then smashing a plate, or pounding on the table. Some one was making a speech to the assembly, but he was so drunk he could hardly talk, and they were so drunk they could not have understood anyhow. One got snatches—“glorish victry—greatesh! country—soun instooshns—greatesh man ever in White Housh—Cautioush Cal—ray for Coolidge!” A storm of cheers, yells, laughter—and the voice of the announcer, drunk also: “Baby Belle, hottes’ lill babe, sing us hot one, right off griddle. Go to it, Babe, I’ll hold you!”
Yes, the announcer was drunk, the very radio was drunk, the instruments would not send the wave-lengths true, the ether could not carry them straight, they wavered and wiggled; the laws of the physical universe had gone staggering, God was drunk on His Throne, so pleased by the election of the greatesh man ever in White Housh. Bunny, dazed with exhaustion, saw the scene through a blur of sound and motion, the shining mouths of trumpets, the waving of flags, the flashing of electric signs, the cavorting of satyrs, the prancing of savages, the jiggling of financiers and their mistresses simulating copulation. Baby Belle was unsteady before the microphone, you lost parts of her song at each stagger; but snatches came, portraying the nymphomania of “Flamin’ Mamie, sure-fire vamp—hottes’ baby in the town—some scorcher—love’s torture—gal that burns ’em down!”
“Oh, God! Oh, God!” cried Ruth. “He’s trying to speak to me!” And so for an instant it seemed. Paul’s one eye had come open, wild and frightful; he lifted his head, he made a choking noise—
“Comes to lovin’—she’s an oven!” shrilled the radio voice.
“Paul! What is it?” shrieked Ruth.
“Ain’t it funny—paper money burns right in her hand!”
Paul sank back, he gave up, and Ruth, her two hands clasped as if praying to him, seemed to follow with her soul into that far-away place where he was going.
“Flamin’ Mamie, workin’ in a mine, ate a box o’ matches at the age o’ nine!”
“He’s dead! He’s dead!” Ruth put her hand over Paul’s heart, and then started up with a scream.
“Flamin’ Mamie, sure-fire vamp,” reiterated the chorus, “hottes’ baby in the town!”
And Ruth rushed to the window, and threw herself—no, not out, because Bunny had been too quick for her; the others helped to hold her, and the nurse came running with a hypodermic needle, and in a few minutes she was lying on a cot at the side of the room, looking as dead as her brother.
And the householder turned to Radio RWKY, the Angel City Patriot broadcasting from its own studio. “Latest bulletin from New York, the Republican Central Committee claims that Calvin Coolidge will have the greatest plurality ever cast in American history, close to eighteen million votes. Good-night, friends of Radioland.”
The Communists wanted to have a “Red funeral,” to make a piece of propaganda out of Paul’s death. But Eli interposed his majestic authority; since Paul had repented his evil ways and come back to Jesus, he should be buried according to the rites of the Third Revelation.
So three days later a little pageant wound its way to the top of one of the hills of Paradise. There was a crowd on hand, and a truck with the necessary radio apparatus—never were any of the precious words of Eli lost nowadays; the two hundred thousand radio housewives of California had been notified by the newspapers, and a hundred and ninety thousand of them had put off their marketing to hear this romantic funeral service. Bunny and Rachel and a handful of the reds stood to one side, knowing they were not welcome. Ruth stood near the grave with the weeping family, having on each side, of her a sturdy oil worker—her two brothers-in-law, Andy Bugner and Jerry Black—because she had been violent on occasions, and no one knew what she might do. She was white and fearful in looks, but seemed not to realize the meaning of the big hole dug in the ground, or of the long black box covered with flowers. While Eli was preaching his fervid sermon about the prodigal son who returned, and about the strayed lamb which was found, Ruth stood gazing at the white clouds moving slowly behind the distant hilltops.
She would make them no more trouble. All she wanted was to wander over these hills, and call now and then for the sheep which were no longer there. Sometimes she called Paul, and sometimes she called Bunny, and so they let her wander; until one day she went calling Joe Gundha. The oil workers who were putting up the new derricks and cleaning out the burned wells to put them back on production were new men to the Ross Junior tract—it is the Roscoe Junior tract now, by the way, one of Vernon Roscoe’s four sons being in charge of the job. These new men had never heard about the “roughneck” who had fallen into the discovery well, so they paid no attention to the unhappy girl who wandered here and there calling his name.
It was not till late that night, when Ruth was missing, and the family making a search, that some one told of hearing her call Joe Gundha. Meelie remembered right away, and they put down a hook in the discovery well, which was having to be drilled again, and they brought up a piece of Ruth’s dress; so they put down a three-pronged grab, and brought up the rest of her, and Eli came again, and they buried her alongside Paul, and with Joe Gundha not far away.
You can see those graves, with a picket fence about them, and no derrick for a hundred feet or more. Some day all those unlovely derricks will be gone, and so will the picket fence and the graves. There will be other girls with bare brown legs running over those hills, and they may grow up to be happier women, if men can find some way to chain the black and cruel demon which killed Ruth Watkins and her brother—yes, and Dad also: an evil Power which roams the earth, crippling the bodies of men and women, and luring the nations to destruction by visions of unearned wealth, and the opportunity to enslave and exploit labor.
THE END
Who Owns The Press, and Why?
When you read your daily paper, are you reading facts or propaganda? And whose propaganda?
Who furnishes the raw material for your thoughts about life? Is it honest material?
No man can ask more important questions than these; and here for the first time the questions are answered in a book.
THE BRASS CHECK
A Study of American Journalism
By UPTON SINCLAIR
Read the record of this book to August, 1920: Published in February, 1920; first edition, 23,000 paper-bound copies, sold in two weeks. Second edition, 21,000 paper-bound, sold before it could be put to press. Third edition, 15,000, and fourth edition, 12,000, sold. Fifth edition, 15,000, in press. Paper for sixth edition, 110,000, just shipped from the mill. The third and fourth editions are printed on “number one news;” the sixth will be printed on a carload of lightweight brown wrapping paper—all we could get in a hurry.
The first cloth edition, 16,500 copies, all sold; a carload of paper for the second edition, 40,000 copies, has just reached our printer—and so we dare to advertise!
Ninety thousand copies of a book sold in six months—and published by the author, with no advertising, and only a few scattered reviews! What this means is that the American people want to know the truth about their newspapers. They have found the truth in “The Brass Check” and they are calling for it by telegraph. Put these books on your counter, and you will see, as one doctor wrote us—“they melt away like the snow.”
From the pastor of the Community Church, New York:
“I am writing to thank you for sending me a copy of your new book, “The Brass Check.” Although it arrived only a few days ago, I have already read it through, every word, and have loaned it to one of my colleagues for reading. The book is tremendous. I have never read a more strongly consistent argument or one so formidably buttressed by facts. You have proved your case to the handle. I again take satisfaction in saluting you not only as a great novelist, but as the ablest pamphleteer in America today. I am already passing around the word in my church and taking orders for the book.”—John Haynes Holmes.
440 pages. Cloth $2.00; paper $1.00UPTON SINCLAIR, Station A, Pasadena, California
440 pages. Cloth $2.00; paper $1.00
UPTON SINCLAIR, Station A, Pasadena, California
JIMMIE HIGGINS
JIMMIE HIGGINS” is the fellow who does the hard work in the job of waking up the workers. Jimmie hates war—all war—and fights against it with heart and soul. But war comes, and Jimmie is drawn into it, whether he will or no. He has many adventures—strikes, jails, munitions explosions, draft-boards, army-camps, submarines and battles. “Jimmie Higgins Goes to War” at last, and when he does he holds back the German army and wins the battle of “Chatty Terry.” But then they send him into Russia to fight the Bolsheviki, and there “Jimmie Higgins Votes for Democracy.”
A picture of the American working-class movement during four years of world-war; all wings of the movement, all the various tendencies and clashing impulses are portrayed. Cloth, $1.50; paper, $1.00.
From “The Candidate”: I have just finished reading the first installment of “Jimmie Higgins” and I am delighted with it. It is the beginning of a great story, a story that will be translated into many languages and be read by eager and interested millions all over the world. I feel that your art will lend itself readily to “Jimmie Higgins,” and that you will be at your best in placing this dear little comrade where he belongs in the Socialist movement. The opening story of your chapter proves that you know him intimately. So do I and I love him with all my heart, even as you do. He has done more for me than I shall ever be able to do for him. Almost anyone can be “The Candidate,” and almost anyone will do for a speaker, but it takes the rarest of qualities to produce a “Jimmie Higgins.” You are painting a superb portrait of our “Jimmie” and I congratulate you.—Eugene V. Debs.
From Mrs. Jack London: Jimmie Higgins is immense. He is real, and so are the other characters. I’m sure you rather fancy Comrade Dr. Service! The beginning of the narrative is delicious with an irresistible loving humor; and as a change comes over it and the Big Medicine begins to work, one realizes by the light of 1918, what you have undertaken to accomplish. The sure touch of your genius is here, Upton Sinclair, and I wish Jack London might read and enjoy.—Charmian London.
From a Socialist Artist: Jimmie Higgins’ start is a master portrayal of that character. I have been out so long on these lecture tours that I can appreciate the picture. I am waiting to see how the story develops. It starts better than “King Coal.”—Ryan Walker.
Cloth $1.50; paper $1.00; postpaid.UPTON SINCLAIRStation A, Pasadena, California
Cloth $1.50; paper $1.00; postpaid.
UPTON SINCLAIR
Station A, Pasadena, California
They Call Me Carpenter
By UPTON SINCLAIR
WOULD you like to meet Jesus? Would you care to walk down Broadway with him in the year 1922? What would he order for dinner in a lobster palace? What would he do in a beauty parlor? What would he make of a permanent wave? What would he say to Mary Magna, million dollar queen of the movies? And how would he greet the pillars of St. Bartholomew’s Church? How would he behave at strike headquarters? What would he say at a mass-meeting of the “reds”? And what would the American Legion do to him?
From the “Survey”:
“Upton Sinclair has a reputation for rushing in where angels fear to tread. He has done it again and, artist that he is, has mastered the most difficult theme with ease and sureness. That the figure of Jesus is woven into a novel which is glorious fun, in itself will shock many people. But the graphic arts have long been given the liberty of treating His life in a contemporary setting—why not the novelist?
“Heywood Broun and other critics notwithstanding, it must be stated that Sinclair has treated the figure of Christ with a reverence far more sincere than that of writings in which His presence is shrouded in pseudo-mystic inanity. By an artistry borrowed from the technique of modern expressionist fiction, he has combined downright realism with an extravagant imaginativeness in which the appearance of Christ is no more improper than it is in the actual dreams of hundreds of thousands of devout Christians.
“Like all of Sinclair’s writings, this book is, of course, a Socialist tract; but here—in a spirit which entirely destroys Mr. Broun’s charge that he has made Christ the spokesman of one class—he is unmerciful in his exposure of the sins of the poor as well as of the rich, and directs at the comrades in radical movements a sermon which every churchman will gladly endorse.
“It is not necessary to recommend a book that will find its way into thousands of homes. Incidentally one wonders how a story so colloquially American—Mr. Broun considers this bad taste—can possibly be translated into the Hungarian, the Chinese and the dozen or so other languages in which Sinclair’s books are devoured by the common people of the world.”