To all this, from the buildings far downtown that loomed like tall grim shadows, the big companies said nothing.
But that same night, while I sat talking to those two men, we heard a sharp excited cry. We saw a man behind us running along the line of saloons. From these and from the tenements came pouring angry throngs of men. And out of the hubbub I caught the words,
"They're bringing in the scabs! By boat!"
Past a watchman that I knew I ran into a dockshed and out to the open end of the dock. And there I saw a weird ominous scene. Up the empty harbor, under a dark and cloudy sky, came four barges, black with negro laborers, and ahead and around and behind them came police boats throwing their searchlights upon an angry swarm of union picket dories, from which as they drew nearer I heard furious voices shouting, "Scab!" One of the barges docked where I stood and the negroes quickly slunk inside. I drew back from them as they passed, for to me too they were "scabs" that night. Afraid to face the men outside, whose jobs they had taken, these strike-breakers were to live on the dock, under cover of police. Soon half of them lay snoring on long crowded rows of cots. Food and hot coffee were served to the rest. Then I heard the harsh rattle of winches, I saw these negroes trundling freight, the cargo went swooping up into the ship—and with a deep dismay, a sharp foreboding of trouble ahead, I felt the work of the harbor begun.
I heard a quick voice at my elbow:
"Say. What the hell areyoudoing here!" I turned to the Pinkerton man by my side:
"I'm reporting this strike."
"No you're not, you're in here to report what you see to the strikers. Now don't let's have any words, my friend, we've seen you in their meeting-hall and we've all got your number. Go on out where you belong!"
So I went out where I belonged.
I went out to the crowd—but I found it changed, split up into furious swarms of men, I found the beginning of chaos here. And the world that I had left behind, the old world of order and rule from above, which I had all but forgotten of late, now sharply made its presence felt. For the god I had once known so well was neither dead nor sleeping. Behind closed doors, the doors that had flown open once to show me every courtesy, it had been silently laying plans and sending forth orders or "requests" to all those in its service.
The next day the newspapers changed their tone. Until now they had given us half the front page. Every statement I had written had been printed word for word. The reporters had been free to dig columns of "human interest stuff" out of the rich mine of color here, and they had gone at it hungrily, many with real sympathy. You would have thought the entire press was on the side of the strikers, at times it had almost seemed to me as though the entire country had risen in revolt. But now all this was suddenly stopped, and in its place the front pages were filled with news of a very different kind. "Big Companies Move at Last," were the headlines, "Work of Breaking Strike Begun." The first ship would sail that evening, three more would be ready to start the next day, and within a week the big companies hoped to resume the regular service. They regretted the loss to shippers of all the perishable produce which to the value of millions of dollars had been rotting away at the docks. They deplored the inconvenience and ruin which had beenbrought on the innocent public by these bodies of rough, irresponsible men who had openly defied the law. With such men there could be no arbitration, and in fact there was no need. The port would be open inside of a week.
So the big companies spoke at last. And as I read the papers, at home that day at breakfast, I remembered what Eleanore's father had said: "Don't let yourself forget for one minute that the men behind me are going to stamp out this strike." Not without a fight, I thought. But I was anxious and depressed. Dillon had not come of late, he had felt that we wanted to be alone. As now I glanced at Eleanore, whose eyes were intent on the news of the day, I saw with a rush of pity and love how alone she suddenly felt in all this. A moment later she looked up.
"Pretty bad, isn't it, dear?" she said.
"It doesn't look very fine just now."
"Are you going down to the docks?"
"Yes, they'll want me," I replied, "to write some answer to this stuff."
"Can you wait a few moments?" Eleanore rose. "I'll get on my hat. I promised Nora Ganey I'd run her relief station for her to-day." I took her a moment in my arms:
"You're no quitter, are you?" I said.
"We're in this now," she answered, just a little breathlessly. "And so of course we'll see it through."
So we went down together.
The waterfront looked different now. In front of the docks where work had begun a large space had been roped off. Inside the rope was an unbroken cordon of police. And without, but pressing close, the multitude of people for whom in a day so much had been changed, moved restlessly, no longer sure of its power, no longer sure of anything but a fast rising hatred of the men who had taken their jobs. As at times the police lines tightened and the negroes came out for more freight, thousands of ominous eyes looked on. Standing here at one such time, I saw a negro striker pass. His head was down and he walked quickly—for race feeling had begun.
The first ship sailed that evening. Tens of thousands watched her sail. And a bitter voice beside me said,
"Laughing ain't going to be enough."
Among men on strike there are two kinds of attitudes toward those who take their places. The first is the scorn of the man who is winning. "You are a dirty scab," it says. "You're a Judas to the working class and a thief who is trying to steal my job. But you won't get it, we're bound to win, and you're barely worth kicking out of the way." The second is quite a different feeling. In this is the fear of the man who is losing—and fear, as an English writer has said, is the great mother of violence. "Youmay keepmy job! And if you do I'll be left with nothing to live on!" It is this second attitude which is dreaded by strike leaders, for it leads to a loss of all control, to machine guns and defeat.
With a deepening uneasiness I saw this feeling now appear. Starting in small groups of men, I saw it spread out over the mass with the speed of a prairie fire. I felt it that afternoon on the Farm, changing with a startling speed that sure and mighty giant, the crowd, into a blind disordered throng, a mottled mass of groups of men angrily discussing the news. Threats against "scabs" were shouted out, the word "scab" arose on every side. Bitter things were said against "coons," not only "scabs" but "all of 'em, God damn 'em!" There were hints of violence and open threats of sabotage, things done to dock machinery.
But presently, by slow degrees, as though by a deep instinct groping for the giant spirit that had been its life and soul, I felt the crowd now gather itself. Slowly the cries all died away and all eyes turned to the leader. Facing them with arms upraised, Marsh stood on thespeakers' pile, his own face imperturbable, his own voice absolutely sure.
"Boys," he said, when silence had come, "one lonesome ship has gone to sea—so badly loaded, they tell me, that she ain't got even a chance in a storm. She was loaded by scabs."
A savage storm of "booh's" burst forth. He waited until it subsided and then continued quietly:
"We have no use for scabs, black or white. But we have use for strikers,bothblack and white—our negro brothers are with us still, and we'll show them we know that they are our brothers. We're going to stand together, we won't let the bosses split us apart. And when we read the papers to-morrow we're going to ask if the news is all there—not the little news in big headlines about a ship or two leaving port, but the big news in a little paragraph, that you have so stopped this nation's trade that now its Congress is demanding that your masters come to terms! And as for this lonesome ship that has sailed, if you want to see just how much that means, go down and look at Wall Street. They say down there, 'We're all right now.' But their market prices say, 'We're all wrong!'"
Suddenly out of the multitude there came a high, clear voice:
"You seem to know Wall Street, Brother Marsh. Have you been selling short down there? Who's your private broker?"
Instantly there was a rush toward the questioner, but a group of police formed quickly around him and he was hurried out of the way.
"Get after that, Jim, get after it quick!" said Joe by my side. And Marsh lost not a moment.
"Let that man go!" he shouted. "He was sent here to try to stir up a riot. That lie was framed up 'way downtown! But it is a lie and you all know it—you know how I live and how my wife lives—we don't exactly roll in wealth! But even if I were a crook, or if I were dead, this strike would go on exactly the same—for think a minute and you'll see that whatever has been done in this struggle has been done each time by you. It's you who have decided each point. It's you who have been called here to-day to decide the one big question. Congress has said, 'Arbitrate.' It's for you all to decide on our answer. This is no one-man union, there is no one man they can fix, nor even a small committee. We're a committee of fifty thousand here to make our own laws for ourselves. As you lift up your hands and vote, so it will be decided. But before you do I want to say this. I care so little for Wall Street and I am so sure we'll win this strike, that with all the strength I have in me I beg you to answer, 'No arbitration, nothing half way! All or nothing!' If this is your answer, hold up your hands!"
Up went the hands by thousands, the crowd was all together now and again it spoke in one great roar. And with a sudden rush of hope I told myself, "It's still alive! This fight has only just begun!"
"That is our answer to Congress," said Marsh, when again quiet had been restored. "That is the law which we have enacted. This strike is to be fought through to the end. We are not to be scared by Wall Street or worked upon by their hired thugs and so resort to violence. I am not afraid of violence," he continued sharply, "I am here to preach it. But the only violence I preach is the violence of folded arms. You have folded your arms and their ships are dead. No other kind is so deadly as that. Only hold to this kind of violence, and though they may send out a ship here and there, this great port of New York will stay closed—bringing ruin all over the land—till the nation turns to Wall Street and says, 'We cannot wait! You will have to give in!'"
As he ended his speech, it seemed to me as though hewere reaching far out, gripping that throng and holding it in. But for how long could he hold them?
Every paper that they read had suddenly turned against them and prophesied their swift defeat. Two more ships sailed that night. And as Marsh had foretold, their sailing was played up in pictures and huge headlines, while the statement that I wrote was cut to one small paragraph and put upon the second page.
That night, with the eager aid of strikers of five nationalities, I wrote a message to the crowd, translated it into German and French, Spanish, Italian and Polish. A socialist paper loaned us their press, and by noon our message was scattered in leaflets all up and down the waterfront. This message went out daily now. For the greater part of each night I sat in strike headquarters and wrote direct to the tenements.
The next day Marsh proposed a parade, and the Farm took it up with prompt acclaim. He challenged the mayor of the city to stop it. To friends who came to him later he said:
"You tell the mayor that I'm doing my best to give these men something peaceful to do. If he wants to help me, all well and good. If he don't, let him try to stop this parade."
And the mayor granted a permit.
The next afternoon the Fifth Avenue shops all closed their doors, and over the rich displays in their windows heavy steel shutters were rolled down. The long procession of motors and cabs with their gaily dressed shoppers had disappeared, and in their place was another procession, men, women and children, old and young. All around me as I marched I heard an unending torrent of voices speaking many languages, uniting in strange cheers and songs brought from all over the ocean world. Bright-colored turbans bobbed up here and there, for there was no separation of races, all walked together in densecrowds, the whole strike family was here. And listening and watching I felt myself a member now. Behind me came a long line of trucks packed with sick or crippled men. At their head was a black banner on which was painted, "Our Wounded." Behind the wagons a small cheap band came blaring forth a funeral dirge, and behind the band, upon men's shoulders, came eleven coffins, in which were those dock victims who had died in the last few days. This section had its banner too, and it was marked, "Our Dead."
But at one point, late in the afternoon, some marcher just ahead of me suddenly started to laugh. At first I thought he was simply in fun. But he kept on. Those near him then caught the look on his face and they all began to laugh with him. Each moment louder, uglier, it swept up the Avenue. And as it swelled in volume, like the menace of some furious beast, the uncontrollable passion I heard filled me again with a sharp foreboding of violence in the crisis ahead.
"Why are you here?" I asked myself. "You can't join in a laugh like that—you're no real member of this crowd—their world is not where you belong!"
But from somewhere deep inside me a voice rose up in answer:
"If the crowd is growing blind—is this the time to leave it? Wait."
Five more vessels sailed that day. And in the evening Eleanore said:
"The women who came to our station to-day kept asking, 'Why can't they close up the saloons? They're just the places for trouble to start.'"
"We'll try," I said, and that same night Marsh sent word through a friend to the mayor asking him to close all barrooms on the waterfront during the strike. The mayor sent back a refusal. He said he had no power.
Late that night I went down the line and found each barroom packed with men who were talking of those ships that had sailed. And they talked of "scabs." Speakers I had not heard before were now shouting and pounding the bar with their fists. The papers the next morning ran lurid accounts of these saloons and the open threats of violence there. They censured the mayor for his weakness and called for the militia. Why wait for mobs and bloodshed?
To that challenge I heard the reply of the crowd, on the Farm that afternoon, in their applause of the fiery speech of a swarthy little Spaniard. Francesco Vasca was his name.
"They are sending hired murderers who will come here to shoot us down! But when they come," he shouted, "I want you to remember this! A jail cell is no smaller than our holes in the bottoms of their ships, the food is no worse than the scouse we shall eat if we give in and go back to our jobs! And so we shall not be driven back! When the militia come against us, armed with guns and bayonets, then let us go to meet them armed——"
He stopped short, and from one end to the other of that motionless mass of men there fell a death-like silence. Then he grimly ended his speech:
"Armed with patience, courage and a deep belief in our cause."
In the sudden storm of cheers and "booh's" I leaned over to Joe at my side:
"Why did you let that man speak?"
The frown tightened on Joe's face.
"Because he's one of us," he said.
Seven more ships had sailed by that night.
In front of the docksheds, outside the double line of police, the throng had grown denser day by day, and each time the "scabs" came out there had been a burst of imprecations, a fierce pressing forward. The police had repeatedly used their clubs. Now late in the afternoon a red hospital ambulance came clanging down the waterfront. It was greeted by triumphant shouts. "Some black bastard hurt at last!" There was a quick gathering of police and a lane was formed reaching into the dock. Through this lane drove the ambulance, and as presently it emerged it was greeted by tumultuous cheers.
The papers the next morning said that a raging, howling mob had tried to reach the injured man. Cries of "Sabotage!" had been heard. Two men, they said, had been injured and one killed on the docks the day before. Was this Sabotage? Had the strikers fixed the winches with the purpose of killing strike-breakers? Why not? Their leaders had openly preached it. Not only the Spaniard but Marsh himself was quoted as favoring violence, and from that special Sabotage Issue of Joe Kramer's paper long extracts were reprinted. Were not these three leaders responsible for the death of that innocent black man? And should leaders such as these be allowed to go on preaching murder? Put them in jail! Quell this insurrection while still there was time! So spoke the press.
The rumor quickly spread about that Marsh and the Spaniard and Joe Kramer were to be arrested that day. All three remained at strike headquarters, and a dozen burly strikers kept the throng from pouring in. "Go on home," I could hear them shouting. But far from going, the throng increased until it filled the whole street outside. Suddenly we heard their cries rise into a raging din.
"Well, boys," said Marsh, "I guess they're here." He gave a few more sharp directions to his aides and then went out into the hall. A dozen Central Office police in plain clothes were just coming in at the door.
"All right," said Marsh, "we're ready. But unless you men were sent here with the idea of starting trouble, suppose you leave here now without us. Each one of us will meet you at any place and time you say."
"We can't take your orders, Mr. Marsh."
"You mean youweresent here for trouble?"
"I mean I have warrants for the arrest of yourself, Joseph Kramer and Francesco Vasca on a charge of incitement to murder."
And in less than a minute I saw Marsh, the Spaniard and Joe Kramer each handcuffed to two men, one on either side. As they left the hall I came close behind with a score of eager reporters.
The crowd, to my excited eyes, was like a crouching tiger now, glaring out of countless eyes. Through the solid mass of men that packed the street from wall to wall, the police had forced a narrow lane from the patrol wagon to the door. On either side of this lane I saw a line of faces, eyes. Some looked anxious, frightened, and were trying to press back, but at the sight of their leaders now with a roar the multitude swept in. In a moment the lane was gone, and some fifty police had formed in a circle around the prisoners. Quickly their clubs rose and fell, and men dropped all around them. But furious hundreds kept rushing in from every side, women and children caught in the tide were swept helplessly forward, came under the clubs and went down with the rest, and still the mass poured over them. Now at last the circle of bluecoats was broken, policemen alone and in small clusters were rushed and whirled this way and that. Outnumbered twenty to one, they began to go down in the scrimmage.
Then I heard a quick shout:
"Use your guns!"
After that, two pistol shots. Then more in a sharp, steady crackle. The mass began breaking, out on the edges I could see men starting to run. But down the street came a troop of mounted police on the gallop, and straight through the multitude they rode. I saw the three prisoners seized and surrounded and thrown into the wagon. I saw it go rapidly away. The police were now making wholesale arrests. That deep strident roar of the crowd had died down and broken into panting voices, everywhere were struggling forms.
Just before me the throng opened and I saw a woman at my feet. Her face was bleeding from a club. As I stooped to lift her, I felt a big hand grip my arm and then a heavy, crushing weight press down upon my head. I felt myself sink down and down into an empty darkness.
When I came to, I was being half pushed and half thrown by police up into one of their wagons. I remember a blurred glimpse of more fighting forms around me. Then a gong clanged and our wagon was off. And in a few moments we had emerged out of all this turbulence into the quiet commonplace streets of a city of every-day business life.
In the wagon a voice began singing. I looked up and saw our Italian musician, the leader of those gay excursions onThe Internationale. Now he was singing the song of that name. And as all came in on the chorus, I caught a glimpse of his face. One cheek was bleeding profusely and with one hand he was keeping the bloodfrom trickling down. With the other hand he was beating time. And his black eyes were blazing.
Soon after, we came to Jefferson Market and stopped at the entrance of the jail. As we were hustled out of the wagon, and in the stronger light our cuts and swelling bruises came suddenly in view, two young girls among us began to laugh hysterically. In a moment we were inside the jail and shoved into a striker group that had come in wagons ahead of ours. A grim old sergeant at the desk was taking down names and addresses and sending the prisoners to their cells.
I found my cell a cool relief after all that fever of cries. With surprise I noticed it was clean. I had thought all cells were filthy holes. Still in a daze, I sat down on my cot and felt the big bruise on my head.
"Where am I? What has happened? What has all this to do with me? What is it going to mean in my life?"
I heard a nasal voice from somewhere say:
"I know this pen. They're putting the girls with the prostitutes."
I heard clanging gongs outside and soon the banging of steel doors as more prisoners were put into cells. And little by little, through it all, I made out a low, eager murmur.
"Say," inquired a drunken old voice. "Who are all you damn fools? What is this party, anyhow?"
"It is a revolution!" a sharp little voice replied. And at that, from all sides other voices broke out. Then from his cell our musical friend again started up the singing, his strained tenor voice rising high over all. The song rose in volume, grew more intense.
"Heigh! Quit that noise!" a policeman shouted.
"Aw, let 'em alone," said another. "They'll soon work it off."
But we seemed to be only working it up. Up and up, song followed song, and then short impassioned speechescame out of cells, and there was applause. A voice asked each one of us to name his nationality, and we found we were Americans, Irish, Scotch and Germans, Italians and Norwegians, and three of us were Lascars and one of us was a Coolie. Then there were cheers for the working class all over the world, and after that a call for more singing. And now, as one of the songs died away, we heard from the woman's part of the jail the young girls singing in reply.
And slowly as I listened to those songs that rose and swelled and beat against those walls of steel, I felt once more the presence of that great spirit of the crowd.
"That spirit will go on," I thought. "No jail can stop the thing it feels!"
And at last with a deep, warm certainty I felt myself where I belonged.
Early in the evening I was taken out to the visitor's room, and there I found Eleanore's father. When he saw me, Dillon smiled.
"Do you know where you are?" he asked. "You're not in the Bastille—or even Libby Prison. You're in the Jefferson Market Jail."
"It hasn't felt that way," I said.
"Probably not. But it is that way, and there's Eleanore to be thought of."
"Eleanore will understand."
I saw his features tighten. I noticed now that his face was drawn, as though he, too, had been through a good deal.
"Yes," he said, "she understands. But it's a bit tough on her, isn't it? Jail is not quite in her line."
I felt my throat contracting:
"I know all that. I'm sorry enough—on her account——"
"Then let's get out of this," he said. "I've brought you bail. No use staying in here all night."
"None at all," I agreed. "I want to get back to the waterfront. We're going to issue an answer to this. They'll need me for the writing."
Dillon watched me a moment.
"You won't be allowed to do that," he said. "They're under martial law down there."
I looked up at him quickly:
"The troops are here?"
"Yes," he replied, and there was a pause.
"These arrests, this riot," I said a little huskily."Weren't they all framed up ahead? They needed the riot to get in the troops."
"The troops are here."
"Rather damnable. Do you think the people on the docks will just sit back and take it all?"
"They'll have to," he said gently. "The world's work has been clogged up a little. It's to go on again now."
On the street outside he took my hand:
"My boy, when this is over we'll get together, you and I."
"All right—when it's over," I said.
The Farm that night again changed to my eyes. It was now an orderly village of tents, two regiments of militia were here, and their sentries reached for a mile to the north watching the big companies' docks.
I walked up along the line and had talks with some of the sentries. I remember one in particular, a thin, nervous little man, a shoe-clerk in a department store. Every work-day for six years he had fitted shoes on ladies' feet; he had been doing it all that morning. And now here he was down on the waterfront with only the stars above him and great shadowy spaces all around, out of which at any moment he expected rushes by strikers. These strikers to him were not human, they were "foreigners," for the moment gone mad, to be treated very much as mad dogs. And here he was all by himself, his nerves on edge, with a gun in his hands. The absurdity of that gun in his hands! And the serious danger.
I went into many tenements, into homes I had come to know in the strike. And they, too, were different now. Their principal leaders taken away and their headquarters closed by the police, the disorganization was complete. That spirit they had relied upon, that strange new spirit of the mass which they had created by coming together, was now dead—and each one felt the weakness of being alone, the weakness of his separate self. Blindlythey fought against their despair. I found them packing tenement rooms, gathering instinctively in search of their great friend, the crowd.
But from such gatherings as these, the weaker, the more timid and the wiser kept away. Rash spirits led these meetings, and here was the same hot passion that I had felt back in the jail. These people did not want to think, the time for thinking had gone by. They wanted to act, to do something quick. Their minds were fiercely set on the "scabs," the police and the militia.
Their strike was not yet lost. Their friends and sympathizers were working hard that very night to get their leaders out on bail. In Washington a House committee was striving still to compel arbitration. Everywhere the more moderate spirits were drawing together, trying to work out something safe.
But these people did not know this. They were in their tenements, they were scattered far apart. They only knew how they had been clubbed, that three had been killed and many more wounded, and that now the troops were here. And the more fiery ones among them were feeling only one thing now, that when you are hit you must hit back, you must show you're not scared, you must show you're a man.
And so on the next morning, no women and no children but huge, silent throngs of men drifted out of the tenements down to the docks and moved slowly along the sentry lines.
The chance to show they were not afraid came late in the afternoon. The clear, sweet call of a bugle came floating gaily on the air, then the long, hard roll of drums, and from their camp on the Farm the troops came on the double-quick up along the waterfront. Now thousands of strikers were running that way. From the foot of a city street across the wide open space to a pier the militia formed in two double lines, each line facing outward.Then down that street came mounted police and behind them a score of trucks loaded with freight.
At first I had hopes that the mass would not move. But out of the silence came angry shouts and those behind pushed forward. Those in front were pressed close up to the sharp lines of bayonets, were prodded savagely by the troops. Militia youngsters but half trained, in two thin lines opposing what appeared to them a furious sea of faces, fists and angry cries—no wonder they were nervous. Bricks came flying from all sides and even heavy paving-stones, and then a few pistol shots out of the mass. I saw a militia man drop on one knee and slowly topple over. I saw an excited young officer shout at his men and wave his sword. I saw long rows of guns make quick rhythmic movements, then level straight out, and there were two long flashes of fire.
Disordered throngs were running now. Only a few men here and there turned to fire their pistols or to shout back frenzied, quivering oaths. Behind them a few soldiers were still shooting without orders. Near the sand-pile on which I stood I saw a young militia man enough like that little shoe-clerk to have been his brother. His face was white and his eyes wild, he was panting, pumping his lever and blindly firing shot after shot.
"God damn 'em, slaughter 'em, slaughter 'em!"
An officer knocked up his gun.
That night the waterfront was still. Only the long, slow moving line of the figures of sentries was to be seen. The troops were back in their camp on the Farm. Bivouac fires were burning down there, but up here was only a dark, empty space.
Here scattered about on the pavement, after the firing had ceased, I had seen the dark inert bodies of men. Most of them had begun to move, until fully half were crawling about. They had been picked up and counted.Thirty-nine wounded, fourteen dead. These, too, had all been taken away.
From the high steel docksheds there came a deep, harsh murmur made up of faint whistles, the rattle of winches, the shouts of the foremen, the heavy jar and crash of crates. A tug puffed smoothly into a slip with three barges in her wake. I walked slowly out that way. The tugmen and the bargemen talked in quiet voices as they made fast their craft to the pier. Below them the water was lapping and slapping.
"The world's work has been clogged up a little. It's to go on again now."
The next day three heavy battleships steamed sluggishly through the Narrows and came to anchor in the bay. When interviewed by reporters, their commanders were vastly amused. No, they said, the United States Navy was not governed as to its movements by strikes. They simply happened to be here through orders issued weeks ago. But their coming was featured in headlines.
I saw something else in the papers that night, a force greater than all battleships. As a week before I had felt a whole country in revolt, I felt now a country of law and order, a whole nation of angry tradesmen impatiently demanding an end to all this "foreign anarchy."
"We want no more of your strikes," it said. "None of your new crowd spirit, none of your wild talk and dreams! We want no change in this country of ours!"
The authorities obeyed this will. Bail was denied to Marsh, Vasca and Joe, and for them a speedy trial was urged. The press now held them responsible not only for that first negro's death, but for all the deaths since their arrest. Let them pay the full penalty! Let them be made an example of! Let this business of anarchy be dealt with and settled once and for all!
The work of crushing the strike went on. More troops were brought to the harbor. On the docks there were notonly negroes now, thousands of immigrant laborers were brought from Ellis Island and put to work at double pay, and on every incoming vessel the stokers were all kept on board. Among the strikers there was a break that swiftly spread and became a stampede. And in the following week the work of the harbor went on as before, with its regular commonplace weekly toll of a hundred killed and injured. Peace had come again at last.
On Saturday morning of that week I stood on the deck of a ferryboat packed with little commuters who waved and cheered a huge ocean liner bound for Europe. Lying deep in the water, her hold laden heavy with the products of this teeming land, her decks thronged with travelers with money in their pockets, her band playing, her flags streaming out, and over all on the captain's bridge the officers up there in command—she was a mighty symbol of order and prosperity and of that Efficiency which to me had been a religion for so many years. We all followed the great ship with our eyes as, gathering headway, she steamed out past the Statue of Liberty toward the battleships beyond.
"Well," said an amused little man close by me, "I guess that'll be about all from the strikers."
"Oh my smiling little citizen—you've only seen the beginning," I thought.
What were the strikers thinking now, and what would they be thinking soon? They had wanted easier lives, they had wanted to feel themselves powers here. Caught up in the tide of democracy now sweeping all around the earth, they had wanted to feel themselves running themselves in all this work they were doing. So they had come out on strike and become a crowd, and in the crowd they had suddenly found such strength as they never dreamed could be theirs. And they would not easily forget. The harbor was already seeing to that, for already its work had gone on with a rush, and all its heavy labor wasweighing down upon them—"like a million tons of brick on their chests." I remembered what Joe Kramer had said: "It's got so they can't even breathe without thinking."
Was the defeat of this one strike the end?
The grim battleships answered, "Yes, it is the end."
But the restless harbor answered, "No."
What change was coming in my life? I did not know. Of one thing only I was sure. The last of my gods, Efficiency, whose feet had stood firm on mechanical laws and in whose head were all the brains of all the big men at the top, had now come tottering crashing down. And in its place a huge new god, whose feet stood deep in poverty and in whose head were all the dreams of all the toilers of the earth, had called to me with one deep voice, with one tremendous burning passion for the freedom of mankind.
Once I saw the harbor in a February storm. And in the wind and skurrying snow I saw it all together like one whirling thing alive. But the next morning the storm had died away, and a wind from the south had brought banks of fog that moved sluggishly low down on the water dividing the whole region into many separate parts. And from above, a dazzling sun shone down upon three objects near me, a ferryboat, a puffing tug, and a tramp which lay at anchor, shone so brightly on these three they seemed alone, with nothing but mist all about them.
So it was now for a time with me. The strike, which had so suddenly drawn me into its whirling crowd-life, now as suddenly dropped away. And personal troubles piled one on the other. In place of that mass of thousands, I saw only a few people I loved, and I saw them so intensely that for a time we were quite alone, with nothing but mist all around us.
Sue sent for me one morning and I went over to our house. I was startled by the change in her face. It looked not only tired, it looked so disillusioned, done, so through with all the absorbing ideas and warm enthusiasms that had given it abundant life.
"I'm not going to marry Joe Kramer," she said. "And I want you to tell him so."
I stared at her blankly.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Are you?" There was just a worn shadow of her old smile.
"I don't know why I said that," I replied. "My head's rather dull this morning. All right, Sis, I'll tell him." Still I watched her pityingly. Poor old Sue. What a crash in her life.
"I'd like you to tell him the whole truth," my sister went on sharply, "just why I've decided as I have. Don't say it's because of father. When I wanted Joe, Dad didn't count, he was nothing to me but a back number. But Idon'twant him now—Joe, I mean—I don't love him any more. If I went to him to-day in his cell and said I'd stick by him no matter what happened because he was the man I loved—I'd be lying—that wouldn't be me. The real me is a much smaller person than that. I don't love Joe because I've been scared—because he's in a common jail—waiting to be tried for murder." Her face contracted slightly. "I suppose it's the way I've been brought up."
"But Sue——"
"Don't stop me, Billy, let me talk!" And she talked on intensely, so absorbed in this fierce impulsive confession that she seemed to forget I was there. "I've been thinking what's to become of me. I've been thinking about all the things I've been in, and none seem real any longer—I wanted a thrill and I got it—that's all. Then I met Joe and I got it again, I got a thrill out of all his life and the big things it was made of. I got agreatthrill out of the strike. Don't you remember how I talked three weeks ago when you were here? Dad was the Old and I was the New. I saw everything beginning. I read Walt Whitman's 'Open Road' and I felt like Joe's 'camarado.' Well, and I kept on like that. And like a little idiot I couldn't keep it to myself, I went and told some of my friends. That's what's really the hardest now, what hurts the most—I told my friends. I posed asa young Joan of Arc. I was going to marry, give up everything, chuck myself into this fight for the people, into revolution! Thrills, I tell you, thrills and thrills!
"But then Joe got arrested. I knew he was in a cell in the Tombs, in Murderers' Row. And that drove all the thrills away. That was real. Dad made it worse. He talked about the coming trial, Sing Sing and the death house there. One morning he tried to read to me an account of an execution. I ran away, but I came back and read it myself, I read all the hideous details right up to the iron chair. And just because there was a chance of Joe's being like that, all at once I stopped loving him. Not just because I was frightened, it wasn't so simple as a scare. It was something inside of me shuddering, and saying 'how revolting!' I tried to shake it out of me, I tried to keep on loving him! But I couldn't shake it out of me! Joe had become—revolting, too! It's because of the way I've been brought up and because of the way I've always lived! I can't stand what's real—if it's ugly! That's me!"
She broke off and looked down. I came and sat beside her, and took her cold, quivering hands in mine:
"I guess Iamsorry, Sue old girl——"
"Don't be," she retorted. "I'm too sorry for myself as it is! That's another part of me!" Again she broke off with a hard little laugh. "Let's forget me for a minute. What has this sweet strike done toyou?"
"I'm not sure yet," I answered. "Where is Dad?"
"Up in his room."
"Tell me about him," I said. Sue drew an anxious little breath:
"Oh Billy, he has been getting so queer. It has all been such a strain on his mind. Every day he kept reading the news of the strike—and some days he would stamp and rage about till I was afraid to be with him. He talked about that death cell until I thought that I'd go mad.Sometimes when we were talking I thought that we had both gone mad."
I went upstairs and found him in a chair by the window. With unnatural, clumsy motions he rose and came to meet me.
"I'm all right, my boy." His voice had a mumbling quality and I noticed the strangeness in his eyes. "I'm all right. I'm glad to see you." Then his face clouded and hardened a little, and he tried to speak to me sternly:
"I'm glad you're clean out of that strike and its notions—glad you've come to your senses," he said. "You're lucky in having such a wife. She's been over here often lately—and she's worth a dozen like you and Sue. Have you seen Sue?"
"Yes."
"Well,she'sall right."
I said nothing to this, and he shot a sidelong look at me:
"I had quite a time, my boy—I had to keep right at her." Another quick look. "I suppose she's told you how I went at her."
"Never mind, Dad, it's over now."
"I had to make her feel the noose, I mean the chair," he went on in those thick, mumbling tones, "and that she'd have to choose between that and a decent Christian home—like the home her mother had. She was a wonderful woman, your mother," he wandered off abruptly. "If she'd only understood me—seen what it was I was trying to do—for American shipping—Yankee sails!" He sank down in his chair exhausted, and I noticed he was breathing hard. "I'm all right, my boy, I'm quite all right——"
With a sudden rush of pity and of love and deep alarm, I bent gently over him:
"Of course you are—why Dad, old boy—just take it easy—quiet, you know—we're going to pull right out of this——"
The tears welled suddenly up in his eyes:
"I'm lonely, boy—I'm glad you're here!"
Presently I went down to Sue:
"When is the doctor coming next?"
"Not till this afternoon," she said.
"I'll be home to-night for supper. Phone me what he says."
"All right—where are you going now? To Joe?"
"Yes, Sis," I said.
She turned and went quickly out of the room.
In the Tombs, when Joe was brought out to me, I saw that he, too, had been through a deep change. He had been quiet enough all through the strike, except for that one big speech of his—but he had beentenselyquiet. Now the tension appeared to be gone. He seemed wrapped up in thoughts of his own.
"Have you seen Sue?" he asked me at once.
"Yes Joe, I've just been with her."
"What did she say?"
I began to tell him.
"I knew it," he interrupted me. "I made up my mind to this the first night I spent here in my cell. It couldn't have happened, it wouldn't have worked. Tell her I understand all about it, tell her that I'm sure she's right. Tell her—it's funny but it's true—tell her this infernal pen has worked the same way on me as on her. I mean it has made me not want her now. I feel sorry for her and that's all—deeply and infernally sorry. I was a fool to have let her into it. My only excuse for being so blind was that damned fever that left me so weak. At any other time I would have seen what a farce it was. I wasn't booked for a life like that. It doesn't fit in with this job of mine." He smiled a little bitterly. "I used to say," he continued, "that if I had time I'd like to do something yellow enough so that I'd be cut off for life from any chance of church bells. And I guess I'vedone it this time—no danger of getting respectable now."
"How do you look at this, Joe?" I asked him. "What do you think they'll do to you?"
"I don't know." Again he smiled slightly and wearily. "And I can't say Icarea damn. I feel like those fellows over in Russia, the revolutionist chaps I met, who didn't know if they'd croak in a month and didn't care one way or the other. But as a matter of fact," he added, "I think this time it's mainly bluff. They wanted to get us away from the crowd and keep us away while they broke the strike. Now that it's over you'll probably find they'll let us all off with light sentences. Of course the murder charge can't hold.... By the way," he added, smiling, "I hear they got you, too."
"Yes," I answered, smiling back. "The Judge fined me ten dollars and let me go. He said he hoped this would be a lesson."
Joe looked at me curiously:
"How much of a lesson, Kid, do you think this strike has been to you?"
"Quite a big one, Joe," I said.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"I haven't decided."
"How is Eleanore taking it all?"
"She's not saying much and neither am I. We're both doing some thinking before we talk."
"You're a quiet pair," J. K. remarked. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd nose along quite a distance before you get through—I mean in our direction."
"That's what we're thinking about," I replied. Again he turned to me curiously:
"You two can think together—without talking—can't you?"
"Yes—sometimes we can."
"I never got that far with Sue." All at once he came closer, his whole manner changed: "Say, Bill—tell herall I've said—will you? I'm sorry! Honest Injun! Make her feel how damnably sorry I am that I ever let her in for this!"
When I left him I went off for a walk, for I wanted to be alone awhile. I wondered just how sure Joe felt about his fast approaching trial. It seemed to me that he had a good chance of going where Sue had pictured him.
That evening I learned that my father was worse, and I spent the next day by his bedside. He had had a stroke in the morning and was not expected to live through the night.
I found him mumbling fast to himself and making slight, restless efforts to move. At last he grew quiet, and presently his half-open gnarled right hand came groping out over the covers. I took it in mine, and at once I felt it close on mine with a quick, convulsive strength. His hand was moist, his eyes saw nothing. I sat there thus for a long time. Then suddenly,
"Good boy," he muttered thickly. "Good boy—good—always good to your mother!" He kept repeating this over and over, with pauses between, then again with an effort, fiercely, as though from a distance his mind were set on getting this message over to me, over from an age that was dying into an age that was coming to life, a last good-by to hold me back.
Soon he was only mumbling figures, names of ships and distant ports, freight consignments. Now and then his finger would go to his lips, as he turned phantom pages in feverish haste. Again, in gasping whispers, he would break out into arguments for the protection of Yankee sails.
"Protection!" he would whisper. "Damn fools not to see it! Discriminating tariffs! Subsidies! A Navy!... Don't forget the Navy! Remember War of 1812!... Nothing without fighting!"
"Nothing without fighting." He had been learning this all his life—and after he had said it now, he stoppedspeaking and grew still. Little by little his movements grew weaker. Finally he lay like a log, and the doctor said he would be so until dead.
I went up to my old bedroom and sat down by the open window. It was a beautiful night. From the garden below, where long ago I had felt such shivers over the ocean and heathen lands, a graceful poplar rose. Behind it from the river the huge, dim funnel of a steamer rose over the roof of the warehouse. Overhead to the right swept the Great Bridge of my childhood. But behind it were other bridges now, and off across the river the buildings of Manhattan loomed in loftier masses to their apex in the tower of lights. How changed it all was since I was a boy. And yet how like. On the harbor still the hurrying lights, yellow, blue and green and red. The same deep, restless hum of labor. And from the waterfront below the same puffs and coughs of engines, the same sharp toots and treble pantings, the same raucous whine of wheels.
There came a rough salt breeze from the sea, and it made me think of billowy sails and the days of my father's boundless youth, and of the harbor of long ago that had so gripped and molded him—as I felt mine now molding me. And for what? I asked. To what were we both adventuring—out of these little harbors of ours?
Toward dawn a tramp came down the river. Dimly as she passed below I could see how old she was, how worn and battered by the waves. A desolate and lonely craft, the smoke draggled out of her funnel. I watched her steam into the Upper Bay and pass around Governor's Island. I watched till in the first raw light of day I could see only her smoke through the Narrows. Then even this became but a blur, which crept away in that strange dawn light out into the wide ocean.
A few hours later my father died.
One by one, from different parts of the port, the queerest old men came into our house on the day of my father'sfuneral—men who still believed in American ships, still thrilled to the dream of the Stars and Stripes wherever there is an ocean breeze; men who still believed in ships that had sails and moved along with the force of the winds; who still believed that cabin boys could rise by the sheer force of their wills to be powers in the ocean world; men who had for the common crowd only the iron discipline, the old brute tyranny of the sea. These strange old men stood with their white heads bowed, a little group, looking down into my father's grave.
"He was a magnificent fighter," I heard one of them say as we left. "He wrecked his own business for what he believed in. How many of us would go that far?"
From the grave Sue came to our apartment. Eleanore had packed her trunk.
"Sue must keep out of that dreary old house," she told me. "Luckily she has a friend out of town whom she's going to visit. When she comes back we must have the house closed, and I hope she'll live with us for a while."
We talked of this that evening, for Sue seemed to want to talk. We stayed up until late and planned and planned. Many different kinds of work for Sue were taken up and discussed by us all. She surprised me by the brave effort she made.
"I've got to want something—that's sure," she said. "I can't just yet. I've wanted so many things so hard, one after the other for nearly eight years, that now I feel as though I'd used up all the wanting that I've got. But of course I haven't. If I have I'm a back number—and I'd a great deal rather be dead. So don't you people worry. Depend upon it, in less than a year I'll be all wrapped up in something new. I'll be tremendously enthused," she ended, smiling wearily.
She agreed with me that the house be sold, and after she had left us I made every effort to sell it at once. I found it was heavily mortgaged now, but when at last Imade a sale there was enough to clear off all debts and leave about two thousand dollars for Sue. She would have at least something to start on.
As we set about to dismantle the house, various things thickly covered with dust came out of closets, drawers and shelves. And these objects brought near again to me my mother's life and that hunger of hers for the things that were "fine," that hospitable door which had waited for friends from the handsome old homes all around us. These homes all along the street had now lost their quiet dignity. Some were empty and marked for sale, others that had already been sold were cheerless boarding houses. The most handsome home of all, with its ample yard where I used to play, was gone, and in its place rose an apartment building which made the old houses all seem dwarfs.
Her world and his were both slipping away. Her life and his, her creed and his, were little now but memories—memories which in Sue and in me must take their chance with the warm, new feelings, the cravings, hopes, loves, doubts and dreams of this absorbing world of our own. For the harbor was still molding lives.
How anxious Eleanore seemed to be through, I thought a little bitterly.
But Eleanore had good reason. When at last the house had been closed, back at home one evening she told me what she had known for weeks but had kept to herself until I should be free from other things. We were to have another child.
The news was a shock, it frightened me. "Where's the money to come from?" flashed into my mind. In an instant it had passed and I was holding her tight in my arms. But she must have caught that look in my face, for I could feel her trembling.
"The same funny old world, my dearest one," she whispered, "with its same old trick of starting out. But oh my dear, in spite of it all—or because of it all—how good it is to be alive! More than ever—a hundred times!"
"You darling girl," I whispered back, "you're the bravest one of all!"
Her father came to us the next night, and after Eleanore went to bed he and I talked long together. He looked worn and tired, but the same quiet affection was in his eyes.
"Let's see where we are," he said, "and what we've got to go on. To begin with, thank God, you and I are still friends. Then there's Eleanore and your small son and the smaller one that's coming. We're just starting in on a long, hot summer. She must of course be got out of town. How much have you in the bank?"
"Thirty-seven dollars," I said.
He looked thoughtfully at his cigar.
"You've never yet taken money from me," he continued, after a moment. "Still, you'd do it if you had to—because this isouraffair. But unluckily, just at present, I'm nearly as high and dry as yourself. The men who have backed my harbor work have lost so heavily in the strike that they feel now they must recoup. I've already proposed to them a plan which they have as good as accepted. They'll provide enough money to pay the rent of a smaller office. I can borrow enough to pay half my men. The rest I'll have to let go for a time."
"Andyoursalary?" I ventured.
"Is left out," he answered. "I mean it is if I stay here. I want to stay here, I want to put through this job if I can, you see it has taken six years of my life. And besides," he added wistfully, "in a very few weeks they'll finish the work at Panama—and the ships of the world will begin to crowd into a harbor that isn't ready here—we haven't even completed our plans. It's not a good time to stop our work. But of course if you and Eleanore get into a hole that is serious—as I said before and you'll agree, you'd have to let me help you—even if to do it I should have to give up my work for a while and take up something that will pay."
"No sir!"
"Yes sir," he replied. "Unless you can earn enough money yourself."
We looked at each other a moment.
"You know how to bring pressure, don't you?" I said.
"Yes, I'm bringing pressure. I want to see you go on as before."
"That won't be easy," I remarked.
"Shall we talk it over a little?"
"Yes."
"All right," he said. "Since that talk we had together the day Eleanore's first child was born, what a splendid start you made in your writing. You were not only earning big pay, you were doing fine work, work that wasleading somewhere. I could see you learning to use your tools, getting a broad, sane view of life—and of yourself—training yourself and building yourself. You were right on the threshold of big results. But then your friend Kramer came along. He had not built himself, he had chucked himself over, neglected himself, his health included. So he took typhoid and came to your home. His being there was a drain on your pocket and a heavy strain on your nerves. He got you unsettled. Then came the strike. And what has it done? It has taken your time, health, money. It has left two good workmen stranded—you and me. And I don't see that it's done the crowd any good. What has the strike given you in return for all it has taken away?"
"A deeper view of life," I said. "I saw something in that strike so much bigger than Marsh or Joe or that crude organization of theirs—something deep down in the people themselves that rises up out of each one of them the minute they get together. And I believe that power has such possibilities that when it comes into full life not all the police and battleships and armies on earth can stop it."
The look in Dillon's eyes was more anxious than impatient.
"Billy," he said, "I've lived a good deal closer than you have to the big jobs of this world. And I know those jobs are to get still bigger, even more complex. They're to require even bigger men." I smiled a bit impatiently.
"Still the one man in a million," I said.
"Yes," said Dillon, "his day isn't over, it has only just begun. He may have his bad points—I'll admit he has—but compared to all the little men his vision is wide and it goes deep. And if they'll only leave him alone and give him a chance, he'll take me and the other engineers, and the chemists and doctors and lawyers, and he'll make a world—he's doing it now—where ignorance and poverty will in time be wiped completely out."
"They're not going to leave him alone," I said. "I'm sure of that now. Whether he grafts or whether he's honest won't make any difference. The crowd is going to pull him down. Because it's not democracy. The trouble with all your big men at the top is that they're trying to do for the crowd what the crowd wants to do for itself. And it may not do it half so well—but all the time it will be learning—gathering closer every year—and getting a spirit compared to which your whole clean clear efficiency world is only cold and empty!"
He must have caught the look in my eyes.
"You're thinking that I'm getting old," he said softly. "I and all the men like me who have been building up this country. You're thinking that we're all following on after your father into the past." As I looked back I felt suddenly humble. Dillon's voice grew appealing and kind. "But you belong with us, Billy," he said. "It was under us you won your start. And what I want now," he added, "is not only for Eleanore's sake, but your own. I want you to try to write again about all the work we are doing and see what it will do for you. Why not give it another chance? You're not afraid of it, are you?"
"No," I said, "I'm not afraid—and I'll give it another chance if you like—I don't want to be narrow about it, God knows. But before I tackle anything else I'll finish my story of the strike."
"All right," he agreed. "That's all I ask. Now suppose you take Eleanore up to the mountains and write your strike article up there. Let me loan you a little just at the start."
"How much money haveyouin the bank?"
"Enough to send Eleanore where she belongs."
"Eleanore belongs right here," said a voice from the other room, and presently Eleanore appeared. She surveyed us both with a scorn in her eyes that made us quake a little. "I never heard," she went on calmly, "of anything quite so idiotic. Go home, Dad, and go to bed, andplease drop this insane idea that I'm afraid of July in New York, or of August or September. Do you know what you're going to do to-morrow, both of you poor foolish boys? You're going sensibly to work and worry about nothing at all. And to-morrow night we're all three of us going to forget how it feels to work or think, and get on an open trolley and go down and hear Harry Lauder. Thank Heaven he happens to be in town. To hear you talk you'd think the whole American people had forgotten how to laugh.
"Now Billy," she ended smoothly, "go to the icebox and get two bottles of nice cool beer—and make me a tall glass of lemonade. And don't use too much sugar."