U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [12]
That was how he talked to freighthandlers and
gandywalkers, to firemen and switchmen and engi-neers, tel ing them it wasn't enough to organize the railroadmen, that al workers must be organized, that
-26-al workers must be organized in the workers' coopera-tive commonwealth. Locomotive fireman on many a long night's run,
under the smoke a fire burned him up, burned in
gusty words that beat in pineboarded hal s; he wanted his brothers to be free men. That was what he saw in the crowd that met him
at the Old Wel s Street Depot when he came out of
jail after the Pul man strike,
those were the men that chalked up nine hundred
thousand votes for him in nineteen twelve and scared the frockcoats and the tophats and diamonded hostesses at Saratoga Springs, Bar Harbor, Lake Geneva with the bogy of a socialist president.
But where were Gene Debs' brothers in nineteen
eighteen when Woodrow Wilson had him locked up
in Atlanta for speaking against war,
where were the big men fond of whisky and fond
of each other, gentle rambling tel ers of stories over bars in smal towns in the Middle of each other, gentle rambling tel ers of stories over bars in smal towns in the Middle West,
quiet men who wanted a house with a porch to
putter around and a fat wife to cook for them, a few drinks and cigars, a garden to dig in, cronies to chew the rag with
and wanted to work for it
and others to work for it;
where were the locomotive firemen and engineers
when they hustled him off to Atlanta Penitentiary?
And they brought him back to die in Terre Haute
to sit on his porch in a rocker with a cigar in his mouth,
-27-beside him American Beauty roses his wife fixed in a bowl;
and thepeople of Terre Haute and the people in
Indiana and the people of the Middle West were fond of him and afraid of him and thought of him as an old kindly uncle who loved them, and wanted to be with him and to have him give them candy,
but they were afraid of him as if he had contracted a social disease, syphilis or leprosy, and thought it was too bad,
but on account of the flag
and prosperity
and making the world safe for democracy,
they were afraid to be with him,
or to think much about him for fear they might
believe him;
for he said:
While there is a lower class I am of it, while there is a criminal class I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am not free.
THE CAMERA EYE (4.)
riding backwards through the rain in the rumbly cab looking at their two faces in the jiggly light of the four-wheeled cab and Her big trunks thumping on the roof and He reciting Othello in his lawyer's voice Her father loved me, oft invited me Still questioned me the story of my life
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes
-28- That I have past.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it
Wherein I spoke of the most disastrous chances
Of moving accidents by flood and field
Of hairbreadth' scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach why that's the Schuylkil the horse's hoofs rattle
sharp on smooth wet asphalt after cobbles through the gray streaks of rain the river shimmers ruddy with winter mud When I was your age Jack I dove off this bridge through the rail of the bridge we can look way down into the cold rainyshimmery water Did you have any
clothes on? Just my shirt
MAC
Fainy stood near the door in the crowded elevated
train; against the back of the fat man who held on to the strap in front of him, he kept rereading a letter on crisp watermarked stationery:
The Truthseeker Literary Distributing Co., Inc.
General Offices 1104 S. Hamlin Avenue
Chicago, Il . April 14, 1904
Fenian O'H. McCreary
456 N. Wood Street
Chicago, I11.
DEAR SIR:
We take the pleasure to acknowledge yours of the
10th inst.
-29-In reference to the matter in hand we feel that much could be gained by a personal interview. If you wil be so