U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [26]
"Maybe in Russia it'l start; that's the most backward country where the people are oppressed worst . . .
-61-There was a Russian fel er workin' down to the sawmil , an educated fel er who's fled from Siberia . . . I used to talk to him a lot . . . That's what he thought. He said the social revolution would start in Russia an' spread al over the world. He was a swel guy. I bet he was some-body."
"Uncle Tim thought it would start in Germany."
"Oughter start right here in America . . . We got free institutions here already . . . Al we have to do is get out from under the interests." "Uncle Tim says we)re too wel off in America . . . we don't know what op-pression or poverty is. Him an' my other uncles was Fenians back in Ireland before they came to this country. That's what they named me Fenian . . . Pop didn't like it, I guess . . . he didn't have much spunk, I guess."
"Ever read Marx?"
"No . . . gol y, I'd like to though." "Me neither, I read Bel amy Looking Backward, though; that's what made me a Socialist." "Tel me about it; I'd just started readin' it when I left home." "It's about a galoot that goes to sleep an' wakes up in the year two thousand and the social revolution's al happened and everything's so-cialistic an' there's no jails or poverty and nobody works for themselves an' there's no way anybody can get to be a rich bondholder or capitalist and life's pretty slick for the working class." "That's what I always thought . . . It's the workers who create wealth and they ought to have it instead of a lot of drones." "If you could do away with the capitalist system and the big trusts and Wal Street things 'ud be like that."
"Gee."
"Al you'd need would be a general strike and have the workers refuse to work for a boss any longer . . . God damn it, if people only realized how friggin' easy it would be. The interests own al the press and keep knowledge and education from the workin'men."
-62-"I know printin', pretty good, an' linotypin'. . . . Gol y, maybe some day I could do somethin'."
Mac got to his feet. He was tingling al over. A cloud had covered the sun, but down the railroad track the scrawny woods were ful of the goldgreen blare of young birch leaves in the sun. His blood was like fire. He stood with his feet apart looking down the railroad track. Round the bend in the far distance a handcar appeared with a section gang on it, a tiny cluster of brown and dark blue. He watched it come nearer. A speck of red flag fluttered in the front of the handcar; it grew bigger, ducking into patches of shadow, larger and more distinct each time it came out into a patch of sun.
"Say, Mac, we better keep out of sight if we want to hop that freight. There's some friaggin' mean yard detec-tives on this road.""Al right." They walked off a hun-dred yards into the young growth of scrub pine and birch. Beside a big greenlichened stump Mac stopped to make water. His urine flowed bright yel ow in the sun, disap-pearing at once into the porous loam of rotten leaves and wood. He was very happy. He gave the stump a kick.
It was rotten. His foot went through it and a little powder like smoke went up from it as it crashed over into the alderbushes behind.
Ike had sat down on a log and was picking his teeth with a little birchtwig.
"Say, ever been to the coast, Mac?"
"No."
"Like to?"
"Sure."
"Wel , let's you an' me beat our way out to Duluth
. . . I want to stop by and say hel o to the old woman, see. Haven't seen her in three months. Then we'l take in the wheat harvest and make Frisco