U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [568]
But we cannot buy for our children
Our wages are too low
Now listen to me you workers
Both you women and men
Let us win for them the victory
I'm sure it ain't no sin
CARILLON PEALS IN SINGING TOWER
the President declared it was impossible to view the in-creased advantages for the many without smiling at those who a short time ago expressed so much fear lest our country might come under the control of a few individuals of great wealth HAPPY CROWDS THRONG CEREMONY
on a tiny island nestling like a green jewel in the lake that mirrors the singing tower, the President today participated in the dedication of a bird sanctuary and its pealing caril on, ful-fil ing the dream of an immigrant boy THE CAMERA EYE (51)
at the head of the val ey in the dark of the hil s on the broken floor of a lurchedover cabin a man halfsits halflies propped up by an old woman two wrinkled girls that might be young chunks of coal flare in the hearth flicker in his face white and sagging as dough blacken the cavedin mouth the taut throat the bel y swel ed enor-mous with the wound he got working on the minetipple the barefoot girl brings him a tincup of water the
-522-woman wipes sweat off his streaming face with a dirty denim sleeve the firelight flares in his eyes stretched big with fever in the women's scared eyes and in the blanched faces of the foreigners
without help in the val ey hemmed by dark strike-silent hil s the man wil die (my father died, we know what it is like to see a man die) the women wil lay him out on the rickety cot the miners wil bury him
in the jail it's light too hot the steamheat hisses we talk through the greenpainted iron bars to a tal white mustachioed old man some smiling miners in shirtsleeves a boy faces white from mining have already the tal-lowy look of jailfaces foreigners what can we say to the dead? foreign-ers what can we say to the jailed? the representative of the political party talks fast through the bars join up with us and no other union we'l send you tobacco candy solidarity our lawyers wil write briefs speakers wil shout your names at meetings they'l carry your names on card-board on picketlines the men in jail shrug their shoul-ders smile thinly our eyes look in their eyes through the bars what can I say? (in another continent I have
seen the faces looking out through the barred basement windows behind the ragged sentry's boots I have seen be-fore day the straggling footsore prisoners herded through the streets limping between bayonets heard the vol ey
-523-I have seen the dead lying out in those distant deeper val eys) what can we say to the jailed?
in the law's office we stand against the wal the law is a big man with eyes angry in a big pumpkinface who sits and stares at us meddling foreigners through the door the deputies crane with their guns they stand guard at the mines they blockade the miners'
soupkitchens
they've cut off the road up the val ey the hiredmen with guns stand ready to shoot (they have made us foreign-ers in the land where we were born they are the conquer-ing army that has filtered into the country unnoticed they have taken the hil tops by stealth they levy tol they stand at the minehead they stand at the pol s they stand
by when the bailiffs carry the furniture of the family evicted from the city tenement out on the sidewalk they are there when the bankers foreclose on a farm they are ambushed and ready to shoot down the strikers marching behind the flag up the switchback road to the mine
those that the guns spare they jail)
the law stares across the desk out of angry eyes his face reddens in splotches like a gobbler's neck with the strut of the power of submachineguns sawedoffshotguns teargas and vomitinggas the power that can feed you or leave you to starve
sits easy at his desk his back is covered he feels strong behind him he feels the prosecutingattorney the judge an
-524-owner himself the political boss the minesuperintendent the board of directors the president of the utility the ma,-nipulator of the holdingcompany he lifts his hand towards the telephone