Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [449]
We want Hoover,
We want Hoover,
We want Hoover,
With a rope around his neck.
Not right or decent. These youngsters should be taken away from their parents by law and placed in institutions so that they would not be contaminated with all their vile Bolshevism.
NATIONAL STUDENTS LEAGUE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
From the University, too, he thought, slowly shaking his bewildered and shocked head, seeing students pass. And many of them were Jews, too. Father Shannon in his missions at Saint Patrick’s had told what the A. P. A. professors at the University did.
We Want Scholarships Not Battleships
And this was what the A. P. A. professors did. They ought to be jailed, run out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered.
A corpulent policeman with stern features and fattening cheeks smiled cordially at Lonigan. The face seemed very familiar to Lonigan, who returned the cop’s glance, smiling, searching his memory to place who it was. He had an impression of a swarm crowding past him, and from the corner of his eye noticed a group that looked like workingmen, singing with their clenched right fists raised.
Arise, ye prisoners of starvation,
Arise, ye wretched of the earth,
For justice thunders condemnation,
A better world’s in birth.
“Hello, Mr. Lonigan,” the policeman said. Lonigan still struggled to remember who it was. “I’m Jim Doyle.”
“Oh, how are you? I’m glad to see you. And I see that you’re on the force now.”
“Yes, I’m on the force,” Jim said. “This is a surprise to see you here, Mr. Lonigan,” he added as a file of marchers caused Lonigan to flinch by booing him and Jim Doyle.
“I had some business to transact near here, and I stumbled into this. And years ago, when I was a kid, I used to live around here. The neighborhood’s sure changed a lot, though, since I was a shaver.”
“The Reds are making a lot of noise today. They call this an antiwar demonstration.”
Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right . . .
“This is a disgrace and it shouldn’t be permitted. The city shouldn’t allow these dirty Reds to be out here agitating and disrupting the way they are,” Lonigan said with a rising, self-righteous anger, aware of the scuffle of passing feet as he spoke.
“Most of them are just poor people. That’s the reason a lot of them are in the parade. It’s being out of work and having no money that makes Communists out of many of them,” Jim said.
“But look, Doyle,” Lonigan said with a perplexed stare, “they’re inciting the poor people around here to revolution. I saw a poor family down a few blocks being put out on the street, and if these people get to a poor man like that, they might make him desperate. Why, there was nearly a riot as I passed. And look up there,” Lonigan pointed at the second story of a grimy brick building across the street. Jim and Lonigan watched a stout woman, with a dirty rag about her head, energetically wave a red blanket and receive cheers and salutes from the marchers.
“Comrades, join our ranks.”
“I know. And I’m not a Red, and never will be one, because they’re against the church and the home.”
For we’ll hang Herby Hoover to a sour apple tree . . .
“But I know most of these people are out here because they’re poor and want something to eat and a job. Times are hard, and people are beginning to feel it. A lot of other cops, I know, club and beat hell out of them whenever they can. We’ve got one big mick down at the station named Gavin who always brags about how he can call the spot where he’ll land on a Red’s head. But some guys are like that. I don’t like to hit anybody with a club unless I’ve got to.”
“They ought to be clubbed until they get some sense knocked into their heads. This is America, not Russia, and the sooner we teach them so, the better.”
“Comrades, join our ranks.”
Lonigan thought that he had