Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [451]
DOWN WITH THE HOOVER WALL STREET GOVERNMENT
Good. But why couldn’t they be sensible about it? Be against Hoover and the bankers, but not want violence and anarchy. But Bill? How was he? And God, how was he himself going to end up, with all his worries, needing money as he did? He laughed, forgetting his thoughts completely while a stout Negress jigged before a policeman. He watched her pass on.
Again he thought of Bill. His boy couldn’t die. It was impossible. It wasn’t so. Bill couldn’t die. He heard boos behind him and saw two young Irish fellows with slanting caps. He turned to the parade and saw a banner carried at the head of the column
IRISH WORKERS CLUB
“Say, they must be left-handed turkeys and Orangemen to be with this outfit. You’d never find a good Irishman who was true to the church and the memory of his good old Irish mother in this outfit,” Lonigan said.
“Maybe they’re all Jews,” Jim said.
“They’re micks, all right. That big, red-faced smiling fellow. But they must be insane to be Reds.” He smiled superciliously. Still, they seemed happy. And himself? But there was a funny little Abie. He watched the stunted, unshaven man who megaphoned through his hands with a pronounced Yiddish accent.
“Hens off China.”
The demonstrators choked the street from curb to curb. Lonigan watched, spotting a fellow in blue denim overalls. The guy looked like a bum. Beside him, a Jew in a spotted blue suit. A tall, handsome brown Negro, limping. Powerful shine. A large woman wearing a blue gingham apron over a reddish purple dress, brushed by him.
“We’ll starve no more,” she shouted loudly, in an Irish brogue.
Must be a drunken biddy, Lonigan decided, seeing her step beside a thin Negress. The marchers cheered her, and repeated her slogan in a multi-voiced cry.
We’ll Starve No More
The menacing roar gripped Lonigan with fear. These people were the mob, coming to wreck, and they would take all that he had and live in his building without paying rent, and maybe send him and his family to live in a hole in this neighborhood. His shoulders dropped in relaxation. Before they would come to take his building, the banks would have it.
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us.
Arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall . . .
He just couldn’t make anything out any more. Too many things had been happening to him. He couldn’t piece them together, and he felt that the world had passed him by, and he was no longer able to deal with it.
Oh, why don’t you work like other men do?
Oh, how can I work when there’s no work to do?
Just an unhappy old man, and even these people, anarchistic Reds, communists, niggers, hunkies, foreigners, left-handed turkeys, even they seemed happier than he.
WE WANT BREAD NOT BULLETS
“Daily Worker? Daily Worker? Comrades, buy your paper,” a stolid girl called out, holding up one copy from the bundle of papers under her arm, and Lonigan turned his head aside until she passed.
Hands off Haiti
He turned to speak to Jim Doyle, but Jim had moved away. He saw a singing detachment of young fellows and girls stride forward, keeping step.
You’ll have pie in the sky when you die (It’s a lie).
Decent-looking youngsters. These Reds must be vampires putting evil-eyed spells on young lads, Lonigan decided. He heard a loud noise behind him, and glanced around to see a pimply, thin, unpleasant young fellow in a flashy gray suit.
“Why don’t them damn I-Won’t-Work bastards shut up and get a job, or else go back to Russia?” the pimply fellow said, revealing yellowed teeth.
“Mister, they have no jobs. There are no jobs to be gotten, and there are millions of workers on the streets.”
“They wouldn’t work if they could.”
Down with Imperialist War
“Why don’t you work?”
“Now don’t get personal,” the pimply fellow said, speaking out of the side of his mouth.
“Well, they want work, and the bosses throw them out on the street. The bosses don’t throw their machinery out on the street and say to the Starvation Army, ‘Here, you take care of