Harbor (9781101565681) (44 page)

I heard a quick voice at my elbow:

“Say. What the hell are
you
doing here?” I turned to the Pinkerton man by my side:

“I'm reporting this strike.”

“No you're not, you're in here to report what you see to the strikers. Now don't let's have any words, my friend, we've seen you in their meeting-hall and we've all got your number. Go on out where you belong!”

So I went out where I belonged.

I went out to the crowd—but I found it changed, split up into furious swarms of men, I found the beginning of chaos here. And the world that I had left behind, the old world of order and rule from above, which I had all but forgotten of late, now sharply made its presence felt. For the god I had once known so well was neither dead nor sleeping. Behind closed doors, the doors that had flown open once to show me every courtesy, it had been silently laying plans and sending forth orders or “requests” to all those in its service.

The next day the newspapers changed their tone. Until now they had given us half the front page. Every statement I had written had been printed word for word. The reporters had been free to dig columns of “human interest stuff” out of the rich mine of color here, and they had gone at it hungrily, many with real sympathy. You would have thought the entire press was on the side of the strikers, at times it had almost seemed to me as though the entire country had risen in revolt. But now all this was suddenly stopped, and in its place the front pages were filled with news of a very different kind. “Big Companies Move at Last,” were the headlines, “Work of Breaking Strike Begun.” The first ship would sail that evening, three more would be ready to start the next day, and within a week the big companies hoped to resume the regular service. They regretted the loss to shippers of all the perishable produce which to the value of millions of dollars had been rotting away at the docks. They deplored the inconvenience and ruin which had been brought on the innocent public by these bodies of rough, irresponsible men who had openly defied the law. With such men there could be no arbitration, and in fact there was no need. The port would be open inside of a week.

So the big companies spoke at last. And as I read the papers, at home that day at breakfast, I remembered what Eleanore's father had said: “Don't let yourself forget for one minute that the men behind me are going to stamp out this strike.” Not without a fight, I thought. But I was anxious and depressed. Dillon had not come of late, he had felt that we wanted to be alone. As now I glanced at Eleanore, whose eyes were intent on the news of the day, I saw with a rush of pity and love how alone she suddenly felt in all this. A moment later she looked up.

“Pretty bad, isn't it, dear?” she said.

“It doesn't look very fine just now.”

“Are you going down to the docks?”

“Yes, they'll want me,” I replied, “to write some answer to this stuff.”

“Can you wait a few moments?” Eleanore rose. “I'll get on my hat. I promised Nora Ganey I'd run her relief station for her to-day.” I took her a moment in my arms:

“You're no quitter, are you?” I said.

“We're in this now,” she answered, just a little breathlessly. “And so of course we'll see it through.”

So we went down together.

The waterfront looked different now. In front of the docks where work had begun a large space had been roped off. Inside the rope was an unbroken cordon of police. And without, but pressing close, the multitude of people for whom in a day so much had been changed, moved restlessly, no longer sure of its power, no longer sure of anything but a fast rising hatred of the men who had taken their jobs. As at times the police lines tightened and the negroes came out for more freight, thousands of ominous eyes looked on. Standing here at one such time, I saw a negro striker pass. His head was down and he walked quickly—for race feeling had begun.

The first ship sailed that evening. Tens of thousands watched her sail. And a bitter voice beside me said,

“Laughing ain't going to be enough.”

Among men on strike there are two kinds of attitudes toward those who take their places. The first is the scorn of the man who is winning. “You are a dirty scab,” it says. “You're a Judas to the working class and a thief who is trying to steal my job. But you won't get it, we're bound to win, and you're barely worth kicking out of the way.” The second is quite a different feeling. In this is the fear of the man who is losing—and fear, as an English writer has said, is the great mother of violence. “You
may keep
my job! And if you do I'll be left with nothing to live on!” It is this second attitude which is dreaded by strike leaders, for it leads to a loss of all control, to machine guns and defeat.

With a deepening uneasiness I saw this feeling now appear. Starting in small groups of men, I saw it spread out over the mass with the speed of a prairie fire. I felt it that afternoon on the Farm, changing with a startling speed that sure and mighty giant, the crowd, into a blind disordered throng, a mottled mass of groups of men angrily discussing the news. Threats against “scabs” were shouted out, the word “scab” arose on every side. Bitter things were said against “coons,” not only “scabs” but “all of 'em, God damn 'em!” There were hints of violence and open threats of sabotage, things done to dock machinery.

But presently, by slow degrees, as though by a deep instinct groping for the giant spirit that had been its life and soul, I felt the crowd now gather itself. Slowly the cries all died away and all eyes turned to the leader. Facing them with arms upraised, Marsh stood on the speakers' pile, his own face imperturbable, his own voice absolutely sure.

“Boys,” he said, when silence had come, “one lonesome ship has gone to sea—so badly loaded, they tell me, that she ain't got even a chance in a storm. She was loaded by scabs.”

A savage storm of “booh's” burst forth. He waited until it subsided and then continued quietly:

“We have no use for scabs, black or white. But we have use for strikers,
both
black and white—our negro brothers are with us still, and we'll show them we know that they are our brothers. We're going to stand together, we won't let the bosses split us apart. And when we read the papers to-morrow we're going to ask if the news is all there—not the little news in big headlines about a ship or two leaving port, but the big news in a little paragraph, that you have so stopped this nation's trade that now its Congress is demanding that your masters come to terms! And as for this lonesome ship that has sailed, if you want to see just how much that means, go down and look at Wall Street. They say down there, ‘We're all right now.' But their market prices say, ‘We're all wrong!' ”

Suddenly out of the multitude there came a high, clear voice:

“You seem to know Wall Street, Brother Marsh. Have you been selling short down there? Who's your private broker?”

Instantly there was a rush toward the questioner, but a group of police formed quickly around him and he was hurried out of the way.

“Get after that, Jim, get after it quick!” said Joe by my side. And Marsh lost not a moment.

“Let that man go!” he shouted. “He was sent here to try to stir up a riot. That lie was framed up 'way downtown! But it is a lie and you all know it—you know how I live and how my wife lives—we don't exactly roll in wealth! But even if I were a crook, or if I were dead, this strike would go on exactly the same—for think a minute and you'll see that whatever has been done in this struggle has been done each time by you. It's you who have decided each point. It's you who have been called here to-day to decide the one big question. Congress has said, ‘Arbitrate.' It's for you all to decide on our answer. This is no one-man union, there is no one man they can fix, nor even a small committee. We're a committee of fifty thousand here to make our own laws for ourselves. As you lift up your hands and vote, so it will be decided. But before you do I want to say this. I care so little for Wall Street and I am so sure we'll win this strike, that with all the strength I have in me I beg you to answer, ‘No arbitration, nothing half way! All or nothing!' If this is your answer, hold up your hands!”

Up went the hands by thousands, the crowd was all together now and again it spoke in one great roar. And with a sudden rush of hope I told myself, “It's still alive! This fight has only just begun!”

“That is our answer to Congress,” said Marsh, when again quiet had been restored. “That is the law which we have enacted. This strike is to be fought through to the end. We are not to be scared by Wall Street or worked upon by their hired thugs and so resort to violence. I am not afraid of violence,” he continued sharply, “I am here to preach it. But the only violence I preach is the violence of folded arms. You have folded your arms and their ships are dead. No other kind is so deadly as that. Only hold to this kind of violence, and though they may send out a ship here and there, this great port of New York will stay closed—bringing ruin all over the land—till the nation turns to Wall Street and says, ‘We cannot wait! You will have to give in!' ”

As he ended his speech, it seemed to me as though he were reaching far out, gripping that throng and holding it in. But for how long could he hold them?

Every paper that they read had suddenly turned against them and prophesied their swift defeat. Two more ships sailed that night. And as Marsh had foretold, their sailing was played up in pictures and huge headlines, while the statement that I wrote was cut to one small paragraph and put upon the second page.

That night, with the eager aid of strikers of five nationalities, I wrote a message to the crowd, translated it into German and French, Spanish, Italian and Polish. A socialist paper loaned us their press, and by noon our message was scattered in leaflets all up and down the waterfront. This message went out daily now. For the greater part of each night I sat in strike headquarters and wrote direct to the tenements.

 

The next day Marsh proposed a parade, and the Farm took it up with prompt acclaim. He challenged the mayor of the city to stop it. To friends who came to him later he said:

“You tell the mayor that I'm doing my best to give these men something peaceful to do. If he wants to help me, all well and good. If he don't, let him try to stop this parade.”

And the mayor granted a permit.

The next afternoon the Fifth Avenue shops all closed their doors, and over the rich displays in their windows heavy steel shutters were rolled down. The long procession of motors and cabs with their gaily dressed shoppers had disappeared, and in their place was another procession, men, women and children, old and young. All around me as I marched I heard an unending torrent of voices speaking many languages, uniting in strange cheers and songs brought from all over the ocean world. Bright-colored turbans bobbed up here and there, for there was no separation of races, all walked together in dense crowds, the whole strike family was here. And listening and watching I felt myself a member now. Behind me came a long line of trucks packed with sick or crippled men. At their head was a black banner on which was painted, “Our Wounded.” Behind the wagons a small cheap band came blaring forth a funeral dirge, and behind the band, upon men's shoulders, came eleven coffins, in which were those dock victims who had died in the last few days. This section had its banner too, and it was marked, “Our Dead.”

But at one point, late in the afternoon, some marcher just ahead of me suddenly started to laugh. At first I thought he was simply in fun. But he kept on. Those near him then caught the look on his face and they all began to laugh with him. Each moment louder, uglier, it swept up the Avenue. And as it swelled in volume, like the menace of some furious beast, the uncontrollable passion I heard filled me again with a sharp foreboding of violence in the crisis ahead.

“Why are you here?” I asked myself. “You can't join in a laugh like that—you're no real member of this crowd—their world is not where you belong!”

But from somewhere deep inside me a voice rose up in answer:

“If the crowd is growing blind—is this the time to leave it? Wait.”

Five more vessels sailed that day. And in the evening Eleanore said:

“The women who came to our station to-day kept asking, ‘Why can't they close up the saloons? They're just the places for trouble to start.' ”

“We'll try,” I said, and that same night Marsh sent word through a friend to the mayor asking him to close all barrooms on the waterfront during the strike. The mayor sent back a refusal. He said he had no power.

Late that night I went down the line and found each barroom packed with men who were talking of those ships that had sailed. And they talked of “scabs.” Speakers I had not heard before were now shouting and pounding the bar with their fists. The papers the next morning ran lurid accounts of these saloons and the open threats of violence there. They censured the mayor for his weakness and called for the militia. Why wait for mobs and bloodshed?

To that challenge I heard the reply of the crowd, on the Farm that afternoon, in their applause of the fiery speech of a swarthy little Spaniard. Francesco Vasea was his name.

“They are sending hired murderers who will come here to shoot us down! But when they come,” he shouted, “I want you to remember this! A jail cell is no smaller than our holes in the bottoms of their ships, the food is no worse than the scouse we shall eat if we give in and go back to our jobs! And so we shall not be driven back! When the militia come against us, armed with guns and bayonets, then let us go to meet them armed——”