American Working-Class Literature: An Anthology

American Working-Class Literature An Anthology EDITED BY Nicholas Coles University of Pittsburgh Janet Zandy Rocheste...

Author: Nicholas Coles | Janet Zandy

1564 downloads 4391 Views 24MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

American Working-Class Literature An Anthology EDITED BY

Nicholas Coles University of Pittsburgh

Janet Zandy Rochester Institute of Technology

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2007

Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education.

To first generation college students And to Tillie Olsen and her vision of creativity "as an enormous and universal human capacity"

Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

]. Z.

To John and Carmel Coles for their love and their sense of justice

With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

N.C.

Copyright © 2007 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 19R Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 http:!/www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data American working-class literature : an anthology I edited by Nicholas Coles, Janet Zandy. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-1 0: 0-19-514456-2 (pbk. : acid-free paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514456-7 1. Working class writings, American. 2. Working class-Literary collections. I. Coles, Nicholas. II. Zandy, Janet, 1945PS508.W73A835 2006 81 0.8'09220623-dc22

2005053945

Frontispiece: Elizabeth Olds, Harlem Da11ccrs, 1939 (wood cut). The University of Michigan Museum of Art, gift of the U.S. Government, WP.A. Federal Art Project.

" ' ,., l

Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Contents

Preface

xv

Introduction

XIX

I. Early American Labor: Hard, Bound, and Free 1600s-1810s "The Trappan'd Maiden: or, the Distressed Damsel" (mid-16UOs) 6 7 James Revel, "The Poor, Unhappy Transported Felon" (16!->0s) Gottlieb Mittelberger, "Gottlieb Mittelberger's Journey to Pennsylvania in tiK Year 1750 and Return to Germany in the Year 1754" (1754) 13 "Petition of a Grate Number of Blackes" to Thomas Gage, May 25, 1774 16 Olaudah Equiano, ["I Was in Another World: The Slave Ship"]* fi·om 7/ic Interesting Narrative of the Life o( Olaud<Jh Equi,mo, or Custm;us !~!1ss<J, the A_ti-ican, Written by Himself (1789) 16 Phillis Wheatley, ''To the Right Honourable William. Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State tor North America, Etc." (1773) ~3 "A Sea Song" 25 Francis Hopkinson, "The Raising: A Nc:w Song tor Federal Mechanics" tw A. B. (1788) 26 John Mcilvaine, "Address to the Journeymen Cordwainers L. B. of Philadelphia" (1794) 27 28 Tecumseh's Speech to the Osages (Winter 1811-12)

II. New Kinds of Work, Old Practices 1820s-1850s

31

Sorrow Song.1· of science. Why should JEschylu'i have sung two thousand years before Shakespeare was born' Why has civilization flouri'ihed in Europe, and flickered, flamed, and died in Africa? So long as the world 'itands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrmv Songs to the Seats of the

"Jctz Gch i' an\ brunele, trink' aber net."

Of death the Negro shmved little fear, but talked of it familiarly and even fondly as simply a crmsing of the waters, perhaps-v;ho kno\vs'-back to his ancient forests again. Later days transfigured his fatalism, and amid the dust and dirt the toiler sang: "'Dust, dust and ashes, Av over my grave, But the Lord shall bear my spirit home."

Mighty? Your country? Hmv came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song-soft. stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soiL and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your \Wak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit. Around us the history of the land has centered for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation's heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; f1re and blood, prayer and sacrifice, ha\'e billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right. Nor has our gift of the Spirit been merely passive. Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and \Voof of this nation,-\ve fought their battles, shared their sorrmv, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toiL our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving) Would America have been America without her Negro people? Even so is the hope that sang in the songs of my father well sung. If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet master±l.JL then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go fi.·ee. Free, tree as the sunshine trickling down the morning into these high windows of mine, free as yonder tresh vounb()" voices wellin()" un~ to me from the caverns ofbrick and mortar below-swellinu . b ~· with song, instinct vvith life, tremulous treble and darkening bass. My children, my little children, are singing to the sunshine, and thm they sing:

The things evidently borrowed trom the surrounding world undergo characteristic change \Vhen they enter the mouth of the slave. Especially is this true of Bible phrases. "Weep, 0 captive daughter of Zion," is quaintly turned into ''Zion, weep-a-low," and the wheels of Ezekiel are turned every way in the mystic dreaming of the slave, till he says: "'There\ a little \vhccl a-turn in' in-a-my heart."

As in olden time, the words of these hymns were improvised by some leading minstrel of the religious band. The circumstances of the gathering, however, the rhythm of the songs, and the limitations of allowable thought, confined the poetry for the most part to single or double lines, and they seldom were expanded to quatrains or longer tales, although there arc some few examples of sustained efforts, chiefly paraphrases of the Bible. Three short series of verses have always attracted me,-the one that heads this chapter, of one line of which Thomas Wentworth Higginson has fittingly said, "Never, it seems to me, since man t!rst li\·ed and suffered was his intinite longing for peace uttered more plaintively." The second and third are descriptions of the Last Judgment,-the one a late improvisation, with some traces of outside influence: ''Oh. the stars in the elements are falling. And the moon drips a\vay into blood, And the ransomed of the Lord are returning unto God, Blessed be the name of the Lord."

And the other earlier and homelier picture tiom the low coast lands: ''Michael. haul the boat ashore, Then \'OU 'II hear the horn they blm\·, Then you 'II hear the trumpet sound, Trumpet sound the \\·orld around, Trumpet sound for rich and poor. Trumpet sound the Jubilee. Trumpet sound for vou ,md me."

Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope-a f1ith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and cahn cont!dence. Sometimes it is f1ith in life, sometimes a ±~lith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless ju.;;ticc in some t;1ir world beyond. But \Vhichever it is. the meaning is always clear: that sometime, some\Yhere. men \vill judgt' men lw their souls and not by their skins. h mch a hope JUStifit'd; Do the SorrO\\. Songs sing true' The silcntlv growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and thclt the lHcb\·ard L\Ct'S of tocby ,1rc of proven indEciency Jnd not \Yorth the saving. Such an ,\ssumption i> the arroganL·c of peoples irreverent roward Timtm\ inf( ,\ sloop \\·ith c1 ]cud of oil. It was new. dirty, and hard \York t(w me; but I went at it \\ith c1 gLlcl he,nt ,md c1

i

N<w Kiod; of Wock, Old '""'"" 1820;-1850;

67

\Villing hand. I was now my own master. It was a happy moment, ~he rapture of which can be understood only by those \vho have been slaves. It was the hrst work, the reward of which \Vas to be entirely my own. There was no Master Hugh standmg ready. the moment I earned the money, to rob me of it. I \vorked that day \Vith a pleasure I had never before experienced. I was at work tor myself and newly~married ,,·ife. It \\"aS to me the startmgpoint of a new existence. When I got through with that JOb, I went m pursmt of a JOb of calking: but such was the strength of prejudice agamst color, among the \Vhlte calkers. that thev refused to work with me. and of course I could get no employment. 1 Fmdmg my trade of no immediate benefit, I threw off my calking habiliments, and prepared myself to do anv kind of \vork I could get to do. Mr. Johmon kindly let me have his wood-horse and s;w, and I very soon tound myself a plenty of work. There was no work too hardnone too dirtv. I was ready to saw wood, shovel coal, carry the hod. S\Veep the chimney, or roll oil casks,-all of which I did for nearly three years in New Bedtord. betore I became known to the anti-slavery \vorld. In about four months after I went to New Bedford, there came a young man to me, and inquired if I did not wish to take the ''Liberator.'' I told him I did; but, just having made mv escape from slavery. I remarked that I \\·as unable to pay for it then. I, however, finallv b~came a subscriber to it. The paper came, and I read it ±!·om week to week with such 'feelings as it would be quite idle tor me to attempt to describe. _The paper became mv meat and mv drink. Mv soul was set all on fi.re. Its sympathy tor my brethren m b~nds-its scathi;1g denunci;tions of slaveholders-its t~1ithfi.11 exposures of slaverv-and its powerful attacks upon the upholders of the institution-sent a thrill of joy through my soul. such as I had never felt before' . I had not long been a reader of the "Liberator,'· before I got a pretty correct idea of the principles, measures and spirit of the anti-slavery reform. I took right hold of the cause. I could do but little; but what I could, I did with a joyful heart, and never felt happier th,m \vhen in an anti-slavery meeting. I seldom had much to say at the meetings. because what I wanted to sav was said so much better by others. But, while attending an anti-slavery convention at Nant~cket, on the 11th of August. 1841. I felt strongly moved to speak, and was at the same time much urged to do so by Mr. William C. Coffin, a gentleman \\·ho had heard me speak in the colored people's meeting at New Bedtord. It was a se':ere cross. and I took it up reluctantly. The truth was. I felt mvself a slave, and the i~ea ot speakmg_ to white people weighed me dO\vn. I spoke but a tew moments, when I telt a degree ot tl·eedom, and said what I desired with considerable ease. From that time until now, I haw been encTao-ed in pleadino· the cause of mv. brethren-with what success. and with what b b b devotion, I lea\'e those acquainted \Vith my labors to decide.

'

"IN THE SHIPYARDS"

{1855)

Such. dear reader. is a glance at the school \\·hich \\"aS mine. during the first eight months of mv stc1v at Baltimore. At the end of eight months. 1\1aster Hugh reti.1'ied longer to allO\Y me to remain \Yith Mr. Gardiner. The circumsunce \\·hich led to his taking me awav. \vas ,\ brutal outrage. committed upon me lw tht' \Yhite apprt'ntices of the ship-yard. The tight \\",Js ,1 desperate one. and I came out of it moo;,t shockingh- mangled. I \\"as cut and bruised lil mudrv places, and m\· left t'ye \\·as nearlv knocked out of its socket. The t~Kts. lt'.1ding

1 I :nn told tlut colored persom em !10\Y get emplcwmc'llt ,\t calking

.111t1-sbwry et1tdt of

l l

1 I 'i

68

American Working-Class Literature

New Kinds of Work, Old Practices: 1820s-1850s

to this barbarous outrage upon me, illustrate a phase of slavery destined to become an important element in the overthrmy of the slave system, and I may, therefore state them \Vith some minuteness. That phase is this: the conflict l~{ slavery tuitlz the interests tif the tt'hite mechanics a11d laborers of the south. In the country, this conflict is not so apparent; but, in cities. such as Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans, Mobile, &c., it is seen pretty clearly. The slaveholders. with a craftiness peculiar to themselves, by encouraging the enmity of the poor. laboring white man against the blacks, succeeds in making the said white man almost as much a slave as the black slave himself. The difference between the white slave, and the black slave, is this: the latter belongs to one slaveholder, and the former belongs to all the slaveholders, collectively. The white slave has taken from him, by indirection, what the black slave has taken from him, directly, and without ceremony. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers. The slave is robbed, by his master. of all his earnings, above what is required for his bare physical necessities; and the \Vhite man is robbed by the slave system, of the just results of his labor, because he is flung into competition with a class of laborers who work without wages. The competition, and its injurious consequences, will. one day. array the nonslaveholding white people of the slave states, against the slave system, and make them the most effective workers against the great evil. At present, the slaveholders blind them to this competition, by keeping alive their prejudice against the slaves, as men-not against them as slaves. They appeal to their pride, often denouncing emancipation. as tending to place the white working man, on an equality with negroes, and. by this means, they succeed in drawing off the minds of the poor \vhites from the real fact, that, by the rich slave-master, they are already regarded as but a single remove from equality with the slave. The impression is cunningly made, that slavery is the only power that can prevent the laboring white man from falling to the level of the slave's poverty and degradation. To make this enmity deep and broad, betvveen the slave and the poor white man, the latter is allowed to abuse and whip the former, vvithout hinderance. But-as I have suggested-this state of facts prevails mostly in the country. In the city of Baltimore, there are not unfrequent murmurs, that educating the slaves to be mechanics may, in the end. give slavemasters power to dispense with the services of the poor white man altogether. But. with characteristic dread of offending the slaveholders. these poor, white mechanics in Mr. Gardiner's ship-yard-instead of applying the natural, honest remedy tor the apprehended eviL and objecting at once to work there by the side of sla\·es-made a cowardly attack upon the fi·ee colored mechanics, saying they were eating the bread which should be eaten by American freemen. and S\vearing that they would not work with them. The feeling was. really. against having their labor brought into competition with that of the colored people at all: but it was too much to strike directly at the interest of the sla\·eholders; and. therefore-proving their sen·ility and cm\-ardice-they dealt their blows on the poor. colored fi-eeman, and aimed to prevent hin1 fr01n sen·ing himself. in the evening of life, with the trade with \vhich he had sen·ed his master. during the more vigorous portion of his days. Had they mcceeded in driYing the black freemen out of the ship nrd. they \Yould have determined cllso upon the remm·al of the black slaves. The tee ling \Vas very bitter toward all colored people in Baltimore. about this time (1836). and they-tree and slave-mt1ered all manner of insult and wrong.

portion ofvour brethren. assembled in National Convention, at Cleveland. Ohio, take the liberty to address you on the subject of our mutual impro\·ement and social elevation. The condition of our variety of the human fnnily. has long been cheerless. if not hopeless. in tlm country. The doctrine perseveringly proclaimed in high places in church and state. that it is impossible tor colored men to rise tl-om ignorance and debasement. to intelligence and respectability in this country. has made a deep impression upon the public mind generally, and is not without its efi:ect upon us. Under this gloomy doctrine. many of us have sunk under the pall of despondencY. and are making no etfort to relieve ourselves. and have no heart to assist others. It is tl-om this despond that we \vould deli\·er vou. It is fi·om this slumber we would rouse you. The present, is a period of activity and hope. The heavens above us are bright, and much of the darkness that overshadowed us has passed away. We can deal in the language of brilliant encouragement. and speak of success with certainty. That om condition has been gradually improYing, is evident to alL and that we shall vet stand on a common platform with our fellmv countrymen. in respect to political and social rights, is certain. The spirit of the age-the voice of inspiration-the deep longings of the human soul-the conflict of right with wrong-the upward tendency of the oppressed throughout the world, abound \Vith evidence complete and ample, of the final triumph of right over \\Tong, of freedom over slavery. and equality over caste. To doubt this. is to target the past. and blind our eyes to the present, as \vell as to deny and oppose the great law of progress, written out by the hand of God on the human soul. Great changes for the better have taken place and are still taking place. The last ten years have \Yitnessed a mighty change in the estimate in which we as a people are regarded. both in this and other lands. England has given liberty to nearly one million. and France has emancipated three hundred thousand of our brethren. and our own country slukes with the agitation of our rights. Ten or t\velve Years ago, an educated colored man \\·as regarded as a curiositv. and the thought of a colored man as an author. editor, lawyer or doctor. had scarce been conceived. Such. thank Hea\·en, is no longer the case. There are nO\\- those among us. \Yhom we are not ashamed to reg,1rd as gentlemen and scholars. and who are acknowledged to be such. lw many of the most learned and respectable in our land. Mountains of prejudice ha\·e been remowd. and truth and light are dispelling the error and darkness of ages. The time was. \Yhen we trembled in the presence of a \Yhite man. ,md dared not assert. or even ask tor our nghts. but would be guided, directed. and governed. in any way we \\'ere demanded. without ever stopping to enquire \\·hether we were right or wrong. We \Wre not only sLn·es. but our ignorance nude us \Yilling slaws. Mam: of m uttered complaints against the bithful abolitionists. tor the broad ~mertion of our nghts: thought they \Yent too br. and \\'ere onlY making our condition \Yorse. This serrtnnem has nearlv ce,Jsed to reign in the dark abodes of our hearts; we begin to see our wrongs as clecnly. ,md comprehend our rights clS t"l1lh·. and as \Yell a\ our \Yhite countn·men. This is a sign of nrocrress: and e\-idence \Yhich c.mnot be b"JinsaYed. It \YCmld be easy' . ._ t ;:; . to present in this connection. a glmYing compclrison of our past \Yith our present con~~10:1. sho\ving: that while the tanner \vas :iark and drearv. the present 1s tl_!ll of light .md crj pt. It ':ould be e,JSY to dr,l\\. cl picture ot our presellt .JChleYements. ,mel erect upon 1t ,1 ,.., onom future.

AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES

\\ e han~ '1lre,Jc · :lv maue. ' as It · IS · to st1n1u · 1,lte YOU to sn·11 1ng · I1er attc1111111ents. · We 1Ja\'e uone ' much b · . · . " h · _ut t1lere 11 much more to be done.-\X/hde \\·e han' undoubtedlY great cmse to

.

Fellow Countrymen:

Under ,1 solemn sense of duty. inspired bv our relation to you as fellovv sutlerers under the multiplied and grienms \\Tongs to \vhich \\'e c~s a PL'ople c~re universally subjected,-\Vt'. a

69

But. fellow coulltrYmen. it is not so much our purpose to cheer you lw the progress

~· ank Cod ..md take cuur.1ge tor the hopetl_il changes \\ hich haw taken place in our con· I1out c1use to n1ourn o\·er t11e sc~u' contltlllll 1· · \\' 111c · 11 we vet occup\·. WltJon . _·, w'L ,ne not \\-It \\e. come d;mugh chiY dm;nd >o dw public miud; cou,,.uly hding ond k"·ping ;;li;c ,,,_,;nu "'· ""' biumu lucc.

i "' J..........__ ;

71

72



The pulpit too. has been arrayed against Ll'>. Men with sanctimonious face, have talked of our being descendants of Ham-tlut we are under a curse, and to try to improve our condition. is virtuallv to counteract the purposes of God! It i5 easy to see that the means which have been used to destroy us, must be used to save us. The press mmt be used in our behalf: aye' we must use it ourselves; \Ve must take and read newspapers; we must read books, improve our minds, and put to silence and to shame, our opposers. Dear Brethren, we have extended these remarks beyond the length which we had allotted to ourselves. and must now close, though we have but hinted at the subject. Trusting that our words may f:1ll like good seed upon good ground; and hoping that we may all be found in the path of improvement and progress,

dignity is in leisure." The class relationship between 'iome people's dignified leisure and others' necessity of labor is illustrated in these combined tales of overfed British bachelor lawyers and desexualized American paper mill maidens. ''The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids," was originally published in Harper's Sell' .\lonthly .\lagazine. April 1855.

We are your friends and servants, (S(~11ed by the Committee, ill behalf of the Convention) Frederick Douglass, H Bibb, W L. Day, D. H. Jenkins, A. H. Francis. The .'\·l,rt!J Star. September 29. 18-1-8

Herman Melville (1819-1891)

B

orn in New York City. Herman Meh·ille was one of eight children of Allan and Maria Gamevoort Meh-ille. descendents of English and Dutch colonial families. When he \\·as nwlw year; old. Melville's life altered sharply after the bankruptcy of the f<mily's merchant business and the death of his father. Melville lefi: Albanv Classical School at the :1ge of fiii:een and \vorked as a clerk, farmhand, and teacher in upst~te N e\v York. He loved the se:l and shipped out as a cabin boy on a vessel that was bound for Liverpool in 1839. an :ldventure later described in his novel Rcdbum (18-1-9). He returned to Ne\v York. taught school for a short while. and then embarked on a series of adventures that began as a sailor on a \\·haling ship bound t()!' the South Seas and included a sojourn in the Marquesas. living as a captive in Tvpee. and \\·orking :lS a field laborer in Tahiti. As a sailor. Melville obserwd the technology of \\'hale oil production firsthand and combined that knmvledge. his sen'ie of adventure. his erudition. and his metaphvsical inchnations in the great epic newel. .\loby Dick (I f\51). His reading public. however. \Yas more interested in his earl\' stones ofhatTO\Ying ad\·enture on the high seas- Tj'pcc (18-1-6), 01~1'"' ( 1i-\-1- 7). and .Hmfi (1 ~-t9)-than in the Slukespearean cadences of .\loby Dirk. "What I ted most mowd to write. th,u is banned-it \\'ill not p:l\'... he funoush· complained to hts l'vL1ssachusetts neighbor. Natluniel H,l\\'thorne. in 1f\51. "Yet altogether. \\Tite the ,,rfn·r \VJ\' I cannot. So the product is a tlnc1l hash. c1nd ,1llm\· books ,ue botches." Tensions het\\·een cnmomic necessit\· c1nd intellecttul and aest!wtic desire haumcd Mel\'ille all his life ,1s he struggled to sust.lit.l c1 fm1ily on his L'arnings ,\'i ,1 \\Titer. then as a lecturer. cmd titully as a customs impector em the Nn\· York docks. In ,\ I ~77 letter he \\Tote. "The\' talk of tht: di~niry tl( ,,.,,,/.:. Bmh. True \York is the ncccssif)' of poor humanit\··s cJrthly condition. Tht'

73

THE PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS

I.

THE PARADISE OF BACHELORS

It lies not far from Temple-Bar. Going to it, by the usual way, is like stealing from a heated plain into some cool, deep glen, shady among harboring hills. Sick with the din and soiled with the mud of Fleet Street-where the Benedick tradesmen are hurrying by, with ledger-lines ruled along their brm\'s, thinking upon rise of bread and fall of babies-you adroitly turn a mystic corner-not a street-glide down a dim, monastic way, flanked by dark, sedate. and solemn piles, and still wending on, give the whole care-worn world the slip, and. disentangled, stand beneath the quiet cloisters of the Paradise of Bachelors. Sweet are the oases in Sahara; charming the isle-groves of August prairies; delectable pure faith amidst a thousand perftdies: but sweeter, still more charming, most delectable, the dreamy Paradise of Bachelors. found in the stony heart of stunning London. In mild meditation pace the cloisters: take your pleasure, sip your leisure. in the garden waterward; go linger in the ancient library; go worship in the sculptured chapel: but little have you seen, just nothing do you know, not the sweet kernel have you tasted, till you dine among the banded Bachelors. and see their convivial eyes and glasses sparkle. Not dine in bustling commons, during term-time, in the hall: but tranquilly, by private hint, at a private table; some fine Templar's hospitably invited guest. Templar? That's a romantic name. Let me see. Brian de Bois Guilbert was a Templar, I believe. Do we understand you to insinuate that those famous Templars still survive in modern London? May the ring of their armed heels be heard. and the rattle of their shields, as m mailed praver the monk-knic>hts kneel before the consecrated Host' Surelv a monkknight were a ;urious sight picki~1g his way along the Strand, his gleaming c~rsdet and snowy surcoat spattered bv an omnibus. Lo111r-bearded, too. according to his order's rule; h' ' Is face fuzzy as a pard's: how would the grim ghost look among the crop-haired. closeshav>n citizens? We know indeed-sad histon· recounts it-that a moral blight tainted at last this sacred Brotherhood. Though no S\\'~rded foe might outskill them in the fence, yet the worm of luxurv cra\'.:led beneath their guard. o·na\vin the core of knightlv troth. rubbling tl1C monastic · ·\'OW. t1·11 at ]ast t ]1e mon 'k.- s austenn· " · re"1axe d to \\·assat·1·mg. ' an . d t 11e swo k . . ' rn n:ghts-bachelors grew to be but hypocrites and rakes. b . But ±or all this. quite unprepared were \\'C to learn that Knights- Templars (if at ,11l in . emg) were so entirelv secularized as to be reduced ±]·om carving out immortal Lm1e 1!1 1 . . . . . ' . L kg onous battlmg for the Holy Land. to the carvmg of roast-mutton at a dmner-board. 1 e Anacreon. do these degenerate Templars now think it sweeter far to 611 in banquet than 111 war; Or, indeed. how can there be an\' survival of that famous order; Tempbrs ~ modern London' Templars in their red-cr~ss mantles smoking cigars ,\t the Dinn 1 1 ehmr: lars crowded in a railwa\' train. till. stacked \\'ith steel helmet. spe.1r. ,md shield. the \\ o 1e t ram · 1 k · · oo s hke one elongated locomotiYe 1 't No. The genuine Templar i~ long since dep.uted. Go ,·in\· the \\'ondrous tombs in the emple Church; see there the rigidly~luught\' t(mm stretched out. \\ith crossed anm upon u

L

"

74

American Working -Class Literature New Kinds of Work, Old Practices: 1820s-1850s

their stilly hearts, in everlasting and undreaming rest. Like the years before the flood, the bold Knights-Templars are no more. Nevertheless, the name remains, and the nominal society, and the ancient grounds. and some of the ancient edifices. But the iron heel is changed to a boot of patent-leather; the long two-handed sword to a one-handed quill; the monk-giver of gratuitous ghostly counsel now counsels for a fee; the defender of the sarcophagus (if in good practice with his weapon) now has more than one case to defend; the vowed opener and clearer of all highways leading to the Holy Sepulchre, now has it in particular charge to check, to clog, to hinder, and embarrass all the courts and avenues of Law: the knight-combatant of the Saracen, breasting spear-points at Acre, now fights law-points in Westminster Hall. The helmet is a wig. Struck by Time's enchanter's wand, the Ternplar is today a La\vyer. But, like many others tumbled from proud glory's height-like the apple, hard on the bough but mellow on the ground-the Templar's fall has but made him all the finer fellow. I dare say those old warrior-priests were but gruff and grouty at the best; cased in Birmingham hardYvare, how could their crimped arms give yours or mine a hearty shake? Their proud, ambitious, monkish souls clasped shut, like horn-book missals; their very ±~Kes clapped in bomb-shells; what sort of genial men were these? But best of comrades, most affable of hosts, capital diner is the modern Templar. His wit and wine are both of sparkling brands. The church and cloisters, courts and vaults, lanes and passages, banquet-halls, refectories, libraries, terraces, gardens, broad vvalks, dornicils, and dessert-rooms, covering a very large space of ground, and all grouped in central neighborhood, and quite sequestered from the old city's surrounding din: and every thing about the place being kept in most bachelor-like particularity, no part of London offers to a quiet wight so agreeable a refuge. The Temple is. indeed, a city by itself. A city with all the best appurtenances, as the above enumeration shows. A city with a park to it, and flower-beds, and a river-side-the Thames flowing by as openly. in one part, as by Eden's primal garden flowed the mild Euphrates. In what is now the Temple Garden the old Crusaders used to exercise their steeds and lances: the modern Templars now lounge on the benches beneath the trees, and, switching their patent-leather boots, in gay discourse exercise at repartee. Long lines of stately portraits in the banquet-halls, show what great men of markfamous nobles, judges, and Lord Chancellors-have in their time been Templars. But all Templars are not known to universal f1me: though, if the having warm hearts and warmer welcomes, full minds and fuller cellars. and giving good advice and glorious dinners, spiced \Vith rare divertisements of fun and fancv, merit in1n1ortal mention, set down. ye muses. the names of R.F.C. and his imperial brother. Though to be a Templar, in the one true sense, you must needs be a lawyer. or a student at the law. and be ceremoniously enrolled as rnember of the order, yet as many such, though Templars. do not reside \\·ithin the Temple's precincts, though they mav have their otlices there. just so. on the other hand. there are many residents of the hoary old domicils who are not admitted Templars. Ifbeing, sav. a lounging gentleman and bachelor, or a quiet. unmarried. literan· man. charmed with the soft seclusion of the spot, you much desire to pitch Your shady tent among the rest in this serene encampment, then you must lllclke some special tJ·iend among the order. and procure him to rent, in his name but at vour charge. \\·h~He\·er ncant chamber vou may find to suit. . Thus~ I suppose. did Dr. Johnson.· that n~minal Benedick and widower but virtual bachelor. when t only last autumn. That's the machine that makes the paper, too. This way, Sir." Following him. I crossed a large. bespattered place. with two great round vats in it, fi.1ll of a white, wet, woolly-looking stu±f. not unlike the albuminous part of an egg, soft-boiled. "There.'' said Cupid, tapping the vats carelessly. "these are the first beginnings of the paper: this white pulp vou see. Look how it swims bubbling round and round, moved by the paddle here. From hence it pours ±rom both vats into that one common channel yonder: and so goe-;, mixed up and leisurely, to the great n1achine. And now for that." He led me into a room, stifling \Vith a strange. blood-like, abdominal heat. as if here, true enough, were being finally developed the genninous particles lately seen. Before me. rolled out like some long Eastern rnanuscript. lay stretched one continuous length of iron t]·ame-work-multitudinous and nrystical. with all sorts of rollers, wheels. c~nd cvlinders. in slm\ ly-measured and unceasing n1otion. "Here first comes the pulp now." said Cupid, pointing to the nighest end of the machine. "Sec; tlrst it pours our and spreads itself upon this wide. sloping board: and then-look-slides. thin and quivenng, beneath the first roller there. Follm\· on nmY, and see it ,Js it slides t]·om under that to the next cvlinder. There; see how it bas become just a wrv little les'> pulpv nmv. One step more, and it grows '' "Oh. sometimes, but not often, we turn out finer work-cream-laid and ro\'al sheets, we call them. But foolscap being in chief demand, we turn out foolscap most." . dro It Was very. curious. Looking at that b~ank paper continually dropping, dropping, she~pn~g. my mmd ran on m wondenngs ?t those strange uses to wh1ch those thousand . ts nentualh· would be put. All sorts ot wnnngs would be wnt on those now vacant thmgs-s"ermons, " , l awyers , '·onets, . - p h ys1oans . . , prescnptwns, Iove- Ietters, 1narnage . L

.

.

.L _

~~rtlhcues, bills of divorce. registers of births, death-\\·arrants. and so on, \\ithout end.

len, recurring back to them

,\S

thev here lav clll blank, I could not but bethink nll' of that

84



celebrated comparison of John Locke, who, in demonstration of his theory that man had no innate ideas, compared the human mind at birth to a sheet of blank paper; something destined to be scribbled on, but what sort of characters no soul might tell. Pacing slowing to and fro along the involved machine, still humming with its play, I was struck as well by the inevitability as the evolvement-povver in all its motions. "Does that thin cobweb there," said I, pointing to the sheet in its more imperfect stage, "does that never tear or break? It is marvelous fragile, and yet this machine it passes through is so mighty." "It never is known to tear a hair's point." "Does it never stop-get clogged?" "No. It must go. The machinery makes it go just so; just that very way, and at that very pace you there plainly see it go. The pulp can't help going." Something of awe now stole over me, as I gazed upon this inflexible iron animal. Always, more or less, machinery of this ponderous, elaborate sort strikes, in some moods, strange dread into the human heart, as some living, panting Behemoth might. But what made the thing I saw so specially terrible to me was the metallic necessity. the unbudging fatality which governed it. Though, here and there, I could not follow the thin, gauzy vail of pulp in the course of its more mysterious or entirely invisible advance, yet it was indubitable that, at those points where it eluded me, it still marched on in unvarying docility to the autocratic cunning of the machine. A fascination fastened on me. I stood spell-bound and wandering in my soul. Before my eyes-there, passing in slow procession along the wheeling cylinders, I seemed to see, glued to the pallid incipience of the pulp, the yet more pallid faces of all the pallid girls I had eyed that heavy day. Slowly, mournfully, beseechingly, yet unresistingly, they gleamed along, their agony dimly outlined on the imperfect paper, like the print of the tormented face on the handkerchief of Saint Veronica. "Halloa! the heat of the room is too rnuch for you," cried Cupid, staring at me. "No-I am rather chill. if any thing." "Come out. Sir-out-out," and, with the protecting air of a careful father. the precocious lad hurried me outside. In a few moments, feeling revived a little, I went into the folding-room-the first room I had entered. and where the desk for transacting business stood, surrounded by the blank counters and blank girls engaged at them. "'Cupid here has led me a strange tour," said I to the dark-complexioned man before mentioned. whom I had ere this discovered not onlv to be an old bachelor, but also the principal proprietor. "Yours is a most wonderful fac~ory. Your great machine is a miracle of inscrutable intricacv.'' "Yes, all our visit~rs think it so. But we don't have manv. We are in a very out-of-thewav corner here. Few inhabitants, too. Most of our girls co.me ±rom far-o±I villages.'' . "The girls." echoed I. glancing round at their silent forms. "Why is it. Sir, that 1D most factories. female operatives, of whatever age, are indiscriminately called girls. newr women?" 1

"Oh as to that-\Yhy, I suppose, the fact of their being generally unmarried-that's the reason. I should think. But it never struck me betore. For our factory here. we will not have married women: they are apt to be otT-and-on too much. We want none but steady workers: twelve hours to the day. day after dav. through the three hundred and sixty-five days. excepting Sunda\·s, Thanksgiving. and F~st-dav-s. That's our rule. And so, ha,·ing no married women. what females we have are rightly ;nough called girls." . . "Then these are all maids." said I. "\vhile some pained homage to their pale virgmltY made me involuntarilv bow.

85

"All maids." Again the strange emotion filled me. "Your cheeks look whitish yet, Sir," said the man, gazing at me narrmvly. ''You must be careful going home. Do they pain you at all no\v? It's a bad sign, if they do.'' "No doubt. Sir,'' ans\v-ered I. "when once I have got out of the Devil's Dungeon, I shall feel them mending." ''Ah, ves; the \'V·inter air in v-alleys, or gorges, or any sunken place, is far colder and more bitter than elsewhere. You would hardly believe it now. but it is colder here than at the top of Woedolor Mountain.'' "I dare say it is, Sir. But time presses me; I must depart." With that. remuffling myself in dread-naught and tippet, thrusting my hands into my huge seal-skin mittens. I sallied out into the nipping air, and found poor Black, my horse, all cringing and doubled up with the cold. Soon. \\rapped in furs and meditations, I ascended from the Devil's Dungeon. At the Black Notch I paused, and once more bethought me of Temple-Bar. Then, shooting through the pass, all alone with inscrutable nature, I exclaimed-Oh! Paradise of Bachelors! and oh! Tartarus of Maids!

John GreenleafWhittier (1807-1892) orn into a Massachusetts farm family of modest circumstances, John Greenleaf Whittier described the familY house as "built bv mv first American ancestor, two hundred years ago." His parents 'were Quakers: the ,farn; was secluded, and the young Whittier liv-ed \Yhat he described as a "dual life"-"a world of fancv" and a '\vorld of plain matter-of-fact." Influenced by the poetry of Robert Burns a; well as antislavery newspapers. Whittier became a staunch abolitionist and prolific poet. His first poems \\'ere published in the Newburyport Free Press. edited by William Lloyd Garrison (1826). ''As a member of the Society of Friends [Quakersl. I had been educated to regard Sla\'ery as a great md dangerous e\·il," he wrote in an 1882 autobiographical letter. Whittier sen·ed as a delegate to the first National Anti-Siawry Com·ention in Philadelphia in IS33 and j~ubh~~1~d "Pennsylnnia Freeman." a p.1per associated \Yith the Anti-Sla\·ery Society. where 15 oth, e \Y,ls sacked and burned by a pro-slav-ery mob. He pubhshed at h1s own expense. a pamphlet Ju,·rlrc ,md Expcdlcnry (1833). but was unable to make a living as a journalist. and he later obsen·ed: "Indeed. mv- pronounced v-iews on SLl\-en· made my name too unpopular ±(w ,1 publisher's uses." Vv'hittier w,\S one of the founders of the LibertY PartY, \Yhich later became the Republican P.lrtY of Abr.1ham Lincoln. After the Ci,·il War. h~ devoted himself to poetrY. 1 ~ 1 11137. Ticknor and Fields published his fmt v-olume of poetry. Other volumes include S'' 11>Z·' ''I Ltl[,,,, (1S.'ill). ±rom \Yhich tht' poem presented here is t nuv be usefully JUXtaposed \\1th Freckrick Dougl.J"'s t'llSLl\·ed labor as .1 c.mlkt'r in a l3,1ltimore shipyard in the 1S30s.

B

86



THE SHIP- BUILDERS

5

1li

15

20

r -"

.)()

3~

.jrr

-!5

Must float, the sailor's citadel, Or sink, the sailor's grave!

The sky is ruddy in the East, The earth is gray below, And, spectral in the river-mist, The ship's white timbers show. Then let the sounds of measured stroke And grating saw begin; The broad-axe to the gnarled oak, The mallet to the pin!

50

:n

Hark'-roars the bellows, blast on blast, The sooty smithy jars, And fire-sparks, rising far and fast, Are fading with the stars. All day for us the smith shall stand Beside that flashing forge; All day for us his heavy hand The groaning anvil scourge.

60

From far-off hills, the panting team For us is toiling near; For us the raftsmen down the stream Their island barges steer. Rings out for us the axe-man's stroke In forests old and still,For us the century-circled oak Falls crashing down his hill.

65

70

Up'-up'-in nobler toil than ours No craftsmen bear a part: We make of Nature's giant powers The slaves of human Art. Lay rib to rib and beam to beam, And drive the treenails free; Nor faithless joint nor yawning seam Shall tempt the searching sea!

75

80

Where'er the keel of our good ship The sea's rough field shall ploughWhere' er her tossing spars shall drip With salt-spray caught belowThat ship must heed her master's beck, Her helm obey his hand, And seamen tread her reeling deck As if they trod the land . Her oaken ribs the vulture-beak Of Northern ice mav peel; The sunken rock and coral peak May grate along her keel; And know we well the painted shell We give to wind ,md wave,

87

Ho!-strike away the bars and blocks, And set the good ship free! Why lingers on these dusty rocks The young bride of the sea? Look! how she moves adown the grooves, In graceful beauty now! How lowly on the breast she loves Sinks down her virgin prow! God bless her! wheresoe' er the breeze Her snowy wing shall fan, Aside the frozen Hebrides, Or sultry Hindostan! Where'er, in mart or on the main, With peaceful flag unfurled, She helps to wind the silken chain Of commerce round the world! Speed on the ship!-But let her bear No merchandise of sin, No groaning cargo of despair Her roomy hold within. No Lethean drug for Eastern lands, Nor poison-draught for ours; But honest fruits of toiling hands And Nature's sun and showers. Be hers the Prairie's golden grain, The Desert's golden sand, The clustered fruits of sunny Spain, The spice of Morning-land! Her pathway on the open main May blessings follow free, And glad hearts welcome back again Her white sails from the sea!

Fanny Fern (Sara Payson Willis Parton) (1811-1872)

In

large part because of the expanding number of common schools. a generation of whne middle-class Americans became readers in the 1850s and 1860s and, consequently, ; Pnme audience for newspaper columnists and journalists. Sara Payson Willis, whose ather Nathaniel Willis established a religious newspaper. later credited her more broad~lded mother as the source of her talent. As a young widow, then divorcee escaping a ad second marriage, she turned to writing as a means of supporting herself and her

88


children. Choosing the pseudonym Fanny Fern, she began writing weekly columns to a receptive audience of mostlv women readers. She was enormouslv successful, as astute at the business of journalisn; as she \Vas lively as a writer, earning' $100 a week for her column in the 1'\'ew Y[JYk Ledger in 1855. Fern became a popular commentator on white middle-class women's domestic lives, but also turned her sympathetic eye to conditions of women's labor, imagining the life of a housemaid in "Soliloquy" (presented here) and reporting on the contrasting lives of women workers in "The Working Girls of New York" (an urban companion piece to Herman Melville's "Tartarus of Maids"). She republished her columns in six collections and \\Tote two novels, including the well-received Ruth Hall (1855), and several books for children. Fem Leauesji'Oin Fmlll)'~' Port-Folio (1853) sold nearly 100,000 copies in England and America. Fern used satire, wit, and vernacular language to comment on women's rights and suffrage, particularly economic independence for women. As her writing matured, she addressed issues of poverty, prostitution, prisons. and labor exploitation. She was one of the first writers to praise publicly Walt Whitman's Leaves (:{Grass.

SOLILOQUY OF A HOUSEMAID

Oh, dear, dear 1 Wonder if my mistress ever thinks I am made of flesh and blood) Five times, within half an hour. I have trotted up stairs. to hand her things, that were only four feet from her rocking-chair. Then, there's her son, Mr. George,-it does seem to me, that a great able-bodied man like him, need n't call a poor tired woman up four pair of stairs to ask "what's the time of day?" Heigho!-its "Sally do this," and "Sally do that,'' till I wish I never had been baptized at all; and I might as well go farther back, while I am about it, and wish I had never been born. Now, instead of ordering me round so like a dray horse, if they would only look up smiling-like, now and then; or ask me how my "rheumatiz" did: or say good morning, Sally; or show some sort of interest in a fellmv-cretur, I could pluck up a bit of heart to work for them. A kind word would ease the wheels of my treadmill amazingly, and wouldn't cost them anything, either. Look at n1y clothes, all at sixes and sevens. I can't get a minute to sew on a string or button, except at night; and then I'm so sleepy it is as much as ever I can find the way to bed; and what a bed it is, to be sure! Why, even the pigs are now and then allmved clean straw to sleep on; and as to bed-clothes, the less said about them the better: my old cloak serves for a blanket, and the sheets are as thin as a charity school soup. WelL well: one \Youldn't think it, to see all the fine glittering things down in the drawing-room. Master's span of horses, and Miss Clara's diamond ear-rings, and mistresses rich dresses. I try to think it is all right. but it is no use. To-morrow is Sunday-" day of rest,'' I believe thev rail it. H-u-m-p-h 1-more cooking to be done-rnore company-more cont\.rsion than on any other dav in the week. If I own a soul I have not heard how to take care of it for many a long day. Wonder if mv master and rnistress calculate to pay me for that, if I lose it? It is a question in my mind. Land of Goshen' I aint sure I'w got a mind-there's the bell ,1gain 1

THE WORKING-GIRLS OF NEW YORK

Nowhere n1ore than in Ne\\' York does the contest bet\n~en squalor and splendor so sharply present itself This is the first reflection of the obsen·ing stranger \Vho walks its streets. Particularly is this noticeclble \Vith regard to its \\'omen. Jostling on the same


89

pavement with the dainty fashionist is the care-worn working-girl. Looking at both these women, the question arises, which lives the more miserable life-she whom the world styles "fortunate," whose husband belongs to three clubs, and whose only meal with his family is an occasional breakfast, from year's end to year's end; who is as much a stranger to his mvn children as to the reader; whose young son of seventeen has already a detective on his track employed by his father to ascertain where and how he spends his nights and his father's money; swift retribution for that father who finds food, raiment, shelter, equipages for his household; but love, sympathy, companionship-never? Or she-this other woman-with a heart quite as hungry and unappeased, who also faces day by day the same appalling question: Is this all life has for me? A great book is yet unwritten about women. Michelet has aired his wax-doll theories regarding them. The defender of "woman's rights" has given us her views. Authors and authoresses of little, and big repute, have expressed themselves on this subject, and none of them as yet have begun to grasp it: men-because they lack spirituality, rightly and justly to interpret women; women-because they dare not, or will not tell us that which most interests us to know. Who shall write this bold, frank, truthful book remains to be seen. Meanwhile woman's millennium is yet a great way off; and while it slowly progresses, conservatism and indifference gaze through their spectacles at the seething elements of to-day, and wonder "what ails all our women?" Let me tell you what ails the working-girls. While yet your breakfast is progressing, and your toilet unmade, comes forth through Chatham Street and the Bowery, a long procession of them by twos and threes to their daily labor. Their breakfast, so called, has been hastily swallowed in a tenement house, where two of them share, in a small room, the same miserable bed. Of its quality you may better judge, when you know that each of these girls pays but three dollars a week for board, to the working man and his wife where they lodge. The room they occupy is close and unventilated, with no accommodations for personal cleanliness, and so near to the little Flinegans that their Celtic night-cries are distinctly heard. They have risen unrefreshed, as a matter of course, and their ill-cooked breakfast does ~ot mend the matter. They emerge from the doorway where their passage is obstructed by nanny goats'' and ragged children rooting together in the dirt, and pass out into the street. They shiver as the sharp wind of early morning strikes their temples. There is no look of vouth on their faces; hard lines appear there. Their brows are knit; their eyes are sunken; then dress is flimsy, and foolish, and tawdry: always a hat, and feather or soiled artificial flower upon it; the hair dressed with an abortive attempt at style; a soiled petticoat; a greasy dress, a well-worn sacque or shawl, and a gilt breast-pin and earrings. Now follow them to the large, black-looking building, where several hundred of them are manufacturing hoop-skirts. If you are a woman you have worn plenty; but you little thought what passed in the heads of these girls as their busy fingers glazed the wire, or prepared the spools for covering them, or secured the tapes \vhich held them in their places. %u could not stav five minutes in that room, where the noise of the machinerv used is so deafening, that' only by the motion of the lips could you comprehend a perso;1 speakmg. . Five minutes! Whv, these voung creatures bear it, from seven in the morning till six lll th . ' ' month after month. with only half an hour at nudday . e evemng; week after week, to ~at their dinner of a slice of bread and butter or an apple, which they usuallv eat in the ~nldmg, some of them having come a long distance. As I said, the roar of machinery in ~tt room is like the roar of Niagara. Observe them as you enter. Not one lifts her head. k 1 ey might as well be machines, tor anv interest or curiosity they show, save always to now 11'hat o 'rlork it is. Pitiftll' pitit\.rL you almost sob to yourself. as you look at these young girls. l~ll111gl Alas' it is only in years that they are young.

90



15

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911)

I

n her long, extraordinary, and heroic life, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper embodied the role of a public and creative intellectual. As an author, lecturer, activist, feminist, and educator, she addressed the most pressing issues of her day and linked them to a vision of a future America where African Americans were essential to the building of a democratic nation. Born to free black parents in Baltimore, Maryland, Frances Watkins was orphaned at age three and raised by her uncle William Watkins, an educator and preacher. She started her young working life as a domestic and then became a teacher. She became the first \Voman to teach at Union Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio, where John M. Brown (later leader of the Harper's Ferry revolt) was principal at the time. Her poetry appeared in abolitionist newspapers, and her first poetry collection, Forest Leaves, was published in 1845. Watkins witnessed the crux of fear and relief in the lives of escaped slaves when, as a teacher in Pennsylvania. she lived in a home that served as a station on the Underground Railroad. In 1854, she experienced exile firsthand when new slave laws made it unsafe to return to Maryland. These events sharpened her political consciousness as she began giving antislavery speeches in the Northeast and Canada while continuing to write poetry, essays, and sketches, and more than fifteen books over a long lifetime, including lola Leroy (1892), one of the first novels published by a black woman. Slipping poems into her speeches, infusing her writing with the urgency of struggle, Watkins never separated her literary imagination from her political consciousness. As a feminist, she lectured on equal rights and, ahead of her time, perceived the tangled relationships of class, race, and gender. She recognized the importance of suffrage, but also insisted on the necessity of ensuring the survival and safety of blacks first. She married Fenton Harper in 1860, gave birth to their daughter Mary in 1862, and temporarily retired from public life until Harper's death in 1863. In the 1870s, she lived in Philadelphia while traveling and lecturing widely and continuing to write and publish. She envisioned a future for women as not only sustainers of the home, but also as catalysts for transforming society. "The Slave Mother" speaks to that impulse as she coaxes her reader to hear the anguish of a mother who has been separated from her child.

20

25

30

35

+o

H

Saw you those hands so sadly claspedThe bowed and feeble headThe shuddering of that fragile formThat look of grief and dread? Sa\\' you the sad, imploring eye? Its every glance was pain. As if a storm of agony Were sweeping through the brain.

He is not hers, although she bore For him a mother's pains; He is not hers, although her blood Is coursing through his veins!

His love has been a joyous light That o'er her pathway smiled, A fountain gushing ever new, Amid life's desert wild. His lightest word has been a tone Of music round her heart, Their lives a streamlet blent in oneOh, Father! must they part? They tear him from her circling arms, Her last and fond embrace. Oh! never more may her sad eyes Gaze on his mournful face. No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks Disturb the listening air: She is a mother, and her heart Is breaking in despair.

Harriet E. Wilson (1828?-1900?)

Heard you that shriek? It rose So wildly on the air, It seemed as if a burden'd heart Was breaking in despair.

111

She is a mother, pale with fear. Her boy clings to her side, And in her kirtle vainly tries His trembling form to hide.

He is not hers, for cruel hands May rudely tear apart The only wreath of household love That binds her breaking heart.

THE SLAVE MOTHER

"

91

L

arriet E. Wilson's Our .'\'ig (1859) depicts the cruel mistreatment of Frado, a young mulatto \Voman living in New England shortlv before the Ci,·il War. Despite being a Northern "free black," Frado is treated as badly as many a Southern slave. Having been deserted as a child of six bv her white mother. she is taken in bv a f~unilv of \Yhite fanners. the Bellrnonts, and put to ~vork as an indentured servant. Mrs. Bellmon~ and her daughter. Mary, treat Frado with such crueltv that her health breaks dmn1 never fi.1llv to recover.

10

Chorus Fill-i-me-oo-ree-i-ree-ay (three times) To work upon the railway. In eighteen hundred and tc)rt\·-two I left the Old World for the Nc\\. Bad cess to the luck that brought me through To work upon the railway. When Pat left Ireland to come here And spend his latter days in cheer. His bosses they did drink strong beer While Pat \vorked on the railway.

15

In eighteen hundred and forty-three 'Twas then that I met sweet Biddy McGee. An elegant wite she's been to me While working on the raihYav.

PEG AN' AWL ~IJ

In the days of eighteen and one, Peg an' a\vl, In the days of eighteen and one, Peg an' awl, In the days of eighteen and one, Peggin' shoes is all I done, Hand me dO\vn my pegs, my pegs, my pegs, my awl.

Ill

2.'i

In the days of eighteen and two, (x3) Peggin' shoes was all I'd do, Hand me down my pegs, my pegs, my pegs, my awl. In the days of eighteen and three. (x3) Peggin · shoes is all you'd see. Hand me down my pegs, my pegs. my pegs, my awl.

15

3li

In the davs of eighteen and tour. (x3) I said I'd peg them shoes no more. Throw awav my pegs. mv pegs. my pegs. my awl.

Make a hundred pair to mv one. (x3) Peggin' shoes. it ain't no fll!l. Throw a\vay my pegs. my pegs. my pegs. my awl.

In eighteen hundred and fortv-ftw I found mvself more de.td than .11iw. I found 111\'Self more dead than c1li\·e From working on the raihv,1y. It's ''Pat do this" and "Pat do that." \Vithout a stocking or cr~n·at. Nothing but ,111 old stL1\V hat While I \Vorked on the raihva\·. In eighteen hundred and tort\·-seven Sweet Biddy J'v1cCee she \\·ent to heaven: If she lett one kid she left elewn. To work upon th<e raihv.1v.

35

They've inwnted a new machine. (x3) The prettiest little thing vou ewr seen. I'll throw away my pegs. my pegs. my pegs. my awl. ~o

In eighteen hundred ~md torty-tc)ur I traveled the land from shore to shore. I traveled the land from shore to shore To work upon the raih\·ay.

l

In eighteen hundred and fc1rt\·-eight I learned to t.1ke me \vhiskev straight. 'Tis an elegant drink and can't be bate For working on the r.tihvav.

105


106


THE HOUSEKEEPER'S LAMENT

One dav as I \\·andered, I heard a complaining, and saw an old \voman, the picture of gloom. She gazed at the mud on her doorstep ('twas raining) and this \Vas her song as she \\·ielded her broom: ~

111

15

211

"Oh life is a toil and love is a trouble. And beauty will fade and riches will flee, Oh, pleasures they d\\·indle and prices they double, And nothing is as I \vould wish it to be. "It's sweeping at six and it's dusting at seven: It's victuals at eight and it's dishes at nine. It\ potting and panning trom ten to eleven; We scarce break our fast till we plan how to dine. "There's too much of \Vorriment goes in a bonnet; There's too much of ironing goes in a shirt. There's nothing that pays for the time you waste on it: There's nothing that lasts us but trouble and dirt. "In March it is mud, it is snow in December; The mid-summer breezes are loaded \Vith dust. In fall the leaves litter; in rainy September The \\·allpaper rots and the candlesticks rust. ''Last night in my dreams I \vas stationed forever On a tar little isle in the midst of the sea. My one chance ±or life \Yas a ceaseless endeavor To s\veep off the \Vclf-hlt~l'b (18h8: Nc\\. York: Signet Classic/Penguin. 1' Bevond.

I' , ,, llle-/,,,rc: Alone. 14 · - Jlirc/r· Salt':! , l: l • c· ureL:l por k~: con1n1on 1 y, 1t

-

reter~

to ,l Sl·d e

o fl1Jcon.

! 118


midnight, the great furnaces break forth with renewed fury, the clamor begins with fresh, breathless vigor, the engines sob and shriek like "gods in pain." As Deborah hurried down through the heavy rain, the noise of these thousand engines sounded through the sleep and shadow of the city like far-off thunder. The mill to which she was going lay on the river, a mile below the city-limits. It was far, and she was weak, aching from standing twelve hours at the spools. Yet it was her almost nightly walk to take this man his supper, though at every square she sat down to rest, and she knew she should receive small word of thanks. Perhaps, if she had possessed an artist's eye, the picturesque oddity of the scene might have made her step stagger less, and the path seem shorter; but to her the mills were only "summat deilish to look at by night." The road leading to the mills had been quarried from the solid rock, which rose abrupt and bare on one side of the cinder-covered road, while the river, sluggish and black, crept past on the other. The mills for rolling iron are simply immense tent-like roofs, covering acres of ground, open on every side. Beneath these roofs Deborah looked in on a city of fires, that burned hot and fiercely in the night. Fire in every horrible form: pits of flame waving in the wind; liquid metal-flames writhing in tortuous streams through the sand; wide caldrons filled with boiling fire, over which bent ghastly wretches stirring the strange brewing; and through all, crowds of half-clad men, looking like revengeful ghosts in the red light, hurried, throwing masses of glittering fire. It was like a street in Hell. Even Deborah muttered, as she crept through, "'T looks like t' Devil's place!" It did,-in more ways than one. She found the man she was looking for, at last, heaping coal on a furnace. He had not time to eat his supper; so she went behind the furnace, and waited. Only a few men were with him, and they noticed her only by a "Hyur comes t' hunchback, Wolfe." Deborah was stupid with sleep; her back pained her sharply; and her teeth chattered with cold, with the rain that soaked her clothes and dripped from her at every step. She stood, however, patiently holding the pail, and waiting. 15

"Hout, woman! ye look like a drowned cat. Come near to the fire,"-said one of the men, approaching to scrape away the ashes. She shook her head. Wolfe had forgotten her. He turned, hearing the man, and came closer. "I did no' think; gi' me my supper, woman." She watched him eat with a painful eagerness. With a woman's quick instinct, she saw that he was not hungry,-was eating to please her. Her pale, watery eyes began to gather a strange light. "Is't good, Hugh? T'ale was a bit sour, I feared." "No, good enough." He hesitated a moment. "Ye're tired, poor lass' Bide here till I go. Lay down there on that heap of ash, and go to sleep." He threw her an old coat for a pillow, and turned to his work. The heap was the refuse of the burnt iron, and \Vas not a hard bed; the half-smothered warmth, too, penetrated her limbs, dulling their pain and cold shiver. Miserable enough she looked, lying there on the ashes like a limp, dirty rag,-yet not an unfitting tlgure to crown the scene of hopeless discomfort and veiled crime: more fitting, if one looked deeper into the heart of things,-at her thwarted woman's form, her colorless life, her waking stupor that smothered pain and hunger.-even more fit to be a type of her class. Deeper yet if one could look, was there nothing worth reading in this wet, faded thing, half-covered with ashes? no story of a soul filled \Vith groping passionate

Beneath the Gilded Surface: Working-Class Fictions and Realities, 1860s-1890s

love, heroic unselfishness, fierce jealousy? of years of weary trying to please the one human being whom she loved, to gain one look of real heart-kindness from him? If anything like this were hidden beneath the pale, bleared eyes, and dull, washed-out-looking face, no one had ever taken the trouble to read its faint signs: not the half-clothed furnace-tender, Wolfe, certainly. Yet he was kind to her: it was his nature to be kind, even to the very rats that swarmed in the cellar: kind to her in just that same way. She knew that. And it might be that very knowledge had given to her face its apathy and vacancy more than her low, torpid life. One sees that dead, vacant look steal sometimes over the rarest, finest of women's faces,-in the very midst, it may be, of their warmest summer's day; and then one can guess at the secret of intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath the delicate laces and brilliant smile. There was no warmth, no brilliancy, no summer for this woman; so the stupor and vacancy had time to gnaw into her face perpetually. She was young, too, though no one guessed it; so the gnawing was the fiercer. She lay quiet in the dark corner, listening, through the monotonous din and uncertain glare of the works, to the dull plash of the rain in the far distance,-shrinking back whenever the man Wolfe happened to look towards her. She knew, in spite of all his kindness, that there was that in her face and form which made him loathe the sight of her. She felt by instinct, although she could not comprehend it, the fmer nature of the man, which made him among his fellow-workmen something unique, set apart. She knew, that, down under all the vileness and coarseness of his life, there was a groping passion for whatever was beautiful and pure,-that his soul sickened with disgust at her deformity, even when his words were kindest. Through this dull consciousness, which never left her, came, like a sting, the recollection of the little Irish girl she had left in the cellar. The recollection struck through even her stupid intellect with a vivid glow of beauty and grace. Little Janey, timid, helpless, clinging to Hugh as her only friend: that was the sharp thought, the bitter thought, that drove into the glazed eyes a fierce light of pain. You laugh at it? Are pain and jealousy less savage realities down here in this place I am taking you to than in your own house or your own heart,-your heart, which they clutch at sometimes? The note is the same, I fancy, be the octave high or low. If you could go into this mill where Deborah lay, and drag out from the hearts of these men the terrible tragedy of their lives, taking it as a symptom of the disease of their class, no ghost Horror would terrifY you more. A reality of soul-starvation, of living death, that meets you every day under the besotted faces on the street,-! can paint nothing of this, only giVe you the outside outlines of a night, a crisis in the life of one man: whatever muddy depth of soul-history lies beneath you can read according to the eyes God has given you. . Wolfe, while Deborah watched him as a spaniel its master, bent over the furnace with his iron pole, unconscious of her scrutiny, only stopping to receive orders. Physically, Nature had promised the man but little. He had already lost the strength and instinct vigor of a man, his muscles were thin, his nerves weak, his face (a meek, woman's face) haggard, yellow with consumption. In the mill he \Vas known as one of the girl men: ''Molly Wolfe" Was his sobriquetl6 He was never seen in the cockpit, 17 did not own a terrier, drank but seldom; when he did, desperately. He fought sometimes, but was always thrashed, ~onunelled to a jelly. The man was game enough, when his blood was up: but he was no lavonte in the mill; he had the taint of school-learning on him.-not to a dangerous ~Xtent. only a quarter or so in the free-schooJlH in fact, but enough to ruin him as a good and 111 a fight.

~ 17

15 How: Excbm:ltory greeting.

119

18

solmquct: "Nickname" (French)

.

mckpit: Area where gamecocks fought and spectators w,Jgered on the outcome. .free-school: Public school.

120



For other reasons, too, he was not popular. Not one of themselves, they felt that, though outwardly as filthy and ash-covered; silent, with foreign thoughts and longings breaking out through his quietness in innumerable curious ways: this one, for instance. In the ne1ghbonng furnace-buildings lay great heaps of the refuse from the ore after the pig-metal Is run. Korl we call it here: a light, porous substance, of a delicate, waxen, fleshcolored tmge. Out of the blocks of this korl, Wolfe, in his off-hours from the furnace, had a habit of chipping and moulding figures,-hideous, fantastic enough, but sometimes strangely beautiful: even the mill-men saw that, while they jeered at him. It was a curious fancy in the man, almost a passion. The few hours for rest he spent hewing and hacking with his blunt knife, never speaking, until his watch came again,-working at one figure for months, and, when it Was finished, breaking it to pieces perhaps, in a fit of disappointment. A morbid, gloomy man, untaught, unled, left to feed his soul in grossness and crime, and hard, grinding labor. I want you to come down and look at this Wolfe, standing there among the lowest of his kind, and see him just as he is, that you may judge him justly when you hear the story of this night. I want you to look back, as he does every day, at his birth in vice, his starved infancy; to remember the heavy years he has groped through as boy and man,-the slow, heavy years of constant, hot work. So long ago he began, that he thinks sometimes he has worked there for ages. There is no hope that it will ever end. Think that God put mto this man's soul a fierce thirst for beauty,-to know it, to create it; to be-something, he knows not what,-other than he is. There are moments when a passing cloud, the sun glmtmg on the purple thistles, a kindly smile, a child's face, will rouse him to a passion of pain,when h1s nature starts up with a mad cry of rage against God, man, whoever It IS that has forced this vile,. slimy life upon him. With all this groping, this mad desire, a great bhnd mtellect stumblmg through wrong, a loving poet's heart, the man was by habit only a coarse, vulgar laborer, familiar with sights and words you \Vould blush to name . Be JUSt: when I tell you about this night, see him as he is. Be just,-not like man's lavv, which seizes on one Isolated fact, but like God's judging angel, whose clear, sad eye saw all the countless cankenng days of this man's life, all the countless nights, when, sick with starvmg, h1s soul fainted in him, before it judged him for this night, the saddest of all. I called this mght the crisis of his life. If it was, it stole on him unawares. These great turning-days of life cast no shadow before, slip by unconsciously. Only a trifle, a little turn of the rudder, and the ship goes to heaven or hell. . Wolfe, while Deborah watched him, dug into the furnace of melting iron with his pole, dully thinking only how many rails the lump would yield. It was late,-nearly Sunday morning; another hour, and the heavy work would be done.-only the furnaces to replenish and cover for the next day The \vorkmen were growing more noisy. shouting, as they had to do. to be heard ove~ the deep clamor of the mills. Suddenly they ~rew less boisterous,-at the far end, entirely silent. Something unusual had happened. A±ter a moment, the silence can1 e nearer; the men stopped their jeers and drunken choruses. Deborah. stupidly lifting up her head. saw the cause of the quiet. A group of five or siX men were slowly approaching, stopping to examine each fi.unace as they came. VIsitors often came to see the n 1 ills after night: except by growing less noisy, the men took no notice of them. The furnace where Wolfe worked was near the bounds of the works: they halted there hot and tired: a walk over one of these great foundries is no trifling task. The \voman, drawing out of sight, turned over to sleep. Wolfe, seeing them stop~ sudden!~ roused from hrs mdrfferent stupor and watched them keenlv. He knew some o± them. th overseer. Clarke,-a son of Kirbv' one of the mill-mv-ners,_:_and a Doctor May. one of the town-physicians. The other two ~\~·ere strangers. Wolfe came closer. He seized eagnh· every chance that brought hirn into contact with this mvsterious class that shone down on hun perpetually with the glarnour of another order· of being. What made the di±lerence

121

between them; That was the mystery of his life. He had a vague notion that perhaps tonight he could find it out. One of the strangers sat dovm on a pile of bricks, and beckoned young Kirby to hrs s1de. , . . . . " "This is hot, w1th a vengeance. A match, please? -hghtmg lm ngar. But the walk is worth the trouble. If it were not that you must have heard it so often, Kirby. I would tell you that your works look like Dante's Inferno." 19 Kirbv laughed. "Yes: Yonder is Farinata 20 himself in the burning tomb,"-pointing to some figure in the shimmering shadows. "Judging from son1.e of the faces of your men,'' said the other. "they bid fair to try the reality of Dante's vision, some day." 21 Young Kirby looked curiously around, as if seeing the faces of his hands for the fmt time. "They're bad enough, that's true. A desperate set, I fancy. Eh, Clarke?" The overseer did not hear him. He was talking of net profits just then,-giving, m fact, a schedule of the annual business of the fm11 to a sharp peering little Yankee. who jotted down notes on a paper laid on the crown of his hat: a reporter for one of the city-papers, getting up a series of reviews of the leading manufactories. The other gentlemen had accompanied them merely for amusement. They were silent until the notes were finished, drying their feet at the furnaces, and sheltering their faces from the intolerable heat. At last the overseer concluded with"I believe that is a pretty fair estimate, Captain.'' "Here, some of you men!" said Kirby, "bring up those boards. We may as \vell sit down, gentlemen, until the rain is over. It cannot last much longer at this rate." "Pig-metal.''-mumbled the reporter,-"um!-coal facilities,-um!-hands employed, twebe hundred,-bitumen.-um'-all right, I believ-e, Mr. Clarke:-sinkingfund,22 -what did you say was your sinking-fund'" "T,,·elve hundred hands?" said the stranger, the young man who had ±lrst spoken. "Do you control their votes,23 Kirby?" "ControP No." The young man smiled complacently. "But my father brought seven hundred Yotes to the polls for his candidate last Nov-ember. No force-work, you understand.-only a speech or two, a hint to form themselv-es into a society, and a bit of red and blue bunting to make them a flag. The Inv-incible Roughs,-I believe that is their name. I forget the motto: 'Our country's hope.' I think."

19 D.mrc > Inf(·mo: The Itahan poet Dante Alighieri ( 126S -1321) is best known as the author of Tile Di1'inc C'111cdy. an epic poem completed in 1321 and di,·ided into three sections: lnf(·rno ("hell"). p,llgm,,,.,,, (""purgatory"). and Hnadiso ("'paradise"). In the lnti·rno. the poet and his guide. the spirit ot the classrc1l poet Virgil. Yisit the nine le,-els of hell. ,,-hich descend comcally into the earth. or - 1 F,nin.u,r In the sixth circle of hell (cmto 10). Dante meets Farinata degli Uberti. a ±:mwus Florentine p,ltriot whmc familY was an enemv ofDanrc's people, the Guelfs. After F.1rin.1ta discusses his role in Florentine politics and explains how people in hell can see the future \\·ithout understanding the present. Dante le,wes with ,l ne\Y respect for his enemv. 21

,, l1
lli

Then fight on undaunted, you brave working men, Down the vampires who oppress the poor, You use noble weapons, the tongue and the pen, Successful you'll be I'm sure. With hope for your watchword and truth for your shield, Prosperity for your pathway lights, Then let labor make proud capital yield, God speed each Assembly of Knights.

]IJ

15

STORM THE FORT, YE KNIGHTS

I3y the rich she was tempted to eat the bread of shame. But her mother dear had taught her to value her good name; Mid want and starvation she wa\·ed temptation by, As she would not sell her honor she in poverty must die. No more the work-bell. etc.

Time- "Hold the Fort" Toiling millions now are waking, See them marching on; All the tyrants now are shaking. Ere their power is gone.

lU

From earliest childhood she'd toiled to win her bread; In hunger and rags. oft she ,.,-ished that she were dead; She knew naught of life's joys or the pleasures wealth can bring. Or the glorv of the woodland in the merry days of spring. No more the work-bell. etc.

Then conquer we must, &c.

5

No more the work-bell calls the weary one. Rest, tired \Nage-slave. in your grave unknown; Your feet will no more tread life's thorny. rugged way. They have murdered you by inches upon thirty cents a day 1

211

She cried in her fever: ''I pray you let me go. For my \York is yet to finish, I cannot leave it so: The foreman will curse n1e and dock my scanty pa\', I am stan·ing amid plenty upon thirty cents a day'" No more the \Vork-bell. etc.

Storm the fort, ye Knights of Labor, Battle for your cause: Equal rights for every neighbor, Down with tyrant laws'

2:i

Lazy drones steal all the honey From hard labor's hiws; Banks control the nation's money And destroy your lives.

Too late, Christian ladies! You cannot save her now. She breathes out her life-see the death-damp on her brmv: Full soon she'll be sleeping beneath the churchyard clay. While you smile on those who killed her with thirty cents a day. No more the \York-bell. etc.

AMERICA

Clzorw

15

Do not load the workman's shoulder With an unjust debt: Do not let the rich bondholder Live by blood and sweat.

.'\:e!t' TiTsil'll b)' Ralp/1 E. HOur social sYstem bringo; Full num· a sting. ( )ur boodlers sometimes flee. E1r otr to Cana-da.

145

r 146 IIJ

15

21!

~-=)

j()

3.'i

·+II



To save their bacon. But thousands more, we fear, Will still continue here, Each other's hearts to cheerWith hopes unshaken.

Who never knnv the earning Of one poor pot of beans'

15

Land of the great defaulter, Of knaves who need the halter, Where gold is king. Land where fond hopes have died. Where demagogues reside, Monopolies preside, And misery bring. We love thy rocks and rills, But not thy bitter illsAnd griefs that follow. Thy boasts of "equal rights," Made through thy leading lights, In rhetoric proud flightsAre somewhat hollow. Sweet Land. sweet Liberty, Let Truth and Justice be Allowed full sway. When none shall toil in vain, Monopoly cease to reign, No heart be pierced with pain I3y cruel wrong. Lmd of true liberty, We'll sound loud praise to thee, In cheerful song. Then will the oppressed arise, The dawn salute all eyes. Souls swell with glad surpriseGod speed the day'

"Yonder man is toiling From dawn till de\\)' eve, Two-thirds of his earnings Go to fatten thieves'"

ONE MORE BATTLE TO FIGHT

Air- "011c !viore River to Cross" The car of progress rolls along, One more battle to fight: The voice of the people is growing strong, One more battle to fight. 5

10

One more battle, One more battle for freedom; One more battle, One more battle to fight. Too long have the poor been bought and sold, One more battle to fight; And men bowed dmvn to the shrine of gold, One more battle to ftght. One more battle, etc.

1s

Too long haYe the many like me and you, One more battle to ftght; Enriched with our labor the wealthy few, One more battle to ftght. One more battle, etc.

20

FATHER GANDER's MELODIES

The signal sounds from shore to shore, One more battle to fight; To manhood rise 1 Be slaves no more! One more battle to fight. One more battle, etc.

"Sing a song o' swindle Safe full of stocks: The m,m who tends the spindle Going without socks 1 ~

1r1

"The loater in his parlor Counting up his gold: The \Yorker in his garret Perishing from cold! "See him in his nunsionl lVLm of might ,mel meam.

25

We '11 teach the world a \Yiser plan, One more battle to fight: When the little rag-baby becomes a man, One more battle to fight. One more battle, etc.

~1( I

No more shalllo,1ters mvn the soil, One more battle to fight: Nor bond-thieves fltten on poor men's toil, One more battle to fight. One more battle. etc.

147

148


35

Oppression shall perish and freedom reign, One more battle to fight; The people shall come to their own again, One more battle to fight. One more battle, etc.


FRANK LESLIE'S

ILL U ~,~~~\\~T ED ·~~~EKLY

149

Labor Troubles at Homestead. Pennsylvania. Attack of the strikers and their sympathizers on the surrendered Pinkerton men, drawn by Miss G.A. Davis, from a sketch by C. Upham, Frank Leslie's Illustrated t'lrekly, July 14, 1892. Cmrtesy of Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-7 5205.

The Battle of Homestead, 1892

T

he Homestead strike of 1892 was one of the pivotal confrontations between labor and capital in the Gilded Age. In this western Pennsylvania steel town. one of the country's most powerful industrial corporations faced off against one of its strongest craft unions in a struggle whose centerpiece became a bloody riverfront battle that left ten dead. These dramatic events immediately generated a flourishing literature of songs and poems that gave voice to the experience of steelvvorkers and their families, communicating their ~ide of the story. In Homestead, Andrew Carnegie had built the world's largest and most technologically advanced steel-making plant, employing more than one third of the town's population. Of these workers, only the most skilled belonged to the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AAISW); however, the union had negotiated a wage scale in 1889 whose benefits extended to the company's huge unskilled workforce. Homestead was a union town as much as a company town-its mayor and most civic leaders were AAISW members-and when Carnegie Steel announced in May 1892 that it would reduce \vages and no longer recognize the union if it did not agree to the cuts, the townspeople united across ethnic lines in opposition to this attack on their livelihoods. Carnegie's new partner Henry Clay Frick, fresh from breaking the unions in the coke regions of southwestern Pennsylvania, had been deputized to lead the attack, while the steel baron himself was on vacation at his castle in Scotland. When the deadline for compliance passed on June 30. Frick shut down the plant and locked out the \Vorkers. He built a tall security fence around the mill and hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to import and protect "scab" workers. The Homestead workers. meanwhile. had organized patrols and lookouts to deter strikebreaking and keep order in the town. On July 6, 1892. they spotted barges carrying three hundred Pinkertons up the Monogahela River to the plant under cover of darkness. When this "invading force" tried to come ashore. a fierce battle ensued. in which the barges \\'ere set on fire. By day's end, se\·en workers and three Pinkertons were killed. The merce1uries surrendered and were marched through Homestead to the roundhouse hom \\'here the\· were later shipped out of town by rail. However. the victory that was celebrated in the songs that follow was short-lived. Pennsylvania's governor ordered the state militia to \\Test control of Homestead away from the workers' committees. Soldiers rounded up union leaders and imported strikebreakers to operate the mill. Bv November. the strike had collapsed, and the union was etTectiwly broken. The songs that are presented here dramatize and interpret the battle of Homestead. both t(w those who were directly affected and for J larger public that \\,lS hungn· for images and information. In telling the story of the b,lttle and n·ems surrounding it. the songs slure common themes and persu,1siye strategies: they Yi!it\· the \H',11thy "t\Tants" Carnegie ,md Frick. \\'ho dominate m the manner of feudal lords: they c·elebLlte the heroim1 of thme \\'ho defended their JObs and homes .1gainst this domination: c~nd theY argue. through

references to slavery and the Ci\·il War. that the workers· campaign was a defense of the basic American "liberties" that \\'ere fought for and won in the First and Second American Revolutions. Homestead songs \\'ere composed by both professional songwriters and worker-poets around tht: country. and thev were published with the rapidity of ne\VS stories. "A Man Named Carnegie" first appeared anonymouslY in Stockton, California, on Julv 7. the day after the battle. "A Fight ±(1r Home and Honor" by John W. Kelly. a former Chicago steelworker ,,ho had uken to the minstrel stage as the Rolling Mill Man. was copvrighted ,,·ith the Library of Congress lw Jul\' 16. ·'Tyrant Frick" was published in the National Labor Tribune on August 27. while the date of the bitter elegY "Father Was

m~knmvn.

Killed by the Pinkerton Meu" is ' , The defc·at at Homestead was cl disaster for labor both locally and nationally. Although Carnegie presentt'l1 the tmvn \Yith one of his sign,lture ti"ee public libraries. his workers had little time to use it. since the\' \Yere \\'Orking twelve-hour ,;hifi:s, sewn days a week, and at \\'ages that \\'ere reduced by one third trom those negotiated in the I i:i89 contract. Their union \\'

The traitorous Pinkerton low tribe, In murdering attack, Tried hard to take our lives and homes, But heroes drove them back. 0! sons of toil, o'er all the land, Now hasten, and be quick To aid us, in our efforts grand, To down this Tyrant Frick. Of all slave-drivers, for spite and kick, No one so cruel as Tyrant Frick. The battle of "Fort Frick" is stamped On page of history, And marked with blood of freemen true, Against this tyranny! The sons of toil, for ages to come, His curse will always bring; The name of Frick will be well knownThe Nigger driver King! Of all slave-drivers, for spite and kick, No one so cruel as Tyrant Frick.

A MAN NAMED CARNEGIE

TYRANT FRICK In days gone by before the war All freemen did agree The best of plans to handle slaves Was to let them all go free: But the slave-drivers then, like now, Contrived to make a kick And keep the slaves in bondage tight, Just like our Tyrant Frick.

Of all slave-drivers, for spite and kick, No one so cruel as Tyrant Frick.

5

10

Sing ho, for a man named Carnegie, Who owns us, controls us, his cattle, at will. Doff hats to himself and his lady: Let the sigh of the weary be stiller and still. Drink, boys, to the health of Carnegie, Who gives his slaves freedom to live-if they can. Bend knees, and cheer, chattels, cheer. He May still be a chattel who can't be a man. But, oh, there was weeping last night at the Homestead The river ran red on its way to the sea, And curses were muttered and bullets whistling, And Riot was King of the land of the free.

1

151

152


15

20

Sing ho, for we know you, Carnegie; God help us and save us, we know you too well; You're crushing our wives and you're starving our babies; In our homes you have driven the shadow of hell. Then bow, bow down to Carnegie, Ye men who are slaves to his veriest whim; If he lowers your wages cheer, vassals, then cheer. Ye Are nothing but chattels and slaves under him. But, oh, did you hear it, that mad cry for vengeance, Which drowned with its pulses the cannon's loud roar? For women were weeping last night at the Homestead, And the river ran red from shore unto shore.

25

30

35

40

45

Then woe to the man named Carnegie! His vassals are rising, his bondsmen awake, And there's woe for the lord and there's grief for his lady If his slaves their manacles finally break. Let him call his assassins; we've murder for murder. Let him arm them with rifles; we've cannon to greet. We are guarding our wives and protecting our babies, And vengeance for bloodshed we sternly will mete.

Chorus: God help them tonight in their hour of affliction Praying for him whom they'll ne'er see again Hear the poor orphans tell their sad story "Father was killed by the Pinkerton men."

HI

Ye prating politicians, who boast protection creed, Go to Homestead and stop the orphans' cry, Protection for the rich man ye pander to his greed, His workmen they are cattle and may die. The freedom of the city in Scotland far away 'Tis presented to the millionaire suave, But here in Free America with protection in full sway His workmen get the freedom of the grave.

15

God help them tonight in their hour of affliction Praying for him whom they'll ne'er see again Hear the poor orphans tell their sad story "Father was killed by the Pinkerton men."

20

A

And, oh, did you hear it, that wild cry for mercy The Pinkertons raised as they fell 'neath our fire? They came armed with guns for shooting and killing, But they cowered like curs 'neath our death-dealing ire. Sing ho, if the man named Carnegie Were under our guns, where the Pinkertons stood, He would shrink like a dog and would cry like a baby; But his country he's left for his country's best good. He rides in a carriage; his workmen "protected" Pray God for a chance that their dear ones may live; For he's crushing our wives and he's starving our babies, And we would be hounds to forget or forgive. But, oh, it was awful, that day at Homestead, When the river ran red on its way to the sea. When brave men \Vere falling and women \Vere weeping. And Riot was King of the land of the free'

FATHER WAS KILLED BY THE PINKERTON MEN

5


'Twas in a Pennsylvania town not \'ery long ago Men struck against reduction of their pav Their millionaire employer with philanthropic show Had closed the work till starved they would obey They fought tor home and right to live where they had toiled so long But ere the sun had set some were laid low There 're hearts now sadly grieving by that sad and bitter wrong, God help them for it was a cruel blow.

FIGHT FoR HOME AND HoNOR

(SOMETIMES CALLED "THE HoMESTEAD STRIKE")

5

We are asking one another as we pass the time of day, Why men must have recourse to arms to get their proper pay; And \vhy the labor unions now must not be recognized. While the actions of a syndicate must not be criticised. The trouble down at Homestead was brought about this way, When a grasping corporation had the audacity to say; You must all renounce your unions and forswear your liberty, And we'll promise you a chance to live and die in slavery.

Chorus: lll

For the man that fights for honor, none can blame him: May luck attend wherever he may roam; And no song of his will ever live to shame him While liberty and honor rule his home.

When a crowd of well armed ruffians came \Yithout authority, Like thieves at night, \vhile decent men were sleeping peacefully. Can you \vonder \vhy all honest men v·:ith indignation burn, 15 Whv the slimy worm that cra\ds the earth when trod upon \vill turn' When the locked out men at Homestead saw they were face to face With a lot of paid detectives then they knew it was their place To protect their homes and families and that was nobly done. And the angels will applaud them for the victory they \\'On. 211 See that sturdy band of \vorking men start at the break of dav, Determination in their eyes that surely meant to sav: No men can drive us trom our homes for which we've toiled so long. No men shall take our places nm\· for here's where we belong.

153

154 2:=>

155


Beneath the Gilded Surface: Working-Class Fictions and Realities. 1860s-1890s

A woman with a rifle saw her husband in a crowd; She handed him the weapon and they cheered her long and loud. He kissed her and said, "Mary. you go home 'til we are through." She ans\vered, "No, if you must fight, my place is here with you."

rails. The drivers. muffled to the eyes, stood erect. t~1cing the wind, models of grim philosophy. Overhead, trains rumbled and roared, and the dark stru~ture of the elevated railroad, stretching over the avenue, dnpped httle streams and drops ot water upon the mud

Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

S

tephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey, the fourteenth child of a Methodist minister and elder. Both his parents wrote temperance articles and decried social excesses of gambling, smoking, and drinking, which their youngest child later embraced. A precocious writer, Crane began publishing articles in the ;'\~nu l~nk Ti·ilnme at the age of 16. He attended Pennington Seminary and Hudson River Institute (a military academy) and completed a term each at Lafayette College and Syracuse University, although he was at best an indifferent student. Freelance writer, journalist, war correspondent, novelist, poet. and short story writer, Crane is be'it known to contemporary readers as the author of the Civil War novel. The Red Ba~r;c 4 Coura;;e (1895)-a remarkable achievement for a twenty-four year old who had never, to that point, seen a battlefield-and of memorable short stories, such as "The Open Boat." In 189CJ he moved to New York and into an apartment in the Bowery slums. There he led a bohemian life and gathered research tor his tlrst novella . .\Iagr;ic: A Girl o( the Streets (1893), which was originally self-published on borrowed money under the pseudonym Johnston Smith. Although its account of an Irish working girl's descent into prostitution initially had few readers, .\Iagr;ie received critical praise from Hamlin Garland and William Dean Howells and is nmv considered a milestone in literary naturalism. particularlv in depicting hmv environmental conditions at1't:ct character. A collection of impressionistic poems, The Black Rider (1895). led to better reporting assignments, and Crane traveled to Greece, Cuba. Texas, and Mexico as a war correspondent. His health \Vas aflected bv his shipwreck experience (the factual base of "The Open Boat") and malarial fever contracted in Cuba. He mm·ed to Sussex. England. in 1898. \Vhere he became friends with Joseph Conrad. H. G. Wells. and Henry James. Crane returned to Cuba in 1899 to cowr the Spanish-American \var. but illness forced his rt'turn to England. He died trom tuberculosis on June .S. 1900. at Badenweiler. Germanv. and is buried in Hillside, New Jersey. "The Men in the Storm." a sketch trom Crane's time on tht' BmYerY during the ninett'enth century's \Yorst economic depression. was originallY published in The .-lrcn. until the ±~lees of pedestri,ms tingled and burned ,11 tJ·om a thousand needle-prickings. Those on the walks huddled tht>ir necks closely in the colbrs of tht>ir coats. c~nd \Wilt along stooping like c~ race of aged people. Tht> dri\·ns of \·chicles hurried their horses ti.1riousk on their \Yay. The\· were made more cruel lw the expmurc of their position. aloft on high sec~ts. The street cars. bound up-tm\·n. went slm\ h-. the horses slipping and straining in the spongy brm\·n mass that bv bct\\·ecn the

and snO\Y beneath. All the clatter of the street was softened by the masses that lay upon the cobbles. until, even to one vvho looked trom a window. it became important music, a melody of life made necessary to the ear by the dreariness of the pitiless beat and sweep of the storm. Occasionally one could see black figures of men busily shovelling the white drifts ±1-om the walks. The sounds ±rom their labour created ne\v recollections of rural experiences which every man manages to have in a measure. Later, the immense windows of the shops became aglm,· with light, throwing great beams of orange and yellow upon the pavement. They were infinitely cheerful. vet in a way they accentuated the force and discomfort of the storm. and gave a meaning to the pace of the people and the vehicles, scores of pedestrians and drivers, wretched with cold faces, necks. and feet, speeding for scores of unknown doors and entrances, scattering to an intlnite variety of shelters, to places \vhich the imagination made warm ·with the familiar colours of home. There was an absolute expression of hot dinners in the pace of the people. If one dared to speculate upon the destination of those who came trooping. he lost himself in a maze of social calculation; he might fling a handful of sand and attempt to follow the flight of each particular grain. But as to the suggestion of hot dinners, be was in firm lines of thought, for it was upon every hurrying face. It is a matter of tradition: it is from the tales of childhood. It comes forth with everv storm. However. in a certain part of a dark west-side street, there \vas a collection of men to whom these things were as if they \vere not. In this street was located a charitable house where tc1r five cents the homeless of the city could get a bed at night, and in the morning coffee and bread. During the afternoon of the storm, the whirling snows acted as drivers. as men ,,~ith whips. and at half-past three the walk before the clost>d doors of the house was covered \Yith wanderers of the street, waiting. For some distance on either side of the place they could be seen lurking in the doorways and behind projecting parts of buildings. gathering in close bunches in an effort to get warm. A covered wagon dra\vn up near the curb sheltered a dozen of them. Under the stairs that led to the eln~ated railway station. tht>re \\·ere six or eight. their hands stuffed deep in their pockets, their shoulders stooped. jiggling their teet. Others always could be seen coming. a strange procession, some slouching along \Yith the characteristic hopeless gait of professional strays. some coming \vith hesitating steps. wearing the air of men to whom this sort of thing was ne\Y. It \vas an afternoon of incredible length. The snmY. blowing in twisting clouds. sought out the men in their meagre hiding-places. and skilti.Jlly beat in among tht'm. drenching their persons with shmwrs of fine stinging flakes. They crmnled togt>ther. muttering. and fi.nnbling in their pockets to get their red inflamed \nists co\~ered lw the cloth. New-comers ustL1llv halted at one end of the groups and acldrt>ssed a question. perh~1ps much as a matter of tonn. "Is it opt'n yt>t;" Thost' \vho had been ,,~airing inclined to take the questioner seriously and became contemptuous. "No: do yeh think we'd be stanclin' here;" The gathering ''Yelled in numbers steadilY ,mel persistentlY. One could always see them coming. trudging slcl\\·lv through the storm. Fin,Jlh·. the littlt' snmv pbins in tht' street beg,m to ,1ssume a leadt'n hut' from the sludows nf l.'\Tning. The buildings upreared gloomik q\·t' \\ hne various \vmdcms bcc11ne brilliant figures of light. that made shimmers ,md splashes of vellcm on the sncm. A strt'ct Limp on the curb struggkd tu illuminate. but it \\',1S reduced to impotent blindneso; lw the switt gusts of o;Jcet crnsting its pam's.

156



In this half-darkness, the men began to come from their shelter-places and mass in front of the doors of charity. They were of all types, but the nationalities were mostly American, German, and Irish. Many were strong, healthy, clear-skinned fellows, with that stamp of countenance which is not frequently seen upon seekers after charity. There were men of undoubted patience, industry, and temperance, who, in time of ill-fortune, do not habitually turn to rail at the state of society, snarling at the arrogance of the rich, and bemoaning the CO\vardice of the poor, but who at these times are apt to wear a sudden and singular meekness, as if they saw the world's progress marching from them, and were trying to perceive where they had failed, what they had lacked, to be thus vanquished in the race. Then there were others, of the shifting Bowery element, who were used to paying ten cents for a place to sleep, but who now came here because it was cheaper. But they \Vere all mixed in one mass so thoroughly that one could not have discerned the different elements, but tor the fact that the labouring men, for the most part, remained silent and impassive in the blizzard, their eyes fixed on the windows of the house, statues of patience.

"Cit off me feet, yeh clumsy tarrier!" "Say, don't stand on me feet! Walk on th' ground!" A man near the doors suddenly shouted: "0-o-oh! Le' me out-le' me out!" And another, a man of infinite valour, once twisted his head so as to half face those who were pushing behind him. "Quit yer shovin', yeh"-and he delivered a volley of the most powerful and singular invective, straight into the faces of the men behind him. It was as ifhe was hammering the noses of them with curses of triple brass. His face, red with rage, could be seen, upon it an expression of sublime disregard of consequences. But nobody cared to reply to his imprecations; it was too cold. Many of them snickered, and all continued to push. In occasional pauses of the crowd's movement the men had opportunities to make jokes; usually grim things, and no doubt very uncouth. Nevertheless, they were notableone does aot expect to fmd the quality of humour in a heap of old clothes under a snowdrift. The winds seemed to grow fiercer as time wore on. Some of the gusts of snow that came down on the close collection of heads cut like knives and needles, and the men huddled, and swore, not like dark assassins, but in a sort of American fashion, grimly and desperately, it is true, but yet with a wondrous under-effect, indefmable and mystic, as if there was some kind of humour in this catastrophe, in this situation in a night of snowladen winds. Once the window of the huge dry-goods shop across the street furnished material for a few moments of forgetfulness. In the brilliantly lighted space appeared the figure of a man. He was rather stout and very well clothed. His beard was fashioned charmingly after that of the Prince of Wales. He stood in an attitude of magnificent reflection. He slowly stroked his moustache with a certain grandeur of manner, and looked down at the snowencrusted mob. From below, there was denoted a supreme complacence in him. It seemed that the sight operated inversely, and enabled him to more clearly regard his own delightful environment. One of the mob chanced to turn his head, and perceived the figure in the window. "Hello, look-it 'is whiskers," he said genially. Many of the men turned then, and a shout went up. They called to him in all strange keys. They addressed him in every manner, from familiar and cordial greetings to carefully worded advice concerning changes in his personal appearance. The man presently fled, and the mob chuckled ferociously, like ogres who had just devoured something. They turned then to serious business. Often they addressed the stolid front of the house. ''Oh, let us in fer Gawd's sake!" "Let us in. or we'll all drop dead!" "Say, what's th' use o' keepin' us poor Indians out in th' cold?" And always some one \vas saying, ''Keep otT my feet." The crushing of the crowd gre\Y terrific toward the last. The men, in keen pain from the blasts, began almost to fight. With the pitiless whirl of snow upon them, the battle for shelter was going to the strong. It became known that the basement door of the foot of a little steep flight of stairs was the one to be opened, and they jostled and heaved in this direction like labouring fiends. One could hear them panting and groaning in their fterce exertion. Usually some one in the front ranks was protesting to those in the rear-"0-o-ow! Oh. say nO\Y, fellers. let up. will yeh? Do yeh \\·anta kill somebody?" A policeman arrived and went into the midst of them, scolding and berating, occasionally threatening. but using no force but that of his hands and shoulders against these men \Yho were only struggling to get in out of the storm. His decisive tones rang out sharply-"Stop that pushin' back there' Come. boys, don't push' Stop that' Here you. quit ver shovin'l Cheese that!"

The sidewalk soon became completely blocked by the bodies of the men. They pressed close to one another like sheep in a winter's gale, keeping one another warm by the heat of their bodies. The snow came upon this compressed group of men untiL directly from above, it might have appeared like a heap of snow-covered merchandise, if it were not for the fact that the crowd swayed gently with a unanimous rhythmical motion. It was wondertul to see how the snow lay upon the heads and shoulders of these men, in little ridges an inch thick perhaps in places, the flakes steadily adding drop and drop, precisely as they fall upon the unresisting grass of the fields. The feet of the men were all wet and cold, and the wish to warm them accounted for the slovv, gentle rhythmical motion. Occasionally some man whose ear or nose tingled acutely from the cold winds would wriggle down until his head was protected by the shoulders of his companions. There \Vas a continuous murmuring discussion as to the probability of the doors being speedily opened. They persistently lifted their eyes toward the windows. One could hear little combats of opinion. "There's a light in th' winder'" "Naw; it's a reflection f'm across th' way." "Well, didn't I see 'em light it?'' "You did?" "I did!" "Well, then, that settles it 1" As the time approached when they expected to be allowed to enter, the men crowded to the doors in an unspeakable crush, jamming and wedging in a way that, it seemed. would crack bones. They surged heavily against the building in a powerful wave of pushing shoulders. Once a rumour flitted among all the tossing heads. "They can't open th' door! Th' fellers er smack up agin 'em." Then a dull roar of rage came from the men on the outskirts; but all the time they strained and pushed until it appeared to be impossible for those that they cried out against to do anything but be crushed into pulp. "Ah. git away f'm th' door!" ''Cit outa that!" "Throw 'em out!" "Kill 'enJ"' "Say. ''Yeh Men tLm1pling

157

tellers. now. what th' 'ell? G\·e 'em a chance t' open th' door''' damn pigs. give 'em a chancer' open th' door 1" in the outskirts of the crowd occasionallv yelled when a boot-heel of one of feet crushed on their freezing extremities.

I

1

!58



When the door below was opened, a thick stream of men forced a way down the stairs, which were of an extraordinary narrowness, and seemed only wide enough for one at a time. Yet they somehow went down almost three abreast. It was a difficult and painful operation. The crowd was like a turbulent water forcing itself through one tiny outlet. The men in the rear, excited by the success of the others, made frantic exertions, for it seemed that this large band would more than fill the quarters, and that many would be left upon the pavements. It would be disastrous to be of the last, and accordingly men with the snow biting their faces writhed and twisted with their might. One expected that, from the tremendous pressure, the narrow passage to the basement door would be so choked and clogged with human limbs and bodies that movement would be impossible. Once indeed the crowd was forced to stop, and a cry went along that a man had been injured at the foot of the stairs. But presently the slow movement began again, and the policeman fought at the top of the flight to ease the pressure of those that were going down. A reddish light from a window fell upon the faces of the men when they, in turn, arrived at the last three steps and were about to enter. One could then note a change of expression that had come over their features. As they stood thus upon the threshold of their hopes, they looked suddenly contented and complacent. The fire had passed from their eyes and the snarl had vanished from their lips. The very force of the crowd in the rear, which had previously vexed them, was regarded from another point of view, for it now made it inevitable that they should go through the little doors into the place that was cheery and warm with light.

of his parents, "whose half-century pilgrimage on the main traveled road of life has brought them only toil and deprivation." Garland's socialism dates from this period, when he lectured and campaigned for the People's Party of Iowa. Through the books that followed-short story collections Prairie Folks (1892) and Other A1ain- Ti·aveled Roads (1910), a series of political novels, and the later memoirs, such as A Son of the Middle Border (1917), which brought him his greatest success-Garland developed a literary aesthetic he called "veritism," which anticipated the social realism of the 1930s. Stephen Crane described it this way: "The realist or veritist is really an optimist, a dreamer. He sees life in terms of what it might be, as well as in terms of what it is; but he writes of what is, and, at his best, suggests what is to be."

UNDER THE LION'S PAW "Along this main-travelled road trailed an endless line of prairie schooners, coming into sight at the east, and passing out of sight over the swell to the west We children used to wonder where they were going and why they went"

The tossing crowd on the sidewalk grew smaller and smaller. The snow beat with merciless persistence upon the bowed heads of those who waited. The wind drove it up from the pavements in frantic forms of winding white, and it seethed in circles about the huddled forms passing in one by one, three by three, out of the storm.

Hamlin Garland (1860-1940)

A

lthough less well known today than his contemporaries Jack London or Upton Sinclair, Hamlin Garland was, at the turn of the century, the leading writer of America's farming frontier. In his short stories and memoirs, he celebrated the hard work, plain language, and mutual caring of his midwestern people, as well as the beauty and harshness of the land they worked. He also exposed the cruel realities underneath the pioneer dream, which, with the help of railroad advertising and unscrupulous banks, fueled the westward migration of working people who were seeking economic independence. Born on a farm in the La Crosse valley ofWisconsin, Garland moved with his family to several homesteads in Iowa and South Dakota, doing his full share of the farm work and attending school during the winters. He left home at age twenty-one to take up teaching and found his way to Boston, where, in 1894, unable to afford university admission, he devoted himself to a thorough literary education in the public library. He became a teacher at Moses True Brown's Boston School of Oratory and began contributing articles and stories to journals like Harper~,· Tieekly. A trip back to South Dakota in 1887, where he found his family living in deep poverty, led to the writing of the stories collected in .\Jain-Iim,ellcd Roads (1891), from which "Under the Lion's Paw" is taken. The book was dedicated to the "silent heroism"

159

l

It was the last of autumn and first day of winter corning together. All day long the plowmen on their prairie farms had moved to and fro on their wide level field through the falling snow, which melted as it fell, wetting them to the skin-all day, notwithstanding the frequent squalls of snow, the dripping, desolate clouds, and the muck of the furrows, black and tenacious as tar. Under their dripping harness the horses swung to and fro silently, with that marvelous uncomplaining patience which marks the horse. All day the wild geese, honking wildly as they sprawled sidewise down the wind, seemed to be fleeing from an enemy behind, and with neck out-thrust and wings extended, sailed down the wind, soon lost to sight. Yet the plowman behind his plow, though the snow lay on his ragged greatcoat and the cold clinging mud rose on his heavy boots, fettering him like gyves, whistled in the very beard of the gale. As day passed, the snow, ceasing to melt, lay along the plowed land and lodged in the depth of the stubble, till on each slovv round the last furrow stood out black and shining as jet between the plowed land and the gray stubble. When night began to fall, and the geese, flying low, began to alight invisibly in the near cornfteld, Stephen Council was still at work "finishing a land." He rode on his sulkyplow when going with the wind, but walked when facing it. Sitting bent and cold but cheery under his slouch hat, he talked encouragingly to his four-in-hand. "Come round there, boys!-round agin! We got t' finish this land. Come in there, Dan 1 Stiddy, Kate!-stiddy' None o · y'r tantrums, Kittie. It's purty tuff, but gotta be did. Tcizk! tchk 1 Step along, Pete! Don't let Kate git y'r single tree on the wheeL Once more!" They seemed to know what he meant, and that this was the last round, for they worked with greater vigor than before. "Once more, boys, an' sez I oats, an' a nice warm stall, an' sleep f'r alL" By the time the last furrow was turned on the land it was too dark to see the house, and the snow changing to rain again. The tired and hungry man could see the light from the kitchen shining through the leafless hedge, and lifting a great shout, he yelled, "Supper f'r a half a dozen!" It was nearly eight o'clock by the time he had finished his chores and started for supper. He was picking his way carefully through the mud when the tall form of a man loomed up before him with a premonitory cough.

I

160



161

"Two months 'n' five days." said the mother. with a mother's exactness. "Ye don't say! I want t' know 1 The dear little pudzy-wudzy!" she went on, stirring it up in the neighborhood of the ribs with her tat forefinger. "Pooty tough on 'oo to go gallivant'n' 'cross lots this way." "Yes. that's so: a man can't lifi: a mountain," said Council. entering the door. "Sarah, this is Mr. Haskins from Kansas. He's been eat up 'n' drove out by grasshoppers." "Glad r' see yeh! Pa, empty that \vashbasin 'n' give him a chance t' wash." Haskins was a tall man \Vith a thin, gloomy face. His hair v.:as a reddish brown, like his coat, and seemed equally faded by the wind and sun. And his s,1llow tace, though hard and set, was pathetic somehow. You would have felt that he had suffered much by the line of his mouth showing under his thin, yellow mustache. "Hain't ike got home yet, Sairy?" "Hain't seen 'itn.'' "W-a-a-1. set right up, Mr. Haskins: wade right into what we've got; 'tain't much, but we manage to live on it-she gits fat on it,'' laughed Council, pointing his thumb at

"Waddy ye want?" was the rather 5tartled question of the farmer. "Well, ye see," began the stranger in a deprecating tone, "we'd like t' git in f'r the night. We've tried every house f'r the last two miles. but they hadn't any room f'r us. My wife's jest about sick, 'n' the children are cold and hungry-" "Oh, y' want a stay all night, eh)" "Yes, sir; it 'ud be a great accom-'' "Waal, I don't make it a practice t' turn anybuddy away hungry. not on sech nights as this. Drive right in. We ain't got much. but sech as it is--" But the stranger had disappeared. And soon his steaming. weary team, with drooping heads and swinging single trees. moved past the well to the block beside the path. Council stood at the side of the "schooner" and helped the children out-two little half-sleeping children-and then a small woman \Vith a babe in her arms. "There ye gol" he shouted jovially to the children. "Xo111 \ve're all right. Run right along to the house there, an' tell M'am Council you wants sumpthin' t' eat. Right this way, Mis'-keep right off t' the right there. I'll go an' git a lantern. Come:' he said to the dazed and silent group at his side.

his wife. After supper, v.-hile the women put the children to bed, Haskins and Council talked on, seated near the huge cooking stove, the steam rising from their wet clothing. In the Western fashion, Council told as much of his own life as he dre\V from his guest. He asked but fe\v questions; but by and by the story of Haskins's struggles and defeat came out. The story was a terrible one, but he told it quietly, seated with his elbows on his knees, gazing most of the time at the hearth. "I didn't like the looks of the country, anyhow," Haskins said, partly rising and glancing at his wife. "I was ust t' northern Ingyannie. where we have lots a timber 'n' lots o' rain. 'n' I didn't like the looks o' that dry prairie. What galled me the worst \vas goin' s' far awav acrosst so much fine land layin' all through here vacant." "And the 'hoppers eat ye four years hand running, did they?" "Eat 1 They wiped us out. They chawed everything that was green. They jest set around waitin' f'r us to die t' eat us. too. Mv God 1 I ust t' dream of 'em sitt'n' 'round on th~ bedpmt. six feet long, workin' their jaw~. They eet the fork handles. Thev got worse 'n· worse till they jest rolled on one another. piled up like snow in winter. \Vell, it ain't no use: if l was t' talk all winter I couldn't tell na\vthin'. But all the \vhile I couldn't help thinkin' of all that land back here that no buddy was us in'. that I ought a had 'stead o' bein' out there in that cussed country.'' "WaaL why didn't ye stop an' settle here)" asked Ike, who had come in and was eating his supper. "Fer the simple reason that vou fellers wantid ten 'r fifteen dollars an acre fer the bare Lmd. and I hadn't no money ter that kind o' thing." "Yes. I do my own work," Mrs. Council was heard to sav in the pause which followed. 'Tm a-gettin' puny heavy t' be on m' bigs all day. but we can't afl:ord t' hire. so I rackin' around somehow. like ,1 toundered horse. s· lame-I tell Council he can't tell hmv lame I am fr I'm jest as lame in one laig as t ·other." And the good soul laughed at the joke on herself as she took a handt\Jl of flour and dusted the biscuit board to keep the dough trom sticking. "Well, I hain't ncua been wrv strong,'' said Mrs. Haskins. ''Our folks was Cmadians ,m· snull-boned. and then since my last child 1 luin't got up again fairly. I don't like t' compbin-Tim has about all he can bear now-but they W Why, that's double what you offered it for three years ago." "Of course; and it's worth it. It was all run down then; now it's in good shape. You've laid out fifteen hundred dollars in improvements, according to your own story." "But you had nothin' t' do about that. It's my work an' my money." "You bet it was; but it's my land." "But what's to pay me for all my-'" "Ain't you had the use of' em?" replied Butler, smiling calmly into his face. Haskins was like a man struck on the head with a sandbag; he couldn't think; he stammered as he tried to say: "But-I never 'd git the use-You'd rob me. More'n that: you agreed-you promised that I could buy or rent at the end of three years at-" "That's all right. But I didn't say I'd let you carry off the improvements, nor that I'd go on renting the farm at two-fifty. The land is doubled in value, it don't matter how; it don't enter into the question; an' now you can pay me five hundred dollars a year rent, or take it on your own terms at fifty-five hundred, or-git out." He was turning away when Haskins, the sweat pouring from his face, fronted him, saymg agam: "But you've done nothing to make it so. You hain't added a cent. I put it all there myself, expectin' to buy. I worked an' sweat to improve it. I was workin' f'r myself an' babes-" "Well, why didn't you buy when I offered to sell? What y' kickin' about?" ''I'm kickin' about payin' you twice f'r my own things-my own fences, my own kitchen, my own garden." Butler laughed. "You're too green t' eat, young feller. Your improvements! The law will sing another tune." "But I trusted your word." "Never trust anybody, my friend. Besides, I didn't promise not to do this thing. Why, man. don't look at me like that. Don't take me for a thief. It's the law. The reg'lar thing. Everybody does it." "I don't care if they do. It's stealin' jest the same. You take three thousand dollars of my money. The work o' my hands and my wife's." He broke down at this point. He was not a strong man mentally. He could face hardship, ceaseless toil, but he could not face the cold and sneering face of Butler. "But I don't take it," said Butler coolly. ''All you've got to do is to go on jest as you've been a-doin', or give me a thousand dollars down and a mortgage at ten percent on the rest:' Haskins sat down blindly on a bundle of oats nearby and, with staring eyes and drooping head, went over the situation. He was under the lion's paw. He felt a horrible numbness in his heart and limbs. He was hid in a mist, and there was no path out. Butler walked about, looking at the huge stacks of grain and pulling now and again a few handfuls out, shelling the heads in his hands and blowing the chatT away. He hummed a little tune as he did so. He had an accommodating air of >vaiting. Haskins was in the midst of the terrible toil of the last year. He was walking again in the rain and the mud behind his plmY. he felt the dust and dirt of the threshing. The ferocious husking time. with its cutting wind and biting. clinging snows, lay hard upon him. Then he thought of his wife. how she had cheerfully cooked and baked, without holiday and without rest. "Well. what do you think of it'" inquired the cool. mocking, insinuating voice of Butler. "I think vou're a thief and a liar 1" shouted Haskins. leaping up. "A black-hearted hmm'!" Butler's smile maddened him: with a sudden leap he caught a fork in his hands and

a look of pitiless ferocity in his accusing eyes. Butler shrank and quivered, expecting the blow; stood, held hypnotized by the eyes of the man he had a moment before despised-a man transformed into an avenging demon. But in the deadly hush between the lift of the weapon and its fall there came a gush of faint, childish laughter, and then across the range of his vision, far away and dim, he saw the sun-bright head of his baby girl as, with the pretty tottering run of a two-year-old, she moved across the grass of the dooryard. His hands relaxed; the fork fell to the ground; his head lowered. "Make out y'r deed an' morgige, an' git off'n my land, an' don't ye never cross my line agin; if y' do, I'll kill ye." Butler backed away from the man in wild haste and, climbing into his buggy with trembling limbs, drove off down the road, leaving Haskins seated dumbly on the sunny pile of sheaves, h~s head sunk into his hands.

Edwin Markham (1852-1940) harles Edwin Anson Markham was born in the Oregon Territory but soon moved with his divorced mother and ftve older siblings to her family ranch near Suisun, California, where as a child he learned fmthand the rigors of manual labor and farm life. Against his mother's practical wishes, he studied literature at three different colleges, eventually earning his teacher's certification at California College at Vacaville. Markham was a popular teacher in several California school districts. He was elected El Dorado County superintendent of schools in 1879 and in 1890 became principal of a school in Oakland, all the while sending poems out for magazine publication and developing an acquaintance with influential writers, such as Ambrose Bierce, Hamlin Garland, and Jack London. In 1898, Markham wrote the poem for which he is best known. "The Man with the Hoe" was fmt published in the San Francisco Examiner on January 15, 1899. Inspired by Franyois Millet's 1862 painting of the same name (now available for viewing on the Getty Museum's web site), the poem describes the oppression of the agricultural day laborer as a crime against divine purpose. It issues a direct moral challenge to "masters, lords and rulers in all lands," who should fear the "whirlwinds of rebellion" that their crimes against the poor will stir up. A contemporary reviewer commented on the immediate and widespread appeal of the poem, >vhich "appears ever;'\vhere to have stimulated thought upon social problems .... Clergy made the poem their text; platform orators dilated upon it: college professors lectured upon it; debating societies discussed it; schools took it up for study in their literary courses: and it was the subject of conversation in social circles and on the street" (Edward B. Payne. 1R99). Ultimately reprinted in 10.000 newspapers in more than -1-0 languages, "The Man with the Hoe" made Markham's reputation and became the title poem of his ftrst book. Markham moved with his family to New York City, where he made his living as a poet, editor, and lecturer on labor and radical topics. His other books of poetry include Lincoln and Other Poen1s (1901), SIMs l~( Happiness (1915), and Eight)' Songs at Eighty (1932). His 191-1- nontlction work Children in Bond,I_!(C \\'as a key text in the campaign to abolish child labor in the United States.

C

l_

168


American Working-Class Literature THE MAN WITH THE (~Frittcn

s

Ill

IS

20

15

J(l

J.)

.j(l

.J:i

How will it be with kingdoms and with kingsWith those who shaped him to the thing he isWhen this dumb terror shall rise to judge the world, After the silence of the centuries?

HOE

after seeing .\fillets ll'ot-ldJalllotts paintin;;)

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

Lifelets: "Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans" from the Independent etween 1902 and 1912, the Independent, a progressive, national journal, published a series of short life stories, or "lifelets," by "ordinary" Americans. These were stories of individual "types" -a bootblack, a miner, a sweatshop girl, a priest, a college professor, a summer hotel waitress, a street car conductor, a chorus girl, and the four personal narratives that are included in this collection-the anonymous, "Georgia Negro Peon" and "A Negro Nurse" and the identified stories of two labor leaders, the African Amencan seamen, James Williams, and the Jewish garment worker, Rose Schneiderman (See "A Cap Maker's Story" and the Triangle ftre in Part IV). Hamilton Holt, an editor of the Iudependmt, collected and published sixteen of these seventy-five autobiographies as The L!fe Stories ~f Undistinguished Americans (1906). Published at a time of nativist anxiety over foreign immigration in relation to American identity, these "lifelets" offered ordinary people, mostly workers, an opportunity to present themselves directly to readers through their own written words or through interviews that were later vvritten down and then read to and approved by the storyteller. Akin to a direct style of photographic portraiture, the stories arc reminiscent of early occupational tintypes and similar to Lewis Hine's photos of Ellis Island immigrants and child laborers. Indeed, photographs occasionally accompanied the 'itories that were published in the Indepmdent. While it is impossible to measure the degree of mediation and editing involved in the original texts (they have a uniformity of middle-class grammar), the stories included here are valuable historical accounts of the deliberate failure of Reconstruction in the South and the instances of interracial labor resistance among coastal seamen, as well as interclass affiliations of garment workers in the North. They also move beyond the representation of types and into the detailed daily lives of women and men whose stories of endurance illuminate the inseparability of race and gender to class struggle. These selections are from Plain Folk (1982), a second edition of stories culled from the Independem, edited by David M. Katzman and William M. Tuttle.

B

Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave To have dominion over sea and land: To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; To feel the passion of Eternity? Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns And marked their ways upon the ancient deep? Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf There is no shape more terrible than thisMore tongued with censure of the world's blind greedMore filled with signs and portents for the soulMore packt with danger to the universe. What gulfs between him and the seraphim! Slave of the wheel oflabor, what to him Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades? What the long reaches of the peaks of song, The rift of davm, the reddening of the rose> Through this dread shape the suffering ages look: Time's tragedv is in that aching stoop; Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, Plundered, proLmed. and disinherited. Cries protest to the Judges of the World. A protest that is also prophecy. 0 masters. lords and rulers in all lands, Is this the handiwork you gi\·e to God. This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenchelF Hmv will you ever straighten up this shape: Touch it again with immortality: Give back the upward looking and the light: Rebuild in it the music and the dream: Make right the immemorial infamies . Pertidious wrong-;, immedicable \Hles; 0 masters. lords and rulers in all lands. Hm\· \\·ill the Future reckon with this m~m; Hmv ~lllS\\er his brute question in t!ut hour When \vhirl\\·inds of rcbtcllion shake all shores;

169

A

GEORGIA NEGRO PEON

I am a negro and was born some time during the war in Elbert Countrv. Georgia. ,md I reckon by this time I must be a little over fortv years old. My mother was not nurried when I was born and I never knew \vho my father \vas or anvthing about him. Shortlv after the war my mother died, and I was left to the care of my uncle. All this happened before I v.;as eight years old, and so I can't remember verv much about it. When I \Vas about ten years old my uncle hired me out to Captain-. I had alreadv learned how to plow, and was also a good hand at picking cotton. I was told that the Captain wanted me I

I

l

170


f(w his house-boy. and that later on he \\·as going to train me to be his coachman. To be a coachman in those days was considered a post of honor, and. young as I was. I was glad of the chance. But I had not been at the Captain's a month before I was put to work on the farm. with some twenty or thirtv other negroes-men. women and children. From the beginning the boys had the same tasks as the men and women. There was no ditlerence. We all worked hard during the week, and would frolic on Saturday nights and often on Sundays. And everybody was happy. The men got $3 a week and the women $2. I don't know what the children got. E Yery week my uncle collected my money for me, but it was very little of it that I ever saw. My uncle ted and clothed me, gave me a place to sleep, and allowed me ten or fifteen cents a \Yeek tor "spending change," as he called it. I must have been seventeen or eighteen years old before I got tired of that arrangement; and felt that I was man enough to be \Yorking for myself and handling my own things. The other boys about my age and size were "drawing" their own pay, and they used to laugh at me and call me ''Balw" because my old uncle was always on hand to "draw" my pay. Worked up by these things. I made a break for liberty. Unknown to my uncle or the Captain I \vent otf to a neighboring plantation and hired myself out to another man. The new landlord agreed to give me forty cents a day and furnish me one meaL I thought that \Vas doing fine. Bright and early one Monday morning I started to work. still not letting the others know anything about it. But they tound out before sundown. The Captain came over to the new place and brought some kind of ottlcer of the law. The ofl:!cer pulled out a long piece of paper from his pocket and read it to my new employer. When this was done I heard my new boss say:

"I beg your pardon, Captain. I didn't know this nigger was bound out to you, or f \\"Ouldn 't have hired him."

"He certainly is bound out to me," said the Captain. "He belongs to me until he is nventy-one, and I'm going to make him kno\v his place." So I was carried back to the Captain's. That night he made me strip off my clothing down to my waist, had me tied to a tree in his backvard, ordered his t(Jreman to gi\'e me thirty lashes with a buggy whip across my bare back, and stood by until it was done. Afi:er that experience the Captain made me stav on his place night and day, -but my uncle still continued to ''draw" mv money. I was a man nearly grmn1 before I kne\\ how to count from one to one hundred. I was a man nearly grown before I ever s~nv a colored school teacher. I never \\Tnt to school a day in my lite. 1o-day I can't write my mYn name. tho I can read a little. I was a man nearly grmvn betore I ever rode on a railroad train. and then I went on an excursion ti·om Elberton to Athens. Wlut w.1s true of me \\'aS true of hundreds of other negroes around me-'wav otT there in the country. t!fteen or twentv miles t!·om the nearest town. When I reached t\\·enn·-one the Captain told me I was a tl-ee man, but he urged me to stav with him. He said he ,,·ould treat me right. and paY me as much as anybody els.: ,,·ould. The Captain's son and I \Vere about the same age. and the Cc~ptain said that, as he had owned mv mother and uncle during sla,·erv, and as his son didn't \\"cll1t me to le.1ve them (since I lud been ,,-ith them so long). he wanted me to SLlv \\'ith the old bmily. And I suved. I signed a contran-tlut is. I made mv mark-tor one vear. The Captain \vas to gi,·e me SJ.SU J \\·eek. and ti.unish me a little house on the plantation-a one-room log cabin similar to those used lw his other laborers. During that yeJr I married 1V1anck For se\·erJl \·ears lVLmdy had been the housesernnt t()!" the C.lJ.ltain. his \vit(>, his son .mel his three daughters. and thcv all seemed to think J good d giving the workers a tou;-dollar raise. not the fourteen dollars they had asked tor. And that the shifts in the tunnels would remain eight hours long. "We were planning to give vou the tour-dollar raise all along," the demom said to diminish the victory. So they got thirtv-five dollars a month and the eight-hour shift. Thev \Yould have \YOn fortv-five dollars it: the thousand demon \Yorkers h,1~1 joined the strike. l)emons would have lis,tened to demons. The China Men went back to work quietly. No use singing and shouting over ,1 compromise ,mel losing nine days· \H!rk.

194



There were two days that Ah Goong did cheer and throw his hat in the air, jumping up and down and screaming Yippee like a cowboy. One: the day his team broke through the tunnel at last. Toward the end they did not dynamite but again used picks and sledgehammers. Through the granite, they heard answering poundings, and answers to their shouts. It was not a mountain before them any more but only a wall with people breaking through from the other side. They worked faster. Forward. Into day. They stuck their arms through the holes and shook hands with men on the other side. Ah Goong saw dirty faces as wondrous as if he were seeing Nu Wo, the creator goddess who repairs cracks in the sky with stone slabs; sometimes she peeks through and human beings see her face. The wall broke. Each team gave the other a gift of half a tunnel, dug. They stepped back and forth where the wall had been. Ah Goong ran and ran, his boots thndding to the very end of the tunnel. looked at the other side of the mountain, and ran back, clear through the entire tunnel. All the way through. He spent the rest of his time on the railroad laying and bending and hammering the ties and rails. The second day the China Men cheered was when the engine from the West and the one from the East rolled toward one another and touched. The transcontinental railroad was finished. They Yippee'd like madmen. The white demon officials gave speeches. "'The Greatest Feat of the Nineteenth Century," they said. "The Greatest Feat in the History of Mankind," they said. "Only Americans could have done it," they said, vvhich is true. Even if Ah Goong had not spent half his gold on Citizenship Papers, he was an American for having built the railroad. A white demon in top hat tap-tapped on the gold spike, and pulled it back out. Then one China Man held the real spike, the steel one, and another hammered it in. While the demons posed for photographs, the China Men dispersed. It was dangerous to stay. The Driving Out had begun. Ah Goong does not appear in railroad photographs. Scattering, some China Men followed the north star in the constellation Tortoise the Black Warrior to Canada, or they kept the constellation Phoenix ahead of them to South America or the White Tiger west or the Wolf east. Seventy lucky men rode the Union Pacific to Massachusetts for jobs at a shoe factory. Fifteen hundred went to Fou Loy Company in New Orleans and San Francisco, several hundred to plantations in Mississippi, Georgia, and Arkansas, and sugarcane plantations in Louisiana and Cuba. (From the South, they sent word that it was a custom to step otT the sidevvalk along with the black demons when a white demon walked by.) Seventy went to New Orleans to grade a route for a railroad, then to Pennsylvania to work in a knife factory. The Colorado State Legislature passed a resolution welcoming the railroad China Men to come build the new state. They built railroads in every part of the country-the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad. the Houston and Texas Railroad, the Southern Pacific. the railroads in Louisiana and Boston. the Pacific Northwest. and Alaska. After the Ci,·il War, China Men banded the 1ution North and South, East and \Vest. with crisscrossing steel. They were the binding and building ancestors of this place. Ah Goong \Yould have liked a leisurely walk along the tracks to reYie\\' his tlnished handiwork, or to walk cast to see the rest of his ne\\' country. l3ut instead. Dri\·en Out. he slid down mountains, leapt across nlleys and streams. crossed plains. hid sometimes \Yith companions and often alone, and eluded bandits who would hold him up for his railroad pay and shoot him tor practice as they shot lnjuns and jackrabbits. Detouring md backtracking. his path wound back and torth to his railro,1d. a funiliar siker road in the wilderness. When ,1 train came. he hid ag,1inst the -;luking ground in c1se a demon \Yith a shotgun was hunting trom it. He picked over camps where he had once liYed. He ,,-a, ureful to t!nd hidden places to sleep. In China bandits did not normalh· kill people. the booty the nuin thing. but here the demons killed tor t!m ,md hate. They tied pigtails to

195

horses and dragged chinamen. He decided that he had better head for San Francisco, where he would catch a ship to China. Perched on hillsides, he watched many sunsets, the place it vvas setting, the direction he was going. There were ftelds of grass that he tunneled through, hid in, rolled in, dived and swam in, suddenly jumped up laughing, suddenly stopped. He needed to find a town and human company. The spooky tumbleweeds caught in barbed wire were peering at him, waiting for him; he had to fmd a town. Towns grew along the tracks as they did along rivers. He sat looking at a town all day, then ducked into it by night. At the familiar sight of a garden hid out in a Chinese scheme-vegetables in beds, white cabbages, red plants, chives, and coriander for immortality, herbs boxed with boards-he knocked on the back door. The China Man who answered gave him food, the appropriate food for the nearest holiday, talked story, exclaimed at how close their ancestral villages were to each other. They exchanged in±onnation on how many others lived how near, which towns had Chinatowns, vvhat size. two or three stores or a block, which towns to avoid. "Do you have a wife?" they asked one another. "Yes. She lives in China. I have been sending money for twenty years now." They exchanged vegetable seeds, slips, and cuttings, and Ah Goong carried letters to another town or China. Some demons who had never seen the likes of him gave him things and touched him. He also came across lone China Men who were alarmed to have him appear, and, unwelcome, he left quickly; they must have \Van ted to be the only China Man of that area, the special China Man. He met miraculous China Men who had produced families out of nowhere-a wife and children, both boys and girls. "Uncle," the children called him, and he wanted to stay to be the uncle of the family. The wife washed his clothes, and he went on his way when they were dry. On a farm road, he came across an imp child playing in the dirt. It looked at him, and he looked at it. He held out a piece of sugar; he cupped a grass blade between his thumbs and whistled. He sat on the ground with his legs crossed, and the child climbed into the hollow of his arms and legs. "I wish you were my baby," he told it. "My baby." He was very satisfied sitting there under the humming sun with the baby. who was satisfied too, no squirming. "My daughter,'' he said. "My son." He couldn't tell whether it was a boy or a girl. He touched the baby's fat ann and cheeks, its gold hair, and looked into its blue eves. He made a wish that it not have to carry a sledgehammer and crawl into the dark. But he would not feel sorry for it; other people must not suffer any more than he did. and he could endure anything. Its mother came walking out into the road. She had her hands above her like a salute. She walked tentatively toward them, held out her hand. smiled. spoke. He did not understand what she said except "Bye-bye." The child waved and said. "Bye-bye," crawled over his legs, and toddled to her. Ah Goong continued on his way in a direction she could not point out to a posse looking tor a kidnapper chinaman. Explosions followed him. He heard screams and went on. saw flames outlining black windows and doors, and went on. He ran in the opposite direction ±rom gunshots and the yell-eclza all'lw-the cmvboys made \vhen they herded cattle and sang their sa\·age songs. Good at hiding, disappearing-decades unaccounted tor-he was not working in a mine when fortv thousand chinamen were Driven Out of mining. He was not killed or kidnapped in th~ Los Angeles Massacre. though he gave money ;O\Yard ransoming those whose toes and fmgers, a digit per week. and ears grotesquely rotting or pickled. and scalped queues, were displayed in Chinatm\·ns. Demons belieYed tlut the poorer a chinaman looked, the more gold he lud buried some\Yhen:. that chin~1men stuck together and would always ransom one another. If he got kidnapped. Ah Coong planned, he would I

l

196



whip out his Citizenship Paper and shmv that he was an American. He was lucky not to be in Colorado when the Denver demons burned all chinamen homes and businesses, nor in Rock Springs, Wyoming, when the miner demons killed t\venty-eight or fifty chinamen. The Rock Springs Massacre began in a large coal mine owned by the Union Pacific; the outnumbered chinamen were shot in the back as they ran to Chinatown, which the demons burned. They forced chinamen out into the open and shot them; demon women and children threw the wounded back in the flames. (There was a rumor of a good white lady in Green Springs who hid China Men in the Pacific Hotel and shamed the demons away.) The hunt went on for a month before federal troops came. The count of the dead was inexact because bodies were mutilated and pieces scattered all over the Wyoming Territory. No vvhite miners were indicted, but the government paid $150,000 in reparations to victims' families. There were many family men, then. There were settlersabiding China Men. And China Women. Ah Goong was running elsewhere during the Drivings Out of Tacoma, Seattle, Oregon City, Albania, and Marysville. The demons of Tacoma packed all its chinamen into boxcars and sent them to Portland, where they were run out of town. China Men returned to Seattle, though, and refused to sell their land and stores but fought until the army came; the demon rioters were tried and acquitted. And when the Boston police imprisoned and beat 234 chinamen, it was 1902, and Ah Goong had already reached San Francisco or China, and perhaps San Francisco again. In Second City (Sacramento), he spent some of his railroad money at the theater. The main actor's face was painted red with thick black eyebrows and long black beard, and when he strode onto the stage, Ah Goong recognized the hero, Guan Goong; his puppet horse had red nostrils and rolling eyes. Ah Goong's heart leapt to recognize hero and horse in the wilds of America. Guan Goong murdered his enemy-crash' bang! of cymbals and drum-and left his home village-sad, sad flute music. But to the glad clamor of cymbals entered his friends-Liu Pei (pronounced the same as Running Nose) and Chang Fei. In a joyful burst of pink flowers, the three men swore the Peach Garden Oath. Each friend sang an aria to friendship; together they would fight side by side and live and die one for all and all for one. Ah Goong felt as warm as if he were with friends at a party. Then Guan Goong's archenemy, the sly Ts'ao Ts'ao, captured him and two ofLiu Pei's wives, the Lady Kan and the Lady Mi. Though Ah Goong knew they were boy actors, he basked in the presence of Chinese ladies. The prisoners traveled to the capital, the soldiers waving horsehair whisks, signif\·ing horses, the ladies walking between horizontal banners, signif~:ing palanquins. All the prisoners were put in one bedroom, but Guan Goong stood all night outside the door with a lighted candle in his band, singing an aria about faithfulness. When the capital was attacked by a common enemy. Guan Goong fought the biggest man in one-to-one combat, a twirling, jumping sword dance that strengthened the China Men who watched it. From afar Guan Goong·s two partners heard about the feats of the man with the red face and intelligent horse. The three friends were reunited and fought until they secured their rightful kingdom. Ah Goong felt refreshed and inspired. He called out Bravo like the demons in the audience, who had not seen theater before, Guan Goong. the God ofWar. also God of War and Literature, had come to America-Guan Goong, Grandfather Guan. our own ancestor of writers and fighters. of actors and gamblers, and avenging executioners who mete out JUStice. Our own kin. Not a distant ancestor but Grandfather. In the Big Citv (San Francisco), a goldsmith convinced Ah Goong to have his gold made into jewelrv, \vhich would organize it into one piece and also delight his wife. So he handed over a second bag of gold. He got it back as a small ring in a design he thought up himself. t\\·o lunds clasping in a handshake. ''So smalJP he said. but the goldsmith said that only some of the ore had been true gold.

197

He got a ship out of San Francisco without being captured near the docks, where there was a stockade full of jailed chinamen; the demonesses came down from Nob Hill and rook them home to be servants, cooks, and baby-sitters. Grandmother liked the gold ring very much. The gold was so pure, it squished to fit her finger. She never washed dishes, so the gold did not wear away. She quickly spent the railroad money, and Ah Goong said he would go to America again. He had a Certificate of Return and his Citizenship Paper. But this time, there was no railroad to sell his strength to. He liwd in a basement that was rumored to connect with tunnels beneath Chinatown. In an underground arsenal, he held a pistol and said, "I feel the death in it." "The holes for the bullets were like chambers in a beehive or wasp nest," he said. He was inside the earth \vhen the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire began. Thunder rumbled from the ground. Some say he died tailing into the cracking earth. It was a miraculous earthquake and fire. The Hall of Records burned completely. Citizenship Papers burned, Certificates of Return, Birth Certificates. Residency Certificates, passenger lists, Marriage Certificates-every paper a China Man wanted for citizenship and legality burned in that ftre. An authentic citizen, then, had no more papers than an alien. Any paper a China Man could not produce had been ''burned up in the Fire of 1906." Every China Man was reborn out of that fire a citizen. Some say the family went into debt to send for Ah Goong, who was not making money; he was a homeless wanderer, a shiftless, dirty, jobless man with matted hair, ragged clothes, and fleas all over his body. He ate out of garbage cans. He was a louse eaten by lice. A Beaman. It cost two thousand dollars to bring him back to China. his oldest sons signing promissory notes for one thousand, his youngest to repay tour hundred to one neighbor and six hundred to another. Maybe he hadn't died in San Francisco, it was just his papers that burned; it was just that his existence was outlawed by Chinese Exclusion Acts. The family called him Fleaman. They did not understand his accomplishments as an American ancestor, a holding, homing ancestor of this place. He'd gotten the legal or illegal papers burned in the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire: he appeared in America in time to be a citizen and to ±ather citizens. He had also been seen carrying a child out of the fire. a child of his O\Vll in spite of the laws against marrying. He had built a railroad out of sweat, \vhy not have an American child out of longing'

Angel Island Poems hinese sojourners and settlers came to "Gun I S<J!lll," or Gold Mountain. to pan tor gold ll1 the 18SOs and to work on the construction of the Central Pacific R,1ilroad in the 1860s. Underpaid and overworked. they had little choice but to uke the most dangerous and labor-intensive jobs. After the completion of the railro,1d. thcv L1ced the "great dri\·ing out," waves of \·iolence ti·om whites and virulent racim1 in the press and ,nnong business owners that melded into national racist policies and laws. In 1882. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring. tor the ftrst time. ,1 single ethnic group ti.·mn 1111migrating to the United States. The Jet w,1s tan.;eted at laborers. but did ,tllmv a snull number of, Chinese merchants and teachers into, the countrv. Some immigrants came through this loophole m the Lm·. cbiming to be the "p,lpcr s:ms .. of Chines:' merchants

C

l

198


who held American citizenship. Those whose papers did not pass initial inspection in San Francisco were sent to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, a detention center where men were held separately from women and young children. New arrivals were not allowed to talk with other detainees before their questioning by immigration officials. They waited sometimes for months. The conditions were crowded and prisonlike; detainees protested meager and poor-quality food. While they waited, the Chinese formed small self-help communities within Angel Island, and some expressed their subjective feelings about their confinement in poems they etched on the wooden barracks walls. As one wrote: "This island is not angelic." After an earthquake and fire that destroyed the administration building, the Immigration Station on Angel Island was closed in 1943. Chinese Exclusion Laws were partially repealed in 1943 and fully repealed in 1965. The detention barracks, scheduled for demolition, were saved because an alert park ranger brought the carved markings on the walls to the public's attention; the barracks are now a historic landmark at Angel Island State Park. These poems are from the versions that were recorded by two former detainees, Smiley Jann and Tet Yee, and are included in the book Island: Poetry and History of Chinese lmm~r;ra11ts on Angel Island 1910-1940, edited by Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung (1991).

ANGEL ISLAND POEMS

(1910-1940)

[1] POEM BY ONE NAMED Xu, FROM XIANGSHAN, CONSOLING HIMSELF

s

Over a hundred poems are on the walls. Looking at them, they are all pining at the delayed progress. What can one sad person say to another? Unfortunate travellers everywhere wish to commiserate. Gain or lose, how is one to know what is predestined; Rich or poor, who is to say it is not the will of heaven? Why should one complain if he is detained and imprisoned here? From ancient times, heroes often were the first ones to face adversity.

[2] This place is called an island of immortals, When, in fact, this mountain wilderness is a prison. Once you see the open net. why throw yourself in? It is only because of empty pockets I can do nothing else.

[3] I raise my brush to write a poem to tell my dear wife, Last night at the third watch I sighed at being apart The message you gave with tender thoughts is still with me; I do not know what day I can return home.

Beneath the Gilded Surface: Working-Class Fictions and Realities, !860s-1890s

199

[4] Leaving behind my writing brush and removing my sword, I came to America. Who \\·as to know two streams of tears would flow upon arriving here? If there comes a day when I will have attained my ambition and become successful, I will certainly behead the barbarians and spare not a single blade of grass.

[5] I have lingered here three days moving again and again. It is difficult to compare this to the peacefulness at home. Life need not be so demeaning. Rushing about so much, smoke came out of my mouth.

IV Revolt, Repression, and Cultural Formations: 1900-1929 The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few who make up the employing class have all the good things of life. -from the manifesto of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). 1905

These fighting words of the I\X/W, written one hundred years ago, may seem like so much exaggerated rhetoric from a contemporary perspective. History, as told and retold in textbooks, tends to filter out emotion and flatten into discernible periods: the Progressive Era, a period around 1900-1917 of modest reform; then the Jazz Age or Roaring Twenties, a time of flappers, illegal booze, and excess: and bridging these two decades, World War I (1914-191R), which the United States entered in 1917. The language of class vvarfare is rarely part of the historical discursive mix. But for the \Vorking poor, it was a time of mtense class struggle with more defeats than victories, many casualties and deaths, and the undermining of civil liberties and constitutional rights. Political, social, and labor movements forged various strategies, from incremental reform to radical change, to resist the flagrant wealth and power of the robber barons. The rww emerged in 1905 partly in response to the conservatism and exclusionary policies of the AFL (American Federation of Labor). In 1912, the Socialist Party, \vith Eugene Debs as lts presidential candidate, polled 6 percent of the total vote and elected 1.2\10 candidates 111 municipal elections throughout the countrv. Newspapers and periodicals with socialist ~d working-class perspectives proliferated in English and foreign-language editions. 1 . ovels. such as Upton Sinclair's The Jun;,;le, exposed horrendous working conditions in mdustry, and investigations by "muckracking" journalists were serialized in magazines that reached a wider middle-class audience. b . With resistance came repression and the arrests of numerous "agitators'' perceived by ~smess owners as threats to the natural order of capitalism. The wartime Espionage Act ~ 19 17 restricted tree speech and was the catalyst tor the imprisonment of hundreds of thmencans (including Eugene V. Debs). The Russian Revolution of 1917, championed bv I e American Left as a working-class revolution, was viewed by business and government a:~ers as an intol~rable threat. In 1918. over one hundr~d 1\VV/ m~mbers were arrested put on tnal tor then opposltwn to war: ,11l were tound gmlty.- The Palmer Raids

Fa·

N~:~g Page: lewis Hine, Child Laborers. Clockwise: spinner 111 a Ne\Y England cotton mill, Vir t lPownal, Vermont. 1010: young West Virgmi.l coal miner: gLlss tC\Ctorv \Yorker, Alexmdria, 1 ~11la, 1') 11: seven-year-old Rosie, ,\ll experienced ovstcr shucker. Bluffton. South C:arolin,l,

91

202

Revolt, Repression, and Cultural Formations: 1900-1929

American Working -Class Literature

(191 8-1 921) that followed the end of the war intensified political repression against dissenters and were aimed particularly at communists, anarchists, and "alien" immigrants. Dunng this period of the "Red Scare," Emma Goldman was deported, and in 1920 Italian munigrants and anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested on charges of robbery and murder. Despite the international efforts of writers and activists who argued for their mnocence, thev were executed in 1927. For those who were on the side of free speech, labor rights, and economic justice, the first three decades of the twentieth century were, In the words of Mother Jones, a time of "martyrs and saints." It was also a time for important intersections among public space (including mass meetings, processions, and marches), private consciousness, and shared labor experience. Miners' work poetry, union songs of censure or parody, stirring speeches, court statements, and engaged journalism were some of the cultural forms that linked public spaces, physical labor, and struggle. These expressions of working-class culture were highly instrumental, mtended to advance a cause, rouse the masses, or instruct the middle and upper classes about the actual existence of the working class. Edwin Markham's generic lonely "Man With a Hoe" was replaced by the clamor of women, men, and children claiming public spaces as participants and as an engaged audience. Speech nuking was central to the spirit of the time. From 1908 to 1916, the IWW headed free-speech campaigns in key cities across the West. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn began addressing crowds at the age of fifteen, asserting in a speech in Missoula, Montana, that "full freedon1 for women was impossible under capitalism."3 Labor organizers, agitators, and strike leaders were peripatetic, crisscrossing the country inspiring workers to strike or sustain their strikes. Imagine a speaker, perhaps a diminutive young woman or a wiry older man, standing on a soap box or a shaky platform addressing the crowd with the familiar salutatiOn, "Fellow workers and friends." The speech might focus on opposition to war, the cruelty of child labor, the injustice of an industrial fire, or the necessity of a strike. The speaker n1ight be fervently ideological or resistant to any political categorization. It is likely that she or he would appeal to the audience's feelings about foundational American values ofliberty, justice, and equality. To the police, local jurists, and politicians, the speaker might be VIewed as a dangerous radical who should be throvvn in jail. To workers, she might be VIewed as a lllother, sister, or comrade. Hated or beloved, one thing is clear-the speaker would have a tnoral authority, a sense of urgency and outrage at economic injustice, and call not only for "bread." but for "roses." too. If the speech was effective, the crowd would con1.e avvay vvith a sense of connection, knowing that they were not isolated \Yorkers, but part of a larger movement and vision. Elizabeth Gurlev Flvnn called it a revolutionary spirit: "For vvorkers to go back with a class-conscious spirit, ~vith an organized and determined attitude toward society means that even if they have made no economic gain they have the possibility of gaining in the future."+ . This literature also illustrates an important aspect of working-class cultural fonnatwn. Not only \Vere such events as the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire of 1911 catastrophiC to the many itnn1.igrant families who \Vere affected by the deaths of 146 workers, but also the mernory of that event is carried in time and inspires contemporary cultural expresswns. Labor history is rnore than static fact; it has resonance tor writers with working-class consciousness in the present. Furthermore, this is a reciprocal cultural process-the contelllf porary poets irnaginativelv witness the lives and deaths of the workers-and the event ltsel gives subject 11.1a;ter and ~'oice to the poets. This process of reclamation is also evidenthl~ the IConrc 111etnorv ofJoe Hill and the songs and memoirs related to his life and death t as followed. These a;·e instances of cultural r~ciprocity, of how writers of the \\·orking clas recognize and ans\v-er each other across time. h 0 In the l9:20s and early 1930s. the emigration of blacks out of the Jim Crow Sout td northern cities generated a confluence of culture ,md geography. Race and place converge

203

during this period in Harlem, New York, sparking a rich outpouring of writing, painting, music, and photography known as the New Negro Movement or the Harlem Renaissance. Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes (included in Part V), and others produced writing that drew on the legacy of black oppression and spoke back to It m trad1t10nal and expenmental hterary forms. Although he had some quarrels with individual writers, W. E. B. Du Bois remarked in 1934: "It is the class-conscious workingmen uniting together who will eventually emancipate labor throughout the world. It is the race-conscious Black cooperating together in his own insti3 tutions and movements who will eventually emancipate the colored race." When women fmally won the right to vote in 1920, what did it mean for workingclass women? Mother Jones-who never had too much faith in the electoral process for laboring men-would likely answer, "not much." Issues of safe and sanitary working conditions, dignity as women workers, a living family wage sufficient to sustain a family, that is, concerns about the immediacy of daily existence, took precedence over suffrage. In addition to the public speeches of labor organizers and Socialists, this section includes writings by and about working-class women that reveal the private realm as well. Anzia Yezierska brings the subjectivity of an immigrant Jewish woman to Progressive Era attitudes toward American assimilation. Edith Summers Kelley's censored chapter, "Billy's Birth," is a powerful rendering of childbirth. Agnes Smedley's yearning for beauty and knowledge, her frankness (and ambivalence) about sex, her commitment to movements for social justice, especially in China, and her kinship and quarrel with the deterministic fate of working-class women inaugurates a proletarian feminism that will resonate for generations of women writers. The 1920s roared back against organized labor. Strikes were defeated one by one, and total union memberships declined to about 3.6 million. By 1926, Debs was dead, and IWW leader Bill Havwood died in the Soviet Union in 1928 6 In 1929, the stock market crashed, but the blar~e could not be placed on workers, their unions. or radical organizations.7 Workers could not purchase what they produced with insuff1cient pay. "We have 8 been naught, we shall be all" sang the founding members of the IWW in 1905. The song's intent did not come to fruition, but within this era of resistance and repression lay the seeds for an momentous awakening of worker consciousness and cultural expression in the decade that followed.

Notes 1. Paul LeBlanc, A Slzort History of tlzc l'. S. H,;cort thit f-ellow around to Hell."

B

' Te-il Satan to g1ve him a seat .al-ol'\e On a red~hot griddle up near the throne; Bu• stay, e'en the Devil can't stand the smell Of a cooking •eab on a {l'rlddle in Hell. It would eauae a revt>lt, a strike, I know, lf r s.nt you down to the lmps below. Go back to your master• on earth aml tell Tha r they don't even want a aeab in Hell.~~ 1

··----------------L~ Jt-ams ,.ga ,.._.:ooa N, Cal\tt»'11ia Av-e.

VN!ON

nr ------uiaoiilsts-1

RAILioio£is---- ...

Amalgamation Mass Meeting

SUNDAY, FEBRU~RY 25TH, 3 P. M.

WEST SIDE AUDITORIUM SH, R.AClNF; AVE, A Nil TA YI.OR ST. SPEAK..F;RS: ll. II, WANGf:RIN, Secr•t•u·y, and

G. H. KENNgJl\'. Chairman, Natwnal Committee for Amalgamation, of St. Paul, .Minn. WILLIAM Z. !>'OSTEn; Editor The l.alior Herald and other prominent ljpeakera Luh;;st ne\-vs, developments and plans. Come and hear why ltaHrmulurs muat Anlalgu,nate P. H:NSEN, Chairman AI>MISSJON FREE Au~pice.s t:hica.go C\lfJlHJittf'f' fr;r Amalgamation Ruilroatl Unions

13

You are what is known on earth as a scab." Thereupon he arose in his stature tall And pressed a button upon the wall, And said to the imp who answered the bell: .. Escort this tell ow around to Hell." ''Tell Satan to give him a seat alone On a red-hot griddle up near the throne;

orn in Baltimore into a family vvith connections to southern aristocracy, Sinclair's childhood was marked by wide fluctuations between poverty and affluence, especially after the family's move to New York City when Upton was ten years old. "One night I would be sleeping on a vermin-ridden sofa in a lodging-house, and the next night under silken coverlets in a fashionable home. It all depended on whether my father had the money for that week's board." His father's alcoholism and early death required Sinclair to fend for himself and, by age 15, he began writing jokes for magazines, short stories for boys' weeklies, and dime novels to pay his way through City College and later graduate school at Columbia University. Always a writer, as well as an organizer and political candidate, Sinclair produced almost one hundred books in his long career, including Springti111c and Harvest (1901), The]ungle (1906), King Coal (1917), Oi/ 1 (1927), Boston (1928, on the Sacco and Vanzetti case), Dragon's Ieeth (1942), and his Autobiograp/1y (1962). Written on assignment for The Appeal to Reason-the socialist journal paid Sinclair a $500 advance and underwrote a seven-week visit to Chicago's "packingtmvn"- Tlzc Jungle is Sinclair's best-known novel, a leading example of the "muckraking" tradition in American writing. It was one of the few such works of fiction before the 1930s to mobilize a working-class protagonist, the Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkis whose struggles in Chicago's brutal workplaces, bars, unions, and political parties lead him by the nm·el's end to (an albeit inarticulate) socialism. In the excerpt that follows, Jurgis and t\VO familv members are taken on a tour of a meatpacking plant, much as Sinclair was during his visit. The tone of an official tour guide's statistics-laced account of the wonders of industrial food production is undercut by ironic reflections on the fate of the "innocent'' hogs and cattle that provide the ra\v material-a fate that, as Jurgis \vill later learn. mirrors that of the workers. TI1c jungle, dedicated to "the workingmen of America,'' quickly became a best-seller on the strength of its lurid exposure of the undenvorld of urban industrial work life. But despite Jack London's prediction that "What L'nclc Ti1111 ~' Ca/Ji11 did for the black slaves TI1e Jungle has a large chance to do for the white slaves of todav,'' the novel's greatest impact came in the form of legislation for food hygiene. not, as Sincbir had hoped. 111 better pay and \vorking conditions for the industry's apparently expendable \Yorkers.

II

"THE HOG-SQUEAL OF THE UNIVERSE"

In his capacity as delicatessen vender, Jokubas Szedvilas bad num· acquainunces. Among these was one of the special policemen employed by Durham. whose duty it frequentlY \Yas to pick out men for employment. Jokubas had never tried it. but he expressed a certaintv

220


that he could get some of his friends a job through this man. It was agreed, after consultation, that he should make the effort with old Antanas and with Jonas. Jurgis was confident of his ability to get work for himself, unassisted by any one. As we have said before, he was not mistaken in this. He had gone to Brown's and stood there not more than half an hour before one of the bosses noticed his form towering above the rest, and signalled to him. The colloquy which followed was brief and to the point: "Speak English?" "No; Lit-uanian." (Jurgis had studied this word carefully.) "Job?'' "Je." (A nod.) "Worked here before?" "No 'stand." (Signals and gesticulations on the part of the boss. Vigorous shakes of the head by Jurgis.) "Shovel guts?" "No 'stand." (More shakes of the head.) "Zarnos. Pagaiksztis. Szluota!" (Imitative motions.) '']e." "See door. Durys?" (Pointing.) "]e." "To-morrow, seven o'clock. Understand! Rytoj! Priesz-pietys! Septyni!" "Dekui, tamistail" (Thank you, sir.) And that was all. Jurgis turned away, and then in a sudden rush the full realization of his triumph swept over him, and he gave a yell and a jump, and started ofT on a run. He had a job! He had a job! And he went all the way home as if upon wings, and burst into the house like a cyclone, to the rage of the numerous lodgers who had just turned in for their daily sleep. Meantime Jokubas had been to see his friend the policeman, and received encouragement, so it was a happy party. There being no more to be done that day, the shop was left under the care of Lucija, and her husband sallied forth to show his friends the sights of Packingtown. Jokubas did this with the air of a country gentleman escorting a party of visitors over his estate; he was an old-time resident, and all these \Vonders had grmvn up under his eyes, and he had a personal pride in them. The packers might own the land, but he claimed the landscape, and there \Vas no one to say nay to this. They passed down the busy street that led to the yards. It was still early morning, and everything was at its high tide of activity. A steady stream of employees was pouring through the gate-employees of the higher sort, at this hour, clerks and stenographers and such. For the women there were waiting big two-horse wagons, which set off at a gallop as fast as they were filled. In the distance there was heard again the lowing of the cattle, a sound as of a far-off ocean calling. They followed it this time, as eager as children in sight of a circus menagerie-\vhich, indeed, the scene a good deal resembled. They crossed the railroad tracks, and then on each side of the street were the pens full of cattle; they \Vould ha\·e stopped to look, but Jokubas hurried them on, to where there \Vas a stainvay and a raised gallery, from \vhich everything could be seen. Here they stood, staring, breathless with \Vonder. There is over a square mile of space in the yards, and more than half of it is occupied by cattle pens; north and south as far as the eye can reach there stretches a sea of pens. And they were all filled-so many cattle no one had ever dreamed existed in the world. Red Clttle, black. white, cmd yellow cattle; old cattle and young cattle; great bellowing bulls and little calves not an hour born; meek-eyed milch cows and fierce, long-horned Texas steers. The sound of them here was as of all the barnyards of the universe; and as for counting them-it would have taken all day simply to count the pens. Here and there ran long allevs.

Revolt, Repression, and Cultural Formations; 1900-1929

221

blocked at intervals by gates; and Jokubas told them that the number of these gates \vas twenty-five thousand. Jokubas had recently been reading a newspaper article which was full of statistics such as that. and he was very proud as he repeated them and made his guests crv out with wonder. Jurgis too had a little of this sense of pride. Had he not just gotten a Job. and become a sharer in all this activity, a cog in this marvelous machine? Here and there about the alleys galloped men upon horseback, booted, and carrying long whips; they \\·ere very busy, calling to each other, and to those who vvere driving the cattle. They were drovers and stock-raisers, vvho had come ±rom far states, and brokers and commission-merchants, and buyers for all the big packing houses. Here and there they would stop to inspect a bunch of cattle, and there \vould be a parley, brief and businesslike. The buyer would nod or drop his whip. and that would mean a bargain; and he would note it in his little book, along with hundreds of others he :'ad made that morning. Then Jokubas pointed out the plac~ \vhere the cattle were drive;; to be weighed upon a great scale that would weigh a hundred thousand pounds at once and record it automatically. It was near to the east entrance that they stood, and all along this east side of the yards ran the railroad tracks. into which the cars were run, loaded with cattle. All night long this had been going on, and now the pens were fulL by tonight they would all be empty, and the same thing would be done again. ''And what will become of all these creatures;" cried Teta Elzbieta. "Bv tonight," Jokubas answered, "'they \viii all be killed and cut up; and over there on the other side of the packing houses are more railroad tracks. where the cars come to take then1 away." There were two hundred and fifty miles of track within the yards, their guide went on to tell them. They brought about ten thousand head of cattle every day, and as many hogs. and half as many sheep-\vhich meant some eight or ten million live creatures turned into food every year. One stood and watched. and little by little caught the drift of the tide. as it set in the direction of the packing houses. There were groups of cattle being driven to the chutes. which were roadways about fifteen feet wide. raised high above the pens. In these chutes the stream of animals was continuous; it was quite uncanny to watch them, pressing on to their fate, all unsuspicious-a very river of death. Our friends were not poeticaL and the sight suggested to them no metaphors of human destiny; they thought onh- of the \vonderful e±I1ciency of it all. The chutes into which the hogs went climbed high up-to the very top of the distant buildings. and Jokubas explained that the hogs \Wnt up bv the power of their mvn legs. and then their weight carried them back through all the processes necessarv to make them into pork. "They don't waste anvthing here." said the guide, and then he laughed and added a witticism. which he \vas pleased that his unsophisticated triends should take to be his own: "Thev use even'thing about the hog except the squeal." In tront ofBrmvn's General Office building there grows a tinv plot of grass. and this. \·ou may learn. is the only bit of green thing in Packingtmvn; like\\·ise this jest about the hog and his squeaL the stock in trade of .111 the guides. is the one gleclm of humor th.tt vou \Yill tind there. After thev had seen enough of the pens. the party \Yent up the street. to the mass of buildings \Yhich occupv the centre of the yards. These buildings. made of brick and stained \Vith innumerable lavers of Packingtmv-n smoke. were paimed all over with advertising signs. fi·om \vhich the \·isitor realized suddenlY that he had come to the home of many of the torments of his lite. It \Yas here that the\· nude those products \\·ith the \vonders of \\·hich thev pestered him c;o- bv- pbcards that deflCed the Lmdsope when he traveled. and lw staring cldwrtisements in the nL'\\·spapers and nugazines-by silly little jingles that he could not get out of h1s mind. and gauch· pictures that lurked ttore clerk. but she -;oon found relatiwly better-paying \vork in the garment indmtry. She and her friend Bessie l3raut organized a local chapter of the Cap Maker\ Union that included \\·omen workers and actively p.nticipated in their 19()3 strike. An invitation to speak at ,1 meeting of the New York Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) enabled Schneiderman to see the advantages of cross-clark thc~t is ott en site- ,lnd job-specitlc to the authors. these writers are tl:om \ c~rious rc'g1ons of the' coumn and ditl(:rent rc~Ces .md ethnicities ,md do not necessarilv nmll' ti·om t:11nilics of g,1rment \\orkers. These "tire poc'ms" illustr.lte an important ::ein of1\·orkmg-cL1" htL'Llture and ,l procc'" ofhio;toric.d c~nd cultural recipmcitv-the dead give HliCt' to the poc·tr::. ,md the poets gi1·e mt·.ming to their lost li1·es through Lmguage. Among thn,· Ullltt'mpoL!n poets JrL' !vL1n FelL Chris LlL'\\ elkn. Sativa Henderson-Holmt'S.

MoRRIS RoSENFELD, "REQUIEM ON THE TRIANGLE FIRE" (FROM THE JEWISH DAILY FORWARD]

o

l

Neither b~lttle nor tlendish pogrom Fills this gre,H cit\· \vith sornl\\: Nor does the ec~rth c,lmdder or lighming rL'nd tlw hec!\t'ns. No clouds cLlrken. no c1111Wn \ roar shc1tters the' air. Onlv hell's tlrt' engulfs these sL!w stc~lls And M,mmwn dt'\'llUl'' our sons c~nd ,Lmghtc'rs.



252

Damned be the system! Damned be the world!

20

Fellow Workers! Join in renderinlt a last sad tribute of sympathy and affection for the victims of the T rianatle

~-

-"

Fire. THE FUNERAL PROCESSION will take place Wednesday, April 5th. at 1 P. M. Watch the newspaper~ for the line of march.

' 1~-r,~ n~ 1~oc~mu n~,, -,ro

1"'1 CS'11

,~,

tJ

30

~S'llT'"e OV'! !1D l"lll:l1' lll'"":'l ., 11D :"M', ., .liiCC"C:.Cl 'mil I ,,.,_ I~ OV'! .1lt\1C'D

IJ'T'., .., !"JI If 1'1 cc•~ ! 'IJIIVI' .., r~ tJ7l"~''" C'l '"" T'• !'1 'PI"~ fj. "}!'"1-ry:S (YIV'I:I tuc ~CtciC'C "lp"\lf Q .. ll C?'\, '. Jf'l))r-."7,10 .., f~l . tWM)fJ Clf•., C'~lt""\VC'HY'\W ., Of~~ DC,~\"1 7VO''nJ P'~"n" P'F'"" IV'"'" ,.c IV''' ')IT'IP~ V"'"V"'' &:'0 - •v~ ., rv:";n

a:r f',""ll

'I'' t>V¥

35

"V""' ~T a-~v•••

...,T"\ '"'ft~.., V.'ll 11111 !170'11 fVlf~ l~\J!l1

''c

V'~"

Tl>' !VlllC""J ., 111'11¥11

.~"t)t;JVCII''J'

,nu~,P Pl~~il 1,m~

'"1 n~ im ,1l

t1< ,pcopw cc'!P

n

Operai I taliani!

-10

Unitevi compatti a rendere !'ultimo tributo d'iJf.

fetto aile vittime dell' 1mane sciaatura cidla Triangle Waist Co. IL CORTEO FUNEBRE.

-15

avra luogo mercoledi, 5 Aprile, all~ ore 1 P M. T raverete nl!i tiornali l'ordine della marciL

.....

Sourc"c: William Cahn. A Pi,·rori,d Hisrory

or..Jrneric"rcver. but today\ nightmare

"

Writing poems with a cardboard bookcase my only company the poplar tree shifting shades and whispering: remember me. Boarding houses yes

I i

HI

lived in t()ur or tl \"e or more.

257

258



I know that's my daughter, Sophie Salemi. See that darn in her knee' Mended her stockings, yesterday. Box one-twelve: female, black stockings, black shoes, 15 part of a skirt, a white petticoat, hair ribbons. I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came to talk good fello,vship: Jennie Franco, Julia Aberstein, Joseph Wilson, Nicolina Nicolese. I found a mouse on the ninth floor, took it home, ~() kept it for a pet. At least it was still alive. Our children go to work in ftretraps. come home and sleep in firetraps. Day and night they are condemned. Ninth floor looked like a kindergarten. We were eight, nine, ten. If the Inspector came, they hid us in bins. 25 Rose Feibush, Clotild Terdanova, Mary Leventhal. That one's Catherine Maltese, and those, her daughters. Lucia, she's twenty. Rosalie-she'd be fourteen. Those two are sisters. Bettina and Frances Miale. M-I-A-L-E. We asked the Red Cross worker how to help 30 and she said bring books-Tolstoy, Shakespeare in Yiddish. Benny Costello said he knew his sister Della by her new shoes. Anna Ardito, Gussie Rosenfteld, Sara Kupla, Essie Bernstein, reminders to spend my life fighting these conditions. Antonia Colleti, Daisy Lopez Fitze, Surka Brenman, Margaret Schwartz. 35 One coffin read: Becky Kessler, call for tomorrow. The eighth casket had neither name nor number. It contained fragments from the Fire, picked up but never claimed.

Don't think I'll ever get the smell of urine, frying potatas and Evening in Paris outa my head. 15

Going outside sunny sunny rubbing leaves try to out eclipse each other.

CHRIS LLEWELLYN,

"I

AM APPALLED"

New York Governor Dix

s

Ill

The Police Commissioner points to the Mayor who gripes at the Governor, "I am appalled," who sets on the State Labor Commissioner who blames the National Fire Underwriters \vho turn on the Fire Commissioner who cites the "City Beautiful" (for finding fire escapes ugly) who then faults the Architects who place it on Tenement Housing who says failure of the Health Department who then proclaim conspiracy between the Utility Companies and the Police Commissioner.

CHRIS LLEWELLYN, SEAR

July 1982

CHRIS LLEWELLYN, SURVIVOR'S CENTO l

"

Ill

Always adding. Revising this manuscript. I plant direct quotations on the page, arranging line-breaks. versiftcation.

All through the day rain ever and again. The quartet from the Elks lodge sang "Abide vvith Me." They lost both daughters. Sara and Sarafine. last year I was one of the pickets arrested and fined. We were striking for open doors. better fire escapes. Freda Velakowski. Ignatzia Bellota, Celia Eisenberg. You kne\Y the families trom the flowers nailed to the doors. That's my mama. Her name's Julia Rosen. I knmy by her hair. I braid it every morning. Now the same police \Yho clubbed the strikers keep the crmni tl-om trampling on our bodies. Sadie Nausbaum. Gussie Bierman. Anna Cohen. Israel Rosen.

Cm1c' 1s .1 Luin ,,·orci t(x

.1

5

to

I 'i

garment made of p.Hches.

l

Newspaper files: Frances Perkins speaks from the street, Ifclt I must scar it not only 011 my mind but on Ill}' heart forever. One mother. H?1en ll'ill it /Jc sajc to earn our /Jrcad? Their words. Yet some call that schmaltz. soap-opera-

ScntilllCIJt, VicrMian mclodralll£1. Riding the subway. smoke fizzes in my ears and in my room. electric heater coils glow Cs md Os in the box. To write about r/w111 yet not intertere, although I'm told a poet's task is to create a little \\'Orld.

259

260


20


A testimony: Two tried to stay together on the ledge, but one suddenly twisted and plunged, a burning bundle. The other looked ahead, arms straight out, speaking and shouting as if addressing an invisible audierzce. She gestured an embrace then

30

Jumped. Her name was Celia Weintraub. She lived on Henry Street.

35

40

CAROL TARLEN, SISTERS IN THE FLAMES

for Leah Spectators saw again and again pitiable companionships formed in the instant of death-girls who placed their arms around each other as they leaped. In many cases their clothing was flaming or their hair flaring as they fell.

45

-"The Triangle Fire," New York World, 26 March 19JJ

5

ll!

15

2(1

25

Greenhorn bent over the machine your hair a mess of red curls like flames I said my words extinguished by the wailing motors we never spoke together we sewed fine linen shirtwaists for fine ladies we worked m our coarse gm.vns and muslin aprons twelve hours in the dank rooms nine floors above the street our fingers worked the sot!: cloth our coarse hands ted the machines

50

55

my pay envelope tucked in my coat pocket for Papa for Mama for the rent I need a new skirt I need a day in the sun I need to unlock the doors of this factory I'm still young I whispered and you laughed because of course we all were young Sister of the flames take my hand I will hold you in the cradle of my billowing skirt in the ache of my shoulders the center of my palm our sisters already dance on the sidewalk nine floors below the ftre is leaping through my hair Sister I will hold you the air will lick our thighs grab my hand together now fly the sky is an unlocked door and the machines are burning

SAFIYA HENDERSON-HOLMES, RITUALS OF SPRING (FOR THE 78TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE)

from bareness to fullness flowers do bloom whenever, however spring enters a room oh. whenever, however spring enters a room

Stranger I saw you once in the elevator going down going home your eyes laughed when I whispered too loud strands of red hair falling over your cheek and neck I touched your red rough hand my shoulders ached

J

i

1

111arclz 25rlz, 1911 at the triangle shirtwaist tactory a fire claimed the lives of 1-t6 people. mostlY women, mostly children in the plume of their lives, in the room of their lives begging for spring. toiling and begging for spring

261

262

American Working-Class Literature 10


and in my head

hundreds of blooming girls hundreds of blooming, spring girls

~s i read the history, afraid to touch the pictures

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

1 1magme the room, i imagine the women dressed in pale blues and pinks, some without heads or arms-sitting some without legs or waist-hovering hundreds of flowering girls tucking spring into sleeves, tuckmg and tugging at spring to stay alive

60

65

and so a shirtwaistfor spring a dress with a mannish collar, blousing over breast, blousmg over sweat, tapering to fit a female waist tapering to fit a female breath ' sheer silk, cotton, linen hand-done pleats, hands done in by pleats hands done in by darts and lace

70

colors if spring pale blues, pale pinks, yellows, magentas, lavender, peach secret thoughts if spring falling in love under a full moon, forever young w1th money enough to buy a flower or two time enough to smell it ' yes, from bareness to fullness a flower will bloom anytime, everytime spring enters a room and here, near these machines, hundreds of flowering girls

75

80

shirtwaist factory room 1911 crowded, hard, fast, too fast, closed windows, locked doors, smell of piss, of sweat, of wishes being cut to bits, needle stabs, electric shocks, miscarriages over silk, fading paisley, fading magenta, falling in love will get you fired, forever old, never fast enough, buying flowers is wasteful so hurry, hurry, grind your teeth and soul six dollars a week send to grandfather, four dollars a week send to aunt ruth, sleep over the machin~ and you're done for, way before you open your eyes ma m, madam, m1ss, mrs., mother, girlie hundreds of flowering green spring girls in rows waiting with needles in hands for spring to show women workers from ireland, poland, germany, france, england, grenada, mississippi thin clothes, thinner hopes, months tull of why, of how, of when answers always less than their pay but the sewing machines grew like weeds, thiCk snake roots strangling the flowers everyday stranglmg the roses, daises. lilies everyday

85

90

95

100

I

i

105

the shirtU'aist building 1911 135-feet-high, wooden, cold, three floors, not enough stairs, one fire escape ending in midair, ending in the spring midair a tender room of hundreds of blooming bright girls hundreds of daisy bud girls who pray for spring to enter their world, who pray and sweat for spring to enter their world the strike the year b~fore and they shouted; open the doors, unwire the windows, more air, more stairs, more quiet time, more fire escapes and to the ground damn you, and more toilets, more time to be sick, more time to be well, and remove the fear and slow it down, for god's sake, slow it all time, it's spring they shouted hundreds of flowering girls, hundreds of flowering girls shouted for spring to hurry, hurry and enter their world and triangle won a half-day but the doors remained locked, windows remained wired, no extra air, no extra quiet time, or sick time, the fear stayed, nothing slowed and god watched hundreds of flowering girls twirl hundreds of flowering girls willow and twirl march 25th 1911 at trimzgle a worker is expendable a sewing needle is not a worker is bendable a sewing needle is not a worker can be sent straight to hell a sewing needle is heaven sent and must be protected well a sewing needle is the finger of god and must be protected well over hundreds of flowering girls, hundreds of flowering sweet dandelion girls march 25th, smoke smoke, stopping the machines run to wired windows, run to locked doors, run to the one and only fire escape,

263

,---

264



everyone run to the air hundreds of flovvering girls

110

115

120

125

uo

us

1-10

1-15

151!

smoke stopping eyes, stopping hearts, stopping worlds elevator move faster, elevator you are a machine managed by a human being move faster, c'mon faster carry all the flowering girls, carry all the sweet, sweet orchid girls

155

_fire catching bouquets of girls in a corner, tall, long stemmed lilies on tire in a corner, from bloom to ashes in a corner, smell them in the rain hundreds of tulip girls

160

on a window ledge plies for life, on a window ledge lovely, ribboned young ladies on their tiptoes twirling, twirling an arabesque for life hundreds of flowering girls smell them in the rain hundreds of jasmine girls

165

170

the ladders were too short the hoses were too short the men holding the nets were not gods, only men who \Vere never trained to catch falling bodies, or tailing stars, or hundreds of flovvering girls, hundreds of carnation bud girls and the ,r;irls vvere girls not angels jumping, not goddesses flying or hovering they smashed, they broke into large pieces, smell them in the rain

265

eternal buzz of someone else's dreams nightmares and screams of quiet girls, loud skull-cracking noises from shy girls smell them in the rain, the lilacs, daffodils in the rain

spring, 78 years later triangle is now part of a university, with offices and polished intellect, arched unwired windows, hydraulically controlled and unlocked doors, air conditioning, swivel chairs, marble walls and tire alarms but oh, hundreds q{_fiowerillg girls still roam hundreds of blushing spring girls still roam 78 years later in the paint, in the chrome in the swivel of the chairs hundreds of blossoms twirling in the air daring to descend if ever, oh ever the fire comes again yes, like lead they will drop if ever, oh ever the fire comes again to hundreds of flowering girls smell them in the rain, iris, peonies, magnolias, bending for the rain

James Oppenheim ( 1882-1932)

and the sidflualks opened in shame to meet the flovvering girls the sidewalks opened in such horrible shame to cradle the remains of violets and the gutters bled tor hours, choking on bones, shoes, buttons, ribbons, holy sewing needles the gutters bled for hours all the colors of spring the cool magenta of delicate spring and the Jirc ate the locked doors and the wired windows, ate the f1st machines in their narrow rooms, ate the lace ,md hand-done pleats, the silk, the cotton, the linen, the crisp six dollars a \veek, the

j

''Bread and Roses," as a poem, a song, and a slogan ±or working \Yomen's rights, bas traditionally been associated with the 191.2 Textil under the coarse blanket>. and the whisperings of the one who prays v\·ith his forehead on the hard, cold stone of the floor; I haw heard him who laughs the shrill sinister laugh of folly at the horror rampant on the vellow wall and at the red eyes of the nightmare glaring through the iron bars; I have heard in the sudden icy silence him \vho coughs a dry ringing cough and wished madly that his throat would not rattle so and that he would not spit on the floor, for no sound \Vas more atrocious than that of his sputum upon the floor; 611 I have heard him who swears fearsome oaths \vhich I listen to in rewrence and awe, tor thev are holier than the virgin's prayer; And I have heard. most terrible of alL the silence of two hundred brains all possessed bv one single. relentless. unforgiving r,:; desperate thought. All this haw I heard in the warchfi.1l night, And the murmur of the \\·ind beyond the \\·alls. And the tolls of a distant bell. And the woeti.d dirge of the Llin /11 And the remotest echoes of the sorrmvti.1l cit\' And the terrible bc,Jtings. \\ ild beatings. mad beatings of the One Heart which is ne,Jrest to mv he,ut.

found. They descend and they climb, the fearfi.1l footsteps of men, and 'orne limp, some drag. some speed, some trot, some runthey are quiet, slmv, noisy, brisk, quick. feverish. mad, and most awful is their cadence to the ears of the one who stands

9S

still. But of all the footsteps of men that either descend or climb, no footsteps are so fearsome and terrible as those that go straight on the dead level of a prison floor, fi·om a yellow stone \vall \IIU

.)_"')

-~

269

11 1)

1111

115

1211

to a red iron gate. All through the night he walks and he thinks. ls it more frightful because he walks and his footsteps sot.md hollmv over my head, or because he thinks and speaks not his thoughts? But does he think? Why should he think' Do I think? I onl;,· hear the footsteps and count them. Four steps and the wall. Four steps and the gate. l3ut bevond? l3evond? Where goes he beyond the gate and the walE He goes not beyond. His thought breaks there on the iron gate Perhaps it breaks like a waw of rage. perlups like ,1 sudden flood of hope. but it ahnys returns to beat the wall like a billmv of helplessness and despair. He \valks to and fro within the narrm\· \Vhirlpit of thi' e\·er storming and furious thought. Only one thought-constant, fixed inmJovable. sinister \Vithout po\n'r and \Vithout \'oicc·. A thought of madness. frenzy. agony and despair. a hellbre\Wd thought. f(Jr it is a natural thought. All things Jutural are things impossible \vhile there are jails in the world-bread. work. happiness. peace. !ewe. l3ut he thinks not of this. As he walks he thinb of the most superhunun. the most unattainable. the most imJXlssible thing in tht" \vorld: He thinks of ,J sm,1ll br,1ss kt·\· th~lt turns just lulf ,Jround ,mel throws open the red iron gc~te.

All this haw l heard in the still night: But nothing is louder. harder. drearier. mightier or more awti.1l than the t<xmteps I hear m·n my head all night. 12)

Yet f~'arsome and tL'rrible c~re c~ll the t he \V,Jlks throughout the mght. And tlut is \Ylut t\Hl hundred minds drowned in the d,nknc·ss ,md the silence of the· ni~ht think. and tlut is ,Jlso \\"hJt I think.

270


13()

135

I .tO

145

150

155

16(1

165

170

175

Wonderful is the supreme wisdom of the jail that makes all think the same thought. Marvelous is the providence of the law that equalizes all, even, in mind and sentiment. Fallen is the last barrier of privilege, the aristocracy of the intellect. The democracy of reason has leveled all the two hundred minds to the common surface of the same thought. I, who have never killed, think like the murderer; I, who have never stolen, reason like the thief; I think, reason, wish, hope, doubt, wait like the hired assassin the embezzler. the forger, the counterfeiter, the incestuous, the raper, the drunkard, the prostitute, the pimp, I, I who used to think of love and life and flowers and song and beauty and the ideal. A little key, a little key as little as my little finger, a little key of shining brass. All my ideas, my thoughts, my dreams are congealed in a little key of shiny brass. All my brain, all my soul, all that suddenly surging latent power of my deepest life are in the pocket of a white-haired man dressed in blue. He is great, powerful, formidable, the man with the white hair, for he has in his pocket the mighty talisman which makes one man cry, and one man pray, and one laugh, and one cough, and one walk, and all keep awake and listen and think the same maddening thought. Greater than all men is the man with the white hair and the small brass key, for no other man in the world could compel two hundred men to think for so long the same thought. Surely when the light breaks I will write a hymn unto him which shall hail him greater than Mohammed and Arbues and Torquemada and Mesmer, and all the other masters of other men's thoughts. I shall call him Almighty, for he holds everything of all and of me in a little brass key in his pocket. Everything of me he holds but the branding iron of contempt and the claymore of hatred for the monstrous cabala that can make the apostle and the murderer, the poet and the procurer, think of the same gate. the same key and the same exit on the ditTerent sunlit highways of life. My brother, do not walk any more. It is wrong to walk on a grave. It is a sacrilege to walk four steps trom the headstone to the toot and four steps fi·om the foot to the headstone. If you stop walking, my brother. no longer will this be a grave, -tor you will give me back my mind that is chained to your teet and the right to think my own thoughts. I implore you. my brother, tor I am weary of the long vigil, weary of counting your steps. and heavy with sleep. Stop, rest, sleep, my brother, f(x the dawn is well nigh and it is not the key alone that can throw open the gate.


271

John Reed (1887-1920) ournalist, poet, novelist, and political activist, John Reed witnessed and reported on the most dramatic historical changes of his time. He covered the Mexican Revolution in the early 1910s (Insurgent ,Vfexico, 1914), the horrific fighting in Germany and Eastern Europe during World War I (The Wcn i11 Eastem Europe, 1916). and the October 1917 revolution in Russia (Ten Days That Shook tlzc Hinld, 1920). His life as a bohemian intellectual and revolutionary adventurer is depicted in the 1981 film Reds. Born in "Cedar Hill," his grandfather's estate in Portland, Oregon, the son of a businessman father and socially prominent mother, Reed chafed against the social restrictions of his class, but delighted in the natural beauty of the Northwest. After graduating from Harvard in 1910 and traveling to Europe, he began his career as a journalist for leftist magazines, \\Titing for the New Review, The 1VIasses, and iV!etropolitan ;"viagazine, and became an active participant in the politically radical and intellectually charged world of Greenwich Village in the 1910s. Although not a political theorist, Reed had a sustained awareness of the structural relationship of class differences: "All I know is that my happiness is built on the tnisery of others, so that I eat because others go hungry, that I am clothed when other people go almost naked through the frozen cities in winter; and that fact poisons me, disturbs my serenity, makes me write propaganda when I would rather play." Propaganda here should be understood as journalism that takes political sides. As one example, his reporting on the 1913 silk workers' strike in Paterson, New Jersey, resulted in Reed's arrest and brief imprisonment in the Paterson County Jail. Workers in hundreds of mills went on strike to protest the use of high-speed looms and the firing of fellow workers. Reed helped organize a Paterson Strike Pageant in Madison Square Garden to raise funds for the strikers. Despite the cross-class support, the strike was lost, and the workers were forced back to work. Reed died of typhus in Moscow on October 19, 1920, but his revolutionary spirit continued in the many John Reed Clubs for radical writers and artists that \Vere established

J

throughout the United States.

WAR IN PATERSON

JUNE 1913 There's war in Paterson. But it's a curious kind of war. All the violence is the work of one side-the Mill 0\vners. Their servants. the Police, club unresisting men and women and ride down law-abiding crowds on horse-back. Their paid mercenaries, the armed Detectives, shoot and kill innocent people. Their newspapers, the Paterson Press and the Paterson Call, publish incendiary and crime-inciting appeals to mob-violence against the strike leaders. Their tooL Recorder Carroll, deals out heavv sentences to peaceful pickets that the police-net gathers up. They control absolutely the Police. the Press, the Courts. Opposing them are about nwnty-five thousand striking silk-\vorkers, of whom perhaps ten thousand are active. :md their weapon is the picket-line. Let me tell you what I saw in Paterson and then you will say which side of this struggk is "'anarchistic'' and "contrary to American ideals.'' At six o'clock in the morning a light rain was f1lling. Slate-grey ,md cold, the streets of Paterson \Vere deserted. But soon came the Cops-t\\'enty of them-strolling along

272



with their night-sticks under their arms. We went ,Jhead of them toward the mill district. Now we began to see \\'orkmen going in the same direction, coat collars turned up, hands in their pockets. We came into a long street, one side of which was lined with silk mills, the other side with the wooden tenement houses. In every doorway. at ewry window of the houses clustered foreign-faced men and women, laughing and chatting as if after breakfast on a holiday There seemed no sense of expectancy. no strain or feeling of fear. The sidewalks \Vere almost empty, only over in front of the milh a tew couples-there couldn't have been more than fifty-marched slowly up and dmvn. dripping with the rain. Some were men. with here and there a man and woman together, or t\vo young boys. As the warmer light of full day came the people driti:ed out of their houses and began to pace back and forth, gathering in little knots on the corners. They were quick with gesticulating hands, and low-voiced conversation. They looked ofi:en toward the corners of side streets. Suddenly appeared a policeman. swinging his club. ''Ah-h-h!" said the crowd softly. Six men had taken shelter from the rain under the canopy of a saloon. ''Come on! Get out of that I" yelled the policeman, adnncing. The men quietly obeyed. ''Get off this street 1 Go on home, no\v! Don't be standing here'" They gave way before him in silence, driti:ing back again when he turned a\vay. Other policemen materialized, hustling. cursing, brutaL ineffectuaL No one answered back. Nervous, bleary-eyed, unshaven, these officers were worn out with nine weeks incessant strike duty. On the mill side of the street the picket-line had grown to about four hundred. Several policemen shouldered roughly among them, looking for trouble. A workman appeared, with a tin pail, escorted by two detectives. "Boo! Boo'" shouted a few scattered voices. Tv.;o Italian boys leaned against the mill fence and shouted a merry Irish threat, ''Scab! Come outa here I knocka you' head off!" A policeman grabbed the boys roughly by the shoulder. "Get to hell out of here 1'' he cried. jerking and pushing them violently to the corner, where he kicked them. Not a voice, not a movement from the crowd. A little further along the street we saw a young woman with an umbrella. who had been picketing, suddenly confronted by a big policeman. "What the hell are you doing here?'' he roared. "God damn you, you go home!" and he jammed his club against her mouth. "I no go home'" she shrilled passionately, \\·ith blazing eyes. ''You bigga stifF' Silentlv. steadfastly. solidly the picket-line grew. In groups or in couples the strikers patrolled the sidewalk. There was no more laughing. They looked on with eyes fi.1ll of lute. These \\'ere fiery-blooded Italians. and the police were the same brutal thugs that had beaten them and insulted them tor nine \veeks. I wondered hmv long thev could stand it. It began to rain heavily. I asked ,1 man's permission to stand on the porch ofhis house. There was a policeman standing in fi:ont of it. His name, I afterw,uds disnwered. \\·as McCormack. I had to walk around him to mount the >,teps. Suddenly he turned round. and shot at the mn1er: ''Do all them tellmvs li\·e in that house'" The man indicated the three other strikers and himself. and shook his head ,lt me. ''Then vou get to hell off of there'" said the cop. pointing his club ,Jt me. "I haw the permission of this gentleman to stand here." I s,1id. "He m\·ns this home." "Ne\·er mind' Do \Ylut I tell you! Come otT of there. ,md come otf d,uun quick'" 'Til do nothing of the sort." With that he leaped up the steps. seized mv arm. ,md violently jerked me to the sidC\v,Jlk. Another cop took my ,Jnn and thev g.1w me ,1 show. "Nmv vou L!et to hell otT this street!" said Othccr McC:ornuck. "I \Yon :t ge( otT this street or ,my other street. If I'm breaking any Ll\\', you ,urest me'·· Ofl-iccr i'v1cCormack. \\ ho is doubtless ,\ good. stupid Irishman in time of peKe. is almost helpless in a sittution tlut rcqmre-; thinking. He \\ ,\s dreadtidlv troubled b\ m\· request. He didn't w,mt to arrest me, ,md s,Jid so \\ ith a gre,Jt deal of prut~mitv.

273

''I\·e g,,r your number:· said I s\veetly. "No\\' \vi\1 you tell me your name''' "Yes," he bellowed. "an' I got )'tltlr number' I'll arrest you.'' He took me by the arm and marched me up the street. He \Vas sorry he lzad arrested me. There was no charge he could lodge against me. 1 hadn't been doing anything. He felt he must make me say something that could be construed as a violation of the Lav•;. To \Yhich end he God damned me harshly. loading me with abuse and obscenity, and threatened me with his night-stick, saying. "You big-lug. I'd like to beat the hell out of you with this club." I returned airy persiflage to his threats. Other otT1cers came to the rescue, nvo of them, and supplied fresh epithets. I soon found them repeating themse!Yes, however. and told them so. "I had to come all the way to Paterson to put one over on a cop!" I said. Eureka' They had at last found a crime! When I was arraigned in the Recorder's Court that remark of mine was the charge against me! Ushered into the patrol-wagon, I was driven with much cbnging of gongs along the picket-line. Our passage was greeted \Vith "Boos" and ironical cheers, and enthusiastic wa\·ing. At Headquarters I was interrogated and lodged in the lockup. My cell \vas about four feet wide bv seven feet long. at least a foot higher than a standing man's head. and it contained an iron bunk hung from the side-wall with chains, and an open toilet of disguscing dirtiness in the corner. A crmvd of pickets had been jammed into the same lockup onlv three days before, eig/It or nine in a cell, and kept there without food or water for tu•cnty-tll' \\'ere built on the broken bones and quiYering hearts of children. The Phibdelphicl papers ,mel the Ne\Y York papers got into c1 sqtubble with e,1ch other m-er the question. The universities discussed it. Preachers bc·gan talking. Th,lt \\'JS \\·hat I \\',lllted. Public Jttention on the subject of child labor.

286



The matter quieted down for a while and I concluded the people needed stirring up agam. The Liberty Bell that a century ago rang out for freedom against tyranny was touring the country and crowds were coming to see it everywhere. That gave me an idea. These little children were striking for some of the freedom that childhood ought to have and I decided that the children and I would go on a tour. ' I asked some of the parents if they would let me have their little boys and girls for a week or ten days. promising to bring them back safe and sound. They consented. A man named Sweeny was marshal for our "army." A few men and women went with me to help with the children. They were on strike and I thought, they might as well have a little recreation. The children carried knapsacks on their backs which was a knife and fork, a tin cup and plate. We took along a wash boiler in which to cook the food on the road. One little fellow had a drum and another had a fife. That was our band. We carried banners that said, "We want more schools and less hospitals." "We want time to play." "Prosperity is here. Where is ours?" We started from Philadelphia where we held a great mass meeting. I decided to go with the children to see President Roosevelt to ask him to have Congress pass a law prohibiting the exploitation of childhood. I thought that President Roosevelt might see these mill children and compare them with his own little ones \vho were spending the summer on the seashore at Oyster Bay. I thought too, out of politeness, we might call on Morgan in Wall Street who owned the mines where many of these children's fathers worked. The children were very happy, having plenty to eat, taking baths in the brooks and rivers every day. I thought when the strike is over and they go back to the mills, they will never have another holiday like this. All along the line of march the farmers drove out to meet us with wagon loads of fruit and vegetables. Their wives brought the children clothes and money. The interurban trainmen would stop their trains and give us free rides. Marshal Sweeny and I would go ahead to the towns and arrange sleeping quarters for the children, and secure meeting halls. As we marched on, it grew terribly hot. There was no rain and the roads were heavy with dust. From time to time we had to send some of the children back to their homes. They were too weak to stand the march. We were on the outskirts of New Trenton, New Jersey, cooking our lunch in the wash boiler. when the conductor on the interurban car stopped and told us the police were coming down to notifY us that we could not enter the town. There were mills in the town and the mill owners didn't like our coming. I said, ''All right, the police will be just in time for lunch." Sure enough, the police came and \\'e invited them to dine with us. They looked at the little gathering of children with their tin plates and cups around the wash boiler. They just smiled and spoke kindly to the children. and said nothing at all about not going into the city. We went in, held our meeting, and it was the wives of the police who took the little children and cared tor them that night, sending them back in the morning with a nice lunch rolled up in paper napkins. Every\\·here we had meetings. showing up with living children, the horrors of child labor. At one town the mayor said we could not hold a meeting because he did not haw sutlicient police protection. "These little children have never known any sort of protection. your honor" I s,1id. "and they are used to going without it." He let us have our meeting. One night in Princeton. New Jersey. we slept in the big cool barn on Grover Cleveland's great estate. The heat became intense. There was much suffering in our ranks. t(w our little ones were not robust. The proprietor of the leading hotel sent for me. "Mother:· he s,1id. "order wlut you want and all you want t(w your army, and there's nothing to pay."

287

I called on the mayor of Princeton and asked for permission to speak opposite the campus of the University. I said I wanted to speak on higher education. The mayor gave me permission. A great crowd gathered, professors and students and the_ people; and I told them that the rich robbed these httle ch1ldren of any educatwn of the lowest order that they might send their sons and daughters to places of higher education. That they used the hands and feet of little children that they might buy automobiles for their wives and police dogs for their daughters to talk French to. 1 said the mill owners take babies almost from the cradle. And 1 showed those professors children in our army ·who could scarcely read or write because they were working ten hours a day in the silk mills of Pennsylvania. "Here's a text book on economics,'' I said pointing to a little chap, James Ashworth, who was ten years old and who was stooped over like an old man from carrying bundles of yarn that weighed seventy-five pounds. "He gets three dollars a week and his sister who is fourteen gets six dollars. They work in a carpet factory ten hours a day while the children of the rich are getting their higher education." That night we camped on the banks of Stony Brook where years and ye, the IWW had a vision of" one big union" that would not onh- improw conditions in the here and now tor all workers. but would revolutionize the whole society. The Preamblt' to the IWW constitution declares: '"The \vorking class and the emploving class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger ,md want are tound among millions of working people. and the fe\Y, who make up the employing class. haw ,1ll the good things of lite.'' The IWW heed brutal hostility and vigilante violence 111 its ompaigns for t!-ee speech and tor ,1 radical unionism that would unif)· all \vorkers in an international solidarit\·. Songs-witty. sarcastic parodies and stirring anthems-\vere highlv portable and enjoyable organizing tools, sung to familiar tunes and intended "to fan the flames of discontent'' The IWW published its first edition of the Little Red Song Book lt1 19U9. and there haw been over thirtY editions sinct'. including more tlun 18() songs. With its red paper cm-er and pocket size. the Litrlc Red Stlllg Bo,,k is a genuine example of culture tC.)r and by \vorkers. intcndt'd to instruct, build morale. and poke tim at the O\\·ning class. Included in this section ,ue Ralph H. Chaplin's enduring anthem "Solidarin· Forever." T- Bone Slim\ \\itty ''The Popular Wobbly:· and sekcted songs bv Joe Hill. Perhaps the most gifted and proliti.c song\Hiter of them all, Joe Hill g,JW collective \"oice and cultural meaning to forgotten workers an,l itinerant laborers. His songs and lite personitl.ed the idealism and righting spirit of the Wobblies. His death-seeminglY larger than his lite-became a po\vetii.ll snnbol ofbbor struggle ,md gener.1ted memorc1ble cultural fl'sponses. such ~ls Alfi·ed H,l\·es's poem, "I Dreamed I Sa\\. Joe Hill Last Night" (192:>). S

American Working-Class Literature: An Anthology

Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology

The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature

Hudson River in Literature: An Anthology

An Outline of American Literature

Gumbo- An Anthology of African American Writing [Anthology]

Gumbo- An Anthology of African American Writing [Anthology]

An Outline of American Literature (PENG)

Norton Anthology of American Literature (Shorter Sixth Edition)

The Anthology in Jewish Literature

Mathematical Problems: An Anthology

Poems of To-Day, an Anthology [Anthology]

Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900

Beyond The Dunes: An Anthology of Modern Saudi Literature

Victorian Prose: An Anthology

Reading Eco: an anthology

An Anthology Of Australian Verse [Anthology]

An Anthology of Ismaili Literature: A Shi'i Vision of Islam

Albert Schweitzer: An Anthology

Epistemology: An Anthology

Angels and Outcasts: An Anthology of Deaf Characters in Literature

Outline of American Literature

The Origins of American Literature Studies: An Institutional History (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)

American Indian Nonfiction: An Anthology of Writings, 1760s-1930s

History of American Literature

History Of American Literature

Paradise (American Literature Series)

History of American Literature

History of American Literature

American Working-Class Literature: An Anthology

Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology

The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature

Hudson River in Literature: An Anthology

An Outline of American Literature

Gumbo- An Anthology of African American Writing [Anthology]

Gumbo- An Anthology of African American Writing [Anthology]

An Outline of American Literature (PENG)

Norton Anthology of American Literature (Shorter Sixth Edition)

The Anthology in Jewish Literature

Mathematical Problems: An Anthology

Poems of To-Day, an Anthology [Anthology]

Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900

Beyond The Dunes: An Anthology of Modern Saudi Literature

Victorian Prose: An Anthology

Reading Eco: an anthology

An Anthology Of Australian Verse [Anthology]

An Anthology of Ismaili Literature: A Shi'i Vision of Islam

Albert Schweitzer: An Anthology

Epistemology: An Anthology

Angels and Outcasts: An Anthology of Deaf Characters in Literature

Outline of American Literature

The Origins of American Literature Studies: An Institutional History (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)

American Indian Nonfiction: An Anthology of Writings, 1760s-1930s

History of American Literature

History Of American Literature

Paradise (American Literature Series)

History of American Literature

History of American Literature

Recommend Documents