in or near St. Luke's Place. I got there first and was about to ring
when my attention was arrested by a tall figure approaching with long
strides and distinguished by a flaming orange necktie, a mop of white
hair and a grayish-brown suit. The figure looked just as I had imagined
the composite personality of _The Masses_ and _The Liberator_ might
be: colorful, easy of motion, clothes hanging a little loosely or
carelessly, but good stuff with an unstylish elegance. As I thought, it
was Max Eastman.
We went up into a high room and he lounged lazily on a couch and
discussed my poems. I had brought a batch of new ones. Naturally I was
impressed at once by the contrast between Max Eastman and Frank Harris.
There was nothing of the "I" first person in Max Eastman's manner. Nor
did he question me to any extent about myself, my antecedents, and the
conditions under which I lived and wrote at the time. He was the pure
intellectual in his conversation and critical opinion.
Among my new poems there was a sonnet entitled "If We Must Die." It was
the most recent of all. Great events had occurred between the time when
I had first met Frank Harris and my meeting with Max Eastman. The World
War had ended. But its end was a signal for the outbreak of little
wars between labor and capital and, like a plague breaking out in sore
places, between colored folk and white.
Our Negro newspapers were morbid, full of details of clashes between
colored and white, murderous shootings and hangings. Traveling from
city to city and unable to gauge the attitude and temper of each one,
we Negro railroad men were nervous. We were less light-hearted. We did
not separate from one another gaily to spend ourselves in speakeasies
and gambling joints. We stuck together, some of us armed, going from
the railroad station to our quarters. We stayed in our quarters all
through the dreary ominous nights, for we never knew what was going to
happen.
It was during those days that the sonnet, "If We Must Die," exploded
out of me. And for it the Negro people unanimously hailed me as a poet.
Indeed, that one grand outburst is their sole standard of appraising
my poetry. It was the only poem I ever read to the members of my crew.
They were agitated. Even the fourth waiter--who was the giddiest and
most irresponsible of the lot, with all his motives and gestures
colored by a strangely acute form of satyriasis--even he actually
cried. One, who was a believer in the Marcus Garvey Back-to-Africa
Movement, suggested that I should go to Liberty Hall, the headquarters
of the organization, and read the poem. As I was not uplifted with his
enthusiasm for the Garvey Movement, yet did not like to say so, I told
him truthfully that I had no ambition to harangue a crowd.
That afternoon with Max Eastman was spent in a critical estimation of
my verse. He decided to publish a page of it. When I departed I left
some of the verses but took with others the "If We Must Die" sonnet. I
wanted Frank Harris, whom I had not seen for many months, to see it. I
had always remembered his criticism and rejection of "The Lynching,"
and now I wanted to know if in "If We Must Die" I had "risen to the
heights and stormed heaven," as he had said I should.
At that time _Pearson's Magazine_ had its office in the same building
as _The Liberator_. Frank Harris had me ushered in as soon as I was
announced. "And where have you been and what doing all this time,
my lad?" he roared, fixing me with a lowering look. All his high
exhibitionism could not conceal the frank friendliness and deep
kindliness that were the best of him. "Now what have you done to be
called a real poet, to join the ranks of the elect? Have you written
a GREAT poem yet?" I produced "If We Must Die." He read it at once.
Then he slapped his thigh and shouted, "Grand! Grand! You have done it.
That _is_ a great poem, authentic fire and blood; blood pouring from a
bleeding heart. I shall be proud to publish it in _Pearson's_."
I said that I was sorry, but the poem had already been accepted by _The
Liberator_. "What? It belongs to me," Frank Harris thundered. "_The
Liberator_ be damned! I gave you the inspiration to write that sonnet
and I want to have the credit of publishing it. In the next number of
_Pearson's_. I'll play it up big."
But I said I couldn't do that; I would have to ask Max Eastman's
permission. "No, you won't," roared Frank Harris. "Do you think I am
the kind of man to accept a favor from Max Eastman? Why did you bring
your poem here, after showing it to him?" Because I wanted him to
see what I had done, I said, because I valued his opinion so highly,
perhaps more than any other critic's, because his unforgettable words
that memorable night of our first meeting were like a fire alive in me,
because I so much desired to know if he considered what I had written
as an achievement. I was excited and spoke quickly and earnestly. Frank
Harris melted a little, for what I said had pleased him. But he was
none the less angry.
He informed me then that he had had a fight with _The Liberator_.
He had published in _Pearson's_ an article about Lenin in which the
Russian dictator was portrayed as a cosmopolitan _bon vivant_. It was a
very exaggerated and wrong picture, and _The Liberator_, which had more
accurate information about Lenin's private life from individuals who
knew him, had severely criticized Frank Harris. He was sore about the
criticism. He said that he and Max Eastman were both radical editors,
and if he had made a mistake, _The Liberator_ might have asked him to
correct it in _Pearson's_, instead of both editors denouncing each
other in public. He said he was so disgusted that he was seeking other
premises for his magazine, because he was uncomfortable housed in the
same building as _The Liberator_ and all the time meeting its editor,
even riding in the same elevator with him.
That incident alone was a revelation of the real Frank Harris under
the hard protective shell, and shows that he was not such a natural
buccaneer as some of his critics assert. He was so sensitive that he
could not stand being in the same building with another editor, because
they had quarreled.
I had not read the controversial articles then and knew nothing
about the quarrel, and so I was very embarrassed, realizing that
it was a mistake to show the poem to Frank Harris before it was
published in _The Liberator_. I was keen about that poem appearing
in _The Liberator_, because of that magazine's high literary and
social standard. Although I esteemed Frank Harris as a great critic,
_Pearson's_ was _his_ magazine only, a one-man magazine, smashingly
critical, daringly so about social problems, yet having no constructive
social program. But _The Liberator_ was a group magazine. The list
of contributing editors was almost as exciting to read as the
contributions themselves. There was a freeness and a bright new beauty
in those contributions, pictorial and literary, that thrilled. And
altogether, in their entirety, they were implicit of a penetrating
social criticism which did not in the least overshadow their novel and
sheer artistry. I rejoiced in the thought of the honor of appearing
among that group.
Nevertheless I deferred a little to Frank Harris, and when I mailed the
set of poems to Max Eastman a few days later, I kept back the "If We
Must Die" sonnet. I figured that if Max Eastman overlooked its absence,
I could conscientiously give it to Frank Harris. But Max Eastman
sent me a telegram requesting the immediate return of the sonnet.
The magazine had already gone to press and he wished to include it
in the selection. I sent it in and "If We Must Die" appeared in _The
Liberator_.
III
White Friends
The phrase "white friend" used by a Negro among Negroes is so
significant in color and emotion, in creating a subtle feeling of
social snobbery and superiority, that I have sometimes wondered what
is the exact effect of "colored friend" when employed by a white among
whites. I mean the sophisticated. I know the reactions and their
nuances must be very different within the two groups. An experiment
carried out in both groups to determine this would be as rarely
illuminating as a scientific discovery to this Negro. But alas, what
a pity that it is an impossibility, even as it is for a white reader
to share with a black reader the magic inhering in "white friend" with
all its implications. It may be partially understood only by comparing
it with certain social honors and class distinctions which make for
prestige, but it cannot be fully realized.
The peasants of Jamaica were always fond and faithful in friendships.
Every boy and every man had a best friend, from whom he expected
sympathy and understanding even more than from a near relative. Such a
friend shared in confidences which were not revealed even to a brother.
Early friendships were encouraged by our parents. And sometimes it was
the friendship of youngsters that developed a fraternal feeling among
the families of both.
There were few white friends in the social life of the peasants. The
white colony agglomerated in the towns and the peasants were 80 per
cent of a population of a million. And so the phrase "mah white folks"
could not have the significance for a Jamaica peasant that it has for
a southern Negro. There were a few settlements of poor whites in the
land. They were mainly of German descent. Like the natives, they eked
out a living as agriculturists and artisans, sharing in the common
community life. The blacks were not sycophantic to them because of
their pigmentation, nor did they treat them with contempt as "poor
white trash."
Those were the social conditions in the country. In our only city they
were different. In the city there were subtle social distinctions
between white and light-colored and between light-colored and black.
These distinctions were based upon real class differences which were
fixed by the distribution of positions. Generally the whites were the
ruling and upper class, the light-colored were the shop-keeping and
clerical class, the blacks were the working class.
A peasant would be proud of a white friend who was influential. But
from a social-asset point of view, he would place much more value upon
the friendship of a light-colored person of the wealthy and educated
class or of a black who had risen up out of the peasantry than he would
upon that of an undistinguished "poor white."
My father was the trusted friend of Mr. Hathaway, the missionary
who built up the first mission of our region. I remember my first
impression of my father: a tall, graying man with an impressive
luxuriantly kinky head. He was a prosperous enough peasant and settled
on his own land. He was senior deacon of the church and something of a
patriarch of the mountain country. My memory retains an unforgettable
picture of him, often sitting out upon our barbecue and endeavoring to
settle differences between the poorer peasants. For the peasants loved
litigation and enjoyed bringing one another into the white man's court
for very trivial offenses. My father always said: Try to settle your
differences out of court, for the courts cost more than the cases are
worth.
For the best part of my boyhood I was away from home going to school
under my school-teacher brother. And when I had grown up a little and
returned to the homestead I found my father estranged from the church.
For five years he had never set foot on the church premises. After Mr.
Hathaway there had been about five other missionaries, but the sixth, a
Scotchman, turned out a bad egg, after seeming white and good outside.
They said he was tricky and canny in petty things. He had falsified the
church accounts and appropriated money that was intended for foreign
missions. And he had discharged the native teacher and given the job to
his wife.
My father quit the church. It went down to the devil. And the mountain
country became a hell for that missionary. Even the children jeered
at him along the roads when he went riding by. One by one his fellow
missionaries turned from him, refusing to visit the mission, until he
was isolated. At last he was compelled to go. When he was leaving,
he came to my father's house and offered to shake hands. My father
refused. He said the missionary had not acknowledged his error and he
did not think his hands were clean just because they were white. But my
mother cried and went out to the gate to the missionary's wife and they
embraced.
I make this digression about white friendship and my father, because,
like him, I have also had some white friends in my life, friends from
the upper class, the middle class, the lower and the very lowest
class. Maybe I have had more white than colored friends. Perhaps I
have been impractical in putting the emotional above the social value
of friendship, but neither the color of my friends, nor the color
of their money, nor the color of their class has ever been of much
significance to me. It was more the color of their minds, the warmth
and depth of their sensibility and affection, that influenced me.
* * * * *
Apropos of white friendship, way back in 1912, when my _Songs of
Jamaica_ was published, I received a letter from a man in Singapore
praising my effort. This person had been corresponding with Mr. Jekyll
about a scheme to establish an international utopian colony for
intellectuals and creative talents. Mr. Jekyll, an individualistic
aristocrat of the English squirearchy had rejected the idea for
himself, saying he had no faith in sentimental and visionary nostrums.
But he had carried on a correspondence with several persons who were
interested.
Six years later, when my poems appeared in _Pearson's Magazine_, I
heard from my Singapore correspondent again. He had arrived in San
Francisco from Japan. He was intending to come to New York and hoped
we would meet. In a few weeks he came and I was shocked out of my skin
by the appearance of the apostle of the international cultural life.
In my young romantic naïveté in the hill-top of Jamaica I had imagined
him to be the personification of a knight-errant of esthetics, lustily
fighting against conventionalism for a freer cultural and artistic
expression. But the apostle was lank and limp and strangely gray-eyed
and there was a grayness in his personality like the sensation of dry
sponge. He appeared like an object out of place in space, as if the
soul of existence had been taken out of his form and left him a kind of
mummy. His voice sounded as if it were trained to suppress all emotion.
And he walked like a conventionalized mannikin. I thought that man's
vanity must be vastly greater than his intelligence when such an
individual could imagine himself capable of being the inspirer of an
international colony of happy humanity.
Mr. Gray's parentage was international--a mixture of Italian, German
and other Nordic strains. He was born in the Orient. When the World War
broke, he and his inseparable sister were living in a utopian colony
of Europeans of different nationalities. But the colony had to be
disbanded because the territory belonged to one of the Allied powers
and some of the members were Germans, and there were national quarrels
over the cause of the war.
I invited the Grays up to Harlem. They were interested in seeing the
big Black Belt, but they did not like Harlem. They did not like New
York. Mr. Gray said he was glad to locate me through _Pearson's_, and
that he enjoyed the magazine as a whole. I said that Frank Harris would
be delighted to hear that and he said he would like to meet Frank
Harris. I promised him an introduction.
Mr. Gray praised me highly for my new poems. He thought them stronger
and riper than the Jamaican dialect rhymes. And also he thought I
should have enough leisure to write more. He thought it might be
salutary if I could get away from the Black Belt for awhile. And he
suggested a plan for me to make a trip abroad.
My surprise over the prompt proposal gave Mr. Gray a kind of
self-satisfied amusement. I could tell by his faint sophisticated
smile. From my background of hard routine realistic living, idealistic
actions did not appear as simple to me as they did to Mr. Gray,
who lived by them. His practical life was his lifelong interest in
creative talents, the world leadership of intellectual idealists and
the establishment of model colonies, out of which he expected a modern
Utopia to develop. The World War had confused and disillusioned him a
little, but he was still full of hope.
Yet much as I was ready for a holiday from Harlem and though the idea
was a vast surprise, I did not accept it right away. I was interested
to know the details. Mr. Gray's plan was that I should be the guest of
himself and his sister on a trip to Spain, where I could spend a year,
or even two, writing. They had lived in Spain before and thought that
living there after the war would be more agreeable than in any other
European country, because Spain had kept out of the World War.
Miss Gray's resemblance to her brother was striking. They looked like
twins. She was almost as tall, but she was physically stronger and more
prepossessing. Much as I wanted that holiday, I had my doubts that I
could be comfortable, much less happy, as their guest. So I said that I
would like some time to think the matter over. And they agreed that I
should first do a little thinking. But the tone of their voices and of
their faces seemed to show that they were certain that I would finally
say yes.
I had recently quit my job as waiter on the Pennsylvania Railroad,
when the Grays arrived in New York. Thus I had plenty of time to spend
with them. I was fortunate in not needing to worry about the expense
of food. We ate in Harlem and downtown in the Automat restaurants. I
visited them in their rooms in their downtown hotel. When I appeared at
the desk, the clerk spoke before I did: "Oh, yes, you are the colored
visitor from abroad. Mr. Gray is expecting you, just step into the
elevator."
I had lots of time and opportunity to find out whether I would enjoy
being a long-time guest of the Grays. And reluctantly I came to the
conclusion that I couldn't. For their ideals I had the highest esteem
and I was touched by their generosity. But between them and me there
was a great disparity of temperament and outlook, a vast difference in
seeing and in feeling the colors of life. I felt convinced that a long
intimate association would strain disastrously, and perhaps break, our
friendship.
Yet I was tantalized by the thought of a vacation in Spain. For West
Indians it is the romantic European country, which gave the Caribbean
islands their early names and terribly exciting tales of caribs and
conquistadors, buccaneers and golden galleons and sugar-cane, rum and
African slaves.
I thought I would try taking a little advice. At that time I knew
nobody among the Negro intellectuals, excepting Hubert Harrison.
Hubert Harrison was a lecturer on the sidewalks of Harlem. He lectured
on free-thought, socialism and racialism, and sold books. He spoke
precisely and clearly, with fine intelligence and masses of facts. He
was very black, compact of figure, and his head resembled an African
replica of Socrates.
He came from one of the Virgin Islands. He used to lecture in Wall
Street. A group of Jews became interested and brought him to lecture
in a hall in One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street. For a time he was the
black hope of the Socialists. Then he gave up Socialism for the Garvey
pan-African movement.
I explained my dilemma to Harrison and he said I was a fool to
hesitate; that I was too conscientious. In civilized life it was not
necessary for one to like one's hosts, he pointed out. Harrison said he
would like to talk the plan over with me and Mr. Gray. So I got him and
Mr. Gray together at dinner at a little South Carolina cookshop which
was good for its special hog food.
Harrison talked to Mr. Gray mostly about the pan-African movement. He
had a similar idea, he said, but Garvey, being more spectacular, had
run away with it. He told Mr. Gray that he was performing a gracious
act by taking me to Europe; that he himself had lived abroad in Denmark
and Japan, and the experience had helped him in his later work. He
avoided any mention of my real feelings about taking the trip, and I
didn't know how to express what I really felt. Finally Harrison got a
personal donation of fifty dollars from Mr. Gray to help in the work of
black enlightenment.
I had to fall back upon myself in making a decision. When I did,
informing Mr. Gray of all my doubts about the project, he was as
surprised as I had been when he first mentioned the subject. Our
contacts were all so easy and pleasant, he had not reckoned on the
objections. I tried to make him see as I did that a close association
would be quite a different thing from polite social contact.
When I told Hubert Harrison what I had done, he exclaimed that I was an
impossible poet. But soon after I received a letter from Mr. Gray. He
said that both he and his sister appreciated my frankness, especially
because of the duplicity they had experienced in their efforts to
found a community of free spirits. As an alternative he offered me
a brief vacation abroad, regretting that the decrease of his income
because of the war did not permit him to make it a long vacation. As
the Grays were going to Spain and I did not want to appear as if I were
deliberately avoiding traveling with them, I chose going to England.
I had promised Mr. Gray an introduction to Frank Harris, and we were
invited to his house one afternoon. Frank Harris in his sitting room
was obscured by the bulk of another visitor who resembled an enormous
slug. Every gesture he made, every word he uttered, was a gesture of
crawling at the feet of Harris, whom he addressed as "Master, Dear
Master." And Frank Harris appeared pleased like a little boy who takes
all the credit for a brave deed that others helped him to perform. The
scene disconcerted me. I could not understand how a man so forthright
in his opinion as Frank Harris could swallow all of that thick cloying
syrup of insincerity. But he certainly did, and with relish, rubbing
his hands and nodding his head. The phrases poured heavily out of the
huge man's boneless jaws, nauseating the atmosphere: "Dear master, you
are the world's greatest teacher and martyr since Jesus. The pharisees
are against you, Master, but your disciples are loyal." Frank Harris
said that he was quite aware of that. If he were in France he would be
called universally _cher maître_, like Anatole France, but a true king
had no honor among the Anglo-Saxon peoples.
Frank Harris then spoke of his long and unsuccessful fight against
injustice, and he emphasized the Boer War, the Oscar Wilde case, and
the World War. And whenever he paused the disciple filled in with "Yes,
Master ... dear Master."
The visit ended with Mr. Gray being sold a set of Frank Harris's books
and his taking out a year's subscription for _Pearson's_.
But before I left Frank Harris asked if there were anything he could do
for me in London. He could not do much by way of personal introduction
he said, because all his friends there had become enemies. I said the
only person I was keen about meeting was Bernard Shaw. Well chosen,
Frank Harris said, and gave me a letter introducing me to Bernard Shaw.
IV
Another White Friend
I had already bought my ticket, when a few days before the date of
sailing I received a letter containing a soiled scrap bearing one of
my poems, which had been reprinted in the New York _Tribune_. The
letter was from another white friend, quite different from those before
mentioned.
Ours was a curious friendship and this was the way it came about.
Coming off the dining car one night, I went with another waiter to his
home in one of the West Forties. His wife had company and we played
cards until a late hour.
When I left I went to eat in a Greek place on Sixth Avenue. While I was
waiting for the steak and looking at a newspaper, a young fellow came
in, sat down at my table, and taking my cap from the chair, put it on.
Before I could say a word about such a surprising thing, he said in a
low, nervous voice: "It's all right, let me wear your cap. The bulls
are right after me and I am trying to fool them. They won't recognize
me sitting here with you, for I was bareheaded."