He read and spoke several languages. I did not know his nationality and
refrained from asking. For the Pankhurst organization, though small,
was revolutionary, and from experience the militant suffragettes knew
a lot about conspiracy. However, I suspected that Comrade Vie was a
foreign revolutionist. The Pankhurst secretary, a romantic middle-class
young woman, had hinted to me that Comrade Vie was more important than
he appeared to be.
Comrade Vie wrote also and we often compared articles. I criticized his
English and he criticized my point of view, showing me how I could be
more effectively radical.
Soon after I became associated with the _Workers' Dreadnought_, a
sawmill strike broke out in London. Most of the sawmills were in the
East End, where also the publishing office of the _Dreadnought_ was
located. One mill was directly opposite the _Dreadnought_ office. I was
assigned to do an article on the strike. A few of the sawmill workers
were sympathetic to the _Dreadnought_ organization, and one of the
younger of them volunteered to take me round.
There were some sixty sawmills in London, one of the most important of
which was either owned or partly controlled by George Lansbury, Labor
Member of Parliament and managing editor of the _Daily Herald_. Some
of the strikers informed me that the Lansbury mill had in its employ
some workers who were not members of the sawmill union and who were not
striking. Technically, such workers were scabs. The strikers thought it
would make an excellent story for the militant _Dreadnought_. So did I.
The name of Lansbury was symbolic of all that was simon-pure, pious
and self-righteous in the British Labor movement. As the boss of the
_Daily Herald_, he stood at the center like an old bearded angel of
picturesque honesty, with his right arm around the neck of the big
trade-union leaders and Parliamentarians and his left waving to the
Independent Labor partyites and all the radical Left. Like a little cat
up against a big dog, the _Workers' Dreadnought_ was always spitting at
the _Daily Herald_.
I thought the story would give the _Dreadnought_ some more fire to
spit. Here was my chance for getting even with the _Daily Herald_ for
its black-scourge-in-Europe campaign. Comrade Vie helped me put some
ginger into my article. When I showed the article to Miss Smyth, the
upper-middle-class person who was Pankhurst's aid, she gasped and said:
"But this is a scoop." Her gentle-lady poker face was lit as she read.
Finally the article reached Sylvia Pankhurst. She summoned me and
said: "Your article is excellent but I'm so sorry we cannot print it."
"Why?" I asked. "Because," said she, "we owe Lansbury twenty pounds.
Besides, I have borrowed paper from the _Daily Herald_ to print the
_Dreadnought_. I can't print that."
It is possible that Miss Pankhurst acted more from a feeling of
personal loyalty. Although Lansbury was centrist and she was extreme
leftist, they were personal friends, ever since they had been
associated in the suffrage cause. And after all, one might concede that
there are items which the capitalist press does not consider fit to
print for capitalist reasons, and items which the radical press does
not consider fit to print for radical reasons.
That summer Sylvia Pankhurst made the underground trip to Russia to
attend the Second Congress of the Third International.
Early in September, 1920, I was sent down to Portsmouth to report the
Trades Union Congress for the _Dreadnought_. There were gathered at the
Congress some of the leaders who later became members of the British
Labor Government: J.H. Thomas, J.R. Clynes, Arthur Henderson, A.A.
Purcell, Herbert Morrison, Frank Hodges, and Margaret Bonfield. The
most picturesque personage of them all was Frank Hodges, the secretary
of the Miners' Federation, who in his style and manner appeared like a
representative of the nobility. I mentioned this to A.J. Cook, who was
a minor official of the Federation, and he informed me that Hodges was
always hunting foxes with the lords.
At the press table I met Scott Nearing, who, after listening to clever
speeches by the labor leaders, whispered to me that England would soon
be the theater of the next revolution. The speeches were warm; Labor
was feeling its strength in those times. Even J.H. Thomas was red,
at least in the face, about Winston Churchill, who had declared that
"Labor was not fit to govern."
As a _Dreadnought_ reporter, I had been instructed to pay little
attention to the official leaders, but to seek out any significant
rank-and-filers and play them up in my story. I was taken up by
delegates from the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, which was the extreme
leftist element of the Miners' Federation. One of them, A.J. Cook, was
exceptionally friendly and gave me interesting information about the
British Labor movement. He was very proud that it was the most powerful
in the world and included every class of worker. He said he believed
the labor movement was the only hope for Negroes because they were in
the lowest economic group. He pointed out that J.R. Clynes' General
Union of Workers consisted of the lowest class of people (domestic
servants and porters and hotel workers) and yet it was extremely
important in the councils of the Trades Union Congress.
At that time I could not imagine Cook becoming a very influential
official. He was extremely loquacious, but his ideas were an odd mix-up
of liberal sentiment and socialist thought, and sentimental to an
extreme. He was also a parson, and divided his time between preaching
and the pit. However, the radical miners told me they were going to
push Cook forward to take the place of Hodges, whom they could no
longer stomach. And sure enough, in a few brief years Cook became the
radical secretary of the Miners' Federation.
But the labor official at the Congress who carried me away with him
was Robert Smillie, the president of the Miners' Federation. Crystal
Eastman had given me a note to him and he had said a few wise words to
me about the necessity of colored labor being organized, especially
in the vast European colonies, for the betterment of its own living
standard and to protect that of white organized labor. Smillie was
like a powerful ash which had forced itself up, coaxing nourishment
out of infertile soil, and towering over saplings and shrubs. His
face and voice were so terribly full of conviction that in comparison
the colleagues around him appeared theatrical. When he stood forth
to speak the audience was shot through with excitement, and subdued.
He compelled you to think along his line whether or not you agreed
with him. I remember his passionate speech for real democracy in the
Congress, advocating proportional representation and pointing out that
on vital issues the united Miners' Federation was often outvoted by a
nondescript conglomeration like J.R. Clynes' General Union of Workers
for example. You felt that Smillie had convinced the Congress, but when
the vote was taken it went against him.
I wrote my article on the Trades Union Congress around Smillie
because his personality and address were more significant in my
opinion than any rank-and-filer's. It was featured on the front page
of the _Dreadnought_. But when Pankhurst returned from Russia, she
sharply reproved me for it, saying that it wasn't the policy of the
_Dreadnought_ to praise the official labor leaders, but to criticize
them. Naturally, I resented the criticism, especially as Pankhurst had
suppressed my article on Lansbury.
Just before leaving for the Trade Union Congress I was introduced to
a young English sailor named Springhall. He was a splendid chap. He
had been put into the British navy as a boy and had developed into a
fine man, not merely physically, but intellectually. Springhall was
a constant reader of the _Dreadnought_ and other social propaganda
literature and he said that other men on his ship were eager for more
stuff about the international workers' movement. At that time there
was a widespread discontent and desire for better wages among the rank
and file of the navy. Springhall came to the _Dreadnought_ publishing
office in the Old Ford Road and we gave him many copies of the
_Dreadnought_. The _Dreadnought_ was legally on sale on the newsstands,
so he had the legal right to take as many as he desired. Before he left
he promised to send me some navy news for the paper.
When I returned to London I found a letter from the young sailor,
Springhall, with some interesting items for the paper and the
information that he was sending an article. The article arrived in a
few days and it was a splendid piece of precious information. But its
contents were so important and of such a nature that I put it away and
waited for Pankhurst to return and pass it.
Pankhurst returned late in September. I turned over Springhall's
document to her. She was enthusiastic, edited the document, and decided
to give it the front page. We used a nom de plume and a fictitious name
for a battleship. Only Pankhurst and myself knew who the author was.
The intelligence of the stuff was so extraordinary that she did not
want to risk having the youth's identity discovered by the authorities.
And she thought he could serve the social cause more excellently by
remaining at his post.
A couple of days after the issue appeared, the _Dreadnought_ office
was raided by the police. I was just going out, leaving the little
room on the top floor where I always worked, when I met Pankhurst's
private secretary coming upstairs. She whispered that Scotland Yard
was downstairs. Immediately I thought of Springhall's article and I
returned to my room, where I had the original under a blotter. Quickly
I folded it and stuck it in my sock. Going down, I met a detective
coming up. They had turned Pankhurst's office upside down and descended
to the press-room, without finding what they were looking for.
"And what are you?" the detective asked.
"Nothing, Sir," I said, with a big black grin. Chuckling, he let me
pass. (I learned afterward that he was the ace of Scotland Yard.) I
walked out of that building and into another, and entering a water
closet I tore up the original article, dropped it in, and pulled the
chain. When I got home to the Bow Road that evening I found another
detective waiting for me. He was very polite and I was more so. With
alacrity I showed him all my papers, but he found nothing but lyrics.
Pankhurst was arrested and charged with attempting to incite
dissatisfaction among His Majesty's Forces. She was released on bail
and given time to straighten out her affairs before she came up for
trial. She received many messages of sympathy and among them was a
brief telegram from Bernard Shaw asking: "Why did you let them get you?"
Pankhurst's arrest was the beginning of a drive against the Reds.
For weeks the big press had carried on a campaign against Red
propaganda and alien agitators and Bolshevik gold in Britain. Liberal
intellectuals like Bertrand Russell and Mrs. Snowden had visited
Russia, and labor men like Robert Williams and George Lansbury. There
was an organized labor and liberal demand to end the Russian blockade.
And when the press broadcast the fact that $325,000 of Bolshevik
capital had been offered to the _Daily Herald_, it must have struck
Scotland Yard like a bomb.
Within a week of Pankhurst's arrest, Comrade Vie was seized just
as he was leaving England to go abroad. He was arrested as he was
departing from the house of a member of Parliament who was a Communist
sympathizer. The police announced that he was a Bolshevik courier. They
discovered on his person letters from Pankhurst to Lenin, Zinoviev and
other members of the Bolshevik Politbureau; also notes in cipher,
documents of information about the armed forces, the important
industrial centers, and Ireland, a manual for officers of the future
British Red army and statements about the distribution of money.
Comrade Vie was even more important than I had suspected.
One evening when I got back home from Fleet Street I was surprised to
find Springhall, the sailor, there. He had come up to London to see
Pankhurst. He said his ship was leaving England and he would like to
talk to her. He was on one of the crack battleships. I begged him for
God's sake to leave at once, that he could not see Pankhurst, who had
been enjoined from political activity by the court and was undoubtedly
under police surveillance. Also, as editor of the _Dreadnought_, she
had taken the full responsibility for his article, and her difficult
situation in the movement would be made worse if the police should get
him too.
Springhall returned to his ship. But he was bold with youthful zeal
and extremely incautious. I remember his actively participating in
his uniform in the grand demonstration in Trafalgar Square for the
hunger-striking and dying mayor of Cork. And he marched with the
crowds upon the prison and fought with the police and got severely
beaten up. He wanted to quit the navy, believing that he could be a
better agitator outside. But his friends on the outside thought that
he could be of more importance at his post. Anyway he must have acted
indiscreetly and created suspicion against himself, for when his ship
arrived at its next port, he was summarily dismissed. However, his
revolutionary ardor did not handicap him in being clever enough to
maneuver his dismissal and steer clear of a court-martial. A few years
after he visited Russia, and later I was informed that he subsequently
became an active leader of the British Communist Youth Movement.
Comrade Vie was convicted under the simple charge of alien
non-registration. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and
to pay the costs of his trial and deportation. Upon his release,
Pankhurst's secretary followed him to Russia, where they were married.
Apparently it was his preoccupation with his love affair that enabled
the detectives to trap Comrade Vie. Three years later I saw them again
in Moscow, but he did not seem to be importantly employed.
VIII
Regarding Reactionary Criticism
My little brown book of verse, _Spring in New Hampshire_, appeared
in the midst of the radical troubles in the fall of 1920. I had not
neglected the feeling of poetry, even while I was listening to Marxian
expositions at the International Club and had become involved in
radical activities. A little action was a nice stimulant for another
lyric.
C.K. Ogden, the author of _Basic English_ and _The Foundation of
Esthetics_, besides steering me round the picture galleries and being
otherwise kind, had published a set of my verses in his _Cambridge
Magazine_. Later he got me a publisher.
But I was so anxious about leaving London for America that I hardly
felt the excitement I should about the first book I had done since I
left Jamaica. The Pankhurst group had been disrupted by the police
raids. Many of the members were acquainted with Comrade Vie, but
unaware of his real identity. His unexpected arrest and the disclosures
of the police that he was a Bolshevik agent had started lots of
rubberneck gossip. Some asserted that Comrade Vie had been deliberately
betrayed. And members accused other members of being spies and
traitors. A dissident group, headed by Edgar Whitehead, the secretary
of the organization, desired to bring Pankhurst herself to a private
trial and I also had to give an accounting of my activities.
One evening, when I visited the International Club the secretary showed
me an anonymous letter he had received, accusing me also of being a
spy. I declare that I felt sick and was seized with a crazy craving
to get quickly out of that atmosphere and far away from London. But
I had used up all of my return fare. All I had received from the
_Dreadnought_ was payment for my board. The organization was always in
need of money.
My little book had brought me no money. I hadn't been banking on it. I
had stopped writing for the _Negro World_ because it had not paid for
contributions. An English friend, and I.W.W. who had lived in America
(I think he had been deported thence), undertook to find a group of
friends to put up the fare to get me back there.
While I was hotly preparing my departure, Sylvia Pankhurst was
sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Pankhurst was a good agitator
and fighter, but she wasn't a leader. She possessed the magnetism to
attract people to her organization, but she did not have the power to
hold them. I remember a few of them: William Gallacher, Saklatvala
(the Indian M.P.), A.J. Cook, who became the secretary of the Miners'
Federation, and that very brilliant and talented writing couple, Eden
and Cedar Paul. And I was informed that before my time there had been
others even more brilliant among the Left literary and artistic set. I
remember saying to Springhall that it was a pity the organization was
too small for him. It was a one-woman show, not broad-based enough to
play a decisive rôle in the labor movement.
At last, when I was safely fixed in my third-class bunk, I had time to
read and ponder over the English reviews of my book. If it is difficult
to ascertain the real attitude of the common people of any country
regarding certain ideas and things, it should be easy enough to find
out that of the élite by writing a book. The reviews will reveal more
or less the mind of the better classes.
In most of the reviews of my poems there was a flippant note, either
open or veiled, at the idea of a Negro writing poetry. After reading
them I could understand better why Bernard Shaw had asked me why I
did not go in for pugilism instead of poetry. I think I got as much
amusement out of reading them from my own angle as the reviewers had in
writing from theirs.
But more than all there was one that deserves special mention. It was
the review published in the _Spectator_, the property, I think, of the
Strachey family, and the organ of the Tory intellectuals. There can be
little doubt that the _London Spectator_ represents the opinion of that
English group, which, because of its wealth and power, its facilities
for and standards of high education, and its domination of most of the
universe, either directly or indirectly, is the most superior in the
world.
Said the _Spectator_ critic: "_Spring in New Hampshire_ is
extrinsically as well as intrinsically interesting. It is written by
a man who is a pure-blooded Negro.... Perhaps the ordinary reader's
first impulse in realizing that the book is by an American Negro is to
inquire into its good taste. Not until we are satisfied that his work
does not overstep the barriers which a not quite explicable but deep
instinct in us is ever alive to maintain can we judge it with genuine
fairness. Mr. Claude McKay never offends our sensibilities. His love
poetry is clear of the hint which would put our racial instinct against
him, whether we would or not."
So there it bobbed up again. As it was among the élite of the
class-conscious working class, so it was among the aristocracy of the
upper class: the bugaboo of sex--the African's sex, whether he is a
poet or pugilist.
Why should a Negro's love poetry be offensive to the white man, who
prides himself on being modern and civilized? Now it seems to me that
if the white man is really more civilized than the colored (be the
color black, brown or yellow), then the white man should take Negro
poetry and pugilism in his stride, just as he takes Negro labor in
Africa and fattens on it.
If the critic of the organ of British aristocracy had used his
facilities for education and knowledge and tolerance (which the average
black student has not) to familiarize himself with the history and
derivations of poetry he might have concluded that the love poetry of
a Negro might be in better taste than the gory poetry of a civilized
British barbarian like Rudyard Kipling.
It seems to me that every European white lover of lyric and amatory
poetry should be informed that one of the greatest, if not the
greatest, poets of love, was a Negro named Antar. And that European or
white man's love poetry today probably owes much of its inspiration to
Antar, who was the son of a Negro woman and an Arabian chieftain.
One of the big surprises of my living in North Africa was the discovery
that even the illiterate Moor is acquainted with the history and the
poetry of Antar. Often in the Arab cafés (which I haunted like a
_loco_, because of the native music), when I was especially enthralled
by the phrasing of a song, I was informed that it was an _Antari_ (a
song from Antar). When I was introduced as a poet there was not a
suspicion of surprise among the natives. Instead I was surprised by
their flattering remarks: "A poet! _Mezziane! Mezziane!_ Our greatest
poet, Antar, was a Negro."
W.A. Clouston, who writes with authority on Arabian poetry, says: "It
is far from impossible that the famous romance of Antar produced the
model for the earliest of the romances of chivalry." Certainly it was
the Arabian poets who, upon the Arab conquest of Spain, introduced
lyric feeling into the rude and barbaric accents of the Europeans. The
troubadours of southern Europe stem directly from the Arabian poets.
The Arab poets and musicians were the original troubadours. And happily
they exist today exactly as they did thirteen centuries ago, wherever
Moslem culture holds sway.
Says Sismondi, the famous scholar: "It is from them that we have
derived that intoxication of love, that tenderness and delicacy of
sentiment and that reverential awe of woman, by turns slaves and
divinities, which have operated so powerfully on our chivalrous
feelings."
But it should not be necessary for me in this place to attempt to
enlighten the English gentlemen. I am not a scholar and this book is
not scholarly. The English gentleman has the means and the material to
educate himself that no Negro has. If he does not make the proper use
of them it must be because he is spoiled by his modern civilization.
The story of Antar was translated from the Arabian into English way
back in 1820, and by an Englishman named Terrick Hamilton.
Antar is as great in Arabian literature as Homer in Greek. Said the
founder of Islam: "I have never heard an Arab described whom I should
like to have seen so much as Antar." In the universal white system of
education the white school boy learns about Homer and Virgil and their
works, even if he does not read Greek and Latin. He learns nothing of
Antar, although it is possible that European poetry derives more from
Antar than from Homer. Yet the white child is so rich in its heritage
that it may not be such a great loss to him if he grows up in ignorance
of the story and poetry of Antar. The Negro child, born into an
inferior position in the overwhelming white world, is in a different
category. He should know something of the Antar who was born a slave,
who fought for his liberation, who loved so profoundly passionately and
chastely that his love inspired and uplifted him to be one of the poets
of the Arabian pleiades.
_Behold the sport of passion in my noble person!
But I have thanked my forebearance, applauded my resolution.
And the slave has been elevated above his master;
For I have concealed my passion and kept my secret,
I will not leave a word for the railers, and I will not ease the hearts
of my enemies by the violation of my honor.
I have borne the evils of fortune, till I have discovered its secret
meaning ...
I have met every peril in my bosom,
And the world can cast no reproach on me for my complexion:
My blackness has not diminished my glory._
* * * * *
_My mother is Zebeeda,
I disavow not her name and I am Antar,
But I am not vainglorious ...
Her dark complexion sparkles like a sabre in the shades of night
And her shape is like the well-formed spear...._
To me these verses of Antar written more than twelve centuries ago are
more modern and full of meaning for a Negro than is Homer. Perhaps if
black and mulatto children knew more of the story and the poetry of
Antar, we might have better Negro poets. But in our Negro schools and
colleges we learn a lot of Homer and nothing of Antar.
PART THREE
NEW YORK HORIZON
IX
Back in Harlem
Like fixed massed sentinels guarding the approaches to the great
metropolis, again the pyramids of New York in their Egyptian majesty
dazzled my sight like a miracle of might and took my breath like the
banging music of Wagner assaulting one's spirit and rushing it skyward
with the pride and power of an eagle.