JIMMIE HIGGINS HEARS A SPEECH
I
In the Opera-house were gathered Comrade Mabel Smith and Comrade
Meissner and Comrade Goldstein, the secretary of the Ypsels, and the
three members of the Reception Committee--Comrade Norwood, the
rising young lawyer, Comrade Dr. Service, and Comrade Schultze of
the Carpet-weavers' Union. To them rushed the breathless Jimmie.
“Have you heard the news?”
“What is it?”.
“A hundred Socialist leaders shot in Germany!”
“Herr Gott!” cried Comrade Schultze, in horror; and everyone turned
instinctively, for they knew how this came home to him--he had a
brother who was a Socialist editor in Leipzig, and who was liable
for the mobilization.
“Where did you see it?” cried Schultze; and Jimmie told what he
knew. And then the clamour broke forth! Others were called from the
back part of the hall, and came running, and there were questions
and cries of dismay. Here, too, it was as if the crime had been
committed against Local Leesville--so completely did they feel
themselves one with the victims. In a town where there was a
brewery, needless to say there were German workers a-plenty; but
even had this not been so, the feeling would have been the same, for
the Socialists of the world were one, the soul of the movement was
its internationalism. The Candidate discovering that Jimmie was a
Socialist had asked and received no further introduction, but had
been instantly his friend; and so it would have been with a comrade
from Germany, Japan, or the heart of Africa--he might not have
known another word of English, the word “Socialist” would have
sufficed.
It was a long time before they thought of any other matter; but
finally someone referred to the trouble which had fallen upon the
local--the Candidate had not showed up. And Jimmie exclaimed, “Why,
he's here!” And instantly all turned upon him. Where? When? How?
“He came this morning.”
“And why didn't you let us know?” It was Comrade Dr. Service of the
Reception Committee who spoke, and with a decided sharpness in his
tone.
“He didn't want anybody to know,” said Jimmie.
“Did he want us to go to the train and think he had failed us?”
Sure enough, it was after train-time! Jimmie had entirely forgotten
both the train and the committee, and now he had not the grace to
hide his offence. All he could do was to tell his story--how he had
spent the afternoon walking in the country with the Candidate, and
how they had gone swimming, and how they had got the news from the
bulletin board, and how the Candidate had acted and what he had
said. Poor Jimmie never doubted but that his own thrill was shared
by all the others; and at the next regular meeting of the local,
when Comrade Dr. Service sat down on some proposition which Jimmie
had ventured to make, the little machinist had not the faintest idea
what he had done to deserve the snub. He was lacking in worldly
sense, he did not understand that a prosperous physician, who comes
into the movement out of pure humanitarianism, contributing his
prestige and his wealth to the certain detriment of his social and
business interests, is entitled to a certain deference from the
Jimmie Higginses, and even from a Candidate.
II
You might have thought that Jimmie would be tired; but this was a
day on which the flesh had no claims. First he helped Comrade Mabel
in depositing upon every seat a leaflet containing a letter from the
local candidate for Congress; then he rushed away to catch a
street-car, and spent his last nickel to get to his home and keep
his engagement with Lizzie. He would not make with her the mistake
he had made with the Committee, you bet!
He found that Lizzie had faithfully carried out her part of the
bargain. The three babies were done up in bright-coloured calico
dresses; she had spent the morning in washing and ironing these
garments--also her own dress, which was half-red and half-green, and
of generous, almost crinoline proportions. Lizzie herself was built
on that scale, with broad hips and bosom, big brown eyes and heavy
dark hair. She was a fine strong woman when she had shed her
bedraggled house gown, and Jimmie was proud of his capability as a
chooser of wives. It was no small feat to find a good woman, and to
recognize her, where Jimmie had found Lizzie. She was five years
older than he, a Bohemian, having been brought to America when she
was a baby. Her former name--you could hardly call it her “maiden”
name, considering the circumstances--was Elizabeth Huszar, which
she pronounced so that for a long time Jimmie had understood it to
be Eleeza Betooser.
Jimmie snatched a bite of bread and drank a cup of metallic tasting
tea, and packed the family into the baby-carriage, and trudged the
mile and half to the centre of the city. When they arrived, Lizzie
took the biggest child, and Jimmie the other two, and so they
trudged into the Opera-house. On this hot night it was like holding
three stoves in your arms, and if the babies woke up and began to
cry, the parents would have the painful choice of missing something,
or else facing the disgusted looks of everyone about them. In
Belgium, at the “People's House”, the Socialists maintained a
creche, but the American movement had not yet discovered that
useful institution.
Already the hall was half-full, and a stream of people pouring in.
Jimmie got himself and family seated, and then turned his eager eyes
proudly to survey the scene. The would-be-congressman's circulars
which he had placed in the seats were now being read by the sitters;
the banners he had so laboriously hung were resplendent on the
walls; there was a pitcher of ice water on the speaker's table, and
a bouquet of flowers and a gavel for the chairman; the seats in the
rear of the platform for the Liederkranz were neatly ranged, most of
them already occupied by solid German figures topped by rosy German
faces: to each detail of which achievements Jimmie had lent a hand.
He had a pride of possession in this great buzzing throng, and in
the debt they owed to him. They had no idea of it, of course; the
fools, they thought that a meeting like this just grew out of
nothing! They paid their ten cents--twenty-five cents for reserved
seats--and imagined that covered everything, with perhaps even a
rake-off for somebody! They would grumble, wondering why the
Socialists persisted in charging admission for their meetings--why
they could not let people in free as the Democrats and Republicans
did. They would go to Democratic and Republican meetings, and enjoy
the brass band and the fireworks, pyrotechnical and
oratorical--never dreaming it was all a snare paid for by their
exploiters!
Well, they would learn about it to-night! Jimmie thought of the
Candidate, and how he would impress this man and that. For Jimmie
knew scores who had got tickets, and he peered about after this one
and that, and gave them a happy nod from behind his barricade of
babies. Then, craning his neck to look behind him, suddenly Jimmie
gave a start. Coming down the aisle was Ashton Chalmers, president
of the First National Bank of Leesville; and with him-could it be
possible?--old man Granitch, owner of the huge Empire Machine Shops
where Jimmie worked! The little machinist found himself shaking with
excitement as these two tall forms strode past him down the aisle.
He gave Lizzie a nudge with his elbow and whispered into her ear;
and all around was a buzz of whispers--for, of course, everybody
knew these two mighty men, the heads of the “invisible government”
of Leesville. They had come to find out what their subjects were
thinking! Well, they would get it straight!
III
The big hall was full, and the aisles began to jam, and then the
police closed the doors--something which Jimmie took as part of the
universal capitalist conspiracy. The audience began to chafe; until
at last the chairman walked out upon the stage, followed by several
important persons who took front seats. The singers stood up, and
the leader waved his wand, and forth came the Marseillaise: a French
revolutionary hymn, sung in English by a German organization--there
was Internationalism for you! With full realization of the solemnity
of this world-crisis, they sang as if they hoped to be heard in
Europe.
And then rose the Chairman--Comrade Dr. Service. He was a fine, big
figure of a man, with grey moustache and beard trimmed to a point;
his swelling chest was covered by clean white linen and
tight-fitting broad-cloth, and he made a most imposing chairman,
reflecting credit on the movement. He cleared his throat, and told
them that they had come that evening to listen to one of America's
greatest orators, and that therefore he, the Chairman, would not
make a speech; after which he proceeded to make a speech. He told
them what a grave hour this was, and how the orator would tell them
its meaning, after which he proceeded to tell most of the things
which the orator would tell. This was a weakness of Comrade Dr.
Service--but one hesitated to point it out to him, because of his
black broad-cloth suit and his imposing appearance, and the money he
had put up to pay for the hall.
At last, however, he called on the Liederkranz again, and a quartet
sang a German song and then an encore. And then came Comrade
Gerrity, the hustling young insurance-agent who was organizer for
the local, and whose task it was to make a “collection speech.” He
had humorous ways of extracting money--“Here I am again!” he began,
and everybody smiled, knowing his bag of tricks. While he was
telling his newest funny story, Jimmie was unloading the littlest
infant into Lizzie's spare arm, and laying the other on the seat
with its head against her knee, and getting himself out into the
aisle, hat in hand and ready for business; and as soon as the
organizer ceased and the Liederkranz resumed, Jimmie set to work
gathering the coin. His territory was the reserved-seat section up
in front, where sat the two mighty magnates. Jimmie's knees went
weak, but he did his duty, and was tickled to see each of the pair
drop a coin into the hat, to be used in overthrowing their power in
Leesville!
IV
The hats were taken to the box-office and emptied, and the
collection-takers and the Liederkranz singers resumed their seats.
An expectant hush fell--and then at last there strode out on the
stage the Candidate. What a storm broke out! Men cheered and clapped
and shouted. He took his seat modestly; but as the noise continued,
he was justified in assuming that it was meant for him, and he rose
and bowed; as it still continued, he bowed again, and then again. It
had been the expectation of Comrade Dr. Service to come forward and
say that, of course, it was not necessary for anyone to introduce
the speaker of the evening; but the audience, as if it had read the
worthy doctor's intention, kept on applauding, until the Candidate
himself advanced, and raised his hand, and began his speech.
He did not stop for any oratorical preliminaries. This, he said--and
his voice trembled with emotion--was the solemnest hour that men had
ever faced on earth. That day on the bulletin-board of their local
newspaper he had read tidings which had moved him as he had never
been moved in his life, which had almost deprived him of the power
to walk upon a stage and address an audience. Perhaps they had not
heard the news; he told it to them, and there sprang from the
audience a cry of indignation.
Yes, they might well protest, said the speaker; nowhere on all the
bloody pages of history could you find a crime more revolting than
this! The masters of Europe had gone mad in their lust for power;
they had called down the vengeance of mankind upon their crowned and
coronetted heads. Here to-night he would tell them--and the
speaker's hoarse and raucous voice mounted to a shout of rage--he
would tell them that in signing the death-warrant of those heroic
martyrs, they had sealed the doom of their own order, they had torn
out the foundation-stones from the structure of capitalist society!
The speaker's voice seemed to lift the audience from its seats, and
the last words of the sentence were drowned in a tumult of applause.
Silence fell again, and the man went on. He had peculiar mannerisms
on the platform. His lanky form was never still for an instant. He
hurried from one end of the stage to the other; he would crouch and
bend as if he were going to spring upon the audience, a long, skinny
finger would be shaken before their faces, or pointed as if to drive
his words into their hearts. His speech was a torrent of epigram,
sarcasm, invective. He was bitter; if you knew nothing about the man
or his cause, you would find this repellent and shocking. You had to
know what his life had been--an unceasing conflict with oppression;
he had got his Socialist education in jail, where he had been sent
for trying to organize the wage-slaves of a gigantic corporation.
His rage was the rage of a tender-hearted poet, a lover of children
and of Nature, driven mad by the sight of torment wantonly
inflicted. And if ever he had seemed to you an extremist, too angry
to be excused, here to-night he had his vindication, here to-night
you saw him as a prophet. For now the master-class had torn the mask
from its face, and revealed to the whole world what were its moral
standards! At last men saw their rulers face to face!
They have plunged mankind into a pit of lunacy. “They call it war,”
cried the speaker; “but I call it murder.” And he went on to picture
to them what was happening in Europe at that hour--he brought the
awful nightmare before their eyes, he showed them homes blown to
pieces, cities given to the flames, the bodies of men pierced by
bullets or torn to fragments by shells. He pictured a bayonet
plunged into the abdomen of a man; he made you see the ghastly deed,
and feel its shuddering wickedness. Men and women and children sat
spellbound; and for once no man could say aloud or feel in his heart
that the pictures of a Socialist agitator were overdrawn--no, not
even Ashton Chalmers, president of the First National Bank of
Leesville, or old Abel Granitch, proprietor of the Empire Machine
Shops!
V
And what was the cause of this blackest of calamities? The speaker
went on to show that the determining motive was not racial jealousy,
but commercial greed. The fountain-head of the war was
world-capitalism, clamouring for markets, seeking to get rid of its
surplus products, to keep busy its hordes of wage-slaves at home. He
analysed the various factors; and now, with the shadow of the
European storm over their heads--now at last men and women would
listen, they would realize that the matter concerned them. He warned
them--let them not think that they were safe from the hoofs of this
war-monster, just because they were three thousand miles away!
Capitalism was a world phenomenon, and all the forces of parasitism
and exploitation which had swept Europe into this tragedy were
active here in America. The money-masters, the profit-seekers, would
leap to take advantage of the collapse over the seas; there would be
jealousies, disputes--let the audience understand, once for all,
that if world-capitalism did not make this a world-war, it would be
only because the workers of America took warning, and made their
preparations to frustrate the conspiracy.
This was what he had come for, this was the heart of his message.
Many of those who listened were refugees from the old world, having
fled its oppressions and enslavements. He pleaded with them now, as
a man whose heart was torn by more suffering than he could bear--let
there be one part of the fair garden of earth into which the demons
of destruction might not break their way! Let them take warning in
time, let them organize and establish their own machinery of
information and propaganda--so that when the crisis came, when the
money-masters of America sounded the war-drums, there might be--not
the destruction and desolation which these masters willed, but the
joy and freedom of the Co-operative Commonwealth!
“How many years we Socialists have warned you!” he cried. “But you
have doubted us, you have believed what your exploiters have told
you! And now, in this hour of crisis, you look at Europe and
discover who are the real friends of humanity, of civilization. What
voice comes over the seas, protesting against war? The Socialist
voice, and the Socialist voice alone! And to-night, once more, you
hear it in this hall! You men and women of America, and you exiles
from all corners of the world, make this pledge with me--make it
now, before it is too late, and stand by it when the hour of crisis
comes! Swear it by the blood of our martyred heroes, those
slaughtered German Socialists--swear that, come what will, and when
and how it will, that no power on earth or in hell beneath the earth
shall draw you into this fratricidal war! Make this resolution, send
this message to all the nations of the earth--that the men of all
nations and all races are your brothers, and that never will you
consent to shed their blood. If the money-masters and the exploiters
want war, let them have it, but let it be among themselves! Let them
take the bombs and shells they have made and go out against one
another! Let them blow their own class to pieces--but let them not
seek to lure the working-people into their quarrels!”
Again and again, in answer to such exhortations, the audience broke
out into shouts of applause. Men raised their hands in solemn
pledge; and the Socialists among them went home from the meeting
with a new gravity in their faces, a new consecration in their
hearts. They had made a vow, and they would keep it--yes, even
though it meant sharing the fate of their heroic German comrades!
--And then in the morning they opened their papers, looking eagerly
for more details about the fate of the heroic German comrades, and
they found none. Day after day, morning and afternoon, they looked
for more details, and found none. On the contrary, to their
unutterable bewilderment, they learned that the leaders of the
German Social-Democracy had voted for the war-budgets, and that the
rank and file of the movement were hammering out the goose-step on
the roads of Belgium and France! They could not bring themselves to
believe it; even yet they have not brought themselves to realize
that the story which thrilled them so on that fatal Sunday afternoon
was only a cunning lie sent out by the German war-lords, in the hope
of causing the Socialists of Belgium and France and England to
revolt, and so give the victory to Germany!