JIMMIE HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL
I
Every evening now the party held its “soap-box” meetings on a corner
just off Main Street. Jimmie, having volunteered as one of the
assistants, would bolt his supper in the evening and hurry off to
the spot. He was not one of the speakers, of course--he would have
been terrified at the idea of making a speech; but he was one of
those whose labours made the speaking possible, and who reaped the
harvest for the movement.
The apparatus of the meeting was kept in the shop of a friendly
carpenter near-by. The carpenter had made a “soap-box” that was a
wonder--a platform mounted upon four slender legs, detachable, so
that one man could carry the whole business and set it up. Thus the
speaker was lifted a couple of feet above the heads of the crowd,
and provided with a hand-rail upon which he might lean, and even
pound, if he did not pound too hard. A kerosene torch burned some
distance from his head, illuminating his features, and it was
Jimmie's business to see that this torch was properly cleaned and
filled, and to hold it erect on a pole part of the time. The rest of
the time he peddled literature among the crowd--copies of the
Leesville Worker, and five and ten cent pamphlets supplied by the
National Office.
He would come home at night, worn out from these labours after his
daily toil; he would fall asleep at Lizzie's side, and have to be
routed out by her when the alarm-clock went off next morning. She
would get him a cup of hot coffee, and after he had drunk this, he
would be himself again, and would chatter about the adventures of
the night before. There was always something happening, a fellow
starting a controversy, a drunken man, or perhaps a couple of thugs
in the pay of old man Granitch, trying to break up the meeting.
Lizzie would do her best to show that sympathy with her husband's
activities which is expected from a dutiful wife. But all the time
there was a grief in her soul--the eternal grief of the feminine
temperament, which is cautious and conservative, in conflict with
the masculine, which is adventurous and destructive. Here was
Jimmie, earning twice what he had ever earned before, having a
chance to feed his children properly and to put by a little margin
for the first time in his harassed life; but instead of making the
most of the opportunity, he was going out on the streets every
night, doing everything in his power to destroy the golden occasion
which Fate had brought to him! Like the fellow who climbs a tree to
saw off a limb, and sits on the limb and saws between himself and
the tree!
In spite of her best efforts, Lizzie's broad, kindly face would
sometimes become hard with disappointment, and a big tear would roll
down each of her sturdy cheeks. Jimmie would be sorry for her, and
would patiently try to explain his actions. Should a man think only
of his own wife and children, and forget entirely all the other
wives and children of the working-class? That was why the workers
had been slaves all through the ages, because each thought of
himself, and never of his fellows. No, you must think of your class!
You must act as a class--on the alert to seize every advantage, to
teach solidarity and stimulate class-consciousness! Jimmie would use
these long words, which he had heard at meetings; but then, seeing
that Lizzie did not understand them, he would go back and say it
over again in words of one syllable. They had old man Granitch in a
hole just now, and they must teach him a lesson, and at the same
time teach the workers their power. Lizzie would sigh, and shake her
head; for to her, old man Granitch was not a human being, but a
natural phenomenon, like winter, or hunger. He, or some other like
him, had been the master of her fathers for generations untold, and
to try to break or even to limit his power was like commanding the
tide or the sun.
II
Events moved quickly to their culmination, justifying the worst of
Lizzie's fears. The shops were seething with discontent, and
agitators seemed fairly to spring out of the ground; some of them
paid by Jerry Coleman, no doubt, others taking their pay in the form
of gratification of those grudges with which the profit-system had
filled their hearts. Noon-meetings would start up, quite
spontaneously, without any prearrangement; and presently Jimmie
learned that men were going about taking the names of all who would
agree to strike.
The matter was brought to a head by the Empire managers, who, of
course, were kept informed by their spies. They discharged more than
a score of the trouble-makers; and when this news spread at
noon-time, the whole place burst into a flame of wrath. “Strike!
strike!” was the cry. Jimmie was one of many who started a
procession through the yards, shouting, singing, hurling menaces at
the bosses, challenging all who proposed to return to work. Less
than one-tenth of the working force made any attempt to do so, and
for that afternoon the plant of the Empire Machine Shops, which was
supposed to be turning out shell-casings for the Russian government,
was turning out labour-union, Socialist, and I. W. W. oratory.
Jimmie Higgins was beside himself with excitement. He danced about
and waved his cap, he shouted himself hoarse, he almost yielded to
the impulse to jump upon a pile of lumber and make a speech himself.
Presently came Comrades Gerrity and Mary Allen, who had got wind of
the trouble, and had loaded a whole edition of the Worker into a
Ford; so Jimmie turned newsboy, selling these papers, hundreds of
them, until his pockets were bursting with the weight of pennies and
nickels. And then he was pressed into service running errands for
those who were arranging to organize the workers; he carried bundles
of membership-cards and application-blanks, following a man with a
bull voice and a megaphone, who shouted in several languages the
location of union headquarters, and the halls where various foreign
language meetings would be held that evening. Evidently someone had
foreseen the breaking of this trouble, and had been at pains to plan
ahead.
Late in the afternoon Jimmie was witness of an exciting incident. In
one of the shops a number of the men had persisted in returning to
work, and an immense throng of strikers had gathered to wait for
them. They were afraid to come out, but stayed in the building after
the quitting-whistle, while those outside jeered and hooted and the
bosses telephoned frantically for aid. The greater part of the
Leesville police-force was on hand, and in addition, the company had
its own guards and private detectives. But they were needed all over
the place. You saw them at the various entrances, menacing, but not
quite so sure of themselves as usual; their hands had a tendency to
slip back to the bulge on their right hips.
Jimmie and another fellow had got themselves an empty box and were
standing on it, leaning against the wall of the building and
shouting “Ya! Ya!” at every “scab” head that showed itself. They saw
an automobile come in at the gate, its horn honking savagely,
causing the crowd to leap to one side or the other. The automobile
was packed with men, sitting on one another's knees, or hanging to
the running-boards outside. There came a second car, loaded in the
same fashion. They were guards, sent all the way from Hubbardtown;
for of course the Hubbard Engine Company would help out its rivals
in an emergency such as this. That was the solidarity of capitalism,
concerning which the Socialists never wearied of preaching.
The men leaped from the cars, and spread themselves fanwise in front
of the door. They had nightsticks in their hands, and grim
resolution in their faces; they cried, “Stand back! Stand back!” The
crowd hooted, but gave slightly, and a few minutes later the doors
of the building opened, and the first of the timid workers emerged.
There was a howl, and then from somewhere in the throng a stone was
thrown. “Arrest that man!” shouted a voice, and Jimmie's attention
was attracted to the owner of this voice--a young man who had
arrived in the first automobile, and was now standing up in the
seat, from which position he could dominate the throng. “Arrest that
man!” he shouted again, pointing his finger; and three of the guards
leaped into the crowd at the spot indicated. The man who had thrown
the missile started to run, but he could not go fast in the crowd,
and in a moment, as it seemed, the guards had him by the collar. He
tried to jerk away, and they struck him over the head, and laid
about them to keep the rest of the throng at bay. “Take him inside!”
the young man in the car kept shouting. And one of the guards
twisted his hand in the collar of the wretched stone-thrower, until
he grew purple in the face, and so half-dragged and half-ran him
into the building.
III
The young man in the car turned toward the crowd which was blocking
the way to the exit. “Get those men out of the way!” he yelled to
the guards. “Drive them along--God damn them, they've got no
business in here.” And so on, with a string of dynamic profanity,
which stung both guards and policemen into action, and made them ply
their clubs upon the crowd.
“Do you know who that is?” asked Jimmie's companion on the box.
“That's Lacey Granitch.”
Jimmie started, experiencing a thrill to the soles of his ragged
shoes. Lacey Granitch! In the four years that the little machinist
had worked for the Empire, he had never caught a glimpse of the
young lord of Leesville--something which may easily be believed,
for the young lord considered Leesville “a hole of a town”, and
honoured it with his presence only once or twice a year. But his
spirit brooded over it; he was to Leesville a mythological figure,
either of wonder and awe, or of horror, according to the temperament
of the contemplator. One day “Wild Bill” had arisen in the local,
and held aloft a page from the “magazine supplement” of one of the
metropolitan “yellows”. There was an account of how Lacey Granitch
had broken the hearts of seven chorus-girls by running away with an
eighth. He fairly “ate 'em alive”, according to the account; in
order to give an idea of the atmosphere in which the young hero
abode, the whirl of delight which was his life, the artist of the
Sunday supplement had woven round the border of the page a maze of
feminine ankles and calves in a delirium of lingerie; while at the
top was a supper-table with champagne-corks popping, and a lady clad
in inadequate veils dancing amid the dishes.
This had happened while the local was in the midst of an acrimonious
controversy over “Section Six”. Should the Socialist party bar from
its membership those who advocated sabotage, violence and crime?
Young Norwood was pleading for orderly methods of social
reconstruction; and here stood “Wild Bill”, ripping to shreds the
reputation of the young plutocrat of the Empire Shops. “That's what
you geezers are sweating for! That's why you've got to be good, and
not throw monkey-wrenches in the machinery--so the seven
broken-hearted chorus-girls can drown their sorrows in champagne!”
And now here was the hero of all these romantic escapades, forsaking
the white lights of Broadway, and coming home to help the old man
keep his contracts. He stood in the seat of the automobile, glancing
this way and that, swiftly, like a hunter on the alert for dangerous
game. His dark eyes roamed here and there, his proud face was pale
with anger, his tall, perfectly groomed figure was eloquent of
mastership, of command. He was imperious as a young Caesar, terrible
in his vengeance; and poor Jimmie, watching him, was torn between
two contradictory emotions. He hated him--hated him with a deadly
and abiding hatred. But also he admired him, marvelled at him,
cringed before him. Lacey was a wanton, a cursing tyrant, a brutal
snob; but also he was the master, the conqueror, the proud, free,
rich young aristocrat, for whom all the rest of humanity existed.
And Jimmie Higgins was a poor little worm of a proletarian, with
nothing but his labour-power to sell, trying by sheer force of his
will to lift himself out of his slave-psychology!
There is an old adage that “a cat may look at a king”. But this can
only have been meant to apply to house-cats, cats of the palace,
accustomed to the etiquette of courts; it cannot have been meant for
proletarian cats of the gutter, the Jimmie Higgins variety of red
revolutionary yowlers. Jimmie and his companion stood on their
perch, shouting “Ya! Ya!” and suddenly the crowd melted away in
front of them, exposing them to the angry finger of the young
master. “Get along now! Beat it! Quick!” And Jimmie, poor little
ragged, stunted Jimmie, with bad teeth and toil-deformed hands,
wilted before this blast of aristocratic wrath, and made haste to
hide himself in the throng. But it was with blazing soul that he
went; every instant he imagined himself turning back, defying the
angry finger, shouting down the imperious voice, even smashing it
back into the throat from which it came!
IV
Jimmie did not even stop for supper. The greater part of the night
he worked at helping to organize the strikers, and all next day he
spent arranging Socialist meetings. He worked like a man possessed,
lifted above the limitations of the flesh. For everywhere that day
he carried with him the image of the proud, free, rich young
aristocrat, with his dark eyes roaming swiftly, his tall, perfectly
groomed figure eloquent of mastership, his voice ringing with
challenge. Jimmie was for the time utterly possessed by hatred; and
he saw about him thousands of others sharing the mood and shouting
it aloud. Every speaker who could be found was turned loose to talk
till he was hoarse, and in the evening there was to be half a dozen
street meetings. That was always the way when there were strikes;
then the working man had time to listen--and also the desire!
So came the final crisis, when the little machinist had to show the
stuff he was made of. He was holding aloft the torch at the regular
meeting-place on the corner of Main and Third Streets, and Comrade
Gerrity was explaining the strike and the ballot as two edges of the
sword of labour, when four policemen came suddenly round the corner
and pushed their way through the crowd. “You'll have to stop this!”
declared one.
“Stop?” cried Gerrity. “What do you mean?”
“There's to be no more street-speaking during the strike.”
“Who says so?”
“Orders from the chief.”
“But we've got a permit.”
“All permits revoked. Cut it out.”
“But this is an outrage!”
“We don't want any argument, young man--”
“But we're within our rights here.”
“Forget it, young feller!”
Gerrity turned swiftly to the throng.
“Fellow-citizens,” he cried, “we are here in the exercise of our
rights as American citizens! We are conducting a peaceable and
orderly political meeting, and we know our rights and propose to
maintain them. We--”
“Come down off that box, young feller!” commanded the officer; and
the crowd hooted and booed.
“Fellow-citizens!” began Gerrity again; but that was as far as he
got, for the policeman seized him by the arm and pulled; and Gerrity
knew the ways of American policemen too well to resist. He came
down--but still talking. “Fellow-citizens--”
“Are you goin' to shut up?” demanded the other, and as Gerrity still
went on orating, he announced: “You are under arrest.”
There were half a dozen Socialists with the party, and this was a
challenge to the self-respect of everyone of them. In an instant
Comrade Mabel Smith had leaped on to the stand. “Fellow workers!”
she cried. “Is this America, or is it Russia?”
“That'll do, lady,” said the policeman, as considerately as he
dared; for Comrade Mabel wore a big picture-hat and many other signs
of youth and beauty.
“I have a right to speak here, and I mean to speak,” she declared.
“We don't want to have to arrest you, lady--”
“You either have to arrest me, or else allow me to speak.”
“I'm sorry, lady, but it's orders. You are arrested.”
Then came the turn of Comrade Stankewitz. “Vorking men, it is for
the rights of the vorkers ve are here.” And so they jerked him off.
And then “Wild Bill”. This hundred per cent, middle-of-the-road
proletarian had been hanging on the outskirts of the meeting, having
been forbidden by the local to take part in the speaking, because of
the intemperate nature of his utterances; but now, of course, all
rules went down, and Bill leaped on to the shaking platform. “Are we
slaves?” he yelled. “Are we dogs?” And it would seem that the police
thought so, for they yanked him off the platform, and one of them
seized him by the wrist and twisted so that his oration ended in a
shriek of pain.
Then came Johnny Edge, a shy youth with an armful of literature,
which he hung on to in spite of police violence; and then--then
there was one more!
Poor Jimmie! He did not in the least want to get arrested, and he
was terrified at the idea of making even so short a speech as was
here the order of the night. But, of course, his honour was at
stake, there was no way out. He handed his torch to a bystander, and
mounted the scaffold. “Is this a free country?” he cried. “Do we
have free speech?” And Jimmie's first effort at oratory ended in a
jerk at his coat-tail, which all but upset the frail platform upon
which he stood.
There were four policemen, with six prisoners, and a throng about
them howling with indignation, perhaps ready to become violent--who
could say? The guardians of order had been prepared however. One of
them stepped to the corner and blew his whistle, and a minute later
came the shriek of a siren, and round the corner came swinging the
city's big patrol-wagon, the “Black Maria”. The crowd gave way, and
one by one the prisoners were thrust in. One of them, “Wild Bill”,
feeling himself for a moment released from the grip of his captors,
raised his voice, shouting through the wire grating of the wagon: “I
denounce this outrage! I am a free American--” And suddenly Jimmie,
who was next in the wagon, felt himself flung to one side, and a
policeman leaped by him, and planted his fist with terrific violence
full in the orator's mouth. “Wild Bill” went down like a bullock
under the slaughter-man's axe, and the patrol-wagon started up, the
cry of its siren drowning the protests of the crowd.
Poor Bill! He lay across the seat, and Jimmie, who had to sit next
to him, caught him in his arms and held him. He was quivering, with
awful motions like a spasm. He made no sound, and Jimmie was
terrified, thinking that he was dying. Before long Jimmie felt a hot
wetness stealing over his hands, first slimy, then turning sticky.
He had to sit there, almost fainting with horror; he dared not say
anything, for maybe the policeman would strike him also. He sat,
clutching in his arms the shaking body, and whispering under his
breath, “Poor Bill! Poor Bill!”
V
They came to the station-house, and Bill was carried out and laid on
a bench, and the others were stood up before the desk and had their
pedigrees taken. Gerrity demanded indignantly to be allowed to
telephone, and this demand was granted. He routed Lawyer Norwood
from a party, and set him to finding bail; and meantime the
prisoners were led to cells.
They had been there only a couple of minutes when there came
floating through the row of steel cages the voice of a woman
singing. It was Comrade Mabel Smith in that clear sweet voice they
had so often listened to on “social evenings” in the local. She was
singing the Internationale:
Arise, ye prisoners of starvation.
Arise, ye wretched of the earth!
The sound thrilled them to the very bones, and they joined in the
chorus with a shout. Then, of course, came the jailer: “Shut up.”
And then again: “Shut up!” And then a third time: “Will ye shut up?”
And then came a bucket of water, hurled through the cell bars. It
hit Jimmie squarely in the mouth, and in the words of the poet, “the
subsequent proceedings interested him no more!”
About midnight came Lawyer Norwood and Dr. Service. Both of these
men had protested against the street-speaking at this time; but of
course, when it came to comrades in trouble, they could not resist
the appeal to their sympathies. Such is the difficulty of entirely
respectable and decorous “parlour” Socialists, in their dealings
with the wayward children of the movement, the “impossibilists” and
“direct actionists” and other sowers of proletarian wild oats. Dr.
Service produced a wad of bills and bailed out all the prisoners,
and delivered himself of impressive indignation to the
police-sergeant, while waiting for an ambulance to carry “Wild Bill”
to the hospital. Jimmie Higgins, who had always hitherto shouted
with the “wild” ones, realized suddenly how pleasant it is to have a
friend who wears black broadcloth, and carries himself like the
drum-major of a band, and is reputed to be worth a couple of hundred
thousand dollars.
Jimmie went home; and there was Lizzie, pacing the floor and
wringing her hands in anxiety--for there had been no way to get word
to her what had happened. She flung herself into his arms, and then
recoiled in fright when, she discovered that he was wet. He told her
the story; and would you believe it--Lizzie, being a woman, and only
in the A-B-C stage of revolutionary education, actually did not know
that it was a glorious and heroic adventure to be arrested! She
thought it a disgrace, and tried to persuade him to keep the
dreadful secret from the neighbourhood! And when she found that he
was not through yet, but had to go to court in the morning and be
tried, she wept copiously, and woke up Jimmie Junior, and started
him to bawling. She was only to be pacified when Jimmie Senior
agreed to take off his wet clothes at once, and drink a cup or two
of boiling hot tea, and let himself be covered up with blankets, so
that he might not die of pneumonia before he could get to court.
Next morning there was a crowded court-room and a stern and solemn
judge frowning over his spectacles, and Lawyer Norwood making an
impassioned defence of the fundamental American right of free
speech. It was so very thrilling that Jimmie could hardly be kept
from applauding his own lawyer! And then Comrade Dr. Service arose,
and in his most impressive voice gave the professional information
that “Wild Bill's” nose had been broken, and three of his front
teeth knocked out, and that he was in the hospital and unable to
come to court; and all the other prisoners were called upon to
testify what “Wild Bill” had done to bring this fate upon him. The
policeman who had struck the blow testified that the prisoner had
resisted arrest; a second policeman testified, “I seen the prisoner
hit him first, your Honour,”--which caused Comrade Mabel Smith to
cry out, “Oh, the ungrammatical prevaricator!” The upshot of the
trial was that each of the defendants was fined ten dollars. Comrade
Gerrity led off with an indignant refusal to pay the fine; the rest
of them followed suit--even Comrade Mabel! This caused evident
distress of mind to the judge, for Comrade Mabel with her indignant
pink cheeks and her big picture-hat looked more than ever the lady,
and it is a fact known even to judges that American jails have not
been constructed for ladies. The matter was settled by Lawyer
Norwood paying her fine, in spite of her protests, and her demand to
be sent to jail.
VI
The five men were led away, over the “Bridge of Sighs”, as it was
called, to the city jail, where they had their pedigrees taken
again, and their pictures and their finger-prints--which for the
first time impressed upon their minds the fact that they were
dangerous criminals. Their clothes were taken away, and shirts and
trousers given them, whose faded blue colour seemed to have been
impregnated with the misery of scores of previous wearers. They were
led through steel-barred doors, and along dark, steel-barred
passages to one of the “tanks”. A “tank”, you discovered, was one
floor of this four-storied packing box; on each side of it were a
row of a dozen barred cells, each with four bunks, so that the total
maximum population which might be crowded into the central space of
the “tank” was ninety-six; however, this only happened on Monday
mornings, when the “drunks” had all been brought in, and before the
courts had had time to sort them out.
After you had lain down on your bunk for a few minutes, or had
leaned against the wall of the “tank”, you felt an annoying stinging
sensation somewhere on you. You began to rub and scratch; before
long you would be rubbing and scratching in a dozen different
places, and then you would observe your neighbour watching you with
a grin. “Seam-squirrels?” he would say; and he would bid you take
off your coat, and engage in the popular hunting game of the
institution. Jimmie remembered having heard a speaker refer to the
city jail as the “Leesville Louseranch”; he had thought that a good
joke at the time, but now it seemed otherwise to him.
It was splendid to stand up in court and to take your stand as a
martyr; but now Jimmie discovered, as many an unfortunate has
discovered before him, that being a martyr is not the sport it is
cracked up to be. There were no heroics now, no singing. If you even
so much as hummed, they took you out and shut you up in a dark hole
called the “cooler”! Nor could you read, for there was no light in
your cell, and perpetual twilight in the central gathering place of
the “tank”. Apparently the only things the authorities of Leesville
wished you to do were to hunt “seam-squirrels”, to smoke cigarettes,
to “shoot craps”, and to make the acquaintance of a variety of
interesting young criminals, so that when you were ready to resume
your outside life you might decide whether you wanted to be a
hold-up man, a safe-cracker, a forger, or a second-story operator.
Jimmie Higgins, of course, brought a different psychology from that
of the average jail-inmate. Jimmie could do his kind of work just as
well in jail as anywhere else; and barring the torment of vermin,
the diet of bread and thin coffee and ill-smelling greasy soup, and
the worry about his helpless family outside, he really had a happy
time-making the acquaintance of tramps and pickpockets, and
explaining to them the revolutionary philosophy. A man who went in
to remedy social injustice all by himself could never get very far.
It was only when he realized himself as a member of a class, and
stood as a class and acted as a class, that he could accomplish a
permanent result. Some of the workers had discovered this, and had
set out to educate their fellows. They brought the wondrous message,
even to those in jail; holding out to them the vision of a world
made over in justice and kindness, the co-operative commonwealth of
labour, in which every man should get what he produced, and no man
could exploit his fellows.
VII
Three days passed, and then one afternoon Jimmie was summoned to see
a visitor. He could guess who the visitor was, and he went with his
heart in his throat, and looked through the dark mesh of wire, and
saw Lizzie standing--stout, motherly Lizzie, now very pale, and
breathing hard, and with tears running in little streamlets down her
cheeks. Poor Lizzie, with her three babies at home, and her plain,
ordinary, non-revolutionary psychology, which made going to jail a
humiliation instead of a test of manhood, a badge of distinction!
Jimmie felt a clutch in his own throat, and an impulse to tear down
the beastly wire mesh and clasp the dear motherly soul in his arms.
But all he could do was to screw his face into a dubious smile.
Sure, he was having the time of his life in this jail! He wouldn't
have missed it for anything! He had made a Socialist out of
“Dead-eye Mike”, and had got Pete Curley, a fancy “con” man, to
promise to read “War, What For?”
There was only one thing which had been troubling him, and that was,
how his family was getting on. They had had practically nothing in
the house, he knew, and poor Meissner could not feed four extra
mouths. But Lizzie, also screwing her face into a smile, assured him
that everything was all right at home, there was no need to worry.
In the first place, Comrade Dr. Service had sent her a piece of
paper with his name written on it; it appeared that this was called
a cheque, and the groceryman had exchanged it for a five dollar
bill. And in the next place there was a domestic secret which Lizzie
had to confide--she had put by some money, without letting Jimmie
know it.
“But how?” cried Jimmie, in wonder--for he had thought he knew all
about his household and its expenses.
So Lizzie explained the trick she had played. Jimmie had committed
an extravagance, treating her to a new dress out of his increased
earnings: a gorgeous contrivance of several colours, looking like
silk, even if it wasn't. Lizzie had stated that the cost was fifteen
dollars, and he, the dupe, had believed it! The truth was she had
bought the dress in a second-hand shop for three dollars, and had
put twelve dollars away for the time of the strike!
And Jimmie went back to his “tank”, shaking his head and
philosophizing: “Gee! Can you beat these women?”