One of Duggan’s poems had to do with a poor devil named Slim, who
was a “snow-eater,” that is to say, a cocaine victim. This Slim
wandered about the streets of New York in the winter-time without
any shelter, and would get into an office building late in the
afternoon, and hide in one of the lavatories to spend the night. If
he lay down, he would be seen and thrown out, so his only chance was
to sit up; but when he fell asleep, he would fall off the
seat--therefore he carried a rope in his pocket, and would tie
himself in a sitting position.
Now what was the use of a story like that? Peter didn’t want to hear
about such people! He wanted to express his disgust; but he knew, of
course, that he must hide it. He laughed as he exclaimed, “Christ
Almighty, Duggan, can’t you give us something with a smile? You
don’t think it’s the job of Socialists to find a cure for the dope
habit, do you? That’s sure one thing that ain’t caused by the profit
system.”
Duggan smiled his bitterest smile. “If there’s any misery in the
world today that ain’t kept alive by the profit system, I’d like to
see it! D’you think dope sells itself? If there wasn’t a profit in
it, would it be sold to any one but doctors? Where’d you get your
Socialism, anyhow?”
So Peter beat a hasty retreat. “Oh, sure, I know all that. But here
you’re shut up in jail because you want to change things. Ain’t you
got a right to give yourself a rest while you’re in?”
The poet looked at him, as solemn as an owl. He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Just because we’re fixed up nice and comfortable in
jail, have we got the right to forget the misery of those outside?”
The others laughed; but Duggan did not mean to be funny at all. He
rose slowly to his feet and with his arms outstretched, in the
manner of one offering himself as a sacrifice, he proclaimed:
“While there is a lower class, I am in it.
“While there is a criminal element, I am of it.
“While there is a soul in jail, I am not free.”
Then he sat down and buried his face in his hands. The group of
rough fellows sat in solemn silence. Presently Gus, the Swedish
sailor, feeling perhaps that the rebuke to Peter had been too
severe, spoke timidly: “Comrade Gudge, he ban in jail twice
already.”
So the poet looked up again. He held out his hand to Peter. “Sure, I
know that!” he said, clasping Peter in the grip of comradeship. And
then he added: “I’ll tell you a story with a smile!”
Once upon a time, it appeared, Duggan had been working in a moving
picture studio, where they needed tramps and outcasts and all sorts
of people for crowds. They had been making a “Preparedness” picture,
and wanted to show the agitators and trouble-makers, mobbing the
palace of a banker. They got two hundred bums and hoboes, and took
them in trucks to the palace of a real banker, and on the front lawn
the director made a speech to the crowd, explaining his ideas.
“Now,” said he, “remember, the guy that owns this house is the guy
that’s got all the wealth that you fellows have produced. You are
down and out, and you know that he’s robbed you, so you hate him.
You gather on his lawn and you’re going to mob his home; if you can
get hold of him, you’re going to tear him to bits for what he’s done
to you.” So the director went on, until finally Duggan interrupted:
“Say, boss, you don’t have to teach us. This is a real palace, and
we’re real bums!”
Apparently the others saw the “smile” in this story, for they
chuckled for some time over it. But it only added to Peter’s hatred
of these Reds; it made him realize more than ever that they were a
bunch of “sore heads,” they were green and yellow with jealousy.
Everybody that had succeeded in the world they hated--just because
they had succeeded! Well, _they_ would never succeed; they could go
on forever with their grouching, but the mass of the workers in
America had a normal attitude toward the big man, who could do
things. They did not want to wreck his palace; they admired him for
having it, and they followed his leadership gladly.
It seemed as if Henderson, the lumber-jack, had read Peter’s
thought. “My God!” he said. “What a job it is to make the workers
class-conscious!” He sat on the edge of his cot, with his broad
shoulders bowed and his heavy brows knit in thought over the problem
of how to increase the world’s discontent. He told of one camp where
he had worked--so hard and dangerous was the toil that seven men had
given up their lives in the course of one winter. The man who owned
this tract, and was exploiting it, had gotten the land by the
rankest kind of public frauds; there were filthy bunk-houses,
vermin, rotten food, poor wages and incessant abuse. And yet, in the
spring-time, here came the young son of this owner, on a honeymoon
trip with his bride. “And Jesus,” said Henderson, “if you could have
seen those stiffs turn out and cheer to split their throats! They
really meant it, you know; they just loved that pair of idle,
good-for-nothing kids!”
Gus, the sailor, spoke up, his broad, good-natured face wearing a
grin which showed where three of his front teeth had been knocked
out with a belaying pin. It was exactly the same with the seamen, he
declared. They never saw the ship-owners, they didn’t know even the
names of the people who were getting the profit of their toil, but
they had a crazy loyalty to their ship, Some old tanker would be
sent out to sea on purpose to be sunk, so that the owners might get
the insurance. But the poor A. Bs. would love that old tub so that
they would go down to the bottom with her--or perhaps they would
save her, to the owners great disgust!
Thus, for hours on end, Peter had to sit listening to this ding
donging about the wrongs of the poor and the crimes of the rich.
Here he had been sentenced for fifteen days and nights to listen to
Socialist wrangles! Every one of these fellows had a different idea
of how he wanted the world to be run, and every one had a different
idea of how to bring about the change. Life was an endless struggle
between the haves and the have-nots, and the question of how the
have-nots were to turn out the haves was called “tactics.” When you
talked about “tactics” you used long technical terms which made your
conversation unintelligible to a plain, ordinary mortal. It seemed
to Peter that every time he fell asleep it was to the music of
proletariat and surplus value and unearned increment, possibilism
and impossibilism, political action, direct action, mass action, and
the perpetual circle of Syndicalist-Anarchist, Anarchist-Communist,
Communist-Socialist and Socialist-Syndicalist.