II
It was wonderful, incredible, the thing which had befallen
Leesville. Full of hatred for the system as Jimmie Higgins was, he
could not but be thrilled by what he saw. Thousands of men pouring
into the once commonplace little city--men of a score of races and
creeds, men old and young, white and black--even a few yellow ones!
It was a boom like San Francisco in '49; the money which the Paris
bankers had paid to the Russian government, and which the Russian
government had paid to old man Granitch, spread out in a golden
flood over the city. The speculators raised the price of land, the
house-owners raised rents, the hotels doubled their prices, and even
so, had to put people to bed on pool tables! Even Tom Callahan of
the "Buffeteria"' had to hire two assistants, and build an
extension, and move his kitchen into the back yard.
At night the hordes of strangers roamed the streets, and Lipsky's
"Picture Palace" was packed to the doors, and the "Bon Marche Shoe
Stores" had a new bankruptcy sale every week, and the swinging doors
of the saloons were never still for hours on end. Of course, where
so many men were gathered, there came women--swarms of women--of as
many races as the men. Leesville had some two score churches, and
had kept hitherto a careful pretence of decency; but now all
barriers went down, the police-force of the city was overwhelmed by
the new population--or was it by the golden flood from Paris by way
of Russia? Anyway, you saw sights on Main Street which confirmed
your distrust of war.
Never had there been such an opportunity for Socialist propaganda!
All these hordes of men, collected from the ends of the earth, torn
loose from home ties, from religion, from old habits of every sort,
thrown together promiscuously, living in any old way, ready for any
old thing that might come along! In former days these men had taken
what was handed out to them by their newspaper editors and preachers
and politicians; they had engaged in commonplace and respectable
activities, had lived tame and unadventurous lives. But now they
were making munitions; and you might say what you pleased, but there
was a certain psychological condition incidental to the making of
munitions. An employer could look pious and talk about law and
order, so long as he was setting his men to hoeing weeds or
shingling roofs or grading track; but what could he say to his men
when he was making shells to be used in blowing men to pieces?
So came the Socialist and the Anarchist and the Syndicalist and the
Industrial Unionist. Look at these masters, look at this
civilization they have produced! In the world's oldest centres of
culture ten or twenty millions of wage-slaves have been hurled
together--and then the Socialist or Anarchist or Syndicalist or
Industrial Unionist would describe in detail the bloody and bestial
operations which these ten or twenty millions of men were
performing. And each day's papers would bring fresh details for them
to cite--famine and pestilence, fire and slaughter, poison gas,
incendiary bombs, torpedoed passenger-ships. Look at these pious
hypocrites, the masters, with their refinement, their culture, their
religion! These are the people you are asked to follow, it is for
such as these that you have been chained to the machines all these
weary, toil-crowded years!
