VI
The first issue of the Worker appeared, with Jack Smith's editorial
spread over the front page, calling upon the workers of the Empire
to take this occasion to organize and demand their rights. "Eight
hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for play!"
proclaimed Comrade Jack; and the Herald and the Courier, stung to a
frenzy by the appearance of a poacher on their journalistic
preserves, answered with broadsides about "German propaganda". The
Herald got the story of what had happened in the local; also it
printed a picture of "Wild Bill", and an interview with that terror
of the West, who declared that he was for war on the capitalist
class with the aid of any and every ally that came along--even to
the extent of emery powder in ball-bearings and copper nails driven
into fruit trees.
The Herald charged that the attitude of the Socialists toward
"tainted wealth" was all a sham. What had happened was simply that
the German members of the local were getting German money, and
making it "Socialist money" by the simple device of passing it
through their consecrated hands. As this had been hinted by Norwood
in the local, the German comrades now charged that Norwood had
betrayed the movement to the capitalist press. And so came another
bitter controversy in the local. The young lawyer laughed at the
charge. Did they really believe they could take German money in
Leesville, and not have the fact become known?
"Then you think we are taking German money?" roared Schneider; and
he clamoured furiously for an answer. The other would not answer
directly, but he told them a little parable. He saw a tree, sending
down its roots into the ground, spreading everywhere, each tiny
rootlet constructed for the purpose of absorbing water. And on the
top of the ground was a man with a supply of water, which he poured
out; he poured and poured without stint, and the water seeped down
toward the rootlets, and every rootlet was reaching for water,
pushing toward the places where water was likely to be. "And now,"
said Norwood, "you ask me, do I believe that tree has been getting
any of that water?"
And here, of course, was the basis of a bitter quarrel. The
hot-heads would not listen to subtle distinctions; they declared
that Norwood was accusing the movement of corruption, he was making
out his anti-war opponents to be villains! He was providing the
capitalist press with ammunition. For shame! for shame! "He's a
stool-pigeon!" shrieked "Wild Bill". "Put him out, the Judas!"
The average member of the local, the perfectly sincere fellow like
Jimmie Higgins, who was wearing himself out, half-starving himself
in the effort to bring enlightenment to his class, listened to these
controversies with bewildered distress. He saw them as echoes of the
terrible national hatreds which were rending Europe, and he resented
having these old world disputes thrust into American industrial
life. Why could he not go on with his duty of leading the American
workers into the co-operative commonwealth?
Because, answered the Germans, old man Granitch wanted to keep the
American workers as munition-slaves; and to this idea the
overwhelming percentage of the membership agreed. They were not
pacifists, non-resistants; they were perfectly willing to fight the
battles of the working-class; what they objected to was having to
fight the battles of the master-class. They wanted to go on, as they
had always gone, opposing the master-class and paying no heed to
talk about German agents. Jimmie Higgins believed--and in this
belief he was perfectly correct--that even had there been no German
agents, the capitalist papers of Leesville would have invented them,
as a means of discrediting the agitators in this crisis. Jimmie
Higgins had lived all his life in a country in which his masters
starved and oppressed him, and when he tried to help himself, met
him with every weapon of treachery and slander. So Jimmie had made
up his mind that one capitalist country was the same as another
capitalist country, and that he would not be frightened into
submission by tales about goblins and witches and sea-serpents and
German spies.
