IV
It was a stormy speech young Norwood made, but he persisted to the
end, so that, as he said, his conscience might be clear, he might
know that he had done what he could to protect the movement from its
greatest blunder. He warned them that the temper of the country was
rising; you could see it rising hour by hour, and things which had
been tolerated in the past would be tolerated no longer. Democracy
would protect its life--it would show that in a crisis it was as
strong as militarism--
"Yes, and turn itself into militarism to do it!" cried Comrade Mary
Allen. The Quaker lady was almost beside herself; she, more even
than the Germans, saw in what was transpiring the violation of her
most sacred convictions.
America, her own country, was giving itself to war, making ready to
turn its resources to the wholesale mutilation of men! Comrade
Mary's thin face was white; her lips were tight with resolve, but
her feelings betrayed themselves by the quivering of her nostrils.
And oh, what a speech she made! Such torrents of furious hatred in
the cause of universal love! Comrade Mary quoted a Socialist writer
who had said that just as gladiatorial combats had continued until
Christian monks were willing to throw themselves into the arena, so
war would continue until Socialists were willing to throw themselves
beneath the hoofs of the cavalry. And in this Quaker spinster you
saw one Socialist who was ready to go out that very night and throw
herself beneath the hoofs of cavalry, infantry, or artillery, or
even of a police automobile.
And that was the sentiment of the meeting as a whole. If America
entered the European strife, it would be because the Socialist
organization had exhausted its means of protest in vain. They would
call meetings, they would distribute literature, they would voice
their convictions on the streets and in the shops and wherever the
people might be reached. They would have no part in this wicked
strife, either now or later; they would continue in the future, as
in the past, to denounce and to expose the capitalist politicians
and the capitalist newspapers who caused war and thrived upon war.
And in proportion to the intensity of their feelings would be their
bitterness and contempt for the few renegades who in this hour of
crisis, this test of manhood and integrity, were deserting the
movement and going to enrol themselves in officers' training-camps!
And so when Jimmie went home that night he carried with him an
armful of revolutionary literature, which during the noon-hour he
proceeded to distribute among the workers on the construction-job,
which was now inside the preserves of the explosives company. So
naturally in the course of the afternoon he was summoned before the
boss and discharged; they escorted him to the limits of the
property, and told him that if he ever returned he would be shot on
sight. And then at night he went up to the cross-roads store and
tried to give out his literature there, and got into a controversy
with some of the cracker-box loungers, one of whom jumped up and
shook his fist in Jimmie's face, shouting, "Get out of here, you
dirty little louse! If you don't stop talking your treason round
here, we'll come down some night and ride you out of the country on
a rail!"
