V
It sounded so strange to hear things like this from the lips of Emil
Forster! Jimmie could hardly make them real to himself--the world
was slipping from under his feet. The Socialist movement was being
seduced--won over by the militarists! He didn't quite dare to say
this; but he hinted, cautiously, "Ain't you afraid maybe we'll get
used to fightin'--to discipline and all that? Maybe they'll trick
us--the plutes."
"I know," said the other. "I've thought of that, and I've no doubt
they'll try it--they want universal training for that very purpose.
We have to fight them, that's all; we have to fight right now--to
make clear why we're going into this war. We have to hold it before
the people--that this is a war to bring democracy to the whole
world. If we can fix that in people's minds, the imperialists won't
have a look in."
"If you could do it, of course--" began Jimmie, hesitatingly.
"But we ARE doing it!" cried Emil. "We're doing it day by day. Look
at this strike here in Leesville."
"What strike?"
"Didn't you know there'd been another walk-out in the Empire Shops?"
"No, I didn't."
"The men went out, and the government sent an arbitration
commission, and forced both sides to accept an award. They broke old
Granitch down--made him recognize the union and grant the basic
eight-hour day."
"My God!" exclaimed Jimmie. It was the thing for which he had stood
up in the Empire yards and been cursed by young Lacey Granitch; it
was the thing for which he had been sent to jail and devoured by
lice! And now the government had helped the men to win their demand!
It was the first time--literally the first in Jimmie's whole
life--that he had been led to think of the government as something
else than an enemy and a slave-driver.
"How did Granitch take it?" he asked.
"Oh, awful! He threatened to quit, and let the government run his
plant; but when he found the government was perfectly willing, he
dropped his bluff. And look here--here's something else." Emil
reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a
newspaper clipping. "Ashton Chalmers went to a banquet at some
bankers' convention the other day and made a speech to them. Read
this."
Jimmie, walking along, read some words that Emil had underlined in
pencil: "Whether we will or no, we have to recognize that the old
order is dead. We face a new era, when labour is coming into its
own. If we do not want to be left behind as derelicts, we shall have
to get busy and do our part to bring in this new era, which
otherwise will come with bloodshed and destruction."
"For the love of Mike!" said Jimmie.
"It's just about knocked Leesville out," said Emil. "You ought to
have seen the papers that reported the speech! It was as if God in
his Heaven had gone crazy, and the clergymen in the churches had to
tell the news!"
To the little machinist there flashed a sudden idea. He caught his
friend by the arm. "Emil!" he exclaimed. "Do you remember that time
when Ashton Chalmers and old Granitch came to our meeting at the
Opera-house?"
"Sure thing!" said Emil.
"Maybe that done it!"
"Nothing more likely."
"And it was me that sold him the tickets!"
Jimmie was thrilled to the bottom of his shoes. Such is the reward
that comes now and then to the soul of a propagandist; he struggles
on amid ridicule and despair--and then suddenly, like a gleam of
light, comes evidence that somewhere, somehow, he has reached
another mind, he has made a real impression. Ashton Chalmers had
listened to the Socialist orator, and he had gone away and read and
investigated; he had realized the force of this great world movement
for economic justice, he had broken the bonds and barriers of his
class, and told the truth about what he saw coming. When Jimmie read
the wonderful words which the bank president had spoken, he was
nearer to an impulse to fight Germany than at any previous moment of
his life!
