Section 34
In company such as this Peter's education for the role of detective
was completed by force, as it were. He listened to everything, and
while he did not dare make any notes, he stored away treasures in
his mind, and when he came out of the jail he was able to give
McGivney a pretty complete picture of the various radical
organizations in American City, and the attitude of each one toward
the war.
Peter found that McGivney's device had worked perfectly. Peter was
now a martyr and a hero; his position as one of the "left wingers"
was definitely established, and anyone who ventured to say a word
against him would be indignantly rebuked. As a matter of fact, no
one desired to say much. Pat McCormick, Peter's enemy, was out on an
organizing trip among the oil workers.
Duggan had apparently taken a fancy to Peter, and took him to meet
some of his friends, who lived in an old, deserted warehouse, which
happened to have skylights in the roof; this constituted each room a
"studio," and various radicals rented the rooms, and lived here a
sort of picnic existence which Peter learned was called "Bohemian."
They were young people, most of them, with one or two old fellows,
derelicts; they wore flannel shirts, and soft ties, or no ties at
all, and their fingers were always smeared with paint. Their life
requirements were simple; all they wanted was an unlimited quantity
of canvas and paint, some cigarettes, and at long intervals a pickle
or some sauer-kraut and a bottle of beer. They would sit all day in
front of an easel, painting the most inconceivable pictures--pink
skies and green-faced women and purple grass and fantastic splurges
of color which they would call anything from "The Woman with a
Mustard Pot" to "A Nude Coming Downstairs." And there would be
others, like Duggan, writing verses all day; pounding away on a
typewriter, if they could manage to rent or borrow one. There were
several who sang, and one who played the flute and caused all the
others to tear their hair. There was a boy fresh from the country,
who declared that he had run away from home because the family sang
hymns all day Sunday, and never sang in tune.
From people such as these you would hear the most revolutionary
utterances; but Peter soon realized that it was mostly just talk
with them. They would work off their frenzies with a few dashes of
paint or some ferocious chords on the piano. The really dangerous
ones were not here; they were hidden away in offices or dens of
their own, where they were prompting strikes and labor agitations,
and preparing incendiary literature to be circulated among the poor.
You met such people in the Socialist local, and in the I. W. W.
headquarters, and in numerous clubs and propaganda societies which
Peter investigated, and to which he was welcomed as a member. In the
Socialist local there was a fierce struggle going on over the war.
What should be the attitude of the party? There was a group, a
comparatively small group, which believed that the interests of
Socialism would best be served by helping the Allies to the
overthrow of the Kaiser. There was another group, larger and still
more determined, which believed that the war was a conspiracy of
allied capitalism to rivet its power upon the world, and this group
wanted the party to stake its existence upon a struggle against
American participation. These two groups contested for the minds of
the rank and file of the members, who seemed to be bewildered by the
magnitude of the issue and the complexity of the arguments. Peter's
orders were to go with the extreme anti-militarists; they were the
ones whose confidence he wished to gain, also they were the
trouble-makers of the movement, and McGivney's instructions were to
make all the trouble possible.
Over at the I. W. W. headquarters was another group whose members
were debating their attitude to the war. Should they call strikes
and try to cripple the leading industries of the country? Or should
they go quietly on with their organization work, certain that in the
end the workers would sicken of the military adventure into which
they were being snared? Some of these "wobblies" were Socialist
party members also, and were active in both gatherings; two of them,
Henderson, the lumber-jack, and Gus Lindstrom, the sailor, had been
in jail with Peter, and had been among his intimates ever since.
Also Peter met the Pacifists; the "Peoples' Council," as they called
themselves. Many of these were religious people, two or three
clergymen, and Donald Gordon, the Quaker, and a varied assortment of
women--sentimental young girls who shrunk from the thought of
bloodshed, and mothers with tear-stained cheeks who did not want
their darlings to be drafted. Peter saw right away that these
mothers had no "conscientious objections." Each mother was thinking
about her own son and about nothing else. Peter was irritated at
this, and took it for his special job to see that those mother's
darlings did their duty.
He attended a gathering of Pacifists in the home of a
school-teacher. They made heart-breaking speeches, and finally
little Ada Ruth, the poetess, got up and wanted to know, was it all
to end in talk, or would they organize and prepare to take some
action against the draft? Would they not at least go out on the
street, get up a parade with banners of protest, and go to jail as
Comrade Peter Gudge had so nobly done?
Comrade Peter was called on for "a few words." Comrade Peter
explained that he was no speaker; after all, actions spoke louder
than words, and he had tried to show what he believed. The others
were made ashamed by this, and decided for a bold stand at once. Ada
Ruth became president and Donald Gordon secretary of the
"Anti-conscription League"--a list of whose charter members was
turned over to McGivney the same evening.
