The Harbor
BOOK III
CHAPTER XIV
The great voice of the crowd—incessant, demanding of me and of all
within hearing to throw in our lives, to join in this march to a new
free world regardless of all risk to ourselves—grew clear to me now.
I felt myself drawn in with the rest. I was helping in the publicity
work, each day I met with the leaders to draw up statements for the
press. And these messages to the outside world that I wrote to the slow
and labored dictation of some burly docker comrade, or again by myself
at dawn to express the will of a meeting that had lasted half the
night—slowly became for me my own. Almost unawares I had taken the
habit of asking:
"How much can we do? How sane and vigilant can we be to keep clear
of violence, bloodshed, mobs and a return to chaos? How long can we hold
together fast? How far can we march toward this promised land?"
In order to see ourselves as a whole and feel our swiftly swelling
strength, having now burst the confines of our hall, we began to hold
meetings out on "the Farm." There are many "farms" on the waterfront,
for a "farm" is simply the open shore space in front of a dock. But
this, which was one of the widest of all, now came to be spoken of as
"the Farm," and took on an atmosphere all its own. For there were scenes
here which will long endure in the memories of thousands of people. For
them it will be a great bright spot in the times gone by—in one of
those times behind the times, as this strange world keeps rushing on.
From the top of a pile of sand, where I stood with the speakers at the
end of a soft April day, I saw the whole[Pg 323] Farm massed solid with people.
This mass rose in hummocks and hills of humanity over the piles of brick
and sand and of crates and barrels dumped by the trucks, and out over
the water they covered the barges and the tugs, and there were even
hundreds upon the roofs of docksheds. The yelp of a dog was heard now
and then and the faint cries of children. But the mass as a whole stood
motionless, without a sound. They had stood thus since two o'clock, and
now the sun was setting. To the west the harbor was empty, no smoke from
ships obscured the sun, and it shone with radiant clearness upon eleven
races of men, upon Italians, Germans, French, on English, Poles and
Russians, on Negroes and Norwegians, Lascars, Malays, Coolies, on
figures burly, figures puny, faces white and faces swarthy, yellow,
brown and black. The sun shone upon all alike—except where that Morgan
liner, still lying unloaded at her dock, threw a long dark creeping
shadow out across the throng.
Thirty thousand people were here. Thirty thousand intensely alive. As I
eagerly watched their faces it was not their poverty now but their
boundless fresh vitality that took hold of me so hard. I had read many
radical books of late, in my groping for a foothold, and I had found
most of them dry affairs. But now the crowd through its leaders had laid
hold upon the thoughts in these books, had made them its own and so
given them life. In the process the thoughts had been twisted and bent,
some parts ignored and others brought out of all their nice proportions.
Exaggeration, sentiment, all kinds of crudity were here. But it was
crudity alive, a creed was here in action. Out of all the turmoil, the
take and give, the jar and clash back there in the meeting hall, had
come certain thoughts and passions, hopes and plans, that the multitude
had not ignored or hooted but had caught up and cheered into life. And
these ideas that they had cheered were now being pounded back into their
minds. Monotonous repetition, you say? Yes,[Pg 324] monotonous repetition—slow
sledgehammer blows upon something red hot—pounding, pounding,
pounding—that when it cooled its shape might be changed.
Nora Ganey was speaking.
"Look at those ocean liners!" she cried. Her voice was sharp and
strident. "They're paralyzed now, and because they are they're costing
the big companies millions of dollars every day. That's what their time
is worth to their owners. But what are those ships worth to you? Ten
dollars a week and a broken arm—or a leg or a skull, you can take your
choice. Six thousand of you men were crippled or crushed to death last
year—and that, let me remind you, was only in the port of New York. Why
was it? Why did it have to be? And why will it always have to be until
you make these ships your own? Because, fellow workers, the time of the
ships is worth so much to their owners that the work has got to be
rushed day and night—and in that rush somebody's bound to get hurt—if
he isn't killed he's lucky! And as for the rest, when at last you're
through and dead tired—they point to the saloons and say, 'Now have a
few drinks! We won't need you again till next Tuesday'! Do you know what
all this means in your homes? It means drunks, cripples, sick and poor!
It means such sights as I'll never forget. I've seen 'em all—just
lately!
"I never thought of such things before. I liked my office job on the
dock and all the jobs around me—and when sailing time drew near I liked
the last excitement. I liked the rich furs and dresses and the cute
little earrings and slippers and dogs that were attached to the women
who came. I liked to see them pile out of their motors and laugh and
make eyes at the men they belonged to. I liked to peep into the cabins
they had—get on to all the luxuries there.
"But out of all this magnificence, friends, and this work that keeps it
going—I saw one day a man come on a stretcher. He was dead. And that
started me think[Pg 325]ing. That's why I came out when the strike was called.
And in the strike I've gone into your homes. I've seen what those soft
expensive female dolls and all the work that makes them costs. And I've
got a thrill of another kind! It's a thrill that'll last for the rest of
my life! And in yours, too, fellow workers! For I believe that you'll go
right on—that you'll strike and strike and strike again—till you make
these tenements own these ships—and a life won't be thrown away for a
dollar!"
She stopped sharply and stepped back, and there burst out a frenzy of
applause, which died down to be caught up and prolonged and deepened
into a steady roar, as Marsh came slowly forward. He stood there
bareheaded, impassive and quiet, listening to the great voice of the
mass. At last he turned to the chairman. The latter picked up a whistle,
and at that piercing call to order slowly the cheering began to subside.
Faces pressed eagerly closer. Marsh looked all around him.
"Fellow workers," he began, "it's hard for a man to be understood when
he's talking to men from all over the world." He pointed down to a
cluster of Lascars with white turbans on their heads. "You don't
understand me. But some of your comrades will give you my speech, for we
are all strike brothers here. On the ship there is no flag—on the ship
there is no nation—on the ship there is only work—on the ship there
are only the workers!
"For a ship may be equipped with the most powerful engines to drive
her—she may have the best brains to direct her course—but the ship
can't sail until you go aboard! You're the men who make the ships of
use, you're the men who give value to the stock of all the big ship
companies! You are the ship industry—and to you the ship industry
should belong!
"I want you now to think of a tombstone. Out in the Atlantic, two miles
down they tell me, a big ship is stuck with her bow in the ooze of the
ocean floor and her stern[Pg 326] six hundred feet up in the water. In the cold
green light down there she looks like a tombstone—and she is packed
with dead people inside. She is there because where she should have had
lifeboats she had French cafés instead, and sun parlors for the ladies.
Some of these ladies went down with the ship, and we heard a lot about
their screams. But we haven't heard much of the cries for help of the
thousands of men who go down every year in rotten old ships upon the
seas! Nor have we heard of the millions more who are killed on land—on
the railroads, in the mines and mills and stinking slums of cities!
"But now we've decided that cries like these are to be heard all over
the world. For we've only got one life apiece—we're not quite sure of
another. And because we do all the work that is done we want all the
life there is to be had! All the life there is to be had—that's what we
are striking for! That is our share of the life in this world! And until
we get our share this labor war will have no end! Other wars may come
and go—but under them all on land and sea this war of ours will go
steadily on—will swallow up all other wars—will swallow up in all your
minds all hatred of your brother men! For you they will be workers all!
With them you will rise—and the world will be free!"
When the long stormy din of cheers had little by little died away Joe
Kramer began the last speech of the day. He had eaten and slept little,
he had lived on coffee and cigarettes, and there was a strained look in
his deep eyes as he rose up lean and gaunt by my side.
"I'm here to-day to speak to the men who work in stokeholes naked," he
said. "I'm here to talk of the lives you lead—the lives that millions
before you have led—for a few brief years—and then they have died. For
lives in stokeholes are not long. And before I begin I propose that we
stand for a moment with uncovered[Pg 327] heads." He looked out over the
multitude as though seeing far beyond them, and his voice was as harsh
as the look in his eyes. "As a tribute to all the dead stokers," he
said.
And in a breathless silence the multitude did what he had asked. Joe
broke this silence sharply.
"Now for life and the living," he said. "Why was it that those men all
died? What has the change from sails to steam done to the lives of the
men at sea?
"The old sailor at least had air to breathe. But what you breathe is red
hot gas—I know because I've been there. There is a gong upon the wall,
and when it clangs you heave in coal, and if when it clangs faster you
don't keep quite up to its pace, a white light flashes out of the wall,
and that light is the Chief Engineer's way of saying, 'God damn you,
keep up those fires down there! Time is money! Who are you?'
"The old-time sailor lived on deck. He had the winds, the sun and the
stars. But you live down between steel walls—with only the glare of
electric lights in which you sleep and eat and sweat. You work at all
kinds of irregular hours, for you there is no day or night. You don't
know whether the millionaire and his last and loveliest wife are
drinking champagne before going to bed, in their cabin de luxe above
you, or taking their coffee the next day at noon. You don't know about
anything way up there—unless you go up as I've seen you do, half out of
your senses from the heat, and make a sudden jump for the rail. The cry
is heard—'Man overboard!'—then shrieks and a chorus of 'Oh-my-God's!'
And then somebody says, 'It's only a stoker.'"
He stopped short, and at the sudden roar of the crowd I saw him frown
and quiver. He drew a deep, slow breath and went on:
"They threw off all the good in the ship with sails—but they carefully
kept all that was bad. The old mutiny laws—they kept all that.
Undermanning of crews—they[Pg 328] kept all that. The waterfront sharks—they
kept all that. But there was one thing they couldn't keep—the old
sailor's habit of standing all this! He had run away to sea as a boy,
he'd been kicked all his life by the bucko mate into a state where he
couldn't kick back. But with you men it is not so. Among all the
thousands standing here most were on shore a few years ago, and you took
your land views with you on board. You organized seamen's unions. The
one in this country was meek and mild. It did not strike, it went on its
knees to Congress instead, and here's part of the written petition it
made. 'We raise our manacled hands in humble supplication—and we pray
that the nations of the earth issue a decree for our
emancipation—restore us our rights as brother men.' But Congress had no
ear for you then. Sailors are men who have no votes. And so you failed
in your pleading.
"But in the labor movement there seems to be no such word as fail! You
have not given up your union—instead you have formed one of a kind more
dangerous to your masters! You have not made smaller your requests—no,
you are now demanding more! And instead of asking for merciful laws you
are saying, 'We are done with your laws, will have none of your laws,
will break your laws when they come in our way!'
"And what do your masters answer? Here are thousands of deserters—every
man here has broken the law by leaving his ship! But have they tried to
arrest you? No! They're afraid to arrest twenty thousand men, they're
afraid of this strike, they're afraid of you! They're so almighty scared
downtown that though we've been only a week on strike they've already
sent their commands to their Congress to give us what merciful laws we
like. They're scared because we've thrown over their laws—because they
know that we now see our power—to stop all their ships and the trade of
their land and send their stock market into a panic![Pg 329]
"And now do you know what I want you to do? I want you to look at their
ships, at their docks, at their harbor, men—and laugh—laugh! Don't you
see there's no need of violence? Laugh! In old times the people built
barricades. You don't need barricades nor any guns—all you've got to do
is to stand here and laugh! Look at all you have done to your
bosses—and laugh! To this town, to this nation—and laugh, laugh!
Look—and think—of what you can do—all you—and you—and you—and
you—by just folding your arms! Think of all you will do! And
laugh—laugh! Laugh! Laugh!"
He broke off with both arms raised, and there followed one moment
without a sound. Then suddenly, quick and hard and clear, from a corner
of this human ocean, I heard a single peal of laughter. In an instant
scores joined in. Rising in outbursts here and there, deepening, rushing
out over the Farm, it gathered and rolled in wave on wave, rising,
always rising. And it swelled into such a laugh that I saw the police
feel for their clubs. Reporters scrambled for high places, turned their
kodaks on it all. Women snatched up their babies in terror and ran.
Marsh stepped forward, caught Joe by the arm and jerked him back to
where I was standing. I gripped Joe's hand, it was icy cold.
Marsh shouted to the chairman, and the piercing whistle for order was
heard. But it took a long time for that laugh to die. Long after the
meeting had broken up I saw groups gather together, and presently they
would begin to laugh, and their laughter would take on again that same
convulsive tensity. I heard small clusters laughing, and dense throngs
in hot saloons where the low rooms would echo and double the roar.
Late at night out on the waterfront, under the bow of that Morgan ship,
I found two strikers smoking their pipes, and I sat down and lighted
mine. One was a Lascar, the other a Pole. In the strike these wanderers
over the earth had met on the waterfront under a wagon where[Pg 330] each had
come to sleep the night. Since then they had become good friends. Each
spoke a little English, each one had caught bits here and there from the
speeches made that afternoon—and they had been trying to pool what
they'd heard, trying to find why it was they had laughed. As now I tried
to give them the gist of what Joe Kramer had said, from time to time
they would glance up at the big ship they had paralyzed and chuckle
softly to themselves.
Then I went on to Marsh's speech. And out there in the darkness I could
feel their rough faces, one white and one brown, grow deeply, eagerly
intent, as these strike brothers listened to the voice that had spoken
the dream of the crowd:
"Other wars may come and go—but under them all on land and sea this war
of ours will go steadily on—will swallow up all other wars—will
swallow up in all your minds all hatred of your brother men. For you
they will be workers all. With them you will rise—and the world will be
free."[Pg 331]