Comrade Yetta

"Yes," Braun echoed. "What are you?"

"That's an uninteresting detail. I'm only the referee of this bout."

"He can poke fun at a serious position," Braun said. "But he's afraid to or can't define his own."

"I'll tell you what he is, Yetta," Mabel volunteered. "He's a – "

"No, I'll tell her myself," Walter interrupted. "If you want it in one word, I'm a syndicaliste. We haven't any English word for it."

"He believes in a general strike," Mabel explained, "although not one trade strike in ten really succeeds."

"Exactly and because," Walter assented emphatically.

"He believes," Braun supplemented, "that although the working people haven't enough class consciousness to vote together we can ask them to fight together."

"Exactly and once more exactly! I hate to talk, Yetta, because – as I confessed to you before these two noble examples of self-sacrifice came in – I haven't the nerve to practise my beliefs. I hate to talk, and I've never done anything else. But I've got just as definite a creed as Isadore.

"A general strike has more hope of success than a dozen little strikes, because it's a strike for liberty – and that's the only thing that interests all the working class. The trade strikes are for a few extra pennies. And when one of them does succeed, it's because of some bigger enthusiasm than was written in their demands. You went right to the heart of the matter last night when you said you had been striking so as not to be slaves. I'll bet you've seen it when you talked to the other unions. Which of your demands interested them most? Dollars to doughnuts it was 'recognition of the union.' They all have demands of their own about wages and hours. But when you say 'union' to them, you're saying liberty. You're appealing to something bigger than considerations of pay – to their very love of life.

"The basis of a General Strike must be an ideal which is shared by every working-man. The simon-pure unionists, the A. F. of L., the Woman's Trade Union League, are fighting for little shop improvements, different in every trade. Sometimes – often – one set of demands is in conflict with another. The one thing that holds the movement of the workers closer together is this brilliant idea of union. And the leaders are busily preaching disunion.

"Read any history of labor and you'll see. First it was every man for himself. Then shop unions and each shop for itself. Then all the workmen of one town. Now, its national trade-unions. To-morrow it will be industrial unions. The change has already begun. We already have the Allied Building Trades. Mabel's keen on allying the various branches of garment workers. The miners have gone further. They have a real industrial union. That's the next step. We'll have the typesetters, pressmen, folders, newsboys, all in one big newspaper union. Engineers, switchmen, firemen, conductors, roundhouse and repair-shop men all in a big brotherhood of railroad men. Twenty gigantic industrial unions in place of the hundreds of impotent little trade organizations. No one can look the facts in the face and deny either the need of the change or the actual progress towards it.

"Braun shudders at the thought because the men who are now urging this change – the Industrial Workers of the World – are displeasing to him. They are not good party socialists. Mabel don't like them because they tell unpleasant truths about the crooks in her organization. I don't like them personally, either, because they are just as narrow-minded as Isadore, and I guess some of them are as crooked as any of the trade-union leaders. But the idea is bigger than personalities. You mark my words, Yetta, industrial unionism is going to be a bigger issue every year with the working-men. It's going to win. And the outcome of industrial unionism is the General Strike and Insurrection.

"Isadore pooh-poohs the idea of bloodshed. The social revolution is going to be a kid-glove affair. He will admit the possibility of sporadic riots. But the great victory is to be won at the voting booths. Justice is to be enthroned by ward caucuses and party conventions. Victor Berger instead of Dick Croker. The central committee instead of Tammany Hall. He really believes this, but it is based on two suppositions, both of which seem to me very uncertain. First, reason is to conquer the earth and the great majority is to vote reasonably – that is, the Socialist ticket. Second, the grafters and all the contented, well-fed, complaisant people are going to resign without a struggle.

"I don't think they will. They may not have the courage to defend their privileges themselves. But bravery, the fighting kind, is one of the cheapest things on the human market. Our government buys perfectly good soldiers for $13.50 a month. The privileged class always has hired mercenaries to defend their graft and I think they will in the future. They've already begun to do it with their State Constabulary in Pennsylvania. Read about how the French capitalists massacred our comrades after the Paris Commune. That was only thirty years ago. I don't see any reason to hope for a very startling change in their natures.

"And then is reason going to rule the world – the cold intellectual convictions that Isadore means? I doubt it. The great movements in the world's history have come from passionate enthusiasms. Take the Reformation, or the English Commonwealth, or the French Revolution. Not one man in ten of all the actors in those crises were what Isadore would call reasonable. Reason is powerless unless it is backed by a great enthusiasm. And if we have that, we can turn the trick quicker with a general strike and insurrection than we could by voting.

"This question of violence or peace is a thorny one. We've got to separate what we would like to see from what seems probable. Bloodshed is abhorrent. But it is pretty closely associated with the history of human progress. Before the great Revolution the mass of the French people were in the very blackest ignorance. They've had a century of revolution and bloodshed, and to-day they are the most cultured nation in the world. The same thing is happening to-day in Russia. We read in the papers of assassinations and executions and insurrections. It means that the intellect of a great people is coming to life. And the mind of our nation has got to be shaken into wakefulness, too. We've got to learn new and deeper meanings to the old words justice and liberty. I'd like to believe we could learn them in school, by reading socialist pamphlets. But all the race has ever learned about them so far has been in battle-fields and behind barricades. I hate and fear bloodshed. I believe it's wrong. Just as you said you thought it was wrong to lie. But I love liberty more.

"And there's one other point: Until we learn these lessons, we've got to see our strong men and women cut down by tuberculosis, we've got to stand by and watch a slaughter of innocent babies that makes Herod's little massacre look like a schoolboy's naughtiness. The socialists don't like the word 'violence.' The reality is in the air we breathe. The landlord wracks rent out of the poor by violence – no amount of legal drivel can hide the fact that every injustice of our present society is put through by the aid – on the treat – of police. The whole force of the state is back of the grafters. It's violence that drives people into the sweat-shops, that drives the boys to crime and the girls to prostitution. And all this deadly injustice will go on until we've learned the lessons of justice and liberty. Let us learn them as peacefully and legally as possible, but we must learn them. Blood isn't a nice thing to look at, but it isn't as unspeakably horrible as the sputum of tuberculosis."

"What you are saying is rank anarchy," Braun protested.

"I've told you a hundred times you can't scare me by calling names. 'Anarchy' is just as much a word of progress as 'Socialism.' I think you've got the best of it when it comes to a description and analysis of society and industrial development. But the Anarchists have got you backed off the map in the understanding of human motives and social impulses.

"I'm an optimist, Yetta, about this social conflict. I don't think it matters much what form people give to their activity. The important thing is not to be neutral. The thing that is needed is a passion for righteousness. Once a person sees – really sees – the conflict between greed and justice, and enlists in the revolution, it doesn't matter much whether he goes into the infantry or cavalry or artillery. I see in society a ruling class growing fat off injustice, a great, lethargic mass, indifferent through ignorance, and a constantly growing army of revolt. Anybody who doubts the outcome is a fool. History does not record a single year which did not bring some victory for Justice. But a person's equally a fool – I mean you, Isadore – who tries to prophesy just how the war will be conducted. There isn't any omniscient general back of us, directing the campaign. The progress towards victory is the result of myriad efforts, uncoordinated, often conflicting. It is entirely irrational – just like evolution. The anthropoidal ape, sitting under a prehistoric palm tree and picking fleas off his better half, did not know how – through the ages – his offspring were going to become men. Even with our superior intellects, our ability to study the records of the past and guess into the future, we cannot presage the steps of the progress. The directing force is the instinctive common sense of life. It's a more mysterious force than any theological God. It's always on the job, always pushing life through new experiments, through 'variations' to the better form.

"All evolution has been a history of life struggling for liberty. It was a momentous revolution, when the first tiny animalcule tore itself loose from immobility, when it conquered the ability to move about in quest of food and a larger life. And so one after another life conquered new abilities. It's abilities, not rights, that constitute liberty. Think how many fake experiments life made before it turned out a man. The same process is going on to-day. You can't crowd life into a definition. Justice is being approximated, not because of one formula. The victory will come not because the people accept one theory, but because of thousands and thousands of experiments. And the ones that fail are just as much a part of the process.

"Gradually this common sense of life is awaking the minds of the lethargic mass. This is sure progress. It matters not at all whether the mind of the individual come to life in the trade-union, the Socialist party, or the Anarchist Group – or the Salvation Army. The important thing is that a new person has conquered the ability to think for himself. It doesn't even matter whether the words that woke him to life were true or not.

"Life isn't logical. And socialism seems to me to have almost smothered its soul-stirring ideal in a wordy effort to seem logical. The trade-unions are illogical enough. At least you can say that for them. But it's only once in a while – by accident – that they sound the tocsin."

This kind of talk disturbed Isadore. From first to last it ran contrary to his manner of thinking. But in an illusive way it seemed to have a semblance of truth – a certain persuasiveness. The error – if error there was – was subtle and hard to nail down. As he listened he knew he was expected to answer it. He must defend his colors before Yetta. It was not an easy thing to do. His whole life was built on an abiding faith that the hope of his people lay in the activities of the Socialist party. There was no cant nor insincerity about him. He felt that the spread of such ideas as Longman's would render doubly difficult the work of his party. It vexed him not to be able at once to demolish his friend's heresies. But he was used to arguing with opponents who thought any change was unnecessary or impossible. Walter admitted all this and went further. Isadore was off his accustomed field.

"You're a hard person to argue with," he said, "because your ideas are so unusual. I don't mean to say you're wrong just because you are in a minority of one. But it's hard to reason against oratory. I wish you would put your position down on paper, so I could give it serious thought."

"Maeterlinck has come pretty close to it in Notre devoir social," Walter replied.

"Oh, that!" Isadore said contemptuously. "That isn't an argument, it's a sort of fairy story."

"Still calling names! There's truth in some fairytales – a whole lot of truth you can't express in your dialectics."

"That!" Isadore said, jumping at a point of attack, "is, I guess, the fundamental difference between us. You're a sort of mediævalist, living in a realm of romance and fairy stories – ruled over by your instinctive sense of life. You forget that we live in the age of reason. You said liberty consisted in abilities. Well, I believe that abilities bring obligations. Instead of jeering at reason and dialectics, I think it's our preeminent ability. We, reasoning animals, have a duty to use and perfect – and trust – our intellects. And the Socialist theory is the biggest triumph of the human mind. The theory of evolution is the only thing to compare with it. But Darwin had only to fight a superstition. It wasn't much of a feat to convince thinking people that it took more than one hundred and forty-four hour's to create the world – then his case was practically won. Marx had to fight not only such theological nonsense, but the entire opposition of the ruling class. Socialism had always been proscribed. A college professor who taught it frankly would lose his job. But it has never had a set-back. It has gathered about it as brilliant a group of intellects as has Darwinism. It's growing steadily.

"Having no trust in reason, you are driven back to violence. But I do believe in intelligence. I don't want to hang my hope of the future on such illogical things as dynamite and flying bullets.

"If you don't respect intellect and logic, of course you don't sympathize with Socialism. But you can't ask me to give up the results of my own reasoning, backed as they are by the best brains of our times, to accept your imaginings."

"I don't ask you to give up Socialism," Walter laughed. "On the contrary, as long as it seems truth to you, give up all the rest. Your ability seems to find its right setting in the party – just as Mabel's does in the trade-unions – just as I'd be ill at ease and useless in either.

"The point I want to insist on is my faith that, back of your reasoning and activity and back of my speculations and laziness, this instinctive sense of life is working out its own purpose. Only future generations will be able to know which – if either of us – is right."

This argument thrilled and fascinated Yetta. In the years that were to follow she was to hear such debates repeated endlessly. The new circle of friends she was to make were as passionately interested in such questions of social philosophy and ethics as are the art students of Paris in the relative value of line and color or the concept of pure beauty. In time talking would lose its charm; she was to realize that – as Walter had said – it often leads to brain-fag. But this, her first experience, was an immense event.

The two men leaned back in their chairs, their faces relaxed. They seemed to have talked themselves out. Yetta turned to Mabel, who sat beside her on the window-seat.

"You're not a Socialist?" she asked.

"No." Mabel replied. Such discussions bored her. "Nor an Anarchist either. I happen to be living in the year of grace 1903. I'm not interested in Isadore's logical deductions nor Walter's imaginings. They both know that if the working people want enough butter for their bread, – let alone Utopia, – they've got to organize. Cold experience shows that they can be organized on economic step-by-step demands, and that we can build up stable, practical unions along these lines – which every day are bringing to the working class a great spirit of unity. And cold experience also shows that the labor organizations which ask for the earth don't last. There have been dozens just like the Industrial Workers of the World before, and where are they now? Those people haven't enough practical sense to organize a picnic.

"If I were a theorist, instead of a rather busy person, I would have nothing against Industrial Unionism. It's on the cards, and I am working for it. But I haven't any time for these fanatical dreamers. I haven't anything against the Socialist idea of the working people going in for political representation. Whenever I get a chance I put in a word for it. But once more I've no time for people who don't do any real work and spend their time writing pamphlets about nothing at all and quarrelling over party intrigue. They're very wonderful, no doubt, with their reason and their imaginations – master-builders, the architects of the future, and all that. I'm quite content to be a little coral insect, adding my share to the very necessary foundations, which they forget about. Anyhow, to-night isn't 'Le Grand Soir' – and as dreaming isn't my job, I can't afford to sleep late. Come on."

In the doorway, as the four were going out, Mabel called Isadore, who was pairing off with Yetta, and asked him about the injunction in the cigar-makers' case. Walter dropped behind with Yetta. He was almost glad that Mabel had denied him these last few minutes of tête-a-tête with her. He had been looking forward to it all the evening. But there was not anything for him to say to her. So he talked to Yetta, as they crossed the Square.

"There's one thing I almost forgot. Mrs. Karner has taken a great fancy to you. I know she'd appreciate it if you went up to see her every once in a while. Don't let her know I suggested it, but something she said the other day made me see how much she likes you. She tries very hard to pretend not to care about anything, but at bottom she's serious – and good. In the League work you'll have to play around a good deal with some of the swells, and she's a good one to practice on.

"Well, here we are. I'll send the keys over by Mrs. Rocco when I go. You can move in any time you want to."

Mabel went up the steps and fitted her latch-key into the door. She reached down to shake hands with Walter.

"So long," she said with an even voice. "Good luck."

"About once in every long while," he said, "we'll get mail. I'd like to hear from you now and then."

"I'm not much of a letter-writer," she said, "but I won't forget you."

For the first time, Yetta really believed that Mabel did not love him.

"Good-by, Mr. Longman," she said. "We'll all be waiting for you to get back."

"Thanks! And I hope you'll write too – give me the news when you send me my mail. And the good chance to you. Good-by, Mabel."

"Good-by, Walter," she called back over her shoulder.

"Isadore," Walter said, as the door shut behind the girls, "come on over to the Lafayette and have a drink."

Braun looked at his watch.

"Oh, damn the time. Come on. I want somebody to talk to me."

BOOK IV

CHAPTER XIX

YETTA'S WORK

In the next few months Yetta learned a new meaning for the word "work." In the sweat-shop, day after day, she had sat before the machine, her mind a blank, three-quarters of her muscles lifeless, the rest speeding through a dizzying routine. Only when a thread broke had there been any thought to it. In the new work there was no repetition, none of this dead monotony. Every act, every word she spoke, was the result of a consciousness vividly alive. In the keen, exhilarating thrill of it she had little time to mope over Walter's absence.

It is a strange paradox of our life that, while no other social phenomenon touches us at so many intimate points as the organization of labor, while very few are of more importance, most of us know nothing at all about the details of this great industrial struggle. Our clothes bear the "union label" or are "scab." In either case they are an issue in the conflict. Heads have been broken over the question of whether this page, from which you are reading, should be printed in a "closed" or "open shop." Around our cigarettes, the boxes in which they are packed, the matches with which we light them, the easy-chairs in which we smoke them, and the carpets on which we carelessly spill the ashes, a tragic battle is raging. Nine out of every ten people we meet are concerned in it. The man who takes our nickel in the Subway, the waiter who serves our lunch, the guests at dinner, the unseen person who pulls up the curtain at the theatre, the taxicab chauffeur who takes us home, are all fighting for or against "unionism."

From the human point of view there is no vaster, more passionate drama. Intense convictions, bitter, senseless prejudices, the dogged heroism of hunger, comfort-loving cynicism, black treachery, and wholehearted idealism are among the motives which inspire the actors. The stage – which is our Fatherland – is crossed by hired thugs from the "detective agencies" and by dynamiters. In the troupe are such people as Jane Addams and Mr. Pinkerton, shedders of blood and preachers of peace. There are hardly any of us who do not at some time step upon the stage and act our parts.

From the viewpoint of politics, the conflict has a deeper significance. What is the statesmanlike attitude to the growing unrest of those who do the work of the world – an unrest which is steadily and rapidly organizing? Close to two million of our citizens pay dues to the unions, their number grows by a quarter of a million a year. This is a momentous fact in politics. What is to be done about it? No one who thinks of such things can deny that sooner or later we – as a nation – must answer that question.

Profound in its political significance, rich in human color, the organization of labor touches us on every hand. But very few of us have any idea of the life of those men and women who devote themselves to this imposing, threatening movement. What, for instance, is the daily work of the secretary of the Gasfitters' Union in our town? What is an "agitator"? What are his duties? How does he spend his time? Why?

It was into this little-known life that Yetta was plunged. First of all she was "Business Agent" – or as we more generally say "the Walking Delegate" – of her Vest-Makers' Union. She had to attend to all business between the organization and the bosses.

When a complaint reached her that some employer was violating the contract he had signed with the union, she had to investigate. If the charge was justified, she could call the girls out until the offending boss decided to observe his agreement.

It is just as hard for a labor organization to find a satisfactory "business agent," as it is for a mercantile concern. One will be too aggressive, another too yielding. One will be always irritating the employers and causing unnecessary friction. The next will make friends with the bosses and be twisted about their fingers. Once in a while a "business agent" sells out, betrays his constituents for a bribe, just as some of our political representatives have done.

Even in trades where the union has existed for a long time and somewhat stable relations have grown up between it and the employers, the position of "business agent" calls for a degree of tact and force which is rare. It is impossible for the delegate of the men to reach a cordial understanding with the bosses. He has at heart the interest of the entire trade, men working in different places under varied conditions, while the boss thinks only of his own shop. One is trying to enforce general rules, the other is seeking exceptions. The employer may be friendly with the union and in some sudden rush ask a favor which the men themselves would like to grant. But the walking delegate, knowing that all bosses are not so well disposed, that he may not grant to one what he refuses to others, cannot make exception, even if it seems reasonable to him.

Yetta's position was doubly difficult. The boss vest-makers were smarting under their defeat. They regarded the union as an unpleasant innovation, an infringement of their liberty. A visit from Yetta seemed an impertinence. On the other hand the new union was pitifully weak. The treasury was empty. The bosses knew this, knew just how much hunger the strike had meant to their employees. They tried to take advantage of the situation. The Association of Vest Manufacturers, after the disorganization which followed the strike, was getting together again. Their frequent meeting promised a new attack. All the girls felt trouble in the air. There were causes for quarrel in almost every shop. But a new strike – if it failed – would surely wreck the union. Everything was to gain by delaying the new outbreak. Yetta's common sense, supplemented by Mabel's experienced advice, pulled them through many tight places.