Boston a novel
“No could buy joosta two, make odder children onhappy, dey worka so
hard, da money is like so moocha more for dem.”
XIII
The bright days of summer passed quickly, and the bracing days of
autumn, and then came the first threats of winter. It is nothing to
joke about on this stern and rock-bound coast, where icy gales blow
in from the ocean and snow piles up and blocks the streets, and the
temperature goes to considerably below zero. Cornelia found that she
had to take every cent of her savings to buy herself a warm coat, and
then it was not so warm; she learned to live in it all day while she
worked in the factory, a good part of the time in the home, and at
night she made it into a bed-cover.
There came days when the trip to her work and back again were infernal
experiences, recalling those regions of Dante where the lost souls are
frozen solid in ice. But in the great poet’s story it is possible to
see the damned, while here they stumbled through pitch darkness, at
half past six in the morning and the same hour in the evening. Cornelia
would get her coat buttoned tight over a sweater and the family would
pin her shawl fast over her head and ears, leaving just a peep-hole for
the eyes and nose. Then with her hands in mittens, and these tucked
under the shawl, she would start the long journey, with Brini’s big
hand grasping her under the arm. They would go staggering through
snow-drifts, sliding on the ice and packed sleet; her hands would be
half frozen, yet she would have to jerk them out to catch Brini and
keep from breaking her bones. The pitiless winds would howl and buffet
her and stab through her flimsy garments: the whirling snow would blind
her--yet there was not much danger of getting lost, there being a
stream of bundled figures plodding to the same goal. It was January of
1916, and out across the storm-lashed ocean the ships were being sunk,
so there must be more cordage to keep the world at war. Any woman who
failed to complete the journey twelve times per week would not have
her pay-envelope with the six dollars on Thursday night; and how then
would she pay for food and bed and shawls and coats and mittens and
rubber shoes and cough medicines and dentistry and surgical operations
and opera-tickets?
Cornelia was changing not merely her ideas but her appearance and
personal habits. She no longer took a bath every morning before she
dressed. Getting up at a quarter before six, by the light of an
oil-lamp and in rooms where she could see her breath, she found that
her one thought was to get into the warmest clothes she had, and as
many of them as possible; her second thought was to get two cups of the
hot boiled chicory which serves for coffee in the homes of the poor.
Thereafter she had no impulse to take off her clothes until she got
into bed--and not all of them then, because her bed-covers were made of
cotton, and even with all her clothing piled on top there were nights
when she could not sleep for the cold. And now and then she would
remember the formula she had heard the prosperous ladies repeat--that
at least the poor might keep clean!
Another principle of hygiene which had been taught to her was plenty of
fresh air at night. It was easy for the doctors to say it, sleeping in
rooms with heat, and layers of woolen blankets and eider-down quilts.
But now Cornelia adopted the custom of the poor, to seal up windows at
the beginning of winter and breathe such air as happened to get into
the house. If this, combined with a poor diet, brought tuberculosis,
it would be called the will of God. In Cornelia’s case it would be the
stubbornness of a woman who had made up her mind and would not admit
defeat. She had signed a declaration of independence--and here was her
Valley Forge!
The cordage workers lived in their dark holes, forgotten by the world
except on rent day. They grumbled and complained, because the cost of
living kept on going up and in winter it was so much worse--there were
no gardens with fresh vegetables, nor trees with apples and pears on
them, nor berries which the children could gather in the woods. Now
everything had to be bought in stores and the housewives picked over
the meager supplies; and when they could no longer make ends meet, what
were they to do?
Some voiced their complaints to their bosses and were told to go
elsewhere; and every time that happened the pot of anger boiled
faster. Brini and Vanzetti came home at night, voluble and
gesticulating; sometimes they would hurry off after supper--“meeting by
Giuseppi,” they would say, or whatever name it might be. Several times
Cornelia went to such meetings, and a mass of people packed themselves
into a little parlor, with overflow into the kitchen, and complained
and argued and gestured for an hour or two. Such was Vanzetti’s
solution of the labor problem, the workers to gather in little
groups--“gruppi autonomi,” was his phrase; each of these gruppi would
decide what it wanted and appoint a representative to meet with others
from the Portuguese, the French-Canadians, the Germans, the Irish.
The believers in politics and organization, the socialistas, held a
meeting in a hall, with more than a thousand workers, and a speaker
in English, one in Italian and one in Portuguese; those who did not
understand any of these languages understood the excitement of the
rest. Also came the I. W. W. with their speakers, and their program
of “direct action,” the taking over of the industries by the “one big
union.” They were strong among these New England mill-workers, having
the prestige of a great victory in the woollen mills of Lawrence three
or four years ago.
And of course that stirred Vanzetti and his anarchistas. They too
must have a meeting and summon their leader, Galleani, to point out
to the workers the dangers of organization, and how it was possible
to win freedom from both capitalistas and labor union “offeesh’.”
There was a gathering of the “gruppo autonomo di Plyemoot’,” and
money was subscribed to pay for the hall and for what Vanzetti called
the “expensit.” He contributed ten dollars himself, and explained
to Cornelia that his share was greater for the reason that he was a
“lonely man.”
XIV
That was a Tuesday night; and next day, preceding pay-day, there
appeared mysteriously at the cordage plant a force of two hundred and
fifty “private police” to guard the property. Where did they come from,
this hired army of capitalism, and where were they kept when they were
not working? Did they travel about the country, putting down labor
troubles? Had the masters got trouble so systematized that they could
count upon a regular supply of it to keep this army at work? Nobody
knew; but here they were, big husky fellows, bundled in overcoats and
arctics and fur-topped gloves, with clubs in their hands and revolvers
in holsters at their belts--in plain sight, where nobody could miss
their meaning. They paced before the gates and the doors of buildings,
and to make them comfortable when they were off duty the town’s most
fashionable summer hotel sprang into activity.
The various “gruppi” had agreed upon their demands, eight dollars a
week for unskilled women and twelve for the men. They appointed a
committee to present the demands to the company, and the meeting took
place, and the company explained that such an increase, twenty-five
percent, would bankrupt it, and then no one would have any job. The
company offered a raise of five percent, and the committee rejected
this; there were more meetings, and crowds of people standing about
stamping their feet in the snow, and the guards commanding them to move
on, and getting surly answers. There were workers who said that if the
company would pay the cost of these guards in wages it would help quite
a little; they were even ungrateful enough to suggest that old Mr.
Perry’s “welfare work” be stopped, so that the people could have the
money for food.
As usual, this big magazine was fired by a little spark. On Thursday
morning, pay-day, one of the men in number three spinning-room got into
a dispute with his foreman; the foreman told him to take his coat and
hat and get out, and instead of obeying, the man turned and started
yelling to his comrades. The foreman took him by the shoulder to put
him out, and others came rushing to his help, and there was a tumult,
and above it rose the word, “Strike!” It spread like wildfire down the
long spinning-room; what had been at one moment an industry became in
the next a mob. “Sciopero!” yelled the Italians. “Folga!” echoed the
Portuguese. “Grève!” shrieked the French-Canadians. “Streik!” bellowed
the Germans. And “Strike! Strike! Strike!” roared Americans and English
and Irish and Welsh, and all others who had learned the word. A hundred
Paul Reveres set out in every direction, spreading the wildfire from
room to room. The openers of the bales threw down their knives, and the
feeders turned from the “breakers,” and the spinners deserted their
“flyers,” and the engineers shut off the power, and the wheels stopped
turning, and two thousand workers grabbed their clothing and tumbled
outside, pouring into a few minutes’ clamor the pent-up anger and
misery of many silent years.
The storm reached Cornelia’s wrapping-room, and the women had to quit
whether they wanted to or not, because the platform stopped moving.
She got her things and streamed out with the rest. The crowds were
milling about, the frightened guards shouting, “Move along, keep
moving there!” In various places impromptu meetings started, and the
stream would be blocked. Cornelia saw a man leap upon the corner of
a loading platform--a man in a worn blue “reefer,” with a storm hat
pulled over his ears, and a pair of brown walrus mustaches hiding half
his face. “Compagni! Lavoratori! L’ora della riscossa è scoccata! Essa
darà la libertá agli oppressi”--whereupon another man climbed upon the
platform and gave the orator a shove which sent him flying. “Get out,
you blankety-blank, and don’t show your face in here again!” And the
company detective sought out one of the foremen, inquiring, “Who is
that wop they call Bart--the one with long mustaches like a walrus?
We’ll have to keep our eye on him, he’s one of the trouble-makers.”
CHAPTER III
DAGO RED
I
Snow in the air, whirled here and there by unpurposed winds; snow on
the ground, thrown back from sidewalks and turning them into trenches.
Guards and policemen, pacing in front of the cordage company gates,
making long puffs of steam as they breathed; and workers, huddled on
the other side of the road, stamping their feet and dancing about,
blowing on their fingers or tucking them under their arms. Sky lowering
and light dim--it seemed a good time to be indoors, yet nobody went.
In leather arm-chairs in the Union Club of Boston were comfortable old
gentlemen who had agreed to pay the guards five dollars a day and board
at the hotel, to stand in the cold and drive strikers back from the
gates; while the strikers had the hope that by standing in sufficient
numbers and with sufficient menace they might get a dollar more in
their pay envelopes every Thursday; also the certainty that if they
gave up and went away, some yet hungrier wretches would sneak in and
take their jobs. So the two groups confronted each other, the living
presence of the class struggle. “Get back there! Move along now!”
“What’s the matter? Ain’t I got a right to walk on the street?” So it
went, the ceaseless wrangling of the picket-line; the most perfect of
all civilizations engaged in dividing the product of its industry.
Two thousand had gone out, men and women, a huddled mass, speaking a
dozen different languages, and without guidance. Whoever had an impulse