The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [369]
“Yes, I saw him.”
“What did he have to say?”
“Like everybody else these days, Barney’s crying.”
“That’s funny. I should think Barney would be sitting in clover after the Democratic victory last spring. And that’s nothing at all to the Democratic landslide we ought to have in the presidential elections next year if I know anything about it.”
“The way Barney was crying, he would have felt almost as good if the Republicans got a few jobs.”
“That’s funny. How come?”
`Barney did nothing but cry all the time I saw him. He was crying about the Polacks and the Bohunks. He says that they just almost cleaned out the Irish. He kept saying to me, `Paddy, if you want to get anything down at the Hall, you better put a sky on your name before you go down there.’ And he made one funny crack. He said that these days, down at the Hall, they only speak English from one to two in the afternoon.”
“That’s funny.”
“Well, Bill, tell you, you know for years all these foreigners have been let into America, and now they’ve just about damn near taken the country over. Why, from the looks of things, pretty soon a white man won’t feel at home here. What with the Jew international bankers holding all the money here, and the Polacks and Bohunks squeezing the Irish out of politics, it’s getting to be no place for a white man to live,” Lonigan said, sighing as he spoke.
“You didn’t line up any contracts then?” Studs asked, and Lonigan answered with slow and emphatic negative words.
“Barney said that these days, before a dead horse can be taken off the streets, you got to see one of the Polacks or Bohunks and get his O. K. They’ve just closed out the Irish. He told me it was just hopeless to count on any school contracts or anything like that. We’re just out of luck. He says he doubts if anything could be done, even if I put a sky on my name.”
“Gee, Dad, that’s tough. I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Bill, it’s a fright. It’s a fright.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What can a man do? I can hardly collect a cent. And every guy who owes me money seems to owe it to everybody else and his brother. If I did press some of these bastards, they’d go in bankruptcy, and their creditors would be over them like leeches, and I’d be lucky if I collected a nickel or a dime on the dollar. It wouldn’t be worth it. I suppose I might just as well plug along and hope for the best. But it’s fierce, fierce.”
“Gee, it’s tough, all right.”
“And I got to tell the Trents to go. I can’t let them stay on any longer as long as they can’t pay their rent. I just can’t. I know it’s a bad blow, a disgrace to an honest man to be thrown out of his home into the streets like a pauper, and I hate to do it. But I got to. And I tell you we’re lucky we’re not following them. That mortgage payment on the building has got to be paid next month, and they won’t be stalled off on it. I just about got enough in the bank to cover it, too. I guess I better knock on wood. But if I didn’t, well, we’d be on the street ourselves.”
Studs nodded.
“The city is busted. Why, Barney was telling me today there’s plenty of people working for the city, besides the school teachers, who aren’t getting their pay. Bailiffs and clerks and people like that.”
“Gee, Red Kelly won’t like that.”
“No, I suppose Red isn’t getting his pay, either.”
“I just know how he’ll like it,” Studs said.
“Well, that’s what we get for letting the Jew international bankers get control of our country. You know what we need? We need a man like Mussolini here in America. A strong man to take things out of the hands of the Jew international bankers and the gangsters. If we had a man like Mussolini over here for two months, he’d straighten out a lot of people and put them where they belong, behind the bars or against a wall.”
“Maybe there’s a lot to what you say.”
“No maybe about it. What does Father Moylan say? He tells what the bankers are doing. Loaning American money to Europe. If they had kept American money in America where it belongs, there wouldn’t be any depression.”
“Say, there’s something in that.”
“Then Hoover comes along and what does he do? This moratorium business. Telling Europe, no, they don