U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [333]
Ils sont sourds.
Je vous embrasse.
Le coeur de Fiume est à vous.
JOE HILL
A young Swede named Hil strom went to sea, got
himself cal oused hands on sailingships and tramps,
-421-learned English in the focastle of the steamers that make the run from Stockholm to Hul , dreamed the
Swede's dream of the west;
when he got to America they gave him a job
polishing cuspidors in a Bowery saloon.
He moved west to Chicago and worked in a ma-chineshop. He moved west and fol owed the harvest, hung
around employment agencies, paid out many a dol ar
for a job in a construction camp, walked out many a mile when the grub was too bum, or the boss too tough, or too many bugs in the bunkhouse;
read Marx and the I.W.W. Preamble and
dreamed about forming the structure of the new so-ciety within the shel of the old. He was in California for the S.P. strike ( Casey Jones, two locomotives, Casey Jones), used to play the concertina outside the bunkhouse door, after supper, evenings (
Longhaired preachers come out every night), had a knack for setting rebel words to tunes ( And the union makes us strong).
Along the coast in cookshacks flophouses jungles
wobblies hoboes bindlestiffs began singing Joe Hil 's songs. They sang 'em in the county jails of the State of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, in the bul pens in Montana and Arizona, sang 'em in
Wal a Wal a, San Quentin and Leavenworth,
forming the structure of the new society within
the jails of the old.
At Bingham, Utah, Joe Hil organized the work-ers of the Utah Construction Company in the One Big Union, won a new wagescale, shorter hours, better
grub. (The angel Moroni didn't like labororganizers any better than the Southern Pacific did.)
-422-The angel Moroni moved the hearts of the Mor-mons to decide it was Joe Hil shot a grocer named Morrison. The Swedish consul and President Wilson
tried to get him a new trial but the angel Moroni moved the hearts of the supreme court of the State of Utah to sustain the verdict of guilty. He was in jail a year, went on making up songs. In November 1915 he was
stood up against the wal in the jail yard in Salt Lake City.
"Don't mourn for me organize," was the last word he sent out to the workingstiffs of the I.W.W. Joe
Hil stood up against the wal of the jail yard, looked into the muzzles of the guns and gave the word to fire. They put him in a black suit, put a stiff col ar around his neck and a bow tie, shipped him to Chicago for a bangup funeral, and photographed his handsome stony mask staring into the future.
The first of May they scattered his ashes to the
wind.
BEN COMPTON
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. . . . The old people were Jews but at school Benny always said no he wasn't a Jew he was an American because he'd been born in Brooklyn and lived at 2531 25th Avenue in Flatbush and they owned their home. The teacher in the seventh grade said he squinted and sent him home with a note, so Pop took an afternoon off from the jewelry store where he worked with a lens in his eye repairing watches, to take Benny to an optician who put drops in his eyes and made him read little teeny letters on a white card. Pop seemed tickled when the optician said Benny had to wear
-423-glasses, "Vatchmaker's eyes . . . takes after his old man," he said and patted his cheek. The steel eyeglasses were heavy on Benny's nose and cut into him behind the ears. It made him feel funny to have Pop tel ing the optician that a boy with glasses wouldn't be a bum and a basebal player like Sam and Isidore but would attend to his stud-ies and be a lawyer and a scholar like the men of old. "A rabbi maybe," said the optician, but Pop said rabbis were loafers and lived on the blood of the poor, he and the old woman stil ate kosher and kept the sabbath like their fathers but synagogue and the rabbis. . . he made a spit-ting sound with his lips. The optician laughed and said as for himself he was a freethinker but religion was good for the commonpeople. When they got home momma said the glasses made Benny look awful old. Sam and Izzy yel ed,