U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [375]
have very cozy meals together after long days working in the office. He talked and talked about love and the impor-tance of a healthy sexl fe for men and women, so that at last she let him. He was so tender and gentle that for a while she thought maybe she real y loved him. He knew al about contraceptives and was very nice and humorous about them. Sleeping with a man didn't make as much dif-ference in her life as she'd expected it would. The day after Harding's inauguration two seedylooking men in shapeless grey caps shuffled up to her in the lobby of the little building on G Street where George's office was. One of them was Gus Moscowski. His cheeks were hol ow and he looked tired and dirty. "Hel o, Miss French," he said. "Meet the kid brother . . . not the one that scabbed, this one's on the up and up. . . . You sure do look wel ."
"Oh, Gus, they let you out." He nodded. "New trial, cases dismissed. . . . But I tel you it's no fun in that cooler."
-144-She took them up to George's office. "I'm sure Mr. Bar-row'l want to get firsthand news of the steelworkers." Gus made a gesture of pushing something away with his hand. "We ain't steelworkers, we)re bums. . . . Your friends the senators sure sold us out pretty. Every sonofa-bitch ever walked across the street with a striker's black-listed. The old man got his job back, way back at fifty cents instead of a dol ar ten after the priest made him kiss the book and promise not to join the union. . . . Lots of people goin' back to the old country. Me an' the kid we pul ed out, went down to Baltimore to git a job on a boat somewheres but the seamen are piled up ten deep on the wharf. . . . So we thought we might as wel take in the
'nauguration and see how the fat boys looked." Mary tried to get them to take some money but they
shook their heads and said, "We don't need a handout, we can woik." They were just going when George came in. He didn't seem any too pleased to see them, and began to lecture them on violence; if the strikers hadn't threat-ened violence and al owed themselves to be misled by a lot of Bolshevik agitators, the men who were real y negotiat-ing a settlement from the inside would have been able to get them much better terms. "I won't argue with you, Mr. Barrow. I suppose you think Father Kazinski was a red and that it was Fanny Sel ers that bashed in the head of a statetrooper. An' then you say you're on the side of the woikin'man."
"And, George, even the senate committee admitted that the violence was by the deputies and statetroopers. . . . I saw it myself after al ," put in Mary.
"Of course, boys . . . I know what you're up against. I hold no brief for the Steel Trust. . . . But, Mary, what I want to impress on these boys is that the working-man is often his own worst enemy in these things."
"The woikin' man gits f'rooked whatever way you look at it," said Gus, "and I don't know whether it's his
-145-friends or his enemies does the worst rookin'. . . . Wel , we got to git a move on."
"Boys, I'm sorry I've got so much pressing business to do. I'd like to hear about your experiences. Maybe some other time," said George, settling down at his desk. As they left Mary French fol owed them to the door
and whispered to Gus, "And what about Carnegie Tech?" His eyes didn't seem so blue as they'd seemed before he went to jail. "Wel , what about it?" said Gus without look-ing at her and gently closed the groundglass door behind him.
That night while they were eating supper Mary sud-denly got to her feet,and said,
"George, we're as respon-sible as anybody for sel ing out the steelworkers.""Non-sense, Mary, it's the fault of the leaders who picked the wrong minute for the strike and then let the bosses hang a lot of crazy revolutionary notions on them. Organized labor gets stung every time it mixes in politics. Gompers knows that. We al did our best for 'em." Mary French started to walk back and forth in the
room. She was suddenly bitterly uncontrol ably angry.
"That's the way they used to talk back in Colorado Springs. I might better go back and live with Mother and do charitywork. It would be better than making a living off the workingclass."