Sinclair Lewis - The Collected Works of Sinclair Lewis

Frink whispered, “Hope the doc gives the strikers hell! Ordinarily, I don't believe in a preacher butting into political matters — let him stick to straight religion and save souls, and not stir up a lot of discussion — but at a time like this, I do think he ought to stand right up and bawl out those plug-uglies to a fare-you-well!”

“Yes — well — ” said Babbitt.

The Rev. Dr. Drew, his rustic bang flopping with the intensity of his poetic and sociologic ardor, trumpeted:

“During the untoward series of industrial dislocations which have — let us be courageous and admit it boldly — throttled the business life of our fair city these past days, there has been a great deal of loose talk about scientific prevention of scientific — SCIENTIFIC! Now, let me tell you that the most unscientific thing in the world is science! Take the attacks on the established fundamentals of the Christian creed which were so popular with the 'scientists' a generation ago. Oh, yes, they were mighty fellows, and great poo-bahs of criticism! They were going to destroy the church; they were going to prove the world was created and has been brought to its extraordinary level of morality and civilization by blind chance. Yet the church stands just as firmly to-day as ever, and the only answer a Christian pastor needs make to the long-haired opponents of his simple faith is just a pitying smile!

“And now these same 'scientists' want to replace the natural condition of free competition by crazy systems which, no matter by what high-sounding names they are called, are nothing but a despotic paternalism. Naturally, I'm not criticizing labor courts, injunctions against men proven to be striking unjustly, or those excellent unions in which the men and the boss get together. But I certainly am criticizing the systems in which the free and fluid motivation of independent labor is to be replaced by cooked-up wage-scales and minimum salaries and government commissions and labor federations and all that poppycock.

“What is not generally understood is that this whole industrial matter isn't a question of economics. It's essentially and only a matter of Love, and of the practical application of the Christian religion! Imagine a factory — instead of committees of workmen alienating the boss, the boss goes among them smiling, and they smile back, the elder brother and the younger. Brothers, that's what they must be, loving brothers, and then strikes would be as inconceivable as hatred in the home!”

It was at this point that Babbitt muttered, “Oh, rot!”

“Huh?” said Chum Frink.

“He doesn't know what he's talking about. It's just as clear as mud. It doesn't mean a darn thing.”

“Maybe, but — ”

Frink looked at him doubtfully, through all the service kept glancing at him doubtfully, till Babbitt was nervous.

II

The strikers had announced a parade for Tuesday morning, but Colonel Nixon had forbidden it, the newspapers said. When Babbitt drove west from his office at ten that morning he saw a drove of shabby men heading toward the tangled, dirty district beyond Court House Square. He hated them, because they were poor, because they made him feel insecure. “Damn loafers! Wouldn't be common workmen if they had any pep,” he complained. He wondered if there was going to be a riot. He drove toward the starting-point of the parade, a triangle of limp and faded grass known as Moore Street Park, and halted his car.

The park and streets were buzzing with strikers, young men in blue denim shirts, old men with caps. Through them, keeping them stirred like a boiling pot, moved the militiamen. Babbitt could hear the soldiers' monotonous orders: “Keep moving — move on, 'bo — keep your feet warm!” Babbitt admired their stolid good temper. The crowd shouted, “Tin soldiers,” and “Dirty dogs — servants of the capitalists!” but the militiamen grinned and answered only, “Sure, that's right. Keep moving, Billy!”

Babbitt thrilled over the citizen-soldiers, hated the scoundrels who were obstructing the pleasant ways of prosperity, admired Colonel Nixon's striding contempt for the crowd; and as Captain Clarence Drum, that rather puffing shoe-dealer, came raging by, Babbitt respectfully clamored, “Great work, Captain! Don't let 'em march!” He watched the strikers filing from the park. Many of them bore posters with “They can't stop our peacefully walking.” The militiamen tore away the posters, but the strikers fell in behind their leaders and straggled off, a thin unimpressive trickle between steel-glinting lines of soldiers. Babbitt saw with disappointment that there wasn't going to be any violence, nothing interesting at all. Then he gasped.

Among the marchers, beside a bulky young workman, was Seneca Doane, smiling, content. In front of him was Professor Brockbank, head of the history department in the State University, an old man and white-bearded, known to come from a distinguished Massachusetts family.

“Why, gosh,” Babbitt marveled, “a swell like him in with the strikers? And good ole Senny Doane! They're fools to get mixed up with this bunch. They're parlor socialists! But they have got nerve. And nothing in it for them, not a cent! And — I don't know 's ALL the strikers look like such tough nuts. Look just about like anybody else to me!”

The militiamen were turning the parade down a side street.

“They got just as much right to march as anybody else! They own the streets as much as Clarence Drum or the American Legion does!” Babbitt grumbled. “Of course, they're — they're a bad element, but — Oh, rats!”

At the Athletic Club, Babbitt was silent during lunch, while the others fretted, “I don't know what the world's coming to,” or solaced their spirits with “kidding.”

Captain Clarence Drum came swinging by, splendid in khaki.

“How's it going, Captain?” inquired Vergil Gunch.

“Oh, we got 'em stopped. We worked 'em off on side streets and separated 'em and they got discouraged and went home.”

“Fine work. No violence.”

“Fine work nothing!” groaned Mr. Drum. “If I had my way, there'd be a whole lot of violence, and I'd start it, and then the whole thing would be over. I don't believe in standing back and wet-nursing these fellows and letting the disturbances drag on. I tell you these strikers are nothing in God's world but a lot of bomb-throwing socialists and thugs, and the only way to handle 'em is with a club! That's what I'd do; beat up the whole lot of 'em!”

Babbitt heard himself saying, “Oh, rats, Clarence, they look just about like you and me, and I certainly didn't notice any bombs.”

Drum complained, “Oh, you didn't, eh? Well, maybe you'd like to take charge of the strike! Just tell Colonel Nixon what innocents the strikers are! He'd be glad to hear about it!” Drum strode on, while all the table stared at Babbitt.

“What's the idea? Do you want us to give those hell-hounds love and kisses, or what?” said Orville Jones.

“Do you defend a lot of hoodlums that are trying to take the bread and butter away from our families?” raged Professor Pumphrey.

Vergil Gunch intimidatingly said nothing. He put on sternness like a mask; his jaw was hard, his bristly short hair seemed cruel, his silence was a ferocious thunder. While the others assured Babbitt that they must have misunderstood him, Gunch looked as though he had understood only too well. Like a robed judge he listened to Babbitt's stammering:

“No, sure; course they're a bunch of toughs. But I just mean — Strikes me it's bad policy to talk about clubbing 'em. Cabe Nixon doesn't. He's got the fine Italian hand. And that's why he's colonel. Clarence Drum is jealous of him.”

“Well,” said Professor Pumphrey, “you hurt Clarence's feelings, George. He's been out there all morning getting hot and dusty, and no wonder he wants to beat the tar out of those sons of guns!”