Cy Warman - Snow on the Headlight

"Well," said the man, seating himself in the door of the car, "I started out to get work—had my card from the Union and felt sure of success. I had only been married a year, but of course I had to leave my wife in Buffalo until I got located. When I applied for work I was asked for references and I had none. I told them where I had worked; they asked me to call later, and I called, only to learn that they didn't need any more men. This performance was repeated in every town I struck, until I began to believe that I had been blacklisted. In time my money gave out. I wrote to my wife and she sent me money. When that was gone I sent for more, not stopping to think that she had to eat, too, and that I had given her but ten dollars when I left home; but she sent me money.

"Then there came a time when she could not send me anything; I could not keep up my dues in the Union, so was expelled. After that I found it hard to get passes. Lots of times I had to steal them, and finally—for the first time in my life—I stole something to eat. Say, pardner, did you ever get so hungry that the hunger cramped you like cholera morbus?"

"No."

"Then I reckon you've never stole, or what's worse, scabbed?"

"No."

"Well—I've done both, though this is the first time I've scabbed. As I was sayin' I got down so low that I had to steal, and then I thought of my wife, of how terrible it would be if she should have to steal, or maybe worse, and the thought of it drove me almost crazy. She was a pretty girl when I married her, an orphan only eighteen and I was twenty-eight. I determined to go home at once, but before I could get out of town I was arrested as a vag and sent up for sixty days. I thought at that time that my punishment was great,—that the mental and physical suffering that I endured in the workhouse was all that I could stand,—but I've seen it beaten since. At last they told me that I could go, but that I would be expected to shake the city of Chicago before the sun rose on the following day, and I did. I hung myself up on the trucks of a Pullman on the Lake Shore Limited and landed in Buffalo just before dawn. As I hurried along the old familiar streets I noticed a crowd of people standing by a narrow canal and stopped to see what the excitement was. I saw them fish the limp and lifeless form of a woman out of the muddy water and when the moonlight fell upon her face it startled me, for it was so like her face. A moment later I got near enough to see that the victim was a blonde, and my wife was brunette. Presently I came to the house where we had lived, but it was closed and dark. I aroused a number of the neighbors, but none of them knew where the little woman had gone.

"'Shure,' said an old woman who was peddling milk, 'I don't know phere she's at at all, at all. That big good-fur-nothin' man o' hern has gone along and deserted of her an' broke the darlint's heart, so 'e 'as an' the end uv it all will be that she'll be afther drownin' 'erself in the canal beyant wan uv these foine nights.'

"All through the morning I searched the place for her, but not a trace could I find. It seemed that she had dropped out of the world, utterly, and that no one had missed her. Finally I was so hungry that I begged a bite to eat and went down by the canal and fell asleep. Here a strange thing happened. I had a dreadful dream. I dreamed that I saw my wife being dragged from the dark waters of the canal. She had the same sad, sweet face, but not the same hair. I awoke in a cold sweat. I was now seized with an irresistible longing to look once more upon the face of the dead woman whom I had seen them fish from the foul waters that morning, and I set out for the morgue. I entered unnoticed and there lay the dead woman with her white hands folded upon her dead breast. She had the same sad, sweet face, but not the same hair, but it was she—it was my wife."

The vag let his head fall so that his eyes rested upon the ground. Patsy fished something from his vest and holding it out to the man, said: "Here's a one-dollar bill and a three-dollar meal ticket—which will you have?"

"Gi' me the pie-card."

"Which shows you're not a regular bum," said Patsy.

"No," said the man, eyeing the meal ticket with its twenty-one unpunched holes. "I never cared for liquor, only once in a while when a bum makes a lift I take a nip just to stop the awful gnawing, cramping pain of hunger, but it only makes you feel worse afterwards. But it's interesting," said the tramp, thoughtfully. "If it were not for the hunger and cold this new life that I have dropped into wouldn't be half bad. You get a closer glimpse of the miseries of mankind and a better notion of the causes that bring it all about. It educates you. Now take this fight for instance. You fellows feel sure of success, but I know better. Only two men of all the vast army of strikers have deserted so far, but wait. Wait till the pain of hunger hits you and doubles you up like a jack-knife, and it's sure to come. Behind the management there are merciless millions of money: behind the strikers the gaunt wolf of hunger stalks in the snow. Can you beat a game like that? Never. And after all what right have you and your people to expect mercy at the hands of organized capital? Does the Union show mercy to men like me? To escape the blight of the black-list I changed my name. Three times I found work, but in each instance the company were forced to discharge me or have a strike. I was not a Union man and so had to steal a ride out of town. Once I asked a farmer for work and he set me to digging post holes and every time a man came by I hid myself in the grass. 'What you hidin' fur?' the farmer asked. Then I told him that I didn't belong to the Union.

"'What Union?' says he.

"'The post-hole Union' says I—'in fact, I don't belong to any Union.'

"'They ain't no post-hole Union,' says the farmer indignantly, 'an' you know it. What you're givin' me is hog-wash—you've been stealin'. Here's a quarter fur what you've done—now git.'

"I tried to reason with him, but he only shook his thick head and began whistling for his dog, and I got. Yes, pardner, it seems to me that the tyranny of organized capital and the tyranny of organized labor are close competitors, and in their wake come the twin curses—the black-list and the boycot. Hand in hand they go, like red liquor and crime. But you can't right these wrongs the way you're headed now," said the philosopher. "Everything is against you. Wealth works wonders. The press, the telephone through which the public talks back to itself, is hoarse with the repetition of the story of your wrong-doings. Until the Government puts a limit to the abuses of trusts and monopolies, and organized labor has learned that there are other interests which have rights under the Constitution, there will be no peace on earth, no good will toward man. When the trusts are controlled, and labor submits its grievances to an impartial, unbiased board of arbitration, then there will be peace and plenty. The wages that you are now losing and the money squandered by vulgar and ignorant leaders, will then be used in building up and beautifying homes. The time thrown away in useless agitation and in idleness will be spent for the intellectual advancement of working men, and the millions of money lost in wrecked railroads will find its way to the pockets of honest investors."

While this lecture, which interested Patsy, was being delivered the two men had become oblivious of their surroundings, but now the wild cry of a mob in a neighboring street, the rattle of sticks and stones and the occasional bark of a six-shooter brought them back to the business before them.

Wave after wave the rioters rolled against the little band of officers, but like billows that break upon a stony shore they were forced to roll back again. Like the naked minions of Montezuma, who hurled themselves against the armored army of the Spaniards, the strikers and their abetters were invariably beaten back with bruised heads and broken bones. If a luckless striker fell he was trampled upon by the horses of the mounted police or kicked into unconsciousness by the desperate deputies.