John Passos - The 42nd Parallel

Rattler sweat somethin’ awful on account o’ bein’ fed corn in this hot weather and the old saddle stank and the horsedoctors buzzed round his flanks and it was time for supper and you’d ride slowly home hating the goddam exhausted land and the drought that wouldn’t let the garden grow and the katydids and the dryflies jeering out of the sapling gums and persimmons ghostly with dust along the road and the sickleshaped beach where the seanettles stung you when you tried to swim out and the chiggers and the little scraps of talk about what was going on up to the Hague or Warsaw or Pekatone and the phone down at the cottage that kept ringing whenever any farmer’s wife along the line took up the receiver to talk to any other farmer’s wife and all down the line you could hear the receivers click as they all ran to the receiver to listen to what was said

and the land between the rivers was flat drained of all strength by tobacco in the early Walter Raleigh Captain John Smith Pocahontas days but what was it before the war that drained out the men and women?

and I rode Rattler the threeyearold sorrel gelding who stumbled so much and I hated the suncaked hardpan and the clay subsoil and the soughing pines and the noaccount gums and persimmonbushes and the brambles

there was only the bay you could like sparkling to the horizon and the southeast wind that freshened every afternoon and the white sails of bugeyes

lights go out as Home Sweet Home is played to patrons low wages cause unrest, woman says

There’s a girl in the heart of Maryland

With a heart that belongs to me

WANT BIG WAR OR NONE

the mannequin who is such a feature of the Paris racecourse surpasses herself in the launching of novelties. She will put on the most amazing costume and carry it with perfect sangfroid. Inconsistency is her watchword

Three German staff officers who passed nearby were nearly mobbed by enthusiastic people who insisted on shaking their hands

Girl Steps On Match; Dress Ignited; Dies

And Mary-land

Was fairy-land

When she said that mine she’d be

DANUBE SHOTS SIGNAL FOR EARLY STRIFE

I’m against capital punishment as are all levelminded women. I hate to think any woman would attend a hanging. It is a terrible thing for the state to commit murder

CZAR LOSES PATIENCE WITH AUSTRIA

panic in exodus from Carlsbad disappearance of Major reveals long series of assassinations decollete in broad daylight lingerie frocks that by no possible means could be associated with the tub What shall be worn next? Paris cries choirboys go camping professor to tour woods Belgrade Falls

GENERAL WAR NEAR

ASSASSIN SLAYS DEPUTY JAURES

LIVES TWO HOURS AFTER HE’S DEAD

I lost a friend and a pal when Garros gave up his life but I expect to lose more friends in the profession before this war is over

LOST TRUNKS SHOW UP IN LONDON

conventions of one sort or another are inevitably sidestepped or trod upon during the languid or restful days of summer, and because of the relaxation just now there are several members of the younger set whose debutante days lie in the distance of two or even three seasons hence enjoying the glory of

BLACK POPE ALSO DEAD

large quantities of Virginia tobacco to be imported to England especially for the use of British troops on the continent

There’s a girl in the heart of Maryland

With a heart that belongs to me

Andrew Carnegie

was born in Dunfermline in Scotland,

came over to the States in an immigrant

ship worked as bobbinboy in a textile factory

fired boilers

clerked in a bobbin factory at $2.50 a week

ran round Philadelphia with telegrams as a Western Union messenger

learned the Morse code was telegraph operator on the Pennsy lines

was a military telegraph operator in the Civil War and

always saved his pay;

whenever he had a dollar he invested it.

Andrew Carnegie started out buying Adams Express and Pullman stock when they were in a slump;

he had confidence in railroads,

he had confidence in communications,

he had confidence in transportation,

he believed in iron.

Andrew Carnegie believed in iron, built bridges Bessemer plants blast furnaces rolling mills;

Andrew Carnegie believed in oil;

Andrew Carnegie believed in steel;

always saved his money

whenever he had a million dollars he invested it.

Andrew Carnegie became the richest man in the world

and died.

Bessemer Duquesne Rankin Pittsburgh Bethlehem Gary

Andrew Carnegie gave millions for peace

and libraries and scientific institutes and endowments and thrift

whenever he made a billion dollars he endowed an institution to promote universal peace

always

except in time of war.

all week the fog clung to the sea and the cliffs at noon there was just enough warmth of the sun through the fog to keep the salt cod drying on the flakes gray flakes green sea gray houses white fog at noon there was just enough sun to ripen bakeapple and wildpear on the moorlands to warm the bayberry and sweetfern mealtimes in the boardinghouse everybody waited for the radio operators the radio operators could hardly eat yes it was war

Will we go in? will Britain go in?

Obligations according to the treaty of… handed the ambassador his passports every morning they put out the cod on the flakes spreading them even in the faint glow of the sun through the fog

a steamer blowing in the distance the lap of the waves against piles along the seaweedy rocks scream of gulls clatter of boardinghouse dishes

War declared expedit… Big battle in the North Sea German Fleet Destroyed BRITISH FLEET DESTROYED GERMAN SQUADRON OFF CAPE RACE loyal Newfoundlanders to the colors Port closed at St. Johns Port aux Basques

and every evening they brought in the cod off the flakes clatter of boardinghouse dishes and everybody waiting for the radio operators

lap of the waves against the piles of the wharf, scream of gulls circling and swooping white in the white fog a steamer blowing in the distance and every morning they spread out the cod on the flakes

When Ward came back from his second honeymoon abroad he was thirtytwo, but he looked older. He had the capital and the connections and felt that the big moment had come. The war talk in July had decided him to cut short his trip. In London he’d picked up a young man named Edgar Robbins who was in Europe for International News. Edgar Robbins drank too much and was a fool about the women, but Ward and Gertrude took him around with them everywhere and confided in each other that they wanted to straighten him out. Then one day Robbins took Ward aside and said that he had syphilis and would have to follow the straight and narrow. Ward thought the matter over a little and offered him a job in the New York office that he was going to open as soon as he got home. They told Gertrude it was liver trouble and she scolded him like a child when he took a drink and on the boat back to America they felt he was completely devoted to both of them. Ward didn’t have to write any copy after that and could put in all his time organizing the business. Old Mrs. Staple had been induced to put fifty thousand dollars into the firm. Ward rented an office at 100 Fifth Avenue, fitted it up with Chinese porcelain vases and cloisonné ashtrays from Vantine’s and had a tigerskin rug in his private office. He served tea in the English style every afternoon and put himself in the telephone book as J. Ward Moorehouse, Public Relations Counsel. While Robbins was drafting the literature to be sent out, Ward went to Pittsburgh and Chicago and Bethlehem and Philadelphia to reëstablish contacts.