John Passos - The 42nd Parallel

I am not a labor leader. I don’t want you to follow me or anyone else. If you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of the capitalist wilderness you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else would lead you out.

That was how he talked to freighthandlers and gandywalkers, to firemen and switchmen and engineers, telling them it wasn’t enough to organize the railroadmen, that all workers must be organized, that all workers must be organized in the workers’ cooperative commonwealth.

Locomotive fireman on many a long night’s run,

under the smoke a fire burned him up, burned in gusty words that beat in pineboarded halls; he wanted his brothers to be free men.

That was what he saw in the crowd that met him at the Old Wells Street Depot when he came out of jail after the Pullman strike,

those were the men that chalked up nine hundred thousand votes for him in nineteen twelve and scared the frockcoats and the tophats and diamonded hostesses at Saratoga Springs, Bar Harbor, Lake Geneva with the bogy of a socialist president.

But where were Gene Debs’ brothers in nineteen eighteen when Woodrow Wilson had him locked up in Atlanta for speaking against war,

where were the big men fond of whisky and fond of each other, gentle rambling tellers of stories over bars in small towns in the Middle West,

quiet men who wanted a house with a porch to putter around and a fat wife to cook for them, a few drinks and cigars, a garden to dig in, cronies to chew the rag with

and wanted to work for it

and others to work for it;

where were the locomotive firemen and engineers when they hustled him off to Atlanta Penitentiary?

And they brought him back to die in Terre Haute

to sit on his porch in a rocker with a cigar in his mouth,

beside him American Beauty roses his wife fixed in a bowl;

and the people of Terre Haute and the people in Indiana and the people of the Middle West were fond of him and afraid of him and thought of him as an old kindly uncle who loved them, and wanted to be with him and to have him give them candy,

but they were afraid of him as if he had contracted a social disease, syphilis or leprosy, and thought it was too bad,

but on account of the flag

and prosperity

and making the world safe for democracy,

they were afraid to be with him,

or to think much about him for fear they might believe him;

for he said:

While there is a lower class I am of it, while there is a criminal class I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am not free.

riding backwards through the rain in the rumbly cab looking at their two faces in the jiggly light of the four-wheeled cab and Her big trunks thumping on the roof and He reciting Othello in his lawyer’s voice

Her father loved me, oft invited me

Still questioned me the story of my life

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes

That I have past.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days ,

To th’ very moment that he bade me tell it

Wherein I spoke of the most disastrous chances

Of moving accidents by flood and field

Of hairbreadth ’scapes i’ th’ imminent deadly breach

why that’s the Schuylkill the horse’s hoofs rattle sharp on smooth wet asphalt after cobbles through the gray streaks of rain the river shimmers ruddy with winter mud When I was your age Jack I dove off this bridge through the rail of the bridge we can look way down into the cold rainyshimmery water Did you have any clothes on? Just my shirt

Fainy stood near the door in the crowded elevated train; against the back of the fat man who held on to the strap in front of him, he kept rereading a letter on crisp watermarked stationery:

The Truthseeker Literary Distributing Co., Inc.

General Offices 1104 S. Hamlin Avenue

Chicago, Ill. April 14, 1904

Fenian O’H. McCreary

456 N. Wood Street

Chicago, Ill.

DEAR SIR:

We take the pleasure to acknowledge yours of the 10th inst.

In reference to the matter in hand we feel that much could be gained by a personal interview. If you will be so good as to step around to the above address on Monday April 16th at nine o’clock, we feel that the matter of your adaptability for the position for which you have applied can be thoroughly thrashed out.

Yours in search for Truth,

EMMANUEL R. BINGHAM, D.D.

Fainy was scared. The train got to his station too soon. He had fifteen minutes to walk two blocks in. He loafed along the street, looking in store windows. There was a golden pheasant, stuffed, in a taxidermist’s; above it hung a big flat greenish fish with a sawtoothed bill from which dangled a label:

SAWFISH (pristis perrotetti)

Habitat Gulf and Florida waters. Frequents shallow bays and inlets.

Maybe he wouldn’t go at all. In the back of the window was a lynx and on the other side a bobtailed cat, each on its limb of a tree. Suddenly he caught his breath. He’d be late. He went tearing off down the block.

He was breathless and his heart was pounding to beat the cars when he reached the top of the fourth flight of stairs. He studied the groundglass doors on the landing;

THE UNIVERSAL CONTACT COMPANY

F. W. Perkins

Assurance

THE WINDY CITY MAGIC AND NOVELTY COMPANY

Dr. Noble

Hospital and Sickroom Supplies

The last one was a grimy door in the back beside the toilet. The goldleaf had come off the letters, but he was able to spell out from the outlines:

THE GENERAL OUTFITTING AND

MERCHANTIZING CORPORATION

Then he saw a card on the wall beside the door with a hand holding a torch drawn out on it and under it the words “Truthseeker Inc.” He tapped gingerly on the glass. No answer. He tapped again.

“Come in… Don’t knock,” called out a deep voice. Fainy found himself stuttering as he opened the door and stepped into a dark, narrow room completely filled up by two huge rolltop desks:

“Please, I called to see Mr. Bingham, sir.”

At the further desk, in front of the single window sat a big man with a big drooping jaw that gave him a little of the expression of a setter dog. His black hair was long and curled a little over each ear, on the back of his head was a broad black felt hat. He leaned back in his chair and looked Fainy up and down.

“How do you do, young man? What kind of books are you inclined to purchase this morning? What can I do for you this morning?” he boomed.

“Are you Mr. Bingham, sir, please?”

“This is Doc Bingham right here before you.”

“Please, sir, I… I came about that job.”

Doc Bingham’s expression changed. He twisted his mouth as if he’d just tasted something sour. He spun round in his swivelchair and spat into a brass spittoon in the corner of the room. Then he turned to Fainy again and leveled a fat finger at him, “Young man, how do you spell experience?”

“E… x… p… er… er… er… i… a… n…”

“That’ll do… No education… I thought as much… No culture, none of those finer feelings that distinguish the civilized man from the savage aborigines of the wilds… No enthusiasm for truth, for bringing light into dark places… Do you realize, young man, that it is not a job I’m offering you, it is a great opportunity… a splendid opportunity for service and selfimprovement. I’m offering you an education gratis.”

Fainy shuffled his feet. He had a husk in his throat.

“If it’s in the printin’ line I guess I could do it.”