NEWSREEL XXXVII 2 страница

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maybe she was imagining it on account of her and Dick.
Now and then she gave him a sideways glance. He looked
so different from the way she'd known him sitting there
so prim and prissylooking, talking to the stout woman in
pink in a low pompous whisper now and then. It made
her want to throw a plate at him.

It was a relief when the orchestra started playing dance
music. Mr. Barrow wasn't a very good dancer and she
didn't like the way he kept squeezing her hand and patting
her neck. After they were through dancing they went into
the bar to have a gin fizz. The ceiling was hung with
tricolor decoration; the four French officers were in there;
there were people singing La Madelon de la Victoire and
all the tough little girls were laughing and talking loud
shrill French. Mr. Barrow was whispering in her ear all
the time, "Darling girl, you must let me take you home
tonight. . . . You mustn't sail . . . I'm sure I can ar-
range everything with the Red Cross or whatever it is.
. . . I've led such an unhappy life and I think I'd kill
myself if I had to give you up . . . couldn't you love
me just a little . . . I've dedicated my life to unattainable
ideals and here I am getting old without grasping true
happiness for a moment. You're the only girl I've ever
known who seemed really a beautiful pagan at heart . . .
appreciate the art of life." Then he kissed her wetly in
the ear.

"But, George, I can't love anybody now . . . I hate
everybody."

"Let me teach you just give me a chance."

"If you knew about me, you wouldn't want me," she said
coldly. She caught again a funny scared look on his face
and a thinning of his lips over his widely spaced teeth.

They went back to the table. She sat there fidgeting
while everybody talked carefully, with long pauses, about
the Peace Treaty, when it was going to be signed, whether
the Germans would sign. Then she couldn't stand it any

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longer and went to the ladies' room to powder her nose.
On the way back to the table she peeped into the bar to
see what was going on in there. The hawknosed French
officer caught sight of her, jumped to his feet, clicked his
heels together, saluted, bowed and said in broken English,
"Charming lady, will you not stay a moment and drink
once with your umble servant?" Daughter went to their
table and sat down. "You boys looked like you were having
such a good time," she said. "I'm with the worst old set
of plush horses . . . They make me tired.""Permettez,
mademoiselle," he said, and introduced her to his friends.
He was an aviator. They were all aviation officers. His
name was Pierre. When she told them her brother had been
an aviator and had been killed, they were very nice to her.
She couldn't help letting them think Bud had been killed
at the front. "Mademoiselle," said Pierre solemnly, "allow
me, with all possible respect, to be your brother.""Shake,"
she said. They all shook hands solemnly, they were drink-
ing little glasses of cognac, but after that they ordered
champagne. She danced with them all. She was very happy
and didn't care what happened. They were young good-
looking boys, all the time laughing and nice to her. They
had clasped their hands and were dancing ring around the
rosy in the middle of the floor while everybody around
was clapping, when she saw Mr. Barrow's face red and
indignant in the door. Next time the doorway spun around
she yelled over her shoulder, "Be back in a minute,
teacher." The face disappeared. She was dizzy but Pierre
caught her and held her tight; he smelt of perfume but
still she liked having him hold her tight.

He suggested they go somewhere else, "Mademoiselle
Sistair," he whispered, "allow us to show you the mystères
de Paree . . . afterwards we can come back to your plus
orsairs. They will probably become intoxicate . . . plus
orsairs invariably intoxicate." They laughed. He had grey
eyes and light hair, he said he was a Norman. She said

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he was the nicest Frenchman she'd ever met. She had a
hard time getting her coat from the checkroom because
she didn't have any check, but she went in and picked it
out while Pierre talked French to the checkgirl. They got
into a long low grey car; Daughter had never seen such
speeding. Pierre was a fine driver though; he had a game
of running full speed towards a gendarme and swerving
just enough at the right moment. She said supposing he
hit one; he shrugged his shoulders and said, "It does not
mattair . . . they are . . . ow do you call it? . . .
bloody cows." They went to Maxims, where it was too
quiet for them, then to a little tough dancehall way across
Paris. Daughter could see that Pierre was wellknown
everywhere and an Ace. The other aviators met girls in
different places and dropped away. Before she realized it
she and Pierre were alone in the long grey car. "Primo,"
he was explaining, "we will go to Les Halles to eat soupe
à l'oignon . . . and then I shall take you a little tour en
avion.""Oh, please do. I've never been up in a plane
. . . I'd like to go up and loop the loop . . . promise
you'll loop the loop.""Entendu," he said.

They sat a little sleepily in a small empty eatingplace
and ate onion soup and drank some more champagne. He
was still very kind and considerate but he seemed to have
exhausted his English. She thought vaguely about going
back to the hotel and catching the boattrain, but all she
seemed to be able to say was, "Loop the loop, promise me
you'll loop the loop." His eyes had gotten a little glazy,
"With Mademoiselle Sistair," he said, "I do not make
love . . . I make loop the loop."

It was a long drive out to the aviation field. A little
greyness of dawn was creeping over everything. Pierre
couldn't drive straight any more, so that she had to grab
the wheel once or twice to steady him. When they drew
up with a jerk at the field she could see the row of hangars
and three planes standing out in deepest blue and beyond,

-415-

rows of poplartrees against the silver rim of the plain.
Overhead the sky sagged heavily like a wet tent. Daughter
got out of the car shivering. Pierre was staggering a little.
"Perhaps you will go instead to bed . . . to bed it is very
good," he said yawning. She put her arm around him,
"You promised you'd take me up and loop the loop."
"Allright," he said angrily and walked towards one of the
planes. He fumbled with the engine a while and she could
hear him swearing in French. Then he went into the
hangar to wake up a mechanic. Daughter stood there
shivering in the growing silvery light. She wouldn't think
of anything. She wanted to go up in a plane. Her head
ached but she didn't feel nauseated. When the mechanic
came back with Pierre she could make out that he was
arguing with him trying to make him give up the flight.
She got very sore: " Pierre, you've got to take me up," she
yelled at the two men sleepily arguing in French. "Aw-
right, Mademoiselle Sistair." They wrapped a heavy army-
coat around her and strapped her very carefully in the
observer's seat. Pierre climbed into the pilot seat. It was
a Bleriot monoplane, he said. The mechanic spun the
propeller. The engine started. Everything was full of the
roar of the engine. Suddenly she was scared and sober,
thought about home and Dad and Buster and the boat she
was going to take tomorrow, no it was today. It seemed
an endless time with the engine roaring. The light was
brighter. She started to fumble with the straps to unstrap
them. It was crazy going up like this. She had to catch that
boat. The plane had started. It was bouncing over the
field, bouncing along the ground. They were still on the
ground rumbling bouncing along. Maybe it wouldn't go
up. She hoped it wouldn't go up. A row of poplars swept
past below them. The motor was a settled roar now, they
were climbing. It was daylight; a cold silver sun shone in
her face. Underneath them was a floor of thick white

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clouds like a beach. She was terribly cold and stunned by
the roar of the motor. The man in goggles in front of
her turned around and yelled something. She couldn't
hear. She'd forgotten who Pierre was. She stretched her
hand out towards him and waved it around. The plane
went on climbing steadily. She began to see hills standing
up in the light on either side of the white beach of clouds,
must be the valley of the Seine full of fog; where was
Paris? They were plunging into the sun, no, no, don't,
don't, now it's the end. The white clouds were a ceiling
overhead, the sun spun around once first fast then slowly
then the plane was climbing again. She felt terribly sick,
she was afraid she was going to faint. Dying must be like
this. Perhaps she'd have a miscarriage. Her body was
throbbing with the roar of the engine. She had barely
strength enough to stretch her hand toward him again
and make the same motion. The same thing again. This
time she didn't feel so bad. They were climbing again
into blue sky, a wind must have come up because the
plane was lunging a little, took an occasional sickening
drop into a pocket. The face in the goggles turned around
and swayed from side to side. She thought the lips formed
the words, No good; but now she could see Paris like an
embroidered pincushion, with all the steeples and the Eiffel
Tower and the towers of the Trocadèro sticking up through
a milky haze. The Sacré Cœur on Montmartre was very
white and cast a shadow clear to the garden that looked
like a map. Then it was behind them and they were circling
over green country. It was rough and she began to feel
sick again. There was a ripping sound of some kind. A
little wire waving loose and glistening against the blue
began to whine. She tried to yell to the man in goggles.
He turned and saw her waving and went into another
dive. This time. No. Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the Sacré
Cœur, the green fields spun. They were climbing again.

-417-

Daughter saw the shine of a wing gliding by itself a little
way from the plane. The spinning sun blinded her as they
dropped.

NEWSREEL XXXIX

spectacle of ruined villages and tortured earth "the work
of fiends" wrings heart of Mr. Hugh C. Wallace during his
visit to wasted and shelltorn regions

WHIPPET TANKS ON FIFTH AVENUE STIR LOAN
ENTHUSIASM

U. S. MOBILIZES IN ORIENT AGAINST
JAP MENACE

Rule Britannia, rule the waves
Britains never never shall be slaves

YOUYG WOMAN FOUND STRANGLED IN YONKERS

the socialrevolutionaries are the agents of Denekine,
Kolchak and the Allied Imperial Armies. I was one of the
organizers of the Soldiers, Sailors and Workmen's council in
Seattle. There is the same sentiment in this meeting that
appeared at our first meeting in Seattle when 5000 men in
uniform attended. EX-KAISER SPENDS HOURS IN
WRITING. Speaking broadly their choice is between revolu-
tionary socialism and anarchy. England already has plunged
into socialism, France hesitates, Belgium has gone, Italy is
going, while Lenine's shadow grows stronger and stronger
over the conference.

TEN SHIPS LAID BARRIER OF SUDDEN DEATH FROM
ORKNEYS TO SKAGGERAK

NO COAL? TRY PEAT

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If you want to find the generals
I know where they are
If you want to find the generals
I know where they are

masses still don't know how the war started, how it was
conducted or how it ended, declared Maximilian Harden.
The war ministry was stormed by demonstrators who dragged
out Herr Neuring and threw him into the Elbe where he was
shot and killed as he tried to swim to the bank

VICIOUS PRACTICES RESPONSIBLE FOR HIGH LIVING
COST, WILSON TELLS CONGRESS

I saw them
I saw them
Down in the
Deep dugout

THE CAMERA EYE (41)

arent you coming to the anarchist picnic there's
going to be an anarchist picnic sure you've got to come to
the anarchist picnic this afternoon it was way out at Garches
in a kind of park it took a long time to get out there we
were late there were youngsters and young girls with
glasses and old men with their whiskers and long white
zits and everybody wore black artist ties some had
taken off their shoes and stockings and were wandering
around in the long grass a young man with a black artist
tie was reading a poem Voilà said a voice c'est plûtot le

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geste proletaire it was a nice afternoon we sat on the grass
and looked around le geste proletaire

But God damn it they've got all the machineguns in the
world all the printingpresses linotypes tickerribbon curling
irons plushhorses Ritz and we you I? barehands a few
songs not very good songs plûtot le geste proletaire

Les bourgeois à la lanterne nom de dieu

et l'humanité la futurité la lutte des classes l'inépuis-
able angoisse des foules la misère du travailleur tu sais mon
vieux sans blague

it was chilly early summer gloaming among the eight-
eenthcenturyshaped trees when we started home I sat
on the impériale of the third class car with the daughter
of the Libertaire (that's Patrick Henry ours after all give
me or death) a fine girl her father she said never let her
go out alone never let her see any young men it was like
being in a convent she wanted liberty fraternity equality
and a young man to take her out in the tunnels the coal-
gas made us cough and she wanted l'Amérique la vie le
theatre le feev o'clock le smoking le foxtrot she was a
nice girl we sat side by side on the roof of the car and
looked at the banlieue de Paris a desert of little ginger-
bread brick maisonettes flattening out under the broad
gloom of evening she and I tu sais mon ami but what kind
of goddam management is this?

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NEWSREEL XL

CRIMINAL IN PYJAMAS SAWS BARS;
SCALES WALLS; FLEES

Italians! against all and everything remember that the
beacon is lighted at Fiume and that all harangues are contained
in the words: Fiume or Death.

Criez au quatre vents que je n'accepte aucune transaction.
Le reste ici contre tout le monde et je prépare de très mauvais
jours.

Criez cela je vous prie a tû-tête

the call for enlistments mentions a chance for gold service
stripes, opportunities for big game hunting and thrilling water-
sports added to the general advantages of travel in foreign
countries

Chi va piano
Va sano
Chi va forte
Va 'la morte
Evviva la libertá

EARTHQUAKE IN ITALY DEVASTATES
LIKE WAR

only way Y.M.C.A. girls can travel is on troop ships;
part of fleet will go seaward to help Wilson

DEMPSEY KNOCKS OUT WILLARD IN
THIRD ROUND

Ils sont sourds.
Je vous embrasse.
Le cœur de Fiume est à vous.

JOE HILL

A young Swede named Hillstrom went to sea, got
himself calloused hands on sailingships and tramps,

-421-

learned English in the focastle of the steamers that
make the run from Stockholm to Hull, dreamed the
Swede's dream of the west;

when he got to America they gave him a job
polishing cuspidors in a Bowery saloon.

He moved west to Chicago and worked in a ma-
chineshop.

He moved west and followed the harvest, hung
around employment agencies, paid out many a dollar
for a job in a construction camp, walked out many a
mile when the grub was too bum, or the boss too tough,
or too many bugs in the bunkhouse;

read Marx and the I.W.W. Preamble and
dreamed about forming the structure of the new so-
ciety within the shell of the old.

He was in California for the S.P. strike (Casey
Jones, two locomotives, Casey Jones), used to play the
concertina outside the bunkhouse door, after supper,
evenings (Longhaired preachers come out every night),
had a knack for setting rebel words to tunes (And the
union makes us strong).

Along the coast in cookshacks flophouses jungles
wobblies hoboes bindlestiffs began singing Joe Hill's
songs. They sang 'em in the county jails of the State
of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, in
the bullpens in Montana and Arizona, sang 'em in
Walla Walla, San Quentin and Leavenworth,

forming the structure of the new society within
the jails of the old.

At Bingham, Utah, Joe Hill organized the work-
ers of the Utah Construction Company in the One Big
Union, won a new wagescale, shorter hours, better
grub. (The angel Moroni didn't like labororganizers
any better than the Southern Pacific did.)

-422-

The angel Moroni moved the hearts of the Mor-
mons to decide it was Joe Hill shot a grocer named
Morrison. The Swedish consul and President Wilson
tried to get him a new trial but the angel Moroni moved
the hearts of the supreme court of the State of Utah to
sustain the verdict of guilty. He was in jail a year,
went on making up songs. In November 1915 he was
stood up against the wall in the jail yard in Salt Lake
City.

"Don't mourn for me organize," was the last word
he sent out to the workingstiffs of the I.W.W. Joe
Hill stood up against the wall of the jail yard, looked
into the muzzles of the guns and gave the word to fire.

They put him in a black suit, put a stiff collar
around his neck and a bow tie, shipped him to Chicago
for a bangup funeral, and photographed his handsome
stony mask staring into the future.

The first of May they scattered his ashes to the
wind.

BEN COMPTON

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history
of class struggles. . . .

The old people were Jews but at school Benny always
said no he wasn't a Jew he was an American because he'd
been born in Brooklyn and lived at 2531 25th Avenue in
Flatbush and they owned their home. The teacher in the
seventh grade said he squinted and sent him home with a
note, so Pop took an afternoon off from the jewelry store
where he worked with a lens in his eye repairing watches,
to take Benny to an optician who put drops in his eyes and
made him read little teeny letters on a white card. Pop
seemed tickled when the optician said Benny had to wear

-423-

glasses, "Vatchmaker's eyes . . . takes after his old man,"
he said and patted his cheek. The steel eyeglasses were
heavy on Benny's nose and cut into him behind the ears.
It made him feel funny to have Pop telling the optician
that a boy with glasses wouldn't be a bum and a baseball
player like Sam and Isidore but would attend to his stud-
ies and be a lawyer and a scholar like the men of old. "A
rabbi maybe," said the optician, but Pop said rabbis were
loafers and lived on the blood of the poor, he and the old
woman still ate kosher and kept the sabbath like their
fathers but synagogue and the rabbis. . . he made a spit-
ting sound with his lips. The optician laughed and said as
for himself he was a freethinker but religion was good for
the commonpeople. When they got home momma said the
glasses made Benny look awful old. Sam and Izzy yelled,
"Hello, foureyes," when they came in from selling papers,
but at school next day they told the other kids it was a states-
prison offence to roughhouse a feller with glasses. Once he
had the glasses Benny got to be very good at his lessons.

In highschool he made the debating team. When he was
thirteen Pop had a long illness and had to give up work
for a year. They lost the house that was almost paid for
and went to live in a flat on Myrtle Avenue. Benny got
work in a drugstore evenings. Sam and Izzy left home,
Sam to work in a furrier's in Newark; Izzy had gotten to
loafing in poolparlors so Pop threw him out. He'd always
been a good athlete and palled around with an Irishman
named Pug Riley who was going to get him into the ring.
Momma cried and Pop forbade any of the kids to mention
his name; still they all knew that Gladys, the oldest one,
who was working as a stenographer over in Manhattan,
sent Izzy a five dollar bill now and then. Benny looked
much older than he was and hardly ever thought of any-
thing except making money so the old people could have
a house of their own again. When he grew up he'd be a
lawyer and a business man and make a pile quick so that

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Gladys could quit work and get married and the old people
could buy a big house and live in the country. Momma
used to tell him about how when she was a young maiden
in the old country they used to go out in the woods after
strawberries and mushrooms and stop by a farmhouse and
drink milk all warm and foamy from the cow. Benny
was going to get rich and take them all out in the country
for a trip to a summer resort.

When Pop was well enough to work again he rented
half a twofamily house in Flatbush where at least they'd
be away from the noise of the elevated. The same year
Benny graduated from highschool and won a prize for an
essay on The American Government. He'd gotten very
tall and thin and had terrible headaches. The old people
said he'd outgrown himself and took him to see Dr. Cohen
who lived on the same block but had his office downtown
near Borough Hall. The doctor said he'd have to give up
night work and studying too hard, what he needed was
something that would keep him outdoors and develop his
body. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," he
said, scratching the grizzled beard under his chin. Benny
said he had to make some money this summer because he
wanted to go to New York University in the fall. Dr.
Cohen said he ought to eat plenty, of milkdishes and fresh
eggs and go somewhere where he could be out in the sun
and take it easy all summer. He charged two dollars.
Walking home the old man kept striking his forehead with
the flat of his hand and saying he was a failure, thirty
years he had worked in America and now he was a sick
old man all used up and couldn't provide for his children.
Momma cried. Gladys told them not to be silly, Benny was
a clever boy and a bright student and what was the use of
all his booklearning if he couldn't think up some way of
getting a job in the country. Benny went to bed without
saying anything.

A few days later Izzy came home. He rang the door-

-425-

bell as soon as the old man had gone to work one morn-
ing. "You almost met Pop," said Benny who opened the
door. "Nutten doin'. I waited round the corner till I seen
him go. . . . How's everybody?" Izzy had on a light
grey suit and a green necktie and wore a fedora hat to
match the suit. He said he had to get to Lancaster, Penn-
sylvania, to fight a Filipino featherweight on Saturday.
"Take me with you," said Benny. "You ain't tough enough,
kid . . . too much the momma's boy." In the end Benny
went with him. They rode on the L to Brooklyn Bridge
and then walked across. New York to the ferry. They
bought tickets to Elizabeth. When the train stopped in a
freightyard they sneaked forward into the blind baggage.
At West Philadelphia they dropped off and got chased by
the yard detective. A brewery wagon picked them up and
carried them along the road as far as West Chester. They
had to walk the rest of the way. A Mennonite farmer let
them spend the night in his barn, but in the morning he
wouldn't let them have any breakfast until they'd chopped
wood for two hours. By the time they got to Lancaster
Benny was all in. He went to sleep in the lockerroom at
the Athletic Club and didn't wake up until the fight was
over. Izzy had knocked out the Filipino featherweight in
the third round and won a purse of twentyfive dollars.
He sent Benny over to a lodginghouse with the shine who
took care of the lockerroom and went out with the boys
to paint the town red. Next morning he turned up with
his face green and his eyes bloodshot; he'd spent all his
money, but he'd gotten Benny a job helping a feller who
did a little smalltime fightpromoting and ran a canteen in
a construction camp up near Mauch Chunk.

It was a road job. Ben stayed there for two months earn-
ing ten dollars a week and his keep. He learned to drive a
team and to keep books. The boss of the canteen, Hiram
Volle, gypped the construction workers in their accounts,
but Benny didn't think much about it because they were

-426-

most of 'em wops, until he got to be friends with a young
fellow named Nick Gigli who worked with the gang at the
gravelpit. Nick used to hang around the canteen before
closingtime in the evening; then they'd go out and smoke
a cigarette together and talk. Sunday's they'd walk out in
the country with the Sunday paper and fool around all aft-
ernoon lying in the sun and talking about the articles in
the magazine section. Nick was from north Italy and all
the men in the gang were Sicilians, so he was lonely. His
father and elder brothers were anarchists and he was too;
he told Benny about Bakunin and Malatesta and said
Benny ought to be ashamed of himself for wanting to get
to be a rich businessman; sure he ought to study and learn,
maybe he ought to get to be a lawyer, but he ought to
work for the revolution and the working class, to be a
business man was to be a shark and a robber like that son
of a bitch Volle. He taught Benny to roll cigarettes and
told him about all the girls that were in love with him;
that girl in the boxoffice of the movie in Mauch Chunk;
he could have her anytime he wanted, but a revolutionist
ought to be careful about the girls he went with, women
took a classconscious working man's mind off his aims, they
were the main seduction of capitalist society. Ben asked him
if he thought he ought to throw up his job with Volle, be-
cause Volle was such a crook, but Nick said any other capi-
talist would be the same, all they could do was wait for
the Day. Nick was eighteen with bitter brown eyes and a
skin almost as dark as a mulatto's. Ben thought he was
great on account of all he'd done; he'd shined shoes, been
a sailor, a miner, a dishwasher and had worked in textile
mills, shoefactories and a cement factory and had had all
kinds of women and been in jail for three weeks in the
Paterson strike. Round the camp if any of the wops saw
Ben going anywhere alone he'd yell at him, "Hey, kid,
where's Nick?"