Children of the Ghetto Part 44

The poet rushed in and kissed the hem of Wolf's coat.

"Oh, you be a great man!" he said. Then he walked out, closing the door gently. A moment afterwards, a vision of the dusky head, with the carneying smile and the finger on the nose, reappeared.

"You von't forget your promise," said the head.

"No, no. Go to the devil. I won't forget."

Pinchas walked home through streets thronged with excited strikers, discussing the situation with oriental exuberance of gesture, with any one who would listen. The demands of these poor slop-hands (who could only count upon six hours out of the twenty-four for themselves, and who, by the help of their wives and little ones in finishing, might earn a pound a week) were moderate enough--hours from eight to eight, with an hour for dinner and half an hour for tea, two shillings from the government contractors for making a policeman's great-coat instead of one and ninepence halfpenny, and so on and so on. Their intentions were strictly peaceful. Every face was stamped with the marks of intellect and ill-health--the hue of a muddy pallor relieved by the flash of eyes and teeth. Their shoulders stooped, their chests were narrow, their arms flabby. They came in their hundreds to the hall at night. It was square-shaped with a stage and galleries, for a jargon-company sometimes thrilled the Ghetto with tragedy and tickled it with farce. Both species were playing to-night, and in jargon to boot. In real life you always get your drama mixed, and the sock of comedy galls the buskin of tragedy. It was an episode in the pitiful tussle of hunger and greed, yet its humors were grotesque enough.

Full as the Hall was, it was not crowded, for it was Friday night and a large contingent of strikers refused to desecrate the Sabbath by attending the meeting. But these were the zealots--Moses Ansell among them, for he, too, had struck. Having been out of work already he had nothing to lose by augmenting the numerical importance of the agitation.

The moderately pious argued that there was no financial business to transact and attendance could hardly come under the denomination of work. It was rather a.n.a.logous to attendance at a lecture--they would simply have to listen to speeches. Besides it would be but a black Sabbath at home with a barren larder, and they had already been to synagogue. Thus degenerates ancient piety in the stress of modern social problems. Some of the men had not even changed their everyday face for their Sabbath countenance by washing it. Some wore collars, and shiny threadbare garments of dignified origin, others were unaffectedly poverty-stricken with dingy shirt-cuffs peeping out of frayed sleeve edges and unhealthily colored scarfs folded complexly round their necks.

A minority belonged to the Free-thinking party, but the majority only availed themselves of Wolf's services because they were indispensable.

For the moment he was the only possible leader, and they were sufficiently Jesuitic to use the Devil himself for good ends.

Though Wolf would not give up a Friday-night meeting--especially valuable, as permitting of the attendance of tailors who had not yet struck--Pinchas's politic advice had not failed to make an impression.

Like so many reformers who have started with blatant atheism, he was beginning to see the insignificance of irreligious dissent as compared with the solution of the social problem, and Pinchas's seed had fallen on ready soil. As a labor-leader, pure and simple, he could count upon a far larger following than as a preacher of militant impiety. He resolved to keep his atheism in the background for the future and devote himself to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the body before tampering with the soul. He was too proud ever to acknowledge his indebtedness to the poet's suggestion, but he felt grateful to him all the same.

"My brothers," he said in Yiddish, when his turn came to speak. "It pains me much to note how disunited we are. The capitalists, the Belcovitches, would rejoice if they but knew all that is going on. Have we not enemies enough that we must quarrel and split up into little factions among ourselves? (Hear, hear.) How can we hope to succeed unless we are thoroughly organized? It has come to my ears that there are men who insinuate things even about me and before I go on further to-night I wish to put this question to you." He paused and there was a breathless silence. The orator threw his chest forwards and gazing fearlessly at the a.s.sembly cried in a stentorian voice:

_"Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Chairman?"_ (Are you satisfied with your chairman?)

His audacity made an impression. The discontented cowered timidly in their places.

"_Yes_," rolled back from the a.s.sembly, proud of its English monosyllables.

"_Nein_," cried a solitary voice from the topmost gallery.

Instantly the a.s.sembly was on its legs, eyeing the dissentient angrily.

"Get down! Go on the platform!" mingled with cries of "order" from the Chairman, who in vain summoned him on to the stage. The dissentient waved a roll of paper violently and refused to modify his standpoint. He was evidently speaking, for his jaws were making movements, which in the din and uproar could not rise above grimaces. There was a battered high hat on the back of his head, and his hair was uncombed, and his face unwashed. At last silence was restored and the tirade became audible.

"Cursed sweaters--capitalists--stealing men's brains--leaving us to rot and starve in darkness and filth. Curse them! Curse them!" The speaker's voice rose to a hysterical scream, as he rambled on.

Some of the men knew him and soon there flew from lip to lip, "Oh, it's only _Meshuggene David_."

Mad Davy was a gifted Russian university student, who had been mixed up with nihilistic conspiracies and had fled to England where the struggle to find employ for his clerical talents had addled his brain. He had a gift for chess and mechanical invention, and in the early days had saved himself from starvation by the sale of some ingenious patents to a swaggering co-religionist who owned race-horses and a music-hall, but he sank into squaring the circle and inventing perpetual motion. He lived now on the casual crumbs of indigent neighbors, for the charitable organizations had marked him "dangerous." He was a man of infinite loquacity, with an intense jealousy of Simon Wolf or any such uninstructed person who a.s.sumed to lead the populace, but when the a.s.sembly accorded him his hearing he forgot the occasion of his rising in a burst of pa.s.sionate invective against society.

When the irrelevancy of his remarks became apparent, he was rudely howled down and his neighbors pulled him into his seat, where he gibbered and mowed inaudibly.

Wolf continued his address.

"_Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Secretary_?"

This time there was no dissent. The _"Yes"_ came like thunder.

"_Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Treasurer_?"

_Yeas_ and _nays_ mingled. The question of the retention, of the functionary was put to the vote. But there was much confusion, for the East-End Jew is only slowly becoming a political animal. The ayes had it, but Wolf was not yet satisfied with the satisfaction of the gathering. He repeated the entire batch of questions in a new formula so as to drive them home.

"_Hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen mir_?" Which is Yiddish for "has any one anything to say against me?"

"_No_!" came in a vehement roar.

"_Hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen dem secretary_?"

"_No_!"

"_Hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen dem treasurer_?"

"_No!"_

Having thus shown his grasp of logical exhaustiveness in a manner unduly exhausting to the more intelligent, Wolf consented to resume his oration. He had scored a victory, and triumph lent him added eloquence.

When he ceased he left his audience in a frenzy of resolution and loyalty. In the flush of conscious power and freshly added influence, he found a niche for Pinchas's oratory.

"Brethren in exile," said the poet in his best Yiddish.

Pinchas spoke German which is an outlandish form of Yiddish and scarce understanded of the people, so that to be intelligible he had to divest himself of sundry inflections, and to throw gender to the winds and to say "wet" for "wird" and mix hybrid Hebrew and ill-p.r.o.nounced English with his vocabulary. There was some cheering as Pinchas tossed his dishevelled locks and addressed the gathering, for everybody to whom he had ever spoken knew that he was a wise and learned man and a great singer in Israel.

"Brethren in exile," said the poet. "The hour has come for laying the sweaters low. Singly we are sand-grains, together we are the simoom. Our great teacher, Moses, was the first Socialist. The legislation of the Old Testament--the land laws, the jubilee regulations, the tender care for the poor, the subordination of the rights of property to the interests of the working-men--all this is pure Socialism!"

The poet paused for the cheers which came in a mighty volume. Few of those present knew what Socialism was, but all knew the word as a shibboleth of salvation from sweaters. Socialism meant shorter hours and higher wages and was obtainable by marching with banners and bra.s.s bands--what need to inquire further?

"In short," pursued the poet, "Socialism is Judaism and Judaism is Socialism, and Karl Marx and La.s.salle, the founders of Socialism, were Jews. Judaism does not bother with the next world. It says, 'Eat, drink and be satisfied and thank the Lord, thy G.o.d, who brought thee out of Egypt from the land of bondage.' But we have nothing to eat, we have nothing to drink, we have nothing to be satisfied with, we are still in the land of bondage." (Cheers.) "My brothers, how can we keep Judaism in a land where there is no Socialism? We must become better Jews, we must bring on Socialism, for the period of Socialism on earth and of peace and plenty and brotherly love is what all our prophets and great teachers meant by Messiah-times."

A little murmur of dissent rose here and there, but Pinchas went on.

"When Hillel the Great summed up the law to the would-be proselyte while standing on one leg, how did he express it? 'Do not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.' This is Socialism in a nut-sh.e.l.l. Do not keep your riches for yourself, spread them abroad. Do not fatten on the labor of the poor, but share it. Do not eat the food others have earned, but earn your own. Yes, brothers, the only true Jews in England are the Socialists. Phylacteries, praying-shawls--all nonsense. Work for Socialism--that pleases the Almighty. The Messiah will be a Socialist."

There were mingled sounds, men asking each other dubiously, "What says he?" They began to sniff brimstone. Wolf, shifting uneasily on his chair, kicked the poet's leg in reminder of his own warning. But Pinchas's head was touching the stars again. Mundane considerations were left behind somewhere in the depths of s.p.a.ce below his feet.

"But how is the Messiah to redeem his people?" he asked. "Not now-a-days by the sword but by the tongue. He will plead the cause of Judaism, the cause of Socialism, in Parliament. He will not come with mock miracle like Bar Cochba or Zevi. At the general election, brothers, I will stand as the candidate for Whitechapel. I, a poor man, one of yourselves, will take my stand in that mighty a.s.sembly and touch the hearts of the legislators. They shall bend before my oratory as the bulrushes of the Nile when the wind pa.s.ses. They will make me Prime Minister like Lord Beaconsfield, only he was no true lover of his people, he was not the Messiah. To h.e.l.l with the rich bankers and the stockbrokers--we want them not. We will free ourselves."

The extraordinary vigor of the poet's language and gestures told. Only half comprehending, the majority stamped and huzzahed. Pinchas swelled visibly. His slim, lithe form, five and a quarter feet high, towered over the a.s.sembly. His complexion was as burnished copper, his eyes flashed flame.

"Yes, brethren," he resumed. "These Anglo-Jewish swine trample unheeding on the pearls of poetry and scholarship, they choose for Ministers men with four mistresses, for Chief Rabbis hypocrites who cannot even write the holy tongue grammatically, for _Dayanim_ men who sell their daughters to the rich, for Members of Parliament stockbrokers who cannot speak English, for philanthropists greengrocers who embezzle funds. Let us have nothing to do with these swine--Moses our teacher forbade it.

(Laughter.) I will be the Member for Whitechapel. See, my name Melchitsedek Pinchas already makes M.P.--it was foreordained. If every letter of the _Torah_ has its special meaning, and none was put by chance, why should the finger of heaven not have written my name thus: M.P.--Melchitsedek Pinchas. Ah, our brother Wolf speaks truth--wisdom issues from his lips. Put aside your petty quarrels and unite in working for my election to Parliament. Thus and thus only shall you be redeemed from bondage, made from beasts of burden into men, from slaves to citizens, from false Jews to true Jews. Thus and thus only shall you eat, drink and be satisfied, and thank me for bringing you out of the land of bondage. Thus and thus only shall Judaism cover the world as the waters cover the sea."

The fervid peroration overbalanced the audience, and from all sides except the platform applause warmed the poet's ears. He resumed his seat, and as he did so he automatically drew out a match and a cigar, and lit the one with the other. Instantly the applause dwindled, died; there was a moment of astonished silence, then a roar of execration. The bulk of the audience, as Pinchas, sober, had been shrewd enough to see, was still orthodox. This public desecration of the Sabbath by smoking was intolerable. How should the G.o.d of Israel aid the spread of Socialism and the shorter hours movement and the rise of prices a penny on a coat, if such devil's incense were borne to His nostrils? Their vague admiration of Pinchas changed into definite distrust. "_Epikouros, Epikouros, Meshumad_" resounded from all sides. The poet looked wonderingly about him, failing to grasp the situation. Simon Wolf saw his opportunity. With an angry jerk he knocked the glowing cigar from between the poet's teeth. There was a yell of delight and approbation.

Wolf jumped to his feet. "Brothers," he roared, "you know I am not _froom_, but I will not have anybody else's feelings trampled upon." So saying, he ground the cigar under his heel.

Immediately an abortive blow from the poet's puny arm swished the air.

Pinchas was roused, the veins on his forehead swelled, his heart thumped rapidly in his bosom. Wolf shook his k.n.o.bby fist laughingly at the poet, who made no further effort to use any other weapon of offence but his tongue.

"Hypocrite!" he shrieked. "Liar! Machiavelli! Child of the separation! A black year on thee! An evil spirit in thy bones and in the bones of thy father and mother. Thy father was a proselyte and thy mother an abomination. The curses of Deuteronomy light on thee. Mayest thou become covered with boils like Job! And you," he added, turning on the audience, "pack of Men-of-the-earth! Stupid animals! How much longer will you bend your neck to the yoke of superst.i.tion while your bellies are empty? Who says I shall not smoke? Was tobacco known to Moses our Teacher? If so he would have enjoyed it on the _Shabbos_. He was a wise man like me. Did the Rabbis know of it? No, fortunately, else they were so stupid they would have forbidden it. You are all so ignorant that you think not of these things. Can any one show me where it stands that we must not smoke on _Shabbos_? Is not _Shabbos_ a day of rest, and how can we rest if we smoke not? I believe with the Baal-Shem that G.o.d is more pleased when I smoke my cigar than at the prayers of all the stupid Rabbis. How dare you rob me of my cigar--is that keeping _Shabbos_?" He turned back to Wolf, and tried to push his foot from off the cigar.

There was a brief struggle. A dozen men leaped on the platform and dragged the poet away from his convulsive clasp of the labor-leader's leg. A few opponents of Wolf on the platform cried, "Let the man alone, give him his cigar," and thrust themselves amongst the invaders. The hall was in tumult. From the gallery the voice of Mad Davy resounded again:

"Cursed sweaters--stealing men's brains--darkness and filth--curse them!

Blow them up I as we blew up Alexander. Curse them!"