From the Bottom Up Part 23

The Yale Union had a stormy meeting. A real sensation was on their hands; there was possible censure and probable glory and every man in the Union went after his share.

It was indignantly moved and carried that the president of the Union introduce the speaker.

"Irvine is a Socialist," the mover said, "and would spoil the show before it began."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Alexander Irvine and Jack London, 1906]

They next discussed the topic. One boy suggested that London be asked to cut out all mention of Socialism. That was tabooed because no one knew that he would mention it anyway.

The day of the lecture I got this note from the Socialist student: "Yale Union and many of the faculty are sweating under the collar for fear London _might_ say something Socialistic. The Union realizes that it would be absolutely useless to ask him to smooth over his lecture and cut out anything which sounds radical. Also they have decided that it would be a shock to the university and the public to have _you_ appear upon the platform in any way, shape or manner. They are going to ask you to cancel your engagement to introduce London. In this I think they are unwise, but as they are determined it must be so. I advise you to agree to whatever arrangement they suggest. This done, they will 'take the chances' that London will express Socialistic ideas. Now I fear there will be the devil to pay for the lecture--the university is going to be surprised, the faculty shocked beyond measure and the Yale Union severely criticized!"

This is how the president of the Union expressed the situation in a note to me on the day of the lecture. "At a meeting of the executive committee of the Yale Union it was voted that the president of the Union introduce the speaker of the evening as it would tend to identify the Union more conspicuously and also to give it prominence before the student body. For this reason--wholly beyond my power and opposed to my opinion--I shall be forced to forego our little plan which I thought by far the best," etc., etc.

Some small portion of prosperity having come our way I was able to dine a small group with Jack London as the chief guest. Professor Charles Foster Kent of Yale, and Charles W. De Forrest, a business man, were among the guests.

It was a Socialist innings at Woolsey Hall that night. The big crowd gave the Yale Union an idea--this time it was a financial idea--twenty-eight hundred people paid admission--the officers swept down on the box office; but there was a Socialist inside playing capitalist. Socialists are not familiar enough with the game to play it successfully, but in this instance we played in strict accordance with the rules. We furnished the capital, took the risks and bagged the pot! We conceded nine points out of ten--the tenth was a financial one. The audience represented every phase of life in the city. Over a hundred of the faculty and ten times as many students. Citizens of all cla.s.ses were there.

The Harvard Students had played horse with London a few weeks before this and we--the Socialists--were prepared for any sort of demonstration.

"The spectacle of an avowed Socialist," said the New Haven _Register_, "one of the most conspicious in the country, standing upon the platform of Woolsey Hall and boldly advocating the doctrines of revolution was a sight for G.o.ds and men."

Jack London talked for over two hours to that packed hall and received a most unusual attention. After the lecture he was taken to a students' dormitory where he answered questions till midnight. Then he was escorted by a smaller group to Mory's for supper and at one o'clock we held a reception at the big house which was known as "the Socialist Parsonage."

For over twenty years I have been a contributor to newspapers and religious periodicals, but not until I met Jack London did it ever occur to me that I could earn a living by my pen. London made me promise to write. My first story I mailed to California for his criticism and suggestion, but before it returned I had entered the field.

CHAPTER XX

MY EXPERIENCE AS A LABOURER IN THE MUSCLE MARKET OF THE SOUTH

_Appleton's Magazine_ published my first serious attempt at fiction.

It was a short story ent.i.tled, "Two Social Pariahs."

The cry of peonage was in the air and I arranged with _Appleton's Magazine_ for a series of articles on the subject. Dressed as a labourer I went to the muscle market of New York and got hired. To do this I had to a.s.sume a foreign accent and look as slovenly as possible. With a picturesque contingent of Hungarians, Finns, Swedes and Greeks, I was drafted for the iron mines of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company. The mines are near Bessemer, Ala. At every turn of the road south we were herded and handled like cattle.

It was a big, black porter who led us into the car at Portsmouth, Va.

I was the leader of the contingent, and the porter addressed us for the most part by signs, and when he spoke at all he called me "Johnny." When inside, he arranged us in our seats, putting his hands on some of our shoulders to press us down into them. I did not realize that I was in a Southern state until I saw a big yellow card in this car marked "Coloured." Then I knew instantly that we were in a Jim Crow car. A coloured woman sat next to the window in my seat and by her look and little toss of the head and a quick nervous movement she seemed to say, "What are you doing here?"

When the train pulled out of the depot, I stepped up to the porter and said:

"Haven't you a law in Virginia on the separation of the races."

The big black fellow grinned.

"Dere sho' is, boss--but you ain't no races. You is jest Dagoes, ain't you?"

At Atlanta we changed cars and were again driven into the Jim Crow car. This time I made a more intelligent attempt to solve my race problem. The conductor, faultlessly dressed in broadcloth and covered with gold lace, strode into our car with the air of an admiral of the fleet. He went straight through the car, collecting the block ticket for our gang from the boss, and as he returned I stepped into the aisle in front of him, blocking his pa.s.sage.

"Pardon me, sir," I said, "isn't there a law in Georgia on the separation of the races?"

Without a word, he removed the gla.s.ses from his nose, stared at me for a moment, then turned sharply, walked to the end of the car, removed the card which read "Coloured" and reversed it. It then read "White."

Then he came back through the car slowly, staring at me as he pa.s.sed but without uttering a word.

Our particular destination was "Muckers Camp" at Readers. A group of three buildings on the brow of a hill--the hill where the blacks live.

The first of these buildings is a kitchen and dining room, the second is a big dormitory and the third is a wash-house. This was our new home. The dormitory was originally intended for a series of small rooms but the work was arrested before completion. The uprights marking the divisions of the rooms were still standing--bare and uncovered. The floor of the big dormitory was littered with rubbish--miners' cast-off clothing, shoes, broken lamps, and in a corner there was a junk-heap of broken bedsteads, slats, army blankets and sodden mattresses. We were told to make ourselves "at home." There was room enough and plenty of bedding. All we had to do was to fish for what we needed and put it in order. Everything was red--red with ore that men carried out of the mines on their bodies.

The junk heap in the corner played an important part in the movements of my gang. The thought of having to sleep in the sodden stuff chilled me to the bones, but I kept silent. Whatever the previous condition of the men had been, they felt as I did as they pulled their bedding out piece by piece. They had gone to spend the winter in the mines of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; they knew the work, conditions and pay; they had refused to be bribed on the way down, but as they tugged at the junk, a change came over them! They swore in half a dozen languages--they gritted their teeth and vowed that they wouldn't be treated like pigs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In a Mucker's Camp in Alabama]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Irvine and Three Other Muckers as They Left Greenwich Street for the South]

We went to the wash-house and the outlook was less encouraging. There was a long, narrow trough in the centre. It was half full of red ore.

The floor was wet and covered with ore, rags, old papers and other rubbish. There were compartments intended for shower-baths, but there again the work had been arrested and was incomplete. We washed, made our beds, ate dinner and proceeded to the company store to be fitted out.

Each man was furnished with a number. By that number he was to be known while in the company's employ. Each man showed his number and drew what he needed--overalls, lamps, and heavy boots. There was nothing n.i.g.g.ardly in the credit. The deeper the debt the tighter the grip on the debtor. The goods cost just one hundred per cent. more than anywhere else. The company paid wages once a month. If a labourer borrowed of his own within that time, he paid ten per cent. on the loan.

As we came back from the store, the miners were just leaving the mines and it was interesting to see them gaze into our faces and address us in Russian, Hungarian, Swedish and various other languages. It was one of the excitements of camp life--to inspect and cla.s.sify the newcomers.

One of the men had a wheezy accordion and he relieved the monotony of the evening with some German airs. The big shed was unlighted, save as each man was his own lamp-post. Each made his own bed by the light of the lamp on his cap. As he undressed, the cap was the last article to be set aside and the extinguishing of the smoky, flickering blaze the last act of the night.

As the first streak of the gray dawn came in through the bare windows, four of our gang dressed and deliberately marched out of the camp--never to return.

The first number in the programme of a "mucker's" toilet is to adjust his cap with his lamp in it, trimmed and burning. The second is to light his pipe; then he dresses.

It was half-past five and still dark, when those nude, s.h.a.ggy men with heads ablaze with smoky, flickering lamps, began to move around. They looked grotesque--unearthly--denizens of some underground pit. They were good-humoured and full of boisterous laughter.

A breakfast of pork, beans, potatoes, bread and coffee--plenty of each--and we went off with dinner pails over the hill to the valley, where five tall, smoking chimneys marked the entrances to as many mines.

Each mine has a complete outfit of men and machinery, and a certain number of chambers or pockets in which, with blast and hammer and hand, the red hills are made to disgorge their treasures of iron ore.

Three of us perched ourselves on the rear end of the "skip"--a big iron-ore disgorger--and began the half-mile descent. It was a 45 per cent. grade, and the skip, at the end of a powerful wire cable, went down by jerks. One of my companions was Franz, the Hungarian, the other was a German. The big square mouth of the mine became smaller and smaller as we b.u.mped into the bowels of the earth. In a few minutes it looked like a small window-pane, and then disappeared altogether and we were left in the darkness.

Each mine is like a little town. It has a main street and side alleys--"pockets," they are called. There are "live" and "dead"

pockets--the dead are the worked out.

At the first of the live pockets the skip was stopped by some invisible hand and we clambered over the side to a platform where a foreman met and conducted us to the task of the day.

The mine was filled with red dust. We could see but a few feet ahead of us. The lamps on men's brows looked like fire-flies dancing in the red mist. There was a sound of rushing water and the _chug, chug_ of the pumps. As we waded ankle-deep through a water alley, we heard the warning yells of a foreman. A charge of dynamite was about to burst and the men were flying out of danger. We were whisked into a cleft for safety. Half a dozen old miners were squeezed in beside us. Our scarcely soiled caps told the story of our newness and the old hands watched us closely.

Boom! The hills shivered like the deck of a warship as she discharges a broadside. Franz shivered too. His eyes bulged and he stared, loose-jawed, at the men around us, who laughed at his fright.

The explosion was in our alley; it had torn up the car-tracks like strips of macaroni; it was the salute of dynamite to our soft, flabby muscles, to our white caps and new overalls; it was a stick of concentrated power throwing down the gauntlet to men in the raw.

We had a foreman who superintended our compartment, "a driller," who with a steam drill sat all day boring holes for dynamite, and we were the "muckers"--miner's helpers--who carried away with muscular power the effects of the explosion. Each alley had similar crews.