 CHAPTER XVI Five more vessels sailed that day, and in the evening Eleanor said, The women who came to our station today kept asking, Why can't they close up the saloons? They're just the places for trouble to start. We'll try, I said, and that same night Marsh sent word through a friend to the mayor asking him to close all bathrooms on the waterfront during the strike. The mayor sent back a refusal. He said he had no power. Late that night I went down the line and found each bathroom packed with men who were talking of those ships that had sailed, and they talked of scabs. Speakers I had not heard before were now shouting and pounding the bar with their fists. The papers the next morning ran lurid accounts of these saloons and the open threats of violence there. They censured the mayor for his weakness and called for the militia. Why wait for mobs and bloodshed? To that challenge I heard the reply of the crowd on the farm that afternoon. In their applause of the fiery speech of a swarthy little Spaniard. Francesco Vasco was his name. They are sending hired murderers who will come here to shoot us down. But when they come, he shouted, I want you to remember this. A jail cell is no smaller than our holes in the bottoms of their ships. The food is no worse than the scouse we shall eat if we give in and go back to our jobs. And so we shall not be driven back. When the militia come against us armed with guns and bayonets, then let us go to meet them armed. He stopped short and from one end to the other of that motionless mass of men there fell a deathlike silence. Then he grimly ended his speech, armed with patience, courage, and a deep belief in our cause. In the sudden storm of cheers and booze I leaned over to Joe at my side. Why did you let that man speak? The frown tightened on Joe's face. Because he's one of us, he said. Seven more ships had sailed by that night. In front of the docksheds outside the double line of police, the throng had grown denser day by day, and each time the scabs came out there had been a burst of implications, a fierce pressing forward. The police had repeatedly used their clubs. Now late in the afternoon a red hospital ambulance came clanging down the waterfront. It was greeted by triumphant shouts. Some black bastard heard it last. There was a quick gathering of police and a lane was formed reaching into the dock. Through this lane drove the ambulance and as presently it emerged it was greeted by tumultuous cheers. The papers the next morning said that a raging howling mob had tried to reach the injured man. Cries of sabotage had been heard. Two men, they said, had been injured and one killed on the docks the day before. Was this sabotage? Had the strikers fixed the winches with the purpose of killing strikebreakers? Why not? Their leaders had openly preached it. Not only the Spaniard but Marsh himself was quoted as favoring violence and from that special sabotage issue of Joe Kramer's paper long extracts were reprinted. Were not these three leaders responsible for the death of that innocent black man? And should leaders such as these be allowed to go on preaching murder? Put them in jail. Quell this insurrection while still there was time. So spoke the press. The rumor quickly spread about that Marsh and the Spaniard and Joe Kramer were to be arrested that day. All three remained at strike headquarters and a dozen burly strikers kept the throng from pouring in. Go on home, I could hear them shouting. But far from going the throng increased until it filled the whole street outside. Suddenly we heard their cries rise into a raging din. Well, boys, said Marsh, I guess they're here. He gave a few more sharp directions to his aides and then went out into the hall. A dozen central office police in plain clothes were just coming in at the door. All right, said Marsh, we're ready. But unless you men were sent here with the idea of starting trouble, suppose you leave here now without us. Each one of us will meet you at any place and time, you say. We can't take your orders, Mr. Marsh. You mean you were sent here for trouble. I mean I have warrants for the arrest of yourself, Joseph Kramer and Francesco Vasca on a charge of incitement to murder. And in less than a minute I saw Marsh, the Spaniard, and Joe Kramer each handcuffed to two men, one on either side. As they left the hall I came close behind with a score of eager reporters. The crowd, to my excited eyes, was like a crouching tiger now, glaring out of countless eyes. Through the solid mass of men that packed the street from wall to wall, the police had formed a narrow lane from the patrol wagon to the door. On either side of this lane I saw a line of faces, eyes. Some looked anxious, frightened, and were trying to press back. But at the sight of their leaders now with a roar the multitude swept in. In a moment the lane was gone, and some fifty police had formed in a circle around the prisoners. Quickly their clubs rose and fell, and men dropped all around them. But furious hundreds kept rushing in from every side. Women and children caught in the tide were swept helplessly forward, came under the clubs, and went down with the rest, and still the mass poured over them. Now at last the circle of blue coats was broken. Policemen alone and in small clusters were rushed and whirled this way and that. Outnumber twenty to one they began to go down in the scrimmage. Then I heard a quick shout, Use your guns! After that two pistol shots, then more in a sharp, steady crackle. The mass began breaking, out on the edges I could see men starting to run. But down the street came a troop of mounted police on the gallop, and straight through the multitude they rode. I saw the three prisoners seized and surrounded and thrown into the wagon. I saw it go rapidly away. The police were now making wholesale arrests. That deep strident roar of the crowd had died down and broken into panning voices. Everywhere were struggling forms. Just before me the throng opened and I saw a woman at my feet. Her face was bleeding from a club. As I stooped to lift her I felt a big hand grip my arm, and then a heavy crushing weight pressed down upon my head. I felt myself sink down and down into an empty darkness. When I came to I was being half pushed and half thrown by police up into one of their wagons. I remember a blurred glimpse of more fighting forms around me. Then a gong clanged and our wagon was off. And in a few moments we had emerged out of all this turbulence into the quiet, commonplace streets of a city of everyday business life. In the wagon a voice began singing. I looked up and saw our Italian musician, the leader of those gay excursions on the Internationale. Now he was singing the song of that name, and as all came in on the chorus I caught a glimpse of his face. One cheek was bleeding profusely, and with one hand he was keeping the blood from trickling down. With the other hand he was beating time, and his black eyes were blazing. Soon after we came to Jefferson Market and stopped at the entrance of the jail. As we were hustled out of the wagon and in the stronger light our cuts and swelling bruises came suddenly in view. Two young girls among us began to laugh hysterically. In a moment we were inside the jail and shoved into a striker group that had come in wagons ahead of ours. A grim old sergeant at the desk was taking down names and addresses and sending the prisoners to their cells. I found myself a cool relief after all that fever of cries. With surprise I noticed it was clean. I had thought all cells were filthy holes. Still in a daze I sat down on my cot and felt the big bruise on my head. Where am I? What has happened? What is all this to do with me? What is it going to mean in my life? I heard a nasal voice from somewhere say, I know this pen. They're putting the girls with the prostitutes. I heard clanging gongs outside and soon the banging of steel doors as more prisoners were put into cells. And little by little, through it all, I made out a low, eager murmur. Say, inquired a drunken old voice, who are all you damn fools? What is this party anyhow? It is a revolution, a sharp little voice replied, and at that from all sides other voices broke out. Then from his cell our musical friend again started up the singing, his strained tenor voice rising high over all. The song rose in volume, grew more intense. Hey, quit that noise, a policeman shouted. Ah, let him alone, said another. They'll soon work it off. But we seemed to be only working it up. Up and up song followed song, and then short impassioned speeches came out of cells, and there was applause. A voice asked each one of us to name his nationality, and we found we were Americans, Irish, Scotch and Germans, Italians and Norwegians, and three of us were Lascars, and one of us was a Cooley. Then there were cheers for the working class all over the world, and after that a call for more singing. And now, as one of the songs died away, we heard from the woman's part of the jail the young girls singing in reply. And slowly as I listened to those songs that rose and swelled, and beat against those walls of steel, I felt once more the presence of that great spirit of the crowd. That spirit will go on, I thought. No jail can stop the thing it feels. And at last, with a deep warm certainty, I felt myself where I belonged. EARLY IN THE EVENING I WAS TAKEN OUT TO THE VISITOR'S ROOM, AND THERE I FOUND ELINOR'S FATHER. When he saw me, Dylan smiled. Do you know where you are? He asked. You're not in the Bastille, or even Libby Prison. You're in the Jefferson Market Jail. It hasn't felt that way, I said. Probably not, but it is that way, and there's Elinor to be thought of. Elinor will understand. I saw his features tightened. I noticed now that his face was drawn, as though he too had been through a good deal. Yes, he said. She understands, but it's a bit tough on her, isn't it? Jail is not quite in her line. I felt my throat contracting. I know all that. I'm sorry enough, on her account. Then let's get out of this, he said. I've brought you bail. No use staying in here all night. None at all, I agreed. I want to get back to the waterfront. We're going to issue an answer to this. They'll need me for the writing. Dylan watched me a moment. You won't be allowed to do that, he said. They're under martial law down there. I looked at him quickly. The troops are here? Yes, he replied, and there was a pause. These arrests, this riot, I said a little huskily. Weren't they all framed up ahead? They needed the riot to get in the troops. The troops are here. Rather damnable, do you think the people on the docks will just sit back and take it all? They'll have to, he said gently. The world's work has been clogged up a little. It's time to go on again now. On the street outside, he took my hand. My boy, when this is over we'll get together, you and I. All right, when it's over, I said. The farm that night again changed to my eyes. It was now an orderly village of tents, two regiments and militia were here, and their sentries reached for a mile to the north watching the big company's docks. I walked up along the line and had talks with some of the sentries. I remember one in particular, a thin, nervous little man, a shoe clerk in a department store. Every workday for six years he had fitted shoes on ladies' feet. He had been doing it all that morning, and now here he was down on the waterfront with only the stars above him and great shadowy spaces all around, out of which at any moment he expected rushes by strikers. These strikers to him were not human, they were foreigners, for the moment gone mad, to be treated very much as mad dogs, and here he was all by himself, his nerves on edge, with a gun in his hands, the absurdity of that gun in his hands, and the serious danger. I went into many tendiments into homes I had come to know in the strike, and they too were different now. Their principal leaders taken away and their headquarters closed by the police, the disorganization was complete, that spirit they had relied upon, that strange new spirit of the mass which they had created by coming together, was now dead, and each one felt the weakness of being alone, the weakness of his separate self. Blindly they fought against their despair. I found them packing tenement rooms, gathering instinctively in search of their great friend, the crowd. But from such gatherings as these, the weaker, the more timid, and the wiser kept away. Rash spirits led these meetings, and here was a same hot passion that I had felt back in the jail. These people did not want to think the time for thinking had gone by, they wanted to act, to do something quick. Their minds were fiercely set on the scabs, the police, and the militia. Their strike was not yet lost, their friends and sympathizers were working hard that very night to get their leaders out on bail. In Washington a house committee was striving still to compel arbitration. Everywhere the more moderate spirits were drawing together, trying to work out something safe. But these people did not know this. They were in their tenements, they were scattered far apart. They only knew how they had been clubbed, that three had been killed, and many more wounded, and that now the troops were here. And the more fiery ones among them were feeling only one thing now, that when you are hit, you must hit back, you must show you're not scared, you must show you're a man. And so on the next morning no women and no children but huge, silent throngs of men drifted out of the tenements down to the docks and moved slowly along the sentry lines. The chance to show they were not afraid came late in the afternoon. The clear sweet call of a bugle came floating gaily on the air, then the long hard roll of drums, and from their camp on the farm the troops came on the double quick up along the waterfront. Now thousands of strikers were running that way. From the foot of a city street across the wide open space to appear the militia formed in two double lines, each line facing outward. Then down that street came mounted police and behind them a score of trucks loaded with freight. At first I had hopes that the mass would not move, but out of the silence came angry shouts and those behind pushed forward. Those in front were pressed close up to the sharp lines of bayonets, were brought savagely by the troops. Militia youngsters but half-train, in two thin lines opposing what appeared to them a furious sea of faces, fists and angry cries. No wonder they were nervous. Bricks came flying from all sides and even heavy paving stones, and then a few pistol shots out of the mass. I saw a militia man drop on one knee and slowly topple over. I saw an excited young officer shout at his men and wave his sword. I saw long rows of guns make quick rhythmic movements, then level straight out, and there were two long flashes of fire. Disordered throngs were running now, only a few men here and there turned to fire their pistols or to shout back frenzied quivering oses. Behind them a few soldiers were still shooting without orders. Near the sandpile on which I stood I saw a young militia man enough like that little shoe clerk to have been his brother. His face was white and his eyes wild. He was panting, pumping his lever and blindly firing shot after shot. Goddammit, slaughter him, slaughter him. An officer knocked up his gun. That night the waterfront was still. Only the long, slow moving line of the figures of centuries was to be seen. The troops were back in their camp on the farm. Vivoac fires were burning down there, but up here was only a dark, empty space. Here scattered about on the pavement after the firing had ceased I had seen the dark inert bodies of men. Most of them had begun to move until fully half were crawling about. They had been picked up and counted. Thirty-nine wounded, fourteen dead. These two had all been taken away. From the high steel dock sheds there came a deep, harsh murmur made up of faint whistles, the rattle of winches, the shouts of the foreman, the heavy jar and crash of crates. A tug puffed smoothly into a slip with three barges in her wake. I walked slowly out that way. The tugmen and the bargemen talked in quiet voices as they made fast their craft to the pier. Below them the water was lapping and slapping. The world's work has been clogged up a little. It's to go on again now. The next day three heavy battleships steamed sluggishly through the narrows and came to anchor in the bay. When interviewed by reporters their commanders were vastly amused. No, they said, the United States Navy was not governed as to its movements by strikes. They simply happened to be here through orders issued weeks ago, but their coming was featured in headlines. I saw something else in the papers that night, a force greater than all battleships. As a week before I had felt a whole country in revolt, I felt now a country of law and order, a whole nation of angry tradesmen impatiently demanding an end to all this foreign anarchy. We want no more of your strikes, it said, none of your new crowd spirit, none of your wild talk and dreams. We want no change in this country of ours. The authorities obeyed this will. Bale was denied to Marsh, Vaska and Joe, and for them a speedy trial was urged. The press now held them responsible not only for that first Negro's death, but for all the deaths since their arrest. Let them pay the full penalty. Let them be made an example of. Let this business of anarchy be dealt with and settled once and for all. The work of crushing the strike went on. More troops were brought to the harbor. On the docks there were not only Negro's now, thousands of immigrant laborers were brought from Ellis Island and put to work at double pay, and on every incoming vessel the stokers were all kept on board. Among the strikers there was a break that swiftly spread and became a stampede, and in the following week the work of the harbor went on as before, with its regular commonplace, weakly told, of a hundred killed and injured. Peace had come again at last. On Saturday morning of that week I stood on the deck of a ferry boat, packed with little commuters who waved and cheered a huge ocean liner bound for Europe. Lying deep in the water, her hold laden heavy with the products of this teeming land, her decks thronged with travelers with money in their pockets, her band playing, her flags streaming out, and overall on the captain's bridge the officers up there in command, she was a mighty symbol of order and prosperity and of that efficiency which to me had been a religion for so many years. We all followed the great ship with our eyes as, gathering headway, she steamed out past the Statue of Liberty toward the battleships beyond. Well, said an amused little man close by me, I guess that'll be about all from the strikers. Oh, my smiling little citizen, you've only seen the beginning, I thought. What were the strikers thinking now, and what would they be thinking soon? They had wanted easier lives, they had wanted to feel themselves powers here. Caught up in the tide of democracy, now sweeping all around the earth, they had wanted to feel themselves running themselves in all this work they were doing. So they had come out on strike and become a crowd, and in the crowd they had suddenly found such strength as they never dreamed could be theirs, and they would not easily forget. The harbor was already seeing to that, for already its work had gone on with a rush, and all its heavy labor was weighing down upon them, like a million tons of brick on their chest. I remembered what Joe Kramer had said. It's got so they can't even breathe without thinking. Was the defeat of this one strike the end? The grim battleships answered, yes, it is the end. But the restless harbor answered, no. What change was coming in my life? I did not know. Of one thing only I was sure. The last of my God's efficiency, whose feet had stood firm on mechanical laws, and in whose head was all the brains of all the big men at the top, had now come tottering crashing down, and in its place a huge new God, whose feet stood deep in poverty, and in whose head were all the dreams of all the toilers of the earth, had called to me with one deep voice, with one tremendous burning passion for the freedom of mankind. Once I saw the harbor in a February storm, and in the wind and scurrying snow, I saw it altogether like one whirling thing alive. But the next morning the storm had died away, and a wind from the south had brought banks of fog that moved sluggishly low down on the water, dividing the whole region into many separate parts. And from above a dazzling sun shone down upon three objects near me, a ferry boat, a puffing tug, and a tramp which lay at anchor, shone so brightly on these three they seemed alone, with nothing but mist all about them. So it was now for a time with me. The strike which had so suddenly drawn me into its whirling crowd-life now was suddenly dropped away, and personal troubles piled one on the other. In place of that mass of thousands, I saw only a few people I loved, and I saw them so intensely that for a time we were quite alone, with nothing but mist all around us. Sue sent for me one morning, and I went over to our house. I was startled by the change in her face. It looked not only tired, it looked so disillusioned, done, so through with all the absorbing ideas and warm enthusiasm that had given it abundant life. I'm not going to marry Joe Kramer, she said, and I want you to tell him so. I stared at her blankly. I'm sorry, I said. Are you? There was just a worn shadow of her old smile. I don't know why I said that, I replied. My head's rather dulled this morning. All right, sis, I'll tell him. Still I watched her pityingly. Poor old Sue, what a crash in her life. I'd like you to tell him the whole truth, my sister went on sharply, just why I've decided as I have. Don't say it's because of Father. When I wanted Joe, Dad didn't count. He was nothing to me but a back number. But I don't want him now, Joe, I mean. I don't love him any more. If I went to him today in his cell and said I'd stick by him no matter what happened, because he was the man I'd loved, I'd be lying. That wouldn't be me. The real me is a much smaller person than that. I don't love Joe because I've been scared, because he's in a common jail, waiting to be tried for murder, her face contracted slightly. I suppose it's the way I've been brought up. But Sue, don't stop me, Billy. Let me talk. And she talked on intensively, so absorbed in this fierce impulsive confession that she seemed to forget I was there. I've been thinking what's to become of me. I've been thinking about all the things I've been in, and none seem real any longer. I wanted a thrill, and I got it. That's all. Then I met Joe, and I got it again. I got a thrill out of all his life, and the big things it was made of. I got a great thrill out of the strike. Don't you remember how I talked three weeks ago, when you were here? Dad was the old, and I was the new. I saw everything beginning. I read Walt Whitman's open road, and I felt like Joe's camarado. Well, and I kept on like that. And like a little idiot, I couldn't keep it to myself. I went and told some of my friends. That's what's really the hardest now. What hurts the most, I told my friends. I posed as a Joan of Arc. I was going to marry, give up everything, chuck myself into this fight for the people, into revolution. Thrills, I tell you. Thrills and thrills. But then Joe got arrested. I knew he was in a cell in the tombs, in Murderer's Row, and that drove all the thrills away. That was real. Dad made it worse. He talked about the coming trial, Sing Sing, and the death house there. One morning he tried to read to me an account of an execution. I ran away, but I came back and read it myself. I read all the hideous details right up to the iron chair. And just because there was a chance of Joe's being like that, all at once, I stopped loving him. Not just because I was frightened. It wasn't so simple as a scare. It was something inside of me shuttering and saying, how revolting. I tried to shake it out of me. I tried to keep on loving him, but I couldn't shake it out of me. Joe had become revolting, too. It's because of the way I've been brought up, and because of the way I've always lived. I can't stand what's real if it's ugly. It's me. She broke off and looked down. I came and sat beside her, and took her cold, quivering hands in mine. I guess I am sorry, Sue, oh girl. Don't be, she retorted. I'm too sorry for myself as it is. That's another part of me. Again she broke off with a hard little laugh. Let's forget me for a minute. What has this sweet strike done to you? I'm not sure yet, I answered. Where is Dad? Up in his room. Tell me about him, I said. Sue drew an anxious little breath. Oh, Billy, he's been getting so queer. It has all been such a strain on his mind. Every day he kept reading the news of the strike, and some days he would stamp and rage about till I was afraid to be with him. He talked about that death cell until I thought that I'd go mad. Sometimes when we were talking I thought that we both had gone mad. I went upstairs and found him in a chair by the window. With unnatural, clumsy motions he rose and came to meet me. I'm all right, my boy. His voice had a mumbling quality, and I noticed a strangeness in his eyes. I'm all right. I'm glad to see you. Then his face clouded and hardened a little, and he tried to speak to me sternly. I'm glad you've come clean out of that strike and its notions. Glad you've come to your senses, he said. You're lucky in having such a wife. She's been over here often lately, and she's worth a dozen like you and Sue. Have you seen Sue? Yes. Well, she's all right. I said nothing to this, and he shot a side-long look at me. I had quite a time, my boy. I had to keep right at her. Another quick look. I suppose she's told you how I went at her. Never mind, Dad. It's over now. I had to make her feel the noose. I mean the chair. He went on in those thick, mumbling tones, and that she'd have to choose between that and a decent Christian home, like the home her mother had. She was a wonderful woman, your mother. He wondered off abruptly if she'd only understood me, seen what it was I was trying to do for American shipping, Yankee sales. He sank down in his chair, exhausted, and I noticed he was breathing hard. I'm all right, my boy. I'm quite all right. With a sudden rush of pity and of love and deep alarm, I bent gently over him. Of course you are, white dad, old boy. Just take it easy. Quiet, you know. We're going to pull right out of this. The tears welled suddenly up in his eyes. I'm lonely, boy. I'm glad you're here. Presently I went down to Sioux. When is the doctor coming next? Not till this afternoon, she said. I'll be home tonight for supper. Thony what he says. All right. Where are you going now, to Joe? Yes, sis, I said. She turned and went quickly out of the room. In the tombs, when Joe was brought out to me, I saw that he, too, had been through a deep change. He had been quiet enough all through the strike, except for that one big speech of his, but he had been tensely quiet. Now the tension appeared to be gone. He seemed wrapped up in thoughts of his own. Have you seen Sioux? He asked me at once. Yes, Joe, I've just been with her. What did she say? I began to tell him. I knew it, he interrupted me. I made up my mind to this the first night I spent here in my cell. It couldn't have happened. It wouldn't have worked. Tell her I understand all about it. Tell her that I'm sure she's right. Tell her it's funny, but it's true. Tell her this infernal pen has worked the same way on me as on her. I mean it has made me not want her now. I feel sorry for her, and that's all. Deeply and infernally sorry. I was a fool to have let her into it. My only excuse for being so blind was that damned fever that left me so weak. At any other time I would have seen what a parse it was. I wasn't booked for a life like that. It doesn't fit in with this job of mine. He smiled a little bitterly. I used to say, he continued, that if I had time I'd like to do something yellow enough so that I'd be cut off for life from any chance of church bells. And I guess I've done it this time. No danger of getting respectable now. How do you look at this, Joe? I asked him. What do you think they'll do to you? I don't know. Again he smiled slightly and wearily. And I can't say I care a damn. I feel like those fellows over in Russia, the revolutionist chaps I met, who didn't know if they croaked in a month and didn't care one way or the other. But as a matter of fact, he added, I think this time it's mainly bluff. They want it to get us away from the crowd and keep us away while they broke the strike. Now that it's over, you'll probably find they'll let us all off with light sentences. Of course the murder charge can't hold. By the way, he added smiling. I hear they got you too. Yes, I answered smiling that. The judge find me ten dollars and let me go. He said he hoped this would be a lesson. Joe looked at me curiously. How much of a lesson, kid, do you think this strike has been to you? Quite a big one, Joe, I said. What are you going to do about it? I haven't decided. How is Eleanor taking it all? She's not saying much and neither am I. We're both doing some thinking before we talk. You're quite a pair, J.K. remark. I shouldn't wonder if you'd knows along quite a distance before you get through. I mean in our direction. That's what we're thinking about, I replied. Again he turned to me curiously. You two can think together without talking, can't you? Yes, sometimes we can. I never got that far with Sue. All at once he came closer his whole manner changed. Say, Bill, tell her all I've said, will you? I'm sorry, honest engine. Make her feel how damnably sorry I am that I ever let her in for this. When I left him I went off for a walk, for I wanted to be alone a while. I wondered just how sure Joe felt about his fast approaching trial. It seemed to me that he had a good chance of going where Sue had pictured him. End of Chapter 1 Recording by Tom Weiss Chapter 2 of The Harbor This Librebox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Weiss The Harbor by Ernest Poole Chapter 2 That evening I learned that my father was worse and I spent the next day by his bedside. He had had a stroke in the morning and was not expected to live through the night. I found him mumbling fast to himself and making slight restless efforts to move. At last he grew quiet and presently his half-opened gnarled right hand came groping out over the covers. I took it in mine and at once I felt it close on mine with a quick convulsive strength. His hand was moist, his eyes saw nothing. I sat there thus for a long time. Then suddenly, good boy, he muttered thickly, good boy, good, always good to your mother. He kept repeating this over and over with pauses between, then again with an effort, fiercely, as though from a distance his mind were set on getting this message over to me, over from an age that was dying into an age that was coming to life. A last good-bye to hold me back. Soon he was only mumbling figures, names of ships and distance ports, freight consignments. Now and then his finger would go to his lips as he turned phantom pages in feverish haste. Again in gasping whispers he would break out into arguments for the protection of Yankee sales. Protection, he would whisper. Damn fools not to see it. Discriminating tariffs, subsidies, a navy, don't forget the navy. Remember War of 1812. Nothing without fighting. Nothing without fighting. He had been learning this all his life, and after he had said it now he stopped speaking and grew still. Little by little his movements grew weaker. Finally he lay like a log and the doctor said he would be so until dead. I went up to my old bedroom and sat down by the open window. It was such a beautiful night. From the garden below where long ago I had felt such shivers over the ocean and heathen lands a graceful poplar rose. Behind it from the river the huge, dim funnel of a steamer rose over the roof of the warehouse. Overhead to the right swept a great bridge of my childhood. But behind it were other bridges now, and off across the river the buildings of Manhattan loomed in loftier masses to their apex in the Tower of Lights. How changed it all was since I was a boy, and yet how like. On the harbor still the hurrying lights yellow, blue, and green and red. The same deep, restless hum of labor. And from the waterfront below the same puffs and coughs of engines, the same sharp toots and treble pantings, the same raucous wine of wheels. There came a rough salt breeze from the sea, and it made me think of billowy sails in the days of my father's boundless youth, and of the harbor of long ago that had so gripped and molded him, as I felt mine now molding me. And for what, I asked. To what were we both adventuring out of these little harbors of ours? Toward dawn a tramp came down the river, dimly as she passed below I could see how old she was, how worn and battered by the waves. A desolate and lonely craft, the smoke draggled out of her funnel. I watched her steam into the upper bay and pass around Governor's Island. I watched till in the first raw light of day I could see only her smoke through the narrows. Then even this became but a blur, which crept away in that strange dawn light out into the wide ocean. A few hours later my father died. One by one, from different parts of the port, the queerest old men came into our house on the day of my father's funeral. Men who still believed in American ships, still thrilled to the dream of the stars and stripes wherever there is an ocean breeze. Men who still believed in ships that had sails, and moved along with the force of the winds, who still believed that cabin boys could rise by the sheer force of their wills to be powers in the ocean world. Men who had, for the common crowd, only the iron discipline, the old brute tyranny of the sea. These strange old men stood with their white heads bowed, a little group, looking down into my father's grave. He was a magnificent fighter, I heard one of them say as we left. He wrecked his own business for what he believed in. How many of us would go that far? From the grave Sue came to our apartment. Eleanor had packed her trunk. Sue must keep out of that dreary old house, she told me. Luckily she has a friend out of town whom she's going to visit. When she comes back we must have the house closed and I hope she'll live with us for a while. We talked of this that evening. For Sue seemed to want to talk. We stayed up until late and planned and planned. Many different kinds of work for Sue were taken up and discussed by us all. She surprised me by the brave effort she made. I've got to want something, that's sure, she said. I can't just yet. I've wanted so many things so hard, one after the other for nearly eight years, that now I feel as though I've used up all the wanting that I've got. But of course I haven't. If I have I'm a back number and I'd a great deal rather be dead. So don't you people worry. Depend upon it. In less than a year I'll be all wrapped up in something new. I'll be tremendously enthused, she ended, smiling wearily. She agreed with me that the old house be sold, and after she had left us I made every effort to sell it at once. I found it was heavily mortgaged now, but when at last I made a sale there was enough to clear off all debts and leave about two thousand dollars per Sue. She would have at least something to start on. As we said about the dismantle the house, various things quickly covered with dust came out of the closets, drawers, and shells. And these objects brought near again to me, my mother's life, and that hunger of hers for the things that were fine, that hospitable door which had waited for friends from the handsome old homes all around us. These homes all along the street had now lost their quiet dignity. Some were empty and marked for sale. Others that had already been sold were cheerless boarding houses. The most handsome home of all, with its ample yard where I used to play, was gone, and in its place rose an apartment building which made the old houses all seem like dwarfs. Her world and his were both slipping away. Her life and his. Her creed and his were little now but memories. Memories which ensue and in me must take their chance with the warm new feelings, the cravings, hopes, loves, doubts, and dreams of this adsorbing world of our own. For the harbor was still molding lives. How anxious Eleanor seemed to be, though, I thought a little bitterly. CHAPTER III But Eleanor had good reason. When at last the house had been closed back at home one evening, she told me what she had known for weeks, but had kept to herself until I should be free from other things. We were to have another child. The news was a shock, it frightened me. Where's the money to come from, flashed into my mind. In an instant it had passed and I was holding her tight in my arms. She must have caught that look in my face, for I could feel her trembling. The same funny old world, my dearest one, she whispered, with its same old trick of starting out. But, oh my dear, in spite of it all, or because of it all, how good it is to be alive. More than ever, a hundred times. You darling girl, I whispered back, you're the bravest one of all. Her father came to us the next night, and after Eleanor went to bed he and I talked long together. He looked worn and tired, but the same quiet affection was in his eyes. Let's see where we are, he said, and what we've got to go on. To begin with, thank God, you and I are still friends. Then there's Eleanor and your small son, and the smaller one that's coming. We're just starting in on a long, hot summer. She must, of course, be got out of town. How much have you in the bank? Thirty-seven dollars, I said. He looked thoughtfully at his cigar. You've never yet taken money from me, he continued, after a moment. Still, you'll do it if you had to, because this is our affair. But unluckily, just at present, I'm nearly as high and dry as yourself. The men who have backed my harbor work have lost so heavily in the strike that they feel now they must recoup. I've already proposed to them a plan which they have as good as accepted. They'll provide enough money to pay the rent of a smaller office. I can borrow enough to pay half my men. The rest I'll have to let go for a time. And your salary, I ventured? Is left out, he answered. I mean, it is if I can stay here. I want to stay here. I want to put through this job if I can. You see, it has taken six years of my life. And besides, he added wistfully, in a very few weeks they'll finish the work at Panama, and the ships of the world will begin to crowd into a harbor that isn't ready here. We haven't even completed our plans. It's not a good time to stop our work. But of course, if you and Eleanor get into a hole that is serious, as I said before and you'll agree, you'd have to let me help you. Even if to do it, I should have to give up my work for a while and take up something that will pay. No, sir. Yes, sir, he replied, unless you can earn enough money yourself. We looked at each other a moment. You know how to bring pressure, don't you? I said. Yes, I'm bringing pressure. I want to see you go on as before. That won't be easy, I remarked. Shall we talk it over a little? Yes. All right, he said. Since that talk we had together the day Eleanor's first child was born, what a splendid start you made in your writing. You were not only earning big pay, you were doing fine work, work that was leading somewhere. I could see you learning to use your tools, getting a broad, sane view of life, and of yourself, training yourself and building yourself. You were right on the threshold of big results. But then your friend Kramer came along. He had not built himself, he had chucked himself over, neglected himself, his health included. So he took typhoid and came to your home. His being there was a drain on your pocket and a heavy strain on your nerves. He got you unsettled. Then came the strike. And what has it done? It has taken your time, health, and money. It has left two good workmen stranded, you and me. And I don't see that it's done the crowd any good. What has the strike given you in return for all it has taken away? A deeper view of life, I said. I saw something in that strike so much bigger than Marsh or Joe or that crude organization of theirs, something deep down in the people themselves that rises up out of each one of them the minute they get together. And I believe that power has such possibilities that when it comes into full life, not all the police and battleships and armies on earth can stop it. The look in Dylan's eyes was more anxious than impatient. Billy, he said, I've lived a good deal closer than you have to the big jobs of this world. And I know those jobs are to get still bigger, even more complex, there to require even bigger men. I smiled a bit impatiently. Still the one man in a million, I said. Yes, said Dylan, his day isn't over. It has only just begun. He may have his bad points. I'll admit he has. But compared to all the little men, his vision is wide and it goes deep. And if they'll only leave him alone and give him a chance, he'll take me and the other engineers and the chemists and doctors and lawyers and he'll make a world he's doing it now, where ignorance and poverty will in time be wiped completely out. They're not going to leave him alone, I said. I'm sure of that now. Whether he graphs or whether he's honest won't make any difference. The crowd is going to pull him down because it's not democracy. The trouble with all your big men at the top is that they're trying to do for the crowd what the crowd wants to do for itself. And it may not do it half so well, but all the time it will be learning, gathering closer every year and getting a spirit compared to which your whole clean, clear efficiency world is only cold and empty. He must have caught the look in my eyes. You're thinking that I'm getting old, he said softly. I and all the men like me who have been building up this country, you're thinking that we're all following on after your father into the past. As I looked back I felt suddenly humble. Dylan's voice grew appealing and kind. But you belong with us, Billy, he said. It was under us you won your start. And what I want now, he added, is not only for Eleanor's sake, but your own. I want you to try to write again about all the work we are doing and see what it will do for you. Why not give it another chance? You're not afraid of it, are you? No, I said, I'm not afraid, and I'll give it another chance if you like. I don't want to be narrow about it, God knows, but before I tackle anything else, I'll finish my story of the strike. All right, he agreed. That's all I ask. Now suppose you take Eleanor up to the mountains and write your strike article up there. Let me loan you a little just at the start. How much money have you in the bank? Enough to send Eleanor where she belongs. Eleanor belongs right here, said a voice from the other room, and presently Eleanor appeared. She surveyed us both with a scorn in her eyes that made us quake a little. I never heard, she went on calmly, of anything quite so idiotic. Go home, dad, and go to bed, and please drop this insane idea that I'm afraid of July in New York, or of August or September. Do you know what you're going to do tomorrow, both of you poor, foolish boys? You're going sensibly to work and worry about nothing at all, and tomorrow night we're all three of us going to forget how it feels to work or think, and get on an open trolley and go down and hear Harry Lauder. Thank heaven he happens to be in town. To hear you talk you'd think the whole American people had forgotten how to laugh. Now, Billy, gee in that smoothly, go to the icebox and get two bottles of nice, cool beer, and make me a tall glass of lemonade, and don't use too much sugar. End of chapter three, recording by Tom Weiss, chapter four of the harbor. This Levervox recording is in the public domain, recording by Tom Weiss. The Harbor by Ernest Poole, chapter four. The next day, at the next evening, Eleanor's program was carried out. But after that night, the laughing stopped, for Joe Kramer was coming to trial. I had not seen Joe for over two weeks, and I had taken his view of his case, that there was no serious danger. But now I learned from a good source that Joe and both his colleagues were to be brought to trial at once, while the public feeling was still hot against them. As the time of the trials drew near, every paper in town took up the cry. Let these men be settled once and for all they demanded. Let them not be set free for other strikes, for wholesale murder and pillage. Let them pay the full penalty for their crimes. In the face of this storm, I found myself on Joe's defense committee, the best part of my time each day and evening, taken up with raising money, helping to find witnesses, and doing the press work for parades and big mass meetings of labor. Through this work in odd hours, I finished my story of the strike. It all came back to me vividly now, and I tried to tell what I had seen. I took it to my editor. Print that, he said, when he'd read it, you're mad. It's the truth, I remarked. As you see it, he said, and you've seen it only from one side. If this story had been written and signed by Marsh or your friend Kramer, we might have run it with a reply from the companies. But I don't want to see you stand for this in our magazine or anywhere else. It means too much to you as a writer. Look out, my boy, he added with a return to the brusque kindliness, which he had always shown me in the years I had worked under him. We think a lot of you in this office. For God's sake, don't lose your head. Don't be one more good reporter spoiled. I took my story of the strike to every editor I knew, and it was rejected by each in turn. They thought it all on the side of the crowd, an open plea for revolution. Then I took it to Joe in the tombs. Will you sign this, Joe? I asked when he had read it. No, he replied. It's too damn mild. You've given too much to the other side. All these bouquets to efficiency, and all this about the weak points of the crowd, the average stoker reading this would think that the revolution won't come till we are all white-haired. I don't believe it will, I said. I know you don't. That's why you're no good to us, he said. We want our stuff written by men who are sure that a big revolution is just ahead. Men who are certain that a strike to take in half the civilized world is coming in the next ten years. I don't believe that. I know, you can't. You're still too soaked in the point of view of your efficiency, Father-in-law. So you don't feel you can sign this. No. That day I sent my story to a small magazine in New England which from the time of the Civil War had retained its traditions of breadth of view. Within a week the editor wrote that he would be glad to publish it. Our modest honorarium will follow shortly, he said at the end. The modest honorarium did. Meanwhile I had sent him a sketch of Nora Ganey which I had written just after the strike. I received the letter equally kind and another honorarium. I began to see a future of modest honoraria. In the meantime to meet our expenses at home I had borrowed money and given my note, and the note would soon fall due. Those were far from pleasant days. On the one side Joe in his cell waiting to be tried for his life. On the other Eleanor at home waiting for a new life to be born. By a lucky chance for me Joe's trial was again postponed so I could return to my own affairs. I had to have some money quick. I went back to my magazine editor and asked for a job in his office. I'm ready now to be sane, I said. Glad to hear it, he replied. I'll give you a steady routine job where you can grind till you get yourself right. Till I get back where I was, you mean. Yes, if you can, he answered. I went for a walk that afternoon to think over the proposition he'd made. I have seen three harbors, I said to myself. My father's harbour which is now dead, Dylan's harbour of big companies which is very much alive, and Joe Cramer's harbour which is struggling to be born. It's an interesting age to live in. I should like to write the truth as I see it about each kind of harbour. But I need the money. My wife is going to have a child, so I'll take that steady position and try to grind part of the truth away. What have you been doing? Eleanor asked when I came home. You look like a ghost. Not at all, I replied. I've been getting a job. Tell me about it. I told her apart. She went and got her sewing and settled herself comfortably for a quiet evening's work. Eleanor loved baby clothes. Now, begin again and tell me all she ordered, and she persisted, until I did. It won't do, she said when I had finished. It will do, I replied decidedly. It's the best thing in sight. It will see us through till the baby is born. After all, it's only for a year. It's a mighty important year for you, my love, said Eleanor. She thoughtfully held up and surveyed a tiny infant's nightgown. If you do this, you'll be giving up. It's not writing your best. It's giving up what you think is the truth. And that's a bad habit to get into. It's settled now. Please leave it alone. Oh, very well, she said placently. Let's talk of what I've been doing. What you've been doing? Precisely. I've taken the little apartment downtown over by the river. The rent is twenty-eight dollars a month. It's on the top floor and has plenty of air and is a nice roof for hot summer evenings. You're to carry two wicker chairs up there each night after supper. I'll do nothing of the kind, I rejoined indignantly. You're going to pack up at once and go to the mountains. And when you come back, you're coming right here. Oh, no, I'm not. She answered. Don't be an idiot, Eleanor. Think of moving out of here now. In your condition. It's better than moving out of your work. Dad has kept right on with his, even when they stopped his pay. Well, now they've stopped your pay. That's all. And we've got to do the best we can. We've simply got to live for a while on modest honorariums. Now, don't talk. Wait till I get through. You've got to work harder than ever before, but for much less money. But with less money than before, we're going to be happier than we've ever been in all our lives. And you can't do a thing to stop it. If you do take that office work and bring a lot of money home, do you know what I'll do? I'll move to that little flat just the same, and all the extra money you bring will go to Mrs. Bailey. Who in God's name is Mrs. Bailey? One of my oldest charity cases. She was here this afternoon. The trouble with you is, my dear, my wife continues smoothly, that you've been so wrapped up in your own little changes you haven't given a thought to mine. Well, I've done some changing too. Every time that Sue or you have taken up a new idea, I've taken up a Mrs. Bailey. I did the same thing in the strike. I went with Nora Ganey into the very poorest of all the tenements down by the docks. I saw the very worst of it all, and I tried to do what I could to help. But I felt like a drop in the ocean. And that's how I've changed. Things are so wrong in the tenements that big reforms are needed. I don't know what they are, and I'm not sure anyone else does. But I'm sure that if any reforms were worthwhile or to be made, we've got to see just where we are. And that means that quite a number of people, you for instance, have got to tell the truth exactly as they see it. So I'd rather put our money in that and let old Mrs. Bailey forget our address. That's another reason for moving. There's nothing noble about it at all, she said as she threaded her needle. I mean to be perfectly comfortable. I saw this coming long ago. And since the strike was over, I've spent weeks picking out a nice place where we can get the most for our money. About 30,000 babies, I'm told, are to be born in the city this summer. And their mothers aren't going first to the mountains, or even for a walk in the park. I don't see why I shouldn't be one. As a matter of fact, I won't be one. My baby won't be born until fall, and I'll have a clean, comfortable flat with one maid instead of a dirty tenement with all the cooking and washing to do. You'll probably find magazines who will pay enough honorariums to make a hundred dollars a month, which is just about three times as much as Mrs. Bailey lives on. So that's settled, and we move this week. We moved that week. End of Chapter 4. Recording by Tom Weiss Chapter 5 of the Harbor This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Weiss The Harbor by Ernest Poole Chapter 5 One night, about a month later, when we had ensconced ourselves for the evening out on the roof of our new home, where the summer's night was cooled by a slight breeze from the river, our maid came up and told me there was a strange gentleman below. I went down and brought him up. I was deeply pleased and excited, for he was the English novelist whom I most admired these days. He had come to me during the strike and had been deeply interested in the great crowd spirit I had found. He was going back to England now. I'm curious, he told me, to see how much your striker friends have kept of what they got in the strike. What new ideas and points of view. How much are they really changed? That, I should think, is by far the most valuable part of it all. It's just what I've been trying to find out for myself, I replied. Really, will you tell me? I told him how on docks, on tugs and barges, in bar rooms and in tenements, I was having talks with various types of men who had been strikers. How I was finding some dull and hopeless, others bitter. But more who simply felt that they had bungled this first attempt and were already looking forward to more and greater struggles. The socialists among them were already hard at work, urging them to carry their strike on into the political field, vote together in one salad mass, and build up a government all their own. Through this ceaseless ferment I had gone in search of some significant characters, incidents, new points of view. I was writing brief sketches of it all. How do you feel about all this, the Englishman asked, before you were drawn into the strike, and turning from me to Eleanor, and you, he added? Gradually he got the stories of our lives. I told how all my life I had been raising up gods to worship, and how the harbor had flowed silently in beneath, undermining each one and bringing it down. It seems to have such a habit of changing, I ended, that it won't let a fellow stop. Lucky people, he answered, smiling, to have found that out so soon, to have had all this modern life condensed so causally into your harbor before your eyes, and to have discovered, while you are still young, that life is growth and growth is change. I believe the age we live in is changing so much faster than any age before it, that a man, if he's to be vital at all, must give up the idea of any fixed creed, in his office, his church, or his home, that if he does not he will only wear himself out, butting his indignant head against what is stronger, and probably better than he. But if he does, if he holds himself open to change and knows that change is his very life, then he can get a serenity which is as much better than that of the monk as living is better than dying. We talked of books being written in England and France, in Germany and Russia, all dealing with deep changes in the views and beliefs and desires of men. Any man, he said, who thinks that modern Europe will go smoothly, quietly on, needs a dose of your harbor to open his eyes. He turned to me with a sudden thought. Why don't you write a book, he asked, about this harbor you have known? Eleanor made a quick move in her chair. That's just what you want to do, she explained. I wonder if I could, I said. It would be hard to see it now, as it looked at all the different times. You'll hardly be able to do that, the Englishman answered quietly, because to each one of us, I suppose, not only his present but his past is constantly changing to his view. But I wouldn't let that bother you. What would interest me as a reader would be your view of life as you look back upon it today, in this present stage of your growth. I was raised in the Alps myself, he went on. So my picture of life is the mountain path. As I climb and turn now and then to look back, the twisting little path below appears quite different each time. But still I keep on writing, my changing view of the slope behind and of the rising peaks ahead. And now and then, by working my hardest, I've felt the greatest joy of writing the truth. As you know it isn't easy. But year by year I've felt my readers grow in number. I believe they are going to grow and grow, not mine nor yours, but the readers of all the chaps like ourselves, the readers who pick up each new book with the hope that one more fellow has done his best, not to please them, but to please himself, by telling of life as he has seen it, his changing life through his changing eyes. After he left us there was a long silence. Both of us were thinking hard. And as Eleanor looked up to the stars I saw their brightness in her eyes. Yes, she said at last. I'm sure. I'm sure you better take his advice and write as truthfully as you can the whole story as you see it now, of this strange harbor you have known. We talked long and eagerly that night. CHAPTER SIX I began my story of the harbor. Every hour that I could spare from the stories and sketches of tenement life, by which I made a scant living those days, I spent in gathering memories of my long struggle with this place, arranging and selecting and setting them in order for this record of the great life I had seen. But this wide world has many such lives, many heaving forces. And ever since I had been born, while I had been building for myself one after the other, I have been living in this place for a long time. After these gods of civilization and peace, all unheeded by my eyes, a black shadow had been silently creeping over the whole ocean world. Now from across the water there came the first low grumble of war. Within one short, portentous week that grumble had become a roar, and before all the startled peoples had time to realize what was here, vast armies were being rushed over the lands, all Europe was in chaos, and the world was on the eve of the most prodigious change of all. And like the mirror of the world that it had always been to me, the harbor at once reflected this change. Only a little time before I had seen it almost empty except for that crude boat of the crowd, the international with its songs of brotherhood and of a world where wars should cease. Now I saw it jammed with ships from whose mess flew every flag on the seas, and from the men who came ashore I heard of how they had been chased, some fired upon by battleships. I heard of war upon the seas. I felt my father's world reborn, an ocean world where there was nothing without fighting and where every nation fought. Ours had already entered the list, with a loud clamour for ships of our own in which to seize this sudden chance for our share of the trade of the world. The great canal was open at last, and Europe in her turmoil had had not even a moment to look. The east and south lay open to us, rush in and get our share at last, make our nation strong at sea. And while in blind confusion I groped for some new footing here, strove to see what it was going to mean to that fair world of brotherhood which I had seen struggling to be born, suddenly as though in reply there came a sharp voice out of the crowd. Joe Kramer came to trial for his life. Before his case went to the jury, Joe rose up and addressed them, and he spoke of war and violence. He spoke of how in times of peace this present system murders men on ships and docks and railroads, in the mills and down in the mines. And as though these lives were not enough, the powers above in this scramble for theirs for all the profits in the world, all the sweat at labour they could wring out of humankind, had now flown at each other's throats, and the blood of the common people was pouring out upon the earth. My comrades over the water, he said, saw this coming years ago. They worked day and night to gather the workers of Europe together against this war that will blacken the world. For that they were called anti-patriots, fiends, men without a country, and some were imprisoned and others were shot. And over here, where in times of peace the number of killed and wounded is over 500,000 a year, for rebelling against this murder, they have called me murderer, and have placed me here on trial for my life. And what I want to ask you now is that you take no halfway course. Either send me out of this dock a free man or up the river to the chair. For this is no year for compromise. Am I a murderer, yes or no? Decide with your eyes wide open. If you set me free, I shall still rebel. I shall join my comrades over the sea who already are going about in the camps and saying to the rank and file, you can stop this slaughter, you can save this world gone mad, you can end this murder both in time of war and peace. And the jury set Joe free. Early in the following week I went down to his room by the docks for a last evening with him there. Joe was sailing that same night. Under a name not his own he had taken passage in the steerage of the big fast liner which was the sail at one o'clock. Into his room all evening poured his revolutionist friends and the chance of revolution abroad was talked of in cool practical terms. Nothing could be done they said in the first few months to stop this war. Years ago the man in France who had led the anti-war movement had predicted that if war broke out every government rushing in would force on its people the belief that this was no war of aggression but one of defense of the fatherland from a fierce on rushing foe. And so in truth it had come about and against that appeal to fight for their homes no voice of reason could stem the tide. The socialists had been swept on with the rest by tens and hundreds of thousands they had already gone to the front but it was upon this very fact that Joe and his friends now rested their hopes. For just so soon as in the camps the first burst of enthusiasm had begun to die away as the millions in the armies began to grow sick of the sight of blood the groans and the shrieks of the wounded and dying the stench of the dead and themselves weary of fighting worn by privation and disease began to think of their distant homes their wives and children starving there then the socialists in their midst one at every bevawak fire would begin to ask them why is it that we are at war what good is all this blood to us is it to make our toil any lighter life any brighter in our homes or were we sent out by our rulers to die only in order that they in their scramble might take more of the earth for themselves and if this is true why not rise like men and end this fearful carnage already these thousands were in the camps into Joe's room that evening came men to give him the names and regiments of those comrades he could trust Joe with a few hundred others was to make his dangerous way into the camps and the barracks wherever that was possible of French and Russians and Germans alike to carry news from one to the other to make ready and to plan now and then in the talk that night I felt the thrilling presence of that rising God that giant spirit of the crowd not dead but only sleeping now to gain new strength for what it must do and again in gleams and flashes I saw the vision of the end the world for all the workers for in this crowded tenement room forgotten now by governments this rough earnest group of men seemed so sure of this world of theirs so sure that it was now soon to be born one by one they went away and Joe and I were left alone slowly he refilled his pipe I thought of the talks we had had in ten years well Bill he inquired at last what are you going to do with yourself write what I see in the crowd I said from my new point of view this year's point of view I added I went on to tell him what the English writer had said and I told of my book on the harbor well said Joe when I was through I guess it's about the best you can do you've got a wife to think of you don't know her I rejoined and I told him how she had changed our home in order not to stop my work but don't you see what she's up to said Joe what the devil do you mean I asked indignantly Joe blew a pitying puff of smoke you poor blind dub of a husband he said with his old affectionate smile she's making you love her all the more you're anchored worse than ever you can't go over to Europe and take a chance at being shot don't you see the hole you're in you've got to care what happens to you I'm not so sure of that Joe I said things in this world are changing so fast that it's hard for any man in it to tell where he'll be in a year from now or even a few short months from now it's the year that no man can see beyond you mean you're coming over he asked I'm not sure just now I'm going to finish this book I'm going to see Eleanor through till the baby is born but after that if over in Europe the people rise against this war I don't just see how I can keep out Joe looked at me clearly and with a curious gruffness I hope you will keep out he said there aren't many women like your wife he pulled an old grip from under his bed and began throwing in a few books and clothes from a drawer he swept a few colored shirts some underclothes and a small revolver JK I said I've been thinking about us and I think our youth is gone what's youth asked Joe indefinitely youth I reply is the time when you can think anything feel anything and go anywhere I'm still going anywhere he remarked but you can't think anything I rejoined you say I'm tied to a wife and home all right I'm glad I am but you're tied you're tied to a creed Mr. syndicate a list a creed so stiff that you can't think of anything else all right I'm glad I am he echoed I'm sorry youth lasted as long as it did he closed his grip and strapped it then he took up his hat and coat and threw a last look about the room where he had lived for a year or more breaking down home ties he said with don't come to the boat he added downstairs she don't sail for an hour or two and I'll be asleep in my bunk long before all right goodbye JK remember we may meet over there again that roughness came into his voice if you do you'll be taking a mighty big chance he said goodbye Bill it's just possible we may never meet again glad to have made your acquaintance kid here's wishing you luck he turned and went off down the farm with that long swinging walk of his his big heavy shoulders bent rather more than before and as I stood looking after him I thought of the lonely winding road that he was to travel day and night in the slums of cities and in and out among the camps I walked slowly back through the tenements toward the new home among them that Eleanor had made in the summer's night the city streets were still alive with people I passed brightly lighted thoroughfares where I saw them in crowds and I knew that this tide of people flowed endlessly through the hundreds of miles of streets that made up the port of New York hurrying idling talking and laughing quarreling fighting here stopping to look at displays and shop windows they're pouring into movies and walking walking walking on going up into their tenement homes to eat and drink love breed and sleep to wake up and come down to another day so the crowd moved on and on while the great harbor surrounding their lives and shaping their lives went on with its changes unheeded I tried to think of this harbor as being run by this common crowd of the railroads mines and factories of the colleges hospitals and all institutions of research and the theaters and concert halls the picture galleries all the books all in the power of the crowd it will be a long time I thought before it comes the crowd must change but they will change and fast or slow I belong with them while they're changing something Joe had once said came into my mind they're the ones who get shot down in wars and worked like dogs in time of peace and I thought of the crowds across the sea of men being rushed over Europe on trains or marching along starlit roads or tramping across meadows and I thought of long lines of fire and dawns spurting from the mouths of guns from mountain sides from out of woods from trenches and fast blackening fields and have men in endless multitudes hitching on their faces as the fire mowed them down and with those men it seemed to me when all the great gods I had known gods of civilization and peace the kind god in my mother's church and the smiling goddess in Paris the clear-eyed god of efficiency and the awakening god of the crowd all plunging into this furnace of war with the men in whose spirits all gods dwell to shrivel and melt in seething flames and emerge at last in strange new forms what would come out of the furnace I thought of Joe and his comrades going about in towns and camps speaking low and watching waiting hoping to bring a new dawn a new order out of this chaotic night and I heard them say to these governments your civilization is crashing down for a hundred years in all our strikes and risings you preached against our violence you talked of your law and order your clear deliberate thinking in you lay the hope of the world you said you were civilization you were mind and science in you was all efficiency in you was art religion and you kept the public peace but now you have broken all your vows the world's treasures of art are as safe with you as they were in the dark ages your prints of peace you have trampled down and all your science you have turned to the efficient slaughter of men in a week of your boasted calmness you have plunged the world into a violence beside which all the bloodshed in our strikes and revolutions seems like a pool beside the sea and so you have failed you powers above blindly and stupidly you have failed for you have let loose of violence where you are weak and we are strong we are these armies that you have called out and before we go back to our homes we shall make sure that these homes of ours shall no more become ashes at your will for we shall stop this war of yours and in our minds we shall put away all hatred of our brother men for us they will be workers all with them we shall rise and rise again until at last the world is free the voice had ceased and again I was walking by myself along a crowded tenement street immigrants from Europe brothers sons and fathers of the men now in the camps kept passing me along the way as I looked into their faces I saw no hope for Europe there such men could take and hold no world but then I remembered how in the strike out of just such men as these I had seen a giant slowly born would that proud spirit rise again could it be that the time was near when this last and mightiest of the gods would rise and take the world in his hands at home I found Eleonora's sleep for a time I sat at my desk and made some notes for my writing I read and smoked for a little then undressed and went to bed but still I lay there wide awake thinking of this home of mine and of where I might be in a few months more in this year that no man can see beyond for all the changes in the world seemed gathering in a cyclone now I was nearly asleep when I was roused by a thick voice from the harbor low in the distance deep but now rising blast on blast its waves of sound beat into the city into millions of ears of sleepers and watchers the well the sick and dying the dead the lovers the schemers the dreamers the toilers the spenders and wasters I shut my eyes and saw the huge liner on which Joe was sailing moving slowly out of its slip down at its bottom men shoveling coal to the clang of its gong on the decks above them hundreds of cabins and sweets deluxe most of them dark and empty now bellowing impatiently as it swept out into the stream it seemed to be saying make way for me make way all you little men make way all you habits and all you institutions all you little creeds and gods for I am the start of the voyage over the ocean to heathen lands and I am always starting out and always bearing you along for I am your molder I am strong I am a surprise I am a shock I am a dazzling passion of hope I am a grim executioner I am reality I am life I am the book that has no end this is the end of the harbor by Ernest pool recording by Tom Weiss