From a Labor Reporter's Note-book
Levinson, Edward
From a Labor Reporter's Note-book , By Edward Levinson ABUNCH of boy- were whooping It up in the back now of Snyder's soft drink establishment on a corner of one of Jersey City's back-streets....
...Jab doesn't seem to give a hang much for the old days of cocktails and wisecracks around the samovar...
...Toward the end of the day a statement from the Railway Managers' Association confirmed this In solemn, substantial tones...
...When the strike started a week ago there were about 10,000 men oat here...
...Something ought to be done about teaching these same sob sisters and publicity hash alingen that the day of "interesting Individuals'' Is done...
...The way I see It, it's this way," said Jim...
...Now that is Just too bad for Alice In Soviet land...
...If the strike was going bad in Jeney City, the strikers' stronghold, it must be flopping all along tbe line...
...That'll hew It leeks to me...
...Eight days later, there are only 4,060 left and a lot of them gramhamg...
...There's ihrays the chance, aa Norman Thomas so wisely Mats out, that they may go Fascist with a bang, to doubt about it, Fascist movements whether law are taking that name or not, are making Hist headway in America...
...That left 8,000.1 heard a couple of strikers say they had landed Jobs elsewhere...
...The strike was soon ended...
...Two thousand went back to work op to yesterday...
...Jim had worked on the story...
...She is saying: "1 want you to know Edgar, he's an ardent Socialist too...
...The "Association of Railway Strike Reporters" was the inspire, tlon of the labor reporter from the Evening World Barred from the strike hall by mistrustful workers nursing many old and current grudges against the press, the men from the Manhattan pressrooms had been forced to cool their heels In discomfort on the pavement Jim D. solved this vexing problem...
...That leaves between 4,008 and 8,060 still out rd say about 4,000 still out Strike started with 10,006 out and the men defiant as hell...
...There were' H* Encyclopaedists, secretly aided by Madame rjs Pompadour, smuggling their seditious ideas ftnafgbout the kingdom, and there wen hosts of isjiriir intellectuals in every dm wing-room of jin* awaiting tbe dawning of an Utopian Day...
...But, by all the goda that be or never were, a world such as we have all dreamed and struggled for in our fondest hours is being chiseled out before our very eyes . . ..All this is taking place, and milady of the press sips a vodka cocktail, listens to some bitter piffle from a "declassed" princess, unloosens her girdle and several globules of sentimental moisture, and sighs in the best Oostoievnktan fashion . . . She goes back to her hotel, opens up her tear-stained notebook, and for a fearful hour, her portable typewriter quivers and keens under the wrenching tragedy her fingers dribble on the prosaic keys...
...I ? • • Battalions of tractors trundle forth making gnat swaths and drumming theme songs of creation...
...The gentleman from Mr...
...He was barred from membership...
...Over one-sixth of the globe, one hundred and forty millions of workers and peasants, are building, pounding, sowing, reaping, hammering, hewing, sweating, moiling and blundering into the most gigantic thing history has ever known...
...Pent-House Revolutions Pj^rjtOUGH afl classes of the French people, with KgjretJks exceptkai of that class which finally * to make itj-ehere was vast talk of the Revo-Bjg!, Jong before It actually took place...
...Jeb Yakovich Is the writer who used to do such delightful bits of literary gaga only a year ago . . . who was such a real Bohemian, who made Montparnasse whoopee while Stalin cracked the Pyatlletka nagaika, and the millions of the Soviet Union strained and sweated in the harness of creation . . . That to Miss Hughes was idyllic, lyric, elegiac...
...Certainly the Com-Mata would give their collective left legs to saw...
...Villard's circumspect Evening Post insisted upon working by himself, and besides he didn't drink...
...angland...
...The leaders of the railroad brotherhoods Involved fought the strike as bitterly as did the railroads and the federal government...
...He other day, that bible of New York's smart ¦tt, "The New Yorker," published a drawing of a dear little penthouse chit introducing one of her ley Mends to another...
...From a Labor Reporter's Note-book , By Edward Levinson ABUNCH of boy- were whooping It up in the back now of Snyder's soft drink establishment on a corner of one of Jersey City's back-streets...
...The nickel-in- the-slot piano clanged an ancient waltz...
...So complete was the atmosphere of hysteria that many believed the strike was to be the forerunner of an American counterpart to the Russian revolution...
...There .jjgthst old chatter-box Voltaire scaring the starch Sat the pretty ladies around him with his sear-tig attacks on respected Institutions...
...A short block from •here this is being written In New York, the HJjadcan Hitlerites gather weekly hi great num-Wp In a big German restaurant, under their sign Hps* swastika...
...And press wires throughout the nation bad long since conveyed the same intelligence to uncomplaining ticker machines...
...i Something should be done about It * it 8. A. dc Witt...
...What part did the press play in this hang-over from the war-time red scams...
...All of us have manifold contacts with the rcrkers, but none of us can say which way they HB Jump when the lid finally blows off...
...Mr Alitor Coleman...
...HpOf this points to the magnificent opportunity pat Is before us in this coming campaign to capi-Pjnse the new and far-flung interest that exists in pan United States in Socialism and to resolve to lib* all that is in us for the building up of the V*rty to such strength as it has never had...
...SOCIALIST STAMP COIXECTOB A young comrade of the British Independent Labor party withes to exchange stamps with a member of the Socialist party of America...
...That strike's going bad...
...An hour later tbe New York press blazoned headlines of "Dwindling Strike," "Sullen Striken...
...Only two exceptions were permitted...
...And of these the majority are Mil tbe working classes...
...Address, H. O. Robinson, 01 Anerley road, London, 8. ¦. SS...
...He didn't have to use the agreed story if he didn't want to...
...Right now when an unprecedented economic crisis, accompanied by an unheard of spreading of unemployment, threatens to rob countless workers of their courage and make them despondent...
...Otto Bauer on Labor Music "Thirty yean of the promotion of singing by the proletarian choral societies equal thirty yean of cultural work within the proletariat ' and for the proletariat...
...right now when we are waging a defensive trench warfare against a redoubtable enemy, a warfare In which we can't go over the top, but are compelled to defend every inch of ground In tiresome everyday struggles...
...He Is finding greater stuff for romance and adventure In thousand acre patches of homely cabbage...
...Some jjj tin Communists* new rah-rah allies might try g*t out at their next plenum...
...And now that Tovartsh Jakovieh has turned his talent Into purposeful pamphlets and his Idle wit Into ponderous prodding for tbe Five Year Plan, her idol Is clay and laughter has gone out of their friendship...
...As tt was to France, the masses here are pre-arvlng a silence which would make me extremely emus, were I an upholder of tbe status quo...
...That leaves 8,000 stttl oat...
...Jim D. deposited the painted Rose in a chair by an empty table and ordered a drink for her...
...ley have aa yet found no spokesman to say ex-ctly what is on their minds...
...s ft this time of hesitation through which we pi'going, something very like that revolutionary U|i|arli in France is taking place in 1932 America...
...Therefore ,the activities of the labor singers are more essential than ever to our whole movement...
...Sri Sri has a P*W union scheme, which Is not bad at all...
...Hours of serious work were cut down to practically nothing...
...He allowed the tinr.y piano to remain silent and broke In on the card game...
...To be sure, everyone is delight-ejUy vague about what Socialism Would really ¦eta in this country...
...What he came back with was tbe basis for the dsy's news...
...To print anything else was a violation of the by-laws of the association...
...William D. Haywood and William Z. Foster, respectively the leaders of the I W. W. and the Communists, denied the honors, with reluctance, no doubt...
...The strike was not of their making, they were forced to admit...
...Federal Indictments for interfering with the transportation of foodstuffs harassed the strike leaden...
...The Hplshed by E. P. Dutton & Company...
...We an living now in a mass sge...
...But g by any chance, you horn into one of these affairs and admit that you have been an honest to God Socialist for some time back, you will find yourself tbe instant object of everyone's attention sad will be urged to "ait right down in that comfy chair and tell us all about It...
...Now and then a walking delegate was dispatched to nose among the striken gathered outside the ball...
...Whereas a short while §o they turned up scornful noses at the activists of the League fqr Industrial Democracy, now fee Barricade Boys are trying to go the L. L D. ae better by getting up a students' league of their an and the great Pooh Bah of the Plebs, BUI roster, himself, spent a lot of time lecturing to tflegians on the delights of Dictatorship...
...And it won't be long, right here In pur own Blunder-land, when these delicate wanderings of our ecriven-lng Alices will end, and there will be much less heard of singular pronouns, and a great deal more of "us" and "our," and "they" and "their...
...Strike Ranks Breaking Fast...
...Jeb In those days was nearest to the gods...
...An old order has been ploughed under, Tbe bright grain of the new plan is about to ripen...
...At the extension of the bar winch ran through the length of the front saloon and the par-titioned-off back room, a reporter from an inconsequential Jersey paper pencilled a coat-of-arms for "The Association of Railway Strike Reporters...
...Finding the striken inhospitable, he spread tbe word, and the center of strike Interest, for the press, moved swiftly from the strike hall to the saloon...
...United States Senator Royal 8. Copeland, then Health Commissioner in New York City, called a labor reporter reputed to be "in the know" to his office and for almost an hour, In quaking tones, solicited assurances that this was not really the beginning of a revolution...
...Sandwiches were extra and not to be paid for out of the union treasury...
...Bob M. of Tits Evening Journal snored an unbroken refrain from underneath the table, while on top of it the gentlemen from the Evening Sun, the Globe and the Call played an argumentative game of stud poker...
...Wilson's attorney general, A Mitchell Palmer, felt the strike had been engineered by the Industrial Workers of the World as part of a Communist party plot...
...Fm for that...
...Jim D. said the reporter from the Socialist Call was "expected to write a different kind of hooey...
...wrong time and some of them an quietly trying to get their Jobs back...
...I True, there Is a centralized, benevolent despotism controlling this scene of mass movement and production...
...Oet around New York a bit and you find to your sjns amazement that one of the main topics of srawereation at Park Avenue cocktail parties and Milium) Square pent-houses is none other than that of Socialism...
...Tbe problem arose: How to keep the more industrious of the reporters from sneaking out and snatching up a bit of news while the other boys were resting at Snyder's The example of tbe railway striken was close at hand...
...1 **» Just finished a grand book, an escape book HjMful, from economic planning, current taxes ¦! PJst and present debts...
...He has Just left a missive sent all the way PJBi India by a kindly old gentleman with a long VMt* beard whose name Bounds like a college R is Sri Sri Thakur Dayananda Deva...
...The Chatterbox SOMETHING ought to be done about this plethora of Russian impressions by the lovely ladles of the New York press...
...The only catch is that when get together, we usually use meat-axes and f'Wsg-knlves on one another's vitals...
...True, there to much to be desired for , those of us who place so much weight on personal liberty and on democracy...
...Dues were 12 a day, which went for the drinks...
...Within a half hour of his arrival on Jersey's shore the first day of the assignment, he had looked up Snyder's...
...There must be a lot like them, say about 2,000...
...And then back through the looking-glass Into the blue room of reality, they will find how cabbages have more royalty and use for human happiness than a thousand palaces crammed full of kings, see Something ought to be done about these Russian impressions, I say, even to the point of keeping the borders closed to all persons and visitors, save workers, technicians and Industrial surveyors . . . That of course would exclude not only lady newspaper columnists...
...I Almost every day now, the postman brings me I* as* plan of one sort or another for saving man-|pd...
...Them is now a sort of progressive narration about a little bit more soap, some hot* water, sad an occasional bath...
...Jim D. of The Evening World, hazy-eyed, waltzed Rose, second name unknown, around the table...
...His mathematics was Incontrovertible...
...Armies of men and women pour In and out of huge nulla and factories, and down and up out of great pits, endlessly, fervently, earnestly, going about It all as no army of toilers ever marched to and from work before...
...Streams that once leaped with anarchic uselessnsss down the Ural steeps have been caught and tamed within Gargantuan dame...
...Smoke stacks are writing the dicta of Industrial accomplishment on the scroll of the sky...
...Tbe men are grumbling shout their leaders pulling them out at the...
...Nevertheless, the government moved against the strike ss though it were an attempt at insurrection against tbe established order...
...right now Is when we need more than ever the swing, the inspiration, the enthusiasm, aroused by the labor choruses...
...It's called, "I Cover I Water Front" and it's by Max Miller, snippy rsporter on tbe San Diego "Sun...
...The railway strike of 1920, involving mostly shopmen and yardmen, was an "outlaw" strike...
...For Socialists with ttme on their' hands, as so many of us have now-idays, there's occupation a'plenty in giving ele-, ¦entary talks on Socialism to our so-called intel-taatsla " ' Ordinarily you.would expect those professional "hard-boiled proletarians,'' the Communists, to emit loud hoots of derision at the idea of wasting any tjme on such bourgeois riff-raff as the pent-house Basra...
...It had been called without approval of the union officials...
...Who gives one stifled heave for a character-humorist such as Miss Alice Hughes of the New York Telegram made so much pathetic ado about last week, as one of her annual offerings on "What's What in Soviet Russia...
...For this was the pitiless, sleepless eye of the metropolitan press watching the most important sector of the 1930 strike of 80,000 railroad workers for the enlightenment of a waiting army of millions of readers...
...And in most Instances it is an mixed up with Communism and Anarchy...
...It Is Just too sad that be has given princesses and kings such a backfUp over his shoulders...
...That was plain...
...Once every year,, for a two* week stay, they are yanked out of their sob and salesgirl columns and sent over to bring back tales of culinary grief, and the three terrible runs in that "last" pair of silk stockings...
...There man* he at least 1,000 of them...
...Mas* production, mass thinking, mass suffering, mass moving...
...It j*,*1 Mixed up with religion and mysticism, how-Pi that It Is a bit over our heads, but the general Hfe to be that we should all get together, pxly...
...Just ran-* thoughts and observations of a singularly Kprd-workmg reporter who takes you into Bl cf gulls and ships and elephant seals, as Hn as a dive through thundering surf...
...Surprisingly enough, they now seem to be attempting to 'bore, from within" this outfit and t Is nothing unusual to find the moat granite-Jawed a* "agitprops" holding forth to a breathless group »* stockbrokers and their sweeties in the swankiest i Mid town speakeasies...
...but members of the American Communist party as well A double blessing then for the work of the Soviet Union If the double exclusion were thus made , . . Truth and encouragement for us hers might filter through and set our Judgment and vision aright on what still to so blurred and overcolored by anathema from the right and raucous trumpeting from the left...
...The "Association of Railway Strike Reporters" came Into being...
...If it was, he said, he wanted to get out of office and move his family to safety...
...4 The deadline for the noon editions approached...
Vol. 13 • June 1932 • No. 24
