AS THE CROW FLIES
Meyer, Ernest L.
As the Crow Flies By ERNEST L. MEYER QUIETLY and without police interference, the Socialist party recently held its national convention, nominated Norman Thomas, adopted a platform including a...
...Louis to draft a platform...
...Each local was to vote on these platforms...
...Two platforms were drawn up and submitted to a national referendum...
...That was an exciting night...
...The convention split into two camps, pre-war and anti-war...
...There was no secrecy, because, officially, v.e are at peace...
...Wis., run by a pint-sized, spectacled idealist named Emil Orne...
...We would knock at the door, and Emil would peek, and let us in...
...He'd voted the Socialist ticket 20 years, he said...
...He was deeply moved, he said, by the spirit of the meeting...
...Immediately there was an uproar...
...whose name I have forgotten...
...The front door was locked and the blinds drawn...
...His shop was a tidy, sober place with no air of mystery, but in that war year it housed conspirators, pacifists, and all manner of evil people...
...It might be, he intimated, that we couldn't stop the war—or even conscription...
...There must have been 50 people there that night, men and women, all sitting tensely on the ironing boards...
...But he was also depressed, he told us...
...Our faith would move mountains and end wars...
...specifically to a little tailor shop in Madison...
...My memory travels back to 1917...
...The anti-war platform pledging continued and active resistance won There were only a few dissenting votes...
...Wc gathered in Emil's tailor shop...
...Old croaker...
...The little tailor shop had never seen such an uproarious night...
...We were mad, and would have stood on our heads cheerfully...
...Not that we minded discomfort...
...When the vote was announced there was a long and loud demonstration...
...Inside there was a pleasant, heady smell of bolts of cloth and sedition...
...For Emil would place long ironing board...
...Tears slid down his cheeks...
...One was a very old man...
...People would desert the ranks, he said, and already some of our leaders had joined the war whoopers...
...The tailor shop was handy and quite commodious...
...As the Crow Flies By ERNEST L. MEYER QUIETLY and without police interference, the Socialist party recently held its national convention, nominated Norman Thomas, adopted a platform including a plank against involvement in the European war, and adjourned...
...He urged the comrades not to be too confident...
...For Emil's place was the headquarters of the Socialists...
...We listened to the old man, and didn't believe a word he said...
...Somebody started "The Internationale...
...Everybody wanted to speak at once...
...Emil read the two platforms...
...And after the shouting died, the very old man who had voted the Socialist ticket for 20 years got up and made a speech...
...but Envl shushed us, for he feared the police...
...Bill Forrest roared a fiery anti-war speech...
...across chairs and he could thus seat as many as 60, by Judicious crowding...
...The Socialists called an emergency convention in 1917 at St...
...He said he had seen enthusiasm like this on several occasions, but somehow the fighting spirit always died out...
...That <s what wc thought as wc talked excitedly amongst ourselves and looked with compassion at the old man who sat apart from us with wet and senile cheeks...
...Then a girl spoke pro-war, and then a few more men had their say, and after that we took a secret ballot on the two platforms...
...We were young, we were many, and we were irresistible...
Vol. 10 • April 1940 • No. 17
