§ 34
In company such as this Peter's education for the role of detective
was completed by force, as it were. He listened to everything, and
while he did not dare make any notes, he stored away treasures in his
mind, and when he came out of the jail he was able to give McGivney a
pretty complete picture of the various radical organizations in American
City, and the attitude of each one toward the war.
Peter found that McGivney's device had worked perfectly. Peter
was now a martyr and a hero; his position as one of the "left wingers"
was definitely established, and anyone who ventured to say a word
against him would be indignantly rebuked. As a matter of fact, no one
desired to say much. Pat McCormick, Peter's enemy, was out on an
organizing trip among the oil workers.
Duggan had apparently taken a fancy to Peter, and took him to
meet some of his friends, who lived in an old, deserted warehouse, which
happened to have skylights in the roof; this constituted each room a
"studio," and various radicals rented the rooms, and lived here a sort
of picnic existence which Peter learned was called "Bohemian." They
were young people, most of them, with one or two old fellows, derelicts;
they wore flannel shirts, and soft ties, or no ties at all, and their
fingers were always smeared with paint. Their life requirements were
simple; all they wanted was an unlimited quantity of canvas and paint,
some cigarettes, and at long intervals a pickle or some sauer-kraut and
a bottle of beer. They would sit all day in front of an easel, painting
the most inconceivable pictures — pink skies and green-faced women and
purple grass and fantastic splurges of color which they would call
anything from "The Woman with a Mustard Pot" to "A Nude Coming
Downstairs." And there would be others, like Duggan, writing verses all
day; pounding away on a typewriter, if they could manage to rent or
borrow one. There were several who sang, and one who played the flute
and caused all the others to tear their hair. There was a boy fresh from
the country, who declared that he had run away from home because the
family sang hymns all day Sunday, and never sang in tune.
From people such as these you would hear the most revolutionary
utterances; but Peter soon realized that it was mostly just talk with
them. They would work off their frenzies with a few dashes of paint or
some ferocious chords on the piano. The really dangerous ones were not
here; they were hidden away in offices or dens of their own, where they
were prompting strikes and labor agitations, and preparing incendiary
literature to be circulated among the poor.
You met such people in the Socialist local, and in the I. W. W.
headquarters, and in numerous clubs and propaganda societies which Peter
investigated, and to which he was welcomed as a member. In the Socialist
local there was a fierce struggle going on over the war. What should be
the attitude of the party? There was a group, a comparatively small
group, which believed that the interests of Socialism would best be
served by helping the Allies to the overthrow of the Kaiser. There was
another group, larger and still more determined, which believed that the
war was a conspiracy of allied capitalism to rivet its power upon the
world, and this group wanted the party to stake its existence upon a
struggle against American participation. These two groups contested for
the minds of the rank and file of the members, who seemed to be
bewildered by the magnitude of the issue and the complexity of the
arguments. Peter's orders were to go with the extreme anti-militarists;
they were the ones whose confidence he wished to gain, also they were
the trouble-makers of the movement, and McGivney's instructions were to
make all the trouble possible.
Over at the I. W. W. headquarters was another group
whose members were debating their attitude to the war. Should they call
strikes and try to cripple the leading industries of the country? Or
should they go quietly on with their organization work, certain that in
the end the workers would sicken of the military adventure into which
they were being snared? Some of these "wobblies" were Socialist party
members also, and were active in both gatherings; two of them,
Henderson, the lumber-jack, and Gus Lindstrom, the sailor, had been in
jail with Peter, and had been among his intimates ever since.
Also Peter met the Pacifists; the "Peoples' Council," as they
called themselves. Many of these were religious people, two or three
clergymen, and Donald Gordon, the Quaker, and a varied assortment of
women — sentimental young girls who shrunk from the thought of bloodshed,
and mothers with tear-stained cheeks who did not want their darlings to
be drafted. Peter saw right away that these mothers had no
"conscientious objections." Each mother was thinking about her own son
and about nothing else. Peter was irritated at this, and took it for
his special job to see that those mother's darlings did their duty.
He attended a gathering of Pacifists in the home of a
school-teacher. They made heart-breaking speeches, and finally little
Ada Ruth, the poetess, got up and wanted to know, was it all to end in
talk, or would they organize and prepare to take some action against the
draft? Would they not at least go out on the street, get up a parade
with banners of protest, and go to jail as Comrade Peter Gudge had so
nobly done?
Comrade Peter was called on for "a few words." Comrade
Peter explained that he was no speaker; after all,
actions spoke louder than words, and he had tried to show what he
believed. The others were made ashamed by this, and decided for a bold
stand at once. Ada Ruth became president and Donald Gordon secretary of
the "Anti-conscription League" — a list of whose charter members was
turned over to McGivney the same evening.
