Being unable to hold him back, she sent word by the
mail-carrier to old Peter Drew to come up and help;
the old farmer hitched up his bony mare and drove
to see them, and for a couple of hours talked America
while Jimmie talked Russia. Was America to lie
down before the Kaiser? Jimmie would answer that
they were going to bring down the Kaiser in the same
way they had brought down the Tsar. The workers
of Russia having shown the way, never more would the
workers of any nation bow to the yoke of slavery.
Yes, even in the so-called republics, such as France,
which was ruled by bankers, and America, which was
ruled by Wall Street—even here, the workers
would read the lesson of revolt!
“But in America the people can get anything
they want!” cried the bewildered old man.
“They only have to vote—”
“Vote?” snarled Jimmie. “An’
have their votes thrown out by some rotten political
gang, like they got here in Leesville? Don’t
talk to me about votin’—they told
me I’d moved into a new district an’ lost
my vote—lost it because I lost my job!
So it’s old man Granitch has the say whether
I can vote or not! You’ll find the same
thing true of two-thirds of the men in the Empire Shops—half
the unskilled men in the country got no votes, because
they got no home, no nothin’.”
“But,” argued the old soldier, “how
will you run your new working-class government, if
not by votes?”
“Sure, we’ll run it by votes,” Jimmie
answered—“but first we’ll turn
out the capitalists; they won’t have the money
to buy political machines; they won’t own the
newspapers an’ print lies about us. Look
at this Leesville Herald right now—just
plain downright lies they print—we can’t
get any truth at all to the people.”
And so it went. It was of no use for the old
man to plead for the “country”; to Jimmie
the “country” had let itself be lost,
suppressed, taken over by the capitalists, the “plutes”.
Jimmie’s sense of loyalty was not to his country,
but to his class, which had been exploited, hounded,
driven from pillar to post. In past times the
government had allowed itself to be used by corporations;
so now it was in vain that the President made appeals
for justice and democracy, using the beautiful language
of idealism. Jimmie did not believe that he meant
it; or anyhow, Wall Street would see that nothing
came of his promises. The “plutes”
would take his words and twist them into whatever
sense they wished; and meantime they went on pouring
abuse on Jimmie Higgins—throwing the same
old mud into his eyes, blinding him with the same
old hatred. So there was no way for an old soldier
and patriot to break through the armour of Jimmie’s
prejudice.
