Chapter 29

by Upton Sinclair

　　The man had gone back to a seat upon the platform, and Jurgisrealized that his speech was over. The applause continued forseveral minutes; and then some one started a song, and the crowdtook it up, and the place shook with it. Jurgis had never heardit, and he could not make out the words, but the wild andwonderful spirit of it seized upon him--it was the"Marseillaise!" As stanza after stanza of it thundered forth, hesat with his hands clasped, trembling in every nerve. He hadnever been so stirred in his life--it was a miracle that had beenwrought in him. He could not think at all, he was stunned; yethe knew that in the mighty upheaval that had taken place in hissoul, a new man had been born. He had been torn out of the jawsof destruction, he had been delivered from the thraldom ofdespair; the whole world had been changed for him--he was free,he was free! Even if he were to suffer as he had before, even ifhe were to beg and starve, nothing would be the same to him; hewould understand it, and bear it. He would no longer be thesport of circumstances, he would be a man, with a will and apurpose; he would have something to fight for, something to diefor, if need be! Here were men who would show him and help him;and he would have friends and allies, he would dwell in the sightof justice, and walk arm in arm with power.The audience subsided again, and Jurgis sat back. The chairmanof the meeting came forward and began to speak. His voicesounded thin and futile after the other's, and to Jurgis itseemed a profanation. Why should any one else speak, after thatmiraculous man--why should they not all sit in silence? Thechairman was explaining that a collection would now be taken upto defray the expenses of the meeting, and for the benefit of thecampaign fund of the party. Jurgis heard; but he had not a pennyto give, and so his thoughts went elsewhere again.He kept his eyes fixed on the orator, who sat in an armchair, hishead leaning on his hand and his attitude indicating exhaustion.But suddenly he stood up again, and Jurgis heard the chairman ofthe meeting saying that the speaker would now answer anyquestions which the audience might care to put to him. The mancame forward, and some one--a woman--arose and asked about someopinion the speaker had expressed concerning Tolstoy. Jurgis hadnever heard of Tolstoy, and did not care anything about him. Whyshould any one want to ask such questions, after an address likethat? The thing was not to talk, but to do; the thing was to getbold of others and rouse them, to organize them and prepare forthe fight! But still the discussion went on, in ordinaryconversational tones, and it brought Jurgis back to the everydayworld. A few minutes ago he had felt like seizing the hand ofthe beautiful lady by his side, and kissing it; he had felt likeflinging his arms about the neck of the man on the other side ofhim. And now he began to realize again that he was a "hobo,"that he was ragged and dirty, and smelled bad, and had no placeto sleep that night!And so, at last, when the meeting broke up, and the audiencestarted to leave, poor Jurgis was in an agony of uncertainty.He had not thought of leaving--he had thought that the vision mustlast forever, that he had found comrades and brothers. But nowhe would go out, and the thing would fade away, and he wouldnever be able to find it again! He sat in his seat, frightenedand wondering; but others in the same row wanted to get out, andso he had to stand up and move along. As he was swept down theaisle he looked from one person to another, wistfully; they wereall excitedly discussing the address--but there was nobody whooffered to discuss it with him. He was near enough to the doorto feel the night air, when desperation seized him. He knewnothing at all about that speech he had heard, not even the nameof the orator; and he was to go away--no, no, it waspreposterous, he must speak to some one; he must find that manhimself and tell him. He would not despise him, tramp as he was!So he stepped into an empty row of seats and watched, and whenthe crowd had thinned out, he started toward the platform. Thespeaker was gone; but there was a stage door that stood open,with people passing in and out, and no one on guard. Jurgissummoned up his courage and went in, and down a hallway, and tothe door of a room where many people were crowded. No one paidany attention to him, and he pushed in, and in a corner he sawthe man he sought. The orator sat in a chair, with his shoulderssunk together and his eyes half closed; his face was ghastlypale, almost greenish in hue, and one arm lay limp at his side.A big man with spectacles on stood near him, and kept pushingback the crowd, saying, "Stand away a little, please; can't yousee the comrade is worn out?"So Jurgis stood watching, while five or ten minutes passed. Nowand then the man would look up, and address a word or two tothose who were near him; and, at last, on one of these occasions,his glance rested on Jurgis. There seemed to be a slight hint ofinquiry about it, and a sudden impulse seized the other. Hestepped forward."I wanted to thank you, sir!" he began, in breathless haste. "Icould not go away without telling you how much--how glad I am Iheard you. I--I didn't know anything about it all--"The big man with the spectacles, who had moved away, came back atthis moment. "The comrade is too tired to talk to any one--" hebegan; but the other held up his hand."Wait," he said. "He has something to say to me." And then helooked into Jurgis's face. "You want to know more aboutSocialism?" he asked.Jurgis started. "I--I--" he stammered. "Is it Socialism? Ididn't know. I want to know about what you spoke of--I want tohelp. I have been through all that.""Where do you live?" asked the other."I have no home," said Jurgis, "I am out of work.""You are a foreigner, are you not?""Lithuanian, sir."The man thought for a moment, and then turned to his friend."Who is there, Walters?" he asked. "There is Ostrinski--but heis a Pole--""Ostrinski speaks Lithuanian," said the other. "All right, then;would you mind seeing if he has gone yet?"The other started away, and the speaker looked at Jurgis again.He had deep, black eyes, and a face full of gentleness and pain."You must excuse me, comrade," he said. "I am just tired out--Ihave spoken every day for the last month. I will introduce youto some one who will be able to help you as well as I could--"The messenger had had to go no further than the door, he cameback, followed by a man whom he introduced to Jurgis as "ComradeOstrinski." Comrade Ostrinski was a little man, scarcely up toJurgis's shoulder, wizened and wrinkled, very ugly, and slightlylame. He had on a long-tailed black coat, worn green at theseams and the buttonholes; his eyes must have been weak, for hewore green spectacles that gave him a grotesque appearance.But his handclasp was hearty, and he spoke in Lithuanian, whichwarmed Jurgis to him."You want to know about Socialism?" he said. "Surely. Let us goout and take a stroll, where we can be quiet and talk some."And so Jurgis bade farewell to the master wizard, and went out.Ostrinski asked where he lived, offering to walk in thatdirection; and so he had to explain once more that he was withouta home. At the other's request he told his story; how he hadcome to America, and what had happened to him in the stockyards,and how his family had been broken up, and how he had become awanderer. So much the little man heard, and then he pressedJurgis's arm tightly. "You have been through the mill, comrade!"he said. "We will make a fighter out of you!"Then Ostrinski in turn explained his circumstances. He wouldhave asked Jurgis to his home--but he had only two rooms, and hadno bed to offer. He would have given up his own bed, but hiswife was ill. Later on, when he understood that otherwise Jurgiswould have to sleep in a hallway, he offered him his kitchenfloor, a chance which the other was only too glad to accept."Perhaps tomorrow we can do better," said Ostrinski. "We try notto let a comrade starve."Ostrinski's home was in the Ghetto district, where he had tworooms in the basement of a tenement. There was a baby crying asthey entered, and he closed the door leading into the bedroom.He had three young children, he explained, and a baby had justcome. He drew up two chairs near the kitchen stove, adding thatJurgis must excuse the disorder of the place, since at such atime one's domestic arrangements were upset. Half of the kitchenwas given up to a workbench, which was piled with clothing, andOstrinski explained that he was a "pants finisher." He broughtgreat bundles of clothing here to his home, where he and his wifeworked on them. He made a living at it, but it was gettingharder all the time, because his eyes were failing. What wouldcome when they gave out he could not tell; there had been nosaving anything--a man could barely keep alive by twelve orfourteen hours' work a day. The finishing of pants did not takemuch skill, and anybody could learn it, and so the pay wasforever getting less. That was the competitive wage system; andif Jurgis wanted to understand what Socialism was, it was therehe had best begin. The workers were dependent upon a job toexist from day to day, and so they bid against each other, and noman could get more than the lowest man would consent to work for.And thus the mass of the people were always in a life-and-deathstruggle with poverty. That was "competition," so far as itconcerned the wage-earner, the man who had only his labor tosell; to those on top, the exploiters, it appeared verydifferently, of course--there were few of them, and they couldcombine and dominate, and their power would be unbreakable. Andso all over the world two classes were forming, with an unbridgedchasm between them--the capitalist class, with its enormousfortunes, and the proletariat, bound into slavery by unseenchains. The latter were a thousand to one in numbers, but theywere ignorant and helpless, and they would remain at the mercy oftheir exploiters until they were organized--until they had become"class-conscious." It was a slow and weary process, but it wouldgo on--it was like the movement of a glacier, once it was startedit could never be stopped. Every Socialist did his share, andlived upon the vision of the "good time coming,"--when theworking class should go to the polls and seize the powers ofgovernment, and put an end to private property in the means ofproduction. No matter how poor a man was, or how much hesuffered, he could never be really unhappy while he knew of thatfuture; even if he did not live to see it himself, his childrenwould, and, to a Socialist, the victory of his class was hisvictory. Also he had always the progress to encourage him;here in Chicago, for instance, the movement was growing by leaps andbounds. Chicago was the industrial center of the country, andnowhere else were the unions so strong; but their organizationsdid the workers little good, for the employers were organized,also; and so the strikes generally failed, and as fast as theunions were broken up the men were coming over to the Socialists.Ostrinski explained the organization of the party, the machineryby which the proletariat was educating itself. There were"locals" in every big city and town, and they were beingorganized rapidly in the smaller places; a local had anywherefrom six to a thousand members, and there were fourteen hundredof them in all, with a total of about twenty-five thousandmembers, who paid dues to support the organization. "Local CookCounty," as the city organization was called, had eighty branchlocals, and it alone was spending several thousand dollars in thecampaign. It published a weekly in English, and one each inBohemian and German; also there was a monthly published inChicago, and a cooperative publishing house, that issued amillion and a half of Socialist books and pamphlets every year.All this was the growth of the last few years--there had beenalmost nothing of it when Ostrinski first came to Chicago.Ostrinski was a Pole, about fifty years of age. He had lived inSilesia, a member of a despised and persecuted race, and hadtaken part in the proletarian movement in the early seventies,when Bismarck, having conquered France, had turned his policy ofblood and iron upon the "International." Ostrinski himself hadtwice been in jail, but he had been young then, and had notcared. He had had more of his share of the fight, though, forjust when Socialism had broken all its barriers and become thegreat political force of the empire, he had come to America, andbegun all over again. In America every one had laughed at themere idea of Socialism then--in America all men were free. As ifpolitical liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable! saidOstrinski.The little tailor sat tilted back in his stiff kitchen chair,with his feet stretched out upon the empty stove, and speaking inlow whispers, so as not to waken those in the next room. ToJurgis he seemed a scarcely less wonderful person than thespeaker at the meeting; he was poor, the lowest of the low,hunger-driven and miserable--and yet how much he knew, how muchhe had dared and achieved, what a hero he had been! There wereothers like him, too--thousands like him, and all of themworkingmen! That all this wonderful machinery of progress hadbeen created by his fellows--Jurgis could not believe it, itseemed too good to be true.That was always the way, said Ostrinski; when a man was firstconverted to Socialism he was like a crazy person--he could not'understand how others could fail to see it, and he expected toconvert all the world the first week. After a while he wouldrealize how hard a task it was; and then it would be fortunatethat other new hands kept coming, to save him from settling downinto a rut. Just now Jurgis would have plenty of chance to venthis excitement, for a presidential campaign was on, and everybodywas talking politics. Ostrinski would take him to the nextmeeting of the branch local, and introduce him, and he might jointhe party. The dues were five cents a week, but any one whocould not afford this might be excused from paying. TheSocialist party was a really democratic politicalorganization--it was controlled absolutely by its own membership,and had no bosses. All of these things Ostrinski explained, asalso the principles of the party. You might say that there wasreally but one Socialist principle--that of "no compromise,"which was the essence of the proletarian movement all over theworld. When a Socialist was elected to office he voted with oldparty legislators for any measure that was likely to be of helpto the working class, but he never forgot that these concessions,whatever they might be, were trifles compared with the greatpurpose--the organizing of the working class for the revolution.So far, the rule in America had been that one Socialist madeanother Socialist once every two years; and if they shouldmaintain the same rate they would carry the country in1912--though not all of them expected to succeed as quickly asthat.The Socialists were organized in every civilized nation; it wasan international political party, said Ostrinski, the greatestthe world had ever known. It numbered thirty million ofadherents, and it cast eight million votes. It had started itsfirst newspaper in Japan, and elected its first deputy inArgentina; in France it named members of cabinets, and in Italyand Australia it held the balance of power and turned outministries. In Germany, where its vote was more than a third ofthe total vote of the empire, all other parties and powers hadunited to fight it. It would not do, Ostrinski explained,for the proletariat of one nation to achieve the victory, for thatnation would be crushed by the military power of the others;and so the Socialist movement was a world movement, an organizationof all mankind to establish liberty and fraternity. It was thenew religion of humanity--or you might say it was the fulfillmentof the old religion, since it implied but the literal applicationof all the teachings of Christ.Until long after midnight Jurgis sat lost in the conversation ofhis new acquaintance. It was a most wonderful experience tohim--an almost supernatural experience. It was like encounteringan inhabitant of the fourth dimension of space, a being who wasfree from all one's own limitations. For four years, now, Jurgishad been wondering and blundering in the depths of a wilderness;and here, suddenly, a hand reached down and seized him, andlifted him out of it, and set him upon a mountain-top, from whichhe could survey it all--could see the paths from which he hadwandered, the morasses into which he had stumbled, the hidingplaces of the beasts of prey that had fallen upon him. Therewere his Packingtown experiences, for instance--what was thereabout Packingtown that Ostrinski could not explain! To Jurgisthe packers had been equivalent to fate; Ostrinski showed himthat they were the Beef Trust. They were a gigantic combinationof capital, which had crushed all opposition, and overthrown thelaws of the land, and was preying upon the people. Jurgisrecollected how, when he had first come to Packingtown, he hadstood and watched the hog-killing, and thought how cruel andsavage it was, and come away congratulating himself that he wasnot a hog; now his new acquaintance showed him that a hog wasjust what he had been--one of the packers' hogs. What theywanted from a hog was all the profits that could be got out ofhim; and that was what they wanted from the workingman, and alsothat was what they wanted from the public. What the hog thoughtof it, and what he suffered, were not considered; and no more wasit with labor, and no more with the purchaser of meat. That wastrue everywhere in the world, but it was especially true inPackingtown; there seemed to be something about the work ofslaughtering that tended to ruthlessness and ferocity--it wasliterally the fact that in the methods of the packers a hundredhuman lives did not balance a penny of profit. When Jurgis hadmade himself familiar with the Socialist literature, as he wouldvery quickly, he would get glimpses of the Beef Trust from allsorts of aspects, and he would find it everywhere the same;it was the incarnation of blind and insensate Greed. It was amonster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with athousand hoofs; it was the Great Butcher--it was the spirit ofCapitalism made flesh. Upon the ocean of commerce it sailed as apirate ship; it had hoisted the black flag and declared war uponcivilization. Bribery and corruption were its everyday methods.In Chicago the city government was simply one of its branchoffices; it stole billions of gallons of city water openly, itdictated to the courts the sentences of disorderly strikers, itforbade the mayor to enforce the building laws against it. Inthe national capital it had power to prevent inspection of itsproduct, and to falsify government reports; it violated therebate laws, and when an investigation was threatened it burnedits books and sent its criminal agents out of the country.In the commercial world it was a Juggernaut car; it wiped outthousands of businesses every year, it drove men to madness andsuicide. It had forced the price of cattle so low as to destroythe stock-raising industry, an occupation upon which whole statesexisted; it had ruined thousands of butchers who had refused tohandle its products. It divided the country into districts, andfixed the price of meat in all of them; and it owned all therefrigerator cars, and levied an enormous tribute upon allpoultry and eggs and fruit and vegetables. With the millions ofdollars a week that poured in upon it, it was reaching out forthe control of other interests, railroads and trolley lines, gasand electric light franchises--it already owned the leather andthe grain business of the country. The people were tremendouslystirred up over its encroachments, but nobody had any remedy tosuggest; it was the task of Socialists to teach and organizethem, and prepare them for the time when they were to seize thehuge machine called the Beef Trust, and use it to produce foodfor human beings and not to heap up fortunes for a band ofpirates. It was long after midnight when Jurgis lay down uponthe floor of Ostrinski's kitchen; and yet it was an hour beforehe could get to sleep, for the glory of that joyful vision of thepeople of Packingtown marching in and taking possession of theUnion Stockyards!