Comrade Yetta

BOOK V

CHAPTER XXV
ISADORE'S MEDICINE

Sadie Michelson, as she was making coffee the next morning, was cogitating over the fact that she had not seen her new room-mate since they had moved into the flat. What was the meaning of these late hours? She was convinced that this Mr. Longman, whose rooms Yetta had formerly occupied and who had just come back to claim them, had something to do with it.

Her speculations were interrupted by the telephone bell. Yetta also heard it vaguely in her uneasy sleep and dreamed that Walter was calling her. Sadie hurried to the receiver. She hoped to find a clew to the mystery. It was a surprise – and a disappointment – for her to recognize Isadore's voice.

"Hello, Sadie. Is Yetta up yet?"

"No. She got in very late last night and – "

"I know," Isadore interrupted. "I was out with her."

This was a new disappointment. Mr. Longman was not to blame after all.

"Don't wake her," he went on. "But I wish you'd take a message – put it under her door, where she's sure to see it. If she possibly can, it would be a great favor if she could help us down here this morning. We're awfully rushed. Locke's sick. There's a strike over in Brooklyn we've got to cover. And there's nobody here to do it. It would help a lot if Yetta could. Got that straight? – All right – much obliged."

The noise of Sadie's leaving woke Yetta. Her first feeling was of escape from some dread nightmare. Surely last night's storm had been a tempest in the tea-pot. Her whole concept of Walter was that he was all-powerful, very wise and resourceful. Surely he would find some way to make things come straight again.

She lay still a few minutes, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling. But all orderly processes of the mind were difficult. Her recent experiences had unloosed a flood of tumultuous feelings. A new personality had emerged from that first embrace on the beach at Staten Island. Something had died within her at his kiss – something new and disturbingly wonderful had been born in its place. For a moment, forgetting the bitter reality, she let herself bathe in this dizzying sweet sensation. The hot blood rushed to her cheeks, but it was the blush of exultation. "Death" and "birth" did not seem to her the right words to describe the transformation. It was more of a blossoming, as when a butterfly outfolds its wings from a chrysalis. How wonderful it had been to feel his arms reaching out to her! How much more wonderful had been the feeling of reaching out to him.

The memory of their parting fell on her abruptly. It had all been a hoax. He did not love her. And that which a moment before had seemed so wonderfully right, now smarted as a shame. The butterfly wings snapped. She could find no tears. She looked forward, in dull pain, dry-eyed, to a life of abject crawling.

There was the inevitable wave of bitterness. What right had he to teach her flight and then break her wings? But this mood could not last. She loved him. All her pride, all her ideals of life and work – everything firm – deserted her. Nothing mattered any more except not to lose him. There was no humiliation, through which she would not crawl to regain his companionship. What did this talk of Love matter? She wanted to be with him, to feel his arms once more about her. Her whole being cried out that she was "his," utterly "his." Had she not loved him since their first encounter? She would go to him, asking no terms.

In the rush of this passionate impulse, she jumped out of bed – and saw the note under her door. The dream came back to her. Walter had called her. She had wasted these miserably unhappy moments in bed, and all the while his message had been waiting her!

"Dear Yetta. Isadore called up about 8.30 and asked me to tell – "

The note crumpled up in Yetta's hand. And there, alone in her room, with no one to see her, she had only one idea. She must not make a scene.

She smoothed out the note and went through the motions of reading it. Every muscle was tense, her teeth were gritted in the supreme effort to dominate the storm of wild impulses within her, to keep her head above the buffeting waves of circumstance. Mechanically she bathed and brushed her hair and dressed herself. Her mind was rigid – clenched like her teeth.

But subconsciously – behind this outward calmness – a momentous conflict was raging. In those few minutes, alone in her strange new quarters, with no one by to help or encourage her, she faced the fight and won. She did not win through unscathed, – modern psychology is teaching us that no one does come through such conflicts without wounds, which heal slowly, if at all.

In the din of the spiritual fray a new outlook on life had come to her. It was not so sharp a change as that which Walter's caresses had caused, but it was more fundamental – in the way that spiritual matters are always more significant than things physical.

Life as she had seen it was a ceaseless, desperate struggle, a constant clash of personalities, an unrelenting war of social classes. In an external, rather mechanical way she had been involved in this struggle. She looked forward to being "a striker" all her life. But she had always thought of herself as a part of the conflict. Now – and this was the new viewpoint – it seemed that the fight was taking place within her. The strategic position, the key to the whole battlefield, the place where the fiercest blows were to be exchanged, was her own soul. If she was defeated there, the fight was over – as far as she was concerned.

It was not to be until years afterwards that she came to a full understanding of what that half-hour had meant to her. It was to take many months before she could arrange her life in accord with this new outlook. But as she poured out the coffee, which Sadie had left on the back of the stove, she knew that she had won this first fight in the new campaign. For the moment, at least, she was the Captain of Her Soul.

In the overwhelming sadness of victory, in the poignant wistfulness of triumph, she had regained her pride. She was not going to humiliate herself to gain the narcotic pleasure of kisses when she wanted love. Walter would come to her or he would not. That was for him to decide. In either case the battle of life was still to be fought. She must not desert.

It was half past nine, and no word from Walter. She could not sit there idly, waiting for him to change his mood. To escape from the pain of uncertainty she reread Isadore's message – understandingly. Here was the day's work concretely before her. She put on her hat.

Out on Waverly Place she suddenly realized that her feet were carrying her to Washington Square and Walter. The Enemy made a desperate assault – surprised her with her visor up, her sword in its sheath, her shield hanging useless on her back. Why not? He would not have the heart to send her away. She knew his kindliness. If they were together, he would grow to love her. How could she expect him to change while they were apart? Together all would go well —

She had thought that the struggle of a few minutes before had been final – and here it was all to do over again.

A white-haired old man was walking towards her, but she did not notice him until he stopped and spoke.

"Are you sick, Miss?"

"No" – she shivered as she realized the import of what he had said, how much worse it was than he suspected – "Oh, no! I'm not sick."

But the old man stood still watching her as she turned down McDougal Street. He was half inclined to call a doctor. Soon Yetta realized that she had reached Bleecker Street. She turned across town to the Subway and so down to Newspaper Row and The Clarion office.

It bore no resemblance to that of The Star. The loft of a warehouse had been cut in two by a flimsy partition. In the back was a battery of second-hand, old-style linotypes, a couple of type-frames for the advertisement and job work, the make-up slab, the proof tables, and the stereotyping outfit. The stairway opened into this noisy, crowded room. Yetta had to walk carefully between the machines to reach the editorial room beyond the partition.

A low railing divided the front room between the "editorial" and "business" departments. To the right was a long reporters' table, smaller ones for the "City" and "Exchange" editors, and a roll-top desk beyond for Isadore.

Levine, a youngster with very curly black hair, a wilted collar, and soaked shirt, jumped up to greet Yetta.

"Hello," he shouted above the din of the typewriters and machines. "Here's a note from Isadore. He's out trying to raise money. I hope to God you can help us. Locke's sick. I'm running his desk and mine and Isadore's this morning. Harry's covering the Party News and Woman's Page besides his Telegraph and Exchanges, so that Sam can cover the State Convention. How in hell they expect us to get out a paper so short-handed is – "

"Oh, stop your croaking," Harry Moore yelled from his table, hardly looking up from a pile of Labor Papers he was clipping. "Things are no worse than usual. We'll get her out somehow. We always do. God's good to drunks and fools and Socialists."

One of the bookkeepers, from the "business" side of the railing, overhearing this "editorial" controversy, began to count at the top of his voice.

"One! Two! Three!"

At "Three" every one in the room, except Yetta and Levine, chanted in unison: —

"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"

"You make me tired," Levine growled back at them, and sat down at his table with a despairing gesture.

Isadore's note told Yetta that a small but desperate strike had broken out among some paper-box factories in an out-of-the-way corner of Brooklyn. The workers were recently arrived immigrants who spoke no English. The regular papers had not mentioned the strike, and under cover of this secrecy, the bosses, who were allied with prominent Kings County politicians, were having everything their own way. He thought there was a big story in it. The publicity would certainly help the strikers. There was no one in the office to cover it.

Not a word of their last night's encounter.

"Comrade," Yetta asked Levine, "what time do you go to press?"

"One o'clock. Copy must be in by twelve-thirty. It's idiotic! Our Final Edition is on the streets before the regular papers lock up for their Home Edition. We can't get out a decent sheet in such – "

"One! Two! Three!"

"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"

"They're fools!"

"Well," Yetta said, smiling for the first time that day, "I'll call you up about noon. Put a stenographer on the wire. That'll give you an opener for to-day. I'll have the whole story for a follow-up to-morrow. So long."

About the time that Yetta was starting off on this assignment, Isadore came into the office of the Woman's Trade Union League.

"Hello," Mabel greeted him. Then, as a second thought, and somewhat less cordially, she added, "Stranger."

She was not in a happy mood. Of late she had felt her grip on life weakening. People upon whom she depended were deserting her. It had begun when Isadore had given up his work for the League to start The Clarion. When a new lawyer had been broken in, Mrs. Karner had left. It had been impossible to replace her. The Advisory Council was doubly hard to manage without her. There had been other desertions. Isadore seemed to have started a stampede. And Mabel did not feel these days the same buoyancy in meeting such emergencies. Her few gray hairs she was still able to hide, but there was no getting away from the tired look about her eyes. Her sudden irritabilities frightened her. She was haunted by the idea that she was getting "crabbed."

Isadore pulled up a chair and broke at once into his business. He wanted Mabel to persuade Yetta to take up some regular work on The Clarion. Yetta had a talent for writing which ought not to be wasted. He would give them a column or so daily for their work of organizing women. "It would be helpful all round," he said. "Publicity for you. If it looks good to you, put it up to Yetta."

"It doesn't look good to me," Mabel said decisively. "You forget I'm not interested in your crazy little paper. What good is publicity to us among the couple of thousand hidebound Socialists who buy The Clarion?"

"Our circulation is over ten thousand."

"Pooh! Nobody but party members read it. Most of your circulation is given away – and thrown into the gutter. You think working-men ought to read a Socialist paper. But they don't. They prefer a real paper with news in it and pictures and a funny page. Yetta was a fool to give up her work on The Star. That was real publicity.

"You want to get Yetta on The Clarion. You surely do need somebody who knows how to write! You want her to drift away from the real work of organization – just as you did. I see through your mutual benefit talk. Instead of helping our work, you want to get her away from us. Well, the less she gets mixed up with The Clarion and your little closed circle of dogmatists, the better I'll be pleased."

"Come to think of it," Isadore said, changing his tactics, "I would like to see Yetta give all her time to The Clarion. As you say, we surely do need good writers. But that wasn't in my mind when I came in.

"I'm worried about Yetta. She needs to be kept busy – busier than she is. Of course I wouldn't want her to know I was butting in like this. But she's worrying about something – "

Mabel, her mind made up to be disagreeable, interrupted him.

"I knew it wasn't interest in the League that brought you here. I owe this visit to your solicitude about Yetta."

"That's not just, either, Mabel – although it's nearer right than your first guess. Yetta's principal work is with the League. It's natural I should come to you. I am really worried about her. Something's troubling her."

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know." Isadore was surprised at the ease with which he lied. "You don't have to know what's wrong to see that things aren't right. You'd have noticed it, too, if you had not been seeing her every day. But I haven't seen her for a long time" – he expanded his lie. "She came into my office this morning and it scared me. This 'what's-the-use' look. She's moody, sad. Going through some sort of a crisis. We all have them. Times when we wonder what God had against us when He made us, and all that. The only thing that helps is work.

"Yetta isn't doing much more for you than when she was studying or working on The Star. I guess it's the empty mornings that cause the trouble. Really, the way she looked startled me. I was coming uptown, anyway, and I decided to drop in and put it up to you. I really think the work I suggested – which would fill up her mornings – would help you fully as much as us."

Mabel bit the end of her pencil and looked out at the street. She was sure that Isadore had not told her all he knew. Probably Yetta had found Walter indifferent and was cut up over that. She would find out in the evening when Walter called on her. Perhaps more work would be good for Yetta. Not the job Isadore suggested. She had a decided hostility to him and this wild newspaper fad which had taken him away from "really useful work."

"You may be right about Yetta," she said, trying to soften her ill-humor. "I haven't seen any signs of a soul tragedy. But if she needs more work, I can give her more than she can handle right here – without urging her to waste time on your hobby."

"Your hobby or mine," Isadore said, getting up. "I don't care much which. My idea in coming was to see that Yetta was kept busy. And I think you'll see I was right about it. So long."

He was really glad that things had taken this turn. The impersonal, Socialist side of him would have rejoiced in winning Yetta's support for The Clarion. But he knew that in a personal way it would have been harder to have her always about. The sharpest pain in Cupid's quiver is to watch the one you love break heart for some one else.

From the League Isadore went in search of Wilhelm Stringer, the "organizer" of the "branch" of the Socialist local to which Yetta belonged. For near forty years, Stringer had earned what money he needed as a brass polisher. But his real job was Socialism. He had long been a widower, his own children had died in infancy and his cheated paternal instinct had found an outlet in quiet, intense love for the "young Comrades." He was a kindly "Father Superior" to the whole city organization.

Isadore found him eating his lunch on the sidewalk, in the shade of the factory. They were old friends and could talk without evasions.

"Bill," Isadore said, "this is a personal matter. It's just by chance I know about it. Comrade Yetta Rayefsky is up against it. You can guess the trouble as well as I could tell you. What she needs is to be kept so busy that she'll forget it. She's in your branch. There must be some work which isn't being done that you could unload on her. Work's the best medicine for her."

Very slowly Stringer chewed up his mouthful of cheese sandwich.

"Vell. Ve must send a delegate to der komität von education. Nowadays they meet three times a veek. That vill be a start. Und alzo ve commence soon mit the hauz to hauz mit tracts – for the campaign. That is much vork. Poor leetle girl. I guess ve can most kill her. Vork is gut medicine."

And Isadore, having stolen half a morning from his regular work, rushed downtown to the office.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE CLARION

Yetta found the strike of the paper-box makers more serious than she had expected. The conditions of the trade were appalling. The half dozen factories were only the centre of a widespread sweating system. More than half of the work was done in the tenements of the districts where the Child Labor Law could be evaded and where women could be driven to work incredibly long hours beyond the reach of the Factory Inspectors.

The strikers were not only isolated – lost in a backwater district of Brooklyn, out of touch with labor organizations, ignorant of the laws and of their rights – they were also weakened by the division of languages. All were "greenhorn" immigrants, who had not yet learned English. They belonged to diverse and hostile races – a disunited medley of Slovaks, Poles, Italians, and Jews. The bosses have been quick to discover how serious an impediment to organization is a mixture of races.

Yetta came to them in the same way that Mabel, three and a half years before, had come to the striking vest-makers – bringing detailed, practical knowledge of how to manage a strike. As soon as she had telephoned in a first story to The Clarion, she took up the work of bringing order and hope into the despairing chaos of the struggle. She called on the police captain, and her threat of publicity made him change his mind in regard to the right of the strikers to hold meetings. Before supper-time the effect of the Clarion story was evident. Half a dozen labor organizers and Socialist speakers turned up. With this outside help the paper-box makers were able to organize their picket, arrange meetings, and start plans for money-raising. A Socialist lawyer took up the cases of the dozen odd strikers who had been arrested.

By ten o'clock the situation was immensely improved. Yetta escaped to a typewriter to get out her big "follow-up" for the next day's paper. She went at it with a peculiar thrill. She was realizing for the first time what a power in the fight a working-man's paper might be.

While she was working out her story, the semi-annual stockholders' meeting of the Coöperative Newspaper Publishing Company was called to order in one of the halls of the Labor Temple on East Eighty-fourth Street.

Walter had spoken of The Clarion as "Isadore's paper." In reality it was a coöperative enterprise. In the days when the working-men nearly elected Henry George as Mayor of New York, they had started to raise money to found a newspaper which would represent the interests of their class. It was decided that fifty thousand dollars was necessary, and a committee had been formed. In the first enthusiasm they had collected five thousand. Fresh efforts had been made intermittently, and the sum had grown to eight thousand.

When Isadore had returned from his vacation with the Pauldings, he had decided to centre his efforts on this project. He had studied the ways and means carefully, he had infused new life into the committee, and at last he had succeeded in organizing this coöperative publishing company. At their first meeting they had decided that fifty thousand was hopeless, and that they could begin with twenty-five. But after straining every nerve for six months, arranging balls and picnics and fairs, they had raised only twelve thousand. The Clarion was started on that amount. Every one who knew anything about modern journalism told Isadore he was a fool.

At first the paper ran on its capital. But after a few months the income from circulation, advertisements, and job-printing reduced the weekly deficit to about five hundred dollars. This was met in part by the Maintenance Pledge Fund. About two thousand people, mostly members of the Socialist party, had pledged weekly contributions ranging from ten cents to a few dollars. The remaining deficit was met by pure and simple begging and by rebates from the wages. Never was a paper run on a more strenuous and flimsy basis. The lack of economy of such poverty-stricken operation would have shocked any business man, would have caused apoplexy to an "efficiency expert." The cost of every process was twice or thrice what it would have been if they had had more money.

But financial worries were only a small part of what Isadore and his little band of enthusiastic helpers had to contend with. The Clarion was the property of the democratically organized shareholders, who elected an Executive Committee of five to manage it. Of all phases of public life, Democracy has shown itself least prepared to deal sanely with this business of newspapers. As a whole the stockholders of the company were deeply dissatisfied with the regular newspapers and ardently desired one which would truly represent their class. But although they were making great sacrifices, were putting up an amazingly large share of their earnings to support The Clarion, their idea of what to expect from it was very vague. They knew nothing at all of the technical problems of journalism.

The Executive Committee had stated meetings every week, and seemed to Isadore to be holding special meetings every ten minutes. More of his time went to educating this board of managers, teaching them what could and what could not be done with their limited resources, than in actual work on the paper.

When the meeting of the shareholders had been called to order, Rheinhardt, the chairman of the Executive Committee, read his report. The circulation had reached twelve thousand. The weekly deficit had been reduced to $400. The Maintenance Pledge Fund had brought in $310. Gifts to the amount of $66.50 had been received. The office force had receipted for $23.50 which they had not received. For the first time in the history of The Clarion a week had passed without increasing the indebtedness.

Then the meeting fell into its regular routine of useless criticism. One desperately earnest Socialist vehemently objected to some of the advertisements which, he said, favored capitalistic enterprise. He was immediately followed by another Comrade who accused the advertising force of rank inefficiency in not securing more of it. A third speaker said it was foolish to waste space on sporting news. The working-class had more serious things to think about. Three or four others at once clamored for the floor. They all told the same story: the men in their shops bought the papers to see how the Giants were coming along in the race for the baseball pennant. They would not buy The Clarion because its athletic news was weak. So it went on as usual – every suggestion was combated by a counterproposal – and so it would have gone on till adjournment, if one of the Executive Committee had not lost heart in the face of this futile criticism and resigned.

Wilhelm Stringer jumped up.

"Ve haf in our branch a comrade who is one gut newspaper lady. She has vorked mit a big yellow journal. I like to see gut Socialist on the komität, but alzo ve need some gut newspaper man. Und I nominate Comrade Yetta Rayefsky."'

No one sought the nomination, for it was a hard and thankless job, so Yetta was elected by acclamation.

"Ve vill nearly kill her mit vork. Yes?" Stringer said to Isadore as the meeting broke up.

"Do you think she'll accept?" Isadore asked dubiously.

"Sure, she vill. It is a gut girl. I haf not as yet asked her, but now I vill write a letter und tell her."

He gave the note to Isadore to deliver.

Yetta finished her copy about midnight, but finding much detail still needing attention at the strike headquarters, she decided to make a night of it and sleep in Brooklyn with a family of strikers. It was three in the morning before she turned in – too tired to remember with any clearness that her butterfly wings had been broken. More than once during the day she had had to fight against her tears – to struggle against the desire to drop all this work and rush back to Manhattan and Walter. But always at the weak moment some one who was weaker had asked her help.

It all had to be fought out again when she woke. She might not have won, if the conviction had not come to her during her sleep that somehow it must all turn out right in the end. When she reached "headquarters" she found so much to do that she had no time to mourn. The first mail brought in more than fifty dollars – the result of her yesterday's story. But better still was the fact that The Clarion's glaring headlines had forced the attention of the regular papers. The strike was receiving wide publicity. There is no other class of evil-doers who so ardently love darkness in their business as "unfair" employers. The bosses had not been much worried by the revolt of their workers, but they did not like to read about it – to have their acquaintances read about it – in their morning papers.

It was ten o'clock before Yetta could get away. Coming across on the elevated, she had her first chance to look at the yesterday's issue of The Clarion. It caused a revulsion from her feeling of enthusiasm over a working-man's paper. What a pitiful sheet it was! How different in tone and quality from the one Walter had talked of so glowingly! It was not only unattractive in appearance. There was not a detail which, to Yetta's trained eye, seemed well done. The headlines of her own story, which spread across the top of the front page, were crude. A dozen better ones suggested themselves to her. The mistakes they had made in expanding her telephone message to two columns were ludicrous and vexatious. What else was there in the paper? The rest of the front page was filled with telegrams which had been news several hours before it had gone to press! The second page – it was headed "Labor News" – offended Yetta especially. It was mostly "exchange paragraphs" clipped from trade journals. The original matter was written by some one who did not understand nor sympathize with the Trade-Union Movement, who evidently thought that every worker who was not a party member was mentally defective. The only spark of personality on the last page was Isadore's editorial. It was a bit ponderous and long-drawn-out, but at least it was intense and thoughtful. The cartoon was poorly drawn and required an analytic mind to discover the point. Yetta found it hard to believe that twelve thousand people had been willing to buy so uninteresting a paper when they could get the bright, snappy, sixteen-page Star for the same money.

She was tired and discouraged when she reached the office.

"I'm not a headline writer," she said as she tossed her copy on Levine's table, "but I've ground out some that aren't quite so stupid as those you ran yesterday."

Without waiting for his retort she went on to Isadore's desk.

"Here's a note from Stringer," he said as a greeting.

She tore it open listlessly.

"Well! That's a nervy piece of business," she said, throwing it into the waste-paper basket. "Electing me without asking my consent."

"Won't you serve?"

"No."

Isadore leaned back in his swivel chair and puffed nervously at his cigarette.

"Don't you think the job's worth doing?"

"It's worth doing well – but not like this."

It seemed to Isadore that a word of encouragement from her would have put new life into him. But she – like everybody else – had only criticism. He had a foolish desire to cry and an equally insane desire to curse. He managed to do neither.

"Well, what would you suggest? To bring it up to your standard of worth-while-ness?"

"It'll never be a newspaper till the front page gets over this day-before-yesterday look – for one thing."

"If you knew what we're up against," he said, laboriously trying to hide the sting her scorn gave him, "I think you'd be proud of our news department – as proud as I am. In the first place, of course, we have to subscribe to the very cheapest News Agency. Until we can afford some more delivery wagons – we've only got two now – we'll have to go to press by one. That means that the telegraphic copy must be in at twelve-thirty. The flimsies don't begin to come in till eleven. We can receive only one hour and a half out of twenty-four. And it's a rotten, unreliable, dirty capitalistic service – the only one we can afford. Half of it has to be rewritten. Harry Moore, who also reports night meetings, clips the labor papers, attends to the make-up, runs the 'Questions and Answers,' and collects jokes and fillers, has to read every despatch and rewrite most of them. Yes, I'm rather proud of our telegraphic department."

"Is the financial side so hopeless?" Yetta asked.

"Well, I don't call it hopeless. You're a member of the Executive Committee – at least till you resign – so you'd best look into the books."