THE STRIKE
9
the things which he had suffered should not be, must not be.
There were only a few hundred of us who heard that voice, but the
thousands who watched the trucks in the funeral procession piled high with
SOc and $1.00 wreaths guessed, and understood. I saw the people, I
saw the look on their faces. And it is the look that will be there the
days of the revolution. I saw the fists clenched till knuckles were white,
and people standing, staring, saying nothing, letting it clamp into their
hearts, hurt them so the scar would be there forever-a swelling that
would never let them lull.
"Life," the capitalist papers marvelled again; "Life stopped and
stared." Yes, you stared, our cheap executive, Rossi-hiding behind the
curtains, the cancer of fear in your breast gnawing, gnawing; you stared,
members of the Industrial Association, incredulous, where did the people
come from, where was San Francisco hiding them, in what factories,
what docks, what are they doing there, marching, or standing and watch–
ing, not saying anything, just watching.... What did it mean, and you
clicks, fleeing, hiding behind store windows. . . .
There was a pregnant woman standing on a corner, outlined against
the sky, and she might have been a marble, rigid, eternal, expressing some
vast and nameless sorrow. But her face was a flame, and I heard her
say after a while dispassionately, as it it had been said so many times no
accent was needed, "We'll not forget that. We'll pay it back ...
someday." And on every square of sidewalk
a;
man was saying, "We'll
have it. We'll have a General Strike. And there won't be
processio~s
to bu ry their dead." "Murder-to save themselves paying a few pennies
more wages, remember that Johnny . . . We'll get even.
It
won't be long.
General Strike."
Listen, it is late, I am feverish and tired. Forgive me that the words
are feverish and blurred . . You see,
If
l l
had time,
If
I could go away.
But I write this on a battlefield.
The rest, the General Strike, the terror, arrests and jail , the songs in
the night, must be written some other time, must be written later. . . .
But there is so much happening now....
August
13, 1934
