CROSS COUNTRY
47
charges of suspicious person, one reckless driving, and one carrying con-
cealed weapons. The weapon in question was a pocket knife.
One of the arrested men, a Greek, was particularly worried over
his arrest because he feared his friends in the old country might hear
about it and think he committed a crime. "I work this country 25 years,"
he explained. "Only once
I
visited old country.
I
no like him there,
only now maybe America aint so good either.
I
never done nothing bad,
and them bosses in the mill know it too. I don't drink, (a bit hesitating-
ly) I no fool around women, all I do is smoke, that's all. Now they
arrest me and ask me all kind foolish question. 'What's that button you
got?' Oh, that, I say, that's my union button, I belong
CIa
and I no
fraid say it. 'You go back picket line?' they say. Sure I go back picket
line. They say, 'you got three day, you go back picket line and next
time maybe you get three year.' I say, I no care I get fen year, I go
back picket line."
II
A
LL THROUGH
the afternoon loud speakers were shrieking final
speeches and announcements at the crowd gathered in the Wye. It is
Aliquippa's busiest intersection, so named because it is shaped like the
letter Y. Hopewell Avenue, a narrow colorless street, starts from a split
in Franklin Avenue, just where the highway turns in from Pittsburgh,
and extends like the narrow stem of the Y. The two upper stems extend
one in the direction of the main mill gate, the other in the direction of
the business part of the town. People gather at the Wye for all sorts of
reasons. They come here to do their shopping, to get their drinks, to
meet their friends, to pick up gossip, and on this afternoon of May 12,
1937, they gathered to listen to final word from the union crowd, which
came over a microphone attached to the window of a photographic
studio on the second floor of a ramshackle building directly facing the
Wye.
The studio belonged to a shriveled up little Italian of about 50,
neryous, excited, and immensely pleased with his role of host. He
maneuvered his camera from one window to another photographing the
crowd, all the while talking to no one in particular, and saying mostly,
"Look at the crowd, my, my, I gonna take 'nother picture, I don't care
couple dolhr, I want everybody sec big crowd in Aliquippa no fraid
J
& L."
There was the usual line-up of speakers. Sub-regional director Joe
Timko, organizers Mallinger, Porter, Bozareli, Smiley, were all there.
They made their usual speeches, and then, just in order to add a new
voice, they called on this author to "say a few words." I picked up the
cue from the other speakers, and touched on several generalities in the
peppery tone set by the others. When I finished and resumed my seat
