Part 2

It will be pagan temples and old blue Chinese gardens; old pagodas glittering across green trees, and the ivory of silence; vast dark trees that flow like blue veils of tears into the water; little almond trees that the frost has hurt, and bitter purple willows; fruit dropping through the thick air, and wine in heavy craters painted black and red; purple and gold and sable, and a gauze of misted silver; blue death-mountains, and yellow pulse-beats in the darkness; naked lightnings, and boats in the gloom; strange fish, and golden sorceries; red-purple grapes, and Assyrian wine; fruits from Arcadia, and incense to Poseidon; swallow-blue halls, and a chamber under Lycia’s coast; stars swimming like goldfish, and the sword of the moonlight; torn lanterns that flutter, and an endless procession of lamps; sleepy temples, and strange skies, and pilgrims of autumn; tired shepherds with lanterns, and the fire of the great moon; the lowest pine branch drawn across the disk of the sun; Phoenecian stuffs and silks that are outspread; the gods garlanded in wisteria; white grave goddesses, and loves in Phrygia; wounds of light, and terrible rituals, and temples soothed by the sun to ruin; the valleys of Ætna, and the Doric singing....

... The moon dragging the flood tide, and an old sorrow that has put out the sun; whirling laughter, and the thunder of horses plunging; old tumults, and the gloom of dreams; strong loneliness, and the hollow where pain was; the rich laughter of the forest, and the bitter sea; the earth that receives the slanting rain; lost treasure, and the violent gloom of night; all proud things, and the light of thy beauty.... Souls of blood, and hearts aching with wonder; the kindness of people—country folk and sailors and fishermen; all the roots of the earth, and a perpetual sea....

[1] _I have omitted quotation marks for the sake of appearance, but every phrase in the next five paragraphs is taken from the Imagists._

War Impressions

FLORENCE KIPER FRANK

The Moving-Picture Show

We sat at a moving-picture show. Over a little bridge streamed the Belgian refugees, women, children, boys, dogs, horses, carts, household goods—an incongruous procession. The faces were stolid, the feet plodded on—plodded on!

“See!” said my friend, “sometimes a woman turns to look at a bursting shell.”

I murmured, “How interesting!”

And my soul shuddered. It shuddered at sophistication.

The man who had taken the pictures told us about them. He had been not more than three weeks ago in Belgium....

“Huzza!” sang my ancestor of five thousand years back. He led a band of marauders into an enemy’s village. They ripped things up and tore about the place singing and looting. There was nothing much left to that village by the time they got through with it.

But the people many miles away did not behold his exploits. Alas, there were no moving-picture shows in those days!

The Modern Woman With a Sense of Humor

There was a Modern Woman with a sense of humor.

“I shall,” she said, “teach to women the absurdity of bearing children to be killed by cannon.”

“The absurdity!” exclaimed the men of the State, aghast at levity.

“Yes,” answered she, “it isn’t worth the trouble!” And she lifted her eyebrows and smiled, but in her eyes there was Knowledge.

And the men of the State were more terrified by the phenomenon of The Modern Woman with a Sense of Humor than by any phenomenon that had before confronted them.

The Incredible Adventure of Spring

The year was again a-foot on the incredible adventure of Spring. The earth broke into blossoming, and the nights were moon-drenched and astir with the whisperings of wet winds. It was a really thrilling time of the year to be alive—and therefore, besides all these breathless and miraculous adventures of the grass and flowers, many innocent and unsuspecting souls had started out on the incredible adventure of being born.

But the war-writers kept on writing that for man to reach true exaltation and vibrancy of spirit, he must blow out the brains of as many people as possible.

Man and His Machines

He has builded him machines—man the Maker—using great cunning of hand and of brain. And has not Bergson told us that thus has he evolved that tool, the Intellect—through the dim ages of his making!

He has builded him states, politics, all the intricate architecture of institutions.

Now who would think that what he himself has builded—builded through the thousands of years of endeavor—should thus turn about, ungrateful, to destroy and to rend him?

The Annual Banquet

“We shall not, this year,” said my rich friend—a Lady—“while the people of Europe are starving and fighting—we shall not this year have our large annual banquet.”

But had she walked not a mile from her home, she would have seen in her own city men starving, and fighting because of the terrible dread of starving. And not this year alone had they been doing it, but for many years of large banquets.

However, if all Ladies and Gentlemen felt acutely all these matters, what would become of our institution of Large Banquets—or, indeed, of the Divine Privileges of Monarchs!

What a Veneer Is Civilization

“War,” wrote the journalists, “reveals what a veneer is civilization. Man’s real emotions, instinctive, primitive, brutal, leap to ascendency.”

But I did not believe the journalists, because I knew better men’s emotions. Indeed, what tore asunder my heart was the depth and beauty of the emotions of men and women. There was nothing—at least very little—the matter with their emotions.

But with their thinking apparatus—ah, that is a different story!

Lawson, Caplan, Schmidt

ALEXANDER BERKMAN

I don’t know of anything more tragic and pitiful than the superstition that “Justice will triumph.” What this metaphysical conception of “justice” really signifies, how it is to be expressed in applicable terms, is impossible to determine in view of the multiplicity of individual antagonisms and class interests.

But somehow we all believe in “justice”; yet the criterion of each is the degree of the attainment of his own purpose.

From time immemorial we humans have been clamoring for “justice,” divine and earthly. Hence our slavery. And Kaiser and Czar both claim justice on their side, and millions are slaughtering each other to attain the particular justice of their respective masters.

In this blessed land of ours, justice is ranked high, and labor is constantly basing its appeals and demands on justice. But perhaps—let us hope—the John Lawson case has somewhat jolted the popular faith in the metaphysical conception, at least so far as it manifests itself in the Colorado courts. It is safe to say that there is no intelligent man in that state who does not know that the stage for Lawson’s conviction had been set long before his trial. He was an intelligent, active agitator. He sought to crystallize the rebellious dissatisfaction of the miners into effective action:—sufficient reason for the Rockefeller-controlled state to eliminate, most emphatically, such an undesirable element.

In Colorado, as well as throughout the rest of the country, most people know that a great “injustice was done Lawson.” What are the people of Colorado doing about it? Not a thing. The cheerful idiot, otherwise known as the good citizen, cares for justice only in the degree in which it affects his own pocket. And the masses of labor who do feel themselves and their cause injured by the railroading of Lawson to prison—they call the verdict a “miscarriage of justice”—applaud Professor Brewster who wired Lawson: “Unbelievable. Counsel friends keep cool. Justice will be done.”

And the people of Colorado remain inactive, in the belief that the Supreme Court, the Governor, or maybe the Holy Ghost will see to it that justice is done.

Yet the Lawson lesson has not been entirely lost. It is possible that it has shed a light that will reflect itself on coming fights between labor and capital. It is more than probable that the lesson has already borne fruit in the more aggressive attitude of labor in some parts of the country. It has helped ever-growing numbers to realize that to expect “justice” in the struggle between labor and capital means to doom the toilers to defeat.

It will be highly interesting to watch the effect of the Lawson outrage upon the approaching trial of David Caplan and Mathew Schmidt, the aftermath of the McNamara case, in Los Angeles, California. The history of this case is illuminating of our legal and social “justice”:

The labor unions in California have for the last nine years fought a bitter fight against the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association, the Western branch of the Steel Trust. Every means, legal and illegal, has been used by the employers to exterminate the unions and paralyze the workers. And they have practically succeeded in breaking every labor organization in the Steel Industry from New York to San Francisco.

Where twenty years ago we had a powerful union—for instance, in Pennsylvania: the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers—today nothing but a pitiful remnant is left. Only _one_ union in the steel industry has survived: the Structural Iron Workers. They survived because they contested every inch of ground against the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association. The result of that fight was a long war between capital and labor on the Coast. Every form of persecution and violence was used against labor, and labor was forced to defend itself. In consequence the Structural Iron Workers increased their wages from $2.40 a day to $4.40, and reduced their hours from ten to eight. Organized capital resorted to every trick to strangle the workers, and in Los Angeles a special law was passed prohibiting picketing. But the union defied the law, and five hundred men went to prison during the general strike of the metal trades in Southern California in 1910. During this fight the Los Angeles _Times_, the most relentless enemy of labor and of humanity, was destroyed. The brothers McNamara were arrested, as a result, and then the masters made the solemn promise that the war would be stopped and that all further prosecutions of labor men would cease if the McNamaras would plead guilty. It was only on the strength of this promise that the McNamaras were finally induced to plead guilty.

Hardly ten days passed, when the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association broke every promise they made. They began the prosecution of labor men in Los Angeles and Indianapolis, and did everything in their power to railroad to prison the most effective members of the unions. And now, four and a half years later, they have arrested David Caplan in Seattle and Mathew Schmidt in New York, and brought them across the country to Los Angeles to put them on trial for complicity with the McNamaras.

This perfidious activity of organized capital has made labor in California realize that the courts are controlled by the employers, and that labor cannot expect justice. They now understand what a fatal mistake was made in the case of John Lawson. The workers depended on the innocence of Lawson for his acquittal. They failed to act, expecting justice to be done.

At least some of the labor elements on the Coast are awakening to the situation. They feel that they cannot expect justice from the courts of the exploiters. They have now determined that more aggressive and militant action is necessary, if labor is not to be submerged by the oppression of capital. They are beginning to see that throughout the country the masters are picking out the most effective and intelligent fighters from the ranks of the workers and railroading them to prison, to terrorize labor and stifle the spirit of liberty and independence. The Lawson case, the case of Ford and Suhr, of Rangel and Cline, of Joe Hill, and the many other cases now pending in the courts of New York and elsewhere, all show what capital intends to do to labor.

Is labor really going to keep quiet and submit to this persecution and slavery? The unions on the Coast have determined that they will not. They are calling upon every one in sympathy with labor to join the great movement to stop the aggression of capital. They have decided on strong militant tactics to defend the workingman, his family and his union against the tyranny of the bosses.

They have issued the call to every central body, affiliated unions and radical organizations, to join hands at this most critical moment. This is not a question of theory or of philosophic ism. It is the great war of labor against capital, a struggle of life and death. In this struggle all local and theoretic differences may be safely forgotten, and all friends of labor make common cause.

I have been sent as a special delegate by some of the California unions to help organize the solidaric and militant forces of labor throughout the country. It is evident how significant this case is for the workers in general. It is imperative that they combine in solidaric unity in this vital matter, to register in mighty accents the sentiments and determination of the oppressed. Thus were Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone torn from the clutches of the jungle beast. Thus were returned to liberty Ettor and Giovannitti, Carlo Tresca, and other fighters for the better day. But whenever the workers failed to sound the tocsin of solidarity and make their gesture of protest, their prisoners of war have invariably remained the hostages of the enemy.

Organizations and individuals who are willing to give us their moral and financial assistance, should immediately send resolutions and funds to Tom Barker, Secretary Building Trades Council of Los Angeles, and Treasurer of the Caplan-Schmidt Defense Fund. Address, 201 Labor Temple, Los Angeles, California. My own address for the present is 917 Fine Arts Building.

Father and Daughter

EDGAR LEE MASTERS

The church is a hulk of shadow, And dark is the church’s spire. But the cross is as black as iron Against the sunset’s fire.

The shops and sheds and hovels Are massed with the church’s shade; And a girl with a face like a lily Is plying her wretched trade.

And a drunken man reels homeward With a sullen leer in his eye. And the street is filled with children, That play and wrestle and cry.

A broken hurdy-gurdy Rattles a hollow tune, And a light as yellow as fever Shines from the vile saloon.

Two men are talking together, They pass where the children are; And one wears a robe of sable, The other a silver star.

And one of them goes to vespers And one of them makes a search, And one of them enters the groggery, And one of them enters the church.

And a shot is fired by the drunkard, And the girl falls dead in the street; And God is peaceful in heaven, And all in the world is sweet.

Poems

(_from the Greek of Myrrhine of Mitulene, and Konallis; translated by Richard Aldington_)

I

Hierocleia, bring hither my silver vine-leaf-carved armlet and the mirror graven with two Maenads, For my heart is burned to dust with longing for Konallis; And this is the silver armlet which pressed into her side when I held her, And before this mirror she bound up her golden-hyacinth-curled hair, sitting in the noon sunlight.

II

I, Konallis, am but a goat-girl dwelling on the violet hills of Korinthos, But going down to the city a marvellous thing befell me; For the beautiful-silver-fingered hetaira, Myrrhine, held me nightlong in her couch, Teaching me to stretch wide my arms to receive her strange burning caresses.

III

Fair young men have brought me presents of silver caskets and white mirrors, Gold for my hair and long lemon-colored chitons and dew-soft perfumes of sweet herbs. Their bodies are whiter than Leucadian foam and delicate are their flute-girls, But the wild sleepless nightingales cry in the darkness even as I for Konallis.

IV

We, Konallis and Myrrhine, dedicate to thee, Proserpine, two white torches of wax, For thou didst watch over our purple-embroidered couch all night; Was it thou who gavest us the sweetness of sharp caresses? For at midday when we awoke we laughed to see black poppies blooming beneath our eyes.

V

The doves sleep beside the slow-murmuring cool fountain, red-five-petalled roses of Paestum strew the chequered marble; A flute-girl whispers the dear white ode of Sappho, and Hierocleia by the pool Smiles to see the smooth blue-sky-reflecting water mirror her shining body; But my eyelids are shunned by sleep that is whiter than beautiful morning, for Konallis is not here.

VI

O reeds, move softly and make keen bewildering music, For I fear lest Arkadian Pan should seize Myrrhine as she comes from the city; O Artemis, shed thy light across the peaks to hasten her coming, But do thou, Eos, hold back thy white radiance till love be content.

VII

Last night Zeus sent swift rain upon the blue-grey rocks, But Konallis held me close to her pear-pointed breasts.

VIII

Sappho, Sappho, long ago the dust of earth mingled with the dust of thy dear limbs, And only little clay figures, painted with Tyrian red, with crocus, and with Lydian gold, Remain to show thy beauty; but thy wild lovely songs shall last for ever. Soon we too shall join Anaktoria and Kudno and kiss thy pale shadowy fingers.

IX

When Myrrhine departed I, weeping passionately, kissed her golden-wrought knees, saying: “O, Myrrhine, by what god shall I keep the memory of thy caresses?” But she, bending down like golden, smiling Aphrodite, whispered to me; And lying here in the sunlight among the reeds I remember her words.

X

Hierocleia, do thou weave white-violet-crowns and spread mountain-haunting lilies upon my couch, For Konallis comes! and shut the door against the young men for this is a sharper love.

XI

This is the feast of Iacchus; open wide the gates, O Hierocleia; Fill the kraters and kuathoi with sweet unmixed wine and snow; bring thyrsus-wands, And crowns of pale ivy and violets; let the flute-players begin the phallic hymn While the ten girl-slaves, drunken with the god, dance to the young men.

XII

Hedulia now lies with Myrrhine who aforetime was my lover, But seeing Hedulia she forgot me, and I lie on the threshold weeping. O marble threshold, thou are not so white nor so hard as her breasts, receive my tears While the mute stars turn overhead and the owls cry from the cypresses.

XIII

Wandering in tears about the city I came to the dark temple of Priapus; The tall, naked, scented-tressed priestesses taught me the mysteries, And I lay between Guathina and Leuke and afterwards Chrusea and Anthea; But now I worship the god on the mountain slopes, yet not unforgetful of Myrrhine.

XIV

This is the tomb of Konallis; Korinthos was her city and Kleobulina bore her, Having lain in sweet love with Sesocrates, the son of Menophiles. I lived three and twenty years, and then sudden sickness bore me to Dis So they laid me here with my silver armlets, my gold comb, my chain and with little painted figures. In my life I was happy, knowing many sorts of love and none evil. If you are a lover, scatter dust, and call me “dear one” and speak one last “Hail.”

Telos.

Nudity and the Ideal

WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT

One of the young men here loved the sunlight on his shoulders so well—had such a natural love for the feel of light and air upon his bare flesh—that he almost attained that high charm of forgetting himself half-dressed.... The country people occasionally come down to the water on the Sabbath or to sell (from their homes back on the automobile routes and the interurban lines) and for what they do not get of the natural beauty of shore and bluff, I have a fine respect. However they didn’t miss the Temporary Mr. Pan.

They complained that he was exposing himself, even that he was shameless.

Now, I am no worshiper of nudity. I’d like to be, but it disappoints in most cases. There is always a strain about an object that is conscious of itself—and that nudity which is unconscious of itself is either shameless, an inevitable point of its imperfection anatomically for the trained eye; or else it is touched with divinity and does not frequent these shores.

The human body has suffered the fate of all flesh and plant-fiber that is denied light. A certain vision must direct all growth—and vision requires light. The covered things are white-lidded and abortive, scrawny from struggle or bulbous from the feeding dream into which they are prone to sink.

It will require centuries for the human race to outgrow the shames which have come to adhere to our character-structure from recent generations. We have brutalized our bodies with these thoughts. We associate women with veils and secrecy, but the trouble is not with them, has not come from women, but from the male-ordering of women’s affairs to satisfy his own ideas of possession and conservation. The whole cycle of human production is a man-arrangement according to present standards, and every process is destructively bungled. However, that’s a life-work, that subject.

The thoughts of our ancestors have debased our bodies in color and texture and contour organically and to be seen. Nudity is not beautiful, and does not play sweetly upon our minds because of this heritage. The human body is associated with darkness, and the place of this association in our minds is of corresponding darkness.

The young man and I talked it over. We decided that it would be a thankless task for him to spend the summers in ardent endeavor to educate the Countryside by browning his back in public. _That_ did not appeal to us as a fitting life task; moreover, his project would be frequently interrupted by the town-marshal. As a matter of truth, one may draw most of the values of the actinic rays of the sun through thin white clothing; and if one has not crushed his feet into a revolting mess in pursuit of the tradesmen, he may go barefooted a little while each day on his own grassplot without shocking the natives or losing his credit at the bank. The real reason for opening this subject is to express, without hatred, certain facts in the case of the Countryside which complained.

They are villagers and farm-people who live with Mother Nature without knowing her. They look into the body of Nature, but never see her face to face. The play of light and the drive of intelligence in her eyes is above the level of their gaze or too bright. Potentially they have all the living lights—the flame immortal, but it is turned low. It does not glorify them as men or parents or workmen. It does not inspire them to questing—man’s real and most significant business. They do not know that which is good and evil in food, in music, in color, fabric, books, in houses, lands or faith. They live in a low lazy rhythm and attract unto themselves inevitably objects of corresponding vibration. One observes this in their children, in their schools, and most pathetically in their churches. They abide dimly in the midst of their imperfections, but with tragic peace. When their children revolt, they meet on every hand the hideous weight of matter, the pressure of low vibrations, and only the more splendid of them have the integrity of spirit to rise above the resistance.