Lonely Crusade (4 page)

But it went from his mind as he turned to meet the others—the three Mexicans and two white women and other white men—all of whom were volunteer organizers, waiting for the day shift to begin. They were cordial but not effusive, and beyond the simple salutation there was nothing any of them had to say.

With the business of the introductions over, Smitty said a few words to Joe and left. Lee was alone; no one spoke to him and no conversation included him. He took off his raincoat and, holding it over his arm, went to stand by the stove. A searing sense of inadequacy assailed him as he struggled desperately against consciousness of his race.

He was too tight, he told himself. Making too much of a mountain from a molehill. There was no need to be so tight, no sense in it. No one was going to shoot him. No one was even thinking about him. That silliness of Todd’s was nothing—a vulgar exhibition by an ignorant white. It had not hurt him, and all it had done for Todd was to bring down disapproval.

But the old suspicion that there is always a conspiracy against a Negro crowded back into him. His thin black skin kept feeling white eyes—measuring him, calculating, conspiring. And his futile, sterile pride was bleeding.

The sound of the whistle came as a reprieve. Quickly the room emptied of all but he and Joe. Hanging up his coat, he turned to Joe.

“Well, what do we do?”

“Take it easy,” Joe replied.

But shortly the room was filled with volunteers form the graveyard shift. Joe did not introduce him, but Lee had the emotional advantage of having been there first, and his manner was more relaxed.

At Joe’s direction, he sat at the table and copied the names, badge numbers, department numbers, and home addresses of workers who had joined, or had promised to join, the union, dictated to him by the various volunteers. As before, several were Mexicans, but he identified the majority of whites as Southerners by their speech.

At the last, some one said in a softly modulated voice: “I, too, would like to join the union.”

Lee glanced up to see a dark-brown, scholarly appearing man of middle-age, dressed in khaki coveralls and wearing a miner’s cap. His features had the taut-skinned, high-cheekboned structure of an Indian’s, but his eyes were a soft, limpid brown. So many contradictions were apparent in the man that Lee looked startled.

“You are accepting Negro members, are you not?” the man asked in a precise, persistent tone.

“Oh, indeed!” Lee shouted in embarrassment. “Sure, that’s why I’m here. We’re certainly glad to have you. Now what is your name—and let me have your address, too.”

“Lester McKinley,” the man replied, giving him an address on the West Side.

When Lee had finished writing, he extended his hand. “My name’s Lee Gordon. I’m an organizer here.”

“I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Gordon,” McKinley said soberly shaking his hand. “If you require any assistance at any time, please don’t be hesitant in calling on me.”

“Why, thank you,” Lee replied gratefully.

“
Labor omnia vincit
,” McKinley quoted. “Labor conquers all things.” A smile flickered across his somber features, then he turned, and without looking at any of the others, leisurely left the room.

“Well…scholar or mountebank?” Lee Gordon asked himself.

And then a white voice cut across his consciousness: “…naw, not there, I was in niggertown.” There was no malice in the voice, only the forgetfulness of a Negro’s presence. But it put Lee right back where he had been with Todd.

For a long moment he sat rigid in recurring torture, afraid that if he looked up he’d see a white man’s grinning face. Then he decided to appear as if he had not heard. From the literature on the table he selected a tiny booklet: Your
Union at Work
. He turned the page and read: “We, the Workers, realize that the struggle to better our working and living conditions is in vain unless we are united to protect ourselves collectively against the organized forces of the employers…We, the Workers, form an organization which unites all workers in our industry on an industrial basis and rank-and-file control, regardless of craft, age, sex, nationality, race—”

At the word race, his mind left the printed page so that now only his eyes were perceiving the words. His mind was lost in the black, senseless, depthless morass of race—gone!

“You ever work in a steel mill?”

The question jerked Lee out of it. Joe waited for his reply.

“No, I never did,” Lee said.

The day-shift volunteers had gone; they were the only two left.

Joe held up his left hand. “I lost these in a steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio.”

Lee looked at the two-fingered hand, then at Joe’s granite-hard face. As it had been with Smitty, again he felt the compulsion to adjust his personality, somewhat in the manner of a foil, to Joe’s; to say the thing that was expected of him. He didn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t get a cent,” Joe grated. “I got fired. The shop wasn’t organized.”

“That was tough,” Lee sympathized inanely.

Joe gave him a look, and a fire lit up in his slate-gray eyes. “A lot of these punks drawing union pay don’t even know what a union is.”

Lee winced. But Joe was not referring to him; for the moment he had forgotten Lee’s presence.

“They could-a had ‘em all organized, if they’d organized the unemployed,” he went on. It seemed to rankle deep inside of him. “They could-a organized ‘em then. They could-a organized ‘em on WPA. Now they got to do it the hard way. So who do they send but me?”

“Oh, you’re from out of town?” Lee again spoke foolishly just to fill the silence with sound.

This time Joe saw him. “Let’s get some beer,” he said abruptly.

“I’ll settle for coffee,” Lee said with a smile.

The rain had stopped. But the gray murkiness of a Los Angeles March morning remained, cold and depressing. They slopped through the puddles silently and turned into a bar and grill. As always, Lee suffered his moment of suspense over whether he would be refused service. But the bartender waved to Joe, and he became relaxed. They sat in a booth and ordered. The coffee went through Lee like a drug, sharpening his brain and refashioning the day with a more rounded perspective.

Tilting the bottle to his mouth, Joe set it down empty and called to the bartender: “Send me two more; that was a boy.”

Lee laughed dutifully. “Say, Joe,” he asked suddenly, “just who am I supposed to take orders from?”

“From me,” Joe replied. “I’m the organizer.”

But this was not what Lee wanted. He knew the general setup. The organizer was assigned by the national union to organize a shop. He was given full charge. But in the locality where he was to work, he could elicit the aid of the local union council, use its resources in the field and its assembly halls for union meetings. In this case, it had been Joe who had asked for help with the Negro workers. The union council had decided to hire a permanent Negro organizer to be used in turn by all locals within its membership.

“What about the local officials? Todd? And Stone?” Lee wanted to know.

“They’re to take orders from you. But who gives the orders and who takes ‘em ain’t what’s important.”

“Well then, am I supposed to work with them? Or do I work alone?”

“You work with everybody. It’s the rank and file that builds membership—the volunteers. No volunteers, no union. You get the volunteers. They’ll get the members.”

“Oh, I can do that all right. I just wanted to know about Todd.”

“To hell with him!” Joe said.

Now Lee felt better. “I just wanted to know.”

Joe gave him a penetrating look. “Forget it.” He dismissed it from the conversation and launched into the vital business: “Now let me define the issues for you. This is how it is. We got mostly new workers here—new to industry, that is. Most of ‘em are from the South, against the union on general principles. They been taught the union is a part of Russia; they believe what they read in the papers. On top of that, they’re making more money than they ever made. And they’re working under better conditions. The company keeps ‘em hopped up on patriotism. Some of ‘em are so ignorant they believe it’s treason to join the union. They got recreation rooms in the joint, bands to play while they eat; and they even have dances. Better’n an Irish picnic. They don’t even have to buy newspapers any more; the company gives ‘em one free—
The Comstock Condor
—you’ll see it. You read it and you’ll learn what a son of a bitch I am.”

Lee laughed. Joe said: “This is dry talk,” and called to the bartender, “Make it two more.”

Waiting until he was served, he tilted a bottle, emptying it, then went on: “There is a man named Foster.” At the mention of the name, a new quality came into his voice—respect underlined with bitter hatred. “If you want a job making twice as much as you do now, go over and tell ‘im you’re working for me.”

“Looks like they got it in for you,” Lee commented.

“But Foster don’t work like that. He gets the others to do the dirty work—the personnel officer, a little rat named Porter. To hear Foster tell it, he’s the best friend the union’s got.”

“Oh, I thought he was the personnel director.”

“He’s the executive vice-president in charge of production. That means he runs the joint. He’s a retired millionaire from back East. I used to work in his steel mill. He took over the job out here when the war broke out; I guess he owns a lot of stock. There was a piece of crap in the
Condor
saying: “…he talks softly and carries a big stick. I suppose he thinks he’s another Teddy Roosevelt. But the workers swear by him.

“Now we can’t agitate. That would be unpatriotic. But how the hell can you organize without agitating? The hell of it is, we don’t have nothing to agitate about. They got the union system of seniority and upgrading in the plant. There ain’t no problem there. Right now labor is at a premium; the company needs ‘em. Employment ain’t no problem. They give ‘em insurance, accident benefits, everything we can offer but future security. Right now they ain’t thinking about the future. And that’s all we got to sell. Foster knows it. So he ain’t worrying. He lets us do the worrying.

“But we got to organize ‘em. We got to build up a strong local and do it fast. In a couple of months we’ll have a labor board election. And we got to win it. It’s important from the long view. This employment ain’t gonna last forever. If we don’t have a strong union when the war’s over, there’s gonna be hell to pay.

“Listen, man—Lee—whatever in the hell your name is—listen, I’ll tell you, it’s so important we can’t afford to lose. It’s more than just my two nubs—I can do more in a steel mill with my two fingers than most men can with six. It’s the future of the world. All those boys dying and these rotten fascist bastards—” Emotion choked him. He swallowed it, and said, “To hell with it! Our work is to get it done, not to talk about it.”

When Joe paused to light a cigarette, Lee noticed that Joe’s hand was trembling. Joe dragged deeply, flicking out the match. Then he was calm again.

“Now this is how it is,” he began again. “They got thirty thousand workers on three shifts. Twenty-nine thousand ain’t never belonged to any kind of union. They ain’t got no company union; that would at least be something we could fight. And ain’t no other union putting in a bid. All we got to fight is high wages and prosperity.” He went off again: “If they’d listened to me five years ago.” Then he came out of it.

“There’s about three thousand colored workers. That’s Foster again. His even ten per cent. Most of ‘em are new workers, hired after the others. Most of ‘em are doing labor—that’s because they’re new, see. Just enough been upgraded to prove there ain’t any discrimination. From what I know about the colored workers, discrimination is most of what you got to work on. So I know your job ain’t gonna be easy.

“On a job like this, the union can’t show any special interest in your people or we antagonize the Southern whites. Don’t look for none.

“The Communists will be after you. Just be prepared. In case you don’t know, this is how they’ll work. They’ll get somebody to make friends with you—either another colored man or a white girl. Then they’ll try to recruit you. Anyway, they’ll try to control you. But as long as they don’t catch you agitating on discrimination, they’ll help. They got that unity crap going and they won’t want you around agitating. Now take their help. It can be good. They got better inside contacts than you’ll ever get. But don’t let ‘em run your show. Play the discrimination, and play the Communists, too. It’s all in not letting ‘em see you. If it’s another colored man they send out for you, he’ll be a dumb son of a bitch, anyway. Just remember, you’re organizing for the union, not for Joe Stalin. Watch out they don’t undermine you or double-cross you. And don’t you fight ‘em, for God’s sake. Let me do that. It’s up to you how you do it. But it’s gotta be done. We’ll need that colored vote to win an election. That’s your job. You got to get ‘em. The next meeting will be in two weeks. The leaflets announce it. When the shift changes today, go down to No. 2 gate and pass some out. Try to get some colored workers at the meeting. After the first come, others’ll follow. Do the best you can. When you need help, come to me. If you believe in the union, you can convince others. If you don’t, you can’t That’s the score, brother,” Joe concluded. “Now how ‘bout some chow?”

The spell of Lee’s complete attention was broken. His thoughts diffused rapidly. His emotions lost sharp definition and spread into confusion. Contemplation of the job Joe had outlined nurtured his sense of inadequacy. He could not bear the thought of food. But when it came, he ate.

At ten minutes of four, Lee carried an arm full of leaflets down to the No. 2 gate. The sun had come out and the pavement steamed in the bright sunshine. It was pleasant after the rain.

A line of cars turned slowly into the parking lot across the street, moving intermittently as those in front selected parking spots. Of those workers who had come earlier, some stood in groops in the bright sunshine conversing; others crowded around the hot-dog stands, drinking pop. In most instances the Negro workers remained by themselves. Here and there a black face stood out in a white group.