The New Slavery

I. THE REDEMPTION OF GEORGE MARK

THE Compulsory Work Bureau of the State Council of Defense had been in operation for two months. For so long a time the Director had been administering and enforcing the new law, which made it the duty of every man, between the ages of eighteen and fiftyfive years, to be engaged in some useful or lawful occupation, and gave the Director power to assign idlers to some specific employment and compel them to work at it, under penalty of three months’ imprisonment or three hundred dollars fine — or both.

In that time some hundreds of subjects had come through the door in front of him, and had departed, having cleared themselves of the charge of idling, or else bearing with them their assignments to work for So-and-so at such-and-such work at so much per hour or day — staggeringly large wages for most unpromising wage-earners, they seemed to the Director, who knew many a teacher and preacher who worked for half what these low-browed sons of toil commanded and received.

The first case was a fine start. George Mark, vagrant, incontestably vagrant, sealed to vagrancy by twenty-one successive convictions therefor, was turned over to the new bureau by a police magistrate, much too much fed up with sentencing the constantly reappearing George.

‘All men between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five must work, George,’ explained the Director.

‘Yes, but what I want to know is, does vagrants have to work?’ inquired George, no longer a man, now only a vagrant by virtue of those twenty-one successive, solemn acts of the court, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining unto vagrancy.

The new Director was fascinated by his first subject. There he sat, an old man of forty, a little man of five feet two and a hundred and ten pounds. His hat might have been size six, to fit his little round cephalic knob, if George had ever thought a fit necessary in a hat. Beady eyes gleamed in an unbelievably prognathous countenance — a rat of a man.

‘How long since you worked, George?’ asked the Director.

‘Last Friday. I got out of the workhouse Saturday morning, and they picked me up again before two o’clock, ’cos I’m a vagrant.’

The Director felt his indignation rising, although he did not express it. How could George ever emerge from his vagrancy, if the police picked him up on sight? How could he ever redeem himself? It was the old story of police oppression. George should be redeemed. He should be given a chance, a job, and protection from the police; a laisser-passer in the form of an official assignment to work. The vagrant should be made a man.

It was done. He was now officially an honest workingman and could look any cop in the eye. He was no longer a vagrant. He had become a man, within the meaning of the new statute.

He went to work and his redemption was complete, for, though he remained at work only one hour, and was therefore arrested, when next he appeared in the police court, it was as a man who had neglected or refused to obey the orders of the State Council of Defense. He returned to the workhouse, to serve his twenty-second term, as a man and not as a vagrant.

II. THE RIVETER

The Inspector had interrupted his victim’s slumbers. Although it was three o’clock in the afternoon, the man was still in the bed to which he had retired, fully dressed, the night before at some unknown hour, probably soon after the saloons had closed. When a man has not had his clothes off for two or three days, and has spent all of that period in a saloon or in bed, one should not expect him to appear perfectly groomed, and he did not. Not to put too fine a point on it, he looked the part. Tousled, disheveled, grimy, sodden with drink, as he stood before the Director, blinking his heavy eyelids, shaking with the palsy of what it were too complimentary to call alcohol, nothing would describe him better than that short and ugly word, ‘bum.’

Clearly he was a part of the waste of humanity, of no real importance, a negligible factor. Not at all. He was of more importance to the world than a preacher, a doctor, a lawyer, than a poet, an artist, a composer. He was one of the men on whom we were depending to bridge the Atlantic, to win the war, to save humanity — a riveter in a shipyard.

‘Have you any employment?’

‘Yes, sir; I’m working at the shipyard.’

‘Not to-day.’

‘No, sir. I been off since Friday.’ This was Tuesday.

‘Anything the matter?’

‘No, sir, I only been drinkin’.’

That was all. He had only been drinkin’. Saturday he had not worked, nor Monday, nor Tuesday. For three days his gang — the riveter, the holderon, the heater and the passer — had not driven a rivet, for, be it known, the gang is a fixed and unchangeable unit. If the riveter is not on his job, the holder-on and the rest do no work. They may report for duty, but the foreman finds the gang incomplete and lays off the rest until the missing man returns.

‘What will win the war?’ Uncle Sam anxiously asked Cousin John.

‘Ships, ships, and yet more ships!’

‘When do you want them?’

‘Now, to-morrow, next week — as soon as they can possibly be built.’

So we were building ships — to carry soldiers — to carry millions of soldiers, and to carry the tons per man necessary to arm, equip, feed, and maintain those millions. The shipyards rang day and night with the blows of the riveter — riveting ships to save the world. Flanders and France rang day and night with the blows of another riveter — riveting chains for humanity. One of those two riveters would win the war.

Riveter John had only been drinkin’ — no great crime. No crime at all, surely, when it was done in a place licensed by the State to furnish him the drink; when the drink itself had paid its tax to the nation, a tax without whose revenue the nation would be short of funds to carry on the war. It was lawful, doubly lawful, to drink. State and nation said so. Who could say otherwise?

And while Riveter John was only drinkin’, what were Holder-on Bill and Heater Joe and Passer Bob doing? Nothing, unless, perhaps, they were only drinkin’, too.

In Flanders and in France, Tommy, the poilu, and the Yank stood in the trenches, staring across No-Man’s Land, but now and then casting an anxious backward glance to the west, looking for the ships and the more ships. In the shipyard stood the foreman, cursing a shortage in riveters. In the saloon stood Riveter John, only drinkin’ — drinkin’ whiskey.

‘How can we win the war and save humanity?’

‘Speed the ships!’ The reply was easy.

‘How can we speed the ships?’

To the Director the answer seemed equally plain.

III. THE ONE-LEGGED NIGGER

‘Charles Wright.’

The voice of the Inspector, bringing in a new subject, brought back the absent mind of the Director to his task of making Adam delve. He looked up and saw a coal-black Afro-American. Charles was standing so near the desk across which the Director was looking, that his lower half was invisible and at first the Director saw only his face. There was something so challenging in its expression as to be startling. He was blacker than the ace of spades — as black as the ten. He stood very erect, his head thrown back. His lips were straightly compressed and his eyes looked defiance in its most primitive form, the defiance of his elder brother, the gorilla. And then the Director saw that he was sustained by two crutches.

‘Only got one leg,’ said the Inspector. ‘Lost the other on the railroad.’

‘Are you at work, Charles?’ mildly queried the Director.

‘No, I ain’t,’ straightly answered Charles.

‘Why not?’

No answer.

‘How do you live without working?’

Perhaps a useless question, but it was part of the ritual in certain cases.

Again no answer. The one-leggednigger stood there silent, as dignified in his recalcitrancy as ever a heretic before his inquisitors. It was a useless question, but the power of his office to require answers must be vindicated. It would never do to let a one-legged nigger defy the State Council of Defense in the person of its Director.

‘Answer my question. How do you live without working?’ sharply repeated the Director.

‘Why do I have to ansuh you any question?’ shot back Charles.

‘Because I ask it,’ sternly answered the Director.

The logic of the reply or else his gathering indignation overcame Charles’s settled determination not to speak.

‘How kin a one-legged man wuhk? What do you know about a one-legged man gittin’ a job? You aint nevah stahved fo’ five or six yeahs —’

The lips snapped to again, and again that look of black hostility fixed his countenance. He had said more than he had intended to say. He had lifted a corner of the veil, which he had not meant to lift.

‘Well, you’ve got to work at something.’

A moment’s pause and then Charles fired his last and best shot.

‘Why should I wuhk?’

‘Because the law says so. Because it’s your duty to the community. Because every man must be at work now, to take the place of our soldiers. Because we’ve all got to work to win this war. Because we’ve got to beat the Kaiser.’

Good reasons, very good reasons for most men, but not good enough for this man, and the Director knew it. So he did not say the words.

There stood Charles, — up against the State Council of Defense, up against public opinion, up against the policy of the administration, up against the law of the state, — a one-legged nigger contra mundum.

The Director looked into the eyes of the man before him. He looked through those eyes and saw the world, as it is known to a one-legged nigger. He saw a lot of other niggers, generations of them, extending back through fifty years of freedom — freedom to get along as best they could, just so they did not bother the white man, back through a hundred years of slavery under the white man; back to a slaveship and to Africa and to — what? An African king, perhaps. Charles had the look of one. He saw around Charles thousands of other niggers, enjoying the same kind of freedom, the freedom of a yellow dog, which is free to dodge a brick, to rid its tail of the can, to keep out of the way, if it is able to do so, or to take what it gets, if not.

The Director saw, but more dimly, the last five or six years of Charles’s life. His imagination was not so vivid as to this period, for that would require a filling-in of details — details of the daily life of a one-legged nigger, his job-hunting, his — well, his sometimes unsatisfied appetite for food — rather hard for the Director to visualize clearly, because of lack of similar experiences.

‘Why should I go to wuhk?’ The question had not been answered. Because the law says so? What was the law to a one-legged nigger, but a policeman and a police court and a term in the workhouse, as good a job as any? His duty to the community? What does ‘community’ mean? Has n’t it some suggestion of reciprocal duties and rights and privileges? How about his other leg, which the railroad took? Was n’t the railroad part of the community? Why did the community take his leg, and how much more did he owe it? To win the war? Why? What was the war to him? Why should he care to win it? The Kaiser would n’t bother a one-legged nigger, not even if he set up his throne in Washington. Maybe it would be better, if it was different. It could n’t be much worse.

‘Why should I go to wuhk?’ The question was still unanswered. But the State Council of Defense, in the person of its Director, though unable to answer the question of a one-legged nigger, need not abate its dignity therefor. It could even add to it by ignoring the question.

‘Take this man to the Employment Bureau and see if you can find a job to fit him,’ said the Director to the Inspector. And as the one-legged nigger limped through the doorway and passed out of earshot he added, ‘Don’t bring him back here again.’

Why should he go to work? Why should n’t he? Why should anyone? Why should n’t everyone? Why is a one-legged nigger, anyway? ‘God knows — perhaps,’ thought the Director, as he stamped ‘Physically disqualified’ on the file of Charles Wright, and deposited it among the closed cases.

IV. MIDDLE GRAYNESS

‘The question is, of course, not whether you are busy, but whether you are, in the language of the statute, “employed in a useful or lawful occupation,”’ said the Director.

‘Well, I’ve told you what I do, and I think that’s employment enough,’ answered Browning.

‘It certainly seems employments enough,’ said the Director, ‘and yet — I don’t know.’

A fruit-broker during the season was Browning — but the season was over. A buyer of sweet potatoes in their time but that time was not yet. He had a few acres under cultivation and did some of the work himself — but not much. He bought a cow now and then and gave it to a farmer, who had its milk for its care and feed, yielding to Browning the annual calf for his profit; an interesting arrangement, which reminded the Director vaguely of something of the sort in the Old Testament. He had other occasional, intervening ventures and semi-occupations. With this and with that, he seemed to have something to occupy his mind and time — generally. But was he really ‘employed,’ within the meaning of the statute, or was he technically an ‘idler’?

The Director looked at two piles of letters on the desk before him, on the right accusatory, on the left exculpatory. They were about the same in number. The weight of evidence, or at least of opinion, seemed equally balanced. In one he read, ‘I have known him for four years and never to my knowledge has he done a single day’s work. He is an idler and a slacker.’ In another, ‘I have known him several years and never considered him an idler.’ In another, ‘We have become nauseated at his idleness, sitting around on store-porches, exploding his theories.’ This last seemed after all, in a way, favorable to Browning. Exploding one’s own theories is surely commendable, as saving labor for someone else.

‘It is a by-word now,’ said another letter; ‘when Landston people go to Hilton, Ridgely, or other towns near, everybody says, “Is Browning working yet?” and then they laugh!’

It was bitter medicine for the Landstonians to have the children of Ridgely point their fingers in scorn and the old men of Hilton wag their beards in derision of Landston and its chartered idler. It had become a matter of local pride in Landston to put Browning to work, and a matter of individual pride in Browning not to confess, by changing his way of life, that he had been an idler before; while Hilton and Ridgely looked on, with great activity of finger and beard. Delegations from Landston had come to visit the bureau. Anonymous letters were frequent. If he did not put Browning to work, preferably at some hard manual labor, the Director was assured that the law was a farce and his administration of it a tragedy.

The facts of the case were undisputed. The difference was in the construction put upon them — a matter of opinion. It would have been easy to put Browning to work. So doing, the Director would have acquired merit in the eyes of Landston. But the Director had been schooled in the maxim, ‘Better that ten guilty men escape than that one innocent should suffer.’ A jury can vote on its problem, and a minority can yield, or it can frankly and finally disagree. The Director could do neither. He felt strongly sympathetic with the ass of Buridan.

How the case was decided is not important. It is cited merely to illustrate the truth that, while white is white and black is black, gray is neither white nor black, especially in the administration of a compulsory labor law.

V. BLACK-FACE

The Comic Spirit broods o’er all humanity, but especially it loves the Afro-American. Where he is, there shall be laughter. He is called a child of toil, but toil is only a stepmother, and he loves her not. He leans confidentially over the desk and tells the Director why he is not working, and why it is clearly impossible for him to to go to work.

‘Ah’m really not able to wuhk stiddy.’ His fat face shines with frankness and the August heat. ‘About two yeahs ago Ah went into a dee-cline an’ Ah’m not out of it yit. An’ besides, boss, Ah think Ah’ve got consumption.'

The Director does not doubt it. He has every outward sign of a decline of work and a consumption of food.

Or he comes in on one crutch — hurt his back years ago and has never worked since, but now he is ready to work.

‘Why do you want to work now?’ ‘Cos eve’ybody ought to work now, an’ it ain’t no fun loafin’ — nobody to loaf with.’

‘Good news,’ thinks the Director, and suggests some varieties of non-laborious labor, of workless work; but all are too hard for this patriotic and lonesome man.

‘What kind of work can you do?’ ‘Well, jedge, they’s one kine of wuhk Ah could do, ef Ah on’y had a little trainin’.’

‘What is that?’

‘Ah think Ah could be a’ — he blinks twice, and then out with it — ‘a efficiency expert.’

He means it seriously. Why laugh? If he only had a little training and had been dowered with a few more convolutions of gray matter and had been born white, why not? But there was a laugh in it, nevertheless; if it not the laughter of humankind, at least the high, ironic laughter which is reserved for the gods.

VI. A WORLD’S RECORD

The Inspectors had rounded up a gang of loafers in a saloon, all prima facie subjects for the Compulsory Work Bureau. One by one they were being examined. Now came one, upon whose face was an expression of complete bewilderment. He seemed incapable of realizing where he was or why he was there.

‘Name?’ said the Director.

‘John Mullen.’ His voice was like that of a hypnotic subject.

‘What is your address?’

‘I live in Wyoming.’

‘What is your address in this city?’

‘I got none. I been here only twenty minutes.’

‘What?’

‘That’s right. I got on the boat at Philadelphia to go to Chester. I got carried past there to this place, and they made me pay fifteen cents extra fare to get off the boat. I went into a saloon to get a glass of beer, and before I got it, these fellows came in and told me to come along. What’s it all about?’

‘Welcome to our city,’ said the Director. ‘Shall you stay with us long?'

‘No, sir. I want to go to Chester.’

‘I do not blame you. Unemployed for twenty minutes and apprehended as an idler! Go your way, sir, but first accept our thanks for having given us the opportunity to establish a world’s record.’

VII. SISYPHUS

‘I want to tell you that we’ve fired Conner,’ said the voice in the telephone.

‘Why?’ asked the Director.

‘Well, he loafs half the time, and just now we caught him drinking alcohol in the laboratory.’

This was Conner’s second assignment. The first he had held six days. He had asked for a change, because the work was too hard, and had been given a new job of his own selection. His subsequent career was short. A third assignment failed to arouse in him enough interest to cause him even to visit the scene of labor. His arrest and conviction speedily followed, and only then did the bureau feel that it could call his case ‘closed’ — even then only temporarily, as he was sure to be back on its hands as soon as his short term of imprisonment was ended.

Consider the case of Riggin. Summoned the eleventh of July, he said he could and would get a job with either A Co., or B Co. On the fifteenth, he admitted that he had not done so, but promised to go to work at once with C Co. On the seventeenth, he engaged to work with D Co., but failed to keep his engagement. On the twenty-fourth, he actually went to work for E Co., and trod the wine-press four days. Seven days later, he joined the forces of F Co., where he remained two days. Then G. Co. knew him as an employee for three days before a vacation seemed to him necessary. Be it remembered that he made none of these efforts except as a result of urgent reminders from the bureau, which now again stepped in and this time assigned him to compulsory labor with H Co.

‘Did you read in the papers that Collier was killed in a motorcycle accident yesterday?’ asked the Inspector, naming one of the bureau’s charges.

‘Get me his file,’ said the Director. ‘Let me mark one case closed — definitely and finally closed.’

‘The trouble with this work is, they don’t stay put.’

‘That’s the trouble,’ said the Director. ‘Sisyphus was a piker compared with us.'

‘Yes,’ said the inspector.

VIII. THE GREEN BENCH

The green bench stands in the anteroom. The idler, who has been summoned by the bureau, sits on it, waiting to be admitted to face the inquisition. A park bench aforetime, it has for him, mayhap, agreeable memories of grass and trees and leisure hours, of blue skies and floating clouds and sweet-donothing, of open spaces and delicious irresponsibility — now ‘all shove be’ind ’im, long ago an’ fur away.’ It is his last resting-place in the old world of individual choice, to work or not to work as he saw fit. It is the condemned cell of the loafer, whence he goes to his dismissal from the old life and his entrance upon the new , — the life of compulsory work, — ‘the new slavery,’ as one of them called it, — the subjection of the will of the individual to the needs of the community.

To the Director the green bench is the symbol of a new method of regenerating the world. What comes to it is the dead weight of the community, the burden of idleness carried by the worker, the drone of the hive, the dross of humanity. A short sojourn there, and all is changed. The transmutation of metals is as nothing compared with this transformation. The dead weight becomes a part of the moving force; the burden, an active factor; the drone, a worker, the dross, gold. Oh, wonderful transformation! And how easily effected! It requires nothing but a short statute, a little pen, ink, and paper — and the green bench.

Why worry about all the questions which have harassed the social scientist, the student of economics, and the settlement worker? Why bother about the education of the masses, the housing problem, the employment difficulties, the liquor question? What is there in heredity and environment to daunt the uplifter? Whoso is handicapped by inertia born of unfortunate breeding and lack of any bringing up, — whoever, weighted in the race by anything from alpha to omega, from adenoids to whiskey, has fallen behind into the ruck of idlers, — whoever, benumbed by disease, inherited or acquired, has lost his grip on the tools of his trade, — let him not despair. Let no one despair for him nor of him, nor seek to discover the deep-lying, remote causes, nor to amend them. What does society require of him? Work. What does society owe him? A job. It is too easy. A few minutes on the green bench and the job and the worker meet. They clasp hands and all is well. Oh, magic green bench!