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Overview
“Events and Victims” allows Vanzetti a new literary and historical voice, an important document that narrates the very injustice that its author suffered and fought. In a time of assault on immigrants, dissidents, radicals, and the environment, “Events and Victims” is as timely as ever.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781629635170 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | PM Press |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2018 |
| Series: | PM Pamphlet |
| Pages: | 48 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Jon Curley is a poet and teacher. His poetry collections include Hybrid Moments (2015) and Scorch Marks (2017). He also wrote Poets and Partitions: Confronting Communal Identities in Northern Ireland (2011) and coedited The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller: A Nomad Memory (2015). He teaches in the Humanities Department of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Curley is originally from Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where Vanzetti’s legal persecution began.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Events and Victims
The events which I am going to relate to you, my reader, took place in New Liberia, where I wandered for many years, working from time to time in many different places and under varied circumstances, as dishwasher, pastry cook, porter, storekeeper, gardener, laborer, fisherman; in short, earning my bread by the sweat of my brow wherever and in whatever way I could.
The western coast of that country, according to the geologists, is being eaten by the tides, and the land slowly but inevitably yields to the restless surges which stir it, submerge and cover it. The eastern coast, too, seems subject to the same phenomenon, at least at certain points with which I am very familiar.
Will this engulfment continue, or will it be stopped by one of the many still unexplained conditions which have determined and facilitated the infinite forms of matter and of life? Will they disappear, those shores so vast, so beloved, and so desperately disputed, each bush, tree, cliff, rock, and hill of which have been so bitterly contested by a handful of men poisoned by greed and folly? What destiny has time in store for that land all possessed by a foolish and feverish human activity; strewn with shanties, slums, and mediocre houses for its idle or ill-occupied rich; with the gigantic creations of human genius and labor interwoven; with the marbles and tombs of its departed poets, sages, learned and proclaimed heroes? Or will the blind seas sacrifice that land to their greedy gorges in order that the fabled Atlantises may raise again their heads, bowed by millenniums but still desirous of the light, to the mighty caresses of the sun? Or will that land be spared to witness the tragicomic auto-destruction of the race; or to become the last receptacle and final grave of degenerated tyrants, deceivers, and ruffians, and from the last hour of the darkest age — to see the clear dawn of sane and free days arise?
The good New Liberians, instead of watching with philosophical inertia the invasion of the sea, think only of their seawalls and busy themselves with constructing great concrete walls along the most dangerously threatened points of the shore.
A gang of workmen — all foreigners, from the engineer to the humblest laborer — had been busy erecting one of these walls since the beginning of spring. They had toiled so through the summer and the fall that at the beginning of winter the work was almost completed.
"Well, in a few days I will be fired; I must look for another job," I told myself one gloomy afternoon, as I watched the fog slowly stealing from me the sea, the sky, and sun.
That night instead of lying down to smoke and read, I did what I always do in such emergencies, I went to the poolroom of my friend Gennarino, a very able, intelligent, and enterprising barber. There the workingmen of the neighborhood spend their winter evenings reading, smoking, playing, disputing about politics, and chatting about work. There one may learn news of the labor market in the vicinity.
"I hear that they are looking for hands in Greenland," a friend told me soon after I entered, "but I don't know anything for sure. Johnny who works there can tell you more about it."
I went out and walked towards the theatre, hoping to see Johnny whom I knew to be passionately fond of moving picture shows. That night they were screening a film, a fragment of one of those romances which distort truth and realities; falsify history; provoke, cultivate, and embellish all the morbid emotions, confusions, ignorances, prejudices, and horrors; and purposely and skillfully pervert the hearts and, still more, the minds. The characters of these morbid melodramas are always of two opposite types, one very good, the other very bad. The good ones are the good folks who are always good, always do good, are always right, and in the end always triumph. The others are always bad folk, who are always wrong, always do evil, and finally pay the penalty. Just the reverse of life!
Thus meditating, I reached the theatre. Of course, it was, as usual, crowded to the doors. The common people, being all heart and no brain, are passionately interested in such senseless stories and not a scene escapes them. They develop a wild and unreasoning affection for the unreal characters of the unreally good, whose hatreds and loves, risks, and triumphs they share — and fervid hatred for and resentment against the unreal characters of the unreally bad gang. They lose their heads, weep, sigh, laugh, smile, fear, hope, and throb, and, forgetting their cross of infamy, leave the theatre more stupid than when they entered it. So in New Liberia.
As the first performance of the show was still going on, I stopped in front of the main entrance of the theatre and stood on the curb of the sidewalk. I felt sure that I would see Johnny come out of the show, or that he would see me, that anyway we would meet. It was still early and men and women were going back and forth doing their shopping or business or taking an evening stroll. Some were alone, some in friendly groups, a mother and her daughters, or sisters together. I silently watched them, exchanging salutations with some — all so familiar to my eyes, though so strange to me.
Beside me on the sidewalk stood a large group of men of all ages — the regular evening habitués of this particular point of the sidewalk. They looked the passing women up and down. They jokingly commented upon the age, walk, figure, face, and family relations of each woman that passed. Feeling uneasy, I turned toward the street and, almost unconsciously, I lifted my head. The fog of the afternoon had disappeared, the air was cold and clear, the sky cloudless. Beyond the foliage and the branches of two fine old trees between which I stood, some stars appeared in vast black concave of the sky. I looked at them thinking, contemplating, sensing my smallness, and, at the same time, the deepness and fullness of life: the small things and noises around my low level had faded from my consciousness.
Just then I felt a hand upon my shoulder. I turned, and there was Johnny standing beside me, looking into my face with a smile — a smile that plainly said: "You fool, to save a few nickels you deprive yourself of such pleasure as I have just enjoyed." We talked for a little and then separated. The next morning I was to start with him for Greenland.
On my way home I was churning in my mind: "What shall I do? The wages are lower than I am getting now, and furthermore thirty cents train fare and an hour longer to work daily. Damn the government! But the winter is long, and there I shall be able to work every day regardless of snow, rain, or wind. I will go."
The next morning I got to the station just in time to get my ticket and board the train. I found a seat beside Johnny, who had arrived in good season. As soon as the train started on its way, my friend began: "You see, Mr. Greenland's two factories were both closed at the beginning of the war. Now he has begun to manufacture cannon shells in one of them."
"Bombs," I interrupted.
"And now," my friend went on, "they are working day and night and turning out great quantities of them. You can't imagine what terrible work it is — water, humidity, steam, smoke, smells, heat, fire, acids: a veritable hell. The wages are good, but there are certain kinds of work that nobody wants to do."
"I understand," I mumbled.
"The factory we are going to is being used to manufacture dyes and colors. Before the war these products were brought from Germany. Now they are made here."
Seeing that I was silent, he added: "Anyhow the poor fellows are earning a living."
"Yes," said I.
I was not in a talkative mood because I felt the keen need of mental concentration. I was thinking: "There on the other side of the pond, the war rages, destroying the flower of European manhood, covering those regions once beautiful by nature and made more beautiful and wondrous by the hands and intelligence of all the bygone generations with bloody and desolate ruins."
"Here the human beings who have emigrated from the warring nations suddenly espouse the cause of those fatherlands from whence they have gladly fled in search of bread and of a new life. Those from the neutral countries are extolling to the stars their birthlands' governments, which know how to spare their peoples the scourge and the horror of this insane war.
Each of the two fighting groups is dead sure of being in the right: of having been attacked first; of being entitled to victory which will bring great advantages; while the neutrals laugh at both sides and look down from a superior height with benign compassion upon them, posing as supermen who know all things.
These disinherited of the many fatherlands, in whom the forced exodus from their native place has frozen the very tears in their hearts, they to whom everything was denied, from bread to education, when are they drawing their antagonistic opinions, their false information, their thousand errors, their equivocal reasonings, their unjustified indignation and foolish hopes; their passions, hatreds, and grotesque vainglory?
Alas, it's just because I believe I have a little knowledge of some of the sources of this evil that I am classed as a rebel and an innovator and have the time to tell you, my reader, these reminisces of mine. Instead of an interrogation to myself, the above question was rather a statement of facts brought to my mind by the logical train of thought on war matters. — But just at this point, as I glanced through the train, I saw the glaring headlines on the newspapers which everyone was devouring.
"There was my answer, in part at least — The Press. Yes, from the press which calls itself Italian, New Liberian, German, Spanish, English, French. The inciting scribblers prostituting their intelligence for the gold of those who desire war keep their pens busy concealing and perverting the truth, safely hiding their infamy behind the excited ignorance of the masses, which makes every lie possible.
The helots of the earth are going mad. The newspapers are rapidly increasing their circulation. The shrewd pile up fortunes. How wonderful war is! All are posing as generals, strategists, economists, statesmen, and, oh, the gorgeously colored, great ideas they are thundering forth.
But the comedy gives place to tragedy; ties of friendship and affections are severed; daggers are sharpened and revolvers caressed. Thus the beautiful, the holy war becomes another cause of dissension, hatred, and competition into which, by pressure of social conditions and their own ignorance, the workers are driven.
But in the New Liberians the war excites only contempt and execration. To them the peoples across the ocean, cutting each other's throats, destroying towns, fields, forests, roads, and bridges, are but stupid people of inferior minds, without ideals, hordes of barbarians, blind and docile tools in the hands of greedy kings, who use them ruthlessly to further their designs of conquest and domination by violence, fraud, and robbery.
"No," they cry, "we will never join in such a barbarous game. We, free citizens of this republic, we elected as our President, a man who has promised to keep us out of the war."
It is true! Now the nation is galvanized by pride. From his seat the President of New Liberia has proclaimed: "The New Liberians are too civilized to fight and to entrust to arms the defense of their rights. New Liberia will never take part in the war."
Marat was right when he said: "It is necessary to praise the people; it is necessary to intoxicate it by a vain exaltation of itself in order to more easily and better deceive it."
During this period, this nation is rapidly overcoming the economic crisis which has afflicted her for several years. As if by magic, old industries acquire new vigor, new ones are established and thrive, unemployment is disappearing, the labor demand is becoming urgent, wages are rising ... but still more so are prices and profits.
Who is performing this miracle? Whence this unexpected blessing?
The War has performed the miracle. The blessing comes straight from terror-stricken cities, from the smoking ruins of villages, from devastated fields, from cold deserted hearths, from the oaths of the slayers and the curses and groans of the dying young soldiers, from rivers of blood and heaps of rotting corpses.
And here, in New Liberia, without remorse or sorrow, they are gladly taking advantage of the opportunity and feeding and equipping the War. By making the War possible they are reaping undreamed of profits and colossal fortunes.
A vigorous jolt of the train coming to a standstill tore me from my meditation.
"We are in Greenland," sighed Johnny starting for the door. On my way to the factory I looked about me. It was a wonderful morning, the air bracing and clear as crystal. Under the bright eye of the morning sun each object stood out clean-cut and vivid, and the wild Nordic panorama of the place appeared in a glory of light.
The railroad station, all red save the black roof steaming with the damp of the past night, looked like the summit of a mountain: the rails glittered like a busy ploughshare curving and disappearing into the forest; forest to the right, forest to the left. Farther on, the windows of some houses were aflame with the reflection of the morning sun glancing through the naked tree trunks and branches; and high above all, amid a strangely alive black and grey multitude of trees, loomed a distant hill and crowning it a wooden belfry topped by a cross gleaming in the sunlight and dominating over all.
This village is one of the very many industrial feudal tenures scattered amid the forests along the river's banks and the coast of New Liberia. It bears the name of the Overlord who owns by law the two churches, the two factories, and almost all the houses and the soil itself. I leave it to your imagination, my reader, what may belong to the Overlord by arbitration or even by desire — if, from your knowledge of the ancient feudalism of the old nobility in the name of God, you can deduce the possibility of this actual feudalism of the present-day bourgeois in the name of the law.
When we reached the main entry, John pushed the door open and quickly closed it behind us as we crossed the threshold. What a difference from outside: I felt an instinctive impulse to flee — to return to the sunshine and life-giving air, blessed and pure. But I resisted and followed John, who, after a few steps, stopped in front of the superintendent's office and said: "I am going to work, you wait here and when Mr. D — comes in, ask him for a job."
I waited and while waiting I examined my surroundings. Inside the entry there was a hall about thirty-six feet long and about half as high as the building. A door and a window opened on the left wall — both looking into the superintendent's office. The right wall was blind. The long hall led into a great room with small windows, and in it was a crane on wheels running from one end to the other.
This was the factory.
Barrels and demijohns reinforced by wooden frames were piled up here and there. In the rear, the floor was coated with cement. Here stood two huge wooden tanks about fifteen feet high with platforms and iron railings round them. Wooden steps led to the platform. The enormous covers of the tanks were suspended over them by fixed cranes. Metal pipes of various dimensions were to be seen all around. A very long rubber hose lay along the floor.
Human figures covered with dirt and wearing high wet boots and rubber gloves were moving round the tanks.
While I was observing everything intently, Mr. D — entered his office. Presently he came out and looked at me enquiringly.
"Have you any work for a laborer?" I asked.
"I need men for the tanks. I pay them ten cents an hour more than the other laborers."
"I don't want to work at the tanks."
He started to go, then stopped, made a half turn, glanced at his watch, and said:
"Go work with the laborers."
* * *
The old wooden floor had to be replaced by a new one of concrete; raw materials and new machinery had to be unloaded, manufactured goods and empty vessels had to be shipped. All of which was entrusted to the laborers. The timber from the old floor, which was still usable, had to be removed and piled up beyond the factory, while that which was useless had to be taken to a little creek in the wood nearby where the drainage water flowed in a lazy stream which every few steps made a little pool and then resumed its feeble journey.
I soon realized that if the other factory was, in John's words: "a veritable hell," the extreme limit of purgatory.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Events and Victims"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
Excerpted by permission of PM Press.
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