“Well then but why didn’t he put the mayor in jail?”
“Well Miss Riggs I will tell you the Spokesman, that was the Governor
He has always been a deeply religious man you have perhaps noticed in
His speeches He tells the people that the solution of their problems
must be found in spirituality.”
“Yes I have saw that,” I says, “and I think it is very beautiful of Him
to say.”
“Well just so Miss Riggs and so when the mayor pastes Him one in the
eye He turns the other eye to him and so through the rest of the
strike He is shut up in His hotel room. But that don’t matter because
the bankers and the business men take charge and they gets out the
college-boys and smashes the strike with clubs and brick-bats and law
and order is safe. And when the Governor sees that it is all over He
gets out a rousing proclamation in which He says that He is determined
to put down law-breakers and of course that tickles the newspapers they
spread it all over the front page and the public that don’t know it is
over they goes wild because you know how it was Miss Riggs a few years
ago we was in the middle of smashing the Reds and shipping them back to
the country where they come from seeing they don’t like this one. And
of course the plain people was scared out of their wits to realize that
the Bolshivikis had been so clever because if Irish Catholic policemen
goes Red who would there be left to stay white?”
“I remember reading about it,” I says, “now that you tell me and I know
I was scared myself.”
“Exactly and this Strong Silent Man He was the One that had put down
the revolution so when the next party convention come off and the
politicians was looking round for somebody for Vice-Spokesman why here
He was and the convention goes wild and He is nominated in a whirlwind.
And how is anybody going to know that the Old Spokesman is going to die
and leave this scared little Office-boy the job of telling the American
people what to think?”
“Well Mr. Edgerton,” I says, “I see how it is now of course and I am
very much obliged to you for explaining and of course I will do the
best I can,” I says, “because whatever happens we have got to hold them
Reds down. Of course I have got no use for labor unions that is just a
bunch of leaders looking for a chance to wear white collars and what
do they care if they call a strike and the wives and children has got
to go hungry at home?”
“That is it exactly,” he says, “your sound common sense as usual and it
looks as if there was some more strikes coming and they will try to put
them off on the Spokesman, and you will be the little girl that will
know what to tell Him to say about it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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