They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second ComingSinclair, Upton
General
They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second Coming
Sinclair, Upton
Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Fiction; Jesus Christ -- Fiction
“Well,” said the other, somewhat more mildly, “even so, we can't
stand for this kind of thing. That's no way to accomplish anything.
A whole lot of our members are Catholics, and what will they make of
carryings-on like this? We're trying to persuade people that we're a
law-abiding organization, and that our officials are men of sense.”
“I see,” said I. “And what do you mean to do about it?”
“We have called a meeting of our executive committee this morning,
and are going to adopt a resolution, making clear to the public that
we knew nothing about this church raid, and that we don't stand for
such things. We would never have permitted this man Carpenter to
speak on our platform, if we had known about his ideas.”
I had nothing to say, and I said it. The other was watching me
uneasily. “We hear the man proposes to come back to our relief
kitchen. Is that so?”
“I believe he does; and I suppose you would rather he didn't. Is
that it?” The other admitted that was it, and I laughed. “He has had
his thousand dollars worth of hospitality, I suppose.”
“Well, we don't want to hurt his feelings,” said the other. “Of
gourse our members are having a hard time, and we were glad to get
the money, but it would be better if our central organization were
to contribute the funds, rather than to have us pay such a price as
this newspaper publicity.”
“Then let your committee vote the money, and return it to Mr. T-S,
and also to Mary Magna.”
It took the man sometime to figure out a reply to this proposition.
“We have no objection to Mr. T-S coming here,” he said, “or Miss
Magna either.”
“That is,” said I, “so long as they obey the law, and don't get in
bad with the Western City 'Times'!” After a moment I added, “You may
make your mind easy. I will go downstairs and wait for Mr.
Carpenter, and tell him he is not wanted.”
And so I left the Labor Temple and walked up and down on the
sidewalk in front. It was really rather unreasonable of me to be
annoyed with this labor man for having voiced the same point of view
of “common sense” which I had been defending to Carpenter's group on
the previous evening. Also, I was obliged to admit to myself that if
I were a labor leader, trying to hold together a group of
half-educated men in the face of public sentiment such as existed in
this city, I might not have the same carefree, laughing attitude
towards life as a certain rich young man whose pockets were stuffed
with unearned increments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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