The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1912-11-29
A Letter With
A Message
d NNn-h-. Nov pa

D., Wash Nov %
Dear Mrs. H..
since your visit here have had
two long and interesting letters from
YOU and. partly from lack of time. and
partly. I guess, from sheer Incidence.
have answered neither one of them;
not oven acknowledging the receipt Of
the book, which was objectionable.
We have Just finished burning tho
tile kiln. and for over a week I have
been working on the long night shift.
twelve and fifteen hours. so my time
has been necessarily limited. But il
was not especially hard work. During
the first three or four nights, which
spent alone, the firing required little
attention. and I had time to read vol
uminously; and one night ! was hon.
ored by the company OF two tramps.
who made interesting, if not very high
toned, companions.
They were on their uppers for fair
nothing to eat since the day before,
clothes soaked from the continual
rains. and shoes reduced to more sod
den pulps. It was a terrible story
they told Of the labor conditions along
the coast of the thousands of men and
women out of work. and of the impos-
sibility of getting work in the cities
without first paying tribute to some
blood-suclling employment agency;
and of the general misery and suffer
ing prevalent in these great, longest
ed wildernesses of humanity
Really. I do not know how to &C
count for this. Almost daily in the
editorial columns of that eminent or
gan of truth and justice, the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, I am assured, with
an optimistic smirk, that our fair land
is even now in the midst of "unpre-
cedented prosperity" and that labor
is profitably employed; which last
would seem to be a safe bet, at any
rate. Oh, well, they were probably de-
PRAYED, vicious creatures, who had
brought about their own downfall by
monkeying with the Demon Rum. For
further particulars, see White Ribbon
Bulletin.
I would not even have been sur
prised to learn that they belonged to
the unspeakable I. w. w. or were at
least rough-neck socialists, who, as
everybody knows, openly preach this
vile and dangerous doctrine of Discon-
tent among the rude, uncultured
masses. One of these men had seen
active service in the Spanish war; but
it pains me to say that he did not seem
appreciative of this glorious privilege
that had been his in thus serving his
country on the field of battle, yea, of
even laying down his miserable life
therefore if need had arisen. He even
spoke of his native land in a shocking
spirit of unseemly levity, not uniting
ed with bitterness, calling it the
United Trusts of America. Needless
to say this degenerate was utterly
lacking in those lofty and sacred
ideals of patriotism which that other
perfectly respectable sheet, the Seat
tie Times, so nobly strives to incul-
cate in the bosom of the populace;
ably and generously assisted, it is
true, by the regents of the University
of Washington and the Y. M. c. A.
This low-life wretch had the brazen
temerity to say that he didn't see
no sense in getting his brains Dashed
out in a trumped up ruction that con-
cerned no one but the Sugar trust;
and that the Spaniards and goo-goos
seemed like pretty decent sort of folks
after all, and it seemed a dam sight
too much like murder to shoot bullets
thru their heads and jab bayonets into
their stomachs. And he freely ad-
mitted that he had gained all these
wild, anarchistic ideas from those
rowdy, red-shirt Socialists. This is a
pretty state of things, think.
The other fellow was a sailor, just
in port from Callao; little Cockney
Englishman from the slums of Liver
pool-one of the Liverpool Larrikins,
who are supposed to be the toughest
class of people on earth. And he was
the true product of his environment,
bedwarfed in body and mind, dirty
mouthed, and vulgar unspeakably;
but with a racy and exotic interest in
his talk, which was all about schoon-
ers and schooner captains, foreign
ports and the like, all told in the col
orful jargon of the forecastle. And
sometimes, on the face which cunning
and indulgence and overwork had so
brutally coarsened a strange, haIf-ap-
pealing little smile would appear and
for a moment the face of a wistful,
heart-sick youngster would come out
dimly
A paper covered copy of Emerson's
Essays, which I had been reading, was
1-.--;,--- 90, , t1-o1- Of mood aD7 Tho