The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-06-17

grizzly uay. a heaVy log hung
about the region of South street and
despite the stiff, damp, biting wind
that was blowing in from the open
bay thick coat of cold, heavy vapor
pervaded the atmosphere so that one
could hardly see three yards ahead.
1t wasn't the fog that got man
chilled and sore and broken. There
are fogs and fogs but this had that
quality of biting, penetrating, damp
cold that is bad for men who don't
wear overcoats and have very little
beneath their jackets but the bare
though well developed muscles.
Yes, it was tough along the water
front at this time of the year. This
is the time when the public hospitals
are full of poor, unfortunate, human
wreckage that has drifted in off the
ships after a lifetime of hard labor
and little remuneration for it. The
flu was in that fog and the grip and
pneumonia were not very far behind,
always waiting patiently for the mo-
ment when a mans resistance is at
its lowest, from the exposure of walk
ing on ragbound feet and with I'M
protected body along the waterfront
of the greatest and most prosperous
city and shipping port of the world.
South street to the uninitiated is
but a common thorofare that faces
the waterfront. A street like all
other streets in this great, bustling
city. But to the initiated in the art
of living on the panhandlers, or ex-
isting on mission-dispensed watery
soup and dirty coffee, discarded
cigarette butts, and secondhand
clothes, it is something more. Some
thing bitterer and more portentous,
something that hens in, and excludes
all social contacts and the possibility
for better and easier life. Not that
South street itself possesses any pc
culiar hypnotic qualities that make it
different from other long wide dreary
thorofares, but that it is the integral
embodiment of all the external suf-
fering and misery of the unemployed
seamen. 1t is an international prison.
Within its gloomy confines are caught
the poor driven wretches of labor and
exploitation. Within its two sides
bounded on one side by old ram
shackle warehouses, booze joints,
bawdy houses, and ancient hostelries,
and on the other by the docks of the
principle exploiters and penurious
users of men, the fruit and transpor-
tation companies that range the
waterfront, are caught seamen from
all ports of the world.
These are the men that have been
caught by the tides of capitalist over
production and economization. This
is part of that vast army of unem-
ployed that are always held in hand
by its masters, the shipowners of the
world. These are the men that are
called to the colors when the country
is ready to fight a war for the sake
of a mock freedom and democracy.
These are the men who, due to their
isolated and exposed condition in the
social order are forced to scab on their
fellow workers when the mass of
labor that is organized, rises up and
says, "No, we shall not slave at this
killing rate, at these miserable wages
and in this perpetual circle from
which there is no outlet and no break
into better life and easier existence
other than the one which ends in the
receiving room of some marine hos
pital that opens its greedy doors to
let in the tired worker and opens them
but once again to let him out upon a
cold slab of marble in some morgue,
to be gazed upon and speculated
about by some group of student doc
tors or enterprising social workers
out for a Summing trip plus the
fascinating morbid horror which it en-
tails.
Where South street meets. Wall
street opposite the docks of the
United Fruit Company Lines, where
Wall street follows the general bleak
tone and color of the rest of this ship
PAhB SIdHub u
warehouse built of stone. 1t resem-
bles an ancient fortress. It is built
of solid stone set on stone. 1t seems
to carry some hidden secret within its
depths. 1t might be a bootlegging
joint, warehouse or just renovated
loft dungeon. Anyway it marks the
entrance of Wall street onto the
waterfront. Here on this cold De-
cember day there stood one by name
William Doran. A fine specimen of
American manhood, the connoisseurs
on this American cattle specification
would have called him.
Doran was a seaman, an able sea-
man, tall, blue eyed, blond-haired
with muscles that flexed and bulgco
under his skin, altho now they were
bit flabbier from the forced abb
stinence from labor, and food of a
nourishing quality.