The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-12-27
"STRIKE"- "A Novel
About GastOnia
REVIEW BY MYRA PAGE

~ GaStOnla Gays Oh April ana May,
1929. Mrs. Worse, as an eyewitness
of these momentous days, as well as
the happenings in Marion and Eli
zabethton, has written the first novel
dealing with the class struggle in the
new south.
Yet the book for all its merits, can
not measure up to its theme. The
| strength of the book lies in its raw
material" its weakness in its nom
revolutionary approach.
After drawing vivid picture of
| the southern mill scene, and the
sharp divisions which exist between
the aristocratic mill-owners and the
| hands" who live on the hill, the au-
thor has been wise enough to let
the workers tell the incidents of the
strike in their own colorful words
AS matter of fact, the story almost
tells itself, and it is to Mrs. Vorse's
! credit that she realizes this. Recent
! 1y, had occasion to re-read through
my file of clippings on the southern
| strikes, and was struck by the close
similarity between them, even down
| to the smallest details. and the in
cidents as reported in the book. AS
a good journalist, Mrs. Worse knew
first-hand material when she saw it,
and utilized it almost verbatim.
! In so far as the author has followed
"a pIA IF
also has let the workers tell the story,
the book has vitality and realism
that has no equal in novel dealing
with American working class life. The
mill hands poverty and resentment
of their exploitation by domineering
mill barons, their militancy breaking
through old habits of patience and
endurance, their indignation at the
laws with their "baynits," their
newly aroused sense of solidarity and
power, their bitter determination to
go on until new life is won-are
all there
If the author had just been able
to carry her plan through, of letting
the striking workers speak through
her, and had merged the whole in
revolutionary synthesis, the result
would have been a masterpiece. I'm
fortunately, this she was not able to
do. The mill hands are not allowed
to tell the whole story, and the phil
osophy which the author expresses,
for all her sympathy with labor's
cause-is one that is largely foreign
to workers, even those in the first
stages of RESPONSIVENESS
The role of the Communists, A. F.
of L., and the labor progressives,"
as Hoffman, Ross, and Tippet, in the
southern strikes, the international
support of revolutionary labor, are
all omitted. The whole question of
! inter-racial relations and the first
steps made at Gastonia toward the
solidarity of Negro and white work
ers in the south is not even men
toned. What considerations deter
mined these omissions?
| Furthermore, Mrs. Worse Identifies
the leadership of the Gastonia and
Marion strikes % in the person of
Fer. whom she makes an honest but
wavering lad who has no clear idea
of where or how to lead. This leads
to worse than confusion, which only
a liberal will attempt to excuse on
the basis that Strike is fiction" Fer,
as described by the author, lacks the
confidence ESQ essential in a leader,
and never wanting in a true revol-
utionist), in the militancy and qpower
of endurance of the striking mill
hands. This is recurrent, discord-
ant note throughout the book, which
finds expression in such sentences as
the following, Fer at this moment
didn't believe in his workers" (p. 149)
The author let's her pacifism get
away from her, and makes the lead
ers exalt what was temporary tao
tic, based on the needs of the i'm
mediate situation, of not carrying
arms to the picket line, into a general
principle for labor. The principle of
workers right of self-defense, which
the events leading to the trial rasied,
is not once mentioned.
BY such omissions and confusions,
Mrs. Worse has robbed her story of its
larger political significance. In con-
sequence, Strike has suffered from
both the theological and literary
points of view.
Mrs. Worse utilities the old device
of having sympathetic outsider, in
this case reporter by the name of
Roger come to cover the strike, and
!, lets him give the slant to the whole
book. Obviously Roger Is the author.
His lack of revolutionary clarity and
perspective is summed up in the con-
Guiding paragraphs Of the book:
Yes, thought Roger, that's the
answer. 1--WE (thc workers, M. P)
J jes' gotta 60 on" We can't help
ourselves. They are a part Of
flowing stream of workers. They
had no choice In the matter. They
had to go on. And he had to 90 on,
too. He had lost his own class, he
could never belong in their class Of
J the workers. He was without coun-
try now, and yet wherever they
went, whatever their destination
might be, he had to 60 with them.
; This is the point Of view of the
| w-traveler, the questioning out
slider writing ahOuk UorkerS hlyt mt