i came into forest city along a road made of coal-dust. a black by-path led off to the right down a long gradual slope, and was lost among the culm-heaps of a devastated country side. miners with sooty faces and heavy coal-dusty moustaches came up in ones and twos and threes, wearing old peak-hats, from the centre of the front of which rose their black nine-inch lamps looking like cockades. they carried large tarnished "grub-cans," they wore old cotton blouses, and showed by unbuttoned buttons their packed, muscular bodies. shuffling forward up the hill they looked like a different race of men—these divers of the earth. and they were nearly all russians or lithuanians or slavs of one kind or another.
"mostly foreigners here," said i to an american whom i overtook.
"you can go into that saloon among the crowd and not hear a word of white the whole night," he replied.
i addressed a collier in english.
"are you an american?"
"no speak english," he replied, and frowned.
[pg 124]
"from russia?" i inquired, in his own tongue.
"and you from where?" he asked with a smile. "are you looking for a job?"
but before i could answer he sped away to meet a trolly that was just whizzing along to a stopping-place. presently i myself got into a car and watched in rapid procession the suburbs of carbondale and scranton. black-faced miners waited in knots at the stations all along the road. i read on many rocks and railings the scrawled advertisement, "buy diamonds from scurry." girls crowded into the car from the emptying silk-mills, and they were in slashed skirts, some of them, and all in loud colours, and over-decorated with frills, ribbons, and shoddy jewellery. we came to dreary iceville, all little grey houses in the shadow of an immense slack mountain. we came into the fumes of carbondale, where the mines have been on fire ten years; we got glimpses of the far, beautiful hills and the tender green of spring woods set against the soft darkness of abundant mountains. we dived into wretched purlieus where the frame-buildings seemed like flotsam that had drifted together into ridges on the bending earth. we saw dainty little wooden churches with green and yellow domes, the worshipping places of orthodox greeks, hungarians, ruthenians, and at every turn of the road saw the broad-faced, cavernous-eyed men and the bright-eyed, full-bosomed women of the slavish nations. i realised that i had[pg 125] reached the barracks of a portion of america's great army of industrial mercenaries.
i stayed three days at casey's hotel in scranton, and slept nights under a roof once more, after many under the stars. i suppose there was a journalist in the foyer of the hotel, for next morning, when i opened one of the local papers, i read the following impression of my arrival:
with an alpine rucksack strapped to his back, his shoes thick with coal-dust, and a slouch hat pulled down on all sides to shut out the sun, a tall, raw-boned stranger walked up lackawanna avenue yesterday afternoon, walked into the rotunda of the hotel casey and actually obtained a room.
every paper told that i was an englishman specially interested in russians and the america of the immigrant. so i needed no further introduction to the people of the town.
just as i was going into the breakfast-room a bright boy came up to me and asked me in russian if i were stephen graham. "my name is kuzma," said he. "i am a little russian. i read you wanted to know about the russians here, so i came along to see you."
"come and have breakfast," said i.
we sat down at a table for two, and considered each a delicately printed sheet entitled, "some suggestions for your breakfast." kuzma was thrilled to sit in such a place; he had never been inside the hotel before. it was pretty daring of him to come and seek me there.[pg 126] but russians are like that, and america is a free country.
as we had our grape-fruit and our coffee and banana cream and various other "suggestions," kuzma told me his story. he was a little russian, or rather a red russian or ruthenian, and came from galicia. three years previously he had arrived in new york and found a job as dish-washer at a restaurant, after three months of that he progressed to being bottle-washer at a druggist's, then he became ice-carrier at a hotel. then another friendly ruthenian introduced him to a polish estate agent, who was doing a large business in selling farms to polish immigrants. as kuzma knew half a dozen slavonic dialects the pole took him away from new york, and sat him in his office at scranton, putting him into smart american attire, and making a citizen out of a "kike." i should say for the benefit of english readers that illiterate russians and russian jews are called kikes, illiterate italians are "wops," hungarians are "hunkies." these are rather terms of contempt, and the immigrant is happy when he can speak and understand and answer in english, and so can take his stand as an american. after six months' clerking and interpreting kuzma began to do a little business on his own account, and actually learned how to deal in real estate and sell to his brother slavs at a profit.
kuzma, as he sat before me at breakfast, was a[pg 127] bright, well-dressed business american. you'd never guess that but three years before he had entered the new world and taken a job as dish-washer. he had seized the opportunity.
"you're a rich man now?" said i.
"so-so. richer than i could ever be in galicia. i'm learning english at the high school here, and when i pass my examination i shall begin to do well."
"you are studying?"
"i do a composition every day, on any subject, sometimes i write a little story. i try to write my life for the teacher, but he says i am too ambitious."
"do you love your ruthenian brothers and sisters here?"
"no; i prefer the great russians."
"you're a very handsome young man. i expect you've got a young lady in your mind now. is she an american, or one of your own people? does she live here, or did you leave her away over there, in europe?"
"i don't think of them. i shall, however, marry a russian girl."
"have you many friends here?"
"very many."
"you will take me to them?"
"oh yes, with pleasure."
"and where shall we go first? it is sunday morning. shall we go to church?"
[pg 128]
we left the hotel and went to a large baptist chapel. when we arrived there we found the whole congregation engaged in bible study. the people were divided into three sections,—russians, ruthenians, poles. russians sat together, ruthenians and little russians together, and poles together. i was most heartily welcomed, and took a place among the circle of russians, kuzma being admitted there also, though by rights he should have gone to the other ruthenians. he was evidently a favourite.
we took the forty-second chapter of genesis, reading aloud the first verse in russian, the second in ruthenian, and the third in polish. when that was accomplished we prayed in ruthenian, then we listened to an evangelical sermon in russian, and then sang, "nearer, my god, to thee!" in the same manner as we had read the chapter of genesis—first verse in russian, second in ruthenian, third in polish. it was strange to find myself singing with kuzma:
do ciebie boze moj!
przyblizam sie.
i have never seen poles and ruthenians and russians so happy together as in this chapel, and indeed in america generally. in russia they more or less detest one another. they are certainly of different faiths, and they do not care about one another's language. but here there is a real pan-slavism. it will[pg 129] hold the slavic peoples together a long time, and separate them from other americans. still there are not many cities in the united states resembling scranton ethnologically. the wandering slav when he moves to another city is generally obliged to go to a chapel where only english is spoken, and he strains his mind and his emotions to comprehend the american spirit.
after the hymn the congregation divided into classes, and talked about the sermon on the mount, and to me they were like very earnest children at a sunday school. i was able to look round. there were few women in the place; nearly all of us were working men, miners whose wan faces peered out from the grime that showed the limit of their washing. at least half the men were suffering from blood-poisoning caused by coal bruises, and their foreheads and temples showed dents and discolorations. they had been "up against it." they would not have been marked that way in russia, but i don't think they grudged anything to america. they had smiles on their lips and warmth in their eyes; they were very much alive. "tough fellows, these russians," wrote gorky. "pound them to bits and they'll come up smiling."
they were nearly all peasants who had been orthodox, but had been "converted"; they were strictly abstinent; they sighed for russia, but they were proud to feel themselves part of the great baptist[pg 130] community, and knit to america by religious ties. none of them entirely approved of scranton. they felt that a mining town was worse than anything they had come from in russia, but they were glad of the high wages they obtained, and were saving up either to go back to russia and buy land or to buy land in america. they craved to settle on the land again.
it seemed to me kuzma's business of agent for real estate among the slavs was likely to prove a very profitable one. i shall come back to scranton one day and find him a millionaire. he evidently had the business instinct—an example of the slav who does not want the land again. the fact that he sought me out showed that he was on the qui vive in life.
when the service was concluded we went over the church with a young russian who had fled to america to escape conscription, and who averred that he would never go back to his own country. his nose was broken, and of a peculiar blue hue, owing to blood-poisoning. his finger-nails were cut short to the quick, but even so, the coal-dust was deep between the flesh and the nail. he was most cordial, his handshake was something to remember, even to rue a little. he had been one of those who took the collection, and he emptied the money on to a table—a clatter of cents and nickels. he showed us with much edification the big bath behind the pulpit where the converted miners upon occasion walked the plank to the songs[pg 131] of fellow-worshippers. they were no doubt attracted by the holiness of water, considering the dirt in which they lived.
"he is a socialist," said kuzma, as we went away to have lunch. "a socialist and a baptist as well. he has a socialist gathering in the afternoon and russian tea and speeches, and he wants me to go. but they hold there should be no private property. i want private property. i want to travel and to have books of my own, so i can't call myself a socialist."
in the afternoon kuzma took me to the public library and showed me its resources. in the evening we went to supper at the house of a dear old slovak lady, who had come from hungary on a visit thirty years ago, and had never returned to her native land. she had been courted and won and married within three weeks of her arrival—her husband a rich galician slav. now she was a widow, and had three or four daughters, who were so american you'd never suspect their foreign parentage.
she told me of the many austrian and hungarian slavs in pennsylvania, and gave it as her opinion that whenever a political party was badly worsted in south-eastern europe the beaten wanted to emigrate en bloc to the land of freedom. when they came over they held to the national traditions and discussed national happenings for a while, but they gradually forgot, and seldom went back to the european imbroglio.
[pg 132]
a touching thing about this lady's house was a ruined chapel i found on the lawn—a broken-down wooden hut with a cross above it, built when the slav tradition had been strong, and used then to pray in before the ikon, but now only accommodating the spade and the rake and a garden-roller.
we had a long talk, partly in russian, partly in english—the old lady had forgotten the one and only knew the other badly. so it was a strange conversation, but very informing and pleasant.
slavs always talk of human, interesting things.
kuzma was very happy, having spent a long day with an englishman whose name had been in the newspaper. we walked back to the hotel, and for a memory he took away with him a newspaper-cutting of a review of one of my books and a portrait of the tramp himself.
next day, through the kindness of a young american whom i had met the week before entirely by chance, i was enabled to go down one of the coal-mines of scranton, and see the place where the men work. the whole of the city is undermined, and during the daytime there are more men under scranton than above it.
i was put into the charge of a very intelligent welshman, who was a foreman, and we stepped into the cage and shot down the black shaft through a blizzard of coal-dust, crouching because the cage was so small, and[pg 133] holding on to a grimy steel bar to steady ourselves in the swift descent. in a few seconds we reached the foot—a place where there was ceaseless drip of water on glistening coal—and we walked out into the gloom.
black men were moving about with flaming lamps at their heads, electric cars came whizzing out of the darkness, drawing trucks of coal. whole trucks were elevated in the opposite shaft from that in which we had descended, elevated to the pit-mouth with a roar and a rush and a scattering of lumps of coal. i gained a lively realisation of one way in which it is possible to get a coal-bruise.
my guide showed me a map of the mine, and we went along dark tunnels to the telephone cavern, and were enabled to give greeting to miners as far as three miles away underground. every man working in the mine was in telephonic communication with the pit-mouth. i saw the men at work, watched small trucks of coal being drawn by asses to the main line where the train was made up. i talked with poles, ruthenians, russians—actually meeting underground several of those whom i had seen the day before in the baptist chapel. they were all very cheerful, and smiled as they worked with their picks. some were miners, some labourers. the miner directs the blasting and drilling, puts in the powder and blows out the coal; the labourer works with pick and shovel. a man has to serve two years in a mine as a labourer[pg 134] before he can be a miner. even a british immigrant, who has worked in south wales or northumberland or elsewhere, has to serve his term as a labourer. this discourages british men. scranton used to be almost entirely welsh; but it goes against the grain in an english-speaking man to fetch and carry for a slovak or a pole. on the other hand, this rule safeguards american strikers against imported miners.
after i had wandered about the mine a while i went up to the "breaker's" tower, to the top of which each truck of coal was hoisted by the elevator; and i watched the fanning and screening and guiding and sifting of this wonderful machine, which in collaboration with the force of gravity can sort a ton of coal a second. i talked with polish boys sitting in the stream of the rolling, hurrying coal; their task was to pick out bits of slate and ore; and i watched the platemen splitting lumps of coal with their long-handled hammers, and casting out the impurities. i saw the wee washhouse where the collier may bathe if he wish.
"well, america or russia, which is it?" i asked of almost every russian i met. "which do you prefer? are you americans now or russians?"
and nearly all replied, "america; we will be americans. what does one get in russia?—fifty cents a day."[2] only a few said that america was bad, that[pg 135] the mining was dangerous and degrading. strange to say, the astonishment at america's wealth and the wages they get from her had not died away. they admired america for the wages she gave; not for the things for which the people of culture in the great cities admire her. america gave them money, the power to buy land, the power to buy low pleasures, the power to get back to russia, or to journey onward to some other country—to the argentine or to canada.
i then spent a day visiting people at random. i went into police station no. 4, and found sergeant goerlitz sitting at a desk reading his morning paper, and he was very ready to talk to me. from him i gathered that the slavs were the best citizens—quiet, industrious, and law-abiding. by slavs he meant huns, bulgarians, galicians, ruthenians. the russians were vulgar and pushing. he probably meant russian jews and russians. the italians were the most dangerous people; they committed most crimes, and never gave one another away to the police. the poles and jews were the most successful people.
i went to the house of a communicative, broad-nosed, broad-lipped little ruthenian priest—an austrian subject—and he told me that russia could take india whenever she wanted to, america could take canada, and that germany would break our naval power. but the english would still be the[pg 136] greatest people in the world. in the near future the whole of north america would be one empire, and the whole of south america another—one anglo-saxon, the other latin. he was evidently a student of contemporary possibilities. despite his belief in america he was proud of his own nationality, and jealous of the loss of any of his flock. to his church there came three hundred little russians and about thirty great russians. he reckoned there were fifty families in scranton purely nihilist—by that he meant atheistic and pleasure-seeking. at his church the service was in slavonic and the sermon in ruthenian. he was sorry to say there were comparatively few marriages. people came to the town to make money rather than to live.
then i went to the official russian priest, away on division street. he shepherded one hundred and thirty-seven families, and four hundred and sixty-two unmarried people. his church had been burned down the year before, but had sprung up again immediately. some of the congregation had succeeded in business, and having come as poor colonists were now rich and respected citizens, professional men, large storekeepers, responsible clerks. scranton was more like a russian city than an american, and it was possible to flourish as a lawyer or a doctor or an estate agent although you knew very little of the english language. and out in the country round[pg 137] about were many russian farms with real russian peasants on them; and he spent many weeks in the year travelling about in the rural districts giving the consolation of orthodoxy to the faithful.
a pathetic thing happened whilst i was taking leave of the priest; a young workman came in to ask advice, and in salutation he took the priest's hand to kiss it, but the latter was ashamed to receive that homage before me, and so tried to pull his hand away. despite the churchman's enthusiastic account of his work i felt that little action was symbolical of the ebb-tide. it was to me as if i had looked at the sea of faith, and said, "the tide is just turning."
i visited the y.m.c.a., so important an institution in america, giving a good room for fifty cents a day, and having its club-rooms, its swimming-baths, its classes for learning english. it wanted to raise seventeen thousand dollars in the forthcoming week, and many posters reminded passers-by that scranton's greatest asset was not its coal or its factories or its shops, its buildings, its business, but its young men.
i walked the many streets at evening time when the wild crowd was surging in and out of the cinema houses and the saloons, and heard the american chaff and music-hall catch-words mixed with half a dozen slavonic dialects. a young american engineer took me to several resorts, and initiated me in the mysteries of bull-dogs and fizzes, and as we went along the street[pg 138] he gave a running comment on the gaudily attired girls of the town, which he classified as "pick-ups," "chickens," and the like. at ten o'clock at night the streets were full of mirth, and all given over to sweethearting and flirting. scranton's safety lies in the interest which the people have in one another, their sociability and general disposition to talk and hope. what it would be like if all these foreign mercenaries were mirthless and brutal it would be loathsome to picture. but i was surprised to find such lightness, such southern frivolity in the people. it is strange that a people, most of whom are working all day in darkness, should take life so gaily. even when they come up to the air of the outside world it is a bad air that is theirs, vitiated by the fumes of the burning mines; for at scranton also the coal has been on fire ten years, and the smoke rolls from the slag-coloured wastes in volumes, and diffuses itself into the general atmosphere. one would think that the wretched frame-dwellings, ruined by the subsidence of the ground on which they were built, and begrimed with the smoke which factories belch all day, would disgust humanity. but it seems the man who works in dirt and ruin accepts dirt and disorder as something not wrong in themselves, quite tolerable, something even to be desired, a condition of freedom.
one day i met a young reporter, who was also a poet, and he took me to a point where there was a[pg 139] view of the city which he specially admired. it was a grey day—surely all days there are grey. we looked to the ridge of the west mountain, a long dark wall built up to the sky, and many-roofed scranton lay below it; the thin spires of many conventicles pointed upward, and from numberless chimneys and spouts proceeded hardly moving white steams and smokes, all in strange curls and twists. here and there were black chutes and shafts and mountains of slag, and the slates of the roofs of the houses glimmered appallingly under the wanness and darkening dusty grey of the sky.
"this sight does my heart good," said the poet. "it's good to live in a place like this where we're doing something."
"it would be a beautiful place if there were no scranton here at all," i ventured.
"that's the glory of it," said he. "we have the faith to smash up the beauty of nature in the hope of getting something better. it would be a beautiful world entirely if there were no such thing as man. nature's beauty has no need of us. but we happen to be here. we have something in us that nature could never think of. scranton expresses man's passion more truly than the virginal beauty of the alleghany mountains or the valley of the young susquehanna."
"a revolt against eden," said i, "a fixed [pg 140]sullenness, man's determination to live in grime if he wants to—the children's infatuation for playing with the dirt."
"oh, more than that," said the reporter poet. "much more."
perhaps.
that was perhaps a glimpse of the religion of america.
footnote:
[2] fifty cents a day is very good pay for a miner in russia, thirty cents is quite a common wage.
