American Front

The thought depressed her. The Party had been educating the proletariat all over the world, showing the workers how they could seize control of the means of production from the capitalists who exploited their labor for the sake of profit. They'd made progress, too. No civilized government these days would call out troops to shoot down strikers, as had been commonplace a generation before. Surely the revolution, whether peaceful or otherwise, could not be far away. What sort of weapon could the plutocrats devise to resist the united strength and numbers of the working classes?

Her lips thi

Tenth Ward party headquarters was on the second story of a brownstone on Centre Market Place, across the street from the raucous market itself. A kosher butcher shop occupied the first story. Flora paused for a moment in front of the butcher's plate-glass window before she went upstairs. Some of her dark, wavy hair had come loose from the bobby pins that were supposed to hold it in place. With quick, practiced motions, she repaired the damage. Inside the shop, the butcher, aptly named Max Fleischma

Fleischma

"You didn't have to do that." Flora felt her face heat. Her eyes flicked to her reflection in the window. She couldn't tell if the flush showed. Probably not, not with her olive skin. "You're not even a Socialist."

"So I voted for Roosevelt? This means my money isn't good enough for you? Feh!" Fleischma

"When we moved in, you called us crazy maniacs-and worse than that," Flora reminded him. She stared down into the can of peaches. That charity dime made the day's take no less pathetic. Shaking her head, she said, "The whole world is going crazy now, though. We're the ones who are trying to stay sane, to do what needs doing."

"Crazy is right." Fleischma

Flora gaped at the butcher in blank dismay. The bacillus of nationalism had infected him, too, and he didn't even notice it. She said, "If all the workers would stand together, there'd be no war, Mr. Fleischma

"Oh, yes. If we could trust the Rebels, this would be wonderful," Fleischma

"But don't you see? The Confederate workers are saying the same thing about the United States."

"Fools!" Max Fleischma

The Socialist Party offices were almost as crowded as the tenements all around: desks and tables and file cabinets jammed into every possible square inch of space, leaving a bare minimum of room for human beings. Two secretaries in smudged white shirtwaists tried without much luck to keep up with an endless stream of calls. They mixed English and Yiddish in every conversation-sometimes, it seemed, in every sentence.

Herman Bruck nodded to her. As usual, he seemed too elegant to make a proper Socialist, what with his two-button jacket of the latest cut and the silk ascot he wore in place of a tie. His straw boater hung on a hat rack near his desk. He looked so natty because he came from a long line of tailors. "How did it go?" he asked her. Though he'd been born in Poland, his English was almost without accent.

"Not so good," Flora answered, setting down the can with a clank. "Do we know what's what with the caucus?"

Bruck's sour expression did not sit well on his handsome features. "A telegram came in not half an hour ago," he answered. "They voted eighty-seven to fourteen to give Roosevelt whatever money he asks for."

"Oy!" Flora exclaimed. "Now the madness is swallowing us, too."

"On theoretical grounds, the vote does make some sense," Bruck said grudgingly. "After all, the Confederacy is still in large measure a feudal economy. Defeating it would advance progressive forces there and might lift the Negroes out of serfdom."

"Would. Might." Flora laced the words with scorn. "And have they declared Canada feudal and reactionary, too?"

"No," Bruck admitted. "They said nothing about Canada -putting the best face on things they could, I suppose."

"Putting the best face on things doesn't make them right," Flora said with the stern rectitude of a temperance crusader smashing a bottle of whiskey against a saloon wall.

Bruck frowned. A moment before, he'd been unhappy with the delegates of his party. Now, because it was his party and he a disciplined member of it, he defended the decision it had made: "Be reasonable, Flora. If they'd voted to oppose the war budget, that would have been the end of the Socialist Party in the United States. Everyone is wild for this war, upper class and lower class alike. We'd have lost half our members to the Republicans, maybe more."

"Whenever you throw away what's right for what's convenient, you end up losing both," Flora Hamburger said stubbornly. "Of course everyone is wild for the war now. The whole country is crazy. Gottenyu, the whole world is crazy. Does that mean we should say yes to the madness? How wild for war will people be when the trains start bringing home the bodies of the laborers and farmers the capitalists have murdered for the sake of greed and markets?"

Bruck raised a placating hand. "You're not on the soapbox now, Flora. Our congressmen, our senators, are going to vote unanimously-even the fourteen said they'd go along with the party. Will you stand alone?"

"No, I suppose not," Flora said with a weary sigh. Discipline told on her, too. "If we don't back the caucus, what kind of party are we? We might as well be Democrats in that case."

"That's right," Bruck said with an emphatic nod. "You're just worn out because you've been on the stump and nobody's listened to you. What do you say we walk across the street and get something to eat?"

"All right," she said. "Why not? It has to be better than this."

Bruck rescued his boater from the hat rack and set it on his head at a jaunty angle. "We'll be back soon," he told the secretaries, who nodded. With a flourish, he held the door open for Flora, saying, "If you will forgive the bourgeois courtesy."

"This once," she said, something more than half seriously. A lot of bourgeois courtesy was a way to sugar-coat oppression. Then, out in the hall, Bruck slipped an arm around her waist. He'd done that once before, and she hadn't liked it. She didn't like it now, either, and twisted away, glaring at him. "Be so kind as to keep your hands to yourself."

"You begrudge bourgeois courtesy, but you're trapped in bourgeois morality," Bruck said, frustration on his face.

"Socialists should be free to show affection where and how they choose," Flora answered. "On the other hand, they should also be free to keep from showing affection where there is none."