The Kid from Hoboken

by Bill Bailey

  The officer looked at the captain quizzically. "Get out of my room," the captain told us. "I'll find some way to settle this thing."

  The captain ordered the galley closed down. There was no food. Some hot sandwiches and coffee were passed to us through the picket line. By early evening the captain had not returned from shore leave. We had the feeling that something was in the wind, but we had no idea what. We decided that all hands should pack their bags and have them ready in the event we had to get off the ship. At midnight, with all hands still holding firm by staying on board, we double-checked to see if the captain had returned. He was still ashore. The evening had grown cold; a sprinkle of light rain hit the deck. From all appearances it seemed that nothing was going to happen until morning. A two-man committee was delegated to stand lookout near the gangway and report anything that could remotely indicate trouble to us in the crew's quarters. Since the night was chilly and wet, the two men decided to stand watch in the mess room which adjoined the entrance to the gangway. From this vantage point they could detect anyone going up or down the gangway. The rest of us crawled up into our bunks fully-clothed and caught what sleep we could.

  By three in the morning you could have heard a pin drop aboard the Mundixie. The two lookout men found the warm heat of the mess room too comforting and soon fell asleep. No one saw them coming, but some twenty-five of Baltimore's biggest cops sneaked aboard slowly and quietly, and within five minutes it was all over. They charged into the crew's quarters, handcuffed men while they were still asleep, then pushed and pulled them out on deck and down the gangway. Other cops acted as porters, carrying suitcases and dufflebags and depositing them on the dock.

  In the distance I could hear the chug-chug of a motor launch inching its way toward the ship. It was loaded with scab seamen, recruited in Philadelphia and sped to Baltimore. The captain stood on the officer's deck and watched as the police hustled us off the ship. As the last man was escorted down the gangway, the captain shouted, "I told you I'd find a way to get my ship out! If you want what wages you have coming you can go to the company office uptown and get them. May you all rot on the beach! Good riddance!"

  "Okay," shouted the cop, "you're in Baltimore now, on Baltimore territory. That's the way to the main gate. Get going." Outside the gate five pickets were walking back and forth, proclaiming that the Mundixie was on strike. None of them had the slightest notion of what had taken place. The police had used the same approach as the scabs, coming from the harbor in a launch.

  From outside the gate we could see the black smoke rising from the smokestack as the Mundixie gathered up a full head of steam. The police let go the mooring lines. The ship moved away from the dock.

  Chapter X: "Baltimore Soviet" and West Coast Strike

  I felt defeated, humiliated, outmatched and outclassed. I tried, as I watched the ship disappear down the river, to go over all the plans and figure out what had gone wrong. I blamed myself for the two lookout men falling asleep. I should have known something like that would happen. What would my comrades in New York think about this? How could I ever face them again and convince them that they should continue to have confidence in me? I worried about such things. I had been given an assignment by comrades who had faith in me; I had failed them and the crew of the Mundixie. Well, the Mundixie was gone. I would have to pick up the pieces now. The men were destitute and broke and, if they felt like me, demoralized and defeated. They would have to be housed and fed. that was part of my responsibility, too. I realized there was more to leadership than merely leading men into a strike.

  We piled into cabs with our baggage and headed to the union hall. The secretary, Anton Becker, received us warmly. I explained the plight of the men. Becker said it would create no problem. The men would be housed and fed and given shipping cards to ship out. "Don't feel bad about the ship getting away," Becker said. "After all, if we average one win in five that's good batting. Next time we'll be better organized. Let's learn and move ahead. Don't feel bad about it. The men must understand that it's always a gamble. And after all, what did they miss? They'll be better fed and taken care of here, and they'll end up going out on better ships. So cheer up, roll up your sleeves and prepare to get down to a lot of hard work around here. There's plenty to be done. As a Communist, you have your work cut out for you."

  My new assignment was to work on publicity and help with a daily news bulletin issued by the union that was distributed to the seamen. I was thankful to be able to work alongside a comrade experienced in propaganda, and I learned much from him. We would sit up half the night, pounding away on dilapidated typewriters, writing and rewriting leaflets, putting them on stencils and running them off on a mimeograph.

  As in New York, the MWIU was well-organized and prepared to meet every incoming ship, bombard it with literature, get petitions signed, take up collections for various causes and work hard to recruit new members into the union. The relief committee of seamen worked closely with members of the welfare department of the government. Their job was to oversee the relief distribution handed down from the government to the seamen. Some of our best Communist members were on the seamen's committee. One thing must be said for the relief committee: from the day of its inception to its demise, not one cent was ever pocketed in the form of graft or under-the-counter activities or spent for the personal use of any committee member. The fact that the committee was so efficient, that it ran so perfectly, made it a feather in the hat of the MWIU and a tribute to the waterfront leadership of the Communist Party.

  While this was a near-perfect relief system, the government side did not always like the setup. They knew that they were under scrutiny. If they could have had it their way, the system would have been open to graft, favoritism and every form of discrimination against the seamen. Some of the restaurant and boarding house operators would have favored the committee being under full government control, because they might have benefited from kick-backs. But most operators were satisfied with things the way they were. They did not have to compete or pay under the counter to receive their share of business.

  One drawback to the "Baltimore Soviet," as it was called by the seamen, was its size. Only so many could be accommodated, and no more. Seamen around the country started to hear about the beautiful setup in Baltimore: three meals a day, a place to stay, even a set of work clothes and razor blades. Baltimore would never be able to handle the hundreds of seamen that were looking for a haven. To avoid this, a limitation was agreed upon. When space was available in the allotted 250 rooms, unemployed seamen would be given room and board for one month. After that, if they had not shipped out, they would be compelled to move out and make room for another unfortunate seaman. However, most were hired within a month. Countless men came in on ships and made Baltimore their home port. These men, of course, had a pay day; they were on their own and not in need of immediate relief. The MWIU set the limitation policy with the objective that seamen, when they saw and experienced what was being done in Baltimore, would be induced to do the same in their own home ports.

  Because of the influx of seamen into Baltimore, not a week passed without two to five new recruits joining the Party. We were able to select the best of the seamen, and the Party's influence was constantly growing.

  The International Seamen's Union was the other union in the field. It was nearly dormant, doing little or nothing for the seamen. Instead they constantly shouted anti-Communist insults about everything the MWIU did. Its prestige was rock-bottom. While they had a handful of members in the port, most of them could be found in the MWIU hall playing checkers or cards with MWIU members.

  A major asset of the "Baltimore Soviet" was the Centralized Shipping Bureau (CSB). Because of the MWIU's strength, a large percentage of the replacement of ships' crews went through it. Seamen registered according to rating and worked their way up the list, with the man registered the longest being given preference. Again, there was no discrimination, no graft, no favoritism. The seamen knew this and under
stood that it was the MWIU's leadership and their own vigilance that made the Bureau incorruptible. The chairman was a guy named Harry Alexander, a roly-poly Polish seaman who loved his role as shipping master and guarded the Bureau's high principles.

  One of the biggest fleets of ships that made Baltimore its home port was the Ore SS Company, a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel. Ore SS ran carriers to Chile in South America and docked at Sparrow's Point, a few miles outside of Baltimore. The MWIU had concentrated most of its forces on this one outfit. Soon it made the company recognize the CSB as the source of its manpower replacements. As a result, conditions on the 15 Ore ships improved tremendously. They became some of the best ships to sail on. They had a special wage scale that made their jobs sought after. Since the Baltimore seamen knew they were secure, they did not "homestead" the ships, but instead made a trip or two and then got off to make room for another seaman.

  All this seemed like a never-ending walk in the Garden of Eden. But the Communists and the MWIU leaders constantly warned the rank and file that they were in danger of losing these hard-won conditions unless the movement to create similar conditions in all ports took shape.

  Most shipowners, relief agencies, government officials and Seamen's Church Institute officials were united to break apart the "Baltimore Soviet." Shipowners all over were constantly putting pressure on the Ore Steamship Company to stop hiring union men from the Centralized Shipping Bureau. But the heads of the Ore Line were not about to take on the MWIU and the Baltimore seamen alone, and the promise of aid was too remote in coming. Several times "plants" were sent to infiltrate the ranks and cast doubt on the policies of the MWIU. Amateurs that they were, they were quickly exposed and chased out of town.

  Most of the propaganda that I helped to write in our daily bulletins was directed toward encouraging seamen to stay united and protect their gains. While the Party did not raise banners proclaiming that it was the guiding light and leading force on the seamen's relief committee in Baltimore, neither did it deny its role or remain silent. The Party was very vocal in Baltimore, on the waterfront and in all industries in the area--especially in the steel mills which formed the major industry in Baltimore. Every week, a social event of some kind occurred either in the city or in an outer community like Highlandtown, a Finnish community. A spirit of strong comradeship existed among all the Baltimore Left.

  In the world of revolution there are no holidays or days off. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the revolution goes on. Our object was to move the mass of people into the mainstream of revolutionary action. If you were out of work, you joined the Unemployed Councils organized in every neighborhood and became an active worker struggling within the system for the right to a job. Some organizations concentrated on getting relief for the destitute, others helped mothers with children. There were organizations to help the foreign-born, organizations to fight against war, organizations to fight against fascism. I cannot think of any one of these left-leaning organizations that was not started by members of the Communist Party. A Communist was at his or her best when working among people, and wherever people were, the Communists were sure to be there. We even had a special unit that concentrated on and worked among the National Guard to make sure they were neutralized in the event of a strike.

  Every day representatives of the neighborhood relief councils escorted dozens of people to the relief agencies to demand immediate relief. Sometimes a small parade of 100 or more marched up to City Hall or the building which housed the relief agencies. The marchers would encircle a speaker who mounted a chair. The speaker would denounce the whole system of relief to the needy, denounce those in charge of administering relief as bureaucrats and lackeys of the capitalists and imperialists. Someone from the neighborhood ranks would be introduced. He or she would climb onto the chair and describe how they had to fight rats for the last scraps of bread in their tenements. The rhetoric, of course, was never for the benefit of the marchers, but for those on the sidelines who paused long enough to listen and observe.

  When the speeches ended, a delegation would converge on the office to seek the person responsible for the distribution of relief. Sometimes arguments between the police and the delegation arose. The leaders would insist that the entire delegation be allowed into an office. Confrontations occurred. Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost, and sometimes we couldn't get a foot in the door. A report of the outcome would be made to the demonstrators milling around the building. If victory was the result, it was a time to announce to the whole world that victory was a result of class-conscious workers fulfilling their revolutionary role in a bourgeois society.

  Generally, I had enough work to confine me to the waterfront during the days. In the evenings I attended meetings. Only on a Saturday or Sunday was there a chance to relax, either by attending some politicized social or dance gathering or by dropping into one of the hundreds of local beer joints that the Baltimore waterfront was noted for. The joints were usually small storefront saloons with a few table and chairs and about three girls to solicit drinks and serve whatever needs you had in mind. A jukebox blared polkas and the hits of the day. There was just enough room to twirl a gal around on the dance floor. Beer was the only drink permitted, but for the elite customers there was always a bottle or two of the hard stuff to be found behind the counter.

  Since I was now a member of a revolutionary, disciplined Party, I was always cognizant of what, when, where and why I did something. The Party did not take excessive drinking nor whoring around lightly. After all, a woman forced into whoring by the "male-dominated capitalist society" debased all of womankind. Communists were supposed to uplift the common people, not demean them, and frequenting whorehouses was considered taboo.

  But the seaman was a different product of society. He spent most of his time away from home. He had little time in his career to create steady relationships. In most of the foreign ports he rarely ever got away from the perimeter of the waterfront, unless he was class-conscious or so intellectually-motivated that he found more solace and peace by visiting castles and museums. But the mass of seamen were not class-conscious and they did spend their time in the waterfront dives of the world. Since now I was considered one of the "class-conscious" workers, I had to make sure no one ever saw me go in or out of those joints.

  With each passing day I learned something new. At least three times a week an open-air meeting was held on the waterfront. Around noon the MWIU rigged up its soapbox and spent the next hour haranguing the seamen on some issue or another. This we called our "educating process." It was here that I learned to partake in public speaking. Every radical sooner or later had to mount the "soapbox," and I was no exception. With a little guidance before I spoke, I soon became adjusted to the notion that I could mount the box and immediately launch into a tirade for or against the subject of the moment. Once the feeling of "butterflies" in the stomach passed the rest was easy. Days quickly moved into weeks and weeks into months. Big events were looming on the horizon, especially on the West Coast. We awoke one morning to hear the news that the longshoremen on the West Coast had "hit the bricks" and the MWIU was calling on its members as well as all seamen to follow suit, not just in support of the longshoremen's demands, but for demands of their own. Could we get the East Coast seamen and longshoremen to join the strike and make it nationwide? There were big debates on this question among us. The consensus was that the East and Gulf longshoremen who functioned under the gangster-led International Longshoremen's Association would not dare risk a strike in support of their West Coast brothers. After all, the head of the longshoremen's union, Joe Ryan was busy as a swarm of bees in a hive out on the West Coast trying to sell the strike down the river and force the men back to work on the conditions tantamount to servitude. No, it was not possible to get the longshoremen in the East to join any national strike movement. Instead, we worked among the rank and file and kept them informed of the truth of the strike while having them support their West Coast brothers any way t
hey could. But what about the East Coast seamen? Was there any chance of having them join the strike? While we had some members among the seamen, we did not have enough employed aboard ships to make a tangible contribution. There was still much work to be done in educating the seamen about unionism. Many were too dependent on the favoritism of the company shipping master. They therefore shied away from militant unionism and were not about to make the supreme sacrifice of giving up their jobs on the pretext that they could win the strike or make radical changes for the better. No. Workers give a lot of serious thought to such a subject, especially if they stand to lose their livelihood. However, we would have to pitch in there and work extra hard to offer a maximum amount of support to the West Coast strikers. We increased the amount of our literature to the seamen and longshoremen tenfold. With every bit of news we received from the West Coast we issued special bulletins to the workers, always with the main theme that we could not allow the West Coast strikers to lose their strike. From those semen who were working, we asked for donations to be forwarded to the West Coast strikers while we also attempted to prepare them to join the union.

  With each passing day we heard news of more West Coast ships' crews walking off and joining the picket lines. The strike had now enveloped all West Coast ports. As the strike intensified, so did the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of Ryan. Since he had been opposed to the strike from its inception, and since he had always worked hand-in-glove with the employers, he now doubled his efforts to sell out the strike as quickly as possible. The harder he tried to do this, the more united the strikers became. A new leader of the West Coast longshoremen was emerging; his name was Harry Bridges.