I asked Dos Passos about his novel Three Soldiers, and would he create the same scenes today, or does time change the perception of the author and the characters, more grave, more absurd, more humorous, and more philosophical? Anthony and the other veterans moved closer to hear the response of the author.
Dos Passos said his novels were chronicles of the time, not just fiction or history, but stories with a critical bent, and he used the word “bent” more than once. Three Soldiers may not be a good novel ten years later, he said, and pointed toward the library, but the story was one more record of war. He seemed detached, not quite there, as if his words were directed to some other conversation, or maybe an article for a magazine. He paused for a moment, and then said he had never forgotten the experiences, the smell of war that lingers in memory, the smell of poison gas and artillery explosions.
I continued with my questions because more veterans had gathered in the circle to listen. “You experienced the war as an ambulance driver, would your novel be more direct if you had experienced combat as an ordinary private, an infantry soldier?”
Dos Passos explained once more that his novels were chronicles, and some other novels about the war were preachments, authors must show passion and rage, but too much anger and emotion was a preachment, not a novel. He insisted, “My novels are not preachments.”
Dos Passos seemed evasive, and the veterans were obviously thinking about personal combat experiences as soldiers, and the natural creative right of preachment about the dread and stay of nightmares of the war.
“Veterans forever search for the solace of the enemy way,” said Star Boy. Slowly the discussion became more personal about the war, and distant from Three Soldiers and Dos Passos. The veterans responded more urgently and directly to the question about actual combat and the escape distance of an ambulance driver.
“I was a nurse and carried wounded soldiers out of combat on the backs of horses,” said By Now. “Ambulances were noisy, unstable, and worthless when the roads were bombed by the Germans.”
Dos Passos nodded in agreement.
“Ambulance drivers were never ordered to rush over a muddy pitch at dawn in the face of enemy machine guns,” said Star Boy. “Soldiers were sacrificed by the orders of distant generals, and the ambulance drivers were never threatened with treason for a strategic turnaround to avoid casualties and an enemy camp. The war might have been a better chronicle as a constant preachment of combat soldiers.”
Blue Raven said, “General Pershing ordered soldiers not to write about their combat experiences in journals, or even letters, because the generals worried that the humor and preachment of ordinary soldiers would counter the entitled military chronicles of the war.”
Preachment was the word of the day.
Dos Passos was silent and then cut into the stories to say that he would sign a copy of Three Soldiers at The Hut. He was ready to leave the conversation about war and his novel. Sally was happy that we both returned to the library, and she carried out the usual service, no favor or special recognition of an author over a veteran. Dos Passos signed his novel in a practical way, not with the flourish of a vain author, and regretted that he could not dedicate the book to honor our conversation at Anacostia Flats.
“Send the library another copy,” shouted Plucky.
“Dos Passos, would you do that?” asked Sally.
Naturally, the author could not resist the charge and promised to replace the library copy. He dedicated the novel to me, “Basile Beaulieu, Combat Stories at Anacostia Flats, June 10, 1932.”
“By Now was a combat nurse,” shouted Plucky, “not an ambulance driver, so you should include her name in the dedication.” Dos Passos agreed and wrote her name on the title page.
I expressed my appreciation, of course, but his novel was not my choice of literature. I had memorized, however, a few sentences from Three Soldiers, and recited the lines at the right moment to surprise the author with one of his own scenes. “The company sang lustily as it splashed through the mud down a gray road between high fences covered with great tangles of barbed wire, above which peeked the ends of warehouses and the chimneys of factories.”
Dos Passos seemed hesitant at times that afternoon, but never at a loss for words. Yet, to hear a slight wave of his own novel, a strategic delivery by a native veteran, truly took him by surprise. He was poised and grateful, and wondered how many other authors had been waylaid with selected sentences of their own work.
I had recited a passage only one other time, and that was from Ulysses by James Joyce at the first celebration of the novel with Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. Joyce was surrounded with too many artists and literary admirers, a bookstore overcome with the arrogance of clever creatures of art and literature. I moved closer to Joyce, leaned near his ear and whispered two lines of his new novel, “Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart.” Joyce did not respond to my gesture of respect, but there was no reason not to continue, “Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets.” Joyce turned away slowly with a distant gaze.
Dos Passos turned and slowly walked down the dusty trail to the drawbridge. His shadow was narrow, and he might have saluted natives and veterans for their emotive memories and decent preachments about the war, because the chronicles of learned ambulance drivers were dead on the shelves of libraries.
By Now might never have read Three Soldiers, but the dedication to her by the author was a chance to boast, and she carried the book back to the White Earth Reservation.
‹| 8 |›
CORTEGE OF HONOR
Star Boy recovered a sense of solace in the easy luster of the city that early morning. The great columns of elm trees were brighter in the rain. The federal buildings were mostly stone gray, but there were slight traces of blue and rouge in the windows, on the side of a bus, faces in the crowd, bright umbrellas, and the rain lasted the entire day.
Blue Raven was our rainy day platoon leader.
The Gayety Burlesque Theater was truly a vision of paradise, and the façade, stage, and grand balconies were reminders of the time we worked more than a decade ago at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. The classical statues over the grand entrance arch were shiny in the rain, and inside the heavy scent of velvet, cosmetics, and cigar smoke were cues of our theater memories.
My brother paused at the entrance to the theater, just under the back balcony, and we were overawed with the huge stage and three circles of balconies. The Gayety was a grand palace, and we decided then and there we wanted to work and live in the theater. Plucky turned around in circles and counted the statues in the arches over the balconies. The ornate curves, masks, and heavy decorations of ivory, gold, and empire red might have sidetracked a new performer.
By Now had never visited a burlesque theater.
Star Boy was ready to watch every show from the high balcony. Then, as we slowly walked down the aisle to the proscenium stage, we heard moans, groans, grunts, and muted snores in the back balcony. My brother heard more than grunts and snorts on the stage, he heard faint sounds and whispers in the wings. He was perceptive to the stay of theatrical voices in the circle, and the traces of passion and humor on stage.
Some players thought the theater was haunted.
Twelve years earlier we were hired as stagehands at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. We carried huge trunks for actors, moved stage property, constructed sets, and even raised the curtain for vaudeville situation comedies and musical productions. The union was weak at the theater and we were fired because we dared to return to the reservation for a funeral. The manager would not be troubled with any personal diversions. A few months later we returned to the streets and stories of Paris.
France was a theater of the fur trade.
Jimmy Lake, the owner and manager of the Gayety Burlesque Theater, heard our voices as we walked toward the stage. We were seated on the aisle when he walked on stage, stared as us for a few minutes, and then pointed directly
at Plucky, By Now, Aloysius, Lawrence, Treaty, then me, and ordered the six of us to stand next to him on stage. We followed orders and marched out of the wings and into the bright lights. Treaty balked at the stairs near the side of the stage.
“Listen, do you hear snores?” asked Jimmy Lake.
“Yes, but more than snores,” said Blue Raven.
“What, the ancient plumbing?”
“No, muted voices in the wings.”
“What voices?” asked Jimmy.
“Mollie Williams in The Unknown Law.”
“Yes, she was a racy player, right here on this very same stage maybe ten years ago,” said Jimmy. “How would you know about that playlet, were you in the audience?”
“Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis,” said Blue Raven.
“Prejudice, war, movies, unions changed our world forever,” I said to suggest that we knew something about entertainment. “So, we left the country, and my brother became a famous painter in Paris.”
“Who rides the horse?” asked Jimmy.
“Me, only me,” said By Now.
“Well, we could use a horse scene on stage.”
Jimmy was distracted by the sound of veterans in the balcony, and turned away. My experiences as a writer and soldier were too much to consider as an introduction, but surely he was not surprised by actors and overplays. We were on stage with a master impresario, and there was no reason to be shy.
“You should see the puppets,” said Plucky.
“Puppets, so what can puppets do?”
“Hand puppets, but not now,” said Blue Raven.
“Why not, this is a theater,” said Jimmy.
Aloysius was annoyed that he was being coaxed to display the puppets, and not at the best time, but he could not resist the chance to show a theater owner the puppets. He moved out of the bright stage lights into the shadows and raised on his right hand the Niinag Trickster. The green fedora on the carved head jerked to one side, then the other, and then the puppet slowly turned toward Jimmy Lake.
“Carnation Jimmy, the famous gold dust racy raconteur of burlesque and dancing girls,” the trickster said in a muted voice. Niinag waved his arms in circles and moved closer to the impresario, close enough to almost touch his nose with the curved rim of the fedora. Eye to eye the trickster cocked his head and said, “Hire these five native veterans and a horse to work in your theater, or, or, puppets remember every slight.”
“Aloysius made a puppet of President Hoover, a tin head named Herbert Tombstone,” said Plucky. “He might turn you into a tin head puppet, but not if we get to stay at the theater.”
Jimmy was amused, “What can you do?”
Niinag Trickster stared and said, “Aloysius, my hand brother, worked at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. Basile the teaser, my other brother, talked about the union and we were fired without notice or pay.”
“The stage is out, solid union, what else?”
“Watch for dogs and boozers,” said the trickster.
“Not sure, bootleggers might have a union.”
“Stand outside with hand puppets?”
“Right, no puppet union yet,” said Jimmy.
“I am the native union steward of veteran puppets, and these boys are honest workers, and turn on the lights with the best stories,” said Niinag Trickster. “Treaty would bow and carry old ladies to their seats.” He jerked, shivered, and moved into the bright stage lights. The trickster directly faced the impresario and raised the enormous wooden penis several times. The shadow of the dick was cast much larger in the stage lights.
Jimmy Lake doubled over with laughter, and when he recovered said we were hired to work until Congress voted on the bonus for veterans. Names were recorded, and then we asked about our duties.
“Full time, night and day, two veterans always on duty, make sure the place is secure,” said Jimmy. “But the most important work is to watch over the platoon of veterans that sleep in the balcony.”
The snores were real, not a stage play. Jimmy worried about veterans that arrived in the city with no place to sleep, so he turned over theater seats in the back balcony of the huge theater. One platoon would sleep during the day, and the second platoon at night. The arrangements violated the city sanitation laws, and city inspectors would surely evict the balcony veterans from the theater. Our duties were to be sure that no public official found a platoon of veterans asleep in the balcony. We would watch for city snoopers, and protect the sleepy veterans. Jimmy avoided contracts and paid us with meals, and we could sleep in a storage room at the back of the stage with the voices of actors.
“Wait,” said By Now. “Daily oats for Treaty.”
“Done, so get to work,” said Jimmy.
‹ ›
Congressman Wright Patman, Texas Democrat and veteran, cosponsored legislation a few weeks later to provide a cash bonus to the veterans, and after many political tricks and diversions the bill was finally scheduled for a vote in the House of Representatives.
The theater veterans were out early to join the march, and not a snore could be heard from the balcony. Not one veteran remained in the theater, and our duty that morning was to march with the Bonus Expeditionary Force.
Star Boy was our platoon leader on that clear morning as we marched with thousands of other high point veterans down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill. By Now saluted and Treaty pranced sideways at the head of the march with the decorated veterans. Everyone gathered on the steps, shouted, whistled, and waved hundreds of Stars and Stripes, state and city signs, and placard declarations, “Pay the Bonus Now And We’ll Go Home,” and “1917 Nothing Was To Good, 1932 Nothing Is Right,” and “I’m Helping Daddy Get the Bonus.”
I was overcome with the spirit of the march and waves of voices, songs, and hollers on the marble steps. My body was packed together with others, voices merged in stories and songs, and without notice or fear my sense of personal presence was no longer necessary. I was only conscious of the passion and motion of the veterans. I no longer had a sense of native distinction, and the other veterans close to me from Maine, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, California, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, and North Dakota, black, white, and disabled merged with the common motion of soldiers in the Bonus Expeditionary Force. That sense of union is a chance experience, once or twice in a lifetime, and endures only in stories.
Star Boy led our platoon through the sway of veterans into the Capitol Building and the public gallery of the House of Representatives. Commander Waters ordered veterans not to enter the gallery, but we were poised and sober, and decided not to attract attention by sitting close together. The veterans were there, of course, to witness the speeches for and against the actual bonus legislation, and especially to hear the great friend of veterans, Congressman Edward Eslick, Democrat from Tennessee.
James Frear, a congressman from Wisconsin, rose to the podium and dressed down the legislators, declaring that those who earned thirty dollars a day “should not denounce these wet, ragged, bedraggled men soaked for days in the rain, who only ask for a dollar a day.” Frear was sixty years old and had served before the turn of the century in the United States Army.
Edward Eslick was the next representative to address the legislators. There was a clear view of the speakers from the balcony, but the veterans leaned closer out of respect to hear the great congressman. He gestured to his wife in the front row of the gallery, and started with an easy censure, “Uncle Sam, the richest government in the world, gave sixty dollars. Mister Chairman, I want to divert you from the sordid. We hear nothing but dollars here. I want to go from the sordid side,” and then suddenly he turned silent, gasped, doubled over with pain, and collapsed on the floor. Congressman Eslick, the honorable advocate of the bonus money for veterans, died of a heart attack in the House of Representatives.
Plucky moaned, and waved his hands.
Blue Raven was the last to leave the gallery. He waited until everyone departed to the exits and then placed three hand puppets, Herb
ert Tombstone, Pozark Commie, and Wizard Oil on separate seats in the gallery. The puppets were seated in the front row with a view of the legislators. He fastened a note to each of the puppets, “Edward Eslick was a great warrior.”
Star Boy and other veterans were devastated by the death of the veteran and congressman. The next day our cousin wore his Distinguished Service Cross, a reversal of an earlier decision, and marched in the cortège to honor the memory of Edward Eslick. Near Union Station more than five thousand veterans waited for the procession to pass, and the balcony veterans never returned to snore or grunt at the Gayety Burlesque Theater.
Wednesday, June 15, 1932, the cash bonus legislation was passed in the House of Representatives. The mighty roars, whoops, and hurrays reached across the city, over the drawbridge, and echoed through the marble hallways of the Capitol. Over the next two days more than six thousand veterans gathered around Capital Hill to demonstrate their support of the bonus and to wait for the delayed decision of the United States Senate. The veterans waited on the marble steps, and on the grassy mounds, and sang a new overnight version of the chorus to “Over There.” The Capitol Hill revision of the George Cohan lyrics that night changed the “Yanks are coming” to the “Yanks are starving.”
Over there, over there,
Send the word, send the word over there,
That the Yanks are starving, the Yanks are starving,
The drums rum-tumming everywhere.
Friday, June 17, 1932, the drawbridge over the river was raised and more than thirteen thousand veterans were held captive at Anacostia Flats. Superintendent Pelham Glassford learned about the bridge detention, and ordered the police to open the drawbridge. He declared the obvious, that veterans were not criminals and had a right to stay or leave the camp. The veterans marched directly that night to Capitol Hill.
Walter Waters, premier of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, was the first veteran to be informed about the late night vote. Waters, dressed in his signature bow tie and high boots, announced that the legislation had been voted down, defeated, and tabled by a vote of the Senate, but he shouted it was only a “temporary setback.”
Native Tributes Page 7
