The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 15, 1927, Page 5

THe New Macazine Section of SATURDAY, OCT. 15, 1927. J OJHIN REEID a cone By ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS The following appreciation of John Reed was written for the Tenth Anniversary Edition of the masterpiece on the Russian Revolution “Ten Days That Shook the World,” which is being published in the Soviet Union by State Publish- ing Trust.—Ed. * * * HE first American city in which the longshoremen refused to load war supplies for the Kolchak armies was. Portland, on the Pacific Coast. In this city on the 22nd of Oct., 1887, John Reed was born. His father was one of those bluff sturdy pioneers such as Jack London pictures in his tales of the West. A witty man, a hater of shams and hypo- crisy. Instead of siding with the rich and powerful he stood against them, and when the trusts like great octopuses got a strangle-hold upon the forests and other natural resources of the state he fought them bitterly. He was persecuted, beaten and ousted from office. But he never capitulated. Thus from his father John Reed received a goodly inheritance—fighting blood, a first-class brain and a spirit of high courage and daring. His brilliant talents early manifested themselves, and on com- pleting high school he was sent to the most famous university in America—Harvard. Hither the oil kings, coal barons and steel-magnates were wont to send their sons. They well knew that after four years spent in sport, luxury and “the passionless pursuit of passionless knowledge,” their sons would come forth with minds altogether -freed from any taint of radicalism. Every year in the college and universities tens of thousandse of American youths are thus transformed into defenders of the present order—into White Guards of reaction. John Reed spent four years inside the walls of Harvard where his personal charm and ability made him a general favorite. He came in daily contact with the young scions of wealth and privilege. He attended the solemn lectures. of the orthodox teach- ers of sociology. He listened to the teachings of the high priests of capitalism—the professors of political . economy. Then, like a blow in the face of these learned know-nothings he organized a Socialist Club right in the centre of this stronghold of plutocracy. His elders consoled themselves with the idea that this was only a youthful fancy: “He’ll drop his radicalism,”. they said, “as soon as he passes out of the college gates into the world.” John Reed completed his course, took his degree, went out into the world, and in an incredibly short time, conquered it. Conquered it by his love of life, ‘his enthusiasm and his pen. In the university as editor of the satirical “Lampoon” he had already wielded a facile and brilliant pen. Now there began to pour from it a stream of poems, stories, dramas. Editors competed with one another for his services, magazines began to pay him almost fabulous sums, great newspapers commissioned him to report im- portant affairs in foreign lands. Thus he became a traveler up and down the high- ways of the world. Whoever wanted to keep in touch with current events had only to follow John Reed, for wherever anything significant was occur- ing, there, like a stormy petrel, he was sure to be. In Paterson the textile workers transformed their strike into a revolutionary cyclone—John Reed was in the centre of it. In Colorado the serfs of Rockefeller crawled out of their trenches and refused to be driven back by the clubs and rifles of the gunmen--John Reed was there with the rebels. In Mexico the peons raised the banner of revolt and headed by Villa advanced upon the eapitol— John Reed on horseback rode ferward with them. The account of this last exploit appeared in “The Metropolitan,” and later in the book “Revolutionary Mexico.” In lyric fashion he pictured the red and purple mountains and the vast deserts “sentinelled by the giant cactus and the Spanish needle.” He was captivated by the great plains. Still more was he captivated by their inhabitants mercilessly ex- ploited by the landlords and the Catholic Church. He shows them driving their herds from the moun- tain meadows, flocking in to join the armies of lib- eration, singing around the camp fires at night, and tho cold and hungry, tattered and barefoot, fighting magnificently for land and freedom, The imperialist world war broke out and John Reed followed the thunder of the guns—in France. Germany, in Italy, ian Turkey, in the Balkans and even here in Russia. For his exposure of the treach- ery of the czar’s “chinovniks” and the collection of material showing their participation in the or- “ganization of Jewish pogroms, he was arrested by the gendarmes, together with the famous artist Bord- JOHN REED man Robinson. But as always, thanks to some in- trigue or miracle of bluff or humor, he wriggled out of their clutches and went laughing on to the next adventure. Danger never held him back. It was meat and drink to him. He was always penetrating into for- bidden zones, into the front-line trenches. Vivid in my memory is my trip with John Reed and Boris Reinstein to the Riga front in September 1917. Our automobile was going south, toward Wen- den, when the German artillery began dropping shells on a little village to the east. At once this village became for John Reed the most interesting spot in the werld. He insisted that we go there. Cautiously we crept forward, when suddenly a big shell burst behind us, and the road we had just passed heaved up in the air, a black fountain of smoke and dust. Convulsively we clutched one an- other in fear, but a minute later, John Reed’s face was shining with delight. Apparently some inner demand of his nature was satisfied. So he wandered over all the world, into all coun- tries, on all. fronts, passing from one high adven- ture to another. But he was not simply an adven- turer, a traveller, a journalist, a spectator from the side-lines, calraly surveying the anguish of human beings. On the contrary, their sufferings were his sufferings. All this chaos, dirt, pain and blood-let- ting was an insult to his sense of justice and de- cency. He strove hard to discover the roots of all these evils and then to tear them out by the roots. So back from his journeyings he returned to New York—not for rest, but for new work and agitation. Out of Mexico he returned to declare: Yes, in Mexico there is revolt and chaos, but responsibility for this lies not on the landless peons but on those who foment trouble by supplying gold and weapons —that is, upon the rival American and English oil companies. Out of Paterson he returned to organize in the biggest hall in New York, in Madison Square Gare den, a grandiose dramatic representation called “the battle of the Paterson proletartat with capital.” The DAILY WORKER This Magazine Section Appears Every Saturday in The DAILY WORKER ALEX BITTELMA! Out of Colo the Ludlow Ms the Lena massacre in Sil mine workers were thrown out they lived in ‘tents, how th tens were kero saturated and set on fire, how.the fleeing \ were shot down by soldiers, and how twent and children perished in ti lames. T Rockefelier, the king of m s, he sa “These are your mines. These are your hired thugs and gunmen. You are the murderer So from the battlefields he returned not with futile chatter about atrocities of the war on one side or the other, bat with curses upon war itself as the one great atrocity—a blood-bath organized by the rival imperialisms. In “The Liberator,”’ a radical revolutionary journal to which without fee he contributed the best of his writings, he published a ferocious anti-militarist artic] 3 tion: “Get a Tight-jacket Read our Son.” Along with the other editors he was hs before the New York courts to be tried for t The prosecutor mad every effort to obtain a tence of guilty from the patriotic jury, going ; far as to have a band play national hymns near t court while the trial was proceeding. But Reed and his colleagues stood by the nvictions. When he boldly declared that he considered it his duty to fight for the social revolution under the revolution- ary flag, the prosecutor put the question: “But in the present war you would ficht unéer the American flag 2,’ 3 “No!” categoricaliy replied Reed. “Why not?” In answer Reed delivered a passionate speech in which he depicted the horrors he had witnessed on the battlefields. So vivid, so heart-moving, that even some of the prejudiced petty bourgeois jurors were moved to tears and the editors were acquitted. Just as America entered the world war it happened that he underwent an operation removing one of his kidneys. The surgeons declared him unfit for mili- tary service. “The loss of one kidney may exempt me from service in the war between the nations,” he said, “but it won’t exempt me from service in the war between the classes.” In Russia he discerned the first skirmishes in this great class war and hither he hurried in the summor of 1917. Swiftly analyzing the situation, he saw that ‘he conquest of power by the proletariat was logical and inevitable. But its delay and postponement troubled him. Every morning he rose and looked out cf the door to see whether the revolution had sr- rived. Each time with something like irritation ke found it hadn’t. Finally Smolny gave the signal, and the masses moved forward into the revolution- ary struggle. And quite naturally, John Reed moved forward with them. He was everywhere. At the dissolution of the Preparliament, the erection of the barricades, the ovation for Lenin and Zinoviey emerging from underground, the fall of the Winter Palace. But all this he relates in his book. His materials he picked up on all sides moving from Place to place. He gathered complete files of Pravda,” “Izvestia,” all proclamations, brochures, placards and posters. He had a particular passion for posters. Whenever a new one appeared and he couldn't get it any other way, he didn’t hesitate to tear it from the walls, In those days posters came from the press so thick and fast that it was difficult to find space for them on the hoardings. Cadet, Socialist Revolu- tionary, Menshevik, Left S. R. and Bolshevik posters were plastered one on top of another. So deep that once Reed ripped off sixteen of them at one pull. ido he returned with the story of e ef its horrors e § He related hoy oftheir homes, upon Bursting inte my room, waving the big paper slab she cried: “Lock! At one sweep I’ve ba f s gged the whole Revolution and Counter/Revolution!” Thus in various ways he gathered together a magnificent collection of materials. So magnificent was it, that’ when he came to the New York wharf in the Spring of 1918, the agents of the American attorney-general (minister of justice) took it away from him. He succeeded, however, in laying hands on it again and hiding himself with it in a little room in New York, amidst the rattle of the elevated trains rushing by overhead and the roar of the sub- way trains beneath him, he pounded out on his type- writer “Ten Days That Shook the World.” — The American fascisti of course didn’t want this Seok to reach the public. Six times they broke into Sho office of the publishing house, trying to steal (Continued on Page Two)