2nd, 3rd and 4th amusing but not lore. These 1st [?] all are illustrative of a pretty low level of ignorance and prejudice but that's all.
Pacifist Strikes Out - this is amusing enough to be included simply as humor.
Page 5: These 3 are all funny as gags but I don't think they're appropriate for the lore book.
{Begin page}FOLKLORE
NEW YORK Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A Circumstances of Interview
STATE {Begin handwritten}New York{End handwritten}
NAME OF WORKER {Begin handwritten}Wayne Walden{End handwritten}
ADDRESS {Begin handwritten}51 Bank St, [NYC.?]{End handwritten}
DATE {Begin handwritten}November 7, 1938{End handwritten}
SUBJECT {Begin handwritten}[Reminiscences of a Rebel - Conscientious Objector?]{End handwritten}
1. Date and time of interview {Begin handwritten}November 3rd 1938{End handwritten}
2. Place of interview
3. Name and address of informant {Begin handwritten}John Turner. [md] this informant does not wish his name to be used.{End handwritten}
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. {Begin handwritten}Texas born - - [Probably Irish ancestry?] About 60 - slow [?] - sense of humor - cynical [occasionally?] - about 150 lbs - wiry, [?] Has [????[ Has [???? (NWW)?] (see previous interviews [October 17 and 27?]){End handwritten}
(Wayne Walden; 51 Bank St. Man. {Begin handwritten}[117?]{End handwritten}
November -2, 1938.)
Subject- [Reminiscences Of A Rebel {Begin handwritten}: - Conscientious Objector?]{End handwritten} {Begin handwritten}[1300?]{End handwritten}
My informant was a conscientious objector during the period of the War and declined to give me his name. "It's hard enough to hunt a job, as it is", he explained, "without making it still more difficult by naming myself as one who {Begin deleted text}[???]{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}opposed the war."{End inserted text} "Nearly everyone now agrees with what we C.O's said at the time; nearly every sane person now admits that the war was everything we predicted it would be; nearly every body laments the loss of life and ruination the war left in it's wake-they all now know that it was one hell of a big blunder, but they all still denounce and ridicule us for not going crazy too when they did. We still are an unhonored lot.
Unlike those who marched uncritically and abjectly into the slaughter, our stand, as C.O's, was such that we as yet cannot also strut, brag and swagger as heroes. Of course, as things turned out, a long depression, with the "heroes" favored on jobs and civil service, we may have been foolish not to have gone crazy along with all the rest. But we, despite what they say, were certainly not cowards. The joy-ride over to France, with the cheers of the business elements and the flattering attention from the ladies, even though after a training spell we were thrown into the trenches, was more alluring than the abuse and misunderstanding, the starvation and rotting away in solitary cells, that many of us knew awaited us as objectors. Dont kid yourself, nor let anyone else kid you, about the C.O's being afraid of fighting; it took a damned sight more guts {Begin deleted text}o{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}to{End handwritten}{End inserted text} resist the national hysteria than to fall in line with it. "And at that, there were times when we had no more assurance of emerging alive from the jails and penitentiaries than were the more glorified and subserviant {Begin deleted text}[?]{End deleted text} /{Begin deleted text}guys in{End deleted text} the trenches. After all {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} our refusing to be fed as fodder to the bloody war {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} was a financial saving to Uncle Sam. When, with his pants down, and dizzy with the clamorous demands upon him in the heart of the depression, we, at least {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} didn't bother him for a bonus!"
The following reminiscences are of actual happenings, {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}say, my informant,{End handwritten}{End inserted text} and none of them have heretofore been collected or published. If acceptable for inclusion in the {Begin page no. 2}folklore, but necessary to have assurance of the truth of them, the teller of these tales will furnish proof of their authenticity. {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}so far as is possible.{End handwritten}{End inserted text}
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"In Chicago, during the excitement attending the daily expectation of the United States entering the war, I was arrested on suspicion of being instrumental in opposing the preparations. The jailor, pausing before my cell, rather politely asked 'What are you in for?' I answered that I really didn't know, but that it was probably because they feared I would prevent the war. 'You mean to say that you're agin it?' he queried. 'I'm not particularly hankering for it', I replied. 'Why in the hell aint you' he asked {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}"{End handwritten}{End inserted text}, don't you know that that Kaiser, or Germany anyhow, has been tryin' to get a hold of this country for over 400 years? {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}"{End handwritten}{End inserted text}
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Another time, two city and one government detectives raided my room. Having made a thorough search of my belongings, and apparently ready to leave, satisfied that nothing then warranted my arrest, one of the bulls spied the title of the book I was reading. It was Dostoievsky's "Crime and Punishment". 'Uh huh! Crime and punishment, huh? Makin' a real study of it, huh? Readin' up all about it, huh? Come on! {Begin deleted text}{Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}"{End handwritten}{End inserted text}{End deleted text} I was turned loose the following day. Possibly someone {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} more learned {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} informed them that the book was not a treatise on how to commit crime and escape punishment.
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A friend of mine, a Scotchman by the name of Mackay, was standing before a store window {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} trying to decide what shirt to buy. A buxom woman approached him and said: 'Young man, you look physically fit. Why aren't you in the trenches?'
'Madame', he returned, 'did you ever see me walk?' 'No' somewhat pityingly, thinking perhaps he was already a cripple, 'No I haven't seen you walk.' 'Then just watch me madame', said Mac, as he walked swiftly away from her.
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Some of the fellows, on visiting us in the can, tried to bring us in some literature. Some of it was Wobbly papers and similar matter, but most was as innocent of subversive ideas as the Literary Digest. The jailor, however, confiscated the entire bundle. Looking it over, and seeing Emma Goldmans "Mother Earth" {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}[?????]{End handwritten}{End inserted text} he said {Begin deleted text}[.?]{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} "Here, you can take in this farm book". {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}MORE to Follow{End handwritten}{End inserted text}
{Begin page no. 3}{Begin deleted text}[Pacifistt{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}Pacifist{End inserted text} strikes out.
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Mac, too, was a conscientious objector and a pacifist. And somehow or other he managed to have kept out of jail. I guess his arguments (like when he walked away from the irate woman) took the form of "direct action" more than they did of gentle suasion. Anyhow, not knowing what else to do with ourselves, Mac and I went into a show. This was out in Seattle where, like every where else, patriotism, or some cheap exhibition of it, would pull applause for a ham actor when nothing else would. Then, of course, when a guy fluttered the flag, or the orchestra came to his aid with the national anthem, you had to stand up like everyone did. Sometimes there was so much standing up and sitting down, standing up and sitting down, that a fellow felt like greasing his joints with an oil can. Both of us had been tossed out of another place/ {Begin inserted text}for refusing to jump up,{End inserted text} and lucky to have gotten out whole. It was a dangerous stunt not to imitate the rest, and many a poor rebel got beat all to hell by a mob for not conforming.
Well, sure enough, the damned thing happened. The first thing we knew everybody was standing up while we were still sitting down. A scissorbill right in back of us started to raise a rumpus. He started in to prod us and bellow for us to stand up. Mac did stand up, but {Begin inserted text}in{End inserted text} arising he shot a swift/ {Begin inserted text}jolt{End inserted text} into the chin of the bloke trying to excite trouble. The clout knocked the guy off his pins, sO that he tumbled back in his seat. 'What's tha matter, what's the matter'? a lady wanted to know. 'Why', said Mac, 'that guy wouldn't stand up {Begin deleted text}.{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}!{End handwritten}{End inserted text} ' So the bourgeois lady also swipes the yap over the conk with her umbrella: and a couple of ushers trounces the dizzy scissorbill out of the place before a patriotic mob could have at him..
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The soapboxer ended his talk with: "The workers produce it all, why shouldnt they demand even some of the luxuries?" "And that's right", shouted a wobblie, "Come on, Fellow-workers, let's take a walk on Fifth Avenue. Nothin's too good for the working class."
{Begin page no. 4}{Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}({End handwritten}{End inserted text} [A scowl for smiling nature.?] {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}){End handwritten}{End inserted text}
This hasn't anything to do with my self. I recall it as a story, supposed to be true, told by, or of, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. In the old days, when she was an organizer for the wobblies and speaking for them around the country, she {Begin deleted text}[?]{End deleted text} encountered one fellow-worker, a Swede, who for seriousness was hard to beat.
The Swedish fellow-worker occupied a seat with Gurley on the train. For hours they had sat together, neither of them saying a word, she reading a book, and he, in lugubrious contemplation of a wage slave's existance. {Begin deleted text}[??]{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}Having put{End inserted text} down the book and for a time {Begin deleted text}[?]{End deleted text} been gazing out upon the {Begin deleted text}[?]{End deleted text} {Begin deleted text}scenry{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}scenery{End handwritten}{End inserted text}, as the train sped through a particularly beautiful section of Oregon, Gurley at last turned to her companion./ {Begin inserted text}Said she:{End inserted text} "It's certainly a pretty country around, {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}here{End handwritten}{End inserted text} isn't it?" "Aw", said the Swede, "who the hell can enjoy anything under this rotten capitalist system."
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Somewhere I heard this: "Are we men, or are we mice", asked the orator on the soapbox. And from his gathering a mighty answer arose. "We are", they thundered. {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}[98 13 244 98 1274{End handwritten}{End inserted text}