We were a noisy crew, and there were repeated requests from below that we should make less noise! Which seemed to me curious for a studio flat. An American party is always noisy. I can’t make out why one should be unable to hear oneself speak. I think it is that they talk in a key higher than we do. They have a great sense of camaraderie, and when they get together to have a “good time” it is bewildering. I wonder what they think of us? I should think they find us deadly.
Sunday, February 20, 1921. New York.
It suddenly started to snow last night and this morning it was inches deep. Dick was delighted. Hugo Koehler took us to lunch at the St. Regis opposite, and on our way back Dick stopped to dig with an old woman who was shovelling away the snow from in front of her house. I watched them for a few minutes, and the old woman said to Dick, “My! You’ll be a help to your Daddy some day.” Dick, in a perfectly matter of fact voice said, “I haven’t got a daddy, he’s killed.” “O-h—,” said the woman, “in that terrible war I suppose?” “Yes,” Dick answered, “in that war—and we haven’t won anything by it either....” It sounded uncanny in the mouth of a five-year-old. Finally I left him there shovelling and his face was gloriously pink. Louise could survey him from the window, and Hugo and I got down to the “Numesmatic” on the subway. It was the first time I had travelled on it, and I was amused to see that the “Do not Spit,” order was written in three languages. One of course being Italian, and the other Yiddish!
To-night I have had my first evening at home. I resolutely refused to go to the supper party I had accepted at Mrs. W.‘s. Hugo wanted me to go, but I would not. I made him keep his dinner engagement and I dined with Louise. We each had an egg and a cup of coffee. It was heaven, and I went to bed early.
Monday, February 21, 1921.
Griffin Barry fetched me and took me to lunch in Washington Place at a strange below-ground place where we had excellent Italian food. There was Mary Heaton Vorse, author of “Men and Steel,” and Kenneth Durant.
I discussed “Men and Steel” and Pittsburgh with Mary Heaton Vorse, she had seen the beauty and the grandeur of the mills as I had. I said that I thought the basis of the labor trouble here was that Labor is alien and can be not only exploited, but any attempt of alien Labor to rebel is not tolerated. When I asked in Pittsburgh whether Labor had gained anything by its Steel Strike in 1919, I was told emphatically “No”—to which I replied that the English working man gains something every time he strikes! The argument I was given was this: “They haven’t got to work in the mills if they don’t want to——.” “No,” I said, “But can you do without them?” “No——.”
Mary Vorse says, however, that I am wrong about its being alien Labor that is exploited. She says that the American farmer in the west is not treated any better.
They all admitted, however, that no such poverty or bad living conditions existed in Pittsburgh, for example, as in London, Hull, New Castle, etc. The English slums are probably the most tragic in the world.
After lunch I went with Barry and Durant to his office. The feeling was at once Moscow! I know so well the type of clerk in those offices. I met all the staff, and saw some proofs which are publications in the next number of the Magazine, Soviet Russia.