But this wide world has many such lives, many heaving forces. And ever since I had been born, while I had been building for myself one after the other these gods of civilization and peace—all unheeded by my eyes a black shadow had been silently creeping over the whole ocean world. Now from across the water there came the first low grumble of war. Within one short portentous week that grumble had become a roar, and before all the startled peoples had time to realize what was here, vast armies were being rushed over the lands, all Europe was in chaos—and the world was on the eve of the most prodigious change of all.
And like the mirror of the world that it had always been to me, the harbor at once reflected this change. Only a little time before, I had seen it almost empty, except for that crude boat of the crowd; the Internationale, with its songs of brotherhood and of a world where wars should cease. Now I saw it jammed with ships from whose masts flew every flag on the seas, and from the men who came ashore I heard of how they had been chased, some fired upon, by battleships—I heard of war upon the seas. I felt my father's world reborn, an ocean world where there was nothing without fighting, and where every nation fought. Ours had already entered the lists, with a loud clamor for ships of our own in which to seize this sudden chance for our share of the trade of the world. The great canal was open at last, and Europe in her turmoil had had not even a moment to look. The East and South lay open to us—rush in and get our share at last! Make our nation strong at sea!
And while in blind confusion I groped for some new footing here, strove to see what it was going to mean to that fair world of brotherhood which I had seen struggling to be born—suddenly as though in reply there came a sharp voice out of the crowd.
Joe Kramer came to trial for his life. Before his case went to the jury, Joe rose up and addressed them. And he spoke of war and violence. He spoke of how in times of peace this present system murders men—on ships and docks and railroads, in the mills and down in the mines. And as though these lives were not enough, the powers above in this scramble for theirs for all the profits in the world, all the sweated labor they could wring out of humankind, had now flown at each others' throats. And the blood of the common people was pouring out upon the earth.
"My comrades over the water," he said, "saw this coming years ago. They worked day and night to gather the workers of Europe together against this war that will blacken the world. For that they were called anti-patriots, fiends, men without a country. And some were imprisoned and others were shot. And over here—where in times of peace the number of killed and wounded is over five hundred thousand a year—for rebelling against this murder they have called me murderer—and have placed me here on trial for my life.
"And what I want to ask you now is that you take no halfway course. Either send me out of this dock a free man or up the river to the chair. For this is no year for compromise. Am I a murderer? Yes or no. Decide with your eyes wide open. If you set me free I shall still rebel. I shall join my comrades over the sea who already are going about in the camps and saying to the rank and file—'You can stop this slaughter! You can save this world gone mad! You can end this murder—both in time of war and peace!'"
And the jury set Joe free.
Early in the following week I went down to his room by the docks for a last evening with him there. Joe was sailing that same night. Under a name not his own he had taken passage in the steerage of the big fast liner which was to sail at one o'clock. Into his room all evening poured his revolutionist friends, and the chance of revolution abroad was talked of in cool practical terms. Nothing could be done, they said, in the first few months to stop this war. Years ago the man in France, who had led the anti-war movement, had predicted that if war broke out every government rushing in would force on its people the belief that this was no war of aggression but one of defense of the fatherland from a fierce onrushing foe. And so in truth it had come about, and against that appeal to fight for their homes no voice of reason could stem the tide.
The socialists had been swept on with the rest. By tens and hundreds of thousands they had already gone to the front. But it was upon this very fact that Joe and his friends now rested their hopes. For just so soon as in the camps the first burst of enthusiasm had begun to die away, as the millions in the armies began to grow sick of the sight of blood, the groans and the shrieks of the wounded and dying, the stench of the dead—and themselves weary of fighting, worn by privation and disease, began to think of their distant homes, their wives and children starving there—then these socialists in their midst, one at every bivouack fire, would begin to ask them: