And here, where Jew-manager and gentile ruled the histrionic destiny of the United States––here where art, letters, service, industry, business had each developed its own species of human prostitute––two muddy-brained torrents of humanity poured in opposite directions, crowding, shoving, shuffling along in the endless, hopeless Hunt for Happiness.
She had made, in the beginning of her street-corner career, arrangements with a neighbouring boot-black to furnish one soap-box on demand at a quarter of a dollar rent for every evening.
She extracted the quarter from her purse and paid the boy; carried the soap-box herself to the curb; and, with that invariable access of fright which attacked her at such moments, mounted it to face the first few people who halted out of curiosity to see what else she meant to do.
Columns of passing umbrellas hid her so that not many people noticed her; but gradually that perennial audience of shabby opportunists which always gathers anywhere from nowhere, ringed her soap-box. And Palla began to speak in the drizzling rain.
For some time there were no interruptions, no jeers, no doubtful pleasantries. But when it became more plain to the increasing crowd that this smartly though simply gowned young woman had come to Broadway in the rain for the purpose of protesting against all forms of violence, including the right of the working people to strike, ugly remarks became audible, and now and then a menacing word was flung at her, or some clenched hand insulted her and amid a restless murmur growing rougher all the time.
Once, to prove her point out of the mouth of the proletariat itself, she quoted from Rosa Luxemburg; and a 301 well-dressed man shouldered his way toward her and in a low voice gave her the lie.
The painful colour dyed her face, but she went on calmly, explaining the different degrees and extremes of socialism, revealing how the abused term had been used as camouflage by the party committed to the utter annihilation of everything worth living for.
And again, to prove her point, she quoted:
“Socialism does not mean the convening of Parliaments and the enactment of laws; it means the overthrow of the ruling classes with all the brutality at the disposal of the proletariat.”
The same well-dressed man interrupted again: