Reds Page #3

Why don't you come as a turkey?

I always thought she was

a very earnest girl who went away.

Probably the dentist knew nothing

except about teeth,

and was mainly interested...

And then she had

this wonderful journalist

who could talk about all sorts of things.

I had a coat I brought from Germany.

And she wanted that coat

and made me all kinds of propositions.

But I wanted it, too.

But finally I gave in and gave it to her.

I had other coats.

So that's how she operated.

She went after him.

As I say, she got him.

So she wasn't any dummy.

But it was something to happen

in little old Portland.

You didn't hear the word "sex."

You didn't hear the word "lesbian."

You didn't hear the word "homosexual."

You didn't hear the word "abortion."

You didn't hear those things.

Men respected women.

They helped them on with their coats,

they opened the doors for them.

And the man and woman

who courted each other,

they married each other.

You know something that I think,

that there was just as much

f***ing going on then as now.

Only now,

it has a more perverted quality.

Now there's no love whatever included.

Then, there was your heart,

a bit of heart in it.

Greenwich Village was there,

and New York was around it.

And the rest of New York did not act

the way Greenwich Village did, exactly.

It was sort of a center of dissent

and had been for a long time

in American life.

People from all over

the country came there.

They were regarded as bohemian.

Their ways of life were irregular.

The way they dressed

and certainly the way they thought

was outside the mainstream

of American life.

And as I recollect it,

marriage was not important

in Greenwich Village.

I remember hearing a line

Jack said to somebody

he was trying to lure into bed.

She was being very coy, and he said,

"Aren't you pagan enough?"

Hello?

Hello, Jack?

If it's illegal to hand out pamphlets

on birth control,

I'm proud to be a criminal.

No one is arguing with your

inalienable right to go to jail, Emma.

All I'm saying

is that this is not the right time

to go to jail for birth control.

Oh, there's a right time

to go to jail for birth control?

The Masses is governing

conscience now?

Soon you'll be indistinguishable

from The New York Times.

Emma, all I'm saying

is that you are too valuable

- to the anti-war movement.

- You're wrong.

- No, he's right. If we get into this war...

- And you're wrong.

- Will you let me finish my sentence?

- Your sentence is not worth finishing.

Thousands of American women,

overworked, underfed,

are dying, giving birth to anemic

children who can't last out a year.

Are their lives any less valuable

than thousands of American boys'?

- I want those back Tuesday.

- I'm not saying... Do you think?

- Oh, sh*t.

- Exactly.

Good night.

- You want some coffee?

- Chase and Sanborn?

- I'm out of coffee.

- Again? I'm leaving.

No, the conversation is over.

You're a journalist, Jack.

When you're a revolutionary,

we'll discuss priorities.

Hopefully over coffee.

- It's late, I'll walk you home.

- Why? I won't hurt anybody.

Well...

Yeah.

It's Friday night.

I'm so glad to see you.

Really, I'm so glad to see you.

I finished your articles.

They're very good.

The railroad piece, I think, is...

Needs polishing.

- It's repetitious, but...

- But that's deliberate.

I'm using repetition to make a point.

I don't want it to seem too polished.

Oh.

Well, I think

you're gonna love New York.

Emma, Emma, Emma.

I think it was Emma Goldberg.

I think so.

I never forgot Emma Goldman.

She inspired me to the very depths.

And Max Eastman was a beloved man.

The real radical, a free spirit.

He was in that same group

with that Emma Goldman.

That was her name.

Goldman, not Goldberg.

Floyd Dell was one of them.

He wrote novels, beautiful novels.

The radicals included people

like the IWWs

and Bill Haywood.

And there were Walter Lippmann,

and Lincoln Steffens

and Isadora Duncan

and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Alfred Stieglitz...

Oh, and Margaret Sanger.

My Lord, I picketed for her.

And, of course,

the great writer Eugene O'Neill

came from down there.

I don't think there's anybody

who can touch O'Neill today.

You have to be a bit of a rebel

to be an artist of any kind, I believe.

And everybody in Greenwich Village

was a bit of a rebel.

- What do you do, Louise?

- I write.

Good for you.

Could you pass the bread, please?

- Thanks.

- Because to the middle-class American,

everyone on the left is the same.

An anarchist, a socialist...

Would you pass the bread, please?

- What do you do, Louise?

- I write.

Good. Madame Schumann-Heink...

Jack tells me you write, Miss Bryant.

What do you write about?

Everything.

You write about everything?

Everything. Yes. Everything, nothing...

Just...

I see.

Now, about Davis and Sloan,

have they quit?

Not yet, but they...

I don't think they should sit here

like this. I don't. I think it's cruel.

- It's just...

- Organization, right?

Look, what does a capitalist do?

Let me ask you that, Mike.

Huh? Tell me.

I mean, what does he make,

besides money?

I don't know what he makes.

The workers do all the work, don't they?

Well, what if they got organized?

I mean, all the workers.

Not just the plumbers,

and the carpenters

and the goddamn cigar makers.

But all of them, all over the world?

Not in just one country.

Give him a beer, will you?

What if they all got organized?

Don't you think they could...

They could change society overnight.

They can make it into

anything they wanted.

Jack, can I tap you for $5? I'm flat.

Well, don't ask this pretentious

son of a b*tch for money.

If you need $5, I'll give it to you.

Let me have $4.50, will you?

- What isn't fair?

- You see what I'm saying?

If all the workers in the world

belonged to one big union,

- there wouldn't be a war, would there?

- Are you listening to me?

Miss Bryant.

You've been nursing

that beer for an hour.

Can I get you a glass of wine

or something?

No, thank you. I'm fine.

Thank you, anyway.

- Beer's fine.

- You are an amiable person.

And a very good painter, I hear.

I write.

Read Jung!

"Read Freud, read Jung."

Read Engels, read Marx!

My God, you can't interpret Freud

in an economic context.

You know you got a taxi waiting?

Zosima represents

the corruption of religion.

I tell you you're wrong.

- And Jung is a mystic...

- But do you seriously believe...

- How long are they going to stay?

- I don't know. They'll get out in a while.

- I'll only be gone for a day.

- You just got back from Boston.

Hey, why don't you come

with me to Baltimore?

Really? What am I supposed

to come to Baltimore as?

What as?

Jack, you know, you got a taxi waiting.

Taxi's waiting, Jack.

See you tomorrow.

We've been trying for two years.

Capitalists can take this country into

war any time they damn well please.

The only impact you can make

is in the streets.

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