We were told about the victims of the Heimarket, hanged in Chicago in the 80s during the struggle for an 8-hour working day, about Eugene in. Debce, imprisoned for violation of the court ruling, banned a strike by railway workers in the 90s, about the case of a trial of hat masters in Dunbury, fined in 1902. for 234 thousand. dollars according to the so -called “antitrest” law Sherman. The union members had to sell their homes to scrape money for paying a fine. We hated the rich and the trusts belonging to them, the violence that they committed, and oppression, the symbol of which they were.
In our house, nothing was hidden from children. We knew that dad is meeting with a socialist, a drawing man by profession who worked with him. This draftsman ran for the list of socialists in the Olderman – members of the city department in Massachusetts. Dad even wrote a comic poem about how “we will receive free soup and a lot of beer when Fronka becomes oldderman”. We heard the hot disputes that was conducted behind the beer about politics, working movement, religion and sports. The ideas arose were for us and food and drink, sometimes replacing both. Therefore, it was not surprising that our minds turned out to be fertile soil for socialism, when its seeds finally fell into it.
And it happened very simple. Once, all houses in our area were brought leaflets, which reported that on Sunday evening near us, in the old building of the Metropolis Theater, on the corner of the 142nd Street and the 3rd Avenue a socialist forum will be held. My father and I visited these forums regularly. When my father was not, I went there with my mother. The organizers of these lectures were local socialists, for the most part Germans, who tried to attract people who speak English to discuss the pressing problems. They invited the best speakers-socialists of America to the forums. We brought home the then weekly Socialist newspaper Warker and as many brochures as it was possible. We read all this with greed.
