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Authors: Benjamin Appel
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Not as many as we wanted with the U.A.W. preaching against Jim Crow.”
Bill listened impatiently. Had he come all the way to New York to have this stuffed shirt blow cigar smoke into his face? To hell with Colonel Bretherton. The sooner he met Hayden the better. He watched the Colonel remove his eyeglasses and polish them with a white silk handkerchief.
“We’re hoping for equal success in Harlem,” the Colonel said. “You’re a northerner, Johnson, born and educated in Pennsylvania and that’s important to us. At the same time, you have had considerable experience in the South. I want to impress upon you that you have a difficult task ahead of you. It won’t be as simple as arranging for the shooting of some black soldier. Our methods in Harlem, in addition, are going to be different. Mr. Hayden has other ideas than the usual strategy of pitting whites against blacks. Mr. Hayden proposes to use the blacks themselves to dig their own graves.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“I didn’t expect you to. There are certain confusions, certain trends in Harlem that Mr. Hayden intends to exploit.” He left his chair and stalked to the window. “Come here, young man.” As Bill joined him the Colonel said, “Look out there, young man.”
Down below Bill saw a city of water, piers and ships on the Hudson, grey-blue and glinting with sun, and faraway, the smokestacks of the New Jersey shore.
“Young man, our country possesses the greatest industrial plant in the world. Some day, our organization will control it all. We’ve failed to date. This damnable war’s set us back years. There’s a democratic ferment working all over the country. It has even gotten legislation forbidding racial discrimination on the books. That’s why this Harlem incident is so important. We must checkmate all these rabble rousers with their yapping about a bucket of milk for every nigger kid.” His lips trembled and he added, “Now you have a grand opportunity, young man, to show the mettle you’re made of. An old man wishes you good luck.”
The office boy summoned by the Colonel led Bill to the office of Mr. Norris Hayden. Bill entered a spacious room whose prevailing color was brown, the wood mahogany. He was still amazed at the Colonel and his farewell speech. He thought that the Colonel was senile, a decorative fixture that the organization had installed, something like the flesh and blood equivalent of the stars and stripes; in the South he had met men like the Colonel, useful to the organization because of their connections with the oldest and wealthiest families. Bill glanced across the room. At the desk, Hayden, head down was writing a memorandum. Bill saw thin blond hair and said tentatively, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Hayden.”
A blond face looked up at him, one of those blond faces that always seem years younger than they are. “Hello, Bill, how are you?” Hayden said.
“You here!” Bill exclaimed. “You!”
Hayden smiled. He was a man of forty, sitting erect in his chair. His nose was small with waxy white nostrils. His chin receded slightly and he had a fresh almost juvenile appearance. He kept on smiling and his eyes between their long straw-yellow lashes twinkled. Bill stared, unbelieving. This was Hayden, head of the New York organization! It was impossible! He had last known Hayden under the name of Walter Tynant and they had attended the organization’s training school back in Chicago. A dozen questions hummed in him. How had Tynant-Hayden advanced so fast? Why had the Colonel checked on his handwriting and photograph? What was the sense of it? Or wasn’t the Colonel aware that Hayden had been his class-mate?
“Walter!” Bill cried. “You can knock me down. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Bill. In the future, you are never to refer to me by any name but Hayden, Norris Hayden.”
Bill nodded, sitting down at the desk, near a silver-framed photograph of a tall woman and two teen-age children. It
Bill listened impatiently. Had he come all the way to New York to have this stuffed shirt blow cigar smoke into his face? To hell with Colonel Bretherton. The sooner he met Hayden the better. He watched the Colonel remove his eyeglasses and polish them with a white silk handkerchief.
“We’re hoping for equal success in Harlem,” the Colonel said. “You’re a northerner, Johnson, born and educated in Pennsylvania and that’s important to us. At the same time, you have had considerable experience in the South. I want to impress upon you that you have a difficult task ahead of you. It won’t be as simple as arranging for the shooting of some black soldier. Our methods in Harlem, in addition, are going to be different. Mr. Hayden has other ideas than the usual strategy of pitting whites against blacks. Mr. Hayden proposes to use the blacks themselves to dig their own graves.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“I didn’t expect you to. There are certain confusions, certain trends in Harlem that Mr. Hayden intends to exploit.” He left his chair and stalked to the window. “Come here, young man.” As Bill joined him the Colonel said, “Look out there, young man.”
Down below Bill saw a city of water, piers and ships on the Hudson, grey-blue and glinting with sun, and faraway, the smokestacks of the New Jersey shore.
“Young man, our country possesses the greatest industrial plant in the world. Some day, our organization will control it all. We’ve failed to date. This damnable war’s set us back years. There’s a democratic ferment working all over the country. It has even gotten legislation forbidding racial discrimination on the books. That’s why this Harlem incident is so important. We must checkmate all these rabble rousers with their yapping about a bucket of milk for every nigger kid.” His lips trembled and he added, “Now you have a grand opportunity, young man, to show the mettle you’re made of. An old man wishes you good luck.”
The office boy summoned by the Colonel led Bill to the office of Mr. Norris Hayden. Bill entered a spacious room whose prevailing color was brown, the wood mahogany. He was still amazed at the Colonel and his farewell speech. He thought that the Colonel was senile, a decorative fixture that the organization had installed, something like the flesh and blood equivalent of the stars and stripes; in the South he had met men like the Colonel, useful to the organization because of their connections with the oldest and wealthiest families. Bill glanced across the room. At the desk, Hayden, head down was writing a memorandum. Bill saw thin blond hair and said tentatively, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Hayden.”
A blond face looked up at him, one of those blond faces that always seem years younger than they are. “Hello, Bill, how are you?” Hayden said.
“You here!” Bill exclaimed. “You!”
Hayden smiled. He was a man of forty, sitting erect in his chair. His nose was small with waxy white nostrils. His chin receded slightly and he had a fresh almost juvenile appearance. He kept on smiling and his eyes between their long straw-yellow lashes twinkled. Bill stared, unbelieving. This was Hayden, head of the New York organization! It was impossible! He had last known Hayden under the name of Walter Tynant and they had attended the organization’s training school back in Chicago. A dozen questions hummed in him. How had Tynant-Hayden advanced so fast? Why had the Colonel checked on his handwriting and photograph? What was the sense of it? Or wasn’t the Colonel aware that Hayden had been his class-mate?
“Walter!” Bill cried. “You can knock me down. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Bill. In the future, you are never to refer to me by any name but Hayden, Norris Hayden.”
Bill nodded, sitting down at the desk, near a silver-framed photograph of a tall woman and two teen-age children. It
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