Through the Looking Glass

It was his ivory pipe which first attracted my attention, and the words he uttered unmistakenly escaped from it between irregular puffs of smoke. The small man facing me was John Gates, former editor of the Daily Worker and a leading figure in the Communist Party of the United States for more than 27 years.

Age had not conquered him, but whatever youth he had once possessed had long since faded from his face and only a remnant of fire burned behind his tired and blurry eyes. Not even his faith in radicalism, a movement to which he had devoted the greater part of his life, had been able to hold back the wrinkled and weather-beaten appearance he presented. Leaning back in his chair, he re-lit his pipe, and assumed a reflective fixity in his rendezvous with the past.

"The Great Crash was a total surprise. No one knew what to do. It was almost a standing joke for businessmen to be jumping out of windows because of financial difficulties. In many places there wasn't such a thing as relief. There was no hope; just a feeling of despair.

"I started college just at that time. I didn't know what I was going to do. There was a sort of aimlessness among college students. We didn't know what we were studying for." His voice trailed off, and in its wanderings came upon a world of memories.

"There was a vacuum and the Communists were trying to fill it. They weren't the only ones, but they not only had a program, they did things. They organized huge demonstrations. They acted while others just talked of reform.

"During my first years in the Party I carried furniture back into the homes of people who had been evicted. I devised tools to turn the gas and water on after they had been shut off because people couldn't pay their bills."

He had difficulty keeping his pipe lit, and interrupted his reflections long enough to make another attempt. "The Communists recognized the danger of Fascism, and 3000 Americans, most of them Communists, volunteered for the International Brigade to fight in Spain. There were other people in these movements, but at times it seemed the Communists were alone." The expression of loneliness he wore on his face as he spoke was striking. His whole life had been confined to association with a few intensely dedicated people, and now he longed to enter the world of the apathetic masses, the people who had somehow been forgotten by the radicals in the great rush toward Saviorism.

"There's a sort of thread that runs through history," he continued, "which one might call the liberal, progressive, or radical tradition. But it must be recreated by each generation. The radical groups of the past have done good things, but they have failed to see the changes and have persisted in their same old ways. I thought the Communist Party would change, but it didn't. We put up a good fight." Thoughts of a tired fighter come home to rest.

"The Communists, the Socialists, and the old radical parties have all failed. They have been replaced by a different kind of radicalism. Radicalism is widespread and accepted. We're now in a period much like that before the coming of the New Deal in 1932."

Gates looked at me and smiled. "There's no comparison," he said, "between the level of the two generation; your generation is far above mine. You still have goals of a radical nature, but today they take on a new form.

"The so-called 'silent generation' is no longer silent. I feel an upsurge on college campuses everywhere. There is a searching. People are troubled by the problems in the world, and the're looking for the answers."

I knew the interview was concluded and prepared to leave. "You know," he said as I collected my notes, "I'm writing a book; it'll be the story of my life. I'm writing it for Thomas Nelson and Sons." He chuckled to himself. "They're the publishers of the Revised Edition of the Bible." His gaze fixed on the emptiness outside his hotel window. Then he turned toward me. "I guess it's sort of fitting that we 'revisionists' should come together."