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1.
7ri Robert Leaudette
59 Barre Street
Montpelier, Vermont
IL GLIM /ITO
Two nen, were drinking beer. As the cloud of amok*
which engulfed then lifted it revealed the features of two
middle aged men. flank Pioardi was the larger of the two.
Terhape it was the burden of an enormous stoma' whidh first
eTOW your attention to him, but it was the nose with the
eternal curl and the en -wring upper lip which made you un-
comfortably conscious of a burning resentment behind the
dark eyes.
a7, I can tell you plenty about the conditions of
our country. I can tell you also that Barre Will never be
the city that it was forty years ago. Joe Will tell you the
sank thing."
tJoe' Tlario seldom smiled. Whom be did, the Ilint in
his eye betrayed his sullen nature, and the rueful face
writhed with disgumt and oontempt. "'Yeah, maybe so," he
almost muttered.
Hank then continued, "I was born in !Alan. Joe here
vas born in Turin. Yes, these places are in the northern
part. nrometimes we get alonr pretty good with those from
to Southern part but they pot nasty sometimes because they
think that they know more than anyone else. I our over in
1905 and started to work in a store here."
Joe entered into the conversation at this Juncture,
"And I came over from the ole country in nineteen o nine.
learned to cut granite over there from nu father. I was
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eleven years old when I first started and I bad to work like
goddam fool because the old nen was forever getting plastered
and there was nobody to support the family. Men my mother
died I was plenty fed up and when I got a Chance to come to
America I took it, Been working bare in Barre ever since.
I'm not like this lazy sonofabitch. 71e never works. :lust
thinks nothing except about playing for the band Imre in
Barre,"
"I'm not 'sorting now because I can't find work. And
anyhow I iorked plenty myself when I first same over., vs
used to work in the store in those days from seven in the
morning till ten or eleven at night. Then I got a jeb in
the dhod. They made me a lumper. He's the fellow who does
all the hard work around the dhed. He can run 604. the machines
and fill in at any spot when be has to. Now I'm net able to
find work. And besides I've got a big family. Four girls
and four bays. Seven of them are out of school. And the
seven of them are working. Isn't that enough to have work.
lug in one familyt"
"You have bad all kinds of luck. Big fanny and all
of them working. Do you thirdr that would happen to me, Like
hell it would, My wife is always making a lot of noise about
nothing and when 1 try to shut her up she starts throwing our
mortgaged furniture at me The big fat slob don't know enough
to last her over night. And the kids. rix of them. Po you
think that they work? The oldest girl had to get married be-
cause she was running around too much and finally got hooked.
The boys all drink. Only the youngest cirl do I like. Ohe
I like them all but you know it's that says Maybe there in
one you like better than the others be graduated from
hidh school two years ago. She goes to a Catholic College
down country and it's last ths pleas for her because she
is so 7ood. Always thinks of my wife and is. Sends us a
letter almost every other day. Mon she's at home she helps
the woman out with all the housework and swan works out to
get her own spending money. Everybody likes her. Goes to
church all the time but she isn't one of these hypocritioal.
persons. 'ho goes out with boys and to dances and has a
good time but always it is clean fun with her. Mow I like
my little Annette..."
As if anxious to Chance the subject Hank broke ins
"Well anyhow Barre isn't the same as it was forty yelav
aco, Why* Barre should be the richest city in the country
for its size and look at it now. It's all because of these
isms that have been creeping up in this country. But about
neve Italian newspapers that they use to have here in Barre?
They didn't have mucl-- effect upon the people. When they
first oane out those papers converted some of the people to
their say of thinkinc but it wasn't soon before they saw the
light and that stuff died. But it was never harmful here in
Barre."
"Ch, it didn't do so muCh good. Mout the hell was all
that stink that they raised if it wasn't for the stuff that
they rrinted. If they hadn't stopped its it might have
spread and ruined everybody.°
"They stopped because they saw how futile it was to cow.
tinue. You're all wet when you try to tell ne that it didn't
stop of its own asoord.°
Hank continued, "And when they had strikes here the
laborer and the manufacturer weld have their differences
and then if they were not settled when the next morning came
the laborer just wouldn't go to work. You never saw aey
parades or any fights around then. The worker Would probtbly
go fishlnr and the manufacturer mold probably work in his
garden or just the other way around. The strike that
speaking or lasted until nineteen hundred and tuenty‘tbrees°
Joe interrupted, 'And then they got those madam French
bastards down here from Canada. The manufaeturer wanted to
get new blood into his business and by god be did.'
Picardi went an with another phase of itsuAnd those guys
that did believe in anarehism and communism were a funny lot.
I knew a lot of them well. I didn't know them as well as I
do some people but I knew them pretty well and let me tell
you they were goadam queer. Ilby you take that r7alleanni.
He's Pussolinils right hand man now. He was nothing but a
shyster lawyer. He and a bunch of fellows cane over from
the old country and settled in different parts of the country
where there were Italian oolonies. AS it happened he came to
Barre. To meet him on the street you'd think that be was
nothing more than a grease nonkey. But he was really a brilw
hunt man. He would give a talk in some part of the town to
a group of Italians and convert a few of themto his soy of
thInU4ng and then pass the bat around. He mould probably
collect around forty dollars and then welt till that was
gone and then be would give another talk and that was the
way he lived* Wadi did the same thing* Then all of a
sudden he left the country and ended up in London* He
eventually died there* Vacherelli was the same kind of a
fellow* He ended up in Paris*"
Mario looked up from his beer aidgave his version*
"All in all those fellows didn't do =Disbars here but if
the bastards bad ever got a foothold an the place it mold
have been too bad* ,4nd that's 'bat the setter with our
government right new. nothing but a bunch of thick headed
fools making bigger fools out of people like us* If they
would only throw out those damn Jews* They're the *tune of
all the trouble that you find in every °country and they're
going to be the cause of a revolution in our own country*
wait and see 1"
Bank had his theory, "The trouble is that all these
is emanate right frau Vashingtan. Those fellows have been
monkeying around with this government so damn long that it
is getting serious* Franklin hoosevelt is the worst one of
them all, pendin,7 and spending till our country is practically
bled of its wealth I've got nothing against him personally,
it's just against his views* Why, they're trying to brine
up our younger generation so that they will be Americans and
what the hell has happened? Our worst riffraff is found right
here In our mricanized youth. •'.nd where do you think that
all this anarchism comes frcm? You can't tell ne that it
comes from the work n. no, sin l You give the common
working' man a decent week's pay and he is the most contented
man in the world."
Joe offered a solution for the origination of the isms.
".1kre all these leme cone from is from your educated college
graduates. Finer they develop these radical ideas themselves
or else the professors teach it to them in college and some of
the students nay have believed in them and one out and preached
then to others. That's the way it becan. Ijut there were never
any extreme radicals in Dame. There may have boon a few. Of
course, that's the ease with a few collo e students. I couldn't
honestly say that every college student believes these crazy
ideas or Is wen taught tlion. o, I can't say that because T
Irnow that It isn't true in every case.:ow you take vy