Out of This Furnace

“Hope sustained him, as it sustained them all; hope and the human tendency to feel that, dreadful though one's circumstances might be at the moment, there were depths of misfortune still unplumbed beneath one, there were people much worse off.” 

All workers like George Kracha really have to hold on to is the belief that their living situations will get better one day, somehow. It is hope for a better life, though they did not know how to bring this life about.

“The greater part went on from day to day feeling that all this was only temporary since such things couldn’t last, that just before human flesh and blood could stand no more something would happen to change everything for the better. But it never did.” 

Despair is viewed as a never-ending cycle here. Hope is held, then dashed, then picked up and held again. Hope is portrayed as a coping mechanism.

“I'm no more afraid now than I've ever been. God knows there is always danger; a man never knows going in if he'll come out on his own two feet. But what good does it do to worry? When your time comes to go, you go; it's up to God.’” 

This worldview is indicative of the first generation of immigrant workers. They feel lucky to have a job and shelter, and feel this “luck” as a divine providence of sorts that they have no control over.

“Like them, too, he had brought to America a conviction that the less one had to do with governments the better.” 

The early mistrust of the political system is viewed here. For George, government resembles the old dukes and emperors of Europe; there is no such thing as an honest government, or one for the people.

“To Kracha's way of thinking a little man could logically be for little men, but by his very success in getting nominated Bryan had ceased to be a little man. And the big man who was for the little man didn't exist, never had and never would." 

This quote underscores Kracha’s beliefs that once a person gains success, they no longer identify with the struggles of the oppressed, or those without success. In this way, no politician can be for immigrant workers.

“The dead was in her grave and the living were picking up where they had left off.” 

Elena’s death is tragic, yet this quote highlights just how quickly the living must go about their tasks. They are used to death, and they cannot wallow in grief. Wallowing does not put food on the table.

“He missed Elena, but not as a husband misses a beloved wife—that was hardly to be expected. She had long since ceased to be a large part of his life, and her part had never been larger than during the bitter years when he was learning that she could never be the kind of wife he wanted. He had learned it and made shift to accept it. It was accomplished at a cost to them both greater than could be made up in a single lifetime but such tragedies were too common for even those involved to feel unfairly put upon. In short, Kracha was a widower long before Elena died.” 

This sad quote explains how George Kracha felt himself a widower back when Elena first arrived in America, back when he found her physically and emotionally altered. It is a startling revelation, but for George, an honest assessment of their relationship and vindication for his affair with Zuska.

‘“Zuska, how did I get myself into so much trouble? I feel like a man in a foreign country. Little by little I’ve managed to mix myself in things that are too much for me. Trouble—I can stand trouble. But now I never know what to do next. Maybe I should have stayed in the mill. That’s where I belong.”

George’s viewpoint here is telling. He is an immigrant, but for the first time in a long time he feels displaced. Success has made him feel more alienated than hark work in the mills, and he wonders if he rose above his true place in life.

“At one time, Dorta, I give you my word it seemed to me as if the world were standing on its head. Nothing would go right for me. And all this time I had this feeling that it didn’t have to end badly, there was something to be done that would make it turn out all right, if only I knew what it was.”

This quote is symbolic of what the feeling of the American Dream is for many immigrants of the time. They feel success or change is just within their grasp. All it takes is a knowhow to reach out and claim it. Success is almost like something one can taste.

“In the old country the Slovaks had been an oppressed minority from the beginning of time, a simple, religious, unwarlike people, a nation of peasants and shepherds whom the centuries had taught patience and humility. In America they were all this and more, foreigners in a strange land, ignorant of its language and customs, fearful of authority in whatever guise. Arrived in America they were thrust—peasants and shepherds that they were—into the blast furnaces and rolling mills, and many of them paid with their lives for their unfamiliarity with machinery and the English language. Even more bewildering were the hostility and contempt of their neighbors, the men they worked with.” 

This quote highlights the fact that immigrants have not only to deal with the danger of machinery and language barriers, they have to deal with the reality of hatred and discrimination based on being foreign and therefore different.

“Like practically every other man in the mill Mike at first almost welcomed layoffs. To sleep late, stay up late, have whole days to himself, was a luxury a blast furnace worker could appreciate more than most men. As the panic deepened, as men were laid off for increasingly longer period, he began to worry.” 

Logically, Mike enjoys the time off, though he knows deep down that time off is a luxury none of them can afford. Time off means less money, which means deeper debt and more poverty.

“‘There was a time when I thought I'd surely get a good job sometime. I worked hard. I did what I was told and more. And I've seen them hire Irish, Johnny Bulls, Scotties, just off the boat and knowing no more about a steel mill than Mikie there, and in a year they're giving me orders. Not once or twice but many times. And I've been working in those furnaces over twenty years. I know my job, Marcha. I would take over that furnace tomorrow and make as good iron as Keogh ever did. But I'm a Hunky and they don't give good jobs to Hunkies. God damn their souls to hell.’”

This quote highlights the growing inequality that earlier immigrants faced. They are discriminated against as a group of people, even though they have seniority and a better skillset than newer workers. It highlights just how pejorative value is for bosses and those in charge.

“He had hated poverty and ugliness; he had resented injustice and cried out against that sin of sins, the degradation of man by man, believing the world held few things more precious than human dignity. He had never looked on work and good as more than the beginning of living, matters a man took in his stride as he went gathering life's richer fruits, love and pride, laughter, accomplishment, the things of the heart and the head that lifted man above the brute. He had felt that no human being need go without his portion of comfort and beauty and quietness; the world held enough for all and if some had less than others it was because men had ordered it so and it lay in men's hands to order differently. It had seemed to him that men needed only to have this explained to them and they'd rise and do what was necessary; and when they didn't he felt angry and bewildered. Out of sloth or fear or stupidity they did nothing, they appeared content with little, whom injustice did not seem to burn nor denial embitter.” 

This quote shows the depths of Mike’s worldview. He knows that, despite the ugliness he witnesses daily in the mills, mankind is inherently good. He feels that men can reach great heights and care for one another, but illogical thinking and fear of the unknown keep them from greatness.

“She had already learned how quickly people could get used to another's tragedy, how easily they accepted the change that had broken another's life in two. No one was ever unkind but they all had their own troubles, their own problems of living.”

Mary’s honest assessment of tragedy is harrowing. There is so much tragedy and hardship that other people can only be kind for so long before they must get on with the very real task of living with their own problems.

“To the strikers' demands for collective bargaining, for an eight-hour day, for one day's rest in seven, the newspapers retorted that the strikers were foreigners and anarchists and America would never stand for the red rule of Bolshevism. The strike was the work of Huns and radicals, a diabolical attempt to seize industry and establish Bolshevism in America.”

The strikers, meaning the union workers, are painted in unfavorable light as enemies of America even though they are simply protesting for basic human decency and fairer wages. This is a play on people’s emotions, regardless of how it makes the workers look or feel.

“And for a moment everything that had happened since Mike's death became a bad dream which she needn't take seriously any more because it was only a dream and all she had to do was turn in her sleep, as she always did when a nightmare became unbearable, and she'd awaken and find herself safe in her own bed, with Mike warm beside her.” 

Though Mary knows that Mike is dead, it is easy to dream of just starting all over or setting back the clock to a more favorable time. At times, reality is too hard to deal with and fantasy attempts to settle in.

“As time passed, as the machinery of the country slowed down and the streets darkened with unemployed and it became plain that something was wrong, and even plainer that no one knew what to do about it, Dobie occasionally wondered about those two with a certain grim amusement. Still, they couldn't have done much better by staying.” 

Dobie comes to realize that the Great Depression has put him and other protestors in Detroit in the same position. Now, they are all without a job, despite their willingness to leave or protest unfair working conditions.

“Such eager, even precipitant, deference to civil law was touching, but when the election of representatives was held, in the millennial atmosphere of bosses turned labor organizers and the company flinging money around in a fifteen per cent wage increase, Dobie refused to vote; and he was not alone. 'We need a union all right,' he told Julie, 'but not that kind. It's a company union and I don't intend to have anything to do with it.’”

Dobie and other workers come to realize that the steel company is simply padding the union with its own people, thus creating a puppet union that has no other objective than the objective or the bosses. By not making a choice, he effectively makes a choice for change.

‘“The men keep asking me when is the union going to ask for recognition,' he said. 'They say what's the use of having a union if we don't get any protection? They say if we get recognition, good. If we don't, they say we ought to go on strike. But as long as we don't have recognition we can't do anything.’” 

The fact that the union is not official finally comes to a head here as workers realize that the union without recognition is just talk. More than talk, it is a dangerous place to be as they are not protected from the company.

“In every steel town union membership had fallen off disastrously; following the collapse of the strike movement Tighe had reported to the A.F.L. convention in October that only some five thousand steelworkers still paid dues. The cold figures were disheartening in themselves, and a withering indictment of the man who revealed them; behind them, unexpressed, was the plight of the men in the mills, stripped defenseless by the union's defection.”

This quote highlights how effective the steel company is in keeping its own puppet organizers in charge of the union. As such, the union membership crumbles from infighting and failed realization of dreams for a better future.

“The efficiency of the system was undeniable. A 'request' faced a succession of hurdles: unfriendly Superintendents, Gordon's citations from the constitution of the E.R.P., Flack himself, and the ever-dependable 'corporation policy'; while for those that surmounted all these there waited at the end the bottomless pit of the City Office, whence none returned recognizable, if any returned at all.” 

The steel company ensures that the red tape of the union means that nothing of worth will be accomplished. The deception of the company is a sanctioned, institutionalized lie that feeds off the discontentment of the steelworkers.

“Dobie shrugged again. 'You have to work no matter where you go. Here at least I'm more sure of a job than I would be somewhere else. The kind it is. And—well, I feel at home here. I remember how it struck me that time I got back from Detroit. It was like coming home again after living in a boarding house. I belonged here. When I looked around everything seemed to fit my eyes, if that makes sense. Everything was just where it belonged, the streets, the houses, the mill. It's hard to explain.” 

Though Dobie is faced with countless trials and tribulations from working in the mill in Braddock, he admits that it feels like home in Braddock even after living other places. Despite the despair, there is a sense of belonging for Dobie. He wants to fight for that sense of place.

“The change, after the bumbling inefficiency of the old leadership, was startling. There had never been anyone to reply to the company, to newspaper publishers, to civic authorities, in their own language, which was the only language they understood, nobody to fight them in their own front years, which was the only place where they could be licked. There was now.” 

When things change for the better with the union, the difference is startling. For the first time, the union workers have people who care what they want and how they are treated. It is a revolution of thought.