The crane’s boom transports an elegant, green automobile from the pier into the belly of the “Pittsburgh”. Then comes the last piece of baggage, that last object of curiosity, overlaid with tears. The 18,000-ton steamer of the Red Star Line slips quietly from its ropes and chains. One’s thoughts are muddled together by grief, fear, and secret joy. The anguish fades as the Antwerp Cathedral grows smaller, the sad souls on the shore transformed into tiny stick figures whose bobbing hats resemble the dot above the letter i.
Interest in the interior of the ship and its passengers is the first order of business in the late afternoon. The bustle and excitement of setting off provokes an appetite, faint and hopeful that it leads to the dining room. Table space is somehow arranged according to nationality. Everyone jealously watches everyone else, especially the size of the portions. The bartenders remain in the background at first, although the passengers can be sorted according to preferences for either whiskey or English beer. Harmonica music brings everyone together. The few Germans from Stuttgart are dressed in felt slippers but without their formal neckwear. With great enthusiasm despite the excessive heat and stuffiness, they perform their heritage dances.
Far below in steerage, the Poles have found an empty storeroom all for themselves. Self-sufficient, determined, a bit wistful but without illusion, they are prepared to work anywhere in the world. East Elbe or Canada, it makes no difference. They toil and live like animals, here as there.
On deck, faces are beginning to turn red as the discussion becomes more hopeful: "We want to work! We’ll grab that money with everything we got. We are skilled Europeans, it won't be hard for us!" They are dazzled by visions of the dollar bill, believe all the miracles they have been told, but know nothing about reality. They can't be helped, they hear only what they want to hear. Here in third class, they have been stripped of their last resources, like the petty bourgeois who pray for a good trip through this desert-ocean towards Mecca.
By morning, the ship docks at the outermost pier of Southampton. Dense fog envelops everything. The egg-shaped helmets and batons are disbursed among dockworkers who pay attention to neither them nor the newly-arrived passengers. The air is humid, the metal railing sticky. Slowly, the propeller kicks into reverse; somehow land disappears unnoticed. A soft, steady tremor hums faintly, but at night, in a cabin just above the propeller, it makes you aware of all life’s troubles. The rattling and droning of the engine room proceeds in cycles and sometimes seems to come from the right and sometimes from the left. The expansive cabins of the upper classes are higher up and in the centre of the ship, and consequently removed from the ship’s mechanisms. The petty bourgeois on the lower decks stop their cursing and disappear because of seasickness, then reappear only to disappear again, like the large fish seen from afar. Everyone is isolated. The crowd personifies the diversity of tongues. At suppertime, this huge, tangled swirl of languages turns the sick into romantics, pale and uneasy before the costly meal.
While everything turns inside, a splendid change occurs outside. Slowly, gently, lovingly, dawn peaks through. Steel-blue waves form a silver spray, coloured like liquid marble that dissolves into swells. The wake spreads wider and wider until it reaches the end of the horizon, rising up to touch the shiny grey seagulls that are lost to the sky. The gulls have quieted, resting on the waves, expelled from the night. No more weaving to-and-fro, no more screeching from the yellow, hungry beaks; the triangled flock drifts peacefully. All alone, you listen hour after hour to the drumbeat of the waves. Faint colours burst like strange lights flashing in the distance. As if tipsy on a tightrope, a red lantern dances recklessly through the night, through the vast storage room of fog: Cherbourg beckons. Like a huge, illuminated Bengali raft, a strange ship rolls in. Ropes fly through the air, firm hands grab hold. A jolt of 18,000 tons, then everything is readied for loading. Curious faces stare wearily, until it becomes monotonous. Stewards shoo the passengers from the deck. The ship moves on. Sleep comes with difficulty. Dull and precise, the waves thud against tar and old paint.
The bell rings for breakfast. The Poles have already eaten, now they tidy their cabins. The stewards manipulate their naivete to make their own lives easier. These are workers who not only work without pay, but have paid one hundred dollars for their positions.1 Service is better where the “good Europeans” sit; nonetheless, the roast beef tastes like leather, no different from the day before. The coffee is bad, the portion small. Did they expect more would be seasick? Lousy, cheap food seems the rule here. The same thing every day, no fruit, no vegetables, only inedible meat, steamed cabbage, black potatoes, and always the same bread, the same jam. What dividends this must yield! The wages of the employees are low, their work hard; they shamelessly hunt for tips, they are irritable, unfriendly, and unwilling as soon as they receive nothing. Even now, the tip cup circles the table and fills with coins.
In the bright morning, the ship heads towards Queenstown. The Irish coast is beautiful: rocks – cliffs – surf. A lighthouse, clean and at the cliff’s edge; walls surround part of the coast; an old cannon points into the distance, reminiscent of a peaceful era. The hills are almost green, grey boulders atop brown earth; leafless trees reach upwards haphazardly. Distant houses and churches are glued to the mountains like colourful toys, a romantic mood lent to the island, a home for poets. But cursed ground for the emigrants who leave the starvation wages pegged at twenty shillings per week.
The “Pittsburgh” stops briefly to bring the Irish passengers on board. It will be eight days without land, eight days confined to a small space with only the rhythm of the sea for company. But how? Ships of this size can weather storms. Wireless communication can speedily bring help. It’ll be rocky. Even while these concerns were foremost in people’s minds, a gruelling and predatory game conducted by the ship’s staff has already begun. An arrogant officer sweeps through the rooms of the lower deck: “Everyone to the doctor, quickly, hurry!” Five hundred men stand crammed together, quiet and lifeless. The examinations are to take place every other day. Up in the ballroom, a jazz band plays, the stewards are busy, and the officers solicitous: “Madam, would you like another blanket? Madam, to see the doctor?” They are able to ask politely, but the five hundred underneath stand half-naked in rows in front of the detached, provisional examination room. What will be done to them? The chief steward checks their shirts for lice. "Next!" The doctor, a small, black-bearded scoundrel with bloodshot, beady eyes, roars harshly: "Pants down!" First, he visually inspects the body, then taps and finds faults. Not with everyone. Some one hundred are selected. Hernias, obesity, missing digits on a finger, and so on. He takes each person’s inspection card, promises each a private consultation, "special care" as he says.
Later, it's the women’s turn. The partitioned area fills up with the younger ship’s officers, each flexing his medical competence. "Blouses off!" a display of nakedness free of charge, just Polish "dirty beasts". As they climb onto the table, the electric bulb illuminates them inside out. Terror grips anyone selected, those who are told that disembarking won’t be allowed because of their defects and alleged ailments. Anxiety consumes these poor souls. They must land: all their European ties have been broken, their fare already spent. They must cross. They attempt to ask the doctor: surely he can turn a blind eye and return the inspection card? Upset, they complain that they’ve just heard all this for the first time, a deceit only told to them when already at sea. Before setting off, they had been examined by four doctors and found to be in good health, recommended by the travel agency’s doctor. Why all these difficulties now? Doesn’t the shipping company care about the fate of its passengers? Wouldn’t it otherwise have to provide a return trip free of charge?2
Soon everything was cleared up. In the private cabin of the ship's doctor, each of the selected passengers was told what was needed to cure them. A head rub with petroleum jelly ran six dollars. A salve of boric acid cost three dollars. For ten dollars, a wink and a promise, although five dollars was sufficient to calm the situation. In a somewhat more difficult situation, twenty dollars might be necessary. This is how this scoundrel and his helpers stuffed their pockets by extracting the remaining resources from people already anxious. This guaranteed that no one would forget that even on the open sea the world is ruled by exploiters. As if to mock them, every cabin door is posted with a declaration: Health Inspection Passed!
There are other rules too, such as the requirement to bathe every other day, even though the bathing rooms on the entire lower deck are always locked. A malfunctioning shower in the toilet area is the only possibility, if you don’t mind a half dozen spectators. And how is it possible that there’s no ice on the ship? The drinking water is putrid and scarce. Do the fresh-water bathing women in second class consume too much, or is the ship trying to sell all its beer before New York? A few brave individuals complain, but insincere promises can’t hide the condescension: you may have paid $115 for the twelve days, nonetheless you remain a wretched proletarian who has everything to do and nothing to demand. The drudgery of the lower deck affects everything, from the officers’ privileges to the actions of their servants. Finally, one day it reaches a climax. A steward carrying a coffee pot is knocked down during breakfast.
The Irish are the most refreshing. Their cheerfulness is irrepressible. Seemingly naïve and boisterous like children, they are generous and broad-minded as people. And brave fellows too. The Dublin uprisings, the entire Irish freedom movement was certainly not a purely economic matter, but drew its intensity and tenacity from the psychological temperament of this lively group of people. Here, on the ship they form a happy group whose folk dances have them splitting apart, gathering anew, and whirling about. Add to this a harmonica, whose rhythmic, bopping player has long forgotten that the corners of his mouth have torn open and his lips bleeding. This fantastic scene continues for hours and days, until the whiskey and a great storm overwhelms it. Returning to the cabins is out of the question, they lie about half on top of one another as if thrown together in a slaughterhouse yard.
The open sea brings terrible cold. Violent storms send snow and ice over the deck. It is impossible to see beyond one’s own body. At night the ship treads water, unable to get its bearings. Layers of ice cover anything with wood or metal. You stay off the deck to avoid being washed overboard. The ship shutters spasmodically. The sick crouch together inside, vomiting. All the hatches are closed, and the stench is stale and fetid. While waves appear green against the glass, people are colourless.
Shortly before Canada's coast, the sea calms and the whiskey trade once again comes alive. Everything starts up again, one can breathe again. Suitcases and bundles are taken out, papers posted up. The ship steers into the Halifax harbour. The water in the bay is calm and greenish black in colour, seagulls perch motionless, as if chiselled, on the huge iron barges. Canada's mountains are snowcapped. The vast expanses of the tall, dark pine forests appear black on white. In the harbour lie drab, abandoned steamships and forgotten old sailing ships–crooked, calm, half-sunk. Circling the harbour are factories, gasworks, tenements, and churches, sooty and ugly. Evening turns the water jet black; the spray from the propeller is dirty grey. Tar descends over everything, except on the horizon, where the sun disappears in a glorious display of massive red that makes the mountain snow glimmer.
Cold! Cold! Poor, freezing merchants–Negroes–buzz around near the ship, hawking their goods. People buy quickly because they too are freezing. A herring steamer arrives, its bow resembling a bearded snout. Icy, frayed ropes, filthy from use, look grotesque.
The “Pittsburgh” continues along the coast to New York. The weather is good. A fleet of sailing ships appears, alongside an American warship. Swift torpedo boats stomp through the waves. The next day, in the misty morning, the "Pittsburgh" is anchored on the Hudson River. Skyscrapers loom on the right. "Liberty" lies half in fog. There’s also a fort with huge cannons placed on its ramparts. Ships of all kinds and sizes drift past.
The ship stops. We have arrived at our destination. To the left and right are the piers of the individual lines. The green car is unloaded. First class leaves in their furs, greeted on land by a new round of tears.
The lower deck is kept onboard the entire day, restless and uneasy. Not until darkness settles on New York, when thousands of bright lights pour into the Hudson River, with people crossing the river on well-lit ferries, as the day quiets and Coney Island broadcasts "America" with millions of lights, only then do the passengers on the lower decks, dejected and exhausted, leave the agonies of this modern luxury steamer, with all its comforts, and move to the lower deck of America.
Originally published as Überfahrt in Kommunistische Arbeiter-Zeitung Organ der Kommunistischen Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands, 8 Jg, No. 36, May 1927, pp 2-3.