Tom “Tommy” Shutt Jr. Character Analysis

There was a new stirring in labor all over the country; a demand for unions organized according to industries and not according to crafts. It was an old idea, which had had to wait for the workers to realize the need. In the midst of mass poverty and mass unemployment thousands of workers in the Detroit area had started discussing this fundamental idea, that there must be one big union of workers in the motor-car industry, regardless of what kind of work they did. Henry Ford, master of the labor of two hundred thousand men, would deal with one union of that number, and not with a hundred small unions.

I am greatness, I am power, I am pride, pomp, and dominion, said the fortune of Henry Ford; I am a dynasty, surviving into the distant future, making history which will not be “bunk,” carrying the name of Ford and the glory of Ford to billions of unborn people. But there are evil men, devils in human form loose in the world, who plot to take that glory from me; who desire that the world shall talk, not about Henry and Edsel, and Henry II, and Benson, and Josephine Clay, and William Ford, now fully grown and ready for their share of glory, but about persons with names such as Trotsky and Zinoviev and Bela Kun and Radek and Liebknecht and Luxemburg and Jaurès and Blum.

Tom Shutt couldn’t see any member of his audience, but he could hear them, and they were not slow in letting him know what they thought about his arguments. Were they getting a living wage out of the motor industry? Were they able to buy the products of the factories and the farms? They made plain that they were not; and Tom told them that their troubles could be summed up in one simple statement: that under the New Deal profits had increased fifty percent while wages had increased only ten percent. So the very factor which had caused the depression was working faster than ever, leading them straight to another smashup, unless they could find a way to increase wages at the expense of profits.

The gangsters were making a professional job of it. They had Tom on his side and were kicking him in the small of his back to loosen his kidneys.

“Chassez out,” called the prompter; the old-timers always pronounced it “Shashay.” And then, “Form lines.” The dancers moved with perfect grace, knowing every move.

The chief executioner was now kicking his victim in the groin, so that he would not be of much use to his wife for a while.

“Six hands around the ladies,” called the prompter. Such charming smiles from elderly ladies, playing at coquetry, renewing their youth.

There was a new stirring in labor all over the country; a demand for unions organized according to industries and not according to crafts. It was an old idea, which had had to wait for the workers to realize the need. In the midst of mass poverty and mass unemployment thousands of workers in the Detroit area had started discussing this fundamental idea, that there must be one big union of workers in the motor-car industry, regardless of what kind of work they did. Henry Ford, master of the labor of two hundred thousand men, would deal with one union of that number, and not with a hundred small unions.

I am greatness, I am power, I am pride, pomp, and dominion, said the fortune of Henry Ford; I am a dynasty, surviving into the distant future, making history which will not be “bunk,” carrying the name of Ford and the glory of Ford to billions of unborn people. But there are evil men, devils in human form loose in the world, who plot to take that glory from me; who desire that the world shall talk, not about Henry and Edsel, and Henry II, and Benson, and Josephine Clay, and William Ford, now fully grown and ready for their share of glory, but about persons with names such as Trotsky and Zinoviev and Bela Kun and Radek and Liebknecht and Luxemburg and Jaurès and Blum.

Tom Shutt couldn’t see any member of his audience, but he could hear them, and they were not slow in letting him know what they thought about his arguments. Were they getting a living wage out of the motor industry? Were they able to buy the products of the factories and the farms? They made plain that they were not; and Tom told them that their troubles could be summed up in one simple statement: that under the New Deal profits had increased fifty percent while wages had increased only ten percent. So the very factor which had caused the depression was working faster than ever, leading them straight to another smashup, unless they could find a way to increase wages at the expense of profits.

The gangsters were making a professional job of it. They had Tom on his side and were kicking him in the small of his back to loosen his kidneys.

“Chassez out,” called the prompter; the old-timers always pronounced it “Shashay.” And then, “Form lines.” The dancers moved with perfect grace, knowing every move.

The chief executioner was now kicking his victim in the groin, so that he would not be of much use to his wife for a while.

“Six hands around the ladies,” called the prompter. Such charming smiles from elderly ladies, playing at coquetry, renewing their youth.