The Death Ship by B. Traven Page A

not say so, sir. I think that as a sailor who works hard I am fighting every day for the greatness of my country. Our country would not be a great country if there were no sailors and no working-men,”
    “Didn’t you say you shipped in New Orleans?”
    “Yes, sir, that’s right.”
    “Then, of course, you are a member of the — now, what is the name? Yes, of the Industrial Workers of the World. Syndicalism and such things?”
    “No, sir, never heard of it.”
    “But you said you shipped in New Orleans?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Never in Los Angeles?”
    “No, sir.”
    For a long while he looks at me with dull eyes. He does not know what more to ask. He drums the desk with his pencil. Then he says: “Well, I cannot give you a passport, and that is all there is to it. Sorry.”
    “But why, sir?”
    “Upon what proofs? Your statement that you claim American citizenship is no proof. Personally, I believe that you are American. However, the Department of Labor in Washington, to which I am responsible for making out passports and other identifications, does not wish to know what I believe and what I do not believe. This office in Washington accepts only unquestionable evidence and no mere belief of a consul abroad. If you bring proper evidence, it will be my obligation to issue a passport to you. How can you prove that you are American, that I am obliged to spend my time on your case?”
    “You can hear that, sir.”
    “How? By your language? That is no proof.”
    “Of course it is. It is the best proof.”
    “Here in France there live thousands of Russians who speak better French than the average Frenchman does. That does not make a Russian a Frenchman, does it? In New Orleans, on the other hand, there are several thousand people who speak only French and very little if any English. Nevertheless they are as true Americans as I am. Texas and southern California are full of people who speak Mexican and Spanish, but they are Americans in spite of their foreign language. So what proof is the language you are speaking?”
    “I was born in the States.”
    “Prove that and I will give you a passport within two days. But even if you were born in the States, I would still have the right to question your citizenship, because it might have happened that your father, before you were of age, certified on your behalf for another citizenship. I would not go that far, of course. Just prove to me that you were born in the States. Or name me a few persons who will testify that you are native-born.”
    “How can I ever prove anything, then, since my birth was not registered?”
    “That is not my fault, is it?”
    “It looks, sir, as though you would even doubt the fact that I was born at all?”
    “Right, my man. Think it silly or not. I doubt your birth as long as you have no certificate of your birth. The fact that you are sitting in front of me is no proof of your birth. Officially it is no proof. The law or the Department of Labor may or may not accept my word that I have seen you and that, as I have seen you, you must have been born. I know this is silly, it is nonsense. But I did not make the law. Do you know that I might get fired or discharged from public service for having given you a passport without any other evidence than your word and your presence in person? Frankly, in your case I do not know what to do.”
    He pressed a button. In came the clerk. The consul writes my name on a scrap of paper, asking me how I spell it. “Look up this name, please, Gerard Gales, last residence New Orleans, sailor, Tuscaloosa .”
    The clerk leaves the door partly open. I see him going into a small room where all the files are located. I know what he is. looking for: the deported, the undesirables, the criminals, the anarchists, the communists, the pacifists and all the other trouble-makers whom the government is anxious to refuse re-entry into the country.
    The clerk returned. The consul had been standing at the window in the