Dorothy Thompson

Buffalo Courier/December 12, 1920

Some Call Him a Pirate, But He Has Made His Fellow Sailors Shipowners as Well, and the Government Stands in Awe of Him

Milan, Italy, Oct. 13.—A Genoese sailor, a captain from the city of Christopher Columbus, has all of Italy, more or less, by the ears. The seamen in every Italian port from Trieste to Salerno call him “Papa,” certain other gentlemen associated with the sea—the shipowners—have been known to refer to him as “the pirate.” To the rest of the country he is one of the few unique and effective personalities who stand out from among the turbulent masses in present-day Italy.

I saw him first on October 14. I had been at work in a typewriting establishment in Genoa when suddenly the lights went out and the proprietor groped his way over to me to say that he had meant to warn me—there was a two hours’ strike on throughout the country to protest against the retention in jail of certain political prisoners and to demand the official recognition of Soviet Russia.

Outside the tramways were at a standstill, shopkeepers were closing the blinds in front of their windows, and a great crowd carrying a red banner before them and singing “The Red Flag,” the most popular of Italian revolutionary songs, was surging down the street, filling it from curb to curb.

I was caught up among them. Forward we marched into one of the great vaulted arcades of the city. Against the wall, in front of an empty shop, was a stepladder. From the top rung of it a man was speaking. The crowd listened with more or less interest. Occasionally there was a protest. I heard one voice cry “Reformist!” and another, “When do we have the revolution?”

A Man of the Sea

He had finished. There was mild applause, a little cheering, and a few bars of “The International” sung as another band of “comrades” pressed into the passage. Then an excited whisper rippled over the crowd. “Giulietti!” they announced to each other.

Giuseppe Giulietti, sea captain, member of parliament, secretary of “Il Lavatore del Mare,” the Italian Trade Union of Workers of the Sea, founder of the unique co-operative enterprise “The Garibaldi,” looks as little like a labor leader as one can imagine. He is handsome enough to be a beau, and to the crowd he was evidently something more than a leader—he was an adored personality.

He is fairly tall, and locks of black hair fell into his eyes as he thundered and gestured in true Italian fashion. I do not know what he said, in the magnificent baritone that rolled out along the lofty corridor, while the crowd outside pressed forward to hear, restrained by great cordons of carabinieri. I do know that the amazing vitality of the man thrilled through the crowd and magnetized it. He laughed a great deal, with very white teeth and the crowd laughed with him. When he finished they cheered and cheered.

An Uncatalogued Personality

Giulietti belongs in none of the groups—right socialists, centrists, left socialists, anarchists, syndicalists—nor do the Workers of the Sea belong to the General Confederation of Labor, or to any other body. They are independent and their leader is an uncatalogued personality.

He is posed against a particularly effective background. Genoa is his city and it is the correct milieux. It has not the tradition of grandeur of empire that Rome has, nor of art, as Florence has. but it has the tradition of trade from the time when the traders were the adventurers of the world. In its streets one hears an international language—phrases of ancient Latin; twisted Italian, much Arabic, and a generous sprinkling of Spanish and Portuguese. Its streets are caverns between the high plaster walls of ancient houses painted pink and yellow, and off the main streets are still narrower alleys, which clamber up or down hill along a hundred shallow stone steps, through dim porches, one above the other. Washings flutter from the balconies of every window and the streets seem to be flying a thousand banners. In early evening the light is dim and comes from dusty-paned lanterns, bracketed against the walls. It is impossible to believe that the people who turn into these crooked, dim-lit ways are bent on ordinary business. Passing the ring of light cast by some dirty little shop one looks in half expecting to see a band of pirates counting their gains.

It is a romantic city in which Giulietti is a romantic figure. He is true to the ancient tradition of the Genoese republic. San Giorgio, which was the ancient palace of the captains of the port, still stands to recall the days when the sea captains were the great men of Genoa. Giulietti’s palace, however, is a modern office building of stone and steel, owned by the Seaman’s Federation, and fronting the port.

In the present disturbed condition of Italy what Giulietti will do assumes a great importance, for he has the power to carry with him every sailor in every Italian port. And what he will do in any emergency no one knows. He was a member of the Socialist party, but when the party voted against participation in the war Giulietti withdrew and carried the Federation with him. He lashed them out to fight against Germany with as scathing an indictment of German militarism as was uttered by any Nationalist patriot.

He never relaxed his efforts against Germany for an instant. The Socialists gave him over to the junkers. But he had said in the first call issued to the workers that same year:

“Called to arms for the independence of a people violated by German militarism, we workers of the sea salute you with the words of our manifesto.

“On the tomb which contains the bones of the unvindicated martyrs of Italian independence we will sharpen the weapons with which, through a war of national independence, we will open the way to the social revolution.”

If he never weakened in his campaign against the Germans, he has also never forgotten the threat contained in this manifesto, though what he means by social revolution, when the term is translated into action, it is difficult to say.

Certainly no class of workers in Italy have seen more radical changes in their status than the Italian seamen, but until now these changes have been wrought by means of organization and by constitutional methods.

Long before the war this sea captain had accomplished a remarkable feat in welding together into one organization all the Italian workers of the sea—everyone, from the boy who washed down the decks to the captain who commanded the largest trans-Atlantic ship. He had abolished the old system of military discipline and put the settlement of disputes on ship board in the hands of a committee of the federation. An almost religious zeal dominated his efforts. He formulated the seamen’s credo:

“Love your interiors and your superiors as yourselves.

“Never betray the league.

“Better yourselves by honest work and study.

“Don’t be a spy.

“Work not only for yourselves, but also for others, for the good which you do to others will rebound to your own benefit.

“Be fearless and strong. Weakness will bring you slavery.

“Be good, because goodness will bring you happiness.”

He has a captain’s respect for discipline, combined with his zeal in behalf of the workers.

The Garibaldi Co-operative

Giulietti organized the Garibaldi Co-operative just after the war. At that time, the seamen had just won an increase of 50 lire per month to meet the rising cost of living. Giulietti went before them with a scheme whereby the first month’s increase and a portion of every month’s wages thereafter were to be set aside to create a fund with which the workers should purchase ships. His proposal was received with great enthusiasm and there was constituted among the workers of the sea a co-operative named after the Italian national hero, Garibaldi, himself a seaman. To quote the constitution, the co-operative was organized “with unlimited capital for a period of four years and renewable thereafter;’ its purpose to “carry on navigation by means of national ships; to develop the Italian merchant marine; to aid in the economic and moral development of the workers of the sea.”

But the most remarkable feature of this co-operative enterprise is that it frankly offers neither dividends nor interest. Although it is an organization in itself, with its own direction and bookkeeping, separate from that of the federation, every member of the federation is a member of the co-operative. Every member from steward to captain is pledged to buy at least one share in the co-operative, for which he pays 5,000 lire in monthly installments, each payment being entered in a “log,” which is kept by every seaman. The profits go back into a fund which will be used to purchase more ships. “Until,” says the constitution, “the corporation will have reached such a development that it will be able to regulate with its own fleet the function f the merchant marine, and the value of the ships owned by the corporation will have reached the amount of 200,000,000 lire.”

Giulietti Explains

Then the corporation will begin to pay back the investors, in monthly installments proportional to the amount invested—not interest or dividends, but the amount of the original capital.

“For,” explained Giulietti to me, “the workers of the sea do not want to become capitalists. That is the trouble with most co-operative enterprises. They develop the bourgeois psychology. The seamen of Italy did not found the Garibaldi Cco-operative for their own benefit. They founded it in the interest of all of the workers of Italy and of the world. When we have bought these ships, and paid for them, and paid back to ourselves our original investment, without a cent of interest, we shall present these ships to the workers of Italy as their merchant marine—a gift from the Italian sailors.”

This is the idealism in the man; this is the spirit which makes him “papa, amatissime.” But whence the opprobrium “pirate.”

After the war a commission had been appointed by a grateful government to enquire into means for improving the condition of the sailors. Giulietti, who is a member of parliament, elected on an independent ticket, was a member of this commission. Lying in the harbor at Genoa at the time were five ships. They had belonged to Germany, and their disposition was in question. Giulietti bid for them in the name of the Garibaldi. The commission approved and thee government approved the commission.

“But,” said Giulietti, “weeks passed, and some unknown force seemed to be preventing the consummation of the transaction. And then it was announced that the government was planning a different disposition of the ships—was planning, in fact, to give them to those shipowners who had lost vessels in the war.”

Action by “the Pirate”

It was then that he won the title of “pirate.” For he seized the ships, as they lay in the harbor. The sailors on board ran up the red flag, with the black letters GARIBALDI, and every seaman in Italy prepared to stand behind the action with a strike, or with the more modern and effective Italian method of seizing the industry and holding it until a settlement is effected.

The negotiations were then speedily concluded. Giulietti purchased the ships for less than 7,000,000 lire. All were cargo vessels, ocean-going steamers of at least 7,000 tons. The sailors renamed them: Andrea Costa, for the founder of Italian Socialism; Luigi Rizzo, for the president of the Garibaldi Co-operative, the gallant seaman from Fiume, who sank the Austrian ship Veribus Unitus in the Adriatic during the war, with only a tiny destroyer; Mazzini, for the national patriot, and so forth.

Since then the co-operative has purchased two more ships, one in England and another from the port of Genoa, and there is money, they say, to purchase seven more when the right opportunity comes.

While I was in Genoa the Andrea Costa lay in port. She had been to New York with a cargo of oranges, the cadet told me, and had only revently returned. The Italian flag flew from the stern, and the red flag from the mast, and on the bow a bronze medallion of the head of Garibaldi, presented by the Italian Labor Temple in New York, bore also the Soviet coat of arms, a scythe crossed with a hammer, in an encircling sheaf of wheat.

Other Garibaldi ships have gone to Argentina and Brazil on peaceful missions and one has gone with food to Soviet Russia.

Giulietti’s sway is not over the ships of the Garibaldi alone. Fantastic tales are told about the Rodosta, a ship which arrived at Genoa a few weeks ago flying the flag of the czar of Russia. Giulietti explained: “It was flying the flag of a government which does not exist and doing so it was an outlaw ship, a pirate. Therefore we demanded of the port authorities that it should not leave the port. We found that it had been a German ship, which had come into the possession of the Russian government during the war, and in the chaotic state of affairs which ensued during the revolution had passed into the hands of a private owner.”

The newspapers said that Giulietti had seized the ship in the name of Lenin, but this he denied.

On another occasion a ship bound for Gen. Wrangel, and loaded with ammunition and arms, found its way instead to D’Annunzio. Again the Socialists “do not understand Giulietti.”