OF THE SOUTH SEAS U3 



The heavy leads of the band were carried by an 

 American with a two-horsepower accordion. He told 

 me his name was Kelly. He was under thirty, a reso- 

 lute, but gleesome chap, red-headed, freckled, and un- 

 restrained by anybody or anything. He had no respect 

 for us, as had the others, and had come, he said, for 

 practice on his instrument. He had a song-book of the 

 Industrial Workers of the World, a syndicalistic group 

 of American laborers and intellectuals, and in it were 

 scores of popular airs accompanied by words of dire 

 import to capitalists and employers. One, to the tune 

 of "Marching through Georgia," threatened destruc- 

 tion to civilization in the present concept. 



"I 'm an I. W. W.," said Kelly to me, with a shell of 

 rum in his hand. "I came here because I got tired o' 

 bein' pinched. Every town I went to in the United 

 States I denounced the poli<;e and the rotten govern- 

 ment, and they throwed me in the calaboose. I never 

 could get even unlousy. I came here six weeks ago. 

 It 's a little bit of all right." 



When Kelly played American or English airs and the 

 Tahitians sang their native words, he gave the I. W. W. 

 version in English. Some of these songs were transpo- 

 sitions or parodies of Christian hymns, and one in par- 

 ticular was his favorite. Apparently he had made it 

 very popular with the natives of the band, for it vied 

 with the "Himene Tatou Arearea' in repetition. It 

 was a crude travesty of a hymn much sung in religious 

 camp-meetings and revivals, of which the proper chorus 

 as often heard by me in Harry Mom'oe's mission in the 

 Chicago slums, was : 



