What chance has a heckler now? Half the audience are ex-hecklers who know all the tricks
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, March 21, 1942.
“With the way business is going,” said Jimmie Frise, “it is about time we began looking around for some nice juicy government job.”
“Why so?” I inquired. “There will always be newspapers, won’t there?”
“Maybe so,” countered Jim, “but will newspapers be bothered with the kind of stuff we can do? That’s the problem we’ve got to face. The world is getting more serious all the time. Everything is being rationed. Step by step, government is taking over everything. One of these days they’ll take over the newspapers.”
“Oh, yeah?” I demanded. “How about the freedom of the press?”
“Well, is that any more precious than the freedom,” retorted Jim, “of a man to buy what he likes and sell what he likes? Is it any more precious than freedom of speech? And there are a lot of guys locked up in concentration camps1, right in this province, who speeched too freely. Ah, no, my boy. one of these days, they will ration newspapers and some chartered accountant will come in as administrator of our newspapers. And the first two guys he will throw out will be us. We’re only frills.”
“Frills!” I snorted.
“Sure,” said Jim. “We’re just a luxury, like ripe olives. What the newspapers will print, under government control, will be the facts. A newspaper will read like a Canadian National time table. You will get the weather forecast and the speech in full of the minister of justice. With applause after each paragraph.”
“How long would the people put up with such nonsense?” I scoffed.
“Quite as long.” submitted Jim, “as they would put up with gas rationing and wage and price ceilings, and rationing of sugar and tires and clothes and all else. In the name of war, my dear sir, we will put up with anything. There is only one good job to have nowadays; and that’s a government job.”
“Well, I never expected to live to see the day,” I heaved.
“Who do you know up at Ottawa?” asked Jim. “We ought to have some pull. Couldn’t you get the job of collector of customs or something for the Port of Toronto? Think of all the fishing tackle that would pass through your hands as collector of customs.”
“Those days are gone forever, Jim,” I sighed. “There was a day when a man with pull could wangle himself into a job regardless of what his qualifications were. But government is no longer merely political. It is becoming industrial, financial, social and everything else. It is becoming expert. There are no better bankers in the banking business than the government has working for it now. And no better industrialists working on their own than are working for the government. In the old days, a smart financial man or a smart manufacturer could make a million dollars as easily as rolling over in bed. But the day came when the government took it all off him in taxes and super taxes. Why should a man worry about his own business and the government’s as well? So all the smart guys are working for the government, making just as much as they had left over after the government was through with them in the old days; and having a lot of fun as well.”
The True Art of Heckling
“I guess,” admitted Jim ruefully, “we haven’t got anything the government wants.”
“We could do propaganda,” I suggested.
“Propaganda won’t be necessary any more,” explained Jim, “when the government controls everything. There won’t be any opposition to propaganda.”
“We could take an active part in politics,” I offered.
“Too late,” said Jim hollowly. “There are about 20,000 guys ahead of us.”
“I attended quite a number of political meetings this last two or three years, Jim,” I said earnestly. “I could get witnesses to prove it,”
“Did you heckle?” demanded Jimmie.
“Heckle?” I inquired.
“You don’t take an active interest in politics unless you heckle,” stated Jim. “When I was a young kid, I loved to go to political meetings to help heckle. Down in Birdseye Center, we had a School of Heckling. It was run by a bad old guy who owned the harness shop in the village. Whenever a meeting was scheduled for our community, old Sam, the harness maker, would start his school for hecklers and we would all gather in the harness shop and learn our parts.”
“You must have been very young,” I suggested.
“Ah, you think of heckling,” said Jim, “as merely asking questions. The true art of heckling is the art of putting a meeting on the bum whether with questions or marbles or chair legs…”
“Marbles?” I protested.
“Look,” said Jim. “The meeting is called to order and proceeds. All is quiet and orderly. The chairman makes his speech. The business of the meeting is disposed of. Then the speakers begin, warming up the audience for the main speaker of the evening who is not yet arrived, but who is momentarily. He, of course, is a prominent politician, making speeches in half a dozen parts of the riding in the one night.”
“It’s the same today,” I confessed.
“Now,” said Jim, “old Sam, the master heckler, is in the audience. And we, his pupils of all ages, from boys of 15 up to old gentlemen of eighty, are discreetly scattered over the hall in little groups. The best way to seat hecklers is this: put the main heckler of the group in the middle, with a guard on either side of him. In the row in front of him, two men, sitting directly in front. And in the row directly behind, three more, to keep people from beaning him.”
“That makes eight hecklers to a squad,” I calculated.
“Correct,” said Jim. “Now, when the candidate arrives, the applause and cheers break out and the hecklers let go a few boos.”
“Correct,” I remembered.
“He has no time to waste,” said Jim. “And as soon as he reaches the platform, the chairman introduces him and he gets going. The first thing that happens, right up near the front row, an elderly gentleman in the audience gets his foot caught in the rungs of his chair.”
“How do you mean?” I inquired.
“It’s very simple,” explained Jim. “As soon as the speaker gets nicely started, you see this old bird up near the front starting to squirm and struggle. Everybody around him tries to help him. He has got his foot twisted around in the side rungs of the chair he is sitting on. The more he struggles, the more excited he gets, and the chair starts banging and people stand up to help him and before they get his foot free, there has been a dandy disturbance. Everybody at the back is shouting ‘sit down’ and the speaker has had to stop his speech, and is looking embarrassed, the way all politicians in a hurry look.”
“Oh, boy,” I gloated.
“When quiet is restored,” went on Jim, “and the speaker gets nicely going again, the marbles start. From three or four different parts of the hall, you hear marbles starting to roll. You hear them fall ticking on the floor and then quietly rolling. At a little distance, you can’t hear them at all. But nearby you can hear them and you can’t help but look down at them and twist around to try and stop them with your foot. If you have four or five fellows with marbles scattered over the hall, and they all start at the one time, you have got people squirming and twisting all over the place.
“Gee, Jim,” I breathed.
“Oh, then there are the questions, asked by the squads,” said Jim, “and the lady who takes ill and jumps up, holding her hands to her mouth and running for the door. That’s usually reserved until right at the place the speaker starts his real oratory. Then there is the late comer. He should be a farmer. He comes in, right at the peak of the speech, and walks up the aisle, to the front, looking for a seat, stopping and looking up each row as he starts back from the front. He should even attempt to walk in two or three of the rows of seats, even when there isn’t a seat. That always creates a swell confusion.”
“Jim,” I interrupted. “You’ve got it. We will found a heckling school. Right here in Toronto. We can get hundreds of students enrolled. We can wreck any meeting in the country. The government would have to reward us with jobs. Maybe they would make us senators.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Jim, “I was noticing just the other day that they are having some sort of reorganization of the council up in George township. The reeve and half the council have gone to war and they are having trouble appointing substitutes.”
“Not a township meeting,” I protested.
“We’ve got to get some practice,” declared Jim. “There is no use starting anything without knowing a little about it. Maybe this heckling school idea is only another hare-brained enterprise. We ought to do a little experimenting, in a small way. before we launch out.”
So we found out that they were having a big meeting in George township on Thursday night. We got 25 cents worth of marbles. I borrowed an old press camera from Tom Wilson, our cameraman. It had no lens, which is the valuable part of a camera anyway; but it did have the flash bulb attachment which was what we wanted. And I loaded my pockets, in true press cameraman style, with the little flash bulbs they use.
The meeting was crowded for a fact. We got there at half-past seven in order to look the ground over, and even so, the hall was almost filled already. Jim got a seat in the second row. And I, identified as a newspaperman by the camera I carried open and ready in my hands, was permitted to sit at the edge of the platform.
By eight o’clock, the hall was full and all the space at the back taken up with standing room only.
The meeting was called to order at 8.05 sharp and the chairman, a very masterful looking gentleman in a blue suit, outlined the situation. He pointed out that two factions existed in the township. These factions had an equal right to be heard. He was going to see they received a hearing. And at this point of his speech, a very large policeman walked slowly down the aisle and wheeled and walked slowly back.
The first speaker was indignant looking gentleman. He was one of those people who was born with an indignant expression on his face. His manner of speech was indignant. He would utter a quick sentence. Then pause and glare around. Then utter another quick sentence. And a long pause, to let it sink in.
This was pie for Jimmie. He got his foot caught in the rung of his chair. He started to squirm. He started to struggle. He began to fight. The chair rattled and banged finally Jim and the chair and everything fell over, causing a great excitement. Fifteen people got to their feet in the first two rows to help him, and the whole hall got to its feet to see what the trouble was. The indignant man was now very indignant, because the pause was all of two minutes and he forgot what he had been saying.
Jimmie kept stirring and fidgetting and rubbing his ankle, which irritated the speaker terribly. Finally, Jim got up and hobbled out to the aisle.
“Is there a doctor in the house?” he inquired, in a hoarse whisper.
Ten rows back, he almost collapsed on his poor ankle, and a young lad of about 15 gave Jim his aisle seat. Jim sank into it.
The speaker had now wound up and was really pounding his fist into his palm. I stealthily slid down off the platform edge and crept along with my camera raised. I huddled there a few minutes, aiming my camera at him. Then I let fly. The flash bulb caused everybody in the place to rise half in their seats. The speaker forgot his argument. I crept back to my place and hoisted myself up on the edge of the platform again.
“Now,” rasped the indignant man, “in the first place…”
Up around Jimmie, in the tenth row, I saw people stirring and twisting in their seats. The marbles had started. Balloons at a hockey game are nothing to marbles. Everybody wants to kick a marble.
“Order, order,” warned the chairman, quietly.
The speaker had ceased speaking and was glaring redly at the meeting. People on the sides were standing up to see what was going on in the middle. I slid off the platform edge and began creeping, bent over, towards speaker again. I aimed the empty camera at him. Bang went the flash bulb.
“He’s a Fake”
“Order!” bellowed the chairman, hammering on the table.
When I turned away from dazzling the speaker, I saw Jim was surrounded by a struggling group of citizens.
All over the hall, people were standing and jumping on their chairs to see the excitement. I started to shove and fight my way up the aisle, my camera held high, as if to try to get a picture of the melee around Jim.
“Hey,” I heard a voice yell, “this bird has no lens in his camera! I know something about cameras..! He’s a fake.”
Hands gripped my shoulders. All was hubbub and riot. Strange angry faces swept around me and I was yanked this way and that. The policeman got me, and after one look at my camera, seeing the big gaping hole where the lens should be, hoisted me aloft and carried me out.
Jim was gripped by two large citizens who happened to find a pocket full of marbles on him.
We went out the door about the same time. And down the steps.
The policeman followed us down and out to our car, professionally.
“None of them tricks around here,” he said, not unkindly. “The minute you pulled that old trick with your foot in the rungs of the chair, there was at least fifty old-timers in that meeting who knew what was up.”
“Well, they didn’t need to get so rough,” declared Jim. “One of those big birds nearly twisted my arm off.”
“Who do you represent?” inquired the cop. “Henderson or Billings?”
“Never heard of them,” said Jim. “We were just out for some fun.”
“Well, times have changed,” said the cop. “People are taking an interest in public affairs now. It isn’t politics they’re interested in, any more. It’s themselves they’re interested in. And when people get interested in themselves, woe betide any monkey business from politicians or anybody else.”
“Have you any kids?” asked Jim. “Here’s some marbles for them.”
Editor’s Note:
- Note that at the time, concentration camp would be a generic term for an internment camp of some type. Now the term is more associated with the Nazi interment and death camps of World War 2. ↩︎
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