Harper\'s Magazine - 03.2020

ARCHIVE 35

THE MOST HATED NATION

By John Dos Passos

From “San Francisco Looks West,” which appeared in the March 1944 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The complete essay—along with the magazine’s

entire 169-year archive—is available online at harpers.org/archive.

I

t was the foggy end of a drizzly

day. Along the lunch counter of

the Ferry Dock Tavern, gray-haired

men in overalls and leather jackets

were eating oyster stew. A set of

hamburgers sizzling on the electric

plate sent little wisps of the smell of

scorched beef up through the ciga-

rette smoke. From outside, through

the loosely slapped-together boards

of the frame building, came the

hoots and howls of steamboat whis-

tles. Through every crevice, the fog

seeped into the tavern, bringing with

it a tang of rotting evergreens and

giving faint ruddy halos to the bare

electric light bulbs.

Across from the lunch counter, ev-

ery stool along the bar was taken. Be-

hind the seated drinkers stood a row

of men waiting for places. A skinny

yellow-haired waitress with buckteeth

moved back and forth with trays of

beer between the end of the bar and

the booths at the back of the room.

Now and then the barkeep, a wea-

zened, grizzled man, made a hoarse,

exasperated noise like a seal’s bark to

get the thronging customers who

were waiting to quench their thirst at

the bar to make way for the girl and

her tray of empties.

In front of me a stocky, black-

jowled man in a tightly buttoned pea

jacket was addressing a very young

blank-faced sailor who sat on the

next stool.

“You are the most hated nation on

the face of the earth,” he was shout-

ing in the sailor’s ear. The sailor gave

a gulp and looked down glumly into

his glass. The black-jowled man

raised his beer thoughtfully against

the light and drank it down and

wiped his mouth with the hairy back

of a hand that had the points of the

compass tattooed on it in red, green,

and blue, and made the assertion

again, louder: “You are the most hated

nation on the face of the earth and

don’t you forget it.”

“I only said mebbe it ud be a short

war,” mumbled the very young sailor.

“Short war hell!” shouted the

black-jowled man, scowling under

the visor of his seagoing cap that

had weathered to a streaky green.

“It’s goin’ to be all war from now

on ... Another beer, Joe,” he added

in a hoarse, pleading aside in the di-

rection of the barkeep, who was star-

ing at him with a sour look. “And

you’re asking me,” the black-jowled

man went on, looking up and down

the row of weather-worn faces, “you

are asking me why you are the most

hated nation. I’ll tell you; it’s because

you got the most to eat, and the

most to drink, and the most to wear.

You can sit down with the war on

and eat a turkey dinner if you want

one. You can sit down and drink a

glass of beer.”

I

went out and leaned over the para-

pet of the observation platform.

The blue-gray Pacific was clear far out

to where a fogbank smudged the hori-

zon. A gray patrol boat showed white

teeth as it chewed its way seaward

into the long swells. A few gulls cir-

cled screaming over the platform.

Beside me three black G.I.s stood in

a huddle staring out at the ocean. Far-

ther along two sailors had their backs

turned to the view and were watching

with envious looks a boy and girl who

were giggling and horsing around. A

Marine sergeant, very snappy in his

greens, strutted out of a building that

houses slot machines; a girl with a

blue handkerchief tied round her head

was holding onto his arm with both

hands. For a couple of minutes the

two of them stared hard out to sea as

if their eyes could pierce the fogbank.

Then they hurried back indoors to the

slot machines.

Leaning on the parapet over the

hushed and heaving expanse of misted

indigo that marks for most Americans

the beginning of the Pacific Ocean, I

wondered what these two had been

thinking. I suppose there’s the same

question in all our minds when we

look westward over the Pacific. Be-

yond the immense bulge of the world,

is the ocean ours or is it theirs? When

we’ve made it ours, what will we want

to do with it? Q

FROM THE ARCHIVE

1944

© Estate of John Dos Passos