How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #1
"I was watching the riot squad come in from the other side. Well, a squad came up from behind, too. Cop slugged me from behind, right in the back of the neck. When I came to I was already booked for vagrancy. I was rum-dum for a long time. Got hit right here." Jim put his fingers on the back of his neck at the base of his skull. (7-8)
Jim describes his first stint in jail, and how it was a bad rap. At the time, he was a good working stiff himself, but his curiosity put him in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, the strong arm of the law and the subsequent lack of loyalty from his employer is something that Jim doesn't forget so easily. As Mac says later, these kinds of unjust encounters are the very things that drive men to the Party and make them ready to sacrifice their lives for the cause—mostly because they now have nothing left to defend except a larger ideal.
Quote #2
"You don't know what night a bunch of American Legioners all full of whiskey and drum corps music may come down and beat hell out of you. I've been through it, I tell you. There's no veteran like the man who got drafted into the army and served six months in a training camp punching a bayonet into a sack of sawdust." (21)
Mac tries to educate Jim on the perils of working in the field for the Party. He points out the irony of the violence they usually suffer: it's done by the same upright citizens who claim to defend American principles and ideas. In this case, freedom of expression doesn't carry much weight with these "heroes." Steinbeck is very careful to differentiate between two types of soldiers here: the ones who actually saw combat and the ones who spent their service in the safety of training camps, learning to be vicious.
Quote #3
"I was subverting the government. I'd made a speech saying there were people starving." (22)
Mac describes his own first encounter with an angry mob of American "patriots." His protests over the conditions of the poor are considered nothing more than the agitations of a communist troublemaker. While Mac is certainly working for the Party, there is no ignoring the despicable conditions of so many people during this time. Steinbeck has to walk a very fine line here, as he tries to create sympathy in his readers for a person who causes great panic in America: the Communist Party member.