Peter had received a brief scrawl from Nell, telling him that it was all right, she had gone to her new job, and would soon have results. So Peter went cheerfully about his own duties of trying to hold down the protest campaign of the radicals. It was really quite terrifying, the success they were having, in spite of all the best efforts of the authorities. Bundles of circulars appeared at their gatherings as if by magic, and were carried away and distributed before the authorities could make any move. Every night at the Labor Temple, where the workers gathered, there were agitators howling their heads off about the McCormick case. To make matters worse, there was an obscure one cent evening paper in American City which catered to working-class readers, and persisted in publishing evidence tending to prove that the case was a “frame-up.” The Reds had found out that their mail was being interfered with, and were raising a terrific howl about that—pretending, of course, that it was “free speech” they cared about!
The mass meeting was due for that evening, and Peter read an indignant editorial in the American City “Times,” calling upon the authorities to suppress it. “Down with the Red Flag!” the editorial was headed; and Peter couldn’t see how any red-blooded, 100% American could read it, and not be moved to do something.
Peter said that to McGivney, who answered: “We’re going to do something; you wait!” And sure enough, that afternoon the papers carried the news that the mayor of American City had notified the owners of the Auditorium that they would be held strictly responsible under the law for all incendiary and seditious utterances at this meeting; thereupon, the owners of the Auditorium had cancelled the contract. Furthermore, the mayor declared that no crowds should be gathered on the street, and that the police would be there to see to it, and to protect law and order. Peter hurried to the rooms of the Peoples’ Council, and found the radicals scurrying about, trying to find some other hall; every now and then Peter would go to the telephone, and let McGivney know what hall they were trying to get, and McGivney would communicate with Guffey, and Guffey would communicate with the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, and the owner of this hall would be called up and warned by the president of the bank which held a mortgage on the hall, or by the chairman of the board of directors of the Philharmonic Orchestra which gave concerts there.
So there was no Red mass meeting that night—and none for many a night thereafter in American City! Guffey’s office had got its German spy story ready, and next morning, here was the entire front page of the American City “Times” given up to the amazing revelation that Karl von Stroeme, agent of the German government, and reputed to be a nephew of the German Vice-chancellor, had been arrested in American City, posing as a Swedish sewing-machine agent, but in reality having been occupied in financing the planting of dynamite bombs in the buildings of the Pioneer Foundry Company, now being equipped for the manufacture of machine-guns. Three of von Stroeme’s confederates had been nabbed at the same time, and a mass of papers full of important revelations—not the least important among them being the fact that only yesterday von Stroeme had been caught dealing with a German Socialist of the ultra-Red variety, an official of the Bread and Cake-Makers’ Union Number 479, by the name of Ernst Apfel. The government had a dictagraph record of conversations in which von Stroeme had contributed one hundred dollars to the Liberty Defense League, an organization which the Reds had got up for the purpose of carrying on agitation for the release of the I. W. W.s arrested in the dynamite plot against the life of Nelse Ackerman. Moreover it was proven that Apfel had taken this money and distributed it among several German Reds, who had turned it in to the defense fund, or used it in paying for circulars calling for a general strike.
Peter’s heart was leaping with excitement; and it leaped even faster when he had got his breakfast and was walking down Main Street. He saw crowds gathered, and American flags flying from all the buildings, just as on the day of the Preparedness parade. It caused Peter to feet queer spasms of fright; he imagined another bomb, but he couldn’t resist the crowds with their eager faces and contagious enthusiasm. Presently here came a band, with magnificent martial music, and here came soldiers marching—tramp, tramp, tramp—line after line of khaki-clad boys with heavy packs upon their backs and shiny new rifles. Our boys! Our boys! God bless them!
It was three regiments of the 223rd Division, coming from Camp Lincoln to be entrained for the war. They might better have been entrained at the camp, of course, but everyone had been clamoring for some glimpse of the soldiers, and here they were with their music and their flags, and their crowds of flushed, excited admirers—two endless lines of people, wild with patriotic fervor, shouting, singing, waving hats and handkerchiefs, until the whole street became a blur, a mad delirium. Peter saw these closely pressed lines, straight and true, and the legs that moved like clock-work, and the feet that shook the ground like thunder. He saw the fresh, boyish faces, grimly set and proud, with eyes fixed ahead, never turning, even tho they realized that this might be their last glimpse of their home city, that they might never come back from this journey. Our boys! Our boys! God bless them! Peter felt a choking in his throat, and a thrill of gratitude to the boys who were protecting him and his country; he clenched his hands and set his teeth, with fresh determination to punish the evil men and women—draft-dodgers, slackers, pacifists and seditionists—who were failing to take their part in this glorious emprise.
Peter went to the American House and met McGivney, and was put to work on a job that precisely suited his mood. The time had come for action, said the rat-faced man. The executive committee of the I. W. W. local had been drafting an appeal to the main organization for help, and the executive committee was to meet that evening; Peter was to get in touch with the secretary, Grady, and find out where this meeting was to be, and make the suggestion that all the membership be gathered, and other Reds also. The business men of the city were going to pull off their big stroke that night, said McGivney; the younger members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association had got together and worked out a secret plan, and all they wanted was to have the Reds collected in one place.
So Peter set out and found Shawn Grady, the young Irish boy who kept the membership lists and other papers of the organization, in a place so secret that not even Peter had been able to find them. Peter brought the latest news about the sufferings of Mac in the “hole,” and how Gus, the sailor, had joined Henderson in the hospital. He was so eloquent in his indignation that presently Grady told him about the meeting for that evening, and about the place, and Peter said they really ought to get some of their friends together, and work out some way to get their protest literature distributed quickly, because it was evident they could no longer use the mails. What was the use of resolutions of executive committees, when what was wanted was action by the entire membership? Grady said all right, they would notify the active members and sympathizers, and he gave Peter the job of telephoning and travelling about town getting word to a dozen people.
At six o’clock that evening Peter reported the results to McGivney, and then he got a shock. “You must go to that meeting yourself,” said the rat-faced man. “You mustn’t take any chance of their suspecting you.”
“But, my God!” cried Peter. “What’s going to happen there?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” answered the other. “I’ll see that you’re protected.”
The gathering was to take place at the home of Ada Ruth, the poetess, and McGivney had Peter describe this home to him. Beyond the living-room was a hallway, and in this hallway was a big clothes closet. At the first alarm Peter must make for this place. He must get into the closet, and McGivney would be on hand, and they would pen Peter up and pretend to club him, but in reality would protect him from whatever happened to the rest. Peter’s knees began to tremble, and he denounced the idea indignantly; what would happen to him if anything were to happen to McGivney, or to his automobile, and were to fail to get there in time? McGivney declared that Peter need not worry—he was too valuable a man for them to take any chances with. McGivney would be there, and all Peter would have to do was to scream and raise a rumpus, and finally fall unconscious, and McGivney and Hammett and Cummings would carry him out to their automobile and take him away!
Peter was so frightened that he couldn’t eat any dinner, but wandered about the street talking to himself and screwing up his courage. He had to stop and look at the American flags, still waving from the buildings, and read the evening edition of the American City “Times,” in order to work up his patriotic fervor again. As he set out for the home of the little cripple who wrote pacifist poetry, he really felt like the soldier boys marching away to war.
Ada Ruth was there, and her mother, a dried-up old lady who knew nothing about all these dreadful world movements, but whose pleadings had no effect upon her inspired daughter; also Ada’s cousin, a lean old-maid school teacher, secretary of the Peoples’ Council; also Miriam Yankovitch, and Sadie Todd, and Donald Gordon. On the way Peter had met Tom Duggan, and the mournful poet revealed that he had composed a new poem about Mac in the “hole.” Immediately afterwards came Grady, the secretary, his pockets stuffed with his papers. Grady, a tall, dark-eyed, impulsive-tempered Irish boy, was what the Socialists called a “Jimmie Higgins,” that is, one of the fellows who did the hard and dreary work of the movement, who were always on hand no matter what happened, always ready to have some new responsibility put upon their shoulders. Grady had no use for the Socialists, being only interested in “industrial action,” but he was willing to be called a “Jimmie Higgins”; he had said that Peter was one too, and Peter had smiled to himself, thinking that a “Jimmie Higgins” was about the last thing in the world he ever would be. Peter was on the way to independence and prosperity, and it did not occur to him to reflect that he might be a “Jimmie Higgins” to the “Whites” instead of to the Reds!
Grady now pulled out his papers, and began to talk over with Donald Gordon the proceedings of the evening. He had had a telegram from the national headquarters of the I. W. W., promising support, and his thin, hungry face lighted up with pride as he showed this. Then he announced that “Bud” Connor was to be present—a well-known organizer, who had been up in the oil country with McCormick, and brought news that the workers there were on the verge of a big strike. Then came Mrs. Jennings, a poor, tormented little woman who was slowly dying of a cancer, and whose husband was suing her for divorce because she had given money to the I. W. W. With her, and helping her along, came “Andy” Adams, a big machinist, who had been kicked out of his lodge for talking too much “direct action.” He pulled from his pocket a copy of the “Evening Telegraph,” and read a few lines from an editorial, denouncing “direct action” as meaning dynamiting, which it didn’t, of course, and asking how long it would be before the friends of law and order in American City would use a little “direct action” of their own.
So they gathered, until about thirty were present, and then the meeting speedily got down to business. It was evident, said Grady, that the authorities had deliberately framed-up the dynamite conspiracy, in order to have an excuse for wiping out the I. W. W. organization; they had closed the hall, and confiscated everything, typewriters and office furniture and books—including a book on Sabotage which they had turned over to the editor of the “Evening Times”! There was a hiss of anger at this. Also, they had taken to interfering with the mail of the organization; the I. W. W. were having to get out their literature by express. They were fighting for their existence, and they must find some way of getting the truth to people. If anybody had any suggestions to make, now was the time.
There came one suggestion after another; and meantime Peter sat as if his chair were full of pins. Why didn’t they come—the younger members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association—and do what they were going to do without any further delay? Did they expect Peter to sit there all night, trembling with alarm—and he not having any dinner besides?
Suddenly Peter gave a jump. Outside came a yell, and Donald Gordon, who was making a speech, stopped suddenly, and the members of the company stared at one another, and some sprang to their feet. There were more yells, rising to screams, and some of the company made for the front doors, and some for the back doors, and yet others for the windows and the staircase. Peter wasted no time, but dived into the clothes closet in the hallway back of the living-room, and got into the farthest corner of this closet, and pulled some of the clothes on top of him; and then, to make him safer yet, came several other people piling on top of him.
From his place of refuge he listened to the confusion that reigned. The place was a bedlam of women’s shrieks, and the curses of fighting men, and the crash of overturning furniture, and of clubs and monkey-wrenches on human heads. The younger members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association had come in sufficient force to make sure of their purpose. There were enough to crowd the room full, and to pack all the doorways, and two or three to guard each window, and a flying squadron to keep watch for anybody who jumped from the roof or tried to hide in the trees of the garden.
Peter cowered, and listened to the furious uproar, and presently he heard the cries of those on top of him, and realized that they were being pulled off and clubbed; he felt hands reach down and grab him, and he cringed and cried in terror; but nothing happened to him, and presently he glanced up and he saw a man wearing a black mask, but easily to be recognized as McGivney. Never in all his life had Peter been gladder to see a human face than he was to see that masked face of a rat! McGivney had a club in his hand, and was dealing ferocious blows to the clothes heaped around Peter. Behind McGivney were Hammett and Cummings, covering the proceedings, and now and then carefully putting in a blow of their own.
Most of the fighting inside the house and outside came quickly to an end, because everybody who fought was laid out or overpowered. Then several of the agents of Guffey, who had been studying these Reds for a year or two and knew them all, went about picking out the ones who were especially wanted, and searching them for arms, and then handcuffing them. One of these men approached Peter, who instantly fell unconscious, and closed his eyes; then Hammett caught him under the armpits and Cummings by the feet, and McGivney walked alongside as a bodyguard, remarking now and then, “We want this fellow, we’ll take care of him.”
They carried Peter outside, and in the darkness he opened his eyes just enough to see that the street was lined with automobiles, and that the Reds were being loaded aboard. Peter’s friends carried him to one car and drove him away, and then Peter returned to consciousness, and the four of them sat up and laughed to split their sides, and slapped one another on the back, and mentioned the satisfactory things they had seen. Had Hammett noticed that slice Grady had got over the eyes, and the way the blood had run all over him? Well, he wanted to be a Red—they had helped him be one—inside and out! Had McGivney noticed how “Buck” Ellis, one of their men, had put the nose of the hobo poet out of joint? And young Ogden, son of the president of the Chamber of Commerce, had certainly managed to show how he felt about these cattle, the female ones as well as the males; when that Yankovich slut had slapped his face, he had caught her by the breasts and nearly twisted them off, and she had screamed and fainted!
Yes, they had cleaned them out. But that wasn’t all of it, they were going to finish the job tonight, by God! They were going to give these pacifists a taste of the war, they were going to put an end to the Red Terror in American City! Peter might go along if he liked and see the good work; they were going into the country, and it would be dark, and if he kept a mask on he would be quite safe. And Peter said yes; his blood was up, he was full of the spirit of the hunt, he wanted to be in at the death, regardless of everything.
The motor purred softly, and the car sped as if upon wings thru the suburbs of American City, and to the country beyond. There were cars in front, and other cars behind, a long stream of white lights flying out into the country. They came to a grove of big pine trees, which rose two or three feet thick, like church arches, and covered the ground beneath them with a soft, brown carpet. It was a well-known picnic place, and here all the cars were gathering by appointment. Evidently it had all been pre-arranged, with that efficiency which is the pride of 100% Americans. A man with a black mask over his face stood in the center of the grove, and shouted his directions thru a megaphone, and each car as it swept in ranged itself alongside the next car in a broad circle, more than a hundred feet across. These cars of the younger members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association were well behaved—they were accustomed to sliding precisely into place according to orders of a megaphone man, when receptions were being given, or when the younger members and their wives and fiancees, clad in soft silks and satins, came rolling up to their dinner-parties and dances.
The cars came and came, until there was just room enough for the last one to slide in. Then at a shouted command, “Number one!” a group of men stepped out of one of the cars, dragging a handcuffed prisoner. It was Michael Dubin, the young Jewish tailor who had spent fifteen days in jail with Peter. Michael was a student and dreamer, and not used to scenes of violence; also, he belonged to a race which expresses its emotions, and consequently is offensive to 100% Americans. He screamed and moaned while the masked men un-handcuffed him, and took off his coat and tore his shirt in the back. They dragged him to a tree in the center of the ring, a somewhat smaller tree, just right for his wrists to meet around and be handcuffed again. There he stood in the blinding glare of thirty or forty cars, writhing and moaning, while one of the black-masked men stripped off his coat and got ready for action. He produced a long black-snake whip, and stood poised for a moment; then in a booming voice the man with the megaphone shouted, “Go!” and the whip whistled thru the air and was laid across the back of Michael, and tore into the flesh so that the blood leaped into sight. There was a scream of anguish, and the victim began to twist and turn and kick about as if in his death-throes. Again the whip whistled, and again you heard the thud as it tore into the flesh, and another red stripe leaped to view.
Now the younger members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association were in excellent condition for this evening’s labor. They were not pale and thin, underfed and overworked, as were their prisoners; they were sleek and rosy, and ashine with health. It was as if long years ago their fathers had foreseen the Red menace, and the steps that would have to be taken to preserve 100% Americanism; the fathers had imported a game which consisted of knocking little white balls around a field with various styles and sizes of clubs. They had built magnificent club-houses out here in the suburbs, and had many hundreds of acres of ground laid out for this game, and would leave their occupations of merchanting and manufacturing early in the afternoon, in order to repair to these fields and keep their muscles in condition. They would hold tournaments, and vie with one another, and tell over the stories of the mighty strokes which they had made with their clubs, and of the hundreds of strokes they had made in a single afternoon. So the man with the black-snake whip was “fit,” and didn’t need to stop for breath. Stroke after stroke he laid on, with a splendid rhythmic motion; he kept it up easily, on and on. Had he forgotten?
Did he think this was a little white ball he was swinging down upon? He kept on and on, until you could no longer count the welts, until the whole back of Michael Dubin was a mass of raw and bleeding flesh. The screams of Michael Dubin died away, and his convulsive struggling ceased, and his head hung limp, and he sunk lower and lower upon the tree.
At last the master of ceremonies stepped forward and ordered a halt, and the man with the whip wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirt-sleeve, and the other men unchained the body of Michael Dubin, and dragged it a few feet to one side and dumped it face downward in the pine-leaves.
“Number two!” called the master of ceremonies, in a clear, compelling voice, as if he were calling the figures of a quadrille; and from another car another set of men emerged, dragging another prisoner. It was Bert Glikas, a “blanket-stiff” who was a member of the I. W. W.‘s executive committee, and had had two teeth knocked out in a harvest-strike only a couple of weeks previously. While they were getting off his coat, he managed to get one hand free, and he shook it at the spectators behind the white lights of the automobiles. “God damn you!” he yelled; and so they tied him up, and a fresh man stepped forward and picked up the whip, and spit on his hands for good luck, and laid on with a double will; and at every stroke Glikas yelled a fresh curse; first in English, and then, as if he were delirious, in some foreign language. But at last his curses died away, and he too sank insensible, and was unhitched and dragged away and dumped down beside the first man. “Number three!” called the master of ceremonies.
Now Peter was sitting in the back seat of his car, wearing the mask which McGivney had given him, a piece of cloth with two holes for his eyes and another hole for him to breathe thru. Peter hated these Reds, and wanted them punished, but he was not used to bloody sights, and was finding this endless thud, thud of the whip on human flesh rather more than he could stand. Why had he come? This wasn’t his part of the job of saving his country from the Red menace. He had done his share in pointing out the dangerous ones; he was a man of brains, not a man of violence. Peter saw that the next victim was Tom Duggan with his broken and bloody nose, and in spite of himself, Peter started with dismay. He realized that without intending it he had become a little fond of Tom Duggan. For all his queerness, Duggan was loyal, he was a good fellow when you had got underneath his surly manners. He had never done anything except just to grumble, and to put his grumbles into verses; they were making a mistake in whipping him, and for a moment Peter had a crazy impulse to interfere and tell them so.
The poet never made a sound. Peter got one glimpse of his face in the blazing white light, and in spite of the fact that it was smashed and bloody, Peter read Tom Duggan’s resolve—he would die before they would get a moan out of him. Each time the lash fell you could see a quiver all over his form; but there was never a sound, and he stood, hugging the tree in a convulsive grip. They lashed him until the whip was spattering blood all over them, until blood was running to the ground. They had taken the precaution to bring along a doctor with a little black case, and he now stepped up and whispered to the master of ceremonies. They unfastened Duggan, and broke the grip of his arms about the tree, and dumped him down beside Glikas.
Next came the turn of Donald Gordon, the Socialist Quaker, which brought a bit of cheap drama. Donald took his religion seriously; he was always shouting his anti-war sentiments in the name of Jesus, which made him especially obnoxious. Now he saw a chance to get off one of his theatrical stunts; he raised his two manacled hands into the air as if he were praying, and shouted in piercing tones: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”
A murmur started in the crowd; you could hear it mounting to a roar. “Blasphemy!” they cried. “Stop his dirty mouth!” It was the same mouth that had been heard on a hundred platforms, denouncing the war and those who made money out of the war. They were here now, the men who had been denounced, the younger members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association, the best people of the city, those who were saving the country, and charging no more than the service was worth. So they roared with fury at this sacreligious upstart. A man whose mask was a joke, because he was so burly and hearty that everybody in the crowd knew him, took up the bloody whip. It was Billy Nash, secretary of the “Improve America League,” and the crowd shouted, “Go to it, Billy! Good eye, old boy!” Donald Gordon might tell God that Billy Nash didn’t know what he was doing, but Billy thought that he knew, and he meant before he got thru to convince Donald that he knew. It didn’t take very long, because there was nothing much to the young Quaker but voice, and he fainted at the fourth or fifth stroke, and after the twentieth stroke the doctor interfered.
Then came the turn of Grady, secretary of the I. W. W., and here a terrible thing happened. Grady, watching this scene from one of the cars, had grown desperate, and when they loosed the handcuffs to get off his coat, he gave a sudden wrench and broke free, striking down one man after another. He had been brought up in the lumber country, and his strength was amazing, and before the crowd quite realized it, he was leaping between two of the cars. A dozen men sprang upon him from a dozen directions, and he went down in the midst of a wild melee. They pinned him with his face mashed into the dirt, and from the crowd there rose a roar as from wild beasts in the night-time,
“String him up! String him up!” One man came running with a rope, shouting, “Hang him!”
The master of ceremonies tried to protest thru his megaphone, but the instrument was knocked out of his hands, and he was hauled to one side, and presently there was a man climbing up the pine tree and hanging the rope over a limb. You could not see Grady for the jostling throng about him, but suddenly there was a yell from the crowd, and you saw him quite plainly—he shot high up into the air, with the rope about his neck and his feet kicking wildly. Underneath, men danced about and yelled and waved their hats in the air, and one man leaped up and caught one of the kicking feet and hung onto it.
Then, above all the din, a voice was heard thru the megaphone, “Let him down a bit! Let me get at him!” And those who held the rope gave way, and the body came down toward the ground, still kicking, and a man took out a clasp-knife, and cut the clothing away from the body, and cut off something from the body; there was another yell from the crowd, and the men in the automobiles slapped their knees and shrieked with satisfaction. Those in the car with Peter whispered that it was Ogden, son of the president of the Chamber of Commerce; and all over town next day and for weeks thereafter men would nudge one another, and whisper about what Bob Ogden had done to the body of Shawn Grady, secretary of the “damned wobblies.” And every one who nudged and whispered about it felt certain that by this means the Red Terror had been forever suppressed, and 100% Americanism vindicated, and a peaceful solution of the problem of capital and labor made certain.
Strange as it might seem, there was one member of the I. W. W. who agreed with them. One of the victims of that night had learned his lesson! When Tom Duggan was able to sit up again, which was six weeks later, he wrote an article about his experience, which was published in an I. W. W. paper, and afterwards in pamphlet form was read by many hundreds of thousands of workingmen. In it the poet said:
“The preamble of the I. W. W. opens with the statement that the employing class and the working class have nothing in common; but on this occasion I learned that the preamble is mistaken. On this occasion I saw one thing in common between the employing class and the working class, and that thing was a black-snake whip. The butt end of the whip was in the hands of the employing class, and the lash of the whip was on the backs of the working class, and thus to all eternity was symbolized the truth about the relationship of the classes!”
Peter awoke next morning with a vivid sense of the pain and terror of life. He had been clamoring to have those Reds punished; but somehow or other he had thought of this punishment in an abstract way, a thing you could attend to by a wave of the hand. He hadn’t quite realized the physical side of it, what a messy and bloody job it would prove. Two hours and more he had listened to the thud of a whip on human flesh, and each separate stroke had been a blow upon his own nerves. Peter had an overdose of vengeance; and now, the morning after, his conscience was gnawing at him. He had known every one of those boys, and their faces rose up to haunt him. What had any of them done to deserve such treatment? Could he say that he had ever known a single one of them to do anything as violent as the thing they had all suffered?
But more than anything else Peter was troubled by fear. Peter, the ant, perceived the conflict of the giants becoming more ferocious, and realized the precariousness of his position under the giants’ feet. The passions of both sides were mounting, and the fiercer their hate became, the greater the chance of Peter’s being discovered, the more dreadful his fate if he were discovered. It was all very well for McGivney to assure him that only four of Guffey’s men knew the truth, and that all these might be trusted to the death. Peter remembered a remark he had heard Shawn Grady make, and which had caused him to lose his appetite for more than one meal. “They’ve got spies among us,” the young Irishman had said. “Well, sooner or later we’ll do a bit of spying of our own!”
And now these words came back to Peter like a voice from the grave. Suppose one of the Reds who had money were to hire somebody to get a job in Guffey’s office! Suppose some Red girl were to try Peter’s device, and seduce one of Guffey’s men—by no means a difficult task! The man mightn’t even mean to reveal that Peter Gudge was a secret agent; he might just let it slip, as little Jennie had let slip the truth about Jack Ibbetts! Thus Mac would know who had framed him up; and what would Mac do to Peter when he got out on bail? When Peter thought of things like that he realized what it meant to go to war; he saw that he had gained nothing by staying at home, he might as well have been in the front-line trenches! After all, this was war, class-war; and in all war the penalty for spying is death.
Also Peter was worried about Nell. She had been in her new position for nearly a week, and he hadn’t heard a word from her. She had forbidden him to write, for fear he might write something injudicious. Let him just wait, Edythe Eustace would know how to take care of herself. And that was all right, Peter had no doubt about the ability of Edythe Eustace to take care of herself. What troubled him was the knowledge that she was working on another “frame-up,” and he stood in fear of the exuberance of her imagination. The last time that imagination had been pregnant, it had presented him with a suit-case full of dynamite. What it might bring forth next time he did not know, and was afraid to think. Nell might cause him to be found out by Guffey; and that would be nearly as horrible as to be found out by Mac!
Peter got his morning “Times,” and found a whole page about the whipping of the Reds, portraying the job as a patriotic duty heroically performed; and that naturally cheered Peter up considerably. He turned to the editorial page, and read a two column “leader” that was one whoop of exultation. It served still more to cure Peter’s ache of conscience; and when he read on and found a series of interviews with leading citizens, giving cordial endorsement to the acts of the “vigilantes,” Peter became ashamed of his weakness, and glad that he had not revealed it to anyone. Peter was trying his best to become a real “he-man,” a 100% red-blooded American, and he had the “Times” twice each day, morning and evening, to guide, sustain and inspire him.
Peter had been told by McGivney to fix himself up and pose as one of the martyrs of the night’s affair, and this appealed to his sense of humor. He cut off the hair from a part of his head, and stuck some raw cotton on top, and plastered it over with surgical tape. He stuck another big wad of surgical tape across his forehead, and a criss-cross of it on his cheek, and tied up his wrist in an excellent imitation of a sprain. Thus rigged out he repaired to the American House, and McGivney rewarded him with a hearty laugh, and then proceeded to give some instructions which, entirely restored Peter’s usual freshness of soul. Peter was going up on Mount Olympus again!
The rat-faced man explained in detail. There was a lady of great wealth—indeed, she was said to be several times a millionaire—who was an openly avowed Red, a pacifist of the most malignant variety. Since the arrest of young Lackman she had come forward and put up funds to finance the “People’s Council,” and the “Anti-Conscription League,” and all the other activities which for the sake of convenience were described by the term “pro-German.” The only trouble was this lady was so extremely wealthy it was hard to do anything to her. Her husband was a director in a couple of Nelse Ackerman’s banks, and had other powerful connections. The husband was a violent, anti-Socialist, and a buyer of liberty bonds; he quarrelled with his wife, but nevertheless he did not want to see her in jail, and this made an embarrassing situation for the police and the district attorney’s office, and even for the Federal authorities, who naturally did not want to trouble one of the courtiers of the king of American City. “But something’s got to be done,” said McGivney. “This camouflaged German propaganda can’t go on.” So Peter was to try to draw Mrs. Godd into some kind of “overt action.”
“Mrs. Godd?” said Peter. It seemed to him a singular coincidence that one of the dwellers on Mount Olympus should bear that name. The great lady lived on a hilltop out in the suburbs, not so far from the hilltop of Nelse Ackerman. One of the adventures looked forward to by Reds and pacifists in distress was to make a pilgrimage to this palace and obtain some long, green plasters to put over their wounds. Now was the time at all times for Peter to go, said McGivney. Peter had many wounds to be plastered, and Mrs. Godd would be indignant at the proceedings of last night, and would no doubt express herself without restraint.
Peter hadn’t been so excited since the time when he had waited to meet young Lackman. He had never quite forgiven himself for this costly failure, and now he was to have another chance. He took a trolley ride out into the country, and walked a couple of miles to the palace on the hilltop, and mounted thru a grove of trees and magnificent Italian gardens. According to McGivney’s injunctions, he summoned his courage, and went to the front door of the stately mansion and rang the bell.
Peter was hot and dusty from his long walk, the sweat had made streaks down his face and marred the pristine whiteness of his plasters. He was never a distinguished-looking person at best, and now, holding his damaged straw hat in his hands, he looked not so far from a hobo. However, the French maid who came to the door was evidently accustomed to strange-looking visitors. She didn’t order Peter to the servant’s entrance, nor threaten him with the dogs; she merely said, “Be seated, please. I will tell madame”—putting the accent on the second syllable, where Peter had never heard it before.
And presently here came Mrs. Godd in her cloud of Olympian beneficence; a large and ample lady, especially built for the role of divinity. Peter felt suddenly awe-stricken. How had he dared come here? Neither in the Hotel de Soto, with its many divinities, nor in the palace of Nelse Ackerman, the king, had he felt such a sense of his own lowliness as the sight of this calm, slow-moving great lady inspired. She was the embodiment of opulence, she was “the real thing.” Despite the look of kindliness in her wide-open blue eyes, she impressed him with a feeling of her overwhelming superiority. He did not know it was his duty as a gentleman to rise from his chair when a lady entered, but some instinct brought him to his feet and caused him to stand blinking as she crossed to him from the opposite end of the big room.
“How do you do?” she said in a low, full voice, gazing at him steadily out of the kind, wide-open blue eyes. Peter stammered, “How d-dy do, M—Mrs. Godd.”
In truth, Peter was almost dumb with bewilderment. Could it really, possibly be that this grand personage was a Red? One of the things that had most offended him about all radicals was their noisiness, their aggressiveness; but here was a grand serenity of looks and manner, a soft, slow voice—here was beauty, too, a skin unlined, despite middle years, and glowing with health and a fine cleanness. Nell Doolin had had a glowing complexion, but there was always a lot of powder stuck on, and when you investigated closely, as Peter had done, you discovered muddy spots in the edges of her hair and on her throat. But Mrs. Godd’s skin shone just as the skin of a goddess would be expected to shine, and everything about her was of a divine and compelling opulence. Peter could not have explained just what it was that gave this last impression so overwhelmingly. It was not that she wore many jewels, or large ones, for Mrs. James had beaten her at that; it was not her delicate perfume, for Nell Doolin scattered more sweetness on the air; yet somehow even poor, ignorant Peter felt the difference—it seemed to him that none of Mrs. Godd’s costly garments had ever been worn before, that the costly rugs on the floor had never been stepped on before, the very chair on which he sat had never been sat on before!
Little Ada Ruth had called Mrs. Godd “the mother of all the world;” and now suddenly she became the mother of Peter Gudge. She had read the papers that morning, she had received a half dozen telephone calls from horrified and indignant Reds, and so a few words sufficed to explain to her the meaning of Peter’s bandages and plasters. She held out to him a beautiful cool hand, and quite without warning, tears sprang into the great blue eyes.
“Oh, you are one of those poor boys! Thank God they did not kill you!” And she led him to a soft couch and made him lie down amid silken pillows. Peter’s dream of Mount Olympus had come literally true! It occurred to him that if Mrs. Godd were willing to play permanently the role of mother to Peter Gudge, he would be willing to give up his role of anti-Red agent with its perils and its nervous strains; he would forget duty, forget the world’s strife and care; he would join the lotus-eaters, the sippers of nectar on Mount Olympus!
She sat and talked to him in the soft, gentle voice, and the kind blue eyes watched him, and Peter thought that never in all his life had he encountered such heavenly emotions. To be sure, when he had gone to see Miriam Yankovich, old Mrs. Yankovich had been just as kind, and tears of sympathy had come into her eyes just the same. But then, Mrs. Yankovich was nothing but a fat old Jewess, who lived in a tenement and smelt of laundry soap and partly completed washing; her hands had been hot and slimy, and so Peter had not been in the least grateful for her kindness. But to encounter tender emotions in these celestial regions, to be talked to maternally and confidentially by this wonderful Mrs. Godd in soft white chiffons just out of a band-box this was quite another matter!
Peter did not want to set traps for this mother of Mount Olympus, he didn’t want to worm any secrets from her. And as it happened, he found that he did not have to, because she told him everything right away, and without the slightest hesitation. She talked just as the “wobblies” had talked in their headquarters; and Peter, when he thought it over, realized that there are two kinds of people who can afford to be frank in their utterance—those who have nothing to lose, and those who have so much to lose that they cannot possibly lose it.
Mrs. Godd said that what had been done to those men last night was a crime, and it ought to be punished if ever a crime was punished, and that she would like to engage detectives and get evidence against the guilty ones. She said furthermore that she sympathized with the Reds of the very reddest shade, and if there were any color redder than Red she would be of that color. She said all this in her quiet, soft voice. Tears came into her eyes now and then, but they were well-behaved tears, they disappeared of their own accord, and without any injury to Mrs. Godd’s complexion, or any apparent effect upon her self-possession.
Mrs. Godd said that she didn’t see how anybody could fail to be a Red who thought about the injustices of present-day society. Only a few days before she had been in to see the district attorney, and had tried to make a Red out of him! Then she told Peter how there had come to see her a man who had pretended to be a radical, but she had realized that he didn’t know anything about radicalism, and had told him she was sure he was a government agent. The man had finally admitted it, and showed her his gold star—and then Mrs. Godd had set to work to convert him! She had argued with him for an hour or two, and then had invited him to go to the opera with her. “And do you know,” said Mrs. Godd, in an injured tone, “he wouldn’t go! They don’t want to be converted, those men; they don’t want to listen to reason. I believe the man was actually afraid I might influence him.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” put in Peter, sympathetically; for he was a tiny bit afraid himself.
“I said to him, ‘Here I live in this palace, and back in the industrial quarter of the city are several thousand men and women who slave at machines for me all day, and now, since the war, all night too. I get the profits of these peoples’ toil—and what have I done to earn it? Absolutely nothing! I never did a stroke of useful work in my life.’ And he said to me, ‘Suppose the dividends were to stop, what would you do?’ ‘I don’t know what I’d do,’ I answered, ‘I’d be miserable, of course, because I hate poverty, I couldn’t stand it, it’s terrible to think of—not to have comfort and cleanliness and security. I don’t see how the working-class stand it—that’s exactly why I’m a Red, I know it’s wrong for anyone to be poor, and there’s no excuse for it. So I shall help to overthrow the capitalist system, even if it means I have to take in washing for my living!”
Peter sat watching her in the crisp freshness of her snowy chiffons. The words brought a horrible image to his mind; he suddenly found himself back in the tenement kitchen, where fat and steaming Mrs. Yankovich was laboring elbow deep in soap-suds. It was on the tip of Peter’s tongue to say: “If you really had done a day’s washing, Mrs. Godd, you wouldn’t talk like that!”
But he remembered that he must play the game, so he said, “They’re terrible fellows, them Federal agents. It was two of them pounded me over the head last night.” And then he looked faint and pitiful, and Mrs. Godd was sympathetic again, and moved to more recklessness of utterance.
“It’s because of this hideous war!” she declared. “We’ve gone to war to make the world safe for democracy, and meantime we have to sacrifice every bit of democracy at home. They tell you that you must hold your peace while they murder one another, but they may try all they please, they’ll never be able to silence me! I know that the Allies are just as much to blame as the Germans, I know that this is a war of profiteers and bankers; they may take my sons and force them into the army, but they cannot take my convictions and force them into their army. I am a pacifist, and I am an internationalist; I want to see the workers arise and turn out of office these capitalist governments, and put an end to this hideous slaughter of human beings. I intend to go on saying that so long as I live.” There sat Mrs. Godd, with her lovely firm white hands clasped as if in prayer, one large diamond ring on the left fourth finger shining defiance, and a look of calm, child-like conviction upon her face, confronting in her imagination all the federal agents and district attorneys and capitalist judges and statesmen and generals and drill sergeants in the civilized world.
She went on to tell how she had attended the trial of three pacifist clergymen a week or two previously. How atrocious that Christians in a Christian country should be sent to prison for trying to repeat the words of Christ! “I was so indignant,” declared Mrs. Godd, “that I wrote a letter to the judge. My husband said I would be committing contempt of court by writing to a judge during the trial, but I answered that my contempt for that court was beyond anything I could put into writing. Wait—”
And Mrs. Godd rose gravely from her chair and went over to a desk by the wall, and got a copy of the letter. “I’ll read it to you,” she said, and Peter listened to a manifesto of Olympian Bolshevism—
To His Honor:
As I entered the sanctuary, I gazed upward to the stained glass dome, upon which were inscribed four words: Peace. Justice. Truth. Law—and I felt hopeful. Before me were men who had violated no constitutional right, who had not the slightest criminal tendency, who, were opposed to violence of every kind.
The trial proceeded. I looked again at the beautiful stained glass dome, and whispered to myself those majestic-sounding words: “Peace. Justice. Truth. Law.” I listened to the prosecutors; the Law in their hands was a hard, sharp, cruel blade, seeking insistently, relentlessly for a weak spot in the armor of its victims. I listened to their Truth, and it was Falsehood. Their Peace was a cruel and bloody War. Their justice was a net to catch the victims at any cost—at the cost of all things but the glory of the Prosecutor’s office.
I grew sick at heart. I can only ask myself the old, old question: What can we, the people do? How can we bring Peace, justice, Truth and Law to the world? Must we go on bended knees and ask our public servants to see that justice is done to the defenceless, rather than this eternal prosecuting of the world’s noblest souls! You will find these men guilty, and sentence them to be shut behind iron bars—which should never be for human beings, no matter what their crime, unless you want to make beasts of them. Is that your object, sir? It would seem so; and so I say that we must overturn the system that is brutalizing, rather than helping and uplifting mankind.
Yours for Peace..Justice..Truth..Law—
Mary Angelica Godd.
What were you going to do with such a woman? Peter could understand the bewilderment of His Honor, and of the district attorney’s office, and of the secret service department of the Traction Trust—as well as of Mrs. Godd’s husband! Peter was bewildered himself; what was the use of his coming out here to get more information, when Mrs. Godd had already committed contempt of court in writing, and had given all the information there was to give to a Federal agent? She had told this man that she had contributed several thousand dollars to the Peoples’ Council, and that she intended to contribute more. She had put up bail for a whole bunch of Reds and Pacifists, and she intended to put up bail for McCormick and his friends, just as soon as the corrupt capitalist courts had been forced to admit them to bail. “I know McCormick well, and he’s a lovely boy,” she said. “I don’t believe he had anything more to do with dynamite bombs than I have.”
Now all this time Peter had sat there, entirely under the spell of Mrs. Godd’s opulence. Peter was dwelling among the lotus-eaters, and forgetting the world’s strife and care; he was reclining on a silken couch, sipping nectar with the shining ones of Mount Olympus. But now suddenly, Peter was brought back to duty, as one wakes from a dream to the sound of an alarm-clock. Mrs. Godd was a friend of Mac’s, Mrs. Godd proposed to get Mac out on bail! Mac, the most dangerous Red of them all! Peter saw that he must get something on this woman at once!