§ 56
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.
