§ 84
All over the country the Red trains were moving eastward, loaded with
"wobblies" and communists, pacifists and anarchists, and a hundred other
varieties of Bolsheviks. They got a shipload together and started them
off for Russia — the "Red Ark" it was called, and the Red soap-boxers set
tip a terrific uproar, and one Red clergyman compared the "Red Ark" to
the Mayflower! Also there was some Red official in Washington, who made
a fuss and cancelled a whole block of deportation orders, including some
of Peter's own cases. This, naturally, was exasperating to Peter and his
wife; and on top of it came another incident that was still more
humiliating.
There was a "pink" mass meeting held in American City,
to protest against the deportations. Guffey said they would
quite probably raid the meeting, and Peter must go along, so as to point
out the Reds to the bulls. The work was in charge of a police detective
by the name of Garrity, head of what was called the "Bomb Squad"; but
this man didn't know very much, so he had the habit of coming to Peter
for advice. Now he had the whole responsibility of this meeting, and he
asked Peter to come up on the platform with him, and Peter went. Here
was a vast audience — all the Red fury which had been pent up for many
months, breaking loose in a whirlwind of excitement. Here were orators,
well dressed and apparently respectable men, not in any way to be
distinguished from the born rulers of the country, coming forward on the
platform and uttering the most treasonable sentences, denouncing the
government, denouncing the blockade against Russia, praising the
Bolshevik government of Russia, declaring that the people who went away
in the "Soviet Ark" were fortunate, because they were escaping from a
land of tyranny into a land of freedom. At every few sentences the
orator would be stopped by a storm of applause that broke from the
audience.
And what was a poor Irish Catholic police detective to make of a
proposition like that? Here stood an orator declaring: "Whenever any
form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government,
laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness." And Garrity turned to Peter. "What do you think of that?" he
said, his good-natured Irish face blank with dismay.
Peter thought it was the limit. Peter knew that thousands of men
all over America had been sent to prison for saying things less
dangerous than that. Peter had read many sets of instructions from the
office of the Attorney-General of the United States, and knew officially
that that was precisely the thing you were never under any circumstances
permitted to say, or to write, or even to think. So Peter said to
Garrity: "That fellow's gone far enough. You better arrest him."
Garrity spoke to his men, and they sprang forward on the platform, and
stopped the orator and placed him and all his fellow-orators under
arrest, and ordered the audience out of the building. There were a
couple of hundred policemen and detectives on hand to carry out
Garrity's commands, and they formed a line with their clubs, and drove
the crowd before them, and carted the speakers off in a patrol wagon.
Then Peter went back to Guffey's office, and told what he had done — and
got a reception that reminded him of the time Guffey had confronted him
with the letter from Nell Doolin! "Who do you think that was you
pinched?" cried Guffey. "He's the brother of a United States senator!
And what do you think he was saying? That was a sentence from the
Declaration of Independence!"
Peter couldn't "get it"; Peter was utterly lost. Could a man go
ahead and break the law, just because he happened to be a brother of a
United States senator? And what difference did it make whether a thing
was in the Declaration of Independence, if it was seditious, if it
wasn't allowed to be said? This incident brought Guffey and the police
authorities of the city so much ridicule that Guffey got all his men
together and read them a lecture,
explaining to them just what were the limits of the anti-Red activities,
just who it was they mustn't arrest, and just what it was they couldn't
keep people from saying. For example, a man couldn't be arrested for
quoting the Bible.
"But Jesus Christ, Guffey," broke in one of the men,
"have all of us got to know the Bible by heart?"
There was a laugh all round. "No," Guffey admitted,
"but at least be careful, and don't arrest anybody for saying
anything that sounds as if it came from the Bible."
"But hell!" put in another of the men, who happened
to be an ex-preacher. "That'll tie us up tighter than a
jail-sentence! Look what's in the Bible!"
And he proceeded to quote some of the things, and Peter knew that
he had never heard any Bolshevik talk more outrageous than that. It made
one realize more than ever how complicated was this Red problem; for
Guffey insisted, in spite of everything, that every word out of the
Bible was immune. "Up in Winnipeg," said he, "they indicted a clergyman
for quoting two passages from the prophet Isaiah, but they couldn't face
it, they had to let the fellow go." And the same thing was true of the
Declaration of Independence; anybody might read it, no matter how
seditious it was. And the same thing was true of the Constitution, even
tho the part called the Bill of Rights declared that everybody in
America might do all the things that Guffey's office was sending them to
jail for doing!
This seemed a plain crazy proposition; but Guffey explained
it as a matter of politics. If they went too far,
these fellows would go out and capture the votes from
them, and maybe take away the government from them,
and where would they be then? Peter had never paid any attention to
politics before this, but both he and Gladys realized after this lecture
that they must broaden their view-point. It was not enough to put the
Reds in jail and crack their skulls, you had to keep public sympathy for
what you were doing, you had to make the public understand that it was
necessary, you had to carry on what was called "propaganda," to keep the
public aware of the odiousness of these cattle, and the desperate nature
of their purposes.
The man who perceived that most clearly was the Attorney-General
of the country, and Guffey in his lecture pointed out the double nature
of his activities. Not merely was the Attorney-General breaking up the
Communist and the Communist Labor parties and sending their members to
jail; he was using the funds of his office to send out an endless stream
of propaganda, to keep the country frightened about these Red plots.
Right now he had men in American City working over the data which Guffey
had collected, and every week or two he would make a speech somewhere,
or would issue a statement to the newspapers, telling of new bomb plots
and new conspiracies to overthrow the government. And how clever he was
about it! He would get the pictures of the very worst-looking of the
Reds, pictures taken after they had been kept in jail for weeks without
a shave, and with the third degree to spoil their tempers; and these
pictures would be spread on a sheet with the caption: "MEN LIKE THESE
WOULD RULE YOU." This would be sent to ten thousand country newspapers
all over the nation, and ninety-nine hundred would publish it, and
ninety-nine million Americans would
want to murder the Reds next morning. So successful had
this plan proven that the Attorney-General was expecting
to be nominated for President by means of it, and all the
agencies of his department were working to that end.
The same thing was being done by all the other agencies of big
business all over the country. The "Improve America League" of American
City was publishing full-page advertisements in the "Times," and the
"Home and Fireside Association" of Eldorado was doing the same thing in
the Eldorado "Times," and the "Patriot's Defense Legion" was doing the
same thing in the Flagland "Banner." They were investigating the
records of all political candidates, and if any of them showed the
faintest tinge of pink, Guffey's office would set to work to rake up
their records and get up scandals on them, and the business men would
contribute a big campaign fund, and these candidates would be snowed
under at the polls. That was the kind of work they were doing, and all
Guffey's operatives must bear in mind the importance of it, and must
never take any step that would hamper this political campaign, this
propaganda on behalf of law and order.
