THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (_concluded_)
The International had an audience, a very large and interested one. It
sat at the back of the room, glad of an experience which relieved for
a while the tedium of life in Berne. Amongst the listeners of every
nationality I observed Indians with turbans and Turks wearing the fez.
There was a beautiful dark-eyed Jewess sporting three vast links of
matchless pearls. A handsome American woman, full of vivacity, wearing
a large picture hat, sat next to her husband, a tall, good-looking
Hungarian with a clean-shaven face and an American accent to his
excellent English. There was the faded but vivacious mistress of a
notorious ex-king; two red-haired Greek ladies of extreme beauty;
several ambassadors; a whole medley of chief secretaries; a gang of
spies of both sexes, and a group of well-known pacifists engaged on
preparations for their own conference, which was timed to follow the
International. There was Mr. William Bullitt of the American Peace
Delegation in Paris; Mr. George Lansbury, and Mr. John de Kay, famous
for mystical millions! Last but not least there was a sharp little
woman unknown to any of us who sprang upon Mr. Macdonald like a
tiger-cat. “How dare you come to this conference to talk to the enemies
of your country!” she demanded. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you
and Mrs. Snowden and all the others?” Mr. Macdonald was white with
anger, but he behaved like a gentleman. If the lady had said it to me I
should have told her that it took far less courage to come and talk to
an ex-enemy than to marry one and produce four or five little enemies.
The spiteful lady was an Englishwoman, and is the wife of an Austrian
and the sister of a notorious English suffragette. She has several fine
Austrian children!
There was something very interesting about those rabid anti-enemy
people. Examine them closely and you found that those who hated most
often did it because they were implicated either by birth or marriage
in enemy associations, and felt it necessary to protest their loyalty
as loudly and as frequently as possible. I believe that language also
had a great deal to do with war affinities. People took the French
or German side according to the language they had mastered! The
knowledge of a foreign language is a distinguished accomplishment in
a Briton! Protesting too much is always a mistake. I do not believe
it has ever done the protestant one ounce of good. Often it has done
positive harm by raising suspicion. I have a distinguished friend in
England, German by birth, English by sympathies. From the beginning of
the war he has taken the side of the Allies. His writings prove that
unmistakably. The English authorities have treated him outrageously. It
is a long and painful story. They refuse to allow him to stay in the
country, although before the war he lived here for more than twenty
years, owns property here, and his daughter was born here. He has
abundant credentials from important people. He wants to adopt English
citizenship. Nothing that is done to him can alter his devotion to
this country; and yet the Home Office is inexorable. There are violent
pan-Germans in this country who are suffering less than he--gentlemen
on whom the Peace Treaty has bestowed a new nationality!
One particularly tiresome day, when the air of the Conference hall was
thick and close with human breath and stale tobacco smoke, and when
the lions raged more loudly than usual, pounding the table with their
fists as they consigned to perdition their various antagonists, there
walked into the room an interesting figure of a man whom nobody could
forget who had seen him once. He was dressed in a grey suit, which
matched his silvery hair, and showed in a marked way the exceptional
breadth of his powerful shoulders set upon a short and sinewy frame. He
walked the whole length of the room with all the dignity and solemnity
of a reigning prince come to review his loyal troops; his head thrown
back and his slightly swaying body vibrant with a self-importance
and a quality of proprietorship more arresting than displeasing. A
closer acquaintance with him as the Conference proceeded confirmed in
everybody the judgment formed at the first casual glance, that the
lines round his mouth and at the corners of his bright grey-blue eyes
betokened a keen sense of humour.
His immense blue necktie fluttered shoulder-wards and marked him, in
conjunction with a clean-shaven face, the American citizen, although it
was alleged he was born in the East End of London. But where else in
the world, unless in the Quartier Latin, would you find so much good
cloth wasted on neckties as in America? Like big butterflies these
enormous bows repose upon the breasts of their wearers, as serviceable
as the Stars and Stripes in designating the home and habitation of
their owners.
Mr. John de Kay was the mystery man of the Second International. Nobody
knew whence he came nor whither he was going. His business in life
was a secret never revealed. He was a mystery to a great many more
than the delegates at the Socialist Conference. He had a castle in
Switzerland and another in France. He had an estate in Mexico, and was
_persona grata_ with several revolutionary governments. His bust had
been sculptured by Rodin. Sarah Bernhardt had appeared in one of his
plays. He had written books on social science. He composed poems. He
was a multi-millionaire, sprinkling his millions on the altar of good
causes like talcum powder after a bath. He kept a marvellous suite of
rooms at the Bernerhof, and ordered his dinner with the pompousness
of a Napoleon commanding the advance of an army. All these things and
a thousand others were said of this extraordinary man; but the mystery
remained a mystery to the end.
He was anxious to finance the publicity work of the Second
International, and actually contributed large sums to this side of
the work both in Berne and in Lucerne. But his larger scheme never
materialized. It was discovered later that he had a habit of offering
millions for this cause or that, to the International, to the German
Socialist Government, to the famine children of Austria, to Turkey, to
Hungary; but never have I been able to discover that those millions
were forthcoming. There was always some hitch in the business
somewhere, some fantastic condition attached to the gift, or some
impossible preliminary to carry through satisfactorily.
He was dreadfully impatient of what he called the “blue-sky politics”
of some Socialists. He hated equally the politics of the White Guard
reactionaries. Strange, queer, haunting character, with the lion head
and the despot manner; time alone will tell us who you are and what
your place in the scheme of things; but that you meant to help and not
to hinder the work of the International I am profoundly convinced.
Mr. de Kay lost his favourite daughter a few months ago. She was
drowned in Lake Michigan while on a visit to America. The mystery of
her death, like the mystery of her father’s life, is still unsolved.
She lies still and cold in her grave. But her father flits fitfully
in and out of the game of international politics, too arresting a
personality to be ignored, too mysterious a being to be acclaimed.
* * * * *
Seated in that part of the hall reserved for visitors was a
dark-skinned Jewish lady wearing an enormous picture hat. It was not
she of the ropes of pearls, but another and an older woman. She was
dressed in a smart black dress and wore over it a valuable sealskin
coat. She followed the debate with a certain amount of interest, but
her black eyes roved restlessly around the room in search of somebody
in particular. I did not flatter myself that I was the person she was
seeking, but presently a little pasteboard card was passed along the
line to me, and looking first at the card and then at the visitor,
I caught the smile of the picture hat lady and recognized an old
acquaintance. She was Frau Rosika Schwimmer, the first woman Minister.
The then Premier of Hungary, Count Karolyi, had signalized his term of
office by several acts of a radical character, notably amongst them the
appointment of a woman Minister to Switzerland. It was a bold thing
to do, at such a time and in such a country, and of such a woman. I
wish now that I had accepted the invitation to be the guest of Count
Karolyi, extended to me in his name by his secretary and friend Herr
Paul von Auer. Courage of this sort, which associates a man with
feminism, is extremely rare. It would have been interesting to meet
the man possessed of it. The conservatism of the Swiss is well known.
They share with the Latin countries the dishonour of an unenfranchised
womankind. To send to such a country the first woman Minister, and that
woman a Jewess, was to challenge too violently the prejudices of the
Swiss. The experiment was bound to fail.
Frau Schwimmer’s business with me was to ask my help with the
organization of a women’s conference. Of course, the proposal
interested me; but my mind travelled back to my previous association
with Rosika and the occasion of my first meeting with her.
It was at the Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance
of which Mrs. C. Chapman Catt is the President, held in London about
ten years ago. Rosika (as everybody called her) was one of the most
eloquent speakers in the Conference. Her style was ironic. She provoked
shouts of laughter amongst the women by her pungent attacks on male
mankind, and her wit and humour made of her a general favourite as a
speaker. She and I were thought to be as great contrasts in our style
of speaking as in our physical appearance, and a favourite design of
organizers was to send the two of us to address the same meeting. This
happened two years later at the Opera House in Stockholm, when the
grave and the gay of the woman’s question were divided between the
black and the blonde.
But I never really knew Frau Schwimmer till after our several
meetings in America. The first occasion was a meeting in the theatre
in Lexington, Kentucky, where we discoursed on women and peace to a
fashionable audience. It says a great deal for Rosika’s power as a
public speaker, that she was able by her eloquence to overcome amongst
those critical American women a plainly expressed distaste for her
peculiar style of dress. She affected at that time the loose, flowing
robe more suggestive of the boudoir than the public platform. Black
harmonized with our mood as well as hers, for the war was at its
height; but the ill-fitting black gloves she persisted in wearing
during her speech robbed her otherwise expressive hands of all their
eloquence.
It was to the unauthorized activity of Rosika that I owed my meeting
with President Wilson. A propaganda in favour of the calling by America
of a conference of neutral nations for continuous mediation amongst
the belligerents was being conducted all over the United States, with
which I found myself in full sympathy. America was not then in the
war, and the greater part of her citizens appeared to be hostile to
the idea of entering. Their distaste for the war did not go the length
of an all-round strict neutrality, economic as well as political; but
there was a very genuine desire in 1915 on the part of vast numbers
of American citizens to avoid active participation in the war, for
reasons, for the most part, entirely honourable to themselves and the
country.
One afternoon in November of that year I had already risen to address
a great theatre full of business men in Milwaukee on the importance of
their giving the vote to Wisconsin women when a telegram was handed to
me: “President Wilson will receive us at the White House on November
23rd. Please return at once.--SCHWIMMER.”
I had not the faintest conception of what it was about. I looked at the
message and read it twice. I was unable to believe my eyes. I had never
sought an interview with the President. I had no business of sufficient
importance to warrant my seeking his presence. I have always had too
much respect for the time of busy men in high office to seek to use it
on matters of other than the gravest consequence. I was filled with
annoyance at having been placed, without my knowledge or consent, in
the position of an intrusive and self-important busybody. But there was
the invitation. The arrangement had been made. And my one consolation
lay in the thought that the approachableness and well-known courtesy of
the “First Gentleman of America” had made the thing possible and would
make it delightful. But my indignation against the “meddlesome Matties”
who had so outrageously interfered did not cool and is alive at this
hour.
I had several important public engagements in Wisconsin and Illinois
to fulfil, which I could not cancel without causing a vast amount of
inconvenience and expense to organizers, so I wired that it would be a
pleasure to attend at the White House if the meeting could be arranged
for November 27.
I travelled a day and a night from Chicago to New York, tried there to
find out what it was all about, heard a few vague stories sufficient
to let me know that it had to do with the peace propaganda, and left
the next morning for Washington. I arrived in Washington at 3 p.m.
and was taken in a large automobile to one of the theatres where a
big meeting was in full swing. Rosika rose to speak after I had taken
my place on the platform. Her speech froze me to my chair with its
passionate exaggerations: “Millions and millions of people are dying
on the battlefields and in the homes of Europe,” she said, which since
that time has become only too true. “Millions and millions of men
are praying for peace,” which was totally untrue. If “millions and
millions” of men in Europe had wanted peace they could have had it.
“The soldiers of Europe are looking to you to deliver them----” and so
on.
I had had no part in calling the meeting. I could only guess its
purpose. I had no idea under whose auspices it was being held nor who
was finding the money for it. My peace sympathies were unquestionable,
but when I rose to speak I felt myself under a real obligation in the
interests of truth to neutralize the impression made upon the minds of
the audience by Rosika’s burning words.
“Alas!” I said, although these may not have been the exact words, “I am
not able to say out of my own experience that the men of Great Britain
are praying for peace. On the contrary they are voluntarily enlisting
in millions for what they believe to be the most righteous cause they
have ever served. The appeal I make to you is not to act in the belief
that you are thereby saving millions of unwilling men forced by cruel
tyrants to enter a war which they hate, but by conferring with other
neutral nations to discover some terms, honourable to all concerned,
which shall save from _what they believe to be the absolute necessity
of killing and being killed_, the gallant young manhood of every nation
which is in this fight.”
The meeting over, we drove to the White House through a great concourse
of people. Frau Schwimmer and myself were received by the President
with the dignity of a _grand seigneur_ joined to the simplicity of a
plain American citizen. I liked him. I believed in him. When years
later men in Europe laughed at his idealism, I recalled my impression
of him and felt he was sincere. When he failed, after the first
awful shock of the failure, I believed he had failed where no man
could succeed. During our conversation with him his hatred of the war
was clear. His desire to maintain the peace in America and restore
it, if possible, to Europe was unequivocal. He expressed very warmly
his sympathy with the idea of a neutral conference. But the thought
of practical difficulties oppressed him. Would China and the South
American Republics be invited to such a conference? What should be
the basis of representation? Would such an effort be looked upon with
favour by the fighting Powers? Could anything be done except through
the ordinary diplomatic channels? He welcomed Lord Courtney’s brave
speech in the House of Lords and hoped it might be symptomatic. He
looked for signs of a growing peace sentiment amongst the belligerents
but found few. I agreed with him on this last point and remained
silent. Rosika grew voluble, bitter, insulting. She hinted at America’s
munition profiteering. The President flushed a little and looked
annoyed.
“Surely,” he said warmly, “there are such profiteers in other
countries?”
We talked for half an hour or more. The great crowd of men and women
outside stood in silent prayer for the success of our effort. They were
mostly members of religious organizations; and it was so arranged.
Numbers of reporters with pencils and notebooks in hand surrounded us
and pursued us in automobiles to the hotel where we had taken up our
quarters. Here the secret spring of it all was revealed!
In a sumptuous suite of apartments at the Great Washington Hotel sat
the great man. And in another equally sumptuous sat Rosika, with
her army of secretaries. Her rooms were filled with costly flowers.
Her meals were served privately by waiters specially chosen for the
work. Messengers whose sole business appeared to be to attend to Frau
Schwimmer’s every wish ran in and out in a constant stream. Newspaper
men waited in the ante-room for such crumbs of news as she was
disposed to scatter. Well-dressed and important-looking men and women
left their cards. Busy, intense, energetic life thrilled through the
whole of the hotel. Something more than the usual was afoot. What could
it be?
It sprang from a source which kept itself hidden, except when at one
dramatic moment in the theatre a thin, clean-shaven man with a keen,
sensitive face leapt to his feet and declared in a loud, drawling
voice: “I never made a speech before in my life. All I want to say is
this: We’ll have those boys out of the trenches by Christmas.”
It was Henry Ford, the great manufacturer of automobiles. He meant
every word he said and really believed it possible to do what he wished.
It was this generous, warm-hearted man who was finding the money for
Rosika’s lavish expenditure. It was he who secured us the talk with
President Wilson. It was he who had even then been involved by the
dominating Rosika in the idea of the peace ship--the wonderful ship
full of peacemakers which should sail to every neutral land in Europe
and invite their Governments to persuade the warriors to make the peace.
As an advertisement for the peace idea the scheme had some value; but
knowing something of the temperamental Rosika and her lack of staying
power as well as of her extravagance, as anything more serious than
that the plan was bound to fail. I felt an enormous pity for Mr. Ford,
whom I failed to see after the meeting; but I doubt if at that time
anyone could have convinced him that an ambitious woman was using him
and his dollars in the most foolish and reckless enterprise that was
instigated through the Great War.
I refused to have anything to do with it. I feared what actually
happened, that the peace movement would be smothered in ridicule from
one end of the world to the other, and that the reputation of sincere
and able pacifists would be cheapened and vulgarized by this mad
expedition to the ends of the earth of a company of individuals whose
motives were mixed and whose abilities were in most cases mediocre.
What was my annoyance and astonishment when I boarded the ship for
Liverpool the next morning to hear from a reporter of the _New York
Times_ who came to see me before sailing, that I had telephoned from
Washington a full column of eulogy of the Ford peace ship in the form
of an interview! I had done nothing of the sort. I had never had the
telephone to my lips all the time I was in Washington. I had, moreover,
travelled all night from Washington to be in time for my steamer the
next morning. Someone had telephoned in my name!
Like the dove from the ark the gallant ship set sail with flying
pennant; but in a little while crept back to port with drooping wing,
dragging in her wake broken spirits and bedraggled reputations. Mr.
Ford left before the end of the tour. The domineering Rosika became too
much for him. The greatest discontent amongst the passengers throughout
the tour was felt owing to the inaccessibility of Mr. Ford, who could
never be reached without a permit from Frau Schwimmer. “Whenever we
tried to reach him,” said one woeful and malicious pressman, “we found
him entirely surrounded by Rosika!”
With the memory of this experience surging up I grew thoughtful as I
looked at the little card in my hand. I made a cautious response to the
smiles of the Hungarian woman Minister. Of course, I talked to her.
Her new position interested us all. I asked her how she liked being
a diplomat. She told us a sorry tale of treachery and espionage. The
drawers of her bureau had been rifled, her telegrams opened before they
reached her or altered when she sent them out. Everything had been done
to make her position impossible. We were sorry and indignant till we
heard that she had appointed these scoundrels herself and had made the
mistake of having recalled many of the old Hungarian officials who had
possessed a genuine desire to help her.
Some of these men had declined to go, and _their_ side of the story was
of shameless expenditure, unbridled personal extravagance at the cost
of a poverty-stricken little state, mangled by the war and the peace,
and suffering incredible penury. They spoke, it may be with malice,
of an expensive automobile, costly furs, cut flowers and extravagant
rooms, all paid for by her unhappy Government, bankrupt and despairing.
The Bolshevik Revolution occurred a few days later.
She was recalled after a few weeks of office, having committed a number
of political indiscretions involving the reputation with the Allies of
at least one innocent and unsuspecting tool. This unfortunate lady was
ignominiously returned to her native country.
Frau Schwimmer is of middle age and middle height, with masses of crisp
wavy black hair slightly tinged with grey. She wears large gold-rimmed
spectacles, and has a hard, aggressive manner and a loud, dominating
voice. In speaking she uses her hands a great deal, the forefinger
of the right hand playing a conspicuous part in the enforcing of
her points. She has a quick intelligence with a brilliant surface
cleverness, is sarcastic and voluble, good natured and easy going.
She has temperament, but is without stability. She is cruel in her
thoughtlessness, but, like her race, has a deep sense of loyalty to her
family. She is genuinely devoted to the cause of feminism.
* * * * *
Another visitor to the International I feel constrained to do more
than mention was Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, editor of the New York
_Nation_ and a lifelong friend of President Wilson. Mr. Villard has a
rich inheritance from each side of his family. He is the descendant
on the father’s side of one of the famous German revolutionaries who
fled to America in 1848. His mother is the daughter of William Lloyd
Garrison of anti-slavery fame.
During the visit to America, to which I have already referred, I met
Mr. Villard and Mr. George Foster Peabody in the lobby of the House
of Representatives in Albany. They apologized for not being able to
attend the meeting of the State Legislators I was to address, as they
were engaged on business connected importantly with the propaganda for
keeping America out of the war. “Mr. Villard has just seen President
Wilson--they are lifelong and intimate friends, you know--and he has
the impression that enormous pressure is being put upon the President
by a section interested in dragging this country into the war. We are
very unhappy about it,” said Mr. Peabody.
This does not mean that when the war broke out Mr. Villard took
neither side. His sympathies were pro-Ally and anti-German; but he
hated the whole bad business of the war and desired to end it quickly.
The severe terms of the Armistice and the startling conduct of the
Paris Conference caused him to react favourably towards the Bolshevik
Government. But from various reactions, he has come to the settled
conviction of the need for the revision of the Peace Treaties, and for
the establishment of some kind of international political organization
like the League of Nations for the securing of permanent peace on the
earth.
Mr. Villard is not unlike Mr. A. G. Gardiner, the popular one-time
editor of the _Daily News_. Both men are tall and fair, both fresh
complexioned and blue eyed. Both have the same political ideals;
though I imagine a distinction inoffensive to both men might be made
in expressing the view that Mr. Villard’s passionate hatred of the
wrong causes him to swing more violently to the right or to the left
and back again whenever he delivers himself up to the dominion of his
warm-hearted and generous emotions.
* * * * *
I met Mr. Villard in the Hôtel Continental in Paris first, and
persuaded him to come to Berne. There we dined together at the Vienna
Café.
Berne is the famous capital of Switzerland. It is a lovely old city
with quaint fountains and coloured houses. It is beautifully situated
on a ridge of hills, with snow-covered Alpine ranges in the distance,
the Jungfrau, handsome and conspicuous, in the middle. The swift river
girdles the town, gleaming blue and green in the valley below.
There are stately new buildings in Berne, and a fine market square.
There is the monument of the International Postal Union, a globe
encircled by female figures clasping hands, representing the various
races; and there is the bear pit with its fascinating shaggy
inhabitants; but place all the attractions of Berne in one scale and
the Wiener Café in the other, and the balance will sink in favour of
the café, at least for those unhappy human beings compelled by the
misfortunes of their country or the tragic circumstances of the Great
War to spend their enforced exile in the restricting circumstances of a
small Swiss city.
To the Wiener Café daily went these men and women to eat the food so
renowned for its cooking. Where was such delicious coffee to be found
in Berne? Where was there a greater variety of well-cooked and properly
seasoned dishes? The wine was a glory. The Hungarian gipsy band played
bewitching music, and brought home near enough for tears to those who
came from the lands of the East.
But the Wiener Café drew men and women from the four corners of
the earth for something more than its good food and glowing wines.
They came for talk, to meet fellow exiles and entertain interesting
strangers; to discuss the terrible march of events; to debate political
theories; to escape loneliness; to hear gay music, and forget their
sorrows in congenial fellowship.
Mr. Rinner of the Wiener Café radiated a welcome from his whole portly
person. The waiters, always smiling and efficient, served you as if
it were their great privilege to do so and not, as in so many English
cafés, as though they were conferring a favour upon you. You never felt
constrained to eat so fast that you choked in an effort to get out of
the place as quickly as possible. You stayed hours if you desired to
read or to play cards or chess. A second portion of every dish could
be had if wanted without any further charge. All sorts of delightful
odd corners, softly cushioned and conveniently partitioned, furthered
conversation, and supplied a certain amount of privacy, contrasting
favourably with the square horse-box appearance of so many eating
houses in other places. And this is a typical good-class European
restaurant.
I made my first acquaintance with the Wiener Café as the guest of Mr.
Rudolf Kommer. Mr. Norman Angell and Mr. J. R. Macdonald were of the
party. We talked for hours of the day’s happenings at the Conference,
and reviewed the prospects of an early peace now rapidly vanishing
into thin air. All the time there came through the glass partition
the tantalizing strains of the ’cello and violin playing Hungarian
dances. I had hoped to see as well as hear these gipsy musicians. And
so it happened. The door opened and in they came to give us a private
performance.
Smiling, bowing, they drew near to the table, almost bending over
it, playing softly, sweetly, merrily, the expression of their faces
interpreting the song. They had never studied a note of music. They
played solely by ear. Yet they had caught the magic spirit of music,
the soul and the rhythm of it. Their bodies swayed in time with the
song. Their intimate black eyes invited to the dance. Our feet tapped
time to their swaying forms. It was utterly joyous, abandoned, divine!
I hear it now:
“_Nimm Zigeuner deine Geige, lass sehn was du kannst._”
* * * * *
Our host crowned the evening’s enjoyment with stories of the old café’s
famous habitués. At the very table where we were seated Lenin in exile
had discussed his political philosophy with admirers and doubters
through a summer’s night. In the chair I occupied the volatile and
relentless Trotsky had lounged and gossiped. The charming, exuberant
Prince Windischgraetz and his beautiful wife had frequently supped
there. Crownless kings and exiled grand dukes had played their
less dangerous game at the bridge-table in the corner. Poets and
philosophers, journalists of all nations, destroyers of old states and
architects of new, propagandists of the old order and spies of the new,
lovely women of scandalous reputation, virtuous and sober citizens of
Berne, delegates to international conferences, travellers to Paris held
up on the way, connoisseurs of good beer--all found their way to this
famous house of good cheer and joyous fellowship, and have helped Herr
Rinner and the Gipsy Primas to make of it to thousands a memory of rich
delight or of the haunting sorrow which is akin to joy.
When shall I see the Wiener Café again? I ask myself. And I know that
I shall never see it as it was in those days of the war and the peace.
All the old friends are gone. Even the gipsy band has fled. Perhaps
there remain a few political exiles in Berne who find their way to the
café occasionally. It may be that Dr. Ludwig Bauer, that amiable giant
who eats at a sitting enough for four ordinary men and washes it down
with incredible quantities of beer, calls occasionally to play a game
of cards with a fellow-journalist, or to write his daily article in the
little back room reserved for honoured and familiar guests. I do not
know. All I know is that I have but to close my eyes and listen, and
through the windows are wafted softly the strains from the gipsy band:
“_Nimm Zigeuner deine Geige, lass sehn was du kannst,
Schwarzer Teufel spiel und zeige wie dein Bogen tanzt._”