JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE TEMPTER
I
When Jimmie Higgins stepped off the train at Leesville, it was a
blustery morning in early March, with snow still on the ground and
flurries of it in the air. In front of the station was a public
square, with a number of people gathered, and Jimmie strolled over
to see what was going on. What he saw was a score of young men, some
in khaki uniforms, some in ordinary trousers and sweaters, being
drilled. Jimmie, being in the mood of a gentleman of leisure,
stopped to watch the show.
It was the thing he had been talking and thinking about for nearly
three years: this monstrous perversion of the human soul called
Militarism, this force which seized hold of men and made them into
automatons, moving machines which obeyed orders in a mass, and went
out and did deeds of which none of them taken separately would have
been capable, even in their dreams. Here was a bunch of average nice
Leesville boys, employees of the shops near-by, “soda-jerkers” and
“counter-jumpers”, clerks who had deftly fitted shoes on to the feet
of pretty ladies. Now they were submitting themselves to this
deforming discipline, undergoing this devilish transmogrification.
Jimmie's eye ran down the line: there was a street-car conductor he
knew, there was a machinist from the Empire, also there was a son of
Ashton Chalmers, president of the First National Bank of Leesville.
And suddenly Jimmie gave a start. Impossible! It could not be!
But--it was! Young Emil Forster! Emil a Socialist, Emil a German,
Emil a student and thinker, who had penetrated the hypocritical
disguises of this capitalist war, and had fearlessly proclaimed the
truth every Friday night at the local--here he was with a suit of
khaki on his rather frail figure, a rifle in his hand and a look of
grim resolve on his face, going through the evolutions of
squad-drill: left, right, left, right, left, right--column left,
march--one, two, three, four--left, right, left, right--squad right
about, march--left, right, left, right--squad left oblique
march--and so on. If you are to form any picture of the scene you
must imagine the swift tramp of many feet in unison--thump, thump,
thump, thump, thump, thump; you must imagine the marchers, with
their solemnly set faces, and the orders thundered out by a
red-faced young man of desperate aspect, the word MARCH coming each
time with a punch that hit you over the heart. This red-faced young
man was the very incarnation of the military despot as Jimmie had
pictured him; watching with hawk-like eye, scolding, pounding,
driving, with no slightest regard for the feelings of the slaves he
commanded, or for any of the decencies of civilized intercourse.
“Hold those half-steps, Casey! Keep your eye on the end man--you'll
have him splitting his legs if you don't wait for him. Column left,
march--one, two, three, four--now you're all right--off with
you--that's better! Put a little pep into your feet, Chalmers, for
God's sake--if you go marching into Berlin like that they'll think
it's the hospital squad! By the right flank, column fours,
march--watch your distance there, end man! How many times do you want
me to tell you that?”--and so on and on--tramp, tramp, tramp,
tramp--while a small boy standing beside Jimmie, evidently a truant
from school, chanted over and over: “Left--left--the soldier got
drunk and he packed up his trunk and he left--left! And do you not
think he was right--right?”
II
Now if you have ever stood about and watched outdoor exercise or
games, on a day in March with snow on the ground and a keen wind
blowing, you know how it is--you have to stamp your feet to keep
warm; and if in your neighbourhood there are twenty left feet
smiting the ground in unison, and then twenty right feet smiting the
ground in unison, it is absolutely inevitable that your stamping
should keep time to the smiting; also the rhythm of your stamping
will be communicated upwards into your body--your thoughts will
keep time with the marching squad--tramp, tramp, tramp,
tramp--left, right, left, right! The psychologists tell us that one
who goes through the actions appropriate to an emotion will begin to
feel that emotion; and so it was with Jimmie Higgins. By a process
so subtle that he never suspected it Jimmie was being made into a
militarist! Jimmie's hands were clenched, Jimmie's jaw was set,
Jimmie's feet were tramping, tramping on the road to Berlin, to
teach the Prussian war-lords what it meant to defy the free men of a
great republic!
But then something would happen to blast these budding excitements
in Jimmie's soul. The red-faced fellow would break into the rhythm
of the march. “For the love of Mike, Pete Casey, can't you remember
those half-steps? Squad, halt! Now look here, what's the matter with
you? Step out and let me show you once more.” And poor Casey, a
meek-faced little man with sloping shoulders, who had been running
the elevator in the Chalmers Building up to a week ago, would
patiently practise marching without moving, so that the rest of the
line could wheel round him as a pivot. The petty tyrant who scolded
at him was determined to have his own way; and Jimmie, who had had
to do with many such tyrants in his long years of industrial
servitude, was glad when this particular one got mixed up in his
orders, and ran his squad into the fountain in the middle of the
drill-ground, and some of them marched over the parapet, sliding
down into the ice-covered basin below. The spectators roared, and so
did the marchers, and the red-faced man young had to join in, and to
come down off his high horse.
The conflict of impulses went on in Jimmie's soul. These marching
men were the “fools” at whom he had been mocking for something over
two years. They did not look like “fools” he had to admit; on the
contrary, they looked, quite capable of deciding what they wanted to
do. And they had decided; they had quit their jobs several weeks in
advance of the time when they would be called for the draft, and had
set to work to learn the rudiments of the military art, in the hope
of thus getting more quickly to France. Among them were bankers and
merchants and real estate dealers, side by side with soda-jerkers
and counter-jumpers and elevator-men--and all taking their orders
from an ex-blacksmith's helper, who had run away to fight in the
Philippines.
Jimmie got this last bit of information from a fellow who stood
watching; so he realized that here was the thing he had been reading
about in the papers--the new army of the people, that was going
forth to make the world safe for democracy! Jimmy had read such
words, and thought them just camouflage, a trap for the “fools”. But
here, a sight of wonder before his eyes, a son of Ashton Chalmers,
president of the First National Bank of Leesville, being ordered
about and hauled over the coals by an ex-blacksmith's helper, who
happened to know how to shout with the accents of a pile-driver:
“Shoulder HUMPS! Order HUMPS! Present HUMPS!”
The squad spread itself out for exercise--grasping their heavy
rifles and swinging them this way and that with desperate violence.
“Swing over head and return, ready, exercise--one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight--eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two,
one.” It was no joke making those swings in such quick time; the
poor little elevator-man Casey was left hopelessly behind, he could
only make half the swing, and then couldn't get back to place on the
count; he would look about, grinning sheepishly, and then fall into
time and try again. Everybody's face was set, everybody's breath was
coming harder and harder, everybody's complexion was becoming
apoplectic.
“Swing to the right!” shouted the blacksmith-tyrant. “Ready,
exercise--one, two”--and so on. And then he would yell: “No,
Chalmers, don't punch out with your arms--swing up your gun! Swing
it up from the bottom! That's the way! Poke 'em! Poke 'em! Put the
punch into 'em!” And over Jimmie stole a cold horror. There was
nothing on the end of those guns but a little black hole, but Jimmie
knew what was supposed to be there--what would some day be there;
the exercise meant that these affable young Leesville store-clerks
were getting ready to drive a sharp, gleaming blade into the bowels
of human beings! “Poke 'em! Poke 'em!” shouted the ex-blacksmith,
and with desperate force they swung the heavy rifles, throwing their
bodies to one side and leaping out with one foot. Horrible!
Horrible!
III
Man is a gregarious animal, and it is a fundamental law of his being
that when a group of his fellows are doing a certain thing, and
doing it with energy and fervour, anyone who does not do it, who
does not share the mood of energy and fervour shall be the object of
ridicule and anger, shall feel within his own heart confusion and
distress. This is true, even if the group is doing nothing more
worthwhile than making itself drunk. How much more shall it be when
it is engaged in making the world safe for democracy!
The only way the man can save himself is by holding before his mind
the belief that he is right, and that some day this will be
recognized; in other words, by appealing to some other group of men,
who in some future time will applaud him. If he is sure of this
future applause, he can manage to stand the jeers for the moment.
But how when he begins to doubt--when his mind is haunted by the
possibility that the men of the future may agree with those of the
present, who are learning to march in unison, and to poke bayonets
into the bodies of Huns!
One of the things which brought this destructive doubt to Jimmie's
soul was the sight of Emil Forster, learning to march and to poke.
Emil had been one of his heroes, Emil knew a hundred times as much
as he--and Emil was going to the war! The squad marched away to the
City hall across the square, and deposited its rifles in a room in
the basement, and then Emil came out, and Jimmie went up to him. The
young carpet-designer of course was delighted to meet his old
friend, and asked him to go to lunch. As they walked along the
street together Jimmie asked what it meant, and Emil answered: “It
means that I have made up my mind.”
“You're going to fight the German people?”
“Strange as you'll think it, I'm going to fight them for their own
good. Bebel wrote in his memoirs that the way to get democratic
progress in autocratic countries is through military defeat; and it
seems up to America to provide this defeat for Germany.”
“But--you were preaching just the opposite!”
“I know; it makes me feel foolish sometimes. But things have
changed, and there's no sense in shutting your eyes to facts.”
Jimmie waited.
“Russia, more especially,” continued Emil, answering the unspoken
question. “What's the use of getting Socialism, if you're just
throwing yourself down for a military machine to run over you?
You're playing the fool, that's all--and you have to see it. What
hope is there for Russia now?”
“There's the German Socialists.”
“Well, they just didn't have the power, that's all. What's more, we
have to face the fact that a lot of them aren't really
revolutionists--they're politicians, and haven't dared to stand out
against the crowd. Anyhow, whatever the reason is, they didn't save
their own country, and they didn't save Russia. They certainly can't
expect us to give them a third chance--it costs too much.”
“But then,” argued Jimmie, “ain't we doin' just what we blame them
for doin'--turnin' patriots, supportin' a capitalist government?”
“When you're supporting a government,” replied Emil, “it make's a
lot of difference what use its making of your support. We all know
the faults of our government, but we know too that the people can
change it when enough of them get ready, and that makes a real
difference. I've come to realize that if we give the Kaiser a
beating, the German people will kick him out, and then we can talk
sense to them.”
IV
They walked along for a bit in silence, Jimmie trying to assimilate
these ideas. They were new--not in the sense that he had not heard
them before, but in the sense that he had not heard them from a
German. “How does your father feel?” he asked at last.
“He hasn't changed,” replied the other. “And that makes it pretty
hard--it's all we can do to keep from quarrelling. He's old, and new
ideas don't come to him easily. Yet you'd think he'd be the first to
see it--his father was one of the old revolutionists, he was put in
jail in Dresden. I don't suppose you know much about the history of
Germany.”
“No,” said Jimmie.
“Well, in those days the German people tried to get free, and they
were put down by the troops, and the real revolutionists were driven
into exile. Some of them came over here--like my grandfather. But,
you see, their children have forgotten about their wrongs--they look
back on Germany now, and think of it sentimentally, as it's pictured
in the stories and songs--a sort of Christmas-tree Germany. They
don't know about the Germany that's grown up--the Germany of iron
and coal kings, that combines all the cruelty of feudalism with
modern efficiency and science--the Beast with the Brains of an
Engineer!”
They walked on, Emil lost in thought. “You know,” he broke out,
suddenly, “this war has been a revelation to me--the most horrible
you could imagine. It's as if you loved a woman, and saw her go
insane before your eyes, or turn into some sort of degenerate. For I
believed in the Christmas-tree Germany; I loved it, and I argued for
it, I just couldn't bring myself to believe what I read in the
papers. Now I look back, and it seems like a trap that the German
war-lords had set for my mind--reaching way over here into America,
and making me think what they wanted me to! Perhaps I've gone to the
other extreme--I find I distrust everything that's German. Father
accused me of it last night; he was singing an old German song that
says that when you hear men singing you may lie down in peace, for
bad men have no songs. And I reminded him that the nation which
taught that idea had marched into Belgium singing!”
“Gee!” exclaimed Jimmie. He could imagine how old Hermann Forster
had taken that remark!
The young carpet-designer smiled, rather sadly. “He says it's
because I've put on khaki. But the truth is, I'd been full of these
thoughts, and all at once they came to a head. I was drafted, and I
had to make up my mind one way or the other. I decided I'd
fight--and then, when I'd decided, I wanted to get into it right
away.” Emil paused, and looked at his friend and asked, “What about
you?”
Jimmie, of course, was a draft-evader, one of the hated “slackers”.
Ordinarily, he would have told Emil, and the two of them would have
grinned. But now Emil was in khaki, Emil was a patriot; perhaps it
would not be wise to trust him entirely! “They haven't got me yet,”
said Jimmie; and then, “I ain't so sure as I used to be, but I ain't
ready to be a soldier--I dunno's I could stand bein' bossed like
that fellow does it.”
Emil laughed. “Don't you suppose I want to learn?”
“But does he need to call you names?”
“That's part of the game--nobody minds that. He's putting the pep
into us--and we want it in.”
Jimmie found that such a new point of view that he didn't know what
to reply.
“You see,” the other went on, “if you really want to fight, you go
in for it; it's quite remarkable how your feelings change. You
imagine yourself in the presence of the enemy, and you know your
success depends on discipline; if there's a leader, and especially
if you feel that he knows his business, you're glad to have him to
teach you, to make the whole machine do what you want it to. I know
it sounds funny from me, but I've learnt to love discipline.” And
Emil laughed, a nervous laugh. “This army means business, let me
tell you; and it's got right down to it. They've been fighting three
and a half years over in Europe, and they send their best men over
to show us, and we dig in and learn--I tell you, we work as if the
devil was after us!”
V
It sounded so strange to hear things like this from the lips of Emil
Forster! Jimmie could hardly make them real to himself--the world
was slipping from under his feet. The Socialist movement was being
seduced--won over by the militarists! He didn't quite dare to say
this; but he hinted, cautiously, “Ain't you afraid maybe we'll get
used to fightin'--to discipline and all that? Maybe they'll trick
us--the plutes.”
“I know,” said the other. “I've thought of that, and I've no doubt
they'll try it--they want universal training for that very purpose.
We have to fight them, that's all; we have to fight right now--to
make clear why we're going into this war. We have to hold it before
the people--that this is a war to bring democracy to the whole
world. If we can fix that in people's minds, the imperialists won't
have a look in.”
“If you could do it, of course--” began Jimmie, hesitatingly.
“But we ARE doing it!” cried Emil. “We're doing it day by day. Look
at this strike here in Leesville.”
“What strike?”
“Didn't you know there'd been another walk-out in the Empire Shops?”
“No, I didn't.”
“The men went out, and the government sent an arbitration
commission, and forced both sides to accept an award. They broke old
Granitch down--made him recognize the union and grant the basic
eight-hour day.”
“My God!” exclaimed Jimmie. It was the thing for which he had stood
up in the Empire yards and been cursed by young Lacey Granitch; it
was the thing for which he had been sent to jail and devoured by
lice! And now the government had helped the men to win their demand!
It was the first time--literally the first in Jimmie's whole
life--that he had been led to think of the government as something
else than an enemy and a slave-driver.
“How did Granitch take it?” he asked.
“Oh, awful! He threatened to quit, and let the government run his
plant; but when he found the government was perfectly willing, he
dropped his bluff. And look here--here's something else.” Emil
reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a
newspaper clipping. “Ashton Chalmers went to a banquet at some
bankers' convention the other day and made a speech to them. Read
this.”
Jimmie, walking along, read some words that Emil had underlined in
pencil: “Whether we will or no, we have to recognize that the old
order is dead. We face a new era, when labour is coming into its
own. If we do not want to be left behind as derelicts, we shall have
to get busy and do our part to bring in this new era, which
otherwise will come with bloodshed and destruction.”
“For the love of Mike!” said Jimmie.
“It's just about knocked Leesville out,” said Emil. “You ought to
have seen the papers that reported the speech! It was as if God in
his Heaven had gone crazy, and the clergymen in the churches had to
tell the news!”
To the little machinist there flashed a sudden idea. He caught his
friend by the arm. “Emil!” he exclaimed. “Do you remember that time
when Ashton Chalmers and old Granitch came to our meeting at the
Opera-house?”
“Sure thing!” said Emil.
“Maybe that done it!”
“Nothing more likely.”
“And it was me that sold him the tickets!”
Jimmie was thrilled to the bottom of his shoes. Such is the reward
that comes now and then to the soul of a propagandist; he struggles
on amid ridicule and despair--and then suddenly, like a gleam of
light, comes evidence that somewhere, somehow, he has reached
another mind, he has made a real impression. Ashton Chalmers had
listened to the Socialist orator, and he had gone away and read and
investigated; he had realized the force of this great world movement
for economic justice, he had broken the bonds and barriers of his
class, and told the truth about what he saw coming. When Jimmie read
the wonderful words which the bank president had spoken, he was
nearer to an impulse to fight Germany than at any previous moment of
his life!