THE AWAKENING OF AMERICA
There followed dark days for America. Washington was taken by the enemy,
but not until our important prisoners, the Crown Prince and von
Hindenburg, had been hurried to Chicago. Baltimore was taken. Everything
from Maine to Florida and all the Gulf ports were taken.
Add to this a widespread spirit of disorder and disunion, strikes and
rioting in many cities, dynamite outrages, violent addresses of
demagogues and labour leaders, pleas for peace at any price by misguided
fanatics who were ready to reap the whirlwind they had sown. These were
days when men of brain and courage, patriots of the nation with the
spirit of ‘76 in them, almost despaired of the future.
Through all this storm and darkness, amid dissension and violence, one
man stood firm for the right, one wise big-souled man, the President of
the United States. In a clamour of tongues he heard the still small voice
within and laboured prodigiously to build up unity and save the nation.
Like Lincoln, he was loved and honoured even by his enemies.
It was my privilege to hear the great speech which the President of the
United States delivered in Chicago, November 29, 1921, a date which
Theodore Roosevelt has called the most memorable in American history. The
immense auditorium on the lake front, where once were the Michigan
Central tracks, was packed to suffocation. It is estimated that 40,000
men and women, representing every state and organisation in the Union,
heard this impassioned appeal for the nation, that will live in American
history along with Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.
The President spoke first and did not remain to hear the other orators,
as he was leaving for Milwaukee, where he hoped to relieve a dangerous,
almost a revolutionary situation. He had been urged not to set foot in
this breeding place of sedition, but he replied that the citizens of
Milwaukee were his fellow countrymen, his brothers. They were dear to
him. They needed him. And he would not fail them.
In spite of this stirring cry from the heart, the audience seemed but
mildly affected and allowed the President to depart with only perfunctory
applause. There was no sign of success for his plea that the nation rouse
itself from its lethargy and send its sons unselfishly in voluntary
enlistment to drive the enemy from our shores. And there were resentful
murmurs when the President warned his hearers that compulsory military
service might be inevitable.
“Why shall the poor give their lives to save the rich?” answered Charles
Edward Russell, speaking for the socialists. “What have the rich ever
done for the poor except to exploit them and oppress them? Why should the
proletariat worry about the frontiers between nations? It’s only a
question which tyrant has his heel on our necks. No! The labouring men of
America ask you to settle for them and for their children the frontiers
between poverty and riches. That’s what they’re ready to fight for, a
fair division of the products of toil, and, by God, they’re going to have
it!”
One feature of the evening was a stirring address by the beautiful
Countess of Warwick, prominent in the feminist movement, who had come
over from England to speak for the Women’s World Peace Federation.
“Women of America,” said the Countess, “I appeal to you to save this
nation from further horrors of bloodshed. Rise up in the might of your
love and your womanhood and end this wholesale murder. Remember the great
war in Europe! What did it accomplish? Nothing except to fill millions of
graves with brave sons and beloved husbands. Nothing except to darken
millions of homes with sorrow. Nothing except to spread ruin and
desolation everywhere. Are you going to allow this ghastly business to be
repeated here?
“Women of America, I bring you greetings from the women of England, the
women of France, the women of Germany, who have joined this great
pacifist movement and whose voices sounding by millions can no longer be
stifled. Let the men hear and heed our cry. We say to them: ‘Stop! Our
rights on this earth equal yours. We gave you birth, we fed you at the
breast, we guarded your tender years, and we notify you now that you
shall no longer kill and maim our husbands, our sons, our fathers, our
brothers, our lovers. It is in the power of women to drive war’s hell
from the earth and, whatever the cost, we are going to do it.’”
“No! No!” came a tumult of cries from all parts of the hall.
“We believe in fighting to the last for our national existence,”
cried Mrs. John A. Logan, waving her hand, whereupon hundreds of
women patriots, Daughters of the American Revolution, suffrage and
anti-suffrage leaders, members of the Navy League, Red Cross workers,
sprang to their feet and screamed their enthusiasm for righteous war.
Among these I recognised Mrs. John A. Logan, Miss Mabel Boardman, Mrs.
Lindon Bates, Mrs. Mary S. Lockwood, Mrs. Seymour L. Cromwell, Miss Alice
Hill Chittenden, Mrs. Oliver Herford, Mrs. Hobart Chatfield-Taylor, Mrs.
John Temple Graves, Mrs. Edwin Gould, Mrs. George Dewey, Mrs. William
Cumming Story, Mrs. George Harvey, Mrs. Thomas A. Edison, Mrs. William C.
Potter, Miss Marie Van Vorst, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, Mrs. George J. Gould,
Mrs. T. J. Oakley Rhinelander, Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, Mrs. John Jacob
Astor, Mrs. Peter Cooper Hewitt, Mrs. M. Orme Wilson, Mrs. Simon Baruch,
Mrs. Oliver Herford, Mrs. Wm. Reynolds Brown, and Mrs. Douglas Robinson.
When this storm had subsided, Henry Ford rose to renew the pacifist
attack.
“It shocks and grieves me,” he began, “to find American women openly
advocating the killing of human beings.”
“Where would your business be,” yelled a voice in the gallery, “if George
Washington hadn’t fought the War of the Revolution?”
This sally called forth such frantic cheers that Mr. Ford was unable to
make himself heard and sat down in confusion.
Other speakers were Jane Addams, Hudson Maxim, Bernard Ridder and William
Jennings Bryan. The audience sat listless as the old arguments and
recriminations, the old facts and fallacies, were laid before them. Like
the nation, they seemed plunged in a stupor of indifference. They were
asleep.
Then suddenly fell the bomb from heaven. It was during the mild applause
following Mr. Bryan’s pacifist appeal, that I had a premonition of some
momentous happening. I was in the press gallery quite near to Theodore
Roosevelt, the next speaker, who was seated at the end of the platform,
busy with his notes, when a messenger came out from behind the stage and
handed the Colonel a telegram. As he read it I saw a startling change.
Roosevelt put aside his notes and a strange tense look came into his eyes
and, presently, when he rose to speak, I saw that his usually ruddy face
was ashen grey.
As Roosevelt rose, another messenger thrust a wet, ink-stained newspaper
into his hand.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, and in his first words there was a
sense of impending danger, “for reasons of the utmost importance I shall
not deliver the speech that I have prepared. I have a brief message, a
very grave message, that will reach your hearts more surely than any
words of mine. The deliberations of this great gathering have been taken
out of our hands. We have nothing more to discuss, for Almighty God has
spoken!
“My friends, the great man who was with us but now, the President of the
United States, has been assassinated.”
No words can describe the scene that followed. A moment of smiting
silence, then madness, hysteria, women fainting, men clamouring and
cursing, and finally a vast upsurging of quickened souls, as the organ
pealed forth: “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” and forty thousand Americans
rose and sang their hearts out.
Then, in a silence of death, Roosevelt spoke again:
“Listen to the last words of the President of the United States: ‘_The
Union! The Flag!_’ That is what he lived for and died for, that is what
he loved. ‘_The Union! The Flag!_’
“My friends, they say patriotism is dead in this land. They say we are
eaten up with love of money, tainted with a yellow streak that makes us
afraid to fight. It’s a lie! I am ready to give every dollar I have in
the world to help save this nation and it’s the same with you men. Am I
right?”
A roar of shouts and hysterical yells shook the building.
“I am sixty years old, but I’ll fight in the trenches with my four sons
beside me and you men will do the same. Am I right?”
Again came a roar that could be heard across Chicago.
“We all make mistakes. I do nothing but make mistakes, but I’m sorry.
I have said hard things about public men, especially about
German-Americans, but I’m sorry.”
With a noble gesture he turned to Bernard Ridder, who sprang to meet him,
his eyes blazing with loyalty.
“There are no German-Americans!” shouted Ridder. “We’re all Americans!
Americans!”
He clasped Roosevelt’s hand while the audience shouted its delight.
Quick on his feet came Charles Edward Russell, fired with the same
resistless patriotism.
“There are no more socialists!” he cried. “No more proletariat! We’re all
Americans! We’ll all fight for the Union and the old flag! _You too!_”
He turned to William Jennings Bryan, who rose slowly and with
outstretched hands faced his adversaries.
“I, too, have made mistakes and I am sorry. I, too, feel the grandeur of
those noble words spoken by that great patriot who has sent us his last
message. I, too, will stand by the flag in this time of peril and will
spare neither my life nor my fortune so long as the invader’s foot rests
on the soil of free America.”
“Americans!” shouted Roosevelt, the sweat streaming from his face.
“Look!” He caught Bryan by one arm and Russell by the other. “See how we
stand together. All the rest is forgotten. Americans! Brothers! On your
feet everybody! Yell it out to the whole land, to the whole world,
America is awake! Thank God, America is awake!”