RIOTS IN CHICAGO AND GERMAN PLOT TO RESCUE THE CROWN PRINCE
The first weeks of January, 1922, brought increasing difficulties and
perplexities for the German forces of occupation in America. With
comparative ease the enemy had conquered our Atlantic seaboard, but now
they faced the harder problem of holding it against a large and
intelligent and totally unreconciled population. What was to be done with
ten million people who, having been deprived of their arms, their cities
and their liberties, had kept their hatred?
The Germans had suffered heavy losses. The disaster to von Hindenburg’s
army in the battle of the Susquehanna had cost them over a hundred
thousand men. The revolt of Boston, the massacre of Richmond, had
weakened the Teuton prestige and had set American patriotism boiling,
seething, from Maine to Texas, from Long Island to the Golden Gate. There
were rumours of strange plots and counter-plots, also of a new great army
of invasion that was about to set sail from Kiel. Evidently the Germans
must have more men if they were to ride safely on this furious American
avalanche that they had set in motion, if they were to tame the fiery
American volcano that was smouldering beneath them.
In this connection I must speak of the famous woman’s plot that resulted
in the death of several hundred German officers and soldiers and that
would have caused the death of thousands but for unforeseen developments.
This plot was originated by women leaders of the militant suffrage party
in New York and Pennsylvania (the faction led by Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont
not approving) and soon grew to nation-wide importance with an enrolled
body of twenty thousand militant young women, each one of whom was
pledged to accomplish the destruction of one of the enemy on a certain
Saturday night between the hours of sunset and sunrise.
By a miracle these women kept their vow of secrecy until the fatal
evening, but at eight o’clock the plot was revealed to Germans in
Philadelphia through the confession of a young Quakeress who, after
playing her part for weeks, had fallen genuinely in love with a Prussian
lieutenant and simply could not bring herself to kill him when the time
came.
I come now to a sensational happening that I witnessed in Chicago, to
which city I had journeyed after the Richmond affair for very personal
reasons. If this were a romance and not a plain recital of facts I should
dwell upon my meeting with Mary Ryerson and our mutual joy in each
finding that the other had escaped unharmed from the perils of our recent
adventures.
Miss Ryerson, it appeared, after the discovery of her daring disguise had
been released on parole by order of General Langthorne, who believed her
story that she had taken this desperate chance as the only means of
saving Thomas A. Edison. Mary had heard the story of her brother’s heroic
death and to still her grief, had thrown herself into work for the Red
Cross fund under Miss Boardman and Mrs. C.C. Rumsey. She had hit upon a
charming way of raising money by having little girls dressed in white
with American flags for sashes, lead white lambs through the streets, the
lambs bearing Red Cross contribution boxes on their backs. By this means
thousands of dollars had been secured.
On the evening following my arrival in Chicago, I had arranged to take
Miss Ryerson to a great recruiting rally in the huge lake-front
auditorium building, but when I called at her boarding-house on Wabash
Avenue, I found her much disturbed over a strange warning that she had
just received.
“Something terrible is going to happen tonight,” she said. “There will be
riots all over Chicago.”
I asked how she knew this and she explained that a deaf and dumb man
named Stephen, who took care of the furnace, a man in whose rather
pathetic case she had interested herself, had told her. It seems he also
took care of the furnace in a neighbouring house which was occupied by a
queer German club, really a gathering place of German spies.
“He overheard things there and told me,” she said seriously, whereupon I
burst out laughing.
“What? A deaf and dumb man?”
“You know what I mean. He reads the lips and I know the sign language.”
The main point was that this furnace man had begged Miss Ryerson not to
leave her boardinghouse until he returned. He had gone back to the German
club, where he hoped to get definite information of an impending
catastrophe.
“It’s some big coup they are planning for tonight,” she said. “We must
wait here.”
So we waited and presently, along Wabash Avenue, with crashing bands and
a roar of angry voices, came an anti-militarist socialist parade with
floats and banners presenting fire-brand sentiments that called forth
jeers and hisses from crowds along the sidewalks or again enthusiastic
cheers from other crowds of contrary mind.
“You see, there’s going to be trouble,” trembled the girl, clutching my
arm. “Read that!”
A huge float was rolling past bearing this pledge in great red letters:
“I refuse to kill your father. I refuse to slay your mother’s son. I
refuse to plunge a bayonet into the breast of your sweetheart’s brother.
I refuse to assassinate you and then hide my stained fists in the folds
of any flag. I refuse to be flattered into hell’s nightmare by a class of
well-fed snobs, crooks and cowards who despise our class socially, rob
our class economically and betray our class politically.”
At this the hostile crowds roared their approval and disapproval. Also at
another float that paraded these words:
“What is war? For working-class wives--heartache. For working-class
mothers--loneliness. For working-class children--orphanage. For
peace--defeat. For death--a harvest. For nations--debts. For
bankers--bonds, interest. For preachers on both sides--ferocious prayers
for victory. For big manufacturers--business profits. For ‘Thou Shalt
Not Kill’--boisterous laughter. For Christ--contempt.”
I saw that my companion was deeply moved.
“It’s all true, what they say, isn’t it?” she murmured.
“Yes, it’s true, but--we can’t change the world, we can’t give up our
country, our independence. Hello!”
A white-faced man had rushed into the parlour, gesticulating violently
and making distressing guttural sounds. It was Stephen.
Uncomprehending, I watched his swift signs.
“What is it? What is he trying to say?”
“Wait!”
Her hands flew in eager questions and the man answered her.
“Oh!” she cried. “The riots are a blind to draw away the police and the
troops. They’re marching against the Blackstone Hotel now--a thousand
German spies--with rifles.”
The Blackstone Hotel! I realised in a moment what that meant. The German
Crown Prince was still a prisoner at the Blackstone, in charge of General
Langhorne. It was a serious handicap to the enemy that we held in our
power the heir to the German throne. They dared not resort to reprisals
against America lest Frederick William suffer.
“They mean to rescue the Crown Prince?”
“Yes.”
I rushed to the telephone to call up police headquarters, but the wires
were dead--German spies had seen to that.
“Come!” I said, seizing her arm. “We must hustle over to the auditorium.”
Fortunately the great recruiting hall was only a few blocks distant and
as we hurried there Miss Ryerson explained that the furnace man, Stephen,
before coming to us, had run to McCormick College, the Chicago home for
deaf students, and given the alarm.
“What good will that do?”
“What good! These McCormick boys have military drill. They are splendid
shots. Stephen says fifty of them will hold the Germans until our troops
get there.”
“I hope so.”
I need not detail our experiences in the enormous and rather disorderly
crowd that packed the auditorium building except to say that ten minutes
later we left there followed by eighty members of the Camp Fire Club
(they had organised this appeal for recruits), formidable hunters of big
game who came on the run carrying the high power rifles that they had
used against elephants and tigers in India and against moose and
grizzlies in this country. Among them were Ernest Thompson Seton, Dan
Beard, Edward Seymour, Belmore Brown, Edward H. Litchfield and his son,
Herbert.
Under the command of their president, George D. Pratt, these splendid
shots proceeded with all speed to the Blackstone Hotel, where they found
a company of deaf riflemen, under the command of J. Frederick Meagher,
about seventy in all, guarding the doors and windows. Not a moment too
soon did they arrive for, as they entered the hotel, hoarse cries were
heard outside and presently a bomb exploded at the main entrance,
shattering the heavy doors and killing nine of the defenders, including
Melvin Davidson, Jack Seipp and John Clarke, the Blackfoot Indian, famous
for his wood carvings and his unerring marksmanship.
Meantime messengers had been sent in all directions, through the rioting
city, calling for troops and police and in twenty minutes, with the
arrival of strong reinforcements, the danger passed.
But those twenty minutes! Again and again the Germans came forward in
furious assaults with rifles and machine guns. The Crown Prince must be
rescued. At any cost he must be rescued.
No! The Crown Prince was not rescued. The defenders of the Hotel
Blackstone had their way, a hundred and fifty against a thousand, but
they paid the price. Before help came forty members of the Camp Fire Club
and fifty of those brave deaf American students gave up their lives, as
is recorded on a bronze tablet in the hotel corridor that bears witness
to their heroism.
I must now make my last contribution to this chapter of our history,
which has to do with motives that presently influenced the Crown Prince
towards a startling decision. I came into possession of this knowledge as
a consequence of the part I played in rescuing Thomas A. Edison after his
abduction by the Germans.
One of the first questions Mr. Edison asked me as we escaped in a swift
automobile from the burning and shell-wrecked Virginia capital, had a
direct bearing on the ending of the war.
“Mr. Langston,” he asked, “did the Committee of Twenty-one receive my
wireless about the airship expedition?”
“Yes, sir, they got it,” I replied, and then explained the line of
reasoning that had led the Committee to, disregard Mr. Edison’s warning.
[Illustration: “MY FRIENDS, THEY SAY PATRIOTISM IS DEAD IN THIS LAND.
THEY SAY WE ARE EATEN UP WITH LOVE OF HONEY, TAINTED WITH A YELLOW STREAK
THAT MAKES US AFRAID TO FIGHT. IT’S A LIE! 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?”]
He listened, frowning.
“Huh! That sounds like Elihu Root.”
“It was,” I admitted.
For hours as we rushed along, my distinguished companion sat silent and I
did not venture to break in upon his meditations, although there were
questions that I longed to ask him. I wondered if it was Widding’s sudden
death in the Richmond prison that had saddened him.
It was not until late that afternoon, when we were far back in the Blue
Ridge Mountains, that Mr. Edison’s face cleared and he spoke with some
freedom of his plans for helping the military situation.
“There’s one thing that troubles me,” he reflected as we finished an
excellent meal at the Allegheny Hotel in Staunton, Virginia. “I wonder
if--let’s see! You have met the Crown Prince, you interviewed him, didn’t
you?”
“Twice,” said I.
“Is he intelligent--_really _intelligent? A big open-minded man or--is he
only a prince?”
“He’s more than a prince,” I said, “he’s brilliant, but--I don’t know how
open-minded he is.”
Edison drummed nervously on the table.
“If we were only dealing with a Bismarck or a von Moltke! Anyhow, unless
he’s absolutely narrow and obstinate--”
“Oh, no.”
“Good! Where are the Committee of Twenty-one? In Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“And the Crown Prince too?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be there to-morrow and--listen! We can destroy the German fleet.
Widding’s invention will do it. Poor Widding! It broke his heart to see
America conquered when he knew that he could save the nation if somebody
would only listen to him. But nobody would.” Edison’s deep eyes burned
with anger. “Thank God, I listened.”
It seemed like presumption to question Mr. Edison’s statement, yet I
ventured to remind him that several distinguished scientists had declared
that the airship _America_ could not fail to destroy the German fleet.
“Pooh!” he answered. “I said the _America_ expedition would fail. The
radio-control of torpedoes is uncertain at the best because of
difficulties in following the guide lights. They may be miles away, shut
off by fog or waves; but this thing of Widding’s is sure.”
“Has it been tried?”
“Heavens! No! If it had been tried the whole world would be using it.
After we destroy the German fleet the whole world will use it.”
“Is it some new principle? Some unknown agency?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing new about it. It’s just a sure way to
make an ordinary Whitehead torpedo hit a battleship.”
Although I was consumed with curiosity I did not press for details at
this time and my companion presently relapsed into one of his long
silences.
We reached Chicago the next afternoon and, as the great inventor left me
to lay his plans before the Committee of Twenty-one, he thanked me
earnestly for what I had done and asked if he could serve me in any way.
“I suppose you know what I would like?” I laughed.
He smiled encouragingly.
“Still game? Well, Mr. Langston, if the Committee approves my plan, and I
think they will, you can get ready for another big experience. Take a
comfortable room at the University Club and wait.”