John Vassar’s triumphant return to his home on Stuyvesant Square, after
the introduction of his sensational bill in Congress, was beset with
domestic complications. Congratulations from his father, nieces, and
Wanda had scarcely been received before the trouble began.
“But you must hear Miss Holland!” Zonia pleaded.
John Vassar shook his head.
“Not tonight, dear--”
“I’d set my heart on introducing you. Ah, Uncy dear--please! She’s the
most eloquent orator in America--”
“That’s why I hate her and all her tribe--”
A rosy cheek pressed close to his.
“Not all her tribe--”
“My Zonia--no--but I could wring her neck for leading a chick of your
years into her fool movement--”
“But she didn’t lead me, Uncy dear, I just saw it all in a flash while
she was speaking--my duty to my sex and the world--”
“Duty to your sex! What do you know about duty to your sex?--you infant
barely out of short dresses! Your hair ought to be still in braids. And
it was all my fault. I let you out of the nursery too soon--”
He paused and looked at her wistfully.
“And I promised your father’s spirit the day you came to us here that
I’d guard you as my own--you and little Marya. I haven’t done my duty.
I’ve been too busy with big things to realize that I was neglecting the
biggest thing in the world. You’ve slipped away from me, dear--and I’m
heartsick over it. Maybe I’ll be in time for Marya--you’re lost at
eighteen--”
“Marya’s joined our Club too--”
“A babe of twelve?”
“She’s going to be Miss Holland’s page in the suffrage Pageant--”
John Vassar groaned, laid both hands on the girl’s shoulders and rose
abruptly.
“Now, Zonia, it’s got to stop here and now. I’m not going to allow this
brazen Amazon--”
His niece broke into a fit of laughter.
“Brazen Amazon?”
“That’s what I said. This brazen Amazon is my enemy--”
The girl lifted her finger laughingly.
“But you’re not afraid of her? John Vassar, a descendant of old Yan
Vasa in whose veins ran the royal blood of Poland--ten years in Congress
from this big East Side district--the idol of the people--chairman of
the National House Committee on Military Affairs”--she paused and her
voice dropped to the tensest pride--“my candidate for governor of New
York--you positively won’t go to the meeting in Union Square tonight?”
she added quietly.
“Positively--”
“Then, Uncy dear, I’ll have to deliver the message--”
She drew a crumpled note from her bosom and handed it to him without a
word.
He broke the seal and read with set lips:
HON. JOHN VASSAR, M. C.,
16 STUYVESANT SQUARE,
NEW YORK.
DEAR SIR: Our committee in charge of the canvass of your
congressional district in the campaign for woman’s suffrage have
tried in vain to obtain an expression of your views. We are making
a house to house canvass of every voter in New York. You have thus
far side-stepped us.
You are a man of too much power in the State and nation to overlook
in such a fight. The Congressional Directory informs us that you
are barely thirty-six years old. You have already served ten years
in Washington with distinction and have won your spurs as a
national leader. A great future awaits you unless you incur the
united opposition of the coming woman voter.
I warn you that we are going to sweep the Empire State. Your
majority is large and has increased at each election. It is not
large enough if we mark you for defeat. I have sincerely hoped that
we might win you for our cause.
I ask for a declaration of your position. You must be for us or
against us. There can be no longer a middle course.
I should deeply regret the necessity of your defeat if you force
the issue. Your niece has quite won my heart and her passionate
enthusiasm for her distinguished uncle has led me to delay this
important message until the introduction of your bill for
militarism has forced it.
Sincerely,
VIRGINIA HOLLAND,
Pres’t National Campaign Committee.
John Vassar read the letter a second time, touched the tips of his
mustache thoughtfully and fixed his eyes on Zonia.
“And my little sweetheart will join the enemy in this campaign!”
A tear trembled on the dark lashes.
“Ah, Uncy darling, how could you think such a thing!”
“You bring this challenge--”
“I only want to vote--to--elect--you--governor--”
The voice broke in a sob, as he bent and kissed the smooth young brow.
She clung to him tenderly.
“Uncy dear, just for my sake, because I love you so--because you’re my
hero--won’t you do something for me--Just because _I_ ask it?”
“Maybe--”
“Go to Union Square with me then--”
He shook his head emphatically.
“Against my principles, dear--”
“It’s not against your principles to make me happy?”
He took her cheeks between his hands.
“Seeing that I’ve raised you from a chick--I don’t think there ought to
be much doubt about how I stand on the woman question as far as it
affects two little specimens of the tribe--do you?”
“All right then,” she cried gayly, “you love Marya and me. We are women.
You can’t refuse us a little old thing like a ballot if we want it--can
you?”
She paused and kissed him again.
“So now, Uncy, you’re going to hear Miss Holland speak just to make me
happy--aren’t you?”
He smiled and surrendered.
“To make you happy--yes--”
He couldn’t say more. The arms were too tight about his neck.
He drew them gently down.
“This is what I dread in politics, dear--when the women go in to win.
We’ve graft enough now. When the boys run up against this sort of
thing--God help us!--and God save the country if you should happen to
make a mistake in what you ask for! Well, you’ve won this fight--come
on, let’s get up front and hear the argument. I hate to stand on the
edge and wonder what the hen is saying when she crows--”
Zonia handed his hat and cane and, radiant with smiles, opened the door.
“I suppose we’ll let Marya stay with Grandpa?” he asked.
“They’ve been gone half an hour!”
“Oh--”
“I had no trouble with Grandpa at all. He agreed to sit on the platform
with me--”
“Indeed!”
“But I don’t think he really understood what the meeting was about--”
“Just to please his grandchick, however, the old traitor agreed to
preside at my funeral--eh?”
“He won’t if you say not--shall I tell him to keep off? Marya will be
awfully disappointed if we make them get down--”
“No--let him stay. Maybe he can placate the enemy. They can hold him as
hostage for my good behavior.”
The hand on his arm pressed tighter.
“It’s so sweet of you, Uncy!”
“At what hour does this paragon of all the virtues, male and female,
harangue the mob?”
“You mean Miss Holland?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, they’ll all be there tonight. Miss Holland is the principal speaker
for the Federated Women’s Clubs of America--she’s the president, you
know--”
“No--I didn’t know--”
“She won’t speak until 9:30. We can hear the others first. There’ll be
some big guns among the men too--the Honorable Plato Barker and the
Reverend A. Cuthbert Pike, the president of the American Peace
Union--and Waldron, the multi-millionaire, he presides at Miss Holland’s
stand--”
“Indeed--”
“Yes--they say he’s in love with her but she doesn’t care a rap for him
or any other man--”
John Vassar had ceased to hear Zonia’s chatter. The name of Charles
Waldron had started a train of ugly thought. Of all the leaders of
opinion in America this man was his pet aversion. He loathed his
personality. He hated his newspaper with a fury which words could not
express. It stood squarely for every tendency of degenerate materialism
in our life, a worship of money and power first and last against all
sentiment and all the hopes and aspirations of the masses. He posed as
the Pecksniffian leader of Reform and the reform he advocated always
meant the lash for the man who toils. His hatreds were implacable, too,
and he used the power of his money with unscrupulous brutality. He had
lately extended the chain of banks which he owned in New York until they
covered the leading cities of every state in the Union. His newspaper,
the _Evening Courier_, was waging an unceasing campaign for the
establishment of an American aristocracy of wealth and culture.
Vassar was cudgeling his brain over the mystery of this man’s sudden
enthusiasm for woman suffrage and the Cause of Universal Peace. It was a
sinister sign of the times. He rarely advocated a losing cause. That
this cold-blooded materialist could believe in the dream of human
emancipation through the influence of women was preposterous.
Zonia might be right, of course, in saying that he had become infatuated
with the young Amazon leader of the Federated Women’s Clubs. And yet
that would hardly account for his presence as the presiding genius of a
grand rally for suffrage. There were too many factions represented in
such a demonstration for his personal interest in one woman to explain
his activity in bringing those people together. His paper had, in fact,
led the appeal to co-ordinate Demagogery, Labor, Peace Propaganda,
Socialism, and Feminism in one monster mass meeting.
The longer Vassar puzzled over it, the more impenetrable became
Waldron’s motive. His leadership in the movement was uncanny. What did
it mean?