sending of the Red Cross army to Cuba. It went to Constantinople, five
thousand miles away, to help the Armenian Christians--why has it waited
three years to go eighty miles to feed and clothe the Cuban women and
children? It is like sending help to a hungry peasant in Russia while a
man dies on your doorstep.”
“Well,” said the senator, rising, “I will let you know to-morrow.
If it is the right thing to do, and if I can do it, of course it must
be done. We start from Tampa, you say? I know the presidents of all
of those roads and they’ll probably give me a private car for the trip
down. Shall we take any newspaper men with us, or shall I wait until I
get back and be interviewed? What do you think?”
“I would wait until my return,” Arkwright answered, his eyes glowing
with the hope the senator’s words had inspired, “and then speak to a
mass-meeting here and in Boston and in Chicago. Three speeches will be
enough. Before you have finished your last one the American warships
will be in the harbor of Havana.”
“Ah, youth, youth!” said the senator, smiling gravely, “it is no light
responsibility to urge a country into war.”
“It is no light responsibility,” Arkwright answered, “to know you
have the chance to save the lives of thousands of little children and
helpless women and to let the chance pass.”
“Quite so, that is quite true,” said the senator. “Well, good-morning. I
shall let you know to-morrow.”
Young Livingstone went down in the elevator with Arkwright, and when
they had reached the sidewalk stood regarding him for a moment in
silence.
“You mustn’t count too much on Stanton, you know,” he said kindly; “he
has a way of disappointing people.”
“Ah, he can never disappoint me,” Arkwright answered confidently, “no
matter how much I expected. Besides, I have already heard him speak.”
“I don’t mean that, I don’t mean he is disappointing as a speaker.
Stanton is a great orator, I think. Most of those Southerners are, and
he’s the only real orator I ever heard. But what I mean is, that he
doesn’t go into things impulsively; he first considers himself, and then
he considers every other side of the question before he commits himself
to it. Before he launches out on a popular wave he tries to find out
where it is going to land him. He likes the sort of popular wave that
carries him along with it where every one can see him; he doesn’t fancy
being hurled up on the beach with his mouth full of sand.”
“You are saying that he is selfish, self-seeking?” Arkwright demanded
with a challenge in his voice. “I thought you were his friend.”
“Yes, he is selfish, and yes, I am his friend,” the young man answered,
smiling; “at least, he seems willing to be mine. I am saying nothing
against him that I have not said to him. If you’ll come back with me up
the elevator I’ll tell him he’s a self-seeker and selfish, and with
no thought above his own interests. He won’t mind. He’d say I cannot
comprehend his motives. Why, you’ve only to look at his record. When the
Venezuelan message came out he attacked the President and declared he
was trying to make political capital and to drag us into war, and that
what we wanted was arbitration; but when the President brought out the
Arbitration Treaty he attacked that too in the Senate and destroyed
it. Why? Not because he had convictions, but because the President had
refused a foreign appointment to a friend of his in the South. He has
been a free silver man for the last ten years, he comes from a free
silver state, and the members of the legislature that elected him were
all for silver, but this last election his Wall Street friends got hold
of him and worked on his feelings, and he repudiated his party, his
state, and his constituents and came out for gold.”
“Well, but surely,” Arkwright objected, “that took courage? To own that
for ten years you had been wrong, and to come out for the right at the
last.”
Livingstone stared and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all a question of
motives,” he said indifferently. “I don’t want to shatter your idol; I
only want to save you from counting too much on him.”
When Arkwright called on the morrow Senator Stanton was not at home,
and the day following he was busy, and could give him only a brief
interview. There were previous engagements and other difficulties in the
way of his going which he had not foreseen, he said, and he feared he
should have to postpone his visit to Cuba indefinitely. He asked if Mr.
Arkwright would be so kind as to call again within a week; he would then
be better able to give him a definite answer.
Arkwright left the apartment with a sensation of such keen
disappointment that it turned him ill and dizzy. He felt that the great
purpose of his life was being played with and put aside. But he had not
selfish resentment on his own account; he was only the more determined
to persevere. He considered new arguments and framed new appeals; and
one moment blamed himself bitterly for having foolishly discouraged the
statesman by too vivid pictures of the horrors he might encounter, and
the next, questioned if he had not been too practical and so failed
because he had not made the terrible need of immediate help his sole
argument. Every hour wasted in delay meant, as he knew, the sacrifice
of many lives, and there were other, more sordid and more practical,
reasons for speedy action. For his supply of money was running low and
there was now barely enough remaining to carry him through the month of
travel he had planned to take at Stanton’s side. What would happen to
him when that momentous trip was over was of no consequence. He would
have done the work as far as his small share in it lay, he would have
set in motion a great power that was to move Congress and the people of
the United States to action. If he could but do that, what became of him
counted for nothing.
But at the end of the week his fears and misgivings were scattered
gloriously and a single line from the senator set his heart leaping and
brought him to his knees in gratitude and thanksgiving. On returning one
afternoon to the mean lodging into which he had moved to save his money,
he found a telegram from Stanton and he tore it open trembling between
hope and fear.
“Have arranged to leave for Tampa with you Monday, at midnight” it read.
“Call for me at ten o’clock same evening.--STANTON.”
Arkwright read the message three times. There was a heavy, suffocating
pressure at his heart as though it had ceased beating. He sank back
limply upon the edge of his bed and clutching the piece of paper in his
two hands spoke the words aloud triumphantly as though to assure himself
that they were true. Then a flood of unspeakable relief, of happiness
and gratitude, swept over him, and he turned and slipped to the floor,
burying his face in the pillow, and wept out his thanks upon his knees.
A man so deeply immersed in public affairs as was Stanton and with
such a multiplicity of personal interests, could not prepare to absent
himself for a month without his intention becoming known, and on the
day when he was to start for Tampa the morning newspapers proclaimed the
fact that he was about to visit Cuba. They gave to his mission all
the importance and display that Arkwright had foretold. Some of the
newspapers stated that he was going as a special commissioner of the
President to study and report; others that he was acting in behalf
of the Cuban legation in Washington and had plenipotentiary powers.
Opposition organs suggested that he was acting in the interests of
the sugar trust, and his own particular organ declared that it was his
intention to free Cuba at the risk of his own freedom, safety, and even
life.
The Spanish minister in Washington sent a cable for publication to
Madrid, stating that a distinguished American statesman was about
to visit Cuba, to investigate, and, later, to deny the truth of the
disgraceful libels published concerning the Spanish officials on the
island by the papers of the United States. At the same time he cabled
in cipher to the captain-general in Havana to see that the distinguished
statesman was closely spied upon from the moment of his arrival until
his departure, and to place on the “suspect” list all Americans and
Cubans who ventured to give him any information.
The afternoon papers enlarged on the importance of the visit and on the
good that would surely come of it. They told that Senator Stanton had
refused to be interviewed or to disclose the object of his journey. But
it was enough, they said, that some one in authority was at last to seek
out the truth, and added that no one would be listened to with greater
respect than would the Southern senator. On this all the editorial
writers were agreed.
The day passed drearily for Arkwright. Early in the morning he packed
his valise and paid his landlord, and for the remainder of the day
walked the streets or sat in the hotel corridor waiting impatiently for
each fresh edition of the papers. In them he read the signs of the great
upheaval of popular feeling that was to restore peace and health and
plenty to the island for which he had given his last three years of
energy and life.
He was trembling with excitement, as well as with the cold, when at ten
o’clock precisely he stood at Senator Stanton’s door. He had forgotten
to eat his dinner, and the warmth of the dimly lit hall and the odor of
rich food which was wafted from an inner room touched his senses with
tantalizing comfort.
“The senator says you are to come this way, sir,” the servant directed.
He took Arkwright’s valise from his hand and parted the heavy curtains
that hid the dining-room, and Arkwright stepped in between them and then
stopped in some embarrassment. He found himself in the presence of a
number of gentlemen seated at a long dinner-table, who turned their
heads as he entered and peered at him through the smoke that floated in
light layers above the white cloth. The dinner had been served, but the
senator’s guests still sat with their chairs pushed back from a table
lighted by candles under yellow shades, and covered with beautiful
flowers and with bottles of varied sizes in stands of quaint and
intricate design. Senator Stanton’s tall figure showed dimly through the
smoke, and his deep voice hailed Arkwright cheerily from the farther end
of the room. “This way, Mr. Arkwright,” he said. “I have a chair waiting
for you here.” He grasped Arkwright’s hand warmly and pulled him into
the vacant place at his side. An elderly gentleman on Arkwright’s other
side moved to make more room for him and shoved a liqueur glass toward
him with a friendly nod and pointed at an open box of cigars. He was a
fine-looking man, and Arkwright noticed that he was regarding him with
a glance of the keenest interest. All of those at the table were men of
twice Arkwright’s age, except Livingstone, whom he recognized and
who nodded to him pleasantly and at the same time gave an order to a
servant, pointing at Arkwright as he did so. Some of the gentlemen
wore their business suits, and one opposite Arkwright was still in his
overcoat, and held his hat in his hand. These latter seemed to have
arrived after the dinner had begun, for they formed a second line
back of those who had places at the table; they all seemed to know one
another and were talking with much vivacity and interest.
Stanton did not attempt to introduce Arkwright to his guests
individually, but said: “Gentlemen, this is Mr. Arkwright, of whom I
have been telling you, the young gentleman who has done such magnificent
work for the cause of Cuba.” Those who caught Arkwright’s eye nodded to
him, and others raised their glasses at him, but with a smile that
he could not understand. It was as though they all knew something
concerning him of which he was ignorant. He noted that the faces of some
were strangely familiar, and he decided that he must have seen their
portraits in the public prints. After he had introduced Arkwright, the
senator drew his chair slightly away from him and turned in what seemed
embarrassment to the man on his other side. The elderly gentleman next
to Arkwright filled his glass, a servant placed a small cup of coffee at
his elbow, and he lit a cigar and looked about him.
“You must find this weather very trying after the tropics,” his neighbor
said.
Arkwright assented cordially. The brandy was flowing through his veins
and warming him; he forgot that he was hungry, and the kind, interested
glances of those about him set him at his ease. It was a propitious
start, he thought, a pleasant leave-taking for the senator and himself,
full of good will and good wishes.
He turned toward Stanton and waited until he had ceased speaking.
“The papers have begun well, haven’t they?” he asked, eagerly.
He had spoken in a low voice, almost in a whisper, but those about the
table seemed to have heard him, for there was silence instantly and when
he glanced up he saw the eyes of all turned upon him and he noticed on
their faces the same smile he had seen there when he entered.
“Yes,” Stanton answered constrainedly. “Yes, I--” he lowered his voice,
but the silence still continued. Stanton had his eyes fixed on the
table, but now he frowned and half rose from his chair.
“I want to speak with you, Arkwright,” he said. “Suppose we go into the
next room. I’ll be back in a moment,” he added, nodding to the others.
But the man on his right removed his cigar from his lips and said in an
undertone, “No, sit down, stay where you are;” and the elderly gentleman
at Arkwright’s side laid his hand detainingly on his arm. “Oh, you won’t
take Mr. Arkwright away from us, Stanton?” he asked, smiling.
Stanton shrugged his shoulders and sat down again, and there was a
moment’s pause. It was broken by the man in the overcoat, who laughed.
“He’s paying you a compliment, Mr. Arkwright,” he said. He pointed with
his cigar to the gentleman at Arkwright’s side.
“I don’t understand,” Arkwright answered doubtfully.
“It’s a compliment to your eloquence--he’s afraid to leave you alone
with the senator. Livingstone’s been telling us that you are a better
talker than Stanton.” Arkwright turned a troubled countenance toward the
men about the table, and then toward Livingstone, but that young man had
his eyes fixed gravely on the glasses before him and did not raise them.
Arkwright felt a sudden, unreasonable fear of the circle of
strong-featured, serene and confident men about him. They seemed to
be making him the subject of a jest, to be enjoying something among
themselves of which he was in ignorance, but which concerned him
closely. He turned a white face toward Stanton.
“You don’t mean,” he began piteously, “that--that you are not going? Is
that it--tell me--is that what you wanted to say?”
Stanton shifted in his chair and muttered some words between his lips,
then turned toward Arkwright and spoke quite clearly and distinctly.
“I am very sorry, Mr. Arkwright,” he said, “but I am afraid I’ll have to
disappoint you. Reasons I cannot now explain have arisen which make my
going impossible--quite impossible,” he added firmly--“not only now, but
later,” he went on quickly, as Arkwright was about to interrupt him.
Arkwright made no second attempt to speak. He felt the muscles of his
face working and the tears coming to his eyes, and to hide his weakness
he twisted in his chair and sat staring ahead of him with his back
turned to the table. He heard Livingstone’s voice break the silence with
some hurried question, and immediately his embarrassment was hidden in a
murmur of answers and the moving of glasses as the men shifted in their
chairs and the laughter and talk went on as briskly as before. Arkwright
saw a sideboard before him and a servant arranging some silver on one of
the shelves. He watched the man do this with a concentrated interest
as though the dull, numbed feeling in his brain caught at the trifle in
order to put off, as long as possible, the consideration of the truth.
And then beyond the sideboard and the tapestry on the wall above it, he
saw the sun shining down upon the island of Cuba, he saw the royal palms
waving and bending, the dusty columns of Spanish infantry crawling along
the white roads and leaving blazing huts and smoking cane-fields in
their wake; he saw skeletons of men and women seeking for food among the
refuse of the street; he heard the order given to the firing squad, the
splash of the bullets as they scattered the plaster on the prison wall,
and he saw a kneeling figure pitch forward on its face, with a useless
bandage tied across its sightless eyes.
Senator Stanton brought him back with a sharp shake of the shoulder. He
had also turned his back on the others, and was leaning forward with
his elbows on his knees. He spoke rapidly, and in a voice only slightly
raised above a whisper.
“I am more than sorry, Arkwright,” he said earnestly. “You mustn’t blame
me altogether. I have had a hard time of it this afternoon. I wanted to
go. I really wanted to go. The thing appealed to me, it touched me, it
seemed as if I owed it to myself to do it. But they were too many for
me,” he added with a backward toss of his head toward the men around his
table.
“If the papers had not told on me I could have got well away,” he went
on in an eager tone, “but as soon as they read of it, they came here
straight from their offices. You know who they are, don’t you?”
he asked, and even in his earnestness there was an added touch of
importance in his tone as he spoke the name of his party’s leader, of
men who stood prominently in Wall Street and who were at the head of
great trusts.
“You see how it is,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “They have
enormous interests at stake. They said I would drag them into war, that
I would disturb values, that the business interests of the country would
suffer. I’m under obligations to most of them, they have advised me
in financial matters, and they threatened--they threatened to make
it unpleasant for me.” His voice hardened and he drew in his breath
quickly, and laughed. “You wouldn’t understand if I were to tell you.
It’s rather involved. And after all, they may be right, agitation may
be bad for the country. And your party leader after all is your party
leader, isn’t he, and if he says ‘no’ what are you to do? My sympathies
are just as keen for these poor women and children as ever, but as these
men say, ‘charity begins at home,’ and we mustn’t do anything to bring
on war prices again, or to send stocks tumbling about our heads, must
we?” He leaned back in his chair again and sighed. “Sympathy is an
expensive luxury, I find,” he added.
Arkwright rose stiffly and pushed Stanton away from him with his hand.
He moved like a man coming out of a dream.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” he said in a low voice. The noise about
the table ended on the instant, but Arkwright did not notice that it had
ceased. “You know I don’t understand that,” he went on; “what does it
matter to me!” He put his hand up to the side of his face and held it
there, looking down at Stanton. He had the dull, heavy look in his eyes
of a man who has just come through an operation under some heavy drug.
“‘Wall Street,’ ‘trusts,’ ‘party leaders,’” he repeated, “what are they
to me? The words don’t reach me, they have lost their meaning, it is a
language I have forgotten, thank God!” he added. He turned and moved his
eyes around the table, scanning the faces of the men before him.
“Yes, you are twelve to one,” he said at last, still speaking dully and
in a low voice, as though he were talking to himself. “You have won a
noble victory, gentlemen. I congratulate you. But I do not blame you, we
are all selfish and self-seeking. I thought I was working only for Cuba,
but I was working for myself, just as you are. I wanted to feel that it
was I who had helped to bring relief to that plague-spot, that it was
through my efforts the help had come. Yes, if he had done as I asked, I
suppose I would have taken the credit.”
He swayed slightly, and to steady himself caught at the back of his
chair. But at the same moment his eyes glowed fiercely and he held
himself erect again. He pointed with his finger at the circle of great
men who sat looking up at him in curious silence.
“You are like a ring of gamblers around a gaming table,” he cried
wildly, “who see nothing but the green cloth and the wheel and the piles
of money before them, who forget in watching the money rise and
fall, that outside the sun is shining, that human beings are sick and
suffering, that men are giving their lives for an idea, for a sentiment,
for a flag. You are the money-changers in the temple of this great
republic and the day will come, I pray to God, when you will be scourged
and driven out with whips. Do you think you can form combines and deals
that will cheat you into heaven? Can your ‘trusts’ save your souls--is
‘Wall Street’ the strait and narrow road to salvation?”
The men about the table leaned back and stared at Arkwright in as great
amazement as though he had violently attempted an assault upon their
pockets, or had suddenly gone mad in their presence. Some of them
frowned, and others appeared not to have heard, and others smiled grimly
and waited for him to continue as though they were spectators at a play.
The political leader broke the silence with a low aside to Stanton.
“Does the gentleman belong to the Salvation Army?” he asked.
Arkwright whirled about and turned upon him fiercely.
“Old gods give way to new gods,” he cried. “Here is your brother. I am
speaking for him. Do you ever think of him? How dare you sneer at me?”
he cried. “You can crack your whip over that man’s head and turn him
from what in his heart and conscience he knows is right; you can crack
your whip over the men who call themselves free-born American citizens
and who have made you their boss--sneer at them if you like, but you
have no collar on my neck. If you are a leader, why don’t you lead your
people to what is good and noble? Why do you stop this man in the work
God sent him here to do? You would make a party hack of him, a political
prostitute, something lower than the woman who walks the streets. She
sells her body--this man is selling his soul.”
He turned, trembling and quivering, and shook his finger above the
upturned face of the senator.
“What have you done with your talents, Stanton?” he cried. “What have
you done with your talents?”
The man in the overcoat struck the table before him with his fist so
that the glasses rang.
“By God,” he laughed, “I call him a better speaker than Stanton!
Livingstone’s right, he IS better than Stanton--but he lacks Stanton’s
knack of making himself popular,” he added. He looked around the table
inviting approbation with a smile, but no one noticed him, nor spoke to
break the silence.
Arkwright heard the words dully and felt that he was being mocked. He
covered his face with his hands and stood breathing brokenly; his body
was still trembling with an excitement he could not master.
Stanton rose from his chair and shook him by the shoulder. “Are you mad,
Arkwright?” he cried. “You have no right to insult my guests or me. Be
calm--control yourself.”
“What does it matter what I say?” Arkwright went on desperately. “I am
mad. Yes, that is it, I am mad. They have won and I have lost, and it
drove me beside myself. I counted on you. I knew that no one else could
let my people go. But I’ll not trouble you again. I wish you good-night,
sir, and good-bye. If I have been unjust, you must forget it.”
He turned sharply, but Stanton placed a detaining hand on his shoulder.
“Wait,” he commanded querulously; “where are you going? Will you,
still--?”
Arkwright bowed his head. “Yes,” he answered. “I have but just time now
to catch our train--my train, I mean.”
He looked up at Stanton and taking his hand in both of his, drew the man
toward him. All the wildness and intolerance in his manner had passed,
and as he raised his eyes they were full of a firm resolve.
“Come,” he said simply; “there is yet time. Leave these people behind
you. What can you answer when they ask what have you done with your
talents?”
“Good God, Arkwright,” the senator exclaimed angrily, pulling his hand
away; “don’t talk like a hymn-book, and don’t make another scene. What
you ask is impossible. Tell me what I can do to help you in any other
way, and--”
“Come,” repeated the young man firmly.
“The world may judge you by what you do to-night.”