Peter had received a brief scrawl from Nell, telling him that it was
all right, she had gone to her new job, and would soon have results.
So Peter went cheerfully about his own duties of trying to hold down
the protest campaign of the radicals. It was really quite
terrifying, the success they were having, in spite of all the best
efforts of the authorities. Bundles of circulars appeared at their
gatherings as if by magic, and were carried away and distributed
before the authorities could make any move. Every night at the Labor
Temple, where the workers gathered, there were agitators howling
their heads off about the McCormick case. To make matters worse,
there was an obscure one cent evening paper in American City which
catered to working-class readers, and persisted in publishing
evidence tending to prove that the case was a “frame-up.” The Reds
had found out that their mail was being interfered with, and were
raising a terrific howl about that--pretending, of course, that it
was “free speech” they cared about!
The mass meeting was due for that evening, and Peter read an
indignant editorial in the American City “Times,” calling upon the
authorities to suppress it. “Down with the Red Flag!” the editorial
was headed; and Peter couldn’t see how any red-blooded, 100%
American could read it, and not be moved to do something.
Peter said that to McGivney, who answered: “We’re going to do
something; you wait!” And sure enough, that afternoon the papers
carried the news that the mayor of American City had notified the
owners of the Auditorium that they would be held strictly
responsible under the law for all incendiary and seditious
utterances at this meeting; thereupon, the owners of the Auditorium
had cancelled the contract. Furthermore, the mayor declared that no
crowds should be gathered on the street, and that the police would
be there to see to it, and to protect law and order. Peter hurried
to the rooms of the Peoples’ Council, and found the radicals
scurrying about, trying to find some other hall; every now and then
Peter would go to the telephone, and let McGivney know what hall
they were trying to get, and McGivney would communicate with Guffey,
and Guffey would communicate with the secretary of the Chamber of
Commerce, and the owner of this hall would be called up and warned
by the president of the bank which held a mortgage on the hall, or
by the chairman of the board of directors of the Philharmonic
Orchestra which gave concerts there.
So there was no Red mass meeting that night--and none for many a
night thereafter in American City! Guffey’s office had got its
German spy story ready, and next morning, here was the entire front
page of the American City “Times” given up to the amazing revelation
that Karl von Stroeme, agent of the German government, and reputed
to be a nephew of the German Vice-chancellor, had been arrested in
American City, posing as a Swedish sewing-machine agent, but in
reality having been occupied in financing the planting of dynamite
bombs in the buildings of the Pioneer Foundry Company, now being
equipped for the manufacture of machine-guns. Three of von Stroeme’s
confederates had been nabbed at the same time, and a mass of papers
full of important revelations--not the least important among them
being the fact that only yesterday von Stroeme had been caught
dealing with a German Socialist of the ultra-Red variety, an
official of the Bread and Cake-Makers’ Union Number 479, by the name
of Ernst Apfel. The government had a dictagraph record of
conversations in which von Stroeme had contributed one hundred
dollars to the Liberty Defense League, an organization which the
Reds had got up for the purpose of carrying on agitation for the
release of the I. W. W.s arrested in the dynamite plot against the
life of Nelse Ackerman. Moreover it was proven that Apfel had taken
this money and distributed it among several German Reds, who had
turned it in to the defense fund, or used it in paying for circulars
calling for a general strike.
Peter’s heart was leaping with excitement; and it leaped even faster
when he had got his breakfast and was walking down Main Street. He
saw crowds gathered, and American flags flying from all the
buildings, just as on the day of the Preparedness parade. It caused
Peter to feet queer spasms of fright; he imagined another bomb, but
he couldn’t resist the crowds with their eager faces and contagious
enthusiasm. Presently here came a band, with magnificent martial
music, and here came soldiers marching--tramp, tramp, tramp--line
after line of khaki-clad boys with heavy packs upon their backs and
shiny new rifles. Our boys! Our boys! God bless them!
It was three regiments of the 223rd Division, coming from Camp
Lincoln to be entrained for the war. They might better have been
entrained at the camp, of course, but everyone had been clamoring
for some glimpse of the soldiers, and here they were with their
music and their flags, and their crowds of flushed, excited
admirers--two endless lines of people, wild with patriotic fervor,
shouting, singing, waving hats and handkerchiefs, until the whole
street became a blur, a mad delirium. Peter saw these closely
pressed lines, straight and true, and the legs that moved like
clock-work, and the feet that shook the ground like thunder. He saw
the fresh, boyish faces, grimly set and proud, with eyes fixed
ahead, never turning, even tho they realized that this might be
their last glimpse of their home city, that they might never come
back from this journey. Our boys! Our boys! God bless them! Peter
felt a choking in his throat, and a thrill of gratitude to the boys
who were protecting him and his country; he clenched his hands and
set his teeth, with fresh determination to punish the evil men and
women--draft-dodgers, slackers, pacifists and seditionists--who were
failing to take their part in this glorious emprise.