Peter did not want to set traps for this mother of Mount Olympus, he
didn’t want to worm any secrets from her. And as it happened, he
found that he did not have to, because she told him everything right
away, and without the slightest hesitation. She talked just as the
“wobblies” had talked in their headquarters; and Peter, when he
thought it over, realized that there are two kinds of people who can
afford to be frank in their utterance--those who have nothing to
lose, and those who have so much to lose that they cannot possibly
lose it.
Mrs. Godd said that what had been done to those men last night was a
crime, and it ought to be punished if ever a crime was punished, and
that she would like to engage detectives and get evidence against
the guilty ones. She said furthermore that she sympathized with the
Reds of the very reddest shade, and if there were any color redder
than Red she would be of that color. She said all this in her quiet,
soft voice. Tears came into her eyes now and then, but they were
well-behaved tears, they disappeared of their own accord, and
without any injury to Mrs. Godd’s complexion, or any apparent effect
upon her self-possession.
Mrs. Godd said that she didn’t see how anybody could fail to be a
Red who thought about the injustices of present-day society. Only a
few days before she had been in to see the district attorney, and
had tried to make a Red out of him! Then she told Peter how there
had come to see her a man who had pretended to be a radical, but she
had realized that he didn’t know anything about radicalism, and had
told him she was sure he was a government agent. The man had finally
admitted it, and showed her his gold star--and then Mrs. Godd had
set to work to convert him! She had argued with him for an hour or
two, and then had invited him to go to the opera with her. “And do
you know,” said Mrs. Godd, in an injured tone, “he wouldn’t go! They
don’t want to be converted, those men; they don’t want to listen to
reason. I believe the man was actually afraid I might influence
him.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” put in Peter, sympathetically; for he was a
tiny bit afraid himself.
“I said to him, `Here I live in this palace, and back in the
industrial quarter of the city are several thousand men and women
who slave at machines for me all day, and now, since the war, all
night too. I get the profits of these peoples’ toil--and what have I
done to earn it? Absolutely nothing! I never did a stroke of useful
work in my life.’ And he said to me, `Suppose the dividends were to
stop, what would you do?’ ‘I don’t know what I’d do,’ I answered,
`I’d be miserable, of course, because I hate poverty, I couldn’t
stand it, it’s terrible to think of--not to have comfort and
cleanliness and security. I don’t see how the working-class stand
it--that’s exactly why I’m a Red, I know it’s wrong for anyone to be
poor, and there’s no excuse for it. So I shall help to overthrow the
capitalist system, even if it means I have to take in washing for my
living!”
Peter sat watching her in the crisp freshness of her snowy chiffons.
The words brought a horrible image to his mind; he suddenly found
himself back in the tenement kitchen, where fat and steaming Mrs.
Yankovich was laboring elbow deep in soap-suds. It was on the tip of
Peter’s tongue to say: “If you really had done a day’s washing, Mrs.
Godd, you wouldn’t talk like that!”
But he remembered that he must play the game, so he said, “They’re
terrible fellows, them Federal agents. It was two of them pounded me
over the head last night.” And then he looked faint and pitiful, and
Mrs. Godd was sympathetic again, and moved to more recklessness of
utterance.
“It’s because of this hideous war!” she declared. “We’ve gone to war
to make the world safe for democracy, and meantime we have to
sacrifice every bit of democracy at home. They tell you that you
must hold your peace while they murder one another, but they may try
all they please, they’ll never be able to silence me! I know that
the Allies are just as much to blame as the Germans, I know that
this is a war of profiteers and bankers; they may take my sons and
force them into the army, but they cannot take my convictions and
force them into their army. I am a pacifist, and I am an
internationalist; I want to see the workers arise and turn out of
office these capitalist governments, and put an end to this hideous
slaughter of human beings. I intend to go on saying that so long as
I live.” There sat Mrs. Godd, with her lovely firm white hands
clasped as if in prayer, one large diamond ring on the left fourth
finger shining defiance, and a look of calm, child-like conviction
upon her face, confronting in her imagination all the federal agents
and district attorneys and capitalist judges and statesmen and
generals and drill sergeants in the civilized world.
She went on to tell how she had attended the trial of three pacifist
clergymen a week or two previously. How atrocious that Christians in
a Christian country should be sent to prison for trying to repeat
the words of Christ! “I was so indignant,” declared Mrs. Godd, “that
I wrote a letter to the judge. My husband said I would be committing
contempt of court by writing to a judge during the trial, but I
answered that my contempt for that court was beyond anything I could
put into writing. Wait--”
And Mrs. Godd rose gravely from her chair and went over to a desk by
the wall, and got a copy of the letter. “I’ll read it to you,” she
said, and Peter listened to a manifesto of Olympian Bolshevism--
To His Honor:
As I entered the sanctuary, I gazed upward to the stained glass
dome, upon which were inscribed four words: Peace. Justice. Truth.
Law--and I felt hopeful. Before me were men who had violated no
constitutional right, who had not the slightest criminal tendency,
who, were opposed to violence of every kind.
The trial proceeded. I looked again at the beautiful stained glass
dome, and whispered to myself those majestic-sounding words: “Peace.
Justice. Truth. Law.” I listened to the prosecutors; the Law in
their hands was a hard, sharp, cruel blade, seeking insistently,
relentlessly for a weak spot in the armor of its victims. I listened
to their Truth, and it was Falsehood. Their Peace was a cruel and
bloody War. Their justice was a net to catch the victims at any
cost--at the cost of all things but the glory of the Prosecutor’s
office.
I grew sick at heart. I can only ask myself the old, old question:
What can we, the people do? How can we bring Peace, justice, Truth
and Law to the world? Must we go on bended knees and ask our public
servants to see that justice is done to the defenceless, rather than
this eternal prosecuting of the world’s noblest souls! You will find
these men guilty, and sentence them to be shut behind iron
bars--which should never be for human beings, no matter what their
crime, unless you want to make beasts of them. Is that your object,
sir? It would seem so; and so I say that we must overturn the system
that is brutalizing, rather than helping and uplifting mankind.
Yours for Peace..Justice..Truth..Law--
Mary Angelica Godd.
What were you going to do with such a woman? Peter could understand
the bewilderment of His Honor, and of the district attorney’s
office, and of the secret service department of the Traction
Trust--as well as of Mrs. Godd’s husband! Peter was bewildered
himself; what was the use of his coming out here to get more
information, when Mrs. Godd had already committed contempt of court
in writing, and had given all the information there was to give to a
Federal agent? She had told this man that she had contributed
several thousand dollars to the Peoples’ Council, and that she
intended to contribute more. She had put up bail for a whole bunch
of Reds and Pacifists, and she intended to put up bail for McCormick
and his friends, just as soon as the corrupt capitalist courts had
been forced to admit them to bail. “I know McCormick well, and he’s
a lovely boy,” she said. “I don’t believe he had anything more to do
with dynamite bombs than I have.”
Now all this time Peter had sat there, entirely under the spell of
Mrs. Godd’s opulence. Peter was dwelling among the lotus-eaters, and
forgetting the world’s strife and care; he was reclining on a silken
couch, sipping nectar with the shining ones of Mount Olympus. But
now suddenly, Peter was brought back to duty, as one wakes from a
dream to the sound of an alarm-clock. Mrs. Godd was a friend of
Mac’s, Mrs. Godd proposed to get Mac out on bail! Mac, the most
dangerous Red of them all! Peter saw that he must get something on
this woman at once!