Peter was duly scolded, and put to work as an “office man” at his
old salary of twenty dollars a week. It was his duty to consult with
Guffey’s many “operatives,” to tell them everything he knew about
this individual Red or that organization of Reds. He would use his
inside knowledge of personalities and doctrines and movements to
help in framing up testimony, and in setting traps for too ardent
agitators. He could no longer pose as a Red himself, but sometimes
there were cases where he could do detective work without being
recognized; when, for example, there was a question of fixing a
juror, or of investigating the members of a panel.
The I. W. Ws. had been put out of business in American City, but the
Socialists were still active, in spite of prosecutions and
convictions. Also there was a new peril looming up; the returned
soldiers were coming back, and a lot of them were dissatisfied,
presuming to complain of their treatment in the army, and of the
lack of good jobs at home, and even of the peace treaty which the
President was arranging in Paris. They had fought to make the world
safe for democracy, and here, they said, it had been made safe for
the profiteers. This was plain Bolshevism, and in its most dangerous
form, because these fellows had learned to use guns, and couldn’t
very well be expected to become pacifists right off the bat.
There had been a great labor shortage during the war, and some of
the more powerful unions had taken the general rise in prices as an
excuse for demanding higher wages. This naturally had made the
members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants’ and
Manufacturers’ Association indignant, and now they saw their chance
to use these returned soldiers to smash strikes and to break the
organizations of the labor men. They proceeded to organize the
soldiers for this purpose; in American City the Chamber of Commerce
contributed twenty-five thousand dollars to furnish the club-rooms
for them, and when the trolley men went on strike the cars were run
by returned soldiers in uniform.
There was one veteran, a fellow by the name of Sydney, who objected
to this program. He was publishing a paper, the “Veteran’s Friend,”
and began to use the paper to protest against his comrades acting as
what he called “scabs.” The secretary of the Merchants’ and
Manufacturers’ Association sent for him and gave him a straight
talking to, but he went right ahead with his campaign, and so
Guffey’s office was assigned the task of shutting him up. Peter,
while he could not take an active part in the job, was the one who
guided it behind the scenes. They proceeded to plant spies in
Sydney’s office, and they had so many that it was really a joke;
they used to laugh and say that they trod on one another’s toes.
Sydney was poor, and had not enough money to run his paper, so he
accepted any volunteer labor that came along. And Guffey sent him
plenty of volunteers--no less than seven operatives--one keeping
Sydney’s books, another helping with his mailing, two more helping
to raise funds among the labor unions, others dropping in every day
or two to advise him. Nevertheless Sydney went right ahead with his
program of denouncing the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association,
and denouncing the government for its failure to provide farms and
jobs for the veterans.
One of Guffey’s “under cover operatives”--that was the technical
term for the Peter Gudges and Joe Angells--was a man by the name of
Jonas. This Jonas called himself a “philosophic anarchist,” and
posed as the reddest Red in American City; it was his habit to rise
up in radical meetings and question the speaker, and try to tempt
him to justify violence and insurrection and “mass-action.” If he
repudiated these ideas, then Jonas would denounce him as a
“mollycoddle,” a “pink tea Socialist,” a “labor faker.” Other people
in the audience would applaud, and so Guffey’s men would find out
who were the real Red sympathizers.
Peter had long suspected Jonas, and now he was sent to meet him in
Room 427 of the American House, and together they framed up a job on
Sydney. Jonas wrote a letter, supposed to come from a German
“comrade,” giving the names of some papers in Europe to which the
editor should send sample copies of his magazine. This letter was
mailed to Sydney, and next morning Jonas wandered into the office,
and Sydney showed him the letter, and Jonas told him that these were
labor papers, and the editors would no doubt be interested to know
of the feelings of American soldiers since the war. Sydney sat down
to write a letter, and Jonas stood by his side and told him what to
write: “To my erstwhile enemies in arms I send fraternal greetings,
and welcome you as brothers in the new co-operative commonwealth
which is to be”--and so on, the usual Internationalist patter, which
all these agitators were spouting day and night, and which ran off
the ends of their pens automatically. Sydney mailed these letters,
and the sample copies of the magazine, and Guffey’s office tipped
off the postoffice authorities, who held up the letters. The
book-keeper, one of Guffey’s operatives, went to the Federal
attorney and made affidavit that Sydney had been carrying on a
conspiracy with the enemy in war-time, and a warrant was issued, and
the offices of the magazine were raided, the subscription-lists
confiscated, and everything in the rooms dumped out into the middle
of the floor.
So there was a little job all Peter’s own; except that Jonas, the
scoundrel, claimed it for his, and tried to deprive Peter of the
credit! So Peter was glad when the Federal authorities looked the
case over and said it was a bum job, and they wouldn’t monkey with
it. However, the evidence was turned over to District-attorney
Burchard, who wasn’t quite so fastidious, and his agents made
another raid, and smashed up the office again, and threw the
returned soldier into jail. The judge fixed the bail at fifteen
thousand dollars, and the American City “Times” published the story
with scare-headlines all the way across the front page--how the
editor of the “Veteran’s Friend” had been caught conspiring with the
enemy, and here was a photographic copy of his treasonable letter,
and a copy of the letter of the mysterious German conspirator with
whom he had been in relations! They spent more than a year trying
that editor, and although he was out on bail, Guffey saw to it that
he could not get a job anywhere in American City; his paper was
smashed and his family near to starvation.