CHAPTER XIV

AN AFTERMATH

The day following Bivens's offer to Stuart was made memorable by a sinister event in Union Square.

A mass meeting of the unemployed had been called to protest against their wrongs and particularly to denounce the men who had advanced the price of bread by creating a corner in wheat.

On his way down town Stuart read with astonishment that Dr. Woodman would preside over this gathering. He determined to go. As he hurried through the routine work of his office, giving his orders for the day, he received a telephone call from Nan, asking him to accompany her to this meeting.

"I don't think you ought to go," he answered emphatically.

"Why?"

"Well, there might be a riot for one thing."

"I'm not afraid."

"And you might hear some very plain talk about your husband."

"That's exactly why I wish to go!"

"I don't think it wise," Stuart protested.

"I'm going, anyhow. Won't you accompany me?"

"If you will go--yes."

"That's a good boy. I'll send one of my cars to the office for you immediately."

An hour later when Stuart, seated by Nan's side, reached Union Square, the automobile was stopped by the police and turned into Seventeenth Street.

Every inch of space in the Square seemed blocked by a solid mass of motionless humanity. Stuart left the car in Seventeenth Street and succeeded finally in forcing a way through the crowd to a position within a hundred feet of the rude platform that had been erected for the orators. The scene about the stand bristled with policemen, most of them apparently picked men, their new uniforms glittering in the sun and their polished clubs flashing defiance as they twirled them in the faces of the people with deliberate provocation.

Besides the special detail of picked men who moved about the stand, occasionally clubbing an inoffensive man, a battalion of three hundred reserves was drawn up in serried lines about a hundred yards to the north on the edge of Fourth Avenue. Between these reserves and the crowd about the stand an open space was kept clear for their possible assault in case of any disturbance.

Near these reserves stood the big red automobile of Hamberger, the police captain of the District. He was reputed to be a millionaire, though his salary had never been more than enough to support his wife and children. The sight of his fat insolent face as the representative of Law and Order gave Stuart the impression of farce so irresistibly that he laughed. Surely some of Bivens's sinister philosophy to which he had listened yesterday had a pretty solid basis in the facts of our everyday life.

When the speaking began Stuart pressed his way as close as possible, drawing Nan with him.

He was astonished at the genuine eloquence and power with which the first speaker, evidently of anarchistic leanings, developed his theme, a passionate plea for freedom and the highest development of the individual man. He sketched the growth of the American Republic from its crude beginning in the unbroken forests, and showed with clear historic grasp how all the thinking and creative deeds which had added anything to the sum of human progress belonged to this period of anarchistic liberties. He traced the growth of tyranny in the development of our system of laws until to-day we were less free than the people of England, who lived under the hereditary king against whom our fathers had rebelled. A tyranny of corrupt and ignorant politicians he denounced as the lowest and vilest yet evolved in history.

His concluding sentences roused his crowd to a pitch of wild enthusiasm.

"In the Old World, from which your fathers and mothers fled in search of freedom, men enslaved their fellow-men by becoming lords, dukes or kings, murdering or poisoning their way to a castle or a throne. The methods of your modern masters are more subtle and successful. You vote to make them your masters, and still imagine that you are free.

"Freedom belongs to him who would be free. And at last the masses of the people are becoming restless, not so much because they lack leisure and luxury, but because they have nothing to live for.

"Millions ask the question: _Is life worth living?_

"Because they have begun to ask it, they will never cease until they have made it worth living.

"A deep, half-confused consciousness of the injustice of life has begun to clutch our throats. We begin to curse both church and state, thank God, at last! Statesmen must hear or die. Property must respond or strengthen its bolts and bars and there's no room on the door for another bolt. The church that has no answer to this cry is dead already."

A cheer like the roar of an angry sea swept the crowd. Again and again it rose and fell, increasing in volume as its contagious spirit set fire to the restless minds of the thousands who had packed the Square but could not hear the man who was voicing their faith.

In the deep roar of their cheers there was no sodden despair. As Stuart looked into the faces of the crowd he saw no trace of the degeneracy and loss of elemental manhood which makes the sight of an European mob loathsome and hopeless. These men were still men, the might of freemen in their souls and good right arms.

Where had such crowds met before? Somewhere he had seen them in body or in spirit. Was it in the streets of Paris before the French Revolution sent those long lines of death carts rumbling over her pavements to the guillotine?

"Who is that fellow, Jim," Nan asked.

"Haven't the remotest idea."

"He's a great orator if he is an anarchist. He made the cold chills run down my back."

"Yes, I'm just wondering how many more such firebrands of eloquence could be found in this swaying forest of nobodies."

He watched the sneering faces of the policemen as they demanded silence of the crowd. They couldn't understand what the fools were cheering about. They had instructions to pull the whole "show" at a nod from the censor. But he had deemed it as harmless as a Sunday-school picnic. The words of the orator had rolled from his uniform like water from a duck's back.

The next speaker devoted his time to a fierce denunciation of the church, and ended with a bitter denial of the existence of God.

When the last echoes of the cheers had died away there was a stir near the stand and Stuart saw the stalwart figure of Dr. Woodman suddenly rise. He lifted his arm over the crowd, demanding silence.

Stuart could see that his old friend was deeply moved. His big hands were trembling and his voice vibrant with emotion as he stepped to the edge of the platform and faced the crowd. Among the five thousand people who stood within ear shot at least a hundred recognized him and gave a hearty cheer.

The doctor plunged at once into the message with which his heart was quivering:

"Let no man tell you, my friends, that the God of our fathers is a myth. You can't lose faith in God because you have not lost faith in eternal justice. This faith is just coming into conscious existence in the hearts of millions. By this sign we know that a new age is born. Poets and artists no longer gaze into heaven. Their eyes are fixed on earth. Men have ceased to long for another world, therefore their hope is now for this one. To bring Justice and Beauty to pass on this earth in wisdom and fearlessness of Death--this is the new creed of the people!

"My friends, no such people ever lived in history before. This continent has been the great white plain of eternity on which the chains of ages have been broken, freeing the human soul and body at one stroke, placing in men's hands, the mighty weapon of progress and defense--universal suffrage. The workingman of to-day lives better than the kings of the Middle Ages. Have patience, my friends, the workingman of to-morrow will be the heir of all the knowledge, of all the pain and all the glory of the centuries.

"There can be no other meaning to the drama of history, the sweep of whose movement is always upward for the life of millions, always writing in letters of fire across the sky 'THE LAW--THE LAW!'

"I have seen this mighty city grow from comparatively small and mean conditions. And I have watched slowly growing here a new City of the Soul, the gradual development of civilization itself into a joyous religion whose God is Justice and Righteousness. Each year I have seen the streets cleaner, its parks more beautiful, its homes sweeter, its schools finer, its hospitals, asylums and play grounds more magnificent and all its charities more efficient. I have watched the municipality slowly but surely absorb the functions of the ancient church, and for the first time in the history of the world begin to do its work with the divine breadth of God's boundless love.

"We should not be so impatient, we should not be discouraged. The progress of the world has really just begun.

"And so I, who watch the darkness pass and see the eastern sky begin to glow--I cry to you who may still be below: 'Be of good cheer--the day dawns!'"

A feeble cheer rose from the hundred or more who knew the doctor personally. It was the only response the sullen crowd gave to his burst of epic feeling. They were not in sympathy with his optimism. The anguish of the present moment of bread-hunger and cold was too keen. Men with empty stomachs had no historic perspective. They felt instinctively that it was just as black for a man who starved to death in the ideal "City of the Soul" as it was for the wretch who starved in chains in Egypt three thousand years ago.

When the doctor sat down Stuart saw Harriet suddenly lean over, draw his big shaggy head down and kiss him. He hadn't recognized her before.

The next speaker made his attack on the corruption and graft of our system of government with brutal frankness. He assailed the foundations of the Republic and at last the principles which underlie civilized society itself. Undoubtedly he was a madman, driven insane by the fierce struggle for bread, but none the less a dangerous maniac. With scathing, bitter wit he flayed the corruption of our system of democracy.

The big fat sleek captain of police had drawn near, and listened to this part of his speech with secret enjoyment. A triumphant smile played about the corners of his mouth. He knew that the speaker was hitting the bull's eye now with every shot, but he squared his massive form and looked over the cheering crowd of hungry poverty-stricken men and women with an expression of quiet contempt. Clearly he had a very simple and comprehensive answer. It was not necessary for him to speak it. His whole body fairly shouted it:

"Well, what are you going to do about it, you weak-kneed, blear-eyed scum of the earth!"

For the moment Stuart could not determine which one of the men he hated most--the madman who was doing his best to pull the house down which sheltered him or the stupid beast who stood over him clothed with the supreme authority of law.

The speaker closed his tirade with a fierce personal attack on the man who had made five millions in a corner on bread and flaunted his ill-gotten gains in the face of starving men and women.

Nan's face flashed with sudden rage.

"Take me to my car, Jim. I've an idea--I'm going to execute it at once."

"Wouldn't you like to meet the doctor and his daughter before you go?"

"Thanks, hardly. You know he is on Mr. Bivens's black list."

"I'd forgotten that," he answered regretfully. "I'd like awfully for you to meet Harriet. I'm sure you'd like her."

Nan smiled.

"I could see she likes you. I don't think she took a fancy to me, however."

"Nonsense, Nan." he said, with annoyance. "She couldn't have seen you. I didn't know she was here until she kissed her father."

"Perhaps my eyes are keener than yours."

The captain of the district brushed rudely past and sprang into his automobile. He waved his hand to his chauffeur. His gesture was mistaken by a pair of keen restless eyes for a command to his reserves to disperse the crowd.

A pale, shabby young fellow leaped past the line of police into the open space and rushed straight for the reserves. His long thin arm was lifted high in the air clutching a black thing with a lighted fuse sparkling from its crest.

A murmur rippled the crowd, the police stood still and stared, and the next moment the bomb exploded in the boy's hand and his body lay on the stones a mangled heap of torn flesh and blood-soaked rags.

The police charged the crowd and clubbed them without mercy. The people fled in confusion in every direction, and in five minutes the Square was cleared.

Stuart had hurried Nan to her car, and rushed back to the scene of the tragedy. He readily passed the lines of the police, who recognized him as the district attorney.

The doctor reached the spot and Harriet was holding the dying boy's head in her lap.

Stuart bent over her curiously and slowly asked:

"You were not afraid to rush up here with your father and take that poor mangled thing in your arms?"

"Of course not," she replied simply. "Papa says he's dying--nothing can be done for him. They've sent for an ambulance."

The doctor stood staring at the dying boy and a tear had slowly gathered in his kindly eye.

He pressed Stuart's arm and spoke in low tones:

"I've made some big mistakes in my life, my boy. I'm just beginning to see them. I've read a new message in the flutter of this poor fellow's pulse. I'll not be slow to heed it."

But Stuart stood watching with growing wonder Harriet's deft little hand brush the damp hair back from the poor disfigured face.

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