Part 11
The “Times” had another editorial, two columns, double leaded. Yesterday the paper had warned the public what to expect; today it saw the prophecies justified, and what it now wished to know was, had Western City a police department, or had it not? “How much longer do our authorities propose to give rein to this fire-brand imposter? This prophet of God who rides about town in a broken-down express-wagon, and consorts with movie actresses and red agitators! Must the police wait until his seditious doctrines have fanned the flames of mob violence beyond control? Must they wait until he has gathered all the others of his ilk, the advocates of lunacy and assassination about him, and caused an insurrection of class envy and hate? We call upon the authorities of our city to act and act at once; to put this wretched mountebank behind bars where he belongs, and keep him there.”
There was another aspect of this matter upon which the “Times” laid emphasis. After long efforts on the part of the Chamber of Commerce and other civic organizations, Western City had been selected as the place for the annual convention of the Mobland Brigade. In three days this convention would be called to order, and already the delegates were pouring in by every train. What impression would they get of law and order in this community? Was this the purpose for which they had shed their blood in a dreadful war--that their country might be affronted by the ravings of an impious charlatan? What had the gold-star mothers of Western City to say to this? What did the local post of the Mobland Brigade propose to do to save the fair name of their city? Said the “Times”: “If our supine authorities refuse to meet this emergency, we believe there are enough 100% Americans still among us to protect the cause of public decency, and to assert the right of Christian people to worship their God without interference from the Dictatorship of the Lunatic Asylum.”
Now, I had been so much interested in Carpenter and his adventures that I had pretty well overlooked this matter of the Mobland Brigade and its convention. I belong to the Brigade myself, and ought to have been serving on the committee of arrangements; instead of which, here I was chasing around trying to save a prophet, who, it appeared, really wanted to get into trouble! Yes, the Brigade was coming; and I could foresee what would happen when a bunch of these wild men encountered Carpenter's express wagon on the street!
XLIV
I swallowed a hasty cup of coffee, and drove in a taxi to the Labor Temple. Carpenter had said he would be there early in the morning, to help with the relief work again. I went to the rooms of the Restaurant Workers, and found that he had not yet arrived. I noticed a group of half a dozen men standing near the door, and there seemed something uncordial in the look they gave me. One of them came toward me, the same who had sought my advice about permitting Carpenter to speak at the mass meeting. “Good morning,” he said; and then: “I thought you told me this fellow Carpenter was not a red?”
“Well,” said I, taken by surprise, “is he?”
“God Almighty!” said the other. “What do you call this?” And he held up a copy of the “Times.” “Going in and shouting in the middle of a church service, and trying to knock down a clergyman!”
I could not help laughing in the man's face. “So even you labor men believe what you read in the 'Times'! It happens I was present in the church myself, and I assure you that Carpenter offered no resistance, and neither did anyone else in his group. You remember, I told you he was a man of peace, and that was all I told you.”
“Well,” said the other, somewhat more mildly, “even so, we can't stand for this kind of thing. That's no way to accomplish anything. A whole lot of our members are Catholics, and what will they make of carryings-on like this? We're trying to persuade people that we're a law-abiding organization, and that our officials are men of sense.”
“I see,” said I. “And what do you mean to do about it?”
“We have called a meeting of our executive committee this morning, and are going to adopt a resolution, making clear to the public that we knew nothing about this church raid, and that we don't stand for such things. We would never have permitted this man Carpenter to speak on our platform, if we had known about his ideas.”
I had nothing to say, and I said it. The other was watching me uneasily. “We hear the man proposes to come back to our relief kitchen. Is that so?”
“I believe he does; and I suppose you would rather he didn't. Is that it?” The other admitted that was it, and I laughed. “He has had his thousand dollars worth of hospitality, I suppose.”
“Well, we don't want to hurt his feelings,” said the other. “Of gourse our members are having a hard time, and we were glad to get the money, but it would be better if our central organization were to contribute the funds, rather than to have us pay such a price as this newspaper publicity.”
“Then let your committee vote the money, and return it to Mr. T-S, and also to Mary Magna.”
It took the man sometime to figure out a reply to this proposition. “We have no objection to Mr. T-S coming here,” he said, “or Miss Magna either.”
“That is,” said I, “so long as they obey the law, and don't get in bad with the Western City 'Times'!” After a moment I added, “You may make your mind easy. I will go downstairs and wait for Mr. Carpenter, and tell him he is not wanted.”
And so I left the Labor Temple and walked up and down on the sidewalk in front. It was really rather unreasonable of me to be annoyed with this labor man for having voiced the same point of view of “common sense” which I had been defending to Carpenter's group on the previous evening. Also, I was obliged to admit to myself that if I were a labor leader, trying to hold together a group of half-educated men in the face of public sentiment such as existed in this city, I might not have the same carefree, laughing attitude towards life as a certain rich young man whose pockets were stuffed with unearned increments.
To this mood of tolerance I had brought myself, when I saw a white robe come round the corner, arm in arm with a frock coat of black broadcloth. Also there came Everett, looking still more ghastly, his nose and lip having become purple, and in places green. Also there was Korwsky, and two other men; Moneta, a young Mexican cigarmaker out of work, and a man named Hamby, who had turned up on the previous evening, introducing himself as a pacifist who had been arrested and beaten up during the war. Somehow he did not conform to my idea of a pacifist, being a solid and rather stoutish fellow, with nothing of the idealist about him. But Carpenter took him, as he took everybody, without question or suspicion.
XLV
I joined the group, and made clear to them, as tactfully as I could, that they were not wanted inside. Comrade Abell threw up his hands. “Oh, those labor skates!” he cried. “Those miserable, cowardly, grafting politicians! Thinking about nothing but keeping themselves respectable, and holding on to their fat, comfortable salaries!”
“Vell, vat you expect?” cried Korwsky. “You git de verkin' men into politics, and den you blame dem fer bein' politicians!”
“Nothing was said about returning the money, I suppose?” remarked Everett, in a bitter tone.
“Something was said,” I replied. “I said it. I don't think the money will be returned.”
Then Carpenter spoke. “The money was given to feed the hungry,” said he. “If it is used for that purpose, we can ask no more. And if men set out to preach a new doctrine, how can they expect to be welcomed at once? We have chosen to be outcasts, and must not complain. Let us go to the jail. Perhaps that is the place for us.” So the little group set out in a new direction.
On the way we talked about the labor movement, and what was the matter with it. Comrade Abell said that Carpenter was right, the fundamental trouble was that the workers were imbued with the psychology of their masters. They would strike for this or that improvement in their condition, and then go to the polls and vote for the candidates of their masters. But Korwsky was more vehement; he was an industrial unionist, and thought the present craft unions worse than nothing.
Little groups of labor aristocrats, seking to benefit themselves at the expense of the masses, the unorganized, unskilled workers and the floating population of casual labor! That was why those “skates” at the Labor Temple has so little enthusiasm for Carpenter and his doctrine of brotherhood! In this country where every man was trying to climb up on the face of some other man!
Our little group had come out on Broadway. It attracted a good deal of attention, and a number of curiosity seekers were beginning to trail behind us. “We'll get a crowd again, and Carpenter 'll be making a speech,” I thought; and as usual I faced a moral conflict. Should I stand by, or should I sneak away, and preserve the dignity of my family?
Suddenly came a sound of music, fifes and drums. It burst on our ears from round the corner, shrill and lively--“The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Carpenter, who was directly in front of me, stopped short, and seemed to shrink away from what was coming, until his back was against the show-window of a department-store, and he could shrink no further.
It was a company of ex-service men in uniform; one or two hundred, carrying rifles with fixed bayonets which gleamed in the sunshine. There were two fifers and two drummers at their head, and also two flags, one the flag of the Brigade, and the other the flag of Mobland. I remembered having noted in the morning papers that the national commander of the brigade was to arrive in town this morning, and no doubt this was a delegation to do him honor.
The marchers swept down on us, and past us, and I watched the prophet. His eyes were wide, his whole face expressing anguish. “Oh God, my Father!” he whispered, and seemed to quiver with each thud of the tramping feet on the pavement. After the storm had passed, he stood motionless, the pain still in his face “It is Rome! It is Rome!” he murmured.
“No,” said I, “it is Mobland.”
He went on, as if he had not heard me. “Rome! Eternal Rome! Rome that never dies!” And he turned upon me his startled eyes. “Even the eagles!”
For a moment I was puzzled; but then I remembered the golden eagle with wings outspread, that perches on top of our national banner. “We only use one eagle,” I said, somewhat feebly.
To which he answered, “The soul of one eagle is the same as the soul of two.”
Now, I had felt quite certain that Carpenter would not get along very well with the Brigade, and I was more than ever decided that he must be got out of the way somehow or other. But meantime, the first task was to get him away from this crowd which was rapidly collecting. Already he was in the full tide of a speech. “Those sharp spears! Can you not see them thrust into the bowels of human beings? Can you not see them dripping with the blood of your brothers?”
I whispered to Everett, thinking him one among this company of enthusiasts who might have a little common sense left. “We had better get him away from here!” And Everett put his hand gently on the prophet's shoulder, and said, “The prisoners in the jail are hoping for us.” I took him by the other arm, and we began to lead him down the street. When we had once got him going, we walked him faster and faster, until presently the crowd was trailing out into a string of idlers and curiosity seekers, as before.
XLVI
The party came to the city jail, and knocked for admission. But no doubt the authorities had taken consultation in the meantime, and there was no admission for prophets. The party stood on the steps, baffled and bewildered, a pitiful and pathetic little group.
For my part, I thought it just as well that Carpenter had not got inside, for I knew what he would find there. It happens that my Aunt Jennie belongs to a couple of women's clubs, and they have been making a fuss about our city jail; they have kept on making it for many years, but apparently without accomplishing anything. The place was built a generation ago, for a city of perhaps one-tenth our present size; it is old and musty, and the walls are so badly cracked that it has been condemned by the building department. It is so crowded that half a dozen men sometimes sleep on the floor of a single cell. They are devoured by vermin, and lie in semi-darkness, some of them shivering with cold and others half suffocated. They stay there, sometimes for many months unheeded, because the courts are crowded, and if Comrade Abell's word may be taken in the matter, every poor man is assumed to be guilty until he is proven innocent. I have heard Aunt Jennie arguing the matter with considerable energy. Our banks are housed in palaces, and our Chamber of Commerce and our Merchants and Manufacturers and our Real Estate Exchange and all the rest of our boosters have commodious and expensive quarters; but our prisoners lie in torment, and no one boosts for them.
Did Carpenter know these things? Had the strikers or his little company of agitators, told him about them? Suddenly he said, “Let us pray;” and there on the steps of the jail he raised his hands in invocation, and prayed for all prisoners and captives. And when he finished, Comrade Abell suddenly lifted his voice and began to sing. I would not have supposed that so big a voice could have come out of so frail a body; but I was reminded that Abell had been practicing on soap-boxes a good part of his life. He was one of these shouting evangelists--only his gospel was different. He sang:
Arise, ye pris'ners of starvation! Arise, ye wretched of the earth! For justice thunders condemnation, A better world's in birth.
I think I would have shuddered, even more than I did, if I had known the name of this song; if I had realized that this group of fanatics were sounding the dread Internationale on the steps of our city jail! I suspect that what saved them was the fact that the guardians of the jail had no more idea what it was than I had!
The group had sung a couple of verses, when the iron-barred doors were opened, and a policeman stepped out. He addressed Carpenter, who was not singing. “Tell that bunch of nuts of yours to can the yowling.”
To which Carpenter replied: “I tell you that if these men should hold their peace, the stones of your jail would immediately cry out!” And he turned, and looked up and down the streets of the city, and suddenly I saw that he was weeping. “Oh, Mobland, Mobland! If you had known even at this time the way of justice! But the way is hid from your eyes, and you will not see it, and now the hour is coming, the horrors of the class war are upon you, ruin and destruction are at hand! Your towers of pride shall fall, your own children shall destroy you; they shall not leave you one stone upon another, because you knew not the time for justice when it came.”
The doors of the jail opened again, and three or four more policemen came out, with clubs in their hands. “Get along, now!” they said roughly, and began poking the prophet and his disciples in the back; they poked them down the stairs and along the street for a block or so--until they were sure the ears of the jail inmates would no longer be troubled by offensive sounds. But still they did not arrest them, and I marveled, wondering how long it could go on. I had an uneasy feeling that the longer the climax was postponed, the more severe it would be.
There was quite a crowd following us now, hoping that something sensational would happen. And presently a woman saw us, and rushed into the house, and came out leading a blind man, and appealing to Carpenter to restore his sight; and when he stopped to do this, there were a couple of newspaper men, and an operator with a camera, and more excitement and more crowds! So we started to walk again, and came to Main Street, which in our city is given up to ten cent picture-shows, and pawn-brokers, and old clothes shops, and eating-stands for workingmen. A block or so distant we saw a mass of people, and something warned me--my heart sank into my boots. Another mob!
XLVII
There was shouting, and people running from every direction. The throng would surge back, and a few run from it. “What's the matter?” I cried to one of these, and the answer was, “They're cleaning out the reds!” Comrade Abell, who knew the neighborhood, exclaimed in dismay, “It's Erman's Book Store!”
“Who's doing this?” I asked of another bystander, and the answer was, “The Brigade! They're cleaning up the city before the convention!” And Comrade Abell clasped his hands to his forehead, and wailed in despair, “It's because they've been selling the 'Liberator'! Erman told me last week he'd been warned to stop selling it!”
Now, I don't know whether or not Carpenter had ever heard of this radical monthly. But he knew that here was a mob, and people in trouble, and he shook off the hands which sought to restrain him, and pushed his way into the throng, which gave way before him, either from respect or from curiosity. I learned later that some of the mob had dragged the bookseller and his two clerks out by the rear entrance, and were beating them pretty severely. But fortunately Carpenter did not see this. All he saw were a dozen or so ex-soldiers in uniform carrying armfuls of magazines and books out into a little square, which was made by the oblique intersection of two avenues. They were dumping the stuff into a pile, and a man with a five gallon can was engaged in pouring kerosene over it.
“My friend,” said Carpenter, “what is this that you do?”
The other turned upon him and stared. “What the hell you got to do with it? Get out of the way there!” And to emphasize his words he slopped a jet of kerosene over the prophet's robes.
Said Carpenter: “Do you know what a book is? One of your poets has described it as the precious life-blood of a great spirit, embalmed and preserved to all posterity.”
The other laughed scornfully. “Was he talkin' about Bolsheviki books, you reckon?”
Said Carpenter: “Are you one that should be set to judge books? Have you read these that you are about to destroy?” And as the other, paying no attention, knelt down to strike a match and light the pyre, he cried, in a louder voice: “Behold what a thing is war! You have been trained to kill your fellow men; the beast has been let loose in your heart, and he raves within!”
“One of these God-damn pacifists, eh?” cried the ex-soldier; and he dropped his matches and sprang up with fists clenched. Carpenter faced him without flinching; there was something so majestic about him, the man did not strike him, he merely put his spread hand against the prophet's chest and shoved him violently. “Get back out of the way!”
I well knew the risk I was taking, but I could not refrain. “Now, look here, buddy!” I began; and the soldier whirled upon me. “You one of these Huns, too?”
“I was all through the Argonne,” I said quickly. “And I belong to the Brigade.”
“Oh ho! Well, pitch in here, and help carry out this bloody Arnychist literature!”
I was about to answer, but Carpenter's voice rang out again. He had turned and stretched out his arms to the crowd, and we both stopped to listen to his words.
“Shall ye be wolves, or shall ye be men? That is the choice, and ye have chosen wolfhood. The blood of your brothers is upon your hands, and murder in your hearts. You have trained your young men to be killers of their brothers, and now they know only the law of madness.”
There were a dozen ex-doughboys in sound of this discourse, and I judged they would not stand much of it. Suddenly one of them began to chant; and the rest took it up, half laughing, half shouting:
Rough! Tough! We're the stuff! We want to fight and we can't get enough!
And after that:
Hail! Hail! The gang's all here! We're going to get the Kaiser!
The crowd joined in, and the words of the prophet were completely drowned out. A moment later I heard a gruff voice behind me. “Make way here!” There came a policeman, shoving through. “What's all this about?”
The fellow with the kerosene can spoke up: “Here's this damn Arnychist prophet been incitin' the crowd and preachin' sedition! You better take him along, officer, and put him somewhere he'll be safe, because me and my buddies won't stand no more Bolsheviki rantin'.”
It seemed ludicrous when I looked back upon it; though at the moment I did not appreciate the funny side. Here was a group of men engaged in raiding a book-store, beating up the proprietor and his clerks, and burning a thousand dollars worth of books and magazines on the public street; but the policeman did not see a bit of that, he had no idea that any such thing was happening! All he saw was a prophet, in a white nightgown dripping with kerosene, engaged in denouncing war! He took him firmly by the arm, saying, “Come along now! I guess we've heard enough o' this;” and he started to march Carpenter down the street.
“Take me too!” cried Moneta, the Mexican, beside himself with excitement; and the policeman grabbed him with the other hand, and the three set out to march.
XLVIII
I no longer had any impulse to interfere. In truth I was glad to see the policeman, considering that his worst might be better than the mob's best. About half the crowd followed us, but the singing died away, and that gave Comrade Abell his chance. He was walking directly behind the policeman, and suddenly he raised his voice, and all the rest of the way to the station-house he provided marching tunes: first the Internationale, and then the Reg Flag, and then the Marseillaise:
Ye sons of toil, awake to glory! Hark, hark! What myriads bids you rise! Your children, wives, and grand sires hoary-- Behold their tears and hear their cries!