Part 19

“Automobile, c’mon!” It was Freeman pulling him forward and shouting hoarsely. They ran into the road and the speeding car suddenly slid to a halt trembling, its brakes set.

“Don’t stop! They’re after us!” They scrambled over the side into the back seat.

The car jumped ahead and went roaring down the road. A volley of stones shot through the air and shattered the wind-shield. The mob yelled.... Robert looked around. The mob was running toward the lake. They were out of the black belt, and the driver slackened his pace.

“What’s up?”

They told him.

“Every one of ’em ought to be lynched!”

The man at his side swore loudly.

“We ought to go back and burn the entire district.”

Robert was panting.

“Now you Northerners’ll know what we’ve got to put up with!”

“You’re right,” they swore.

In his room, Robert flung his coat across a chair and threw himself upon the bed, exhausted. His chest was heaving, he was wet with perspiration. Race riots in Chicago. God! In Corinth they would burn the colored population! He wondered what _would_ happen here.

The door suddenly flew open.

“H’lo, Ham. What the devil! Are you sick?” It was McCall.

“No,” he panted, “tired. Doing some sprinting.” He untwisted himself and rose shakily. “But where have you been? Gee, it’s great to see you again.”

“You must have got a bump,” remarked McCall, as they shook hands. “Oh, I’ve just got back from a trip. I’ve been getting some stuff on the Trick Track Tribe. Trying to connect some atrocities with the Tribe. But what have you been doing, anyway? Playing football?”

Robert laughed.

“Almost.”

He narrated his experiences in the black belt. McCall whistled.

“When I was over in the office a little while ago, they told me something about it. So you were in it? Do you know how it started?”

“Only what a mulatto woman said, and she probably was lying.”

“No, that was straight. They have a line at the Twenty-Sixth street beach. The blacks bathe on one side and the whites on the other. No law about it, but it’s just a rule that both respect. Got a match?” He pulled out his cigarette case. “Well, a little pickaninny crossed the line and climbed on a raft. A white man threw a stone at him, struck the kid and knocked him in the water. He drowned. He probably didn’t mean to do it. There was a white patrolman in the district and when he took his time about investigating and making an arrest, the blacks started organizing. They had a few run-ins, but I thought that the thing had probably died down.”

“No, about fifty of them were running toward the lake when I saw them.”

“I suppose there’ll be trouble, then. Of course, only one white man is to blame and he ought to be punished. But the blacks feel the mass hatred against them. That rope keeping them to one side of the beach is a symbol of it. The throwing of the stone, another. Last week the race riots in Washington. This week in Chicago. You’d think that such a thing was impossible after the war.”

“Oh, well, you’ll always have a color line.”

“Oh, you’ll always have different _colors_, but I mean that race prejudice, that unreasoning mass hatred. Levin was right about the reaction following the war. Take the Trick Track Tribe. The things I’ve found out about them. The mayor of a little town in Kansas tarred and feathered, for instance, simply because he said he was opposed to the Tribe.”

“But look at all the niggers in Chicago, wouldn’t the Tribe--?”

“No! A thousand times no! You think if you had the mob organized to hate the Negro that everything would be all right.”

“We’re not telling anyone to hate the nigger. I mean the Tribe isn’t. The Tribe wants to put the nigger in his place. And he isn’t in his place in Chicago.”

“Bunk! If you have a Tribe here, you will only crystallize all the class hatred.”

“But it’s here.”

“Sure it’s here. But it’s the duty of intelligent men and women to break it.”

“So you’d have equal social rights for the nigger, as the nigger writers are advocating, would you? You’d have them marry and--”

“Don’t talk like a damn fool,” interrupted McCall. “Social equality is nothing that can be regulated. It is up to the individual. But you can insure social and economic justice, at least in a measure, and you can at least try to keep racial hatred from flaring up. Don’t you see what the Tribe is doing? It is simply magnifying all the narrow prejudices and hatreds. No man of intelligence could be reasoned into joining it because of its demands. He joins because his prejudices are aroused.”

“Why can’t he? Americanism. Pure womanhood--”

“Don’t talk like an ass. These terms don’t mean a blamed thing. Everybody is for Americanism, those niggers who chased you down the street as much as any one. Every one is for pure womanhood, except a few degenerates whom your prisons take care of. White supremacy is simply the Tribe’s way of saying black hatred. That’s what the Tribe stands for--hatred, hate of the black, of the Jew and of the Catholic, hate of the labor union--it wants to abolish _needless_ strikes, with a Tribesman, I suppose, to decide which are needless. And then there are states’ rights and prohibition. If you appealed to a man’s reason, you couldn’t get any members, because those planks automatically cut off every one who is a Catholic, a Jew, a Negro, an alien, a Republican, a radical, a believer in organized labor, a liberal or an intellectual. And their insinuations about Wilson--Democrats. Now, then, who’s left? What’s this junk?”

He stooped to pick up one of the folders of the Trick Track Tribe, which had fallen out of Robert’s pocket. It was headed “Knights of Columbus Oath, Fourth Degree.”

“What is this?”

As he read, McCall’s eyes blazed and the arteries of his neck swelled. Robert bit his lips. The time had come. He could no longer dissemble. It was a question of his friendship with McCall--McCall his buddy of the trenches--or loyalty to the Tribe. McCall’s voice was raised in anger: “What’s this blasphemy!”

He read:

“‘When opportunity presents, I shall make and wage relentless war, open and secretly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle and burn alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crash their infants’ heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race.

“‘That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poniard, or the leaden bullet ... as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus.’”

There was more of it--about denouncing allegiance to Protestant countries and about voting for and employing only Catholics.

McCall’s angry eyes took in the pile of booklets and cards on the dresser. With one stride he crossed the room and began tearing them into bits. Then his contorted, red face grew pale, his lips quivered.

“Hamilton, you--you--” his voice choked. Robert held his breath. “You contemptible spy. From Corinth! I might have known! And--and--” He stood there for a moment, speechless, his hands clenched, his body trembling. He stepped forward and then suddenly turned to the door.

“Mac! Bill!” Robert found his voice. “Let me explain!”

“Explain? Hell!”

McCall reached the door and, without turning to look around, opened it.

“Bill!”

The door slammed. McCall was gone. The torn leaflets on the floor and the window curtains blew upward and fell again. Robert took a step toward the door and stopped. Bill was gone. In the mirror of his dresser Robert saw how white he was.

XXXIV

Robert slept late the next morning, ate a combination breakfast and luncheon and returned to his room. McCall! Friendship! The torn leaflets had been removed by the maid.

Robert removed his coat, collar and shirt and began, very deliberately, to shave. He had never distributed the Knights of Columbus oath. Freeman had assured him that whatever might be the veracity of the articles in The Beacon, the Knights of Columbus oath, at any rate, was accurate. It had been obtained by the Tribe itself.

Robert dried his face. Why must a person always defend what he has done? One may act simply on an impulse--because some one else wants him to do something, because the community in which he lives, his social set or public opinion desires it. But once a person has acted, he builds up reasons to justify himself. Take the Knights of Columbus oath. He had not troubled to investigate it. He had accepted it because it was part of the Tribe’s propaganda and because his father, his mother, Margaret, his social set, believed in the Tribe. The rational thing would be to weigh its value, to investigate its authenticity--and then to accept or reject it. It was the same way with other propaganda. If it was false, Freeman was always inventing excuses. Why had he not investigated their truth before circulating them! And yet, Freeman had insisted that the oath was true.

The telephone bell rang.

“Hello!” It was McCall. He was coming up. Robert took a long breath. McCall! Robert had not expected him to come back again. He wondered why--and was glad, immensely glad. The door opened.

“God, I’m glad--” Robert held out his hand.

“Shut up!” McCall looked very pale and serious, his lips tight. “I want you to listen to me! I think you’re either a scoundrel or a damn fool. I’ve thought it over all night and I’ve decided to be charitable and call you a damn fool.”

Robert started to say something. McCall put up his hand.

“If you interrupt me, I’m going. And if I go, you’ll never see me again. I said I decided that you were a damn fool. I decided that you joined the Tribe because you couldn’t get out of it or because you didn’t know its real object. Most members don’t. They think they’re joining some sort of a crusade. I think Lister is a sincere man, a sincere fool, a fanatic who would have fitted in somewhere beautifully in the Middle Ages and who didn’t know any more about the meaning of Christianity than the fanatics who burned heretics and witches three hundred years ago. That includes Catholics as well as Protestants. I’m not handing myself anything.

“Griffith I think is a crook--I say I _think_ he is--because he personally gets a rake-off on every member, because he sells robes and masks at a profit that the Tribe would boycott a Jew for making, and because he sells the muddy river water used in your Tribal initiations for ten dollars a quart. I can’t conceive of any man with the broad mission he says he has, starting out by overcharging the brothers who are to carry out that mission with him. If you are an official, you know that these are facts and you also know that you get a rake-off for each new member. It is to your interest and to the interest of every Tribal officer to get as many memberships as you can--no matter how much class and racial hatred you spread in getting them--because it brings you actual money. If you can make people believe that the Pope is trying to control the American government, or that Jews, who form about three per cent of the population, are trying to overthrow all government, or that Negroes, who have been persecuted and tortured all their lives and are afraid to move, are plotting with the Bolsheviki or the Hindus to overthrow civilization, it means three dollars for Mr. Griffith, four dollars for the salesman who calls himself a Bogey and one dollar for the state salesman or Grand Bogey--per convert.

“But I won’t inquire into your motives for joining the Tribe. I shall assume that they were worthy and that you were simply gullible. The Tribe’s antagonism to the Catholic is evidently based on its conception of the relation between the Papacy and the United States. The Tribe evidently believes, or pretends to believe, that the Papacy means to control the government of the United States, and that spiritual allegiance to the Pope in some way interferes with secular allegiance to the government of the United States. I say that these are the reasons for the Tribe’s opposition to the Catholic, because the Tribe professes to believe in the freedom of worship. In other words, admittedly the religion of the Catholic, and similarly of the Jew, have nothing to do with the Tribe’s opposition.

“Now, Hamilton, if I can prove to you that the Catholic church is not attempting to control our government and the Catholic church in no way interferes with one’s loyalty to his country, will you promise to resign from the Tribe? If the Tribe is wrong, you will want to resign. If I am wrong, if the Catholic church does mean interference with my Americanism, I will not want to be a Catholic--and I will quit the church. Is that fair?”

“Yes--you give up the church or I give up the Tribe.”

They shook hands. It seemed fair enough. Robert had joined the Tribe because he believed it stood for certain principles. That it attacked certain institutions, not because of blind prejudice, but for definite reasons. If these reasons proved false, there was no reason for the Tribe’s existence--no reason for Robert belonging to it. To continue to be a Tribesman under those circumstances would be dishonest. It would be lending his force, his personality, to a lie.

“Now for the proof,” said McCall. “Hell, what do you or I know about it anyway? Father Callahan does. And if he doesn’t convince you, I’ll quit the church.”

Father Callahan, of St. Gesu Church, proved to be a pleasant, ruddy-faced man of charming manners and ready knowledge. He received them in his library.

“It was quite right of you to come to me,” he smiled, “because many of the attacks of the Trick Track Tribe have been made against the Jesuits and, inasmuch as I, myself, am a member of the Society of Jesus--by the way, Mr. Hamilton, I observe that the Knights of the Trick Track Tribe boast of the most sublime lineage in all history, but I believe that the organization to which I belong may lay claim to a still more sublime lineage.” He smiled. “The lineage of the Catholic church can be traced back some 1850 years before the origin of the Tribe, granting even that the present Tribe is the legitimate descendant of the original Tribe formed in 1867. Inasmuch, however, as the old Tribe was abolished, both by its founders and by the federal government, one may well question how the present Tribe may justly claim to inherit its lineage, which was not too sublime to make the fathers of the order heartily regret that they had ever founded it.”

Father Callahan had a rather delightful way of imparting the mildest of sarcasms. He leaned forward and touched Robert on the knee.

“And I believe the Tribe has also called itself the most dauntless organization known to man. Whether it is really more dauntless than the secret societies of the heathen savages who also fight behind grotesque masks--some splendid examples of which you may be able to find at the Field Museum or, at any rate, in any good book on anthropology--still the fact remains that members of the society of which I am a member have also accomplished certain dauntless deeds. There is no natural monopoly of that quality. You may remember that Father Marquette, for instance, preceded me, in the name of the church, some three hundred years ago, as did also Father Hennepin. You may remember that Joliet and La Salle also showed themselves not lacking in bravery in their explorations which opened up Canada and the entire Northwest. The first trappers and traders with the Indians, who became the first merchants of Chicago and the founders of its first industry, also belonged to the Catholic Church.

“By the way,”--the priest rose--“this discourse may strike you as rather dry. But national prohibition will not go into effect until January and I don’t suppose I should be offending even the keen love of law and order of a Tribesman by offering him a little wine and cake. If you excuse me for a minute?”

Robert settled back comfortably in his chair, his nervousness entirely gone.

“Well, what do you think of him?” asked McCall with a smile.

“Well, I’ll bet he makes religion attractive.”

“Certainly! Why shouldn’t it be? It ought to be the most sublime thing in the world.” They laughed at the accidental use of the word “sublime.” “I look at religion as the most beautiful symbolism in life. I couldn’t worship in an ugly church or under the guidance of a cold and narrow minister or priest.”

Father Callahan appeared in the doorway, his ruddy face smiling and his merry blue eyes sparkling. A servant followed, bearing a small tray on which were three small glasses of red wine and a plate of cake. The latter placed the tray on the table and the priest offered the glasses, invoked a blessing on the food and drink, and took a swallow.

“Ah! Now,” he said, “the really very silly notion that allegiance to the Pope interferes with the loyalty any citizen owes his country, has been exploded a long time ago and is used by no one save a few bigots who do not themselves credit the nonsense they utter. It is really remarkable how such ideas linger, yet I notice that this forms the real basis of the Tribe’s opposition to the Catholic as such. Of course, the church is Catholic and its missionaries go forth to all lands seeking converts. Every human being, we believe, has a soul, and before God all souls are equal. The Church of Christ is not ashamed that many of its members are of the eastern and southern European countries, whose immigrants at present may be regarded as undesirable by American statesmen. We rather take pride that the church has considered the soul of no man unworthy of saving. Our statesmen can probably best determine which elements are most needed in making up the population of the United States. But the church maintains that the desirability of no man as a citizen is ever diminished by his belonging to the Catholic church.

“A man can be a good subject either of a republic or a monarchy and, at the same time, be a devoted adherent of the Holy See. Even non-believers in Catholic doctrine have come to recognize that the better Catholic an individual is, the better citizen he therefore becomes of the country in which he lives.”

Father Callahan took a bite of cake and another swallow of wine.

“The old absurdity,” he went on, “of owing allegiance to a foreign potentate, which was the charge made against American Catholics in Know Nothing times, has been rarely heard and would have been relegated to that obscurity which it deserves except for the sudden rise of the Trick Track Tribe. Spiritual allegiance to the Pope will never interfere with the duties an honest state exacts from its citizens, but, on the contrary, will inspire each citizen to perform his duties better and more conscientiously. But you must have some more cake. That’s right.”

The priest rose, walked to a bookcase and, after studying it a minute, pulled out a volume.

“Can you prove what you have just told him, father?” asked McCall.

“That is exactly what I am about to do. Although I have some authority in the church, you, Mr. Hamilton, will want some greater authority than mine. Have you ever heard of the Baltimore Council? Shortly after Pope Leo the Thirteenth had conferred with the American prelates in Rome, a plenary council of the Catholic Church of the United States was ordered, late in 1884. The acts of this council were approved by the Pope and are enforced throughout the United States. Now, very fortunately, this very subject of church and state was discussed by the fathers of the Baltimore Council and this, by the approval of the Holy See, is the official position of the Catholic Church.”

The priest turned the leaves, found the proper page and handed the book to Robert.

“We repudiate with equal earnestness,” he read, “the assertion that we need to lay aside any of our devotedness to our church to be true Americans; the insinuation that we need to lay aside any of our love for our country’s principles and institutions to be faithful Catholics. To argue that the Catholic Church is hostile to our great republic, because she teaches that ‘there is no power but from God’; because, therefore, back of the events which led to the formation of the republic, she sees the providence of God leading to that issue and, back of our country’s laws, the authority of God as their sanction--this is evidently so illogical and contradictory an accusation that we are astonished to hear it advanced by persons of ordinary intelligence.... To both the Almighty and to His instruments we look with grateful reverence, and to maintain the inheritance of freedom which they have left us, our Catholic citizens will be found to stand forward as one man, ready to pledge anew their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. No less illogical should be the notion that there is aught in the free spirit of our American institutions incompatible with perfect docility to the Church of Christ.”

The next sentence Robert read several times. It seemed to strike at the union of church and state, although--and this seemed natural--such union was blamed upon the selfishness of secular monarchs, seeking greater power. It was natural that the Catholic Church, if it now condemned this union, should see in it, not a usurpation of secular authority by the church, but of ecclesiastical power by the state.

“Narrow, insular, national views and jealousies concerning ecclesiastical authority and church organization may have sprung naturally enough from the selfish policy of certain rulers and nations in bygone times, but they find no sympathy in the spirit of the true American Catholic.”

“I see,” said Robert gravely, handing the book back. It seemed queer that both the Catholics and the Tribesmen should issue proclamations against what was probably the same thing. It was like the two knights fighting each other all day because one declared the shield was red and the other that it was black and then discovering, as they lay exhausted on the ground, that the shield was black on one side and red on the other. Tribesmen and Know Nothingers feared that the church wished to control the state; the Catholic fathers that the state should try to control the church.

“Have you the real fourth degree oath of the Knights of Columbus?” asked McCall.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Robert.

“Yes, it is. You must be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Knights of Columbus, Father, are supposed to be trying to seize control of the state by, well, it amounts to murder. Read this.”

He handed over the circular. The priest looked at it and frowned.