On his return trip to the office, Jeremy encountered Eli Wade, the Boot & Shoe Surgeon, and Nick Milliken. Wade shook hands with him, and looked at his feet.
“You’re standing solid now, Mr. Robson,” he said. “I went on my knees and thanked God when I read your editorial.”
“Not me,” put in Milliken. “That ain’t my God. I don’t worship Mars.”
“Don’t heed him, Mr. Robson. He’ll fight, too, when the time comes.”
“In a capitalistic war? Do I look as soft a mark as that!” retorted the socialist disdainfully.
“It’s an American war,” said Eli Wade.
“Don’t you think it! Nine tenths of the people are dead against the war. There’s a bill coming up this session that’ll tell the war-birds where they get off.”
“Where did you learn about it?” asked Jeremy.
“The Party is going to back it. It’ll carry without any trouble. The yellow-bellies won’t dare kick for fear of the German vote.”
“Then they might as well raise the German flag over the Capitol,” declared the Boot & Shoe Surgeon fiercely.
“German nothing! We’ll have the red flag of brotherhood here yet, Eli.”
Considerations of the policy delayed the presentation of the bill. When it was offered, Jeremy put it on record all over the State, in an editorial of protest, dubbing it the “Surrender Bill.” But no leader could be found in the Legislature who dared back this bold course. German intimidation had done its work well. The most that the opponents of the bill ventured was to obstruct its passage by parliamentary obstacles. Even that much brought down upon the offender the threats of an organized Deutschtum. But the matter bumped and dawdled along the legislative road all that spring and summer before the bill passed to a final reading. Jeremy published his last editorial on the subject, “Hands Off the President,” solemnly warning the Legislature against interfering in international matters of which they could know little or nothing. The Record replied with a scathing “leader” denouncing The Guardian, under the caption “An Insult to Our State,” the purport of which was that Centralia possessed the patriotism, statesmanship, and wisdom embodied in its Legislature to lay out the course for the ship of state through the most perilous waters. It was the kind of claptrap which rallies pseudo-patriotism and emboldens vacillating politicians.
The bill passed in the fall by a ratio of two to one. Deutschtum rejoiced exuberantly.
Jeremy hurried to the Executive Mansion. “Governor, are you going to veto that bill?”
“Is this for publication, Mr. Editor?” smiled the Governor.
“Yes.”
“Then I will say that the matter is still under advisement.”
“It’s a rank surrender, Martin.”
“It’s a silly bill, Jem. But where’s the harm? Let ’em blow off steam.”
“Then you won’t veto it?”
“I certainly shall not. Does The Guardian propose to scarify me?”
“My Lord, Martin! A matter as serious as this—I don’t see how you can take it so lightly.”
“Philosophy, my boy. With our Corporation Bill coming on soon I’m certainly not going to compromise its chances by flying in the face of the whole German-American vote.”
“But on a question of natural honor—”
“National flapdoodle! Our national honor is safe enough as long as we keep our heads. Will you see Rappelje tomorrow about the Corporation Control Bill?”
“Yes. Tomorrow afternoon.”
The lean and dry authority on economics, an ardent apostle of Embree’s policies and his chief adviser on all corporation matters, spent an hour in the editorial den of The Guardian. All points of the bill were carefully discussed. Jeremy committed his unqualified editorial support to it.
“Will you forward it to Mr. Kimball, of The Bellair Journal?” asked the professor.
“Yes, if you wish.”
“We can be sure of his aid?”
“Probably. Though he will be very sore on Governor Embree if the ‘Surrender Bill’ is signed.”
“That has no bearing whatsoever upon this measure.”
“Only as a matter of political barter and trade. What do you think of the ‘Surrender Bill’ yourself, Professor Rappelje?”
“I was requested to come here to discuss the Corporation Control Act,” returned the economist austerely.
“Another dodger!” thought Jem disgustedly, as he bade his visitor a somewhat curt good-day.
Such advisement as Governor Embree bestowed upon the “Surrender Bill” was brief. Two days after its passing he signed it without comment. Jeremy’s editorial on the final step in the enactment was dignified and regretful, but carefully guarded against offense. It indicated plainly that there would be no split between The Guardian and the Governor.
On the morning following the signature, as Jeremy was at his desk, Andrew Galpin burst in upon him, his face vivid with emotions in which unholy glee, such as might be evoked by some Satanic jest, seemed to predominate.
“Come out here!” he gasped.
“What’s the matter?” demanded his Boss, struggling against a powerful grip.
“Come out. I can’t tell it. You’ve got to see it.”
Galpin hurried him downstairs and out upon the sidewalk. The street was full of people with faces turned upward and to the northeast where Capitol Hill reared its height. The typical characteristic of the faces was a staring incredulous eye and a fallen jaw. Jeremy followed the line of vision to the dome wherefrom projected the State’s official flagstaff.
In the place of the Stars and Stripes there blew, stiff in the brisk wind, the banner of Imperial Germany.
25
Phenomena do not occur upon legislative flagstaffs without due process. The astonishing manifestation of sardonic intent above the unconscious lawmakers of Centralia was not the fruit of magic, black or white, but of a simple and easy substitution. The legitimate ornament of the staff was lowered each evening into a box, where it lay, still attached to its halyards, and was raised therefrom in the morning by an assistant janitor who, operating the rope from within the dome, never saw the flag as it mounted to its peak. What more easy, since the dome was always open and unguarded, than for some demoniac-souled satirist to ascend to the repository and substitute an alien banner, always supposing him able to lay possessive hands upon such a thing? Since the Lusitania rejoicings, German flags had blossomed broadcast in the streets of Fenchester, and each new submarine success had brought them forth afresh. As a matter of fact, the satirical substituter had borrowed the Deutscher Club’s proud insignium.
How would the German-Americans take it? That was the first question in the minds of Jeremy Robson and Andrew Galpin alike. When the first shock of amazement wore off, it began to appear they were taking it with a certain gusto. A joke? Oh, certainly! But a joke with a deserved sting in it for the “Know-Nothings,” the jingo-patriots who could admit to no other nationality than their own to any rightful say in American affairs. Privately they were much inclined to chuckle. The forehanded among them hastened forth with cameras to perpetuate the spicy relish of their flag exalted in the high place of the State. While the click of shutters was at its height, the flag came down. Somebody in the Main Square shouted “Hoch der Kaiser!” and there was a burst of laughter and applause.
But for that, casual and insignificant as it was, Jeremy Robson might have treated the matter tactfully, or jocularly, as did The Record. But that heavy, Teutonic mirth roused a dogged wrath within him. What he composed for a “box” on that evening’s editorial page was unpleasant writing and extremely unpleasant reading. There were but few sentences, but they stung. And that which rankled was the suggestion that the insult to the State and the Nation was fittingly typified in the flag from that organization which had jubilated in wine and song over the murder of American women and children aboard the Lusitania.
Before the editorial had been out two hours there were rumors of a mob that w
as to be raised against The Guardian. Jeremy returned to the office. So did Galpin; also Verrall, white with consternation and chagrin over the reckless challenge of the editorial which could not fail to prejudice the circulation and advertising of the paper; and a dozen other of the staff. At eight o’clock the rhythm of marching feet sounded, and the tumult of voices. Five hundred undergraduates from Old Central massed in the street before the office and gave the University’s three times three for The Guardian and its owner. The rumor had come to them. They were there to tackle any mob that arrived seeking trouble. None materialized. The students stayed and sang and cheered until midnight, and then dispersed. More than the protection offered, to those of The Guardian, was the proof that Young America at least was still American to the core, without taint of doubt or hyphen!
The mob-rumor had been a canard. Organizations such as the Deutscher Club do not raise mobs. They sit in solemn conclave, when action is called for, and appoint proper committees. Insult gross and profound having been offered Fenchester’s leading social organization, its president summoned the Board of Governors, which in turn appointed a Special Committee with instructions. The first act of the committee was to advertise a liberal reward for the “apprehension of the criminal miscreant”—to such heights of expressiveness did righteous indignation run—who had filched the club’s flag. The second was to send a sub-committee to call upon Mr. Jeremy Robson, owner and responsible editor of that libertine sheet, The Guardian. Chance may or may not have dictated that two of the committee, Arnold Blasius, the hatter, and Nicholas Engel, the local grocer, should be important local advertisers. The chairman was Emil Bausch.
Forewarned of their coming, Jeremy had Andrew Galpin on hand. The two young makers of The Guardian, shirt-sleeved and alert, received the black-coated delegation of clubmen, formal and accusing, into the inner den.
“We have come to demand a full retragtion,” Emil Bausch opened the ball.
Unhappily, since his first interview with that dignitary, Jeremy had been invariably afflicted with mingled exasperation and amusement at Bausch’s every action. The apostle of Deutschtum roused within Jeremy an impulse of perversity which flatly refused to take the heavy German seriously.
“All right. Go ahead and do it.”
“Do what?” Bausch’s eyes goggled at the editor suspiciously.
“Do what you came to do. Make your demand.”
“I do do it.”
“You make a formal demand on behalf of the Deutscher club for a retraction of my editorial?”
“We do.”
“Declined, with the editor’s thanks.”
Mr. Bausch’s neck showed signs of swelling beyond the confines of his collar. “You refuse to accebd the rebresentations of this commiddee?” he inquired, with a thickening accent.
“Don’t know. Let’s hear ’em.”
The chairman produced from the official pocket a document which he proceeded to render vocally. It was quite grave and awful in verbiage, and there was a great deal of it, rising through a spiral of whereas-es to a climax of denunciation. At the conclusion the editor held out his hand.
“If you please.”
“You want this?” queried Mr. Bausch doubtfully. “What for?”
“For tomorrow’s paper.”
“You wish to publish it? Why?”
A glint appeared in Jeremy’s eye. “It’s so prettily worded,” he explained with sweet simplicity.
Bausch turned the characterization over in his heavy mind. “Pretty,” he said. “Pretty? I do not think—”
“He’s making a fool of you, Mr. Chairman,” broke in Engel, a little neat, nervous man. He turned on Jeremy. “You insult our club and now you insult us.”
“Apropos of insults,” retorted Jeremy: “what about this document that Mr. Bausch has just read so expressively? Murder seems to be about the only thing that isn’t charged in it. Would you call that a testimonial of regard?”
“Consider the provocation,” said Blasius. “Be square about this thing, Mr. Robson.”
“Give me a chance,” returned the editor promptly. “Don’t begin by holding a gun to my head.”
“The case is blain,” stated Bausch in his heavy accents. “You cannot deny the editorial charching that we made a festivity over the Lusitania.”
“Evidently not.”
“We demand a retragtion of that.”
“On what ground?”
“Because it was an outrache on a high-toned, representative organization, a private—”
“Wasn’t it true?” Andrew Galpin’s sharp-edged voice injected a new and brisker element.
“Huh?” The interrogation seemed to have been jolted out of Chairman Bausch’s volume from somewhere below the Adam’s apple.
“Wasn’t it true that there was a dinner at the club to celebrate the Lusitania?”
“That is not the question.”
“It’s my question.”
“It’s the only question,” put in Jeremy.
“You refuse to apologize—”
“For commenting on fact? Certainly.”
“While we’re on the subject,” pursued Galpin, “isn’t it true that Professor Brender, of Old Central, came in when the dinner was half over, and gave you all hell for pulling such a rotten stunt?”
“Gott im Himmel!” muttered Blasius. He turned to Bausch. “Is that true?”
“That he said his heart was all for Germany, and that if submarine warfare was necessary to her success it must go on; but that the man who rejoiced over its necessary tragedies was a reckless fool who put every decent German-American in a false light? Isn’t that true?” continued the restless voice of Galpin.
“Are you going to prind that?” muttered Bausch.
“The newspaper doesn’t print everything it hears. If we could have verified it, we would have printed it, at the time.”
“We shall come back to the point,” said the chairman, recovering himself. “The Guardian editorial is an affront to a respected and valuable element of the community.
“We don’t respect child-and-women murderers,” flashed Jeremy, “nor those who honor them.”
“It all comes to this, Mr. Robson.” This was Blasius. “Is your paper for or against Germany in this war?”
“The Guardian is neutral.”
“Neutral!” snorted Bausch. “A straddler.”
“Is that editorial neutral?” demanded Engel.
“Not neutral as regards piracy,” answered its writer steadily. “Neutral as regards legitimate warfare.”
“Of which you are the jutch,” sneered Bausch.
“So far as my paper is concerned.”
Bausch returned doggedly to the charge. “The Deutscher Club is a private organization of gentlemen. For what goes on within its doors we are not resbonsible to any outsider. The Guardian has traduced and defamed us—”
“Sounds like an action for libel,” interpolated Galpin. “Who drew that up: Judge Dana?”
Again the chairman gulped in unpleasant surprise. But he recovered and continued: “—and in the name of the club we demand a full and fitting apology—”
“Hold on!” cried Jeremy. “It was a retraction just now.”
“Retragtion or apology,” amended the baited chairman. “It is all the same.”
“Quite different. A retraction admits an untruth. An apology merely says we’re sorry.”
“I guess either will do,” muttered Engel uncertainly, perceiving that matters were not improving by discussion. “We’ll leave it to you which.”
Jeremy stood up significantly. “Neither,” said he.
The other two committeemen led out their chairman whose Adam’s apple, though pumping furiously, was missing fire so far as vocal result was concerned. Their excited interchange of views died away in the hall.
“I guess we’ve invited Old Miss Trouble in to tea this time, sure,” observed Galpin.
“You didn’t tell me about the Brender outbreak, Andy.�
��
“You were away at the time and had enough troubles, anyway. We couldn’t get it in any such shape that I dared print it.”
“Wouldn’t Brender talk?”
“Tried him. Tight like a clam. Murray, who was assigned to tackle him, said he looked like a man who had lost something.”
“His country, maybe,” surmised Jeremy.
“Ay-ah. I wouldn’t wonder. I tell you, Boss, there’s a type of German-American that is going through hell and out the other end before this thing is over. Me, I’m glad I’m not one!”
“I’d rather be that kind than belong to the Bausch species, though. Let’s start a Back-to-Germany movement in The Guardian, Andy, and nominate Bausch for the first departure. Wouldn’t that nominate us for the Suicide Club!”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Boss. The Dutchers will save us the trouble of suicide, if they can.”
And on the following day, he bore the news of the first attack to his chief.
“Boss, prepare! The blow has fell!” he proclaimed tragically.
“Who’s been denouncing us now?”
“Worse. We’re excommunicated. The Deutscher Club has expelled the paper from its sacred precincts. Out we go, lock, stock, and barrel: bell, book, and candle. Two whole copies lost to circulation at one swoop.”
“Mild, Andy, mild! Verrall’s got a list of thirty-seven quits by this morning’s mail. He’ll die of heart-failure superinduced by bad circulation if you and I don’t stop running this paper into the ground.”
“Verrall’s an earnest soul,” observed the general manager, “but he’s always on the borderland of hysteria, and if an advertiser looks cross at him, over he flops.”
“Yes. He had an attack this morning. Blasius is out.”
“Entirely?”
“Five inches double; three times a week. Gone glimmering into the jaws of Hun ruthlessness.”
“Anyone else?”
“Threats of reduced space. If only they dared, Andy, what wouldn’t they do to us! But they need us in their business.”
Common Cause Page 25
