Common Cause

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

  Laurens checked it with one sufficient threat. Brandishing the weighty official gavel of lignum vitæ, he stood, a modern Thor, in the unconscious pose and with the menace of the Berseker, and, in a full-throated bellow proclaimed:

  “I’ll brain the first man that strikes a blow.”

  Before that intimidation they dropped into their chairs. There was a ripple of the shamed and foolish laughter of self-realization as the strain eased. The warrior-scholar’s neighbors, who had been holding him in his chair, felt his limbs relax, and mistakenly thinking his effort spent, released him. Instantly he rose.

  “I apologize to this honorable body,” he said with quiet courtesy, “and to the State of Centralia as represented by its chief executive. And, as a question of privilege preliminary to my resignation, I ask whether the list as read is to stand.”

  “I will not submit to be bulldozed or intimidated,” declared the Governor huskily.

  “The list stands?” persisted the other.

  “It stands, subject to the approval of this body.”

  “Doubtless you can carry it,” conceded the objector, ranging the assemblage with his clear and contemptuous glance.

  “Vote,” piped up an uncertain and tentative voice.

  “But you would be well advised not to make the attempt.”

  Martin Embree conceived that the proper course now was to ignore this unforeseen assailant of his plan. “I will proceed with the reading,” he announced.

  “I beg your pardon,” said the relentless and polite voice. “One moment. You will have until this evening to withdraw your list.”

  “And vot then? Vot then?” broke in Emil Bausch, thrusting upward a truculent face.

  “Do you want civil war in this State?” challenged Fliess.

  “If necessary,” retorted Rappelje, and stared him down with a steady and intolerable eye. He turned again to the Governor. “Unless that list is withdrawn before night, Martin Embree,” said he solemnly, “so help me the God of my country, I will raise the University and hang you to the highest tree on the campus.”

  He made a stiff, formal, absurd little jerk of a bow and marched from the room.

  “By gosh! He’s the boy could do it,” confirmed Milliken in an unexpectedly cheerful chirp.

  “Finish the reading,” said somebody weakly.

  “Vote! Vote!” came a mutter of several voices.

  No vote was taken. Under the corroding acid of the professor’s passion the fabric of that meeting’s purpose dissolved. The session did not adjourn. It disintegrated. Jeremy Robson stood irresolute as the groups edged past him.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Vice-Chairman,” purred Montrose Clark. It was the first time since the interview about the note that he had conceded the fact of the editor’s existence.

  “Bad politics, my boy! Bad politics!” said Judge Dana, his head wagging with reprehension, but a malicious twinkle in his somnolent eyes.

  Cassius Kimball set a friendly hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Pretty shrewd of old Martin, eh?” he observed. “But we can square that, among us. Let me know what you want The Journal to do.”

  Jeremy nodded his gratitude, but did not move. Laurens was the man he wanted to see, to set himself right before. Moreover, with him as leader a counter-stroke could be planned to bring Embree to his senses. The viking form strode toward him.

  “Mr. Laurens,” began Jeremy, “I want—”

  “Stand out of my way!” warned the magnate, and swerving not an inch from his stride, he jostled the other aside. But for Kimball’s quick interposition Jeremy’s fury would have launched him upon the insulter.

  “Steady!” soothed that experienced diplomat. “You come outside with me, and cool off.”

  “No,” said Jeremy, mastering himself. “I’ve got to wait. I’ve got to see the Governor.”

  “But has he got to see you?” inquired the other suggestively.

  “He has,” said Jeremy with grim positiveness.

  Governor Embree had closeted himself with Wanser, Bausch, and Fliess. He sent out word that he would see Mr. Robson in half an hour.

  Jeremy telephoned to Andrew Galpin to hold the editorial page make-up open. He strolled to the window and got an unpleasant shock. Montrose Clark, Judge Dana, and Nicholas Milliken were standing in earnest conference, near one of the park benches. The Socialist, the public utilitarian grafter, and the legal manipulator! It came back to Jeremy’s mind that, according to Galpin, there was a leak of information from The Guardian office to the Fenchester Public Utilities Corporation. Milliken was perhaps the go-between, unlikely though such an association might seem, at first thought. He would speak to Galpin about it. Meantime he had another editorial to outline, and set about it, seated at the table across which the first real action of the war in Centralia had just been fought to an indeterminate result.

  A buzz of guttural voices inside the door interrupted him. Glancing at the clock he was astonished to see that it marked twenty minutes of one. The half-hour had grown into more than an hour. An inner door opened and the waiting man heard Smiling Mart Embree’s weary but clear-toned “That can wait, gentlemen.” The Germans passed Jeremy, Wanser giving him a civil word and Bausch nodding sardonically, as one might to a none-too-welcome accomplice by compulsion.

  “Come in, Jem,” summoned the Governor, and the editor of The Guardian advanced to confront his longtime friend, aide, and ally.

  31

  Admiration was Jeremy’s first impulse as he faced Martin Embree. The man had so quickly and surely recovered his poise. Serenity was in his tired smile, and the assurance that from Jeremy he would have understanding and sympathy. To destroy that childlike and beaming confidence was a thing smacking of brutality. Jeremy fought off a temptation to temporize and went to the point at once.

  “Why did you appoint me vice-chairman without consulting me in advance?”

  The Governor’s smile became both confident and confiding. “Because you’re the man for the place. We need you there.”

  “Or because you thought it would tie my hands.”

  “Tie your hands?”

  “Keep The Guardian quiet.”

  “The Guardian has to keep quiet, anyway. It’s the only course open to it.”

  “Is it?” said Jeremy significantly.

  “Isn’t it? Reason it out for yourself. Either we’re going to get into this war or we’re going to keep out of it.”

  “We’re going to get into it.”

  “I don’t believe it. But admit that we are. Until we’re in it, it’s our business, those of us who have influence, to use it in keeping peace at home.”

  “While the Germans at home work out Germany’s plans.”

  “Bosh! Germany’s real plans are to keep this nation at peace. She doesn’t want us in the war. And we certainly don’t want to get in.”

  “No. We don’t want to. But we’re being forced to.”

  “Wait until the real underlying public sentiment asserts itself.”

  “It’s asserting itself now.”

  “No, no, Jem. Jingoism always makes the loud noise. But jingoism isn’t Americanism. The one thing America won’t do is to go into a losing war.”

  “We can make it a winning war.”

  “If it were truly our war, we could. But the people aren’t for it. They never will be for it. Now look at the situation in this State, in the light of what is coming in Europe. Germany is sure to win. This State splits about even now between German sympathizers and the others represented by the pro-British and those who don’t really know where they do stand. Only, the Germans have got the solidarity and the others are divided.”

  “You’re right in that, anyway.”

  “Very well. After Germany has won, it’ll be all pro-German here. That’s our American way of it. We’re all for success. Then where will a newspaper be that has taken the losing side?”

  “Can’t you see, Martin, that we’re practically in the war now?”

  “Jin
go talk! If the capitalist crowd could drive us into it we’d be in now. It’s the duty of good Americans, and particularly of every American newspaper, to stand solid against it.”

  “Is that the principle on which you appointed your State Council of Defense?”

  “Of course it is! I’ve drafted a body of men who can be trusted not to rush us madly into this damnable mess. That’s our real, our best possible defense—to keep at peace.”

  “Very pretty sophistry! How far do you think it would go with a real American? Harvey Rappelje, for instance?”

  The Governor’s eager face darkened. “That crazy fool!” he blurted out. “Who could have foreseen that he’d break over!”

  “He did what each of us ought to have done in his turn.”

  “Don’t say that, Jem!” implored the other. “I’m about beside myself over this Rappelje business now.”

  “Afraid?” Jeremy looked at him curiously.

  “Of his mad-dog threat? No.”

  “Yet the boys at Old Central would follow him in anything. Curious that such a type should take hold on the youngsters’ imagination, isn’t it? It’s the fire at the heart of him, I suppose.”

  “The maggot in his brain!” returned the other fiercely. “He’s crazy enough to try his mob scheme.”

  “If he tries, he’ll carry it through.”

  “Against a company of the National Guard?” said the official contemptuously. “I could have them here in ten minutes.”

  “That would mean bloodshed.”

  “It’s what I dread. Some of those young idiots might be killed.”

  “And their ghosts rise up between you and the senatorship,” pointed out Jeremy. “If the charge of official murder were raised against you, it would kill your chances. Rappelje may have figured that out, though I wouldn’t suppose he’d be so keen in politics.”

  Black shadows of brooding settled upon Embree’s handsome face.

  “I’ll arrest that frantic fool of a professor,” he muttered. “I’ll arrest him now. Nobody can call me a traitor!”

  Jeremy made up his mind, and struck:

  “Can’t they? Read tonight’s Guardian.”

  “T-t-tonight’s—Wh-wh-what!” stuttered Embree. “Jem! You’re not going back on me?”

  “Going back on you! Haven’t you gone back on me? Haven’t you gone back on the State? On the country? Didn’t you pledge yourself to appoint a representative American Council of Defense? Where did you get your list? By cable from Berlin?”

  “What are you trying to do? Provoke a fight?” retorted the other fiercely.

  “Make you wipe out that council of Germans.”

  “I won’t be bulldozed and blackmailed!” shouted Embree in the loud wrath of a weak man cornered.

  “Then it’s the lynching party and the end of you politically. We’ll have an interview with Rappelje in this evening’s paper. He’ll talk. That silent kind always do, once they break over.”

  The Governor collapsed.

  “Wait!” he pleaded. “Give me time to think.”

  He walked to the window and stared out toward the east—his Mecca—Washington. When he turned, his face was so haggard that Jeremy felt a stab of remorse; but Embree contrived to summon the fleeting wraith of that once bounteous smile.

  “You’ve got me,” he admitted. “I’ll make another list. Wait while I outline it.”

  “No. I’ve got to go to the office.”

  “Come back here in an hour, then. I’ll have it ready.”

  The hour Jeremy put in in outlining to Galpin and Verrall the probable new course of the paper. Galpin was grimly pleased.

  “I knew we’d have to quit him.”

  “It’s the end of the paper,” prophesied Verrall, pale and shaken.

  Governor Embree was almost his normal self with almost his normal smile, when Jeremy returned to the Capitol. His revised list was one which needed no defense. It was preponderantly American, though with many of the prominent German names left, it is true, and the addition of Professor Brender and another loyal German-American. Magnus Laurens had been substituted for Bausch as chairman. Jeremy’s name remained as vice-chairman.

  “Is that good enough?” asked the Governor.

  “Yes. That’s a real Council of Defense.”

  “Then The Guardian will stand for it?”

  “To the finish.”

  Smiling Mart Embree swallowed hard and beamed anxiously upon the other.

  “What about me?”

  “No.” The negative was bluntly final.

  “My God, Jem! What more could you ask?”

  “A leader who can be trusted to be American.”

  “This is the parting of the ways, then?”

  “The finish.” Something in Jeremy’s throat was hurting him so that he could hardly speak. And he could not, for anything, look at Martin Embree. Then Embree made it easier for him.

  “And after all the years I’ve stood by you!” he cried angrily. “You turncoat! You don’t know what loyalty is!”

  “I’ve got pretty definite notions as to disloyalty.”

  Embree seized a pen and crossed Jeremy’s name off the revised list, with a pen that ripped through the paper.

  “All right,” said the victim evenly. “Who goes in as vice-chairman?”

  “That’s for me to say.”

  “You’re still expecting The Guardian to support the council?”

  Embree’s throat contracted with impotent fury. “I’ll put in Clarence Ensign.”

  An impulse of pity rose within the other. “You can’t do anything with The Record crowd, Martin,” he said. “How can they play your game? I don’t suppose you’re going back on your corporation policies.”

  “No, I’m not. But you—”

  “Not a bit of it. We’ll be with you on that.”

  “With me, after you’ve stuck a knife in me!” The conviction of having suffered unmerited wrong, ever at call in an egoist’s soul, surged to Embree’s pale lips. “You’ve sold out to the corporation gang. That’s what you’ve done,” he accused. “You’ve sold me out.”

  The bitter and withered face of the man who had been his friend oppressed Jeremy with a sense of tragedy.

  “Good-bye, Mart,” he said. “I’m sorry it—it had to be this way.”

  “You have cause. You’ll be sorrier.” The smile was a little crooked now, with a hint of fangs at the corner. “I’m a poor forgetter, Robson. Particularly when it’s my friends who betray me,” he added, calling out the last words after the departing visitor.

  So there was no interview with Professor Rappelje in that evening’s paper. Nor did any account of the vivacious proceedings of the conference appear. These the editor of The Guardian deemed to be confidential. Nevertheless, there was no dearth of interesting matter in that issue. The announcement of the State Council of Defense personnel stirred up hearty approval among a large element and grievous surprise and wrath in other quarters. Further to enrage the aggrieved Germans, The Guardian’s clear challenge, “Under Which Flag?” retrieved at the last moment from the hook and double-leaded for emphasis, set the two ends of the hyphen to bristling mutually, and surcharged the air with more electricity than it could comfortably contain.

  In its next issue, The Guardian sprang another sensation by formally forswearing its support of Governor Embree. Its leader for the day, under the heading “He Who is Not For Us is Against Us,” established a local and definitive test of Americanism, and declared all other questions and issues subordinate to the critical interests of the Nation as a whole. The Guardian would remain steadfast to the internal policies and reforms which Governor Embree had instituted. It could not and would not support him for the United States Senate, believing, as it must, that to elect him would be to place a putative enemy agent in that body.

  Martin Embree answered through the columns of The Record. The slanderous assertions of The Guardian, he stated, would later be cited for proof before the courts. The Record
gave him two mildly supporting editorials, but did nothing to indicate an alliance. Thus Embree was forced to enter the crucial campaign of his political career without local editorial support. At the same time The Bellair Journal quit him.

  The greater necessity was that he should keep himself before the public in the news. His projected libel suit against The Guardian would be one method. After considerable delay the suit was filed.

  But here again the unlucky politician missed fire. Nobody paid much heed to his libel action. For, on the day when it was instituted, the patience of a long-enduring President and people broke and the Government of the United States of America bared the sword1 between the flag and its insulters overseas.

  32

  How essential a prop Martin Embree’s influence had been to the threatened fortunes of The Guardian, its editor was now to learn. Where, hitherto, the paper had offended, “Smiling Mart” had palliated, explained, excused, defended, spreading the soothing oil of his diplomacy with expert healing. Now the bland oil was supplanted by salt to rub into the wounds. At this, too, the Governor plied a master hand. The “firebrand” interview, given to the papers of the State, in which he solemnly and all but officially anathematized The Guardian as an incendiary and anarchical agency, rallied the forces of peace-at-any-price and helped to organize them for the ruin of The Guardian. This was in the interval between the establishment of the State Council of Defense and the declaration of war, a period when Centralia still blundered about in a fog of delusion, blindly discrediting the inevitable.

  Vainly a few dailies strove to force the truth upon them; The Bellair Journal, The Guardian, a handful of lesser papers. It was to be read between the lines of the German-language press, exhorting their people to be firm of spirit and stand together whatever might betide, warning them that British agencies were in control of the Administration, openly flouting and vilifying the Government of the Nation at a time when politicians of all parties but the Kaiser’s had forgotten every consideration but loyalty, extolling and exalting Germany, snarling at the military “pretensions” of the United States, appealing to racial divisions in a last-hour attempt to devitalize the war-spirit. But the Centralians, breathing the murky air of their pacifists’ paradise, were in no mood to read between the lines. For them the assurances of the great bulk of their newspapers sufficed. These, either themselves deceived, or fearful of reprisals, or simply accepting that old-time tenet of the pander “Give the public what it wants,” would not admit the possibility of this Nation’s being drawn into the struggle. War? Those who prophesied it were fools playing with fire. They were in Wall Street’s pay. They were traitors to a peace-loving people. And Centralia, for the most part, read and believed.