And he thought Captain Turner was a fool. . . .
ELEVEN
Ham Seasoned with Sage
Late that afternoon I again joined forces with Miss Vance. We met in the Reading-and-Writing Room (which was smaller* than the gentlemen’s smoking lounge), a mostly female preserve offering rose-color carpeting that harmonized soothingly with walls panelled in cream-and-gray silk brocade, with finely carved pilasters and moldings. The etched-glass windows boasted embroidered valances and curtains of silk tabouret, and the inlaid mahogany furnishings included settees, easy chairs and writing chairs upholstered in the same rich silk, with a vast mahogany-and-glass book-crammed bookcase that consumed an entire wall. In what better setting could one hope to jot off a note on impressive Lusitania stationery?
I had just completed my interview with George Kessler, while Miss Vance—here in the reading room—had sat chatting with Madame DePage and her friend Dr. Houghton.
“Houghton seems quite innocent,” she said, beside me on a small sofa. Madame DePage and Dr. Houghton had departed to prepare for the first evening dinner sitting.
I frowned. “But they hadn’t met prior to this trip . . . he sought her out, she said. . . .”
“Yes—they’d corresponded, however, and were in that sense old acquaintances. They spoke in detail about the hospital in La Panne . . . went on and on about a nurse named Cavell, in Brussels, from whom madame hoped Dr. Houghton could arrange a pass through German lines.”
“That seems unlikely.”
Miss Vance shrugged. “So Dr. Houghton told her—but madame naively clung to her belief that doctors and nurses ‘transcend the national and the politic of war.’ ”
“Good luck to her with that view.”
With a lifted eyebrow, Miss Vance said, “There well may be, as you suspect, a shipboard romance between them . . . madame is a passionate woman, in every respect . . . but if Houghton is not the genuine article, he’s a masterful impostor.”
“Still, you will check on him, with your New York office, I trust.”
“Oh yes. And by Tuesday we should have preliminary reports on those crew members, Williams and Leach, as well . . . And what did you gather from your conversation with the Champagne King?”
I sighed, leaned back on the comfortable sofa. “Well, he’s a loudmouth who likes to impress others by throwing his money around.”
“Nothing more?”
“Nothing more than the two million dollars in stocks and bonds in that bag of his.”
Miss Vance’s eyes showed white all round. “Do tell! Well, his technique is working—I am impressed.”
I gave her the details, such as they were.
She shook her head. “What a foolish ass . . .”
“Nonetheless, the purpose of those names in the stowaway’s shoe becomes clear—it seems unlikely it’s potential assassination targets. Rather, robbery victims.”
Nodding, she said, “That would seem the common denominator—Madame DePage has her war relief funds, Frohman his money to buy new properties in London, and this oaf Kessler has his stocks and bonds in hand—to keep them ‘safe.’ ”
I chuckled. “As if all this food weren’t enough, the Lucy is a virtual brigands’ buffet! Courtesy of a bunch of first-class idiots with their first-class purses full.”
“And what of the Sage of East Aurora?”
She was nodding toward Elbert Hubbard, who sat at a handsome writing table complete with built-in mercury gilt lamp, near another such desk, at which his wife, Alice, perched. Both were intently applying ink to paper, bathed in afternoon sunlight filtering down through the leaded-glass dome almost directly above them.
“Well, it’s time for our appointment,” I said. “Shall we find out?”
Within minutes, introductions had been made, and we repaired to a pair of adjacent couches, Miss Vance next to me, with Hubbard at my left, his wife seated next to him. Plain but not unattractive people, the pair’s shared shoulder-length hairstyle created a peculiar visual bond. Alice Hubbard wore a simple, unpretentious afternoon dress of blue serge. Hubbard wore a loose-fitting blue jacket that had certainly once been new, though perhaps not in this century; underneath was a white shirt and an oversize, floppy darker blue velvet tie, and on the floor next to him was a battered briefcase. . . .
Another briefcase! Was there a million dollars in it, I wondered, or perhaps several bags of diamonds? That would have fitted the trend, all right—although in this case, the “treasure” in that battered bag was more likely page after scribbled page of words of wisdom from the aphorism-spouting “homely philosopher.”
I knew quite a bit about Hubbard already, having written several humorously critical articles about him (in one of which I’d termed him “the P.T. Barnum of the arts”). His career as an author—he was sort of a Mark Twain without the wit or storytelling ability—had not begun until his mid-thirties. A poor boy who’d quit high school to work as a travelling salesman, he had sold soap door-to-door, educating himself by devouring books in the dim light of dingy hotel rooms.
No one could deny that Hubbard had a gift for sales—had he not been so sincere about his beliefs, he would have made a wonderful confidence man. He had risen to a partnership in that soap company, which his admittedly clever merchandising ideas had turned into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. At the height of this success he walked out to enroll in college!
He chose Harvard, no less, where his writing teachers looked at his prose and advised a return to the soap business. Indignant, Hubbard left the campus, returned to his farm home in small East Aurora, New York, and began submitting his work to Manhattan publishers, who also knew soap when they smelled it.
Finally, finding no takers for his brilliance in prose, Hubbard began to self-publish his magazine, The Philistine, a periodical whose homely little anecdotes and ham-on-wry quips attracted a following. His antiwar article “A Message to Garcia” caught fire and sold forty million copies, making him famous . . . and rich.
He had built an empire of sorts there in East Aurora, becoming a kind of benign cult leader to a group called the Roycrofters, who lived in a village he ruled. He invited people to come to learn to work with their hands, while, in their spare time, learning to use their minds. At the end of the work day, the Roycrofters would listen to music and read books. It was capitalism dressed up like communism.
The Roycrofters’ chief source of income was printing and binding expensive editions of the classics as well as Hubbard’s own writings (Alice’s, too). In addition they wove rag rugs and baskets, and manufactured hand-modelled leather goods, brassware, pottery, and Mission-style furniture.
“I’m pleased to talk to you, Mr. Van Dine,” he said. He had an undeniable warmth, and possessed a presence as compelling as his wife—who disappeared into the sofa—did not. “After all, one of my tiny claims to fame is pioneering the on-the-spot profile.”
“Your ‘Little Journeys,’ ” I said, with a forced smile and a nod, referring to booklets he’d published over the years in which he’d written articles based on visits with famous people. John D. Rockerfeller, Luther Burbank, Thomas Edison—one celebrity a month for fourteen years . . . all of the articles hero-worshipping tripe.
Though his face was almost childishly placid, his brown eyes had fire. “I presume you wish to speak to me about my article . . . Did you get a copy?”
“No, I did not, sir.”
“How about you, young lady?”
“No, Mr. Hubbard,” Miss Vance said.
He beamed and reached down and unlatched the bulging briefcase, withdrawing two copies of a digest-sized magazine with a rather plain cover. He handed a copy to me, and another to Miss Vance, with obvious pride.
The magazine’s title—The Philistine—was in a sort of Gothic script, vaguely religious in aspect. It was subheaded: “A Periodical of Protest,” and bore no cover illustration, just an aphorism between red bars: “NEUTRALITY: The attempt of a prejudiced mind to convince itself that
it is not prejudiced.”
A small design included the volume and issue number, and in a justified-margin square of type it said: “Printed Every Little While for the Society of the Philistines and Published by Them Monthly. Subscription, One Dollar Yearly. Single Copies, Ten Cents. October 1914.”
“I’m anxious to read your article,” I said, meaning it. “But I’ve already read many excerpts in the press.”
“ ‘Who Lifted the Lid Off Hell?’ has attracted more attention than anything I’ve written since ‘Garcia.’ ” He was grinning like a monkey, and his wife was looking at him sideways, with her own smile, less the simian variety and more the madonna.
Miss Vance said, “I understand it’s quite critical of Kaiser Bill.”
“I like to call him Bill Kaiser,” Hubbard said, and winked at her, as if this were an incredible display of wit.
“You called him a number of other things, too,” I said. I had the magazine open, and quickly scanned the article that was considered the most scathing condemnation of the Kaiser to appear in any American publication to date, looking for examples. “Here you say he’s ‘a mastoid degenerate’ . . . and here, a ‘megalomaniac.’ ”
Hubbard was nodding. “Bill Kaiser’s always speaking of God as if the Creator were waiting to see him in the lobby. He says God is on his side.” He snorted a laugh. “Any man who believes the Maker of the Universe takes a special interest in him is clearly a megalomaniac.”
He had a point.
I offered another example: “The Kaiser’s a ‘sad, mad, bad, bloody monster.’ ”
Again nodding, Hubbard said, “That’s right. Oh, some have said Bill Kaiser has kept the peace for forty-three years . . . but he was just biding his time for this grab at world domination. And every male child born in those forty-three years, who can carry a gun, is being made to do that monster’s obscene bidding.”
“ ‘Caligula, that royal pagan pervert, was kind compared to the Kaiser.’ . . . ‘Nero, the fiddling fiend, never burned half as much property.’ . . . And yet you expect the Kaiser to grant you an audience? An interview?”
He folded his arms, and that kindly face offered me a patronizing smile. “Mr. Van Dine, the only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing . . . and say nothing.”
“But if you want the Kaiser to listen to reason, wasn’t it a mistake to—”
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually fear you’ll make one.”
How could you discuss anything intelligently with this human homily machine?
“Bill Kaiser,” he was saying, “is just another of these self-appointed folk who rule us, who are unwilling to do unto others as they would be done by them . . . that is, to mind their own damned business and cease coveting things that don’t belong to them! That’s all war is, you know—a result of the covetous spirit to possess.”
I didn’t disagree with any of this, exactly, it just seemed obvious, as obvious as the way this character liked to hear the sound of his own voice.
But Miss Vance, surprisingly, seemed keenly interested, and asked him, “Why do you think the German people stand behind ‘Bill Kaiser,’ then?”
“The answer is easy,” he said. “It’s a matter of the hypnotic spell of patriotism. . . the lure of the crowd, combined with coercion. Look at Germany today! No private individual can operate an automobile. No bands can play in public parks. All savings banks are closed. Factories are closed. Colleges have been turned into hospitals—why not? All the students are at the front!”
I tried again. “Do you consider yourself anti-German, or just anti–‘Bill Kaiser’?”
“Oh, my heart is with Germany! The Germany of science, invention, music, education, skill. The crazy Kaiser will not win.”
“But you think he will talk to you.”
“Even if I don’t get any closer to the Kaiser than the Paris suburbs, I’ll write of the war from an American point of view that’s sorely needed—from Zeppelin raids over London, to the British viewpoint on American neutrality.”
“But you’ve heard from the German government . . . ?”
“Yes—they say I will be allowed to observe conditions as they are. I will represent myself with a friendly nature and a quiet demeanor.”
“What’s the use of the trip, then?”
He grinned and tapped his skull alongside the flowing graying locks. “I intend to store all in my bean and in that way elude the censor. I’ll give the truth to my readers, when I get back . . . if I get back.”
“You have your doubts?”
He shrugged, and patted his wife’s hand. They exchanged secret smiles. “I may meet with a mine, or a submarine . . . or hold a friendly conversation with a stray bullet in the trenches. Who can say?”
Miss Vance said, rather suddenly, “Mrs. Hubbard—why are you following your husband into harm’s way?”
Her husband watched the quiet, seemingly meek woman, waiting with the rest of us for her response.
“If such a thing happens,” she said, in a gentle second soprano, “Elbert and I will go down hand in hand.”
This sobered Miss Vance and myself, but Hubbard beamed at his bride. Then to us he said, “I’m always considering what I would do, should this happen, or that. So nothing can surprise me—even death!”
Surprisingly, I was finding myself interested in this man’s point of view—never had I encountered so cheerful a brand of fatalism.
Miss Vance asked, “Are you a religious man, Mr. Hubbard?”
“I’m familiar with the various religious beliefs and the ecclesiastical creeds and dogmas of the world . . . I’ve investigated and analyzed all the theological theories. . . and believe in none of them. My religion is the religion of humanity, which has its heaven on this earth.”
I found this remarkably compatible with my own views, and asked, “Where do you think science fits in?”
He grinned. “Now that’s the real miracle worker—the great philanthropist who freed the slaves and civilized the master. Science is our savior and our perpetual providence, the teacher of every virtue, the enemy of every vice and the discoverer of every fact.”
“Some would call that blasphemy,” I pointed out.
“Public opinion is the judgment of the incapable many,” he said, “opposed to that of the discerning few.”
He was falling back on the aphorisms again—for a while there the sage in the Buster Brown haircut had actually been discussing his views. Perhaps my frustration showed, because when he spoke again, the aphorism-spouting ceased, for a while anyway.
“Mr. Van Dine, I am a farmer, a publicist, a lecturer, a businessman and a writer. I do believe in a Supreme being, but my only prayer is, ‘Give us this day our daily work’ . . . though I suppose I pray, too, that I never meddle, dictate, or give unwanted advice. . . . If I can help people, I’ll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves.”
“ ‘Rest is rust?’ ” I said with a smile, invoking his most famous saying.
“That’s right—and life is love, laughter and work. Not to mention, just one damned thing after another . . .”
Even if we were back to aphorisms, I actually laughed at that, as did Miss Vance.
He started to play to the receptive audience, saying, “I don’t take it too seriously, life . . . None of us get out of it alive, you know.”
His wife spoke up again. “As a great man once said, ‘He has achieved success in life who has worked well, laughed often and loved much.’ ”
I did her the courtesy of writing that down, then asked, “And who said that?”
“Why, my husband, of course.”
Shifting in my chair, I said, “These positive thoughts are all well and good, Mr. Hubbard . . . but the fact remains, we are sailing toward a zone of war, and you were warned by telegram that this ship was targeted for destruction.”
For the first time, Hubbard frowned, more in thought and surprise than in displeasure . . . though some of that was in there, as well.
“How did you know that, sir?”
I shrugged. “I’m a journalist—I picked up that crumpled telegram you discarded. Are you aware five other prominent passengers on this ship were similarly warned?”
Still frowning, he nodded. “Staff Captain Anderson informed me. But he said not to worry.”
“Did he, now. Tell me, when you published this inflammatory piece on ‘Bill Kaiser,’ what sort of reaction did you get from the German-Americans among your readership?”
His chin lifted and he seemed proud to report, “Ten thousand of them cancelled their subscriptions overnight.” He shrugged and added, “This is nothing new—when I was critical of Brandeis, I lost many of my Jewish readers, despite my stand over the years against anti-Semitism.”
“What did you do about these cancellations?”
“Well, over all, our circulation increased. . . . We’ve reprinted that issue in the hundreds of thousands, much as with the ‘Message to Garcia.’ And, of course, I wrote each of those who cancelled a friendly letter.”
“You wrote ten thousand letters, yourself?”
He nodded. “It took some time—but they were my readers, after all.”
His wife made one of her rare contributions to the conversation. “Elbert is too modest to say so,” she began, and I thought, modest? “But before, after and during the controversy, seventy-eight German-American names were on the Hubbard payroll.”
Ignoring this, Miss Vance asked Hubbard, “What about death threats?”
“My heavens, I’ve always had my share of those. I suppose I had thirty or forty, concerning the Bill Kaiser piece.”
“Were they investigated by the police?”
“Of course not. Suffering such cranks is part and parcel of my role in life.”
I exchanged glances with Miss Vance—she knew as I did that dismissing the possibility of Hubbard as an assassination target was not easily done, in light of all this.
“Do you think ‘Bill Kaiser’ might have this ship hit by a U-boat,” I asked, “just to make an example of you?
The Lusitania Murders Page 14
