Balance Wheel

by Taylor Caldwell

Tom was astonished. “He doesn’t?” Then he narrowed his eyes. “Mr. Wittmann, if Mr. Fred doesn’t want me to be kicked out it was because of you. Well, I thanked you before, I think. I want to thank you again.”

  Charles never before had asked an employee to sit down in his presence. It “wasn’t done,” even among employers who had respect for those they employed. But Charles said: “Sit down, Tom. I want to talk with you about something.”

  Surprised and uncertain, Tom lowered himself into a chair. Charles pushed the paper across the desk, and the pamphlets. “Tom, did you ever see, or hear, of anything like these before?”

  Tom took them in his big clever hands. But he only glanced at them, briefly. He laid them down on the desk. “Someone sent them to you, Mr. Wittmann? I see there’s something printed on the top, about me.”

  Charles repeated: “Did you ever see, or hear, of anything like these before?”

  Tom’s face had darkened with repugnance and loathing. “Yes, sir, I did. Lots of times. They’re all over the town. Sometimes they’re pushed under my door. Sometimes I find them in my mail-box. So do the other fellers. And some of the fellers bring them here and grin over them, in corners, and then hide them when they see me coming. Me and the other Catholics in the factory.”

  “You mean,” said Charles, incredulously, “that this has been going on and I didn’t know anything about it?”

  Tom could not help smiling. But he said, gravely: “I guess so, Mr. Wittmann. Everybody knows about them. They come faster and faster. Even our priest, Father Hagerty, knows about ’em. He gets lots in his mail-box. And I heard he got a letter telling him to get out of town, too. That’s why we’ve got a policeman going the rounds, especially on Sunday. At Mass.” He studied Charles sternly. “I guess you didn’t know about them before because you’re a decent gentleman, Mr. Wittmann.”

  But Charles was thinking of the little white Catholic church in the poorer section of Andersburg. There were not many Catholics in this city, which had a Quaker and Pennsylvania “Dutch” Protestant population. So, this church, of which he had rarely thought before, had to have a policeman to guard it!

  “And we have a sexton around, all the time, through the week,” Tom was saying. “A big, ugly Irishman. We’re afraid someone will—will…”

  “Befoul it?”

  “I guess you’d call it that,” answered Tom, after considering the word. “Yes, sir.”

  Charles was stunned. His kindly, serene little city, his city built on sedate and tolerant Quaker traditions, his friendly little city where he had believed everyone was safe, and which the obscenities of men had never disgraced before!

  “But even with the police, and the sexton, someone broke a couple of the stained-glass windows,” Tom said. “Nobody knows when it was done. It wasn’t even in the papers. Father Hagerty,” Tom continued, bitterly, “was proud of them windows. They came from Italy, and they cost a lot of money. It took Father Hagerty two years to get enough money for ’em. And now they’re gone.”

  He added, morosely: “It was right after I broke Mr. Fred’s windows. Maybe I gave somebody the idea.”

  But Charles did not smile. He looked at the paper and the pamphlets on his desk. He said, dully: “I suppose these things go all over the country, too.”

  “Yes, sir. I got a brother in Boston, and a cousin in Philadelphia, and my wife’s got a brother in Detroit and another in Indianapolis. Them things are all over. And more and more of ’em all the time. It’s getting bad.”

  “Someone pays for them,” said Charles. “Someone wants them. Someone is trying to—to stir up hatred in America.” He leaned back in his chair. All his weariness was heavy on him again, all his sickness. “Why? Who is behind it? But you wouldn’t know, would you, Tom?”

  Tom shook his head. “No, sir, I wouldn’t. It all began about two years ago. At least, that’s the first time I ever heard of ’em.

  “Some people are paying out a lot of money for this,” said Charles. “It costs money. Especially to cover a whole country with papers and pamphlets, like these. I wonder.”

  He remembered seeing Father Francis Hagerty once or twice, on the streets, a shy man with a timid face, a young man. Certainly not a man who could fight a thing like this, robustly and with anger. Charles remembered his gentle brown eyes and unobtrusive ways. Who had called his attention to this priest, and named him? Charles could not remember.

  Charles examined the pamphlets. They had been printed in Boston, and the paper was good, the print excellent. There was money behind all this, a lot of money. A lot of money never came from one man. It always came from many men.

  Charles examined the other pamphlets. No trash, these, no “butcher” paper. The authors were men of mind. And they had been hired. By whom? Who was determined to destroy America, in one way or another?

  “We got a parochial school, just a little one, with five Sisters,” said Tom. “It’s got so bad the mothers have got to go for the kids. My wife goes for my two girls every day. The other kids throw stones at ’em. They dumped manure—somebody—on Father Hagerty’s verandah one night. It was them pamphlets, and that paper, Mr. Wittmann, that got people stirred up.”

  He sighed. “Something’s happened to this town, Mr. Wittmann. Funny you never knew about it before. I was born here, and it was always a nice town. Until about two years ago. And I hear from my folks that it’s the same in their towns, too.”

  Charles scratched his temple. He still could hardly believe it. William Penn. The Constitution of the United States. “With liberty and justice for all…”

  Tom stood up. “Guess I’d better get back, Mr. Wittmann. There was a job I was seeing about.” But he waited, seriously.

  “All right, Tom,” said Charles. “Go back to the shops.” He tried to smile. “I do hope you believe, though, that hardly anyone would pay attention to this filthy stuff. Not Americans, anyway.”

  Tom shook his head, slowly. “I’d like to believe it, sir. But I can’t. It’s too big. And people always want to hate somethin’. I found that out.” He blushed.

  After Tom had gone, Charles called Mr. Haas, his minister.

  PART TWO

  The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion …

  THOMAS PAINE

  CHAPTER XIII

  The reverend Joseph Haas was very pleased to see Charles Wittmann, but slightly surprised, this Friday morning. He had been working on his sermon, but he put down his pen willingly. If something had brought Charles out at eleven o’clock of a weekday to see his minister, then that something must be of great importance. Men like Charles never do anything out of the ordinary, reflected the minister.

  The rectory was very pleasant, a large white house of wood, with green shutters. The furniture was agreeable; the study was excellent, with its panelled walls of knotted pine and bookshelves and comfortable brown leather furniture. The desk, of gleaming mahogany, had been a personal present from Charles last Christmas.

  Mr. Haas greeted Charles with fondness. “Well, well, Charles,” he said, shaking hands vigorously. “Delighted to see you.”

  “Hope I’m not intruding, Mr. Haas,” said Charles. “I won’t take up much of your time. Perhaps only fifteen minutes.” He let his minister lead him to a chair. He liked Mr. Haas, who was a big stout man with a kindly, happy face and a pair of shrewd gray eyes. Mr. Haas was his own age; they had much in common, for they were both realistic. But now Charles looked at Mr. Haas keenly. What did he know about anyone? Did Mr. Haas believe in the God he spoke of with such restrained respect on Sundays? Did he honestly believe in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and decency?

  Charles wished he had paid more attention, in the past, to Mr. Haas’ sermons. He thought he remembered that the sermons had always been well-delivered, scholarly, and sincere. But he honestly could not remember exactly what they had been about, except that they never seemed to antagonize anyone, or cause anyone to discuss them later. It
must be very hard to be a minister, Charles thought, as Mr. Haas seated himself, beaming. It must be a hard life. All the women, with their problems and their malices and their pious jealousies, and all the men with their different ideas of what an ideal minister should be, and the Sunday-school feachers who must dislike some of the other teachers, and the marriages that ought not to take place, and the children who must be controlled. And all the endless, maddening diplomacy, moving warily, talking tactfully, smoothing constantly, showing no one parishioner more attention than another, displaying a bland impartiality all the time, deftly side-stepping awkward issues, and never, never letting anyone suspect that one was tired, disgruntled, weary, disgusted or bored, worried about mercenary matters, or, very likely discouraged.

  He probably despises some of us, shudders at some of us—and probably some of us sicken him almost to death, thought Charles. He had never looked at his minister as a man, before, a man with personal miseries and heart-breaks and anxieties. That beaming face, with the shining glasses, that friendly smile—what did it hide? Charles wanted to say: Don’t mind me. Don’t remember who I am. It must hurt you too much, thinking of all of us.

  Mr. Haas noticed the penetrating look in Charles’ eyes, the tenseness of Charles’ face. “What’s the matter, Charles?” he asked quietly. “Is there something wrong? Something I can do?”

  Charles considered this. He said, suddenly: “It’s just occurred to me that you’re always asking that of somebody, Mr. Haas. I wonder how many people have asked you that, or if they meant it, or would do anything for you if you really did ask.”

  Mr. Haas was taken aback. He removed his glasses, and polished them with a spotless handkerchief. He said, trying to smile again: “Well, now, Charles, it’s a minister’s duty to take care of his flock. He knows, with surety, that his own troubles are in the hands of God, but not every man in the congregation has that assurance.”

  Charles thought about this, with his usual slow thoroughness. “Do you know,” he said, finally, “I’ve been a member of this church all my life. And all the time I don’t think I thought about—about …” He stopped, mortified.

  “About God,” said Mr. Haas, gently. He sighed. “Yes. But that’s not unusual, Charles. And perhaps it’s not your fault, entirely. There’s something dynamic which has left our churches, Charles,” he said, gravely. “Something evangelistic, in the real sense. Something vivid and living. Now almost all churches, especially churches like ours which have a large number of business and professional men in the congregation, are just social gatherings of a sober kind. Nothing must ever be said that would annoy anyone, arouse anyone, or excite anyone. Vitalistic religion is almost—almost indecent, Charles, in our churches these days.”

  Charles was silent, but he was listening intently, and he was nodding. “Yes,” he said.

  “But”—Mr. Haas smiled almost sadly—“it would be far easier on a minister if he were not always so afraid of his congregation.”

  Charles looked down at the papers in his hands. He was greatly depressed. He had come to ask for information, to ask a favor. But ministers were “afraid” of their people.

  “What is it, Charles?” asked Mr. Haas, concerned.

  Charles said: “I came here today to ask you to do something, and to raise hell, if necessary.” He was embarrassed. “Sorry.”

  Mr. Haas looked at his desk. He said, almost inaudibly: “I’d like to do that, sometimes, Charles. ‘To raise hell,’ as you say.”

  “I shouldn’t ask it of you, Mr. Haas. It would be too much.”

  “Tell me, Charles,” said Mr. Haas. He clasped his hands together on the desk.

  Charles put the paper and the pamphlets before his minister without speaking. Mr. Haas took them up. But he glanced at them only briefly, and then he flung them aside as if they were filthy and intolerable things.

  “You’ve seen this sort of stuff before, Mr. Haas.”

  “Yes. I’ve received it, many times. It comes to me every week. I get the pamphlets, too. I throw them away at once.”

  Charles said: “And you’ve never spoken of them to anyone, never tried to stop it?”

  Mr. Haas said: “Charles, no decent person ever notices this sort of thing—this offal. I know that nearly everyone in Andersburg has received this paper, either by subscription, or without it. And the pamphlets, too. It’s been going on for a long time.” He waited. But Charles did not speak. “It’s dirty, Charles. But one has only to ignore things like this, and they die of themselves. Silence, Charles, that’s all.”

  Charles said, sternly: “I don’t agree with you, Mr. Haas. Ignoring a disease doesn’t dispose of it. It just grows more malignant if not treated.”

  Mr. Haas averted his head slightly. “Charles, I’ve never seen you so disturbed before. It isn’t like you. You mustn’t let things like these—Charles, we live in the twentieth century, but there are still some residues, here and there, of ancient intolerances and ignorance. Education will soon eradicate them. It won’t be very long, I’m sure, before all religious and racial hatreds will disappear.”

  Charles exclaimed: “Education! I don’t believe it. You can’t ‘educate’ the bestiality out of men.”

  Mr. Haas shook his head. “Once, when I was just a young minister, I came across something like this in a very small town. It was my first church. I denounced the dirty sheet. Do you know what happened? Many of the people in my church, who had never heard of the paper before, immediately sent for it. It made matters much worse, and the lies spread.”

  Charles gathered himself stolidly together, forced his minister to look at him. “I am being impertinent, I know, Mr. Haas. But when you ‘denounced’ similar lies, did you tell your people that they were committing a sin—against God and man—by reading them, and that a man who believes and spreads lies is a liar, himself, and contemptible?”

  Mr. Haas faintly colored. “I don’t use such strong language, Charles.”

  “You didn’t say that the purchasers of lies, the spreaders of lies and hate, are not worthy to be Americans, that they are destroyers of America, and detestable in the sight of God?”

  “Good heavens, Charles! No minister should threaten, or use a verbal whip!”

  “Why not? Why not, when hate threatens America and freedom and religion?”

  “Charles, you are saying some fantastic things!”

  “So,” said Charles, thoughtfully. He waited a moment. “Let me put it this way: You can say to any religion, or to any race: ‘There are rascals, liars, thieves, perjurers, brutes, and murderers among you. You have, among you, the lowest and most degenerate of human beasts, who hate all other men.’ And you’d be right, Mr. Haas.

  “We all know that criminals and scoundrels are everywhere, and are not confined to any race or religion. They are universal. Admitting that does no harm. But the danger comes when we confine our accusations to any one race, to any one religion, and insist that that race or religion is completely evil, and we, the accusers, are all without stain.”

  He waited for Mr. Haas to speak, but the minister only nodded slowly and gravely. So Charles went on: “When things like this paper, these pamphlets, come out, there is always something, someone, behind it. There is always a calculating and coldly hating organization. There are always plotters, with a purpose.”

  “Charles! Do you actually believe … ?”

  Charles said, relentlessly: “Plotters. With a purpose. Disruption. Confusion. Beclouding some important issue, or attempting to turn the people’s attention from something which is happening, or about to happen, so that the people will be disorganized by their own mutual antagonisms, divided by their hatreds, and so be unable to act in unison against the thing that threatens all of them.”

  He waited for the minister to speak, but Mr. Haas was full of dumb consternation and incredulity.

  “You’ve read about bull-fighters, Mr. Haas. If the bull is after one fighter, his fellow fighter waves his cloak in the bull’s face, and distr
acts it.”

  Mr. Haas could hardly lift his voice above a whisper: “What do you mean, Charles?”

  Charles stood up. This sickening tremor along his nerves! “I don’t know, Mr. Haas. I just—feel it. I want you to help, Mr. Haas. You can speak of these pamphlets, this paper, this Sunday, from your pulpit. And you can tell the congregation that perhaps it is subterfuge—these lies—to hide that something which may be brewing in hidden places.”

  “Charles! They’d think I was mad. I might even—”

  “Lose your church? No, Mr. Haas. You won’t. I have too much influence here, in the church, in Andersburg.” He leaned against the desk, bent towards the pale minister. “There’s another thing you can tell the congregation on Sunday, and that is that haters have only one thing in mind: Destruction. Slavery of both the haters and the hated.”

  Mr. Haas’ large, stout face quivered. All at once, he was deeply alarmed.

  Charles wiped his damp hands on his handkerchief. “You were saying, Mr. Haas, that something vital has gone out of our churches. Help it return.”

  Mr. Haas sighed. He looked at Charles, and his eyes were terribly weary. “Charles, I sometimes think that if Christ had not been crucified He would eventually have died of a broken heart.”

  He stood up, gave Charles his hand. “Charles, I’ll do what I can. It may not help, but I’ll do it. You will hear me, yourself, on Sunday.”

  Charles took the other man’s band. He said, very quietly: “I’ve just remembered something. You know, my father was very devoted to this country. And he was always quoting Alexander Hamilton: ‘It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of society against the injustice of the other part.’”

  The minister laughed sadly. “But at the last, it is always up to the people, themselves.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  Mr. Ralph Grimsley, editor and owner of the Andersburg Clarion, greeted Charles with immense cheeriness. He was a slight, spry little man, very bald, very dark, and very shrewd and quizzical. “Well, well, if it isn’t old Charlie, himself!” he exclaimed, shaking hands. “Sit down. Hell of a hot day, isn’t it? Well, well. Glad you came; suppose it’s about the Wittmann Civic Park. Big thing, Charlie. One of the biggest things ever happened in these parts. First time any company ever did anything for the town. Now, just sit and tell me about it.”