The Fall of a Nation

CHAPTER IX

ANOTHER thing that had upset Vassar’s equanimity was the baffling quality of Virginia Holland’s character. The more honestly he had tried to approach her in friendly compromise the more bristling her mental resistance had become. She held him at arms’ length personally.

He was surprised at her final decision to go to the Armory. No doubt only an uncompromising honesty had caused her to fulfil a promise. Clearly she was bored.

As a matter of fact she was anything but bored. She was lashing herself at every step with reproaches at her idiotic inconsistency in accompanying an East Side politician on a fool’s errand. No doubt the whole thing was a scheme to pose before enraptured constituents. Why had she consented to come? She asked herself the question a hundred times and finally accepted the weak lie that she was studying his eccentricities to make his defeat the more sure.

With each moment of her association she had become more and more clearly conscious of his charm. Its strength and its antagonism were equally appealing. It would be sweet to demonstrate her own power in his defeat at the polls and then make up to him by confessing her admiration.

She began to receive striking evidence of his popularity. At every street-corner and from almost every door came a friendly nod or wave of a hand.

Schultz, the fat German who kept a delicatessen store on the corner, waved to him from the doorway.

“Mein Frau und der kids – all dere, gov’ner. I vish I could be!”

On the next block Brodski gripped his hand and whispered a word of cheer.

“They all seem to know you down here, Mr. Congressman,” Virginia laughed.

“Yes, it’s my only hope – if we fight – ”

“You’ll need help if we do,” she answered quietly.

He didn’t like the tone of menace in her words. There was no bluster about it. There was a ring of earnestness that meant business.

“Perhaps I’m going to win you to my cause before you know it,” he ventured. “I’m going to show you something today that’s really worth while – ”

“Meaning, of course,” she interrupted, “that the cause in which I am at present expending my thought and energy is not worth while – ”

“I didn’t say that!” he protested. “And I most humbly apologize if I implied as much – ”

“All the same you think it, sir – ”

She stopped short in amazement at the sight of her brother Billy standing straight and fine beside Zonia at the door of the old Armory, a marshal’s sash across his shoulder, arrayed in a captain’s uniform of the Boy Scouts of America.

Zonia grasped her outstretched hand in loyal greeting, her eyes sparkling with pride at her uncle’s triumphant march beside her heroine.

Virginia’s gaze fixed Billy’s beaming countenance.

“Well, Mr. Sunny Jim!” she exclaimed, “will you kindly give an account of yourself. How long have you been a marshal of the empire?”

“Oh, ever so long, Virginia – Mr. Vassar didn’t know I was your brother, that’s all. I’m a captain now. I didn’t let you know ’cause I thought you might raise a rumpus. Father and mother know. They don’t care. I like it.”

He turned abruptly to Vassar and saluted.

“Everything ready, sir!”

Virginia shook her head and smiled at Zonia. She too wore a marshal’s sash.

“I want you to meet some of the mothers, Miss Holland,” she whispered eagerly. “I made a lot of them go to our meetings.”

“With pleasure, dear.” She smiled at Vassar. “We’ll take occasion to mend some of our fences in this benighted district today!”

The young Congressman turned his guest over to his niece and hurried away with Billy to inspect the assignment of kids for the ceremonies of the Flag.

Virginia was surprised to find the hall packed with women and children, more than a thousand, of all ages and nationalities. They were chattering like magpies – a babel of foreign tongues – German, Italian, Polish, Bohemian, Russian, Greek, Yiddish.

“I must introduce you first,” Zonia whispered, “to my favorite mother, an Italian with the cutest little darling boy you ever saw. She heard you speak in the Square – ”

She darted into the crowd and led forth a slender, dark-haired young Italian mother with a beautiful boy of five clinging to her skirts.

“Miss Holland, this is my good friend Angela Benda and Mr. Tommaso!”

Angela bowed and blushed.

“Ah, Signorina, I hear you speak so fine – so beautiful! I make my man Tommaso vote for you or breaka his neck! I done tell him so too – ”

“And did he promise?”

“Si, si, signorina – I mak him – ”

Virginia stooped and gathered the child in her arms. Shy at first, he put his hand at last on her shining hair, touched it gracefully, and looked into her face with grave wide eyes.

Virginia pressed him suddenly to her heart and kissed him.

“You glorious little creature!” she cried. The act was resistless. In all her career she had never before done so silly and undignified a thing in public. She blushed at her folly. What crazy spell could she be under today? She asked the question with a new sense of uneasy annoyance as her eyes swept the room in search of the hero of the occasion.

Vassar could scarcely walk for the crowds of joyous women and children who pressed about him and tried to express their love and pride in his leadership.

A fight suddenly broke out between the Benda and Schultz kids close beside Virginia.

Zonia tried in vain to separate them. Vassar saved the situation by picking up Angela’s boy by his suspenders, and the German kid by the seat of his pants. He lifted them bodily out of the scene and carried them into a quiet corner.

Virginia laughed heartily.

Vassar demanded mutual apologies.

“He called me ‘Sausage,’ ” complained the Schultz kid.

“He calla me a Dago,” answered the Italian.

“Now salute each other with a handshake!” Billy commanded. “And remember that you’re good Americans.”

“He made them both take off their caps and yell:

“Hurrah for Uncle Sam!”

Virginia looked about the old hall with increasing amazement at the effective way in which the interior had been decorated. Around the walls in graceful festoons the beautiful red, white and blue emblems hung an endless riot of color. From the ceiling they fell in soft, billowing waves stirred by the breezes from the open windows. The eye of every child kindled with delight on entering.

The exercises began with a song.

A band of six pieces led them. Everybody rose and sang one stanza. John Vassar first wrote it in big plain letters on the blackboard where all could read:

They sang it with a fervor that stirred Virginia’s soul.

Vassar took the chair as presiding officer and directed the exercises, Billy acting as his chief lieutenant to Virginia’s continuous amusement.

“Now, children, give me the cornerstone of the American nation – let’s get that in place first. Now everybody! All together!”

From the crowd came a shout that stirred the big flags in the ceiling:

Again he wrote it on the blackboard and asked them to repeat it.

They did it with a will.

“Now, children,” he said, “I’ve a distinguished artist here today who gives us this valuable hour of his useful life to draw a picture on the board. Watch him closely and don’t forget the message.”

With quick, sure stroke the cartoonist drew a wonderful symbolic Stairway of Life for the American child.

On the left of the scene appeared Uncle Sam holding the lamp of knowledge to light the way to success for the crowd of eager boys and girls at the bottom of the hill. In sharp outline he drew the steps upon which they might mount – each step a book they could master. The first step was marked – Primer, the next First Reader and then came Elementary Arithmetic, Second Reader, Grammar, Geography, History, Physiology, Rhetoric, Algebra, Physics, Latin, Greek, Geometry, Political Economy and Trigonometry. The last step faded out in the blazing light of the Sun of Success at the top of the hill. He drew the figures of little boys and girls on the lower rounds, bigger boys and girls on the middle ones, young men and women mounting the hill crest. At the bottom of the cartoon he wrote:

“Uncle Sam invites all his children of every race and kindred and tongue to come up higher!”

“Now, once more, children,” Vassar cried, “tell me on what this country’s greatness rests?”

Again the shout came as from a single throat:

“All men are created equal!”

“Good! Now give me the passwords!”

“Liberty!”

“Equality!”

“Fraternity!”

The three shouts came as three salvos from a battery of artillery.

On another blackboard he wrote the words in huge capitals and left them standing.

“Now, children, I want you to think for just one minute every day of your life what it means to be a citizen of this mighty free Democracy – where men are learning to govern themselves better than any king has ever done it for them. I want you to realize that the inspired founders of this nation made it the hope and refuge of the oppressed of all the world. And I want you to love it with all your heart – ”

He lifted his hands and the crowd rose singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” They sang it with a swing and lilt Virginia had never heard before. For the first time in her life it had meaning. Her eyes unconsciously filled with tears.

At a wave of Vassar’s hand the crowd sank to their seats.

Vassar stooped over the platform and motioned to Angela to hand to him her boy.

The mother proudly passed the child to the leader. Vassar lifted the smiling youngster in his arms and held him high. In ringing tones he cried:

“Don’t forget, my friends, that the humblest boy here today may become the president of the United States!”

A ringing cheer swept the crowd.

Vassar passed the child back to the mother and continued his address. The rest of it was lost on Angela. A new light suddenly flashed in her brown eyes.

She sat down, flushed, and rose again. Tommaso tugged at her dress and begged her to sit down. Her soul was too full. The act of the speaker was a divine omen. She must know if he really meant that her little Tommaso might be the president of a great free nation. The thought was too big. Her heart was bursting. She tried timidly to attract Vassar’s attention.

Tommaso, alarmed, drew her back to the seat.

Angela looked across the side aisle and saw Virginia in the front row. Bending low she approached and whispered:

“My own bambino – he may be president – yes?”

Virginia nodded tearfully.

Angela darted back to her seat, snatched the head cloth from her rich brown hair and seized one of her husband’s earrings. The fight was brief. The Italian struggled to save his ornaments but the wife won. He also lost a gay sash about his waist. The mother pressed the boy to her heart and whispered passionately to her man:

“We Americano now – our bambino be bigga de boss president!”

Tommaso succeeded finally in quieting her before Vassar noticed the disturbance.

“Now, Captain,” Vassar called to Billy, “give us the order of the day for the Boy Scouts of America.”

Billy sprang on the little platform, lifted his smiling face, his hands tightly gripped behind his back and spoke in firm, boyish tones:

“My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country!”

“And what do you say to that, children?” Vassar shouted.

“Three cheers for Uncle Sam!” they answered. Three times three they gave it without the need of a prompter.

Vassar waved a signal to the right and from the dressing-room slowly marched a procession of children of all nations, dressed in their native costume, each child bearing the tiny flag of their old-world allegiance. The line of floating color circled the open space in front of the platform, and, as they passed Vassar surrendered the old flag and received from his hand the Stars and Stripes which each waved in answer to a cheer from the crowd.

When the last nation had surrendered allegiance the procession marched again around the circle to the continuous cheering of the crowd and took their places about Vassar who held aloft the regimental standard of the nation with its golden eagle gleaming from the staff. The little children crowded close and about them gathered a ring of Boy Scouts and beyond them the mothers of the kids.

He lifted high the flag and every Scout and grown up and every child saluted it with uplifted hands and cheered.

“Now, boys and girls!” Vassar cried to the outer circle.

They solemnly responded in chorus:

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands – one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

“Now, kiddies!” he shouted to the little ones.

The answer came in straggling unison:

“I give my hand and my heart to God and my country. One country, one language, one flag – ”

“And now!” the leader cried:

“Hurrah for the President of the United States!”

With a shout they gave the cheers and the ceremony ended again in a babel of joyous polyglot chatter.

Vassar found Virginia surrounded by a mob of mothers struggling to shake hands under the guidance of Angela.

“I must say,” he laughed, “that your methods are quite up to date.”

“I assure you I’m not trying to take advantage of my host to seduce his constituents. I’m only doing my best to make Angela happy by meeting her friends – ”

“Si, signor – we will vote for the signorina – and you, too, is it not so?”

“Apparently they need no seduction,” Vassar laughed.

Virginia blushed and lifted her hands in protest.

“Well,” the young leader asked in conciliatory tones, “how did you like it?”

“I’ve been charmed beyond measure,” was the quick answer. “I’ve got a new view of my country. I’ve a new view of the possibilities of political leadership. I’m more determined than ever to wield a ballot – ”

“You’re not willing to trust me with that duty?”

“No. We can add something you can never give to these people. These mothers know instinctively that I can understand them as you could not.”

“And I had hoped,” he said regretfully, “that I might win you for a helper in this work. You’re determined to be my rival – ”

“Not unless you fight – ”

“Can’t you see,” he persisted, “that what America needs today is not the multiplication of her voting population by two – but the breathing of a conscious national soul into the people and giving that soul expression. What we need is not more millions of voters but a deeper sense of responsibility developed in those who already vote. We must show the world that democracy is a success, that democracy means the best in government, the best in commerce, the best in art and literature. I grant you that many of our new foreign voters are ignorant, but, dear Miss Holland, their wives and mothers are far more ignorant. Why add to this sum total of inefficiency? New York is in reality a foreign city set down here in the heart of America. More than one-half of the men of voting age are foreign-born. Only thirty-eight per cent of them are naturalized. More than half a million of these men are in no way identified with our political life. Twenty thousand a year in our city claim their right of citizenship and become voters. We have before us a gigantic task to teach these men the meaning of true Americanism. This work has not been done. It has been left to chance. We must break up these foreign groups. Eighty per cent of our foreign population live in groups and take no interest in any problem which does not directly affect their group life. They neither know nor are known by American-born citizens. Men like your father should get acquainted with these people. They are yet speaking a foreign tongue, living within the narrow ideals of their European origin. In time of supreme trial if this nation should call on them, what could one expect? What have we a right to expect?”

Virginia shook her head in hopeless protest.

“Always your nightmare of an imaginary impossible attack by a foreign foe!”

“I wish it were imaginary,” he answered thoughtfully. “Do you think for a moment that there is a foot of soil in the old world of Northern and Central Europe on which I could stand and dare to write the sentences and mottoes on that blackboard? Do the rulers of Europe believe that all men are created equal? Remember, dear lady, that Democracy is a babe not yet out of swaddling clothes. The might of kings is as old as the recorded history of man. The kingly conception of government and its divine right to govern is inbred into the human race through thousands of years until it is accepted without question. The idea becomes as fixed and automatic as the beat of the human heart.

“The American Republic is but a little over a hundred years old. We reckon in years, they reckon by centuries. The founding of this nation was one of the happiest accidents in the history of the world. But it was an accident. The kings were too busy fighting one another in the stirring years of the American Revolution to give their attention to you. Your fathers won on a lucky fluke. And thanks to the barriers of two vast oceans you grew and waxed strong with incredible rapidity. You were safe as long as these oceans protected you and no longer. The genius of man has abolished the ocean barrier. There is no more sea. The ocean is now the world’s highway and transport by water is swifter and safer than by land. The oceans no longer protect you. They are a constant menace to your existence – ”

“You are assuming that the world is not civilized – that we are still living in the Dark Ages,” Virginia interrupted.

“I am assuming only the facts of modern life: that force still rules the world; that government is force; that there are two forms of government and only two, and that they are irreconcilable – government by the people and government of the people by imperial masters. These systems can no more mix than fire and water. The world must yet be conquered by one of them. You assume that we have settled our form of government for all time. We have – provided we are ready to demonstrate to the imperial rulers that we can defend it against all comers – ”

Virginia threw up her hands in a gesture of despair.

“You’re hopeless!”

“Can you not see this?” he pleaded.

“I refuse to see it. I still have faith in God and my fellow man.”

He looked at her flushed exquisite face with deep tenderness – lifted his eyes and saw Zonia and Marya the center of an admiring group of children.

“You like my little Zonia?” he asked in apparently irrevelent tones.

“I love her – ”

“Her father, my elder brother, lived in Poland’s happiest tomb – in German Poland – ”

He stopped abruptly and gave a bitter little laugh.

“His home took fire one night and burned to the ground. By decree of his Imperial master he was not permitted to build a dwelling on his own land. He loved this land, poor fool. His wife and babies loved it. He couldn’t be dragged away. He took refuge in a barn. Through the summer they managed to live without a fire inside. They cooked in the open. But when the winter came and the snows fell, he was forced to smuggle a little stove into the barn to boil some eggs and cabbage and make tea for his children. He hid the stove in a deep hole under the floor. Ten days later an officer of the Imperial government, passing, saw the smoke, forced his way in and uncovered the secret. The stove had made the barn a dwelling and he had forfeited his estate and his liberty. He fought – as any man with a soul must fight – for his own! The end was sure. He shot the officer. But there were legions of these Imperial soldiers. They assaulted his frail barricade and riddled his body with bullets. His faithful wife died with him. And little Zonia and Marya were sent to me in free America. And so you see I lack faith in some men – ”

He stopped abruptly at the sight of Waldron’s heavy face with its arctic smile.

The millionaire lifted his hat, bowed slightly and disappeared from the doorway.

“Come with me to Mr. Waldron’s house, we must have a final conference there – ”

“Waldron’s house?” he asked incredulously.

“Certainly. His library has become our campaign headquarters – ”

“You’ll have to excuse me – ”

“But I won’t excuse you. We’re going to fight this thing out today.”

“I’ve nothing to say to Waldron.”

“But he has something very important to say to you – ”

“All right – he knows where I live – ”

Virginia laid her hand on his arm in a gesture of appeal that was resistless.

“Won’t you come with me?”

The frown slowly faded, and he smiled an answer.

“With you – yes.”

CHAPTER X

BILLY volunteered to take the children home, Vassar waved his farewell to the crowd and hurried to the waiting automobile.

Virginia presented him to the banker.

“Our irreconcilable foe, Mr. Waldron!”

The millionaire merely touched his hat with the barest suggestion of a military salute and Vassar bowed. It was not until they were seated in the car that Waldron spoke – the same cold smile about his lips.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, Mr. Vassar – ”

“I’m surprised to hear that,” was the light reply. “Our views could hardly be the same on any subject within my scope of knowledge – ”

Waldron smiled patronizingly.

“Anyhow, let us hope that we’ll get together today – ”

“We must,” Virginia responded.

The one thing Vassar couldn’t endure was patronage. The tone Waldron assumed was offensive beyond endurance. If he tried it again the young leader had made up his mind to find an excuse, stop the car and go back to his office.