The Fall of a Nation
John Vassar became an officer in the National Security League and attempted to extend its organization into every election district of the Union. For two years he had given himself body and soul to the task. At every turn he found an organized and militant opposition. They had money to spend and they had leaders who knew how to fight.
In spite of his hatred of Waldron he was compelled to acknowledge his genius for leadership, and the inflexible quality of his will. Within a week of the date his Security League was organized in a district, a fighting “peace” organization appeared overnight to destroy his work.
The optimism of the American people was the solid rock against which his hopes were constantly dashed.
He ignored the fact that Virginia Holland was the most eloquent and dangerous opponent of his propaganda. It was the irony of fate that he should feel it his solemn duty to devote every energy of his life to combating the cause for which she stood. It was the will of God. He accepted it now in dumb submission.
In the midst of his campaign for Congressmen pledged to national defense, the great war suddenly collapsed and the professional peace advocates filled the world with the tumult of their rejoicing.
It was useless to argue. The danger had passed. Men refused to listen. Vassar was regarded with a mild sort of pity.
The first rush of events were all with his enemies and critics. The war had been fought to an impassable deadlock.
Germany entrenched had proven invincible against the offensive assaults of the Allies. The Allies were equally impotent to achieve an aggressive victory. When the conviction grew into practical certainty that the struggle might last for ten years, the German Emperor gave the hint to the Pope. The Pope sounded the warring nations and an armistice was arranged.
Embodied in this agreement to suspend hostilities for thirty days was the startling announcement that the nations at war, desiring to provide against the recurrence of so terrible and costly an experiment as the struggle just ending, had further agreed to meet at The Hague in the first Parliament of Man and establish the Federation of the World!
Waldron proclaimed this achievement the greatest step in human progress since the dawn of history. He claimed also that his newspapers and his associates in their fight against armaments had won this victory. He announced the dawn of the new era of universal peace and good will among men.
John Vassar was the most thoroughly discredited statesman in the American Congress. His hobby was the butt of ridicule. Woman’s suffrage swept the northern section of the eastern seaboard in every state which held an election in November.
The Parliament of Man met at The Hague. The preliminary session was composed of the rulers of the leading states, nations and empires of the world.
Through the influence of Japan, the four hundred millions of China were excluded.
It was well known in the inner councils of the great powers of Europe that the real reason for her exclusion was the avowed purpose of the rulers of Europe and Japan to divide the vast domain of the Orient into crown dependencies and reserve them for future exploitation.
Their scholars had winked gravely at the charge of a lack of civilization. What they meant was a lack of the weapons of offense and defense. China was the center of art and learning when America was an untrodden wilderness and the fathers of the kings of Europe were cracking cocoanuts and hickory nuts in the woods with monkeys. China had lost the art of shooting straight – that was all. India had lost it too and her three hundred millions were not even permitted the courtesy of representation in the person of an alien viceroy. A handful of Englishmen had ruled her millions for a century. India had ceased to exist as a nation.
One-half the human race were thus excluded at the first session of the Committee.
When the roll was finally called, each nation answered in alphabetical order, its ruler advanced and took the seat assigned amid the cheers of the gallery. The President of Argentina, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, the King of Belgium, the President of Brazil, the King of Bulgaria, the President of Chile, the King of Denmark, the President of France, the Emperor of Germany, and King of Prussia, – and with him the King of Bavaria, the King of Saxony, the King of Wurtemburg, the Duke of Anhalt, the Grand Duke of Baden, the Duke of Brunswick, the Grand Duke of Hesse, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Grand Duke of Oldenburg, the Duke of Saxe-Altenberg, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, the Prince of Weldeck, – the King of Great Britain and Emperor of India, the King of Greece, the King of Italy, the Mikado of Japan, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, the President of Mexico, the Queen of the Netherlands, the King of Norway, the President of Portugal, the King of Roumania, the Tzar of Russia, the King of Servia, the King of Spain, the King of Sweden, the President of Switzerland, the Sultan of Turkey and the President of the United States of America.
Virginia Holland saw the Chief Magistrate of the foremost republic of the world answer to the last name called on the roll and take his seat beside the Sultan of Turkey.
The minor republics of South and Central America had all been excluded by the Committee on Credentials as unfitted either in the age of their governments, or their wealth, population and power for seats in this august assembly. Only Argentina, Brazil and Chile from South America, and Mexico from Central America were allowed seats.
The principle of monarchy was represented by thirty-four reigning emperors, kings, princes and dukes; the principle of democracy by eight presidents. The first article on which the organization agreed was the reservation by each of the full rights of sovereignty with the right to withdraw at any moment if conditions arose which were deemed intolerable.
To find a working basis of development, therefore, it was not merely necessary to obtain a majority vote, it was absolutely necessary that the vote should be unanimous, otherwise each decision would cause the loss of one or more members of the Federation.
Queen Wilhelmina, of the Netherlands, the only full-fledged woman sovereign was unanimously elected the presiding officer of the assembly.
The women representatives of the suffrage states of the American Union were admitted to the gallery as spectators. They rose en masse and cheered when the gracious Queen ascended the dais and rapped for order.
They kept up the demonstration until the Emperor of Germany became so enraged that on consultation with the Emperors of Austria-Hungary and the Tzar of Russia, the sergeant-at-arms was ordered to clear the women’s gallery. The American women continued their cheers in the streets until dispersed by the police.
For the first time in her career Virginia Holland lost patience with her associates. She was in no mood to shout for royalty, either in trousers, knickerbockers or skirts. Her keen intelligence had caught the first breath of a deep and fierce hostility to the land of her birth. She had watched the growing isolation of the President of the United States with slowly rising wrath. But a single member of the august body had agreed with him on everything. The President of Switzerland alone appeared to have anything in common with our Chief Magistrate. Even the French President appeared to have been reared in the school of monarchy in spite of the form of his government. The President of little Portugal was too timid to express an opinion. And the four presidents of South and Central America were the social lions of royalty from the day the assembly had gathered in an informal greeting in the Palace of Peace. The South Americans had been wined and dined, fêted and petted until they had lost their heads. They treated the President of the United States not only with indifference, but in the joy over their triumphant reception had begun to openly voice their contempt.
The President of the United States accepted the situation in dignified silence. The Parliament of Man was less than one day old before he realized that he was a single good-natured St. Bernard dog in a cage of Royal Bengal tigers. How long his position would remain tolerable he could not as yet judge. As a Southern-born white man he rejoiced that the full right of secession had been firmly established in this Union!
He composed his soul in patience.
The first three days were consumed in congratulations and harmless flights of oratory. The kings had never had such a chance before to indulge in declamation. They were like a crowd of high-school boys on a picnic. They all wished to talk at one time and each apparently had a desire to consume the whole time. The smaller the kingdom, the louder the voice of the king.
On the fourth day the Parliament got down to business. The treaty of peace which closed the great war had fixed the boundaries of the belligerent nations. They were practically identical with the status preceding the struggle.
The Parliament unanimously reaffirmed the decision of this treaty and fixed the boundaries for all time.
The partition of China was immediately raised by Japan and again the United States of America and Switzerland alone stood out for the rights of 400,000,000 men of the yellow race.
France and Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Mexico sided with the royalist spoilers against our protest.
China was divided into spheres of influence by a vote of forty against two. Both the United States and Switzerland registered their protest in writing and recorded their possible secession.
The continent of Africa was next divided by the same recorded vote forty against two.
The President of the United States rose from his uncomfortable seat beside the Sultan of Turkey and was recognized by the presiding Queen in a silence that was deathlike.
“With the permission of your Majesty,” he began gravely, “I wish to introduce at once the following resolutions.” He calmly adjusted his glasses and read:
“Resolved: That the Parliament of Man recognize the principle that a people shall have the right to maintain the form of government which they may choose consistent with the laws of civilization. That the Western Hemisphere, comprising the Americas, have chosen the form of free democracy. That the Monroe Doctrine shall therefore be affirmed as the second basic principle on which the Federation of the World shall be established, and that the royal rulers unanimously agree that their standards shall never be lifted on the continents of North or South America.”
The sensation could not have been greater had an anarchist’s bomb exploded beneath the presiding Queen.
A babel of angry protests broke forth from the thirty-three royal and imperial rulers. France and Portugal remained silent and distressed. Brazil, alone, of the South American republics, raised a voice in support of the proposition. Even Switzerland smiled skeptically. Argentina, Chile and Mexico joined the pandemonium of abuse with which the crowned rulers of the world received the first American tender of principle.
The session ended in confusion bordering on riot. In vain the gracious Queen attempted to restore order. The President of the United States stood with folded arms and watched the indignant sovereigns sweep their robes about their trembling figures and stalk from the Palace.
A caucus of imperial rulers was held at which the Emperor of Germany presided. It was unanimously resolved that the proposition of the United States was an insult to every monarch of the world and in the interests of peace and progress he was asked to withdraw it.
Our President stood his ground, refused to retreat an inch and demanded a hearing. His demand was refused by a strict division of monarchy against democracy, thirty-three imperial rulers casting their votes solidly against the eight presidents.
The moment this vote was announced, the President of the United States seized his hat and started to leave the chamber. The South Americans crowded around him and begged him to stay. The little President of Chile, the fighting cock of the South Pacific, led the chorus of appeal.
“Stay with us,” he cried, “and I promise to pour oil on the troubled waters. I have a compromise which will be unanimously accepted. I have conferred with the three great emperors and they have assured me of their support.”
Our President smiled incredulously but resumed his seat.
Chile declared that South America had always scorned the assumptions of the Monroe Doctrine. The monarchs cheered. He declared that the nations of the South no longer needed or desired the protection of the United States. They sought the good will of all men. They feared invasion by none. He proposed an adjournment of six months in order that a Pan-American Congress representing all interests might meet in Washington and decide this issue for themselves. Their decision could then be reported to the Parliament of Man.
His suggestion was unanimously adopted and the Parliament successfully weathered its first storm by adjourning for six months.
Again the world rang with the shouts of the orators of peace. A beginning had actually been made in the new science of war prevention. The Appeal to Reason had triumphed.
Waldron remained a day to congratulate his friends among the crowned heads and hurried home to organize a great Jubilee to celebrate this meeting of the Pan-American Congress and hail its outcome as the first fruits of the reign of universal peace.
Virginia Holland returned to her home with a great fear slowly shaping itself in her heart.
CHAPTER XXI
THE outcome of the First Parliament of Man was hailed by the professional peace-makers as the sublimest achievement of the ages. A way had been found at last to banish war. The dream of the poet had been fulfilled. They called on all men to beat their guns into plowshares, their swords into pruning-hooks. They proclaimed the end of force, the dawn of the Age of Reason.
Our nation once more demonstrated its love for the orator who preaches smooth things. The Honorable Plato Barker praised the President for his brave stand for the rights and dignity of the Republic in his heroic defense of the Monroe Doctrine.
In the same breath he acclaimed the President of Chile who led the way to the court of reason as a new prophet of humanity. He would not yield one inch in the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine – no! But it had been demonstrated that such issues could be settled by moral suasion! The next session of the august Parliament of Man, he declared, would ratify the decision of the Pan-American Congress without a dissenting voice.
The long pent energies of our nation drove us forward now at lightning speed. During the last year of the great war our commerce had practically come to dominate the world. Anticipating conditions at its close, Congress passed a new high tariff which closed our ports to the flood of cheap goods Europe was ready to dump on our shores. Every wheel in America was turning, every man at work, wages leaped upward with profits mounting to unheard-of figures. The distress in Europe from the glut of an overstocked market sent us millions of laborers and still our industries clamored for more.
A hundred million Americans went mad with prosperity. Our wealth had already mounted steadily during the war. We were not only the richest nation on earth, there was no rival in sight.
New York ascended her throne as the money center of the world, and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice poured into the coffers of her captains of industry.
The one thing on which we had failed to make relative progress was the development of our national defenses. We had more ships, more guns, more forts, more aircraft and more submarines than ever before, but our relative position in power of defense had dropped to the lowest record in history.
At the beginning of the great war in 1914 our navy stood third on the list in power and efficiency. Only Great Britain and Germany outranked us and Germany’s balance of power was so slight that our advantageous position was deemed sufficient to overcome it.
At the end of the great war we had sunk to sixth place among the nations in power and efficiency of defense.
Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia and Japan outranked us so far that we could not consider ourselves in their class. The armies of each of these powers were so tremendous in their aggregate the mind could not grasp the import of such figures.
In spite of all the losses, Germany’s mobile forces, ready at a moment’s notice, numbered 5,000,000 trained veterans with muscles of steel and equipment unparalleled in the history of warfare. Russia had 9,000,000 men armed and hardened by war, France had 3,000,000, Great Britain 3,000,000, Austria-Hungary 3,000,000, Japan 4,000,000.
The navies of the world had also grown by leaps and bounds in spite of the few ships that had been sunk in the conflict. Great Britain still stood first, Germany next and then France, Russia and Japan. The navies of each of these nations not only outranked us in the number of ships, submarines, hydroplanes and the range of their guns, but the complete and perfect organization of their governing and directing powers more than doubled their fighting efficiency as compared to ours, gun for gun and man for man.
We were still trusting to blind luck. We had no general staff whose business it is to study conditions and create plans of defense. We had no plans for conducting a war of defense at all either on land or sea. Our admirals had warned the Government and the people, under solemn oath before Congress, that it would require five years of superhuman effort properly to equip, man and train to battle efficiency a navy which could meet the ships of either of the five great nations with any hope of success.
And nothing had been done about it.
The energies of a hundred million people were now absorbed, under the guidance of Waldron and his associated groups of propagandists, preparing to celebrate the great Peace Jubilee the week preceding the meeting of the Pan-American Congress called to settle the problem of the Monroe Doctrine.
This celebration was planned on a scale of lavish expenditure, in pageantry, oratory, illuminations, processions, and revelry unheard of in our history. The programmes were identical in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Washington, Baltimore, Norfolk, New Orleans, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Denver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles and a score of smaller cities.
John Vassar refused to accept the invitation of the Mayor of New York to address the mass meeting of naturalized Americans in the Madison Square Garden.
Virginia Holland not only refused to lead the grand Pageant of Peace in its march up Fifth Avenue to the speakers’ stand, but she resigned as president of the Woman’s Federation of Clubs of America, shut herself in her room at their country place on Long Island and refused to be interviewed.
John Vassar read the announcement with joy. The leaven of his ideas had begun to stir the depths of her brilliant mind and pure heart! The defeats of the past were as nothing if they brought her again into his life.
He wrote her a long, tender, passionate appeal that he might see her again.
He posted it at midnight on the opening day of the Jubilee. He had read of her resignation only in the afternoon papers. The managers of the ceremonies had taken for granted her approval and announced that she would lead the pageant of symbolic floats on a snow-white horse as grand marshal.
Vassar waited with impatience for her answer the next day. If the mails were properly handled his letter should have reached her by noon. An immediate answer posted in Babylon at one o’clock might be delivered at Stuyvesant Square by six. He started at every call of the postman’s whistle in vain. He was sure an answer would come in the morning. Nothing came. He put his hand on the telephone once to call her and decided against the possibility of a second bungling of his cause.
Instead he called the post-office and learned that a congestion of mail, owing to the disorganization of the service by the Jubilee, had caused a delay of twenty-four hours in the delivery to points on Long Island.
He waited in vain another day. He walked alone through the crowded streets that night studying the curious contagion of hysteria which had swept the entire city from its moorings of an orderly sane life.
The din of horns and the shouts of boys and girls, crowding and jostling on the densely packed pavements, surpassed the orgies of any New Year’s riot he had ever witnessed. Every dance hall in Greater New York was thronged with merrymakers. The committee in charge of the Jubilee, supplied with unlimited money, had hired every foot of floor space that could be used for dancing and placed it at the disposal of the social organizations of the city. Wine was flowing like water. The police winked at folly. A world’s holiday was on for a week.
Vassar visited Jack’s, Maxim’s, Bustanoby’s, Rector’s, and Churchill’s to watch the orgie at its height. Every seat was filled and surging crowds were waiting their turn at the tables. Hundreds of pretty girls, flushed with wine, were throwing confetti and thrusting feathers into the faces of passing men. The bolder of them were seated on the laps of their sweethearts, shouting the joys of peaceful conquest.
Professional dancers led the revelry with excesses of suggestive step and pose that brought wild rounds of approval from the more reckless observers.
Vassar left the last place at 12:30 with a sense of sickening anger. The fun had only begun. It would not reach the climax before two o’clock. At three the girls who were throwing confetti would be too drunk to sit in their chairs.
He drew a deep breath of fresh air and started up Broadway for a turn in the park.
He paused in front of a vacant cab. The chauffeur tipped his cap.
“Cab, sir? Free for two hours. Take you anywhere you want to go for a song. All mine on the side. Engaged here for the night. They won’t be out till morning. They’ve just set down.”
A sudden impulse seized him to drive past Waldron’s castle and see its illumination. No doubt the place would be a blaze of dazzling electric lights.
He called his order mechanically and stepped into the cab. His mind was not on the glowing lights or pleasure mad crowds. He was dreaming of the woman who had taken him to that house a little more than two years before. Every detail of that ride and interview with Waldron stood out now in his imagination with startling vividness. His mind persisted in picturing the two corseted young men who stepped from the elevator so suddenly. He wondered again what the devil they had been doing there and where they came from – and above all why they were accompanied by Villard.
Before he realized that he had started the river flashed in view from the heights south of Waldron’s castle. He had told the chauffeur to keep off the Drive, stick to Broadway and turn up Fort Washington Avenue which ran through the center of Waldron’s estate.
To his amazement the banker’s house was dark save the light from a single window in the tower that gleamed like the eye of a demon crouching in the shadows of the skies. The tall steel flag staff on the tower had been lengthened to a hundred and fifty feet. Its white line could be distinctly seen against the stars. And from the top of this staff now hung the arm of a wireless station. Waldron had no doubt gone in for wireless experiments as another one of his fads.
Far up in the sky he caught the hum of an aeroplane motor. He leaped from the cab and listened. The sound was unmistakable. He had been on the Congressional committees and witnessed a hundred experiments by the Army Aviation Corps.
“What the devil can that mean at one o’clock at night?” he muttered.
He leaped into the cab, calling to his driver:
“Go back to Times Square and drop me at the Times Building – quick.”
He made up his mind to report this extraordinary discovery to the night editor and try by his wireless plant to get in touch with Waldron’s tower.
The cab was just sweeping down Broadway between two famous restaurants and the orgies inside were at their height. The shouts and songs and drunken calls, the clash of dishes, the pop of champagne corks and twang of music poured through the open windows.
