Part 12 (1/2)
So there was Peter, down and out once more. But fate was kind to him. That very day came a letter signed ”Two forty-three,” which meant McGivney. ”Two forty-three” had some important work for Peter, so would he please call at once? Peter p.a.w.ned his last bit of jewelry for his fare to American City, and met McGivney at the usual rendezvous.
The purpose of the meeting was quickly explained. America was now at war, and the time had come when the mouths of these Reds were to be stopped for good. You could do things in war-time that you couldn't do in peace-time, and one of the things you were going to do was to put an end to the agitation against property. Peter licked his lips, metaphorically speaking. It was something he had many times told McGivney ought to be done. Pat McCormick especially ought to be put away for good. These were a dangerous bunch, these Reds, and Mac was the worst of all. It was every man's duty to help, and what could Peter do?
McGivney answered that the authorities were making a complete list of all the radical organizations and their members, getting evidence preliminary to arrests. Guffey was in charge of the job; as in the Goober case, the big business interests of the city were going ahead while the government was still wiping the sleep out of its eyes.
Would Peter take a job spying upon the Reds in American City?
”I can't!” exclaimed Peter. ”They're all sore at me because I didn't testify in the Goober case.”
”We can easily fix that up,” answered the rat-faced man. ”It may mean a little inconvenience for you. You may have to go to jail for a few days.”
”To jail!” cried Peter, in dismay.
”Yes,” said the other, ”you'll have to get arrested, and made into a martyr. Then, you see, they'll all be sure you're straight, and they'll take you back again and welcome you.”
Peter didn't like the idea of going to jail; his memories of the jail in American City were especially painful. But McGivney explained that this was a time when men couldn't consider their own feelings; the country was in danger, public safety must be protected, and it was up to everybody to make some patriotic sacrifice. The rich men were all subscribing to liberty bonds; the poor men were going to give their lives; and what was Peter Gudge going to give? ”Maybe I'll be drafted into the army,” Peter remarked.
”No, you won't--not if you take this job,” said McGivney. ”We can fix that. A man like you, who has special abilities, is too precious to be wasted.” Peter decided forthwith that he would accept the proposition. It was much more sensible to spend a few days in jail than to spend a few years in the trenches, and maybe the balance of eternity under the sod of France.
Matters were quickly arranged. Peter took off his good clothes, and dressed himself as became a workingman, and went into the eating-room where Donald Gordon, the Quaker boy, always got his lunch. Peter was quite sure that Donald would be one of the leading agitators against the draft, and in this he was not mistaken.
Donald was decidedly uncordial in his welcoming of Peter; without saying a word the young Quaker made Peter aware that he was a renegade, a coward who had ”thrown down” the Goober defense. But Peter was patient and tactful; he did not try to defend himself, nor did he ask any questions about Donald and Donald's activities. He simply announced that he had been studying the subject of militarism, and had come to a definite point of view. He was a Socialist and an Internationalist; he considered America's entry into the war a crime, and he was willing to do his part in agitating against it. He was going to take his stand as a conscientious objector; they might send him to jail if they pleased, or even stand him against a wall and shoot him, but they would never get him to put on a uniform.
It was impossible for Donald Gordon to hold out against a man who talked like that; a man who looked him in the eye and expressed his convictions so simply and honestly. And that evening Peter went to a meeting of Local American City of the Socialist Party, and renewed his acquaintance with all the comrades. He didn't make a speech or do anything conspicuous, but simply got into the spirit of things; and next day he managed to meet some of the members, and whenever and wherever he was asked, he expressed his convictions as a conscientious objector. So before a week had pa.s.sed Peter found that he was being tolerated, that n.o.body was going to denounce him as a traitor, or kick him out of the room.
At the next weekly meeting of Local American City, Peter ventured to say a few words. It was a red-hot meeting, at which the war and the draft were the sole subjects of discussion. There were some Germans in the local, some Irishmen, and one or two Hindoos; they, naturally, were all ardent pacifists. Also there were agitators of what was coming to be called the ”left wing”; the group within the party who considered it too conservative, and were always clamoring for more radical declarations, for ”ma.s.s action” and general strikes and appeals to the proletariat to rise forthwith and break their chains. These were days of great events; the Russian revolution had electrified the world, and these comrades of the ”left wing” felt themselves lifted upon pinions of hope.
Peter spoke as one who had been out on the road, meeting the rank and file; he could speak for the men on the job. What was the use of opposing the draft here in a hall, where n.o.body but party members were present? What was wanted was for them to lift up their voices on the street, to awaken the people before it was too late! Was there anybody in this gathering bold enough to organize a street meeting?
There were some who could not resist this challenge, and in a few minutes Peter had secured the pledges of half a dozen young hot-heads, Donald Gordon among them. Before the evening was past it had been arranged that these would-be-martyrs should hire a truck, and make their debut on Main Street the very next evening. Old hands in the movement warned them that they would only get their heads cracked by the police. But the answer to that was obvious--they might as well get their heads cracked by the police as get them blown to pieces by German artillery.
Section 32
Peter reported to McGivney what was planned, and McGivney promised that the police would be on hand. Peter warned him to be careful and have the police be gentle; at which McGivney grinned, and answered that he would see to that.
It was all very simple, and took less than ten minutes of time. The truck drew up on Main Street, and a young orator stepped forward and announced to his fellow citizens that the time had come for the workers to make known their true feelings about the draft. Never would free Americans permit themselves to be herded into armies and s.h.i.+pped over seas and be slaughtered for the benefit of international bankers. Thus far the orator had got, when a policeman stepped forward and ordered him to shut up. When he refused, the policeman tapped on the sidewalk with his stick, and a squad of eight or ten came round the corner, and the orator was informed that he was under arrest. Another orator stepped forward and took up the harangue, and when he also had been put under arrest, another, and another, until the whole six of them, including Peter, were in hand.
The crowd had had no time to work up any interest one way or the other, A patrol-wagon was waiting, and the orators were bundled in and driven to the station-house, and next morning they were haled before a magistrate and sentenced each to fifteen days. As they had been expecting to get six months, they were a happy bunch of ”left wingers.”
And they were still happier when they saw how they were to be treated in jail. Ordinarily it was the custom of the police to inflict all possible pain and humiliation upon the Reds. They would put them in the revolving tank, a huge steel structure of many cells which was turned round and round by a crank. In order to get into any cell, the whole tank had to be turned until that particular cell was opposite the entrance, which meant that everybody in the tank got a free ride, accompanied by endless groaning and sc.r.a.ping of rusty machinery; also it meant that n.o.body got any consecutive sleep. The tank was dark, too dark to read, even if they had had books or papers. There was nothing to do save to smoke cigarettes and shoot c.r.a.ps, and listen to the s.m.u.tty stories of the criminals, and plot revenge against society when they got out again. But up in the new wing of the jail were some cells which were clean and bright and airy, being only three or four feet from a row of windows. In these cells they generally put the higher cla.s.s of criminals--women who had cut the throats of their sweethearts, and burglars who had got I away with the swag, and bankers who had plundered whole communities. But now, to the great surprise of five out of the six anti-militarists, the entire party was put in one of these big cells, and allowed the privilege of having reading matter and of paying for their own food. Under these circ.u.mstances martyrdom became a joke, and the little party settled down to enjoy life. It never once occurred to them to think of Peter Gudge as the source of this bounty. They attributed it, as the French say, ”to their beautiful eyes.”
There was Donald Gordon, who was the son of a well-to-do business man, and had been to college, until he was expelled for taking the doctrines of Christianity too literally and expounding them too persistently on the college campus. There was a big, brawny lumber-jack from the North, Jim Henderson by name, who had been driven out of the camps for the same reason, and had appalling stories to tell of the cruelties and hards.h.i.+ps of the life of a logger. There was a Swedish sailor by the name of Gus, who had visited every port in the world, and a young Jewish cigar-worker who had never been outside of American City, but had travelled even more widely in his mind.
The sixth man was the strangest character of all to Peter; a shy, dreamy fellow with eyes so full of pain and a face so altogether mournful that it hurt to look at him. Duggan was his name, and he was known in the movement as the ”hobo poet.” He wrote verses, endless verses about the lives of society's outcasts; he would get himself a pencil and paper and sit off in the corner of the cell by the hour, and the rest of the fellows, respecting his work, would talk in whispers so as not to disturb him. He wrote all the time while the others slept, it seemed to Peter. He wrote verses about the adventures of his fellow-prisoners, and presently he was writing verses about the jailers, and about other prisoners in this part of the jail. He would have moods of inspiration, and would make up topical verses as he went along; then again he would sink back into his despair, and say that life was h.e.l.l, and making rhymes about it was childishness.
There was no part of America that Tom Duggan hadn't visited, no tragedy of the life of outcasts that he hadn't seen. He was so saturated with it that he couldn't think of anything else. He would tell about men who had perished of thirst in the desert, about miners sealed up for weeks in an exploded mine, about matchmakers poisoned until their teeth fell out, and their finger nails and even their eyes. Peter could see no excuse for such morbidness, such endless harping upon the horrible things of life. It spoiled all his happiness in the jail--it was worse than little Jennie's talking about the war!