Part 44 (1/2)
He paused momentarily, and s.h.i.+fted his position, but his face had gained in determination. A few of his listeners encouraged him audibly, but the remainder waited to see what lay behind the intensity of his manner.
'I don't want pity for my wound,' he resumed. 'The soldier who comes out of this war with only the loss of an arm is lucky. Put that aside. I want you to listen to me as an American who loves his country just as you do, and who once was proud to be an American.'
He raised his head defiantly, and when he spoke again, the indecision and the faltering had vanished.
'Gentlemen, the question I bring is from France to America. It is more than a question; it is a challenge. It is not sent from one Government to another Government, but from the heart of France to the conscience of America. They don't understand. Month after month the women there are seeing their sons and husbands killed, their homes destroyed, and no end in sight. And every day they are asking, ”Will America never come?” My G.o.d! I've seen that question on a thousand faces of women who have lost everything but their hope in this country. I used to tell them to wait--it would come. I said it had to come. When the Hun sank the _Lusitania_ I was glad, for at last, I told them, America would act. Do you know what the British Tommies were saying about you as we took our turn in the line and read in the papers how Wilson was _conversing_ with Germany about that outrage? I could have killed some of them for what they said, for I was still proud of my nationality; but time went on and the French people asked ”When?” and the British Tommy laughed.
'If I'm hurting any of you chaps, think of what I felt. One night behind the lines a soldiers' concert-party gave a show. Two of the comedians were gagging, and one asked the other if he knew what the French flag stood for, and he said, ”Yes--liberty.” His companion then asked him if he knew what the British flag stood for, and he replied, ”Yes--freedom.”
”Then,” said the first comedian, ”what does the American flag stand for?”
”I can't just say,” said the other one, ”but I know that it has stood a h.e.l.l of a lot for two years.” The crowd roared--officers and men alike.
I wanted to get up and fight the whole outfit; but what could I have said in defence of this nation? America--our country here--has become a vulgar joke in men's mouths.'
He stopped abruptly, and poured himself out a gla.s.s of water. No one made a sound. There was hot resentment on nearly every face, but they would hear him out without interruption.
'The educated cla.s.ses of England,' he went on, 'are different in their methods, but they mean the same thing. They say it is America's business to decide for herself, but the Englishman conveys what he means in his voice, not in his words. When I was. .h.i.t, I swore I would come back here and find out what had changed the nation I knew in the old days into a thing too yellow to hit hack. Mr. Chairman, you said I had fought in a cause that is not yours. I beg to differ. There are hundreds of Americans fighting to-night in France. They're with the Canadians--they're with the French--they're with the British. Ask them if this cause isn't ours. I lay beside a Princeton grad. in hospital.
He had been hit, serving with the Durhams. ”I'm never going back to America,” he said. ”I couldn't stand it.” As a matter of fact, he died--but I don't think you like that picture any more than I do.'
Bringing his fist down on the table with a crash, Watson leaned forward, and with flas.h.i.+ng eyes poured out a stream of words in which reproach, taunts, accusations, and pleading were weirdly mixed. He told them they should remove the statue of Liberty and subst.i.tute one of Pontius Pilate.
In a voice choking with emotion, he asked what they had done with the soul left them by the Fathers of the Republic. He pictured the British troops holding on with nothing but their indomitable cheeriness, and dying as if it were the greatest of jokes. In one sentence he visualised Arras with refugees fleeing from it, and New York glittering with prosperity. With no relevancy other than that born of his tempestuous sincerity, he thrust his words at them with a ring and an incision as though he were in the midst of an engagement.
'That is all,' he said when he had spoken for twenty minutes. 'In the name of those Americans who have died with the Allies, in the name of the _Lusitania's_ murdered, in the name of civilisation, I ask, _What have you done with America's soul?_'
He sat down amidst a strained silence. Everywhere men's faces were twitching with repressed fury. Some were livid, and others bit their lips to keep back the hot words that clamoured for utterance. The chairman made no attempt to rise, but by a subconscious unanimity of thought every eye was turned to the one man whose appearance had undergone no change. As if he had been listening to the legal presentation of an impersonal case, Gerard Van Derwater leaned back in his chair with the same courtly detachment he had shown from the beginning of the affair.
II.
'Mr. Van Derwater,' said the chairman hoa.r.s.ely; and a murmur indicated that he had voiced the wish of the gathering.
Slowly, almost ponderously, the diplomat rose, bowing to the chairman and then to Watson, who was looking straight ahead, his face flushed crimson.
'Mr. Chairman--Mr. Watson--Gentlemen,' said Van Derwater. He stroked his chin meditatively, and looked calmly about as though leisurely recalling a t.i.tbit of anecdote or quotation. 'Our friend from overseas has not erred on the side of subterfuge. He has been frank--excellently frank.
He has told us that this Republic has become a jest, and that we are responsible. I a.s.sume from several of your faces that you are not pleased with the truth. Surely you did not need Mr. Watson to tell you what they are saying in England and France. That has been obvious--unpleasantly obvious--and, I suppose, obviously unpleasant.'
He smiled with a little touch of irony, and leaning forward, flicked the ash from his cigar on to a plate.
'Mr. Watson,' he resumed, 'has asked what we have done with America's soul. That is a telling phrase, and I should like to meet it with an equally telling one; but this is not a matter of phraseology, but of the deepest thought. Gentlemen, if you will, look back with me over the brief history of this Republic. There are great truths hidden in the Past.
'In 1778 Monsieur Turgot wrote that America was the hope of the human race--that the earth could see consolation in the thought of the asylum at last open to the down-trodden of all nations. Three years later the Abbe Taynals, writing of the American Revolution, said: ”At the sound of the snapping chains our own fetters seem to grow lighter, and we imagine for a moment that the air we breathe grows purer at the news that the universe counts some tyrants the less.” Ten years after that the editor Prudhomme declared: ”Philosophy and America have brought about the French Revolution.”
'I will not weary you, gentlemen, with further extracts, but I ask you to note--_and this is something which many of our public men have forgotten to-day_--that at the very commencement of our career we were inextricably involved with European affairs. Entangling alliances--no! But segregation--impossible!'
For an instant his cold, academic manner was galvanised into emphasis.
His listeners, who were still smarting under Watson's words, and had been restless at the unimpa.s.sioned tone of Van Derwater's reply, began to feel the grip of his slowly developing logic.
'Thus,' the speaker went on, 'at the commencement, our national destiny became a thing dominated by the philosophy of humanitarianism. When we had shed our swaddling-clothes and taken form as a people, the issue of the North and the South began to rise. Because of his realisation of the part America had to play in human affairs, Lincoln, the great-hearted Lincoln, said we must have war. Against the counsel of his Cabinet, loathing everything that had to do with bloodshed, this man of the people declared that there could be no North or South, but only America. And to secure that he plunged this country into a four years' war--four years of untold suffering and terrible bravery. When, during the struggle, Lincoln was informed that peace could be had by dropping the question of the slaves' emanc.i.p.ation, his answer was the proclamation that all men were free. With his great heart bleeding, he said, ”The war must go on.”
Philosophy and America brought on the French Revolution. Philosophy and humanitarianism brought on the war of North and South.