The Fall of a Nation

Each empty platitude the crowd cheered. Each preposterous demand for the impossible they cheered again with redoubled power.

His last proposition was evidently his favorite. He dropped his voice to low persuasive tones:

“Even suppose the unthinkable thing should happen. Suppose that some misguided nation in an hour of madness should send a hundred thousand soldiers across three thousand miles of sea and attempt to invade this country – what then? This country, mark you, peopled by a nation of vastly superior numbers, equal intelligence, mechanical genius and political organization – ”

He paused and thundered:

“What would happen?

“Those hundred thousand invading soldiers would never see their old homes again – ”

Tremendous cheers rent the air.

“And what’s more, dear friends, they would never desire to see their homes again. We would march out to meet them with smiles and flowers. We would bid them welcome to our shores. We would give to them the freedom of our city and greet them as brethren!”

Again the cheers leaped from the throats of thousands.

To John Vassar with the bitter memories of the might of kings that yet shadowed the world the scene was sickening in its utter fatuity. He mopped the perspiration from his forehead and hurried on.

He passed the platform on which Jane Hale stood repeating in monotonous reiteration the plea for peace which she vainly spoke into the ears of Europe on her tour during the war. The speakers’ stand was draped in red and behind Miss Hale’s solid figure the young statesman recognized the familiar faces of the Socialist leaders of the East Side.

How vain this Socialist symbol of the common red blood that pulses from every human breast! How pitifully tragic their failure in the hour when the war summoned the world to the national colors. The red flag faded from the sky. It was all talk – all wind – all fustian – all bombast – all theory. Men don’t die for academic theories. Men die for what they believe. And yet these American Socialists were as busy with their parrot talk as if nothing had happened in the world since that fatal day in July, 1914, when old things passed away and all things became new.

Vassar pressed past the crowd around the Socialist stand and saw beyond the platform from which the woman leader of the new Anti-Enlistment League was haranguing the mob. She too was a suffragette for peace purposes – an aggressive fat female of decisively militant aspect. Her words were pacific in their import. Her manner and spirit spoke battle in every accent and gesture. She was determined to have peace if she had to kill every man, woman and child opposed to it.

She waved the pledge of the League above her head and recited its form in rasping, challenging, aggravating notes.

“I, being over eighteen years of age, hereby pledge myself against enlistment as a volunteer for any military or naval service in an international war, and against giving my approval to such enlistment on the part of others.”

She paused and shouted:

“The Anti-Enlistment League does not stand for puny non-resistance! We appeal to the militancy of the spirit – ”

John Vassar looked at his watch.

“We’ve yet time to hear brother Debs. I like his kind. You always know where to find him.”

“No-no – Uncy,” Zonia urged, “we must hurry to our stand – ”

“Our stand, eh?”

“Yes – you mustn’t miss a word Miss Holland says. She doesn’t speak long – but every word counts – ”

“She has one loyal follower anyhow,” Vassar smiled.

“I’m going to win her for you, Uncy dear – ”

“Oh, that’s the scheme?”

“Yes – ”

“I don’t think it can be done, little sweetheart. I never could like a hen that crows – ”

Zonia waved her arm toward the big platform of the Woman’s Federated Clubs.

“There they are now!” she cried – “Marya and Grandpa – they’re sitting on the steps – ”

“So I see – “ Vassar laughed.

Old Andrew Vassar was beaming his good-natured approval on the throng that surged about the stand, his arm encircling his little granddaughter with loving touch.

The younger man watched him a moment with a tender smile. His father was supremely happy in the great crowd of strong, healthy, free men and women. He knew nothing of the meaning of the meeting. He never bothered his head about it. The thing was a part of the life of America and it was good. He was seventy years old now – lame from an old wound received in Poland – but had a fine strong face beaming generous thoughts to all men. He had landed on our shores thirty years ago broken, bruised and ruined. He had dared to lift his voice in Poland for one of the simplest rights of his people. A brutal soldier at the order of their imperial master had sacked his home, murdered his wife and daughter before his eyes, robbed him of all and at last left him in the street, bleeding to death with a baby boy of five clinging to his body. His older son had smuggled him aboard a ship bound for New York. He had prospered from the day of his landing. A tailor by trade he had proven his worth from the first. For ten years he had been head cutter for a wholesale clothing house and received an annual salary of ten thousand dollars. Ten years ago the might of kings had gripped the son he left behind. His goods too were forfeited, his life snuffed out and his children orphaned. Big free America had received them now, and the old man’s strong arm circled them. The little terror-stricken boy, who had clung to him the day the soldiers left him in the street for dead, was the Honorable John Vassar, the coming man of a mighty nation of freemen.

Old Andrew Vassar made no effort to grasp the current of our social or political life. It was all good. He went to all the political meetings, Democratic, Republican, Socialist, Woman’s Suffrage. He liked to test his freedom and laugh to find it true.

He caught John’s eye, waved his arm enthusiastically and lifted Marya high above the heads of the crowd that she might throw him a kiss.

Zonia answered with a little cry of love and they quickly pressed through the throng to a position directly in front of the speaker’s stand.

Waldron had just risen to make his opening address. His automobile had brought him quickly from another important engagement with a committee of Western bankers who had met in the stately library of his palatial home on the heights of upper Manhattan.

There was no mistaking the poise of the man, his dignity and conscious reserve power. Vassar studied him for the first time at close range with increasing dislike and suspicion.

He faced the crowd with a look of quiet mastery. A man of medium height, massive bull neck, high forehead, straight intellectual eyebrows and piercing steel gray eyes. There was no mistaking the fact that he was a born leader of men.

A high collar covered the massive neck well up to the ears, concealing the lines of brutality which lay beneath; and a pair of glasses attached to a black silk cord and gracefully adjusted, gave to his strong features a touch of intellectuality on which his vanity evidently fed.

A curious little smile played about the corners of his eyes and thin lips as if he knew a good joke that couldn’t be told to a crowd. The smile brought a frown to John Vassar’s sensitive face. He instinctively hated a man with that kind of smile. He couldn’t tell why. The smile was not a pose. There was something genuine behind it. A crowd would like him for it. But the man who looked beneath the surface for its real meaning felt intuitively that it sprang from a deep, genuine and boundless contempt for humanity.

The sound of his voice confirmed this impression. He spoke with a cold, measured deliberation that provoked and held an audience. His words were clean cut and fell with metallic precision like the click of a telegraph key.

“I have the honor, tonight, ladies and gentlemen,” he began slowly, “of introducing to you the real leader of the women of America – ”

A cheer swept the crowd and Zonia stood on tiptoe trying to catch a glimpse of her heroine.

“She’s hiding behind the others – “ she pressed her uncle’s arm – “but you’ll see her in a minute, Uncy!”

“Doubtless!” Vassar laughed. “She’s too wise an actress to stumble on the stage before her cue – ”

Waldron’s metallic voice was clicking on.

“Before I present her, allow me as a spokesman of this great meeting to give you in a few words my reasons for demanding votes for women. The supreme purpose of my life is to do my part in ushering into the world the reign of universal peace. The greatest issue ever presented to the American people is now demanding an answer. Shall this nation follow the lead of blood-soaked Europe and arm to the teeth? Or shall we remain the one people of this earth who stand for peace and good will to all?

“The militarists tell us that man is a fighting animal; that human nature cannot be changed; that nations have always fought and will continue to fight to the end of time; that war sooner or later will come and that we must prepare for it.

“I say give woman the ballot and she will find a way to prevent war!

“The alarmist tells us that armaments are our only sure guarantee of peace. It’s a lie. And that lie is now being shot to pieces in Europe before our eyes. Armaments provoke war. In the fierce light of this hell-lit conflagration even the blind should see that armaments have never yet guaranteed peace.

“Europe in torment calls to us today. O, great Republic of the West, beware! Armaments are not guarantees of peace. They are not insurance. Make your new world different from the old. Beware of guns. Down with the machinery of slaughter. Trust in reason. Have faith in your fellow men. Build your life on love not hate. Proclaim the coming of the Lord – the Prince of Peace – ”

Vassar glanced quickly over the sea of uplifted faces and wondered why they did not applaud. Barker’s crowd had gone wild over weak platitudes poorly expressing similar ideas. The words of this man were eloquent. The silence was uncanny. Why didn’t they applaud?

He turned his head aside and listened intently. It was the metallic click of Waldron’s cold penetrating voice that killed applause. There was something in it that froze the blood in the veins of an enthusiast – and yet held every listener in a spell.

“Your alarmists,” he went on deliberately, “are busy now with a new scare. When this war is over they tell us we must fight the victors, for they will move to conquer us. Let us nail another lie. This war will leave Europe exhausted and helpless for a generation. We will be the strongest nation in the world – our strength intact, our resources boundless.

“Besides, we have the men and the means for arming them instantly if we are threatened. We have equipped and supplied armies of millions for England, France and Russia. What we have done for them we can surely do for ourselves. Our factories are now producing more military supplies for Europe than we could use for our defense. Our navy is more efficient than ever before in history. Our chief ports are defended by great guns that make them impregnable. Our army is small, but I repeat the Honorable Plato Barker’s axiom as a truth unassailable – ‘We can raise an army of a million men between the suns!’ yes and five million more within a week if they are needed – ”

John Vassar ground his teeth and set his firm jaw to prevent an outburst of mad protest. As chairman of the House Committee of Military Affairs he knew that every statement in this subtle demagogue’s appeal was but half truth, and for that reason the most dangerous lie. The navy was more efficient than ever before – so was every navy in the world. Our navy was still utterly inadequate to defend us against any first-class combination of Europe or any single power of the rank of Germany. Our coast guns were good, but a hostile navy triumphant at sea would never come in range of them. They would land at their leisure at any one of a hundred undefended harbors and take our forts from the rear. We could manufacture ammunition – but to no purpose, because we have few guns for field artillery and not enough trained artillerymen to man them if we had the guns. It takes years to train the masters of war machinery. A million men could be raised between the suns, but they would be mowed down by fields of hidden artillery beyond the range of our gunners before we could get in sight.

There was no escape from the deep conviction that the cold-blooded thinker who was smiling into the face of this crowd knew these facts with a knowledge even clearer than his own.

What was the sinister motive back of that frozen smile?

Again and again Vassar asked himself the question. He was still puzzling over the mystery of Waldron’s motive when a ringing cheer burst from the crowd and Zonia pressed his arm.

“There she is, Uncy – there she is!”

Waldron was leading to the rail a blushing girl.

“No, no – sweetheart – that’s someone else – can’t be the Amazon – ”

“Of course, you silly – she’s not an Amazon – she’s my heroine. Isn’t she a darling? Now honestly?”

Vassar was too dumfounded to make reply.

Waldron was introducing her, the same cold smile on his thin lips, the same metallic click of his voice.

“Permit me, ladies and gentlemen, to present to you tonight a new force in the world – a real leader of modern women, our Joan of Arc, the President of the Federated Clubs, Miss Virginia Holland!”

Again the crowd burst into applause.

The little head bowed with the slightest inclination and a smile of pure sunlight illumined an exquisite face. The Amazon he had hated stood before him a gentle creature of delicate yet strongly molded features, her high smooth forehead crowned with a tangled mass of auburn blonde hair.

Vassar laughed at the sheer absurdity of it all. Such a woman couldn’t be the leader of the brazen mob of clamoring females he had grown to hate. It was too preposterous for words. She was speaking now. He didn’t know what she was saying. No matter. It was her personality that held him in a spell. Her voice was the most startling contrast to Waldron’s – soft and clear as the round notes of a flute. Its volume was not great and yet the quality was penetrating. It found the ear of the farthest listener in the wide circle of the crowd and at the same time the depths of his inmost being.

There was no resisting her personal appeal.

Before she had spoken two sentences Vassar was ready to agree to any proposition she might make. She seemed so sweet and sane and reasonable. Her appeal was to both the head and the heart of her hearers.

The young statesman mopped his brow in a vague panic. If this was the leader who had marked him for defeat the situation was serious. If she and her kind should make a personal canvass of the voters of his district, he would have to rise early and go to bed late if he ever expected to see the Capitol at Washington again.

And yet it was not the fear of defeat that really disturbed him. It was the confusion into which her personality had thrown all his preconceived ideas. Great God! If this sort of woman had gotten into the movement where would it end? How could she be denied? He laughed again at his preconceived ideas of the leader of Amazons and the sweet reasonableness of this gentle, brilliant, exquisite girl on whose words the crowd hung breathless.

He was stunned. It was impossible for the moment to adjust his thinking to the situation. He was missing all her speech. For the life of him he couldn’t recall a sentence. He pulled himself up with a frown and listened.

“I am not sure, dear friends, that we can prevent war,” she was saying, “but I am sure that we will try. And I am absolutely sure that the clothing of women with the sovereign power of the ballot will introduce into the councils that decide peace or war a new element in human history. Man alone has failed to keep the peace. Surely if we help we can do no worse. I have an abiding faith that we can do better – ”

She paused and a look of enraptured emotion illumined her face as she slowly continued:

“If a city were besieged and soldiers were defending its strong places, and a breach had been made in the embattlements, the men within would close that breach with the first thing at hand. They would not spare even the priceless marble figure on which an artist had spent years of loving toil – unless the defending soldier were the artist who created the masterpiece! He could not hurl this treasure into the breach to be crushed into a shapeless mass. He would find another way or die in the effort.

“Man is woman’s masterpiece. For twenty-five years she broods and watches and works with loving care to fashion this immortal being. Give to her the decisive voice in war and she will find a better way to fill the breach. She will not hurl her masterpiece into this hell. Man has failed to find a better way. May not we who love most and suffer most at least have the chance to try?”

The sweet penetrating voice died softly away and she had taken her seat before the crowd realized that she had stopped.

A moment’s dead silence and then cheer after cheer swept the throng.

An excited man lifted high his hand and shouted:

“We’ll give you the chance. Yes – yes!”

Zonia’s grip tightened suddenly on John Vassar’s arm.

“You’ll let me introduce you, Uncy?”

Vassar laughed excitedly.

“Will I? Be quick, girl – before she gets away!”

CHAPTER VI

“Aren’t you glad you came?” Zonia asked eagerly.

“Hurry! Don’t let her get away with Waldron – ”

The girl darted from his side and pushed rapidly to the platform. The crowd had encircled Virginia and a hundred people were trying to grasp her hand at the same time. There was no help for it. He must wait. At least he was glad the jam made it equally impossible for Waldron to reach her. He saw him wave his hand to her over their heads, bow and leave the platform for his waiting car.

Vassar was glad to be rid of his presence. That frozen smile poisoned the air. He could breathe deeply now.

It was fully fifteen minutes before he caught the signal Zonia waved from the steps.

His niece was radiant with joy as she proudly introduced them.

“Uncle John, this is my heroine, Miss Holland, and you’ve got to shake hands and be good friends now – ”

“I trust we shall!” Vassar cried laughingly.

Virginia smiled seriously.

“It depends on you, Mr. Congressman,” she responded quietly. “You know I’ve tried to be friendly for some time, but you have been elusive. I had to threaten you with death even to bring about an introduction – ”

He lifted his hand in protest.

“Don’t – please! It’s unkind now that I know you. I’ve had such a silly idea of your personality. I repent in sackcloth and ashes – ”

“Really?”

“Honestly,” he went on eagerly. “You know I had an idea that all suffragettes were ugly, disappointed, soured women whose lives had been beggared by the faults of sinful men – ”

“Or Amazons – Uncy!” Zonia broke in with a laugh. “He called you an Amazon, Miss Holland!”

Virginia blushed and broke into a musical laugh.

John Vassar shook his head menacingly at his niece.

“That’ll do for you now, Miss!”

“Did you call me an Amazon?” Virginia asked still smiling.

“Before I saw you, yes – ”

“And now?”

“Now, I’ve a new grudge against Waldron for using first an expression on which I could improve – ”

“What’s that?” she asked, puzzled.

“He called you ‘our Joan of Arc’ – ”

“And you could improve on that?”

“Yes – you’re Joan of Arc without the cold touch of sainthood. You’re warm and real and human and still the leader – ”

She lifted a pair of serious eyes quickly to his and saw that he was in dead earnest. There was no fencing or banter. He meant it. A little smile of triumph played about the corners of her mouth.

She held his gaze in silence and then spoke slowly.

“We’re going to be friends?”

“If you’ll let me – ”

Her eyes still held his steadily.

“There are conditions, of course – ”

“All right.”

“You wish to know them?”

“At once – ”

“My! My! You can come to the point – can’t you?” She laughed.

“My political life may depend on it, you know?” he replied lightly.

“Why not walk home with me – ”

“With pleasure!” he broke in.

“And we’ll have a chat in the library. I’m free to confess, Mr. Congressman, that we would like very much to come to an understanding with you.”

“And I’m going to confess, Miss Holland, that I’m very much ashamed of myself that I haven’t made an effort to understand you.”

“Well, you know what the old preacher down South always shouted in the revivals?”

“No – what?”

“As long as the lamp holds out to burn the vilest sinner may return!”

“Good. We’ll hope that my repentance is not too late – ”

“My only fear is, to tell you the truth – that it’s a little too sudden – ”

“But it’s genuine!” he cried. “You’ll have to admit that!”

He looked in vain for his father and Marya.

“Zonia may go with us?” he asked.

“Indeed she can! Everybody has tried his hand to draw out our young statesman and she succeeds. She’s my little mascot!”

Virginia pressed her arm around the girl and she blushed with pride.

“Come; it’s only a short walk to Stuyvesant Square – we spend most of our time now at our country place at Babylon, but we’re in for this week’s rallies.”

Vassar looked for Zonia and discovered her in deep converse with a smiling blond youth of fourteen, the sparkle of whose eyes made no secret of their interest.

“My infant brother Billy – “ Virginia explained.

“Indeed!”

“They’re old friends.”

“Evidently!” he laughed.

“Come,” Virginia said in quick business-like tones, “the kids will follow. I want you to meet my father and mother before they’re off to bed. In spite of modern progress they are the most pig-headed and persistent pair of fossils with whom I have to contend – ”

“I’ve often seen your father at the soldiers’ reunions – the youngest and finest looking man of the Old Guard, I’ve always thought.”

“He is – isn’t he?” she said thoughtfully.

“I wonder that the daughter of a soldier should take seriously all this talk about universal peace – ”

“Perhaps that’s the reason – ”

“Nonsense!”

“Seriously. I’ve listened by the hour to his stories of the war. When I was very young I saw only the glamour and the romance and the glory and then as I grew older I began to think of the blackened chimneys of Southern homes and feel the misery and the desolation of it all. And we began to quarrel about war.”

“Your father was in Sherman’s army, I believe?”

“Yes – he ran away from his Western home at fourteen and joined the colors. Think of it! At eighteen he was mustered out in Washington a veteran of twenty-six pitched battles. He’s only sixty-odd today with every power alert except a slight deafness – and by the way – “ she paused and smiled – “I should tell you that his hobby just now is the immigration question. Don’t mind anything silly he may say, will you?”

“Certainly not!” Vassar agreed. “I too am fighting against the invasion of this country by a foreign army – ”

“Yours a dream – my father’s grievance quite real you must admit.”

“Seeing that a Pole is his Congressman neighbor – ” Vassar admitted good-humoredly. “It must get on the nerves of the old boys who can’t see our point of view. The man or woman born in free America inherits it all as a matter of course. He rarely thinks of his priceless birthright. To my old father every day of life is a Fourth of July! To me it is the same. A frail half-starved little orphan clinging to his hand thirty-one years ago, I stood on the deck of a steamer and saw this wonderful Promised Land. You are American by the accident of birth. You had no choice. We are American because we willed to come. We love this land because it’s worth loving. We know why we love it. We lifted up our eyes from a far country – amid tears and ashes and ruins – and saw the light of liberty shining here across the seas. We came and you received us with open arms. You set no hired spies to watch us. You made our homes and our firesides holy ground. We kiss the soil beneath our feet. It is our country – our flag, our nation, our people as it can’t be yours who do not realize its full meaning – can’t you see?”