Chapter 28
55. Peter took a streetcar to the home of Miriam Yankovitch, and on the way he read the afternoon edition of the American City Times. The editors of this paper were certainly after the Reds, and no mistake. They had taken McCormick's book on sabotage just as Nell had predicted, and printed whole
chapters from it, with the most menacing sentences in big type, and some boxed up in little frames and scattered here and there over the page, so that no one could possibly miss them. They had a picture of McCormick taken in the jail. He hadn't had a chance to shave for several days, and probably hadn't felt pleasant about having his picture taken.
Anyhow, he looked ferocious enough to frighten the most skeptical, and Peter was confirmed in his opinion that Mack was the most dangerous read of them all. Columns and columns of material this paper published about the case, subtly linking it up with all the other dynamiting and assassinations in American history, and with German spy plots and bomb plots.
There was a nationwide organization of these assassins, so the paper said. They published hundreds of papers, with millions of readers, all financed by German gold. Also, there was a double-leaded editorial calling on the citizens to arise and save the Republic, and put an end to the Red menace once and for all. Peter read this, and like every other good American, he believed every word that he read
in his newspaper, and boiled with hatred of the Reds. He found Miriam Yankovitch away from home. Her mother was in a state of excitement, because Miriam had got word that the police were giving the prisoners the third degree. Then she had gone to the offices of the People's Council to get the radicals together and try
to take some immediate action. So Peter hurried over to these offices, where he found some twenty-five Reds and pacifists assembled, all in the same state of excitement. Miriam was walking up and down the room, clasping and unclasping her hands, and her eyes looked as if she had been crying all day.
Peter remembered his suspicion that Miriam and Mack were lovers. He questioned her. They had put Mack in the hole, and Henderson the lumberjack was laid up in the hospital as a result of the ordeal he had undergone. The Jewish girl went into details, and Peter found himself shuddering.
He had such a vivid memory of the third degree himself. He did not try to stop his shuddering, but took to pacing up and down the room like Miriam, and told them how it felt to have your wrists twisted and your fingers bent backward, and how damp and horrible it was in the hole. So he helped to work them into a state of hysteria, hoping that they would commit some
overt action, as McGivney wanted. Why not storm the jail and set free the prisoners? Little Adda Ruth said that was nonsense. But might they not get banners and parade up and down in front of the jail and protest this torturing of men who had not been convicted of any crime?
The police would fall on them, of course. The crowds would mob them and probably tear them to pieces. But they must do something. Donald Gordon answered that this would only make them impotent to keep up the agitation. What they must try to get was a strike of labor.
They must send telegrams to the radical press, and go out and raise money, and call a mass meeting three days from date. Also, they must appeal to all the labor unions and see if it was possible to work up sentiment for a general strike. Peter, somewhat disappointed, went back and reported to McGivney this rather tame outcome.
But McGivney said that was all right. He had something that would fix them. And he revealed to Peter a startling bit of news. Peter had been reading in the papers about German spies, but he had only half taken it seriously.
The war was a long way off, and Peter had never seen any of that German gold that they talked so much about. In fact, the Reds were in a state of perpetual poverty, one and all of them stinting himself eternally to put up some portion of his scant earnings to pay for pamphlets and circulars and postage and defense funds, and all the expenses of an active propaganda organization.
But now, McGivney declared, there was a real, sure enough agent of the Kaiser in American City. The government had pretty nearly got him in its nets, and one of the things McGivney wanted to do before the fellow was arrested was to get him to contribute some money to the radical cause.
It wasn't necessary to point out to Peter the importance of this. If the authorities could show that the agitation on behalf of McCormick and the rest had been financed by German money, the public would justify any measures taken to bring it to an end. Would Peter suggest to McGivney the name of a German socialist who might be persuaded
to approach this agent of the Kaiser and get him to contribute money for the purpose of having a general strike called an American City? Several of the city's big manufacturing plants were being made over for war purposes, and obviously the enemy had much to gain by strikes and labor discontent. Guffey's men had been trying for a long time to get Germans to contribute to the Guber
Defense Fund, but here was an even better opportunity. Peter thought of comrade Opfel, who was one of the extreme socialists and a temporary pacifist like most Germans. Opfel worked in a bakery and his face was as pasty as the dough he needed, but it would show a tinge of color when he rose in the local to denounce the social patriots, those
party members who were lending their aid to British plans for world domination. McGivney said he would send somebody to Opfel at once, and give him the name of the Kaiser's agent as one who might be induced to contribute to the Radical Defense Fund. Opfel would, of course, have no idea that the man was a German agent. He would go to see him and ask him for money, and McGivney and his fellow sleuths would
do the rest. Peter said that was fine, and offered to go to Opfel himself. But the rat-faced man answered no. Peter was too precious, and no chance must be taken of directing Opfel's suspicions against him. Peter had received a brief scrawl from Nell, telling him that it was all right, she had
gone to her new job, and would soon have results. So Peter went cheerfully about his own duties of trying to hold down the protest campaign of the Radicals. It was really quite terrifying, the success they were having in spite of all the best efforts of the authorities.
Bundles of circulars appeared at their gatherings as if by magic, and were carried away and distributed before the authorities could make any move. Every night at the Labor Temple, where the workers gathered, there were agitators howling their heads off about the McCormick case. To make matters worse, there was an obscure one-cent evening paper in American City that
catered to working-class readers, and persisted in publishing evidence tending to prove that the case was a frame-up. The Reds had found out that their mail was being interfered with, and were raising a terrific howl about that, pretending of course that it was free speech they cared about. The mass meeting was due for that evening, and Peter read an indignant editorial in the
American City Times calling upon the authorities to suppress it. Down with the red flag, the editorial was headed, and Peter couldn't see how any red-blooded, and 100% American could read it and not be moved to do something. Peter said that to McGivney, who answered, We're going to do something, you wait.
And sure enough, that afternoon the papers carried the news that the Mayor of American City had notified the owners of the auditorium that they would be held strictly responsible under the law for all incendiary and seditious utterances at this meeting. Thereupon the owners of the auditorium had cancelled the contract. Furthermore, the Mayor declared that no crowds should be gathered on the street, and that
the police would be there to see to it, and to protect law and order. Peter hurried to the rooms of the People's Council, and found the radicals scurrying about, trying to find some other hall. Every now and then Peter would go to the telephone, and let McGivney know what hall they were trying to get.
That McGivney would communicate with Guffey, and Guffey would communicate with the Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, and the owner of this hall would be called up and warned by the President of the Bank, which held a mortgage on the hall, or by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Philharmonic Orchestra, which gave concerts there. So there was no Red Mass meeting that night, and none for many a night thereafter in American
City. Guffey's office had got its German spy story ready, and next morning here was the entire front page of the American City Times given up to the amazing revelation that Karl von Strömer, agent of the German government, and reputed to be a nephew of the German Vice Chancellor, had been arrested in American City posing as a Swedish sewing machine agent,
but in reality, having been occupied in financing the planting of dynamite bombs in the buildings of the Pioneer Foundry Company, now being equipped for the manufacture of machine guns. Three of von Strömer's confederates had been nabbed at the same time, and a mass of papers full of important revelations, not the least important among them, being the fact that only yesterday von Strömer had been caught dealing with a German socialist
of the ultra-red variety, an official of the Bread and Cakemakers Union No. 479 by the name of Ernst Opfel. The government had a dictograph record of conversations in which von Strömer had contributed $100 to the Liberty Defense League, an organization which the Reds had got up for the purpose of carrying on agitation for the release of the IWWs arrested in the dynamite plot against the life of Nels Ackerman. Moreover, it was proven that Opfel
had taken this money and distributed it among several German Reds, who had turned it into the defense fund, or used it in paying for circulars calling for a general strike. Peter's heart was leaping with excitement, and it leaped even faster when he had got his breakfast and was walking down Main Street. He saw crowds gathered and American flags flying from all the buildings, just as on the day of the preparedness parade. It caused Peter to feel queer spasms
of fright. He imagined another bomb, but he couldn't resist the crowds with their eager faces and contagious enthusiasm. Presently, here came a band with magnificent martial music, and here came soldiers marching, tramp, tramp, tramp, line after line of khaki-clad boys with heavy packs upon their backs and shiny new rifles. Our boys, our boys, God bless them! It was three regiments of the 223rd Division coming from Camp Lincoln to
be entrained for the war. They might better have been entrained at the camp, of course, but everyone had been clamoring for some glimpse of the soldiers, and here they were with their music and their flags and their crowds of flushed, excited admirers, two endless lines of people, wild with patriotic fervor, shouting, singing, waving hats and handkerchiefs, until the whole street became a blur, a mad delirium. Peter saw these closely pressed lines, straight
and true, and the legs that moved like clockwork, and the feet that shook the ground like thunder. He saw the fresh boyish faces grimly set and proud, with eyes fixed ahead, never turning, even though they realized that this might be their last glimpse of their home city, that they might never come back from this journey. Our boys, our boys, God bless them! Peter felt a choking in his throat, and a thrill of gratitude to the boys who were protecting
him and his country. He clenched his hands and set his teeth with fresh determination to punish the evil men and women, draft-dodgers, slackers, pacifists and seditionists, who were failing to take their part in this glorious enterprise.
