menu_book Chapter 35

Section 69. Peter was really happy now, because the authorities were thoroughly roused, and when he brought them new facts he had the satisfaction of seeing something done about it. Ostensibly, the action was taken by the federal agents, or by the district attorney's office, or by the city police and detectives.

But Peter knew that it was always himself and the rest of Guffey's agents pulling the wires behind the scenes. Guffey had the money. He was working for the men who really counted in American City. Guffey was the real boss.

And all over the country it was the same. The Reds were being put out of business by the secret agents of the chambers of commerce and the merchants and manufacturers associations, and the improve America League, and such like camouflaged organizations. They had everything their own way, because the country was at war.

The war excitement was blazing like a prairie fire all over the land, and all you had to do was to call a man a pro-German or a Bolshevik, and to be sufficiently excited about it, and you could get a mob together and go to his home and horsewhip him or tar and feather him or lynch him. For years the big businessmen had been hating the agitators, and now at last they had their

chance and in every town, in every shop and mill and mine, they had some Peter Gudget work, a Jimmy Higgins of the Whites, engaging in spying and snooping upon the Jimmy Higgins of the Reds. Everywhere they had Guffey's and McGivney's to direct these activities, and they had strong-armed with guns on their hips and deputy sheriffs and other badges inside their coats, giving

them unlimited right to protect the country from traitors. There were three or four million men in the training camps, and every week great convoys were sent out from the eastern ports, loaded with troops for over there. Billions of dollars worth of munitions and supplies were going, and all the yearnings and patriotic fervors of the country were likewise going over there.

Peter read more speeches and sermons and editorials, and was proud and glad, knowing that he was taking his humble part in the great adventure. When he read that the biggest captains of industry and finance were selling their services to the government for the sum of one dollar a year, how could he complain? Who was getting twenty dollars every week?

When some of the Reds in their meetings or in their literature declared that these captains of industry and finance were the heads of companies which were charging the government enormous prices and making anywhere from three to ten times the profits they had made before the war, then Peter would know that he was listening to an extremely dangerous Bolshevik. He would take the name of the man to McGivney, and McGivney would pull his secret wires,

and the man would suddenly find himself out of a job, or maybe being prosecuted by the Health Department of the city for having set out a garbage can without a cover. After persistent agitation, the radicals had succeeded in persuading a judge to let out McCormick and the rest of the conspirators on fifty thousand dollars bail apiece. That was most exasperating to Peter, because it was obvious that when you put a Red into

jail you made him a martyr to the rest of the Reds. You made him conspicuous to the whole community, and then if you let him out again, his speaking and agitating were ten times as effective as before. Either you ought to keep an agitator in jail for good, or else you ought not put him in at all.

But the judges didn't see that. Their heads were full of a lot of legal bunk, and they let David Andrews and the other Red lawyers hoodwink them. Herbert Ashton and his socialist crowd also got out on bail, and the Clarion was still published and openly sold on the newsstands.

While it didn't dare oppose the war anymore, it printed every impolite thing it could possibly collect about the gigantic trading corporation known as the British government, and also about the French bankers and the Italian imperialists. It clamored for democracy for Ireland and Egypt and India, and shamelessly defended the Bolsheviks, those pro-German conspirators and nationalizers of women.

So Peter proceeded to collect more evidence against the Clarion staff and the IWWs. Presently he read the good news that the government had arrested a couple of hundred of the IWW leaders all over the country, and the national leaders of the socialists, and was going to try them all for conspiracy. Then came the trial of McCormick and Henderson and Gus and the rest, and Peter picked up

one morning and read on the front page some news that caused him to gasp. Joe Angel, one of the leaders in the dynamite conspiracy, had turned state's evidence. He had revealed to the district attorney not only the part which he himself had played in the plan to dynamite Nels Ackerman's home, but he had told everything that the others had done.

Just how the dynamite had been got and prepared, and the names of all the leading citizens of the community who were to share Nels Ackerman's fate. Peter read on and on, breathless with wonder, and when he got through with the story he rolled back on his bed and laughed out loud. By heck, that was the limit.

Peter had framed a frame-up on Guffey's man, and of course Guffey couldn't send this man to prison, so he had had him turn state's evidence and was letting him go free as his reward for telling on the others. The court calendars were now crowded with espionage cases. Pacifist clergymen who had tried to preach sermons, and labor leaders who had tried to

call strikes, members of the anti-conscription league and their pupils, the draft dodgers and slackers, anarchists and communists and quakers, IWWs and socialists and Russellites. There were several trials going on all the time, and in almost every case Peter had a finger. He was called on to get this bit of evidence, or to investigate that juror, or to prepare

some little job against a witness for the defense. Peter was wrapped up in the fate of each case, and each conviction was a personal triumph. As there was always a conviction, Peter began to swell up again with patriotic fervor, and the memory of Nel Doolin and Ted Crothers slipped far into the background. When Mack and his fellow dynamiters were sentenced to 20 years apiece, Peter felt that he had

atoned for all his sins, and he ventured timidly to point out to McGivney that the cost of living was going up all the time, and that he had kept his promise not to wink at a woman for six months. McGivney said, all right, they would raise him to $30 a week. Section 70

Of course, Peter's statement to McGivney had not been literally true. He had winked at a number of women, but the trouble was none had returned his wink. First, he had made friendly advances toward Miriam Yankovitch, who was buxom and not bad-looking. But Miriam's thoughts were evidently all with McCormick in jail. And then, after her experience with Bob Ogden, Miriam had to go to a hospital, and of course

Peter didn't want a fool with an invalid. He made himself agreeable to others of the Red Girls, and they seemed to like him. They treated him as a good comrade, but somehow they did not seem to act up to McGivney's theories of free love. So Peter made up his mind that he would find him a girl who was not a Red.

It would give him a little relief now and then, a little fun. The Reds seldom had any fun. Their idea of an adventure was to get off in a room by themselves and sing the Internationale or the Red Flag in whispers, so the police couldn't hear them. It was Saturday afternoon, and Peter went to a clothing store kept by a Socialist, and

bought himself a new hat and a new suit of clothes on credit. Then he went out on the street, and saw a neat little girl going into a picture show, and followed her, and they struck up an acquaintance and had supper together. She was what Peter called a swell dresser, and it transpired that she worked in a manicure parlor.

Her idea of fun corresponded to Peter's, and Peter spent all the money he had that Saturday evening and made up his mind that if he could get something new on the Reds in the course of the week he would strike McGivney for forty dollars. Next morning was Easter Sunday, and Peter met his manicurist by appointment, and they went for a stroll on Park Avenue, which was the aristocratic street of American City,

and the scene of the Easter Parade. It was wartime, and many of the houses had flags out, and many of the men were in uniform, and all of the sermons dealt with martial themes. Christ, it appeared, was risen again to make the world safe for democracy, and to establish self-determination for all people.

And Peter and Miss Frisbee both had on their best clothes, and watched the crowds in the Easter Parade, and Miss Frisbee studied the costumes and makeup of the ladies, and picked up scraps of their conversation and whispered them to Peter, and made Peter feel that he was back on Mount Olympus again. They turned into one of the Swell Park Avenue churches, the Church of the Divine Compassion,

it was called, and it was very high, with candles and incense, although you could hardly smell the incense on this occasion for the scent of the Easter lilies and the ladies. Peter and his friend were escorted to one of the leather-covered pews, and they heard the Reverend de Willoughby Stutterbridge, a famous pulpit orator, deliver one of those patriotic sermons which were quoted in the Times almost every Monday morning.

The Reverend de Willoughby Stutterbridge quoted some Old Testament text about exterminating the enemies of the Lord, and he sang the triumph of American arms, and the overwhelming superiority of American munitions. He denounced the Bolsheviks and all other traitors, and called for their instant suppression. He didn't say that he had actually been among the crowd which had horse-whipped the IWWs,

and smashed the printing presses and typewriters of the Socialists, but he made it unmistakably clear that that was what he wanted, and Peter's bosom swelled with happy pride. It was something to a man to know that he was serving his country and keeping the old flag waving, but it was still more to know that he was enlisted in the service of the Almighty, that Heaven and all its hosts were on his side, and that everything he had done

had the sanction of the Almighty's divinely ordained minister. He was serving in the Almighty's Holy Temple, in the midst of stained glass windows and brightly burning candles and the ravishing odor of incense, and of Easter lilies and of mignonette and lavender in the handkerchiefs of delicately-gowned and exquisite ladies from Mount Olympus.

This to be sure was mixing mythologies, but Peter's education had been neglected in his youth, and Peter could not be blamed for taking the great ones of the earth as they were and believing what they taught him. The white-robed choir marched out, and the music of onward Christian soldiers faded away, and Peter and his lady went out from the Church of the Divine Compassion and strolled on the

avenue again, and when they had sufficiently filled their nostrils with the sweet odors of snobbery, they turned into the park, where there were places of seclusion for young couples interested in each other. But alas, the fates which dogged Peter in his love-making had prepared an especially cruel prank that morning.

At the entrance to the park, whom should Peter meet but Comrade Schnitzelmann, a fat little butcher who belonged to the Bolshevik local of American City? Peter tried to look the other way in hurry-by, but Comrade Schnitzelmann would not have it so. He came rushing up with one pudgy hand stretched out and a beaming smile on his rosy Teutonic

countenance. "'Ach, Comrade Gudge,' cried he, "'wie geht's mit you this morning?' "'Very well, thank you,' said Peter, coldly, and tried to hurry on. But Comrade Schnitzelmann held on to his hand. "'So, you been seeing dot Easter beret?' said he.

"'What you think, eh?' If we could get all the wage-slaves to come und see dot beret, we make them all Bolsheviks pretty quick. Hey, Comrade Gudge?' "'Yes, I guess so,' said Peter, still more coldly.

"'We showed him what the money goes for. Hey, Comrade Gudge!' And Comrade Schnitzelmann chuckled. And Peter said quickly, "'Well, good-bye,' and without introducing his lady-love, took her by the arm and hurried away.

But alas, the damage had been done. They walked for a minute or two amid ominous silence. Then, suddenly, the manicurist stood still and confronted Peter. "'Mr. Gudge,' she demanded, "'what does that mean?' And Peter, of course, could not answer.

He did not dare to meet her flashing eyes, but stood digging the toe of his shoe into the path. "'I want to know what it means,' persisted the girl. "'Are you one of those Reds?' And what could poor Peter say?

How could he explain his acquaintance with that Teutonic face and that Teutonic accent?' The girl stamped her foot with impatient anger. "'So you're one of those Reds? You're one of those pro-German traitors? You're an imposter, a spy!'

Peter was helpless with embarrassment and dismay. "'Miss Frisbee,' he began, "'I can't explain.' Why can't you explain? Why can't any honest man explain? But I'm not what you think.

It isn't true. I—I—' It was on the tip of Peter's tongue to say, "'I'm a patriot. I'm a 100 percent American protecting my country against these traitors.' The professional honor sealed his tongue, and the little manicurist stamped her foot

again and her eyes flashed with indignation. "'You dare to seek my acquaintance? You dare to take me to church? Why, if there was a policeman in sight, I'd report you. I'd send you to jail.'

And actually she looked around for a policeman. But it was well known that there never is a policeman in sight when you look for one. So Miss Frisbee stamped her foot again and snorted in Peter's face. "'Good-bye, comrade, gudge.' The emphasis she put upon that word comrade would have frozen the fiercest red soul.

And she turned with a swish of her skirts and strode off, and Peter stood looking mournfully at her little French heels going crunch, crunch, crunch on the gravel path. When the heels were clean gone out of sight, Peter sought out the nearest bench and sat down and buried his face in his hands, a picture of woe. Was there ever in the world a man who had such persistent ill-luck with women?'

End of sections 69 and 70.