menu_book Chapter 15

100% The Story of a Patriot by Upton Sinclair. Sections 53 to 56. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Section 53. They came down to the question of practical plans, and Peter was ready with suggestions.

In the first place, Mr. Ackerman must give no hint either to the police authorities or to Guffey that he was dissatisfied with their efforts. He must simply provide for an interview with Peter now and then, and he and Peter, quite privately, must take certain steps to get Mr. Ackerman that protection which is important to the community made necessary.

The first thing was to find out whether or not there was a traitor in Mr. Ackerman's home, and for that purpose there must be a spy, a first-class detective working in some capacity or other. The only trouble was there were so few detectives you could trust. They were nearly all scoundrels, and if they weren't scoundrels it was because they didn't

have sense enough to be. They were boobs, and any red could see through them in five minutes. "'But I tell you,' said Peter, what I've thought, "'I've got a wife that's a wonder, and just now while we were talking about it I thought, if I could only get Edith in here for a few days I'd find out everything about the people in your home, your relatives, as well as your

servants.' "'Is she a professional detective?' asked the banker. "'Why, no, sir,' said Peter. She was an actress. Her name was Edith Eustace.

Perhaps you might have heard of her on the stage.' "'Nah, I'm too busy for the theatre,' said Mr. Ackerman. "'Of course,' said Peter. "'Well, I don't know whether she'd be willing to do it. She don't like having me mix up with these reds, and she's been begging me to quit for

a long time, and I'd just about promised her I would. But if I tell her about your trouble maybe she might.' "'Just as a favour.' "'But how could Peter's wife be introduced into the Ackerman household without attracting suspicion?

Peter raised his question, pointing out that his wife was a person of too high a social class to come as a servant. Mr. Ackerman added that he had nothing to do with engaging his servants any more than with engaging the bookkeepers in his bank. It would look suspicious for him to make a suggestion to his housekeeper.

But finally he remarked that he had a niece who sometimes came to visit him and would come at once if requested and would bring Edith Eustace as her maid. Peter was sure that Edith would be able to learn this part quickly. She had acted it many times on the stage. In fact, it had been her favourite role.

Mr. Ackerman promised to get word to his niece and have her meet Edith at the Hotel de Soto that same afternoon. Then the old banker pledged his word most solemnly that he would not whisper a hint about this matter except to his niece. Peter was most urgent and emphatic.

He specified that the police were not to be told, that no member of the household was to be told, not even Mr. Ackerman's private secretary. After Mr. Ackerman had had this duly impressed upon him, he proceeded in turn to impress upon Peter the idea which he considered of most importance in the world. I don't want to be killed, Gudge.

I tell you, I don't want to be killed. And Peter solemnly promised to make it his business to listen to all conversations of the Reds insofar as they might bear upon Mr. Ackerman. When he rose to take his departure, Mr. Ackerman slipped his trembling fingers into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a crisp and shiny note.

He unfolded it and Peter saw that it was a five hundred dollar bill, fresh from the first National Bank of American City, of which Mr. Ackerman was chairman of the board of directors. Here's a little present for you, Gudge, he said. I want you to understand that if you protect me from these villains, I'll see that you are well taken care of.

From now on, I want you to be my man. Yes sir, said Peter. I'll be it, sir. I thank you very much, sir. And he thrust the bill into his pocket and bowed himself step by step backwards toward

the door. You're forgetting your hat, said the banker. Why yes, said the trembling Peter, and he came forward again and got his hat from under the chair and bowed himself backward again. And remember, Gudge, said the old man, I don't want to be killed.

I don't want them to get me. Peter's first care when he got back into the city was to go to Mr. Ackerman's bank and change that five hundred dollar bill. The cashier gazed at him sternly and scrutinized the bill carefully, but he gave Peter five one hundred dollar bills without comment.

Peter tucked three of them away in a safe hiding place and put the other two in his pocket book and went to keep his appointment with Nell. He told her all that had happened and where she was to meet Mr. Ackerman's niece. What did he give you? at once, and when Peter produced the two bills she exclaimed,

My God, the old-skinned Flint. He said there'd be more, remarked Peter. Didn't cost him anything to say that, was Nell's answer. We'd have to put the screws on him. Then she added,

You'd better let me take care of this money for you, Peter. Well, said Peter, I have to have some for my own expenses, you know. But you've got your salary, haven't you? Yes, that's true, but I can keep it safe for you, said Nell, and some day when you need it you'll be glad to have it.

You've never saved anything for yourself. That's a woman's job. Peter tried to haggle with her, but it wasn't the same as haggling with McGivney. She looked at him with her melting glances and it made Peter's head swim and automatically he put out his hand and let her take the two bills.

Then she smiled so tenderly that he made bold to remind her, You know, Nell, you're my wife now. Yes, yes, she answered, of course, but we've got to get rid of Ted Crothers somehow. He watches me all the time and I have no end of trouble making excuses and getting away. How are you going to get rid of him? asked Peter hungrily.

We'd have to skip, she answered, just as soon as we have pulled off our new frame-up. Another one? gasped Peter in dismay. And the girl laughed. You'll wait, she said. I'm going to pull some real money out of Nazi Ackerman this time.

Then when we've made our killing we'll skip and be fixed for life. You'll wait and don't talk love to me now, because my mind is all taken up with my plans and I can't think about anything else. So they parted and Peter went to see McGivney in American House. Stand up to him, Nell had said.

But it was not so easy to do, for McGivney pulled and hauled him and turned him about upside down and inside outwards to know every single thing that had happened between him and Nelson Ackerman. Lord, how these fellows did hang on to their sources of graft! Peter repeated and insisted that he really had played entirely fair.

He hadn't told Nelson Ackerman a thing, just the truth as he had told it to Guffey and McGivney. He had said that the police were all right and that Guffey's bureau was stepping right on the tail of the Reds all the time. And what does he want you to do?

demanded the rat-faced man. Peter answered. He just wanted to make sure that he was learning everything of importance and he wanted me to promise him that he would get every scrap of information that I collected about the plot against him and of course I promised him that we'd bring it all to him.

Are you going to see him any more? demanded McGivney. He didn't say anything about that. Did he get your address? No, I suppose if he wants me he'll let me know, the same as before.

All right, said McGivney. Did he give you any money? Yes, said Peter. He gave me two hundred dollars and he said there was plenty more where that came from so that we'd work hard to help him.

He said he didn't want to get killed. He said that a couple of dozen times I guess. He spent more time saying that than anything else. He's sick and he's scared out of his wits. So at last McGivney condescended to thank Peter for his faithfulness and went on to

give him further orders. The Reds were raising an awful howl. Andrews, the lawyer, had succeeded in getting a court order to see the arrested men and of course the prisoners had all declared that the case was a put-up job. Now the Reds were preparing to send out a circular to their fellow Reds all over the

country appealing for publicity and for funds to fight the frame-up. They were very secret about it and McGivney wanted to know where they were getting their money. He wanted a copy of the circular they were printing and to know where and when the circulars were to be mailed.

Guffey had been to see the post office authorities and they were going to confiscate the circulars and destroy them all without letting the Reds know it. Peter rubbed his hands with glee. This was the real business. That was going after the criminals in the way Peter had been urging.

The rat-faced man answered that it was nothing to what they were going to do in a few days. Let Peter keep on his job and he would see. Now when the public was wrought up over this dynamite conspiracy was the time to get things done. 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 Red 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 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 Jankovic 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 and 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 25 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 they would commit some overt action as McGivney wanted. Why not storm the jail and set free the prisoners? Little Ada Ruth said that was nonsense but might they not get banners and parade up and

down in front of the jail protesting against 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 the 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 the German gold that they talked about so much. In fact the Reds were in a state of perpetual poverty, one and all of them stinting himself externally 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 McCormack and the rest had been financed by German money, the public would justify any measures taken to bring it to an end. Could 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 in 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 labour discontent. Guffey's men had been trying for a long time to get Germans to contribute to the

Guber Defence Fund, but here was an even better opportunity. Peter thought of comrade Apfel, who was one of the extreme socialists and a temporary pacifist like most Germans. Apfel worked in a bakery and his face was as pasty as the dough he needed, but it would show a tinge of colour 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 Apfel at once and give him the name of the Kaiser's agent as one who might be induced to contribute to the Radical Defence Fund. Apfel would of course have no idea that the man was a German agent. He would go to see him and ask for money and McGivney and his fellow sleuths would

do the rest. Peter said that was fine and offered to go to Apfel himself, but the rat-faced man answered no, Peter was too precious and no chance must be taken of directing Apfel's suspicions against him. Section 56 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.

Tiles 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 Labour 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 which

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 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 and 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 the mortgage on the hall or by the Chairman of the Board of the 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 Ströme, agent of the German government and reputed to be the 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 Ströme'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 Ströme had been caught dealing with a German socialist of the ultra-red

variety, an official of the Bread and Cake Makers Union No. 479 by the name of Ernst Apfel. The government had a dictaphone record of conversations in which von Ströme 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 Nelson Ackerman. Moreover, it was proven that Apfel 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. Peters Hart 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 cocky-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.

End of sections 53 to 56