100%: the Story of a Patriot Part 29
Henry Clay Burchard came from the far South, and followed a style of oratory long since gone out of date. He wore his heavy black hair a little long, and when he mounted the platform he would pull out the tremulo stop, stretching out his hands and saying in tones of quivering emotion: "The ladies, G.o.d bless them!" Also he would say: "I am a friend of the common man. My heart beats with sympathy for those who const.i.tute the real backbone of America, the toilers of the shop and farm." And then all the banqueters of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants' and Manufacturers' a.s.sociation would applaud, and would send their checks to the campaign fund of this friend of the common man. Mr. Burchard's deputy, Mr. Stannard, was a legal fox who told his chief what to do and how to do it; a dried-up little man who looked like a bookworm, and sat boring you thru with his keen eyes, watching for your weak points and preparing to pierce you thru with one of his legal rapiers. He would be quite friendly about it--he would joke with you in the noon hour, a.s.suming that you would of course understand it was all in the line of business, and no harm meant.
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The two men heard Peter's story and changed it a little, and then heard him over again and p.r.o.nounced him all right, and Peter went back to his hotel room and waited in trepidation for his hour in the limelight. When they took him to court his knees were shaking, but also he had a thrill of real importance, for they had provided him with a body-guard of four big huskies; also he saw two "bulls" whom he recognized in the hallway outside the court-room, and many others scattered thru the audience. The place was packed with Red sympathizers, but they had all been searched before they were allowed to enter, and were being watched every moment during the trial.
When Peter stepped into the witness box he felt as Tom Duggan and Donald Gordon must have felt that night when the white glare from thirty or forty automobiles was beating upon them. Peter felt the concentrated Red hate of two or three hundred spectators, and now and then their pent-up fury would break restraint; there would be a murmur of protest, or perhaps a wave of sneering laughter, and the bailiff would bang on the table with his wooden mallet, and the judge would half rise from his seat, and declare that if that happened again he would order the court-room cleared.
Not far in front of Peter at a long table sat the seventeen defendants, looking like trapped rats, and every one of their thirty-four rat eyes were fixed upon Peter's face, and never moved from it. Peter only glanced that way once; they bared their rats'
teeth at him, and he quickly looked in another direction. But there also he saw a face that brought him no comfort; there sat Mrs. G.o.dd, in her immaculate white chiffons, her wide-open blue eyes fixed upon his face, her expression full of grief and reproach. "Oh, Mr.
Gudge!" she seemed to be saying. "How can you? Mr. Gudge, is this Peace. . . justice. . . Truth. . . Law?" And Peter realized with a pang that he had cut himself off forever from Mount Olympus, and from the porch chair with the soft silken pillows! He turned away toward the box where sat the twelve jurymen and women. One old lady gave him a benevolent smile, and a young farmer gave him a sly wink, so Peter knew that he had friends in that quarter--and after all, they were the ones who really counted in this trial. Mrs. G.o.dd was as helpless as any "wobbly," in the presence of this august court.
Peter told his story, and then came his cross-questioning, and who should rise and start the job but David Andrews, suave and humorous and deadly. Peter had always been afraid of Andrews, and now he winced. n.o.body had told him he was to face an ordeal like this!
n.o.body had told him that Andrews would be allowed to question him about every detail of these crimes which he said he had witnessed, and about all the conversations that had taken place, and who else was present, and what else had been said, and how he had come to be there, and what he had done afterwards, and what he had had to eat for breakfast that morning. Only two things saved Peter, first the constant rapid-fire of objections which Stannard kept making, to give Peter time to think; and second, the cyclone-cellar which Stannard had provided for him in advance. "You can always fail to remember," the deputy had said; "n.o.body can punish you for forgetting something." So Peter would repeat the minute details of a conversation in which Alf Guinness had told of burning down the barn, but he didn't remember who else had heard the conversation, and he didn't remember what else had been said, nor what was the date of the conversation.
Then came the blessed hour of noon, with a chance for Peter to get fixed up again before the court resumed at two. He was questioned again by Stannard, who patched up all the gaps in his testimony, and then again he failed to remember things, and so avoided the traps which Andrews set for his feet. He was told that he had "done fine,"
and was escorted back to the Hotel de Soto in triumph, and there for a week he stayed while the defense made a feeble effort to answer his testimony. Peter read in the papers the long speeches in which the district attorney and the deputy acclaimed him as a patriot, protecting his country from its "enemies within;" also he read a brief reference to the "tirade" of David Andrews, who had called him a "rat" and a "slinking Judas." Peter didn't mind that, of course--it was all part of the game, and the calling of names is a pretty sure sign of impotence.
Less easy to accept placidly, however, was something which came to Peter that same day--a letter from Mrs. G.o.dd! It wasn't written to him, but he saw Hammett and another of the "bulls" chuckling together, and he asked what was the joke, and they told him that Mrs. G.o.dd had somehow found out about Guffey, and had written him a letter full of insults, and Guffey was furious. Peter asked what was in it, and they told him, and later on when he insisted, they brought it and showed it to him, and Peter was furious too. On very expensive stationery with a stately crest at the top, the mother of Mount Olympus had written in a large, bland, girlish hand her opinion of "under cover" men and those who hired them:
"You sit like a big spider and weave a net to catch men and destroy them. You destroy alike your victims and your tools. The poor boy, Peter Gudge, whom you sent to my home--my heart bleeds when I think of him, and what you have put him up to! A wretched, feeble-minded victim of greed, who ought to be sent to a hospital for deformed souls, you have taken him and taught him a piece of villainy to recite, so that he may send a group of sincere idealists to prison."
That was enough! Peter put down the letter--he would not dignify such stuff by reading it. He realized that he would have to put his mind on the problem of Mrs. G.o.dd once more. One woman like that, in her position of power, was more dangerous than all the seventeen "wobblies" who had been haled before the court. Peter inquired, and learned that Guffey had already been to see Nelse Ackerman about it, and Mr. Ackerman had been to see Mr. G.o.dd, and Mr. G.o.dd had been to see Mrs. G.o.dd. Also the "Times" had an editorial referring to the "nest of Bolshevism" upon Mount Olympus, and all Mrs. G.o.dd's friends were staying away from her luncheon-parties--so she was being made to suffer for her insolence to Peter Gudge!
"A hospital for deformed souls," indeed! Peter was so upset that his joy in life was not restored even by the news that the jury had found the defendants guilty on the first ballot. He told McGivney that the strain of this trial had been too much for his nerves, and they must take care of him; so an automobile was provided, and Peter was taken to a secret hiding place in the country to recuperate.
Hammett went with him, and Hammett was a first-cla.s.s gunman, and Peter stayed close by him; in the evening he stayed up in the second story of the farm-house, lest perchance one of the "wobblies" should take too literally the testimony Peter had given concerning their habit of shooting at their enemies out of the darkness. Peter knew how they all must hate him; he read in the paper how the judge summoned the guilty men before him and sentenced them, incidentally forcing them to listen to a scathing address, which was published in full in the "Times." The law provided a penalty of from one to fourteen years, and the judge sentenced sixteen of them to fourteen years, and one to ten years, thus tempering justice with mercy.
Then one day McGivney sent an automobile, and Peter was brought to Guffey's office, and a new plan was unfolded to him. They had arrested another bunch of "wobblies" in the neighboring city of Eldorado, and Peter was wanted there to repeat his testimony. It happened that he knew one of the accused men, and that would be sufficient to get his testimony in--his prize stuff about the burning barns and the phosphorus bombs. He would be taken care of just as thoroughly by the district attorney's office of Eldorado County; or better yet, Guffey would write to his friend Steve Ellman, who did the detective work for the Home and Fireside a.s.sociation, the big business organization of that city.
Peter hemmed and hawed. This was a pretty hard and dangerous kind of work, it really played the devil with a man's nerves, sitting up there in the hotel room all day, with nothing to do but smoke cigarettes and imagine the "wobblies" throwing bombs at you. Also, it wouldn't last very long; it ought to be better paid. Guffey answered that Peter needn't worry about the job's lasting; if he cared to give this testimony, he might have a joy ride from one end of the country to the other, and everywhere he would live on the fat of the land, and be a hero in the newspapers.
But still Peter hemmed and hawed. He had learned from the American City "Times" how valuable a witness he was, and he ventured to demand his price, even from the terrible Guffey; he stuck it out, in spite of Guffey's frowns, and the upshot was that Guffey said, All right, if Peter would take the trip he might have seventy-five dollars a week and expenses, and Guffey would guarantee to keep him busy for not less than six months.
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So Peter went to Eldorado, and helped to send eleven men to the penitentiary for periods varying from three to fourteen years. Then he went to Flagland, and testified in three different trials, and added seven more scalps to his belt. By this time he got to realize that the worst the Reds could do was to make faces at him and show the teeth of trapped rats. He learned to take his profession more easily, and would sometimes venture to go out for an evening's pleasure without his guards. When he was hidden in the country he would take long walks regardless of the thousands of blood-thirsty Reds on his trail.
It was while Peter was testifying in Flagland that a magic word was flashed from Europe, and the whole city went mad with joy. Everyone, from babies to old men, turned out on the streets and waved flags and banged tin cans and shouted for peace with victory. When it was learned that the newspapers had fooled them, they waited three days, and then turned out and went thru the same performance again. Peter was a bit worried at first, for fear the coming of peace might end his job of saving the country; but presently he realized that there was no need for concern, the smashing of the Reds was going on just the same.
They had some raids on the Socialists while Peter was in Flagland, and the detectives told him he might come along for the fun of it.
So Peter armed himself with a black-jack and a revolver, and helped to rush the Socialist headquarters. The war was over, but Peter felt just as military as if it were still going on; when he got the little Jewish organizer of the local pent up in a corner behind his desk and proceeded to crack him over the head, Peter understood exactly how our boys had felt in the Argonne. When he discovered the thrill of dancing on typewriter keys with his boots, he even understood how the Huns had felt.
The detectives were joined by a bunch of college boys, who took to that kind of thing with glee. Having got their blood up, they decided they might as well clean out the Red movement entirely, so they rushed a place called the "International Book-Shop," kept by a Hawaiian. The proprietor dodged into the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant next door, and put on an ap.r.o.n; but no one had ever seen a Chinaman with a black mustache, so they fell on him and broke several of the Chinaman's sauce-pans over his head. They took the contents of the "International Book-Shop" into the back yard and started a bon-fire with it, and detectives and college boys on a lark joined hands and danced an imitation of the Hawaiian hula-hula around the blaze.
So Peter lived a merry life for several months. He had one or two journeys for nothing, because an obstinate judge refused to admit that anything that any I. W. W. had ever said or done anywhere within the last ten years was proper testimony to be introduced against a particular I. W. W. on trial. But most judges were willing to co-operate with the big business men in ridding the country of the Red menace, and Peter's total of scalps amounted to over a hundred before his time was up, and Guffey sent him his last cheek and turned him loose.
That was in the city of Richport, and Peter having in an inside pocket something over a thousand dollars in savings, felt that he had earned a good time. He went for a stroll on the Gay White Way of the city, and in front of a moving picture palace a golden-haired girl smiled at him. This was still in the days of two and three-fourths per cent beer, and Peter invited her into a saloon to have a gla.s.s, and when he opened his eyes again it was dark, and he had a splitting headache, and he groped around and discovered that he was lying in a dark corner of an alleyway. Terror gripped his heart, and he clapped his hand to the inside pocket where his wallet had been, and there was nothing but horrible emptiness. So Peter was ruined once again, and as usual it was a woman that had done it!
Peter went to the police-station, but they never found the woman, or if they did, they divided with her and not with Peter. He threw himself on the mercy of the sergeant at the desk, and succeeded in convincing the sergeant that he, Peter, was a part of the machinery of his country's defense, and the sergeant agreed to stand sponsor for ten words to Guffey. So Peter sat himself down with a pencil and paper, and figured over it, and managed to get it into ten words, as follows: "Woman again broke any old job any pay wire fare." And it appeared that Guffey must have sat himself down with a pencil and paper and figured over it also, for the answer came back in ten words, as follows: "Idiot have wired secretary chamber commerce will give you ticket."
So Peter repaired forthwith to the stately offices of the Chamber of Commerce, and the hustling, efficient young business-man secretary sent his clerk to buy Peter a ticket and put him on the train. In a time of need like that Peter realized what it meant to have the backing of a great and powerful organization, with stately offices and money on hand for all emergencies, even when they arose by telegraph. He took a new vow of sobriety and decency, so that he might always have these forces of law and order on his side.
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Peter was duly scolded, and put to work as an "office man" at his old salary of twenty dollars a week. It was his duty to consult with Guffey's many "operatives," to tell them everything he knew about this individual Red or that organization of Reds. He would use his inside knowledge of personalities and doctrines and movements to help in framing up testimony, and in setting traps for too ardent agitators. He could no longer pose as a Red himself, but sometimes there were cases where he could do detective work without being recognized; when, for example, there was a question of fixing a juror, or of investigating the members of a panel.
The I. W. Ws. had been put out of business in American City, but the Socialists were still active, in spite of prosecutions and convictions. Also there was a new peril looming up; the returned soldiers were coming back, and a lot of them were dissatisfied, presuming to complain of their treatment in the army, and of the lack of good jobs at home, and even of the peace treaty which the President was arranging in Paris. They had fought to make the world safe for democracy, and here, they said, it had been made safe for the profiteers. This was plain Bolshevism, and in its most dangerous form, because these fellows had learned to use guns, and couldn't very well be expected to become pacifists right off the bat.
There had been a great labor shortage during the war, and some of the more powerful unions had taken the general rise in prices as an excuse for demanding higher wages. This naturally had made the members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants' and Manufacturers' a.s.sociation indignant, and now they saw their chance to use these returned soldiers to smash strikes and to break the organizations of the labor men. They proceeded to organize the soldiers for this purpose; in American City the Chamber of Commerce contributed twenty-five thousand dollars to furnish the club-rooms for them, and when the trolley men went on strike the cars were run by returned soldiers in uniform.
There was one veteran, a fellow by the name of Sydney, who objected to this program. He was publishing a paper, the "Veteran's Friend,"
and began to use the paper to protest against his comrades acting as what he called "scabs." The secretary of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' a.s.sociation sent for him and gave him a straight talking to, but he went right ahead with his campaign, and so Guffey's office was a.s.signed the task of shutting him up. Peter, while he could not take an active part in the job, was the one who guided it behind the scenes. They proceeded to plant spies in Sydney's office, and they had so many that it was really a joke; they used to laugh and say that they trod on one another's toes.
Sydney was poor, and had not enough money to run his paper, so he accepted any volunteer labor that came along. And Guffey sent him plenty of volunteers--no less than seven operatives--one keeping Sydney's books, another helping with his mailing, two more helping to raise funds among the labor unions, others dropping in every day or two to advise him. Nevertheless Sydney went right ahead with his program of denouncing the Merchants' and Manufacturers' a.s.sociation, and denouncing the government for its failure to provide farms and jobs for the veterans.
One of Guffey's "under cover operatives"--that was the technical term for the Peter Gudges and Joe Angells--was a man by the name of Jonas. This Jonas called himself a "philosophic anarchist," and posed as the reddest Red in American City; it was his habit to rise up in radical meetings and question the speaker, and try to tempt him to justify violence and insurrection and "ma.s.s-action." If he repudiated these ideas, then Jonas would denounce him as a "mollycoddle," a "pink tea Socialist," a "labor faker." Other people in the audience would applaud, and so Guffey's men would find out who were the real Red sympathizers.
Peter had long suspected Jonas, and now he was sent to meet him in Room 427 of the American House, and together they framed up a job on Sydney. Jonas wrote a letter, supposed to come from a German "comrade," giving the names of some papers in Europe to which the editor should send sample copies of his magazine. This letter was mailed to Sydney, and next morning Jonas wandered into the office, and Sydney showed him the letter, and Jonas told him that these were labor papers, and the editors would no doubt be interested to know of the feelings of American soldiers since the war. Sydney sat down to write a letter, and Jonas stood by his side and told him what to write: "To my erstwhile enemies in arms I send fraternal greetings, and welcome you as brothers in the new co-operative commonwealth which is to be"--and so on, the usual Internationalist patter, which all these agitators were spouting day and night, and which ran off the ends of their pens automatically. Sydney mailed these letters, and the sample copies of the magazine, and Guffey's office tipped off the postoffice authorities, who held up the letters. The book-keeper, one of Guffey's operatives, went to the Federal attorney and made affidavit that Sydney had been carrying on a conspiracy with the enemy in war-time, and a warrant was issued, and the offices of the magazine were raided, the subscription-lists confiscated, and everything in the rooms dumped out into the middle of the floor.
So there was a little job all Peter's own; except that Jonas, the scoundrel, claimed it for his, and tried to deprive Peter of the credit! So Peter was glad when the Federal authorities looked the case over and said it was a b.u.m job, and they wouldn't monkey with it. However, the evidence was turned over to District-attorney Burchard, who wasn't quite so fastidious, and his agents made another raid, and smashed up the office again, and threw the returned soldier into jail. The judge fixed the bail at fifteen thousand dollars, and the American City "Times" published the story with scare-headlines all the way across the front page--how the editor of the "Veteran's Friend" had been caught conspiring with the enemy, and here was a photographic copy of his treasonable letter, and a copy of the letter of the mysterious German conspirator with whom he had been in relations! They spent more than a year trying that editor, and although he was out on bail, Guffey saw to it that he could not get a job anywhere in American City; his paper was smashed and his family near to starvation.
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Peter had now been working faithfully for six or eight months, and all that time he religiously carried out his promise to Guffey and did not wink at a woman. But that is an unnatural life for a man, and Peter was lonely, his dreams were haunted by the faces of Nell Doolin and Rosie Stern, and even of little Jennie Todd. One day another face came back to him, the face of Miss Frisbie, the little manicurist who had spurned him because he was a Red. Now suddenly Peter realized that he was no longer a Red! On the contrary, he was a hero, his picture had been published in the American City "Times,"
and no doubt Miss Frisbie had seen it. Miss Frisbie was a good girl, a straight girl, and surely all right for him to know!
So Peter went to the manicure parlor, and sure enough, there was the little golden-haired lady; and sure enough, she had read all about him, she had been dreaming that some day she might meet him again--and so Peter invited her to go to a picture show. On the way home they became very chummy, and before a week went by it was as if they had been friends for life. When Peter asked Miss Frisbie if he might kiss her, she answered coyly that he might, but after he had kissed her a few times she explained to him that she was a self-supporting woman, alone and defenseless in the world, and she had n.o.body to speak for her but herself; she must tell him that she had always been a respectable woman, and that she wanted him to know that before he kissed her any more. And Peter thought it over and decided that he had sowed his full share of wild oats in this life; he was ready to settle down, and the next time he saw Miss Frisbie he told her so, and before the evening was by they were engaged.
Then Peter went to see Guffey, and seated himself on the edge of the chair alongside Guffey's desk, and twisted his hat in his hands, and flushed very red, and began to stammer out his confession. He expected to be received with a gale of ridicule; he was immensely relieved when Guffey said that if Peter had really found a good girl and wanted to marry her, he, Guffey, was for it. There was nothing like the influence of a good woman, and Guffey much preferred his operatives should be married men, living a settled and respectable life. They could be trusted then, and sometimes when a woman operative was needed, they had a partner ready to hand. If Peter had got married long ago, he might have had a good sum of money in the bank by now.
Peter ventured to point out that twenty dollars a week was not exactly a marrying salary, in the face of the present high cost of living. Guffey answered that that was true, and he would raise Peter to thirty dollars right away--only first he demanded the right to talk to Peter's fiancee, and judge for himself whether she was worthy. Peter was delighted, and Miss Frisbie had a private and confidential interview with Peter's boss. But afterwards Peter wasn't quite so delighted, for he realized what Guffey had done.
Peter's future wife had been told all about Peter's weakness, and how Peter's boss looked to her to take care of her husband and make him walk the chalkline. So a week after Peter had entered the holy bonds of matrimony, when he and Mrs. Gudge had their first little family tiff, Peter suddenly discovered who was going to be top dog in that family. He was shown his place once for all, and he took it,--alongside that husband who described his domestic arrangements by saying that he and his wife got along beautifully together, they had come to an arrangement by which he was to have his way on all major issues, and she was to have her way on all minor issues, and so far no major issues had arisen.