CHAPTER XITHE REBEL
At Southern Pacific University the class lines were tacitly but effectively drawn, and in the ordinary course of events a man of Bunny’s wealth, good looks and good manners, would have associated only with the members of fraternities and sororities. If some Negro boy were to develop eloquence as a debater, or if some one taking a course in millinery or plumbing were to display fleetness as a hurdler, the hurdler might hurdle and the debater might debate, but they would not be invited to tea-parties or dances, nor be elected to prominence in the student organizations; such honors were reserved for tall Anglo-Saxons having regular features, and hair plastered straight back from their foreheads, and trousers pressed to a knife edge and never worn two days in succession.
But here was Bunny Ross, persisting in fooling with “dangerous thoughts,” that made his friends angry. Of course, as anyone would have foreseen, there were “barbs” and “goats,” anxious to break in where they were not wanted, and perfectly willing to pretend to think that our country ought not to intervene in Russia, if by so professing they could get to know one of the socially élite. So Bunny found himself on talking terms with various queer fish. For example, there was Peter Nagle, whose father was president of a “rationalist society,” and who seemed to have one dominating desire in life—to blurt out in class that what was the matter with the world was superstition, and that mankind could never progress until they stopped believing in God. In a university all of whose faculty were required to be devout Methodists, you can imagine how popular this made him. Peter looked just as you would expect such a boor to look, with a large square head and a wide mouth full of teeth, and a shock of yellow hair which he allowed to straggle round his ears and drop white specks onto his coat collar—his coat did not match his trousers, and he brought his lunch to the university tied with a strap!
And then there was Gregor Nikolaieff. Gregor was all right, when you got to know him, but the trouble was, it was hard to know him, because his accent was peculiar, and at critical moments in his talk he would forget the English word. He had jet black hair, and black eyes with a sombre frown above them—in short, he was the very picture of what the students called a “Bolsheviki.” As it happened, Gregor’s father had belonged to one of the revolutionary parties whom the Bolsheviks were now sending to jail; but how could you explain that to a student body which dumped into one common garbage-can Socialists and Communists and Syndicalists and Anarchists, Communist-Anarchists and Anarchist-Syndicalists, Social Revolutionaries and Social-Democrats, Populists, Progressives, Single-taxers, Nonpartisan Leaguers, Pacifists, Pragmatists, Altruists, Vegetarians, Anti-vivisectionists and opponents of capital punishment.
Also there was Rachel Menzies, who belonged to a people that had been chosen by the Lord, but not by the aforesaid student body. Rachel was rather good-looking, though in a dark, foreign way; she was short—what feminine enemies would have called “dumpy”—and made no pretense at finery, but came to the university in black cotton stockings and a shirtwaist that did not match her skirt. There was a rumor that her father worked in a clothing factory, and her brother was pressing students’ pants for an education.
And here was the discoverer and heir-apparent of the Ross Junior oil field, letting himself be seen in public with these people, and even trying to introduce them to his fraternity brothers; excusing himself by saying that they believed in “free speech.” As if it were not obvious that they would, having everything to gain and nothing to lose! Proletarians of all universities unite!
Poor Bunny got it from both sides. “Look here,” said Donald Burns, president of the sophomore class, “don’t you introduce me to any more of your Yid fairies.” And then, “Look here,” said Rachel Menzies, “don’t you introduce me to any more of your male fashion-plates.” Bunny protested, he had the idea that all kinds of people ought to know one another; but Rachel informed him that she thought too much of herself. “Probably you’ve never been snubbed in your life, Mr. Ross, but we Jews learn the lesson early in our lives—not to go where we aren’t wanted.”
Said Bunny, “But Miss Menzies, if you believe in ideas, you’ve got to teach people—”
“Thank you,” she said; “I believe in my ideas, but not enough to teach Donald Burns.”
“But how can you tell?” Bunny protested. “You’re teaching me, and I don’t belong to the working-class.” He had learned that this girl was a member of the Socialist party, and it was “class-consciousness,” as well as Jewish consciousness.
Rachel insisted that Bunny was one person in a million, capable of believing what was contrary to his economic interests. But Bunny had no awareness of anything extraordinary about himself. Instead of being a conspicuous and shining leader, as his high destiny directed, he was always looking for some one he could lean on, some one who was positive, and whom he could trust. He found some of this in Henrietta Ashleigh, who knew exactly what was proper; and he found some more of it in Rachel Menzies, who knew exactly what was true, and said it with energy and frankness that were like flashes of lightning in the twilight of Southern Pacific culture.
The only trouble was, the contradiction between his two authorities; it appeared almost as if what was true was not proper and what was proper was not true! For Henrietta considered Rachel an impossible person, and was cold as a corpse in her presence; while Rachel’s idea of being insulting was to tell Bunny that it was with Henrietta he really belonged, his Creator had made him to take her to church.
Amid this perplexity, Bunny found comfort in the backing of Billy George, who was Anglo-Saxon and broad-shouldered, and a senior besides. Billy assured him he was right, and suggested that they take some steps to make their ideas understood to the rest of the student body. Why not organize a little group, the Society for the Study of Russian Problems, or something of that sort? Bunny should ask Mr. Irving to advise them, and perhaps join them—it would be much better if they could have the backing of one of the teachers. So Bunny went to Mr. Irving, who said at once that he could not give any advice on the subject, for the reason that it would jeopardize his position to do so; the students would have to follow their own judgment. The young instructor did add this much, they ought surely not use the name “Russian,” but take some inoffensive title, the “Liberal Club,” or the “Social Problems Society.”
Bunny took that advice to the others, meeting in one of the class-rooms after hours. Billy George said it didn’t seem very “spunky” of Mr. Irving; whereupon Rachel Menzies flared up, he had no right to hint at such a thing, they all knew what the teacher’s position was, and he had a perfect right to keep out of trouble. What business had Mr. George to be finding fault, when he himself had done nothing publicly?
The other demanded to know what he could do, and the girl was not backward in suggestions. Why not start a student paper, a little four-page sheet, once a week or even once a month? It would cost very little, and would make a hit, they could be sure; look how many people had wanted to read Mr. Ross’s letter about Siberia! If they printed that letter they would set the campus on fire. Mr. George could have the honor of being editor, and Rachel would contribute her share of the cost. There was obvious irony in that, considering the quantity of iron pipe which Billy’s father was known to be marketing in Angel City. But they discussed it gravely, and Billy didn’t think he could take any responsibility; his old man would pull him out of college, and put him to work on a bookkeeper’s stool.
Then, automatically, the eyes of the group turned to Bunny. What did he think? Bunny found his cheeks growing red. He had wanted to explain his ideas to other people, but had thought of doing it in some dignified way, privately and quietly. A paper would make such a noise! Rachel Menzies apparently didn’t mind a noise, but Henrietta would, she would be horrified by the bare idea. Also there was Dad—the “education business” would be damned forever by such a venture. So Bunny had to say no; and Rachel Menzies said that was all right, there were plenty of excuses, and she didn’t blame anybody for finding the best one, but at least they had no business criticizing Mr. Irving for lack of courage!
Soon after that Bunny read in the paper that the transport “Bennington” had arrived in San Francisco with two thousand troops from Siberia. Paul’s unit was listed; so Bunny called up Ruth on the telephone and told her the news, and said, be sure to let him know as soon as she got word. Two days later Ruth called him—Paul had arrived at Paradise. It was a Friday, so Bunny “cut” his afternoon courses, and jumped into his car. Dad had gone over to Lobos River, to see to a “fishing” job, and so missed this first meeting.
It was almost twenty months that Paul had been away, and Bunny was keyed up with eagerness. The first glance gave him a shock, for Paul looked quite terrible—gaunt and yellow, his khaki jacket hanging loose upon him. “You’ve been sick!” cried Bunny.
“Yes,” said Paul; “but I’m getting all right now.”
“Paul, tell me what happened!”
“Well, it was no picnic.” And he seemed to think that would satisfy both his sister and his friend—after a year and a half!
They were over in the cabin on the Rascum tract, where Ruth and Paul had first begun house-keeping. It was supper-time, and the girl had prepared a bounteous repast; but Paul wasn’t much on eating just now, he said—afraid to trust himself with good food. While they sat at table he told them about Manila, where they had stopped; and about a storm on the Pacific; but not a word about Siberia!
Of course that wouldn’t do. After the meal they got Paul settled in an arm-chair, and Bunny said, “Look here, Paul, I’ve been trying to understand about this Russian business. I’m quarrelling with most everyone I know about it, and I counted on you for the truth. So please do tell us about it—just what happened to you.”
Paul sat with his head lying back. His face had always been sombre, a prominent nose and wide mouth with a tendency to droop at the corners; haggard as he was, this tendency was accentuated, he looked like a mask of sorrow. “What happened to me?” he said, in his slow voice; and then he seemed to raise himself to the effort of recalling it. “I’ll tell you what happened, son; I was kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped!” The two of them echoed the word together.
“Yes, just that. I thought I went into the army to put down the Kaiser, but I was kidnapped by some Wall Street bankers, and put to work as a strike-breaker, a scab.”
Ruth and Bunny could only sit and gaze at Paul, and wait for him to say what he meant by these strange words.
“You remember our oil strike, Bunny? Those guards the Federation sent up here—husky fellows, with plenty of guns, and good warm clothes, rain-coats and water-proof hats and everything. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing for a year and a half—putting down a strike for Wall Street bankers. The guards here at Paradise got ten dollars a day, and if they didn’t like it, they could quit; but I got thirty a month and beans, and if I tried to quit they’d have shot me. That was the cinch the bankers had.”
Again there was a pause. Paul had closed his eyes, and he told a part of his story that way, looking at things he saw inside his mind.
“First thing, the allies took the city of Vladivostok. The strikers had that city, with a perfectly good government, everything orderly and fine. They didn’t make much resistance—they were too surprised at our behavior. We shot a few longshoremen, who tried to defend one building, and the strikers had a big funeral with a procession; they brought the red coffins to the American consulate with banners that asked us why we had shot their people. It happened to be the Fourth of July, and we were celebrating our revolution; why had we overthrown theirs? Of course we couldn’t answer; none of us knew why we had done it; but little by little we began to find out.”
Paul paused, and waited so long that Bunny thought he wasn’t going on. “Why, Paul?”
“Well, just outside that city, along the railroad track, there were fields—I guess there must have been ten or twenty acres, piled twenty feet high with stuff—guns and shells, railroad locomotives, rails and machinery, motor-trucks—every kind of thing you could think of to help win a war. Some of it was in cases, and some without even a tarpaulin over it, just lying there in the rain, and sinking slowly—some of the heavy stuff two feet down in the mud. There was a hundred million dollars of it, that had been put off the steamers, intended to be taken across to Russia; but then the revolution had come, and there it lay. One of our jobs was to guard it. At first, of course, we thought it belonged to the government; but then little by little we got the story. Originally the British government had bought it for the Tsar’s government, and taken bonds for it. Later, when we came into the war, the firm of Morgan and Company took over the bonds from the British government, and these supplies were Morgan’s collateral, and we had overthrown the Vladivostok government to protect it for him.”
Again there was a pause. “Paul,” said Bunny, anxiously, “do you really know that?”
Paul laughed, but without any happiness. “Know it?” he said. “Listen, son. They sent out an expedition, two hundred and eighty men to run the railroad—every kind of expert, traffic men, telegraphers, linemen, engineers. They all wore army uniforms, and the lowest man had the rank of second lieutenant; of course we thought they were part of the army, like the rest of us. But they got fancy pay, and by God, it wasn’t army pay, it was checks on a Wall Street bank! I’ve seen dozens of those checks. It was a private expedition, sent to run the railroad for the bankers.”
“But why, Paul?”
“I’ve told you—to break the strike. The biggest strike in all history—the Russian workers against the landlords and the bankers; and we were to put the workers down, and the landlords and bankers up! Here and there were bunches of refugees, former officers of the Tsar’s army, grand dukes and their mistresses, land-owners and their families; they would get together and call themselves a government, and it was our job to rush them supplies, and they would print paper money, and hire some adventurers, and grab a bunch of peasants and ‘conscript’ them, and that would be an army, and we’d move them on the railroad, and they’d overthrow another Soviet government, and slaughter a few more hundreds or thousands of workingmen. That’s been my job for the past year and half; do you wonder I’m sick?”
“Paul, did you have to kill people?” It was Ruth’s voice of horror.
“No, I don’t think I killed anybody. I was a carpenter, and my only fights were with the Japs, that were supposed to be our allies. You see, the Japs were there to grab the country, so they didn’t want either the ‘white’ Russians or the ‘red’ ones to succeed. The first thing they did was to counterfeit the money of the ‘white’ government; they brought in billions of fake roubles, and bought everything in sight—banks and hotels and stores and real estate—they made themselves the capitalists, and broke the ‘white’ government with their fake money. They resented our being there, and the fact that we really tried to help the ‘whites;’ they butted in on our job, and there were times when we lined up our troops and threatened to fire in five minutes if they didn’t move out. They were always picking on our men; I was fired at three times in the dark—got one bullet through my hat and another through my shirt.”
Ruth sat there with her hands clasped together and her face white. She could see those bullets going through Paul’s clothing right now! And be sure that she was not unlearning any of her dislike for war!
“A lot of our fellows came to hate the Japs,” said Paul; “but I didn’t. I got a philosophy out of this—the only thing I did get. The ruling classes in Japan were grabbing half a continent; but all the poor soldiers were grabbing was pay even poorer than mine. They didn’t know what they were there for—they, also, had been kidnapped. There were some that had been to America, and I got to talk with them, and we never had any trouble in agreeing. That was true of Czecho-Slovaks, and Germans—every nation I met. I tell you, Bunny, if the private soldiers could have talked it over, there wouldn’t have been any war. But that is what is known as treason, and if you try it you’re shot.”
Paul and Bunny talked, that Friday night, and a lot of Saturday and Sunday, and Paul explained the Russian revolution. There was an easy way for Bunny to understand it, Paul said; if there was anything that puzzled him, all he had to do was to remember their oil strike. “Ask yourself how it would have been at Paradise, and then you know everything about Russia and Siberia—yes, and Washington and New York and Angel City. The Petroleum Operator’s Federation, that fought our strike, they’re exactly the sort of men that sent our army into Siberia—often they’re the same individuals. I read in the paper yesterday how a syndicate of oil men in Angel City has got some concessions in Saghalien. I remember one name, Vernon Roscoe. He’s one of the big fellows, isn’t he?”
Paul said this seriously, and Bunny and Ruth exchanged a smile. Paul had been away so long, he had lost track of the oil-game entirely!
Said Paul, “The operators are the same, and so are the strikers. Do you remember that little Russian Jew, Mandel, a roughneck that was in our strike? Used to play the balalaika, and sing us songs about Russia—we wouldn’t let him make speeches, because he was a ‘red.’ Well, by jingo, I ran into him in Manila, on the way out. He’d been travelling steerage on a steamer, on the way to Russia, and they found he was a Bolshevik, and threw him ashore and took away everything he had, even his balalaika. I loaned him five dollars, and six months later he turned up at Irkutsk, in a ‘Y’ hut. Lying on a shelf there was a balalaika, and he said, ‘Why, that’s mine! How did it get here?’ They told him a soldier had brought it, but didn’t know how to use it. ‘You can have it if you can play it,’ they said, so he played it all right, sang us the Volga Boatman, and then the Internationale—only of course nobody knew what it was. A few days later there were orders to arrest him, but I helped him get away. Months after that we came on him out in the country, not far from Omsk; he had been a Soviet commissar, and the Kolchak people had captured him, and buried him alive, up to his nose, just so that he could breathe. When we found him the ants had eaten most of his eyes, but there was still some life in him, his forehead would wrinkle.”
It was while Paul was alone with Bunny that he told this; and the younger man sat, speechless with horror. “Oh, yes,” said Paul; “that’s the kind of thing we had to see—and know we were to blame for it. I could tell you things much worse—I’ve helped to bury a hundred bodies of people that had been killed, not in battle, just shot down in cold blood, men and women, children, even babies. I’ve seen a ‘white’ officer shoot women in the head, one after another; and with our bullets, brought there by our railway men—I mean our bankers’ railway men. A lot of our boys went plumb crazy with it. Out of the two thousand that came off our transport, I doubt if there were ten percent quite normal. I said that to our surgeon, and he agreed.”
All this was so different from what Bunny had been taught that it was hard for him to adjust his thoughts to it. He would go off and think it over, and then come back with another string of questions. “Then Paul, you mean the Bolsheviks aren’t bad people at all!”
Paul answered, “Just apply the rule—remember Paradise! They were workingmen, like any other workingmen on strike. A lot of them have come from America—got their training here. I used to meet them and have long talks—all kinds of fellows, that had been all over this country. They are people with modern ideas, trying to dig the Russians out of their ignorance and superstition. They believe in education—I never saw such people for teaching; everywhere, whatever they were doing, they were always preaching, having lectures, printing things—why, son, I’ve seen newspapers printed on old scraps of brown butcher paper, or wrappings our army had thrown away. I learned Russian pretty well—and it was just the sort of thing our strikers printed at Paradise, only of course these people have got farther in their struggle against the bosses, they see things more clearly than we do.”
Bunny was staring, a little frightened. “Paul! Then you agree with the Bolsheviks?”
Paul laughed, a grim laugh. “You go up to Frisco and talk with the men on that transport! That army was Bolshevik to a man—and not only the privates, but the officers. I guess that’s why they brought us home. There was mutiny in Archangel, you know—or maybe you don’t.”
“I heard something—”
“Let me tell you, Bunny—I’ve been there, and I know. The Bolsheviks are the only people in that country that have any faith or any solidarity; and they’re going to run it, too—mark my words, the Japs will get out, the same as we did. You can’t beat people that will die for their cause, the last man and the last woman.”
Said Bunny, timidly, “Then it isn’t true what we’ve been told—I mean about their nationalizing the women?”
“Oh, my Lord!” said Paul. “Is that the sort of rot you’ve been thinking?”
“Well, but how can we know what to think?”
Paul laughed. “Come to think of it, I met some women that had been nationalized by the Bolsheviks—as school-teachers. They taught the men in their armies to read and write, and made every man swear to teach ten others what he had learned. I saw a couple of dozen such women in a cattle-car on the Trans-Siberian railway, without a single blanket, nothing but blocks of wood for pillows, not even a bucket to serve for a toilet. They had several cases of Asiatic cholera among them, and they’d been that way for ten or twelve days—prisoners of war, you understand, waiting until they got to Irkutsk, where they’d be shot without a trial. And on the other hand, Bunny—here’s the truth, I was in Siberia eighteen months, and never saw an atrocity committed by a Bolshevik, and never met a man in our army that had seen one. I don’t say there weren’t any; all I say is, I met men that had travelled all over Russia, our people as well as natives, and the only Bolshevik atrocity that anyone knew about was the fundamental one of teaching the workers they had a right to rule the world. You can set this down for a fact about the Russian revolution, all the way from Vladivostok to Odessa and Archangel—that where the ‘reds’ did any killing or executing, the ‘whites’ did ten, and a hundred times as much. You never hear about ‘white’ atrocities, because the newspapers don’t report them—they are too busy telling how Lenin has murdered Trotsky, and Trotsky has thrown Lenin into jail.”
This meeting with Paul was the most exciting event of Bunny’s life. It transvaluated all his values; things that had been wicked became suddenly heroic, while things that had been respectable became suddenly dull. Bunny, confronting the modern industrial world with its manifold injustices, had been like a man lost in a tangled forest. But here he had been taken up in a balloon, and shown the way out of the tangle. Everything was now simple, plain as a map. The workers were to take over the industries, and run them for themselves, instead of for the masters. Thus, with one stroke, the knot of social injustice would be cut!
Bunny had heard of this idea, and it had sounded fantastic and absurd. But now came Paul to tell him that it had actually been done! A hundred million people, occupying one-sixth of the earth’s surface, had taken over their industries, and were running them, and would make a success of them—if only the organized greed of the world would stand off and let them alone!
Bunny took Paul in his car, to show him all the field. They investigated the new refinery, that wonderful work of art. Before them rose a great building, made entirely of enormous baking-pans set one inside another—a stack half way to heaven; the angels were making caramels for the whole world, dainties with a new, patented flavor, and sickish sweet odors that spread over the hills for miles and frightened the quail away!
It was twilight, and the white steam that rose from these pans had a faint violet tinge as it merged with the sky. Electric lights came on, white and yellow and red, until the place looked like a section of Coney Island. And this resemblance increased as you drove farther, and came to a building, long and low, in which forty-four Dutchmen sat hidden puffing on forty-four pipes, and doing it all in unison, like an orchestra; the most comical effect you could imagine—forty-four exhausts all keeping time, quick and sharp—puff-puff-puff-puff-puff-puff-puff!
Bunny felt his old embarrassment in connection with the Paradise tract; his title to these vast possessions was not clear, and Paul was bound to be jealous, realizing how his family had been tricked. But, then, in swift flashes of revelation, Bunny discovered how completely out of date these old feelings had become. Nevermore would Paul be jealous for his lost heritage; never would he consider the claims of the Watkins family—any more than the claims of the Ross family! The Paradise tract belonged to the Paradise workers; the beautiful new refinery was a ripe peach, hanging on a tree and waiting to be picked! All that was needed was for some one to point this out to the men. If Paul had not been weak and exhausted, he might have pointed it out that evening, and they could have taken over the plant, and had it ready for operation under the new management by morning! All power to the Soviets!
Bunny went back to the university, charged with these electrical new thoughts; at one moment he would be trembling with excitement, and at the next he would be frightened to realize what he had been thinking. Some instinct warned him that the idea of expropriating the industries of Southern California would stand no chance with his class-mates; so he contented himself with telling the good tidings about Russia—that the revolution was not a blind outburst of ferocity, but the birth of a new social order. Bunny told this; and Peter Nagle received the gospel with his large mouth wide open; while Gregor Nikolaieff said yes, but why had they got his cousin in jail; and Rachel Menzies said they had got thousands of Socialists in jail; and Billy George said, “Let’s get a group of fellows together and have Paul come and talk to them.”
The rumor spread with magical swiftness through the university, and the quick imaginations of Bunny’s friends supplied all those details about which he had been silent. Bunny Ross knew a workingman who was an out-and-out Bolshevik, and had made Bunny into an out-and-out Bolshevik too; “the millionaire red” became his future designation. Men and women gathered round to question and argue with him; the arguments often broke up with furious word rows, but all the same it was interesting, and they came back for more. Bunny was made into a centre of Soviet propaganda; for, when they drove him to the wall with their arguments, what could he do but go to Paul for more facts, and then come back and hurl them at his adversaries’ heads? His fraternity brothers sat up half the night with him, wrangling over his challenge to everything they considered good.
With rest and home cooking Paul picked up considerably, and in a couple of weeks came down to Angel City to meet a friend. Bunny joined him, and had another adventure, in the person of Harry Seager. This man, ten years older than Paul, was the head of a small business college, who had put his affairs into a partner’s hands and gone in for “Y work” during the war. They had sent him to Siberia, to help those two hundred and eighty railway men whom the bankers were paying. He had travelled up and down the line, seeing everything there was to see, and now he had “kicked over the traces,” and was telling the truth about the situation, in spite of the protests of the “Y” authorities, and the army, and the state department, and the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association, and everybody that could put pressure on the head of a business college in Angel City.
Dad was up to the ears just then in work, on account of some wild-catting they were planning on the Bandy tract. But Bunny insisted he must meet Harry Seager, and lured the two of them to lunch, and Paul also, and before the soup was eaten they had got Dad so stirred up that he did not eat any more. Of course he was horrified at their story; but there was no use expecting his mind to work the same as Bunny’s. Dad couldn’t straighten out all the tangles in the world, and didn’t feel the impulse to try. What worried him was that the Japs were in Siberia; and that our diplomacy was so unaware of oil; and most of all, that his son was falling under the spell of wild and dangerous ideas.
This fellow Seager, for example—a big six-foot Westerner, handsome as a Viking, and picturesque because of hair turned prematurely grey by his labors; you couldn’t deny the fellow’s facts, you couldn’t think he was lying—but good Lord, there was no use being thrown off your base, and going round the country raising a public disturbance, attacking the government because it had made a blunder in the confusion of war-time, and then hadn’t known how to get out.
Bunny dragged his father to a Socialist meeting at which Harry Seager was to speak. It was in a big hall, with two or three thousand people packed into it, and Dad thought he had never seen so many dangerous people in all his life before: foreign faces, dark and sinister, intense-looking intellectuals with hair over their collars, women with short hair and big spectacles, workingmen, sullen and dull, or sharp-faced, bitter—oh, terrible, terrible people! And this man Seager, lashing them to frenzy! Telling about the “death-train” he had seen on the Trans-Siberian—more than two thousand men and women packed into cattle cars, prisoners of the “Whites,” who did not know what to do with them, but ran the train here and there, shunting it onto sidings for weeks, while the victims perished of hunger, thirst and disease. And American troops standing by, feeding such murderers, supplying them with money, protecting them with guns! Yes, and it was still going on! Right now Polish troops were invading Russia, wearing American uniforms, killing Russian workingmen with American ammunition! What did the people of America have to say?
What the people of America had to say was a roar that sent shivers down the spine of J. Arnold Ross. He looked about him at this human ocean tossed by a storm—hands waving, fists clenched, heads bobbing up and down with excitement; and he knew what it meant—nobody could fool him. When presently the crowd burst into cheering at the name of Lenin, they were not cheering for what the Russian Lenin had done, but for what some American Lenin meant to do. “Hands off Russia!”—that was mere camouflage; what they meant was, “Hands on Ross Consolidated!”
And then, out of the corner of his eye, Dad stole a glimpse at his son. Bunny apparently did not feel one particle of his father’s fear! Bunny was like the rest of the mob, his face shining with excitement. Bunny was shouting for “Hands off Russia!”—and either he did not know what this mob meant to do to Ross Consolidated, or else—worse yet—he did not care!
The little bunch of “reds” from the university had attended this Seager meeting, and next day were all a-thrill with it. Most of Bunny’s fraternity brothers had refused to go; and now they proceeded to criticize an argument they had not heard! Bunny’s feelings boiled over as he listened to them. All this rubbish about nationalization of women, these faked figures concerning millions of victims of Bolshevism! It was a disgrace to a university that such stuff should pass for knowledge, and no effort made to contradict it. Bunny voiced this idea to Peter Nagle, and Peter went home and talked to his father about it, and came back announcing that he was willing to serve as editor for a student paper to present the truth.
There was another meeting of the conspirators, and thirty dollars was quickly subscribed, and it was voted to publish a four-page weekly sheet of all kinds of truth-telling, to bear the name of “The Investigator.” It was agreed that the best approach to the Russian problem was Harry Seager, because he had been a “Y” worker in good standing; therefore Rachel Menzies was requested to write a two thousand word interview with Mr. Seager. Another young rebel was to collect facts and rumors concerning secret payments made out of an alumni fund to bring promising athletes to Southern Pacific. Bunny, as social light of the crowd, was assigned the theme of college snobbery, apropos of the fact that a Hindoo student with high scholarship records had been black-balled for the “Lit.”
And then Peter Nagle brought up his favorite hobby, in the form of a poem mildly satirizing God. There was some question as to the wisdom of bringing in the religious issue, but Peter asserted his prerogatives as editor; either he was or he wasn’t, and if he was, then he took his stand upon the Russian formula, “Religion is the opium of the people.” Billy George backed him up, insisting that the new paper should cover the whole field of modern thought.
Well, “The Investigator” was written, and edited, and set up into galleys, and pasted on a “dummy,” and then cut up and pasted differently. At last it was printed; there lay the sheets, fresh from the press, soft and damp, like locusts newly emerged from the chrysalis. Next day they would be dry; and meantime, “Ssh! Not a word!”
How were the papers to be distributed? There had been much discussion. Bunny, with his lordly ideas, wanted to give them away. But Rachel brought word from her father, the tailor, who was also literature agent for Local Angel City of the Socialist party, that the papers must be sold; people wouldn’t respect them otherwise. “What they pay good money for they will read,” said Papa Menzies, with proper Jewish insight; and his daughter added, with proper Socialist fervor, “If we really believe in our cause, we won’t mind a little ridicule.” It was a call to martyrdom, and one after another they responded—though not without qualms.
So, promptly at eight-thirty next morning, the campus in front of the Assembly building beheld a sight, the like of which had never thrilled the student body of S. P. U. since the first days of the Methodist Sunday-school. The discoverer and heir-apparent of the Ross Junior oil field turned into a newsboy! Standing on a bench, with an armful of papers, shouting gaily, “The Investigator! First issue of the Investigator! Five cents a copy!”
Did they buy them? Oh, ask! They crowded around Bunny three deep, he couldn’t make the change fast enough; as the excitement spread, they crowded six deep, ten deep—it was a mob, a riot! Everywhere, all over the campus, men and women, seeing the throng, came running. An accident? A fight? What was the matter? People who got their copies and drew out of the crowd, became centres of minor disturbances, others trying to see over their shoulders, asking questions.
For just about ten minutes this went on; until from the Administration building there emerged, portly and dignified, with gold nose-glasses and a roll of fat around his neck—just such a personage as you would meet in any big real estate office or bank in the city—Reginald T. Squirge, Ph. D., Dean of Men. Quietly and masterfully he penetrated the throng, and quietly and masterfully he took charge of the millionaire newsboy, and conducted him into his private office, still clutching his armful of papers. “Wait here,” he commanded, and again went out, and returned with Peter Nagle; a third time he went out, and his prey was Gregor Nikolaieff; while at his heels came deputy deans, appointed ad hoc, escorting the other criminals.
How many copies had been sold no one could say; the unsold copies were stacked in a corner of the Dean’s office, and if they were ever counted the result was not made known. But enough had been distributed to set the campus ablaze. “Have you read it?” “Have you got a copy?”—that was all anybody heard that day. The price of “The Investigator” leaped to one dollar, and before nightfall some had sold for two or three times that price.
One reason was that a copy had reached the Angel City “Evening Booster,” most popular of newspapers, printed in green, five editions per day. The second edition, on the streets about noon, carried a “streamer head” across the front page:
Red Nest at University!Bolshevik Propaganda at S. P. U.
Red Nest at University!
Bolshevik Propaganda at S. P. U.
There followed a two-column story, carried over to page fourteen, giving a lurid account of “The Investigator’s” contents, including the most startling of the facts about the hiring of athletes for the university, and the whole text of the satiric poem about God—but alas, only a very brief hint as to what Harry Seager had told about Siberia. A little later in the day came the rivals of the “Evening Booster,” the “Evening Roarer” and the “Evening Howler”; they had been scooped one whole edition, but they made up for it by a mass of new details, some collected by telephone, the rest made up in the editorial offices. Said the “Evening Roarer”:
Red College Plot Unearthed
Red College Plot Unearthed
and it went on to tell how the police were seeking Russian agents who had made use of Southern Pacific students to get their propaganda into print. The “Evening Howler,” which went in especially for “human interest stuff,” featured the ring-leader of the conspiracy:
Millionaire Red in College!Son of Oil Magnate Backs Soviets!
Millionaire Red in College!
Son of Oil Magnate Backs Soviets!
And it scooped its rivals by having a photograph of Bunny, which it had got by rushing a man to the Ross home, and informing Aunt Emma that Bunny had just been awarded a prize for the best scholarship record in ten years. The good lady was so excited, she sent the butler out to the corner drug-store three times, to see if the “Evening Howler” had arrived with the story of that prize!
In the ordinary course of events this newspaper excitement would have lasted thirty-two hours. Next afternoon’s papers would have recorded the fact that the university authorities had banned “The Investigator,” and on the following day their streamer-heads would have proclaimed, “Film Star Divorces Champ,” or “Magnate’s Wife Elopes with Cop.”
But fate had prepared a fantastic torment for the “parlor reds” of S. P. U. On the morning after their flyer in publicity, it chanced that a wagon loaded with blasting material, making its way through Wall Street with customary indifference to municipal ordinances, met with a collision and exploded. The accident happened in front of the banking offices of Morgan and Company, and about a dozen people were killed. A few minutes after the accident, the bankers called in America’s sleuth-celebrity to solve the mystery; and this able business man, facing the situation that if it was an accident it was nothing, while if it was a Bolshevik plot it was several hundred thousand dollars, took three minutes to look about him, and then pronounced it a plot.
And forthwith throughout the world a horde of spies and informers went to work, knowing that if he or she could find or invent a clue, it was fame and fortune for him or her. A wave of witch-hunting swept the country, and other countries—for two or three years thereafter new discoveries would be made, and new “revelations” promised, and poor devils in Polish and Roumanian dungeons would have their arms twisted out of joint and their testicles macerated, while eager newspaper readers in New York and Chicago and Angel City waited ravenously for promised thrills.
As for the Angel City “Evening Booster” and “Evening Howler” and “Evening Roarer,” the situation confronting them was this: if they could connect the Bolshevik conspiracy in Southern Pacific University with the bomb explosion in Wall Street, they would have several hundred dollars’ additional sales; while if they failed to make the connection, they would lose this amount to some more clever rival. This being the case, it took the “Evening Howler” about one hour to remember that “The Investigator” had featured Harry Seager, and to ascertain from the agents of the American Defense League that at a recent mass-meeting this Seager had fiercely denounced the firm of Morgan and Company, and predicted a dire fate for them. So, in its third edition, on the streets about one o’clock, the “Evening Howler” told the world:
Bomb Foretold by Red AidPolice Seek Soviet Agent Here
Bomb Foretold by Red Aid
Police Seek Soviet Agent Here
That was taking a chance, as the headline writer of the “Evening Howler” would have admitted with a grin; but he knew his business, and sure enough, before the day was by, a war veteran came into the editorial office with confirmation. Two days ago he had ridden on a public stage with Harry Seager, and had got into conversation, and heard the sentence: “You mark my words and watch the papers, within three days you will read that the House of Morgan has paid for its crimes in this war.” It is only fair to the shell-shocked soldier to add that he may have been sincere in his statement, for it happened that the two men in their conversation had touched upon the Polish invasion of Russia, then at its height, and Seager had uttered the sentence, “You mark my words and watch the papers, within three days you will read that the Poles are back of where they are now.”
Prior to this incident, the office door of the Seager Business College had been chewed to a ragged edge by the chisels of detectives and other patriots breaking their way in at night; but on the night after this “bomb expose” they used an axe, and when Seager arrived in the morning he found every desk-drawer in the place, not merely his own, but the students’, dumped onto the floor, and trampled beneath the hob-nailed boots of patriotism. They had carted off, not merely Seager’s notes for his orations, but likewise the typewriting exercises of his students—and most damaging evidence they afforded, too, for Seager did not make his students write, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,”—no, siree, he gave them revolutionary propaganda that would send shivers down the spine of any patriot: “All men are created free and equal,” or, more desperate yet, “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Not many in Southern Pacific University seriously believed that their “student reds” had any responsibility for or even guilty knowledge of the Wall Street bomb explosion. But they knew that these silly fools had been misled by sinister men who quite possibly did have part in the plot, or anyhow were bad enough to have it. Also they knew that the fools had got the university in for a lot of hideous publicity. So the fools were badgered and browbeaten on every hand; they were summoned to the Dean’s office one by one and there racked and cross-questioned—and not merely by President Cowper and Dean Squirge, but by various stern gentlemen representing the district attorney and the city prosecutor and the federal secret service and the patriotic newspapers and the defense societies and the information service of the once-upon-a-time ambassador of a no-longer-existing Russian government.
When Bunny Ross realized that this was happening, there was another explosion. Being a rich man’s son, he was accustomed to having his rights, and more. So of the first of his questioners he demanded, “Who are you, and what brings you into this?”
“Now, Ross,” said Dean Squirge, “if there are evil men threatening our country’s welfare, you certainly do not wish to protect them.”
“It depends on what you mean by evil,” retorted Bunny. “If you mean men who are trying to tell the truth, I wish to protect them all I can.”
“All we want to know is, what you know about a man called Paul Watkins.”
So there it was; either Bunny must submit to being cross-questioned by detectives, or else he must have everybody decide that he was hiding some dark secrets about Paul. Said he: “Paul Watkins is my best friend. I have known him for seven or eight years. He is the straightest man I have ever known, bar none. He has come home sick, after a year and a half in the army in Siberia. He could claim an allowance from the government if he wasn’t too proud. What he did to me was to tell me what he saw with his own eyes, and I believe every word of it. And I am going to tell it to other people, inside the university or out, and no one is going to stop me.”
So that was that, and Bunny was excused for the present. They would tackle the less wealthy conspirators—beginning with Peter Nagle, most guilty of all, because his name had appeared on the paper as editor. Peter was commanded forthwith to recant his impoliteness to God, and he swore by God that he wouldn’t; so the “Evening Howler” carried a two-column head:
Student Red Let Out
And Peter grinned and said for the rest of the bunch not to worry, he was going into the plumbing business and get his revenge on society; and when he had made some money he would publish a paper of his own and kid the life out of God every week.
And then came the turn of Rachel Menzies. She had been warned by Bunny as to the secret agents, and had promised to give them a piece of her mind; but they had a way to break her nerve. Just what had been her father’s share in this conspiracy? They had ascertained that Papa Menzies had been born in Poland, and under the new deportation laws it didn’t matter what you believed or what you had done, they would cancel your naturalization papers, and grab you and ship you away, leaving your family behind to starve, if it so happened. You had no trial, and no recourse of any sort. And furthermore, if a man was dumped into Poland with the red tag on him these days, no trial was held and no questions were asked—he was stood against a wall and shot.
So there was Rachel, bursting into tears before these strangers and declaring that her father was a Socialist and not a Communist—as if that meant anything to any patriot! Hadn’t the Socialists been opposing the war right along? And wasn’t it a fact that the country had an attorney-general who was intriguing to get the nomination for president at the next Democratic convention, and was basing his claim to that distinction upon his valiant campaign to put down the red menace?
Rachel telephoned to Bunny, and he hopped into his car and paid a call on President Alonzo T. Cowper, D.D., Ph.D., LL.D., at that worthy’s private residence in the evening, contrary to the established etiquette of the university. He began by stating his own decision—he was willing to agree to make no more public “propaganda” during his stay in the university; but he wanted to add this, if the authorities permitted Mr. Menzies to suffer deportation as punishment for his daughter’s having written a review of a lecture—then he, Bunny Ross, was going on the war-path, and use some of his father’s money to blow things wide open before he quit Southern Pacific.
The reverend doctor’s round clerical face had grown rosy to the roots of his snow-white hair as he listened to this scarcely veiled blackmail. “Young man,” said he, “you seem to overlook the fact that the university authorities have nothing to do with the decisions of the United States government.”
“Dr. Cowper,” responded the young man, “I learned from my father to go to headquarters when I want things done. I know that if you tell these defense idiots that you want this matter dropped, they will drop it. And I want to say that while I have never met Mr. Menzies, I know his daughter, and she brought us his ideas at different times, and he believes in democracy and in educating the people—every bit of advice he sent us was along that line. He belongs to the right wing group among the Socialists, and is opposing the Bolsheviks in the movement. You must know enough about the situation to realize that that is not the sort of people we are supposed to be deporting.”
It turned out that Dr. Cowper really didn’t know that much, but was willing to learn. It was rather comical; underneath the indignation he was officially obliged to feel, the old gentleman had an unholy curiosity about these strange new ideas that had seduced his prize millionaire sophomore. So here was Bunny telling him about Paul Watkins, and about Harry Seager, what sort of people they were, and what they had seen in Siberia, and what they thought about it, and what Bunny thought. The doctor asked the most naive and childish questions, but he did try to understand, and Bunny gave him a complete lecture on Bolshevism versus Socialism lasting two hours. At the end the prize millionaire sophomore was sent away with a pat on the back, and the assurance that Papa Menzies would not be deported so long as he behaved himself; plus a solemn warning that whereas mature minds such as Dr. Cowper’s were equipped to deal with these dangerous new thoughts, the immature minds of the students were not to be trusted with them!
There was an interview to be had with Henrietta Ashleigh. It was not so painful as Bunny had feared, because she hid her grief under a cloak of dignity. “I am sorry, Arnold, but I am beginning to fear there is something in you that enjoys this crude notoriety.” Bunny tried to be humble and accept this rebuke, but he couldn’t; there was something in him that was bored by Henrietta’s ideas; and when you are bored, you can no longer keep up romantic imaginings about a girl.
And then the folks at home! First, Aunt Emma, horrified tearful, and completely muddled. Bunny had not got that prize after all! Aunt Emma had somehow got it fixed in her head that there had been a prize, and that Bunny might have got it if it had not been for the reds. This awful peril of Bolshevik agents, right in one’s home! Aunt Emma had heard hair-raising stories from lecturers to her club-ladies, but had never dreamed that these emissaries of Satan might be seducing her darling nephew! “Watch out, auntie!” said the nephew. “You may be next!”
And then Bertie. Bertie was just wild! She had been invited to a house-party of the very desirable Atherton-Stewarts, but now she would be ashamed to show her face among decent people. That was the way every time, no sooner did she achieve a social triumph, than Bunny came along and made one of his stinks. It was the most disgusting thing that could have happened, it showed his tastes were naturally low. Bertie and Bunny were quite fond of each other, and called each other violent names with true brotherly and sisterly frankness.
Finally Dad, who was a perfect brick; never said a word, nor asked a question, and when Bunny started to explain, he said, “That’s all right, son, I know just how it happened.” And that was true; he knew Paul and Harry Seager, he had been inside his boy’s mind. And he knew the tragedy of life, that each generation has to make its own mistakes.
The uproar died away surprisingly soon. In a few days Bunny’s class-mates were “joshing” him, it was all a joke. There was only one serious consequence, that Mr. Daniel Webster Irving received a letter from President Cowper, advising him in advance, as a matter of courtesy, that his contract with Southern Pacific University would not be renewed for next year. The instructor showed it to Bunny, with a dry smile; and Bunny was enraged, and wanted to blackmail the reverend doctor a second time. But Mr. Irving said to forget it, there were too many ways to make life miserable for a teacher who wasn’t wanted. He would file his references with the employment agencies, and write a lot of letters, and move on to pastures new. “That is,” he added, “assuming I can get something. They have a pretty tight organization, and I may find I’m blacklisted for good.”
“How do you suppose they got on to you, Mr. Irving?”
“It was bound to happen,” said the other. “They have so many spies.”
“But we have been so careful! We’ve never mentioned your name, except among our own little group!”
“They’ve probably got a spy right among you.”
“A student, you mean?”
“Of course.” And smiling at Bunny’s incredulity, Mr. Irving reached into his desk and pulled out a mimeographed sheet of paper. “This was handed to me by a business friend of mine,” he said.
It was one of the weekly bulletins of the “Improve America League,” a propaganda organization of the business men of Angel City. It explained how they had their agents at work in colleges and high schools, training students to watch their teachers and fellow students, and report any signs of the red menace. The league boasted its fund of a hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year for the next five years. So here was another chunk of reality, falling with a dull sickening thud upon the head of a young idealist! Bunny sat, running over in his mind the members of the little group. “Who could it be?”
Said Mr. Irving: “Some one who was very ‘red,’ you can be sure. That is how it works—a man is looking for something to report, and when it’s too slow making its appearance, he’s tempted to help it along. So the spy almost always becomes a provocateur. You can tell him by the fact that he talks a lot and does nothing—he can’t afford to have it said that he was a leader.”
“By God!” cried Bunny. “He promised to help us sell those papers, and then he didn’t show up!”
“Who is that?”
“Billy George. We never could be red enough to suit him! He was the cause of that fool poem of Peter Nagle’s going into the paper. And now he’s dropped clean out—he wasn’t mentioned in the scandal.”
Mr. Irving smiled. “Well, Ross, you’ve seen the white terror in action! You’ll find it helps you to understand world history. Fortunately, you’re rich, so it was just a joke. But don’t forget—if you’d been a poor Russian Jew in the slums, you’d be in jail now, with ten thousand dollars bail, and ten or twenty years in state’s prison for your destiny. If you had happened to live in Poland or Finland or Roumania, you and all your little bunch would have been buried in one muddy trench a week ago!”