CHAPTER IIITHE MASKED VISITOR
It was close upon noon on the following day when Captain Robert presented himself before the prisoners. He was eager and excited.
“Are you ready to receive the visit I spoke of last night?” he asked.
“Ah!” exclaimed Mortimer, with a slight show of interest, “is His Mightiness, your famous High President, here?”
“Yes,” replied Robert; “he arrived just before daylight and has been busy during the morning around the camp.”
“Arrived before daylight!” repeated Mortimer. “Your High President is an early traveler.”
“Those who come to this camp,” answered Robert gravely, “invariably arrive before daylight. I don’t think I’ll betray any very special information if I tell you in confidence that he was picked up at a distant point from here and arrived by air-ship.”
“That’s just what I surmised when you first spoke,” said Dean quickly.
“Then your surmise was quite correct,” replied Robert. “He arrived and he will leave by air-ship. Are you ready to receive him?”
Mortimer and the Professor both assented and Robert started for the cabin steps. But he stopped and again turned to them.
“I know nothing definitely,” he said, “but I strongly suspect the interview you are about to holdwill be a most important one. I have your welfare at heart. I beg you to receive the High President in the right spirit and to give due heed to his words.”
“I thank you,” said the Professor appreciatively.
“And I thank you,” exclaimed Mortimer, “but I’ve already had one unpleasant experience here. Your High President shall be received by us with due consideration and we will listen carefully to whatever he may have to say to us, provided the manner and language adopted are such as may be properly tolerated by a gentleman of the high scientific attainments of my friend, Professor Dean, and myself, as an officer of His Majesty, the King.”
“Ah,” exclaimed Robert enthusiastically, “you need have no fear on that score. Don’t for a moment compare the High President with anyone you have seen here. The High President is a man of the highest culture and of the highest calibre. He is the most God-like man who has lived since the days of Washington—a leader gifted with genius for organization, a patriot who seeks nothing except for his countrymen; brave, enterprising, resourceful, merciless when the occasion demands it, yet with a heart full of love for humanity—such is our High President. He will go down to posterity as the greatest patriot and leader of men of the centuries.”
Robert’s eyes blazed with enthusiasm as he spoke and his manner was full of earnestness.
“We will bear your words in mind,” said the Professor. “He is doubtless very worthy, since you estimate him so highly.”
“And you—what say you?” asked Robert, turning questioningly to Mortimer.
“I can hardly be expected to subscribe to your views,” answered Mortimer coldly, “inasmuch as I have reason to suspect the person to whom you referto be engaged in an organized and armed rebellion against the government and to be an enemy to the King.”
Robert stood for a moment looking sadly into Mortimer’s face and then, without another word, withdrew.
Some ten minutes later the door again opened and looking up they saw Robert. He stepped back, opened the door to its fullest extent and there appeared a man tall of stature and of massive physique. With movements which were remarkably rapid for one of such giant proportions, he passed down the cabin steps and stood before them.
Both Mortimer and Dean looked up with a start of astonishment.
Their visitor was masked.
“Greeting!” he exclaimed, as he stood facing them, using the common form of salutation of the day. Long ago the Professor had duly noted that the comparatively meaningless “Good-morning!” and “Good-day!” of the olden times had passed into disuse; as had also that almost pathetic expression at parting: “Good-bye!” They were as obsolete as the “Good-morrow!” of the eighteenth century. People now said “Greeting!” or “Salutations!” or “I salute you!” when they met and “Re-meeting!” when they parted—thereby intending to courteously convey the idea that they looked forward with anticipation and pleasure to again meeting the person from whom they were taking leave. “To our joyous re-meeting!” Surely a happier salutation than the old-time sad “Good-bye!”
“We greet you!” responded Mortimer, in turn using the customary form of salutation.
“I trust you have been well cared for,” continuedthe visitor, “and that your detention has been made as comfortable as circumstances would permit.”
“With the exception of a dastardly insult received from him who appears to be in chief command here,” replied Mortimer, flushing with anger at the recollections of the event, “we have received every kindness and courtesy.”
The visitor waved his hand deprecatingly.
“The matter has been reported to me,” he said, “and you may rely upon it that I have severely reprimanded the offender. Only the existence of an extraordinary exigency has prevented the summary removal of the officer. Such action, I beg to assure you, is entirely contrary to the spirit and rules of our organization.”
“Then I accept your explanation,” answered Mortimer. “I’ll only hold the man himself responsible for his act. Let us put that matter aside and pass on to other subjects. I wish to know what is this organization assembled here that has dared to hold in detention my friend and myself, both in the service of His Majesty, the King.”
The visitor threw back his head proudly and answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“You may have experienced some reticence on that subject from those about you,” he said, “for it is well that subordinates should be trained to caution and to secrecy, but I have no hesitation in satisfying your inquiry. You are prisoners by the right of Might—the paramount right in the affairs of this world—and the body to which you are prisoners is the Federated Nihilists of America.”
“Ah, Nihilists!” exclaimed Mortimer.
“Yes,” was the reply; “commonly but very inaccurately referred to by you of the Court as ‘Reactionists.’”
“And you,” said Mortimer; “you are the High President?”
“I am the High President.”
There was a momentary pause and Mortimer again spoke.
“Then, may I ask of you,” he said, “as the head of this organization, what are your plans concerning us? Is this detention to last indefinitely, or have you any terms to offer us?”
“Let us be seated,” answered the High President. “I have much to say to you and much may depend upon our conference. I see that you have smoking materials on the table. Pray smoke, if it please you, and if you think it will add calmness and wisdom to our deliberations.”
Professor Dean had thus far not uttered a single word. There was a strange straining and puzzling going on in his mind. Certain accents in the voice of the High President struck upon his ear with a strange familiarity. Where before had he heard that voice? Was it among some of those whom he had recently met, or was it merely a resemblance conveying a suggestion of his former life—of the long ago?
They took their seats about the table and faced each other for a moment. Then the High President spoke.
“As I have told you,” he said, “this body is known as the Federated Nihilists of America—a body which you, Captain Mortimer, have doubtless now and again vaguely heard referred to as ‘The Reactionists.’ Nothing could be more inaccurate, or misleading, than this term, inasmuch as the entire spirit of our organization is directly opposed to reaction. The royalists call us ‘Reactionists’ because they believe our aim is to upset the monarchical establishmentand revert to the former Republic. Nothing could be more wrong, and I say to you frankly that between the Monarchy of to-day and the old-time Republic, as it existed prior to the crowning of the first American King, the Monarchy is the better institution.”
“If you admit that,” said Mortimer argumentatively, “what is it you seek to attain?”
“That which the title of our organization implies,” replied the High President. “We style ourselves Nihilists and, as you know, the word Nihil is from the Latin and signifies ‘Nothing.’ First, existing institutions must be wiped out—reduced to nothing—before we can build up the new. Our aim is to extinguish—to annihilate—to destroy—not only the existing monarchy, not only all relics and customs which have been handed down to us from the Republic preceding that monarchy, but all existing institutions. We regard these existing institutions as so unsatisfactory, so corrupt, so vile that it would be a useless task to seek to better them. You will never reach a given point, no matter how you may press onward or take turns to the right or to the left, if you are on entirely the wrong road. So it is with existing institutions. The conditions are so utterly and hopelessly wrong that it is a useless task to seek to improve them. The only recourse is to wipe everything out and build up entirely anew.”
“Wasn’t that idea formulated in Russia a long time ago?” asked Mortimer thoughtfully.
“The idea was agitated in Russia over a century ago,” replied the High President, “and its advocates prosecuted in a more or less crude and barbarous fashion their ideas and their plans. It does not follow that because an idea is old, it is devoid of merit. On the contrary, nearly all the great ideas and movementsin this world have been in existence a long time—have been old—before the world has finally accepted them. The soil of Russia, however, never was a suitable soil for the cultivation of the plant of Liberty. Here in the broad, free American air, Liberty will flourish and give to mankind a new and happier era. Our Nihilism, while founded upon the same basic principle, is in its practical workings upon a far more scientific foundation. It is a Nihilism brought down to the requirements and the civilization of the twentieth century.”
“And you really think this Nihilism of yours, with its Russian origin and its later-day modifications and improvements as worked out by you, better for the American people than the Monarchy?” asked Mortimer.
“Undoubtedly,” answered the High President. “The American atmosphere and the genius of the American people are not really suited to a monarchy, although thanks to the trend of peculiar circumstances those forces here which favor that form of government—and I will admit they are by no means few or lacking in influence and power—have for the time being the upper hand. The real mission, however, of Americans, with all their faults and foibles, is to teach the world at large new and greater forms of liberty and human happiness, ever growing grander and greater throughout the successive cycles of time.”
“And you think your Nihilism better suited for the American people than a republic, such as that which was supplanted by the present Monarchy?” said Professor Dean, who had been an attentive listener and who now for the first time joined in the conversation. “Ah, sir, I have heard you refer with striking disparagement to that Republic. I would gladly have you give some reasons for these views!”
“Bah!” exclaimed the High President contemptuously, “the old-time Republic, eh! Could anything more evil, corrupt, hypocritical, farcical and criminal exist under the sun than that old-time Republic of yours? All modern thinkers, writers and sociologists are agreed as to that. You have heard me say that of the two the present monarchy was the better institution, and I spoke advisedly.”
“What—what!” stammered the Professor, fairly taken aback at the directness and violence of the attack. “Your reasons, sir—your reasons!”
“Reasons?” repeated the High President. “They will not be hard to give. To-day we have only one King. He is great and rich and powerful, so much so that he need seek no further self-advantages but may rest content with all that which is his. He need have an eye only to the welfare of his nation and his people. We have an aristocracy, too; also great and rich, so much so that they can well afford to lay self-interest aside and seek public life with a view solely to the greater glory of their country. There are exceptions to this, of course, but I speak of our aristocracy as a class. Then, too, our aristocrats of to-day have been aristocrats for a sufficient time to be at least free from the shortcomings, the arrogance and the vices which have ever marked theparvenu. Now let us look at the old-time Republic!”
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed the Professor, bending forward in his eagerness.
“The old-time Republic,” continued the High President, “had not one king but many. You had not a monarch—serene and majestic, clothed in the royal purple, bearing the sceptre and crown and surrounded by the glitter and the glory of an imperial court. Instead, the land was divided up among a parcel of little rulers—men mostly of low originand ignoble ideals—who really exercised kingly power. Take your proud Empire State of New York—a state as broad, as rich and as populous as some of the great empires of Europe. Two little kings reigned there—the one, a small, shrivelled, old man who divided his time between the handling of parcels and the pulling of political wires; the other a beetle-browed, sullen ruler, whose brutal hands, reeking with crime and corruption, were ever stretched forth to grasp further plunder.”
“By heaven!” exclaimed Mortimer, “was it really as bad as that!”
“I am quoting to you almost literally from the chronicles of the times,” replied the High President. “These two little kings absolutely ruled the state between them. It was at their royal behest that governors were nominated and elected, legislators selected and judges put upon the bench. When any opposition to their respective rules appeared to threaten them, they promptly joined forces, fought shoulder to shoulder and, under prearranged agreement, divided the subsequent plunder. Behind them was an armed banditti of many thousand men, known as a police force and supposed to be organized for the protection and enforcement of law and order. As a matter of fact, this force was nothing less than an organized body of ravishers and despoilers, preying upon the people and levying tribute right and left. It is safe to say that the operations of all the banditti since the beginning of the Christian era, nor any invading army, ever equaled in the amount of loot secured the operations of the force I speak of which stood behind these two kings.”
“Well, well,” exclaimed Mortimer; “things must have been pretty bad in your Republic, Professor!”
Dean lowered his eyes as one who is ashamed.
“There is much that is correct in all this,” he said; “much that I cannot truthfully contradict. But proceed.”
“Aye, and proceed I will,” replied the High President stoutly. “The aristocracy which surrounded these kings—that is, the men who formed their courts and helped to administer the public affairs—were in many instances vulgar publicans; men who derived their incomes by the maintenance of groggeries and low dancing houses, or worse—gamblers, touts, and a sprinkling of ex-convicts and little lawyers. Such was the aristocracy and the environment of these kings—the men who really ruled the land. I have spoken so far of the proud Empire State of New York. If you turn to the East or to the South, the middle country or the West, you will find that much the same conditions prevailed. Deny it, if you can!”
“I think,” protested the Professor, “that your criticism is, perhaps, directed into too narrow channels and that it treats too much of certain phases of mere partisan, or local politics.”
“But was not each State sovereign and independent,” retorted the High President, “and did not each State make its own laws and govern itself generally? Then, too, how was the Federal government itself made up except from the combined selections of the different States?”
“Still,” persisted the Professor, “I think that your criticism might be directed toward more broad and general conditions of our national life.”
“That, too, I will do since you have demanded it,” replied the High President. “Let us go back to the days of almost primeval man. What did the chief of the tribe, or band, do? He parcelled out the best of the plunder, or possessions, among his strongestfighting men, or else among the priests, or medicine men, or whoever was equally powerful with the fighting men in his particular way. Take it again in feudal England. What did the feudal Kings do there after the Norman Conquest? They divided the best lands of the country among the powerful Barons who formed their Court. And so it was in your Republic. The good things of the land—the great public franchises—were all parcelled out to these modern feudal Barons who waxed fat and built their wealth into the millions upon that which had been given them at the expense of the people.”
“But there were, I remember, various objections raised,” said the Professor, “to any other course being adopted—such as government ownership.”
“Objections!” exclaimed the High President contemptuously; “objections can be raised to anything. The murderer doubtless has his objections to the gallows and the thief strongly objects to the jail. There was at least one shining example of government ownership in those days. Was there anything so reliable or so admirably administered as the public mails—entirely conducted by the government? How is it possible in a true Republic to contemplate that which belongs to the public being given away for the benefit and enrichment of the few and the public correspondingly robbed to that extent.”
“And yet,” remarked the Professor, “in spite of these criticisms which you make, it seemed to be generally admitted that our people under the Republic had better reason to be contented than the people of any other nation on the face of the globe.”
“And so they had the right to expect to be,” retorted the High President, “but surely what you advance is no argument. Ought the people here to be satisfied merely because they are comparativelybetter off than the people of Scandinavia and the people of Scandinavia in turn be well content because they are comparatively better off than the people of the interior of China? But let us look further into the question as to how well the people under the Republic were contented. Were they really contented, or did they individually accept existing conditions because they could discover no particular way of changing them? Do you think that the average man among the great masses of the people was satisfied to work all his life for a pittance which was insufficient in most instances to fully furnish him, year in and year out, with the actual necessaries of life and see another man, of the same clay as himself, who could afford to squander aimlessly in one day upon an old bit of cracked porcelain, a piece of painted canvas, or some drab of the footlights, whose complexion was as false as her soul, as much money as that other man earned in a lifetime. And yet the one man was, perhaps, fully as well endowed physically and mentally as the other and the life work of the one was fully as useful to the community as the work of the other. Why, then, this awful disparity? Do you know, too, that statistics show that of ten adults dying under your vaunted Republic, nine went out of this world subjects for Potter’s Field? I do not mean by this that they were actually so interred, for the love and respect of friends who lent their aid usually saved them from this, but I do mean that nine out of ten died without leaving sufficient behind them, after a lifetime of honest, unremitting toil, to actually pay their burial expenses.”
“I was unaware of that,” said the Professor, “and it certainly is a shocking disclosure.”
“Shocking, indeed!” retorted the High President. “I do not think there is any disputing that. Anddo you believe that the people were satisfied on the land question? It does not require any great depth of learning in political economy to know that the source of all wealth is the land. All that which we have is either taken from the earth, or else is grown upon or fed from the surface of the earth. Is it to be believed that God put the minerals, the oil, the coal into the earth for the benefit of an exclusive few, or that he put them there for the joint and common benefit of the masses of mankind? Did He make the surface of the earth fruitful and send the showers and the sunshine, which alone enable it to fructify, for the benefit of a chosen few, or for the common benefit of all? That the former was the case seems to have been the theory which prevailed under the Republic, for we find that the great bulk of the land was owned by the comparative few. Do you think the masses of the great cities were individually satisfied that acre upon acre of city blocks should be owned by certain families to whom all those dwelling in those blocks paid a heavy rent tribute year in, year out—a tribute amounting upon an average from one-fourth to one-third of the total income earned? What substantial difference was there between this and mediæval feudalism? And what did those land-cornerers do with the vast surplus sums accumulated from the tribute wrung from those rent slaves? The chronicles show that they cast about them for communities as yet in their incipiency but presenting possibilities of growing into populous centres of activity. In these growing communities, these land-gluttons bought up the best portions of realty, which they let lie for the time being, unused and unimproved, paying merely the low tax imposed upon unimproved property. The community was built up by the enterprise, the labor and the efforts of the masses; it grewinto a city and became populous; its land became valuable. When their vacant lots had acquired value through the efforts of the people—efforts in which they had in no way participated—these land-cornerers put up structures and proceeded with the old game of levying the rent tribute. If ever there was an instance of unjust enrichment, it was this.”
The Professor remained thoughtfully silent.
“Talk not to me of the old-time Republic,” continued the High President; “it died because of its innate rottenness—because of the apathy of its people—and the littleness and corruption of its public men. Look at the infamous record of your Food Trusts, which forced up the prices of many articles of food so that they were beyond the reach of the great mass of the poorer people. Contemplate the Coal Trust, whose directing powers first advanced, under the Republic, the hitherto exclusively monarchical claim of Divine Right, and proceeded to manipulate the coal supply so that citizens of the Republic were frozen to death, while thousands of unknown and unrecorded others undoubtedly perished from diseases incurred as a result of insufficient warmth. The unfortunate poor might have derived a little benefit by burning oil, but what did the eminent citizen of that day do who, while not claiming to be God’s anointed, yet had contrived to absorb all the oil of the country? Why, he promptly took advantage of the situation and raised the price of oil. It is true that at the same time he, with reckless generosity, contributed some ten thousand dollars to a benevolent enterprise, but in the meantime he had pocketed a cool million by the advancement of the price of his commodity. Here was a million wrung out of the sufferings of God’s poor and a sop of ten thousand dollars thrown out to hoodwink and propitiatethe Almighty. What must have been the Deity’s sentiments over this estimate of the financial perspicacity which sought to deceive him by such a ruse—a ruse which would have been apparent to the intelligence of the dullest office-boy employed in a commercial institution!”
“All those events were duly criticised at the time,” murmured the Professor, “and came in for their share of censure.”
“Criticism—censure!” exclaimed the High President with disgust. “But what did the people do? Did they seize upon those who withheld the food and the warmth and rush them to public execution, as did the people of France with their oppressing nobles in the days of the great French Revolution? No; they did nothing! They waited and stared and suffered like dumb cattle driven to the shambles. And the public men of the day? They conferred a good deal and they even threatened a little, but—it was a very respectful threatening in the face of Mighty Capital. The Chief Magistrate of the Nation in that day was a man still young—a man strong, vigorous and bold, who had filled various public offices ably and well and had proved himself a brave soldier in the field. He was the people’s idol and the people’s hope. There was food in plenty to be had from other lands, but it was shut out from the people’s use by an exorbitant protective tariff. Remove this tariff and food would have flooded in upon the people in boundless store and the corner in Monopoly and Death have been crushed out of existence in a week. Congress held the vested right to do whatsoever might be necessary for the welfare or safety of the people and a ringing message, couched in his old-time, fearless form, from this Chief Magistrate would have set the people throughout the lengthand breadth of the land ablaze with enthusiasm. It would have put him beyond the power of any clique or party, and would have exalted him to the highest pinnacle of popular idolatry as the man of the hour, the people’s choice! His party would not have dared to say him nay, for individually and alone he would have stood stronger than his party. It was an opportunity such as rarely comes to a ruler. But the voice of the cautious counselors surrounding him in his exalted station whispered in his ear: ‘You have been accused of being too bold, as lacking in conservatism. Do not frighten, or attack, the great money interests—those representing the sacred and vested Rights of Capital—lest in their fear they turn and destroy you!’ And he hearkened to this counsel. It is true, I believe, that a measure was finally passed temporarily admitting foreign coal free of tariff charge, but this measure came too late. The President’s brave heart bled for the people, but his old-time fearlessness forsook him and he failed them. And when he so failed them, the last hope of the Republic went out. The Republic was doomed. The shadows of Plutocracy and of Monarchy lowered over the land!”
“And the Monarchy which came was an improvement, you consider, upon the Republic which preceded?” asked the Professor.
“At least in this respect,” answered the High President, “that under a monarchy we may reasonably look for class distinction, for great wealth on the one side and for great poverty on the other, but in a true Republic, one worthy of the name, such distinction is as unnatural as it is iniquitous.”
“Ah, now you are about to criticise the Monarchy, I suspect!” exclaimed Mortimer. “But, pray tellme, is your Nihilism going to cure all these evils you have portrayed?”
“You speak of Nihilism,” answered the High President gravely, “as if it were the beginning and end of the entire programme. As a matter of fact, Nihilism is only the beginning. As I have told you, we must first wipe out existing institutions so that we may properly build up a new Commonwealth, or Republic, founded upon the abolition of industrial slavery, the brotherhood of man and the more equal apportionment of benefits to the race.”
“But you spoke particularly of the evils of individual land ownership,” persisted Mortimer. “Would you under your scheme do away with that?”
“I undoubtedly would,” answered the High President. “It seems to me a proposition beyond argument that God created the land and all within it for the benefit of mankind in general and not for the benefit of a given few. The land should no more be owned individually than the air, or the seas. It should be the property of all and inure to the benefit of all—in a word, belong to the State. Those using land, either urban or agricultural, should lease from the State and pay the rent tribute to the State and the benefits of the land—created by God for all—would thus inure to the benefit of all.”
“Would not this tend to accumulate,” suggested the Professor, “too vast sums in the hands of the State—sums so vast that there would constantly be a stringency of money and a consequent business paralysis?”
“The answer to that,” replied the High President, “is that the State could by magnificent public improvements and in a hundred other ways find means of rapidly disposing of any such surplus it might acquire. It could, if necessary, pay out dividends toits citizens, as the big corporations do to their share-holders. This objection you have advanced and a thousand others, will ever be urged to any change looking to an improvement of things. The people thus opposing will be found describing their opposition as Conservatism. The true definition of a Conservatism is a man very well-off, who finds things pre-eminently satisfactory for him as they are and is, therefore, opposed to any change. Priestcraft, when it held communities and nations under its subjection, the feudal barons, emperors, kings and modern plutocrats—these, all these, you will find to have been staunch advocates of Conservatism. Did you ever reflect,” continued the High President, “upon the inequality and injustice of existing laws of property ownership? When a man composes an opera, or indites a book of poems, or writes a novel, or devises some new and useful invention, he plays the part of a creator. Out of his own brain alone that production has evolved. It did not exist before he gave it birth and the world is so much the richer. If ever a man can be said to have a proprietary right in anything, it is to that property which actually was evolved from and created by himself alone. Yet, in the case of an author, or composer, the Law protects him in that property right for only twenty-eight years, and in the case of the inventor for only seventeen years. After that, their respective productions pass into the public domain—become public property. But the man who for a mere trifle acquires a tract, or parcel, of land—which he certainly had no part in creating or putting there—and holds it while a city builds about him and the land is made valuable by the presence and the efforts of the community at large—that man owns that land in perpetuity; it is the property of him and his heirs forever. And the Law itself!What a monstrous combination of illogical deduction and of systematic injustice! The Law! Five years required to adjudicate a case which would be sufficiently disposed of in as many hours under any modern system of businesslike administration—the Law which can only be invoked under conditions of expense absurdly disproportionate to the results. Just think of a system which is supposed to adjudicate and do substantial justice between man and man and yet which nine men out of ten in the community will tell you means ruin to resort to! The Law in its methods of procedure is a century, or more, behind the times and the learned and time-honored profession of the Law is, in reality, the profession of the modern highwayman. There is no form of modern evil which more seriously demands the application of the principles of Nihilism than the Law as it to-day exists!”
“And if your New Republic could be established,” asked Mortimer, “you would be in favor of ruthlessly despoiling all the present land owners of their holdings and escheating these holdings to the State?”
“That need not necessarily be done,” answered the High President. “It would be no very difficult matter to assess the land at a fair valuation and for the State to pay to the owners thereof a given annual percentage for say fifty years to come, subject to certain qualifications. This would result in eventually reimbursing to the owners far more than they had originally expended and would give them ample time to accommodate themselves to the new condition of things. Of course, manifold objections, both technical and financial, will be urged to the feasibility of this plan—especially by those with tendencies to Conservatism—but I apprehend there are no obstaclesto its successful execution which cannot be overcome and it would certainly be immeasurably superior to the present system. With public franchises and the Nation’s land thus inuring to the benefit of the whole people, the possibility of building up fortunes of two hundred and three hundred millions, or even of eight or ten millions, would be done away with. Surely this would be no misfortune!”
“But,” said the Professor, “I have heard the objection raised to plans of this nature that their adoption would tend to lessen competitive activity and deaden men’s energy and ambition generally.”
“The objection is ill-founded,” replied the High President. “If the maximum which a man might hope to attain were fixed at one million, or less, men would strive just as zealously for the fixed amount as they would when the possibilities are unlimited. As it is now, money makes money. It is not so much the billionaire himself who earns as the sheer weight of money behind him which accomplishes. He is not called upon to exercise any particular creative effort on his part and, worst of all, he handicaps the efforts of others more worthy. In any event, the guiding spirit of our New Republic will be the happiness and welfare of the many, as against the particular interests and privileges of the few.”
“You have compared the old-time Republic adversely with the existing Monarchy,” said the Professor, with whom this seemed to be a sore point, “yet from the little I have learned it seems to me that the wrongs of the masses are as great under the monarchy as ever they were under the Republic.”
“To what phase do you refer in particular?” asked the High President.
“To the matter of their general welfare,” replied the Professor. “For instance, I understand that thecoal supply is to be cornered this winter and immeasurable want and suffering inflicted broadcast.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the High President quickly, “thank God that necessity will be obviated!”
“Indeed! How so?”
“There have been new developments recently,” replied the High President. “Matters have perfected themselves more rapidly than was anticipated. There will be no necessity to wait until next winter. The hour has come! The New Republic is at hand!”
“The New Republic is at hand!” repeated Mortimer, smiling. “Why, you speak of this New Republic of yours almost as if it were an accomplished fact!”
“So nearly an accomplished fact,” replied the High President, “that within ten days it will be here!”
The words were uttered gravely and impressively. They carried a strange conviction.
For a moment Mortimer sat silent, staring at the speaker. Then he leaned forward in his chair.
“And the King—the existing form of government!” he exclaimed.
“A thing of the past—overthrown!”
“This is preposterous!” cried Mortimer, a wave of anger flushing his brow. “I see you surrounded by certain evidences of preparation and power, otherwise your words would seem to me but idle vaporings. I believe that you are engaged in an armed conspiracy against the government, but that it will be successful I do not for an instant believe. And,” he added with biting sarcasm, as his anger rose, “it is indeed typical of the strength and character of your organization when its admitted head does not dare to discourse sedition and treason in the presence of an officer ofthe King save in closest concealment and with masked face!”
The High President started slightly; then proudly raised his head:
“My life is of value, not so much to me, as to the cause I serve,” he said. “In all movements of this character certain precautions are essential. But the hour of precaution is well-nigh past and is certainly no longer needed with you whom we safely hold in our keeping. I came to you thus disguised, because I desired to speak to you simply as the head of this organization. I deemed it best, until I had secured your decision on a matter I shall present to you soon. But since this mask is made the means of a taunt to our organization, I will remove it and meet you man to man.”
As the High President ceased speaking, he raised his hands to the mask and rapidly loosened the strings.
Suddenly the obscuring mists rolled aside from the Professor’s brain, and before the mask had fairly been removed from the High President’s features, he sprang to his feet with the cry:
“General Mainwarren!”