Jimmie Higgins Part 23

III

Man is a gregarious animal, and it is a fundamental law of his being that when a group of his fellows are doing a certain thing, and doing it with energy and fervour, anyone who does not do it, who does not share the mood of energy and fervour shall be the object of ridicule and anger, shall feel within his own heart confusion and distress. This is true, even if the group is doing nothing more worthwhile than making itself drunk. How much more shall it be when it is engaged in making the world safe for democracy!

The only way the man can save himself is by holding before his mind the belief that he is right, and that some day this will be recognized; in other words, by appealing to some other group of men, who in some future time will applaud him. If he is sure of this future applause, he can manage to stand the jeers for the moment.

But how when he begins to doubt--when his mind is haunted by the possibility that the men of the future may agree with those of the present, who are learning to march in unison, and to poke bayonets into the bodies of Huns!

One of the things which brought this destructive doubt to Jimmie's soul was the sight of Emil Forster, learning to march and to poke.

Emil had been one of his heroes, Emil knew a hundred times as much as he--and Emil was going to the war! The squad marched away to the City hall across the square, and deposited its rifles in a room in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and then Emil came out, and Jimmie went up to him. The young carpet-designer of course was delighted to meet his old friend, and asked him to go to lunch. As they walked along the street together Jimmie asked what it meant, and Emil answered: "It means that I have made up my mind."

"You're going to fight the German people?"

"Strange as you'll think it, I'm going to fight them for their own good. Bebel wrote in his memoirs that the way to get democratic progress in autocratic countries is through military defeat; and it seems up to America to provide this defeat for Germany."

"But--you were preaching just the opposite!"

"I know; it makes me feel foolish sometimes. But things have changed, and there's no sense in shutting your eyes to facts."

Jimmie waited.

"Russia, more especially," continued Emil, answering the unspoken question. "What's the use of getting Socialism, if you're just throwing yourself down for a military machine to run over you?

You're playing the fool, that's all--and you have to see it. What hope is there for Russia now?"

"There's the German Socialists."

"Well, they just didn't have the power, that's all. What's more, we have to face the fact that a lot of them aren't really revolutionists--they're politicians, and haven't dared to stand out against the crowd. Anyhow, whatever the reason is, they didn't save their own country, and they didn't save Russia. They certainly can't expect us to give them a third chance--it costs too much."

"But then," argued Jimmie, "ain't we doin' just what we blame them for doin'--turnin' patriots, supportin' a capitalist government?"

"When you're supporting a government," replied Emil, "it make's a lot of difference what use its making of your support. We all know the faults of our government, but we know too that the people can change it when enough of them get ready, and that makes a real difference. I've come to realize that if we give the Kaiser a beating, the German people will kick him out, and then we can talk sense to them."

IV

They walked along for a bit in silence, Jimmie trying to a.s.similate these ideas. They were new--not in the sense that he had not heard them before, but in the sense that he had not heard them from a German. "How does your father feel?" he asked at last.

"He hasn't changed," replied the other. "And that makes it pretty hard--it's all we can do to keep from quarrelling. He's old, and new ideas don't come to him easily. Yet you'd think he'd be the first to see it--his father was one of the old revolutionists, he was put in jail in Dresden. I don't suppose you know much about the history of Germany."

"No," said Jimmie.

"Well, in those days the German people tried to get free, and they were put down by the troops, and the real revolutionists were driven into exile. Some of them came over here--like my grandfather. But, you see, their children have forgotten about their wrongs--they look back on Germany now, and think of it sentimentally, as it's pictured in the stories and songs--a sort of Christmas-tree Germany. They don't know about the Germany that's grown up--the Germany of iron and coal kings, that combines all the cruelty of feudalism with modern efficiency and science--the Beast with the Brains of an Engineer!"

They walked on, Emil lost in thought. "You know," he broke out, suddenly, "this war has been a revelation to me--the most horrible you could imagine. It's as if you loved a woman, and saw her go insane before your eyes, or turn into some sort of degenerate. For I believed in the Christmas-tree Germany; I loved it, and I argued for it, I just couldn't bring myself to believe what I read in the papers. Now I look back, and it seems like a trap that the German war-lords had set for my mind--reaching way over here into America, and making me think what they wanted me to! Perhaps I've gone to the other extreme--I find I distrust everything that's German. Father accused me of it last night; he was singing an old German song that says that when you hear men singing you may lie down in peace, for bad men have no songs. And I reminded him that the nation which taught that idea had marched into Belgium singing!"

"Gee!" exclaimed Jimmie. He could imagine how old Hermann Forster had taken that remark!

The young carpet-designer smiled, rather sadly. "He says it's because I've put on khaki. But the truth is, I'd been full of these thoughts, and all at once they came to a head. I was drafted, and I had to make up my mind one way or the other. I decided I'd fight--and then, when I'd decided, I wanted to get into it right away." Emil paused, and looked at his friend and asked, "What about you?"

Jimmie, of course, was a draft-evader, one of the hated "slackers".

Ordinarily, he would have told Emil, and the two of them would have grinned. But now Emil was in khaki, Emil was a patriot; perhaps it would not be wise to trust him entirely! "They haven't got me yet,"

said Jimmie; and then, "I ain't so sure as I used to be, but I ain't ready to be a soldier--I dunno's I could stand bein' bossed like that fellow does it."

Emil laughed. "Don't you suppose I want to learn?"

"But does he need to call you names?"

"That's part of the game--n.o.body minds that. He's putting the pep into us--and we want it in."

Jimmie found that such a new point of view that he didn't know what to reply.

"You see," the other went on, "if you really want to fight, you go in for it; it's quite remarkable how your feelings change. You imagine yourself in the presence of the enemy, and you know your success depends on discipline; if there's a leader, and especially if you feel that he knows his business, you're glad to have him to teach you, to make the whole machine do what you want it to. I know it sounds funny from me, but I've learnt to love discipline." And Emil laughed, a nervous laugh. "This army means business, let me tell you; and it's got right down to it. They've been fighting three and a half years over in Europe, and they send their best men over to show us, and we dig in and learn--I tell you, we work as if the devil was after us!"

V

It sounded so strange to hear things like this from the lips of Emil Forster! Jimmie could hardly make them real to himself--the world was slipping from under his feet. The Socialist movement was being seduced--won over by the militarists! He didn't quite dare to say this; but he hinted, cautiously, "Ain't you afraid maybe we'll get used to fightin'--to discipline and all that? Maybe they'll trick us--the plutes."

"I know," said the other. "I've thought of that, and I've no doubt they'll try it--they want universal training for that very purpose.

We have to fight them, that's all; we have to fight right now--to make clear why we're going into this war. We have to hold it before the people--that this is a war to bring democracy to the whole world. If we can fix that in people's minds, the imperialists won't have a look in."

"If you could do it, of course--" began Jimmie, hesitatingly.

"But we ARE doing it!" cried Emil. "We're doing it day by day. Look at this strike here in Leesville."

"What strike?"

"Didn't you know there'd been another walk-out in the Empire Shops?"

"No, I didn't."

"The men went out, and the government sent an arbitration commission, and forced both sides to accept an award. They broke old Granitch down--made him recognize the union and grant the basic eight-hour day."

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Jimmie. It was the thing for which he had stood up in the Empire yards and been cursed by young Lacey Granitch; it was the thing for which he had been sent to jail and devoured by lice! And now the government had helped the men to win their demand!

It was the first time--literally the first in Jimmie's whole life--that he had been led to think of the government as something else than an enemy and a slave-driver.

"How did Granitch take it?" he asked.

"Oh, awful! He threatened to quit, and let the government run his plant; but when he found the government was perfectly willing, he dropped his bluff. And look here--here's something else." Emil reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a newspaper clipping. "Ashton Chalmers went to a banquet at some bankers' convention the other day and made a speech to them. Read this."