The Conquest of America Part 21

"We all make mistakes. I do nothing but make mistakes, but I'm sorry.

I have said hard things about public men, especially about German-Americans, but I'm sorry."

With a n.o.ble gesture he turned to Bernard Ridder, who sprang to meet him, his eyes blazing with loyalty.

"There are no German-Americans!" shouted Ridder. "We're all Americans!

Americans!"

He clasped Roosevelt's hand while the audience shouted its delight.

Quick on his feet came Charles Edward Russell, fired with the same resistless patriotism.

"There are no more socialists!" he cried. "No more proletariat! We're all Americans! We'll all fight for the Union and the old flag! _You too!_"

He turned to William Jennings Bryan, who rose slowly and with outstretched hands faced his adversaries.

"I, too, have made mistakes and I am sorry. I, too, feel the grandeur of those n.o.ble words spoken by that great patriot who has sent us his last message. I, too, will stand by the flag in this time of peril and will spare neither my life nor my fortune so long as the invader's foot rests on the soil of free America."

"Americans!" shouted Roosevelt, the sweat streaming from his face.

"Look!" He caught Bryan by one arm and Russell by the other. "See how we stand together. All the rest is forgotten. Americans! Brothers! On your feet everybody! Yell it out to the whole land, to the whole world, America is awake! Thank G.o.d, America is awake!"

CHAPTER XXII

ON CHRISTMAS EVE BOSTON THEILLS THE NATION WITH AN ACT OF MAGNIFICENT HEROISM

Now all over America came a marvellous spiritual awakening. The sacrifice of the President's n.o.ble life, and his wife's thrilling effort to shield her husband, was not in vain. Once more the world knew the resistless power of a martyr's death. Women and men alike were stirred to warlike zeal and a joy in national sacrifice and service. The enlistment officers were swamped with a crush of young and old, eager to join the colours; and within three days following the President's a.s.sa.s.sination a million soldiers were added to the army of defence and a million more were turned away. It was no longer a question how to raise a great American army, but how to train and equip it, and how to provide it with officers.

Most admirable was the behaviour of the great body of German-Americans; in fact it was a German-American branch of the American Defence Society, financed in America, that started the beautiful custom, which became universal, of wearing patriotic b.u.t.tons bearing the sacred words: _"The Union! The Flag!"_

"It was one thing," wrote Bernard Ridder in the Chicago _Staats-Zeitung_, "for German-Americans to side with Germany in the great European war (1914-1919) when only our sympathies were involved. It is quite a different thing for us now in a war that involves our homes and our property, all that we have in the world. When Germany attacks America, she attacks German-Americans, she attacks us in our material interests, in our fondest a.s.sociations; and we will resist her just as in 1776 the American colonists, who were really English, resisted England, the mother country, when she attacked them in the same way."

I was impressed by the truth of this statement during a visit that I made to Milwaukee, where I found greatly improved conditions. In fact, German-Americans themselves were bringing to light the activities of German spies and vigorously opposing German propaganda.

In Allentown, Pennsylvania, which has a large German population, I heard of a German-American mother named Roth, who was so zealous in her loyalty to the United States that she rose at five o'clock on the day following the President's a.s.sa.s.sination and enlisted her three sons before they were out of bed.

In Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland and other cities women volunteered by thousands as postmen, street-car conductors, elevator operators and for service in factories and business houses, so as to release the men for military service. Chicago newspapers printed pictures of Mrs. Harold F. McCormick, Mrs. J. Ogden Armour, Mrs. J. Clarence Webster and other prominent society women in blue caps and improvised uniforms, ringing up fares on the Wabash Avenue cars for the sake of the example they would set to others.

In San Francisco, Denver, Portland, Oregon, Omaha, and Salt Lake City a hundred thousand women, at gatherings of women's clubs and organisations, formally joined the Women's National War Economy League and pledged themselves as follows:

"We, the undersigned American women, in this time of national need and peril, do hereby promise:

"(1) To buy no jewelry or useless ornaments for one year and to contribute the amount thus saved (from an average estimated allowance) to the Women's National War Fund.

"(2) To buy only two hats a year, the value of said hats not to exceed ten dollars, and to contribute the amount thus saved (from an average estimated allowance) to the Women's National War Fund.

"(3) To buy only two dresses a year, the value of said dresses not to exceed sixty dollars, and to contribute the amount thus saved (from an average estimated allowance) to the Women's National War Fund.

"(4) To forego all entertaining at restaurants, all formal dinner and luncheon parties and to contribute the amount thus saved (from an average estimated allowance) to the Women's National War Fund.

"(5) To abstain from c.o.c.ktails, highb.a.l.l.s and all expensive wines, also from cigarettes, to influence husbands, fathers, brothers, sons and men friends to do the same, and to contribute the amount thus saved to the Women's National War Fund.

"(6) To keep this pledge until the invader has been driven from the soil of free America."

I may mention that Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, in urging her sister women at various ma.s.s meetings to sign this pledge, made the impressive estimate that, by practising these economies during a two years' war, a hundred thousand well-to-do American women might save a _thousand million dollars_.

Other American women, under the leadership of Mrs. Mary Logan Tucker, daughter of General John A. Logan, prepared themselves for active field service at women's military camps, in several states, where they were instructed in bandage making, first-aid service, signalling and the use of small arms.

As weeks pa.s.sed the national spirit grew stronger, stimulated by rousing speeches of Roosevelt, Russell and Bryan and fanned into full flame by Boston's immortal achievement on December 24, 1921. On that day, by authorisation of General von Beseler, commanding the German force of occupation, a great crowd had gathered on Boston Common for a Christmas tree celebration with a distribution of food and toys for the poor of the city. In the Public Gardens near the statue of George Washington, Billy Sunday was making an address when suddenly, on the stroke of five, the bell in the old Park Street church and then the bells in all the churches of Boston began to toll.

It was a signal for an uprising of the people and was answered in a way that will fill a proud page of American history so long as human courage and love of liberty are honoured upon earth. In an instant every telephone wire in the city went dead, leaving the Germans cut off from communication among themselves. All traffic and business ceased as if by magic, all customary activities were put aside and, with the first clangour of the bells, the whole population poured into the streets and surged towards Boston Common by converging avenues, singing as they went.

Already a hundred thousand citizens were packed within this great enclosure, and guarding them were three thousand German, foot soldiers and a thousand hors.e.m.e.n in formidable groups, with rifles and machine guns ready--before the State House, before the Soldiers' Monument, along Tremont Street and Boylston Street and at other strategic points. Never in the history of the world had an unarmed, untrained mob prevailed over such a body of disciplined troops. The very thought was madness. And yet--

Hark! That roar of voices in the Public Gardens! What is it? A band playing in the distance? Who ordered a band to play? German officers shout harsh commands. "Back!" "Stand back!" "Stop this pushing of the crowd!" "_Mein Gott!_ Those women and children will be trampled by the horses!"

Alas, that is true! Once more the cause of American liberty requires that Boston Common be hallowed by American blood. The people of this New England city are tired of German rule. They want their city for themselves and are going to take it. Guns or not, soldiers or not, they are going to take their city.

Listen! They are coming! Six hundred thousand strong in dense ma.s.ses that choke every thoroughfare from wall to wall the citizens of Boston, women and children with the men, are coming! And singing!

"Hurrah! Hurrah! We sound the jubilee!

Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that set us free."

They are practically unarmed, although some of the men carry shot-guns, pistols, rifles, clubs, stones; but they know these will avail little against murderous machine guns. They know they must find strength in their weakness and overwhelm the enemy by the sheer weight of their bodies. They must stun the invaders by their willingness to die. That is the only real power of this Boston host, their sublime willingness to die.

It is estimated that five thousand of them did die, and ten thousand were wounded, in the first half hour after the German machine guns opened fire. And still the Americans came on in a shouting, surging mult.i.tude, a solid sea of bodies with endless rivers of bodies pouring in behind them.

It is not so easy to kill forty acres of human bodies, even with machine guns!

Endlessly the Americans came on, hundreds falling, thousands replacing them, until presently the Germans ceased firing, either in horror at this incredible sacrifice of life or because their ammunition was exhausted.

What chance was there for German ammunition carts to force their way through that struggling human wall? What chance for the fifteen hundred German reserves in Franklin Park to bring relief to their comrades?

At eight o'clock that night Boston began her real Christmas eve celebration. Over the land, over the world the joyful tidings were flashed. Boston had heard the call of the martyred President and answered it. The capital of Ma.s.sachusetts was free. The Stars and Stripes were once more waving over the Bunker Hill Monument. Four thousand German soldiers were prisoners in Mechanics Hall on Commonwealth Avenue. _The citizens of Boston had taken them prisoners with their bare hands!_

This news made an enormous sensation not only in America but throughout Europe, where Boston's heroism and scorn of death aroused unmeasured admiration and led military experts in France and England to make new prophecies regarding the outcome of the German-American war.

"All things are possible," declared a writer in the Paris _Temps_, "for a nation fired with a supreme spiritual zeal like that of the j.a.panese Samurai. It is simply a question how widely this sacred fire has spread among the American people."

CHAPTER XXIII

CONFESSIONS OF AN AMERICAN SPY AND BRAVERY OF BUFFALO SCHOOLBOYS

On December 26th I received a cable from the London _Times_ instructing me to try for another interview with the Crown Prince and to question him on the effect that this Boston victory might have upon the German campaign in America. Would there be retaliatory measures? Would German warships bombard Boston from the sea?

I journeyed at once to Chicago and made my appeal to Brigadier General George T. Langhorne, who had been military attache at Berlin in 1915 and was now in charge of the Imperial prisoner. The Crown Prince and his staff occupied the seventh floor of the Hotel Blackstone.