Part 17

Because it was the thing he least wished to do, he decided to write Margaret first of all. His fountain pen was dry and the ink well in the combination table and desk held only some black powder and a dead fly. He telephoned to the desk and while waiting for the ink idly looked through the telephone directory. The advertisements. The Hamiltons. The M’s. He was conscious that his heart was beating unusually fast. But there were so many Meadows that it was impossible even to guess which might be the right one. He telephoned to Levin’s home again, leaving his name and telephone number.

As he did so, he had a peculiar feeling of slipping back in time a half year--their last meeting in New York, the sense of their friendship. He wondered whether belonging to the Tribe would put an end to that.

A perspiring bell boy brought the ink, took the tip thankfully and made some remark about the weather. The door closed behind him and Robert began writing. It was dreadful business telling her about the family financial troubles. Why should he do it? Well, it had to be done somehow. He wondered why it should be Margaret--how they had really become engaged.

Levin surprised him by telephoning from the lobby, just as he was dashing off the last line. He hastily addressed the envelope, folded the letter, slipped it inside and grabbed his hat. He looked guiltily at a little pile of Tribal propaganda and placed it in the dresser drawer out of sight. The Tribe was, somehow, against the Jews. He hadn’t found out why yet, but it seemed more decent to have the booklets out of sight.

Levin was pacing the lobby, the same old Levin, only a bit overworked perhaps, nervous. But it was good to see him again. Levin’s face lit up.

“It’s like being in Paris again,” he remarked. “Welcome to Chicago!” He would have had Robert up to the house, but something made that impossible. His sister was having a little society meeting--or something like that.

“It’s great to see you again, Doc,” said Hamilton.

“You have come just in time. I needed someone to talk to.” Levin knew a restaurant, De Jonghe’s, and whisked him to it. It _was_ somewhat Gallic, not exactly a French restaurant, but as French as one might reasonably expect five thousand miles west of Paris. And the food was delicious. They lingered over it.

“You look--” Robert paused. “Have you just fallen into love or out?”

Levin laughed.

“Well, perhaps, _out_. Not exactly, though.” He changed the subject. “What’s that?” He had noticed the paper in Robert’s pocket.

“Oh, let me see. Oh, yes, some nigger paper.” He laid it on the table.

“Ah, The Torch.” Levin picked it up and began turning the pages. “It’s one of the leading colored papers in the country now. And--by George--guess who’s running it!”

“How the dickens should I know who’s running a nigger paper? Got a cigarette on you?”

“Never mind, I’ll order cigars. Sure, you know him. The fellow who saved your life in France.”

“The nigger! Williams?”

“Yes, Williams. He’s considered one of the highest literary authorities in the United States. You ought to see him while you’re here.”

“I would,” said Robert. “I would, if he weren’t a nigger.”

“Oh, rats, I thought you had gotten over that!”

A waiter appeared, set a bottle of wine and glasses on the table and offered a box of cigars. Robert took one, laid it on the table and sipped thoughtfully at his wine. Had he changed? And had he changed back again? A nigger was a nigger to him once more. But in Corinth, yes, even in Corinth, he had put in a word for the despised black. Once he had thought that the ideals born of the war, the spirit of democracy and justice and idealism, would last. Here it was--how many months? two months, not quite three, since his homecoming--and he was back again. Or was it simply the pressure of Corinth--Margaret, Pinkney, his father, his set. Catholic. Jew. The Trick Track Tribe. Well, one had to live in his own world. And anyway a nigger was black and ugly and overworked.

“But I really couldn’t go to him. Bah! Shake his hand? No thanks!”

“The reaction _has_ set in,” remarked Levin. “And you’re an example.” He lit a cigar and puffed for a moment. “Now it’s the nigger. Next it will be--why where you come from, Corinth, you’ve got your Trick Track Tribe--an organization with the identical aims of the secret societies of savages and based on nothing but prejudices.”

“But you must admit that the nigger is different,” protested Robert. “He has always been the accursed of races. He has always been a slave. He has never had a civilization, never had a government, never created anything. Africa! What would it be if it weren’t for the whites? Hell, these coons who wait on the tables and shine shoes would still be savages in the jungles, without education and without religion, if it weren’t for the white man.”

“I’ll admit nothing,” Levin retorted. “You speak from prejudice. Take Williams for instance. He’s educated, cultured, refined. He _does_ hold a high position in the literary world and among his own race. Don’t sneer! But you wouldn’t visit him simply because he’s black.”

“Well, I’ll admit that Williams is all that you say. He’s an exception. I’ll admit that there are a thousand such exceptions in the world. What of it? What has that to do with what I have said? I said that the nigger has always been a slave, that he has always--”

Levin interrupted.

“You have an idea that the Negro is somehow sub-human?”

“Well--yes, if you put it that way!”

“That’s a belief that is based neither on science nor on history. It is flatly contradicted by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Arabian experience, and it is being contradicted in this country today. Whether Negroes are equal in capacity to white men--that is on the average--or even whether they have produced or will produce a single genius worthy to rank with the highest geniuses of the white race is an idle and unimportant question. They can at least gain their livelihood as laborers and artisans. They can operate their own farms. They can take their place in the mines and the forests. Let them have fair play and they will naturally find their right place, wherever that may be. The Tribe talks of Negro disloyalty, of seditious plots with the Bolsheviki. There is not a shred of evidence to back these extravagant charges against an entire race. But if the white men treated them with fairness and justice they would have no reason to fear even these mythical plots. Experience has shown that whenever aliens are treated as citizens, they become citizens, whatever may be their religion or race. Give the American Negro but half a chance and you will find that he loves and hates, not with an African, but with an American heart.

“You say that the Negro has never had a civilization. He has had one of the most ancient of civilizations, with centers of culture at Ghana, Melle and Timbuctoo. There were kingdoms and empires in Songhay and Zymbabwe. There were art and industry in Yuruba and Benien, Negroes worked in iron long before the European. They wove. They carved. They had their music. They had a well-organized tribal government, with town meetings and market places. Those are the elements of civilization--not our civilization--not the civilization of the cold North or East, of Europe or Asia--but a highly developed civilization adapted to Africa. Out of Africa came the ivory and gold of the remotest times. Africans--your niggers--welded iron, practiced agriculture and carried on trade when Europe was still a wilderness. Your niggers sat on the throne of the Pharaohs in Egypt.”

“Niggers the kings of Egypt! Why how--?”

“The next time you see a picture of the great sphinx of Ghizeh, study its features. Thick lips. Flat nose. High cheek bones. The features are those of a Negro. And the Pharaohs did not erect sphinxes in honor of their slaves! Yes, Negroes, during certain dynasties, ruled Egypt, the most ancient of civilizations, the birthplace of learning. And it was a black woman, Queen Nefertari, who is the most venerated figure in Egyptian history.”

“I never knew that.” Robert puffed thoughtfully.

“And what did the white man do for Africa? For four hundred years, white Europe traded in black human beings, robbed Africa of a hundred million human souls, transformed the face of her social life, overthrew her organized government, distorted her ancient industry and snuffed out her cultural development. Today, instead of taking slaves from Africa, white men are converting Africa into a huge plantation, where the natives toil and die under the lash for the profit of the white world. Yes, the white men brought religion--the Bible in one hand and the rifle in the other. And, oh, yes, they brought another thing--gin.

“Listen to this. It’s from a colored writer, Du Bois: ‘Twenty centuries after Christ, Black Africa--prostrated, raped and shamed--lies at the foot of the conquering Philistines of Europe. Beyond the awful sea, a black woman is weeping and waiting, with her sons on her breast. What shall the end be? The world-old and fearful things--war and wealth, murder and luxury? Or shall it be a new thing--a new peace and a new democracy of all races--a great humanity of equal men?’”

Robert laid down his cigar.

“I guess, we have been a little rough on them,” he said.

Levin developed the idea of the reaction, the growth of hatreds, the development of the mob spirit.

“You can’t get any two men to think exactly alike on any question,” he said. “But, with a little knowledge of human nature and the gift of oratory or a forceful way of writing, you can get millions to _feel_ alike--especially to hate alike. The crowd just now is stirred up against alcohol. In Rome the crowd used to be stirred up for it and went on Bacchanals.”

“But alcohol does detract from one’s efficiency, doesn’t it?”

“Certainly! But who drinks to become more efficient? You drink to become less efficient, to forget your troubles, to relax, to forget. Granted that alcohol makes a man unable to turn a grindstone as rapidly as water. His ultimate object in turning the grindstone is to be able to buy pleasure, which includes alcohol. Take away his pleasure and you take away his object for working.”

“Well, I hate to see prohibition come. But I guess most of the people want it.”

“Yes, that is the intolerance of your mob. The tyranny of the majority. If fifty-one per cent of the people don’t want to drink, or don’t want to smoke, or don’t want to sing songs on Sunday, they make everybody else conform. The mob uses its liberty to deprive the individual of his freedom.”

For the first time Robert felt ill at ease in Levin’s company. The knowledge that Levin was a Jew and that he himself was a member of the Trick Track Tribe made him feel uneasy, as though he were a traitor, but whether to his old friendship or to the Tribe he was uncertain. They sat talking for a while, exchanging reminiscences of Paris and New York, and Levin finally walked with Robert back to his hotel.

“Be sure to come up Friday,” said Levin.

Robert promised, yet he knew that he would not keep the appointment. It was bad enough going out with him, but he had been unable to avoid that. But to break bread with him in his own house, to accept his hospitality and that of his family, that would be going too far. Not while he remained a member of the Tribe.

XXXII

Robert called up Friday--Mrs. Levin answered the phone--and pleaded a mythical headache. No. No. Her son was not to visit him. It was nothing. Something that would go away of its own accord. Only he would have to eat very little and get a good rest. Mrs. Levin offered some advice--aspirin tablets, or something like that. It was rather confusing, her insistent hospitality, and she rang off only after she had gained his promise to come the next week.

Robert was growing a bit more accustomed to Chicago. Freeman had taken him, over his protest, to Armours, where he had seen the rather gruesome spectacle of hundreds of hogs and cattle converted into pork and beef by swift knives and dexterous hands. He had never dreamed of this world of cattle pens, stretching out in all directions like a vast sea and filled with thousands of bellowing animals. He had never imagined such a tangle of tracks as those over which the loaded cattle cars rumbled. And there were cowboys on ponies.

He was becoming accustomed to the rush of people among the streets and to the noise. But the soot still bothered him. He had visited the Art Institute and found it a haven from the surrounding spirit of commercialism and decided to visit the Field Museum--a glittering white palace of classical design that rose at the far end of a promontory jutting into the lake a mile or so south.

In some places there were almost as many Negroes as in the South. But unlike the South, the Negroes sat beside you in the presence of white ladies--like the white men. For the first time Robert perceived that in going back to Corinth he had unconsciously slipped back to his pre-war attitude. He had taken Jim Crow cars for granted. He had taken it for granted that colored men should step out of his path when he walked down the street. These things had all seemed perfectly natural in Corinth. He had not even noticed them until now.

Levin had dropped in once, to inquire about Robert’s cold, but had not called again. McCall was still out of town, and so Robert spent most of his time with Freeman. The latter had suggested that Robert do most of his work in his own room, because the identity of the bureau with the Tribe had already been discovered by investigators--newspaper men--and it might be more advantageous, at least for a while, to keep the identity of the new Grand Bogey secret.

Freeman had not yet explained the basis of the Tribe’s antagonism to the Catholics and the Jews, nor, so far as that went, to the Negro--although that was something that one could more easily understand. Freeman always brought up points, which he gleaned from The Beacon or from some similar source and the authenticity of which was often doubtful. Often the statements contradicted each other and then Freeman always grinned good-naturedly and showed that the arguments were really not his, but those of The Beacon or of a misinformed writer, some anti- this or that fanatic.

He always started out by emphasising the “big points” of the Tribe. They were sitting in Robert’s room one evening.

“If I were you I’d go after the big things--enforcement of law, white supremacy, pure Americanism and practical Christianity. Those are the main things,” said Freeman, pounding the table.

“You ask why the Catholic should be excluded? Because, as this card shows, he swears allegiance to a foreign potentate. He’s an alien although he benefits by our laws. If the Catholics could, they would unite the church and the state.”

“I see, but supposing I get a prospect and he asks me how I know that.”

Freeman laughed.

“Ninety-nine out of a hundred don’t ask. Ninety-nine out of a hundred men never ask about anything. They’ll accept a positive statement, if it’s positive enough. But if they do ask, you can hand them some of our cards or literature. Here’s some good stuff in The Beacon. Listen to this, for instance: ‘The National Democratic Committee is by majority a Roman Catholic body. It usually has a Roman Catholic President and Secretary. Catholics influenced the national campaign which elected Wilson. The President’s private secretary is a Roman Catholic.’”

“Wait a minute,” cried Hamilton. “I’m a Southern Democrat. Do you mean to insinuate that Wilson is controlled by a group of Catholics!”

“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m simply reading what The Beacon says. If a Democrat would get sore at it, show him something else. That’s why I say you have to study the man you approach and convince him accordingly.”

“But that’s not the point,” said Hamilton. “You say Catholics influenced the national campaign. That’s an insinuation. You don’t say _how_ they influenced it. Everybody knows that many Irish Catholics are Democrats and that naturally they voted for Wilson, just as the South naturally, for historic reasons, always votes Democratic; but you infer that the influence was dishonorable. And what’s the disgrace about a Roman Catholic being the President’s secretary? He had to be a Protestant or a Catholic.”

“No, there’s no disgrace, only the next fact shows that over 70 per cent of all President Wilson’s appointments were Catholic.”

“I don’t believe it! What’s the authority?”

Freeman puzzled over the word.

“L-U-T-H--Lutherische, I can’t pronounce it. Some German name.”

“Some old war propaganda, I see. On the face of it would you go to a German authority for anything about Wilson’s war administration?”

Freeman laughed.

“Hell, no! In fact, I didn’t know where The Beacon got this stuff when I picked it up or I wouldn’t bother to read it. Nope, there’s nothing pro-Heinie about me.” He threw the paper into a waste basket. “Now, Mr. Hamilton,” he turned in his swivel chair and leaned forward, “I’m just as sincere about this thing as you are. I wouldn’t tell any one a lie knowingly. If I had noticed the source of that article I wouldn’t have read it to you. But the Tribe has a definite object as I told you. It’s against the Catholic, the Jew, the alien and the Negro, because these four classes are incompatible with the Tribe’s ideas of pure Americanism--none of these classes can be truly American in every sense of the word. Now we know that, and, in trying to convert members, we naturally wish to convince them by arguments. The Beacon is a magazine which carries a lot of stuff against these four classes and so we frequently distribute it. But, as far as I am concerned, and I am sure as every good Tribesman is concerned, we do not mean to disseminate falsehoods. If you see an article that strikes you as inaccurate in The Beacon, don’t use it. In fact, write to the editor about it. I’m sure he would be glad to be corrected. You know how it is. Any one is liable to make a mistake.”

“Well, maybe, but just a minute.” Hamilton pulled The Beacon out of the waste-basket and glanced over it.

“Well, here we say that the German-Jewish bankers started the war.”

“Sure, what about it?”

“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but on our Do You Know card we say that a secret treaty made by the Pope started the war. Now one of those statements must be wrong. One must be a lie.”

“No,” said Freeman. “Don’t you see, that Do You Know card is gotten out by the Tribe? That’s something _we_ say. That article on the German-Jewish bankers starting the war is simply a re-write of a statement made by Howard Brooks. The Beacon simply picked it up. They’re not responsible for Brooks’ views and the Tribe isn’t responsible for everything The Beacon prints.”

Robert was growing exasperated, but he tried to keep his temper. He puffed at his cigar in silence for a moment.

“Well, what do _you_ think of that charge by Brooks yourself?” he finally asked.

Freeman smiled.

“He makes good tires. But, seriously, I’ll tell you. Of course, that sort of stuff is all right for the yokels. I studied money and banking at college. I’m not a financial authority or anything like that, but I know, of course, that the present economic world could not exist without banks and credit. We deposit our dues in a bank, and I suppose that Griffith must be financing the Tribe through some bank, although,” he grinned, “very probably not Kuhn, Loeb and Company.” He threw his head back and blew a smoke ring into the air.

“Brooks simply says something to the effect that the big international bankers saw an opportunity to make money by fomenting a war, and stirred things up. Of course, if Germany could win, any banker who lent the German government a large sum would naturally make a large profit. As a matter of fact, though, I think Germany had some scheme of labor banks, in which the working people themselves deposited.”

“Yes,” said Hamilton. “I think the Germans even used to brag about the people financing their own war.”

“Of course, there’s no proof that any certain banker did stir up the war. If there were, I don’t think that the allies would have been bashful about demanding his surrender. If any German-Jewish or German anything else clique of bankers had been the cause of the war, they would have been handed over to some tribunal, because the Versailles treaty insists on punishment for those guilty of starting the war. So that’s probably hot air. Of course, bankers backing their country after it is in the war, is a different matter. It would be first a matter of loyalty and second of compulsion. The German-Jewish bankers would naturally support the German government; but that’s a different thing from starting a war, just as the French-Jewish bankers supported the French government, the English, the English and the American, the American. And you could say the same thing about Protestant bankers.”

He puffed a few more rings into the air.

“Ah, I’ve got it. Stinnes. Stinnes.”

“What’s that?”

“Stinnes, the great banker, the friend of the Kaiser, president of steamship lines, owner of iron and steel monopolies, mills, factories--the great magnet of Germany. The war made him a colossus, a rival of Rockefeller in wealth. And he’s a Jew!”

“No, he’s not,” said Robert.

“Of course, he is. Haven’t you ever seen his picture--derby hat pulled over his forehead. Sort of long nose and black beard? Why he’s a typical Jew.”

“But he’s a Lutheran,” protested Robert. “I don’t care how he looks. You got that impression that he was Jewish because the first stories about him said he was. But in the latest stories that was corrected. He’s a Lutheran.”

“Are you sure?” Freeman looked crestfallen.

“Absolutely. I can show you the magazine article.”

“No, I believe you. There goes another good point.”

Robert’s eyes suddenly blazed. It was as though something had flared in his brain. And it angered him. It carried him back to his solitary attempt at debating.

“You say you are sincere in carrying out the mission of the Trick Track Tribe,” he cried. “Don’t interrupt me! Yet you sit there like a lawyer trying to frame up a case against an opponent, or a kid debater. Anything to win. If you have anything against the Jews or the Catholics, I want to see it. I don’t care a pig’s ear for any arguments about what the Jews or the Catholics might do or might have done. I can make up that sort of stuff myself. The Jews have a plot to assassinate the President. The Catholics are planning a world-wide revolution.”

Freeman was equally angry.

“Stop! We don’t make such wild assertions.”

“You do,” cried Hamilton. “I’ve simply reversed the charges. Here’s your statement that ‘the man who shot President Garfield was a Roman Catholic. The man who shot President Lincoln was a Roman Catholic.’ And in another article you say, or somebody says, that the Jews are planning to spread Bolshevism throughout the world. When you say that Roman Catholics killed two presidents, you mean to insinuate that there is something about Catholicism itself that makes it hostile to American government, that makes it possible that another Roman Catholic will later kill another president. If the relation were merely accidental you wouldn’t mention it. It wouldn’t be logical. You might as well say that the man who shot McKinley ate onions.”