CHAPTER XX

For two years the nation drifted without a rational policy of defense, while the world war continued to drench the earth in blood. The combination of forces represented by Waldron had succeeded in lulling the people into a sense of perfect security. We had always been lucky. A faith that God watched over children and our Republic had become one of the first articles of our creed.

John Vassar became an officer in the National Security League and attempted to extend its organization into every election district of the Union. For two years he had given himself body and soul to the task. At every turn he found an organized and militant opposition. They had money to spend and they had leaders who knew how to fight.

In spite of his hatred of Waldron he was compelled to acknowledge his genius for leadership, and the inflexible quality of his will. Within a week of the date his Security League was organized in a district, a fighting “peace” organization appeared overnight to destroy his work.

The optimism of the American people was the solid rock against which his hopes were constantly dashed.

He ignored the fact that Virginia Holland was the most eloquent and dangerous opponent of his propaganda. It was the irony of fate that he should feel it his solemn duty to devote every energy of his life to combating the cause for which she stood. It was the will of God. He accepted it now in dumb submission.

In the midst of his campaign for Congressmen pledged to national defense, the great war suddenly collapsed and the professional peace advocates filled the world with the tumult of their rejoicing.

It was useless to argue. The danger had passed. Men refused to listen. Vassar was regarded with a mild sort of pity.

The first rush of events were all with his enemies and critics. The war had been fought to an impassable deadlock.

Germany entrenched had proven invincible against the offensive assaults of the Allies. The Allies were equally impotent to achieve an aggressive victory. When the conviction grew into practical certainty that the struggle might last for ten years, the German Emperor gave the hint to the Pope. The Pope sounded the warring nations and an armistice was arranged.

Embodied in this agreement to suspend hostilities for thirty days was the startling announcement that the nations at war, desiring to provide against the recurrence of so terrible and costly an experiment as the struggle just ending, had further agreed to meet at The Hague in the first Parliament of Man and establish the Federation of the World!

Waldron proclaimed this achievement the greatest step in human progress since the dawn of history. He claimed also that his newspapers and his associates in their fight against armaments had won this victory. He announced the dawn of the new era of universal peace and good will among men.

John Vassar was the most thoroughly discredited statesman in the American Congress. His hobby was the butt of ridicule. Woman’s suffrage swept the northern section of the eastern seaboard in every state which held an election in November.

The Parliament of Man met at The Hague. The preliminary session was composed of the rulers of the leading states, nations and empires of the world.

Through the influence of Japan, the four hundred millions of China were excluded.

It was well known in the inner councils of the great powers of Europe that the real reason for her exclusion was the avowed purpose of the rulers of Europe and Japan to divide the vast domain of the Orient into crown dependencies and reserve them for future exploitation.

Their scholars had winked gravely at the charge of a lack of civilization. What they meant was a lack of the weapons of offense and defense. China was the center of art and learning when America was an untrodden wilderness and the fathers of the kings of Europe were cracking cocoanuts and hickory nuts in the woods with monkeys. China had lost the art of shooting straight--that was all. India had lost it too and her three hundred millions were not even permitted the courtesy of representation in the person of an alien viceroy. A handful of Englishmen had ruled her millions for a century. India had ceased to exist as a nation.

One-half the human race were thus excluded at the first session of the Committee.

When the roll was finally called, each nation answered in alphabetical order, its ruler advanced and took the seat assigned amid the cheers of the gallery. The President of Argentina, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, the King of Belgium, the President of Brazil, the King of Bulgaria, the President of Chile, the King of Denmark, the President of France, the Emperor of Germany, and King of Prussia,--and with him the King of Bavaria, the King of Saxony, the King of Wurtemburg, the Duke of Anhalt, the Grand Duke of Baden, the Duke of Brunswick, the Grand Duke of Hesse, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Grand Duke of Oldenburg, the Duke of Saxe-Altenberg, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, the Prince of Weldeck,--the King of Great Britain and Emperor of India, the King of Greece, the King of Italy, the Mikado of Japan, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, the President of Mexico, the Queen of the Netherlands, the King of Norway, the President of Portugal, the King of Roumania, the Tzar of Russia, the King of Servia, the King of Spain, the King of Sweden, the President of Switzerland, the Sultan of Turkey and the President of the United States of America.

Virginia Holland saw the Chief Magistrate of the foremost republic of the world answer to the last name called on the roll and take his seat beside the Sultan of Turkey.

The minor republics of South and Central America had all been excluded by the Committee on Credentials as unfitted either in the age of their governments, or their wealth, population and power for seats in this august assembly. Only Argentina, Brazil and Chile from South America, and Mexico from Central America were allowed seats.

The principle of monarchy was represented by thirty-four reigning emperors, kings, princes and dukes; the principle of democracy by eight presidents. The first article on which the organization agreed was the reservation by each of the full rights of sovereignty with the right to withdraw at any moment if conditions arose which were deemed intolerable.

To find a working basis of development, therefore, it was not merely necessary to obtain a majority vote, it was absolutely necessary that the vote should be unanimous, otherwise each decision would cause the loss of one or more members of the Federation.

Queen Wilhelmina, of the Netherlands, the only full-fledged woman sovereign was unanimously elected the presiding officer of the assembly.

The women representatives of the suffrage states of the American Union were admitted to the gallery as spectators. They rose en masse and cheered when the gracious Queen ascended the dais and rapped for order.

They kept up the demonstration until the Emperor of Germany became so enraged that on consultation with the Emperors of Austria-Hungary and the Tzar of Russia, the sergeant-at-arms was ordered to clear the women’s gallery. The American women continued their cheers in the streets until dispersed by the police.

For the first time in her career Virginia Holland lost patience with her associates. She was in no mood to shout for royalty, either in trousers, knickerbockers or skirts. Her keen intelligence had caught the first breath of a deep and fierce hostility to the land of her birth. She had watched the growing isolation of the President of the United States with slowly rising wrath. But a single member of the august body had agreed with him on everything. The President of Switzerland alone appeared to have anything in common with our Chief Magistrate. Even the French President appeared to have been reared in the school of monarchy in spite of the form of his government. The President of little Portugal was too timid to express an opinion. And the four presidents of South and Central America were the social lions of royalty from the day the assembly had gathered in an informal greeting in the Palace of Peace. The South Americans had been wined and dined, fêted and petted until they had lost their heads. They treated the President of the United States not only with indifference, but in the joy over their triumphant reception had begun to openly voice their contempt.

The President of the United States accepted the situation in dignified silence. The Parliament of Man was less than one day old before he realized that he was a single good-natured St. Bernard dog in a cage of Royal Bengal tigers. How long his position would remain tolerable he could not as yet judge. As a Southern-born white man he rejoiced that the full right of secession had been firmly established in this Union!

He composed his soul in patience.

The first three days were consumed in congratulations and harmless flights of oratory. The kings had never had such a chance before to indulge in declamation. They were like a crowd of high-school boys on a picnic. They all wished to talk at one time and each apparently had a desire to consume the whole time. The smaller the kingdom, the louder the voice of the king.

On the fourth day the Parliament got down to business. The treaty of peace which closed the great war had fixed the boundaries of the belligerent nations. They were practically identical with the status preceding the struggle.

The Parliament unanimously reaffirmed the decision of this treaty and fixed the boundaries for all time.

The partition of China was immediately raised by Japan and again the United States of America and Switzerland alone stood out for the rights of 400,000,000 men of the yellow race.

France and Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Mexico sided with the royalist spoilers against our protest.

China was divided into spheres of influence by a vote of forty against two. Both the United States and Switzerland registered their protest in writing and recorded their possible secession.

The continent of Africa was next divided by the same recorded vote forty against two.

The President of the United States rose from his uncomfortable seat beside the Sultan of Turkey and was recognized by the presiding Queen in a silence that was deathlike.

“With the permission of your Majesty,” he began gravely, “I wish to introduce at once the following resolutions.” He calmly adjusted his glasses and read:

“Resolved: That the Parliament of Man recognize the principle that a people shall have the right to maintain the form of government which they may choose consistent with the laws of civilization. That the Western Hemisphere, comprising the Americas, have chosen the form of free democracy. That the Monroe Doctrine shall therefore be affirmed as the second basic principle on which the Federation of the World shall be established, and that the royal rulers unanimously agree that their standards shall never be lifted on the continents of North or South America.”

The sensation could not have been greater had an anarchist’s bomb exploded beneath the presiding Queen.

A babel of angry protests broke forth from the thirty-three royal and imperial rulers. France and Portugal remained silent and distressed. Brazil, alone, of the South American republics, raised a voice in support of the proposition. Even Switzerland smiled skeptically. Argentina, Chile and Mexico joined the pandemonium of abuse with which the crowned rulers of the world received the first American tender of principle.

The session ended in confusion bordering on riot. In vain the gracious Queen attempted to restore order. The President of the United States stood with folded arms and watched the indignant sovereigns sweep their robes about their trembling figures and stalk from the Palace.

A caucus of imperial rulers was held at which the Emperor of Germany presided. It was unanimously resolved that the proposition of the United States was an insult to every monarch of the world and in the interests of peace and progress he was asked to withdraw it.

Our President stood his ground, refused to retreat an inch and demanded a hearing. His demand was refused by a strict division of monarchy against democracy, thirty-three imperial rulers casting their votes solidly against the eight presidents.

The moment this vote was announced, the President of the United States seized his hat and started to leave the chamber. The South Americans crowded around him and begged him to stay. The little President of Chile, the fighting cock of the South Pacific, led the chorus of appeal.

“Stay with us,” he cried, “and I promise to pour oil on the troubled waters. I have a compromise which will be unanimously accepted. I have conferred with the three great emperors and they have assured me of their support.”

Our President smiled incredulously but resumed his seat.

Chile declared that South America had always scorned the assumptions of the Monroe Doctrine. The monarchs cheered. He declared that the nations of the South no longer needed or desired the protection of the United States. They sought the good will of all men. They feared invasion by none. He proposed an adjournment of six months in order that a Pan-American Congress representing all interests might meet in Washington and decide this issue for themselves. Their decision could then be reported to the Parliament of Man.

His suggestion was unanimously adopted and the Parliament successfully weathered its first storm by adjourning for six months.

Again the world rang with the shouts of the orators of peace. A beginning had actually been made in the new science of war prevention. The Appeal to Reason had triumphed.

Waldron remained a day to congratulate his friends among the crowned heads and hurried home to organize a great Jubilee to celebrate this meeting of the Pan-American Congress and hail its outcome as the first fruits of the reign of universal peace.

Virginia Holland returned to her home with a great fear slowly shaping itself in her heart.