Part 14

He emerged from the interior as a valiant explorer, preceded by native carriers whom he had hired to transport his precious movie-film. As he approached the port of Bahia Duquesne’s personality underwent a perceptible change. Duquesne suddenly became George Fordham. Among his papers we found an application for shipment by a Brazilian broker which read as follows:

“Honorable Superintendent.

“Francisco Figuerado requests a permit to ship for New York via steamer _Verdi_ to sail on January 28, 1916, a case as described below:

“Bahia, January 27, 1916.

“Raul E. de Oliveira, Custom House Broker.

“1 case weighing 80 kilos 00$500

“One case of potter’s earth in dust (samples)”

Potter’s earth may have been included in the materials in the case, but that is doubtful, for on October 4, 1916, “Mrs. Alice Duquesne being duly sworn deposes and says that she accompanied her husband, Captain Fritz Duquesne, during his trip through Central America in the Spring and Summer of 1914. That in the baggage was an iron trunk used to carry moving picture films and negatives which she presumes to be the same trunk that was subsequently shipped by Capt. Duquesne per the S. S. _Tennyson_ from Bahia to New York sailing in January, 1916. That the said trunk was about ½ inch thick, and made of iron about 45 inches in length by 30 inches in height by 26 inches in depth ... had a hinged cover that overlapped the sides of same, and fastened down with two thumb screws and a lock. That two iron bands went around the trunk and were riveted to same. That the cover was lined with packing where it overlapped the sides of the trunk. That the said trunk was of very solid construction, painted a dark green, almost black, and that two men were required to lift same.” Hardly a suitable receptacle for potter’s earth. Furthermore, George Fordham, whose handwriting is identical with that of Fritz Duquesne for the simple reason that the two men were the same, on February 11 signed an invoice at the American consulate in Bahia stating that he solemnly and truly declared that the 28,000 feet of moving picture film and the 4100 negatives which he was shipping back to the United States were to the best of his knowledge and belief of the manufacture of the United States and had been exported from the United States in 1913.

The _Tennyson_ sailed quietly out of the river-mouth into the Atlantic and Duquesne vanished just as quietly. On February 26, when the ship was coasting along the Brazilian forest toward the Equator, a terrific explosion occurred in her hold, and three sailors were killed. The iron trunk never reached New York. The news of the catastrophe set fire to the British in South America and the English press seethed with such paragraphs as this--which we found in Duquesne’s papers, clipped from an Argentine newspaper:

“Rio de Janeiro.

“The confession of the clerk Bauer, arrested in connection with the _Tennyson_ outrage, which led to the discovery of the papers and funds of the band of German bombers in an English safe deposit institution reveals a plot of far-reaching consequences fraught with danger to the neutrality of a number of South American republics, as well as peril to the lives of their citizens.

“Besides a number of important documents, the police seized $6,740 in American bills, which were in an envelope marked ‘On His Majesty’s Service’ and addressed: ‘Piet Naciud.’ When this name was published it caused quite a shock in the Allied circles here, as this man always cultivated their society and even recited at their benefits. He was ever loud in his denunciations of the Germans, and as he was a Boer, or pretended to be one, was doubly liked for his seemingly praiseworthy attitude. Little did the English dream that they were harbouring a black-hearted spy in their midst whom they now know as one of the leading plotters whose audacity is beyond belief. The safe deposit was in his own name, and he gave his home address as Cape Town. Neither he nor the agent Niewirth and his fellow conspirators have yet been arrested. It is believed that they left with Naciud in a powerful motorboat that he owned.”

How Captain Fritz Duquesne, alias Fordham, alias Naciud, must have chuckled as he sat safely in the neutral Argentine and read this flattering tribute to his audacity. For he did turn up presently in Buenos Aires, and embarked on a new audacity--nothing less than collecting the insurance of $80,000 for the loss of the film which he claimed to have shipped in the iron box!

Let Ashton take up the story:

“... his wife ... tried to collect the insurance, but was advised that she would have better chances ... if he would disappear. He then assumed the name of Fredericks. In 1916 a report was published in the New York _Evening Post_ and the New York _Times_ that he had been assassinated by Indians in the interior of Bolivia, and being interested I called at the office of the N. Y. _Post_ and asked Mr. A. D. H. Smith, editor, to look this report up, and he found that the report came from the Associated Press, the same being signed ‘Fredericks.’ They also had a cablegram signed, ‘Captain Duquesne,’ and it said: ‘I am still alive.’ The report also said that he was the sole survivor of an attack from the Indians and that he was somewhere in Bolivia recovering in a hospital, the location being unknown. He sent the message signed ‘Fredericks’ himself from Buenos Aires.

“He then became connected with the Board of Education of the Argentine, supplying films for the schools, and a certain politician in Buenos Aires claims he gave him $24,000 with which to purchase films (certain educational films). He claims to have come to New York with a man named Williamson and purchased the films, paying $24,000 in cash.”

Mrs. Duquesne was already in New York, having a hard time collecting her claim against the German-owned Mannheim Insurance Company for the “sympathy verdict” for damage to the films. He stored the new films he claims to have purchased in the Fulton and Flatbush Warehouse, 437 Carlton Avenue, Brooklyn--stored them as “statuary,” and used to visit the warehouse frequently. On one occasion he arrived after hours, and tried unsuccessfully to bribe the watchman to admit him. He moved to a small hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and about two weeks after the storage of the cases of “statuary” in the Brooklyn warehouse, the warehouse mysteriously caught fire.

By a queer coincidence the “films”--Duquesne has never proved that he did buy them--which of course were destroyed in this fire too, had been insured by their purchaser, “Mr. Frederick Fredericks,” for $33,000 by the Stuyvesant Insurance Company, and he set out to collect the $33,000 for the total loss of his property. If both claims proved successful, he and his wife would have gathered in some $113,000. But they found it one thing to be insured and another thing entirely to get the money. Times were not treating Duquesne well.

Along in July, 1917, when the United States was in the throes of buckling down to the business of war, and Washington was sweltering under its increased load of war-time population and business, Ashton, Duquesne’s old friend, happened to have business in the capital. He dropped in to call on Robert F. Broussard, of New Iberia, Louisiana, who in 1915 had been elected senator from this state ... the same Broussard who had been the author of the hippopotamus bill. Ashton asked the United States Senator from Louisiana if he had heard from Captain Duquesne. Ashton continues: “his secretary overheard the conversation (his secretary is a charming young lady) and I took her out to dinner, and about five days later she wrote me and said, ‘You may be interested to know that Captain Duquesne is in Washington, but does not want it known.’ I immediately became interested and concluded that if Captain Duquesne was in Washington and did not want it known, especially to me, I ... would investigate. So I went to Washington ...” and learned something of Duquesne’s whereabouts and circumstances.

“After hearing this story in Washington,” Ashton continues, “I learned that this man was in desperate need of assistance and I offered to help him in any way that I could.... Senator Broussard was trying to secure a position for him with General Goethals,... also at this time he had plans on file with the Secretary of the Navy, of an invention to destroy mines in harbors, and was hoping that he might secure a position with the Navy Department. I had been offered a position with George Creel, and I also introduced Duquesne to him, and I then got in touch with Major Kendall Barnelli. I advised him to listen to Duquesne and to give him a position. I also advised Barnelli that I was investigating Duquesne’s story.”

Damon Ashton then brought Pythias Duquesne back to New York and put him up in the apartment in which the Bomb Squad men had first been called to investigate the theft of papers. Duquesne begged his friend not to make him known under his own name, as the insurance case for the warehouse fire was still pending. So Duquesne continued to masquerade as “Fredericks.” His health was poor, and he did not go to work at once. At times Ashton’s charity seemed to irk Duquesne, and he even went to the telephone and called up an agency to discuss a lecture tour. The lecture agents told him that only war lectures were making money. There was a real inspiration, and after working for several days to assemble a uniform of the West Australia Light Horse, correct in every detail, he dressed up in it and called at the lecture bureau as Captain Claude Staughton. His Australian experience as chaperone to the camels stood him in good stead, and he went about town mixing with British Army officers without arousing suspicion. He even got on famously with the late Sir George Reed, prime minister of Australia, whom he met one night at the Hotel Astor.

The Pond lecture folk took him up and arranged a tour for him. Consciously or unconsciously, they swallowed Duquesne whole. They had him photographed in his new uniform, with the ribbons of three decorations over his heart, and they reproduced the natty figure on the cover of a publicity folder announcing the subjects on which Captain Claude Staughton was prepared to talk. “Captain Staughton,” read the folder, “has perhaps seen more of the war than any man at present before the public.... He wears ribbons showing that he has received five medals: two of these the King’s and Queen’s for service in the Boer war, carrying seven clasps; one is for service in Natal, and two for bravery in saving lives. A sixth French medal for which he has been cited is yet to be awarded. At the outbreak of the Boer war, Captain, then Lieutenant, Staughton, was an officer in one of Australia’s crack horse regiments, the Mounted Rifles. He went with his regiment to Africa, and served in Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, Natal and Basuto Land. He was with Kitchener at the Battle of Paardeburg when General Cronje was captured; was with Lord Roberts at the Capture of Bloemfontein; at the fall of Johannesburg and the seizure of Pretoria. Later, in pursuit of DeWet’s army, he was attached to General Knox’s flying column as intelligence officer and commandeering officer for the Australian Bushmen. He later entered the Cape forces and took active part in the clearing up of Basuto Land, and in the last Natal insurrection he fought with the Natal forces.”

That is a mere fragment of the fighting in which this eulogy proceeded to sketch Captain Staughton’s modest part. New Guinea, Gallipoli, Flanders, the Somme, Arras (illustrated by motion pictures), four times gassed, three times bayoneted, once pronged by a German trench-hook--those were the high lights of the career which, the folder assured the public, had finally brought him face to face with the most fearless lecture audience in the world--the United States. He would be pleased to lecture on the story of the Anzacs, underground warfare--or, on “German Spy Methods,” of which “he had learned much in Egypt.”

One of the sub-topics in this lecture on German spy methods was this: “Germany pays nothing for its spying on us.--We pay it all.--How long will we stand it?”

Well, we stood it for a long time--too long a time by half. But not long enough to permit Captain Staughton to lecture before many audiences, nor to ask this question too frequently. He gulled a few suburban Sunday schools, but his arrest put an end at least to his attempt to pick up a bit of odd change by collecting insurance.

For the steamship _Tennyson_ was British territory, and, as this is written, the report comes that this picturesque charlatan is going back across the Atlantic, to be tried for the murder of a British sailor. So begins the last chapter in the story of Fritz Duquesne.

X

THE PRUSSIAN, THE BOLSHEVIK, AND THE ANARCHIST

We caught a glimpse, in the chapter describing the attempt to wreck St. Patrick’s Cathedral, of the peace-time game of the anarchist group; we looked into their meeting places and their disorderly minds; and those of us who are familiar with the localities which were their haunts in New York City will have been enabled to visualize with some clearness the squalid surroundings in which they worked. War gave them new opportunities, and possibly a few high-lights which the Bomb Squad caught of the anarchist, I. W. W., and Russian activities since 1914 may prove to be readable. If they are readable the author should be content, but he will not be unless he has put before his people something which may serve as a warning for the period of readjustment which the end of war has opened.

An anarchist publication appeared in New York, dated November 15, 1918, four days after Germany had signed the armistice, with this legend on its front page, in large type:

“The War Is Dead: Long Live the Revolution!”

It reflects the joyful frame of mind with which orthodox anarchists received the news of peace, and hailed the beginning of what they thought would be unrestrained guerilla warfare on law and class. They had done very little to help the war, and their two chief figures, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were in prison for obstructing the draft of America’s army. Yet the anarchists as a class were extremely happy. Let us review some of the reasons why.

On October 25, 1915, Har Dayal, who had fled at the outbreak of war to the protection of Berlin, where he was placed in charge of the Indian Nationalist Committee, wrote from Amsterdam, Holland, to Alexander Berkman in New York. The letter follows:

“Dear Comrade:

“I am well and busy and sad. Can you send me some earnest and sincere comrades, men and women, who would like to help our Indian revolutionary movement in some way or other? I need the coöperation of very earnest comrades. Perhaps you can find them in New York or at Paterson. They should be real fighters, I. W. W.’s or anarchists. Our Indian party will make all necessary arrangements.

“If some comrades wish to come, they should come to Holland. We have a centre in Amsterdam, and Dutch comrades are working with us. If some comrades are ready to come, please telegraph me from New York to the following address:

“‘Israel Aaronson, c/o Madame Kercher, “‘116 Oude Scheveningerweg, “‘Scheveningen, Holland.’

“My assumed name is ‘Israel Aaronson.’ Kindly don’t telegraph in your own name. The word ‘yes’ will suffice. The Rotterdam-Amerika Line will receive instructions from us here to give tickets, etc., to as many persons as you recommend. All financial arrangements will be made by our party.

“News from India is good. We have lost (?) some very brave comrades in the recent skirmishes.

“It would be better if you could intimate in your telegram how many comrades wish to come. For instance, put the number in some sentence. I shall understand, e. g., Five months’ holiday coming. Etc., etc.

“The need for the services of comrades is urgent. Please do come to our help. We are fighting against heavy odds.

“With love and respect.

“Your for the Fight, “HAR DAYAL.”

“P. S. Kindly be very careful in keeping everything secret and confidential. When comrades arrive they should go and see Domela Nieuwenhuis, 20 Burgmestre Schooklaan, Hilversum (near Amsterdam). He will tell them where to meet me. Please also write a letter to the above address in Scheveningen, in addition to the telegram. Telegram may be intercepted.

“H. D.”

Not satisfied apparently that this letter would reach Berkman, Har Dayal wrote another a week later, which read as follows:

“Address: Israel Aaronson, “c/o Madame Kercher, “116 Oude Scheveningerweg, “Scheveningen.

“Dear Comrade:

“I am well and busy. Can you send me some earnest and sincere comrades men and women, to help our Indian revolutionary party at this juncture? They should be persons of good character. If Tannenbaum is free, would he like to come?

“Please keep this matter strictly _secret_ and _confidential_. Kindly don’t discuss it with too many people.

“This is a great opportunity for our party. I need the coöperation of earnest comrades for very important work. Several of our comrades have come from India with encouraging news and messages.

“If some comrades can come, please _wire_ and _write_ to the above address to my assumed name, ‘Israel Aaronson.’ I shall send you money immediately to the name which you telegraph. Let it be a name beginning with a B. I shall understand. Please don’t telegraph in your own name.

“Kindly also word the telegram in such a way that I can understand how many comrades are coming. If five comrades wish to come, please wire:

“‘Five hundred dollars job vacant come.’ Just put the number of comrades before the ‘_hundred_.’ Or use any other device.

“Kindly also send me names and addresses of the prominent anarchist comrades in Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, and other European countries. Please also send letters of introduction for me to them from Emma or yourself, if you know them.”

And so on. There is enough to show the company the Hindu-German intriguers kept, and to show that the Hindu committee in Berlin had enough money to buy mercenaries from the American anarchist group, for which the American brokers would hardly go unrewarded. Rintelen, within a week of his arrival in the United States in May, 1915, had tried to hire anarchists to blow up shipping and start strikes in munitions plants. It further shows that during that week in October of 1915, Har Dayal had a bright thought that if he could only get letters from Emma Goldman or Berkman introducing him to the anarchists of Europe, and could perhaps introduce to them in turn his lieutenant, Frank Tannenbaum, from America--the same who stormed St. Alphonsus’ church with a gang of I. W. W.’s in 1914, demanding food--he could hoodwink the anarchists into believing that he was playing their game, and really make good use of them in playing his game--which of course was Berlin’s.

As it happened, Tannenbaum was busy. So was Emma. So was Berkman, who received the letter. He was just formulating plans to go to San Francisco and become an editor--not a new avocation, for he had for ten years helped Emma Goldman issue a publication known as “Mother Earth”--and to carry out certain radical and novel ideas. Before we sketch the way in which he put those ideas on paper, it may be well to see what experiences he had had to generate ideas, and just what promise his career contained that he would be of guiding benefit to these United States.

Alexander Berkman was a Russian by birth, and was then about 44 years old. When he was a youth of 20 he became involved in the famous Homestead strike in Pennsylvania, and on July 22, 1892, he burst into the office of Henry Frick, a steel manufacturer, in the Carnegie Building in Pittsburg and shot that gentleman in the neck. He then went to the Western Penitentiary and served fourteen years. This qualified him as a rare martyr among anarchists. After he got out of prison he was occasionally arrested in various cities, for wherever he appeared among advocates of violence there was pretty certain to be trouble. The long prison term had given him a chance to develop his mind, and he had written 512 pages on “The Prison Life of an Anarchist,” which the “Mother Earth Publishing Company” brought out, and which sold for $1.15--a very interesting book indeed.

So he went to San Francisco in the fall of 1915. A short time before he left New York his friend Bill Shatoff gave him a farewell dinner. As the evening wore on the diners adjourned to the neighborhood of Second Avenue and Fifth Street for a frolic, and Berkman and Shatoff playfully mauled a policeman, and took his club away, for which both men were arrested. But that did not interfere long with Berkman’s departure for the Coast, and the purpose and fruit of his journey appeared within a short time.

It was called _The Blast_. According to its own description _The Blast_ was a revolutionary labor weekly, which meant that it preached revolution every so often to those who had a grievance against their employers and to those who had no employers but who had a deep contempt for anything of the sort. Alexander Berkman appeared as editor and publisher, E. B. Morton as associate editor, and M. E. Fitzgerald as manager. It sold for five cents a copy, unless you bought it in bundles, in which case you paid half that price.

In the first issue, dated January 15, 1916, the title of the paper is explained by the editor. “Do you mean to destroy?” he asks. “Do you mean to build? These are the questions we have been asked from many quarters by inquirers sympathetic and otherwise. Our reply is frank and bold: We mean both: to destroy and to build. For socially speaking, Destruction is the beginning of Construction.... The time is NOW. The breath of discontent is heavy upon this wide land. It permeates mill and mine, field and factory. Blind rebellion stalks upon highway and byway. To fire it with the spark of Hope, to kindle it with the light of Vision, and turn pale discontent into conscious social action--that is the crying problem of the hour. It is the great work calling to be done. To work, then, and blasted be every obstacle in the way of the Regeneration!” In a congratulatory telegram in the same issue, Emma wrote to Alexander: “Let _The Blast_ re-echo from coast to coast, inspiring strength and courage into the disinherited, and striking terror into the hearts of the craven enemy, now that one more of our brothers has fallen a victim to the insatiable Moloch. May _The Blast_ tear up the solidified ignorance and cruelty of our social structure. Blast away! To the daring belongs the future.”

A sample of the methods by which _The Blast_ proposed to begin its regeneration of the disinherited is this delicate editorial paragraph:

“_Judas Made Respectable._

“Judas Iscariot delivered the Nazarene agitator into the hands of the Roman District Attorney. This base betrayal incensed the people against the mercenary stool-pigeon. Judas had enough decency to go and hang himself.”