Banzai! Part 8

"We'll soon get them back, don't worry about that," said the old gentleman calmly.

"Have you read the orders for mobilization?"

"I haven't read them, and don't intend to."

"Colonel Smiles told me just now that it will not be possible to dispatch our troops to the West in less than three weeks. Fortunately there are about a dozen s.h.i.+ps of the Pacific fleet off the west coast, and they will be able to attack the j.a.panese in the rear."

"If there's still time," supplemented his father. "Anyhow, we can leave these matters to others. It's none of our business; they can attend to all that at Was.h.i.+ngton. War is purely and simply a question of finances so far as the United States is concerned, and it's as plain as day that we can hold out ten times longer than those yellow monkeys. That the money will be forthcoming goes without saying; Congress will do all that is needed in that direction, and the subscriptions for the war-loan will show that we are fully prepared along that line. So let us drop that subject. The question is, what shall we do? What do you propose doing with our factory during the war?"

"Go on working, of course, father."

"Go on working--that is to say, produce surplus stock. If we go on working we shall have goods on our hands which no one will buy, and be compelled to store them. Ironclads, cannon, powder, uniforms, guns, these are the things for which there is a demand now; whisky, too, will be bought and bread will be baked, and the meat trust will make money hand over fist; but do you suppose the United States Government is going to buy our pianos to play tunes to the soldiers?"

"But what about our workmen?" interposed Gerald.

"Yes, our workmen," said the old gentleman, jumping energetically off the desk and standing before his son with his legs wide apart and his hands in his pockets: "Our workmen--that brings us to your favorite subject, to which you devote your entire time and interest!" He transferred his pipe into the right-hand corner of his mouth and continued: "I intend to dismiss our workmen, my boy, and shut up shop; we couldn't earn a cent more even if we kept the machines going.

Besides, our Government needs soldiers now, not workmen. Let your dear workmen shoulder their guns and march to the West. When I was your age, and starting in with one hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket, no one offered me pensions for sickness and old age or insurance against non-employment or whatever this new-fangled nonsense is called. We ought to increase the energy of the people, instead of stuffing pillows for them. A man who has anything in him will make his way even in these times."

"Father!" The young man jumped up from his chair and faced his father with all the idealistic enthusiasm of youth.

"Keep your seat, my boy, subjects of this nature can be better discussed sitting."

"No, father, I can't keep still. This question concerns four thousand workmen and their families."

"Three thousand of whom I shall dismiss at noon to-day," interrupted the old gentleman decisively.

"What! You don't mean to say you'll send three thousand workmen, quiet, industrious, faithful, reliable workmen, begging to-day? Why, father!

That would be perfectly barbarous, that would be a crime against humanity! The people have stuck by us in days of prosperity, and now when our sales may perhaps," he emphasized the last word, "may perhaps be diminished, you will stop the wheels and shut down the factory?"

"Look here, my son, I'm not a socialists' meeting. Such sentiments may sound very nice from the platform, but there's no need of your trying your speeches on me. The question at issue is, shall we suffer the consequences or shall they, and I don't mind telling you that I prefer the latter. Do you suppose that I've worked hard all my life and worn myself out for the express purpose of turning our factory into a workingmen's home? No, my boy, I can't support you in your little hobby."

"But, father, capital and labor----"

"O, cut out those silly phrases," interrupted the old gentleman irritably, "Karl Marx and Henry George and all your other stand-bys may be all right in your library, and help to decorate your bookshelves, but I prefer to settle our practical problems on the basis of my experience and not of your books. As manager and proprietor of our plant I want to tell you that when the whistle blows at noon to-day I shall notify our workingmen that in consequence of the totally unforeseen breaking out of hostilities--here I shall insert a few words about the sacred duty of patriotism and of defending one's country--we are unwillingly forced to dismiss three thousand of our workmen. We'll pay wages for, let's say, a fortnight longer, but then good-by to the men; we'll shut up shop, and the thousand men that are left can finish the standing orders and any new ones that may come in. And if no new ones turn up, then the remaining workingmen will be dismissed at once. In the meantime I'll subscribe one hundred thousand dollars to the war-loan, and then engage pa.s.sage on a Lloyd steamer, the most expensive cabins with every possible luxury, for your mother, your two sisters, myself, and I hope for you, too, and we'll be off to old Europe. Shall we make it the Riviera? We've been there before, and, besides, it's a little too hot there now--let's say Norway or Switzerland. In my humble opinion we had better watch developments from a distance, and, as I said, I earnestly hope that my only son and heir will join our party, unless he should prefer to remain here and become a lieutenant in our glorious army and draw his sword against the enemy? This is my final decision and the last word I have to say on the subject, unless you think that some friend of ours in the financial world may have a better suggestion to offer."

"I should never have thought, father, that you could be so hard-hearted and unfeeling, that you could be capable of ruining the lives of thousands with one stroke of your pen. Your att.i.tude towards the relations between employer and employee is absolutely incomprehensible to me; the socialistic conscience----"

"Listen, my boy," said the old gentleman, going over to his son and laying his hand gently on his shoulder: "I've always allowed you an absolutely free hand in your schemes, and you know we've always tried to meet our employees more than half way in all their wishes, but now it's a question of who's to suffer--we or they? In times of peace there may be some excuse for these nice socialistic ideas: they give a man a certain standing and bring him into the public eye. There's a good man, they say; he understands the demands of the times. But there's a limit to everything. One man rides one hobby, and some one else another. One keeps a racing-stable, another sports a steam-yacht, and still another swears by polo or cricket, but these things must not be carried to excess. The minute the owner of the racing-stable turns jockey, he ceases to be a business man, and the same is true of the man who keeps a racing-yacht and spends all of his time at the start, and, after all is said and done, it's our business we want to live on. You've selected the workingman as your favorite sport, and that also has its limits. If we squander our hard-earned millions on socialistic improvements now, we'll have to begin over again in about two years' time. I doubt whether I should have sufficient genius left to discover a new piano-hammer, and I entertain still more serious doubts as to your ability to invent a panacea that will render the whole world happy and make you richer instead of poorer. _Ergo_, we'll shut up shop. In Hoboken we'll sing Yankee Doodle and as we pa.s.s the Statue of Liberty The Star Spangled Banner, in token of farewell, and then off we go! If things turn out better than we antic.i.p.ate, we can come back, but this is my last word for the present: At noon the following notice will be posted at all the entrances and in all the rooms of our factory: 'Three thousand workmen are herewith dismissed; wages will be paid for a fortnight longer, when the factory will be closed indefinitely.' By the way, are you going to the Stock Exchange to-day?"

"I'm not in a mood for the Stock Exchange, father. If that is your last word, then my last word is: I am your partner----"

"So much the worse," said the father.

"--and therefore have a right to dispose as I please of my interest in the business. I therefore demand the immediate payment of so much of my inheritance as will be required to pay the wages of the workmen you've dismissed for at least another year, with the exception of the single men who enter the army."

"No, my boy, we won't do anything of the sort. Don't forget that I'm running this business. According to the contract made when you came of age, you may demand a million dollars upon severing your connection with the firm. This sum will be at your disposal at the bank to-day at noon, but not a cent more. What you do with it is a matter of complete indifference to me, but let me remind you that ordinarily when a man throws money out of the window, he at least likes to hear it drop."

"That surely cannot be your last word, father, otherwise we must part."

"All right, my boy, let's part till dinner-time. I hope to find you in a more sensible frame of mind when the family a.s.sembles this evening. I've told you what will be done in the factory in the meantime, and as for our trip, we'll discuss that to-night with your mother. Now leave me, I must get ready for Wall Street."

The door closed noiselessly after Mr. Hanbury, Junior. "The scamp," said the father to himself, "I can't help admiring him. Thirty years ago I entertained just such ideas, but what has become of them!" He thought a moment, pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead, then jumped up quickly and exclaimed: "Now to work!" He pressed a b.u.t.ton on the desk, his secretary entered, and the conversation that ensued dealt exclusively with coming events in Wall Street.

_Chapter VI_

A NIGHT IN NEW YORK

The _New York Daily Telegraph_ had already issued several regular editions and a number of extras, without really having conveyed much definite information, for the dispatches consisted for the most part of rumors that arose like distant lightning on the western horizon, and it was quite impossible to ascertain just where. A dark bank of clouds lay over the Pacific States, completely shutting in the territory that had been cut off from all communication, both by wire and rail. The natural supposition was, that the j.a.panese outposts were stationed at the points just beyond which to the east telegraphic communication had not yet been interrupted, but the messages that were constantly pouring in from places along this border-line revealed clearly that these outposts were continually pus.h.i.+ng further eastwards. A serious battle didn't seem to have occurred anywhere. The utter surprise caused by the sudden appearance of the j.a.panese troops, who seemed to spring up out of the ground, had from the very beginning destroyed every chance of successful resistance.

Shortly after the first vague rumors of battles said to have been fought at San Francisco, Port Townsend, and Seattle, had arisen, even these sources of information ran dry. The question from where all the hostile troops had come, remained as much of a riddle as ever. That was a matter of indifference after all; the chief consideration was to adopt measures of defense as speedily as possible.

But the War Department worked slowly, and the news received from headquarters at Was.h.i.+ngton consisted only of the declaration that the regulars were going to be sent to the West immediately, that the President had already called out the reserves, and that Congress would meet on May eleventh to discuss means for placing the militia on a war-footing and for creating an army of volunteers. The regular army!

Three States with their regiments and their coast-defenses had to be deducted at the very start. What had become of them? Had they been able to hold their own between the enemy and the coast? What had happened to the Philippines and to Hawaii? Where was the fleet? None of these questions could be answered, simply because all telegraphic connection was cut off. The strength of the enemy was an absolutely unknown quant.i.ty, unless one cared to rely on the figures found in the ordinary military statistics, which had probably been doctored by the j.a.panese.

Was this the j.a.panese army at all? Was it an invading force? Could such a force have pushed so far to the East in such a short s.p.a.ce of time after landing? The press could find no satisfactory answer to these questions, and therefore contented itself with estimating the number of American soldiers available after subtracting the three coast States.

The newspapers also indulged in rather awkward calculations as to when and how the troops could best be dispatched to the invaded territory.

But this optimism did not last long and it convinced n.o.body.

Another serious question was, how would the ma.s.ses behave upon the breaking-out of this sudden danger, and what att.i.tude would be a.s.sumed by the foreign elements of the population. It was most important to have some inkling as to how the Germans, the Irish, the Scandinavians, the Italians and the various people of Slavonic nationality would act when called upon to defend their new country. It was of course absolutely certain that the two great political parties--the Republicans and the Democrats--would work together harmoniously under the stress of a common danger.

Francis Robertson, the well-known reporter of the _New York Daily Telegraph_--called the Flying Fish on account of his streaming coat-tails--had been on the go all day. He had scarcely finished dictating the shorthand notes made on his last tour of inspection, to the typewriter, when he received orders--it was at seven o'clock in the evening--to make another trip through the streets and to visit the headquarters of the various national and political societies. First he went to a restaurant a few doors away, and in five minutes succeeded in making way with a steak that had apparently been manufactured out of the hide of a hippopotamus. Then he jumped into a taxicab and directed the chauffeur at the corner of Twenty-ninth Street to drive as quickly as possible through the crowd down Broadway. But it was impossible for the chauffeur on account of the mob to move at more than a snail's pace, and the cab finally came to a dead stop at Madison Square, which was packed with excited people. Robertson left the cab and hurled himself boldly into the seething ma.s.s of humanity, but soon discovered that if he wished to make any progress at all he would have to allow himself to be carried forward by the slowly moving crowd. At the corner of Twenty-second Street he managed to disentangle himself and hurried through the block, only to find a new crowd on Fourth Avenue.

He intended to cross Fourth Avenue and then push on to Third Avenue, in order to reach Tammany Hall by that route, but he was doomed to disappointment, for the human stream simply carried him down Fourth Avenue as far as Union Square, where it ceased moving for a time.

Presently it got under way again, proceeding even more slowly than before, and Robertson soon found himself in the middle of the square, being suddenly pushed against the basin of the fountain upon which he climbed for the double purpose of regaining his breath and of looking around to see if it were possible to make his way through to Tammany Hall. In vain! His eyes were greeted by an interminable sea of heads and hats, which did not offer the slightest chance of his being able to slip through. The trees, the statues and the fountain in the square appeared to be buried to a height of two yards in a black flood. He looked longingly across Sixteenth Street over to Third Avenue, but nowhere could he find an opening.

He felt like a s.h.i.+p-wrecked mariner cast ash.o.r.e on a desert island. The sullen roar of the crowd echoed against the buildings enclosing the square like the dull boom of the surf. Over on Third Avenue the yellow lights of the elevated cars crossed the dark opening of Sixteenth Street at regular intervals, and recalled to Robertson a piece of scenery at a fair, where a lighted train ran continually between the mouths of two tunnels in the mountains. He pulled out his note-book and by the light of the electric arc-lamp made a note of the observation.

Then he jumped down from the ledge where he had taken refuge and once more joined the human stream. The latter, as if animated by a common purpose, was moving downtown, and if Robertson's neighbors were properly posted, it was headed for the Chinese quarter. It was evident that they intended to vent their fury for the present on these allies of the j.a.panese. This longing for revenge, this elementary hatred of the yellow race kept the crowd in Union Square in motion and shoved everyone without discrimination towards Broadway and Fourth Avenue. The square resembled a huge machine, which by means of some hidden automatic power forced tens of thousands of unresisting bodies into the narrow channels.

The crowd rolled on unceasingly. Here and there a hat flew off into the air, came down again, bobbed up and down once or twice, and then continued its journey somewhere else on the surface. It was fortunate that those who had become insensible from the dreadful noise and the foul, dusty air were unable to fall down; they were simply held up by the close pressure of their neighbors and were carried along until a few blocks farther on they regained consciousness. Nevertheless a few fell and disappeared in the stream without leaving a trace behind them. No pen could describe their terrible fate; they must have been relentlessly ground to pieces like stones on the rocky bed of a glacier.

Above this roaring stream of human beings there swept unceasingly, in short blasts like a tearing whirlwind, the hoa.r.s.e cry of a people's pa.s.sion: "Down with the yellow race! Down with the j.a.panese! Three cheers for the Stars and Stripes!" The pa.s.sionate cry of a crowd thirsting for revenge rose again and again, as if from a giant's lungs, until the cheers and yells of "down" turned into a wild, deafening, inarticulate howl which was echoed and re-echoed a thousand times by the tall buildings on both sides of the avenue. Now and then an electric street-car, to which clung hundreds of people, towered like a stranded vessel above the waving ma.s.s of heads and hats.

Robertson decided to give up the idea of reaching Tammany Hall and to drift with the crowd to the Chinese quarter. At Astor Place a branch of the human stream carried him to the Bowery, where he found himself on the edge of the crowd and was sc.r.a.ped roughly along the fronts of several houses. He stood this for another block, but determined to escape at the next corner into a side street. Before he could reach it, however, he was crushed violently against the wall of a house and turned round three or four times by the advancing throng; during this maneuver his right coat-tail got caught on something and before he knew it, he had left the coat-tail behind. At last he reached the corner and clung tightly to a railing with his right hand, but the next moment he flew like a cork from a champagne-bottle into the quiet darkness of Fifth Street, b.u.mping violently against several men who had been similarly ejected from the current and who pushed him roughly aside.

Robertson was bursting with rage, for just before he had been propelled into Fifth Street, he had caught a glimpse of the grinning face of Bob Traddles, of the _Tribune_, his worst compet.i.tor, only a few feet away.

The latter showed clearly how delighted he was at this involuntary discomfiture of his rival in the mad race for the latest sensational news. Robertson attempted for a while to get back into the current, but all of his efforts proved futile. Then he tried at least to find out what the people intended to do, and in spite of the contradictory information he received, he was pretty well convinced that they were really going to make an attack on the inhabitants of the Chinese quarter. Although hopelessly separated from Tammany Hall by the countercurrent of the human stream, he at last succeeded in reaching the Eighth Street station of the Second Avenue Elevated, where he took an uptown train to Forty-second Street. Then he walked over to Third Avenue and took a downtown train, which was crowded to suffocation, as far as Grand Street, for the purpose of reaching the Chinese quarter from the uptown side. The trip had consumed fully two hours. At the crossing of Grand and Mott Streets he found the entrance to the latter barred by a line of policemen standing three deep. He showed his badge to a sergeant and received permission to pa.s.s.

The dead silence of Mott Street seemed almost uncanny after the noisy roar of the mob, the echoes of which still rang in his ears. The bas.e.m.e.nts of the houses were all barricaded with shutters or boards, the doors were locked, and there was scarcely a light to be seen in the windows of the upper stories. A person paying his first visit to this busy, bustling ant-hill of yore would, if he had not been reminded by the peculiar penetrating smell of the yellow race of their proximity, scarcely have believed that he was really in the notorious Chinese quarter of New York.

The policeman who acted as Robertson's guide told him that they had known all about the movements and intentions of the mob long before it had reached the police headquarters, by way of the Bowery and Elm Street, and begun to force its way from the Bowery through some of the side streets into the Chinese quarter. Fearing that the latter would be set on fire, the chief of police had given orders to protect it from the irresponsible mob by barricading the streets with all the available members of the force. In this attempt, however, they had been only partially successful. It was out of the question for six hundred men to hold out against tens of thousands; the enormous pressure from the rear had hurled the front rows like driftwood against the thin chain of policemen, which, after a stubborn resistance, had simply been broken through at several spots.

A hand-to-hand fight had ensued and shots were soon fired on both sides, so that the police had to content themselves with an effort to check the worst excesses. Then, too, the spirit of patriotism was just as rampant in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the police as it was in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those who urged on the mob. As it was impossible to catch hold of the treacherous invaders themselves, their natural allies should at least not escape unscathed. The Chinese were of course prepared for such an attack. The howling, raging mob found barricaded doors and windows wherever they went, and even when they did succeed, after considerable labor, in breaking these down, it was usually only to find that the birds had flown, that the occupants had made their escape in time. Wherever resistance had been offered by the Chinese, the mob had gone beyond all bounds in its frenzy.

"Several hundred Chinamen must have been killed," said the policeman, "and it would be best for the papers to hush up what went on inside the houses." Robertson and his companion stopped near a lamp-post, and the former hurriedly made some shorthand notes of all the information he had received.

"Look," said the policeman, "Judge Lynch has done his work well," and he pointed with his club to a lamp-post on the other side of the street from which two dark bodies were hanging. "Simply hanged 'em," he added laconically.