The Fall of a Nation
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All day from seven o’clock in the morning until dark the torrent of brown kahki poured through Fifty-ninth Street and down Fifth Avenue. When the Avenue was filled by the solid ranks from Central Park to the Washington Arch, the imperial host at a given signal raised their shout of triumph.
“For God and Emperor!”
Until this moment they had moved in a silence that was uncanny. Their long-pent feelings gave the united yell of a hundred and sixty thousand an unearthly power. They shouted in chorus first from every regiment in one grand burst of defiant pride. And then they shouted by regiments, beginning with the first. The shout leaped from regiment to regiment until it swept the entire line far out on the plains of Long Island. Each marching host tried to lift the note higher until the frenzied bursts came with the shock of salvos of artillery.
And then they sang the songs of their grand army on the march. For an hour their voices rang the death knell of freedom while conquered thousands stood in awed silence.
Waldron moved at the head of the column on his white horse in gorgeous uniform. Beside him rode in service suit the Commander-in-chief on a black Arabian stallion with arched neck and sleek, shining sides.
The ceremonies at the City Hall were brief. The grand procession never paused. Timed to a dot, the lines had divided as they passed the cross streets leading to our great tunnels. At Forty-second Street a division swung into the Grand Central Station to entrain for service in the interior. The cars were waiting with steam up and every man at his place under the command of army officers.
At Thirty-fourth Street another division swung into the Pennsylvania Station. At Twenty-third Street another swept toward the Lackawanna and the Erie. At Fourteenth Street another swung toward the Chelsea piers, where transports were waiting to bear them to Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, New Orleans, Jacksonville and Galveston.
These transports had been seized in the harbor. The great armada was already loading the second division of a hundred and sixty thousand more men at the wharves of Europe. The imperial army of occupation would consist of a million veterans. They would be landed now without pause until the work was done. A fleet of a hundred submarines lay in wait for our Pacific fleet in the Straits of Magellan. Its end was sure.
The conquest was complete, overwhelming, stunning. The half-baked desperate rebellions that broke out in various small towns where patriotism was a living thing were stamped out with a cruelty so appalling they were not repeated. At the first ripple of trouble the town was laid in ashes, its population of males massacred, its women outraged and driven into the fields to crawl to the nearest village and tell the story. One short-lived victory marked the end.
The Virginians raised an army of volunteer cavalry, led by a descendant of Jeb Stuart raided and captured Washington. The garrison were taken by complete surprise at three o’clock before daylight. The fight was at close quarters and the enemy was annihilated.
A battle cruiser promptly swept up the Potomac from the Chesapeake Bay, opened with her huge guns and reduced our capital to a pile of broken stone. Incendiary shells completed the work and two days later the most beautiful city in America lay beneath the Southern skies a smouldering ash-heap. The proud shaft of shining marble to the memory of George Washington was reduced to a mass of pulverized stone. A crater sixteen feet in depth gaped where its foundations had rested.
An indemnity was levied on New York that robbed the city of every dollar in every vault and sent its famous men into beggared exile. Waldron’s list of proscription for banishment included every leader in the world of finance, invention and industry.
He had marked every man with a genius for political leadership for a term of ten years’ imprisonment. Exile was too dangerous an experiment for these trouble-makers. They were safer in jail. Ten years in darkness and misery would bring them to reason.
The world’s war had cost the Imperial Federation a staggering total of thirty billions. Waldron promised his royal master to replace every dollar of this loss within five years by a system of confiscation and taxes. His first acts of plunder sent treasure ships to Europe bearing fifteen billions. The revenue from all the confiscated railroads, mines, and great industries taken over by the new government would reduce taxation in Europe to a trifle.
When the conquest was complete the net result was that Imperial Europe had fenced in a continent with bristling cannon. Inside the inclosure were a hundred million of the most intelligent and capable slaves the world had seen since the legions of Rome conquered Greece and enslaved her artists and philosophers.
There was no pause in the ruthless work until the last spark of resistance had been stamped out.
By one of the strange ironies of fate the fiercest of the futile rebellions broke out on the East Side of New York, where the attempt was made completely to disarm our half-baked foreign population. The men who sulked in the tenement districts below the Bowery had been accustomed to fight constituted authority in the Old World from habit. The first squad of soldiers sent into this quarter to disarm them had never returned. Not one of their bodies were found.
When a regiment with machine guns rushed in they found the side streets below Fourteenth barricaded with piles of trucks and lumber. From every window they received a hail of bullets.
A battery of artillery cleared the barricades and the slaughter began. After four hours of butchery in the streets, the commander discovered that the old Tenth Regiment Armory was crowded. More than a thousand women and children accustomed to attend Vassar’s school of patriotism had sought refuge there.
The children had found the flags and their mothers in foolish superstition had pinned them on their breasts for protection – the flag they had been taught to love!
The Imperial Guard turned their artillery on the armory and tore the flimsy front wall into fragments. When the screaming children and frantic women rushed through the breach, a withering fire from the pompoms piled their writhing bodies on the blood-soaked pavements.
Benda had been killed in the second intrenchments on Long Island. Angela faced the storm of lead at the door, holding her boy behind her back to shield him from the bullets.
A shell exploded inside and a fragment buried itself in the child’s breast. The mother felt the stinging shock and heard the thud of the iron crash into the soft flesh.
The boy made no cry. The iron had torn through his heart. The little hand was lifted feebly and clutched the tiny flag that covered his breast.
With a cry of anguish she clasped the bleeding bundle of flesh in her arms, ran through the building and found her way into the darkened basement.
When the building was cleared the commander entered with a squad of soldiers, lighted a cigarette and inspected the ruins.
On the blackboards still were standing in clear white chalk the sentences and mottoes Vassar had written:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUALThe Commander laughed and wrote beneath it:
BUT YOU COULDN’T STOP A SIXTEEN-INCH SHELL WITH HOT AIR!The men cheered.
On the next blackboard stood the words:
LIBERTY – EQUALITY – FRATERNITYThe officer struck a line through each word and wrote beneath:
AUTHORITY – OBEDIENCE – EFFICIENCYAgain the soldiers cheered.
Within three months the fallen nation had been completely disarmed and rendered helpless.
The penalty of death was enforced against everyone who dared to conceal a pistol, rifle, shotgun or piece of explosive. The manufacturing plants making arms and ammunition were under the control of the invaders.
They not only controlled these gun and shell factories, they took possession of every chemical laboratory and every piece of machinery that could be used to make explosives. It was no more possible to buy a piece of dynamite for any purpose than to buy a forty-two centimeter siege gun. All blasting for building and commercial purposes was done by an officer, who charged well for his services.
Every street railway and trunk line was manned by the army. The ammunition factories were all working with double shifts of American laborers, compelled by their conquerors to turn out shells for future use against their fellow-countrymen.
Every newspaper, magazine and publishing-house had installed an Imperial censor. Not a line was allowed to be printed under penalty of death except by his order.
Freedom of speech and press was relegated to the dust heap as dead heresies against constituted authority. The people were only told what their masters permitted them to hear. Our press, of course, was unanimous in its praise of the new Imperial régime. “Law,” “Order,” and “Efficiency” were the new watchwords of America. The people were not asked to do any thinking. Their masters did it for them, their part was to obey.
Waldron determined to make Virginia Holland the leader of a new woman’s party to proclaim the blessings of the imperial and aristocratic form of government.
He honored her with an invitation to his palace to discuss his scheme. When Virginia received the perfumed, crested note, her cheeks flushed with joy.
“Thank God!” she murmured fervently.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
VIRGINIA had just dressed in dead black for her visit to the palace of the Governor-General on the Heights. Waldron insisted on sending a state automobile. The machine was at the door with liveried flunkies standing in stiff servant attitudes.
A slender Italian woman passed them with a listless stare and rang the bell of the Holland house.
Virginia answered. She had seen the somber figure from the window.
“Angela!” she cried in surprise.
“Si. Signorina, I may see – you?”
“Yes” – was the quick, sympathetic answer.
The drooping figure shambled to a seat and dropped.
“Tell me – what has happened?” Virginia urged.
“You see the papers?”
“About the riots on the East Side – yes – the people were very foolish – ”
The woman leaned close – her breath coming in deep quivering draughts.
“They kill my bambino – signorina! The shell tore his little heart all out – see! I bring the flag he wore – all red with blood. And now I come to you – you speak so grand, I want my revenge – ”
She paused, strangled with emotion.
“I keep this flag and I love it too! I will kill and kill and kill! You will tell me how? They kill your father – they kill your brother – you tell me, Signorina! We fight now – you and me – we fight for this flag – is it not so?”
She held in her hand the blood-stained emblem.
Virginia took the stricken mother in her arms and sobbed with her.
“Come with me,” she said in low tones, leading the way to the sitting-room in the rear. She closed the doors, and pressed Angela to her knees.
Into the ears of the kneeling woman she whispered an oath.
“You swear?”
“By the mother of God and all the Saints!” came the quick answer.
For ten minutes Virginia gave instructions in tones so low that they could not be heard even by the keenest ear at her door.
There was a light of wild joy in the swarthy face as she rose.
“Now – I live – I breathe – Signorina! Si – si. I understand! I take the little organ and monkey. I go. I see all the people. I whisper to those I trust. We meet. I go again to West Side and do the same. I go everywhere and I tell you. Si – si. I live again!”
She threw her arms about Virginia, held her in silence and left with quick, eager step – the light of purpose flashing in her dark eyes.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE Governor-General received Virginia in royal state. His manner was gracious and genial. He led her to a seat in his great library and closed the doors. The royal guard took his stand outside.
“I told you, Miss Holland,” he began eagerly, “that I had high ambitions. You see that I am a man of my word. Of course, the thing that happened was inevitable. It was written in the book of Fate. Had I not seized the reins – another would. Conditions made my coup possible. For the excesses of the Imperial Conquering Army I have no words in palliation. Such is war. Had I known the peril of your father and mother, I assure you I would have hurried to their rescue – you believe me when I say this?”
“I am sure of it, now,” she answered promptly.
“I hurried to Babylon the moment I learned that the defense had collapsed and our troops were victorious – ”
He paused and leaned closer.
“I want to apologize for the unpardonable blunder I made the last time we met in this house. I did not realize then how deeply and madly I love you. In anguish I learned it too late. But I have bided my time. I have lived to prove my devotion in the hour of your peril and I have only begun what I wish to do for you – ”
Again he paused, his eyes devouring her pensive beauty.
“I had rather win you than rule the Empire that’s mine. I would win as a man woos and wins the one woman he loves – you believe me when I say this?”
“Yes,” was the frank reply. “I believe now that you are in dead earnest.”
“Good. I don’t ask if you love me. I know that you do not. I do not ask you to marry me immediately. I know that I must first win your regard. I prize you all the more for this reason – ”
“Man-like, of course,” Virginia interrupted with a smile.
“First, I wish to pay you personally the highest tribute a man in my position can give to any man or women. I am going to offer you the second highest place in the Empire next to mine. Your fortune has disappeared in the wreck of war. You shall rebuild it tenfold through the work I shall place in your hands. My first ambition now is really to pacify the mind of the States. It can be done through our women.
“I appeal to your reason. Here is the situation. The last hope of successful rebellion has been stamped out. The millions of America, completely disarmed, are helpless to resist our army of occupation. I wish, not only to complete the crushing of the last hope of insurrection; it is my ambition to convince the people that the central monarchical and aristocratic form of government is the only natural order of life and therefore a divine law.
“The quick intuitions of women have been always more open to this truth than the more brutal and anarchistic male mind. Women have always been the bulwark of aristocracy and imperial monarchy. Man is an anarchist – woman a royalist by instinct.
“The American democracy was only an accident of time and space. The oceans are now the King’s highway and he owns them by right of eminent domain. Democracy can never survive this bringing of the ends of the earth together. Democracy cannot live because when brought face to face with the monarchical form it is not worthy to live. The United States of America gave the human race the one supreme example of a weak, corrupt and contemptible government. The like of it was never known before in the history of man.
“Democracy is a disease – a form of crowd egomania which drives millions of people mad with the insane delusion that they have been called of God to do something for which they are utterly unfitted.
“All government worthy of the name must be conducted by a few brilliant minds – divine leaders – presided over by a supreme leader whom we call emperor or king. This is true in so-called democracies. The people only pretend to govern – imagine that they govern. They do not. A few master minds and brutal wills do it for them. Hence the system of bosses whose foul record we have ended forever.
“No nation can have an art or literature unless monarchical and aristocratic – America has never had a literature. It will have one only when its conscious life is reincarnated in the soul of a sovereign who takes his crown from God, not man.
“The people of this country were never fit to govern themselves. They got the kind of government they deserved. In Central Europe government has long been reduced to a science. Their cities are clean – their life as orderly as the movement of the stars.
“The monarchical form of government only can answer the questions of Socialism. Germany did this a generation ago. When the world-war came the Socialists were as loyal to the Emperor as the proudest prince of the blood.
“The conquest of America has been the best thing that could have happened. Its battles were of minor importance. Had not a powerful Imperial government come to our rescue we would have been deluged in blood by a second French Revolution within this generation.
“The noblest minds in this country have felt this for years. They have gradually been turning in disgust from our corrupt legislatures, our corrupt courts, our corrupt municipalities, our rotten boroughs, our corrupt Congress. I tell you this to show you that I have been led by no weak or vulgar ambition into a betrayal of the liberties of a people. I believe in what I have done – believe in it with every ounce of my manhood. We owe the progress of the human race to aristocracy, not democracy. Democracy is the great leveler of the world – the destructive force that presses humanity downward and backward. Aristocracy is the inspiring power that leads, uplifts, creates and beckons onward and upward.
“All the achievements of thought and science are by the chosen few. The herd merely eats and sleeps and reproduces its kind. But for the pressure from their superiors the masses would all lapse to elemental savagery within a few brief generations – ”
Waldron stopped suddenly and gazed on the placid waters of the Hudson.
Virginia watched him with genuine astonishment. He had revealed a new side of his strong character. She had not dreamed that his philosophy of life had been so logically wrought. She had not believed since his betrayal of his country that he had a philosophy of life at all.
“You astonish me beyond measure,” she said at last.
He smiled coldly.
“I understand. You did not think me capable of such sweeping thoughts or such close reasoning – confess it!”
“It’s true, I didn’t – ”
“You know now that I am in earnest in my political ambitions also?”
“I’m thoroughly convinced – ”
“Good! You are a woman of rare intelligence and high ambitions. It is therefore easy for me to speak, now that you know that I am sincere – ”
He held her gaze in a moment’s searching silence.
“I may trust you now I’m sure with a secret that is not a secret if I should be accused. You will know that I mean something very definite when I say that this nation is too great, its resources too exhaustless to remain forever a conquered province of Imperial Europe. Am I not right?”
“At least I hope so,” was the diplomatic reply.
“Exactly,” Waldron answered confidentially. “In other words the day will come when a political leader of supreme genius will win the utter loyalty and confidence of the soldiers who hold these millions in hand. The man who does that will ascend a throne in Washington in a palace worthy of a Continental Empire washed by two oceans – you understand?”
“I see!” Virginia breathed.
“Remember then, dear young lady, that I am your servant from today. If I have high ambitions and glorious dreams for my people and my country, I dream new glories for you – ”
“And the commission you would offer me?” she asked steadily.
“That you organize the women of America into loyal legions who will sustain the government against the possible forces of anarchy and rebellion. If you will consider the offer I will place unlimited money at your command. The old régime is gone forever. You can help me now to organize a nobler one on its ruins.”
“And my reward?”
“I shall lay at your feet all that I am and have and ever hope to be. I offer it now without condition if you will accept my hand in marriage – ”
“Your commission I accept at once,” was the prompt reply. “If I succeed we shall meet on terms more nearly equal.”
Waldron sprang to his feet, seized her hand and kissed it.
Could we have seen the expression of her white face when his lips touched her flesh he would not have smiled as he led her to the waiting car.
CHAPTER XL
THE jails were crowded with our leading statesmen. The President and his Cabinet had been transferred to Fort Warren at Boston before the Capitol was destroyed.
The Honorable Plato Barker, for reasons deemed sufficient by the Governor-General, was placed in the United States penitentiary at Albany. In spite of his mania for peace, Waldron thoroughly mistrusted him. His passion for oratorical leadership he knew to be insatiate. What fool scheme he might advocate in secret could not be guessed. In vain Barker offered to take the iron-clad Imperial oath. Waldron was deaf to all entreaties even when the petition was borne to him by the officer of the army who had captured the silver-tongued leader and made him a scullion. Villard, the Commanding General, had allowed Barker to deliver Sunday lectures to his soldiers on harmless themes of Chautauqua fame. The Commander had grown to like the orator as a harmless sort of court jester. He was particularly fond of his illustrations and jokes. He declared that Barker had missed his calling – he should have been an evangelist or a clown.
Failing to release his favorite captive the General interceded to save his reason.
Barker could not endure the silence to which he had been doomed. His mind began to break under the strain. He was saved from madness by an order which permitted him to preach to the prisoners on Sunday.
His first discourse was on “The Extraordinary Food Value of Grape Juice.”
The men who were living on bread and water didn’t like it.
The lecture was interrupted by an incipient riot. He was compelled to drop the subject and stick to historical religion. He switched to a discourse on Saul of Tarsus, which was well received. It in no way mocked the appetites of his hearers.
Pike proved to be another proposition for his captor. He became so peevish and sullen that his taskmaster went out of his way to make his life unendurable. The bow-legged Commander not only continually repeated Pike’s former expressions on the dangers of being armed and the wickedness of being prepared for defense in the presence of the preacher while he danced attendance as a waiter at his headquarters, but he added insult to injury at last by forcing the advocate of peace to become an expert shot by daily target practice.
When Waldron ordered the doughty cavalry leader to St. Louis, he dragged Pike with him to continue his systematic torture. He piled the last straw on the little man’s back the day after their arrival in the new quarters by ordering him to don the uniform of the Emperor, join a firing squad and shoot a deserter.
The preacher refused point blank. To have his fun the General ordered two guardsmen to bring the rebel to his room and force him into the uniform – his horse was standing at the door saddled and ready to gallop to the field and watch Pike faint at the ordeal.
The General roared with laughter when he finally stood forth arrayed in the brown uniform of the army. The guardsmen in their shirtsleeves were laughing too. He had struggled manfully to prevent the outrage and they had only drawn the clothes on him by main force. It took the hostler at the door finally to win the contest.
“Cheer up, Cuthbert, you’ll soon be dead!” the officer cried.
The boys roared.
With a sudden panther leap Pike was on the General, snatched his automatic from his belt, shot him dead and killed the three men before they recovered from the shock.
With a second leap he was on the waiting horse and calmly galloped through the camp before the guards discovered the incident.
He found his way to General Hood’s headquarters in the Sierra Nevadas and reported for duty.
“Keep your uniform!” Hood laughed. “We’ll need it for scout work.”
“Sure I’ll keep it,” the preacher snapped – “and use it myself, sir! I’ll show them that my name’s Pike – not Piker!”
The General despatched him to the Coast on an important and dangerous mission.
CHAPTER XLI
VIRGINIA HOLLAND’S conversion to the open advocacy of the principles of monarchy and aristocracy was Waldron’s first sensation in the campaign in which he began to destroy the American conception of liberty.