Captains and The Kings (49 page)

He cried for the impeachment of the Governors of Maryland and Pennsylvania, who brought out the militia against the railroad workers. He is no tyro, no radical. We can't bribe him. We can't threaten him with 'exposure.' Or," he added in a meditative voice, "Call we?" "I think we have told you that there is nothing. He is a mountain of the Christian virtues." "There is always something," said Joseph. "I will set my men to work at once." he looked at the men around the great oval table and saw their eyes. "There is no man alive, gentlemen, who does not have something to conceal, large or small. If small, then it can be blown up to gigantic proportious. It is easy to make even a saint into a mountebank, a deceiver, a betrayer of the people, if one is clever enough. I think my men are very clever." Four weeks later Joseph went to Washington, which he called "a white ship on a sea of mud and fog." He hated its smells of sewers, its heat, its spiritual atmosphere of corruption and slyness and expedieucy and spoils. Grand avenues were being laid out, and Joseph reflected that similar ave- nuts in France had led to the easy looting and insurrections and assassinations by the Parisian mobs, for no walls or turnings had impeded them, nor had soldiers any means of ambush. We don't, thought Joseph, as yet have a Rousseau or a Mirabeau or a Robespierre, nor are we as yet infected by commoness as were the French revolutionaries and their rich leaders. But, thanks to my friends, we will most likely have them in the future, in the lifetime of my sons or my sons' sons. Joseph detested Washington, which amused his friends, for was he not part of its corruption, venality, and spoils? Had he not used senators and congressmen with cynicism? They did not know of his ambiguous probity, for he was hardly aware of it, himself. For instance, he had not rushed eagerly to invest heavily in munitions during the Franco-Prussian War, ill which his friends had made combined billions. He had liked neither combatants, though at one time he had heartily hated Bismarck, who had been infected by Socialisnl. Yet, were not his friends plotting to infuse Marxism into all nations for their destruction and bankruptcy, so that they could be silently conquered and ruled by the Elite? When something could not be reconciled in his mind he suppressed it as irrelevant. He had rooms in the Lafayette Hotel, a modest hostelry, for at all times, unlike some of the more flamboyant entrepreneurs, he avoided ostentation and the public eye. His tastes were austere. He did not like gleaming carriages and fine horses. So his invisibility was not strategy but nature. That it immeasurably helped him did not occur to him, though it did to his colleagues. However, politicians usually knew when he was in town, and some were uneasy. Senator Bassett was a resolute man, but he was disturbed at the news. When Joseph Armagh appeared hides had a habit of becoming raw--or were groomed to glossiness. Senator Bassett doubted that if he should encounter Joseph he would be groomed, though he did not know Joseph personally. Joseph's presence, in itself, was ominous, as the senator's friends had informed him. "He is one of the prime movers against the Alien Contract Labor bill," the senator was told. "He moves quietly and without overt noise, but he is there just the same." "I will wait," said the senator. "My God, how I hate these behind-the- scenes politicians! They are worse than the elected ones, for they control too man)' of us. I thank God that senators are appointed by State Legislatures and so never have to run for office like the unforttmate congressmen. I hope senators are never elected by direct vote of the people, for the people are volatile and can easily be misled by a smile or a wiuk or a few coppers in their hands, and, above all, by grandiose promises." "Joe Armagh is one of the chief promoters of a Constitutional Amendment to elect senators by direct vote of the people, and to stop their appointment by State Legislators only." "Not in my lifetime, hope," said the senator, in a stern voice. "We'd be redundant, then, which is probably the whole plot anyway. And we'd be the creatures of the politicians just as the congressmen are." Senator Enfield Bassett was from Massachusetts. He was a small but compact man with a great head, too large for his frame. He gave the in- pression, in spite of his stature, of considerable strength of body and mind. He had a big and vital face, kind and very intelligent and eloquent, and was forty-five )'ears old. He did not wear a beard but only a very curly mustache which he vainly tried to straighten with wax. His hair, somewhat short, had that tendency also, and he lavishly used oil on it. His eyes were beautiful, large, black, and expressive, with long silken lashes. There was something about them, however, which disturbed his friends. They were never known to harden or grow too intent or piercing, but always shone with humor. His nose was not conspicuous, though his mouth was unusually generous, and he had fine white teeth. If there was a slight inclination to the rococo in his attire his friends loved him for it. They knew that this did not extend to rococo judgments, but that always he was balanced, thoughtful, sincere and moderate. Above all things he was adamaut against the exploitation of American labor, its agonies, its unjust oppression and misery--and against the importation of alien labor which was willing to work for almost nothing in its wretchedness and so cripple American labor. "I am not against Europeans," he would say, "for are we not all Europeans? But I an against the importation of foreign labor which is brought here in cattle boats, sick and starving and diseased, not to be succored and helped by 'compassionate' owners--and do they not act like owners?--but to be driven into our mills and factories and mines like beasts, there to work until they die on their feet--and then are buried in unknown graves. They are confined behind stockades, with no access to the world outside those stockades. Their wives and their children are pressed into service. Their lot is terrible, unconscionable, not to be endured in any Christian nation. Their fate is far worse here than in their native countries. At least there they had a little land. What have they here? Nothing but servitude. They never see a copper of their earnings. It goes to company stores for their meager needs. "The time has come, my friends, when we must practice what we preach. \Ve say we are a free nation. But, are those who are imported here like cattle free? \Ve must stop such importation. Henceforth those who come to our shores must be free men, willing to assume the responsibilities of freedom, proud men with trades and with skills, and not mute creatures willing to work to their deaths for a little bread and unmarked graves. Thank God we have abolished open slavery. Let us now abolish covert slavery. No entrepreneur must henceforth be permittcd to import desperate men for his own profits, to the detriment of our own people, who demand a decent wage and a decent shelter." "Progress," said his opponents. "Shall we close the doors to our country to the wretched, the serfs, the meek?" Senator Bassett knew who "owned" those politicians. No man owned him. It had been, in its way, a miracle that he had been selected by his State Legislature for his office. "An oversight," he would. say wryly. "They must have just come from church." This was the man of integrity that Joseph Armagh had arrived to suborn. He did nothing overt. He asked two senators to extend an invitation to Senator Bassett to meet him, "in the interests of mutual concern." The invitation was extended. Senator Bassett believed in the aphorism that a man should know his enemy, the better to judge him and to overcome him. So he agreed to have dinner with Joseph in the privacy of the latter's rooms. It was a day of intense heat, July 1, 1881, tropical, dripping with moisture though the sun shone and there had been no rain; fetid, stinking of sewage, fouled dust, horse droppings, stagnant water, and rotting vegetation, and other smells which could not be defined but were rank. The hotel was not situated in a fashionable quarter and the bricked street was narrow and, as usual in Washington, blowing with scattered filth in a hot wind. Across the street stood endless rows of what Joseph called "terrace houses," from his memory of the towns in Ireland, that is, attached houses of a dull reddish stone with tiny smeared windows and painted doorways on flagged or wooden walks. The windows of Joseph's rooms were open and the curtains blew in and out and the velvet draperies were dust. There was constant traffic; the rattle of steel-rimmed wheels invaded the rooms and the clopping of horses and the barking of stray dogs. The rooms were small, plushy and very hot, and some of the crowded furniture was of horsehair, and the rugs were cheap. The senator observed this with some surprise. This hotel seemed hardly the place for one like Joseph Armagh and for a moment the senator thought that this must be secretiveness. Then he studied his host and saw his good but austere clothing and decided that this atmosphere was more to Joseph's taste than grandeur, and for some reason he was more alarmed than before. Ascetics were not as easily moved as grandiloquent men; they tended to fanaticism and were often less than human in their emotions. Too, they frequently lacked conscience, could not be bribed easily, and, if they had humor it was usually wry and acrid, and without pity. Yet when Joseph turned to him with a formal greeting and an expression of gratitude that the senator had kindly vouchsafed to accept his invitation, Senator Bassett saw something in his fleshless face that touched him. Here was a man who had known infinite pain and sorrow and cruelty and rejection, and as the senator had suffered these himself he recognized them. He also remembered that a French poet had said, "In this world the heart either breaks or turns to stone." Joseph's had probably turned to stone, and now the senator felt oppressed and despondent. There was nothing so relentless as a man who had endured all the evil that the world can inflict, and who had turned against that world. "I have ordered ham and a bird for you, Senator," said Joseph, "and beer and plum pudding. I hope it is all to your taste." "You are very kind," said the senator with new surprise. "They are my favorite victuals." He was about to ask how Joseph knew that, and then he remembered, with a fresh rise of alarm, that Joseph had probably learned a great deal about him and such minute inspection was not flattering and could be dangerous. It had also had a purpose. The senator well understood that Joseph was here to try to persuade him to retract on his support of the Alien Contract Labor bill, for the withdrawal of such support would endanger its passage. "I am gratified," said Joseph, in the stilted and formal tone he had used since the senator had arrived. "I, myself, eat sparingly, and this heat ruins any appetite at all. I wonder why you senators remain here in the summer, and especially as a holiday is almost at hand." "We have work to do, very pressing work," said the senator. He sat down at the laid round table with its clean but cheap linen and tarnished silver. "I don't like Washington, myself, but I am here to serve my country." The old and pompous words sounded, in the senator's strong yet musical voice, not hypocritical but sincere.
"Against its enemies internal and external." Joseph could study a man without giving any indication of such acute study and he soon knew that the senator was a man of absolute rectitude and not a political liar, and therefore he was out of place in this city and an anomaly. He also knew that the senator knew why he was here, and that the senator had accepted his invitation not because of his power alone but for his own judgment of Joseph's formidable weapons. Joseph's hidden scrutiny scanned the senator's face, lingered on the mouth and the large soft eyes of a deep liquid black and on the determinedly curly hair and mustache which were, in this heat, rebelling against oil and wax. He felt the faintest qualm, something he had not felt for years, and he crushed it. He had nothing against the senator personally. He knew that this man had been very poor, almost as poor as himself, and that what he had-- mortgaged though it was--had been bought with earned money and not through loot and bribes. Joseph's own dinner consisted of a dish of thin broth and a slice of cold meat and bread, and tea. He ate absently. The senator, though becoming more wary every moment, ate with heartiness and commented on his colleagues with kind amusement and did not name them. He was witt3'. When he laughed his laugh was higher than the usual man's laughter, and ran to the suggestion of a cry at the end. The beer refreshed him and he drank it copiously. "I heard," said Joseph, "that you are really a farmer. I, myself, was born in the country. In Ireland." "Ah, we have a number of congressmen who are Irish," said the senator. "Yes, I am a farmer, born on a farm. I own four hundred acres of land in Massachusetts and another five hundred in New York State. Four tenant farmers. Now," he added, with a sparkle of those unusually fine black eyes, "when I say I 'own' those acres I mean I have title to them but the banks really own them. I am paying them off, with high interest. I was born in Massachusetts, but my wife was born in Georgia. I met her here in Washington when I was a congressman, and her father a senator. He felt she was stooping pretty low to marry me," and he laughed. "I have," he continued with pride, "a very pretty daughter who is marrying into a fine family in Boston. A very fine family. In September." It suddenly occurred to Joseph that the senator's artless recital was very like the very young Harry Zeff's recital on the platform of the depot in Wheatfield so long ago. Again that sick qualm came to him, and again he crushed it down. "So your wife is a Southern belle," said Joseph, with an attempt at lacosity. The senator laid down his fork and looked at him. "Yes," he said. "A beautiful lady still." His heart had begun a curious sharp beating. His judgment of men was very astute and he knew that such men as Joseph Armagh are not given to jocoseness or pleasantries. Yet Joseph's face was unreadable. He had hardly touched his meal. The senator said, and he was somewhat breathless, "I know you are here on business, Mr. Armagh. How can I serve you?" "You are not my senator," said Joseph, with much courtesy, "but you indeed can help me. I am a direct man. You probably know that I am here to discuss the Alien Contract Labor bill which you instigated and are now trying to push through the Senate. And I know that you have a number of your colleagues with you, for they highly respect you and would oblige you, even if they have, perhaps, some reservations about that bill." The senator said, "Yes, they had reservations in the beginning. They do not have them now. They will vote with me out of conviction and not out of personal respect or friendship for me. I would not have it otherwise." "Spoken like a man of integrity," said Joseph. "I prefer to deal with honest men--who are usually reasonable into the bargain." The senator struck a lucifer on the sole of his shoe and lit his cigar with hands that visibly trembled. "Mr. Armagh," he said, "I have heard all the arguments against that bill. I have considered them all. This is not a whim on my part, an emotional excitement. I have studied foreign contract labor for a long time, and have been outraged at the treatment accorded those poor creatures who, because they are forced to accept abominably low wages, keep American labor out of work. Did you know that some of your wfriends--hired Chinese laborers to work on the railroads for twenty- four dollars a month, and then charged them for clothing and boots so that they had nothing left to feed or shelter themselves, except for barely enough to keep them alive? And a kennel in which to sleep? We have Hungarians, Bulgarians, Austrians, Poles, Germans, and God knows what else constantly being imported to replace what is alleged to be 'high cost American labor,' and to subdue the struggling unions, and these poor souls hardly fare better than the unfortunate Chinese, who died to the man. "There is no use to speak of conscience to your friends, Mr. Armagh. They tell me that these desperate men, and their families, are better off in America than in their own countries. They know it is a lie. Those men are lured here with promises which are never fulfilled, of course. We treat mongrel dogs better than these, Mr. Armagh, and I am sure that you know it. We have ostensibly outlawed slavery for black men. We now have slavery for white men. At least most of the owners of black men regarded them as valuable property, and fed and clothed and sheltered them with some adequacy, and had physicians for them. But these white slaves do not have these. Ah!" exclaimed the senator with passion, "I do not know how those friends of yours can sleep of a night, Mr. Armagh, or how they can compose their immortal souls when they die!" Joseph stared at him and smiled grimly. "I have never known anyone's sleep to be disturbed, Senator, or their immortal souls either, if there is plenty of money to hand. "Now, you have spoken of the wretchedness of the foreign labor we have brought here. At least these people have their passage paid." His hollow face had begun to darken and the senator watched him. "They had not had to watch their countrymen die in ditches from hunger, or their families. There was always some bread, some cheese, some cabbage, some shelter, no matter how sparse, no matter how poor. They never knew real Famine. I, Senator, did. I arrived here as a lad of thirteen with a young brother and a newborn sister to care for, and for what I received I paid for, with my own earnings. I had no job to go to, no shelter prepared. I was not a man. I was a child. And I was turned away from your free ports, Senator, until by some compassionate intervention I was allowed to enter, with my family. "I have worked all my life, at any work I could find to do, since I was scarcely thirteen, and supported a family. I starved, Senator, starved more painfully than do your foreign labor, for which you have so much pity. And I never grumbled. There were no senators to succor me, to plead the cause of the desperate and starving Irish who wanted to come here just to work. We were despised and rejected, everywhere we went. We were refused work, until we had to lie and say we were not Irish, not 'Romans.' No one cared that we suffered the consumption in this brave free land of yours, Senator, and died in our own blood, and wanted for bread and clothing. We were not permitted to work! We were not permitted to live. Yet, somehow we lived. Somehow tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of us, fought our way out of the trap of our existence with our own hands and brains and courage. We asked no quarter; we were given none. "Now, Senator, were we more fortunate in the beginning than your foreign labor?"