Ceremony of the Innocent (42 page)

“Congressman Porter has also disparaged the President of these United States, implying that he is the creature of what he chooses to call ‘the international conspirators who are determined to subjugate the whole civilized world for their elitist purposes.’ He has actually said that no President of recent times has been elected without the advice and consent of these so-called conspirators, and that none will so be elected in the future without the approval of this nameless body of men. He has denounced the august Body of the Senate, also, which has finally and openly protested.

“Every responsible gentleman here present has heard of these matters to the point of nausea. Our sense of outrage, therefore, has gone beyond our Christian forbearance, our legislative restraint, our honor as gentlemen chosen by the great people of these United States to represent them in this Chamber. Therefore, before we begin our discussions—there are excerpts of his speeches and rantings on the desks before you—we will permit, in our justice, Congressman Porter to give some slight explanation of his conduct, which has aroused the indignation of sober men throughout our country.”

Jeremy uttered something obscene, half under his breath, and several Congressmen near him could not suppress their quick smiles though they continued to regard the Speaker with gravity. For several reasons no spectators had been permitted to occupy the gallery.

Jeremy rose languidly, tall and broad, expressing indifference. He said, “Point of order, if it pleases the Speaker of the House. Is this Congress in solemn session?”

The Speaker hesitated. A hot silence filled the Chamber. Then the Speaker said, “Not as we usually deem it, Congressman Porter. This is merely a preliminary discussion of the charges brought against you, and to allow you to deny or affirm them.”

“Oh,” said Jeremy, “there need be no discussion of that. I affirm them, every word. The only trouble is that the press did not quote me in full, and deleted several expletives, no doubt in order to preserve public chastity. I told the press that I had resigned from both the Scardo Society and the Committee for Foreign Studies because I can no longer keep silent. I have learned all I need to know, in this year of Our Lord 1908, and in the midst of the continuing Panic. The electorate will this year vote again for the man they will choose as their President. I believe it is my duty, as a citizen of this country, to inform as many of the people as possible, so that they can judge who are their enemies. Though God knows,” he added, “it is much too late to do anything about it, I fear.”

The silence in the Chamber became more intense; there was an air of total concentration in it, and stirrings of secret alertness. Jeremy’s voice had been quiet, almost indifferent, almost casual, yet it had carried power and conviction and an undertone of despairing bitterness.

He continued, “As the eminent Speaker of the House has informed you, gentlemen, you have before you, on your desks, some of the material which I have given the press, and of which you have already heard from me. No doubt you are well aware of what I have broadcast. There is no need at this time to go into every detail, every sentence, every grave accusation I have made. I have put myself in jeopardy not only with this Congress but with the cold but violent and dedicated men who are determined to destroy the existing order of things among nations and then, in the chaos which will result, they will become the Men on Horseback, the monstrous dictators they aspire to be. It is not just their lust for power which impels them. It is also their innate hatred for humanity, and their desire to oppress it, and to bequeath to their sons and their sons’ sons that same rule of death and oppression. They believe they are superior in intelligence to the average man, and that they are of superior birth and talents. While they prate of egalitarianism, to serve their purpose, they detest equality of men even under the law, as promulgated by our Constitution. They talk of social justice and even Populism, and urge a federal income tax ‘to help redistribute the wealth’ in order to ‘abolish poverty’ and bestow benefits on ‘the workingman.’ It is no paradox that they are excessively wealthy men themselves.

“They know very well, and believe it, too, that as Lord Acton said, ‘the power to tax is the power to destroy.’ That is why they are working for a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, a federal income tax, which repeatedly, in the U. S. Supreme Court, has been declared unconstitutional. Their desire is to eliminate the rising middle class all over the world, for the middle class is their supreme adversary and the frustrater of their desire to subjugate all men to themselves. Once the middle class is taxed out of existence, the masses will have no defender, and they will become the silent and docile slaves of the elitists. It is as simple as that. That is why they are ‘informing’ the working people of the world that it is the bourgeoisie who are their oppressors, and arousing the envy and hatred of the proletariat against their very friends.

“It is not a very complicated plot. Lucius Sergius Catilina of ancient Rome attempted that, for he detested the common people and more than that the rising middle class of ancient Rome. He wanted power, and the opportunity to rule the people of the Republic with absolute authority, to assuage his malignant detestation of them. Fortunately, Rome had Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Consul of Rome, to preserve law and order and justice and freedom for Romans. At least for a time. Sadly, however, evil is far stronger than good, in spite of what churchmen say, and, sadly, the Roman Republic soon was destroyed and Caesarism rose, and the rights of Romans were abrogated and even free men were enslaved. The middle class of Rome had been eliminated. There is no reason at this time to belabor what happened to the Republic when the middle class was taxed to death and Rome reduced to dictatorship and Caesarism. I am sure all you gentlemen”—and he threw a sardonic look at his fellows—“remember your history.”

The fans overhead stirred up the heat and increased it. The Congressmen stared at the papers on their desks and some of them mouthed the words, scratched their cheeks, and moistened their lips. Some faces remained obdurately blank; eyes blinked. But now a few of them turned their heads and gazed at Jeremy with mingled admiration and respect and full knowledge. They were but a few. The Speaker piously studied his hands.

Jeremy resumed in his calm and emphatic voice: “This Panic, which we are still enduring, to the despair of the people, is just one appalling move of the conspirators. Their object is another amendment to the Constitution: the so-called Federal Reserve System, which will put control of the country’s currency into their own hands. In that way they can manipulate the currency and the flow of money. They tell the people that if the amendment is passed that will be the end of national panics. Under it all is their determination to take America off the gold standard—and place the power of gold in their own hands. Once our currency is not backed by gold they will have the absolute power, through their bankers, to control not only our money but the people themselves. Yes, gentlemen, I have heard them say this themselves in their secret conclaves.

“Only two years ago, one of the most powerful bankers in America, Jacob Schiff, said that if our monetary system was not reformed, through a Federal Reserve System—mark that—America would ‘get a panic compared with which the three which have preceded would be only child’s play.’ Mr. Schiff is one of the urgent and influential bankers who desire a Federal Reserve System. Need I say more? For months before the Panic, call money on the Stock Exchange had been moving up and down between 10 per cent and 125 per cent. Mr. Schiff has said, ‘This is a disgrace to a civilized community.’ He is correct. But who invented those excessive rates? Mr. Schiff, among many others, knows the answer, and so do I.”

The Speaker rose and in a loud shrill voice exclaimed, “Mr. Schiff is a great, respected, and patriotic American, concerned with his country!”

“Indeed,” replied Jeremy. “To quote Shakespeare’s Mark Antony, ‘Are they not all honorable men?’ Yes, indeed.”

The Speaker spluttered a protest, then sat down. He said, with a gathering glance at the Congressmen, “How did Shakespeare get into this discussion?” No one laughed, but most of the Congress nodded sage heads in amused agreement, though many of them had never heard of Mark Antony.

Jeremy, after the amusement had subsided, continued, and now his voice was bitter and pejorative again.

“The conspirators, the holders of tremendous wealth and the savage entrepreneurs, the financial wielders of power all over the world, the enormous industrialists everywhere, have recruited a front army to deceive and delude and arouse the envious people: the so-called intellectuals, feeble men in their own right, weaklings, feckless, men who recognize their own inferiority and hate the robustness and strength of others. They are impelled by a desire for revenge on the more intelligent and effective, and they, too, desire power. They are Fabians, to the man, and express admiration of Karl Marx and his League of Just Men. They are all for the people—whom they secretly loathe and despise. Do not underrate them!

“The pseudo-intellectuals have substituted mad ideologies for the calm and philosophical abstractions of true intellectuals, which are the mark of civilized men, and which have created art and religion. Their ideologies are incubating revolutions and public disorder, wars and massacres, hatred and destruction. We will soon see the results in a devastating war, worldwide, which has been planned to overthrow existing and orderly governments.”

At this a shout arose: “What war? War! Ridiculous! What do you mean?”

Faces were flushed and angry and incredulous. Jeremy waited again until his colleagues subsided, and until the last mutter of “War!” had died down.

“The pseudo-intellectuals are very effective, in the service of their masters. The true intellectual dismisses them as raving radicals, and therein is our awful danger. The true intellectual avoids controversies and public disputes, whereas their pseudo-brethren court the press. They are so noisy and vehement; they froth and declaim; the press finds them colorful. They rely on the fact that no politician ever tells the press the truth, or dares to tell the truth. You have shown disbelief in the approaching war. But I tell you there will soon be a universal war. I have heard it being plotted, and who the adversary will be. They are not certain just now whether it will be Russia—as yet immune to Socialistic Communism—or Germany. France and the British Empire have been discussed, in my presence. They will soon decide. It is all the same to the conspirators.

“First of all, they say, Russia must be invaded by Marxism, and this is progressing at a merry rate. When the world is devastated by war, the Russian Communists will come into their own, and with power. There are some amongst you who will later say that Communism is the enemy of the world entrepreneurs and the bankers and the capitalists. You will be wrong. The conspirators are the power behind Communism, as you will see too late. The Communists will be financed by the international bankers and their allies, and will be hailed by our pseudo-intellectuals, who are already inventing slogans cunningly tinged with humanitarianism. I cannot really say that the pseudo-intellectuals are a whole part of the conspiracy. They are too stupid. That is why they are being recruited.

“If I tell you that William Jennings Bryan and the other Populists are part of the conspiracy, I would be wrong. They are too innocent, too naive about human nature—and too silly—to be conspirators. But they are being manipulated by our enemies.

“I tell you, gentlemen, that the Apocalypse is upon us, and from this time henceforth there will be no peace in the tormented world, only a programmed and systematic series of wars and calamities—until the plotters have gained their objective: an exhausted world willing to submit to a planned Marxist economy and total and meek enslavement—in the name of peace.”

He let an impressive silence fall and there were some who even in the heat of the day felt a sharp thrill and chilliness and foreboding. Then Jeremy said in a lower but still carrying voice:

“As for me, gentlemen, and my kind—who are unfortunately few—I will quote Josiah Quincy: ‘Under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.’”

Again he let a pause develop. Finally he quoted, “‘Hail, Caesar! We who are about to die salute you!’”

Then, without permission of the Speaker, and without speaking again, he turned and left the Chamber.

He was neither censured nor impeached, to his amazement, and a little hope. But neither was he again quoted by the press. This did not surprise him. The press was impotent before the conspirators. Jeremy was effectively silenced. He was not re-elected in November. But Francis Porter was, and Jeremy again was not surprised.

C H A P T E R   20

THERE WERE TIMES WHEN Jeremy felt that his wife, Ellen, exemplified America herself, guileless, naive, and unwilling to believe in evil and plotters, unwilling to believe that man was imperfectible, destructive, and malicious. The cult of Rousseau was not only rampant among the innocents like Ellen, but had invaded the professed beliefs of the pseudo-intellectuals—that man is born good and is ruined only by “society.”

Cynic though he was, and suspicious of organized religion, Jeremy began to reflect on the Godhead, and even found himself reading the Bible. He began to discover ineluctable truths, ageless and pertinent to contemporary life. He happily also discovered that the Bible was not completely composed of unqualified sweetness and light, but was full of wrath and warning, and a certain terribleness and doom. The world was charged not only with the grandeur of God, but with His inevitable anger.

Somewhere he had read, “A Mighty Fortress is our God!” But if the Fortress was undermined by deliberate evil, who could save the dwellers in the Fortress? He repeatedly read in the Bible that God would always triumph. But God counted in centuries, whereas mortal man had to count by hours and days. Man’s present misery was hardly alleviated by the fact of eventual victory, far in the future. He had to endure hourly despair, and few men could contemplate the final success of coming generations with complacency. He lived in the immediate, did man, and his hungers and terrors were more pertinent to him than the remote conquest of evil by those yet unborn. There were few saints with a universal vision. Millions of potentially good men, and saints, were overwhelmed by present wickedness, and undone by it. So they compromised, comforted by a spurious hope, and the meretricious belief that life was too short to take up arms and fight.