Boston a novel
the community make it up out of policemen’s wages, because it granted
to the new men more than it had refused to the old. But that was all
right to Rupert Alvin. In the first place, it wasn’t his money; and in
the second place, it was not a question of money, but of what he called
“principle”--meaning the bankers’ right to have their way. The “mob”
really had learned a lesson; there would be no more crap-shooting on
the Common, and no more labor unions among public servants.
Neither Rupert nor any of his crowd reckoned the dumb resentment
smoldering in the hearts of fourteen hundred men, who had thought
themselves guardians of law and order, and now discovered that they
were pawns in a game of power. These men had been pleading for a living
for themselves and their families; they had been polite enough, humble
enough--until they saw these qualities unheeded. They had served the
city faithfully--some for twenty or thirty years; even the Back Bay
admitted the virtues of those whom it knew. You would hear ladies of
the Sewing Circle exclaim, “What do you suppose has become of that
lovely policeman who used to help us across Boylston Street in front of
Trinity Church? The one that got books from the library, and asked for
something about the Æneid!” That story, told by the librarian, had been
a tradition of the Back Bay forever after. So appropriate to Boston,
to have a policeman who got books from the library, and actually
appreciated the Æneid!
Cornelia Thornwell came back from Russia to find her city in a grim
mood, with armed soldiers patrolling all the streets. The time for
nonsense was past, the Bolshevik menace was going to be put down. The
word “nonsense” included the fact that an elderly woman, once of high
respectability, but now badly “cracked,” had run away from her family
and spent two months in Soviet Russia. Cornelia found that no newspaper
in Boston manifested interest in what she had done; none desired to
tell its readers about the condition of women in that city of Saratov
where the “nationalization” story had started. No, the Boston papers
wanted highly flavored horrors, invented by tsarist refugees in Riga
and Helsingfors and Warsaw and Bucharest and Constantinople; they would
pay the tolls to have such inventions cabled, but they wanted no facts
which could be got by sending a reporter to an apartment on the north
side of Beacon Hill.
Privately, of course, some of the “blue-bloods” got a tremendous
“kick” out of Cornelia’s story. Henry Cabot Winters came to dinner and
spent a most interesting evening. Quincy Thornwell came, and loaded
up with stories to tell to the guests at Mrs. Jack Gardner’s. That
was gossip, and gossip has always been the privilege of good society.
But when it came to public utterances--to a newspaper interview, or a
speech at some meeting--that was a different matter; that was Bolshevik
propaganda, undermining the bases of American civilization. The word
Bolshevism had become the worst of all terms of abuse, and covered
everything in the modern world you did not like. The Massachusetts
Chamber of Commerce issued a pronouncement to the effect that the new
prohibition amendment was a Bolshevik conspiracy!
Rupert Alvin declined to meet his mother-in-law. He might have got
from her first-hand information as to the outcome of his enterprise to
overthrow the communist régime in Hungary, but he would not sacrifice
his dignity by admitting that Cornelia’s crazy jaunt could have
even that much use. Rupert proposed to handle his mother-in-law and
his daughter as he had handled the policemen’s strike. The time for
nonsense was past.
Deborah came to see her mother, and listened with painful reserve while
Cornelia assured her that Betty was perfectly all right, and there was
no need to worry. Betty was turning into a very fine woman, the best
of the lot of them; she was doing a useful work in Buda-Pesth, and was
justified in ignoring her father’s cablegrams. Nor would she suffer
because Rupert had cut off her funds. Her salary of thirty dollars a
week was quite regal for any part of Central Europe. As for Cousin
Letitia, she might become the wife of the elderly Hungarian playwright,
Hubay, if the family would put up one or two thousand dollars for a
“dot.” Cornelia herself had had a most instructive experience; the
world was changing, and her children would have to learn, as she had
learned, to adjust their minds to new ideas.
Deborah pressed her tight lips together--for she had come with a stern
resolve not to wrangle with her poor distracted mother. “We have done
considerable adjusting of our minds this fall,” she said. “We have
seen crap-games on the Common, and machine-guns also. We have known
what it feels like to lie awake all night in fear of the murderous
mob.” And that was true--for Rupert had not been able to convince his
wife of his complete mastery of the situation. Not even four private
policemen guarding her home had sufficed. Like most of the ladies on
Commonwealth Avenue, Deborah had looked under all the beds that night,
and had visions of her treasures being looted and her dignified person
“nationalized.”
IV
But if the capitalist press did not care to hear about the adventures
of Mrs. Josiah Quincy Thornwell in Russia, rest assured that there
were plenty of socialists, communists and anarchists who did. Cornelia
was besought to come and talk to this group and that; she was urged
to write down what she had seen, and let it be printed in a pamphlet;
and when she consented, it meant that she had definitely committed
herself as a “Red,” and was listed in the card-files of the Department
of Justice as an active Bolshevist. In the month of November “red
headquarters” in Boston was raided, with much uproar, and everybody
in it arrested and “held for deportation.” Among the truckloads of
literature confiscated were some of Cornelia’s; and although Rupert was
able to keep it out of the papers, he brought the story home to the
horrified family, and Deborah conveyed to her mother the warning that
she stood within the shadow of arrest, and that her family’s influence
would not again be used in her behalf.
Vanzetti spent an evening in the little apartment, and heard all that
Cornelia had to tell, and asked a hundred questions, and carried
her answers to the “gruppo” in Plymouth and the “clooba” in East
Boston. There were fierce debates going on among the anarchists as
to the attitude they should take to the rapidly spreading soviet
movement. Some were disposed to weaken in their anti-state principles.
Government was a bad thing, so long as it was an instrument for
suppressing workers; but when it became an instrument for suppressing
counter-revolution, then it was no longer so easy to decide. But
“individualistas” like Vanzetti stood immovable, and as a result, many
of them were in trouble in Russia; some had been shot, and others were
in jail. So Vanzetti hated the Russian government as much as he hated
the American, and was grieved by any good word that Cornelia had to say
about it.
A very confusing situation! However, Cornelia had been watching the
radical movement for four years now, and could talk the language of
the different groups, and understand their reactions. That was more
than the capitalist press could do, or the police, or the department of
justice agents, or the courts, or any others who had the public ear in
this crisis.
The job of “mopping up” the Reds was on in earnest. Congress had
appropriated a couple of million dollars--which is the way to make
things happen in America. All the big detective agencies were feeding
at the trough, and the card-file of suspects now counted a total of
two hundred thousand names--so the Attorney-General told a committee
of Congress. This gentleman, oddly enough, was a Quaker, and under the
combined banners of William Penn and Jesus Christ was instituting a
campaign of wholesale terror, the like of which had not been known in
America since the Iroquois Indians had been routed from upper New York
state.
The prisoners taken in the November raids, together with a number of
anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were loaded onto
an old government transport, the “Buford,” and on the twenty-first of
December this vessel, known to the newspapers as the “Soviet Ark,”
set forth for Russia. It was a beginning of the program recommended
by all patriotic orators, “If they don’t like this country, let them
go back where they came from.” Here and there you found one even more
ardent--such as the statesman who said that he “would send them in a
ship of stone with sails of lead”! Such was the “Christmas spirit,” as
manifested in America a year after the ending of the war to end war!
V
“Dear Nonna,” wrote Vanzetti from Plymouth, “come to see us little bit
for Christmas. All Italian anarchista is unhappy and fear will come
truble for us after finish Russian. Is no more Cronaca, and no leader
in New England since Galleani is deport. Would be good have you come
for letting us know one American lady understand worker and is not
afraid for speaking. Vincenzo got bottle good Dago Red in cellar,
it is not prohibitioned, for was there before. Trando has learn new
melody by violin, it is ‘When you and I were young, Maggie.’ Fay is
putting corns on string for decorate, it is word not in book, but is
white corns which produces noise on stove. Alfonsina is working now by
cordage and I have expection of much business for Christmas, it is time
for all Italian eating eel and I have order for barrel of living to be
deliver from Boston. Your esteeming friend, Bartolomeo Vanzetti.”
Christmas Day was on Friday, and Cornelia wrote that she could not come
on that day, but would come Saturday morning and stay over Sunday. Not
all the witch-hunts in New England could keep the Thornwell family from
inviting her on Christmas Day, and from having their feelings hurt if
she failed to appear. Clara, who had a monopoly on young children, was
naturally the hostess, and “Hillview” the place. It was one of those
great family reunions, when the clan say by their presence those things
which are never said in words. Three faces were missing since last
Christmas. Ahab would never be seen again; the spine of Great-aunt
Priscilla had become solidified to such an extent that not all the
pride in New England could bring her to a Christmas party; and Betty
was in Buda-Pesth, handing out loaves of bread to the children of
war-refugees.
“Hillview” was much changed from the day, now four and a half years
past, when Cornelia had run away from it. James had kept his promise to
leave the old part intact, but he had put on a monstrous new building
in the rear, for the eight young ones and their numerous nurses and
governesses and servants, as well as for guests--it was a luxurious
hotel. The children were all over the place, racing about, shouting,
bumping their heads on the hardwood floors, tramping nuts and raisins
into priceless rugs, smearing chocolate candy on white brocaded
upholstery. Christmas came but once a year, and one must not find
fault; one must exchange sticky kisses, and admire a tree so tall that
it went up to the second story, standing in the curve of the winding
stairway. It shone with a myriad little lights, red, blue, green and
yellow, and was piled around with enormous quantities of expensive
toys, really marvels of ingenuity and workmanship, all of which would
be broken and thrown on the junk-pile, or forgotten in the attic a
month from now.
Also there were the grown-ups to be greeted: Clara, rounder than ever,
lamenting that no arts of any specialist helped to reduce her; James,
solid and matter-of-fact, expanding with his vast prosperity, and with