The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
the Jewish generals alike. Major-General O. O. Howard speaks of one
of his Jewish staff officers as being 'of the bravest and best;' of
another--killed at Chancellorsville--as being 'a true friend and a
brave officer;' he highly praises two of his Jewish brigadier-generals;
finally, he uses these strong words: 'Intrinsically there are no more
patriotic men to be found in the country than those who claim to be
of Hebrew descent, and who served with me in parallel commands or more
directly under my instructions.'
Fourteen Jewish Confederate and Union families contributed, between
them, fifty-one soldiers to the war. Among these, a father and three
sons; and another, a father and four sons.
In the above article I was neither able to endorse nor repel
the common approach that the Jew is willing to feed upon a
country but not to fight for it, because I did not know
whether it was true or false. I supposed it to be true, but
it is not allowable to endorse wandering maxims upon
supposition--except when one is trying to make out a case.
That slur upon the Jew cannot hold up its head in presence
of the figures of the War Department. It has done its work,
and done it long and faithfully, and with high approval: it
ought to be pensioned off now, and retired from active
service.
(1) See 'Stirring Times in Austria,' in this volume.
(2) Here is another piece of picturesque history; and it reminds us that
shabbiness and dishonesty are not the monopoly of any race or creed, but
are merely human:
'Congress has passed a bill to pay $379.56 to Moses Pendergrass, of
Libertyville, Missouri. The story of the reason of this liberality is
pathetically interesting, and shows the sort of pickle that an honest
man may get into who undertakes to do an honest job of work for Uncle
Sam. In 1886 Moses Pendergrass put in a bid for the contract to carry
the mail on the route from Knob Lick to Libertyville and Coffman, thirty
miles a day, from July 1, 1887, for one year. He got the postmaster at
Knob Lick to write the letter for him, and while Moses intended that
his bid should be $400, his scribe carelessly made it $4. Moses got the
contract, and did not find out about the mistake until the end of the
first quarter, when he got his first pay. When he found at what rate he
was working he was sorely cast down, and opened communication with the
Post Office Department. The department informed him that he must either
carry out his contract or throw it up, and that if he threw it up his
bondsman would have to pay the Government $1,459.85 damages. So Moses
carried out his contract, walked thirty miles every week-day for a
year, and carried the mail, and received for his labour $4, or, to
be accurate, $6.84; for, the route being extended after his bid was
accepted, his pay was proportionately increased. Now, after ten years,
a bill was finally passed to pay to Moses the difference between what he
earned in that unlucky year and what he received.'
The 'Sun,' which tells the above story, says that bills were introduced
in three or four Congresses for Moses' relief, and that committees
repeatedly investigated his claim.
It took six Congresses, containing in their persons the compressed
virtues of 70,000,000 of people, and cautiously and carefully giving
expression to those virtues in the fear of God and the next election,
eleven years to find out some way to cheat a fellow Christian out of
about $13 on his honestly executed contract, and out of nearly $300 due
him on its enlarged terms. And they succeeded. During the same time
they paid out $1,000,000,000 in pensions--a third of it unearned and
undeserved. This indicates a splendid all-round competency in theft,
for it starts with farthings, and works its industries all the way up to
ship-loads. It may be possible that the Jews can beat this, but the man
that bets on it is taking chances.
(3) The article was written in the summer of 1898.
(4) In Austria the renaming was merely done because the Jews in some
newly-acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly named Abraham
and Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could tell t'other from which,
and was likely to lose his reason over the matter. The renaming was put
into the hands of the War Department, and a charming mess the
graceless young lieutenants made of it. To them a Jew was of no sort
of consequence, and they labeled the race in a way to make the angels
weep. As an example, take these two: Abraham Bellyache and Schmul
Godbedamned--Culled from 'Namens Studien,' by Karl Emil Fransos.
FROM THE 'LONDON TIMES' OF 1904
I
Correspondence of the 'London Times'
Chicago, April 1, 1904.
I resume by cable-telephone where I left off yesterday. For many hours
now, this vast city--along with the rest of the globe, of course--has
talked of nothing but the extraordinary episode mentioned in my last
report. In accordance with your instructions, I will now trace the
romance from its beginnings down to the culmination of yesterday--or
today; call it which you like. By an odd chance, I was a personal actor
in a part of this drama myself. The opening scene plays in Vienna. Date,
one o'clock in the morning, March 31, 1898. I had spent the evening at
a social entertainment. About midnight I went away, in company with the
military attaches of the British, Italian, and American embassies, to
finish with a late smoke. This function had been appointed to take place
in the house of Lieutenant Hillyer, the third attache mentioned in the
above list. When we arrived there we found several visitors in the room;
young Szczepanik;(1) Mr. K., his financial backer; Mr. W., the latter's
secretary; and Lieutenant Clayton, of the United States Army. War was
at that time threatening between Spain and our country, and Lieutenant
Clayton had been sent to Europe on military business. I was well
acquainted with young Szczepanik and his two friends, and I knew Mr.
Clayton slightly. I had met him at West Point years before, when he
was a cadet. It was when General Merritt was superintendent. He had the
reputation of being an able officer, and also of being quick-tempered
and plain-spoken.
This smoking-party had been gathered together partly for business. This
business was to consider the availability of the telelectroscope for
military service. It sounds oddly enough now, but it is nevertheless
true that at that time the invention was not taken seriously by any one
except its inventor. Even his financial supporter regarded it merely as a
curious and interesting toy. Indeed, he was so convinced of this that
he had actually postponed its use by the general world to the end of
the dying century by granting a two years' exclusive lease of it to a
syndicate, whose intent was to exploit it at the Paris World's Fair.
When we entered the smoking-room we found Lieutenant Clayton and
Szczepanik engaged in a warm talk over the telelectroscope in the German
tongue. Clayton was saying:
'Well, you know my opinion of it, anyway!' and he brought his fist down
with emphasis upon the table.
'And I do not value it,' retorted the young inventor, with provoking
calmness of tone and manner.
Clayton turned to Mr. K., and said:
'I cannot see why you are wasting money on this toy. In my opinion, the
day will never come when it will do a farthing's worth of real service
for any human being.'
'That may be; yes, that may be; still, I have put the money in it,
and am content. I think, myself, that it is only a toy; but Szczepanik
claims more for it, and I know him well enough to believe that he can
see father than I can--either with his telelectroscope or without it.'
The soft answer did not cool Clayton down; it seemed only to irritate
him the more; and he repeated and emphasised his conviction that the
invention would never do any man a farthing's worth of real service.
He even made it a 'brass' farthing, this time. Then he laid an English
farthing on the table, and added:
'Take that, Mr. K., and put it away; and if ever the telelectroscope
does any man an actual service--mind, a real service--please mail it
to me as a reminder, and I will take back what I have been saying. Will
you?'
'I will,' and Mr. K. put the coin in his pocket.
Mr. Clayton now turned toward Szczepanik, and began with a taunt--a
taunt which did not reach a finish; Szczepanik interrupted it with a
hardy retort, and followed this with a blow. There was a brisk fight for
a moment or two; then the attaches separated the men.
The scene now changes to Chicago. Time, the autumn of 1901. As soon as
the Paris contract released the telelectroscope, it was delivered to
public use, and was soon connected with the telephonic systems of the
whole world. The improved 'limitless-distance' telephone was presently
introduced, and the daily doings of the globe made visible to everybody,
and audibly discussible, too, by witnesses separated by any number of
leagues.
By-and-by Szczepanik arrived in Chicago. Clayton (now captain) was
serving in that military department at the time. The two men resumed the
Viennese quarrel of 1898. On three different occasions they quarrelled,
and were separated by witnesses. Then came an interval of two months,
during which time Szczepanik was not seen by any of his friends, and it
was at first supposed that he had gone off on a sight seeing tour and
would soon be heard from. But no; no word came from him. Then it was
supposed that he had returned to Europe. Still, time drifted on, and he
was not heard from. Nobody was troubled, for he was like most inventors
and other kinds of poets, and went and came in a capricious way, and
often without notice.
Now comes the tragedy. On December 29, in a dark and unused compartment
of the cellar under Captain Clayton's house, a corpse was discovered
by one of Clayton's maid-servants. Friends of deceased identified it
as Szczepanik's. The man had died by violence. Clayton was arrested,
indicted, and brought to trial, charged with this murder. The evidence
against him was perfect in every detail, and absolutely unassailable.
Clayton admitted this himself. He said that a reasonable man could not
examine this testimony with a dispassionate mind and not be convinced by
it; yet the man would be in error, nevertheless. Clayton swore that he
did not commit the murder, and that he had had nothing to do with it.
As your readers will remember, he was condemned to death. He had
numerous and powerful friends, and they worked hard to save him, for
none of them doubted the truth of his assertion. I did what little I
could to help, for I had long since become a close friend of his, and
thought I knew that it was not in his character to inveigle an enemy
into a corner and assassinate him. During 1902 and 1903 he was several
times reprieved by the governor; he was reprieved once more in the
beginning of the present year, and the execution day postponed to March
31.
The governor's situation has been embarrassing, from the day of the
condemnation, because of the fact that Clayton's wife is the governor's
niece. The marriage took place in 1899, when Clayton was thirty-four and
the girl twenty-three, and has been a happy one. There is one child, a
little girl three years old. Pity for the poor mother and child kept
the mouths of grumblers closed at first; but this could not last for
ever--for in America politics has a hand in everything--and by-and-by
the governor's political opponents began to call attention to his delay
in allowing the law to take its course. These hints have grown more
and more frequent of late, and more and more pronounced. As a
natural result, his own party grew nervous. Its leaders began to visit