The thunder and lightning and storm which tore at the heart of Europe echoed about the White House. Mr. Wilson petulantly, and with secret terror, ignored it. He became more and more absorbed in his program which he had called the “New Freedom.” He sponsored a bill reorganizing the banking structure of the country into the Federal Reserve system; he castigated the “Money Trust” in the rounded and eloquent periods of a naive pedant. In well-bred accents, he denounced “unfair” methods of competition in business and industry. He was preoccupied with the Sherman Anti-Trust law of 1890. He concentrated on lower tariffs, in a world no longer passionately interested in tariffs. He had begun all these things before the war; now, almost hysterical, he pressed Congress to enact all the new and radical panaceas for society of which he had dreamed.
In the meantime, the civilization of Europe dropped, stone by stone, wall by wall, into the fiery seas of hell.
It was not until the last of August, 1914, that the American people, concentrating on all the things which had the desperate attention of their President, became uneasy. Even the most insular began to feel the reverberations of the earthquakes which were rocking the world. Half of the newspapers screamed that it was none of the affair of America; the other half screamed that it was most certainly the affair of America. It was impossible, any longer, to ignore the fact that something had changed in the world, had shifted, that America, whether she wished it or not, was being tilted towards the abyss. The cities began to stir; the countryside murmured. No one knew what this unease was, this quickened movement, this sound of a million voices in the night. The people looked at the photographs of the devastations of Belgium and Alsace, the aeroplanes, the men-of-war, the marching troops of Germany and England and France and Austria-Hungary and Russia and Serbia. One by one, they read of new declarations of war daily.
This happened in Andersburg, also, and Charles was one of the first to see it.
Charles was a man slow to anger and to resentment, but once having become angry and resentful he was unable to free himself easily. He kept to his resolution not to borrow money from the banks, remembering old Mr. Heinz. So, he approached Mr. Holt, who at once, and with pleasure, offered to lend him the money with which to buy out Jochen. Without interest. But Charles never accepted favors. He put up his own stock in the Wittmann Machine Tool Company as collateral. He insisted on full interest. He valued the friendship of the Holts, and would not jeopardize that friendship by accepting a favor which would put him in an inferior position.
Charles had always been very popular in Andersburg, not only with men in his own class, but with all workers and the very wealthy. He was “sound.” He was just. He was logical and honorable and trustworthy. He had, personally, preferred his own middle class above any other. But, through Wilhelm, and then through the Holts, he had become greatly admired by the “well-bred” and financially opulent of the city.
Though not conscious of “race,” and openly ridiculing it, he had felt more at ease with those of German stock, like himself. He liked German cooking, German uprightness, German solidity. All these things had always been part of his life, and he had never been self-conscious about them, or given them much thought. The newer friends on the mountains had English and Celtic names; they had had different backgrounds. They were Americans, but their traditions were British.
All through August he had been preoccupied with his personal problems, his fears, his dreads, his alarms, and his business. It was not until the end of August that he became aware of the change about him.
It was very subtle, and at first he thought it was his imagination, or because he was abstracted and concerned only with his own affairs. He met his newer friends on the streets, friends with the English and the Celtic names, and they were polite, but cool, to him. He began to wonder if he had offended them in some way, and remembered that he had refused some invitations.
One-third of the congregation of the First Lutheran Church was of English stock. These people had drifted into the church years ago, because it was a fine church and the Reverend Mr. Haas was an eloquent pastor, and there was a certain éclat in belonging to the congregation, which was composed mainly of the middle-class element. Mr. Haas believed more in the spirit of the Law than the letter, and his sermons had never been dogmatic. There was no obvious reason, then, that by the end of August, 1914, that segment of the congregation composed of non-German stock should have begun to melt away perceptibly. There was no reason why Mr. Bartlett, one of the members of the Church Board, should have resigned with the vague excuse that his health was none too excellent.
Had the congregation which melted away not immediately joined the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, and Methodist churches in the vicinity, no one would have remarked upon this phenomenon. But they did. Mr. Bartlett became Secretary of the First Presbyterian Church of Andersburg. Mr. Bartlett, meeting Charles once at the Imperial Hotel during luncheon, nodded to him coldly, then turned his back upon him. Charles was disturbed.
Charles, as President of the Board, noticed that the roster of new names was growing in his church. They were all German names. It was nothing, of course. But one Sunday he went to the rectory and talked about the matter with Mr. Haas.
“Are our old people moving out of the neighborhood, or something?” he asked.
Mr. Haas looked at him sadly. “No, Charles,” he answered. “Something is happening. The war. German-Americans, in spite of all that Mr. Wilson has been saying, are becoming unpopular.”
Charles was shocked and incredulous. “People can’t be such fools!” he exclaimed.
Mr. Haas smiled sadly. “Folly has never been a minor vice of humanity’s,” he said.
“I haven’t heard anyone speaking highly of England or France,” protested Charles, unwilling to believe.
“Neither have I, Charles. But something ugly is stirring. Look at this.” And he gave Charles a cheap sheet of paper, a letter which had been addressed to him anonymously: “Dirty German! We don’t want you in America. Go back to your Kaiser and your Vaterland!”
“It wouldn’t matter so much, but our old people, of German stock, are becoming defensive and truculent,” said Mr. Haas. “That’s natural, when you’re attacked. They’ve never thought of themselves as being Germans. They were Americans, part of everything which was American. Now they are insisting that the schools teach German again. They are singing hymns in German, a rusty German, and uncertain. Some of them have asked me to revive old German Christmas customs. Some of them have bought pictures of the Kaiser and hung them prominently in their houses, though they’ve always hated and ridiculed everything that was European-German. They’re afraid. Poor people. They are not to blame. The guilt lies with their enemies.”
“But they’ve been Americans, and Americans only, for three, four, and even five generations!” said Charles. “They know nothing of Germany. Many of their ancestors fought in the Civil War; some of them, themselves, fought in the Spanish-American War.”
Mr. Haas smiled wearily. “Yes. We know that. But there’s something else we must remember. I’m a minister, but I’ve never believed in the sweetness and light of the human animal. Men wish to hate; it’s part of their nature. They wish to oppress, to be cruel, to be savage, to attack. That urge is an instinctual element in all men. It lies in wait, eternally. That is the reason for periodic wars, for pogroms, for individual homicide, for hatred. It is beyond logic, for long before logic was evolved murder had rooted itself in the instincts of man.”
He waited for Charles to speak, but Charles only stared at him grimly. Mr. Haas sighed. “Always, at the propitious moment, the animal asserts itself in a flare of surging madness. Later, the man-mind is aghast, remorseful, ashamed. But the damage has been done. We call that damage ‘history.’”
Charles suddenly remembered how he had once wanted to kill his brother Jochen. He had had provocation yes. …
“The Animal against God. Yes. It has always been so,” added Mr. Haas. “One has only to look at recent history. It is all part of the story of the Animal against God. And now, this war.”
Still, Charles could not believe it. He knew it was true, but he did not want to believe it.
Mr. Haas smiled at Charles drearily. “Do you remember that poem by Robert Southey, called ‘The Battle of Blenheim’? I don’t remember all of it, but I’ll quote what I do:
‘Now tell us what ’twas all about,’
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes.
‘Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for.’
* * * * * * *
‘But what good came of it at last?’
Quoth little Peterkin.
‘Why, that I cannot tell,’ said he;
‘But ’twas a famous victory.’
Charles listened, and his face grew even more grim. Mr. Haas said: “The Animal against God has had so many ‘famous victories.’ We can only hope that the last victory is with God.”
Mr. Haas’ sermon, the next Sunday, was announced as “The Battle of Blenheim.” The congregation went away, soberly discussing it, shaking their heads. Some of them, at home, stared at the new portraits of the Kaiser on the parlor walls. Some removed the portraits. Some retained them. They were afraid.
America was neutral, and was determined to remain neutral. But the foul wind blew over all the cities and the people murmured restlessly.
On September 1st, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hadden announced the engagement of their daughter, Helen, to Mr. Friederich Wittmann, the marriage to take place on January 15th, 1915.
On the same day the engagement was announced, Phyllis and Mrs. Holt came home to Andersburg.