“No,” he said. “If we go in we go in. Don’t let anybody fool you about that. We go in up to the hilt. We fought Spain with a pop-gun. This time Uncle Sam will go to war with a man’s-size six-shooter in each hand and a knife in his boot. Getting into this thing doesn’t mean sending an army to do the fighting for us. It means sending the whole nation to war.... Every one of us. We’ll have to mobilize the biggest army we ever dreamed of, but we’ll have to mobilize everything else, too—and until we get used to this new thing there’s going to be the devil to pay—the very devil to pay. There’ll be a mess. Everybody will be running around in circles.... Just like expanding a ten-thousand-dollar business overnight to take care of a million-dollar order.”
“I’ve got plans ready, Dad, for changing over part of the plant to make my motor—if the government adopts it.”
“Get ’em out. Take it up with the engineers. Go as far as you can, so that the moment the powers in Washington press the button we’ll be ready.”
“I’ve figured the cost of the change at about half a million.”
“Whatever you need I’ll raise.”
“Guess I better run down to Washington.”
“Good idea, and stick to ’em till you get something definite.... You’re after an order. You’re a salesman. Come back with something.”
That night Potter took train for the capital. He discovered on his way that the American people had already declared war. They were outraged. The formality of a declaration remained, but the people had made up their minds. They saw what they had to do, but did not realize the magnitude of it.
In the club car was no other subject of conversation but Zimmerman and his plottings. Throughout the conversation ran a peculiar note of pity for the German—for his intelligence, for the blindness of his psychology.
“It was the one thing they could do,” an elderly gentleman said, “to solidify the country. They picked the way as if they were working for us.... And, by George! it was a darn fine piece of work on somebody’s part to intercept that note!”