“Damn vivid dream, though,” said Potter. “Come again, fellows. My regards to the crowd.”
CHAPTER VIII
Between the date of Potter Waite’s injury and the first of the new year tremendous events occurred at home and abroad, and among the most tremendous, the most hopeful to Potter, and to Americans who loved and feared for their country, was the birth of the thing that came to be known as the Plattsburg Idea. It was the one sign of life in an ocean of lethargy; it showed that there were men not unaffected by sinister manifestations—men who foresaw peril, men who were ready to give their abilities and their lives for the safety of the flag that waved over their prosperity. When history comes to be written the Plattsburg experiment will stand out distinct, significant—a rainbow of promise.
Inert public opinion was preparing to stir. Germany, pursuing her relentless way, chose to irritate a nation which it might have conciliated. It irritated with patent propaganda; her Bernstorffs and Dernbergs filled the public prints with their sophistry, while their paid agents were fomenting industrial unrest and achieving arson and murder. German bombs were discovered on outward-bound vessels; the German torch was applied to factory and mill. Irritation increased, became acute to such a point that Doctor Dumba, who had used his sacred station as ambassador to shield his activities as arch plotter, was dismissed and sent on his disgraced way Vienna-wards. Von Papen and Boy-Ed, red-handed, were whisked away.... The Arabic was sunk. Then it seemed that Germany hesitated on her course. Mr. Wilson patiently indited note upon note, at last wringing from the Imperial German government its solemn promise to refrain from sinking liners without warning. This was heralded and welcomed as a great victory for our diplomacy, and the country breathed more easily. The cloud threatening the thunders and lightnings of war passed around us harmlessly.
But Mr. Roosevelt would not let the country return to its sleep. His alarm-voice rang in its ears, denouncing, demanding, stirring to wakefulness.
The news from abroad had been depressing. For a year the western battle-front had stood stationary, presenting a stalemate. The heralded “big push” had failed, or what one might safely call failed. Russia was being beaten into helplessness with a million prisoners captured since May. Siberia had been stricken.
But Bernstorff and Dumba and Boy-Ed had not been without their value, as Plattsburg had not been without its value. Preparedness was in the air. It was a topic of conversation. It and the blind atrocity of the slaughter of Edith Cavell.... The President’s message in December dealt with preparedness, naval and military, and promised much. Mr. Garrison had a plan.... The inert mass of the people was no longer inert; it stirred, moved, but did not awaken. Perhaps it was vexed by nightmare visitations.... Henry Ford’s heart made his head ridiculous with the squabbling argosy aboard his peace ship.... All these things were straws indicating not only the rising of the wind, but the direction of the wind.... Potter Waite studied and appraised them at their true value.
He studied and weighed the manifestations of public consciousness in Detroit, smug, wealthy, inaccessible Detroit. Detroit was on no exposed coast; Detroit was safe from invasion; Detroit did not share the fears and the excitement of the seaboard, but went on its way manufacturing motor-cars and munitions, stoves and varnish, and piling up its wealth fantastically, spending its wealth but never able to exhaust its income. Submarine sinkings were academic affairs in Detroit; bomb plots, the incitement of labor to violent unrest, the torch of the plotter, were matters that affected her more nearly. There were those in high places who knew that the stealthy eye of Germany’s army of moles was on the city; that they tunneled underneath the city’s feet, sinister, frightful.... But Detroit did not cry for war. She demanded protection in her activities. Her German-Americans were loud in their talk. The hyphen had its definite place among them. Potter watched and saw. Like the East, the Middle-West was moving glacier-like toward a distant point. The moment would come when glacier movement became avalanche rush.
Detroit continued to fly high.
Long before the new year Potter had discarded casts, bandages, crutches; his body was as sound as ever it had been, more perfectly fit than his habits had allowed it to be for years. There had been other changes for the better—changes less easy to detect and to define. One might almost have been justified in saying that he had not gotten well of his injuries, but had been recreated. There is a spiritual rebirth which need not of necessity have anything to do with so-called morals. Any changes apparent in Potter were not due to his taking thought of moral considerations. The only change of heart he had known was with respect to his country: indifference had turned to devotion. The great alteration was that he had acquired an object in life; everything else flowed out of that.