The Highflyers

by Clarence Budington Kelland

He became morose; the old charm and magnetism seemed to have deserted him, and the men who worked with him wondered what could have happened to their young employer. A great part of his conduct at this time was due to youth—to youth hugging to its bosom and fondling a hurt to its pride. If he had been indifferent to his friends before, he avoided them now, made them feel unwelcome. And he worked.... He drove himself, as a man will drive himself who has riding upon his back the hag of heartburning. There is no bitterness in the world like that of sweetness turned to aloes, and the taste of it was constantly in his mouth.

He threw himself into his work, not with gay enthusiasm, but with the smoldering fanaticism of a Savonarola. There could be no middle ground for him, no moderation. He thought and dreamed aeroplanes before because he loved the work, because he saw the value of the work, and because he believed enthusiastically that his country required the work of him. Now he steeped himself in the atmosphere and technicalities of the aeroplane to crowd Hildegarde von Essen out of his thought. Perhaps now he worked more rigorously, worked merciless hours, but it is doubtful if he worked more valuably.

He went to Washington, where the Signal Corps received him as a friend and gave him hours that were near to pleasantness. Major Craig gave up his time to Potter, encouraging him, inspiring him, congratulating him. Here the attitude was the antithesis of the attitude manifested toward him by those with whom he came into contact in Detroit. He saw all there was to be seen of the Signal Corps’ work and plans and hopes, and was made to feel himself an important factor. The officers who were his companions liked him, but wondered if he returned their liking. This was because Potter was for business and for business alone; he held himself reservedly aloof from the personal side. From Washington, with imperative credentials, he visited such of the aeroplane factories as were worth while and studied what was in them to study. He was thrown into contact with an Englishman of the Royal Flying Corps, recovering from wounds received in air-battle with a German ’plane, and from this man of real experience he learned much of value regarding battle conditions, and what an aeroplane must be capable of to do its duty.

These matters consumed weeks, but the time expended returned its full measure of value.

When he came home again the world was farther ahead by much with its grim business of war; the country itself was in a new stage of its transition, and unrest, together with a growing realization of the duties and perils of the position of the United States, was apparent in the minds of thinking men. Germany’s supreme effort to crush France at Verdun was in progress, but staggering now. The Toledo blade was proving itself able to cope with the sledgehammer. At home there was reason to be depressed. Military preparedness seemed doomed to failure; Secretary Garrison had resigned in protest—and as if in rebuke for our backwardness and shortness of vision, our very borders were desecrated by contemptible Mexican bandits which we were not in a state to punish. Pershing’s futile invasion of Mexico in pursuit of Villa was in progress, and disquieting rumors were filling the country. The country was beginning to seethe with the approaching presidential campaign.... It was spring, and summer drew near.

The talk on the streets, in hotels, in the clubs of Detroit, was all of Mexico now; bets were heard here and there as to whether Pershing would capture Villa, and sporting wiseacres offered odds on the fugitive. When the bearing of European events upon America were discussed the conversation was generally without form and void. The common attitude was that we would not be drawn into it, but why we would not, or how we would be kept out, or what the whole significance of matters might be, nobody seemed to know. There was a deal of bewilderment in those days, not a little smug complacency and asinine confidence in our immunity to such a disease as war. Confused thinking was the rule, and the clearest-headed could but grope and guess and find such comfort as he could in hopes for the best. If ever a nation in the history of the world was perplexed, baffled, had not, in the phrase of the street, the least notion where it was at, then the United States was such a nation in those spring days of 1916.

The nation did not stand where it had stood a year before; there had been advances, imperceptible, perhaps, to one not a close observer of popular phenomena. But opinion against Germany was more solidified; irritation was growing; everywhere you encountered an attitude which seemed to say, “Germany doesn’t want to crowd us too far.” Yet you would have had to search long and carefully to find a man who wanted war. Of course there was Roosevelt, but, then, what else would one expect of Roosevelt?

Detroit, representing the attitude of the Middle West, rather sneered at the seaboard for its nervousness. New York had the jumps, one was told. In New York people were really excited about the situation. Detroit laughed. A thousand miles lay between her and tidewater; she had no reason to sit up nights worrying about the arrival of a hostile fleet. She was safe, knew she was safe, and saw no reason why anybody else should worry. She was safe, and she was growing richer every time the hands circled the clock. New York was never going to bully nor frighten Detroit into any war-hysteria.

Potter was no more certain of future events than the rest; but he was different in this, that he was for insuring our property, as it were. There was a chance, a remote chance, possibly, of the worst happening. Potter was getting ready for that worst—and if it failed to materialize, so much the better.

He was living at the new Detroit Athletic Club, that monument erected to Detroit’s swiftly acquired wealth. His family was away, the Grossepoint house closed. Here at the club he encountered the best of Detroit’s opinion, and the worst; saw the best of that spirit which was making her the marvel city of the continent, and the worst of the consequences of her tidal wave of prosperity. Here about him was a curious blending of the conservatism and gentility of older Detroit, with the new-rich, bombastic, squandering spirit of the day. He saw millionaires whose hands had not yet had time to free themselves of the callouses of toil in the machine-shop, whose manners were the manners of the corner barroom, betting fabulous sums on the rolling of the dice, at poker, at bridge—with opponents who boasted that their ancestors had owned land in Detroit since the coming of Cadillac. He saw boys who had once earned their clothes by carrying papers chumming with boys whose wealth had come down through generations. He saw much that was creditable, splendid, of great promise; he saw some degree of that which was, perhaps, inevitable, but was nevertheless deplorable. He joined but scantily in the life of the club.