In view of the amazing events taking place in Russia at this time, and of the reported Red Terror, the great body of the Conference felt it highly important to put the International unequivocally on the side of democracy as opposed to the dictatorship of Lenin and Trotsky, which it did in an ample resolution that did not neglect to congratulate Russia on the overthrow of the hated regime of the Czars.
Friedrich Adler and Jean Longuet ventured to submit a second resolution, in which they sought a middle way, one they believed would be less offensive to the Bolsheviks. They did not want us to shut the door of the International in the faces of the Russian extremists who, they hoped, would one day return to the fold. They declared that too little was known about the Government of Lenin and Trotsky to warrant an out-and-out condemnation of it. Their resolution is recorded in the minutes. But I venture to think they must now be feeling that they wasted their efforts. The Russians have never done denouncing Longuet and those who think with him. And they have established their own International in Moscow, commonly called the Third International, an International governed from Russia, where all individuality, whether of person or nation, must be ruthlessly suppressed at the dictates of the governing brain in Moscow. All attempts at an honourable compromise with the arbitrary Russians is doomed to failure. It is impossible to reconcile the irreconcilable. The haughty and bigoted doctrinaires of revolutionary Russia will continue their violent and destructive work of poisoning and dividing the working-class movement of the world, unless the age of miracles revives.
A marked feature of the International was the immense number of newspaper men who attended. I am convinced there were more reporters than delegates in the hall. They were there from every land, representing every sort of newspaper. There were as interesting personalities at the Press table as on the floor of the conference hall. Oswald Garrison Villard, Editor of the American Nation, Simeon Strunsky, of the New York Evening Post, and Norman Angell, representing The Times newspaper, were amongst the ornaments of their profession present. Dr. Guttmann, who was the representative of the Frankfurter Zeitung in England before the war, was amongst the ablest and most sympathetic of the journalists who attended; and Herr Rudolf Kommer, of the Neue Freie Presse.
I may be quite wrong, but I formed the opinion as the result of careful observation and subsequent inquiry, and of a close acquaintance which has ripened into friendship with very many conspicuously able journalists abroad, that a higher standard of culture is required of journalists on the Continent than is expected of those of a similar status in this country. Perhaps I ought to put it a little differently. The leading lights of British and American journalism are of the first degree both in general culture and in literary attainments. But there appear to be two very separate and distinct classes of journalist in England and America: the one thoroughly educated, the other entirely uneducated. I saw no such wide difference in the various ranks of journalism abroad. I doubt very much if there were one European reporter at the Conference whose standard of education was below that of a good university. Would this be so in England? It certainly would not in America. In America a “good story” is wanted. In Europe a good argument or a witty satire is more in favour. I know very few journalists in Europe, though doubtless they exist, who would consider it serviceable to their journals deliberately to misinterpret a speech or misreport a conference. They may make a little fun, employ a little irony, caricature a speaker; but very few would deliberately mislead their readers on matters of fact. Courage in facing realities is commoner in some countries than in England. Our prowess is in the field, whether with the hunt or in the battle.
CHAPTER III
THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (concluded)
The International had an audience, a very large and interested one. It sat at the back of the room, glad of an experience which relieved for a while the tedium of life in Berne. Amongst the listeners of every nationality I observed Indians with turbans and Turks wearing the fez. There was a beautiful dark-eyed Jewess sporting three vast links of matchless pearls. A handsome American woman, full of vivacity, wearing a large picture hat, sat next to her husband, a tall, good-looking Hungarian with a clean-shaven face and an American accent to his excellent English. There was the faded but vivacious mistress of a notorious ex-king; two red-haired Greek ladies of extreme beauty; several ambassadors; a whole medley of chief secretaries; a gang of spies of both sexes, and a group of well-known pacifists engaged on preparations for their own conference, which was timed to follow the International. There was Mr. William Bullitt of the American Peace Delegation in Paris; Mr. George Lansbury, and Mr. John de Kay, famous for mystical millions! Last but not least there was a sharp little woman unknown to any of us who sprang upon Mr. Macdonald like a tiger-cat. “How dare you come to this conference to talk to the enemies of your country!” she demanded. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you and Mrs. Snowden and all the others?” Mr. Macdonald was white with anger, but he behaved like a gentleman. If the lady had said it to me I should have told her that it took far less courage to come and talk to an ex-enemy than to marry one and produce four or five little enemies. The spiteful lady was an Englishwoman, and is the wife of an Austrian and the sister of a notorious English suffragette. She has several fine Austrian children!
There was something very interesting about those rabid anti-enemy people. Examine them closely and you found that those who hated most often did it because they were implicated either by birth or marriage in enemy associations, and felt it necessary to protest their loyalty as loudly and as frequently as possible. I believe that language also had a great deal to do with war affinities. People took the French or German side according to the language they had mastered! The knowledge of a foreign language is a distinguished accomplishment in a Briton! Protesting too much is always a mistake. I do not believe it has ever done the protestant one ounce of good. Often it has done positive harm by raising suspicion. I have a distinguished friend in England, German by birth, English by sympathies. From the beginning of the war he has taken the side of the Allies. His writings prove that unmistakably. The English authorities have treated him outrageously. It is a long and painful story. They refuse to allow him to stay in the country, although before the war he lived here for more than twenty years, owns property here, and his daughter was born here. He has abundant credentials from important people. He wants to adopt English citizenship. Nothing that is done to him can alter his devotion to this country; and yet the Home Office is inexorable. There are violent pan-Germans in this country who are suffering less than he—gentlemen on whom the Peace Treaty has bestowed a new nationality!
One particularly tiresome day, when the air of the Conference hall was thick and close with human breath and stale tobacco smoke, and when the lions raged more loudly than usual, pounding the table with their fists as they consigned to perdition their various antagonists, there walked into the room an interesting figure of a man whom nobody could forget who had seen him once. He was dressed in a grey suit, which matched his silvery hair, and showed in a marked way the exceptional breadth of his powerful shoulders set upon a short and sinewy frame. He walked the whole length of the room with all the dignity and solemnity of a reigning prince come to review his loyal troops; his head thrown back and his slightly swaying body vibrant with a self-importance and a quality of proprietorship more arresting than displeasing. A closer acquaintance with him as the Conference proceeded confirmed in everybody the judgment formed at the first casual glance, that the lines round his mouth and at the corners of his bright grey-blue eyes betokened a keen sense of humour.
His immense blue necktie fluttered shoulder-wards and marked him, in conjunction with a clean-shaven face, the American citizen, although it was alleged he was born in the East End of London. But where else in the world, unless in the Quartier Latin, would you find so much good cloth wasted on neckties as in America? Like big butterflies these enormous bows repose upon the breasts of their wearers, as serviceable as the Stars and Stripes in designating the home and habitation of their owners.
Mr. John de Kay was the mystery man of the Second International. Nobody knew whence he came nor whither he was going. His business in life was a secret never revealed. He was a mystery to a great many more than the delegates at the Socialist Conference. He had a castle in Switzerland and another in France. He had an estate in Mexico, and was persona grata with several revolutionary governments. His bust had been sculptured by Rodin. Sarah Bernhardt had appeared in one of his plays. He had written books on social science. He composed poems. He was a multi-millionaire, sprinkling his millions on the altar of good causes like talcum powder after a bath. He kept a marvellous suite of rooms at the Bernerhof, and ordered his dinner with the pompousness of a Napoleon commanding the advance of an army. All these things and a thousand others were said of this extraordinary man; but the mystery remained a mystery to the end.