Usually I could not have remembered one such immaterial and unnecessary detail. But that afternoon I was given second sight. I could visualize the room; my mind seemed to be projected into it so that every particular stood out with the utmost clarity. It was an excellent lesson to me; thereafter I observed much more carefully.
After hours of this cross-examination I was physically exhausted, as though I had been flung back and forth, beaten and pounded from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. I almost looked at my arms to see whether they were black and blue, they ached so.
It was all useless. The police went unreprimanded, Donohue was promoted when things had quieted down, and Dolphin, though Judge Goff recommended prosecution and the Court of Appeals stated that his conduct was “arbitrary and unlawful,” was not disbarred because he had not been acting in an official capacity when he had ordered the arrest. In spite of the inconvenience, the humiliation of halls closed, covenants broken—exactly nothing happened.
Chapter Twenty-five
ALIEN STARS ARISE
In the summer of 1921 I had signed a contract with the Kaizo group, which had arranged a series of lectures in Japan by four speakers: Albert Einstein was to explain relativity, Bertrand Russell the consequences of the Peace of Versailles, H. G. Wells his version of international accord, and I was to discuss population control, delivering in March and April eight to ten lectures of five hours each. The five-hour clause I innocently believed to be merely a mistake on the part of the translator, but I had faith in the common sense of human nature and expected the error to be taken care of when I arrived.
January and February were months of feverish activity. I spoke in city after city—Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and elsewhere—rushing back to New York to Town Hall hearings and farewell luncheons and dinners. The prolongation of the Town Hall episode had been entirely unforeseen. If bookings had not already been made requiring my departure in February, I should have postponed the trip. But I had promised, and lecture dates were binding obligations.
Stuart was at Peddie Institute where my brother Bob had gone, captain of his football team, preparing for college, having a full and rich time. Grant was there also but he was barely thirteen; I could not bear to put the broad Pacific between us. The headmaster warned me that he was only beginning to adjust himself to the school and his studies, and would be set back at least a year if I took him with me. I agreed to reconsider, but I am afraid I had made up my mind beforehand. With scant ceremony and scarcely enough clean shirts, I bundled him up and away, leaving the turbulence of New York behind.
Since Grant was to travel on my passport, I had to have it renewed, and had telegraphed Washington for it to be sent to the West Coast where the detail of a visa could also be attended to. At San Francisco it was waiting. With the little book and Grant in tow I presented myself to the Japanese Consul. Instead of stamping it as the usual mere formality, he examined it carefully and then, apologizing profusely, regretted very much that the Japanese Imperial Government could not give me a visa.
Here was a state of things. I asked him whether he could find out the precise reasons. Was it that I as a person could not go there, or was my subject taboo? The next day, after a cable to Tokyo and much polite bowing, he notified me it was both. In varying degrees of amusement and indignation the papers published the fact that the Japanese were turning the tables on the United States; by our Exclusion Act we had implied they were undesirable citizens, and now it was an American who was undesirable to them.
The steamship company would not sell me tickets on the Taiyo Maru without the visa. Two days previous to her sailing a Japanese who had been in the United States for the Washington Conference proffered a letter of introduction. He deplored the action of his Government and was desirous of being helpful. “The Taiyo Maru is going on to Shanghai. Why don’t you get a Chinese visa?”