CRYSTALLIZING politics left but two figures in the field for the campaign of 1913. That Martin Embree would carry the radical banner was a foregone conclusion. Magnus Laurens was logically the man to oppose him. To the Clark-Wanser-Dana wing of the party, who owned the then Governor, a weak-kneed, feeble-spirited, oratorical creature, Laurens was distasteful. He was far more prone to give orders than to take them. But on fundamental issues he was “right”; a sound conservative, reliably hostile to all the quasi-socialistic theories threatening the control of the State. Moreover his personal and political rectitude was beyond suspicion. Like or dislike him, he was the only man in sight with a chance of beating Embree.
Meantime “Deutschtum,” that world-wide, subterranean propaganda of German influence, German culture, German hopes and ambitions and future dominations which had for a quarter of a century established itself reproductively as the ichneumon parasite affixes its eggs to the body of the helpless host which, later, their brood will prey upon and destroy—Deutschtum was scheming out the peaceable and subtle conquest of Centralia through capture of the minds of the coming generations of citizens. The Cultural Language Bill was quite harmless in appearance, so astutely had it been drawn. Under pretense of giving parents of public school pupils the right to secure for their children, by petition, instruction in foreign languages, it actually established German as a “preferred study” with the heaviest ratio of credits, and, in the advanced schools, as practically a compulsory subject. This meant the addition of some four to five hundred teachers of German throughout the State, every one of whom would be a propagandist of Deutschtum. As a side issue, the determination of the textbooks on European history was left to the German staff. The school boards of the State being already pretty well Teutonized, it was evident that, should the bill pass, history as taught in the Centralia school system would be censored agreeably to the purposes of His Imperial Majesty Wilhelm of Germany.
Originally it was intended to present the measure, backed by a formidable list of names from the academic world, with a sprinkling of “prominent citizens,” and push it quietly through as a purely educational and technical matter into which, the professionals and professors having said their say in advocacy, the public need not trouble itself to examine. Leave these esoteric matters to the specialists! The list of endorsers was prepared. It was comprehensive, as regards the colleges and schools, the pedagogic element being influenced by the natural academic sympathy for the German educational system which honors scholarship so highly. Prominent citizens lent their names as prominent citizens always will when a petition not affecting their own pockets (though it may affect the national integrity of their country) is presented. A committee, graced by the presence of Emil Bausch, Professor Brender, head of the German Department of the local university, Professor Rappelje, of the Economics Department, Judge Dana, the Reverend Mr. Merserole, Farley of The Record, and others, with Robert Wanser as chairman, made a formal appearance as sponsors. It was a solemn, dull, and impressive occasion, and The Guardian representative sent to report it almost yawned his head off. He sadly envied his boss whom he had met coming out of the office juggling two white and gleaming golf-balls. He wished he owned a paper and could devote a morning to pure sport whenever so minded!
The golf-balls did not indicate unmingled recreation for the boss of The Guardian. He was responding to a telephone challenge for a match with Magnus Laurens. Since the agreement in the editor’s den, the water-power magnate had made rather a habit of dropping in upon Jeremy when he came to Fenchester. He would stretch his powerful figure in Jeremy’s easy-chair, open the friendly hostilities by proposing to him that, since he believed in other people’s property being taken over for the public good, he should deliver The Guardian to Nick Milliken and the real Socialists; shrewdly discuss politics and the practitioners thereof; and invariably wind up on the main interest which the two men held in common, the Americanization of their hybrid State.
Even at its best, Laurens’s golf-game was not redoubtable to a player of Jeremy’s caliber. On this particular morning it was far from its best. Turning to his opponent after a flagrant flub on the ninth green, the older man said: “My mind isn’t on the game to-day. Let’s get an early lunch, and talk.” As soon as they were seated at the table, he opened up the subject.
“You’re against me, of course, in the campaign.”
“Certainly. We’re for Embree.”
“That’s all right. What I’m going to say does n’t contemplate any possibility of your changing. Have you read the Cultural Language Bill?”
“No. I’ve sent a man up to cover the hearing.”
“Why did n’t you read it?”