“He is a Republican—I am myself, by the way—so when he finds an Anarchist he has him jugged. It makes no difference whether he be a philosophic Anarchist, a follower of Kropotkin, a man who is a vegetarian by principle and has a Brahministic horror of shedding of blood—he is placed in the same cell with the brute who was caught placing a bomb under the railroad bridge. Socialists, Communists, I. W. W.’s, sympathizers with the present Russian government—all, in some way different from the hundred per centers—are regarded as enemies of America. Even liberals and progressives are viewed with suspicion.
“By January the country’s going dry. The same bigots who have been denying the rights that the Constitution guarantees every citizen in a misguided effort to protect that Constitution, will be denouncing people who prefer to drink cocktails instead of grape juice, as un-American. Next it will be people who don’t belong to their race and then, to their church.”
“No, never!” Hamilton interrupted. “This isn’t Russia. America is too sensible.”
“I’m Russian by parentage, you know,” said Dr. Levin. “The race riots there, the pogroms, were also supposed to be patriotic. It was always the hundred per cent Russians who incited the hooligans to riot. Imagine that! The officials who were living corrupt lives, looting the public treasury, depriving the soldiers and sailors of food and ammunition to swell their own fortunes, those were the ones who always cried Russia for the Russians. In the name of patriotism they not only killed the Jews, but imprisoned, exiled and killed the real patriots, who were working for a republic. You see it always starts with patriotism. And in Russia the idea of religion was mixed in with it. Those who don’t believe as you do are not only enemies of the state, but also of Christ. The victims of the plunderers and murderers become anti-Christs. It’s ironic.”
“I think that’s just a wild dream of yours. But whatever happens”—he raised a glass of champagne—“here’s to our friendship, born of the war to make the world safe for democracy.”
He proposed the toast jocularly, but it symbolized the moment and they drank, almost seriously.
XIV
At the Century roof garden they sat back and watched the spectacle critically.
“It hasn’t the verve of a Paris performance,” remarked McCall.
“Verve—you mean nerve,” replied Hamilton. “But the cocktails are there. Anyway, I like this better.”