But now here was the religion Peter wanted. These
clergymen in their robes of snow white linen, preaching
in churches with golden altars and stained-glass windows;
these statesmen who wore the halo of fame, and went
about with the cheering of thousands in their ears;
these mighty captains of industry whose very names
were magic—with power, when written on
pieces of paper, to cause cities to rise in the desert,
and then to fall again beneath a rain of shells and
poison gas; these editors and cartoonists of the American
City “Times,” with all their wit and learning—these
people all combined to construct for Peter a religion
and an ideal, and to hand it out to him, ready-made
and precisely fitted to his understanding. Peter
would go right on doing the things he had been doing
before; but he would no longer do them in the name
of Peter Gudge, the ant, he would do them in the name
of a mighty nation of a hundred and ten million people,
with all its priceless memories of the past and its
infinite hopes for the future; he would do them in
the sacred name of patriotism, and the still more
sacred name of democracy. And—most
convenient of circumstances—the big business
men of American City, who had established a secret
service bureau with Guffey in charge of it, would
go right on putting up their funds, and paying Peter
fifty dollars a week and expenses while he served
the holy cause!
It was the fashion these days for orators and public
men to vie with one another in expressing the extremes
of patriotism, and Peter would read these phrases,
and cherish them; they came to seem a part of him,
he felt as if he had invented them. He became
greedy for more and yet more of this soul-food; and
there was always more to be had—until Peter’s
soul was become swollen, puffed up as with a bellows.
Peter became a patriot of patriots, a super-patriot;
Peter was a red-blooded American and no mollycoddle;
Peter was a “he-American,” a 100% American—and
if there could have been such a thing as a 101% American,
Peter would have been that. Peter was so much
of an American that the very sight of a foreigner filled
him with a fighting impulse. As for the Reds—well,
Peter groped for quite a time before he finally came
upon a formula which expressed his feelings.
It was a famous clergyman who achieved it for him—saying
that if he could have his way he would take all the
Reds, and put them in a ship of stone with sails of
lead, and send them forth with hell for their destination.
So Peter chafed more and more at his inability to
get action. How much more evidence did the secret
service of the Traction Trust require? Peter
would ask this question of McGivney again and again,
and McGivney would answer: “Keep your shirt
on. You’re getting your pay every week.
What’s the matter with you?”
“The matter is, I’m tired of listening
to these fellows ranting,” Peter would say.
“I want to stop their mouths.”
