The Drums of Jeopardy

Karlov's body began to rock and sway like an angry bear's; but still he

held his ground. Gregor wanted to die, to cheat him.

"What of power?" went on his baiter. "Capitalism of might. Lenine and

Trotzky; are they--have they been--honest? Has Russia actually voted

them into office? They sit in the seats of the mighty by the capitalism

of force. For the capitalism of money, which is progress physical and

moral, you substitute the capitalism of force, which is terror. You

speak of yourselves as internationalists. Bats, that is the judgment

day of God--internationalism! For only on the judgment day will nations

become a single people."

A short silence. Gregor was beginning to grow weak. Presently he picked

up the thread of his diatribe.

"I have lived in England, France, Italy, and here. I am competent to

draw comparisons. Where you went to distill poison I went to absorb

facts. And I found that here in this great democracy is the true idea.

But you will not read the lesson."

Sweat began to drop from Karlov's beetling eyebrows.

"You will fail miserably here. Why? Because the Americans are the

greatest of individual property owners. The sense of possession is

satisfied. And woe to the fool who suggests they surrender this. Little

wooden houses, thousands and thousands of them, with a small plot of

ground in the rear where a man in the springtime may dig his hands into

the soil and say gratefully to God, 'Mine, mine!' I, too, am a Russ. I

thought in the beginning that you would take this country as an example,

a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Wrongs? Yes.

But day by day these wrongs are being righted. No lesson in this for

Trotzky, a beer-hall orator like yourself. Ten million men drafted to

carry arms. Did they revolt? Shoulder to shoulder the selected millions

marched to the great ships, shoulder to shoulder they pressed toward the

Rhine. No lesson in that!

"Capitalism, seeking to save its loans, you rant! Capitalism of blood

and money that asked only for simple justice to mankind. The ideal of a

great people--a mixture of all bloods, even German! No lessons in these

tremendous happenings! And you babble about your damned proletariat who

represents the dregs of Russia. What is he? The inefficient, whining

that the other man has the luck, so kill him! Russia, the kindly

ox, fallen among wolves! You cannot tear down the keystone of

civilization--which took seven thousand years to construct--insert it

upside down, and expect the arch to stand. You have your chance to prove

your theories. Prove them in Petrograd and Moscow, and you will not have

to go forth with the torch. And what is this torch but the hidden fear

that you may be wrong?... To wreck the world before you are found out!

You are idiots, and you have turned Russia into a madhouse! Spawns from

the dung-heap!"