Asenath Carver Coolidge

“ What kind of a pun would your City Pyro King have made of that? What does he care for the homes made desolate, the youths that are slain and mutilated, this son of a millionaire, so that he adds more millions to his possessions? What does he care for such misery as I have suffered? Every year for seven years I had to be taken from my home and sent to Canada in order to escape our Independence day horror. Every year since the terrible accident to my little brother. ”

“ It is the giant murder. It impoverishes and brutalizes humanity. It is the cardinal sin against which the Society of Friends have always striven. George Fox began the good fight, and William Penn though reared for the army and tempted by rewards of glory and honor, renounced all and joined the blessed Brotherhood of Peace. Not only that but he came to this new world and put his principles into practice, as thou wilt see when thou are old enough to read his life which thou wilt find in my little library that I have willed to thee. ”

“ Don’t be foolish, Ralph. You know how it has always been with papa and mamma. They were over-solicitous. I was never so strong and healthy in my life as I am now. I feel as though I could work, and should be glad to in such a cause. Only think of it! The gift of books and books and books and books instead of firecrackers and cartridges and toy pistols! An invitation to come and help arrange them instead of an order to pack up and leave the country to get rid of the horrible Fourth! Then the exercises in the Library instead of the carnival of death and destruction. Can you realize it, Ralph? ”

“ I propose that instead of a prohibitory notice there be a short but stirring appeal to the people, one and all, to refrain from buying, selling, using or giving away any of the iniquitous Fourth of July implements. According to the doctrine of love and trust that I have been taught, a good strong appeal is far ahead of prohibition. Prohibition savors of tyranny and kingliness. It is American bossism. It is squarely against human nature. Tell a child he shan’t do a thing and impose a heavy penalty, and he is sure to do it, if possible. ”

“ Surely they never ought to be. They are made to kill. They are a menace to human life on a prodigious scale and the men who invent them are no better than would-be murderers and should be arrested and treated as such.”
“That’s true, Ruth, and yet the governments of the world approve and hasten to buy the murderous inventions. There’s an inventor in this state who has made a gun for this government that will throw a shell thirty miles and crash a boat into kindling wood and kill every soul on board. ”

“ In our own country Independence Day has proved to be their golden harvest. The freedom given to small boys on this day makes them easy victims to the tempters’ wiles, who under the treacherous guise of patriotism have seized upon them more and more every year, until the list of the dead and wounded has assumed appalling proportions. Still there is little talk of doing away with this hideous slaughter; while there is “big talk” about “race suicide,” and an appeal to mothers to bring forth more sons to supply the nation’s need. ”

“ That the ten million now spent annually for their destruction, be used for their benefit. If only one half of this amount were used rightly what a change would come over the face of this continent! Every town, however small, would have its pretty park for the children to play in without fear and trembling. There would be flowers and music—true and gentle music that takes the savagery out of the human heart instead of filling it with savage impulses. Music that would not drown the voices of the birds, but inspire them to sing their rarest songs. ”

“ Adelaide still had the rose in hand and was enjoying its beauty—bestowing loving looks and lips upon it as well and inhaling its fragrance.
“Nothing but a rose,” said Bombs, after he had seated himself leisurely at her side and taken a sip of wine.
“Nothing but a rose,” repeated Adelaide; “but a rose is a great deal, Mr. Bombs. It is beauty, fragrance and color—soft and restful color.”
“O! I understand. I know you don’t like fireworks, nor much of anything as yet—that is in the line of human invention.”
“I like human inventions but I don’t like inhuman [Pg 131] ones that dazzle my eyes out. ”

“ I was told that the Public Square was a more dangerous place than if it had been invaded by a foreign enemy—that the boys really took possession of it and fired at everybody who attempted to enter.”
Mr. Schwarmer laughed. “Well that’s no fault of mine, Dr. Normander. Any sensible man knows that there isn’t enough powder in one of my little packages to hurt any child. He couldn’t more than scorch his fingers were he to let them all off at once—rest assured he couldn’t. He couldn’t more than learn ‘The burnt child dreads the fire’ adage, which every child has got to learn sooner or later.” ”

“ When its Centennial comes they will turn its liquid beauty into a bed of hissing, fiery serpents a mile long!”
“Yes, and Pang’s bill is to be a mile long, rest assured it is,” laughed Schwarmer. “He’s sharp enough for them. He isn’t there for fun or in search of the beautiful. He’s there for business and he’s got it, Johnny Bull fashion, by the horns—on the lake front and on the house-tops, most assuredly he has. No, Fons, business isn’t a beauty of itself, you know, or will know when you get into the whirl of it; and Chicago is the wildest kind of a whirlpool for business.” ”

“ I should say that it was anything but religious to believe that disastrous celebrations and wars are to be done away with by monstrous life destroying agencies instead of the human and divine agencies of love and true friendliness. No! no, Mr. Bombs! That is treacherous military pretense. We have never had any Independence Day accidents here since the fireworks were abolished. We had a great many before. Ruth Cornwallis began the crusade against them and our Golden Rule President with his earnest appeals and wise prohibitions made a clean sweep of them. ”

“ Whether the evil we fly to is greater than the evil we fly from, is the question. She is all we have left and we have been so very, very careful—afraid to mention the subject almost.”
“I have been expecting this puzzle in Miss Ruth’s case and I incline to take it as a healing sign,” said Dr. Muelenberg looking keenly at Ralph. “To engage in the work of stamping out this monstrous horror would be far better than ominous silence and the annual flight from it, for you, for her, for the people of the town and for the world, no doubt! But it will not do for Miss Ruth to go out alone. ”

“ He was convinced that Schwarmer did not give little Laurens Cornwallis the explosives that caused his death; but he was still more thoroughly convinced that he was responsible through his influence and example for the alarming increase of accidents in the town; but beyond all lay the dread conviction that the evil was coexistent with our body politic and that the parents and people in general had become so inured to it—so dead to its enormity that it would be well nigh impossible to bring about any essential reform. ”

“ Powder and dynamite will be the fashion and our Fourth of July horror will rage again. O Ralph! Ralph!”
“Here am I, dear! Trust! trust! We will be on the watch-tower. If Mr. Bombs comes we will see what we can do with him. There’s always something to be done if we can only keep a level head. You must not get too much excited over it, dear, you know the reason why. You remember the gardener’s wife, poor soul. Let’s stop and see her on our way down.”
“Yes, Ralph,” replied Ruth eagerly. “Perhaps she will know if Miss Schwarmer is coming up this Fourth. ”

“ The ladies were especially delighted.
“Behold the result of your maiden speech!” exclaimed Ralph when he came home with the good news.
“Newly married speech,” laughed Ruth; but as Ralph went on to tell of the large preparations which were being made she shook her pretty head and “hoped Schwarmer would not be so idiotic as to put all his donation into a splendid building and leave nothing for books. A good plain, commodious building is what we want. Not a palatial, monumental thing that will make our homes look like hovels and turn out to be a monument for himself, for us to keep in order.” ”

“ It is surely worse for the one who strikes the death blow—for the man that is hired by the Government to murder its criminals inasmuch as such a life-taker is abhorred not only by the criminals whom he releases from life as gently as possible, but by the people whose instrument he is; while the other murderer, the army officer who leads hundreds of splendid young men and horses over wounded bodies of friends or foes to cruel slaughter [Pg 223] is applauded on all sides and covered with honor and glory. ”

“ Do you know, Ralph, I begin to think there’s no use of going away any more to get rid of the horrible Fourth. It goes with me or comes to me, wherever I go—this terrible monster to which my little brother was sacrificed. Every year counts [Pg 68] thousands of victims and every year more and more! O, how many homes will be made desolate on the day that is fast coming! How many beautiful and precious mothers’ sons will be defaced or disfigured for life? Between three and four thousand was the death and accident roll last year. ”

“ The Independence Day Horror at Killsbury
CHAPTER I. THE CORNWALLIS COTTAGE.
It was Independence Day. The sun rose gorgeously. The air was electric and inspiring. Blossoming plants were exhaling rare fragrance. The forests and rivers were palpitating with glad, soft sounds and gentle fervor. The birds were singing jubilantly, and various forms of living things were alert and antic. Yes, it was “Independence Day in the morning” as the Killsbury boys called it. ”

“ Miss Adelaide, except that I have discovered or think I have, the long sought for and greatly to be desired explosive—the ideal force which combines the highest known power with perfect safety in use; an explosive which when put upon the market and used in the place of dynamite will make such accidents as that which cost your father his life, practically impossible.”
“I don’t believe such awful things can be made safe, any more than the arch-fiend himself, Mr. Bombs.” ”

“ Mary Langley, the gardener’s wife, had never recovered from the hurt and fright caused by the explosion of Mr. Bombs’ rocket. Hers was one of those double hurts for which materia medicae has no remedy. She recovered sufficiently to be able to attend to her household duties and to the wants of her two little children. Miss Schwarmer’s well filled purse had helped her thus far; but it could not tide her over the invalid line. Dreams of fiery serpents and the lost baby kept her from refreshing sleep night after night. Her husband ridiculed her in vain for her so-called woman’s weakness. ”

“ We need a public park, where the children can go to fly their kites, look at the gold fishes, listen to the music, smell of the flowers, laugh, play and sing, and be out of the dust and danger of the crowded thoroughfare. ”

“ Yes, Ruth, and it does seem to be growing worse and worse every year—as though we were sinking down to the level of the brute. As though Satan had gotten a lease of a thousand years and was trying to see how many children he can destroy—yes, and young men, too; for there are the deadly games for the finish. Another century of such brutal sports and celebrations and there would not be a sound man left in the community. ”

“ Bombs?”
“It was the same old story, Miss Adelaide; men were made to kill each other with fists or dynamite—no matter which.”
“You are caustic as ever, Mr. Bombs. You must have spent your time chiefly with chemicals and in lurid laboratories—looking inward instead of outward—trying to find out and master the hidden forces. Father told me of your investigations only the day before he died,” said Adelaide closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair. ”

“ You hadn’t better retire—it might wake you up. It will be huge, Miss Adelaide.”
“The bigger they are the more I don’t like them, Mr. Bombs. The little ones tire me and the big ones scare me. You know how I screamed when that horrid London Pyro-King sent off his biggest rockets. They looked so dangerous—as though a terrible comet or electric storm were crashing into the earth to destroy it. Is your new piece dangerous, Mr. Bombs?” ”

“ He invents fiery shows and goes all over the world to pile up money out of them, although he is worth millions already.”
“Please tell me about him,” exclaimed Ruth eagerly. “I wonder if he is the one that I heard so much boasting about in Canada. The one that wooled the Americans into buying their ‘Independence Day annihilators’ of him they said. Those horrible cannon crackers, and things of that sort which kill and maim so many every year—dangerous things that never ought to be manufactured or sold in any country under the heavens. He seems like an arch-fiend to me.” ”

“ We need good roads and bridges. There isn’t a thoroughly good road in town except the speedway, which the corporation helped you build over beyond the hill. The sewers and water works are incomplete. You have about all there are at your place and the towns-people have paid the corporation taxes, although they have been doubled since your coming, without grumbling. Think of all these things, Mr. Schwarmer. Investigate this whole matter for yourself and see if you can’t do something better for us than you have been doing. You have refused to take pay from us for the destruction of your property. ”

“ Remember, we do not assume that you are a bad man because you distribute fireworks among the children of this town. We know you don’t think when you give a lot of boys a lot of toy pistols that they are going to kill or injure each other with them. You are just like a great many others. You have been brought up to think it right for boys to celebrate our Independence Day and you don’t stop to think of the new elements of danger which have been, and are constantly being introduced. ”

“ There is no need of appointing a lumbering committee to go around the world and investigate the injurious effect of powder and dynamite on the human system. It is well known that a very small quantity of either is sufficient to put a boy’s eye out, tear off his fingers or produce one of the most horrible diseases, lockjaw—a disease which boasted antitoxin fails to cure in nine cases out of ten. I don’t see how any man in his right senses would dare to put such explosives into a young boy’s hands. ”

“ You know miracles do happen now and then, Doctor, and I am rather expecting one from The Woman’s Educational or Missionary Department before the next Independence Day begins,” laughed the President. “There is no greater pest to society than a millionaire idiot, and there is no better way to get him to use his money rightly than to hand him over to the best women of society.”
“One more question before we are arrested, or arrest ourselves,” laughed Ruth.
“Can a law be made to prohibit Schwarmer or his guests from showering rockets on the town?” ”

“ As to the rest of the crowd that wended their way homeward that night it is safe to say that there was not a soul among them that did not feel elated with the thought that they had done a deed that would save more than one mother’s heart from anguish on the day that was fast approaching, and might be the means of saving scores upon scores in the years that were to come. ”

“ War! primarily my son. This vile disease used to be the aftermath of battlefields in the old countries. Here it is the Independence Day disease; but the brute-elements are being let loose all over the world. They are growing too strong [Pg 47] for us and we cannot hold them in leash,” whispered Father Ferrill as he opened the Widow Pressneau’s door noiselessly, pushed Dr. Normander in before him and shut it quickly. His next movement was to pull down the shades through which the hot July sun was streaming. ”

“ No instrument could be more cunningly devised for the injection of poison into the human system. The flat head is like the head of a serpent. The small boy gives it a starter. It hisses and carries everything before it—pieces of flesh or clothing, soiled or unsoiled, but usually soiled. It buries and burns them deep in the flesh. The gash shuts up and they are left to fester there. Mien Gott! These are the things that are invented, manufactured and sold for innocent boys to play the deadly game of patriotism with. They are good for no other thing—they nor the toy pistol ”

“ It has grown to be a monstrous evil, but like many another serpent it has become so mixed up with business interests that it will be almost impossible to eliminate it. I have talked with more than one manufacturer, feeling there was no other way to rid ourselves of the vile Fourth of July abominations than by stopping their production and importation, but they will not give in. They will employ noted scientists to analyze their wares with the understanding that no germs of tetanus are to be found. They will throw dust into the eyes of the governing powers. ”