Victor Rubin

“ I am an Anglo-Saxon white man, so ordained by God and so constituted and trained that I cannot conscientiously take either my politics or my religion from some secluded ass on the other side of the world.
“Now, if somebody else happens to be a Jew, I can’t help it any more than he can. Or if he happens to be black I can’t help that either. If he were born under a foreign flag, I couldn’t help it—but there is one thing I can do. I can object to his un-American propaganda being preached in my home or practised in the solemn assembly of real Americans!” ”

“ Whenever a person exhibits a moral impulse, you accuse him of being a Puritan.”
“Exactly,” said McCall. “You don’t expect me to call you a goddam prude in company. A person has to be polite. Puritan is merely a euphuism.”
They argued genially for a while and then appealed to Dr. Levin.
“As usual, you are both wrong—and both right,” said Levin, lighting a cigarette. “McCall is a poet and a symbolist. In what to you, Hamilton, would be a shocking disregard of the morals, and to me a mere display of the umbilical region, becomes in McCall’s mind a symbol of freedom, of art, of life. ”

“ He knew all the latest steps and even introduced little variations that he had picked up in New Orleans, Charleston and Baltimore.
With Dorothy, he reflected, he could sit idly at a table or walk along the street and express his thoughts—he had need to express them to some one. He wished, too, that Margaret did not so openly disapprove of what he had said in defense of the Negro that evening at his home. For a woman, anyway, he would have preferred that Margaret take the more humane point of view. He was old-fashioned enough to believe that a woman should display the softer virtues. ”

“ Everybody is for Americanism, those niggers who chased you down the street as much as any one. Every one is for pure womanhood, except a few degenerates whom your prisons take care of. White supremacy is simply the Tribe’s way of saying black hatred. That’s what the Tribe stands for—hatred, hate of the black, of the Jew and of the Catholic, hate of the labor union—it wants to abolish needless strikes, with a Tribesman, I suppose, to decide which are needless. ”

“ Hamilton wondered whether Margaret, so graceful on the dance floor, so competent in the drawing room, or at the dinner table, would be equally at home in a hospital ward. Could she have rubbed a man’s back with alcohol, or placed a drain in a gaping wound as successfully as she poured tea—do all these things with a smile? He wondered.
Meadows was approaching Hamilton’s wheelchair with a cup of steaming chocolate, and for a moment Hamilton had an acute longing to be back in the States, nearer Margaret. ”

“ A nigger was a nigger to him once more. But in Corinth, yes, even in Corinth, he had put in a word for the despised black. Once he had thought that the ideals born of the war, the spirit of democracy and justice and idealism, would last. Here it was—how many months? two months, not quite three, since his homecoming—and he was back again. Or was it simply the pressure of Corinth—Margaret, Pinkney, his father, his set. Catholic. Jew. The Trick Track Tribe. Well, one had to live in his own world. And anyway a nigger was black and ugly and overworked. ”

“ Hamilton had come home again. Home to the land of Liberty, home to the land which had given lavishly of its treasure, of its very flesh and blood to bring a new conception of liberty and democracy to the old world. A fresh, strong, triumphant country, throwing spires of steel and huge smoke-stacks into the air, spanning rivers, tunnelling through mountains, girding waterfalls, building [Pg 65] cities and binding them by bands of steel. The young giant among nations, deep-chested, long-limbed, athletic; the clean-minded, hard-fisted champion of democracy. ”

“ He is one of a crowd, and a crowd lacks reason. Get your crowd swayed by the spirit and it matters not what reason you give it for its hatred—difference of race, of belief, of appearance. Tell the crowd that being black is wrong, or being a Catholic, or being a Jew. It is but enough to point out that the objects of its wrath are different from it. Show it an ideal like Anglo-Saxonism. It will not stop to reflect that the greatest Anglo-Saxon nation in the world, Great Britain, is a mixture of primitive Briton, Celt, Teuton, Norman, Jew, of Catholic and Protestant. ”

“ Her voice was clear, impassioned. “You will turn against the only force that can preserve the white South and white America from the alien? I thought you were a soldier. Don’t you see where your duty lies?”
[Pg 174]
“But Margaret, I’m not opposing—”
“You are,” she cried. “If you are not with the Tribe in its crusade, you are against it. It was the same way in the war. You were either a one hundred per cent American or you weren’t an American. And now you are either for one hundred per cent Christian, white civilization or against it.” ”

“ On the road the stream of taxis and motor cars.
Meadows’ blue cloak made a daub of color in the picture and Hamilton’s quick eyes noted it. He was thinking how well she fitted into his brief world here. He was wondering how she would fit into life in New York—or Corinth. And again he compared her with that other figure. He wished it were Spring.
A man and woman went by, their arms around each other, unmindful of the world—a man with long hair and a silky beard, meanly dressed, without gloves; a frail blonde with high run-down heels and torn gloves. But their eyes shone. Hamilton envied them. ”

“ There have been too many lynchings in Corinth lately and we want to prevent that.”
Robert’s face was flushed.
“Dad, I don’t know. This is simply one example, just one example of what the Tribe means. We have our tribunal. We decide a man’s guilt. But we’re all in masks. We’re—we’re a tribe. Not a law court. We may try to be, but we’re dealing with justice like savages. Our courts may be slow, imperfect; but anyway, they keep us from being a mob like that, or a tribe. Think of the hundreds of years during which human wisdom has built up our laws and our court procedure.” ”

“ If the Knights of Columbus are going into politics and stirring up religious prejudice, it’s got to stop. I don’t know exactly what Pinkney means by white supremacy, aside from the supremacy it naturally has, and I don’t see the necessity of a society standing for pure womanhood—why that’s part of every man’s religion, of every social and moral law in the world!—but I do know what Americanism means. I can see that it’s needed here and I’m going into the Tribe because I believe a powerful organization like that can help spread it! ”

“ She had no favorite schools or intellectual movements. And no theories. She simply liked a picture or a book, or didn’t like it—her emancipation from the old conventionalities expressing itself simply in a frankness in expressing her opinion. Whereas her mother would have admired a painting because she thought that was the thing to do, with Margaret the thing to do was to say you didn’t like it if you didn’t. But her taste for fiction—the only kind of literature she read—was omnivorous. In music, too, her tastes were of contradictory breadth, preferring Beethoven one night and jazz the next. ”

“ McCall laughed.
“Well, why shouldn’t he be opposed to free love? He has to pay for it, doesn’t he? He looks like a picture by Hogarth—a picture in the Rake’s Progress. Only Death ought to be lurking somewhere about.”
“Oh, he is,” said Levin, “although you can’t see him. Life doesn’t reveal its spectres until the right moment. But we’re all too introspective. A cabaret is frankly a place for enjoyment. We ought to dance.”
“I’d rather just look on,” said Hamilton.
“And I’m going to dance,” said McCall. ”

“ It was like establishing an organization to uphold the foundation of our government. It was like forming a government—only a secret government—within a government.
Once, in his senior year at prep school, Robert had attempted to become a debater. He joined a debating society and was assigned to a team which was defending the merits of a certain plank in the platform of the Bull Moose party against a similar plank of the Democratic party platform. He had entered the preparation of the arguments full of enthusiasm. The Progressive platform was so much broader, so much more constructive. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dorothy. McCall. McCall had scribbled the poem on an old envelope. Robert remembered lending it to him—in the hospital. But—yes, he had been right all the time. By a sort of instinct. He undressed, turned off the lights and raised the shades. The moonlight lay like a river of silver across the shadowy lawn. A world of illusion and of beauty. Tomorrow, he said, he would ask Margaret to set the day. They should be married as quickly as possible. ”

“ Why do we need a Tribe to try men? It’s natural that the Tribal concilium should be swayed by prejudices and fears and hatreds. In the courts, justice is regulated by laws, by precedent, by the wisdom of ages. In the Tribe, it is the moment’s sentiment—right or wrong—sympathy or hate or revenge. Tribesmen may think they’re impartial, but they’re men, acting with only their own wisdom, often acting unwisely, sometimes cruelly. I—I think that I’ll resign from the Tribe!”
His father cleared his throat and held up his hand. Robert looked around. ”

“ Bring them into the home, give them social equality, wipe cut the anti-marriage laws, and they’ll drag the white race down to their stinking level. Cruel are we?—unjust? Remember there’s only one crime for which a nigger is ever lynched in the South.
“I’ve been brought up by a Negro mammy and our family’s had colored servants. They stuck to us through the Civil War and after. There is a place for that kind of nigger—the good nigger, the nigger who knows his level and keeps it, the nigger who respects white authority and white supremacy. To him the Southerner’s heart is always open. ”

“ Freeman agreed finally. “The Tribe can’t afford to use unfair arguments. It stands for justice first of all. It stands for pure Americanism. But, first, in order to have it, we must have pure Americans. You can’t have it with Catholics, Jews, Negroes and aliens. They don’t belong. They have alien beliefs, customs, traditions. We can fight them fairly.
“I cannot help being what I am, racially. I am not a Jew, nor a Catholic, nor a Negro, nor a foreigner. ”

“ For four hundred years, white Europe traded in black human beings, robbed Africa of a hundred million human souls, transformed [Pg 213] the face of her social life, overthrew her organized government, distorted her ancient industry and snuffed out her cultural development. Today, instead of taking slaves from Africa, white men are converting Africa into a huge plantation, where the natives toil and die under the lash for the profit of the white world. Yes, the white men brought religion—the Bible in one hand and the rifle in the other. ”

“ One’s feet sank into a soft, thick rug of mauve and one’s eye immediately took in the glass-covered mahogany desk and the decorations on the wall—a silk American flag under glass, his captain’s commission in the home guards, a college diploma, a membership in some civic organization and a poem “To My Mother”—all framed. Not until they had come quite into the room did they notice that they were not alone. A rather tall, wavy-haired man with shrewd blue eyes and a straight-line mouth was standing at the window, chewing a cigar. ”

“ The last phrase fairly rolled out of Freeman’s eloquent mouth. “It is our aim to guard the supremacy of the white race, protect our Constitution from the radicals who would attack it and keep the hand of the Pope from clutching at our state. In every way we shall work to conserve this country and to confound the enemies within its walls as well as without its gates, to support the government in enforcing its laws and to aid the government whenever and wherever it seems inadequate to cope with its foes. ”

“ Firebrands burned a hundred buildings and attempted to destroy the entire Negro district. Three thousand men, women and children were rendered homeless. By Monday night twenty-five blacks and whites had sobbed out their lives in the battle of color, their bodies lay on the marble slabs of the public morgue—a sacrifice to the God of Intolerance.
In Tuesday’s paper Robert read about the rioting and heard unconfirmed details, horrible exaggerations, from the lips of excited men who stood around the lobby. Robert felt glad that he no longer belonged to the Tribe. ”

“ That is exactly what is happening to it today. Men and women are being boycotted, banished from their homes, tarred and feathered, flogged and murdered. Officially it may not be the work of the Trick Track Tribe. Officials may disclaim responsibility. But they cannot disclaim responsibility for forming the mob and then directly or indirectly inciting it. Griffith may be the wisest of men, Lister the noblest and most sincere, but they can no more control the mob of their formation, than could the wise and sincere men who formed the Ku Klux Klan stop its reign of terrorism. ”

“ He had never distributed the Knights of Columbus oath. Freeman had assured him that whatever might be the veracity of the articles in The Beacon, the Knights of Columbus oath, at any rate, was accurate. It had been obtained by the Tribe itself.
Robert dried his face. Why must a person always defend what he has done? One may act simply on an impulse—because some one else wants him to do something, because the community in which he lives, his social set or public opinion desires it. But once a person has acted, he builds up reasons to justify himself. Take the Knights of Columbus oath. ”

“ Robert decided to wait until he received a reply to his telegram of resignation before notifying Freeman, grew impatient as the morning wore on and finally determined to rid himself of his impatience by walking. It was hot and choking and sooty—not at all the Chicago of which he had dreamed when he was in Georgia. It was impossible to get used to Chicago. It was hot, but not like Corinth. ”

“ Over the omelettes, which after the first bite, Hamilton decided were worth all their reputation, the discussion was resumed.
“Isn’t that a rather narrow view to take?” asked Meadows. “Devoting one’s life to mere pleasure.”
“It’s the very highest. What are the higher things in life but means to increasing our pleasure? What is all our culture—manners, art, literature, music? Even religion is the sole pleasure of the millions who are too incompetent or unfortunate to enjoy the material pleasures of life, the pleasures of the flesh. ”

“ But principally he thanked them for their loyalty and expressed the conviction that they would continue to practise the lessons that they had all learned in the war—himself included, the unity of the nation, its strength, physical and moral, because it was a nation composed of many different human elements. A nation where each man was a citizen like any other man in spite of differences in race, color and religion.
At the close of his talk, a little Jewish corporal came up to him, saluted and asked timidly if he could shake his hand. Hamilton extended his hand with a smile. ”