The Crisis — Complete

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER I. RAW MATERIAL

  Summer, intolerable summer, was upon the city at last. The families ofits richest citizens had fled. Even at that early day some braved thelong railroad journey to the Atlantic coast. Amongst these were ourfriends the Cluymes, who come not strongly into this history. Some wentto the Virginia Springs. But many, like the Brinsmades and the Russells,the Tiptons and the Hollingsworths, retired to the local paradise oftheir country places on the Bellefontaine road, on the cool heightsabove the river. Thither, as a respite from the hot office, Stephen wasoften invited by kind Mr. Brinsmade, who sometimes drove him out in hisown buggy. Likewise he had visited Miss Puss Russell. But Miss VirginiaCarvel he had never seen since the night he had danced with her.This was because, after her return from the young ladies' school atMonticello, she had gone to Glencoe, Glencoe, magic spot, perched highon wooded highlands. And under these the Meramec, crystal pure, ranlightly on sand and pebble to her bridal with that turbid tyrant, theFather of Waters.

  To reach Glencoe you spent two dirty hours on that railroad which(it was fondly hoped) would one day stretch to the Pacific Ocean. Yougenerally spied one of the big Catherwood boys in the train, or theirtall sister Maude. The Catherwoods likewise lived at Glencoe in thesummer. And on some Saturday afternoons a grim figure in a linen dusterand a silk skull-cap took a seat in the forward car. That was JudgeWhipple, on his way to spend a quiet Sunday with Colonel Carvel.

  To the surprise of many good people, the Judge had recently formedanother habit. At least once a week he would drop in at the little houseon Olive Street next to Mr. Brinsmade's big one, which was shut up, andtake tea with Mrs. Brice. Afterward he would sit on the little porchover the garden in the rear, or on the front steps, and watch thebob-tailed horse-cars go by. His conversation was chiefly addressed tothe widow. Rarely to Stephen; whose wholesome respect for his employerhad in no wise abated.

  Through the stifling heat of these summer days Stephen sat in the outeroffice, straining at the law. Had it not been for the fact that Mr.Whipple went to his mother's house, despair would have seized him longsince. Apparently his goings-out and his comings-in were noted only byMr. Richter. Truly the Judge's methods were not Harvard methods. And ifthere were pride in the young Bostonian, Mr. Whipple thought he knew thecure for it.

  It was to Richter Stephen owed a debt of gratitude in these days. Hewould often take his midday meal in the down-town beer garden with thequiet German. Then there came a Sunday afternoon (to be marked with ared letter) when Richter transported him into Germany itself. Stephen'seyes were opened. Richter took him across the Rhine. The Rhine wasMarket Street, and south of that street was a country of which politeAmerican society took no cognizance.

  Here was an epic movement indeed, for South St. Louis was a great soduprooted from the Fatherland and set down in all its vigorous crudity inthe warm black mud of the Mississippi Valley. Here lager beer took theplace of Bourbon, and black bread and sausages of hot rolls and friedchicken. Here were quaint market houses squatting in the middle of widestreets; Lutheran churches, square and uncompromising, and bulky TurnerHalls, where German children were taught the German tongue. Here, in ashady grove of mulberry and locust, two hundred families were spread outat their ease.

  For a while Richter sat in silence, puffing at a meerschaum with a hugebrown bowl. A trick of the mind opened for Stephen one of the historiesin his father's library in Beacon Street, across the pages of which hadflitted the ancestors of this blue-eyed and great-chested Saxon. He sawthem in cathedral forests, with the red hair long upon their bodies.He saw terrifying battles with the Roman Empire surging back and forththrough the low countries. He saw a lad of twenty at the head of ruggedlegions clad in wild skins, sweeping Rome out of Gaul. Back in the dimages Richter's fathers must have defended grim Eresburg. And it seemedto him that in the end the new Republic must profit by this ruggedstock, which had good women for wives and mothers, and for fathers menin whose blood dwelt a fierce patriotism and contempt for cowardice.

  This fancy of ancestry pleased Stephen. He thought of the forefathers ofthose whom he knew, who dwelt north of Market Street. Many, though thisgeneration of the French might know it not, had bled at Calais and atAgincourt, had followed the court of France in clumsy coaches to Bloisand Amboise, or lived in hovels under the castle walls. Others hadcharged after the Black Prince at Poitiers, and fought as serf or noble.in the war of the Roses; had been hatters or tailors in Cromwell'sarmies, or else had sacrificed lands and fortunes for Charles Stuart.These English had toiled, slow but resistless, over the misty BlueRidge after Boone and Harrod to this old St. Louis of the French, theirenemies, whose fur traders and missionaries had long followed the veinsof the vast western wilderness. And now, on to the structure builded bythese two, comes Germany to be welded, to strengthen or to weaken.

  Richter put down his pipe on the table.

  "Stephen," he said suddenly, "you do not share the prejudice against ushere?"

  Stephen flushed. He thought of some vigorous words that Miss PussRussell had used on the subject of the Dutch.

  "No," said he, emphatically.

  "I am glad," answered Richter, with a note of sadness, in his voice."Do not despise us before you know more of us. We are still feudal inGermany--of the Middle Ages. The peasant is a serf. He is compelled toserve the lord of the land every year with so much labor of his hands.The small farmers, the 'Gross' and 'Mittel Bauern', we call them, arealso mortgaged to the nobles who tyrannize our Vaterland. Our merchantsare little merchants--shopkeepers, you would say. My poor father, aneducated man, was such. They fought our revolution."

  "And now," said Stephen, "why do they not keep their hold?"

  Richter sighed.

  "We were unused to ruling," he answered. "We knew not how to act--whatto do. You must remember that we were not trained to govern ourselves,as are you of the English race, from children. Those who have been forcenturies ground under heel do not make practical parliamentarians. No;your heritage is liberty--you Americans and English; and we Germans mustdesert our native land to partake of it."

  "And was it not hard to leave?" asked Stephen, gently.

  The eyes of the German filled at the recollection, nor did he seemashamed of his tears.

  "I had a poor old father whose life was broken to save the Vaterland,but not his spirit," he cried, "no, not that. My father was bornin 1797. God directed my grandfather to send him to the Kolnischesgymnasium, where the great Jahn taught. Jahn was our Washington, thefather of Germany that is to be.

  "Then our Fatherland was French. Our women wore Parisian clothes, andspoke the language; French immorality and atheism had spread like aplague among us Napoleon the vile had taken the sword of our Frederickfrom Berlin. It was Father Jahn (so we love to call him), it was FatherJahn who founded the 'Turnschulen', that the generations to come mightreturn to simple German ways,--plain fare, high principles, our nativetongue; and the development of the body. The downfall of the fiendNapoleon and the Vaterland united--these two his scholars must havewritten in their hearts. All summer long, in their black caps and linenpantaloons, they would trudge after him, begging a crust here and acheese there, to spread his teachings far and wide under the thatchedroofs.

  "Then came 1811. I have heard my father tell how in the heat of thatyear a great red comet burned in the sky, even as that we now see, myfriend. God forbid that this portends blood. But in the coming springthe French conscripts filled our sacred land like a swarm of locusts,devouring as they went. And at their head, with the pomp of Darius, rodethat destroyer of nations and homes, Napoleon. What was Germany then?Ashes. But the red embers were beneath, fanned by Father Jahn. Napoleonat Dresden made our princes weep. Never, even in the days of theFrankish kings, had we been so humbled. He dragged our young men withhim to Russia, and left them to die moaning on the frozen wastes, whilehe drove off in his sledge.

  "It was the next year that Germany rose. High and low, rich and poor,Jaeger and Landwehr, came flocking into the
army, and even the old men,the Landsturm. Russia was an ally, and later, Austria. My father, a lastof sixteen, was in the Landwehr, under the noble Blucher in Silesia,when they drove the French into the Katzbach and the Neisse, swollen bythe rains into torrents. It had rained until the forests were marshes.Powder would not burn. But Blucher, ah, there was a man! He whipped hisgreat sabre from under his cloak, crying 'Vorwarts! Vorwarts!' And theLandwehr with one great shout slew their enemies with the butts of theirmuskets until their arms were weary and the bodies were tossed like logsin the foaming waters. They called Blucher Marachall Vorwarts!

  "Then Napoleon was sent to Elba. But the victors quarrelled amongstthemselves, while Talleyrand and Metternich tore our Vaterland intostrips, and set brother against brother. And our blood, and the grieffor the widows and the fatherless, went for nothing."

  Richter paused to light his pipe.

  "After a while," he continued presently, "came the German Confederation,with Austria at the head. Rid of Napoleon, we had another despot inMetternich. But the tree which Jahn had planted grew, and its branchesspread. The great master was surrounded by spies. My father had gone toJena University, when he joined the Burschenschaft, or Students' League,of which I will tell you later. It was pledged to the rescue of theVaterland. He was sent to prison for dipping his handkerchief in theblood of Sand, beheaded for liberty at Mannheim. Afterwards he wasliberated, and went to Berlin and married my mother, who died when Iwas young. Twice again he was in prison because the societies met at hishouse. We were very poor, my friend. You in America know not the meaningof that word. His health broke, and when '48 came, he was an old man.His hair was white, and he walked the streets with a crutch. But he hadsaved a little money to send me to Jena.

  "He was proud of me. I was big-boned and fair, like my mother. And whenI came home at the end of a Semester I can see him now, as hewould hobble to the door, wearing the red and black and gold of theBurschenschaft. And he would keep me up half the night-telling him ofour 'Schlager' fights with the aristocrats. My father had been a notedswordsman in his day."

  He stopped abruptly, and colored. For Stephen was staring at the jaggedscar, He had never summoned the courage to ask Richter how he came byit.

  "Schlager fights?" he exclaimed.

  "Broadswords," answered the German, hastily. "Some day I will tell youof them, and of the struggle with the troops in the 'Breite Strasse' inMarch. We lost, as I told you because we knew not how to hold what wehad gained.

  "I left Germany, hoping to make a home here for my poor father. How sadhis face as he kissed me farewell! And he said to me: 'Carl, if everyour new Vaterland, the good Republic, be in danger, sacrifice all.I have spent my years in bondage, and I say to you that life withoutliberty is not worth the living.' Three months I was gone, and he wasdead, without that for which he had striven so bravely. He never knewwhat it is to have an abundance of meat. He never knew from one day tothe other when he would have to embrace me, all he owned, and march awayto prison, because he was a patriot." Richter's voice had fallen low,but now he raised it. "Do you think, my friend," he cried, "do you thinkthat I would not die willingly for this new country if the time shouldcome. Yes, and there are a million like me, once German, now American,who will give their lives to preserve this Union. For without it theworld is not fit to live in."

  Stephen had food for thought as he walked northward through the strangestreets on that summer evening. Here indeed was a force not to bereckoned, and which few had taken into account.