CHAPTER XVIII
JIM MAKES A SPEECH
"I am permanent so I cannot fully understand the tragedy that haunts humans from their birth, the tragedy of their own transitoriness."
MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.
Jim drank his tea, staring the while at the envelope that lay on thetray. Then he opened the envelope and read:
"DEAR STILL: Don't say that I must go away. I want to stay and help you. I promised Iron Skull that I would. I don't want to add one breath to your pain--nor to my own!--and yet I feel as if we ought to forget ourselves and think only of the dam. No one knows you as I do, dear Jim. Iron Skull felt, and so do I, that somehow, sometime I can help you to be the big man you were meant to be. I have grown to feel that it was for that purpose I have lived through the last eight years. If it will not hurt you too much, please, Jim, let me stay.
PENELOPE."
Jim answered the note immediately.
"DEAREST PEN: Give me a day or so to get braced and we will go on as before. Stand by me, Pen. I need you, dear.
JIM."
But it was nearly two weeks before Jim talked with Pen again. For anumber of days he devoted himself day and night to the preparations forstarting the second section of the dam in the completed excavation. Thenformal notice came that the Congressional committee would arrive at thedam nearly a week before it had been expected and Jim was overwhelmed inpreparations for its reception. The first three days of theinvestigation were to be devoted to inspecting the dam. Jim brought thecommittee to the dam from the station himself.
There were five men on the committee, two New Englanders and three farwesterners. They were the same five men who a year before hadinvestigated Arthur Freet's projects and they were baffled andsuspicious. And Jim's silence irritated them far more than ArthurFreet's loquacity. The members from the West and from Massachusettswere, in spite of this, open-minded, eager for information andinterested in the actual work of the dam building. The member fromVermont pursued Jim with the bitterness of a fanatic.
"A Puritan hang-over is what ails him," Jim remarked to Henderson. "Hewould burn a woman for a witch for having three moles on her back, aseasy as--as he'd fire me!"
Henderson snorted: "I wish he was fat. I'd take him to ride in BillEvans' machine. But, gee! he's so thin he'd stick in the seat like asliver!"
Henderson had devoted himself to the entertainment of the visitors. Hehad organized a picnic to a far canyon where the "officers" and theirwives offered the committee a wonderful camp supper, by a camp firethat lighted the desert for miles. He had induced the Mexicans in thelower camp to give one of their religious plays for the second night'sentertainment. The moving picture hall was turned into a theater and theplay, in queer Spanish, a strange mixture of miracle-play andbuffoonery, delighted the hombres and astounded the whites. But theconsummation of Henderson's art as an entertainment provider was to bethe Mask Ball. This was to take place after the hearing at Cabillo wasfinished.
Jim gave all his time to the committee. He turned the office and itsforce over to them; gave them the freedom of the account books and thesafe. Let them rummage the warehouse and its system. Explained hisengineering mistakes to them. Went over and over the details of theflood, of the weathering abutments, of the concrete that did not come upto specifications, of the new system of concrete mixture that he and hiscement engineer were evolving and which Jim believed in so ardently thathe was using it on the dam. But in regard to Freet or to any graft inthe Service he was persistently silent.
The Hearing was like and yet unlike the May hearing. It lacked thedignity of the first occasion and the Vermont member who presided wasnot the calm, inscrutable judge that the Secretary had been. The hall inCabillo was packed with farmers and their wives and sweethearts and withDel Norte citizens.
The main effort of the speakers at the Hearing was to prove theinordinate extravagance and incompetence of Jim and his associates. Forthree days Jim answered questions quietly and as briefly as possible.But he was not able to compass the cool indifference that had kept himstaring out the window of the Interior Department. There was growingwithin him an overwhelming desire to protest. He saw that, however fairthe other members of the committee were inclined to be, their certaintyof Freet's dishonesty, coupled with the fact that he was a pupil ofFreet's, would be used by the restless vindictiveness of the Vermontmember without doubt, to bring about his dismissal.
He felt an increasing desire to make a last stand against the wall ofthe nation's indifference, to make the people of the Project and thepeople of the world understand his viewpoint. But words failed him untilthe last day of the Hearing.
On this last day, Sara and Pen attended the hearing, as guests ofFleckenstein, who had sent his great touring car for them. Jim nodded tothem across the room but made no attempt to speak to them. It wasnearing five o'clock when Fleckenstein closed his testimony.
"The Reclamation Service," he said, "is like every other department ofthe government. It is a refuge for the incompetent whose one skill is ingrafting. The cost of this dam has jumped over the estimates by hundredsof thousands. Forty dollars an acre is what the farmers of this projectmust pay the government instead of the estimated thirty. I do not laythe whole blame on Mr. Manning, even though he is Freet's pupil. Part ofit is due to the criminal ignorance and weakness of Mr. Manning'spredecessor. We farmers----"
"Stop!" thundered Jim. He jumped to his feet. Fleckenstein gasped. Jimthrew back his hair. His gray eyes were black. His thin brown face wasflushed. Under his khaki riding suit his long steel muscles were tense.
"My predecessor was Frederick Watts. I grew to know him well. He was amaster mind in his profession, but he was gentle and sensitive and, likemany men who have lived long in the open, silent. About the time that hestarted to build this dam the money interests in this country decidedthat the nation was getting too much water power control. They decidedthat the best way to stop the nation's growth in this direction was todiscredit the Service. Frederick Watts was one of their first targets.By means too subtle for me to understand, they set machinery going inthis vicinity by which every step that Watts took was made a kickagainst him.
"They never let up on him. They hounded him. They put him to shame withthe nation and in the privacy of his own family. Watts was over fiftyyears old. He was no fighter. All he wanted was a chance to build hisdam. He was gentle and silent. He went into nervous prostration anddied, still silent, a broken-hearted man.
"Up in the big silent places you will find his monuments; dams high inmountain fastnesses, an imperishable part of the mountains; trestlesthat bridge canyons which birds feared to cross. He spent his life inutter hardships making ways easy for others to follow. These monumentswill stand forever. But the name of their builder has become a blackenedthing for rats like Fleckenstein to handle with dirty claws.
"And now they are after me. And you, many of you, in this audience, arethe sometimes innocent and sometimes paid instruments of my downfall.You accuse me of grafting, of lying and stealing. You don't understand."
Jim paused and moistened his lips. The room was breathless. Pen couldhear her heart beat. She dug her fingernails into her palm. Could he,_could_ he find the words? Even if these people did not understand,could he not say something that would teach her how to help him? Jim didnot see the crowded room. Before him was his father's dying face andIron Skull's. His hands felt their dying fingers.
"I am a New Englander. My people came to New England 250 years ago andfought the wilderness for a home. We were Anglo-Saxons. We were trailmakers, lawmakers, empire builders. We founded this nation. We threwopen the doors to the world and then we were unable to withstand theflood that answered our invitation. The New Englander in America is asdead as the Indian or the buffalo. My people have failed and died withthe rest. I am the last of my line.
"But I have the cravi
ng of my ancestry with something more. I can seethe tragedy of my race. I know that the day will come when thecivilization of America will be South European; that our everyinstitution will be altered to suit the needs of the South European andAsiatic mind.
"I want to leave an imperishable Anglo-Saxon thumb print on the map; athumb print that no future changes can obliterate, a thumb print thatshall be less transitory than the pyramids because it will be a part ofthe fundamental needs of a people as long as they hunger or thirst.
"Look at the roster of the Reclamation Service. You will find it aroster of men whom the old vision has sent into dam building and roadmaking. Here in the Service you will find the last stand of theAnglo-Saxon trail makers.
"I want to build this dam. I want to build it so that, by God, it shallbe standing and delivering water when the law that makes it possibleshall have passed from the memory of man! And you won't let me build it.You, some of you Anglo-Saxons yourselves, destined to be obliterated asI shall be, are fighting me. You say that I am _stealing_. I, fightingto leave a thumb print!"
Jim dropped into his seat and for a moment there was such silence in theroom that the palm leaves outside the window could be heard rattlingsoftly in the breeze. Then there broke forth a great round ofhandclapping, and during this Jim slipped out. He was not much deceivedby the applause. He knew that it would take more than a burst ofeloquence to overcome the influences at work against the Service.
He returned to the dam that night, Pen and Sara came up the next day andthat evening Jim went over to call. It was his first word with Pen sincethe walk to Wind Ridge. He found Sara sleeping heavily. Pen greeted himcasually.
"Hello, Still! Sara was suffering so frightfully after his trip that hetook his morphine. It was insane of him to go to the Hearing, but hewould do it. Sit down. We won't disturb him a bit."
She pulled the blanket over the unconscious man in her usual tender way.
"You are mighty good to him, Pen," said Jim.
"I try to be. I guess I'm as good to him as he'll let me be, poorfellow. Jim, he was fine in his college days, wasn't he?"
"I never saw a more magnificent physique," answered Jim. "He was a greatathlete and I used to believe he was a greater financier than Morgan."
Pen looked at Jim gratefully. "And if it hadn't been for the accident hewould have been just as easy to get along with as the average man."
Jim chuckled. "I don't know whether that's a compliment to Sara or aninsult to the average man. What have you done with yourself during theinvestigation?"
"Taken care of Sara, communed with my soul and the laundry problem andhad several nice talks with Jane Ames. She is a dear."
Jim nodded. Then he pulled the Secretary's letter from his pocket with acopy of his own answer and handed them to Pen. "I've come for advice andcomment," he said.
Pen read both and her cheeks flushed. "Have you sent your answer?"
Jim nodded.
Pen stared at him a moment with her mouth open, then she said, withheartfelt sincerity, "Jim, I'm perfectly disgusted with you!"
Jim gasped.
"Like the average descendant of the Puritan," Pen sniffed, "you arelying down on your job. Thank God, I'm Irish!"
"Gee, Pen, you're actually cross!"
"I am! If I were not a perfect lady I'd slap you and put my tongue outat you, anything that would adequately express my disdain! Forpig-headed bigotry, bounded on the north by high principles and on thesouth by big dreams, give me a New Englander! You make me tired!"
"For the Lord's sake, Pen!"
Pen laid down her bit of sewing and looked at Jim long and earnestly,then she said, quietly, "Jim, why don't you go to work?"
Jim looked flushed and bewildered. "I work eighteen hours a day."
Pen groaned. "I'm talking about your capacity, not your output. You areonly using half of what is in you, Still. You build the dam and yourefuse to do anything else. Why, with your kind of creative, engineeringmind, you are perfectly capable of administering the dam, too. Ofhandling all the problems connected with it in a cool, scientific waythat would come very near being ideal justice. You know that theprojects are an experiment in government activity. You know that thepeople who will control them have no experience or training that willfit them for handling the projects. Yet you refuse to help them. You arejust as stupid and just as selfish as if you had built a complicatedmachine and had turned it over to children to run, refusing them allexplanation or guidance."
Pen paused, breathless, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes glowing. Jimwatched her, his face pitifully eager. Perhaps, he thought, Pen wasactually going to lay her finger on the cause of his inadequacy.
"Instead of antagonizing every farmer on the Project, you ought to bemaking them feel that you are their partner and friend in a mightydifficult business. You told us yesterday that your ancestors not onlymade the trail but also the law of the trail. What are you doing? It'syour own fault if you lose your job, Still!"
Pen got up and turned Sara's pillow and shaded the light from his face,mechanically.
"You are just like all the rest of what you call the Anglo-Americans.You go about feeling superior and abused and calling the immigrants hardnames. You are just a lot of quitters. You have refused nationalservice. If you _are_ a dying race and you _are_ convinced that theworld can't afford to lose your institutions, how low down you are notto feel that your last duty to society is to show by personal examplethe value of your institutions."
"I don't see what I can do," protested Jim.
"That's just what I'm trying to show you," retorted Pen. "I have to plowthrough your ignorance first--clear the ground, you know! After youAnglo-Americans founded the government most of you went to money makingand left it to be administered by people who were racially andtraditionally different from you. You left your immigration problems tosentimentalists and money-makers. You left the law-making tomoney-makers. You refused to serve the nation in a disinterested,future-seeing way which was your duty if you wanted your institutions tolive. You descendants of New England are quitters. And you are going tolose your dam because of that simple fact."
Jim began to pace the floor. "Did you ever talk this over with UncleDenny, Penelope?"
"No!" she gave a scornful sniff. "If ever I had dared to criticize you,he'd have turned me out of the house. No one can live in New York andnot think a great deal about immigration problems. And--I have been withyou much in the past eight years, Jimmy. I can't tell you how much Ihave thought about you and your work. And then, just before old IronSkull was killed, he turned you over to me."
Jim paused before her. "He was worried about you, too," she went on. "Hesaid you were not getting the big grasp on things that you ought andthat I must help you."
"I wonder if that was what he was trying to tell me when he was killed,"said Jim. "The dear old man! Go on, Pen."
"I've just this much more to say, Jim, and that is that if theReclamation Service idea fails, it's more the fault of you engineersthan of anyone else. The sort of thing you engineers do on the dam istypical of the Anglo-American in the whole country. You are quitters!"
"Pen, don't you say that again!" exclaimed Jim, sharply. "I'm doing allI can!"
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