by Jim Musgrave
If Missus Mergenthaler were having an affair with Dr. Abraham Jacobi, then perhaps they both might be involved in the subterfuge. I did not believe so because it would have been too much of a risk for Missus Bessie Mergenthaler to attempt a romantic relationship with me. She was probably being manipulated by Dr. Jacobi, who wanted personal information he could use to control Dr. Mergenthaler in the plot down south. Dr. Jacobi saw his friend Arthur as a golden goose, and now it was up to me to prove that Jacobi was, indeed, the inside man needed to instigate such an malevolent deed.
I was competing with the minds of two of the most intelligent men in New York, and it was getting increasingly more difficult to find my way through the clues. What if the chain of guilt ran through the White House itself? General Grant and our current President, Andrew Johnson, could also be involved in this plot to make the South, and possibly the world, ethnically pure.
I took out a piece of paper with a quotation by Sir Francis Galton. It explained the goals of this Eugenics Movement in a nutshell:
There are three stages to be passed through: 1) Eugenics must be made familiar as an academic question, until its exact importance has been understood and accepted as fact. 2) It must be recognized as a subject whose practical development deserves serious consideration. 3) It must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious tenet of the future. Eugenics co-operates with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races.
We were now in stage 1, and I was going to do my best to include myself in the mixture of men who would be the driving force to complete stages 2 and 3. As a consequence, I was becoming embroiled in the most dangerous case I could have ever imagined in my wildest intuitive dream.
Chapter 9: The Training
I began my professorial training with Dr. Winston Graham at Columbia University in late February. When the good doctor found out about why I was doing this, he became very intrigued. We were inside his office at Columbia, a small room with a desk, blackboard and many piles of books. This Visiting Professor of Linguistics from Oxford was a tall and distinguished gentleman of 40. He had mutton chops, a chiseled face of angular shape, and block-like jaws, but his lips were full and rosy red, almost like a woman’s. His accent predisposed me to believe in his effeminate nature. He wore a dark blue sack coat and a plain cotton shirt with a red bow necktie tossed in a loop, and tied with a stickpin.
“It seems to me that these bounders have no inkling as to Charles Darwin’s meaning. When he uses the term ‘race,’ he is not referring to a category of Homo sapiens. Race is meant as a generic reference to any species variety in Nature. In addition, Darwin specifically states that humans will not kill each other because of natural selection. He says savages were destroyed by European and American colonialism and not some kind of racially superior imperative.”
“The fact of the matter is that they use any information and rationalize it as they see fit. What I need to do is to learn to sound like an Oxford professor so that they can accept me into their fold, not knowing that I am the wolf in sheep’s clothing,” I said.
“Indeed. At this juncture, Mister O’Malley, I want you to learn how to speak correctly. Like Daedalus of Greece, I must find a way to use quicksilver to install a voice in you, my American sculpture of Adonis.” He walked around me, as I was seated in front of his desk, and I must admit, it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. His eyes were roving over my frame in a most unseemly way. “To begin, proper elocution activates in the diaphragm. In the mother tongue, English, we pronounce words in quite a different way from you yanks. We also have different terms for things. For example, we in England call your railroad car a carriage. Or, a flat is a well-furnished and expensive apartment, whereas a flat to Americans is a poor tenement slum apartment. There are many such differences in basic vocabulary, and I need to teach you these differences so that you can use the correct word.”
“You want me to use the British word?” I asked.
“Certainly. If they hear you using the wrong word then they will be more receptive to your being a foreigner. You shall both laugh at the mistake and have a jolly good time. Afterward, they will accept you as a British subject away from his moorings, so to speak.”
“That’s what I need. What else must I accomplish?”
“The pronunciation of words is something you must learn as well. Here are some terms that are spelled the same in British and American English, but they are pronounced quite differently. For example, in England, we pronounce privacy like your word for toilet, privy. The word is priv-a-see, and priv rhymes with the verb live. Here is another. We in Britain say et for your long-A word ate. So, it is I’m full; I et a huge lunch.”
“Ha! Yes, I see that is quite a difference,” I said.
“Here are some others. We pronounce water as if it is wodder, with ds. We also say moBILE the way it’s spelled, with bile rhyming with while, while you say MO-bul. You also say ad-VERT-iz-ment, with the z sound, whilst we shorten the word to say advert. Finally, we pronounce the letter h in the word herb, when referring to leafy greens, while the h is silent in the American vernacular.”
We continued in this manner all that day, and we did not complete our training until late March. I was able to rehearse my Martian chronicles with him, and Graham was quite impressed by the philosophy I was going to sell to the World Eugenics Collective. He said I was now ready to begin preparations for the presentation. He gave me the official documents I needed to show to these men. They were Oxford University transcripts that showed my specialty in Anthropological Studies, and Becky was able to change the name to read my pseudonym, “Ronald Wentworth, Ph.D.”
We had no information about where the kidnappers might be keeping Dr. Mergenthaler. The other suspects were also not providing any information concerning his whereabouts. Shannon O’Hara, the leader of the Dead Rabbits, was now starting to become a bigger player in The Ring. He was selling his reputation as an enforcer to this group of influential men, and he did their bidding for a price. O’Hara, according my father, had set up a network of “coopers” to get the votes needed for The Ring to gain power in city politics.
Coopers were members of O’Hara’s gang who would kidnap citizens in the ward where The Ring needed votes. The ruffians would then ply this voter with drinks or drugs and force him to vote multiple times for the candidate The Ring needed to be elected. O’Hara’s Dead Rabbits would often make these kidnapped men wear different disguises in order to fool the voting officials at the polling places, usually taverns, and this would result in a victory for The Ring.
I thought at first that perhaps this unique occupation would make this gang a prime suspect for the kidnapping of Dr. Mergenthaler. However, O’Hara was personally profiting from the Jews. They were buying him off by giving him stock tips, which he would use with his new employers, The Ring. It really made no sense that O’Hara would risk his profiteering venture by turning against the Jews, the very ones who were paying him off.
All of my investigations so far had brought me the realization that I had to visit General Grant down South. Grant was heading the five new Federal Military Districts in the South which had been authorized by Congress’s Reconstruction Act. The so-called “Radical Republicans” in Congress had overruled President Andrew Johnson’s veto. Presidents Lincoln and Johnson had a plan for Reconstruction that was much more lenient toward the southern states. On the other hand, Congress wanted to punish the South for starting the war.
The key questions, as a result of the philosophical differences between President Johnson and Congress, were what happened to the freedmen and how the Southern States were going to be reintegrated into the Union. Lincoln’s 10% Plan said that once ten percent of the Southern State’s 1860 voters had taken an oath of loyalty, the state could rejoin the union. The Radical Republicans in Congress, however, wanted to extend the Freedmen’s Bureau, and they did so over John
son’s veto. This bureau provided food, clothing, shelter and education to freedmen Negroes and war refugees.
Johnson supported the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery, but he was reluctant to support Negro suffrage. He wanted to leave this up to the Southern States. This year’s Reconstruction Act was perhaps the final straw against President Johnson’s proposed policies. Not only did this act divide the South into military districts, it also required the Southern States to ratify the 14th Amendment. Finally, it guaranteed Negro freedmen the right to vote in conventions to rewrite new Southern State constitutions.
As a result, in quick succession, Congress passed the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery; the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing equal protection, declaring all persons born or naturalized in the United States to be citizens, reduced the representation in Congress of states that did not grant Negro Suffrage, banned Confederate officials from holding office, and forbade the repayment of confederate war debt. Also, they passed the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
I realized that President Johnson was weakening under the pressure of Congress. Could it be that Johnson was now acting behind Congress’s back by appointing Grant to run the Freedmen’s Bureau and supervising the five military control sectors in the Southern States? If what General Sherman told me were true, then I had to go down south to visit Grant myself to find out what was actually happening. The news was reporting a recurrent string of forceful attacks against freed Negroes in different Southern cities. There were also reports of a new and violent underground group that was formed of former Confederate soldiers and disenfranchised plantation owners. In addition, I had promised Sherman that I would warn Grant about what was really happening under his supervision.
The plan I came up with involved my first being accepted by the American Emigrant Company as an Oxford Professor of Martian Panspermia. After being invited to travel to their headquarters in some southern state, I would switch identities back to my detective self and visit General Grant. Perhaps I would then know enough to mount an effective attack on the perpetrators of this kidnapping and rescue Dr. Arthur Mergenthaler.
However, as Robert Burns the poet said, “The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley.” I was happy that my father would be going with me. I wanted him to see what these viscous racists were really like in action. Perhaps it would change his ideas about immigration and civil rights being the scourge of mankind.
* * *
It was the end of April, and I had my appointment to meet with The American Emigrant Company members at the Presbyterian church in Manhattan on Broad Street. I was at Becky’s place putting the finishing touches on my Oxford professor’s suit. I also wanted to practice my British voice for her. Miss Charming has been to Europe and England, and so she is very familiar with the educated from these environs. If I could fool her, then it shouldn’t be too difficult to trick the eugenics men. I had also visited Plug Ugly gang leader, Walter McKenzie. He had agreed to be a secret part of my little ruse at the church tonight.
Becky was pulling on my black overcoat with its black velvet collar, wide lapels, and deep cuffs over a frock coat, waistcoat, and tweed trousers. To complete my British ensemble, I also had leather gloves and a silk top hat.
“There! Don’t you look distinguished, O’Malley. Excuse me, Professor Wentworth.”
“I say, my good woman, should I take my mackintosh? It is quite dreadful outside. It may rain, and then I would require my gumshoes,” I said, in my best British accent.
“That’s superb, Ronald! You sound exactly like an Oxford staff member.”
“I must be off to my rendezvous with Mister Burlingame. I believe my practice with you has perfected what I have to tell them. I just hope and pray it works. I know that I joke about these people being so gullible because of their faith in eugenics, but if there’s just one person in the audience who can call my bluff, my entire plan will be foiled.” I stood at the hallway mirror staring at my figure. I certainly looked like a British professor. I just needed to keep thinking of myself as one as I socialized with these men.
“Be careful, Patrick. I love you,” said Becky, and she gave me a kiss at the door.
Outside, it was raining hard. I picked up a large black umbrella and opened it before stepping out onto the steps leading down to the sidewalk in front of Becky’s apartment house. I could see Becky waving at me from the window, and I waved back.
I hailed a hackney driver, and he stopped. I was going to ride in class to this shindig, as I certainly had to look the part of a visiting professor from Oxford.
* * *
Anson Burlingame was the first to greet me in front of the church on Broad Street. He was a burly man of about my height, with a full black beard and frock coat and cravat. He also wore a single monocle over his right eye, and it took me a few minutes before I observed that he was attempting to give me the effect of his being a man of culture. He wanted to match my own appearance. I could even detect the hint of a British accent in his voice as he addressed me.
“Professor! How nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to give us your lecture,” said Burlingame. He pronounced “schedule” with the British “sh” sound instead of the American “sk” sound. This gentleman was certainly a cad and a pretender in his own right, and now I was going to attempt to do him one better.
The church was filled to the rafters with eugenics folks that evening. Some were even standing in the aisles. In the pews were white men of great wealth from all over New York City, and they were all there to hear what I had to say. Burlingame introduced me, and I stepped up to the podium with my notes in hand. I could feel a tremor in the pit of my stomach as I set the papers against the raised wooden platform and looked up at the audience. I picked out a man in the center of the third row and imagined I was addressing him to keep myself focused.
“Distinguished members of The American Emigrant Company and the World Eugenics Collective. I am honored to be here to present the research I have compiled on how the Nordic race was injected with a sperm so far advanced that it shall help ensure the conquest of the world in a few generations.”
As I gave them the concocted pseudoscientific malarkey I had invented about Martian Panspermia, I could tell they were all transfixed. It was something about a British accent that made Americans sit up and take notice. I supposed it was like a child who listens to his mother. British English was indeed the “mother tongue,” and these men were nursing at my theory like newborns. Their eyes grew quite wide when I told them about how the future race would be green and have three fingers on each hand. They all gasped audibly when I told them how people would communicate through thought processes and there would be no sickness on Earth.
As I concluded the lecture, I made a point of explaining how my science fit into their eugenics stage three process. “Indeed, gentlemen,” I said, raising my voice to almost a shout, “Panspermia is being injected into a variety of advanced species on inhabitable planets all over the universe. It is God’s will that white men become the most advanced race ever to breathe life! I am here to say that I have the formula for the genetic booster serum, given to me by one of these alien beings who arrived outside London in 1865. I am now prepared to offer it to your organization in return for your allowing me to become a lifetime member. I want to share with you the coming glory of racial superiority and a life that will be almost limitless.”
The men began to applaud, shout and throw their hats into the air. I knew I had them in my full hypnotic trance.
“There is but one qualification,” I said, and they suddenly became deathly silent. I could not hear a word or a cough out in the audience. “There shall be a contract for each man who wants to participate in the Panspermia booster serum experiment. We need to first examine each of you for genetic purity, so that we can then make the contract with you for the number of years you will be living and how much you shall advance in
the coming decades on Earth. Thank you, gentlemen, and thank you Mister Burlingame for your kindness in allowing me to speak tonight.”
Again, the men began to applaud and move toward me down the aisles. Burlingame stopped them, however, so he could approach me first. He came up to me, popped his monocle out of his eye socket, held it in his hand and said, “You must come down to Memphis with us in May, Professor! We need to put this serum to work post haste. Just tell me what we need to do, and our group will get you anything you need.”
“I believe you have a new member by the name of Jones. Robert Jones. We have knowledge that he is one of the most advanced specimens on Earth. I would like him to be my personal valet on the trip down south. We shall have all the contracts drawn up based on the manifest you provide to us. We can begin examinations whilst we do your business. Is this agreeable?”
“Indeed it is, Professor,” he said. Burlingame then allowed the other wealthy members of the company to come up and shake my hand, one by one.
As they were doing this, the double-doors to the front of the church swung open, and ruffians burst their way into the hallowed confines and raced toward us. They wielded axes, cavalry swords and knives, and their shouts were bloodthirsty and aggressive. The biggest of the five men, a mountain of man, came lumbering toward me, screaming in a high-pitched, banshee wail. “Aieeeeeeeahhhh!”
I reached into my waistcoat and extracted the powder. When I threw it in front of the dais, it ignited, sending up a flash of electricity and then a smoky cloud. The rampaging giant smacked into the invisible shield and fell backward, plunging on top of two men seated in the front row pew.