Chapter XXVII A Call to Arms
I followed the servant and was surprised to find Clark uneasily seated on the edge of a cushioned chair, nervously twisting his hat, and looking as though he was afraid he was going to break something.
“I’m sorry to bother you here,” he said awkwardly, “but things have come to a head.”
“What is it now? Do you think that to-night’s meeting is going to make more trouble than the other one did?”
“Well, no, sir. The meeting don’t amount to much. To tell you the truth, sir, the meeting is only a blind. Parks got out the notices, and he’s going to make a speech. But he’s the only one of the Council’s people who will be there. The others are down at headquarters getting ready for the real work of the night.”
“The real work? What do you mean by that?”
“Well, the truth of the business is,” said Clark, “that the rifle clubs are to be called out to-night. Orders have gone out to all the Council’s clubs to assemble at eleven. At twelve they will be given their guns, and then they will be sent out to seize the city. One company is to take possession of the City Hall; another will take the Committee of Safety’s headquarters; and others the National Guard Armories, the Mint, the Subtreasury, and so on.”
“Are they crazy? Why, the Committee of Safety has fifteen thousand men enrolled by this time.”
“Crazy? Not a bit of it,” protested Clark warmly. “The Committee of Safety won’t have any leaders or any guns left by to-morrow. Coleman, and Mayor Bryant, and General McComb, and every man of the Committee of Twenty-Four will be under lock and key before morning if something isn’t done about it. They all go home to sleep, and there isn’t a man of ’em that’s thought of having a guard about his house. They’ll all be taken like rats in a trap. Then where’s the Committee of Safety and the militia? They’ll be without leaders and without guns, and what’ll they do? They’ll scatter like sheep. The whole scheme has been worked out like the plans for a building, and if the Council isn’t stopped before twelve you’ll wake up to-morrow morning under a new government.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “They can’t do that.”
“All right,” said Clark, with a hurt and offended look, “they can’t, then. But it was my duty, sir, to warn you, and I’ve done it, so I’ll be going.”
“I beg your pardon, Clark,” I said hastily. “I didn’t mean to doubt your word or hurt your feelings. You’ve done quite right in coming here, and it’s my business to see that they don’t carry out their crazy schemes. Wait a minute, and I’ll walk along down with you.”
I had a hurried word with Laura Kendrick, and explained to her the importance of the information Clark had brought, and the necessity of laying it promptly before the Committee of Safety.
She looked up at me with some apprehension in her eyes.
“Well, if you must, you must,” she said. “But don’t you get into any mobs or into any fighting. Just remember that it’s the man who orders somebody else to do his fighting that gets the glory out of it. If there’s any trouble, see that you’re one of the orderers instead of one of the ordered.”
I laughed at her anxious counsel, and promising to use all the caution with which nature had endowed me, I joined Clark and left the house.
Directing Clark to attend the sand-lot meeting and to get word to Andrews at once if the mob should head for the Kendrick house, I caught a car and rode to the headquarters of the Committee of Safety.
Horticultural Hall resembled a beehive on swarming day. Wealth and poverty were represented side by side. Merchants, workmen, lawyers, doctors, laborers rubbed elbows, and their stern and serious faces testified to the depth of feeling that had brought them out to the defense of the city. It was an outburst of the same spirit that had given birth to the nation, and had again called forth vast armies to preserve it when its existence was threatened by civil war.
At the end of the hall a number of desks had been arranged where enrolment was still in progress. Behind the desks was a platform, and as I approached it I saw William T. Coleman walk briskly to the speaker’s stand.
“Three cheers for Coleman!” came the cry from a strong-lunged Vigilante, and three cheers were given with a will.
The president of the Committee raised his hand to command silence.
“Fellow-citizens:” he cried in a full, resonant voice. “You have come here to fight—not to talk or cheer. We find a mob spirit abroad, very dangerous to the peace and order of the city. It is your business to put that spirit down. For this purpose you are clothed with all the powers of police officers. The mayor has issued his proclamation, commanding disorderly persons to disperse, and it is our part to see that this proclamation is obeyed. You have behind you the armed force of the State and Nation. But it should be a part of your pride as San Franciscans that this force should not be needed for your protection. The people have shown on former occasions that they were able to protect themselves. Show now that your courage and self-reliance have not degenerated in twenty years.”
There was a warm response to this exhortation, and, at a sign from Coleman, the adjutants began calling forward the companies, and despatching them to their work.
“Captain Korbel!” called the commanding voice of the adjutant at the desk nearest us.
“Here!” came the reply in a strong German accent, and a man with energetic face stepped out from a company of twenty men.
“You will patrol Mission Street, from Sixth to Twelfth. Keep the street clear of all persons having no business there. If they resist, put them under arrest, and turn them over to the police at the Southern Station. Get your arms from that pile.”
“So ist righdt,” said the captain, and giving a salute he marched his company to the west side of the hall where a great number of pick-handles that had been sawn in two, base-ball bats, and wagon spokes, had been arranged in convenient stacks. Each man of the company picked up a club, balanced it in his hand, and brought it down on the head of an imaginary hoodlum with the solemnity of a prepared ritual. Then at the word of command the company marched out while others were receiving their orders from the desks of the adjutants.
I had observed this lively scene with but half an eye, shouldering my way forward to meet William T. Coleman as he descended from the platform. He had talked for a little with some member of the Committee, but as he came down the steps on his way to the side room that served as a private office, I hailed him. He looked up quickly, and his face changed as he caught sight of me.
“Is Kendrick dead?” he asked anxiously.
“No. He is still unconscious, but living.”
“What is the trouble, then?” he asked, looking keenly into my eyes. “You have bad news.”
Then before I could reply, he said, “Come in here,” and led me into the private office. “Now let’s hear about it,” he said.
“The Council of Nine is ready to use its rifles,” I replied. And I gave with rapid phrases the tale of the imminent revolution as it had come from Clark.
William T. Coleman listened with a rapt attention that showed he took the warning more seriously than I had taken it.
“Then we have till midnight,” he said, after he had digested the information.
“My informant said that the rifle clubs are ordered to assemble at eleven o’clock.”
He looked out of the window into the darkness; then he turned to me again.
“It will never do to let those men come together with arms in their hands. That would mean bloodshed—terrible bloodshed. I am using every effort to prevent an appeal to arms. I have refused to call for the militia. The National Guard is under arms, but I have a promise from Bryant that he will not ask for it until I give the word. I have refused an offer of Federal troops from the Presidio. I have a note from the admiral that the marines and sailors at Mare Island have been put under arms, and that the Pensacola is ready to take a position that will command the city. But I have refused to permit them to be summoned. I shall never summon them except as a last resort. It is an awful thing to have men shot down, and the memory of such an affair would be a lasting stain on the city.”
“It would be sad to have innocent men killed,” I said; “but I shouldn’t weep over the loss of some of those demons I saw raiding wash-houses and trying to kill Wharton Kendrick. The world would be better off without them.”
“Do not judge them too hastily,” said Coleman quickly. “Civilization is at best only skin-deep. Scratch the civilized man, and you find the wild beast. It takes a little deeper scratch to find it in some men than in others; but it is there. You and I think ourselves well-balanced, Hampden, yet I have seen men of our nature turn into ferocious beasts. I pray God I may never see the like again. These men you saw in the shape of demons the other night may be good citizens in quiet times. Thank God, young man, for government. It is the blessing of organized society—of organized government—that keeps the wild beast behind bars.” He spoke with feeling, yet with the philosophic calm of the lecturer on law, and he impressed me profoundly with his momentary unveiling of a broad and tolerant mind. Then he became the man of affairs again.
“Do you know where to find the headquarters of the Council?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you know these men by sight?”
“I believe I can recognize eight of the nine.”
“Well, then, I shall have to ask you to go down to the Council’s headquarters at once, and arrest the leaders of the movement. You will have the honor of ending the uprising before it has begun.”