A Cool Million (7 page)

The poor lad was standing on a windy
corner, not knowing which way to turn, when he saw a man in a coonskin hat.
This remarkable headgear made
Lem
stare
,
and the more he looked the more the man seemed to resemble
Shagpoke
Whipple.

It was Mr. Whipple.
Lem
hastened to call out to him, .and the ex-President
stopped to shake hands with his young friend.

“About those inventions,”
Shagpoke
said immediately after they had finished greeting
each other. “It was too bad that you left the penitentiary before I could hand
them over to you. Not knowing your whereabouts, I perfected them myself.

“But let us repair to a coffee
place,” he added, changing the subject, “where we can talk over your prospects
together. I am still very much interested in your career. In fact, my young
friend, America has never had a greater need for her youth than in these
parlous times.”

After our hero had thanked him for
his interest and good wishes, Mr. Whipple continued to talk. “Speaking of
coffee,” he said, “did you know that the fate of our country was decided in the
coffee shops of Boston during the hectic days preceding the late rebellion?”

As they paused at the door of a
restaurant, Mr. Whipple asked
Lem
still another
question. “By the way,” he said, “I urn temporarily without funds. Are you able
to meet the obligation we will incur in this place?”

“No,” replied
Lem
,
sadly, “I am penniless.”

“That’s different,” said Mr. Whipple
with a profound sigh. “In that case we will go where I have credit.”

Lem
was
conducted by his fellow townsman to an extremely poor section of the city.
After standing on line for several hours, they each received a doughnut and a
cup of coffee from the Salvation Army lassie in charge. They then sat down on
the curb to eat their little snack.

“You are perhaps wondering,”
Shagpoke
began, “how it is that I stand on line with these
homeless vagrants to obtain bad coffee and soggy doughnuts. Be assured that I
do it of my own free will and for the good of the state.”

Here he paused long enough to
skillfully “shoot a snipe” that was still burning. He puffed contentedly on his
catch.

“When I left jail, it was my
intention to run for office again. But I discovered to my great amazement and
utter horror that my party, the Democratic Party, carried not a single plank in
its platform that I could honestly endorse. Rank socialism was and is rampant.
How could I,
Shagpoke
Whipple, ever bring myself to
accept a program which promised to take from American citizens their
inalienable birthright; the right to sell their labor and their children’s
labor without restrictions as to either price or hours?

“The time for a new party with the
old American principles was, I realized, overripe. I decided to form it; and so
the National Revolutionary Party, popularly known as the `Leather Shirts,’ was
born. The uniform of our ‘Storm Troops’ is a coonskin cap like the one I am
wearing, a deerskin shirt and a pair of moccasins. Our weapon is the squirrel
rifle.”

He pointed to the long queue of
unemployed who stood waiting before the Salvation Army canteen. “These men,” he
said, “are the material from which I must fill the ranks of my party.”

With all the formality of a priest,
Shagpoke
turned to our hero and laid his hand on his
shoulder.

“My boy,” he said, and his voice
broke under the load of emotion it was forced to bear, “my boy, will you join
me?”

“Certainly, sir,” said
Lem
, a little unsurely.

“Excellent!” exclaimed Mr. Whipple. “Excellent!
I herewith appoint you a commander attached to my general staff.”

He drew himself up and saluted
Lem
, who was startled by the gesture.

“Commander Pitkin,” he ordered
briskly, “I desire to address these people. Please obtain a soapbox.”

Our hero went on the errand required
of him, and soon returned with a large box, which Mr. Whipple immediately
mounted. He then set about attracting the attention of the vagrants collected
about the Salvation Army canteen by shouting:

“Remember the River Raisin!

“Remember the Alamo!

“Remember the Maine!”

and
many
other famous slogans.

When a large group had gathered,
Shagpoke
began his harangue.

“I’m a simple man,” he said with
great simplicity, “and I want to talk to you about simple things. You’ll get no
highfalutin talk from me.

“First of all, you people want jobs.
Isn’t that so?”

An ominous rumble of assent came
from the throats of the poorly dressed gathering.

“Well, that’s the only and prime
purpose of the National Revolutionary Party—to get jobs for everyone. There was
enough work to go around in 1927, why isn’t there enough now? I’ll tell you;
because of the Jewish international bankers and the Bolshevik labor unions,
that’s why. It was those two agents that did the most to hinder American
business and to destroy its glorious expansion.
The former
because of their hatred of America and love for Europe and the latter because
of their greed for higher and still higher wages.

“What is the role of the labor union
today? It is a privileged club which controls all the best jobs for its
members. When one of you applies for a job, even if the man who owns the plant
wants to hire you, do you get it? Not if you haven’t got a union card. Can any
tyranny be greater? Has Liberty ever been more brazenly despised?”

These statements were received with
cheers by his audience.

“Citizens, Americans,” Mr. Whipple
continued, when the noise had subsided, “
we
of the
middle class are being crushed between two gigantic millstones. Capital is the
upper stone and Labor the lower, and between them we suffer and die, ground out
of existence.

“Capital is international; its home
is in London and in Amsterdam. Labor is international; its home is in Moscow.
We alone are American; and when we die, America dies.

“When I say that, I make no idle
boast, for history bears me out. Who but the middle class left aristocratic
Europe to settle on these shores? Who but the middle class, the small farmers
and storekeepers, the clerks and petty officials, fought for freedom and died
that America might escape from British tyranny?

“This is our country and we must
fight to keep it so. If America is ever again to be great, it can only be
through the triumph of the revolutionary middle class.

“We must drive the Jewish
international bankers out of Wall Street! We must destroy the Bolshevik labor
unions! We must purge our country of all the alien elements and ideas that now
infest her!

“America for
Americans!
Back to the principles of Andy Jackson and
Abe Lincoln!”

Here
Shagpoke
paused to let the cheers die down,
then
called for
volunteers to join his “Storm Battalions.”

A number of men came forward. In
their lead was a very dark individual, who had extra-long black hair of an
extremely coarse quality, and on whose head was a derby hat many sizes too
small for him.

“Me American mans,” he announced
proudly. “
Me
got heap coon hat, two maybe six.
By, by
catchum
plenty more coon maybe.”
With this he grinned from ear to ear.

But
Shagpoke
was a little suspicious of his complexion, and looked at him with disfavor. In
the South, where he expected to get considerable support for his movement, they
would not stand for Negroes.

The good-natured stranger seemed to
sense what was wrong, for he said, “Me Injun, mister, me chief along my people.
Gotum
gold
mine, oil well.
Name of Jake Raven.
Ugh!”

Shagpoke
grew cordial at once. “Chief Jake Raven,” he said, holding out his hand, “I am
happy to welcome you into our organization. We ‘Leather Shirts’ can learn much
from your people, fortitude, courage and relentless purpose among other things.”

After taking down his name,
Shagpoke
gave the Indian a card which read as follows:

EZRA SILVERBLATT Official Tailor to
the NATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

Coonskin hats with extra long tails,
deerskin shirts with or without fringes, blue jeans, moccasins, squirrel
rifles, everything for the American Fascist at rock bottom prices.
30% off for Cash.

But let us leave Mr. Whipple and
Lem
busy with their recruiting to observe the actions of a
certain member of the crowd.

The individual in question would
have been remarkable in any gathering, and among the starved, ragged men that
surrounded
Shagpoke
, he stuck out like the proverbial
sore thumb. For one thing he was fat, enormously fat. There were other fat men
present to be sure, but they were yellow, unhealthy, while this man’s fat was
pink and shone with health.

On his head was a magnificent bowler
hat. It was a beautiful jet in color, and must have cost more than twelve
dollars. He was snugly encased in a tight-fitting Chesterfield overcoat with a
black velvet collar. His stiff-bosomed shirt had light gray bars, and his tie
was of some rich but sober material in black and white pin-checks. Spats,
rattan stick and yellow gloves completed his outfit.

This elaborate fat man tiptoed out
of the crowd and made his way to a telephone booth in a nearby drug store,
where he called two numbers.

His conversation with the person
answering his first call, a Wall Street exchange, went something like this:

“Operative 6384XM, working out of
the Bourse, Paris, France. Middle-class organizers functioning on unemployed
front, corner of Houston and
Bleecker
Streets.”

“Thank you, 6384XM, what is your
estimate?”

“Twenty men and a fire hose.”

“At once, 6384XM,
at once.”

His second call was to an office
near Union Square. “Comrade R, please…Comrade R?”

“Yes.”

“Comrade R, this is Comrade Z
speaking.
Gay Pay
Oo
, Moscow,
Russia.
Middle-class organizers recruiting on the
corner of Houston and
Bleecker
Streets.”

“Your estimate, comrade, for
liquidation of said activities?”

“Ten men with lead
pipes and brass knuckles to cooperate with Wall Street office of the I.J.B.”

“No bombs required?”

“No, comrade.”

“
Der
Tag!”

“
Der
Tag!”

Mr. Whipple had just enrolled his
twenty-seventh recruit, when the forces of both the international Jewish
bankers and the Communists converged on his meeting. They arrived in
high-powered black limousines and deployed through the streets with a skill
which showed long and careful training in that type of work. In fact their
officers were all West Point graduates.

Mr. Whipple saw them coming, but
like a good general his first thoughts were for his men.

“The National Revolutionary Party
will now go underground!” he shouted.

Lem
, made
wary by his past experiences with the police, immediately took to his heels,
followed by Chief Raven.
Shagpoke
, however, was late
in getting started. He still had one foot on the soapbox when he was hit a
terrific blow on the head with a piece of lead pipe.

“My man, if you can wear this glass
eye, I have a job for you.”

The speaker was an exceedingly
dapper gentleman in a light gray fedora hat and a pince-nez with a black silk
ribbon that fell to his coat opening in a graceful loop.

As he spoke, he held out at arm’s
length a beautiful glass eye.

But the object of his words did not
reply; it did not even move. To anyone but a trained observer, he would have
appeared to be addressing a bundle of old rags that someone had propped up on a
park bench.

Turning the eye from side to side,
so that it sparkled like a jewel in the winter sun, the man waited patiently
for the bundle to reply. From time to time, he stirred it sharply with the
Malacca walking stick he carried.

Suddenly a groan came from the rags
and they shook
sightly
. The cane had evidently
reached a sensitive spot. Encouraged, the man repeated his original
proposition. “Can you wear this eye?
If so, I’ll hire you.”

At this, the bundle gave a few
spasmodic quivers and a faint whimper. From somewhere below its peak a face
appeared,
then
a greenish hand moved out and took the
glittering eye, raising it to an empty socket in the upper part of the face.