Peter was so busy these days that he missed several nights’ sleep, and hardly even stopped to eat. He had his own private room, where the prisoners were brought for examination, and he had half a dozen men under his orders to do the “strong arm” work. It was his task to extract from these prisoners admissions which would justify their being sent to prison if they were citizens, or being deported if they were aliens. There was of course seldom any way to distinguish between citizens and aliens; you just had to take a chance on it, proceeding on the certainty that all were dangerous. Many years ago, when Peter had been working for Pericles Priam, they had spent several months in a boarding house, and you could tell when there was going to be beef-steak for dinner, because you heard the cook pounding it with the potato-masher to “tender it up;” and Peter learned this phrase, and now used the process upon his alien Reds. When they came into the room, Peter’s men would fall upon them and beat them and cuff them, knocking them about from one fist to another. If they were stubborn and would not “come across,” Peter would take them in hand himself, remembering how successful Guffey had been in getting things out of him by the twisting of wrists and the bending back of fingers. It was amazing how clever and subtle some of these fellows were. They were just lousy foreign laborers, but they spent all their spare time reading; you would find large collections of books in their rooms when you made your raids, and they knew exactly what you wanted, and would parry your questions. Peter would say: “You’re an Anarchist, aren’t you?” And the answer would be: “I’m not an Anarchist in the sense of the word you mean”—as if there could be two meanings of the word “Anarchist!” Peter would say, “You believe in violence, do you not?” And then the fellow would become impertinent: “It is you who believe in violence, look at my face that you have smashed.” Or Peter would say, “You don’t like this government, do you?” And the answer would be, “I always liked it until it treated me so badly”—all kinds of evasions like that, and there would be a stenographer taking it down, and unless Peter could get something into the record that was a confession, it would not be possible to deport that Red. So Peter would fall upon him and “tender him up” until he would answer what he was told to answer; or maybe Peter would prepare an interview as he wanted it to be, and the detectives would grab the man’s hand and make him sign it; or maybe Peter would just sign it himself.
These were harsh methods, but there was no way to help it, the Reds were so cunning. They were secretly undermining the government, and was the government to lie down and admit its helplessness? The answer of 100% Americanism was thundered from every wood and templed hill in the country; also from every newspaper office. The answer was “No!” 100% Americanism would find a way to preserve itself from the sophistries of European Bolshevism; 100% Americanism had worked out its formula: “If they don’t like this country, let them go back where they come from.” But of course, knowing in their hearts that America was the best country in the world, they didn’t want to go back, and it was necessary to make them go.
Peter was there for that purpose, and his devoted wife was by his side, egging him on with her feminine implacability. Gladys had always been accustomed to refer to these people as “cattle,” and now, when she smelled them herded together in these office rooms for several weeks, she knew that she was right, and that no fate could be too stern for them. Presently with Peter’s help she dis............