Hollis Godfrey - The Man Who Ended War

The Secretary of War ended his statement. “That is all there is to tell, gentlemen, concerning the building of the new transports.”

I had closed my notebook and was rising, as Ordway, the private secretary, entered.

“May I give the correspondents that freak letter that came this morning?” he asked. His chief nodded indulgently and left the room. I opened my notebook expectantly.

“This is a very serious matter, and a great piece of news,” Ordway remarked in a mock grandiose manner. “It is a declaration of war against the civilized world in the interests of peace.” He threw himself into an oratorical posture and began:

“To the United States of America and to all other nations – Greeting!”

“Whereas war has too long devastated the earth and the time has now come for peace, I, the man destined to stop all war, hereby declare unto you that you shall, each and all, disarm; that your troops shall be disbanded, your navies sunk or turned to peaceful ends, your fortifications dismantled. One year from this date will I allow for disarmament and no more. At the end of that time, if no heed has been paid to my injunction, I will destroy, in rapid succession, every battleship in the world. By the happenings of the next two months you shall know that my words are the words of truth.

“Given under my hand and seal this first of June, 19 —

“Signed —

Ordway ceased and a laughing clamor rose.

“The biggest crank yet.” “Where was it mailed?” “I thought you said you had something really good this time.” “Do you suppose he sent it to any other country than the United States?”

Ordway raised his hand for a hearing and replied to the last question. “The letter was mailed from London, and was sent to other countries. I read the missive to one of the English attachés when it came, and he looked the matter up. This notice has been sent to all the foreign chancelleries, as well as the departments of war and of the navy. It has been done in such a wholesale fashion that I thought you could use it for a column anyway.”

“But is it such a fool idea?” asked Reid, one of the older correspondents. “Couldn’t a man build a submarine in which he could run amuck and destroy battleship after battleship, something as old Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo did?”

“Not to-day,” said Ordway emphatically. “The new armor of the last years, with its permanent torpedo nets, has stopped all that. The only way you can destroy a modern battleship is by ramming, or by another battleship. The day of the torpedo boat and of the submarine ended almost as it began.”

“Well,” said Reid argumentatively, “why couldn’t a man have a battleship? Any one of five hundred men living to-day could afford it.”

“No battleship could be built by a private citizen without some nation knowing it and stopping it,” said Ordway seriously. “It takes months, reaching into years, to build one. It takes skilled naval constructors, hundreds of workmen and thousands of tons of material that must be bought in the markets of the world.”

“Let’s see the paper it’s written on,” I said.

As I held the message, Reid looked over my shoulder and read for a moment. Then, turning, he cried, “Come over here, boys, and look at this a little more closely. That’s old parchment, just like that of some of those papal bulls in the glass cases over in the library.”

As he spoke a sudden remembrance flashed across me. “Anybody got a microscope around here?” I asked quickly.

“There’s a reading glass,” said Ordway, and opening a drawer he handed one to me. I took the paper to the sunlit window, and began examining it closely with the lens. The rest watched me curiously. At last I shook my head. “No use,” I exclaimed. “I thought I had a clue, but it didn’t pan out. There’s a good story though, without anything more. Here, Ordway,” and I handed back the letter.

The other correspondents moved away, seeking fresh fields for copy, but I lingered a moment as John King, my classmate at Columbia and my good friend, stepped forward to bid Ordway good-bye. As I watched his deeply lined, melancholy face and his emaciated form, I wondered if wealth had not come to him too late.

“Good-bye, Ordway,” said John. “This is the last you’ll see of me. I’m through with the daily grind at six o’clock to-night.”

“I’m sorry to hear that in one way, King,” said Ordway gravely. “I felt last year when you went abroad that you were running down hill and I expected, when I heard you had come into your uncle’s money, that you would pull out. What are you going to do?”

“Oh! I shall travel again for a bit,” replied John. “There are some things I want to do before I get through with this old earth, if I am to get through.”

“You’ll be all right,” answered Ordway. “I only wish I had your chance. There’s my bell now. You see how it is – tied like a slave to the wheels of the chariot, etc. But good luck, anyway, and good-bye.”

He gave John a friendly grasp, and as he turned away, threw the massive folded sheet, which he still held, into the waste basket. “I guess we won’t file that with the state documents,” he said laughing. “Good-bye, and good luck once more.”

We parted and John and I started down the corridor. We had gone but a few steps when exclaiming, “There, I’ve left my stick,” I turned swiftly back, recovered the letter from its place in the waste basket, and emerged with my cane. Silently we walked down the broad avenue until, just before we reached my office, I turned sharply.

“Come in here,” I said, dragging John into a café. We sat down at one of the small tables. “You used to do the Smithsonian and scientific stories for your paper, didn’t you?” I asked.

John was sitting staring into vacancy. He paid no attention to my question and I repeated it twice before he turned nervously with a shake of the head and asked sharply, “What is it?”

I repeated the question once more.

“Yes,” he said abstractedly.

“Well, who do you know that owns any radium?”

He thought for a moment and said slowly, “Why, the Smithsonian people have a little, of course, and there’s some in half a dozen places in the city.”

“But from whom could we get some most easily?” I inquired.

“Oh! I know,” he answered. “Dorothy Haldane has some. She’s here in Washington working with part of her brother’s radium, and she’s with her cousin Mrs. Hartnell.”

“Who’s Dorothy Haldane? Any relation to Tom Haldane who was just ahead of us, the chap who went into the Physical Laboratory at Columbia and who’s doing private research now?”

“His sister. She is Barnard A. M., and his research assistant.”

“Regular bluestocking,” I remarked with some dislike, for the learned research woman never appealed to me.

“Oh, no,” said John. “Not at all. She is one of the prettiest, nicest girls I ever knew.”

“Any feeling about your remarks, John?” I said hopefully.

“Of course not,” he answered with some irritation. “There’ll never be any more feeling. Since Anna’s death there can’t be. I know you’ll like Dorothy, though. What do you want her radium for?”

“There’s just a chance that I may have a scoop, and if you’ll take me up there to-night I’ll let you in.”

“I’ll take you up there,” said John, “but you can have your scoop to yourself. For the last word of copy I ever write will be in print before we call.”

That afternoon came an unexpected Cabinet change. For hours I interviewed, and wrote, telephoned and telegraphed, reaching my room at half after eight, to find John just ready to leave without me. He had written the story of the man who was to stop all war, only to see it killed by more important news. His experience had been that of every man in the secretary’s office, a common fate in the crowding rush of newspaper life. I had never seen John more distrait than that night, and we walked up to the Hartnells’ in utter silence.