Fall of Giants

Maud was worried. In politics, despicable people sometimes had to be pandered to, but Lloyd George seemed to have forgotten that. She wondered anxiously how much effect the Mail’s malevolent propaganda would have on the election.

A few days later she found out.

She went to an election meeting in a municipal hall in the East End of London. Eth Leckwith was in the audience and her husband, Bernie, was on the platform. Maud had not made up her quarrel with Ethel, even though they had been friends and colleagues for years. In fact Maud still trembled with anger when she recalled how Ethel and others had encouraged Parliament to pass a law that kept women at a disadvantage to men in elections. All the same she missed Ethel’s high spirits and ready smile.

The audience sat restlessly through the introductions. They were still mostly men, even though some women could now vote. Maud guessed that most women had not yet got used to the idea that they needed to take an interest in political discussions. But she also felt women would be put off by the tone of political meetings, in which men stood on a platform and ranted while the audience cheered or booed.

Bernie was the first speaker. He was no orator, Maud saw immediately. He spoke about the Labour Party’s new constitution, in particular clause four, calling for public ownership of the means of production. Maud thought this was interesting, for it drew a clear line between Labour and the pro-business Liberals; but she soon realized she was in a minority. The man sitting next to her grew restless and eventually shouted: “Will you chuck the Germans out of this country?”

Bernie was thrown. He mumbled for a few moments, then said: “I would do whatever benefited the workingman.” Maud wondered about the working woman, and guessed that Ethel must be thinking the same. Bernie went on: “But I don’t see that action against Germans in Britain is a high priority.”

That did not go down well; in fact it drew a few scattered boos.

Bernie said: “But to return to more important issues-”

From the other side of the hall, someone shouted: “What about the kaiser?”

Bernie made the mistake of replying to the heckler with a question. “What about the kaiser?” he rejoined. “He has abdicated.”

“Should he be put on trial?”

Bernie said with exasperation: “Don’t you understand that a trial means he will be entitled to defend himself? Do you really want to give the German emperor a platform to proclaim his innocence to the world?”

This was a compelling argument, Maud thought, but it was not what the audience wanted to hear. The booing grew louder, and there were shouts of “Hang the kaiser!”

British voters were ugly when riled, Maud thought; at least, the men were. Few women would ever want to come to meetings like this.

Bernie said: “If we hang our defeated enemies, we are barbarians.”

The man next to Maud shouted again: “Will you make the Hun pay?”

That got the biggest reaction of all. Several people shouted out: “Make the Hun pay!”

“Within reason,” Bernie began, but he got no further.

“Make the Hun pay!” The shout became common, and in a moment they were chanting in unison: “Make the Hun pay! Make the Hun pay!”

Maud got up from her seat and left.

{III}

Woodrow Wilson was the first American president ever to leave the country during his term of office.

He sailed from New York on December 4. Nine days later Gus was waiting for him at the quayside in Brest, on the western tip of the Brittany panhandle. At midday the mist cleared and the sun came out, for the first time in days. In the bay, battleships from the French, British, and American navies formed an honor guard through which the president steamed in a U.S. Navy transport ship, the George Washington. Guns thundered a salute, and a band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

It was a solemn moment for Gus. Wilson had come here to make sure there would never be another war like the one just ended. Wilson’s Fourteen Points, and his League of Nations, were intended to change forever the way nations resolved their conflicts. It was a stratospheric ambition. In the history of human civilization, no politician had ever aimed so high. If he succeeded, the world would be made new.

At three in the afternoon the first lady, Edith Wilson, walked down the gangplank on the arm of General Pershing, followed by the president in a top hat.

The town of Brest received Wilson as a conquering hero. Vive Wilson, said the banners, Defenseur du Droit des Peuples; Long Live Wilson, Defender of People’s Rights. Every building flew the Stars and Stripes. Crowds jammed the sidewalks, many of the women wearing the traditional Breton tall lace headdress. The sound of Breton bagpipes was everywhere. Gus could have done without the bagpipes.