"I know about it particularly," the other continued, "because my father was on the board of investigation fifteen years ago. I am disposed to be a little keen on the subject, because what he found out at that time practically caused his death."
Montague darted a keen glance at the young officer, who sat gazing ahead in sombre thought. "Fancy how a naval man feels," he said. "We are told that our ships are going to the Pacific, and any hour the safety of the nation may depend upon them! And they are covered with rotten armour plate that was made by old Harrison, and sold to the Government for four or five times what it cost. Take one case that I know about--the Oregon. I"ve got a brother on board her to-day.
During the Spanish War the whole country was watching her and praying for her. And I could go on board that battleship and put my finger on the spot in her conning-tower that has a series of blow-holes straight through the middle of it--holes that old Harrison had drilled through and plugged up with an iron bar. If ever that plate was struck by a sh.e.l.l, it would splinter like so much gla.s.s."
Montague listened, half dazed. "Can one see that?" he cried.
"See it? No!" said the officer. "It"s all on the inside of the plate, of course. When they got through with their dirty work, they would treat the surface, and who would ever know the difference?"
"But then, how can YOU know it?" asked Montague.
"I?" said the other. "Because my father had laid before him the history of that plate from the hour it was made until it was put in: the original copies of the doctored shop records, and the affidavits of the man who did the work. He had the same thing in a hundred other cases. I know the man who has the papers at this day."
"You see," continued the Lieutenant, after a pause, "the Government"s specifications required that each plate should undergo an elaborate set of treatments; and the shop records of each plate were kept. But, of course, it cost enormous sums to get these treatments right, and even then hundreds of the plates would be bad.
So when the shop records came up to the office, young Ingham and Davidson would go over them and edit them and bring them up to standard--that"s the way those brilliant young fellows made all the money that they are spending on chorus girls and actresses to-day.
They would have these shop records recopied, but they did not always tear up the old ones, and somebody in the office hid them, and that was how the Government got hold of the story."
"It sounds almost incredible!" exclaimed Montague.
"Take the story of plate H619, of the Oregon," said the Lieutenant.
"That was one of a whole group of plates, which was selected for the ballistic tests at Indian Head. After it had been selected, it was taken back into the company"s shops at night, and secretly retreated three times. And then of course it pa.s.sed the tests, and the whole group was pa.s.sed with it!"
"What was done about it?" Montague asked.
"Nothing much was ever done about it," said the other. "The Government could not afford to let the real facts get out. But, of course, the insiders in the Navy knew it, and the memory will last as long as the ships last. As I say, it killed my father."
"But weren"t the men punished at all?"
"There was a Board appointed to try the case, and they awarded the Government about six hundred thousand dollars" damages. There"s a man here in this hotel now who could tell you that story straight from the inside." And the Lieutenant paused and looked about him.
Suddenly he stood up, and went to the railing and called to a man who was pa.s.sing on the other side of the street.
"h.e.l.lo, Bates," he said, "come here."
"Oh! Bates of the Express!" said Montague.
"You know him, do you?" asked the Lieutenant. "h.e.l.lo, Bates! Have they put you on the Society notes?"
"I"m hunting interviews," replied the other. "How do you do, Mr.
Montague? Glad to see you again."
"Come up," said the Lieutenant, "and have a seat."
"I was talking to Mr. Montague about the armour-plate frauds," he added, when the other had drawn up a chair. "I told him you knew the story of the Government"s investigation. Bates comes from Pittsburg, you know."
"Yes, I know it," Montague replied.
"That was the first newspaper story I ever worked on," said Bates.
"Of course, the Pittsburg papers didn"t print the facts, but I got them all the same. And afterwards I came to know intimately a lawyer in Pittsburg who had charge of a secret investigation; and every time I read in the newspapers that old Harrison has given a new library, it sets my blood to boiling all over again."
"I sometimes think," put in the other, "that if somebody could be found to tell that story to the American people, they would rise up and drive the old scoundrel out of the country."
"You could never bring it home to him," said Bates; "he"s too cunning for that. He has always turned his dirty work over to other people. You remember during the big strike how he ran away and left the job to William Roberts; and after it was all over, he came back smiling."
"And then buying out the Government to keep himself from being punished!" said the Lieutenant, savagely.
Montague turned and looked at him. "What is that?"
"That is the story that Bates"s lawyer friend can tell," was the reply. "The board of officers awarded six hundred thousand dollars"
damages to the Government; and the case was appealed to the President of the United States, and he sold out the Navy!"
"Sold it out!" gasped Montague.
The officer shrugged his shoulders. "That"s what I call it," he said. "One day old Harrison startled the country by making a speech in support of the President"s policy of tariff reform; and the next day the lawyer got word that the award was to be scaled down about seventy-five per cent!"
"And then," added Bates, "William Roberts came down from Pittsburg, and bought up the Democratic party in Congress; and so the country got neither the damages nor the tariff reform. And then a few years later old Harrison sold out to the Steel Trust, and got off with a four-hundred-million-dollar mortgage on the American people!"
Bates sank back in his chair. "It"s not a very pleasant topic for a holiday afternoon," he said. "But I can"t forget about it. It"s this kind of thing that does it, you know--this." And he waved his hand about at the gay a.s.semblage. "The women spending their money on dresses and diamonds, and the men tearing the country to pieces to get it. You"ll hear people talk about it--they say these idle rich harm n.o.body but themselves; but I tell you they spread a trail of corruption wherever they go. Don"t you believe that, Mr. Montague?"
"I believe it," said he.
"Take these New England towns," said Bates; "and look at the people in them. The ones who had any energy got up and went West years ago; and those who are left haven"t any jaw-bones. Did you ever notice it? And it"s just the same, wherever this pleasure crowd comes; it turns the men into boarding-house keepers and lackeys, and the girls into waitresses and prost.i.tutes."
"They learn to take tips!" put in the Lieutenant.
"Everything they"ve got is for sale to city people," said Bates.
"Politically, there isn"t a rottener little corner in the whole United States of America than this same Rhode Island--and how much that"s saying, you can imagine. You can buy votes on election day as you"d buy herrings, and there"s not the remotest effort at reform, nor any hope of it."
"You speak bitterly," said Montague.
"I am bitter," said Bates. "But it doesn"t often break out. I hold my tongue, and stew in my own juice. We newspaper men see the game, you know. We are behind the scenes, and we see the sawdust put into the dolls. We have to work in this rottenness all the time, and some of us don"t like it, I can tell you. But what can we do?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I spend my time getting facts together, and nine times out of ten my newspaper won"t print them."
"I should think you"d quit," said the other, in a low voice.
"What better can I do?" asked the reporter. "I have the facts; and once in a while there comes an explosion, and I get my chance. So I stick at the job. I can"t but believe that if you keep putting these things before the people, sometime, sooner or later, they will do something. Sometime there will come a man who has a conscience and a voice, and who won"t sell out. Don"t you think so, Mr. Montague?"
"Yes," said Montague, "I think so."
CHAPTER XVII
The summer wore on. At the end of August Alice returned from Newport for a couple of days, having some shopping to do before she joined the Prentices at their camp in the Adirondacks.
Society had here a new way of enjoying itself. People built themselves elaborate palaces in the wilderness, and lived in a fantastic kind of rusticity, with every luxury of civilisation included. For this life one needed an entirely separate wardrobe, with doeskin hunting-boots and mountain-climbing skirts--all very picturesque and expensive. It reminded Montague of a jest that he had heard about Mrs. Vivie Patton, whose husband had complained of the expensiveness of her costumes, and requested her to wear simpler dresses. "Very well," she said, "I will get a lot of simple dresses immediately."
Alice spent one evening at home, and she took her cousin into her confidence. "I"ve an idea, Allan, that Harry Curtiss is going to ask me to marry him. I thought it was right to tell you about it."