Common Cause: A Novel of the War in AmericaAdams, Samuel Hopkins
General
Common Cause: A Novel of the War in America
Adams, Samuel Hopkins
World War, 1914-1918 -- United States -- Fiction
Originally it was intended to present the measure, backed by a
formidable list of names from the academic world, with a sprinkling
of “prominent citizens,” and push it quietly through as a purely
educational and technical matter into which, the professionals and
professors having said their say in advocacy, the public need not
trouble itself to examine. Leave these esoteric matters to the
specialists! The list of endorsers was prepared. It was comprehensive,
as regards the colleges and schools, the pedagogic element being
influenced by the natural academic sympathy for the German educational
system which honors scholarship so highly. Prominent citizens lent their
names as prominent citizens always will when a petition not affecting
their own pockets (though it may affect the national integrity of their
country) is presented. A committee, graced by the presence of Emil
Bausch, Professor Brender, head of the German Department of the local
university, Professor Rappelje, of the Economics Department, Judge
Dana, the Reverend Mr. Merserole, Farley of The Record, and others, with
Robert Wanser as chairman, made a formal appearance as sponsors. It was
a solemn, dull, and impressive occasion, and The Guardian representative
sent to report it almost yawned his head off. He sadly envied his boss
whom he had met coming out of the office juggling two white and gleaming
golf-balls. He wished he owned a paper and could devote a morning to
pure sport whenever so minded!
The golf-balls did not indicate unmingled recreation for the boss of The
Guardian. He was responding to a telephone challenge for a match with
Magnus Laurens. Since the agreement in the editor’s den, the water-power
magnate had made rather a habit of dropping in upon Jeremy when he
came to Fenchester. He would stretch his powerful figure in Jeremy’s
easy-chair, open the friendly hostilities by proposing to him that,
since he believed in other people’s property being taken over for the
public good, he should deliver The Guardian to Nick Milliken and
the real Socialists; shrewdly discuss politics and the practitioners
thereof; and invariably wind up on the main interest which the two men
held in common, the Americanization of their hybrid State.
Even at its best, Laurens’s golf-game was not redoubtable to a player of
Jeremy’s caliber. On this particular morning it was far from its best.
Turning to his opponent after a flagrant flub on the ninth green, the
older man said: “My mind isn’t on the game to-day. Let’s get an early
lunch, and talk.” As soon as they were seated at the table, he opened up
the subject.
“You’re against me, of course, in the campaign.”
“Certainly. We’re for Embree.”
“That’s all right. What I’m going to say does n’t contemplate any
possibility of your changing. Have you read the Cultural Language Bill?”
“No. I’ve sent a man up to cover the hearing.”
“Why did n’t you read it?”
“I understood it was n’t of any special importance.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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