Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 2 (1926-02).djvu/15

Rh carry the message in full. It adorned the breakfast tables of a startled world.

"I have proved my power," the strange voice had said; "unless my instructions are followed, I will use it to the full. I address myself to the President and the Congress of these United States. War must cease, and the United States must show the way. I demand that the United States disarm. By May first there is not to be one man under arms, except the necessary civil police. Ships of war must be in process of dismantling. The work of tearing down forts must be under way. Manufactories devoted to the making of munitions of war must be ready for conversion to peaceful ends. All means for war by the United States must be abolished or in the process of abolition by May first. If this demand is not complied with, I will destroy the Capitol of the United States when Congress is in session immediately after that date."

The hysteria that swept the United States full-armed into the Great War was but a passing breath to the wave of fear, of wrath, of wild suggestions that caught hold of the country as that message was grasped. The business of the world stood still in those first hours of dread while man stared at man in bewilderment that this thing should happen.

Disarm the United States? It was preposterous. It was an enemy power seeking to frighten the country into a state of helplessness in order that it might step in and despoil the land of wealth. California pointed warning fingers across the Pacific. "Bolshevik," cried the Eastern money markets. The calmer heads kept up their cry of "madman."

But a madman could not explain those three heaps of cosmic dust: one along the banks of the Missouri; a second on the sun-baked plains of Texas; a third in the savannas of South Carolina. A madman did not dream those. Perhaps it was a madman who created them, but he was a lunatic with the power of Jove, hurling lightnings at any spot he desired. Now he threatened the Capitol of the nation, unless it strip itself of defense, lay its vulnerable sides bare to a world which had not yet shown itself free from rapacity and greed. Ask the householder to take the locks from his doors, the catches from his windows and strew his valuables so that a burglar might find them readily. This in effect was what the message meant to the country.

Yet, if the President and Congress did not agree, what then? Destroy the Capitol and Congress assembled? Would he do it? He had the power—would he use it? Would he blot out all those lives? It was not possible! Had he not warned everyone to stay clear of those buildings that were destroyed? He gave a whole day's notice each time. Yet they were only warnings. This was in dead earnest.

When Congress assembled that morning of April tenth the clerks of Senate and House marked no absentees. Three members left sick beds to be on hand. One senator had traveled all night to answer to roll call. The President drove to the Capitol before Congress convened. All night he had been preparing his message. He, too, had heard the warning as it rode the waves of ether to drive a nation into panic, a world into trembling uncertainty. He was serious with a great purpose, as he mounted the steps and turned toward the House wing before a silent crowd that stared after him with anxious eyes. The Senate, apprized of his coming, was sitting in full membership with the House. The galleries were filled, not with gaily dressed chattering throngs, but men and women with anxious air and concern written large on every face. In its century and a half of existence the country had known no such crisis. None of its heads had been called up-