THE KING IN YELLOW

THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS




I

"Ne raillons pas les fous; leur folie dure plus longtemps que la
nôtre.... Voila toute la différence."


Toward the end of the year 1920 the Government of the United States had
practically completed the programme, adopted during the last months of
President Winthrop's administration. The country was apparently
tranquil. Everybody knows how the Tariff and Labour questions were
settled. The war with Germany, incident on that country's seizure of the
Samoan Islands, had left no visible scars upon the republic, and the
temporary occupation of Norfolk by the invading army had been forgotten
in the joy over repeated naval victories, and the subsequent ridiculous
plight of General Von Gartenlaube's forces in the State of New Jersey.
The Cuban and Hawaiian investments had paid one hundred per cent and the
territory of Samoa was well worth its cost as a coaling station. The
country was in a superb state of defence. Every coast city had been well
supplied with land fortifications; the army under the parental eye of
the General Staff, organized according to the Prussian system, had been
increased to 300,000 men, with a territorial reserve of a million; and
six magnificent squadrons of cruisers and battle-ships patrolled the six
stations of the navigable seas, leaving a steam reserve amply fitted to
control home waters. The gentlemen from the West had at last been
constrained to acknowledge that a college for the training of diplomats
was as necessary as law schools are for the training of barristers;
consequently we were no longer represented abroad by incompetent
patriots. The nation was prosperous; Chicago, for a moment paralyzed
after a second great fire, had risen from its ruins, white and imperial,
and more beautiful than the white city which had been built for its
plaything in 1893. Everywhere good architecture was replacing bad, and
even in New York, a sudden craving for decency had swept away a great
portion of the existing horrors. Streets had been widened, properly
paved and lighted, trees had been planted, squares laid out, elevated
structures demolished and underground roads built to replace them. The
new government buildings and barracks were fine bits of architecture,
and the long system of stone quays which completely surrounded the
island had been turned into parks which proved a god-send to the
population. The subsidizing of the state theatre and state opera brought
its own reward. The United States National Academy of Design was much
like European institutions of the same kind. Nobody envied the Secretary
of Fine Arts, either his cabinet position or his portfolio. The
Secretary of Forestry and Game Preservation had a much easier time,
thanks to the new system of National Mounted Police. We had profited
well by the latest treaties with France and England; the exclusion of
foreign-born Jews as a measure of self-preservation, the settlement of
the new independent negro state of Suanee, the checking of immigration,
the new laws concerning naturalization, and the gradual centralization
of power in the executive all contributed to national calm and
prosperity. When the Government solved the Indian problem and squadrons
of Indian cavalry scouts in native costume were substituted for the
pitiable organizations tacked on to the tail of skeletonized regiments
by a former Secretary of War, the nation drew a long sigh of relief.
When, after the colossal Congress of Religions, bigotry and intolerance
were laid in their graves and kindness and charity began to draw warring
sects together, many thought the millennium had arrived, at least in the
new world which after all is a world by itself.

But self-preservation is the first law, and the United States had to
look on in helpless sorrow as Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium writhed
in the throes of Anarchy, while Russia, watching from the Caucasus,
stooped and bound them one by one.