Summary
The American Consul is a slow-burning political fable that begins in the mildewed parlors of a nameless American town, where Abel Manning—stooped, rheumy-eyed, forever rehearsing speeches to an audience of cracked plaster—waits for the cosmos to notice him. His daughter Joan, a schoolmarm whose salary keeps the gaslight flickering, has learned to translate love into ledger lines. When Senator Kitwell’s brass band roars through the square, Manning believes the universe has finally uncrossed its arms; instead, a prankish college boy, Geoffrey Daniels, drop-kicks custard-pie chaos into the old man’s moment of apotheosis, and Joan’s glare could etch glass. Meanwhile, south of the border, revolutionaries stitch counterfeit legitimacy like bootleg quilts: Gonzales, velvet-gloved and snake-oil tongued, sails to Washington to shop for a pliable consul who will stamp their junta with yankee respectability. Kitwell, scenting mining dividends, dispatches the one man he owes least—Manning—to a consulate that exists only on paper. Father and daughter descend through steamer-class fog into a Mexico painted by fever and rumor: cantinas humming with ragtime pistols, telegraph wires trembling like guilty consciences. Gonzales offers Abel a throne of shadows; Abel, discovering a vertebra he never knew existed, hurls the conspirator into the dust, then pounds out an SOS to the State Department. cables are severed, rifles click like mechanical typewriters, and Joan is dragged to a hacienda where bougainvillea petals mask the stench of lard-torch brutality. Enter Geoffrey—now a wireless engineer with a conscience in tow—who storms the ranch accompanied by a detachment of leatherneck cavalry. Marines crest the ridge at dawn, bugles blazing, and in the smoky aftermath the townspeople hoist Manning onto a crate of rifle crates; there, voice cracked but suddenly oceanic, he delivers the oration he always heard inside his skull, a torrent of words that turns waiting into destiny and failure into republic. Recognition, that coy lover, at last kisses his forehead while Joan’s hand finds Geoffrey’s in the hush that follows, the revolution reduced to gossip, the consulate to a plaque on a sun-blistered wall.
Synopsis
Abel Manning, an attorney, has spent the greater part of his life waiting for "something big." Joan, his daughter, is teaching school and is of great financial assistance to her father. Senator Kitwell is to hold a big political rally, and Manning is elated because he is to give the address. Geoffrey Daniels returns home for the election, bringing his college chums. He sees Joan and is interested. As Joan's father is making his speech, Geoffrey plays a joke on him, incurring Joan's contempt. In the meantime the Mexicans are scheming for a new government and Gonzales goes to Washington to use his influence in securing an American consul his gang can influence. Kitwell wins, and Manning, believing Kitwell's promise to do something for him, goes to Washington. He is given nothing, however, his funds diminish and Joan finally joins him. Geoffrey is appointed to install wireless stations at some valuable mines in the Mexican country, Gonzales, promising Kitwell an interest in the mines if he will send a consul who will recognize their new government. Kitwell, believing Manning the right man, appoints him, and the latter views this as his great opportunity. As Gonzales endeavors to rope Manning into their scheme, the real man in the old attorney rises against the traitors and he puts Gonzales out of his office. As he is sending a cable to Washington for help, Manning is seized by Gonzales and his men, the cable instrument demolished and Manning threatened with death if he does not join the Mexicans in their revolution. Geoffrey learns of the situation, and that Joan has been taken to Gonzales' ranch, rushes to the rescue just as a company of American marines land and after overpowering the Mexicans, the marines put Manning upon a box and he delivers an oration with great intensity. His loyalty has won for him at last the recognition he has so long coveted.
