Career in C Major Page 6
MR. FRIEND
All the time thinking up some new kind of devilment. All the time showing off how good they can read. All the time showing off how many big words they know. Mister, what we talking about monkeys for, anyhow? Why ain’t we talking about something that is some good? Why ain’t we talking about is Flint Neck going to git their new schoolhouse?
MR. HAYES
We’ve been all over that, Mr. Friend. The bills on them schoolhouses was referred jointly to the Committee on Education and the Ways and Means Committee and we’re postponing action on them until the Ways and Means takes up the money part, and then we’ll consider the Flint Neck schoolhouse on its merits same as all the rest. What we’re considering now is the Evolution Bill and I’ll appreciate it if you’ll get your mind on that so we’ll maybe have something to show for our time.
MR. FRIEND
Let me tell you something, mister. I got elected for to git Flint Neck their new schoolhouse and I ain’t got no time to set around talking about monkeys.
MR. HAYES
Loman, what in the hell am I going to do about this?
MR. LOMAN
I don’t know. I never seen nothing like it in my life.
MR. FRIEND
Them people needs that schoolhouse, mister. They got hard times, and if some of them don’t git some money working on the new schoolhouse I don’t see how they’re going to eat.
MR. HAYES
Because look here, Loman, if we don’t get three to vote on it I ain’t so sure we can report the bill out at all. Anyway not without a whole lot of jockeying around the floor.
MR. LOMAN
That’s the hell of it.
MR. HAYES
But how I’m going to keep this up I don’t know. I ain’t even got past the monkeys yet.
MR. LOMAN
If he ain’t even got it straight about the monkeys he’s going to have a hell of a time with the Bible.
MR. FRIEND
Hunh?
MR. HAYES
Nothing at all, Mr. Friend. We was just talking about how we could explain it to you a little better.
MR. FRIEND
You was mumbling about that Bible.
MR. LOMAN
That Bible! It ain’t only one Bible.
MR. FRIEND
It weren’t my Bible! My Bible was in the house all the time!
MR. HAYES
Oh my God!
MR. FRIEND
And it weren’t my still! I already told them it weren’t my still! It was on my place but I never knowed nothing about it! It was ’way down by the creek!
MR. LOMAN
Anh-hanh. Anh-hanh.
MR. FRIEND
Lemme alone! Quit putting on me about that Bible!
MR. LOMAN
Anh-hanh. So you’re the guy the Flint Neck Ku Klux was talking about last month, hey? Using a Bible to prop up the pipe with, where it run down from the still to the coil? Anh-hanh. Well, a fine delegate to the Legislature you turned out to be!
MR. FRIEND
Lemme alone! It weren’t my Bible!
MR. HAYES
Loman, I swear to God I don’t know which is the dumbest, you or this guy or the monkeys. Now look what you done. How the hell am I ever going to get this thing through his nut if you go on like this, scaring the hell out of him about his still? What do we care if he was running a still?
MR. LOMAN
No, but what gets me is a bum like that that gets elected to the Legislature and then they find a still on his place. And propped up with a Bible.
MR. HAYES
I don’t care if it was propped up with a couple of Bibles and a hymn-book. I’m trying to get something done here and if you’ll just kindly keep your mouth the hell out of it, maybe we’ll get done by corn-planting time.
MR. LOMAN
All right.
MR. HAYES
You got a spare handkerchief? Thanks. I ain’t sweat so much since I used to pitch hay.
MR. FRIEND
Lemme alone! I’m going out of this place! I’m going home!
MR. LOMAN
Set down! Set down and quit that blubbering and listen at what Mr. Hayes is telling you or I’ll take a poke at you. You hear me?
MR. HAYES
Now, Mr. Friend, I already told you about how them people says men is descended from monkeys!
MR. LOMAN
Monkeys—you get it?
MR. HAYES
And that there monkey stuff is all crossed up with the Bible!
MR. LOMAN
Bible—what you prop up your still with!
MR. HAYES
The Adam and Eve part, ’cause men couldn’t be descended from monkeys and Adam and Eve both!
MR. LOMAN
Couldn’t be descended from both—you get it?
MR. HAYES
So this here bill says they can’t teach that stuff no more and then we throw out all the monkey books and buy new books in their place and that’s all there is to it!
MR. LOMAN
That’s all. Just buy new books and that’s all there is to it!
MR. HAYES
So that’s the bill and now what do you say on it?
MR. FRIEND
Lemme alone! I don’t know nothing about no bill!
MR. HAYES
Mr. Friend, listen. It don’t make no difference which way you vote, yes or no. ’Cause even if you’re in favor of this here monkey stuff it’ll be two to one the other way and all we want you to do is say yes or no for the record. Now will you please say one way or the other, yes or no?
MR. FRIEND
Lemme alone!
MR. LOMAN
Well, Hayes, there you are!
MR. HAYES
Loman, I’m going to report this guy to the Speaker. I don’t know if anything can be done about it, but I’m going to find out. I’m going to report him at the night session. You’re right. This here is a right down swindle on the taxpayers. Just think of it! A great moral measure like this here Evolution Bill being held up by a bum like that!
MR. LOMAN
They ought to send him back to Flint Neck. That’s where he wants to go and they ought to let him.
MR. FRIEND
I’m agin it.
MR. HAYES, MR. LOMAN
What was that?
MR. FRIEND
I’m agin this here bill. Paying out a whole lot of money for new books and—
MR. LOMAN
Whoops!
MR. HAYES
By gosh we’re done! He’s voted, and he’s agin it, and we’re done!
MR. FRIEND
All the time paying out money for books…. Reading…. Big words…. Monkeys….
The Administration of Justice (in Three Parts)
1. Counsel
A COURTROOM. IT IS filled with the usual judge, jury, defendant, prosecutor, counsel, widow of the deceased, bailiff, and crowd of spectators. THE PROSECUTOR has just risen to deliver his summation and now walks slowly to a spot within a few feet of the jury.
THE PROSECUTOR
Gentlemen of the jury, I now begin one of the most disagreeable, I may say thoroughly painful, duties that a officer of the court is ever called upon to perform. I come before you today, my friends, to ask for the life of a fellow citizen. I come before you to ask you to find a man guilty of murder, the greatest crime known to civilized society. My friends, it is indeed a painful duty. And as I have no desire to prolong it any longer than I have to, as I know you are all busy men, anxious to get back to your business, your families, your dear loved ones, I shall be as brief as I can. I shall confine myself to a plain recital of the facts, as revealed by the evidence, and then leave the case with you, confident that twelve men of such outstanding intelligence will not allow justice to miscarry.
Now, my friends, what does the evidence show? It shows first that the defendant Summers was not in the habit of going to church. That was his own affair, my friends. Whether Summers wanted
to go to church or not, whether he chose to bow his head on Sunday or not, as you do and I do, I may say as any God-fearing man does, I don’t care whether he’s black or white or rich or poor, or whether he chose to abandon himself to a life of sneering, jeering, and contumacious atheism!—is a matter between him and his God. It is not for you and me to judge, my friends, whether Summers chose to go week after week, month after month, year after year, without once setting his foot inside the house of worship. That, I repeat to you my friends, is for God to judge. That is between him and his God! We’re here today to decide whether he did, as the indictment alleges, kill Pete Brody, the husband of this lady here, the father of this little boy, this little curly-headed boy you see sitting here, willfully and with malice aforethought!
Now, my friends, what else does the evidence show? It shows that a great patriotic organization grew concerned about his welfare. It shows that the sober, God-fearing men that founded it, that nursed it in its infancy, that reared it with loving care until it is one of the greatest, yes, my friends, I will say the very greatest, force for good in the United States of America today!—that these very men gave their attention to Summers same as they would to any other man, be he rich or poor or Gentile or Jew or black or white!—that they gave their valuable time to his case and determined to see if there wasn’t something they could do to bring him to the light, to bring him back into the house of God, to improve, for his own sake, for the sake of his family, his friends, his state, yes, his country, the state of his spiritual welfare! Oh, my friends, what a deed of kindness that was! What a act of pure, Christian charity! What more could you ask of any man, my friends, than that he do what them men done, that he give some of his valuable time for your spiritual welfare and try to bring you to the house of God, so maybe you would get some kind of salvation when you die?
Now, my friends, what did they do? The evidence shows that they got first into the official robes of their order, the hood and gown, my friends, of the Ku Klux Klan, marked with the cross that Christ died on, the cross that’s leading the American nation out of the wilderness of false teaching and on to better things today! They got into this sacred regalia, my friends, and they got into automobiles and proceeded to this defendant’s house. And then what did they do, my friends? They done a simple thing. My friends, they done a thing which, if it had been done to me, it would of broke me up I don’t care if I was the most hardened atheist this side of hell! They sung him a hymn, my friends. They sung him perhaps the most beautiful hymn, my friends, that has ever been written by God-fearing men. Do you know how that hymn goes, my friends? I got no voice, my friends, and I never had no lessons in music. But I’ll sing it for you. It goes like this:
[singing]
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
E’en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
That’s what they sung to him, my friends. That beautiful hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Think of that! They gathered on his own front stoop, right under his window, and sung him perhaps the most beautiful hymn that has ever been written by God-fearing men. Did you ever know, my friends, that that was the favorite hymn of President William McKinley? It was, my friends, and in the year 1902, in Buffalo, New York, when that great man lay dying, when he lay dying by the assassin’s bullet, what did he do, my friends? In the dead of the night, singing it softly to himself, he was heard to put his faith in that hymn. There in the dark, so low you could hardly hear him, he was singing it to hisself:
[singing]
Or if on joyful wing
Cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upwards I fly,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
And what then, my friends? Did the defendant Summers see the light? Was his heart touched by this simple act of kindness, this singing by these God-fearing men down there on his front stoop? Did he hear the message in that perhaps most beautiful hymn that has ever been written by God-fearing men, the favorite hymn of President M’Kinley? He did not! What does the evidence show, my friends? There was a shot! Another! Another! Still another! And another still! And when the smoke cleared away, Pete Brody was upon the ground. Pete Brody, the genial and affable Pete Brody that used to drive his milk-wagon through the streets in the early dawn, Pete Brody, the Pete Brody that brought sustenance to little children, Pete Brody, the husband of this little lady you see here, the father of this little curly-headed boy, Pete Brody, the friend of every man that ever knew him, be he black or white or rich or poor, Pete Brody, that never done a thing to any man in his life!—was lying on the ground, a load of shot in his stomach, doomed to die before he could even be brought to a hospital!
Oh, my friends, it is indeed a painful duty that brings me before you today. For I had rather lose this arm, this good right arm that you see here, than have to stand here and admit that any citizen of the United States of America could be guilty of any such dastardly deed as Summers did that night. Summers! Summers, the man that would never go to church! Summers, the man that went week after week, month after month, year after year, without ever putting a foot inside the house of God or offering up a prayer for the good of his soul! Summers! There he sits, gentlemen of the jury; look at that face and ask yourselves is that man fit to walk the streets of our fair city or breathe our country’s air! Summers! Summers fired those shots. Look at the evidence! What does it say? Out of his own mouth, gentlemen of the jury, we have it that he fired those shots, that he shot to kill or to maim or to work any frightful havoc that might come! That he and he alone was responsible for the death of Pete Brody and whatever judgment the death of Pete Brody may bring! He fired those shots! Summers fired those shots! Summers killed Pete Brody, and, before God, I say Summers must pay the price of his crime!
Self-defense! Against what? Against what? Against a hymn to the Lord God Almighty, my friends. Against God-fearing men, standing with bared heads on his own front stoop, singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” the favorite hymn of President McKinley and perhaps the most beautiful hymn ever written by Godfearing men.
No, gentlemen of the jury! No, no, no! Summers must bring better evidence than that before he can escape punishment for his crime. Summers can perhaps escape punishment for not going to church. That is between himself and his God. But I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, as God is your judge, Summers must be made to pay for this dastardly crime that he committed when he shot at those men. Summers must pay! Summers must pay with his life! An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! A life for a life! So spake that great God that you worship and I worship! So spake the God that Summers refuses to worship! So spake the great God on high, and I tell you gentlemen of the jury to alter by one jot or one tittle the word of the great God on high is something that neither you nor I dare do nor any other man, I don’t care if he’s rich or poor or Jew or Gentile or black or white. Murder in the first degree! Murder in the first degree! That is the only thing that will satisfy your oath, gentlemen of the jury! That is the only thing that will satisfy the demands of justice! That is the only thing that will satisfy the word of God! Murder in the first degree! Gentlemen, I ask you for that verdict! Gentlemen, I implore you for that verdict! For the honor of our fair state, gentlemen of the jury, for the honor of your state and my state, for the honor of our fair country, I ask you for a verdict of murder in the first degree!
I thank you.
[He sits down.]
COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENDANT
The defense rests.
2. The Judiciary
The same, a moment later. THE COURT wipes its glasses and turns gravely toward the jury.
THE COURT
Gentlemen of the jury, you have now h
eard the evidence and the argument of counsel. The court will now instruct you on the law, after which you may retire and consider your verdict.
The court instructs you that the defendant Summers is being tried under an indictment which charges murder in the first degree. On such an indictment the law permits you to return four verdicts. You may return a verdict of murder in the first degree, in which case you must satisfy yourselves that the defendant Summers intended to kill the deceased Brody and that he was actuated by malice prior to the act. It is not necessary that there should be a lapse of time between the formation of malice and the killing of the deceased. If you find that the defendant Summers intended to kill the deceased Brody and that he was actuated by malice at any time before the act, then you should find him guilty of murder in the first degree. Next, you may render a verdict of murder in the second degree. This must embrace malice, but not intent to kill. If you find that the defendant Summers bore malice against the deceased Brody, but did not intend to kill him, then you should return a verdict of murder in the second degree. Next, you may return a verdict of manslaughter. This must embrace intent to kill, but not malice. If you find the defendant Summers intended to kill, but bore no malice, then you should return a verdict of manslaughter. Next, you may render a verdict of acquittal. Under the law, if there is in your mind a reasonable doubt that the defendant Summers committed the act described in the indictment, or if his act was justifiable, then you should render a verdict of acquittal. As the defendant Summers, however, does not deny that he committed the act described in the indictment, but denies merely that his intent and purpose were those described in the indictment, you must disregard reasonable doubt and render a verdict of acquittal only if you find that his act was justifiable. If you find, then, that the defendant Summers was justified in killing the deceased Brody, then you should acquit him.
The evidence shows that the deceased Brody was a member of an organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, and that he was in the regalia of his organization when he was shot by the defendant Summers. You are to disregard all allusion in the testimony to the repute borne by this organization, whether favorable or unfavorable, and confine yourselves strictly to the actions of such members of it as were present at the time when the acts described in the indictment were committed. You are to disregard all allusions to the religion of the defendant Summers. As to whether he was an atheist, or a Disciple of Christ, or anything else, you are not concerned in the least.