“I pledge allegiance…
“To the flag…
“Of the United States of America…
“And to the Republic…
“For which it stands…
“Indivisible…
“With liberty and justice for all!”
As they sat, Sean leaned toward Sam’s ear. “Unless you’re an immigrant, a Jew, a Negro, a Republican, intellectual, communist, union organizer, or—”
“Sean, shut up, will you?” Sam snapped, and Sean sniggered softly.
Up front, Teddy pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket. “All right, c’mon, fellas, can I have some quiet back there? All right? Good. I hereby call the meeting of the Portsmouth District of the Rockingham County Party meeting to order. I move that the reading of last month’s minutes be waived. Is there a second? Good. All in favor? Good. Okay. Second agenda item, the Daniel Webster Boy Scout Council is looking for a donation of….”
And so it went. Sam crossed his feet and glared at the rear of the chair before him, stenciled with the A.L. #6 logo. He let his mind drift as Teddy went on, running the meeting as expertly as the Kingfish ran the Louisiana Legislature and then the Congress. Motions were made, seconded, and passed within seconds. He remembered reading somewhere—Time magazine, maybe?—that the record for bill passing was forty-four in just over twenty minutes, down in Baton Rouge, while Huey Long was senator and still running the state, before the assassination of FDR, the disastrous single term of Vice President Garner, and the triumphant election of Long in ’36 and his reelection in ’40.
He shifted in his seat. A cynical thought but a true one: Democracy might be dying, replaced by whatever was going on here and around the globe, but at least its death made for quick meetings. Teddy droned on, then said, “All right, only three more things left on our agenda tonight. First of all, we’re lookin’ for your help for some information.”
There was a stir in the room. “There are index cards being passed out now, okay? We’ve all been asked to write down on those cards three names of people you think need to be looked at. Okay? Neighbors, coworkers, people down the street, we’re lookin’ for anybody who talks out of turn, insults the President and his people, or anybody else that needs to be looked at because of subversive activities or words. Okay?”
Some murmurs, but nobody protested. Sam felt queasy, as though the chicken stew from earlier had spoiled. Sean whispered something about how stoolies were the only growth industry in this administration, but Sam ignored him. He was thinking about his own status as a stoolie, being pressed by both his boss and father-in-law to be a rat. And he thought suddenly about that terrified writer he had put into the hands of the Interior Department last night.
When a card was passed to him, he took out his fountain pen, scribbled down three names—Huey Long, Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin—and then passed the card forward. There. Up front somebody laughed—“At last my idiot cousin will get what’s coming to him”—and then Teddy collected the cards, breathing a bit hard, and passed them to one of the Long Legionnaires.
“Okay, item number two, some remarks from President Huey Long that we’re gonna play right now. Hank? Got the Victrola ready?”
There was a smattering of applause. Sam sat still, thinking about the other names on those cards. Sixty or seventy city residents were going about their business tonight, not realizing or imagining that they’d just been put on a list, a list that would eventually destroy them. Just like that firefighter O’Halloran, carving toys from scrap wood, peddling them on the street. Something cold seemed to catch in Sam’s throat. Maybe his own name was on that list.
He folded his arms tight as the man named Hank fiddled around with a Victrola set up in the corner, and from two speakers set up on chairs, there was a crackle of static and then the familiar Southern drawl of the thirty-third president of the United States:
“But my friends, unless we do share our wealth, unless we limit the size of the big man so as to give something to the little man, we can never have a happy or free people. God said so! He ordered it.
“We have everything our people need. Too much of food, clothes, and houses—why not let all have their fill and lie down in the ease and comfort God has given us? Why not? Because a few own everything—the masses own nothing.
“I wonder if any of you people who are listening to me were ever at a barbecue! We used to go there—sometimes one thousand people or more. If there were one thousand people, we would put enough meat and bread and everything else on the table for one thousand people. Then everybody would be called and everyone would eat all they wanted. But suppose at one of these barbecues for one thousand people that one man took ninety percent of the food and ran off with it and ate until he got sick and let the balance rot. Then nine hundred ninety-nine people would have only enough for one hundred to eat, and there would be many to starve because of the greed of just one person for something he couldn’t eat himself.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, America, all the people of America, have been invited to a barbecue. God invited us all to come and eat and drink all we wanted. He smiled on our land, we grew crops of plenty to eat and wear. He showed us in the earth the iron and other things to make everything we wanted. He unfolded to us the secrets of science so that our work might be easy. God called: ‘Come to my feast.’
“Then what happened? Rockefeller, Morgan, and their crowd stepped up and took enough for one hundred twenty million people and left only enough for five million, for all the other one hundred twenty-five million to eat. And so many million must go hungry and without these good things God gave us unless we call on them to put some of it back…”
Sam kept his hands fisted in his pockets as the record ended and most of the men in the room applauded. Not moving his hands was a small protest, but it was the best he could do. Sean sat next to him, head nodding forward, and Sam jabbed him with an elbow.
“Huh?”
“Speech over,” Sam said. “Look suitably enthusiastic.”
Sean covered a yawn. “Sorry. Dozed off. Must’ve listened to that same speech a half dozen times, starting ten years ago. Rockefellers and Morgans too rich. Everybody else too poor. A new Homestead Act. No man a slave, every man a king.” He looked about at the mostly smiling faces. “The same blah-blah-blah. If the Kingfish wants to get elected next year to a third term, he’s gonna have to do better than reusing the same old speech.”
“If it works, it works.”
Teddy, the Party leader, came back to the lectern and took another folded sheet of paper from his coat. “All right, all right, all right. Last item on tonight’s agenda. I gotta list here of some names. When I read out the names, you can leave the hall. For you, the meetin’ is over. We’ll see you next month. Okay, here we go: Abbott, Alan, Courtney, Delroy…”
It was as if the temperature in the hall had abruptly dropped. Sam saw that the others near him felt the same way, moving in their seats, looking around. No matter what Teddy said, this was unusual, this wasn’t right. Sean whispered gleefully, “That’s how it happens in the occupied lands. You get separated out. One group lives, the others get shot. Wonder what group we’re in.”
“Sean, nobody’s going to get shot.”