Mr Speaker! I move to amend by striking out the last word.'
A stratagem to gain the floor,' Joe whispered.
Is it the purpose of the honourable member who preceded me to imply-'
It went on and on. I turned to Jedson and asked, I can't figure out this chap who is speaking; a while ago he was hollering about cows. What's he afraid of, religious prejudices?'
Partly that; he's from a very conservative district. But he's lined up with the independent oilmen. They don't want the state setting the terms; they think they can do better dealing with the gnomes directly.'
But what interest has he got in oil? There's no oil in his district.'
No, but there is outdoor advertising. The same holding company that controls the so-called independent oilmen holds a voting trust in the Countryside Advertising Corporation. And that can be awfully important to him around election time.
The Speaker looked our way, and an assistant sergeant at arms threaded his way towards us. We shut up. Someone moved the order of the day, and the oil bill was put aside for one of the magic bills that had already come out of committee. This was a bill to outlaw every sort of magic, witchcraft, thaumaturgy.
No one spoke for it but the proponent, who launched into a diatribe that was more scholarly than logical. He quoted extensively from Blackstone's Commentaries and the records of the Massachusetts trials, and finished up with his head thrown back, one finger waving wildly to heaven and shouting,' "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live! '
No one bothered to speak against it; it was voted on immediately without roll call, and, to my complete bewilderment, passed without a single nay! I turned to Jedson and found him smiling at the expression on my face.
It doesn't mean a thing, Archie,' he said quietly.
Huh?'
He's a party wheel horse who had to introduce that bill to please a certain bloc of his constituents.'
You mean he doesn't believe in the bill himself?'
Oh no, he believes in it all right, but he also knows it is hopeless. It has evidently been agreed to let him pass it over here in the Assembly this session so that he would have something to take home to his people. Now it will go to the senate committee and die there; nobody will ever hear of it again.'
I guess my voice carries too well, for my reply got us a really dirty look from the Speaker. We got up hastily and left.
Once outside I asked Joe what had happened that he was back so soon. He would not touch it,' he told me. Said that he couldn't afford to antagonize the association.'
Does that finish us?'
Not at all. Sally and I are going to see another member right after lunch. He's tied up in a committee meeting at the moment.'
We stopped in a restaurant where Jedson had arranged to meet Sally Logan. Jedson ordered lunch, and I had a couple of cans of devitalized beer, insisting on their bringing it to the booth in the unopened containers. I don't like to get even a little bit tipsy, although I like to drink. On another occasion I had paid for wizard-processed liquor and had received intoxicating liquor instead. Hence the unopened containers.
I sat there, staring into my glass and thinking about what I had heard that morning, especially about the bill to outlaw all magic. The more I thought about it the better the notion seemed. The country had gotten along all right in the old days before magic had become popular and commercially widespread. It was unquestionably a headache in many ways, even leaving out our present troubles with racketeers and monopolists. Finally I expressed my opinion to Jedson.
But he disagreed. According to him prohibition never does work in any field. He said that anything which can be supplied and which people want will he supplied - law or no law. To prohibit magic would simply be to turn over the field to the crooks and the black magicians.
I see the drawbacks of magic as well as you do,' he went on, but it is like firearms. Certainly guns made it possible for almost anyone to commit murder and get away with it. But once they were invented the damage was done. All you can do is to try to cope with it. Things like the Sullivan Act - they didn't keep the crooks from carrying guns and using them; they simply took guns out of the hands of honest people.
It's the same with magic. If you prohibit it, you take from decent people the enormous boons to be derived from a knowledge of the great arcane laws, while the nasty, harmful secrets hidden away in black grimoires and red grimoires will still be bootlegged to anyone who will pay the price and has no respect for law.
Personally, I don't believe there was any less black magic practised between, say, 1750 and 1950 than there is now, or was before then. Take a look at Pennsylvania and the hex country. Take a look at the Deep South. But since that time we have begun to have the advantages of white magic too.'
Sally came in, spotted us, and slid into one side of the booth. My,' she said with a sigh of relaxation, I've just fought my way across the lobby of the Constitution. The "third house" is certainly out in full force this trip. I've never seen em so thick, especially the women.'
She means lobbyists, Archie,' Jedson explained. Yes, I noticed them. I'd like to make a small bet that two thirds of them are synthetic.'
I thought I didn't recognize many of them,' Sally commented. Are you sure, Joe?'
Not entirely. But Bodie agrees with me. He says that the women are almost all mandrakes, or androids of some sort. Real women are never quite so perfectly beautiful - nor so tractable. I've got him checking on them now.'
In what way?'
He says he can spot the work of most of the magicians capable of that high-powered stuff. If possible we want to prove that all these androids were made by Magic, Incorporated - though I'm not sure just what use we can make of the fact.
Bodie has even located some zombies,' he added.
Not really!' exclaimed Sally. She wrinkled her nose and looked disgusted. Some people have odd tastes.'
They started discussing aspects of politics that I know nothing about, while Sally put away a very sizeable lunch topped off by a fudge ice-cream cake slice. But I noticed that she ordered from the left-hand side of the menu - all vanishing items, like the alcohol in my beer.
I found out more about the situation as they talked. When a bill is submitted to the legislature, it is first referred to a committee for hearings. Ditworth's bill, A B 22, had been referred to the Committee on Professional Standards. Over in the Senate an identical bill had turned up and had been referred by the lieutenant governor, who presides in the Senate, to the Committee on Industrial Practices.
Our immediate object was to find a sponsor for our bill; if possible, one for each house, and preferably sponsors who were members, in their respective houses, of the committees concerned. All of this needed to be done before Ditworth's bills came up for hearing.
I went with them to see their second-choice sponsor for the Assembly. He was not on the Professional Standards Committee, but he was on the Ways and Means Committee, which meant that he carried a lot of weight in any committee.
He was a pleasant chap named Spence - Luther B. Spence - and I could see that he was quite anxious to please Sally - for past favours, I suppose. But they had no more luck with him than with their first-choice man. He said that he did not have time to fight for our bill, as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee was sick and he was chairman pro tem.
Sally put it to him flatly. Look here, Luther, when you have needed a hand in the past, you've got it from me. I hate to remind a man of obligations, but you will recall that matter of the vacancy last year on the Fish and Game Commission. Now I want action on this matter, and not excuses!'