“But,” Senator Compromise interjected, “if the young-— as epitomized by the campus rebels at Harnell-—-are allowed to proceed unchecked, they will destroy the fabric of society and the ideals they profess to believe in along with it. They make no distinction between the baby and the bath water. Both will go down the drain!”
“Some make no distinction,” Jonathan Relevant admitted. “But others do. You have to have faith that the more balanced view will prevail. The future generation will have to fight that out with one another. But right now, they can’t do that because their elders won’t let them. So the first order of business for them is confrontation with the mess their elders have bequeathed them.”
“And what about their violence?” Senator Carver’s black head bowed as if under a heavy weight. “Do you condone that?”
“No. But I understand it. Violence is relative. You get very upset over the property damage resulting from student disturbances. Yet over a thousand lives a week are being lost in a war which you gentlemen have it within your power to stop and while some of you oppose it none of vou have instituted the kind of legislative action which could bring it to a halt. This is the very sort of thing the students are talking about. How can you deplore their violence and let this much greater violence continue? How can you compare the harassment of a General Electric recruiter with the bombing and the slaughter that goes on every day? This is what they’re saying.”
“But aren’t they being untrue to their own principles?” Senator Carver wondered. “If they deplore violence and then act violently, aren’t they falling into the same trap of hypocrisy they accuse us of perpetuating?”
“Yes.” Jonathan Relevant sighed. “The Weathermen may well be the Chicago police force of tomorrow. But if it works out that way, you gentlemen will bear a large share of the responsibility. You’re the government. By your insensitivity to the reasonable demands of the moderates in the student movements and the black movements and the other movements for social reforms, you’re saying no to peaceful change and giving weight to those who claim violent revolution is the only answer. But there still may be time. . . .”
“Now it’s out there!” Senator Minstrel’s crew cut bristled. “Revolution! That’s what we’re really talking about! I’ve been sitting here listening for the past twenty minutes, and I haven’t understood one word of this gibberish. But revolution! That I understand! Now let’s stop all this effete hogwash and talk about what’s really happening at Harnell. Mr. Witness, who’s behind it? That’s what we want to know! The Black Panthers?”
“They’re not involved.”
“The communists?”
“No, sir.”
“Who then?”
“The students. First the Afro-American-”
“Aha!” Senator Schizoid thumped the table. “Then you admit that the nig-—-Nee-groes started the trouble?”
“Well, yes.”
“But who provoked them, Mr. Witness. That’s the question! Who provoked them?”
“You did.” Jonathan Relevant told him calmly.
“Me?” Senator Schizoid’s voice shot up the scale.
“Not you specifically. You generally. The whites in America who hold power. The white administration at Harnell which gave them a runaround of the sort that’s become standard procedure at most American colleges. Frustration was what lay behind the explosion at Harnell. Black frustration at the stalling. White frustration at red tape designed to maintain the status quo. When the young people— black and white— are constantly frustrated by the immovability of the power structure, they are driven to the streets.”
“But change can’t come about overnight,” Senator Carver pointed out.
“That‘s right,” Senator Compromise agreed. “It takes time.”
“There is no time!” Jonathan Relevant told them earnestly. “That’s what the kids see and you don’t. You think they’re just after instant gratification—that’s what you meant before when you talked about their permissive upbringing. But it isn’t that. It’s that there literally isn’t time. The paranoia of the military is demonstrable. We’re moments away from pushing the button, firing the missiles, setting off the holocaust. Pollution has passed the point of mere threat. It’s here. It’s killing people daily. Our air is very close to being unbreathable NOW! Our water is almost undrinkable NOW! Our soil is almost non-arable NOW! Our cities are uninhabitable and the residents of the ghettos are dying NOW! You simply don’t have the luxury of time. This is the point the young people grasp, the point you miss.”
“This man is a communist!” Senator Schizoid decided. “And I recommend to this sub-committee that we recommend to the Justice Department that he be prosecuted as such. It’s quite obvious to me that he crossed the state line to spread his poisonous doctrines and to foment riot at Harnell University.”
“The sub-committee is exceeding its authority!” Judge Tutored Foot was on his feet. “Your function is to investigate with the purpose of recommending legislation. Not to instigate prosecutions!”
“I recommend we have that savage arrested along with him,” Senator Wingright suggested.
“But I didn’t foment the riot!” Jonathan Relevant pro- tested.
The sub-committee ignored him and went into a huddle.
If I could only get them to look at me, Jonathan Relevant was thinking. All along he’d felt the frustration of not having established that automatic rapport which was such an integral function of his being. Without eye contact it eluded him and left him incomplete. It’s just what they do to the blacks and the students, he reflected. Dehumanization! That's what it’s called. Dehumanization!
The sub-committee had arrived at a decision. There were three votes to hold Jonathan Relevant and Judge Tutored Foot for federal prosecution. Senators Compromise and Carver abstained. Marshals were summoned to take them into custody.
“Won’t you look at me?” Jonathan Relevant tried one more time as the marshals were leading them away.
The backs of the sub-committee stared silently back at him. That was their answer. They weren’t about to look at him. They weren’t about to look at anything that threatened them.
Dehumanization!
CHAPTER TWELVE
Follow the bouncing ball, and sing along . . .
As Jonathan Relevant and Judge Tutored Foot were on their way to jail, word of the sub-committee action reached the President. While they were being fingerprinted, the President was dialing a certain confidential number. “Strom . . .” he said with deference in his voice when the call was answered. About the time the iron door of the detention cell clanged shut behind them, Senator Schizoid was answering his telephone. “Strom . . .” he said with even more deference than the President as he recognized the voice on the other end. Twenty minutes after they’d been jailed, Jonathan Relevant and Judge Tutored Foot were released.
Sing along with Strom . . .
More federal marshals greeted them as they emerged into the fresh air of Washington. Judge Foot was to be escorted to a plane waiting to take him back to Alcatraz. Jonathan Relevant was to be escorted to the White House.