The Day They Came to Arrest the Book

by Nat Hentoff

  “On page four: ‘By and by they fetched the niggers in.’

  “On page six: ‘Miss Watson’s big nigger, named Jim.’

  “Page seven: ‘And he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in the country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over…. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire.’ ”

  Gordon McLean closed the book and shoved it back in his pocket. “What the hell kind of racist book is that to have in a school. God damn! How’d you like to pick up a book you’re supposed to be reading for class, and it’s full of ‘kikes.’ On every page, ‘kike’ comes right up at you. How’d you like that?”

  “Oh,” Scott Berman said, “I’d just show it at home, and watch the fireworks when my father comes marching up here. That’d be the end of that book.”

  “That’s just what I did.” Gordon McLean nodded. “I brought that Huckleberry Finn home, and my father is calling Mr. Moore today for an immediate appointment. You know, I figured Miss Baines was a decent lady, but she doesn’t give one damn about how somebody black like me feels having to read ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger’ all the time. And not in some Klan piece of garbage, but in a school book!”

  “Unbelievable,” Scott Berman said sympathetically.

  That afternoon, in the coffee shop two blocks away from George Mason High School, Deirdre Fitzgerald leaned forward and asked, “What did happen last year that led Mrs. Salters to leave?”

  “Well”—Nora Baines stirred the cream in her coffee —“you’ve got to understand first that Karen Salters is no firebrand. The only crusade I ever knew her to get involved in was saving the whales. And since one of her ancestors was captain of a whaling ship out of New Bedford, I put that to guilt.

  “So, when more than the usual number of would-be censors began to come around the school a couple of years ago,” Baines went on, “Karen used to say, ‘There aren’t many books I’d go to the stake for.’ She liked the job. She needed the money. What she didn’t need was trouble. Her husband had been sick for a long time before he died, so that took care of whatever they’d saved. What I mean is, Karen wasn’t carrying any banners. Not for the First Amendment, or anything else.”

  “What kinds of censors were coming around?” Deirdre asked.

  “The standard brands. Parents who didn’t want their children reading about sex or being exposed to words they weren’t allowed to use at home. No problem there, of course, so long as they wanted to prevent only their own kids from reading those books. You’d just give the kid something else. But some of the parents wanted to save every single child in the school from those books.

  “Then”—Nora Baines buttered her English muffin—“there were people who said they were complaining only for themselves and their own children. But, they’d pull out a list of wicked books that looked exactly like lists we’d seen from other folks who said they were only acting for themselves. I must say, however, some did come straight out and say they were part of an organization that was determined to clean up the whole school. And woe unto anybody who stood in their way. So it is that we have come to know, if not exactly love, Concerned Citizens, Parents for Morality in the Schools, and SOCASH. That is not a vegetable. That is ‘Save Our Children from Atheist Secular Humanism.’ ”

  “I think I know the answer to what I’m going to ask,” Deirdre Fitzgerald said, “but which books were they after?”

  “All the usual suspects.” Nora Baines signaled for more coffee. “Go Ask Alice. Poor dead child. They think she’s a vampire and keep driving silver stakes through her heart. And that aging menace, Catcher in the Rye. And, of course, sweet Judy Blume. With blazing eyes and flaring nostrils they have come after Blubber and Forever and Then Again, Maybe I Won’t and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Oh, my, I think they would exorcise Judy Blume if they could get her to hold still. And Kurt Vonnegut too. Although I think they would rather skin him alive—to see all the creatures from hell popping out.”

  Deirdre laughed. “Your review committee must be awfully busy.”

  “That”—Nora Baines banged her hand on the table—“is the problem. Oh, we have all the procedures ready to go. The complaint form for the child savers to fill out. The way in which the review committee is to be put together—from the school and the town—to examine the complaint. And if the book is arrested, how the trial is to be conducted.”

  “I don’t understand,” Deirdre said. “So what’s the problem?”

  “Our sneaky principal is the problem. Mr. Moore prefers to handle these complaints informally. They hardly ever get to the review committee. Mighty Mike meets with the indignant parent, or whoever, and then he takes care of the complaint.”

  “What do you mean?” Deirdre asked.

  “Let’s say it’s a library book,” Nora Baines said. “Not that we haven’t had some complaints about classroom books. He handles those the same way. Of course, he hasn’t had to deal with me yet. But if it’s a library book, Mr. Moore would have a word with Mrs. Salters. She used to imitate his performances on those occasions.”

  Nora Baines squared her shoulders and, taking on a deep, buttery voice, impersonated Mr. Moore:

  “ ‘My dear Mrs. Salters, with all the good literature available, surely we don’t need the questionable books, the offensive books, on our shelves. This title, for example. A number of parents have dropped by to talk to me about it. Surely this one book is not crucial to the education of our young charges. I am certain, Mrs. Salters, that someone of your broad experience and knowledge will easily be able to substitute a more balanced—well, why should I be ashamed to say it?—a more healthy book.

  “ ‘I’m not criticizing you for having ordered this title. Not at all. I am merely suggesting that if you will reflect on this matter with me, you will agree that this book will not be missed if it should be retired from the shelves. Or, if not wholly removed, at least placed on a restricted shelf.’ ”

  “Oh, my God,” Deirdre Fitzgerald said. “One of those.”

  “The Emperor of Smooth, my dear. Never, ever will you hear the word ‘censorship’ pass his plump, innocent lips. If Mighty Mike were a mortician, he would sooner give a discount than say ‘death.’ ‘Passed away’ is what he’d say. And so, when he kills or locks up a book, it is not censorship. It is simply selecting another book to take its place.”

  “And Mrs. Salters,” the new librarian asked, “she went along with it without saying a word?”

  “At first”—Nora Baines paused to finish her coffee—“Karen figured that one title, a few more titles, weren’t worth a battle. And she knew there would have been a fight. A mean fight. Karen was no dummy. She knew, for all the honey on Mr. Moore’s words, that she was getting orders; and if she didn’t follow those orders, he’d make her life miserable. She’d seen what he’d done to people who crossed him.

  “But after a while,” Baines continued, “Karen got to where she couldn’t stand figuring out what to say to kids who came in for one of those books and who had to be told it was no longer in the library or that it couldn’t be touched unless the kid had a note from his parents. So I wasn’t surprised when Karen, quite agitated, told me one day, ‘This is not why I became a librarian—to keep books from people.’ Soon after, she quit.”

  “Without a fight?” Deirdre Fitzgerald frowned.

  “There was one,” Baines said. “It was a doozy. But she’s going to have to tell you about that. So far as the record shows, Karen left this school on excellent terms with the principal. She has a grand letter of recommendation from the book killer.”

  “Sounds like they must have struck some kind of bargain,” Deirdre Fitzgerald said. “But what?”

  Nora Baines laughed. “I am sworn to say no more. I’ve probably said too much already. But I did not want you to think that Karen was a wimp. She came through in the end. She came thro
ugh beautifully.”

  Deirdre Fitzgerald put her fingers together and pressed hard. “And now … it’s my turn, I suppose.”

  IV

  “Gordon’s pretty mad,” Barney said as he, Luke, and Kate walked down the front steps that afternoon after their last class. “But he’s missing the point. That’s the way people talked then. Mark Twain is just showing the way it was.”

  “We all know the way it was,” Kate said sharply. “That doesn’t mean Gordon and the other black kids have to have ‘nigger’ shoved in their faces on every page.”

  “Some people are too damn sensitive,” Luke said. “Nobody’s calling them that. The book was written a long time ago.”

  “Just like a dumb Swede.” Kate looked at him.

  “Now that’s different.” Luke smiled. “You’re making it personal. But I don’t mind, honey.”

  “You watch that!” Kate glared at him and then suddenly smiled. “Okay, you’re entitled. But I’ll tell you guys something else. That’s not all that’s poisonous about Huckleberry Finn. I read the whole thing last night. All the women in it are yo-yos. You’ll see. No, maybe you won’t. In fact, I’m sure you won’t. This book is just going to reinforce your ignorance about women.”

  Striding past them, Mr. Moore waved heartily.

  “And don’t you tell me”—Kate pointed to Barney as he waved back at the principal—“that’s the way it was then. There were plenty of women in the nineteenth century who were strong and brilliant and talked back to stupid men. And who weren’t always going around saying ‘nigger,’ like the women in that book.”

  “Are you saying,” Barney said softly, “that we ought to take all the copies of Huckleberry Finn and make a bonfire out of them?”

  “Crude. Sometimes you are very crude,” Kate said. “What I am saying is that Mrs. Baines could have picked a book that isn’t so offensive, that isn’t so—so crude.”

  “Honey,” Luke said, “you just did a great selling job. Now I can’t wait to read that book. Nothing I like better than something that’s real offensive. Keeps me awake.”

  “Do you find it’s really worth all that effort?” Kate started to walk away. “Staying awake, I mean.”

  “Do you know what’s the matter with her?” Luke said to Barney as they walked in the opposite direction. “She takes everything so damn seriously. She never has any fun.”

  “That’s her fun,” Barney said. “Sticking pins in people. And sometimes she has a good sharp point. But not this time. Still, I like her. She keeps me awake.”

  “Because she’s so offensive?” Luke grinned.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way.” Barney, turning around, watched Kate crossing the campus. “I wouldn’t put it that way at all.”

  One wall of the principal’s office was covered with framed photographs—all of them with himself, smiling, standing next to a visiting dignitary. There were at least half a dozen shots of Mr. Moore with the mayor of the town—a small, glowing man who had first been elected to that office before the students at George Mason High were born. Several governors were on the wall, along with judges who had also spoken at school assemblies. And there were a number of authors. You could tell they were authors because they were always giving Mr. Moore a book. Sometimes the book was upside down, but neither the principal nor the author seemed to mind.

  There was even a Hollywood star on that wall. John Wayne. Years ago he had been making a movie in the town, and Mr. Moore had asked him to come talk to the students. Nobody seemed to remember much of what he had said, but everybody was very proud and pleased that Mr. Wayne had actually been inside George Mason High. Almost everybody. In the back of the hall, a few students—this was during the Vietnam War—had been carrying signs asking John Wayne if he preferred his Vietnamese babies baked or fried.

  A bunch of students and faculty members tore the signs down and hustled the troublemakers outside. The principal had apologized to Mr. Wayne. But Duke—that was his nickname—standing up there so big and so calm, he said he didn’t mind those noisy students. That’s the American way, Duke said—speaking your mind even if there’s nothing in it. He got a big cheer for that.

  Looking at the wall the morning that Mr. McLean was due for his Huckleberry Finn appointment, it occurred to Mr. Moore that practically all the photographs were of whites. There were a couple of black ministers; the president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; a young black soprano who had won a regional competition but had then sunk like a stone; and a once and former black member of the school board. But that was about it.

  Mr. Moore was wondering whether anyone in the social studies department had a large photograph of Martin Luther King, but he dropped the idea. It would look phony—the only photograph on the wall without himself in it. Maybe he could say he’d been sick that day. No, too curious a coincidence. Well, he must invite more black speakers. There was certainly an imbalance on that wall. It would take a while to make it ten percent black, but that was a sound goal. Mr. Moore felt good at having made this affirmative-action decision.

  He looked at his watch, frowned, and wished he had made that decision some time ago. There was a knock at the door.

  “Yes, Rena?” Mr. Moore said.

  His secretary opened the door. “Mr. McLean to see you.”

  Carl McLean had done all of the talking, occasionally nodding to his son, first to supply a page reference, and then Huckleberry Finn itself—from which Mr. McLean would then read in a firm, angry voice. At least, the principal was thinking, the black parent had not seemed to pay any particular attention to the wall of photographs.

  “It is not only the profusion, the infestation of the word ‘nigger’ in this book,” Carl McLean continued. “I have shown you more than enough of that. Every time a black child sees that word, it is an insult, a profound insult. But underneath all these insults, of course, is the utterly barbarous attitude toward black people this epithet reflects. Gordon, that dialogue about the accident on the steamboat—”

  “Page one ninety-three, Dad.” Gordon handed his father the copy of Huckleberry Finn.”

  “They are talking about an accident”—Carl McLean looked at the principal, who was raptly following his every word—“and there is this dialogue:

  “ ‘We blowed out a cylinder head.’

  “ ‘Good gracious! Anybody hurt?’

  “ ‘No’m. Killed a nigger.’

  “ ‘Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.’ ”

  The father closed the book and gave it back to his son. “Now,” Carl McLean said, “there is no question that’s the way most whites felt about blacks at the time. And if the truth be told, at the present time as well. But is that suitable material for a classroom where the young are presumably being educated to become, at long last, civilized in matters of race?”

  “Well”—Mr. Moore cleared his throat—“it’s been a long time since I read Huckleberry Finn myself. I guess I was about Gordon’s age”—he smiled at the student, who did not smile back—“when I had to read it for school too. I did refresh my recollection of it, to some extent, last night; and while I am no scholar in the American novel, the possibility occurs to me that Mark Twain was expressing disapproval of racial bigotry in that passage.”

  Leaning forward, Carl McLean pointed at the book in his son’s lap and then at the principal. “On that page there is not a line, not a word, of disapproval of the concept that black people are not human. Not from any of the characters. Not from the narrator, Finn. And nowhere else in the book is there any disapproval of the use of the word ‘nigger’ or of the diseased state of mind of those who use that word.”

  “But surely,” Mr. Moore said soothingly, “in class discussion, Ms. Baines, an excellent teacher, and certainly a person without a speck of prejudice—”

  “Now listen—” Carl McLean put a finger on the principal’s desk. “I have no doubt that the teacher will say the right thing
about how badly those white folks treated blacks. But let me tell you something, sir. What is going to stay in the minds of these kids, white and black, is: ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger.’ And they are also going to remember the ignorance and superstition of the so-called sympathetic black character, ‘Nigger Jim,’ as well as the ignorance and superstition of every other black, without exception, in this book.”

  Gordon McLean was nodding vigorously at every point made by his father, who continued: “Mr. Twain was one hell of a good writer. That’s why this book is still alive. So it doesn’t much matter what a teacher says about it, how she explains it. The book speaks very powerfully for itself. And what it keeps saying is ‘nigger.’ ”

  Carl McLean rose. “Let me lay it right on the line, Mr. Moore. I do not want my son, or any other black child, to have to hear in a classroom, day after day, ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger,’ ‘nigger.’ It’s demeaning and degrading and, if you will excuse me, stupid on the part of whoever selected that book. I believe I have made myself clear, and I expect the book will be pulled out of the course. Immediately!”

  The principal also rose. “I hear you,” he said. “I hear you loud and clear, Mr. McLean. And certainly, any parent who feels that strongly that a particular book is not right for his child—”

  “Come on, Mr. Moore. I know what you’re going to say, but I said any black child. Not just Gordon. No, that won’t work—excusing only my son from having to read the book. It wouldn’t be fair, in any case, because that book is a basic part of the course. If Gordon doesn’t read it, he’s going to know only part of what everybody else is studying. And on the other hand, for God’s sake, they’ll be talking about that book in class. What is Gordon supposed to do—hold his hands over his ears? There is only one thing you can do, Mr. Moore. Huckleberry Finn has to be eliminated!”

  Carl McLean waved a finger at the principal. “And it has to be eliminated not only from the curriculum. That book cannot be allowed to remain in the school library for any child who may come upon it. You yourself said that your teacher would interpret the book correctly, and I pointed out that no amount of interpretation can undo the harm of that book’s language. But for the sake of argument, suppose you have a point. All the more reason to remove the book from the library, where a child just picks it up, reads it—figuring it’s okay because it’s in the school—and gets no interpretation from anybody. That way the book is guaranteed to do harm. Huckleberry Finn has no proper place anywhere in George Mason High School.”