The Reverend Lorenzo Niesen was the first to arrive. His felt hat was sodden, the inner band caked with filth; his suspenders hung loosely over his two-dollar striped shirt; his trousers were shapeless--yet he was proud of his appearance, and it was a vicious, thrusting pride. Were someone to hand him a check for five thousand dollars, he would not alter any part of his attire. It was country-honest, as he himself was. Whoever despised dirt despised likewise the common people. God's favorites.
Was there soap in Bethlehem?
Did the Apostles have nail files and lotions?
He sat down on the grass, glared at the bright lights of the Reo motion picture theatre across the street, and began to fan himself with his hat. Little strands of silver hair lifted and fell, lifted and fell, as he fanned.
At six thirty-five, Bart Carey and Phillip Dongen appeared. They nodded at Lorenzo and sat down near him.
"Well, it's hot."
Others drifted into the area, some singly, some in groups.
"Hot!"
By six forty, over one hundred and fifty residents of Caxton were standing on the cement walk or sitting on the grass, waiting.
"You see 'em this morning?"
Fifty more showed up in the next ten minutes.
"Christ, yes."
At seven a bell was struck and a number of cars screeched, halted, discharging teenage children. They crowded at the steps of the courthouse.
It was quiet.
Ten minutes passed. Then, a young man in a dark suit walked across the empty street. He nodded at the people, made his way through the aisle that parted for him, and climbed to the top step. He stood there with his back to the courthouse door.
"That's him?" Phil Dongen whispered.
Bart Carey said, "Yeah."
Lorenzo Niesen was silent. He studied the young man, trying to decide whether or not he approved. Awful green, he thought. Too good of a clothes on him. Like as not a Northerner.
I don't know.
The crowd's voice rose to a murmuring, then fell again as the young man in the dark suit lifted his hands in the air.
"Folks," he said, in a soft, almost gentle voice, "my name is Adam Cramer. Some of you know me by now and you know what I'm here for. To those I haven't had a chance to talk with yet, let me say this: I'm from Washington D.C., the Capital, and I'm in Caxton to help the people fight the trouble that's come up."
He smiled suddenly and took off his coat. "I wish one thing, though," he said. "I wish school started in January. I mean, it is hot. Aren't you hot?"
Hesitant, cautious laughter followed.
"Well," Adam Cramer said, dropping his smile, "it's going to get hotter, for a whole lot of people. I'll promise you that. This here little town is going to burn, what I mean; it's going to burn the conscience of the country, now, and put out a light that everyone and everybody will see and feel. This town, I'm talking about. Caxton!" He paused. "People, something happened today. You've all heard about it now. Some of you saw it with your own eyes. What happened was: Twelve Negroes went to the Caxton high school and sat with the white children there. Nobody stopped them, nobody turned them out. And, friends, listen; that makes today the most important day in the history of the South. Why? Because it marks the real beginning of integration. That's right. It's been tried other places, but you know what they're saying? They're saying, Well, if it works in Caxton, it'll work all over, because Caxton is a typical Southern town. If the people don't want integration, they'll do something about it! If they don't do something about it, that means they want it! Two plus two equals four!
"Except there's one thing wrong. They're saying you all don't give a darn whether the whites mix with the blacks because you haven't really got down to fighting; but I ask you, how can somebody fight what he doesn't see? They've kept the facts away from you; they've cheated and deceived every one of you, and filled your heads with filthy lies. It has all been a calculated campaign to keep you in the dark, so that when you finally do wake up, Why, we're sorry, it's just too late!
"All right; I'm associated with the Society of National American Patriots, which is an organization dedicated to giving the people the truth about desegregation. We've been studying this situation here ever since January, when Judge Silver made his decision, and I'm going to give that situation to you. Of course, many present now are fully aware of it. Many have done what they consider their best to prevent it from happening. But there are quite a few who simply do not know the facts; who don't know either what led up to that black little parade into the school today, or what real significance it has for everyone in the country.
"I ask you to bear with me, folks, but I give you fair warning now. When you do know the truth, you're going to be faced with a decision. You don't think you've got one now, but you do, all right, and you'll see it. And it'll get inside your blood and make it boil and you won't be able to run away from it! Because I'm going to show you that the way this country is going to go depends entirely and wholly and completely on you!"
Tom McDaniel put away his note-pad and walked over to his friend, the lawyer James Wolfe. Wolfe, he noticed, was staring, strained and curious and expectant, like all the others. And, for some reason, this annoyed him. "Sound familiar?" he said.
Wolfe started. "Oh--Tom. Yes, he seems to be a pretty smart kid."
"But a phony," Tom said.
"Oh?"
"Absolutely. The accent's fake; I talked with him earlier. He thinks it's going to work!"
"What?"
"The plain-folks routine."
"And you don't?" Wolfe nodded toward the crowd. "I can't say I entirely agree."
"Do you think it's trouble, Jim?"
"No," Wolfe said, glancing away from Tom. "The time for trouble's over."
"Everything," Adam Cramer was saying, "has got to have a beginning. And the beginning to what you saw today was almost seventeen years ago. In 1940, a Negro woman named Charlotte Green, and her husband, let it be known that they didn't care much for the equal facilities that were being offered to their children. No sooner were the words out of their mouths but the NAACP swooped down. You all know about this organization, I imagine. The so-called National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is now and has always been nothing but a Communist front, headed by a Jew who hates America and doesn't make any bones about it, either. They've always operated on the 'martyr' system, which is: They pick out trouble spots or create them where they never existed, and start putting out publicity. Like take the Emmet Till case. A nigger tries to rape a white woman and tells her husband he'll keep on trying and nobody is going to stop him. The husband can't go to the police with just a threat, so he makes sure, like any of us would, that no nigger is going to rape his wife. Now those are the facts. But what happens? The NAACP moves in and says that the white man is a murderer! Yeah, for protecting his own wife! And you know the bitter tears was shed over that poor, mistreated little colored boy, poor Emmet Till whose only crime was being dark! Any of you read about it?" Adam Cramer shook his head in mock consternation. "The coon was made into a martyr, what they call, and things were rolling along real good, until somebody with some brains showed how Emmet Till's Hero Daddy--you remember how they said that's what he was, and he died in line of duty overseas?--was hanged and given a dishonorable discharge for, see if you can guess it: rape! Uh-huh! Of course, the jury wasn't hoodwinked and declared those men who taught the nigger boy a lesson (and it wasn't ever even proved they'd done anything more!) innocent. But the old N-double-A-C-P almost had it knocked.
"Anyway, that's how those guys work. For all I know, they hired this Green woman (she lives on Simon's Hill) to stir things up in the first place. They put the pressure on between 1940 and 1949, pretending that all they wanted, you see, was really equal separate facilities. Farragut County said all right and helped the Negroes send their kids to an accredited school, Lincoln High, in Farragut. I visited this school, friends, and there isn't a thing wrong with it. It's a whole sight cl
eaner and neater that any place these nigger kids ever saw before, like as not; and that's for sure! But the Commie group tipped its hand right then and showed, for all to see, that it was after something different. Does September 1950 mean anything to you people? Well, it was the second big step toward today. In September 1950 a bunch of Negro boys tried to enroll in Caxton High! Remember?"
There was a murmuring from the crowd.
"Why?" Adam Cramer asked, modulating his voice to its original softness. "Do you think it was something they thought up by themselves? Would any Southern Negro have that much gall? No, sir. No. The NAACP engineered the whole operation, knowing in advance what would happen! The students were turned away; the county board of education refused to let them in--putting it on the line--and the usual arrangements were made for the Negroes to attend Lincoln. Then, three full months later, five of these kids--with the full backing of the NAACP--filed suit against the Farragut County School Board. And that's when the ball really got rolling. The Plaintiffs, these Negroes, claimed that the out-of-county arrangements didn't meet the county's obligation to furnish equal facilities. The District Court said they were crazy and ruled accordingly. All during 1952 and 1954 the case, which had been appealed, was held in abeyance, pending the United States Supreme Court's action in five school segregation cases under consideration at the same time.
"Well, the Commies didn't waste a second. They had most of the world, but America was a pocket of resistance to them. They couldn't attack from outside, so, they were attacking from inside. They knew only too well, friends, that the quickest way to cripple a country is to mongrelize it. So they poured all the millions of dollars the Jews could get for them into this one thing: desegregation.
"In August of 1955, the NAACP demanded a final judgment. Judge Silver, who is a Jew and is known to have leftist leanings--"
"Who says so?" a voice cried.
"The record says so," Adam Cramer said tightly. "Look it up. Abraham Silver belongs, for one thing, to the Quill and Pen Society, which receives its funds indirectly from Moscow."
Tom McDaniel grinned. He said to Wolfe, "He'll hang himself!"
"You think so?"
"Oh, hell, Jim--people love the judge around here. He's a public idol, and you know it. Everybody knows it wasn't his fault about the ruling!"
"I'm not so sure."
"Well, anyway; the Quill and Pen--that's really stretching it."
"I'm not so sure of that, either," James Wolfe said, in a rather grim voice. "Don't forget, Tom: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time..."
. . . so what did the Judge do? He instructed the county school board to proceed with reasonable expedition to comply with the rule to desegregate. In spite of the complete disapproval of the PTA, in spite of the protests of the Farragut County Society for Constitutional Government, in spite of petitions presented by Verne Shipman, one of Caxton's leading citizens, and Thomas McDaniel, the editor of the Caxton Messenger--Judge Abe Silver went right ahead and ordered integration for Caxton High School, at a date no later than fall, 1956.
"Mayor Harry Satterly could have stopped it, but he didn't have the guts to, because he knew the powers that were and are behind Silver. He knew how much his skin was worth.
"The Governor could have stopped it in a second, but I don't have to tell you about him; I hope I don't, anyway.
"And the principal of the high school, Harley Paton--he could have brought the whole mess to a screaming halt. But he's too lily-livered to do the right thing."
"That's a dirty lie!" A young man in a T-shirt and blue jeans walked up to the lower step and glared at Adam Cramer. "The principal done everything he could!"
"Did he? Did he close down the school and refuse to open it until the rights of the town were restored?"
"No, he didn't do that. But--"
"Did he bring the students together and tell them to stay away?"
"Hell, he couldn't do that."
"No," Adam Cramer said, smiling condescendingly. "No; he couldn't do that. It would take courage. It would mean risking his fine job and that fat pay-check!"
The young man bunched his fists, reddened, and when someone shouted, "Git on away, let 'im speak his piece, kid!" walked back into the crowd.
"Just a moment," Adam Cramer said. "I know that Harley Paton has a lot of friends. And if I were here for any other purpose than to bring the truth, I'd be smart enough to leave him alone. Wouldn't I? Now I don't say that the principal of Caxton High is necessarily a dishonest man. I merely say, and the facts bring this out, that he is a weak man. And weakness is no more to be tolerated than dishonesty--not when we have our children's future at stake, leastwise! I warned you that the truth would be bitter. It always is. But I ain't going to quit just because I've touched a sore point. No, sir. There's a whole lot of sore points that are going to be touched before I'm through!"
"Keep talking," Lorenzo Niesen called. "We're listening."
"All right. Now, you may think that the problem is simply whether or not we're going to allow twelve Negroes to go to our school; but that's only a small, small part of it. I'm in a position to know because I've been with an organization that's studied the whole thing. You don't see the forest for the trees, my friends; believe me. The real problem, whether you like it or not, is whether you're going to sit back and let desegregation spread throughout the entire South . . ."
Verne Shipman stood on the sidewalk, hidden behind the rusted lawn cannon, and listened to Adam Cramer. He listened to the same speech he'd heard earlier, the same statistics, and he observed that the people who comprised the crowd were listening also. Intently. Which, of course, they ought to do, for the words made sense.
However, there was yet no mention of money. No word about the joining of this organization and the parting with hard-earned funds.
I will listen, he thought, but that will be the test.
". . . and it's an indisputable fact," Adam Cramer spoke on, "that there could be no other result. The Negroes will literally, and I do mean literally, control the South. The vote will be theirs. You'll have black mayors and black policemen (like they do in New York and Chicago already) and like as not, a black governor; and black doctors to deliver your babies--if they find the time, that is--and that's the way it'll be. Did you even stop to think about that when you let those twelve enter your white school? Did you?"
The miniscule festive note that had marked the beginning of the meeting was now instantly dissolved. Bart Carey and Phil Dongen wore deep frowns, and Rev. Lorenzo Niesen was shaking his head up and down, up and down, signifying rage.
"Some of us did!" Carey said, in a husky, thickly accented voice.
"I know," Adam Cramer granted. "The Farragut County Federation for Constitutional Government was a step in the right direction. But it didn't accomplish much because the liars have done their jobs well. They've made you think your hands are tied. You couldn't afford fancy lawyers, so you failed. But, Mr. Carey, I'm not talking specifically to you or to those like yourself who have worked to fight this thing. I'm talking to the people who are still confused, in the dark, who haven't fully realized or understood or grasped the meaning of this here ruling. To those, Mr. Carey, who have been soft and who have trusted the government to do right by them. It's a natural thing, you understand. We all love our country, and it's natural to believe that the people who run it are a hundred per cent square. But our great senator from Wisconsin showed us, I think, how wrong that view happens to be. He proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are skunks and rats and vermin in the government! Didn't he?"
"That's right!" shouted Lorenzo Niesen. "That's right. God bless the senator!"
"Yes," Adam Cramer said. "Amen to that, sir. We know now that there are men with fine titles and with great power, wonderful power, who are doing their level best to sell our country out to the Communists. And it's these men, folks, and nobody else, who're cramming integration down your throats. There isn't any question in the world about that."
Slowly Adam Cramer's voice was rising in pitch. Perspiration was running down his face, staining his collar, but he did not make any effort to wipe it away.
"Here's something," he said. "I'll bet you all don't know. In interpreting the school decisions of May 17, 1954 and May 31, 1955, by the United States Supreme Court, Judge John J. Parker of the Fourth Circuit Court of the United States, speaking in the case--" he removed a note from his breast pocket--"of Briggs versus Elliot, said:
'. . . it is. important that we point out exactly what the Supreme Court has decided and what it has not decided in this case. It has not decided that the Federal Courts are to take over and regulate the public schools of the states. It has not decided that the states must mix persons of different races in the schools or must require them to attend schools or must deprive them of the right of choosing the schools they attend. What it has decided, and all it has decided, is that a state may not deny to any person on account of race the right to attend any school that it maintains. This, under the decision of the Supreme Court, the state may not do directly or indirectly; but if the schools which it maintains are open to children of all races, no violation of the Constitution is involved even though the children of different races voluntarily attend different schools, as they attend different churches. Nothing in the Constitution or in the decision of the Supreme Court takes away from the people freedom to choose the schools they attend. The Constitution, in other words, does not require integration . . .'
"You get that, people? 'The Constitution does not require integration!' That's an accurate record of a legal statement. A judge with a sense of justice and fairness said it. But I'm just a-wondering if Abraham Silver mentioned those little teeny things to you. Did he?
"We've got to follow the big law, the ruling and all that; except, I'll say it again, loud and clear, and you listen, every one of you listen: The Constitution don't require integration!"
Adam Cramer stopped talking. His voice had risen sharply on the last five words; now angry silence filled the air above the courthouse lawn.
The Howling Man Page 41
