The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (10 page)

“You may be right,” Maggie Crowley said softly. “You probably would win. But that wouldn’t prevent him from appointing a new faculty adviser. Furthermore, the editor
next
year may be a lot different from
you
. He or she might be afraid to take Mr. Moore to court the next time. So, between the new editor and the new faculty adviser, where would the paper be?”

“I shouldn’t rock the boat, right?” Barney looked at her.

“You shouldn’t capsize the boat,” Maggie Crowley said, “unless—”

“Unless what?”

“You will know, and I will know, when and if that time ever comes,” Maggie Crowley said. “But as of now, where are we, Barney?”

Barney stared at the floor and bit his lip. “Without the two paragraphs, I guess. Well, I haven’t deserted Huck Finn. It’s not a complete sellout.”

“Barney”—Maggie smiled—“you’ve got more courage than just about anybody else in this school, and I include the faculty.”

“Thanks.” Barney was not smiling. “So why don’t I feel all that brave?”

“You want to run a picture of Mark Twain in that editorial?”

“No,” Barney said, “I want to use a picture of Mr. Moore. You know, the one in the last yearbook. Where he looks like a real tough guy, like a general or something. And the caption will be: ‘George Mason’s principal leads the waiting for the censorship verdict on
Huckleberry Finn.’
Nothing wrong with that, right?”

Maggie Crowley laughed. “I wouldn’t want to be your enemy, my friend. Oh, I almost forgot, you’re leaving room for Gordon McLean’s article on why
Huckleberry Finn
is not fit for this school?”

Barney scowled. “He told you about that? He doesn’t trust me to run it?”

“I guess,” Maggie Crowley said, “he wanted to make sure he was covered in case you got an attack of amnesia.”

Barney scowled harder. “Gordon knows I wouldn’t
kill his damn article. I’d look like an idiot, coming down against censorship while I’m doing it myself. But”—Barney suddenly smiled—“maybe he’ll miss the deadline.”

“No way,” Maggie said. “He’s in this all the way, just like you. And he believes all the right is on his side, just like you.”

“Miss Crowley, how do you think it’s going to come out?”

“I don’t know, Barney,” she said. “I really don’t know. I wish it were over with. That much I know.”

“But it sure is exciting. I can’t remember being part of anything this exciting at school before. I mean, the First Amendment is something personal now, you know, not just some words in a book. It’s
mine.”

“And what if they say it isn’t?” Maggie Crowley asked.

“They’ll be wrong, that’s all. I’m not going to be here forever, thank God.”

“But I may be,” Maggie Crowley said.

It was a little before 7:30 the next Monday evening, and Barney noted glumly that more parents than students were filing into the auditorium.

“I told you,” Luke said, “they should have had a rock band to open this show.”

Mr. Moore, who had been standing in front of the doors to the auditorium, came over. “I must commend you, Barney,” he said, “on a very balanced presentation öf this issue in the
Standard
. Between you and Gordon, all points were covered. I must say”—he chuckled—“I don’t know why my picture was there, but I can’t say I objected. Very nice shot.”

“Yes, sir,” Barney said. “Very rugged looking. Sort of like John Wayne.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far”—Mr. Moore smiled—“but I would not interfere with anyone’s First Amendment right to say that.” Laughing, he walked away.

“He never said a word about the caption,” Luke said in mingled surprise and disappointment.

“Maybe nobody else will get it either.” Barney looked gloomy. “Well, time for Huck’s trial.”

Kate, walking briskly toward them, slowed down briefly, nodded, and went on.

“She didn’t mean what she said to me the other day,” Barney said.

“I never said a word.” Luke looked away.

On the stage, the seven members of the review committee were seated behind two tables pushed together. The chairman of the school board, Reuben Forster, holding his unlit pipe, sat in the center, between Deirdre Fitzgerald and Stanley Lomax, the professor of sociology.

Looking at the clock on the wall and then at his watch, Reuben Forster introduced himself and the members of the committee, bravely if poignantly announced there would be no smoking in the auditorium, and said:

“We shall be delighted to hear from whoever wishes to be heard. We would also appreciate your keeping your comments as brief as possible so that everyone who wants to
can
be heard. After taking testimony, as it were, the committee will decide if it is ready to vote tonight. Or if the committee feels more reflection is needed, it will set a date for the vote. I myself shall not vote, because the school board, as you know, must make the final decision, and I shall exercise my vote then. I do not believe in the doctrine of one man, two votes.”

Mr. Forster waited for laughter. There being none, he proceeded. “I have a list of those who have already indicated a desire to speak, and then we shall open the floor.”

For the first hour, the majority of the speakers were strongly, passionately critical of
Huckleberry Finn
. They differed only in what should be done with the boy. Some, led by Carl McLean, insisted that Huck be thrown out of George Mason High School. Period. Others, saying they were opposed to censorship, recommended that Huck be allowed to stay in the school but only under certain constraints. He was not to be made required reading in any course, but he could stay in the library provided he was kept on a restricted shelf, and provided that any student who wanted to take him out presented a note from home giving permission.

“Why torture Huck like this?” Luke shouted at one point. “Why not just take the poor boy out and shoot him?”

Reuben Forster pointed his pipe at Luke. “This is not a humorous affair, young man. If you can’t say something constructive, stay silent.”

“It is significant,” a black father rose and said, “that this flip comment was made by a white student. Clearly, that young man is utterly insensitive to how black students feel when they hear classroom discussions of
Nigger
Jim and all the other
niggers
in the book. I ask you”—he pointed to the panel—“not to be insensitive to this psychic injury to our children. Let me put it as clearly and simply as I can. Why use a book that
offends us when there are other books that can be used instead?”

On the other side, Kent Dickinson, the civil liberties lawyer, some parents, and a few students argued that Huck should not be deprived of his freedom. Dickinson, sometimes clutching his head as if to keep it from exploding, counted the ways in which the First Amendment—“the basis of every other liberty we have”—would be assaulted and gravely injured if this book were to be punished.

“There is the student’s right under the First Amendment,” said Dickinson, “to read and to discuss controversial thoughts and language. And the teachers’ and the librarians’ rights to academic freedom, which include the right to disseminate information. Also, there is the right of Mark Twain—posthumously, to be sure—to have
his
ideas,
his
language, remain free. Not just free inside the covers of a book that can’t be opened. But free to be read and, of course, criticized. Isn’t a school
the
place for free inquiry?” Kent Dickinson shouted. “Isn’t this what education is all about?”

Kate, blazing, jumped up. “Yes, our freedoms must be protected. We have the right to be
free
of racism in our schools. We have a right to be
free
of sexism in our schools. And this book is both racist and sexist. Does the First Amendment really mean that schools should be free to warp the minds of their students
in the name of the First Amendment?”

She glared at Kent Dickinson and went on: “Does the First Amendment mean that schools should be free
to perpetuate racial bigotry through vicious, harmful stereotypes? If this is what the First Amendment really does mean, sir, then maybe it would be healthy for all of us to have a little less of it crammed down our throats.”

“Hold on just a bit, young woman.” The voice was deep and booming and came from Professor Stanley Lomax, a very thin and very tall man in his mid-forties. “If I hear you right, you’re saying that we might be better off with a little less freedom to say and write terrible things about each other. Well, that’s a mighty tempting notion. The one thing I don’t quite understand, though, is who is going to decide exactly how much of our freedom it’ll be good for us to lose.”

“Well,” Kate said, “in this case, you people on the review committee, of course. And the school board.”

“Uh-huh.” Lomax smiled at Kate. “And you trust us with this much power. But wait a minute. You don’t know us. You don’t know me, anyway. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing you before this evening. Or do you trust us just because somebody appointed us to be sitting up here, and that must mean it’s okay for us to have this kind of power—whether you know anything about us or not?”

“You’re not just anybody,” Kate said. “All of you were appointed by the school board. Why shouldn’t I trust you?”

“Tell me, young woman”—Lomax was still smiling—“in this particular case, do you trust me more because I am black?”

“I trust you to understand more about the racism in this book,” Kate said, “because you are black.”

“Uh-huh. But let us suppose,” Lomax continued, “that while I understand and condemn—that’s what you meant by ‘understand,’ right?—the racism in this book, I am wholly insensitive to some other things. For instance, what if the book in question tonight were not
Huckleberry Finn?
What if it were a feminist book, and what if I were the worst kind of male chauvinist you can imagine? ‘Keep the woman in the kitchen. Keep the woman pregnant. Anything else is un-American, and that’s why this feminist book is un-American and should be kept out of this school.’ Should I have the power to make that decision, or to be part of a group that makes that decision?”

Kate opened her mouth and then closed it. “Sir,” she tried again, “if that ever happened, I would work to get you thrown off the review committee.”

“Uh-huh,” Lomax said and laughed. “But what if I had kept all that awful male chauvinism to myself, and nobody knew that about me. Except my wife, and she’d be too scared to tell anybody.”

“Stop twisting that girl, Lomax!” Carl McLean shouted from his front-row seat. “This isn’t some kind of game. This is about messing up the minds of children—including yours.”

“Oh, I understand that.” Lomax uncrossed his long legs underneath the table. “I’m just trying to figure out what some folks might be doing to the minds of children
while
keeping
them from being messed up. The point I was trying to get to in my awkward way”—Lomax looked at Kate—“is that once you give people, any group of people, the power to censor books, you’re opening up quite a can of worms. And sooner or later, they can turn on
you.”

Lomax shook his head from side to side. “That’s a terrible figure of speech, isn’t it? What I am trying to say, young woman, is that once you legitimize the power to censor, you can’t be sure it’s going to be the same people on that committee or on that board next year or three years from now. I mean, all of us here”—his wave encompassed the review-committee members to his left and to his right—“are wise, fair, compassionate folk. But we can be replaced by narrow-minded people who will arrest and convict books that you, young woman, would consider
essential
to the education of your classmates. In fact, from your point of view, your classmates’ minds would be warped if they were
prevented
from reading those books.

“Now”—Lomax looked at Carl McLean—“when I was a boy in Georgia—1941, it was—there was a governor, Eugene Talmadge, who gave out an order one morning. All school libraries in the state, including college libraries, had to throw out every book—every single book—critical of the South, the Bible, and the state of Georgia. And that was one hell of a racist state at the time, I’ll tell you. And still is, in a lot of places.

“Then,” Lomax continued, “that good old governor
tried to get the legislature—this was two years later—to burn, yes, I said
burn
, all library books advocating interracial cooperation. He got disappointed in that one, though. They wouldn’t go that far.”

“You’re just rambling, Stanley,” Carl McLean said. “Let’s stick to
this
book.”

“Well, that’s the problem, Carl,” Lomax said amiably. “It never is just one book, once you give out the power to go after books. There’s a school board downstate kicked out
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
a couple of months ago. How do you feel about that, Carl?”

“I’d take them to court if I were living there,” McLean said. “And I’d get that book back in. You can’t twist me, Stanley. One book at a time. One review committee at a time. One school board at a time. Some books I will fight for, and some books I will fight against. You’re talking absolutes, Professor. With your carefully selected stories, you’re saying no book should be gotten rid of because then
all
books can be gotten rid of. Well, if you’ll forgive me, that is nonsense. We’re not sheep. We know what harms the minds of young people, and we know what’s good for young people.”

“If I may break into this conversation,” a large, blond woman in her early forties said from the back of the auditorium, “I would like to point out the
fundamental
reason this book is unfit for our school, or for any school. I shall read you one passage—and there are many more such passages—that gets to the rotten, morally corrupt core of the so-called hero of this book.
A boy whom Mr. Twain tries on every page to make attractive to young readers. Now, this is Huckleberry Finn speaking.”

The woman, holding a paperback edition of the book, read:

“ ‘What’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?’ I was stuck. I couldn’t answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn’t bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever comes handiest at the time.”