Irving Wallace - The Man

“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

The camera cut from the close-up of the Presidential seal to a full shot of the President behind his desk. And to Eaton’s surprise, he had succumbed completely to memory’s sorcery. For it was not T. C. who sat there at all, but a black stranger. The camera moved in until the screen was entirely occupied by Douglass Dilman’s broad African visage and features. These features, blended and made indistinguishable by his blackness, contrasted with the lightness of his suit and shirt, but matched the blackness of his hands resting on the sides of the stand. For the first time in many weeks, Eaton sensed his loss, the nation’s loss, and felt deeply embittered by the sheer insanity of human existence.

“Good evening, my fellow citizens.”

If not T. C., Eaton thought, then at least a reasonable facsimile. Thank the Lord, he thought, that all of them here were alive to see that T. C. would not be wholly dead.

By an effort of will, he ceased his thinking of what could not be. He listened. President Douglass Dilman was addressing the nation.

“One week ago there reached my desk the original enrolled bill, printed on parchment paper, certified and signed by the acting Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Acting President of the Senate, that has come to be popularly known as the Minorities Rehabilitation Program. It requires only the scratch of my pen to enact it into public law-or, on the other hand, it takes only my returning it unsigned to the House in which it originated, with my objectins stated, to institute a Presidential veto.

“To this date, I have neither approved the bill nor rejected it, because I have needed as much time as possible to consider every aspect of it, to weigh its cost against its value to all of us. Before rendering my decision, I felt it necessary to discuss briefly with you, the people, certain aspects of the bill, of this Minorities Rehabilitation Program.

“The preponderance of opinion is behind this program. Four out of five of your representatives in Congress are behind it. They are behind it, they say, because they feel that it will repay a minority of the population, largely Negro, for years of deprivation, it will restore economic dignity to those who have suffered loss of it because of their color, and it will bring a dramatic end to racial strife. Business leaders, as well as labor leaders, are behind it because they believe that the program will boost the national economy, bring prosperity to all, and bring civil peace to the land. Even the majority of Negro organization directors favor the bill as an expedient measure of restitution that would, to a degree, make up for losses suffered through a century of actual slavery and continued segregation thereafter.

“Without bothering to explore in detail every provision of the bill, and speaking to you in the plainest of language, what are the general arguments for and against the Minorities Rehabilitation Program?

“Those who want me to sign this bill-and they are, I repeat, the overwhelming majority-sincerely believe that by dispersing in various ways seven billion dollars of your tax payments, over a period of five years, to the underprivileged racial minorities of this nation, they will be bringing internal peace to the United States. They feel that the Federal government can now accomplish, by this massive outpouring of money, what the prejudices of private industry and restrictions of labor unions have heretofore prevented doing: close the economic gap between black and white. They feel that this financial restitution to the colored man will make up for a century of oppression. And they feel that, by giving twenty-three million of the nation’s blacks economic equality, by giving them higher wages, jobs or better jobs, subsidized training, by so occupying their minds and hands, by so filling their stomachs, they will have brought tranquility and order through the democratic process to the United States.

“However, there is a smaller, less vocal number of Americans, as concerned about the depriation of minorities, as desirous of bringing about tranquility and order, who strongly believe this nation cannot afford the minorities bill, not because of its financial cost but because of the means by which it will bankrupt our ideals, our democracy, our Constitution.

“What are their arguments against the bill? You have seen little discussion of their reservations in the press, and heard few of their protests on the floors of Congress or on the airwaves. In all fairness, their objections should be heard tonight, and considered by you, as they have been considered by me.

“The dissenters believe that this bill is a governmental conspiracy to bride the oppressed into silence. It may bring racial peace, but at what price to our democratic integrity? The Constitution will be converted into a checkbook. We will have given our minorities not civil rights, not equality, but a giant payoff to end their clamor. Under this bill, the Negro will not have gained his vote, his equal place in public accommodations, his dignity as a free American. Instead, he will have gained employment. He will have been detoured from the hard, uphill road to that place where free men live, to remain at the roadside beneath and below them, diverted from his goal by the dollars he has suddenly found. And when the money is spent, where will he be? Still too far from freedom, and perhaps unable to find the public road again.

“Yes, my fellow citizens, there are thoughtful men, Americans as decent as you and I, who believe in their deepest conscience that one cannot substitute dollars for the dignity of liberty. By so doing, we undermine the humanity of the giver as well as the taker, we weaken the majority as well as the minority. And worse, by so doing, we reinforce the anti-American caricature of Uncle Sam throughout the world by showing him not as a man but as a figure-head in the shape of a dollar sign, an Uncle Sam who offers his flock cash instead of love, respect, and freedom.

“The proponents of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program believe that through a seven-billion-dollar outlay they will have bought time. The opponents of the program wonder, time for what? And how much time? There are those who believe that the time to solve our minority problem is today, no matter how high the cost in civil strife and discontent, and that the means to solve it is not through huge Federal bribes, but through total Federal support of any human being who is treated as less than an American and less than a man because of his race, religion, color, or national origin.

“My fellow citizens, there is something to be said for both sides, but as your President I can choose only one side, and for me the moment of decision has arrived. Addressing you then, not as one who is prejudiced by white or black demands, not as one heeding majority or minority wishes, but rather addressing you as one who has come to believe that any travail or sacrifice is worthwhile if it will strengthen the foundation of a stronger, totally democratic United States of America that can stand before the world unashamed, indeed, proud, for having practiced those noble ideas upon which it was founded, I hereby notify my former colleagues in Congress, and my fellow citizens everywhere, that I cannot and shall not sign the Minorities Rehabilitation Program into law.

“Tonight I am vetoing this bill, and returning it to the House where it originated, with the prayer that never again will I or any President be forced to consider an example of legislation so cynical as to pretend that freedom has a price tag.

“Yet we do need powerful legislation to replace this bill. We need legislation concerned with equality, not tranquility, and in due time I intend-”

Before the gasps, groans, and angry exclamations from those in the Madison Dining Room could drown out the remainder of the President’s speech, Arthur Eaton leaped forward, cursing under his breath, and savagely turned off the television set.