Robert Heinlein - Expanded Universe

"Really now," replied the Secretary, "you are n proposing that commercial airlines be put out of operation. They are an essential part of world economy. It would be an intolerable nuisance."

"Getting killed is an intolerable nuisance, too Manning answered stubbornly. "I do propose you that. All aircraft. All."

The President had been listening without comment to the discussion. He now cut in. "How about aircraft on which some groups depend to stay alive, such as the Alaskan lines?"

"If there are such, they must be operated by American Army pilots and crews. No exceptions."

The Secretary of Commerce looked startled. "An to infer from that last remark that you intended the prohibition to apply to the United States as well other nations?"

"Naturally."

"But that's impossible. It's unconstitutional. It violates civil rights."

"Killing a man violates his civil rights, too," Manning answered stubbornly.

"You can't do it. Any Federal Court in the country would enjoin you in five minutes."

"It seems to me," said Manning slowly, "that Andy Jackson gave us a good precedent for that one when he told John Marshall to go fly a kite." He looked slowly around the table at faces that ranged from undecided to antagonistic. "The issue is sharp, gentlemen, and we might as well drag it out in the open. We can be dead men, with everything in due order, constitutional, and technically correct; or we can do what has to be done, stay alive, and try to straighten out the legal aspects later." He shut up and waited.

The Secretary of Labor picked it up. "I don't think the Colonel has any corner on realism. I think I see the problem, too, and I admit it is a serious one. The dust must never be used again. Had I known about it soon enough, it would never have been used on Berlin. And I agree that some sort of worldwide control is necessary. But where I differ with the Colonel is in the method. What he proposes is a military dictatorship imposed by force on the whole world. Admit it, Colonel. Isn't that what you are proposing?"

Manning did not dodge it. "That is what I am proposing.

"Thanks. Now we know where we stand. I, for one, do not regard democratic measures and constitutional procedure as of so little importance that I am willing to jettison them any time it becomes convenient. To me, democracy is more than a matter of expediency, it is a faith. Either it works, or I go under with it."

"What do you propose?" asked the President.

"I propose that we treat this as an opportunity to create a worldwide democratic commonwealth! Let us use our present dominant position to issue a call to all nations to send representatives to a conference to form a world constitution."

"League of Nations," I heard someone mutter.

"No!" he answered the side remark. "Not a League of Nations. The old League was helpless because it had no real existence, no power. It was not implemented to enforce its decisions; it was just a debating society a sham. This would be different for we would turn over the dust to it!"

Nobody spoke for some minutes. You could see them turning it over in their minds, doubtful, partially approving, intrigued but dubious.

"I'd like to answer that," said Manning.

"Go ahead," said the President.

"I will. I'm going to have to use some pretty plain language and I hope that Secretary Lamer will do n the honor of believing that I speak so from sincerely and deep concern and not from personal pique.

"I think a world democracy would be a very flu thing and I ask that you believe me when I say I would willingly lay down my life to accomplish it. I ah think it would be a very fine thing for the lion to lie down with the lamb, but I am reasonably certain that only the lion would get up. If we try to form an actual world democracy, we'll be the lamb in the setup.

"There are a lot of good, kindly people who are internationalists these days. Nine out of ten of them are soft in the head and the tenth is ignorant. If we set up a worldwide democracy, what will the electorate be? Take a look at the facts: Four hundred million Chinese with no more concept of voting and citizen responsibility than a flea; three hundred million Hindus who aren't much better indoctrinated; God knows ho many in the Eurasian Union who believe in God knows what; the entire continent of Africa only semi - civilized, eighty million Japanese who really believe that they are Heaven - ordained to rule; our Spanish - American friends who might trail along with us and might not but who don't understand the Bill of Rights the way we think of it; a quarter of a billion people of two dozen different nationalities in Europe, all with revenge and black hatred in their hearts.

"No, it won't wash. It's preposterous to talk about world democracy for many years to come. If you turn the secret of the dust over to such a body, you will arming the whole world to commit suicide."

Lamer answered at once. "I could resent some of your remarks, but I won't. To put it bluntly, I consider the source. The trouble with you, Colonel Manning, is that you are a professional soldier and have no faith in people. Soldiers may be necessary, but the worst of them are martinets and the best are merely paternalistic." There was quite a lot more of the same.

Manning stood it until his turn came again. "Maybe I am all those things, but you haven't met my argument. What are you going to do about the hundreds of millions of people who have no experience in, nor love for, democracy? Now, perhaps, I don't have the same concept of democracy as yourself, but I do know this:

Out West there are a couple of hundred thousand people who sent me to Congress; I am not going to stand quietly by and let a course be followed which I think will result in their deaths or utter ruin.

"Here is the probable future, as I see it, potential in the smashing of the atom and the development of lethal artificial radioactives. Some power makes a supply of the dust. They'll hit us first to try to knock us out and give them a free hand. New York and Washington overnight, then all of our industrial areas while we are still politically and economically disorganized. But our army would not be in those cities; we would have planes and a supply of dust somewhere where the first dusting wouldn't touch them. Our boys would bravely and righteously proceed to poison their big cities. Back and forth it would go until the organization of each country had broken down so completely that they were no longer able to maintain a sufficiently high level of industrialization to service planes and manufacture dust. That presupposes starvation and plague in the process. You can fill in the details.

"The other nations would get in the game. It would be silly and suicidal, of course, but it doesn't take brains to take a hand in this. All it takes is a very small group, hungry for power, a few airplanes and a supply of atomic material.

He stopped until the entire planet has dropped to a level economy too low to support the techniques necessary to maintain it. My best guess is that such a point would be reached when approximately three - quarters of the world's population were dead of dust, disease, or germ warfare, and culture reduced to the peasant - and - villas type.

"Where is your Constitution and your Bill of Rights if you let that happen?"

I've shortened it down, but that was the gist of it. I can't hope to record every word of an argument that went on for days.

The Secretary of the Navy took a crack at him next. "Aren't you getting a bit hysterical, Colonel? After all the world has seen a lot of weapons which were going to make war an impossibility too horrible to contemplate. Poison gas, and tanks, and airplanes - even fire arms, if I remember my history."

Manning smiled wryly. "You've made a point, Mister Secretary. 'And when the wolf really came, the little boy shouted in vain.' I imagine the Chamber of Commerce in Pompeii presented the same reasonable argument to any early vulcanologist so timid as to fear Vesuvius. I'll try to justify my fears. The dust differs from every earlier weapon in its deadliness and ease use, but most importantly in that we have developed no defense against it. For a number of fairly technical reasons, I don’t think we ever will, at least not this century."