Robert Coover - Public Burning

the peace we seek is nothing less than

the practice and fulfillment of our whole faith!

It is on such simple facts as these, ladies and gentlemen,

that your foreign policy is founded

and established and maintained.

I know these facts, these simple ideals,

are not new; this idea of a just and peaceful world

is not new or strange to us — all of this springs from

the enlightened self-interest

of the United States of America.

But to be free and stay free,

we must be strong — and we must stay strong!

We shall never try to placate an aggressor

by the false and wicked bargain

of trading honor for security!

If we allow any section of the world that is vital to us,

because of what it provides us — say, manganese,

or uranium, or cobalt — anything that we need

— if we allow any of those areas to fall

to a form of government inimical to us,

that wants to see freedom abolished from the earth,

then we have trouble indeed!

It is necessary

that we earnestly seek out and uproot

any traces of Communism at any place

where it can affect our national life,

that all of us by our combined dedication and devotion

may merit the great blessings

that the Almighty has brought to this land of ours!

It is up to every American to realize

that he has a definite personal responsibility

in the protection of these resources — they belong

to the people who have been created in His image:

they must, at any cost, remain armed, strong,

and ready for the risk of war!

In that way only, can we permanently aspire

to remain a free, independent, and powerful people,

living humbly under our God—

in the final choice, a soldier’s pack

is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner’s chains.

But there is no security for a free nation

in the sword alone .

Security must spring

from the hearts and minds of free men—

our defense, our only defense,

is in our own spirit and our own will!

If we ponder this a moment,

we all know that this really means the defense

of those spiritual values and moral ideals

cherished by generations of Americans

— the true treasure of our people;

this treasure of the spirit

must be defended above all

with weapons of the spirit:

our patriotism,

our devotion,

our readiness to sacrifice.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world

must first come to pass in the heart of America;

the true way to uproot Communism in this country

is to understand what freedom means,

and thus develop such an impregnable wall

that no thought of Communism can enter;

and we must seek

in our churches,

our schools,

our homes and

our daily lives,

the clearness of mind and strongness of heart

to guard the chance to live in freedom.

I know of nothing I can add

to make plainer the sincere purpose of the United States.

My grateful thanks

go out to each of you for your prayers,

because your prayers for divine guidance on my behalf

are the greatest gift you could possibly bring to me.

Today I think that prayer is just simply a necessity,

there is a need we all have in these days and times

for some help which comes from outside ourselves

as we face the multitude of problems

that are part of this confusing situation—

if we can back off from our problems

and depend on a Power greater than ourselves,

I believe that we begin to draw these problems into focus.

In our quest of understanding,

we beseech God’s guidance .

We have begun in our grasp

of that basis of understanding,

which is that all free government is firmly founded

in a deeply felt religious faith;

if we understand, then we won’t have Communism.

That, it seems to me,

is the prayer that all of us have today:

that we shall remain free, never to be proven guilty

of the one capital offense against freedom,

a lack of staunch faith.

That is the way I see it.

My friends, thank you for being with us. Good night.

God bless you .

reads the sign being erected on the Roof of the Astor Hotel overlooking Times Square. The sun is rising, sending its prophylactic shafts deep into the city canyons, dispersing not only the Phantom and all his legions, but all thought of them as well. Although the Supreme Court will not reconvene for hours, there is already, with the first hazy glimmer of sunlight, a new certainty in the air, a confidence, bookies refuse to take more bets, the electrocutions seem a sure thing, preparations resume. Traffic is once more blocked off, carpenters and electricians busy themselves about the sabotaged stage, the Phantom’s filthy litter is swept away by Sanitation Department crews. There is a resurgence of pride, even the taxi drivers leave off their complaints as traffic snarls around the edges. The temperature is already in the seventies and rising, the humidity is falling, it’s going to be a beautiful day. It feels good to wake up, get out on the streets.

Except for the Sanitation crews maybe — the Phantom has laid a formidable task on them this morning. The stage is wrecked, the props lie smashed and strewn for blocks around, wires have been ripped out and knotted, the bunting hangs in shreds, and the litter of pornography and propaganda is worse than a midwinter snowfall. Sanitation is no small task in New York City any day of the year: there are about 6000 miles of streets to clean, flush, and service, with more than 24,000 tons of refuse to collect and dispose of every single day, over 12,000,000 pigeon bowel movements to cope with, 5000 tons of daily dogshit, so the cleanup crews are hardly fans of the leafletting and wreckage-strewing Phantom. Given the arduous mission, they are joined in Times Square this morning by volunteer teams from the Fire Department and the New York City Transit Authority, as well as a good many of the city’s 19,000 cops and most of its 200,000 pigeons.

The area’s capacity to absorb these multitudes is but one of its many and renowned magical properties. It is actually home for over 50,000 people, and thousands more of transients from all classes sleep here — now stirring, scratching, yawning, blinking out on all this bright activity, watching tow trucks haul away parked cars, overalled workers sweep up the gutter flyers and scrape the clemency snipes off the NO PARKING signs and hooded traffic lights, scrub the graffiti off the tall chalk-white statues on the Bond clothing store. Some 357,750 commuters begin to pour into the center, soon to be followed by tens of thousands of shoppers, sharks, and eager sightseers.

Including the previous Incarnation and his First Lady: Harry and Bess Truman, now what the press calls just another couple of ordinary American tourists, have arisen before dawn this morning back home in Independence, Missouri, birthplace of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and likely site of the New Jerusalem, and have set out in a brand-new automobile to come to the big city to see the show and visit their daughter Margaret. Just what Harry thinks about these ceremonies he hasn’t said, but it was his own Attorney General who pushed for them in the first place, and when Harry had his own chance to act on a clemency appeal from the Rosenbergs last January, he simply passed it on, without comment, to his successor, granting amnesty and full pardon instead to his old crony J. Parnell Thomas, the HUAC Early Warning Sentinel who’d been jailed for taking salary kickbacks from his office staff. Some say he passed the buck on the Rosenberg appeal just to complicate the new President’s life. Others that it was an act of modesty and generosity, typical of Harry Truman: let the new man have the headlines. Many, though, believe he’d simply lost touch with Uncle Sam by then and didn’t want to take any chances.