Philip Roth - Our Gang

And let me tell you how they manage that sustained viciousness: Unlike our pilots in Vietnam, whose satisfaction consists solely in getting the job done as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and who have no interest at all in whatever cries and moans may happen to arise from those who do not die instantly in the blast, the people who use weapons like these are obviously sadists of the sort who enjoy watching the blood run out of their victims, and, incidentally in that connection, hearing the cries of a person in physical torment. Why else would they use a weapon that takes up to half an hour to do the sort of job our pilots accomplish in a split second, and without the groaning and the gore?

Now let’s look at the knife closely. I am going to open out the blades one by one, and describe to you the purpose and function of each. You should not be misled by its four-and-five-eighths-inch exterior into imagining that it is simply an instrument designed to kill. Like so many of the weapons carried by guerrilla revolutionaries around the world, it has multiple uses, of which murder of the agonizing and sadistic variety is but one. Let’s begin here, with the smallest of the four blades. In the language of those who employ such weapons, it is known as “the bottle opener.” I’ll tell you how it got that name in a moment. You will observe that it is hook-shaped at the end, and measures one inch and one eighth. It is employed during the interrogation of prisoners primarily to gouge out one or both of the eyes. It is also used on the soles of the feet, which are sliced open, like so, with the point of the hook. Last, but not least, it is sometimes inserted into the mouth of a prisoner who will not talk, in order to slit the flesh at the upper part of the larynx, between the vocal cords. That opening up there is called the glottis, and “bottle opener” is derived from “glottal opener,” the pet name originally attached to the blade by its most coldblooded practitioners.

This second largest blade, measuring one inch and three-quarters, tapers to a point and probably looks to you to be a miniature bayonet. Do not be fooled by appearances. It has nothing to do with bayonets such as those our brave soldiers found it necessary to fix to their rifles in selfdefense during the two-day Boy Scout uprising. This little blade is known as “the leather punch,” and far from being an instrument of self-defense, it is yet another torture device, along the lines of the bottle opener. As its name suggests, it is used to punch holes in human flesh, or “leather” as the flesh is called by revolutionaries who consider their enemies to be no more than animals. It will come as no surprise to you to learn that it is most frequently driven into the palms of the hands, much the same way that the nails were in the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Now this third blade, an eighth of an inch longer than the leather punch, is also wider and less tapered, and has a flat rather than a pointed end. It is known as “the screwdriver.” Traditionally, it is inserted into the groove between the nails and the flesh and turned in a rotary fashion, like so. However, we know from intelligence reports that the screwdriver may also on occasion be introduced into bodily apertures, of which the nostrils and the ears are the only ones I shall choose to make mention of on nationwide television. Some of my political opponents may think otherwise — and they have every right to disagree with my position — but I, for one, have never believed it necessary to use bad language to make my point, and I have no intention of resorting to those kinds of tactics in the midst of a major address to the nation.

This last blade of the four is probably the one you’re most familiar with from your nightmares. Two inches and three-quarters in length, ninesixteenths of an inch at its widest point, it has a sharp cutting edge that I shall demonstrate for you on this piece of paper.

Incidentally, it is no accident that printed on this piece of paper is the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the oft-quoted and much beloved Ten Commandments, with their famous “Thou shalt nots.” As you all remember, these same Ten Commandments provided the wonderful and inspiring background for another motion picture of great spiritual value that I am sure the great majority of American families enjoyed as much as our family did. I don’t think I am too far afield when I say that what you see printed on this sheet of paper ( close-up of paper ) is just about everything we believe in and cherish as a people. I want you to watch as I demonstrate what this blade can do in a matter of seconds to all that you and I hold near and dear.

( He slices the piece of paper into one-inch strips and then holds them up for the audience to see ) Of course you can peel apples with a blade like this, you can slice your potatoes for frying and you can cut up your cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, onions and celery for salad. And I am sure that those who would seek to exonerate these three Scouts will maintain that it was only to prepare a delicious salad such as I described that they secreted these weapons upon their belts and carried them hundreds of miles across state lines to the nation’s capital. I am afraid that whether it is knife-carrying Boy Scouts or cardcarrying Communists, there will always be a handful of apologists around to come to their defense.

My fellow Americans, I want to leave it to you, and not to the apologists, to decide.,I ask you to look at this knife, with all four of its blades unsheathed, blades capable of inflicting physical torment of a kind that goes all the way back to the Crucifixion and beyond. I ask you to look at this four-pronged instrument of torture. I ask you to look at what just one of those blades was able to do to the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the beloved Ten Commandments. And now I ask you if you think there is anything at all to be said in defense of three Boy Scouts carrying such knives into the nation’s capital.

And incidentally, in that connection, these were not the only three Boy Scouts in Washington bearing concealed weapons on their belts. These were only the three we happened to kill. In all, a total of eight thousand four hundred and sixty-three knives, each resembling this one in every last detail, were confiscated during the two days the Scouts were here. That means a grand total of thirty-three thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two blades, or enough blades to torture simultaneously every single resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland, including women and children.

Now you ask, how did we prevent this bloodbath from taking place in Chevy Chase? The answer is by setting up an enclosed camping site for the Scouts who were not shot. The answer is by diverting their attention from — violence and lawbreaking by giving them a chance to test their scouting abilities overnight in a wilderness environment without food or shelter.

And let me tell you something: it is to the very great credit of the scouting movement in this country, that once we were able to get these boys off the streets and into a rugged camping situation and we have the police to thank for volunteering their help in getting all the boys out there — they showed themselves worthy in every way of their famous motto, “Be Prepared.”

Let’s take a look at just a few of their accomplishments: First, in the absence of toilet facilities, they did a tremendous job in disposing of their waste matter and the leaves they used for personal hygiene. Next, what little water they had in their canteens, they shared in an admirable way, or so it would seem from the fact that not a single one of the nearly ten thousand died of thirst. Nor did they make the mistake of drinking from, or even daring to bathe in, the pond at the campsite, so familiar were they with the danger signs of sewage and stagnation.