The Glass Village

The Judge looked down at the vacant faces, and the vacant faces stared up at him; and he said suddenly, “And today we’re celebrating another Fourth of July. And the river that ran through our village we now call the Hollow, and we use part of it to dump our trash and garbage. The houses that were white are a dirty gray and falling to pieces. We’re worn away to a handful. Nine children in the grade school, three in the high school at Comfort. Four farms, all struggling to keep out of the hands of the Sheriff. And an old man gets up and babbles about liberty, and you say to yourselves, ‘Liberty? Liberty to what? To get poorer? To lose our land? Liberty to see our children want? Liberty to get blown up, or to die in caves like moles, or to see our bones glow like candles in the dark?’ These are hard questions to answer, neighbors, but I’m going to try to answer them.”

They stirred.

They stirred, and the Judge talked of the great conflict between the free world and Communism, and of what was happening to Americans’ liberties in the name of the fight against it. How some in power and authority had seized the opportunity, in the struggle against Communism, to attack and punish all who held opinions contrary to theirs, so that today a man who held a contrary opinion, no matter how loyal he might be, was denied equal justice under law. How today in some cases even the thoughts of a man’s father, or of his sister, were sometimes held against him. How today men stood convicted of high crimes by reason of mere association, even of the distant past. How today the unsupported word of self-confessed traitors was honored under oath. How today accusation was taking the place of evidence, and the accused were not permitted to cross-examine their accusers, and often were not told who their accusers were — or even, as was happening with increasing frequency, the exact nature of the charges.

“And you ask me,” said Judge Shinn, his arms jerking a little, “what all this has to do with you, and I tell you, neighbors, it has everything to do with you! Who wants to be poor? But who’d hesitate if he were given the choice between being a poor freeman and a rich slave? Isn’t it better to lose your land than your right to think for yourself? Did the farmers who grabbed their muskets and fought the Redcoats from behind their farm fences take up arms to defend their poverty or their independence of mind and action?

“The attack on free men always begins with an attack on the laws which protect their freedom. And how does the tyrant attack those laws? By saying at first, ‘We will set the laws aside for a little while — this is an emergency.’ And the emergency is dangled before your eyes while your rights are stolen from you one by one; and soon you have no rights, and you get no justice, and — like Samson — you lose your strength and your manhood and you become a thing, fit only to think and to do what you’re told. It happened that way in Nazi Germany. It happened that way in Soviet Russia. Are you going to let it happen here?”

Judge Shinn wiped his face; and he cried, “There is no liberty without justice, and there’s no justice unless it’s the identical justice for all. For those who disagree with us as for those who hold the same opinions. For the poor man as for the rich. For the man with the furrin-sounding name as for the Cabots and the Lodges. For the Catholic as for the Protestant and the Jew as for the Catholic. For the black as for the white. These aren’t mere words, neighbors, pretty sayings to hang on your parlor walls. They’re the only armor between you and the loss of your liberties. Let one man be deprived of his liberty, or his property, or his life without due process of law, and the liberty and property and lives of all of us are in danger. Tell your Congressmen and your Senators that. Make yourselves heard... while there’s still time!”

When “The Star-Spangled Banner” had been sung, and Peter Berry had hurried ahead to reopen his store, and the children had whooped after him to buy cap pistols and bubble gum, and their elders dispersed in groups talking weather and crops and prices, Johnny took the old man’s arm and walked him around the Shinn house and into the woods beyond.

“I thought that was a fine speech, Judge,” said Johnny, “as speeches go.”

Judge Shinn stopped and looked at him. “What did I say, Johnny, that you don’t believe?”

“Oh, I believe. I believe it all.” Johnny shrugged. “But what can I do about it? Have a cigaret?”

The Judge shook his head irritably. ‘When a man with paralysis of the vocal chords talks to people who are stone deaf, the net result is a thundering silence. Let’s walk.”

They walked through the Judge’s woods for a long time. Finally the Judge stopped and sat down on a fallen tree. He mopped his face, and swatted at the gnats, and he said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me today.”

“It’s the Yankee conscience,” smiled Johnny, “rebelling at a display of honest emotion.”