The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (11 page)

The blond woman closed the book and addressed the review committee: “Is this what should be taught in our schools? Is this what should be in our school libraries? The philosophy that since it’s just too much trouble to do right, you just do what you please, you just do what comes handiest at the time?”

“If I may respond,” Deirdre Fitzgerald said from the stage, “but I’m afraid I don’t know your name—”

“Mrs. Nancy Dennis of Parents for Moral Schools,” the blond woman said.

“Well, Mrs. Dennis,” Deirdre said, “if I remember the passage correctly, it occurs just after two armed men in a boat—men searching for runaway slaves—are kept by Huck, through a trick, from going on board the raft and finding Jim. Having saved Jim from being taken, Huck wrestles with his conscience. In that place and at that time, white boys were brought up believing that turning over a runaway slave was the
right
thing
to do. But Huck, by saving Jim, has just done the wrong thing, and he feels bad about that. But he knows he would have also felt bad if he’d let the men take Jim. So he figures: what
is
the use of learning to do right when you’re going to feel bad either way?”

“And you think”—Mrs. Dennis reddened—“that’s what children in school should learn—that it doesn’t make any difference whether you learn right from wrong?”

“Oh, dear,” the librarian said, “I guess I haven’t made myself clear. Let me try again. Later in the book, Huck is torn again between right and wrong. He’s sure he’ll go to everlasting fire if he
doesn’t
turn Jim in. But once more Huck does the wrong thing, according to what he’s been taught all his life. He decides he cannot betray Jim. So you see,
that’s
the right and wrong Huck is talking about in the passage that you read.”

“I can read just as good as you can,” Mrs. Dennis snapped, “and what I just read aloud is in this book, no matter how you try to twist it out of its real meaning. That book says it’s hard to do right and it’s easy to do wrong, so why not go the easy route? That’s exactly what it says.”

Deirdre sighed. “Have you read the whole book, Mrs. Dennis?”

“I certainly have, and I can show you other—”

“Do you remember”—Deirdre was practically pleading now—“oh, maybe a hundred pages after that passage you read, do you remember when Huck was
trying to pray? But the words wouldn’t come because he was not telling God the truth in his effort to cleanse himself of sin. The truth God wanted to hear, so Huck believed, was that Huck would finally tell Jim’s owner where to find him. And Huck could not honestly tell God he would do that. At last, Huck gave up trying to be good, trying to be washed clean of sin, and he said, ‘All right then, I’ll
go
to hell.’ He just could not let his friend Jim be taken back into slavery.”

Deirdre stretched out her arms. “Don’t you see? Don’t you see what this book is saying? Your organization wants morality in the schools. Well, this is a very moral boy. Despite all the pressures on him to return Jim to slavery, Huck couldn’t do it. He was too moral to do it. Don’t you see?”

“The message of this book comes through very clearly,” Mrs. Dennis said. “And that message is that a child ought to decide for himself what’s right and what’s wrong. I do not send my children to school to get that kind of teaching. I do not want them coming home and telling me they know better than I do what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Deirdre sank back in her seat.

“I’m Mr. Dennis.” A short, bald man stood up. “And I want to show you something else about this Huckleberry Finn and this Jim. This Jim, who always calls Huckleberry Finn ‘honey.’ ”

Mr. Dennis took the paperback from his wife and said, “This Finn boy is describing here what it was like
on the raft with his friend Jim, a grown man. I quote: ‘We was always naked day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us.’ ”

Mr. Dennis looked around the auditorium triumphantly and repeated: “ ‘We was always naked day and night.’ ” He threw the book to the floor. “No wrestling about right or wrong there. I ask you”—Mr. Dennis looked at Deirdre Fitzgerald—“would you—if you have children—allow a boy of yours to be alone and naked with a grown man who is also naked? What
morality
does that teach our children?”

Deirdre roughly brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Are you saying there is homosexuality in this book? Could you show me, sir, one homosexual act in this book?”

“Oh, come now.” Mr. Dennis again turned to the audience. “I’m not that stupid. In the nineteenth century, a novelist, no matter how perverted, would not
show
such an act, but he could suggest what was going on. What other way can you take that passage, madam? ‘We was always naked day and night.’ Huh? Huh?”

“What you are suggesting,” Deirdre said coldly, “never occurred to me. And I reread this book almost every year. I suppose, sir, that shows you have a much more richly developed imagination than I have. But I do not envy you on that account. Not one bit.”

“I must say”—Matthew Griswold of the Citizens’ League for the Preservation of American Values unfolded his long, bony frame and stepped into the aisle—“that while I certainly understand Mr. and Mrs.
Dennis’s concerns about this book, I do find it difficult to share all of them. Young Huck, if you really look inside him, very much tries to be a moral being. Indeed, what has made him so attractive to young readers all these years is his need, his hunger, for justice. All through the book, Huck wants to be fair and he greatly wants adults to be fair, and he is grievously disappointed when they are not. On the other hand, he himself does lie, he does steal. But out of necessity, for Huck does meet some quite dangerous men, not the least of whom is his father. He has to trick them if he is, quite literally, to stay alive.”

Deirdre Fitzgerald, puzzled, stared at Griswold.

“Taking the boy as a whole, however,” Matthew Griswold went on, “Huck is not, to use an old-fashioned expression, a bad boy. For a youngster who does not go to church, except under duress, he spends a good deal of time thinking about good and evil. And as Miss Fitzgerald has said, Huck’s greatest problem is that what the grown-ups around him hold up as virtuous behavior often seems to Huck to be hypocrisy and cruelty.”

Griswold bowed slightly in the direction of Mr. Dennis. “No offense, sir, but I would say to you most respectfully that if the nakedness on the raft signifies anything, it further reveals why Huck lit out for the Indian territory at the end of the book. He could not stand, as he said, being civilized. That is, as he says at another point, he didn’t go much on clothes nohow. Especially, I would think, on a hot night, out on the
river. That’s all it was, Mr. Dennis. I just can’t bring myself to believe that Huck and Jim were, as they used to say, having an affair.”

There was some laughter from the audience, but not from Mr. and Mrs. Dennis.

Having said all this, Matthew Griswold looked to the stage. “I nonetheless strongly recommend that
Huckleberry Finn,
be placed under some restraints.”

Deirdre, who had been smiling as Matthew Griswold talked of Huck’s lack of enthusiasm for clothes, now watched him openmouthed.

“For all the values of this novel,” Griswold said, “I am persuaded by my black friends that this book can do harm. I mean, of course, by its repeated use of an extremely offensive term that I cannot bring myself to utter.”

Slowly, as he kept talking, Griswold moved toward the review committee. “Words are weapons. They can cause deep wounds, sometimes lasting wounds.”

Carl McLean turned around in his seat and looked quizzically at the advancing Griswold.

“There are far too many wounds being inflicted on our black citizens every day.” Griswold stopped close to the edge of the stage. “Why inflict more when it is not necessary? You see, the organization I represent—the Citizens’ League for the Preservation of American Values—believes that a most fundamental American value is respect for each other. For example, I disagree with those who would try to keep God out of the public
schools, but I respect them as individuals, and I hope they respect me.”

Griswold looked directly at Carl McLean. “We need bridges, not walls, between us, my friends. As many bridges as we can build. And so, I hear and respect the deep concern and the deep anger of my black friends when they say that whatever the virtues of this, or any book, no book is worth the humiliation of their children.”

Some of the students, black and white, applauded, as did many of the black parents.

“Therefore”—Griswold was now speaking to Reuben Forster—“those of us, conservative or liberal, who are not black but who would want our children to be protected from insult—from
school-approved
insult—should join these parents. As we would hope they would join us if
our
children were in danger of being humiliated by certain epithets in a
school
book!”

Deirdre Fitzgerald, eyes closed, was drumming her fingers on the table.

“I am not in favor of censoring this book,” Griswold said. “But as 1 pointed out in this very auditorium not long ago, while adults are free to read anything they like—because they are responsible for themselves—young people are not—and cannot be—wholly responsible for themselves. And so far as their education is concerned, the school,
by law
, has the responsibility for determining what students shall read, and under what circumstances. And if the school fails that responsibility
—not because a particular teacher or librarian is evil but rather is insensitive—why, then parents must intervene. As parents have here tonight.”

“But you say you’re not advocating
censorship
of the book,” Evelyn Kantrow, a tall, brisk, gray-haired woman on the review committee. “What
are
you advocating?”

“I propose”—Matthew Griswold’s soothing voice bathed the auditorium—“that it be the decision of your committee to remove
Huckleberry Finn
from all
required
reading lists. That has already been suggested this evening. But I would not banish the book entirely from the curriculum. It is possible that certain students, under the direct guidance of a teacher, and with the permission of their parents, may be mature enough to benefit from the book as optional reading. My main concern is that it never be
forced
upon all students in a class.”

Barney turned around to look at Nora Baines, whose face was grim.

“As for the library,” Griswold continued, “I propose that it be the decision of the review committee that
Huckleberry Finn
is not appropriate for placement on the open shelves. But let it remain on a restricted shelf where a student may have access to it with the specific permission of both a teacher and the student’s parent.

“It seems to me”—Matthew Griswold extended his arms as if to bring everyone in the auditorium into harmony—“that this solution avoids both censorship—
the book, after all, will still be in the school—and it avoids callousness toward the feelings of black students and their parents.”

“THE HELL IT AVOIDS CENSORSHIP!” Nora Baines, roaring, strode down the aisle, stopped next to Griswold, and waving her forefinger under his nose, said: “You are keeping this book on the premises, but you are locking it up. House arrest is what it is. In doing that, sir, you are in deliberate contempt of my integrity as a teacher. Under your so-called solution, I am forbidden to assign this book to my students—no matter how strongly I believe, in my professional judgment, that it is important for their education that they read this book. You, sir, are handcuffing me as a teacher. The next thing I know, I shall have to present you, and Mr. and Mrs. Dennis, and God knows who else in this town, with a list of books for each of my courses before I am allowed to enter the classroom. PRESERVATION OF AMERICAN VALUES! Good God, sir, are you an agent of the Soviet Union?”

Griswold started to answer, but Reuben Forster, agitated, was banging his pipe on the table. “Miss Baines,” Forster said, “you were not recognized. And it is not Mr. Griswold who will decide anything. The democratically elected school board makes the final decision, and that’s as it should be in a democracy, so talk about the Soviet Union is way, way out of line.”

“May I have a final word?” Matthew Griswold asked.

“No,” Reuben Forster said. “I think we’ve had enough words for one night.”

The school board chairman looked at his watch. “We have heard from all sides. Each member of the committee has, of course, read the book, but I am sure that each member is grateful for all the additional light—and heat—you have given us tonight. Is the committee ready for a vote?” Forster looked to his left and then to his right.

“I would suggest,” said Professor Lomax, “that we sleep on it. I know I’d like to reflect on what I’ve heard.”

The other members of the committee nodded, except for Ben Maddox, the elderly lawyer. Stout, with white, wavy hair, Maddox grumbled, “I don’t have to do any more thinking. Couldn’t be clearer. But if you folks need more time, nothing I can do about it.”

“All right,” Reuben Forster said, “the review committee will meet to vote within the next couple of days—soon as we synchronize our schedules—and you’ll know the tally right away on the radio and the TV and in the paper.”

“We want to know how
everybody
on the committee voted,” Carl McLean shouted.

“Certainly,” Mr. Forster said. “We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Because we are going to remember,” McLean said, “how
each
member voted.”

A few minutes later, with everyone headed toward the doors, Barney heard Ben Maddox saying to another elderly man, “Bunch of damn foolishness. Who the hell’s more American than Mark Twain? So how can
you kick him out of an American school? That woman was right. Must be a bunch of Communists behind all this. They’re damn tricky.”

“Well,” Barney said to Luke as they went out the door, “that’s two votes we got. His and Miss Fitzgerald’s. All we need is two more.”

“Don’t forget that professor,” Luke said. “The way he was going after Kate, he’s got to be on our side.”