The Pledge (29 page)

But before they left for Washington a few weeks later, something happened. Bruce got a telephone call from a Peter Johnson at the Temple Press, a small publishing house in San Francisco. Johnson, a youngish easy-speaking person — if one could decide such things from a voice — told Bruce that a friend of his, Johnson's, had sent him a copy of the manuscript. It was a copy, Bruce recalled, that had never been returned, even though Bruce had written and telephoned for it.

“True,” Johnson said, “my friend lifted the manuscript and sent it to me. His company had already turned it down. He had no right to do what he did, and I hope you will forgive him. On the other hand, I think it's a fine and important piece of work and we want to publish it, and we don't give two damns about Mr. Hoover and his night riders. We can't do a big printing, but at least we will bring it into the light of day. We expect to do a first edition of five thousand copies, and we can only offer an advance of five thousand dollars. But we will publish it, and do it honestly and decently.”

Both the contract and the check arrived before the date set for the trial, so there was something to celebrate on the train down to Washington. Bruce ordered a bottle of champagne, and he and Molly and Sylvia drank to destiny. “Howsoever,” as Bruce put it, and Sylvia said, “Here we are on our way to trial in a Federal courthouse for no crime whatsoever, and toasting the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

“I'll drink to that,” Bruce said.

“Unless they find out what your Peter Johnson is up to and shoot him.”

“Not likely.”

“Now that we've voiced our trust in the First Amendment,” Sylvia Kline said, “let's get back to reality, and the worst mistake we can make is to think that this trial is of no real importance. Until now, they've limited their attack to left-wingers, people who might or might not be communists, and of course, under the Smith Act, the twelve Party leaders. This time, they're reaching out. The only connection they can make for you is India, and that's a contrivance on their part. As far as your past in this country is concerned, it's snow white.”

“And don't think that doesn't trouble me,” Bruce said. “Not to realize the misery of those Depression years is nothing to be very proud of.”

“We're not dealing with that,” Sylvia said. “We're dealing with the misery of these years, so put away the guilt and listen to me.”

If he could only shake loose from the absurdity of it, he could put his mind to work. Had decent people in Germany also taken shelter in the absurdity? When you took away all the catchwords that went with war and power — courage, glory, patriotism, motherland, honor, and all the rest — you were left with this strange animal called man scrabbling in the mud, driven by a lunatic lust to kill, lost to compassion, and motivated by lies that reached back in history like beads on a string.

“Bruce?”

“Should we order now?” he asked them. “I had the chicken last time,” he reminded Molly. “Unlucky. I'll have the ham steak this time.”

“Yes, order,” Sylvia agreed, shaking her head. “You lack indignation, and I can't understand that.”

But he hardly touched his food, and that said something to both women. Gently, Sylvia said to him, “I want you to know what I think will happen. My guess is that they will pick out two points. One, a government witness, recently in the Party, who will swear under oath that you are a communist. Now, they will not prosecute for perjury, because there's no way they could make it stick in a perjury trial, but they'll use it for the contempt. Secondly, they'll fix on your unwillingness to testify about Molly. Will you change your mind about that?”

“No.”

“We've been through this half a dozen times. I don't think you're taking a sensible position. Neither does Molly.”

“To put it mildly,” Molly agreed.

“I mean,” Sylvia explained, “that if I could tell the government attorney that you are willing to rectify the contempt by answering questions about Molly, he might just be willing to drop the charges. It's a fairly common practice.”

“No. No way. And what about your government witness?”

“I would hope that if the testimony about Molly is cleared up, they might drop the other thing as well.”

“Do you remember,” he reminded Sylvia, “that you told me it was stacked? I've grown up, my dear. They don't give a damn whether or not I testify about Molly, and I'm not going to crawl on my belly to plead with swine. The breed isn't strange to me. I stood in a concentration camp and looked into open graves.”

Molly shook her head, and Sylvia sighed and gave up on an old argument. Afterward, she said to Molly, “I don't know whether he's simple or wonderful, but if you find me another like him, I'll take a chance.”

The jury had come in with a decision in the trial of the twelve leaders of the Communist Party, U.S.A. They were found guilty. Bruce and Molly read the headline story in the
Washington Post.

“So it begins,” Bruce said.

“Guilty of teaching the overthrow of the government by force and violence,” Molly said. “Poor devils. They couldn't overthrow a proper doghouse.”

“You know them — I mean personally?”

“I know them, but personally is a difficult question. They tend to hide behind the image. I've been around just long enough, Bruce, to know there are no heroes. We're all shabby, and when we get into a position of power, we're even shabbier. We have our saints, but they don't get into positions of power. That's the pity of saints, they're such a quiet lot.”

That night, making love, she said to Bruce, “I never meant you in the shabby lot.”

The first morning in the gloomy Federal courthouse, the three New Yorkers were bemused by the entrance of a former mayor of Boston, an old man in a wheelchair, who wept and promised to sin no more, after which the judge suspended his sentence. The judge, Harwood Wilson by name, had thin lips, a delicate nose, and two cold pale blue eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses. He had a habit of pursing his lipless mouth and blinking rapidly. Molly whispered that she could never trust a man with two family names, and Bruce said that was because she was shanty Irish and lucky to have any name at all. Sylvia said that once the trial began, Molly would have to wait outside, to which Molly said, “But I can be helpful.”

“When you're a witness,” she said firmly. “Now get out of here and leave it to me. I'm going to start with a motion to vacate the indictment. It's hogwash anyway.”

Molly left the court, and Bruce watched Sylvia in amazement, a most remarkable young woman. He was relaxed now; they had come together, he and Molly, and it would be all right. He had told her the night before, “You're the good thing that happened to me. Whatever my life is now, it's better than it could have been any other way.” And now, watching Sylvia, he felt that she too was perhaps the best he might have done in the way of a lawyer, just a smart kid who would give it her best shot, and that was all right.

She moved for dismissal of the indictment. Judge Wilson agreed that he would hear argument. Albert Button, the Federal attorney, watched Sylvia with interest. He was a tall man in his fifties, with a heavy stomach, and perhaps conscious of a bad physical comparison to the young woman he opposed.

“There has been no contempt,” Sylvia said, “and the House vote as well as the indictment are entirely without merit. My client was asked whether his friend, Molly Maguire, was a communist. He refused to reply to this question on grounds of honor, since it would put him in the role of an informer, giving evidence against a woman who was his dear friend. But Miss Maguire was at that time a writer on the staff of the
New York Daily Worker
, a professedly communist newspaper that employs only communists. This is public knowledge, and in her writing for this paper, Miss Maguire has identified herself as a communist at least thirty-three times. So there could have been no question on that subject, and her political identity was well known to the members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Therefore, it is evident that the question was purely a provocation, designed to entrap my client by playing upon his sense of right and wrong and simple human decency. I think it is to the credit of my client that this committee should seek to entrap him by concluding that he, as a fine person, might well be pressed into an act of contempt — or at least an act which would allow them to charge contempt — simply by honoring his beliefs.”

The Federal attorney sat behind his table during this, smiling slightly and occasionally exchanging glances with his assistant. When Sylvia finished, he rose to speak.

“I find my opponent's argument very touching, but I must remind her that the question was asked not simply to identify Molly Maguire as a communist, but to open up a whole line of questioning concerning Bruce Bacon's relationship to a notorious communist. It was not his refusal to state her political preference that put him in contempt, but his summary decision to close off that line of questioning completely by announcing that he would answer no questions relating in any manner to Molly Maguire. A brief glance at the records of the hearing will confirm my argument. To dismiss this line of questioning as a provocation would undermine the total work of the committee. That, Your Honor, completes my argument.”

He sat down. The judge sat motionless, staring into space. A black courtroom attendant poured him a glass of ice water, and the judge sipped at it, not as a person in thirst, but as if assuring himself that the water was water. He wrote a few words on the pad in front of him, and then he looked up, smiled, and said, “I have heard your arguments. The motion is denied. I suggest we go about selecting the jury.”

They began the selection of the jury.

“Where are you employed?”

“The Treasury Department.”

“Where are you employed?”

“General Accounting Office.”

“Where are you employed?”

“The Justice Department.”

“Where are you employed?”

“I work for Congressman Field Bixton.”

“Where are you employed?”

“I am a housewife.”

“Where is your husband employed?”

“He's a statistician at the State Department.”

It went on and on. Sylvia asked whether she might approach the bench, and standing before the judge, she asked quietly for a change of venue.

“This is the wrong time to ask for it, Miss Kline.”

“I have not tried a case in Washington before. The entire panel is government-employed.”

“A jury will vote the evidence, Miss Kline.”

“I still request a change of venue.”

Patiently, the judge said, “You forget that I shall charge the jury. We are trying a misdemeanor here, not a capital crime. I resent your implication that your client cannot get a fair trial here in my court.”

“With all due respect, Your Honor, a man accused of being a communist these days cannot look for a fair trial in any court in these United States. Do you think the jurors are exempt from fear?”

“Your client is not accused of being a communist. This is a contempt citation we are trying. Now, I will hear no more on this subject.”

When the day was over, they had a jury. “I feel stupid,” Sylvia said at dinner that evening. “I never should have taken your case. There are lawyers who could do it better, so much better.”

“I doubt it,” Bruce said. “Lewis Carroll put it neatly: first the verdict, then the trial. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference, Sylvia, whatever you do.”

As a matter of fact, Bruce felt, she pleaded her case very eloquently in her opening statement. She began by explaining the purpose and history of congressional committees, the fact that they had been set up so that Congress, in framing legislation, might have the right to gather whatever facts were pertinent to this legislation. This gave Congress a right to inquiry that was backed by law to the extent of a misdemeanor — in that anyone who refused information could be charged with committing a misdemeanor.

“However,” she told the jury, “not by the fullest strength of the imagination could Bruce Bacon's testimony about a woman who was his dear friend be considered pertinent to the drafting of legislation. In fact, the past few years have proven that the Un-American Committee has offered no new legislation and plans to offer none. I shall show that their purpose is persecution, not information or inquiry. They have taken a privilege of Congress and turned it into a police weapon with which to subvert the Constitution of the United States. My client has done no wrong. He is not and never has been a communist. He was chosen by the committee so that they might extend the boundaries of their terror.”

Albert Button, the Federal attorney, was neither eloquent nor foolish. His opening statement was short and to the point. As Sylvia Kline had anticipated, he said that he would prove to the jury's satisfaction that Bruce Bacon was a communist and that his attitude before the House Committee constituted a gross act of contempt of Congress. His first witness was Gerald Crown, counsel for the Un-American Committee. Both he and Button had printed copies of Bruce's hearing, which had been entered as evidence.

Button said to Crown: “Is it correct that you asked the defendant, Bruce Bacon, whether Molly Maguire was a member of the Communist Party?”

“May I consult the record?” Crown asked.

“Please.”

Sylvia rose to object. Evidently, Button had anticipated this, and he said, looking at the printed record of the hearing, “May I revise that question, sir? Will the stenographer strike my previous question?”

“Objection,” Sylvia said. “There is a deliberate attempt at confusion here. Each of these men has the hearing record in hand.”

The judge was looking at the record now.

“The question was asked of Mr. Bacon a bit later. I regret my error. The record is changed accordingly.”