Public Burning
Page 50
that the prosecution has exculpating evidence that they are withholding from the court!
In short, we did not get a fair trial and we were framed!
Now you want us
to admit that this big lie is the truth!
That we can never do!
The history of our country in freeing war criminals, Nazi and Fascist, in not putting to death traitors and spies, and yet, for the first time, making the Rosenbergs the worst criminals in all our history—you know this is not right!
JAMES
But, Julius, I am giving you the opportunity to cooperate!
JULIUS
Sure! Judge Kaufman made a terrible blunder with the outrageous sentence and he has the bull by the tail and he can’t let go!
JAMES
(as the CHORUS enters behind him)
That’s right, Julius! He needs you to help him change this sentence and you can do this by telling all you know!
CHORUS
Judge Irving Kaufman has served with dignity and propriety!
Judge Irving Kaufman is a Jew by birth, by affiliation, and by religious beliefs and practices!
Yet, in this amazing society of ours, a judge of the Jewish faith sentences two spies of Jewish origin for treason!
Americanism triumphed!
Not even the most vindictive anti-Semite can ignore the heartbreak of the judge in this case!
Yet he has, in his own words, been “hounded and pounded!”
Never before has a judge in an American court been subjected to such organized mass pressure!
Even the life of that wise and courageous jurist has been threatened!
Judge Kaufman’s life and the lives of his wife and children!
He received so large a volume of vituperative mail that he had to stop reading it!
He was called on the telephone day and night until he stopped answering calls even from personal friends!
And from the left he has been subjected constantly to the bitterest abuse and vilification!
All of whom seemed to view Judge Irving Kaufman as an ogre—
JULIUS
(interrupting the CHORUS with vehemence)
I cannot bail him out of his mistake, for we never should have been brought to trial!
JULIUS
JAMES
(Duet:) This pressure on us is cruel and unconscionable!
The only decent thing to do is to tell Mr. Brownell to recommend clemency— The only way is for you to cooperate and convince the officials in Washington!
Then, they will have a basis to ask for clemency—
(They are abruptly interrupted by the prison bells signaling twelve noon. JAMES departs abruptly. The TURNKEY enters and leads JULIUS out.)
CHORUS
Instead of trying to save their lives by making a clean breast of their crimes, the Rosenbergs prefer to make a plea for their lives by asking for tolerance!
Why is it that we, who are loyal Americans,
are always being asked to prove that we are tolerant?
Why all this agitation over the Rosenberg case?
Too many violent demonstrations against American justice are being tolerated!
The time for suppressing this vicious attitude is long overdue!
National self-protection demands that other saboteurs should not gain the impression
that spying is relatively safe or that Communist intimidation can gain them immunity!
Any nation has the inalienable right to protect itself and its people from its forcible overthrow!
Those who join conspiracies must expect to die by them!
There will be no compromise with treason!
SCENE 2
Twelve noon, the same day, same scene as before, though a sign explains that it is now part of the women’s wing. ETHEL is wandering around with a tin plate of food in her hand, calmly studying the blown-up diagram of the electric chair, as JAMES enters and announces himself. The TURNKEY, who has ushered him in, and a MATRON present with ETHEL slip away, stationing themselves discreetly at the outer barred gate to the corridor. JAMES repeats the theme of the Overture:
JAMES
Let me come right to the point, Mrs. Rosenberg!
Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., has directed me to inform you that he could make available to you any official to whom you might care to divulge any espionage information you have hitherto withheld!
If you cooperate in this fashion, the Government stands ready to invalidate the death penalty!
I’ve been visiting with Julie for an hour, and now I am anxious to have your viewpoint!
ETHEL
(Aria, short and sweet:) I am innocent, my husband is innocent, and neither of us knows anything about espionage!
And if the Attorney General were to send a highly placed authority to see me, I should simply reiterate what I have just stated and urge that clemency be recommended to remedy a shocking situation!
JAMES
(gently, coaxingly)
Let me urge you to cooperate!
It is the only way you can help yourself!
Surely you must know something!
ETHEL
Well, now, how could I when I did not participate in any way? In order to cooperate as you desire, I should have to deliberately concoct a pack of lies and bear false witness against unoffending individuals!
ETHEL
JAMES
(evenly)
(properly horrified)
(Duet:) Is that what the authorities want me to do —to lie?
Is that what the authorities, etc. Oh, dear, no!
Of course we don’t want you to lie!
Oh, dear, no, etc.
CHORUS
(intruding angrily upon the scene)
This is the story of two kinds of justice—Russian and American!
In Russia, in any Iron Curtain land, these defendants would have been shot long ago!
In Soviet Russia the Rosenbergs would have been put to death as soon as their crime was discovered!
And as soon as they had been forced by subtle torture to name all their accomplices!
To illustrate the Russian justice, let’s look at what happened to Willi Goettling of Berlin!
When will Willi Goettling be tried?
And may he appeal if found guilty?
And ask for a rehearing or a stay of execution?
Don’t be silly!
They sent Willi
before a firing squad and shot him!
That’s Soviet justice in action!
Were the Rosenbergs taken out and shot, as they would have been in Russia?
You know that they weren’t!
And yet there isn’t a shadow of a doubt as to the guilt of the Rosenbergs!
Justice may be hard but in the nearly three years since they were indicted the Rosenbergs received far more of it than totalitarianism affords!
Doesn’t this make one wonder how an American citizen, possessing all the rights and privileges we hold dear, can embrace this doctrine of Communism?
(ETHEL, disdainful of the CHORUS, has been casually eating her meal from the tin plate. Now, with magisterial aplomb, she presents the plate to the MATRON, then steps downstage and in a clear ringing voice repeats her aria coloratura as though giving an encore.)
JAMES
(interrupting the aria)
Ethel, the Government claims to have in its possession documents and statements that would dispute that; so if only you were willing to cooperate, there might be a basis for a commutation!
ETHEL
(entirely unimpressed)
If what they have is so damaging, why do they need me to confirm it, at this late stage? I will tell you this very bluntly:
(Aria aspro:) The most powerful Government on earth has sent its representative to approach us with a disgraceful proposition, because it is fully aware that the convictions were illegally procured, the sentences vindictive!
And rather than risk exposing
their participation in a rotten frame-up, and with a double execution they are anxious not to carry out only days away, they have the effrontery to try to forcibly wring from us a false confession, by dangling our lives before us like bait before hapless fish!
Pay the price we demand, or forfeit your lives!
JAMES
(hastening to stem the rising tide of her indignation)
Come, come, I have not said anything of the sort, you are misinterpreting me!
ETHEL
On the contrary, I have understood you far too well. So here is our answer:
(Aria nobile:) We will not be intimidated by the threat of electrocution into saving their faces!
Nor will we encourage the growing use of undemocratic police-state methods by accepting a shabby, contemptible little deal in lieu of the justice that is due us as citizens!
That is for Hitler Germany, not for the Land of Liberty!
A truly great, truly honorable nation has the obligation to redress grievances, not to demand tribute of those who have been wronged for grudgingly sparing their lives —lives that should never have been placed in jeopardy at all!
(JAMES is beginning to flounder in earnest now, the mask of nonchalant authority slipping, revealing his very real discomfiture.)
JAMES
But we are trying to help you by seeking your cooperation!
ETHEL
(unmoved)
Say what you will, camouflage it, glamorize it, whitewash it, in any way you choose, but this is coercion, this is pressure, this is torture!
(She points to the clock cheerfully ticking away her life.)
Let me say to you in all sobriety you will come to me at ten minutes of eleven p.m. on Thursday, June 18, and the fact of my innocence will not have changed in the slightest!
JAMES
ETHEL
(Asides:) She must be crazy to reject life when it is there for the taking!
Ar-r-humph!
—for a price, of course!
Nevertheless one has to respect her stand! I feel sorry for him!
Just another cog in a wheel, doing a lousy thankless job!
Wanting so desperately to convince me that he is impartial and finding it increasingly difficult to maintain an untenable position against a virile and dedicated honesty!
JAMES
(throwing up his hands in despair, calling for the TURNKEY)
Bring Mr. Rosenberg in, please!
CHORUS
(while awaiting JULIUS’S entrance)
All this has taken place in no atmosphere of hysteria or ferocity!
It has been a cold judicial search for the right course!
The first issue was whether wartime treason was to be condoned!
The Rosenbergs betrayed their country in the most vicious possible manner!
Their crime was one of the most heinous in American history!
Mrs. Rosenberg asked that her life be spared so that she might see her sons grow to manhood!
This plea was made in the face of the fact that by her actions
Mrs. Rosenberg has sent sons of many American mothers to their deaths in Korea
before they could reach the full flower of manhood!
In Korea there are 24,214 American dead, who died largely because of the Rosenbergs!
Without American atomic secrets the Communists would never have dared risk war in the Far East!
There is always the possibility
that Soviet Russia may unleash
a surprise atomic attack on the United States
to wipe out hundreds of thousands of lives
and destroy military potential!
The Rosenbergs committed an enormous crime
against the 150 million people of the United States!
—Indeed against all free peoples!
We are sorry for the young sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg!
But we can find no tears for their parents!
They should have died months ago!
(The time is 12:30 p.m. when the TURNKEY ushers JULIUS in. The Overture is struck one more time, as though through an echo chamber…)
JAMES
Now let me entreat you once more to cooperate!
I even promise to enlist the aid of my good friend, Gordon Dean, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission!
JULIUS
(wonderfully poised and forthright)
(Aria:) How can America stoop to such tactics and hope to command the continued respect and affection and support of our friends!
It is simply unthinkable!
How can this nation afford to let such villainy go unchallenged and be indelibly recorded to the everlasting shame of incoming generations!
Just imagine!
Even if it were true and it is not, my wife is awaiting a horrible end for having typed a few notes!
A heinous crime “worse than murder,” no doubt! and deserving of the extreme penalty! while the most atrocious and wanton killers known to civilization, the Nazi war criminals, are being freed daily!
(Ensemble:)
JAMES
ETHEL
JULIUS
What you’re saying is not germane. Please, if you would only agree to cooperate, something could be worked out! There just won’t be any other way! (Repeat) Of course, a hearing based on new evidence is not germane! After all, we might actually be able to prove our claims! But it is germane for the Government of a great nation to victimize two helpless people just because a world controversy has developed as to their guilt, and to tell them in effect “to knuckle under or die!” Wouldn’t it be more advantageous to the United States to let us live? Doesn’t your coming here at the behest of the Attorney General indicate that the handling of this case has cost us a good deal of prestige on the other side? Obviously, it would be much less costly to give us the opportunity to prove our innocence!
(JAMES turns away wearily as the WARDEN enters. It is 1:00 p.m.)
WARDEN
What is this all about?
JULIUS
Mr. Brownell sent Mr. Bennett to tell us if we cooperated with the Government he would recommend clemency to the President.
(Aside to audience:) You will note that the Warden was not present when the offer was made!
JAMES
(to the Warden)
Please expedite any messages they might care to send me!
(Aria:) Good-bye, Julius!
Good-bye, Mrs. Rosenberg!
(He turns to go.)
ETHEL
(Aria da capo:) Grant us our day in court, Mr. Bennett!
Let us live that we may prove our innocence!
That’s the decent way, the American way!
(JULIUS is led some distance away. JAMES watches ETHEL a moment, then follows JULIUS until they are out of earshot of ETHEL.)
JAMES
(in a stage whisper)
Your only hope, Julius, lies in cooperation! Let me bring some people who are familiar with the case and you can submit to answering questions of what you know about this!
JULIUS
Why, this would be like “brainwashing,” Mr. Bennett!
JAMES
(timidly)
Well, could I—would you like me to come back another time?
JULIUS
(pointedly)
Yes, if you can bring me some good news!
(JAMES exits. JULIUS crosses to ETHEL for their final duet sequence, the WARDEN, the TURNKEY, and the MATRON forming a silent trio in the background.)
JULIUS
Our very lives and most cherished principles are at stake here, and I am glad we met the test well!
I feel strongly that it is our sacred duty to expose the police-state methods that are being practiced!
Because we are fighting for a just cause our spirits are high, but at the same time our lives are in very great jeopardy!
Of course the storm is getting greater but I know we’ll ride through this storm in good shape!
&
nbsp; JULIUS
ETHEL
Therefore, my sweet, I can’t help admiring you and telling you over and over again that you are a great noble woman —which in fact you are— and certainly a very charming person at that!
I guess it will not be amiss if I say I love you most dearly!
Therefore, my sweet, etc. Darling, my darling!
How truly I love you!
And how much I long to possess the remarkable qualities you attribute to me, and to be worthy of all that you are yourself!
Darling, my darling, etc.
JULIUS
(Recit.:) There is great danger in our land if now! The great difficulty is, that media of information, they are “brainwashing” the readers and the public is misinformed!
ETHEL
JULIUS
The lame attempts of the Justice Department to “brainwash” the public on an issue that has been the main burden of a sickening refrain for over two long years, brings to mind lago’s cynical assertion:
How big can the lie get and how much deceit are they capable of?
Events are happening at an increasing tempo and we must continue to look to each other to find the strength and courage to stand up to the terror!
“Bravery’s plain face
United in love and spirit
is never seen till used!”
we will be successful!
ETHEL
You must tell them, Julie: we are the first victims of American Fascism!
JULIUS
(addressing the audience)
(Appassionato:) The courts are mere appendages
to an autocratic police force!