Cry Wilderness

by Frank Capra

  “So your county officials have been kind enough to give me this opportunity to tell you all—my wife, my kids, my friends, and everybody else—the reason I disobeyed an order. I just couldn’t make myself arrest two peaceful nobodies, falsely charge them with vagrancy, and run them out of the county. To arrest citizens without due cause would make me a criminal. That’s all I want my friends to know. I want them to know that those two hermits were here long before the ski lifts and the shiny Las Vegas hotels…living alone, no more trouble’n a couple chipmunks. They ain’t got money, they ain’t even got names. But damn it all, they’ve got human rights! And I’m gonna fight, fight for ’em if I have to see the president…”

  Boatcourt: (To audience) “Now, one might ask, why all this hullabaloo over two worthless derelicts? I’ll tell you why…because to Lefty they weren’t just two worthless derelicts…they were two human beings…children of God just as you and me…human beings seeking surcease in loneliness…trying to find something in nature they couldn’t find in the society of men.

  “Lefty knew they weren’t dangerous. He had investigated them, taken their fingerprints. Not a mark against them.

  “Well, friends, it happens to all of us. There comes a time in every man’s life when he is faced with a make-or-break decision, a decision between his conscience and expediency. ‘These are the times that try men’s souls,’ said Thomas Paine. George Washington faced such a time when he had to decide whether to remain on Mount Vernon as a rich gentleman farmer, or lead a ragtag Continental Army against Britain’s famous Redcoats. Harry Truman faced such a time when he had to decide whether or not to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.

  “Lefty’s time to try his soul came in the shape of a decision between duty and conscience over the fate of two insignificant hermits, who probably wouldn’t care two cents’ worth whether they did their hermitting in Mono County or Podunk, Iowa.

  “But within the conscience of each man it isn’t the size of the decision that counts. It’s the rightness or wrongness that tears you apart.

  “So Lefty faced his moment of truth. Obey the order and keep everything he had. Disobey it and lose everything. His conscience won out. He refused to obey the order…and took the consequences.

  “Most of us would probably say his decision was silly, imprudent. We might even call it stupid. And yet…a few of us could call it admirable. It is the kind of decision that gives a lift to our own puny souls.

  “Think, ladies and gentlemen…these are the decisions that raise mankind above the jungle; that reveal to us a little better understanding of what Christ meant by the second of his two great Commands: Love they neighbor as thyself…even though your neighbor is an unlovable beggar…as unlovable as Bear Bait or Dry Rot.

  “By this small insignificant decision, this one tiny deed of compassion…Lefty has affected me more than a hundred Sunday sermons. He has made me just a little bit prouder of the whole human race.

  “Just as Emily Dickinson did with this bit of loveliness:

  ‘If I could stop one heart from breaking,

  I shall not live in vain;

  If I can ease one life the aching,

  Or cool one pain,

  Or help one fainting robin

  Unto his nest again,

  I shall not live in vain.’

  “One teenie incident between a gentle woman and a frightened robin. One teenie decision by a gentle deputy. And yet, be they ever so small, their common touch of compassion reaches the heart with more power than mountains of Vacation Dollars.”

  Handsome Tony suddenly threw up his arms, shook all over, and caricatured a man hitting the sawdust trail. “Oh, God, I hear you…I hear your call…I feel you all through me…” He kneeled and crawled forward toward Boatcourt. “I accept Jesus. Where is he? I accept him…I accept him…Here’s my worldly goods…” He took out his wallet and threw it at Boatcourt’s feet. “Give me Christ! I want to buy Christ!”

  The crowd went into stitches. Tony rose and bowed like an actor.

  “Sorry to interrupt your sermon, Mister Gorski. But I got carried away. Besides, I wasn’t sure if you were talking about two worm-eating bums or about Hansel and Gretel.”

  Boatcourt’s face was livid with anger. In a very even voice, each word cutting deep, Boatcourt said, “I blaspheme. But in your case, God should apologize. The Almighty seldom makes a mistake. But when He does, it’s a beaut.”

  Then, lightning-fast as a cobra strikes, Boatcourt slapped Tony squarely and resoundingly across his face. Over the loudspeakers it sounded like a rifle shot. Five hundred people heard the words and the slap. Five hundred people held their breath.

  Two men, one young (Apollo), the other old (and froglike), faced each other silently. The young one could destroy the old one with one blow. It never came. He had a crueler way in mind. Besides, the young man had a mission. The slightest loss of self-control could jeopardize it.

  The young man yielded first—with a deferential bow to Boatcourt. Then he faced the audience, and using his controlled humorous cool, he rubbed his jaw and said, “You wouldn’t think he carried such a wallop.” He got his laugh and broke the audience’s tension. “But I deserved it—and I accept it.”

  Then, his cool hardening to icy menace, Tony threw away all pretense. “But…if that old gentleman throws gauntlets around, I have to pick them up—with regret. Because I find dismantling fools distasteful—particularly old fools. Great lawyer of the Sierras,” he said directly to Boatcourt. “You slapped my face, publicly. I will destroy you…publicly.”

  He arranged his microphone and glanced around at the hushed, tense faces of the Monoites. The silence both inside and outside the old courthouse was so intense you could almost hear the mellifluous whispering of snowflakes falling on the tents, the courtyard, and the sills of the tall opened windows. The pause intensified the drama as Tony planned it would. Good actor…fine timing, he thought to himself.

  His first words were even more riveting. “‘J’accuse!’ said Emile Zola in denouncing the Dreyfus affair. And I accuse the Clarence Darrow of the Sierra, and his cabal of stooges, of plotting to do a snow job on us—no pun intended. Yes, friends, we are witnessing a cunning charade to make a Dreyfus ‘affair’ out of two worm-eating riffraff.” Then turning to Boatcourt, “Mr. Gorski, you know that Bear Bait is a gibbering alcoholic. Where he gets his liquor, or where he passes out, what’s the difference? He doesn’t know—or care!

  “Dry Rot…he’s a walking ghost. Where he sleeps, no one knows not even he. He just doesn’t want to see anybody. Fine. His privilege. But he can be alone in a million places. Why must he stay here and haunt people?

  “Admittedly they are both recidivists devolving back to insect-eating. Of what are they being deprived if they are asked to move to a more primitive stretch of woods? Personally, I think it reflects the prudency of your officials. For who can be sure that these male malcontents are not prone to algolagnia, with—”

  “I can be sure,” interrupted Lefty, the fired deputy sheriff.

  Tony was astonished. “You? You know what algolagnia means?”

  “Of course. Doesn’t everybody?”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means,” said Lefty, “getting your sexual kicks out of hurting people.”

  “Where did you learn that word?”

  “Oh, old Boatcourt here gave me a list of about twenty-five long words he thought you might use to show off with.”

  A ripple of giggles ran through the crowd.

  “Well, then, Professor Lefty, can you guarantee the good people of Mono that two lone scummy males will never have yens to rape women and children?”

  “I can’t guarantee anything. But I’ve known Bear Bait and Dry Rot for over eighteen years, and I swear to God they are as harmless as pet puppies.”

  “Yes, Tony,” interrupted Boatcourt compassionat
ely. “I can understand your confusion. Geniuses have often been puzzled by simple, unsophisticated truths.” He turned to the audience. “But we, the ordinary people, ‘the huddled masses’ as your super-intellectuals call us, we understand. If your grandmother is endeared to the house she was born in, with all its beautiful memories, we can understand her unwillingness to be forcibly moved out.

  “But what we also must understand is that our Constitution gives any American citizen the right to come, go, or stay anywhere in this country whether he’s endeared to the place or not. And no authority can legally deprive Mr. or Mrs. Citizen of those sacred rights merely because he or she may not want them. Or is unaware of them.

  “Should an idiot be deprived of his money because he doesn’t understand the meaning of money? No. Is it less of a crime to steal from an innocent child than from a banker? NO.

  “If a man is being beaten by a mugger, does he have to yell ‘Help!’ before a policeman goes to his rescue? NO.

  “In short, do the rights of man become null and void if he chooses not to make use of them? No. Does he have to assert his rights every hour to make them valid? Absolutely NOT! He is endowed with those rights from birth. And whether he asserts them, is ignorant of them, or refuses them does not relieve society or the law from the obligation to respect his rights, providing he breaks no laws.

  “Is getting drunk breaking a law? Yes, if you become a public nuisance. Bear Bait gets drunk, yes. But in peace. And alone. I can name you a dozen big taxpayers who get just as drunk, but not in peace, and not alone. Some become embarrassing nuisances not only to their families but also to the pilgrims who come to worship our wilderness and leave their dollars in our pockets. Why not arrest these big-shot nuisances and exile them from our county?

  “Is Dry Rot breaking any law by seeking to live in complete privacy? We all seek privacy. We build homes on distant hilltops, surround them with high fences, or plant trees around them to ensure privacy.

  “Does Dry Rot, as shy of humanity as a golden eagle, become a public nuisance because his tortured soul seeks mercies in nature rather than in men? He has many illustrious predecessors. The Nazarene spent forty days alone in the wilderness conditioning himself for his mission of redemption. Saint Paul communed alone for fourteen years before he set forth to bring Christianity to the gentiles.

  “History is filled with famous ascetics: John the Baptist, Saint Anthony of Egypt, Franciscan Monks, Trappist Monks. The pen name of the great poet Shelley was ‘The Hermit of Marlow.’ Thomas A. Kempis wrote Imitation of Christ when he was recluse. Daniel Boone kept moving west to get away from people. Henry Thoreau built a hut on the shores of Walden Pond to live alone and write his immortal thoughts on the simple natural life. ‘A man is rich,’ he wrote, ‘in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.’

  “According to Thoreau’s definition, Dry Rot is the richest in this county. And then we have our own great hermit of the Sierra…John Muir.”

  “Sure, sure,” Tony interrupted, “and Thoreau was thrown in jail as an antisocial malcontent stirring up trouble. Shelley was a revolutionary agitator who was forced to flee his native England.

  “But forget the venalities and the motives for the moment. I don’t want any person in this room or in this county to get the idea that I’m against the rights of man…whether he’s a hermit or a king. No, sir. I’ll stand on my two feet and defend the rights of man against all comers. But ‘the rights of man’ is a two-faced coin…the other side being responsibility.

  “What social rights can any person claim who withdraws from human society? Who refuses to identify himself, even by name? Society has the right to know the identity of anyone claiming the rights of man. What man? Is he a murderer? A robber? A thief in hiding? If not, why refuse to identify himself?

  “No court of law, of equity, or of morality would give a hearing to the plea of anyone who refuses to identify himself. It is an axiom of our social order, that if you wish to count you must stand up and be counted.”

  And at that precise time—magnificent actor that he was—Tony increased the pitch and tempo of his resonant voice, and the intensity of his outrage. The crowd stilled. Hands raising glasses stopped in midair.

  “Think with me for a moment, ladies and gentlemen. Let your reason uncover the motive that has maneuvered you into the rigors of this cold, dreary day. Was it to hear good Deputy Lefty tell us he has a conscience? No. Everyone in Mono knows Lefty is honest and incorruptible. He has even been offered high posts in other county departments at an increase in salary.

  “Was it to keep two hermits from being pushed out by newcomers? Nonsense. True hermits seek seclusion. They themselves flee any encroachment upon their solitude.

  “Then why the big guns, here? The big Berthas? The biggest lawyer? The biggest newspaper publisher? They are here to make a young independent district attorney, who aspires to be your assemblyman, look like a heartless brute who despises the little man. They are out to beat me at next Tuesday’s election so they can maintain their present political control on Mono County. They like the status quo. I don’t. I want change! Change for a better shake for us, ‘the huddled masses,’ as they sneeringly call us. I am young, smart. I’ll match my brain against any intellectual in the world! I want to go to Sacramento to represent you. Because I’m modern, progressive—Boatcourt’s old. He is yesterday. I am tomorrow.”

  He looks scathingly at Boatcourt. “And oddly enough Boatcourt has been my protector, my campaign manager—my… But let me digress for a moment, so that you will understand.

  “My bizarre affair with this—uh—face-slapper…” he waited for the laugh to die down, “goes back to my graduation from Bishop High School, where I gave the valedictorian address on the subject, ‘The Evils of Compromise,’ and Boatcourt’s commencement speech was on ‘The Values of Compromise.’ As he handed me my diploma, I said to him, ‘You see, sir, we don’t agree!’ And to this day we never have.

  “Yes, I detested this man. Still do. He repels me. But, oddly enough, he adored me. Like a son. Still does. Only recently I found out that he paid my way through grammar school, high school, college, Harvard Law School, and a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. How? By setting up blind scholarships for the best Mono student each year, knowing I would win them all. Did I thank him? No! He took away my self-respect. I thought I was making it on my own. I hate him for it!

  “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, all that I have and am today I owe to this queer-looking man with whom I had nothing in common. He took me into his law office. Then he talked me into politics; ran me for county tax assessor, then for district attorney, and begged to run me for state assemblyman. I didn’t want, nor did I need anyone to pay for my schooling. And I don’t want, nor do I need, any James Farley to run my campaigns; to do my thinking for me. And I told him so.

  “And he answered: ‘Wonder Boy, from the moment I saw you, and read your incredible grades, I knew you were something super special. I fell in love with you, and began to dream “The Impossible Dream,” as the song goes. I envisioned you as a young, audacious Lochinvar. First—in the governor’s seat in Sacramento; and then—so help me, I saw you in the White House. Another Jack Kennedy, graced with the wisdom of a Lincoln, and the drive of a Patton. I saw you calming our fears, healing our wounds, and bringing fresh, vigorous hope to a war-sick world…’

  “Then he gave me his pitch:

  “‘But you need me to advise you, to tell you it has all happened before. To warn you that without the mellowing graces of moral principles, men gifted with your superior capacities have become monsters!

  “‘Listen to history, my boy,’ he said. ‘All rulers who have lacked compassion, pity, or moral principles have had to rule by terror, decree, and mass executions of the opposition. They became monstrous failures, dying ignominiously by murder or suicide. And it can happen again. To YOU! As it did to Genghis Kahn, to Nero, to
Caesar, to Hitler…’

  “I couldn’t take any more. All my revulsions against him poured out of me: ‘Monster!? Moral principles?’ I shouted. ‘Why you mealy mouthed old fart, it’s a sin, a reversal of God’s and nature’s law for the weak to lead the strong; for the parasites to govern the hand that feeds them. Nor will I play your cliché games of ‘being nice to Big Business,’ or of ‘groveling to Big Labor,’ or ‘kissing the combined asses of that rabble of Cretans we call minorities.

  “‘No, indeed, my ugly friend,’ I said, ‘I intend to reverse that trend, and put nature’s law back on the right track, I intend to emancipate our citizens from the phony chains of compassion, pity, and humility. And our people will listen—as they are listening here now. And I fully intend to become president before I’m forty-five! And on my own platform!

  “‘So, rich man, fairy godfather, boy lover, or what the hell ever you are—thanks for the favors, and GOODBYE! AND STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY LIFE!’”

  “Out of our lives, darling.” Tony’s beauteous wife had slipped up alongside him and put her arm around his waist. Tony turned to her and pounded his head with mocking fists.

  “Oh, how stupid of me. Come here.” They embraced; he covered her face with kisses. Then to the crowd, with mock horror: “This could cost me the women’s vote… Ladies and gentlemen of Mono County, allow me to introduce you to Grace Caldwell, my new campaign manager.” That brought down the house.

  From his corner, Boatcourt broke the gloom. “Well, she’s prettier than I am.”

  Grace advanced to the mike, smiling, bowing. “Thank you, thank you… It’s time women get smart enough to manage a few simple things—like their husbands!”