by Nat Hentoff
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?”
“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.”
Barney nodded. “We only need one more then.”
Deirdre Fitzgerald, frowning, walked by.
“Looks good, huh?” Barney smiled at her.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said in a low voice. “I’d feel a lot better if that Mr. Griswold had been somewhere else tonight. A lot better.”
XIII
The review committee was to take a vote two days later in the conference room adjoining the principal’s office; and that afternoon, waiting for the results in the library, were Barney, Luke, Nora Baines, and Maggie Crowley.
“It’d be great if we could win big,” Barney said. “Something like five to two. Then the school board wouldn’t dare turn it around.”
Deirdre Fitzgerald appeared in the doorway. “No one won big,” she said softly, “and we didn’t win at all.”
The vote had been four to three to adopt Matthew Griswold’s proposal. Huckleberry Finn would be allowed to stay in the school, but under heavy restrictions. No one would be required to read the book for classwork in any course; Huck, subject to the approval of a parent and teacher, could be on certain optional reading lists; and in the library, he would be kept on a restricted shelf—available only with the written permission of a teacher and a parent.
Three members of the review committee—Deirdre, Professor Lomax, and Ben Maddox—had been in favor of letting Huck Finn roam freely throughout George Mason High School.
“You mean to tell me”—Nora Baines broke a pencil in two—“that if only one of our two faculty members on that committee had voted right, we would have won? What did those two creeps have to say for themselves?”
“Both Helen Cook and Frank Sylvester,” Deirdre said, “thought it very important not to offend the black students and their parents; and under what they call the Griswold Compromise, they don’t have to do that. Meanwhile, the book is not being censored because it’s still in the school. As for Evelyn Kantrow—you know, the other parent besides Professor Lomax—she was very nervous about that boy and that man together, stark naked, on that raft. She told us she didn’t remember all that nakedness being in the book, but she bought a copy yesterday and, by gum, there it was. Mr. Twain, she said, was a very sneaky, dirty-minded man, and she’s now going to go through all his other books in the school.”
“I know whose mind should be washed out with soap.” Nora Baines sniffed. “But, Deirdre, what about Sandy Wicks? I was sure a journalist would be against censorship or whatever the hell Griswold and his comrades choose to call it.”
Deirdre shook her head mournfully. “Wicks was with us until Griswold turned her around. He made it sound—to some folks, anyway—that if you didn’t think the way he did, you were insensitive and cruel and probably a racist. And Sandy Wicks, good liberal that she is, does not want to think of herself as any one of those things. But she did tell me when it was all over that she would never have agreed to just throw the book out of the school.”
“How noble of her,” Maggie Crowley said. “Putting Huck in shackles on a back shelf, that’s the liberal thing to do, right?”
“So what are we going to do?” Luke looked all around.
Deirdre Fitzgerald sat down on the edge of her desk. “The school board meeting at which this decision will be accepted or turned down is going to be two weeks from tonight. We’ve got to organize. We’ve got to spread the word so that a lot of our people—if we have a lot of people—will be at that meeting. Leaflets, letters to the editor of the Daily Tribune, and maybe we can scrape up enough money for an ad. And you”—Deirdre turned to Barney—“you’ll be doing a story for the Standard, right? So maybe that’ll get a lot more students to come.”
Barney nodded. “And there may be an exclusive in that story.”
Deirdre looked at him. “Like what?”
“Mrs. Salters said she’d see me,” Barney said, “if the review committee voted the wrong way.
In Karen Salters’s small, neat living room the next afternoon, Barney took a seat on the sofa and placed his notebook on the table in front of it.
A small, rather nervous woman, her brown hair drawn tightly back, Mrs. Salters looked so intently at Barney that he was becoming rather nervous.
“It took me quite a while to find a new job,” she began. “I don’t start until January. It’s not in this state. And I certainly did not intend to get involved in a public controversy in the short time I have left in this town.” She started to sit down in a chair opposite Barney but stopped. “I’m sorry, would you like a Coca-Cola or something?”
Barney declined.
Sitting straight-backed in the chair, the former librarian at the high school went on. “It’s just that this is too much. Attacking Huckleberry Finn! Do you know what Lionel Trilling said about Huckleberry Finn?”
Barney, wondering who Lionel Trilling was, said he did not.
“Wait a minute.” She left the living room, went upstairs, and returned with a paperback book. “Here it is. Here is what this extraordinarily perceptive literary critic, maybe the best we have ever had, says about this terribly harmful book that they want to keep locked up.” Mrs. Salters opened the book.
“ ‘One can read it at ten and then annually ever after, and each year find that it is as fresh as the year before, that it has changed only in becoming somewhat larger. To read it young is like planting a tree young—each year adds a new growth ring of learning, and the book is as little likely as the tree to become dull. So we may imagine an Athenian boy grew up together with the Odyssey. There are few other books which we can know so young and love so long.’ ”
By the last sentence, Karen Salters’s voice had started to tremble, and Barney, seeing tears in her eyes, looked away.
&n
bsp; “Imagine,” she said, closing the book, “depriving students of such a book. Well”—Mrs. Salters raised her head, her voice firm again—“I intend to do whatever I can to stop this nonsense. What is needed now, young man, is ridicule. The best weapon against fools is to make them look as foolish as they are. And the biggest fool—as well as the biggest coward in all of this—is Mr. Moore. He could have turned this all around if he had forcefully reminded people, especially the review committee, what a school is for. It’s for opening the minds of the young—not locking up books. But he doesn’t know what a school is for.”
She got up from her chair and stood against the wall, looking steadily at Barney. “All right, young man, it is time to begin. During the two years before I left George Mason, there had been a growing number of what I shall call censorship incidents. A parent complaining about a book in the library, and the Emperor of Smooth—Mr. Moore—coming to me and telling me to take that book off the shelves. Well, I—I am not much of a fighter and, I am ashamed to tell you this, I went along. I like this town, I grew up in this town, I was graduated from George Mason, and I didn’t want to lose my job there.”
The church clock across the street was striking five. “A lovely, mournful sound,” Mrs. Salters said. “I shall miss those bells. However. As these incidents continued, it was getting harder and harder for me to just follow orders. I felt like such a—a collaborator. A collaborator in evil. What’s the difference between burning a book, like the Nazis did, and hiding it?
“Then one day, he came to me, that oleaginous man, and said that Our Mutual Friend would have to be taken off the open shelves. I must tell you, young man, that Charles Dickens is my oldest and most reliable friend. I have every one of his novels, and I keep coming back to them. It may be, it probably is, a deficiency in my character, but the people in Mr. Dickens’s books are more real to me, more dear to me, than most of the people I know in so-called real life. So Mr. Moore was telling me to lock up a book by my best friend—a book that was full of real people I had known for so many years.”