by Howard Fast
In the waiting room, a secretary nodded at Silas, smiled, and said, “Dr. Cabot is waiting for you, Professor Timberman. Won’t you go in.”
As Silas entered, Cabot got up from behind his desk and walked forward and shook hands with him. “Glad you came, Professor Timberman. Suppose we sit here,” indicating the oval conference table that stood at one side of the large room. “I hate these front and back desk affairs. It’s one part of management I could never get used to.” He led Silas over to the table, pulled out two chairs, and produced cigars, cigarettes and a manila folder of papers. “Which will you have?” he asked Silas. “I don’t remember your preference.”
“Mostly a pipe,” Silas answered.
“Well, light up if you want to, and make yourself comfortable. I think a good talk between us is overdue, and something we should have gotten to long ago. The trouble is that Clemington is a big place, too big, I sometimes think.”
Silas stuffed his pipe and waited. He had to wait. Cabot was being delicate and enticing, and there was nothing else that Silas could do but wait. He waited while Cabot lit a cigar, puffed gently on it, and examined Silas with curiosity but with no animosity. Silas was surprised when he said.
“A name’s a private matter entirely, but I must admit I’m fascinated by yours. You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Silas said. “It’s a very ordinary name.”
“In some places. Quite extraordinary in others. You’re from Minnesota, aren’t you, Timberman?”
“Originally—yes.”
“Father in the wood business?”
“Nothing as exalted as that. He worked in a sawmill.”
“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to pry, but genealogy is a hobby of mine. Some day, if I find the time, I’ll do a book on American names. Take a name like Timberman. The few times I’ve run into it, it’s always stemmed from Minnesota. Nothing so unusual about that and hardly even a scientific observation. But why Minnesota? Well, it could be a family name—one family settled and spread out—but why Timberman? Does it mean that these people were woodsmen in whatever land they stemmed from, or did they take the name working in the forests of Minnesota? And if they did, why? Or is it an Anglicization of a foreign name with a similar sound?”
Silas wondered whether this unexpected and rather remarkable dissertation on his name was an oblique attempt by Cabot to discover his national origin. If so, it was rather clumsy, yet he was unwilling to suspect Cabot of such childish maneuvering. He answered bluntly.
“I’ve never given it any thought, I suppose. My grandfather was a Norwegian who came here as a little boy in 1857. I always thought he brought the name with him. Perhaps not. He worked in the woods, and it may be that name was easier to pronounce than his own.”
“Very likely,” Cabot smiled. “I wasn’t prying, Professor Timberman. As a matter of fact, we’re a good deal afield from what brought me to ask you here. I understand you’re quite close to Professor Amsterdam?”
“He’s an old and dear friend of ours.”
Cabot nodded. “Which means patience and understanding upon your part. Old men can be quite trying.”
“I suppose so,” Silas admitted, again knowing what he was going to say and attempting to reject it and find other words, “yet I don’t think rules hold any better for the old than for the young. We’ve always found Professor Amsterdam an interesting companion. A comfortable one too, I might say.”
“Yet I’ve noticed his capacity to be quite uncomfortable.”
“He has that,” Silas answered, glad of an opportunity to smile, but still apprehensive, uncertain.
“I want you to understand that I’m not proceeding behind his back. I called you in because I know you are a friend of his. I felt that a friend might be helpful in this situation, helpful to him, helpful to all of us. At the same time, to be perfectly honest, I wanted to talk to you. I suppose there might have been a place and a time when being a university president was a simple and an uncomplicated affair. Not today, I assure you. We are too big, Timberman, and we suffer the curse of our size—”
Silas sucked at his pipe and waited. Cabot suddenly broke the flow of thought and word, ruffled through the manila folder, and took out a letterhead.
“Would you read this, Professor Timberman?” handing it to Silas. It was on Ike Amsterdam’s personal stationery, handwritten in the cramped, painful scrawl of the old man, and dated a week past. It was addressed to Dr. Anthony C. Cabot, and it said.
“I am constrained to write to you, so that I may explain more precisely an action which I performed only by abstention. Last week, you issued an urgent call to the faculty of this university to enlist in a civilian defense organization for the campus, and we were further informed that a major enlistment by most of the faculty would serve as a morale factor to the entire state, where, as a whole, enlistments in civil defense have been inconsequential—in spite of great prodding and calamity howling.
“After due reflection, I came to the conclusion that your request was motivated not by concern for the national good but by political expediency, and that the manner in which it was put to the members of the faculty deprived them of that most precious democratic right, the right of free choice and judgment. In other words, the implication was present that any refusal to concur with your wishes, as expressed by the department heads, could lead to reprisal of one sort or another.
“Having come to this conclusion, I felt that only one course of action lay open to me—to refuse to participate in any manner in this civilian defense organization. I know that such a course has only symbolic value, as the contribution of one old man to such an organization would be extremely dubious; nevertheless, I had to pursue the dictates of my own conscience.
“Yet I would not be telling the whole truth if I allowed my action to rest upon the aforementioned grounds alone. Neither political expediency nor bad manners are sufficient to absolve one from a patriotic duty. However, I am a scientist and a physicist—one who has given the better part of his life to a study of natural forces and natural causes, and I know enough about the atom and the atom bomb to understand that the only defense against this bomb is the non-use of it—in other words, the preparation of a situation, nationally and internationally, which will enable us to remove this curse and horror from the eyes of mankind forever. Such organization as you propose can only excite an already sore situation and cannot lead to peace. Therefore, I consider such action detrimental to the best interests of my country, and basically unpatriotic.
“Very sincerely yours,
“Isaac Amsterdam.”
Silas finished reading and laid the letter down on the table. His pipe had gone out, and he was grateful for the diversion of lighting it. Cabot looked at him non-committally, and now the president waited.
“I’m rather sorry you let me read it,” Silas said finally.
“Why?”
Silas shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious, sir?”
“You mean you find it embarrassing, and feel for my own embarrassment?”
“Professor Amsterdam is a friend of mine.”
“Which is why I credited you with the virtue of patience. Yet I was wondering whether you saw the letter before it was dispatched.”
Silas felt a cold chill run down his spine, and his hand shook a little as he placed his pipe on the table. He fought for control, found it, and managed to reply very quietly,
“No, I did not, Dr. Cabot. You may be assured that if I had, I would have done my utmost to persuade him not to send it.”
“Why? Because it is insulting and intolerable?”
“Because I believe it to be ill-advised,” Silas said, just as quietly.
“Again I must ask—because you cannot accept its content or its tone?”
“I am responsible for neither the content nor the tone. It is not my letter, and Professor Amsterdam is perfectly capable of doing his own thinking and of accepting the responsibility as well.”
“I have some doub
ts of that,” Cabot said, his voice and manner unruffled and unheated, “but in essence, you are right. Any more than he can be responsible for your actions, Professor Timberman. Yet you will admit to a curious parallelism. You also chose to have no part of civil defense.”
“For reasons of my own. I see nothing wrong with my choice, nor was I advised that I did not have the right to make it.”
“Then you could hardly blame me for surmising that you see nothing wrong with any of Professor Amsterdam’s arguments.”
“You have the right to surmise anything you choose. I also have the right to reject his arguments and to take no responsibility for them.”
Cabot leaned back, smiled, and puffed on his cigar. “So there we are—and both of us becoming a little childish in our arguments. Believe me, Professor Timberman, I have no desire to play the inquisitor, nor do I relish the role. It’s a nasty business at best. But here we are in a web of uneasy and unpleasant circumstances, and I must deal with them, whether I desire to or not. Also, believe me, I am not being spiteful over the foolish letter of a foolish old man. It is quite true that I’ve never received such a letter before, but I think I have enough experience and enough stability to consider it amusing rather than dangerous. I have no intentions of directing any reprisals against Professor Amsterdam—although I think some sober reflection should indicate that an apology is called for. However, I am disturbed by the suggestion that he is not speaking merely for himself. There are various kinds of unusual letters, and this one arrived yesterday from the Justice Department in Washington. Let me read it to you.”
Again he opened the manila folder, removed another letter consisting of three sheets, and spread it out before him.
“It advises me,” he continued, “that a petition has been circulated throughout the United States, calling for an interdiction of atomic weapons, now and forever. The circulation of this petition began last May, and has recently been concluded, with more than two million signatures claimed by the sponsors. The Justice Department informs me that, and I quote now, ‘the number of students and faculty members of Clemington University who affixed their names to this petition cannot be precisely determined. You will understand that the facilities available to us for the correlation of such information are still limited, but we have reason to believe the total number is in excess of what we are able to supply you. In spite of the fact that the State Department considers and has publicly stated that the aforementioned petition is contrary to and destructive of the best interests of the United States, and in spite of the fact that the Justice Department considers the said petition to be communist inspired and circulated, no measures are, for the time being, planned to be taken against the signers. At the same time, we feel it is in your best interests and in the best interests of the university and the country as a whole, that these names should be made available to you.’ The names follow,” Cabot said, looking up at Silas now, the large, handsome face serene and thoughtful, the high brow marked by only one horizontal crease.
Again he was waiting, and Silas, somewhat amazed, thought to himself, “I had forgotten all about that.” His anger had passed, and he was not yet afraid; but he could recognize, almost objectively, that here were elements to make a normal person afraid. Here was something building and shaping itself very slowly—so slowly that nothing at all would come of it just now; of that he was certain; but a process was in motion. Was he really discovering it only now, he wondered? If so, he was obtuse—obtuse enough to sit through this entire fantastic inquisition, as if it were all happening apart from him and also as if it could not possibly contain any unpleasant consequences for him.
Later, much later, this attitude on his part would be recalled by him, re-examined and re-appraised, and he would come to the conclusion that before this particular day, Wednesday, October 25, 1950, a certain kind of fear did not exist in his psychological makeup; the patterns of this fear had not yet been formed. Other fears were normal to him and of vivid and constant acquaintance, the fear of being unemployed, the fear of danger to his children, the fear of the loss of Myra’s affections, the fear of his own inadequacy being publicly displayed, the fear of death, of sickness—a whole index of fears with which he lived in fairly decent companionship; but this particular and singular fear of speaking his own mind and of obeying the moral dictates of his own conscience, this was too new, too unspecific, too amorphous as yet to ring any strident bells of alarm or anxiety within him.
But this realization would come only later. For the time being, he was curiously undisturbed, wondering only to what end Cabot was constructing this sequence of unorthodoxy.
“The names,” Cabot continued. “I thought I would read them to you, Professor Timberman. While I do not propose to make them public, neither do I intend to have them secret. To a large degree, I am responsible for the vast and complex organization which a modern university has become. Part of that responsibility is a need to understand every phase of life on this campus. I must confess that this part is difficult to understand.” He smiled. “I am not threatening, believe me. Here are the faculty members. We start with Edna Crawford, in the Department of Domestic Science. Do you know her?” Silas nodded. “Then you understand my bewilderment. This is a woman of sixty, the author of a nationally known home manual, and a member of a very good Massachusetts family. Leon Federmen, in the Science Department. I must say the sciences are well represented, and of course, I find the inclusion of Jews more natural.”
“Why?” Silas asked, in a sort of desperation.
“Isn’t it obvious, Professor Timberman. The Jew has always allied himself with dissident elements. His loyalty, in a deep sense, is to no single land or culture, and his position is certainly bettered by disunity. I do not project this as a plot; that would be ridiculous, but as a pattern of conditioned behavior, with, naturally, a number of exceptions. To match Dr. Federman, we have Hartman Spencer, Caleb Ellman, and Isaac Amsterdam, none of them Jews, and all from the School of Sciences.”
“And you find this so unnatural, whereas Dr. Federman’s position seems natural?” Silas asked incredulously. His pipe had gone out and was forgotten, and his careful wiping of his glasses was less a nervous gesture than a straw to seize upon, while he thought to myself, “I must keep my head. There is nothing so remarkable in the airing of prejudice by one bigoted career man. The world is not standing on its head. These names mean nothing, but they are fuel for his sense of importance, and there must be a need on his part to sit in judgment.”
“I find it quite unnatural,” President Cabot nodded. “Here is your name and Alec Brady and Jackson T. Templeton and Lawrence Kaplin and your wife, Professor Timberman, and Max Rhinemaster, Sadie Dawson, Joel Seever, Prior Unger, Frank Easterman, Kenneth Joad and Joshua Cohen. In all, seventeen names, seventeen men and women who saw fit to place their signatures upon this document. The fifty-five student names which accompany these I find more understandable and far less disturbing. There is an impetuosity, an idealism which is a part of youth and which one tends to regard with a certain amount of tolerance—tolerance which in no way changes the nature of their action. But seventeen members of our faculty are hardly something that one can regard with equanimity.”
Silas had finished his meticulous wiping of his glasses, and as he replaced them, he felt that security which a myopic man draws from complete vision. The blurred edges and features of President Cabot’s face drew together. A faint smile lingered upon the full, shapely mouth, but the mouth was also straightened with anger and determination; and Silas realized that the man’s expression was controlled and carefully rendered. It registered what the president desired it to register, no less and no more, leaving Silas to guess at what lay beneath, and to grope for a course of action. The awakening of fear made him raise for himself questions of courage and principle; and even a cursory scanning of possible developments recalled to Silas the dangers of incurring this man’s anger and enmity. Also, there was no need for that; there was nothing t
hat would not melt in the warm light of reason, and there was also no cause for him to assume a mantle of guilt.
“I can understand your impatience with all this,” Silas agreed. “These are difficult times—how difficult for a person in your position, I can well imagine. Yet I fail to see what I and these other men and women have done that is so wrong or disturbing. We signed a petition calling for the outlawing of atomic weapons. Surely any person of conscience or understanding cannot disagree with such a position.”
“Why, Professor Timberman?”
“Because there is no defense against atom bombs. There is a difference between war as we knew it and the prospect of the whole world as an atomic wasteland. This is a weapon which must never be used again—I feel that most strongly.”
“And you mean to tell me, Professor Timberman, that you considered the signing of this petition would facilitate such an end?”
“No—no, I can’t honestly say that I thought that. As a matter of fact, I was dubious about the whole petition and certainly about the effectiveness of it.”
“Yet you signed it?”
“That was put to me as a matter of principle, and as a matter of principle, I found it quite inescapable. How small or ineffectual the blow might be was beside the point.”
“And who put it to you, Dr. Timberman?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You say this was put to you as a matter of principle. In other words, someone gave you the petition to sign?”
“Yes.”
“Who was that person?”
A long moment went by before Silas answered, a moment almost without thought. This had been a long time coming, and finally it was there. And finally, Silas replied.
“I don’t think I can say.”
“Really! I thought my offering you the substance of this letter, Professor Timberman, would make you aware that this petition which you so readily signed is part of a world-wide communist action. It would seem to me that alters the whole question.”