A Shade of Difference

by Allen Drury

  Now he did not know what the decision would be on his resolution calling the United States to the bar of history to answer for its racial practices; but here, too, he was hopeful. He was aware of the hesitations that intimidated many all over the world, but he was also aware of the instinctive hostility to America’s social attitudes that was at war with the hesitations. It was his task now to play upon the hostility as he could—not violently and antagonistically, as some others could be counted upon to do before the debate concluded, but with the delicacy and finesse that he knew was one of his greatest talents and most became him.

  “Mr. President,” he began quietly as the rustling diminished and the enormous hall settled down, “I do not think, at this late hour in the Assembly’s consideration of this serious matter now before it, that there is any need for extended discussion on my part.

  “You all know the terms of the resolution. You all know the racial conditions in the United States which have prompted me to introduce it.

  “Some of you know this from first-hand experience.” There was an angry little murmur of agreement. “Others of you soon may. All of you whose skins are not white know that any time, as you move about this country, on the business of the United Nations or simply as tourists, you too may suddenly be subjected to rejection, insult, or even physical danger because of your color.” He paused for a moment, then asked slowly: “Does this seem right to you?”

  A roar of “NO!” replied, and the tension in the hall shot up several levels.

  “No more does it to me, and that is why I, who have the closest family ties with the United States, have introduced this resolution. It is an attempt to help the United States—to try to persuade the United States to be the true home of democracy that we who are her friends desire her to be.”

  “And give her a black eye in the process,” Senator Fry murmured to Lord Maudulayne, down on the floor. The British Ambassador smiled and gave a quizzical shrug.

  “I know it is fashionable in some circles in the United States,” Felix went on, “for some enemies of this organization to say that my resolution is designed simply to embarrass the United States in the eyes of the world.”

  “He heard you,” Lord Maudulayne said, and Hal Fry, responded with an amused nod that felt as though it almost took off the top of his head.

  “This is a childish interpretation. Nothing is further from my mind, or from the minds of those here in the United Nations who sincerely believe in racial democracy. Only enemies of the United Nations itself would attribute such motives to anyone here.

  “Only reactionaries would say a thing like that of the United Nations.

  “Our motives are honorable and our purposes are clean.

  “We are not vindictive. We are not hostile. We are not unfriendly. The United Nations does not operate, ever, on such unworthy motivations.

  “We reject all such reactionary attacks upon the United Nations, and we do so proudly!”

  “Oh, bro-ther,” the New York World-Telegram murmured to the Manchester Guardian as an explosion of approving applause responded. “How noble can you get?”

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” the Guardian murmured back.

  “Earnestly, then, and honorably,” the Ambassador of Panama said with a quiet emphasis as the favoring outburst died down, “I present to you this resolution that will give the strong encouragement and assistance of the United Nations to the United States as it strives to correct its deplorable racial practices.

  “I commend it to the good faith of all who truly believe in democracy—not just the mouthing of democracy, but the practice of democracy.

  “I commend it, particularly, to the United States itself, whose distinguished senior delegate I have asked repeatedly to support it. He has refused on behalf of his country. So, Mr. President, regretfully but acting in the right, this Assembly must do for the United States what the United States will not do for itself.

  “Justice and honor dictate this course, Mr. President. Injustice and dishonor, only, support the other.

  “I appeal to you to see the right and act in the right.”

  And with a graceful little bow to the Assembly and its President, he left the rostrum and walked at a dignified pace up the aisle to his seat, surrounded by prolonged applause, many delegations standing, as he did so.

  “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Lafe remarked, and Hal smiled.

  “Not what I expected.”

  “I imagine others will provide it. How do you feel? Are you going to be up to this? I’m perfectly willing to take the first phase of it if you—” Hal shook his head.

  “I’m all right It isn’t very bad today. With a little luck”—he paused, and for just a second, before he thrust it resolutely away, a sadness briefly clouded his eyes—“I’ll manage all right.”

  “The next speaker,” the President announced, “is the distinguished delegate of the United States.”

  There came a ripple of anticipatory comment, a heightening of excitement; all those delegates who did not understand English put on their earphones and switched to the English channel. Senator Fry came slowly down the aisle, nodded briefly to Terry and K.K. as he passed the Indian delegation, ascended the rostrum, and bowed to the President. Then he turned and stared out into the closely watching eyes of the nations, the hovering and merciless gaze of the television cameras looking down from the glass-enclosed studios high along the walls above.

  It could be seen, on many screens in many places over the world, that he was holding himself very erect as he prepared to speak. His face looked a little thin, but his expression was steady and outwardly untroubled. To the millions who studied his appearance, there seemed to be a certain tension about the way he held himself, but otherwise, nothing. They did not know, and he was not about to tell them, that it had been all he could do to get down the aisle without falling. In the terrible irony of his disease, almost none of its symptoms appeared on the surface. He looked like a kindly, earnest, pleasant-faced man, a little tired and under an understandable tension in view of the attack on his country. With an effort whose cost no one but he could know, he began to speak in a reasonable, unhurried voice.

  “Mr. President, the distinguished delegate of Panama has spoken of racial conditions in my country and of his noble motives in asking this Assembly to intervene in them. I shall not comment on his remarks, except to say that it is possible to oppose his point of view, and oppose such action by the Assembly, without being an opponent of the United Nations.

  “That charge, which is flung against anyone who dares to say that the UN is not perfect in every respect, is both childish and self-defeating.”

  There was a murmur of protest, and into it he spoke more sharply for a moment.

  “You and I are the United Nations, and we know we aren’t perfect. All of us here realize that there are shortcomings and weaknesses in the organization, and I think we all agree that only if they are eliminated can the UN be the instrument of hope that it was originally intended to be.”

  “Just so you don’t spell out too carefully what they are,” the New York Times observed to the Denver Post. “Then we can all agree.”

  “It is this,” Hal Fry said, “that I should like to discuss for a moment. It is, essentially, the same issue that was presented in the early hours of this morning in our debate on the resolution concerning Gorotoland. It is the UN itself that is on trial here, not the United States.”

  At this there was a laugh, deliberately raucous and rude, from somewhere on the floor. He turned upon it, though the sudden movement increased the dizziness and also brought a sharp surge of nausea that took a second or two to abate. When it did, he spoke without niceties.

  “Some delegate laughs. Some cowardly, nameless delegate laughs.”

  There was a gasp of surprise, but he went on strongly while below Claude looked at Lafe with a quizzically questioning air.

  “Who is he laughing at, Mr. President? The United States? I think he is la
ughing at the UN. I think he is laughing at the hopes of the world. I think he is laughing at himself, for his laugh is symbolic of just that mood of intolerance and impatience and injustice that has come to hang over our deliberations here in recent years like an ominous cloud.

  “The death of the UN lies in that cloud if it continues, Mr. President. And delegates who sneer and laugh and voice intolerance and hatred and disrespect for one another’s good faith and one another’s problems only make it worse.”

  There was an uneasy stirring of sound at both his tone and his words, and in the midst of it the eyes of the delegate of Belgium caught the eyes of the delegate of Portugal. With a sardonic gravity, they winked.

  “Mr. President, too often, of late, we have permitted the dead hand of history to rest upon the deliberations here. Nations, some of them new here and some of them understandably hurt by the past, have attempted to turn the UN into a vengeful instrument against those they blame for that past. But that world is dead.”

  Someone shouted “No!” but he ignored it.

  “What do you do, Mr. President,” he asked with an earnestness springing from a genuine anguish of spirit compounded by the steadily increasing pain of his body, “after you have punished the past? Do you keep on punishing it, forever after, long after it is only a distant memory?

  “What happens to the UN when everyone is free and all the decisions of history have been turned upside down and made over again?

  “What then? What then, if in the process you have set aside law and justice and orderly progress and decent dealing between men?

  “What happens to you, having turned the UN into an instrument of vengeance, when you attempt to turn it back into an instrument of peace?

  “It cannot be done, Mr. President. It will have been twisted and torn too far. Nothing can ever again establish the rule of law in the affairs of men if law is permanently flouted here.

  “It is this we should be concerned about, Mr. President, not the punishments of the past. Particularly not when, over most of the earth’s surface, including my own country, those responsible for the past are working sincerely and diligently to correct its errors.”

  Again there was laughter, knowing, sardonic, superior, unyielding. An expression of anger crossed his face, but he concluded gravely and without rancor.

  “Mr. President, the Congress of the United States has passed the resolution for which this debate was temporarily suspended. My government has acted in good faith to keep its word to the nations. We ask now that the nations keep their word to us.

  “I respectfully ask that you defeat the resolution of the Ambassador of Panama.”

  To a mixture of applause and boos, about equally divided, he bowed to the President and came slowly back up the aisle, his face looking very tired and sad for a moment, so much so that many delegates nearby commented to one another. But in a minute or two he straightened his shoulders again, took a deep breath, and came on up the aisle to his seat.

  “Good work,” Lafe said encouragingly as he sat down, but he shook his head.

  “It wasn’t all I wanted to say,” he confessed in a disappointed voice, “but no matter.”

  “There’ll be another chance later. This won’t end for a while, yet.”

  “It won’t,” Hal said wryly, “But I may.” Then at Lafe’s alarmed look he smiled and put his hand on his arm. “No, I’m all right.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s not bad,” Hal said, telling the lie he must. “And if it is, I have the pills. I haven’t taken any, though,” he added with pride, “and I’m not going to, if I can help it.”

  “Good,” Lafe said, turning to look toward the rostrum as a wave of applause indicated a new speaker, obviously eagerly awaited. “Here comes Guinea, and now I expect we’re in for it.”

  This they were, as the stark young delegate of Guinea stood before the Assembly like an ebony carving from his native land and waited for the susurrus to die down. When he began to speak, it was in no conciliatory or reasonable voice. Here was an avenger of the past, with a vengeance.

  “Mr. President!” he snapped in French as many earphones went on and many dials were spun for translation. “The distinguished delegate of the United States talks piously about the United Nations and concludes by saying that his country has kept its word with us, therefore we should keep our word with it.

  “When did we give any word to his country, Mr. President? I do not remember that it was any bargain. I remember the colored American who authored the resolution in Congress, who is no brother of ours”—there was a shout of approval and in the U.S. delegation Cullee Hamilton scowled and stirred angrily—“begged us to stop debating and promised us that the Congress would pass the resolution. But we made no promises in return, Mr. President. We made no promises, because we assumed,” he said with a scathing sarcasm, “that if the United States were as honorable as the United States always says it is, we would not have to make promises in order to persuade the United States to do the right thing.

  “That is why we made no promises, Mr. President!”

  A roar of laughter and applause greeted this. The delegate of Guinea hardly paused to let it die down, so absorbed was he in his attack and so swiftly did his hurrying words come tumbling out.

  “Mr. President, the delegate of the United States talks about the dead hand of the past. It is all very fine talk for one whose country last felt the hand of colonialism in 1776. Some of us felt it only yesterday. Our memories may be more vivid than his, Mr. President, about colonialism!”

  Again there was a burst of applause as he rushed on.

  “Furthermore, it is all very well for him to attempt to cloud the issue and conceal it by talking noble things about the United Nations. He does not have to lecture us on the United Nations, Mr. President. We are grown up enough to know about the United Nations. What we are talking about here are the shameful racial conditions in the United States. Why does he not give us a little lecture on that, Mr. President? Why does he not talk to us about the shame of his own country, Mr. President? That is what we want to hear about from him!”

  Applause, wilder now, greeted this.

  “Mr. President, no truer words were ever said than those uttered by the distinguished delegate of Panama, author of this resolution.

  “You know—I know—anyone of color knows—what the true situation is in this pious nation that lectures the world on international morality. Whole areas of this country are closed to those of us who are not white. We cannot eat in certain places. We cannot travel in certain conveyances. We cannot live in certain sections of cities. We cannot do this, we cannot do that. No more can Americans of color—though our distinguished friend from Congress, who by some mistake of nature looks black even as he talks white—no doubt will try to pretend to us that these things do not apply to his own race. He knows they do, Mr. President! We all know they do! What a flaunting and a shame to mankind, Mr. President! What a flaunting and a shame!”

  Applause and shouts, deeper and uglier now, welled up from the floor.

  “Look at this, Mr. President!” he cried, suddenly producing from somewhere in the folds of his brilliant robes a copy of the early-afternoon edition of the New York World-Telegram.

  “What do we read here? I will tell you. There died in Washington on Thursday, after a speech trying to defeat the resolution of our white-black, black-white friend from the Congress, one of the most powerful racists in the United States. Senator Cooley! No friend to you, my friends. No friend to me.

  “And so what happened this morning? The Senate of the United States held a special memorial service in its chambers to honor this great racist. And who attended? The President of the United States! The Secretary of State of the United States! Most of the leading members of the government of the United States! To do honor to this old racist, Mr. President! That is how sincere the United States is about the racial question, Mr. President! That is the good faith of the United States!”


  He raised the paper and shook it angrily above his head, several pages slipping out and fluttering about him to the floor. “That is what the United States really thinks, Mr. President. Honor to a racist!”

  “Oh, Lord,” Lafe said in a tone of angry disgust, making no attempt to keep his voice down in the excited babble that followed. “Will they ever understand?” In the British delegation Lord Maudulayne leaned forward and answered him down the row. “No. They never will.”

  “Mr. President,” Guinea said, “there is no argument capable of justifying these things. There is nothing anyone can say that will thwart the aroused conscience of mankind on this issue. It is not the United Nations which is on trial here. It is the United States. No pious lectures from anybody, white or black, or black-white or white-black, can change that fact, Mr. President.

  “Let us vote for this resolution! Let us show the racists of the United States what the judgment of mankind is upon them! Let us register humanity’s disapproval as it should have been registered long ago!

  “My country is not afraid to do it.

  “Is yours?”

  And as a great roar of “NO!” welled up, he turned, bowed to the President, bowed to the Assembly, and came down.

  “Well!” the London Daily Telegraph remarked in the press gallery. “That rather puts it up to you chaps, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess it does,” the Associated Press agreed crisply. “And here comes Cullee Hamilton to do it.”

  “But not looking like the Wreck of the Hesperus,” the Telegraph protested with a groan. “Oh, my God, now! How corny can you be?”

  “About as corny as Terry a week ago. I don’t remember any great protest then.”

  “But these buggers won’t see the connection. It’s psychologically all wrong, I tell you. Wait and see.”