VI The Foolishness of Preaching
This seems true. Forrest knows the trick, and now he rises with manifest fear and trembling.
“Although the Commonwealth does not care to address you,” he says, “I conceive it my duty to do so—”
“I told you he would be caught,” whispers the district attorney to his assistant, in glee. “There is only one counter to that trick, and that is to submit your own case. Then the jury is compelled to think that the defence has as much or more confidence in its case than the Commonwealth. For it has more to gain from a speech.”
“—It is not proven that a watch has been stolen, nor that an officer was assaulted, yet that is exactly and only what the prisoner is charged with. All that is proven is that a man had a watch before he collided with the prisoner, and that he did not have it afterward. The law in its mercy has provided that every man shall be presumed innocent until he is proven guilty—proven, remember!—not guessed guilty—”
His address is now, unfortunately, to the court, who is getting more and more hungry.
“Why, sir, if anybody be guilty here, I am the one. But a short while ago I was his guest in that little kingdom hedged by the mountain and the glacier. I sang to him the stirring songs of our country. Those songs of which the theme is liberty alone! I thrilled his very soul with the tales of its freedom and justice and equality. I watched his nostrils expand at the words of our great battle-hymn. I beguiled him here with these things—though I did not mean to. And he came—to you, Columbia, land of the brave, who hold out your arms to all the nations of the earth and cry Come! You—you—who invited him! And you meet him with pistol and club and shackles; the home of the free is a prison! He begs for a crust, and you give him a bullet. And what has he done? He has but entered the door you hold open to him. And what will you do? Sick, wounded, and miserable—in peril of his life—at your own hands—what is your verdict? He is in your keeping. And as you hope for mercy at the great day, as you respect the sanctity of your oath, deal in justice and mercy with this stranger who has come within your opened gates—”
“One of the difficulties of the young lawyer is to know when he is done,” says the district attorney, slyly, leaning his elbow on the bench and speaking to the judge.
The judge nods in a certain gastric irritation which is not well for either the prisoner or his counsel, but answers nothing.
“And to cease from college orations in a court of law. Somewhere these things should be taught as part of the law course. I am not aware that they are.”
The champion perspires and plunges on—when he had better stop—as any one but he—even the meanest of the benchers—can see.
“And there are others in your—keeping, beyond that moaning sea—beside that desolate mountain—by that frozen glacier—on that little spot of earth where the ice always threatens. There they sit desolated—by the graves of their kindred—waiting for him. For he came to make a home for them. Will you send him back to them? Will you send them even the wreck you have made of him? So that he may die there and lie with his fathers? So that he may once more embrace his young wife? Touch the hand of blind Agra? Make smile again simple Lars?”
The advocate pauses a moment and his face grows stern with the duty he has set himself.
“He thinks the doom of God is upon him. But it is the doom of the American system. The doom of the American administration of justice. The doom of the American jury—which gives never the verdict of twelve, but of four or three or two—most often of one. In this day of reason verdicts should be the result of reason. But they are, as they were in the Middle Ages, the result of force. Twelve men are imprisoned together until seven men yield to five. Not because the five have better reasons, but because they are stronger—either in mind or body. Because they can better endure privation and hunger and segregation. Five are set to prey upon seven in a place they cannot escape from until the morality of the seven is sufficiently broken and corrupted to vote, not for the righteousness of justice, but for release from incarceration. And this the judges permit because they must hurry. Because the hours are fixed from ten to three—and because in that time twenty-five causes must be heard. Because officers of courts are politicians and must work—after hours—for the party. Because, in short, everything is well considered in a court but the securing of exact justice. And in small cases such as this—where it is a foreigner who does not understand us or our language or procedure—what does it matter? He is a foreigner anyhow. This is the doom he faces and which every one must face—until our courts concern themselves with but the one thing for which they are—the administration of justice—the discovery of truth!”
The district attorney sighs and knows that neither the young advocate nor his cause nor his client has a friend within hearing now. As for him, he is indifferent, and would gladly see the man acquitted could he but get away to his game. What profit or honor is there in so small a case as this?
“Are you that kind of a jury? Is this that kind of a court? Is this the kind of victim who has come here for sacrifice time out of mind? Can this man’s life and liberty be trusted to you? Is there a man among you—five—six—twelve—who can stop and think only of this poor captive? Can you so far escape from the American system as to consider pure justice and nothing else? Dare you imagine yourselves in his place and then consider what you would do—what you would wish done by the twelve who sit where you do? Have you the courage to treat this as you would treat a ’great’ case?—with many ’great’ attorneys? Dare you defy the court—the district attorney—the laughter of these idlers—and send this man back to his home? I am asking much—I know that. It is revolution to disagree from the court—to offend the district attorney. But I do so now and shall always.”
And now fear and embarrassment have fled from the young advocate and he is informed only with his great theme. His voice suddenly rings and thunders about the walls, so that the judge sits uncomfortably up and the benchers lean forward, and even the gentlemen of the bar are silent.
“And if you will not send him back to them, what message will you send? You cannot escape. You must do one or the other. And one will be infamy, the other will be as the grace of the Lord. Listen, each man of you twelve! It is a commandment you hear. Something more than myself is speaking through me. And look! Look at him, each one of you! For you are writing your own glorification or your own damnation in the sentence of this humble captive. I say to you, in the presence of God, that you cannot escape your duty. If you will not send this remnant of a man you have wounded home to his country, what message will you send—to them that wait and wait and wait? You! You twelve! Hope, joy, bread, feasting, life? Or the sullen clang of the prison door—the horrid, shuddering clang—which is a knell of death? For your verdict, whether you will it so or not, means life or death not only to him who is chained there before you—but to them!”
A juror shakes his head in protest—a thing which the fatuous pleader should regard. But he speaks an answer instead:
“I tell you I know. For I have seen. There are aged heads bent low by misfortune—there are little children, there is a wife—young and fair and red-lipped. Do you condemn them to hunger—to cold—to slow death—these, huddled together, waiting—waiting—in the long gray polar night—for your word of fate, or do you send to them life and hope and joy? I ask you, before God, what message do you send? They are in your keeping as irrevocably as he is!”