'Mr. Leland Crosby, junior,' said the captain.
Crosby's speech gave William cause for self - congratulation. He had anticipated everything, the strident tone Crosby would take, the overstressed, nearly hysterical points he would make. He recited the incantations of American radicalism - Haymarket, Money Trust, Standard Oil, even Cross of Gold. William didn't think he had made more than an exhibition of himself ~lthough he garnered the expected applause from his claque on William's right. When Crosby sat down, he had clearly won no new supporters, and it looked as though he might have lost a few old ones. The comparison with William and Matthew - equally rich, equally socially distinguished, but selfishly refusing martyrdom for the cause of the advancement of social justice - just might be devastating.
Mathew spoke well and to the point, soothing his listeners, the incarnation of liberal toleration. William pumped his friend's hand warmly when he returned to his chair to loud applause.
'It's all over bar the shouting, I think,' he whispered.
But Thaddeus Cohen surprised virtually everyone. He had a pleasant, diffident manner and a sympathetic style. His references and quotations were catholic, pointed and illuminating. Without conveying to the audience the feeling that it was being deliberately impressed, he exuded a moral earnestness which made anything less seem a failure to a rational human being. He was willing to admit the excesses of his own side and the inadequacy of its leaders, but he left the impression that, in spite of its dangers, there was no alternative to socialism if the lot of mankind mere ever to be improved.
William was flustered. A surgically logical attack on the political platform of his adversaries would be useless against Cohen's gentle and persuasive presentation. Yet to outdo him as a spokesman of hope and faith in the human spirit would be impossible. William concentrated first on refuting some of Crosby's charges and then countered Cohen's arguments with a declaration of his own faith in the ability of the American system to produce the best results through competition, intellectual and economLic. He felt he had played a good defensive game, but no more, and sat down supposing that he had been well beaten by Cohen.
Crosby was his opponents' rebuttal speaker. He began ferociously, sounding as if he now ineeded to beat Cohen as much as William and Matthew, asking the audience if they could identify an 'enemy of the people' amongst themselves that night. He glared around the room for several long seconds, as members of the audience squirmed in eznbarTassed silence and his dedicated supporters studied their shoes. Then he leaned forward and roared.
'He stands before you. He has just spoken in your midst. His name is William Lowell Kane.' Gesturing with one hand towards where William sat without looking at him, he thundered: 'His bank owns mines in which the workers die to give its owners an extra million a year in dividends. His bank supports the bloody, corrupt dictatorships of Latin America. Through his bank, the American Congress is bribed into cn ishing the small farmer.
His bank . . .'
The tirade went on for several minutes. William sat in stony silence, occasionally jotting down a comment on his yellow legal pad. A few members of the audience had begun shouting 'No.' Crosby's supporters shouted loyally back. The officials began to look nervous.
Crosby's allotted time was nearly up. He raised his fist and said, 'Gentlemen, I submit that not more than two hundred yards from this very room we have the answer to the plight of America. There stands the Widener Library, the greatest private library in the world. Here poor and immignant scholars come, along with the best educated Americans' to increase the knowledge and prosperity of the world. Why does it exist? Because one rich playboy had the misfortune to set sail sixteen years ago on a pleasure boat called the Titanic. I suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that not until the people of America hand each and every member of the ruling class a ticket for his own private cabin on the Titanic of capitalism, will the hoarded wealth of this great contmient be freed and devoted to the service of liberty, equality and progress!
As Matthew listened to Crosby's speech, his sentiments changed from exultation that, by this blunder, the victory had been secured for his side, through embarrassment at the behaviour of his adversary, to rage at the reference to the Titanic. He had no idea how William would respond to such provocation.
When some measure of silence had been restored, the captain walked to the lectern and said: 'Mr. William Lowell Kane.'
William strode to the platform and looked out over the audience. An expectant hush filled the room.
'It is my opinion that the views expressed by Mr. Crosby do not merit a response.'