Free The Day They Came to Arrest the Book by Nat Hentoff

the school board—he refused to refer to himself as the chair because he said he still had some mobility left—was Reuben Forster. His business, a chain of convenience stores that were open twenty-four hours a day, had been so efficiently organized by Mr. Forster that it practically ran itself by now.
    Not that he didn’t occasionally pay a surprise visit to one of his We-Have-It-All emporia at three in the morning to make sure it hadn’t run out of beer or applesauce or light bulbs. But Mr. Forster spent most of his time on what he called his public business: the affairs of the school board; a senior-citizens center he kept supplied with conveniences from his stores; and, a special passion, a nonprofit summer camp for dogs. It was Mr. Forster’s strong conviction that dogs need vacations too—especially from their masters.
    A portly man whom no one could remember seeing without his pipe, Reuben Forster was much given tolong conversations with himself when he had a problem to work out. Actually, the conversations, though he was alone, were with the people involved in the problem. He would assume their voices, as best he could, while asking them questions designed to make them more open to reason.
    So it was this sunny morning, the day after the Griswold-Dickinson debate, in Reuben Forster’s spacious office at the We-Have-It-All headquarters in the center of town. Puffing his pipe and walking slowly up and down the room, Mr. Forster turned to an empty chair in front of his desk and said, “Tell me, Mr. McLean, what if a white parent objected to a book written by a black author who preached that all white people are inferior?”
    Taking on the clipped, swift voice of Carl McLean, Forster answered himself: “You have to name me the book and show me the specific passages where this inferiority of whites is preached. And then we will talk about it. But we are
now
dealing not with a hypothetical case but with a
real
book in
this
school. And in this real book, there are many passages that clearly preach the inferiority of blacks. That clearly say blacks are not fully human.”
    Forster frowned and said to himself, in his own voice, “What if we did have a book saying all whites are animals? Would I defend that book? Not if it was by some nut. But what if it was by somebody of historical importance?”
    “You don’t have to address that question now.”Forster’s voice had become blunt and quick. “Because
Huckleberry Finn
is not what Mr. McLean says it is. It does not preach the inferiority of blacks. Quite the opposite.”
    “But Miss Baines,” Forster said in his own voice, “that
word
is there. All through the book. I can’t even bring myself to say that word, but good Lord, how can you expect a black child—” Forster shook his head and then went on. “I know your answer, Miss Baines. Mark Twain was
against
slavery. But that word, that word. Oh, my. I have another question. Should the meeting of the review committee be public?”
    A deep, buttery voice now filled the room. “No, Mr. Forster. To make that meeting public would only increase and intensify the divisiveness over the issue. As principal of George Mason High School, I can tell you an open meeting will greatly inflame the situation. Let the committee meet by itself and then, when their recommendations come before the school board, it will be time enough for public debate. At least by then the review committee will have a clear, well-reasoned report on the matter, and that may bring some calm to the proceedings.”
    “I doubt it, Mr. Moore.” Mr. Forster spoke to the air. “I doubt if we’ll have any calm about this anywhere along the line for some time to come. No, it seems to me the more public participation, the better. Then there’ll be no charges of a conspiracy by the review committee. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.” He knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “Now, I’ll have to meet with theschool board and see whom we’ll have on the