I understand from editorial pages that we are celebrating our nation's Constitution. Good idea. Do it while there is still time. Some of our important liberties come under fairly regular attack; press, speech, privacy...remaining in one piece....
If this keeps up, our forebears may not have had the last American Revolution. The next one may be less straightforward than the first. We must hope that it will be on Capitol Hill instead of battlefields or office buildings or medical clinics.
I have a daydream about that.
The setting is a Congressional hearing room. Television news cameras are everywhere and reporters' microphones are banked before me as I testify. The Congressional panel is probing my tendency and that of my family toward "revolution."
"Are there now or have there ever been revolutionaries in your family?" the frowning Congressional leader questions.
"Yes, sir," I reply with a tremor. "On my father's side there was Dugald McIntyre in '45 and then 31 years later, on my mother's side, Nat Greene."
A major "Aha!" bursts forth from the questioner. There is a glint of riot batons in his eyes, a whiff of pepper gas in his flaring nostrils. "What did they do? And how were they punished?"
"Well, sir," I begin, "Dugald McIntyre wrote inflammatory poetry against the British law forbidding Scots to wear their tartans. Some say the British hanged him. General Nathaniel Greene, -- you know, the one who made the British wish for never "another such victory?" Well, he retired with honors after the British surrendered... Revolutions are definitely better when you win... Sir."
I quaver at my boldness.
There is a puzzled exchange of glances at the elevated panel table, then a remark is passed along from mouth to ear and the questioner frowns more deeply.
He speaks tersely. "I gather we are not talking 1945 here, but 1745?" he growls.
"Yes, sir." He looks so fierce that my voice breaks.
"...and 1776?" he adds with a quirk of the brows, as a grin spreads along the panel.
"Yes, sir," I say with a little more confidence....very little.
"And since then? Has the revolutionary spirit in your family dimmed any through the years?" Clearly, after Dugald, he wonders just what we are up to.
None of our environmental or civil rights activities really equals the feats of McIntyre or Greene.
So I answer, "By comparison, sir, my family's generation of today is just opinionated. And we haven't been executed for our opinions -- so far."
The questioner reviews some of our protest activities of the '60s and '70s and asks me if I regard these as revolution or as opinion.
I reflect just a bit, and take a deep breath, before responding.
"Sir, I believe that our freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press - even when exercised by protest - are what Dugald McIntyre died for -- and what Nathaniel Greene lived for," I say.
My daydream sort of dims here in a hubbub of media and Congressional applause. The high point -- just before the fade to black -- is the handclasp of my doughty inquisitor, and his declaration:
"Dugald and the General would be proud of you!"
Well, that's lovely. But every time I write an editorial, sign a political fax, or see my name on another opinion-group's letterhead, I rerun my dream and wonder. Who are those guys in the trench coats and shades at the back of the room; the ones taking notes?
Why are they tapping into my computer? listening to me testify? What did I ever do to them? Nothing. But I'm weak; I'm nobody, and I'll never be able to hurt them. And there are big, bad people out there with weapons. Time wasted on me is time avoiding those dangerous types.
P.O. Box 2309 Ocean City, MD 21842 jocee@shore.intercom.net Other Writings by Jo Campbell