Authors: Philip Roth
in his native Poland.
We also owed moneys amounting to
$2.90
to a
wonderful Irish plumber, a wonderful Japanese-
American handyman and a wonderful couple from
the deep South who happened to be of
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 101
the same race as we were, and whose children
played with ours in perfect harmony, despite the
fact that they were from another region.
I am proud to say that every last dime that we
owed to these wonderful people, I paid back
through long hard hours of work in my law office.
And the point I wish to make to you tonight, my
fellow Americans, is that because of those long,
hard hours of work, I believe myself qualified today
to understand in all its cunning and clever intricacies
the legal action that this fugitive has brought against
the sport made famous by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig,
Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Roger Hornsby, Honus
Wagner, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and
Ted Williams-Hall of Famers all, and men that
America can well be proud of.
And let me tell you this: having studied this case
in all its ramifications, I find I can only concur in
the wise opinion of the Commissioner of Baseball
when he says that a victory for this fugitive would
inevitably lead to the death of the great game that
has probably done more to make American boys
into strong, decent
*
and law-abiding men than any
single institution in the land. Frankly, I do not know
of a better way for our enemies to undermine the
youth of this country, than to destroy this game of
baseball and all it represents.
Now there is another question you may want
to ask, and it is this: "Mr. President, if Curt Flood is
out to undermine the youth of this country by
destroying baseball, where could he possibly find a
lawyer who would be willing to take his case to
court?"
Now I am going to be as forthright as I know how
in answering that question.
Scrupulous and honest and dedicated to the
principles of justice as ninety-nine and ninetenths of
the lawyers in this country are, there is in my
profession, as in any other, I'm afraid, that tiny
percentage who will do and say anything if the
stakes are high enough or the price is right. In law
school our professors used to call them
"ambulance-chasers" and "shysters." Unfortunately,
these men cling not only to the bottom rungs of the
profession, which would be bad enough, but on rare
occasions manage to climb to the very top-yes, even
to positions of great responsibility and power.
Now I needn't remind you of the scandal that
took place here in Washington during the tenure of
the last administration. You all remember that a
lawyer appointed by my predecessor to the Supreme
Court of the United States, the highest court in the
entire land, had to resign as a justice of that court
because of financial wrongdoing. Horrifying as that
incident was to every decent American, there seems
to me nothing to be
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 103
gained now by reawakening the sense of moral
outrage that swept the nation at that time.
As some of you will be quick to point out, there
were actually two men who found it necessary to
resign from the Supreme Court, after they had been
appointed justices of that court by my predecessor.
But whether there was one, two, three, four or five,
I simply do not believe it is in the interests of
national unity to harp upon the errors, grievous
though they were, of an administration that you
voters, in your wisdom, repudiated three years ago.
What is past is past; no one knows that better
than I do. If I recall to you now the names of these
two men who found it necessary to tender
unprecedented resignations to the highest court in
the land, it is only to answer, as forthrightly as I
know how, your question, "What kind of lawyer
would represent Curt Flood?"
The two men who resigned from the Supreme
Court were Mr. Abe Fortas and Mr. Arthur
Goldberg. My fellow Americans, the name of the
lawyer representing Charles Curtis Flood is Arthur
Goldberg. G-o-l-d-b-a-r-g.
Now, before I am accused of trying to shock or
alarm the Ameriean public, let me say that I myself
am not the least bit shocked or alarmed by this turn
of events. Having served on the highest court of the
land, Mr. Goldberg undoubtedly now knows the ins
and the outs of the
104 OUR GANG
law as well as the most devious lawyer in the
country. Moreover, none of us should be surprised
to discover a man who has fallen from the pinnacle
of his profession, willing to try just about anything
to get back into the public eye. Before the Flood
case is concluded, I would not be surprised to find
Mr. Abe Fortas joining forces with Mr. Arthur
Goldberg in defense of Charles Curtis Flood.
Now you may say to me, "But surely, Mr.
President, any man who wishes to destroy the game
of baseball, and enlists such attorneys as these in his
attempt to accomplish that end, is not even entitled
to a hearing in court. Not only is he making a
mockery of our entire judicial system, but in order
for him to go `up against the system' we, the
American taxpayers, have to pay for the upkeep of
the very system he is working to annihilate. If we
allow that, then we might as well allow selfconfessed
Communists to teach our children in the
classrooms. We might as well throw down our arms
right now in the battle for freedom, and hand over
our schools and our courtrooms without a fight to
the avowed enemies of democracy."
Well, let me assure you that I couldn't agree
more. In fact, we are right now studying ways of
restoring the dignity and majesty and, sanctity of
old to the courtrooms of the land. As
,
you know,
one experiment that we have tried with some
TRICKY ADDRESSES TIM NATION 105
success here in Washington is the "Justice in the
Streets Program." This is a program whereby
sentencing and punishment, for capital crimes as
well as felonies and misdemeanors, is delivered on
the spot at the very moment the crime is
committed, or even appears to have been committed.
Through J.I.T.S.P. and related methods of
expediting the judicial process, we hope to be able
not only to unclog the court calendars but to wind
down the whole trial system by Election Day 1972.
Now, winding down the trial system will of
course be a great boon to the dignity of our judges,
who will no longer be forced to demean themselves
by dealing with the most undesirable elements in the
population. Our judges, so terribly overworked as
they are today, hopefully will not have to deal with
any
elements of the population once the trial system
is completely phased out. This will leave them free
for the reflection and reading that is so essential to
maintaining a high level of judicial wisdom.
The second benefit to be derived from replacing
the archaic and slow-moving trial system by more
modern judicial methods is this: the courtrooms of
this land will once again be a wonderfully inspiring
place for the schoolchildren of America to visit. I
see a day, in fact, when parents will be able to send
their children off to visit a courtroom without fear
that they will
have to witness anything inappropriate or unsettling
to the eyes or ears of a growing youngster. I
see a day in which not only schoolchildren, but
mothers holding their babies, will be able to walk
through the halls of justice to observe the judges
in their wonderful black robes, relieved of the
time-consuming burdens of the courtroom,
gathering the wisdom of the ages from their
thinking and their lawbooks. I see a day when
schoolchildren and mothers holding their babies
will be able to sit in the jury boxes, just as though
a real trial were underway, and in this way
experience at firsthand the age-old grandeur of a
legal tradition that has come down to us in all its
glory from Anglo-Saxon times.
But of course we cannot undo overnight the
judicial mess that we have inherited from the
previous administration, and the thirty-five administrations
before his. As a result, even as we
are winding down the trial system that has
caused this country so much expense and
confusion, we have still to deal in the
courtroom with the likes of Charles Curtis
Flood and his team of attorneys.
Now fortunately two different courts have already
found against Charles Curtis Flood in his
attempt to destroy the game of baseball. These
decisions made during the tenure in office of
this administration, have gone a long way, I am
sure, to restoring the confidence of a public
only recently so disappointed by the verdict
reached in Mayor John Lancelot's New York, to
free thirteen members of the Black Panther
Party.
Of course I have no more right to tell the
Mayor of New York how to run his city than he
has to tell me how- to run the country or the
world. But I must, in all honesty, say that I was
as startled as the great majority of Americans,
first by that verdict, and second, by Mayor
Lancelot's decision, following the verdict, to allow
these thirteen Black Panthers to resume their
political activities in his city. All I can say as
President is that I trust this will not become the
model for the treatment of the acquitted in other
cities around the country.
Now I have no doubt that if the Mayor of
New York were in my place he would not hesi-
tate to declare a hands-off policy where Charles
Curtis Flood is concerned. If self-confessed
Black Panthers are to be left free to stalk the
streets that are no longer safe for our wives and
daughters, why bother to bring to justice a man
who has not confessed to being a Black Panther?
So, I am afraid, the. logic would run, if another
man were in my shoes.
But so long as he is not, so long as I am the
duly elected President of the United States, I can
assure you that there will be no mollycoddling of
any fugitive who, after twice being prevented by
the courts from destroying baseball and un-
108 OUR GANG
dermining the youth of this country, decided that