Our Gang (14 page)

Elsinore from the yoke of foreign domination, the

American people are going to be assailed by

counsels of defeat and doubt from some of the

most widely known opinion leaders of the nation.

But let me say this to those defeatists and doubters:

should the state of Denmark, now or in the future,

attempt to occupy Mark Twain's Missouri, or the

wonderful old South of Gone
with the Wind,
in the

way that they have so ruthlessly occupied "Hamlet's

Castle" all these centuries, I would no more hesitate

to send in the Marines to free Hannibal and Atlanta

and Richmond and Jackson and St. Louis, than I did

tonight to free Elsinore. And I firmly believe that

the great majority of the American people would

stand behind me then, as I know they do now.

Fortunately, however, I now have every expectation

that not only our children, but our

children's children, will never have to defend with

their blood the literary landmarks of their native

land from the onslaught of the Danish Tourist

Office, because we, their parents, failed to do our

duty by them in a quaint little seaside village in a

faraway land.

The next move is up to Copenhagen. They have

two choices. Either they can extend to us the

diplomatic courtesy we have requested of them

under international law; or, in the face of that

request, they can continue to display the

intransigence, belligerence and contempt that

originally touched off this grave confrontation.

Now if they choose within the next twelve hours

to negotiate with us in good faith by

conceding to us what we want, I shall immediately

call off the blockade of their coast, just as

John F. Charisma called off the blockade of

Cuba in his finest hour. Furthermore, I will reduce

at the rate of one sixteenth a year the

number of troops massed at their borders. Lastly,

TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION

the guard taken prisoner at Elsinore castle will be

returned to Copenhagen, provided the interrogation

now being conducted does not reveal him to be a

Danish citizen in the employ of the Danish

government.

If, however, Copenhagen should refuse to negotiate

in good faith by giving us what we want, I

shall immediately order 100,000 armed American

troops onto Danish soil.

Now, quickly, let me make one thing very clear:

this will not constitute an invasion, either. Once we

have overrun the country, bombarded the major

cities, devastated the countryside, destroyed the

military, disarmed the citizenry, jailed the leaders of

the Pro-Pornography government, and established

in Copenhagen the government currently in exile so

that, as Abraham Lincoln said, it shall not perish

from this earth, we shall immediately withdraw our

troops.

For unlike the Danes, this great country harbors

no designs on foreign territory. Nor do we wish to

interfere in the internal affairs of another country.

Despite our very deep sympathy with the aspirations

of the Danish Anti-Pornography Resistance, we

have over the years maintained a scrupulous waitand-

see attitude, in the hope that these eminently

decent and idealistic men of the D.A.R. would be

permitted to achieve political office in Copenhagen

through democratic means. Unfortunately, the Pro-

Pornography Party

96
OUR GANG

would not permit this to come about, but repeatedly,

in one so-called free election after another,

chose to brainwash the Danish people in voting

against the D.A.R. So elaborate and thoroughgoing

were these brainwashing techniques, that eventually

the D.A.R. did not collect a single vote and, to all

intents and purposes, might just as well not have

been on the ballot. In this way did the forces of filth

and smut make a mockery of the democratic

processes in Denmark.

My fellow Americans, it is precisely this sort of

contempt for the rights of others that Copenhagen

would now display toward the United States of

America. Only this country is not about to be

bullied and disgraced by a tenth-rate military power,

and see our credibility destroyed in every area of the

world where only the power of the United States

deters aggression. And that is why tonight I have

put the leaders in Copenhagen on notice that if they

continue to refuse what we ask them, I will bring all

our military might to bear to restore to legitimate

authority in Denmark a government that will

respond to reason instead of force, a government

that stands for decency instead of degradation, a

government, as Abraham Lincoln said, of, by and

for, not only the Danish people, but the American

people and all good people everywhere.

What are we asking of Copenhagen, my fel

TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION
97

low Americans? Neither more nor less than what

we requested and received from the United

Kingdom in 1968, when, according to the rules of

international law and the custom of civilized

nations, that country returned to our shores the

fugitive from justice who was later convicted of the

murder of Martin Luther King.

What are we asking of Copenhagen? Neither

more nor less than what we would have requested

of the Soviet Union in 1963, had President

Charisma's murderer attempted to take refuge for a

second time in that country.

What are we asking of Copenhagen? Nothing

more nor less than that they surrender to the proper

American authorities the fugitive from the

Washington Senators of the American League of

Professional Baseball Clubs, the man who fled this

country on April 27, 1971, exactly one week to the

day before the uprising of the Boy Scouts in

Washington-the man named Charles

Curtis Flood.

Now events have moved so rapidly during these

past twenty-four hours that in the interest of clarity

I should like to review for you in all its pertinent

details, the case of Charles Curtis Flood, who,

previous to his disappearance, played baseball right

here in Washington, under the alias "Curt Flood."

As always, I want to make everything as per

perfectly clear
to you as I can
.
That is why you hear

me say over
and over again, in my speeches and

press conferences
and interviews, that I want to

make one thing very clear, or two things, or

three things, or as many things as I have on my

agenda to make very clear. To give you a little

glimpse of the lighter side of the President's life

(impish
endearing smile), my wife tells me that I

even say it
in
my dreams. (Back to business) My

fellow Americans, I am confident that you recognize

as well as I do, that any man who says he wants to

make things perfectly clear as often as
I
do, both

awake and in his sleep, obviously does not have

anything to hide.

Now who is this man who calls himself "Curt

Flood"? To many Americans, particularly the

wonderful mothers of our land, that name is

probably as strange as the name Eric Starvo Galt,

which, you may remember, was the alias taken by

James Earl Ray, the convicted murder
er
of Martin

Luther King.

Who is "Curt Flood"? Well, until a year or so

ago, the answer would have been simple enough.

Flood was a baseball player for the St. Louis

Cardinals of the National League, a center fielder

with a more than respectable lifetime batting

average of .294. Not a Hall of Famer, not the best

baseball player in the big leagues, but far from the

worst. Many even believed that his finest years lay

ahead of him. I am proud to say

TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION
99

that I, as an avid fan of baseball as well as all manly

sports, was among them.

Then tragedy struck. In
1970,
with
no more

warning than the Japanese gave at Pearl Harbor,

"Curt Flood," as he then called himself, turned

upon the very sport that had made him one of the

highest-paid Negroes in the history of

our country. In
1970,
he announced-and this is

an exact quotation from his own writings-

"Somebody needs to go up against the system," and

proceeded to bring a legal action against Organized

Baseball. According to the Commissioner of

Baseball himself, this action would destroy the game

of baseball as we know it, if Flood were to emerge

victorious.

Now no one expects ordinary citizens, who earn

their livelihoods outside the legal profession, to be

able to wade through the intricacies of a legal suit

such as this fugitive from justice has brought

against our great national pastime for the purpose

of destroying it. That's why people hire lawyers in

the first place. I know when I was a lawyer that was

why people hired me, and

I think without boasting, that I was able to help

them. When I was a young, struggling lawyer,

and Pitter and I were living on nine dollars a

week out in Prissier, California, which is right

here (points), I would read through my law

books and study long into the night
in
order to

help my clients, most of whom were wonderful

100

young people just like Pitter and myself. At that

time, by the way, I had the following debts

outstanding:

-$1,000 on our neat little house.

-$200
to my dear parents.

-$110 to my loyal and devoted brother.

-$15 to our fine dentist, a warm-hearted Jew

ish man for whom we had the greatest re

spect.

-$4.35 to our kindly grocer, an old Italian who

always had a good word for everybody. I still

remember his name. Tony.

-75 cents to our Chinese laundryman, a slightlybuilt

fellow who nonetheless worked long into

the night over his shirts, just as I did over my

lawbooks, so that his children might one day

attend the college of their choice. I am sure

they have grown up to be fine and outstanding

Chinese-Americans.

-6o cents to the Polish man, or Polack, as the

Vice President would affectionately call him,

who delivered the ice for our old-fashioned

icebox. He was a strong man with great pride