Our Gang (17 page)

die in their sleep, and that is the comfort of passing

unknowingly from this life into the next. Now that

is the type of death people have dreamed about for

themselves since time immemorial, and let it not be

recorded that Trick E. Dixon lacked the moral and

spiritual idealism to address himself to that dream.

But now let me ask you this, my fellow Americans.

What could be further from the kind of

painless death for men everywhere that this administration

is working so hard to bring about, than

that which is experienced by the victim of a knife

such as I am holding in my hand? Not only is it

necessary to deliver as many as five to ten

horrifyingly painful stab wounds in order to kill

somebody with a weapon this small, but in order to

accomplish this the murderer must exhibit a

sustained viciousness, a cold-blooded determination

to kill, that, I assure you, would shock and appall a

combat-tried B-5z bomber pilot no less than it does

you and me.

And let me tell you how they manage that

sustained viciousness: Unlike our pilots in Vietnam,

whose satisfaction consists solely in getting the job

done as quickly and thoroughly as pos-

116 OUR GANG

sible, and who have no interest at all in whatever

cries and moans may happen to arise from those

who do not die instantly in the blast, the people

who use weapons like these are obviously sadists of

the sort who enjoy watching the blood run out of

their victims, and, incidentally in that connection,

hearing the cries of a person in physical torment.

Why else would they use a weapon that takes up to

half an hour to do the sort of job our pilots

accomplish in a split second, and without the

groaning and the gore?

Now let's look at the knife closely. 4 am going to

open out the blades one by one, and describe to you

the purpose and function of each. You should not

be misled by its four-and-five-eighthsinch exterior

into imagining that it is simply an instrument

designed to kill. Like so many of the weapons

carried by guerrilla revolutionaries around the world,

it has multiple uses, of which murder of the

agonizing and sadistic variety is but one.

Let's begin here, with the smallest of the four

blades. In the language of those who employ such

weapons, it is known as "the bottle opener." I'll tell

you how it got that name in a moment. You will

observe that it is hook-shaped at the end, and

measures one inch and oneeighth. It is employed

during the interrogation of prisoners primarily to

gouge out one or both of the eyes. It is also used on

the soles of the feet,

TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 117

which are sliced open, like so, with the point of the

hook. Last, but not least, it is sometimes inserted

into the mouth of a prisoner who will not talk, in

order to slit the flesh at the upper part of the

larynx, between the vocal cords. That opening up

there is called the glottis, and "bottle opener" is

derived from "glottal opener," the pet name

originally attached to the blade by its most coldblooded

practitioners.

This second largest blade, measuring one inch

and three-quarters, tapers to a point and probably

looks to you to be a miniature bayonet. Do not be

fooled by appearances. It has nothing to do with

bayonets such as those our brave soldiers found it

necessary to fix to their rifles in selfdefense during

the two-day Boy Scout uprising. This little blade is

known as "the leather punch," and far from being

an instrument of self-defense, it is yet another

torture device, along the lines of the bottle opener.

As its name suggests, it is used to punch holes in

human flesh, or "leather" as the flesh is called by

revolutionaries who consider their enemies to be no

more than animals. It will come as no surprise to

you to learn that it is most frequently driven into the

palms of the hands, much the same way that the

nails were in the movie The Greatest
Story
Ever

Told.

Now this third blade, an eighth of an inch longer

than the leather punch, is also wider and

118 OUR GANG

less tapered, and has a flat rather than a pointed

end. It is known as "the screwdriver." Traditionally,

it is inserted into the groove between the nails and

the flesh and turned in a rotary fashion, like so.

However, we know from intelligence reports that

the screwdriver may also on occasion be introduced

into bodily apertures, of which the nostrils and the

ears are the only ones I shall choose to make

mention of on nationwide television. Some of my

political opponents may think otherwise-and they

have every right to disagree with my position-but I,

for one, have never believed it necessary to use bad

language to make my point, and I have no intention

of resorting to those kinds of tactics in the midst of

a major address to the nation.

This last blade of the four is probably the one

you're most familiar with from your nightmares.

Two inches and three-quarters in length, ninesixteenths

of an inch at its widest point, it has a

sharp cutting edge that I shall demonstrate for you

on this piece of paper.

Incidentally, it is no accident that printed on this

piece of paper is the Preamble to the Constitution,

the Bill of Rights and the oft-quoted and much

beloved Ten Commandments, with their famous

"Thou shalt nots." As you all remember, these same

Ten Commandments provided the wonderful and

inspiring background for another motion picture of

great spiritual value that I am

TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 119

sure the grcat majority of American families enjoyed

as much as our family did. I don't think I am too far

afield when I say that what you see printed on this

sheet of paper (close-up of paper) is just about

everything we believe in and cherish as a people.

I want you to watch as I demonstrate what this

blade can do in a matter of seconds to all that you

and I hold near and dear.

(He slices the piece of paper into one-inch
strips

and then
holds
them up for the audience to see)

Of course you can peel apples with a blade like

this, you can slice your potatoes for frying and you

can cut up your cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes,

onions and celery for salad. And I am sure that

those who would seek to exonerate these three

Scouts will maintain that it was only to prepare a

delicious salad such as I described that they secreted

these weapons upon their belts and carried them

hundreds of miles across state lines to the nation's

capital. I am afraid that whether it is knife-carrying

Boy Scouts or cardcarrying Communists, there will

always be a handful of apologists around to come to

their defense.

My fellow Americans, I want to leave it to you,

and not to the apologists, to decide. ,I ask you to

look at this knife, with all four of its blades

unsheathed, blades capable of inflicting

120 OUR GANG

physical torment of a kind that goes all the way back

to the Crucifixion and beyond. I ask you to look at

this four-pronged instrument of torture. I ask you to

look at what just one of those blades was able to do

to the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of

Rights and the beloved Ten Commandments. And

now I ask you if you think there is anything at all to

be said in defense of three Boy Scouts carrying such

knives into the nation's capital.

And incidentally, in that connection, these were

not the only three Boy Scouts in Washington

bearing concealed weapons on their belts. These

were only the three we happened to kill. In all, a

total of eight thousand four hundred and sixty-three

knives, each resembling this one in every last detail,

were confiscated during the two days the Scouts

were here. That means a grand total of thirty-three

thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two blades, or

enough blades to torture simultaneously every single

resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland, including

women and children.

Now you ask, how did we prevent this bloodbath

from taking place in Chevy Chase? The

answer is by setting up an enclosed camping site

for the Scouts who were not shot. The answer is by

diverting their attention from -violence and

lawbreaking by giving them a chance to test

TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 121

their scouting abilities overnight in a wilderness

environment without food or shelter.

And let me tell you something: it is to the very

great credit of the scouting movement in this

country, that once we were able to get these boys

off the streets and into a rugged camping situationand

we have the police to thank for volunteering

their help in getting all the boys out there-they

showed themselves worthy in every way of their

famous motto, "Be Prepared."

Let's take a look at just a few of their accomplishments:

First, in the absence of toilet facilities, they did a

tremendous job in disposing of their waste matter

and the leaves they used for personal hygiene.

Next, what little water they had in their canteens,

they shared in an admirable way, or so it would

seem from the fact that not a single one of the

nearly ten thousand died of thirst. Nor did they

make the mistake of drinking from, or even daring

to bathe in, the pond at the campsite,. so familiar

were they with the danger signs of sewage and

stagnation.

Now anyone familiar with Boy Scout training

could have expected that they would be able to use

their kerchiefs as tourniquets to stop one another's

bleeding, but few of us believed they could ever do

the kind of near professional job

122 OUR GANG

they did making splints out of vines and branches

and shirts torn up into rags.

As for eating, well, I'm proud to say that by

morning they had discovered edible roots and

berries we didn't even know were there. And as

for warmth, as you could expect, they managed

during the night to start several fires in the classic

Boy Scout manner of rubbing two sticks together.

In all, what might have been a nightmare for the

citizens of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was converted

into wonderful scouting experience for the boys

themselves, and one that I'm sure they'll

remember for a long time to come. I know that