Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

“I’d like to answer that,” said Manning.

“Go ahead,” said the President.

“I will. I’m going to have to use some pretty pla~ language and I hope that

Secretary Lamer will do n the honor of believing that I speak so from sinceril and

deep concern and not from persorìal pique.

“I think a world democracy would be a very flu thing and I ask that you

believe me when I say I woul willingly lay down my life to accomplish it. I ah think

it would be a very fine thing for the lion to 1 down with the lamb, but I am

reasonably certain that only the lion would get up. If we try to form an actu world

democracy, we’ll be the lamb in the setup.

“There are a lot of good, kindly people who are internationalists these

days. Nine out of ten of them are soft in the head and the tenth is ignorant. If we

set up a worldwide democracy, what will the electorate be? Take a look at the facts:

Four hundred million Chinese with no more concept of voting and citizen

responsibility than a flea; three hundred million Hindus who aren’t much better

indoctrinated; God knows ho many in the Eurasian Union who believe in God knows

what; the entire continent of Africa only semicivilize eighty million Japanese who

really believe that th are Heaven-ordained to rule; our Spanish-Americ~ friends who

might trail along with us and might nc but who don’t understand the Bill of Rights

the w~ we think of it; a quarter of a billion people of two doz different

nationalities in Europe, all with revenge an black hatred in their hearts.

“No, it won’t wash. It’s preposterous to talk about world democracy for many

years to come. If you turn the secret of the dust over to such a body, you will

arming the whole world to commit suicide.”

Lamer answered at once. “I could resent some of your remarks, but I won’t.

To put it bluntly, I consider the source. The trouble with you, Colonel Manning, is

that you are a professional soldier and have no faith in people. Soldiers may be

necessary, but the worst of them are martinets and the best are merely

paternalistic.” There was quite a lot more of the same.

Manning stood it until his turn came again. “Maybe I am all those things,

but you haven’t met my argument. What are you going to do about the hundreds of

millions of people who have no experience in, nor love for, democracy? Now, perhaps,

I don’t have the same concept of democracy as yourself, but I do know this:

Out West there are a couple of hundred thousand people who sent me to

Congress; I am not going to stand quietly by and let a course be followed which I

think will result in their deaths or utter ruin.

“Here is the probable future, as I see it, potential in the smashing of the

atom and the development of lethal artificial radioactives. Some power makes a

supply of the dust. They’ll hit us first to try to knock us out and give them a free

hand. New York and Washington overnight, then all of our industrial areas while we

are still politically and economically disorganized. But our army would not be in

those cities; we would have planes and a supply of dust somewhere where the first

dusting wouldn’t touch them. Our boys would bravely and righteously proceed to

Page 55

poison their big cities. Back and forth it would go until the organization of each

country had broken down so completely that they were no longer able to maintain a

sufficiently high level of industrialization to service planes and manufacture dust.

That presupposes starvation and plague in the process. You can fill in the details.

“The other nations would get in the game. It would be silly and suicidal, of

course, but it doesn’t take brains to take a hand in this. All it takes is a very

small group, hungry for power, a few airplanes and a supply ~mf dllQt It’c a

a~ic’r,~jc c’ir,-lo that ,’ai’,i-ic,t ,-,,-,cci~l-,li, ho

stopped until the entire planet has dropped to a level economy too low to support