Nevertheless a setback had come and Barstow understood the reasons at least as well as Ford did. Whenever the citizens fix their attention on one issue to the exclusion of others, the situation is ripe for scalawags, demagogues, ambitious men on horseback. The Howard Families, in all innocence, had created the crisis in public morals from which they now suffered, through their own action, taken years earlier, in letting the short-lived learn of their existence. It mattered not at all that the “secret” did not exist; the corrupting effect did exist. Ford at least understood the true situation- “We’ll help,” Barstow answered suddenly. “Good. What do you suggest?”
Barstow chewed his lip. “Isn’t there some way you can stall off this drastic action, this violation of the Covenant itself?”
Ford shook his head. “It’s too late.”
“Even if you went before the public and told the citizens, face to face, that you knew that-”
Ford cut him short. “I wouldn’t last in office long enough to make the speech. Nor would I be believed. Besides that- understand me clearly, Zaccur Barstow-no matter what sympathy I may have personally for you and your people, I would not do so if I could. This whole matter is a cancer eating into vitals of our society; it must be settled. I have had my hand forced, true . . . but there is no turning back. It must be pressed on to a solution.”
In at least one respect Barstow was a wise man; he knew that another man could oppose him and not be a villain. Nevertheless he protested, “My people are being persecuted.”
“Your people,” Ford said forcefully, “are a fraction of a tenth of one per cent of all the people . . . and I must find a solution for all! I’ve called on you to find out if you have any suggestions toward a solution for everyone. Do you?”
“I’m not sure,” Barstow answered slowly. “Suppose I concede that you must go ahead with this ugly business of arresting my people, of questioning them by unlawful means-I suppose I have no choice about that-”
“You have no choice. Neither have I.” Ford frowned. “It will be carried out as humanely as I can manage it-I am not a free agent.”
“Thank you. But, even though you tell me it would be useless for you yourself to go to the people, nevertheless you have enormous propaganda means at your disposal. Would it be possible, while we stall along, to build up a campaign to convince the people of the true facts? Prove to them that there is no secret?” Ford answered, “Ask yourself: will it work?”
Barstow sighed. “Probably not.”
“Nor would I consider it a solution even if it would! The people-even my trusted assistants-are clinging to their belief in a fountain of youth because the only alternative is too bitter to think about. Do you know what it would mean to them? For them to believe the bald truth?”
“Go on?’
“Death has been tolerable to me only because Death has been the Great Democrat, treating all alike. But now Death plays favorites. Zaccur Barstow, can you understand the bitter, bitter jealousy of the ordinary man of-oh, say ‘fifty’- who looks on one of your sort? Fifty years . . . twenty of them he is a child, he is well past thirty before he is skilled in his profession. He is forty before he is established and respected. For not more than the last ten years of his fifty he has really amounted to something.”
Ford leaned forward in the screen and spoke with sober emphasis: “And now, when he has reached his goal, what is his prize? His eyes are failing him, his bright young strength is gone, his heart and wind are ‘not what they used to be.’ He is not senile yet . . . but he feels the chill of the first frost. He knows what is in store for him. He knows-he knows!
“But it was inevitable and each man learned to be resigned to it.”
“Now you come along,” Ford went on bitterly. “You shame him in his weakness, you humble him before his children. He dares not plan for the future; you blithely undertake plans that will not mature for fifty years-for a hundred. No matter what success he has achieved, what excellence he has attained, you will catch up with him, pass him-outlive him. In his weakness you are kind to him.