“How so?” Maury demanded.
“It’s–halting.”
“It just came to,” I said.
“No, it’s not that,” Maury said. “It’s a different personality. Stanton’s more inflexible, dogmatic.” To me he said, “I know a hell of a lot about those two people. Lincoln was this way. I made up the tapes. He had periods of brooding, he was brooding here just now when we came in. Other times he’s more cheerful.” To Blunk he said, “That’s his character. If you stick around awhile you’ll see him in other moods. Moody–that’s what he is. Not like Stanton, not positive. I mean, it’s not an electrical failure; it’s supposed to be that way.”
“I see,” Blunk said, but he did not sound convinced.
“I know what you refer to,” Barrows said. “It seems to stick.”
“Right,” Blunk said. “I’m not sure in my own mind that they’ve got this perfected. There may be a lot of bugs left to iron out.”
“And this cover-up line,” Barrows said, “about not questioning it as to contemporary topics–you caught that.”
“I certainly did,” Blunk said.
“Sam,” I said to Barrows, plunging in, “you don’t get the point at all. Maybe that’s due to your having just made that plane flight from Seattle and then that long drive by car from Boise. Frankly, I thought you grasped the principle underlying the simulacra, but let’s let the subject go, for the sake of amicability. Okay?” I smiled.
Barrows contemplated me without answering; so did Blunk. Off in the corner Maury perched on a workstool, with his cigar giving off clouds of lonely blue smoke.
“I understand your disappointment with the Lincoln,” I said. “I sympathize. To be frank, the Stanton one was coached.”
“Ah,” Blunk said, his eyes twinkling.
“It wasn’t my idea. My partner here was nervous and he wanted it all set up.” I wagged my head in Maury’s direction. “He was wrong to do it, but anyhow that’s a dead issue; what we want to deal with is the Lincoln simulacrum because that’s the basis of MASA ASSOCIATES’ genuine discovery. Let’s walk back and query it further.”
The three of us walked back to where Mrs. Nild and Pris stood listening to the tall, bearded, stooped simulacrum.
“. . . quoted me to the effect that the Negro was included in that clause of the Declaration of Independence which says that all men were created equal. That was at Chicago Judge Douglas says I said that, and then he goes on to say that at Charleston I said the Negro belonged to an inferior race. And that I held it was not a moral issue, but a question of degree, and yet at Galesburg I went back and said it was a moral question once more.” The simulacrum smiled its gentle, pained smile at us. “Thereupon some fellow in the audience called out, ‘He’s right.’ I was glad somebody thought me right, because it seemed to myself that Judge Douglas had me by the coat tails.”
Pris and Mrs. Nild laughed appreciatively. The rest of us stood silently.
“About the best applause Judge Douglas got was when he said that the whole Republican Party in the northern part of the state stands committed to the doctrine of no more slave states, and that this same doctrine is repudiated by the Republicans in the other part of the state . . . and the Judge wondered whether Mr. Lincoln and his party do not present the case which Mr. Lincoln cited from the Scriptures, of a house divided against itself which cannot stand.” The simulacrum’s voice had assumed a droll quality. “And the Judge wondered if my principles were the same as the Republican Party’s. Of course, I don’t get the chance to answer the Judge until October at Quincy. But I told him there, that he could argue that a horse-chestnut is the same as a chestnut horse. I certainly had no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together on the footing of perfect equality. But I hold the Negro as much entitled to the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as any white man. He is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color–perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments. But in the right to eat the bread which his own hand earns, without leave of anybody else, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man.” The simulacrum paused. “I received a few good cheers myself at that moment.”
To me Sam Barrows said, “You’ve got quite a tape reeling itself off inside that thing, don’t you?”
“It’s free to say what it wants,” I told him.
“Anything? _You mean it wants to speechify?_” Barrows obviously did not believe me. “I don’t see that it’s anything but the familiar mechanical man gimmick, with this dressed-up historical guise. The same thing was demonstrated at the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair, Pedro the Vodor.”
This exchange between Barrows and I had not escaped the attention of the Lincoln simulacrum. In fact both it and Pris and Mrs. Nild were now watching us and listening to us.
The Lincoln said to Mr. Barrows, “Did I not hear you, a short while ago, express the notion of ‘acquiring me,’ as an asset of some kind? Do I recall fairly? If so, I would wonder how you could acquire me or anyone else, when Miss Frauenzimmer tells me that there is a stronger impartiality between the races now than ever before. I am a bit mixed on some of this but I believe there is no more ‘acquiring’ of any human in the worki today, even in Russia where it is notorious.”
Barrows said, “That doesn’t include mechanical men.”
“You refer to myself?” the simulacrum said.
With a laugh Barrows said, “All right, yes I do.”
Beside him the short lawyer David Blunk stood plucking at his chin thoughtfully, glancing from Barrows to the simulacrum and back.
“Would you tell me, sir,” the simulacrum said, “what a man is?”
“Yes, I would,” Barrows said. He caught Blunk’s eye; obviously, Barrows was enjoying this. “A man is a forked radish.” He added, “Is that definition familiar to you, Mr. Lincoln?”
“Yes sir, it is,” the simulacrum said. “Shakespeare has his Falstaff speak that, does he not?”
“Right,” Barrows said. “And I’d add to that, A man can be defined as an animal that carries a pocket handkerchief. How about that? Mr. Shakespeare didn’t say that.”
“No sir,” the simulacrum agreed. “He did not.” The simulacrum laughed heartily. “I appreciate your humor, Mr. Barrows. May I use that remark in a speech?”
Barrows nodded.
“Thank you,” the simulacrum said. “Now, you’ve defined a man as an animal which carries a pocket handkerchief. But what is an animal?”
“I can tell you you’re not,” Barrows said, his hands in his trouser pockets; he looked perfectly confident. “An animal has a biological heritage and makeup which you lack. You’ve got valves and wires and switches. You’re a machine. Like a–” He considered. “Spinning jenny. Like a steam engine.” He winked at Blunk. “Can a steam engine consider itself entitled to protection under the clause of the Constitution which you quoted? Has it got a right to eat the bread it produces, like a white man?”
The simulacrum said, “Can a machine talk?”
“Sure. Radios, phonographs, tape recorders, telephones– they all yak away like mad.”
The simulacrum considered. It did not know what those were, but it could make a shrewd guess; it had had enough time by itself to do a good deal of thinking. We could all appreciate that.
“Then what, sir, is a machine?” the simulacrum asked Barrows.
“You’re one. These fellows made you. You belong to them.”
The long, lined, dark-bearded face twisted with weary amusement as the simulacrum gazed down at Barrows. “Then you, sir, are a machine. For you have a Creator, too. And, like ‘these fellows,’ He made you in His image. I believe Spinoza, the great Hebrew scholar, held that opinion regarding animals; that they were clever machines. The critical thing, I think, is the soul. A machine can do anything a man can–you’ll agree to that. But it doesn’t have a soul.”
“There is no soul,” Barrows said. “That’s pap.”
“Then,” the simulacrum said, “a machine is the same as an animal.” It went on slowly in its dry, patient way, “And an animal is the same as a man. Is that not correct?”
“An animal is made out of flesh and blood, and a machine is made out of wiring and tubes, like you. What’s the point of all this? You know darn well you’re a machine; when we came in here you were sitting here alone in the dark thinking about it. So what? I know you’re a machine; I don’t care. All I care is whether you work or not. As far as I’m concerned you don’t work well enough to interest me. Maybe later on when you have fewer bugs. All you can do is spout on about Judge Douglas and a lot of political, social twaddle that nobody gives a damn about.”