Censorship; Horse stealing -- Drama; West (U.S.) -- Drama
An innocent lady told me afterwards that she never knew that I could
smile so beautifully, and that she thought it shewed very good taste on
my part. I was not conscious of smiling; but I should have embraced the
Colonel had I dared. As it was, I turned expectantly to his colleagues,
mutely inviting them to follow his example. But there was only one
Colonel Lockwood on that Committee. No eye met mine except minority
eyes, dancing with mischief. There was nothing more to be said. I went
home to my morning's work, and returned in the afternoon to receive the
apologies of the minority for the conduct of the majority, and to see Mr
Granville Barker, overwhelmed by the conscience-stricken politeness of
the now almost abject Committee, and by a powerful smell of carnations,
heading the long list of playwrights who came there to testify against
the censorship, and whose treatment, I am happy to say, was everything
they could have desired.
After all, ridiculous as the scene was, Colonel Lockwood's simplicity
and courage were much more serviceable to his colleagues than their own
inept coup de theatre would have been if he had not spoiled it. It was
plain to every one that he had acted in entire good faith, without a
thought as to these apparently insignificant little books being of any
importance or having caused me or anybody else any trouble, and that
he was wounded in his most sensitive spot by the construction my Times
letter had put on his action. And in Colonel Lockwood's case one saw the
case of his party on the Committee. They had simply been thoughtless in
the matter.
I hope nobody will suppose that this in any way exonerates them. When
people accept public service for one of the most vital duties that can
arise in our society, they have no right to be thoughtless. In spite of
the fun of the scene on the surface, my public sense was, and still is,
very deeply offended by it. It made an end for me of the claim of the
majority to be taken seriously. When the Government comes to deal with
the question, as it presumably will before long, I invite it to be
guided by the Chairman, the minority, and by the witnesses according to
their weight, and to pay no attention whatever to those recommendations
which were obviously inserted solely to conciliate the majority and get
the report through and the Committee done with.
My evidence will be found in the Bluebook, pp. 46-53. And here is the
terrible statement which the Committee went through so much to suppress.
THE REJECTED STATEMENT
PART I
THE WITNESS'S QUALIFICATIONS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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