Gideon Planish by Sinclair Lewis

Author:Sinclair Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of Adelaide Library

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/gideon/chapter18.html

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:57

Gideon Planish, by Sinclair Lewis

Chapter 19

In any national organization, the persons whose names are listed down the lefthand side of the stationery, the persons who are supposed to love the organization and guarantee it and work daily for it — these old friends are sometimes labeled the Directors, sometimes the Trustees, the Sponsors, the Advisory Board, the State Chairmen, the Honorary Vice–Chairmen, the National Committee, the General Committee or the Central Committee.

In the T.A.F.A.R.P., these apostles were called the Trustees, and in January, 1930, Dr. Planish was elected a trustee of that association — the True American Federation to Attack Racial Prejudice. With the suspiciousness of one who has now lost his philanthropic innocence, he skimmed over the names of his fellow trustees and even that of the treasurer — the president of an insurance company — knowing that they would all be the familiar bunch of Signers, and he looked sharply at the name of the executive secretary (or, technically, the Works). He approved. The Works was Professor Goetz Buchwald, of the psychology department of Erasmus College, on leave of absence — a leave that had now lasted for seven years.

Buchwald really was an honest and earnest man. He had read all the books, and he hated the oppressors of the Chinese, the Negroes, the Slovenes, as much as he hated the oppressors of the Jews. He spoke vigorously, but he was equally vigorous with scissors and typewriter. He nudged the press about hundreds of small incidents of tyranny or prejudice. A good man and a good organization, felt Dr. Planish. There were only two things wrong about it: Buchwald would keep on calling himself Professor, letting his staff and the newspapers call him Professor, being introduced at public meetings as Professor, though he had stopped professoring years ago.

No, felt Dr. Planish. In a democratic world like this, where we rebel against all such artificial distinctions as titles, a man ought simply to be called Doctor.

The other flaw in the True Americans was that they had never yet been able to convince anybody who was not already convinced. But that, argued Dr. Planish, with the greatest fairness, was scarcely their fault, since it was also true of ninety-seven per cent of all national organizations — practically all of them except his own. And maybe it overlapped the work of a few dozen other bodies, but then, insisted Dr. Planish — but THEN!

He respected the officers of the True Americans: Natalia Hochberg, the general secretary; Bishop Albertus Pindyck, of the Catholic or more acrobatic wing of the Episcopal Church; Dr. Christian Stern; Monsignor Nicodemus Lowell Fish, Ph.D., known as “the apostle to the Yankees”; and Rabbi Emile Lichtenselig. When he was invited to attend the annual conference of the T.A.F.A.R.P. in New York, in April, he was delighted. He felt that here he would be stimulated, and meet the better minds.

Besides, Peony wanted to see the Empire State Building.

She did, and she smelled the ocean and the roast chestnuts.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.