All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [158]
I had asked the Boss about something else once. The night after the impeachment blew up. The night when the great crowd that poured into the town stood on the lawn of the Capitol, trampling the flower beds beneath the great frock-coated and buckskin-clad and sword-bearing bronze statues which were History. When out of the tall dark doorway of the Capitol, under the blue glares of the spotlights Willie Stark walked out to stand at the top of the high steps, heavy and slow-looking, blinking in the light. He stood there, the only person up there on the wide expanse of stone, seeming to be lonely and lost against the mass of stone which reared behind him, standing there blinking. The long chant of “Willie–Willie–we want Willie,” which had swelled up from the crowd, stopped as he came out. For an instant as he waited, there wasn’t a sound. Then suddenly there was the great roar from the crowd, without any words. It was a long time before he lifted his hand to stop it. Then the roar died away as though under the pressure of his slowly descending hand.
Then he said, “They tried to ruin me, but they are ruined.”
And the roar came again, and died away, under the hand.
He said, “They tried to ruin me because they did not like what I have done. Do you like what I have done?”
The roar came, and died.
He said, “I tell you what I am going to do. I am going to build a hospital. The biggest and the finest money can buy. It will belong to you. Any man or woman or child who is sick or in pain can go in those doors and know that all will be done that man can do. To heal sickness. To ease pain. Not as charity. But as a right. It is your right. Do you hear? It is your right!”
The roar came.
He said, “And it is your right that every child shall have a complete education. That no person aged and infirm shall want or beg for bread. That the man who produces something shall be able to carry it to market without miring to the hub, without toll. That no poor man’s house or land shall be taxed. That the rich men and the great companies that draw wealth from this state shall pay this state a fair share. That you shall not be deprive of hope!”
The roar came. As it died away, Anne Stanton, who had her arm through mine and was pressed close by the weight of the crowd, asked, “Does he mean that, Jack? Really?”
“He’s done a good deal of it already,” I said.
“Yes,” Adam Stanton said, and his lips curled back with the words, “yes–that’s his bribe.”
I didn’t answer–and I didn’t know what my answer would have been–for Willie Stark, up there on the high steps, was saying, “I will do this things. So help me God. I shall live in your will and your right. And if any man ties to stop me in the fulfilling of that right and that will I’ll break him. I’ll break him like that!” He spread his arms far apart, shoulder-high, and crashed the right fist into the left palm. “Like that! I’ll smite him. Hip and thigh, shinbone and neckbone, kidney punch, rabbit punch, uppercut, and solar plexus. And I don’t care what I hit him with. Or how!”
Then, in the midst of the roar, I leaned toward Anne’s ear and yelled, “He damned well means that.”
I didn’t know whether or not Anne heard me. She was watching the man up there on the steps, who was leaning forward toward the crowd, with bulging eyes, saying, “I’ll hit him. I’ll hit him with that meat ax!”
The he suddenly stretched his arms above his head, the coat sleeves drawn tight to expose the shirt sleeves, the hands spread and clutching. He screamed,