PARTISAN REVIEW
Of the two Negro board-members, one was beginning to doze. The
other murmured:
"Exactly!"
"Please come to the point," said the chairman.
"Aha!" replied Simon, with a subtle smile. "But what, precisely,
is the point?
If
Mr. Wiley Bey were merely concerned with evading the
draft, he'd need only point to his leg, which is lame and makes him
unfit for service. As for his followers, the fact that they register as
aliens does not absolve them from military service--"
"Aliens have the right to refuse induction," said the chairman.
"May I ask if any of them have?"
"I don't know.... Of course not! We didn't accept their registra·
tion in the first place. They were all born in this country. They've got
to register as American citizens, which they are."
"Now," said Simon, leaning forward· with a great sense of insidious
mastery. "Now we come to the point! Are they American citizens?
Legally, they are. But as Montesquieu so brilliantly showed, and it is
from that great thinker that our very legal structure derives, we must
concern ourselves with the
spirit
and not simply _with the letter of the
law. Wiley Bey finds it impossible to be a Moslem and an American
at the same time. He chooses to be a Moslem, i.e. an ally rather than a
citizen of our country!"
"There are five appeals waiting," said the young lady.
"One moment," put in the blackrimmed glasses. "Even if what you
say is true-and I doubt it: Wiley Bey, I mean Wiley himself stood
right here in front of this board and told us that this was a white man's
war. That's just what he said: a white man's war-but be that as it may,
and all the religious stuff aside, he still has to register properly. Agreed?"
"Agreed. And according to his conscience, to register properly
is to register as a Mohammedan."
"But," cried the man in exasperation, "he still remains an American
citizen! Anyone born in this country is an American citizen. That's
the law!
If
he wants to be a Mohammedan let him go to China and
take out his papers. Here he's an American and that's the end of it.
A man can't walk out of his obligations by calling himself a Moham·
medan!"
"Excuse me," said Simon imperturbably. "It has not yet been proved
that Wiley Bey is trying.to avoid any obligations. He called this a white
man's war. So it is! It is also a war of the dynasts. Fortunately, our
dynasts are interested in fighting it, else we should have been defeated
long ago.... But granting the modern principle of sovereignty, you
an
no doubt obliged to take a rather legalistic view of the matter. I see
your point perfectly."
"In short," said the chairman, "you consider him guilty yourself
and have been wasting our time for nothing. Next case."
Simon was suddenly very tired. He stood there, dreamily, as
the
"next case" shuffled through the swinging door and came to stand beside
him. What was all this nonsense about registrations and sovereignty,
wars and citizens? He had been
performing
again, like a lawyer!
"One moment," he suddenly cried, his face working strangely. "I
