His reflections were interrupted by the gavel banging of Senator Cogswell, who stood at the head of the Committee table and spoke into the cluster of microphones, calling for attention.
Mart watched Cogswell intently. He was the key to the Committee. The senator had come from a Midwestern state, a dealer in farm machinery before coming to the Senate. His face and neck and hands had the perpetual florrid tint of a man who has spent long years of his life in the sun and wind. The press called him Honest Abe Cogswell, and Mart was certain the name fitted.
But you couldn’t be honest if you didn’t have the data, Mart thought. It wasn’t honest to judge a thing concerning which you had no data. And what a fetish you could make of honesty if you didn’t even know you lacked the data! Somehow he would have to find the way to give it to Cogswell.
The farmer-politician announced: “The first to be called for testimony in this hearing will be Dr. Martin Nagle.”
Mart stood up and moved slowly to the seat before the microphones. There was a well filled press section, he noted. Evidently all the news services had been stirred into sending representatives on the off chance that something spectacular might develop.
Cogswell faced him across the microphones. “You are Dr. Nagle?”
“Yes.”
Briefly, he was sworn in. Then Cogswell resumed. “You have been called before this Committee as a result of certain allegations on the part of yourself and others. It is alleged that you have refused the military and commercial exploitation of certain discoveries made by you, and that these discoveries are of primary importance to the welfare and defense of the country.
“It is alleged that you have criticized the Patent System of the United States in a very serious manner, claiming that it offers you inadequate protection for your work. It is further alleged that you have threatened to withhold knowledge of your important discoveries until revision of the Patent Laws gives you the protection you desire.
“Would you like to state your position, Dr. Nagle, to clarify your points of contention for the Committee, or would you prefer to be cross-examined, first, point by point?”