“That just states the problem. How do you solve it?”
The old man tipped his stool back against a high table and peered at Jimmie. “You know your family. You know your country—or, at least, what your country has stood for in the past. ‘We hold all men to be created free and equal.’ That sort of stuff. You solve their problem. I’ll help you out, though. For years I’ve been pasting up scrapbooks of things I thought were important. All sorts of things. Newspaper clippings and items from magazines. Pages from books—most whole books only do have a couple of worth-while pages in ’em. My scrapbooks aren’t perfect—they missed a lot—but I’ll lend ’em to you.
They’ll help you catch up on your American history.”
“I need to,” Jimmie said.
“Mmmm. I’ll send the books over to your house. Maybe your family’ll peek into ’em. They’ll remind them of a lot they’ve overlooked.”
Jimmie grinned. “I bet.”
Mr. Corinth took a cigar from his disreputable waistcoat pocket and struck a match. He puffed ruminatively. “Your people—most people—don’t realize what has happened to them. It’s so big, so abrupt, so demanding of enormous mental change, that they can’t realize. Takes more time than they’re willing to take to think. More intellectual honesty than your father or your mother are in the habit of using. I don’t believe either Roosevelt or Churchill ever understood exactly what’s happened to all of us on this planet. I mean about this isolation business. When folks do understand what has happened, this word ‘isolation’ just about won’t exist any more.”
Mr. Corinth stared at Jimmie. “In the case of crime or danger there is only one question important to a human. That isn’t—How big is the danger, or, How terrible? It’s—How faraway is it? Only, Jimmie, there’re two kinds of ‘faraway.’ One is—How far in distance? The other is—How far in time? The murder and rape of a few thousand Chinese is pretty faraway in distance. So is the German Army—in spite of the cruising range of bombers. That reassures people. But they aren’t any distance away in time! Even with the telegraph, distance in time was still distance. It took time to get the messages translated and printed in the newspapers. But with the radio that’s all gone. We’re isolated in distance, only a few hours, all over the world. And in time, not at all—any more, ever! ”
“I never thought of that,” Jimmie said. “Not that way.”
“Nope. People don’t. I pick up my radio. I hear the AA going in London. Shrapnel hitting the roof where the announcer stands. Fire crackling. Bombs screeching. I think— Well, that’s London and it’s faraway. But I can’t think—That’s something that happened. I know darn’ well it’s something happening right here and now! There’s the trouble. It isn’t history. It’s present tense. Therefore, my conscience won’t let me overlook it. My instinct is to do something about it because it’s going on now! If I still try to tell myself it’s faraway I feel I’m a hypocrite. I feel that I’m an accessory to the whole bloody affair. I am—in the sense that I haven’t the excuse of isolation in time any more. Particeps criminis, the law calls it. That is, if you’re going down the street and you see a robbery take place and you don’t try to do anything about it the law can punish you. You’re an accessory. That’s what radio makes the whole world: accessories before, during, and after the rotten crimes now going on. Not eyewitnesses, earwitnesses, which is just as damning.”