“You can say what you like, but Italians are tricky and Okies are shiftless and Negroes are lazy and Jews are too smart and a world-government is against human nature and against all the principles laid down by George Washington, and I don’t want to hear any more such wicked nonsense, and I, who am Hertha and Isis and Ashtaroth and the recording secretary of the D.A.R., proclaim that when all civilization flattens out in the universal propriety of death, then everything will be nice and respectable everywhere, and there won’t be any more of this trying to be smart and show off with such silly talk, and now let’s have another nice cup of coffee and say nothing more about it.”

Chapter 51

Ash said on the telephone, “No, I thought your wife was very pleasant, last evening—trying her best to be natural with us. You must expect her to take a long time before she accepts Negroes as normal. I’ve tried to do the same thing for forty years, and I’m still a little bewildered to find that I’m not an American citizen or a father or a chemist but a Negro. And now, forget all that, because something very dangerous is starting.”

So Ash gave him the first news of the Sant Tabac.

When Neil had rushed home after work, to inquire how Vestal felt—she just felt like Vestal, and she was irritated that he should insist on her feeling any other way—he telephoned to Evan Brewster, to Cope Anderson, and put together his information:

The Sant Tabac was a new organization, founded in Grand Republic and likely to spread to other Northern cities. It was a conspiracy to drive as many Negroes as possible back South. To prospective members who thought that it resembled the Ku Klux Klan, the organizers explained, “No, there is to be no violence whatever. In fact, we want to protect the colored people—from their own leaders, who’d like to get them into riots, to please the Kremlin. We won’t stand for any lynchings, or even any beatings—not unless the mokes act nasty and rile the cops. Our policy is entirely benevolent and constructive: to get all the niggers that have grabbed off white men’s jobs in the North fired, and no new ones hired.”

There was a great deal of wit and archness in this campaign for economic murder. The name Sant Tabac was made from the initial letters in their slogan: “Stop all Negro trouble, take action before any comes.” The first set of officers were Mr. Wilbur Feathering, who was “Big Havana,” Mr. William Stopple, “Little Havana,” Mr. Randy Spruce, “Penatela”—not Panatela—while the treasurer, or “Ole Leather Pouch,” was Mr. Norton Trock of the Blue Ox National Bank. Among the directors were Mayor Ed Fleeron, Dr. Cortez Kelly, and the Reverend Dr. Jat Snood.