“Then why don’t you throw Adam Cramer into jail?”

“Who?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Tom slammed his palm down on the desk. “The kid who gave the speech! The kid who started the whole thing in the first place, who got the people all inflamed. Adam Cramer!”

“Oh.” The sheriff emptied half of the bottle of Dr. Pepper down his throat and leaned back in his chair. “Well,” he said, “I can’t very well do that, either, Tom.”

“You can’t very well do that, either—why not?”

“Just take it easy, now, and I’ll explain—just like I explained the other things. I can’t arrest Cramer because he wasn’t even around when the niggers drove up. To get him for sedition and inciting to riot, we’d have to catch him right there at the front of the mob, leading ’em on. As it was, he was in Joan’s Cafe, having a cup of coffee with Verne Shipman, when it happened.

“With Verne?” The anger in Tom gave way suddenly to confusion, and fear.

“That’s right,” the sheriff said. “And you know, Tom, you can’t put a man in jail for speaking his mind. If you don’t believe me, look it up.” He smiled. “Maybe you and me don’t go along with that, now, but it’s in the Constitution. If a man wants to, he can get out on a street corner and call the President of the United States a son of a bitch—and nobody can stop him. He can say America is no good and we ought to all be Communists—hell, he can say anything—and nobody’s allowed to touch him. It’s what’s called Freedom of Speech. Besides, the way I heard it, this fella didn’t say one solitary thing that everybody in town ain’t been saying right along. What have you got against him, anyway?”

“Adam Cramer is a rabble-rouser,” Tom said, in a hopeless voice.

“Well, hell, maybe we need a little rabble-rousing here!” The sheriff laughed good-naturedly. “But it could be I didn’t get my facts straight. You were there. Did he tell those folks to stop the niggers in the car?”

“No.”

“Did he tell them to do anything except maybe join this organization of his?”

“I—no. No, that’s all he told them.”

“Well, see, that ain’t hardly grounds for arrest. Just good old Freedom of Speech in action, Tom!”

“Yes,” Tom said.

“That’s Democracy.”

“Yes.”

The sheriff slapped Tom’s shoulder affably. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I hate to see anybody get hurt in my town, I don’t care whether he’s white or black. But I personally think this particular nigra must of been one of those wise ones that are moving into the county from the North; I think he must of started shooting off his mouth: otherwise nothing like this would of happened, and you know it. They’re good people here, but they won’t put up with a smart-ass nigra. I can’t blame them for that. Can you, Tom?”