The Child Buyer (2 page)

Mrs. RUDD. Thank you.

Mr. BROADBENT. Your occupation?

Mrs. RUDD. I work in Stillman's.

Senator SKYPACK. Stillman's, Stillman's. It's very difficult, Mrs. Rudd, if witnesses come in here and don't answer fully and honestly. We're not from Pequot, how are we supposed to know what Stillman's is, what you do, all that?

Senator MANSFIELD. I believe she was about to tell her actual work, Jack. Let's not rush the witness.

Senator SKYPACK. All right.

Mrs. RUDD. I sell in the women's underthings.

Mr. BROADBENT. Will you kindly tell us, Mrs. Rudd, in your own way, about the events of the past week in Pequot?

Mrs. RUDD. It's about my boy, my Barry. They want to take him away. This man came to me, he talked so fast I couldn't understand what he was getting at. And Mr. Cleary, at first he was against it, and then he was pushing me to give in. The boy's father wants to sell, he says—

Mr. BROADBENT. One moment, Mrs. Rudd. You say 'this man.' Which man is that?

Mrs. RUDD. The buyer. The child buyer. He came there to the house, after Paul and I were home from work. Mr. Cleary had been to see us first. They talk about the boy's own good! A boy should be with his mother.

Mr. BROADBENT. Please, Mrs. Rudd. Would you, for the record, identify the Mr. Cleary of whom you spoke?

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Mrs. RUDD. Barry calls him the G-Man. G is for Guidance.

Mr. BROADBENT. He is the Guidance Director of the Pequot public schools, is that right? And he came to you first?

Mrs. RUDD. He was against it, body and soul. Then, after, he tried to sell us like everyone else. When they come at you a mile a minute—

Senator MANSFIELD. Mr. Broadbent, this is the usual muddle.

Mr. BROADBENT. Sir, you'll recognize that this is a highly emotional witness.

Senator MANSFIELD. Elicit information, Mr. Broadbent.

Mr. BROADBENT. I'm trying—

Senator SKYPACK. Excuse me, Mrs., but I wonder if you know what's at stake in this situation. You realize the national defense is involved here.

Mrs. RUDD. This is my boy. This is my beautiful boy they want to take away from me. My home is ruined; the windows are all smashed.

Mr. BROADBENT. Mr. Cleary came to you—

Mrs. RUDD. What are you trying to do to me? Why do you drag me up here? Are you trying to take my boy away from me, like all the rest of them?

Senator SKYPACK. All right, all right, Mrs.

Mr. BROADBENT. —and Mr. Cleary's position was—

Senator MANSFIELD. Could we—

Senator SKYPACK. Let her stand down, Aaron. Let's get her out of here.

Mr. BROADBENT. Please, Mrs. Rudd.

Senator MANSFIELD. You're excused, Mrs. Rudd. Yes. Thank you. Would you help her out to the corridor, Mr. Broadbent?

Senator SKYPACK. I can't stand a woman sobbing like that.

Senator MANSFIELD. Seems to me you took your part in bringing it on, Jack.

Senator SKYPACK. Now come on, Aaron, you're not going to

Friday, October 25

try to play politics with these hearings, in front of the press, an audience, all that?

Senator VOYOLKO. What was the matter that lady? So upset.

Senator MANSFIELD. Is she all right now, Mr. Broadbent? Whom did you intend to call next?

Mr. BROADBENT. I will ask for Mr. Luke Wairy.

Senator MANSFIELD. Bring in Mr. Wairy. . . . Please be sworn, Mr. Wairy.

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give before the Standing Committee on Education, Welfare, and Public Morality of the State Senate will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. WAIRY. I do.

TESTIMONY OF MR. LUKE S. WAIRY, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF EDUCATION, TOWN OF PEQUOT

Mr. BROADBENT. Kindly identify yourself, sir, if you please, by name, residence, and occupation.

Mr. WAIRY. Luke S. Wairy, 414 Silver Hill Street, Pequot. I'm in the clock business by trade, but I suppose what is relevant here is that I'm Chairman of our School Board. That's practically an occupation in itself, gentlemen.

Mr. BROADBENT. If our information is correct, Mr. Wairy, you seem to be a man with some half-dozen occupations. Besides your own manufactory—that's the Early Bird Alarm Clock Works of Pequot, isn't it?—

Mr. WAIRY. It is, sir.

Mr. BROADBENT. Besides that concern, and the Board of Education, you may confirm to the committee, if you will, sir, that you are also a member of the vestry of the Silver Hill First Church, chairman of the Helping Hand Committee of the Lions' Club, immediate past chairman of the Red Feather Drive, past

THE CHILD BUYER

chairman of the Town Planning and Zoning Commission—I won't begin to go into the entire record, sir.

Mr. WAIRY. Well, now, that's all right, we're all citizens and Christians.

Senator MANSFIELD. I would like to say, sir, that it's an honor for us representatives of the people to have appear before us a man of such evident probity and public spirit, and such a good sound businessman, sir, as yourself. I gather you are also currently top scorer in the Treehampstead Thursday Duplicate Bridge Club.

Mr. WAIRY. I may say, Senator, that your investigators have some reputation, upstate in our area, for rigorous thoroughness, and I fear they've put their tape on me. I'm impressed.

Mr. BROADBENT. Would you fill the committee in, sir, on the basic facts about the town of Pequot—population, tax capabilities, so on?

Mr. WAIRY. We have—at the last census we had—a population of twenty-seven thousand five hundred. We have two high schools, three junior highs, and eight elementary schools; we run a K-six, seven-nine, ten-twelve school system, if you want to be technical. At the present time our tax rate is thirty-two point six mils. Frankly I believe our assessments are some years behind the times, and by and large the evaluations run only around forty per cent of true value. Personally I am deeply concerned about the trend of the town, because where you used to have a pretty fair balance of industry and real estate for your tax base, you now have these developers going ahead any old way and putting up a lot of cardboard ranchers for the young people, young breeders, and we're getting to be a bedroom town for Treehampstead, rather than keeping the growth of the grand list on an even keel all along the line. I don't like it.

Mr. BROADBENT. Thank you, sir, I believe that will do for now about the community you so ably represent. We were wonder-

ing, sir, if you would mind giving us a coherent account of the recent happenings in Pequot.

Mr. WAIRY. I will not burden your record unduly, gentlemen. I am not up on all the details. I'm not a great hand at inventing details.

Mr. BROADBENT. Since the man Wissey Jones has alleged certain so-called educational purposes, among others, for his activities, we thought—

Mr. WAIRY. Sir, we concern ourselves at Board meetings with bursted boilers. Whether the custodian can be asked to use the gang mower on the football field, that kind of thing. We don't get into educational matters near as much as some people think.

Mr. BROADBENT. Who would have the basic facts? Mr. Owing?

Mr. WAIRY. You won't get anything out of the Superintendent. We have the devil's own time at Board meetings getting him to give a dry description of anything, because he changes things around right in front of your eyes while he's picturing them. I have a standing joke about his mcmos being riddled with what I call his 'nearest exits.'

Senator MANSFIELD. I wonder, Mr. Walry, if you wouldn't just begin at the beginning, tell us what you know of the events of the past week.

Mr. WAIRY. Know of my own firsthand knowledge?

Senator MANSFIELD. Or what you've heard. It doesn't particularly matter, at this stage, just so as you begin at the beginning.

Mr. WAIRY. As it happens, I did see Mr. Jones arrive in Pequot the other afternoon, let's see, my gracious, has a week flown? I was just coming out of John Ellithorp's drugstore, with John, he's a portly figure, we were chatting there on the sidewalk—you see, Pequot's laid out along the river, the Pohadnock River, which is really only about thirty foot across, though it's capable of a severe rise in the backlash of these autumnal hur-

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ricanes we've been getting, recent years; the business street, River Street, with most of the stores and also a number of tenement blocks, backs right onto it. Ellithorp's store is next to the crossing of River Street and the Treehampstead Road Bridge. There's a stop light. First thing I heard was this funny hollow popping, like a baby outboard motor being run inside an oil drum, and I looked over, and there was this Mr. Jones, as I later knew him, on his folding machine with one foot down on the street waiting for the light to change. That's a long light there. We had a bad accident two years ago, this out-of-town Caddy, personally I think intoxication was involved, Mrs. Bur-ritt, seventy-one, gentle as a geranium, she was killed on the spot. The light finally changed, and the popping started up—I had my eyes on him all the way; he pulled up right alongside John Ellithorp and myself, and—

Mr. BROADBENT. We understand he made a very peculiar appearance.

Mr. WAIRY. Young fellow, I come from a long line of men who thought nothing of New England winters—liked 'em. We aren't intimidated by originals. We're used to originals up our way, believe my word. My grandfather was a knife sharpener, six foot nine inches, he could lift a telephone pole, played the flute nice as ever, summer evenings he'd have a big crowd of children in the street in front of his shop, playing tunes. No, sir, don't try to put me off. I like Mr. Jones. I admire him. He came to the plant and paid me a courteous call, and he was dressed like you and me, Mr. Counsel, in a regular store suit, and I commented on his previous costume upon arrival, and he said—he's outspoken, one of the qualities I value in a man— he said he's a corporation vice-president, and he owns thirty-two tailor-made suits, eighteen pairs of shoes, but he has this one moderate-priced ready-made brown suit that he wears to call on school people. Rotary wheel in the lapel buttonhole. The point

is, he understands how to sell an idea. The motorcycle clothes —he's not afraid of being spattered by raindrops, that's all. I don't need to be told what I think, Mr. Counsel.

Senator MANSFIELD. You were telling about the street corner.

Mr. WAIRY. Yes. He stopped his machine and tipped this hat he was wearing, to John and myself, and I must admit, Mr. Counsel, it was a funny-looking flattish hat, and he said, 'Day, gentlemen,' he said, and then he looked straight at me, and he said, 'Sir,' he said, 'you look like you might be Chairman of the Board of Education around here.' Well, that hit me right between the lungs, you know. Later turned out it wasn't any guess, he'd done his work in advance, he knew perfectly well who I was. Here's a businessman who isn't afraid to do his homework. I admire this fellow. He's first-rate. Well, we're standing there, he wants to know about the hotel, and he's making an appointment to see me, and here comes Dr. Gozar down the sidewalk.

Mr. BROADBENT. This Dr. Gozar—

Mr. WAIRY. This Dr. Gozar is principal of Lincoln Elementary. A woman.

Mr. BROADBENT. Yes, sir, we have called Dr. Gozar to testify, the Rudd boy being in her school, and I was wondering if, for the committee's benefit, you would give us your assessment of Dr. Gozar. It would be a help.

Mr. WAIRY. Assessment?

Mr. BROADBENT. If you would tell us a bit in confidence about the people we're going to have to question on this case.

Mr. WAIRY. You mean you have the prosecutor's itch, young man, you'd like to know a few weak points you can work on?

Mr. BROADBENT. Not at all, I—

Mr. WAIRY. I don't know whether your investigators happened on this fact for my dossier or not, Mr. Counsel, but I once went to law school myself, and we had an expression for

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the glint I see in your eye—the warmth of your cheeks: 'D.A. fever/ we called it. Right?

Mr. BROADBENT. I don't know what you mean, sir. You were about to say, on Dr. Gozar.

Mr. WAIRY. She's a great big man of a woman, and I'd say she's contented with her lot. She gives an impression—she has a constant, barking, bass laugh—that she's mighty glad to be so overwhelmingly a doctor. She's a Ph.D., that's where the 'doctor' comes from, and her doctorate is backed up by half a dozen other post-graduate degrees, because, my heavens, she takes a laborer's job in a factory every summer and goes to summer school to boot. When she talks about social adjustment, you can take one look at her and sec that she doesn't mean the pale, wishy-washy conformism that so often seems to be intended by school psychologists who use that phrase. She's what we call an old-timer; I mean a real New Englander. She's got a traprock forehead and a granite jaw; stone ribs, too—but there's a passionate optimist living behind all that masonry. Let's see, grew up on a farm, a survivor of Elton's Seminary for Women, sixty-seven years old, been principal of Lincoln Elementary for thirty-eight years, and she's grown younger ever since I've known her, which has been most of the time she's had that job. She started out kind of hidebound, but she's wound up wise, freedom-loving, self-reliant, tolerant, and daring. And flexible. For about the last half of her tenure at Lincoln, she's demonstrated that she feels there's not any single mandatory school program for which there could be no substitute. She's a talker: she'll bend your ear! But verbum sap., Mr. Counsel. I would not press her too hard. I wouldn't try to take her skin off, because the first thing you know, young man, she'll have broken your whipper off from your snapper.

Senator SKYPACK. What about the G-man? What's his name? Where does he fit in? What was that name, Broadbent?

Friday, October 25

Mr. BROADBENT. Cleary.

Mr. WAIRY. Mr. Cleary? He's an ambitious young man. I understand he grew up in Watermont, and that he's descended from an Irish immigrant who came to America in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century and spent the vigorous years of his life laying railroad tracks up the Connecticut Valley and across Massachusetts to Boston; the old boy may well have been in the gang that Thoreau mentions as putting down the roadbed along the far side of Walden Pond from his cabin. In the rare moments when Mr. Cleary alludes to his background, he's inclined to say that he didn't come from the wrong side of the railroad tracks, he came from between them. That picture pleases him, I'd imagine, because it strengthens his idea he's going someplace. The feelings of his immigrant forebears about being Irish in anti-Irish times were evidently handed down to him; I mean he seems to have a firm conviction that the world is hostile. I don't know whether he sets any store by Our Lord, but he surely believes in the Devil, whose big job, Cleary'd say, is to snatch the hindmost. Survival of the fittest, that's him—to be fit and out front is the works with him: 'in shape,' he calls it. Know what he wants? He wants recognition; he thinks mere happiness isn't worth a candle. All this makes him very useful to us as Director of Guidance in Pequot—for the time being— because at the moment we're useful to him. He'll go far—far away from guidance and Pequot, I'd guess.