"H. Beam Piper & J. J. McGuire - Null-ABC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

"There has always been, on the part of the Illiterate public, some resentment against organized Literacy.
In part, it has been due to the high fees charged for Literate services, and to what seems, to many, to be
monopolistic practices. But behind that is a general attitude of anti-intellectualism which is our heritage
from the disastrous wars of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries. Chester Pelton has made himself
the spokesman of this attitude. In his view, it was men who could read and write who hatched the
diabolical political ideologies and designed the frightful nuclear weapons of that period. In his mind,
Literacy is equated with 'Mein Kampf' and 'Das Kapital', with the A-bomb and the H-bomb, with
concentration camps and blasted cities. From this position, of course, I beg politely to differ. Literate men
also gave us the Magna Charta and the Declaration of Independence.

"Now, in spite of a lunatic fringe in the Consolidated Illiterates' Organization who want just that, Chester
Pelton knows that we cannot abolish Literacy entirely. Even with modern audio-visual recording, need
exists for some modicum of written recording, which can be rapidly scanned and selected
from—indexing, cataloguing, tabulating data, et cetera—and for at least a few men and women who can
form and interpret the written word. Mr. Pelton, himself, is the owner of a huge department store,
employing over a thousand Illiterates; he must at all times have the services of at least fifty Literates."

"And pays through the nose for them, too!" Pelton growled. It was more than fifty; and Russ Latterman
had been forced to get twenty extras sent in for the sale.

"Now, since we cannot renounce Literacy entirely, without sinking to fellahin barbarism, and here I
definitely part company with Mr. Pelton, he fears the potential power of organized Literacy. In a word,
he fears a future Literate Dictatorship."

"Future? What do you think we have now?" Pelton demanded.

"Nobody," Mongery said, as though replying to him, "is stupid enough, today, to want to be a dictator.
That ended by the middle of the Twenty-first Century. Everybody knows what happened to Mussolini,
and Hitler, and Stalin, and all their imitators. Why, it is as much the public fear of Big Government as the
breakdown of civil power because of the administrative handicap of a shortage of Literate administrators
that is responsible for the disgraceful lawlessness of the past hundred years. Thus, it speaks well for the
public trust in Chester Pelton's known integrity and sincerity that so many of our people are willing to
agree to his program for socialized Literacy. They feel that he can be trusted, and, violently as I disagree
with him, I can only say that that trust is not misplaced.

"Of course, there is also the question, so often raised by Mr. Pelton, that under the Hamilton machine, the
politics, and particularly the enforcement of the laws, in this state, are unbelievably corrupt, but I
wonder—"

Mongery paused. "Just a moment; I see a flash bulletin being brought in." The novice Literate came to his
side and gave him a slip of paper, at which he glanced. Then he laughed heartily.

"It seems that shortly after I began speaking, the local blue-ribbon grand jury issued a summons for Chief
Delaney to appear before them, with all his records. Unfortunately, the summons could not be served;
Chief Delaney had just boarded a strato-rocket from Tom Dewey Field for Buenos Aires." He cocked
an eye at the audience. "I know Irish is going to have a nice time, down there in the springtime of the
Southern Hemisphere. And, incidentally, the Argentine is one of the few major powers which never
signed the World Extradition Convention of 2087." He raised his hand to his audience. "And now, until
tomorrow at breakfast, sincerely yours for Cardon's Black Bottle, Elliot C. Mongery."