The High Price of Telling the Truth
Taylor Caldwell was always one of my favorite authors - through high school and beyond. From 6th grade to 12th grade I developed a serious handicap - TELLING THE TRUTH. Caldwell's writing was descriptive and honest, and I appreciated it deeply.
My Nana, of blessed memory, always told me - "Barbara, no one likes a truth teller. Just remember that." It was not an admonition to lie but to be aware of the consequences. My father, of blessed memory, told me the same - "Sweetie, you have my disease - that telling the truth disease." In fact, my father who had been in sales and on the road for many years, stopped and joined the State Troopers around 1971-72 because he got sick of "twisting the facts", as he put it. He even said 'it was wearing him down.'
Unfortunately, in my 53 years on the planet I have been villanized, lied to and about, called crazy, psycho, obsessed, insane and a variety of other mean-spirited labels by people who have blatantly lied to or about me, caused me all manner of trauma, then months or years later - became incensed that I refused to buy their revisionist history and asked for them to account and own their actions. No, I guess my "ME" generation cohorts just can't or won't do that. I was too inconvenient. I still am.
I am raising my children to be truthful, and they are learning how hard that is... and I continue to tell them that they are doing the right thing and must know in their hearts that truth will always be the right thing.
Herewith, Ms. Caldwell's account of the same. Oddly prescient considering the politics of the moment:
THE TRUTH - MY DEPLORABLE HABIT OF TELLING IT
by Taylor Caldwell
My Grandmother, the cynical, red-headed Irishwoman, used to tell me solemnly, "Jinit, speak the truth and shame the Divil." My mother, who usually wanted the truth so she could slam me for having committed some household felony, always said, "Speak the truth and the truth shall make you free."
Neither lady ever told me she was kidding. As both were skeptics, they surely did not mean what they said! Unfortunately, I was a grave child with a proper respect for my elders, and I believed teir remarks and took them seriously. As a consequence I was in hot water most of the time when I was very young - and I am still in hot water. In fact, hot water is become my natural element. For you see, though my female relatives certainly didn't mean what they'd said - for both were winsome fibbers - I still have the deplorable habit of telling the truth no matter how hard I try not to.
A FEW YEARS ago a certain publisher wrote me, asking me to write a book which would have amounted to a sellout of our Republic. (He certainly hadn't been reading my articles in AMERICAN OPINION!) That publisher offered me $50,000 outright, which isn't bad for about three months' work. And $50,000 is a little more impressive than the famous Thirty Pieces of Silver. I didn't decline politely and didn't lie that I had too much work to do. That would have been the tactful and ladylike thing, of course, but being tactful and ladylike isn't my dish of tea. Oh, no. I had to write him a blazing letter, more than suggesting that I had doubts of his legitimacy, hinting that there was no such a thing any longer as the Republic of the United States of America and that he had had a part in her death, and telling him what he could do with his $50,000 in words which wouldn't get past the Postmaster even in these days. I made another deadly and ill-important enemy. But that is par for the course. I wish someone would stop me!
It may possibly be that truth-telling would "shame the Divil,” though I doubt it. But it certainly shocks the hell out of your fellow man and makes him hate you all the rest of his life. There is an old saying which is indeed true: "If you have a thousand friends you have no friend to spare - but if you have one enemy you'll meet him everywhere!" I meet my enemies every hour on the hour, via actual meeting or through letters and telephone calls. If it is true that a man is known by the enemies he makes, then I'm certainly "known" very well. The Holy Bible asserts, without even the slightest smile, that one should beware of a man who has no enemies. I beg, reverently, to differ. The man who has no enemies is a most lovable scoundrel and probably easy to get along with, and he has the blithesome habit of making you feel precious and valuable, and he always ends up paying less taxes than the rest of us and dies in an odor of lilies, and in an aura of love and appreciation. Whereas people like me are lucky if they don't get hanged or something. It is always a good idea for people like me to keep the powder dry and the trigger cocked, literally.
One's Confessor will always tell one that there is "no excuse" even for a very mild white lie. You believe it - in the Confessional. But when you come out into the cold white light of day you feel naked in your truthfulness and dread encountering anyone who will ask you for your uncensored opinion about anything. That is why Heaven is full of Saints. They had sheer Hell on Earth and probably even now, among the golden halls, they sudder in remembrance and wonder whether it is worth all that. As for me - if someone will tell me how to accomplish it - I'd rather be able to tell sweet little white lies, and big fat ones, too, and live happily forever afterwards in this world, esteemed, admired, and loved by my fellow man. It's a tough life, kids, and I don't recommend the handicap of truth-telling.
"Tact, perhaps," a priest once told me when I described to him some of the more lurid results of my truth-telling. "One should be tactful." But Christ wasn't. Nor was St. John the Baptist, who called his fellow men, quite truthfully and without prudence, "broods of vipers." He ended up, as we know, with his head on a platter.
One can lie and betray without saying a single word, and keep prudence, and so millions of prudent Americans did that when they saw the horror of Communism descending on America. They kept their mouths prudently shut - and now look at our country! Now it is dangerous for them even to suggest the truth: the Infernal Revenue Service will suddenly pluck their returns from the files over them with a fine-tooth comb and find something they can attach a penalty to, and interest. Yesterday Americans could have shouted out the truth, and today be free from fear. We were betrayed, and our country and a whole world with us, by the "prudent," who said never a word against Roosevelt's War, the expansion of Communism in America, and Earl Warren, to mention only a few desperate horrors.
Still, I think truth-telling is a very bad habit indeed, not as bad as getting hooked on junk, perhaps, or committing murder, but bad enough. You might, perhaps, be able to help your country by indiscriminate truth-telling, but it is rough on you and your family and your purse, and adds nothing of sweetness and light to your rugged life.
They say only fools do not learn from experience, and only fools tell the truth. You'd think I'd have learned that Mama did not mean it when she admonished me always to tell the truth. I learned my first harsh lesson from Mama, herself, whom I caught, when I was three years old, in a blatant and pleasant lie to a neighbor. I said, shocked, "But Mama, you know that isn't true!" I then proceeded, in my idiocy, to tell the neighbor the actual truth. The neighbor was horrified. "You have a dreadful child there, Ann," she said to Mama, who then gave me a very painful time of it for about an hour or so. You'd think I'd have learned, wouldn't you? I didn't. I kept on. I was hooked.
When I was about five, Papa became enraptured with astronomy and bought a telescope at considerable expense. He held me enchanted for hours and gave me astronomy books to read. One day relatives visited our house in Manchester, England, and among them was an aunt I dearly loved and admired, and I had her affection also. Alas. One of my cousins was there (Hi Willie!), who was about a year younger than myself. Bursting with new information I took him outside to gaze on the stars and I told him that they were suns greater and more fiery than even ours and were surrounded, probably, by worlds like ours. For some reason Willie was affrighted and he ran blubbering and gasping to our favorite aunt and threw himself upon her knees with screams of fear. She wanted to know what I had told "the poor little chap" which had so scared him, and so I told her, and I said it was the truth, and.... "What does it matter if it is the truth?” cried my aunt, indignantly. "You shouldn't tell people the truth if it will frighten them." I lost her beloved affection for the rest of my life. I should have learned from experience. But I did not. I suppose I never will.
(I might mention here that I continued to tell my cousin the truth on every occasion, and now he is a patriotic conservative and may possibly be hush! - a Birchite.)
A few years ago I was preparing to visit England, my native country, and about three months before my departure I received a very polite letter from the British Broadcasting Company, requesting me to speak on their London station. I accepted, of course, and prepared my speech. It went into details about where and why the British were going under the Labor Party, and where we were going, also. I had facts and figures and quotations by the scores. I suggested stern and immediate remedies, if we were not all to die or to live in slavery. When I arrived in England three months later, a curious female type visited me at the hotel, from the B.B.C. You know the type: Black-skirted, flat-heeled, peeky-faced, sly-eyed, lip-licking, and without any make-up and with long ungroomed hair. She also had a vulgar accent, which betrayed the fact that she was a lower-class Cockney. She was one of the "researchers," she said, of the B.B.C., and she did want to talk to me about my speech, so she could time it for the half-hour they had allotted to me months ago. In fact, she said, they, the B.B.C., had been announcing the glorious occasion when I would "address the British people, of whom I am a native daughter." I should have known. She had the liar-look, prudent and careful, and she had the liar-voice, soft and breathy and meek. But I never learn. I read the speech to her and she listened with downcast eyes and a thoughtful little smile. Then when I had done she remarked it was very interesting," and bade me good-day.
On the night I was to speak I was invited to a very uproarious cocktail party and a delightful dinner, but I was due on the B.B.C., remember? So regretfully I declined, but suggested my hosts and fellow-guests listen to me when I spoke. They promised heartily. I arrived at the studio and was met by the Cockney-type, all fluttering eyelashes and sliding eyes, who informed me she was so sorry but she had made a mistake, and there was "no time" for me to deliver my speech. I told her, brutally, that she was a liar, and went away, too late for the party. Later I learned that one of the people at the B.B.C. had informed the listeners that "Miss Caldwell, unfortunately, is indisposed tonight and will be unable to give her scheduled talk. We will, instead, now broadcast the names of the fortunate people who just won the football pool."
The newspapers carried regrets, too. They hoped I would recover soon. But I never did. I never will.
I was invited to the Scandinavian countries, and it was more than hinted that I was being considered for the Nobel Prize for literature, and I would be "interviewed." Well, I arrived in Sweden and was soon aghast at their deadly Socialism which had taken the heart and soul from a once proud, free, and heroic nation. I listened to fine and desperate Swedes who were preparing to fly from their own country, and I saw and heard their grief. They were going, they said, to the Republic of South Africa, or Canada or Australia, "where some freedom still remained." (Odd, isn't it, that none of them said he was going to America?) A day or so later I was besieged by reporters, and never having learned even then not to tell the truth, I told the boys frankly what I thought about their system of government which had enslaved a whole handsome nation and had elevated the weak, had stultified their national growth, had punished the strong and the dependent and glorified the inferior in the name of "equality" and had driven proud men from their own country.
There went the Nobel Prize! All those lovely fifty-four thousand dollars, which would have been tax-free. And the celebrations. It was a high price, wasn't it, for telling the truth? Too high? Just think: I'd have been invited to the White House along with other conforming Nobel Prize winners and the President would have been fond of me and there would have been all that money in the bank, tax-free, and I'd have been acclaimed even by the "Liberals." Instead of that I pay taxes and the President doesn't even know my name. Alas. However, the West German reporters loved me, which is some comfort, after they interviewed me about Sweden. But the American "Liberals" consider me Black Death, and that, come to think of it, is an accolade in itself and a considerable consolation in a most evil and hopeless world. But that $54,000....
"You'll never be rich, a palmist told me when I was ten years old, "for you have an unfortunate handicap." I certainly have. I tell the truth.
A few years ago my husband and I were on a ship bound for South America. The American Ambassador cabled me aboard ship, asking if I would speak on a certain evening in the Embassy at Montevideo. My husband was a little alarmed, knowing me, but I laughed off his natural fears and cabled back that I was delighted. We arrived in Montevideo and, sure enough, the same curious little female type I had met in London came to see me at the hotel. At the very least she must have been her twin-sister. Yes, children, she was an American bureaucrat, living high, wide, and handsome in a magnificent apartment in Montevideo at your expense, with an official car and everything and a great tax-free salary, and servants. (You should see how your servants" live abroad! It might make you meditate on axes and ropes.)
What was I going to speak about at the Embassy, to the American colony, asked the female type. My husband stirred in his chair with premonitions. I told her. I was going to tell the American colony what was going on in the United States while they were wallowing here in luxury and not giving a damn, and what would probably happen to them only too soon, and that what I'd already heard about the Socialist government of Uruguay was giving me nightmares.
The female type, as did her counterpart in London, listened with downcast eyes. When I had finished she rose and said it was all very interesting and that no doubt everyone at the American Embassy would be glad to see me. On the scheduled night I arrived, to find the Embassy thronged with at least a thousand or two people. The jam was terrific. Someone gave me a cocktail, but no one greeted me. Then a gentleman nearby said, "Isn't it a shame that that writer, Miss Caldwell, didn't feel well enough to come tonight and talk to us? That's why we're here, expecting her to speak." I was struck dumb, for once. Then my Celtic blood rushed to my head. I fought my way to the Ambassador, who was surrounded by a crowd, and I lifted up my resonant voice, when I caught his eyes and saw his wife's embarrassed blushes, and I informed everyone that I was, indeed, Miss Caldwell, and that I was in perfect health, but that “someone" had decided I was a dangerous character and so I was not being permitted to speak. That "someone," I more than implied, was our very own American Ambassador, and goodnight, ladies and gentlemen, it was nice seeing you anyhow. I left in a shattered silence, with everyone's stern eye on the Ambassador, whose Mittel Europa wife appeared close to tears. He never sent me his apologies, of course, nor any explanation.
The next day I saw the female again and I told her that I would tell everyone who would listen about what had happened to me at the American Embassy in Montevideo and my opinion why. She then warned me very sternly not to do so. I might suffer "consequences." She was that bold. (I did, too, exactly a week after I arrived home; and the governmental persecution persisted for four years. That, however, is another and dreadful story I will tell you on another occasion.)
Mr. Eisenhower, just before his first inauguration, sent my husband and me his personal, gold-engraved invitations to be present. We accepted, of course, for Mr. Eisenhower and I, at that time, were quite chummy, and I have many letters to prove it. Then - you guessed it - I was contacted by a political type who wanted to know if I would deliver a speech "on this happy occasion," during the time I was in Washington. Sure, I said, never learning from experience. What would I speak about? Well, Mr. Eisenhower had mentioned that it would take forty years to clean out the Augean Stables left in a reeking condition by F.D.R., and I thought I'd enlarge on that and say I doubted forty centuries would do the job, or if it would ever be done even by Mr. Eisenhower. You know the rest. There was, abruptly, just no time "in all these festivities, you know, Miss Caldwell, for speeches." Like hell there wasn't! Dozens of alleged Republicans, "Liberals" and "moderates," gave a lot of sickening, syrupy speeches, with not a single mention about the dreadful internal, and external, threat of Communism! I wasn't there, of course. We had left the day after the inaugural, in disgust. I just read the speeches in the newspapers, and retched.
I think Mr. Robert Welch was quite wrong about Mr. Eisenhower. After all, it does take some intelligence to follow the arguments of dialectic materialism. That's why "Liberals" aren't outright Communists; they don't measure up, intelligence-wise, to use their own jargon.
Some friends have suggested that I "lead the liberals along," with sweet lies, and then explode before a public audience when given a chance. But that seems beyond me, helplessly. When I encounter a "Liberal" I can't keep my mouth shut; I just tell him the truth. Alas. Those friends have advised "prudence." I want people to like me, don't I, and buy my books, so why don't I "go along," and be nice and tell people what they want to hear? But what do they want to hear? A saga of lollipops, a jolly speech assuring them that all is well in the terrible world and every politician is pure as the driven snow, and that America is “rich," and under God's special guard, that they are lovely folks, and then add a few pleasant jokes.
At that price, I don't care if no one ever again buys my books. The price is too high. I still have to live with myself and confront my own image in the mirror in the mornings, at a frightful hour, if you ask me. Moreover, I have a delicate stomach and ulcers, and lies don't sit easily on them. And, above all, the Thirty Pieces of Silver don't attract me.
Thirty Pieces of Silver. Christ's life was sold for them. Thirty Pieces of Silver. America was sold by Americans for that. Affluence, eager acceptance of totalitarianism, welfarism, soothing pats and kisses, suburban tract houses with all the cheap, shiny gadgets and the cheap, shiny cars and the unspeakable television and the permissive schools. That was the worthless handful of fraudulent silver from the hands of politicians which bought America and has led her to her Calvary. The politicians kiss the American people and call them "wonderful." And Judas betrayed Our Lord with a kiss, and hailed Him.
That's the truth, children, the whole truth. I'm sorry if I've hurt anyone's feelings, but I'm still at it - still telling the truth.
For the sake of men-readers I'd like to end on a cheerier note. (Men are dreadful sentimentalists. They are always looking for "hope" and hate the pessimists. They like to believe that this is, after all, a "great, wide, wonderful, beautiful world," whereas women, from the cradle, know it's not that way at all.) So I will tell an anecdote that proves that sometimes God has mercy on the truth-tellers. But not often! We must be a horrible vexation to Him.
When I was fifteen - yes, I mean fifteen - I was secretary to a gentleman who was manager of a fabrication plant. I believe the small factory used the rough material of a great steel-mill, of which it was an affiliate. At any rate, there were thirty employees, men and women. There was a large safe in the office to which my boss, Mr. Jones - I name him that because his children and their children are very much alive at this date - knew the combination, which he imparted to me. But after the main door was open there was an upper compartment to which I did not have the combination. Only Mr. Jones had that. I had access only to the lower part which contained employment and other records necessary to my job. I usually arrived ahead of Mr. Jones, and opened the safe and took out the records and went to work.
Though I was only fifteen Mr. Jones considered me an elderly woman - I worked, didn't I?
He had a photograph on his desk depicting his daughters, aged twenty and twenty-two (ancient women to me, and would point them out to me, sighing lovingly, "They cost me a lot of money, Miss Caldwell, but perhaps you remember how young folks are." (Yes, he knew my age.) He would then tell me how much his daughters' debuts had cost him, "but they deserved it." He was earning then about $20,000 a year, an enormous sum in those days. (My salary was $12 a week.) He had a magnificent house, photographs of which he showed me, for which he had spent $45,000, another enormous sum then. His daughters had personal maids, and so did his wife. "They keep me broke," he would say with fondness. "But young people need the best, don't they?" he would ask me anxiously. I thought he meant old people, like my parents who were then (Mama) thirty-three and (Papa) thirty-five, and I agreed with solemnity. Who would deprive old ladies like Mr. Jones' wife and daughters of necessities?
Mr. Jones was also a "brotherly-lover." He just loved the people in the factory. He taught me how to minister to those who suffered injuries at their machines. He would walk with his nose poked ahead and a stern and righteous look on his face as he brought the injured to me for bandages and splints and iodine and what-not. Then he abandoned them. This was before the days of Workmen's Compensation. Mr. Jones confessed to me that he was a Republican, "but I usually vote Democratic, the Party with a Heart." I believed in Parties with a heart. I just wished someone would have a heart for me, but no one did. I suffered for the injured workmen and workwomen, and sometimes slipped them my lunch-money, all twenty-five cents of it, and went hungry. But then, I didn't have a "heart" like Mr. Jones'. Mr. Jones, after all, was a "brotherly-lover" and so couldn't be expected to fork out cash.
On Fridays the bank would deliver money for the wages of those in the factory, and for me. In a cloth bag. Mr. Jones would then put the cash in the upper part of the safe, to which I did not have the combination. On Saturday morning Mr. Jones and I would parcel out the money into envelopes. Sometimes this would go on to Monday, when the envelopes were delivered to the factory workers.
One Friday when the money from the bank was delivered Mr. Jones suddenly developed "a severe case of influenza." He put the money in the top part of the inner safe and went home, groaning loudly. (Do keep in mind that he "loved everybody," as he stated often and vehemently.) "I'll take care of the wage-envelopes tomorrow, Saturday," he told me before he left. "Just close the outer door of the safe before you go home." He carefully closed the door of the inner, upper compartment where the money was, and twirled the dial. I watched him, for I had a respect for cash. He went home. At five-thirty I put the working-records back in the safe, checked the upper compartment, and closed the main door. I went to night high school then, for five hours, so I had given not only my lunch money to a poor soul in the factory, but my car-fare also, I had to walk home, a distance from the school of several miles. It was bitter winter then, and I arrived home around midnight, and did my usual household chores for my mother. I went to bed at two-thirty and got up at six, ready for the office again, a usual procedure. It was nothing. I was all of fifteen.
Mr. Jones was not in the office. So I opened the outer door of the safe and took out the work-records. I began to type on the records and to finish up the letters Mr. Jones dictated the day before. Then the telephone rang. I answered it, and Mr. Jones hurriedly directed me to tell "anyone who will ask" that I hadn't checked the upper, inner part of the safe the day before, at the time I left. Where the money was, remember?
"But I did, Mr. Jones," I answered.
"Look, lady," he said to me in a brutal voice, "if you don't say that you’ll get into trouble. Bad trouble. See?” And then he repeated to me what I must say if "anyone asks."
Now, in the factory, there was a superintendent who was a very kind and very old man, who must have been all of thirty-three then. I puzzled over Mr. Jones' strange order to me, and while I was puzzling Mr. Smith came in. I was a reticent girl. I kept office matters to myself, as I had been warned. Then the strangest impulse came to me, and surely it was the Hand of God. I told my old pal, Mr. Smith, what Mr. Jones had requested of me, and I was then horrified at my truth-telling and my lack of restraint. Mr. Smith was immediately interested. He looked at the inner compartment of the safe and saw it was securely locked.
"Now, what the hell?" he mused. He sat in front of the safe for a long time and thought, and once he twiddled the inner dial of the compartment where all that money was cloistered. I thought he was the one who "would ask." I terribly regretted the fact that I had told him the truth, and I became frightened. Here I was again, telling the truth, after all my experience. Then Mr. Smith patted me thoughtfully on the head and went back to the factory. At two I closed up shop and went home. As I was so elderly the whole matter then naturally slipped my senile mind.
On Monday I arrived to find not only Mr. Jones but two policemen. It seems that the inner compartment had been robbed of the $4,000 deposited there on Friday. Mr. Jones was much agitated. He pointed at me and said to the Police Sergeant, "This woman is sometimes careless. I was sick on Friday, after the money was delivered from the bank, and I called her and told her to check. Apparently she didn't. Did you, Miss Caldwell?"
This was my cue, of course, to confess that I hadn't checked but had forgotten in my carelessness, and so had left the inner compartment open. Alas, truth-teller that I was, I told the police that I had indeed checked and the compartment had been closed and the dial twisted by Mr. Jones, himself, before he had left "sick" on Friday afternoon. I was terribly frightened and began to tremble. The police sergeant then asked me kindly how old I was. I told him. "Damned shame," he said. "You ought to be in school like my girls." He patted me on my auburn head. I did not resent it. After all, he was old, probably nearly forty.
Mr. Jones came to life. "I see it!" he shouted. "She found the inner safe open and stole the money, herself! I always thought she was a sly one!"
The policemen looked at me thoughtfully. I repeated my story. At that moment Mr. Smith, the superintendent of the factory, entered. He listened to Mr. Jones' wild accusations of my theft. Then he turned to the police sergeant and informed him of the truth, that I had told him of Mr. Jones' command and that he, personally, had checked the upper compartment and had found it closed. Mr. Jones fell into a chair, exclaiming that I must have robbed the safe before I left and had passed the money along to my "confederates" in crime. "Ask her where she was after she left here! Friday night. And she lies when she says I called her."
Now, he knew very well that I went to night high school. He had seen the textbooks on my desk and had irritably found me studying during my lunch hour and doing my homework. (He thought that as I had time to "waste" I should have been working on his letters.) The police took a deeper interest in me. I was bewildered and confused. I told the police of the night high school and Mr. Jones snorted, "A likely story! At her age!" I burst out crying, at my "age."
The teachers at the night high were not at the school then, of course. So the police took me to the police station, where I almost died of fear and shame. The police sergeant urged me to confess that I had taken the money. I could only weep. Mr. Smith came in with milk and a sandwich for me and repeated his story. The police told him that it was possible that I had taken the money and given it to "confederates" before I had asked him to examine the safe, himself.
Mr. Smith filled his pipe slowly. After a while he said, “Jones makes $20,000 a year. He spends at least forty. On his daughters and his wife. You might check with the banks."
They did. I heard a confusion of calls in that dusty and odorous station, but I looked only at the distant bars and saw myself confined behind them. Then the sergeant was patting my head again and telling me that I could sue for something or other, and he'd take me home. He would be a witness, he said, and so would Mr. Smith. He drove me home, while I could do nothing but cry. Naturally, I did not tell my rigorous parents of this, for fear of punishment for telling the truth. If they had been American instead of British, they might have had some indignation and would have prosecuted Mr. Jones, the brotherly-lover. But I knew them! They would automatically take Mr. Jones' side. Therefore, I said nothing.
I went timidly back to the office on Tuesday. Mr. Jones did not arrive. Mr. Smith came in at ten and informed me happily that Mr. Jones had been arrested for robbing the safe. "I'm taking his place," he said. "And I'm raising you to fifteen a week."
He then suggested that I not tell my parents of the extra three dollars a week but keep it for myself. That was beyond me. My allowance still remained at one dollar a week out of my salary.
So you see, children, God does, sometimes, come to the aid of the truth-tellers. Not often enough to count, I must admit. But, sometimes.
So it may be that we truth-tellers will sometime prevail in America and send the brotherly-lovers, the liars and the robbers, to jail. With their Thirty Pieces of Silver.
Oh, yes. Like Judas, Mr. Jones, a little later, hanged himself just before his trial. But don't take heart! This happens rarely.
As a novelist, Taylor Caldwell was an American master, on par with, or superior to, virtually any other novelist born in America in the 20th century. Her phenomenal success supports the contention — during her illustrious career, Caldwell wrote more than 40 novels, many of which were outstanding best sellers. Her books sold an estimated 30 million copies. Among her most famous were Dear and Glorious Physician (about Saint Luke), A Pillar of Iron (about the Roman statesman Cicero), and Great Lion of God (about Saint Paul). One of her most beloved novels, Captains and the Kings, was made into a television miniseries. In addition to her work as a novelist, for many years she contributed outstanding essays to American Opinion magazine.
SOURCE
My Nana, of blessed memory, always told me - "Barbara, no one likes a truth teller. Just remember that." It was not an admonition to lie but to be aware of the consequences. My father, of blessed memory, told me the same - "Sweetie, you have my disease - that telling the truth disease." In fact, my father who had been in sales and on the road for many years, stopped and joined the State Troopers around 1971-72 because he got sick of "twisting the facts", as he put it. He even said 'it was wearing him down.'
Unfortunately, in my 53 years on the planet I have been villanized, lied to and about, called crazy, psycho, obsessed, insane and a variety of other mean-spirited labels by people who have blatantly lied to or about me, caused me all manner of trauma, then months or years later - became incensed that I refused to buy their revisionist history and asked for them to account and own their actions. No, I guess my "ME" generation cohorts just can't or won't do that. I was too inconvenient. I still am.
I am raising my children to be truthful, and they are learning how hard that is... and I continue to tell them that they are doing the right thing and must know in their hearts that truth will always be the right thing.
Herewith, Ms. Caldwell's account of the same. Oddly prescient considering the politics of the moment:
THE TRUTH - MY DEPLORABLE HABIT OF TELLING IT
by Taylor Caldwell
My Grandmother, the cynical, red-headed Irishwoman, used to tell me solemnly, "Jinit, speak the truth and shame the Divil." My mother, who usually wanted the truth so she could slam me for having committed some household felony, always said, "Speak the truth and the truth shall make you free."
Neither lady ever told me she was kidding. As both were skeptics, they surely did not mean what they said! Unfortunately, I was a grave child with a proper respect for my elders, and I believed teir remarks and took them seriously. As a consequence I was in hot water most of the time when I was very young - and I am still in hot water. In fact, hot water is become my natural element. For you see, though my female relatives certainly didn't mean what they'd said - for both were winsome fibbers - I still have the deplorable habit of telling the truth no matter how hard I try not to.
I don't count it as a virtue; I count it as misfortune and wish I had mastered the art of lying. I’d be much richer and certainly a damned sight more comfortable, and wouldn't have to work so bloody hard at my age.
A FEW YEARS ago a certain publisher wrote me, asking me to write a book which would have amounted to a sellout of our Republic. (He certainly hadn't been reading my articles in AMERICAN OPINION!) That publisher offered me $50,000 outright, which isn't bad for about three months' work. And $50,000 is a little more impressive than the famous Thirty Pieces of Silver. I didn't decline politely and didn't lie that I had too much work to do. That would have been the tactful and ladylike thing, of course, but being tactful and ladylike isn't my dish of tea. Oh, no. I had to write him a blazing letter, more than suggesting that I had doubts of his legitimacy, hinting that there was no such a thing any longer as the Republic of the United States of America and that he had had a part in her death, and telling him what he could do with his $50,000 in words which wouldn't get past the Postmaster even in these days. I made another deadly and ill-important enemy. But that is par for the course. I wish someone would stop me!
It may possibly be that truth-telling would "shame the Divil,” though I doubt it. But it certainly shocks the hell out of your fellow man and makes him hate you all the rest of his life. There is an old saying which is indeed true: "If you have a thousand friends you have no friend to spare - but if you have one enemy you'll meet him everywhere!" I meet my enemies every hour on the hour, via actual meeting or through letters and telephone calls. If it is true that a man is known by the enemies he makes, then I'm certainly "known" very well. The Holy Bible asserts, without even the slightest smile, that one should beware of a man who has no enemies. I beg, reverently, to differ. The man who has no enemies is a most lovable scoundrel and probably easy to get along with, and he has the blithesome habit of making you feel precious and valuable, and he always ends up paying less taxes than the rest of us and dies in an odor of lilies, and in an aura of love and appreciation. Whereas people like me are lucky if they don't get hanged or something. It is always a good idea for people like me to keep the powder dry and the trigger cocked, literally.
One's Confessor will always tell one that there is "no excuse" even for a very mild white lie. You believe it - in the Confessional. But when you come out into the cold white light of day you feel naked in your truthfulness and dread encountering anyone who will ask you for your uncensored opinion about anything. That is why Heaven is full of Saints. They had sheer Hell on Earth and probably even now, among the golden halls, they sudder in remembrance and wonder whether it is worth all that. As for me - if someone will tell me how to accomplish it - I'd rather be able to tell sweet little white lies, and big fat ones, too, and live happily forever afterwards in this world, esteemed, admired, and loved by my fellow man. It's a tough life, kids, and I don't recommend the handicap of truth-telling.
"Tact, perhaps," a priest once told me when I described to him some of the more lurid results of my truth-telling. "One should be tactful." But Christ wasn't. Nor was St. John the Baptist, who called his fellow men, quite truthfully and without prudence, "broods of vipers." He ended up, as we know, with his head on a platter.
One can lie and betray without saying a single word, and keep prudence, and so millions of prudent Americans did that when they saw the horror of Communism descending on America. They kept their mouths prudently shut - and now look at our country! Now it is dangerous for them even to suggest the truth: the Infernal Revenue Service will suddenly pluck their returns from the files over them with a fine-tooth comb and find something they can attach a penalty to, and interest. Yesterday Americans could have shouted out the truth, and today be free from fear. We were betrayed, and our country and a whole world with us, by the "prudent," who said never a word against Roosevelt's War, the expansion of Communism in America, and Earl Warren, to mention only a few desperate horrors.
Now the “prudent" are the ones softly whimpering in the darkness they permitted to descend and they whisper, "How did things get this way?" I usually tell them, with emphasis. "You did it, with your prudence."
Still, I think truth-telling is a very bad habit indeed, not as bad as getting hooked on junk, perhaps, or committing murder, but bad enough. You might, perhaps, be able to help your country by indiscriminate truth-telling, but it is rough on you and your family and your purse, and adds nothing of sweetness and light to your rugged life.
It comes to you, with disastrous woe, that your telephone has been silent for days and you never see your friends any longer, and that you are avoided like the Black Death.It is no comfort to you to recall that you did strike a blow for your country; for your country certainly doesn't seem to appreciate it. On the contrary. Your country, fat and bloated with beer and affluence, prefers to be told that this is the best of all possible worlds, that prosperity will go on forever with bigger and bigger paychecks, that America has "the leadership of the free world," that we are "rich" instead of bankrupt, and that man is "really good, good." Tell your countryman those damned lies and we will beam on you and stand a few drinks for you and invite you to dinner and propose you for his very exclusive private club. But tell him the truth and you are a "fascist" or a "crackpot," or you are seeing Communists under your bed. (No, these days we see burglars there because the police are sick of the yells of "police brutality!")
They say only fools do not learn from experience, and only fools tell the truth. You'd think I'd have learned that Mama did not mean it when she admonished me always to tell the truth. I learned my first harsh lesson from Mama, herself, whom I caught, when I was three years old, in a blatant and pleasant lie to a neighbor. I said, shocked, "But Mama, you know that isn't true!" I then proceeded, in my idiocy, to tell the neighbor the actual truth. The neighbor was horrified. "You have a dreadful child there, Ann," she said to Mama, who then gave me a very painful time of it for about an hour or so. You'd think I'd have learned, wouldn't you? I didn't. I kept on. I was hooked.
When I was about five, Papa became enraptured with astronomy and bought a telescope at considerable expense. He held me enchanted for hours and gave me astronomy books to read. One day relatives visited our house in Manchester, England, and among them was an aunt I dearly loved and admired, and I had her affection also. Alas. One of my cousins was there (Hi Willie!), who was about a year younger than myself. Bursting with new information I took him outside to gaze on the stars and I told him that they were suns greater and more fiery than even ours and were surrounded, probably, by worlds like ours. For some reason Willie was affrighted and he ran blubbering and gasping to our favorite aunt and threw himself upon her knees with screams of fear. She wanted to know what I had told "the poor little chap" which had so scared him, and so I told her, and I said it was the truth, and.... "What does it matter if it is the truth?” cried my aunt, indignantly. "You shouldn't tell people the truth if it will frighten them." I lost her beloved affection for the rest of my life. I should have learned from experience. But I did not. I suppose I never will.
"You shouldn't tell people the truth if it will frighten them." Our politicians never told us the truth; it would have frightened us. We preferred to hear that the sky is full of lollipops. And that will probably be our epitaph. The lollipops there will no doubt soon materialize into intercontinental ballistic missiles. But in the meantime we do have fun, don't we?And that Communist ranting on the campus is really a dear little fellow, isn't he, and he doesn't really mean any harm and he has a "right to dissent," doesn't he? Let's be tolerant. Of Communists, that is.
(I might mention here that I continued to tell my cousin the truth on every occasion, and now he is a patriotic conservative and may possibly be hush! - a Birchite.)
A few years ago I was preparing to visit England, my native country, and about three months before my departure I received a very polite letter from the British Broadcasting Company, requesting me to speak on their London station. I accepted, of course, and prepared my speech. It went into details about where and why the British were going under the Labor Party, and where we were going, also. I had facts and figures and quotations by the scores. I suggested stern and immediate remedies, if we were not all to die or to live in slavery. When I arrived in England three months later, a curious female type visited me at the hotel, from the B.B.C. You know the type: Black-skirted, flat-heeled, peeky-faced, sly-eyed, lip-licking, and without any make-up and with long ungroomed hair. She also had a vulgar accent, which betrayed the fact that she was a lower-class Cockney. She was one of the "researchers," she said, of the B.B.C., and she did want to talk to me about my speech, so she could time it for the half-hour they had allotted to me months ago. In fact, she said, they, the B.B.C., had been announcing the glorious occasion when I would "address the British people, of whom I am a native daughter." I should have known. She had the liar-look, prudent and careful, and she had the liar-voice, soft and breathy and meek. But I never learn. I read the speech to her and she listened with downcast eyes and a thoughtful little smile. Then when I had done she remarked it was very interesting," and bade me good-day.
On the night I was to speak I was invited to a very uproarious cocktail party and a delightful dinner, but I was due on the B.B.C., remember? So regretfully I declined, but suggested my hosts and fellow-guests listen to me when I spoke. They promised heartily. I arrived at the studio and was met by the Cockney-type, all fluttering eyelashes and sliding eyes, who informed me she was so sorry but she had made a mistake, and there was "no time" for me to deliver my speech. I told her, brutally, that she was a liar, and went away, too late for the party. Later I learned that one of the people at the B.B.C. had informed the listeners that "Miss Caldwell, unfortunately, is indisposed tonight and will be unable to give her scheduled talk. We will, instead, now broadcast the names of the fortunate people who just won the football pool."
The newspapers carried regrets, too. They hoped I would recover soon. But I never did. I never will.
I was invited to the Scandinavian countries, and it was more than hinted that I was being considered for the Nobel Prize for literature, and I would be "interviewed." Well, I arrived in Sweden and was soon aghast at their deadly Socialism which had taken the heart and soul from a once proud, free, and heroic nation. I listened to fine and desperate Swedes who were preparing to fly from their own country, and I saw and heard their grief. They were going, they said, to the Republic of South Africa, or Canada or Australia, "where some freedom still remained." (Odd, isn't it, that none of them said he was going to America?) A day or so later I was besieged by reporters, and never having learned even then not to tell the truth, I told the boys frankly what I thought about their system of government which had enslaved a whole handsome nation and had elevated the weak, had stultified their national growth, had punished the strong and the dependent and glorified the inferior in the name of "equality" and had driven proud men from their own country.
There went the Nobel Prize! All those lovely fifty-four thousand dollars, which would have been tax-free. And the celebrations. It was a high price, wasn't it, for telling the truth? Too high? Just think: I'd have been invited to the White House along with other conforming Nobel Prize winners and the President would have been fond of me and there would have been all that money in the bank, tax-free, and I'd have been acclaimed even by the "Liberals." Instead of that I pay taxes and the President doesn't even know my name. Alas. However, the West German reporters loved me, which is some comfort, after they interviewed me about Sweden. But the American "Liberals" consider me Black Death, and that, come to think of it, is an accolade in itself and a considerable consolation in a most evil and hopeless world. But that $54,000....
"You'll never be rich, a palmist told me when I was ten years old, "for you have an unfortunate handicap." I certainly have. I tell the truth.
A few years ago my husband and I were on a ship bound for South America. The American Ambassador cabled me aboard ship, asking if I would speak on a certain evening in the Embassy at Montevideo. My husband was a little alarmed, knowing me, but I laughed off his natural fears and cabled back that I was delighted. We arrived in Montevideo and, sure enough, the same curious little female type I had met in London came to see me at the hotel. At the very least she must have been her twin-sister. Yes, children, she was an American bureaucrat, living high, wide, and handsome in a magnificent apartment in Montevideo at your expense, with an official car and everything and a great tax-free salary, and servants. (You should see how your servants" live abroad! It might make you meditate on axes and ropes.)
What was I going to speak about at the Embassy, to the American colony, asked the female type. My husband stirred in his chair with premonitions. I told her. I was going to tell the American colony what was going on in the United States while they were wallowing here in luxury and not giving a damn, and what would probably happen to them only too soon, and that what I'd already heard about the Socialist government of Uruguay was giving me nightmares.
The female type, as did her counterpart in London, listened with downcast eyes. When I had finished she rose and said it was all very interesting and that no doubt everyone at the American Embassy would be glad to see me. On the scheduled night I arrived, to find the Embassy thronged with at least a thousand or two people. The jam was terrific. Someone gave me a cocktail, but no one greeted me. Then a gentleman nearby said, "Isn't it a shame that that writer, Miss Caldwell, didn't feel well enough to come tonight and talk to us? That's why we're here, expecting her to speak." I was struck dumb, for once. Then my Celtic blood rushed to my head. I fought my way to the Ambassador, who was surrounded by a crowd, and I lifted up my resonant voice, when I caught his eyes and saw his wife's embarrassed blushes, and I informed everyone that I was, indeed, Miss Caldwell, and that I was in perfect health, but that “someone" had decided I was a dangerous character and so I was not being permitted to speak. That "someone," I more than implied, was our very own American Ambassador, and goodnight, ladies and gentlemen, it was nice seeing you anyhow. I left in a shattered silence, with everyone's stern eye on the Ambassador, whose Mittel Europa wife appeared close to tears. He never sent me his apologies, of course, nor any explanation.
The next day I saw the female again and I told her that I would tell everyone who would listen about what had happened to me at the American Embassy in Montevideo and my opinion why. She then warned me very sternly not to do so. I might suffer "consequences." She was that bold. (I did, too, exactly a week after I arrived home; and the governmental persecution persisted for four years. That, however, is another and dreadful story I will tell you on another occasion.)
Mr. Eisenhower, just before his first inauguration, sent my husband and me his personal, gold-engraved invitations to be present. We accepted, of course, for Mr. Eisenhower and I, at that time, were quite chummy, and I have many letters to prove it. Then - you guessed it - I was contacted by a political type who wanted to know if I would deliver a speech "on this happy occasion," during the time I was in Washington. Sure, I said, never learning from experience. What would I speak about? Well, Mr. Eisenhower had mentioned that it would take forty years to clean out the Augean Stables left in a reeking condition by F.D.R., and I thought I'd enlarge on that and say I doubted forty centuries would do the job, or if it would ever be done even by Mr. Eisenhower. You know the rest. There was, abruptly, just no time "in all these festivities, you know, Miss Caldwell, for speeches." Like hell there wasn't! Dozens of alleged Republicans, "Liberals" and "moderates," gave a lot of sickening, syrupy speeches, with not a single mention about the dreadful internal, and external, threat of Communism! I wasn't there, of course. We had left the day after the inaugural, in disgust. I just read the speeches in the newspapers, and retched.
I think Mr. Robert Welch was quite wrong about Mr. Eisenhower. After all, it does take some intelligence to follow the arguments of dialectic materialism. That's why "Liberals" aren't outright Communists; they don't measure up, intelligence-wise, to use their own jargon.
Some friends have suggested that I "lead the liberals along," with sweet lies, and then explode before a public audience when given a chance. But that seems beyond me, helplessly. When I encounter a "Liberal" I can't keep my mouth shut; I just tell him the truth. Alas. Those friends have advised "prudence." I want people to like me, don't I, and buy my books, so why don't I "go along," and be nice and tell people what they want to hear? But what do they want to hear? A saga of lollipops, a jolly speech assuring them that all is well in the terrible world and every politician is pure as the driven snow, and that America is “rich," and under God's special guard, that they are lovely folks, and then add a few pleasant jokes.
At that price, I don't care if no one ever again buys my books. The price is too high. I still have to live with myself and confront my own image in the mirror in the mornings, at a frightful hour, if you ask me. Moreover, I have a delicate stomach and ulcers, and lies don't sit easily on them. And, above all, the Thirty Pieces of Silver don't attract me.
Thirty Pieces of Silver. Christ's life was sold for them. Thirty Pieces of Silver. America was sold by Americans for that. Affluence, eager acceptance of totalitarianism, welfarism, soothing pats and kisses, suburban tract houses with all the cheap, shiny gadgets and the cheap, shiny cars and the unspeakable television and the permissive schools. That was the worthless handful of fraudulent silver from the hands of politicians which bought America and has led her to her Calvary. The politicians kiss the American people and call them "wonderful." And Judas betrayed Our Lord with a kiss, and hailed Him.
That's the truth, children, the whole truth. I'm sorry if I've hurt anyone's feelings, but I'm still at it - still telling the truth.
And may God have mercy on my soul. My fellow man won't, that's for sure.
For the sake of men-readers I'd like to end on a cheerier note. (Men are dreadful sentimentalists. They are always looking for "hope" and hate the pessimists. They like to believe that this is, after all, a "great, wide, wonderful, beautiful world," whereas women, from the cradle, know it's not that way at all.) So I will tell an anecdote that proves that sometimes God has mercy on the truth-tellers. But not often! We must be a horrible vexation to Him.
When I was fifteen - yes, I mean fifteen - I was secretary to a gentleman who was manager of a fabrication plant. I believe the small factory used the rough material of a great steel-mill, of which it was an affiliate. At any rate, there were thirty employees, men and women. There was a large safe in the office to which my boss, Mr. Jones - I name him that because his children and their children are very much alive at this date - knew the combination, which he imparted to me. But after the main door was open there was an upper compartment to which I did not have the combination. Only Mr. Jones had that. I had access only to the lower part which contained employment and other records necessary to my job. I usually arrived ahead of Mr. Jones, and opened the safe and took out the records and went to work.
Though I was only fifteen Mr. Jones considered me an elderly woman - I worked, didn't I?
He had a photograph on his desk depicting his daughters, aged twenty and twenty-two (ancient women to me, and would point them out to me, sighing lovingly, "They cost me a lot of money, Miss Caldwell, but perhaps you remember how young folks are." (Yes, he knew my age.) He would then tell me how much his daughters' debuts had cost him, "but they deserved it." He was earning then about $20,000 a year, an enormous sum in those days. (My salary was $12 a week.) He had a magnificent house, photographs of which he showed me, for which he had spent $45,000, another enormous sum then. His daughters had personal maids, and so did his wife. "They keep me broke," he would say with fondness. "But young people need the best, don't they?" he would ask me anxiously. I thought he meant old people, like my parents who were then (Mama) thirty-three and (Papa) thirty-five, and I agreed with solemnity. Who would deprive old ladies like Mr. Jones' wife and daughters of necessities?
Mr. Jones was also a "brotherly-lover." He just loved the people in the factory. He taught me how to minister to those who suffered injuries at their machines. He would walk with his nose poked ahead and a stern and righteous look on his face as he brought the injured to me for bandages and splints and iodine and what-not. Then he abandoned them. This was before the days of Workmen's Compensation. Mr. Jones confessed to me that he was a Republican, "but I usually vote Democratic, the Party with a Heart." I believed in Parties with a heart. I just wished someone would have a heart for me, but no one did. I suffered for the injured workmen and workwomen, and sometimes slipped them my lunch-money, all twenty-five cents of it, and went hungry. But then, I didn't have a "heart" like Mr. Jones'. Mr. Jones, after all, was a "brotherly-lover" and so couldn't be expected to fork out cash.
On Fridays the bank would deliver money for the wages of those in the factory, and for me. In a cloth bag. Mr. Jones would then put the cash in the upper part of the safe, to which I did not have the combination. On Saturday morning Mr. Jones and I would parcel out the money into envelopes. Sometimes this would go on to Monday, when the envelopes were delivered to the factory workers.
One Friday when the money from the bank was delivered Mr. Jones suddenly developed "a severe case of influenza." He put the money in the top part of the inner safe and went home, groaning loudly. (Do keep in mind that he "loved everybody," as he stated often and vehemently.) "I'll take care of the wage-envelopes tomorrow, Saturday," he told me before he left. "Just close the outer door of the safe before you go home." He carefully closed the door of the inner, upper compartment where the money was, and twirled the dial. I watched him, for I had a respect for cash. He went home. At five-thirty I put the working-records back in the safe, checked the upper compartment, and closed the main door. I went to night high school then, for five hours, so I had given not only my lunch money to a poor soul in the factory, but my car-fare also, I had to walk home, a distance from the school of several miles. It was bitter winter then, and I arrived home around midnight, and did my usual household chores for my mother. I went to bed at two-thirty and got up at six, ready for the office again, a usual procedure. It was nothing. I was all of fifteen.
Mr. Jones was not in the office. So I opened the outer door of the safe and took out the work-records. I began to type on the records and to finish up the letters Mr. Jones dictated the day before. Then the telephone rang. I answered it, and Mr. Jones hurriedly directed me to tell "anyone who will ask" that I hadn't checked the upper, inner part of the safe the day before, at the time I left. Where the money was, remember?
"But I did, Mr. Jones," I answered.
"Look, lady," he said to me in a brutal voice, "if you don't say that you’ll get into trouble. Bad trouble. See?” And then he repeated to me what I must say if "anyone asks."
Now, in the factory, there was a superintendent who was a very kind and very old man, who must have been all of thirty-three then. I puzzled over Mr. Jones' strange order to me, and while I was puzzling Mr. Smith came in. I was a reticent girl. I kept office matters to myself, as I had been warned. Then the strangest impulse came to me, and surely it was the Hand of God. I told my old pal, Mr. Smith, what Mr. Jones had requested of me, and I was then horrified at my truth-telling and my lack of restraint. Mr. Smith was immediately interested. He looked at the inner compartment of the safe and saw it was securely locked.
"Now, what the hell?" he mused. He sat in front of the safe for a long time and thought, and once he twiddled the inner dial of the compartment where all that money was cloistered. I thought he was the one who "would ask." I terribly regretted the fact that I had told him the truth, and I became frightened. Here I was again, telling the truth, after all my experience. Then Mr. Smith patted me thoughtfully on the head and went back to the factory. At two I closed up shop and went home. As I was so elderly the whole matter then naturally slipped my senile mind.
On Monday I arrived to find not only Mr. Jones but two policemen. It seems that the inner compartment had been robbed of the $4,000 deposited there on Friday. Mr. Jones was much agitated. He pointed at me and said to the Police Sergeant, "This woman is sometimes careless. I was sick on Friday, after the money was delivered from the bank, and I called her and told her to check. Apparently she didn't. Did you, Miss Caldwell?"
This was my cue, of course, to confess that I hadn't checked but had forgotten in my carelessness, and so had left the inner compartment open. Alas, truth-teller that I was, I told the police that I had indeed checked and the compartment had been closed and the dial twisted by Mr. Jones, himself, before he had left "sick" on Friday afternoon. I was terribly frightened and began to tremble. The police sergeant then asked me kindly how old I was. I told him. "Damned shame," he said. "You ought to be in school like my girls." He patted me on my auburn head. I did not resent it. After all, he was old, probably nearly forty.
Mr. Jones came to life. "I see it!" he shouted. "She found the inner safe open and stole the money, herself! I always thought she was a sly one!"
The policemen looked at me thoughtfully. I repeated my story. At that moment Mr. Smith, the superintendent of the factory, entered. He listened to Mr. Jones' wild accusations of my theft. Then he turned to the police sergeant and informed him of the truth, that I had told him of Mr. Jones' command and that he, personally, had checked the upper compartment and had found it closed. Mr. Jones fell into a chair, exclaiming that I must have robbed the safe before I left and had passed the money along to my "confederates" in crime. "Ask her where she was after she left here! Friday night. And she lies when she says I called her."
Now, he knew very well that I went to night high school. He had seen the textbooks on my desk and had irritably found me studying during my lunch hour and doing my homework. (He thought that as I had time to "waste" I should have been working on his letters.) The police took a deeper interest in me. I was bewildered and confused. I told the police of the night high school and Mr. Jones snorted, "A likely story! At her age!" I burst out crying, at my "age."
The teachers at the night high were not at the school then, of course. So the police took me to the police station, where I almost died of fear and shame. The police sergeant urged me to confess that I had taken the money. I could only weep. Mr. Smith came in with milk and a sandwich for me and repeated his story. The police told him that it was possible that I had taken the money and given it to "confederates" before I had asked him to examine the safe, himself.
Mr. Smith filled his pipe slowly. After a while he said, “Jones makes $20,000 a year. He spends at least forty. On his daughters and his wife. You might check with the banks."
They did. I heard a confusion of calls in that dusty and odorous station, but I looked only at the distant bars and saw myself confined behind them. Then the sergeant was patting my head again and telling me that I could sue for something or other, and he'd take me home. He would be a witness, he said, and so would Mr. Smith. He drove me home, while I could do nothing but cry. Naturally, I did not tell my rigorous parents of this, for fear of punishment for telling the truth. If they had been American instead of British, they might have had some indignation and would have prosecuted Mr. Jones, the brotherly-lover. But I knew them! They would automatically take Mr. Jones' side. Therefore, I said nothing.
I went timidly back to the office on Tuesday. Mr. Jones did not arrive. Mr. Smith came in at ten and informed me happily that Mr. Jones had been arrested for robbing the safe. "I'm taking his place," he said. "And I'm raising you to fifteen a week."
He then suggested that I not tell my parents of the extra three dollars a week but keep it for myself. That was beyond me. My allowance still remained at one dollar a week out of my salary.
So you see, children, God does, sometimes, come to the aid of the truth-tellers. Not often enough to count, I must admit. But, sometimes.
So it may be that we truth-tellers will sometime prevail in America and send the brotherly-lovers, the liars and the robbers, to jail. With their Thirty Pieces of Silver.
Oh, yes. Like Judas, Mr. Jones, a little later, hanged himself just before his trial. But don't take heart! This happens rarely.
As a novelist, Taylor Caldwell was an American master, on par with, or superior to, virtually any other novelist born in America in the 20th century. Her phenomenal success supports the contention — during her illustrious career, Caldwell wrote more than 40 novels, many of which were outstanding best sellers. Her books sold an estimated 30 million copies. Among her most famous were Dear and Glorious Physician (about Saint Luke), A Pillar of Iron (about the Roman statesman Cicero), and Great Lion of God (about Saint Paul). One of her most beloved novels, Captains and the Kings, was made into a television miniseries. In addition to her work as a novelist, for many years she contributed outstanding essays to American Opinion magazine.
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