"John Kessel - Buffalo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kessel John)

"Have some more wine," Russell says.

Russell refills their glasses with the excellent
bordeaux. It's been a first rate meal. Wells finds the
debate stimulating even when he can't prevail; at one time
that would have been enough, but as the years go on the need
to prevail grows stronger in him. The times are out of
joint, and when he looks around he sees desperation growing.
A new world order is necessary --it's so clear that even a
fool ought to see it--but if he can't even convince radicals
like Darrow, what hope is there of gaining the acquiescence
of the shareholders in the utility trusts?

The answer is that the changes will have to be made over
their objections. As Roosevelt seems prepared to do.
Wells's dinner with the President has heartened him in a way
that this debate cannot negate. Wells brings up an item he
read in the Washington Post. A lecturer for the communist
party--a young Negro--was barred from speaking at the
University of Virginia. Wells's question is, as the man
barred because he was a communist or because he was Negro?

"Either condition," Darrow says sardonically, "is fatal
in Virginia."

"But students point out the University has allowed
communists to speak on campus before, and has allowed
Negroes to perform music there."

"They can perform, but they can't speak," Russell says.
"This isn't unusual. Go down to the Paradise Ballroom, not
a mile from here. There's a Negro orchestra playing there,
but no Negroes are allowed inside to listen."

"You should go to hear them anyway," Darrow says. "It's
Duke Ellington. Have you heard of him?"

"I don't get on with the titled nobility," Wells quips.

"Oh, this Ellington's a noble fellow, all right, but I
don't think you'll find him in the peerage," Russell says.

"He plays jazz, doesn't he?"

"Not like any jazz you've heard," Darrow says. "It's
something totally new. You should find a place for it in
one of your utopias."
 All three of them are for helping the colored peoples.
Darrow has defended Negroes accused of capital crimes.
Wells, on his first visit to America almost thirty years