lasted
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 tha