I.F. Stone, “Mr. Smith Pleads for Peace”

Washington, January 24, 1949

In taking over the high office to which I have been elected as head of the Smith family, I want to pledge myself to peace. We Smiths, unlike the Joneses, are peaceful people. A new war would ruin us. There are three mortgages on the old house already. We couldn’t afford another scrap in this neighborhood. That’s why I’m going to do all I can for peace.

So far as I can see, the prospects for peace would be excellent, were it not for the Joneses over in the next alley. They lie, cheat, steal, pick their noses in public, and forget to put the top on their garbage can.

As everybody knows, Smiths are righteous folk. We meet the interest on our mortgages, shovel the snow off our sidewalks, and we’re in our pew at church every Sunday morning. We stand four­square with God and we have reason to believe that God stands foursquare with us.

We’re Presbyterians. The Joneses are different. They’re Baptists. We have statistics to prove that 6,349,742 Baptists every year die from total immersion. That’s the kind of people we Smiths are up against in trying to make this neighborhood a safe one.

We Smiths believe every man should be free to worship God as he pleases, so long as he doesn’t turn Baptist, or spread total immersion. We’re prepared to lend money to anyone on the verge of becoming a Baptist if only he’ll desist from damnation.

One of the troubles with the Joneses is they’re too darned suspicious. They keep insisting that we are getting ready to attack them. I have no hesitation in saying that this is a complete fabrication, highly exaggerated, only partly true, and something of a misconception.

It is true that in return for friendly loans to neighbors of the Joneses we have arranged to set up sandbag emplacements in all the backyards adjoining theirs, and are ready at a moment’s notice to let loose with a new gadget of which we Smiths are right proud, the addled egg.

These eggs, as prepared by a secret process of our own, are so hard when thrown and so gaseous when broken that a fusillade of them is guaranteed within ten minutes to break every window in the Jones home, kill Mr. Jones, drive Mrs. Jones out of her head, and asphyxiate all the Jones children. But these preparations of ours are purely defensive. The refusal of the Joneses to believe this is another example of that stubborn wickedness to which Joneses are predestined.

Far from plotting war, we are anxious for peace. The front door of our home is always open to Old Man Jones. He’s a crooked old scoundrel, with a nose like a tomato and a breath that would knock over a horse. Everybody knows he’s an embezzler, chicken thief, bigamist, and prevaricator, but any time he wants to crawl over to my door on that dirty belly of his I’ll talk peace with him.

We’re going ahead on our own peace plans regardless. We’re going to erect a ten-foot-high picket fence around the Jones house. We’re building up the biggest stockpile of addled eggs in the history of our neighborhood. And we’re negotiating with little Willie Jones, who’s just crazy about lollipops, to supply him with all-day suckers for life, if he’ll set fire to the Jones place next time his old man’s sleeping off a bender.

We Smiths want peace so bad we’re prepared to kill every one of the Joneses to get it.