"We openly confided among ourselves — the duty officers, the pressmen, the clerks, shippers, the rank-and-file troopers — that what was require was a gaping hole knocked in the System order-of-things so that blood could be splashed from one end of the country to the other. None of the officers ever voiced these same opinions and, to be sure, they never inquired of ours. Nothing was open for discussion between these two sharply distinct levels. It was Right Wingism at its darkest. It was never spoken, never printed and was, in fact, taboo in official Party dealings. In those days we were still wasting our time — and our blood — defending the honor of an all-but-dead Republic against a mob of vile Jews, Liberals, Blacks, etc., demonstrating for its final demise and, in our printed propaganda, taking a futile and sadomasochistic trip by dredging up the most recent outrages committed by Blacks in the streets and Jews and traitors in the government."
James Mason
SIEGE
