And that’s why I love the episode. It really isn’t all it seems.
Like a lot of Twilight Zones, it stands up to several viewings.
Wordsworth states, “You cannot erase God with an edict,” and I, an atheist, agree. People simply do or do not believe in a God, and that should be their choice.
Wordsworth also says that it’s because owning his Bible is a crime punishable by death that it’s his only possession with any value to him. He says that as a librarian, in a room full of books that are are outlawed. So, I have always had a problem with that line.
The chancellor is the one who proposes that although Hitler and Stalin were predecessors, they erred in not going far enough. According to him, too many undesirables were left around. (Old people who clutch at the past, the maimed, and the deformed.)
On this thread discussing 1900’s children arriving unattended to Ellis Island, I provided a link to the U.S. Immigration Act of 1907. That Act disallowed immigration to the for the following:
Sec. 2. That the following classes of aliens shall be Excluded
excluded from admission into the United States : All " “**”* "
idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane idiots, in-
persons, and persons who have been insane within five ^^°^’ ^ ‘^’ ’
years previous; persons who have had two or more at-
tacks of insanity at any time previously ; paupers ; per- gQ^^“^‘^’‘!)’ p^‘^
sons likely to become a public charge ; " professional become’ a ^pub°
beggars; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a ‘’^jjjg|afedS
loathsome or dangerous contagious disease ; ^ persons not
comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded p^^g^icany’’ de-
classes who are found to be and are certified by the^ective;
examining surgeon as being mentally or physically de-
fective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature
which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a
living}" persons who have been convicted of or admit Criminals;
having committed a felony or other crime or misde-
meanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or per- Poiygamists;
sons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy,
anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the Anarchists;
overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the
United States, or of all government, or of all forms of
law, or the assassination of public officials; prostitutes, ^^^fo^t '”*«•■
or women or girls coming into the United States for the
purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral pur-
pose; persons who procure or attempt to bring in pros-
As an epileptic, I would have been disallowed entry to my home country had I tried to emigrate here in the early 1900s. I’m all kinds of undesirable.
