A nation can survive its fools and even
the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason
from within. An enemy at the gates is less
formidable, for he is known and he carries his
banners openly against the city.
But the traitor moves among those within the
gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through
all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears no traitor;
he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim,
and he wears their face and their garments and
he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the
hearts of all men.
He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly
and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars
of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can
no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.
The traitor is the plague.