Trying not to show how he was being affected by the onslaught of angry thoughts, he decided to take the plunge.
" I am not your enemy. Neither are mutants."
That simple statement, delivered with confidence, poise, and a force that had not been there before, silenced the crowd for a moment. Then, one man made his stand.
" Liar!" he challenged Charles. " They take our cities, our homes, our jobs... and you say they're not our enemies!"
The crowd murmured its agreement, then were respectfully silent as a woman's tearful voice reached them.
" They came... and took my house... my money," she choked. " Where are my children and I going to go?"
Fresh indignance at this new crime, and sympathy for the woman fueled the protests, and there was nothing else that Charles could do, but try to reach them again.
" Tell those filthy mutants to get out of this country!" One cry came through clearly, followed by a chorus of assents.
" Mutants do not want to fight. They want a home, a job... they want friends, peace...They don't wish to fight us. There are those who are willing to live in peace with the rest of humanity."
He sensed that no on really believed him. And he sensed too, growing doubts of his own. Doubts about his own stand. That he might actually be wrong.
No... I cannot let them get to me.
He tried to clear his head. But the growing whispers in his head were not theirs. They were his own. And they remained.
Ever since New York... My God, do I still have the right to speak for the majority of mutants? Support then, for Magneto and his criminal plan, had run so high... and so many had turned out to support the anti-human cause...
Perhaps, they did want war. And maybe war was the only solution left to them. That would mean, that his Dream - the Dream that had led to the formation of the X-men, the X-men themselves... all those years and all the effort; all for nothing, all of it a waste.
He did not want it...
There were those who wanted a war. They longed for it, worked for it.
Humanity had run out of wars to run. With that, had also gone the unity men felt in war-time alliances. They had needed another war to wage. A common banner, under which they could come together and fight.
Mutants had been the only possible enemies left.
In a war, the enemy is never human, never like you. They never feel the way you feel, never live the kind of life you live. If he did, he would not be the enemy.
What was needed was a man who could show people what was really happening on the other side of the ' Iron Curtain' ... to put a human face on the obscurity of the enemy.
Charles Xavier, would have to be that man; to show the people that an enemy, is still human...