23/01/2020
But H is
wrong.
There is one other person in the
room who would fight alongside H and he is not
even an American citizen. He is a
young
German
emigre, whom I brought along to the party. The
people in the room look at him rather askance
because he is so Germanic, so very blond-haired, so
very blue-eyed, so tanned that somehow you expect
him to be wearing shorts. He looks like the model
of a N**i. His English is flawed-he learned it
only five years ago. He comes from an old East
Prussian family; he was a member of the post-war
Youth Movement and afterward of the Republican
"Reichsbanner." All his German friends went N**i
-without exception. He hiked to Switzerland
penniless, there pursued his studies in New
Testament Greek, sat under the
great
Protestant
theologian, Karl Barth, came to America through
the assistance of an American friend whom he had
met in a university, get a job teaching the classics
in a fashionable private school; quit, and is working
ninnlana footor pau i. oulinm the
in a fashionable private school; quit, and is working
now in an airplane factory-working on the night
shift to make planes to send to Britain to defeat
Germany. He has devoured volumes of American
history, knows Whitman by heart, wonders why so
few Americans have ever really read the Federalist
papers, believes in the United States of Europe, the
Union of the English-speaking world, and the
coming democratic revolution all over the earth.
He believes that America is the country of
Creative Evolution once it shakes off its middle
class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, its
tentacle-like and spreading government, and sets
itself innerly free.
The people in the room think he is not an
American, but he is more American than almost
any of them. He has discovered America and his
spirit is the spirit of the pioneers. He is furious
with America because it does not realize its
strength and beauty and power. He talks
The people in the room think he is not an
American, but he is more American than almost
any
of them. He has discovered America and his
spirit is the spirit of the pioneers. He is furious
with America because it does not realize its
strength and beauty and power. He talks about the
workmen in the factory where he is employed. ...
He took the job "in order to understand the real
America." He thinks the men are wonderful. "Why
don't
you
American intellectuals ever get to them;
talk to them?"
I grin bitterly to myself, thinking that if we ever
got into war with the N**is he would probably be
interned, while Mr. B and Mr. G and Mrs. E
would be spreading defeatism at all such parties as
this one. "Of course I don't like Hi**er but ..."
Mr. J over there is a Jew. Mr. J is a very important
man. He is immensely rich-he has made a
fortune through a dozen directorates in various
Mr. J over there is a Jew. Mr. J is a very important
man. He is immensely rich-he has made a
fortune through a dozen directorates in various
companies, through a fabulous marriage, through a
speculative flair, and through a native gift for
money and a native love of power. He is intelligent
and arrogant. He seldom associates with Jews. He
deplores any mention of the “Jewish question.” He
believes that Hi**er "should not be judged from the
standpoint of anti-Semitism." He thinks that “the
Jews should be reserved on all political questions."
He considers Roosevelt "an enemy of business." He
thinks "It was a serious blow to the Jews that
Frankfurter should have been appointed to the
Supreme Court."
The saturnine Mr. C-the real N**i in the room
engages him in a flatteringly attentive conversation.
Mr. J agrees with Mr. C wholly. Mr. J is definitely
attracted by Mr. C. He goes out of his way to ask
his name-they have never met before.
The saturnine Mr. C–the real N**i in the room-
engages him in a flatteringly attentive conversation.
Mr. J agrees with Mr. C wholly. Mr. J is definitely
attracted by Mr. C. He goes out of his way to ask
his name-they have never met before. "A
very
intelligent man."
Mr. K contemplates the scene with a sad humor in
his expressive eyes. Mr. K is also a Jew. Mr. K is a
Jew from the South. He speaks with a Southern
drawl. He tells inimitable stories. Ten years ago he
owned a very successful business that he had built
up from scratch. He sold it for a handsome price,
settled his indigent relatives in business, and now
enjoys an income for himself of about fifty dollars
a week. At forty he began to write articles about
odd and out-of-the-way places in American life. A
bachelor, and a sad man who makes everybody
laugh, he travels continually, knows America from
a thousand different facets, and loves it in a quiet,
deep, unostentatious way. He is a great
The saturnine Mr. C–the real N**i in the room-
engages him in a flatteringly attentive conversation.
Mr. J agrees with Mr. C wholly. Mr. J is definitely
attracted by Mr. C. He goes out of his way to ask
his name-they have never met before. "A
very
intelligent man."
Mr. K contemplates the scene with a sad humor in
his expressive eyes. Mr. K is also a Jew. Mr. K is a
Jew from the South. He speaks with a Southern
drawl. He tells inimitable stories. Ten years ago he
owned a very successful business that he had built
up from scratch. He sold it for a handsome price,
settled his indigent relatives in business, and now
enjoys an income for himself of about fifty dollars
a week. At forty he began to write articles about
odd and out-of-the-way places in American life. A
bachelor, and a sad man who makes everybody
laugh, he travels continually, knows America from
a thousand different facets, and loves it in a quiet,
deep, unostentatious way. He is a great friend
deep, unostentatious
way.
He is a great friend of H,
the biographer. Like H, his ancestors have been in
this country since long before the Civil War. He is
attracted to the young German. By and by they are
together in the drawing-room. The impeccable
gentleman of New England, the country-man
intellectual of the Middle West, the happy woman
whom the gods love, the young German, the quiet,
poised Jew from the South. And over on the other
side are the others.
Mr. L has just come in. Mr. L is a lion these days.
My hostess was all of a dither when she told me on
the telephone, “... and L is coming. You know it's
dreadfully hard to get him."L is a very powerful
labor leader. "My dear, he is a man of the people,
but really fascinating.“ L is a man of the people and
just exactly as fascinating as my horsy, bank vice
president, on-the-make acquaintance over there,
and for the same reasons and in the same way. L
makes speeches about the "third of the nation," and
I hac mnde adorned can think for himself
just exactly as fascinating as my horsy, bank vice
president, on-the-make acquaintance over there,
and for the same reasons and in the same
way.
L
makes speeches about the third of the nation," and
L has made a darned good thing for himself out of
championing the oppressed. He has the best car of
anyone in this room; salary means nothing to him
because he lives on an expense account. He agrees
with the very largest and most powerful
industrialists in the country that it is the business
of the strong to boss the weak, and he has made
collective bargaining into a legal compulsion to
appoint him or his henchmen as "labor's"
agents,
with the power to tax pay envelopes and do what
they please with the money. L is the strongest
natural-born N**i in this room. Mr. B regards him
with contempt tempered by hatred. Mr. B will use
him. L is already parroting B's speeches. He has the
brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible
instinct for power. In private conversation he
denounces the Jews as "parasites." No one has with contempt tempered by hatred. Mr. B will use
him. L is already parroting B's speeches. He has the
brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible
instinct for power. In private conversation he
denounces the Jews as "parasites." No one has ever
asked him what are the creative functions of a
highly paid agent, who takes a percentage off the
labor of millions of men, and distributes it where
and as it may add to his own political power.
III
It's fun-a macabre sort of fun-this parlor game
of "Who Goes N**i?" And it simplifies things-
asking the question in regard to specific
personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people
never go N**i. They may be the gentle philosopher
whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City
College to whom democracy gave a chance to
design airplanes—you'll never make N**is
It's fun-a macabre sort of fun-this parlor game
of "Who Goes N**i?" And it simplifies things-
asking the question in regard to specific
personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people
never go N**i. They may be the gentle philosopher
whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City
College to whom democracy gave a chance to
design airplanes—you'll never make N**is out of
them. But the frustrated and humiliated
intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the
spoiled son,
the labor
tyrant,
the fellow who has
achieved success by smelling out the wind of
success-they would all go N**i in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don't
go
N**i. Their race,
color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion
It is something in them.
Those who haven't anything in them to tell them
what they like and what they don't-whether
