Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

"He won’t see it, because it won’t be coming. One wave is enough for one generation. Strasser and Rohm and your friend Hugo may shout their heads off, but when Adolf tells them to shut up they will shut. And it’s my belief that whatever socializing Adolf does in Germany will be to make the Nazi party stronger, and enable him to smash Versailles more quickly and more surely."

The Conference on Limitation of Armaments was practically dead, after more than a year of futile efforts. But the nations couldn’t give up trying to stop the general breakdown, and now sixty-six of them were assembled in a World Economic Conference. It was meeting in South Kensington with the usual fanfare about solving all problems. Rick, ever suspicious of what he called capitalist statesmanship, said that it was an effort of the Bank of England to get back on the gold standard, with the support of the United States, and of France, Switzerland, Holland, and the few nations still ruled by their creditor classes. While Lanny was watching this show and renewing old acquaintances among the journalists, President Roosevelt issued a manifesto refusing to be tied to this gold program. His action was called "torpedoing" the Conference, which at once proceeded to follow all the others into the graveyard of history.

Lord Wickthorpe was back at home, and desirous of repaying the hospitality which he had enjoyed in Paris; the more so when he learned that his American friends had just returned from Germany and had been meeting some of the Nazi head men. The young couple were invited to spend several days at Wickthorpe Castle, one of the landmarks of England. It was of brown sandstone, and the central structure with two great crenelated towers dated from Tudor days; two wings and a rear extension had been added in the time of Queen Anne, but the unity of style had been preserved. The ancient oaks were monuments of English permanence and solidity; the lawns were kept green by rains and fogs from several seas, and kept smooth by flocks of rolypoly sheep. Irma was fascinated by the place, and pleased her host by the naivete of her commendations. When she heard that the estate had had to be broken up and tracts sold off to pay taxes, she counted it among the major calamities of the late war.

The Dowager Lady Wickthorpe kept house for her bachelor son. There was a younger brother whom Lanny had met at Rick’s, and he had married an American girl whom Irma had known in cafe society; so it was like a family party, easy and informal, yet dignified and impressive. It was much easier to run an estate and a household in England, where everything was like a grandfather’s clock which you wound up and it ran, not for eight days but for eight years or eight decades. There was no such thing as a servant problem, for your attendants were born, not made; the oldest son of your shepherd learned to tend your sheep and the oldest son of your butler learned to buttle. All masters were kind and all servants devoted and respectful; at least, that was how it was supposed to be, and if anything was short of perfection it was carefully hidden. Irma thought it was marvelous—until she discovered that she was expected to bathe her priceless self in a painted tin tub which was brought in by one maid, followed by two others bearing large pitchers of hot and cold water.

After the completion of this ceremony, she inquired: "Lanny, what do you suppose it would cost to put modern plumbing into a place like this?"

He answered with a grin: "In the style of Shore Acres?"— referring to his own bathroom with solid silver fixtures, and to Irma’s of solid gold.

"I mean just ordinary Park Avenue."

"Are you thinking of buying this castle?"

Irma countered with another question. "Do you suppose you would be happy in England?"

"I am afraid you couldn’t get it, darling," he evaded in turn. "It’s bound to be entailed." He assured her with a grave face that everything had to be handed down intact—not merely towers and oaks and lawns, but servants and sheep and bathing facilities.

Neighbors dropped in from time to time, and Lanny listened to upper-class Englishmen discussing the problems of their world and his. They were not to be persuaded to take Adolf Hitler and his party too seriously; in spite of his triumph he was still the clown, the pasty-faced, hysterical tub-thumper, such as you could hear in Hyde Park any Sunday afternoon; "a jumped-up house-painter," one of the country squires called him. They were not sorry to have some effective opposition to France on the continent, for it irked them greatly to see that rather shoddy republic of politicians riding on the gold standard while Britain had been ignominiously thrown off. They were interested in Lanny’s account of Adolf, but even more interested in Göring, who was a kind of man they could understand. In his capacity as Reichsminister, he had come to Geneva and laid down the law as to Germany’s claim to arms equality. Wickthorpe had been impressed by his forceful personality, and now was amused to hear about the lion cub from the Berlin zoo and the new gold velvet curtains in the reception room of the Minister-Präsident’s official residence.

Lanny said: "The important thing for you gentlemen to remember is that Göring is an air commander, and that rearmament for him is going to mean fleets of planes. They will all be new and of perfected models."

Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson, ex-aviator, had laid great stress upon this, but Lanny found it impossible to interest a representative of the British Foreign Office. To him airplanes were like Adolf Hitler; that is to say, something "jumped-up," something cheap, presumptuous, and altogether bad form. Britannia ruled the waves, and did it with dignified and solid "ships of the line," weighing thirty-five thousand tons each and costing ten or twenty million pounds. An American admiral had written about the influence of sea power upon history, and the British Admiralty had read it, one of the few compliments they had ever paid to their jumped-up cousins across the seas. Now their world strategy was based upon it, and when anyone tried to argue with them it was as if they all burst into song: "Britannia needs no bulwarks, no towers along the steep!"

Irma listened to the discussions, and afterward, as they drove back to London, they talked about it, and Lanny discovered that she agreed with her host rather than with her husband. She was irresistibly impressed by the dignity, stability, and self-confidence of this island nation; also by Lord Wickthorpe as the perfect type of English gentleman and statesman. Lanny didn’t mind, for he was used to having people disagree with him, especially his own family. But when he happened to mention the matter to his mother, she minded it gravely, and said: "Doesn’t it ever occur to you that you’re taking an awful lot for granted?"

"How do you mean, old darling?"

"Take my advice and think seriously about Irma. You’re making her a lot unhappier than you’ve any idea."

"You mean, by the company I keep?"

"By that, and by the ideas you express to your company, and to your wife’s."

"Well, dear, she surely can’t expect me to give up my political convictions as the price of her happiness."

"I don’t know why she shouldn’t—considering how we’re all more or less dependent upon her bounty."

"Bless your heart!" said Lanny. "I can always go back to selling pictures again."

"Oh, Lanny, you say horrid things!"

He thought that she had started the horridness, but it would do no good to say so. "Cheer up, old dear—I’m taking my wife off to New York right away."

"Don’t count on that too much. Don’t ever forget that you’ve got a treasure, and it calls for a lot of attention and some guarding."