Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

"Hitler doesn’t drink, either," said Lanny; but the others didn’t appear to attach any importance to that.

They went on to point out to Rick that the French imperialists were arrogant, and their diplomats had made a lot of trouble in Syria, Iraq, and other places. French bankers had a great store of gold, and made use of it in ways inconvenient to their rivals. Wickthorpe didn’t say that Hitler would serve to keep the French occupied, but his arguments made plain the general idea that you couldn’t entrust any one set of foreigners with too much power. It was even possible to guess that he wasn’t too heartbroken over what had happened in Wall Street during the past four years; because a large part of Britain’s prosperity depended upon her service as clearinghouse for international transactions, and it had been highly embarrassing to have the dollar prove more stable than the pound.

Wickthorpe and his cousin had it comfortably figured out what to be Hitler’s role in world affairs. Assuming that he was able to continue in power, he was going to fight Russia. He was the logical one to do this, because of his geographical position; for Britain this factor made it almost impossible. Lanny wanted to ask: "Why does anybody have to fight Russia?"—but he was afraid that would be an improper question.

Here sat this tall young lord, smooth-skinned, pink-cheeked, with his fair hair and little toy mustache; perfectly groomed, perfectly at ease; one couldn’t say perfectly educated, for there were many important things about which he knew nothing—science, for example, and the economics of reality as opposed to those of classical theory. He knew ancient Greek and Roman civilization, and Hebrew theology made over by the Church of England; he had recent world affairs at his fingertips. He possessed perfect poise, charm of manner, and skill in keeping to himself those thoughts which particular persons had no right to share. He was sure that he was a gentleman and a Christian, yet he took it for granted that it was his duty to labor and plan to bring about one of the most cruel and bloody of wars.

"You know, you might do quite a spot of trade with the Soviet Union," suggested Lanny, mildly. "They have the raw materials and you have the machines."

"Yes, Budd, but one can’t think merely about business; there are moral factors."

"But might not the Reds be toned down and acquire a sense of responsibility, just as well as the Nazis?"

"We can’t trust the blighters."

"I’m told that they meet their bills regularly. The Chase National gets along with them quite well."

"I don’t mean financially, I mean politically. They would start breaking into the Balkans, or India, or China; their agents are trying to stir up revolution all the time."

Lanny persisted. "Have you thought of the possibility that if you won’t trade with them, the Nazis may? Their economies supplement each other."

"But their ideologies are at opposite poles!"

"They seem to be; but you yourself say how ideologies change when men get power. It seems to me that Stalin and Hitler are self-made men, and might be able to understand each other. Suppose one day Stalin should say to Hitler, or Hitler to Stalin: See here, old top, the British have got it fixed up for us to ruin ourselves fighting. Why should we oblige them? "

"I admit that would be a pretty bad day," said young Lord Wickthorpe. He said it with a smile, not taking it seriously. When Rick pinned him down to it, he gave yet another reason why it was impossible to consider a large-scale deal with the Soviet Union—the effect it would have upon politics at home. "It would set up the Reds, and it might bring labor back into power."

Said Rick to Lanny, when they were alone: "Class is more than country!"

The Nazi program of repression of the Jews was being carried out step by step, which was going to be the Nazi fashion. Civil servants of Jewish blood were being turned out of their jobs and good Aryans of the right party affiliations put in their place. Jewish lawyers were forbidden to practice in the courts. "Jew signs" were being pasted or painted on places of business which belonged to the despised race. Beatings and terrorism were being secretly encouraged, for the purpose of driving the Jews out and depriving them of jobs and property. When such incidents were mentioned in the press they would be blamed upon "persons unknown masquerading as Stormtroopers."

But refugees escaping to the outside world would report the truth, and there was a ferment of indignation among the Jews of all countries; they and their sympathizers held meetings of protest, and a movement was started to boycott trade with Germany. The reaction in the Fatherland was immediate, and Johannes wrote about it—very significantly he wrote only to Lanny, never to his son, and mailed the letters unsigned and with no mark to identify them. It had been made a prison offense to give information to foreigners, and in his letters Johannes addressed Lanny as a German, and warned him not to tell anyone in Paris!

The boycott was worrying the business men of the country, and at the same time enraging the party leaders, and it was a question which point of view would prevail. Jupp Goebbels was calling for a boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany, and the result was a panic on the stock exchange—for some of the principal enterprises of the Fatherland were Jewish-owned, including the big department stores of Berlin. These were the concerns which the original party program had promised to "socialize," and now the ardent young S.A.'s and S.S.'s were on tiptoe to go in and do the job.

The Cabinet was having one of its customary rows over the question, so Johannes explained. The business magnates who had financed Hitler’s rise were coming down on him; how could they pay taxes, how could the government be financed, if rowdies were to-be turned loose to wreck business both at home and abroad? The result of this tug-of-war was a curious and rather comical compromise; the boycott which the party fanatics had announced to begin on the first day of April was to be carried on, but it was- to continue for only one business day of eight hours; then Germany would wait for three days, to see if there was a proper response from the foreign agents and Jewish vampires who had been so shamelessly lying about the Fatherland. If they showed repentance and abandoned their insolent threats, then Germany would in turn permit the Jewish businesses to continue in peace; otherwise they would be sternly punished, perhaps exterminated, and the blame would rest upon the Jewish vampires abroad.

This boycott was the idea of Dr. Goebbels—the Führer himself being busy with the reorganizing of the various state governments. On the evening before the event the crippled little dwarf with the huge wide mouth spoke to his party comrades at a meeting in a hall of the West End, and all over Germany the Stormtroopers listened over the radio. The orator called for a demonstration of "iron discipline"; there must be no violence, but all Jewish establishments would be picketed, and no German man or woman would enter such a place.

The day was made into a Nazi holiday. The Jews stayed at home, and the Brownshirts marched through all the cities and towns of the Fatherland, singing their song to the effect that Jewish blood must spurt from the knife. They posted "Jew signs" wherever there was a merchant who couldn’t prove that he had four Aryan grandparents. They did the same for doctors and hospitals, using a poster consisting of a circular blob of yellow on a black background, the recognized sign of quarantine throughout Europe; thus they told the world that a Jewish doctor was as bad as the smallpox or scarlet fever, typhus or leprosy he attempted to cure.