jefferson and or mussolini

8/14/2019 Jefferson and or Mussolini

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Jefferson &/or Mussolini , Part 1Ezra Pound

5,927 words

Part 1 of 5

Editors Note :

The end of October is one of my favorite times of the year, and not just becauseHalloween falls on the 31st. On the 30th, we celebrate the birthday of E ra !ound,"oet and "ro"het of a just social and economic system, and on #ovember 1st, wecommemorate his death. $urin% this year&s E ra !ound wee', ( will be seriali in% infive "arts his 1)33 boo' Jefferson and/or Mussolini .

This boo' can be found elsewhere on the web, but ( have corrected a number ofscannin% errors. *ince the o"enin% a""aratus of +oreword, etter, !reface, and #otestri'e me more as im"ediments than aids to %ettin% into the te-t, ( have decided to

"ublish them last. They were written last and ma'e better sense read that way.

IJefferson and/or Mussolini

THE fundamental likeness between these two men are probably greater than their differen es!" am not diddling about with a parado#! The top dressing ould hardly be more different,e$erything on the surfa e is different! The $erbal manifestations or at least the more greatlyad$ertised $erbal manifestations undoubtedly differ to a $ery great degree!

%The best go$ernment is that whi h go$erns least,& remarked 'r! (efferson! " don)t proposeto limit my analysis to what Tom (efferson said ! " don)t propose to limit my analysis to whatTom (efferson re ommendedin a particular time and place ! " am on erned with what he
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a tually did, with the way his mind worked both when fa ed with a parti ular problemin a parti ular geography, and when fa ed with the unending problem of *H+ -E!

"f 'ussolini had tried to fool himself into finding or into trying to find the identi al solutionfor "taly 1922.19/2 that (efferson found for +meri a 1770.1 20, there would ha$e been nofas ist de ennio!There is probably no language simple enough and lear enough to e#plain this, to make this

lear to the +meri an e#treme left and to the +meri an liberal! " mean to say that the left isompletely, " mean ompletely, absolutely, utterly, and possibly in urably, ignorant of

(efferson and nearly ignorant of the stru ture of +meri an go$ernment, bothde jure andde facto !

They understand nothing of this sub e t be ause they ha$e no desire to understand it, and pra ti ally all politi al parties are swallowed up in the desire for mutual ignoran e of theirre ipro al differen e!

(efferson)s writings are published in ten $olumes but " know of no heap popular edition ofsele ted and signifi ant passages! 3an 4uren)s autobiography was kept in manus ript up till192 , not, " imagine, be ause of a $ile onspira y of bogey6men bankers but simply be ausethe professors of history and e onomi s were too la y and too ignorant to understand itsimportan e! The final hundred pages would ha$e sa$ed +meri a twenty years) trouble hadthey been printed in 19 ! "nstead of whi h our daddies had -eneral -rant! +nd we ha$eoursel$es been spe tators, disgusted in the main, of the undignified pro ession8 ilson,Harding, *oolidge and Hoo$er!

The heritage of (efferson, :uin y +dams, old (ohn +dams, (a kson, 3an 4uren is HE;E, < in the Italian peninsula at the beginning of the fas ist se ond de ennio, not in'assa husetts or =elaware!

To understand this we must ha$e at least a rudimentary knowledge of the first fifty years ofthe >nited ?tates history + = some first6hand knowledge of "taly 1922.// or 915.//, orstill better some knowledge of 10 years of +meri an demo ra y and of "taly for as long asyou like!

The man least likely, " mean the man in all Europe or in all +meri a least likely, to besurprised at my opening proposition is 4enito 'ussolini himself!

The popular pi tures or ari atures of (efferson are forgotten! 'r! @udwig has done a, shallwe say, popular pi ture of the =u e, or shall we say a pi ture that has been widelydistributed! 'r! @udwig saw in 'ussolini e#a tly what one would e#pe t 'r! @udwig to see!"t is a wonder he didn)t ask the *apo del -o$erno how mu h he paid for his ne kties! " on eknew a tra$eller in smokers) no$elties, $ery like 'r! @udwig in mind and manner! " dare sayhe also would ha$e been distressed by the =u e, for " annot at the moment re all Aamid allthe photos and all the inema newsreelsB " annot re all any photo of the =u e smoking a fat

igar!

" think Emil would ha$e been ust as happy talking to @loyd -eorge or oodrow, or to thosewho ha$e affli ted our era and by whom our publi affairs ha$e been messed up!


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" ha$e myself seen se$eral statesmen, mostly ignorant and, if not ignorant, either shallow orshifty, all engaged in passing the bu k, or in a$oiding the Cuestion, i!e! + D Cuestionwhatsoe$er!

II

Jefferson

(E E;?< parti ipated in one re$olution, he %informed it& both in the sense of shaping itfrom the inside and of edu ating it!

He tried to edu ate another! "t wasn)t te hni ally and offi ially his business as +meri an+mbassador to ran e, but being (efferson he ouldn)t e#a tly help himself! hile fat @ouiswas hewing apples at 3ersailles, @afayette and *o! kept running down to Tom)s lodgings tofind out how they ought to beha$e, and how one should ha$e a ren h re$olution! The royal bed or whate$er they alled it was toppled o$er and T!(! went ba k to the ?tates! He was there ogni ed opposition for twel$e years while Hamilton and his pals were engaged in betraying the people, betraying them honestly, sin erely with a firm on$i tion that it wastheir duty to make the thirteen olonies into the losest possible imitation of 4ritain!

The handiest guide to this period is oodward)sWashington, Image and Man !

+fter that, (efferson go$erned our forefathers for twenty6four years, and you might almostsay he go$erned for forty6eight! There was the slight ross6 urrent of :uin y +dams, butthere was the intensi$ely (effersonian dri$e of 3an 4uren!

hen " say twenty6four years " ount (efferson)s eight years as President and the si#teen

wherein he go$erned more or less through deputies, 'adison and 'onroe!%The best go$ernment is that whi h go$erns least!& ?hallow interpretation puts all theemphasis on the ad$erb %least& and slides o$er the $erb %to go$ern!&

+part from on$ersation and persiflage, how did (efferson go$ernF hat did he reallydoFThrough what me hanism did he a tF

He go$erned with limited suffrage, and by means of on$ersation with his more intelligentfriends!


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Des, there are differen es! There always +;E differen es! The e#a t histori al paralleldoesn)t e#ist! There is opportunism and opportunism! The word has a bad meaning be ause ina world of 'etterni hs, and Talleyrands it means doing the other guy the minute you get the

han e!

There is also the opportunism of the artist, who has a definite aim, and reates out of thematerials present! The greater the artist the more permanent his reation! +nd this is a matterof "@@!

"t is also a matter of the =";E*T"< < THE "@@! +nd if the reader will blow the fog offhis brain and think for a few minutes or a few stray half6hours he will find this phrase bringsus ultimately both to *onfu ius and =ante!

IIIDirectio Voluntatis

THE whole of the Divina Commedia is a study of the %dire tio $oluntatis& Adire tion of thewillB! " mean in its basal sense!

=ante uses an unfortunate terminology! He says that his poem is written in four senses, theliteral, the allegori al, the anagogi al and the moral! This is as bad as 'a or =ouglas)algebra!

The literalF


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+ man in desperate ir umstan es, let us say, ;emy de -ourmont in pre6war ran e mightget to the point of thinking that an idea is spoiled by being brought into a tion, but -ourmontalso got to the point of ursing intelligen e altogether,vide his remarks on the lamb!AChevaux de Diomde B!

He then got around to defining intelle t as the fumbling about in the attempt to reate instin t,or at any rate on the road towards instin t! +nd his word instin t ame to mean merelyPE; E*T and omplete intelligen ewith a limited scope applied to re urrent onditionsAvide his hapters on inse ts in a !hysi"ue de l#$mour B!

The flying ant or wasp or whate$er it was that " saw ut up a spider at E# ideuil may ha$e been a ting by instin t, but it was not a ting by reason of the stupidity of instin t! "t wasa ting with remarkably full and perfe t knowledge whi h did not ha$e to be hewed out in a

%ew &epublic arti le or a$oided in a @ondon'imes leader!

hen a human being has an analogous ompleteness of knowledge, or intelligen e arriedinto a third or fourth dimension, apable of dealing with E ir umstan es, we all itgenius!

This arouses any amount of inferiority omple#! *oolidge ne$er aroused + D inferiorityomple#! e$er did Harding or Hoo$er!

(efferson was one genius and 'ussolini is another! " am not putting inall the steps of myargument but that don)t mean to say they aren)t there!

(efferson guided a go$erning lass! + limited number of the publi had the fran hise! ?o far

as the first si#ty or more or more years of >nited ?tates history are on erned there was noneed for (efferson e$en to imagine a time when the more intelligent members of the publiwould be too stupid or too la y to e#er ise their wit in the dis harge of their %duty!&

" mean to say T!(! had a feeling of responsibility and he knew other men who had it, it didn)to ur to him that this type of man would die out!

(ohn +dams belie$ed in heredity! (efferson left no sons! +dams left the only line ofdes endants who ha$e steadily and without a break felt their responsibility and persistently parti ipated in +meri an go$ernment throughout its 10 years!

"n one ase hereditary pri$ilege would ha$e been useless and in the other it hasn)t beenne essary!

+dams li$ed to see an %aristo ra y of sto k6 obbers and land6 obbers& in a tion and predi tedthem %into time immemorial& Awhi h phrase an ingenious grammariancan by great ingenuity

atalogue and gi$e a name to, by ounting in a string of ellipsesB!


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at any rate both his Hebrew blood and his ? ot h blood oursed $iolently toward the ontrary$iew!

IV

THE modern +meri an heap sneers at demo ra y and at some of (efferson)s slogans are based on the assumption that (efferson)s ideas wereid(es fixes !

+tta ks on (efferson)s sin erity made during his lifetime were made by the same type ofidiot, on pre isely the opposite ta k! " mean be ause they weren)tid(es fixes , and be ause(efferson was in apable of ust that form of stupidity!

+n id(e fixe is a dead, set, stiff, $arnished %idea& e#isting in a $a uum!

The ideas of genius, or of %men of intelligen e& are organi and germinal, the %seed& of thes riptures!

Dou put one of these ideas somewhere, i!e!, somewhere in a definite spa e and time, andsomething begins to happen!

%+ll men are born free and eCual!&

*heers, bands, band wagons, (ohn stops li king the sCuire)s boots, from the +tlanti strip ofthe 4ritish +meri an olonies to the great port of 'arseilles there is a re ord off6sloughing ofinferiority omple#!

The dri$elling imbe ility of the 4ritish and ren h ourts eases to hypnoti eall the pore boobs! +t any rate something gets going!

The idea is as old as sop, who said8 % e are all sons of Ieus!&

+gain a little grammar or a little mediG$al s holarship would be useful, +lbertus 'agnus or+Cuinas or some fusty old s ribbler passed on an age6old distin tion between the $erb andthe noun!

The $erb implies a time, a relation to time! 4e *hristian, go ba k to the newer part of your4ible! 4e *atholi Anot +nglo6*atholi B, onsider the %mystery of the in arnation!&

" really do not gi$e an undertone damn about your terminology so long as you understand itand don)t mess up the meaning of your words! +nd Awe might addB so long as you, as reader,try to understand the meaning of the te#t Awhate$er te#tB you read!

+s a good reader you will refuse to be bamboo led, and when a te#t has no meaning or whenit is merely a mess or bluff you will drop it and o upy yourself with a good literature Aeitherbelles lettres e onomi or politi alB!

%What#s this got to do with ) ) )* &

"f the gentle reader wants to think, he an learn how to start from enollosa)s essay on the*hinese ritten *hara ter!


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+ = he an learn how to put his thoughts together in some sort of order from my translationof the Ta Hio AThe -reat @earningB of *onfu ius A/2 pages and 2 pages respe ti$elyB!

V


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+ragon in the best politi al propagandist poem of our time heers loudly for the 4olshe$iki!

%There are no brakes on the engine!& 4an ai! Kl en, et !

< brakes on the engine! H< splendid, how perfe tly rippingL

VIIntelligentsias

@E " did not ha$e the 3ati an in his front garden! He knew his ;ussia and dealt with the;ussia he had before him! 4y omparison a simple eCuation! " mean by omparison with the?tates of "taly, the du hies and kingdoms, et !, united mu h more re ently than our own, andthe lotted onglomerate of snobbisms, se tional feelings and dis repan ies of ultural le$el,for on the whole the gap between the old i$ili ation, the spe iali ed ultural heritage of theedu ated "talian and the un ultured "talian is probably greater than e#ists anywhere else or atleast, one finds it in sharper ontrast!

"n one sense they)$e all got some sort of ulture, milleniar, forgotten, stu k anywhere fromthe time of


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"t takes a genius harged with some form of dynamite, mental or material, to blast him out ofthese pre on eptions!

% " - ;E3T"< & of the more re ent pro lamations, is almost a refrainout of (efferson!


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" am not putting these senten es in monolinear syllogisti arrangement, and " ha$e nointention of using that old form of tri kery to fool the reader, any reader, into thinking " ha$e pro$ed anything, or that ha$ing read a paragraph of my writing he M < ? something thathe an only know by e#amining a do en or two do en fa ts and putting them all together!

There are no e#a t analogies in history! Henry +dams thought about onstru ting a s ien e ofhistory and found himself in hot water!

@enin had lu k and had one set of obsta les! He had not the "talian obsta les, and it is perfe tly useless to seek the spe ifi weight of one man)s a hie$ement on the falsesupposition that he was sol$ing a different problem from that with whi h he was, or is,a tually on erned!

THE @T>;E, %Patine!&

" ha$e, you may say, li$ed among the more refined spirits of my epo h, not for the purpose ofwriting memoirs to the affe t that %on this brilliant o asion there were present ! ! ! et ! ! ! !& but be ause stupidity bores me and " ha$e ne$er yet found the intelle tual pa e too swift orthe mental dynamite too high for my still unsatisfied appetite!

4ook learnin) has little or nothing to do with intelligen e, ne$ertheless until " ame to "taly "ne$er sat down to a lun h table where there was a good three6 ornered dis ussion of therespe ti$e merits of Hora e and *atullus! That is simply a measure of the desuetude intowhi h lassi studies ha$e fallen, espe ially among pra tising writers!

"t so happens that in the ase " ha$e in mind one of the disputants was a professor Anot of

@atinB and the otherhad translated some illiam 4lake into "talianN though $ery few of hisompatriots ha$e dis o$ered it! aturally neither of them had heard of e onomi s!

" was going up to ?an 'arino, before the new road was made, and on the wooden seatopposite me sat the Pope Hildebrand or someone who ould ha$e sat for Hildebrand)s portrait, a solid and magnifi ent figure, a knut among e lesiasti s, not a filbert or a table nut, but hi kory, nati$e hi kory with a gold hain weighing " should ha$e said about half a Troy pound, and with a most elegant green silk ord round his hat, and an umbrella that wouldha$e held up half +tlas, and with bright imperial purple, red purple silky sau ers under hise lesiasti al buttons!

To the left was ?an @eo and he began to tell me about the athedral, Cuoted =ante, drew aground plan of the hur h, best pure ;omanesCue ! ! ! and so forth!

" said8 %Dou are the head of the hur h in these partsF &

Des, he was the head of the hur h and *< found it what had they done to him, they hadtaken him down T of that magnifi ent ar hite tural monument and put him in a pla e withAthe $oi e went a id with ineffable ontempt and e#asperationB %a pla e with a PO @+T"< L&

This is the spirit that filled the :uattro ento athedrals with the slabs of mala hite, porphyry,lapis la uli! +nd his dad must ha$e ploughed his own field!


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Put him into the pi ture along with the refined ar hGologi al 'onsignori whom " ha$e met inthe libraries, or the irre on ilables who were still howling for the restoration of temporal power, or the old %bla k& families who shut their doors in )7 when the Pope shut himselfinto the 3ati an and kept )em shut until 'ussolini and the Pope signed their on ordat!?ub e t matter for two do en "talian Prousts, who don)t e#ist be ause ea h segment of the

ountry is different!D *+ )T *< :>E; + '+P

=own in oggia an hysteri al female, displeased, or rather distressed, that " should lea$e amonstrous and horrible hur h, " mean the interior, a omposite horror of stu o, dragged meto look at %their 'adonna,& plaster, from the ;ue ?t! ?ulpi e or some other fa tory, $oid ofde en y and $oid of tradition! The pained painted horror had lifted up its eyes si# years agowhen the town had holera or measles or something and the faithful were sa$ed by themira le!

+t Terra ina the sa ristan showed me a little marble baro o angel on the floor of thesa risty, the bishop had had to ha$e it taken out of the hur h be ause the peasants insisted on%worshipping "T as ?anta @u ia!& @)adora$ano ome ?anta @u ia!

+-+" ?T H"*H

@in ?teffens ame ba k from ;ussia! 'ussolini saw him, and ?teff in his autobiographyreports the =u e as asking him8 %Dou)$e seen all that! Ha$en)t you learned anythingF &

" also saw ?teff at that time! ?teff was thinking!

There are early fas ist manifestos, or at least one that is highly anti6 leri al! " also wasanti leri al! ")$e seen *hristians in England, ")$e seen ren h *atholi s at +miens and at;o amadour, and " don)t want to see anymore! ren h bigotry is as displeasing a spe ta le asmodern man an lay eyes on!

The *hristian orruptions ha$e ne$er been able to infe t the "talian, he takes it easy, the'editerranean sanity subsists!

'y anti6 leri alism petered out in ;omagna! " re all a ountry priest guying the sa ristan inthe Tempio 'alatestiano be ause the foreigner knew more about the hur h, %his& hur h,

than the sa ristan!" re all also the pu led e#pression of the same priest a few days later as he saw me makingmy farewells to the stone elephants! " asked him if he onsidered this form of de$otionhereti al!

He grinned and seemed wholly undisturbed by fears for my indefinite future!

+n old nun in hospital had a good deal of trouble in digesting the fa t that " wasn)t *hristian,no " wasn)tN thank -od, " wasn)t a Protestant, but " wasn)t a *atholi either, and " wasn)t a(ew, " belie$ed in a more an ient and lassi al system with a pla e for Ieus and +pollo! Towhi h with infinite gentleness, %I) tutta una religione!& %


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Hen e the moderation in the de ree8 These ser$i es will ontinue be ause it is the ustom ofthe great ma ority of the people!

" find ! in the Pia a ?an 'ar o hu kling o$er %Hanno bastinato il be oL& + bit of pure-oldoni that he had ust seen in the 3enetian law ourts!

+ row in the 3enetian fish market is reported in the daily paper with almost the same phraseas that used in the shindy between ?igismund 'alatesta and *ount ederi o >rbino, errara,1Q and something!

o +meri an who hasn)t li$ed for years in "taly has the faintest shade of a shadow of aon eption of the multiformity and di$ersity of wholly separate and distin t onser$atisms

that e#ist in this ountry!

+ll of )em ar$ed in stone, arpentered and $arnished into shape, built in stu o, or organi inthe mind of the people!

%4ombe, bombe, bombe per s$egliare Cuesti dormiglioni di Rpensatori) "taliani, he redonodi essere an ora al tempo del 'etastasio,& itation from letter re ei$ed this morning,

ebruary , anno S", headed ;ome! + letter from a man " met a few years ago still arrying+ustrian shell fragments in his system and still rushed! The nitrogly erine he wants is purely$erbal nitrogly erine! %4ombs, bombs, bombs to wake up these sluggards, these eyetalianRthinkers) who still think they)re in the time of 'etastasio!&

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+ny thorough udgment of '>??;npreparedness and sloppy pa ifism are not ne essarily the best guarantees of pea e!

+s to a tual pa ifismN there are plenty of people who think it merely a se tion of war propaganda, and until there is at least one pea e so iety that will look at the fa ts, one maysuspe t the lot of orruption!

"f they are not all heats and liars they are too dumb to fa e ontemporary e onomi s, and thesafety of to6morrow annot be entrusted wholly to morons!


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The =>*E sits in ;ome alling fi$e hundred bluffs Aor thereaboutsB e$ery morning! ?ome bright lad might present him to our glorious fatherland under the title of '>?? ME;!

+n a ute riti tells me " shall ne$er learn to write for the publi be ause " insist on itingother books!How the deu e is one to a$oid itF ?e$eral ideas o urred to humanity before " bought a portable typewriter!

=e -ourmont wrote a good deal about breaking up li h s, both $erbal and rhythmi !

There is possibly some tri k of handing out *onfu ius, robenius, enollosa, -ourmont,=ante, et !, as if the bright lad on the platform had done all of their obs for himself, with thee#press aim of delighting his publi !

" shall go on patiently trying to e#plain a omple# of phenomena, without pretending that itstwenty6se$en elements an with profit to the reader be onsidered as fi$e!


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Part 2 of 5

VII

T+M" - it by and large the ;ussian re$olution seems to me fairly simpleby comparison ! "f "am wrong it is probably be ause " ha$en)t been ten years in ;ussia!
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+t any rate,as I see it , the ;ussian re$olution is the end of the 'ar#ian y le, that is to say'ar#ian e onomi s were in$ented in a time when labour was ne essary, when a great deal oflabour was still ne essary, and his, 'ar#)s, $alues are based on labour!

The new e onomi s bases $alue on the ultural heritage, that is to say on labour P@>? theomple# of in$entions whi h make it possible to get results, whi hused to be e# lusi$ely theresults of labour, with $ery little labour, and with a Cuantity of labour that tends steadily to

diminish!

"f the indulgent reader will onsider not < E re$olution but the su essi$e re$olutions,$iolent and Cuiet, politi al, e onomi , so ial, he will see that none of them start from thesame point, and that none of them arri$e at identi al destinations, and that a nation twohundred years behind the rest gi$es a ump whi h may arry it further in a gi$en dire tionthan any one has gone, but that the ne#t nation to ump from, let us say, a higher, a moread$an ed le$el of ulture lands in a different pla e on a still higher le$el, or into a still greater

omple#ity!

" find no metaphor for the bathos of those deni ens of de$eloped ountries who kneel and ask;ussia to sa$e )em! " am only reminded of the story about -eorge 'oore and his bra es!

;ussian 4olshe$ism is the out ome of enturies of histori determinism, ;ussian habit ofha$ing a town oun il or mir where all the moonheads used to go and aw about it! ;ussiafull of tribal superstitions , by whi h " mean %left6o$ers!&

There is no use in thinking about sho$ing this state of things suddenly onto a totally different people with utterly different habits! ;esults would be ust as funny as the first trials by uryamong the Hungarian peasantry!

+s to ommunism, the frontier between pri$ate and publi affairs is


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4esides, a ;ussian who isn)t a member of the party is ertainly less a proprietor, than is amember!

" ha$e no doubt that the idea of a so$ereign people ga$e the buff6and6blue hefties a greatsensation! "t was a stimulant, a toni , it may ha$e washed off a lot of inferiority omple#, tho)" an)t belie$e that the sense of being a feudal underling was $ery strong in *onne ti ut in177 !

Perhaps the greatest work of a politi al genius is to orre t the more flagrant disproportionsof his epo h! "f the reader will peruse any re ord of the utterly dri$elling idio y of the ren h*ourt from the time of Henri "3 to fat @ouis, or the annals of any European ountry in these$enteenth and eighteenth enturies he will find himself growing more and more rabidly(effersonian!

"t is probable that a reader in 21// looking o$er the re ord of nineteenth6 entury $illainy willfeel a re$ulsion from %irresponsibility,& growing more a ute as he omes down into thedebau h of Hatrys, Mreugers and other un on$i ted finan iers whose tropisms onform!

VIII

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"f we had a perfe t organ of publi opinion or a perfe t newspaper earnestly trying to tellthoughtful readers the truth, that would be lo$ely!

The paper dis o$ering an error of its own would report it and so forth!

+s it is, e$en our supposedly serious Cuarterlies do not orre t misstatements! 'y mind goes ba k to *ol! Har$ey who was an editor before he wore short pants in @ondon!

Then there is the una$oidable differen e in truth itself, whi h arises from the different predisposition and from the different intention and the different apa ity of the beholder!

+ field is one thing to the strolling by6passer, another to the impressionist painter, yet anotherto the farmer determined to plant seed in it, and get a return!

There are some things whi h should be reported to %the authorities& firstN and to the publionly when the authorities are wilfully inattenti$e, in ompetent or dishonest!

English free spee h, the pri$ilege of Hyde Park oratory, et !, is mostly a mark of ontempt forthought inany form whatsoe$er! 4ritain belie$es that the talk is a safety $al$e to let offsteam, or that, at any rate this form of erebral se retion is in omprehensible!

The @atin an)t help belie$ing that an idea "? something or other! Put an idea into a @atin andit makes him think, or at least talk, if not a t!

HE;E =


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The irresponsible may be in a ertain sense %free& though not always free of theonseCuen es of their own irresponsibility, whate$er the theoreti al go$ernment, or e$en if

there be no go$ernment whatsoe$er, but their freedom is


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*onfu ius suggests that we learn to distinguish the root from the bran h! "n the oh programme the ?hura or battle play pre edes the Ma ura or drama of mysterious alm!

Dou an Cuite meritoriously sigh for usti e, but 'ussolini has been presumably right in putting the first emphasis on ha$ing a go$ernment strong enough to get the said usti e! Thatis to say taking first the %go$ernment& in our te#t and pro eeding at reasonable pa e towardthe %whi h go$erns least!& Thus with the onsortium of some industry that was dis ussed theother day ! ! ! the $arious powers in said industry were told to onfer, and were asked to workout an agreement of Cuota produ tion with no finger of go$ernment inter e ted! "f they an)tagree the go$ernment will take on the ob of arranging an agreement!

The idea of super$ision may ha$e started from +dam ?mith)s di tum8 'en of the same tradene$er meet without a onspira y against the general publi !

This has taken more than a hundred years to sink in!

hy, you will ask, should ", a orre t (effersonian and *onfu ian, a ept all these sodifferent detailsF

XThe New !cono"ics

" 1917 or 191 'a or =ouglas began to think out loud, about redit! The 4ritish Pressshowed itself for what it was, a hired toady, a monkey garden where thought was taboo! Dou

ould not get any dis ussion! "f the 'a or said or wrote something that sounded all right, thelayman ouldn)t in that year orroborate it! o one of %greater e#perien e& either

ontradi ted him lu idly or onfirmed him from adeCuate knowledge!" set out on a longish trail, asking Cuestions from all and sundry!


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+nd going ba k a little, the ?inn einers as they were then alled before that meant soe# lusi$ely Eamon de 3alera, put a man on to studying the ew E onomi s! +nd ?enor'adariaga was alled ba k to ?pain to look after the treasury or something or other of thatsort!

+nd, more re ently, all this yatter about te hno ra y got out from under the lid! ithout,apparently, mu h moral dire tion ! ! ! my own belief being that all or most of the te hno ra yresults had to be got surreptitiously, in so far as the members of the *olumbia >ni$ersityfa ulty had, in great measure, to on eal the signifi an e of their findings, and sti k to the purely material phase! 4ut in 191 we knew in @ondon that the problem of produ tion wassol$ed, and that the ne#t ob was to sol$e distribution and that this meant a newadministration of redit! " don)t think there was any ambiguity about that!

The Cuestion being how and who was to break down the ring of raft, of fraud, and of iron!PE;?< +@

@ondon stank of de ay ba k before 191Q and " ha$e re orded the feel of it in a poem here andthere! The li$e man in a modern ity feels this sort of thing or per ei$es it as the sa$age per ei$es in the forest! " don)t know how many men keep ali$e in modern i$ili ation butwhen one has the frankness to ompare notes one finds that the intuition is onfirmed ust asneatly or almost as neatly as if the other man saw a shop sign! " mean the per eption isnotsimply the per eption of one)s own sub e ti$ity, but there is an ob e t whi h others per ei$e!

Thus @ondon going mouldy ba k in say 1912 or 1911! +fter the ar death was all o$er it! "said something of the sort to Padre (ose Eli ondo! There had been a number of ?paniards in@ondon during the ar, there being no Paris for them to go to!

%Des,& said the Padre, %we feel it, and we are all of us going ba k,& i!e!, to ?pain!

@ondon was in terror of thought! othing was being buried! Paris was tired, $ery tired, butthey wantedtable rase , they wanted the dead things leared out e$en if there were nothing torepla e them!

"taly was, on the other hand, full of boun e! " said all of this to a @ombard writer! " said8@ondon is dead, Paris is tired, but here the pla e is ali$e! hat they don)t know is plenty, butthere is some sort of animal life here! "f you put an idea into these people they would =!?!+! of H"? T"'E, that is to say a time when,and in a pla e where, there was abundan e and super6abundan e of land!"n Europe there wasn)t enough land, not so mu h in the ;E+@ sense of the land being there but in the sense that it wasn)t a$ailable for publi needs! "T +? < E=!

There e#isted a problem of distribution in +meri a though nobody alled it that!

%E$eryone& thought it would be a good thing for the land to be ome produ ti$e!

hat)s the differen e for the sake of a politi al emergen y between an o$er6abundan e andan o$er6produ tion whi h rapidly produ es an o$er6abundan eF

+nd what does one =< when fa ed with eitherF


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either he nor T!(! was interested in, nor bamboo led by, money! That gi$es us threeommon denominators or possibly four8 agri ulture, sense of the %root and the bran h,&

readiness to s rap the lesser thing for the thing of ma or importan e, indifferen e tome hanism as weighed against the main purpose, fitting of the means to that purpose withoutregard to abstra t ideas, e$en if the idea was pro laimed the week before last!

(efferson was denoun ed as $a illating! + man who plugs after a main purpose for si#ty yearsis no more $a illating than a general who wins a ampaign by keeping his light troopsmobile! and shootoff other people)s munitions!&

@eslie, as a ournalist, of sorts, was o$erwhelmed by this brillian e! 4oth ousins are half6 breed +meri ans, determined to su eed, ust like the heapest of 'r! @orimer)s heroes!

Deats, who was personally impressed by *hur hill as a table ompanion, and who found himso mu h more interesting than @loyd -eorge or the other 4ritish politi ians, was pu led, atleast for a number of years, be ause inston didn)t somehow get to the topN and has more orless faded out of the pi ture, e$en though inston)s harming mother used to tell people that

inston had got out the fleet A+ugust 191QB!

"n short a -> , a 4"- -> pointed at nothing!*E is possibly the apa ity to pi k out the element of immediateand ma or importan e in any tangleN or, in the ase of a man, to go straight to the entre, forthe fellow)s ma or interest! % hy do you want to put your ideas in orderF&


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(efferson was all o$er the shop, dis ursi$e, interested in e$erything8 to su h an e#tent thate$en wrote a long rambling essay on metri ! He was trying to set up a i$ili ation in thewilderness, he measured the 'aison *arr e, sent o$er Houdin to +meri a, and thought itwould be better not to s ulp ashington in a fan y dress ostume!

'ussolini found himself in the luttered rubbish and luttered splendour of the do en or morestrata of human effort 8 history, the romanesCue luttered o$er with baro o, e$ery possiblesort of refinement, dust6 o$ered, sub6di$ided, passi$e, s epti al, la y, aressed by milleniarsun, ;ome, 4y antium, Homeri -ree e still in ?i ily,belle au bois dormante N full of habits, brittle in mind, or say8 half of )em brittle, and the other half ha$ing fire ra ker mentality,sputter6and6bag enthusiasm, all o$er in thirteen se onds!

+ll right, bo), you ome along with a ard6de k, set ard for ea h lot of theories, demo6liberal, bolshe$ik, anti6 leri al, et !, and make that unk6shop into a nation, a li$e nation onits toes like a young bull in the *ordo$a ring!

" ha$e seen se$eral admirable shows in my time! " saw groggy old England get up onto herfeet from 191Q to )1 ! " don)t like wars, et ! ! ! ! but gi$en the state of de aden e and omfortand general in ompeten e in pre6 ar England, nobody who saw that effort an remainwithout respe t for England6during6that6war!

" am not ontradi ting myself! ;espe t for that honest hea$e and effort has nothing to do withthe state of utter dithering deliCues en e into whi h England slopped in 1919!

" like to see a man do something " an)t! " like to see 4ran usi settle a form in stone, orPi abia show up half a year)s work by Pi asso with a few apparently effortless twists of the pen!

+ll of whi h is a entuated by my ontempt at the sight of some bloater with great positioneither stalling or a$oiding the point or being ust too god6damned stupid or too superfi iallysilly to understand something that is put plumb bang in front of him, and whi h if he weren)t ust a lowdown, ommon, yaller hound dog he would look at and ha$ing seen would a t onhis knowledge!

"t is one of my lasting regrets that " didn)t when " had the han e, show up 'r! 4alfour!That)s the urse of ha$ing had some sort of a bringing up and of not ha$ing es aped it! "t was," think, the first time " had seen the great +rthur and " was the youngest man in the room, and

" was the only man not in a swaller6tail oat ! ! ! so " was modest and well beha$ed ! ! ! or atany rate a ted that way ! ! ! " also looked at the audien e and ouldn)t see anyone there whowas the least likely to understand what " had ready to tell )em!

XVI

H< "? worth meetingF

+ de ade or so ago when " was settling into Paris " more or less un ons iously drifted on to,you an)t say this"uestion , but " was talking to 4ran usi with the undefined aim ofas ertaining more or less ! ! ! et ! ! ! !

+nd he said of @ ger, we weren)t talking of anyone)s painting, but he said8 %"l sait $i$re!&


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+nd years later he said of a group of unsatisfa tory people8 %"ls sont empoisonn s de lagloire!& hi h " suppose you an translate, %poisoned by a desire to get reputations!&

%*)est tou ours le beau monde Cui gou$erne!&

The people who know how to li$e are, so far as my personal e#isten e and onta ts ha$e beenon erned, mainly great artists Awriters, any kind of onstru torsB or else artists ofonspi uous honesty who go their road with that sin erity whi h is supposed to go$ern all the

work of the s ientists!

That is to say they are interested in the


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The rest is politi al %ma hinery,& bureau ra y, flummydiddle! (efferson, 'ussolini, @enin, allhated or hate it! @enin wanted to get rid of it8 %+ll this is politi al ma hinery, want to get ridof it,& as ?tef reported @enin)s opinion in 191 !

(efferson started to lean up the so ial flummydiddle, etiCuette, pre eden e, et !

"n a hide6bound "taly, fas ism meant at the start =";E*T a tion, ut the a kle, if a man is amere s!o!b! don)t argue!

-et it into your head that "taly was, e$en in 19 , immeasurably ahead of England in so far asland laws and the rights of the man who works on the soil are on erned! ?ome of the folliesand ruelties of great English owners would not now be permitted in "taly! *ertain kinds ofdomesti enemy would be shipped to theconfino !

Dou an buy and own pretty $illas and an ient ar hite tural triumphs, but you an)t ut downoli$e trees ust when you like and you an)t dri$e the % olonno& off his fields! He an, " think,still be your % olonno& instead of the % olonno& of the former proprietor, but you don)t byany means own him despite the feudal de orations or ourtesy!

?e ular habit, pi turesCue, et !, as in the ase of %the sailor!& There is, near here, an antient$illa, and a nabob therein, and %the sailor& ust ame and sat in the kit hen where there was plenty of room, he adopted the $illa, and he ultimately adopted the hauffeur)s seat, et ! Thatdon)t pro$e anything about anything e# ept ertain phases of mentality! ?er$ants ask twi e asmu h from people with big houses as from people with ottages and small flats! Primiti$esense of eCuity and usti e or @atin ommon6sense!

XVII+s to the Particular ituation and the Violation of -i%erties, Traditional -i%erties,.ights, etc

(E E;?< had no diffi ulty about keeping 'E in his ountry, in fa t he found it diffi ultto imagine + Done lea$ing +meri a for Europe A apoleoni and ;oyal EuropeB! hen a parti ular emergen y arose he showed no regard for liberties in the de laration ofE'4+;-

'ussolini found himself fa ed with the in$erse situation! "talians had for de ades been goingabroad to work, they sent ba k %money& but that did


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-ents who make guns like to sell )emN su h is the present state of the world, in the bourgeoisdemoliberal anti6'ar#ian anti6fas ist anti6@eninist system!

+nd as the-tampa orrespondent has indi ated, the selling of guns and powder differs from+@@ other industries in that the more you sell the greater the demand for the produ t! Themore goes to onsumer + the greater the demand of the other onsumers! Hen e the lo$e, thelo$ing and tender lo$e of banks for munition works!

ran e by the so6 alled pea e got a lot of ni e iron, ni ely there in the ground, to be dug upfor profit, and nobody in the ? hneider family onsidered it wrong to want to sell iron, asCui kly and as e#tensi$ely as possible!

Hen e the "talian embargo on the "talian population whi h has for ten years been impro$ingthe olde home yard!

obody loathes passports more than the present writer, but passports for a purpose are a$astly different matter from passports sho$ed on to the +meri an people with no shadow of ustifi ation whatsoe$er at an enormous ost to the +meri an publi and as, indire tly, ameans of presenting +meri an millions of dollars to foreign and often unfriendly nations for < ause sa$e the fundamental nastiness of se$eral disreputable or half6witted presidents oneof whom was THE re ord6breaking destroyer of the best +meri an institutionsN and with noe# use sa$e the half6wittedness of an unthinking and in ompetent bureau ra y!

They weren)t meant to keep +meri ans at home for the good of +meri a, they were ust auseless annoyan e be ause a diseased president V ilsonW with a one tra k mind liked to showhis authority Aand didn)t are a damn whether his authority was legal or notB and be ause pusin one part of a go$ernment system tends to produ e pustulen e throughout that system!

4a k of (efferson)s embargo and of 'ussolini)s there was a will for the good of their nations!

"n neither man of genius was pre on eption or theory strong enough to blind the leader to theimmediate need!

E$en the Cuestion of the effi ien y of the measures doesn)t arise!

'ost historians seem to tend to belie$e that (efferson)s embargo may ha$e done more goodthan harm, there is no shadow of a doubt whatsoe$er that 'ussolini)s embargo has done what

the leader intended! o one denies the material and immediate effe t8 grano, bonifica, restauri , grain, swamp6drainage, restorations, new buildings, and, " am ready to add off my own bat, ++ +ME E= " TE@@"-E *E in the nation and a new @+ ->+-E in the debates in the*hamber!

XVIII

+@@ right, go to the House of *ommons for a display of gas, e$asion, in ompeten e, andthen read the-tampa )s report for th (anuary or whene$er it was, of "talians getting up andsaying what they meant with larity and e$en with bre$ity, or at any rate not stalling and beating about the bush!


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+nd e$en here is the hand or eye or ear of the =u e, the =ebunker par e# ellen e, for thedeputies and ministers know that there is an E="T


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play the god6damned dri$elling fool, first with a grab for metal that annihilated the "n as,then with a gamble for % olonies,& i!e!, $ast tra ts that no nation in Europe at that time wasorgani ed to manage!

The putrid idio y of eighteenth6 entury European go$ernments is something no normal manan imagine until he has waded through a hundred $olumes of the history of that period! Thekings and ministers of that day were as idioti as


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XXI

(E E;?< didn)t belie$e any nation had the right to ontra t debts that it ouldn)t pay offwith reasonable effort within nineteen years!

This didn)t ome into pra ti al politi s in his time! He wanted to get rid of sla$ery, this didn)thappen in his time though he took thought to pre$ent its spreading into the orth and est!

He belie$ed in keeping out of European affairs and +meri a was kept out until 1 12!

%The annibals of Europe are eating ea h other again!& That)s up6to6date A19/2B all rightenough! ;ead *orba io)s edition of the $olume on annon touts, it may indi ate the spirit ofEurope, or of orth Europe as distin t from 'editerranean sanity!

or if ;ome was a onCuering empire, renaissan e "taly e$ol$ed the do trine of the balan eof power, first for use inside the peninsula! "taly produ ed notable pea emakers who basedtheir glory on pea e tho) it ame by the sword, i ! Este, *osimo, @oren o 'edi i, e$en?for a ondottiero, all men standing for order and, when possible, for moderation!

The main line of +meri an onfli t for the first half of the last entury was the fight between publi interest and the interests! ot a showy theatri al shindy! +nd we end to6day withenlightenment of a (effersonian fundamental, transposed, e#panded, de$eloped!

%The best pla e for keeping money is in the po kets of the people!&

That does not mean to say that we are to go ba k to "ndian or 4urmese hoarding! Dou must

take the te#t and let time transpose it!e ha$e had the entury of the %benefits of on entration of apital& Aand the malefitsB!

e ha$e ome to the point where money must be got into people)s po kets if goods are tomo$e and modern life to ontinue %the good life!& +ll of this is dynami and mobile and thefurthest possible remo$e from stati oriental burial of ewels and sil$er!

The Hindu buries his metal be ause he has no trust in publi order or the durability of adynasty and be ause he wants to hide the money for safety! This ourse did


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*redit is or was immobili ed in "ndia by burial of metal! "t is not the means but the end thatmatters!

;ephrase (efferson)s saying8 %The best pla e for a nation)s reser$e of redit is in as manyindi$idual po kets as possible!&

" think that will probably hold right through the oming hange in the system!

"f money is e$er on ei$ed as ertifi ate of work done there will be no need of ta#es! orkdone for the state will be paid by state ertifi ate, issued dire t, without anyone)s needing to

adge around and get it from 4ill, =i k and illiam before paying it to (oe, 'ike and Henry!

" ha$e worried onsiderably o$er what appears to be the too great ease and simpli ity of this proposition! or e$ery bit of =>;+4@E goods there ought ertainly to be a ti ket, so thatinstead of toting the blo k of ro k or the arm6 hair you ould, with greater ease, tote theti ket and swap it for whate$er you at the moment wanted!

4ut what about perishable goods, stuff that rots and is eaten, an you ha$e spare ti kets lyingabout with nothing to orrespond or be deli$ered, i!e!, depre iation in the $alue of the ti ketsF

;e orded time has dealt with the underlying eCuation and perishable goods, grain andfoodstuffs ha$e been in times of plenty e#tremely heapby comparison with permanentgoods!

?till if the ertifi ate of work done let us say for the go$ernment is only paid out by (ohn to(oe HE (oe deli$ers, i!e!, if it only ir ulates when it mo$es for $alue re ei$ed it ould

on ei$ably retain a true $alue! The unspent notes in (ohn)s po ket would not of ne essityupset the whole working of a new system, or for e people to sell apples at street orners!

There is no reason why this reser$e in e$eryman)s po ket should be any more dangerous thana reser$e in a bank! "t would be mu h less likely to free e!

" suspe t that the amount of money paid dire tly for ne essary and desirable publi works isabout proportionate to that in rease of ir ulating medium whi h Hume saw as needful fornational welfare!


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+ D< E who has seen the furniture at ? hXnbrunn ought to understand the flop of the+ustrian Empire, and anyone who saw it before the flop ought to ha$e known that the flopwas oming!

robenius has outstripped other ar hGologists and e#plorers

AaB be ause he does not belie$e things e#ist without auseNAbB as orollary, be ause he onsidered that the forms of pottery, et !, had auses!

ran (osef was one of the most schifoso figures of the period remembered by li$ing people,he hadn)t e$en the superfi ial and tri ky brillian e of the unspeakable Hohen ollern! astymen ha$e o urred without affe ting the ourse of empire $ery mu h, but an age ?H< ? inits forms, in its material forms, you an)t ha$e the top of an empire stu k in that ongeries ofan East ?ide brothel enri hed to the n)th during a growing period of a nation!

hen the ourt furnishings get to the le$el of Moster and 4ial)s musi 6hall stage parlour, theempire is on the wane!

Pewk, artisti ally speaking, is distinguishable by the substitution of e#pensi$eness for designin all material ob e ts! The great age does not are for ost, it usually manifests at a minimumof material e#pense and a ma#imum of erebral outlay!

Howe$er, dropping theory, the bolshe$iki brought in a greater are for intelle tual life and probably a greater respe t for riteria than the ;omanoff)s supporters had had!

The last time " was in England " went to a party, a @abour 'ember)s party, the mental life

was more li$ely than that at @iberal parties!hen one beau monde gets too ditheringly silly or too besottedly ugly, a new and different

beau monde rises to repla e it!

+s in a new art mo$ement, " think the $itality shows first in a greater e#igen e and pre isionwith regard to antiCuity, and a break with the on$entionally re ogni ed % lassi ,& ora epted great works of the past, whereof the list has always been $itiated, and in the menu ofwhi h there are umbled together the real works and the sham or the hokum!

The "talian awakening began showing itself in two ways!

"! The bookshop windows began to hange! "n pla e of the old line, =ante, Petrar h, Tassoand +riosto, there began to appear slowly translations of Mipling and =ostoie$sky and, as thehole in the dyke widened, the torrent of translations good, bad and indifferent, yellowliterature, the best alla e, the worst slop, odehouse, woodlouse, et !, but also H! (ames,Hardy, and a dis reet number of books worth reading, though not yet any real riteria nor anysu essful effort to get the best before the worst! +s far as the publi is on erned no su heffort is apparent in ran e, England, or +meri a either!

4ut no one who e$er looks in a bookshop window and who has known su h "talian windowsfor thirty years an fail to ha$e seen the differen e, the sign of hunger and uriosity!


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""! The restauri! rom ?i ily up to +s oli, from one end of the boot to the other, the blobbyand lumsy stu o is pried loose from the olumnsN the pure lines of the romanesCue are dugout, the old ineradi able "talian skill shows in the anonymous raftsmen! Three whole

olumns, si# fragments, a ouple of apitals are s rat hed out of a rotten wall, and within afew months the gra eful hiostro is there again as it had been in the time of ederigo?e ondo!?omeone mentions the ?enatore *orrado ;i i and no one knows who else or how manyother sensibilities ha$e been employed!

here other regimes would ha$e haggled and niggled the fas ist regime has ust gone ahead,without any fireworks whate$er! +part from spe ialists employed " don)t suppose there areten men in "taly who know as mu h about these restorations as " do, simply from ha$ingdawdled about the peninsula looking at what was in front of me! "t is not merely a matter of

"@@" - " the old gaps with on rete! "t is a re onCuest of an an ient skill, su h as " sawthe head artisan using in Teramo or in +s oli Pi eno up in the mountains o$er there by the+driati %where nobody goes!&

The term %gerar hia& is perhaps the beginning of a riti al sense,vide the four tiles and thedo en or so bits of insuperable pottery, pale blue on pale brownish ground, in the ante6roomof the Pala o 3ene ia!


E ra Pound painted by yndham @ewis

Q,5Q/ words

Part Q of 5

XXIII.esistance
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(E E;?< writing to +dams Aor $i e $ersaB noted that before their time hardly anyone had bothered to think about politi al organi ation or the organi ation of go$ernment! ?ame in ourtimere e onomi s! "t is a new sub e t! 4ankers who ontrol itde facto make no laims to bemore than artisans, pra tising habits whi h ha$e worked!

hen there is a shindy they hire touts, either shallow or dishonest, to embroil and onfusedis ussion! The little real thought of the past twenty years has been almost subterranean!hen it does for e itself into the light one ams against $arious sorts of inertia, the fighting

inertia of those who)$e -


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dire tion, or the indi$iduals who had any ha$e had to on eal it and profess to be on ernedH? the ability to register that multiple per eption in the material of his art!

hen the nit6wits omplained of (efferson)s superfi iality it merely amounted to theirnonper eption of the multitude of elements needed to start any de ent i$ili ation in the+meri an wilderness8 learning, ar hite ture, art that registered ontemporary phenomenainstead of merely distorting them into re ei$ed on$ention, seed of the right sort,transportation, responsibility, resilien e in the indi$idual and in the lo al group!

ashington ould see mathemati s from the ground end, geometry in its initial sense,measuring of the earth! :uin y +dams took it as astronomy, furthest possible remo$e fromall human onta t or human %pollution,& as " suppose all human Cuality may appear to a mansuffering from puritanitis!

(efferson was polumetis , many6minded, and as literature wasn)t his main ob, this multipli ityis now re orded item by item in his letters, one interest at a time, and the unrefle ti$e reader

gets simply the sense of leisure without per ei$ing the essential dynamism of the man whodid get things =< E!

?uppose (efferson had had to be both (efferson and Pat Henry, or both (ohn +dams and (as!


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+nd the best go$ernment is that whi h translates the best thought most speedily into a tion!

?u h translation is undoubtedly more swift and dramati when a nation has slipped behindand has merely to at h up with the pa emakers! Thus the leaps of ;ussia and "taly in manymatters of detail!

e$ertheless 'ussolini has a more responsi$e instrument than any other " an think of,something does appear to get started with %bewildering freCuen y,& grain, swamps, birds,yes, gentle reader, birds, there are more birds in the oli$e6yards, %birds friendly toagri ulture!& !H! Hudson wrote a lot about the sub e t, the aged 'unthe wrote a book about*apri, but the 4


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=>;" - ten years " ha$e heard atta ks on fas ismo, $iolent at first and then with ontinuingdiminuendos, nearly always on what seemed to me irrele$ant details, though o asionally "ha$e met with a ranking broadside, as for e#ample the ;ussian)s %4>T it belongs to them,&meaning that the ;ussian state belongs to the people!


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national good! hen the men of their understanding, and when the nu leus of the nationalmind hasn)t the moral for e to translate knowledge into a tion " don)t belie$e it matters adamn what legal forms or what administrati$e forms there are in a go$ernment! The nationwill get the staggers!

+nd any means are the right means whi h will remagneti e the will and the knowledge!THE *"3"@ +; dro$e e$erything out of the +meri an mind! Perhaps the worst bit ofdamage was that it dro$e out of mind the first serious anti6sla$ery andidate, not be ause hewas an anti6sla$ery andidate, but be ause he sa$ed the nation and freed the +meri antreasury! (a kson had the glory, let us say he got the glory be ause he already had a gooddeal, the aureole of ew


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finan e is the same! "nflation, deflation, boobs buying on the inflate and getting run hed bythe deflate!

"n one sense +meri an history or the history of +meri an de$elopment runs from (effersonthrough 3an 4uren and the takes a holidayN or is broken by a $ast parenthesis, getting rid ofthe bla k hattel sla$ery, and then plunging fairly into un ons iousness!

e were diddled out of the heritage (a kson and 3an 4uren left us! The real power ustoo ed away from the ele torate! Thede facto go$ernment be ame se ret, nobody ared adamn about thede jure ! The people gro$elled under ilson and Harding, then ame the nit6wit and the fat6fa e!

ilson betrayed whate$er was left of the original ideals of our go$ernment! The most typi alstory of the oodro$ian spirit as it permeated from the hief sten h through the lesser

rannies of administration is the tale of 3an =ine, a long Hollander who had drifted into*hi ago a bit before 1917, and had applied for +meri an iti enshipN he got a ta# form,des ribing him as an alien, sub e t to ertain imposts, and he got alled up for army ser$i e!He said to the udge8 %" am perfe tly willing to ser$e in the army, but if " am iti en enoughto ser$e in the army ")$e got a right no to be ta#ed as a foreigner!&

The udge Aor edgeB leaned o$er his desk and whinnied8 %?eay, yeng feller, deon)t yew knowthet in TH"? ME T;D there ain)t naowbody that) got enny garr)=+' rightswhotsoe$erL&

"s it a risis " the system, or is the system in risisF

How does the (effersonian answer the fas ist in a!d! 19//, 157 of +meri an independen e,1QQ of the republi , S" of the era fas istaF

This is not to say " %ad$o ate& fas ism in and for +meri a, or that " think fas ism is possiblein +meri a without 'ussolini, any more than " or any enlightened bolshe$ik thinks

ommunism is possible in +meri a without @enin!

" think the +meri an systemde jure is probably Cuite good enough, if there were only 5men with guts and the sense to >?E it, or e$en with the apa ity for answering letters, or printing a paper!

XXVIPower

THE milleniar habit of sla$ery and the impulse toward ensla$ing others is $ery strong in thera e! 4y the time hattel6sla$ery was dri$en out by the +meri an *i$il ar, it had beendis o$ered that paid labour probably ost less to the employer!

?ome men are now struggling to on$in e the mob that the ma hine is ready to repla e thesla$e!

The greatest obsta le may well be ust simple business, bos, bo$is, the bull, likes to ordersome fellow6human about!


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The %will to power& Aadmired and touted by the generation before my ownB wasliteratureifyed by an ill6balan ed hysteri al teuto6polak! othing more $ulgar, in the worstsense of the word, has e$er been sprung on a dallying intelligentsia!

Power is ne essary to some a ts, but neither @enin nor 'ussolini show themsel$es primarilyas men thirsting for power!The great man is filled with a $ery different passion, the will towardorder !

Hen e the mysteries and the muddles in inferior minds!

The superior passion is in ompatible with =ogberry and the lo al bully! The se ond line ofinferiority omple# AprofessorialB toddles in with its twaddle about insanity and genius, and%the man must be mad!&

i$e or si# years ago the ;oman barflies and so ial idiots were waiting for 'ussolini to gomad!

The brittle mind, li$ing on pre udi e or pri$ilege, as a last refuge plays ostri h! ?omething is


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'odern ignoran e, fostered and intensified by pra ti ally all uni$ersity systems hassu eeded in obliterating or in dimming the old distin tion in ;odolpho +gri ola)s De

Dialectica !

3erbal omposition is ommitted, %ut do eat, ut mo$eat, ut dele tet!&

3erbal omposition e#ists to three ends, to tea h, to mo$e and to please! Dou do not aideither literary or philosophi al dis ussion by riti ising one sort with riteria properly appliedto the other!

e know that the -erman uni$ersity system was per$erted from the sear h for truth Amaterialtruth in natural resear hB into a $ast ma hine for ondu ting the mental segment of the nation+ +D from a tual problems, getting them embedded and out of the way of the tyrants!

+meri an subsidi ed uni$ersities ha$e be ome anodyne in the departments that %don)tmatter,& i!e! those where the sub e t has not or need not ha$e any dire t in iden e on life!

hen it omes to e onomi study the interferen e of the ontrollers is less o$ered!

" am no longer %in tou h!& " know that professors are o asionally %fired!& " ha$e heard thatthe ladies) 3assar on e has a uriosity in the form of a hea$y endowment %for as long asnothing ontrary to prote ti$e tariff was taught there!&

The instin t of self6preser$ation, ob$iously THE great passion in the bureau rati booI>',leads often towards the anodyne! ?u h is the nature of bureau ra y! ni$ersity is usually presented as a oke by people with what is alled a sense of humour!

hen an e#periment is made or ad$o ated it is usually attributed Aoften orre tlyB to% ranks!&

+ rank in %this pragmati al pig of a world& as m! Deats has ultimately ome to designatethe *elto6?a#on segments of the planet, is any man ha$ing + D other ambition sa$e that ofsa$ing his own skin from the tanners!


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+n in$entor stops being a rank when he has made, i!e! a Cuired, money, or when he has been e#ploited by someone who has!

Henry ord is the best possible type of rank Ataken in his fort int(rieur B, Henry himself was$isible in his early days, but on e inside the aterpillared tank of su ess his mental make6upis forgotten!The fa t that it often takes a series of two, three, or four ranks to get a thing done blinds thegeneral reader to the utility of the su essi$e omponents!

%*)est beau,& said ernand @ ger in the best defen e of the ren h republi " ha$e e$er heard!%*)est beau, it is good to look at be ause it works without there being anyone of interest orimportan e, any Rgreat man) ne essary to make it fun tion!&

"t)s %beau& all right, but dear old ernand wasn)t looking at the *omit des orges, whi hmight appear to ome nearer to being the real go$ernment of ran e than the gents in the=eput s and the figurehead at the Elys es! The *omit has got its di tatorship and its one6 party system!

+ll without publi responsibility!


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The writer)s opinion is that they =< )T, and that nothing but $igorous realignment willmake them, and that if, or when, they are made so to fun tion, 'ussolini will ha$e a ted asstimulus, will ha$e entered into +meri an history, as @enin has entered into world history!

That don)t, or don)t ne essarily, mean an importation of the details of me hanisms and formsmore adapted to "taly or to ;ussia than to the desert of +ri ona or to the temperament offarms ba k of 4aaaston! 4ut it does definitely mean an orientation of will!

The power lust of ilson was that of a diseased and unbalan ed man who before arri$ing atthe hite House had had little e#perien e of the world! The ob of being a ollege presidentin a fresh6water town, the petty hypo ri ies ne essary to being an e#ample to the young, areabout as good preparation for politi al life as that of being abbot in a monastery!


Q,7 0 words

Part 5 of 5

XXVIIPaideu"a

" +' not laying preten e to impartiality, neither do " belie$e a ertain kind of impartialitymakes the best re ord! " know of no more unpleasant figure in history than the late ran(osef! >sually a publi detestable has some pri$ate offset! 4ut of this nullity there is not e$enre ord of pri$ate pleasantness! +nd if there)s anything in robenius) mode of thinking, a people who ould tolerate su h an emperor and an emperor who ould put up with su hfurniture were well ready for the ash6 an!

4ran usi is not an "talian, nor ha$e the "talians a 4ran usi! "t would be diffi ult to defend theontemporary pubk! muniments in + D ountry! -ermany is wholly a$enged on ran e by

the +meri an marble atro ity at ! ! ! + bile spe ialist would be pu led by the stone slop inthe @u#embourg -arden!
http://www.counter-currents.com/author/epound/http://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ezrapoundgrave.jpghttp://www.counter-currents.com/author/epound/


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" do not think the best men are e# luded in "taly, some of the sane prin iples are alreadya epted, the idea of steel, aluminium, glass, ontemporary material, is a epted!

?t! Elia died before the new era, but it is perfe tly on the ards that " he has left any designssuitable for publi onstru tion they might any day be used, not only as ar hite t)s plans butas memorial to ?t! Elia!+ny smart s hoolboy an make fun of some detail or other in 'arinetti)s ampaigns, but thesame le$er sneer6sprouter would find it mu h more diffi ult to mat h the mass re ord of'arinetti)s life, e$en if you limit it to his ampaigning for publi edu ation in Gstheti s andomit the politi al gestures, whi h any good writer might en$y! Dou must udge the wholeman by the mass of the man)s results!

+s with d)+nnun io, anyone an repeat okes about hairwash, but until the dilettante writerhas held up the ombined ras als of Europe, he had best onfine his riti ism of -abriele toCuestions of stylisti embroidery!

" do not belie$e " am any more impressed by rhetori than is 'r! Hemingway, " may ha$e agreater apa ity for, or sympathy with, general ideas Apro$ided they ha$e a bearing on what "

onsider good a tionB but -abriele as a$iator has shown ust as mu h ner$e as any of dearHem)s pet bullbashers!

XXVIII6f eing .uled

THE last state of degradation whether of a demo rati ed or of a non6demo rati ed people is

that in whi h they begin to wail to be dominated! ="?T" ->"?H between fas ism whi h isorgani ation, with the organi er at its head, to whom the power has not been -"3E , butwho has organi ed the power, and the state of +meri a, where the Press howls that we should-"3E power to ;oose$elt, i!e!, to a weak man, or a man generally supposed to be weak, aman who has shown < > =E;?T+ =" - whatsoe$er, and no knowledge whatsoe$er of

ontemporary a tuality!


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+nd in any ase you an)t -"3E power! -i$e authority to a nin ompoop and you merely stepinto haos! hi h is presumably what the fishers in troubled waters desire, e$er and alwaysdesire!

The e#tent to whi h you an e$en =E@E-+TE power is probably limited by laws as definiteas those whi h go$ern the strength of urrent you an send through an ele tri wire of gi$enthi kness and te#ture!

=emo ra y is omposed one6third of peasant pessimism, one6third oflaisse20aller , of utterindifferen e!

Dou do not gi$e power to a soft6head like Harding by making him president, any more thanyou ould make *oolidge into an intelle t! %+l,& who as a ournalist demonstrates on e aweek his unfitness for a pla e e$en in the abinet, ga$e a tou hing tribute to *oolidge, on thelines of %3aaal, he $as a goot s hmoker!& *al wasn)t a demagogue, how noble of him toa$oid that pitfall and onfute the detra tors of demo ra y! *al got on by a $ery simple predestined pro ess! He ne$er aroused + Done)s inferiority omple#! =itto Harding!

=itto, presumably, ;oose$elt the se ond! othing is more freCuent in ommittee work and indemo rati wangles and e$en in hoosing editors than for a man who is strongish but notstrong enough, to boost up some wobbler whom he thinks he an guide! ilson was a greatdisappointment to some of his ba kers, as Taft to Theodore!

+s " learned from my meeting with -riffiths8 + leader who is not supported by legalma hinery is more bound by the general will of his party than an ele ted offi ial who haslegal forms to fall ba k on!

'ussolini has steadily refused to be alled anything sa$e %@eader& A=u eB or %Head of the-o$ernment,& the term di tator has been applied by foreign en$y, as the Tories were alled

attlestealers! "t does not represent the =u e)s fundamental on eption of his role!

His authority omes, as Eirugina pro laimed authority omes, %from right reason& and fromthe general fas ist on$i tion that he is more likely to be right than anyone else is!

"n the ommandments to the militia this phrase is no more than the President being ?upreme*hief of the +meri an +rmies in war time or any general on the field ha$ing full

ommanding powers!


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That you an bring about better world go$ernment by amelioration of theinternal go$ernment of your nation!

That pri$ate gain is not prosperity, but that the treasure of a nation is its eCuity!

That hoarding is not prosperity and that people should employ their resour es!


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The %free and eCual& is limited by the passi$e $erb %born,& it was dire ted against spe ial pri$ileges of those %first6born& and to those whose legal fathers were =ukes, Earls, et !

There is not the least shadow of suspi ion that T!(! e$er supported that men remained eCual orwere biologi ally eCual, or had a right to eCuality sa$e in opportunity and before the law!

@ike e$ery leader and onstru tor in human history he tried to bring a ertain number of menup to a ertain le$el, by elimination of ertain defe ts!

The so6 alled intelle tual or spiritual leader guns after defe ts at long range, the politi alonstru tor goes for those whi h are the worst damned immediate nuisan es!

+part from the =e laration of "ndependen e to whi h T!(! ga$e the final form, (efferson)sdo trines might be di$ided into8

$ ! hat he thought good for the new +meri an republi !

6 ! hat he onsidered sound prin iples for the state!

+s to this se ond di$ision!

1! He disbelie$ed in hereditary pri$ilege, i!e! he thought men should go$ern by reason of theirinherent Cualities and not be ause they were sons of pap!

%< po a digna nobiltJ di sangue,& as =ante had on e and some time pre$iously, remarked!

2! He thought that a nation had no right to ontra t debts that ouldn)t be reasonably paidwithin the lifetime of the parties ontra ting!

hi h is part of his main ontention that THE E+;TH 4E@< -? T< THE @"3" -!

/! That e$erything that an be done by informal and indi$idual effort should be so done andthat the state should go$ern only where and when ne essary!

Q! He was the hampion of %free spee h& but suggested that newspapers be printed in threese tions, the first and 3E;D 4;"E se tion to be headed % +*T?,& the se ond to be headed%Probabilities,& and the third part to be headed %@ies!&

-i$en this limitation " think the =u e might be in lined to agree with him!

5! He belie$ed in pea e, but he belie$ed still more strongly in maintaining pea e > T"@+meri a was strong enough to stand a war without disaster, and when war ame in 1 12 hee#pe ted the +meri an army to win it! Though the frigates did most of the work!

0! His fight for the % onstitution& was a fight against (ohn 'arshall, and against therea tionaries who belie$ed in the 4ritish *onstitution! There was no Cuestion of his resistingany further =E3E@


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7! He did not eopardi e his power by untimely fights for his %higher beliefs& at a time whenit would ha$e been impossible to arry them into pra ti al effe t! " an think of only two su h%ideals,& one the abolition of sla$ery, and the other the far more distant ethi s of debt!

! His e#pressionsre finan e are not always less e#pli it than 3an 4uren)s!5ide this passagere -allatin8%" know he deri$ed immense on$enien e from it Athe bankB, be ause they ga$e theeffect ofubi"uity to his money where$er deposited! 'oney in ew


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11! To Eppes in 1 1/ he learly e#pressed the $iew that the nation should own its papermoney and ondemns the abuse of the indi$idual states in handing o$er this fun tion to pri$ate banks!

%"ssued bills ! ! ! bearing no interest ! ! ! ne$er depre iated a single farthing!&

12! % o one has a natural right to the trade of a money lender, but he who has the money tolend!&

?o ob$ious, so simple, so supposed by the lay reader to represent an a tual state of thingse$en now, but so de$astating an impediment to banking malpra ti e as habitual during thewhole of all our present li$es!

+ll of whi h drags us deep into spe ial dis ussion and probably has no pla e in a book of thisgeneral nature!

4ut the serious student of e onomi s is re ommended to study the series of letters to Eppes!

+gain on 11th ?eptember, 1 1/8

" THE > "TE= ?T+TE? were in possession of the ir ulating medium, +? THED-HT T< 4E, they ould redeem what they ould borrow from that, dollar for dollar, andin ten annual instalmentsN whereas, the >?>;P+T"< < TH+T > = by bank paper,obliging them to borrow elsewhere at 7Z per ent!, two dollars are reCuired to reimburse one!

He had read Hume and +dam ?mith and notes that ?! is the hief ad$o ate of paper

ir ulationon the sole ondition that it be stri tly regulated!1/! Taken in this order the following paragraph sounds almost like an e ho of the =u eAhysteron proteronB8

%Here are a set of people, for instan e, who ha$e bestowed on us the great blessing of runningin our debt about two hundred millions of dollars,without our +nowing who they are, wherethey are , or what property they ha$e to pay this debt when alled onN&

1Q! He did not belie$e that %publi debt is a publi blessing!&

15! He is *onfu ian in a letter to T! *ooper, (anuary 1 1Q, on the $ast $alue of internalommer e and the disproportionate interest taken in foreign!

10! To (! +dams, (uly 1 15, he speaks of % apoleon knowing nothing of ommer e, politi ale onomy or i$il go$ernment!&

The first two are stri tures onfirmed by reputable re ord, though one may rather doubtwhether 'r! (efferson would ha$e left the third had he re$ised the letter, or rather, hewouldn)t ha$e omitted it, but would ha$e defined his meaning!

XXXIThe oil


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D annot found any permanent system on +meri an spe ial pra ti e between 1770 and19 ! The peasants of Europe had wanted land, land in +meri a down to my own time wasfree to anyone who would take the trouble to go where open land was and ulti$ate it!

eedless to say Europe had not known any su h state of affairs, e$en during the epo h oftribal migrations!The error presumably was that the ownership was not limited to the time during whi h the% laim& was a tually used!

:! +dams wanted to reser$e the national ri hes for the nation, for higher de$elopments,s ientifi resear h, et !

+s said, this would ha$e delayed the settlement of the ontinent indefinitely, the other partywanted land :>"*M and indulged in no fan ies of foresight!


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"mmigrants started out with paper money whi h was %good money,& and found it worthless atthe end of their ourney!

The 4ank issued %ra ers,& i!e! drafts that took se$eral months or weeks to get from one part ofthe ountry to another and were repla ed with more paper!

There was a %boom,& i!e! the market $alue of land measured in %money& rose beyond all possibility of yield, e#a tly as industrial shares rose in market $alue in >!?!+! 192 , not fromworth of yield, produ t, or anything else sa$e the han e of selling the paper Cui k to someother su ker at a higher pri e!

The same e# itement, %optimism,& ?at6E$e6Post6ism, slogans of all ?treet, same short6sightre essentials su h as impossibility that land would yield without being worked, impossibilityof deli$ering produ e at a distan e without means of ommuni ation Ovide England in+fri a, post6war en ouragement of 4ritish su kers to -;< toba o8 la k of market 19/ ,as la k of transport 1 / ! 4ut the same underlying eCuations, + = the same bankingman[u$res!

?ame $ariety of %statesman& yelling hurrah for high finan e, either from muddleheadednessor in hope of immediate personal gain or ad$antage!

How far the general reader an be e#pe ted to analyse the fa ts " don)t know! How far it is possible in any way to abbre$iate 3an 4uren)s e$iden e " don)t know! He was one of the best

ourt lawyers that the world has known, in ase now obs ure in a %far& ountry, in the littleity of +lbany, et !, the patient but per6lu id style, the orderly grouping of his fa ts, probably

worth a fortune as model and study to any young barrister with serious intentions, but thedespair of anyone who wants to %gi$e the broad lines& or further to %simplify& the sub e t!

Perhaps the reader will take my %word& assuming that the proof an be found in 3an)sautobiography! A;eport of the +meri an Histori al +sso iation 191 published -o$ernmentPrinting


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The body of this ms! was written and left my hands in ebruary 19//! Q publishers ha$erefused it! o types ript of mine has been read by so many people or brought me a moreinteresting orresponden e! "t is here printed $erbatim, unaltered! " had not seen the ms! fromthe time it left ;apallo till it returned here with the galley proof! "t is printed as re ord of what" saw in ebruary 19//! The ?eptember prefa e A19//B indi ated a flutter of hope, that hasgrown steadily more fluttery and less hopeful!

E! P!, ;apallo, +pril, S"""!

irst published by ?tanley ott @td!, 19/5*opyright 19/5, 19/0, by E ra Pound

Nothing is without !fficient 'ause

@etter sent +utumn, 19/Q, by E ra Pound to the editor of theCriterion , @ondon

< E element of the =u e)s gamut is the ontinual gentle diatribe against all that is %anti6stori o,& all that is against histori pro ess!


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represented by some bloke of his own profession, by some deputy who has identi al interestsand a dire t knowledge of the needs and temptations of a gi$en profession!

'ussolini has ne$er asked nations with a different histori al fibre to adopt the upolas andgables of fas ism! Put him in England and he would dri$e his roots ba k into the

itanagemot as firmly as =ouglas!The bla kest lie in autumn A19/QB propaganda is the lie of re6employment, onsidered as possible!

E$en the te hno rats years ago, showed that re6employment at anything like the old hours perday is impossible!

Human de en y demands the di$ision of work among a great number of people, rather thanha$ing it piled onto a few!

The e onomist is fa ed with a progressi$ely diminishing need of human labour!

"f they are honest one wonders why the @ondon -esellites should be touting re6employmentin their ?unday propaganda!

-esell had a $ery lear brain wa$e, and offered that rarest of all possible things8 aninno$ation in e onomi s! "t is surprising to find his more $o al dis iples still linging to whatshould be a $ery dead superstition!

e do not ontinue to hoist water with a bu ket from the garden or $illage well, after we

ha$e laid on modern plumbing!The atrophy whi h on eals this fa t from e onomi and politi al organi ations is not onewhi h " an e#plain!

There is printed proof of its e#isten e, and " therefore suppose a ause for it e#ists!

?imilar phenomenon presented by a professor from @ondon)s renowned ? hool ofE onomi s8 the bloke went to ran e but was unable to de ipher the ins ription on the*hamber of *ommer e oinage!

?o " suppose his students still remain sheltered from the distressin) fa t that ran e has twokinds of money, one for home use and one good both at home and abroad!

This topi is uriously unwel ome to members of the @ondon *hamber of *ommer e, forreasons whi h remain Aat least to the present authorB obs ure!

The ends obtainable by adumbration or suffo ation of fa ts are hardly the ends of s ien ehowe$er mu h they may ontribute to the ha ards of politi s!

To the s ientist fa ts are desirable, the s ientist wants as many as possible, he wants to knowwhat)s what and what of it! He doesn)t ne essarily want to use all known data in a gi$eninstant of time, but neither does he wish to pro eed on the assumption that what is not, isN or$i e $ersa!


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"t is not from our biologists, or hemists that we hear the admonition8 %=on)t gi$e him anidea, he has one!& Perhaps this is why so many ni e people still think e onomi s is not, andwon)t soon be a s ien e!

II

" list another urious ase, that of a skilled a ountant, on$ersant with algebra, who has bythat latter e#er ise somewhat dimmed his sense of ausality!

Dou an transpose terms in an algebrai eCuation whereas you an not by analogy transposethe different parts of a bridge!

e need, we some of us painfully need, a pooling of all these a$ailable knowledgesN of allthe rigidly oned rare fruit of parti ular kinds of e#perien e! " want all this a ountant)sknowledge, or as mu h of it as " an get under my beret!

" re ogni e brother arburg)s a uteness when he obser$es or repeats that sil$er is mainly a by6produ t of other metalli produ tion! hen he tells me that the man who buys a plough

ommits the same a t as the buyer of mortgages, " pity the pore lonely banker!

III

Trade 4alan e8 a hoa# whereby the go$ernment on ealing a huge part of the nationalin ome assures the people the nation has spent more than it)s got!

%*ontrol of redit and ontrol of the news are on entri ,& writes *has! urguson! + book "

wrote in eb! 19// is still unprinted! " onsole myself with the fa t that 3an 4uren wrote hismemoirs in the 1 0 s and they got into print only in 192 ! *ontrol of redit seems in thatase to ha$e delayed Cuite a lot of news about bank method!


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4y < t! 0, 19/Q we find 'ussolini putting the dots on the %i&s!

That is to say, finding the unassailable formula, the e#a t eCuation for what had been sket hyand impressionisti and e#aggerated in Thos! (efferson)s time and e#pression!

4y last +pril :uirino *apa ioliV1W had already got to a $ision of the day when the stateould sit ba k and do nothing! hi h sounds again, rather like (efferson!


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The =u e who ne$er tries to put in a wedge butt end forward, began this ampaign somemonths ago with the mild statement that in years e$ery peasant should ha$e a house of thiskind, or rather he said then % lean and de ent!&

" don)t the least think he e#pe ts to take years at it, but he is not gi$en to o$erstatement!

He must know already what means of distribution e#ist! 'ere plenty is too easy, and theeCuation of %silk hat and 4radford millionaire& too unpleasant! Purist e onomists who see the problem as mere algebra, mere bookkeeping, or e$en mere engineering, will ontinue to see"taly in a fog! The idea of %nation,& the heap big magi of e$oking the >rbs +ugusta, the@atin numen is too far from 19th entury prose, from ?am ?miles, from finan e in general! "tis possible the *apo del -o$erno wants to go slow enough so as not to see, in his old age, an"taly full of fat peasants gone rotten and a bourgeoisie stinking o$er the peninsula as laubertsaw them stinking through Paris! +ll this is poesy and has no pla e in a riti al epistle!

This statement will irritate a number of do trinaire readers, and " hope to ontinue the pro essuntil they an show me at least one other ountry in whi h any honest e onomi legislationo urs, and in whi h any or either of the plans for a de ent monetary system show any signsof lea$ing the somewhat airy field of suggestion and taking on legal and on rete e#isten e!

E ra Pound!

'he Criterion ! @ondon, (anuary, 19/5!

e8te"%er Preface

TH"? book was written in ebruary Aanno S"B when almost nobody %saw ;oose$elt oming!&*ertainly no letter rea hed me from +meri a showing any sign of the break! " enCuired! +$ery well6known +meri an editor A all him !?!+! and you may get some faint inkling of what toe#pe t from our ountry! " don)t know that this re ommendation is wholly useless e$en inaddressing a great part of the +meri an publi ! 'any of them ha$e apparently ne$er heard of


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stamp6s ript, of oergl, of *!H! =ouglas, though se$eral new re$iews seem busy trying totell them!

'any of them, perhaps one might say most of )em ha$e been $ery mu h surprised by 'r!;oose$elt, and it might do them no harm to try to %pla e& !=!;!in relation to ontemporary phenomena in other ountries!E ra Pound

%ote8 +s " write this 1 th ?eptember, anno S", there is < +meri an daily paperontemporary with the !=! ;oose$elt administration, there are se$eral papers favourable to

the administration, but that is not the same thing! There are a ouple of weekly and Cuarterly publi ations showing some adumbration of ontemporary thought, there is a pro e ted weeklysaid to be about to be going to be affe ted by an e#6member of the %brain trust,&V/W there arelots of old6time bright snappy pra ti al go6getting ournalists still worrying aboutid(es

fixes of their grandfathers) time and wholly un ons ious of what is o urring about them, orif not un ons ious merely muddled and in omprehending! " ha$e ne$er Cuarrelled with people when their dedu tions ha$e been based on fa t, " ha$e Cuarreled when they were based on ignoran e, and my only arguments for 25 years ha$e been the dragging up of fa ts,either of literature or of history! (ournalism as " see it is history of to6day, and literature is ournalism that stays news!

+!=! 19//

Notes

1!Cenni -ullo -tato Corporativo /ascista A iren e ?tablimento -raf! *ommer iale, 3ia*imarosa 1 ! @ire 5B!

2! H! @! 'en kenOEd!

/! T

jefferson and or mussolini

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