Well, why pick on the Jew ? I have heard the term “Jewish impertinence,” in fact Gaudier-Brzeska used to use it. But I think it was a fellow named Brooks, along in January, had got ’em beat, and the name ain’t Hebrew and I don’t reckon he is even a crypto. At any rate some murking broadcaster tellin’ the world or the Italian residents in the United States that America loves Italy and only got a grudge against the regime. Waaal, as Franklin Delano was recently cursing out the Italian for what they did in 1911, before the word fascist existed, he certainly has got NO alibi, no alibi whatsoever. Now all the United States did to show how it loved Italy was to lie like billy Oh for 20 years, and try to starve Italy into submission: tariff wall, refusal of Italian goods, refusal of emigrants. What way is that to show love ?
DOUBTless somebody who wants 30 years sweat show now wants Italian workin’ men in the United States to go work—OVERTIME. Well Charlie Marx had a word for it. That part of Marx is sound, and if bygones are gone by, and IF the Americans love the Eyetalians, there is a way to show it. Why not have a little open communication ? Why not print the Charter of Labor ? Why not study how far the Italian law code, the new law code, being published under Mussolini’s regime IMPROVES on the old ones ? How many of you have heard of the Charter of Labor ? How many of you have stopped to think whether trade unions ought to have legal status ? And the RESPONSIBILITY that goes with such status ? If you are going [toward] fascism or nazism why not do it with open EYE, why not learn what these systems of government are ? Why not ask and learn how far they are compatible with American habits, [what] is good in ’em, and wherein their strength consists, INSTEAD of merely lying and cussing and trying to kill ’em on the assumption (if you can call it by so mild a term) that they are something they ain’t ?
Conditions in German factories ? How do they compare ? I have seen some dirty lying in my time. I can’t hold an inquest on every separate lie, but I have seen something, I have heard something, and then I have seen the American reports of ’em.
I have noticed DIScrepancies. I have heard the statement, I mean I HEARD it while it was being said. I heard Mussolini say “WE need years of peace to get on with our internal affairs.” And I have seen it reported next day as a war speech. Twenty years of that sort of thing do not show LOVE of Italy. Not on the part of the reporters or news owners. In fact Mr. Brooks, if it was Brooks, is showing a new love, store label not yet taken off.
Also Mussolini talking about the fight to grow enough wheat to feed Italy as being the kind of fight he prefers. Well, that was the effort that brought out American hostility all right enough.
Will you lay off it ? And if so, when so ? And while you are thinking, if so, on laying off, there is something else to lay off of ? Namely, a system of lending money to foreign nations in order to have a war every 19 years.
That system I suggest you look into. Your British Allies were scared that a few rackets were bustin’. They started a war to uphold a state of things that just were NOT UPHOLDABLE. Instead of admitting that they would have to change it, they started a war singing the International and running up the cross, sickle, and hammer. Do your Allies BELIEVE in communal ownership ? They do not. Do the Chinamen believe in dud cars sent over to Singapore, on not very favorable conditions, and on not very explicit statements as to who gets commissions (several commissions) ? I doubt it.
Very nice to hear, I mean you are mebbe comforted to HEAR that you got 100 million Chinese soldiers all ready to die for democracy. I mean if you are a democracy. But you ain’t got ’em. Well, why lean on what ain’t thaar ?
There are plenty of people right here in Europe whose views on many subjects do not coincide with my own, but we have, most of us, some points of agreement. Nan King, Manchu Kuo, both of them on the map of old Asia and on the map of New Asia. And TWO points that I would, mebbe three points, like to get into your binnacles. ONE that America COULD have stayed out of this war. Two, that IF America had stayed neutral the war would now be over and America might have had a hand in composing the differences; might not have so many hush hush agreements to buy; purchase, absorb such a lot of South American stuff we don’t need and can’t use, cornering the market as usual, but mebbe not on stuff other folks want to buy. Well, exchange is said to be a fountain of wealth.
Europe is fighting for something that is not merely material, But even so, a sane and natural exchange of products between them that have ’em, places that grow ’em, and places where they don’t grow or don’t grow so easy is certainly a factor in a plan for permanent ease and peace. Of course if you are going to work 18 or 20 hours a day from now till the day after doomsday to buy all the world’s gold and silver, to content Uncle Henry A. Wallace, that may be a question of taste (mighty queer taste) on your part.
Mebbe Henry has erred (not the first time), mebbe he was kite flying to see how much hook, line, and sinker the American people would swallow. ’Tain’t going to do Brazil any good if the whole of Europe goes back to drinking java and mocha coffee. And that ain’t half of the story.
Cutting your nose off to spite your face is a very old saying.
Black lists are nothing new in world history. [FCC transcript: Hitherto there have been signs of weakness and waning— —, not signs of rising power. I mean— —and following the regime had imposed them. Not strong, confident powers.
And then, the— —of some of your allies. In fact, why did you take up with those gangs ? Two gangs. Jews’ gang in London, and Jew murderous gang over in Moscow ? Do you like Mr. Litvinov ? Is that face— —of our Colonial architecture ? Do the people from Delaware and Virginia and Connecticut and Massachusetts ? Do the people who live in painted, neat white houses, with their little sign for the delivery box, erected in 1790, built in 1815, and do these folks really approve that Mr. Litvinov and his gang, and all that he stands for ? Is he the implication of something that Mr. Jefferson liked best ? Or— —the— —of Boston and that the first white settlers of Massachusetts belong to a race now extinct ?
Well, I hope before the Lord we ain’t going to be replaced by a race of Litvinovs. The South got— —and desolated in the Civil War, or— —to the city of New York, to bankers in New York City and in London, (debts) conducive of slaughter, slaughter conducive to debt, as intended, and some day you may start asking, I hope so, I hope to God you will start asking some day.
EZRA POUND SPEAKING 