Blood, Class and Empire
Page 11
The idea didn’t catch on with the staid and unimaginative Empire Marketing Board, but in Hollywood the image of England and the Empire became a popular staple, and a considerable colony of well-spoken and suave Englishmen found, like Dennis Barlow at the Happier Hunting Ground, that the “combination of melancholy with the English accent” was a serviceable recipe for success. Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, David Niven, Basil Rathbone, and Errol Flynn all mastered this recipe to varying degrees, as did Charles Laughton and Herbert Marshall. The better studios all saw their point, and adopted the formula. Bertolt Brecht, sitting in a movie theater near Times Square, was both impressed and appalled to see American audiences cheering the heroics of English redcoats, as if the imperial soldier was interchangeable with the cowboy or the wagon-train pioneer. As Philip French has put it:
Not many of these performers could be plausibly cast in Westerns; on the other hand American actors could quite easily be placed on the North West Frontier with the right explanation. In Lives of a Bengal Lancer, for example, Richard Cromwell was introduced as the American-reared son of the regiment’s commanding officer (Sir Guy Standing) and Gary Cooper established as a Scots-Canadian. In these roles, the American actor would invariably be presented as an insubordinate rebel who eventually came to appreciate, in the final reel, the unwritten code of the regiment and the demands of the Empire.
“How is the Empire?” George V is loyally supposed to have said on his deathbed. The two variants muttered by disloyal courtiers are that he said, “What’s on at the Empire?” or that he inquired, “How’s the vampire?” in a malign reference to Mrs. Wallis Simpson. The confusion is a pardonable one, given the speedup and blurring of imagery. The original “vamp,” Theda Bara, got her eponym by playing a man-eater in the screen version of The Vampire, by Rudyard Kipling. American cinemagoers also had the opportunity to see Gunga Din, Elephant Boy, Captains Courageous, Wee Willie Winkie, and The Light That Failed.
Without Kipling’s popularity, it is inconceivable that the genre of lesser imperial writers would have been translated to the screen, with A. E. W. Mason and Percival Christopher Wren to the fore, and such memorable successes as The Four Feathers and John Ford’s The Black Watch, to say nothing of Clive of India, The Charge of the Light Brigade, and Korda’s Sanders of the River.
The political and cultural consequences of this were not slight. When the British embassy and its propaganda division sought to combat the influence of Charles Lindbergh’s America First and other isolationist or pro-Nazi organizations, they turned at once to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. He was prepared to make public appearances and speeches even in the “hot” areas of Anglophobia like Chicago. Neatly leapfrogging over the massed ranks of antiimperialist intellectuals and academics, as he had over so many bulwarks and balconies, Fairbanks used his standing in the new medium to appeal to the public directly. Of the small number of Americans to be knighted, Fairbanks probably did the most to earn his “K.”
The importance of all this is attested by Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, who before and during the Second World War was charged by the British ambassador with finding and wringing the nerve of Anglophilia in American life. He made a friend of Ted Roosevelt, Jr. (whom he met “by chance at a dinner at the Century”), and found they had a love of Kipling in common. He also noted with approbation that young Roosevelt had been “Governor-General of the Philippines and Governor of Puerto Rico, America’s only two colonial possessions.” In his book Special Relationships, Wheeler-Bennett described meeting Lindbergh at the Roosevelt mansion Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay. He went on to describe the strenuous British contest with Lindbergh over the German threat (intriguingly adding of Lindbergh that “in the later years of his life we found a comradeship as Cold Warriors”).
Imperial film was Wheeler-Bennett’s entrée into Hollywood, via the friendship of Alex Korda:
His British naturalisation was an honor he cherished greatly. Winston Churchill was his hero and there existed a great friendship between the two men, which Winston crowned with a knighthood. This act, though it caused some raised eyebrows, he defended fiercely and loyally, for no-one had done more for the British cause, whether by financial contributions or by such excellent films for export as Fire Over England and Henry VIII. Robert Vansittart [head of the German section of the British Foreign Office] was another friend who always praised him. (A little known fact is that “Van” also wrote the words of Sabu’s song in The Thief of Baghdad.) This confidence in him was justified in every respect. He extolled Britain and Britain’s cause on every possible occasion, in fair weather and foul. I have been privileged to listen to a debate on the British way of life conducted in the fiercest of broken English between Alex and David Selznick to my silent delight and satisfaction.
Once the Second World War had actually begun, and there was the sticky business of American neutrality to be got over again, Wheeler-Bennett was sent back to Hollywood by Lord Lothian “to discuss with certain well-disposed movie moguls, of whom Walter Wanger was one, the making of such non-documentary films as Mrs. Miniver and Eagle Squadron.” Introduced around Bel-Air by Korda and his wife, Merle Oberon, Wheeler-Bennett got the chance to lobby Sam Goldwyn and to co-direct a picture, entitled The Hitler Gang, with Mia Farrow’s father, John.
Thus the ground so well watered by Kipling bore fruit after his death, in the decisive battle for American opinion. Wheeler-Bennett makes plain that nothing in his propaganda career gave him more satisfaction—not even helping the young John Fitzgerald Kennedy to write Why England Slept, and seeing copies of the result sent by the boy’s corrupt and anti-British father to the King and members of the Court of St. James’s, with the vulgar admonition from father to son: “You would be surprised how a book that really makes the grade with high-class people stands you in good stead for years to come.”
This was all preface to an extraordinary moment in October 1943 when Winston Churchill wrote a short note to Franklin Roosevelt. The correspondence between the two men was voluminous, and especially on Churchill’s side took the form of several letters, cables, or memos each week. He had at the beginning of the war evolved with Roosevelt a style of address, calling himself “Former Naval Person” in order to recall the period of the First World War when each had served in his country’s naval establishment, Churchill in the Admiralty and Roosevelt in the Navy Department. “Former Naval Person to President” was the accustomed, indeed routine, opening of his messages, with Roosevelt replying in kind. The October 17, 1943, communication, however, reads more like a personal letter and is presented formally:
My dear Mr. President,
I am sending you with this letter two small unpublished works of Rudyard Kipling which I think I mentioned to you. Similar copies were given to me by the President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on the occasion of my admission as an Honorary Fellow of the College, and I thought that you would like to have both books for your library.
I understand that Mrs. Kipling decided not to publish them in case they should lead to controversy and it is therefore important that their existence should not become known and that there should be no public reference to this gift.
Yours sincerely,
Winston S. Churchill
Neither of the poems—“The Burden of Jerusalem” and “A Chapter of Proverbs”—has yet appeared in any anthology of Kipling’s work. Both are reproduced below:
But Abram said unto Sarai, “Behold the maid is in thy hand. Do to her as it pleaseth thee.” And when Sarai dealt hardly with her she fled from her face.
Genesis 16:6
THE BURDEN OF JERUSALEM
In ancient days and deserts wild
There rose a feud—still unsubdued—
Twixt Sarah’s son and Hagar’s child
That centred round Jerusalem
(While underneath the timeless boughs
Of Mamre’s oak ’mid stranger-folk
The Patriarch slumbered and his spouse
Nor dreamed abou
t Jerusalem.)
But Ishmael lived where he was born.
And pastured there in tents of hair
Among the Camel and the Thorn—
Beersheba, South Jerusalem
But Israel sought employ and food
At Pharaoh’s knees, till Rameses
Dismissed his plaguey multitude,
With curses, toward Jerusalem.
Across the wilderness they came
And launched their horde o’er Jordan’s ford,
And blazed the road by sack and flame
To Jebusite Jerusalem.
Then Kings and Judges ruled the land,
And did not well by Israel,
Till Babylonia took a hand
And drove them from Jerusalem.
And Cyrus sent them back anew,
To carry on as they had done,
Till angry Titus overthrew
The fabric of Jerusalem.
Then they were scattered North and West,
While each Crusade more certain made
That Hagar’s vengeful son possessed
Mohammedan Jerusalem.
Where Ishmael held his desert state
And framed a creed to serve his need—
“Allah-hu-Akbar! God is Great!”
He preached it in Jerusalem.
And every realm they wandered through
Rose, far or near, in hate and fear,
And robbed and tortured, chased and slew,
The outcasts of Jerusalem.
So ran their doom—half seer, half slave—
And ages passed, and at the last
They stood beside each tyrant’s grave,
And whispered of Jerusalem.
We do not know what God attends
The Unloved Race in every place
Where they amass their dividends
From Riga to Jerusalem.
But all the course of Time makes clear
To everyone (except the Hun)
It does not pay to interfere
With Cohen from Jerusalem.
For ‘neath the Rabbi’s curls and fur
(Or scents and rings of movie-kings)
The aloof, unleavened blood of Ur,
Broods steadfast on Jerusalem.
Where Ishmael bides in his own place—
A robber hold, as was foretold,
To stand before his brother’s face—
The wolf without Jerusalem.
And burdened Gentile o’er the main,
Must bear the weight of Israel’s hate
Because he is not brought again
In triumph to Jerusalem.
Yet he who bred the unending strife,
And was not brave enough to save
The Bondsmaid from the furious wife,
He wrought thy woe, Jerusalem.
A CHAPTER OF PROVERBS
1. The wind bloweth where it
listeth, and after the same
manner in every country.
Be not puffed up with a
breath (of it)
2. Of a portion set aside a
portion or ever the days
come when thou shalt see
there is no work in them
3. For he that hath not must
serve him that hath; even
to the peril of the soul
4. Take the wage for thy work
in silver and (it may be)
gold; but accept not honours
nor any great gifts
5. Is ye ox yoked till men have
need of him; or the camel
belled while yet she is free?
And wouldst thou be eved
with these?
6. Pledge no writing till it is
written; and seek not
payment on (any) account
the matter shall be
remembered against thee.
7. There is a generation which
selleth dung in the street
and saith: “To the pure all
things are pure.”
8. But count (thou) on the one
hand how may be so minded;
and after write according
to thy knowledge.
9. Because not all evil beareth
fruit in a day; and it may
be some shall curse thy
grave for the iniquity of
thy works in their youth
10. The fool brayeth in his
heart there is no God;
therefore his imaginings
are terribly returned on
him; and that without interpreter
11. Get skill, and when thou
has it, forget; lest the
bird on her nest mock thee,
and He that is Highest
look down
12. Get knowledge; it shall
not burst thee; and amass
under thy hand a peculiar
treasure of words:
13. As a King heapeth him
jewels to bestow or cast
aside; or being alone in
his palace, fortifieth
himself beholding (them).
14. So near as thou canst, open
not thy whole mind to
any man.
15. The bounds of his craft are
appointed to each from of
old; they shall not be known
to the cup-mates or the
companions
16. For three things my heart
is disquieted; and for four
that I cannot bear:
17. For a woman who esteemeth
herself a man; and a man
that delighteth in her
company;
18. For people whose young
men are cut off by the
sword; and for the soul
that regardeth not these
things.
19. In three things, yea and
in four, is the metal of
the workman made plain:
20. In excessive labour; in
continual sloth; in long
waiting; and in the day
of triumph.
21. There is one glory of the
sun and another of the
moon and a third of the
stars: yet are all these
appointed for the glory
of the earth which alone
hath no light.
22. Hold not back (any) part
of a price.
23. Despise no man even in thy
heart; for the custom of
it shall make thy works of
none effect
24. Use not overmuch to
frequent the schools of
the scribes; for idols are
there and (all) the paths
return upon themselves.
25. Envy no man’s work nor
deliver judgement upon
it in the gate, for the end
is bitterness.
26. Consider now those blind
worms of the deep which
fence themselves about as
it were with stone against
their fellows;
27. And reaching the
intolerable light of the
sun straightway perish
leaving but their tombs;
28. By those whose mere multitude
the sea is presently stayed;
the tide itself divideth
at that place.
29. Small waves after storm
laying there seeds, nuts
and the bodies of fish,
(at last) an island ariseth
crowned with palms; thither
the sea-birds repair.
30. Till man coming taketh
all to his use and hath no
memory of aught below
(his feet)
31. Out of the dust which
had life come all things
and shalt thou be other
>
than they?
32. Nevertheless, my son, dare
thou greatly to believe.
This is practically the only communication from Churchill, in an entire file of correspondence which extends in print over three volumes, to which Roosevelt made no reply or acknowledgment of any sort. The poems themselves do not form part of the published archive, but Roosevelt did keep them in their handsome privately bound blue-and-gold covers. They still repose in the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York, where I unearthed them one April day in 1988.
The poems, and the circumstances of their donation, possess all sorts of potential and actual interest. First, it is interesting to note that October 17, 1943, the day of Churchill’s covering letter, was the day before Lionel Trilling’s famous attack on T. S. Eliot’s edition of Kipling was published in The Nation. Trilling went for Kipling on the grounds of “the snippy, persecuted anti-Semitism of ironic good manners.” In his response, Eliot tried to maintain civility by a good-humored pretense that Kipling was more anti-“Hun” than anti-Jew.