Dragon's Teeth

by Sinclair, Upton;

  Freddi Robin, who had a scholar’s learning in these matters, ventured the opinion that the identification of Social-Democracy with philosophic materialism was purely accidental, due to the fact that both had originated in nineteenth-century Germany. There was no basic connection between the two, and now that modern science had moved away from the old dogmatic notion of a physical atom as the building material of all existence, it was time for the Socialists to find themselves a philosophy which justified creative effort and moral purpose.

  The eager girl student was glad to hear someone say that, in the long philosophical terms which made it sound right to a German. She said that she had observed this error working in everyday life. Men who preached that matter and force were the bases of life, the sole reality, were tempted to apply this dogma in their own lives; when they got a little power they thought about keeping it, and forgot their solidarity with the humble toilers. People had to believe in moral force, they had to let love count in the world, they had to be willing to make sacrifices of their own comfort, their own jobs and salaries, yes, even their lives, if need be. It was lack of that living spirit of brotherhood and solidarity which had made it possible for Otto Braun, Social-Democratic Premier of the Prussian state, and Karl Severing, Minister of the Interior, to bow to the threats of monocled aristocrats, and slink off to their villas without making the least effort to rouse the people to defend their republic and the liberties it guaranteed them.

  Lanny thought: “Here, at last, is a German who understands what freedom means!”

  VI

  On a Sunday, the last day of July, more than thirty-seven million citizens of the German Republic, both men and women, went to the polls and registered their choice for deputies to represent them in the Reichstag. As compared with the elections of two years previously, the Socialists lost some six hundred thousand votes, the Communists gained as many, while the Nazis increased their vote from six and a half million to fourteen million. They elected two hundred and thirty deputies out of a total of six hundred and eight-outnumbering the Socialists and Communists, even if combined, which they wouldn’t. So from then on it became impossible for anyone to govern Germany without Adolf Hitler’s consent.

  There began a long series of intrigues and pulling of wires behind the scenes. Johannes would report events to Lanny, and also to Lanny’s father, who had come over for a conference with his associate and went for a short cruise on the Bessie Budd. The politicians of the right, who had polled less than five per cent of the vote, nevertheless hung on to power, trying to persuade Hitler to come into their cabinet, so that they might flatter him and smooth him down as had been done with MacDonald in England. They would offer him this post and that; they would try to win his followers away from him—and Adi would summon the waverers to his presence and scream at them hysterically. When he couldn’t get his way he would threaten suicide, and his followers never knew whether he meant it or not.

  A great event in Berlin life when the haughty old Field Marshal consented to receive the “Bohemian corporal.” Hitler was driven to the Wilhelmstrasse, with crowds cheering him on the way. He had lunch with von Papen, the Chancellor whose post he was demanding, and when he was escorted into the presence of Hindenburg he was so nervous that he stumbled over a rug; he started one of his orations, just like Gladstone before Queen Victoria, and had to be stopped by his old commander. Hindenburg told him that he would not turn over the chancellorship to a man whose followers practiced terrorism and systematic violations of the law; he thought the vice-chancellorship was enough for such a man. But Hitler refused it, demanding full power. The aged Junker stormed, but the ex-corporal had been brought up on that, and all he would reply was: “Opposition to the last ditch.” Said Hindenburg: “Ich will meine Ruhe haben!”

  There began a new wave of terrorism; attacks upon Reds of all shades by the Nazi Stormtroopers in and out of uniform. Irma heard about it and began begging Lanny to cease his visits among these people; she tried to enlist Robbie’s help, and when that failed she wanted to leave Berlin. What was this obscure tropism which drove her husband to the companionship of persons who at the least wanted to get his money from him, and frequently were conspiring to involve him in dangerous intrigues? What had they ever done for him? What could he possibly owe them?

  Lanny insisted that he had to hear all sides. He invited Emil Meissner to lunch—not in the Robin home, for Emil wouldn’t come there. Kurt’s oldest brother was now a colonel, and Lanny wanted to know what a Prussian officer thought about the political deadlock. Emil said it was deplorable, and agreed with Lanny that the Nazis were wholly unfitted to govern Germany. He said that if von Papen had been a really strong man he would never have permitted that election to be held; if the Field Marshal had been the man of the old days he would have taken the reins in his hands and governed the country until the economic crisis had passed and the people could settle into a normal state of mind.

  “But wouldn’t that mean the end of the Republic?” asked Lanny.

  “Republics come and go, but nations endure,” said Oberst Meissner.

  VII

  Heinrich Jung called up, bursting with pride over the triumph of his party. He offered to tell Lanny the inside story, and Lanny said: “But I am consorting with your enemies.” The other laughed and replied: “Then you can tell me the inside story!” He seemed to take the view that Lanny, an American, was above the battle. Was it that a young Nazi craved the admiration of a foreigner? Was there in his secret heart some pleasure in free discussion, the expression of unbiased opinion which he did not get from his party press? Or was it that Lanny was so rich, and looked like a figure out of a Hollywood movie?

  The Jung family had been increased again. “More Junkers,” said Lanny, with what seemed a pun to him. Heinrich’s salary had been increased and he had moved into a larger home. He had invited Hugo Behr, and the three of them sat for a couple of hours sipping light beer and settling the destiny of Germany and its neighbors. Lanny was interested to observe that there were disagreements among Nazi intellectuals, as elsewhere; the two names of Hitler’s party covered widely different and inconsistent points of view. Heinrich was the National and Hugo was the Socialist, and while they agreed in worship of the Führer and in the certainty that he could do no wrong, they differed as to the party’s immediate policies as well as its ultimate goal. It seemed to the visitor that the split had widened greatly since he had last met the pair. Hugo, the convert from Marxism, had brought over with him the attitude of workingclass consciousness and the program of socialization; whereas Heinrich, son of one of Graf Stubendorf’s employees, had the mentality of a Prussian state servant to whom Ordnung und Zucht were the breath of being.

  Lanny thought there was drama in this, and that it might pay an English playwright to come to Berlin and study what was going on. He had suggested the idea to Rick, who hadn’t thought the Nazi movement important enough; but maybe the recent vote would change his mind! Anyhow, Lanny was interested to listen to two young zealots, setting out to make the world over in the image of their inspired leader; it pleased him to take a mental crowbar and insert it in the crack between their minds and make it wider and deeper. Just how deep would it go before they became aware of it themselves?

  Lanny couldn’t tell them what he knew. He couldn’t say to Hugo: “Your Führer is in the thick of negotiations with Thyssen, and Krupp von Bohlen, and Karl von Siemens, and others of the greediest industrialists of your country. He is making fresh promises of conservatism and legality. He will do anything to get power, and anything to keep it. You and your friends are just so many pawns that he moves here and there and will sacrifice when his game requires it.” No, for they would ask: “How do you know this?” And he couldn’t reply: “Fritz Thyssen told my father yesterday.” They would assume that he had got the stories from Johannes Robin, a Jew, which would mean to them two things: first, that the stories were lies, and second, that some Nazi patriots ought to visit the Robin palace
by night and smash all its windows and paint Juda verrecke! on its front door.

  No, among Catholics one did not question the purity of the Holy Virgin, and among Nazis one didn’t question the honor of the Führer. When he said in his book that he would have no honor, he meant as regards his foes; but for his Parteigenossen he was a loving shepherd, to be followed after the manner of sheep. All that Lanny could do was to ask impersonal questions. “How can the Führer get commercial credits, if Germany defaults in payments on her bonds? I don’t mean reparations, but the bonds of private investors.” Hugo Behr, naïve young Socialist, didn’t even know that there were such bonds. Lanny said: “I have several of them in a safe-deposit box in Newcastle, Connecticut. I bought them because I wanted to help your Socialist republic.”

  “It is a bourgeois fraud!” said the ex-Marxist; and that settled all Lanny’s claims.

  VIII

  Kurt had written, begging Irma and Lanny to come for a visit. Lanny had never been to Stubendorf except at Christmas time, and he thought it would be pleasant to see the country in midsummer. They drove with a speed greater than the wind over the splendid level roads of Prussia, past fields where gangs of Polish immigrant women labored on the potato crops. The roads were lined with well-tended fruit trees, and Irma said: “We couldn’t do that in America. People would steal all the fruit.” She had never seen vast fields so perfectly cultivated: every inch of ground put to use, no such thing as a weed existing, and forests with trees planted in rows like orchards. She renewed her admiration for the German Volk.

  They stayed at the Schloss, even though the Graf was not at home. Kurt had a new “Junker,” and so had his brother’s family and his sister’s. Herr Meissner was feeble, but able to talk politics; he renewed his complaints of corruption and incompetence of the Polish government under which he was forced to live. Just now there was wrangling over religious questions; the old problem of the relations of church and state was being fought over with bitterness inherited through six centuries or more. There were Polish Lutherans and German Lutherans who couldn’t and wouldn’t say the Lord’s prayer together. There were Polish Catholics trying to polonize German Catholics. There was the Volhynian Russian church, and the Uniat church which was half-way between Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic—they accepted the Pope, but their priests married and had large families. Superimposed upon all this was a new Polish ecclesiastical system, which subjected all the churches to the government. Herr Meissner, soon to depart from this earth, found the making of a proper exit as complicated a problem as had ever confronted him while staying on.

  Lanny had been looking forward to having a frank talk with his old chum. He wanted to tell Kurt what he had learned about the Nazi political machine, and make one last effort to get him out of it. But he realized that it would be a waste of effort. Kurt was in a state of exultation over the election results, for which he had been hoping for ten years and working for five. He considered that Germany was being redeemed, and he was composing a Victory March to end all marches. Lanny decided sadly that it was better to play piano duets and consider politics as beneath the notice of inspired musicians.

  He and Irma had intended to return to Berlin for another cruise; but there came a telegram from Miss Severne, who was under strict orders to report the slightest sign of indisposition on the part of her charge. She reported a digestive disturbance and a temperature of 101; that didn’t mean much in a child, and the nurse was sure it wasn’t serious, but Irma fell into a panic right away—she was a neglectful and selfish mother who had run away from her responsibilities, amusing herself all over Europe. She wanted to take a plane; but Lanny said: “By the time you get to an airport and arrange for one we can be half way home. You spell me and we’ll drive straight through.”

  So they did, and reached Juan in a little over two days—not so bad considering the mountains in Austria and Italy. Twice on the way they stopped to telephone, and when they arrived they found that the fire was all out. Was it the magic of Parsifal Dingle, or just the natural tendency of very young children to get over a fever as quickly as they get it? There was no way to know; suffice it that Lanny’s stepfather had done his best, and Miss Severne had done hers, and Baby Frances was well—and ready to take full advantage of a reformed and penitent mother! Irma was so happy to prattle and dance and play with her darling that she couldn’t understand how she had ever wanted to be fashionable.

  IX

  They settled down to domestic life. In the evening Sophie and her husband would come over to play bridge with Irma and Beauty. Marceline had begun attending a private school, where fashionable young ladies didn’t learn very much but were watched and kept out of mischief. That left Lanny free to read the magazines which had accumulated in his absence, and to play the music that took his fancy; also to attend the workers’ school and tell them what he had learned in England and Germany, and advise them how to avoid the misfortunes which had befallen their comrades in these countries.

  The only trouble was, the data appeared so complicated and the conclusions so uncertain. “MacDonaldism” appeared to indicate the futility of “gradualness” and legality; the moment you mentioned it, up popped some young Red to say: “You see what happens when the workers put their trust in parliaments!” When you mentioned Hitler, right away a wrangle started as to what had caused him. Was he an agent of German heavy industry, and a proof that capitalism would not submit peaceably to any form of limitation upon its rule? Or were the Nazis a product of the fears which Bolshevism had inspired in the Kleinbürgertum—the small business men, the petty officials, the white collar workers who had no unions and couldn’t protect their status?

  You could take either side of this debate, produce a mass of facts to prove your case, and come out feeling certain that you had won. The uncomfortable person was the one like Lanny, who wanted the whole truth, and could see that there was some of it on both sides. Nobody could look at an issue of a Nazi newspaper without seeing that they were exploiting the fear of Red Russia to the limit; on the other hand, who could look at Hitler’s Braune Haus with its costly equipment, or see the Stormtroopers marching with their shiny new uniforms and weapons—and not know that this movement was being financed by big money of some sort. Gross Kapital was afraid of Russia, just as the white collar workers were; but Gross Kapital was exploiting all the workers, and these two groups couldn’t agree on any domestic policies. Sooner or later the Nazis would have to make up their minds which master they meant to serve.

  There lay the drama of present day events in Germany, and Lanny strove to explain it to the French workers and to such of their leaders as he met. Hitler sat in his study in Berlin, or in Munich, or in the retreat which he had bought for himself in the mountains, and the Nazi chieftains came to him and argued and pulled him this way and that; he thought it over, and chose whatever course seemed to him to open the way to power. He was as slippery as an eel, and as quick to move, and nobody could say what he was going to do until he had done it. The one thing you could say for sure was that National Socialism was power without conscience; you might call it the culmination of capitalism, or a degenerate form of Bolshevism—names didn’t matter, so long as you understood that it was counter-revolution.

  The important question was, whether this same development was to be expected in every country. Was the depression going to wipe out the middle classes and drive them into the arms of demagogues? Were the workers being driven to revolt, and would their attempts be met by the overthrow of parliaments? Were the Communists right in their seemingly crazy idea that Fascism was a necessary stage in the breakdown of capitalism?

  Apparently the question was up for answer in the land which Lanny and Irma called theirs. The ex-service men who had gone overseas to fight for their country had come back to find the jobs and the money in the hands of others. Now they were unemployed, many of them starving, and they gathered in Washington demanding relief; some brought their destitute families and swarmed upon the s
teps of the Capitol or camped in vacant lots beside the Potomac. The Great Engineer fell into a panic and could think of nothing to do but turn the army loose on them, kill four, and burn the tents and pitiful belongings of all. The “bonus men” were driven out, a helpless rabble, no one caring where they went, so long as they stopped bothering politicians occupied with getting re-elected.

  To Lanny this appeared the same thing as the Cabinet of the Barons, seizing control of Prussia and ruling Germany with only a few votes in the Reichstag. It was Poincairé occupying the Ruhr for the benefit of the Comité des Forges; it was Zaharoff sending an army into Turkey to get oil concessions. It was the same type of men all over the world. They tried to grab one another’s coal and steel and oil and gold; yet, the moment they were threatened by their wage slaves anywhere, they got together to fight against the common peril. Do it with the army, do it with gangsters, do it with the workers’ own leaders, buying them or seducing them with titles, honors, and applause!

  Lanny could see that clearly; and it is a pleasure to the mind to discover unity in the midst of variety. But then the thought would come to him: “My father is one of these men, and so are his father and his brothers. My sister’s father-in-law is one, and so was my wife’s father, and all the men of her family.” That spoiled the pleasure in Lanny’s mind.

  X

  Two or three weeks passed, and ambition began to stir once more in the soul of Irma Barnes Budd. There was that splendid palace in Paris, for which she was paying over eighty thousand francs rent per month, and nearly as much for upkeep, whether she used it or not. Now it was autumn, one of the delightful seasons in la Ville Lumière. The beau monde came back from the mountains and the sea, and there were the autumn Salons, and operas and concerts and all the things that Lanny loved; there were balls and parties, an automobile show and other displays of luxury. The young couple set out in their car, and Sophie and her husband in theirs, and Beauty and her husband in hers. Mr. Dingle didn’t mind wherever she took him, for, strange as it might seem, God was in Paris, and there were people there who knew Him, even in the midst of the rout of pleasure-seeking.