One Clear Call I

by Upton Sinclair

  Presidential elections in America are conducted upon a system which would be puzzling to a foreigner. The people do not vote for candidates, they vote for a slate of “electors,” who go through the form of choosing a President. Each state has a number of electors in proportion to its population, and the slate is elected as a whole, Thus Roosevelt or his rival might carry New York State by a very small margin, yet win all forty-seven of that state’s electors. That was the way it was happening now. By midnight it was plain that Roosevelt was getting a little more than half of the popular vote in the whole country, and more than three-quarters of the electoral vote. That made it look like a landslide, and everybody in this Krum Elbow study chose to take it that way. Only the partisans of Governor Dewey were surly enough to point out that it was really a very close decision.

  You could laugh at them, because a victory was a victory; the ins were in and the outs stayed out. Everybody laughed and cheered, and drank cider and ate doughnuts. At eleven o’clock there came the sound of thumping drums and tootling fifes—a red and white torchlight parade coming up from the village. It was a Republican village and a Republican neighborhood—the Squire of Krum Elbow had never once been able to carry his own Dutchess County. But there were enough Democrats to make a rousing hurrah. The Squire was bundled up and wheeled out to the semicircular portico and made a little speech, with the reporters taking notes and the newsreel cameras grinding. He told the crowd his boyhood memory of the election parade which had come here to celebrate Grover Cleveland’s victory, more than fifty years ago. The paraders cheered and shouted their slogan of triumph: “Four-four—four years more!”

  V

  Captain Budd had kept himself inconspicuous, and he was prepared to steal away and get in touch with Baker again; but the secretary came to him and said that he was to spend the night. His bag was fetched from his car and he was taken upstairs to an old-fashioned mahogany bed in which—so he was told later—the Queen of England had slept; also, he could guess, that ancestor of the Roosevelt fortune who had been a ship captain in the China trade, not entirely unacquainted with smugglers. The guest slept soundly, undisturbed by ghosts; and when he came down in the morning he had his orange juice and toast alone with the secretary, nobody else having appeared. He glanced over the delightful election news, magically provided in the New York morning papers; also he read that the Third Army had launched a heavy attack south of Metz and had taken a dozen towns. Lanny could feel that he had had something to do with that. Elated, he went for a stroll among the Squire’s Christmas trees, soon to be cut for the market.

  The host was busy in his study and did not appear for lunch. Lanny found himself a book and kept out of the way. When at last he was summoned to the presence, he made bold to say, “Governor, it’s a lovely day. Why don’t you let me take you for a drive?”

  He didn’t know whether that was protocol or not; but the response put him at his ease. “Fine!” exclaimed the Chief. “The only way we can escape the telephone!” He pressed a button, and Prettyman, his Negro valet, brought the black naval cape and the old fedora hat; the master was wheeled out to the portico, and Lanny tactfully talked to the Secret Service men while the Boss was lifted into the comfortable sport car and had a robe well tucked about his legs. It must have been someone’s business to tip the operatives off, for there they were, and four of them in a car fell in behind Lanny’s car and followed it as if the two had been connected by a cable. Those capable men, whose duty it was to guard the Chief’s life, had the most elaborate training you could imagine. They boasted that they could shoot out a man’s eyes at fifty yards. The President used to recite some lines from a children’s poem by Stevenson:

  I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

  And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

  F.D.R. knew these roads as well as Lanny knew those about Juanles-Pins. He indicated his choice with a movement of the hand, and they went up into the hills where the views of the river were glorious. A land of much history—for the New World—but they did not talk about it. The busy executive was plying his friend with questions about Europe: first, Lanny’s own adventure, which hadn’t accomplished very much, he was afraid. F.D.R. replied that Operation Anvil had been a whopping success, and there was credit enough to go round. Certainly General Meissner had given help—the President had already heard that story. As for Kurt, who could guess how much harm he might have done the American Army? Roosevelt had never met the composer or heard any of his music that he could recall, but he had been hearing about him from Lanny, and it was like the continuation of a serial story.

  VI

  “What are we going to do with Germany?” demanded Roosevelt, suddenly; and Lanny smiled a little and replied, “A lot of people would like to know, Governor—including all the Germans.”

  “We are going to have to settle upon a policy before long, and I am taking all the advice I can get. You know the Germans well, and that’s why I called you home.”

  “I’ll tell you anything I can, Governor; but don’t expect me to pull a formula out of my sleeve. It’s a tremendously complex problem.”

  “Henry Morgenthau wants to turn the industries over to the nations which have been plundered and make Germany into an agricultural nation. That way they would never be able to attack their neighbors.”

  “That’s quite true; but the trouble is, you’d have twenty or thirty millions of the population as permanent objects of charity. They couldn’t be fed from German soil and they’d have nothing to export. We couldn’t very well let that number of people starve to death, and I don’t know any place they could emigrate to.”

  “But if we let them rebuild their industry again, they’ll start rearming. We have learned how easy it is to convert heavy industry to military purposes.”

  “We’ll have to police the country for a long time whatever your long-range program may be; also, we’ll have to supervise the educational system and try to raise a different sort of German. In the long run I don’t think there is any chance of avoiding war in Europe so long as its big industry is in private hands. There are many causes of war, but in modern times the number-one cause is the race for raw materials and foreign markets.”

  “You are just as much a Socialist as ever, Lanny?”

  “More so every day, Governor. You are going to have to move in that direction because of the state of mind of the new people who are taking over the governments behind our armies. The Partisans in Italy and France are Socialist or Communist almost to a man; even the Catholics have been brought to realize that the old masters of industry are nearly all collaborateurs, and that the days of wholesale exploitation are over. It is just unthinkable that we should turn industry back into private hands when the peoples are so set against it.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you, Lanny, that a state which had all big industry in its hands would be more powerful for war than one in which the power is divided?”

  “I have thought about it a lot, Governor. I think your picture is deceptive because you fail to realize that in prewar Europe both industry and government were in private hands. The steel and coal and armament industries in Germany were one strong combine, and they fixed prices and ran the country, under the Kaisers as well as under the Nazis. Hitler was their creature; they paid for the weapons which put him in power and he would never have got anywhere without them. To be sure, he ran away with them for a while; but notice he is shooting great numbers of his generals, but no members of the cartels.”

  “That is one aspect of the situation that has not been put before our public.”

  “It is true, I assure you. My father has dealt with these men and I have sat and listened ever since my boyhood. They hold the power, and they have no idea of giving it up. They are the same sort in France, and right now they are working on our top brass, wining and dining them, and persuading them that they are the people who know how to run the country, and that it mustn’t be allowed to fall into th
e hands of a bunch of Reds. Imagine Georgie Patton, for example; can’t you hear him snorting at the idea of letting the Partisans take power?”

  “Yes, Lanny; and I can also hear our newly elected congressmen snorting at the same idea. It is from them that I’ll have to get the appropriations to carry out any program.”

  “What you have to show those congressmen is that they have to choose between a parliamentary and democratic Socialism and a violent and fanatical Communism. There is no other choice. If we try to keep the people of Germany from socializing their industries after this war, we shall simply be putting our armies in the place of the Kaiser’s armies and Hitler’s, doing the same job of repression. Automatically we shall find ourselves in alliance with every reactionary force on the Continent—and, believe me, you won’t like some of them. They will like you only so long as they can get money and arms out of you.”

  “Oh, Lanny, Lanny,” exclaimed the tired man. “I am trying to end one war, and you are trying to start another!”

  Said the P.A., “The war I am telling you about has been going on in Germany ever since the Peasant Revolt, about four centuries ago.”

  VII

  When they finished with Germany they discussed Italy, and then France, and at last Russia. Roosevelt said, “I am going to have a settlement with Stalin before many months. I have waited, to be sure I was going to be re-elected. Since he won’t come here, I suppose I’ll have to go to him. I’ll take you along, as an expert on the subject.”

  Lanny smiled. “On the basis of a two-hour talk with Stalin! But, as it happens, I have known many Communists, and I understand their party line.”

  “I wish I did, Lanny. It seems to me they change it every week.”

  “That is because you don’t distinguish between temporary situations and fundamentals. Lenin was an opportunist; he ordered the NEP, the New Economic Policy, but that was just until he had got production started after the civil war. What every Communist has as his fixed goal is a Communist world, and he counts on the discontent in every capitalist state to bring it into being.”

  “And what are we supposed to do about it?”

  “We have a choice of two courses. We can cling to our competitive commercialism, through one depression after another, and repress our social discontent; in that case we’ll get a revolution, sure as shooting. Or we can proceed to put our big industry on a production-for-use basis, and thus do away with the possibility of depressions.”

  Said F.D.R., “It seems to me, Lanny, that the Communists hate the Socialists even more than they hate the capitalists. So what good would it do us to turn Socialist?”

  “It’s puzzling, Governor, I admit. But the reason the Communists hate us Socialists is because they don’t believe the changes can be brought about peaceably; therefore they call us betrayers of the workers’ hopes. But if you once put industry on a co-operative basis, that attitude would dissolve. The attraction between the two systems would be irresistible and they would be drawn into a truce. With capitalism, of course, there is no possibility of a truce, because capitalism is forced by its very nature to expand. Within five years after this war is over we shall be producing twice as much goods as our people can purchase. We shall either have to take all the foreign markets in the world, or else face the worst depression in all history.”

  The President thought for a while and then remarked, “What I have to worry about is the immediate problem, whether Stalin will make a deal with us, or whether he is going ahead with a program of expansion after this war.”

  “I would wager that he will make a deal; but the question is whether he or any man can prevent the conflict between Communism and capitalism from increasing. There are countries all along the border of the Soviet Union which will be in collapse, and their Communists will be in a state of revolt, clamoring to join the Soviet system. The reactionaries will be putting them down. And what will we be doing?”

  “You don’t promise me much rest in my fourth term, Lanny.” The tired man said this with a smile, but Lanny knew he meant it.

  VIII

  The P.A. kept quiet, waiting for the next question. None came, and looking out of the corner of his eyes he saw that Roosevelt had leaned his head back against the seat of the car and closed his eyes. Whether he was thinking or dozing Lanny didn’t know, but in either case the Chief was the one to speak first; Lanny sat as still as was possible for the driver of a car. He thought about the problems his Boss had raised and what more he ought to say. Every man of power is surrounded by courtiers who make a business of telling him that everything is fine and that his judgment is perfect; but Lanny had never been one of these, and he knew that was why Roosevelt called upon him. The son of Budd-Erling thought that the world was in a God-awful mess, and he feared it would get worse because of the blind passions and the sheer ignorance of men. He couldn’t say otherwise—and especially not to a man who might have the power to dispel some of the ignorance and allay some of the passions.

  He decided that the President was asleep; but as time passed he became uneasy. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see his face, so pale and drawn, and he thought how people sometimes died in their sleep; propped as this man was, he might stay in position. But at last Roosevelt opened his eyes, smiled, and resumed the conversation without apology. “What are you planning to do next, Lanny?”

  “I came for orders,” was the reply; and the President stated his idea: that Lanny should follow the Army into Germany, meet as many people of all sorts as he could, and find out their attitudes, and what classes and groups could be depended upon for the building of a democratic government.

  “I don’t think you ought to spend your time interviewing prisoners, Lanny; that is a job for the military. What I need to understand is civilian opinion and how to organize it in support of a civilized regime. I don’t care whether it is Socialist or what, provided it is willing to stand by democratic principles and the process of free discussion.”

  “All right, Governor,” said the P.A. “I’ll do the best I can. What shall I use for camouflage?”

  “I leave that to your judgment. I think you had better continue in uniform, so that the Army will give you help without your always having to show credentials.”

  “There are two groups that I might work with nominally; one is the Monuments people, who are looking out for the art treasures, and the other Alsos, who are after scientific secrets.”

  “Which do you think would be better?”

  “I might shift from one to the other, meet both kinds of people, and follow whatever leads they give me.”

  “OK,” said the Boss. “Baker will arrange it that way. You should run down to Washington and report to OSS and tell them what you have told me. Doubtless they will have suggestions.”

  Lanny said, “I’ll start as soon as you turn me loose.”

  IX

  Having returned his charge to Krum Elbow, Lanny crossed the Hudson by the Poughkeepsie Bridge and sped down the west bank of the river, where the towns were fewer. He joined the Skyway and followed Highway One, and got into Washington well after midnight. Baker had telephoned a hotel reservation for him—he had to share a room with a genial salesman of metal pipe from Cleveland. In the morning he reported to General Donovan and spent the whole day and most of the night with various sections of the OSS.

  Next morning, Friday, the President was due to arrive at Union Station at eight-thirty, having taken a night train from Hyde Park. Half a million people were expected to greet him; the opening of schools had been postponed, and all government workers were permitted to be late for their jobs. Unfortunately it was a rainy morning, which discouraged many; but Lanny had his waterproof coat and came early. He had watched French crowds celebrating victory, and he was interested in comparing an American crowd with them. Besides, he felt victorious himself and had some pent-up enthusiasm.

  He did not join the throng at the station, but listened to the resonant voice from a loud speaker in front of a radio s
tore. The President was thanking his friends, and especially the faithful government workers. Lanny walked on Pennsylvania Avenue; a heavy shower had come up, but the people stuck it out. There was a forest of umbrellas, and the rain from one man’s umbrella ran down the neck of the next man; but they stood patiently, just to get a glimpse of the face of their new-old Chief. The residents of the District of Columbia have no votes, and perhaps that is why they wanted so much to use their voices. A vast wave of cheering rolled up the wide avenue as the little procession moved slowly by. In spite of the rain, the President rode in an open car, a long one known as a phaeton; he was wrapped in a waterproof, and let the rain run in rivulets off his head as he raised his hat to the cheering throngs.

  His face shone, for he loved these demonstrations and the people who made them. He believed in the people, in their right to choose their own destiny, their ability to look after their own interests. He believed in the whole democratic process, by which he appealed to them and got their response. Three days ago he had won their endorsement in the greatest number of votes ever cast in an election in the United States, and very probably in the whole world. He was on his way to the Executive Mansion, from which he expected to carry out another four-year mandate, and the government employees who made up most of the crowd were the humble subordinates who were going to help him in the task. Eight moist bands shook the water out of their trumpets and tubas and played the Sousa marches which have become standard for American manifestations.

  The procession passed, the crowd scattered, and Lanny strolled on into the business part of the city, which is very close to the White House grounds. The rain had slacked up, and he was meditating upon his experiences of the last three days and the conclusions to be drawn from them. The papers reported that Patron’s Army was continuing its fierce drive south of Metz; it was the route which Emil Meissner had recommended, and Lanny could feel that he had had something to do with that. Everything was coming his way, and there was only one thought to disturb his peace of mind—the glimpses he had got of a harassed and exhausted man dozing in a motorcar. That face would light up with excitement for a victory parade, but afterward its owner would be so tired, oh, so tired!