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used when Lanny was a small boy, that the business man did not think merely of the money

he was making or might make; he acquired responsibilities to thousands of investors, not all of

them greedy idlers, but many aged persons, widows, and orphans having no means of support

but their shares of stock; also to workingmen whose families starved unless the weekly pay

envelopes were filled. It was a libel upon business administrators to suppose that they had no

sense of duties owed to other people, even though most of these people were strangers.

"Moreover," said Johannes, "when a man has spent his life learning to pursue a certain kind

of activity, it is no easy matter to persuade him to drop it at the height of his powers.

Difficulties, yes; but he has expected them, and takes them as a challenge, he enjoys coping

with them and showing that he can master them. To give up and run away from them is an

act of cowardice which would undermine his moral foundations; he would have no use for

himself thereafter, but would spend his time brooding, like an admiral who veered about and

deserted his fleet.

"My children have their own moral code," continued the money master, "and they have the

task of convincing me that it applies to my case. They wish to build a new and better world,

and I would be glad if they could succeed, and if I saw any hope of success I would join

them. I ask for their plans, and they offer me vague dreams, in which as a man of affairs I see

no practicality. It is like the end of Das Rheingold: there is Valhalla, very beautiful, but only a

rainbow bridge on which to get to it, and while the gods may be able to walk on a rainbow,

my investors and working people cannot. My children assure me that a firmer bridge will be

constructed, and when I ask for the names of the engineers, they offer me party leaders and

propagandists, speechmakers who cannot even agree among themselves; if it were not for

what they call the capitalist police they would fall to fighting among themselves and we

should have civil war instead of Utopia. How can my two boys expect me to agree with them

until they have at least managed to agree between themselves?"

Lanny was sad to have no answer to this question. He had already put it to his sister, and she

could say only that she and her husband were right, while Freddi and Rahel were wrong. No

use putting the question to the other pair, for their answer would be the same. Neither couple

was going to give way—any more than Lanny himself was going to give up his conviction that

it was the program of the Communists which had caused the development of Fascism and

Nazism—or at any rate had made possible its spread in Italy and Germany. Only in the

Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon lands, where democratic institutions were firmly rooted, had

neither Reds nor anti-Reds been able to make headway.

II

So there wasn't any chance of persuading Johannes Robin to retire to a monastery or even to

a private yacht right now. He didn't pretend to know what was going to happen in Germany,

but he knew that these were stormy times and that he, the admiral, would stand by his

righting fleet. He would protect his properties and keep his factories running; and if, in order

to get contracts and concessions it was necessary to make a present to some powerful politician,

Johannes would bargain shrewdly and pay no more than he had to. That had been the way of

the world since governments had first been invented, and a Jewish trader, an exile barely

tolerated in a strange land, had to be satisfied with looking out for his own. His sons felt more

at home in Germany and dreamed of trying to change it; but for the child of the ghetto it was

enough that he obeyed the law. "Not very noble," he admitted, sadly; "but when the nobler

ones come to me for help, they get it."

The world was in a bad way and getting worse. Banks were failing all over the United

States, and unemployment increasing steadily. A presidential election was due in November,

and the political parties had held their conventions and made their nomina tions; the

Republicans had endorsed the Great Engineer and all that he had done, while the Democrats

nominated the Governor of New York, Franklin Roosevelt by name. Johannes asked if

Lanny knew anything about this man, and Lanny said no; but when the yacht picked up

some mail, there was Robbie's weekly letter, a cross between a business man's report and one

of the lamentations of Jeremiah. Robbie said that the Democratic candidate was a man wholly

without business experience, and moreover an invalid, his legs shriveled by infantile paralysis.

Surely these times called for one at least physically sound; the presidency was a mankilling job,

and this Roosevelt, if elected, couldn't survive it for a year. But he wasn't going to be elected,

for Robbie and his friends were pulling off their coats, to say nothing of opening their purses.

"I suppose Robbie will be asking you for a contribution!" chuckled the irreverent son, and

the other replied: "I have many interests in America." Lanny recalled the remark he had once

heard Zaharoff make: "I am a citizen of every country where I have investments."

III

They discussed conditions in Germany, living on borrowed capital and sliding deeper and

deeper into the pit. The existing government had no popular support, but was run by the

Herren Klub, an organization of big business men, aristocrats, and "office generals," having

some twenty branches throughout Germany. Its two most active politicians were Chancellor von

Papen and General von Schleicher, and they were supposed to be colleagues, but neither could

trust the other out of his sight. Now Papen was in office, and Schleicher was trading secretly

with the Nazis for their support to turn him out. Nobody could trust anybody, except the

eighty-five-year-old monument of the Junkerdom, General von Hindenburg. Poor alte Herr,

when the burdens of state were dumped upon him he could only answer: "Ich will meine Ruhe

haben!"— I must have my rest.

Johannes judged it certain that the Nazis would make heavy gains at the coming elections,

but he refused to worry about this. He had several of them on his payroll, but what he counted

upon most was the fact that Hitler had gone to Dusseldorf and had a long session with

Thyssen and other magnates of the Ruhr. They wanted the Red labor unions put down, and

Hitler had satisfied them that he was ready to do the job. You might fool one or two of those

tough steelmen, but not many; they knew politicians, and dealt with one crop after another; it

was part of the game of conducting industry in a world full of parliaments and parties. A

nuisance, but you learned to judge men and saw to it that none got into power who couldn't be

trusted. The same thing applied to the great landlords of Prussia; they wanted above all things

a bulwark against Bolshevism, and were willing to pay a heavy price for that service. These two

powers, the industrialists of the west and the landed gentry of the east, had governed Germany

since the days of Bismarck and would go on doing so.

"But aren't you afraid of Hitler's anti-Semitism?" asked Lanny.

"Herrgott!" exclaimed the owner of the Bessie Budd. "I was brought up in the midst of

pogroms, and what could I do then? It is said that there once lived a Jew called Jesus, and

other Jews had him executed by the Romans; such things happened ten thousand times, no

doubt; but because of this one time my poor people have to be spat upon and clubbed and

stabbed to death. What can any of us do, except to pray that it will not break out in the street

where we live?"

"But they threaten it wholesale, Johannes!"

"It is a means of getting power in a world where people are distracted and must have some

one to blame. I can only hope that if ever the Nazis come into office they will have real

problems to deal with, so that the spotlight will be turned away from my unfortunate people."

IV

Irma had voted to keep out of German political affairs, but that couldn't be arranged entirely.

There was the workers' school, in which Freddi was so deeply interested, and which had been

more or less modeled upon Lanny's own project. When they came back to Berlin Lanny's wife

played bridge while he went with Freddi and Rahel to a reception at which he met the

teachers and friends of the enterprise, heard its problems discussed, and told them how things

were going in the Midi.

In his way of thinking Lanny was nearer to these young Socialists than to any other group;

yet what a variety of opinion there was among them, and how difficult to get them together on

any program of action! A few days before the election the von Papen government had effected

a coup d'Etat in the state of Prussia, which includes Berlin; the premier and the principal

officials, all Social-Democrats, were turned out of office and threatened with arrest if they

attempted to resist—which they did so feebly that it amounted to submission. As a result,

the Socialists were buzzing like a swarm of bees whose hive has been upset; but alas, they

appeared to be bees which had lost their stingers! The Communists had proposed a general

strike of the workers and called upon the Socialists to co-operate with them; but how could

anybody cooperate with Communists? They would take advantage of an uprising to seize the

reins themselves; they would turn upon their allies as they had done with Kerensky in Russia.

The Socialists were more in fear of the Communists than of the reactionaries; they were

afraid of acting like Communists, of looking like Communists, of being called Communists.

So the Cabinet of the Barons seized control of the Berlin police and all the other powers of

the local government. How different it had been twelve years ago during the "Kapp Putsch"!

Then the workers hadn't waited for their leaders, they had known instantly what to do—drop

their tools and come into the streets and show their power. But now, apparently, they had lost

interest in the Republic. What good had it done them these twelve years? It couldn't prevent

hard times and unemployment, it couldn't even make promises any more! It was so chained by

its own notions of legality that it couldn't resist the illegality of others.

Lanny listened to the discussions of these Berlin intellectuals. They came from all classes,

brought together by community of ideas. They had the keenest realization of danger to the

cause of freedom and social justice. They all wanted to do something; but first they had to

agree what to do, and apparently they couldn't; they talked and argued until they were

exhausted. Lanny wondered, is this a disease which afflicts all intellectuals? Is it a paralysis which

accompanies the life of the mind? If so, then it must be that the thinkers will be forever

subject to the men of brute force, and Plato's dream of a state ruled by philosophers will

remain forever vain.

Lanny thought: "Somebody ought to lead them!" He wanted to say: "My God, it may be

settled this very night. Your republic will be dead! Let's go now, and call the workers out!" But

then he thought: "What sort of a figure would I cut, taking charge of a German revolution? I,