Every Christmas his librarian read him Dickens’ A Christmas Carol from the original manuscript.
He was fond of canarybirds and pekinese dogs and liked to take pretty actresses yachting. Each Corsair was a finer vessel than the last.
When he dined with King Edward he sat at His Majesty’s right; he ate with the Kaiser tête-à-tête; he liked talking to cardinals or the pope, and never missed a conference of Episcopal bishops;
Rome was his favorite city.
He liked choice cookery and old wines and pretty women and yachting, and going over his collections, now and then picking up a jewelled snuffbox and staring at it with his magpie’s eyes.
He made a collection of the autographs of the rulers of France, owned glass cases full of Babylonian tablets, seals, signets, statuettes, busts,
Gallo-Roman bronzes,
Merovingian jewels, miniatures, watches, tapestries, porcelains, cuneiform inscriptions, paintings by all the old masters, Dutch, Italian, Flemish, Spanish,
manuscripts of the gospels and the Apocalypse,
a collection of the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
and the letters of Pliny the Younger.
His collectors bought anything that was expensive or rare or had the glint of empire on it, and he had it brought to him and stared hard at it with his magpie’s eyes. Then it was put in a glass case.
The last year of his life he went up the Nile on a dahabiyeh and spent a long time staring at the great columns of the Temple of Karnak.
The panic of 1907 and the death of Harriman, his great opponent in railroad financing, in 1909, had left him the undisputed ruler of Wall Street, most powerful private citizen in the world;
an old man tired of the purple, suffering from gout, he had deigned to go to Washington to answer the questions of the Pujo Committee during the Money Trust Investigation: Yes, I did what seemed to me to be for the best interests of the country.
So admirably was his empire built that his death in 1913 hardly caused a ripple in the exchanges of the world: the purple descended to his son, J. P. Morgan,
who had been trained at Groton and Harvard and by associating with the British ruling class
to be a more constitutional monarch: J. P. Morgan suggests . . .
By 1917 the Allies had borrowed one billion, ninehundred million dollars through the House of Morgan: we went overseas for democracy and the flag;
and by the end of the Peace Conference the phrase J. P. Morgan suggests had compulsion over a power of seventyfour billion dollars.
J. P. Morgan is a silent man, not given to public utterances, but during the great steel strike, he wrote Gary: Heartfelt congratulations on your stand for the open shop, with which I am, as you know, absolutely in accord. I believe American principles of liberty are deeply involved, and must win if we stand firm.
(Wars and panics on the stock exchange,
machinegunfire and arson,
bankruptcies, warloans,
starvation, lice, cholera and typhus:
good growing weather for the House of Morgan.)
Newsreel XXXV
the Grand Prix de la Victoire, run yesterday for fiftysecond time was an event that will long remain in the memories of those present, for never in the history of the classic race has Longchamps presented such a glorious scene
Keep the home fires burning
Till the boys come home
LEVIATHAN UNABLE TO PUT TO SEA
BOLSHEVIKS ABOLISH POSTAGE STAMPS
ARTIST TAKES GAS IN NEW HAVEN
FIND BLOOD ON $1 BILL
While our hearts are yearning
POTASH CAUSE OF BREAK IN PARLEY
MAJOR DIES OF POISONING
TOOK ROACH SALTS BY MISTAKE
riot and robbery developed into the most awful pogrom ever heard of. Within two or three days the Lemberg ghetto was turned into heaps of smoking debris. Eyewitnesses estimate that the Polish soldiers killed more than a thousand jewish men and women and children
LENINE SHOT BY TROTSKY
IN DRUNKEN BRAWL
you know where I stand on beer, said Brisbane in seeking assistance
Though the boys are far away
They long for home
There’s a silver lining
Through the dark clouds shining
PRESIDENT EVOKES CRY OF THE DEAD
LETTER CLEW TO BOMB OUTRAGE
Emile Deen in the preceding three installments of his interview described the situation between the Royal Dutch and the Standard Oil Company, as being the beginning of a struggle for the control of the markets of the world which was only halted by the war. “The basic factors,” he said, “are envy, discontent, and suspicion.” The extraordinary industrial growth of our nation since the Civil War, the opening up of new territory, the development of resources, the rapid increase in population, all these things have resulted in the creation of many big and sudden fortunes. Is there a mother, father, sweetheart, relative or friend of any one of the two million boys fighting abroad who does not thank God that Wall Street contributed H. P. Davidson to the Red Cross?
BOND THIEF MURDERED
Turn the bright side inside out
Till the boys come home
The Camera Eye (39)
daylight enlarges out of ruddy quiet very faintly throbbing wanes into my sweet darkness broadens red through the warm blood weighting the lids warmsweetly then snaps on
enormously blue yellow pink
today is Paris pink sunlight hazy on the clouds against patches of robinsegg a tiny siren hoots shrilly traffic drowsily rumbles clatters over the cobbles taxis squawk the yellow’s the comforter through the open window the Louvre emphasizes its sedate architecture of greypink stone between the Seine and the sky
and the certainty of Paris
the towboat shiny green and red chugs against the current towing three black and mahoganyvarnished barges their deckhouse windows have green shutters and lace curtains and pots of geraniums in flower to get under the bridge a fat man in blue had to let the little black stack drop flat to the deck
Paris comes into the room in the servantgirl’s eyes the warm bulge of her breasts under the grey smock the smell of chickory in coffee scalded milk and the shine that crunches on the crescent rolls stuck with little dabs of very sweet unsalted butter
in the yellow paperback of the book that halfhides the agreeable countenance of my friend
Paris of 1919
paris-mutuel
roulettewheel that spins round the Tour Eiffel red square white square a million dollars a billion marks a trillion roubles baisse du franc or a mandate for Montmartre
Cirque Médrano the steeplechase gravity of cellos tuning up on the stage at the Salle Gaveau oboes and a triangle la musique’s’en fout de moi says the old marchioness jingling with diamonds as she walks out on Stravinski but the red colt took the jumps backwards and we lost all our money
la peinture opposite the Madeleine Cezanne Picassso Modigliani
Nouvelle Athènes
la poesie of manifestos always freshtinted on the kiosks and slogans scrawled in chalk on the urinals L’UNION DES TRAVAILLEURS FERA LA PAIX DU MONDE
revolution round the spinning Eiffel Tower
that burns up our last year’s diagrams the dates fly off the calendar we’ll make everything new today is the Year I Today is the sunny morning of the first day of spring We gulp our coffee splash water on us jump into our clothes run downstairs set out wideawake into the first morning of the first day of the first year
Newsreel XXXVI
TO THE GLORY OF FRANCE ETERNAL
Oh a German officer crossed the Rhine
Parleyvoo
Germans Beaten at Riga Grateful Parisians Cheer Marshals of France
Oh a German officer crossed the Rhine
He liked the women and loved the wine
Hankypanky parleyvoo
PITEOUS PLAINT OF WIFE TELLS OF
RIVAL’S WILES
Wilson’s Arrival in Washington Starts Trouble. Paris strikers hear harangues at picnic. Café wrecked and bombs thrown in Fiume streets. Parisians pay more for meat. Il Serait Dangereux d’Augmenter les Vivres. Bethmann Holweg’s Blood Boils. Mysterious Forces Halt Antibolshevist March.
HUN’S HAND SEEN IN PLOTS
Oh Mademoiselle from Armentiéres
Parleyvoo
Oh Mademoiselle from Armentiéres
Parleyvoo
Hasn’t been——for forty years
Hankypanky parleyvoo
wrecks mark final day at La Baule; syndicated wage earners seize opportunity to threaten employers unprepared for change. LAYS WREATH ON TOMB OF LAFAYETTE. Richest Negress is Dead. Yale Dormitories stormed by Angry Mob of Soldiers. Goldmine in Kinks.
TIGHTENS SCREW ON BERLIN
Oh he took her upstairs and into bed
And there he cracked her maidenhead
Hanypanky parleyvoo
NO DROP IN PRICES TO FOLLOW PEACE SAY
BUSINESS MEN
KILLS SELF AT DESK IN OFFICE
MODERN BLUEBEARD NOW VICTIM OF MELANCHOLIA
He is none other than General Minus of the old Russian Imperial General Staff, who, during the Kerensky régime, was commander of troops in the region of Minsk. Paris policemen threaten to join strike movement, allow it to send into France barrels bearing the mystic word Mistelles. One speculator is said to have netted nearly five million francs within a week
On the first three months and all went well
But the second three months she began to swell
Hankeypanky parleyvoo
large financial resources, improved appliances and abundant raw materials of America should assist French genius in restoring and increasing industrial power of France, joining hands in the charming scenery, wonderful roads, excellent hotels, and good cookery makes site of Lyons fair crossed by the 45th parallel. Favored by great mineral resources its future looms incalculably splendid. Any man who attempts to take over control of municipal functions here will be shot on sight, Major Ole Hanson remarked. He is a little man himself but has big ideas, a big brain, and big hopes. Upon first meeting him one is struck by his resemblance to Mark Twain
Richard Ellsworth Savage
Dick and Ned felt pretty rocky the morning they sighted Fire Island lightship. Dick wasn’t looking forward to landing in God’s Country with no money and the draft board to face, and he was worried about how his mother was going to make out. All Ned was complaining about was wartime prohibition. They were both a little jumpy from all the cognac they’d drunk on the trip over. They were already in the slategreen shallow seas off Long Island; no help for it now. The heavy haze to the west and then the low boxlike houses that looked as if they were drowned in the water and then the white strip of beach of the Rockaways; the scenicrailways of Coney Island; the full green summer trees and the grey framehouses with their white trim on Staten Island; it was all heartbreakingly like home. When the immigration tug came alongside Dick was surprised to see Hiram Halsey Cooper, in khaki uniform and puttees, clambering up the steps. Dick lit a cigarette and tried to look sober.
“My boy, it’s a great relief to see you. . . . Your mother and I have been . . . er . . .” Dick interrupted to introduce him to Ned. Mr. Cooper, who was in the uniform of a major, took him by the sleeve and drew him up the deck. “Better put on your uniform to land.” “All right, sir, I thought it looked rather shabby.” “All the better. . . . Well, I suppose it’s hell over there . . . and no chance for courting the muse, eh? . . . You’re coming up to Washington with me tonight. We’ve been very uneasy about you, but that’s all over now . . . made me realize what a lonely old man I am. Look here, my boy, your mother was the daughter of Major General Ellsworth, isn’t that so?” Dick nodded. “Of course she must have been because my dear wife was his niece. . . . Well, hurry and put your uniform on and remember . . . leave all the talking to me.”
While he was changing into the old Norton-Harjes uniform Dick was thinking how suddenly Mr. Cooper had aged and wondering just how he could ask him to lend him fifteen dollars to pay the bill he’d run up at the bar.
New York had a funny lonely empty look in the summer afternoon sunlight; well here he was home. At the Pennsylvania station there were policemen and plainclothes men at all the entrances demanding the registration cards of all the young men who were not in uniform. As he and Mr. Cooper ran for the train he caught sight of a dejectedlooking group of men herded together in a corner hemmed by a cordon of sweating cops. When they got in their seats in the parlorcar on the Congressional Mr. Cooper mopped his face with a handkerchief. “You understand why I said to put your uniform on. Well, I suppose it was hell?”
“Some of it was pretty bad,” said Dick casually. “I hated to come back though.”
“I know you did, my boy. . . . You didn’t expect to find your old mentor in the uniform of a major . . . well, we must all put our shoulders to the wheel. I’m in the purchasing department of Ordnance. You see the chief of our bureau of personnel is General Sykes; he turns out to have served with your grandfather. I’ve told him about you, your experience on two fronts, your knowledge of languages and . . . well . . . naturally he’s very much interested. . . . I think we can get you a commission right away.”
“Mr. Cooper, it’s . . .” stammered Dick, “it’s extraordinarily decent . . . damn kind of you to interest yourself in me this way.”
“My boy, I didn’t realize how I missed you . . . our chats about the muse and the ancients . . . until you had gone.” Mr. Cooper’s voice was drowned out by the roar of the train. Well, here I am home, something inside Dick’s head kept saying to him.
When the train stopped at the West Philadelphia station the only sound was the quiet droning of the electric fans; Mr. Cooper leaned over and tapped Dick’s knee, “Only one thing you must promise . . . no more peace talk till we win the war. When peace comes we can put some in our poems. . . . Then’ll be the time for us all to work for a lasting peace. . . . As for the little incident in Italy . . . it’s nothing . . . forget it . . . nobody ever heard of it.” Dick nodded; it made him sore to feel that he was blushing. They neither of them said anything until the waiter came through calling, “Dinner now being served in the dining car forward.”
In Washington (now you are home, something kept saying in Dick’s head) Mr. Cooper had a room in the Willard where he put Dick up on the couch as the hotel was full and it was impossible to get another room anywhere. After he’d rolled up in the sheet Dick heard Mr. Cooper tiptoe over and stand beside the couch breathing hard. He opened his eyes and grinned. “Well, my boy,” said Mr. Cooper, “it’s nice to have you home . . . sleep well,” and he went back to bed.
Next morning he was introduced to General Sykes: “This is the young man who wants to serve his country,” said Mr. Cooper with aflourish, “as his grandfather served it. . . . In fact he was so impatient that he went to war before his country did, and enlisted in the volunteer ambulance service with the French and afterwards with the Italians.” General Sykes was a little old man with bright eyes and a hawk nose and extremely deaf. “Yes, Ellsworth was a great fellow, we campaigned against Hieronimo together . . . Ah, the old west . . . I was only fourteen at Gettysburg and damme I don’t think he was there at all. We went through West Point in the same class after the war, poor old Ellsworth. . . . So you’ve smelled powder have you, my boy?” Dick colored and nodded.
“You see, General,” shouted Mr. Cooper, “he feels he wants some more . . . er . . . responsible work than was possible in the ambulance service.”
“Yessiree, no place for a highspirited young fellow. . . . You know Andrews, Major . . .” The General was scribbling on a pad. “Take him to see Colonel Andrews with this memorandum and he’ll fix him up, has to decide on qualifications etc. . . . You understand . . . good luck, my boy.” Dick managed a passable salute and they were out in the corridor; Mr. Cooper was smiling broadly. “Well, that’s done. I
must be getting back to my office. You go and fill out the forms and take your medical examination . . . or perhaps that’ll be at the camp . . . Anyway come and lunch with me at the Willard at one. Come up to the room.” Dick saluted smiling.
He spent the rest of the morning filling out blanks. After lunch he went down to Atlantic City to see his mother. She looked just the same. She was staying in a boarding house at the Chelsea end and was very much exercised about spies. Henry had enlisted as a private in the infantry and was somewhere in France. Mother said it made her blood boil to think of the grandson of General Ellsworth being a mere private, but that she felt confident he’d soon rise from the ranks. Dick hadn’t heard her speak of her father since she used to talk about him when he was a child, and asked her about him. He had died when she was quite a little girl leaving the family not too well off considering their station in life. All she remembered was a tall man in blue with a floppy felt hat caught up on one side and a white goatee; when she’d first seen a cartoon of Uncle Sam she’d thought it was her father. He always had hoarhound drops in a little silver bonbonnière in his pocket, she’d been so excited about the military funeral and a nice kind army officer giving her his handkerchief. She’d kept the bonbonnière for many years but it had had to go with everything else when your poor father . . . er . . . failed.