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Thomas addresses his hopes to more concrete groups than do Bing·
ham and Johnston. He speaks of farmer and labor unions, consumer
coops, and a third party modeled more or less on the CCCF. To Bing–
ham the problem of specific groups which might implement his program
is troublesome, although he is precise enough as to his Keynesian policies.
He writes to and for something called "a revolution of the common
man," who throughout modern times has been "a middle-class man."
Yet several pages later the common man is generalized to include the
yellow and black races. Opposed to the common (middle-class) man in
America stands "the respectable: business man who is afraid of the
future," the man with "Babbitt brains and Pegler hates." This is an
impolite way of referring to the same little "American capitalist" upon
whom Johnston pins our hopes for the future of his world, for a bigger
Moscow and a better Chungking. All "Americans," he notes, are "cap–
italists," both economically and psychologically.
Johnston's key strategy is to steal the symbols of all aspiring groups,
to incorporate them as members of the "capitalist" holding company.
Thus: "I regard labor as an intrinsic part of business." This monopolistic
practice piles up good will for business and solves all our problems.
But
since it is a symbolic solution only, heavy reliance must be placed in the
further ritual of the correct attitude. Thus the difference between the
enemies and the friends of the American way is more a matter of out–
look and knowledge than of economic position and interests. The dif–
ference is between those who would go forward with relish and realism
and those who just can't understand the American way; these latter are
likely to be "intellectuals," especially those influenced by "European"
ideas. But all the while, the "Kiwanian booster" understands it "with–
out recourse to analysis."
Each author "accepts" the war: Johnston conventionally, Bingham
with mingled disillusion and hope, Thomas with bitterness and frantic
pleas to make it mean something. The war is not so central in the focus
of Johnston as it is in the views of Thomas and Bingham. In many ways,
Johnston is the most "isolationist" of the thr.ee; certainly he is the most
nationalist. In contrast to Johnston's incidental notice of the war and
his total absence of discussions of race, Thomas and Bingham see the
war as a key indicator of the condition of the world and race as a world
problem of frightening dimensions. They seek to explain the war and to
squeeze something good from the sacrifices it entails. The peace haunts
them all, except Johnston who refuses to be haunted by anything.
Each presents an image of himself, although neither Bingham nor
Thomas in any way intrude their personalities. Bingham is the reason–
able man sincerely trying to understand, explain, straighten things out.
Thomas is a man who was against fascism when . . . Churchill first
began to praise it and when Roosevelt was brushing off the Loyalists.
Thomas is the indignant man with the big anger. Johnston, after
