LIBERAL SOAP OPERA
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demonstrate them clearly. But Mr. Wertenbaker flounders around in
the bog of liberal mythology just as blunderingly as his characters, follow–
ing with them the
ignes fatui
that beckon in the foggy air. Consider, for
example, the crucial 1938 conference. Baron convinces his liberal editors
that he is one of them by delivering a pompous and banal lecture on
revolutions, which he believes always aim at "the liberation of mankind"
but are always corrupted by power, winding up with a line of malarkey
that a
Life
editorialist might hesitate to perpetrate (though he would
probably overcome the hesitation). "What are we fighting for?" asks
Baron-they are always asking each other questions like "What do you
mean,
really,
by principles?" "We're fighting for that line in the Dec–
laration of Independence that says all men are created equal; it's just
as simple as that. . . . And since the ideal of equality can never be
reached, this revolution of ours will go on as long as there are men to
fight it." His five listeners, whom the author presents as not only com–
petent journalists but also men of serious political principles, are wowed:
He had won them; Berkeley saw it; and Louis, lifting the heavy
brows to stare each one in the face, could not fail to see it, too. He
pushed on to seal it into speech.
"We're the kings of the present time-and I'm not mixing my
political metaphors because, remember, it was the early kings who led
the people against the nobles. We're kings because we wear the crown
and wield the scepter of truth. So I'll tell you what to call our principle.
I'll tell you what to call
us."
He paused until the last ripple of sound had been smoothed into
silence, then into it cast his words: "Call us kings of the revolution!"
The reader is supposed to feel sympathy and respect for grown-up men
who are deceived by this sort of cheap bombast. The misadventures of
such addlepated heroes might be presented successfully in terms of farce
or of pathos, but not, as Mr. Wertenbaker does, as matter for high
tragedy.
The Death of Kings
stresses two main tenets of the liberal myth:
that the main trouble with our press is ideological, i.e., that it reflects
the reactionary views of its owners; and that Communism is no worse
than a bad cold.
It is interesting to note that the fictional Baron's magazines grow
more reactionary as they grow older and more powerful, which is what
the liberal myth would lead one to expect, but those of the real Henry
Luce have developed the other way: the turning point was around
1937 when Luce, impressed by the viability of the New Deal and alarmed
by the military threat of Nazi Germany, kicked upstairs the late Laird
