The Disunited States

THE

DISUNITED

STATES

VLADIMIR POZNER

Translated from the French by Alison L. Strayer

SEVEN STORIES PRESS

NEW YORK • OAKLAND

Copyright © 2009, Lux Éditeur

Originally published by Éditions Denoël, 1938.

English translation © 2014, Alison L. Strayer

Cet ouvrage publié dans le cadre du programme d’aide à la publication bénéficie du soutien du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et du Service Culturel de l’Ambassade de France représenté aux Etats-Unis. This work received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States through their publishing assistance program.

Cet ouvrage a bénéficie du soutien des Programmes d’aide à la publication de l’Institut français. This work, published as part of a program of aid for publication, received support from the Institut Français.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pozner, Vladimir, 1905-1992.

[États Désunis. English]

The Disunited States / Vladimir Pozner ; translated by Alison L. Strayer.

pages ; cm

ISBN 978-1-60980-531-9 (paperback)

1. United States--Description and travel. 2. United States--Social conditions--1933-1945. 3. Pozner, Vladimir, 1905-1992--Travel--United States. I. Title.

E169.P8613 2014

973.917--dc23

2013050806

Printed in the United States

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER

CONVENTIONAL AMERICA I. LIFE

HARLEM To James and Mary

NOTEBOOK JANUARY 1936

A DELUXE VACUUM CLEANER To Miriam and George

NOTEBOOK FEBRUARY 1936

CONVENTIONAL AMERICA II. BUSINESS

THE RAPE

NOTEBOOK MARCH 1936

CADAVERS, BY-PRODUCTS OF DIVIDENDS

CONVENTIONAL AMERICA III. ART

NOTEBOOK APRIL 1936

THE PARADOX OF THE GANGSTER

NOTEBOOK APRIL 1936 (continued)

THE NEW BUSINESS WORLD

NOTEBOOK APRIL 1936 (END)

CONVENTIONAL AMERICA IV. LOVE

ON HUMAN DIGNITY To Lillian

NOTEBOOK MAY 1936

THE BEGINNING AND END OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION To Harry

NOTEBOOK MAY 1936 (END)

CONVENTIONAL AMERICA V. DEATH

THE COAL MAN IS LORD OF THE LAND To Mal

NOTEBOOK JUNE 1936

REAL AMERICA To Giska

About the Author and Translator

The era of philosophical twaddle is over. That of photography has arrived.

—Jules Vallès, Le tableau de Paris, 1882

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested.

—Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER

. . . yes, but the sun goes faster. It springs from the Atlantic, sets off at 5:26 in Portland, Maine, near the Canadian border, at 5:30, it’s in Boston, twelve minutes later, in New York. At 5:47, it’s reported in Philadelphia, Quaker City, 5:48 in Wilmington, capital of the DuPont de Nemours, 5:54 in Washington, the seat of government. At 6:06, it’s the turn of Pittsburgh steel, at 6:10, the turn of Miami palms, at 6:18, that of the automobiles of Detroit. Not a second behind schedule, the sun arrives in Atlanta, Georgia, at 6:24, in Cincinnati, Ohio, at 6:25, in Louisville, Kentucky, at 6:29. The blast furnaces in Gary spot it at 6:35, the Chicago stockyards a minute later. From sixty seconds to sixty seconds, from city to city it moves, 6:46, Memphis, 6:47, Saint Louis, 6:48, New Orleans. Factories in the East are up and running, southern plantations humming; now, the Midwest farms and herds appear, Des Moines at 7:00 sharp, at 7:04 Kansas City, 7:10, Omaha. On the trails of French explorers, Dutch traders, British governors, the paths of the American pioneers and trappers. Desert cacti now, and Indians (7:17, Oklahoma City), Mexicans (7:50, Santa Fe), Mormons (8:13, Salt Lake City). An ocean appears on the horizon; Los Angeles to the south, Seattle to the north; and at 8:57, the sun pulls into San Francisco.

September 21, 1936, begins in the United States of America.

The legacy of the night weighs on the continent. The morning is gorged with strikes, conventions, deaths, speeches.

The Colorado River hauls its swollen yellow floodwaters across the plains of Texas, and in the deserted backcountry towns, water takes the place of men, enters their homes, their workshops, their offices, their . . .

In Milwaukee, the gangster Cesare Cortese goes to the window of the café where he’s been sitting, peers at the lone car that’s just pulled up in front: a salvo of bullets rakes the glass, the car roars away, Cortese crashes down among shards of . . .

A nurse at a hospital in Memphis removes a bag from around the neck of a baby who has just been brought to her, and takes out a shred of rattlesnake skin. What’s this for? she asks. To prevent the teeth from coming in too early, says the mo . . .

In Akron, Rubber Town, non-unionized mechanics come to repair a machine at the Goodrich factory; but seeing them arrive, the workers cross their arms and the machinery is paralyzed, and meanwhile the morning fog drapes itself around the Michigan highways, cars pull onto imaginary roads, four dead and six wounded by the time President Roosevelt arrives in New York.

7:30. This just in. The governor of Louisiana, following his counterparts in Alabama and Mississippi, agrees to participate in governors’ regattas in the southern states, while Reverend Crown in his Illinois town, sifts through contest answers—five dollars for the person who can name the most horrible sin. It’s murder, says a schoolgirl, it’s tobacco, claims a doctor, and a Chicago resident, it’s communism!

On his sixty-first birthday, Walter Scott, a.k.a. Death Valley Scotty, divides his time between the gold mine, his hut, and his two mules Betty and Slim. He never comes across a sign of life save for the prints of his heavy boots and his animals’ hoofs in the dirt. About his family: he’s heard nothing of them since the day he ran away from home as a boy. He has been a muleteer, cowboy. The new century caught him by surprise in this California valley. He wanted to be rich and became a little richer each year, extracting gold.

Scotty had built a wall around his domain. One day he would emerge, powerful as Rockefeller.

Fourteen years ago, he believed the time had come. In a California canyon, he built a $2 million castle. Once the work was done, he went out for a visit, toured the rooms, turned on the bathtub faucets, fiddled with the light switches. All this belonged to him. He tiptoed out, moved by so much wealth, and bored to death. The next day he was at his mine.

Today he turns sixty-one. He will live for a long time yet, but will never have yachts, servants, women. There’s only one thing in the world he enjoys: leaving for his placer at dawn between Betty and Slim, and returning in the evening with a little bit of yellow dust, a little bit more each time.

In West Virginia, one hundred workers hired to put in a pipeline go on strike.

In a Newark hospital, a police officer approaches a nurse. You’ve got a casualty who lost his nose in a car accident? Well! We found the nose stuck to the car radiator. I’ve brought it for you.

A black boy in St. Louis flees at the sight of detectives who suspect him of theft: THEY SHOOT TO KILL.

Mrs. Johnson of Washington filed for a divorce: she drank too much one night and the next morning woke up in North Carolina, married to a Mr. Johnson.

Samuel Insull, renowned crooked banker who recently merged twenty-two radio stations, offers his resignation as president of the new trust, of which he remains a director.

10:00: the New York Stock Exchange opens its doors.

In an Akron hotel (at the Goodrich factory, the strike is spreading from shop to shop), Preston Harless, Dragon of the city, confers with James Colescott, Grand Dragon of Ohio: the Ku Klux Klan Convention is a few days away, the presidential elections are approaching; "We’ll limit ourselves to informing voters of the candidates’ religion," says Colescott.

Casimir Cazale dies in New Orleans; in 1887, he left his home in Basses-Pyrenees for Louisiana.

"America for Americans," replies Harless.

Ellen MacGeary dies in a Pennsylvania backwater; sixty years ago, she gave up her native Ireland for the United States.

Says Colescott, "We must elect men who will deport the fifteen hundred thousand foreigners living illegally in this country and stealing jobs from real Americans."

Peter Stephen dies in Atlanta; in 1899, he left his village in Greece for the plantations of Georgia.

The Grand Dragon announces the good news to the Dragon: HIRAM W. EVANS, IMPERIAL WIZARD, SUPREME HEAD OF THE KLAN, WILL SPEAK IN AKRON.

10:30. In St. Louis, the director of the Great Eastern Oil Corp, terror-stricken, opens his vaults while looking down the barrels of revolvers that two men are pointing at him— Boyd’s City Dispatch, the oldest direct mailing agency, puts up for sale a list of 13,183 millionaires— In Hollywood, costume designer Adrian has just reconciled Greta Garbo with sound engineers by inventing a noise absorber, thanks to which the star may—FINALLY!—wear the taffeta dresses she loves but whose rustling, until now, drowned out the actors’ dialogue— In Chicago, a member of Congress holds forth at the Credit Jewelers Board of Trade Convention: "The business world," says he (in Port Huron, Michigan, Mrs. Parish, eighty-four, kills herself by opening the gas valve), the business world must feed the unemployed, or fight them."(An unemployed man dies in the hospital in Youngstown)—

11:00. 640,000 shares have been traded on the Stock Exchange since it opened—

3,200 lettuce growers are on strike in Salinas, California. The police have just searched the home of the union secretary, in his absence and without a warrant, and found evidence of conspiracy. That is, some communist newspapers, a volume of the works of Lenin and a letter whose recipient is addressed as comrade, signed Fraternally yours. Two thousand citizens, vested with police powers, take over from each other at the Salinas Barracks. We’re in a virtual state of war, said a municipal employee. And the sheriff: Whatever the purpose of the strike, order must be maintained. I have faith in democracy and trade unionism. Strikebreakers work under police protection. Some strikers are in prison for hitting back, blow for blow. Others who did not are in the hospital.

Noon. 970,000 shares were traded on the Stock Exchange— In St. Louis, Hickman Holloman, eighty-three, walks out of his own funeral: he wanted to know how the ceremony would go, a pastor friend was able to satisfy his curiosity— At the Texas Centennial Exposition, the audience is introduced to the mysteries of banknote manufacturing. SEE THE ONE MILLION DOLLAR BILL!— The Women’s Club of Youngstown hurries through lunch in silence, eager to start the bridge tournament— In a Detroit home, cream-colored candles with pink tulle bows rise from silver candelabras: engagement party— Chicago City Hall advises that starting October 1, twelve inspectors will be in charge of counting the sheets on toilet paper rolls; if the number is inferior to the one marked on the label, the seller will be prosecuted for fraud— The Florida Weather Service announces that at 1:00 p.m., the cyclone raging in the Atlantic was four hundred miles northeast of the Bahamas and heading for the American coast—

Reverend Coughlin, the famous RADIO PRIEST of Detroit meets the press at a St. Louis hotel. I lead the crusade for democracy, he says.— If democracy failed and you had to choose between communism and fascism? a reporter asks.— I could never choose communism, Coughlin says. It denies the existence of God.— So you support capitalism?— Careful, my friends, careful! We must make a distinction between plain capitalism and modern capitalism. The latter is unconstitutional and anti-Christian. The former is the best economic system the world has ever produced. CHRISTIANITY, DEMOCRACY, AND CAPITALISM ARE IN PERFECT AGREEMENT. In fact, they form the only triumvirate that can possibly function.

2:00. The Stock Exchange has traded 1,450,000 shares— In Detroit, the lawyer Winter is preparing the talk he will give the following day at the Masonic Temple: The arrest, trial, and conviction of Jesus Christ— Spike O’Donnell, ci-devant beer king of Chicago and rival of Al Capone, presses charges against the district attorney who recently had him arrested, undermining his reputation as a businessman— The five Republican councilmen of Braddock, Pennsylvania, accuse their six fellow Democrat colleagues of illegally electing, in a secret meeting, a seventh council member, also a Democrat— In Pittsburgh, the Mothers of Democracy hold a card game—2:19: Start of the first race at the Havre-de-Grace racetrack (Maryland)— The Order of the Rainbow Girls of Akron elects its officers: Mrs. Willems, Mother Advisor; Miss Werntz, Charity; the Renner sisters, Hope and Faith; Miss MacGinley, Treasurer— 2:40: Start of first race at the Detroit Race Course— THE UNITED STATES’ MOST BELOVED CHILD, Shirley Temple, has lunch with an admirer, the wife of the governor of California, and a group of Boy Scouts—

CALL-ING ALL U-NITS! Sighted near Cleveland, the Browe baby, missing for two weeks, and his kidnapper: blond, stocky, scar on left cheek— Two Whites and a Black escaped from the chain gang of Georgia: calling all units— In Chicago, two priests taking $500 to the bank are attacked by three bandits: this is an alert, this is an alert— Bang! 4:37: start of the fifth race at Havre-de-Grace— Bang! A tanker blows up in Dubuque (Iowa)— Bang! The farmer Stutz, seventy years old, of Wooster (Ohio), shoots himself in the head— Bang! Miss Winslow breaks a bottle of champagne over the bow of the new destroyer named in honor of her grandfather, the vice-admiral— 6:45: start of the sixth race in Detroit. Bang! Bang! Bang!

The mayor of Pittsburgh is there, surrounded by police officers and reporters. Day-before-yesterday evening, gangsters visited the Amerito Club, headquarters of City Councilman Verona. Club management did not file a complaint.

An inspector rounds up the doorman. The mayor himself conducts the interview. Had some trouble at your place on Saturday?— Sure.— But when the police questioned you, you claimed nothing had happened!— Sure.— What exactly happened?— Someone rang the doorbell. Strangers. I opened the door to ask if they were members. Yes, they said, and one of them stuck a gun in my gut. The other went upstairs, lined up the players and emptied their pockets.— And why didn’t you report it?— What for?— And your bosses?— That’s their business.— Who was there that night?— What do I know?— Was Verona there?— Oh! No.— But he’s a member of the club?— So they say.— And did you recognize the gangsters?— I have a lousy memory for faces.— Looks to me like you’re covering for someone.— What an idea!— Is it Verona you’re covering? Or the gangsters?— I don’t understand.— Maybe both?

Thousands of tons of salmon leave Alaska; in the Hawaiian Islands, the crowd lays siege to grocery stores; from Los Angeles to Seattle, cargo ships load and unload bananas, coffee, furs, grapefruit, oil, cement: in nine days, the Pacific sailors go on strike. The police chiefs are already conferring in the shipowners’ offices— Roxana (Illinois). Restaurateur Fairbanks is pressing charges against the management of Shell Petroleum: he’s demanding the $15,000 they owe him for meals he provided for scabs locked in the company factory during a recent strike— Atlanta. Mrs. Smith celebrates the seventeenth birthday of her Airedale Miki with twenty dog friends: they serve cake and ice cream— St. Paul. 1,700 strikers from Public Works Administration are forced to return to work: defeat— Toledo. Workers from eighteen dry-cleaning establishments, on strike for three weeks, sign an agreement with the bosses: victory—

(Now in turn the night sets out) In a small Ohio town, Mrs. Dobson recites a poem about friendship at the Pleasant Grove Club— (It springs from the Atlantic and invades Portland . . .) The football player Russel, nineteen, is buried in a small town in Texas (night engulfs Boston . . .), operated on for appendicitis, he died the day before (. . . New York . . .) As he lay dying, he was delirious: (. . . Philadelphia, Washington . . .) Let me out of here, I want to get back to the team— (it grazes the Miami palms . . .) Mary Pickford finally admits to reporters that she spoke these words: I’m not engaged, at least not yet— (and the steelworks of Pittsburgh . . .) In a village in the state of New York, Doris Purcell, sixteen, learning that the man she was in love with has gotten married (Memphis follows at 7 p.m. sharp . . .) takes her own life— (. . . after St. Louis and before New Orleans . . .) The Roosevelt family is celebrating the eighty-second birthday of the president’s mother— (an ocean appears on the horizon . . .) The Excelsior Lodge meets in Louisville— (Los Angeles to the south, Seattle to the north . . .) The daily greyhound races start in Dallas— (. . . and at 9:09 p.m., night pulls into San Francisco and the sun plummets into the Pacific . . .)

Now that the journalists who dogged him with their questions have been left behind, the car peacefully cruising through the Pennsylvania night, Charles Margiotti, district attorney, can finally stop smiling. There is nothing to be cheerful about. Monaghan was murdered by police, and that’s a fact. One more time, the judge reviews the case. Ten days earlier, the chief of detectives was found with his throat slit. A few hours later, three policemen arrested Frank Monaghan, sixty-four, a hotel manager whom they suspected of the crime. They took him to the basement of the police station, and when he did not confess, they beat him all night. The D.A. thinks of the blood splattered on the basement walls: he would not have believed an old man’s body could contain so much. Monaghan didn’t talk, but he screamed until dawn, and the crowd gathered in front of the station listened to his cries. Too much noise, too many witnesses. They’d had to arrest the officers, alert the journalists, the photographers, the experts. A dirty business. THIRD DEGREE, THIRD DEGREE. Luckily, it rarely ends in death. Rarely, Mr. D.A.? Rarely?

Now the numbers are rolling in from all directions. Three injured in Pittsburgh, two killed in car accidents— Saint Louis slaughterhouses took in 7,000 heads of horned cattle, 8,500 sheep, 11,000 pigs— In Washington, thirty-eight births, twenty-one marriages, thirty-one deaths— At the Detroit Stock Exchange, 16,934 shares changed hands, in other parts of the city, there were thirty-seven deaths and eighty-nine births— 53,000 shares were traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, two gazelles and a monkey were born in the Chicago Zoo—

The clicker at the Baltimore Sun is doing layout for the Classifieds: LADY (white) economical, gentleman’s home preferred. WOMAN (negro) looking for any work at all. From The Globe-Democrat, St. Louis: YOUNG MAN, situation, anything. Strong, 20, good driver. From the Times-Picayune of New Orleans: WE want to encourage prayers to St. Joseph and faith placed in him for the great favor he granted us. Mrs. Jourdan and her son Charles. From The Detroit Free Press: "Wanted: PRIESTS to sell, in spare time, The Treasures of the Doré Bible against payment of fifty cents a week." From the Chicago Herald: Christian Industrial League. Send us used clothing, furniture, newspapers to help rebuild men—

There is not a single free bed left in Cleveland. The American Legion is holding its annual convention. Time to see who’s shown the most imagination: they’ve had a year to think about it, in the shop, at the office, or chafing under lack of employment. One Legionnaire has made a miniature cannon that shoots firecrackers into the legs of pretty passersby. Another member offers a sandwich to any woman in the street, two slices of bread with a baby alligator in between. It’s a September 21 they won’t forget any time soon. Eighteen years ago they were young, they experienced adventure and didn’t die of it. How beautiful war is in peacetime, it gives the chance, once a year, to escape the family, money problems, the boredom that weighs heavy on the continent, heavier than the deepening night. (New York falls asleep.)

In a Chicago hospital, a woman is screaming and crying. She is only twenty-two, and her newborn is dying. Due to a malformation, the baby cannot expel food. We can operate, says the doctor, put in drains.— And then what? the father asks.— Without surgery, he’ll die for sure, the doctor replies.— I don’t want him to live as a cripple, the father says.— I do, I do, cries the mother. Operate!— I can’t without the father’s consent, says the doctor. Chicago falls asleep. In his cot, the child grows weaker by the hour. Around him, a half-dozen newborns snore and digest.

Minneapolis falls asleep. Slowly the floodlight moves over the factory roofs and walls, the deserted yard, the compound, the bolted door, the armed men standing guard, and outside, the workers. There’s a strike at Archer Daniels Midland Co.

The forty mills of Minneapolis are on strike. Minneapolis truckers are on strike. Minneapolis factories are about to go on strike.

Again the floodlight beam moves over the roofs, the walls, the picket lines. Armed guards protect the factory, patrol the city streets, knocking down isolated strikers. They know how to kill but they don’t know how to operate the machines. The shops close for lack of supply, and only a hundred railway cars come through the freight yard a day instead of two thousand, like before.

That floodlight again. A bullet fired in the dead of night lodges itself in the eye of the guard turning the floodlight, the eye of the bosses goes out, and shadow engulfs the factory, the yard, the compound and picket lines.

At his home in Joliet (Illinois), watched over by two doctors, Patrick McFarland, who once was one of the best boxers in the world, is dying of heart disease—

John Sweeney—twelve years old, nine-time runaway, escapes from his father’s house, gets off the bus in downtown New York, skulks around Times Square, goes into a shop, buys tobacco and a pipe, a real pipe like an old sailor’s—

Denver falls asleep— At the hospital in Chicago, the mother cries, and the father says: I’d rather the child die— Pat MacFarland is raving on his deathbed— John Sweeney lights the new pipe, a policeman comes up to him. Nice pipe you got there.— Yes, it’s good, and the tobacco is strong. He wants to vomit, but life is worth living. Do you live around here? asks the policeman.— No, I ran away from Philadelphia—San Francisco is going to sleep—

MacFarland’s heartbeat slows, the boxer sees his life in the ring, the brewery he owned . . .

At the police station, the officer makes his report, and the sergeant greets John, an old acquainta . . .

The child grows weaker at the hospital in . . . A gangster approaches the cash booth of the Chicago Skytrain— The radio dreams of jazz— Unemployed people are sleeping in parks—The Rocky Mountains: airplane flies— The rotors rotate: news flies— Chicago: gangster flies off with his loot. All along the telegraph wires, from cloud to cloud, telegrams fly.

Yes, but the sun goes faster. It springs from the Atlantic and sets off at 5:27 in Portland, Maine, near the Canadian border . . .

September 22, 1936, will begin in the United States of America.

This chapter is a summary of news items from thirty US newspapers dated September 22, 1936, covering the events of the day before: a day like any other. All time references are in Eastern Standard Time.

CONVENTIONAL AMERICA I. LIFE

The elevator they took from the platform at Pennsylvania Station deposits the two travelers in the hotel lobby: green plants, all alike, white columns, identical, and at the foot of the columns, blue employees with arms folded across their chests, all exactly the same. The room is crowded: the Suspenders Manufacturers Union has organized a dinner, the Daughters of the American Revolution (Bronx Chapter) is having a celebration for a Presbyterian minister, the Deaf Mute Association their annual convention. A great deal of running back and forth, fluttering, talking on the phone and shouting, except for the deaf-mutes who keep to themselves in a forest of raised arms.

An employee takes the two travelers to a counter; they book a room on the sixteenth floor; at the next counter they claim the mail that’s been held for them; further on, they exchange francs for dollars, forgo examining the ten or twelve other counters, all in a row, that each provide a different service, and head for the express elevators. Three bellboys follow with the suitcases. They go up to the sixteenth floor, walk along corridors, turn the key in the lock that has been set above the doorknob so it can easily be located, and enter the room.

The first bellboy turns on the overhead light, which eases the reading of normal-sized lettering (as certified by the Scopometer), the second bellboy rotates a switch on the light fixture over the bedside table, powerful enough so that Everyman can make out even the smallest writing (as certified by, etc.). The third bellboy ignites a lamp by the armchair that facilitates the reading of a newspaper (as certified, etc.). Then he goes into the bathroom and, having switched on a bulb over the mirror,