Lanny would pick up the newspaper and read about troubles all over the world; he would go
into the swarming city where millions had no chance to play and not even enough to eat; he
would look at the apple-sellers, and the breadlines of haggard, fear-driven men—many with
clothes still retaining traces of decency. Millions wandering over the land seeking in vain for
work; families being driven from their farms because they couldn't pay the taxes. Lanny wasn't
content to read the regular newspapers, but had to seek out the Pink and Red ones, and then
tell his wealthy friends what he had found there. Not many would believe him, and not one
had any idea what to do about it.
Nobody seemed to have such ideas. The ruling classes of the various nations watched the
breakdown of their economy like spectators in the neighborhood of a volcano, seeing fiery lava
pour out of the crater and dense clouds of ashes roll down the slopes, engulfing vineyards and
fields and cottages. So it had been when the younger Pliny had stood near Mt. Vesuvius some
nineteen hundred years back, and had written to the historian Tacitus about his experience:
"I looked behind me; gross darkness pressed upon our rear, and came rolling over the land
after us like a torrent. We had scarce sat down, when darkness overspread us, not like that of a
moonless or cloudy night, but of a room when it is shut up, and the lamp put out. You could
hear the shrieks of women, the crying of children, and the shouts of men; some were seeking
their children, others their parents, others their wives or husbands, and only distinguishing them
by their voices; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some praying to die,
from the very fear of dying; many lifting their hands to the gods; but the great part imagining
that there were no gods left anywhere, and that the last and eternal night was come upon the
world."
V
By way of the automobile ferry from Long Island to New London, Connecticut, Lanny drove
his wife to his father's home, and they spent a week with the family. The town of Newcastle had
been hard hit by the depression: the arms plant was shut down entirely; the hardware and
elevator and other plants were running only three days a week. The workers were living on
their savings if they had any; they were mortgaging their homes, and losing their cars and
radio sets because they couldn't meet installment payments. There were a couple of thousand
families entirely destitute, and most of them were Budd workers, so it was a strain upon the
consciences and pocketbooks of all members of the ruling family. Esther was working harder
than even during the World War; she was chairman of the finance committee of the town's soup
kitchens and children's aid, and went about among the women's clubs and churches telling
harrowing stories and making the women weep, so that private charity might not break down
entirely.
That was a crucial issue, as her husband told her. If America was forced to adopt the British
system of the dole, it would be the end of individual initiative and private enterprise. Robbie
seemed to his son like the anchor-man of a tug-of-war team, his heels dug into the ground, his
teeth set, the veins standing out purple in his forehead with the effort he was making to keep
his country from moving the wrong way. Robbie had been down to Washington to see
President Hoover, his hero and the captain of his team. The Great Engineer was literally
besieged; all the forces of disorder and destruction—so he considered them and so did Robbie—
were trying to pry him from his stand that the budget must be balanced, the value of the dollar
maintained, and business allowed to "come back" in due and regular course.
The cities and the counties, nearing the end of their resources, were clamoring for Federal
aid; the returned soldiers had organized to demand a bonus for the services they had rendered
overseas while the business men at home were filling their pocketbooks. So the agitators
charged, frothing at the mouth, and they had forced their bill through Congress over the
President's veto. Poor Herbert went on making speeches about the American system of "rugged
individualism"; it was heartening to him to have a solid business man, one who had been an oil
man like himself, come in and tell him that he was saving civilization.
Esther, of course, had to believe her husband; she told all the club ladies and church ladies
that they were saving civilization, and they put in their dimes or their dollars, and gathered
together and knitted sweaters or cooked and served hot soup. But every slump in Wall Street
threw more men out of work in Newcastle, and the ladies were at their wit's end. When Irma
wrote a check for five thousand dollars for the children, tears of gratitude ran down the cheeks
of Lanny's stepmother. He had given her great sorrow in years past, but now his credit rating
was triple-A. Even his Pinkness had been made respectable by the crimson hues of Bess,
concerning whom the mother inquired with deepest anxiety.
The Newcastle Country Club was giving a costume dance for charity. You paid twenty-five
dollars for a ticket, and if you weren't there you were nobody. Irma and Lanny had to drive to
a near-by city, since everybody who knew how to sew in Newcastle was already at work on
costumes. But it was all right, for that city likewise had its smokeless factory chimneys. Several
women worked day and night, and as a result the visiting pair appeared as a very grand
Beatrice and Benedick in red-and-purple velvet with gold linings. A delightful occasion, and
when it was over, Irma and Lanny presented the costumes to the country club's dramatics
committee, for Irma said that if you folded them and carried them in the car they'd be full of
creases and not fit to use again.
VI
Not much fun visiting a factory town in times like these. But it was the Budd town, and in
prosperous days everybody had been cordial to the young couple and their friends, even the
Jewish ones. So now it was necessary to stay, and give sympathy and a little help, and have
receptions held in their honor, and shake hands and chat with innumerable Budds—not even
Lanny could remember them all, and had to "bone up" as if it were for a college examination.
Also they played golf and tennis at the country club, and swam and went sailing in delightful
June weather. The countryside put on a show of wild roses, and all nature told them not to
worry too much, that life was going on.
Also they had to pay a visit to the president of Budd Gunmakers. The old man had told Lanny
that he would probably never see him again; but here he was, still holding on, still running the
company by telephone. His hands shook so that it was painful to watch; his cheeks hung in
flaps so that he seemed to have twice as much yellow skin as was needed to cover his shrinking
form; but he was the same grim Puritan, and still questioned Lanny to make sure he had not
forgotten his Bible texts. He had heard about Baby Frances, of course, and said he had carried
out his promise to put her in his will, though he didn't know if he really had any property any
more, or if Budd stocks would be worth the paper. He pinned the pair down on whether they
were going to have another try for a son, and Irma told him they were leaving it to the Lord;
this wasn't so, but Lanny didn't contradict her, and afterward she said it would have been a
shame to worry that old man so close to the grave.
Everybody knew that he couldn't hold on much longer, and there was an underground war
going on for control of the company; a painful struggle between Robbie and his oldest brother
Lawford, that silent, morose man who was in charge of production, and whom Lanny and Irma
saw only when they attended the First Congregational Church. The old grandfather had not
said whom he wished to have succeed him, and of course nobody liked to ask him. For some
time Lawford had been seeking out the directors and presenting his side of the case, which
involved telling them of the blunders which Robbie had committed—or what Lawford
considered blunders. Naturally, this made it necessary for Robbie to defend himself, and it was
an ugly situation. Robbie thought he had the whip hand so far. His father had renewed his
contract as European sales representative for another five years, so if Lawford got the
presidency they'd have to pay a pretty price to buy Robbie out.
VII
The business situation in Germany went from bad to worse. Robbie received a letter from
Johannes, saying that it looked like the end of everything. Foreign loans were no more, and
Germany couldn't go on without them. Johannes was taking more money out of the country,
and asking Robbie's help in investing it. Robbie told his son in strict confidence—not even Irma
was allowed to know —that President Hoover had prepared a declaration of a moratorium on
international debts; he was still hesitating about this grave step; would it help or would it cause
more alarm? The French, who had not been consulted, would probably be furious.
The declaration was issued soon after the young couple had returned to Shore Acres, and the
French were furious, but the Germans were not much helped. In the middle of July the great
Danat Bank failed in Berlin, and there was terror such as Lanny had witnessed in New York.
Chancellor Briining went to Paris to beg for help, and Premier Laval refused it; France was
now the strongest European power financially, and was sitting on her heap of gold, lending it
only for the arming of Poland and her other eastern allies —which were blackmailing her without
mercy. Britain had made the mistake of trying to buttress German finances, and now her own
were shaky as a result. "We're not that sort of fools," wrote young Denis de Bruyne to Lanny,
who replied: "If you let the German Republic fall and you get Hitler, will that help you?"
Young Denis did not reply.
Such were the problems faced by the statesmen while two darlings of fortune were having fun all
over the northeastern states. Invitations would come, and they would order their bags packed,
step into their car in the morning, drive several hours or perhaps all day, and step out onto an
estate in Bar Harbor or Newport, the Berkshires or the Ramapo Hills, the Adirondacks or the
Thousand Islands. Wherever it was, there would be a palace—even though it was called a
"cottage" or a "camp." The way you knew a "camp" was that it was built of "slabs," and you
wore sport clothes and didn't dress for dinner; but the meal would be just as elaborate, for
nobody stayed anywhere without sending a staff of servants ahead and having all modern
conveniences, including a dependable bootlegger. Radios and phonographs provided music for
dancing, and if you didn't have the right number for games, you called people on the long-
distance telephone and they motored a hundred miles or more, and when they arrived they
bragged about their speed. Once more Lanny thought of the English poet Clough, and his song
attributed to the devil in one of his many incarnations: "How pleasant it is to have money,
heigh ho! How pleasant it is to have money!"
These young people still had it, though the streams were drying up. The worst of the
embarrassments of a depression, as it presented itself to the daughter of J. Paramount Barnes,
was that so many of her friends kept getting into trouble and telling her about it. A truly
excruciating situation: in the midst of a bridge game at Tuxedo Park the hostess received a
telephone call from her broker in New York, and came in white-faced, saying that unless she
could raise fifty thousand dollars in cash by next morning she was "sunk." Not everybody had
that much money in the bank, and especially not in times when rumors were spreading about
this bank and that. Irma saw the eyes of the hostess fixed upon her, and was most
uncomfortable, because she couldn't remedy the depression all by herself and had to draw the
line somewhere.
Yes, it wasn't all fun having so much money. You didn't want to shut yourself up in yourself
and become hard-hearted and indifferent to others' suffering; but you found yourself
surrounded by people who wanted what you had and didn't always deserve it, people who had
never learned to do anything useful and who found themselves helpless as children in a crisis.
Of course they ought to go to work, but what could they do? All the jobs appeared to be filled
by persons who knew how to do them; right now there were said to be six, or eight, or ten
million people looking for jobs and not finding any. Moreover, Lanny and Irma didn't seem to be
exactly the right persons to be giving that sort of advice!
VIII
The first of July was a time for dividends, and many of the biggest and most important
corporations "passed" them. This gave a shock to Wall Street, and to those who lived by it;
Irma's income was cut still more, and the shrinkage seemed likely to continue. The news from
abroad was as bad as possible. Rick, who knew what was going on behind the scenes, wrote it to his
friend. The German Chancellor was in London, begging for funds, but nobody dared help him
any further; France was obdurate, because the Germans had committed the crime of
attempting to set up a customs union with Austria. But how could either of these countries
survive if they couldn't trade?
All Lanny's life it had been his habit to sit and listen to older people talking about the state of
the world. Now he knew more about it than most of the people he met, even the older ones.
While Irma played bridge, or table tennis with her young friends who had acquired amazing
skill at that fast game, Lanny would be telling the president of one of the great Wall Street
banks just why he had blundered in advising his clients to purchase the bonds of Fascist Italy,
or trying to convince one of the richest old ladies of America that she wasn't really helping to
fight Bolshevism when she gave money for the activities of the Nazis in the United States. Such
a charming, cultivated young German had been introduced to her, and had explained this holy
crusade to preserve Western civilization from the menace of Asiatic barbarism!
