“Jew baiting?”
“Yes. Dr. Levin has told me of some of his activities in Russia. He’s a regular pogromchik. That means an instigator of those horrible massacres in Russia. I’m surprised they tolerate him. I understand that he is spreading his propaganda in this country.”
“What propaganda? Against the Jews?”
“Yes. In Russia when anything went wrong, the ruling class always blamed the Jew. He was the scapegoat. If taxes were high or wages low, it was the Jew who was at fault. Now if General Rodzinoff can spread anti-Semitism in this country, he may succeed also in spreading the false impression that the Jews are the cause of all the trouble in Russia. He may make people forget the oppression of the old Czarist régime against which the people rebelled and from which they went to the other extreme.”
“Oh, no. The American people are too sensible for that. He might get a few fanatics, perhaps. But—” Hamilton shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Nobody of any standing.”
“Well, has Howard Brooks any standing?”
“Brooks?” Hamilton, like nine hundred and ninety-nine Americans out of a thousand, knew Brooks as the inventor and exploiter to the tune of many millions of the most widely-used automobile tire in the world—a tire which had revolutionized the automobile industry and made it possible for the first time in history for the farmer and small salaried city man to operate his own car. Because of the peculiar hissing sound they made, the tires were called “babbling brooks”—but they did the work and were cheap. Brooks had mobilized thousands of workmen, by paying them a bit more than the other manufacturers, and had then housed them and cared for them with an exacting, paternalistic benevolence. It was as though a super-efficiency man and the Kaiser had decided to go into charity on a vast scale. Wages were higher, hours were shorter, operations were safer than anywhere else; but while the men did work, they worked like machines. Their production was astounding. The lost moments in which workmen wipe their brows, blow their noses or simply rest between processes had been reduced so effectively that whereas seventeen per cent had been the smallest lost time ever achieved in any factory, Brooks had cut the percentage down to six—the minimum of safety, efficiency engineers agreed. How long a man could work at a six per cent rate—or rather a ninety-four per cent rate, of course had never been determined, as the system had been in operation only a few years and the labor turnover was rather large.
Not only were the wages of Brooks’ employees higher than the prevailing standard, but they were required to place a certain percentage of it in the bank each week. There were also numberless rules about conduct, about furnishing the home, about physical care. No Brooks employee was allowed to drink or smoke. Company investigators visited the homes to see if the food was cooked scientifically and if the baby was being fed the proper formula of prepared milk, and, so it was whispered, to smell breaths.
When the European war began Brooks had engaged the best aeronautic engineers to construct an enormous dirigible balloon. The idea was to fly over the Atlantic with it and then over the western front. Brooks and his assistants, selected from representative clubs and associations, would drop tons of peace tracts upon the combating armies. Upon reading these, the armies would cease fighting. “Out of the trenches by apple blossom time,” was his motto. Incidentally the balloon would have a powerful advertising value, as the dirigible was to be known as the Brooks Peace Ship. It wouldn’t hurt to get the good-will of foreign motor users for after-the-war trade.
When a Chicago newspaper had poked fun at the plan and Brooks had sued the paper for libel, Brooks had been placed on the witness stand and exhibited a shocking ignorance of the most elementary facts of American history. When asked who Benjamin Franklin was, for instance, he had replied that he was the inventor of an air-cooled automobile motor and Benedict Arnold, an English author.