Incredible Tale - The Odyssey Of The Average American In The Last Half Century (Paperback)

INCREDIBLE TALE The Odyssey of the Average American in the Last Half Century By GERALD W. JOHNSON HARPER BROTHERS . PUBLISHERS NEW YORK INCREDIBLE TALK Copyright, 2-030, by Gerald W m Johnson Printed in the United States of rights in this hook are reserved No part of the ho oh may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever ivithoii, t written permission exceft in the case of brief qttotations evTzbotHetl in critical articles and rewe ivs. For information address Harper Brothers PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE HAD DON CRAFTSMEN, SCRANTON, T A. TO THE MEMORY OF ARCtpBALD JOHNSON, WHO BEQUEATHED FAITH TO HIS HEIRS KANSAS CITY MO UC LIBRARY Contents I. WILSON PASSES 1. INEXPERIENCED AESCH INKS I 2. THE VOICE 8 3. THE TEETH 1 5 4. UNIDENTIFIED THOUGHT 23 5. THE PLAYER WHO PULLED A GUN 3Q 6. ENTER THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 38 7. AN ADULT FOR PRESIDENT 44 8. THE VOTER THOUGHT 53 9. THE LILTING DANCE OF DEATH 59 10. WHAT PRICE GLORY 63 11. THE HATCHET MEN ASSEMBLE 69 12. THE DOOMED MAN SALLIES OUT 78 13. NOT WILSON, BUT HUMANITY 82 II. LENIN PASSES 1. THEOGONY 86 2. THE SILKEN CURTAIN 92 3. DESCENT UPON TREBIZOND IOO 4. THE DIADOCHI IO7 5-VARIATION ON A FAMILIAR THEME 113 6. CITY OF BRASS I2O 7. SUNDAY PUNCH 127 8. DAVUS SUM, NON OEDIPUS 133 vii Vlll CONTENTS III. ROOSEVELT PASSES 1. LAUGHTER AMONG THE TRUMPETS 2. RUMBLE OF A DISTANT DRUM 148 3. ARCADIA REVISITED 155 4. ECONOMICS FOR SIMPLE SIMON 165 5. ARGUS IN THE DUST STORM 172 6. DANCE OF THE NINE TAILORS l8l 7. SERENDIPITY AND THE COMMONER 187 8. HERSELF 197 9. SHOUTS AND MURMURS 2C 5 10. CLASSIFYING THE WORM FAFNIR 213 11. FIFTY-NINE-MINUTE MEN 220 12. THE UNHAPPY WARRIOR 226 13. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 232 14. SOLITARY WAY 237 IV.STALIN PASSES 1. THE DARK TOWER 242 2. THE COLOSSUS 249 3. a NO LESS RENOWNED THAN WAR 55 256 4. TRAINED FLEAS 2 64 5. SALUTARY ALARM 272 V. ONE ABIDES 1. THE VISION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 280 2. HE HAS LIVED 288 INDEX 295 INCREDIBLE TALE I JVilson Passes I. Inexperienced Aes chines y the orator prosecuting a case in Athens in the year 330 E. G., had a pretty idea. To his speech he added a rhetorical flourish that had nothing whatever to do with the case before the court, but that he thought would soothe and tickle the emotions of the jurymen thereby rendering them more sympathetic to him and his side. It was good. It was so good that more than two thousand years later an English historian George Grote y picked it uf and quoted it in his history of Greece as reflecting the sprit of the times with great felicity. For they were something more than merely troubled times they were times remarkably like ours stunned and bewildered. With his own eyes Aeschines 2 INCREDIBLE TALE had seen the world upheaved and civilization, if not overthrown at least altered beyond recognition. The storm had gathered - first in the north, where Philip of Macedon had developed the phalanx, the ancient equivalent of the modern armored division. Employing this novelty he had overwhelmed and crushed one Greek city after another with little more trouble than Hitlers panzer armies had in sweeping through Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. Then his successor, Alexander the Great, had hurled the new weapon against Persia, in the eyes of the Greeks immeasurably the greatest power on earth, one that had stood from time immemorial yet before the impact of the phalanx Persia had gone down like France in 1940. Atthe moment when Aeschines spoke Alexander was just attaining the summit of his power. The Battle of Arbela had been fought, and the Great King was a fugitive, hunted like a rabbit by Alexanders cavalry...