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EZRA POUND 239
the scholar, Professor J. C. LaDriere of Catholic University, which
made the point that many people suppose "Pound was employed
by the government of a nation with which we were at war to
broadcast its propaganda against our country. . . . it is important
to observe the following facts (all of which are fully available in
many published sources, though mostly foreign): Pound was never
a member of the Fascist Party or in any way affiliated with it . . .
Pound was not invited to give the broadcasts in question; he sought
the opportunity. The Italian authorities did not welcome, but were
persuaded to tolerate, this eccentric and to them incomprehensible
gesture of the distinguished American poet; to the last there remained
distrust of him in high places, and suspicion that perhaps
his broadcasts were in fact code messages for the benefit of the
allies. Pound exacted assurance from the Italian authorities that
his allegiance as an American citizen should not be compromised;
he spoke as an American patriot, 'for' the United States of America
and its Constitution which he conceived to be imperilled by the
Roosevelt government. He was broadcasting for some time before
we entered the war; the day after Pearl Harbor his broadcasts
stopped. It was some time, Pound says, before he was able to get
himself back on the air." Pound had recently published a pamphlet,
America, Roosevelt and the Causes of the Present War,
which concluded,
". . . Roosevelt being in all this a kind of malignant tumor,
not autonomous, not self-created, but an unclean exponent of
something less circumscribed than his own evil personal existence;
a magistrate with legally limited jurisdiction, a perjurer, not fully
aware of what he does, why he does it, or where it leads to. His
political life ought to be brought sub judice." 6
Pound's main criticism of Roosevelt was not the man's personality,
but the fact that he perjured himself when he took the oath
of office and swore to uphold the United States Constitution. Pound
merely recommended that Roosevelt be brought sub judice, before
the law, as is done with any criminal.
When he learned that he had been indicted, Pound wrote to
Attorney General Francis Biddle, on August 25, 1943, "I have not
spoken with regard to this war, but in protest against a system
which creates one war after another, in series and on system. I