My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyThese things will not just sort themselves out through the classic economics, with theaddition of a few built-in stabilisers of Keynesian theory, until the imagined happyending with all the advanced peoples making computers and aircraft and the backwardpeoples performing the simpler tasks. A sane order of the world will not just happen,like a ripe plum falling into the open mouth of a man lying on his back. We must paysome attention to one of Bernard Shaw's favourite cracks: 'As the teacher said to thechild who had written, "King Solomon had a thousand porcupines," "think child,think" '. As a young man in Detroit and Pittsburgh, I had something to think about,and my subsequent, perhaps untimely insistence on action showed that at least I hadsome idea of what must be done.We visited almost every industrial centre of America, except California and itscelestial industry, the cinema. In Chicago it was the Armour meat factory, where thelive pig entered at one end of the conveyor belt and emerged at the other end neatlypackaged in a tin. 'Our business is not pretty, but it's useful,' said its efficient chief,'we use everything except the squeal.' It seemed to be as humanely conducted as suchan establishment can be. The intricacies of Sears Roebuck's mail-order business werealso studied; it is almost true to say that we left nothing out.The end was Palm Beach and the industry of pleasure which stretched along thatenchanted coast to Miami. There we learnt to know the end product of Americansuccess, the fabulous millionaires; men like Josh Cosden, who was reputed to havestarted punching tickets on a tram and to have won, lost and won again three bigfortunes before he was forty. He entertained us in his house on the sea, built by thearchitect Meisner; an establishment whose luxury baffles description, but yet wasconstructed with considerable taste in the Spanish style. A friend of his told merecently that the house was eventually sold for a record price even in America, butthat Cosden himself died bankrupt.We usually swam in this milk-warm sea from the private beaches of such friends, butwe went on the first day to the public beach, where the dress of the women wassupervised by an official carrying various pieces of coloured cloth slung from hiswaist. The year 1926 was before the bikini epoch and the rule in Florida on the publicbeach was that a woman must have no gap between her obligatory stockings and herample bathing dress; the purpose of the coloured patterns worn by the beachbureaucrat was to match up the stockings if doubt arose that they were too near fleshcolour. Naturally, most of the Europeans in our party failed to make the grade. Yet ata variety show that evening considerable beauties approached our supper table on amoving platform clad in practically nothing at all; at a time when such performanceswere unknown in the reputable establishments of Europe. Our surprised enquirieswere met with the expert information that the beach was under State law and thetheatre under Federal law; or vice versa, I forget which.Shock followed shock for our innocents from the European garden of Eden, inflictedby American prudery which had tasted of the apple. Archie Sinclair swam round thepier of the public beach and found a small crowd awaiting his return to grasp his handin an emotional welcome for a man who had just survived a mortal danger. Theyexplained that if you swam out of your depth you were liable to be eaten by thebarracuda; a fish about the size of a salmon but with an immense jaw and fiercer thanthe shark. He expostulated that he had seen many notices on the beach enjoining 'No171 of 424