My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleymost powerful country in the world, or in the subsequent arbiter of our Europeandestiny, which he so slightly understood. We parted company on the best of terms,and remained in occasional, friendly correspondence for several years. Our vastdifferences in a much later period did not arise because it seemed most unlikely thathe had the capacity to reach a position where he could do such harm. Yet as we knowfrom experience in our own country, the absence of all effective equipment can be nota detriment but a passport to success in the politics of normal times; they like themlike that.Through this and other friendly encounters—charming companionships with manydifferent Americans—we had at least banished the pessimism expressed by theAmerican ambassador, George Harvey. Cimmie had sat next to him at dinner onenight, and extolled the virtues of the English-Speaking Union for bringingEnglishmen and Americans together; she was one of the early moving spirits. 'Mydear young lady'—he replied to her ingenuous enthusiasm—'I long ago came to theconclusion that the only hope of Anglo-American friendship is that Englishmen andAmericans should never meet.' The dry damper of American wit is an interestingcontrast to the dynamic efficiency which is born of their basic optimism.This is a line of humour particularly American which I always find both entertainingand attractive. For instance, an American friend of the present day for whom I havewarm regard and affection, told by Diana that our elder son had been given a grantfrom an American university for a tour of South America, said drily: 'They will payanything to get rid of them'. Typical of their fun were the two men in a great hurrycoming from opposite sides of the stage. 'How are you?'— 'Not quite myself—'Congratulations!' A line of snappy humour which makes their illustrated journalsentertaining.I still have two letters written from Executive Mansion, Albany, New York, onDecember 12,1932 and from the White House on March 27,1933. In the Decemberletter, written to Cimmie two months after I had launched the fascist movement inOctober 1932, Mr. Roosevelt refers to 'that fine husband of yours' and sends his'warmest regards to you both', an indication that prior to wartime propaganda evenliberal opinion did not regard a man holding fascist opinions as necessarily a villain.In the same letter he writes, 'there will still be occasional chances for fishing and Ihope we may have a repetition of that jolly trip some time soon'.We returned from the languorous climate of Florida to the stimulus of New York,where I had some more interesting discussions. The effective operation of the FederalReserve Board was in its early days, but its officials seemed to me among the bestbrains in America. They appeared to be fully abreast of the thinking of Keynes at thattime, and were already wishing to apply such monetary techniques to the Americaneconomy. As intellects and executives they were far ahead of anyone I saw inAmerican politics. How much of the background of my economic thinking andsubsequent action I owe to them, and how much to Keynes, is difficult to determine inretrospect. At that time, he had published the Economic Consequences of the Peace,and his tract on Monetary Reform in 1923, but General Theory did not come out untilmuch later, in 1936. Yet I had many conversations with Keynes during this period,and he was publishing many articles and reviews; the later excuses of the politiciansthat they could not have been aware of his thinking in 1929 because General Theory174 of 424