My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyThen we shall not forget our friends—prominent among whom have been theAmericans—and in the great partnership of equals we can do much together.It is necessary to know Europe, but it is also good to know America. There was a longinterval between 1926 and 1964 when I returned there to give a university lecture. Itseemed to me that Europe and America were now much closer together. The old senseof the European being centuries older than the American had passed. They were withus together, in a world which had contracted, and obliged this propinquity; their ownwar and post-war experience had advanced them an age in time. Strange link betweenthese two worlds was a chance meeting in Paris with Mrs. Roosevelt, long after thedeath of her husband. In the house of a mutual friend we had a long conversation. Thedeep quarrel of our politics was bridged as memory travelled across the years to thatfirst meeting in New York, when I entered the room where she was alone with F.D.R.and wondered at the mystery of the relationship which at this second meeting I beganto understand.The American journey had completed the period of experience in my early life. I hadat this point seen much of the world and its leading personalities. The earlyimpression remains that much goodness exists in mankind; it is stupidity far morethan wickedness which is the present trouble of the world. Falstaffs are more commonthan Machiavellis, the clown is more frequent than the villain, in every continent.There I may leave the acquisition of wide-ranging experience, which makes thecomplete man only if it is accompanied by the capacity to see and to recognise facts.Then comes the test of action.176 of 424