"But there are exceptions among them. There surely are many exceptions."
"Of course, and they must be found and encouraged. Thomas Edison was born in poverty and had only about three years of grammar school. But he was a genius. Andrew Carnegie came to America as an immigrant and fought his way upward into the highest ranks of the powerful. Oh yes, there are many exceptions. The ancestor of Harrington Chase who founded the Chase fortune was an oilfield worker in Texas."
Lee shook her head and put her empty glass down on a small table beside the couch. "I had always thought the
World Club to be composed largely of economists whose research was supported by wealthy philanthropists."
The international banker was obviously amused. "Don't exaggerate the contributions of economists, my dear. They are highly overrated compared to us, the pragmatic. If there was ever a group to which the question, 'If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?' applies, it is the economists. Economics aren't as complicated as all that but the economists tny-thologize the subject. There are exceptions, but most of them go through life as second-raters—teaching, writing books that few read and even fewer understand, or selling their services to governments or the powerful. They make their way with gobbledy-gook terminology, but practically never do they get rich. Even a five-percent advantage on knowing what way the stock market was going to go would make them wealthy, but they simply don't know. Karl Marx himself, that analyzer of the capitalist system, lived and died in poverty. Did you ever hear of a Rockefeller, a Dupont, a Getty, or any other founder of the great American fortunes, who was an economist?"
Lee's smile was inverted. "I am afraid that you are making a cynic of me, Mr. Amschel."
The smile he returned was thin. "I hope not, my dear. You are far too charming to succumb to cynicism. However, take as an example the monetary crisis of the last century. Every economist in the world was working on the problem of the collapse of international money. There was not enough gold or any other precious metal in the world to back the needed mediums of exchange. All nations, particularly your United States, simply began printing paper money, which had no value since it represented nothing. Inflation was rampant. Inflation, of course, is not a matter of prices going up, but of the value of money going down. The United States, with a two trillion dollar a year economy, faced disaster because it had issued perhaps four hundred billion dollars' worth of paper without backing. Did the economists solve the problem? No. It was solved by an obscure speculative writer."
"I didn't know that!"
"Oh, yes. He proposed that the government, in taxing the two hundred top corporations of the United States, take ten percent of the taxes in the form of their common stock. This was amalgamated into what was called United States Basic
Common, a sort of gigantic mutual fund. Its shares, of course, paid dividends based on the combined dividends of the corporations. The stock was placed on every stock exchange of the world to seek its level. Each year, the government added its new common stock, taken in the form of taxes, to its U. S. Basic Common. Anyone who had dollars could turn them in for Basic Common. In short, the money of the United States, now called pseudo-dollars since there was no gold behind them, was now backed by the American economy." The banker made a little snort. "It wasn't long before all other developed nations followed the lead. The world now has valid currencies."
Halfway across the room, Jerry Auburn was interrupted on his way to seeing Peter Windsor.
Harrington Chase, his inevitable glass of bourbon and branch water in hand, waved him down. The American tycoon was a stereotype of the cattleman or oil entrepreneur who had flourished in the old Southwest. He differed little if at all from his progenitors. A Henry Ford or a Joe Kennedy might have come from rough-and-ready, tough-and-tight-eyed schools, but in two generations their descendants were attending Ivy League universities and had become ladies and gentlemen who conducted themselves as aristocrats—America's new nobility. But not the Chases! Harrington Chase's fief was a ranch enveloping two large counties overlapping in Texas and Oklahoma, larger than the areas of several northeastern states. Big and ruddy of face, his bulk no longer called for his riding his famed Palominos, but he usually still affected riding boots. And a king-sized cigar, even when police were in the vicinity, was always in his mouth. He also, Jerry knew, invariably ordered steak and potatoes, in the most celebrated restaurants, with apple pie and ice cream for dessert.
With Chase, as usual at a Central Committee session, was his closest associate, John Warfield Moyer, for some twenty years Director of the IABI. A square-cut man in his late fifties, Moyer, with his bulldog face, shaggy brows, and cold, accusing eyes, looked every inch what he was: a high-ranking police officer. In his case, the highest ranking in the world.
Chase said, with an overriding joviality, "Hold on, Jerry, old-timer.''
Jerry Auburn came to a halt, albeit reluctantly. "Something up, Harry?" He knew perfectly well the other hated that name. He nodded at Moyer. "Hi, Fuzzy," he said, inwardly pleased at the director's wince.
Harrington Chase hefted his glass up and down a couple of times pontifically. "We've been mulling over the replacement of Grace Cabot-Hudson, now that she's let it be known she's resigning."
Jerry said, "I had been inclined to Dunninger… until somebody got to him."
"Never cottoned much to Harold myself," Chase said pompously. "Kind of a goddamned liberal. Show me a liberal and I'll show you a man on the verge of a coyote Euro-communist. But at least he was a white American, just like us three."
Moyer looked at Jerry: a policeman's look. "What do you mean, somebody got to him? Those Nihilist subversives shot him when his people wouldn't pay the ransom. His wife must have thought they were bluffing."
"So they say," Jerry nodded. "Which leaves the field more or less left to Ezra Hawkins and Lothar von Brandenburg, two of the most unlikely candidates for a seat in the Central Committee I could imagine."
Harrington Chase puffed out his cheeks. "At least the Prophet is a God-fearing Christian, a white man, and an American. We Americans ought to stick together. We wouldn't want to see a slant-eye like lyeyasu Suzuki, or a nigger like Sri Saraswate, on the Committee."
Jerry took him in. "It's never been proven that the Prohpet can read or write. Supposedly, the top echelons of the World Club are composed of highly intelligent, well-educated men and women, not superstition-spouting demagogues."
"Look, boy, us Americans have a manifest destiny to run this world. It's in the cards. But unless we hold the cards, we'll wind up with the wogs taking the pot."
The younger man regarded him, doing little to disguise his contempt. "Harry," he said, "do you realize that half the United States population is below average in intelligence?"
The billionaire's eyes all but popped in indignation. "That's a damn lie!" he rumbled.
Jerry shook his head in pretended despair. "Your American chauvinism does you little credit, Harry. Of course, half of every population is below average, and the other half above average. What do you think average means?"
The oilman sputtered, then took a heavy slug of his bourbon.
Moyer said, obviously getting it before his colleague did, "What's that got to do with the Prophet being elevated to the Central Committee, Auburn? It seems to me that having a man of God in our number makes good sense. The fact that the majority of us are among the world's wealthiest rubs some people the wrong way, especially the liberal intellectuals. The Prophet heads the biggest church in the world, and every day it gets larger."