“Oh Jesus, he’s crazy, this boy is crazy.”
But I felt this weird tickle-behind-the-spine unprecedented truth of what I was saying. Before I said it I hadn’t known I felt it: we could change, we could make our lives however we wanted! And the steps Clara had taken to molldom and to the high forest of Loon Lake were dainty steps, steps avoiding the muck of her reality and mine. And this was where we truly belonged, not on the road but stationary, in one place, working it all out in the hard life.
“You got anything better to do?” I said.
She sighed. “That’s the crying shame of it.”
27
Data comprising life F. W. Bennett undergoing review.
Shown in two instances twenty-five years apart of labor
relations lacking compassion or flexible policy understanding
workers’ needs. His dramatization suggests life devoted almost
entirely to selfish accumulation of wealth and ritual use thereof
according to established patterns of utmost class. It is
alleged he patronizes unsavory elements of society for his
business gain. It is alleged that he is sexually exploitative.
It is suggested he is at least unmoved by the violent death
of another human attributable to his calculated negligence.
Countervailing data re his apparent generosity to
worthless poet scrounge and likely drunkard Warren Penfield.
A hint too of his pride in Lucinda Bailey Bennett’s aviation
achievements. A heart too for spunky
derelict kids.
Your register respectfully advises the need for additional
countervailing data. History suggests of the class of which Mr.
F. W. Bennett is a member no unalloyed spirit of evil the dimes
which John D. Rockefeller senior gave away compulsively to
people in the street became the multimillions of his sons’
philanthropies. Andrew Carnegie’s beneficence well attested,
as well as William Randolph Hearst’s Milk Fund for Babies.
And examination of the general practice of families of
immeasurable wealth in US suggests their generosity cannot
be explained entirely as self-serving public relations but
may be seen as manifesting anthropologically identified
principle of potlatch observed operating in primitive social
systems throughout the world from northern forest aboriginals
to unclad natives of tropical paradises. The principle
regardless of currency of benefaction breadfruit pigs palm
fronds or dollars is that wealth is accumulated so that
it can be given away thus bringing honor to the giver.
I refer to an American landscape from every region of which
rise hospitals universities libraries museums planetaria
parks think-tanks and other institutions for the public weal
all of which are the benefactions of the utmost class.
I cite achievements F. W. Bennett in his lifetime the original
endowments of the Western miners’ Black Lung Research Facility,
Denver, Colorado. The Gymnasium of Miss Morris’ School,
Briarcliff Manor NY, the Mexican Silver Workers’ Church of the
Holy St. Clare, Popxacetl Mexico, The Bennett Library on the
grounds of Jordan College, Rhinebeck NY, the Bennett
Engineering Institute, Albany NY, plus numerous ongoing
benefactions of worthy charities and researches plus innumerable
acts of charity to individuals never publicized.
I attribute to F. W. Bennett in his death a last will and
testament of such public generosity as to receive acknowledgment
on the front page of the New York Times data available
upon request.
—
Generally speaking a view of the available economic systems
that have been tested historically must acknowledge the immense
power of capitalism to generate living standards food housing
education the amenities to a degree unprecedented in human
civilization. The benefits of such a system while occasionally
random and unpredictable with periods of undeniable stress
1and misery depression starvation and degradation are
inevitably distributed to a greater and greater percentage
of the population. The periods of economic stability also
ensure a greater degree of popular political freedom
and among the industrial Western democracies today despite
occasional suppression of free speech quashing of dissent
corruption of public officials and despite the tendency of
legislation to serve the interests of the ruling business
oligarchy the poisoning of the air water the chemical adulteration
of food the obscene development of hideous weaponry the
increased costs of simple survival the waste of human resources
the ruin of cities the servitude of backward foreign populations
the standards of life under capitalism by any criterion are
far greater than under state socialism in whatever forms
it is found British Swedish Cuban Soviet or Chinese. Thus
the good that fierce advocacy of personal wealth accomplishes
in the historical run of things outweighs the bad. And while
we may not admire always the personal motives of our business
leaders we can appreciate the inevitable percolation of the
good life as it comes down through our native American soil.
You cannot observe the bounteous beauty of our country nor take
pleasure in its most ordinary institutions in peace and safety
without acknowledging the extraordinary achievement of
American civilization. There are no Japanese bandits lying
in wait on the Tokaidoways after all. Drive down the
turnpike past the pretty painted pipes of the oil refineries
and no one will hurt you.
—
No claim for the perfection of F. W. Bennett, only that like