From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [196]
“I believe you,” Holmes said, thinking suddenly of his wife. “But wait a minute. You dont have this fear yourself.”
Sam Slater grinned thinly. Rather sadly, Holmes thought.
“Of course not. I understand it. I govern. I am blessed (or cursed) with a logical mind and am capable of perceiving the trend of the time. I, and men like me, are forced to assume the responsibility of governing. If organized society and civilization as we know it is to continue at all, not only must there be a consolidation of power but there must be a complete unquestioned control to head it.”
“Yes,” Holmes said excitedly. “I can see that. I’ve seen that for a long time.”
“Then you are one of the few,” Sam Slater smiled at him sadly, “in this country. The Russians, of course, already know it. The Germans are learning it, and learning it remarkably swiftly. The Japanese have always known it, and applied it; but they are unable to adapt to the modern machine techniques, and I doubt if they will—in time. With us here this war will tell the tale. Either we learn it and win the war with it, or else we’ll be through. Like England and France and the rest of the decadent Paternalisms are through. And the scepter will pass to other hands. But if we learn it, with our productive capacity and industrial machine techniques we will be invincible, even against Russia, when that day comes.”
Capt Holmes felt a little chill run down his back. He looked at Sam Slater and the great personal charm of the man swept over him again like the warm light from a revolving beacon, bringing with it a sense of tragedy for this man whom life had forced into such a responsible position.
“Then we’ll have to learn it!” Capt Holmes said. He could feel Jake Delbert looking at him sideways with a kind of horror. But Jake Delbert was a long ways off now. This was like something that he had known for a long time, that had lain dusty and misplaced in a back room of his mind and he had suddenly opened the door. “We have no choice but to learn it!”
“Personally,” Sam Slater said crisply, “I believe it is our destiny to learn it. But when that day comes, we must have utterly complete control, as they over there already have complete control. Up to now, it has been handled by the great corporations like Ford and General Motors and US Steel and Standard Oil. And mind you, they have done quite well with it, under their banner of ‘Paternalism.’ They have achieved phenomenal control, and in a rather short time. But now consolidation is the watchword, and the corporations are not powerful enough to bring it off—even if they were willing to consolidate, which they are not. Only the military can consolidate them under one central control.”
Capt Holmes saw a sudden picture of a nation with six-lane highways thrown like a web across it. “The war will take care of that,” he said.
“I believe so,” Sam Slater said. “Historically, the corporations are already through. They’ve served their historical purpose. Besides, they have one grievous fault that, unless stopped, can be deadly.”
“Whats that?” Holmes asked.
“The fact that they themselves are afraid of authority, even though theres no authority over them,” Sam Slater said. “They have put out their paternalism propaganda so long that they believe it themselves, they believe their own Cinderella story, their own Horatio Alger myth of honest poor boy rises to riches. And of course that hamstrings them with a certain amount of sentimental moral obligation; they must play the role of father that they imagined.”
“Wait,” Holmes said. “I dont quite get that?”
Sam Slater set his empty glass down and smiled at him sadly. “Its the same thing that I was talking about that is wrong with a great many (far too many) of our senior officers. They are all anachronisms of a former generation that grew up in the Victorian era.
“The men who control the corporations and our senior officers are really very much alike, you