Noel Stocks Revealing Biography Doesn't Hide Pound's Anti-Semitism
Ezra Pound was branded a trai-
tor during the last war. He was
institutionalized and considered in-
sane. He carried on a fight against
the Jewish people and was a pro-
Nazi and pro-Fascist.
In some measure his attitudes
are told in "The Life of Ezra
Pound" by Noel Stock, a Pantheon
book. Yet there is an attempt to
vindicate him, to
minimize his pre-
judices and hat-
reds, and in that
res pect the bio-
graphy by Stock
is unjustly apolo-
getic.
After giving a
brief — is it par-
tial and limited?
— account of
Pound's views on
the J e w s, Stock
declares:
"I do not think
that he was al-
ways right, either
in his facts or his Ezra Pound
ideas, nor does he appear always
to have been consistent, but a
study of his sayings on the subject
during the 1930s shows that he
made conscious efforts to be fair,
only lapsing occasionally when
some item of news or gossip touch-
ed off an explosion of anger. In
'What Is Money For?' he disting-
uished between 'prejudice against
the Jew as such' and 'the sugges-
tion that the Jew should face his
own problem'. He also said that
the tendency to usury had been
recognized and stigmatized from
the time of the laws of Moses and
indicated that he was prepared to
respect the individual Jew who ob-
served this law but not the one
Cooke Book Strictly
'Christological'
While the complete study of the
Christian roots, outlined by Prof.
Bernard J. Cooke of Marquette
University', in his latest book, are
traced from the Old Testament
and from Judaism, the theologian's
explanation "how men can 'con-
tact' God in a world come of age"
is strictly Christological,
Dr. Cooke's "Christian Commu-
nity: Response to Reality," pub-
lished by Holt, Rinehart and Win-
ston, takes full account of the role
of ancient Israel. There are some
interesting comments. For instance,
in the review of the tensions and
conflicts during the era of the
Maccabees, the author views prob-
lems faced by a religious commu-
nity in a situation of major cul-
tural change, and observes:
"On the ope side, the enthusi-
astic and uncritical adoption of
Hellenistic thought and social insti-
tutions threatened the cherished
traditions of Old Testament Israel
and the continued existence of the
Jews as a distinctive social force.
On the other. side, the opposition
to Hellenistic 'modernism'—which
in the case of some groups bordered
on fanaticism—brought with it a
rigid adherence to established reli-
gious forms, a narrow chauvinism,
and a cultural isolationism that
threatened the internal develop-
ment of Judaism itself."
The faith of Israel in Yahweh is
then developed in the course of the
author's tracing of a relevance to
Jesus and his Christological atti-
tude becomes apparent when he
states that because of Jesus' com-
ing "Old Testament prophecy no
longer has a purpose for being.
Because he is the unique dwelling
of God with man, the Temple can
no longer serve as a privileged
symbol of God's saving presence."
Thus, Dr. Cooke's study is exact-
ly what the title implies: it is
strictly a work dealing with and
with emphasis upon Christian
community.
A great statesman, like a good
housekeeper, knows that cleaning
has to be done every morning.—
Andre Maurois
20—Friday, July 31, 1970
who while claiming to observe it
went on robbing other men by
usury. But at the same time the
pamphlet contained crude refer-
ences to 'Jews-papers' and to an
England in which pictures were
'put in the Jew dealer's cellar
under a black and uniquitous in-
heritance tax'."
Indeed, Stock follows it up
with this statement: "By the end
of 1939 he was taking an un-
healthy interest in Jewish par-
ticipation in any activity whatso-
ever and when he read in 'II
Regime Fascista' for 24 Novem-
ber a story about Jewish control
of news-distributing agencies he
was further confirmed in his be-
lief about the power of usury.
Isolated by the war he spent
more and more time reading
anti-Jewish tracts and articles,
some of which, sent earlier from
America and England, he had
never or barely opened. Typical
of these was the eight-page
pamphlet 'Britain & Jewry' pub-
lished by Greater Britain Publi-
cations. It attacked 'Jewish Fi-
nance', declared that Commun-
ism was Jewish, and advocated
Sir Oswald Mosley's solution that
'the Jews must be found a land
of their own', preferably Mada-
gascar."
But why, in view of what Stock
himself reveals about the "hero"
of his book, why try to defend him
with the assertion that Pound was
"imprisoned in a world of his
own" when that world was filled
with venom, and how can one
justify the statement: "At times
he had his doubts about the Nazis,
and even about the Fascists, but
he had the future to think of?" In-
deed, his future like his past were
filled with bigoted views.
Stock does present some of the
facts relating to Pound's preju-
dices. He states:
"One of Pound's main points was
that Europe needed a purely Euro-
pean religion unpoisoned by Jew-
ish or other non-European elem-
ents, and on 7 August he had sent
an essay on this theme to Douglas
Fox in New York, in the hope that
Fox would translate it into German
and perhaps find a publisher for
it in Germany. There, he believed,
it would receive serious attention.
As in much of his correspondence
at this time he insisted in the essay
that Christianity was composed of
'very mixed elements' and that the
'valid elements' were European.
The only vigorous feasts of the
Church, he maintained, were graft-
ed onto European roots having to
do with the sun, the grain, the
harvest, and Aphrodite. Pound
could recognize paganism when he
saw it and not unnaturally turned
in the direction of Germany: 'The
function of Germany, as I see it,
in the next 40 years' art is indis-
pensable. Nowhere else is there
enough force toward a purgation.
The Italians are too easygoing.
Spain is African and Christian,
and you cannot trust Christianity
for 10 minutes.' Towards the end
of 1939 there was much in his
letters about the god Pan, the re-
lation between coition and clear
thought, and the need to sort out
the various elements in Christian-
ity.
With these ideas turning over in
his mind it is not surprising, when
we think of the propaganda that
was in the air that Pound's attitude
towards the Jews took a turn for
the worse. He had inherited the
anti-semitism of the East Coast
American, directed against the
coarseness and habits as well as
the supposed racial traits of Jew-
ish immigrants; but this was pos-
sibly not much more than a faint
sense of superiority, unpleasant
perhaps but not necessarily dan-
gerous. If later he developed
stronger f eeling s, especially
against the Jewish religion and its
infiltration of Europe, they did not
prevent him from trying to see the
matter fairly, even after his inter-
est in economics had brought him
into contact with usurers who were
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
'70 DODGES'
it was the big men he was after
DART!
—the Rothschilds, Sassoons and
Sieffs in England, the Warbtu-gs,
the Schiffs, Baruch and Morgen-
thau in the United States." Stock
continues to quote Pound: "The
CHARGER!
60 kikes who started this war
might be sent to St. Helena, as a
measure of world prophylaxis,
and some hyper-kikes or non-
Jewish kikes among them." And
POLARA!
Stock adds: "You cannot blame
it on the small Jew, he said on
16 May, 1943, 'for he is in most
cases as damned a fool and as
FULL FACTORY EQUIPMENT
witless a victim as you are'."
For exposing this, even in a spirit
"MAKE AN OFFER SALE!"
of attempting to vindicate Pound
JOIN THE SWINGERS AT
in some measure, Stock has serv-
ed a good purpose.
But his book must be read care-
fully: there is no vindicating vio-
lent anti-Semites, and the octo-
genarian Pound's background be-
longs in the era of violence insti-
10500 W. 8 MILE ROAD
JUST EAST OF MEYERS
gated
by anti-Semites.
As a history of an era, and
with reference to Pound's many
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friendships with notables and his
Hourly-rated workers pledged a
poetic achievements, Stock's bio- total of $8,179,687 to the 1969 Torch
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graphy is valuable. But it also
Drive.
serves as an expose of a sick
mind—of a man whose "favorite
Vote for
subject" were "the Jews behind
Roosevelt, the Jews who were
runing England, the Jewish reli-
gion . . ." Yet the biographer
insists upon giving emphasis to
State Representative 67th Dist. Democrat
the view that Pound "was not in
Pd. Pol. Ad.
favor of harming 'the small Jew,'
Jews. About 1935 he held for a
time a theory that organized anti-
semitism might be the hidden war
of Swiss Protestant dynasties
against the Rothschilds, whom they
had never forgiven for breaking
into their banking monopoly. 'Usur-
ers have no race', he wrote in the
New English Weekly in November
19359. 'How long the whole Jewish
people is to be sacrificial goat for
the usurer, I know not.' In Guide
to Kulchur he wrote that Meyer
Anselm, founder of the Rothschild
dynasty, 'had, let us say, a pur-
pose, a race (his own race) to
"avenge." He used the only wea-
pons available for a tiny minority,
for a lone hand against organized
goy power, pomp, militarism, rhe-
toric, buncombe.' And in an article
in the British Union Quarterly in
1938, he said, 'international usury
contains more Calvinism, Protes-
tant sectarianism than Judaism.' "
NORTHWESTERN
DODGE
RICHARD I. DRESSER
ROBERT M. JOHNSON
STATE REPRESENTATIVE
15th District No. 163
I pledge to work for:
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4.
Top quality education
Elimination of narcotic and drug problems
To aid the small businessman
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Elect . . . ANDREW
ID:MAGGIO
COMMON PLEAS JUDGE
*Practicing Attorney, 20 years
*Wayne County Government Attorney, 9 years
*World War II Veteran
•
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BAR ASSOCIATION
Ballot No. 601
The Only "Preferred & Well Qualified Candidate" By
The Civic Searchlight and Oakland County Citizens
League. Unanimously endorsed by The Southfield
Democratic Club.
elect—
Tuesday, Aug. 4th
DANIEL G.
BERK
STATE REPRESENTATIVE
67th District - Democrat
• Former Assistant Attorney General
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House Labor Committee
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