"But who will take the wealth away from them? "

"It'll be taken away! Roosevelt will take it away! If we only re-elect him president for the second time, he will do it!"

"But suppose Congress won't let him?"

"Never mind. Congress will agree to it! It's a fair thing to do. How can they fail to agree to it? It's perfectly obvious."

He was so carried away by this primitive idea, he was so desirous that injustice should disappear of its own accord and that everybody should be well off, that he did not even care to think how all of this should come about. He was a child who wanted everything to be made of chocolate. It seemed to him that all he had to do was to ask kindly, good-natured Santa Claus, and everything would be magically transformed. Santa Claus would come racing in on his cardboard, silvered deer, would arrange a warm snowstorm and everything would come about. Congress will agree. Roosevelt will politely take away the billions, and the rich men with meek smiles will give up those billions.

Millions of Americans are in the throes of such childish ideas.

How to be rid of the depression for ever and aye?

Oh, that's not hard at all! The government must give each old man, upon reaching the age of sixty, two hundred dollars a month on the condition that he obligate himself to spend this money. Then the buying power of the population will grow to unheard-of proportions and the depression will immediately end. At the same time the old folks will live remarkably well. It is all clear and simple. How all of this is to be arranged is not so important. The old people are so desirous of receiving two hundred dollars a month, and the young folks are so desirous to have the depression end and to secure a job at last, that it is sheer joy to all. Townsend, the inventor of this magic means, won millions of ardent disciples in a very short time.

Townsend clubs and committees sprang up throughout the country and, with the approach of presidential elections, the Townsendite idea was enriched by a new amendment. It proposed to give two hundred dollars to each person who attained the age of fifty.

The hypnosis of simple figures acts with a remarkable power. As a matter of fact, what child has not dreamed of how nice it would be if every adult should give him one penny? It doesn't cost the adult much, while the child can thus accumulate a pile of money.

We are not speaking here of advanced American workers nor about the radical intelligentsia. We are speaking about the so-called average American, the principal buyer and the principal voter. He is a simple and exceedingly democratic human being. He knows how to work, and he works hard. He loves his wife and his children, listens to the radio, frequently goes to the motion-picture theatre, and reads very little. Besides, he has a great respect for money. He does not feel for it the passion of a miser, but he respects it just as in one's family an uncle who is a famous professor is respected, and he wants everything in the world to be just as simple and understandable as it is in his home.

When someone sells him a refrigerator or an electric stove or a vacuum cleaner, the salesman never goes into abstract discussions. With precision and in a businesslike way he explains how many cents an hour the electric energy will cost, what cash payment he will have to make, and how much will be economized by this arrangement. The purchaser wants to know figures, advantages, expressed in dollars.

A political idea is sold to him in the same manner. Nothing abstract, no philosophy. He votes, and he is promised two hundred dollars a month or the equalization of wealth. These are figures. That is understandable. He will agree to that. Of course, he will be very much surprised to dis-cover that these ideas do not work out as conscientiously as a refrigerator and a vacuum cleaner. But for the present he still believes in them.

In Flagstaff we parted with our fellow traveller.

When he left our automobile, we noticed the low level of poverty to which the man had sunk. His worn coat was in tatters. His greenish cheeks had not been shaved for a long time, and in his ears was gathered the dust of Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Oklahoma. When he said goodbye an optimistic smile lit up his sorrowing face.

"Soon everything will go well," he said. "But they get only five millions, and not another cent!"

When we were driving out of Flagstaff, holding the course on the Grand Canyon, Mr. Adams said:

"Well, what do you think ? Why does this unfortunate man insist on leaving five million apiece to the millionaires? Don't you know? Well, then, I will tell you. In his heart of hearts he is still hoping that some day he himself will become a millionaire. American upbringing is a frightful thing, gentlemen!"

26 Grand Canyon

TOWARD EVENING of every day our old man, whom we learned to like very much, would grow tired.

The three hundred miles we had driven, the impressions, the endless conversations, finally his respectable age, took their toll: Mr. Adams would grow tired, and some link or another would fall out of his actions.

If toward evening Mrs. Adams would ask her husband to ascertain from somebody on the road whether we were travelling in the right direction, the old man would begin to turn around restlessly in his seat. From his movements, we could divine that he did not know how to proceed. He simply forgot. He was supposed to open the window, put his head out and, having said: "Pardon me, sir," which means "Excuse me," find out about the road. All this he used to do very neatly, would cry out: "Pardon me," and attempt to put his head out. But he would forget the main thing - to drop the window. That link would fall out. And each time, unable to understand why his head did not shove itself out, he would attempt to break the glass with his elbow. Only the unheard-of durability of American manufacturing processes saved the head and arm of Mr. Adams from cuts. Toward evening we would take care not to entrust him with commissions of that sort.

We moved very fast down the deserted road in order to reach Grand Canyon the same day—Grand Canyon, one of the great geographical wonders of the world!

We were tired and, therefore, forgot about the control over Mrs. Adams. She noticed it at once, and advanced her speed from fifty miles to sixty. Then she stealthily looked around and added another five miles. Now we were going at a speed in excess of a hundred kilometres an hour. That was a typical feminine trait. A woman always tries to drive faster than circumstances warrant. The air roared, torn to shreds by our car.

Again we drove through the painted desert. Pure blue hills lay along the whole horizon. The sundown was likewise pure, naive, as if it had been painted by some provincial young ladies long before the first horrifying thought of men entered their heads. The colours of the desert were so fresh and transparent that it is possible to transmit them only by means of an album of aquarelles. The few strands of wind that blew into our automobile through the lowered window pounced on each other like attic cats. In their fight they would strike us, tear off our hats and blow over Mr. Adams's head. Mr. Adams did not yet have his hat as a result of the complicated postal operations which we transacted throughout the journey. The evening, however, was quite cool and the skin of Mr. Adams's head turned blue and was now in no way distinguishable in colour from the hills.

In utter darkness, quiet, somewhat squelched by the beauties of nature we had seen, we arrived at the Grand Canyon and stopped in one of the camp houses. It was made of huge logs. It was supposed to give us some idea of primitive American pioneer life. But on the inside, to make up for its rusticity, it was furnished in a completely modern manner, and the beds, as always, were excellent (in America, a customer is sold not a bed, but good repose). So here they were, these rooms equipped with excellent repose, steam heat, hot and cold water, and New Yorkese portable lamps with large cardboard lampshades. These lamps are very-tall, the height of a human being, and they do not stand on the table but on the floor.