Dr Erik Tonning

Department of

Foreign Languages

Universi ty of Bergen

‘WHY CAN’T YOU STEP ON THE GAS’:EZRA POUND’S EFFORTS TO RECRUIT BRITISH CHRISTIANS FOR FASCISM IN

THE 1930S

The CHURCH IS RIGHT re/econ. Not only from cathol ic point of view, but by my pagan, Confucian, Jeff ersonian standards. […] The CHURCH, Gesel l and Douglas are MUCH nearer each other than 95% of ANY of their fol lowers suspect. The[re] IS an economic truth, an economic scienza, i t is PROFOUNDLY MORAL. My Archivescovo explained to me why HE can not SAY anything. The church is NOT in pol it ics, but the inert ia in the Church also comes from lack of economic knowledge in high places and, as I gather, the fact that IF a defi nite econ. program were proposed, 80% of the dignitar ies wd/ not know that i t wasn’t going into pol it ics. You might note the Church’s OPPORTUNITY.// sheer heathens l ike the Secretarita print ing half col/ of Encycl ical , rerum Novarum; and Prosperity quotion[sic:quoting] both Leo and Pius, Sapientiae Chris/ Consistorial Address, Immortale Dei.  The Vatican cant break into local elect ions/ BUT both Gesel l and Douglas are atttacks on USURA. And the Church is bound to bless them on that account.  ONCE the Church is SEEN to be profoundly r ight on money and credit , the way is open to the FIRST serious attempt to bring the Church back into leadership of occidental thought.

EZRA POUND TO CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS, 25 FEBRUARY 1936

The CHURCH can back up our MORALS/ anything we do inside the VOCABULARY of the Church can be APPROVED; Get that?

EZRA POUND TO C.H. DOUGLAS, 25 FEBRUARY 1936

The Protestant world has lost the sense of mental and spiritual rottenness. Dante has it: “gran sacco che fa merda.” The real theologians knew it.

EZRA POUND TO JOHN L. BROWN, APRIL 1937

With usura hath no man a house of good stone each block cut smooth and wel l fi tt ing […] with usura, s in against nature, is thy bread ever more of stale rags is thy bread dry as paper, with no mountain wheat, no strong fl our […] wool comes not to market sheep br ingeth no gain with usura Usura is a murrain, usura b lunteth the needle in the the maid’s hand and stoppeth the spinner 's cunning. […] Usura s layeth the chi ld in the womb It stayeth the young man’s court ing I t hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth between the young br ide and her br idegroom           CONTRA NATURAM

EZRA POUND, CANTO 45 (‘WITH USURA’)

To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist. […] In order to make this evident, we must observe that there are certain things the use of which consists in their consumption: thus we consume wine when we use it for drink and we consume wheat when we use it for food. […] [W]hoever is granted the use of the thing, is granted the thing itself and for this reason, to lend things of this kind is to transfer the ownership. Accordingly if a man wanted to sell wine separately from the use of the wine, he would be selling the same thing twice.

THOMAS AQUINAS ON USURY

why can’t you step on the gas/ on following linesJ accuse. Church of England damn weel AFRAID to think[…]Church afraid to face Lancelot Andrews/ who was contra usuraRot IN the spiritual centre of country, produces shit through all the corpus of the state and nation. Swabey suggests that catholics have absorbed Aquinas, but not Quadrigessimo anno/

EZRA POUND TO T.S. ELIOT, 6 APRIL 1936

From about 1450, or perhaps earlier, money power had been warring on Catholic morality. By 1610 money power had gained its fi rst moral ally, Calvin, and opposition was being shuffl ed away. But the Church wanted Lancelot Andrewes, and the Faith might yet have been preserved. It will never be known why those in control of the State preferred not to have Andrewes; the Calvinist they chose was apparently quite unsuitable for the Primacy. It would seem that the interests of the Church were not their fi rst consideration.

Lancelot Andrewes was not afraid to maintain the Catholic prohibition against Calvin’s lie. Had be been chosen, the watery cowardice of the yes-men of High Finance would have been opposed by the aquaforte of Catholic truth.

FROM HENRY SWABEY, ‘THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND MONEY’, THE CRITERION, JULY 1937