THE Libertarian Forum
VOLUME IV, NO. 10, DECEMBER, 1972
Ezra Pound, RIP
By James Dale Davidson

Ezra Pound is dead in Venice at the age of 87. He was recognized as a genius. During his long life he helped to shape modern literature, both through his own work and through the immense influence he exerted on others. Pound discovered Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. "It is probable," Joyce wrote, "that but for him I would still be the unknown drudge that he discovered." Under Pound's influence, William Butler Yeats abandoned Celtic romanticism for the mature style which made him one of literature's greatest pgets. Ezra Pound edited "The Waste Land," T. S. Eliot's masterwork, cutting it in half. In appreciation, Eliot lauded Pound with the dedication, "il miglior fabbro," (the better artisan). Pound authored a prodigious body of poetry. His bitter masterpiece, "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley," expressed the feelings of a generation after the disillusionment of World War 1.

There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization.
...
For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.

The Cantos, a huge, rambling poem which occupied Pound for most of his life, has generated divided critical comment. Attacked by some as incoherent, it has been praised by others as the great epic of modern times.

Perhaps one of the great translators in history, Pound published English versions of works written in such diverse tongues as: Chinese, Ancient Egyptian, Anglo-Saxon, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Greek, French, and Provencal. He even found time to write an opera, "The Testament of Francois Villon."

Few men have assumed a more dominant role in the literature of their time. Yet Pound died in exile, shunned by the liberal intelligentsia. In an article published in World magazine just two weeks before Pound's death, critic Irving Howe wrote, "The time has not yet come when Ezra Pound should be honored by his fellow writers." That is a rather problematic statement considering that Pound has already been honored by his fellow writers. His great contemporaries, Eliot, Yeats, Joyce, Frost, Hemingway, William Carlos Williams, and others were high in his praise.

What Howe really means by the phrase "his fellow writers" is the New York liberal establishment, the self-important moral guardians of the world.
Howe and his associates will be long forgotten when Ezra Pound is still remembered. Yet they should not remain unanswered. Why deny Pound the honor due a great poet? Because he was a bad man? Because he was illiberal? Pound has been considered bad for one reason - he did not support American participation in World War 11. In fact, he loudly opposed the war, openly urging an end to the hostilities. His position in regard to World War I1 was not unlike that of innumerable liberal luminaries toward the unhappy War in Vietnam. Pound spoke out. But in his case he spoke out over Rome Radio and was indicted for treason.

When the U. S. entered the Second World War, Pound was earning a living broadcasting commentary in Italy, where he had been a resident for several decades. Upon hearing that war had been declared, Pound rushed from Rome to his home in Rapallo, sold everything, and planned to leave with the other Americans aboard the last train to Lisbon. But the American consul refused to allow him on the train. Denied the right of refuge, Pound was trapped. Faced with financial ruin, he continued his radio program on the condition he would never be asked to say anything "contrary to his conscience or contrary to his duties as an American citizen - which promise was faithfully observed by the Italian government." Upon the War's end, Pound was arrested by American soldiers and thrown into a prison camp. There he was left exposed to the elements. imprisoned in an open steel cage at the age of 60. Somehow, he survived. When he was returned to the United States he was never able to stand trial. Instead, he was declared "insane" and committed to St. Elizabeth's mental hospital. There he remained for 12 years.

The shoddy treatment which Pound suffered at the hands of the American government was in many ways parallel to the treatment afforded Alexander Solzhenitsyn by the Soviet state. Both were arrested in 1945. Both were arrested for criticizing their respective governments - Solzhenitsyn in a letter and Pound before a microphone. Both confined in conditions of cruelty, Pound in a military prison camp and Solzhenitsyn in Siberia, where he was kept in a cell with frozen walls, protected only by underwear. Both Pound and Solzhenitsyn have been accused of "insanity", primarily because of their political views. The parallel is a strong one. But there it ends.
While Solzhenitsyn is accorded the support he deserves in his struggle with state tyranny, Pound was shunned until the moment of his death.
The critics, professors, and cross-word puzzle experts who earn their livings jabbering over the literature Pound helped to create, imagine themselves too moral to extend him their praise.

This is not to say that a writer's values, political and otherwise, are irrelevant to the merit of his work. Far from it. Every writer's reputation should suffer to the extent that his writing extols fallacious and destructive ideas. Most of the poets and novelists of this or any era have been thoroughly mixed up about many facets of life. John Stuart Mill described Samuel Taylor Coleridge as an "arrant driveller,"when it came to his abilities as a political economist. From a libertarian perspective, that charge applies to Pound. But that should not blind us to the strengths of Pound's insight. He deserves credit for a valiant effort to penetrate the political and cultural morass in which we still live. As a humane and perceptive man, he sought answers to the sickness of civilization, as it was revealed in the destruction of World War I. Writing in 1918 Pound said he, "began investigation of the causes of war, to oppose same." To his credit; he sought a systematic solution, one which recognized the overwhelming impact of economics. If the solution he achieved was imperfect; tinged with Fascistic implications, Pound more than requited his error by enduring imprisonment for thirteen years.

The fact that Pound admired Fascists is no worse from a libertarian point of view than the fact that Irving Howe and company admire liberal corporatists who are little different from Fascists. In fact, Pound saw some of the evils facing society with a good deal more acuity than his liberal critics. He was almost alone among writers in understanding that inflation is one of the pervasive factors curtailing civilization. Much of his poetry is devoted to attacking the practise of banking as it is known in the modern world - whereby banks create money out of nothing and then charge interest on it. He said:

"and the two largest rackets are the alteration
Of the value of money
(Of the unit of money. . .)
and usury or lending
that which is made out of nothing."
(Canto 74)

Even though Pound employed a muddled definition of "usury", this is a valid liberation concern. He simply lacked a sound theoretical base from which to develop a solution.
In studying the causes of World War I, Pound reached much the same conclusion as that achieved by revisionist historians. He felt that the war was brought on by international profiteers. Like the John Birch Society, Pound considered the Federal Reserve to be a private corporation, and agitated for "government" takeover of the money supply. This is why he admired Mussolini. He believed Fascism would end inflation.

"Mussolini," Pound wrote, "followed Andrew Jackson in opposing the tyranny of state debt." Too bad he never read What Has Government Done To Our Money?
Pound was off the mark, but not that far off. Although he was accused of Anti-Semitism, he made clear he was not opposed to Jews, only to the Rothschilds, who remain the prototype of scheming bankers. He said, "I am accused of Anti-Semitism. Why then do I respect Spinoza, esteem Montaigne as a writer, and work to re-establish the fame of Alex del Mar, who I believe was a Jew?" Although he erred in believing Fascism could eliminate inflation, Pound had an essentially accurate view of the evils of state control. "Socialism," he said, "is synonymous for imbecility because it wants to govern by multiplying bureaucracies, tyrannicaly controlling all minor activities..."
Yes, there is much in Pound to delight a libertarian. What man who said "I have a total contempt for Marx and Freud," could be all bad? His understanding of space exploration seems more to the point than that of some self-processed libertarians. "You cannot live in a Sputnik and you cannot find your food in a Sputnik. What mankind needs is an internal harmony, which may balance the increase of brutality and desperation we are living through." True enough. And in an age when Bleeding-Heart liberalism has permeated everything, with myriad crackpot groups seeking subsidy and "reparations" from the society which has "held them down," it is still refreshing to read Pound. "No one in society," he wrote, "has any right to blame his troubles on anyone else. Liberal thought has been a mess mush because of the tendency to produce this state of mind." He did have a talent for language.

Though the liberals may be silent about Pound, in death as in life, his work contains much to please a discerning reader. With all its obscurity, his poetry sparkles. And it is the record of a man who not only wrote out his vision of the tragedy of modern life, but suffered for it as well.
Remembering his years in prison and the insane asylum it is not hard to hope that "Uncle Ez," as he sometimes called himself, rests in pace.