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Howard W. Campbell, Jr., the central character of Kurt
Vonnegut’s novel, Mother Night, is an
American, raised in Germany, who during WWII worked for the Nazis as a
propagandist, delivering radio messages which also contained coded messages (undetected
by the Germans) which gave valuable
information to the allied forces. Below is an excerpt from a Campbell
monograph, quoted in Vonnegut’s subsequent WWII novel, Slaughterhouse-Five:
“America
is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor
Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin
Hubbard, “It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.” It is in
fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of
poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely
wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and
gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and
glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a
man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this
cruel question: “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” There will also be an
American flag no larger than a child’s hand—glued to a lollipop stick and
flying from the cash register.
“Americans,
like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue.
Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make
money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and,
therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This
inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do
less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since,
say, Napoleonic times.
“Many
novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without
precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because
they do not love themselves. Once this is understood, the disagreeable behavior
of American enlisted men in German [prisoner of war] prisons ceases to be a
mystery.”
Vonnegut presents Howard W. Campbell, Jr. as a highly
intelligent man. We might do well, therefore, to consider the plausibility of
his words.
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