falsehood, the easier to get it believed; people would say you wouldn't dare make up a thing
like that. Imagine the worst possible about your enemies and then swear that you knew it, you
had seen it, it was God's truth and you were ready to stake your life upon it—shout this, bellow
this, over and over, day after day, night after night. If one person states it, it is nonsense, but if
ten thousand join in it becomes an indictment, and when ten million join in it becomes
history. The Jews кill Christian children and use their blood as a part of their religious ritual!
You refuse to believe it? But it is a well-known fact; it is called "ritual murder." The Jews are in
a conspiracy to destroy Christian civilization and rule the whole world. It has all been
completely exposed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; the party has printed these, the
Führer has guaranteed their authenticity, the great American millionaire Henry Ford has
circulated them all over America. Everybody there knows that the charges are true, the whole
world knows it—save only the Jew-lovers, the Jew-kissers, the filthy Jew-hirelings. Nieder mit
den Juden!
XI
So here was another huge mass meeting, such crowds that you could hardly get in, and two
rich Americans having to climb to distant seats in a gallery. But it was all right, for there were
loudspeakers, a wonderful device whereby one small figure on a platform could have the voice
of a score of giants, while a dissenter became a pigmy, uttering a squeak like a mouse. The
radio was a still more marvelous invention; that feeble little "crystal set" with earphones which
Robbie Budd had brought to Bienvenu ten years ago had become the most dominating of
psychological forces, whereby one man could indoctrinate a hundred million. Learned
technicians of the mind had evolved methods of awakening curiosity, so that the millions
would listen; and no matter how much anyone disagreed, he was powerless to answer back.
The dream of every dictator was to get exclusive control of that colossal instrument, so that
never again in all history would it be possible to answer back. Then what you said would
become the truth and the only truth—no matter how false it might have been previously! He
who could get and hold the radio became God.
Once more Lanny observed the application of the art of moving the mass mind. Adolf Hitler
taught that the masses did not think with their brains but with their blood; that is to say, they
did not reason but were driven by instincts. The most basic instinct was the desire to survive
and the fear of not surviving; therefore Adolf Hitler told them that their enemies desired to
destroy them and that he alone could and would save them; he told them that they were the
earth. The second basic instinct was hunger, and they had suffered it, and he promised them
that under his leadership Germany would break into the storehouses of the world's plenty;
the Fatherland would have
basic instinct is sex, and he told them that they were destined to populate the earth, and that
every pure-blooded Aryan
what she was created for, and no permission was needed for her to begin; a wise Fatherland
would provide for her care and give all honor to her and her offspring.
All these instincts added up into pride and victory over the foes of Germany.
they shouted; and the party had invented an elaborate ritual to embody these concepts and to
thrill the dullest soul. At the futile Beerhall Putsch which Lanny had witnessed in Munich
there had been carried banners, and these banners had been riddled with bullets and stained
with the blood of martyrs; that made them holy, and Adolf Hitler had carried them all over
Germany, and upon public platforms had performed the ceremony of touching the new
banners with the old; that made all the Nazi banners holy, and worthy of being stained with
the blood of martyrs. So now when they were carried all hearts beat high, and all good party
members longed for a chance to become martyrs and have a new
about them. Shrill trumpets proclaimed the entry of these banners, drums beat and fifes
shrilled and a bodyguard of heroes marched into the hall with faces solemn and grim.
To the speakers' platform ascended large, heavy Gregor Strasser; not humbled and
browbeaten as Lanny had last seen him, but bursting with assurance of power. He was one
of the original party leaders, and had helped Adolf to keep alive in the early days. He had
believed in the early program with all its promises for the overthrow of the rich and the setting
up of the disinherited. Did he believe in them still, when he knew that the Führer no longer
meant them? You could never have guessed it from listening to his speech, for he seemed to have
