The Zebra Derby Read online

  For postwar planning in these United States was no Johnny-come-lately. Our people had not waited for the last shot of the war to be fired before they began to plan for peace. No siree. Not our people. Why, some of our more foresighted industrialists had thought of peace even as they tooled for war. Yes siree. No peace was going to catch old Uncle Sam with his gaiters down. By gum.

  I remember, for instance, a night in 1943, a few weeks after I had been inducted. My buddies and I were all sitting around the barracks. There was a war movie on at the post theater, so we were all sitting around the barracks. Someone turned on the radio and (this was 1943, mind you) we heard a round-table discussion of the National Association of Rich Millionaires. Their topic (in 1943 yet) was “Planning for the Postwar World.”

  What a galaxy of tycoons was assembled before the microphone that night! There was Max Ballanfont (oil) and Max Pilfering (steel) and Max Clodde (textiles) and Max Hawing (railroads) and Max Onus (tools) and Max Nipthung (abrasives). Without ado they plunged into the problem at hand. “Gentlemen,” said the moderator, “our topic tonight is ‘Planning for the Postwar World.’ Who would like to open the discussion?”

  HAWING (railroads): I would like to tell a little anecdote that I think illustrates very well the importance of planning. When my little son Money was five years old I said to him, “Money, you’re old enough to learn a few things now. I’m going to teach you the value of thrift and foresight. From now on you are going to receive a weekly allowance. You must plan your expenses according to your allowance, because if you run out of money before the end of the week, Mummy and Daddy won’t give you any more.”

  Well, sir, at first it didn’t work out at all. Little Money would go out on Monday morning with all his allowance and buy every foolish thing he set his eyes on, and by Tuesday he was broke. He would come crying to me for more money, but I would say, “No, Money, no money. You’ll have to learn to plan your expenses. You’ll have to stop frittering away all your allowance on foolishness. Money, why don’t you pick something you really want, something big and lasting, and save up for that instead of buying all this nonsense?”

  Well, sir, after that several weeks went by and Money didn’t ask me for a cent. I knew he was saving up for something. Finally he came home with a large package and unwrapped it and took out a fine hunting gun. “There, Money,” I said, “you see what comes of being thrifty and planning for the future? Wasn’t Daddy right?”

  “All right, you sonofabitch,” said Money, “get your mitts in the air. Now tell me the combination of the wall safe.”

  And through careful planning that little tyke made off with eight million dollars.

  NIPTHUNG (abrasives): Your little story certainly does illustrate the value of planning, Mr. Hawing. You’re absolutely right. We must plan right now. How can we be sure the war is going to last until 1944? It may be over in six months; it may be over tomorrow. That’s why we must plan now.

  MODERATOR: We are agreed, then, that the time to plan is now. Next let us take up the question of who is to do the planning. By latest count there are 435,804 government and private agencies planning for the postwar. Don’t you think that such a situation might result in chaos? Wouldn’t it be better to have one master plan?

  BALLANFONT (oil): No! A master plan necessitates a master. That is totalitarianism. That is not the American way. I say you cannot take away the right of the people to plan. This nation was built on individual planning and private enterprise. American boys gave their lives at Bunker Hill and Shiloh and the Marne and Tarawa to preserve free capitalism. I say that this nation, under God and free private enterprise, shall never bow beneath a tyrant’s yoke. I say that if individual planning means chaos—and, mark you, I don’t believe it does—but if it does, I say, better chaotic democracy than efficient totalitarianism.

  CLODDE (textiles): I would like to say that I agree one thousand per cent with what Mr. Ballanfont said and that Mrs. Clodde and I would be honored to have him and Mrs. Ballanfont to dinner next Friday evening if they don’t mind simple food.

  BALLANFONT (oil): Indeed we don’t, Mr. Clodde, indeed we don’t. Simple food and homely virtues, we always say.

  CLODDE (textiles): Mrs. Clodde and I always say, I’d rather be solvent than president.

  PILFERING (steel): Mrs. Pilfering and I always say, it takes a heap o’ heapin’ to make a heap a heap.

  MODERATOR: Mrs. Moderator and I always say, stuff a cold and starve a fever. But to get back to postwar planning, what do you gentlemen think about government regulation after the war?

  HAWING (railroads): First of all, taxes that throttle initiative and stem the healthful flow of commerce must be reduced at once.

  ALL (oil, steel, textiles, tools, and abrasives): Yes!

  ONUS (tools): And there must be a high tariff to protect our infant industry.

  NIPTHUNG (abrasives): All government regulation must cease the minute the war is over. In war we accepted government regulation cheerfully. Why, my associates and I were actually laughing and singing when the troops carried us out of our plant. But when this emergency is ended, then government regulation must cease without delay.

  BALLANFONT (oil): Absolutely. Government regulation is the way to totalitarianism. It is not the American way. It is not the way that made this nation the mightiest on the face of the earth. The silent graves at Valley Forge and Chickamauga and Château-Thierry and Guadalcanal are monuments to the system of free private enterprise. Shall we desecrate those graves? Shall we profane those monuments? I say that if the end of government regulation means chaos—and mark you, I don’t believe it does—but if it does, I say, better chaotic democracy than efficient totalitarianism.

  CLODDE (textiles): I agree two thousand per cent with what Mr. Ballanfont says and I would like to inform him that we will have a bottle of domestic wine with dinner next Friday evening.

  PILFERING (steel): And I agree too. The first requisite of a prosperous postwar America is the immediate end of government regulation.

  HAWING (railroads): My feelings exactly.

  NIPTHUNG (abrasives): Me too.

  MODERATOR: Fine. Then we are all agreed that the government should keep its hands off business. Now let us take up the question of labor.

  NIPTHUNG (abrasives): The government has got to step in and regulate unions. We simply cannot have this intolerable labor situation. I speak as a lifelong friend of labor; why, at my plant the company police carry truncheons made of soft rubber. (There was an article about it in Fortune last month.) But I feel that the time has come when the government must put a stop to the abuses of labor. If unions would come to their senses, they would realize that they are only cutting their own throats by their present conduct. They are upsetting our whole economy and they will suffer for it. They are kindling a fire of public indignation that will someday destroy them. I hate to see it happen. If labor was wiser, it would ask for government regulation. As one who loves labor and wants to see it survive, I say that there must be government regulation of labor.

  ONUS (tools): Me too, and I’m mad about labor.

  CLODDE (textiles): And I, who long have felt a searing passion for labor.

  HAWING (railroads): I agree, even as a father agrees to discipline a wayward son he loves.

  PILFERING (steel): Yes, and I love labor more than Mrs. Pilfering.

  BALLANFONT (oil): Me too, and I eat in the employees’ cafeteria.

  MODERATOR: We are unanimous, then. Now, gentlemen, our time is getting short. Would you like to tell our listeners what plans your own companies have made for the postwar?

  ONUS (tools): My company uses a lot of abrasives. In a small way we are already making our own abrasives, and we think that after the war we’ll expand our abrasive facilities and really go out and compete in the abrasive market.

  NIPTHUNG (abrasives): Oh, is that so, you big fat octopus trust? Well, it may interest you to know that we are going to open a tool division, and if we can’t drive you ou
t of business, you big blob of phlegm, my name ain’t Max Nipthung.

  PILFERING (steel): We are planning to build our own railroad from the ore pits to our steel mills.

  HAWING (railroads): Oh, are you? Well, let me tell you, you double-dealing bastard, that we happen to be planning to forge our own rails.

  BALLANFONT (oil): Our chemists have discovered a way to make fabrics out of oil, and we’re going to add a side line of textiles.

  CLODDE (textiles): Yeah? Well, if you and that bag you married show your ugly faces around my house on Friday night, I’ll bash your mealy mouths in. And my company is going to dig oil wells.

  And the organist played “Rock of Ages” from the motion picture Going My Way and the forum was over.

  chapter four

  But this was no time to be woolgathering about the past. The future was before me, and coming down the track was the old Cannonball to take me to Minneapolis and the future.

  How good it was to see the old Cannonball once more! Well did I remember the drama-fraught day when the Cannonball made its first run. It was a day such as Whistlestop has never experienced since. Nor, I’ll venture, has any other city.

  The Natchez, Mobile, and Duluth Railroad had laid the tracks for the Cannonball from two directions—north from Minneapolis and south from Duluth. It was planned to join the northern and southern halves of the line at Whistlestop on July 4.

  The construction of the line progressed without mishap.

  On the morning of July 3 the northern and southern road gangs met in Whistlestop and laid the last link of track. Only one small thing remained: a short spur line to a siding at the Whistlestop Wagon Tongue and Trailing Antenna Corporation. The road gangs fell to with a will, and by midafternoon the spur was laid and the route of the Cannonball was complete. A jubilant telegram was sent to the Minneapolis office of the Natchez, Mobile, and Duluth Railroad serving notice that Whistlestop awaited the Cannonball.

  On the morning of July 4 the Cannonball left Minneapolis on its maiden run. Aboard were officials of the railroad. The train was scheduled to arrive at Whistlestop at noon, and there it would stop for a brief ceremony. A symbolic golden spike would be driven, there would be speeches, and the Cannonball would proceed to Duluth.

  Mayor La Hernia of Whistlestop was chosen to drive the golden spike. By eleven o’clock on the morning of July 4 everybody in Whistlestop—men and women, young and old—was assembled by the tracks. Mayor La Hernia, splendidly clad in top hat, cutaway, and striped trousers, stood over the golden spike holding a sledge hammer. At eleven-thirty a telegram was received saying that the Cannonball had just passed Dividend, the town before Whistlestop, and would arrive within twenty minutes. The crowd drew closer to Mayor La Hernia and he raised the sledge hammer over the spike.

  Then began as strange a drama as has ever been witnessed in Whistlestop and probably all of northwestern United States. As Mayor La Hernia stood poised over the golden spike, out of the crowd came a man named Yussuf Swannekamp. He walked over to Mayor La Hernia’s side.

  Mayor La Hernia raised the sledge hammer. “Get away, Swannekamp,” he cried, “or I’ll bash in your head with this here sledge hammer.”

  It would be useful to explain here the antipathy between Mayor La Hernia and Yussuf Swannekamp.

  It all started during the municipal election two years earlier. Swannekamp had been mayor of Whistlestop for three consecutive terms. When he announced his intention of seeking a fourth term, La Hernia threw his hat into the ring. “Swannekamp,” said La Hernia, “has been in office too long. He has grown old, tired, and quarrelsome. It’s time for a change.”

  To which Swannekamp replied, “This is no time to turn over the helm of the ship of city to untried, inexperienced hands. In an emergency like this, when the sidewalk between Twelfth and Thirteenth on Walnut Street is in a deplorable condition, it is wise to stick to tried and tested government. Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream.”

  And so it went, charge and countercharge, accusation and denial, recrimination and rebuttal. It was the liveliest campaign that Whistlestop had experienced in years. Everybody in town was outspoken in favor of one candidate or another; a one-hundred-per-cent turnout was assured at the polls.

  On the day before election Swannekamp took an informal but accurate survey of the voters. He found a dead heat—fifty-three for him and fifty-three for La Hernia. Swannekamp knew that the official balloting the next day would show the same results, for at this late hour he could expect nobody to change his vote. If only there were another voter in town, thought Swannekamp.

  Then he remembered. On the edge of town lived a recluse, a deranged tree worshiper named Kilmer Boles. Boles seldom ventured into town, took no interest in civic affairs, and had no friends. He lived alone in a small house surrounded by trees, among which each evening he performed his rituals.

  Swannekamp determined to win Boles’s vote. He went to the library and spent several hours reading about tree worshipers in the encyclopedia. He learned about the evening ritual of worshiping trees. It was a high Mass, during which a scroll, kept buried at the foot of an oak tree all day, was unearthed and a prayer inscribed on the scroll was chanted in a peculiar four-note singsong.

  Swannekamp left the library triumphantly, stopped for a sandwich at the U-Choos-It café, and then went out to Kilmer Boles’s house.

  Boles answered his knock suspiciously. “I’m Yussuf Swannekamp,” he said, smiling, “mayor of Whistlestop and candidate for re-election.”

  “I don’t vote,” snarled Boles.

  “Suit yourself about that, Mr. Boles,” smiled Swannekamp. “That isn’t what I wanted to see you about.”

  “What, then?” asked Boles.

  “Well,” said Swannekamp, “I don’t tell this to many people, because they wouldn’t understand, but I’m a tree worshiper. I came out here thinking maybe we could say a Mass together.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Boles happily. “Fancy that. I thought I was the only one in town who had been awakened to the true cause. You have no idea how happy I am to have found you.”

  “Us tree worshipers got to stick together,” said Swannekamp.

  “Yes indeed,” Boles agreed. “Well, Mr. Swannekamp, you’d better say your Mass in a hurry. The sun will be down before long.”

  “Won’t you join me?” asked Swannekamp.

  “No, I’ve already said my Mass. You know that if you say two Masses in one night you get the blight.”

  “Of course,” said Swannekamp.

  “But I’ll come along and watch you,” said Boles, taking his arm.

  They walked out into the copse friendlily. Swannekamp spied an oak with freshly dug earth at its roots. He wisely surmised that the prayer scroll was buried there. He dug it up and unrolled it. Then his face grew dark with consternation.

  For Swannekamp had been outwitted. He had dropped a few indiscreet words about his plan at the U-Choos-It while he was having a sandwich before going out to Boles’s house. A La Hernia supporter had overheard him and quickly informed La Hernia. La Hernia had jumped on his motorcycle and rushed to Boles’s house. He had found the prayer scroll buried beneath the oak and defaced it until every word was illegible. Then he had silently stolen away.

  Now Swannekamp stood looking with dismay at the scroll. The sweat poured from his brow as he tried to make out the words. He coughed and cleared his throat time after time as he strove to read the defaced scroll in the fading light of day.

  Boles stood by, growing more and more impatient. His anger mounted steadily while Swannekamp turned the scroll this way and that, smiling wanly at Boles the while. At length Boles could bear it no longer.

  “Get out of here!” he screamed. “I’m going to vote for La Hernia. No man gets my vote who doesn’t know his Mass from a scroll in the ground.”

  And Swannekamp lost the election by one vote.

  He never forgave La Hernia for that. On every possible occasion he attacked him, both verbal
ly and physically. That is why when Swannekamp came up to him at the ceremony opening the route of the Cannonball, La Hernia raised his sledge hammer and cried, “Get away, Swannekamp, or I’ll bash in your head with this here sledge hammer.”

  Swannekamp raised an arm in protest. “Your honor,” he said soothingly, “I can understand why you should be suspicious of me. Heaven knows I’ve given you plenty of reason. I’ve been a bad loser and a bad sport, and if you never talk to me again I can’t blame you.”

  “What do you want?” asked La Hernia, his suspicions by no means allayed.

  “To shake hands. Today is the greatest day in the history of Whistlestop. Today the Cannonball goes through and the eyes of the whole nation are upon us. On a day like this I think all citizens of Whistlestop should forget their petty hates and all be friends. Your honor, I’d be proud if you forgave me and shook my hand.”

  La Hernia examined him closely. Convinced at last, he put down the sledge hammer and grasped Swannekamp’s hand. A cheer rose from the crowd, and there were few dry eyes among them.

  Suddenly there was a rumbling far away and a cloud of smoke appeared on the horizon. “The Cannonball!” shouted everyone, and jumped up and down with unconfined excitement.

  Mayor La Hernia raised the sledge hammer over the spike. “Your honor,” said Swannekamp, “I don’t care who hears me say this. I’m glad you won the election. On this, Whistlestop’s great day, a great leader is required. You are that leader.”

  “Thanks, Yussuf,” said Mayor La Hernia simply.

  The Cannonball grew larger in the distance.

  “I know you’re going to drive in that spike nice and clean and make us all proud of you,” said Swannekamp.

  Mayor La Hernia blushed and shuffled his feet.

  The Cannonball drew closer.

  “I’ll tell you something, your honor,” said Swannekamp. “It’s important to have a good stance when you’re swinging a sledge. I used to work in a quarry and I know.”