Lawrence Dennis, from the c/u.vfcovcro/^Operational Thinkingrnfor Snrvival.rnnnemployed . . . will heave a gratefnl sigh of relief As Americanrnbusiness picks up, American idealism will get acquaintedrnwith the moral issue of the New Armageddon and histon,’ willrnrepeat itself”rnTen years before James Burnliam’s The Managerial Revohition,rnDennis argued that capitalism was doomed and that somethingrnthat was neither socialism nor capitalism would take itsrnplace. He saw himself as an obserer, an objective commentatorrnon trends diat had their own internal dvnamic. Technologicalrnand social changes had revolutionized die old order, andrnlaissez faire was no longer viable. But the Soviet Union was notrnnecessarilv the wave of the future; as an alternative to Marxism,rnDennis held out the prospect of a distinctively American nahonalism.rnHis program for ameliorating die crisis of market senilit}’rnincluded protective tariffs, anti-monopoK’ legislahon, restrictionsrnon credit, and a return to small-scale production for arndomesHc market.rnUnlike Burnliam and otiier prophets of modernit)’, fT)ennisrndid not exult in die triiuuph of die new order; his elegy for thernOld Republic was touched widi nostalgia for a lost world. “Thernpoint of view of this book,” he wrote, “is not unlike diat which arneiti/en of Rome might have taken a eentuiT or so before die fallrnof the empire. He would not liae regretted die doom of pre-rnailing leaders, but he would hae been saddened by the contemplationrnof tlie loss of nian of die values of Roman ciili/,ation.”rnFor Dennis, “the opening of an era of economicrndictatorships will be tantamount to the revival of the DarkrnAges.”rnDennis developed this theme in The Coming American Fascismrn(19?6), a tide that did not describe the author’s ideolog}’ sornmuch as his predicament. If the choice was between an Americanrncorporate state and an American Soviet, Dennis chose diernformer as more humane: This vas preferable, he argued, to thernlic[uidation of America’s kulaks. Owing allegiance to no part}’rnor “ism,” Dennis saw himself as an objectie “student, observerrnand interpreter of current trends” who steered a middle coursernbetween the Se}lla of Marxist socialism and the Charybdis ofrneconomic chaos. The onh’ alternatixe to war, be argued, was arnpolitical and spiritual renewal of the ruling elite at the helm ofrna centralized state. The revolution against finance capital wasrnalready here, and the only choice was whether it would bernMarxist or native American.rnhi opting for the latter, Dennis called his .system “fascism,”rnbut this was confusing to his readers and, later, injurious to hisrnown career and reputation. He never advocated a one-part-rnstate, but saw political repression as unic|uelv European and unlikelvrnto take root in America.rnDennis developed his thesis still furtiier in The Dynamics ofrnWar and Revohition (1940): Roosexelt’s drie to war was fueledrnbv die need to get the nation out of the Great Depre,ssion. Withrnthe frontier gone, the crisis of capitalism could only be resolvedrnin a new corporatism at home or war abroad. The irony, hernpointed out, was that tiie United States would “go fascist fightingrnFascism.” Roosevelt’s war-time dictatorship would “solve”rnthe problem of unemployment by paving the way for nationalrnsocialism, American-shde. But Dennis argued tiiat diere was arnless bloody, less brutal way to accomplish the same ends—andrnstill preserve the values unique to the American character.rnWhile differing with Dennis’s domestic prescription, FredarnI’tley expressed the hope that his views would be evaluated objectirnel’, in the same spirit in which thev were gien. It was arnain hope: the left reacted with anger and fear—and eventualKrndie “mailed fist of the state.’rnMax Lerner, the arbiter of fellow-traveling liberalism and thernloudest drumbeater for war, attacked Dennis as a “barbarian”rnand decreed diat no self-respecting liberal could have truckrnwith him. Dennis’s dictum that fascism was just another variantrnof socialism hit Lerner too close to home. The CommunistrnPart)—temporarily antiwar because of the Hitier-Stalin Paet^rnbilled Dennis as “the Leader of Fascism in America” and anrn”American Hidcr.” It did not matter that there was no trace ofrnracism or antisemitism in Dennis’s works: William Z. Foster,rndie mini-Stalin of the American Communist Parts’, averred thatrnDennis had to “soft-pedal anti-Semitism and anti-Ncgroisni,rnwhich are organic to his tasci.st diesis,” so as “not to arouse tiiernantagonism of the workers h talking plainly on this matter.”rnFor Dennis to be anointed leader of a racist fifth column inrnAmerica was just another iron- in a life rich with them.rnFor Dennis hardly fit the Aryan mold. Charles A. Lindbergh,rnfor whom Dennis is said to have written a few speeches, describedrnhim as having a “rugged,” dark-complexioned look thatrnmade him seem as if he would be more at home at a frontierrntrading post. Dennis’s archenemy, the notorious agent provocateurrnJohn Roy Carlson, noted that “Dennis’ hair is woolly, darkrnand kinks. The texture of his skin is unusualK- dark and die eyesrnof Hidcr’s intellectual keiioter of ‘Aryanism’ arc a rich deeprnbrown, his lips fleshy.” The nister of his parentage and thernsubde racial subtext of his plaving “both sides of the street,”rncombined with rumors that have persisted through the years,rnpoint to the probability that Lawrence Dennis was of mixedrnrace. In Dennis’s youth, the ministry was a major entrancernpoint into the black middle class. Of his days as a “boy evangelist,”rnhe merely says, “I got over fliat.” But Carlson’s dig at Dennisrnwas deadly accurate: The man Life magazine called, in arnpicture caption, “America’s No. 1 intellectual Fascist. . . brain-rn20/CHRONICLESrnrnrn