Unnamed Men Who Caused the World Wars

In Chapter 6 of The Mansion, Gavin Stevens refers to "the same old cynical manipulators" who had caused World War One and were now, in the late 1930s, about to start the Second World War: "the parasites - the hereditary proprietors, the farmers-general of the human dilemma" (178). The specific names he mentions in the passage include Benito Mussolini, "this one man" in Germany (Adolph Hitler), Huey Long in Louisiana and "our own Bilbo in Mississippi" as well as two racist and anti-Semitic organizations: the "K.K.K. and Silver Shirts" (179). V.K. Ratliff interrupts Gavin twice to try to get him to include "the one in Russia" - i.e. Joseph Stalin - on the list (179).