Books, Arts & Manners

The Fourth House By William F. Rickenbacker Walker, 213 pp. $7.50 If it were not for the fact that I know him in the flesh and have just read his collected essays, I would say that Bill Rickenbacker could not exist. He is the son of the famous National Monument, Captain Eddie of automobile racetrack and World War I flying fame who was the entrepreneur of Eastern Airlines. Naturally, in rebellion against the extroverted and actively heroic Captain Eddie, Bill should have gone to another extreme, such as becoming a musician, a philologist or a writer of sensitive music criticism. Bill actually did go to all these extremes (he is a pianist, a master of at least eight languages, a music buff and a consummate verbal ironist). But it was not in revolt against the parental image that Bill has ticked off these various accomplishments. He merely piled them on top of a score of things in which he has imitated his father. For example, Bill is an air pilot, a veteran of Korea with many more active air hours to his credit than Captain Eddie himself. He was a college swimmer and plays a whale of a golf game. And, as the publisher of the Rickenbacker Report, a high-grade market letter, he obviously hopes to succeed in business by really trying, as his old man succeeded with Eastern Airlines after failing as an automobile manufacturer.

If you hold your father in such affectionate esteem that you can’t revolt against him, you’ve got to measure yourself against something—and this something, in Bill’s case, is the state which tries to dwarf its citizens. Like his father, Bill loves his country—but it is the country as the sum of its social powers, not as the usurper of individual energies, that Bill, like his father, is sworn to defend.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

Featured Tags

William F. Buckley Jr.

The Fourth House By William F. Rickenbacker Walker, 213 pp. $7.50 If it were not for the fact that I know him in the flesh and have just read his collected essays, I would say that Bill Rickenbacker could not exist. He is the son of the famous National Monument, Captain Eddie of automobile racetrack and World War I flying fame who was the entrepreneur of Eastern Airlines. Naturally, in rebellion against the extroverted and actively heroic Captain Eddie, Bill should have gone to another extreme, such as becoming a musician, a philologist or a writer of sensitive music criticism. Bill actually did go to all these extremes (he is a pianist, a master of at least eight languages, a music buff and a consummate verbal ironist). But it was not in revolt against the parental image that Bill has ticked off these various accomplishments. He merely piled them on top of a score of things in which he has imitated his father. For example, Bill is an air pilot, a veteran of Korea with many more active air hours to his credit than Captain Eddie himself. He was a college swimmer and plays a whale of a golf game. And, as the publisher of the Rickenbacker Report, a high-grade market letter, he obviously hopes to succeed in business by really trying, as his old man succeeded with Eastern Airlines after failing as an automobile manufacturer.

If you hold your father in such affectionate esteem that you can’t revolt against him, you’ve got to measure yourself against something—and this something, in Bill’s case, is the state which tries to dwarf its citizens. Like his father, Bill loves his country—but it is the country as the sum of its social powers, not as the usurper of individual energies, that Bill, like his father, is sworn to defend.