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  • "The Power of Combinations":Sutton Griggs' Imperium in Imperio and the Science of Collective Efficiency
  • Eric Curry

The indeterminate ending of Imperium in Imperio can frustrate readers. Rather than tie up neatly by either endorsing or condemning the strategies of political action presented by the main characters, a statement titled "Personal (Berl Trout)," issued from a character appearing only at the opening and closing margins, is placed at the conclusion. This same character, Berl Trout, issues a "Dying Declaration" at the beginning that declares him either a patriot or a traitor, asking readers to decide based on the narrative testimony that will follow. In fact, his betrayal of the Imperium and Bernard Belgrave's plans for race war are offered as the very reason Sutton Griggs comes into possession of the documents he claims to have collected together and circulated rather than conceive of and write. Presenting the text as a collection of documents and the testimonies of another allows Griggs to represent a debate over black leadership and political strategies without seeming to appear as a participant. What the reader is offered is an extended figuration of the arguments over the form and function of black politics at the cusp of the twentieth century. In pursuit of such a strategy, a plot and narrative presentation is designed that casts doubt on limited and limiting options in order to both challenge and enable readers to resolve the plot themselves.

This determined indeterminacy anticipates the later articulation in Griggs' career of the science of collective efficiency, a theory of social action that some earlier efforts at fiction writing are an effort to figure and develop. Thus we might understand Imperium in Imperio, especially the conclusion, as a pre-figuration of the political strategy outlined in the Guide to Racial Greatness (1923). Using collective efficiency as an interpretive lens helps us understand the rhetorical intent of the novel's ambiguous ending, which [End Page 23] should be read as a call to collective action on the part of the audience and an abdication of authorial control. Situated at either end of a career, the two texts represent the first and final efforts to formulate a method of political action that would empower the community to lead itself.1 Rather than read this first work as a poorly executed novel, we should read it as an experiment with fiction, as a vehicle for community and political action that strives to re-imagine the relationship between author and reader as a partnership—a joint exploration of matters of mutual concern, such as leadership, combinations, and education, as defined in the Guide to Racial Greatness. However, before looking closely at themes of collective efficiency in Imperium, we need to develop a fuller understanding of Griggs' theories on leadership in relation to the group.

The principles of collective efficiency as elaborated in the Guide are intended to inspire or even provoke a community-based and collectively-driven black leadership that includes the farmer and the philosopher, as well as the mechanic and medical student, all of whom are necessary parts of a collective national consciousness. If there is a theory of revolution to be read into Imperium, however, given the inclusion of two characters representative of different types of political action, Belton Piedmont and Bernard Belgrave, we can say that the novel offers multiple theories of revolution and ultimately does not favor either protagonists' formula for political action. Bernard is too much the aggressive separatist and political individualist, acting in his own interests instead of the group's, while Belton, despite his status as the narrative's figuration of collective efficiency's New Negro political and cultural identity, is too much the cautious assimilationist. Instead, a third character, Berl Trout, is used as a narrator whose reliability the audience might question as a prompt to action, as he offers a personal statement, an explanation of his actions, and not a political solution.2 Through this character, the either/or politics represented by the concluding struggle between Belton and Bernard is unraveled, though Griggs will also use the tools of tone and subtle implication to deny Trout a defined narrative status. Based on this critical dissolution of...

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