TOWARD SOCIAL REVOLUTION
IN AMERICA;
THE NOVELS OF
JOHN DOS PASSOS;‘1920-1939

Thai: for film Degree of M. A.
MICHIGAN STATE COLLEGE

Georges Jule-s Joyaux

I947

 

 

LIBRARY ,
Michigan State
University»

 

 

 

 

‘ m _
_'¥¢--. .u-MmT-T- #- I—r

PLACE IN RETURN Box to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.
MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested.

6’01 cJCIHCJDatoDuopes-pds

 

TOWARD SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN AMERICA!
{HB'IOVELS OF JOHN D08 PASSOS: 1920-1939

Georges m” J oyaux

A THESIS.
wand to tho Graduate School or lichigan
Stat. 6011030 of Agriculture and Applied
Science in partial manhunt of the
requirements for tho dogs-o. at
IISTEB OF.tR!3
Depot-but of mud:

1947

PREFACE

I have chosen to etudy Doe Palace for two main reasona:
til-at, beeauae or hie aaeociation with a group or contempor-
ary American writera to whom Anal-ice 1a indebted for her
proninent place in the world or fiction: second, because of
the fact that he waa the leaat known or theae author-e among

French literary circles.

I have centered my analyaia on the political and eooial
aspects of hie writings. I have attempted to follow the do-
welopnent of hie thought from his earlier books to 19:59. and
particularly to delineate the state of his thinking at the
end of the period.

Le a French etudent. alightly acquainted with the English
Language and the Anglo Saxon background, I have encountered
teeny difficulties in the writing or this paper, and I an very
pleaaed now to acknowledge the constant empathy and friends-
ahip I found along the etafr or the English Department of
Iichigan State College. I am thankful to Doctore Lawrence.
Bewlin. and Orbcck who have been my toachere and who have
followed my progreaa. I an particularly grateful to Doctor
Rneaell 8. Rye whoae boundless help haa enabled me to make

readable .. ia.ao tar ae they are readable .. the two hone
dred page: of wy analyeie.

Georges Jule- Joyaux

Chapter

II
III

“

VI

VII

TABLE OF 00??ng

Bee Paaeoe' Life, I .. ....
HI. Fbrnlt1'. Yeara eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The Poet Againat the norm ..;......;...g

The Transition to Socialism:

1. Hanhatten Transfer and ., ,_, I, _
_ the flea Techniquea eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

2e orient FIPTOSG eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

3e‘bn t COEag. of'U,s,a. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

Th. 13. 0: Protect .' U,S,A. eeeeeeeeeeee
lOflflflt of‘Deciaion,....;.............;...

The Enema: the Road:
JOIrOPIOnlfil Democracy eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Bibliography‘.........................oo.

Page

11

49
79
91
110

194

221
227

I
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

John Roderigo Doc Passes wee born in Chicago on the
14th of January..1896. Hie father. a lawyer. wee the con
of a Pcrtngeee immigrant. and his nether came from old
Virginia and Maryland stock. After a childhood rich in
travels. he completed his high school education at Choate
school and entered Harvard in 1912. Though not a particu-
larly brilliant student. he graduated "cue laudea in 1916.
That asne year he sailed for Spain. nominally to study ar-
chitecture: however, he went instead to Paris and enlisted

in the Horton Hercs Volunteer Ambulance Service.

When the next year America entered the conflict, he
was transferred to the A. E. F. as a private in the Medi-
cel Corpe. At the end of the war, but still in uniform.
he studied AnthrOpolcgy for a while at the Sorhonne. we
find recollections of these years, the last phases of his
youth. in the novels ghree fieldiere and One Man's gnitiaticn.

In 1919 he received hie discharge in France, at Gicvre.
and after spending some time in Paris ac one or the Ameri-
cana in Gertrude Stein's group, he went to Spain as a correc-
pcndent for the London failz Herald. Back in America. he
did not stop his wanderings, travelling successively to

Enrico and to almost every part of his own country as a

free-lance newspaperman and magazine writer. During the
depression and the related wave of anti-radical feeling
that swept the nation between 1920 and 1930. Des Passes
placed himself at the side of the working man, pouring
hie energies and ideas into articles for the flew Masses
and aililar leftist periodicals. His routine of travel
was nixed with periods of quiet in Prowincctown. on Cape
Cod, where a contemporary said. "He gets up early} works
through the morning wherever he happens to be, swine be-

fore lunch and goes sailing every afternoon." I)

the second world war has increased the number of his
tripe; once more he roaned around the world. collecting
eaterial that he used in his books and articles. Thus
in 19“ he wrote tour of Dutz, llthe recordgci a nidilc~aged
nan.of letters travelling in.correepcndent's unifora across
the Pacific." 3) Once more he went to Europe. acre parti-
cularly to the Anerican zone in Germany, where as a corres-
pondent fcr‘gggg he wrote articles in favor of peace and a
better understanding between nations. is during the pre—
war period. his wanderings are still cut by productive periods

of rest and hose life.

 

1) John chanberlain. John Doe PassesI a Biographical and

3) Jonathan Daniela, I'El'he American War Procession“, Satur-
gggLEesiew of literature. (August. 1946). 6. ‘”“"

A brief resume of the facts of Dos Passos' life is
useful for the understanding of his thought and the analy-
sis of the background of his work. more than any other
writer of his time. Dos Passes issby heritage and education
equipped for the task he undertook. the study and the ex-

position of the American scene.

First of all. Dos Passes is the product of various
racial strains in the meltingbpot of America. on his
father's side he belongs to Latin stock, inheriting what
one called "this intimate feeling for the Iberian and
Latin American lands" 3) which is apparent in all his books.
On his mother's side; he is descended of an old Southern
family} from which he inherits his sensitivity to inpressions
and his sympathy for the lower classes. Again his family
was responsible for his early acquaintance with problems
of politics and society. an.initiation which later changed
into a deep interest that was to become the principal pro-
blen of his whole life. fiHigh politics", said Michael
Geld, 'were an intimate part of the atmosphere of his home.“ 4)
His father. an ambitious attorney, worked actively in the
constitution cl several trusts. knew many politicians intimately.

 

3’ John Chamberlain, John Doe Passesi a Biographical and
Critical nasal, 4.

4) lichael Gold. “The Education of J. nos Paesos', English
:ournal. 1111 (February. 1953).87.

and becane I'a friend of several Presidents, and what is
more a super-lobbyist." 5) His father was so preoccupied
with business that he was very cold in his family relations.
Dos Passes. as a child. must have suffered from this lack
of affection which might explain in part his later resent-
nest against wealth and business. This tendency was rein-
forced by his strong attachment to his nether who did not
value laterial possessions as highly as her husband and

we! richer in human feelings.

lore inportant as preparation for a career as a writer
of fiction were the nunerous trips young Dos Passes made
over Aserica and Europe. l".rhe world has been his province
since his early age." 5) is a boy, he went to Mexico.
Virginia. washington. D.c.. and then abroad to Belgium and
mgland. where he attended school for one year. Later.
the war put his again on the road to France. Italy. and
Ger-any. countries in which he placed his first two novels.
In Spain. where he went after his Army discharge, he so.-
eunulated the material for Rosinante to the Road Again.
In Spain too and in Mexico some years later. he met radi-
cals and anarchists. non such as Zapata the Mexican leader

5) Michael Gold. "The Education of J. Dos Passes", English
gournal, XXII (February. 1933), 88.

5) Current Bio a . ed. Karine Block. "John Doe Passes"
s s

(who appeared inug=§;§.) or the Spaniard Jose Robles Panes,
when.Dos Passes defended after his murder during the Span,
ish Civil War in 1938. He went also to Russia and the near
last. picking up a first hand knowledge of communistie
doctrines. Finally. he crossed and crossed again his mother-
land in.every direction. meeting all kinds of people of
every social and economic class, acquiring the apprOpriate
material for a collectivist writer.

lspertant too in the formation of his mind are the four
years he spent at Harvard. for he entered there at what
lalcols Cowley called "the ties of the Harvard esthete." 7)
liehael Gold characterised them when he said:

they despised the workaday world as philistine,

and felt themselves to be poets, misunderstood

geniuses and mystics. the world was vulgar and

they sought to escape in alcohol. drugs, mad-

ness, religion. venery and suicide. They hated

society. It was hostile, stupig and unmanageable.

the poet's duty was to secede. 3
Pos.Passos shared the major attitudes of the Harvard esthetes,
yet if we look at his whole literary production, we see
that he was sless drugged than his companions." 9) In
all new Passes! works we find the impress of these four

h; 4 kg

') John.Chamberlain, John Doe PassesI a Disgraphical and
Critical Essay, 5.

B) lichael Gold. "The Education of J. Dos Passes“, En lish
Journal. XXII (February. 1933). 88.

9)aransille Hicks. The Great Tradition. 28!.

years at Harvard College: the characters of martin Howe and
John Andrews 10) are typical of these Harvard esthetcs
who could.not find any other solution to society's problems

than a simple escape from them.

Besides these different factors in the background of
Des Passes. there are*other outside events which marked
more strongly this young man of 20, and which lie too at
the basis of his literary career. The war, the most im»
portant among them. was the first milestone of his career.
It gave him the cornerstone of his philosophy. His whole
generation, and particularly this enthusiastic and sensitive
boy who had Just left Harvard. could not escape the print
of this conflict. If we look at Dos Passes. works we see
that his first two books, One man's Initiation (1920) and
three Soldiers (1921). are direct products of the war. Bimp
ilarly' the subiect matter of both novels (the first a diary
ef Dos Passoe' experiences as an actor in.the conflict. and
the second a narrative of the activities of three American
privates) reflect clearly the part that war played in.Dos
Pesscs' literary career. But. providing more than merely
an impulse to write, war participated in.the formation.cf
his philosophy: it deter-deed the bent of his genius; it

——————— 7*

10) John‘Dos Passes. One Man'sglnitiation. Three Soldiers.

e‘

threw him into contact with more people. gave him the chance
to see the different facets of society and also to know
those EurOpean lands which formed the backndrop of a great
part of his writings. In other words, on the one hand war
shaped Dos Passos' mind, and on the other provided the
material indispensable to the expression of his thoughts.
To summarize the importance of war as a factor in the build-
ing of res Passos' political and social philosOphies, we
can quote these lines of Joseph w. Beach, who, speaking of
the American writers of fiction of the twentieth century,
said:

All of them have viewed the first world war

with horror and dismay, all have shared the

same doubts as to the ideolOgy that inepired

it and that led to our participation in it.

the same disgust with that world-wide com-

mercial epirit which was so largely respon-

sible for it, and the same loathing for those

traits of human nature which have allowed the

dominance of this commercial Spirit through-

out the civilized world.
The disgust of the Harvard esthetes for the "stupid society"
of his time was reinforced in T08 Passos' mind by his war
experiences, since war. for him, was no more than one of
the natural consequences of the lies created by "our society
(when) it Operates in time of peace." 12) War confirmed
the necessity for the poet's secession, and it was this

secession, this separation between the poet and the world.

 

‘11) J. warren Beach, American Fiction 1920-1940, 11.

12) lbid. . 350

which was the theme of Dos Passos' earlier novels.

Back in America. Dos passes arrived Just in time to
be implicated in another result of society's disorders.
The twenties were marked by a wide wave of ante-radicalism
that he breasted from its beginning to its end with the
same ardor. Under the leadership of the philosophical an-
archist Galleani, an extremist wing of the Socialist Party
was the cause of this "red-hysteria." Some of the char-
esters of Dos Passos"g;§;5., Thorstein Veblen, Big Bill
Haywood. John Reed, were actors in this episode of Amer-
ican socialistic history. This conflict reached its clim-
ax with the arrest in 1920 and the conviction in 1926 of
two natives of Italy; Hicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti,
for the murder of a shoe factory paymaster and his guard.
The lack of evident proof aroused protests all over the world,
and writers from England. France and America spoke up in
favor of these victims of society. This expression of social
inJustice could not fail to arouse a man of has Passos'
temperament. and. as he did in the case of the World War I.
he entered this new conflict with all his means. Besides
writing pamphlets in behalf of these two martyrs, he suffer-
ed arrest and imprisonment himself in 1926 because of his
active participation in public protest meetings. Though
today critics do not agree absolutely as to the influence
on.Dos Passes! career of the Sacco Vanzetti case, yet it

is undoubtedly important. The extreme position is adapted

by Alfred hazin who said:

For many writers, the Sacco-Yanzetti case was
at most a shock to their acquiescent liberal—
ism and indifference; for Don Passes it pro-
vided immediately the catalyst his work neequ
ed, the catalyst that made U.S.A. possible. ~>

These lines of Kagin express clearly the great and complete
change that appeared in the attitude of roe Passes after
the tragic denouement of the Sacco-Vanzetti case, a change
that will be explained in chapter III as an integral part

of Dos Passos' evolution as a social and political thinker.

Connected with this save of Anti-radicalism, but of
lesser importance in the shaping of has Passos' career,

was the great depression which followed the Coolidge admin-
3, f.- gl.‘

istration and lasted until the beginning of Roosevelt's rwwg‘
' “**“ 'va.

M . >

4-

WC\
aware of the relationships of the individual life to society.

‘ V
Q L

presidency. A sensitive observer, Dos Passos was clearly

and the "bust" of the thirties unveiled to him the extreme
disorder. the bewilderment, and the decay of the American

society of his time.

thus, by his heritage, his travels, and his education,
Dos Passes had acquired a first hand knowledge of America
'which was to be the subject matter of his masterpiece g:§:£.;
yet he lacked the impulses indispensable to the expression
of his thoughts; he lacked a definite attitude toward life.

 

13) Alfred Karin, 0n Native Grounds, 351.

10

It was the part of the war, and of the social disorders or his
country, to complete the formation of his ideas and to turn-
ish him with the necessary incentives underlying his mature
literary production. It will be the purpose or the following
chapters to analyse the evolution or has Passos' social and
political philoscphy as it appears in his work. from 922

Man's Initiation to Adventures of a Young Han.

11

II
THE POE? AGAINST THE WOxLD

The reading of books as different as Three Soldiers
(1921). Manhattan gransfer (1925), U.S.A. (1936), and
Adventures of a Youngphan (1939). which in spite of some
common basic points could have been the product of four
different authors. gives us some clue to the develOpment
of Des Passes' attitudes toward political and social ques-
tions. Do not the titles themselves of these books suggest
the idea of an evolution? From a novel in which there is
only one here. Onefhan'swlnitiatien, res Passes widened
his interest to three in his next work, to a whole city in
Eanhattan gransfer, and to an even wider field in his more
important publication, where the here new is no longtr an
individual, nor the inhabitants of New York, but the Ameri-
cans of a whole generation. Finally, in the last book, he
came back to the restricted view of a single individual,
that of Glenn Spotwood of the Adventures of a Yew.

the idea of a cyclical evolution is closely associated
with the possibility of a division into various phases of
Des Passes' attitudes. though any such classification would
be to some extent arbitrary, in Des Passes it seems that,
regardless of the basic strains which persist through every
change, a division of his work into three main periods is
possible. The first includes the books published from 1920

12

to 1923. in.whieh Dos Passes is concerned.with individuals
as such, and in.which he treats then in the usual manner

of the novelist. The second covers the years from 1927 to
1936; here again.the author is concerned with individuals,
but fro-.a different point of view. They appear new as

a part of a whole of the society which is new all-inportant.
Departing from the traditional subject matter of the novel,
he abandoned too the traditional literary forms. It is in
this phase of his career that he was accused of communism; in
fact. his interest in eelleetivien.led the Russians to hail
hnn as a defender of their theories. The last phase of Des
Pessos' career. dating from 1940. is marked by the abandon.
nest of the collectiviet attitude - society has dieillusion»
ed his and he is no longer interested in it. Hixed with
these three definite periods during which Dos Paseoe' £09
veloplent is clearly asserted, we may insert two transition
periods. From 1925 to 1927. before he became, interested
in the problem of the individual as a part of society. ‘

Dos Passes emerged as a proletarian writer. Then, the age

‘ of protest ended in 1936, after the publication.pf‘g;§=§.
Struck by the horror of the Spanish civil war, and disil-
lusioned by the failure of the communistic sections of
Europe to measure up to his ideals, Dos Passes rejected his
former position in The Adventures of slow (1939),

a book that marked the transition to the new faith °f‘222.
Ground We Stand On (1941).

13

the first phase of Des Passes? writing is well describ-
ed by Halooln Cosley's “the poet against the world." Dur—
ing this period he wrote what Cowley called "art novels",
that is. novels which deal with the opposition of the cre-
atively gifted individual to the community surrounding his.
He can trace the origin of Des Passes' concept of the here
as a gifted individual to Dos Passes' acquaintance with the
Harvard esthetes.

Whoever they may be .. the musician of Three Soldiers.
the romantic ambulance driver of One man's initiation. or
the misunderstood and imaginative ranches Hmneugan.ef Streets
2f light -. all are various expressions of the poet attespt-
ing. unsuccessfully, to assert his individual personality.
111 are various aspects of their creator. It is the writer
hisself she is revolting against the world. in the one
case rejecting Bostonian society. in the others society

at war.

In One Hangs Initiation (1920). the first of these
books. per date of publication. has Passes appears aute-
biographieally as Hartin Hose; in his study of the snthor.
Beech.eays, none suspects that the name martin Howe is al-
lost the only fictitious feature in the boom 1) A or

 

1’ J. warren Beach, American Fiction 1920-1940. 29.

14

One Ian's Initiation.1azin said,

'a very boyish and arty nesoir of a young

architect -- poet whose chief grievance

against the war in one way seems to have ‘

been that he could not admire the gothie

cathedrals in France 1%; the clamers of

the guns in his ears.
Later in the ease book, speaking about the principal personage.
lasin.adds; "the here was a pale imitation of the pale heroes
is.'fin.de sieele' fiction." 3) These two quotations one.
marine adequately the contents of One man's Initiation and
characterize its author as well. and it is fro. then that

the book can be Judged.

On his way to France. Hose, a volunteer in.the in»
balance Service, ceuld not help expressing his happiness,
for the war furnished him the cause he needed. But his
Joy did not last very long; soon he realised the falsity
of war, its artificial hatreds, the horribly complete fra-
tricide into which it had plunged the nations. Howe then
changes his attitude entirely. He escapes from the world
by retreating into his own, and it is in this escapisn
that Des Passes! individualism manifests itself. Indeed.
Doe Passes is concerned in the book with but one individual
when he follows through his war experiences. This indivb
idual is the author himself, who is trying to escape this

 

3) Alfred Xazin. On Natiye Grounds. 346.
3) Ibid.. 545.

15

stupid world. The four years he spent at Harvard made his
a "Harvard esthete' and it is as such that he characteru

ises hisself in Howe.

throughout the book the hero moves in a milieu of which
he does not seem to be a part. .As a soldier he is thrown
in.with other soldiers whose presence he does not even note.
Therefore it is difficult to say that he escapes the world,
since he seens hardly to be a part of it; he lives in his
own restricted world and he does not participate in these
basic human activities that arearound his. is In Harvard
esthete'.he is conscious of the stupidity of the world. and
when the war confirms this conviction, there is little ef-
fort on his part to ignore this society since he is hardly
aware of its existence. Departing from the level of exis-
tence into which he does not wish to be assimilated, Howe
lives in the past. He sees not share the ordinary ways of
life of his fellows; yet he does not try to convince them
that the vulgar materialism of their lives is a waste. He
1s a romantic poet. and while walking in the night, it
is to Shelley that he credits his thoughts, remembering
the last verses of Belles. In chaper 11; his preference
for the mediaeval past appears clearly asidst the noise and
tumult of the fight. Martin '

would sit and dream of the quiet lives the

Innis must have passed in.their beautiful

abbey...digging and planting in the rich

lands of the valley, making flowers blocs in

the garden, of which traces remained in the
huge beds of sunflowers and orange sarigolds

16

that bloomed along the walls of the dormitory. 4)
He would have liked to live in that time, to have shared
that quiet and peaceful life. Finally his thoughts lead
his to the conclusion “if there were monasteries nowadays.
I think I'd go into one.“ 5) fhis abbey would be the place
where

he could flee fros all this stupidity. fre-

fioifih 3:”3:°§£§1§§“‘2§L8§%r§§2h$§22§3a. 5’

e

But there is no such place today: and it is by thought
only that he is able to look into the past and to live in
it. What Howe is searching for is his Imm Liberty“. for
which he has already struggled. "All my life I've struggled
for my own libertydzme says in chapter 11. and it is to
be free that he escaped "all the conventional ties. the wor-
ship of success and the respectabilities', 8) to no result.
thus "new a. hardly knew 1: the thing exists.“ 9) the
poet cannot oppose the world and win, feels Howe. the sole
solution. amounting to a duty, is to secede. He is no longer
4’ John Doe Passes, One Man's Initiation. 5:5.
5) gig" so.
” 3m... 54.
7) 9:13.. 143.
e) 9333.. 143.
9) 12.1.9." 145.

17

part of the Whole .. more than anything else, this idea

of disunion impresses the reader. it the end of the book
Dos Passes presents the picture of two different and inde-
pendent worlds. One (the most important for the writer)

is the world of the post. the “inner world of martin.Hewe."
the other is nthe outer scene". the world itself. As Dos
Passos' mind and art develOped, it was this latter world.
‘the sphere of society. that usurped the place of chief is-

pertanee in.his later novels.

in.hie second postwar novel. Des Passes still is con-
corned with individuals rather than.with society. In
three Soldiers (1921) the "poet" is a nusician.is.whos.we
find as easy traits of his creator as in.hartin Howe. John
Andrews, Des Passes! second here, however. did not escape
the world as Howe did; but was crushed by it. Though he
is the main character of the novel. he is not the only ons,
and he shares the stage with two other protagonists, Chris-
field and ruselli. who represent the development of Rowe's
friend to. Randolph into two individuals.

Neither Puselli nor Chrisfield is a poet in the sense
of‘Cowley's analysis of Des Passes. 10’ Both are “suckers"

 

W

10) "The poet, who may also be a painter.-a violonist, an
inventor. an architect. is generally to be identified
with the author of the novel or at least with the nova
elist'e ideal picture of himself'. (halcoln Cowley, “The
Poet and the florid“, how he ublic. III. (February, 1938). 804).

18

-- precursors of numerous others in manhattan Transfer and
§:§;A. -- who contribute to the evaluation of the hero And-

revs. In the first part of the book, the three men are sis.

ply acquaintances. Then Daniel Puselli. an Italian store

clerk. occupies the center of the stage for the second part.
Longest in the army. he preceded his two new friends to

Barons. In the seventy pages during which he is the cen-

tral personage. Dos Passes delineates his clearly enough

to sake his a distinctive type in American fiction. His

whole attitude towards life is dictated by his one aspira-

tion. "to be promoted". 11) For that Whe must be careful

not to do anything that would get an in srong with anybody". 12)
He is entirely obsessed by this idea of gaining a corporal-

ship. and he is happy to see that his corporal "did not look
strong“. 13) No doubt ruselli thinks "he would not last

very long". 14) and he already pictures his girl friend

sriting to “Corporal Tianiel Fuselli. 0.A.s.5.~ 15) He eon-
stantly dreams of the time when he will be a noncom, and in *

spite of his lack of enthusiasm, he is ready to go under

 

11) John Doe Passos. Three Soldiers, 16.
12) £35.. 17.
13’ my. 37.
14) 31131.. as.
15)‘;2ig,.

()3

7.

l9

_ fire to have "a chance to show what he (is) worth". 15) alien, v
. for example. he is chosen to be Lieutenant Stanford's order-
1y. he rebels. for 'he hadn't Joined the army to be a slavey
to any damned first loot I'. 17) Yet his revolt lasts but

a short tine. When "he noticed his corporal coughing into
his handkerchief sith an expression of pain on his face. ' 13)
he realizes that rebellion would get his in srong and that
he had- "lush better shut his mouth and put up with it.“ 19)
He thought his promotion to First Class Private the starting
point for endless promotion, and so for him war is new 'a
great life a. 30) His servile attitude does not bring suc—
cess. and sith the corporal's return from the hospital. his
hope is crushed. How he. does not have to be a slave any
longer. He is the victim of an unJustice; he no longer
feels the need of battle action to show his value; no long-
or is army life a great thing. there is nothing to sustain
his in the "endless succession of (the) days, all alike.

all subject to orders, to the interminable monotony of drills
and lines-up” 31’ oh the other hand Puselli knows that

 

15) yam; nos Passos. ghrae Soldiers. 40.
1'!) £33.. 62.

18) £13., es. _

19) 935.. as. I

80) .1313... 74.

21) £5}... neg;

20

'"he must and would go on". 22) Hot courageous enough to be a
volunteer in the front lines. nor to desert from the army.

he chooses to escape by moral desertion. when hiscoompany
is packed up to go, he succeeds in obtaining his transfer

to a unit which stays inthe rear. Later he sinds up in

the LP. and it is in this new position that he meets again
Andrews in Paris after the war. The unJustioe of army

life has killed him spiritually.

. Reviewing ghree Soldiers, Hoxie rairchild says of reselli.

A series of drab incidents sets forth his den

terioration under the influence of army life.

but certainly there was notgéng much to deter-

iorate in the first place.
If it is possible to agree with Fairohild on this point. yet
it is difficult to deny the truthfulness of an article enc-
titled «American Army Discipline as Spiritual Harder“. 24)

which expresses the theme of Dos Passes! book.

Corresponding to Fuselli in partII. Chrisfvield is the
dominant personage of part III. A far. boy from the hiddle
lest, he is the Ismoker“ in a different aspect. He personio
flee the ordinary man who went to war not willingly, but
23) John Doe Passos. three Soldiers. 11:5.

25) Roxie ll. Fairchild. "Three Soldiers FronGreenwich Village ".
Inde endent. CVII, (October. 1921). 97.

34) "American Any Discipline as a Spiritual Murder", _L_i_t_-
eragl Digest, 1111 (November. 1927), 29.

eith a sense of duty. He went to defend an endangered.nemo-
cracy. for which he is ready to give his life, but

the endless waiting and futility, the bungling
and brutality of the ear stifled all remnants
of patriotic feeling. 45

is an average man and a dreamer,

he thought of the spring on the plains

of Indiana (his home) and the mocking

birds singing in the moonlight among the

flowering locust trees behind the house.

He could almost smell the heavy sweetness

of the locust blooms as he used to smell

the. sitting on the steps after supper.

tired from a day's heavy plowing, while

the clatter of his motheg's housework

some from the kitchen. 2 )
But ear is no place for such dreams, for in it the indivb
ideal is but one of these smashines', the course of which

he must follow.

All the stupidity of ear and the myriad mistakes of
its leaders are concentrated for Chrisfield in the charac-
ter of Anderson. We corporal she tries to make his obey

2?)

orders". therefore Anderson soon becomes the center

of his hatred. more than once Andrews prevents Chrisfield
fro-.killing Anderson to whom the Indiana farn.boy expresses
25) J. Warren.Beachg American Fiction 1920-1940, 33.

25) John Doe Passes, ghree Soldiers, 129.

27) Eerie h. rairchild. "three Soldiers From Greenwich
Village". Inde endent. C111. (October 1921). 97.

22

clearly his aim:

If ever Ah gite out of the army. Ah’l goin'
to shoot you. You've picked on me enough. 28)

In.faot he does not wait the end of the ear, and when he
sects Anderson alone and sounded, Chrisfield cannot resist
satisfying his desire for revenge:

A cold hand was round the grenade in his

pocket...Suddenly he found he had pressed

the spring of the grenade. He struggled to

pull it out of his pocket. It stuck in the

narrow pocket. His arms and his cold fingers

that clutched the grenade see-ed paralysed.

rhen a warm acy'went through his. He had

thrown it. 2
Her lads chrisfield a murderer. no doubt he sould.hsve
11m to share Andrews’ indifference to authority: me
his a. would have liked ”to git along in the world a, 50)
an ability he misses .. at least he thinks so .- because
of his lack of learning. as is the second.victie of army
life, yet he does not try to escape it. Haunted.by fear.
not by remorse, Chriefield pursues. indifferent, the road

towards his fate.

Closely connected.with Chrisfield is the chief figure
of the book. John.indrees. He is happy to be with suckers,
who admire the ease with which he sgete along". 'But dose
this spiritual brother of Martin Howe really adjust to his
23) John DosPassos, Three Soldiers. 160.

39) John Doe Passes. 2hree Soldiers. 188.
50) m... 168.

eswironnent? The answer to this question ferns the theme
of the entire novel. and is an integral part of Des Passos'
early philosophy. Andrews, like Howe. is Dos Passes his—
self again, and his problem of adjustment is the same pro-
blem of the adjustment of the poet to the world. What he
should like is to eat one of these "poppy petals which make

31) not '.to wake up till the war is over.' 32)

you go to sleep",
when a man is "a human being again'. 33) Like Howe, Andrews
ie a slave, but more than Howe he is conscious of his enslave-
nent to the cause of Democracy - the Army has made his."a
hard meaningless core". 34) The young Andrews had planned
so easy lives for himself - a general like Caesar. or a
wandering sinstrel. a great musician who sat

at the piano playing, like Chopin in the sap

graving, while beautiful women wept and men

with long curly hair hid their facee in their hands. 55)
But the hard fact of war, and the virtual slavery it meant.
shattered the dreams.

In.a week (of army life) the great structure

of his romantic world, that had survived school

and college and the buffeti of making a livb :6)
ing in new York, had fallen n dust about his.

 

V—a

31) John Doe Passes, three Soldiers, 154.
32) m3... ice.
33) 253.. 1:54.
54) 3.2.1.9." 21.
35) 333,, as.
3" gm" :52.

24

What Andrews wanted now was to escape complete destruction.
In order that "he might not lose entirely the thread of his
own life, of the life he would take up again some day if

he lived through it", 3'” he needed "to lie awake and think
at nights. 38) Thus Andrews makes the effort not to be
caught in the chain, yet not to Oppose its run, if he

does not want to be crushed by it.

However, this passive and indifferent attitude could

not last forever. The outer scene becomes more exigent.
and no longer can Andrews beie remote and passive spectator
of life. Unable to go along or to check its pregress. his
only possible solution is to clear his way in it which he
does by desertion. Could he, like Chrisfield. express his
bitterness by murder? No, if for Chrisfield. Anderson is
the personification of the bestiality and brutality of Army
life, for Andrews there exists no such concrete symbol.
He directs his bitterness to the whole, and consequently
there is not, for him, a central point of hate to attack.
To keep his will power.

he was ready to endure anything, to face

any sort of death, for the sake of a few

months of liberty in.which to fggget the
degradation of this last year.

57) John Doe Passes, Three Soldiers, 31.
33’ Ibid., 31. ,
89) lbid.. 211.

l

25

though he evades the issue for a time. partly through
his lack of determination, partly because of the end of
the war and his detachment as a student at the Sorbonns,
yet he finally deserts in Paris because of a series of for-
tunate circumstances which are not directly of his own mak-
ing. Once free he is glad and pleased with these events
which have bolstered his shivering will. How he can begin
the composition of what must be his masterpiece, the music
which will express

The vast dusty dullness, the men waiting in

rows, in dull fields. standing at attention,

the monotony of feet tramping in unison. of

the dust rising from the battalions going

back and forth over the dusty dull fields. 40)
is compensation for his own enslavement, he wishes to ex-
press in his music "these thwarted lives, the miserable
dullness of industrialised slaughter", ‘1) and the reali-
sation of this symphony becomes his only purpose. Is not
this too the purpose of Dos Passes himself? Does not the

writer too want to expose to his readers their osn.enslavenent? 42)

Captured after his first desertion, Andrews is sent to
prison at hard labor, to escape again, as he did the first

time, in a sort of unconscious reaction to enslavement.

 

40) John Dos Passos, Three Soldiers. 22.
‘1) J. warren Beach, American Fiction}_l920-l94o, 54.
42) Beach answers these questions when he says: "Andrews

is the obvious transposition of Dos Passos". (American
FictionI 1920-1940, 30.)

26

Following the determined Hoggenback as his shadow, he hardly
knew what he was doing. Unsuccessful, he is captured and
brought back "under the wheels", 43) while on his table
where his music lies,

the brisk wind rustled among the broad sheets

of paper. First one sheet, then another b1es

off thg table until the floor was littered with

4

them. ‘
Thus Andrews failed to achieve his purpose, and at the end
of the book use are made to feel that the destruction of
this symphony is the real tragedy of the war". 45) At
the end of the book. Dos Passes! thesis becomes apparent -~
"War kills not only those who die, but those who seem to

1178 "e 46)

It was clear that such a book might arouse some Ameri-
can critics, and for a year its publication was prevented on
the ground that "it was too frank and too realistic for the
public". 47) The portrait it gave of Army life and tar. how—
ever. met sincere approval as well as violent protest. The
thesis it expounded found numerous defenders, but more numerous
43) John Doe Passes, Three Soldiers, 22.

44’ 933.. 433.

45) Michael Gold. "The Education of John Toe Passes". English
lournal, XXII (rebruary, 1935), 91.

46) WAmerican Army Discipline as a Spiritual murder“. Literaal
Digest. LXXI (November, 1921). 29.

4') hichael Gold, "The Education of John mos PsSSOS". En liBh
Journal. XXII (February, 1933). 91.

were its opponents. According to one critic,
Three Soldiers must be set down as a brilliant-
I§“ir1tten'piece of sordid. narrow-minded real-
ism. It is less the cry of young America than
the cry of Greenwich Village. 48
For such men Dos Passos trailed to depict the noble side of

these terrible years". 49)

As his protagonist Andrews was
not Open-minded, so Dos Passos. they said, resolutely closed
his eyes to all but the beastliness around him. No doubt
Dos Passes was very frank, and partly blackened his pica
ture: yet it is impossible to reject the book as many cria
tics did, and as a contributor to the Literary rigest said,

it shad too much truth in it to be permanently suppressed". 50’

Andrews. it is true. was more likely to feel the stupidity
and uselessness of war than was the average private. He
was, let us recall. like Dos Passes one of those “Harvard
esthetesa already disillusioned with society itself. For
Andrews and hos Passos, society at peace was not a safe
place for a post. but society at car, with the aggrandisement
of all materialism and vulgarity. was even less so. In

his contest against the world. Dos Passes said in One Man's

 

48) Roxie N. Fairchild, "Three Soldiers From Greenwich Villa
age". Inde endent. Ctll (October, 1921). 97.

‘9’ me... 97.

50) "American Army Discipline as a Spiritual murder". Litera
Digest. LKXI (November, 1921). 29.

Initiation, the poet has a chance to live if he can escape
it; thus. before going to army Andrews succeeds, but once
caught in the "mesh" he cannot endure. The disillusioning
effect of the war, already clear in One man's Initiation,

 

here is extended to the characters of Fuselli and Chris-
tield who are not nHarvard esthetes' at all, but average
men. By thus including all men in the contest between the
individual and the world. Dos Passes in Three Soldiers has
broadened significantly his field of interest. The poet
and the "mucker' together clash with society and are broken
by it -- Dos Passes is on the road to the proletarian novel.
He has still two steps before becoming a collectivist writer;
he will take them in the last book of this early period,
Rosinante to the Road Again (1922), and complete them dur-
ing the second phase of his evolution. First he must ex-
tend to the whole of mankind the interest and sympathy that
he centers new more particularly on poets like himself.
Second. he must realize that war is no more than one as-
pect by which society presents itself to the individual.

and he must become the defender of each individual against

a society which in any of its phases, respects no one.

third in date of publication, yet actually written
before his first two novels, Streets of Night (1928) is
the Des Passos' only pure "art novel'. In it he appears
at his best as a Harvard esthete. This novel is

rather a 'precieuse' story of two young men

29

and one girl who though they want to es-
cape fros the nightmare streets of youth
and convgption are afraid to live danger-

ously.

It is the first of hos Passos' books to be given an Amer-
ican setting, the background of Bostonian society. Three
main characters share the stage, David Wendell, Fanshaw
chougan. and Nacibel. Here again the author intrudes
himself into the book, for both Wenny and Fanshas are "at-
tempts to dramatize aspects of hos Passos' own temper as

a young man”. 52)
assuredly is a Harvard type, discontented with his futile

Wenny studied anthrOpOIogy in Boston and

existence, yet lacking the courage and will to enter life.
Summarizing him, Beach says:

He wants to get a Job on the section gang of
a railway; likes to take his friends to a
dirty Italian restaurant where they drink
Orvietto and eat garlic-flavored food. He
upsets hancibel with his direct preposals; throws
up his Job; tries to lead the life of a bum;
tries to satisfy himself with a street woman,
pleases his father by taking a Job; gets into
a hysterical state of mind over the thought
that he is Just like his father over again;
and finally shoots himself. 53

He wants some sort of satisfaction from life, but all his
attempts fail, one after the other. for once engaged in

something he cannot pursue his objective -- "A damn bundle

 

51’ Harry Hartwick. The Foreground of American Fiction, 284.
52) J. Warren Beach. American Fiction£_l920-1940, 28.
53) Ibid.. 27. “

of frustration. that's all I an", 54) he said of himself
to ranshas. Troubled by the flesh, gs does to a prostitute,
but he can accomplish nothing. though "he was fainting
with desire for the woman's body naked on the bed". 55)
he rushes away, overwhelmed by the vulgarity of the whole
situation -. much as Boss in One Man's Initiation remarked.
in.similar circumstances, ”Oh, if only you.scre a person
' instead of a member of a profession" 56} -- a perfect ex-
pression, the repulsion of the Harvard esthete for vulgar-
ity despite the attraction.of the senses. when Wenny is
finally convinced of his complete failure, of his inability
to conquer Rancibel with when he is in love. there is no
other solution for him than an escape from this world which
constantly seems to deny him. Escape in his case is sui-
cide. He lacks the courage to experience. courage

for shipping on a windjammer, for walking .

{33.353323 fiififfia‘fifi°§§E¥‘2¥i§b§i%$i‘§’

the roar of engines, for her seagrey eyes in

::.; e:é §§§.Ee: ligg, £93 sseetish fatty

I

in a word he lacks courage for living, and it kills him ..

the total and hepeless despair of the poet in a world for

w.

54) John Doe Passos, streetsof sight, '6.

55) £33.. 141. w

55) John‘nos Passes, pne Ken’s Initiation, 75.
9') John Doe Passes. Streets of Night, 201.

 

which he feels he was not made.

Fanshaw is a variation on the same theme. Like sonny,
he finds life futile and uninteresting; yet he does not
find his escape in suicide. His escapism is spiritual.
"He lives imaginatively in the Renaissance and the XYIIIth
century", 58) he cultivates his own sensitiveness and can-
not forget the “CircumSpectness and grace with shich they
went about life in the IVIIIth century". 59) Faced by sex
in the person of Elise,

he felt himself blushing. He clasped his hands

.tighter round his knees. He felt the sweet mak-

ing little beads on his forehead. Ought he to

kiss her? He did not want to kiss her rouged

lips and her blonds Bair all fuzzy like that,

peroxide probably. 6
Romantic individual that he is, he is completely crushed
by the lack of delicacy. the cheapness and vulgarity. of
the world in which he lives. Like Howe, Fanshaw sishes
to escape the world's grossness to live

always free like a Chinese sage in a hut of

rice matting beside a waterfall; to retire

to an exquisite pavillion ornamented with

red and black lacquer, living 02 fies and

tea and trout from the stream. 1
like Howe. he lives with the aid of his imagination in an
58’ J. Warren Beach. American FictionJ 1920—1940. 27.

59) Ibid.. 2".
50) John Doe Passes. Streets of Right. 25.

51) Ibid., 202.

inner world. Only thus he can solve the cathete's problem,

othersise than by suicide.

“Hancibel, the third important character of the novel,
is a violin student, but on her Estheticism has left a
weaker imprint. Successively, Wenny and Fanshaw make love
to her. Too crude and direct, Wenny fails. After his sui-
cide Fanshaw starts to make love to her more successfully,
for Hancibel knows too late how close she wrs to Wenny.
ramshas lster realizes this, saying. "Perhaps they had se-
crets, things in common, the two of them thot I had never
knosnfi. 52) Thus, all three are unsatisfied with life be‘
cause of their inability to go along with society around them.

This book, the first product of 308 Passos' mind.
characterizes best Dos Passos' first phase, well defined
by Malcolm Cowley's phrase, “The Poet Against the World".
The three main characters, if they are not poets in the
narrow meaning of the word, yet are poets in the sense that
they are the sensitive, romantic people, emotional and self-
analytic persons who have been bruised by an industrial
civilization. Expressing their point of view. Fanshaw says,
A trio we are, Hancibel and Wenny and I. a
few friends my only comfort in this great
snarling waste of a country. he don't fit
‘here. we aremlike people floating down a
stream in a barge out of a Canaletto carni-

val, gilt and dull vermilion, beautiful lean-
faced peeplc of the Renaissance lost in a

 

62) John.Pos Eassos, Streets of flight, 309.

”Q
Chi

marsh, in a stagnant canal overhung by black
walls and towering steel girders. 3

Here again. roe Passos' heroes have been broken by society,
as they were in Three Soldiers and One_han's Initiation.
They are the representatives on paper of their creator.
this young man of twenty who had Just graduated from Har-
vard, with the aroma of the esthetic Spirit of the decade
strong on him.

In a different class from the three novels of this early
period is Rosianante to the Road Again (1922). Away from
the Army and the crass and unappreciative industrial world.
Dos Passes discovers the chatm of Spain. yet. though pri-
marily a travel book, Rosinante to the Road Again shows a
kinship with its predecessors. Composed of reports on the
travels of Telemachus and Lyaeus through Spain. between
the glimpses of the Journey are scattered a number of essays
on Spanish art. culture and contemporary social ferment.
Though characters play no great part in the book. yet here
again appears the contrast between two worlds which in 308
Passos' earlier works shave been paralleling each other and
in a sense struggling with each other“. 54) The inner
scene is occupied by Telemachus, the "semi-fictional and
63) John Dos Passes, Streets of Night, 68.

54) Hhstll Geismar, Writers in Crisis, 96.

seni-eutobiOgraphical narrator of the Spanixh travels". 65)
As Telelachus searched for his father Ulyssus, Dos Passes,

in this book, disillusioned by America. is searching through
Spain for a spiritual guidepost. a philoBOphy. sons direc-
tion that America is unable to give his. Telenachus is

again the "Harvard esthete": he steps outside of the world.
this world.in.ehich his friend Lyaeus “seeks the real ad-
ventures in gniety, and vulgarity and human relationship". 55)
is Uenny wanted to enter the activities of life. so telema-
ehus agases enviously at Lyacus'; 5') he should like to
share his earthy satiSfactions, indeed his whole life.

But Lyeeue is ”too free and,easy§.~53) and though rele-
Iachus cones very close to breaking through his embryonic
shell of refinement. yet he cannot and stays in his inner
ecrld. Like his fellow heroes of Dos Passce' earlier books.
he can only live on the margin of it .. one more expression

of “these atrocious young men. early heroes of Des Passes". 69)

thus. these different modifications of the Harvard
eethete constitute the principal character of the first

period of Dos Pesscs' literary career. They are all mutations

 

‘5"in!eeii Geisnar, Writers in.Crisis. 96.
6‘) mg... 97. '
5".321é}. 97;

ea) 2%.. 97.

6") 33333., 99.-

sf roe Passes himself, characters caught up in,s web of
circumstance and in a world for which they were never made.
They lack a solution to their central conflict.

Beneath the extravagant antics of these pal-

pitating adolescents, lies a fundamental

eeakness; a lack of any real purpose in life.

:3: 25 assuage-:8?” "° “11“” m"
All of then are but various interpretations of a char-
acter peculiar to the period and one who occupies a definp
its position in American fiction. 71) It is by reason of
-such books that Dos Passes may be placed with the post-ear
sleet generation! of American.sriters. For his the Eteil-
ure of nerve" 73) see complete and hopeless; his heroes
represented the final. bitterest stage of the cleavage
between the poet and his society. In him there is no long-
er oppesition. but only passivity and indifference. since

society.is so far beyond the individual's sphere of interest.

the great distance between.the filost generationfi'fup
tility and surrender of the early works and Des Passos'

 

70’ Maxwell Geisnar. Writers in Crisis, 100.

71) they are products of such.writers as 3.2. Cummings E. Help
ingeay, or Yes Passes, whose generation has significantly
been called the sleet generation" by Gertrude Stein. (Pierre
Brodin. Les Ecrivains Americains dc l'Entre-Deux Guerres, 132.)

73) lhxsell Geisnar. Writers in Crisis. 92.

later socially-conscious and crusading M. is at was
apparent. Yet, there is in the twenties. despite the mes-
sage of the early novels, some evidence of the beginnings
of the evolution of a more positive. comprehensive, and
sympsthetie philosOphy. It was not a transformation, but
an.evolution; the question remains the same -- the conflict
of the individual and society .. but the element of nega-
tion slowly disappears as social protest takes its place.

The first direct approach to political and social
problens during this early period is an essay. A Humble
Protest that he srote at Harvard and which was published
' in The Harvard Monthly_(1916). In this essay he attacked -
industrialism and the machines because they were enslaving
sankind, earning of the dangers of an excessive industrialization;

Are so not like men crouching on a runaway

machine? And at the same time we intensely

sarcoma carom 3° *°
no denounced man‘s growing subjection to materialism. and.
like Emerson. found a remedy in.reasserting the values of
plain living and high thinking. He did not conclude, as
he did later, that man himself and not machines were the
cause of enslavenent; he did not realise yet that the ma—
chine could be a source of both evil and good. Later.he

completed his philosOphy, no longer attacking machines,

 

75’ John Doe Passes. i Humble Protest. as referred to in
John Hicks. the Great EraHItIon, 287.

but the private exploiters who used them as tools to
enslave nanhind.

though this essay was not followed by others in the
same vein, Des Passes did not abanden completely his inter.
est in social questions: in fact in every one of his books
of the post war period there were traces that indicated that
the author of A Humble Protest was not dead. It is he who
appears in the last chapter of One man's Initiation. The
acongenial bunch of FrenchmenII with when Howe Speaks in
this chapter are utepians who hope for a better future
'than that which war has left them. Their aspirations are
clearly expressed in the person of Harrier, who says:

We are very simple peeple who want to live

quietly and have plenty to eat and have no

ggoszgifghgsbggoggr:eugiift$23 little span
Dos Passes here gives the correct answer to the problem
of A Humble pretest, when through the medium or merrier
he saya :

All we have new is the sane war between the

:i:s:;;io:2:ze tgat exploit and those that
fee, when merrier and his fellows express*what they think
to be the right way to reach their connen.aspirations,

the approval 01 DOB Passes for all these "radicals" is

 

74) John.Des Passes, One Man's Initiation; 147.
75) Ibid.. 147.

apparent. For Harrier success lies in the socialization
of the masses through organization -- the lower classes
must become the foundations of the world in which I'the
rich must be extinguished". 76) Usable to reach agreement
on the method of attaining this ideal. each one of them
has his lwn solution. It is difficult to tell where Dos
Passes stands on the question. He recognises the right-
ness of their protests. but his own position is still
vague. Is he with Harrier for what Lolly calls "the long-
est. the most difficult road"? 77’ D°°9 h‘ ”har° LM11¥"
belief of a man's ability to stand by himself and to Judge
all by hinself? Does he agree with his as to the purpose
of the government .. an organization.purely utilitarian
for Lnlly -- or does he applaud Dubois' intention.te use
his German gun for the coming Social Revolution: Since
Howe is more a spectator than an actor in this discussion.
it is difficult to assign a clear position.to Dos Passes;
yet. the presence of the incident proves that Des Passes
wae ant uninterested at this early stage of his career in
those questions which were to occupy his later in_g:§:§;
lore, he already sympathized with them, saying,

use. this harness: steam

lies that life is smothered in. he must strike

once more for freedon. for the sake of the
dignity of man. Hopelessly. cynically, ruthlessly

7‘) John Doe Passes. One Man's Initiation. 147.
’7’ Ibid.. 149.

{)7
'0

we must rise and show at least that we are

not taken in; we §f° slaves but not

willing slaves. 7
Yet..if Dos Passes shares the ideas of the protesting
Frenchmen of One man's Initiation. he does not seem to share
their hepes. The protesters against the system die, and
death puts an end to the utepian.views of the future in

which Howe evidently does not wholly believe.

In Three Soldiers hos Passes! position scene less e-
quivocal. and the presence throughout the book of the con-
nunist-anarchist Eisenstein, treated by the author with
respect and friendliness. attests his growing tendency to-
ward the left. is an internationalist, Eisenstein is the
only character who goes to war without patriotism. Ocean
sionally he speaks directly for Dec Passes. Questioned
by a French radical about the attitude of the Americans.
his answer is. "we'd do what we were ordered; we're a
bunch of slaves;n 79’ .. no doubt Dos Passes! own idea.
to feel that Dos Passes sympathizes with his creation when
the latter regrets that athey shoot guys in America for
talking lihe that (like a socialist).' 80’ Did not Dos

Passes rise but five years later in defense of two of these

 

7.) John,poa Passes, One man's Initiation£_152.
79) John Doe Passes, Three Soldiers, 91.
30) Ibid.. 95.

40

"guys", Sacco and Vanzstti?

Further in the book, other characters illustrate Bos
Paesos' early sympathy for the radicals and anarchists.
Thus Hensloae is happy to go "to save starving Russia" 81’
ehere the social revolution has already started. The uto-
piane of pne Man's Initiation appear again: for one of
then the revolution in.Huesia "means world revolution with
the 0.8. at the head of it." 33) For another, a new era is
opening, and the revolution of October is "the first gesture
towards a newer and better world.“ 83) Ltienne. the French
socialist. appears too. with the traits of a young and
sympathetic man; at the outbreak of the war he nthought of
going to America“ 84) in order to escape it. Andrews' reply
.. I'that would not do (you) any good" 35) - eXpressee Doe
Paseoe' early suspicion.of his own country. This should
result in turning his towards European lands such as Spain
and‘Euseia. Though Andrews seems little interested in the
world that he ignores. Poe Passes is disinterested in his

eonntrynen. for they do not oppose their enslavenent. He

 

.— v.—

81) Johnyres Passes, Three Soldiers, 296.
62) 1m... 29?.
83) w" 297.
84) 2.1.4." soc.
85) mg... soc.

41

prefers the old world where at least it man is slave he
tries to resist slavery. In fact. Eur0pean lands teemed
with socielistic ferments apparent in the great number of
adherents to the leftist parties - which usually do not
exist in America -- end the Revolution of October in Bus—
sis see. it was believed. the first or a long series of
provolts which intended to free men or their enslavement.
this explains why at the end or the war Dos Passes was

in no hurry to go back to America.

Hot concerned with social problems in Streets of Bight
-- written during the years spent at Harvard -- Dos Passes
gives then a very important place in his travel book Rosic

gents to the Road Again.

In his critical and biographical essay on.nos Passos,
John Chamberlain says:

It is in his travel books and not in the
superficial changes in his novelistio tech-
niques that the evolution of Dos Pessos can
best be followed.. In his first travel book,
Rosinnnte to the Road Again, Dos Passes is
oEIefIy concerned with the sensuous aspects
of Spain. The second travel book, Orient
Express, is that of a men whose sympathies
are constantly broadening. In All Countries
(which includes the magnificent trIEuies to
sauce and Vsnzetti) brings us abreast of the
contemporary Dos Passos. 35

 

35) John Chamberlain. John.Dos Passoslne BiOgrephicel and
Critical Bossy, 9. '

42

though generally correct. Chamberlain here neglects in

the first of these books the importance or the essays en-
titled FA Talk on the Road", or "A Novelist of Revolutiona
in.thich.nos Passos made a study of £10 BaroJa, the Span-

ish novelist. For most or the characters who discuss with
Iclsnachus and Lyaeus in the "talks on the road". America

is a civilized country - by opposition to “barbarous Spain" -~

there life is organized, where commerce a;
a gentlemanly, even a noble occupation. )

It is .the world or the future" shereflthers is Ireedonl. There,

the roadmenders work eight hours a day and
wear silk shirts and earn ... un dineral.
(rho) children are educated free, no priests, 88)
and at forty every maniack.owns an automobile.

the ”Donkey Boy" expresses the sentiment of the author when
he says,

“En America no se divierte, ... Ca. en Amer-

ica no se hase na' a que trabahar y de'cansar ...

Hot on your life. in America they don!t do

anything except worg and rest so's to get ready

to work again 0.." 9
there is already apparent in these words the distrust of

Des Passes for his over-industrialized country where the

 

37) John.Dos Passes, Eosinante to the Road Again, 117.
38) Ibid., 28.
89) 1b1a.. 28.

43

one purpose of everyone is to work much in order to make
much money. The "It's not gold peeple need but bread, and

'13. and see, life". 90)

of the dDonkey Boy" would be very
'sell placed on the trontispiece of Des Passos' U.S.A. Ho:
doubt Dos Passos' evolution is apparent in his travel books,
and it is in these books too that the continuity of this
evolution is best seen. It was as a post, as the late ro-
santic author of Streets of Right. that hes Passes looked
at Spain, but beside hymns to the beauty or Spain that
place him near Hemingway, he reported the realities too,

he saw the leprous scabs of poverty and ignoro .

ance that tester under the colorful outer gar—

ment of the primitive. and this contradiction

between natural beauty and human deggadation

deepened the conrlicts in his mind.
Closer to the real point concerning the travel books is
Harwell Geismar, who, speaking of the change in.Dos Passos'
mind which occurred after Rosinante to the Road Again. said:

inch or this change is foreshadowed in the alter-

nate half or hosinante to the Road Again. the

essays in.whicH fies Passes talfs directly about

Spanish society as against the adolescen§ Vander-

ings and chatterings of his telemachus. 2
it the end or the var. "finding much that is hateful in
111.. (Dos Passes) has cast his lot with'those who stay and

. 90) John Doe Passes, gpsinante to the Road Again, 2g“

91) lichael Gold. I"rho Education of hos Passes". English
Journal. XXII (February._1933). 92.

92) Harwell Geismar, Writers in Crisis, 97.

44

fight, and not with those who run away." 93) No longer
is he indifferent in the fashion of his early hero Howe;
he went to Spain not to lose himself, as Hemingway did,
but to find a way in which to engage all his capabilities.

Spain in his book appears under two aSpects typified
in the personalities of Pen Quixote and Sancho Panza. It
is not difficult to see that it is the former Spain, the
Spain of Ibanez, of Unamuno the radical poet, the Spain
of Hachado which "has first caught and then released Ios
Passos' major intelligence and emotion." 94) In the essay
entitled “A Novelist of the Revolution," Dos Passes is much
concerned with Pio BaroJa's heroes, "men who have not had
the will power to continue in the fight for bread, men

whose nerves had failed." 95)

He expresses his sympathy
for BaroJa's world,

dismal, ironic, the streets of towns where

industrial life sits heavy on the neck of a

race as little adapted to it as any in Europe. 95)
and for the

great crowd of the outcast, sneak-thieves,
burglars, beggars of every description, --

 

95) Granville Hicks, fines Passos' Gifts", New Republic,
EXVII (June, 1931), 158.

94) thwell Geismar, Writers in Crisis, 98.
95) John.ros Passes, Rosinante to the head Again, 88.
95) 1121a" 85. / i

i

45

rich beggars and poor devils who have given

up the struggle to exist, -- homeless child-

ren, prostitutes, peeple who live a half- .

honest existence selling knick-nacks, penni-

less students, inventors who while away the

time they are dying of starvation telling 97

all they meet of the riches they might have had. )
who are moving through it. It is no longer a question of
Harvard esthetes who are crushed by life, but of the whole
of mankind who, crushed by life, gave up the fight.‘ It
is easy to see that Poe Passes sympathizes with BaroJa in
his protests against the enslavement and destruction of the
individual. He agrees with BaroJa's aim, to be “the destruc-
tive critic of existing society", 98) and it is this role
that he assumes in Manhattan Transfer and U.S.A. With his
travel books, Dos Passes set himself on the road to social
protest; thus the first of his travel books is "the key
work‘of (his) first period". 99’ Ln them he found his guide,
the philosophy for which he searched, and by it he directed

has next approach to social problems.

Rosinante to the Road Again is therefore a sort of
transition book, from Dos Passos' early period of negation
and futility to the second phase of social protest. However,
despite its position in the evolution of his intellectual

 

9’) John.Dos Passes, Rosinante to the Road Again, 86.

93) Harwell Geismar, Writers in Crisis, 98.

99) Ibid., 99.

46

develOpment it belongs artistically with the novels of the
early period. The style and technique of the early books
are still evident in it; none of the stylistic radicalism,

the literary innovations of his later novels, appear in it.

Parallel with the evolution of Ice Passos' social at-
titudes is a corresponding evolution in the literary tech-
niques by which he expressed them. In the first phase of
his writing he wrote novels of the traditional type. Yet
it is possible to find in the style of Three Soldiers or
V§trcets of Night, certain characteristics which foreshadow
the style of his later productions. Technically speaking,
Streets of Eight is his only purely artistic novel, the only
one of his books which follows the traditional division
by chapters. In the other books, and more particularly in
ghrce Soldiers, the division is somewhat artificial, reflect-
ing the discontinuity of the story. The style itself dur-
ing this first period is that of a late romantic. "When
he (Dos Passes) writes individualistically", said Cowley,
this prose is sentimental and without distinction". 100’
Throughout Streets of Night, One Fan's Initiation, and ghggg
Soldiers, there are many lyrically descriptive passages in
which res Passes could almost lose himself in imagery:

*—

100) Malcolm Cowley, "The Poet and the World". How hepublic,
L11. (February, 1938), 305.

Her white bedroom was full of sunlight that
poured through the side window Opposite her
bed, smouldered hotly on the red and blue of
the carpet, glinted on the tall mahogany bed-
post and finally struck a warm tingling cover-
let over her feet and legs ... 10

He stuck the roses and daisies in the belt

of his uniform and sat with the green flame
of Chartreuse in a little glass before him,
staring into the gardens, where the foliage
was becoming blue and lavender with evening
and the shaggss darkened to grey-purple and
black ...

Overhead huge white cumulus clouds, piled

tier on tier like fanstastic galleons in

full sail, floated, changing slowly in a

greenish sky. The reflection of clouds in

the silvery glisten of the pond's surface

was broken by clumps of grasses and bits of

floating weeds. 10»)

Such passages are sentimental expressions in which
Eoe Paesos' heroes forget the grossness of life. They ex-
press fairly well the state of mind of these "esthetes"
reacting to what Geismar called "the Lardnerian luxury and
gross cultural optimism" 104) by the cultivation and ex-

pression of their own sensibility.

Besides this imagism roe Passos' earlier style is char-

acterized by a certain realism, cepecially evident in

 

101) John Doe Passos, Streets of Night, 42.
102) John Foe Passos, One man's Initiation. 25.
103) John.Dos Passos, Three Soldiers, 155.

10‘) Maxwell Geismar, Writers in Crisis, 100.

48

Three Soldiers. His privates speak as such, and he put
in their mouths not the language they would speak at home,
but the Jargon typical of Army life. Already apparent is
the impressionism which came to be the dominant trait of
hos Passos' style in g:§=§.; the scene in which Andrews
is inducted into the Army easily beers comparison with

any scene of his mature masterpiece.

49

’III
THE TRAHSITIOH TO SOCIALISM

l
.manhattan.Transfer and the new Techniques

In 1925, the publication of Bauhattan Transfer marked
the end of the Des Passes of Three Soldiers and Streets of
.2152.“ Apparently it was to s new writer that American
fiction.ewed this book. Yet, as it is easy to see in it,
though.roe Passes had changed his viewpoint and his field
of interest, he was still in some ways the poet against the

'orlde

During this transitory period, Des Passes became more
and more self-conscious, slowly and subtly transferring
the defeatism of the "lost generation" from persons to soci-
ety. He increased the number of his heroes in his novels
to the infinite, until finally “the tragic I will become
the tragic inclusive we of modern society". 1) In this
book, there is no longer a poet -- either a musician as in
Three Soldiers or a Harvard aesthete as in Streets of NifiEE.“’
the fights against a world with which he can't get along,
but scores of characters of different social classes who,

‘-

1) Alfred Xesin, On Native Grounds, 541.

50

though they do not always oppose the stupid world in which
they live, yet can't go along with it. Dos Passes seems

to have realized in Manhattan Transfer that not only was

the poet not fitted to live in the actual world, but neither

was the whole of mankind.

The book is a survey of three decades of life in New
York City. Some facts in the story permit the reader to
place the events in time. For example, there is a refer—
ence at the beginning to the signing of the Greater New York
3111 by Governor Merton. 2) an actual event of 1895-96. Then
throughout the story the re der catches glimpses of news-
paper headlines; such as:

"Relieve Port Arthur in Face of Enemy" 1904 (p. 14)

"Japs Thrown Back from hukden" 1904 (p. 44)

"Assassination of Archduke" 1914 (p. 167)

Finally, toward the end, the date is further fixed by a
reference to the deportation of Communists by the repart-

ment of Justice after the war. 3) during the wave of anti-

radicalism in 1921-1925.

The book unfolds as a succession of snapshots of new
York City at irregular intervals, set between the date
limits of 1890 and 1925. There is no continuity between the

 

2) John_pos Passes, Mhnhattan Transfer. 9°
3) Ibid., 266.

51

different sections, nor in each section between the chapters.
'Ihese snapshots of the inhabitants of a large city present
in the foreground, against the bague background of the ‘
city, a set of peeple that the reader is able to see in de-
tail for a brief while. Thus in chapter III of the first
section, there are these characters: George Baldwin, an
attorney-at-las who waits for an Opportunity to climb the
social ladder; Nellie KcBiel, the promiscuous wife of Gus
McHiel; Ellen Thatcher, a capricious young girl; Emile and
Congo, two French muckers for whom the United States should
be "the land of opportunity;“ 4) Bud Korpenning, a defeated
and unhappy farm boy; finally Jimmy Herf, who arrives in
New York with his mother. In the next shot perhaps these
peeple will be again in front, or perhaps in the background,
while some other characters appear in full light. Conse-
quently it is impossible to summarise the book as “it is
’impossible to put your finger on one phase of New York

life and say: this is the true New York." 5) There is in
it no trace of a continuous story; "no one's story is told
consecutively or with completeness", 5) yet most of "the

4) John Doe Passes, Manhattan Transfer, 43.

5) mason Wade, hNovelist of America; I. Dos Passos,""North
American Review, CTXLIV (December, 1937), 356.

6) J. Warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940, 36.

characters reappear from time to time at significant mom-
ents so that we can trace the general outline of their lives." 7)

Jimmy Herf is the person who appears most often in the
action. He is, with some reason, recognised by Dos Passos'
critics as the character who represents the general attitude
and point of view of the author. For Malcolm Cowley he is
still another aspect of the "poet" of the earlier book who,
at the end of the book, flees the city of which he was the
victim. at the death of his mother Jimmy goes to live with
his uncle's family; herivale, his uncle, a "money-grubber",
intends to make him work in his firm with his own son James
Herivale. though Jimmy agrees with his uncle in his pres-
ence, yet he does not seem very interested in the project
and once alone,

his muscles stiffen. Uncle Jeff and his office

can go plumb to hell. The words are so loud in-

side him he glances to one side and the other to

see if anyone heard him say them. 3

In the next picture -- he is about five years older --
Herf is a reporter who for a time leads an uninteresting

career in Journalism. Already he dreams of flight to new

 

7) J. Warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940, 25.

3) John res Passes, Manhattan Transfer, 109.

countries --"I mean Bogota and Orinoco and all that sort
of thing." 9) He is bored with his life and "(he)'d be
willing to risk elephantiasis and bubonic plague and spot-
ted fever to get out of this hole.“ 10) Here again it is
the poet who wants to flee but has realized that there is
no place to go. No doubt Jimmy knows that he wants to go,
yet ..you have to know in which direction to step." 11)
thus, since there is no means to escape, the best he can
do is what his cousin James did -- do "everything he was
told all his life and flourish like a green bay tree,fl12)
instead of disregarding his uncle's and aunt's advice and
going his own way. Like Des Passes! earlier heroes, Jimmy
is a person to when things happened, a person who wants to

do something but does not know what.

Later on he appears again as a reporter for the Times,
sick of this "hellish rotten Job ..., sick of playing up
to a lot of desk men he does not respect.I 13) Ear will

be for him, as it was for his earlier brother, a possible

 

9) John res Passes, Manhattan Transfer, 158.
10) Ibld., 158.

 

11) Ibid., 150.
13) Ibid., 160.
13) Ibid., 226.

54

solution. "I want to go to the war," 14) he says, but again
he weakens -- "the only trouble is that I'm very poor at
wrangling things.” 15) In this statement his character ap-
pears clearly. Previously he had said, "I guess I'm really
afraid of my uncles and aunts", 15) but this is not the an-
swer. Even if he won that fight he wouldn't be able to
persuade himself what he wants. In the tradition of Des

Passes' heroes, his most important enemy is himself.

Finally Jimmy goes to war, but not in the fighting
units, and when he reappears in the book as husband and
father, he still has found no solution to his inability
to cope with life. Even with his wife Ellen he cannot get
what makes life interesting for man, Happiness. Weak again,
he needs to get drunk before speaking to his wife about
divorce. when, towards the end of the book, he meets one
of his old friends Congo -- who was a messboy on a steam-
boat when he himself was living at the Bits and who now is
a successful bootlegger -- he realizes what he is.

"The difference between you (Congo) and me,"
he says, "is that you're going up in the

 

14) John res Passes, Kanhattan Transfer, 226.

15’ Ibid., 160.

social scale andI'm going down." 17)
finally, after a last party in Greenwich Village, he makes
up his mind and the end of the book shows him leaving at
last this megapolis to go "pretty far".

It is possible, as Beach did, to distinguish two other
sets of characters in the book: '"those who knew how to
take advantage of the conditions" 18) and who prosper; and

19) who

these who are "the misfits, the IXploited masses",
cannot take care of themselves and of whom the others take
advantage. 0f the first set is Ellen fhatohsr,

the first full length portrait of the thwarted

women who, succumbing to money, power, prestige,

to art, to fads, to everything in short but

their natural role as Essen, are fated to be-

come hard careerists.
In comparison to Dos Passes? males lllen.has nerve and knows
what she wants - money .. and she works hard to obtain it.
In the first scene the reader attends her birth, and then
-wiews somepictures of her youth. Married first to actor
. John Oglethorpe, she unsuccessfully shares the stage with

his and then she elisbs quickly the different steps of the

 

. 1') John Des Passes, Manhattan Transfer, 552.

18) J. warren 3...... incrican Fiction, 19204940. 55.
19) M” as.

20) Harwell Geismar, Writers in Crisis, 103.

56

social scale. After a scene with John she leaves him for
Stan Emery, son of a banker, whom she loves. To her friends
who worry about her argument with Oglethorpe she says, "I've
never been happier in my life." 21) This is for her the
first step toward the summit. Soon her name is associated
with Stan's and her "career is fast approaching stellar
magnitude.“ 22) After many adventures with her producer
Berry Goldweiser, the ambitious attorney Baldwin, and Jimmy
Barf, whom she marries in France, where she serves in the
Red Cross, she pregresses fast. She uses men as a means

to succeed, but she gives nothing to them, nothing that a
woman is supposed to give. is she says to Baldwin "(she)

doesn't want to be had by anybody. I» 23)

George Baldwin is another of those who take full ad-
vantage of fortune. Opportunity is presented to him in
the form of Gus Hcfliel, s milkman who is inJured by a freight
train. Hcfliel provides him a law case "to practice on' and
after his success with it he becomes known -~ "He's got se-
veral good cases on hand new and he has made some very valu»

able connections." 24) Later, he marries for social position;

 

21) John.Eos Passes, Manhattan transfer, 150.
22) gay, 180.
23) 3333., 205.
34) £33., 82.

’57

when his wife threatens him with divorce he says "(It)

would be very harmful to my situation downtown Just at the
moment." 25) For his, war is primarily a wuestion of the
Stock Exchange, which will go “plumb to hell". In love with
Ellen, whom he cannot conquer, he tries to kill her, for

she has been "playing with me long enough." 26) When 203101
preposes to him that he become a politician he refuses at
first for fear of losing money, but he soon decides to

"Est in the race", 37) fer more money. Once elected he
eoblly divorces Cecily, when he doesn't need any longer,

and at the end of the book is prOposing marriage to Ellen,
who, it seems, may well be his next wife. Starting fro:
'nothing. Baldwin becomes a rich and powerful man. ihe fever
of possession is in his blood and he cannot stop in the race

for more.

Gus Kcfliel is probably the most successful character
in the book. A milkman at the beginning, he has his first
"moment of spotlight on the front pages" 28 when he is.
struck and injured by a freight frain. When he reappears
on the front page after leaving the hospital, he is an
35) John.Dos Passes, Manhattanggransfer, 168.

35) 3113., 209.
2?) w“ 286.
23) J. larren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940, 56.

assemblyman of some importance, one who backs the strikers
and agitators -- "the Mcfliel whose name is in the paper all
the time." 39) ‘Through his manipulations of the workers
his importance increases, until at the end of the book he
is one of the leaders of Tammany Hall. Thus when he pro-
poses to Baldwin to elect him he can guarantee him success;

, "You Just leave that to me... George, you're elected already." 30)

Congo, too, is one of those who succeeds in handling
things his way. War and prohibition are the opportunities
he needs to start his progress towards the class of those
who possess.' In the first snapshot in which he appears,
Congo is a messboy on a steamboat, shaver worrying about a
thing.“ 3“ later a; i. . baa-new; anus, man...
"the best in Hew York“. 32) the money that he earns by this
unlawful trade permits him to settle in the metrOpolis as
an honorable citizen with a new name. In the next shot,
he is hr. Armand Duval, who can afford to go to Jail for
six months, since he knows that after that he still will be

3 millionaire s

 

29) John Dos Passos, manhattan Transfer, 199.
30) 3313,. 264.
31’ w" as.
32’ 3335., 275.

59

Smile, who was with him on the boat, succeeds too in
a different way. He doesn't wait for an Opportunity as
Congo did. Once in America where "a fellow can get ahead" 35)
he wants to go ashore I'to get somewhere in the world.‘ 34)
When he gets a Job in the BhOp of madame Ligand, a rich
widow, he sees his chance. The madame is not attractive ~-
‘when she laughed her shoulders shock and the big breasts
under the tight blue bodies" 35) -- but "he is sick of wait-

it 36) 5'7) After

ing and as he says, "(It) might be worse.”
different attempts he succeeds in his project and from new
on neglects the ones who have helped him realize his aim.
Thus when he meets may, the girl who helped him make madame
Bigaud Jealous, he does not recognize her. Ebro and more
ambitious, though not yet actually married to madame Rigaud,
he already thinks about selling the place and going amore
uptown (to) make bigger money." 38’ But at this point his
progress ends and he no longer appears on the pictures of

the 01 ty-

 

33) Jehn‘Des Passes, Mhnhattan Transfer, 17.
341%.. 17. '
35) 22.2" 52.
35’ £33., 52.
37)_1_p_1_g_.. 52.
3°’;p_1_c., 104.

6(

Besides these who climb the social ladder by means
of this opportunism and cynicism, there are all the others,
the defeated, those who either stand at the bottom of the
scale if they were there at their birth or those who, un-
able to manage their own affairs, fall down to the "lower
depths." Bud herpenning is one of these misfits. Born and
raised on a farm upstate, he comes to the big city after
he murders his father, "who used to lick him when he had
it in mind to." 59) Unsuccessfully trying to find a Job
in New York, he sinks lower and lower in the scale of life,
fleeing always from the imaginary detectives who pursue him.
In the mud his only solution is suicide -- a Greekplile

tragic end.

Joe Harland is another defeated one. Once high in
the social strata,

he traded on margins, he bought outright, he cov-

ered on stocks he'd never evez heard the name of,

and everytime he cleaned up, 0
a rich man who piled up money and who had four banks in the
palm of his hand. When his luck changes, Harland breaks

39) John pos Passes, Manhattan Transfer, 104.
40) Ibid., 134.

6.}

with it, unable to combat fortune. "A fine mess you've

made of your life", he says. "Forty five and no friends,

and not a cent to bless yourself with." 41) His old

friends refuse to recognize him; Felsius, one of them, to

whose son he gave his name, refuses to help him. At the

bottom of the scale, the man who once nowned half the Street" 42)

ends begging for a dollar.

Dutch Robertson is still another of the exploited.
He first appears on the stage looking for a Job after re-
turning from the army. Like Bud he is unsuccessful; in the
next picture he is looking enviously at a c-lored man who
got a Job. When, hungry and broke, Dutch reads of crimes
and thieves in the newspapers, he believes he has found a
way to beat the game. In his next appearance on stage he
is a gangster, followed by his girl friend Francis. The
last snapshot shows them being arrested, "accused of committ-
ing more than a score of hold ups in Brooklyn and Iueens." 43
It is the end of life for both of them, and for them the

curtain falls on a sentence of twenty years of prison.

Among the numerous other misfit, eXploited members of

 

41) John has Passos, Manhattan Transfer, 132.
43) Ibid., 190.
43) Ibid., 338.

society who people the book it is possible to distinguish
Edmund Thatcher, Ellen's father, who lives for his child
and whose only purpose is "to get money for her.” Cassie,
one of Ellen's friends, is an artist for whom love is spir-
itual union, irreducible to a single materiality. Anna
Cohen is a young Jewish agitator and street walker who is
horribly disfigured when the shop in which she works burns.

All are losers, the defeated ones of Dos Passos' world.

Common to all the characters of the second set is
the sympathy with which they are handled. It is not dif-
ficult to see in what direction Dos Passos' sentiments lie.
When.Bud is exploited by the woman who gives him work, Dos
Passos makes the reader feel that he is completely with Bud,
the murderer. In Bud's eXplanation of why he was forced
to kill his father, the author's pity for him is again ap-
parent. Similarly, Dutch the gangster attracts hos Passes!
compassion. His own view point is implicit in the words
of Jimmy Herf:

He felt vaguely sorry that the Flapper Bandit

and her pal had been arrested. He wished they

could have escaped. He had looked forward to

reading their exploits evgzy day in the papers.

Poor devils, he thought. .

And when at their trial the judge says,

 

44) John,Doa Passes, Manhattan Transfer, 359.

63

It is the dooty of every man in office and
out of office to combat this wave of lawless-
nees by every means in his power. Therefore
in spite of what those sentimental newspaper
writers who corrupt the public mind and put
into the head of weaklings and misfits of
your sort the idea that you can buck the law
of God and man, and private prOperty, that
you can wrench by force from peaceful citi-
zens what they have earned by hard work and
brains ... and get away with and quacks would
call extenuating circumstances I am going to
impose on you two highsaymen the maximum sever-
ity of the law ... Not that I don't feel as
a tender and loving father the misfortunes,
the lack of a loving home and tender care of
a mother that has led this young woman into

a life of immorality and misery, led away by
the temptations of cruel and voracious men
and the excitement and wickedness oi shat has
been too well named, the Jazz age, 5

it is again clear where Dos Passes intends that the readers'
sympathies should lie. Thus, in the words of one critic,
"Manhattan Transfer weaves together into a syncretic pan-
orama the lives of several Ken Yorkers by a kind of patch-
work technique," 45) yet, it is evident that these charac-
ters are but individuals. They are not self directing spir-
its; in spite of their vivid reality -- the reader is con.
scious of their physical existence - they don't have "the.

sentimental importance of characters in fiction.‘' ‘7) The

 

45’ John‘Dos Passes, Hanhattanggransfer, 359.
46) Harry Hartsick, The Foreground of American Fiction, 285.
47) 1. Warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940. 37.

64

reader feels that they do not have a sentimental and spiri—
tual life paralleling their material reality. They cerrs~
spend closely to what I. K; Forster has called "the flat

characterfl type.

to summarize, in Hanhattan Transfer‘Dos Passes is new
concerned with the material of the proletarian writer, not
with the individual as such, not with the person, but with
the individual in his relation to the whole, as a link in
a chain. this is why the book gives us so few memorable
characters -- none of them really comparable in depth to
Andrews of Ehree Soldiers or Howe of One Man's Initiation ~-
why, in fact, "it leaves us with a sense of the drift of
men and events." 48) Dos Passes in this book is approach»
ing the area of social theory in the novel. He has new
extended to all the inhabitants of the great city the defeat-
isn he applied in his first books to his Harvard aesthetes.
urban life has crushed the inhabitants of the city; some,
as Baldwin or Ellen, because they live only for money;
others, like the misfits Bud or Dutch, because they are the
eXpleited, the ones who have failed to adjust. 0n the
whole all are victims of money-grubbing, of the pursuit of
material security alone. mcfliel and Baldwin and Ellen and
Congo, in their seeming success, find only defeat. Theirs

 

48)
Granville Hicks, The Great tradition, 288.

65

is less apparent than that of Bad or Dutch, but Just as
thorough, for in "success" they lose their souls. Only
Jimmy Herf, who escapes to "go pretty far," seems to have
any chance of finding that which has eluded all the rest,
and his end is, significantly, left inconclusive. The power
of money, that broke some and ate out the soul of others,

has not yet beaten Jimmy as the book ends.

The answer to the problem of maladjustment and de-
feat is suggested by Bee Passes through Hares, the Italian
anarchist. In a discussion with Congo and Emile, he says,
“The day that we stop believing in money and property it
will be like a dream.when we wake up." 49) This solution
lies within the power of the working men; when money finds
its rightful place in the scale of value, than the working
peeple will awaken from slavery. The peaceful way through
Boeialism .. attempted in France with Jaures -- has failed.
It is new time, says Katee, Rfor the anarchists to strike
the next blow." 50’ But the capitalists have realized that
anarchists were preparing for the big‘Revolutien -- this

is the explanation of the present war, “so that workingmen

 

49) John.Des Passes, Manhattan transfer, 33.

50) Ibid., 32.

all over won't make bigRevolution.u 51) It is not diffi-
cult to sense Poe Passos' agreement, especially when one
remembers Eisenstein of ghree Soldiers, who said much the
same thing. When Herf says:

the only way of bucking the intersts is for

working people, the proletariat, producers

and consumers, anything you want to call

them, to form unions and finally get so well

organised that they can take over the whole

government, 52)
the Des Passes of One Man's Initiation reappears; Herf
expresses the same lack of confidence in government that
is apparent in the last chapter of the earlier book. But,
even if the author has in Eanhattan Transfer broadened and
increased his interest in social and political problems,
yet, the "social theorist who shows us the labyrinth in
which we wander," 53) is unable to show the way out. It
is clear that while Dos Passes has widened the field of
his destructive criticism, he has made no corresponding

effort to build.

In their longing for money, some of the characters of
51) John‘Des Passes, Manhattangrransfer, 208.
. 53’ Ib____i__d., 241.

53) J. Warren Beach, The 20th Century Novel, Studies in
Icahniqnes. 4450

Hanhattan transfer exhibit aoccasional and vague aSpiratiens
to escape from their squirrel cage." 54) From time to
time, they seem to suspect the existence of a better wry
at life, but their anxiety to get money and security seen
kills any romantic or idealistic aspirations. Thus, Edmund
Thatcher wants to retire, “to have a little place up the
Hudson, to work in the garden evenings." 55’ Yet this
quiet aspiration is annihilated by what he wants to offer —
to his daughter -- WBig Keney's what I'll have to have for
my little girl." 56) Harry Geldweiser tee realizes "how
lonely a man gets when year after year he has had to crush
his feelings down into himself." 57) Realizing that money
did not bring.him happiness, he is glad to possess it only
because

I can offer it all to you (Ellen); understand

what I mean? ... All those ideals and beautio

tnl things pushed down into myself when I was

making my way in a man's aggld were like seed

and you're their flowers.

unfortunately, it is too late for Harry "to get that old

5‘) J. Warren Beach, The 20th Century NovelI Studies in
gechniques, 446. wl ” “l

55) John‘Dos Passes, Hanhattan Transfer, 6.
55) £51... a.

5') M.§ 1.84.

53’ gm" 185.

68

reeling back". 59) He is the slave of money,_and he camp
not escape the master he served for so many years. George
Baldwin too has his lyrical moments. When he intends to
marry Ellen after divorcing Cecily, he tells her.

Life is going to mean something for ne.nes ...

Gad it you knew how empty life had been for so

:s’aatzas'zzshz? W a W“
However, these are only passing phases, and seen the char-
actcrs revert to their old pursuit of wealth. They are
but taint indications of ideal aspirations which "survive
obscurely in the depths of souls are not strong enough to
jgmake headway against the main currents of the time." 51)

J
Jimmy Herr the nonopeperman is the only one who tries

to break of: in a tangent from the remorseless curve or
society. Set interested in money, not even interested in
those who succeed, he wants to meet "somebody who wanted

to tail." 54) This, he says, is the only sublime thing.
But Jimmy himself is one or those who is c.ushed in the
trample of those on their say to success. Even his defeat-

ism, his respect for "glorious failure," seams not to be

w—v—

59) John.nes Passes, hrnhattanfgranster. 186.
6°).22léfa 345.

51) J. Warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940, 39.
52) John res Passes, Kennettan Transfer, 160.

69

the answer, for it does not protect him from the society
in.ehich he lives. Yet, in another way, Jimmy does escape,
he does break the pattern. Bis revolt, unsuccessful inso-
far as society is concerned, still leaves him free to “co
pretty far," as Ice Passes leaves him. He is, through his

revolt, still a person.

Jimmy Herr is obviously the key figure in the book,
and in his hes Passes seems to give a tentative answer to
the problem or the individual'e conflict with society.
That answer seems to be that fisrf is, in the very fact
‘ of his failure, a success. Dos Passes realizes that not
only the poet but everyone is crushed by society, yet the
poet .. Jimmy Barf in.thie boel-- seems to be the only
one conscious of his oen.enslavement so well as of the en-
slavement of others. He protests for himself as sell as
for the others. 53) underlying the various stories is the
theme, “the love of money is the root of all evil," 54)
for the universal corruption of personality evident in the
book stems simply from money and money-getting. Though

'7

6‘) In.U.S.é.. on the contrary, each one will be self-comp
scious each one will be aware of his own enslavement
to capitalism, and the poet in U.S.i. will be the ex-
ponent not only of his own bitterness but will protect
for the whole mankind against a society mieadiusted and
dominated by capitalism.

6‘) Mason Wade, "novelist of America: J. res Pa8808.' £2522.
Americanpfievieg, CCXLJY (December, 1937), 355.

70

many or the characters succeed in making money. yet none

of them are "truly happy".

Besides this theme, clearly summarized in the final
repudiation of modern civilisation by Jimmy Herr, there is
another major strain in the book, that feeling for the com.
man man which is so apparent in Los Pessos' treatment of
the failures, the worthless castofrs, and the moral weak-
lings with which the novel is filled. This sentiment has
already been found is.0ne HsnieAinitistio§.in the treatment
of Home's friend Tom Pendolph. then in.Three Soldiers when
has Passes deals with Christield or Fuselli who by contrast
vith.sndrevs "the poet" are but ordinary man. Later again
too rassos expresses his sympathy for the small men.o- Pie
~ Bernie's heroes - in Bosinsnte to the Road Again, and nos
in hnnhcttnnprrsnsrcr the reader feels that the author sym-
pathizes entirely with the defeated such as Bud Eorpenning
or Iutch.Bobertson. This feeling for the underdog will
lead him .. as it is already apparent in hnnhsttan Transfer

to look towards communism as s means to give the ordinary

71

man an opportunity the present regime refuses him. 55) The
book. thus, is really the transformation."from classical
fantasies to social realities, from the sensibilities of
the individual toths side cultnnal scene." 55)

In Manhattan Transfer, hos Paesos manages successfully
‘ "to catch the turmoil, the noise, absurdities and cruelties,
all the manifestations of sheer energy which mark urbsn
society, and particularly in.America." 57) To project in»

to a novel the idea or the chaos of society, roe Passes

 

w

65) When he realizes that communism has failed to improve
the conditions or the common man, he will depart them
the left and renew his faith in Bemocracy. he find in
Steinbeck this same sympathy for the common man. It
has been said that his books speak for the "forgotten
nanfi, and such characters as Kenny in Tortelln Flat or
George in Of Rice and Ben and the Jones In 559 fire as
of Wrath Justify this statement or the French critfc
Erodln: "Steinbeck est profondement humain; 11 ns vuit
pas le monde comma un tesu noir peuple d'animaux sans
ame; il eprouvo de la sympathie pour les hommes. ll
croit capable de courage at de hosts. 11 les connait
et 11 ion accepts. Son oeuvre baizne daus un climat
d'humanite: 11 se poncho avee tendresse sur les humbles
%es vagabands, les deaherites, lee malheureux, sur les

etes es."

(Steinbeck is deeply human; he does not see the world
as a "black hole" peopled tithe soulless animals; he
has sympathy for men; he believes them courageous and
kind. He knows and accepts them. His work teams with
kindness; he looks with tenderness to the humble ones,
to the vagabonds. the depressed. the unhappy and the
animals - )
Pierre ondin. Les Ecrivnins Americanis dc l'Entre-Deux

Guerres, p. 267s
‘5) Harwell Geismar, Writers in Crisis, 102.

67’ Ibid., 102.

realized that he couldn't write a conventional novel. For
more than two hundred episodes dealing with some fifty or
sixty persons. he knew he needed to create a new technique,
fitted to the effect he wished to obtain. This use to be
his real literary achievement. Up to this time the stand-
ard novel see either s biographical novel which followed
the life. in part or whole. or one persen,'or s drenstic
arrangement of characters sud plots leading up to s slime:
and carried through its denouement. Either type possessed
s high degree of continuity. The first use the pattern.ot
One Ken's Initiation; there the characters appeared only
is as much as they were useful to the Imposition of the
yehsreeter or the here. But in gnnhuttun Transfer the art-
istic sis was fitted to neither pattern. Dos Passes sent-
ed to present s cross section or the social structure. as
it impressed him at the moment and under the conditions
actually prevailing. He set himself the giant task of
picturing s whole greet modern city, and in order to suggest
its vastness, its complexity, it was natural that he should
depart from the traditional novel form.snd strike out in

s new direction. He was certainly partly inspired by the
techniques or the moving pictures; the two hundred or so
episodes in the book flesh on the screen.trsme by frame.

revealing lives "as it an serOplsne had sweeped over Hes

72

York and turned Xeiey eyes on the life under each roof". 68)
In each of these glances at the city, the author uses,

like a newsreel camera. "his photOgrephic eye and his shon-
ogrephic ear". 69) While he reeds, the reader

plunges invariably into the midst of the new mo-

ment with the character in question as if no one

existed and as if there were no such things as

past lying back of this moment, or as if we, like

the characters involved took the past for granted,

carrying it ell hidden away in our memories.

The structure of the novel is "u system of.eivisions
and subdivisions which are complete in themselves, yet in-
terrelatea." 71) The author is no longer present in the
story, Just as the photographer is absent from the picture
he took; yet roe Passes himself appears in the prose poems
he writes at the beginning of each ohepter. These chapter
headings seem to have s triple purpose. First, they intro-
duos the various sections of the book and as such create
the mood and setting. Thus the preface to Chapter III of
the first section, Boilers, sets the mood in which the

A

53) Hichsel Geld, "The Euucetion of Ice Bosses," English
Journal. XXII (February, 1923), 93.

59) John Ios reason, Manhattan Transfer. (Preface to ren-
guin edition, "About Ehis'fiook.“!

70) J. warren Beach, The Twentieth Centuggfflovel, Studies
in Techniques, 440.

71) Mason Wade. “hovelist of America: J. Ros Passes,"
’ North American Review, CilLIY (December. 1937), 358.

74

reader should read the chapter, summarizing and at the
same time providing a background for it.

All song the rails there were faces; in the
portholes there were faces. Leeward a stale
smell came from the tubby steamer that rode at
anchor listed a little to one side with the
yellow quarantine flag drapping at the foremast.

"I'd give a million dollars", said the old
man resting on his cars, "to know what they come
for. "

"Just for that pop", said the young man who
sat in the stern. "hint it the land of oppor-
tOOMtye "

"One thing I do know”, said the old man. "When
I was a boy it was wild Irish came in the spring
with the first run of shad..... new there aint in

‘no more shad, and than folks. Lord knows where
they come from."

”It's the land of apportoonity." 73)

Second, these chapter headings are open doorways. beckon.
ing the reader's own imagination. Such is, for example.
the prose poem of Chapter III. section three, Rickolodeon:

"A nickel before midnight buys tomorrow...holdup
headlines, a cup of coffee in the automat, a ride
to Woodlawn. Fort Lee, Fl tbush... A nickel in the
slot buys chewing gum. Somebody Loves he, Bagy

° Divinea You're in LentuCly Juss Shur A8 You‘re Born...

86 no es 0 ox r0 8 go limping out of doors,

blues, waltzes (We'd Fenced the hhole Eight Through)
trail gyreting tinsel memories... on Sixth Avenue,
on Fourteenth there are still flySPeched stereopti-
cons where for a nickel you csn peep at yellowed
yesterdays. Beside the peppering shooting gallery
you stOOp into the flicker A HOT TIME. THE BACHELov'S
SURPRISE. THE STOLEN GARTEH...wastebanket of tornup a
dreams...A nickel before midnight buys our yesterdays. 7“)

 

 

W

73) John has Passes, Manhattan Transfer, 43.
73) Ibid., 257.

75

Here the reader, his imagination caught by the suggestion
of the power of a nickel in flew York, any himself sander
further on the track that Toe raesos Opens to him. Finally
they are thought-fragments from the author himself, an
outlet for Tos Passes. pent-up romantic, poetic sensibili-
ties. Such is the heading of (hepter III, Section three,
"Herolving more:n

Glosworm trains shuttle in the gleaming through
the foggy looms of epiderseb bridges, elevators
soar end drop in their shafts harbor lights wink.

Like esp at the first frost at five o'clock
men and women begin to drain gradually out of the
tall buildings downtown, grayfaced throngs flood
subways and tubes, vanish under ground.

All night the great buildings stand quiet and
empty, their million windows dark. Irooling
light the ferries chew tracks across the lacqured
harbor. At midnight the fourfunneled express
steamers slide into the dark out of their glory
berths. Bankers bleeryeyed from secret confer-
ences hear the hosting of the tugs as they are
let out of side doors by lightninghug watchmen;
they settle grunting into the back seats of
limousines, and are whisked uptown into the For-
ties, clinking streetsvgs cinshite whiskey—yellow
oiderfizzling lights.

The chapter titles too represent s second innoration.
Usually they use figures which are extended first in the
heading itself, then in the chapter. Thus in Chapter III,
Section one, the title Whollars" symbolizes the "lend of

opportoonity", as well as the aim of the two important

A _. __ “A

74) John Doe Passes, Honhettcn Transfer, 280.

76

characters of the chapter. George Baldwin and Ellen Thatcher.
In the same we: "Revolving Boers" ie on image which charac-
terizee the rush and animation of a big city: first :08
Paeeoe extends this image in the heading of this chapter
then in the chapter itself. Sole others, similar to the
song fragment titlee of pepular tunee are repeated several

times in the following chapter.

Another innovation of Ice Peeeoe ~~ one which be-
came one of the three epeeiel techniques of U.8.A. ..
in the use of headlines and newereele, by which he gives
historical significance and perspective to hie work by
dating the background.' Outeide of thoee already mentioned
there ere none othere of little importance,

AFHITS EILLIHG CRIPPLED MOTHER

Nathan Sibbette. fourteen yeare old. broke

down today after two weeks of steady denial of

guilt and confeeeed to the police that he wee

responsible for the death of his aged and cripa

pled mother, Hannah Sibbette, after a quarrel

inftheir home at Jacob's creek. six miles above

this city. Tonight be we: oomggtted to await

the action.of the Grand Jury.

cox? ACTORS PLAN LOCKOUT T0 Answzn BUILTEES' STRIKE 7"
It in through these headlines that the reader is able to

date events and to follow, more or lees chronologically. the

1

ill

75) John.Doe Peeeoe, Hnnhettpn Transfer. 13.
76) gbla.. 173.

'77

stream of the story.

Thus hos Eassoe succeeds. by means of these techniques,
in conveying the impression of seciel and moral chaos. He
has adapted his manner to the theme of his book. Hie tech-
nique "underlines the discontinuity in the psychic life of
the characters", and gives us "the sense of individuals
made up of separate and unrelated moments.“ 77) A collect-
ivist writer. hoe Benson is no longer interested in the per-
trait of single individuals; no longer is he interested
in the contents of society. but with the structure itself.
"the social nexus which the collectivist is seeking." 78)
But paradoxically enough, "the social nexus is Just what
is lacking." 79) Though the characters are peeple of the
same city, who daily meet one another, yet for the "social
nexus Linding man to man -- affection, gratitude, obligation,
eooyerntion -. this is nowhere to be seen. It is every men
for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” 80’ Thus,.
by its manner of presentation. the book suggests a flsociety

organised on individualistic lines“, 81) which means that

 

77’ J. warren Bench. Americnaniotion, 1920-1940, 44.
79) 53:33.. 41.
79) $333.. 42.
30) £33., 42
81) 3233.. 42.

in.tnct it is not organized at ell.

In style the author has gone far beyond his earlier
books. In_§nnhstten Transfer, he has surprcssed himself
in an effort to obtain the intimacy and immediacy necessary
to s collectivist novel. The author is no longer the eye
of the render. He unveils the facts to the reader, who
looks directly for himself. Toe Passes is s realist, --

a statement already made in relation to Three Soldiers --
who wishes to present “the panorama, the sense, the smell.
the sound. the soul of New Yerk." 83) He was working out
"a kind of deggcrel style, full of the elsngy rhythms,” 9‘)
that he had picked up in his wanderings through the dash»
inc, dirtycity in which he had teen living for more then
three years. Though the new techniques and style he used
corresponded to n similar change in his philosophy yet he
use indebted to other writers for some-of these innovations.
While in Paris. he know, through Gertrude Stein, bothe the
French Cubists and post war Impressionists. Generally
painters, they "chose to paints, not one landscape liter-

ally, but to pick and choose among the visual objects before

82) Sinclair Lewis, "hnnhsttnn,rrsnefer", Saturday Review
of Literature. 11 (Fecemher 6. 1925), .

83) Alfred xazin, Cn Native Grounds, 250.

79

then" 34) those which seemed to have the most importance
and which best characterized the whole. In the some way,
ice Esssos, intending to cntoh new York life, nicked out

n Score of peeple to typify the other millions.

On the whole. such techniques applied to such subject
matter, led Sinclair Lewis to say that nsnhettan Transfer
might "be the foundation or s whole new school of novel
writing." 35) Some years later the publication °I.HL§:£'
justified neson sede's Judgement that "he (5. Lewis) was
right and since toe Passes has gone ahead. He has become

the true leader or the school or proletarien novelists.“ 35)

2
Orient Exgrees

:grient Exgress, which appeared two years after hhnhattnn
Transfer, was a travel book in which ros Passes reported
on the post-war ferment in Eastern EurOpe. The book starts

with the arrival in Ostend or the narrator; we follow him

3" J. Warren.Beach. American Fictionhfilgzo—lgeo, 51.

85) Sinclair Lewis. "Manhattan Transfer". Seturdgz Review
of literature. 11 (Teconber 5‘ 1935), c .
i
86) Mason Wade. "Rovelist of America: J. 203 Pessos",
Rorth American Eerieg, CFXLIV (December, 1937), 257.

80

through Russia. Turkey. Persia until he returns to France
through French Horth Africa.

Apparent throughout the whole book is the constant
synpnthy the author expresses for the lower classes, the
defeated and frustrated "little peeple" of the countries
he visits. He looks with pity at

the long lines of ragged people waiting for
visas for their passports and the blue eyes of
Russians, blue as the sky in sngged teller
feces; Eussinns standing at every corner.
selling papers and keepie dolls. cigarettes,
sugar-buns, poet-cards, paper flowers, Jump-
ing-decks and Jewellery; end the longanosec
Armenians sitting on squares of matting in the
courtyards of fallingudown palaces. and the
Turks from Encedonie sitting quiet under trees
round the mosquees in Stanboul, end the Greek
refugees and the Jewish refugees and the char-
red streets of burntuout banners; and late one
night tgs)one-legged men sobbing into his knotted
hands.

Sympathetically he looks st those dispossessed, those ”who

limp hungrily along the rough-paved streets. never look

in the windows of the speculators' shape, never step to

look enviously at the objects that perhaps they once owned." 88)
When he crosses the desert of Damascus with a crowd of

poor rurks. Arabs and Armenians he is very pleased with the
company and "does not care if it takes up n thousand years

87) J. Dos Passes, prient 3523333, 35.

33) gig... 40.

81

to get to Pemescus." 89) Though he ran out of cigarettes,
"these fine people.nsver let his stir abroad without ssokn’
ing." 90) They are all fine people. and it is with great
displeasure that finally he finds himself once more in
contact with so-cslled civilizations Contrasting the simple
honesty of the life of the submerged classes he has left
behind when he returns to society, he says: ‘

Tables. two rows of green white Joule (comma on
s'ennuie) munching razor-scrapped Jaws face the
catsup bottles, pickles-pots; collars constrict.
the reins on flabby necks; knives and forks thu-
kle with.little zig-zng acetylene glints (dens
ee eels pays). Eyes in side glances (comma an
e'ennuie) purse minds in tight (dens as sale
pays) like clesps on the mouth.of pocket books.

And yesterday

I rode a grey stallion

into the first olive garden

and day before yesterday

squatted in the full wind

I ate dates fried in ghee

at the right hand of Jason er Eewwef
in the red cave of firelight,

and watched Bassoon staunch the blood
from his cut foot in hot enters

and leaned my back on the halo

of stingy yellow persien tobacco

eyes gushed by the sharp-scented smoke
legs prieked by the sharp desert flints.
and listened to Saleh

teach his frail song

of parched Hosein and Kerbels

to slenderbseisted Ali

whose well.when selling and calling

 

39) J. Dos Passes, Orientgxz rose, 165.
90) lbid., 168.

he 186 back to camp the forty two camels
use n procession of hinge returning darkly
carved on a mountain

in.triunph

and wondered

watching the barbed flames of wornnood
why Huwnnf rode off that day

on his great white-bearded dromndnry
without eating breed

curly-bearded Nuwwnf

wind lover. cunning in the four directions
who when he laughed brandishe steel

out of lohl-blsckened eyes. 9

Through all the book. the main interest of 30s Passes

is hussin. as it was natural to expect after the protest

of Manhattan Transfer. has it not iussin who first was

attempting t change the old order of things? has it not

in this country that for the first time an effort one made

to rehabilitate the dispossessed? Hots the Russian soldiers

he set during his wanderings, end his contrast between their

poor appearance and their high spirit.

They are men.of all ages and conditions. nost-
ly with dense shite northern shine and fair
close-cropped hair. all with n drawn hungry
look about the cheek-bone and s veiled shudder
of pain in their eyes,

in their cramped quarters they played and wrestled
and rolled each other about, big. clumsy, tos-
heeded men in dirty tunics belted tight at the
‘ilist. They throw each other down with great

91) J. Dos Passes, Orient Express. 186.
92) um, 15. '

CD
(A

hesrulike seats, pick each other up, laughing

as if nothing could hurt them, kiss and start

sparring again. They are ragtless, like chil-

dren kept in after school. “

Chapter 17. “Bed Caucasus“, which deals more particu»
lsrly with the Journeys through Russia, shows Toe Fessos'
interest in that nation. First he is concerned with
Russia's new educational system and its enghesis on pree-
ticsl education:

Everything they must learn.by touch....

For in our republic every man must be

able to attend to his wants himself, 94)

So too in primary education, for

it is in the little children that all
our hepe lies.... 5

or again in the value or work.

because merit will be according towwork
not by theories or examinations.

while ereryshere else there are differences in class.
here in.Ruseis there is no longer rich man and poor men,
because;

that wind which would blow our cities clean

of the things that are our gods, the knickp
knocks and the scraps of engraved paper and

 

98) 3. Des Passos.fl9rient_212iesso E5.
94) are... 45. ' i
95) 933., 4a.
96)_12_1£.. 45.

84

the vases and the curtain rode, the fussy

Junk possession or which divides poor man
from rich nun. the shoddy manufactured

goods that are all our civilization prizes,
that we wear our hands and brains out work-
ing for: so that from being an erect naked
biped, men has become a sort or hermit crab
that can't live without a dense conglomerate
shell or dinner-Jackets and limousines and
percoletors and cigar-store coupons and egg-
heaters and sewing machines. so that the denser
his shell. the feebler his selrsurficience.
the more he is regarded a great men and s nil-
lionneire. That wind has blown Russia clean.
so th't the Things held divine a few years

ago are mouldering rubbish in old corners. 97)

Thus Russians have put an end to their enslavenent. They
have "broken the tyranny of things." 98) There is the
reasOn.or Dos Passos' sympathy for this country; in Egg:
batten;Trnnsfer. he had protested against money. the syn-
bol or possession, therefore it was natural that he should
turn his eyes tossrds hussie where the value of nosey was
challenged. However. roe Passes, who is attending the
birth of the Great Red Colossus, is curiously cautious,
for the country is resting, "it's nee the ltll after the
right“. 99) and though he is unconsciously attracted by
the young giant which slowly arises from the ashes of the
old. he seems eftsid of s new failure:

97) J. res Basses. Orient Ex rose. 55.

98) rm" so.

991%., 5.

85

Will the result he the ssne old piling up
or miseries again. or a faith and s lot of
words like Islam or Christianity, Or will
it be something impossible. new. unthought
or. a life here and vigorous without being
save e. a life naked and godless where goods
and nstitutions will be broken to fit non,
instead of men being ground dosn.ié33 and
sifted in.the service 0: Things?

Thus, “watching the earliest stirring: at the utopisn in-
tent.‘Dos Passes ie hesitant." 101) he find in the book
some peeple who are suspicious of the hussicn experiment,
and ot the violence that accompanied it. Thus is the Ger-
man Hadesoisolle whose "troubles began" 103) shen.she case
to Russia. In the same way the inclusion or the murder of
the envoy of iserhsidjsn by e Iolshevik spy, recounted Uithn
out any comment, attests to Dos Passes! cautiousness. F1-
nslly it is interesting to note also in pert IV’OI the
first chapter. ”Assassination", the letter of protest from
the wits or the murdered Bekhoud Dievsnohir khan. addressed
to the Presse du 501::

"...I the undersigned. his wife, or hussiun

origin, trust to your kindness for the publica-

tion of certain rects which will put on end,

I hope. to the false rumors that are attains-

ing the dead man's good name...

March. 1918. The wreck of the Russian.erny
crawling back from the Eurkish front. At Baku

 

100) :0 no. P888080 Orient E1 r883. 55.

101) Maxwell Ceisnsr. Writers in crisis, 105.

102) Ja‘Dos Passes. Orient_E%2£22§! 68'

86

the power is in the hands of Armenians who
have adapted the Bolshevist platform. By
order of no one knows who, according to s
prearranged plan, there is organised a mass-
acre of the Mhslim pepulation...

They were tracking my hush nd; his name
sas on the list of the prescribed. By s sira
scle he escaped... honths phoned. Poser changa
ed hands, and my husband was cllled to the
post of Einister of the Interior in the first
Azerbaidjan Cabinet. Turkish detachments
draw near to Baku and again, before they reach
the town, the bloody happenings of September
are unrolled. It was the terrible reply of
the huslins to the March massacres.

Hy husband hastens to Baku, to put an end
to these riots, but by the tine he arrives,
the wave of national hatred has sutsisted.
National hate gives say to class hate; the
Bolshevi aspire towards power and the local
pepulation. tired of national and religious
strife, see in the Leda a neutral force.

In the beginning of 1920. the bolshevi
have control and start settling their scores
with the representatives of the national part-
ies. We are driven out of our house;... my
husband is arrested by the extraordinary eclp
mission and sentenced to death. But the part-
icular conditions in.Bsku and his great influp
ence oblige the Soviet posers to free him...
They refuse to let his leave the country, know-
ing that he is a mining engineer and one of the
best specialists of the naphtha industry. Fate
itself reserves for his the role of 'spec'. He
is offered a post in.the commissariat of foreign
affairs which offers possibilities of a foreign
mission.

my husband accepts and sometime afterwards we
leave for ConstantinOple. Here death awaited his:
an.essassin's hand ended the life of my husband
whose only crime was to love above all things
his,people and his country. to which he had cons!-
crated his studies, his work and all his life." 05)

This letter. which attacks the Soviets indirectly but clearly.

_._._. _._ M _. __‘ __._;

103’ J. Dos rsssos,_prient Ingress, 18.‘

87

seems to be the precursor of s letter Ios Uasses himself
wrote ten years later. During the Spanish Civil War, which
opposed Communism to Fascism, roe Passos' Spanish transla-
tor, Jose Robles Pesos was executed. To defend his mem»
cry and to destroy certain procommunistic attempts to Jus-
ti’fy his murder, Ios Passes addressed a letter to the 52.!
Republic.

”When Franco's revolt broke out, he (Pesos)
stayed in Spain though he had ample Opport-
unity to leave. because he felt it his duty
to work for the }:epublican cause... He was
executed in.193?...

The 'fascist-spy' theory seems to be the
fabrication of romantic American Communist
sympathisers... It's only too likely that
Fables, like many othe s who were conscious of
their own sincerity of purposes laid himself
open to e freneaup. My impression is that
the frame-up in.this case was pushed to the
point of execution because Russian secret
agents felt that nobles knee too much about
the relations between the Spanish dnr Hiale-
try and the Kremlin and wasn't from their
very 89°01aio£31nt of View. politically
reliable.

So. Orient Esprees did not really record the conversion
of’Doe Passes to Russian Socialism. In fact. wandering
through a country which has destroyed the power of money

he see as the rogt_gf evil in Manhattan Transfer, we

 

should expect that he might find some sympathy with Russian
I
‘.

 

V— wfi

104) J. Dec Passes, "The Teeth of Jose FLOblee Pesos.“ use

Re ublic, 1:11 (1939). 309.

88

aims. But in the and his interest in Russia aeoms more
the result or his earlier revolt "against the entire frame-
work of western hoterialisa.and the property it glorifiea.“ 105)

A8 ln.£oeinnnte to the Rona Again Loo Passes had col-
ored his thinking w.th_a Spanlah poet. P10 BaroJa, here
another Blaine Condrara, seems to influence his ideas
and the exproaelon.0r then. In the last page: or his book
ho annlyeea Condrara' poems. feeling a kinship or thought
with this "international Vagabond". 10‘) Following his
lead, Don Passes too was still scorching for those pr1m1*
tive lands, the earthly paradioos, those unknown places not
yet tainted by the perverting civilization.

Thus Ioa Pnsoos analyses Cendrora, who tried "to ovoko
the things that are_our cruel and avonglng coda. Turblnoo.
triple~a1panalon engines. dynamite, high-tenaion.coilu.
navigation, speed. flight, annihilation". 10" Don Paaaoa
had tried too to make men conscious or their enélavement
to things. There 16 no doubt,

11 there war. not so many gods, steel gods.
gods of uranium and manganese, living gods....

A _4__

10o) uhxwell ceiomor, writers In Crlolg. 105.
1065 Ibldg, 105.
107) J. Dos Passes, cgieni a: rose, 201.

89

red gods of famine and revolution. old gods
laid up in libraries, planter divinitiee col—
oured to imitate coral et Eleni. spouting oil.
gods at Tulsa, Chlan, we too might be able to
eit.on.onr'proyerooerpetg in the white unchang-
able sunshine of Islam. 03

In America
they're selling happiness in acre lots in Florida.
80 we must run across the continent always deteanp
ed by the grind of wheels, by the roar of eeroa
plane motors, wallow in all the acne with the smell

ot.hot oil in our noetible one the throh of the
engines in our blood.

But with all this

we get what? Certainly not peace. That in

why in this age of giant machines and scuttle-

headed E333 it is a good thing to have a little

£51161 Ge _ , ‘
Thie ie the function or the ertiet in this world of machines,
to find peace. This who shot Cendrere attempted, and this

is why Doe Paeeon finds him a spiritual brother.

There is not much to nag about the book's style --
it is in the tradition of £08 Eoesoe‘ preceding volumes.
However. it is interesting to note that in Orient Ex reee.
Doe Paeooe has given free course to hie humor. mnling this
book one or his gayest. the narrative is told in e pleasant
103) Maxwell Geiemer. Writereégn Crisis, 203.
109) John Doe Passes, Orient Express. 204.
110) gm" 204.

90

way. and eonethnee, Doe Passes. customer: bitterness gives

fee: to such passages:

There were peeple on eVer: epeek.ot the root.
peeple hanging in clusters from all the doors.
people on the coal in the coal tender, people

on the engine; from every window, protruded

legs or peeple trying to wriggle in. Those elree
already on bocrd tried to barricade themselves
in.the compartments and Iithseurprieing gentlenne
tried to puehlihe neeueonere out of the win»

done again. _

or.

In.the crouded compartment where people had
taken or: their boots and laid their heede on
each other'e shoulders to sleep. hordes of bed-
bnge had some out or the stripped seats and
hunks. marching in columns of three or tour.
I811 disciplined and eager. I had already put
a newspaper down and sprinkled insect powder
in the corner of the upper berth in.thieh.1

nee hemmed by a solid uses or sleepers. The
bedbuge take the insect powder like snort and
found it very stimulating, but it got into my
nose and burned. and into my eyes and blinded
me. got into my throat and choked me. until

the only thing for it use to clilb into the
baggage rock, which fortunately is very large
and strong in the Brobdingnsgien.hueeien trains.
There. I hung aten only by the more acrobatic
ot the hugs. the rail cutting into u: back, the
insect powder poisoning every breath. tryi to
note nyeelt biiixve that e roving life one he
lite for no.

- . A . _‘ .4 .4-..

111’ John Doe Pfll3085 Orient ggprees. 465
113) nun" es.

91

3
On the Edge of U.S.A.

During this period or traneition.hoe reeeoe. besides
hie novels. wrote two plays, ghe Garbage Hrn, 1926, end
gireqze Inc.. 1928. In the introcuction to his plays,
"Why Write for the Theatre Anyway", he explains his incur-
cion into the field of cremation. an incursion w}mi<h eel

not at all foreehnéowed in his hooks up to that hate. First

he attacks in traditional Opera. an

en entediluvihn European survival handed down
from fine oldtime anobocrecy cf the nineties,
an institution like Thanksgiving dinners, that
people heap up for trediticn'e own)eake. with.

out being able to explain why. 11

and he adds,

It certainly would be hard to figure Just what
relation the goingeon on the etage at the He-
trepoliten or any other opeiahouee. have to
lifo in thO UeSe‘e in thB Igiffl decade 0f the
bloody twentieth century.

1e this not typical of the collectiviet or hhnhettnn
grenetert Up to now. the myth or the American.theatre -
Erery theatre. (he says). has at any given.ec-

nent a basic myth that lives iilthe subconsciene
tenteieiee of the audience -

)

___

113) John‘Doe Paeeoe, Three Plaza, :11-
llt) 1b1d., xiii.

92

is en image of the actual philosophy of life in the country.
namely:

It's a boy and girl love song under the cheese»
cloth apple blossoms, and the boy's Just node n
million dollars, and they achieve Succeee, that
mystic tabloid crown that hovers oiir the bright
lights and elyeigne or thhetten. 5)

when the American nose myth changes,

than we will need a theatre that will be e co-
heeive social force. something like the Abbey
Theatre or the Theatre of the Revolution in
Roscoe. e permcncnt.nonpspeculstive organize.
tion to put on plays which will orpress the
aide of the American mess myth that the muse
ical comedies leave out. thrt will express it
as vividly and directly as the musical comedies
do and have as much entertainment value, too,
as much stimulation and release by music, iglgr.
movement. laughter, a lump in the throat.

Actually. with the excessive industrielisn. America it in
process or sudden and dangerous transition; the actual In:
or life “is turning e corner and is either going to make
the curve or smash up in the ditch". 113’ Thus.
it s new order ie to be built in the shell of
the old. every possible means must be used to
formulate, explain. Juetity. 119
Here is the answer to hoe feesoe' question; the theatre,

which has eleuye been e mass art, must be used by the poet
to criticize ectunl life, to show what it is and whet it

A444;

"—F

115) John has Passes. three Plays, xix.
117).§E$930 xx.
118) éEééro xx.
119)‘12é£:’ xx.

f

.Iight become it nothing is done. The Theatre must be e
moons of enlightening the masses, or making them self-eon»
'scious, end of Opening their eyes to the.reelity. This
purpose, so clearly stated in the previously mentioned lines,

is characteristic of the change that occurs in Des Pessos'
philonPhy.

In the first of these plays. The Garbcgs Mun. Dos
Passes retraces and summarizes the entire development or
his views. This play more particularly illustrates the
Judgement of Ceismerk who says of Dos Pessos' plays. "the:
are a sort or kaleidoscOpic record or his momentum". 130’
This play is cn.indictment against capitalism and bourgeois
mentality. Tom. the hero. is en csthete who like Home.
in One man’s Initiation or Andrews in Three Soldiers, eta
temptsto escape the current or the so¢celled civilization.
Jane. the other protagonist. after e materially success-
ful phase in the world of money, returns to him and his
escapism in order to find again her own personality and
the simple pleasures of life. In.the first scene th-
reader is acquainted.eith Tom and June who are in.love
with each other. Tom, a later reproduction or Dos Pessoe'

earlier heroes, does not sent to return to the flood of

120) thwell Geisshr. Writers In Crisis, 106.

94

civilisation, "on, let’s not eger go home. Let's be
always like this". 121) On the other hand, it ie difu
ricult for Jane to escape her traditional way or life and
her poet. here eymbolized by her mother. when back home,
Jone finds her mother dying; the situation becomes differ—
ent. These first two scenes correepond to the presentaa
tion of the characters and the situation or the classical
plays. How the climax is reached. In love with Jane.
To: tries to persuade her of their one ohance:

But you are coming with ue new. aren't you?

Before all theee aunts and uncles that waddle

like buzzarde round the dead get hold of you.

It's our one chance. If we wait we won't have

the courage. And we'll be like them. 132)
tired. Jane finally consents and follows hiuu 1n.the
next scene, the trein.ehich carriee them toward Chicago
where “their livee e111 begin"; 133) is etOpped by a wreck»
ed train ahead or it. Soon, the lack.or will or Tom - "You're
eoft ren, you're soft". 134) - added to the increasing'money-
grabbing ambition of Jane 4. she wants nto sit in smoking
care and tell stories about when one was poor". 125) .. brings
121) John.Doe Paesoe. Three Plug}, The Garbage man, 5.
122’ _z______b1a.. 15.
133) 933.. 28.
13“ 3333. so. ,
125’ £333.. :54.

Ar?" 1' "w

95

.her to the realization that she is doing the wrong thing.
Therefore, when the track is clear. it is only she thvt
the train brings to Chicago. Thus, at the end of part one.
each one or the main characters has gone in a different
direction. to reappear in.part two, some years later. Jane
has successfully reached the heights of the sodiel scale,
and now she ”could sign up a contract for five hundred
dollars a reel any time she wanted to". 126) Ton. on the
contrary, as to be expected or such a character. when we
know the preceding books of Dos_Paeeoe,

has been places and had Jobs and thrown the:

up. and has had friends and qunrreled with them,

and has made love to pretty women and their love

has crumbled like ash igvhis arms. Nothing has

turned out very well.
Hhsevcr, though she has success, Jane does not know happi-
ness. conscious or her enslavement, now a movie star, she

? is helpless, tied down in.the mesh or all this

business and these lies. they have got me hob-

bled. Tom. and gagged and they've put blinders

on me. I'm only Just beginningato see you clear

ngahn end I'm so frightened.
Once more she changes her mind and asks Ton.to take her on
the right way. The great psrnde for Prosperity Day com-

pletes her self-consciousness. "They're marching on us.

.4 A... ‘_.__n

135’ John.nos Passes, Three Plgzg, The Garbage ERR. 52-
137) Ibid., 52.
128) Ibidc, 51.

96

Pull me out of the way," 39) she says to Tom; and finally
when he takes her away she excleine

the creaking merrygoround or our lives has

started again. Ton. We're on the wooden

horse tagether. The old steam piano is

wheezing out its tune and the mine painted

ladies are all heating time. Foster and rest-

er. Tom. Ahead of us the dragon, behind us

the pink pig. Feel the ecldair. Egghing but

the whirl of space in our faces. v )

As it appears throughout the whole book. Tom is cer-
tainly the sheet unhappy and uncertain of all these un-
happy and uncertain rebels", 131) who constitute the ear-
lier heroes or foe Passos. It is partly on account of Tom's
inconsistency in his opposition to a kind or life for
which he knew he was not fitted. that Jane had refused to
follow him. Unable to give her at least a part or this
assurance necessary to any character except the romantic
dreamers of his kind, he loses her. he she svys to him,
he has forgotten "thot and how the moon would mean not
not dream hiss. 132’ Last born of Des Paesos' aesthetes,
there is concentrated in him the various steps of Ice
Passos' philosoyhical growth. On the whole. Ton "aims
the arrows of his wrath at three Oppressive forces, and
129) John Doe Passes. Three Plgig.‘$he Garbage Knn. 66.
130) Ibid., 74.

131) Enxeell Geismer. Writers In Crisis, 106.

132) John.DOl Passes, Three Plgfig. The Garbage has, 68.

the second of these forces itself is an indication of Doe

Pessos‘ growth". 13:)

First. as a Harvard eesthete he Opposes a hostile
spirit in life. his own romantic and naturally ideelistic
views or life find no parallel with the vulgarity and met-
erielisn or which he is the spectator, and he could say:

When 1 was a little kid

and they'd sent me to bed and it was still bright

I used to sit shaking

on the edge or the bed listening to the shuffling rest
and thought has the moon

like a gong hung shove the esghnlt shuffling street
and wished

I could climb the F ntiron or Jack's bennstslk
through the lq4)
terrible twilight and clench my fists and best one ”

New and again he likes to dream:

See that purple cloud shove the sunset? To

swing in that cloud like in.s hammock. to

climb those shiny smoothrsced buildings like

greased poles, to make s song out of the rhythm

or dynamos and the trsmp of workpeeple's feet,

to soar on it till you danced n douLle shuffle

on the tallest building's lightning rods, best 0
out ragtime on the roaring gong of the full moon. 105)

But soon.the present say of living brings him back to

crude reality. Jane, too, is aware of this innate hostili-
ty of life. They both Ieel that life itself is against
them, Both reflecting the same detention of the post-war

 

133) Maxwell Geisnsr, Writers In Crisis, 106.
134) John Doe Passes.‘ghree rla'fi. Th9 Garbage HER. 5-
135’ Ibid.. 58.

97

98

generation, the some defentism that sgpenrod in Three
Soldiers or One man's Initiation. Thus Tom character-
ises Dos Passos' first position. the philonph3*ot the young

graduate of Harvard.

Tom's second protest is directed against the respects
able contentions or middle class incricen_lite. On this
point has Pessos' attitude cannot be doubted when the reed-
er sees the say he setirises the conventional nourntul
ceremonies in scene three:

You'll receive the peoyle Jens. They'll begin

coming soon. Cn.the nnntelpiece I hleft you a

list or those who sent tlosers. hz§?r£.

wreaths are marked with e cross...

You know I'm your cousin Amelie Burns. I thought

I'd come ear ”93 that we could have s good or;

tagether ..c ’

Besides these two oppressive forces that the reader
has found tally explained end illustrated in the books of
DO! Passos' first phase, we find too, the forts of hsnhetten
grasster, the presence of the third crushing force. “the
manners and ethics or the machine ego".133) So. in the

first scene, when Jens end Ton share their hsppinsss.

136) John.ros Passes. Three Plaza, ghe C93§a€° Men. 14.
13") 112m... 15.,“
138) Harwell/Gusher, writersin grisis, 106.

99

“the long rattle of n snaredrum .... the sounds of engines," 139)

frightens them. For Tom. the gnrpose of this noise is clear.

"they don't Want us to be happy. They want us to be shovel-

ing coal. pounding typewriters, filling greasecups." 140)

The mechanized civilization in which they live has made

slaves or them:

139)
140)

Emery dug they're tied tighter in.ticker ribbon
and typewriter ribbon till they can't move, till
they don't have time to look at the moon though
a dime'e cheap at that for the use of a highpo-
ser telescoye. And they don't have time to look
at each other or in women's eyes and they've
ground their lives little like sausage meet and
crushed their lives in stone crushers end clenked
'em out into smudgy black picnyune letters in
printing presses.

In all the offices there are red-Vernished
desks and yellow-varnished desks and typewriters
clucking and chirruping like canary-birds and all
day the grey ash droys from the cigars of Int men
in snivwel chairs and tickers roll out fours and
sights and dollars signs and ciphers, reeling out
millions that don't exist.

In all the houses, in apartments like shoe-
bozee. women in sncques and old pink kimonos, so-
men in.yellow stained agrees with curlpnpcre in
their heir that's henna rod end peroxide yellow
sweep up dust. and int men and tell men and lean
men.and short men wear out their lives rubbing their
pants on swivel chairs.

And the tickers wear out their cogs ticking
millions that don't exist, {our and eight and
dollar signs and ciphers and the women 86869 up
dust and redden their lips.

ind time slips through among the garbage cans
in the canyon streets.

Time is a great snake writhing through grey

A l A

1

John Doe Passes. Three Pings, The Garbage Men, 4.
lbid.. 4.

100

etreete. wearing away angles of stone eornlces
wearing ornaments of: marble-faced sepulchere
veering away the corners of the staring oblong
windows of brownstonee houses. Time 13 a grey
nah dropf1n§ from the soul or fat men in swivel
chairs. 41

A8 a result of this over-industrialization, the money-
grobbing attitude that was entirlzea 1n hmnhnttnn Transfer
13 apparent in The Garbage Enn. It 18 illustrated by "The
Fat Eon” of scene four. The accident which stops the train
makes hln.engry and he says:

I'll mien my oonnectione in Chicago. That's

hell to pay 00.

Young men he epeeke to Tom don't you appre-

ciate the value of time? Every hour I'm late in

Milwaukee will mean e thousand dollars to me

more or lees. I'll be ruinefi if we don’t get in

before noon. I stand to loose eight hundred

thousand dollars through the carelessness or a

miserable trnckwnlker on.

Love is cheap. You can buy it enJWhere.

Lives are cheap. It's money that's dear. You

have to work days aid git up nights to think

how to make money. 43

Thus in this first play, all the successive attitudes
of too 2eeeoe toward eociel questions are simultaneously
preeented to the render. As one said, "in his play. 308
Peeeoa has attempted to compress into two note the coup
tents o: ten.yeare' trial". 143)
141) John.Doe Paeeoe, Three Blgzg, ghe Garbage men, 46.
142) John.Doe Pneeoe, Three 31323, The Garbage Man. 29.

143) Kennell Geiamer. Writere In Crisis. 106.

101

In the second or these plays, 303 Pessos exhibits
more clearly his increasing interest in protest against
the society he and his heroes cannot tolerate. The Sacco
Venzetti case left a deep impression on the mind of the
author of U.S.A.. and it is evident that in Airways Inc.,
Dos Passos intended to honor the memory of these two martyrs

of modern society.

Host of the action occurs in s suburb of on industrial
city; the foreground of the stage is occupied by the Tur-
ner's house, while in the background the spectator

has the suggestion or the tall chimneys and

windows of a power plentlggd the square shapes

of millbuilding beyond.

Around this little suburban street-corner, Dos Pessos
assembles representatives of the groups and classes which
go to make up our society. As in Manhattan Transfer, he
succeeds in producing the illusion thnt behind the life or
this small of the city, lies all the life and confusion of

America itself.

The hero of the play is a labor organizer, Walter Gold-
berg. and for the most part, the action concerns the failure
of his attempts to ameliorate the conditions of the working

class. The Turner family provides most or the other pro-

.1

 

144) John‘Dos Passos, Three Pings, Airwgys Inc., 81.

lOE

tagonists. Claude, the eldest of Cyrus Turner's four chil-
dren, is a bachelor of thirty—five of whom Ice lessee says:

Fifteen years of whitecollar slavery have taken

all the Joy out of him and left in its place a

sort of sneering timid seltrighteousness. )
A slave, conscious of his enslavement, he is afraid to do
anything to improve his position; like Fuselli in Three
Soldiers, he seems to be afraid to get himself in wrong.
So, he Opposes bitterly the conduct of his sister Eartha,
whose love for halter Goldberg can bring trouble on the whole
family:

this business is likely to get the whole bunch

of us in wrong. I'm liable to lose my Job on

account of it. You know the way a big bank is. 145)

Elmer Turner, the second son is twenty six and

he has not yet understood that it is his boyish

helplessness and immaturity in everything not

directly pertaining to gasoline motors that

endears him so to his sisters and brothers and

everybody he meets. He's the lucky member or

the Turner fimily, the only one who has

made good. *
Unconsciously he is on the side of the moneyagrubbers, and
he follows them in their rush toward riches. Hewever,
toward the end of the play, when an accident paralyzes him,

he realizes how the capitalists have made profit of his name

 

145) John has Passes, Three Plays, Airways Inc., 86.
145) Ibid., 117.
147) Ibid., 90.

102

and fame to reach their purposes; now that he is no longer

useful, they neglect him.

Eddy Turner, the youngest, has many of the traits of
Dos Paseos' earlier heroes. Yet by the end of the play,
his powerful ambition has won out over his defeatism, and
he seems to be travelling on the same road as his elder

brother Claude, toward capitalistic slavery.

Hany other characters complete the cast. Among them
it is necessary to note Jonathan P. Davis, a realtor and
promoter of the type of G. Baldwin or Gus hbhiel in.Eanhat-
tan Transfer. Like them, he knows how to take advantage
of conditions; ambitious, he skillfully exploits the young
and ineXperienced Elmer, and through him he reaches success.
Associated with him is use Peteet, Elmer's girl friend at
the beginning of the play. When his accident robs Elmer
of his potential economic value, has abandons him and mar-
ries Davis. Then, there are Cyrus Turner and The Professor,
two old men entirely unable to accept the necessities of
the new era. The former, in order to free his family of
the burden he feels he is, commits suicide. The latter is

driven insane by his maledjustments to society.

Colum in a criticism of Airways Inc. says "it should

 

be a tragedy but it works out as a series of disasters". 148)

 

148’ Padrais Colum, fiAirwa 8 Inc.: criticism", Dial, L111?!
(May. 1929), 44z—L_. ---

10

The first of these disasters is the suicide of Turner in
the first act. Then, in the second act, Elmer has an ac-
cident shile pouring leaflets from an airplane, to scatter
the strikers who are celebrating a walk out. Finally,
and this is the disaster emphasized by Ice Passos, Halter
Galdberg, the agitator, accused of murder, is electrocuted
despite all the attempts to save him -- an echo of the Sacco-
Yanzetti case in which Dos Passes had been closely interested.
During the strikers' demonstration, the assassination of
one of the police, Patrolman Flynn, results in the arrest
of Goldberg, who, as the leader of the strike isimmediately
suspected. In.fact, as he was convinced of the innocence
of Sacco and Venzetti, Dos Pessos convinces the reader of
the innocence of Goldberg. First, he is the only charac-
ter no the play who is portrayed sympathetically. Gold-
berg is a very peaceful worker who thought to ameliorate
the conditions of his fellow-workers through organisation
and the strike. He says; "It's not charity we want, but
a sane arrangment of society”. 149) Far from being an
anarchist, Goldberg is unalterebly Opposed at the use of
force; on the contrary, he advises the strikers not to op-
pose the police who attempt to break up the demonstration:
All right comrades ... Ho use having a fight ...

h _.. hill A

1‘9)John‘Dos Passes, rhree P1323. Airways Ind., 93-

105

Walk away slowly. 150)

An' tell everybody you see for God's sake to be
orderly. Don't gigs the cops any excuse to
beat up anybody. )
Des Passes presents the facts of the case in such a way
that it appears clearly that the policeman's murder was
a plot, engineered by FThe Interests" to annihilate Goldberg.
Before it happened he was searched by the police:
they're after me for inciting to riot and sedition. 152)
Bay Walter, they're looking everywhere for you.
They Just raided strike headquarters. Better
be cafggul. I think the bulls are looking for
YOUJ
When Goldberg is arrested later, and a gun is found on
him, the reader is made to feel like Elmer that, "it was
a. thug in the crowd that killed that cop n, 154) and that
Walter is sincere when he says to the sheriff, "one of your
dicks slipped it (the gun) in.my pocket". 155) is the two
Italians were accused some years before, Halter is said to

be a foreigner, intent on destroying American institutions:

 

150’ John has Passes, three P1323, Airways Inc., 95.
151) 322.21.: 120.
152) John.Dos Passes, three Playg. Airways Inc., 109.
153) 3333., 119.
154) £339, 143.
1255) m3... 1’29.

10

Friends, workers in the Hartshorn Kills. Foreign

hired agitators are trying to mislead you. Law

and orders is to the interest of all the citi-

zens. Law and order means prOSperity to all. 155)
The similarity is made clearer when 103 Passes adds, through
the medium of Eartha: '

The government has all the power. They won't

let the people speak, they won't let them dis—

tribute the leaflets, there's no free press ...

They're arresting peeple all over for trying

to parade or hold meetings. The Jail are full

of people who feel the way.we do toanight. 157)
It has already been mentioned thatDDos Passes himself was
one of those "peeple who feel the way we do to-night;"
like others he protested and like them he t 0 was sent
to Jail. moreover, the Dictionary of American Biography
noticed in reference to Vanzetti, "during his long imprison.

lent he wrote letters .... 158). Likewise, Goldberg wrote,

and it is evident that if the "statement he wants given.to
the press tomorrow morning"159) was read, it would be in

the words of Vanzetti:

 

156) John Doe Passes, Three Fla 3, Airwa 3 Inc., (After
their arrest, at least in rassacfiusetts.”a press can-
paign, which stressed the charge that Sacco and Vanzetti
were aliens and agitators, kept public hostility alive
until the trial. Agitatory socialist literature. it
was claimed was found in their possession. "Nicola Sacco,"
D.A.3., XVI, 279-280)

157) Ibid.. 154.
153) Silvester Gates. I'Hicola Sacco", D.A.B., XVI, 280.

159) John Doe Passes, Three Plays. Airways Inc., 151.

107

How we aren't a failure ... Never in our full

life could we hope to do such work for toler-

ance, for Justice, for man's understanding of

man, as we do by as accident ... That agony

is our triumph. 15 )
There is no doubt, Dos Passes was deeply impressed by shat
(he was sure) was a great injustice, and it is his eqn words
that he put in the mouth of The Professor when he says, "in

the name of humanity I protest“. 151)

To summarize, it is clear that in these plays Dos
Passes has come to two important conclusions, marking de-
finite changes in his attitude toward contemporary society.
On one hand, solution of Jimmy Herf in Manhattan Transfer -—
flight -- is no longer the solution of Des Passes! charac-
ters. The author has realized that the American chaos
can'be conquered. Apparent in Airways Inc., is the first
note of proletarian faith and action:

You haf slafed your life away in the bosses'

mills and your fadhers before you and your kids

after you yet. Vat is a man to do with seven,

teen-fifty a week? His wife must work nights

another ten, must work nights and cook and wash

in day and vatfor? So that the bosses can.get

rich an' the stockholders and bondholders. It

is too much ... Ve stood It before we were not
organized. How we have union ... We must all

 

150) Silvester Gates, "Eicola Sacco", D.A.B., XVI, 280.
151) John has Passes, Three Plays. Airways Inc-. 139-

108

stand tegether for union. 162)
The working class has new found a way to counteract the
capitalism; it can new show the Company ''that the worker
is the industry, not the boss". 165) It has understood
the value of union:

O-R-G-A-H-I-Z~E Spells organize

That's the way to concentrate our forces

That's the way to talk to greedy bosses

Strike hard for solidarity

We'll make them realize

That we stand hand in hand

And we get what we demand

80 organize - and fight. 164)
On the other hand, in Airways Inc. Dos Passes appears as
a social revelutionist. The Sacco-Vanzetti case forced
him to take nearly the last step toward the Left. Yet,
this is not to say that he has become a communist. There
is no doubt Les Passes appears in these plays to be absol-
utely Opposed to capitalism, nor can there be doubt th:t
he stands fully on the side of the workers. But in Airways
Inc. Des Passes did not go the full distance toward the Com-
munist Party, nor did he in his next major work U.S.l. He

never bridges the narrow gap; on the contrary his next

move is away from it.

 

153) John.Dos Passes, Three Playg, Airways Inc., 94.

 

 

163) Ibid., 123.
164) Ibid., 127.

109

Rightly enough, the play has been celled "a link between
the views or Kanhgttan Transfer and the views of U.S.A.u 155)
It would not be going to for to add that itlis, at least
in regard to the theories eXpressed, a concentration of 0.3.A.
A link it is as to the term; here the chapter headings of
flanhattan Transfer have become prose poems included in the
text, to be interpreted as thought fragments of the author
himself. Such is the prose poem,

Oh that are we striking for

Just to get a little more.

Many times we've struck before

Just to get a little more,

Oh a little more or that?

or the things we haven't got

Oh a little means a lot

or the things we haven't got. 166)

Hos Dos Passes is ready to write his masterpiece. He
has reached his final conclusions, his techniques are en.
tirely prepared, and as Maxwell Geismar said, "the period

of apprenticeship is over, new we stand on the edge or U.S.1."<157)

 

155’ Maxwell Geismar, Writers in Crisis, 105.
166) John Doe passes, Three Flags, Airwaie Inc., 122.
157) Maxwell Geismar, writers in Crisis, 108.

110

IV
THE ACE OF PROTEST

With U.S.A. first published in three parts, The 42nd
Parallel, (1930), Nineteen nineteen, (1932), The Big Money,

 

(1936), then in a single volume in 1937, Pos Passes reached
a new phase in his evolution. In the three volumes of this
trilOgy he widened the viewpoint of Hanhattan Transfer --
he looked at the whole country, and he intended to put it
on the stage. In the foreward Dos Passes suggests what he
has tried to do.. This "young man (who) walks fast by him»
self through the crowd that thins into the night streets," 1)
could have been.ros Passes himself, who has crossed the country
many times. First, in the mood of Whitman, the United States
appeared to him in the land over which he wandered from the
west to the Gulf and the Great Lakes and the East, but

it was not in the long walks through Jostling

crowds at night ... or in the training camp at

Allentown, or in the day on the docks at Seattle,

or in the empty reek of Washington City hot boy-

hood summer nights, or in the meal on Market

Street, or in the swim off the red rocks at San

Diego, or in the bed full of fleas in New Orleans,

or in the cold razorwind off the lake, or in the

gray faces trembling in the grind of gears in the

street under Michigan Avenue, or in the smokers of

limited express trains, or walking across country,

or riding up the dry mountain canyons, or the
night without a sleepingbag among frozen bear

J
r

1) JOhn 1’08 £88808. UoSeAe. Te

111

tracks in the Yellowstone, or canoeing Sundays on
the quinnipiac.

Then, in the mood of Srndburg, he heard America,

the tendrils of phrsased words, the turn of a
3ohe, the singscng fade of a story, the gruff
fall of a sentence; linkilg tenarils of Speech
twine through the city blocks, agreed over gave-
ments, grow out along broad Earned avenues,
Speed with the trucks saving on thcir long
night runs over roaring highways, whisper down
sandy byroads gast wornout farms, joining up
cities and fillingstations, roundhouses, stea;-
boats, planes graying along airwags; words call
out on mount in pastures, driit slow down rigers
widening to the sea and the hushefl beaches, a

and it is as such that he has been impressed, th t "mostly

U.S.A. is the Speech of the people". 4)

0n the whole, in this book, hos Passos characterizes
the country b5 means of two sets of represent'tive charac-
ters. On the one hand there ’re the fictitious characters
who carry the narrative and constitute the story itself; on
the other, and of equal imgortanue, SIC theactucl people,
those who are "historical figures who embniy he caving
forces behind American life and whose word-portraits are

in the n5TV053 St“cc‘t0. fifierififin Sseeeh of th author". 5)

 

2) JOhn.Kos PasSos, U.S.A., v. e
3) Ibid., v1.
4) Itid., vii.

L
5 I:
) Percy Boyntcn, America in ContémgOISIl JiCtiOfl, 190.

Throughout the three parts of the trilogy the :uthor
carries the story of those fictional characters among whom
a dozen are most importrnt. To define them more generally,
we can say with Boynton that "they are egocentric", and
see in their egocentricism tje basis of all their attitudes.

01 this dozen of characters, 308 rassos gives a consecu-
tive account, in fact,

in each case he gives a detailed biOgraphical

chronicle of the character featured so that we

have a complete case history .... everything

that might be required by a sociologist for

whom no detail is without significance and who

wants his file complete. 5

As in Manhattan Transfer there is no central plot or
dramatic intrigue; yet all the characters come to be assoc-

iated together “in tusiness or in love as front-page people

are likely to be in so small a world". 7)

The first character to appear in the trilogy is Fainy
McGreary, whose life is an endless conflict between "fight-
ing for the hard pressed and taking life easy". 3) Son

of a Connecticut worker, he went t live at his uncle's,

Tim C'Kflra.a1ter the death or his mother. There he

 

5) J. Warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940, 52.

7’ Ibid., 57. It is interesting to note the value or Do:
Fassos' U.S.A. as first rate piece of propaganda for l'(Jne
World*.. The conclusion, the reader can gain from it, is that
the world is very smallland that no one can live by hisselt.

3) Percy Boynton, America in.ContemEorary Fiction, 19.

llE

learned the work of a printer with his uncle, who worked

for the l:bor union, and who was instrumental in sthing

his nephew's attitude toward social revolt. his uncle went
benhrugt because of his entanglements with socialists and
strikers; the extent to which a friend of the worker was
discriminated against by society is suggested by Era. C'Hara's
comments on her husband's fate:

Didn't I (Hrs. O'Hara) tell you, Tim O'Hara, no
good'll ever come with your fiddlin' round with
these godless labor unions and social-democrats
and knights of labor; all of 'em drunk and loafin'
bums like yourself, TimO'Hara. Of course the
master printers ud have to get together and buy
up your outstandin' paper and squash you, and
serve you right too, Tim O'Hara, you and your
godless sccialistic boosin' ways only they might
have thought of your poor wife and her helpless
use babes, and now we'll starve all of us together. 9)

After his uncle's failure Mac went wandering in the North-
west, taking his education in the rough school or life.
Working at many different Jobs, he met socialists and labor
union men whose ideas strengthened in him the drift toward
radicalism awakened by his uncle. At this point he is un-
satisfied with the aimlessness of his life:

I feel like hell ... I wants study an' work for

things; you know what I mean, not to get to be a

goddam slavedriver but for socialism and the re-

volution an' like that, not work an' go on a bat
an' work an' go on a bet like those damn yaps on

w

9) John has Passes, U.S.A., l. The dind Parallel; 21.

the railroad. 10)
In order to accomplish hie yurgose, he joined the "Wobblies"
of the 1.x.fi. and offered his eXperienee as a printer to
the labor union. His marriage with an ambitious girl of
the 'bourgeoisie' temporarily blocks his relations with
the 1.3.3.8, against his own wishes:

One Saturday afternoon Bee and Keisie (his wife)
had managed to get a neighbor to take care of the
kids and were going into a vaudeville theater
when they noticed e crowd at the corner in front
of Hershall's durgetore. Mac elbowed his way
through. A thin young man in blue denim was
standing close to the corner lamppost where the
firealerm was, reading the Ieolerntion or Inde-
pendence: When in the course of human events....
A cop came up and told him to move on... inalienp
able right... life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. .

Now there were two cops. One of then had the
young man by the shoulders and was trying to pull
him loose from the lemppost.

"Come on, rainy, we'll be late for the show".‘
Ksieie kept saying.

nae eat there in the dark stuffy theater all
the afternoon. He didn't see the sets or the pic-
tures between the acts. He didn't speak to Meisie.
he sat there feeling sick in the pit of his stomach.
The boys must be steging a free-Speech fight right
here in town...

"I guess I've sold out to the eoneobitches ell-
right, nllright", he kept saying to himself." 11

The revolution in Roxieo and troubles with his wife, who

exploited him, drive him to El Peso to fight the social

 

10) John Doe Passes, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallel. 2!
11) Ibid., 115.

revolution. Here, onve more he weakens and lives with a
lexican girl. realizing "how much pleasanter this was than
when he'd lived with Maisie in San.riego", 12) so much
that he "began to think less often about going out to Join
Zapata." 13) Finally he settles down as a book seller, a-
bandoning definitively his participation in the improve-
ment of the conditions of the working class. He had been
a man of good intentions. but “he didn't have the stuff of

heroes and martyrs." 1‘)

The second character. J. Ward Moorehouse. is an
illustration of those "who know how to take advantage of
the conditions", a type we have alreedy found in Manhattan

 

Transfer. The "bright boy" of a family of six children,

he graduated from high school "as heaf of the debating

team. class orator and winner of the prize essay contest
with an essay entitled 'Eooscvelt, the Han of the Hour." 15)
successful in getting a scholarship from the University of
pennsylvania, he could not accept it because of an accident

which crippled his father rnd called him back home as the

 

12) John.Dos Passes, p:§:5.. I. The 42nd Parallel, 309.
13).;plg., 309.

14} J. Warren Beach. American Fiction, 1920-1940, 57.
15) John‘Dos Passes, g;§=é., l. The 42nd Parallel. 175.

115

116

eldest of the family. There he starts working in a real
estate office, while taking music lessons on Sundays in or-
der to become a song writer. His first marriage, to Anna-
bell Marie Strong, the daughter of a rich doctor dealing
in real estate investments, permits him to travel to Eur-
ope and to secure a Job as a reporter on his return. when,
as a result ot "the unwomanly and disgraceful conductn of
his wife, who "prefers the company of foreigners, Bohemians
and such to that of ambitious young Americans", 16) he di-
vorces her, he goes to Pittsburg as an advertising expert
for steel products. A strike in the factory is his great
opportunity; he shows McGill, the manager of the steel
plant, the necessity of an entirely new line in the pub-
licity of the industry:

It was he thought the business of the industry

to educate the public by carefully planned pub-

licity extending over a term of years.
His second marriage 00 Gertrude Staple and her fortune
furnishes him with the capital and the connections necess-
ary to the realization of his big project -- an agency
specializing in reconciling Capital and Labor and in conbatting
subversive influences among miners. new in the group of

those who possess, he climbs rapidly to the top of the social

 

15) John Doe Passes, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallel, 204.
17) Ibid., 255.

117

ladder. At the outbreak of the war he offers his services
to Hashington and is accepted as a member of the Public
Information Committee. hext we find him in Paris as Pub-
lisity Director for the Red Cross. then prominent in the
shaping of the Versailles Treaty while he serves the inter-
ests of the large oil companies. He is "a power in the
world;“ 18) even Colonel House consults him "all the time." 19)
The war over, he goes back to the States where he takes

up his publicity business again. Grown older, and know-
ing the emptiness of his pursuit of success, he new real-
ises that he has managed to do pretty well in everything_
except in life itself. He is rich and powerful, but as

he says to Richard Savage, one of his employees: "I'm

a lonely man, and to think once upon a time I was planning
to be a songwriter." 20) His story is a typical American
success story; from modest origins he becomes an exploiter
of the masses and a parasitic capitalist. But if he a-
chieves success, he does not attain happiness; flat the end

of the book he is spiritually a poor man, with heart trouble

 

19) John‘Dos Passes, U.3.A.. 2. Nineteen. €86.

 

20’ John I‘ss Pass-es, U.S.A., 3. gm 315 1533133, 491.

 

118

deprived of a real home, and feeling atrociously alone.n 21)

Closely connected with the destiny of Eoorehouse is
that of Janey Williams. At high school she studied stenc-
graphy, for which she was particularly fitted, and soon
became a very good stenographer. The job she is offered
at a lawyer's office makes her ambitious;

She realized now that she was good at her
work and that she could support herself
whatever happened ... She wanted a silk
grownup dress with embroidery on it. She
was twentyone and was going to make sevenp
teen dollass a week and tgought she had a
right to one nice dress. 2

Her lack of imagination and her deep horror of vulgarity
combine to stifle any love affair, and when the war breaks
out, her sensibility stirred by the atrocities of the Ger-
mans, she leaves her boss, Dreyfus, (a pro-German):

(She) kept thinking of the ruthless invasion
of Belgium and the horrible atrocities and
didn't like to be working for a Hun, so she be-
gen looking round for another Job. Business
was slack in Washington and she knew it was
foolish tgsleave Mr. Dreyfus but she couldn't
help it.

After holding various Jobs she happens to meet J. W. Hoorehouse

 

21) Pierre Brodin, Les Ecrivains inericains de l'Entre-
Leux Guerres, 113.

22) :0“ DOS PEBBOB. UOSOAO. 10 The 43nd Parallel. 151..
23) John‘Dos Passos, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallel, 285.

119

and becomes his secretary. She first follows his to Mexico,
then to France. She is a very efficient secretary, aband-
oning her own life to live only for her Job and her boss,
watching over him as if he were her child. Her only aim

in life is respectability; as she grows more and more
respectable, she grows tighter and dryer until she lives
for nothing else. Ambitious, she now travels in the world
of money, as she wanted to, but as a critic said, "she is

high only by being the tail of a kite." 34)

Similar to Janey in many aSpects, yet much more inde-
pendent in the sense that she has a personal life, is Eleanor
Stoddzrd.

When she was small she hated everything. She
hated her father, a stout redhaired man smelling
of whiskers and sttle pipetobacco ... (She) hated
smells and the sight of blood. Nights she used to
dream she lived alone with her mother in a big
clean white house ... When she was sixteen in
high-school she and a girl named Isabelle swore
together that if a boy ever touched them they'd
kill themselves. 45

To escape the vulgarity and social mediocrity in which
she spent her childhood, -- her father was a killer in the
Chicago stock yards -- and to satisfy her dreams of ideals,

she studied commercial art at night while working during

 

24) percy Boynton, American Fiction, 192.
35) John Dos Passes, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallgfi. 209-

 

120

the day in a lace shep. When her mother died she went away,
deciding "to forget all about (her father)." 26) At the
Art Institute or Chicago she met Eveline Hutchins, with
whom she starts a rather superficial friendship which nev-
ertheless later results in an association of the two in the
interior decorating business. After difficult beginnings
they transfer their business to New York, where they decor-
ate J. n. Moorehouse's house. The instant when Eleanor
meets Hoorehouse marks the starting point of her rise to
fortune, and when Eveline abandons the business, Eleanor
continues it alone, very successfully: I

She had an office now all by herself and had two

fiiiliuliikinioiififi Siiktiolfififnziie “we“ and
In Paris, where she follows J. u. Moorehouse after signing
up with the Red Cross, their intimate and wonderful friend-
ship becomes a discreet love effair. Advised by Koorehouse,
she makes some good investments which increase her fortune.
At the end of the book she disappears from his life to marry
a Russian prince -- she has reached her goal, ani has made
good her vow to escape the Chicago stock yards. Like
Janey, she is a success, but like Janey too she is little
more than the tail of s capitalistic kite. Like Janey,

she exists in the world of money but fails to achieve happiness

 

26) John 105 Passos, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallel, 211.
27) Ibid., 352.

and simple pletsuIes of life.

Eveline Hutchins, her friend, is the daughter of a
minister. Her early friendship with Sally Emerson, who
is rich, awakens in her the desire for wealth. Like
Eleanor she is marked while young by a deep avtrsion to
ugliness and vulgarity; she keeps a bottle of poison "to
killlherself whenever things seemed too filthy and horrid." 28)
It was at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she went af-
ter having " decided to devote herself to art," 29) that
her beautiful friendship with Eleanor begins.

Eleanor was the first girl she'd met who really

seemed to feel painting, thrt she could really

talk about—EHIngs with. And then too she was

efflaith§§§§68§°fifiifiiifingo 3° ”dependent 8“"
The decorating business she starts with Eleanor does make
the profits she desires, bit soon she feels she must aban-
don it to accompany her father to Santa Fe, where he goes
for his health. Later she follows Eleanor to Eerie as her
assistant, and after many love affairs in America as well

as in France, finally marries a certain Paul Johnson. Back

in America she involves herself in increasing numbers of

 

28) John :03 Passes, U.S.A., 2. Nineteen nineteen, 113.

 

39) Ibid., 114.
30) Ibid., 115.

casual love affairs, until she finally puts an end to
her hollow, aimless life by poison.

Like J. h. Roorohcuse, fiichard Illsn o;th Savage is
one of the successful chfracters of the trilogy. As a
child he lived with his mother and brothers at his aunt's,
since his father had abandoned the family. Though he got
along very well at school, his Aunt Beatriee "was always
nag nag from morning till night, as if he didn't know that

he and mother were eating her bread and sleeping under her

n 1’11)

roof. When he was a boy of fifteen he went to work

as a helltoy and then as a roomclerh at some mother's friend's
hotel. At that time

he hated everything about his life, his aunt and
the smell of her boarding house, the thought of
his father, his mother's flowergcrden hats, not
having enough money to buy good clothes or go to
fashionable summerresorts like the other fellows
did. All kinds of things got him terrihly agitata
ed so that it was hard not to show it. The wabbls
of the waitresses! hips and brewsts while they
were serving meals, girls'underwear in store
windows, the smell of the bathhouses and the

salty tingle of a wet hathingsuit and the tanned
skin of fellows and girls in hathingsuits lying
out in the sun of the beach.

Hiram Halsey Conger, when he met during a vacation and who

happened to be a cousin of Iick's mother's, promised to

 

51) John Zoe rassos, U.S.a.. 2. Hineteen nineteen, 74.

 

52) Ibid. so.

advance the money to send him to harvard. There he soon
became prominent as a poet and college editor;

Dick made the Honthl and The Advocate, had
poems reprinted In The Literary;: gen. and ?he
Coming Tower, attended meetings of the BostEE‘
Poetry SocIEty and was invited to dinner by
Amy Lowell. €03

 

 

When the war broke out he declared himself a pacifist,

but flwhen he discovered that if he went into war work he

could get his degree that spring without taking any exams" 54)
he decided to sign up in the volunteer ambulance service.

Once in France he followed his unit on the battle field,

much in the manner of Martin home of One Man's Initiation.

 

He sent to Italy with the American hed Cross section when
America entered the war. Because of his pacifilm ..

"You must understand how it is,n he wrote the
Thurlows (a minister), answering an enthusiastic
screed about the *war to end wor',"l don't be-
lieve in Christianity any more and can't argue
from that standpoint, but you do, or at least
Edwin does, and he ought to realize that in
urging young men to go into this cocheyed lunatic
asylum of war he's doing everything he can do

to undermine all the principles and ideals he
most believes in. As the young fellow we had
that talk with in Genoa that night said, it's

a dirty goldbrick game put over by governments
and politicians for their own selfish interests.
it's crooked from a to 2. If it wasn't for the
censorship I could tell you things that would make

33) John roe Passes, U.S.A., 2 Nineteen Nineteen, 95.

34) lbid.. 96.

134

you.voait." -- 25?
he is called back home without e chnnoe to explain:

it the office he 8n! 3 stoutish Bostonian
Xejor who seemed to be running things, and
asked him straight out what the devil the
trouble was. The major hemmed end hosed

and kept the conversation in an agreeable
tone, as one Harvard men to another. he
talked stout indiseretione end the over-
eensitivenese of the Italians. is a

matter of fact the censor didn't like the
tone of certain letters, etcetere, etoetere.
Dick said he felt he ought to exylnin his
position...he said he felt there were none
in his position who has pocirist views...”e)

Up to now fish is vary so h in the tradition of Ice Pessos'
earlier heroes. Like the author, he went to anvrrd at
the time of the Harvard esthetes end is deeply impressed
by their phiIOSOphy. But unlike him, and unlike the heroes
of the earlier books, Savage stops fighting the current;
when his beneteotor Casper gets his a commission in the
army as lieutensnt, after his return to New York, he
suddenly abandons his Opposition to war. his career as

a rebel is over. hack in France with the :rmy, he be-
comes more and morethe servant of the powers of authority.
The rumor of the armistice makes him very anxious to go
zone and look for a Job. He has now accepted the system,
capitalism and all that goes with it, and he is relieved

35) John Toe Passes. U.S-A94’2 nineteen nineteen. 290'

I
,/

35) Ibid.. 208.

125

when his unit is sent to Eerie to he placed at the disposal
or the American.Eelsgation. 0n n mission to Home he meets
Anne Elizabeth Trent, a young volunteer in the Rear Last
Relief, but when he learns that she is going to have a baby
he refuses to marry her:

"But you must realize... it worries me terribly.

There must be something you can do about it...

you've got to do something. There are plenty

of doctors who would attend to it. I can't do

it..u1 couldn't stioro it... But Anne Elizabeth

do be ressonnbls... I've Just been offered a

very fine position when I get out of the service.

but I can't take a site and child st this stage

of the gems, you must understsna." 57
The flfins position" he refers to was with J. W. Eborshouss.
in whose office he had been offered a Job otter the war.
Savage writes with enthusiasm to his mother about this
preopect:

"He's a dollar a your expert, but so soon as

peace is signed he Impects to start his business

up easin- He's and adviser on public relations

and publig§ty to big corporations like Stand»

srd 011. ‘
Back in the States he works for his firm and campaigns for
"Americanisn and the Einghsm's products", 59) with a salary
of $25,000, a year, many nice women, svzrything exeeyt happinsss.
37) John‘ros Passes. U.S.A., 2. Hinsteen Nineteen. 595.
38) gbid.. 293.

59) Pierre Brodin. Les Ecrivsins Amerioains do l'Entrg-
peux Guerreg. 115; “"

126

He has sold his talents to the highest bidder sn' with
them his Opportunity to be happy. He is connoious or

his moral bankruptcy,--- ”Shale hsnds, he said to J. 3..
with the ruins of a minor post". 45) -- but it is too lets

new for his to tale a fresh start.

Connected with him. and in some ways similar to.him.‘1)
is Anne hlizobeth Trent, s Texas girl. Boring her since-
tionsl period in how York where she went "to take courses
where she'd really learn something". 43) she not socialists
and anarchists, such as dein Vinnl a social worker who
was "quoting all the time from a man named Veblen; " 43)
Webb Cruthers. an anarchist who "always hsd pamphlets in
his poolets about socialion and syndicnlisn ens copies of

MOtheljjiorth or_ghe Messeg;" 44)

and Ben Compton, a Jewish
agitator. With them she goes on picket lines and finally
is arrested and convicted, "charged with rioting, felonious

assault, obstructing an officer and inciting to sedition." 45)

 

40’ John.Dos Psasoa, o.s.&.. o. The Big_Hoogx. 492-

41) Percy Boynton says I'thssr are male and tennis variations .
on the some theme". America in Contengprnrg_§iction, l91.

42) John Toe Esseos, U.S.A., 2. Hineteen fiinsteen, 361.

 

43) Ibid.. 265.
44) Ibid.. 270.
45) Ibid., 277.

lifter the éesth of her brother during the ser, she signed
up to go over seas for six months with the Near East belief
"to relief the worle." 45) It is on her way to home that
she meets Dick:

When she fauna she was going to hsve 3 baby

she WEB scareflg but she didn't reslly crrs so

much; of course he's marry her... He wrote

poetry and was going to be a writer when he

got out of the srm334ghe was sure he was

going to be famous.
when she realizes thnt he does not love her "she decides
she'd killlherselr." 43’ but does not. finally dying in.
an airplane crash the night before leaving for the States.

They were elimbing again. Anne Elizabeth new

the shine or a sine gliding by itself a little

way from the plane. Eh? spinning sin blinded

her as they dropped. 9

Charley Anderson rose high like J. s. moorehouse in
uthe money mad world." 50) A boy from Bnkots whose mother
kept a boarding house in Fargo. he stsrted his career as
an automobile mechanic in the garage of his brother Jim:

All that summer Charley meshed curs end stained
transmissions and relined broken. He was always

46) John,pos gasses, y:§:é" 2. flinoteen Nineteen, 286.
47) £333.. 405.
48) 123$. 41:).
49) 3.23.2" 418.

50’ Percy Boynton, America in Contemgorsrz Fiction, 191.

dirty and gr any overalls, in the gcxrge by seven
fiefiffigmfiifinfififii.“Efiot’éffié‘fi’htfi‘fi iiiitifijlfl
V

Interested in his Job, he started "a course in night-
school to prepare for civil engineering at the mechanical
Arts High." 53) His environment and his weneeringe over
the country brought him in contest to socialists end strik-
ers. whose ideas he finally adopted.

(He) Joined 3 local or an A.F. of L. union...

He decided he'd read the papers morgznnd keep

up with was going on in the world.
‘Yet mechanics still interest his. and he wants to go to
How York. "because he thought there were soon chanoea of
schooling in s big city lilo that.... end he wanted to get
to be e C.E. or something like that.u 54) He followed a
friend into the Army. and when he reappears two years into
or he is Lieutenant Anderson, an ace in the inoricen Air
Force. rack in new York he succeeds in.lsunching a busineoa
of making planes. Like Richer Savage he is now on the other
side or the capitalistic fence; he soon ontchee the big

money fever:

When he changed his wallet from one jacket

51) John.Dos Passes, U.S.A., l._$he 42nd Pernllel, 273.

 

52) Ibid., 380.
53) Ibid.. 3 '.
5‘) Ibid.. 405.

l8

to the other he opened it and counted his

cash. He has four centuries and some

chickenreed. The bills were crisp and new,

straight from the bank. He brought them

up to his nose to shift the new sweet

sharp smell or the inke Before he knew

what he'd done he’é hissed them. He

laughed out loud and put the bills back

in his wallet. Jesus he was feeling good. 55)
From New Fork he noted to Tetroit as the consulting engi-
neer or a lerge airplane company. fitter vorious advent.
urea, he married Gladys Wheatiey, a Tetroit society women,
a marriage which does not bring him the hrppiness he ex—
pectea. He plunges deeper and deeper in Speculations,
women and drinks. rrippled by an seciient in which his
best friend is killed, he realizes his loneliness. He is
now in s world where sentiment does not exist - only money
-- and the friends he had given up in his rise to fortune
have deserted him: "he began to see clearly that they all
expected him to be a cripple the rest of his life." 55)
Back home, "he did not feel it was his house at all.“ 57)
Then he meets hargo rowling, who becomes his mistreos.
Forced into a divorce by his wife, he throws himself deeper
into market sgcculntions, confident that he is starting a

new life with Hares. sné hoping at the same time for revenge:

 

55) John Ios Possos. U.S.£.. 3. 3T3 Big M0431, 223.
55) Ibid., 317.
57) 1b1d., 317.

130

Christ. it you only knew how I've wanted to

have a really swell women all to myself. I’ve
had some awful bitches... Gladys, God. what a
bitch ehe was. She pretty near ruined me...
tried to strip me of every cent I had in the
world... ganged up on me with guys I thought were
my friends. But you gust watch, little girl.

I'm goin' to show 'em. In five years they'll
come crawlin'to me on their bellies. I don't
know what it 18, B33 I got a kind of feel for

the big money...
But it is too late -- drink ane women have finished him,
and he loeeo hie life in on automobile crash;

He had to keep on talking but it woenfit tap

use. He was too hoarse. His voice wee a

faint crook, he was so thirsty. They couldn't

hear him. He had to make them near him. He

was too week. He was dropping spinning being sucked

down into... 59

It is interesting to note how Toe Passes trente An-
derson 83mpnthct1fally ouring his childhood. sni during
his adolescence when he is n young worker with socialis-
tic leanings. but quite unognpntheticolly when he crosses
the line into the capitalist close. Halcolm Cowley has
noted that the first ace of the world war I. Lfldie Rick-
enbacker. similarly had, back in the States, a very success-

ful career making planes -- in tact, nothing in the career

of Anflerson is unbelievable. ls Eognton stated, "he arrived

 

53) John roe rassce, v.3.a., 2. The £15 Mongip 359-

59) Ibid.. 377.

31

in history in time to exploit and to L8 exPloited." 50)

horse reeling, nnother of those who catch the money
fever. is an extension of the character of Ellen Ehrtcher,
the successful theater girl of finnhnttsn Transfer. Educat-
ed in s convent. Herco went to Row York when her stepmother
married sn.nctor, Frank Krndotille, to whom fierce is indebto
ed for her first egpeerenoe on stage. it sixteen Ihe married
a Cuban singer. Tony Cerrido. who took her to Havens; dis-
appointed in.her marriage and having lost her baby. she
goes back to Ben York with syphilis. Picked by Flo Zieg-
tield, she starts again in the theater as e chorus girl.
Her relations with Ted hhittlesea, son of e millionaire.
convince her or the power of money, and she decides that
"she is not going to stay in the chorus ell her lifeflI 51)
Tony, herhuebcnd. who has turned to blackmail and homosexnp
slity, becomes a burden that she must onrry on her soy to
"the big money." Through Charley Anderson she becomes in»
torested in stock market reports and starts to make smell
investments which at first are unsuccessful. aorking ct
Piquot's so a model, she meets an art photographer, Sem

Hargolies, an ambitious young men on his way to becoming

 

50’ Percy Boynton, America in (ontemgorsrl Fiction, 192.
61) John.Boe Passes. U.S.A., 3. The Big Hanoi, 269.

the king of the motion picture industry. After {harley's
death she deciaes to go to Hell; woos to try her luck in the
new industry. Sam soon offers her rave ntrgeous contracts
and makes her a new east bettc r s sited to publicity .
Then he marries her after she is rid of zany. who is mur-
éered in e brawl. When the curtain falls on her she has
becro e the ngtion's newest movie seeetheart ~~ she has
reaches "the big money" at lest. To Geismcr this "is the
worst of the portieits" 6“ ) in th etrilcgg. is 9-Ch11d
she was eccustomed to Ceceit and eociel depravity; as a
women she rises througt: {restitution and skill. However,
at the one of The Big Honei, Ioo freeze suggests that the
introduction of sound into the cinema may toyple her from

her pedestal, for her voice rails to match her beauty.

trandi n5 hi th the little peoyle, on the same level
58 Has, is Joe :illizzns. he a Chile "he gets spznhefl"
once a week by a father who alw: s c,nco heme $1 on work

5a) Vnflblc to get an educetion

"angry and cut of sorts."
because- his f ther is too poor, Joe goes to work until the
death of ‘.‘s best fliend (xives imi to join the navy. He

says to his sistcr Janey:

_.

T —v-v

62)1;A well Gee ismtr, writers in {T1339. 134'

53) John res lies see. v.3...” i. The 43a»: enamel. 137.-

But I wanted to tell you. 1 don't want to

hang round this lousy dump new that Alec'e gone.

I on going to enlist in the Navy. You tell

the folks, eee ... l éon't wanna tell 'em. 64)

That's it; I'll join the Envy and see the world.
After that he spends most of his genre on the eon, first
on a warship. then in the nerohant Karine to which he de-
serts after a tight with an officer "who tried to rifle
(him) too damn hard." 65) For many years he crosses and
reoroeeee the ocean on freightera. tripe interruptea only
by torpedoing during the war and bawdy interludes in port.
He finally marries a etenogrepner, Pelle fiattncwe, end at-
tempts to become an officer in the Merchant Karine, since
she wants him nto settle down ena nave a little married
life." 66) Yet his happiness does not last very long; his
wife. caught by moneg fever, megs him "to make a lot of
money 20 th t she would not have to work any more." 57)
Giving up, he fieclées to go back to see and "to get out of
all this e--t". 68) Back on the sea once more, he is killed

in a fight while eehore at St. anoiro. Like ync he is

one of the exploited, one of those who got nothing from the

A.—
V.

64) John $03 333208, U.S.A., l. The oang Ferallel, 15?.

 

65) 353.. 163:.
55) John‘ros Passes, E;§;£., 2. Nineteen Nineteen, 168.
6'” 3533.. 157.
633 £333.. 174.

gene. Life has no meaning to his. and he gains nothing
from it; in feet his sister herself complained of his lack
of education which prevented him from epprecieting all the
interesting ports he visited. "He does not understand at
all whet happened to him. and when he comes back from his
trips his experience is worth about nothing." 69) It in
difficult to say it too Passes has pity for the meaning-
lessness of his life, or it he has contempt for his eesk—~
nose and his lack of soul. He is simply the little men -
he represents all those who are crushed by life and by the
money-grubbers. Still, it is for Joe Williams, the coup
fused and frustrated representative or the mass, that Dos

Fe oos displays the most sympathy.

Besides these ch rectors. whose lives are for the most
part directed by their egos, there are in the trilogy tee a
otherchereoters who "consistently worked for something
more than themselves." 70) Kery French is one or these
unselfish ones. From a poor family, she lived "in Trini-
dad where everything was black like cozl. the scrawny hills
tell, darkening the volley full of rows of sooty shunties,

the minetipples. the miners most of them greesers and

LL

—-——— m

59) Pierre Brodin, Les Ecriveins Anerioeins do l'Entrso
roux Guerres. 116.

70) J. sarren Beech. American Fictionl_l920-1940, 57.

11: 4

hunkies and the awful saloons and the oholy smoltersmole
and the little black trains.” 71) Ambitious, worshipping
only money. her mother slashed wi-h her fether, e socialist
doctor who a nted to vote for Eugene ’ebs. In college Hery
majored in Sooioloay to he s social worker, and when her
father died. she decided, as he did, to devote herself to
social work. She settled in Chicago where, early in the
morning, she sent through the industrial district "to look
out st the men, young men end old men with tin dinnerpnils,
faces ruddy and screwed up with the early cold. crowding

the olhtforme waiting to go to work. She looked in their
faces carefully, studying their faces; the; were peoyle

she exoected to get to know." 73) After some time there

she went to Pittsbura to e newsgeper. In content with

the egitetors and strikers "who live on 43 cents en.hour." 73)
an. realized their slight and oeeioéo to helb them in their
tight no a publicity worker. There, "she never worked so
herd in her life. She wrote releases, got up statistics

on.t.b.. undernourishment of children, sanitary conditions.

crime, took trips on interurbnn trolleys end slow locals to

 

71) John res Passes, U.S.A.. 3. The Big Eongg, 107.
72) Ibid.. 125.
73) Ibid., 135.

136

Rankin and Braddock and Homestesfi and Bessemer one on for
as foungstonn and Steubenville and Cary, took notes on
speeches of Foster and Fitzpatrie, sow meetings broken up
and the trooyers in their norktrey uniforms moving in a
line down the unpaved alless of congsny patches, beating
up man and women with their clubs, kicking ohiléren out
or their way, chasing old men off their front atoops.“ 74)
When Ben Compton the Jew rodical is released from Atlanta,
where he has been for ten years, she devotes herself to
him and to his work on strike committees. Then. in Boston
she works on the Esooo Vsnzetti ease, the injustice of which
case aroused her indignation until she wonders how other
people could stand it:

If the State of hassschusette can kill those

two innocent men in the fees of the protest

_ot the whole world it'll mean that there.ne- ”B

vs: will be any justice in America ever again. ’0)
Arrested many times and disappointea b5 the committee's
failure to save the two Italian martyrs, she nevertheless
pursued her work for the party with Donald Stevens. "a red,"
when she loved. Teapondent when Eon married another girl,

she renounees her radicalism to strive for a place in the

economically sell-to-do class, but not for long, for she

7—7——

7‘) John.Ion Passes. U.S.i.. 31 The Big Hanoi, 128.
75) lbid., 451.

13?

soon realize: the immensity of her teak when she is in
”contact with the rich:
It's a recto, - one any: to her friend -- The
food they wrote and the money they waste while
our peeple starve in tarpoper barracks... Take
me home first... I'm eick of this pareeigg life.
I'm going back to the office tomorrow. 7
Once more she plunges in social work, relief committees.
strike organizations, and gives herself entirely to the

labor of improving the conditions of the working class.

Ben Compton, like Kory French, devotee his life to
labor organization. In high school he showed a marked
ability for speaking. which he uses later to organize strikes
and picket lines. When he woo young he intended "to be
a lawyer and a business men and make a pile quick." 77)
but while working around in the country he met an Italian
anarchist Hick Gigli, who convinced him he should "work
for the revolution and the working class." 73) Following
his eaviee. he Joinea the Socialist party. rerd KLEI'B

repitel, and decided "to be a well ehnrgoncd instrument.” 79)

 

75) John.zos Passes, §;§;&., S. The Big Aenoz, 556.

77) John.ros Paeeoe,‘§;§;5., 2. Nineteen nineteen, 424.
73) 3:33., 427. ,_

'79) $9313., 431.

158

After a painful initiation in the labor were as a speaker
and striker. he some back to new York tenork in a lawyer's
office. The war confirmed even more strongly his belief
in socialism, and he decided to Oppose war and agitate e-
gainst it. "I don't believe in.oepitelist war and I'm not
going to do anything I can he19-to support it". 30) Often
arrested. he always started his agitation again when he
was released; "It you let me out I'll do my best to 09¢
pose capitalist war until you erreet me again.“ 31) F1-
nelly he is imprisoned for ten years, to reappear later
in the last volume or the trilogy with Mary French. Once
more he plunges into theticht: expelled from the party

as an "oppositionist... exoeptionnlist." 32) he does not
stop the struggle. "I'm still e revolutiontst,u he says,
"and I'll continue outside the party". 83) He seems to be
a first draft of the hero or Adventgree or o Younggggg.
and like him he appears at the end of the book disillusioned
as to the outcome of the struggle.

Both heennd Mary are the most sympathetically haniled

“ 4..— A

80) John~pos Egaeoa.‘g:§;ég. 2. nineteen nineteen, 443.
31) 2:33.. 446.

33) John Doe Pneeoe, W" 3. The Bifilfonoi. 5349.
35) Egg... 5:59. '

139

characters in the trilOgy. Both of then are idenlists,
working unselfishly for causes, losing themselVes in e
crusade-othe only idealists who keep the Faith ~~ and the
render feels that 703 Passes stands with them. However.
as Beech stated, "they were so obscure end.ineffectuel.
such wisps and stress in the wind of fate that they don't
greatly affect the tone of the whole exhibit." 84)

In the wake of these main characters live neny other
minor figures, such as C.E. Barrow. the crawling, creeping
ayndionlist who melee his fortune from the workers whose
interest he is supposed to defene cgeinst the encroach-
mente of cnpitel. Unctuous in phrrse so he is in body,
he attempts vainly to build his moral hoppiness on the ruins
of others' lives one he successively proposes mrrLieco to
all of the women in the book. If for a while his manners
can nttrect Anne Elizabeth siter her unfortunete love ef-
fnir with Cogtein Savage, or Kory French efter her failure
to save the working class, they soon realize thrt he is

nothing but s “labor taker" 85) and abandon him.

In the same vein is the {ed "hoecovite" Ponnld Stevens.

34’ J. warren Bench, American Fiction; 1920-1940, 57.
85) John has Passes. 8.34., 3. The 515 110119;. 149.

"A heggerdlooking brighteyed young men from South :elote," 85)
he is e "maximaliet" who writes for the Eneeee and other
leftist periodicals finfl Speaks at inti~wnr meetings. At
the outbreak of the war he signs up with the Friends' Ee-
liet, though an ardent defender of position:

(he) said a pacifist could be a better patriot

than a staff officer in e 80ft Job and that pa.

triotiem one a crime ageinet humanity anyway. 87)
Arrested during the nor for pacifietio talk, he is releas-
ed through the help or Eveline Hutchine. who hes been his
mistress. A newspaper men after the nor, he devotee him-
self the Sacco Venzetti case. Though Ioe Peeeoe attempted
to make him a sympathetic character -- whet he is in connec-
tion with his fights for the working class -- yet it is
evident that the render cannot be attracted by a person
who, in.epite of his theories, acted to nary French. who
is in love with him; "an the worst of the capitalistic
cynice would have done." 83)

As it cyyenra after an examination of theoe main
characters. the triloay offers the render a gloomy picture
of humanity. In their and pursuit of the Big Money, some

died as fhcrley inflereon did; others. like Richera Savage.

_‘

W‘- i ‘1’ ,7

37) yonn,Lee’Peeeoe, U.S.A.. 2. nineteen Nineteen, 228.

88) Pierre Brodin. Lee Ecriveins Americeine do l'Entre~
roux Guerree, IIY}

‘1:

C

lél

went into moral bznir iptcg, end the two :evolutioniste,
for whom the reoier night expecfi some success, end the book
engegei in n hopeleee fight for o crnee unetthjnnble in
the gresent state of society. it is in cieeting to note
too thrt none of these characters are sexually normal. In
the vein of Tea loeeoe' eerlier heroes u. they run to ex
tromes in their sexual life -~ looee like Eveline Hutchins
or Anderson, eexunlly nil as J. o. moorehouce who has
"no time for thvt sort cf tl~lin"", 89) frigid like Jrney
u illiome who so concern with resoevt'i bilitv keeps her re-
note from the exigencee of Be: .uel life, or eEotionolls on»
tangled in homosexual cum Mlict like lick oVnge. As
Geisner states, there ore "no normal sexual releoeoe nope-
rently possible for these pooyle: " 90)
.hcre is no love. no frieneehip, no so tiefnctiona
or family life. Very little human give and tale in
the common business of living. ni signs of flexibi-
lity in tile vest rigid, encompassing frenegork of
human narcissism, perversion, sterility.
Besieea these fictional characters drawn by $03 reeaoe
there is another set of non-fictional Eooglc who are need

"as parts of an elaborate frame for the pictorial View of

 

89)Koxeell Geiemer, Writerewin crgegg. 135'

9031b1e.. 12?.
91)Ibid., 127.

14L

fit)‘
Jew) t

the United States." According to Beach, "tneso are
the Eegresentn ive Eon of our country and day; they more

or less sum up our national achievement, our official con-
tribution to noeern culture." 93) Opposed to the fictional
creation who "live on the plane of the senses, and rise
now end then only to fell the lower", 94) these reel-life
people are "vivid products of their time, their quality are
yoeitive (and) moreover their pleesures eren't confined to

:7
senses." 3“)

roe Passes includes in the trilOgy the portraits of
twenty-seven figures of the American scene, business men,
politicians, scientists and inventors. lebor leoiers, ort-
18ts end Journalists. Partly through the treatment of these
personages -- yertly through other devices n8 we will see
later .. roe Basses indicates "his ettituie one bins." 95)
It is only in so much es these characters are used by Tos
Passes to exoross his political and sooiol views thot they

will be examined.

 

92) Percy Eoynton, America in Contengororg Fiction, 195.
93) J. Warren Eenoh, fimoricanFIotion, 1030-1940, 59.
94) Percy Boynton, America in Contemporong Fiction. 197.
95) £333., 197.

96) J. fisrren Beech, finerioen Fiction, 1920—1940, 59.

The American businessman is treated wit. ironic fontempt.
Xinor C. heith. the "Emperor of the Caribbean" 97) is a
rich men's son, "born in e family that liked the smell or
n 93)
99)

Yenqui" who at the time of the gall rush in San Fran-

monay. His uncle Eon Enrique was a "innitnlieto

oisoo mode mahey by selling “outfits to he other guys" 100)
oathose who went to yroepeot in the hills or to die of
thirst sifting elkelidoet in Teeth Volley —~ and who yleyed
"politics and high finance in Sen Francisco until he got

in too deep and had to get aboard ship in e hurry.” 101)

By repeating the phrase "nine: Lcith didn't die.“ 102) Ice
Pessoe expresses his resentment against the system which
allowed heith to survive while the workers he hired to build
the railroads died;

 

97) John Doe Eoseos,1g;§;§., l. The 42nd_;erollel, 241.
99) $1333.. 241.-

99) 9333., £42.

100).£E$§" 241.

101).;3;3.. 242.

he concludes "whg that uneus; look under the eyes, in
the picture of Efinor C. Keith the pioneer of the fruit

trade, the railroad builder, in all the pictures the news-

1?“)

In

papers carried of him when he died?"

The picture of Andrew Carnegie. "Prince of Peace", 104)
characterizes pretty well Ios Pessos' View of those men
whose only life is on the level of material things,

he had confidence in railroads,

he had confidence in communications,

he had confidence in transportation,

he believed in iron.

Andrew Carnegie believed in iron, built bridges

Bessemer plants blast furnaces rolling mills;

Andrew Carnegie Lelieied in 011;

Andrew Carnegie believed in steel; 105)
and who do not grant any value to the spiritual and intel-
lectual aSpActs of humanity. To give his readers the im-
pression of the emptiness of such a sterile existence, he
says:

Andrew Carnegie became the richest man

in the world
and died. 105)

J. P. Morgen, "the most powerful private citizen in

 

105) John ros Passos, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallel. 344-

 

104) Ibid., 264.
105) Ibid., 265.
105) Ibid., 265.

the world," 107) came from a family whose fortune was built
on the miseries of others;

here and panics on the stock exchange,

machinegunfire and arson,

bankruptcies, warloans,

starvation, lice, cholera and typhus:

good growing weather for the House of Morgan. 108)

In the portrait of F. Winslow Taylor, the originator
of the Taylor System of Scientific Management, Dos rossos
has a ”chance to suggest the social wastefulness of Ameri-
can efficiency and Speed-up.“ 109) Through Taylor's plan
every Ancrican could become rich if he were willing "to
work at piece-work and not drink or raise cain or think" 110)
—- if, in a word, he consented to lose his personality and
become a mere organism in a soulless nectine. In Taylor,
308 Passes too attacks, as he did in the person of Charley
Anderson, those who, now rich ans on the other side of the
fence, forget the group they come from:

The early years he w;s a machinist with the other

machinists in the shep, cussed and Joked and worked

with the rest of them, soldiered on the job when

they did. Mustn't give the boss more than his

money's worth. But when he got to he foreman he was
on the management's side of the fence, gathering in

 

107) John Les Passos, U.S.A., 2. Hineteen Kineteen, 325.

 

108) Itid., :40.

109) J. warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940, 59.

 

110) John 303 238205, U.S.A., e. The ei5_noner. 25-

on the part of those on the management's size all

the great mass of traditional knowledge which in the

past has been in the heads of the workmen and in the
physical skill and knack of the workman. He couldn't
stand to see an idle lathe or an idle nan. )

In the sketch of ford, the father of "tin lizzie,"
he presents another aspect of the American plan. In the
same way as Taylor had promised a full life, so Ford pro-
mised a "tin lizzie" to all his workers, but, adds res
Passos "of course it turned out that there were strings
to it;“ 112) namely that American workmen must refuse "to
drink or smoke cigarettes or read or think." 113) Here

too -- as he did in Orient EXpress -- Dos Passes looks

 

longingly to a simpler past, contrasting the "new highway

where the hewmodel cars roared and slithered and hissed

oilily past (the new noise of the automobile)" with the

"old had road, in the days of horses and buggies". 114)

Then there is hilliem a. Hearst, the "poor little rich
115)

boy" for when nothing was too good:

his grandparents Spoiled him; he always did
everything he wrnted. Hrs. Hearst's toy must

 

 

111) John 303 Passes, E:§;éo. 5. The Big honey, 25.
112) 2:33., 51.
113-) 12353., 51.
114) £333.. 57.
115) m” 466.

147

have everything or the best. 115)
he made his fortune in the Journalism, for

he had a knack for finding and using bright -

young men, he had a knack for using his own

prurient hanker after the lusts and envies

of plain unmonied lowlife men and women. 117)
but more exactly it was on lies that he grounded his skill-
ful handling of the "lowest common denominator;" 118)

"When there's no news make news.” 119)

Last of these businessmen is "Superpower" Insull,
the utilities manipulator who used flthe public's money
to spread his empire," 120) and who at the peak of his
success ”held directorates in eightyfive companies, was
chairman of sixtyfive, president of eleven." 121) When
prosecuted and tried because "he was using the stockholders'
funds to pay off his brothers' brokerage accounts," 133)
116) £333., 467.

117) £3351. .. 470.
118) John.ros Passos, U.S.A., 3. The Big Echel, 470.
119) 1%., 471.
120) 933., 527.
131) gig" 529.
123) 3233.. 529..

148

he is acquitted on account of his clever management of

this same public he had ruined.

Dos Passes places Ford, Taylor, Insull and the rest
in his gallery of portraits because they represent en es-
tremely important phase or the life of the nation whose
culture he wishes to represent. However, it is clear from
his treatment of them that he entertains no sumpathy what-
ever for then or their class. Egotisticsl, cruel, living
selfishly in society, they are in constant pursuit of but
one thing —- money and the power it represents. In their
quest they have lost, as they must to be sucessfull in it.
the spiritual and social qualities that go to make men human;
they, as typical products of the system they epitomize,
have broken the bonds that tie them to humanity.

Significantly, all the political figures presented by
Dos Pessos are literals, yet it is evident that he does not
consider them as men of great sincerity or lasting value.
W. J. Bryan, the "boy orator of the Platte", 123) appears
as a "spurious and stupid politician” 124) in spite of his

oratoricsl talents.

 

w

123) John Dos Passos, U.S.A., 1. The 42nd Parallel, 169.
134) J. Warren Beach, American Fiction1g1920-194O. so.

149

Senator La Follette, "Fighting Bob," is sincere and
honest, "a willful man orpressing no Opinion but his own.“ 135)
Elected to the U.S. Senate.

he worked all his life making long speeches

full or statistics, struggling to save demo—

cratic government, to make a farmers' and

small businessmen's commonwealth, lonely with

his back to the wall, fighting corruption and

big business and high finance and trusts and

combinations of combinations and the miasmic

lethargy of Washington. 25
Yet, by the very reason of his honesty, he is ineffectual
in the present state of society. The world indeed belongs
' to the cynical characters that nothing can stop on their

way up.

The "happy warrior" 127) Roosevelt, inherited right-
eousness from his father who was "something of an humani-
tarian." 128) During his fight for the "Just Cause“ 129)
_- the Spanish War —~

rhe American public was not kept in ignorance

of the colonel's braVery when the bullets sang,

how he charged without his men up San Juan Hill

and had to go back to fetch them, how he shot a
running Spaniard in the tail.

135) John_pos Passes, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallel, 568.

 

126) Ibid., 367.

127) John 108 Passes, U.S.:., 2. Nineteen Nineteen, 142.

 

128) Ibid., 142.
139) Ibid., 144.

150

It was too bed that the regulars had gotten
up San Juan Hill first from the other side, that
there was no need to get up San Juan Hill et all.
Santiago was surrendered. It was a successful
campaign. T. E. charged up San Juan K ll into
the governorship or the Empire State.
After that, doubleerossing the Platt Machine, "(a right-
eous man may have a short memory)”, 131) he managed "t°
make Cuba easy for the Sugar Trust and the National City
Bank.‘' 132) His memory growing even shorter, "he engineer-
ed the Panama Revolution,” 153) leaving at his death “on

the shoulders of his sons the white man's burden." 154)

Woodrow Wilson, the "Stainless President of Prince-
ton," 135) believed in the common man, "that is the man
by whose judgement I for one wish to be guided," 135) but,

"misguided and doctrinaire," 137) --

130) John‘Dos Passes, U.S.A., 2. Nineteen Nineteen, 144.
131’ Ibid., 145)

132) Ibid., 145

l

135) Ibid., 146.

l

134) Ibid., 148.

155) Ibid., 243.

135’ Ibid., 244.

 

137) J. Warren Beach, American Fiction 1920-1940, 60.

God was the word l“8
end the word was God, -- U )

he too, forgets his theories:. ,_

Wilson refused to recognize Huerta and sent
the militia to the Rio Grands
to assume a policy of watchful w iting...

At Mobile he said:

I wish to take this occasion to say that

the United States will never again seek

one additional foot of territory by conquest;
and he landed the marines at Vera Cruz...

First it was neutrality in thought and deed...

but the suction of the drumbeats and the guns
was too strong; the best people took their fash-
ion from Paris and their broad "a's"qgrom London,
and T. R. and the House of Morgen. 1”

In Europe though he took a tour "to see for himself" 140’
he failed to appreciate clearly the situation,

(Did Heester Veelson see the gendermes at Brest
beating back the demonstration of dochyards work-
Irs who came to meet him with 18d flags?)

(Did Meester Veelson see the women in black, the
cripples in their little carts, the pale anxious
faces, did he hear the terrible anguish of the
cheers as they hurried him and his new wife to
the Hotel de Murat...?)

(Did Maester Veelson know th:t the peeple of
EurOpe spelled a challenge to oppression out

of the Fourteen Points es centuries before they
had spelled a challenge to Oppression out of the

153) John‘Doo Passes, U.S.A., 2. Nineteen_Nineteen, 241.
159) Ibid., 245.
140) Ibid., 247.

151

152

ninetyfive articles martin Luther nailed at
the churchdoor in hittenberg?) 141)

and he failed to settle the Peace. '

nebs, the "lover of mankind," 143) is perhaps the
only political figure who emerges from the trilogy as a
real leader of the oppressed. As a like: organizer,

he talked to freighthandlers and gandywalkers,
to firemen and switchmen and engineers, telling
them it was not enough to organize the railroad-
men, that all workers must be organized, that
all workers must be organifed in the workers'
cosperative commonwealth. 43)

But, concludes Dos Passes, his simplicity and the truth-
fulness of his words were ahead of his times, and though

the peOple of Terre Eaute (his home) and the
people in Indiana and the peOple of the Middle
west were fond of him and afraid of him and thought
of him as an old kindly uncle who loved them,

and wanted ti be with him and to have him give
them candy, 44

yet

they were afraid of him as if he had contract-
ed a social disease, syphilis or leprosy, and
thought it was too bad,

(but) on account of the flag

and prosperity

and making the world safe for democracy,

they were afraid to be with him,

 

141) John.Dos Passos,‘g;§;£., 2. Nineteen nineteen, 247.
142) John Dos Passes, g;§:é., l. The 42nd Parallel, 26.
143) £145., 27.
144) 3233., 28.

or to think much about him for fear they
might believe him. 4a)

much less important in the book are the portraits
drawn from the worlds of science and art, Luther Burbank,
"the plant wizgard," 145} rhomas Edison, "the electrical
wizzard," 147) Steinmetz, the mathematician and the aright
brothers, pioneers of aviation, on the one hand; and on
the other Isadora runcan, the Bohemian esthete, who escapes
the materialism and conventionalism of her native America;
Frank Lloyd Wright, the audacious architect whom Pee Pee-
sos applauds since his buildings attempt to fulfill the needs
or the peeple ("to be not Jailed not afraid not hungry not
cold not without love, not a worker for a power he has never
seen." 143) and Rudolph Valentino, a "born tangodaneer," 149)
who wanted to make good "under the glare of the million

dollar search lights." 150)

Among Journalists Dos Passes chooses a radical, Jack

 

145) John'Dos Passes, §:§;é., 1. The 42nd Parallel, 28.
146);_1_:3_g_., 82.

147) 3233,, 297.

143) John has Paseos,‘g;§=é., Z. The Big Essex, 432.
149) 31333., l89.

150) £33., 190.

Reed and a liberal, Paxton Hibben. Jack heed, the son of
a U. S. marshal, intended, after leaving Harvard, "to live
in a tub and write verses." 151) Yet, conscious of the
unfortunate condition of the peeple around him he couldn't
stay indifferent;

he kept meeting Lune, working men husky

guys he liked out of luck out of work...

he couldn't kept his mind on his work

with so many people out of luck; in h

school hadn't he learned the Declara-

tion of Independence by heart? feed

was a sesterner and words Leant what

they said... 153)
A newspaperman, he came into close contact with the stri-
kers in.this country, and with the peons or Pancho Villa
"dying starving killing for liberty, for land, for water,
for schools." 153) The war turned him completely to com—
munism and aitor the Levolution of October,

he threw everything he had and himself into

Smolny,

dictatorship of the proletariat;

U.R.3.S.

The first workers republic e

was established and stands. 1~4)
Stricken with typhus rt the height or his career, he died

in Hecoow.

m A A. ..n

w V.‘

151) John 103 reason, §:§:£3, 2.Aflineteen Hineteen, l4.
153) 1333..., 14.
153) £335., 15.
154) gig... l7.

It was natural that 108 Paeeoe felt at ease with a
eherncter such as Heed with whom he had some affinities,
and whose life had partly paralleled his own, halt a dozen
yearn before. Like Doe Peeeoe, heed come from a wealthy
family or good eociel standing; all years after Leefi,

Doe Passes followed him to Harvard enfi, like him took a
great part in all manner of student activities. Both of
them, at different periods, were lie.ed on the stuff of

the Eeeeee and other leftist periodicals, and finrlly both
or them went through an intellectual crisis from which the:
emerged as radicals of different shades. For Doe Paeeoe
the crisis one the Sacco Venzetti case; for iced it woe

World war I uni the October Revolution in hueeio.

Similar to Eoed in some reapccte is Enxton Hibben.
Son of one of the test families in Ineinnapolie, he did
grPGUHtO work at Earverd before entering the eiplomatie
service. In St. Ettoreburg at the time of the revolt of
1905, he got in wrong at the Embassy by walking the streets
uith.the revolutioniete. The resulting furor awakened
his interest in social Justice, and led him to believe in
Theodore Roosevelt's "square deal“ and to campaign for hi:
in.1912h rieeppointed by Roosevelt, "a wind~beg like the
rest of 'em." 155) and by the war which "had taken people's

155) John.Doe reason, U.S.A., 2h Hineteenkfiineteen, 181.

K

minds off accial Justiue," 1v5) Eibben went to szcow with
a relief commission. for

in szcow there was order

1n.:oscow there was work

in HOSuCfl there was hoye. 157)
Eack in America he use labelled n "reé," for, comments
:06 Eussus bitterly:

no more place in America for change, no more

place for the old gags; aocial Justice, pro- 158

creseiviem. revolt ug;inst aggression, democracy. )

The labor levdcra who agpcnr 1n the book are, like
Reed and Tebs, handled with symynthg. "‘13 £111", 159)
William Ladley Hvywood, started his career when he was
nineteen, in 1898, 9nd "from then on, he was an organizer.
a Byeaker an exhorter the wants of all the miners were

0 9

his wants." 160)

One of the founders of the 1.3.H. to builé "a new so-
ciety 1n the ahell of the clan, 151) he camymigned for Date,
the socialist candidate. Arrested during the war for sedi-

tion, he was triefl and convictefl:

 

156) John‘roa Passes, U.S.A., 2. Nineteen Ninetecg, 181.
15?) Ibid., 183.

 

158) gggg,. 18¢.

159) John D08 Eaaeoe,.g;§;fi., 1. gne 48nd rrrnllgg. 98.
16°)lgggg,. 94.

161)‘;g;g,, 95.

Bill Haywooo otooé trial with the hundred
and one at Chicago where Judas Lnndla the
baseball czar with the lack of formality

of a traffic court hfinfiea out his twenty

years aontenigg and thirty thouavnfl dol~

lore tines. )

The Swede Joe Hillstron, like £111 Knywood and the
"1.5.fl.'6," “dreamed about forming the structure of
the new society within the ohell of the old," 1&3) but
he was "legally murderea" during the our in somewhat the
some way no Sacco and Vonzetti:

At Bingham, Utah, Joe Hill organized the work»
ers of the Utah Construction in the One Big
Union, won a new wageacnle, shorter hours bet-
ter grub. (The angel Horoni alon't like labor-
organizers...)

The angel Horonl moved the henrto of the nor-
mons toldccide it was Joe Hill anot a goroer
named Horrisson. The Swedish Consul and Presl-
dcnt filloon tried to get him a new trial but the
angel Moroni moved the hearts of the Supreme Court
of the State of Utah to sustain the verdict of
guilty. He was in Jail 9 year, went on making up_
songs. In November 1915 he was stoofi up gaging: '
the wall in the Jail yard in Salt Lake city. )

Treated in the arms vein are henéolph Bourne, who died

some days after the firm stlce "planning on essay on the

w

162) John roe Passes. 0.3.1., 1. The 42né norallel. 96-
John Ton Bnoooa, U.S.A.. 2. nineteen Hineteen. 423.

154) Ibid., 423.

158

foundations of future rediceliem in America,“ 165) and
Wesley EVCreet, the logger I.fi.£. when the mob lynched
during the wave of anti-radicalism which followed the world
her I. A8 308 Peeeoa wryly e 33, "to be a red in the eun-
mer of 1919 was woree than being a hun or a pacifist in the

summer of 1917." 165)

Last of the bioarephies of the redicnle, and certainp
13 one of the most important. 18 thit of Thorstein Veblen»
A son of 2 family offlfrceholding farmers," he received a
very good education as e result of his father's belief in
it. After taking his Ph.fi. from Yale. unable to conform
himself to the conventionelism and mechanism of American
life, he lived e bohemian existence in one college after
antther. Koreover, hie "unnatural tendency to feel with
the working class instead of with the profittakera," 157)
did not help him to settle in a teaching Job; What Doe
Paesoe says of him,

he pointed out the alternatives: a warlike

society strangled by the bureaucratiea of the

monopoliee forced by the law of diminishing

returns to grina down more and more the comp
non man for profits,

V. ‘—

155) John Ios Peeeoe, U.S.A.. 2. {ineteen Nineteen, 105.
165) John Toe Peesoa, U.S.A., 2. Hinoteon fiineteen, 451.

157) John Toe Peeeoe. U.S.A., 3. The B13_Mbngz, 100'

or a new muttcrofrsot commonsense society
dominated by the needs of the sen and women
who uid the work and the increaibly vest pos-
sibilities for peace and plentv offered by
the pregress of technology. )

could as well be applied to Ice Passes himself.

It is more pnrtieulerly as the author of Thewrheorx
of the leisure (less, that reblen has grottcst interest
for the rerder of Des Pnssos. for as Eooch noted, it seems
that "this enalysis of bourgeois uentelity ani bourgeois
economics is the gre5test single influence on the work
of Yes Pcssos of angthing in print." 169) Certainly, Ton
lessee owes much to Hnrx's (a itvl, and his social ensl-
gsis -- at least in its enti«cepitsliem aspect -- was ina
fluenced by Marx; but it Was cesentislly in Veblen that
Toe Passes found the expression of his own attituoes.

He is the Veblen of iEGTiJFn Fiction, sher-

ing Veblen's rebelliousness, his restless

questing mine, his hatred of the strndrrdized

middle class culture and of the leisure class 170)

aesthete and his insight into inericen traits.
Consequently it is to Veblen thstone should look for "the

most promising clues to the interpretntion of U.S.i." 171)

 

v—fi

158) John Toe Passes, U.S.A.. 3. The Eig_flcn€23 103'

159) J. Warren Beach. fimerieen Fiction, 1920-1940, 60.

170’ flax Lerner. “The America of 206 Passes," The Ration,
{XLIII (August, 1936). 188a

171) J. Warren Eeech, American Fiction‘ 1920-1940, 60.

160

Perhaps the most provocative inericsn thinker of his period.
and certainly the most bitterly attacked, Veblen by the com»
plateness of his material failure, tended to confirm what
Doe Passes had implied earlier in Kennettdnyrrsnsrer. that
"the only very greatest Americans. and I mean the really
great ones, are precisely the greatest failures." 173)

Like Her! in Kenhstten Transfer, who wanted to meet a man
who wished to fell. there is in g;§;_. sac. the wobbly

who says; "suppose a roller didhit want to get rich..." 173)
such men are the only successful once, those who seem
entirely defeated —~ Jailed like Debs or shot like Kill-
atrom ~~ for ”inside them there is some motive power who
keep them going to the end. They have minds, consciousness,

individuality and personality." 174)

In addition to the blagrsphies. two other devices are
used by Don Passes to create the frame of his picture. One

is the Reworeel, already mentioned in Xenhnttnn Transfer,

 

—'—w

173) Clifton Padimen. "Er. D08 2&3808' Newsreel," flew
xorker, XII (August. 1926), 52.

173) John 308 lessee, U.S.A.. 1. Th0 43nd ffrflll°$1 118'

174) o. i. unippie. «no: Passes and the U.S.A.." fiction
CKLFI (February. 1988). 212.

*U‘

then at an experimental Stage. In U.S.A.. it has attained
its full fievelepnont and is used extensively by Tee Passes
to create the need an to sound the keynote of the time.
The newsreels include; among other things, selections from
newspaper headlines:

Ue S e f T EAR

UBHULL nirlcn CITY'S car 175)
or from articles:

the Titanic slowly tilted straight on.en& with
the stern vertically upwaré and as it did so the
lights in the cabins and saloons which has not
flickered for a moment since we left, died out,
came on again for a single flesh and finally went
out altOgether. meanwhile the machinery rattled
through the vessel with a rattle and a groaning
that could be hing? for miles. Then with e Quiet
slanting dive.

or fragments or popular songs:
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
Alexander's Ragtime hand
It is the best ,
It is the best 177)

At first, it seems that this material is rather casual-
1y picked up by Ice Passes from the perieeicals of the
period and then presentea in such a fashion es.it might
175) Jonn.ros Passes, U.S.A.. l. The 42nd Parallel. eel.
1'5) Ibid., 150.

177’ Ibid.. 23.

162

impress a subway reader -- large headlines scattered among
articles "running into one another and ,ied" 173) at which
the render glances while simultaneously he hears snatches
oi pepular songs. In this fashion. the newercels place the
actions of characters in the calendar of time and keep
the render informed as to the ideas, feds, fancies and
crease of the period. Eut the render soon realized that
they are used by the author to illustrate theories. that
they are not nso planless and haphazard as one night
suppose." 179) Taken as a whole. carefully chosen and a-
rranged, the nessreels permit a picture or a despairing
world. its harmony gene. its self-direction lost. The
screen on which the business of the world is carried on,
the newereele reflect accuratedly the mood of the period.
social disorders stir the world,

ELOLBY has AY Is sescos 130’

C'est la lutte finale

Groupene nous ct demnin

L'lnternntionale Q
Sore le genre hunain 1V1)

178) J. barren Beach, gseriean Fiction, 1920-1940, 58.
179) Ibid.. 58
' 130’ John.rea Bosses, U.S.i.. l. The 42nd Parallel. 57.

181) John res Passes. U.S.h.. 2. nineteen ninetcon. 403°

163

while in America.
Bebe is given 30 years prison l82)
I.e;e. ls PLOT TO KILL hILSCH 133)
igiicg Egigdnghigg)Euns on Colorado nine strikers
Rene: 18 the timBS' idol, and capitalists assume the rule-
chip or the netion,
nurnlzns emcee AS RAIL CCLLCESUS 185)

Says thii is century where billions and brains nre
to rule 8

18?)

Effihfils HAIL 31$ 0? EKIIHSICZ

truly the steel corporation stands as a ciggornte
colossus both physically and financially V

Tenth, disasters. and disintegration stalk the world.

For there's many a men been murdered in Luzon
and hindnneo
and in Samar
There's many a good man murdered in the rhiliypinee

An A A.

John.Dos Passes. U.S.é.. 3. nineteen Nineteen, 100.

183 gbid.. 335.
184) John.Dos Passes, U.S.A.. 3. The Big Monqi. 520-

‘le2)

185) John.Boo rsssce.‘g;§;5,. l. The 42nd Parallel. 80‘
186) 3m" 34.

137) John.Doe Passes, E;§:£t, a. cue B15 Honzx. 36

133) gggg..l4e.

16‘;

L133 31599133 in some lonesome grave 189)
300.000 recalls ROBLES 31:13 or rc1332vzxx 19°)
army casualties soar to 64,305 with the 318 today

11,760 have paid the supreme ssigigice in action
and 6,193 are severely wounded

Such is "the dope with which the public mind is put
to sleep.3 192) Though the connections are not made be—
tween events in the newereel, the author presenting the
.fects as they appear to the hurrying reader of the news-
paper. yet Toe presos subtly suggests relrtionships which
“become more and more conscious no the story proceeds." 193°
The render slowly realizes how the war is bound to the price
of steel and sugar. and not to the desire to make the world
safe for democracy; he realizes too, how the victory of

the revolutioniste in.tussin brought the persecution of the
I.h.h. All these connections are finally evident to the
careful reader; thus the author has full: succeeeed. through
the newsreel device, in shaping the mood in which his book

is to be read.

 

189) John'vog PESSOS.‘§;§;£3| l. The_§2nd Parallel. 5.
190) John.zos Passes, U.s.e.. 2. nineteen Nineteen. 215-
191) gggg,. 287.

192) J. hurrah Bench, American Fictionl‘1920-1940o 53'

193) Ibid., 59.

()3

However lrrge w s the range oftechniques in the novel

re

up to his time, itnce not lcrgeenough for Tea -r nos. he
felt the uses of a means to espress Tis own gosition, a me-
dium through whi n he could appear in the gicturs to re-
port the parish "from the goint of View of the rrtistic
individual." 194) Ingroving the ch'-tcr hohding technique
of Henhktt n Trcneftr, he fievelsped it into the Camera Eye.
Acco;éing to Eevch,

they are a series of fleshes which flacting

hint end impression suCCest the chvrscter of

the trtist whose work it is, his can involve—

ment in the social structure, the ccnditions

th‘t nclcefi him, his aims end motives of his

work. 195

In fifty—one rutohiogrcphiccl gcssnges ?oe Basses intin
mates through "ccurnnts fie conscience," 196) the course of
his own sgiritucl life. In th Lahore Eyes of the first
took, Ehe_§2nd Prrnllol, the author follows himself from
his childhood to 1916. when he sailed to France:

194) Recon Wade "Novelist of America; J. Ios Basses,"
North fimorican Leview. (LxLIV (Teccmbsr. 19:7). 360

195) J, warren Batch, épcricsn.Ficfion1“19;‘-l940. 61.

195) Pierre Erodin. Les Ecrivsins Lmericains deAl'Entre—
Ieux Gucrresi (streams ofrconsciousness],'1183 ’"

Then

19?)

198)
199)
200)

201)
202)

203)

16

O cu'iln . lezzux yours 5?1d the ley in the
segt Opposi: e t-ut L‘he 55v that w~8 1.0t the WE)
to tslh to M111 1 n ... 9 )

Co it go it said hr. Linwood the headmaster

when one was running up the field kicking the

round ball footer the; called it in H mpstena

end sfterwnrés it see time to walk home and one

felt good Lecause hr. Linwooi had 2:10 00 it ... 198)

and before I Luce it it was ccmmunien ... 199)

0 ' 't O.
He wsnted to go to sen “00) the stuniec law ht
the UnIVcisity 201)

enfl He talkeo €293t laureforu and what politicians
't'IC‘l'e like 0.. "v”

he tr:~' is in England:

she was n very fashionable lady and adored
hull-terriers and hhd s gentleman friend

who ere frmcus fez his zccentlsnce to ling

1L“! szd ... there were white lilies in the

hell no Kn Gee: I cannot tear the ScCflt or

them in the room ... we all went coaching

in e fourinhnnd and the man in the tech Llew

a long Lain ... 1 616 not like the fourinhnnd...
I éic not like tie Bullteriiers ... she I
wished I was home “

John 108 re 8808, U.£o;., l. The éfind rerellel, 24.

 

ILid.. 57.
Ibid., 108.

John (hnntcrlein noted. "For n time ’03 Eescos heped
to enter Annngolis," J. Ios lrssosj s ‘10{I°‘h1<81
end Critical hsggi, 5.

 

John Tos Paseos, U.S.A., l. The_42nd rsrsllel. 1&6.

 

Ibid., 174. (It has been said in the first chapter
thit his father, a lawyer, ens L *euperlbtbyisto")

John Lee Pr.se oe, U.S. A., l. The 4ind P rsllel, 244.

16:

In Virginia, at the home of his mother:

thst August it never rained e grep and it'
had hnrély rhined in July the truck ger-
den was in e territle state and all through
the Horthern Heck of Virginia it was no use
pulling Lornfodder ... end the lands tetLeen
the Livers wee fl? t ereineii of all strength
by tobacco in the ecrly Lther Ir‘e-gh n;-
tain John smith thnocnt: a de.;e 2v4)

In,CenLdn*

raining in historic Quebec it wse raining
on the Chateau in historic Luebee where
gallant holfe in e threeoorncred hat eat
in e teat ... tut the ;hateeu was the Fron-
tennc world-fencus hoe terly historic in the
gray 1"1111 to. “05)

At Harvard:

those Spring nights the streotehrwheele
Screech grinding in a rattle of loose
trucke round the curved tracks of Her—
Ver Square ... can't sleep
haven't got the nerve to break out
the Lellgloeo four years unfier the
ether cone breathe deep gently
nun that'e the way Le a gooL boy one
two three four five six get A's ...
but don't Le a grina to interested in
literature but remain a gentlemen don't
be seen with Jews or socialists ...
and l hetn't the nerve
to Jump up and wall out of doors end tell
them all to go take a flying
x inib‘WlC.
at the noon 205)

“k 4* _‘_.

2°4)John Ioe feecoe, Ugs.«., l. ghe Inn? :erflllel, £60.

205);L1e..
30531b1e..

‘
a
r:

0

hi

03.

ICE

At protest meetings in flew York on the night of 6.3. on-
trance in the war:

the garden was crowded end outsiie Keeison
Square wee full of cogs tact cede everybody
move on and the bomtoqued ell tnxnea out

and a mrn nee Speaking and whenever he said
war there was hieses and whenever he seifi
Russia there was clapping on account of the
Fevolution ... we nieeeé for Morgan enfi the
capitaliet war ... then we went to hear Emma
Golimnn ct the Bronx Casino but the meeting
wee forbidéen and the streets ground were
very croeeee eni theie were moving vane full
of cape ... everybody talked machineguna re-“
volution civil liberty freedom of speech ...507)

And on his way to Fr nee after having signed up in the ery:

there were grieeta and none on tn~ “Stein" ...

all the necklights ware screenei and you

couldn't light e match on the deck ...

and then it use the mouth of the Giiondo ...

the Geronne was red it was autumn ...

at the hotel of the Seven Sietcra everybogg‘

was in mourning on account cf tee war ...“V3)
To eummnrize, "we see him as the typical procuct of tour-
geoio gentility, eoft, refined and f:etidious...but there
in in him some protestant strrin which loses him to question

the assumptions of his class... he resents the onotishnees

 

O
and the sterile culture of the university .." “09)

 

208) ILifl., see.

209) J. Warren Eecch. fimfric‘n‘E1Cticn‘ 1920’1940’ 61.

The Camera Eyes of the secona volume cover the same
period as the outctioarnphicol book, One Ken's Initiation,
in which Toe Pnesos relvted his war experiences; now he
sees himself as more of a protester. is in the first book.
it is possible to follow him through his WFndcrings in Frende,
and in Itrly, in France (grin after the peace, but there
is a parent e stronger strain of aieeatiofo:ticn with society.
A witness of the waste and horrors of the war, T08 £98805
protests the futility and the useleeeneee of the sacrifice
of those who gave their lives to save the banker's invest-
mento:

remembering the grey crooked ringers the thick
drip or blood off the canvas the bubbling when
the lingteeee'try to breathe the mudoy ecrops
of fleeh you put in the ambulance alive and haul
Cat dead .0.

EO there must be some way they trught ue

land of the free conscience Give me liberty
or give me hell they give us fleeth ...

well to do country goOPle carefully built the
wells and the little beehhouee with the clean-
acrubbed seat and the quortermoon in the floor
like the backhouoe of Sn old farm rt home
carefully planted the gerden end savored the
fruits and the flowers and carefully glenned
this war no. 210)

...Can't you letofellerte? You're in cahoots
withem thoewhaeoemotteris I know thoyreouttorookme
they think Imogoduomouchor tomedethrtfie‘oeit I'll
shoeem Illknoolyergodoemtloaloft ... e )

210) John roe Preaoa, g.s.e., 2. Nineteen rineteen,_lOl-102.
211) Ibid., 175. 1

17C

19 in $hree 31112111, he atttchs the e gloit tics of 11:

 

by the c‘ficera 1n; 1 boat 1 1031121113"

...Lut where are i .
cumming who ware t "
name of the Bed r: ? Ens slowest an; yua-
gicst £11 whifeat 1. the 113311 is ttill f1 :1 310n
be seen.cn his hands 1n' '

l

a

019 tnliing cvrr
511111 in 116 n me of

muses with mud all
over £33 guttaca 1:11

.3

B

132 in‘a tLe 11:11 hni
ta t'a the 111$ 10 a 01 thui1d [1038 ““3013 00‘1“,
... 'rcmctions only marked under 51131 drowcily
11 .2111 cut on *he zurtenfcn (Gran: in ‘11 svn»
tonment or L'1ielly's Travelling tizcus 11011
excejgat fir}? ‘t‘te 3117114113111 13143135113113; in his 1:1?
and the 1r) h1.ci c1 the guy th1 t has .?1§- th t the
)0 w13 noger -aatz:r enou1h foe rairw ‘~'

15:13 he witnessce -- in 31:13 n01 .. tie t’41c 1 cf goetu

3'6 1: .1"

:11:- )

214)
215)

51 1:1 lhfifduhthfint

I 11ikcfi all 0111 town {Lnercl 1frihe no tuEC1s
I 8?W :95 fl1r5 in1tela France in a white tesrfl
11111111 fll11lwa LL L1 651:13 131 the nutcrmcler
facaa of the weenta do 11 eareta 1..

h regublic n Luxzbu in carlttxrstr<e 611C 8
were riding among the crow: whacking the 22r161113
11th the flat 1f thair £13118...

acrmca 0f the Intarnvt 11111 10111111011111 111 1118
at 116 C’ze cc 1'11fwiL14' 3 211111; the Jgt1rnntion11
the genfin.rmeria n:tion:la 11 3.213; its 1‘5'alcnI3...

w.c10d3 1111 tue revolution mtg .11‘rzn ca 1

marseillee 113 11111 :1 V1 fii}C£ zuze ...414)

1:13't 1.01111 to t? e 1n1rzhiat picnic there's
going to so an 1. rahist 111311 aura yvu'va {at
to 1010...But Cad évmn it they've (at 11 the
ma1nianunu in tie 11:11 111 the 111ntid;g:'sses
linotyyaa ti c.k- rriLhon curling 1:053 J1u3.h11115
Lita 131 we 5cm 1? L111h1.;a a few Ln1i rat very
.cofl gangs plutot 10 11310 11*leuwirc h u

‘ ..L. __._. _‘ ...... .... m .L A._1._1 ...

chn.roa £13198, U.S.§., a. Rinctoen-fiineteen. 353.

11:131. . 4’31)

Ibidu. 420

Finally in The Big Honqi £03 dfifibOS agpeurs through
the Camera Eye aa a Journalist who makes a meager living.
He is still filled with th‘t generous sentiment and ideal-
ism which he evinced in relation to the Sacco Venzetti case.
Arriving in America he expresses his diaillueionment

the unnamed arrival... who arriving in Keno

hetton finés waiting egiin the foreometody-

elsetnilored dreee euit

the position offered the opportunity present»

ed the colltrbutton dirging into the ednmespple

while a vocien imnge croeie down a trble at two

rows ct freshlyyreesed gentlemen who wear feeb-

ionobly their toilored names

stuffed into shirts to caption miles lightyeare

ct clipped streamers of newegrint £16)

Gentlemen I apologize it was the wrong bell
Powerless to holy, he watches the triumph of the bosses
while the workers are enslaved; he attends. at the peak
of the wove of anti—radicalism, the mortyrdom of the two
Italian anarchists for "uphclaing the principles of Elgmouth
flock." 317) Turning to the Camera Lye, fine to the tribute
Toe looses paid to the two Italians, we come to the most
imyortont gapect of the thought behind U.8.i. Wh“t are E08

Easeoe' theories and conclusions? thre does he st'nde?

shot lesson gust the reader drew from him? All these quee-
tione find their answer in a careful reading of the triloay.

 

216) John :03 328 as, U.S.A.. 3. The EigAKonez, El.

317) J. garren teach, American Fictionl_l9;O-1940. 61.

 

17;

There con be no doubt -- if we consiicr the blackness
of the gicture irawn in U.o.i. -- as to the iinel outcome
of the eociel struggle. First, oureuing theeevolution
mentioned in the orcccdlng peace, and confirmed in his
conclusions by the issue of the Sacco Vnnzetti coee which
groved to him that society ”could grind two yoor Italians
to Earth for their Opinions," 218) 303 Poeooe hoe now come
to a clear reCOEnition of existence of the class struggle.
in his mind. America "lay irrevocably split between the own-
ers and the oiegosoeseed, tetwecn those who wielded the
police power eni the greet me see of oeople." 319) J. fl.
Moorehouse on the one hand and J. P. Korghn on the other
repreeent the exploiters, while on the other e do of the
fence there rre Joe iillieme or "big Lill" Haywood. The
former are the capitalists, the men wth the "knowhow," 230)
those who hsve "credit for e new car, for suits at brooks
brothers. for meals at egeokueeeiee." L31) Single-minded,
they live in the wozli of money. slaves of this some money

218) Alfred hazin, (n Hative Grounds, 951.

 

319) 1r:a., 252.

9 n ‘ (“A
““0) John 709 393505. U.S.i.. 3. The 315 Kongi, ho7.

 

n c“

(“1) Ibifii. 2.310

which is the source at their power, thed strive ceaselessly
to get more and more of it. for "(you) neger can have plan-

£an
a ‘“2) is n resuit, they juége men and things

15" 0: W'thinge
according their financial value one their Link-eccounts.
They do not even tale the tine to live, to enjoy the croi-
nary things in life, or to meintaln normal social releticn-
ships with the rest of humanity. The letter, the exploited,
are those on when one by whom the firs ones built their
fortunes, conscious of their eonJitien, venexelly the; do
not have the soul; of heroes or martyrs, and consequently

let themselves :e crushed without fighting Lilo Joe Millions.

'5:

tonetines, knowing ”how the other half line," 4“
as do fiery French or Eugene fete, they engage in e hopeless

‘1’ "'1‘ -~ . a
£1 ht "to rise uith the Jeni." ““*) ;heee two woxlee ere

syntoliseé b; 203 Lesson in the l:ot chapter of the trilog".

P3

here, he contrrets the boneless en; hungry Lecricen L03
"Veg" hitchohicling for hells on the rose with the ”rich
men with tnnksceountS" who, rtove his hepa, @10 flying in
a silver Tcugles towerés the recific coast;

The young ban waits at the eige of the con.

erete with one hand he grips a ruobedsuitoase
of phony leather, the other hen; almost unling

223’ John Toe Passes, (3.3.5., :3. pinata-sen Yf'ineteen, 2350..
Pg":
“““) John Toe lrsses. U.S.i., Z. The 315 Kongx, 142.

254) John foe Ezeeoe, U.S.A., 1. fine 4Ené rerellel. 118.
m '

113

e fist, thumb up

that moves in ever so all ht an are then a cer
slithers post, a truck Ioere olettere; the wind
of cers peeeing ruffles his heirs, slege grit in
his face.

Head swims, hunger hes twistea the belly tight.

he has skinned a heel through the torn sock, feet
echo in the brolen shoes, under the throhdbhre
suit carefully brushed off with the hang, the torn
drawers have a crummy feel. the feel of having
slept in yourclothoe; in the noetrile lingers
the oteleneee of discouraged o rceseea crowded
in a transient camp, the cerbolie stench of the
Jail, on theteut cheeks the shamed flush from
the boring eyes 0! caps and deputies, railrovd-
bulls (they eat three Squozes 3 any, they are
buttoned into wellnhde clothes, they hove wives
to sleep with, kids to ylhy with after supper,
they work for the big men who buy their w'y, they
stick their chests out with the eureneee of power
behind their backs}. Git the hell out, scrim.
know what's good for you. you'll make yourself
icerce. Gittin' tough, eh? Think you lin take

t, eh?

The punch in the Jew, the ol;m on the head
with the nightstick, the wrist grabbed and twist-
ed behind the back, the L15 knee brought up sharp
into the crot h,

the walk out ct town with sore feet to at nfl
end wait et the edge of the hieeing Speeding etring
of e rs where the reek of ether and lead end the
melts into the silent greasy smell oi the earth.

Eyes blank.with Went seek out the eyes er the
drivers, 7 hitch e hunored miles Sewn the reed.

Overhead in the blue p plane drones. Eyes
follow the silver Touglee thotfleshcs once in the
sun and bores its smooth any out or eight into
the blue.

(The treneoontinentrl passengers eit pretty,
big men with tinkhceounte, highlypeia Jobs, who
are saluted by doornen; telephonegirle say good-
morning to then. Lqet night ofter a fine supper
drinks with frienee. they left Newark. Loer of
climbing motors slanting up into the inky haze.
Lights frop away. An hour staring along e silvery

wing at e big lonesome moon hurrying west through
curdling ecum.... ,

The treneeontinotel passenger think contracts.

profits, vecvtiontripo, mighty continent between

Atlantic nnfi 3?.rifie, woawtr, wires humming iollara,
cities Jnmmefi. hills empty , the indinntrnil leading

into t! c w onroni. the r-‘*c>dpme& gile, the concrete
$103; trains, plenee: histery the billionfloller
speedup,

end in the bumpy “ir over the desert ranges to-
wsrzs Les Vegre

sickens end vanits into the cr rtoon container the
steak and mushrooms he ate in: iee Yerk. :0 matter.
silver in the pockets, greenbecke in the wallet,
drefge, certified checks. plenty resteurents in
L0! 0

The young men waits on the eiae of the road;
the glene has gene; thumb moves in a smell are
when a cer tears hissing yRSto Eyes seek the
driver's evee. A kflundzed Jlee do.n the road.
Heed swims, belly tightens, wente creel over his
eJin lile zn*e:

went to school, books eeid Opportunity, eds
aromisel speed, own 5our home, shine b13591 tr~;en
your neighbor. the radiocrooner whispered girls,
gho:te 01:31ntinum cixle- -ooxcd £10m the ec.:een,
millions in winnings were chalked up on the boards
in the offices, pry heeka were far han a willing
to work. the cleared desk of an executive with
three teleghonee on it;

unite with swimming heed. nee<le lnot the belly,
idle h"nfls nu3t1 besiie the sgecéin~g§raffic.

A hundred miles down the 20 d. ~~V

Yet, intimates Toe Passes, this s tuation did not
exist twenty—five years earlier; there is, transparent
through the twelve hundred pages of the trilogy, the social
history or the netion, so summarized by a French contemporv
ary critie,

En 1900.10 premier ieoeevelt erliva eu pouvoir.

”Tedrm'" eteit un rmeteur rui e.dor91t lee grands
ceetee tt la publicite. :eliti :ien hora ligne,

 

325) John Doe Passes, U.S.A., 3. The Big unneg. 559 to 561.

17;

176

ii avait une memoirs courts e souheit. En defi-
nitive, il accomplit fort peu pour le bien etre

du peuple. ll leiss: a see file "le feroeeu de
l'homme blenc." Son concurrent democrate, Bryan,
"la voix d'nrgent," etsit une outre gonflee dc vent.

Les republicsine reactionnaires e'nrrengerent
pour limiter nu mazimun lee pseudo-reformes do
Roosevelt. Wilson qui leur success, eteit un doc—
trineire verbeux et hypocrite. Apres evoir pro-
mis ls psix, 11 fit la guerre. 11 fit emprisonner
lee liberaux et lee socialistes. Agree evoir eu
des velleitce oe reformcs, il livrn l'fimerique
aux banquiers.

19:95 la mort cu Soirnnterinquiemc Congres des
Etrts~Unis, le gouvernment des representents in
peuple mourut cans cc peys, si Jennis il nvnit
ete vivsnt.

Eenflent lee vingt premieres snnees du siecle,
le peuple fut a peu pres absent ée l'histoire des
Etsts-Unis. Les 'grsnds honmcs' servirent, bon
gre mal gre, la finance, is capitalisme, l'empe-
rialisme et furent pour la plupart, exploites per
ces forces occultee.

A la fin de in periods, is capitalisme deviant
de plus en plus odieux. Au systems do is concur-
rence se substitue le systeme du nonOpole gui elnr-
git le fosse entre les classes. 225

(In 1900, the first Roosevelt came in office.
Teddy was an amateur who was fans of greet ges-
tures and publicity. in exceptional politician,
he hed a convenient short memory. On the whole
he acc;nplished very few for the welfare of the
people. He left to his children 'the white man's
burden.’ His democrat, Opponent, Erynn 'the sil-
ver tongue,‘ was a wind-beg.

The resctionnary Republicans mrnaged to restrain
the most possible the pseudo-reforms of Loosevelt.
Wilson, who followed them, was s wordy end hypocrite
doctrinsire. After having promised peace, he made
war. He imprisonei liberals and socialists. In
spite of his good intentions, he gave up the country
to the bankers.

After the death of the sixty-five Congress :3 the

 

226)

Pierre Brodin, age Ecriveins Americains dc l'Entre-
Benz Guerres, 1 I

177

United States, the government of the lepresentstives
or the people disappeared in this countrv if it had
ever eristeo._

Turing the first twenty years of the century,
the people took almost no part in the History of
the United States. willy nilly, the Politicians
were the toolsof Finance, Capitalism, Imperialism
and most of them were exploited by these hidden
forces. .

At the end of the period, €apitnlism becomes more
and more destructive. To the competitive system is
substituted the mon0poly system, which widened the
gulf between the classes).

At the close of U.S.A., the picture is tragically des-
pairing. Yet, there is a light, a hOpe, a solution to bridge
the gap between the two American nations, eni to bring about

a new order. This solution, as Tos Passes expressed it

earlier in fienhattan Transfer, is the unification of the

 

worker. "Jorkers of the world unite, you have nothing to

. loose but your chains." 237) Once united they will fight
capitalism; it will be easy then "to go out from under the
interests" 238) for "the exploiting class would be helpless
against the solidarity of the working class." 229) No
doubt, there is such 3 latent hope in most of the rebellious
characters of I03 Passes -- much more than there is in the‘

author himself. All of them believe in the social revolution

 

327) John roe Passes, U.S.n., l. The 42nd Parallel, 19.
228) Ibid., 62.
229) Ibid., 102.

178

which soon will spread ovtr the world, the time
when there'll be a big revolution like the Ameri-

can Revolution only bigger and after that there
won't be any bosses and the workers run industry.

230)

The war precipitates events abroad which increase the
confidence of those characters in Ice Passes who believed
in the social revolution. For these persons, war was a
crooked mezhinntion destined to me is the sorli safe for the
capitalists by checking the coming social revolution. Con-
sequently, it was the duty of every close-conscious worker
to refuse to fight "this bastardly capitalists wer .” 231)
A German immigrant expressed the general opinion when he
said:

I am e socialist unt I live toity years in the

United SM tes, unt own my home out pry teees unt

I'm a good American, but dot oon't neon eoot:£)

will fcig .ht for benl.er lorgcn, not venue
The [evolution of Octobe still incrccsed the hope of the
working clrss; it was at last the beginning of whet they
had awaited, the first step "of the regenerrtion of men-
kind.“ 2:5) In fact it resulted in America in a cruel wove

of anti-radicalism, booked by the capitalists, who skill-

fully managed both to gustify themselves and to gain the

 

230) John Doe ressos, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallel, l9.

 

301) Ibid., 297.

()1; f‘ ‘ - '
“”‘3 John Doe Bosses, U.S.A., a. nineteen Nineteen, 171.

 

3'" '1

b¢«) John roe gasses, U.S.A., l. The 42nd Parallel, 406.

approval of a large part of the "other hslf". The Sacco
stzetti case seemed a perfect illustrstion of these legal
murders, at least authorized -— when not applauded -- by
the public:

Host of the newspspcrmen who hed any connection

with the case thought the two had been wrongly

convicted (yet) they tcnied to say that they were

just two wop anarchists, so uh't's the hell. “”
How explain this attitude? How explain this wilespresd
passivity, which resulted in something amounting an assas-
sination? Ios Passes answers the questions through the
Camera Eye:

They made us foreigners in the lend where we

were born they are the conquering army that

has filtered into the country unnoticed they

have taken the hilltoys by stealth they levy

toll they stand at the minehesd they stnnd at

the polls...

America our nation has been beaten by strengers

who have turned our language insi e out who have

eken the clean words our fathers Spoke and made
them slimy and foul ... deb)
‘ .‘q

They managed to "pull the wool over the eyes of the geople" evG)
in such a 'ay that the public unconsciously has permitted
such an injustice. Few realized and understood whet wee
going on and the role of Toe eassos is to nckc others see

again, to

 

234) John roe Passes, U.S.A., 3. The E16 Honey, 450-
335) ILid., 462.
286) ,7. Warren E88011, American Fiction, 1920-1940, 52.

180

rebuild the ruined words worn slimy in the mouths

of lawyers oistrictsttorneys collegepresilents

Judges without the old Horus the immigrant haters

of oppression brought to Plymouth how nan you

know who are your betrayers America ...

how can I make them feel how our fathers how our

uncles haters of oppression come to this coast

how say Fon't let them score you how make 3hem

feel who exe your oppressors America ... 2‘7
This is the project of Pos Pesoos; this is his aim. But,
as Beech sks, "In Whit terms shall he 'rebuild the ruined
words'?" 238) What remedy does he pr0pose, what way does
he recommend to re'oh the new order? In this trilOEy is
the answer to the question a group of young Soviet actors
asked Dos Passes when he was leaving Moscow in 1928,

They want to know, they like you very much but

they want ask you one question. fihey went you

to show your face. They went to lnow.ghere you

stend politically. Are you with us?

Throughout this stuéy, emphasis has been placed upon
Los Pessos' gradual movement toward the left, a movement
apparent in the evolution of his rrt from its beginnings
through U.S.A. whether or not that shift terminates in com-
munism is, however, another question. was 308 Passes a

communist, or pose ibly an sruent fellow-traveller? Affirmative

 

237) John Dos rsssos, U.S.A., 3. The gig Money, 437.
238) J. Harren Beggh' American FiCiionL 1920-1940. 62.

 

239) John PosPassos, In All Countries, 5'

181

evidence is not difficult to fi d it is true. Those char-
acters whom he treats most sympathetically, it has already
been noted, are all leftists or anarchists, nurtured on

Hhrx's Capitol and Bellsny's Looking Backword. Their ideal

 

is socialistic society "where nobody works for themselves
(consequently he works for the community) en'there's no

way anybody can get to be a rich bondholder or capitalist
(we srevnot verwaar here from the suppression of the indi-
vidusl_pr0pe£ty) an' life's pretty slick for the working

class.” 240)

All at them, moreover, applaud vigorously
the outbreak of the Pussicn Revolutiong there seems to be
no doubt as to Yes Pessos' sympathies for the {ussien re-
volutionists here. With Ben Compton, "his best man" 241)
he applauded at "the dawning of the lay," and shares the
thoughts and hopes of those who saw in it but the first
of a series of revolutions, "next Austria, then the Reich,
then England ... freed people everywhere." 242) Finally
his own opposition to capitalistic views, which were laws

in his own country. brought him still closer to Communism.

Himself of a wealthy family, he haé teen stress as a private

1}

241) J. warren Beech. American Fiction, 1920-1940, 62.

242) John nos passes, U.S.A., 2. Nineteen Nineteen, 441.

182

in the Army and had made hiswcy by himself through the diffi-
cult times that were the twenties. It could have been his
own words that Mary French Spoken when she Said to her weal-

thy mother, "nobody has a right to money they haven't earned." 243)

moreover, besides writing ’.S.i., Zoe Passes also
wrote crticles for the hen Republic, n leftist periodical.
On the whole he appeared in these as a defender of the Com-
munists:

Can anything be done to avert a bitter

nationwide persecution of thegggnmunists

and suspected communists ... “

The struggle egoinst working-class radicalism

of the American governors and owners is going

back to the acute stage of 1919. Now the srdh-

enemy is communism instead of l.w.h. ... In 1919

we were h0gntied by in? psychology, new we have

nowsuch excuse ... 2 5

The literary world of communistic Russia claimed Dos
Psssos for its own; after the publication of the two first
volumes of the triloay, Pussien writers hailed Ios Posse:
as a Spiritual brother, reCOgnizing in him a friend endsn
ardent prepsgetor of their gospel:

All of us herefin the land of the Soviet feel

243) John ros Passos. U.S.A.o 3' The Big unngy, 114'

 

344) John Doe Passes, “A Communication, Wanted: an Ivy Lee
for Liberals," New Republic, LXIII (1930), 371.

245) John has Passes, "Back to Red hysteria, "New Republic.

urselves to be pioneers on; founders of the

new Communistic Culture ...

Your book makes a great sensation among us ...

All those who are close to the Soviet proli-

tariat, the cause of building socialism should

actively expose and fight the tactics of cep-

itclisn. he :ount you as u friend, that is a

friend of our teak. 545

Yet on the other hand the render feels, in some pes-
sages, how far Ios Passes is from being the presence of the
new "communistic culture." often he enuresses his distrust
of the communist party as he would have of any other kind
of strong and over-disciplined organization. ihus in the
last curt of the trilogy Ben Compton, "his test men,“ is
expelled from the party on account of his refusal to he a
blind executor of the party's orders. Yes, 308 Eessos'
purpose is "to pull the wool away," but whst is the use of

it, it immediately another substitute is pulled over? Ben

is a precursor of Glenn Spotswood in Adventures of a Young

 

E32! Thinking that "this is a debating society," and "more
interested in seving the miners' unions," he refused "to have
to follow the party line." 247) But the rolling will of

the communistic machine does not uuthorize such sentiments.
Fonsld Stevens eXpresses fully wh-t should be the new or-

der estsblished by the party; sneaking of such men as Ben

 

245) zelinski and Pavlenko, "tuseia to Toe Passes," Living
Age, CCCXLIII (October, 1932).

247) John Doe Passes, U.S.A., Z. The Big menez, 555°

 

Compton, he says, ”If they're not very careful indeed, they

'will find themselves out on their car." 548)

Good evidence of $08 Passos' suSpicion of the new com-
munistic order. is his treatment of Donald Stevens, the
typical party memter. Treated sympathetically in some
passages, and particularly when he is fighting for the
life of the two Italians, Sacco and Venzetti,

We've got to get the entire norhingclsss of

Boston out on the streets,

We'll go and talk to yourccommittee; then

we'll talk to the Itslisn committee. Then

we'll shake up the unions, 34
303 Passes has really very little patience with him as a
men. Indeed hos Pessos' "host women" Mary French, who
fought by Tcn's side, is treated quite shebbily by him.

She is to him simply a practical tool in the party; when

her usefulness is gone, he simply disceres her for another
comrade -- a significant comment on 705 Pssscs' View of con-
munist social and political morality. Finally, through

Tonald Stevens, Dos Passos expresses his suspicion for those
party members who are little more than order-takers for Mbscow:

I've got to go across to the other sioe with...

you know who ... essential party business.
I'll be gone a month. we're sailing at mid-

 

343) John hos Passes, 0.3.1... 3. The Big M01121. 5356
249) Ibid., 456.

night. sni if nnybgdg asks after he I am

in Pittsburg, see? ~5 J

Similarly ios reseos orpresses himself through G. H.
Barrow (an unpleasant character but in this ~sse probably
the author's mouthpiece) on wilson's fight for his princi-
pies;

He fought on ... we are all of us fighting

on... It's the greatest crusade in history;

if we win, the Weill will be a better place to

live in, if we loose, it will 3e given up to

Eolshevisn an; despair ... 201

Finally :03 Isssos' caution appears in the Camera
Eye, when the yoing men, in whom we have re:0gnized the
author himself, goes out to

walk the streets and walk the streets ...

eni all the time in my pocket that letter

from thet collegeboy asking me to explain

why teing right which he admits the rod-

icels are in their private lives such shits 253)
These same communists who were so pleased by the publi-
cation of U.S.A., nevertheless suspected that ice Passes
was not entirely theirs. They reproached him for his ten-

dency to be much too objective —- es the communists in the

trilogy hsd reproachcd ten for being e sentimentalist --

 

n ”o
“50) John Les rasscs, U.S.A., 3. The £15 yonez, 5&5,

 

251) John fies Eessos, U.S.A., 2. Einsteen Nineteen, 408.

 

252) John has gasses, U.S.A., 3. The Big money, 150°

186

and his tendency to report both sides of the communist pic-
ture. is they said,

In your tendency to be objective in the high-

est degree you fell into an iatologiccl isol-

etion from life. “5‘
Ho doubt, Dos Passes wanted to destroy the rulership of
the capitalist, but he did not intend to replace it by
the rulership of the communist. He was too much the defend-
er of the individual to permit him to be crushed by a sys-
tem, what chr night to its name. It was ageinst, and not
for, that he Spoke in this book. His purpose was the des-
truction of the prevailing order but not the cdeption of
a new one which might be as tyrannical and impersonal es
the old, *n the chhracter of Hary French and Ben Compton
he intended to exhibit to his reader the disillusionment
which was his as be surveyed the socisl injustice of espi-
talism. Appealing to the exploited, he showed them how
the "caps" hacked by the big interests, kept the capital-
istic order safe from people like fiery and Ben:

Suddenly everybody around her broke and ran and

left her in a stretch of empty street in front

or the wire fencing or the mills. Ten feet in

front of her a young women slipped and iell .

Daughter caught the scared look in her eyes that

were round and black. Beughter stepped forward

to help her up but two policemen were ahead of
her swinging their nightsticks. haughter thought

4%.

255) zslenski and Pavlenke, WEussis to ?03 PRSSOB.“ Lizififi

A e, ccchuI (October, 19:52)

187

they were going to help the girl up. She stood
still for a second, frozen in her tracks when she
saw one of the policeman's feet shot out. He'd
had kicked the girl in the face. Icughter never
remembered what happened except that she was want-
ing a gun and punching into the policemen's big
red face and against the buttons and the thick
heavy cloth of his overcoat. Something crashed
down on her head from behind; dizzy and sick she
was being pushed into a police-segon. In front

of her was the girl's face all caved in and bleed-
ing... Then the door closed behind them and they
were in the dark. “”4

and further on,

Out in the woods where the country road crossed
the railroad track they were made to get out of
the trucks. The deputies stood around them with
their guns levelled while the sheriff who was
reeling drunk, and two welladressed middleaged
men talked over what they'd do. fen heard the wor
word gauntlet. "Look here, sheriff," somebody
said, "we're not here to make any kind of dis-
turbance, all we want's our constitutional rights
of free Speech.” The sheriff turned towards
them waving the butt of his revolver "Oh, you do,
do you, you c -- e. ...if you come here again some
of you tellers is goin' to die, that's all there
is about it ... All right boys, let's go."
The deputies made two lines down towards

the railroad tracks. They grabbed the wobblies
one by one and beat them up. Three of them
grabbed Bon. "You a wobbly?" "Sure I am, you
dirty yellow ..." he began. She sheriff came
up and hauled off to hit him. "Look out, he's

' got glasses on.“ A big hand pulled the glasses
off. "ao'll fix that." Then the sheriff punch.
ed him in the nose with his fist. "Say you
ain't." Ben's mouth was full of blood. He set
his Jew. "He's a kike, hit him again for me."
"Say you ain't a wobbly." Somebody whacked a
rifle barrel against his shins and he fell for-
wards. "hun for it," they were yelling at him.
Blows with clubs and riflebutts were splitting

254) John Doe Paeeos,‘U.S.A.. 2. Nineteen Nineteen, 277.

his ears.
He tried to walk forwards without running.

He tripped on a rail end fell ... There was so

much blood in his egres he could not see. A

heavy boot was kicking him again end again in

the side. He wss passing out ...255
By such passages Dos Passes attempted to show the nation
what he had seen, so that it sill no longer permit such
things to be. A "champion of organized labor," 255) a
defender of human values, he czae naturally favorable to
"some kind of a socialism" 257) as critics have pointed
out. hen he sp11sudcd. the Revolution of October, it was
the up planes of 6 men who, thirsty for a system in which
"men would have been men,” looked with pleasure on the
first real attempt to destroy a capitalistic order which
he held responsible for the present state of men. "The
major the ne of the book," said oneoof ton Pas sos' critiss
"is the vititation and degradation of characters in such
a civilization; those who prostitute themselves and suc-
ceed ere most completely corrupted, the less hard and
less self—centered are baffled and beaten, those who

might have made good workers are wasted, no one attains

any real satisfaction ... The whole leads to the summary:

 

255) John Dos Passos, U.S.A., 2. Nineteen Nineteen, 43!.
256) 3. Warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940, 62.
257) Ibid., 62.

189

life is a shamble." 253)

Bereaver, unlike the party-line Communist, Dos Passes
does not preach the class struggle. Through his trilogy,
he intended also to enlighten the Capitalist, to awaken
his sense of reaponsibility and to rehabilitate him as a
member of society. Through in‘ggggé. he may have broken
with capitalism, and like the young writers of "every
land he has been effected by the Communist movement which
(was) building the new collective society where men will
be brothers, instead of bitter, futile competitive individu»

ale, yet Doe Passos never lost his belief in the

value of man. Confronted with "the intellectual impasse
or many intelligent Americans," namely how “to achieve
a socialist economy without sacriiying the 'Capitalist'
Bill of Rights," 250) he answers by reasserting his deep
belief in the Sanctity of the Individual, by calling for

 

253) T.K. Whipple, "Dos Passes and the U.S.L.." Nation,
CXLVI (1938), 2110 It is certainly on account of
such a picture or a world ready to fell into decay,
of a world in which no one attains any real satisfact-
ion that it could have been said: "Strongly influenc-
ed technically as well as in subject matter by American
writers like Dos Passos .... Exitentialist Literature
has shocked the French literary world ..." B. Prizell.
Life. II (June 17, 1946).

259) Michael Gold, "The Education of Des Passes," English
Journal XXII (February, 1938), 96.

260) James T. Farrell, WDos Passos and the Critics,"

American Mercury_XLVII (August, 1939), 493.

a new realization in society of the qualities necessar"

to its redirection --- tenderness, sympathy, humanity.

Technically. U.S.i. is recognized as one of the major
achievements in the modern novel. In it Ios Passes brought
to perfection the exPerimental techniques -~ the camera
eye, the newsreel, the vocabulary, the prose-poem -- de-
veloPed in his earlier books, making them integral parts
of the novel machinery. Yet, as Kazin noted, the belt
accomplishes what every novel must to, that is, tell a
story, and its success

does not rest primarily on his schematisation
of the novel into four panels, four levels of
American experience ... that arrangment, though
original enough, is the most obivious thing in
the book and soon.beeomes the most mechagical.
The book lives by its narrative style. ‘

U.S.A. is, then, a significant narrative achievement.

It is, as well, an important example or the nature-
listic trend in fiction that become current early in the
twentieth century. Naturalism, in Malcolm Cowley's de-
finition, is

a pessimistic determinism, the theory that

human fortunes are determined by the law of
heredity and environment, combined with the

 

261) Alfred Xazin, 0n Native Grounds, 353.

notion that most lives end unhappily. 352)
It is difficult to find in American fiction, a novel re-
sponding more accurately to this definition. Les Passos'
picture in g;§=£., is one or black despair. To the usual
qualities of naturalism of Zola -- excessive realism,
bigness, impressionism, even terror -- he has, more than
any other American naturalistic writer, stressed the
romanticism emphasized by Frank Kerrie. he have seen

Dos Passes the poet, in some passages of Three Soldiers

 

or One Man's Initiation, and in spite of the tendency to-
ward social criticism, this poet never disappeared.
Hartwick concluded his study of res Passes by these words:

He is a social novelist grafted upon an esthete,

a merger of Sinclair and Hergesheimer, a poet

ever gages work there dwells a mood of sick dis-

may. 5’“

is a novelist, Dos Passes probably belongs with Dreiser,
Sinclair and Lewis, rather than with his contemporaries
Hemingway and Faulkner. Like the former of the nature-
listic school, he has looked for big and representative
themes; Lewis had chosen a profession, the world of the

doctors and the scientists, in Arrowsmith; Sinclair had

 

262) Kalcolm Cowley, "Dos Passes and His Predecessore."

_Ihe new Yerk Times Book Review, (January 19, 1947), 2.

263) Harry Hartwick, The Foreground of American Fiction. 339‘

192

taken the whole field of industry in The Jungle; res Passes

 

chose a subject still bigger, and after an esperimental

attempt with Manhattan Transfer, he sought to picture the

 

whole country with all it includes, its classes, its
professions, its industries and the subsequent working
class struggles. Unlike the Hemingway of ghe Sun Also
‘giggg_and Death in the afternoon, who "spiritually wounded
by the war, had remained a wounded individual," 264) Don
rasses, after the war "had socialized gradually his own
sound," 265) and extendedto everyone his own defeatism.
Like Dreiser-er Sinclair, Des Passes could not content
himself with a passive watchfulness, and departing from
hemingway's position, he became a social critic, a crusader
and a revelutienist. Among Doe Passes"centemperaries,

it is Steinbeck who seems the closest to him: and in

The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck expressed, as fies Passes

did, the warm sympathy for the dispossessed.

Taken as a whole, Doe Passes' view of life is pess-
imistic, yet not without hepe. His books, from Hanhattan'
gzansfer to'g;§;§., deal with tragedy, frustration and
defeat, yet the solution, one feels, lies somewhere for

the asking. Crushed in the mill of society, his individuals,

 

26"rierro Bludin, Les Ecrivaine imerieanis de t Entre —
Deux Guerres, 159.

355)Ib1e., 109.

.LSQ

like the "Pequod" in hob: Dick, go down'with their flags
nailed to the mast. Ehe individual has lost, but he has

won in his detest by refusing to surrender his individ-
uality, by retaining those qualities that make him an entity.
The Hoorehouses and Barrows, and the Stevenses too, are

the real losers, though the system which upholds then

may label them victorious.

194

V

$5-31."? CF TBJISILH

If in Esfisi't Dos Bassos was still cautious as to
the value of the romnunistic way toward achievement of
the new social and political order, there could be no more
doubt on this point after the publication or igventuree
9; s Young_ha§. The same feeling for the underdog which
let at the very basis of his hatred of ”money-culture"
use the reason for the attack againt the Communists that

appear in this book.

In U.S.A., the protagonist was society, and the long
porcession or characters across the stage merely illustreto
ed and illuminated the problems of the hero; on the contrary,

with Advcn ures of e Yo; _ has, so go back to the indivi-

 

dual protagonist, end the minute analysis of his develOpo
mont replaces the sweeping panorama of a commercial society
inu§;§;§. Cn the whole, the novel is the story or a middle
class radical, Glenn spotswood, from his childhood, through
the twenties and thirties, dewn to his death during the
Spanish Civil War.

Hie "parental bents and hie education tended to make
Spiteuood an idealistic eentinentalist, bound "to be duped

195

and used and cast aside,n 1)

is a child, Glenn was
brought up to be a Christian Gentleman, like his grand
father:

a Christian Gentleman, was what mother said

Old Soul (Glenn's grand’father) un9,nnd that use
shat little Glenn must always“bc. 31

 

Thus he fought to defend his week friends at school, for
"mother has said that it see a Christian Gentleman's

duty to protect the weak." 3} Then, from the school prin»
cipel rr cape, he learned the "when boys sent out of these
walls and entered the various ceilings and professions

of the greet world, they would always be crusaders for
what was right and Just without fear or savor." 4) This
idea was confirmed in Glenn's mind by the example or his
father, who after being fired from Columbia where he use

a teacher, on account of his talks against preparedness
and war .. "he could find no Justification for c Christ-
ian to take pert in war and he thought the application

of Christianity to war was not only spiritual but

 

ww —v—— ‘7— “—

1) hslcolm couloy. Wrisillueionment," tee Republic, IC
(June is, 1989), 163.

2) John‘hos Passes, Adventures of n Young inn, e.

3) gbid., e.
4) Ibid., 10.

but practical" 5)

.- tolé him, "1 don't think I one ePOIOgiee
to unybofiy, a man's first auty is to his beliefs." 6)

From his father, who also opgosea harsh treatment of

Germany on the ground that "too wrongs did not make a

right," 7’ he received strong lessons in humanitarinnism.

Older. Glenn went to a summer camp as a eoneelloro
There he met Paul Graves, the other counsellor. who remained
his friend through all his triele and tribulations.

Glenn learnea to reopect workers:

At winneequam Dr. Telcott (the mangger) wee

intoning, a respect for those rt aid the herd

work of the day was coneidereq or more imporn

tunce than social amenities. 6

There's no hand I rather shale, said Ir. )
Talcott, than a hand soiled with honest work.

He also found at sang a new apgreciction for nature,
for’ir. Tnlcott himself oauoatci the boys to n’éeep re-
spect of the world about his -- every night the boys
silently watched the sunset. for, said the Boater, "we

make it a point not to miss Eetureie crowning of the

_. 1 A

5) John‘Doa Passes. iéventurce or e#Xoung Ken, 17.
53'33gg,, 24.
73 32355.. 15.
3’ gggg.. 24.
9) gggg,. 32.

197

" 10) But at no goint in hie education die young

gay.
Glenn learn the necessity of compromise. He fails to

see for example, that in Spite of all Ir. Telcott's talk,
-- "birth and wealth do not mean a thing." 11) -- the
camp was run for syoiled chiléren of the rich, that

money en power, no matter what the Rector says, represent
the mnincgrings of social activity. Glenn's first lesson
comes when Paul is fired because of the bee conduct of

a rich child. for which Poul is held responsible. Glenn.
in.his first realization of whet injustice ie, opposes
Dr. Telcott. engine:

It'S not fair to b18133 223111 on. 1
If you fire (him) you'd better iirc no too; 2)

an inpertincnce which costs him his Job.

’

In the second part of the took, :03 Inseos is more
concerned with Glenn's coolescence, hie yetrs in college,
and the year inmcoietely following his graduation. re
a freshman, he is friend of a George Filling, the son.ot
a minister. whose only interests were "the Law of hoses
and Henry George's single tan," with whom.he deciaes for

the summer vacation to go "into the Northwest to study

4“. A ._ M

10) John‘Doe reasoe, Adgontnres of e rcgng_§an. 35-
11) Ibifl.. 43.
12) Ibid. . 530

195

conditions among the migratory workers in the harvest
fields." 13) the sickness of his mother calls George home.
and Glenn st ye alone. not knowing exactly what to Go. After
two weeks as a dishwasher he meets a subtly, Lon Hoe,

through whom he vooones better scoutintod with the worker

on; his ploblemo. it the end a: the vgooticn, he Logan

his :tuiies ignin, this time so fclunbis where he has no-

I:

congnnioi onoofi his former instructors, Like Golick, at
whose home he lives. iroubled by he flesh, as are all
of‘Dos inesos' heroes, unfi refueing io interruyt the happy
life of Kile nna his wife, Enrico he lGflVbS them to live
with Boris Sgingarn, whom he htd met rte reunion of the So-
cial Eroblens club. Though non socially conscious, but
a member of no party, Glenn is entiiely on the eiae of
the nonling close:

he Gifin't think he one o neriiet, though he was

all foo tho nothing nenéietiing an honest ietuin

for what he prOdUnBQe
318 Contact with Glséyo, Borie’ wife, directs him tow ran
the leftist parties in Spite of what she calls "his petty

15)

bourgeois side". When Boris in hoopitrlized after an

accident, Glenn Lecomes Gledye’ lover; ccntrite, he cannot

A A

w?—

13) Johnflpoe Passes, égxgnznreo%gfiwp Young Ken, 64.
14) Ibid.. 99.
15) Ibid., 115.

 

confess despite his good intentions:

Cne ofternoon Glenn out tie work at the librar'
one went out to Boysihe especially to see Lorie
an? have it out with him. Boris one very cheer-
ful and said this accident use meant everything

to him ... Glenn loot trying to switch the sub-
Ject to clnfiys but Boris was bent on explaining
symbolio logic, cnfi then Lem nerger Gene in with
the radinl gapera find held forth {*on ‘olitico,
80 Glenn had to go beck to Brooklyn without having
said a moth.

When Eerie comes home crippled, Glenn melee no his mind
to leeve. For rwhilo he thinks of suicide:

in electric train clnnged pest enfier him.

he leaned hie eltows on the roll of the
Iootwnlk. Supyose he were to climb out on

a girder nné let himself firop off the bridge.
There nos nobody to step him. It maul: only
take 9 second. It would be like turning in
to bee to sleep, only for eIWnye.

He leaned on the rail without moving while
little pictures formed in his heed of himself
lying white and drenched on a norble slob at
the morgue, Glnfiys lying flat on her face ...
Leo's yellid halting manner ... Poul Groves!
black brown drawn together in n puzzled frown,
George Filling shaking hie heed and muttering...
the smirk.on Eerie! thin mouth ... To hell eid
'em, a tough voice seemed to ery in his esr,
whet'a the use of humping yonreelr off if you
can't be there at the funervl? 17)

but he decifee finelly to cypiete his sin 1y losing hin-
ecli in the workers' chose:
Inoiie hie head he ore otonfiing on a platform .

in a greet crowned hall hung with red bunting,
mwling himself a Byeeoh: hasn't it about tine

16) John‘roo Passes, idventnree of e Young_ran, 121.

17) gbia.. 126.

to
o
C)

Glenn Epotceood stoppeé working himself up
about his own private life, his own messy
little fivouend~ton—cont store pulgmegazine
libido. Suppose it had Junpoa off the men.
batten bridge. a damn fool cum leuae grinfl
who'd broken down from cvcrwor- and sex-
frustration, to hull with it, let it go

out on the tide net Sandy Each with the
garbage barges, a goofi riddnnce like the
upcnuck when you've has too much to lrink.
The new Clenn Spotewo0d who was addressing
this great meeting in this great hell was
going on, without any private life. renoun—
cing the capitalist world and ite comps,
the new Glenn Spotseood he& come there tau
night to offer himself, his brain and his
muscle, everything he had in him, to the
revolutionary working class. 15

lot after college, Glenn forgets his decisions, in
spite of a disagreement with his father, who had returned
to faith in capitaliom ..

I still believe I was right, but gerhrye I
might have tzice to i.einuute my inc 3 more
tactfully; there's a certain eeliindulgence
in extremism, which 1 am coming more and
more to éietruet.

fie mey not egrec with Eetthew'a iflees, (his
uncle) and I for one don't get along with him
very well, but he's e men of growing power

and influence in his own state, and I guess 19
he'e e pretty goodheerted fellow at bottom. )

Finally Glenn accepts e position offered by his uncle in
a bank in Horton, where he became interested in the confli-

tiona or the ficxieen workers. Hie friendship with Frankie

_ A A A A. ‘
w w w

18) John ~08 Pcssce,‘gdentggo of a Young Ken, 12?.

19’ Ibié., 130.

201

kerez and Jed Forrington, two leaders of the workers in the
area, obliges his to leave his position. ,Baek in New York
he makes speeches about "the tie fight the underpaid Eeri-

csn workers are making against the sweetshoy systen.in the

, 20)

state or Texas. Yet he cannot consciously align hin-

selt with the Communists; he does not see the espitel-lebor
conflict in terms of a class struggle:

Irving (a Communist leader) took Glenn's arm
and stid it had been pretty good, but why on
earth had he usea that old I.W.W. slagen about
an injury to one was en injury to all?

Wasn't it true, asked Glenn, Sure, seid
Irving, but it was bad tactics to remind the
workers or the I.W.fl., the I.w.e. was thing
of the pest... why hadn't he brought in some-
thing about John D. Rockefeller?

Glenn said, laughing, he couldn't see the
connection and he didn't believe in personal-
ities. It was the system that was wrong, 21
wasn't it? It wasn't anybody's fault, nus it? ’

After a short final adventure with Gladys, he does what
he had earlier decided, to serve the working class in the

best way he can.

The third part, certainly the most significant of the
book, makes Toe Pessos' position most apparent. Glenn be-

comes a he: trade union organizer who helps with the party

 

30) John Cos Passos, Adventures of a Young Kan, 159'

21) Ibid., 170.

i 202

0 a 9 ' 2
the unorgsnizeu strikers of coal mgnes 1n the South. 2 )

The purpose of the incricun miners union, to which he belongs,
was "to overthrow the rotten capitalistic system thrt kept
the working class down to starvation wsges with guns and
grafting officers of the law." 23) Glenn higself hold a
to the Communist view, favoring e complete mass organiza»
tion of all the workers rather than separate craft unions.
But the big strike ends tragically when two deputies are
shot. Arrested for criminal syndicelism and conspiracy
to murder, Glenn is freed by the efforts of the Commnnp
ists simply because he is useful to them. Seized once
more, he is beaten atrociously by the vigilantes in order
to prevent his witnessing the miners'triol -- in feet a
purpose not accomplished. Enrico, who is now separated
from Mike, takes him home in New Yerh where he begins to
realise thstthe Party is less interested in the miners,
or in justice, than it is in POWtr, thrt its activity is
not so ideslistioelly motivated as he had supposed:

As they (two members of the ferty) talked Glenn

 

22) It is interesting to note that most of the meteriel
used by Toe Pessos in this passsge originates from the
Harlan County strike of 1931. H8 has even used the same
this, Napier, for one of the leaders of the strike, and
the sheriff, Blair in real life, has become Elaine in
the book.

23) John res Passes, Adventures of a Young Man, 193.

 

:- ‘2-7;
db»

founu he he& more and more troiLle keeping their
minds on the ninefields. They tulhe' rbout more
money for the pIrty press, posters for tezooinr
rallies, hiring hells one th e chance the r:?.xt: had
of polling e woneiiereble vote in the pzesinentiel
elections, on account of unemployment, the disil-
lusionment of the whitecollornuriors end intellect-
unis, the fii ck of lendership in the old line trade
unions. 3

Though he feels his duty "to ¢et back there before they
s 07'

begin to feel I've run o.t on them,“ “9) the Communist chiefs
convince him that he is more valuable in How York, where
by speeches he can do much work for the worling clo ss. Ono
sa5s, meaningfully:

Just rt present it looks to me so if you could

do more for the movement ri 3ht here in In York

than anywhere else.
For the For t5 the trial and the nrrtyrdon of the workers
are simply firs ~rute pretzes of plop pg nap;

fie must keep one thing in mind. Cur function is

to educate the *meriea worningcloss in ievolu-

tioncry Herxism. n6 er$)n not interested in the

fz.tes of individuo ls.
Glenn, on the contrary, places the emphasis on the inuivi-

duel as such, to him justice is not a no ttor of movements,

 

 

24) John :03 Passes, Adventures of n Youn3 T.Pn, 240-
25} £22" 2342.
26) 323., 241.
27) Ibid., ~41.

but of men. When the miners, abandoned by the Party, are
convicted and some of them murdered while trping to escape,
he finally departs from Party lines:

When I tell 'em (Party members) we've got to
stick until we get those boys out, they tell me
I'm a sentimentslist and putting my own individ-
ual feelings ahead of the party. After all it ,
v;rs my individual feelings that got me into the
party 00% d3: we're not for the workers, who are
we for?

Expelled from the ‘arty, for a while he devotes himself‘
to "running a little paper for working class unity Q.. and
campaigning to get guys out of 3911 that everybody else
has forgotten.u 29) In his editorials he attacks the tem-
mzu'xisto mercilessly:

In the name of the else so prisoners and the

long list of martyrs of the workingcless in

their long heartbreaking fight for a decent so-

ciety where a worker will get the true Value of

his labor ... we protest sgsinst the disrupting

and hesrtbreeking incidents thst were provoked

by the communists last night.

The complete lack of sincerity of the leader-

ship of the official Communist rarty was a-

gain proved by the lsmenteble events thet tg8§

place inst night in M dison Sousre Gordon.
The Party follows him from job to Job, taking its revenge,

end even though he tries to get back into the forty to

 

28) John res Passes, Adventures of a Young Men, 265.

29) Ibid., 284;‘

 

30’ Ibid., 279“

continue his workm he cannot unless he signs an act of sub-
mission to Party policy:

but. I can't give you a job unless you promise

me personnnlly you won't go back on the rsrty... a1)

neither by words or deed no matter what happens. “
Still trying to be helpful to the cause, he decides to
volunteer to fight the forces of Fascism in the Spanish
Civil War. In Spain, he meets Frankie Perez, whom he had
known in Texas, who tells him whet the war is 911 about:

Here several different kinds of war. he iight

Franco but also we fight Mbscow ... if you go

to the Erigndn you must not let them fight us.

They want to destroy our colleitives. lhey

went to institute dictatorship of secret police

Just like Franco. he have to fight both sides

to protect our revolution. ”2
There too he meets Jed Farrington, now a powerful Party
member whose only line of conduct is the rsrty's; "our
business is to win the war." 33) While Glenn seid "the
Spanish workers have got to win this war," :4) Jed re-

plied, "fie got to win this war ... us (the Party).fl 155)

Soon, as a result ofhis conversation with kcrez, and his

 

T

”1) John Ios Passos, Adventures of a Young hen, 390*

 

record of opposition to ferty leanership, he is arsested
as a Trotsky te Ly the some friends who some time earlier
fought on his sine in America -- "so ere infermed that you
lepresent the Trotsiy counterrevolutionery organization

in America." 35) £8 a pledge of his sincerity he offers
to go to the front, L fever wniuh he is refeseé. dhen

the city, sorrelnded by the neemy, has to be evacuated,
his preposel is accepted and he is released from jail to
be sent on a desperate mission, 5 mission whose real aim.
one feels is Glenn's death:

"All right," Glenn said. "shore do 150?"

He lifted one of the buckets to his lips and
took a deep swig of the clean cold water. Then
he stuck his heed under the pump and said to
reter (one of his judges): "Bump me a little,
will you, I haven't washed for days," Peter
seemed so astonishea by the request he Just
stood there ... Peter looked in Glenn's face
with his narrowed. bloodshot eyes. “You vill
50?" he ELSREdo

Glenn looked straight at him. ”fihet do you
think 1 came here for?" he asked. ihen he sew
Peter's strained eyes move sidelong towards
Berton. Morton's eyes drepped and he eoruffed
at the cobbles with the muddy toe of one boot.
He kept from looking at Glenn. "Somebody's dots?)
to go. he eén't," he seid. Glenn understoodl

There is no éonbt the book is 9 strong indictment

ageinst Communistie methods eno discipline, yet res Passos'

 

35) John hos Basses, Adventures of a Young Man, 515.

37) Ibid., 321.

sympathy for Conm'lists and agitators, as shown in previous
books, is indenieble. In U.S.A., he appeared suspicious

of the Communistie doetrines; but , still, the grinoigel
object of his attack was the tspitelistie system. Now,

in Adventures of a Young Ken, es,itelism is s secondary

objective, and, the principal target the Communists.

There are probably several reasons for this change
in ice ressos. first as it has been noted, Ros ressos had
never expressed his wholehearted enthusiasm for the Commun-
ist Party. His indecision was ole rly apparent in the third

of his travel books, In All Countries, gublished in 1936.

 

In the first part of this book Dos Passes reported his tra-
vel through ku.sis with his wife, Cetherine, end in s series
of essays gave the reader glimpses of whet he sew and heard.
He met people ceaselessly afraid of the "Geypeyoo,“ and he
shared their terror.

Life is hard for those who have lost the train;

the authorities don't let them publish whet they

went, the Gsypeyoo negs their relatives end chil-

dren; they nevsg.know when they are going to be arrest-
ed or exiled. ° J

lt'll never be over for us till we die or they
get us, unless we can get out. We are doomed.
You know they always some at night. he arrests
are ever seen. 33 on uh sees them ever dares

 

(:8) John 1:303 1353,3333. In fill COILTITI'lES, :20

 

tell anyone. Nothing is ever known. 39)
He met others who remembered the Revolution, "when it was
still possible to kill and be killed for the revolution,
and politics was osssimple es the mechanism of a machine

gun. " 40)

Through the Russian villages he crosses, he
finally feels that he is learning the truth,
It is e very simple truth. The village needs
seed, clothing, sgriculturel imylements, scien-
tific knowledge about stoekreising, poultry-
fsrming end the core of children, a doctor and
e schoolteacher, books, radios, contact with
civilization, thxt heady enthusiastiglgerticips-
tion in the march of human history. ' '

Ios Pessos' attitude is much like that of this Kirghiz
in the book, who says:

No, he himself wasn't a communist. sell, mostly

Leceuse he had not seen enough yet, he had not

made up his mind es to whether they were right

or not. He didn't know. He hos too young yet.

He'd have to 26? the world and draw his own ‘

conclusions. 2

The second reason may be found in the treatment of Dos
Passos' Spanish translator, Pazos, who was executed falsely
as e Fascist Spy during the Spanish Civil her. To :03 Passes
this was murder; Knlcolm Cowley thought Pszos' death marked
39) L‘ r.

John os Pessos, In All Countries, 67.

40) Ibid., 28.
41) Ibidl . 710

42) Itid., 22.

209

a turning point in 303 rnsnos ettituoe towers Lomnunism.
Certainly the Eprnish Civil Lgr .stirrci 738 forces in
his susyicion of the Lommunis e; indeeé, some time after
its outbreak, in an artisle galls? "Farewell to Europe"
he damned "tLe intriuzte z.nd Lloo‘g' m cuinerg of hremlin
policy" in ogrin, thtnhing heaven th.t "the Atlantic vus
_ _ 48)
a good ui;e oocsn."
But the most important of the reasons for his attack
on Communism is his keen sympathy for the undeidog b, for
the oppressed aha down trodden. This sentiment was nephr-

ent in the travel Look, In All Cowotri es, in wnieh Yos

 

assos paid tribute to the Lexithn leéxder, Zegata, express-

ing

J

9dmiretion for the m9n whose strength was not at the
service of 2 party, but at the service of the weak sn<i dis-
possessed Indians. L en oft er the victory of the liberal
Iedero over the Oppresoor Iiaz, Zaoste refused to give up

J.

arms as long as "the Indisns were not given their lands,

 

43) Quoted from Dos :assos' article "Farewell to Lurcpe,"
"He resy " IIHE, XXKII, ( Tune 5,1929), 86.
(Five yesre later, returning to the democratic tradi-
tions of his countiy, he contra: ted it to an Eu10pe
dominated by suseien {elitiue. “In Lhrope, the police
state, the Bolsheviks hLd called into Lcing ran its
normol CLUTSG towards tyr9nny, bloodshe1 and deepair ...
In contrast to the rgony of Europe, it Legs.n to be ap-
parent that our poor old ,rov1nci"l pmeri; an 01der,
whatever it was, wee standing up fairly well." "The
Inapiretion of Our History," American hercury, 1111,
(August, 1941, 187.)

210

D

,4,
their waterrights, and their schools." “) Zephta, it may

be noted, like the hero of Adventures of 2 Young Man, was

 

murdered by those who professed to have the same ideas that

he had.

Thus, Spotswood's death reflects Foe Passes! own dis-
illusion as he became better able to judge the results
of the Communistic experiment. Communism, as he saw it
in the thirties, did not measure up to his expectations,
and as he did in the case of the dangers of (o§it:lism,

he felt it his duty to tell the truth stout it.

In many resyects, here again it is himself that has
Passes puts on the screen. The first two parts of Adzggy
tures of a Young Men are in the tradition of 2L§;§., express-
the idea that, in the actual state of things, it is nhtural
for an idealistic and sentimental character to turn towards
the Left. In a way it is an Lttempt of the author to Just-
ify his masterpiece U.S.i. It is in the mood of The Big
49351, and the aims of most of the characters are the Cap-
italists who crush the workers and maintain them in very
poor conditions of living, and the middle class mentality.

The working class and the employer class did
not have any interest in common, and a work-

+ ..L

W

44) John Dos Passes, In All Countries, 97.

le

ing stiff shOuld never trust his master. 45)
They (the workers) should start to do some-
thing about shsk ng off the parasites and
bloodsuckers.

As in Henhatten Transfer and in U.S.A., there is in these

 

sections of Adventures of a Young Men the implication that

 

the truly successful characters are not the Capitalists
who gather a lot of money, but those who apparently fail
and are crushed by the regime. "At least," says :03 Reason,

"the fellowworkers who went to Jail had the satisfaction

0f knOWinE thfit they'd PUt up a fight for their own class." 47)

But as the book develops, it becomes clear that the
Communist ‘erty does not provide the answer to the problem
of the individual's maladjustment ti capitalist society.
Eoris, the bourgeois radical, voices the drift of Dos Passos'
criticism when he says:

Esrxism use all right as a description of things
as they were now, but its plan1for after the Rev-
olution were too darn sketchy. Now suppose you
were going to build a brides over 5 river to take
the place of an old bridgu that was falling down,
you wouldn't start by tearing down the old bridge;
you'd build the new bridge beside it so that tref-
fic could keep on getting across the river...In
hussis a good meny of them sunk ... The trouble

 

45) John Lee rassos, Adventures of a Young Men, 74.

A
‘6) ILidO. 790

47) Ibid., 80.

his

use they tore down the old bridge before they hvd
the plnns for the new one ell set. 43)

Quite different is the situation when Glenn rcrliees that
Communism, in its own fashion, is just as unngcrous to the
individual rs capitalism, thrt Perty machinery, just as
relentlessly and thoroughly es ceyitclisn can ficetroy the
indivicuel' integrity, and crush him so thoroughly. After
the tragic trial of the miners, Glenn secs cleerly how

the lenders of the rsrty have lost sight of the workers
they profess to champion, that the movement, like e Jugger-
naut, has swallowed the person. There is the theme of the
book, there is the inplicction of ice fcsros, "the cause
of humcnity will never be won if they (the Communist lend-

lose siaht of the human beings who make it up, if friend-

v

ere
ship and good fzith mutt always be sacrificed to the Ferty

line. " 49)

The individual hes to Le respected for his own value,
feels Ios Passes, and us he has OppOScfl the individuel's
enslavemcnt to Capitalism, he opposes his enelnvcment by
{ammunism. Toe Basses refuses to see the worker es the
toy of an organization, whet ever might Le its name. As

he seye through the medium of one of his chrrnctcrs,

A

48) John‘ros Pessos, Adventures of s_¥oung_hnn, 105.

49) J. Warren Bench, 59erienn Fiction, 19L0~1940, 63.

213

"Comrades have feelings like snyboiy else. it is inyossible
to look at passing events as coldly as theory demands." 50’
Glenn refuses "to take orders like a zombie;" 51) for

him the aim was and still is the imgrovcment of the workers'
conditions, and not the sggrsndizement of a Barty which,
while paying lip service to the worker, finally abandons
him. Yes, srys Glenn, it is by sentimentality that I

came into the Party, but it is this same sentimentality

which causes my resienstion from it.

There can Is no doubt that in liventures of a Young

 

‘ggg "Toe Passos has shown the failure of the radicals to
offer us the s:lvstion for our society," 53) and that he
Opposes the tendency of the lmeriosnsorler to look to the
Left for his sclvstion; yet, can it be said that with.££f
ventures of a Young Hen, Toe rsssos oestroyed "the central
framework of his work?" 53) Must we see in his recOgnition
of failire of the Left to solve the problem the recognition
of e similar failure in $03 305305? It is true thst "what

his pr tsgonist, Glenn, has gone in does, has Basses has

50)
51)

John :03 Basses, Aiventnres of a Young nan, 275.

 

Ibi‘jfi... ‘i'ls.
m

r 0)
t)“ " -vv 1“ ‘ PP- ‘1-.. ' ' 3".“ 1r;
.‘ifi..*.c’.0....s. 6613:3333. .Jl‘i r628 111 firiuulia , 4.9.1..

 

55) Ibii., 1:2.

\‘N

31!

been on the verge of 601mg in thought.“ 54) flat on the
other hen. it is no less true thrt Toe Lessee he always
heeitsted. he hne slwnyn firrwn reek tefcre the final con-
clusive step tow rd (ammuniem, Hie "textbook ..." was

never“ ... the Communist Kenireeto." 55) Furthermore, we
cannot say thrt this book mzrke the end cf fee P:s::e* strug-
516 for a better world; must we Lccluéo in front of the trag—
ic fa lure of Glenn thztfcs Ir 8203 has new etendonea the
fight? There 18 no ioubt :os ICBLOS :uet non xeevaluate

locked for the

U!

the Lure penn anJesvo' Id wh; h he elnay
solution, for with this book he loses the intinfia te feeling
for Europern reintriea mentioned in the first chiptcr of
this geper. Yet, tht fight is fer from thing ended; there
is etiL 2:0:e in T03 Erse'e, sna his hero Glenn Lefoze dy-
ing expresses his hope cf 9 better worla,

1, Glenn Sgetswooa, reing cf sauna miné and cm-

prieoned body, do bequeath to the igternegasnnl

warning class my keys of a Letter wcrLd.

It is evident th t tile ruthOI, 1n {éventuree_of 9 Young

 

Ken, is rexo.ezcc~*nb the 1;hole problem; the failure of
Europe levee him to reevaluate American acmocrecy. The
new foe raeeoa, an mexican this time, who emerges from
54) maxwell Geiemar. Writers in urieis, 133.

55) John as gasses, Adventulee of a Young_ L.n. 138.

55) Ibid., :19.

215

this phuee of uiflillueion is rlrewfi" aogoreut in ffiventuree

of a Young_Eun in the chiruetcr of :uul Groves. 3e has
been in Lusoie, ona on his return he is aLle to bypretiate
the blessings of the :emocreey he deegieod some years our-
lier in his blino enthusiasm for the Cotober revolution.
To Glenn's pessimism, he ogpoeoe his Optimiem one his

Ln wleege of Luzeic:

"foul", said Glenn ... "how was it OVrr there?
How's the five-your plan? In it going to work?“
"It'll work if Led Joe has to eterve every mieer-
able peasant in the Soviet Union to do to to make
it work «so. "

"Well,” arid Poul. "I've only been home four days
but it'e eeeme to me that the eountry'e financed

a hell of 5 lot ... The whole Setup'fl Gifforent ...
I think we are (oing to here the lin&.of country
where guys like us eon do useful work, see what

I mean ... The revelation's hopyened; kid, it's
all over."

He could hove done a lot more in Rueeio it every
new Variety of corn naén't had to $96211 out the
Communitt Manifesto. In the last years it bed gotten
worse yet, you couldn't raise a pot h of coupons
without having ed Joe's picture on every poo.

"Is there really on opposition?" asked Glenn.

"You don't eek your best friend a question like

that in the Soviet onion. He might be a Boy or

Just turn you in for your job or your wife or

your apartment or e cake of soup. You don't know

what it's like there boy ... Lemme tell you some-
thing. I never been so happy in my life as the day

I got the bunch on the Italien etenmtoet at Cdeeeo

to go to Alexandria. We went to Egypt to get a little
sun on us after the great hueeiun £05."

"I still believe in the working -laee," e913 Glenn.
“Tney got 'em working, all right," euid ?'ul. ”The
reet of the European oietotorehipe ore comic Operas,
but there's nothing comic Opern about the Soviet Union ...
Isn't get me wrong. Glenn. 1 think the hueaiene are
great people. Lenin was a great men, but the old
Russian revolution in in a bed period..."

.l

N
*4

"nut the unemplogee worLero ere starving, really
starving. H'ven't you read about the hunger marches?"
"The firenifient 18 firini them ug, isn't to?"

"He's buying their votes for o program oi reformist
illusions ... he's the re: l eo iul £{8L:Li.

"Ho's getting them fee though ... at lo et he's trying
to fecd 'em.” P‘id foul ... ’In LLsoin ‘ho;"7o

st .rveé 'em deliberately. There's no way to ex-

plr5.n it to any who heen't mean it ... i don't

know what the real figures are. but I econ 'em ...
What's left of 'on ... tm‘rlom‘a tr 'cm being

shippeo to Liberia. 5?)

The solution to the problem of social Justice for the in-
dividual -- loo Sassoe' chiei problem -- is to be found
here. in this Very count y. Hie dietruet of his hotred of
capiteliem lent him first to turn his eyes touzrd Euroye

for the solution, nsoooie ting oemoorocg one o gitaliem as

Q

Bio ;313 oi fi erent aides of the same coin. Rut he did not
finfi the answer utroai, and turncu inotoed ‘o the Tonoorecy
whose goooiLilitioe for imgrcvcuont Lo and never consider-
LL, rnfi Lhooe potenti; forces ho had failed to realize.

The chsraotor rcul Groves is the clue of ‘Lo new Zoo Eeaaoa.

In rim is the outline of the nail to come, LLC in him 1103

H
C:

-e ‘:a°3e himself gave in

’14

the final solution, the answer
tLo Eu .2 or too euro 5Ler, “I think Lnere is enough real
Gomocrtcy in the vol; ulxefi fmeiioen tradition to enable

'us with Loureie eh; luel to weather the social transform-

ations tLet LLre going on oi hoot 105 in; our lioerties and

B. o 0 .~‘\
*7) John 303 gasses, onenturee_o; a loans fan, 334-l55.

217

the human outlook that is the medium in which our civiliza—
tion grown." 58) To connlude, Toe reasoe in this book

"is describing the en& of an historic movement, the Com-
munist Party;" 59) moreover it can be snia he is expressing
the end of a hoPe that many have ahfired, the Communistic

\

nape.

Since the putlicntion of ggventnfgo of a young;ggn.
T08 £23803 has followed the course aborted by Psul Graven.
t"ning to a democratic faith with grerter interest. Jour-
BEE” Between ””52 (1938), like the Journalistic reporting
of the earlier travel books, surveys EurOpe end inerica
in the light of the development of Fuguism, recognized by
Ice kasuos as possibly a new rnd greater threat to the indi-
vidual'a integrity and entity than capitalism and communism.
Number One (1943) is an incisive study of on Imeric:n Huey-
Long-type dictator, a reflection of the éangcr to democracy
inherent in political demngoguery. It is in an earlier book,
however. The Ground We Stand on (1941), written Just before

America's entrance into war, that $08 :assoo most clearly

A

r . ..

“8) Quoted from‘toa Passes! article in ; xtienn Review,
Margaret Marshall, "firiters in the milierneee; 708 Passes,"
gpe Hetion. CL (Januery 1940), 16.

 

59) James T. Ferrell. 'Dos 333803 and the Critics," American
Hercurz, IIIL (August. 1939).4.00

exPcunfie his new faith in democracy, in a ntufly, seni-
historical in nature, of its origins in the idegs of

non such an {agar williana, Jefferson, Joel Barlow,
Franklin, Samuel henna, the ronnsylvnnia Whiskey fiebellion-
ists, Breckenrire and others. It is, says Zoe 233808,

an attempt to find in the American past some justification
for the belief that I"our peculiar institutions have a
future, and that this country is getting to be a better
place for men to live in insteed of worse." 50) This he
finds in the tradition of self-government. in the belief
in indiviéual’a ability to govern himself ené in the cor»
ollary belief that the individuel's worth is such that he
can be allowei to do no; hiatorically, our 9251 shows that
"the habits of self—government ... have increased rather
then floorensed the stature of each individual man." 61)
Thus roe Peesoe has come full circle. Temocracy. once
rejectcé as the solution to the problem of the individual

60) John Doe £33905. The Ground we_standA0n, 7.

The French critic Eroéin, ea exileine this return
of 103 288808 to American democratic tradition. “Boo
reason so livre a un exnmen approfonai 6e l'hiatoire
de ea terre netalo, evec l'espoir d'y trouver ca qua
rlifton Feéinan tppelle 'un til confiucteur, une lumiore
fire at un centre."

(roe rseeee enterprises a deep etuéy of the History of
fimerica, with the hepe to find there whet Flifton
refiimnn had ccllec 'a leading thread, a light, a center')
Pierre Brodin. Lea Eorivuinekimericnine no 1' Entro.

:eux Guerree, 14. vww"

51) John Doe Paeeoa, The Ground we Stand tn, 9.

21;

in society, now provieee it. The American system,“eyen
through the ehemee :na hypOCriSy ofhhho age of money rule
which is now coming to an end" is “not entirely nn emyty
hosdt." 62) "The communist cure in Eueeia," he concludes,
"has groved worse t en the dieeeee," though there is no fle-
nying its "tremend us energizing force." 53) Similarly.

103 Basses! wartime books, state of n fietion (1944) one

 

Tour of_:utz (1946) treothe the eon democrrtie faith.
Journalistic repeating rather than novels, they survey

the Strengths ind wcrkncsecs cf :merice at war, both at

home and in the tray abroad, coming to the conclusion that
there is both strength nna hepe in the thericrn way. get

is still cruel. brutal one ego-crushing, but the dieillueion

and pessimism of Three Solaierg is no longer orceent. Wet

 

now has a point; it is e meane to a fieeireble end, undesir-
able as it may be, and that end is h preservrtion of the

inoivifiuhl under democracy.

As it might be expected, since roe Eaeeoe ebnnéoned
society as the main protagonist of the novel, and returned

to the inbiviouhl hero ee in Cn rnn'e Initietion or Three
v m

 

Soldiers, we do not find in féventuree of e Young tap the
62) John roe Pearce. ghe Ground to Stand Ln. 9.

53) Ibid.. 8, 11.

t‘. o"~

LL:

devices he had earlier invented for the collectivist novel.
In it he comes back to the pattern of the traditional novel.
The author follows his hero through his life mnc brings

into the narrative as many secondary chprectcrs es it is
necessary to illustrate the evolution of his main hero.

The Hewereel, the Camera Eye, the Biogrephicel interludes-—
all these techniques necessary to the panoramic U.S.A., are

missing fron_jdvcnturee or a Young_Von, while its style,

 

resembling that of Three Soldiers, is realistic in the

 

literary sense. His nhcnuonment of these innovrtions has
obvious explanations.- First, the nee? for these techniques
is gone; the novel is not a picture of society, nor c pen»
orame of an.cge, but the story of on incivifucl for which
the traditional novel-form is perfectly adequate. Then
too, (though this cannot be proved) the return to tradition-
al techniques may well ieflect a change in T03 Ecssos him»
self. Ho longer the rebel, the revolutioniet set upon
overturning ides, his swing away from the Left could very
well be mirrored in his cvoidrnce of st rtling fievices.
Adventures of 9 Young Eon hes a repertoricl, journclistic
flavor, a tone that oh rcctcrizes hie secesguent work. The

novel form was no longer for a field for exyerimentotion.

221

VI
THE er: C? THE LGAT: JEFFLLE‘EIAE IEYCCLACY

In this study of 303 losses. the stxess hos been placed
on his political and social evolution in his writings up

to lhygntures or e Young_ghn. It is evident nos thst

 

the philosoPhicel growth of such 2 writer cannot be unher-
stooo unless the too; of his work is re:o re s whole. Reed-
ing U.S.fi. elone could, logically enough, lead the critic
to conclude that roe Pessos is e pro-communist writer, yet
reeding his subsequent books would show how false such a
conclusion is. To the "Are you with us?" of the Soviet
actors, one might answer by using worfls of Fos Pessos hi.»
self, as sppliefi to one of his cheructers in feventures or
s Younngen:

He (Frenkie Peres) use one ofthe best reed boys

he'fi ever trlleé to, he hafl reed all of Lr0pot-

hin, Tolstoy, Henry George, Tickene. everything

you tools think of; he called himself an an rchist

but he telkeé like on oldieshionefi Jeffersonien

Concerotu
This is ios Esseos' final position; and the publications
which followed idventures of e Young Kan provide ample evi.
fiance of it. At a time when money ruled the world, he re ¢

asserted the value of the individuhl, placing him on a pedestal.

.4

1) John 108 Passes. Adventures of a Young hen. 150.

r n
t‘ a
N

making him the chief objeet of society's eonosrn. It was

difficult frr a men who so resyectea agave all the sancti-
1ty of the in 1viaun1 to accept such a eyetem as Communism.
in.ehich individuals disappeared touevote themselves blind-

ly to the group.

has reseos' lifelong literary cnueede has been to bcing
about a reestimetion of the value or man, e cruevée against
Leviathan. From ?hree Soldiers to fidventuree of a Young_Hon.
his theme has been the individual crushed by outside forces.
whatever they might be, the Army, society and mifiéle class
mentality, the fig Interests or the ‘ommunist Eerty. (on-
sietently he opposed the depereonalisation or the indivi-
dual, hie integration into a whole. h;n rofiuotion to the
status of 3 acre tool, an in +ruaent degride of ecntiment,
eoul and thoughts. It. sometimes, in his quest for the new
order in which man will to rehabilitated, he came very close
to the Ccmmunism, yet he never took the 123% step. If in
g:§;£. the first duty of man st to fight the 13 Interests,
Glenn in :6vontures of a Young firn exgresaee the new line

of To: Pneeoe' conduet when he says, "the first duty of every

revolutionist is to fight the {ommuniet zsrta." 3)

E03 reaaoo' career has been couditionefl by this intimate

feeling for the little man, for the giouossessef, for

those who are abandoned by the other half as well as by
thcee who profess defend thei; cause. He is t sentimental
idealist in his View of life, and what he Boys of Glenn at
the zoo serves as a description of himself:

He jobbered on thnt it mode him hngpy he did not
know why to look at zniusls, he wisheo he could
gor roung the world looking at people like that,
Just lilo he has looking Lt tue little animrls
now, observing them and noting down their choreoa
tcrietic feeding habits :nc hibiteie and their
protective colorafion, rll limos of pooyle; work-
ers, farmers, fishermen, sailors, cogitoliets,
links, scabs, prostitutes, burcsuornta. He lovefl
the eoneofbitohee. lhgyta why he'd never male 3
real party organizer. ”

Zoe lassoe also loves the ”eonoofhiteheo;" and thus he
could not tccome a communist, nor «cull he surxenucr to
Lia Yuainese or the Isity h‘s belief in the dignity of man.
fibreovcr, he is also a poet, a romantic lover of nntule and

mzn as we have noted in relation to the iirct phase of his

——-—v— V.

3) John '03 Passes, goventurae or 9 Young Era. 286.
This problem of £03 Ioeeoo"heo teen the yroblem of
gal“ other writers too, among them is Halreux. As
leroux, P08 reesoe could have said: “c.3t I wanted to
defend for twenty years could not be defendeo by Communists."
("fiolraux' Hone". Time (June 16, 1947. $5.)

“) Ibid., ace.

evolution; even in ¥.S.fi., certwir y the most naturalistic
of his novels, the dreemer, the ifieelist-poet sirogtles to

lighten the Cnrkneco of ihe world by 9 tou h of poetry.

onetcvcr any to said of his writings separately, cri-
tics today underestimate 03 :25308 as an artist ens a
thinker. The leftist tinge to many of his major works
seem to have led some to classify him as e propagandiat
and to neglect the reel theme of his novels. it is too
easy to call him eioply e nerxiet or a radical, and to
oiemiee thus casually the ocntzal coniliut his nOVele il-

lustrete enfi the social problem they dcgict.

toe Poeeos, more then Fmeningwoy, Frulknor, or golfe,
and more comprehensively then (slowell, hoe tre-tod in his
books a major problem of society .. the etrfue of the indivi-
dual -- one has nttninefi at loot en effirmetive answer,
a faith. Sieinbock'a romantic treoiment cf the dispossess-

ed (gortilln Flat, pf Rice one Eon) éioylags none of the

 

grasoe of the problem evinceé by Toe ZfiSFOB, while Oregon

of firsth, n ntriling aocinl do unent an} oert'inly an in-
éiotnont of the orme soulless system attacked by 103 £38308,
offers no clesr solution. Terrell'e dissection of hiongo'a
Irish at too a picblem, but fioee nothing further with it.
The cnitice, and the public too perhaps, have not taken

kin lg to :05 ineeoa' answer as given in U.S.A. or earlier
w

m ;- aK‘AWM‘

books, onfl sin 0 he hrs writt n no major novel? illuo rvt-
ing hisnow-found democrttic faith, the" are not likely to
until he does. a“ the critics. only Bosch seems to have
:ecognizefl his reel significance, saying he is "tonic rnd
disciplinary ... If dos Pgsros is not himself a prophet of
the good life. he is moot emphatically the voice of one

u 4) The conservatives hove felt

crying in the wilaorness.
an Passos to be a trifle too for to the Left to be accept-

able; the rodicalo hrve found him not quite far enough.

On the other hand, Los ?pasoai extremely realistic pic-
ture of zmorican society, his ironic comments on all that
the middleclasa holds deer -- money, position, concurrence
in the mores of the anority - have not been likely to en-
dear him to the public. 313 comments on populsr 1301:
such as Ford, rarnegie, Fred Eoylor snd others, nna his
obvious sympathy for the dissentcr run counter to popular
tastes. similarly his free treatment of sex and profanity.
accepted as sophistication Ly admirers of Hemingway, per-
haps ChOLde the twenties as well. His attacks on soci-
ety were Lrutal and fran.. whereas Sinclair Lewis could al»
ways be forgiven or apprecioted for his lighter onrtooning

of the same thing in fimorica that 108 rassos sttackefl with

w.

4) J. an ran anch. American Fiction, lSBO-lQip, 66.

an axe. He has always been a men with a meeerge, e mioaion
in which he believed so deeply that no cool; not afford
to be subtle. Thus too often critics end public alike have
overlookea the imgortonce of whet he had to svy in the

light of how he ELid it and whet he was attacking.

Doe Passes Lelonge. orchably, to on clear school of
novelists, despite his technical innovotiona, to the school
of Treleer end Norrie; to them too the iniivifiuel'e fete
we: important, caught up as it was in the machinery or
society. Like them he is concerned with.the in ividuel,
but he is e reformer too, for he secrphce for a solution
to the problem. In searching for it. he drew a picture of
the twentieth century society that no novelist of his time
hoe equalled for its breceth and intensity. is a conclusion
to this study, the woree of ricrre Broain. the contempor-
ary French critic, may serve to place FOB Passes in his
prepcr place in the finerlcen novel tredition:

A non cone, Q§§;£. doit etro coneiaeie comma le

chef-d'oeuvre Americein do 19 ea ode 1930-1940

at otfre tu leateur l’une dos pluo intelligentee,

l'une den deux on troie plus riches oeinturee no
la vie emerioeine fie lo premiere portie on sicele. 5)

M Au... _b._ “A __

5) Pierre Brodin. Lea Eorivoina_;mericeins Ce l'fntre-Ieux
Guerrea, 124. (In my’ofilnion,‘U§BJT. Efiet‘te ooneifibred
en the American.meoterpiece of the thirties, one it offers
to the reader one of the most intelligent, one or the
two or three most valuable pictures or American life in
the first part or the centlly.)

"o

2237

BIBLIOGRAPHY

*—

Alena, James Toneld, Shapekcr Books to Come; New York:

"tamerican Army Dieipline no a spiritual Reorder " Literorg
m at, m1: (November 12. 1921). 29-30 '

Atwood. Albert e.. "John.P1erpcnt Mergen,"‘nictioner cf
American.BiOfir§25g,.xIII (Haw Ybrk: lQEITT'IVB:§UU"

Baldwin. Charles C., the men who nuke our novels. New Yerk:
19:54. 188-140 ‘

Bates. Ernest Sutherland. "Isadore Euncan." I'ictioner of
American Bionregflzg V (New York: 1930). SUE-BID

“John Keen," DictionarE of finericen Bioflrm 15", XV

(New Yerk: 19. .

"yandolph Sillinnn Bourne."nicticner of American
”"m" Bioggcggfl. 11 (new York: 1925), 166

Beach, herron J.._figericnn;£iction, 1920.1940. Jew York:
1942. 25:66

"American Letters Between were." College English.
"'"""" 111 (October. 1941). 1-12 W

The 20th Century hovel, studies in chhniqneg, new
or: «3. v.48?

"Kenny Ford," The national C clarnedinhgf American

Biography) XV'IHee Yer}: IQIES. g8 "“

"wet. Hearst." The fictional C clo eedie of American
' Biogrepy. XIV cw or': e, co

Blank. Jo. ZEzplcding the Three Soldiere myth." ggblieher'e
weekly, CXXXIII (June 18. 1938). 2377-2378

Block. maxine. ado. "Frank Lloyd Wright," Current Biogreggg,
eho'e Hews and "El: 1941, 988-940

"John E. Doe Pceece." Current Bicgre2g££ffihc'e Hews
and Why. 1940. 255.257’ *

 

 

 

Blum, w.r.. "A Maralist in the Army," The 3191, [XXI
(November. 1921), 606-608

Bower-Shore, 6., "John ;T*oa Passes," Poolmtr n (Lonron),
mexv (Fe ember, 192'3), 198-199

 

BO nton here" No Anericanin Contemporarv Fiction
IJ . __ ‘ _ J..__ 3
Ben York: 1940;"le5~20o

Bradford, martin B. "John Foe Pnocoe -- & refense,"
Universal eeview, VIII (Sumner, 912), 267—272

Erodin, Pierre, Lee Ecriviine :noriceineLde l'Entre—
Peux Guerree. :erla?“19e6, ICELlfié

 

3

Brooke, Van Eyck, gginione of Clivcr Aletg , flew York: 1941

Eurlinenme, cger, "Thongs Alva Edison," Iicticnnr of
fi-merit’wfiigcram. 311 (New York: 1‘ - , «

  
 

 

Calmer. Allen, "John D03 £05303." SC" nnee 59V13fl,-IL
(July-September, 1,;5). 341-349

Celvcrton, victor F., the Literption of irerieen liter-
rture, New Yor.: 1941, 462-e65

"litereturc Goee Left," Current Fietorg,lILI
(recenbcr,19;6), Elb-JLC '

 

 

Cer gill, Decal, Intellectual Inerico , Ice: 3 on the IJnrch,
Hen Yo: x: 1941

Chamberlain, John, John Toe P888091 n Iioo,rrphicr1 9.n6
Critical Basal, how Earl; 13.:

Collins, J., Teling_the Literary Iulee, Low Bork: lezo,
156-168

Corns. Pndreic, "The Theatie," The 101,11l1VI (rhy. 1929)
442-445:

Conley, Helcolm ed. After the Conteel Tradition: American
grifiere Sine; 91C; See Ecznz'lficV

 

"Afterthcughte on 308 i eases," Eew Republic, LEnivIII
(éeptember 9, 1936).134

"Fisillueicnnent," her Eeggblic, Kill (June 14, 19390.
163

to

CT)

Cowley. Halcclm. flroa Paaaoa uni H13 Predecoseors," The New
York Elmo: Book review (January 19, 19¢7), 2 &

3311398 return1:a grrrative oifigdcns, flaw Kerk: 1934,
0555

WPoet and the world, The,” €cw Le)ublic. Lax (April 27.
1933). zoousos

ngeviewcxa on parade," flow Fopublic, XQFII (FetquIH 3.
1988), 371-872

?a1ches, *avid. The Royal and She Ecdern_§or16. Cnicrco: 1939

Daniela, Jonathan. "The American.war Procession", Soturdgz
38?:9Q:91L1to?atqu (August 3. 1946), 6-7

To Voto. Bernard. flJohn Too Inaaoa. Anatomiat of Cur Time."
Saturafiy Pavlov of Llfcpptggp, XLN (August 8, 1936), 3-4

'fioa Paeeoa, Russia's Favorite," Litera Tinst, CXLY
(July 9. 1952). 18

T08 Paaaoa, John E.. AGVenturea of a Yoqu Kan. new York:
1929

"Against Americwn Literature," new hopublic, VIII
(October 14. 1916), 269-271

Airwaza Inc.. New York: 1928

"America and the Pursuit of Happinoaa." Ration, (l1
(December 29. 1920). 77-778

"Tho American ylnn: Its Lise and Fall." new Legublic,
”XXIV (GCtOber 2. 1935)‘ 30-30?

"Emoticons LIB Losing the Victory in Luroye,” Life.
XX (January 7, .1946). 2;..25

«Another Plea For pococnition," Hon Pagoblic,IJXViII
(Heron 28. 1934), 187 ‘7

"Back to Eeé Hysteria," New Fegublio, XXIII (July 5.
""""' 1930). 168.159

Bi, Home The. How York; 1926

{Curio fresco." gation. CLXVI (January L3, 194?),
22- 84

LEO

Ioa reason, John 1.. "A Communication, wanted: an.1ty Loo
For Liberals,“ flow Icpublio. LII II (Aacuzzt 13. 1930),
371-872

"The Iofith of Jose oblea £9208," Hew:euut11c.)CIX
...-(JULY .19. 1939). 208-809

groing the (hagg. Boston: 1927

.girst Enoguntor, Hon York: 1945

The 42nd Parallel. New York; 1920

The arbago Ran‘_a P'rnéo with Shouting. Haw York: 1986

rho Ground we Stnnqmpn. Her York: 1941

lHHl

*"A H00816r 5211120120. "me”.lblic. mu (Janurly 27.
~19u2). 295-296

"A Humble Proto&t.flflorvnrd Hontqu,.1916
In A11‘Countrioa. How York; 1934

"In orenee or lontuok;,"‘nowi opublig IXIX (roeember
M16. 1921). 13?

“"1napiration of GI: Kiotory The" Americon Hiroqgi.
"“1111 (Auguet. 1941.), 184-191 W

Journgzg Between Ear. New York; 1938

L171 Tho hta on T-m Paine, od.n.preaented by J.
-oa Paaeos‘ :

 
  
 

    

Manhattan Transfer. How 16:1: 1925
H1neteen_§ineteog. Eew York: 1932

ggpbcr Ono. Boston; 194:

One Pan's Initiation 1917. New York: 1920 (rcgrinted
In.1535 unfior“€he {ItIe First Enocuatcr}

Prnnne: or who adventures of Seven Uncles trans-
Io€o& from $56 Fxonch an ~"a y .03 Paaaoa
How£011371931

   

m

Pushnor§_§t tngufurb. A. flow Yolk: 933

231

P08 Passoa. John 9., "Led Cay on Capitol Hill." 383 Pa—
232112, 1111 (Pecanbcr L2, 1931), 152-155

M"Report on the Occupation," Life, xx (”czch 11. 1945),
“104-107

loainanto to the Road Again, Row York: 1922

"Spain Gets Her Hon Tool," Imoricnn Ncrcuri, XXI
(1.3533011. 19:4). CC3-:56

3.111t of 59 min, -he. " Eontor,‘x.(August 19:: , 2-2
State of the fiat1gg, Boston: 1944
§troota of Eight. New York: 192%

HH

 

Three Solfiiera, flow York: 1931

"To a Liberal 1n Cf!1¢o.”‘flntion, £21111 (September 6.
1941). 195-197

tour or Putt, Boston: 1946
U.S.A.. How York: 1937

Darius, H.L.. "Poe Pnasoa Sketches Some Home Front fmeri-
cans,” The How York Time Book Review (Ju1y 3:. 1944). 3

Fadiman. Clifton. "Hrs 03 Paaooo' Rowerc31.' New Yorker.
III. Part 1 (August 8. 1936), 52-53

Fairchlld. noxlo 3.. "Three Soldiers Fro- Greenwich Village,”
Indegendent. CYII (Catcher 29. 1921). 97

Ferrell, James T.. 9008 Passos and the Critics." fmorioan
Mercurz. .ZLVII (August. 1939), 489—494

Footman, E-..H.. "John.Loa Passes." gawnneo Izoviow. 31911
(July, 1929). 365~Z82

Gates. Silvester. "nicola Sacco." Tictionnr of Amtr1CQn
Biography. XVI (flow 301k: 19835_—279:2§O

calamar. Knxuoll, Writora 1n €r181g, Boston: 1942

[‘6

«-

ccisnar. gnawell. "Young Sinclair J_rvia pnfi Cld . :9 {iEOB."

American Hercur". LVI (Hay, 1942 ). 624-428

Ghent. WoJ., ”Eugene Victor Tebs lotionar" of A? cricvn
13101312}: . vum York: 1326). W..-

.___.'W1111"m ” 5193 Ps'wcoa,w '1Ctionfirv of I.rcr1.tn
Biography. v11: (Ken 3 rk: .1‘: ,

Gibson. Williams, "A 08 Prcsos' Checklist.” Book Collect-
or's Jourrnl, I (Xa3.1936). 6 & 9

   

Gold, Mohael. "rho Eauwticn of Lee k'asaoa." 2131131521
Journal. XXII (February, 19 3). 87-97

Grcgory. Horace. fires Passes and the Icmngogug," The fl:w
York times Book Levies (Enron 7. 194:), 1&18

Eartwick, Harlan, The f‘orc *round of fixerican Fiction.
Haw York: 1924. 283325:

Hatch: r, Rnrlas Cre ting the amorican gavel. flew York:
1.125. 127- 3‘3

Henderson, Philip The Revel Coca a“. Studies in tcntcmiarnrl
[ttitudes. 1935 '

Hendrick. Lurtan Jcsae, mndrea {wncg169 Tictionaz cf
fimerlcan ”iograggi, 111 (Ken '1ork: L9~ .

  

""eroay." Time, IViIII (June 5,1939), 86

Herrick. Iobert “Writers in the Juntle". Hen 1e ublic,
L11! (Ge tuber 17,1924). 259*261

Hicks Granville, ”Dos Pveaos’ Gifts," 32w tegublgg. LXVII
(June 24.- 13;:1), 157-153 ._

dition an Inter‘retntion of Imerlcsn Liter”-

(we ..;_;:ce__«:_p__‘ ::r. “-1. am --"‘5”"i~: «1" - ...: '9'

fww ‘— *— ... ...—m

Crest T

                

ficlmes. c-1vcr 3.. ”Minor Cco;er,fieith,” fictionrr* of
American Biograyhy. I (New York: 195o ' '

  

Johnson. Allen, "William Jennings Bryan,“ Pictlonar of Ameri-
can Biogxnggz. III (Wan chk: 19:9). IQI-197

Kaela. Alfred. Cn native Cre9s_n a, Wen York: 1943, 3% -859

35213. Alfred. "Where New Voyager?" raw :egutlic.cv111
Koren 15, 1943), 253-254

ROIIOgg, Vernon lymnn, "Lufhcr lurbrnk." Fictioner” cf

Amczlcan Fiafra kg. III (Kev york: 1929),”E3532

Llemin, Alaxandcr. "Wilbur {right.“ fictionsrv of Emeri-
can Eiowrsvb'. 1X (How York: 19”

 

p

Lerner, amx, "The America of fog 393233, Haticn, {ELIII
Adcust 15. 19:6), 187-188

 

Afloaa Are Weave 8, flew York: 19‘9; 385.289

"Thorstein.2undc Veblen." “iotionar- of fimcrican
Biofrfimhf. x K (flew 30?34 I555}, i3¥w2§4

Lewis, Sinclair. "fifinhattnn T‘aisfcr," ggfiurfing;?qyiew of
Literature. 11 (Teccmbcr 5. 1935), 261 fi

 

 

Llonn, Victor} E?“ Romnngiera {merica1n3, Ezria: 193

literature in the 3's.
. :49‘281 .

Leggina. Vernon, I Hcar fincrica
Since 1900, HEW zor 3

    
 

Luccock, Halford 3.. rantcmporar _fimar1nnn thcrnture tn:
Eelifion. New York: 1334, 1x3;156

 

Lunavirat, Irthur. :tlnntwind, Sta hholm: l923

Lunfiklrat. Arthux. "Aficrikansk Bream." Panniers Litterrrm

Hrrshall, fisrgfiret, “writers in the gilderneas," Kstion,
CL (January 6. lfiéO). 15-18

Kc€sle, f.J-. Lucifer rt Large, new York: 1937, l75~260

"Our Literary repressioniata,“ Cafihalzp Werld. foII
(January, 19?6), 456-461

Ecnugh. Vincent. “roe Pasaoa'rrilogy EeVAlued,“ New York
Times rack .qggQfi. (chtomber 5, lgfifi), 8

rillett, Fred 3., Lgntemyornrv_gggr1§§p Eyifera, A Critical
Survey; flew Eurix EQEJ} UQJB§}‘LfifiéECEc

Kitch°1lu Stewart. "Sevin from the Air." The finl. 2x11
(Jme. 19323). 640—641

..-‘ ' ..
‘w’~ g

Lflimfin. CELL}. hi. "Chi-11198 1’10teua Steimtz." 11{ $1811.?!
of Arer1C9n ’10rrrU:L, Z=VII (flew Yerk: 1943., J J~366 ‘

     

 

"F3 0; crick.31nelow 195lor ' :1: tierrry of “merl9nn
ziosrnpna, XVIII (Sea? York: igté), t~.-LLE

 

E0010. Hazly To. 1he Amexi 9n finvul T359J," Lfinfion
mzrcuxi, L111 (“310., 45), 961.457

Kuller, dcrtczt 3., Lodern F19 tinnira S‘ufig 94' Val“es,
2303.7 YOrk: 1.98 7. 213-..;..0

overton. G.!§.. When 211ntor Lemma Out to vain Street,
“a.” VOTE: 19:6... TSar

ynxnon, Frederic Logan. ”Robert Errion La 30.119t1e e,
Ticfiionar ogwgmericrn_ugiqgrnnb , 1 (39w York: 1958).

   

:9elh9m, Eugsx, "he ert of the Novel From 1700 to the Present
TIER}. IEO?! Herr: lgrlr'. LLB-'35]. *—

Perkine, Frances, The Roosevelt J4Enew. flew York: 1936

Piarhrl. Armand. "Lo Crnnfl Lomancier $03 299908 est 9
Paris," Houvolloa Literairee, So 764 (June 5, 193?).

"Private niatcrlan," Time; ZXYIII. P9rt 1 (August 10, 1985).
51-53

2e13, John T.. Syria 99 Seen By some Contempor9r" aritcra,"
331833911183. 1 (.5'IJ‘197'?’, 139‘150

Eugoft. H., "Poe P9asas. Hoveliet of Cvr Time.” Sewrnee
Leviau5.1111 (Cctober, 1991). 653-668

Schramm, filbur 1., “Farccra 9t (ross L09da," Yirwfinifi
Quarterly Review, I? (October, 1929), Eur-~44

Scb.wertz r., "John «09 P999ce 996 the Fhole TrLth.“ Southern
167199, I , guu=9 . ~ ;

 

 
 
  
   

Seymour. Charles. "Soofirow Sileon."T10t10n”r CI gmericnn
Eiugrrgby, Y? {Vow Yerk: 1935);

 

 

C 6.9.2)‘ i

Iflg$ooo£

Slochower, H‘rry, gqflYoflee 12‘32931
69-75

 

Scupault, fihiliype, ”John ~08 Passes.” Iuroge, (Fevrier,
19:4 ) . 5:82.386‘

Stovall. Floyd, finericnn Idealism, Herman, Oklahoma: 19a3,
37~166 ‘"

van Toren, furl C., ThqflfnerICfin novel, 1799-1939, Eew York:
1940. afié-C48

flafie, Mason, "Kovclist of Am rica: J. 303 Eassoa," Earth
American levigw, (EXLIV (December, 1937): :49-y57

Whipple, T.X.. "Toe Passes find the U.S.A.," fiation, CXLVI
(February 19. 1938), “lo-313

.....éifiél‘CuEwfihe Lend, L03 fingelesg 194:. 55.92

"Toe Passes and the 860131 Levolution," flew Legublic,
XFVIII (A;r11 17, 19:9), 236~55
"F03 Passes! Tagorting,” new Yorker. XX (Jul: 29. 1944),

Zabcl HOrton t. ed. Literar Csinion in tnerica. new York:
3?, @95—505

zelinaki, valenko, "Euasin to Ton Phssos," Living 339.
PFCKLIII (October, 1032), 178-179