The Politics of John Dos Passos
Author(s): Granville Hicks
Source: The Antioch Review, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 1950), pp. 85-98
Published by: Antioch Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4609397
Accessed: 31/08/2009 20:22
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=antioch.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Antioch Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Antioch Review.
http://www.jstor.org
The
Politics
of
John
Dos
Passos
By GRANVILLEHICKS
S
OMEWHERE ON THE FACE OF THE GLOBE
thereis a bald,near-sighted,
stoop-shouldered
man in his early fifties, a stocky fellow with a
pleasant,slightly apprehensivesmile. He could be anywhere;a while
back he was writing articlesfor Life from South America,but he may
be at his homein Provincetown,or perhapshe is settingoff for the Borneo
Straits.Whereverhe is, John Dos Passosis looking abouthim with the
grim,puzzledhonestythathasbeenhis distinctivevirtue,almosthis trademark,for thirty years.
"All things are changing,"the grandsonof Charlemagnesaid, "and
we changewith them."No Americannovelisthas writtenmore directly
aboutchange,the greatsocialchanges,the characteristic
andrevolutionary
changesof the twentiethcentury,than Dos Passos.He has been student
and reporterand often poet of change.And he has been the victim of
change,too. Twenty yearsago he was as romantica rebel as American
lettershad seen sincethe deathof JohnReed,passionatein his attackon
capitalism,quick to supporta radicalcause.Today this pioneerfellowtravelerdefendsthe profitmotive,quarrelsnot merelywith communism
but alsowith the New Deal, looksin dismayat the programof the British
LaborParty,andfindsin SenatorTaft the qualitiesof leadershiphe thinks
Americaneeds.
In its main parts-infatuationwith communismand subsequentdisillusionment-the case of Dos Passosis the case of dozens of his contemporaries.Fifty-oneof those contemporaries,
for instance,joinedhim
in I932 in signing a statementin supportof William Z. Foster,Communist candidatefor the presidency.Few of the fifty-one are fellowtravelerstoday,and severalare as intransigentlyand articulatelyopposed
to the Stalinistregime in Russiaas is Dos Passos.The majorityof the
disillusioned,however,find themselvescloser to Norman Thomas or
HarryS. Trumanthan to SenatorTaft. The trailsof the ex-fellow-travelGRANVILLEHICKS has been a frequent contributorto these pages. At present he is
at work on a novel.
85
THE
REVIEW
ANTIOCH
ers go crisscrossingall over the map of Americanpolitics, and Dos
Passos'sis one of the few that lead straightto the right.
There are those who say that hiehas come to his senses-and high
time, too. And thereare thosewho grievebecausehe has turnedinto "a
weary,cynicaldefenderof vestedinterests."But few ask how it all happened-the movementto the left and the movementto the right. Yet
Dos Passos,being first and foremosta writer,has left a detailedrecord
of what, stage by stage,he has been thinking,and the recordis worth
looking at, not becausehe is merelyor primarilya politicalwriterbut
becausehis political developmentis a significantphenomenonof our
time. I shall not attempta literaryevaluationin this article,nor discuss
the problem-more complicatedthan some of the critics on both the
Right and the Left seem to think-of the relationshipbetweenDos Passos'spoliticalcourseand his developmentas a novelist.This is an attempt
to set down the facts and to interpretthem on the politicallevel.
The printedrecordbeginsin the pagesof the HarvardMonthlyfor
when Dos Passoswas twentyyearsold. Afterhavinglivedin various
partsof this countryand Europe,he had enteredHarvardin i912, and
had soon begunwritingfor the Monthlystoriesthat were a little but not
much betterthan the undergraduate
average.It was not, however,until
the end of his senioryearthat he steppedforwardas a politicalthinker,
with an editorialon the war and an articleentitled"A HumbleProtest."
"A Humble Protest"is directedagainstnothing less than the industrialrevolution,"thatbastardof science,"whichis clutteringup the world
with "a silly claptrapof unnecessaryluxuries"and smothering"the arts
of life and the arts of creation."The articleoffers a dual indictment,
moraland esthetic."Millionsof men,"Dos Passoswrites,"performlabor
narrowand stultifyingevenunderthe bestconditions,boundin the traces
except
of mechanicalindustrywithout even a chanceof self-expression,
cities."
in the hectic pleasuresof suffocatinglives in
If we were to find thatWilliam Faulknerhad begunhis careerwith
we shouldnot be surprised,for he has
a sweepingattackon industrialism,
largely devotedhimself to the unindustrializedsegmentsof life in the
for the
backwardSouth;nor would sucha beginningseem inappropriate
romantic,world-rangingHemingwayor for any of the other novelists
I9I6,
86
THE
POLITICS
OF
DOS
PASSOS
who have managedto elude the principalconsequencesof the industrial
revolution.It does startleus to discoverthat the man who, preeminently
among his contemporaries,
has refusedto dodge industrialismbegan by
repudiatingit.
The firstWorld War,in which Dos Passosparticipatedas a member
of privateambulanceservicesand of the United StatesMedicalCorps,
exhibitedto his eyesmostof the characteristics
he deploredin the civilization thathad producedit. It was not bloodand deaththat he wroteabout
in One Man'sInitiationand Three Soldiers,but tyranny,exploitation,
and purposelessness.
The tasksof war, as he saw them,were not so much
dangerousas "narrowand stultifying,"and the destructionof the spirit
was worse than the destructionof the flesh.The namesthat he selected
for the sectionsof ThreeSoldiersestablishedthe identityof industrialism
and war: "Makingthe Mould,""The MetalCools,""Machines,"
"Rust,"
and "Underthe Wheels."
The war was the firstof the critical-one might almostsay traumatic
-experiences that can be pickedout as the turning-pointsof Dos Passos's
career.In One Man'sInitiation,his trial flight, and, much more compellingly,in Three Soldiers,he was able to say what kind of shock the
war had given him. First of the bitter,disillusioned,unpleasantnovels
aboutthe war, ThreeSoldiers(1921) was to many readersa blasphemy
and an outrage.ConingsbyDawson,authorof The Gloryof the Trenches,
wrote in the New York Times: "The storyis told brutally,with calculatedsordidnessand a blindwhirlwindof ragewhich respectsneitherthe
reticencesof art nor the restraintsof decency."But the book was praised
by Heywood Broun,FrancisHackett,SidneyHoward,and others,and
eagerlywelcomedby the young hopefulsof literature.
"All my life I've struggledfor my own libertyin my small way,"
says MartinHowe, the hero of One Man's Initiation."Now I hardly
know if the thing exists."That,of course,was the lessonof the war.Like
young Howe, Dos Passoshad fought against"all the conventionalties,
the worshipof successand the respectabilities
that is drummedinto you
when you'reyoung."And the battlehad not gone too badly;one could
even write in the HarvardMonthlythat industrialismwas a mistakeand
civilizationwas on the wrong road. But he had underestimatedthe
strengthof the enemy.The enemy could pick you up and put you into
uniform,wipe out your individuality,make you part of the machine.
87
REVIEW
THE ANTIOCH
Yet ThreeSoldiers,for all its bitterness,is essentiallya hopefulbook,
for
when,in 1932, he wrotean introduction
as Dos Passosremembered
the ModernLibraryedition:"Anyspringis a time of overturn,but then
(I919)
Leninwas alive,the Seattlestrikehad seemedthe beginningof
the flood insteadof the beginningof the ebb, Americansin Pariswere
groggy with theatreand paintingand music;Picassowas to rebuildthe
eye, Stravinskiwas crammingthe Russiansteppesinto our ears,currents
of energyseemedbreakingout everywhereas youngguys climbedout of
theiruniforms,imperialAmericawas all shinywith the new ideaof Ritz,
in everydirectionthe countriesof the world stretchedout starvingand
angry,readyfor anythingturbulentand new, wheneveryou went to the
moviesyou saw CharlieChaplin."The sufferingsand defeatshe depicted
in ThreeSoldierswere madedoublyblackbecausethey were silhouetted
againstthe flaminghopes of the springof I9I9.
Chrisfield,one of the threesoldiers,asksAndrewsout of his desperation if it would be possibleto overthrowthe government.Andrews,who
standsclosestto the author,answers,"Theydid in Russia.We'll see."If,
on the one hand, the war had shown Dos Passosthe sheer repressive
strengthof organizedsociety,it had, on the other,revealedthe existence
of unsuspectedand powerfulmovementsof revolt.One Man'sInitiation
is full of the headytalk of Frenchanarchistsand socialists,and if Three
Soldiersportraysthe failure of individualrevolt,it holds out, however
cryptically,the hope of collectiverevolution.
It took Dos Passosa long time to come to termswith his war experiences,five or six years.He wrotea bookof verseand a badnovel,and
he traveled.Always,when he has beenunsureof himself,he has traveled.
the progress
In Spain and the Near East he noted with discouragement
of "Henry Ford's gospel of multiple productionand interchangeable
parts,"bringingthe whole world to "thesamelevel of nickel-plateddullness."He had fun from time to time, but whereverhe went and whatever he was doing, he kept his mind on the problemhe had made his
own, the problemof living in an industrializedworld.He was a seriousminded, conscientiousfellow, not much like Ernest Hemingway,who
in drinkingor huntingor skiingor watchcouldforgethis preoccupations
he
He
thought wanted to escape,but he couldn't.And
ing a bullfight.
perhapshe didn'treallywant to. Thereis a passagein OrientExpressthat
comesup suddenlyandhits you in the eye. Dos Passosis in his hotelroom
88
THE
POLITICS
OF
DOS
PASSOS
in Kasvin,Persia,and he is bored."Itis in the West,"he thinksabruptly,
"thatbloodflowshot and that the world is disorderly,romantic,that fantastic unexpectedthings happen. Here everythinghas been tried, cxperienced,worn out." He wishes himself-where? At Broadwayand
42nd Street.
And that is where,in a mannerof speaking,we next see him, when
his Wanderiahreare over and he is settling down to write Manhattan
Transfer.If he had alwayshated industrial,urban civilization,he had
also been fascinatedby it, and now he admitsits fascination.Manhattan
Transferis a poem of hate-and-love.
The hatredis underlinedon every
page:for the ruthlessness,
the fraudulence,the sycophancy,andthe treachery that mark the strugglefor success;for the emptinessand the inhumanityof the successful;for the folly and ineffectualness
of thosewho
fail in an unworthycause. But the world Dos Passosportraysis disorderlyand romantic,and the things that happen are fantasic, unxpected,andfun to writeabout."Why,"asksJimmyHerf, the deracinated
intellectualwho is as centrala characteras this deliberatelyamorphous
novel can be expectedto have,"whydo I go on draggingout a miserable
existencein this crazyepileptictown?"But he does,for manypagesafter
the questionhas been asked,and his ultimatedepartureis made to seem
as hazardousand portentousas the escapefrom an enchantedcastle in
a fairy story.
There is not much politicsin ManhattanTransfer;the book is directedagainsta way of life, not a politicalor economicsystem-against
greed and conformityand pretentiousness.
It is not, however,calculated
to inculcaterespectfor the qualitiesthat bring successunder capitalism,
and no readercould supposethat Dos Passoshad been reconciledto the
capitalistsystem. In fact, he was affiliatinghimself with the avowed
enemiesof capitalism.In 1926, the year after ManhattanTransferwas
published,he became a member of the executiveboard of the New
Masses,which was launchedwith the aid of a subsidyfrom the Garland
Fund. Although the venturereceivedthe supportof many of the individualisticrebelswho had contributedto the old Masses,the communists,
as Dos Passosmust have known,were runningthe show.
Dos Passoscontributedmanyshortarticlesand book reviewsto early
issuesof the New Masses,but the most interestingof his contnrbutions,
and the one that showshow far he was in 1926 from communistor any
89
THE
REVIEW
ANTIOCH
otherkind of orthodoxy,was a debatewith Mike Gold on the subjectof
fashion,by discussingthe
the magazineitself.He begins,in characteristic
speciallimitationsof the writingbusiness.The writer,he says,"takeson
the mind and functionaldeformitiesof his trade,"no matterwhat his
ideas and aims. "The word-slingingorganismis the same whether it
sucksits bloodfrom ParkAvenueor from Flatbush."The magazinewill
succeedonly if it keeps clear of dogmas,importedor domestic."The
terribledangerto explorers,"he goes on, "is that they alwaysfind what
they arelookingfor.The AmericanMercuryexploresveryablythe American field only to find the face of Mr. Menckenmirroredin everyprairie
pool."What he would like to see is "a magazinefull of introspectionand
doubtthat would be like a piece of litmuspaperto test things by."
Mike Gold, a loyal communistand in thosedays a conspicuousone,
was horrifiedby such heresies."Dos Passos,"he wrote, "mustread history,psychologyand economicsand plungehimselfinto the labormovement. He must ally himselfdefinitelywith the radicalarmy,for in this
struggleis the only true escapefrom middle-classbewildermenttoday."
Dos Passosdid not preciselyfollow Gold's advice,but we do find him
writingon the Passaicstrike,discussingthe economiccausesof war, and
describingwith ardentapprovalthe revolutionaryart of Mexico.
Dos Passos,however,was bound to find his own battlesand fight
them his own way. The ordealof Sacco and Vanzetti was nearingits
tragicclimax,and Dos Passosdevotedmoreand moreof his time to work
for the releaseof the two Italiananarchists.The pamphlethe wrote for
the Sacco-VanzettiDefense Committee,"Facingthe Chair,"is factual
and calm,but Dos Passoshimselfwas movedas he had not beenin many
years.He went to Bostonthe week of the execution,picketedin company
with Mike Gold, DorothyParker,Edna St. Vincent Millay, and many
others,and spent a night in jail. What he felt he put into wordsnearly
ten yearslater,when some of his politicaltheorieshad changedbut the
emotionremainedsharpand unalteredin his memory.It is in The Big
Money: "they have clubbedus off the streets they are stronger they
are rich. . . . America our nation has been beaten by strangerswho
have turned our languageinside out who have taken the clean words
ourfathersspokeand madethem slimyandfoul."He sumsup: "allright
we are two nations."
The electrocutionof Saccoand Vanzettiwas anotherof Dos Passos'
90
THE
POLITICS
OF
DOS
PASSOS
traumaticexperiences.Like so many idealists,he had not believedthat
it couldhappen,had been convincedto the end that justiceand decency
had to prevail.He was not being literary-and certainlynot chauvinistic
-when he talkedaboutstrangers.That was the way it seemedto him;
the peoplewiho had "boughtthe laws and fenced off the meadowsand
(at down the woods for pulp and turnedour pleasantcities into slums
aindsweatedthe wealthout of our people"were spiritualaliens,nurtured
in a differenttraditionfrom thaton which Americawas built.They were
interlopers,usurpers,bandits,and they mustbe drivenout. In a confused
and crowdedplay that he wrote just afterthe death of Saccoand Vanzetti, Airways,Inc., he examinedfor the firsttime the dialecticsof fighting fire with fire.
Dos PassosvisitedRussiain the autumnof 1928, and his impressions,
though considerablyshortof rapture,were favorableenough to be publishedin the New Masses.Anyonemight have known,however,that he
could come to communismonly by an Americanroute,and his observations in the SovietUnion seem to have had little influence,one way or
the,other,on his thinking.When, shortlyafter his returnfrom Russia,
he sat down to begin The 42nd Parallel,first volume of the trilogy
U.S.A., he acceptedthe basic Marxistconceptionof the class struggle,
but it was not an idea he had pickedup in the USSR or, for that matter,
acquiredfrom the readingof Marx.His observations,especiallyin the
matterof Saccoand Vanzetti,had taughthim what he knew aboutthe
two nations.
Soonerthan most Americans,including the orthodoxcommunists,
Dos Passossaw the implicationsof the depressionthatbeganin 1929. The
classwar, he realized,had actuallybegun,and he wrote articles,both in
the New Republicand the New Masses,urging middle-classliberalsto
makesurethatthe strugglewas conducted"underthe mosthumaneconditions possible."This was a novel suggestionto come from a fellowtraveler,and the suspiciouscommunistspromptlydenouncedit as wishywashyliberalism.In time,however,they perceivedthat Dos Passos,whatever his motives,was tacticallysound,and the "neutralizing"
of the middle classbecamea majorcommunistaim.
What Dos Passoswas seekingwas a compromisebetweenhis liberal,
humanitariantraditionsand his communistsympathies,but, in spite of
his intellectualreservations,his practicalactivitywas directedinto com9I
THE
ANTIOCH
REVIEW
munist channels.He helped to organizethe EmergencyCommitteefor
SouthernPrisoners,and later was chairmanof the National Committee
to Aid StrikingMinersFighting Starvation.In the autumnof I93i he
and TheodoreDreiserand half a dozen other writerswent to Harlan
County,Kentucky,to call attentionto the violationof civil rights in a
communist-ledstrike.He was one of the foundersand for severalyears
the treasurerof the National Committeefor the Defense of Political
Prisoners,and he was activein the Scottsborocase and in other casesin
which the communiststook an acutely political interest.As had been
noted,he was one of fifty-twowritersand artistswho signeda statement
in supportof the communistcandidatesin the I932 election.
In that summer of 1932, V. F. Calverton,editor of the Modern
Monthly,askedvariousliteraryfiguressometendentiousquestions,among
them, "Shoulda writerjoin the CommunistParty?"Dos Passosreplied:
"It'shis own goddambusiness.Somepeoplearenaturallypartymen and
othersarenaturalscavengersand campfollowers.Matterof temperament.
I personallybelongto the scavengerand campfollowersection."This was
obviouslytrue,and yet Dos Passoswas renderinga more valuableservice
to the CommunistPartyat just that time than most of its members,for
his prestigewas greatand his sincerityunchallenged.No one had more
influenceon the leftwardswing of the intellectualsin the early '30's.
His growing militancy naturally affected his writing, and I919,
secondvolumeof his trilogy,gave a sharpersenseof revolutionarycrisis
than The 42nd Parallel.What Dos Passoswas feeling appearedmost
strikinglyin the biographies:the sympatheticportrayalsof the radicals,
JackReed,RandolphBourne,PaxtonHibben,JoeHill, and WesleyEverest; the mordantaccountsof TheodoreRoosevelt,WoodrowWilson,and
PierpontMorgan; the indignant,touching poem about the Unknown
Soldier.As for the charactersof the story,mostof them-Eveline Hutchins, EleanorStoddard,Ward Moorehouse,Dick Savage,JerryBurnham,
and so on-illustrate the disintegrationand emptinessof the middleclass.
The one worker,Joe Williams,is not romanticized,but he is handled
respectfully,and in the latterpartof the bookwe havea bonafide revolutionary,also treatedwith respect,Ben Compton.Most of the leftwing
reviewersobserved,with varyingdegreesof leftwing snobbishness,that
Dos Passoswas scarcelya bona file revolutionary,but they felt that he
was on the way.
92
THE
POLITICS
OF
DOS
PASSOS
Dos Passos in i932 was closer to communism than he had ever been
-and as close as he was going to get. In his parabolic orbit, though he
did not know it, he had reached perihelion. For a time nothing much
happened. Although he was less active in 1933 than he had been in I93I
and 1932, he continued to belong to a lot of communist fronts, and when
the New Massesbecame a weekly at the beginning of I934, he was advertised as one of its principal contributors.He did contribute a couple of
articles,but the alliance lasted only a few weeks. In February,the Socialist
Party held a rally in Madison Square Garden to protest against the suppression of the socialist workers of Vienna. In the name of the united
front, communists invaded the meeting, which ended in a first-classriot,
with a blow-by-blow account going out on the radio. A letter criticizing
the behavior of the Communist Party on this occasion was sent to the
New Masses, signed by Dos Passos and twenty-four others. ("We who
write this letter watch with sympathy the struggles of militant labor and
aid such struggles.") The New Masses answered with a letter addressed
to Dos Passos, which weakly defended communist actions at the Garden
and strongly attacked the signers of the letter. Some of the signers, the
New Masses said, were well-known Trotskyite troublemakers,and others
had given little evidence of their sympathy with militant labor. In a
fervent peroration the editors objected to being addressed as "Dear Comrades" by such renegades and stoolpigeons. "You," the editorial concluded, "are different. To us, you have been, and, we hope, still are, Dos
Passos the revolutionary writer, the comrade."
If Dos Passos had not already had some doubts about communist
tactics, the Garden nrot could not have hit him so hard, but it was a
peculiarly flagrant example of the brutal literalnesswith which the party
line could be applied. The same tactics had betrayed the striking miners
in Kentucky and split the anti-fascistmovement in Germany. Dos Passos
had seen enough. He did not contribute to the New Masses again, and
he ceased to work with communist fronts. For the time being, he issued
no denunciations of communism, but his disillusionment was great and
it grew rapidly.
Out of his dual disillusionment, the old quarrel with capitalism and
the new distrustof communism, he wrote The Big Money, and thus completed his trilogy. Again the key is in the biographies: Frederick W.
Taylor, Henry Ford, Thorstein Veblen, IsadoraDuncan, Rudolph Valen93
THE
ANTIOCH
RIEV'IEW
tino, the Wright brothers,Frank Lloyd Wright, William Randolph
Hearst,and SamuelInsull.It is all a Veblenianworld: "the sabotageof
productionby business,the sabotageof life by blind need for money
profits."The Veblenianmoral is driven home by the story of Charley
Anderson,which occupiesthe greaterpartof the novel. "If you'reworking with us, you'reworkin'with us,"saysOld Bledsoe,who is in charge
of productionin the Detroitairplanefactoryfor which Charleygoes to
work, "and if you'renot you'd betterstick aroundyour broker'soffice
where you belong."Charleymeanswell, but "theblind need for money
profits"takeshim to his broker'sofficeand eventuallyto his death.Everyas well
one, indeed,ends badly in The Big Money-the revolutionaries
as the capitalistsandtheirhangers-on.Thereis no optimism,no militancy,
and, for that matter,no tragedy-just the sour taste of frustrationand
futility.
The Big Moneywas publishedin 1936.That summerGeneralFranco
and his fascistsbegan their revoltagainstthe republicangovernmentof
Spain,and in Americaradicaland liberalopinionwas solidlyon the side
of the Loyalists.Dos Passoshad been in Spain in I9I6, 1920, and I933,
and in 1937 he went again,one of his purposesbeing to collaboratewith
the cameramanJorisIvensin the filming of a pro-Loyalistpicturecalled
Spanish Earth.Dos Passos'sympathyfor the Loyalistcause came out
clearlyenoughin whathe wroteaboutthe civil war,but his articlesdidn't
quite have the fervorto be found in reportsby ErnestHemingwayand
others.In Stalinistcirclesin America,the wordwent roundthat Dos had
fallen under the spell of anarchistsand Trotskyites.Only later was it
learnedthata friendof his, a Spaniardwho had taughtat JohnsHopkins
Universityandhad beenan officerin the Loyalistarmy,had beenarrested
by secretpolice and mysteriouslyexecuted.
Dos Passoscould speaktwo yearslater of the death of Jose Robles
Pazosas "onlyone storyamongthousandsin the vastbutcherythat was
the Spanishcivil war,"but it seemsto have been at the time anotherof
his traumaticexperiences.In Adventuresof a Young Man, the hero, a
disillusionedcommunist,goes to fight in Spainout of a convictionthat
here is the final conflict,the real fight againstreaction,transcendingall
sectarianfeuds. But this young man, Glenn Spotswood,is arrestedby a
GPU agent, accusedof Trotskyism,and sent to his death.In SpainDos
Passoshad concludedthat communismwas not merely somethinghe
94
THE
POLITICS
OF
DOS
PASSOS
could not support;it was as much the enemy as fascismor any other
brandof reaction.
Even in 1937, therewere plenty of ex-fellow-travelers
to agreewith
Dos Passos,thoughmore of them had been disillusionedby the trialsof
the Old Bolsheviksthan by eventsin Spain.And therewere plentymore
by the end of 1939, afterthe Soviet-Nazipact and the liquidationof the
democraticfront. Although the erstwhilecommunistsand communistsympathizerswere well distributedover the politicalmap, as has been
said,the majorityof themwere concentrated
in supportof the New Deal,
and that was where Dos Passosseemedto be taking his stand.Both in
Adventuresof a YoungMan andin an articlehe published
in I94I, "To
a Liberalin Office,"he admittedthat he had been wrong in his earlier,
leftwing criticismsof the New Deal, which, he said, "in spite of many
wrong roadstaken,"has been "productiveof real living good in the nationallife."The GroundWe Stand On, a studyof some of the founders
of Americandemocracy,has a New Dealishair, and the secondvolume
of the Spotswoodtrilogy,Number One, a novelaboutsomeonelike Huey
Long, also seemedto belong in the New Deal tradition.
Inaninterview
he gavein thewinterof 1949, afterThe GrandDesign
had been published,Dos Passossaid he was surprisedthat reviewershad
regardedthe book as an all-outattackon the New Deal; "It was Mr.
Roosevelt'sforeign-not domestic-policy that disappointedhim." As
anyonewho has read the novel knows, the reviewerscould scarcelybe
blamed,and yet it was true that Dos Passoshad not quarreledwith the
New Deal in the yearsbeforePearlHarbor.What is even more surprising, he appearedto supportRoosevelt'sforeignpolicybetweeni94i and
of magazinepieces
1945. At any rate,State of the Nation, a collection
publishedin 1944, is criticalonly of details,not of generalpolicies,and
so sharp-eyeda critic as Edmund Wilson concludedfrom it that Dos
Passos,howeverreluctantly,favoredthe prosecutionof the war.
But Dos Passoscouldnot havesupportedeitherthe New Deal or the
war without seriousmisgivings.Nothing is deeperin the man than his
fear of power.To begin with, he fearedthe powerof the military,as he
had experiencedit in the first World War, and the power of men of
wealth.The hatredof war and exploitationgrew so acutethathe accepted
for a time the tempting radicaldoctrinethat only power can destroy
power.But what he saw of communismin Russia,in Spain,and at home
95
THE
ANTIOCH
REVIEW
convincedhim that the destroyingpowercould be more dangerousthan
the power it overcame.The New Deal, whateverits accomplishments,
representeda great concentrationof power, and he must always have
been uneasyaboutit. As for war, Dos Passoshatedit in and for itself and
becauseit inevitablyresultedin the piling of powerupon power.
The misgivingsdo not figuremuch in Stateof the Nation or the first
part of Tour of Duty. (Dos Passoshas alwaysbeen a first-ratereporter,
and from thesebooks,lessballyhooedthan manyof the wartimequickies
and as promptlyforgotten,futurehistorianswill learn things they cannot find elsewhere.) But his uneasinesswas preparingthe way for a
suddenreversal,and it came, as Part III of Tour of Duty shows,when
he visitedAustriaand Germanyin the autumnof I945. "In the Yearof
Our Defeat"he called this section,arguing that we had been defeated
in two ways: we had callouslysurrenderedthe peoplesof easternEurope
to Russiandespotism,and we had no intelligent,humaneplan for the
reconstructionof the occupiedcountries.The destructionAmericahad
wroughtwas beforehis eyes, and its apparentfutility stabbedhis tender
conscience.
Something,he saw,had gone wrong,and his consciencesaid,"I told
you so."He shouldalwayshaveknown that no good couldcome of war,
shouldhaveseenfrom the firstthatno man couldexercisethe powerthat
had been entrustedto Franklin D. Rooseveltwithout abusingit. Dos
Passoslooked at the postwarworld and was afraid,more afraidthan
he had ever been in his life.
Out of his fear he wrote The GrandDesign. He did not intend it
to be a diatribeagainstthe New Deal, but that is what it became.There
are "good"New Dealersin the book,but they aredefeatedby the charlatans and demagogues,by the ineffableWalker Watson,who combines
the worst traitsof Henry Wallaceand Harry Hopkins,by JerryEvans,
the insatiablemillionairefrom the South, and by the "indispensable"
man in the White House."Bythe modulationsof his voiceon the microphone he playedon the Americanpeople.We dancedto his tune. Third
War is a time of Caesars."
Term. FourthTerm. Indispensable.
The moral of the book is given in one of the quasi-poeticpassages
with which it is sprinkled:
We learned.There were things we learnedto do
but we have not learned,in spite of the Constitutionand the Declaration
96
THE
POLITICS
OF
DOS
PASSOS
of Independenceand the great debatesat Richmondand Philadelphia
how to put power over the lives of men into the hands of one man
and to make him use it wisely.
This is as true as anythingcan be, but it is also true that we have not
learnedhow to get along at this stage of the developmentof Western
Civilizationwithoutputtingpowerover the lives of men into the hands
of one man. The dangersare great,and Dos Passosis not the only one
who sees them. At the end of Rooseveltand Hopkins,RobertSherwood
expressesthe hope that the nation will never again find it necessaryto
place "so much relianceon the imaginationand the courageand the
durabilityof one mortal man." But unfortunatelythe perceptionof a
dangerdoes not automaticallyprovidea way of avoidingit.
"Socialismis not the answerto the too greatconcentrationof power
that is the curseof capitalism.We'vegot to do betterthan that."So Dos
Passoswrote in "The Failureof Marxism,"publishedin Life Magine
in early1948. But the article,insteadof being concernedwith the "better
than that,"complainspeevishlythat such phrasesas "publicownership"
and "plannedeconomy"have acquired a favorableconnotation,apparentlythroughthe operationsof some sinisterconspiracy,and proceeds
to run throughthe stockobjectionsto socializationwith as little originality as a NationalAssociationof Manufacturers'
leaflet.Dos Passos'horrible examplesincludenot only Russiantyrannybut also BritishLabor
bureaucracy.He sees the British government's"directionof labor"
measurenot as a temporaryexpedientnor even as a mistakethat can be
correctedthroughthe democraticproceduresthat do, after all, survive
in England,but as a stepthat will inevitablylead to totalitarnism. The
evils of capitalism,thoughthey areoccasionallymentioned,seem scarcely
worth botheringwith.
Dos Passosis not, of course,a defenderof vested interests.On the
contrary,his sympathiesare wholly with the people who get pushed
around,whether it is Big Businessor Big Governmentthat does the
pushing.His troubleis simply that he has not found the "betterthan
that,"the alternativeto both bignesses,and hence his growing fear of
governmentcan only be accompaniedby a growingtolerationof business.
("Theuntrammeledpowerof the rulingclassin the SovietUnion makes
you wonderwhetherthe profitmotiveis as bad as it has been painted.")
97
THE
ANTIOCH
REVIEW
He has allowed himself to be forced into choosing one horn of the
dilemma, and he is nicely impaled.
In the article that he wrote for the HarvardMonthly more than
thirty yearsago, Dos Passosarguedthat the industrialrevolutionwas a
mistake,that historyhad takenthe wrong turning.In his recentwriting
this conceptof the wrong turningstill devils him, though he now conceives of it in politicalterms.At some point, he appearsto be saying,
we in this countrywantonlysurrendered
our heritageof libertyand thus
plungedourselvesinto all our difficulties.We mustgo backto that point,
if we can find it, and startoff again on the true course.
This is one way of readinghistory,and for some purposesit may
have its validity, but it does not providemuch guidancefor realistic
actionin the immediatesituation.It is strangethat Dos Passos,who shied
away from Marxistdogmatismwhen he was close to the Communist
Party,who remainedfar moreflexibleand open-mindedthanmostof the
has now stumbledinto a kind of absolutism.If, for infellow-travelers,
stance,he sees that the New Deal was in part an evil, he cannotbring
himselfto say thatit mayhavebeena lesserevil. It is not enoughfor him
to condemnthe abuseof power; he must condemnpower itself.
When EdmundWilson reviewedStateof the Nation in I944, he remarkedthat the world had moved away from Dos Passosand that his
imaginationwas not involvedwith his materialas it had been when he
was at his best.Today,evenmorethanfive yearsago,he seemsdissociated
from the kind of realityhe has chosen to deal with. Perhapsit is not
merely metaphoricalto talk abouttraumaticexperiences;perhapshe is
a victim of the successiveshockshe has undergone.If the shockshad
drivenhim in upon himself,they might have deepenedhis work, but he
has remainedcommitted,as few Americannovelistshave been, to the
of the impersonal,the historicevent.Everyportrayaland interpretation
thing has dependedon his maintaininga vital relationshipto the outer
world, and a breakin that relationshipwas boundto resultnot only in
politicalconfusionbut also in a declineof literarymastery.
But he goes on seeking,and who knows what he may yet find? If
there are some things he has lost, courage,honesty,and a fundamental
generosityof spiritremain.He has been a true explorerin his day, and
may be again, since nothing has crushedthe will to understand.
98