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John Dos Passos NEWSLETTER John Dos Passos NEWSLETTER No. 2 June 1998 AN ELEGY FOR THE Admission to the amphitheater at Arlington was by ticket only. Perhaps five thousand people were admitted, UNKNOWN SOLDIER and tens of thousands of others gathered outside. From the by main entrance to the amphitheater, body bearers carried the coffin to the stage and placed it on a catafalque there. Seated Melvin Landsberg on the stage were many notables, including Marshal Foch of France, General Jacques of Belgium, General Diaz of Italy, Arthur James Balfour of Great Britain, Premier Briand Ninety thousand people filed past the body of the of France, and U.S. Secretary of State Hughes. Still other American Unknown Soldier as it lay in the Rotunda of notables occupied boxes. Three sections of the amphithe- the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on November 10,1921. ater direcdy fronting the stage were filled with U.S. Sena- First, in Europe, a soldier's body had been chosen from tors and Representatives and their families, and other sec- each of the four permanent U.S. cemeteries there, taken tions held wounded soldiers, Congressional Medal of Honor to Ch&lons-sur Marne, and brought to a small room in the 2 City Hall. An American sergeant then went into that room winners, and Gold Star mothers. and placed flowers on one of the four coffins.1 Amid cer- We turn to the ceremonies at the amphitheater, rely- emony, that coffin was then brought to the United States ing, as above, on the Washington Post and the New York on the Olympia, flagship of the late Admiral George Times for our material. The Post, the only newspaper that Dewey. Dos Passos mentions in his piece on the Unknown Soldier, At 8:30 A.M. on November 11 the coffin was carried "The Body of an American," had on its front page a long to a caisson in the Capitol Plaza. Huge crowds watched feature article by George Rothwell Brown, apolitical jour- as a military funeral procession accompanying the body nalist, who wrote of the Soldier's being honored by "the passed down Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue to mighty country for which he gladly gave his life." When the White House. Immediately behind the caisson Harding came up to the flag-covered casket, Brown wrote, marched President Harding, with General Pershing at a noteworthy event transpired: "A light, thin haze had hung his left. Behind these two marched Vice President in the sky nearly all morning, but now, as the President Coolidge and a ranking admiral, then Chief Justice Taft began speaking, the sun for the first time scattered away and another ranking admiral. Following them came the the clouds and fell full upon his face, softly illuminating it, associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, more mili- a very happy omen, it seemed."3 tary, governors of the States, members of the Cabinet, The Washington Post's lead article made similar use the U.S. Senators, eight abreast, then the U.S. House of of the sun: "Just as the cortege reached the tomb," it re- Representatives. Former President Woodrow Wilson, who ported, "the clouds that had hung low all day, parted and had suffered a stroke, was unable to march. He rode with the feeble rays of an autumnal sun filtered down on the his wife in an open victoria, wearing a poppy on the left casket. It was as if the heavens had opened to receive the lapel of his coat. spirit of the dead hero."4 Behind the military and the civilian notables from the government, representatives of many organizations— from the Grand Army of the Republic, the Confederate Also in this issue ... Veterans, the Colored Veterans of the War, the Red Cross through the Rotary Club and the Georgetown Cadets— Calder M. Pickett on marched in columns. When the funeral procession, after Radio Broadcasting with U.S.A. going seventeen blocks, passed the White House, the en- feebled Wilson returned to his residence, and the U.S. Death of Elizabeth Dos Passos government officials left to ride by automobile to Arling- ton National Cemetery. But the military escorting the Changes at Dos Passos Archives at caisson proceeded on foot to the cemetery, as did thou- sands of members of the patriotic societies. University of Virginia 2 Reading "The Body of an American" in Nineteen- butthetruth?" It is Dos Passos' introduction to what is be- nineteen (1932) one is fascinated by Dos Passos' effron- ing played out as an outpouring of national emotion. tery in satirizing the august commemoration of Novem- Without transition we are in a "tarpaper morgue" in ber 11, 1921. Actually, he was in Baghdad on November Chalons-sur-Marne, where several American soldiers en- 11, having sailed for Europe in March and, after a stay dure the stench to choose a corpse. The soldier directing there, gone on a writer's journey to Turkey, the Soviet the operation is saying: Caucasus, Iran, and some of the Arab lands. Make sure he ain't a dinge, boys, However his novel Three Soldiers appeared in 1921 make sure he ain't a guinea or a kike... and was being reviewed in October of that year.5 Although But, asks the author's voice in mimicry, how can the the novel's close antecedence to the November 11 ceremo- soldiers tell? There is so little left of these dead. nies was coincidental, it struck a note of opposition to of- Without transition again, we are reading a newspaper ficially sustained versions of wartime service. In his elegy account of the ceremony: "The Body of an American" Dos Passos struck that note The day withal was too meaningful and tragic for again but now more specifically. He placed the elegy, stra- applause. Silence, tears, songs, and prayer, muffled tegically, at the very end of Nineteen-nineteen, the second drums and soft music were the instrumentalities to- volume of U.S.A., which deals with the war years. day of national approbation. "The Body of an American" is a brilliantly written We go on to some of Dos Passos' biography of the modernist elegy, with some of its roots in the traditional Unknown Soldier. The narrating voice is tough and clipped, pastoral elegy—e.g., Milton's "Lycidas" and Shelley's and his account is made up entirely of specifics, in con- "Adonais," in English literature. As we shall see, it fic- trast to the syrupy abstractions found in the newspaper tionalizes details, and should not be read as factual his- account: "meaningful," "tragic," "national approbation." tory. The narrator's list of the Soldier's possible identities The work is a montage, juxtaposing and interweav- may remind us of sections 15 and 16 of Walt Whitman's ing four voices: "Song of Myself."7 It is interrupted by the newspaper ac- 1. An initial voice giving a slurring, perfunctory ren- count: dition of President Harding's proclamation on bringing the though this was a time of mourning, such an as- body of an American back for burial in the memorial am- semblage necessarily has about it a touch of color. In phitheater of Arlington National Cemetery.6 the boxes are seen the court uniforms of foreign dip- 2. The author's narrative voice. lomats, the gold braid of our own and foreign fleets 3. A newspaper account of the memorial service, al- and armies, the black of the conventional mourning ternating glib patriotism with pleasure in the pageantry. dress of American statesmen, the varicolored furs and 4. The imagined voice of the Unknown Soldier, shortly outdoor wrappings of mothers and sisters come to before his death. mourn... The voice reciting Harding's proclamation has all the The list of the Soldier's possible identities then is taken concern of a courtroom clerk asking: "Doyou solemnly up again, and then again followed by the newspaper ac- swearto tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing count. Then Dos Passos' narration continues with the Un- known Soldier's life: Naked he went into the army; THE JOHN DOS PASSOS NEWSLETTER they weighed you, measured you.. .charted your urine and your intelligence... The Newsletter seeks to promote scholarship on and interest in Dos Passos* writings and biography, In the same clipped language the narrator proceeds to and will publish short articles on these subjects. It recount typical experiences in a U.S. soldier's basic train- will also publish news items, notes, letters, and ing and typical phrases to which the Unknown Soldier queries on these and other relevant matters. Among would have been subjected during his brief life. These are these matters are work in progress, manuscript contrasted with the primary biological sensations of a hu- locations and accessions, bibliographies, and textual man being. Narrator's voice and Soldier's voice merge as scholarship. Dos Passos gives us likely and possible circumstances of For return of manuscripts, contributors should send, along with their submissions, stamped enve- the Soldier's death. The account is interrupted three times lopes addressed to themselves. They should address by a refrain in the Soldier's voice, the first instance being: all queries and manuscripts to the editor, Melvin "Say feller tell me how I can get back to my outfit," and Landsberg, Department of English, University of the third a frightened: "Say soldier for chrissake can't you Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-2115. tell me how I can get back to my outfit?" The Soldier's primal animal sensations (e.g., heart pumping blood) are matched by his experiences in nature COPYRIGHT © 1998 by Melvin Landsberg ("tiny striped snails hung on the underside of the blades").
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