Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1967 John Dos Passos: the Theme Is Freedom. Lowell Frederic Lynde Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Lynde, Lowell Frederic, "John Dos Passos: the Theme Is Freedom." (1967). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1256. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1256 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertation has been - — — microfilmed exactly as received 67-8787 LYNDE, Lowell Frederic, 1923- JOHN DOS PASSOS: THE TH E M E IS FREEDOM. Louisiana State University, Ph.D., 1967 Language and Literature, modem University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan © Copyright by Lowell Frederic Lynde 1967 JOHN DOS PASSOS: THE THEME IS FREEDOM A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Lowell Frederic Lynde B.A., Louisiana Polytechnic Institute., 1962 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1965 January, 1967 ACKNOWLEDGMENT The writer wishes to express his sincere appreciation to Dr. Lewis P. Simpson for his encouragement and advice during the writing of this dissertation. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE TITLE P A G E ............................................. i ACKNOWLEDGMENT......................................... ii ABSTRACT ............................................... iv CHAPTER i. Introduction : t h e a d v e n t u r e s o f a y o u n g m a n . l II. THE CRY OF PROTEST ....................... 38 III. A PAUSE AND RECONSIDERATION .............. 93 IV. DOS PASSOS AS HISTORIAN: A SEARCH FOR MEANING. 137 V. ROSINANTE TO THE ROAD AGAIN .................160 VI. THE SPURS OF ROS IN A N T E ..................... 215 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................... 256 VITA ...................................................... 274 iii ABSTRACT John Dos Passos has been neglected by the literary and academic worlds. Too often his work has been judged, not on its literary merit, but on its political content. This thesis was undertaken as an effort to help to elevate Dos Passos to his proper place in the ranks of American writers. Continuity is given to almost all of his writings by the constant theme of the desirability for individual free­ dom. In his brief early period, Dos Passos sought freedom largely for the alienated artists of society. Then he be­ came involved in the search for the maximum freedom for all people. The turning point came when the Sacco-Vanzetti case drew him from the isolated garrets into the streets. Management's abuses of labor and the general class war be­ came his subject matter in U.S.A. and other books as Dos Passos fought for freedom from oppression for the workers. He enthusiastically endorsed Roosevelt and the New Deal. The liberal critics applauded his efforts. Later, in District of Columbia, Dos Passos paused to question the effect on individual liberty of many of the New Deal programs. The critics looked askance at his temer­ ity. iv V Not satisfied with either Wall Street's or Roose­ velt's approach to the problem of human dignity., Dos Passos turned to an exploration of American history, particularly to Jefferson. The result of his continuing interest has been several books, but no satisfactory answer to the prob­ lem of freedom in highly industrialized society has yet been found by him. Critics have been unimpressed by his historical efforts. By the early fifties Dos Passos had completely sev­ ered his association with the liberals. He felt that despite material gains the workers were being oppressed by their supposed benefactors, big government and big labor. To Dos Passos, the people were not yet free; they had only exchanged masters. Midcentury and other protests were the results. Dos Passos' literary reputation plummeted. Throughout Dos Passos' career the political bias of the liberal critics has hampered their objectivity in as­ sessing the literary worth of Dos Passos' books. Reviews have tended to dwell on his past association with Marxists and his new alignment with conservatives rather than on the book itself. Dos Passos is regarded as disillusioned and bitter, as a political deviate and a traitor to the good cause. But it was, and still is, Thorstein Veblen, not Marx, who consistently furnished the philosophic basis for all of vi the writings of Dos Passos. This was true when he was sup­ posed to be a Marxist and is true now when he is thought to be a reactionary. He read much of Veblen while a student at Harvard and read Marx only in fragments in later years. Marx was an optimist. Veblen was bitter and pessimistic* dominant attitudes in Dos Passos. A great many of Dos Passos1 characters are fictional counterparts of Veblen's "captains of industry*" "captains of business*" "engineers*" and others. The treatment given to the subjects of Dos Passos1 capsule biographies is the same as if Veblen had been doing the judging. Veblen's venom is directed against the parasites of society* the oppressors of the people. Dos Passos echoes this feeling* and he is as much against the users of uncaring power in Midcentury as he is in U.S.A. Veblen's heroes are Dos Passos' heroes; his villains are Dos Passos' villains. Veblen searched for and failed to find an ideal society based on freedom and equality. Dos Passos continues searching. Perhaps* once it is realized that the constant theme of Dos Passos has been his search for individual freedom and that he has not been a political turncoat* attention can be focused where it should be* on his literary artistry* not on his supposed political positions. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN Jean Paul Sartre said in 1938: "I regard Dos Passos as the greatest writer of our time."'*' If at the time., most critics probably thought this praise excessive, today they would no doubt regard, Sartre's statement as ridiculous. Sartre made his declaration when the literary reputation of John Dos Passos was high, just after his trilogy of novels, U.S.A.— composed of The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money— had been published in its full form. Although re­ sponse to his trilogy was not all favorable, Dos Passos, critics generally agreed, had become a major American liter­ ary figure, a writer belonging in the company of Hemingway, Faulkner, and Farrell. By the time his second trilogy, District of Colum­ bia— made up of Adventures of a. Young Man, Number One, and The Grand Design— was published in 1952, Dos Passos' liter­ ary reputation had lost its power. Critics, especially those who had been ultra-liberal in their political philos­ ophy during the 1930's and 1940's, showed concern about Dos Passos' apparent changing political beliefs— his switch from liberalism to conservatism--as reflected in these three novels, and tended to review these books, not for their in­ trinsic literary merit, but solely for their political con­ tent. They read Adventures of a. Young Man with a sense of uneasiness, Number One with dislike, and The Grand Design with indignation. Dos Passos had had the temerity to ques­ tion the total good of the New Deal, and his defection was costly. He descended from literary prominence to relative obscurity, from critical acclaim to critical disapproval. He came to be viewed as a deserter of the world of reform, a tired, querulous old man, who had withdrawn from the field of battle to warm his bones by the chilly hearth of conservatism. That Dos Passos did support liberalism, both before and during the early part of the Roosevelt era, is incontro­ vertible, and his critics were just in claiming he had changed his allegiance from the liberal to the conservative cause during the late 1930's. In 1932 he worked for the election of the Communist candidates for president and vice president Foster and Ford, and in 1964 he supported Gold- water and Miller for these offices. In view of these facts, to assert that Dos Passos has held a consistent political viewpoint seems absurd, at least at first glance. However, providing two things are kept in mind, one can claim that Dos Passos was not a political deviant. The first of these is the radical difference between the government of the United States in 1964 and what it was in 1932. In 1932 our government had not yet enacted into law the Wagner Act, the Social Security System, the blue-eagled NRA, the Minimum Wage Laws, the AAA, the various Civil Rights Acts, the FEPC, and a host of other measures designed to improve the econo­ mic status of the individual and to restore his dignity and independence. In spite of the anti-trust laws on the books, big business was the major political force in the country. Dos Passos saw and recognized the enormous power of the few over the lives of the vast majority of Americans. He was appalled. His writing and whatever else he did were efforts to alleviate social conditions in the United States. Today, Dos Passos is equally appalled by the power of bureaucratic government in American life. According to his views, the common man has simply exchanged masters. Once an oligarchy of business interests had exploited, domi­ nated, and oppressed the American common man; now another oligarchy does so— an oligarchy of governmental bureaucrats and labor leaders. Dos Passos is still on the side of the common man.