Bad Dream Come True

Facing me as I write, there is a shelf of books redolent of a period. The titles evoke a myriad of nostalgic responses. There is Joseph Freeman’s An American Testament, the story of an idealistic phase of the Communist movement. There are the memoirs of Max Eastman and Floyd Dell, who, together, used to keep the old Masses going in an atmosphere that was playful even when it tried to be starkly insurrectionary. There is Mary Heaton Vorse’s A Footnote to Folly, the reminiscences of one who was forever finding a renewal in the labor movement. There is Upton Sinclair, that perennial Utopian, with his An American Outpost, and Oscar Ameringer with his If You Don’t Weaken, and Oswald Garrison Villard (Fighting Years), and Art Young (On My Way). And, of course, Lincoln Steffens with his giant Autobiography, and Clarence Darrow with The Story of My Life.

There, in the titles, lives the “social justice” period. The pages of the books still glint, the aspirations run high. The young men and women who thronged in and out of Greenwich Village, coming from the picket lines of Paterson, N.J., or back from an interview with Trotsky, or from a harangue in some smoky hall about the “revolutionary sincerity” of Norman Thomas, were all “on their way,” all manning “outposts,” all resolved not to weaken, all looking for a redemption in a formula outside of themselves.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

Featured Tags

Facing me as I write, there is a shelf of books redolent of a period. The titles evoke a myriad of nostalgic responses. There is Joseph Freeman’s An American Testament, the story of an idealistic phase of the Communist movement. There are the memoirs of Max Eastman and Floyd Dell, who, together, used to keep the old Masses going in an atmosphere that was playful even when it tried to be starkly insurrectionary. There is Mary Heaton Vorse’s A Footnote to Folly, the reminiscences of one who was forever finding a renewal in the labor movement. There is Upton Sinclair, that perennial Utopian, with his An American Outpost, and Oscar Ameringer with his If You Don’t Weaken, and Oswald Garrison Villard (Fighting Years), and Art Young (On My Way). And, of course, Lincoln Steffens with his giant Autobiography, and Clarence Darrow with The Story of My Life.

There, in the titles, lives the “social justice” period. The pages of the books still glint, the aspirations run high. The young men and women who thronged in and out of Greenwich Village, coming from the picket lines of Paterson, N.J., or back from an interview with Trotsky, or from a harangue in some smoky hall about the “revolutionary sincerity” of Norman Thomas, were all “on their way,” all manning “outposts,” all resolved not to weaken, all looking for a redemption in a formula outside of themselves.