Dos Passos: Last of the Big Four

It was at a restaurant in the Chelsea district of New York, somewhere near the old office of the New Republic. As I remember it, I was seated at a table with Malcolm Cowley, Kenneth Burke and one or two others. John Dos Passos was at a neighboring table, probably (though memory is dim) with some of his radical theater friends; he had been writing plays (The Garbage Man, Airways, Inc.). He looked at us and called across the aisle: “Writers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your brains.”

This was “Dos” then, a skeptic about organizations of any kind, even of those formed to advance the causes he championed. Dos never changed; he always distrusted the big battalions. He often shifted his opinions on new evidence, but he never changed his emotional disposition toward instruments of power. They were to be kept on a short leash, whether they were run by capitalists, Communists, labor leaders or whomsoever.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

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

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It was at a restaurant in the Chelsea district of New York, somewhere near the old office of the New Republic. As I remember it, I was seated at a table with Malcolm Cowley, Kenneth Burke and one or two others. John Dos Passos was at a neighboring table, probably (though memory is dim) with some of his radical theater friends; he had been writing plays (The Garbage Man, Airways, Inc.). He looked at us and called across the aisle: “Writers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your brains.”

This was “Dos” then, a skeptic about organizations of any kind, even of those formed to advance the causes he championed. Dos never changed; he always distrusted the big battalions. He often shifted his opinions on new evidence, but he never changed his emotional disposition toward instruments of power. They were to be kept on a short leash, whether they were run by capitalists, Communists, labor leaders or whomsoever.