In September 1932, fifty-three intellectuals and artists published an open letter that denounced the two major parties as hopelessly corrupt, repudiated the socialists as do-nothings, and announced their support for the Communist Party. The manifesto proclaimed the fatal contradictions of capitalism, the futility of socialist “reformism,” the menace of fascism. It rejected “the disorder, the lunacy spawned by grabbers, advertisers, speculators, salesmen, the much-adulated, immensely stupid and irresponsible ‘business men.’ ” It urged writers, artists, scientists, teachers, engineers, and “all honest professional workers” to support the “frankly revolutionary Communist Party” and its candidates.
One of the signatories of this letter was the literary critic Edmund Wilson, and his political odyssey epitomized the leftward movement of the intelligentsia. Like many of his comrades, he was no ivory-tower intellectual but had observed poverty firsthand in West Virginia, in Harlan County, Kentucky, and in California. The depression had convinced him of “the incurable swinishness and inertia of human nature which automatically leads to class war.” He expected Roosevelt to be “largely controlled by the profit-squeezing class,” just as Hoover was, and he saw the socialists as identifying themselves with the owning classes. While he had misgivings about the Communists’ insistence on ideological discipline, he concluded that they alone were working impressively “to educate and organize our wage-earning classes for the defeat of the capitalist system.”
And the capitalists themselves? By mid-1932, they were alternating between a foolish optimism and deep frustration and bewilderment. “If you can’t think yourself into a job, work yourself into one,” advised the financial seer Roger Babson. “Insist on working even without pay.” “We cannot squander ourselves into prosperity,” declaimed Herbert Hoover. Said Henry Ford of young vagabonds: “Why, it’s the best education in the world for those boys, that traveling around! They get more experience in a few months than they would in years at school.”
Behind such zany views, however, lay a hardening class attitude. A deputy to General Douglas MacArthur in May 1932 proposed to ship “leading malefactors,” including “important public officials,” to a sparsely inhabited Hawaiian island where they could “stew in their own filth.” Two months later, MacArthur led four troops of cavalry, four companies of infantry, a mounted machine-gun squadron, and six tanks down Pennsylvania Avenue past big crowds. His troops crossed the Anacostia Bridge and attacked thousands of the “Bonus Army” veterans, their wives and children, with tear gas and bayonets, burning their encampment and killing two veterans, fatally injuring a baby, and partially blinding an eight-year-old boy. The bonus marchers, nearly two-thirds of whom had served in Europe during World War I and one-fifth of whom had been disabled, were described by an Assistant Secretary of War as “a polyglot mob of tramps and hoodlums, with a generous sprinkling of Communist agitators.”
Many Americans recoiled with shame. Reporter Thomas L. Stokes wondered if this might be the end of the country as he knew it. “The United States Army turned on to American citizens—just fellows like myself, down on their luck, dispirited, hopeless. My mood was one of despair.” But the American public did not know the worst. MacArthur had disobeyed Hoover’s order to “use all humanity” in dispersing the veterans, yet the President did not discipline his general or even protest. The following day the White House announced to the press that “the President was pleased.”
If an experiment was ending in late 1932, it was not the grand American experiment of the Framers, of Jefferson and Lincoln. It was an experiment in rule by industrialists and financiers. They had by no means been all-powerful. In case after case—as in the example of Henry Ford’s political activities—they had found it impossible to convert economic power into social control. But American business held two strong cards. It could accomplish through the Republican party, and the broad coalition it represented, what it could not effect through economic means alone. And it had long been represented by a “compact majority” that united the separated institutions of government behind pro-business measures.
If the compact majority had held power, it had also to assume responsibility. But assumption of responsibility was impossible unless there was a “compact opposition” to put the failures of leadership directly on the shoulders of the Hoover Administration. As the campaign of 1932 got under way, no such compact opposition was evident. No one could quite place Franklin Roosevelt. Sometimes he almost talked socialism, sometimes he promised to balance the budget. The nation waited.
The transients waited, killing time, moving ever on, hunkering down at night in “hobo jungles,” reduced to the primal wants of food and shelter. In the silence of the railroad tracks they rarely burst into song; they had little to sing about. But a plaintive ditty began to catch on:
Once I built a railroad, made it run,—
Made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad, now it’s done—
Brother can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodle-de-dum.
Half a million boots went sloggin’ thru Hell,
I was the kid with the drum.
Say don’t you remember, they called me Al—
It was Al all the time
Say, don’t you remember, I’m your Pal!
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Notes
1. THE WAR OF LIBERATION
p. 3 [Lincoln’s trip to Gettysburg]: Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (Harcourt, Brace, 1939), vol. 2, pp. 462–63; George M. Hart, Director of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, supplied technical and historical information on the type of train Lincoln rode to Gettysburg; see also Edwin P. Alexander, Down at the Depot (Clarkson N. Potter, 1970), pp. 58-59; William E. Barton, Lincoln at Gettysburg (Peter Smith, 1950), pp. 58–59. The wood most probably used to fire the engine was hardwood, and in the Gettysburg region that implies walnut or cherry, the smoke of which would be blue. See also Philip Kunhardt, A New Birth of Freedom (Little, Brown, 1983), pp. 68 ff.
3–4 [Washington, November 18, 1863]: New York Times, November 19, 1863, pp. 1–4; Howard K. Beale, ed..Diary of Gideon Welles (W. W. Norton, 1960), vol. 1, pp. 479–80; Sandburg, vol. 2, p. 461.
4-5 [Ceremonies at Gettysburg]: Barton, pp. 72–79; Clark E. Carr, Lincoln at Gettysburg (A. C. McClurg, 1906), pp. 36-–56; Sandburg, vol. 2, pp. 465–68; Massachusetts Historical Society, Edward Everett at Gettysburg (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1963); David C. Mearns, “Unknown at This Address,” in Allan Nevins, ed., Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address (University of Illinois Press, 1964).
5 [Text of Everett’s oration]: Barton, pp. 211–54.
5–6 [Text of Gettysburg Address]: Newspaper version, in Roy P. Basler, ed.,The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Rutgers University Press, 1953), vol. 7, pp. 19–21. [Lincoln’s delivery of Address]: Barton, pp. 80–81; Carr, pp. 56–57, 70.
Manning the Front
6 [Bull Run survivors in Washington]: Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington (Harper & Bros., 1941), pp. 102–6; Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln (Alfred A. Knopf, 1952),pp. 271–73.
6–7 [Lincoln’s strategic plan]: “Memoranda of Policy Suggested by Bull Run Defeat,” July 23, 27, 1861, in Basler, op. cit.,vol. 4, pp.457–58, quoted at p. 457.
7 [Southern military advantages]: James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), pp. 184–86.
[“Highways of invasion” into the South]: ibid, p. 186.
[Lincoln on his Indian War service]: Thomas, pp. 33–34.
[Confederate defensive strategy]: Address to the Confederate Congress, April 29, 1861, in Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches (J.J. Little and Ives, 1923), vol. 5, p. 84.
8 [Lincoln on outcome of Fredericksburg]: quoted in McPherson, p. 306.
[Vallandigham]: Thomas, pp. 379–80.
[Desertion in the Army of the Potomac]: Bruce Catton, Glory Road: The Bloody Route from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg (Doubleday, 1952), pp. 111–12, 116.
[Lincoln finds a general]: T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), pp. 271–99; see also Kenneth P. Williams, Lincoln Finds a General, 5 vols. (Macmillan, 1949–59).
9 [Lincoln on Grant]: quoted in Bruce Catton, Grant Moves South (Little,Brown, 1960), p.371.
[Confederate general on Grant]: General Richard Ewell, quoted in Robert Leckie, The Wars of America (Harper & Row, 1968), pp. 412–13.
9 [Union officer on Grant]: Catton, Grant Moves South, p. 420.
9–10 [Vicksburg campaign]. Samuel Carter III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg, 1862–1863 (St. Martin’s Press, 1980), passim; Catton, Grant Moves South, pp. 405–70; Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (Random House, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 323–427, 606–14; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (Century, 1888), vol. 3, pp. 462–570.
9 [Grant on the need for a decisive victory]: quoted in Carter, p. 109.
10 [Sherman’s jubilation]: quoted in Catton, Grant Moves South, p. 448.
[Lincoln’s reaction to Chancellorsville]: quoted in Catton, Glory Road, p. 230.
10–11 [Generalship of Robert E. Lee]: Thomas L. Connelly, The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society (Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), pp. 4–8; Foote, vol. 1, pp. 128–31.
11 [Confederate strategic planning and Lee’s plan]: McPherson, p. 324; Foote, vol. 2, pp. 424–33.
[Lee’s army the true objective]: Lincoln to Hooker, telegram, June 10, 1863, in Basler, vol.6, p. 257.
[Battle of Gettysburg]: Catton, Glory Road, pp. 289–344; see also Sandburg, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 340–47.
12 [Lincoln’s whaling metaphor]: quoted in Sandburg, vol. 2, p. 21.
[The discouragement of Lincoln]: ibid., vol. 2, p. 351; Beale, op. cit.,vol. 1, p. 371.
[Battle of Chattanooga]: Foote, vol. 2, pp. 685–94, 708–68; see also Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command (Little, Brown, 1968), pp. 30–93.
[The ebbing of Confederate hopes]: Davis to General E. K. Smith, letter, July 14, 1863, in Rowland, vol. 5, p. 554.
[Despair of Confederate veterans]: quoted in McPherson, p. 333.
[Mary Chesnut]: C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 519, 502, 501, 523.
Forging the Sword
13 [Meeting of Lincoln and Grant]: Catton, Grant Takes Command, op. cit., pp. 124–27, Lincoln quoted at p. 125.
[Southerners evaluate Grant]: quoted in Woodward, op. cit., p. 520.
14 [The draft]: Eugene C. Murdock, One Million Men: The Civil War Draft in the North (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1971), pp. 6–8, 24–25; see also, Albert B. Moore,Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy (Macmillan, 1924).
[Rich man’s war]: quoted in Murdock, p. 6.
[New York draft riots]: Albon P. Man, Jr., “Labor Competition and N.Y. Draft Riots, 1863,”Journal of Negro History, vol. 36, no. 4 (October 1951); see also, Henry Steele Commager, ed., The Blue and the Gray (Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), vol. 2, pp. 714–19.
[Disappointment of Northern draft]: Allan Nevins, The War for the Union (Scribner’s, 1960–71), vol. 2, pp. 464–66, quoted at p. 464; see also, Bruce Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox (Doubleday, 1954), pp. 23–31; Peter Levine, “Draft Evasion in the North During the Civil War,”Journal of American History, vol. 67, no. 4 (March 1981), pp. 816–34.
14–15 [Draft as stimulus to volunteering]: Nevins, vol. 2, p. 465.
15 [Southern opposition to draft]: T. Harry Williams, The History of American Wars: From 1745to 1918 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), p. 224; Moore, pp. 229–304.
[Numbers mobilized, North and South]: Williams, p. 225; Thomas L. Livermore, Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861–1865 (Houghton, Mifflin, 1901).
[Sudden mobilization and demand for war supplies]: A. Howard Meneely, The War Department, 1861: A Study in Mobilization and Administration (Columbia University Press, 1928), passim: see also, Fred Albert Shannon, Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 2 vols. (Arthur H. Clark, 1928); Frederick Phisterer, Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States (Scribner’s, 1883).
[Records of quartermaster]: Nevins, vol. 2, p. 473.
[Lincoln on the national resources]: Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1864, in Basler, op. cit., vol. 8, p. 151.
[Improved production of shoes]: Frank A. Taylor, “Lyman Reed Blake,” in Allen Johnson, ed., Dictionary of American Biography (Scribner’s, 1929), vol. 2, pp. 344–45; Nevins, vol. 2, pp. 492–94.
15–16 [Southern industrial weaknesses]: Williams, p. 228.
16 [Centralized Confederate war effort]: Emory M. Thomas, The Confederate Nation, 1861–1865 (Harper & Row, 1979), pp. 206–14.
[Rifles of the Civil War]: Nevins, vol. 1, pp. 342–50.
[The effect of canister or grape shot]: term employed by McPherson, op. cit., p. 192.
[Erie Canal traffic]: Richard B. Morris, ed., Encyclopedia of American History (Harper & Bros., 1961), p. 516.
[Horses for the Army of the Potomac]: Nevins, vol. 2, p. 475.
16–17 [Prosperity of Northern railroads]: ibid., pp. 501–3, 505, Tribune quoted at p. 501; see also, Thomas Weber, The Northern Railroads in the Civil War, 1861–186; (King’s Crown Press, 1952), pp. 15, 43–93.
[Spanning the Potomac Creek]: George Edgar Turner, Victory Rode the Rails (Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), pp. 149–53, Turner quoted at p. 152, Lincoln at p. 153.
17–18 [Emerson’s plight]: Emerson to William Emerson, January 21, 1862, in Ralph L. Rusk, ed., The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Columbia University Press, 1939). vol. 5, pp. 263–64.
18 [Financing the war]: Sidney Ratner, American Taxation: Its History as a Social Force in Democracy (W.W. Norton, 1942), pp. 67–110; Nevins, vol. 2, pp. 212–14; Robert P. Sharkey,”Commercial Banking,” in David T. Gilchrist and W. David Lewis, eds..Economic Change in the Civil War Era (Eleutherian Mills—Hagley Foundation, 1965); Morris, pp. 239–40, 530.
[Jungle of laissez-faire]: Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America (Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 675.
[Party and intra-party divisions on finance]: Robert P. Sharkey, “Money, Class and Party: An Economic Study of Civil War and Reconstruction,”Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science (Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), pp. 279–84.
19 [Women’s labor]: McPherson, p. 376; see also, Cindy Aron, “ ‘To Barter Their Souls forGold’: Female Clerks in Federal Government Offices, 1862–1890,”Journal of American History, vol. 67, no. 4 (March 1981), pp. 835–53.
[Women’s wages]: Sharkey, “Money, Class and Party,” p. 181; and see Emerson David Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War (Frederick Ungar, 1963), p. 184.
[Labor union response to war]: quoted in T. V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor: 1859 to 1889 (Excelsior, 1890), p. 35.
[Myth of economic impact of Civil War]: Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (Macmillan, 1927–42), vol. 2, pp. 53, 54.
20 [War and financiers]: Sharkey, “Money, Class and Party,” p. 295.
[Economic impact of war]: Gilchrist and Lewis; Ralph Andreano, ed., The Economic Impact of the American Civil War (Schenkman, 1967).
The Society of the Battlefield
21 [Soldiers’ low spirits]: John N. Moulton to his homefolk, February 1, 1863, quoted in Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank (Bobbs-Merrill, 1951), p. 279. [Moulton’s tiredness]: Moulton to his homefolk, March 16, 19, 1863, quoted in ibid., p.280.
[Enthusiasm and disappointment]: Levi Ross to his father, February 3, 1863, quoted in ibid.
[Soldiers sick of battle]: M. N. Collins to C. H. Bell, December 22, 1862, quoted in ibid., p. 279.
[Soldiers’ fear]:John N. Moulton to his homefolk, February 1, 1863,quoted in ibid., p. 279.
[“Fantom of hope”]: M. P. Larry to h
is sister, December 23, 1862, quoted in ibid., p. 280.
[Incompetent leadership]: Edward L. Edes to “Charlotte,” December 28, 1862, quoted in ibid., p. 279.
21–22 [Soldiers on slaves and emancipation]: ibid., p. 281.
22 [Participation of blacks]: Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War (Russell & Russell, 1968), quoted at p. 199; Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861–1865 (W. W. Norton, 1966); Ira Berlin, ed., Freedom, A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867: The Black Military Experience (Cambridge University Press, 1982).
[“Heartily sick of war”]: Edward L. Edes to “Charlotte,” December 28, 1862, quoted in Wiley, p. 279.
22 [Desire for compromise]: Levi Ross to his father, February 3, 1863, quoted in ibid., p. 280.
[Peace and soldiers’ defeatism]: Crittenden to his wife, February 20, 1863, quoted in Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb (Bobbs-Merrill, 1943), p. 131.
[Confederacy “done whiped”]: John R. Hopper to his brother, September 9, 1863, quoted in ibid.
[Going home]: William R. Stillwell to his wife, August 13, 1863, quoted in ibid.
22–3 [Methods of encouraging reenlistment]: ibid., pp. 132–33.
23 [Daily routine]: John Beatty, Memoirs of a Volunteer (W. W. Norton, 1946), p. 40.
[Soldiers’ rations and supplements]: Nevins,The War for the Union, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 479; and see Commager, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 293; Wiley, Reb, pp. 90–107.
23–4 [Improvisation and the influence of army life]: Wiley, Yank, chs. 2, 12; Catton, Stillness at Appomattox, op. cit., pp. 219–25, 241–43; F. H. Mason, The Forty-Second Ohio Infantry (Cobb, Andrews, 1876), pp. 78–79.
24 [Organization and the war]: Nevins, vol. 1, p. v, and vol. 3, chs. 7–8; Jacob D. Cox, Military Reminiscences of the Civil War (Scribner’s, 1900), vol. 1, pp. 169–79.
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