The Lampoon Turned Vitriolic

According to Hicks, however, his fellows were "more excited about Judge Lindsey's views on companionate marriage and Bertrand Russell's program of sexual freedom than about politics." Many of the intellectuals were merely interested in dissent for its own sake. Hicks emphasizes that those belonging to the Liberal Club in the 1920's were not at all the intense and serious young men of the next decade. From the point of view of the Young Communist League of the 1930's, they were frivolous dilettantes.

Life during the later twenties helped to clarify his protest. He writes of his experience in 1927 as an instructor at Smith College: "This was the middle twenties, and the spirit of the period was handsomely embodied on the Smith campus. Among certain conspicuous members of the faculty a pattern of ideas and values was accepted and promulgated that seems to me now the very essence of the decade. They all subscribed to at least three articles of faith. They believed first that science would prove the salvation of humanity, and they had unlimited confidence in the ability of the human reason . . . to solve any problem. Second, they proudly called themselves liberals, which meant that they advocated freedom of speech and laughed at Calvin Coolidge, but they were not democrats, for they shared H. L. Menckon's contempt for the 'booboisie." Third, they thought of themselves as the civilized minority. . . It meant one who a drank in defiance of the Prohibition amendment, b. looked with tolerance on violation of the marriage vows, c. was supercilious towards all religion, d. regarded politicians as rogues and patriotism as a bad joke invented by the American Legion and Daughters of the American Revolution, and e. took pleasure in shocking less--sophisticated members of society."

How The Money Rolls In

By 1929 the stock market had crashed. "Before the month was over," Norman H. Pearson narrates, "fifteen billion dollars in market value had been lost. By the end of the year, the total was an estimated forty billion. Whatever else happened, it was now obvious that the old reliance no longer obtained and that more and more people were beginning to realize this. What had second chiefy an ideological dilemma now became a dilemma in fact."

Unlimited progress now seemed a hopeless dream. In his 25th reunion biography, Hicks writes, "For a long time I had been dubious about the values of an acquisitive society, but it was hard to quarrel with a system that was delivering the goods. When, however, the system broke down, I quickly became convinced that something had to be done about it. As Lincoln Steffens said, the Communists seemed to be the only people who were seriously trying to change the system, and I began to travel with the Communists."

The revolutionaries had at least found their cause.

A popular song of the 1920's had been "My God, How the Money Rolls In." After 1929, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" and "Sing Me a Song of Social Significance" took its place. When the economic system collapsed before those who had criticized it during the 1920's, they needed only a reasonable alternative to alienate themselves from it. They were convinced that something must be done. Seven million college-age young people were unemployed. Teachers were being fired; low salaries were being cut still further. Capitalism seemed on the rocks. And it appeared that only the Communist party was ready to adjust its program to the opportunity which presented itself. So, in a way, it was inevitable that the dissenters of the 1920's should become the communists of the 1930's. The new goal was not a chicken in every pot, but anything at all in the pot--in a word; economic security. Communism offered this.

For a long time after 1929, the association of Hicks and many others with the Communist movement was merely that of "traveling." Before 1935, the party made no real effort to recruit the intellectuals. In that year, however, the Popular Front was formed. Party discipline was temporarily relaxed and three programs which appealed to the liberals of the time were emphasized; opposition to fascism, organization of labor unions, and support of the New Deal. The slogan was "Communism is 20th Century Americanism."

Hicks had been discharged from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1936, apparently because of his own open communistic affiliation. In 1938, to the surprise of many, Harvard appointed him one of its new "Fellows in American History," a short-lived variation of the tutorial system. Each of the six fellows appointed at the time were approved by President Conant, but Hicks today doubts that Conant then knew he was a Communist. Whether the president knew it or not, however, he defended Hicks when the Boston press raised the "red" hue and cry.

The Cell's Influence

Corporation statements explained that Hicks was appointed for his capabilities and for his reputation in American literature, not because of his liberalism. A CRIMSON editorial hailed him as the producer of one of the best historical attempts at American literature since the Civil War, referring to his "Great Tradition," a Marxist interpretation of American literary history since 1870.

Already at Harvard when Hicks arrived was another figure who gained prominence because of his communist affiliation: Robert Gorham Davis '29, at present a professor at Smith College, then an instructor at the University. He joined the party in January 1937 and attended the same cell meetings as Hicks, Wendell H. Furry, Daniel J. Boorstin '34, now University Professor at the University of Chicago, and several other lesser-known graduate students and junior-grade faculty members.

The group met once or twice each week and had as many as fifteen members. Hicks differs slightly with Furry in describing its activities. Furry tells about a typical meeting as follows: "There was usually some discussion of current events; collections of dues; an "educational" period; and a discussion of the affairs of organizations of which some or all of the group were members ... The educational period was sometimes devoted to a book review given by one member. More often we would plow through a few pages in some "classic" we were studying . . . Our meetings were almost exclusively concerned with self-education . . .

"The activity of the members of the group in other organizations was the honest constructive attempt, which any group makes, to attempt to influence the policies of the organizations to which its members belong. The most notable such organization was the Teacher's Union, but the influence we exerted on it was through the two or three members we had on its executive committee of about ten. In all these organizations the communist membership was so small that there was little chance of getting a communist into a real key post."