His Brother's Keeper
Geltman, Emanuel
A RADICAL'S AMERICA, by Harvey Swados. Atlantic—Little, Brown, 1962, xvii + 347 pp. $5.00. In his introduction to this collection of essays, Harvey Swados writes that he has "attempted to...
...He has talked with them, met them, been moved or angered by them...
...Much of this is radical journalism at its very best...
...It has been suggested that the idea for the Peace Corps originated in this article...
...There aren't many people doing first-class reporting in such areas as "The Miners: Men Without Work...
...But readers who think they can forego this book because they've read some of it in DISSENT are missing a rare opportunity to follow an inquiring mind in the consideration of problems common and uncommon...
...And while they have in every way the ring of our time, and our contemporary pressures, they bring to mind certain classic appeals of socialism...
...Together, they offer not alone a point of of view, but a moral intervention into what concerns us, or should concern us...
...which provoked more letters on its appearance in Esquire in 1959 than any article in the magazine's history...
...The skepticism is, however, informed by compassion, and the idealism enriched by passion...
...In effect, Swados has used his sophistication to illuminate a variety of issues rather than corrode his convictions—and this is, perhaps, what gives the book its special attractiveness...
...Consequently, there is neither pretense nor condescension...
...I sort of have a picture of him—based on nothing more than the impression these essays have made on me—resisting the temptation to toss off a tart and nifty phrase because he cares too much about the subject to risk being misunderstood...
...After all, these are people he is writing about, not ciphers or statistics...
...But if he is not the social scientist distantly, if sympathetically, examining the plight of the common man, neither does he affect a phony intimacy...
...and many are followed by "postscripts" of later reflection...
...Swados roams far be hind the reporter, and, what is more important, adds to his journalism the insights of an artist as well as a so cialist...
...In his introduction to this collection of essays, Harvey Swados writes that he has "attempted to maintain a a tension between skepticism and idealism...
...For example, Eugene V. Debs saying that he could not be free so long as one man was enslaved...
...In general, the labor pieces (many from DISSENT) are of unique interest in that they reflect a radical conscience made penetrating by literary skill...
...He does not, in short, succumb to "objective" detachment...
...Swados has worked in factories, been a union member, and clearly feels close to the problems of the worker —itself a distinction among present-day writers...
...But he tries also to be his brother's conscience, and critic...
...There is indeed, an inspiring quality about the essays, which makes the response of hundreds of young people to the one in Esquire altogether plausible...
...There is no formal theme to the book...
...It is not so much a matter of political line, or critical agreement, as it is of attitude...
...The topical range of these essays is wide—starting with a consideration of the present relevance of Upton Sinclair's Jungle, and ending with "Why Resign from the Human Race...
...He is, indeed, his "brother's keeper...
...The fact of the matter is that he is not really a factory worker, but an artist and an intellectual, a novelist, a writer—and he knows the difference...
...Exurbia Revisited," "West Coast Waterfront" (debated in the last issue of DISSENT), "Certain Jewish Writers" (he discusses his own identity as a Jew in the Introduction), "The Dilemma of the Educated Woman," and a great deal more...
...Nor is there glibness and contempt...
...I'd consider that praise enough if there weren't as well a lot more to be said...
...Between them are considerations of such diverse subjects as "Robinson Crusoe—the Man Alone," "The Myth of the Happy Worker" (another of Swados' essays which, on its appearance in The Nation in 1957, provoked wide response...
...But a theme emerges nevertheless: The dignity of the individual, whether intellectual or ironworker, male or female, can flourish only under conditions of freedom and mutual concern and respect...
...Most of the essays, of course, appeared in other publications...
...There are, in all, some twenty-five of them...
...Some of the best essays included in this volume, I am pleased to note, first appeared in DISSENT...
...In this respect, Swados can be taken as a spokesman for the kind of radicalism which I consider to be mine, which I know to be that of many of my friends, and which I would like to think has adherents in different generations, occupations, and locales...
Vol. 9 • July 1962 • No. 3
