These days, I’ve thought often about the political writings of John Dos Passos. I found these passages from The Theme is Freedom. They really move me. I have lots more reading to do in The Theme is Freedom. It’s new to me.

Quote one:

Affidavits, affidavits read alternately by counsel in the stillness of the yellowvarnished courtroom. Gradually as the reading goes on the courtroom shrinks. Tragic figures of men and women grow huge like shadows cast by a lantern on a wall; the courtroom becomes a tiny pinhole through which to see a world of huge trampling forces in conflict.

Quote two:

It’s pretty hard to remember the delirious year of 1920…a roomful of people talking a foreign language was most certainly a conspiracy to overturn the government.