Word: algers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fact a backward-looking revolution, which envisions a return to a mythical historical past in which Horatio Alger individualism was unhampered by monopoly power. Such a vision, reminiscent of Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom, presupposes a peculiarly slanted view of American history--one which Julian loses no time in expounding. He tells the senators that "Roger Williams, Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Lincoln and the Roosevelts" shared a single "collective vision" of America as "a nation of independent and self-reliant individuals who are free because equal in wealth and power equal in opportunity...
HOLY HORATIO--The nineteenth century Harvard author who sold more copies of his works than Thoreau, Emerson, Parkman, Lowell, and Henry James combined was not a Transcendentalist. He was a Unitarian named "Holy" Horatio Alger Jr., so called because of his announced intention to follow his father's footsteps in the ministry. His 119 "rags-to-riches" novels--all with nearly the same plot--sold around 250,000,000 copies. No Harvard author to date has sold that many books...
...seems to be a surfeit of criticism, not much of it loving. Explained Eleanor Holmes Norton, 39, New York City Commissioner of Human Rights: "We are drunk on the notion that America progressively gets better. We fail to see that because the world is more complicated, this great Horatio Alger country is finding it difficult to do things that were fairly easy to do before." The result is disappointment and disillusionment...
...subject will no doubt supply thesis meat forever. The Ten rival Alger Hiss in library entries, and they too (although to a considerably lesser extent than Hiss) had the pleasure of being hounded by junior Javert Richard Nixon. Now, with the making of a new documentary called Hollywood on Trial, the scab has been torn open again. Expect screams. Old Dalton Trumbo, who talked his head off about the subject, having suffered deeply and survived, died several weeks ago. Someone is sure to stick a microphone through the freshly packed dirt of his grave to catch his last excoriations...
...master of my fate;/ I am the captain of my soul." The world, it appeared in those innocent times, belonged to the romantic individualist with a whim of iron. Even pessimists like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche celebrated the indomitable will. Not to mention Horatio Alger...