SOURCE: Jones, Jennifer. “A Fictitious Injustice: The Politics of Conversation in Maxwell Anderson's The Gods of Lightning.” American Drama 4, no. 2 (spring 1995): 81-96.

In the following essay, Jones examines Anderson and Harold Hickerson's play The Gods of Lightning for its portrayal of the social and political climate of the era of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and questions the play's actual political viewpoint.

Since I left the University, the practical side of my nature has won a complete victory over the academic, and I have become a Socialist. For some time I have been pondering over this complete change of front … at any rate I want to ask you whether or not my present position is sound from one who has spent a life-time on the subject of social life? Is there any other way out?

(Maxwell Anderson, letter to a former professor, 1912)

The Red movement is a distinctly...