Leftist political groups of the 1930s held that it was an artist's role in society to record the plight of the proletariat —the working class—which clearly suffered terribly during the Great Depression. The militancy of.workers' groups was regarded by leftists as proof of the Marxist theory of class struggle and the emergence of the working class as the dominant element in society. The more naive the worker, the better he or she illustrated the theory. Thus, when coal miners went on strike in eastern; Kentucky, one of the most depressed areas of the nation even in flush times, literary leftists rallied to the strikers' support.

John Dos Passos was a vocal supporter of the Kentucky miners. He was chairman of the National Committee to Aid Striking Miners Fighting Starvation and had written a public letter appealing for financial aid...