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| − | '''James Maxwell Anderson''' (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright and screen writer, best known for films such as ''Key Largo'', starring Humphrey Bogart. | + | '''James Maxwell Anderson''' (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright and screenwriter, best known for films such as ''Key Largo'', starring Humphrey Bogart. |
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| | The son of a [[conservative]] [[Baptist]] minister, Anderson rebelled, writing, “The gods of men are sillier than their kings and queens, and emptier and more powerless.” He became an ardent [[socialist]], a development he apparently associated with reading [http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Veblen.html Thorstein Veblen]’s ''[http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1657&Itemid=27 The Theory of the Leisure Class]'' (1899) in college. | | The son of a [[conservative]] [[Baptist]] minister, Anderson rebelled, writing, “The gods of men are sillier than their kings and queens, and emptier and more powerless.” He became an ardent [[socialist]], a development he apparently associated with reading [http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Veblen.html Thorstein Veblen]’s ''[http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1657&Itemid=27 The Theory of the Leisure Class]'' (1899) in college. |
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| − | Anderson's focus was on the [[ideology|ideological]] [[indoctrination]] of youth into socialism. In 1912, he wrote that that he and his wife (who he said was “also a Socialist”) intended their son “to have liberal education along that [socialist] line.” In fact, Anderson was fired from his first job, as a high school principal in Minnewaukan, North Dakota, for abusing his position to [[propaganda|propagandize]] his students with his [[radical]] views. He was again fired, from a job as chairman of the English Department at California’s Whittier College, for his public stance opposing the [[U.S.]] entry into [[World War I]]. | + | Anderson's focus was on the [[ideology|ideological]] [[indoctrination]] of youth into socialism. In 1912, he wrote that that he and his wife (who he said was “also a Socialist”) intended their son “to have liberal education along that [socialist] line.” In fact, Anderson was fired from his first job, as a high school principal in Minnewaukan, North Dakota, for abusing his position to [[propaganda|propagandize]] his students with his [[radical]] views. He was again fired, from a job as chairman of the English Department at California's Whittier College, for his public stance opposing the [[U.S.]] entry into [[World War I]]. |
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| | His greatest success was the 1935 play ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=6P8jBxOKYacC Winterset]'', a tragedy in verse loosely based on the [[Sacco and Vanzetti]] case, which won him both commercial success and the Critics’ Circle Award. In the play, the judge is described as "crazy as a bedbug," and the accused is innocent. | | His greatest success was the 1935 play ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=6P8jBxOKYacC Winterset]'', a tragedy in verse loosely based on the [[Sacco and Vanzetti]] case, which won him both commercial success and the Critics’ Circle Award. In the play, the judge is described as "crazy as a bedbug," and the accused is innocent. |