The Example of Norman Thomas

Ours is an omnivorous culture. Even the most prickly and apparently indigestible of critics, like Lenny Bruce and Paul Goodman, get cannibalized. Therefore, it ought to surprise no one that a socialist leader in America should be universally honored as an elder statesman. This is the fate of Norman Thomas, and not just now as he approaches his eightieth birthday; it has dogged him throughout his career.

Murray Seidler, the more scholarly and detached, if less intimate, of two biographers, dubs Thomas a “respectable rebel,” and sums him up as a “successful failure.” The labels fit. We have to do with a complex paradox which tells us perhaps as much about ourselves as about Norman Thomas. Most people who have...