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63 4 Life after the War For almost a decade after his war experience, Robert Sherwood went through a series of changes. For some time he suffered from a case of moderate postwar trauma with nightmares and sweats, fear of rodents, and general restlessness and bouts of undisciplined behavior. In seeming contradiction to his wildness and hyperactivity, he was also often withdrawn, pensive, and silent, never wishing to discuss his military service. During the same period, he pushed forward in his pursuit of a career in writing—at first as a feature writer, essayist, and film critic; then as a short story author and screenwriter (neither very successful at the time); and, finally, as a playwright. Throughout these years, his gut reaction of anger toward war evolved into a pacifist ideology , which he then expressed in many of his plays and articles, and ever so gently in his film scripts. Sherwood’s pacifism became the key to understanding most of his work. His definition of the term, however, was purposely broad. Like so many others who had lived through the World War I era, he considered a pacifist to be anyone who was opposed to war based on his or her first- or secondhand knowledge of the violence and bloodshed that the conflict had created. But pacifism is also a very personal phenomenon, a position that can range from refusing to support war in any way, including serving as a medic, to simply protesting a specific war but not war in general as a means of resolving con- flicts. Sherwood’s specific brand of pacifism grew out of his abhorrence of the injuries, death, and destruction of World War I, which he could make no sense of. The entire enterprise, which at first appeared to be an adventure in “saving the world for democracy,” had ended in chaos and despair. Having been raised a Christian (though delinquent in observing its rituals), Sherwood expressed his antiwar fervor in terms of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” and “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” became the principles that undergirded his pacifist convictions. In addition to this was the Emmet and Sherwood families’ history of defending civil liberties, which Sherwood came to believe could be accomplished through nonviolent actions and protective laws. Although at first he struggled with his postwar anger, gradually 64 Act One his opposition to war, greed, unbridled power, and censorship emerged in a clear artistic expression. It is hardly surprising that when young Bob returned home from the war, he suffered something close to culture shock. When he left the United States for Canada in 1917, the nation was just gearing up militarily. During the years he was away, the wartime economy boomed, thanks to the close collaboration between business and government. Wages were relatively high, industrial and government clerical jobs plentiful, and for many with no loved ones in danger in Europe, life was better than it had ever been before. At the moment Bob arrived back in New York in January 1919, the city was still flush with excitement and prosperity, and plans were being made to shift to an equally lucrative peace economy, which came to fruition by 1922 after the usual postwar deflation and depression had passed. Indeed, for many Americans the 1920s proved to be a period of peace and prosperity. But a good overall economy does not mean that every individual is enjoying a prosperous life. Indeed, with the family economically dependent on Posie while Arthur convalesced in Savannah, Georgia, the Sherwoods’ situation was far from its comfortable prewar level. Bob would have noticed quickly that things had changed drastically for his parents while he was away. The couple was suffering from a sharp decline in income at a time of skyrocketing costs. When he arrived home a sick and skinny veteran, Bob was faced with the shocking reality that the price of clothing had tripled. Even with a generous bonus and back pay from the Canadian government, his money did not go as far as it would have in the years before he left. Posie, ecstatic to have her son back at home, still had to face the fact that even a quart of milk, which had cost only nine cents in 1914, now cost seventeen cents. Bread, cheese, meat, flour—indeed, any...

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