Editing Nelson Algren (section)

== Political views and FBI surveillance ==
Algren's friend Stuart McCarrell described him as a "gut radical," who generally sided with the downtrodden but was uninterested in ideological debates and politically inactive for most of his life. McCarrell states that Algren's heroes were the "prairie radicals" [[Theodore Dreiser]], [[John Peter Altgeld]], [[Clarence Darrow]] and [[Eugene V. Debs]].<ref name="McCarrell">Stuart McCarrell, "Nelson Algren's Politics," in {{cite book | last= Algren |first= Nelson | editor1-first= William J. |editor1-last= Savage, Jr. | editor2-first= Daniel |editor2-last= Simon | title= The Man with the Golden Arm: 50th Anniversary Critical Edition |publisher= [[Seven Stories Press]] |date= November 9, 1999 | pages=377–379}}</ref> Algren references all of these men &ndash; as well as [[Bill Haywood|Big Bill Haywood]], the [[Haymarket affair|Haymarket defendants]] and the [[Memorial Day massacre of 1937|Memorial Day Massacre victims]] &ndash; in ''[[Chicago: City on the Make]]''.

Algren told McCarrell that he never joined the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]], despite its appeal to artists and intellectuals during the [[Great Depression]]. Among other reasons, he cited negative experiences both he and [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]] had with party members.<ref name="McCarrell" /> However, his involvement in groups deemed "subversive" during the [[McCarthyism|McCarthy]] years drew the attention of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI). Among his affiliations, he was a participant in the [[John Reed Club]] in the 1930s and later an honorary co-chair of the "Save [[Julius and Ethel Rosenberg|Ethel and Julius Rosenberg]] Committee" in Chicago.<ref name="Horvath">{{cite book | last= Horvath |first= Brooke | title= Understanding Nelson Algren |publisher= [[University of South Carolina Press]] |date= March 1, 2005 | pages=5, 15}}</ref><ref name="Simon">Daniel Simon, "Algren's Question," in {{cite book | last= Algren |first= Nelson | editor1-first= William J. |editor1-last= Savage, Jr. | editor2-first= Daniel |editor2-last= Simon | title= The Man with the Golden Arm: 50th Anniversary Critical Edition |publisher= [[Seven Stories Press]] |date= November 9, 1999 | pages=411–415}}</ref> According to [[Herbert Mitgang]], the FBI suspected Algren's political views and kept a dossier on him amounting to more than 500 pages but identified nothing concretely subversive.<ref>Mitgang, Herbert, ''Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret War Against America's Greatest Authors'', NY: Donald I. Fine, Inc. 1988</ref>

During the 1950s, Algren wished to travel to Paris with his romantic companion, [[Simone de Beauvoir]], but due to government surveillance his passport applications were denied.<ref name="Simon" /> When he finally did get a passport in 1960, McCarrell concludes that "it was too late. By then the relationship [with de Beauvoir] had changed subtly but decisively."<ref name="McCarrell" />