One of the most extraordinary things about industrial society of the present day is its idiot lack of memory. Tabloids and movies take the place of mental processes and revolts, crimes, despairs pass off in a dribble of vague words and rubber stamp phrases without leaving a scratch on the mind of the driven instalment-paying, subway-packing mass.

"Sacco and Vanzetti," review of Eugene Lyons's The Life and Death of Sacco and Vanzetti, Nov 1927