“In fact, what got under my skin was the obvious chauvinistic anti-Yank color to the critiques [of Strange Interlude and The Hairy Ape]—They all began on the line of ‘this American playwright whom the naïve Americans think can write, etc.’ and then let me have the anti-American ‘works.’ Some that praised me got around it by saying I was Irish. It is all very dumb and is making me feel very patriotic.”
     —Letter to Lawrence Langner (12/4/1929)