The Call (newspaper)

The Call is a radical newspaper linked in the novel to Ben Compton’s antiwar politics and organizing. Ben turns to it as a place to continue his work after the United States enters the war; later, its suspension signals how sharply the opportunities for dissent have contracted.

Identity and Political Setting

The narrative identifies The Call through Ben’s decision to go there after Woodrow Wilson declares war. That placement connects the paper to the radical circles in which Ben acts, without reducing its significance to a backdrop: it is one of the places he seeks out when the country’s entry into war forces his political commitments into open conflict with the prevailing mood.

Ben Compton’s Connection

On the day war is declared, Ben visits Fanya Stein, who has returned from Washington after joining a women’s peace delegation. He leaves her apartment to go to The Call, even as she begs him to stay. His choice reveals the competing claims on him: personal attachment and the immediate work of political opposition. As he departs, he catches himself making the spitting sound associated with his father, a small sign of how political habits and family conflict have entered his own gestures.

Suspension and Wartime Pressure

Later, The Call is suspended, and the Rand School is closed. The narrative places these developments amid a broader retreat from protest: friends adopt Wilson’s outlook, while Helen Mauer’s family and their associates prosper through wartime overtime and dismiss revolutionary talk. The paper’s suspension is thus part of a larger change in Ben’s world, in which institutions and relationships that had sustained dissent are giving way to pressure to conform.

Narrative Significance

The Call appears briefly, but its two appearances frame a consequential movement in Ben’s political life: first, it is a destination he chooses as he commits himself to opposing the war; later, it is among the institutions no longer available to radical organizers. The contrast makes the cost of wartime repression concrete. The narrowing of political space is registered not only in arrests and public confrontation, but also in the silencing of a newspaper and the closure of a school.