Materialism

As Dos Passos writes in a Newsreel toward the end of the book, "America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul." Moorehouse, as a supreme practitioner of bending words to his will and manipulating people with them for his own profit, is a supreme example of this statement. He has taken the vast opportunities America once offered and made a great success out of phoniness, selfishness, corruption, and greed.

Throughout the trilogy, characters comment on materialism. Behind the scenes, the wealthy wheel and deal, making arrangements to make more money even as the hapless recruits die at the front. The Peace Conference is marred by corporate interests, which make sure their interests are served. The characters who are the most financially successful and respected by others...