July 29, 2005

Agnes Smedley, an Example to Whose Cause?

By RUTH PRICE

Agnes Smedley was one of the most significant American women of the 20th century, a flamboyant journalist, feminist, and political activist who made historic contributions to letters and politics on three continents and had a celebrated roster of friends including Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, Mao Zedong, and Langston Hughes. Her enemies ranged from J. Edgar Hoover to Chiang Kai-shek, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and Robert Lowell. But nowadays she is largely forgotten.

If Smedley is