The Great Depression; Interview with Morton Newman. Part 3; Interview with Fay Blake. Part 1

MORTON NEWMAN:

The fireside chat from the White House, was one of the most listened-to radio programs in the United States, and the one that had been indicated as the one that was going to, in some mysterious way, endorse the EPIC Campaign, or at least say something favorable about a concept of production for use which had been the center-piece of the EPIC Campaign, and it would, in other words, finally set to rest the question as to whether or not the White House looked with favor upon Sinclair. So, we were all glued to our radio sets to hear this, and ready to pounce on whatever phrases we could find that would seem to reinforce this expectation, and we listened, and listened, and listened. Fireside chats were not lengthy, but they required concentration and listening, and we listened carefully, and we never found the phrase, we never found the endorsement, and the people supporting the EPIC Campaign like myself were very disappointed. Though, to a certain extent we were becoming more sophisticated about the way politics worked and the way politicians functioned. At the same time we were not too surprised, and we felt that we had enough momentum that we were going to win, even in spite of this.

INTERVIEWER:

But did you think that a few words from Roosevelt at that time would have really helped?

MORTON NEWMAN:

Oh, it would have helped tremendously, in retrospect, because it would have sort of re-invigorated the campaign. It was, there's a, in the course of a long campaign—and this had been a lengthy campaign—there becomes a sort of a plateau that you reach where you don't feel that you're really making any, or that you have no momentum, you might say, and a favorable comment from Roosevelt would have sparked this campaign in its closing days, and, we think, would have made a lot of difference.

INTERVIEWER:

Did, so, so were you feeling kind of towards the close of the campaign, towards the end of the campaign, that, that some of the anti-Sinclair stuff was really beginning to take effect? Were you discouraged at any time, or did you feel that the movement was still building?

MORTON NEWMAN:

I was not discouraged, and the young people that I was working with were not discouraged. In fact, we sort of acted on each other, in a way, because we were in it together. Further, we were aware that there were some effects of all the adverse publicity, and all the adverse efforts were having some effect, but we still didn't think that those were of a sufficient magnitude to rob Sinclair of victory in the final election. And as a matter of fact, the night of the election, when we heard the returns, our-

INTERVIEWER:

I want you, sorry, I want to stop you for a second. I want you to now just tell me about the night of the election.

MORTON NEWMAN:

On the night of the election, we were gathered in all kinds of groupings, in my case, with a whole number of friends waiting to hear from the radio reports that Sinclair had been elected

, which we, at that point, thought was going to happen for sure. As the results came in, and they were spotty results at first, it was clear that Upton Sinclair had won heavily in certain precincts and certain areas, but at the same time there were other areas in which the reports were coming in, and showed that Merriam was gaining the largest share of the votes. As the evening went on, and it became clear that rather than victory we were faced with defeat, we couldn't accept it, we weren't good losers, we were absolutely convinced that Sinclair had been robbed, we were convinced that the ballot boxes had been stuffed, we were convinced that the will of the people had not been demonstrated, and that if it had been truly counted and the ballots had been honestly tabulated, that Sinclair would have won.

INTERVIEWER:

So this, but, why were you so convinced, what was, did it run so contrary to what you were feeling and experiencing as part of the campaign?

MORTON NEWMAN:

The campaign, it's very tricky to analyze a campaign, even at the time, or even afterwards, because particularly in this case, what had become true was that we were having successful meetings, but that it was a repetitious sort of thing. In other words, very likely ninety percent of an audience had been to a meeting a week or two before. They were not new people, but we were counting everybody, we'd say well, there was a meeting at this, that, and this number, and that number, and so many people at club meetings and all, and there's undoubtedly a lot of wishful thinking on our part. Then we were so committed, and it's hard now, I mean, but at that time we were absolutely, first, the winning of the campaign seemed the most important thing in the world to us at the time, to lose it would be an absolutely fatal future for us, so the expectations were high. Everyone we talked to was in agreement with us, as it seemed, and we just couldn't believe that money and lies were going to be sufficiently strong to defeat such a movement.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great.

MORTON NEWMAN:

The night of the election was an exciting one. I found myself in the living room of a friend, surrounded by a dozen other young people that I knew, all convinced that the last minute work that we had done at the polling places, the last minute efforts to get out the vote, had succeeded, and we were simply waiting enthusiastically, expecting that we were on the threshold of a tremendous victory. The thought of losing just wasn't in our heads, we were going to win, and we knew that all the forces of corruption and evil had been arrayed against us, but we were just convinced that they weren't sufficiently strong, and we thought that as the primaries had been such a victory, the finals would be an equal victory. When we could begin to realize, as the late returns came in, begin to realize that somehow, the expectations were not being realized, that somehow Sinclair was beginning to trail in the vote, and that in some cases-

INTERVIEWER:

I actually want you to tell me again about when the election results came in, but tell it simple, OK?

MORTON NEWMAN:

Well, when the election results came in, we went from an exuberant feeling to a much more serious feeling. The early returns indicated that, in Los Angeles County, that Sinclair was going to win, and we were reinforced in our expectations that victory was right at hand. As the results came in, it had a very sobering effect. The jubilation was replaced by a much more searching sort of thing, as to what happened, what went wrong, but we felt that the explanation was not that we had really lost, but simply that we had been, that Sinclair had been robbed, that the ballot boxes must have been stuffed, that votes had not been counted, that somehow or other we were victims of a travesty of a kind.

INTERVIEWER:

I want you one more time, just the very end of that, to just say when the election, when the ballot boxes, when you heard the election results, you were sure that Sinclair had been robbed of his victory.

MORTON NEWMAN:

As the vote favored Merriam, and Sinclair was seen to be trailing, we were sure that something had gone wrong, not in our campaign, not in the work that we had done, but something had gone wrong in the counting of votes, that there had been some stealing of votes, that there had been some corruption of polling places. In other words, we felt that we had actually won, but that victory had been robbed, and that it was only through some foul play that Sinclair was not announced as the winner.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, good. OK, do you remember seeing the _Time Magazine_ article, was that seen as a high-point in the campaign, that he had gotten all this national exposure?

MORTON NEWMAN:

Well, we were always pleased, because California did not have the national importance at that point, the population was not that great, and California was not viewed as being the importance that-

INTERVIEWER:

So I want you to tell me that whether, about the, about the prevalence, or the abundance of anti-Sinclair material, and what it meant to you.

MORTON NEWMAN:

Everywhere you looked,

everywhere you listened,

there was anti-Sinclair material.

It was pervasive,

but we always dismissed it, because when it came to actually counting people, the pro-Sinclair, EPIC forces, could

always

outnumber any anti-Sinclair forces. So we thought that anything we read that was anti,

anything we heard that was anti,

was just, somebody with money

had been responsible, and that the bulk of the people were supportive and would turn out at the polls, Sinclair would be elected, and that everything would be rosy in the future of California.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great. Tell me about, you said, that even when things got difficult, when you heard Sinclair speak, you said there was a character about him of being unflappable, tell me about that.

MORTON NEWMAN:

Upton Sinclair himself was a pillar of strength during the campaign. In every public appearance he seemed to be unflappable.

In interviews, he seemed to be absolutely in control,

he had good humor, he had answers that were to the point,

he had illustrations, and

he was on top of the situation.

To the rest of us, it was always the feeling that we had really supported the right person, because he was on top of things.

INTERVIEWER:

So never, when anything was bad, he always, you never felt it from him?

MORTON NEWMAN:

No, not at all. I mean, on the contrary, he was always positive, upbeat, and as far as we could see, very optimistic.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great. Can you tell me very briefly again about the fact that you had to pay for pamphlets? That, the literature, that that need was paid for by people.

MORTON NEWMAN:

One of the strengths of the EPIC Campaign, was that it was self-financing. It was financed through pennies, nickels, and dimes that were paid by people working, unemployed, young people, old people, who wanted to get the story of the EPIC Campaign, they would pay for it. If they were taking literature from the headquarters, the literature wasn't forced on them. On the other hand, there was a price tag on it, and they would dig deep in their pockets, satisfy the person at the counter that they were paying for it, and the campaign literature was very much, was highly thought of because it did represent money out of pocket to people who didn't have very much money in their pocket.

INTERVIEWER:

So people, so the campaign, so could you tell me, just very simply, that campaign literature was not given away, it was sold, and that helped finance the campaign?

MORTON NEWMAN:

The sale of campaign literature in the EPIC Campaign was one big factor in keeping the campaign financially afloat, because while campaign literature was sold on a bare cost basic, with I'm sure very little left over, nevertheless, the bare fact that money was being spent for campaign literature kept that which would usually be a drain upon a campaign, from happening, and that was a self-liquidating portion.

MORTON NEWMAN:

The anti-Sinclair, anti-EPIC newsreels were a source of real displeasure and anger to those of us in the campaign itself. We could see through them, we could see how contrived they were, we had the feeling that they had been staged and that they were simply-

INTERVIEWER:

I want you to actually start again, just be in the, don't, don't analyze it, just, you're in the movie theater, you see it on the screen, what do you feel?

MORTON NEWMAN:

Feel anger, because this, having no effect on those of us in the campaign, we could see that it might effect some person who had not really looked into what was happening-

INTERVIEWER:

I'm actually going to stop you again and have you start one more time on this, OK, and tell me what you see, I mean, you know, when I first started seeing these newsreels on this screen, it made me angry, but I was worried about-

MORTON NEWMAN:

-the effect that it might have? Yeah. The newsreels made me very angry, I thought that they were a waste, but on the other hand, I was afraid that they might influence somebody else, and the fear of the fact that they were reaching such a large audience would have an effect, was always there, so that while I and my friends thought we could see through them, we on the other hand thought that they might be a factor in the election itself.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great.

[End of Newman interview; beginning of Blake interview]

INTERVIEWER:

And it can be, you know, all the silly feelings that you, you know.

FAY BLAKE:

Mostly, to me, living as a teenager living in New York, California was a myth. There really weren't any people living there, there were just shadows and images across a screen, and if there were people there, they were just a bunch of nuts. They never had to work for a living, or work for a...

INTERVIEWER:

I'm gonna start you again, actually, and tell me again...

FAY BLAKE:

As a teenager in New York, I didn't think much about California at all, but whenever I thought about it, I thought of it as a land of [Kahkain?]. It was a place where people didn't have to work for their food...

INTERVIEWER:

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, one more, instead of \"it\" was a place, say \"California\"-

FAY BLAKE:

California, right. I, as a teenager, should I start?

INTERVIEWER:

No.

FAY BLAKE:

Oh. To me, California was a

place where people never had to deal with the problems I was dealing with every day. If they wanted food, they would sit under a palm tree and an orange would fall down into their hands, and if they wanted sunshine, they always had it.

We had to go hunt for it, in New York. That people in California were never seriously dealing with anything, and therefore, they really weren't serious people, they were a bunch of nuts, and that ideas about politics, about economics, about any of the serious issues that I, as a member of the Young Communist League dealt with very seriously, that Californians didn't deal with at all. They would, just as they would pluck an orange off a tree, they would pluck a solution out of the air, somehow, and that none of them, of course, none of these solutions, of course, would work, because people weren't seriously considering them. So, California was really more of a land of myth and story than a reality.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, I want you to repeat one part of what you said to me again. You said, just as \"they\" could pluck an orange off a tree, that, so, say...

FAY BLAKE:

\"Just as Californians\"? It seemed to me in, as a very serious-minded Young Communist in New York, that people in California had solutions that weren't really solutions, that, just as they plucked an orange off a tree if they got hungry, they would pluck an economic or political or social solution out of the air, and that it never really was meant to work, and was never really meant to be a reality.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, I want to try one more time on that,

FAY BLAKE:

OK.

FAY BLAKE:

I'm not sure how I knew, whether it was from the newspaper or the radio or magazine articles, but I did know that Sinclair was expecting an endorsement from the President, from President Roosevelt, and I felt strongly that such an endorsement would be of great help in Sinclair's campaign, that people would pay attention to what Roosevelt had to, to what positive things Roosevelt had to say. When it became clear that Roosevelt was not going to endorse Sinclair, to me, three thousand miles away from the campaign, it was very clear that Sinclair probably would not win.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, I'm going to want you to start, just say, \"When it became clear that Roosevelt would not endorse the campaign\", don't say \"from three thousand miles away\".

FAY BLAKE:

Oh, OK. When it became clear that Roosevelt was not going to endorse Sinclair, it was fairly evident to me that Sinclair was not going to win the campaign. Even though I felt it was important as an educational campaign, Roosevelt's lack of endorsement was a fatal blow.

INTERVIEWER:

Did it make you angry?

FAY BLAKE:

It made me angry at Roosevelt, but then I was consistently angry at Roosevelt. I always felt that he didn't live up to the great reputation that he was building, or that was being built around him, as the savior of mankind.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, I want you to, without, just, also, just, tell me, just, briefly, that it made you angry that Roosevelt did not support Sinclair. The long explanation's good, and I want a short one too.

FAY BLAKE:

It made, it made me very angry at Roosevelt, that he didn't endorse Sinclair. My feeling was that he was betraying the principles that he said he stood for.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, all right, so, we're back on, you were telling me...