SOCIALISM | Who Funded the Brave Magazines in 1910-1922?

Art Young (1866-1943)

January 22, 2017–In today's New York Times a photo takes up nearly half of p. 10, the first page of a section called "The Inauguration". The photo is of Inez Milholland on horseback, about to set off 104 years ago, on March 3, 1913, from Capitol Hill up Pennsylvania Avenue to Lafayette Square, where there was a viewing stand in front of the Treasury Building.

She and her 5,000 or more (the National Park Service estimated 8,000) fellow suffragist marchers attracted the attention of the rest of Washington and a crowd of half a million people gathered around, many of the onlookers deeply hostile. Violence ensued that the D.C. police did little to break up until cavalry arrived from Fort Myer. When President-Elect Woodrow Wilson arrived at the VIP entrance at Union Station, no one was there to greet him except a White House driver and a staff member from the outgoing President (Taft).

The march alone established Inez as a brave woman. But little remembered is the role she played in directing funding to in-your-face socialist publications, especially The Masses. I have just been reading Art Young's long and interesting first (1928) autobiography, My Life and Times, available online (http://bit.ly/2jSuoeO – the download is slow because the file is large), and he has some interesting things to say in this connection.

Inez Milholland was the daughter of a newspaperman who became wealthy by investing in underground tubes for moving mail in big cities. Her socialist views deeply upset him.

These views motivated her to help her friend Max Eastman start The Masses, and after her death in 1916 influenced her widower, Eugen Boissevain, to fund other socialist publications.

Boissevain made a small fortune with two of his five brothers, importing coffee from Java in what was then the Dutch East Indies.

The socialist publications in the 1911-1922 period covered by Art Young coincided with the creation of the traditions and energy that emanated for the rest of the century from Greenwich Village.

These traditions were also wrapped up with the energy of New York University. Inez Milholland attended NYU Law School – and thereby became part of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company strike in 1909 and a witness to the fire in 1911 – because her application to Harvard Law School and other more prestigious school was rejected because of her gender. The Harvard Law School faculty decided she could do the work, but the administration did not admit women for another four decades–not until 1950.

1. The Masses, 1911-17


Art Young shows how The Masses got started with a $2,000 contribution (equal to about $50,000 today says the BLS inflation calculator) from Alva Belmont, whose support was enlisted by Inez. Max Eastman hadn't thought of approaching her, because he knew that Alva wasn't a socialist. But Inez knew that Alva was a supporter of suffragist causes and correctly perceived that she would be open to supporting other issues if properly presented. (See Young, previously cited 1928 Autobiography, p. 297.)

Inez explained to him that Alva was a "militant" – which would be enough for her to want to enable militancy of other kinds.

Alva's gift was quickly matched by $1,000 from popular novelist John Fox and then another $2,000 from civil rights lawyer Amos Pinchot. That was sufficient to get the magazine under way. Belmont made subsequent contributions.

The magazine was ended when Woodrow Wilson's Postmaster General invoked wartime laws against sedition and refused to mail it. The magazine was succeeded by another one led by Max Eastman, The Liberator, and later by The New Masses.

2. Good Morning, 1919-22


Cartoonist Art Young, a mainstay of The Masses, created his own magazine in 1919. He needed $4,500 to get it going, and received $1,000 of it (equal to about $25,000 today according to the BLS) from Inez's widower Eugen Boissevain. Eugen asked Art: "Are you sure this is enough?" (See his previously cited 1928 autobiography, p. 356.)

Art's magazine competed with Max Eastman's new magazine The Liberator. It only lasted three years. The value of these magazines is that they show an alternative point of view to the prevailing mood of capitalist acquisitiveness that lasted until FDR's election in 1932.

3. John Reed's Trip to Russia

Eugen Boissevain is credited by Max Eastman in his book Great Companions with contributing and raising the money that John Reed needed to go to Russia and write the book that became Seven Days that Shook the World.

SHOW BIZ | Producer-Playwright Contract (Updated June 16)

Poster for the Meadowmount pageant
in Lewis, N.Y., 1924. The portrait
(artist unknown) is owned by the Sewall-
Belmont House in Washington.

June 9, 2016 (Updated June 16)–I wrote a play built around Inez Milholland, a suffragette (as she described herself) leader from New York who shocked her friends by getting married.

Especially surprised was her Presbyterian father, who first learned from the front page in The New York Times that she was marrying a free-thinking Dutchman, Eugen Boissevain (my mother's uncle).

Geva Theater, Rochester, 1998

The play was produced as a staged reading at the Geva Theater in Rochester in 1998 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, which Hillary Rodham Clinton referred to yesterday in celebrating her status as the first woman to be the presumptive presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party.

It was a good production (thank you, Rochester, including the Mayor himself, and thank you to all the many other people who participated), complete with the AKOMA gospel choir. The 550-seat theater was filled and at the end of the play the audience was on its feet. I heard calls for "Author, author!"– but I was videotaping the show and I didn't leave the camera. I would today make a different decision.

Afterwards I got releases for the resulting video from all but one of the participants. It was a one-hour show that I edited down to half an hour. The agent for one of the actors wanted a percentage of the revenues. This raised bookkeeping and other issues and chilled the project. I never offered the video for sale, which I am sorry about. The copyrighted script of the video is here.

Five More Shows

From there I rewrote the play three more times and there were five more staged readings – in East Hampton, N.Y. twice; at City Hall, N.Y. twice, under the auspices of the New York City Comptroller (in the Blue Room, which Mayor Bloomberg later took over for his open office); and at the church where Inez is buried, in Lewis, N.Y.

I lost money on every production, but made up for it with the large number of shows (joke).

With the primary elections having put Hillary Clinton over the top as the likely Democratic nominee for President of the United States, there is new interest in the history of votes for women and the rights of women and my play is being looked at again.

Looking for a Production Contract

So I am revising the script, which has been tested with multiple and diverse audiences. I am working harder this time round on the business side, to generate some money for a worthy cause and also not leave me out of pocket at the end. I was employed most of my life as an economist, so I am comfortable working on the business side of the stage.

First I tried to find a production contract on Google. The Dramatists Guild of America announces on its colorful web site that it has several, but they are stored behind a membership pay wall. So I

• Sent an email to the Guild to join (I used them 20 years ago to file copies of my scripts), and 
• Sent another email to beg for a copy of the producer-playwright contract.

For several days, there was no word back from the Guild. [Update June 14–I have received my membership packet in the mail. Update June 16–I have heard back about my request for a contract and I have provided details about the proposed production. It seems that my best bet is a Showcase Production Contract.] After several days of not having heard back from the Dramatists Guild, I found a contract  through Grandma Google, the ALAP (Alliance for Los Angeles Playwrights) contract between a Playwright and a Theatre. I amended it, using a global FIND for Theatre and REPLACE with Producer, and similarly changing the governing law from California to New York. I used that to stake out an initial agreement with a producer, pending word from the Dramatists Guild.

Then I went over to the Drama Book Shop at 250 West 40th Street near the New York Times, thinking  they might have a book of contracts with which to evaluate the ALAP contract and maybe provide a better one. No such luck. The best that the highly knowledgable staff (Bravi!) at the bookstore could find for me was Stage Writers Handbook: A Complete Business Guide for Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Librettists, by Dana Singer. It was published in 1997, nearly 20 years ago, and my copy was from the fourth printing (2007). It is published by Theatre Communications Group, was supported by the NY State Council on the Arts and seems from the reviews on Amazon to be the best book available on the subject.

Now I seem to be cooking with gas, as some relatives who have passed on used to say. After a term- sheet agreement with a producer, I am immersed in fine-tuning the ALAP contract with the producer and I am familiarizing myself with the parts of the stage business with which I am unfamiliar. [Meanwhile, I am looking at the concept of the Showcase Production.]

Business-Related Topics for a Playwright

Here are the chapter headings of the Stage Writers Handbook, to give neophytes an idea of the business aspects of putting on a serious stage production:

1. Copyright
2. Collaboration
3. Underlying Rights
4. Marketing and Self-Promotion
5. Production
6. Representation: Agents and Lawyers
7. Publishers
8. Developing Areas (including Electronic Rights).

(More to come.

NY LAW SCHOOL | Quinn Is a Pro

Speaker Christine Quinn at NY Law School,
Friday, Feb. 15.

A recent NY1-Marist poll shows New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn as the three-to-one favorite to be the next mayor of New York City. Her speech this morning at the New York Law School Forum (see photo above) was consistent with the polling.

Being a front-runner is a hazardous position, and Speaker Quinn's job today was to hold her place. She did that.

She was elected to the City Council in 1999 from my neighborhood, Chelsea, so she has a favorite-daughter position around here. She has been Speaker since 2006. She is ahead, by a convincing 37% to 13%, over former NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson, whose base has been Brooklyn but now lives in Manhattan. Some of my good friends are backing Mr. Thompson and are counting on a runoff between him and Quinn that he might win. Thompson did surprisingly well in the last election against Mayor Bloomberg, but analysts interpret this as more of a vote against a third term for the Mayor than as deep support for Mr. Thompson. Also, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is only one percentage point (12%) behind Thompson in the poll and de Blasio has the advantage of incumbency.

On the Republican side, Joe Lhota, who worked for Mayor Rudy Giuliani and has more recently been running the MTA, is the favorite. In a lopsidedly Democratic city, it's a long shot for him - the poll shows him losing to Quinn 64% to 18%. More worrisome for him is that only 20% of respondents supported him - most respondents didn't know enough about the GOP candidates to make any choice at all. He can count on getting enough campaign finance support to run a significant challenge. But money is not usually enough to win in New York City as many wealthy also-rans will testify. Mayor Bloomberg got his foot in the door because of 9/11, after which people were properly concerned about the future of New York City as a business engine, and Bloomberg's business acumen was a convincing asset.

There is still talk of other people entering the race this year, but it's nearly March and doors are closing. So those who are concerned about LAM - Life After Mike - assembled at the breakfast forum to build up their dossiers on Ms. Quinn, who would be the first female mayor of New York City and the first openly gay mayor. The event attracted more than 250 people by my count. A streaming-video recording of the event is here.

Ross Sandler, NY Law School host.

Ross Sandler is the host (see photo at left). His breakfast event is the closest thing to a successor to the City Club of New York, which played a significant role in the City of New York for more than 100 years, including in the fiscal crisis and then the mayoralty of the late Ed Koch. A moment of respectful silence for the loss of a great Mayor... and another moment for the demise of the City Club.

The New York Law School's location near the NYC courts makes it convenient for students who may want to get a law degree at night. Its location make is easy to find faculty to teach part-time. My connection with the NY Law School is that my great-aunt Inez Milholland's brother got his law degree after a career as a Harvard football kicker (he was class of 1912), which in those days got the columns of newspaper ink now lavished on the pro teams. Inez Milholland, by the way, was the woman who led on her horse the march down Pennsylvania Avenue on the eve of President Wilson's inauguration - a march that set the stage for passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the vote. (The NY Times on March 4 led off with paragraphs about Miss Milholland.) The 100th anniversary of this march is in two weeks.

Questioners in two lines.
Revered City Club tradition (sniff).

Chris Quinn was a pro, took questions with a combination of respect and firmness, and lightening up the atmosphere with believable stories about her Irish grandfather and her mother's fear of a hex:

If you take down the Christmas tree before Three Kings Day, it will be a curse on you for the rest of the year. 

She listened to tough questions from Charlie Komanoff, Roger Herz and Azi Paybarah about congestion pricing and Commissioner Kelly (whom she would like to stay on) and stop-and-frisk laws. She expresses sympathy with a problem like sound cannons and either gives an "I will look into it" or (in the case of congestion pricing) a "no chance that will  happen soon" answer. She supported the mayor in his bid for congestion pricing, but makes clear that the outer-borough opposition is  strong and this plan is on ice in 2013. In a political environment where a candidate walks a narrow path between cannons to the left and cavalry to the right, with minefields in the middle, she got to the other side with a sure step and no mishap. She did mention Verizon as failing to keep all its mobile phone subscribers in communication during Hurricane Sandy and then Prof. Sandler sheepishly noted that Verizon was a co-sponsor of the breakfast; when informed of this she sort of said she was sorry and breezed on.

To my mind, the test of the day was whether we would have a Marco Rubio water-bottle problem. No way.   She is on top of her game.

It's still "early times" for the 2013 Democratic Primary on September 10. Good politicians focus earnestly on the next election, not so much the one(s) that may occur soon after - because, as the late Howard Samuels once discovered, there is no point in worrying about the later election if you lose the earlier one. Based on her performance today, I would say that Speaker Quinn will continue to lead the pack come September 10.

NAACP | Happy 100th Birthday (Updated July 7, 2016)

This illustration shows the veneration of Lincoln shown by those
celebrating the end of slavery in the United States.

Feb. 12, 2009–Today is the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and also the 100th birthday of the NAACP.

Its founding was first scheduled for February 12, 1909, as a mark of respect for Lincoln.

For the same reason, this is considered the NAACP's birth date even though the meeting that actually created the organization was postponed to May 30, 1909.

Billed as a conference of the Niagara Movement, the meeting was held in New York City's Henry Street Settlement House.

The Founders of the NAACP

The 40 people in attendance called themselves at first the "National Negro Committee". Harvard Professor W. E. B. Du Bois helped organize the event and presided over it. One year later, at its second conference, the membership renamed themselves the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The first officers, as reported by Mary White Ovington, were:

- National President, Moorfield Storey, Boston
- Chairman of the Executive Committee, William English Walling
- Treasurer, John E. Milholland and Disbursing Treasurer, Oswald Garrison Villard
- Executive Secretary, Frances Blascoer
- Director of Publicity and Research, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois.

John E. Milholland, the NAACP's first Treasurer, was a Presbyterian from New York City and upstate Lewis, NY. He was a Lincoln Republican, with pride in his party's having abolished slavery and championed votes for all men regardless of color at the end of the Civil War. Milholland continued to champion the rights of black Americans to his death in 1926, long after his Republican party had ceased to care–the last election in which Republicans campaigned more aggressively than Democrats for progressive ideas like human rights was 1912.

Milholland's daughter Inez (who married my mother's uncle Eugen Boissevain) followed in her father's footsteps. She insisted that a delegation from Howard University be allowed to march in the 1913 woman suffrage parade in Washington. She died in 1916 after exhausting weeks on a whistle-stop tour of the west, campaigning against President Woodrow Wilson for not supporting the right of women to vote.

At a memorial for Inez in 1924, her father complained publicly about the absence of black people on the program, which was put together by the National Woman's Party.

On the centennial of their founding, the NAACP called for equity in distribution of stimulus funds.