He used to come up from his bastion in Bristol in a chauffeured car wearing high-buttoned shoes and a grim smile to dictate the governing of Doylestown, our county seat. He owned the local newspaper, the Intelligencer, and controlled its policies with an inflexible conservatism which ensured that not even a whisper of liberalism or pro-labor sentiment or salaciousness raise its ugly head. One issue of his paper has gone down in history as a notable example of his arch-Republicanism, for on the morning after a crucial national election in 1940 the front page consisted of a banner headline proclaiming that Bucks County had once more voted Republican, while in an obscure bottom right box appeared a small notice to the effect that some Democrat had won the presidency. Joe Grundy played hardball and was so able that he kept our town and county completely under his control.
I first became aware of his power in the fall of 1916, when I was nine years old and he was laboring desperately to keep Pennsylvania in the Republican column in the great presidential fight between the flabby Democratic incumbent, Woodrow Wilson, and the stalwart Republican challenger, Charles Evans Hughes. My family, obedient as always to the urgings of Joe Grundy, was ardently Republican on the solid grounds voiced by my mother: ‘You can see that with that dignified beard Mr. Hughes looks like a president.’ (In the next election she would tell me: ‘James, you can see that Warren Harding with that handsome face and reserved manner looks like a president’ but in the election after that she made no comment about her man Coolidge.)
The election was hard fought and Grundy marshaled his forces with wonderful skill so that on Tuesday night after heated balloting we were overjoyed to hear that Hughes had won and, following orders from Mr. Grundy’s local henchmen, we traipsed into the middle of town to cheer an improvised Republican victory parade, and I went to bed that night satisfied that with Charles Evans Hughes in charge of the nation as a whole and Joe Grundy in command locally, the republic was on an even keel.
Of course, by midmorning on Wednesday we learned that a disgracefully wrong vote in California had delivered the presidency back into the hands of that pitiful man, Woodrow Wilson, and black despair settled over Bucks County. But the entire affair culminated for me on Friday night in a distasteful way, because a ragtag handful of Democrats gathered from various unsavory corners of the county convened in our town for a victory parade, and as my mother and I stood in the shadows in the alley beside the Intelligencer office, she delivered her contemptuous summary of the Democrats, a phrase that still rings in my ears: ‘Look at them, James, not a Buick in the lot.’
My next incursion into politics was in the presidential election of 1928. I was then in college, and was so distressed by the virulent anti-Catholicism of the period that in a public rally attended by townspeople, I gave extemporaneously a rousing defense of freedom of religion. After the meeting the community’s leading Republican, Frank Scheibley, was so impressed by my speech and its manner of delivery that he collared me, offered me a job, and later wanted to adopt me as his son. I was thus at an early age co-opted.
In rapid order, as I shall explain in more detail later, I was invited to sample socialism, fascism and communism, and learned a great deal about each. But I was not impressed with any of them and remained essentially one of Joe Grundy’s boys, although the Great Depression did cause me to wonder why, if he and his buddies were so everlastingly smart, they had allowed this financial disaster to happen not only to me but also to themselves. But I remained a Republican.
At a critical point in my life I moved to Colorado, which was one of the best things I ever did, for the grand spaciousness of that setting and the freedom of political expression that was not only allowed but encouraged converted me from being a somewhat hidebound Eastern conservative into a free spirit. Colorado was an unusual state in that its voters rarely, and never in my time, awarded all three of its top political positions—governor and two senators—to the same party; the citizens preferred to have the power split among various factions, which meant that the political life there was wildly different from what I had known in Bucks County, where Joe Grundy told us how to vote and we obeyed. In Colorado a man or woman could be a member of any party or any faction within a party and still enjoy a serious chance of being elected to high office. In Pennsylvania I had learned to respect politics; in Colorado I learned to love it.
But most important was something there that helped me develop an intellectual strength I had not had before. There was in the town an informal but most congenial small restaurant named after the widow who ran it, a Mrs. Angell, and there in 1936 a group of like-minded men, two-thirds Republican, one-third Democrat, but all imbued with a love of argument and exploration of ideas, met twice a month for protracted debate on whatever problem was hottest at the moment. We had two clergymen—one liberal, one conservative—an admirable lawyer who had pleaded major cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, two scientists, one of the cantankerous leaders of the Colorado Senate, a wonderful school administrator, a fiery newspaper editor and a healthy scattering of businessmen, mostly on the conservative side. Because I had access to a gelatin duplicating pad, I was designated executive secretary in charge of finding speakers and convening the meetings. We paid, I remember, fifty-five cents a meeting in depression currency, and that covered a free meal for the invited guest. The meetings became so precious to all of us that we would go far out of our way to attend. Discussion was rigorous, informed and relevant, with ideas from the nation’s frontier whipping about in grand style.
I think that any young person in his or her thirties who wants to build both character and a grasp of social reality would be well advised to either form or join a club like our Angell’s, where hard ideas are discussed by hardheaded members, where ideas that the general public is not yet ready to embrace are dissected, and where decisions are hammered out for the welfare of the community. Sensible men have participated in such discussions from the beginning of time: in the wineshops of antiquity, the baths of ancient Rome, the coffeeshops of England, the town meetings of New England, the Friday-night meeting of the kibbutzim in Israel, the informal clubs of California and Texas and Vermont. Thoughtful people seek these meetings because they need them, and had I not stumbled into mine in Colorado I would have been a lesser man.
One summer a fiery evangelist, Harvey Springer, came into town and pitched his big tent near the college where I taught. There in nightly sessions of the most compelling nature, with frenzied speeches, haunting choral music and wild-eyed young women screaming while coming down the aisles to be saved, Reverend Springer launched a virulent attack on the two clergymen in our group and on me as a disruptive, liberal, atheistic professor. Like the many others under attack, I sneaked in to see how he operated and was awed by his ruthlessness and power. If I remember correctly, he divided his spiel into three parts: first, a most moving account of how in his early youth he was a lost soul because his teachers and his church had failed to give him proper guidance; second, a savage attack on Yale University, for reasons I never fully understood, but apparently he had applied to Yale for entrance to its divinity school, and been turned down; and last, to focus on concerns at the heart of the community, a withering blast at local churches, especially those of my two friends, and a condemnation of almost all college professors, especially me, for having stirred up trouble in the community by calling for fair treatment for Mexican field workers.
It was a solemn group at Angell’s that week, because we met on Tuesday and Springer would be hurling his thunderbolts on the coming Sunday, and we knew that something had to be done to counteract his venom. Our two clergymen, who bore the brunt of his attack, were men of quiet demeanor and estimable probity, in no way prepared to equal him in diatribe, and I was a defenseless stripling in the face of his fiery denunciations, but all our members decided that we simply could not allow this poison to be injected into our community and we resolved to combat it in every way at our disposal. The editor would point out the danger in print; the clergymen wou
ld preach forcefully about the folly of replacing calm and rational analysis with lurid exhibitionism; and I would tell my students, many of whom were deeply impressed by Springer, that he was so ludicrous they should be able to see through him for the empty windbag that he was.
The next five days were hectic. At Wednesday and Thursday evening meetings in churches the local ministers quietly but with great force fought to expose and defuse Springer’s nonsense; our businessmen warned their luncheon meetings of the dangers inherent in his rabble-rousing; our delightful insurance man, Montefiore Moses, was effective in pointing out that Springer was stealing great sums of money from our community in his nightly collections; and I counterattacked as vigorously as I could in defending Yale, our own college, its professors and myself against his insane charges.
Ultimately, Springer’s evil was contained, and the evangelist withdrew from our community. He did surprisingly little damage to our local churches, and our newspaper grew in esteem because of the forthright way it had stepped forward to protect our town. Some of my students were surprised to learn that a relatively quiet man like me had been willing to risk a frontal assault from a master mud-slinger.
Having seen Harvey Springer at close hand, having listened to his rantings and his foul misuse of facts, and having seen what damage he could do to a community while milking it of funds, I was intellectually and morally prepared in later life to assess at their true value such successors of his as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. Springer brought his tent into our community to steal thousands of dollars that should have gone to local churches; his descendants invaded television signals and stole millions. Our Angell Club never looked to better advantage than during that week when it helped to hold the invading evangelist at bay.
During the curious presidential election of 1936, most of the national pundits were predicting that Alf Landon would by a comfortable margin deny Franklin Roosevelt a second term. I was teaching politics at the time and had recently returned to campus after a hitchhiking trip home from a meeting in Chicago. The newspapers all said that Landon was going to win big, but practically no one I met along the road—filling station men, truck drivers, automobile drivers who picked me up, and restaurant people—was for Landon. Almost universally they said: ‘I’m voting for F.D.R. He got the nation back on keel.’
I had to be careful of what I said, for the powerful head of my department, a retired army colonel, was one of the most convinced Republicans I would ever meet, and using data like the Literary Digest poll, which showed Landon miles ahead, he was telling all his classes: ‘Landon will win by a landslide. The nation has seen through Roosevelt and knows what a charlatan he is.’ I had not, at that time, sufficient courage to contradict my boss, for he was a living terror where politics was concerned, but I did report to all my classes the results of my trip across the American heartland: ‘Something is crazy here. Either those people all lied to me, or the Digest poll is spurious.’ When my students asked who I thought would win, I said honestly: ‘I don’t know. I’m confused,’ and when they pressed: ‘Who do you want to win?’ I replied: ‘Teachers aren’t supposed to influence their students on political matters,’ and the young people who had been bombarded daily by the head of their department burst into laughter.
On a fine autumn day most of the Angell’s members went down to the Greeley railway station to watch as President Roosevelt’s campaign train pulled in for a brief stop. Because we were early we saw the door to the rear platform swing open so that the president could come out to deliver his speech, and some of us gasped to see for the first time that he really was a cripple who had to be helped each step of the way. When he reached the railing that hemmed in the platform, he grasped it firmly, locked his leg braces into position and flashed that tremendous, cocky smile. ‘My friends,’ he began in the familiar voice, clear and strong, ‘if I may call you my friends, and I think I may call you my friends …’ It was campaign drama at its best, with the repetition of the popular phrase warming the hearts of his listeners. He said nothing of substance, waved, bade farewell to his friends and tootled off to Denver, where he was scheduled for the major speech of his Western swing.
When the president was gone, some of us Angell’s members met for morning coffee to discuss the effect of his brief visit. Reports that morning of Landon’s continued superiority in the polls made even F.D.R.’s supporters afraid to predict victory, while the traditional Republicans in our group scorned Roosevelt’s obvious attempt to play on the crowd’s emotions. When I was asked for an opinion I said: ‘I really don’t know. He won no votes in that stop, and my boss insists that the polls are right and that Landon’s going to win by a landslide.’ I stopped, then added: ‘But I can’t get that trip out of my mind. I met nobody who was voting Republican, nobody, so maybe there’s something we don’t see.’
‘You think Roosevelt has a chance?’
‘I’m not making any predictions, but there’s something screwy somewhere.’ I wish now that I had been able to read the signs more effectively and speak to my students and my Angell’s colleagues more forcefully, because even before we went to bed that election night we knew that Landon had carried only Maine and Vermont. Next day one of the newspapers had a big headline: WHA HOPPEN?
As a student of American political traditions I covered myself with shame in the 1948 presidential campaign. This is how it happened: I had recently moved to New York and thus was not eligible to vote, so I became a fairly popular impartial master of ceremonies at political rallies, where I did my best to ensure equal time to the Republicans, whose candidate was Thomas Dewey, and the rather disorganized Democrats, who tried to keep alive the myth that Harry Truman had an outside chance of winning. As one who had followed the campaign closely, I believed that the Republicans had a lead so comfortable that Truman had no chance, but I had to deal with a professor from New York University who appeared on my panel frequently and tried to convince the audience and me that the Democrats had a chance of carrying not only New York State but the entire nation. He was an able debater and one night when he had done his best without convincing any of us I told him rather condescendingly: ‘You’re very impressive, but your facts leave me cold. But I do admire the way you defend a doomed cause.’
‘Mr. Michener! You don’t seem to understand. Harry Truman’s going to win.’
‘Well, yes. He might carry New York.’
‘I mean the whole country. He’s going to be our next president.’
I was gracious in handling him, as an impartial chairman ought to be, but on the Monday night before the election, when we had a long debate on radio, I grew rather impatient with the ardent man, and when the time came for the final wrap-up I patronized him egregiously: ‘I think we must all applaud Dr. Feinstein for his gallant attempt to defend the Democratic position, and as always, it is my great pleasure to turn the microphone over to him, for he is a real politician.’
He took it, glared at me, and said: ‘Mr. Michener, tomorrow morning you’re going to find that Harry S. Truman is still president for a full four-year term.’ And he was right.
My personal introduction to the realities of political life began one afternoon when a stranger came up on our hill with an astonishing proposal. He was a fine-looking man, in his early thirties, clean-shaven, with an ingratiating smile, and wearing a dark suit and polished black shoes. He wanted to talk to me about a cultural organization of superb reputation (which I shall call Friends of Asia). He asked me what I knew of its work and I said: ‘During my travels in Asia and in my conversations with scholars and experts of various kinds I’ve found its reputation to be the best. Does great work. Has first-class people on its staff.’
After a prolonged interrogation in the midst of which we went to Bob Brugger’s bar in Pipersville for lunch, for which he insisted upon paying, we returned to my office and with the phone off the hook and no one around he told me: ‘I’m from the federal government, authorized to talk with you directly. We suspect that thi
s fine organization of which you speak so highly has been infiltrated by radicals, perhaps even Communists, and some of its representatives out in the field are doing real damage. The government has worked diligently with patriots inside that organization for them to take control and clean it up, to allow it to be what it ought to be.’
I said that sounded like a laudable aim, but what did it have to do with me? ‘Simple, when they have their board meeting tomorrow, they want to elect you president of the outfit—new broom to sweep clean, a man with a good reputation in Asia and no blemishes we can find. You go in with full authority from the board, full backing from the government, and we’re sure you can do the job.’
It was flattering to be considered for such a task, but I had been indoctrinated in my apprenticeship with newspapers and magazines with two immutable principles: The writer must never allow himself to become part of the story; and he must never, never be beholden to anyone other than the agency that is publicly paying him. Also, a writer must never serve as a secret agent for anything or anybody. Obedient to that strict code, I said: ‘There’s no way I could ally myself with you fellows in any secret operation,’ and he said quickly: ‘Nothing secret about this. Your election tomorrow will be made public, instantly, and when you travel in Asia you will be introduced everywhere as the president of Friends of Asia. You’ll be performing a public service, and one of signal importance.’