A Good American Family

by David Maraniss

  Long after Joe was gone: Irving Schneider letter to EM, Jan. 15, 1996.

  Abraham Lincoln High School was born of hope: Description of Lincoln and EM’s high school milieu drawn from Lincoln Landmark yearbooks, 1933–36, and Cargoes, the school’s literary magazine, 1939, all retrieved from storage at the New York Public Library.

  the son of a wealthy manufacturer: Description of Arthur Miller childhood drawn from the playwright’s memoir, Timebends; also Arthur Miller: Writer, a documentary by his daughter, Rebecca Miller, aired on HBO spring 2018.

  Principal Mason was a liberal thinker: Portrait of Gabriel R. Mason drawn from Lincoln Landmark yearbooks, 1933–36; also Gabriel Blows His Horn, his autobiography, and Great American Liberals, a text he edited.

  “Impious wretch”: Spinoza Quarterly, Spring 1933.

  “I rejoice that you do not go out into the world”: Lincoln Landmark, 1934.

  This is why, as Robbie Cohen: Cohen, When the Old Left Was Young, 87.

  The strike started at eleven that morning: Details of national student peace strike from Mary O’Flaherty, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Apr. 12, 1935; also Cohen, When the Old Left Was Young, 86–97.

  In an oral history, Morton Jackson: “Student Activism in the 1930s” segment on New Deal website of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, 2000.

  The commencement ceremonies for Elliott’s class: Lincoln Landmark, 1936: “All the poorly paved roads in Brooklyn converged at the Academy of Music. Proud mamas and doting papas swept regally into the auditorium. The usual hush fell as the band swung into the strain of the march of the graduates. Florence Epstein and Aaron Abramson, valedictorians, proclaimed eloquently to an audience convinced of their sincerity. Dr. Mason bid the graduates farewell and godspeed in a voice made halting by emotion.”

  Chapter 4: Red Menace

  “but this will be the public’s first knowledge”: Detroit Free Press, Feb. 25, 1952.

  Was America winning the cold war?: Eddy Gilmore, Associated Press, Feb. 23, 1952.

  The first dispute in Detroit: Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Detroit Times, Feb. 26, 1952; Box 3, Charles E. Potter Papers, Bentley Historical Library.

  Estes Kefauver . . . came across as a southern . . . Jimmy Stewart: Halberstam, The Fifties, 191.

  The FBI sent advance word: Detroit Free Press, Feb. 25, 1952. The FBI informed Potter of the meeting and the protest plans, and Potter passed this along to the press.

  “There were approximately thirty-nine or forty persons”: Detroit Red Squad Files, Crockett Files, Tamiment Library, New York University. The surveillance included a report on the protester who carried the placards back to his house after the demonstration ended at 1:35 that afternoon.

  When the hearing opened that afternoon: Opening statement by Chairman Wood, Communism in the Detroit Area, HUAC transcript, Part 1, Feb. 25, 1952. His use of Jackie Robinson as a means of attacking Paul Robeson, and the relationship between Robinson and Robeson, was captured brilliantly in “What Paul Robeson Said,” a Smithsonian Magazine article by Gilbert King, Sept. 13, 2011. King’s concluding paragraph: “Toward the end of his life, Jackie Robinson had a chance to reflect on the incident and his invitation to testify before HUAC. He wrote in his autobiography, “ ‘I would reject such an invitation if offered now. . . . I have grown wiser and closer to the painful truths about America’s destructiveness. And I do have increased respect for Paul Robeson who, over the span of twenty years, sacrificed himself, his career, and the wealth and comfort he once enjoyed because, I believe, he was sincerely trying to help his people.’ ”

  Chapter 5: Wheelman Wood

  John Stephens Wood . . . came from a very different place: Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress, 1774–1989; New York Times obituary, Sept. 14, 1968; Washington Post obituary, Sept. 14, 1968.

  For black Georgians, the reality: Pauli Murray, States’ Laws on Race and Color (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016); Edward A. Hatfield, “Segregation,” New Georgia Encyclopedia, May 16, 2017, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/segregation; “Examples of Jim Crow Law,” Jackson (TN) Sun, special report, May 7, 2017. The Georgia state law for amateur baseball read, “It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race.”

  He was one of fourteen children: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–1989 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office); “Wood, John S.,” Facts on File, The Truman Years, Arthur E. Scherr, U.S. House of Representatives Archive; New York Times, obituary, Sept. 14, 1968; Washington Post, obituary, Sept. 14, 1968; Rick Shockey, “The Controversial and Accomplished Life of Congressman John Stephens Wood,” class paper, Kennesaw State University, Oct. 12, 2001.

  Newt Morris also came out of rural Cherokee County: Depiction of Newt Morris before the Leo Frank case drawn from Newt Morris obituary, Marietta (GA) Journal, Sept. 22, 1946; Newt Morris File, Steve Oney Papers, Georgia Historical Society; Atlanta Constitution articles, Sept. 1–3, 1914.

  The victim was from Marietta and her name was Mary Phagan: Account of the murder of Mary Phagan drawn from Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution articles, Apr. 27–May 15, 1913; Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 3–17; Leo Frank Appeal, State of Georgia, 1918. Oney’s meticulous and evocatively written book begins, “That morning, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, after eating a breakfast of cabbage and wheat biscuits, devoted herself to getting dressed.”

  That conclusion was reinforced generations later: Jerry Thompson and Robert Sherborne, “New Light Shed on Old Murder,” Tennessean, Mar. 7, 1982; Wendell Rawls Jr., “After 69 Years of Silence, Lynching Victim Is Cleared,” New York Times, Mar. 8, 1982. (Although Mann passed a lie detector test, as with most sensational murders, there are conspiracy theorists who assert that his confession to the reporters was a hoax.)

  Late on the night of August 16: Account of Leo Frank’s lynching and the involvement of Newt Morris and John S. Wood drawn from Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise; John Gollner interview, June 28, 2017; Herman Spence File, Oney Papers, Georgia Historical Society; Newt Morris File, Oney Papers, Georgia Historical Society; speech on Leo Frank case by Bill Kinney, associate editor, Marietta Journal, Oct. 7, 1992; Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution, Aug. 16–20, 1915; Lynching Status Report, lynch party members or planners confirmed by Golmer Wilson, Oct. 2, 1990, Oney Papers, Georgia Historical Society. (There are eighteen names on the list, and No. 1 is Newt Morris.)

  Wood won a seat in the Georgia legislature: Atlanta Constitution, June 8, 1918.

  So the joiner joined: Wood’s connection to the Ku Klux Klan came out decades later, during hearings conducted by a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 1955 regarding his nomination to the Subversive Activities Control Board in 1955. The hearings transcript includes this explanation from Wood: “I think it might be interesting . . . to relate to you that back almost forty years ago, when I was a good deal younger than I am now, I was interested, beginning to be interested, in politics, and I was sort of a joiner. . . . I joined organizations like the Odd Fellows, the Improved Order of Red Men, the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and the Elks, the Masons, the Rotary, and the Shrine. Klanism in my state at the time was rather in the ascendancy.”

  When Wood was first elected: “Wood Will Represent an Isolated District,” New York Times, Oct. 4, 1931.

  After a failed first marriage: Wood’s relationship by marriage to the prosperous Jones family and the famous golfer Bobby Jones drawn from interview with grandson John Gollner, June 27, 2017; “Personal Sketches and Family Accounts,” History of Cherokee County, Cherokee County Historical Society.

  This was the Hasty case: Associated Press wire stories, Nov. 22, Nov. 26, 1923;
New York Times, Nov. 28, 1923. Not only did Wood promote his prosecution of this case in his defense before the Judiciary Committee, but years later a congressional colleague brought it up in a speech honoring Wood after his death, perpetuating the myth. The New York Times story reporting what actually happened began, “Marietta, Ga., Nov. 28—‘All indictments against Keller Hasty, pitcher for the Philadelphia Americans [Athletics], and five others charged with flogging Mrs. Bertha Holcombe, a widow, and S. H. Morton, Smyrna, were dismissed here late today by Judge Blair, on motion of Solicitor General John S. Wood, after the acquittal of Parks G. Cook on a similar charge.’ ”

  There were secrets in the life of Chairman Wood: Interview with John Gollner, June 28, 2017.

  Chapter 6: “Negro, Not Niggra”

  the hearings in Room 740 took a dramatic turn: Account of HUAC interaction with African American witnesses Edward N. Turner, Rev. Charles A. Hill, and labor organizer Coleman Young, along with George Crockett, the attorney for Hill and Young, drawn almost entirely from the transcript Communism in the Detroit Area, Part 1, Feb. 27, 28, 1952; also Detroit Free Press, Detroit Times, Detroit News, Feb. 27–29, 1952; and Studs Terkel, American Dreams: Lost and Found (New York: New Press, 2005). Coleman Young put Tavenner and the committee on the defensive from the beginning: “I can only state that in being interviewed and being asked questions, that I hope that I will be allowed to react fully to those questions, and not be expected to react only in such a manner that this committee may desire me. In other words, I might have answers you might not like. You called me here to testify; I am prepared to testify, but, I would like to know from you if I shall be allowed to respond to your questions fully and in my own way.”

  Chapter 7: A New World Coming

  The late-night hangout for students: The tavern advertised regularly in the student newspaper. Another of the establishment’s frequent ads in the 1930s featured a comic drawing of a tongue-out thirsty student in suit and tie with the caption, “Dry as Dust . . . Simply Must . . . come down to . . .”

  Once a year, on a Friday evening: “To Those Who Have Not Understood,” Stan Swinton Papers, Box 4, Bentley Historical Library; aspects of Swinton’s journalism career are in Boxes 1 and 2. He was always precocious, writing an autobiography as a sixteen-year-old high school senior that he titled “The World Goes Round and Round and I Come Out Where?” In Swinton’s interview with Ho Chi Minh in 1949, Ho said that all the Americans he met in Vietnam were friendly to him.

  The Cummins family arose: Late in life, Andrew Adair Cummins wrote an account of his family history. As an engineer, his writing was neat and legible, and his sentences were straightforward, often dry, but occasionally with a dry wit. Example: “My grandmother Cummins, whose maiden name was Harris, was a Hoosier. She was a slight woman and frail. When they were moving from Indiana to Iowa she was not feeling well and my grandfather took her to a doctor who told him he would do well to get her to Iowa alive. He must have been a poor diagnostician since she lived another 50 years.”

  In one of their many stops: Public Schools, Office of the Superintendent, Evansville, Indiana, letter to Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Cummins, July 12, 1928, Cummins Family Papers.

  Baseball was Bob’s first love: Bob Cummins letter to his father, Aug. 22, 1931, Cummins Family Papers. The seriousness with which Bob took his pretend career as a baseball scribe was demonstrated by the urging he gave his father at the letter’s close: “P.S. Criticize.”

  That passion for the national pastime: Michigan Daily stories, Apr. 24, 26, May 22, June 1, Sept. 18, Oct. 20, 1934; Feb. 16, Mar. 22, 1935. In his Oct. 20 story about snow removal at Michigan Stadium he wrote, “When there is snow, 60 to 70 men are needed to clear the seats, others are needed to clear the aisles and runways. When the weather is threatening, 15 must spread the huge tarpaulin over the stadium turf.”

  “In the thirties the building was home”: Arthur Miller’s depiction of the Daily in the 1930s drawn from Timebends, 94–99; Holiday magazine, Dec. 1953.

  Miller sat in the gallery: Michigan Daily, May 24, 1935.

  Bob Cummins had become a prominent figure: “National Student League to Hold First Meeting on May 1,” Michigan Daily, Apr. 25, 1935.

  “We had been certain that if Franco”: Miller, Timebends, 97–99.

  Miller was getting ready to stage his first student play: Miller Papers, Hatcher Graduate Library. On Feb. 16, 1937, the Daily announced that Miller had received a $1,250 scholarship from the Bureau of New Plays for They Too Arise. Professor Erich Walter said the play “has unmistakable dramatic power—it is excellent theater. The authenticity of the experiences that gave birth to the play is the secret of the dramatic power.”

  He found quarters at Wilma Nye’s rooming house: The addresses where EM lived are listed in his student file at the Bentley Historical Library. His landlady’s name is listed in a background investigation conducted by U.S. Army Intelligence years later, when he applied for an officer training program during World War II.

  The drama that followed: Michigan Daily, Apr. 29, 30, 1937.

  “It was the discovery of fascism”: Melinda Burns, “Retired Professor Recounts War Experiences,” Santa Barbara News-Press, July 26, 1987.

  “There was much for Bob to leave behind”: “To Those Who Have Not Understood,” Swinton Papers, Box 4, Bentley Historical Library.

  Arthur Miller considered joining his pal Neafus: Miller, Timebends, 294–98. Miller writes powerfully about the trip from Ann Arbor to New York with his friend, but in the book misspells his name as Neaphus.

  Robert Adair Cummins, age twenty, carried an American passport: Cummins Family Papers; transcript of Communism in the Detroit Area, Part 1, Feb. 28, 1952.

  Chapter 8: A Brief Spanish Inquisition

  Frank Tavenner, the chief inquisitor: “Red Quizzer Mild Mannered but Hits Heart of Matter,” Detroit News, Mar. 12, 1952.

  “He peers over the top of his glasses”: Detroit News, March 1, 1952.

  He said his last job had been selling paint: All dialogue in this chapter from Communism in the Detroit Area, Part 1 (testimony of Robert Cummins), Feb. 28, 1952.

  Chapter 9: The Runner

  the RMS Aquitania reached Cherbourg: Robert Cummins File and Biografia de Militantes, Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive (hereafter ALBA); Stan Swinton report home, July 7, 1938, Swinton Papers, Bentley Historical Library.

  on May 30, when the Ciudad de Barcelona: Hochschild, Spain in Our Hearts, 236–37; Eby, Comrades and Commissars, 148–49; Carroll, Odyssey, 146.

  There were three passes through the Pyrenees: Cummins’s brief description from Port Huron (MI) Times-Herald, Apr. 5, 1939. The most evocative description of American volunteers crossing the mountains into Spain can be found in Alvah Bessie’s Men in Battle, 18–27.

  “They went to Spain as political people”: “The Origins of a Crusade,” in Carroll, Odyssey, 15–19.

  This battalion . . . was just being formed: Account of Bob Cummins and his Michigan comrades at training camp taken from Cummins Family Papers; Neafus File, ALBA; Bessie, Men in Battle, 49–50; Eby, Comrades and Commissars, 162, 170, 245.

  The political commissar was Joe Dallet: Depiction of Dallet drawn from Carroll, Odyssey, 37, 127; Eby, Comrades and Commissars, 235–50; letters from Dallet File, ALBA.

  Letters from Tarazona could not be sent by civilian mail: Box 37, ALBA.

  “The staff planned to publish it”: Stan Swinton Papers, Box 4, Bentley Historical Library.

  Bob Cummins . . . was assigned as a runner: Robert Cummins, “From Spain to Ann Arbor,” Michigan Daily, Feb. 19, 1939.

  Service was assigned to drive a truck, and Neafus: Service and Neafus files, ALBA; Santa Barbara News-Press, July 26, 1987.

  The Mac-Paps were deployed at last: Description of Fuentes de Ebro fighting drawn from Cummins letter to Michigan Daily, Dec. 7, 1937; Neafus letters in Neafus File, ALBA; Carroll, Odyssey, 160–62; Eby, Comrades and Commissars, 248–57.

  My uncle, describing th
at period in an essay: Robert Cummins, “From Spain to Ann Arbor,” Michigan Daily, Feb. 19, 1939. This postwar story, written after the Americans had left Spain but before the war was over, was Bob’s most detailed account of his experiences in Spain, though shaped by his desire to win support for the Loyalists even as their defeat was near, an outcome that already seemed clear to most observers.

  Their destination near Madrid was an expansive villa: Bob Cummins, undated letter to A. A. Cummins, Cummins Family Papers. When I showed this letter to Alan Warren, a Spanish Civil War expert and our guide for several days in Spain, he immediately knew the location and took us there during our tour. The villa still stood, though now it was a rehabilitation center for drug addicts. Warren told me about Segundo the dwarf, and later sent a citation from a chapter by Scotsman Hugh Sloan in MacDougall, Voices from the Spanish Civil War, 213.

  Bob wrote a letter to Ed Magdol: Michigan Daily account of undated letter published Dec. 7, 1937.

  With Christmas and the new year came new battles: Scenes from fighting at Teruel drawn from Hochschild, Spain in Our Hearts, 267–80; Carroll, Odyssey, 166; Eby, Comrades and Commissars, 271–78. Bob Cummins later reported his relatively minor ear wound to his parents.