Peekskill USA: Inside the Infamous 1949 Riots (17 page)

When we left the car to cut the wire, we were showered with stones and rocks from both sides of the road. We couldn't see much. Bernhard's glasses were broken, his head gashed. My shoulder was injured.

We heard an order snapped: “Finish those skunks fast, and without noise.” We ran for cover behind the trees. Fortunately, a truck came by.

Our attackers disappeared with our car. The truck took us to the nearest hospital. Five days later we were able to continue the campaign. But we were not allowed to return to Bernau because the City Council, on the recommendation of the chief of police, decided that Bernhard was a controversial figure who presented a threat to the peaceful minds of the population.

Bernhard's car was found in a ditch near Bernau, completely smashed. The police said they had no fingerprints but were sure the car had been stolen and wrecked by communists.

All that happened long ago, of course. It couldn't possibly happen again, in America. Only an eccentric like me, with a warped European mind, who should have stayed in Germany and been beaten to a pulp by stormtroopers, can wonder whether Bernau lies a few miles north of New York, and Peekskill a few miles north of Berlin, or vice versa.

(Heinz Pol was assistant editor of the
Vossiseche Zeitung
in Berlin for ten years before the Nazis seized power. In 1933 he fled Germany and later came to the U.S. He has written several books about European politics and economics.)

Appendix VIII

Aftermath

National Revulsion

The Peekskill rioters apparently believed that no “true American” would disapprove their action. They were sadly mistaken.

The New York
Herald-Tribune
(9-6-49) stated:

“… true Americans must feel deep shame and concern for the quality of citizenship that believes it is defending its country by catcalls and boos and rocks thrown at passing automobiles.…”

The
New York Times
(9-4-49):

“Civil rights are rarely threatened except when those who claim them hold views hateful to the majority.”

New York Sun
(8-29-49):

“The local and county police clearly let the demonstration against the concert degenerate into a riot.”

New York Post
(9-6-49):

“… A mob of hoodlums has run wild … proclaiming its contempt for democratic process, inflicting violence on real and alleged Communists and innocent bystanders with fine and frenzied impartiality.…”

Christian Science Monitor
(9-6-49):

“This is the Fascist pattern of violent suppression. The Ku Klux Klan pattern of lynch law.…”

Fort Wayne (Indiana) News Sentinel
(9-15-49):

“Whether or not Mr. Robeson follows the Kremlin manual is of less concern than that Americans shall not forget the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

Des Moines Register
(9-7-49):

“Those who gathered at Peekskill to hear Robeson were entirely within the law in doing so. Those who provoked the violence repudiated the Constitution, the Government and those things which Americans have long prided themselves on—fairness and freedom.”

Baltimore Sun
(9-6-49):

“It is bad enough to know that such scenes could take place in a land presumably enlightened and presumably dedicated to the principles of free assembly and free speech.…”

Milwaukee Journal
(9-6-49):

“There can be no surrender to mob rule and intimidation by force, from any quarter.”

Indianapolis Times
(9-7-49):

“The shameful violence that occurred after the Robeson meeting does not make pretty reading in American newspapers nor in the foreign press.”

Akron (Ohio) Beacon-Journal
(9-12-49):

“… A strange kind of patriotism.…”

Oregonian (Portland)
(8-30-49):

“Violence settles nothing … Robeson had a Constitutional right to sing and to express his ideas at a public meeting.…”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(8-29-49):

“Veterans' organizations in Westchester County, New York, lowered themselves to the level of the Ku Klux Klan.…”

Mr. George M. Craig, National Commander of the American Legion, issued the following statement on September 21, 1949:

“The American Legion believes in the preservation of law and order and does not countenance violence in any situation short of war. The Legion will not give its official sanction to counter-demonstrations such as those at Peekskill. It prefers to leave pro-Communist demonstrations strictly alone.”

The national headquarters of the Jewish War Veterans issued a directive to all units, prohibiting them from “initiating or participating in any public demonstration which poses potential consequence of riot or public disorder.”

Yet even despite—or perhaps because of—the failure of this deliberate rioting to bestow leadership and national acclaim upon the anti-libertarians of Peekskill, the Associated Veterans' Council announced after the second riot that it planned a mass “patriotic” demonstration and parade on Sunday, October 2. In response to this obstinate claim to pride in what had occurred, Peekskill's first pronounced reaction against the rioting was expressed on September 15, through the words of thirteen Protestant and Jewish local clergymen:

“We, the undersigned clergy of Peekskill and surrounding communities, desire to express our attitude toward the recent disturbances at Hollow Brook and the aftermath in the community.… Acts of violence have been committed. Lies, malicious rumors about responsible citizens, vilification and inflammatory language about members of our minority races and faiths have been circulated. A vicious example of lawlessness has been held up to the world as our way of life … There is no need to try to convince ourselves or the world that the ugliness is not real or that it is not here … we must admit our fault and mistake. Admitting them, let us show shame and contrition for these violent and unlawful acts and attitudes. That outward and visible expression be given to this by a day of repentance and prayer in our places of worship on Sunday, Sept. 18th.…”

A separate statement was made by the Rev. Joseph Stuhr, Catholic pastor of the Church of Assumption, in which he condemned the use of violence. “Acts of violence are contrary to the teachings of our church and the lawful procedure required by our form of government. While offended sensibilities are understandable they offer no excuse for violence. The use of force solves nothing. Instead it accentuates grievances and promotes discord and disunity.”

A not dissimilar statement was later signed by clergymen in Scarsdale, New Rochelle and Mount Vernon.

Under this growing pressure from religious groups, the Associated Veterans' Council found it ill-advised to hold a patriotic mass rally. Eventually, the face-saving device was adopted of merging the proposed “patriotic” demonstration with the traditional Armistice Day Parade which Peekskill holds each November II.

The Town Council of Cortlandt, scene of the riots, early in October passed an ordinance requiring permits to be obtained before public meetings could be held. The unconstitutionality of such an ordinance was clearly settled, as the town members of Cortlandt knew, in the American Civil Liberties Union test of the Jersey City Ordinance enacted by the then Mayor Frank Hague, in 1937. On the 18th of October, the town of Cortlandt enacted a second ordinance, making it a criminal offense to give a speech or to hold a meeting which is intended to break down law enforcement. The effect of this would be to penalize the sponsors of a meeting if it were attacked by an outside group. Thus, responsibility for the outbreak of violence at the concert would have been the sponsors, even though the attack was made by the inflamed veterans' group.

As Arthur Garfield Hays, general counsel of the ACLU, insisted to the Town Council, such an ordinance was clearly unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Terminiello case, was simply a club to use against unpopular minorities, and would make such minorities criminal because of what their opponents might do to them. The ACLU immediately announced its intention to bring a test case of both ordinances.

Four Yale Law School professors called upon Attorney General McGrath to launch a federal investigation of the outrages because Governor Dewey “from the beginning failed to take decisive action.” They said that “positive measures on behalf of the American tradition of political freedom must be taken now. If a situation of this sort is allowed to drift, without action from the leaders of our government, it can only too quickly get completely out of hand.”

Signers of this statement were Professors Thomas I. Emerson, Fleming James, Jr., Fowler Harper and David Haber.

Clifford J. Durr, president of the National Lawyers Guild, appealed for a federal inquiry: “Any idea that the present officials of the State of New York could be relied upon to vindicate the ends of justice and the principles of democracy without federal intervention should be completely set aside by the statement and action of Governor Dewey on ordering a grand jury inquiry.”

The American Veterans Committee (AVC), through its National Vice-Chairman, Joseph A. Clorety, Jr., called upon national leaders of the Legion, the VFW, CWV and JWV, “to prevent further outrages such as have occurred in Peekskill.” The AVC said it blamed Peekskill veterans' organizations for the “two disgraceful episodes.”

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt stated: “This is not the type of thing that we believe in the United States. I dislike everything that Paul Robeson is now saying.… I still believe, however, that if he wants to give a conceit, or speak his mind in public, no one should prevent him from doing so. No one who disagrees is obliged to stay or even to go to hear him.”

A Biography of Howard Fast

Howard Fast (1914–2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast's commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.

Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast's mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London's
The Iron Heel
, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.

Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel,
Two Valleys
(1933). His next novels, including
Conceived in Liberty
(1939) and
Citizen Tom Paine
(1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in
The American
(1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.

Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in prison, he was inspired to write
Spartacus
(1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast's appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own press, Blue Heron, in order to release
Spartacus
. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including
Silas Timberman
(1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin's purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.

Fast's career changed course in 1960, when he began publishing suspense-mysteries under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. He published nineteen books as Cunningham, including the seven-book Masao Masuto mystery series. Also,
Spartacus
was made into a major film in 1960, breaking the Hollywood blacklist once and for all. The success of
Spartacus
inspired large publishers to pay renewed attention to Fast's books, and in 1961 he published
April Morning
, a novel about the battle of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The book became a national bestseller and remains a staple of many literature classes. From 1960 onward Fast produced books at an astonishing pace—almost one book per year—while also contributing to screen adaptations of many of his books. His later works included the autobiography
Being Red
(1990) and the
New York Times
bestseller
The Immigrants
(1977).

Fast died in 2003 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.