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On the Failed Wagner Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill (1937)

Robert Taylor Gray,  The Supreme Court Proposal and the Wagner Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill.  

This is basically a letter to Senator A.H. Vandenberg, Robert F. Wagner and four others from Gray, offset printed, and dated   3rd August, 1937.   11x8.5", 4 leaves, staple bound. No copies found in WorldCat/OCLC (though this is not necessarily surprising given the format).  Very Good condition.   Provenance: the Library of Congress, with their 5mm perforated "LC" stamp on the front-page bottom (though this is not very noticeable).  Very Good condition:  $300

It reads: "It scarcely takes a statesman to see that the murder of any citizen by a gang.is not justified on any grounds whatsoever. If any single Congressman dissents from the point of view here taken, I should appreciate his advising on what legal or moral grounds it is done." If you thought that there wouldn't be any dissent among Congress-people, you'd be wrong.

Gray was a very prominent Philadelphia Quaker and scion of a business begun in that city in 1683. He was on numerous committees for racial fairness and equality including the Whittier Center Housing Corporation (where he extracted a promise from the Secretary of Commerce that the Public Works Administration would not build new apartment complexes ruled by discrimination or racial unfairness, a major coup)..

Gray writes about the difficulty of establishing the Wagner Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill  and its coming to loggerheads with FDR's plan to pack the Supreme Court. Evidently the President's need for Southern support for his court plans would have to be purchased with the defeat of this Bill. Versions of this 1937 Bill (strongly written by the NAACP) had failed to pass the House and Senate in 1934 and 1935. The general way of defeat for these bills had been Southern Filibuster. So even though the bill was defeated, there weren't any "no" votes cast against it--but it certainly had enough storming enemies to keep it from getting anywhere near a vote in the U.S. House of Representative.

Time Magazine, 28 January 1938, reported the following:

    "The actual contents of the Wagner-Van Nuys Bill, as simple as they were familiar, would scarcely keep the U. S. Senate busy for that period. Like its predecessors, it provided for Federal prosecution, and a $5,000 fine or up to five years' imprisonment, or both, for sheriffs & peace officers who did not afford criminals and suspected criminals reasonable protection from mobs (any gatherings of more than three persons)."

    (The principle Southern anti-anti-lynching bill proponents were) " Tom Connally's loyal little band-Georgia's Russell, North Carolina's Bailey, South Carolina's James Byrnes, Tennessee's Kenneth McKellar, Louisiana's Ellender, and Pat Harrison."

    "But if the practice has been general, the opposition to laws intended to suppress it has centered in the South. For two generations Southern Representatives and Senators have greeted every lynching bill that came up for debate with a reaction as sharp and unfailing as would be produced by a polecat. Snorted Georgia's Richard Russell last week of the latest and one of the most threatening Federal attempts to prosecute and punish lynchers: 'Skunk meat.'"

In 1938 a Republican U.S. Senator from Georgia, Richard Russell, Jr.--a man who would rise to be President pro tempore of the Senate and leader of a conservative Republican coalition within the Senate, the great American legislative and deliberative body--referred to legislation aimed at bringing lynchers to justice as "skunk meat".  Here's his picture.  He was indeed a product of his time(s)...well, perhaps he produced the product of his time, he and others like him were the manufacturers of this machine.  He did after all make it possible for this despicable outrage to continue and made it possible for those working way outside the law--the lynchers--to escape prosecution.  He subverted the law.  And he was one of the highest officials in the land. So I'd say he was a little more than just product--people like this were the producers.

An Appeal by the NAACP to Fight Lynching (1920)

An Appeal to the Conscience of the Civilized World by NAACP Association for the Advancement of Colored People.The pamphlet is 15 pages long (30cm tall), and has a number of photographic illustrations. Fair condition. Several of the pages, including the covers, are detached. The covers are detached, as are several pages. SCARCE: There are five copies located in OCLC.

This is H.L. Mencken's copy, with his stamp on the back of the title page, a gift at one time to the U.S. Library of Congress made in 1927.SOLD

This truly is an appeal "to the world" for there to be an understanding about what was happening to African Americans in the United States in 1920--and this appeal wasn't about unequal access to education or jobs or Jim Crow laws or any of the social assaults made on those people; it was more basic than that. It was a statement of how thousands of African Americans were being lynched, and murdered, and burned.  The appeal was extremely basic--to let it be known that these horrors were being committed against a class of people with little capacity to defend itself legally. 

It is a roll call of terror, listing "barbarous" practices against "colored Americans", citing 84  persons "murdered or lynched" . 

Warning: Graphic material below

The pamphlet publishes in full an infamous photograph of the burning of William Brown, of Omaha, Nebraska (September 28, 1919).  (When the Chicago Tribune ran the picture it cropped out the burned body, saying it was "too horrendous" for publication.) This evidently was the first photograph of a lynching/burning in progress--the photographer asked the crowd to allow him to make the image, and then the murderers and accomplices got back to business, stoking the fire to consume what was left of Brown's body. 

Thge extraordinary headline is an example of other presented by the NAACP--this one extraordinarily announcing the planned burning of an African American, and also how many people would probably attend.

Then there are these incredible lists:

 

It was a very bleak record, an enormous stain on the country, to be presented with information like this, a horror.  But lynching continued for years to come (with 5,000 more lynchings from 1921 to 1931), and the first federal anti-lynching legislation did not appear for another 15 years.

(My copy was once owned by H.L. Mencken; Mr. Mencken spoke at the Van Nuys hearings in 1935, and said that he knew of no civilized person in favor of lynching, and that the legislation was needed whether it was a "good" law or not.  He took a strong anti-lynching stand at the Baltimore Sun, and kept it up for years--an unpopular thing to do at the time, though Mencken pursued it in spite of his other rather astringent racial views.)

Evidently the NAACP sent this pamphlet "to 100 leading newspapers in England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany...and reported in May 1920 that the foreign appeal had received considerable comment in the press."--Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State, Megan Francis, pp 50-1.  

 

 

This truly is an appeal "to the world" for there to be an understanding about what was happening to African Americans in the United States in 1920--and this appeal wasn't about unequal access to education or jobs or Jim Crow laws or any of the social assaults made on those people; it was more basic than that. It was a statement of how thousands of African Americans were being lynched, and murdered, and burned.  The appeal was extremely basic--to let it be known that these horrors were being committed against a class of people with little capacity to defend itself legally. 

It is a roll call of terror, listing "barbarous" practices against "colored Americans", citing 84  persons "murdered or lynched" . 

Warning: Graphic material below

The pamphlet publishes in full an infamous photograph of the burning of William Brown, of Omaha, Nebraska (September 28, 1919).  (When the Chicago Tribune ran the picture it cropped out the burned body, saying it was "too horrendous" for publication.) This evidently was the first photograph of a lynching/burning in progress--the photographer asked the crowd to allow him to make the image, and then the murderers and accomplices got back to business, stoking the fire to consume what was left of Brown's body. 

Thge extraordinary headline is an example of other presented by the NAACP--this one extraordinarily announcing the planned burning of an African American, and also how many people would probably attend.

Then there are these incredible lists:

 

It was a very bleak record, an enormous stain on the country, to be presented with information like this, a horror.  But lynching continued for years to come (with 5,000 more lynchings from 1921 to 1931), and the first federal anti-lynching legislation did not appear for another 15 years.

(My copy was once owned by H.L. Mencken; Mr. Mencken spoke at the Van Nuys hearings in 1935, and said that he knew of no civilized person in favor of lynching, and that the legislation was needed whether it was a "good" law or not.  He took a strong anti-lynching stand at the Baltimore Sun, and kept it up for years--an unpopular thing to do at the time, though Mencken pursued it in spite of his other rather astringent racial views.)

Evidently the NAACP sent this pamphlet "to 100 leading newspapers in England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany...and reported in May 1920 that the foreign appeal had received considerable comment in the press."--Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State, Megan Francis, pp 50-1.  

 

 

A Grand Concert by the Massed Bands & Choirs of Stalag VIII B (1944)

A Grand Concert by the Massed Bands & Choirs of Stalag VIII B. 80 Bandsmen, 80 Choristers. PRISON CAMP MUSIC and the Part Played by the Red Cross & St. John. London, 1944, printed by by the Red Cross and St. John War Organization. Leaflet, 20x13cm, 4pp, single sheet folded vertically. Provenance: Library of Congress, received by them September 1944, with their rubber stamp on the front cover. Fine condition. $150

There are no listings for this item in the WorldCat/OCLC, and a google search has one hit, finding the leaflet at the National Army Museum in London--outside of this, I cannot find it. This is a little surprising given that it was sued to raise awareness and funds; that said, it was also highly ephemeral, meaning it was probably thrown away very easily and often.  

I am not an expert in this field, though one thing that can be said for sure was that overall British and U.S. held as POWs by the Germans were treated much more humanely than other nationalities of soldiers (particularly the Russians), and so it was possible for some POWs to enjoy receiving Red Cross packages while interned. I did not know about an orchestra with 80 instruments and a choir of 80 voices. At first blush this seems like a work of home front propaganda, an attempt to establish hope for normalcy for the families of soldiers taken prisoner, though it seems as though these accommodations were made by the Nazis in deference to the British and Americans. (Again, this is a broad generalization and no doubt those enjoying POW music at Stalag VIII B were in the distinct minority. At Stalag VIII B it looks as though the main group of POWs were British, and then segregated in different parts of the camp were Indians, and then another section for Greeks, Cypriots, and Palestinians, and then in an entirely different section of the camp under lights and interior barbed wire was a camp for the RAF. British airmen were treated "differently" than the rest given at that time the terrific damage being inflicted upon Germany from endless nighttime British bombing raids. 

On the reception of Red Cross packages at Staalg VIII B and other Stalags in general, from "MEDICAL SERVICES IN NEW ZEALAND AND THE PACIFIC: CONDITIONS AT STALAG VIIIB, LAMSDORF", from New Zealand Electronic Text Collection:

"Owing to a Red Cross parcel bottleneck at Lisbon there was a complete parcel failure from January 1942 until May 1942...Regarding Red Cross parcel shipments: “The year 1943 was relatively full, except for three months following the German occupation of Italy...During early 1944 Red Cross supplies were adequate, and, in fact, most camps, both large and small, endeavoured to build up a three months' reserve of their Red Cross food. Unfortunately, on ...17 September 1944)...most Wehrkreise (war districts) came an order from the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht: ‘All prisoner of war tinned food must be destroyed forthwith.’ This order was ruthlessly enforced, particularly on the many (over 600) working parties of Stalag 344 [part of Stalag VIII B], with the result that, whilst there was a week's feasting on salmon, sardines and meat roll, lean and hungry months followed. Even in the Lazarett at Lamsdorf, where the patients and staff enjoyed community messing, much of their tinned food was destroyed, with the resulting onset of semi-starvation, which did not abate till the end of the war.”

"The Russian prisoners had no Red Cross food and they were starved on bread and turnip soup. In vain did the British medical officers at Cosel plead with the German medical authorities for food, rather than drugs, to treat their Russian patients. Only after a change of senior German medical officers and the start of the Russian offensive towards the Reich in March 1943 did the German attitude change and the health of those miserable Russians improve.”--

 

Also this story at the end of the war should be shared (although it has nothing to do with this leaflet): "In January 1945, as the Soviet armies resumed their offensive and advanced into Germany, many of the prisoners were marched westward in groups of 200 to 300 in the so-called Long March. Many of them died from the bitter cold and exhaustion. The lucky ones got far enough to the west to be liberated by the American or British armies. The unlucky ones were 'liberated' by the Soviets, who instead of turning them over quickly to the western allies, held them as virtual hostages for several more months, until the British agreed to release to the Soviet Union POWs of Soviet origin who had been fighting on the German side, which left the British Government with little choice on the matter, even though they were understandable reluctant to hand these men over to the Soviet Union for their inevitable execution. These soldiers from states such as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia for example, had fought with the Germans in an effort, as they saw it, to release their own homelands from Soviet occupation and oppression."--lamsdorf dot com

 

The Independence of Croatia (1919-1922)

The Independence of Croatia.  27x21cm, 8pp.  Provenance:  Library of Congress, with an acquisition stamp on the front wrapper (received January 2, 1947) and then with the LC surplus duplicate rubberstamp (very faintly so) on the rear wrapper. Printed 1919/1920  The document is signed at the end, Zagreb, May 4,1919, the Republican Committee of Croatia".  No copies found in WorldCat/OCLC, though there is a copy located at  the Archives and Special Collections of the University of Montana in the Mike Mansfield Collection, which dates this as 1919-1922. SOLD

This document is an appeal for an independent Croatian state, printed ca. 1919/1920.  The appeal winds up asking "that Mr. Wilson and the representatives of the great Powers should recognize the independence of the Croatian people..." which would also include the formulation of a constitution and the removal of the Serbian army. 

Pro-Nazi Attitudes in England, 1938.

Grave Folly of Pro-Czech Policy, Mr. Eden's Secret Influence.  London:  Militant Christian Patriots, 1938. 
Broadside, 29x22cm, printed on one side only. Condition: there is an old fold from having been folded in half, and there is a surplus/duplicate rubber stamp on the rear from the Library of Congress. A handout political tract at one point, free for all, and now evidently quite scarce.$200

The 72-point 2-line headline of this handout/broadside screams "Grave Folly of/Pro-Czech Policy" under which is "Mr. Eden’s Secret Influence".

The author asks why "Mr.Chamberlain's Government is taking an attitude hostile to Germany?" The answers of course rests in his government being backed by "Zionists, Fabian-Socialists and "pacifist" League of Nation enthusiasts

The Militant Christian Patriots (MCP) was a London-based pro-nazi fascist organization, and at the time of the printing of this broadside  the Chamerblain government had not yet taken its final position on the fate of Czechoslovakia. "Britain’s attitude towards the Czecho-Slovakian dispute is a serious blunder" the MCP Felt.  The MCP position was that the annexation of Czecholsovakia by Germany would not affect British interests "in the slightest", and that the Chamberlain government was adopting a "hostile attitude" towards Germany.  They saw Anthony Eden’s "stand up to dictators" to be "stand up for Bolshevism", and that Eden’s supporters were "pacifists, Socialists, Communists and Zionists". 

Among the member of the Militant Christian Patriots (and another like-minded group, Liberty Restoration League)  were a  number of industrialists, MPs, and society figures, including the Duke of Wellington, Lord Brocket, Lady Dunn, Lady Douglas-Hamilton, Alexandra Hardinge, Sir Abe Bailey's son, Lord Carnock, Sir William Holdsworth,
Sir George MacMunn, Sir Michael O'Dwyer, Sir Louis Stuart, and Commander Bowles, MP, and many others.

    
 

Founding Feminist Fights Sexual Rights Censorship--H.L. Mencken's Copy (1926)

JF Ptak Science Books 

Mary Ware Dennett, Feminist and social rights activist (1872-1947, active at high levels in the Twilight Sleep Association (advocating the use of drugs to relieve pain during childbirth and lessen the need for forceps), the National American Women's Suffrage Association, National Birth Control League, Voluntary Parenthood League, and other groups, generally advocating in pretty forceful ways for the rights of women, sex education, planned parenthood, and peace movements).

[Untitled Document], 11x8.5",  38 leaves, 1926, unbound. Provenance: H.L. Mencken's copy, which he donated to the Library of Congress in January 1938.  Very Good condition, except for the first leaf which shows signs of dusting; also, there is a small, perforated "LC" at leaf bottom, and a Library of Congress surplus duplicate rubbed stamp on the back of the same first leaf.  There is no telling (by me) how many copies of this document were printed. I've checked WorldCat (which shows several titles by Dennett regarding her obscenity case (including the wonderfully-titled "Who's Obscene?") and there seems to be no record of this present work.   $1350

Dennett wrote this document defending herself and her publication The Sex Side of Life (1915) from censorship issues derived from the Comstock Act, 1925.  This is addressed to Postmaster General Harry S. New in response to the Solicitor of the Post Office's refusal to mail the pamphlet, finding it obscene under the obscenity statue, Section 211 of the Federal Penal Code, and dated May 26, 1925.   

Mary Ware Dennett may well have become a major social rights activist of necessity, trying to provide for her family, working outside the home, needing an income after having been abandoned by her husband. She was.  In any event in the cause of educating her children on sexual/love education for the lack of anything published on the subject. She wound up publishing the pamphlet to much acclaim and success, the work appearing first in 1918 in the Medical Review of Reviews. It was evidently a solid work, and was received well at nearly every level by the medical profession, many of the clergy, and social groups of all manner.  Dennett documents the pamphlet's reception with testimonials from pp 3-23, starting with an appreciation from Havelock Ellis. From pp 24-38 Dennett reproduces the correspondence about her case with the Post Office with the PO solicitors from 1922 through 1926

In the May, 1926 issue of The American Mercury, Mencken wrote: "There is, of course, nothing indecent in that pamphlet; on the contrary, it is notably prudent and clean. The author wrote it for the instruction of her own young sons, and its superiority to most other such literature was so apparent that it was reprinted at length in a medical journal, and circulated in great numbers by clergymen, Y.M.C.A. secretaries, social workers, and other such chemically pure persons. This went on for four and a half years. Then Mrs. Dennett, who is engaged in birth-control propaganda, began annoying the wowsers of the U.S. Post Office by exposing their gross stupidity and disingenuousness in the enforcement of the Comstock Act, and they retorted by barring her pamphlet from the mails. No plainer case of the use of an idiotic law to punish an inconvenient critic could be imagined"--Wiki

"Eventually a safe jury (12 middle aged men) was empanelled by the prosecution “and Mrs. Dennett was quickly convicted, and Judge Burrows fined her $300. . . . Six months later the Circuit Court of Appeals, consisting of [Thomas Walker?] Swan, Augustus Noble Hand and Chase, JJ, set aside the verdict, decided that the pamphlet was so obviously not obscene that ‘no case was made for submission to the jury,’ and ordered Mrs. Dennett released from her bond.”

"When the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned her conviction in 1930, the Court set a legal precedent that took intent into account in the evaluation of obscenity. Dennett's trial was part of a series of rulings that culminated in the 1936 ruling in United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, which exempted birth control information and materials used by physicians from obscenity laws."--Wiki

"During the 1920s, Mary Ware Dennett challenged government officials and the laws they sought to enforce in an effort to legalize the dissemination of birth control and sex education materials through the mail. Dennett's anticensorship campaign established an important precedent and brought the sex education debate out into the open."-- "The Sex Side of Life": The Obscenity Case of Mary Ware Dennett", J. Craig, Frontiers, vol 15, 1995.  See also: Melissa J. Doak,  How did the debate between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett shape the movement to legalize birth control, 1915-1924?, SUNY, 2000. 

 

Ukrainian Indictment of Polish Atrocities (1922)

For Whose Pleasure Shall They Die? An Appeal for Ukrainians Suffering under Polish Rule, pretty much answers its own title in the sub-title. The pamphlet was published by the Ukrainian Defence Committee (NYC) in 1922 and was a mass appeal for understanding of what was going on in Ukraine instigated by Poland. It was published by the Ukrainian Defence Committee (30 E 7th Street), and ran only 14pp. There's a review of what was going on with the Ruthenian peasantry, a defense of Ukraine being the "bulwark of Christianity" and not Poland, and sections titled "Impunity of Polish Aristocracy" and "Poland,  a Lawless World". But it is really just in the last two pages where there are real charges laid, some of which are of high genocidal order.  

There are three copies of this pamphlet located in WorldCat/OCLC.  Scarce.  SOLD

 

Course of Instructions at the College of France, 1830

Programme d'invitation a l'examen public du College royal francois fixe au 2. Avril, 1830.

Published in Berlin, printed by J.F. Starcke, 1830.  9.25x8", 43pp. A decent copy, in the original wrappers. The front wrapper is detached, and the pamphlet in general lacks the outer blue front wrapper (the rear is attached).  Provenance, U.S. Army Medical Library, and then to the Library of Congress, with their surplus stamp on the front wrapper. Good copy. $100

An interesting document in the history of education, showing and detailing class work at the college (founded in the 16th century) in classical education. 

Delightful Wagon Axle Catalog for 1905

JF Ptak Science Books  

The short story here is that less friction makes for happier conveyance and easier hauling. And evidently the founder of the Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company, Henry Timken, figured that out in the early 1890's¹, rolling his engineering insights and acumen and successful experimentation and founding his eponymous company in 1899 (and which exists as an international entity today). There's great beauty in a fine idea, and in well-engineered parts and machinery, and no doubt the Timken axle is one of these--but what drew my attention to this catalog were the wagons and carts that benefited from the engineering. There is a superior sense of place in some of these images, an unexpected and quiet beauty found in the pages of a manufacturer's catalog:

Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company, Catalogue No. 5, published in Canton, Ohio, ca. 1902 (not later than January 1905).  7x9.5",  unpaginated though 42pp long, including 9 plates of photos (some of which are above), plus 3 plates of drawings. Printed wrappers.  Provenance: Library of Congress, with their surplus stamp on the back.  Good condition.  There are no copies of this title located in WorldCat/OCLC; there is another version, entitled "Carriage and wagon axle department, Timken Roller Bearing Axle Co., manufacturers of Timken roller bearing axles for all kinds of carriages and wagons ..." ca. 1908, that is located in two locations: the Hagley Museum, and the Henry Ford Museum. I can find no other library of museum holdings.   Scarce title.  $350  

 

A Scarce Piece on New Mexico History and a Forward-Looking View of Housing-for-All (1937)

F.E. McCambridge.  [Oil and Gas Investment Property Prospectus] Majestic Homes Realty Co., Denver, 
Colorado. 12x8", 11pp, with two maps (one two-page centerfold map) and other text illustrations.
Printed wrappers.  Provenance: ex-library, with two small numerical stamps at the bottom of the back 
of the front cover, and a penciled note on the front cover. There is some curling at the top-right of the 
pamphlet. In GOOD condition, overall.  
No copies located in WorldCat/OCLC  $150 
 

The brochure is really more about selling the possibility of becoming an energy maven selling property and its oil 
and gas rights in what could have been an oil/gas-right territory in Pajarito Spanish Grant, in New Mexico. The 
area of the grants seems in general to be about 15 miles or so southwest of Albuquerque, though the map in the 
pamphlet depicts a much wider area in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, around Albuquerque and south to La Joya.
I can't find anything offhand about the success or failure of this venture, though not much seems to have
happened. Evidently people seem to have moved into this area to get away from it all back in the 1970's--
there is no running water or paved roads to speak of, and has pretty much nothing except for a great big
sky and very inexpensive ground.  (See http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-7409-mexico-usa.html for 
the interesting story.)


 
[Most of the two-page map, which measures about 18"]


Mr. McCambridge's venture seems to have struck dirt, and I can't find much on him, either, except for this
very forward-thinking appraisal of his found in a publication about the housing shortage at the end 
of WWII. While other builders were concentrating on mid- and upper-level housing in the 
coming building boom, McCambridge thought small and very inexpensive, homes enough
for all budgets, "and homes for Negro occupancy should rank high in every postwar plan to house America":

"As noted earlier, the same survey revealed that private builders expect to build 67 per cent of their houses to sell
 at prices between $5,000 and 510,000. Experience shows that the saturation point for that market is quickly 
reached and that the nation will never be well housed until ways can be found of building for families in the 
lower-income brackets." "One intelligent western builder remarked, in commenting on this survey, that the 
"determination of builders to concen- trate their efforts on higher-cost housing" seemed to be a "tragic truth": 
"It is exceedingly unfortunate that so many of the builders of the nation, seeking to escape from the 
war-required restriction and limitation orders, wish to employ their talent in other than the basic responsibilities
 of the industry they have so capably represented in the war job they are now completing Surely no program to 
rehouse America should be pro- mulgated other than one providing for all the people in proportion to their 
ability to purchase. Only by such a program can the re-employment of our returning veterans and displaced 
war workers be attained. Decent housing should be made available to every segment of our population, every
in- come bracket; and homes for Negro occupancy should rank high in every postwar plan to house America1."

Quoting F. E. McCambridge, in Tomorrow's Town (New York: National Committee on Housing, Inc., 
June, 1945) in Robert Lasch, Breaking the Blockade, 1946, p 141.