Thursday June 26

by


meeting of Maccabean

Smith got today a tumultuous
ovation when named for the
Presidency at the Democratic
convention, He is a good boy
I hope he will be nominated.

—————-

Matt’s Notes

For those of you just joining us, “The Maccabean” refers to Papa’s chapter of B’Nai Zion (a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion) a Zionist fraternal order and mutual support society closely affiliated with the Zionist Organization of America. Papa was a founding member of “The Maccabean” and served as its master of ceremonies.

“Smith” refers to New York Governor Al Smith, the anti-Prohibition, anti-Klan and anti-McAdoo hometown favorite at the 1924 Democratic Convention. The ovation Papa heard when a young Franklin Roosevelt nominated Smith was, according to the New York Times, “the loudest demonstration ever heard at a national convention” and “lasted an hour an thirteen minutes…it broke out again when later speakers from other States seconded the nomination and ran for twenty-three minutes more.”

Alas, the Times coverage also described how the “outburst” was well-organized by Tammany forces (who brought in a marching band and distributed noisemakers to choice delegates well in advance) and lacked the spontaneity of Smith’s introduction at the 1920 Convention in San Francisco, where he was seen as an up-and-coming star. It’s hard to imagine that today’s national press would even bother to point out the artifice behind the latest Giuliani or McCain or Clinton or Obama appearance, but perhaps back then the Times felt the need to clarify things for the radio audiences who had never before heard a convention broadcast. (I wonder if Papa listened to the demonstration in its entirety.)

Meanwhile, trouble continued to brew at the Convention over the inclusion of anti-Klan language in the Democratic platform. The truly spontaneous outbursts over this issue that were about to occur would make a much bigger impression, and be far more damaging to the Democratic party, than anything Tammany could cook up.

———

References

OUTBURST BEATS M’ADOO’S; Smith Demonstration the Loudest Any Convention Ever Heard.

OUTBURST LACKED THE SPIRIT OF 1920; Tribute to Gov. Smith at San Francisco Was Joyously Spontaneous.

SMITH’S BIG OVATION WELL ORGANIZED; What an Observer on the Floor Saw of the Mechanics of Great Demonstration.

PLATFORM DRAFT SHAPED; Anti-Klan Idea and 34 Other Planks Reach the Main Committee.

M’ADOO MEN SOUGHT RECESS; Wanted Balloting on Nominee Last Night Before Klan Plank Action.

D’ADOO SEES PLOT IN ENTERTAINMENTS; Smith Men Are Accused of Seeking His Delegates by Showing Them Good Time.

———–

Image Source:

“Now step right to the front” by Clifford Kennedy Berryman. Library of Congress # LC-USZ62-10783. LOC says rights “may be restricted,” so I’m looking into it.

Friday June 27

by

Not important

————

The words “not important,” as I noted the last time Papa wrote them in his diary, seem charged with importance. While he has slowly chipped away at the despair he felt in the aftermath of his father’s death, he has not yet figured out exactly how to get on with his life and is still inclined to feel unmoored and lonely. So, I’ll ask again: when he says his day was unimportant, is he expressing his own feeling of unimportance?

————–

I expect Papa spent much of the day listening to the Democratic Convention on the radio. Nominations were finally complete — 18 candidates were officially in the field, according to the New York Times — but intense conflict over the tone of anti-Klan language in the party platform had finally boiled over (committee members had literally come to blows over the issue on the convention floor.) The longest and most contentious balloting in convention history was about to start.

Saturday June 28

by


Went this morning to
Shapiro, and went to
services in a Borough Park
Temple, later visited with
him Harry Eisenkraft
and winded up the day
in Coney Island where
I went to the evening services
in a synagogue there

—————-

Matt’s Notes

Papa hasn’t mentioned his Saturday worship habits that much throughout his diary, so I’m not sure if he typically went to synagogue twice on Saturdays or if this day was an exception for some reason. As far as I can tell it was not a Jewish holiday (Shevuoth was three weeks earlier) or a notable milestone in his mourning process (his father died five weeks ago). If you can enlighten me in any way, please write or drop a comment.

We do know the locations of Coney Island synagogues of the 20’s thanks to the fantastic Coney Island History Project (via a tip on the coneyisland.com message boards) so do yourself a favor and check out some of the site’s maps and information. For a number of reasons I think Papa went to the synagogue at West 31st street (listed on this map as Center Bikur Cholem) with his friends Shapiro and Eisenkraft, though I’d like to confirm this somehow.

Also among the throngs at Coney were 5,000 or so Democratic Convention delegates on an outing organized and led by New York’s Mayor Hyland himself (according to the New York Times, they were “escorted by the Police, Fire and Street Cleaning Departments’ bands to Steeplechast and Luna parks” among other distractions). They probably wished they could have stayed out there, too. The Convention proceedings at at Madison Square Garden had become rather sticky, due in part to 80-plus degree temperatures but mostly to the continuing battle over the influence of the Klan on the party platform. With balloting about to start, the Klan-induced schism was dominating all other Convention story lines, and delegates were digging in for a long fight.

—————-

Update:

Shows you what I know. My mother writes:

Religious Jews say Kaddish for the entire year, morning and night. When Papa died, Cousin Jeanie and Aunt Clara gave money to some organization on the lower east side, where aged men say Kaddish for the designated person, particularly if they are unfortunate enough to have no sons to do it.

And:

I just remembered the name of the lower East side organization that said Kaddish for Papa. It was called The Old Sages of Israel.

—————

The Coney Island History Project also has a photo of a brochure touting Coney Island’s role as an entertainment destination for Democratic Convention Delegates.

—————

Update 10/30/07 – After The New York Times Sunday City section published a story on Papa’s Diary Project on October 14th, I got an e-mail from the grandson of the above-mentioned Harry Eisenkraft. It looks like Papa’s father was the brother of Harry’s mother (making Papa and Harry cousins and the man who called me my own distant cousin). The photo below shows Harry Eisenkraft and his wife, Jennie, on their wedding day.

Sunday June 29

by


Another day in Coney Island
with the boys, another dip
in the ocean.

We took a locker for the
season at Hahns at 31 st. sr
and went back to city with
running board of Rothblum’s
auto.

—————-

Matt’s Notes

I thought Papa wrote “we took a locker for the season at Hahus at 3rd. st.” when I initially transcribed this entry, and I figured it might refer to a street intersection or a public park or something like that. But, thanks to the good people who aided my inquiry into the matter at the coneyisland.com message boards, we now know that Papa was talking about Hahn’s Baths at West 31st Street. This map from The Coney Island History Project shows that Hahn’s was right on the Boardwalk and adjacent to the much larger Roosevelt baths (a housing development now stands in their place).

Interestingly, the Coney Island History Project also features several studio shots of people sitting in prop cars, so I wonder if the photo of Papa below was taken in a Coney Island photo studio:

The real car he rode in was, as we discussed during the first appearance of “Rothblum’s auto” back in March, was probably a Model T sedan like the one below:


I asked my friend Sixto, who earns a fat salary as the Director of Automotive Research for Papa’s Diary Project and is no stranger to New York City history, what it would have been like for Papa to ride the running board of a car all the way from Coney Island to the Lower East Side. Wouldn’t the roads have been less congested and faster-moving than they are today, even with slower cars? Was Papa some kind of crazed daredevil to attempt such a trip? No, says Sixto:

Many cars had running boards (and they were very
sturdy, I’ve stood on several although not while
moving)…

By the mid 20’s the city could be quite congested with
traffic at times so it could have taken a long time. I
wouldn’t be surprised if they sat in a traffic jam or
two leaving the very popular Coney Island area. June
29th was a Sunday, there could have been half a
million people there easily and probably more, and
while most took the subway, I’m sure there were also a
lot of autos on the street.

Good to know. Meanwhile, a world away in midtown Manhattan, the Democratic Convention took a Sunday break from its contentious proceedings. This allowed pundits time to speculate on how damaging the fight over anti-Klan language in the Democratic platform would be (as Will Rogers noted in a New York Times article, “It is a Sunday…so they can’t do anything. If you can keep a Democrat from doing anything, you can save him from making a mistake. “)

I’m sure Papa was distressed, as were many other Democrats, over the convention’s ongoing troubles. By now it was clear to most realistic observers that neither William McAdoo nor Al Smith, the frontrunners who stood on opposite sides of the Klan debate, would be able to muster enough votes to secure the nomination in an early ballot, if at all (as a Herald Tribune editorial pointed out, the whole debate was “portentous of disintegration.”) By contrast, the Zionist Organization of America had just held its twenty-seventh annual convention in Pittsburgh and, without much ado, reelected Louis Lipsky as its chairman. Perhaps, as Papa sat at home that night glowing with sunburn and reading the evening papers, he was happy to know that at least one of the organizations he cared about had managed to behave itself.

————–

Update:

Here are a bunch of cars in the real world (this is a detail from a 1923 photo of Coney Island’s Dreamland parking lot). Check out the groovy motorcycle at left, too:

References:

Monday June 30

by


Listened in to the balloting
at the Democratic con-
vention, all day and
night.

The seem to enjoy killing
time in balloting so many
times for a candidate. There
is a deadlock, and they
will as it seems to be
have to keep on voting for
many more days before
they will come to a conclusion.

—————

Matt’s Notes

The Democratic Convention balloting Papa refers to here started at 8:00 P.M. and went well into the morning, and while he was correct to predict a long deadlock, he probably didn’t expect the convention to go on for nine more days. This kind of thing doesn’t happen today since state primary elections determine the distribution of convention delegates’ votes, but delegates of earlier eras controlled their own votes and could change them at will during the course of balloting. Conventions were therefore known for their furious horse-trading, calculated deals, and long meetings in proverbial smoke-filled rooms, most of which the public never learned about.

So, when Papa listened to the Democratic balloting, he was part of a fascinating cultural experiment in which ordinary Americans got their first intimate look at the quirks of their Presidential nominating system. (The Republican Convention had also been broadcast on the radio, but offered few surprising details since incumbent President Coolidge won the nomination handily; Will Rogers said “it could have been done by postcard.”1) Nowadays we can get all the parliamentary discord we can handle, but Papa’s dismayed tone when he writes “they seem to enjoy killing time in balloting so many times for a candidate,” gives us some idea of how odd such a live spectacle must have been. Presidential politics would, of course, never escape such attention again. Papa was really witnessing the true start of broadcast media’s role in national politics, and more broadly the modern era in which national celebrity and media savvy would become prerequisites for political success.2

That said, the 1924 Democratic Convention was itself firmly entrenched in the old ways, so dark horse candidates and favorite sons could still make a showing. In fact, by the time Papa was done listening to the first night’s balloting, he must have known that neither William McAdoo nor Al Smith would win the two-thirds of delegates’ votes needed to secure the nomination. McAdoo, the frontrunner, would never put a dent in Smith’s blocking control of the Northeastern and Midwestern industrial states, and Smith, with his vocal anti-Klan, anti-Prohibition and populist principles, had no chance with Southerners. (Some say McAdoo accepted this and planned to persuade the delegates, once they were thoroughly exhausted, to consent to a rules change that would let him win the nomination with a simple majority2. Such a rules change did eventually come to a vote, but it never got anywhere.)

Attention was now starting to turn to John W. Davis, an attorney and former ambassador whose views were more akin to Smith’s than McAdoo’s. Stay tuned.

————-

References

1 – From Erik Barnouw’s A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting in the United States to 1933

2 – From “The Revolution in the Presidential Nominating Convention” by William G. Carleton. Political Science Quarterly, June 1957.

Tuesday July 1

by


Dull

————–

Matt’s Notes

Papa was still on a forced break from work due to his factory’s “slack season,” and he never enjoyed idleness. I wonder, too, if the ongoing stasis at the Democratic Convention, delivered through his radio in all its grinding detail, had started to affect his mood.

The New York Times characterized the convention galleries as in a “deep depression” expressed “through the afternoon by a curious lowing noise.” Granted, the Times writer may have just needed some sort of hook for yet another article about a convention that was supposed to have adjourned a week earlier, but the proceedings probably felt genuinely boring after the previous days’ ballot swings and delegate-on-delegate fisticuffs.

Meanwhile, some other New York Times headlines that might have caught Papa’s eye as he listened to the Convention included:

  • NEW LAW TIGHTENS CONTROL OF AUTOS; Every Motorist in State Must Be Examined for a License Before Oct. 1. – Up until now, New York State had not required automobile drivers to carry a license. Other provisions of the law decreed “brakes and steering mechanism must be in good order and a suitable horn must be provided”; “a muffler must be used”; “two white headlights of twenty-one candlepower each must be carried on all vehicles”; “all motor vehicles carrying ten or more passengers must have fire extinguishers”; and “trucks must have a mirror adjusted to give a view of the traffic in the rear.” Does that last requirement imply that most cars in 1924 were operating without rear-view mirrors?
  • CELEBRATE OPENING OF SUBWAY LINK; Civic and City Officials Ride in First Train Over 14th St. Line to Brooklyn. – Looks like this “Fourteenth Street-Eastern District subway,” which ran from 6th Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan to Montrose and Bushwick Avenues, was the first manifestation of today’s storied L line. New York Mayor Hylan used the opening ceremonies to restate his case for transferring control of New York’s Subways from private companies to a municipal body.

  • GIANTS BEAT ROBINS FOR 12TH TIME, 7-5; Sharp Fielding Behind Nehf and Jonnard and Timely Hitting Result in Victory – The Giants beat writer for the Times remains my favorite of all their baseball reporters. Today he said the Giants “put a horseshoe in the glove yesterday and knocked the Robins to a sitting position for the twelfth time this season,” among other colorful turns of phrase.

  • CALLS LEAGUE PLANK FATAL.; Senator Willis Asserts It and Split Will Defeat Democrats. – The debate over whether to call out the Ku Klux Klan by name in the Democratic platform’s anti-bigotry plank was the convention’s most contentious, but running a close second was the question of whether or not to endorse the League of Nations in the platform. The final platform did not include such language, and I imagine this was a great disappointment to Papa who, like Senator Willis, was a great admirer of Woodrow Wilson’s dedication to the League. Said Willis: “They have kicked the memory of Woodrow Wilson into the discard. They have been forgetful of the memory of Woodrow wilson for expediency’s sake.”
  • PEACE SEEMS NEAR IN GARMENT STRIKE; New Manufacturers’ Exchange Signs an Agreement With Workers. – The Amalgamated Clothing Workers strike that began on June 25th came to an early end as the union won a number of concessions on minimum pay and unemployment insurance. I thought at first that Papa may have been a member of the Amalgamated and therefore sitting out work due to the strike, but I’m sure he would have written something about it.

References:

Wednesday July 2

by


I saw the girl that the
marriage broker wanted
me to meet and to
my dissappointment she was
really good looking and
to my impression is very
refined and naive.

I enjoyed being there
for some time, and I will
try to meet her again,

She has the qualifications
that I desire, but will
a man of my nature appeal
to her? I would make an
end to my bachelor days
for the sake of relieving
my loneliness, and may God
help me to succeed.

She is worthy of love.

————–

Matt’s Notes

I first asked my mother if I could borrow Papa’s diary back in Thanksgiving of 2006, and when she brought it to the table my sister picked it up, opened it, and read this passage out loud. It was my first look at the diary in about 20 years, and it certainly dispelled any question of whether Papa’s writing was as compelling or poignant as I remember.

The real surprise of this entry is the unexpected sharp turn it takes in the first paragraph: “To my disappointment” followed by “she was really good looking” and an array of other compliments. It’s an incongruous, surprising phrase. Why would he be disappointed to meet such a desirable woman through his marriage broker? The sentiment becomes clear a few lines later when we realize Papa feared he was not in her league. It’s reminiscent of his early doubts about the 20th Century Girl, when he wrote “But have I the right as a wage earner to propose to a girl like her?” and “has a poor dog [like me] a chance? Is a girl even of her type ripe enough to see my qualities, and truly love me despite my poor standing?”

Could Papa’s previously established distaste for the marriage broker (a.k.a. “shadchan“) have its roots less in his rejection of such a mercenary approach to romance (as I have posited) and more in his reluctance to see himself through the eyes of a prospective wife and find himself wanting? Does he fear his own tendency to idealize “naive” and “refined” women with the “qualifications” he desires, to see them as unattainable, towering presences, to embark, with each crush, on a Cyclonic roller coaster ride of infatuation and doubt and disappointment?

Whatever the reason, the confused and urgent pattern of this entry hints at some inner turmoil. She is attractive and well-qualified; he is not worthy; he would like to put an end to his loneliness; he prays to find someone who might help him. He seems to lose track of the woman he’s met as he goes through these ideas, as if he’s thinking more of what she represents, what she says about his need to marry, to raise a family, than who she really is.

But finally, he tells us, “she is worthy of love.” This assertion, and the way he delivers it, could not be more sad or perfect. It embodies everything he’s going through at once: all his doubt, all his need, all his bewilderment, all his abstraction, all his desire, all his hope. It is absolute; it is tentative. It is the declaration of a man who knows where his path leads but wonders, desperately, if someone will ever help him find where it starts.

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