Meyer London Library Dedicated (London's Whole Life a Story Of Devotion to His Ideals)
Feigenbaum, William M.
Meyer London Library Dedicated Rand School To House Notable Collection V 1*111'. Hand School Library — henceforth the London Memorial Library of the Rand School —occupies a spacious and...
...He led them, after three unsuccessful battles, to In Congress He Battled for His Cause victory over the ruthless and brutal machine thai had so long eft slaved them...
...they rank together in the selfless quality of their devotion to the working class movement...
...When the time came for drag* ging the United States into war he delivered a speech of supero courage against war, a speech that for lofty patriotism and high devotion to noble ideals was lemarkable...
...He was brutally frank, telling his colleagues when he disagreed with them...
...Hilt it was not until the dawn wa.s breaking that the election was confirmed by the totaling up of the watchers' reports...
...The extras, however, gave mil} 111 c ¦ lw|Milihc.in and the I >eniocratic vote, they made no mention r>l the Socialist vole, nor did the evening papers until late the ncxl day The Socialists had carried on a terrific campaign, and they knew they had elected their Congressman...
...He was not their counsel—he was their friend, their comrade, their big brother...
...He was the only member ot cither house of Congress to voW against declaring war against Austria...
...But his work was Upon his retirement from Congresi he gave himself to rebuilding hto shattered personal fortune, and to rebuilding the party...
...but his keen Intelligence caused him to reject anarchism and to embrace Socialism as Ihe proper vehicle for human emancipation...
...Ho had been with them so long, they had known him bo intimately, they had been through so much together that in many cases they had hardly noticed his steady growth from Just a good and willing branch worker to the stature he assumed toward the end...
...of that strike London worked out the "Protocol of Peace," a new method of maintaining industrial tranquility, and about that document violent controversy raged for years...
...Side by side with his Socialist work went his work in the labor movement, mainly in the needle trade unions...
...speeches) and did nothing...
...Unlike Victor L. Merger, who came to Congress ut a time of friendliness and good will, he was promptly plunged into the fearful problems of the early years of the war, and of the beginning of America's participation in the Kuropean slaughter...
...he was engaged in earnest and often violent, controversy within his'own party, and he used to say that his bitterest fights were with himself: "Often in the afternoon I differ violently from my position of that same morning...
...The henchmen of Tammany, who had conspired lo steal election after election, fell so grieved at his tragic and untimely death that they quietly attended his funeral, walked behind bin coffin- and were unknown to any one in the throngs thai mourned...
...In 190G, following the defeat of the first Russian revolution, the stream of Russian revolutionists to this country began, heroes of the struggle who came here for, financial support for the battle' in the Czar's realm...
...In the mam room arc tables at which twenty readers may be accommodated at a time, and on all sides are open stacks and wallcases on which are some .r>700 bound volumes and a large number of current periodicals...
...In printed form they were excellent Socialist propaganda...
...workingmen long exploited, plundered and outraged by the Tammany rule of the district looked up in awe and said, "Is that he...
...He will never •» forgotten...
...Meyer London bad been elected to Congress...
...At the same time he studied law while working as a cigarmaker, and he was admitted to the bar in 1898, He had become an enthusiastic Socialist, a member of the party and active in its educational work...
...little by little he came to be known as one who always had something to say, whose every campaign speech was a lecture from which the hearers could learn much...
...In the summer of 1906, when •Wything was being got ready for I »• opening of the Rand School in »• old "brownstone front" house « 112 East Nineteenth Street— Jonf since demolished and replaced ¦f an office building—one of the »i>f?enial tasks of the school's first presiding genius, William J. Ghent, l»M that of selecting about a thou|Hfnd volumes to make up its HWry...
...Meyer London in the flesh is no longer with us...
...London again closed his "law factory," as he called it, and gave up two or three years exclusively to matchless propaganda in aid of the Russian revolution...
...London lived briefly, but bis life covered much...
...That is a penHow the Memorial Fund Was Conceived and Raised By Joseph Baskin General Secretary of the Workmen'* Circle PLIGHT years have passed since our beloved comrade Meyer London was so tragically snatched from our midst...
...His bitterest political enemies had the deepest affection for him personally...
...Meyer London was less than 43 when he was first elected to Congress in 1914, but he had already put behind him nearly a quarter of a century of matchless service in...
...But anyhow, there is growth...
...In (on...
...and Fine, and a good deal of valuable material is so piled away a i to be difficult of access...
...He himself was to play a mighty role in instilling in those masses ;\ spirit of self-respect and 1 of revolt thai did much in changing the outward face and the very j inner nature of that exploitation...
...Meyer came to the old East Side in the clays of the first flood of Jewish immigration, when the disease-breeding tenements began to be a problem, when red lights twinkled everywhere, when sweat-shops were vilest, when Tammany poll-| tics and plundei of the helpless masses was virtually unchecked by any activity on the part of those masses...
...Little by little he came to be known as one of the most effective campaigners in the party...
...No one who was there will ever forget the indescribable, thrill of the moment...
...But his noble work in Congresi did not win him immunity fro* bitter, unfair and scandalous attacks within the party by those who a year later unmasked themselves as open enemies of the party...
...At the close...
...I am...
...gress London was a man ol peace...
...During the historic Cloakmakers' Strike he declined to accept any retainer...
...His candidacies during those early years were opportunities for him to get out and preach his ideals to larger audiences than he could get in debating societies and clubrooms...
...Socialist runners had brought in preliminary reports that indicated the election of Meyer London...
...Meyer London served six years in Congress, six of the most terrible years in recent history...
...and that London hud been the leader of that historic battle...
...Those who know the habits of Tammany'henchmen will realize the cleplh of that personal t ribute...
...Meyer London at times addressed tha masses with bitterness or with anger, but it was not the bitterness of hate or an underestimation of their strength...
...Books have overflowed into the offices of President Lee and Associate Directors Bohn...
...Pamphlets and documents, organizational and official reports of a most varied character are available to research workers and Students, Together with the archives on the balconies, they comprise a unique collection...
...London lived a turbulent, a fighting life, and it was not until after his retirement from Congress—a "retirement" forced by a crooked Tammany gerrymander of his distict, a Republican-Tammany fusion and wholesale theft of votes—that many of his comrades began really to appreciate him...
...I recall that he ran for Assembly as early as 189fi*, when he was not yet even a citizen...
...I will not take the first step into war...
...room several thousand pamphlets are kept in boxes demised for the purpose, all labeled and systematically arranged...
...He fought against mili tarism...
...When he was hailed at the great celebration meeting at Madison Square Garden the Sunday after his first election Jacob I'anken reminded the vast audience that the foundation for the victory had been laid more than four years previously, on June 29th, 1910, when the Garden was jammed with clonkmakers who had come to vote upon the declaration of the great general strike that resulted in the magnificent victory of that year...
...The passion for liberty and justice that characterized London's whole life can be traced to his upbringing and the Influence of his father...
...When London was fifty years okt the whole labor movement celebrated...
...He brought hope to the downtrodden masses...
...The story of his campaigns for Congress are stories of indomitable Tieroism...
...It was »f>od library from tha start ¦o»e of those volumes are atill shelves, but some have been "•and more have been used till "'I to- pieces...
...New years bring new problems, and the methods which Meyer London used In the great days of 1909-10, when the needle workers broke the sweatshop yoke are not in all respects the same methods which will succeed by slavish imitation for the problems of our time...
...The mezzanines and one of the small rooms are overfilled with such hooks as are in less frequent demand and especially with files of periodicals, bound and unbound, and in the remaining...
...The humble folk of that teeming section had long been enslaved and plundered-* by Tammany Hall at its vilest...
...Hand School Library — henceforth the London Memorial Library of the Rand School —occupies a spacious and well lighted hall ill the front of .the second floor of the People's House, a mezzanine at .either end of this hall, and two small rooms adjoining...
...He haunted the library in the Educational Alliance on East Broadway, while at the same time joining debating clubs that chitted the East Side, in which the ambitious Jewish youths discussed everything from politics, science and religion to literature and music...
...Comrades shouted their joy, embraced and kissed London, tears streaming down their faces...
...To know bun was To love him...
...we can no longer see him, no longer can we meet or confer with him—and yet his presence is as much a reality today as though he were actually alive...
...His memory will be strengthened by the monument erected in his name by those labor organizations with which his entire existence was bound up, and to which he devoted all the energy of his life: the Meyer London Memorial Library...
...London worked with many unions, the furriers and the eloakmakers being his particularly close friends —clients is hardly the word...
...He studied tariff* of the past, and he learned of the tariff measures of the House of Doges that hud ruled Venice for many centuries...
...When he went to Coiuficss ,lic was not satisfied merely to make conventional Social1st --^1'<"I» speeches...
...It is a fitting memorial, this monument to Meyer London, a tribute to knowledge and learning and freedom from slavery that he so valiantly championed 'hroughout his fruitful young life...
...Ho Wis one of America's leading public men—but Tammany preferred to throw him out of Congress, and managed it by a crooked gerrymander, a misalliance with the crooked Republican machine and wholesale theft of votes...
...He was a studious youth, and he read enormously...
...It was the dawn of a new day...
...All this sounds fairly impressive, but t! fact ia that the library is cramped for space...
...He spoke and wrote against conscription and the Espionage law...
...a teetotaler," he said in that speech...
...His work for social legislation of all kinds is only now bearing fruit...
...In background and many of the outward circumstances of their lives, Meyer London and 'Gene Debs were very different men...
...He participated in the organization of the Social Democratic Tarty in 1898, and was an early coworker of 'Gene Debs in the city that up to that time hardly knew him . He ran for office again and again, using the platform always and only for the purpose of propaganda for Soe lain m As a lawyer he was one of those rare creatures, a man who did not care for material success...
...A man of peace, one of the friendliest and sweetest, souls I have ever known, his whole public life was a battle...
...He was but 54 when be was struck clown on the streets of New York by a taxicab, but in hp 35 years of activity he had pa 1 lied in so much work and so many achievements that it is impossible even to list them in a space like this...
...The years continue to roll by, and men disappear from our midst, but the name of .Meyer London will live and be ctierwhed in the hearts of the laboring masses...
...he told me that a Socialist, in that district had to have 10,000 votes in the bag just to break even...
...Tammany, for all its brutal election methods, was licked...
...Hut despite his deep knowledge, despite1 his genuine contributions to legislative progress, despite his services to the workers on the industrial field (and they were many and of incalculable value), Meyer London remained to the end what he was in the beginning: a flaming soul, a man on tire with love for humanity and devotion to the cause of human emancipation...
...And this noble voice, silenced long ago, still reverberates in our ears, still keeps calling us to renewed battle...
...He was an ardent debater as be was a profound thinker, and he wanted to give his ideas the test of give-and-take debate...
...Just as the first rays of the sun broke through, Meyer London entered—unutterably weary but walking like a conquering lion...
...The news swept the Kast...
...It is a neck and-neck race between the growth of the library's contents and the growth of the physical equipment necessary to nuke it accessible...
...But a wIM automobile one June dny in 19" ended his career, and took from •* one of the greatest souls that 0** served our cause...
...And Meyer London, the fighter, the prophet, the protagonist of Socialism and the lover of humanity, wanted passionately to elevate them culturally and morally, to educate them socially, to turn them into class-conscious fighters...
...Side like wildfire...
...for Soriair in and social sanity...
...He had the knack of stirring up the whole population with his zeal, his fire and his earnestness...
...It was worth wailing a lifetime for...
...The Socialist watchers and other party workers gathered for a bile of breakfast in a Division Street restaurant...
...He gave us once and for all an example of the way in which a Socialist, without compromising Socialist principles, can make himself an inspiring force in the American labor movement...
...American Socialists are richer for the heritage of noble memories...
...I am against war...
...be fought three bitter and unsuccessful campaigns before he finally won election to Congress...
...London, James II Maurei ant Morris Hillquit as a Socialist Party committee called upon tot President urging his support ol the resolution...
...came the war...
...Stories could be multiplied indefinitely of his refusal to take fees from workers and from unions, many of which were not learned until after his death, London's warmth of heart was proverbial, even as was his outspokenness and frankness in disagreeing with others...
...I ONDON was born in the Ukraine *¦* December 29th, 1871c" and he came to the United States twenty years later...
...His father was an oldlime philosophical nnarchist, and in this country he published an anarchist paper called Morgenttern (Morning Star...
...y gave himself thujtask of studying and understanding everything that wax before the House, and so he gradually became one of the best informed public men in America...
...He was particularly interested in American history, and he lectured much on the subject...
...At one time a tariff bill was before Congress, and hi' made himself a master not only of the tariff before him but also of the history and the theory of tariffs...
...in 1918 they nearly succeeded in defeating him for renomination, and the bitterness engendered resulted in their great "left wing" victory in the reelection of the Tammany henchman Goldfogle...
...In our memory and affection none deserve to stand higher, especialjr among the workers of New York, than Meyer London, tha Immigrant hpy who became an American Congressman, the worker who invested his legal learning and oratoriai powers in tha service of his fallows, the prophet of the cooperative commonwealth that yet shall be...
...The story of London and of those unions cannot be disentangled...
...he closed his law office and was in the front ranks of the strike every moment of the long sixteen weeks' struggle...
...There was hardly a decision in many years in which he was not consulted...
...but once a decision was taken he gave up everything to throw himself into their battle even if the decision to fight had been taken against his advice...
...and the following Sunday Madison Square Garden was Jammed with deliriously happy Socialists who came to celebrate "Congressman London," said Morris llillquit triumphantly, "is the only member of the House of Representatives who has to hire Madison Square Carderi for a Sunday afternoon rccvplinn to hiH constituents...
...But the standards and the spirit which Meyer London brought, as a Socialist, to the task of organizing workers on the economic front can never be improved...
...The Socialist watchers had stuck to their posts, often at imminent risk of their lives, and did not turn their reports in to headquarters until the last vote for the least important office bail been entered upon the tally sheets (that was before the time of voting machines...
...His first move in Congresi was to propose a resolution 1 allinej upon the President to summon I Congress of neutral nations to ail permanently and receive the maxi mum and minimum demands 0! each of the belligerent nations Had th'at resolution been cariiet the war might easily have1 endet in 191(1, and millions of lives am tens of billions of treasure wotile have been saved, America woule not have been dragged in and the world would have been spared the horror, the heartache, the anguisl that has made it a madhouse sine* 1918...
...Woodrow Wilson listened politely, asked many que* lions, got much information (mucb ot Which he later embodied— without credit—in his "14-point...
...This was the first break...
...London set the whole East Side afire...
...He thereupon learned to read Italian and he read all be could of the House of Doges -and <|iiite startled the best-informed men in the House with his exceptional knowloclgc of the whole field of government...
...More remarkable still, his speeches read as weD as they sounded...
...Altogether these comprise about ly<H) square feet of floor space...
...The Rand School Library, the home of that great aggregation of important works of a politico-sociological nature, enlarged and made up-todate by many valuable additions, will house the new Meyer London Memorial...
...To know Ghent is to feel *j* that the selection was care«Uy and judiciously made...
...The organisations that took it upon themselves to establish this library comprise the two largest London's Whole Life a Story Of Devotion to His Ideals By William M. Feigenbaum |T was early in the morning following election day in l'M4 After a wild night full of rumors, punctuated with brawls at polling places, often breaking out into open fights, the news had been published in election extras that the silling Tammany Congressman, Henry M. (ioldfoglc, had been re elected by a majority <d 5,000 in the 12tii Congressional District in New York's congested Last Side...
...An untoward accident robbed us of one of the noblest and best loved figures in the Socialist and labor movement...
...The Labor Research Department has a considerable amount of upto-date materiiJ on the labor and radical movement, at home and abroad...
...In Congress London used every avenue of publicity for his principles—and none for himself, effii speeches were remarkable and members who were bored bj most speeches rushed in from the lobbies to hear him...
...I have never known a man who quarreled more fervently than London—nor one for whom people had a greater affection, often the very ones with whom he had been berating...
...on the contrary, there spoke a soul in anguish, ¦ heart tortured by the realisation of the great Ignorance of the masses and their indifference to their own interests...
...THE PROPHET OF SOCIALISM By NORMAN THOMAS IF Socialists believed in patron saints for particular causes, * Meyer London would be our saint and inspiration in the matter of the right sort of labor organization...
...I will not take the first drink...
...His speech at the maas meeting Panken referred to is still remembered for its fervor and its moving eloquenee...
...But he came back,to Congress to 1920, and again he fought for ht> manity and for amnesty...
...One of Minnie Seldon's dreams— Minnie is the librarian, all by her lone self, though there ought to be two—ona of her dreams is to annex Mother room or two, have^shelves built, procure : lore boxes to hold more pamphlets, as well as locked cases to house some of the older and .a: • items, and some time or other to get everything catalogued, so that those who use the library will not have to depend so much on her memory to locate things as they now do...
...For London was one of that rare London's Life an Epic of Labor When Millions Mourned All His Talents Devoted to the Workers Iiki <l that knows how ti) glow and develop...
...He brought light into their lives...
...the cause of Inhor, of Socialism and of freedom...
...His voice still echoes in our ears —that same voice that so often called us forth to battle, the voice that rang out to the workers to awaken them from their slumber, to come to a realization of their interests and to embark upon the revolutionary road that history mapped out for them in modern capitalist economy...
Vol. 17 • May 1934 • No. 64
