RED TERROR AT PACIFIC GROVE
Meyer, Milton
Red Terror in Pacific Grove By MILTON MAYER Carmel, Calif. THE Gay Nineties Square Dance Club of Pacific Grove, California, was having its biggest season ever. The elder citizens (old folks to...
...Duxbury) is heard again on the streets (if you can call them streets...
...Petersburg, Florida, to an all-out hoe-down...
...he had not denounced the man on that occasion...
...Duxbury, dear old Duxbury...
...He had his earnings as a journeyman carpenter, he could, if he were so disposed, eat fairly high up on the hawg...
...The government will collapse from its own rottenness...
...Little did they know—ah, these Americans, these Americans—little did they know what was in store for them...
...Anything might happen in godless Carmel, nothing in "the Christian Seaside Resort" of Pacific Grove...
...Herbert Ashton, "and no regret...
...But not Pacific Grove...
...Duxbury was, it seemed, custodian of the village-, town-, or city-owned outdoor Forest Theatre...
...Duxbury as custodian if he was found incompetent...
...At last the case for Communism is getting a hearing...
...No hard feelings...
...In my opinion anyone that's tolerant of Communism is not a good American...
...Carmel in the grip of the Communists?—Let Carmel worry about it...
...he had sat next to Duxbury on that occasion...
...Duxbury's statement that he is a Communist and his reasons why because we believe that he has a right to express his views...
...The lodging consisted of a board shack which, until Duxbury moved in and rebuilt it, was falling down...
...With the fighting men backed up, the country helped out, and the bunny hug prohibited, Pacific Grove was—so it supposed—as safe as it had been in 1879, when Robert Louis Stevenson entered the city by climbing over the city gate, which was locked each night at 8 o'clock...
...Editor Ed Kennedy had been under fire before, when as chief AP correspondent with SHEAF, he broke the German surrender story in 1945 and the brass in Paris and Washington got his job for it...
...Many a heart fluttered beneath many an Eastern Star or D.A.R...
...I don't believe in the overthrow of the government by force and violence, and the time I tried to join the Communist Party they wouldn't let me in because I said I wouldn't go to jail for them or anyone else...
...Wasn't Carmel four miles away...
...Duxbury got more jobs than he'd had in years and let the press know, modestly, that he was a Lancastershireman until he came to America in 1900 and a relative, not too-oo-oo distant, of Miles Standish's wife, Kate Duxbury...
...He's one of the best finishers on the Peninsula...
...He was to sleep in the shack, and he did...
...The tension was intolerable...
...A mind that is closed, whether by its own laziness or by compulsion, is a narrow and bigoted mind...
...And he wanted to sign the new California loyalty oath...
...Mayor Knight could not understand...
...Terror stalked, or stumbled, through its unlighted streets...
...City Attorney Perry was in a tight spot...
...Duxbury, their favorite carpenter...
...The Square Dancers would never see 18 again, but they, too, were protected—or so they supposed—by the City Ordinances which said, "It is hereby declared to be unlawful for any person while dancing to assume or maintain any position which tends in any way to corrupt the good morals of any person attending said dance hall...
...He kept the outdoor stage swept of pine needles and oak leaves and lovingly distributed the needles and leaves on the floor of the forest in winter, because the Forestry Service said it was good for the ground...
...It is this role, with political emphasis, rather than the role of Russian saboteur, which Mr...
...Thither, in the warm season," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson of Pacific Grove in 1879, "crowds come to enjoy a life of teetotalism, religion, and flirtation, which I am willing to think blameless and agreeable...
...Duxbury seems to be playing . . . We don't need storm troopers in Carmel...
...And "dances known as the tango, turkey trot, bunny hug, or shimmie are hereby prohibited and declared to be unlawful...
...The elder citizens (old folks to you) were flinging themselves around the Pacific Grove Boy Scout Hall as if, having already lived forever, they would go on doing so...
...Mayor Chapman had reassured the citizens that there were no Communists among them, "but," he added, "I have a feeling that we should go on record to help out our country and> back up our fighting men...
...City Attorney Perry got in touch with the District Attorney at Salinas and presented the facts...
...Duxbury, the flutterer of aged ladies' hearts at the Christian Seaside Resort...
...U.S.A., ret...
...curfew for persons under 18...
...It was nice of the town to let me stay as long as they did...
...He then quoted Karl Marx as having said, "We are not here to bring about a revolution, but to act as midwives of this new order, that its coming may be as painless and bloodless as possible...
...However, I can not conscientiously continue to support a group that is so intolerant and un-American as to ostracize a member from a social organization because of his opinions...
...the ocean roared on the empty sands...
...But Duxbury loved his shack and he loved the Forest Theater and he went to work on them when he moved in...
...In Duxbury's unpaid hands, the Forest Theater was a joy to behold, even if the amateur dramatics were not...
...War is inevitable under the profit system, because it's the only way to consume undistributed production...
...Somewhere there was a Communist in Carmel...
...Duxbury, the English gentleman, the poised and ruddy gallant of the Gay Nineties Square Dance Club of Pacific Grove...
...Although I have never read The Daily Worker, you have now aroused my curiosity to the extent that, when I get time, I intend to read the paper or magazine to see what is so damnable about it...
...It has not been long in coming . . . We published Mr...
...Captain Charles A. Hill, Detroit Negro reserve officer, in reply to an Air Force charge by an unnamed person that Captain Hill had been seen reading The Daily Worker...
...I'm a Communist, a Marxist philosopher, and I haven't time to follow party lines...
...III But Duxbury was a Communist, the only registered Communist on the whole Monterey Peninsula...
...He had signed the Freedom Scroll...
...Carmel houses—such of them as had doors that would close at all—were locked...
...with me...
...There was even some talk of challenging the Virginia Reel and quadrille Society of St...
...pin when Mr...
...What's Carmel, with its artists and sinners and atheists, to Pacific Grove...
...And it includes the right to read the papers and books with which I disagree as well as those which I approve...
...But there are lots more concealed," said one of the letters to the Monterey Peninsula Herald...
...Edwards wrote the Club: "For several years I have enjoyed the Gay Nineties dances and my association with the members...
...First by word of mouth, and then in the Carmel Pine Cone, the word had got around that there was a live Communist in Carmel...
...The Club," she told him, "is against your Communist ideas...
...Last fall the "Christian Seaside Resort" had sealed its security—or so it supposed—against all forms of immorality, including Communism, by imposing a loyalty oath on its city employes, the first city in all of Monterey County to do so...
...Hughes, "he'll just have to go, too...
...The great bells of the Mission tolled...
...Of course I'm a Communist," Norman Duxbury told the Monterey Peninsula Herald...
...It grieves me greatly to sever these contacts...
...the cold eye of suspicion was on him...
...He repaired the roof at his own expense...
...Signed it, 'Norman Duxbury, Communist,' too...
...Duxbury bowed, ever so slightly, and touched a hand, ever so lightly, by way of invitation to the Reel...
...Councilman Craig said that it would not be hypocrisy to fire Mr...
...ing happened, the local Ordinances included such provisions as an 8 p.m...
...But attendance had fallen away to nothing at the Gay Nineties Square Dance Club of Pacific Grove...
...A special meeting of the Gay Nineties was held and a by-law was adopted excluding Communists...
...If anybody set fire to it while he was asleep in it, he was to wake up and call the fire department, whose truck does not say, "Carmel Fire Department," but, "Carmel - by - the - Sea Fire Department...
...These Americans, ah, these Americans, they are like—how you call it?—like little children...
...We find it difficult to regard Mr...
...and nobody was completely clear, any longer, whether it was Perry who had defended the Manifesto and Duxbury the Declaration, or vice versa...
...My education has taught me that no ideas, written or spoken, should be closed to the inquiring mind...
...It stands for freedom of the press, which, in my view, includes the right to read as well as the right to publish...
...Duxbury as a serious threat to our safety...
...But," he added, when the Council fired him for incompetence, "I'll be lonely for the squirrels at the Forest Theater, though I guess they've all moved down to Monte Verde Street by this time, looking for food...
...The Carmel Village, Town, or City Council beat its patriotic brains out on Monte Verde Street...
...The Monterey Peninsula Herald, the best newspaper of its size in the country and one of the best of any size, was under fire from the Army and Navy (ret...
...But they couldn't punish Norman Duxbury...
...The begonias were silent, the cocktail forks rusty...
...Duxbury a Communist...
...And," the ladies whispered, "he's only 67, and never married, poor dear...
...He was having the time of his life...
...Luciel Hughes, the Club's secretary, refused to sell Mr...
...Retired army officers oiled their carbines, and retired navy officers mounted the deck...
...It isn't necessary...
...Councilman Chitwood said Duxbury shquld be thrown out, competence or no competence...
...And to make sure that nothMILTON MAYER, a regular contributor to The Progressive, lectures throughout the country for the American Friends Service Committee, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Jewish Peace Foundation and the Great Books Foundation...
...Norman Duxbury, whose dexterity in the dos-a-dos was rivaled only by his courtliness on and off the floor...
...And he moved into the home—he had a dozen invitations—of one of the most conservative men in Carmel...
...I will certainly accept his resignation," said the Club's president, Maj...
...Well, I'm not going to dance with him any more...
...It couldn't happen here, not in Pacific Grove...
...They knew about the Communist Terror in Carmel...
...And then, one day in December, came the terrible catharsis...
...So the Gay Nineties Square Dancers whirled the winter nights away, all unsuspecting, while nemesis bore down on them...
...I've enjoyed living here," he said, as he packed his things just before Christmas...
...He had never had it so good...
...he had shared the platform with Duxbury, only a few months before, in a Great Books discussion of The Declaration of Independence and the Communist Manifesto...
...At the New Year's Grand Cotillion & Schottische, Mrs...
...On Monte Verde Street, the Village Council, City Council, or Town Council of Carmel went into session with City Attorney Tom Perry...
...Why worry...
...Gone was the light-hearted lasciviousness which, for half a century, had been de rigeur in Carmel...
...The doors of Carmel opened again, and the children came out to play...
...Pacific Grove is still teetotal, and religious right up to the hilt of the naked sword poised against Communism, but blameless and agreeable no longer...
...The capitalist system," Norman Duxbury told the Herald, "has given us the most glorious things the world has ever seen—automobiles, refrigerators, radios...
...Carmel schoolchildren—such of them as had mothers, or knew who their mothers were—were carefully watched by baby sitters...
...II Overnight the Village of Carmel —its offices on Monte Verde Street are called "City Hall" and the sign pointing to them reads "Town Hall" —became a forbidden village, town, or city...
...But he wasn't a Party member...
...If it's legal for him to be a Communist," he said, "why should he be punished...
...Councilman Martin said he didn't want to express his opinion...
...They believe, they trust, they shut the eye, they do not see...
...Meanwhile, over the hill, and four miles away, the Terror waxed...
...Policeman (and Chief) Andy Martin rode his motorcycle up and down the rutted roads, in and out of the piles of unswept pine needles...
...he had taken it for the love of Carmel and the forest...
...Somewhere in the fog-filled forest was a Communist with wire whiskers and a bomb in each hand...
...Duxbury—a Communist...
...We anticipated some rather violent reactions," Ed Kennedy wrote in his Herald column, "from that part of the citizenry which does not believe in free speech, Constitution or no Constitution...
...Duxbury's duties— like everybody else's in Carmel— were unspecified...
...Any contractor is glad to hire him," said Business Manager Tom Edie of the Carpenter's A. F. of L. local 1223...
...There was one dissenter—only one —against this bill of attainder, Mr...
...He bought gravel at his own expense and laid out walks...
...And none of them whirled more gaily, or with more unconcern, than the silver-haired old English gentleman, Mr...
...No prosecution," said the District Attorney...
...He cleared the grounds of trash and paid, at his own expense, for hauling the trash away...
...And as for flirtation —the ladies of the Gay Nineties Square Dance Club never, never, never want to hear the word again...
...I'm the happiest man on the Peninsula," he said...
...They were warned to keep away from Communists, but it wouldn't have done any good to try to keep them away from old Mr...
...for "printing an advertisement for communism and all its viciousness . . . editorializing, in news forms, all the glories as extolled by Marx and Stalin . . . printing a filthy bit of philosophy which is an affront to every American who reads it...
...His articles have appeared in Commonweal, Harper's, Fellowship, Negro Digest, and Life...
...The cold moonlight sent white ghosts through the black pine trees...
...But I don't believe in the violent overthrow of the government...
...Wayne Edwards, hoary and honored teacher of American history at Monterey High School...
...He painted the shack and built a closet and shelves, at his own expense...
...Duxbury a ticket at the door...
...A Communist...
...Well," said Mrs...
...Still, the Gay Nineties Square Dancers had good reason to suppose themselves safe from the Terror on the other side of the little Monterey Peninsula...
...By way of compensation he received lodging on the premises...
...Bibles—borrowed from Pacific Grove—were opened and wondered at...
...My country stands for freedom of thought and inquiry...
...Councilman Ricketts said, "If they want to can him, it's all right with me...
...Carmel has settled back in its un-swept pine needles, and the laughter of little children (and the much louder laughter of Mr...
...The rice was swept out of the local churches and the pce-dieus dusted...
...For Duxbury did not need the custodian's job...
...Carmelites peered out from behind pine trees, over Dutch doors, or through the acacia...
...Now that I'm fired, it's o.k...
...said one of the elderly ladies to the Herald...
...The role of the village atheist is a traditional one in America...
...Carmel citizens scanned one another, through their bifocals or their monocles, very narrowly indeed...
...Stalinists, Trot-skyites," said Norman Duxbury, "they're all capitalists like Republicans and Democrats...
...But the capitalist system has now served its function, and must give way to a system which will distribute the goods which capitalism has produced...
Vol. 15 • April 1951 • No. 4
