AUGUST DOG DAYS
August DOG DAYS... On this and the following two pages are 14 photographs of animals we're running just for the fun of it. These pictures have been growing on us ever since we first saw them in...
...The questions from the audience were slow in coming and didn't amount to much when they got there...
...The old man ended with a favorable reference to God, and Lloyd Lafler popped up fast and adjourned the meeting...
...On our way out of the hall, Lloyd and Bob and Jane and I, we heard some of the local toughies wrangling, and doing a little shoving among themselves, in the back of the hall, just inside the big double doors...
...He came to the front of the hall and said to the fat man: "I'm sorry, but you're out of order...
...The high school janitor was turning the lights off...
...Washburn had witnessed the proceedings through an eye-slit in the movie projection booth at the back of the hall...
...What I say we should do," said a man in a T-shirt, who turned out to be the local milkman, "is stick them Communists in the sand, head first...
...Do you think they'll do anything...
...They sat there, staring at me...
...And all the time he was talking, he was waving the flag, and you can't lynch a disembody with a flag...
...Ah, nuts," said the other man...
...We learned that Mayor Washburn, trustee of Lloyd Lafler's church and admirer of Gerald L. K. Smith, had been at the meeting, along with Mrs...
...The offering, among 300 Elsinoreans, was $21...
...Then I recognized the book he had in his hand...
...But Communism in Elsinore is disembodied, and you can't lynch a disembody...
...Perry, but we Americans want to believe in God because we want to be protected and we're afraid that we can't protect ourselves...
...And on...
...one of them was saying, "stick our heads in the sand...
...A low, hard voice said, somewhere in the audience: "Let him talk...
...We don't need to be afraid in Elsinore or anywhere else...
...I couldn't tell him what to do, at that distance...
...But since Kamp had been put in the penitentiary, word seems to have gone down the line to be a little careful of him...
...All right," the fat man hollered, "and now I want to ask you another question...
...According to Kamp's book, I, a responsible and respected individual, had advocated desecrating the flag, and that in Syracuse, New York, on Feb...
...If they're scared enough," I said...
...Mr...
...Norvell thinks we ought to do with the people who won't fight for their country...
...He made a long speech about religion being communist among primitive people...
...Something like that...
...Half the members of the panel— including the mayor's wife, Mrs...
...nobody in the audience sang with the fat man...
...There was a silence—just a few seconds, I suppose, though it seemed a lot longer at the time, and then the coach said, slowly: "And how would you like it if some of us came out to your house some night to burn it down...
...I was right...
...V The next day we learned that Mr., or Admiral, Perry lives in Murietta, according to the Elsinore people, and in Elsinore, according to the Murietta people, and is a friend of Mayor Edson D. Washburn of Elsinore...
...The audience sat there, staring hard...
...There were long silences between questions...
...We drove on to Riverside, for the next one-night stand, and went to sleep, Jane and I, in an $8 room at the Mission Inn, amid the palms and the orange blossoms, and forty miles behind us we left Elsinore, The Year Around Resort Town of Southern California, where the Lake dried up, and the fish all died, and the smell hung on, and the gnats came, and the people were looking for Communists...
...And what would you say we should do...
...The Jewish lawyer, no matter what we asked him, said that this was the greatest country on earth, and the Negro school teacher, no matter what we asked her, said that everybody had an equal opportunity in America, regardless of race, color, or creed...
...Every time we asked a panel member a question—any question—we got a Fourth of July oration by way of reply...
...And I'm here," the fat man went on...
...I was sitting, so I stood up...
...Whatever be its name, But don't be ungrateful to me...
...She said something like this: "It's very hard to believe in God, Admiral"—or "Mr...
...But they all sat there, and stared at me...
...The whole meeting stood up and took the pledge of allegiance to the flag, and I wondered what would happen to anybody who would refuse to, but nobody did, including me...
...But if we leave God in—and leave Him in our lives—then we don't need to be afraid of Communism or anything else...
...Norvell, the little man with the hearing aid, said, slowly: "Come on out and try it...
...After 45 minutes like that, I interrupted the meeting to introduce Bob Vogel, who made the appeal for the Service Committee...
...Norvell was one of the two or three panel members who had not delivered a Fourth of July oration during the discussion...
...And we learned that as Mayor Washburn left the hall he said to Chairman Habenicht of the high school board, "We shouldn't have things like this in Elsinore," and Chairman Habenicht said, "I don't know why not, it sounded all right to me...
...The meeting is adjourned...
...The discussion was like taking candy away from babies—almost impossible...
...I sensed that the fat man was being careful of Kamp, so, instead of talking about the flag, I took the easy way out...
...Norvell, "people who believe in religion...
...If you mean people who believe in religion," said Mr...
...Jane and I threw our discussion outline away and did what we could to ease the tension by being jocular, but the jokes were painful...
...Jack Norvell had, at the meeting, held up a copy of the Communist Manifesto, printed on red paper, and said, "I was born under this document and I'm going to live under it...
...An elderly man in the front row had his hand half way up and I called on him fast...
...Panel members and leaders, as they turned their heads to address one another, studied the audience, as unobtrusively as possible...
...There was scattered—thinly scattered—applause, and the people started drifting toward the doors, very slowly, and then a fat, red-faced man, in the second row, on the center aisle, jumped up and hollered, "Wait a minute," and came to the front of the hall...
...that night, in Elsinore, everybody stayed...
...All right, then," he hollered, and laid the book Idown...
...I'm the Milton Mayer who was an assistant professor at the University of Chicago," I said...
...they were preoccupied, too...
...Usually half the audience leaves before the question period begins...
...And when she finished, and sat down, trembling, the people started getting up and walking out of the hall, out of the big double doors at the back, which were still open, and Admiral Perry stood there with his mouth still open, and the flag waved slower and slower, and lower and lower, and then the Admiral furled the flag and put it in the roller and started out of the hall, looking around, but nobody said anything to him, and he went out...
...Summer cleanup Kiss me again Under convoy Peacemaker To each his own A family swim Watch the birdie...
...the fat man was being careful of Kamp...
...Since the conference I attended in Syracuse, New York, on Feb...
...Were you at a world government conference in Syracuse, New York, on Feb...
...It was Ler's Abolish the United States, by Joseph Kamp of the Constitutional Educational League, which, according to the American Legion, "makes malicious and irresponsible charges against responsible and respected groups and individuals" and "is a personal vehicle of Kamp's which sells its pamphlets at profiteering prices in order to assure a good living for him...
...I hadn't...
...We learned about that the next day...
...But by that time the leaders would have forgotten the question themselves...
...Jack Norvell a question...
...Perry," but I say she said "Admiral Perry"—"I'd like to say something, if you don't mind...
...But you can't lynch a disembody with a flag and a song...
...So did I. More than half the audience was still there...
...They're scared of us," said Jane...
...Let's all sing," he hollered, and he sang, or hollered, the following World War I song: // you don't like your Uncle Sammy, Then go back to your home o'er the sea, To the land whence you came...
...Norvell slowly sat down...
...Hot weather delights 'He didn't mean to' Please, God...
...I want to know," said the big, tall man, who turned out to be the high school athletic coach, "what Mr...
...They look scared, all right," I said to her...
...13, 1947...
...His hollering was all about Communism in Elsinore...
...They were all Communists...
...13, 1947...
...Instead of attacking me, or Jane, or Lloyd, or Bob, or somebody, he was attacking Communism in Elsinore...
...IV Then a big, tall, man in a sports shirt got up and said he wanted to ask Mr...
...And then—the fat man was still hollering—my wife stood up next to me, trembling...
...If we take God out of the Declaration of Independence, Admiral"—or "Mr...
...If you don't like the stars in Old Glory, If you don't like the Red, White and Blue, Don't be like the dog in the manger Don't bite the hand that's feeding you...
...Edson D. Washburn—didn't show up at all...
...The leaders would ask a question, and the panel member addressed would ask to have the question repeated...
...If he had been standing next to me, I couldn't have told him, either...
...The members of the panel had, some time during the Admiral's hollering, faded away, all but the Negro school teacher and the bartender and the pastor of the Presbyterian church and the Jewish lawyer, all of whom came over and shook hands hard...
...He stood half facing me and half facing the audience, and hollered: "Are you the Milton Mayer who's a professor at Chicago University...
...I think I nudged Jane...
...Do you mean," said Mr...
...You could have heard the head of a pin drop...
...And we're right...
...I mean," said the coach, "people who won't fight for their country...
...While August is the month of dog days, you'll find cats and swans and geese strutting their stuff here, too...
...13, 1947, had not been a world government conference, I said: "No...
...The panel members were preoccupied...
...Then he pulled out of the ^long paper roller a big American flag and started waving it and hollered: "I'm a descendant of Admiral Perry, who sailed the Great Lakes and said, 'Don't give up the ship.' And I'm here to...
...These pictures have been growing on us ever since we first saw them in Our Dumb Animals, publication of the American Humane Education Society and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals...
...The Admiral didn't hear her, and then a low, hard voice said, somewhere in the audience, "Let the lady talk," and Jane started talking to Admiral Perry, who stood there, with his mouth open, staring at her and waving the flag slower and slower as she talked...
...And believing in God is what makes the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Communist Manifesto...
...He was carrying a book in one hand and a long roller—of the sort calendars are mailed in, but five or six feet long—in the other...
...Norvell, "and their religion tells them not to kill anybody, why, I guess they don't have to, if that's what you mean...
...We learned that Mayor and Mrs...
...Lloyd stood there...
...But her voice wasn't trembling, and she said, "Admiral Perry"—she says she said "Mr...
...He was hard to understand and he talked a long time, and after a while the coach slowly sat down and then Mr...
...Everybody was then given a copy of the Declaration— which we were going to discuss, along with the Communist Manifesto—and the Declaration was printed on red paper by some fool printer...
...That's what we learned the next day, before the Lake Elsinore Valley Sun reported that Mr...
...Or if we are," said Jane...
...Norvell, a member of the panel, was a roofer by profession, and was said to represent one of the handful of votes—most of them came from "Colored Town"—that Henry Wallace got in Elsinore in 1948...
...But we didn't stay over night to learn about it...
...Perry, then we're left with a sort of polite Communist Manifesto on our hands...
...Lloyd Lafler had been standing at the side of the hall, looking at me with eyes that said, "What shall I do...
...Then I opened the meeting to questions from the audience...
...Washburn, who had failed to show up for the panel...
...Norvell, a little man with a hearing aid, got up...
Vol. 15 • August 1951 • No. 8
