NEWS NOTES AND COMMENTS
Follette, Belle Case La
News Notes and Comments By BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE Elizabeth Evans ON THE DAY of their execution ray daughter Mary wrote me, "I am sad and depressed over Sacco and Vanzetti. * * * Aunty B. must be...
...i'As for Sacco and Vanzetti, for whom life's fitful fever has now run its course, why grieve for them ? Their long agony is over and they were philosophers and students of history enough to know that their sacrifice was worth more to the rationalizing of human life than would have been their release and their return to comparative obscurity...
...Thompson did as a Commissioner...
...They will first have to have more leisure, and more assurance as to the steadiness of their jobs...
...I think as highly of the Jews who are among my friends as I do of friends who have other lineage...
...Evans' championship of the cause of Sacco and Vanzetti...
...Recognizing that among leading international bankers are many Jews, he seems to have jumped to the conclusion that the credit monopoly is decidedly a Jewish product that can be controlled only by bringing an indictment against the race...
...This report of the Commission was, ,1 believe, the work of Huston Thompson...
...The conclusion was that "Home life is the highest and finest product of civilization...
...Script's" pages are filled with appreciation of the significance of beautiful things in life—-nature, music, literature...
...With increasing experience the problem is being better understood...
...In the beginning there was nothing personal in Mrs...
...She begged for money...
...and especially to read the report of the Federal Trade Commission of last year on the Tri-State Tobacco Association...
...Nothing of the kind, I was assured...
...their letters to her...
...It does not impress me as a message from the heart, as such a message must be to have any value...
...but my viewpoint of the apology varies so widely from your own, and my interest in the ease is so deep, that I am moved to give expression to a few aspects of it as seen from the angles of my approach...
...Oswald Garrison Villard has answered that question eloquently, convincingly in The Nati«i of August 31...
...What could we say to comfort her...
...The unwonted show of force in guarding court house and prisoners" created the impression ot "desperate characters capable of any crime...
...The Children's Bureau reports that many administrative agencies work out family budgets after a careful study of the needs of each family, and says it has been found most economical when family resources are given proper consideration...
...I agree that to strive for understanding of daily problems looking to their intelligent solution is a high purpose in education...
...She is calm, controlled, wonderfully thoughtful of everybody...
...Others fought bravely, persistently...
...The middle of August she "wrote again, "Bess is standing up well under this terrific ordeal...
...According to the Children's Bureau, $1,000 may be considered as the amount required for a mother with three children, on the basis of actual expenditures reported by more than 12,000 families in almost 100 cities in the United States in 1918...
...Yet in 20 of the 42 states having mothers' pensions, the maximum expenditure for a mother and three children amounts to $480...
...Ford really authorized both the first (who, I understand, refused) and the present editor of the - 'per to make the racial attack...
...J. SCHUSTER...
...She contributed to the limit of her own income...
...All history offers examples of genius arising from the workers perhaps mere often than the leisure class...
...I have just been reading some of Mrs...
...If you have any doubt as to the correctness of this estimate I do not ask you to take my judgment regarding it but to read the record left by Senator Norris while he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture...
...it is the welfare of the child...
...victims were needed to offset a stolen payroll and an atrocious double murder...
...What has been gained, do you ask...
...Everlasting grind, constant fear of the loss of job, dwarf body, mind and soul...
...She is in town today and will stay until the end...
...Our beloved "Aunty B" well understands the phase of the triumph of the Sacco and Vanzetti case emphasized by the editor of The Nation...
...The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and other studies show that the cost of living of workingmen's families is considerably greater than the amount available by law of most States for dependent children...
...She enlisted her friends...
...Deprived of relationship with a father, the mother's responsibility to her children is doubled...
...In 1913 the Mothers' Pension idea was said to have "swept the country like a prairie fire...
...The interest she awakened spread over the world...
...Sacco's longing for work for his skillful hands, for sunshine, for his garden, his rebellion against confinement and idleness, his hunger strike, followed by loss of reason...
...Attention was first fecused on this problem in 1909 when President Roosevelt called the "White House Conference" on the care of dependent children...
...But his apology seems to me an error which, if admitted, will vitiate the findings and be an injury to Ford himself as well as to truth...
...Every officer of the law from the lowest to the highest was convinced of the guilt of the accused before the trial wa3 begun...
...It took the wild weeping of Sacco's young wife as they clung together over the 'cage' to convince me .that it was real...
...Probably no one person understood all the facts and legal intricacies of the case as 3he did...
...For seven years Elizabeth Evans has fought with extraordinary ability and devotion to save these two men from execution for a crime she was convinced they had not committed, and also to save the State of Massachusetts from the guilt of so awful a miscarriage of justice...
...Repeatedly in published articles I have paid tribute to his attitude toward labor, industry, war, profits,- the splendid educational outlook represented by the Henry Ford Trade School, his treating the wealth created oy himself and his employes as a trust fund in which he has an interest but which is not his personal property, and other phases of the activities that bear his name...
...John Brown wrote just before his execution that he was 'worth infinitely more to hang than for any other purpose, * * * The very act which blots out the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti insures their eternity in any social history of the United States...
...Sacco with her two young children was given the privilege of living in the Brandeis home so that she might be"near the Dedham jail where her husband was at that time confined awaiting' the appeal of his case...
...She was not in sympathy ¦with their revolutionary ideas nor with their opposition to the war and evasion of the draft...
...I read one after another of the brief stories, sketches, anecdotes and poems with growing astonishment...
...The anxiety and suffering .of Sacco's young wife...
...While at first her only thought was to secure justice, asytime went on she was deeply moved by the human side of the case...
...There is no question among thoughtful and experienced persons of1 the advantage of home care for dependent children over that of the institution...
...l.a Follette's and mine that I give our readers the benefit of his criticism of my reflections on Henry Ford's Apology in our August Magazine...
...Oh, is that it...
...Aunty B." is the children's affectionate name for Elizabeth Evans...
...Juvenile courts, welfare agencies, anc^ naturally, most women's organizations have promoted and supported the idea...
...The fundamental idea in mothers' pensions is that the financial assistance is a means to an end—preservation of the integrity of family life...
...Is it not also quite as stupid to believe than an apology can be made to a whole race as it is to believe it possible to indict a whole race ? "On reading Mr...
...A collection of "compositions" written by students in English is not likely to be particularly fascinating reading...
...and I shall, in the future, be no less ready to commend these concrete evidences • <jf vision and character...
...Godspeed The Nation...
...We are indebted to State Senator Howard Tesdale, an u^questioned authority on the subject, for a clear exposition of the facts in the case, which is all that is needed to expose the sophistry of the Governor's veto...
...These girls have lived, worked, thought...
...Hence the struggle for shorter hours, better pay...
...their dependence and faith all became a part of her daily life...
...Since her widowhood Elizabeth Glendower Evans has been one of the Brandeis family, making her home with them a part of each yea^r...
...They were all interesting, most of them exceptionally original, vivid and dramatic, the literary quality amazingly fine...
...Evans' reports of the developments and phases of the case written for our magazine...
...Aunty B. must be heart broken...
...Huston Thompson is but one of a hundred who might reasonably expect more extended support than he received, and I cannot resist the feeling that Mr...
...In July this summer Mrs...
...And now because I am much in love with the' subject I cannot leave it without questioning the conclusions of one of the students in her theme, "Why Workers' Education...
...One must read "Script" in its entirety to appreciate the variety and charm of its content...
...Workers Education IT WAS with no keen anticipation of pleasure and thrill that I picked up "Script," the Class Book of the University of Wisconsin Summer School for Workers in Industry...
...That is the advantage these industrial workers have over the writers of ordinary school compositions...
...Even more keenly appreciated today is the inestimable value of a normal life for dependent children...
...that in arriving at his decision to end the suit through an apology he uid not consult the editor or any of his office and field staff, or the lawyers who had made such vast researches into the Sapiro marketing associations, * * * I cannot but feel that his abject capitulation is a gross betrayal of a body of people larger than the Jewish race and to whom Mr...
...With remarkable insight she analyzes the influences that led to the verdict...
...Vanzetti's struggle to solve the problems of the poor...
...Nothing...
...When she discovered that two then unknown aliens, a shoemaker and a fish peddler, were the victims of war prejudice and class hatred she began working j#ith all her zeal, intelligence and financial resources to rescue the two men and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from the fate that, alas, no power on earth was great enough t<> avert...
...With the advancement that has been made and the opportunities ahead, it seems most unfortunate that the Governor of Wisconsin should turn a deaf ear to this important work and veto Senator Teasdale's bill which provided only that the State should meet its already-acquired obligations under the law...
...Again I cannot agree when she says: "There are some who claim that an education without the cultural subjects such as art, music and literature is useless...
...At this stage of the workers' educational movement it is impossible to expect workers, whose habits have been molded by long hours of monotonous factory work, to get the significance of the beautiful things in life...
...but, just as it seems to me reprehensible for a particular^ church to dogmatically defend an individual for no other reason than that he is a member, so I cannot commend the action of Mr...
...Who teaches this summer school group, English...
...two non-English speaking Italians were produced—and the rest it seems was done...
...The page of selections which you will find in this number of the Magazine were chosen casually...
...Ford's apology my first impression was that .he neither wrote nor dictated it, and that impression has deepened...
...August 22, 1927...
...Illinois passed the first state-wide Mothers' Pension law in 1911, and today 42 states, Hawaii and Alaska have some sort of mothers' aid provision...
...Brandeis wrote mo, "Dear Bess is just living in the terrible Sacco-Vanzetti tragedy...
...I do not believe that the attacks his paper made on the Jews injured that race in the least—certainly far less than the reaction of certain Jewish leaders to the apology has injured their own race in the estimation of thinking people...
...La Follette: "I have just read, in the last LA FOLLETTE'S, your comments on the apology of Henry Ford...
...Ford owed infinitely greater allegiance than he owes to any other class outside of his immediate employ...
...Under the law of Massachusetts after that first trial there was no way of getting the fact3 of the case reviewed in court...
...He might have retracted as to his racial blunder and kept himself free to press his legitimate attack on individual exploiters...
...The Children's Bureau considers the most desirable form of mothers' pension the one that does not limit the amount for each family but makes it possible for the amount to be adjusted in proportion to the family resources...
...They do not by any means convey the impression of talent and gift that comes from reading them all...
...Personally there can be no greater compensation that the tribute to her in Sacco's letter— the first he ever attempted to write in English: "I will never forget the generous heart that fights without rest for the Jiberty of humanity oppressed...
...Although the Mother*' Pension system is cheaper, economy is not the primary consideration...
...what a support and comfort...
...My dear Mrs...
...These were the conditions that caused the jury to render their verdict in spite of the strong proof of alibi, in spite of the proof of hitherto good character, in spite of the fact that the accused were arrested three weeks after the crime-in the neighborhood of its committal arranging a public meeting with weapons on their person which the prosecution claimed shot the fatal bullet...
...Believing as I do that Mr...
...They are the spontaneous expressions of the workers' experience, aspirations and imagination...
...Judge Thayer's manifest prejudice, his refusal to admit important testimony which furnished the clue to the appearance of "conscious guilt" when arrested, "on which the judge laid, stress in his charge which came not far short of a charge to convict...
...to read the summary of the case against Sapiro as presented by Senator James A. Reed at the opening of the trial...
...Most families have some source of income—relatives, the earnings of older children—and sometimes the fixed sum provided is more than is needed if the family resources are developed...
...It is my judgment that Mr...
...and how can a woman make a proper home while forced to be away at work to maintain it...
...Are not the workers' economic problems in the final analysis inseparable from appreciation of the significance of the beautiful things iri life ? + + + Henry Ford's Apology IT IS with sincere appreciation of the spirit and value of the judgment and conclusions of an old friend of Mr...
...Rare were the times I found myself in disagreement with 'Battling'Bob' or those expressed in yoifr section of the magazine...
...The need of skilled workers is being recognized...
...They would have been martyrs to those who knew them well but they might never have been heard of beyond their own group...
...They adopted it from the Brandeis children when years ago she brought the two families together in bonds of precious friendship...
...When the verdict of murder in the first degree was rendered she says, "I could scarcely credit my senses...
...To be entirely frank, I had a suspicion that perhaps the writers of these refreshing compositions have been unduly coached...
...Elizabeth Evans would not give up...
...But except for Elizabeth Evans' inspiration, initiative and resourcefulness Sacco and Vanzetti might have gone to their death long before they did...
...I am all the more concerned in the matter because of the discouragement the blow brings to progressive leaders, too many of whom decide from time to time that it does not pay to keep up the fight because of lack of support...
...A child should not be deprived of it except for urgent and compelling reasons...
...When all was ever we went out dazed at an outcome that seemed beyond credence...
...It is the greatest molding force of mind and character...
...Sincerely yours,' "O...
...I feel not the slightest unkindness toward Ford...
...Ford's experience with the great money power at a critical period influenced him, at least to a considerable extent, in making his attack on the Jews...
...Thus it happened when Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted in 1921 Mrs...
...My extended and extremely intimate experience with one of the so-called 'co-operative' associations which Aaron Sapiro promoted gives me something of a foundation to judge this phase of the libel suit against Ford, the only phase that has either justification or value in the position taken by the DEARBORN INDEPENDENT...
...She organized the defense...
...It was a year of anti-alien hysteria...
...So with each member of our family after the dread deed was done our thoughts and our sympathy were with beloved "Aunty B." How would she bear up under the terrible ordeal...
...The discipline, the culture, the maturity of mind comes from contact with realities...
...Ford in helping to make a similar course possible within a race...
...Can "anyone believe that if they- had participated in the famous murder they would not have made their escape and disposed of the evidence of their guilt...
...No trace of the stolen money has ever been found nor of the automobile and three bandits who took part in the holdup and murder...
...Louis D. Brandeis, now Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was a college chunv^of Glendower Evans...
...It was her sense of justice, her loyalty to the traditions of our free institutions that first drew her into the fight...
...In my opinion the purpose of workers' education is to give the workers an intellectual understanding of their daily problems, and to inspire them to stay in the working class, so that they may help to solve those problems intelligently and collectively...
...Ford's course has cast a shadow over the valuable work Mr...
...But why fear whither education leads...
...She sat through the thirty-six days of jury trial...
...Later Aaron Sapiro and his meteoric flight through the wide agricultural spaces of our country impressed him as concrete evidence of the correctness of his position, and his paper opened fire upon the individual...
...If some of the-young women who have been attending the U. W. Summer School for Industrial Workers develop genius for writing, should they hesitate to leave their present occupation to enter the field of literature...
...I asked...
...Mothers' Pensions IN THE closing days of the Wisconsin Legislature, Governor Zimmerman vetoed a bill relating to Mothers' Pensions which had passed both houses by a large majority...
...We need leisure and the wherewithal for growth and enjoyment...
...in some localities home economists are employed to advise mothers in the problems of diet and health...
Vol. 19 • September 1927 • No. 9
