This page has tags:

1. 1 2022-10-26T20:01:26+00:00 Anonymous Members of the MCCH (13) Stephen Robertson 129 plain 2024-02-14T18:09:26+00:00 Stephen Robertson a1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bf

This page is referenced by:

• 1 2022-10-26T20:01:26+00:00 Members of the MCCH (13) 129 plain 2024-02-14T18:09:26+00:00 Most newspapers reported in the same edition both the statement that Mayor La Guardia released on the morning of March 20 and had distributed in Harlem and his afternoon announcement of whom he had appointed to the Commission. Only the appointment of eleven committee members was reported in the Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, while their names were included in the Home News, New York World-Telegram, and Atlanta World. The New York Age published the names of only the six Black members, while the Afro-American only identified the office holders, Roberts, Villard, and Carter, and Hays. The names and the occupations provided in the mayor’s press statement were published in the Daily Mirror, New York American, New York Times, Daily Worker, and the New York Amsterdam News. The New York Post and the Norfolk Journal and Guide combined that occupational information with information on the political affiliations of each member. The New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun published more extended biographies of all eleven members.
  
  La Guardia announced the members had been selected “because of their distinct contributions in their several fields,” according to a story in the New York Sun. He would later say that the appointments had been made "by advice,” according to the New York Age. There was no direct evidence of who offered La Guardia that advice. That it had not come from the leaders of Harlem’s social organizations was clear from the pointed request that James Hubert, the executive director of the Urban League, made to the mayor in a letter on March 26, “that in the future you will avail yourself of such assistance as is very easily obtained in Harlem and other Negro sections of the City to the end that whatever is undertaken may be accomplished as I know you desire the work to be done.” Instead, La Guardia appeared to have relied on those with whom he had political ties. Hubert Delany was likely one source of advice. La Guardia, who had appointed him tax commissioner, treated him “as an unofficial ombudsman for the black community” according to historian Thomas Kessner. (Delany was a member of the NAACP). The NAACP did send La Guardia a list of names on March 20 that included three of those appointed — Hays, Ernst, and Carter — but there is no evidence to confirm that the Mayor received that list before announcing the Commission members. Historian Stephen Carter argued that Eunice Hunton Carter may have been appointed in recognition of her willingness to run for a state assembly seat for La Guardia’s Republican-Fusion party the previous year. He noted that the party machine “had a tradition of finding places for candidates willing to run in tough cases against incumbents.” An Associated Negro Press story published in the Norfolk Journal and Guide attributed Carter’s subsequent appointment to Thomas Dewey’s team of special prosecutors going after the Mob to that obligation.
  
  La Guardia subsequently added two additional members, a Black clergyman and a white clergyman. Only the New York Amsterdam News reported those appointments, suggesting that the mayor's office did not announce them in press statements. The appointment of Rev. John W. Robinson, the retired pastor of St. Mark's, the city's largest AME church, was foreshadowed in newspaper stories about the mayor's visit to the Interdenominational Preachers Meeting of Greater New York and Vicinity on March 25. Robinson led that group. After their complainants about La Guardia's failure to appoint a minister, the mayor indicated he would consider appointing a nominee of the meeting. Stories in the Home News, New York Times, and New York World-Telegram and in the New York Amsterdam News and New York Age reported that the meeting chose Robinson. Evidence of an indirect political connection that may have made La Guardia receptive to that suggestion appeared in a New York Amsterdam News story on the couple's wedding: Robinson’s second wife, pharmacist Dr. Julia Coleman, was active in the Republican Party in Harlem.
  
  That La Guardia told the Interdenominational Preachers Meeting that he would also appoint a second clergyman “chosen from a denomination not included in the Alliance” was reported only in the New York Age. It took until April 4, almost a week after Robinson's appointment, for the mayor to finalize that choice: Father McCann of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church on West 141st Street. The New York Amsterdam News made McCann's appointment the headline of the story it published on April 6 about the MCCH hearing. McCann had appeared in earlier newspaper stories as a result of a pastoral letter he made public on March 23 blaming Communists for the disorder and calling for a movement to keep them out of Harlem. The priest's anti-communism offered La Guardia a way to address those who had criticized those he had appointed as all liberals. However, La Guardia had clearly also decided the second clergyman on the committee should be Catholic as he had sought the advice of Edmund B. Butler, a prominent Catholic lawyer who was secretary of the city’s Emergency Relief Bureau, about whom to appoint immediately after he met with the Black ministers. Butler wrote to him the next day, to give him McCann’s name, which he had been unable to think of at that time: “He has always been very much interested in Negroes and volunteered for the work….I think that the appointment of him would be excellent.” A note on the letter recorded, “Father McCann is white,” likely another criteria for his selection given that the committee had two more Black members than white members after Robinson’s appointment. Several days later, on April 1, Butler spoke to La Guardia about McCann, after which he told the clergyman that La Guardia was going to appoint him. On April 4, La Guardia wrote to notify Roberts that he had appointed Father McCann. Even after the Communist Party wrote to both the MCCH and the Mayor to complain about McCann's appointment on April 25, the Daily Worker did not report it.
  
  In the historical literature, only Lindsey Lupo identified all thirteen the members of the MCCH, in a chart that described their occupations in two or three words. Cheryl Greenberg named Delaney, Randolph, and, inexplicably, Cullen as examples of the "impressive range of experts" that La Guardia had appointed, also mistakenly including Frazier as a member of the commission. Naison only identified the number of "representative citizens" appointed, which he stated was eleven, neglecting the later appointments of Robinson and McCann. Johnson also mistakenly identified the MCCH as an eleven-member commission, without identifying any of the members. Kessner mentioned only Roberts, the chair, as did Watson.
  
  Information on the attendance of the MCCH members at their meetings and public hearings was collated by their staff. The MCCH included its own appraisal of each members contribution to its work in the foreword of the version of its report it submitted to Mayor La Guardia. Who signed, and thereby endorsed the report of the subcommittee on crime and the MCCH's final report, was documented in the MCCH records.

  Black members:

  Eunice Hunton Carter

  • Press statement: “social worker and lawyer"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Lawyer and social worker, holds degrees from Smith College and Columbia and Fordham Universities, Republican-Fusion candidate for Assembly from 19th Manhattan District in 1934"
  • New York Post: “lawyer and social worker and Fusion political leader” 
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a social worker, lawyer and leader in every important progressive movement in the community, who knows Harlem in its gladness and sorrow"
  • Meeting Attendance: 17
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (missed May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Countee Cullen

  • Press statement: "author"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "poet, graduate of New York University; contributor to magazines and newspapers and winner of several poetry awards"
  • New York Post: “the poet”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a young Negro pedagogue and poet, brought to the commission the point of view of the youth"
  • Meeting Attendance: 11
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (missed May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Hubert T. Delany

  • Press statement: "Tax Commissioner of the City of New York"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Negro, lawyer, graduate of the College of the City of New York and New York University Law School, Assistant United States Attorney under former United States Attorney Charles H. Tuttle, Republican candidate for House of Representatives from 21st Manhattan District in 1920. Commissioner of Board of Taxes and Assessments by appointment of Mayor LaGuardia in February 1934."
  • New York Post: “lawyer and Republican leader"
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "Commissioner of Taxes and Assessments of the City of New York, was well-qualified to anlayze the employment situation in Harlem. Mr Delany, a lawyer and former public official, was well-equipped to analyze the problem of unemployment with as little intellectual bias as anyone in the community."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  A. Philip Randolph

  • Press statement: "Natl. President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "general organizer and president of National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, attended College of City of New York, founder of a magazine, 'The Messenger'"
  • New York Post: “president of the National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a great leader in the labor movement displayed his keen sense of understanding as President of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Mr Randolph brought to the Commission a greater understanding of labor problems as they affect the Negroes than any other man that could be found in the community. Harlem respects and admires A. Philip Randolph."
  • Meeting Attendance: 7
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: MCCH report (not in New York when the Subcommittee report was submitted)

  Charles Roberts

  • Press statement: "dentist"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Negro, dentist, graduate of Lincoln University, Republican candidate for House of Representatives from 21st District in 1924, member of Board of Aldermen, 1931-1933"
  • New York Post: “dentist, Republican leader and former Alderman”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "selected for the reason that he has lived in the community of Harlem for over a quarter of a century. His life has been devoted to the development of the social, economic and cultural advancement of the community, both as a former public official and as a professional man. His unquestioned interest and knowledge of the community needs make him an outstanding representative of Harlem."
  • Meeting Attendance: 20
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Rev. John Robinson

  • No press statement or newspaper stories about his appointment
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a representative of the Interdenominational Ministers Alliance, symbolizes the opinion of Negro clergymen of Harlem. It is useless to state the churches of Harlem exercise the most vitalizing influence that can be found in this area."
  • Meeting Attendance: 13
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Charles Toney

  • Press statement: "Municipal Court"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Justice of Municipal Court; graduate of Syracuse University, Tammany Democrat"
  • New York Post: "justice of the Municipal Court and Democratic political leader”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a Justice of the Municipal Court of the City of New York, was of great assistance in that by reason of his experience in what is known as the poor man's court, brought a legal understanding to the commission that was valuable."
  • Meeting Attendance: 13
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 1 (missed April 6, April 20, May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

   

  White members:

  Morris L. Ernst

  • Press statement: "lawyer;" “writer and publisher” in the Daily Mirror and New York American
  • New York Herald Tribune: "lawyer, graduate of Columbia University, member of American Civil Liberties Union, counsel in many liberal causes, represented Mrs. Margaret Sanger, birth-control advocate; mediator in recent taxicab strike by appointment of Mayor LaGuardia"
  • New York Post: "of the Civil Liberties Union,” and grouped with Hays
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "an eminent attorney, did yeoman service relative to the housing situation"
  • Meeting Attendance: 6
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 2 (missed April 20, May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime

  John J. Grimley

  • Press statement: "doctor"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "physician, lieutenant-colonel of 369th Infantry, National Guard of New York, crack Negro regiment"
  • New York Post: “lieutenant-colonel of the Negro 369th Infantry, National Guard”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "brought to the Commission intimate contact with the manhood of Harlem through his experience as commanding officer of the 369th Infantry. Col. Grimley also rendered technical advice relative to the problem of health, having spent years as superintendent and director of various hospitals."
  • Meeting Attendance: 5
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (recorded as missing May 18, but was referred to as present in transcript)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime

  Arthur Garfield Hays

  • Press statement: "lawyer"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Lawyer, graduate of Columbia University, counsel to American Civil Liberties Union, appeared as defense counsel in many cases involving civil liberties - coal strike in Pennsylvania, 1922; Scopes evolution trial in Tennessee, 1925; Countess Cathcart immigration case; Sacco-Vanzetti case in 1927, and most recently in defense of John Strachey, English lecturer threatened with deportation"
  • New York Post: “of the Civil Liberties Union,” and grouped with Ernst
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a champion of civil liberties, conducted with astuteness and patience the public hearings concerning the police and their treatment of Harlem. The information so adduced was of invaluable worth to the study."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5 (chair)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Father McCann

  • No press statement or newspaper stories about his appointment
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "represented the Catholic opinion of the community"
  • Meeting Attendance: 5
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed March 30 [not appointed at that time], May 18)
  • Reports signed: Neither

  William J. Schieffelin

  • Press statement: "Trustee of the Tuskegee Institute”
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Chemist, graduate of Columbia School of Mines and University of Munich, chairman of Citizens Union, trustee of Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute, schools for the education of Negroes"
  • New York Post: “chairman of the Citizen's Union and of Tuskegee Institute, the Negro university”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a trustee of Tuskegee Institute, a contributor and benefactor of the Negro race, a director of the Citizen's Union, and an exponent of social justice, contributed calm understanding of the perplexing problems that this committee dealt with."
  • Meeting Attendance: 9
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: MCCH report (not in New York when the subcommittee report was submitted)

  Oswald Garrison Villard

  • Press statement: "publisher"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "owner of 'The Nation'; graduate of Harvard University, liberal crusader, grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, founder of 'The Liberator,' and apostle of abolition of slavery"
  • New York Post: “editor of the Nation”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "former editor and owner of a metropolitan daily, former professor at Harvard University and contributing editor to the Nation, a member of the NAACP, writer and lecturer, a keen student of American social problem, not excepting the oftern referred to Negro problem, brought a wealth of understanding and experience. It has been said of Mr Villard that his merciless scrutiny and analysis make him one of the foremost social philosophers of America."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

   
• 1 2022-11-10T16:14:30+00:00 Reactions to appointments to the MCCH 73 plain 2024-02-14T20:37:52+00:00 The Home News, which had an anti-Communist editorial position, prefigured one strand of criticisms of La Guardia’s appointments when it described the Commission members as “all of distinct liberal leanings” in reporting their names. The New York Sun and New York American, also anti-Communist newspapers, expanded those criticisms. Both reported complaints by unnamed “anti-Red organizations.” The New York American story described them as “openly dissatisfied with the make-up of the Mayor’s committee,” while the New York Sun reported more specifically that they considered “that the Mayor's investigating committee is composed largely of men whose names have been associated with radical movements in this country.” The targets of the complaints were Randolph, Hays, Ernst, Villard, and Cullen. In Randolph’s case, these critics pointed to him being named in the Lusk Committee report, an investigation of radicalism conducted by the state legislature fifteen years earlier. Hays’ recent work defending John Strachey, “avowed English Communist,” which is why he was in Chicago at the time of the disorder, was singled out. Despite their more well-known affiliations, Ernst and Villard were criticized for their membership in the United Action Campaign Committee of the League for Independent Political Action, an obscure group trying to create a political organization that united workers, farmers, and intellectuals that was largely defunct by 1935, with the New York American quoting two selections from a pamphlet that committee published two years earlier. Notwithstanding the uncompelling nature of the specific charges made against those four men, they were well-known for their involvement in a range of liberal causes and organizations. Not so Cullen. In his case, the charge reported in the New York American was that the poet’s writings were “quoted regularly and enthusiastically by communist publications.”
  
  While those criticisms were reported only in avowedly anti-Communist newspapers, and did not appear in later stories, criticisms of the Black members of the commission appointed by La Guardia were more widely and extensively reported. While stories in Black newspapers described the criticisms in the most detail, they also appeared in the white press, particularly in stories about the mayor’s attendance at a meeting of Black clergymen on March 25. As Black newspapers were published weekly, those stories did not appear until March 30, after those in the white press, and after the mayor had added an additional Black member to the commission, Rev. John Robinson.
  
  The first reported criticism of the Black members came from Charles Hanson of the Harlem Committee on Public Policy, which organized a meeting at the YMCA on March 22. The New York Age described that organization as “made up of business and professional men and women and welfare workers,” and “James H. Hubert, executive secretary of the New York Urban League, several prominent local clergymen and others” as giving addresses. Walter White of the NAACP was in the audience. The New York Times reported that Hanson said Randolph “was the only Negro on the committee who had practical knowledge of conditions in Harlem.” No other white newspapers mentioned that meeting or Hanson’s criticism. They were reported in New York Amsterdam News, which added that “special censure” was directed at the appointment of Cullen and Delany, dismissed as a “poet” and a “Fusion Republican,” and hence affiliated with La Guardia, or as the paper's columnist J. A. Rogers put it, “[held] a position under the mayor." Neither criticism was mentioned in the New York Age and Norfolk Journal and Guide reports of that meeting. Bennie Butler of the NAACP also wrote to specifically complain about Cullen and Delany, as having little in common with the rank and file, were not equipped to analyze conditions in and did not come into daily conduct with the masses. The Daily Worker echoed that criticism of the appointment of Delany in an editorial on March 23 that described him as “only too eager to foster the Hearst-La Guardia plot against the Communist Party.”
  
  Even as he announced the committee, La Guardia had Charles Roberts reach out to Dr William Lloyd Imes about meeting with Harlem’s clergy, apparently anticipating criticism that none had been appointed. He proved to be correct. “The absence of the name of even one minister on the whole body” was the first criticism mentioned in the New York Age, which it reported “was considered by many as a slight to the colored clergy and an oversight on the part of the authorities.” The mayor’s subsequent meeting with the Interdominational Preachers Meeting of Greater New York and Vicinity, had been planned to take place in secret, according to the New York Sun, but someone provided the press with the location. Only the New York Times reported that Charles Roberts was appointed the MCCH chairman only hours earlier, and Hubert Delany accompanied him. About fifty clergymen attended the meeting according to the New York Herald Tribune or seventy-five according to the Home News and New York Times. Several of them criticized La Guardia for not appointing a clergyman to the committee, stories in the New York World-Telegram and Daily News and the New York Amsterdam News, New York Age, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, reported. The New York Herald Tribune reported that La Guardia had tried to preempt those criticisms when he spoke, explaining that he had not appointed a minister because “If I had appointed one I would have had to appoint many others.” The story then quoted three complaints about that decision:

  "There ought to be a minister on that committee!" shouted a parson in the front row, as soon as the Mayor ended. "There is not a minister in this community who is not in touch with more persons than any member of your committee. Since we are recognized as leaders we should have representation."
  
  "The people here believe the ministers have been slighted by the Mayor," another pastor commented gloomily. "A minister is necessary for psychological reasons."
  
  An emotional touch was contributed by the last protest, when another minister demanded:
  
  "Why should we get up here and beg for a place - we, who have been suffering for many long years?"

  
  The opening of the story framed those reactions in terms that suggested that the reporter had not taken them entirely seriously, that the clergymen “told him he had outraged their feelings and prestige by failing to appoint one of their profession to the committee named to investigate the riot.” The Home News reported only one minister questioning La Guardia about “why he had not appointed one of their members to the investigating committee, pointing out that they were in close touch with the residents of the district and that one clergyman should be on it for psychological reasons.” That clergyman was “Rev. D. Ward Nichols, pastor of the Emanuel A.M.E. Church,” according to the Afro-American story, which described him as saying that “not one of [the members of the committee] has the psychological influence which comes within the power of any one of the ministers present.” Rather than reporting any criticisms from the group, the New York Times story reported only the mayor’s speech, referring to comments he made about criticisms in general terms, “that he had been criticized for his selection of the committee, some saying it was too small, others demanding a larger body. He also admitted that he might have been at fault in not appointing one clergyman to the committee.” The New York American reported the meeting without any mention of the criticism of the mayor.
  
  The mayor did not respond to his critics according to all but one white newspaper. The New York Herald Tribune and Daily News emphasized that La Guardia had no reaction to the complaints. The Home News reported that La Guardia asked the clergy to form a committee to advise the investigation, which was part of his speech, and that the group instead elected Robinson to represent them. The New York Times also mentioned Robinson’s selection after La Guardia left. Only the New York World-Telegram story reported that the group’s selection was a response to a statement by the mayor, who, “Obviously nettled toward the end,” “announced he would consider the names of Negro clergymen submitted to him for membership.”
  
  La Guardia’s commitment to add a Black clergyman was also reported in Harlem’s two Black newspapers. In the New York Amsterdam News story, “the mayor promised to consider the appointment of one minister to his body,” while the New York Age added that he “promised to appoint one of their body to the committee if a name would be sent to him immediately” and “offered the body the opportunity to name one of their number who they felt most capable. If this name were sent to him immediately, he said, he would appoint the man to the committee. A second additional appointment, chosen from a denomination not included in the Alliance, would also be named, he added.” Rev. Robinson was appointed to the committee several days later, on March 29, attending their meeting that day. At La Guardia’s request, he was added to the subcommittee investigating “the disturbances of March 19.” Only the New York Amsterdam News reported Robinson’s appointment. There is no evidence of how the Harlem community reacted to the choice of Robinson. A second clergyman was not appointed until April 4, when La Guardia wrote to notify Roberts he had selected Father McCann of St. Charles Borromeo on West 141st Street. It is not clear if McCann attended the committee meeting on April 5 as no attendance was recorded in minutes, but he was present at the subcommittee hearing on April 6. An outspoken anti-Communist who had blamed Communists for the disorder and called for a movement to drive them out of Harlem, McCann’s appointment was likely intended to address those critics. Again, only the New York Amsterdam News reported this appointment, under the headline, “Mayor Places Radicals' Foe On Riot Body.” Predictably, the Communist Party criticized McCann’s appointment, writing to both the MCCH and La Guardia about the priest’s call to drive white Communists out of Harlem (but not until April 25, to say “we understand that Reverend McCann has been appointed a member of your commission,” which seems to confirm that the appointment was not widely announced). They claimed his appointment represented an effort “at stirring up further animosity between white and Negro people in Harlem and still further trying to place the blame for the March 19 events on the Communist Party.”
  
  La Guardia made no moves to address the other criticisms of the Black members reported extensively in a story in the New York Amsterdam News, and in less detail in the New York Age and Norfolk Journal and Guide, on March 30. The Consolidated Tenants League, like the HCPP, judged only A. Philip Randolph fit for the task of investigating the disorder and “sufficiently free from political and other affiliations and views to render them capable of obtaining the proper economic-social view of the problem,” a story in the New York Amsterdam News reported. New York Amsterdam News columnist, J. A. Rogers, wrote that “in naming the routine inquiry he, or his advisers, chose among them two or three routine names and left out some who would be more effective on it. The three most outspoken critics against conditions in Harlem are James W. Ford, Frank Crosswaith and the Rev. A. C. Powell, Jr., yet none of them is on the commission.”
  
  For others, the issue was that those on the commission did not represent all of the Harlem community. The New York chapter of the National Association of College Women proposed adding social worker Mrs C. C Saunders, Amsterdam News editor Obie McCullum and Rev Johnson, who had led the boycott movement. The Consolidated Tenants League suggested “Frank Crosswaith, labor organizer; Dr. Cyril Dolly, physician; the Rev. A. Clayton Powell, Jr., of Abyssinian Baptist Church, and Mrs. Minnie Green of the Tenants' League.” Individuals interviewed for a “Man on the Street” story in the New York Amsterdam News were asked, "Do you feel that the committee appointed by Mayor LaGuardia is sufficiently representative of the people to report on their needs?" Only two of the thirteen men and women were satisfied with the mayor’s appointments. In the opinion of the others the members were too removed from the realities of life in Harlem. New York Amsterdam News columnist J. A. Rogers had also heard the complaint “that they, themselves, are not in the breadline.” While three of the men interviewed offered no suggestions for who should have been appointed, six men and women suggested an unemployed person or someone “up against it,” and one suggested “William H. Davis (general manager of the Amsterdam News) and the Rev. James W. Brown (pastor of the Mother A. M. E. Zion Church).”
  
  James Hubert of the Urban League suggested the need for a social worker in letter to La Guardia: “if anybody is supposed to know anything about these problems, surely it is the social worker. I understand that there is a person on the committee who is supposed to represent social workers, but I have not been able to discover who it might be since there is no one named up to now who is thought of as a social worker.” It seems unlikely that he did not know that the social worker was Eunice Carter, who had a degree in social work from Smith College. However, he would also have known that it was ten years since Carter had worked in the field, during which time she had shifted into the practice of law. Hubert clearly wanted someone more centrally defined by social work expertise on the commission. The Norfolk Journal and Guide included the absence of "an outstanding colored social worker" among the complaints it reported.
  
  While this criticism was “considerable” in the assessment of the New York Age, and less “mild” than that offered by the ministers “in every section of Harlem,” according to James Hubert, it was not the universal reaction of the Black community. Allyn Grenville, a correspondent for the Norfolk Journal and Guide, certainly thought the criticism was largely the work of “a score of leaders trying to use the rioting as a peg upon which to lift themselves to prominence.” In his opinion, “as commissions go, it is a representative one with more than the usual number of men of integrity. Another story in the same issue of the newspaper reversed the terms in which the New York Amsterdam News and New York Age had assessed the situation, stating “On the whole, the city has received the commission as being representative of both the city and of Harlem, and above the average, perhaps, in having a full membership of trained and capable people.” Channing Tobias offered a slightly more restrained endorsement in the New York World-Telegram: “While the committee might have been more representative in spots, still it is a committee of reputable citizens that can be depended upon to run down the facts and make a dispassionate presentation of them to the mayor.” More narrowly, New York Amsterdam News columnist J. A. Rogers defended Hubert Delany against the charge that as a member of the city government he was not willing to stand up to whites. He recounted hearing Delany “speak on the race question to a group in downtown New York, which was composed largely of white people, and it would be difficult to find any more outspoken than he was.”
  
  Among the white newspapers, La Guardia’s appointments received editorial endorsements from the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and New York Herald Tribune. All noted the Black members, whose presence the New York World-Telegram said showed “good sense,” while the New York Post referred to the Black majority as something that was “proper.” The New York Herald Tribune merely noted that the commission was made up of “distinguished men, both white and Negro.” The New York Post also described the commission members as “distinguished.” Referring to the white men La Guardia appointed, the New York World-Telegram described them as “highly intelligent humanitarians.” A story in the New York Post offered an alternative description of the white members as “men who have the confidence of Negro leaders.”
  
  As they debated who should be represented in the investigation of the disorder, neither the Mayor nor both white and Black newspapers made any mention of the group in Harlem’s population from which the boy grabbed in Kress’ store came. Lino Rivera was Puerto Rican, part of a community centered on 116th Street. In the plan of work for the MCCH Randolph proposed Puerto Ricans appeared only in a list of groups to have testify in public hearings late in the investigation. Suggestions from Walter White of the NAACP considered at the same time likewise included only one mention, the need for a “study of the origin of and interrelation of the various groups making up the Negro community of Harlem – West Indians, Puerto Ricans, Virgin Islanders etc, etc.” However, Puerto Rican leaders did not see themselves in that way, Insisting that their community had not participated in the events that followed Rivera’s release from the store, the city’s Spanish-language newspaper La Prensa attributed the disorder to the “colored elements” of the neighborhoods around 125th Street; “entirely separate from this is the Spanish-speaking group of the neighborhood, with distinct problems, absolutely different interests, and ethnic characteristics that disassociate Hispanics from their colored American neighbors.” The newspaper portrayed this Puerto Rican Harlem as a target of violence rather than a participant, publishing lists of damaged Hispanic-owned businesses that are not identified in any other source.
  
  Despite those stories, there were some nationalist groups in the Puerto Rican community that did seek representation on the MCCH. Jesús Flores, head of Unidad Obrera (Workers’ Unity) wrote to La Guardia on March 25, and Antonio Rivera, secretary of the Liga Puertorriqueña e Hispana and Isabel O’Neill, secretary of the Junta Liberal Puertorriqueña de Nueva York in June, complaining that Puerto Ricans had been ignored. Rivera labeled that omission “unfair” and O’Neill an act of political and civic indifference and unmindfulness.” In addition, Ralph Bosch, a lawyer and former Republican state assembly candidate, wrote to La Guardia on March 21 advocating adding a Puerto Rican member to the MCCH: “Although the Portorican [sic] part of the population may have such needs as may call for slightly different remedies, yet when analized [sic] it all is the same social problem of racial relations.” While there are no replies to the Puerto Rican groups in the records of the mayor, Bosch did receive a response from his secretary saying that “it is not deemed advisable to enlarge the membership or scope of program of the present committee.”
   
• 1 2022-11-10T16:57:47+00:00 Reactions to La Guardia's appointments 36 plain 2024-02-14T20:37:16+00:00 The dissatisfaction of unnamed “anti-Red organizations” with the “distinct liberal leanings” and radical associations of the white men La Guardia appointed reported in the New York Sun as well as the anti-Communist New York American was soon overshadowed by editorial endorsements from the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and New York Herald Tribune. The New York Herald Tribune and New York Post both described the committee members as “distinguished.” Referring to the white men La Guardia appointed, the New York World-Telegram described them as “highly intelligent humanitarians.” A story in the New York Post offered an alternative description of the white members as “men who have the confidence of Negro leaders.”
  
  By contrast, considerable criticism emerged in Harlem of the Black members of the committee. Even as Mayor La Guardia announced his appointments, he appeared to have had some concerns about the representativeness of those he had chosen. On the evening of March 20, he had Charles Roberts contact Dr. William Lloyd Imes of St James Presbyterian Church, seeking a meeting with “the more sober and thoughtful portion of our Harlem residents.” The clergyman responded enthusiastically, writing at 11:30 PM that night suggesting that the mayor attend the Interdenominational Ministers meeting scheduled for the afternoon of March 25 at Salem Methodist Episcopal Church. In the intervening days the criticisms of his appointments that the mayor feared did indeed emerge. La Guardia’s mistake, New York Amsterdam News columnist J. A. Rogers, wrote, was to choose only among “routine names” at a time when life in Harlem had become far from routine. What was needed instead were Black members who “had practical knowledge of conditions in Harlem,” as Charles Hanson of the Harlem Committee on Public Policy, an organization of business and professional men and women, put it at a meeting the group organized at the YMCA on March 22. Only A. Philip Randolph had that knowledge in Hanson’s opinion. Particularly unqualified, in the judgement of others who spoke at the meeting were Hubert Delaney, dismissed as a political ally of La Guardia, and Countee Cullen, labeled as just a “poet.”
  
  Others echoed that assessment in the following days. The Consolidated Tenants League endorsed only Randolph as “sufficiently free from political and other affiliations and views to render them capable of obtaining the proper economic-social view of the problem.” More representative of the people of Harlem would be an unemployed person, in the opinion of men and women a New York Amsterdam News journalist interviewed on the street, labor leader Frank Crosswaith, a suggestion of the Consolidated Tenants Union and columnist J. A. Rogers, or a social worker, the proposal of the New York chapter of the National Association of College Women and James Hubert of the New York Urban League (who snidely dismissed Carter’s past experience when he wrote to La Guardia that “there is no one named up to now who is thought of as a social worker”). Several nationalist groups in the Puerto Rican community sought representation, even as Puerto Rican leaders disassociated their community from the disorder and attributed it to Black residents “with distinct problems, absolutely different interests, and ethnic characteristics that disassociate Hispanics from their colored American neighbors.”
  
  The most widely criticized omissions from the committee, however, were representatives of Harlem’s Black clergy. La Guardia came face to face with that criticism on March 25 when he met with the Interdominational Preachers Meeting of Greater New York and Vicinity, a group of about fifty Black religious leaders, at the Salem Methodist Episcopal Church. The mayor must have felt that he could marshal support from the ministers as he changed his original plan to meet with them privately and had journalists from both white and Black newspapers alerted that he was making the trip to Harlem. When he spoke to the meeting, appealing for them to help the committee in its investigation, La Guardia tried to preempt criticism, explaining that he had not appointed a minister because “If I had appointed one I would have had to appoint many others.” When he stopped speaking, it immediately became obvious that he had failed to convince his audience. A minister in the front row shouted, “There ought to be a minister on that committee! There is not a minister in this community who is not in touch with more persons than any member of your committee.” Others complained that the mayor had failed to recognize their leadership and standing in Harlem and psychological influence in the community.
  
  As the criticism mounted, La Guardia backed down, admitting that it had been a mistake not to appoint clergymen. He committed to appoint a member of the group if they sent him a suggestion, and to add a second religious leader from a denomination not included in their ranks. Soon after the mayor left the group elected as its representative its leader, Reverend John W. Robinson, the retired pastor of St. Mark's, the city's largest AME church and a campaigner for education reform. An indirect political connection likely made La Guardia receptive to that suggestion: Robinson’s second wife, pharmacist Dr. Julia Coleman, was active in the Republican Party in Harlem. The mayor appointed Robinson four days later, on March 29, in time for him to attend the committee’s second meeting.
  
  It took until April 4, almost a week after Robinson's appointment, for the mayor to finalize his choice of a second clergyman: Father McCann of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church on West 141st Street. On March 23, the priest had made public a pastoral letter blaming Communists for the disorder and calling for a movement to keep them out of Harlem. The priest's anti-Communism offered La Guardia a way to address those who had criticized him for the entirely liberal character of the committee. It provoked a furious complaint from the Communist Party that the appointment was aimed at "further stirring up racial animosity between Negro and while people" and "trying to place the blame of the March 19 events in Harlem on the Communist Party." However, La Guardia had clearly also decided the second clergyman on the committee should be Catholic as immediately after he met with the Black ministers he had sought advice about who to appoint from Edmund B. Butler, a prominent Catholic lawyer who was secretary of the city’s Emergency Relief Bureau. Butler suggested McCann as “he has always been very much interested in Negroes and volunteered for the work.” As that endorsement implied, the priest was a white man, likely another criteria for the appointment given that the committee had two more Black members than white members after Robinson was added.
  
  No press statements were released announcing those appointments, and they went unreported other than in the New York Amsterdam News. Having included the two clergymen, La Guardia made no further moves to address the other criticisms of the committee's Black members. The investigation of the disorder proceeded under the direction of the group of twelve men and one woman.
   

This page references:

• 1 2023-01-28T21:07:34+00:00 "Dodge Declares War in Red Leaders; Harlem Girl, 'Cause of Riot,' is Fined," Home News, March 24, 1935, 3. 4 plain 2024-01-23T20:00:43+00:00