00:00:02.780 - 00:00:10.620

As you remember it. Gloria, I'll answer that question as we go along. Okay.

00:00:10.630 - 00:00:30.260

But I would like to say that there are many streams that flowed into the river. And that's why I suggested it might be of interest to people to know who is Mary and why did she

00:00:30.400 - 00:00:45.360

suddenly become a martyr in the whole cooperative business. This is Mary Herling, your former wife. My wife who is now dead. Well, your wife who is now dead,

00:00:45.360 - 00:01:03.620

right. Well first Mary was born, lived for a few winters in Harlem. That was when Harlem was really,

00:01:04.220 - 00:01:29.840

Harlem as we know it, in the Mount Morris Park area, which is about 123rd Street and off Lenox Avenue, The year she was born was 1893, so it was really partly urban, partly country at that time. And they could wheel the baby carriages in the park, and so on.

00:01:34.160 - 00:02:02.260

They moved to Upper Montclair, New Jersey. And when Mary, Mary, she used to say, they had two sheep who cropped the grass around the park. And she wondered what happened to

00:02:02.260 - 00:02:18.220

them in the wintertime. It was something like that famous book by, who was it? Anyway, he was worried about what happened to the ducks in Central Park in the wintertime.

00:02:19.940 - 00:02:41.820

Same analogous fear, you see. She worried about her sheep. About her sheep and about her dogs. She went to high school there, then went to Vassar College, where

00:02:41.820 - 00:03:00.920

she made lifelong friendships. She was the managing editor of the Vassar Miscellany. And she was I suspect somewhat

00:03:00.920 - 00:03:19.900

combative when she led the fight against compulsory chapel. She didn't want that. And the then president of Vassar College accused her of being the, being a troublemaker.

00:03:21.960 - 00:03:48.650

She said, "I had nothing to do with this chapel suspension, but I'm for it." And years later, when she was a, "I'm for abolishing of the compulsory chapel." The dean said this to Mary? No, she said she was...the

00:03:49.540 - 00:03:58.480

president of the university. The president. The it that I referred to there was the abolition of the chapel. Right.

00:04:04.160 - 00:04:31.240

Later on, back in about 1935, there was a movement on foot to develop a relationship between the...Vassar and an Italian college. What kind of college? An Italian.

00:04:31.520 - 00:04:42.680

Italian? An Italian university. I don't know which one, Bologna, but one of the old ones. And there's a system of having a sisterhood or a brotherhood of universities.

00:04:53.860 - 00:05:04.940

And this guy, Alice? Yes? What was the name of the college of—the head of Vassar when— What was the name of which? Head of Vassar.

00:05:07.740 - 00:05:22.630

Put it on pause. So the head of Vassar was Henry Noble McCracken. Noble McCracken. And at that time, in the '30s,

00:05:22.680 - 00:05:53.600

when Mary would have been the Executive Secretary of the League for Industrial Democracy, I'm moving ahead a little bit, She wrote a letter to Henry McCracken, said he's sure that somebody has to do with destroying this lovely gesture toward universal

00:05:53.680 - 00:06:16.960

education. And Mary had pointed out in the letter signed by her and others as alumni now, "Because first of all it is not a building of friendship between the equal powers of

00:06:16.960 - 00:06:37.360

friendship to maintain or destroy the thing that devoutly hoped for. We think that no university is free in fascist Italy." And that's the first thing. This was in what year?

00:06:37.360 - 00:06:46.600

In the '30s. In the '30s, uh-huh. It was the 500th anniversary of something. Of this college.

00:06:48.380 - 00:07:09.180

Yes. So that, and she says, that's the first thing. "You ascribe to me," this is in the letter to McCracken, "He ascribed to me the responsibility for having this demonstration of

00:07:09.180 - 00:07:38.520

honest people deployed and deplored in this connection. In this connection." That is an awkward sentence. And she said, "Second, you always were mistaken in your point of view about me." She said, "I remember when you

00:07:38.520 - 00:07:56.740

were President of Vassar, you signaled me out for special attention." She said, "You were wrong then and wrong now." So McCracken wrote back an abject letter of apology.

00:07:57.340 - 00:08:14.600

He said, "You know, right back in 1917, the class of America, I was a young president and didn't really know much about how to handle students. They didn't want to talk about how to handle students."

00:08:17.980 - 00:08:38.810

And also that he was active in the women's suffrage movement, along with other more and more spectacular people like the girl who, who, the girl who, M-U-L-H-O-L-A-N-D, Aynas Mulholland.

00:08:42.560 - 00:08:58.120

Mulholland. And that was a spectacular picture because as far as anybody knew, She was completely nude with her hair streaming around strategic places and so on.

00:08:59.440 - 00:09:13.540

That was quite a movement in Massachusetts and all the women's colleges, the Seven Sisters, as they call them. So Mary was very active from the

00:09:13.540 - 00:09:37.300

time she was very young in all kinds of political causes. Yes, in a very advanced way. She was, after graduation, she spent a year and a half working in the areas of New York which needed

00:09:37.300 - 00:09:58.680

most attention. It was an eye-opener for her. What areas? Brooklyn, Bronx, and so on. The Bronx was way uptown for some of these people.

00:09:59.440 - 00:10:18.780

When you say needed attention, you mean a lot of poverty? Poverty, and also a lack of ordinary medical provisions, which would seem to be necessary at that time, Even though they didn't make full use of those that they had.

00:10:25.320 - 00:10:44.140

After Vasser, she went into teaching. She taught at Colorado Springs, a private school, with a friend, one of her classmates from Vassar.

00:10:44.310 - 00:10:59.160

What subjects did she teach? English. English. She taught English and she made many innovative suggestions as to how to reach students in the

00:10:59.160 - 00:11:23.240

seventh and eighth grade especially. After that she went to Europe and she took the place of one of the Greenbaum sisters. One of the Greenbaum sisters,

00:11:23.360 - 00:11:45.200

Greenbaum, Sarah Greenbaum, at one time was, they were very was they were very, they were stinking rich, no doubt about that, and very public spirited. And she and her, this is Sarah,

00:11:45.820 - 00:11:58.060

the cable, cable, as she, the cable reached her as they, as her boat docked. She said very dramatically she didn't know where she was going to live.

00:11:59.380 - 00:12:21.400

Didn't know where she was going to live? As she came to this country or? Coming to the United States. Wherever she came. And then so there was this

00:12:21.540 - 00:12:37.060

invitation to teach at the Francis Parker School, which was a very advanced, something like a combination of Horace Mann and Ethical Culture and so on. This is in New York?

00:12:37.420 - 00:12:56.440

In Chicago. Oh, in Chicago. And that brought her into the Chicago scene, where she met very many famous people, because it was the Hull House group, a famous

00:12:57.160 - 00:13:13.300

gathering of people, where the greater of the world would always stop over at Hull House and see how things were going and how they can improve them in their own country. And she learned a lot about that and learned how to meet people of

00:13:13.300 - 00:13:25.580

various grades and colors and so on. Now you're talking about Mary. Yeah. I'm going to tell one story she likes to tell.

00:13:26.980 - 00:13:38.350

She used to like to tell. Roerich. R-O-E-R-I-C-H. R-O-E-R-I-C-H.

00:13:42.760 - 00:14:02.580

R-O-E-R-I-C-H. And so it happens that my stepson, Mary's, Alice's son, is having his first showing at the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York on 105th Street, 4th Street, and

00:14:03.840 - 00:14:08.000

Riverside Boulevard. Showing of what? His paintings. Paintings, okay.

00:14:09.960 - 00:14:24.400

And what has that got to do with Mary? She tells a story about Roerich. Roerich says, "No comments from the gallery." We're going to keep you on the

00:14:24.400 - 00:14:40.080

track, Jack. So what did Roerich say to her? She said, this nice looking bald headed man was talking along very learnedly and she went up and he said, "When I was a tiger in

00:14:40.080 - 00:15:00.980

India, she said, "What?" [laughter]. That was one of these mystical guys. Anyway, this went on. In 1925, she married Ben Stolberg.

00:15:01.960 - 00:15:20.140

Mary married Ben Stolberg. Benjamin Stolberg. S-O-L-B-E-R-G? Who was a very brilliant writer, brilliant individual, and an insufferable guy, in short.

00:15:20.660 - 00:15:33.280

He had both good and bad qualities, and I was very happily... Happily for me, later on, she was divorced.

00:15:37.520 - 00:15:48.930

Did she have any children by that marriage? One. Who is now the deputy director of Scripps Howard Newspapers. David Stolberg.

00:15:49.200 - 00:15:59.440

David Solberg. Mary's maiden name of course was Fox. Yes. Mary Fox.

00:16:01.620 - 00:16:23.600

That was it. The important thing was that she got to know a great deal about labor unions. Ben Stolberg wrote very fine pieces on people as far apart as

00:16:23.740 - 00:16:48.400

Samuel Gomperis and Nicholas- Murray Butler the president of Columbia-And as a matter of fact, I don't think I ever told you this, Alice, but she attended the founding convention of the sleeping car porters.

00:16:49.060 - 00:17:00.180

Really? Mary did? Yeah. Of course, Ben was influential in that regard. Was she working at that time when she married him, or was she--?

00:17:00.180 - 00:17:18.580

As far as I know, yes she was teaching. Teaching. After leaving Chicago, she came to New York and she was married there I think.

00:17:26.100 - 00:17:51.280

She taught at the Brooklyn Ethical Culture School. They had the same thing as their Ethical Culture here. Henry Neumann, was the director of it. And there too she learned a great deal about the socioeconomic part

00:17:51.280 - 00:18:08.680

of New York and what the advances in education were and the importance of having a school in the proximity of the majority of the students. That's why we have Bannockburn

00:18:09.720 - 00:18:26.860

School, because the first thing Mary did when she became the editor, the director of the Bannockburn project, she said, we're now going to sequester eight acres, nine acres for a school when it comes.

00:18:28.820 - 00:18:41.980

That was a really peace of, farsighted planning that normally doesn't concern a speculative builder. Exactly.

00:18:42.180 - 00:19:01.180

Was this after we bought the land, or? Oh yes. Oh yes. And then that followed what some of us call the golden period of

00:19:01.180 - 00:19:25.140

the LID, the League for Industrial Democracy, which she was invited to join as a staff member, as an Executive Director, executive, not director, Executive Secretary, with the power to make decisions which she didn't hesitate to make.

00:19:25.140 - 00:20:01.160

And before, between the Ethical Culture assignment and the following decade she brought together thirteen houses in Greenwich Village, in Levenson Bleeker Street.

00:20:01.160 - 00:20:10.060

This was what decade? 1930. 1930 to '40? Roughly. Uh-Huh. She brought together some houses

00:20:10.060 - 00:20:33.840

in Greenwich? It's a very difficult thing because these were slum houses. But you got Henry Wilcox and some rather well-known artist and her husband was an architect.

00:20:35.900 - 00:20:40.940

It became a... Whose husband? Mary's husband? No. Wilcox.

00:20:41.320 - 00:20:58.200

Henry Wilcox. Those were rather innocent days comparatively. Now when you say she brought together some houses, what do you mean by that? There were different diverse

00:20:58.940 - 00:21:12.760

ownerships, claims to ownership. Some of them went way back to the early 19th century and had been in the family of these people, was part of their estate in that part of Manhattan which was

00:21:14.640 - 00:21:29.340

deteriorating with rapidity. And the toilets were on the outside, in the yard. And finally, it was held up

00:21:29.340 - 00:21:49.100

because they couldn't find the address of the man who owned the last remaining house. Finally, they did. They traced him to a shipyard in Scotland or something.

00:21:49.120 - 00:21:58.880

The remaining house of a group that she was trying to put together. That's exactly right. And it was the most difficult kind of thing.

00:21:59.840 - 00:22:09.880

But what she wanted also was to make sure that... Where these houses, contiguous, were they? Contiguous. Uh-huh.

00:22:11.000 - 00:22:30.200

From 280 West 11th to around the corner, Bleecker Street and so on. And they... What was their intention in trying to get them together? The belief that they could do more

00:22:30.200 - 00:22:40.600

for each other at a comparatively low cost because this was a much more wanted tract of land. They were going to buy all the houses together.

00:22:41.760 - 00:22:54.060

And whatever the phrase is, they released their rights to it. In return for which they gave the backyard, it became a playground.

00:22:55.560 - 00:23:13.120

The roof of one of the houses became something for the children, the younger children. They were going to own shares in this, what was to be a co-op? I don't know exactly what the – but that's the approximate truth.

00:23:14.920 - 00:23:29.120

And some of the holdouts, like, they had their pains in the neck as we have here in Bannockburn. And all the rest of all this, the Depression came.

00:23:29.120 - 00:23:36.980

Depression. Hit. These were the kind of people who hit hard.

00:23:38.560 - 00:23:48.480

One was the vice president of Bosch Magneto, another was an artist. The vice president of what? Bosch Magneto. Bosch Magneto.

00:23:50.840 - 00:24:13.040

A German held the company, which had to be severed from the rest of it. So, she...That too gave her experience and the difficulties that come from having people pool their interests.

00:24:16.260 - 00:24:28.260

What happened when the Depression hit? Did they have to abandon the idea? No, they made it just under the wire. And they sent her a letter when

00:24:28.260 - 00:24:53.760

she left that project, signed by all the people, "And thank God for Mary Fox, she at least saved us during the Depression." I mean, they had their property free and clear, which indicates a certain amount of wealth that they had, which was rapidly dwindling.

00:24:55.020 - 00:25:03.100

But also the technique of persuasion was a very important weapon. What the technique, I don't know. I couldn't tell exactly.

00:25:06.420 - 00:25:35.080

In the meantime, in late 1929, Mary had become Executive Director of the LID, League for Industrial Democracy, and which brought together students in various activities, and which also brought Alice Dodge into the picture

00:25:35.080 - 00:25:47.400

because she was one of the students that came in for the summer school, who later became Jack Herling, Mrs. Jack Herling. This Alice? Yeah. That's interesting.

00:25:47.400 - 00:26:01.920

That's your second wife. I'm just bridging the two generations. Yeah, you're jumping ahead quite a bit. You were a student of Mary's then? Well, yes.

00:26:02.680 - 00:26:14.440

In a sense, yes. And admirer of her. So I met Jack 54 years ago. But we didn't get married til 50

00:26:14.440 - 00:26:21.260

years later. That's true friendship. Yes. In the meantime, she took time out

00:26:21.260 - 00:26:40.730

to get married herself and have three sons, all of them very fine guys. Anyway, so there was a kind of consortium of interest and out of it came a knowledge of people in

00:26:40.730 - 00:27:14.120

the throes of creative living, and she was, it fructified, made more fruitful the whole operation of the LID, because she was also on the board of the Teacher's--Theatre Union, which meant the Yves Saint-Gallien Theatre.

00:27:17.200 - 00:27:58.190

This was all in New York? In New York. And she was active in labor, people generally. She made it clear that the LID, and I'm gonna say a word here, the importance of LID is like one that brought us to a brought you to

00:27:58.190 - 00:28:20.240

a...how shall I say it? A pattern of activity in New York. And Mary was always on the committees. She made it clear when the Scottsboro Boys were involved. Let's have a little explanation about this LID.

00:28:21.220 - 00:28:44.650

Who founded it and what was the basic purpose for it? The LID was founded in 1905. The founders were very brilliant people, known for many things, especially pursuits in their own

00:28:44.650 - 00:29:02.340

patterns. The founders, one of the founders of 1905, now this was the second term practically of Theodore Roosevelt.

00:29:03.420 - 00:29:13.740

It was a progressive era, the well-known progressive era. They were not sympathetic to Roosevelt as such.

00:29:14.100 - 00:29:24.600

They were mainly socialists. Did they form the basis of the Socialist Political Party? No. The party pre-existed that. The party pre-existed?

00:29:24.680 - 00:29:33.940

Yes. So they weren't a political party? Well, no, they were education for a new social order. That was a part of the slogan.

00:29:35.800 - 00:29:57.680

But among the people who founded this thing was Upton Sinclair, Jack London. Norman Thomas was not yet a socialist. Was he one of the founders? No. He was at Princeton.

00:30:01.400 - 00:30:20.400

He didn't graduate from Princeton until 1905. He was going to be a minister, and he became very shortly a powerful voice in the community. He was a handsome man.

00:30:20.600 - 00:30:39.500

Have you ever seen Norman? I think I've seen pictures of him. Pictures. In the next ten years, In 1916, he quit the church.

00:30:45.040 - 00:31:15.600

James H. Mora, who was the president of the Pennsylvania Labor Federation, said, "When everybody was running away from us, Norman came walking in toward us.' The time of testing, he was there.

00:31:16.800 - 00:31:26.540

So back to Mary, then we're up to in the '30s, she was still active in the [lid]. She was secretary of the Thomas President Committee.

00:31:31.240 - 00:31:51.560

Paul Douglas was the chairman. Douglas was the chairman, and they then organized the most brilliant association of people you ever heard of. And this became a testing place for student activities all over

00:31:51.560 - 00:32:06.780

the country. By this time also there was a split in the Socialist Party. The Communists and Socialists

00:32:07.660 - 00:32:20.860

fought over the spoils and that came, it was a bloody period of, bloody in two senses of the word. There was some violence of some of the people.

00:32:23.500 - 00:32:42.620

Not, I don't think, any Socialists were involved in that. But the Communists were trying to wrest as much of the Socialist Union's treasury as they could

00:32:42.620 - 00:32:51.360

get. What do you mean, wrest the treasury? You mean they were trying to get the funds? Get the funds, get the personnel

00:32:51.580 - 00:33:13.090

by intimidation in other ways. And Norman was important here because he was important to the future of Bannockburn, I think. So she was working for Norman Thomas in the '30s?

00:33:14.060 - 00:33:28.680

Well, it was a representative organization, yeah. She was very much in charge. As freed-- Norman Thomas, for other work, you didn't have to worry about raising money.

00:33:29.960 - 00:33:40.440

And spend most of the time raising money. You could write articles and do creative work. She was running the Socialist, she was ministering the socialist party.

00:33:40.440 - 00:33:53.400

Not the Socialist party, no. The LID was kept very separate. Separate, okay. But that permitted a larger embrace of people who were

00:33:53.400 - 00:34:22.560

interested in socialist ideals or sous humain ideals, but didn't give a damn about the party or any party as such. The people that came to know her when people like Elmer Davis, who was the Chairman and Director of Information under Roosevelt,

00:34:24.060 - 00:34:59.940

Reinhold Niebuhr, he thought up the wonderful idea of having, when the Wintergreen for President was, remember that movie, that movie, the play, you know what I mean, and Throttlebottom, the vice president, well Mary got the students and others to work up a

00:35:02.420 - 00:35:27.180

large dinner, a large luncheon, a large dinner, large, you know, a large luncheon, which brought her into contact with the political life in the world. Le Guali would always try to get

00:35:27.180 - 00:35:43.060

married and work in the city. No thanks. My job was much bigger than that. I must tell you, in reply to your

00:35:43.480 - 00:36:13.680

asking about the founding of the LID, one of the younger students at the founding convention was Harry Laidler, who later on became the co-director with Norman Thomas of the LID. How do you spell that? L-A-D-L-E-R?

00:36:14.440 - 00:36:35.400

L-A-I-D-L-E-R. L-A-I-D-L-E-R. And he told me once, he said, we met at a place down on Wall Street, 5 someplace, and Harry said, "I was a student at Wesleyan

00:36:35.400 - 00:36:52.620

University," then I think Wesleyan College in Connecticut. And he said, "It may make up my mind. Here there's this meeting of being held of all these great people, they had power in their hands.

00:36:53.900 - 00:37:08.400

And what was I, going back to college? I didn't want to be caught with the revolution happening when I'm Wesleyan." That was that kind of optimistic spirit that also a little bit

00:37:08.400 - 00:37:31.360

lacking in circle, but that was part of the situation. Then there was, I was going to say an infinite variety, of course there's a finite to this. Came the whole fight for the

00:37:34.060 - 00:38:06.860

German Jewish socialists of all countries when Hitler came in. And A novenary committee was organized called, what was it called, American, roughly American Society for a Free Germany. And that was very important.

00:38:06.860 - 00:38:38.000

Because from there it's branched out into a, a practically universal character. She arranged for visitors to come here of various kinds. Money was raised, very heavy money was raised.

00:38:39.440 - 00:39:14.200

She was arranged in a lot of private meetings that made it possible. And Frank Stafford Kirch was the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

00:39:15.040 - 00:39:43.040

He was one of the great lawyers of the labor party. And there was a contact with the underground. Some of our people went to Germany and those that had a German background could talk German or look German or whatever.

00:39:44.420 - 00:40:23.160

It was a very dangerous proceeding. Many of them came to New York when they got their visas finally. These were Germans? Yeah, Germans, yeah. They vary from the very rich Jews to the poor ones, the

00:40:23.520 - 00:40:41.830

poverty-stricken ones, the people who never believed that some Jews were just poor, but just as worthy. Were they all Jews? No. Oh, no. They came over in the '30s.

00:40:42.040 - 00:40:54.000

In the '30s. And we would--many of them carrying a telegram to Mary Fox, 61 Morton Street. We had an apartment-- Were you

00:40:54.000 - 00:41:06.900

married at that time to Mary? Not yet. Not yet. But wanted to be. Was she separated from her first husband?

00:41:06.900 - 00:41:35.720

No. They were divorced after three years of marriage. And so that was the whole thing. There was a splintering. I had a slight job in connection with that.

00:41:35.720 - 00:41:58.580

I was on the staff, publication staff for the LID. And I was, I dreamt up the idea of having somebody meet these people before they reach New York, get down on the Coast Guard cutter, you know, where they're being lined up for processing to get

00:41:58.580 - 00:42:30.730

into the country. And Paul Hertz was the creator of the underground. Paul Hertz?

00:42:30.730 - 00:42:42.320

H-E-R-Z. H-E-R-Z. Later on, after the war was over, he became the Deputy Mayor of Berlin.

00:42:44.340 - 00:42:57.850

Billy Bront was his protege. Really quite an interesting setup. Was he one of the ones who came over in this group, or was he one of the ones in America who was

00:42:57.850 - 00:43:09.260

active in the group? One of those who came over from Germany. He was the paymaster in Czechoslovakia and required...

00:43:11.580 - 00:43:39.120

At this point I will not stray from the essential question of how come Mary had this knowledge of the goings and comings of quite well-placed people whose integrity was beyond question, beyond reproach.

00:43:45.180 - 00:44:12.440

We were married in 1937. And so much to everybody's distress, she decided at that time that the way that Jack is employed is where,--of course, by that time I was half, unemployed about half

00:44:12.440 - 00:44:20.240

the time. She had plenty of time for research. Where were you living then?

00:44:21.020 - 00:44:31.820

New York. And she was a credential to the community. Now, notice two things.

00:44:32.120 - 00:44:54.480

Two things. One, she had an experience in New York which resulted in the creation of the 11th Street Oblique Gardens, which I told you about, people who brought their

00:44:54.480 - 00:45:02.860

pool of their interest. This was the one in Greenwichville? Yes, Greenwichville. And whatever happened to that, it stayed as a— It still stays.

00:45:02.860 - 00:45:20.040

I think what they now have done is... I think just as here, we began by having it as a cooperative. But as Mary said, it's not a cooperative really. We shouldn't claim it to be.

00:45:20.240 - 00:45:36.820

We're not good enough to be cooperators. Because people raise the point that they want all the advantages of cooperation and none of the

00:45:36.820 - 00:45:43.420

responsibilities. So did each one own their own house? Now they do. Now they do.

00:45:45.040 - 00:45:59.040

But she wanted to avoid mixing the breed. When you'll result in a great many things that we may not like.

00:46:00.160 - 00:46:26.910

I can't foretell what those could be. One of the things we developed, I'm now skipping, was the organization of about 1942, '43,

00:46:26.910 - 00:46:48.560

the about 1942, '43, created the Group Housing Committee. Where is that, in New York? No, in Washington. And Mary, by this time, had a job in the government as a, in the early '40s, as the Assistant Director of the Cooperative

00:46:48.560 - 00:46:57.420

Housing and the war effort. So she did a certain amount of traveling around.