Garland Fund

Last updated
Portrait of Charles Garland from 1922, the year he endowed the fund Charles Garland (1922).png
Portrait of Charles Garland from 1922, the year he endowed the fund

The American Fund for Public Service, commonly known as the Garland Fund, was a philanthropic organization established in 1922 by Charles Garland. The fund, administered by a group of trustees headed by Roger Baldwin of the American Civil Liberties Union, ultimately disbursed some $2 Million to a variety of radical and left wing institutions, including the Federated Press labor news service, the Vanguard Press publishing house, The New Masses magazine, The World Tomorrow magazine, and to the legal defense fund associated with the 1926 Passaic Textile Strike, as well as a host of similar projects. The fund was terminated in 1941.

Contents

Institutional history

Establishment of the fund

In 1920, Charles Garland informed the executor of his father's estate that he would refuse to accept a $1 Million inheritance from the estate of his deceased father. Garland explained to a reporter at the time that he would not accept money from "a system which starves thousands while hundreds are stuffed" and which "leaves a sick woman helpless and offers its services to a healthy man." [1] Garland indicated to this reporter that he was not refusing to accept these funds because of socialist beliefs, but rather because as part of his study of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the works of Leo Tolstoy and H.G. Wells, he had come to the earnest belief that the money "is not mine." [1]

Hearing of the young man's decision to refuse his inheritance and his rationale, the socialist author Upton Sinclair urged Garland to accept the money not for his personal gain, but rather to put it to a higher use. Sinclair suggested making $100,000 donations to a set of specific organizations seeking to change the economic and social system of which Garland disapproved. These organizations favored by Sinclair included The Liberator magazine, the socialist daily newspaper The New York Call, the communist daily newspaper The Daily Worker, the Federated Press news service, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Union Against Militarism, and the magazine edited by 1916 Socialist Party Presidential candidate Allan L. Benson, Reconstruction. [2] While Garland did not immediately take action upon this suggestion, it seems as though the idea of accepting the inheritance in the name of establishing a radical philanthropic organization derives from this time.

In 1921, Garland was approached by Roger Baldwin, head of the American Civil Liberties Union, probably through ACLU attorney Walter Nelles, a law partner of Swinburne Hale, who had recently married Garland's widowed mother. [3] Baldwin convinced Garland to accept his father's inheritance and to establish with it a "national trust fund" which would aid efforts to expand "individual liberty and the power of voluntary associations." [4]

On July 5, 1921, the American Fund for Public Service was formally incorporated by Lewis Gannett of the New York World, Robert Morss Lovett of the University of Chicago, and Roger Baldwin. [5] In July 1922, it was formally announced that Garland would use $800,000 of his inheritance to endow the fund. [6] The money behind the fund was held in the form of securities at the First National Bank of New York. [5] In preparation for the task of distributing the funds, Roger Baldwin reached out to the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Russell Sage foundations to determine how those philanthropies handled grant requests. [5]

The board of directors included Roger Baldwin, H. H. Broach, Robert W. Dunn, Morris L. Ernst, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, William Z. Foster, Lewis Gannett, Benjamin Gitlow, Clinton S. Golden, James Weldon Johnson, Freda Kirchwey, Clarina Michelson, Robert Morss Lovett, Scott Nearing, and Norman M. Thomas.

While the board of directors in charge of distributing grants from the Garland Fund exhibited great cooperation during its initial phase, gradually the fratricidal hostility which characterized American radical politics in the 1920s made its way into the board's discussions. The board seemed to split between a Communist left and Socialist right wings, with a small number of centrists tipping the balance. [7]

After the successful establishment of the fund, Garland "took up a farmer's life." [8]

Notable contributions by the fund

From an early date the Garland Fund's board of directors determined not to give money directly to political parties, instead targeting funds to groups or institutions engaged in original groundbreaking efforts on behalf of the working class or oppressed minority groups. [9] Some of the institutions receiving significant financial injections included the Rand School of Social Science, Brookwood Labor College, the Furrier's Union, and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. [9]

At end of the 1920s, the Garland Fund earmarked a fund for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to finance "a large-scale, wide-spread, dramatic campaign to give the Southern Negro his constitutional rights, his political and civil equality, and therewith a self-consciousness and self-respect which would inevitably tend to effect a revolution in the economic life of the country. . ." [10] The lawyer Nathan Ross Margold was retained by the NAACP to lead the legal drive based on these. He produced the Margold Report, outlining a different strategy for a legal drive funded by the Garland Fund. Based on this strategy, he argued Nixon v. Condon in front of the Supreme Court and won, overturning a Texas state strategy to exclude blacks from voting in national primaries. The Texas Democratic party was quick to adjust, however, finding a new way to circumvent the law, demonstrating the weakness of Margold's strategy. [8] After granting almost $20,000 of the $100,000 initially earmarked for the NAACP, the fund ended its support - the stock-market crash had demolished much of the fund's resources. [8]

Termination of the fund

On June 18, 1941, the board of directors of the American Fund for Public Service announced that it had voted to terminate the fund, returning its "few remaining assets" to Charles Garland. Garland was assigned $24,626.18 in outstanding loans, as well as the organization's final cash balance of $1,619.13. [11] Over the course of its 19-year existence, the Garland fund had contributed nearly $2 Million to almost 100 enterprises. [11]

Beneficiaries and clients of the fund

Related Research Articles

American Civil Liberties Union Legal advocacy organization in the United States

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying and it has over 1,200,000 members and an annual budget of over $300 million. Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases when it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation.

Crystal Eastman American lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist and socialist activist and journalist

Crystal Catherine Eastman (June 25, 1881 – July 28, 1928 was an American lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. She is best remembered as a leader in the fight for women's suffrage, as a co-founder and co-editor with her brother Max Eastman of the radical arts and politics magazine The Liberator, co-founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and co-founder in 1920 of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2000 she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

Farmer–Labor Party American political party

The first modern Farmer–Labor Party in the United States emerged in Minnesota in 1918. Economic dislocation caused by American entry into World War I put agricultural prices and workers' wages into imbalance with rapidly escalating retail prices during the war years, and farmers and workers sought to make common cause in the political sphere to redress their grievances.

Roger Nash Baldwin American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) co-founder

Roger Nash Baldwin was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He served as executive director of the ACLU until 1950.

The American Union Against Militarism (AUAM) was an American pacifist organization established in response to World War I. The organization attempted to keep the United States out of the European conflict through mass demonstrations, public lectures, and the printed word. Failing in that effort with American entry into the war in April 1917, the Union battled against conscription, action which subjected it to state repression, and military intervention. The organization was eventually dissolved after the war in 1922.

The National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB) was an American civil rights organization founded in 1917, dedicated to opposing World War I, and specifically focusing on assisting conscientious objectors.

WEVD Former radio station in New York City

WEVD was an American brokered programming radio station with some news-talk launched in August 1927 by the Socialist Party of America. Making use of the initials of recently deceased party leader Eugene Victor Debs in its call sign, the station operated from Woodhaven in the New York City borough of Queens. The station was purchased with a $250,000 radio fund raised by the Socialist Party in its largest fundraising effort of the 1920s and was intended as spreading progressive ideas to a mass audience. A number of national trade unions and other institutions aided the Socialists in obtaining the station.

Brookwood Labor College

Brookwood Labor College was a labor college located at 109 Cedar Road in Katonah, New York, United States. Founded as Brookwood School in 1919 and established as a college in 1921, it was the first residential labor college in the country. Its founding and longest-serving president was A. J. Muste. The school was supported by affiliate unions of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) until 1928.

Walter Nelles (1883–1937) was an American lawyer and law professor. Nelles is best remembered as the co-founder and first chief legal counsel of the National Civil Liberties Bureau and its successor, the American Civil Liberties Union. In this connection, Nelles achieved public notice for his legal work on behalf of pacifists charged with violating the Espionage Act during World War I and in other politically charged civil rights and constitutional law cases in later years.

Federated Press Communist-leaning news service

This is not to be confused with the independent, research-based organization of Toronto, Canada, also called "Federated Press" that targets executives, lawyers, professionals.

<i>New York Call</i>

The New York Call was a socialist daily newspaper published in New York City from 1908 through 1923. The Call was the second of three English-language dailies affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, following the Chicago Daily Socialist (1906–1912) and preceding the Milwaukee Leader (1911–1938).

English-language press of the Communist Party USA Press

During the ten decades since its establishment in 1919, the Communist Party USA produced or inspired a vast array of newspapers and magazines in the English language.

Robert W. Dunn

Robert Williams Dunn (1895–1977), AKA Bob Dunn, was an American political activist and economic researcher. Dunn was an active member of the American Civil Liberties Union from its creation, serving on that group's National Committee from 1923 and on its board of directors from 1933 to 1941. Dunn was the author of a number of books and pamphlets on economic themes relating to the working class published by the Communist Party USA.

Louis B. Boudin American politician

Louis B. Boudin was a Russian-born American Marxist theoretician, writer, politician, and lawyer. He is best remembered as the author of a two volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, first published in 1932.

Workers Defense Union

The Workers Defense Union (WDU) was a legal defense organization in the United States, established in New York City in November 1918 to lend aid in cases involving trade union and radical political activists. The group was organized by Industrial Workers of the World organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, working closely with radical trade unionist Fred Biedenkapp. Both would subsequently become active members of the Workers (Communist) Party of America. The WDU became a local affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920, with Flynn joining the National Committee of that organization, before finally dissolving as an independent entity in 1923.

The International Labor Defense (ILD) (1925–1947) was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the anti-lynching, movements for civil rights, and prominently participated in the defense and legal appeals in the cause célèbre of the Scottsboro Boys in the early 1930s. Its work contributed to the appeal of the Communist Party among African Americans in the South. In addition to fundraising for defense and assisting in defense strategies, from January 1926 it published Labor Defender, a monthly illustrated magazine that achieved wide circulation. In 1946 the ILD was merged with the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties to form the Civil Rights Congress, which served as the new legal defense organization of the Communist Party USA. It intended to expand its appeal, especially to African Americans in the South. In several prominent cases in which blacks had been sentenced to death in the South, the CRC campaigned on behalf of black defendants. It had some conflict with former allies, such as the NAACP, and became increasingly isolated. Because of federal government pressure against organizations it considered subversive, such as the CRC, it became less useful in representing defendants in criminal justice cases. The CRC was dissolved in 1956. At the same time, in this period, black leaders were expanding the activities and reach of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, in a case managed by the NAACP, the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.

Swinburne Hale

Swinburne Hale (1884–1937) was an American lawyer, poet, and socialist, best remembered as one of the leading civil rights attorneys of the decade of the 1920s. Hale was a Harvard College classmate of Roger Nash Baldwin and law partner of Walter Nelles and Isaac Shorr and was active in the establishment and early work of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Hale also played a role in the progressive politics of the early 1920s as a leading member of the Committee of Forty-Eight and a spokesman for the fledgling Farmer-Labor Party.

Heber Blankenhorn was a 20th-Century American journalist and union activist who served on the National Labor Relations Board and recognized decades later by the U.S. Army as both Distinguished Member of the PSYOP Regiment (DMOR) and original "Silver Knight" for his service during both world wars in the "Psychological Operations Regiment."

Evans Clark

Evans Clark (1888–1970) was an American writer strongly committed to first to Communist and Socialist causes and then liberal socio-economic issues, served for a quarter century as first executive director of the Twentieth Century Fund, and was husband of Freda Kirchwey.

Charles Garland (philanthropist) American philanthropist

Charles "Barley" Garland was an American philanthropist.

References

  1. 1 2 Harpers magazine, no. 142 (February 1921), pg. 397. Cited in Gloria Garrett Samson, The American Fund for Public Service: Charles Garland and Radical Philanthropy, 1922-1941. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996; pg. 1.
  2. ↑ Sinclair to Garland, December 2, 1920. Cited in Samson, The American Fund for Public Service, pg. 2.
  3. ↑ Samson, The American Fund for Public Service, pg. 2.
  4. ↑ Samson, The American Fund for Public Service, pp. 2-3.
  5. 1 2 3 Robert C. Cottrell, Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000; pg. 130.
  6. ↑ "Heir to a Million Gives Up $800,000". New York Times: 1, 3. 1922-07-04.
  7. ↑ Cottrell, Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union, pg. 131.
  8. 1 2 3 Kluger, Richard. (2011). Simple Justice : the History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. pp. 132–138. ISBN   978-0-307-54608-1. OCLC   841333634.
  9. 1 2 Cottrell, Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union, pg. 132.
  10. ↑ Hill, Herbert. (1979). Citizen's guide to desegregation : a study of social and legal change in American life. Greenwood Press. p. 57. ISBN   0-8371-5191-0. OCLC   634013084.
  11. 1 2 Samson, The American Fund for Public Service, pg. 219.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.