Freda
Kirchwey was born at Lake Placid on 26th September, 1893. Her father,
George Washington Kirchwey, was a professor at the Columbia University
Law School. A pacifist, Kirchwey helped
establish the New York Peace Society in 1906. He also supported women's
suffrage and the development of trade unions.
Kirchwey
went to Barnard College (1911-15) where she was taught by Charles
Beard and Frank Boas. She became politically
active and was a member of the Woman's Peace
Party and
sold the Woman Voter on
the streets of New York.
After
graduating in 1915 she became a reporter for the New
York Morning Telegraph. Later that year she married Evans
Clark, who worked as research director and legislative secretary for
the Socialist members
of the New York City Board of Aldermen.
After
working for Every Week Magazine
(1917-18) and the New York Tribune
(1918) she was recruited by Oswald Garrison
Villard to
work for The Nation. Others working
for the journal at that time included Norman
Thomas
and Emily
Balch.
In
her articles for the journal Kirchwey argued passionately against
American support for the forces fighting the Bolshevik
government in Russia. She also gave her help
to Margaret Sanger in
her campaign for the dissemination of birth control information.
In
November 1922 Kirchwey was promoted to Managing Editor. In this role
she commissioned articles by Bertrand Russell,
Elsie Clews Parsons, Raymond
Gram Swing, Heywood Broun, Floyd
Dell, Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
Max Eastman, Henry
Louis Mencken and
Louis Fischer.
Kirchwey
also joined John Dos Passos, Alice
Hamilton, Paul Kellog, Jane
Addams, Heywood Broun, Upton
Sinclair, Dorothy Parker, Ben
Shahn, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Felix
Frankfurter, John Howard Lawson,
Floyd Dell, Bertrand
Russell, George Bernard Shaw and H.
G. Wells
in the campaign to save the lives of Bartolomeo
Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco.
Kirchwey
and her husband, Evans Clark, worked closely with Charles Garland,
who inherited a considerable fortune in 1922. A socialist,
Garland decided to set up an institution to dispense money to radical,
liberal and trade union causes. Over the next few years the American
Fund for Public Service provided financial help to the National
Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in its campaign
against lynching, subsidized the radical
magazine New Masses and aided the
defence of arrested trade union leaders.
On
his retirement in January 1933, Oswald Garrison
Villard appointed Kirchwey as editor of the The
Nation Villard remained the publisher, but Kirchwey now had
complete control over the content of the journal. Although she had
campaigned for Norman Thomas for president,
she supported Franklin D. Roosevelt
and his New Deal programme.
Over
the next few years she used her power to campaign against the fascist
regimes in Europe. When Adolf Hitler gained
power in 1933 she wrote that he represented "the abolition of
personal liberty, for prejudice, for reaction, for race hatred and
persecution, for terror and murder." Kirchwey argued that the
United States should abandon its policy of isolationism and urged
the government to impose economic boycotts on Germany
and Italy.
Kirchwey
also advocated a close alliance with the Soviet
Union against Nazi Germany. In
August 1935 she warned "that
the basic conflict of the next ten years will not be between capitalism
and revolution but between fascism and democracy - a struggle in which
the forces of revolution must support." However, Kirchwey's views
on the soviet government were dramatically shaken by the Great
Purge when some of her political friends were executed by Joseph
Stalin.
Kirchwey
also wanted the United States administration to aid republicans in
Spain
against General Francisco Franco.
In an article she wrote entitled Spain is
the Key in February 1937 she made the forecast that "Franco's
success would encourage the Nazis to go and do likewise in Czechoslovakia,
Danzig, the Polish Corridor, or anywhere else. Defeated in Spain,
Hitler would be sobered and checked. He would also be weakened by
the expenditure on Franco of several hundred million dollars. If the
fascists are beaten in Spain, they are weakened everywhere. The supreme
test of an anti-fascist is not what he says but what he does for Spain."
On 2nd
February, 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt
made a speech attacking the Supreme Court
for its actions over New Deal legislation.
He pointed out that seven of the nine judges (Charles
Hughes, Willis Van Devanter, George
Sutherland, Harlan Stone, Owen
Roberts, Benjamin Cardozo and Pierce
Butler) had been appointed by Republican
presidents. Roosevelt had just won re-election by 10,000,000 votes
and resented the fact that the justices could veto legislation that
clearly had the support of the vast majority of the public.
Roosevelt suggested that the age was a major problem as six of the
judges were over 70 (Charles Hughes,
Willis Van Devanter, James
McReynolds, Louis Brandeis, George
Sutherland and Pierce Butler). Roosevelt
announced that he was going to ask Congress to pass a bill enabling
the president to expand the Supreme Court
by adding one new judge, up to a maximum off six, for every current
judge over the age of 70.
Kirchwey
supported Roosevelt and in an editorial in The
Nation
she wrote "The soil of economic chaos out of which fascism grows
has been amply supplied by the court's refusal to allow national action
for economic control." This upset her publisher, Oswald
Garrison Villard,
who believed that the president was wrong to try and control the decisions
of the Supreme Court. Kirchwey refused
to change her stance on this issue and to maintain her independence
she decided to try and buy the journal. In June 1937, Kirchwey and
her husband purchased it for $20,000.
In
1938 Congress established the House of Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) to investigate people suspected of
unpatriotic behaviour. Kirchwey believed that the setting up of the
HUAC was an attempt to restrict the freedom of the press and she accused
Martin Dies, its chairman,
as a "one-man Gestapo from Texas." She added that "Dies
isn't after sedition; he is after you and me and the President."
After
the outbreak of the Second World War Kirchwey
campaigned for the United
States to give more help to Jews trying to escape from persecution
in Germany and the occupied territories.
She wrote in January 1940 that "thousands of European Jews will
die, unnecessarily, if we do not reach them with our life-giving dollars."
Kirchwey
also called for universal military training in the United
States. This upset Oswald
Garrison Villard who severed all ties with the journal
and stopped writing his weekly column, Personal and Private.
Kirchwey's articles in favour of American support for the Allies against
Nazi Germany lost the journal a large
number of readers. She refused to compromise her views and in August
1941 wrote: "Before its total, uncompromising demands are laid
upon them, the people of America must learn that this war is their
war; that they cannot dodge it or buy their way out of it; that they
must fight it because fighting is the only alternative to surrender.
By
January 1942 over half a million Jews had
been exterminated in Europe. This received little coverage in newspapers
in the United States. This was not true of The
Nation
and
the journal published a series of articles by Philip S. Bernstein
detailing what was happening in the concentration
camps being run by the Schutzstaffel (SS).
Kirchwey
upset many liberals in March 1942 by arguing in favour of the fascist
being suppressed. Her long time friend Norman
Thomas wrote
to her pointing out: "
In ten years or less it won't be the people you want to suppress now
who will be suppressed and stay suppressed by your theory; it will
be yourselves along with many others, unless, indeed, you want to
go farther than I think you do in support of a Roosevelt totalitarianism.
Don't forget that neither Roosevelt nor anybody else is immortal.
The principles once established are apt to outlive men."
When
the American Civil Rights Union
(ACLU)
decided to defend the freedom of the fascist press she resigned her
membership. John Haynes Holmes wrote
to her explaining the decision of the ACLU: "I would fight to
the death to maintain their (fascists) liberties, not for their own
sake, but for the sake of a democracy which disappears when such
liberties are withdrawn. Indeed, it is no longer a democracy, but
to the extent at least that civil liberties are denied, has already
itself become a fascist state.
The
Nation
continued to lose money and was in danger of closing. In 1943 Kirchwey
made an appeal for $25,000 to keep it in business. The readers raised
$36,000 and the money was used to establish Nation Associates. This
new organization published the journal and arranged political conferences.
After
the war Kirchwey was criticized for of her support of the Soviet
Union. When long time staff member Louis
Fischer resigned
over this issue, Kirchwey wrote in the journal: "We
believe Russian policy is primarily a security policy, not an imperialist
one; it can become dangerous to the world, therefore, only if Russia
decides that the other major powers are plotting against it."
Kirchwey
was one of America's strongest critics of McCarthyism.
In one article written in June 1950 she defined McCarthyism as "the
means by which a handful of men, disguised as hunters of subversion,
cynically subvert the instruments of justice and hold up to contempt
the government itself in order to help their own political fortunes."
In September
1955 Kirchwey retired as editor of The
Nation
and was replaced by Carey McWilliams.
Over the next few years she was active in the National
Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
Freda
Kirchwey
died at St. Petersburg, Florida on 3rd January, 1976.
(1)
Freda Kirchwey, The Nation
(November, 1923)
In a world that is sick with the diseases that breed from capitalist-imperialism,
the virility of Russia may hold out the best hope for civilization.
(2)
Freda Kirchwey, The Nation
(December, 1926)
The women's revolution may mark the first half of this century more
deeply than any other social change. The emotional conflicts that
confront the modern woman, the profound choices that are forced upon
her, the subtle interactions in home
life, in the relations of the sexes, in factory and office are here
discussed lightly yet with informed wisdom.
I look
forward to a future when women shall have found their sea legs and
the impressive activities of the advancing women of today will seem
like the earnest and awkward yet somehow promising movements of a
land lubber on his first day out.
(3)
Freda Kirchwey visited England in 1927. She wrote about her experiences
in The Nation
(August, 1927)
Labour, stubborn and resentful, flinging itself against a smooth wall
of bland, assured conservatism, helpless to win from its opponents
understanding of something which, after all, cannot be understood
but must be felt; the Government, polite,
almost playful, appearing to listen and weigh and reason, and then
at the end falling back on the unimpeachable argument of its huge
majority.
(4)
Freda Kirchwey was in Germany during the
last few weeks before Bartolomeo
Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco were
executed. She wrote about her reaction to the execution in The
Nation (28th August, 1927)
We've hardly talked about it - but every time we got within range
of a newspaper we've rushed to it hoping, without any real hope that
some miracle of mercy would have descended on the Governor or someone
else. It was hard to sleep through some of those nights. And everywhere
we went - from Paris and Berlin to Heiligenblut in the Austrian Tyrol
- people talked to us about it with horror and a complete inability
to understand. This was true of people without any political feeling
in the matter - casual companions in a railway compartment or in a
hotel office. And now they're dead. In spite of riots and bitter resentment,
I feel, in people and in myself a distinct relief that, if it had
to be, it is done. Anything is better than that strain of waiting.
(5)
Freda Kirchwey, lecture at the New School for Social Research (6th
January, 1931)
No single aspect of recent social development has given rise to such
exaggerated hopes and fears as the entry of woman upon a wide variety
of independent careers, in industry, business and the professions.
Economic independence for women has now become so solidly established
a fact that the debate pro and con must give way to a deliberate examination
of the opportunities open to women, the various methods of reconciling
the business or professional position in the family; psychological
consequences of the new activities upon women; the effect upon established
institutions.
(6)
Raymond Gram Swing, The
Nation (20th March, 1933)
Their programs (Huey P. Long and Charles Coughlin), for all their
glamorous radical sound, are capitalist radicalism. For fascism is
the reorganization of society by undemocratic means to maintain the
capitalist system. It is a movement, first of all, of passion and
prejudice, growing out of the despair of disillusioned. Impoverished
people. Then comes the collusion between demagogue and big business.
(7)
W. A. White, letter
to Oswald
Garrison Villard
, complaining about Freda Kirchwey's support for Franklin
D. Roosevelt in his struggle with the Supreme
Court (20th March, 1933)
It is unthinkable that a progressive and liberal journal should actually
advocate any plan by which new judges are placed on our supreme tribunal
who will decide cases on instructions, or who will be believed to
have decided them on this basis.
(8)
Freda Kirchwey, The Nation
(August, 1935)
It may well be that the basic conflict of the next ten years will
not be between capitalism and revolution but between fascism and democracy
- a struggle in which the forces of revolution must support and win
the support of all the friends of democracy, while the forces of capitalism
will gradually, and often unwillingly, form an alliance with the cohorts
of fascism.
(9)
Freda Kirchwey, The Nation
(February, 1937)
Franco's success would encourage the Nazis to go and do likewise in
Czechoslovakia, Danzig, the Polish Corridor, or anywhere else. Defeated
in Spain, Hitler would be sobered and checked. He would also be weakened
by the expenditure on Franco of several hundred million dollars. If
the fascists are beaten in Spain, they are weakened everywhere. The
supreme test of an antifascist is not what he says but what he does
for Spain.
(10)
Freda Kirchwey, The Nation
(March, 1938)
The trial of Bukharin and his fellow oppositionists has broken about
the ears of the world like the detonation of a bomb. One can hear
the cracking of liberal hopes; of the dream of antifascist unity;
of a whole system of revolutionary philosophy wherever democracy is
threatened, the significance of the trial will be anxiously weighed.
In spite
of the trials, I believe Russia is dependable; that it wants peace,
and will join in any joint effort to check Hitler and Mussolini, and
will also fight if necessary. Russia is still the strongest reason
for hope.
(11)
Freda Kirchwey, The Nation
(April, 1939)
We surrendered our chance to mind our business in Spain; we were too
intent on keeping out of trouble and minding Chamberlain's business.
We allowed democracy to be slaughtered in Spain. Today the United
States is the grand arsenal for triumphant fascism. It is our business
to stop providing these three aggressors with arms and the goods necessary
to the manufacture of arms and the conduct of war.
(12)
Freda Kirchwey, The
Nation (October, 1939)
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of democracy.
We have not gone to war, and no excuse exists for wartime hysteria.
Neither Communists nor even (German-American) Bundists are enemy agents.
They deserve to be watched but not to be persecuted. The real danger
is that general detestation of Communists and Bundists will lead to
acts of outright repression supported not only by reactionaries but
by disgusted liberals. Democracy was not invented as a luxury to be
indulged in only in times of calm and stability. It is a pliable,
tough-fibered technique especially useful when times are hard. Only
a weak and distrustful American could today advocate measures of repression
and coercion, or encourage a mood of panic. Now is the time to demonstrate
the resilience of our institutions. Now is the time to deal with dissent
calmly and with full respect for its rights.
(13)
Freda Kirchwey, The
Nation (April, 1940)
At what moment does it become necessary to limit the freedom of everyone
in order to suppress the danger lurking in a disloyal handful. The
moment for drastic repression has not arrived, and the task of liberals
in America is difficult but clear. They must fight to preserve the
democratic safeguards contained in the Bill of Rights, while applying
to Nazis and their supporters the equally democratic methods of exposure,
counter-propaganda, and justified legal attack. Otherwise the Nazi
invasion of Norway is likely to end in a victory for Martin Dies in
America.
(14)
Freda Kirchwey, The Nation
(August, 1941)
Before its total, uncompromising demands are laid upon them, the people
of America must learn that this war is their war; that they cannot
dodge it or buy their way out of it; that they must fight it because
fighting is the only alternative to
surrender.
(15)
In March 1942 Freda Kirchwey argued in The
Nation that the fascist press should be banned in the
United States. In a letter to Kirchwey, Norman
Thomas objected to this point of view (3rd April, 1942)
It is a
rather terrible thing that liberals should now be the spokesmen for
a jittery program which, if it means anything, can only be interpreted
to mean no criticism of the Administration except from us. In ten
years or less it won't be the people you want to suppress now who
will be suppressed and stay suppressed by your theory; it will be
yourselves along with many others, unless, indeed, you want to go
farther than I think you do in support of a Roosevelt totalitarianism.
Don't forget that neither Roosevelt nor anybody else is immortal.
The principles once established are apt to outlive men.
(16)
Statement published by the staff of The
Nation in October 1944.
It is
one thing to expound high principles in print week by week. It is
another to put them into practice day by day. And we who work with
Freda Kirchwey think it relevant to depose and say that her liberalism
begins at home. As editor-in-chief she has had the wisdom and courage
to establish a genuine working democracy of which the tone and temper
are set by her own respect for other individuals and their opinions,
her humor, and her sense of fair play. As employer her sympathy and
understanding for every human problem have won for her the freely
given loyalty and friendship of every worker in the shop. In The Nation
world liberty, equality, and fraternity, the four freedoms, collective
security, and the union shop prevail. We who work in it find it good.
We recommend it to the larger world, and on this, the twenty-fifth
anniversary of her connection with The Nation we salute Freda Kirchwey
as editor and as human being.
(17)
Louis
Fischer resigned from The
Nation after a dispute with Freda Kirchwey, over the
reporting of the situation in the Soviet Union.
Kirchwey replied to this charge in the journal published on 2nd June
1945.
We assume that he is charging The Nation with a bias in favor of Russia
and of communism. We suppose he considers that to be our "line."
We suppose he is charging us with ignoring, out of "expediency,"
the bad behavior of the Soviet Union; of failing out of policy to
denounce the Soviet power for suppressing "small, weak states".
We can only answer quite flatly that he is wrong. We say what we believe.
What we believe is very different from what Mr. Fischer believes.
We believe
Russian policy is primarily a security policy, not an imperialist
one; it can become dangerous to the world, therefore, only if Russia
decides that the other major powers are plotting against it. It would
be dishonest to pretend that we think Russia's foreign policy is as
great a threat to the basic purpose of destroying fascism and its
political and economic roots as is the foreign policy of Britain and
the United States.
(18)
Freda Kirchwey, The
Nation (18th August, 1945)
The bomb that hurried Russia into Far Eastern war a week ahead of
schedule and drove Japan to surrender has accomplished the specific
job for which it was created. From the point of view of military strategy,
$2,000,000,000 (the cost of the bomb and the cost of nine days of
war) was never better spent. The suffering, the wholesale slaughter
it entailed, have been outweighed by its spectacular success; Allied
leaders can rightly claim that the loss of life on both sides would
have been many times greater if the atomic bomb had not been used
and Japan had gone on fighting. There is no answer to this argument.
The danger is that it will encourage those in power to assume that,
once accepted as valid, the argument can be applied equally well in
the future. If that assumption should be permitted, the chance of
saving civilization - perhaps the world itself - from destruction
is a remote one.
(19)
Freda Kirchwey, The
Nation (18th August, 1945)
The Nation celebrates its Eighty-fifth Anniversary in a sober mood.
Today only one subject is important - the possibility of averting
a general war which would wipe out, impartially, the institutions
of civilized life and the forces that threaten them this symposium
is presented as a positive contribution to the broadening of the discussion
of peace or war in the knowledge that for all nations the issue is
survival.
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