Clarence Darrow Writes About A Publisher And Prohibition

by Stephen J. Gertz

On October 24, 1931, legendary American lawyer and social reformer Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) wrote to American attorney, civil rights pioneer and president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Arthur Spingarn, about his as yet to be published autobiography.

"The book will be finished this month. As I have said, no contract has been made with any one, but several publishers seem anxious to get it. I do not feel like giving it to Liveright & Co. I have said that I will show it to them, which I will do; still, that is superfluous, if they are not in the running. I presume I could ask each publisher to make an offer, and I could safely give it to the one that makes the best offer; still there are other things to consider. Had I better send a copy of manuscript to you to deliver to them when I send out any others? Have you any idea of the best way to handle the situation? I do not like to make any pretense that I feel is not true, but I think I should put it where I want to, and, of course, since I have given them $1,000.00 and you got me a clean release, I have the right to do it. One of these days I will be in New York, but on account of the other fellow rushing his book out in a hurry – after promising to wait! – I felt that I had better get mine done. With thanks, and best wishes, [signed] Clarence Darrow."

A postscript in holograph reads: "I have a story in this coming Nov. number of Vanity Fair on what one can and can not do to get rid of prohibition. We can not repeal the 18th Amendment. I think my plan has never been published."

Clarence Darrow, the son of pro-suffrage and abolitionist parents, began his celebrated law career in Ohio. He soon found himself defending anarchists, union leaders and murderers. His slow, shambling demeanor belied a brilliant mind, evident in his spectacular defense in the 1924 Leopold-Loeb murder trial and the famous Scopes trial of 1925, the latter upholding the right to teach the theory of evolution. Among Darrow’s high-profile defenses were such racially charged cases as the Sweet Case, in which a black family used deadly force to defend itself against an attack while attempting to move into an all-white Detroit neighborhood. The NAACP (with the support of Spingarn, the letter’s recipient) also offered Darrow’s services to the Scottsboro Boys, nine black teenagers accused of raping a white woman in Alabama in 1931 and convicted by an all-white jury. A pacifist and civil libertarian, Darrow was knowledgeable, shrewd and deeply committed to justice.

After the 1919 passage of the 18th Amendment, which banned the production and sale of alcohol in the United States, Darrow became an outspoken opponent. He published such articles as “The Ordeal of Prohibition” in the August 1924 issue of American Mercury, and the same year he debated the issue with prominent Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes. He co-authored a book entitled The Prohibition Mania (1927), and he published several articles in Vanity Fair including “Why the 18th Amendment Cannot Be Repealed” in the November 1931 issue, referred to in this letter. Darrow lived to see the repeal of prohibition with the passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933.

The letter also discusses Darrow’s autobiography, The Story of My Life, which Charles Scribner’s Sons published in 1932. Darrow had defended New York publisher Liveright & Co. against charges of obscenity alleged by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and Boston's Watch and Ward Society, but he apparently did not want to use the publisher for his own work.

Arthur Spingarn (1878-1971), the son of an affluent Jewish family, earned a law degree at Columbia and, along with his brother Joel, dedicated his life to racial justice for blacks. He headed the legal committee of the NAACP and, in 1940, succeeded his brother as president of the civil rights organization, holding the position until 1965. He also became known for his vast collection of books, manuscripts and ephemera related to American blacks, most of which are now at Howard University.

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Image courtesy of Lion Heart Autographs, with our thanks, and a tip o' the hat to its cataloger.
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The Autobiography Of God

by Stephen J. Gertz

Chicago: Willett, Clark and Company, 1937.

"The vast sweep of history from the days of Abraham down to Hitler and the coronation of George VI of England in 1937 is portrayed as seen by Yahweh himself, the chief actor in the episodes that have shaped the modern world...a novel of great audacity" (Dust jacket blurb).

Ai, ai, ai, I, Yahweh! Great audacity, indeed.

Now, you can call me Yah or you can call me El; you can call me Elah or you can call me Eloah; you can call me HaShem or you can call me Adoshem; you can call me Jah or you can call me Jehovah but you doesn't have to call me Yahweh! In fact, I find it annoying. Adonai will do just fine. Like James Baldwin, nobody knows my name. In my case let's keep it that way.

Addressing me by my first name is simply rude. Maybe it's an American thing, breaking down class distinctions by leveling the playing field with informality. But if you were introduced to George Washington would you say, "Hey, George, nice t'meet'cha. Waz happ'nin?'" followed by a fist-bump? Of course not; you'd be awestruck. But you don't hesitate to dis me, treating me like we're old pals. Jumpin' Jehosephat! Did anybody - besides his wife, in private - dare to call Don Corleone "Vito?"  So, what am I, chopped liver?

It's Mr. Yahweh to you. Better yet, I Am That I Am (אהיה אשר אהיה), but if you insist upon being a boor call me Big Daddy. Or, since we're in the 21st century, Big Data: the invisible know-it-all in the cloud with a host of servers to do my bidding.

First of all, I did not "write" this book nor did I will it into existence. It's a case of identity theft. The first paragraph is a dead giveaway.

"I know not whose prayer gave rise to my being. Who, indeed, can remember the circumstances of his begetting? I recall only the mighty solitude of the world wherein first I found myself There was a great plain which lay round about the city of Ur in ancient Chaldea. Thither do my earliest memories return."

What? Thither doth my displeasure begin, and, please, begone the stilted language. I needed mankind to pray me into existence? Gimme a break. I was here before, I'm here now, I'll be here later, long after humanity bites the dust and returns to it. And, what, I have no memories before humanity came on the scene? Skip the ontology; I AM, that's all you need to know, and I remember more than Sammy "the Bull" Gravano testifying against John "the Dapper Don" Gotti.

Check this out, from chapter seven: "From that time forth, forasmuch as I had entered somewhat into the temporal province, Constantine entered more freely into the spiritual. And I took it it not amiss until that day when he said unto me, 'Yahweh, it is made increasingly plain that we must have thee defined.'

"'Defined, sayest thou?' I queried." The nerveth of this guy! I refuse to be pigeonholed. Everybody says I'm unknowable, beyond comprehension - and I am - but that hasn't stopped anyone from determining what they think I want. I'm a mystery without a solution, a Raymond Chandler novel with plot that makes no sense. My challenge to mankind is not to feel secure but to be able to live with insecurity without going insane.

What do I want? I'm not talking; gotta keep you flesh and blood folks on your toes.

I'm pleased to report that this book, a  turkey in the form of an autobiography, has not received a single review on Library Thing, Good Reads, or Amazon. It is, apparently, considered to be one of the ten plagues of Egypt and something to avoid, a toss-up between boils and pestilence. It is forgotten and for good reason. "Friends will find much to ponder on in this book, which is told in the first person by no less than Jehovah, Yahweh, God of the Hebrews. The idea is more startling than the book." So sayeth T. Morris Longstreet in 1939, reviewing the book (two years after its publication, yet!) for the Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association. It needs all the friends it can get, Quaker or otherwise.

Need I add that I have nothing to do with Yahweh.com, the online House of Me? Talk about chutzpah! My Domain is mine and mine alone but try telling that to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). I complained. I said, "I'm Yahweh." Guy says to me, "Right, and I'm Dagon, don't bust my chops." Philistines.

So, enough of this phoney-baloney autobiography of Me. Oy, Yahweh! It's a hoax.

So say I, Clifford Irving.

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GREY, Robert Munson. I, Yahweh. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Company, 1937. First edition. Octavo. [8], 352 pp. Cloth.. Dust jacket.

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Davy Crockett, King Of The Wild Frontier, Letter $20K-$30K

by Stephen J. Gertz

An extremely rare signed autograph letter by nineteenth century American folk hero, frontiersman, and politician, Davy Crockett (1786-1836), has come to market. Written from Washington D.C. ("Washington City") on December 24, 1834 to Messrs. E. L. Carey & A. Hart, Crockett’s Philadelphia publishers, it is being offered by auctioneer Profiles In History in its Rare Books and Manuscripts sale on July 10, 2013. It is estimated to sell for $20,000 - $30,000.

Within, Crockett writes about his new book, An Account of Col. Crockett’s Tour to the North and Down East, the sequel to his A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834).  The letter proves that he, though unschooled and unconcerned about it, took an active role in the composition of his own works.

Crockett writes in full:

Gentlemen your favor of the 20th Inst. came safe to hand and I saw Mr. Asgood and obtained his permission agreeable to your request and here enclose his letter to you [not present] which I hope will be agreeable to your wish. I have written and taken to Mr. [William] Clark 55 pages of my new Book. Mr. Clark sais it will do excelent for him to work upon and he sais he will make you a Book that will flll expectation. Excuse hast I am your obt servt David Crockett.

A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett was a best-seller. The sequel, published a year later in 1835, also enjoyed a wide success, with subsequent editions in 1837, 1840, 1845 and 1848. It records Crockett's “Extended Tour” for three weeks, April 25 - May 13 (or 14), 1834, parading himself before admiring throngs in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Jersey City, Newport, Boston, Lowell, Providence and Camden to promote the Narrative… It was the blunder of his political career. Running for reelection to Congress, the tour, organized by the Whigs, attempted to parade Crockett before the masses, exploiting his popularity. His constituents in Tennessee's 12th district did not, apparently, appreciate Crockett courting the favor of Northeasterners and he narrowly lost the election.

Crockett, member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Upon his return to his home state he said, "I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done; but if not, they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas." No word where Tennesseans wound up but Crockett definitely went to Texas, where less than a year after the first edition of the Tour appeared, he was killed at the Battle of the Alamo, March 6, 1836.

Crockett prided himself on his lack of education - he once said that correct spelling was “contrary in nature” and grammar was “nothing at all." This letter confirms that, indeed, Crockett was a very bad speller an' his grammar weren't so good. It also confirms that Crockett, however awkwardly,  wrote his own books - with the aid of a “ghost-writer,” U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania William Clark (1774-1851), who, in this context, may be thought of rather as Crockett's editor.

As far as Crockett’s involvement in writing the Tour James Atkins Shackford wrote:

“David did not, of course, write the Tour, but merely helped to collect Whig notes and newspaper clippings recording ghost written speeches. Another man wrote the book from these ‘scissors and paste-pot’ gleanings. A few portions bear his touch, but most is so inferior, so a affectedly ‘backwoodsie,’ so full of sham vernacular and impossible harangue (though the views expressed are the anti-Jackson Whig ones of his letters and Congressional speeches) that the Tour richly deserved the oblivion that it promptly received” (David Crockett: The Man and the Legend, 1956).

Crockett hoped to have the book completed by the first of January 1835 (or early in February), and rushed to get pages to Clark for correction and editing so that the publisher could begin setting the type. There was another reason for his desire to move the project along with all due speed: Crockett owed $300, and he hoped to be able to ask for an advance. The Tour came off the press in late March 1835. 

Davy Crockett by John Gadsby Chapman.

Crockett remains one of America's great folk heroes and autograph material by him is highly sought-after yet exceedingly scarce in the marketplace, hence the five-figure estimate for this note.

Coonskin hat not included with letter.

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Image courtesy of Profiles In History, with our thanks.
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Frederick Douglass Gets A Raise, From $1.00 To $31,200

by Stephen J. Gertz

One of only five extant copies.

In 1847, Frederick Douglass, discontent with his fee for the popular articles he wrote for William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, asked for a raise, from $1.00 to $2.50 per piece.

Edmund Quincy, editor of The Liberator in Garrison's absence, wrote of Douglass's request,  "Talking of unconscionable niggers, I wrote to Douglass to ask him what he should consider a fair compensation for the letters [articles] that he proposed he sh'd write for the Standard [The Anti-Slavery Standard]. In due time I rec'd and answer saying he should think two dollars and a half about right. I consulted Wendell [Phillips] about it & he thought we had better not beat him down; but tell him that $1.00 was as much as we could afford." (McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass, page 147).

It was clear to Douglass that there were white abolitionists who placed their own position as the self-appointed standard-bearers of social justice above the interests of the famed African-American fighting for social justice.

And so that fall Douglass moved to upstate New York to publish his own abolitionist newspaper, The North Star. Before leaving his home in Boston, however, Douglass took with him an unknown number of copies of the sheets for the Boston Anti-Slavery Society's 1847 printing of his Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (first edition 1845). Once established in Rochester, he had them bound up with the North Star imprint, as seen above.

Only five copies of Douglass's Narrative with The North Star imprint are known to have survived: two in private collections, a defective copy found in a dealer catalog,  one located at the New York Historical Society, and the present copy recently offered at Swann Galleries Printed & Manuscript African-Americana sale where it was estimated to sell for $18K-$22K.

It sold for $31,200, including premium.

Douglass earned this bonus albeit too late to take to the bank and enjoy it.

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DOUGLASS, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Boston: at the Anti-Slavery Office, 1847 - Rochester: Published at the North Star Office, 1848. Demi-8vo. xii, [xiii]-xvi, [1]-125 pp.  Original roan-backed printed paper-covered boards; some discoloration and a few abrasions to the front board tips; considerable foxing throughout; early ownership in pencil of "John H. Jones, 1848" and a few repetitions. Lacking the frontispiece portrait of Douglass, as do all other copies examined.

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Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries, with our thanks.

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