From Bee and Shep [Lucille and Charles Shepherd], Chicago, 1948 and 1949 -- "that wholesome healthy look of American youth"

Murray met Charles "Shep" Shepherd on a train in the Midwest shortly after World War II, and their conversation began a lifelong friendship. Bee and Shep first came out to visit on Puget Sound in 1947, an exotic experience for a couple who had met in Chicago after Bee came north from Mississippi as a child. In turn they took Rosa and Murray to black clubs in Chicago. Much of their correspondence in the late '40s centered on civil rights and Progressive Party politics.

Dear Rosa and Murray:

We still haven’t gotten used to the idea of being home again, at work, instead of having the business of slicing brains on my mind, I keep seeing the evergreens, the lakes and streams and the beautiful white fog of Port Ludlow. (sigh) It was a wonderful vacation, believe me!

Bee at Port Ludlow: Rosa Morgan photo

Surprisingly enough, I passed the Civil Service exam for the job I’m now holding with a grade of 87.3 which when added to my 14 months of service and previous experience gave me position of fourth place on the regular appointment list. You can imagine how much my ego was inflated. However, I’m resigning as soon as I can be replaced. I could no longer take the “cracking whip” of my immediate supervisor (Mildred, who’s nuts about State Capitols) along with her 150% Americanism. I imagine she’ll feel a lot safer with me gone, fearing that I might contaminate her with what she thinks are positively radical notions. She recently very sweetly asked, “Lucille, would you like living in Russia?” which to me indicated that she thought I had communistic tendencies. She went down fighting when I told her of my intended resignation, “Well, I hate to see you go, but that’s the wonderful thing about America, we still have the right to make own decisions about where we work.”

 

I found that I could gain admission to Roosevelt College (which is a wonderful school) even with my two years of high school. I’ll be entered (provided I pass the IQ test) as an unclassified student for one year after which, if I’ve made an average grade of C or better, will be reclassified as a regular student. I’ve decided I’d like to know more about people and less (if possible) about specimens, so I’m going to study the social sciences. …

 

We came home with the desire to really become a working part of the Progressive

Campaign, not realizing at the time how hampered we were, in that we were both civil servants. We attended our first ward meeting of the IPP the following week after we were home and were definitely convinced that just a vote in November isn’t all the party needs. They are in desperate need of works and funds. The third ward (which is our ward) just recently rented a headquarters which is a very poorly ventilated, sorry-looking place in a building directly under the elevated tracks. When the “el” goes by a speaker must stop until it passes in order to be heard (I assure the els pass much more frequently than one imagines when one is  waiting to get to work) but it is still wonderful with what they have to work with, we’re enjoying immensely just being a part of it all. …

"How anyone could watch a group such as this, as intermixed as a bowl of chop suey and having the wonderful time they had without a thought of the other fellow’s race, nationality, or background, could possibly say it’s wrong, is just—well, I don’t know what." 

The “Youth for Wallace” here in this city is just wonderful, as they must be all over the country. Last Saturday I went to the downtown headquarters to get some of the campaign literature … that is issued by the Party because the people we talk to who aren’t already for the Progressives challenge one to a degree that you can’t depend on vague news and sentiment, you’ve got to know what you’re talking about if you’re going to talk at all. The literature has been wonderfully helpful, along with a book, “Foreign Policy Begins at Home” by James. P. Warburg [….] But as I started out to say, the “Youth for Wallace” is wonderful. I met quite a number of them on my visit to IPP headquarters in The Loop and was told about their mass picketing of city hall on the housing problem and of a dance that the City-wide youth organization was holding at the community center a few blocks from our house. We attended and enjoyed it thoroughly. They’re hard workers and a very serious group but still at the peak of gaiety. How anyone could watch a group such as this, as intermixed as a bowl of chop suey and having the wonderful time they had without a thought of the other fellow’s race, nationality, or background, could possibly say it’s wrong, is just—well, I don’t know what.

…

Love,

Lucille and Charles

From Shep, 12 March 1949

…We looked at the little pile of clippings that would be included in a letter to you two; they were all stale. Stuff from October 1948! Locally, the current news follows the national pattern. The State Legislature voted to investigate U of C and Roosevelt College.

The City Council voted down an amendment to the proposed public housing act that would prohibit segregation in this new housing. Quite a fight on the council floor. Our new liberal (?) Democratic Mayor Kennelly gave his active support to the opponents of the amendment. The Chicago Sun, that backed Kennelly’s candidacy, is now giving him hell for this reversal of policy. This is all tied up with a slum clearance and relocation program involving public and private funds. The Mayor’s contention is that New York Life and Metropolitan Life would not be willing to back financially this deal if the non-segregatory ordinance were passed. Why wouldn’t they? Ask him, not me. I suppose it’s the same old line about Negroes ruining new property by “putting coal in the bath tubs and cooling their feet in the refrigerator,” or something. …

From Bee, 12 March 1949

Hi Kids,

There is little for me to add, unless you would like to hear about my schooling—there is nothing I’d rather talk about. To begin with, I didn’t quit my job as I so firmly intended doing. I thought that was a kind of stupid move to make since I did pass the exam and what with our venture into buying a home, and with jobs getting scarcer and scarcer—I am still hanging on to it. I must say the situation is much improved, although I am still working like a dog. My colleague, Mildred, is beginning to see things my way politically and socially.

For example, she is no longer afraid of being hauled off to Alcatraz for thinking that National Health is a good thing for the nation, and that because five students out of 6,000 at Roosevelt belong to a communist club does not necessarily mean that the school receives daily memos from Stalin on how to run the school. So you see, she really is improving.

…

We were more than sorry to hear of the outcome of the fight for the professors at W.U. [University of Washington]. Our papers have been carrying quite a bit of the news, and with the help of NR [National Review], we have some kind of picture of what’s going on there.  We have seen several items in NR that we were sure must have been yours on the subject.

…

This business of investigating U of C and Roosevelt College that Charles mentioned was bought about because of a bill introduced to the state Senate called the Broyles Bill, which in actuality is another “little Mundt-Nixon Bill.” 

 

2,000 students, 200 of which were from Roosevelt and a similar number from U of C, went to Springfield to protest the bill. No mention was made of the other schools which were represented at the protest gathering but RC and U of C, so now these two schools are to be investigated. You can guess why. Broyles said that one could tell that these students were Communists because they didn’t have that “wholesome, healthy look of American youth.” …

We won’t make any rash promises but we shall certainly try to write a little more frequently. Thanks again for your loyal correspondence, love to you both.

Bee and C

From Jean and Gene Elliott, October 1948-- "everyone here talks French"

Once out of the army, Gene Elliott moved to Paris with Jean (known to their circle of friends as she-Jean) for graduate study at the Sorbonne.

Dear Rosa and Murray—everyone here talks French and we stumble after with our pitiful little burden of simple sentences which we try to feed into gaps in conversations but usually our opportunities have swung way behind us while we are still sorting out pronouns, subject-verb agreement, etc. We sit at the table of our pension nodding and smiling from time to time and sometimes getting a chance to say yes or no or thank you or the soup is very good tonight. It’s pretty maddening—we’ve discovered how really addicted we are to conversation. To correct our ineptitude as quickly as possible, we are taking an 8 to 10 AM daily class in French taught entirely in French at L’institut Panthéon, a class that is a little too hard for us so that we have to study about six hours each night. I think it’s helping.

Jean Elliott at the Lake Union houseboat, 1945

We have been homesick for people and animals but not for home so the obvious solution is to import les gens et les animaux, n’est-ce pas? And we’d like to start with you. Paris is a marvelous place to be in spite of some lack of comfort. We live in a fairly large room on the fourth floor; our windows are on the street and we have a fireplace which we will be able to use at some vague future date after the chimney is swept (we shall not have coal but maybe wood although it’s high because of the coal strike). There’s a washbasin behind a screen but no hot water at all, a toilet down the hall and not a bathtub in the house. We bathe at the public bains et douches in a private room for the two of us: we each have, for about forty cents altogether, two big European tubs, chin high, in which we sit for half an hour in all the hot water we want and chat as we wash. We both think it’s a very fine, unboring way to bathe. Our meals, included in bill here, are good. A maid brings us café au lait, which is neither coffee nor stimulating but good, and the dark Paris bread (without butter) at seven-thirty. We gagged on the bread at first but have, fortunately, developed a taste for it.  

 

Bread was rationed in France into 1948; the loaves that were available were made from the sourdough starter and unrefined “gray flour” now used to make the priciest of pain de campagne loaves. 

 

At noon we have a big meal with a vegetable hors d’oeuvre and fruit or cheese or yogurt for dessert and at seven we have another dinner (dîner—I think it means supper) with soup to begin with, salad and same kinds of desserts. We always have meat at noon, often at both meals. And always vegetables. This is costing us a little over $60 a month including tipping. 

Heat and light are something else. One night the electrician of the house came into our room, asked if we had warmth in our radiator. We said no, and he put his hand on it and said oui, oui, you have the heat. It was a little warmer than body temperature. That was a week ago and apparently just an experiment with the heating system because we haven’t had heat since and the days are getting quite cold (they’re like Seattle’s cold, frosty days only a little damper). The lights in the hall are so dim that often we’ve reached for the button before we realized that they were on. … The bathroom light is not automatic but is so unfunctional that we have to take a flashlight in to see what we’re doing. Our  reading lamps are slightly better, but only if we are huddled under them. But these few discomforts are nothing compared to the joys of being here. You know how incomparably beautiful it is (didn’t you once hang from the netting of the Eiffel Tower?). We’ve been doing some organized sightseeing, that is—organized by us, such as going to a famous place outside the city each Sunday: Versailles, Chartres, Chantilly, Senlis, St. Germaine en laye. And then, of course, we wander the streets constantly. If we don't watch ourselves, we spend two hours getting

Bee [Lucille] Shepherd, Puget Sound, 1948: Rosa Morgan photo

from our school ten blocks away back to our house. Books and art books are everywhere and we covet nearly every one we see. Also decanters, pottery, hand-woven material—almost everything. We have also become addicted to pastries of which there 486,000 varieties, each one better than the one before and all very inexpensive. We’ve had some meals in restaurants and they’ve been wonderful. The French say that food, wine, pastries are below pre-war standards and if that is true it is impossible for me to imagine what they were like because all of it now is almost the best we’ve ever had. You should come for next year or sooner.

Shep (Charles) Shepherd, Port Ludlow, 1948: Rosa Morgan photo

The Shepherds overwhelmed us with kindnesses. In the first place, they met our train [in Chicago] at some awful morning hour, eight-thirty I think. Then they brought us presents, beautiful billfolds wrapped up in tissue and ribbons. We had coffee in the station, took a taxi to the art museum and looked for Bill’s [Bill Fett] watercolor but it wasn't on the wall ... so we went through other rooms. Then we went back to the station a little early to try to reach Bill's family on the telephone. 

B’s family was not at home. We had a drink, bought a copy of the NR looking for the answer to your article (wasn’t in it) and then we caught our train with deep regret at having to leave. They are truly lovely people. You should bring them here when you come. They also gave us prints of their pictures of the weekend at Ludlow including a very fine one of the bottom of your feet, Murray. Objet d’art.

Howard Daniel was not home at all. Nor Howard Lewis—at the paper we were told that he was in Paris but flying back to NY the 26^th; we sailed the 24^th. We looked for a plane overhead Sunday afternoon and Monday morning but didn’t even see a wing-tip to wave at. We talked to Ann [Ann Elmo, Murray’s agent] about how she was (she had a strained back) and how we were (we were fine) and how you were (you were fine too) and how Agony was (Agony  was not fine but she said that she’d like us to try rewriting the last chapter). One nice piece of news we had for her was that we had seen, the first day we were in the city, a fairly prominent display of Dixie Raider on one of the tables at Brentano’s. (How is DR going?) …
 

 

If the house caught on fire, we would first save each other and the toss to decide whether to grab the typewriters or the Baedeker next. I can’t find words, French or English, to tell you how much we’ve needed it, relied on it, enjoyed places because of it, used it to find things or to keep from getting lost or to get unlost, loved having it and read ourselves to sleep with it. I shudder to think how different our lives here would have been if you had believed us when we were protesting that we really couldn’t accept it from you. God.

This 1948 image of the Republican Members of the House Un-American Activities Committee included, from left to right, Representative Richard B. Vail of Illinois, Chairman John Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, Representative John McDowell of Pennsylvania, Robert Stripling (chief counsel), and Representative Richard M. Nixon of California.

 

 

 

 

Our ballots came just as we were about to give up and so we voted Monday, mailed them back. Liquor for the State of Washington, Wallace for president: the perfect life. Please, please, please write us about the Canwell Committee’s fate (and that of their victims). As far as the letters we’ve received are concerned, the whole business never happened. Harry and Jo Fugl told us on their arrival that two of the committee-men had been defeated in the primaries which is excellent but we’d like to know more about all of it. [Harry Fugl, director of the activist Pacific Northwest Labor School in the late 1940s, was called before the Canwell Committee.]

Monday’s Le Monde carried a short paragraph about M. Parnell Thomas, among the loveliest French we’ve ever read. Maybe it is just a Democratic Party move and maybe he does get a closed session in contrast to all the public reputation-feasts he’s officiated over, still it’s good. [Thomas, head of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, was convicted of fraud for putting friends into phantom jobs on the Congressional payroll in exchange for kickbacks.] We’d like to know more about that, too, if you have time.

 

Gene wants space. We miss you deeply. Send a note as soon as you can and seriously think about how happy you’d be here. 

Love, Jean

…

Dear Water-dwellers: we have not yet found the Keplers or Kepples (choose one) [it’s Kleppers] but will give you all the dope soon. In the meantime we are constantly reminded by seeing the boaters on the Seine, some with those double-bladed paddles and some with sails, having what is apparently the time of their lives. Jealousy gnaws at our vitals, or would if it were not for the fact that there are so many land-borne pleasures at every hand that we don’t stand still long enough to be gnawed. Harry and Jo arrived (as implied above) and are settled near the Boulevard Saint Michele, very happy. Better come over. Study threatens. Much more soon. Love to you both.    g 

                                                                                                                                                          

For more on Parnell Thomas:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAparnell.htm

For more on the Canwell Committee hearings at UW:   

http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/dec97/red1.html

Canwell biography:   
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=9887