Transcript of Oral History Interview with Polly Mann

Oral history interviews of the Vietnam Era Oral History Project

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Version 3 August 20, 2018 Polly Mann Narrator

Kim Heikkila Interviewer

March 1, 2018

Polly Mann -PM Kim Heikkila -KH

KH: This is an interview for the Minnesota Historical Society’s Minnesota in the Vietnam War Era Oral History Project. It is Thursday, March 1, 2018, and I’m here with Polly Mann. My name is Kim Heikkila. Today I’ll be talking to Polly about her roles and experiences in the anti- Vietnam War movement. Even though we know that Polly’s peace work or antiwar work has spanned many more decades than that, for this project we’ll be focusing on the Vietnam era. So Polly, just thank you so much for being willing to sit down and talk to me and share your story.

PM: Absolutely.

KH: So, as I said, I’ll just start off with some questions that you can answer rather briefly and then we’ll go into more detail on all of them. So can you please start just by stating and spelling your name?

PM: My name is Polly Mann, P-o-l-l-y M-a-n-n. My legal name is—are you ready? Pollyanna and my rather tough-minded mother, why she named me Pollyanna I cannot tell you. (phone rings). But it’s my name and I don’t give it very often because I don’t want to hear any comments about it. Excuse me (answers phone). Well, that shouldn’t happen too often unless it’s somebody wanting to sell me a pig or something.

KH: No worries. So Pollyanna, but you go by Polly.

PM: Um-hm.

KH: And when and where were you born?

PM: I was born November 19, 1919, in the little town of Lonoke, L-o-n-o-k-e, Arkansas, which is, oh, about forty miles from Hot Springs [Hot Springs, AR].

KH: All right. And how do you identify yourself racially or ethnically?

PM: As Caucasian.

KH: Okay. And what’s your family’s ethnic background?

PM: My family came from the British Isles, Wales, and I think one of my grandmothers was Irish, so it’s Scotch-Irish, the same Scotch-Irish that landed on the east coast and moved south through Mississippi. They came from Mississippi originally up into Arkansas.

KH: All right. This is a question I know that you can answer—and we’ll talk about in much greater detail, but can you just give us an idea of some of the major anti-Vietnam War events or efforts that you were involved in?

PM: Well, the major one was participation in the Chicago Republican—was it the Republican Convention, yeah?

KH: The Democratic Convention?

PM: Yes, I’m a Democrat. And I went there—I don’t know if McCarthy asked me or not. I think so, but anyway, it was in support of Eugene McCarthy, whom I knew.

KH: Okay, and then we know, too, that you were in Marshall, Minnesota, at this time doing some antiwar—

PM: Yes, I was—that’s where I was living.

KH: work there and you went to Paris in 1971.

PM: Yes.

KH: Okay, and we’ll come back to all of those. And so, granted there are many years between then and now, but what are you doing now?

PM: Well, I’m not doing much. What I probably do the most of right now is write and I write for the newsletter for Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), which comes out once a month, and then I write for the Southside Pride [Southside Pride, 3200 Chicago Avenue Minneapolis, MN] which is a little neighborhood newspaper owned by a close personal friend. He writes, usually whatever I choose to—he publishes whatever I choose to write about. So that’s mainly my writing now.

KH: Okay. All right. So those are the kind of introductory, the broad introductory questions, so I just want to start relatively from the beginning and ask you to tell me a little bit about growing up in your family.

PM: Well, my mother and father were divorced when it wasn’t even—nobody got a divorce hardly—and so she and my younger sister and I lived with her family, my grandfather, who was a doctor in Hot Springs, and there were nine in the household. So I grew up in a large family, which I loved, and I never went to college. When I got out of high school it was in the middle of the Depression and I got a job for five dollars a week, working five days a week. Can you believe it? A dollar a day, as a receptionist at the doctor’s office and then the first real job I

23 had—well, I had one, maybe the second, was a civil service job working for the US Army and that was then at Little Rock [Little Rock, AR] and so—what else kind of thing? That’s enough to begin with.

KH: Yeah, so let me ask you a few questions about that. How old were you when your parents divorced?

PM: Huh?

KH: How old were you when your parents divorced?

PM: I was probably four.

KH: Okay, so you were quite young?

PM: Yes.

KH: And you have said that this was something that didn’t happen very often—

PM: That’s right.

KH: At that time and now your mom at that point is a single mother, raising her two kids. You have a sister? A younger sister you said.

PM: Yes, just a sister.

KH: So just two of you. What did your mom do?

PM: My mother worked for the welfare office. My mother had left college to get married. She was in a girls’ college—finishing school, if you can imagine—and so when she had to get a job it was, you know, whatever she could find. She did work in the welfare office doing kind of social service work, but it was more office work than anything else and the pay was not much.

KH: Okay.

PM: And I can remember she had, I think, two or three dresses and she just wore them in a row.

KH: So you graduated from high school in what year?

PM: Nineteen thirty-seven.

KH: Thirty-seven, so that is right in the middle of the Depression—

PM: Um-hm, and a little bit pre-war.

KH: Yep. So what was it like for you as a young person growing up with your mother in your grandfather’s house during the Depression?

PM: It was okay, it was okay. I was happy and yeah, it was fine. The house was in the white part of town. My grandmother had great airs as a southern lady and so I didn’t feel—I was fine. I was happy.

KH: And was it unusual for a woman like your mother to be at work or was that common because it was the Depression?

PM: Part of those years, you know, I never thought about it. I never did. I never thought about it. I mean, women worked in the dress stores and things like that and in offices.

KH: Okay. So then after you graduate from high school you eventually, relatively soon thereafter, take this job as a civilian employee of the army.

PM: Yes.

KH: And tell me a little bit about that job. What were you doing?

PM: I was a chief clerk, what was called a chief clerk, in the rail transportation section of this army camp, which was out from Little Rock. There we wrote requests for tickets for soldiers coming and going to training camps and so forth, and we also did the paperwork about troop trains that were leaving from this base with troops to go to war.

KH: Okay, so let’s see. You graduate in ’37, the war starts in ’41, so you must be twenty-two, twenty-three?

PM: Yeah.

KH: Something like that—did any members of your family, extended family, uncles or aunts I suppose, serve in World War II?

PM: My husband did.

KH: Is that how you met him, through your work as a clerk?

PM: Yes.

KH: And did he talk much about his experiences in the war? Well, let me ask this. What did he do?

PM: Well, he was a private. He was drafted out of college and he had passed the bar so he was—he could come back and practice law. He had to take the bar again—I think he could have gone in as an officer but he chose not to, so I met him there working in the office. He would come in. I’ve forgotten where he—oh, I know what he was doing. He was examining contracts.

KH: Okay, okay, so he was doing legal work?

PM: Right.

KH: Did he serve overseas?

PM: Did he serve overseas? Yes, he did. He served in New Guinea for, I think, two and a half years.

KH: Okay. He was—was he—?

PM: He was a captain then.

KH: Was he in combat?

PM: No.

KH: So he was still—

PM: And he never wore a gun and he told me that the one time he ever wore a gun was when they paid the troops. He had to oversee it so he said he wore his gun but he didn’t put any bullets in it.

KH: And that was just because it was the nature of his job? He didn’t need one?

PM: No, I don’t think he needed one.

KH: Okay. So what were you thinking during World War II? You have described yourself as a pacifist. What were you thinking about the war during World War II?

PM: Well, I was really uneducated about the history of this country and as I saw what was happening it just—because my assumption was that here we are, this perfectly wonderful country and these enemies come and made us a world war. We had no choice but to fight. Then as I started reading— I read everything. I read Thomas Merton and I read Saint Augustine some of that stuff and quite a bit of material—again, I did quite a bit of reading. I saw how false my picture had been and I was pretty horrified by it. And then I watched in that camp, as I saw those troop trains leaving and they were headed for battle—they had a depot there at the station at the camp. (I tried to get in there just recently—they won’t let people in there.) At the camp, it was— there would be parents and children and just kin of the soldiers saying goodbye. And they knew they might not come back or even worse come back in bad shape and it would have been better for them not to come back. And that was rather moving for me.

And then I watched bayonet practice and that was horrifying because bayonet practice, you know what it is—they have a dummy as in football practice when you see the players come and tackle the dummy. That’s the way they were doing it at the camp, only you were using a bayonet. And

26 then the sergeant, who was conducting this training, says, “Get them in the gut. Cut off their penis. Let’s do a real job with it.” Works them up into this kind of a frenzy so that they can act with the required force. And I thought, This is terrible and I began to rethink my position on war and as I read, I realized that so much of my education had been so biased that I couldn’t count on it.

So it was—then I read, of course, the publication that really changed my mind was a Quaker tract called Speak Truth to Power, and just recently a church group that I belong to, we discussed this book—it was put out by the American Friends Service Committee. It’s an explanation for their view on pacifism which is a bad word because, you know, you’re really not passive. You can’t be passive.

So I believed it. And then I met a Methodist minister down in Marshall, actually, who was working for the Quakers and I began to—I just had some unofficial ties with him. Then the Quakers had a trip to Paris [in 1971] and they were going to meet with people that had been involved in—I can’t remember now just exactly what—but we were there and we met Madame Binh from Vietnam and we went many places, embassies, and so forth, this group of us, you know, the teachers and students and all kinds of people that were on this trip. I think there were about twenty-four and also a singer [Judith Marjorie Collins (1939- )]. I’ve forgotten the name of, a famous singer—it’ll occur to me later but she was there and what else happened there?

I think it just helped me to be certain that I believed as I did and then later, I supported Eugene McCarthy, whom I knew, and I went to Chicago at the Democratic Convention. McCarthy had a suite there and there was a parade, one of them had, I don’t know, a parade once we got to Chicago. As I was walking in the parade I met a young father there who said he had been watching television and he saw what was going on. He said he had to get out and walk for his children. It was fascinating.

It was also then, not at the march, but later, there was a big meeting at the theater where Dave Dellinger, and I’ve forgotten—the Frenchman; I’ve forgotten his name. Oh, certainly all kinds of famous people were there. I was seated—went in and I saw a bunch of Catholic priests and I thought, This thing’s going to get televised back in Marshall and these will be good company for me, to be seen with these priests so I kind of hung around with them. They didn’t mind it evidently. But as the event went on, a skinny little man brought out a red flag and hoisted it on the flagpole and at that the police charged. They charged and they used tear gas and they used everything.

And so then I got out. I wasn’t hurt walking with these priests. There was also another event where we got gassed. Where was that? I’m trying to think. It’ll come to me. And I really wasn’t too surprised. I’m trying to think what the aftermath of that was. I don’t think anything. I came back and supported McCarthy and, of course, that went nowhere, but these things kept convincing me. It was so much easier—it’s so much easier to take a position that’s strong than to try to examine every incident in light of whether you approve of it or don’t approve of it. So it’s much easier now for me to be absolutely pacifist and say killing is never right, never.

KH: Right, rather than trying to say, well, in this situation, maybe, but in this one not, and maybe halfway here. Interesting, yeah.

PM: Yeah, and my son just told me. My son was draft age. I think he—what was it? Did he have asthma? He didn’t have to go but I had talked also to all of my family about this and I think I pretty much convinced them— My sister however, was a nurse. She became a nurse and she became a nurse like a MASH nurse. She was with a unit just like that.

KH: Oh, really?

PM: Yeah, in the war.

KH: In World War II?

PM: Yeah.

KH: Wow, so she was a military nurse in World War II?

PM: But she was not a pacifist at all. We did not have any—shall I say we didn’t have any agreement on this? We just didn’t talk about this because that was it.

KH: What about your husband? So he was—what year do you two get married?

PM: We got married in ’43 or ’44—I think it was ’44 or ’45, I don’t know.

KH: So somewhere in there, somewhere during the war years, though?

PM: Yes.

KH: And so was he a pacifist at that time?

PM: No, but he told me later that if he had known about it, had been presented that viewpoint, he would have been because he didn’t wear a gun. I already told you that so—what they did, what his company did, was to supply ammunition for the air force so he never had to—he was never in the battle. He was slated, however, to go to Japan when the bomb was dropped, when the atom bomb was dropped, so I was delighted when it was dropped because I knew he would be coming home. But the full implication of it never hit me then because, you know—and Japan—I’m sure you’ve read this—was ready to give up anyhow. It was not necessary, especially the second bomb and at that time, there was the oldest Christian body in Japan, which was secret because they weren’t permitted—the government wouldn’t permit them—they were eliminated when that bomb was dropped.

KH: Interesting.

PM: So that was just another reason to kind of strengthen my belief. So here I am.

KH: And you just said that your husband Walter—had he known—had he been exposed to maybe some of the things that you had been and the reading, that he, too, would have—

PM: Right.

KH: Probably would have adopted a pacifistic—

PM: Right.

KH: So he wasn’t a conscientious objector—that’s not why he didn’t carry a gun—it was just not in his job. Okay, okay.

PM: Where do we go from now?

KH: I’m trying to think. You hit on a number of things I have on my list of questions here. So when you, during the war years when, you know, you’re seeing all these troops come and go; you’re seeing what happens with their families, you’re doing this other kind of reading and you decide, No. Killing is never right.

PM: Yes, that’s right.

KH: Are you speaking about it publicly or to your friends and family? Do you have any public consciousness of what—?

PM: No, it was only when the war was over that I began to speak a little bit about it and then Walter—we were in Marshall and he was justice. Well, he was, to begin with, he was in a firm with another lawyer and then he got out and I said, “You know, if I speak my mind, it’s going to cost you business.” I said, “People will say I’m crazy.” And he said, “Well, if you’re crazy, then what we need is more crazy people.” So he never, ever, ever stopped me from anything I did and I did some things that, you know—I was in New York and what is it called? Oh, Seneca Army Depot [Romulus, NY] and we took a group of people, women, to the Seneca Women’s Encampment for Peace and Justice in 1983. I was living here then at the time, but anyhow, we did go to Seneca and had a little—I slept in a tent and then there was a barbed wire fence cutting around the military installation at Seneca so we had some wire cutters and I went in with other people and then we got arrested.

KH: What were you going to do when you went in?

PM: Just invade it. Just—

KH: To make a point.

PM: Yes. So Phil Donahue had a stringer I guess you’d call it out there who wrote about this and the fact that I was a judge’s wife. Then he asked me to come and be on TV so I did. We had already started WAMM by that time but we got a lot of members from all over the United States because of my appearance there.

KH: Was that the first time you were arrested?

PM: Yeah.

KH: How many times have you been arrested?

PM: I don’t know.

KH: Many?

PM: Not too many, no, and I was in jail for five days one time and I’ve forgotten—it was in connection with the war and somebody asked me about it and I said, “Well, the funny thing about it was that I found myself more in sympathy with the thieves,” the women who were thieves, than I did with the women who were there for drunk driving, for example. The noise is terrible. That was the worst thing about jail is that they don’t do anything about the noise, people staying up late at night and so forth. But I was there for about four or five days I think.

KH: Okay.

PM: And that was here.

KH: Okay, so you’ve been arrested out of state and in state, as well, in Minnesota.

PM: I think that’s the only time I was really arrested.

KH: And you brought this story up about Seneca Falls because it was relevant to your husband being a judge.

PM: Yes, right.

KH: So that’s why you and he end up back in Minnesota—he’s from Minnesota.

PM: Right.

KH: And after you married, the war ends, you move up to Windom. And that’s when he has his law practice.

PM: Yeah.

KH: Now at that time what are you—I read somewhere in the one of the articles I read to get ready for this, they quoted you as saying something like, “Windom, I just didn’t know what— there was nothing for me to do.” What were you doing during those years?

PM: Well, I had children. I had two—my first child since Walter got back, I had a child. And then fifteen months later I had another child and then after a little bit, the third one and then the fourth one. So I was really kept busy with my family.

KH: Okay.

PM: I never changed my ideas and then I had been a member of the Methodist church. I was raised Methodist and I went to the Methodist church in Windom and the minister there talked about dancing and drinking and I came home and said, “I can’t go there. I don’t think those things are a sin.” So then I went to the Episcopal Church and met and I stayed in that church. We had a women’s group but I got out of that because the group there was not—they didn’t share my views and I didn’t share theirs. I just didn’t find what I wanted. It seemed to be all ritual and no heart. I just, after being there—you have to stop me if I keep going too long—I was in a conversation with the women, with the Episcopalian women going to some conference and they were talking about bad press or something about reading horror stories. And I said—what was it? —I brought up something about horror stories and I said, “What’s horrible to me is what’s happening in the world with all these deaths and I don’t believe in them and I don’t believe that we should, you know, have any—we should give them sanction.” And they, you know, nobody agreed with me, which was okay. I just left the church. (laughs)

KH: So did you find in Windom, and maybe it’s different in Marshall, but in Windom, did you find any kindred spirits?

PM: A few, I did find a few, I did find a few. But, as I said, it’s like Thomas Hardy’s stories, if you’ve read them, because the villagers were so mean and cruel, but I did have friends.

KH: And did it affect your husband’s law practice?

PM: I don’t think it did. I don’t think it did.

KH: So you must have been in Windom then during the Korean War.

PM: Yes.

KH: Like ’50, ’53, okay.

PM: Yes, and when he came back we were so poor he was actually working as a janitor at night in addition to the law practice. And the National Guard wanted a commander and they couldn’t find one so they asked him if he would be the commander of the National Guard. He said yes because he wanted—we needed the money. So he was, but then—this was in relationship to the Korean War—he got an agreement with the general that if war was declared, he wasn’t going.

KH: Okay.

PM: That he would take on this troop but he would not go. So when the war was declared with Korea, he took a trip up here because he wanted to make sure that still held and it did. But then— I can still see this one woman, and I liked her, she had just laid me out, “Why isn’t he going?” And I told her and she said, “That isn’t right. He should be going.”

KH: This was somebody in Windom?

PM: Yeah, and I can see her point. But I didn’t care. I said, “I don’t care,” you know. “I don’t care. He’s not going. He served his time and so that’s that.”

KH: And so was it when you were in Windom then that you read the Quaker’s Speak Truth to Power? Was that when you were up here?

PM: Yes, it was.

KH: So all of these things are happening kind of at the same time.

PM: Yeah, here it is if you want to read it.

KH: Yeah, I’ve never read that. Okay. So by that time then, you’re established as a family in Windom—

PM: Yes.

KH: Walter has been a commander in the National Guard but does not go to Korea. You are very outspoken and trying to find that kindred spirit in town, but a committed pacifist by this time.

PM: Yes, definitely, absolutely.

KH: So I know that you—and I think it was when you were in Windom still, that you got involved in politics.

PM: In what?

KH: In politics, like in the state, the DFL.

PM: Yes, I had this crazy idea that that was the way to try to prevent war was to try to get active in the party. So I did and I became the county chairwoman. I went to a state convention and no way were they going to consider anything like that. Then I realized it wasn’t the way to go and I didn’t do it anymore.

KH: Well, because what? So this is let’s say the fifties. This is the height of the Cold War, right, where communism is the great, evil threat. So I would assume that it’s not an easy pitch to make in small town Minnesota that we must be pacifists or we must avoid all war when so much

32 of what we’re, you know, Americans are hearing is that the Soviet Union is—we have to be prepared to defend ourselves.

PM: Right, right. It was in—when I was working at the bookstore in Marshall and a fellow came in, he looked like one of the students with long hair and said he wanted to talk to me and I said, “Well, c’mon sit down and talk.” And he said, “I want to talk to you in private.” So I said, “Okay,” so when everybody’d gone he took off his hat and his wig and he was a soldier and he had defected.

KH: Oh.

PM: And he didn’t know how to—the Quakers had given him my name so I gave him the money and he went to Canada and then my friend, Marianne Hamilton, who started WAMM with me, she was also at that convention in Chicago but we didn’t know each other then.

KH: Oh, really?

PM: And when I moved to the city I connected with her and we—that’s when we started WAMM.

KH: Okay, so obviously then this guy with the wig, this was during the Vietnam War?

PM: Yeah, yeah, he was I think he got to Canada and he was okay.

KH: Yeah.

PM: Can’t do that anymore. They won’t let you in Canada.

KH: Yeah, yeah.

PM: Yeah, so—

KH: So you and your family move to Marshall in about 1960 when your husband is appointed—

PM: A judge, yes.

KH: A judge. So now you are a judge’s wife out there making waves in the antiwar movement. So tell me, do you remember—when did you first learn about or when were you first aware of what the United States was doing in Vietnam?

PM: I think I knew from the beginning.

KH: Because you were, I mean, you were in politics—

PM: Yes.

KH: So you were just attuned to—?

PM: I knew from the beginning. This Quaker friend, Methodist minister, told me about it before it started. I mean, he told me about what was going on and so I knew, I knew.

KH: So Vietnam, you were aware of it probably long before many Americans were—

PM: Yes, absolutely.

KH: About what was going on there?

PM: Absolutely. And then when we went to Paris I remember we, those who were there, we were in the embassy and they had an armed guard walking with his gun, walking up and down the hall for fear something was going to happen. Nothing, of course, happened, but that was interesting.

Then also, I went to the Philippines one time—I don’t remember who paid for that. Probably I did, but Patton was speaking in the Philippines about something and Marianne and I both went to the Philippines. It was Manila where we went. And they had a—there was also some crazy revolution while we were there and we had meetings and what else happened? Oh, I know, I met in Manila, we met with the Comfort Women—you’ve read about them, the Comfort Women?

KH: Oh yes.

PM: The government had given them a house in Manila—that was their organization’s headquarters and we met with those women and actually they had, you won’t believe it, they had hired somebody and we danced. He was a dance teacher. (laughter)

KH: Oh, my.

PM: And then what else did we do there in Manila? I can’t think of—oh, another friend was there, too. Sarah Martin, who was also a member of WAMM, was there. I don’t know how this all came about but it did.

I also went to Libya, if you can imagine, with some Native Americans and it was Gaddafi’s birthday or something and there was a big to-do and they wanted to bring some Americans there to say, Look, even the United States—and they couldn’t get anybody. But the Native Americans would go so they sent—Clyde Bellecourt was there and I’m trying to think of the other Indian men that I met that were there. And we went to Libya and I met Gaddafi—I mean with a bunch of people and I met—one night, I don’t know who was with me. We met with some Libyan women—one or two—who were involved in the government. It was all very hush, hush and it never came to anything but it was interesting.

I also met with some women from Okinawa. Where did I meet them? I don’t remember, but I met with them several times and they became friends and I had some contact with them but I lost it over the years.

KH: So it sounds like a lot of this traveling then was after WAMM was up and running and this was part of your work with WAMM?

PM: Yes, yes. Marianne had an apartment in Paris and I stayed there twice with her. I don’t think we did anything in Paris except, you know, be in Paris.

KH: Which is plenty.

PM: Yes, right. I was trying to think of the places where I’d been that—and then I worked in Ecuador during the war.

KH: During World War II?

PM: Yeah, and I worked for the government there.

KH: So you’ve been all over.

PM: Yeah, and then the government was buying some Cinchona bark for quinine and buying balsa wood which they were buying for the British because of the mosquito bomber was made of balsa. I don’t know if it was altogether balsa but—and then we were buying rice also from them.

KH: So you’ve said that—you’ve mentioned a couple of times that you knew Eugene McCarthy.

PM: Yeah.

KH: How did you know—how did you get to know him?

PM: I don’t know. I was at the Democrats’ state convention when he was nominated to be their candidate.

KH: Oh, okay.

PM: So I must have—I met his wife and then—I should have done this years ago, talked to somebody—I represented him someplace and then I was in a picture with him in the Star Tribune. He was campaigning someplace and I was talking to him. And I met him because he absolutely was a peace person.

KH: So you met him when he was campaigning for president, or had you known him earlier?

PM: I had known him earlier when he was in the Senate, just like I knew Nolan, Richard Nolan, who was also a peace person.

KH: I think you also knew Hubert Humphrey, right? I mean, you knew all of these—

PM: Humphrey was the one responsible for appointing my husband judge.

KH: Ah—

PM: But I got discouraged with him and I wouldn’t have anything else to do with him. I told him I would not and I went to his office and talked to his assistant, William Connell. I told him, I said, “I’m done. This is—I’m not going to support him.”

KH: When he was vice president?

PM: Yeah, I think when he was—

KH: Even before that?

PM: I think when he was still a senator because I didn’t support him when—

KH: Okay. And how come? I can see how if you were opposed to war you could get frustrated with him when he was vice president—

PM: Yes.

KH: But were you discouraged with him earlier than that? Do you remember?

PM: No, I don’t think so. I think it was over the war.

KH: Because he didn’t take a stand—

PM: Yes, yes.

KH: Even if personally he opposed it he didn’t say that—(phone rings)

PM: Okay, so yeah.

KH: I mean, you were rubbing elbows though with all kinds of very notable politicians, not just who happened to be—(phone rings)

PM: WAMM is having its annual meeting this Saturday and that was my friend Sarah Martin and she was in the Philippines with us, with Marianne and me and I guess that’s that. So what’s next?

KH: We were talking about, oh, that you knew all kinds of politicians.

PM: Yes, I did. I was going to say Humphrey actually was the person who was responsible for Walter getting appointed.

KH: Right. So when you were becoming increasingly vocal—

PM: Yes.

KH: about your antiwar beliefs and you are perhaps publicly saying, “I’m done with Humphrey. I’m going to throw myself behind Gene McCarthy,” are your public stands affecting your relationship with your husband, with your kids, with your friends, family?

PM: No, my husband was, as I said, he was always with me.

KH: Throughout?

PM: Yes.

KH: Even though Humphrey had [helped to get him appointed]?

PM: That was not—

KH: A non-issue. How about your kids? What were they thinking about Mom doing all of this stuff?

PM: They were okay with it.

KH: Did they—so—let’s see--

PM: Well, Michael—he was in high school when we were living in Marshall. It was during those years, and I don’t remember which years, we had a—we lived in this brick house—it had an attic, two-story house with an attic. He went up into the attic and fixed up sound equipment and at Christmas time, he played peace songs along with the Christmas carols. And then he put a big sign out on our back fence—we had a fenced-in yard—right along the street and somebody pulled it down, of course.

KH: So your whole house was known as like—

PM: Yes.

KH: This is the peace house.

PM: Yeah.

KH: So tell me—you had said earlier and you said it a couple times, that small towns can be mean. How—and we talked about Windom a little bit but how did the town in general, of Marshall, respond to antiwar sentiment?

PM: I can’t remember anything in particular. Isn’t that funny?

KH: But I mean, the college was there, right? So you worked at the college bookstore.

PM: Yeah.

KH: So colleges can be kind of a little oasis—

PM: Yeah, they are, and it was, it was. I’m just trying to remember—yeah, the college when I was there, the businessmen in town got mad about the college. And then there were black people there and in our house, we had a pool table right in the middle of the living room and the black students when they got in town, the few of them that knew me, would come and play pool and use that pool table. And right across the street from us there was a—what was he? I’ve forgotten. He wasn’t a lawyer but he was some professional man—maybe a dentist. And he watched the black students come in and he had a bit to say. But as far as doing anything mean, I don’t remember anybody being physically mean or subjecting me to ridicule or anything like that. No, I was—it was there—but it was okay.

KH: Okay, so how—I’m trying to—a lot of my work so far has focused on antiwar activities that were happening in the Twin Cities. I know there was some antiwar activity in Marshall, in Mankato, in St. Cloud —

PM: Yes.

KH: Especially in 1970 and 1972. How would you describe, on campus, because you were working on campus, or in Marshall generally, how would you describe antiwar sentiment? Were there a lot of people opposing the war?

PM: No, oh no, no, no. Oh, no.

KH: Mostly students? Mostly on campus?

PM: Yeah, yeah.

KH: And were you talking to these students?

PM: Yes, I knew quite a few students.

KH: Just through your work at the bookstore?

PM: Yeah.

KH: But then these conversations—you would talk about the war with them? Do you remember?

PM: Yes, well, the president, whom I knew, whose daughter was a friend of my daughter’s, told me he had somebody from Marshall calling him every week and telling him that he should fire me.

KH: Because you were stirring up trouble?

PM: Uh-huh.

KH: But he never did?

PM: No, nope.

KH: So you—I mean you were acquiring a reputation—

PM: Right.

KH: in Marshall for fomenting—

PM: Yeah, yeah. And the black students, the town didn’t like the black students. I mean, they actually had a fight, had fights. The businessmen at one time—I say fights, but I know they had one big fight. The businessmen fought the black students and one of the black students and his wife stayed with us for—we had a spare bedroom at the time and they stayed with us for about a month.

KH: So did these black students, were they from Marshall or—?

PM: They were from the Twin Cities.

KH: And they came just to go to school in Marshall.

PM: Yeah, the college—what is the word I want to say? The college enticed them and made scholarships available for some of them to play football.

KH: Oh, okay, okay. So Marshall was being integrated via football.

PM: Yes, yes.

KH: At the school. And that was not an easy—

PM: No, it wasn’t. One of the men downtown was talking about it and somebody said they’d seen a black man in there and they said, Well, he’s from another country that’s not like us. So there was a difference between whether the blacks were local or international.

KH: Right. So that leads me to an interesting question. Were you ever involved in the civil rights movement?

PM: No, you know, I was from the south so I had to really—and I was a racist. I was a racist when I came up here. I had to lose that and I did.

KH: And how did you?

PM: I don’t know. It certainly wasn’t congruent with my peace beliefs, racism. I don’t remember how I did that but I did, I did.

KH: I mean, because you grew up in the Jim Crow south.

PM: Absolutely, absolutely. The black people had to come to our back door. They had segregated schools then and we called the black people Josie and Mary and they called us Miss Polly. They called me that. I’ve got a woman who assists me here at home and she calls me Miss Polly and every time she does that I call her Miss Deborah. (laughs)

KH: So your changing racial attitudes were kind of part of your expanding consciousness?

PM: Yes, because I certainly could not—that’s part of the peace message as you well know.

KH: As well as your political views and work. You tried to go through the political party and make some of these changes and found that it wasn’t particularly effective.

PM: Yes.

KH: And so you decided to do it other ways.

PM: Yes.

KH: So—I want to go back to the Chicago convention.

PM: Yes, we’ll go there.

KH: So you’ve been in Marshall for a number of years by that time.

PM: Yes.

KH: You’re opposed to the war in Vietnam because you’re opposed to all wars and by this time, you have thrown your weight behind McCarthy and let go of Humphrey because he hasn’t taken a stand against the war. What did you—do you remember what kind of activities you did on behalf of McCarthy’s campaign besides going to—? Were you a delegate? Were you a—?

PM: Well, I was not—the party didn’t like me, you know, because—so, I say it, at one time I was the chairwoman but that was before they really realized what my beliefs were. Now what was the question? I’ve lost it.

KH: What did you do for McCarthy to support his campaign? Did you sign—? Did you send letters? Did you go door to door?

PM: He didn’t get the Democratic nomination.

KH: Right.

PM: And my picture was in the Minneapolis Tribune with him on one of his campaign trips and around the country, around the state.

KH: So you went to Chicago in support of him—

PM: Yes, but I got sidetracked.

KH: Yeah, well, and it didn’t work. I mean the whole convention was a melee. And so it sounds like, from what you were saying earlier, about that that you were—were you in the convention hall and out on the streets where all the mayhem was happening?

PM: You know, I was in the convention hall once I know and because I wasn’t a delegate, I don’t know—I just remember once being in there—

KH: Okay.

PM: in the convention hall. Then the rest of the time, McCarthy had headquarters in the Hilton Hotel in Chicago. Oh, and my friend, Rose—you’ll laugh at this—my friend Rose got us rooms there at the Hilton, had reserved them, and before the convention they were cleaning the—they had reserved a whole lot of rooms for the convention goers and so they told my friend Rose, with whom I shared a room, that we were going to be moved out. And she said okay and then she came back downstairs and she told them, “Ah,” she said, “I’m having an attack of asthma, ah, ah. And the doctor said that I really better have my room back” and they gave her the room. (laughter)

KH: One way or the other.

PM: It was fun. I mean, you know, it was fun really, it was. And yeah—let’s see what else happened?

KH: So you were in the convention hall just a little bit but mostly outside on the streets.

PM: Outside and yeah, and I was in two marches. I was in this one where—what is that Frenchman’s name? He’s a writer, famous writer who was there with Dave Dellinger? [Jean Genet]

KH: Not coming to me either. So but, I mean, there—this was like a convening of many different kinds of people who were opposed to the war, so that pacifists like Dave Dellinger and then the Yippies—

PM: Yes.

KH: Jerry Rubin and those kind of street theater people.

PM: Yes.

KH: And all of kinds of—

PM: During that same period I was in Pierre. Did I tell you about Pierre, South Dakota? I went there when I was working at the college and an Indian woman, Sarah Bad Heart Bull—did I tell you that?

KH: No, I saw her name in here though.

PM: Sarah Bad Heart Bull had [a son, Wesley,] who was [killed by a white man in Buffalo Gap, South Dakota, in 1973. Sarah was arrested while protesting the criminal charges—second degree manslaughter—brought against the man who killed her son] so this was a demonstration in support of Sarah Bad Heart Bull. So we went down to the courthouse. I went; I took our car. We had a station wagon and I took some students and we—the students and I went down there and we also went to Canada at one time. I can remember that. And when we got there we went to the courthouse. We looked up and there was, like the police in Chicago. There was a rifleman up there with a gun, pointing down at all of us I guess in case there was a little violence; it was interesting to me to see it. And then I looked up and Marlon Brando had come.

KH: Was this during Wounded Knee?

PM: Huh?

KH: Was this Wounded Knee era stuff or was it before that? So seventy what? Seventy-three?

PM: It could have been Wounded Knee because I had a daughter, Connie, my youngest, went to Wounded Knee.

KH: Ah.

PM: She and her boyfriend—and this is an interesting story. I came home. She said she was grown, and she said, “David [her boyfriend] and I are going to take a truckload—he’s got a pick- up truck. We’re going to take a truckload of food down to Wounded Knee.” I said, “Where are you going to get that food?” She said, “From the people in Marshall,” and I said, “They’re not going to give it to you,” but they had. They did give it to her.

KH: Knowing what they were going to do with it even?

PM: Yes, they did. I mean, you just can’t tell—

KH: Interesting.

PM: But they just struck a note and they took the whole carload down there and—

KH: Interesting. Oh, so Chicago—when you and your fellow McCarthy supporters go to Chicago—are you hopeful that he actually could get the nomination?

PM: I don’t remember whether it was a possibility at that time or not. I don’t know but I should have known. I mean the party was pretty strong.

KH: Yeah. And what about Eugene McCarthy specifically—I mean obviously he is the peace candidate—

PM: Yes.

KH: But what appealed to you about his candidacy?

PM: He was a very attractive person for one thing and very academic and I can’t tell you much more than that. I know his speeches. He was a person who was affected by his moods and so forth. So he could give an absolutely magnificent speech and then he could be as dry as could be.

KH: Hm—

PM: So you never knew who you were going to meet.

KH: Okay.

PM: And then I represented his wife—where was I? That was in Indiana, Gary, Indiana—I went to Gary, Indiana, and I was representing—yeah, it must have been him and I met a whole bunch of black people there who were very active in—

KH: For McCarthy?

PM: Yeah. In Chicago—

KH: Interesting. So let’s think about 1968 here. So ’68 is a big year, right? It was the Tet Offensive and then Johnson says he’s not going to run after the New Hampshire primary where McCarthy has a pretty good showing—

PM: Yeah, I got gassed there--I was going to tell you this—

KH: In Chicago?

PM: Yeah, I got gassed so as we were—this was in one of the evening marches. People were getting out handkerchiefs and so forth and they said the police are going to gas us and so I was—

43 we were walking in this parade and there were buildings and so when they started to gas us and we—this man was driving with me. We ran back to get away from the gas but we did get gassed. I called the Marshall paper after that and told them what was happening and they ran a story that said, (laughter) “Marshall Woman Gassed in Chicago,” and then my friend said, “Had you never been gassed in Chicago before?” And I said, “No,” and that was a new one for me. (laughter)

KH: Oh, dear. So we know why you didn’t support Humphrey—because he didn’t take a stand against the war, he kind of fell in line behind Johnson. What about Bobby Kennedy?

PM: I’m trying to remember about Kennedy.

KH: I mean, by the time of Chicago, he’s dead, he’s been assassinated by then, but there are those few months there where he was actively running for president and, as an antiwar guy—

PM: Well, I was a supporter of John Kennedy but he was no peace person. I don’t think I realized how much he wasn’t. I don’t remember much about them.

KH: It may be you were already on board with McCarthy by the time [of Robert Kennedy’s campaign] anyway.

PM: I remember something about Kennedy and West Virginia where I lived for a year when I was in high school but I don’t remember—

KH: That’s okay. We’ll just move on by—that’s all right. Okay, so you’re in Chicago for the convention; it does not go well for antiwar people—they do not adopt an antiwar plank; Humphrey gets the nomination and then we know it goes even worse in the election when Humphrey loses to Nixon.

PM: Yeah.

KH: And you’re still in Marshall at this time, living in Marshall, because you lived there till what? Nineteen eighty something like that?

PM: Yeah. I came up here. We formed WAMM in ‘81.

KH: Okay, so after Nixon takes office as president on the pledge to end the war and—

PM: Right.

KH: achieve peace with honor and he has this secret plan to end the war and all that, what shape does your antiwar activism take?

PM: I can’t tell you. I can’t break it up like that. It’s just—

KH: Do you remember—well, here—let me give you—let me throw you something here. I know that in 1972 in Marshall and elsewhere—I think in St. Cloud, Mankato, the university up

44 here, when Nixon mines the harbor in Haiphong there is all kinds of protests, including in Marshall. The students march and they block the streets and the highway. Do you remember any of that? Were you a part of that?

PM: Yeah, and I remember that I was invited to speak at St. Cloud State University twice to speak to women’s studies. I had a friend there, Julie Andrzejewski, who’s on the faculty. Her husband, I’ve forgotten his name, became president and Julie asked me there to speak to people in her classes and I did.

KH: Okay.

PM: It wasn’t on pacifism but it was—I don’t even remember what I had to say—

KH: Okay.

PM: about the war back then but it was okay.

KH: And was this during this time when the war was still going on or was it after?

PM: I think the war was still going on.

KH: Okay. So, I mean, you were a pretty—by that time a pretty public person. You’ve been in political spheres. You know political movers and shakers—

PM: Yeah, right.

KH: and you’re a very vocal advocate for peace. So is that how—do you remember how you got chosen or how it ended up that you were on this trip in 1971 to Paris? Like how—?

PM: That was through the American Friends Service Committee.

KH: Okay, and you had had long connections with them.

PM: Yeah.

KH: Okay, yeah. And you said there were what? Maybe twenty-four of you who went? And I think I read somewhere and I’m just going to mention them—I don’t know them but was Kay Halvorson—?

PM: Yes.

KH: there and Sally Buckley?

PM: Yeah, they were good friends.

KH: And they were obviously active in the antiwar movement and doing the peace—

PM: Right.

KH: And so it was sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee—

PM: This trip to Paris.

KH: This trip to Paris and tell me again who you met with. What was the goal of the trip?

PM: I don’t know but, you know, that’s when I met Madame Binh.

KH: Yeah.

PM: She was in Paris and we sang the Viet Cong fight song and danced through the hall in the embassy. I told you, they had the gun there.

KH: Yeah.

PM: I have to think of that woman’s name. You have no idea. Well, it doesn’t matter. I can’t tell you any more than that.

KH: I think I read somewhere—oh, here, it’s so convenient, I’ve written it down—that it was the Citizens Conference on Ending the War in Vietnam.

PM: Okay.

KH: Does that sound right?

PM: Yeah.

KH: And do you remember at the end of that trip, what did you take away from that? What did you learn from those conversations you had with people in Paris, Vietnamese people, French people?

PM: I don’t know. I’m trying to think of the people that were there and if there were any that stand out in my mind. You know, I just remember one who was a Catholic nun, Margaret somebody—I can’t tell you any more than that.

KH: Okay, all right. I mean that’s a pretty—it’s just so interesting because you had your hand in so many things.

PM: Yeah.

KH: I mean, not many antiwar activists flew to Paris, right?

PM: Yes.

KH: To talk to people who were—I think it was with people who were involved in the negotiations, right?

PM: Yes, right.

KH: About the—I mean, that’s pretty high level conversation to have had. So by this time— what, that’s 1971—how old are your kids? Are they out of the house? I can’t even do the math. I don’t know when they were born.

PM: They must have been.

KH: Okay. Did you raise your kids explicitly with, you know, a very political awareness, as pacifists?

PM: Yes. I could tell you because—I don’t know whether you want to do this or not but my next, the middle daughter, died of an overdose of drugs and alcohol. They found her body—it was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She had been in California—yes, she was a peace person. She didn’t—she was more retiring, more like her father, and she was coming home and she stopped in Omaha [Omaha, NE] and she had had—she had been in the hospital for depression and they’d given her a drug called—oh, damn—I’ve forgotten the name of the drug but it’s usually not given except when people are hospitalized and she had it. She came to Sioux Falls—I’ll think about it—Prolexin, P-r-o-l-e-x-i-n, or P-r-o-l-e-x-e-n [Prolixin (fluphenazine)]. I don’t know, but she died from an overdose of that drug and alcohol which is fatal. I don’t know whether—we don’t know whether she knew it or she didn’t know it but she had been—we pretty much in our family consider her a war death because it was in those years and I wrote a novel about it.

KH: Did you?

PM: Somewhere I’ve got it—called The Years of Destruction. I wrote it after her death because I had to do something—it’s not a good novel but I wrote it.

KH: Did it get published?

PM: No, no.

KH: And it was just about that time period, just—?

PM: Yeah, it was about a family in that time period, yeah.

KH: Because I would imagine. You know, I was born in 1968 so I don’t remember any of this—

PM: Oh, no.

KH: but, you know, I’ve been studying it and reading about it for a long time, and it just seems like a period that was so heightened—

PM: Yes.

KH: politically, emotionally—

PM: Yes, it was.

KH: like you couldn’t separate what was happening out there from what happened here.

PM: Sort of like the years of the French Revolution. I mean, you read about that and yeah, so when that happened in Omaha—we went to Omaha where she was buried and we heard from all kinds of people. I wrote everybody that ever wrote me—I answered all their letters and that was that.

KH: That’s sad, very tragic.

PM: Yeah, she just—one of them, I think Barbara, my oldest daughter, said, “She saw the world as it is and she couldn’t take it.” I don’t know that. We don’t know.

KH: So how—was that situation in particular—but just in general, even absent something so traumatic—how Polly, does one such as yourself, have the energy and the kind of momentum to keep working on these kinds of things?

PM: I think because I believe so much—I believe that we—I do believe in non-violence and I do believe in the power of love and I do believe that it’s there and that it’s up to me to make good decisions and to honor everybody I meet. I don’t always do that but I try. So I think that’s it.

KH: Did you ever, along the way, whether it was during the Vietnam years or later, with WAMM, did you ever doubt yourself—not yourself, not your beliefs—but did you ever wonder whether or not it was worth it?

PM: No. I don’t think I ever did.

KH: And what kind of personal satisfaction did you take out of this kind of work?

PM: Well, somebody asked me how I could keep doing it. Well, it’s the people I meet like you—you do meet wonderful people and you do meet and you have relationships that are more than hello and goodbye. And they keep you going. My cleaning woman—

KH: So it really does—you’re the fourth person I’ve interviewed now—I have fifteen more coming—and one thing that has struck me is about the community. It seems very much that antiwar activists functioned because they built a community of like-minded people—

PM: Yeah, I think that’s true.

KH: who could help withstand—

PM: Absolutely.

KH: being arrested, being gassed, you know, dealing with unhappy friends.

PM: What was going to jail? Mary Lou Ott, who still lives here, and we were singing and the guards came and said, “You can’t sing anymore.” So one of the women said, “We won’t sing but we’ll just mime our voices,” so we sang, (whispering) “The itsy, bitsy spider went up the garden spout, and down came the rain—” (laughter)

KH: Well, so this leads me to another question. I mean, I’ve just met you, but I’ve been reading a bit about you and seeing things but it seems you’ve got a high spirit and it seems like you like people; you like to have fun along the way—

PM: Yes.

KH: Did that—does that factor into your—

PM: I think so, yes, I think so.

KH: ability to keep going?

PM: I think so.

KH: Somebody else I interviewed said that fun was a big part of it.

PM: Well, yes.

KH: I mean, it wasn’t enough and it wasn’t the main purpose but it helped.

PM: That’s right.

KH: Now, let’s talk a little bit about WAMM. Finally, we’re going to officially get to WAMM because that’s such a big part of your life and your legacy. So you said that you and Marianne Hamilton formed that in 1981?

PM: Yes.

KH: Up here—so you’ve moved to the Twin Cities. And tell me how—

PM: How we did it.

KH: how that started.

PM: Well, Marianne had been involved in antiwar activities and so she had a lot of friends up here. Her husband was an advertising man. They lived on one of the lakes and were well-to-do and she had been very active in the Catholic Church. She told me the last time I think she was in a Catholic church the priest said something about the war or it was something that was not what it should be according to Marianne. She took her children—three of them were with her at the time—and she said she got up and walked out of the church. That was Marianne. So she just died about four or five weeks, maybe four months ago I guess [August 6, 2017]. And so she had a circle of friends and so we had a meeting and everybody was to bring their Christmas card list— and at that time, people were sending more Christmas cards than today—so we composed a letter, you know, this—what do you call it? Anyhow, it was a, to be used, a composite letter and each of us was to send a letter to our Christmas card list and ask them to give us some money, to give us money—not just [unintelligible]—we wanted money.

Then she had a friend, and I don’t know who that was, who gave us the money so we had enough money to rent office space right down here on Hennepin—to rent an office and pay the first month’s salary.

She was—and I was on unemployment. I had got—had a job up here and got in an argument with my boss who fired me and but then they gave me unemployment so I had a salary and Walter would come up on the weekends and I’d see him then but I moved to the city—

KH: By yourself.

PM: Yeah.

KH: So he was still judging—

PM: Yes, and then my oldest daughter, who was a high school dropout—I mean, not my oldest, my youngest, went back to college and got a degree in chemistry—she and I shared an apartment in St. Paul. My husband would come up for the weekends and then we founded WAMM and we got enough money to rent the office for one month and pay her salary. I was getting unemployment and she got the salary so we were set and then we’d go from month to month and finally had enough. Today the budget’s a hundred thousand and that’s, you know, it’s not a lot but we can pay—we pay one staff; we pay actually two staff people—we have a director and an assistant. I think we should just get one, but that’s what we have and then we have a newsletter editor.

KH: Okay.

PM: Those three salaries and people pay dues—forty dollars a year and we used to get a few grants. We don’t get many grants anymore and so far, it’s going.

KH: Well, for what? How many years is that?

PM: Since ’81. What is today? About thirty/forty years.

KH: Yeah, so why a women’s group in particular?

PM: Because when men are in anything, they run it, and we didn’t want men to run this; we wanted to run it. Men can come in and they can be members but they can’t be on the board; they can’t make any decisions—it’s all women and women are freer really. Men have to always think about—well, this is generalization—but up to now, when men have been the moneymakers, that’s had to be their concern and yeah—

KH: So that leads me to questions kind of going back to the Vietnam era. You were a woman; you were a little bit older, right? You weren’t a college student.

PM: No.

KH: You had kids. Were you—did that make you a unique person in the antiwar movement? Were there other people your age? Women from your status? Because I think the perception is that the antiwar movement was young college students.

PM: Was what?

KH: Was young college students.

PM: Oh, yes, I suppose. Now, it was, you know—WAMM is a middle class organization. Black women, by and large, do not have the time to give to an organization like WAMM or the energy and the thinking power that it needs. We had—there was a chance at one—when they had the women’s conference in Beijing —Marianne, I think, and I were talking about it and we just—we felt that the only women who would go to Beijing would be women of means. There should be some other women there—there should be black women—and so we got a group together and they did send a black woman—I forgot, maybe two. And then I said I felt they should come together and I knew what I should do was to stay with them, even if I didn’t—but I didn’t do it and nothing happened. And so there is no black women’s group here but there should be because it would do, you know, Black Lives Matter—I think it could have been even more important.

KH: So, yeah, you say WAMM is kind of a white, middle-class women’s—

PM: It is.

KH: group and has been. Do you think that’s true of the anti-Vietnam War movement in general? Was it a white, middle-class movement in your experience, in what you saw?

PM: Probably, probably—not my age—it was younger of course.

KH: Right.

PM: But they were people of means, yes, better than average educations, yeah.

KH: Who, again, had the time and the means—?

PM: Right, right.

KH: I mean, just literally, the time—

PM: Right.

KH: to do that and could afford to do it. And so another question that is kind of underlying—

PM: I was going to give us coffee and here I forgot all about it.

KH: I’m fine.

PM: All right.

KH: I’m all good.

PM: See, I had it all out and ready.

KH: I have water. I bring my own water everywhere.

PM: That’s too bad though because I was going to offer you coffee.

KH: Oh, so one of the kind of subtexts, at least in my view, to all of this is, you know, women’s issues.

PM: Yes.

KH: So do you consider yourself a feminist?

PM: Yes, I do, I do, but I don’t—I would never vote for a candidate, though, simply because they were a woman. I would never—I’m not that way—I, generally, in the past, feminist movement is I don’t know—did you ever read about the Pankhurst women? You must have—

KH: I did, yeah.

PM: And I think about them and what they did so I don’t know—I don’t think men could have done it.

KH: What do you think women bring to an antiwar/peace movement that is different than men?

PM: Probably nothing really. I think men are just equally concerned.

KH: But maybe—I think what you said earlier was that there is just kind of this structure whereby men have been taught and told and expected to take charge of a meeting, women haven’t been, and so there is value in having a women-led—

PM: I can remember talking about how—the difference—I mean, for example, I’ve seen enough of these things, if you’re going to do it in the structural way, you start here and you put your paper on the board and you write all the steps that you’ve got to take to get over here. Whereas with women, they might just go there and fall down once in a while, but they would go and not take these steps—

KH: Okay, so more action oriented, rather than this kind of a structural—

PM: Yes, because you know, to get along in the corporate world you learn all their tricks and you have to.

KH: Right. So when do you think—I’m not quite sure how to ask this. At what point did you start becoming very aware of quote, women’s issues—or when would you have started considering yourself a feminist?

PM: I don’t know because I can remember my mother telling me when I was in high school— she wanted to start a [dry cleaning business] of all things and she’d looked into it and done, you know, the spade work and she’d gone to the banker and he wouldn’t lend her any money.

KH: Because she was a woman?

PM: Yeah, that’s what she said. That’s what she told us. She said he wouldn’t and I think it’s right. That was just not heard of so—

KH: So there was something going back to your mother’s experiences—

PM: Yes.

KH: as a single woman who was—

PM: Right.

KH: working and wanted to do a different kind of work but she kind of ran into that roadblock because she was a woman.

PM: My mother, in the south, my mother had a poll tax list. You ever heard of that? KH: Yes.

PM: On Election Day, she took the car and drove the car and went around to people on her list and on the way to the poll, she told them who to vote for.

KH: Interesting.

PM: And she did that to keep her job in the welfare office.

KH: Ah, okay. So when the second wave of the women’s movement comes along in the late sixties and early seventies—just at the time that all this antiwar stuff was happening—were you involved in any of that?

PM: No.

KH: So pretty focused on the war.

PM: I wasn’t. I remember Kay and Carol and they were more.

KH: Okay, okay. Now, so what do you remember about the end of the war in Vietnam? Were you satisfied with how it ended? Did you feel like you had helped bring it to an end?

PM: No, I didn’t feel that at all. Well, I don’t know, but I think I thought it was just another step. I mean, I never thought it showed any change in understanding or policy—basic integral change? No.

KH: Do you think that the country, however you define that, the government, the military, do you think that they learned anything important from the Vietnam War?

PM: No, I don’t, I don’t. You know, I’ve been watching this thing with North Korea and South Korea and that looks good to me—I just hope that those leaders will see it through.

KH: Yeah, yeah.

PM: You don’t hear anything about the women, whether that leader of North Korea is married, has kids—nothing about him.

KH: Yeah, I don’t know.

PM: And Putin the same, except I think we’ve heard he’s married—he was married—I think he’s divorced but we don’t hear anything.

KH: Right. So you started WAMM in 1981 so what? That’s about eight years after the United States withdraws from Vietnam.

PM: Yes.

KH: So what was the issue that made you start WAMM in 1981—like what was the—?

PM: I don’t think there was anything in particular.

KH: Okay, so you had just continued your peace work after the end of the war in Vietnam.

PM: I don’t think there was anything in particular.

KH: Okay.

PM: Right now I think we should probably be working on the nuclear issue and a nuclear moratorium.

KH: Still?

PM: Even unilateral.

KH: Yeah, that’s been an issue, what? In my notes here it says that I read somewhere that you had come out in support of a nuclear test ban treaty in 1963.

PM: Yeah.

KH: So for all these years, I mean, it’s still—

PM: Yeah, and the nations that haven’t signed the last one are the nations that have nuclear weapons. None of them signed that peace treaty. Now why? It would kill—if it didn’t kill anybody in the nation that dropped it, it eventually would come back and hit them in the face, though. So dumb isn’t it?

KH: It is. Do you have hope? Do you think peace is possible?

PM: No, no. I think the environment’s going to get us first. We aren’t going to do anything about that. It’s just going to keep getting worse and worse.

KH: The environment? The physical environment like climate—?

PM: Climate change, yes, I should have said that.

KH: Not just pollution—

PM: No, but climate change—I think that’s going to get us.

KH: Okay. So do you think that is the most or one of the most pressing issues of the day? You said nuclear as well.

PM: Well, in a way, because it’s there but it’s not like when you think about war and you think about human beings and you don’t—and the climate—I mean, you can’t work on individuals. I think when it comes to war generally, you can think about the people you know and hopefully impress them and if that movement grows, it could happen that we could get peace, but the corporate world is killing us, of course. It’s that, the greed—that’s why we’re in the shape we’re in. Yeah, exactly.

KH: So speaking of all of this, I guess, you also ran for Senate.

PM: I did.

KH: In 1988.

PM: I did. I’ve forgotten how many thousand votes but really none to speak of.

KH: So why do it? Why did you do it?

PM: Well, I did it. I think it was maybe a good thing to do. I did get some coverage; when I went after the small towns in Minnesota I would make the front page. Otherwise, as who was it? Somebody at the Star Tribune said to me, You know, it’s a ball game and you’re not going to win it and we don’t care about the losers.

KH: Boy, well, that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy right there.

PM: He didn’t quite say it that bluntly but it was that way and they didn’t. They didn’t care what I did—they didn’t –

KH: They didn’t cover you.

PM: No.

KH: But outstate they did?

PM: They did, not because they were any better, but they didn’t have anything more interesting to put on the front page.

KH: And there you were. You were traveling around and you were looking for the DFL endorsement against Skip Humphrey—

PM: Yes.

KH: Humphrey the third.

PM: My friend, Eddie Felien, said I could have gotten it. I think I got 35 percent of the vote but I told him that I wasn’t—what did I tell him? I said I wasn’t going to support the candidate even if—it was something that bad. So there was no way they were going to—

KH: Took care of that. (laughter)

PM: Yeah, I hadn’t thought that I wanted to run. What would you do in the Senate? I mean, that would be a—I think you’d go crazy there trying to do something.

KH: So it seems like you’ve gone back and forth over the idea of whether you can make change within the political system or if it’s best to be on the outside kind of—

PM: Pushing, yeah.

KH: And now you’re back—

PM: Exactly.

KH: Do you think that’s a more effective way of—?

PM: Well, I think it has more reward, too, for you personally.

KH: Ah, okay. Is there anything, looking back on all of this history, is there anything you wish you had done differently or done that you didn’t do?

PM: I’ve never—you’d have to give some thought to that I think. I can’t think of anything right now.

KH: Have your general thoughts or antiwar convictions changed over the years?

PM: No.

KH: And it’s still that blanket [idea], killing is wrong—

PM: That’ right.

KH: no matter what? Death penalty?

PM: Yeah, my son had told me they had been to a meeting and they said, What should you do if you’re someplace and somebody points a gun at you? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever—? And they had three things: first, you run; and then second, you hide; and then third, you look for anything you can find to hit him with, a board or whatever is available to hit. That is the third.

KH: To stop them from shooting you—

PM: Yes.

KH: without also taking up arms?

PM: That sounds interesting, doesn’t it?

KH: Um-hm, um-hm.

PM: I’ve never been in that position. Have you?

KH: No, thankfully, I have not. I hope not to be.

PM: We’re lucky.

KH: Yeah, I don’t want to make that decision at all. What do you think have been your biggest successes in the work that you’ve done?

PM: I think probably founding WAMM even if it doesn’t last, you know. It could, though, by the way.

KH: Is WAMM drawing in younger people?

PM: No, not really, and that’s why I think that we should have a college group and we don’t. I thought one time that we probably should lobby the female teachers at the U of M and see if we could convince them to help us, not recruit, but at least mention that this organization exists in some way, I don’t know.

KH: Yeah, what do you—? I mean, I wonder—is WILPF, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, they’re still around also, right?

PM: Oh, yes, and we would have been WILPF; we would have been WILPF but I found out that that organization—the dues go to the national office, not for local use.

KH: Oh, so if you had established a chapter or been part of a chapter, all of the dues would have gone out of state.

PM: So they can’t grow.

KH: Right.

PM: Isn’t that foolish? They still exist, I think. Oh, I know it does.

KH: Yeah, so do you have any sense—? Are they attracting younger people? Is there a generational thing happening?

PM: I don’t think so. I don’t think they’re doing any better than we are.

KH: I wonder - Where are all these young people? Certainly there are young peace activists, antiwar people.

PM: Absolutely there are.

KH: Where are they do you think?

PM: I don’t know. I don’t feel any apathy exactly. I mean, I don’t think it’s because they’re not caring. I don’t know.

KH: Yeah.

PM: What do you think?

KH: I don’t know either. I think partly—I think technology has changed how we organize and how we learn about the world and how we consume our politics. We’ve got a huge—

PM: You have to probably use the media.

KH: Yep, and perhaps they are.

PM: Hm?

KH: Perhaps they are. There may be great organization kind of through social media and other kinds of technology which is very different.

PM: Which reminds me. I had thought what we really should do if we wanted to work on that idea would be—would be about a three or four step process. Number one would be to get groups, get the names, start a list of all the women’s peace groups and I wasn’t sure that that should be church groups or not because many times those church groups are for Sunday, but there certainly are peace organizations. And then to get those and then next, to have a conference on the well- being of children, not—and then the women would end up with what’s the well-being of children, war being the thing that keeps—the biggest detriment is a war and at the end, have a national conference on preventing war. But the corporations wouldn’t like it.

KH: Yeah, yeah.

PM: They’d say it was utopian.

KH: Well, even if utopia is not achievable, you’ve got to aim in that direction.

PM: Well, that’s true, right.

KH: So that brings up your point about children. Were you ever—did you cross paths back in the Vietnam era with groups like Women Strike for Peace or Another Mother for Peace, or any of those other kinds of women’s—

PM: I used to have a little pendant with um? Was that the Women Strike for Peace? No, it wasn’t—they had a pendant so women—because WAMM would have been—we absolutely would have been the Women’s International League—we would have been but we couldn’t grow with them.

KH: Right, right. Do you know how many WAMM chapters there are?

PM: This one.

KH: Just this one.

PM: Just this one.

KH: But it draws members from—is it mostly local?

PM: Yes, it is local.

KH: But for a while, like after the Phil Donahue appearance—

PM: Oh, it was, yes, but that was less than fifty I would say.

KH: Okay, okay.

PM: And my daughter in California, Connie, says she thinks one could be started out there and I think she’s probably right. But somebody’s got to do it and she’s running her business and taking care of her kids and she’s not going to do it.

KH: Yeah.

PM: I wouldn’t encourage her to do it. I mean, maybe I should.

KH: So where, for you, Polly, where does all of this antiwar, peace work fit in your—?

PM: My daily life?

KH: Yeah.

PM: It does in my writing because I continue to write. You know, I get stuff online and I print it out and I look at it. After I think about it a while, I might write an article about it and it can be in the WAMM newsletter or once in a while I try to—I write a letter to the editor; it won’t get printed. Eddie in Southside Pride, runs a column that I write now about just whatever I choose to write.

When I was in Windom I did have a column called “Through My Kitchen Window,” I just remembered that.

KH: When you were in Windom? Interesting.

PM: Was it Windom or Marshall? Let me think now. No, it was Windom, which I liked better than Marshall, that little town was better for me I felt than Marshall.

KH: How interesting. How come?

PM: I don’t know. Marshall, I don’t know—I once said they thought—Marshall thought it was a big city when it was just a little city and Windom never had those kind of illusions. (laughter)

KH: Just it is what it is or it was what it was.

PM: Yeah, so I don’t know.

KH: Is there anything else we should talk about, get on tape before we—?

PM: No. I just read something about the—where did I see that? You probably remember the women’s—who was it? Judy Chicago and her artwork, you know, the table that she had—they’re putting it in a museum someplace.

KH: Okay, I hadn’t heard that.

PM: I was thinking about her but I don’t—I don’t regret anything really. I mean, of course, we regret dumb things we’ve done but, by and large, I’m okay.

KH: Well, you’ve done a lot. You have done a lot, more than most.

PM: I was trying to think of places I’ve been—I was thinking about—when Chernobyl happened, Marianne and I were on a train and I think we went—I don’t know what we were doing on that train but we were there. It was going through Germany and the porter or somebody mentioned Chernobyl and it was then, and now we’ve got Fukushima and they say that the radioactivity is at California now.

KH: Really? From Fukushima?

PM: Yeah.

KH: Wow, wow. How long ago was that? That was—?

PM: I don’t remember now.

KH: Yeah, I don’t either.

PM: It’s a matter of a few years, that’s all.

KH: Yeah, wow.

PM: And then Okinawa, you know, there were women here from Okinawa that I met and a great portion of Okinawa, America has as a base, an air base, and they use it as an air base and then the Okinawans were very upset because the troops had been—had used the Okinawa women, of course, because they’re human beings and that’s what happened and they don’t like that. It’s not a healthy situation. We shouldn’t be there.

KH: Yeah, well, we’re all over.

PM: And we’ve got over six hundred—I don’t know how many bases around the world. So dumb.

KH: Yeah.

PM: So dumb.

KH: Well, thank you, Polly. I really appreciate your time.

PM: Let me know if you have any other questions that—what is this?

KH: That’s that form you need to sign if you will.

PM: Okay.

End of Recording 01:45:26