Clarence Hemmingsen Narrator

Tom O'Connell Interviewer

1978?

CH: ...every nickel that you can get, when I was going with my wife there, if I could get her a hot tamale on Saturday night when we was going together, that was a tremendous week, you know, just 25 cents, you know, and so...

TO: How old are you about now? Minnesota

CH: Now? in

TO: Must have been 30. CH: Then? Society Project TO: Yeah. Radicalism CH: At that time? TO: Yeah. HistoryHistorical CH: Yeah, I was in the 30s,Century yeah, so I was always a strong man, I was trained for heavy weight fighting and I could, I strayed [unclear]Oral nothing, I never, from a kid in school I never was pushing anybody around, [unclear] losing anybody, but if anybody done anything unfair I wasn't afraid to fight for myself and I never knew that about myself, but I had this school chum by the name of Tom Brown and he had a restaurant over in Michigan, over in the upper part of Michigan and he came up here about five years ago andMinnesota he worked here in town, he was a hotel cook you know and he said I come up here I wanted to see you and he said I was always jealous of you, he said because my mother hadTwentieth usually one child every year and he said she used to stand with one child on the left shoulder turning pancakes and fork them to the rest of the family around the table and keeping them going with pancakes and she said she was always bragging about Clarence Hemmingsen and he said if you kids had any guts like Clarence had, he says I'd talk about you once in a while, and he said you go pushing Clarence around and he says you'll get a clout in the mouth and so he said he's worth talking about. Well this kid come up here a full grown man, and he said I came up to see it, but he said I'll only tell you this story, us kids was always jealous of you because my mother was always bragging about you.

TO: That's great.

1 CH: And so I guess, I must have been, I had quite a bit of courage you know, I wasn't easily pushed around. Well, so that's what brought me up here, it's like Professor Scott Nearing, I'm sure you know about him, he played a big part in our education [unclear] from Chicago and Clarence Darrow the same, he said Clarence Darrow said like this, he said everybody in life he said is influenced by the economic facts and the realities of the economics that surround them and Clarence Darrow said I was raised in Terra Haute Indiana and he said I got married and promised my wife everything and he says a new bungalow and roses around the door, and he said a nice carriage standing in the yard and well dressed children. He said living at the Darrow home, he said, I was practicing law down there and he said there was no way of making a dollar and so then he said I went to Chicago in response to the economic insecurity of life in Terre Haute, Indiana, and I got a job driving a taxicab and then he said I went to law school and he said many people write the story about their success and he said they want to show their superiority, and he said I'm not one of those, he said I was just lucky, he says I got a court case he says to represent a wealthy corporation that had a fairly just case he says in court and I was smart enough to win it, and he said that made my reputation in Chicago, and whenever thought about an attorney, they thought about Clarence Darrow, [unclear] Cricket and the rest and he says if it wasn't for that lucky break he said I mightMinnesota have been one that starved to death around here just like I was starving in Terre Haute, Indiana.in So... TO: Why did you choose Minnesota to come to though specifically?

CH: Well, the first reason is that you have to survey what you like and I'd already spoken in Minnesota and I'd spoken in, I spoke on a soap box along side of the SocietyRyan Hotel in the campaign that we was directing I think it was in 1923 and we was tryingProject to organize the national Farmer Labor Party in these five states, somebody had to go around and campaign and tell them on what basis they could send delegates. We had toRadicalism pretty damn liberal about that, letting delegates come, so we invited the Sick and Death Benefit Society, fraternal organizations, labor unions and political groups to send delegates to Chicago on the Historyfirst, no the second, third and fourth of July and we held a meeting in the streetcarmen's auditorium there andHistorical so the Communist Party, they made up their mind they was going to controlCentury the [unclear] thing you know, they suffered from that crazy idea in them days that they were going to takeOral control of every damn thing and so they tried to do that with the Workers League out there on the northwest side of Chicago and they had unemployed councils in the city of Chicago, they was going to go over there and take control of it, and so, but I said I'll show you fellas something that you never seen before, I said you'll do what I tell you and I said they can come right to the meeting andMinnesota I said we'll let them speak as long as they want to and I said when they're through speaking, we won't deny them that, I said we'll tell them your time is up and the meeting isTwentieth ended and we're going to resume the conduct of our regular business meetings around here and I had a guy already, a husky guy, he could take an ordinary guy with one hand like you're carrying a sack of groceries and set them outside of the door and say so long, I'll see you later. So, I got the membership secretary to stand by the door when everybody came in I said put a red ribbon on their coat, and you ask them to see their card so when I'm speaking from the audience I'll know exactly I got out there, so I says if it comes to such a thing as a vote. And so we never had to do that and he was not going to give up the meeting, he was going to start disrupting tactics and I said nothing like that goes on in our meetings and I don't give a damn who you are and I said you've been given your time, you've said what you had in mind during that time and I said if there's anything additional that you want to speak about and tell us that might be helpful in the future, if

2 you make arrangements with the proper people, we'll still give you another hearing, so I says you're time is up and I said if you don't want to go out of the hall and let us resume our business I says we got enough force here to carry our wishes out and that, so we had a guy there we called him the missing link, 300 pounds and Christ almighty...

TO: That's great, the missing link.

CH: All we had to do was say Link send him outside. When that was necessary to do that, one look at him and he went out there willingly. Well that's why I come up here, I had relatives in Duluth, my brother lived there, and he was in business up there and I'm a pipefitter and so he was in a companion business that I could get a few days work out of there for a while. Well you know how it is, life shows that when you work for relatives, unless you're god damn independent and already well fixed, there get's to be hardships from that, they overemphasize the fact that they're doing something for you and so Edman I said well the thing didn't work out good, I stayed there about two months and then we come up the North Shore, we borrowed my brother's camping outfit and my wife is an artist you know, she's a very idealistic girl and soMinnesota she had it all to learn so she wanted to live up here because it's such a beautiful country and then I figure that like Scott Nearing said and Clarence Darrow said if you go to the hinterlands, that'sin what Scott Nearing said, you go to the hinterlands during the Depression, you can live on odd jobs and you can live on nature see, you can live on the fish and you can live on the animals and so that's what we came here for and to make a new start. And I had the right to work at my trade of pipefitting that was, then I can lead the rest of my life, I think I have lost because of the dirty tricks that GeorgeSociety Meany and the official[?] family of the union, I didn't merit anything like that at allProject by any stretch of the imagination regardless of how conservative or whatever their philosophy was, I never merited anything like that because I've never done anything against theRadicalism union and if they would have accepted my advice in the controversy about them two members, there would have been peace in the family and while they wanted me, they wanted to control me,History I could have made an arrangement so I could say well this is my way of making a living and you put the restrictionsHistorical on what I'm going to say and I will do the best I can to conform toCentury them, but I do not and I will not accept any position of leadership in this official family. I says if you was a Oralrespectable decent official that'd be different, but I says I know better, but I says in spite of the fact that I know better I still, I still want to get an understanding with you enough so I can work at my profession and make a living, I would have said that but I never got that far, so never had the chance. So I know what persecution is, I've been persecuted ever since that day in 1932 when they gaveMinnesota me the written letter that I was no longer a member, there was no chance for any regret, no chance for getting back. When I came up here, there was no unions here, I got a chanceTwentieth to gather up a few tools and go out and do some small plumbing, heating jobs which I was qualified to do and finally I went into the business and made my living here, I had a good wife and we started in building our resort, it's [unclear]. We build that with old boards and old nails and all kinds of hardship, never, there was never any extra money for anything, when we got $100 we invested it wisely and we built up the resort over there, see.

TO: That's wonderful.

CH: Took care of 50, 36 people.

TO: Where did you live when you first got here? 3 CH: Well I lived in one shack after the other, there was lots of shacks here where old timers, 25-30 years before us, our arrival, they had, there was abandoned farms because there's no way of making a living on the farms, and people moved from the farms and so the buildings stood empty. There was an old house up above there in Lutsen that was called the, an old French lumberjack lived there, he had about five acres of land cleared, that he had a hay barn and a house on, and we, we had to fix that up and live in, we paid $5 a month rent, that's all we had, we didn't have no more money. Then the first place we rented was at Barker's Lake, there was a log cabin there made out of hewed logs and that was owned by Pete Extran and he, he used to make a living trapping up there, but he got too old to live that kind of life and so he moved down to the community of Lutsen, so that building stood empty and when Edna and I first come here, we'd take the same road that you'd take to go up to the ski [unclear], that's called the North Road when we came here. My wife wrote a story about our life up there, the two years, she wrote a story, it's here somewhere, I got two stories, and then she wrote the story of Barker's Lake and then the story of the North Road. Well they're here somewhere and I'm thinking about sharing them over to the local historical society, they're kind of short stories, they were well illustrated, she's a good artist and so she illustrated them. But my stuff is scattered in three places and I can't find them until I go throughMinnesota all my stuff, they're in a couple of envelopes, so anyway we got established here and thein Farmer Labor Party was the thing that stayed in my mind and the friendliness of the people in the Twin Cities when I was there, what's his name, the mayor...

TO: St. Paul or Minneapolis? Society CH: It was the mayor, Mahoney... Project

TO: Mayoney. Radicalism

CH: Bill Mahoney, he was mayor at that time, and there was a fellow there, a sidekick of Mahoney's, his name was Julius something,History he wasHistorical leader in the veterans' organizations, he sat around there, what was his name now, but anyway when I was speaking there and asking for delegates to be sent to ChicagoCentury for that Farmer Labor organizing convention, well, they took me out to dinner a couple of times, they attended,Oral the, Julius, [unclear] anyway he was a pretty well informed guy, so I spoke in St. Paul and I also met Clarence Hathaway, he was from Detroit, you know...

TO: Oh, I didn't know that. Minnesota Twentieth CH: I went to the same Marxian schools, I had the same instructors he had and he's about my age too you know. So Clarence Hathaway hung around with me to find out the total plan so he could engineer something to get enough delegates to send to Chicago and they took control of the Chicago convention and inside of two hours they had every control that there was, they run the whole goddamn convention.

TO: I know, that's too bad.

CH: So we had a cartoon in the Proletarian, it was so goddamn funny, they had a lot of Jewish people you know in the, foreign born Jews in the Communist Party [unclear], we made a cartoon 4 and they were standing on one of these old [unclear], up on one of these old phones with a crank on you know and one guy had his hand on his own neck and he was calling the Third International and he said hello, he said, is this the Third International, yeah, they said, they answered down the other end. They said, well I just captured the Farmer Labor convention in the Commons Auditorium in Chicago, he had himself right by the neck you know, the guy that was talking, goddamn effective cartoon.

TO: That's great.

CH: Well, so we just gave it up, but it was three years work, geez, you work day and night in a city as big as Chicago, hold meeting after meeting after meeting and then one group come like that, goddamn wrecking crew and they destroy every damn thing and defeat you, well you have to face the realities and say well we made a strong effort to do the job, we failed, so things were not ready for [unclear]. TO: Well, did you get involved when you moved up here right awayMinnesota in the Farmer Labor Party? CH: Oh, I couldn't avoid that, couldn't avoid that. I went to thein first convention in, they used to always have the conventions in the auditorium in St. Paul and I was very conspicuous in the convention in which Hjalmar Peterson tried to wrest the statewide plan to nominate Elmer Benson as the candidate for governor to succeed Floyd Olson... Society TO: Right, in 1936. Project CH: Well, so, in '36 yeah, so I wasn't wellRadicalism known but I had the ability to speak so Hjalmar Peterson, he had a clip there too you know and he tried to get control and get two candidates endorsed, he didn't figure he had strength enough, he wanted to get Elmer Benson endorsed and then get himself endorsed and then go throughHistory the primariesHistorical and then support the one that gets the most votes in the primaries and so I made the first speech and in them days they didn't have no microphones, you had to haveCentury the voice and so I had the voice and I made a very ferocious attack on the idea and I said that the conventionOral is called for the purpose of picking a candidate for governor and I says that doesn't mean two, I said that means one. So about 20 other people, I made the main leading speech on that and I denounced it and I said every delegate has been instructed and told who to vote for by its county organization and I said you're here for a purpose and I propose that we're going to nominate, goingMinnesota to nominate and endorse one candidate for governor and so about 20 Twentiethother speakers followed suit and said about the same thing and we finally, we finally endorsed Elmer Benson, but before the whole speech-making was over, Hjalmar Peterson come up on the platform with tears in his eyes you know, he wanted to talk to me and he was, well you know, he wanted to, he wanted to have it reconsidered someway or other and I said, Hjalmar, I said, I said the only thing you're crying about because you're greedy [unclear]. I said I worked in the movement since 1920 and I said I've never been singled out or honored for a goddamn thing and I says I don't see why you got to be honored by the leading nomination just because you're a member of the Party. And I says the wisdom of all the rest of the candidates and I says the quality of all the candidates you considered, you ought to abide by it, and I said if I was going to classify you, Mr. Peterson, I said I'd classify you that rutabaga king of [unclear], and I says you wouldn't get a hell of a lot higher than that. I was pretty sarcastic you know, I knew how to find the goddamn answer and 5 I was used to it, I had a lot of experience. Well, so, that divided the Party and we lost the election, you know, Elmer lost that one.

TO: Well you won in '36.

CH: What?

TO: Elmer won in '36.

CH: Yeah, he won in '36, but I mean...

TO: This is '38...

CH: ...he was too far to the left for his times you know, too far to the left. And he was an uncompromising man, I liked Elmer very well and I've known him all these years, he was my neighbor when I owned the resort, there wasn't hardly a week that he wasn't over two or three times a week having coffee and visiting like we're visiting you know so, he'sMinnesota a fine man. in TO: Well, weren't you responsible for getting the cabin built for him?

CH: Yes...

TO: Can you tell that story. Society Project CH: There was a time you see in Elmer Benson's days when you had two famous prisoners in Stillwater that were members of this outfitRadicalism they called the Murder Incorporated see and that was back in the '30s. That, that bunch, they was trying to get those two fellas, they, I understand, these are just guesswork you know but I mean theyHistory said they had $60,000 and they had bribed the, one of the leading members of the Supreme Court and theyHistorical had bribed the prison warden and if they could have gotten the endorsementCentury of Elmer Benson to let them out of jail and how many other people they had to influence who hadn't actuallyOral committed themself but who had been given money, we don’t' know, but they started harassing Elmer Benson calling him on the telephone and otherwise threatening him and if he ever went to a meeting of any kind they would try to assassinate his character by some [unclear] and they said the spokesman and friends of the Murder Incorporated was present at the meeting and that Elmer Benson was seen coming out of the, [unclear] goddamn dirty stuff, but the thing is the governorMinnesota can't disconnect his phone, he's a public servant and they'd call him Twentiethand call him and call him all night, so then a message came up on the shore that he needed a place of refuge to get away once in a while and don't have no phone there and no one would know, only the people that lived up here you know, where he lived and so, and it was proposed that we provide a place for him, and that's where he lives now, so I went up to the local banker here, somebody owned the lots down there, we got the lots donated in order to get the governor up it was quite a thing you know, a governor of a state, and they didn't know what I knew, that over the grapevine, that Party members, they wanted to provide a place of refuge for the governor to come to once in a while so he could get rested up and have a place to relax in, so we got the land donated, we got a hell of a lot of the stuff donated, I got the plumbing supplies donated by the Duluth Plumbing Supply Company in Duluth, Al Johnson down there, he's one of the head salesmen, he

6 sent the plumbing stuff, I hooked up the plumbing for Elmer and Frances and we had it working the day they come from the Iron Range with cars and trucks and we cleaned up the land and he had two lots down there and then we hired a contractor, because with volunteer labor you'd never get the damn job done, so we hired a local contractor from Grand Marais here by the name of Nunstead and he put up the building and then there was money to be raised and you know how it is, at first these department heads like the Bob Dairy he was a banking commissioner, well they put in four or five hundred dollars, it's only a drop in the bucket, but for one individual it's quite a lot and then it's a hell of a big organizing job to keep this thing moving all the time, the thing finally slacks up and dies out and you haven't got enough money and with a contractor, he put the building up and you got it all in shape so, it was good enough for the governor to move in and then he took the keys over to the bank and he said to the banker, he said here's the keys, they owe me $1100 yet, and he says nobody's moving in until you get the $1100. And so then I put everything damn thing into that I could, I didn't have no money, we was just getting started, Edna and I, but I had an old Ford car, one of them Fords, I guess they were sixes, they was overpowered you know, the damn Ford would jump like a damn rabbit when you put the gas on and I went up on the Range then so I got, if you're dedicated you had to see the damn project through, cause it already Minnesotadied out, they wouldn't never get the goddamn cabin if somebody didn't go and get the $1100,in so I was the supporter of the thing, all the big shots had been claiming credit all over the state for doing the job when actually I was the number one man, but they kept me on the outside edges and they, in the grapevine of the Party of St. Paul, I wasn't getting the credit, it was those people getting the credit and they was... Society TO: Did the timber workers have something to do with it?Project CH: Huh? Radicalism TO: Did the timber workers have something to do with it? CH: Yeah, I'll get to that now, I'm soon goingHistory to getHistorical that. So I went up on the Iron Range where there was a lot of timberworkers and a lot of good Farmer Laborites, the best that I knew and the Vookelige brothers, John VookeligeCentury and Frank Vookelige and so many many many others, geez it was wonderful up there, so I went andOral combed around up there and I raised $400, and Jesus Christ I was pretty downhearted you know, I said it took over a week to raise $400, so then we still didn't have the money, so I went down to Duluth and I went up to see the timber workers and that fellow, Elmer Figen... Minnesota TO: Figen,Twentieth yeah... CH: He said well, he says Clarence, he says, we'll help you to put it over if we can. And he assigned a fella with a vintage name that was a Jimmy Hagens man that went from camp to camp to collect the dues and do the work for keeping the union going, and him and I went into Lake County, we went from one goddamn camp to the other and we stayed overnight and after supper I made a talk to the camp and I asked them all to try to give a dollar a piece. We kept going there for two weeks and finally there was a lot of camps in Cook County and that man, I can't remember his name anymore, but Elmer, he was Elmer Koiganen's right hand man and we kept on going til we held the goddamn money and I had the $1100 and I went and dished it all out in checks and stuff like that and put it right on the window, now I said we want the goddamn keys, see, and that's how it was 7 finally [unclear], but if I was going to ask for pay for doing that, they'd never get me to do it for less than $2,000 and I done it all for nothing, you just had to.

TO: Right.

CH: Yeah, and Elmer spoke of more goddamn things as governor that I believed than any man that I ever lived around.

TO: Yeah, he really did. Can you tell me a little bit about what the Farmer Labor Association was like then?

CH: Well, Elmer never knew all these things, I'll tell you there's a woman living in Minneapolis, her name is Vienna Johnson, very close to the Bensons and she's married to a...

TO: Paul Henrickson CH: Huh?

TO: Paul, Paul Henrickson. Minnesota in CH: Yeah, Paul, yeah. Well she's the one that really come up and she straightened Elmer out, otherwise I'd done all this goddamn work and probably would never say anything and I'll be goddamned if I was going to tell him myself, see, and nobody ever extended Elmer Benson any finer hospitality than I did because I was in a position to do it, I had raspberries, I had garden stuff, and they was just like a member of our family, they was there for coffee,Society sometimes Frances would bring the makings of the coffee [unclear], she'd build up someProject rolls or something to take over just for the coffee, but we talked philosophy andRadicalism exchanged books and we had a goddamn nice friendship up here, but it was not ‘til Vienna Johnson really told Elmer Benson what the story was that he really realized and I said well, I said I raised $1100, I told him that last winter, because his boy, Tom, and his wife, they're, they're so dominatedHistory by that Lutheran Church, so I made some kind of a remark against religion and I said that I don't believeHistorical in supernaturalism at all and so I told him so, I said I don't believe in theCentury creation theory, I said it's been in the scrap heap as far as I'm concerned for over 50 years and I saidOral we discussed and debated these things I said when I went to school, they didn't buck the issue like they do now and I said if there's any singular thing keeps the working class and the progressive chloroformed I said it's the church, number one and [unclear] social progress and I said that's the stand that I take, so I said I don't follow that in theory of creation and the fact that you can say a prayerMinnesota and I said that God answers prayer and so on and so forth, I said I don'tTwentieth accept it at all and I said that goes along with being intellectually free but I said I'm also a philosopher, I want the right to my beliefs and I said if you want to believe different than me and I think Elmer and Frances and the Benson family have always belonged to the [unclear] church, they've been, you know, they've had nominal participation in it at all times. And I never really accepted the last [unclear] of information that's provided by science, they never reached that point, see, and that's still by their instinct and their sense of justice, they've guided themself by pragmatic reasoning from one good position to the other, in spite of the church, that's what we have to explain. I used to recite a poem one time right off of the platform, I think I can remember most of it yet today, so it goes like this:

They say there is a God above the boundless sky 8 Wise and wonder [unclear] strength none can defy

They say he is seated upon a throne most grand

Millions and millions of angels at his back

Then why don't he lend a hand

See how the earth is groaning

With countless tears are shed

See how the great [unclear]

Brave and sweet my [unclear]

And then it goes into a lot of other things and then it finally winds upMinnesota by saying that he is, if he is thus almight and is himself the king, then why don't he come forwardin and lend a hand [unclear], I got it, I recite it...

TO: No, you got a great memory... END TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE Society Project TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO Radicalism CH: They tried for three or four years the way they did they'd send me on trips and I was a good speaker, better of any of their speakers, and so they had state convention and various problems and I went there and they told me what they wantedHistory and asHistorical long as I was a pipefitter, well, I went there, I was chosen as a spokesman for them. Well I went to the convention in Alton, Illinois, they had a controversy, internal controversyCentury with the plumbers, the plumbers wanted to take away the work of the pipefitters and increase their ownOral power inside and the state of Illinois, they wanted to know what stand the pipe trades themselves would take on that and so I went there and it was easy for me, I won the debate and we took a vote on a statewide level and they carried the vote too, well it was a hell of a big victory and nothing for me or for a man like you, where we're trained people but the chairman of the plumbers union,Minnesota he was chairman of that convention and we met in a pretty good size hall,Twentieth probably held about three or four hundred people, that's all, and I was trained for watching people while I was debating [unclear][unclear] well then, you know, you can see his emotions were aroused by the things that I said that was rebuking to him you know, so anyway it took him about 20 minutes, well then when I come back to the union we had about 6,000 members, I was a hero you know and so of course our own members, the official family of the reactionary part of the union, they were crooks of the first class, well they made a lot out of that, so then there was going to be an international convention you know in Atlantic City, New Jersey and of course they wanted me on the slate of candidates and my thinking is so different, and they wanted me to become an official of the union and I knew how goddamned crooked they were and I said I can't live that way and so I said I had to resist that and so they, they don't work in the open, they send their ambassadors right to your apartment, or wherever they can talk to you privately and then they point 9 out the financial advantages, and they said the officials from Washington on they all want you know and so they paid me $100 a day way back in the '20s you know, that was a hell of a lot of money, $100 a day for being their spokesman, so I was gone two days to Alton, Illinois and I got a check for $200, geez, like a big shot you know, well those are the methods they used, see, so they tried that for about three years and I spoke in Chicago for the Chicago Federation of Labor, whenever there was any strikes or anything going on, they was supposed to chaperone and guide and help out and they had a committee of volunteer speakers on which I was one of the speakers and whenever I went out to speak well we were well trained, we knew about the history of the eight hour movement in America, all the things that of the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor and all them organizations had been involved in and the personalities that headed the unions and all that and oh I went to those conventions and we were pretty well trained, we, they set up a strategy for the handling of the strike, we never went over there come on with a new idea, we just worked the land that was there, which was the only thing that anybody could do. So I went to those meetings and I, well I surrounded myself with quite a reputation in the city of Chicago. Then Clarence Darrow helped Mother Jones there you know, you read her book, have you? Minnesota TO: Her autobiography? in CH: Autobiography, yeah.

TO: Yeah, I have it, a friend of mine gave it to me, I'm going to, I have it. Society CH: Well I got it around here somewhere, the life of MotherProject Jones and that was done by Clarence Darrow, you know. Radicalism TO: Oh, I didn't realize that. CH: He just went to his office and he wroteHistory the introductionHistorical you know, and I knew Mother Jones, she come right to the Chicago Federation of Labor just like a big grey headed strong husky Irish mother and washerwoman forCentury all that, you know and so then she got her book published and they needed someone to cover the unionsOral in the city of Chicago, well that was right down my alley, I said I want to learn to speak by speaking a whole lot, so I said I'll take a bundle of them books and I'll get a credential from the Chicago Federation of Labor and I'll, every week I'll go and speak one or two times at the union, [unclear] book talk, and sell a lot of books and then gain experience. And so I was gaining popularityMinnesota all over Chicago and I was a socialist-minded individual right in the most Twentiethreactionary union that was in the city of Chicago, and finally I got a build-up so great that they couldn't, they was, they had, they felt they had to get me in the official family some way. So then I want to tell you that they engaged in crooked politics and the way they done it, you probably have never heard this explained before but we've heard something explained, but the way they did and the year that Tony Surmac run for mayor for Chicago and Bill Thompson...

TO: What year was that about?

CH: Well, it would be in the, it was the year that the nation elected Roosevelt president, cause Surmac was a lieutenant in the national convention for Roosevelt and so it would be around '32. Well so then they required you to pay $6 in this Van Buren political fund, so if you didn't have that 10 paid then you couldn't work, your dues weren't paid up, so I said as long as I got the pay, I might as well be a realist and go down and see what in the hell is going on down [unclear], you know they had a club right in the union hall, big you know, pretty big room, and with upholstered furniture, so when the election, city election came on then I went up there and spent most of the day there and the way they operated like this, they had a room, well as big as this whole house and in the middle they had 25-30 overcoats and old hats, to help people to disguise themselves and then the political boss he was there with a big suitcase full of pint bottles of whiskey, open up right in the middle of the floor, he had a satchel about that long, filled that with dollar bills and then he stood in the middle there and then there were these alley gripes[?] you know that you see in every city, their faces purple, they hang around barrooms and hang around in the alleys and [unclear] of the big cities and drink and drink and drink all day long and they were there, there was a large number of them, about probably 35-40 of them, and that's all they did was to, the political boss pulled out his notebook and it was perforated every inch or so and he said he was going to vote for John Doe and the address is so and so and such and such and he tore that out and he said who's going to volunteer this one and finally somebody said well I guess I'll take it and so then he'd go on out and vote and then they'd cheer for him and he'd put on an old overcoat and an oldMinnesota hat and go out and vote and they done that all day long and we got back, before you left youin got a shot of whiskey out of one of the pints and then when you come back you got another shot, but then you also got a dollar bill, so as many times as you voted you got, well they had to thin out them drinks, they couldn't give them too many drinks because they had to, you know, they couldn't be intoxicated so, but that's the way they done it all day long and I knew all that you see, and I knew a lot of the other things and the officials in the family [unclear][unclear] they were so jittery you knowSociety they said we either got to control Hemmingsen or we got to get him to hell out of here,Project so during the summer of 1930 I was unemployed as a pipe fitter and so the professorsRadicalism of the Proletarian Party and the Proletarian University, he said now you're a damn good speaker, you ain't losing any wages and this is a volunteer proposition, all the rest of us have done our share and he said, you got the money, and he said what we had to have was a reserve of $250,History then you're supposed to go out and try to get through the whole summer, soap box and speak, soapHistorical box and speak, and they had that mailing list of the old Socialist Party andCentury every goddamn town there was in America, our professors were smart enough to get their hands on that whenOral they was active inside of the Socialist Party, so they would route you on a speaking tour, it was mostly [unclear], at least 75% soap box is what it was. Everybody soap boxed in them days, see, and so you never had no crowd, there was no cost for halls, and people was used to it in the country, they started out there wouldn't even be a boy or a dog at the corner and you set upMinnesota your platform and hang up your banner, we had a platform made out of a, Twentieth'bout an 8 foot ladder and there was two strong pieces, half inch iron pipe, iron rod run across there and then it had a platform that folded back and it hooked right over the other half inch rod and then you had a good strong platform, you was up off the ground about four feet, so you was conspicuous and of course people was used to soap boxing and it only took a little while til you was experienced, and we were all trained for that, see.

TO: So you went around to the small towns and...

CH: Oh mostly in big towns, yeah.

TO: Big towns, what would you go to a park or something like that, or a downtown area?

11 CH: Well they had a few, the group in the town will tell you where they have the meetings, usually, and if you didn't have an exact address of an individual that lived there and had experience, then you found out from the others, that's all. And then of course the first time that you spoke or so, you kept away from controversial subjects and the best thing to start with was a progressive interpretation of American history, so as you got pulled down off of the platform and you got arrested or anything, well we knew all about [unclear] fights, and we avoided personalities about people and our work was always intelligent, if we had to, if someone was to [unclear] after us in court, for example, I came to Duluth, my brother lived there, there was no socialist movement left then about 1924 and I put my platform up right up there by the goddamn federal building you know and was speaking there and my brother lived in Duluth, and he lived on the east end of town there and he said my God, he said, I'm going to get down there and see you get arrested and he said the chief of police here is a steel [unclear] he's a steel trust stool pigeon, he says you won't be speaking there 20 minutes and he'll be up there arrest you, and throw you in jail, and he said on the way down to the jail he'd throw the goddamn key in the harbor he says and you never will get out, and I said well, I said I'm not afraid of nobody or anything and I says you want to see me arrested, you go down there and stay as far away as you want to, I ain't afraid of nobody,Minnesota your chief of police or anybody else, I says I'm trained for the job and I said I'll come outin some way, and if he arrests me, he'll have to let me out cause I [unclear] want to get out. Well he came to the meeting you know and so I started in talking and I was giving a hell of a good talk on the history of the United States and what the conditions were in the United States before the Boston Tea Party and how unfair the American people were being treated, everybody knows that you know, they had some of it in the goddamn school and the chief of police was standing alongside of meSociety for 20 minutes before he told me to stop, he said I hate to stop you but he said will youProject stop talking for a just a minute, I want to talk to you, he said I'm enjoying your talkingRadicalism immensely he says but he said we, the police department ain't supposed to allow anybody to speak up here he says, there's a regular place for that down on 5th Avenue. History TO: Where were you speaking? Historical Century CH: I was speaking right up there Oralwith the court house and where the Federal Building is. TO: Right now, is it the same place?

CH: Yeah, it's still there, it was new at that time, so I said well geez that's a regular horseshoe there, that'll, my voice will come boomingMinnesota out of there in big volume and I said I'll have a hell of a good meeting. Twentieth Nobody had, the y was so afraid, there was a hysteria that followed from the war and the Red Raid you know, see, that took place in 1920, well this was about four years after that, wherever you go they was used to freedom to speak but they was afraid to go to meetings, so I had, you couldn't be afraid, I went to Davenport, Iowa, went right up to the goddamn best library in town when I, and set up my platform and started in talking, now you couldn't be yellow so, well...

TO: This is right around 1930 now?

CH: No, this was in 1924, that was my big year, that's when I was graduated, see and so they said you got $250, you got good clothes, your nice looking and so you go out and crusade like the rest of us, goddamn it you got to do your turn, you ain't losing no wages now, and you know how to speak, 12 we know that, we've put you through the whole goddamn thing and he says you can go out on your own, so I went out on a national speaking tour, wherever they'd send me and that took me through a part of Illinois, the southern part, and we used to have as much as 56 meetings in Chicago alone with volunteer speakers, in one week, 56 meetings. Well we had a goddamn good outfit and we done a lot of educational work, so then I went and I spoke in Iowa in the mining regions in Iowa and I spoke in there before and I spoke in, [unclear] 100 miles south of Chicago, I spoke there twice, you remember you read something about the Erin[?] Massacre among the miners and that time and it was few months after that I went down there to speak and, from Chicago and so I had a hell of a big meeting, they asked me to speak again on the history of the eight hour movement of America and I went down there and the first time I spoke on the history of the labor first, so we had all kinds of talk [unclear]...

TO: And this was all on behalf of the Proletarian group?

CH: Yeah, all directed by the educational activities and so... Minnesota TO: You'd try to set up chapters where you could sign up members?in CH: Oh yes, yes...

TO: Wherever you went that would be... Society CH: Yeah, we did, yeah, yeah, there wasn't many to get, Projectbut you had influence and then you got subscriptions for the paper and you sold socialist literature, you left that behind, that was the regular schedule. I, the biggest soap box meeting RadicalismI ever held was in the 19...must have been 1931, I went to New York City, I was a delegate to the international convention of the pipe fitters union in Atlantic City and since I was getting $500, five days convention for $500 I took my [unclear] went on a speaking tour so that I get through in New YorkHistory CityHistorical about three days ahead of time of the opening of the convention in Atlantic City and I spoke in Union Square in New York City and all them goddamn groups you know,Century the official Communist Party group and all of them, they all attacked me, it took me three hours to cleanOral them up and I cleaned the goddamn clock and I sold $75 worth of literature, socialist literature and I got $150 collection, see, the biggest I ever had, it took me three and a half hours, I had to have the strength to last and my voice is supreme, you know, I had a hell of a good voice, I'm two and a half inches thicker through the chest than the average built man and that gives me a goddamn powerfulMinnesota voice. Well so then after that then I came back to Chicago and I hadTwentieth spoken all the way from Chicago into Detroit, Michigan and the various cities around there you know, so then that was my first national speaking tour, and you heard of coming out here [unclear], they said, the professors always said, [unclear] all you need is more experience, [unclear] and I feel particularly proud of the fact that 1921 I think it was, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the year that Lenin died, wasn't that '21?

TO: Either '21 or '22 maybe.

CH: Yeah, yeah, well anyway they had a memorial for Lenin in Chicago and all the professors of the movement, they picked me out to deliver the talk, they picked me out...

13 TO: A real honor.

CH: Yeah, so, I was the youngest guy around there you know, and so, I had two months to do the research work, I read up very well on the history of the pogroms and the rebellions in Russia that the people was beaten down and thousands upon thousands of them were shot down under the czars and I designed and I don't know if you read that book Socialism... I can't remember good enough now but anyway in the book on the page 156 there was a passage there by a man by the name of Victor Hugo and I never found out what his background was in the movement, but he made a prophetic speech you know in which he practically forecast the Russian Revolution and he done it at a very early age and he was a world famous man and he said we are in Russia, the [unclear] has chosen and [unclear] carried his role upon the surface, they build houses and they build bridges and they build all sorts of things and he said well and he said these are all coming down during the revolution, you see he points out the [unclear] of capitalism floating down the Niber River and the [unclear] and everything that was part of the capitalist system, see these all pass by and never [unclear] explains all this, one blow of thy strong arm oh labor and one mighty sweep of thy revolutionary strength oh labor and that's the way he wound up, thoseMinnesota were the words, see, and I built that right into my speech and I made that the end of my speechin you know at the Lenin memorial, I described all the things that, in the history of the world, of the takers, of people who have rebelled and who have been killed and who have been jailed, I went into every conceivable detail that there was time for in an hour and a half talk and then I finally went up with that, I got the book still around here and we could just open them up and put them in order I can find it, page and everything and so, well I got a hell of an ovation and people that, old Societyprofessors that had taught me everything that you know I knew and taught me the way toProject do the research work and how to write my own thoughts and everything, they justRadicalism flipped around [unclear] , they said Clarence if we had to guess at what you could accomplish we never knew you could do as well as you done today and they said we're so damn glad that we picked you to do the job, you're the youngest and by God you were supreme today, they said you exceededHistory beyond imagination itself your best you know efforts, you know, they said we, [unclear] like you. [unclear]Historical have to tell you that. Century TO: That's good. Oral CH: Well I had to come up here because they threw me out of the pipe fitters union, Local #597, when I come back, I'd spoken all the summer of 1930, must have been '31 because that was the year that Roosevelt and Norman Thomas both spoke in Buffalo, New York, that was sort of at the end of my national campaign as speaker,Minnesota I left Chicago in 1930 and I made my own living by getting collectionsTwentieth and donations from the Party members and I stayed on the road ‘til in November...

TO: This is still the Proletarian...

CH: Huh?

TO: The Proletarian Party was still going...

CH: Yeah, they were still going, yeah they were still going. Yeah, so then there was two members in the union, I don't know if this was a framed up thing or not, I have a hunch that it was, but they was under charges for doing something wrong inside of the union and all it amounted to really was 14 that it was a shortage of work in the union, officials had told anyone that if they could find a job of pipe fitting that was not being done by union members and that they could persuade the owner to hire union members, that they would be the first to go to work [unclear], so like everything in the union they had their friends and they betrayed their promises to these young fellas and so then these fellas they fought back and criticized the official family, so then they get put under charges. They didn't know anything about how to defend themselves, and so they wrote to me, I was still speaking in Buffalo, New York, so they asked me if I wouldn't come to Chicago and they said it's too late for very much more work and you must be tired and you do get tired of speaking all the time, you get tired of your own damn voice you know, so I finally got back to Chicago and I, I didn't anticipate what they was going to do and so I got into the union hall and soon as I got sat down in there, I could see a hell of a lot of maneuvering you know, fixing and [unclear] going on and I didn't know what it was, so opened up to an attack on me that lasted for nearly two hours, everybody in the goddamn union was attacking me, I wasn't under no charges, these two other guys was in there and I said well, I said hell, as long as you're attacking me I said I want everyone to speak that knows how and I said say what you want and I said I'm listening very patiently and before I got up to speak to defend myself I [unclear], I put my thumbs in my vest, [unclear] MinnesotaI said I want to tell you that I want all of the facts to be in if there are any facts, and I said I wantin everyone to speak that wants to speak and I said [unclear] if there's anybody else that wants to speak, let them ask for the floor now and continue with the attacks and I said I don't propose to shoot any blank shells in this controversy I can tell you that. So when they got through it took me about 35 minutes to review the whole goddamn thing and I said here I have been since 1918 a member of this union and I said I have spoken to every local union in this city of Chicago and I said I come inSociety from the national speaking tour and I said here's two members, I said they had criticizedProject the officials of the union and I said I think that all that the situation calls for I saidRadicalism is to siphon before the executive board and tell them that they should be more careful about criticizing their own officials even though they think that the criticism is fair and I says probably a penalty, a little fine of $10 or so to the employees be imposed upon them and I said well then I said they shouldHistory be told to go and be more careful and say no more, and I said I never got a chance to say that, that'sHistorical sort of [unclear] _ for them you know, and they attacked me for over twoCentury hours, and so I made a defense, and I was speaking to a mass meeting you know because they had a theaterOral building at 408 South [unclear] Street which was an old theater and there was about 2,500 on the main floor and there was probably 1500 on the mezzanine floor. TO: Was this a union meeting [unclear]Minnesota? CH: Yeah,Twentieth that was a union meeting, and if you weren't used to speaking to a big crowd like I was you know, well then of course you'd be terrified by that big crowd, so I spoke there, Jesus Christ when I got through the goddamn building just shook like that you know. So they said well we can't beat him by talking he says, he'll out-talk without anything we do and so they decided the methods that they always use, that terrify and threatening and all like that and so I said well before I close I said the history of this union is that in the past when anyone ever challenged the official family and said, their life was in danger and I said I am aware that my life is in danger and I said I've asked myself before I made the defense of these two young men, I said if I am a man or not, and I said I've decided I'm going to play the part of a man and I said I want to serve notice on the people that think they're going to intimidate me with guns, I said we're getting the ammunition tomorrow and I said

15 anyone that shoots anyone of our group, I said we'll take two for one, I says I'll never stop coming to the meetings as long as I'm alive, as long as I can get into the meetings and I said that if you shoot at me I said we'll take two for one any goddamn time you want to do it and I says I never carried a gun in my life but I says I'm going to become a professional and when I get a goddamn good one and I says we're going to arm ourselves and I said don't you think that I'm going to do like the people in the past, pack my suitcase on a dark night and get the hell out of town.

TO: Good speech. How come there were so many people at this meeting?

CH: What?

TO: How come there were so many people at the meeting?

CH: Well the attendance was always large because there was a fine for not going, see, the fine for not going. Then the other thing is over the grapevine, over the grapevine they made plans to deal with me, they knew they was going to throw me out and they spreadMinnesota the message you know, that is it was going to be a big night that they was going to expose me, well actually they had no basis for charges against me, I never violated a working rule or anything,in it was two other members, but they used the occasion to get me, they was more concerned about getting me the hell out of there, see because I knew about the crooked work that they did, and they knew that. I was right up to the meeting when they was, and [unclear] George Meany and all them kind of people, they've been the crookedest people that Adolph Hitler and Mussolini or any of the NaziSociety got short of dirty tricks they could have asked George Meany because he could have improvedProject on anything they ever did, he was a goddamn robber. Well so I lost my job, I was denied a hearing, we were supposed to have hearings, you were supposed to have a seriesRadicalism of hearings you can go from lower grade of hearing inside the union to the general executive committee and in, even to an international convention, that was all ignored, and we plotted and risked our lives for a whole goddamn year, the whole bunch of us, there was about 40 of us and we played Historythe tricksHistorical on them that they never thought would ever be played and we could get them sons of bitches up day and night for a whole year, so well the laws of economics works on everybodyCentury and so I was, I was just like everybody else unemployed for two years, your money rolls and disappears,Oral you have no way of getting any more money in, the Depression is so bad you know you can't, nobody got anything, you all, if a man had a car in them days and owned a home, you put your car on blocks, there was no chance of ever getting money enough to run the goddamn thing, that's how it was. So then they wrote me a letter and told me I was no longer a member of the unionMinnesota... Twentieth END INTERVIEW

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