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Bill Swire
May 7, 2008: BOY'S LIFE - Footnotes IV: A HUNDRED ACRE SPREAD
The bus trip from Albany to Georgetown in New York State's Cherry Valley took two hours. I was headed for the Brown's farm for a month's stay between my sophomore and junior year in high school. It was 1941.
Mother arranged it with Grace Chait. Grace was born in Georgetown. She worked in Albany as my Cousin Bill's dental assistant. They married and she left her family's farm far behind. When the subject came up of "what to do with Billy this summer?" Grace suggested that her middle-aged parents needed a helping hand on the family farm during the summer growing season.
The bus stopped only at special request at Georgetown. It was that small. Frank Brown, Grace's father met me. He drove a vintage early-1930's pick-up truck. Their farm was three miles from the hamlet's center. His wife Emma welcomed me warmly when we arrived.
Their Victorian house was located about a hundred feet from the road. In the back were the hay fields, the vegetable gardens, and the barn and silo. Across the road the cow pastures extended farther than the eye could see. Their farm totaled about 100 acres. At night, there was no din of city traffic. The only sound was from crickets. My first night opened up more questions than answers. Can I fit in? Is this all a mistake?
The next morning Frank awakened me at 5AM. I joined him as he drove his truck across the road, rounded up his 25 Holstein cows with the help of their loyal dog, herded the cows into the barn and started the milking process. It was a seven day a week routine. After morning milking we herded the cows back to the pasture, and cleaned the barn. Afternoon milking followed the same pattern.
After a few days, Frank let me round up the cows by myself and return them to pasture. He also let me drive the pick-up even though I didn't qualify for a license. I felt very grown up. Not everything worked perfectly. The day after I arrived, Emma handed me a pail and told me to water the chickens. I filled the pail with water, the chickens rushed over to be fed, I dumped the pail of water on them, and they dispersed, mad as hens, to the far corners of the chicken coop. The Browns enjoyed that. My helping hands had gone astray, though not for the last time that summer.
There was no wasted time. We were always fixing something -- the tractor, the fences, the broken cow stalls in the barn, or the block and tackle that hoisted hay into the silo.
I learned that farmers understand the need for mutual cooperation. There are so many things that can go wrong. It could be weather, cow diseases, or any number of other catastrophes. Small family farming is a difficult business; only the strong survive. To offset the many risks, the Browns depended on their farmers' cooperative to sell their milk.
Farmers need friends. When it was time to take in the hay, the neighbors met at different farms each day. We worked 'till noon, ate a huge dinner prepared by the farmer's wife, went home in time for afternoon milking, ate supper and climbed, exhausted, into bed. This continued until all our neighbors' hay was stacked and drying in the fields.
After morning chores on Sunday we dressed for church and drove into Georgetown. Given my Jewish background, it was my first experience with Protestant services. It was an important learning experience. Then it was back to the farm for Sunday dinner, afternoon milking, and a quiet evening at home.
My memory bank is full of pictures of grazing Holstein cows, the trusting conversation of families that had lived comfortably near one another over many generations, and the Brown's nonstop support of a somewhat bungling fifteen-year-old-boy exposed to a new world he would never forget.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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April 30, 2008: Over There
America has traditionally compensated its veterans for their services. In 1636 the Pilgrims declared: "If any person shall be sent forth as a soldier and shall return maimed he shall be maintained competently by the Colony during his life." Early in the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress created the first veterans benefit package, which included life-long pensions for both disabled veterans and dependents of soldiers killed in battle.
During the post WWI period, however, the United States changed direction in regard to its soldiers returning home from the war. Defective legislation for veteran's benefits harmed the nation.
Paul Dixon and Thomas B. Allen, in their book entitled "The Bonus Army" addressed that question in their description of World War I veterans who had been promised federal funds in recognition of their wartime sacrifices. These veterans came home as heroes to discover that "the Keys to the City had turned out …to be a pass to a flophouse." They came back jobless, unable to pay their taxes and in danger of losing their homes. The promised government funds were not payable until 1945, 27 years after their release from service. Veterans nicknamed it the Tombstone Bonus, since the easiest way to collect these payments was to die.
In 1932 the veterans decided that their presence in the nation's capital would help further their cause. They set up impromptu Washington shantytowns, including one half a mile away from the White House. They were built of cardboard egg crates, wrecked cars, and bedsprings. Using tear gas and a cavalry charge, government troops, under the command of army Chief of Staff General McArthur, assisted by George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower, drove the 45,000 man Bonus Army away from Washington. Its legacy was of great importance to World War II veterans whose homecoming was very different from the hardships and indignities of the 1930's.
Post-war planning in the 1940's countered the negative after-effects of the Bonus Army's ill fated experiences. There was much concern about a reoccurrence of a major Depression after the war if consideration was not given to how 15,000,000 veterans of World War II could successfully return to civilian life. Congress passed the "Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944", better known as the "GI Bill of Rights". The nation was grateful to those who served in the military. There was also concern that there were not enough jobs at home for millions of returning servicemen. One way to show thanks and reduce conflicts in the workforce was to entice veterans to go to school.
The GI Bill provided six benefits:
- education and training
- loan guaranty for a home, farm, or business
- unemployment pay of $20 a week up to 52 weeks
- job finding assistance
- top priority for building materials for VA hospitals
- military reviews of dishonorable discharges
The Veterans Administration managed the program. It paid up to $500 a year for tuition, books, fees and other training costs, plus a subsistence allowance of $65 a month (as of 1946). Allowances for veterans with dependents were higher. In the peak year of 1947, veterans accounted for 49% of all college enrollments. Almost 8 million people were trained including:
- 2,230,00 in college
- 3,480,000 in other schools
- 1,400,000 in on-job training
- 690,000 in farm training.
Millions who might well have flooded the labor market opted for education, thus reducing joblessness. When veterans entered the labor market, most were better prepared to contribute to the support of their families and society.
In 2008, proposals are forthcoming on how to compensate veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. "The Post 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act (S.22) is intended to raise GI bill benefits to a level similar to those received by WWII vets. A supporter, Senator Frank Lautenberg said "Helping those who served our country is not just our responsibility, it's our duty". Will the bill pass? I hope so. We'll soon see.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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April 23, 2008: Albany In Transition
Albany was growing at a rapid pace in the last half of the 19th and the early 20th century. The population in 1865 was 62,000, 90,000 by 1880 and peaked at 127,000 in 1930. It was indeed an impressive city in many respects. In 1899 the New York State Capitol building was completed at a cost of nearly $30,000,000, twice as much as that of the nation's capitol building in Washington. Nearly all the granite in the construction of the capitol, indeed there was much of it, was hauled up State Street on horse drawn cars over the tracks of the Albany Railway. Many of the pieces required twenty four horses to haul them up the hill.
Albany was a leading city in the United States by 1900. As a transportation hub it was a natural port for commercial as well as passenger ships coming up the Hudson River. The Erie Canal connected Albany to Buffalo and the Great Lakes beyond. It was an important rail center, with trains moving east to Boston, and west to a rapidly growing Mid-West. In 1910, Glen Curtiss, seeking a $10,000 prize, flew from Albany to New York City, covering 137 miles in 153 minutes. In 1928, Albany built the first city-owned airport in the United States.
Most importantly, however, Albany was the capital city of the most powerful state in the Union. Political leaders from New York commanded respect if for no other reason than where they came from. Prominent Albany families had connections in New York and Washington. When President Lincoln was shot at Washington's Ford Theatre, his personal guests in the box at the theatre were from a well known Albany family. The city was a manufacturing center, a distribution center, an agricultural center and, above all, a government center. It was a power in national politics. What happened in Albany mattered.
In the early 20th century, there were 25 parks and recreation areas. Important landmarks were built during this period, including the nationally famous Delaware and Hudson building, completed in 1918, that was modeled after a Flemish town hall.
In 1930, Codman Hislop wrote in his book "Albany - Dutch, England, and America," Albany has the largest factories in the country producing electric car- heaters and door operations, embossed blocks, checkers and dominoes, composition billiard balls, paper towels, toilet paper, carbonic acid gas, college caps and gowns, papermakers' felt, and blankets.
The Depression in the late 1920s changed everything. The seemingly endless prosperity in the region ground to a standstill. Factories shut down, unemployment figures rose, construction came to a halt, banks suffered losses on mortgages and were forced to foreclose on all kinds of properties. The value of all goods made in Albany fell from $52,000,000 in the first year of the Depression, 1929, to less than $35,000,000 three years later. It didn't stop there. By 1937, the Albany Council of Social Agencies provided Christmas dinner for 5,525 families. The saving factor was the thousands of jobs provided by the New York State government during the Depression period. The number of people employed by the State continued to grow. Subtract those numbers from all other jobs in the region and the depths of the Depression would have been even more devastating. As the industrial base declined throughout the rest of the 20th century, Albany depended more and more on New York State as the primary source of regional income. By the early part of the twenty-first century, the number of people employed by the State exceeded 50,000. The economy was bolstered further by the subsidiary business and professional positions created in the course of serving the State's needs.
No history of the region is complete without notice of this reality. There were two Albanys - the one dominated by the State Government, the other, a city that functioned almost as a separate entity existing in the shadow of a giant enterprise. It was always a battle for the second Albany to come out of the shadow and establish its own place in the sun.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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April 16, 2008: FAMILY AND OLD FAMILIES
As the Depression deepened in the 1930s, my mother went to work full time in the family furniture store on South Pearl Street in Albany. Since she was away all day, she was concerned about my arriving home from school at about 2:30 pm. She searched for a private school that would keep me on campus until late afternoon. The Albany Academy headmaster agreed to find a way to engage me in study hours until 4:30 PM. The two hour difference was important.
My neighborhood friends were replaced by a new group of boys that studied together, played together, and socialized together. It was like joining a new family. Three classmates, David, Jim, and I, visited at each other's homes on a rotating basis each Saturday. Two of our homes were well-equipped for fifth grade students-- good-sized backyards, plus plenty of play spaces inside. Jimmy's home, an imposing house facing Washington Park, however, had nothing for sports enthusiasts but a perfectly manicured back lawn, which we managed to scuff up when we were there. David and I brought our own sports equipment when it was his turn to be the host.
Saturday lunch was usually about noon. We were hungry by that time. At Jimmy's home, we were ushered into his family's cavernous dining room to be greeted by his older sister regally ensconced at the head of the table. At lunch, a formally-dressed servant served each of us a cup of bullion with one slice of bread, a glass of milk and, later, two cookies with a second glass of milk. Following this, we were driven home. When I reported this to mother, she said Jimmy's family was regarded in Albany as a distinguished "Oldfamily". This was a new term and came up sometime later when there was a party at one of my high school classmate's home. It was a narrow, three-story house on State Street, with twelve-foot high ceilings, minimal lighting, and somewhat shabby antique furnishings passed down from previous generations. "Oldfamily", people said. No question about it.
When I was at Yale, after the war, there were "Oldfamilies" all over the place. Some lived in early 18th century houses with creaky floors, some in castles on the north shore of Long Island. Indeed they enjoyed, suffered, succeeded, and failed at similar rates to everyone else. Often the family fortunes had been created sometime in the past. It left the present generation choices -- active commitment to the community at large or sealing themselves off in gated enclaves and joining exclusive clubs that made it unnecessary to encounter people who might not share their views. In some cases, the money was on the verge of running out. "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations", Andrew Carnegie once commented. New energy was often needed to rekindle the family fire. Sometimes it was forthcoming, sometimes not.
"Oldfamilies" popped up everywhere in my life. In Logan, Utah, where I spent three months with a college classmate helping a geology Ph.D. candidate search for trilobites and other puzzling geologic specimens, the wonderfully warm Mormon residents of the town talked about themselves as "Oldfamilies". They were referring to members of their family who came across the country with Brigham Young in the 1840's. I heard about "Oldfamilies" in an exclusive country club in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1948 when talking about members of the club, whose backyards had been successfully drilled for oil ten years before, thus insuring that it would be unnecessary for them to ever work again. We should include our California friends' family who went into the real estate business in Los Angeles in the 1920's and struck it rich. They were California "Oldfamilies".
When our children were growing up and asked about our family history I replied "No kings, no queens, no dukes, no duchesses, but we come from a very old family -- everybody in the world comes from a very old family. We study history, sociology, anthropology, and religions to learn about family formations. It helps us better understand one another."
I was introduced to a prominent psychologist at a small gathering many years ago, "I want to know everything about you", he said, "Your family background, your educational background, your career--everything. Then I want to forget it and focus on where you are today -- this hour -- this minute. The rest is history".
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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April 9, 2008: BUILDING BLOCK
"Don't get pinned". It was all I could hope for. I was on my back during the final minute of a wrestling match against Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. My opponent was the best in his class. I was over matched and outclassed. Somehow I was able to emerge without both shoulders pinned to the mat. I never forgot it.
There were many days during my first two years in my family's furniture business on Albany's South Pearl Street that I had the same feeling. I was assigned building maintenance and supervision of the warehouse and delivery operations. The crises seemed endless. Sometimes it was the ancient passenger elevator inexplicably stopping in mid flight as though it had a mind of its own, sometimes it was a series of shorts in the electrical system, shutting down the lights on any one of the six display floors. Driving to work was a shoulder tightening experience in anticipation of the next disaster. It reminded me of my Navy ship's radar that had infinite ways of going down at the worst possible time.
It was the people problems that were the most puzzling. So many actions and reactions seemed random at best and left me with a sense of dysfunction rather than driven by a sense of teamwork. It was like a football team with the backfield headed in one direction and the linemen going off in multiple directions. I couldn't fit the pieces together. I needed help. Where to get it? Furniture store operations were a mystery but I did know something about libraries. So I went to the library and the card catalogue listings under "Management". It was slow going until I encountered a book about the Gilbreth family - Frank and Lillian. Early in the 1900s they collaborated on the development of time and motion studies as an engineering and management technique. Frank Gilbreth, in particular was much concerned with the relationship between human beings and human effort. He was a brick layer who later became a building contractor and a management engineer. His early work involved improving brick-laying in the construction trade. He observed that workers developed their own ways of working and that no two used the same method. He noted that individuals did not always use the same motions in the course of their work. These observations led him to seek one best way to perform tasks.
He revolutionized brick-laying. A scaffold he invented permitted quick adjustment of the working platform so that the worker would be at the most convenient level at all times. He equipped the scaffold with a shelf for the bricks and mortar, saving the effort formerly required by the workman to bend down and pick up each brick. He had the bricks stacked on wooden frames, by hod carriers, with the best side and end of each brick always in the same position, so that the bricklayer no longer had to turn the brick around to look for the best side to face outward. The bricks and mortar were so placed on the scaffold that the brick-layer could pick up a brick with one hand and mortar with the other. As a result of these and other improvements, he reduced the number of motions made in laying a brick from 18 to 4 1/2.
Lillian Gilbreth wrote of her husband "The things which concerned him more than anything else were the what and the why -the what because he felt it was necessary to know what you were doing, or what concerned you, and then the why, the type of thinking which showed you the reason for doing the thing and indicated clearly whether you should maintain what was being done or should change it."
The Gilbreths coined a phrase "scientific management" to describe their belief that work simplification could be applied not only in a business environment but also at home and school, hospital and community, in fact life itself. It was something that could be achieved only by cooperation - cooperation between engineers, educators, psychologists, economists, sociologists, managers. Most important - at the core of it all, there was the individual, his comfort, his happiness, his service and his dignity. A book (1946) followed by a movie (1950) entitled "Cheaper by the Dozen" captivated the Gilbreth's family life.
After Frank Gilbreth"s death in 1924, his wife Lillian continued their work. She extended it into the home in an effort to find the "one best way" to perform household tasks.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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April 2, 2008: THE SIXTIES II: TURBULENCE - TROUBLE - TRIUMPHS - TRANSITIONS
President Johnson -- speaking before Congress regarding "The voting Rights Act of 1965." "The cause of Black Americans must be our cause…. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome."
The demand for the expansion of freedom was in the air in the sixties. The Civil Rights movement was hugely important but it was not limited to that. Add women's' rights, student rights, labor unions' rights, religious rights (and left) --- you name it. The accumulated pent up emotions of a whole generation of Americans exploded on the bedrock of declared American rights giving rise to the whole country becoming alert to impending change.
Where do these movements start? Do they gather momentum under the public's radar until people activate long-felt anger or a desire to mend the world? Or both?
Racism in the United States did not begin in the 1950s and 1960s. It had been alive and well since the founding of the country. What had changed?
A lady named Rosa Parks gets on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, refuses to give up her seat so a white man can sit there, is charged with a misdemeanor, found guilty, and fined $10. Eldridge Cleaver later wrote, "somewhere in the universe a gear in the machinery had shifted."
An unknown Montgomery twenty-six-year-old Ph.D. and Harvard trained clergyman named Martin Luther King helped organize a boycott of all city transportation. He emphasized passive resistance and noncooperation as a way of opposing mistreatment. He said of the boycott ---- "This is not a tension between Negroes and whites. This is only a conflict between justice and injustice. We are not just trying to improve Negro Montgomery. We are trying to improve the whole of Montgomery. If we are arrested every day; if we are exploited every day; if we are triumphed over every day; let nobody pull you so low as to hate them."
The rest of Alabama began to watch Montgomery; then the rest of the country; and then the world. The struggle for racial equality was on.
William Manchester wrote "The conscience of the nation's great white middle class had been aroused - and its indignation had become a solvent eroding barriers of law and custom which had endured for generations."
MEANTIME ……
Albany was not immune to the civil rights movement that had captured the attention of all Americans, either favorably or unfavorably. The Black community developed new and younger leadership. Demands for political recognition were initiated. The regional churches and synagogues formed action committees. Community Chest budgets included greatly increased allotments to help fill long neglected needs of the Black population. Recognition of the need for public housing to replace hopelessly declining neighborhoods gained hesitant interest from machine politicians
My role in the Civil Rights Movement was almost accidental. I had been appointed to the North Colonie Board of Education to fill an unexpired term.
Board meetings were held monthly. The meetings in the sixties were very intense. The school populations were rising and parents were increasingly involved in controversial issues. At one spring Board meeting in 1967, the Finance Committee reported that the maintenance costs of the recreational fields were rising steeply. I suggested that Federal or State funds might be available to bus inner city children to our playing fields that summer on the condition that professional supervision would be provided by the city of Albany. My motion was tabled until the next meeting.
Our next door neighbor, hearing of this, was greatly agitated. Bill Swire was proposing something that would bring Black people into our neighborhoods, ultimately insuring that Blacks would buy our houses, thus reducing our net worth and ruining our lovely lifestyle.
My motion to increase the use of our playing fields failed. I was, however, asked to run for a full four year term to the Board of Education. Opposition committees formed. Teas and coffee hours were held. Pamphlets were distributed suggesting that I supported some very bad things for our school district. My opposition candidate was another neighbor.
School Board elections rarely draw a majority of the electorate In this case, the power of a single issue pressure group to swing an election took its toll. It was the difference between victory and defeat and indeed I was defeated.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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March 26, 2008: OPENING A WINDOW HOWEVER SLIGHTY II
The day Dan O'Connell came to visit he never bothered to introduce himself. My father and I were standing in front of our furniture store on South Pearl Street, discussing a new sign on the front of our building, when a car pulled up on the opposite side of the street, letting someone off on the no-parking side -- then driving away. The famous fedora pulled over the most famous face of the most famous politician in Albany, New York was a tip off that we were in the presence of local Political Boss Number One But what for?
Dan O'Connell stared at our building. It was six stories high. You couldn't miss it. Everything around it was half as tall. Five minutes later, he was picked up when the car returned and was driven away.
I know why he's here, I thought. The morning Times Union has a front page article about the largest financial contributors to CURE's 1961 campaign against the Democratic machine. Bob Hudnut is CURE'S candidate for Mayor. His family has been generous. The Swire family is listed among the top contributors just below them. How come? The Swires are a new name on the political scene. He could check with our local alderman later, but there's nothing like a property inspection to help determine if there's a next move that might discourage future straying from the party.
CURE is the first challenge the Democratic machine encountered in ages. Nobody takes the Republican Party seriously. He knows everything about their capabilities or lack thereof. That's why they endorsed CURE. He recognizes the names of several prominent Albany families on the list of contributors. It's his business to know what's going on in his town. It's worth five minutes to see the Swire property. You never know. Maybe a tax boost will lower their enthusiasm for reform movements.
As for the generosity of the Swire family --- a large group of friends whom we approached about contributing to CURE responded affirmatively on the condition that their names would not become public. We were credited with their cash contributions. The machine had many ways of retaliation -- raising assessments on property, discovering heretofore so called "undetected" violations of building codes, declining to repair street defects near business properties, and attaching a social stigma to those who challenged the status quo. Even those who lived in the suburbs were as vulnerable as city residents if they had business connections in the city.
Returning to Albany after college, I volunteered to work for the Democratic party. My local Alderman made it clear no help was needed. Conversation over. Not in my mind, however. Nor my closest friends. We objected to the methods of the Corning/O'Connell machine. Albany resembled a Middle Ages European town ruled by minor royalty who maintained power indefinitely by whatever means possible whether beneficial to the community or not. It seemed to me that was one of the deciding reasons many families emigrated to the United States in the first place.
My wife Stevi's approach mirrored my own. She had been active in liberal political movements throughout her college years. She joined the League of Women Voters a month after she arrived in Albany and was soon appointed to the Board. When CURE was organized, she was appointed to the Executive Committee.
On many evenings during the summer of 1961, we went from house to house ringing doorbells to secure signatures for nominating petitions principally in homes where families had never before been asked to sign anything that was remotely connected to a political reform effort. Many were welcoming. People knew about the machine's long history of control and were at least willing to listen to what we had to offer. They didn't confirm they would vote for CURE candidates but they listened. Frequently, many women said they would have to check with their husbands before signing the petition. Thankfully that kind of dependency is now long gone.
Volunteering in the political arena was, for us, an education in how democracy worked. We never regretted the effort. Learning to listen to the people that we encountered in our citywide effort was an important contribution to our understanding of what was significant in our community. It was time to pay more attention to those voices.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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March 12, 2008: THE SOUTH END AGAINST THE WORLD
People from other sections might say
That the Old South End has seen its day,
But each one knows down deep in his heart,
It's the same South End where he got his start.
But it's not yet time for the final kick;
South Enders don't give up so quick.
In '17 with flags unfurled,
We pitted the South End against the world.
With a record like that, it will never die,
It has done its duty in days gone by.
Virginia Bowers, Albany City Historian, included this poem in her book "The Texture of a Neighborhood-Albany South End 1880-1940". She interviewed over 100 people to help record the history of the neighborhood.
Bordering on the Hudson River, succeeding generations of Albany's immigrants' first dwelling place in the United States was in some part of the South End. It was a community of blue-collar workers, small shop owners, tradesmen and public employees - including many firemen and policemen. Doctors ministered to the sick without questioning when payment would be received. Grocery stores provided families food on credit. The O'Connell political machine supplied food and fuel for people in need. Ward leaders provided jobs. Entertainment ranged from neighbors meeting nightly at one of Albany's 239 bars, listening to popular radio programs, or attending church functions. Newspapers were closely read for local news.
It was a neighborhood of two and three story row houses, with multiple flats in each house. Front stoops were popular gathering places on warm summer nights. In back were modest green spaces with the potential for a small garden if the outhouse didn't take up too much room. Indoor bathrooms, consisting of a toilet and sink, succeeded the outhouses in the early 1900's. They were typically in old hall closets. The kitchens were equipped with a large galvanized tub for a once a week Saturday night bath.
People got along. "The Irish, who had suffered a famine, tenant ownership of land, and religious persecution in Ireland 50 years earlier, understood the plight of their neighbors" Though they stayed close to their neighborhood Catholic churches, they aligned readily, especially for political purposes, with the Germans, both Lutheran and Catholic, who represented between 25% to 30% of the population in the early 1900's.
The Catholic hierarchy responded to the needs of non-English speaking immigrants by establishing National parishes in ethnic neighborhoods so that services could be conducted in the language most familiar to the congregation.
The Italian immigrants, for example, arrived in significant numbers at the turn of the 20th century. They felt less welcome than the Irish and the Germans. There were language difficulties as well as cultural issues. They felt most comfortable in St. Anthony's church on the corner of Madison Avenue and Grand Street where services were conducted in Italian. The church attracted families not only from the South End but from neighboring cities. Polish and French Canadian immigrants joined other National parishes.
Jewish immigrants also started in the South End. The German Jews were the first to come in the 1840's to 1880's. They founded their first Reform temple in 1846. When Jews from Eastern Europe arrived in the late19th and early 20th century, they started orthodox synagogues in the South End that remained in the neighborhood until the late 1950's.
Ethnic groups divided along craft lines. The Irish were day laborers, and civic employees and were the dominant saloon keepers. The Germans were craftspeople and shop keepers. The Jews were storekeepers or owned small manufacturing businesses. The Italian men were masons, day laborers, and factory workers; the women worked as cleaning help, and labored in the local factories that produced shirts, baseballs, soap powders, and textiles.
As immigrant families prospered, they moved away from the river. They purchased homes from families of Dutch and English backgrounds who chose to move further uptown to the Pine Hills and Western Avenue areas. Many of their homes were early- and mid-19th century dwellings that had important architectural features that would later attract the attention of community leaders interested in preservation.
As throughout American history, we are quick to leave the old for the new. By mid-century the South End had deteriorated. Its glory days were over.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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March 5, 2008: The Sixties Turbulence - Trouble - Triumphs - Transitions Part II
January 19, 1961 -- Washington, DC
President John Kennedy's Inaugural Address:
"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans… tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage."
My wife Stevi was 28, I was 35. His address struck a responsive chord. We felt his energy. We were the "new generation" and wanted to be counted in.
John Kennedy was the flag bearer for this emerging generation. His election was a triumph for those of liberal bent who sensed that their historic moment had arrived. Joan Swallow Reiter wrote "He was our President, the first born in our century, the youngest man ever elected to the office and, we were sure, certain to be one of the best."
But even as his administration was organizing to enact its ambitious programs, trouble loomed. A radical plan, developed long before Kennedy was elected, envisioned an American backed invasion designed to terminate Castro's control of Cuba. It was to be manned by Cuban exiles but secretly financed by American funds. Kennedy reluctantly approved of activating the plan just weeks after taking office in 1961. It was a farcical misadventure. Lives were lost, reputations were ruined, and President Kennedy was viewed world-round as an inexperienced, misguided, and trigger-happy leader.
The Bay of Pigs disaster led the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to conclude that Kennedy was weak. He believed the Soviets could dominate and control the direction of world events. Particularly in Cuba. He ordered a build up of Soviet arms in Cuba during the late summer and early fall of 1962 culminating in installing nuclear tipped missiles that could reek catastrophic destruction should they be fired in the direction of major American cities. This time Kennedy was prepared. He executed a brilliant counter to the Soviet threat. Khrushchev backed down. The missiles were dismantled. The crises passed. The world took a deep breath and moved on.
As many as twenty thousand home furnishings dealers gathered in High Point, North Carolina in mid October, 1962 to attend the ten day, semi-annual International Home Furnishings Market. It was a region of too few hotels, too few restaurants, too few facilities for social gatherings - too few anything, but hundreds of manufacturers from all over the country displayed their products in a 17 story, skyscraper that dominated the landscape. The visiting dealers were captives of their suppliers. Once in High Point, there was no place else to go.
We watched the 11 PM television news on Saturday evening October 20. A crisis was building in Cuba. It was something about Soviet nuclear missiles pointed at the United States.
Sunday, October 21, was a furniture market day, despite the objections of the High Point church goers. Business co-opted religion. Nothing trumped business at least that day in that town. President Kennedy spoke at 7PM to the nation. Kennedy warned Khrushchev that any missile launched from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring full retaliatory measures. Khrushchev blinked. By the time the furniture market ended, the crisis was over. The hotels emptied, the overbooked air carriers delivered their passengers to their hometowns, and the thousands of reunited families moved on to their family concerns.
My wife Stevi related that while the Cuban missile crisis accelerated, it was the first time she had been afraid since the beginning of the Cold War. She was at home with our two infant children, and had no idea how I would get back from rural North Carolina in the event of an attack.
Mass communication speeds multiplied enormously during the sixties. We knew more, faster, than ever before as one world crisis followed another. Our lives were so intertwined with our families and careers that important news was thrust at us even as we carried out our daily tasks. We were numbed by the velocity of national shocks. There was a lot to digest. We were beginning to feel defensive in an increasingly combative world.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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February 13, 2008: A Tragic Day for the United States - the Sixties Turbulence - Trouble, Triumphs, Transitions
The 1964 Presidential election was just a year away. The highly organized Kennedy political machine had already geared up for a tough battle for reelection to a second term of office. The previous election had been close. Official returns in December, 1960 gave Kennedy a plurality of 112,881, less than two-thirds of one percent of the popular vote. Not enough to assume that the 1964 election was going to be a runaway success.
Two factors, one positive one negative, influenced their planning. The positive - the Kennedy family had captured the imagination of the American public. Whatever the President said or did was reported in extraordinary detail by a supportive media. He was young, handsome, and extremely verbal. His wife Jacqueline emanated style. She was young, beautiful, and gracious. Her clothes, her hair style - everything about her - were of national interest. Their children's activities were reported daily.
If the Kennedys played touch football at their Cape Cod family compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts, the national press reported whatever details they could garner from family members or staff as to who did what to whom in order to win or lose. The Kennedy's were news. Their positive image boded well for the upcoming election.
On the negative side, the John Birch Society, The Dallas National Indignation Convention, which had convened in 1961 and 1963 to proclaim their members' Americanism in the face of left wing radicalism, and anti-Communist groups, had elements of extremism as well as supposed respectability that cloaked anti- Kennedy bias. During the Kennedy Presidency these groups increased their outlays from $5 million to over $14 million annually to publicize their propaganda.
Every political calculation in 1963 was made with an eye to positively affect the outcome of the upcoming election. The President decided to travel to Dallas, Texas to make peace between two feuding Democrats, the liberal Senator Ralph Yarborough, the and the conservative Texas Governor John B Connally Jr. He invited Jackie to join him. She accepted. She was an asset to the President on any trip. Texas would welcome her, if not him, warmly.
Non-Texans were unaware of the trip until the first news bulletins appeared on television or were heard on the radio. The President had been gunned down by a sniper while riding in a downtown Dallas motorcade. Americans collectively held their breath. Within an hour he was dead.
I frequently lunched with my friend Ferdie Levison at his Hugh Dennison restaurant in downtown Albany. In a gutsy move, he had opened the upscale restaurant in the middle of a deteriorating downtown area mainly because he had inherited the property from his family and had no prospects for selling it to anyone else. Ferdie was fun to talk to. Our lunches went on for quite a while. On November 22, 1963 we were engrossed in conversation when one of the waiters, at about 1:40PM, interrupted us to say that TV reports were pouring in that President Kennedy was shot and his survival was questionable. We immediately moved to the restaurant's television at the bar and stayed rooted to it until the news of the President's death was reported at about 2 PM. It was all so fast. It was incomprehensible.
Ultimately millions of Americans recalled exactly where they were on that day when they heard the news about the President. The Camelot fantasy suddenly disappeared out of sight. Not out of mind - out of sight.
I returned to the family furniture store on South Pearl Street. My head could not get around the tragedy. My ability to logically sequence events was pushed aside because of the shocking news. I thought about my family, my country, the future without John Kennedy, how it would affect our business - even a mental list about what I needed to accomplish the rest of the day. At least that provided a form of escape. It all added up to disconnected thoughts jumbled together in a few moments of disassociation.
Sometime before our store closing Stevi and I talked on the phone. More speculation. More uncertainty. We both wanted to see each other and the children as soon as possible. We wanted to be together. The effects of the day were building.
The next three days were a blur. The television at home was never off. Five year old Peter and four year old Andy kept watch for us while we completed household tasks. When the next horrific news flash appeared on the screen, they ran to find us wherever we were and reported on the latest events.
We all reacted in our own individual ways. Our son's art teacher at the Albany Institute of History and Art reported that Peter entered a "black period" the following week. Every figure was sketched in black. When questioned forty-four years later, he could, without hesitation, bring back the details of the weekend.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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February 6, 2008: Opening a Window However Slightly
Young Americans, between the ages of 20 to 40, were ready for action in the early 1960s. For men, it took into account WWII veterans who had been educated in the 1950s under the auspices of the GI Bill, and were ready for increased participation in the decision making processes in their communities. For women, it included a rapidly increasing number of well educated young women who were fully capable of taking a more important place in American life the way.
John Kennedy's election in 1960 signaled that the shift of power in the American landscape was moving from the older to the younger generation. The word "New" replaced "Tried and True" in the lexicon of the day.
This new revelation reached into the psyches of the citizens of one of the most conservative bastions of political life in America --- Albany, New York. It took an out-of-towner to bring it to the surface. Possibly it was only a question of time before the town awakened from its forty year hibernation while the world reconfigured. Whatever the reasons -- the possibility of opening politically sealed windows to allow fresh air to circulate in Albany was long overdue.
In June 1959, Robert K. Hudnut arrived in Albany fresh from his graduation at Union Theological Seminary. As a twenty -seven-year-old Protestant minister, he quickly analyzed the community and spoke out about the objectionable conditions he found in the city. He discussed people's fear of having their taxes raised for opposing the Democratic machine, the buying of votes with five-dollar-bills, plus all the tales of corruption that native Albanians discussed only in the privacy of their homes. He went into specifics about ill-paved streets, low pay for city employees, and lack of urban renewal. He blamed one-party rule, and called for action at the ballot-box to reverse existing conditions.
After a year in Albany, he led a meeting of ten young men at his home. They were an group of native sons, newcomers, and business and professional people who shared a desired to "do something" about Albany. Agreeing that the "something" had to be focused in the political arena, the ten scouted for support in the community after confirming Bob Hudnut's willingness to run against Erastus Corning for Mayor of the city of Albany. Responses came on an inverted scale: the older the prospect, the less he promised to contribute to a seemingly radical cause. But, the ten young men found twenty more (all under forty) to join them. "The Reverend Hudnut named the group, the Citizens United Reform Effort or C.U.R.E. On June 2, 1961 Albany learned from the newspapers that a third party had arrived on the scene. Cure never had an infancy. It sprang full-grown into a race whose finish line was at the polls in November."
"Amateurs" said many. "What chance would a young Presbyterian minister, just arrived in Albany, have to be elected Mayor in a city with a largely Catholic population. The entrenched O'Connell political machine, in power for 40 years, fully supported Mayor Erastus Corning, who was seeking his sixth four year term in office. It's true he was an Episcopalian but his family had lived here for generations. No bets were being taken in CURE's favor.
Despite all seeming disadvantages, six weeks later the local Republican Party endorsed the CURE ticket. They had few alternatives. In June they ran ads in the Albany newspapers asking for "the help and advice of all citizens who desire to become candidates... to communicate with our County Chairman". Not one leader, business, civic, or political considered running for Mayor against Corning.
Dedicated CURE volunteers, motivated by ideals of right and justice, were disbursed throughout the city to knock on doors delivering the CURE message to voters' homes. By August 1961, CURE submitted 3027 names on their nominating petitions to the County Board of Elections. That was twice the minimum required to get on the ballot.
On Election Day, 65,136 people went to the polls to elect a Mayor: 49,195 or 75% of them voted for Erastus Corning. One small consolation for CURE was that it outpolled the Republicans. There were 8,310 votes on the CURE line against 7,402 on the GOP line. Robert Hudnut, having finished the normal three year term as an assistant Presbyterian minister, left the city within six months after the election.
The legacy of CURE - the idea that private citizens could and should concern themselves with politics and government lived on. Young reformers, committed to the region, continued to hone their skills at communicating their message of progressive government. Elections that had heretofore been landslides for the Democrats became closer contests, some undecided until the last votes were counted.
CURE lost -- but the citizens of Albany won. The window had opened just enough for a needed breath of fresh air.
Bill Swire has been active as a community volunteer for a number of years in Albany, New York.
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