POLITICAL NOTES: Glamor Pusses

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As a U.S. politician, squat, bearded, 63-year-old Sculptor Jo Davidson is something to send an oldtime ward boss tottering off to the nearest gas jet. For one thing, he is living in Paris. For another, he admits that he likes the place. He lived there for 30 years before World War II, and wouldn’t mind living there the rest of his life. He has a stone-and-wood workshop in Lahaska, in Bucks County, Pa., a region thickly settled by Broadway wits and literary wights; but his four-story, pink stucco Paris house has two studios. And he likes the talk on Paris’ left bank. Last week he was shamelessly spending his time reading dusty old letters from Arnold Bennett and Gertrude Stein and arranging an art show.

His grasp of U.S. public affairs was about what might have been expected from a nice old man who loved conversation of all kinds but thought that all elections were won on issues. He had read the Federalist Papers, admired Tom Paine and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and thought Henry Wallace a fine fellow.

Despite these qualifications, Sculptor Davidson is a U.S. political leader of considerable stature. As chairman of the Independent Citizens’ Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, he has a corner on some priceless ingredients of a modern political campaign: famous names, famous faces, talent and showmanship.

Everybody’s in the Act. The roster of ICCASP’s Manhattan and Hollywood chapters might have sprung directly from a mad director’s loveliest dream. Frank Sinatra is one of its hardest-working speakers. It can call on Gypsy Rose Lee to bare her navel and William Rose Benét to write a script. Lena Horne will sing at any rally and Walter Huston will recite the Gettysburg Address. Fredric March belongs, and so do Eddie Cantor, Charles Boyer, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Charles Laughton and Robert Young.

Its publicity handouts often bear the names of Comedian Zero Mostel, Pianist Artur Rubinstein, Dancer Sono Osato, Boogie-Woogie Artist Hazel Scott, Harmonica Virtuoso Larry Adler, Radio Writer Norman Corwin, Composer Earl Robinson, Conductor Rudolph Ganz, Astronomer Harlow Shapley, Novelist Thomas Mann. And ICCASP’s stable of talent also embraces college professors, atomic scientists, advertising writers, book critics, and coveys of ballet dancers—classic or modern.

In 1946, a year in which show business and politics have been intermingled to a point which would completely horrify both Rudolph Valentino and William Jennings Bryan, this cast of characters gives ICCASP a unique leverage on thousands of U.S. voters. Some men & women, whose every instinct rebels against the sound of a politician’s voice, are so conditioned that they are unable to resist when their favorite movie star whoops up an issue.

The Biggest Fact. This week, with the 1946 elections just two months off, ICCASP got ready for its most serious, practical political test. As much as any political organization, it had to face up to 1946’s biggest political fact: Franklin D. Roosevelt is no longer around. He had inspired the committee, given it a cause, dazzled its members with invitations to the White House. They had all belonged to the group which felt that F.D.R. could never do wrong.

But now there was Harry Truman, who has no gift for badinage with movie stars and playwrights. ICCASP was divided. The primaries had indicated that the G.O.P. trend, noteworthy in other off-year elections, was as strong or stronger than ever. The Democrats would be on the defensive to hold what they have. ICCASP, as usual, would spend 99% of its energy for Democratic candidates, but not with quite the same high heart.

Many a Democratic politician, whose eyes glistened greedily at sight of ICCASP’s shoals of talent, felt similarly hesitant. For in some states and cities ICCASP support, because of its vehemence and its leftist tinge, was a handicap. Some candidates would definitely welcome ICCASP money but not ICCASP noise. Said ICCASP: no covert endorsements.

ICCASP had proved its ability to pull crowds into huge New York and Los Angeles rallies, to lure money-heavy political angels into glittering banquet rooms. A bright, diminutive 35-year-old ex-newspaperwoman named Hannah Dorner, who affectionately calls ICCASP members “glamor pusses,” handled most of its promotion stunts with a hardheaded competency in Manhattan’s Astor Hotel, overlooking Broadway. Nevertheless, the committee could still be expected to cut didoes.

The Last Head-Hunter. In one sense ICCASP was the by-product of a profound foreboding which gripped Jo Davidson during the presidential election year of 1944. As a sculptor he had been almost as much a historian as an artist—he is a portraitist rather than a creator. Will Rogers had called him the “last of the savage head-hunters.” He had met and modeled almost all the significant figures of modern times. Foch, Balfour, Lloyd George, Benes, Litvinoff, John D. Rockefeller the elder, Andrew Mellon, Sinclair Lewis, Sidney Hillman, Clemenceau, Mussolini, Gandhi and Aldous Huxley were only a few of his trophies. He was convinced that Franklin Roosevelt was the greatest of them all.

The intensity of his convictions stemmed, in part, from memories of his own early struggles, from the feeling that Roosevelt’s New Deal had blessed the lives of the masses. Davidson was born on Manhattan’s lower East Side, of Russian Jewish immigrants. He was forced to leave school in his teens, toiled as a locksmith’s apprentice, a messenger, a leatherworker. His battle for existence went on for many years after the day when he accidentally picked up a piece of modeling clay, felt his heart jump, knew that whatever stood in his way he would be a sculptor.

Famous and successful, he felt a sense of personal duty to Roosevelt. One night after the 1944 national conventions, he opened his lofty, cavernous Manhattan studio to a crowd of fourscore friends who shared his sympathies. The result was an Independent Voters’ Committee of the Arts & Sciences for Roosevelt, the forerunner of ICCASP. The founders, among them Helen Keller, Thomas Benton, Ethel Barrymore, Van Wyck Brooks, Quentin Reynolds, excitedly made Davidson chairman—largely because he had let his studio be used for the first meeting.

“We were mostly virgin voices in things political,” says Jo Davidson. “Most of us had been liberals, which meant that we did a lot of yapping and intellectualizing about things but few of us had ever participated. And until you participate it doesn’t count. Liberalism is sort of like Bohemianism, except that a liberal sits thinking in an ivory tower and has liquor and stuff while the Bohemian sits in an attic and starves. They both have their delights but, generally speaking, each is equally impotent.”

Participation Plus. Casting about for an outlet for their enthusiasm, the virgins decided to hire Madison Square Garden, stage a Roosevelt rally. Their susceptibility to the fey approach manifested itself at once. To the horror of Democratic National Chairman Bob Hannegan, the group made Henry Wallace—who had recently been cast aside by the Democratic Convention—the honor guest. But the rally proved that big names could be potent instruments of political expression. Despite the misgivings of Democratic bigwigs, 20,000 jammed the Garden.

A few weeks later (having absently neglected to take up a collection during the first rally) Davidson & Co. proved that famous political dilettantes may also be worth their weight in campaign funds. A thousand people paid $40,000 at a dinner to see Bert Lahr, Joe E. Lewis and Myrna Loy, hear Ethel Merman sing.

When the campaign ended, the Independent Voters’ Committee for Roosevelt might well have collapsed. Instead it became ICCASP, went on growing at a great rate, began shouting for international security, full employment and an end to the poll tax.

A good part of this continued vitality flowed from Hollywood, which for years had been itching for something like ICCASP. In the old days a motion picture star had needed nothing but a white Duesenberg and 175 suits to round himself out socially. In the words of Dorothy Parker, there was no “ism” in Hollywood but plagiarism. But modern studio life had become much more complicated. Today few stars, male or female, would be caught at a commissary lunch table without a Cause. Most of them, horrified at the thought of being considered bloated capitalists, favor leftish causes of one kind or another, and at times have struggled over them like redbone hounds chomping possums.

At one point the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League (Rupert Hughes, Gloria Stuart et al.) was the rage. This was followed by the Hollywood Committee for Loyalist Spain (Joan Crawford, Luise Rainer et al.) which was succeeded, in turn, by the Steinbeck Committee for Underprivileged Okies (Helen and Melvyn Douglas et al.). But the advent of the Hollywood Chapter of ICCASP ended most of the uproar, set 3,300 professional exhibitionists to using the same letterhead.

A Few Words. Hollywood’s enthusiasm for the Committee is aptly illustrated by short statements granted last week by Screen Idols Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart.

Said Robinson: “I belong to ICCASP because the atom bomb, when it exploded over Hiroshima, blew up every ivory tower in the world. America is in crisis. I am part of the world. I am a citizen of America and caught in this crisis.”

Said Bogart: “I belong to ICCASP because I believe in the principles promulgated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. My choice for President in 1948 is Harold Stassen.”

On the other hand, some of ICCASP’s growth was the result of the absent-minded alacrity with which famous people often join societies for the advancement or prevention of almost anything.

One of these is Humorist James Thurber, who is listed as a member of ICCASP’s Connecticut Chapter. His reactions to it are restrained:

Q. How did you become associated with ICCASP? A. What’s that?

Q. You know—the Independent Citizen’s Committee. A. Huh?

Q. Jo Davidson’s outfit! A. Oh, yes. I think I belong to it.

Q. How did you become associated with it? A. Well, I think they sent out a letter or something. . . . I think I’m an honorary member.

Q. How do you like Jo Davidson? A. I only met him once. He’s got a beard.

Q. What should the organization stand for? A. Well, I’ve been awfully busy and I suppose someone has formulated its ideas better than I could.

The Hardheaded. Despite these somewhat vague attachments of some of its members, ICCASP nevertheless has some hardheaded political thinkers and seasoned politicians who know what they are driving for. Best-selling novelist Howard Fast (Citizen Tom Paine, The American), who writes for the Communist Daily Worker and New Masses, writes ICCASP’s handouts. Jimmy Roosevelt was once its executive director for the West Coast at a reputed $25,000 a year; but he broke with the Committee over the left v. far left wrangle in California politics (TIME, July 29) and is now the chairman of the less turbulent California State Central Democratic Committee.

When he quit the Cabinet last February, Harold Ickes went over to ICCASP as executive chairman (reputedly at $25,000). But Honest Harold is a little too old, crotchety and hog-on-ice independent for ICCASP. The Committee wanted him to speak here, there & everywhere; Harold wanted to speak only at rallies of his own choosing. Result: Ickes will make some speeches for the Committee this fall, and will not collect anything near $25,000. Asked about Jo Davidson’s political savvy, Ickes replied: “He’s a good sculptor.”

With the help of its more professional members, ICCASP has also learned to avoid some of the minor blunders of politicking. Explained a Hollywood member: “Ingrid Bergman would never be sent off to a small neighborhood meeting because it would cheapen her glamor value. Groucho Marx wouldn’t attempt to talk to a ladies’ society, but would leave it to Sterling Hayden or John Garfield.”

But sometimes ICCASP’s undergraduate enthusiasm is a little too much for politicos to bear. At a Jackson Day dinner in Los Angeles last spring, at which the Committee was set to shower its kisses on Henry Wallace, its favorite son, Henry was preceded on the speaker’s program by Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Jerry Colonna, Burns & Allen, Edward G. Robinson, George Jessel, Mickey Rooney, Margaret O’Brien, Frank Sinatra and Bette Davis. So, by the time hapless Henry got up to talk. . . .

Fleas on the Dog. Like almost any liberal political organization, ICCASP has picked up some Communists. Some of its critics and some of its members feel that it is being turned into a Communist Front organization as a result. Cried one of its Chicago members: “The Commies are boring in like weevils in a biscuit.” Both Hannah Dorner, its national executive director, and Jo Davidson say that this attitude is greatly exaggerated, that its Communists have no more to do with its course than fleas do with a dog’s. To the question of Communist influence, Jo Davidson replied: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Said Miss Dorner: “Says who and so what? If the ICCASP program is like the Communist line, that is purely coincidental.”

But if ICCASP is sometimes baffling, it is never boring, and there can be no denying that it is a political phenomenon unique in U.S. history. And ICCASP has a quality that its members like. Last week Jo Davidson, who will return to the U.S. late this month to take part in the campaign, summed it up. “Amateurs don’t know what you can’t do,” he said. “That can be a big help.”