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By Harvey Strum , Russell Sage College Copyright © 2024 All rights reserved by the author Wikipedia image: Portrait of James Madison, one of the authors of the Federalist Papers , and the fourth President of the United States The Republican Party developed in New York during the first Washington administration around the core of George Clinton’s anti-Federalists. During the Revolution, they provided the leadership of the popular Whigs. Federalist foreign policies during Washington’s second term enabled the Republican Party to establish a mass following. “British policy on the high seas and on the frontier, coupled with the Federalist response to them,” historian Alfred Young concluded, “created the Republican movement in New York, enabling Republicans to catch full sail the fullest winds of nationalism to blow across the American political waters since the Revolution.” The growth of the Republican Party in the 1790s depended on the successful use of public hostility to Great Britain. [1] In 1794, John Jay negotiated a treaty with the British providing for British evacuation of the frontier posts in the West in exchange for American acceptance of British restrictions on trade with the West Indies, and a promise not to impose discriminatory duties on British goods. While the treaty pleased Federalists because it produced an Anglo-American entente, it angered Republicans because the British refused to recognize American maritime rights. “To Republicans, the battle against Jay’s Treaty, a betrayal of national interest, was a holy crusade; England, a den of iniquity; ‘Tory,’ the most odious epithet in their vocabulary.” Initial public outrage at the treaty’s abandonment of neutral rights aided the Republicans. However, Republican Anglophobia soon proved too strong for a majority of New Yorkers. Voters gave Republicans a majority of the state’s Congressional delegation in 1794 during the crest of anti-British anger over Jay’s Treaty. However, by the spring of 1795, New Yorkers found peace with the British more appealing. New Yorkers elected Federalist John Jay Governor and reelected Federalist majorities in the Assembly and State Senate. [2] New York Republicans took a more openly pro-French position than the national leadership of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. When the French requested bribes from American negotiators---XYZ Affair---Federalists capitalized on the public outrage in New York and portrayed the Republicans as seditious allies of the French. Federalists manipulated nationalism to their own advantage and seriously undermined the popularity of the Republicans. Adoption of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which threatened basic civil liberties, backfired against the Federalists and allowed the Republicans to regain the political offensive. Thomas Jefferson’s successful attack on the foreign policy of President John Adams and the Alien and Sedition Acts aided the Republicans at the state and national levels. Thomas Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency in the 1800 presidential election. Between 1800 and 1801, New York’s Republicans won control of the Assembly, State Senate, and the Congressional delegation. In 1801, Republican George Clinton defeated Federalist Stephen Van Rensselaer for governor. For the first time, Republicans controlled all branches of New York government. “A harsh and divisive dialogue pervaded the political atmosphere,” historian Paul Goodman observed in Massachusetts, and “men argued not over means but over ultimate ends.” In New York, as in Massachusetts, Republicans saw their opponents as aristocrats, British agents, and Tories. For the Federalists, Republicans were Jacobins, anarchists, democrats, and agents of France. Federalists believed Republican rule would lead to the destruction of “the foundations of society.” Eventually, “you will see the virtuous brought to the block and decapitated, their property plundered, and divided among the horde of wretches. They especially hated Jefferson, and when his presidency ended,  they thanked God for rescuing “us from the fangs of Jefferson.” [3] Federalism had been the dominant political force in New York since 1788, when forces in favor of the Constitution defeated the anti-Federalists led by George Clinton. Throughout the 1790s, Federalists managed to contain the growth of the Republicans until they stumbled over aspects of the foreign policies of Washington and Adams. By 1801, Federalists lost control of all branches of state government and went into rapid decline into political insignificance. A change in the electoral laws in 1804 led to the loss of one of their last bastions of political power, the New York City Common Council. By 1806, the Federalists held no seats in the State Senate, 19 of 112 Assembly seats, and two of seventeen seats in Congress. In 1804 and 1807, Federalists did not even bother to nominate gubernatorial candidates, hoping they could regain some power by endorsing one of the Republican candidates. The strategy failed so badly that it led to the death of the state’s leading Federalist in 1804, Alexander Hamilton. By 1801, the majority of New Yorkers, particularly in western New York, considered themselves Republicans. They identified with the principles of the Republican Party and with the state leadership of George Clinton. In the 1790s, the Republican Party developed independent of the leadership of Jefferson and Madison, and “there would have been a Republican Party in New York without them.” New York Republicans did not follow the lead of Jefferson and Madison in the Hamilton finance questions of 1789-90, and in the foreign policy crises of 1794-96, they took a more extreme anti-British position than either Virginian. While Republicans backed Jefferson in 1796 and 1800, they did so primarily out of hostility to Federalists, rather than loyalty to Jefferson. According to Alfred Young, “New York Democratic Republicans cannot accurately be called New York Jeffersonians.” [4] Republicans dominated New York politics after 1800 because they identified their party as the party of the people. They projected an image of democracy, a faith in equalitarianism. As an example, when Daniel Tompkins ran for governor in 1807, he ran as the farmer’s boy, just one of the people he hoped to represent. While many Federalists expected the public to defer to men of superior merit, virtue, or wealth, Republicans emphasized that men of merit were “still only considered as equals.” Republicans cautioned voters against electing Federalists,” men whose aristocratic doctrine teaches that the rights and representative authority of the people are vested in a few proud nobles.” Many Federalists felt ill at ease campaigning. “Saving one’s country” proved “a nauseous piece of business” to Washington Irving, who in 1807 “talked handbill fashion with the demagogues and shook hands with the mob.” As late as 1815, William North complained of “suffering the worst of all evils…to one who hates the manners of the Vulgar, an evil sufficiently great, that of mixing and battling with the herd, all folly, filth, ignorance, and drink.” In spite of the efforts to convey the image of representing the best interests of the people and the state, Federalists could not overcome “the dread of federalism entertained by the great body of the people.” By combining equalitarianism, nationalism, and Anglophobia, Republicans won the support of the majority of New Yorkers. [5] In the 1790s, the Federalists, as a party in power, discouraged the mobilization of public opinion, rejected the use of political organization, and frowned upon the expression of public opinion between the elections. Federalists denounced democratic clubs as the work of French Jacobins, as unruly revolutionary cells. The Federalist Party stood for a strong national government and a strong executive. Republicans glorified states’ rights in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and popular protests against Jay’s Treaty, Alien and Sedition Acts, and the undeclared Quasi-War of 1798-1800 with France. After 1800, a partial reversal of roles turned New York’s Federalists into states’ rights advocates and into vigorous opponents of the nationalist policies of Jefferson and Madison. Federalists became champions of party organization, public protests, and constant agitation against the policies of Jefferson and Madison. Embracing new methods of party organization, Federalists founded Washington societies and, in the Capital District, Trojan Whig societies to get the faithful to the polls and to engage in public opposition to the foreign policies of Republican administrations. Republicans rallied around nationalism and the policies of the Jefferson and Madison administrations, but only if it appeared to give them an edge in New York politics. The various factions within the Republican Party used nationalism and states’ rights as weapons against the Federalists and their political enemies within the Republican Party. While upholding the popularity and democratic nature of their political clubs, like Tammany, Republicans denounced Federalist political clubs as a nest of Tories and treason. Ironically, both parties competed over which political organization represented the best expression of the Revolutionary tradition and the legitimate inheritors of the values of 1776. In the 1790s, the struggle to oust the Federalists from state and national power provided the incentive that kept the faction-ridden Republicans united. With the elimination of the Federalist threat in 1801, Republicans waged a vigorous internecine war for control of the party. During the early 1790s, George Clinton, a popular governor aided by his nephew De Witt Clinton, dominated the Republican Party. By the mid-1790s, the Livingstons, led by Robert R. Livingston and Aaron Burr, emerged to challenge Clinton. “While there was never any love between Clinton, Livingston, and Burr,” as long as the Federalists remained in power, the three major Republican leaders cooperated against their common enemy. [6] Jefferson’s election in 1800 provided an opportunity for the newly elected president to turn New York’s feuding factions into Jeffersonians. By failing to use the power of federal patronage, he left New York’s party leaders free to settle their own affairs and continue their internecine struggle. Rank and file Republicans identified with the national leadership of Thomas Jefferson and later James Madison. Local party leaders, especially the Clintons, ran the party independently and with little regard for the wishes of Jefferson. Party leaders identified themselves as Clintonians, Burrites, Lewisites (Livingston-Morgan Lewis faction), or Martlingmen (Tammany), not Jeffersonians except when it became politically advantageous to do so. After 1801, these factions fought for control of the Republican Party. In 1804, George Clinton accepted the Vice-Presidential post under Jefferson. Aaron Burr, former Vice-President of the United States, tried to succeed Clinton as Governor. The Clintonians, in cooperation with the Livingston faction, backed Morgan Lewis, Livingston’s son-in-law. Lewis won, and Burr blamed his defeat on Alexander Hamilton killing New York’s most prominent Federalist in a duel. Burr’s defeat and disgrace removed him from New York politics. His supporters tended to merge with the Martlingmen in New York City. George Clinton’s assumption of the Vice-President’s office left control of the Clintonians to De Witt Clinton. By 1806, Clinton and the Livingston-Lewisite faction split, and the 1806 and 1807 state elections turned into a contest for power between the factions. In 1807, Clinton challenged the reelection of Morgan Lewis by nominating Daniel Tompkins, a farmer’s son, as his challenger. The death of Hamilton further undermined the Federalists, and as in 1804, they were reduced to supporting one of the two Republican candidates. In 1804, most Federalists backed Burr, but switched to Lewis in 1807. Tompkins’ victory left the Clintonians in total control of the Republican Party and New York State, but only temporarily. The internecine political struggle within the Republican Party did not end with the triumph of the Clintonians in 1807 or the resurgence of Federalism in 1808. When Clintonians formed a coalition with part of the Burrites in 1806, supporters of Morgan Lewis objected to the alliance, and the Livingston-Lewisite faction reached out to the Martlingmen, who met at Abraham Martling’s Tavern in New York City. Since Martling served as sachem of the Tammany Society, the Martlingmen soon became synonymous with Tammany. Ironically, Tammany’s leaders included a number of former close associates of Aaron Burr, including Mathew L. Davis, Burr’s closest political associate. Hatred of the Clintonians, especially De Witt Clinton, united this strange coalition. By 1811, they successfully challenged Clinton’s control of the Republican Party in New York City but failed to generate much support upstate. During the 1811 race for Lieutenant-Governor, Tammany backed Marinus Willett only polled five percent of the vote when he challenged De Witt Clinton and Federalist Nicholas Fish. Clinton easily defeated Fish and Willett. In 1812, members of Tammany moved into their new headquarters near Martling’s Tavern, Tammany Hall, further cementing the identification of the Tammany name with the Martlingmen. Tammany added to the divisions and confusion in Republican ranks by expressing deep hostility to immigrants fresh from the bogs of Ireland. Leaders of the Tammany faction refused to nominate Irish Catholic candidates. The anti-Irish, anti-Catholic nativism lasted until the flood tide of Irish immigrants forced Tammany to relent in 1815. Members of Tammany belatedly realized they needed the votes of this growing immigrant population in New York City, especially since De Witt Clinton developed strong bonds with the Irish American community. [7] Trying to outflank the Clintonians, upstate Lewisite leaders Morgan Lewis, Robert Livingston, and John Nicholas joined with Tammany’s stalwarts, portraying themselves as champions of Jefferson and his successor James Madison. They described themselves as Madisonian when George Clinton appeared to challenge Madison for the presidential nomination in 1808. Later, in 1812, they backed Madison against De Witt Clinton’s bid for the presidency. By vigorously endorsing Jefferson and Madison and their major foreign policies — the embargo, non-intercourse, and war—Lewisites and Tammany hoped to win the endorsement of Presidents Jefferson and Madison in their efforts to destroy the political power of the Clintons. Realizing the potential political danger the embargo posed, the Clintons initially criticized the embargo because of its negative impact on the economy of New York. However, De Witt Clinton’s public attack on the law angered many Republican Party activists and provided an issue for anti-Clinton Republicans to use in their efforts to capture control of the party. De Witt Clinton’s handpicked gubernatorial candidate, Daniel Tompkins, solidly supported the presidential measure. After realizing his opposition to the embargo jeopardized his control of the party, Clinton backtracked and endorsed the law. This prevented a rebellion of pro-embargo Clintonians but drove his close political associate and editor of the Republican leaning New York American Citizen, James Cheetham, into the political wilderness. He was no longer a spokesman for the Clintons, and his past positions alienated him from the Lewisites and Tammany. Cheetham tried to form his own faction, consisting of Irish Americans, and he used his newspaper to harass both the Clintonians and Tammany in New York City. In spite of the resurgence of Federalism produced by the embargo, Republicans continued to fight for control of the party. After the 1809 Federalist victory, warring factions in the Republican Party negotiated a compromise in the summer of 1809 and during the spring elections in 1810. Federalist success drove them together, but their deep hostility prevented a lasting reconciliation. Compromise did not come easily. Tammany’s organizing chairman, Mathew L. Davis, expecting Clintonian opposition to Tammany’s pick for Assembly candidates, swore “an eternal war against every mother son of them.” Caught between the Clintonians and the Federalists, Lewisites described themselves as a ”poor set of true Republicans between Hawk and Buzzard.” Warring Republicans managed to strike a deal. Clintonians in New York City backed the Tammany slate for the Assembly. All Republicans supported the reelection of  Daniel Tompkins for governor, and the Clintonians endorsed Morgan Lewis for State Senator. For the first time since 1801, Republicans waged a political campaign united by their mutual hostility to the Federalists. [8] With the Republican comeback in 1810, open warfare broke out anew. The 1811 race for Lieutenant-Governor provided an opportunity for a test of strength. Clintonians easily defeated Tammany’s Marinus Willett and  Federalist Nicholas Fish by re-electing De Witt Clinton. However, when Clinton ran for the presidency in 1812, opposed the war, and sought an alliance with the Federalists, he split his followers. Prominent Clintonians, like Governor Tompkins and Martin Van Buren, abandoned Clinton. Many of his Irish American supporters, who hated the British, favored the war and rejected  Clinton. By 1813, his opponents within the Republican Party seized control as Madisonians, and Clinton’s quixotic and foolish attempt to block Governor Tompkins’ reelection in 1813 backfired, destroying his credibility for the remainder of the war. President Madison got his revenge against Clinton by dismissing Clintonians from all federal offices in New York. Politically isolated, Clinton depended on the Federalists to retain the Mayor’s office in New York City. Just as Burr in 1804 and Lewis in 1807, De Witt Clinton discovered that political alliances with Federalists alienated Republican voters. While Republicans fought each other, Federalists faced their own internal disputes. Between 1798 and 1800, the Federalists split into pro-Adams and Hamiltonian factions. The defeat of Adams and the death of Hamilton ended this division. Younger members of the party disagreed with their more deferential bound elders and proved quite willing to reach out to the masses and politic with the same vigor and democratic rhetoric of their rivals in the Republican Party. In Albany County, a repeated conflict developed between the Dutch Americans who controlled nominations and the desire of more recent arrivals from New England for a share of political positions. Disagreements also surfaced over the allocation of patronage appointments when Federalists won in 1809 and 1812-13. An especially bitter battle developed in 1810 because a nationalist faction emerged in New York City that endorsed the foreign policies of President Madison. Led by Oliver Wolcott, Jr, and Peter Radcliff, a faction within the Federalists wanted the party to adopt a more “American” stance and expel the Tories from the party. Other Federalists, like Robert Troup and Gouverneur Morris, strongly disagreed with endorsing foreign policies promoted by Madison, a man of “not only reprehensible but impeachable conduct.” Historian Lee Benson’s research into Jacksonian New York asked other historians to look for the ethno-social conflict in political loyalties. Within the Federalist and Republican parties, this appeared in the Yankee-Dutch conflict among the Federalists in Albany County and the Yorker-Irish split in the New York City Republican Party. In 1814, a group of Federalists led by Oliver Wolcott and Gulian Verplanck broke with the Federalists in New York City and organized the pro-war American Federalist Party, nicknamed the Coodies. [9] As an example of the generation gap between younger Federalists and the older members of the party, the Federalist Party pamphlet of 1808 in Schenectady County revealed the fundamental differences. Federalists in Schenectady articulated in greater detail the rights of the citizens to dissent from government policies and throw out of office men who betrayed the public trust. The American government was formed “for the people, and not the people for the government.” In the United States, “all power emanates from the people.“ Schenectady Federalists articulated a vision of people’s role in government similar to the Republicans. While many of the older Federalists believed in a speaking elite and silent democracy---deferential politics, Schenectady Federalists expressed a commitment to the popular will and veneration of popular sovereignty. Older Federalists, like John Jay and Gouverneur Morris, complained of the Republicans courting popular opinion and flattering the multitude. Schenectady’s Federalists willingly courted public opinion. They encouraged the public to criticize the government and vote. By encouraging the public to participate in the political process, Federalists sped the democratization of New York’s political structure. [10]             From 1801-1807, the Federalists remained confined to their areas of political strength, St. Lawrence County, and parts of the North Country; Southern Tier, Upper Hudson Valley, parts of the Mohawk Valley, especially Oneida County, and the lower three wards of New York City. By making deals with Aaron Burr in 1804 and Morgan Lewis in 1807, they tried unsuccessfully to play Republican factions off against one another. Their coalitions with the Burrties in 1804 and Lewisites in 1807 failed to win them political power. Between 1801 and 1808, the Federalists were a party in search of an issue. In 1807, Federalists turned to nativism. They hoped native New Yorkers’ hostility toward Irish Catholics would provide the catalyst for a political resurrection. The Federalist campaign of 1807 combined nativism with criticism of the foreign policies of President Jefferson. For the Federalists, the Irish symbolized the worst evils of Republican rule. To the Federalists, the Irish were anti-British and would embroil the United States in a second war with Great Britain. To stress their Americanism and opposition to immigration, Federalists became the American Party in 1807. Privately, Federalists expressed the same concerns about the Irish as they did publicly during the 1807 campaign. David Ogden, a lawyer and son-in-law of Gouverneur Morris, feared the Federalists could not carry New York City, because “this city is completely ruled by Irishmen.”  During the 1807 campaign, Irish Republicans and Federalists fought each other on the streets of the Seventh Ward. Street brawls were not unusual in the sometimes chaotic politics of New York City. Ironically, the Lewisites joined the anti-Irish bandwagon in 1807. Supporters of Governor Lewis accused the Irish of brawling, drunkenness, crime, and clannishness. Federalist William Van Ness optimistically reported that “the conduct of the Irish and French raised [the party] beyond all former example.” Van Ness could not count. Federalists only picked up five seats in the Assembly from 1806, and the Clintonian Republicans won a decisive victory over the Lewisties and Federalists. Federalist William Wilson blamed the Federalist defeat on the “United Irishmen and French Jacobins.” [11] President Thomas Jefferson’s foreign policy decisions turned around the fortunes of New York’s Federalists and gave the Federalists the first real chance in a decade to limit Republican domination of the state. The deterioration in Anglo-American relations after the Chesapeake Affair in June 1807 led the President to ask Congress to adopt the embargo on trade. Duplicating the tactics of the Jay’s Treaty fight, Republicans campaigned on Anglophobia, American nationalism, and the legacy of the American Revolution. In 1806, during the Leander Affair, Republicans successfully manipulated American hostility toward the British, but the adoption of the embargo on trade in December 1807 proved a Republican foreign and domestic policy blunder. The economic hardship produced by the embargo was more important to New Yorkers than appeals to Anglophobia, the Revolution, or patriotism. Farmers in upstate New York engaged in widespread smuggling of produce and livestock to Canada for shipment via Montreal to Europe. Even in New York City and Long Island, farmers and merchants managed to smuggle goods aboard British ships off New York Harbor or in Long Island Sound. Profit proved more persuasive than patriotism. In upstate, smuggling became so widespread that President Jefferson declared the Lake Champlain region of New York and Vermont in a state of insurrection on 19 April 1808 and authorized the use of the militia and federal troops to stop the smuggling. Jefferson also wanted to declare the Oswego region and neighboring communities on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence in a state of insurrection, but Governor Tompkins, fearing the political consequences of a second proclamation of insurrection, persuaded Jefferson to refrain from issuing the proclamation. Fearing that the embargo would lead to an Anglo-American war, Barent Gardenier urged fellow Federalists  to create a public outcry against war in the state legislature “to catch the public ear.” Federalists introduced an amendment to the Assembly’s reply to the speech by Governor Tompkins assailing the embargo and the President’s handling of Franco-American relations. Then, on 28 March 1808, at the Albany meeting of the state’s Federalists, the party adopted an election address attacking the embargo and the foreign policies of President Jefferson. Their attack worked, and Federalists doubled their seats in the Assembly, jumping from twenty-four to forty-seven, and increased their share of the Congressional delegation from two in 1806 to eight in 1808 (8 of 17). For the first time since 1800, Federalists elected a State Senator. Jefferson’s foreign policy and the impact of the embargo on the lives of New Yorkers brought back the Federalists from political oblivion. As one example, the embargo destroyed the prosperity of Hudson, “sounding the death knell to a booming economy.” As Martin Van Buren and other Republicans, like former governor Morgan Lewis, admitted, “the embargo and the idea of French influence produced a most extraordinary effect.” [12] Events during the 1808 election suggest the chaos of New York politics during the early national period. Political emotions ran high in Columbia County in April 1808. Federalist Elisha Williams challenged Martin Van Buren to a debate on the embargo. To ensure a sympathetic audience, Van Buren brought Republicans from Claverack and Hudson. When Van Buren arrived with his Republican legion, Williams refused to debate him. Republicans took control of the meeting hall and held a pro-embargo meeting while Williams and the Federalists regrouped in another part of the building. Van Buren told De Witt Clinton that the “Federalists feared a debate.” During the first party system, political opponents rarely debated and showed up at meetings to heckle or silence each other's opposition. [13] A typical incident took place in New York City in late April when a donnybrook broke out at a meeting of pro-Federalist sailors. When Federalist Cadwallader Colden delivered an anti-embargo speech, a group of Republican sailors drowned him out. In reaction to “the tumult and confusion,” pro-Federalist sailors left while the Republicans took over the hall, adopting pro-embargo resolutions. In retaliation, a mob of Federalists marched into the heavily Republican Sixth Ward carrying an American flag, shouting “no Republicans, down with Jacobins.” Two days of post-election rioting by Republicans incensed the Federalists against the Irish. On 28 April 1808, a mob of 600 Irish Americans and Irish immigrants marched down the Sixth Ward shouting Kill the Federalists. Rioting on the night of the 29th led to the deaths of two men. William Coleman, the Federalist editor of the New York Evening Post, blamed “the tribe fresh from the bogs of Ireland.” [14] Many Federalists did not understand the nature of their political resurrection. Most of their votes came from citizens rejecting the foreign policies of Thomas Jefferson and the embargo, not embracing the principles of Federalism. Optimistic about the future, Federalist Henry Van Schaack  predicted we “shall do much better than we have done now.” Jefferson’s reliance on the embargo in 1808-09 turned Van Schaack’s prediction into reality. Republican appeals revealed a siege mentality. Failure to support the embargo, warned New York City Republicans, “threatened the existence of our Republic.” Republicans portrayed the embargo as a test between the free republican government in America and the tyrants of Europe. As David Gardiner argued, “we have asked for nothing but justice...which our independence and honor will never allow us to relinquish.” They blamed the failure of the embargo to successfully pressure the British into respecting American neutral rights on the Federalist traitors in league with the British. Republicans demanded the expulsion of the Tories from the United States, and some advocated invading Canada and driving out the Tories who settled in British North America after the Revolution. Once again, Republicans wrapped themselves in the legacy of the Revolution and Anglophobia to motivate voters to ignore the economic consequences of the embargo and counter the upsurge in support for the Federalists. Tammany could not put aside its hostility toward the Irish and refused to nominate Irish Catholics, which amused the Federalists. “A deadly animosity seems to have arisen,” Federalist John Foote noted, “between the imported and home-made Jacobins.” [15]             Public hostility to the embargo and Republican divisions encouraged Federalists to increase their organizational activity. Beginning in July 1808, Gulian Verplanck, Richard Varick, and Isaac Sebring established a chapter of the Washington Benevolent Society in New York City. In Stillwater in Saratoga County, younger Federalists joined the United Brethren of Washington. Younger Federalists created the Whig Society in Troy because younger Federalists wanted to preserve “everything dear and sacred” from corrupt Republican rule. In New York City, a split temporarily developed between younger Federalists led by Gulian Verplanck, who wanted to exclude former Tories and adopt a more nationalistic expression for American neutral rights. Accepting the advice of William Coleman and Robert Troup Federalists buried their differences and united to defeat the Republicans. Federalist organizational activities brought voters out to condemn the embargo and the foreign policy of President Jefferson and later President James Madison. Federalists organized meetings throughout the state to attack the embargo and the new enforcement act as an unconstitutional danger to American liberties. Using the discontent created by the embargo-induced depression, Federalists turned that state election into a referendum on Jeffersonian foreign policy. Their strategy worked, winning five of the eight contested State Senate seats and 63 of the 112 Assembly seats. Federalists won a majority in the Assembly for the first time in ten years. In the 1809 state elections in New York, a majority of voters repudiated the foreign policy of President Jefferson. Surviving evidence suggests that the embargo increased voter turnout. Political competition between Federalists and Republicans over the wisdom of the embargo brought voters to the polls. In 1809, the increase in voter participation benefited the Federalists because of their opposition to the embargo [16] New York’s 1810 election showed the importance of foreign policy issues in local and state politics. President Madison’s foreign policy dominated the Federalist-controlled Assembly, and the Republican Governor Daniel Tompkins. Federalists and Republicans debated foreign policy over the summer of 1809 and in the November Common Council elections in New York City. Madison’s foreign policy became the main issue for Federalists and Republicans in the spring of 1810 elections for the state legislature, governor, and Congress. Republicans called the Federalists Tories, lackeys of the British, and claimed the Federalists wanted war with France. Their opponents viewed continued Republican rule as a disaster that would lead to more embargoes and war with Great Britain. The 1810 elections revealed the connections between foreign policy and local and state politics. In November 1809, New York City voters went to the polls to elect the Common Council. Federalists and Republicans ran their campaign not on local issues but on foreign policy. Editor Zachariah Lewis predicted that Federalists would have the support of “all who deprecate a useless embargo and unnecessary war.” Republicans described their political opponents as Tories and agents of Great Britain. Both parties claimed to inherit the Revolutionary legacy. Ninth Ward Federalists reminded voters “they remembered the plains of Lexington and the bloody field at Monmouth, where Federalists led our patriots to victory. Republican divisions between Tammany and Clintonians aided the Federalists, who won fifteen of the twenty Council seats. Federalists interpreted their victory as evidence that the people would reject men who are “advocates of embargoes, non-intercourse, and war.” [17]             The 1810 campaign began with a direct confrontation between the Federalists in the Assembly and Governor Tompkins over supporting or condemning the foreign policy of President Madison. During the 1810 election campaign, Republicans denounced former British Minister Francis Jackson for “his vile attempts…to evade…the just claims of our government.” To the Republicans, the Federalists put the interests of Great Britain first, ahead of American neutral rights. Federalists argued that Republicans followed the orders of the Jacobin clubs of France. Republicans retook a majority in the Assembly, and Federalist congressional seats dropped from eight to five. Federalists won 41 Assembly seats. Their only surprise gain was six of the eleven seats from New York City. Republicans blamed the eight hundred African American voters and made plans to restrict their right to vote. Governor Tompkins easily won reelection. Without the embargo, the Federalists' efforts to blame President Madison for the failure of Anglo-American relations failed. This time, attacking England proved more effective than censuring President Madison and Republican foreign policy. [18] An apparent improvement in Franco-American relations in September 1810 and the continued stalemate in Anglo-American relations troubled New York’s Federalists. After President Madison declared on 2 November 1810 that the French had repealed their decrees that negatively impacted American neutral rights, Federalists worried about a further deterioration in Anglo-American relations. In the state elections of 1811, both parties attempted to use foreign policy against their opponents. Anglophobia worked better for the Republicans, and the Federalist critique of Madison’s foreign policies with France and Great Britain failed to move the voters. Republicans retained control of the Assembly, and De Witt Clinton won election as Lieutenant-Governor. [19] When Anglo-American relations continued to deteriorate, President Madison opted for a new embargo and war in the spring of 1812. A new embargo allowed Federalists to take power, winning a majority of seats once again in the 1812 spring state elections. Foreign policy dominated the campaign. In the spring of 1812, Congress approved a new ninety-day embargo. When news reached New York City on 3 April 1812, fifty ships rushed to leave port, and as Jonathan Ogden noted, “ a like confusion I have never seen.” The embargo and threat of war became a major issue in the election. Thanks to the foreign policy decisions of President Madison, the Federalists were back in power, winning three Senate seats and a majority (60 seats) in the Assembly. Results of the election suggested a majority of New York voters rejected renewed commercial restrictions and war. Divisions about the war, and initially splits within Republican ranks, became apparent when eleven of the fourteen Congressmen present during the war voted along with one of the state’s U.S. Senators, who voted against the war. Clintonian Republicans initially opposed war. Four Federalists and seven Republican congressmen voted against the war. Later, at the end of the year, when New Yorkers went to the polls to elect members of Congress, they selected 19 anti-war Federalists, one anti-war Republican, and seven pro-war Republicans. New York sent the largest anti-war delegation of any state to Congress, suggesting that a majority of the electorate in New York rejected President Madison’s decision to go to war. [20] While Governor Tompkins won re-election in 1813, his vote totals were half of 1810, and the Federalists, campaigning against the war, retained their majority in the Assembly in the spring 1813 state elections. Public sentiment changed in the winter of 1813-14 because of British raids on the Niagara Frontier, forcing thousands of New Yorkers to flee eastward to the comparative safety of Batavia to avoid the British and their Native American allies. Reacting to the reality that New York had become a major battleground of the war, voters elected twenty-one pro-war Republicans to Congress in the spring of 1814, and Republicans won two-thirds of the Assembly seats. However, the less-than-glorious outcome of the war allowed Federalists to make one more political comeback, denouncing the war and the foreign policy of President Madison. Federalists picked up twenty seats and almost tied the Assembly at 64 Republicans to 62 Federalists. In 1814, the Republican majority of thirty-two seats dropped to two in 1815, hardly a ringing endorsement of the War of 1812. In looking at New York politics between 1790 and 1815, four themes dominate: the impact of foreign policy on state and local politics, the factionalism of the two political parties, especially among Republicans, chaos in the election process and afterward, as the 1808 election demonstrated, and high voter turnout due to the increased competition between the Federalists and Republicans. [21] About the author: Professor of history and political science, program director for history at Russell Sage College. Most recent publication, "Not only Distressing but Truly Alarming," New York City and the Embargo Act of 1807," Gotham, online, August 21, 2024.               Bibliography [1] Alfred Young, The Democratic Republicans of New York (Chapel Hill, 1967), 572. [2] Ibid, 259. [3] Paul Goodman, The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts (Cambridge, 1964), 72; New York Evening Post, 25-30 April 1807; Robert Morris to William Ludlow, 3 June 1809, Box 3, Ludlow Family Papers, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, N.Y. [4] Young, Democratic Republicans, 578. [5] John T. Irving, Oration Delivered Before the Tammany Society, July 4, 1809 (New York, 1809; Duanesburgh Republican Nomination, March 17, 1810 (Duanesburgh, 1810), Broadside, Schenectady County Historical Society, Schenectady, New York; George Hellman, Washington Irving, Esquire (New York, 1925), 70; William North to William Eustis, 27 April 1815, William North Papers, Manuscript Division, New York State Library ,Albany, New York; William Wilson to Ebenezer Foote, 3 May 1807, Ebenezer Foote Papers, NYSL. Note: Duanesburg today is a rural community about nine miles west of Schenectady. [6] Young, Democratic Republicans, 577. Also, see John Brooke, Columbia Rising (Chapel Hill, 2010), 200-203, 305-306. For Federalist political organizing, see, for example, Federal Young Men of Schaghticoke to Trojan Whig Society, 9 February 1810. Whig Society Papers, NYSL. [7] Jerome Mushkat, Tammany: Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789-1865 (Syracuse, 1971), 25-40.For further background on Republican divisions, see Craig Hanyan, De Witt Clinton: Years of Molding, 1769-1807 (New York, 1988); Steven Siry, De Witt Clinton and the American Political Economy, Sectionalism, Politics, and American Ideology, 1787-1828 (New York, 1990); Craig and Mary Hanyan, De Witt Clinton and the Rise of the People’s Men, (New York, 1996); Also see Tammany Society Toasts, Box 25, Tammania, Kilroe Collection, Special Collections, Columbia University, New York City; Gustavus Myers, History of Tammany Hall (New York, 1917, reprint 1968), Chapters six and seven. [8] Mathew L. Davis to William P. Van Ness, 2 January 1810, Mathew L. Davis Papers, Misc. Mss., New-York Historical Society (N-YHS), New York City; Jonathan Thompson to John Gardiner, 20 April 1810, Malcolm Wiley Collection, University of Minnesota; Also, see Mushkat, Tammany, 39-40; Henry Rutgers to Daniel Tompkins, 21 March 1810, Derek Brinckerhoff to Daniel Tompkins, 9 March 1810, Box 6, Daniel Tompkins Papers, NYSL; Martin Van Buren to De Witt Clinton, 9, 19 April 1810, De Witt Clinton Papers, Columbia University; John Kaminski, George Clinton; Yeoman Politician of the New Republic (Madison, Wisc., 1993), 270-74. [9] David Fischer, The Revolution of American Conservatism (New York, 1965); Ronald Formisano, “Deferential-Participant Politics: The Early Republic’s Political Culture, 1789-1840, American Political Science Review, 68(1974): 473-87. Rudolph and Margaret Pasler, New Jersey’s Federalists (Cranbury, N.J., 1975); Oliver Wolcott, Jr. to Frederick Wolcott, 7 December 1809, Alice Wolcott Collection, Litchfield Historical Society, Litchfield Connecticut; Robert Troup to Nathaniel Pendleton, 23 January 1810, Rufus King Papers, N-YHS; Gouverneur Morris to Abraham Van Vechten, 6 January 1810, Vol 19, Reel 3, Gouverneur Morris Papers, Library of Congress; Abraham Van Vechten to Ebenezer Foote, 13 January 1810, Ebenezer Foote Papers, NYSL; Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy; New York a Test Case (Princeton, 1961) [10] Schenectady County Federalist Party, A Report (Schenectady, 1808), 3,4, 6,7, 10, 11, 14. Schenectady City Federalist Committee to Timothy Pickering, 25 May 1808, No. 329, Reel 28, Timothy Pickering Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; John Winne to Abraham Ten Broeck, 15 April 1808, Ten Broeck Family Papers, Albany Institute; Robert Troup to Rufus King, 7 March 1808, King Papers, N-YHS. [11] New York People’s Friend, 2 May 1807; New York Evening Post, 1 May 1807; David Ogden to William Meredith, 6 May 1807, Meredith Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Robert Troup to Rufus King, 24 April 1807, King Papers, N-YHS; Daniel Hale to Ebenezer Foote, 7 April 1807, Ebenezer Foote Papers, NYSL; William Van Ness to Ebenezer Foote, 11 April 1807, Ebenezer Foote Papers, NYSL; William Wilson to Ebenezer Foote, 3 May 1807, Ebenezer Foote Papers, NYSL. [12] Barent Gardenier to Rufus King, 26 January 1808, Rufus King to Barent Gardenier, 24 January 1808, King Papers, N-YHS; Journal of the Assembly, 31 st Sess., 1808, 45-7; Federal Republican Party, Address to the Electors (Albany, 1808); Francis Adrian van der Kemp to John Adams, 17 March 1808, Reel 405, Adams Family Papers, MHS; Robert Troup to William Jones, 27 February 1808, Pulteney Estate Letter book, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York; Brooke, Columbia Rising, 330; Morgan Lewis to James Madison, 16 May 1808, Reel 10, James Madison Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [13] Martin Van Buren to De Witt Clinton, 16 April 1808, De Witt Clinton Papers, Columbia University; Also, for Van Buren’s vigorous defense of the embargo, Donald Cole, Martin Van Buren, and the American Political System (Princeton, 1984), 32 [14] New York Evening Post, 26-30 April 1808; New York American Citizen, 28 April 1808. [15] Henry Van Schaack to Stephen Van Rensselaer, 2 May 1808, #2180, NYSL. Also, see Dirck Ten Broeck to Abraham Ten Broeck, 9 September 1808, Box 1, Ten Broeck Family Papers, Albany Institute and Henry Glen and the Schenectady Federalist Committee to Timothy Pickering, 27 May 1808, Reel 28, Timothy Pickering Papers, MHS; New York American Citizen, 9. 12 July 1808; Kingston Plebian, 22 November 1808; New York City Republicans, Address of the Republicans of the City and County of New York, September 15, 1808 (New York, 1808); David Gardiner to John L. Gardiner, 18 July 1808, Malcolm Wiley Collection, MnU; John Foote to Ebenezer Foote, 14 April 1809, Ebenezer Foote Papers, NYSL.  [16] Albany Federalist Committee, to Ebenezer Foote, 17 January 1809, Ebenezer Foote Papers, Library of Congress; Fischer, American Conservatism, 60-61. 83, 118-20; Dixon Ryan Fox, “Washington Benevolent Society,” Columbia University Quarterly, 21 (January 1919): 31; Stillwater United Brethren, of the Washington School to the Trojan Whig Society, 5 April 1809, Jacob Houghton to Waterford Federal Young Men, 15 April 1809, Broadside, Trojan Whig Society, Albany Federal Young Men to the Trojan Whig Society, 20 March 1809, Oneida American Whig Society to Trojan Whig Society, 20 April 1809, Whig Society Papers, NYSL; Robert Troup to Rufus King, 4 April 1809, King Papers, N-YHS; William Coleman to Timothy Pickering, 14 January 1809, Reel 29, Pickering Papers, MHS; Cadwallader Colden to Ebenezer Foote, 11 April 1809, Ebenezer Foote Papers, NYSL. [17] New York Commercial Advertiser, 21-24. 1809; New York American Citizen, 26 November to 1 December 1809; Muskat, Tammany, 39; George Newbold to n.n. 24 November 1809, BV Newbold, N-YHS. [18] Albany Balance, February-March 1810; Samuel L. Mitchell to Catherine Mitchell, 13 February 1810, Samuel Mitchell Papers, Museum of the City of New York; Hugh Hastings, ed.. The Public Papers of Daniel D. Tompkins, Governor of New York State, 1807-1817 (Albany, 1898-1902), Volume II, 238-40; New York Commercial Advertiser, 7 May 1810; New York Public Advertiser, 8 May 1810. [19] See Harvey Strum, “The 1811 Election in New York,” National Social Science Journal, 57:2 (2022): 78-85. [20] Jonathan Ogden to Holsons and Bolton, 4 April 1812, and Jonathan Ogden to Robert Ogden, 4 April 1812, Jonathan Ogden Letterbook N-YHS; Nathaniel Griswold to Captain H Smith, 6 and 7 April 1812, War of 1812 folder, Box 1, Hurd Papers, Yale University Library., [21] For some Republican opposition to war see Thomas Sammons to John Lansing, 8 May, 17 June 1812, Thomas Sammons Papers, Fort Johnson Historical Society, Fort Johnson, New York; Samuel Mitchell to Tibbits and Lane, 19 May 1812, Tibbits Family Papers, NYSL; Pierre Van Cortlandt to Edmund Genet, 1 June 1812, Reel 9, Edmund Genet Papers, Library of Congress. For 1815, see the pro-war Republican Members of the Legislature, Address to the Electors of the State of New York, April 10, 1815, (Albany 1815; Poughkeepsie Republican Herald, March-April 1815; For Federalists, see Onondaga Register, February-March 1815; Poughkeepsie Journal, 22 February-1 March 1815; New York Evening Post, February-March 1815.

By Paul Lubienecki, PhD Copyright ©2024 All rights reserved by the author. Wikipedia image of the town sign by Pooley1999 The religious persecutions in Europe, particularly in the German-speaking regions during the 18th and 19th centuries, generated a mass influx of religious sects into America. Political and religious turmoil in the German territories produced a wave of immigrants seeking religious freedom, political autonomy, and abundant resources. In the early decades of the 19th century, the idea of a “New Germany” was promoted based on a mixture of paternalism and romantic adventurism. However, the urge to immigrate to the United States centered on the notions of land and liberty in contrast to the distressed conditions and state of affairs in the petty German kingdoms. [1] Religious concerns ultimately decided the issue. A primary justification for most Germans settling in America was based on their religious convictions. In 1817, Emperor Frederick Wilhelm III sought to secure his rule through a forced merger of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches into the United Evangelical Church of Prussia. He formatted an official United Church Agenda, or liturgical order of service, which prescribed the forms and orders to be followed in all churches. Many of the pastors and churches complied.[2] However, some Lutherans refused to believe this new Church, and its doctrines compromised their religious beliefs and convictions.  Inspirationists Many others were already in rebellion with the Lutheran Church for its ritualistic form of worship, more akin to Roman Catholicism than Protestant spirituality. A hundred years earlier, two leaders of this dissent within the Lutheran denomination were Eberhard Gruber and Johann Rock. Gruber, a Lutheran clergyman, and Rock, son of a Lutheran minister, founded what was deemed a cult known as the Community of True Inspiration (Wahre Inspirations-Gemeinden). [3] The Inspirationists believed that God spoke directly to Christians through signs, visions, and a relationship with the believer. They also believed that select community members, or Instruments, were chosen to communicate God’s teaching to the faithful. During moments of inspiration, the Instrument conveyed the word and teachings of God to the community. [4] The Inspirationists established faith communities throughout Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. As their adherents increased, so did persecution from the civil and religious authorities for their non-conformist ways. With the deaths of Gruber (1728) and Rock (1749), the elders governed the Inspirationists. But the vigor, spiritual enthusiasm, and numbers of the faithful waned. In 1819, Christian Metz, a 24-year-old carpenter from Ronneburg, declared that he received the “gift of inspiration.” He was not a neophyte to the faith, as his grandfather, Jacob Metz, was already an adherent. Christian was known for his management skills, organizational talents, and fearless spiritual leadership. [5] His persona partially facilitated a revival of the sect. The community grew with new adherents, and the faithful developed a communal lifestyle, much to the consternation of local residents. However, these dissidents continued to incur the persecution of Lutheran church officials as well as the government. Refusal by Inspirationists to obligatory military service resulted in arrests, imprisonment, and even forfeiture of property. As early as the mid-1820s, a “prophecy” emerged concerning immigration to the United States, where they could openly exercise their beliefs. [6] The harsh treatment that the Inspirationists endured worsened. The political unrest of the 1840s cast a shadow on this group, now regarded as a dangerous minority. Many endured economic hardships, especially tradesmen and craftsmen, as local residents refused to conduct business with them. Most struggled daily just to exist. The case was similar for those who were day laborers, ordinary workmen, and unskilled workers. These circumstances created the persuasive conditions for emigrating. That destination would be America. Unfortunately, in late 1840, Metz declared that the “time is not yet fulfilled.” But a continued series of crop failures and famines altered Metz’s convictions. On July 27, 1842, he declared: “Your goal and your way shall lead towards the west to a land still open  to you and your faith. I am with you and shall lead you over the sea.” [7] The New World On August 27, 1842, the faithful from all the communities gathered at Arnsburg to pray and appoint those who would find an appropriate settlement for the Inspirationists in America. Christian Metz, the 47-year-old spiritual leader of the movement, was selected. Additional members included William Noe, 38 years old, who was proficient in business affairs. Gottlieb Ackerman, 40 years old, was experienced with medical and pharmaceutical matters, and George Weber, also 40, was trained as a physician. Metz later declared that a revelation from God occurred, and Weber’s 11-year-old son, Ferdinand, should accompany them to the New World. [8] Metz and his group expressed feelings of dread and depression, leaving their homes to find a new one for the community. They acknowledged the burden and responsibility of this mission without certainty of success. The group left Bremerhaven on September 20, 1842, and landed in New York after a difficult thirty-seven-day voyage. During their journey, the ship’s captain, Johann Wächter, learned the purpose of their undertaking and gave them the name of a land agent, George Paulsen, in New York, who had experience working with German immigrants on land purchases. [9] Metz viewed this as the work of God since they had no direction on how to proceed once they landed in the New World. The group’s stay in New York City was brief. During his meeting with Paulsen, Metz inquired about land in Ohio but was advised that it was well settled. Wisconsin was a possibility, but Paulsen advised against it due to the many failed attempts by settlers. Paulsen was aware of a large 50,000-acre tract of land in Chautauqua County, New York, and provided him with a letter of introduction to Mr. Patterson of Westfield, New York, as well as additional letters of introduction to other land agents. The areas of upstate and western New York were ideally suited for Metz and the community's needs. Their beliefs would be tolerated and possibly welcomed in this part of the New World. During the 1820s, western and central New York experienced a series of popular religious revivals that later earned this region the label of the “Burned Over District,” which implied the area was set ablaze with spiritual fervor.[10] During this period, various religious, non-conformist, and spiritual sects such as the Shakers, the Oneida Community, Mormons, Millerites, and others flourished here. [11] The New World Inspirationists ventured to Albany and then proceeded by barge on the Erie Canal to Buffalo, arriving there on November 12, 1842. The group lodged at the Mansion House owned by Philip Dorsheimer. This proved to be providential. While lodging at Mansion House, Metz, Weber, and an interpreter met Patterson. The land agent discussed the benefits and significance of the property in Chautauqua County. Eavesdropping on the conversation, Dorsheimer advised Metz and Weber that Patterson was overvaluing the land. He suggested they examine the Buffalo Creek Indian Reservation as it was good land soon to be opened to white settlement. [12] The location was closer to the larger Buffalo market and the Erie Canal shipping hub. Coincidentally, the other two group members were visiting local German emigres who told them of the land prospects at the Reservation. All agreed to inspect the site. Metz, Noe, Ackerman, Weber, and Dorsheimer surveyed the area just a few miles south and east of Buffalo. Along Buffalo Creek, the group encountered several sawmills and spoke with these businessmen about the industrial prospects of the site. Metz was elated at the vastness of the virgin forest and the uncultivated land. [13] The group had decided to purchase the land, but agreed it was advisable to inspect the Chautauqua County tract. Metz and Noe, along with the property agent, traveled some seventy miles throughout the county, but the Inspirationists viewed the Buffalo Creek site as a more favorable one where they could establish their colony. Serious negotiations for the land purchase commenced at the end of November 1842. The initial offering was for 10,000 acres at $10.50 per acre. Delays in the purchase were inevitable, and problems with translating official documents tainted the process. Attorney Thomas Ogden of New York City was the corporate counsel for the Holland Land Company, which owned a three-million-acre tract of land in western New York.  Some of this land was purchased by Tomas and his brother David, who formed the Ogden Land Company. This firm purchased and facilitated the transfer of Native American land to white settlers. Contractual setbacks, legal limitations, and postponements frustrated Metz and his companions. After several weeks of negotiations and delays, some involving third-party advisors, the Inspirationists purchased 5000 acres at $10.00 per acre. [14] Metz concluded that reducing the acreage and lowering the price would facilitate a more straightforward transaction. During the intervening months since their arrival in America, several other Inspirationists traveled to Buffalo. On May 1, 1843, the four New World Inspirationists left Mansion House for their new property and resided in the former home of Chief John Seneca. The New Colony Construction of new housing began quickly and was done by the Inspirationists and non-member contractors. This new settlement, at the present site of Gardenville, was named Eben-Ezer, meaning “stone of help” from the Book of Samuel, chapter 7, verse 12. The name was soon abbreviated to Ebenezer. This particular place was chosen due to its proximity to Buffalo Creek, which provided water power to operate several mills. As the colony rapidly grew, it became apparent that more land and individual space were needed. Four hamlets were established within the colony to support the settlers and their industries. Middle Ebenezer occupied the area of the present-day Gardenville. Upper Ebenezer, present-day Blossom, was to the east; Lower Ebenezer, just north of Gardenville in present-day West Seneca and New Ebenezer, was situated between Middle Ebenezer and Upper Ebenezer on Cazenovia Creek. [15] As more members of the sect arrived, housing construction increased. The land was cleared, timber milled, wells dug, and small farm plots started. However, the local Indian population viewed this as infringing on their land rights. Many Native Americans still lived within the settlement, and arguments arose over the use of land and timber. The Germans were confused about the nature of this hostility, believing the land was theirs; however, their colony was settled on reservation land. The local tribes wanted the Germans to leave the reservation and pay restitution for the use of the land and the lumber they took. The tribes petitioned the Federal government, and negotiations began with the local Indian Agent and the Secretary of War. Settlement negotiations were protracted and often tense, filled with misunderstandings and ignorance of the law over property rights and land use. On August 1, 1844, the Federal government ruled in favor of the German settlers at the Ebenezer Colony, advising the Seneca Indians that they no longer retained ownership of the land and forest rights. Any intrusion by the Seneca onto the land would be deemed trespassing. Unfortunately, vandalism and destruction of the forest began, and several Senecas were arrested. The Ebenezer community did not want any further trouble with the Senecas and was sympathetic to their plight as they, too, had been persecuted in Germany. The Seneca Nation convened a meeting with the Ebenezer group to find a joint amicable remedy. The Inspirationists believed they had been deceived by the land agent regarding the purchase of the land and their rights to it. Yet, they still considered their position strong as they had legally purchased the land. With some reluctance, the Senecas reached a settlement with the Germans. The Native Americans would relocate to their nearby reservations in southwestern New York, in Allegany and Cattaraugus counties. Some would receive compensation for their land claims. Although it was an agreement that did not please all, it did end the conflict. By late 1846, the last of the Senecas left the Ebenezer colony, and the German settlers came into full possession of the land. [16] Now, the community could prosper and grow without impediments. The Ebenezer Community From 1843 to 1846, over 800 Inspirationists arrived at the colony from Germany. This diverse group included young and old, wealthy and poor, skilled and unskilled workers. The wealthier members were initially called upon to contribute funds and finance various operations. Land would be held in common for two years. This plan was based on conditions in the Old World, where wealth and property acquisition were difficult. This experiment failed at the colony. The economic conditions for attaining wealth and property were readily available in America. Demands for skilled and unskilled laborers in America meant abundant jobs, and a worker and his family fared better in the New World than in Germany. The challenge for the Community was to maintain a cohesive group that desired to live within the confines of Ebenezer and not be swayed by the “temptations” of the New World. To achieve this, the elders, in January 1846, crafted the Constitution of the Community of True Inspiration at Ebenezer. The document identified this society as a faith-based group founded on the Scriptures who “pledged to render obedience to their faith in all respects, to fight for it, to endure and suffer and struggle to preserve it to the end of life.” [17] All deacons and elders were to live a life of grace with the spiritual and temporal welfare of the community as their primary concern. Community members were to “live likewise” and recognize the deacons and elders as their spiritual teachers and pastors. All authority, both spiritual and administrative, was vested in the elders. The Ebenezer community exhibited the qualities of a communistic society and was the first such organized assemblage in western New York. Land, livestock, buildings, and machinery were held in common, and each member “was to bear his burden according to his ability for the common good of the community.” Under the terms of their Constitution, all received an annual fixed wage from the treasury, as established by the elders, and the guarantee of medical care, daily food, and shelter. [18] Incidentals such as tools, clothing, shoes, furniture, and bedding were to be purchased separately and considered the individual property of that member. This lifestyle achieved positive results for the community, and the majority thrived under this arrangement. Success and sacrifice, both spiritual and physical, were a shared experience. However, not all enthusiastically embraced it. Wealthier members lost control of their affluence, and poorer community members realized they could achieve a better and freer life outside the Ebenezer community. Many left, but the society did not document the numbers of those who moved away. Life in the Colony The four residential communities of the Ebenezer colony occupied approximately 8,000 acres, and the members resided in villages instead of scattered farmhouses. This settlement arrangement was due more to the elders' supervision and control over the Inspirationists than would have been possible if they lived in scattered homesteads. [19] The appeal of American self-determination was often regarded as a tacit threat to the communal routine. The elders assigned families to housing within the colony. There was no standardization of home designs. Some buildings were two stories, but most were one level or a story and a half, and the number of bedrooms varied. Homes were either timber frame or brick construction. The homes did not have a kitchen or dining room, as cooking and eating were communal events. Home furnishings were purchased by each family. Wood for heating the house was supplied by the community. Single men resided in a “brother's house.” This was a large home with individual apartments consisting of a bedroom and a sitting room. The location of a member’s residence was based on their employment. Farmers and agricultural workers were housed on the outskirts of the community. Cabinet makers, harness makers, butchers, craftsmen, and laborers resided adjacent to their work site. Bakers, cooks, and cleaners lived near the communal kitchens. Schoolmasters and some teachers lived above the classroom. [20] The Inspirationists did not favor large gatherings. Consequently, shared meals were eaten at the kitchen-house. These houses were situated throughout the four communities and of an appropriate size to accommodate the moderate number who gathered for daily sustenance. While the food was simple fare, there was always an abundance. Men, women, and children sat in separate areas, and conversation at the table was discouraged. A prayer service followed each meal. Education was a priority for the Ebenezer community. The German states in the 19th century had a prestigious tradition of educating boys and girls and ensuring that teachers were highly qualified. [21] This practice followed the Inspirationists to the New World. Boys and girls studied together in the classroom. The school day was long, enabling the parents to work without worrying about their children at home. Classes were conducted six days a week and year-round. The only exceptions were for religious holy days and to help with the harvest. The Ebenezer community was required to abide by the educational requirements of New York State. However, the colony, as the Incorporated Village of Ebenezer, had full control over the curriculum, allowing religious instruction. Students were taught their catechism, Bible history, and stories about the heroes of the True Inspirationists' faith. Additionally, boys and girls were taught practical skills such as knitting, as many made their own socks and small articles of clothing. Older boys learned a trade and worked as apprentices at the colony’s various craft shops. Girls were taught cooking, baking, spinning, and sewing. [22]  German was the main language spoken here, but business transactions with the “outside” required a command of English; subsequently, students were taught basic English. While bachelors lived in segregated housing, single women lived with their parents until married. Marriages had to be approved by the elders. A one-year courtship was required, and then a simple ceremony was performed. Men under the age of 24 were not permitted to marry, but there was no similar prohibition on women. Divorce was not accepted, nor was a second marriage to a widow or widower. Farming and Commerce The Inspirationists, while grounded in their faith, were sustained by commerce and agriculture, selling produce and manufactured products to support the community financially. Each of the four Ebenezer communities had a farm division supervised by a farm manager; the colony had 2200 acres under cultivation. Various industries, craft shops, and businesses were operated by the workers. The occupations of the members included farmers, merchants, butchers, shoemakers, copper workers, millers, tanners, potters, bookbinders, carpenters, dyers, wagon makers, tailors, locksmiths, saw millers, laborers, and other professions. [23] The New Ebenezer hamlet, the smallest of the four, had no farm. However, it contained 9 houses: a small dry goods store, a carpenter shop, a barn and stable, and a dye house. Its location on Buffalo Creek was an ideal source of water power for the woolen mill. Upper Ebenezer had a church, schoolhouse, general store, meat house, and bakery. Farming was conducted here with assorted barns and stables on the land. Industries employed tinsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, cabinet makers, and shoemakers. A grist mill and saw mill utilized the power of the Buffalo Creek, surrounded by lumber resources. Middle Ebenezer was the largest of the villages within the colony. It held the largest population of the colony, with 57 houses, a church, a schoolhouse, and a general store. Multiple businesses functioned here: a sawmill and a wool mill with looms and spinning machines. Skilled and unskilled laborers worked as carpenters, locksmiths, potters, blacksmiths, bakers, wagon makers, furniture manufacturers, boot and shoemakers, a book bindery and print shop, clock and watchmakers, and candle makers. A cider mill and brewery were also located in the village. The farm division managed a large piggery, a dozen barns, stables, drying sheds, and granaries. Slaughterhouses, meat markets, and produce storage sheds were part of the agricultural division. Lower Ebenezer was the community's spiritual center, as the largest church was located there. Like the other villages, it contained housing and craft shops for the residents. As the colony's population grew, more schools were located here. Religion The singular purpose of the Ebenezer community was religion. The daily activities of agriculture, work, and education provided the inhabitants with the necessary means to live apart from “the world” and concentrate on living out their religious beliefs. The community observed four core rites: baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial, officiated by an elder. Those beliefs were focused on the Old and New Testaments and the revelations of prophecy. Following that were the 24 rules for living a Godly life. [2 4] Some of those precepts included obedience to God and the elders, praying, living a humble existence, hard work, and charity to all. Additionally, the community followed the “Twenty-One Rules for the Daily Examination of Our Lives.” This comprised more of a code of conduct for matters unrelated to the faith or religion. [25] The leadership of the faithful was comprised of the prophets and elders. The prophets were regarded as the head of the church. Usually, this comprised only two to four individuals. At times, accusations were made of false prophets within the community, but there is no written record of who they were, why the allegations were made, and the results of such assertions. However, there was some indication of jealousy at the root of these claims. Next were the elders who held various occupations within the colony. They were viewed as the spiritual fathers of the communities and pastors of each individual church. They conducted religious services and officiated at the ceremonial rites. The congregation was divided into three spiritual groups or “orders.” Membership was based on levels of piety. The “high order” was the first, followed by the middle group, and then the lowest, which was mostly children. In this third order, men and women, boys and girls were segregated. Each order held separate services simultaneously, which excluded the others. A yearly spiritual examination of the members was conducted, usually in late December. During this scrutiny, all members of each order were subjected to an intensive examination to determine their spiritual condition and placement into an order. Elders examined elders, and lay members evaluated each other. However, a person could be removed from a group based on their conduct. [26] The meetinghouse was a plain structure devoid of any signs or symbols of the Christian faith. This white-washed building contained no pulpit or stained glass windows. The interior was divided into three separate rooms for each order. Members entered in silence. The presiding elder sat at a table flanked by a row of elders facing the congregation. Men and women sat across from each other on long benches, each person carrying their Bible. Religious services were held daily, and attendance was mandatory. Morning services were conducted on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with an afternoon service as well. Prayer services were conducted every evening, and extra services were held on special or holy days of the year. Each service began with a silent prayer followed by a hymn announced by the presiding elder. No musical instruments were to accompany the singing, and the tunes were analogous to traditional Lutheran hymns blended with Georgian chant. The melodies were described as melancholy. [27] Following the hymn was a long prayer recited by the elders while the congregants knelt on the hardwood floors. After that, a passage from the Bible was read with the men and then the women reading each verse. There was no formal sermon, but each elder provided a lesson for the congregation. The intention of the service was for each member to receive a message of inspiration from the Bible, the lessons, or directly from God. A concluding prayer and hymn ended the lengthy service, with the members silently leaving. The Move By the early 1850s, external pressures and conditions began encroaching upon the colony. The city of Buffalo was expanding into its area, bringing with it worldly distractions. Newly arrived immigrants from Germany were more attracted to well-paying jobs than to developing their spiritual life. These settlers preferred comfort, entertainment, money, and individuality over a communal religious lifestyle. Tensions percolated within the Community of True Inspiration. Envy and resentment among members and elders threatened to tear at the core of their faith. Some members were expelled or left voluntarily for better opportunities. Allegations that some community members were becoming wealthy or not abiding by the rules brought charges and counter-charges, creating an environment that was both contentious and corrupt.  Water power for the mills along Buffalo Creek and an adjoining canal diminished due to erosion. Farm production was reduced due to flooding. A railroad was proposed that, when completed, would divide Lower Ebenezer from Middle Ebenezer. The local legislative authorities viewed the Community’s property as a prime site for the expansion of industry and agriculture and desired to take more control of the area. It was apparent to the elders that survival of the community, both spiritual and material, necessitated a move. The Community decided that a larger parcel of land was required to continue their mission. Commanded by “inspiration,” it was decided that this could be acquired somewhere in the western part of the nation. In September 1854, four members —Christian Metz, Carl Winzenried, Ferdinand Weber, son of George Weber, an original settler at Ebenezer, and Charles Mayer — left western New York to find the Community’s new “promised land.” The four traveled first to Chicago, then St. Louis, and navigated the Missouri River to Parkville near Kansas City. They journeyed through the Kansas prairie in wagons and on foot with Native American guides, seeking their new home. [28] The four could not locate adequate tracts of land to suit the Community’s needs. Additionally, political tensions were raging in the territory over statehood and slavery, which disturbed the group. As a result, the men returned home. Later that year, John Beyer and Jacob Wittmer scouted land in the newly recognized state of Iowa. They reported that a favorable site was located twenty miles west of Iowa City near a river. In May 1855, they, along with Frederick Heinemann and Carl Winzenreid, examined the flat land in Iowa and, finding it suitable to the Community’s needs, purchased the tract. The society generally agreed to the move, but some remained in western New York. The historical record does not list names or reasons why they did not go west. In early July 1855, ten years after the colony was founded, the Community of True Inspiration started moving to its new land along the Iowa River. This new settlement was named Amana, a Biblical reference from the Song of Solomon Chapter 4, Verse 8, meaning “to remain faithful.” [29] The move, by wagon and steamboat, took almost six years to complete. These colonists took all they could, including the wares of their trades and livestock, to start their new lives. The properties were placed on the market, and the eight thousand acres of Eben-Ezer were eventually sold. With the start of the Civil War, the houses and lands that remained of the community were either abandoned or absorbed into the local governmental districts. In Iowa, the Amana Society thrived and replicated much of what it started in western New York, establishing several colonies within the community and following the same pattern of life, education, commerce, and religious practice. The Amana Society flourished until the Great Depression of the 1930s. At this juncture, the “Great Change” occurred as the Society split into two distinct organizations. One of which later evolved into the manufacturer of refrigeration units: the Amana Corporation. [30] Germans fled the Old World to the New World, seeking religious freedom and the self-determination to live as they wished. This vision was first realized in western New York but as the world encroached a move to Iowa was necessitated. The communal lifestyle of the Community of True Inspiration came at a time when the words of Karl Marx started to echo in Europe. While this Society likely would denounce Marx’s ideal of a godless shared community life, the group at Ebenezer was, in reality, one of the first communist groups in America. The difference was that the Ebenezer community’s raison d’être was to glorify God through their lives and work. This success was achieved in western New York. About the author: Paul Lubienecki obtained his M.A. in Pastoral Ministry from Christ the King Seminary, an M.A. in History from Buffalo State College, and his Ph.D. in History from Case Western Reserve University. His research work examined how Buffalo native Msgr. John Boland established labor schools to help workers integrate the fundamentals of the social encyclicals into their workplace practices. Dr. Lubienecki has lectured and published multiple journal articles on Catholic labor schools. He recently published The Americanization of  Lay Catholics on Organized Labor by Mellen Press. Dr. Lubienecki has taught courses in American history, theology, spirituality and museum studies and is a contributing editor to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.  He has been a Special Studies Instructor at the Chautauqua Institution and is the founding director of the Boland Center for the Study of Labor and Religion, where he teaches, publishes, and lectures on the integration of history at the intersection of religion and the labor movement. He is also engaged in union-organizing activities of service workers in the Buffalo are a. Bibliography [i]  Stefan von Senger in  Emigration and Settlement Patterns of German Communities in North America , (Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1995), 148. [ii]  E. Clifford Nelson,  The Lutherans in North America , (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 132. [iii]  Charles Nordhoff , The Communistic societies of the United States , (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), 25. [iv]  Thomas Streissguth , Utopian Visionaries ,(Minneapolis: The Oliver Press, Inc., 1999), 67. [v]  Frank J. Lankes,  The Ebenezer Society , (West Seneca: West Seneca Historical Society, 1963), 9. [vi]  Bertha Shambaugh , Amana: The Community of True Inspiration , (Des Moines: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1988), 329 [vii]  Ibid., 57. [viii]  Lankes, 13. [ix] Alan DuVal.  Christian Metz: German-American Religious Leader & Pioneer . Ed. Peter Hoehnle. (Iowa City: Penfield Books, 2005), 21. [x]  Streissguth, 68. [xi]  David Ellis, James Frost, Harry Carman,  A History of New York State , (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 307. [xii] Frederick   Houghton ,  The History of the Buffalo Creek Reservation , (Buffalo:  Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society . Vol. 24. 1920), 110. [xiii]  Nordhoff , The Communistic societies of the United States , 28. [xiv]  Lankes, 24. [xv]  Lankes, 35. [xvi]  Houghton,  121. [xvii]   Constitution of the Ebenezer Community.   Elisha Blakeman's recollections found in “A Brief Account of the Society of Germans Called the True Inspirationists,” (undated) Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio. [xviii] Shambaugh,   Amana, The Community of True Inspiration,   45. [xix]  Lankes, 61. [xx]  Lankes, 88. [xxi]   Karl A. Schleunes, "Enlightenment, reform, reaction: the schooling revolution in Prussia."  Central European History  12.4 (1979), 322. [xxii]  Lankes, 90. [xxiii]  Lankes, 96. [xxiv]  Lankes, 41. [xxv]  Shambaugh, 277. [xxvi]  Shambaugh, 313. [xxvii]  Lankes, 44. [xxviii]  Lankes, 121. [xxix] Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States, 31. [xxx]  David  Hudson, Marvin  Bergman; Loren Horton, eds.,  The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa . (Iowa City, IA: University Of Iowa Press, 2009), 169. [1]  Stefan von Senger in  Emigration and Settlement Patterns of German Communities in North America , (Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1995), 148.

By Jonathan Woolley Copyright © 2025 All rights reserved by the author View from the Empire State Building observation deck, New York City, August 1975. Courtesy of Wikipedia. Municipal bankruptcies are, thankfully, few and far between. Allowing one to happen rarely happens overnight (although conceivably it could). Rather, it usually represents a combination of declining tax revenues, declines in other sources of municipal revenue, and insufficient reductions – or even increases – in municipal government spending over a period of several or more years. And the results can be messy.   Huge reductions in the provision of city services, the renegotiating (or outright defaulting) on pension obligations, and the sale of prized city assets (parks, publicly-owned art, buildings, or vehicles used to provide key city services, etc.) are examples of what may have to be done in order to make the municipal government less in hock to its creditors. And while municipal governments do have one advantage over private corporations or non-profit entities – they have a tax base they can draw upon – that advantage may not be as useful as they wish. Taxpayers can move out of the jurisdiction, or not have sufficient income or assets for the level of taxation necessary to remediate the problem.  Not to mention that bankruptcy and/or debt relief payments may divert funds from more necessary long-term projects, such as key infrastructure improvements or needed educational system restructurings.   But even if a municipal government manages to avoid bankruptcy, merely coming close to it is bad enough. It will still require a (often massive) reduction in municipal spending, and typically either heavy oversight of or a partial takeover of financial duties by the state government [1] . The result is likely to be widespread groaning among many people. With spending cuts, the performance of municipal services is likely to decline – if the services do not disappear altogether – and workforce reductions may result. And of course, workforce reductions are likely to have a ripple economic effect, less spending at local businesses (which now have less revenue to be taxed) and lower residential income taxes (assuming the workers live within the municipality that employs them). Not to mention that a community with a heavy debt load (in terms of its local government) will be less attractive to those wishing to relocate from other places, who will now have to fear paying higher taxes for years to come (so property values, and thus the value of their equity, may be diminished). Tiebout’s Public Choice theory of government, which postulates that those who prize equity values and/or lower taxes will be more likely to choose to live elsewhere (“If consumer-voters are fully mobile, the appropriate local governments, whose revenue-expenditure patterns are set, are adopted by the consumer-voters” [2] ), will play out in reality, meaning that it will become even harder to raise the necessary revenue to improve the municipality’s finances, even with a state government takeover.   New York City faced such a potentially bleak picture in the 1970s. After a number of years of relatively heavy municipal spending, while a number of middle-class residents were enticed to relocate to the suburbs, things came to a head during the mayoralty of Abraham Beame in 1975. The city government, unable to cover its expenses through taxes and user fees alone, had resorted to issuing bonds to cover the difference. Yet, at the same time, the city government, thanks to bad – or at least sloppy – accounting practices, had been understating its deficit. When a new comptroller’s audit and account reconciliation identified this – and showed the city’s actual liabilities were far higher than anyone had ever imagined – banks, which had hitherto been eager handlers of city debt instruments, became antsy and stopped loaning (the city wanted to back the loans with anticipated revenues that were undefined) without stern conditions that were politically unacceptable.   With a huge deficit, a lack of eager lenders, and payments on preexisting bonds coming due, the city (led by the Mayor and the Comptroller) had no choice but to scrounge around for every dollar they could. Large numbers of city employees were laid off – including policemen and firefighters (surprisingly, considering the city was experiencing a rise in both violent confrontations and arson at the time) – capital projects were suspended, unions were asked to make concessions, students were asked to pay for their education (higher education in city-run institutions had previously been fully subsidized), and appeals were made to state and federal politicians.   All this caused plenty of public anger. Most of it was directed at the banks – usually viewed as the larger New York City commercial banks, although it turned out, banks from all around the country were exposed to a potential city default – but some was also directed at the politicians and senior officials of various government entities (usually, the city’s government). Work slowdowns, strikes, and protests occurred, usually in protest of the job reductions. The unions were hounded and cajoled into investing their pension funds into city bonds – extremely reluctantly, in the case of the United Federation of Teachers. (This was the moment when the city came closest to default.) The state and, after much internal debate (“Ford to City: Drop Dead” was how the Daily News described one speech), the federal governments ultimately both stepped in to help out the city, albeit with terms attached: the city’s politicians had to cede fiscal control over just about everything to monitors appointed by higher levels of government. The monitoring agencies became the subject of some public anger, but in the end, the city never defaulted on its loans. It’s questionable how much awareness of this exists among people under fifty – or even fifty-five – much less how many actually have some memory of this time. And of those that are aware, it is possible a significant portion are likely either to be connected with the city’s municipal government or in some other role (such as in the state government’s Department of Financial Services or as a political news reporter) that necessarily requires some knowledge of New York City’s finances. The latest attempt to remind the public of this crisis is “Drop Dead City”. Originally titled “Drop Dead City: New York on the Brink in 1975”, the film, released last November, was produced and directed by Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn (the son of a chair of one of the boards that was set up to oversee the city’s finances) using the production company of Pangloss Films. It’s a good film, and well worth watching for those who want to remember the pressures that affected the city government during the financial crisis. As part of that, it also provides a good reminder of the negative aspects of living in New York City – especially the Bronx and Brooklyn – in the mid-’70s.    The two biggest questions in any retrospective of any financial crisis are how it happened and who was responsible for it. Mayor Beame became the fall guy. This isn’t too surprising: not only was he an accountant by trade, but as mayor, he was the guy who oversaw - and was accountable to the voters for any failings of - the city administration. Mayor Beame does deserve his share of blame – he could have listened to the city comptroller, H. J. Goldin, sooner and have alerted Albany sooner – but he never had a magic wand that could have averted a serious fiscal problem in ‘75. New York in the sixties and early seventies had been a politically liberal town and had spent commensurately with that orientation, under both Democratic and Republican mayors. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the resulting policies and programs gave thousands of people greatly improved lives. But it did require sizable tax and user fee revenues to offset the heavy spending, and as both manufacturing and the middle-class residential population declined, the necessary revenues became harder to obtain. Ironically, some of these middle-class residents had done so well from city programs such as free college tuition that they could afford to move to the less costly, more bucolic suburbs and thus stop paying city taxes and contributing to the city’s economy. (The film itself concentrates solely on the year 1975 and doesn’t tell much about either the causes or the lead-up before Mayor Beame took office – Governor Rockefeller is blamed, but previous mayors are not mentioned – Lindsay is only shown briefly in one scene and is not identified).      But while Beame may not have had a magic wand to prevent the crisis as mayor, he really became the fall guy for a different reason: as Comptroller, it was a key part of his job to keep an eye on both the books and the accounting methods the city used. Beame had served two terms as the city’s comptroller prior to being elected mayor (and had served as Budget Director before that), yet had apparently never done a thorough audit of the city’s finances. Add in that he was an accountant by trade, and this implied a potentially huge amount of negligence on his part. And that was Beame’s real problem: he should have entered his first two years in office as mayor (‘74 and '75) knowing city debt was ballooning rapidly, but apparently didn’t[3].     And anyway, it wasn’t all the fault of anyone in the city government. As the film points out, “For every stupid borrower, there’s a stupid lender”. Banks were also at fault – they continued to lend money to the city (buying bonds) for an extended period without conducting thorough due diligence on the city’s creditworthiness. Essentially, they were gamboling not only that the city’s fiscal house was in order but also that a combination of pride and anticipated revenues would keep the city from ever defaulting. Such a policy is even more surprising since, as Gramlich notes, not only do bondholders generally dislike governments using loans to cover current account deficits, but New York City had done so for almost fifteen years[4]. Nonetheless, the gamble worked for quite a while – until well into 1975. And, as the film notes, banks had a strong profit-making motive for wanting to keep selling city bonds. But making such an assumption without doing sufficient due diligence, however understandable, was still a poor strategic decision on the part of the lenders.   The actual crisis played out over a few months. The first solution, which the film gives good coverage to, was to cut spending by firing city employees and to ask state officials in Albany for a bailout. The results from the layoffs were predictable: strikes and protest rallies that just helped reinforce the city’s image as ungovernable. But escalating the issue to Albany proved to be more important – not only did Governor Carey become aware of the dire predicament, belatedly, but Albany also set up rescue mechanisms.    But even having the state set up the Municipal Assistance Corporation (and subsequently the Emergency Financial Control Board) wasn’t enough. The city still came within a few hours – well, really, a few minutes – of default. However, while cajoling the then-powerful public sector unions into aligning with the city government and, ultimately, having the bonds issued by the overseeing agencies backed by sales tax revenues was an invaluable help, federal assistance was ultimately required. This is why President Ford’s initial trepidation was so important – it took much of the Fall of ‘75 to convince him to support a federal bailout.   The film portrays Beame as not being responsible for what happened, and that’s true as mayor since he had a budget office that was initially giving him rosier-than-true information. But it can’t hide that Beame must have been under intense internal pressure during this time. He knew that, as both a former comptroller and a current mayor, he was the perfect person for everyone to blame (his hand was apparently shaking when he signed the bankruptcy petition that, in the end, was never submitted). One can sympathize with him from a political point of view: a large administrative organization that had grown used to having everybody give it money wasn’t likely to change its ways on a dime, and some of its spending was mandated by higher levels of government anyway. Not to mention that Beame, unlike many others involved, such as Felix Rohatyn, knew he would one day have to answer to the voters. But the film could have given Beame far more grief for not having done more as comptroller to prevent the situation from occurring. It also places considerable blame on previous state government officials, such as Rockefeller, without holding previous city mayors, like Lindsay, accountable. Perhaps this was because the filmmakers only concentrated on the actual events of the year 1975, rather than the lead-up to it.    Similarly, Albert Shanker, who ran the powerful schoolteachers’ union, is portrayed as agreeing to invest the teachers’ pension funds in city bonds because he didn’t want to be the guy who got blamed for the default (the bankruptcy Beame was so nervous about) that would have otherwise happened. No doubt that had a lot to do with his (and the union’s) decision. But it’s also true that, if the city had defaulted, the retired teachers – his union’s members – might have had to have accepted pennies on the dollar of their planned pension payments. A bankruptcy fiscal overseer – or possibly a judge – might have lowered the amount to be paid out due to lack of funds (of course, banks and individual bondholders might also have had to accept pennies on the dollar for their bond payments under such a scenario). The film could have mentioned this possible reason for Shanker’s decision, which no doubt came up in the union’s discussions, as well.    Overall, though, this is a really good film about the city’s financial crisis of 1975. It gives a great feel for how bad the city was in 1975: the sense of ungovernability the city had been developing before the crisis started, which was only exacerbated by the huge financial cutbacks public services experienced during the crisis. (And that feeling continued for many years thereafter). More importantly, it also gives a great feel for the sense of crisis that city officials had throughout the year. They were in the unenviable position of being at the heart of global capitalism, surrounded by numerous corporations generating massive profits and just blocks away from Wall Street’s capital markets, with no means to raise funds or settle debts except by appealing to state and federal officials. And all the while, every time these city officials seemed to proverbially turn around, another set of bond payments came due. No wonder 1975 seemed to be a year that was seared onto the memory of every city official who was interviewed for the movie.    Bonds, of course, are loans given under a nicer name. And maybe that’s why the city government allowed itself to get into such a messy situation: perhaps not using the word “loan” meant the debts somehow seemed less onerous, their repayment less imperative. The moral of this movie is that not doing so can have dire consequences, consequences that are difficult to rectify. The moral of the city’s fiscal crisis is that prudent public financing is the best – and safest – course of action when dealing with both handling taxpayers’ money and providing public services to taxpayers. And the state government learned another lesson: when, years later, Troy experienced financial problems, the importance of a Municipal Assistance Corporation was remembered and created to help straighten things out there, too.   A bout the author:   Jonathan Woolley is an independent analyst and researcher. He did his undergraduate studies at Manhattanville College and his graduate studies at Rutgers University. He has previously published reviews of exhibits on the history of New York City's zoning laws and the history of the Federal Reserve. Sources:   Drop Dead City. Accessed May 28, 2025. https://www.dropdeadcitythemovie.com/ .   “Drop Dead City”. IMDb. Accessed May 28, 2025. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34279942/ .   Dunstan, Roger. “Overview of New York City’s Fiscal Crisis”. California Research Bureau, California State Library (1995). https://web.archive.org/web/20110125040733/http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/95/notes/V3N1.PDF . Multiple downloads.   Gillette, Clayton P. “Can Pubic Debt Enhance Democracy?” Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 50, no. 3 (2008): 937-88.   Gramlich, Edward M. “The New York City Fiscal Crisis: What Happened and What is to be Done?” American Economic Review 66, no. 2 (May 1976): 415-29.   Helfand, Zach. “Survivors.” New Yorker , April 28, 2025. 8-9.   Hildreth, W. Bartley, and Gerald J. Miller. “Debt and the Local Economy: Problems in Benchmarking Local Government Debt Affordability.” Public Budgeting and Finance 22, no. 4 (2002): 99-113.   Honan, Katie. “How the New York City Budget Gets Made – And What Happens if It’s Late.” The City , June 23, 2023. https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/06/23/how-budget-gets-made-what-happens-if-late/ .   Louis, Errol.  “ Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn: The big lessons of New York’s fiscal crisis ”. Produced by New York One Spectrum News. You Decide with Errol Louis . April 24, 2025. Podcast, 27:09. https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/you-decide-with-errol-louis/2025/04/24/peter-yost-and-michael-rohatyn-the-big-lessons-of-new-yorks-fiscal-crisis .   Miller, Gerald J. “Debt Management Networks.” Public Administration Review 53, no. 1 (1993): 50-58.   Phillips-Fein, Kim. “The Legacy of the 1970s Fiscal Crisis.” The Nation , April 16, 2013. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/legacy-1970s-fiscal-crisis/ .   Robbins, Tom. “Hugh Carey, Former Gov, Knew What a Real Crisis Looked Like.” Review of The Man Who Saved New York: Hugh Carey and the Great Fiscal Crisis of 1975, by Seymour Lachman and Rob Polner. Village Voice, August 19, 2010. https://www.villagevoice.com/hugh-carey-former-gov-knew-what-a-real-crisis-looked-like/ .   Rohatyn, Michael and Peter Yost, dir. Drop Dead City . 2024; New York: Pangloss Films. Multiple viewings.   Shalala, Donna E. and Carol Bellamy. "A State Saves a City: The New York Case."  Duke Law Journal  1976 (1977): 1119-32. Multiple downloads. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2598&context=dlj .   Tiebout, Charles M. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures”. Journal of Political Economy 64, no. 5 (1956): 416-24.    Bibliography: [1]     In some states, a county or regional level of government could also take on this task, but in New York State, it would most likely fall to the state government for constitutional reasons. Although the authorities in Albany could, theoretically, decide to delegate the task to a county or regional government, I view this outcome as unlikely. [2]    Charles M. Tiebout. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures,” Journal of Political Economy 64, no.5 (1956): 424. [3]     To be fair, as Comptroller Beame had had a Debt Advisory Board that hadn’t screamed about this too much, and also had to deal with a city administration that was used to using their own figures and methods. [4]     Edward M Gramlich.. “The New York City Fiscal Crisis: What Happened and What is to be Done?” American Economic Review 66, no.2 (May 1976): 415.

by Claudia Keenan Copyright © 2025 All rights reserved by the author. Mysteries of New York by Alfred Trumble. I have done a great deal of traveling in my time—have climbed Mont Blanc; been carried by Persian slaves over Khivan deserts; have broiled in China, and frozen in Iceland; have loitered along the Boulevards in Paris, and walked down Fleet Street in London; have shot buffaloes on the Western plains, and seen bull-fights in Madrid; have skated on Russian ice, and slumbered in Havanese hammocks . . . [1]   The traveler, 26-year-old Alfred Trumble, had been the sole passenger on the schooner E. H. King , carrying logwood and coconuts from Jamaica to the Port of New York. It was a mild day at the end of January 1874. [2] A practiced adventurer, Trumble surveyed the harbor, scanned the skyline, descended the gangplank, and walked into the rising metropolis. Trumble’s bags were heavy with books, paper for writing and drawing, tools for engraving, and a pertinent wardrobe: Whitmanesque garments and evening attire. Having reported from all corners of the globe, he surely brimmed with confidence about his prospects as a writer in New York City.   To be mysterious in nineteenth-century America was an easy feat, yet less is known about Alfred Trumble than about most popular writers of his time. His birth in Virginia cannot be confirmed because Trumble was born in 1845 or 1847, before the state maintained vital records. Once, Trumble alluded to “higher studies, leisure hours in the life school of a famous art academy of this country.” [3] He was very knowledgeable about religion, world history, agriculture, engineering, and the arts, but if he received any formal education, no record exists. Nor are there drawings or photographs of Alfred Trumble, just two descriptions. “He is short in stature, with a fine, intellectual head on his shoulders,” one observer wrote. Another compared Trumble’s “poetical expression” to the actor Edwin Booth.” [4] In place of pictures, Trumble left behind millions of words, dozens of drawings, and an idiosyncratic New York story.  The man who is largely forgotten today once wielded influence through two very different types of publications. On one hand, Trumble wrote explicit guides to the underbelly of the Gilded Age city and theater sketches that denigrated immigrants. He pulled back the curtain on religion, impostors, and servant girls. He hung around jamborees, cockfights, and con games.  On the other hand, Trumble would become a reputable cultural critic for New York papers and magazines. Eventually, he established and edited a semi-monthly journal, The Collector, which was well-regarded by art dealers, collectors, and curators. He published it for eight years, a pretty good run in those days. In its pages, he dismissed Impressionism, “Human Magpies”—his cynical view of most art collectors—and Saint-Gaudens’ sculpture, Diana, atop the new Madison Square Garden. “Absurdly disproportional,” he proclaimed. [5]   “The Mysteries of New York”    By 1885, Trumble’s byline was familiar to New Yorkers. He had hitched his wagon to the Richard K. Fox Publishing Company , whose prize jewel, the National Police Gazette , had been transformed into the nation’s leading sports journal by Fox, an Irish immigrant who took over the failing magazine in 1876. Printed on pink paper, pictures of women cavorting through its pages, the National Police Gazette interspersed sports coverage—especially boxing—with gossip, scandal, and outrageous tales true and untrue. Indeed, while the newspaper publishers Hearst and Pulitzer are considered the pioneers of yellow journalism, Fox was a few years ahead of them. [6]   Soon after purchasing the Gazette , Fox began publishing “sensational books.” [7] Samuel A. MacKeever, a New York journalist and Trumble’s friend, was Fox’s first hire. “The American Charles Dickens,” as the hyperbolic Fox described MacKeever, covered the city’s “most unsavory places,” writing up to ten columns weekly and a few books. [8] After MacKeever died in 1880, Trumble assumed the mantle. [9]   Between 1880 and 1883, Fox published at least 24 books by Trumble. Each sold for 30 cents, available by mail order, with many tantalizing excerpts appearing in the Gazette . Trumble’s first book was A Slang Dictionary of New York , London and Paris: a collection of strange figures of speech, expressive terms and odd phrases used in the leading cities of the world, their origin, meaning, and application. It is attributed to “a well-known detective,” but Trumble’s authorship has been confirmed. [10]      To establish himself as an authority on New York City’s lawlessness, Trumble claimed to be a private detective. How else would he know the innermost details of robberies and embezzlement? [11] In fact, during the 1870s and 1880s, true-crime stories became very popular, and police officers and department brass were official and unofficial sources. [12] It’s evident that Trumble did his own fieldwork; however, he often inserted himself into his books and articles. While Trumble covered a range of subjects, fraud emerged as his favorite. Introducing Mysteries of New York, he wrote: Under our guidance, the stranger may travel New York end to end, unimperiled by the dangers which the newcomer in the metropolis is exposed to. Its snares or pitfalls can have no peril for the stranger who recalls our warnings of them, nor need any of its pleasures be beyond his reach.[13]   “Sharpers,” “mashers,” “cat-meat men,” “cabbage cutters,” “fakirs,” “time peddlers,” “flash ministers,”—since the seventeenth century, all types of tricksters had preyed on visitors to the city as well as its residents. Guidebooks proliferated, warning the innocent. Their effectiveness was debatable, but they certainly burnished the city’s reputation for iniquity[14] Meanwhile, Trumble found charlatans around every corner, and he seemed to know every corner in New York City. Here he writes about “bonus smugglers”: One evening, the writer came upon a party of them in a beer saloon on Third Avenue near Twenty-third Street, which he learned was their favorite resort. He learned, furthermore, that they are a gregarious lot, working in pleasant amity, and meeting every night to discuss the swindle of the day . . . the sale of Havana cigarettes and foreign cordials, both of which have their origin in New York. [15]      In Coney Island, he found “Sirens . . . not too diffident to devour ten-dollar dinners at the Manhattan [hotel restaurant], washed down with champagne by the quart, as you may find out if you have the mind, and never fail to give you a card with the wrong address when you part from her.”[16] A close observer of skin games, especially the notorious Faro, Trumble noted that the old-time gambling houses, “a stone’s throw of Union Square and Madison Avenue,” had been replaced by clubs run by professional gamblers located on the parlor floors of fancy uptown homes.[17] Trumble wrote feverishly for Fox: The New York Tombs, its History and Mysteries; Suicide’s Cranks; Or, Curiosities of Self-Murder; The Man-traps of New York , what they are and how they are worked by a celebrated detective; The Heathen Chinee, What He Looks Like and How He Lives, and more. The last title is grotesquely of its time, published the year that Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, and would not be Trumble’s sole venture into anti-immigrant slander.[18] In 1883, Trumble wound down his work for Fox to focus on the cultural scene. In 1879, he had written a drama, Custer, which was produced in Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia.[19] Now, he wrote another play, Aunt Emily, published articles in the New York-based Decorator and Furnisher, The Theatre, American Art Illustrated, The Current, and The Curio , and in 1885 became editor of The Art Union .[20] Within a few years, Trumble transformed himself into a cultural critic who stood out even in a city accustomed to quirky virtuosos. By 1886, he had insulted the brilliant young painter Kenyon Cox.[21] By 1887, he regularly held forth at a raucous table of artists, actors, and writers at the bohemian restaurant Riccadonna, on Union Square.[22]  In 1888, an anonymous writer declared: “A curious genius is Alfred Trumble, conceded to be the cleverest journalist in New York and the one most cordially liked or disliked.” Art critic, dramatic critic, editor, story-writer, feuilletonist, and chroniqueur, past master in all the arts of daily and weekly journalism, his noms de plume are legion, his facility and fertility beyond precedent. His stories, critiques, paragraphs, and out-of-town letters are full of style and savoir faire. Perhaps Mr. Trumble’s fame will ultimately rest on his art criticisms, for in that department he stands alone—the only brilliant all-around critic New York has ever had.[23]   One has to wonder if the author of such an acclamation was Trumble himself.   About the author: Claudia Keenan grew up in Mount Vernon, N.Y. She is a historian of American education (PhD, New York University) and has taught at Emory & Henry College and the University of Virginia. She has published articles on such diverse topics as the history of American debate and the symbolization of the American First Lady, and reviews nonfiction books. She blogs about history at www.throughthehourglass.com.   [1] Alfred Trumble, “A Railroad Jaunt in Costa Rica,” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly , November 1879, 533. [2] “Arrived,” New York Times , 27 January 1874, 8; Passenger List, District of New York, Port of New York, E.H. King , January 29, 1874, Ancestry.com . [3] “Alfred Trumble, “The Magpie’s Hoard,” The Curio , September 1887, 31. [4] Lewis Rosenthal, “The Critics at the Play,” The Theatre, January 24, 1887, 340; “Younger Editors of New York, A Few Points about the Most Noted of Them,” The [Savannah, GA] Morning News , August 9, 1887, 3. [5] Alfred Trumble, “The Magpie’s Hoard,” 30; “Notes for the New Year,” The Collector , January 1, 1892, 70. Diana now resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Wing, Charles Engelhard Courtyard. [6] Liam Barry-Hayes, “Richard K. Fox,” Dictionary of Irish Biography , https://www.dib.ie/ . [7] Alfred Trumble, The Mysteries of New York , a sequel to Glimpses of Gotham and New York By Day and Night , “Books that YOU should Read,” inner cover (Richard K, Fox, 1882). [8] Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, vol. II (Belknap, 1938), 331. [9] “National Police Gazette History,” National Police Gazette , May 29, 1880, 3. [10] Alfred Trumble, A Slang Dictionary of New York, London and Paris: a collection of strange figures of speech, expressive terms and odd phrases used in the leading cities of the world, their origin, meaning, and application (Fox, 1880). One lexicographer states that Trumble lifted most of the book from The Vocabulum by New York City police chief George Matsell (1859). My own comparison shows overlap but not plagiarism.   [11] Christopher P. Wilson, “Rough Justice, Crime, Corruption, and Urban Governance” in Christine Bold, ed., The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture 1860-1920, Vol. 6, 565-568. [12] See, for example, Edward Crapsey, The Nether Side of New York; or, The Vice, Crime and Poverty of the Great Metropolis (New York, 1872) and George W. Walling, Recollections of a New York Chief of Police (New York, 1887). 13 Trumble, The Mysteries of New York , 8. 14 Among the best-known are The Secrets of the Great City by Edward Winslow Martin (1868), The Gentleman’s Companion (1870), and New York by Sunlight and Gaslight, a Work Descriptive of the Great American Metropolis by James D. McCabe, Jr. (1882). 15 Trumble, The Mysteries of New York , 62. 16 Alfred Trumble, Coney Island, How New York’s Gay Girls and Jolly Boys Enjoy Themselves by the Sea! (Fox, 1881). 17 Alfred Trumble, Faro Exposed or, the Gambler and His Prey, being a complete explanation of this famous game and how its skins are worked (Fox, 1882), 99. 18 Alfred Trumble, The Mott Street Poker Club: the secretary’s minutes (White & Allen, 1889), Jew Trouble at Manhattan Beach [a play written with George L. Stout], 1878. 19 “The Attractions at the Howard, Boston Globe , May 23, 1880, 10, quoting New York Telegram. 20 “The Art Union,” Brooklyn Eagle , June 28, 1885, 2. 21 H. Wayne Morgan, ed. An Artist of the American Renaissance: the Letters of Kenyon Cox 1877-1882 (Ohio, 1995), 73. 22 “Where the Bohemians Eat,” The Journalist , November 5, 1887, 16. 23 “General Gossip of Authors and Writers,” Current Literature , August 1888, 108.

by  Emma M. Sedore , Tioga County Historian Copyright ©2025 All rights reserved by the author Wikipedia photograph of a boxcar from the French "Merci train," a gift from France to the United States. Public domain. This incredible piece of history needs to be told and never forgotten. After the German Nazis defeated the French military forces, they occupied Paris from 1940-1944. The people were traumatized from violent physical treatment, most of their food supplies were used to feed the occupying German army, and anything of value was either stolen or ruined beyond repair. Finally, in August 1944, Paris was liberated. Spirits were lifted and hopes were high! But not for long.   Three years went by, and in 1947, conditions were appalling. The roads were in terrible shape from being bombed. Because the Nazis took all the machinery from their factories to send them back to Germany, there was no way the French could get businesses restarted quickly enough to ease the situation. Their most immediate concern was food. The people were still starving, but they did their best with help from other foreign countries, especially from America. Our temporary relief agencies were shipping tons of food to them, but the Russian Communists would print their own country’s name on the sacks of wheat and other items, then tell people that the Americans were doing nothing to help them. All the while, Stalin was relentless in trying to divide Europe by spreading Communism, and the U.S government feared that they could take over France.   In addition, the Black Market was rampant. And shameful to say, it included our GIs. The May 1945 Yank Magazine’s cover story, The Lowdown of GI Racketeers in Paris , compared them to the “Chicago-style gangs and Al Capone.” It was led by former American Soldiers who were either dishonorably discharged or deserters who stole truckloads of American supplies and sold them at prices that the French could barely afford, if at all. The U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigative Branch (CBI) was kept busy, handling thousands of cases, most involving theft. Some were even court-martialed. It was a grave situation, and America knew it. In June 1947, under the leadership of the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State, Gen. George C. Marshall, a landmark aid plan was in the works, called the Marshall Plan. It would provide foreign countries with much-needed medicine, food, money, and other necessities, but it took far too long for Congress to pass a bill to enact it.   Newspapers kept reporting how deplorable conditions were in Europe. They informed the public that children were suffering from malnutrition and their parents were picking through garbage cans to feed them. American citizens were increasingly concerned and began to write to their elected officials and the newspapers, pleading for someone, or some way, to get help to them as soon as possible. And one of the letters hit its target!   It was sent to Drew Pearson, a famous radio broadcaster and newspaper journalist. His column, Washington Merry-go-Round, was published in 600 newspapers and aired on his daily NBC radio program, Drew Pearson’s Comments.   Once he learned of the critical situation, he devised a brilliant idea to use a train to travel across the country, pulling freight cars for citizens to fill with food and supplies for the impoverished in France and Italy. On October 11, 1947, he began to ask his audiences to donate whatever they could from their homes and gardens. However, one significant aspect he emphasized was that the project would not originate from the US government, but rather from the hearts of the American people. The train would be dubbed the “Friendship Train.”   He had a lot of influential friends, and the first one he contacted was Harry Warner, the Chief Executive of Warner Bros. Studio, in California. Warner volunteered to be chairman of the Friendship Train committee and started things with flair, including filming many Friendship Train activities. A massive send-off was held in Los Angeles, featuring a huge parade with bands, dozens of movie stars, and politicians, all of whom eagerly joined in along with thousands of everyday citizens. On November 7ththe first eleven railroad cars full of food, clothing, and other desperately needed items started on their cross-country trip across America, heading for New York State, where they would be unloaded on a ship to France.   Pearson also helped organize a committee of farmers, labor unions, businessmen, service clubs, and railroad officials. Little did he know that it would turn out to be one of the most humanitarian events that ever took place in our country.    His radio and newspaper audiences numbered in the millions, and the average American responded with unexpected enthusiasm and great benevolence! They gave all they could, and what they didn’t have to provide, they sponsored fundraising events all over the country for the Friendship Fund.   As it headed east, it picked up many more loaded freight cars. Radio stations made daily announcements about where and when the train would arrive or pass through. It gave people a “heads-up” so they could have their donations ready to connect with the Friendship Train, and they waited in long lines for hours to ensure they wouldn’t miss it. School children of all ages brought small donations, such as a can of milk, a bag of beans, a Raggedy Anne doll, a box of Animal Crackers, or any other thing they could afford. If that was all they had, they were proud and happy to do it. They would bring it to the railroad station and watch the adults pack them into cartons to load onto the train. The hundreds of towns, villages, and cities that weren’t on the Friendship’s lin e would telegraph ahead to have their freight cars or trucks ready to meet at a junction so they wouldn’t miss the connection.   It traveled through eleven states, but instead of one train, it had seven different sections and five railroads. Every state in the union, including the territory of Hawaii and Washington, DC, donated to the Friendship Train, and all who volunteered did it for free with no government assistance!   The train started with eleven cars in California; eleven days later, it reached New York City on November 18, 1947. By then, the number of vehicles had increased to 700. The estimated value was $40 million, in part with monetary donations.    A crowd of 25,000 noisily welcomed it to New York City with a ticker-tape parade. The first group of cars was unloaded onto the U.S. ship S.S. American Leader , which was rechristened the S.S. Friendship just for that occasion. The Friendship was the first of four boats to leave for France and Italy, but before leaving, two railway barges loaded with food took victory laps around the Statue of Liberty. It was a small gesture to acknowledge Frances’ gift to America.   For months, donations continued to pour into New York, where other ships delivered them to 14 European nations, including some of our former enemies.   The Friendship Train docked in Le Havre, France, on December 17th. It was immediately unloaded onto ten different trains and trucks, with the first fifty trucks going straight to Paris, where they drove through its famous streets.   Even though it was a cold winter day, thousands of shivering, but happy school children, waved American and French flags while a band played both national anthems. They cheered and smiled with unabashed gratitude as the trucks made their way, filled with the desperately needed food. It would be the first time many children tasted treats such as lollipops, bubble gum, and other penny candies sent to them by American boys and girls.   A reception was held at the Paris city hall, and officials from America and France gave speeches, including President Charles de Gaulle’s brother, Philippe de Gaulle, Drew Pearson, and his wife, Luvie Pearson, who were especially welcomed. By the end of the day, the atmosphere was filled with warm camaraderie, and “Thank you” was heard repeatedly, but none more sincerely than when the French people said, “Merci.” It was an exciting, joyful day that they would remember for a long time, and they did. Two years later, they found a unique way to do more than say, “Merci.”   THE MERCI/GRATITUDE TRAIN 1949 People's gratitude for the Fr i endship Train couldn’t have been more genuine, especially from a French war veteran and railway worker named Andre Picard. Like Drew Pearson, he initiated a movement to express gratitude to Americans for their role in the Liberation of Paris by sending a train of their own. The difference would be that, unlike the Friendship Train, which brought tons of food and supplies, the French train would be filled with thousands of gifts from anyone who wanted to show gratitude, regardless of age or class. Thousands of French and Italian citizens loved the idea and were more than willing to thank America personally.   Picard suggested that since there were 48 states in America in 1949, they would use 48 boxcars, one for each state, plus one extra to be shared between the Territory of Hawaii and Washington, DC. making 49. The boxcars were unique because they were built in the 1870s and used by the French in World War I and World War II. They were known as 40 and 8, denoting their capacity of 40 men or eight horses. Before Paris was liberated, the occupying German forces used the cars for a more reprehensible reason: they carried thousands of civilians to concentration camps. After France was liberated, the Allies transported soldiers and materials to the front through the war’s end in 1945.   Each car was refurbished and decorated with 40 colorful coats of arms representing France's provinces. A ribbon with the colors of the French flag was painted on a diagonal slant, and each car had a plaque denoting which U.S. state it would go to, plus a plaque with a painting of an American Eagle. On the front of the steam engine and each car was a drawing of colorful flowers, symbolic of Flanders Field, where many American Doughboys from World War I are buried. This symbol was also printed on tags that were placed on every one of the gifts.   Although most people didn’t have much to give, they donated important family treasures that would make a personal connection. Gifts from various boxcars ranged from a simple hairnet to dozens of silk wedding dresses; a doll from a little girl who cut off her hair to make a wig for it; a church bell, cast in the city of Annecy, France with a label addressed to the attention of Cardinal Spellman and to be placed in St. Patrick’s Church in New York City; toys made from bullet casings; an ash tray made of a broken mirror; and a sexy set of black lingerie intended “for a beautiful blond;” priceless works of art; forty-nine miniature mannequins dressed in fashions from 1706-1906; cases of wine; military medals; an eleven-foot statue of the Winged-Victory Nike, just like the one in the Louvre; and too many more to mention.     The French boxcars were loaded with 52 thousand gifts on the ship, S.S. Magellan, with “MERCI AMERICA” painted on its hull. When it was packed, nine thousand gifts had to be left on the docks because there wasn’t enough room for them.   The Magellan arrived in America through the Port of Weehawken, N.J., on February 2, 1949, and then to the Battery of New York on February 3rd. It was greeted by a flotilla of boats and Air Force planes roaring overhead. Before docking, the ship sailed around the Statue of Liberty, which was given to America by the French in 1886 to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of its independence and the alliance between the Americans and the French.   Many Americans called it the Merci Train, but even more called it the Gratitude Train , both meaning “Thank you.” Our New York boxcar was paraded down Broadway with a ticker-tape parade. In contrast, the boxcars for other states were unloaded and transported on flatcars because their wide wheel axles were incompatible with the width of our tracks in America. They were sent off to the rest of the nation, where each state committee had a reception eagerly waiting for them before they were opened and distributed. Some states did not distribute them, but put them in their museums for safekeeping.   The gifts from the New York State car were first sent to Albany by Governor Thomas E. Dewey, who appointed a New York City politician, Grover Whalen, to distribute the rest of the gifts to the counties. Mayor William O’Dwyer noted that most gifts would be distributed to museums and other institutions where they would remain as souvenirs, saying it was “the most heart-warming event in recent international history.”     Each state got to keep its boxcar. They were initially placed at Veteran posts, municipal parks, railway museums, and at fairgrounds, to name a few. As time passed, many of them were moved to different locations. Some were damaged and sat in disrepair, and/or vandalized. However, at least 43 of them still exist. Our New York State boxcar, 40 & 8 #92, is at the corner of Judd & Halsey Roads, Whitesboro, N.Y., in Oneida County.   It is also essential to know that the French were not the only ones to express gratitude for the Friendship Train. As mentioned, Italy received food and supplies in 1947 and documented everything on film. The film was shown in movie theaters across America. To help with their country’s reconstruction after the war, the Italian government sent a gift of four giant bronze equestrian sculptures weighing about 80,000 pounds.   Before being shipped to America, the four groups were on exhibition in Italy and transported aboard the SS Rice Victory from Milan to Norfolk, Virginia. At Norfolk, they were loaded on a U.S. Navy barge and taken up the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. Two sculptures were installed on the northeastern end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and the other two were placed near the bridge in Potomac Park. The inauguration of the four groups was held on September 26, 1951.   This beautiful, touching piece of history should never be forgotten, because it seems unlikely ever to happen again.     About the author: Emma Sedore has been the Tioga County Historian since 2001 and is a Registered Historian with the Association of Public Historians of NYS. She was awarded the DAR History Award Medal for her book, Hiawatha Island, Jewel of the Susquehanna, which was placed in the DAR National Library, Washington, DC.   Source: Much of this history is from a manuscript written by Earl R. Bennett, Sr. (The Merci Train, a Big Thank You from France, 1999) and various state websites, history books, and newspapers.

By Robert G. Waite Copyright© 2025 All rights reserved by the author Wikipedia image. 1930s photograph of the North German Lloyd's ocean liner TS Bremen (1929) arriving in an unknown port. Photographer unknown. On the evening of July 26, 1935, crowds of travelers, well-wishers, curious onlookers, and opponents of the Hitler regime in Germany gathered at New York’s Pier 49 for the late-night departure of the SS Bremen . The flagship in the German fleet of ocean liners, the Bremen, was an elite vessel, christened by Reich President Hindenburg with the American ambassador present, and launched with fanfare on August 17, 1928 [1] . Heralded as one of the speediest ships of the day, it could carry 2,229 passengers across the Atlantic, 811 alone in first class, and 500 in second class. Those in first class enjoyed luxurious accommodation, including an elegant salon for relaxation and conversation in a space designed by the prominent architect Fritz August Breuhaus. An advertisement for its New York to Bremerhaven route boasted that it typified “the seas’ highest ideals of service.” The Bremen  was a technical marvel that sped passengers between these two ports. Accolades followed.  In July 1929, it received recognition as having just made the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing yet. In New York City, crowds gathered at the pier for its arrival on July 23rd to celebrate this achievement. By 1935, the Bremen  had logged “735,000 miles of Atlantic crossings,” and carried “more than 23,000 passengers,” for the journey taking “an average speed of 4 Days, 21 Hrs.” The Bremen  and its sister ship, the Europa , were seen as the most modern and efficient ships of the day. For many, the Bremen  embodied the new Germany when it was launched in August 1928, an image the Hitler regime in Berlin was eager to maintain and polish. [2]   As was customary on the evening of departure, the luxury ocean liner opened the ramps for well-wishers, friends of those traveling across the Atlantic, and the curious. This evening, Friday, July 26th,1935, the crowd at Pier 49 was tremendous. Each of the more than 1,200 passengers, a manager of the North German Lloyd Line told a reporter, “will have from three to four relatives wishing to see them off.” Joining them aboard the luxury liner was anyone willing to pay the 10-cent admission. Among the crowd on the Bremen  that July evening was a detachment of New York City police officers. The NYPD had learned that opponents of the repressive measures in Germany against the Catholic church, as well as labor activists who wished to call attention to the arrest of Lawrence Simpson, a young American sailor in Hamburg just a month earlier, planned to protest aboard the vessel. [3]      Standing on the bridge of the SS Bremen , Captain Leopold Ziegenbein viewed the crowd below him. On his order, the whistle sounded at 11:45 PM, signaling it was time for visitors to leave the ship and that the vessel would soon depart. A half dozen activists who had mingled with the crowd now acted. They moved toward the bow of the ship.  Their target was the Nazi flag, the swastika, hanging prominently and illuminated with a spotlight. Crew members tried to halt them. New York City detectives attempted to incept them. Fights broke out. But two made it to the mast, cut down the flag, and tossed the symbol of Nazi Germany into the river. [4]   This was a prominent statement against the regime in Berlin, and it sparked a rift in American-German relations. Their action led Germany to adopt the swastika flag as the official national symbol formally. It also sparked further demonstrations against the repressive measures and the incarceration of Lawrence Simpson in Hamburg.  The press in New York and throughout Germany reacted with front-page stories. Intense discussions between diplomats followed. The forceful removal of the swastika flag from the SS Bremen marked a decisive step in the mounting concern throughout America with the terror of Hitler’s Germany and in the relations between the United States and Germany. [5]   The attack on the swastika flag aboard the Bremen , cutting it from the mast and tossing it into the Hudson River, was part of “a nationwide drive to free Lawrence B. Simpson, member of the International Seamen’s Union, who was kidnapped form the ship Manhattan  on July 5 [sic] by the Nazi Secret Police, ”the Western Worker , the San Francisco based newspaper of the Communist Party USA wrote. Simpson’s arrest a month earlier in Hamburg was “the cause of the demonstration at the ship Bremen, when indignant crowds tore the hated Nazi Swastika off the jackstaff and threw it into the river.” Two of those arrested were “members of the M.F.O.W. (Firemen) [Pacific Coast Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders and Wipers Association, Marine Firemen’s Union] Free Simpson Committee.” [6]   Threats of further actions against German vessels followed, and protest actions against Simpson’s arrest and the steadily mounting repression in Germany were called for. There was reasonable cause for concern about the situation in Germany. As the monthly publication of the International Labor Defense reported in its July edition, “The news coming out of Hitler’s Germany piles horror on horror.  New pogrom incitements. Prison and concentration camp atrocities. Sweeping arrests,” as the regime moved to squash lingering opposition. [7]   In early August, representatives of the Anti-Nazi Federation called upon all those present at a rally in Madison Square Garden to pledge to hinder “the arrival of every German vessel in American harbors.” Protests were announced for several days in every harbor and big city. Tensions mounted. [8] The response of the U.S. State Department to the June 28th arrest of Lawrence Simpson aboard the American ocean liner SS Manhattan  came belatedly. Only on July 15th, after the ship had returned to the New York harbor, did the public learn “what had happened to Simpson.”  Then, a shipmate, the Ship’s Delegate of the International Seamen’s Union, “told a reporter for the Daily Worker  in New York of the kidnapping.” The news spread quickly, and many advocacy groups took up his cause. The International Labor Defense “set in motion a storm of protest that Germany release him,” and the call was picked up by other organizations, including the National Committee for Defense of Political Prisoners, the Anti- Nazi Federation, and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as organized labor. The “kidnapping of Simpson” was viewed as part of the German regime’s systematic campaign against “Jews, Catholics, Protestants, militant workers, Communists, Socialists, [and] republicans.” The protest aboard the Bremen aimed to call attention to the case of Lawrence Simpson and the broader campaign of terror against the Catholic Church, Jews, and opponents of the Hitler regime. “Everywhere, seamen talked about the kidnapping of Simpson,” and the mounting oppression in Germany. [9] Already on July 25th, the New York City police learned that “a Communist demonstration might take place at the sailing of the S.S. Bremen. ”  The next morning, the Commanding Officer of the Third Division, NYPD, went to Captain W. Drechsel, the Marine Superintendent of the North German Lloyd Line, and “apprised of the contemplated demonstration on part of the Communists” the next day. The NYPD official “suggested that the police, in cooperation with the employees and the guards, stop all persons at the entrance to the pier and ascertain if they were duly authorized persons to visit or go aboard the vessel.” [10]   On the evening of the ship’s departure, July 26th, some “2,000-3,000 visitors were on hand to say goodbye to their friend,” The New York Times  reported. Coming on board only required appropriate dress and payment of a dime. By 11:30 PM, the crowd at the pier had grown in size and included many who came to protest recent oppression in Germany of the Catholic Church, of organized labor, and the arrest of Lawrence Simpson. [11]  Some handed out a one-page announcement that cried: “Catholics and Jews!  Protest the religious persecution in Germany!”  Printed by a group calling itself “The Friends of Catholic Germany,” the flyer had been distributed days before the Bremen ’s departure. It urged all who read it “to flood the pier with anti-fascist workers and others as an immediate showing of strength to the Hitler government. A large and successful meeting on the pier will help your brother Catholics in Germany.”  A day before the Bremen ’s departure, the New York City police had “received a copy of the circular, a one-page sheet, signed by the “COMMUNIST PARTY U.S.A.” calling for a protest demonstration at Pier 86 between 11 P.M. 12 midnight, Friday, July 26, 1935, on the occasion of the sailing of the S.S. Bremen .” Such departures, the flyer stated, are “always used to whip up Nazi sentiment.” What was needed was for “CATHOLICS….JEWS….ANTI-FASCISTS [to] UNITE AGAINST HITLER!” [12]     The New York City police, anticipating a demonstration at the pier, directed the Commanding Officer of the Third Division to assign “a detail of 50 patrolmen, also one mounted sergeant and ten mounted patrolmen” to control the dock area. In addition, three streets leading to the pier were “closed off,” with the intent of “preventing organized groups from entering this area.”  About 11 P.M., groups of four and five people began to assemble near the ship. The crowd grew to “approximately 1,500 persons.”  Most were “Communists and their sympathizers, as well as spectators,” though many were “visitors to the steamship” who came to see friends or family members off on their trans-Atlantic voyage. [13]  On shore, between 46th and 47th Streets, the crowd of demonstrators grew.  Many carried “large placards with strong anti- Hitler slogans,” and demanded “that American citizens not travel to Germany on a Nazi ship.” Most came to protest recent oppression in Germany of the Catholic Church, of organized labor, the mounting violence against Jews, and the recent arrest of Lawrence Simpson. [14] Anticipating a demonstration at the dock, the Commanding Officer of the NYPD’s Third Division went, as noted, the previous evening to Pier 86 and spoke with Emil Maurer, Assistant Marine Superintendent of the shipping line. "He was apprised of the contemplated demonstration on the part of the Communists,” a report on the demonstrations wrote.  The Officer “suggested that the police, in co-operation with the employes and the guards, stop all persons at the entrance to the pier and ascertain if they were duly authorized persons to visit or go aboard the vessel.”  Maurer requested, however, “that the police not interfere with the persons coming onto the pier as he believed it might interfere with the regular routine business of the line.”  Furthermore, he advised the police official “that his men were well able to take care of the ship, and that the crew was specially trained, etc.” Maurer outlined further precautions, that tugs would “guard the ship on the waterfront,” that “special police employed by the line, were to be stationed at each gang plank,” and so on. A short time later, the New York City police official met with Captain Drexel, Marine Superintendent of the Hamburg-American Line, to discuss the plans again. As a result of the discussions, “a detail of five Sergeants and fifty Patrolmen, also one Mounted Sergeant and ten Mounted Patrolmen” reported to the Commander Officer of the nearby Third Division. Two streets that approached the pier were “closed off…with a view of preventing organized groups from entering this area.” About 11:00 PM, small groups of protesters began to assemble nearby.  Their numbers “grew to a crowd of approximately 1,500 persons, comprised of Communists and their sympathizers, as well as the spectators who were made up of most of the visitors to the Steamship.” With a ticket to board the ship costing but ten cents, the police estimated that “approximately 40 Communists boarded the ship, and mingled with the 1,200 passengers and approximately 4,800 of their friends.” On shore, between 46th and 47th Streets, the crowd of demonstrators grew. [15] Leopold Ziegenbein, the ship’s captain, stood on the bridge. As the departure time came closer, he had the whistle blown as a call to those visiting to leave the ship.  That was the signal for a half dozen labor activists to carry out their protest. They moved forward to the bow, pushing aside crew members as they advanced on the swastika flag, highlighted by a spotlight.  The activists scuffled with the crew and New York City police. Two reached the flag and succeeded in cutting down the Nazi symbol. They tossed it into the East River. On shore, a roar went out from the crowd as the flag was torn down. The press reported that a loud ‘hurrah’ could be heard coming from the tourist deck of the Bremen. That was taken up by the crowds on the street who let out “a roar of triumph.” At the exact moment, “the battle with the police began.” A NYPD detective, Matthew Solomon, was knocked to the deck, but he managed to draw his service weapon and shoot one of the protesters. Police arrested six aboard the ship. It was cleared of all but the passengers, and on the pier, protesters, whose numbers continued to grow, jeered as the police hurried away the bloodied protesters and the injured detective from the Bremen .  About 1,000 followed and gathered near the 18th Precinct Station House, where those arrested had been taken. Outside the precinct building, the crowd shouted, “Free the arrested seamen.” More arrests followed. [16] On board the Bremen , New York City police, the shipping line’s security, and crew members cleared visitors from the vessel. It sailed at 12:30 AM, delayed by 40 minutes. Concerned that some protesters might have remained on board, a dozen police searched the vessel as it sailed to Quarantine. There, they transferred to a smaller ship and were taken to shore. The next day, the Commanding officer of the NYPD Third Division spoke with Captain Drechsel regarding the handling of the previous evening’s protest and the sailing of the SS Bremen.  Drechsel told the officer that “he had sent a telegram to the home office of the Hamburg American Line at Bremen, Germany, in which he had praised the police for the actions taken on July 26th, and that a Mr. Beck, General Manager and Director of the Hamburg American Line would personally call on the Police Commissioner and thank him for the good work rendered by the police on the evening of 26th .” In addition, Captain Drechsel “stated that the German Consul was sending a cablegram to the German Government also commending the police for the work performed in connection with the disorder on board the S.S. Bremen.” It appeared that the police handling of the demonstrators would not become an issue between the United States and Germany. [17]   Over the following days, the press covered the “Bremen incident” at length.  The protest in New York harbor aboard the luxury liner was, however, not the first attack in the United States on the Nazi symbol, the swastika flag, nor an isolated effort to remove the symbol of Hitler’s Germany. Already on February 25, 1934, in Tacoma, Washington, longshoremen offloading a German ship noticed “Nazi flags flying.” A dock worker, seeing the swastika flags, “dropped work and went home, got a shotgun and succeeded in shooting down three of them by the time the captain had him arrested.” When the police transported him to the station, at the pier, “all the men quit work and demanded that unless the worker was released and the flags were pulled off, there would be no loading.” The ship’s captain withdrew charges, the press reported, and the worker was released.  Other incidents followed. Two days after the unrest aboard the Bremen , a German day picnic in Milwaukee turned violent and “the Nazi swastika…torn from its mast.” [18]   In New York, the press, led by the Times , termed the demonstration at the pier and the removal of the Swastika flag aboard the Bremen  a “Communist raid,” a disturbance created by members of various Communist organizations. The “rioting”, the journalist continued, had two causes. “One was the anti-Hitler, anti-Nazi protest that the Communists often make, and the other was concerned with a seaman named Lawrence Simpson.” The young sailor, removed from his vessel by police in Hamburg, “has been the centre of considerable agitation in anti-Nazi and Communist circles for more than a month.” [19]             The New York City-based Forward , a daily newspaper that served the Jewish-American audience, called the action on the Bremen “a dreadful riot,” yet viewed it as part of a larger protest against the Hitler regime. “When the three heroic American sailors tore down the hated Nazi flag,” the large crowd on shore, the “thousands of demonstrators” on the adjacent streets, called out “with incredible shouts of ‘hurrah’” when the symbol of the new Germany was tossed into the river. The violent removal of the flag sparked discussion. The New York Times  rightly termed it “the emblem of the German Nazi party, but not the national flag of Germany.” Such flags on merchant vessels, such as the SS Bremen , should, distinguished professor of law George Grafton Wilson wrote about the incident in New York harbor, “be treated with respect,” and provided with “reasonable protection in the state of reception.”  Wilson did point out that New York authorities had “taken special precautions in anticipation of the demonstration and that there was no evidence of neglect on their part.” [20]   Reactions in Washington, New York City, and Albany In Washington, officials at the State Department moved quickly to prevent the incident from becoming a source of international tension. At a press conference in Washington on July 27th, Assistant Secretary of State Wilbur J. Carr “expressed regret” as he hoped to calm the anticipated reaction from Berlin.  While the German press did express outrage, the attaché at the German embassy in Washington “believed that Mr. Carr’s voluntary action would be permitted to terminate the affair.”  The New York Times  concluded that the “expression of regret in Washington is expected to forestall formal protest.” The initial efforts effectively calmed tensions and prevented a full-blown diplomatic incident.  Commander Ziegenbein, the ship’s captain, praised the efforts of the New York police “in handling a very delicate situation.” A day later, the New York press reported that the passenger manager of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, John Pannes, stated, "The line considers the whole affair closed.  And he added, “We have no criticism to make of the police.” The Managing Director of the shipping line in New York City, Christian J. Beck, issued a statement “praising the efficiency of the police in dealing with the riot at the sailing of the Bremen.” The police arrangements, he wrote, “could not have been improved upon and, when the unfortunate flag incident occurred, the offenders were promptly and efficiently dealt with.” Beck concluded, "The same thing would have happened if ten times the number of police had been on guard.  All praise is due the department both for its foreknowledge of the communistic plat and for its well- organized measures to preserve the peace.” Despite such assurances, the press in Germany raged and editorials were “filled with resentment over what they term an affront to the German flag.” In addition, The New York Times  reported that “officials of the Reich do not consider such an expression [of Carr at the press conference] adequate.” [21]   In New York City, 150 delegates from a host of groups met on July 29th at the Anti-Nazi Federation of New York headquarters to frame a program of activity for the next several months.  The four main proposals discussed and decided upon related to the recent incident aboard the Bremen. One urged that a wire be sent to the Police Commissioner protesting “the alleged ‘Nazi’ tactics of the police and the shooting in the anti-Nazi demonstration at the sailing of the Hapag Loyd liner Bremen.” A second proposal called for a committee to meet with Mayor La Guardia and “to demand action against certain policemen for their conduct at the demonstration.”  The third proposal urged establishing a “standing committee to plan further demonstrations at the piers of German ships here.”  And the fourth called upon the members of the organizations present at the meeting to “send letters to Commissioner Valentine and Mayor L Guardia demanding the immediate release of all those arrested at the Bremen demonstration and the riot that followed on West Forty-seventh Street.” The representatives also called for the “immediate release” of seaman Lawrence Simpson, who had been arrested a month earlier in Hamburg. [22]  The “Antinazi Federation,” the German press reported, announced “further actions against German ships,” and these were directed against “the showing of the swastika flag.” The delegates at the New York City meeting called for a boycott of “Nazi ships.” [23] In Albany, Governor Herbert Lehman was contacted by Acting Secretary of State William Phillips concerning the disturbance aboard the Bremen . The Governor answered that “upon its receipt…[he] immediately communicated with the office of the Mayor of the City of New York. I was also advised by the mayor that a report prepared by city officials concerning the incident had already been transmitted to the Department of State.  I assume there is no further action you wish me to take in this matter.” President Roosevelt evaded answering a question regarding the incident at a press conference in Washington. It was up to the State Department to smooth the ruffled feelings of German officials. [24]     Germany Reacts to the Bremen Incident From Berlin, the Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels cabled on July 29th, “To the crew of the Bremen…most cordial greetings, sincere admiration for your plucky conduct when brutal Communists New York acting as they do everywhere else, in dastardly manner with superior numbers, attempted insolent attack [on the] German national flag.” Goebbels expressed his gratitude to the ship’s commander and crew for fulfilling “our duty, regardless of where we are, to protect our national flag from assault.” He concluded the telegram with “Heil Hitler!  Commodore Ziegenbein of the Bremen responded and affirmed “our unanimous determination to observe duty to protect the flag anywhere, anytime.”  Across Germany, the press termed the incident a “riot,” an “insult to the German national symbol.” The local press widely reported Goebbels’ message of support to the crew of the Bremen.  In Berlin, concern remained high as the regime feared more assaults on German ships in American ports. [25] On July 29th at the State Department in Washington, the German Chargė d’Affaries in Washington met with the Division of Western European Affairs Chief. He informed him that “a formal note of protest with regard to the incident which occurred on the SS Bremen the other night when the Swastika flag was torn from its staff just before the sailing of the ship” would follow. He termed the incident a “serious insult to the German national emblem.” That, plus other incidents, including Congressman Samuel Dickstein, Representative from New York, calling Hitler a “Mad Dog” in a speech to the House of Representatives, “caused a great deal of resentment in Germany.” [26]  On August 1st, William Phillips, Acting Secretary of State, responded. “The appropriate authorities in New York have provided me with a full report on this matter, and I enclose a copy for your information.” Phillips clarified that “police authorities took most extensive precautions to prevent any untoward incident…and that the incident which occurred was in no sense due to neglect on the part of the American authorities.”  Furthermore, “a very considerable number of police were detailed to prevent disturbances,” and police officials had made specific recommendations to the ship’s captain.  When the turmoil aboard the ship began, “the police authorities took immediate and efficient action intending to clear the ship of unauthorized persons,” Phillips wrote. During the uproar, Detective Matthew Salomon was attacked and “sustained serious injury.” Those involved in “this disorder” had been arrested and were being held for trial. Lastly, Phillips added, “It is unfortunate that, despite the sincere efforts of the police to prevent any disorder whatever, the German national emblem should, during the disturbance which took place, not have received the respect to which it is entitled.” [27] For the Hitler regime in Berlin, the incident aboard the Bremen,  the tossing of its flag into the waters of New York City, offered the opportunity to shift attention away from the repression it was carrying out within its borders against Jews, the Catholic church, and political opponents. Now , the leaders and the press could target New York City as a site of intolerance, where violent acts against political opponents go unpunished.  The press in Germany moved quickly to express such sentiments. On July 29th, the Diplomatische Korrespondenz , the unofficial voice of the Foreign Office, termed the incident aboard the Bremen “unequaled,” and added, “the indignation of the German public can be easily understood.” They observed “the steadily increasing unworthy campaign of agitation against Germany.” The Hamburger Fremdenblatt  called the incident an “affront to the national colors…about the most embarrassing thing that can happen to nations living in peace.” Furthermore, it claimed that the New York police had advanced knowledge of “the invasion,” yet had failed to take any “preventative measures.”  The responsibility for the incident, the Börsen Zeitung  commented, “must be squarely placed at the door of the municipal government of New York.” Mayor LaGuardia was repeatedly blasted for his openly anti-Nazi statements. Furthermore, the response from the State Department in Washington, the apology issued by the Acting Secretary of State, was termed “lukewarm and entirely inadequate given the gravity of the offense.” [28]  In Essen, the Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick lashed out against Jews, telling an audience, “Let not the Jews of New York imagine that they have done a service to the cause of their German co-religionists by making use of a communist underworld, paid to demonstrate against Germany.” He went out to minimize the worldwide criticism of the regime’s policies toward Jews and the recent measures against the Catholic Church.  Others blamed the Communist Council in Moscow. [29]   The State Department, the State of New York, New York City, and the “Bremen” Incident In America, officials had moved expeditiously in anticipation of a German protest.  Already in the evening of July 30th, “Mr. James Dunn of the State Department, Washington,” telephoned the headquarters of the New York City police and “requested a report concerning the incident on the German Steamer Bremen. ” As Dunn explained, “We expect to receive a protest from the German Embassy regarding the ‘flag’ incident on the Bremen  last Friday.” Dunn’s query was forwarded to Mayor LaGuardia, who, in a letter to Secretary of State Hull, wrote: “The request is rather informal, but I am, nevertheless, sending the reports which were submitted to me by the Commissioner in the regular routine on July 29th, which cover the subject fully.”  Immediately thereafter, the Acting Secretary of State William Phillips contacted Governor Lehman and clarified the State Department's interest in answering “the German communication in as short a time as possible after its receipt.” [30] On August 1st, Governor Herbert Lehman responded to a letter from the Acting Secretary of State William Philips regarding the “incident aboard the S.S. Bremen.” The Governor advised that he knew of the request and had contacted the mayor's office in New York City to obtain further information. A police report, Lehman noted, had already been prepared and sent to Washington. The report from the New York police was so thorough, The New York Times reported, “that a report from Mr. Lehman will be only a formality.” The newspaper wrote that the State Department had begun “the preparation of a reply to the German protest against the alleged insult to the German swastika emblem….” [31]  A day later, on August 2nd, The New York Times  published the police report in full, thereby making it abundantly clear how the authorities in New York had responded to the incident. [32] In Washington, the State Department was already preparing a response to the German protest. According to The New York Times , “the note is expected to give assurances that the offenders will be rigidly prosecuted and that efforts will be made to prevent a repetition of such an incident.”  At the same time, Representative Samuel Dickstein of New York announced that “no apology was due Germany for the conduct of the New York police over the riot on the Bremen.” Dickstein added, “Mayor La Guardia is to be congratulated for providing adequate police facilities to handle this disturbance.” [33] The reply of the State Department to the German government was, The New York Times reported, “not an apology, but an expression of regret.” [34]  Nevertheless, officials in Washington did express concern over the incident. A columnist explained that while “the flag incident probably is closed as a diplomatic case because of the exemplary and careful behavior of the New York police and the prosecution of the ringleaders of the mob, it is realized by officials that the riot has served to make worse our strained relations with Germany.”  He added that the incident cannot “be dismissed as an isolated case.” For, he continued, “it is recognized as a direct repercussion from the shock of the American people have received from the Jewish and religious prosecutions by the Nazi government.” Add to that the recent attacks on the Catholic Church in Germany and the heightened interest in the case of Lawrence Simpson, the young American sailor arrested in Hamburg a month prior. [35]      Legal Action: The Bremen Six Arrested and Arraigned Backers of the six Bremen protesters arrested, those held for their involvement in tossing the swastika flag into the river, and those who faced prosecution for the protest that followed at the police precinct, printed and distributed a “RESOLUTION IN PROTEST AGAINST THE ARREST AND PROSECUTION OF THE ANTI-NAZI BREMEN DEMONSTRATORS. Pre-addressed to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. It was widely distributed and only needed to be filled in with the group's name and the number of representatives it had. The RESOLUTION was emphatic: “We protest against the brutal attack by New York police upon the six heroic anti-Nazi demonstrators…when they boarded the S.S. Bremen on July 26th to urge passengers not to travel on fascist ship.”  Furthermore, “We demand that you intercede and see that the charges are dropped….”  It concludes:  WE DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL RELEASE AND FREEDOM OF THE BREMEN SIX.” [36] Protests over the incarceration of the “Bremen 6” continued. On August 6, June Croll, secretary of the Anti-Nazi Federation and an outspoken activist against the Nazi regime, went to City Hall and asked for “the release of six seamen arrested when the swastika was torn from the liner Bremen on July 26.” Unable to meet with the mayor, Croll left a letter explaining that those arrested had been engaged “in a demonstration because of the ‘illegal arrest and imprisonment’ of Lawrence B. Simpson, an American seaman.” He was being held in a concentration camp in Hamburg. [37] On August 7th, those arrested for the action on board the SS Bremen  and the following protests were arraigned in a West Side court.  Sympathizers of the accused crowded the courtroom. They contested the allegations and launched “a noisy demonstration in the courtroom” when the judge attempted to establish control. “The audience hissed and cheered and yelled and stamped feet,” the press reported. “For a time, all the lawyers were talking at once.  Only “after much gavel-pounding, the magistrate ended the demonstration.”  Several of those arrested for the commotion on the pier faced charges of disorderly conduct. The protesters from on board the Bremen  were charged with felonious assault. They also faced the charge of “unlawful assemblage.” The defendants entered pleas of not guilty. At the hearing in the courtroom of Magistrate Louis B. Brodsky, a lawyer representing one of the Bremen 6 advised the court that Vito Marcantonio, a prominent and radical member of Congress, wished to join the defense team. Guarding the courtroom were 27 extra policemen, present because of an anticipated demonstration. There were, however, no disturbances. With Congressman Marcantonio entering the case, the hearing for the defendants was postponed until August 14th. [38] Over the next several days, interest in the case of the Bremen  protesters being adjudicated in a New York courtroom heightened. On August 9th, 20,000 people “filled Madison Square Garden” for a rally organized by the Anti-Nazi Federation. Among the demands was the call to withdraw from the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. A high point came when the six seamen arrested aboard the Bremen  on July 26th were presented to the audience. They rose to applaud them, and they “waved hats, hands and handkerchiefs, cheering and applauding for ten minutes,” The New York Times reported. Speaking for the other five seamen, William Bailey addressed the crowd. He thanked them for their support and called upon them “to pack the courtroom on Aug. 14 to see that we seamen receive our justice.” Bailey told the audience, “I am a Roman Catholic and that is one reason why I participated in the demonstration [aboard the Bremen] to protest against religious persecution in Germany.” He continued, “The other reason was to protest against the arrest of the American sailor Lawrence Simpson of the liner Manhattan by the Nazi government in Hamburg.” The audience, the press reported, “cheered wildly.” Other speakers urged the crowd to send telegrams to Secretary of State Hull demanding the release of Simpson. [39] After a further delay, the hearing on the disturbance aboard the Bremen  began on August 23rd, in the West Side Court of Magistrate Louis B. Brodsky.  The courtroom was “jammed to overflowing by spectators,” eager to learn how the cases of the six defendants would be handled.  The opening was characterized by “flights of oratory by defense lawyers,” a reporter for The New York Times wrote. The first defendant was Edward Drolette, a seaman charged with assault, violation of the Sullivan Law, and unlawful assembly. Drolette was the protester who attacked Detective Solomon and injured him “with a pair of brass knuckles.”  After hearing the testimony, the court adjourned until the following week. Outside the courtroom, a large crowd assembled and was disbanded by police. [40]  At an August 28th hearing, a detective testified about the attack on his colleague Matthew Salomon, a central charge in this case, and the shooting of the attacker, Edward Drolette. The hearings were, however, abbreviated at the request of Representative Marcantonio, who noted contradictions between police testimony and a police report submitted to the State Department in Washington. [41]  The court adjourned and resumed on September 4th with a three-hour hearing. After listening to the arguments of the prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Irving Bell, and defense counsel, Representative Vito Marcantonio, Magistrate Brodsky then asked the attorneys to submit briefs.  He stated that he would announce his decision on Friday, September 6th, two days later [42]                         People   of the State of New York vs. Arthur Blair, William Bailey, Vincent McCormack, William Rose, George Blachwell, Eduward Drolette  Before:  Hon. Louis B. Drodsky City Magistrate When the court reassembled, Magistrate Brodsky read his seven-page decision. It began with the charges against the defendants, namely that they had boarded the S.S. Bremen  at 11:48 PM on July 26th “with intent to commit an act tending to a breach of peace and particularly to tear down the ship’s emblem from it’s [sic] staff; that these defendants did then and there assemble with many others, and then and there tear down said flag.” Furthermore, while carrying out this act, Detective Matthew Soloman “was violently assaulted and beaten….”  Those were the facts of the case and the charges :  unlawful assembly and assault. Having established the basic and non-disputed facts of the case, Brodsky proceeded to summarize the arguments of the defense counsel, Representative Marcantonio, who placed the act in the context of American history and American values. [43] “It may well be, perhaps, as was so forcibly urged upon me in attempted exculpation of the tearing down of the standard bearing the Swastika from the mast head of the Bremen,” Brodsky wrote, “that the flying of this emblem in New York harbor was, rightly or wrongly, regarded by these defendants and others of our citizenry, as a gratuitously brazen flaunting of an emblem, which symbolizes all that is antithetical to American ideals of the God-given and inalienable rights of all peoples to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In Germany, “free speech, freedom of the press and lawful assembly” have all been suppressed.  The suppression of individual rights and the denial of many to practice “the learned professions; the deprivation of the right to…earn a livelihood, the enslavement of women and workers, the imprisonment of sweet sisters of charity of flimsy grounds” constituted “a revolt against civilization…an atavistic throwback to pre-medieval, if not barbaric, social and political conditions.” His critique of the current repressive measures in Germany directed against Jews, Catholics, and civil rights in general was blistering. [44] Brodsky turned from the repression in Germany to the defendants, to their motivations. He wrote that he was aware “of the fact that to these defendants, again rightly or wrongly, the prominent display of this emblem even carried with it the same sinister implications as a pirate ship sailing defiantly into the harbor of a nation, one of whose ships it had just scuttled, with the black flag of piracy proudly flying aloft.” He added that the “disturbances attended the sailing of the Bremen were provoked by this flaunting of an emblem to those who regard it as a defiant challenge to society.” In its argument, the defense “so eloquently argued…that the Boston Tea Party was now viewed, in historic retrospect, as a glorified violation of the law of unlawful assemble.” Furthermore, “in their minds this emblem of the Nazi regime stands for and represents war on religious freedom; the disfranchisement of naturals solely on religious or ethnological grounds….” [45]      Having established the moral grounds for the protest aboard the Bremen , Magistrate Brodsky turned to the legal issue, namely, unlawful assembly. “There was no evidence of any meeting to assemble on the S.S. Bremen, nor of any conversations between any of the defendants which took place before they came to the Bremen or after they reached it.” And, he added, “Strangely enough, there was no evidence in this case by any of the parties that the ship’s emblem had been taken down from its staff.”  In short, “the record in this case, furthermore, is barren of any proof under the common law or the statute of any of the elements constituting unlawful assembly.” Brodsky then wrote at length on the long standing “right of people to meet in public places to discuss in open and public manner all question affecting their substantial welfare and to vent their grievances; to protest against oppression, political, economic or otherwise and to petition for the amelioration of their condition or correction of these abuses and to discuss ways and means of attaining those ends were rights vouchsafed them by the Magna Charter, the Petition of Rights and the Bill of Rights….” Furthermore, he added, “Our Federal constitution reaffirms this invaluable right of the people by declaring in Article 1 of its amendments….” So important is this right that “courts [have]guarded the right of assembly and protest” and denied it “only on rare occasions.” [46] In his decision ,  Magistrate Brodsky discussed at length the lack of proof supporting the allegation of unlawful assembly. And he cited several cases as precedent.  Furthermore, he wrote, “There is no authority for the proposition that persons are assembled lawfully, such an assemblage was unlawful merely because of other persons looking on think that assembly may lead to a breach of the peace.”  In short, Brodsky found no evidence in this case to support that allegation. He concluded that “there is no evidence of such elements in the case before me….” [47] In this case, Brodsky wrote, “I am dealing with a criminal offense where nothing must be left to guess or conjecture, but where all the elements constituting the crime must be proven by satisfactory evidence.”  And he emphasized “that neither the preconceived or common design to commit or the purpose of committing what is claimed here constituted the unlawful assembly was presented for my consideration by the People.” He concluded that the charge against the defendants of unlawful assembly “has not been prima facie sustained by the evidence presented, and I accordingly dismiss the complaint and discharge the defendants.”  Only the charge against Edward Drolette, who assaulted Officer Solomon “with metal knuckles,” was upheld.  He was convicted under Section 1897 of the Penal Law. [48]   Germany Reacts to Judge Brodsky’s Decision: “violent and offensive utterances” In the German press, the reactions to Judge Brodsky’s decision focused on his terming the swastika flag, the emblem of the Nazi Party and the new Germany, “the black flag of piracy." The response was immediate, fierce, and widespread. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, wrote in his diary, "Judge Brondski [sic] in New York has insulted the German national flag. I sicced the press on it. [The press] is foaming at the mouth with anger.” [49] Local newspapers picked up the story throughout Germany and echoed Goebbels’ reaction.  The Sachischer Erzähler headlined an article with: “New York Jewish Judge Insults the German Flag” in its September 9th, 1935, edition. It reported the release of the “communist flag desecrators” and quoted at length from the decision. The same issue was written in the newspaper about “the Protest of the German Ambassador” in the court’s verdict. Other newspapers carried accounts of Brodsky’s decision, including excerpts, and they voiced their outrage. The press reported that even New Yorkers condemned the judge’s actions, citing quotes from The New York Times  and The New York Herald Tribune . Often cited was a lead article in the Herald Tribune  that asserted:  “We’ll lose respect for our flag abroad if officials in our own country can use their position as ‘soap box orators’…from which they disrespect the flags of other nations.” [50] In cities throughout the Reich, the press continued its condemnation of the decision of Magistrate Brodsky and voiced outrage over the “slandering of Germany,” his calling Bremen a pirate ship.”  In Berlin, Reich Ministry of Justice Hans Frank addressed an assembly of legal community leaders. He told them: “Judge Brodsky is a Jew and Jews cannot insult our flag or our National Socialist Germany in any fashion.” A daily newspaper in Hamburg carried the headline “German Protest Against the Disgraceful Verdict.” The headline said, “We won’t permit our Volk and flag to be insulted.” [51] Condemnation came from regional newspapers. The Hamburger Tageblatt  ran on its front page a long article headlined “Shameful Verdict in New York!!  Judge Louis Brodsky Insults Our People [Volk] and Our Flag.” Harsh in its condemnation of Brodsky, the article cautioned that “Louis Brodsky is not America, and his ruling is not the ruling of the American people.  That we have to make clear. However, Louis Brodsky is an American judge and issues ‘legal verdicts’ in the name of the American people.” The article asserted that “the American people should, however, know that we don’t equate them with Louis Brodsky.” For “the bonds of friendship and understanding” remain strong. And “we know that all honest Americans feel a deep shame with this verdict.” [52]  The following day the headline in the Hamburger Tageblatt  read: “The German Protest Against the Shameful Verdict:  We Will Not Allow Our People and Our Flag to be Insulted.” The article reported that on Saturday evening in Washington, the German Ambassador presented Secretary of State Hull “the formal protest of the Reich government against the exhortations of the New York judge Brodsky who in his decision in the trial involving the assault on the ‘Bremen’ permitted himself to refer to the German Reich’s flag as ‘a pirate flag,’ that any riff-raff can insult with impunity.” Furthermore, Brodsky used his courtroom, it noted, “to issue an outrageous judgement, characterized by stupidity and an inexcusable deliberate attack on the German spirit and laws and at the end [he] set free the band of flag damagers.” The journalist continued his attack on Brodsky and termed him “not a typical American,” but one who “uses his position…to attack peaceful diplomatic relations…” [53] The attacks on Magistrate Brodsky continued. In its September 8th edition, the Hamburger Tageblatt announced on the front page, “Brodsky is a Jew! ” The article stated that “the speculation that the New York magistrate Louis Brodsky is a Jew is now confirmed.” The same edition announced that “New York is Outraged over Brodsky,” that “two big newspapers condemn the outrageous verdict.” [54] On the diplomatic front, Magistrate Brodsky’s decision prompted formal complaints from the German government. Already on Saturday, September 7th, German Ambassador Hans Luther went personally to the office of Secretary of State Cordell Hull to make the outrage of his government very clear. “It was his duty to make earnest complaint about the violent and offensive utterances of a New York City judge relative to the German flag,” Secretary Hull noted in a memorandum on the conversation. The ambassador requested that the American government “deal with that situation.” He again emphasized the “very offensive and serious nature of the utterances of this judge and the importance of satisfactory relations between our two Governments.” The United States needed to show “more concern than heretofore in similar circumstances.” In response, Hull explained to the Ambassador that he “had not had a chance to assemble officially the full and accurate facts of the reported occurrence,” but he would “be glad to proceed at once to do so through the Governor of New York.” Hull clarified that his office had little control over the local municipalities. [55] On September 14th, Secretary of State Hull stated to the press on the “Bremen” incident and specifically the “recent protest of the German Ambassador in connection with the decision” of the case of those who removed “the German flag from the bow of the S.S. Bremen  on July 26….” Hull noted that the accused were charged under “the penal law of New York, prohibiting unlawful assemblies.” Furthermore, the court's decision, whose “correctness of which the Department cannot undertake to pass…did not support the charge of unlawful assembly, dismissed the complaint.” Hull then shifted to the heart of the complaint coming from the German Ambassador, namely “the statements made by the magistrate in rendering his decision, which that Government interprets as an unwarranted reflection upon it.” The judge’s opinion, Hull continued, was “so worded…as to give the reasonable and definite impression that he was going out of his way adversely to criticize the German Government,” criticism that was “not a relevant or legitimate part of his judicial decision.” Hull cautioned that while “State and municipal officials are not instrumentalities of the Federal Government” and therefore exercised no control over them, he stated that “an official having no responsibility for maintaining relations between the United States and other countries should, regardless of what he may personally think of the laws and policies of other governments, thus indulge in expression s offensive to another government with which we have official relations.” [56] A week later, Rudolf Leitner, Counsellor of the German Embassy in Washington, met with Secretary Hull. Hull, after summarizing his previous statement to the press and “getting entirely away from this transaction, and speaking entirely individually and informally to the Counsellor,” told Leitner, “we had many millions of…Catholics in this country and some four millions of Jews equally patriotic,” as Hull singled out the two groups recently under attack in Germany. Furthermore, he wished “to emphasize and to repeat that so long as wild news reports about serious and violent controversy continued to come out of Germany, regardless of what was actually and in truth happening in Germany, the German Government must realize our extreme difficulty in dealing with many individuals who here were disposed to reply or in retaliation to indulge in violent and critical language and other intemperate expressions….” Hull concluded by telling the diplomat that the German government could be “helpful in our extremely difficult…situation in this respect by cooperating to prevent the wild news reports to which I was referring.” In other words, if Germany had toned down its repression of Jews and, more recently, of Catholics, the United States would not have faced such protests as occurred recently on the SS Bremen. [57]   Reactions to Judge Brodsky’s decision in the American press In America, the press carried accounts of Judge Brodsky’s decision and the protests of German diplomats.  A headline in the New York Times  called the verdict “Brodsky’s Swastika Slur.”  The lengthy article summarized the meeting in Washington between American and German diplomats. By then, Judge Brodsky “considered the case closed” and “declined to comment on the official German protest.” The New York press was largely critical of Magistrate Brodsky, and its coverage focused on his remarks and not the legal arguments. The editor of The American Jewish World wrote, “No one quarrels with Magistrate Brodsky’s dismissal of the five anti-Nazis.  The real bone of contention is his language in rendering his verdict. “To be sure, protests from the German government were to be expected, “and that Nazis here and abroad would utilize Brodsky's ringing indictment for the renewed tirades….”  The editor continued, “What was not expected, however, was the criticism in the American press which accuses Brodsky of having committed a serious indiscretion that opens the way for a new diplomatic protest by the Nazi regime.” Furthermore, the anti-Nazi remarks by the Governors of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and a Senator from Utah that “vigorously condemned Nazi barbarism they were giving expression to American abhorrence of racial and religious persecution.” The sharp distinction, he added, between the reactions to these comments came, perhaps, because Brodsky is a Jew. [58] The New York City-based weekly The Commonweal, the nation's oldest Catholic journal of opinion, was especially critical. The September 20th, 1935, issue carried a lengthy editorial questioning Magistrate Brodsky’s legal reasoning.  While the charge against the six accused was that of “unlawful assembly,” the editor wrote, “there appeared to be doubt” about five of the accused, whether “they had been caught in the act,” that is, scuffled with police aboard the Bremen . He wrote that “the court might have stressed” in its decision. Brodsky “raised another question,” the editor continued, namely “how could one speak of ‘unlawful assembly’…when the sensibilities of American citizens are wounded by the sight of a flag which denies their most cherished liberties? To the accused,” Brodsky wrote in his decision, “the swastika emblem was nothing less than the ‘black flag of piracy’ proudly flying aloft.” To the editor, “it is evident that in this whole matter the law was the last thing that interested Magistrate Brodsky.” And he added that Brodsky, “I was tickled pink by an open and honest assault upon a national symbol which to him, a good and upright Jew, signifies all that hatred and intolerance have to offer.” The editor also blasted the protestors arrested as not “American citizens defending their principles from attack, but Communists out to wage war on the hated emblem of Fascist domination.”  Lastly, he asserted that the publicity simply called “attention to an act of Jewish reprisal which is, from the legal point of view, indefensible.” Such acts, he concluded, simply stirred more antisemitism. [59]   The Reichs Flag Law, September 15, 1935. The Swastika becomes the German national flag On September 9th, Reich Propaganda Minister Goebbels wrote of the German response to the incident on the Bremen and the decision of the New York City court. “Our answer, in Nuremberg [at the annual Nazi Party rally], the Reichstag meets and declares the Swastika flag the sole national flag. [Hitler] is in full gear.” [Führer ganz gross in Fahrt.] On September 12th, Hitler addressed the rally and announced three new laws. The first, “The Reich Flag Law of September 14, 1935,” stated that “The Reichstag has unanimously concluded the following law and hereby announces: Article 1. The Reich colors are black, white, and red.  Article 2, the Reich and national flag is the swastika flag. It is the flag of commerce as well.  Article 3, the Führer and Reichs Chancellor determines the shape of the Reich War Flag and the Reich Service Flag.” And lastly, “this law takes effect on the day following its declaration.”. The second law announced that day, the Reich Citizenship Law, and the third, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, are better known.  The new laws, decreed by Hitler, were reported on throughout the Reich. [60] Abroad, the measures attracted attention. The first of the new laws, approved in advance by Hitler, Time magazine wrote, “ended the clumsy arrangement under which the German tricolor and the Nazi swastika had been flown together as national flags.  Henceforth, Germany’s sole flag is the swastika.” Throughout the uproar following the incident aboard the SS Bremen,  the swastika flag that was targeted by the protestors was discussed in the press as if it were the German national flag and its significance.  In a lengthy article, The Catholic Transcript offered a brief history of the swastika and tri ed to make sense of why this symbol was adopted by the Reich as the official flag. Yet, as a reader of The New York Times commented in an August letter to the Editor, “the swastika is not the German flag, which is the old imperial flag restored to life by the present Reich Government in the place of the despised flag of the Weimar Republic,” the black-red-gold flag. “The swastika is nothing but the emblem of a political party.” That, however, mattered little to German officials. Hermann Göring, the powerful Minister without Portfolio in the new government, told the crowd at the Nuremberg rally that “It [the swastika] is the anti-Jewish symbol of the world,” and he continued, “the swastika has become for us a holy symbol.” That “completely answered a Jewish judge in Manhattan named Brodsky who recently called the swastika a ‘pirate flag,' commented a journalist in the Times . [61]   The Black Flag of Piracy: oppositional groups in America mobilize Across the nation, the judgment in the case of the Bremen 6 gave new momentum to organizations opposing Hitler’s Germany and its repressive policies against political opponents. These groups often quoted Magistrate Brodsky’s terming the swastika “the black flag of privacy” and his assertion “that the flying of this emblem in New York harbor was, rightly or wrongly, regarded by these defendants and others of our citizenry, as a gratuitously brazen flaunting of an emblem, which symbolizes all that is antithetical to American ideals of the God-given and inalienable rights of all peoples to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Though a subtext in his decision, these words fired up both the press in the Reich and opponents of the Hitler regime in America. Both used it to rally support and to focus attention. Now, for opponents in the United States, there was a local issue, the Bremen 6, and a native son, Lawrence Simpson, to focus on. Also, opponents of the Hitler regime worked quickly to focus attention on and rally support for these two issues. In America, the International Labor Defense, established in 1935 to provide legal aid to what it saw as victims of a class-based legal system, led the charge.  It had been an unrelenting advocate for the incarcerated leader of the German Communist Party, Ernst Thaelmann. [62]   While Brodsky and the wording of his decision were widely criticized, particularly his terming the swastika flag as the flag of piracy, the New York City-based International Labor Defense worked to keep the case of Lawrence Simpson, the young American sailor arrested and taken off his ship in Hamburg, before the public. ILD rallied support for Simpson, and already in late September 1935, its New York office published and distributed a 16-page booklet on the case.  Written by Mike Walsh, The Black Flag of Piracy  is a strong statement and a powerful condemnation of both the inaction of the State Department in Washington and the escalating repression in Germany. It begins with an account of three Gestapo agents boarding Lawrence Simpson’s ship as it approached Hamburg. “They knew what they were after,” and went to his quarters, “broke open his locker.” They found and seized “anti-Nazi literature, a cigarette-paper box of stickers such as are commonly distributed by the hundreds of thousands in the United States by enemies of fascist tyranny.” When the ship docked, Simpson was hustled off, “kidnapped,” Walsh wrote, “in violation of international law.” Simpson then “disappeared…into one of the many torture chambers for which Nazi Germany has become infamous the world over.” [63] In the months that followed the session in Magistrate Brodsky’s courtroom, tensions between the United States and Germany remained high. Across America, opponents of the Hitler regime stepped up their activities and directed much of their efforts toward securing the release of the imprisoned American sailor Lawrence Simpson. His ongoing incarceration and the lack of formal charges served as a practical rallying point for opponents of the Hitler regime. For here was a young American citizen held for more than a year in a concentration camp before charges were filed. In addition, protests and actions against the flying of the Nazi flag, the Swastika, persisted. A headline in the July 18, 1936, edition of the New York newspaper Der Arbeiter warned, “Do the Nazis Want a Second ‘Bremen’ Incident?” The article referred explicitly to the ongoing incarceration of Lawrence Simpson and his upcoming trial. “Simpson faces a long sentence if America does not act,” the article stated. Despite a meeting of Anna Dannon, Director of Red Aid (Rote Hilfe), and Ernst Fox, head of the Simpson Defense Committee in Seattle, with the Chief of the West European Division of the State Department in Washington, James Clement Dunn, who promised to do something to gain Simpson’s release, “nothing has been done to this day.” The article continued: “Only massive pressure on Dunn can the State Department under Hull be moved to save Simpson from the Fascist blood court.” It urged that the resolution of every assembly calling for the release of Simpson be sent to Washington. “Should there be a second ‘Bremen’ incident to move the Nazis and the State Department to listen to the demands of hundreds of thousands of anti-Fascists?,” Dannon cautioned. To prevent such an incident, police presence at the docks was strengthened significantly for the subsequent scheduled visits of the Bremen  to New York City. For the August 13th departure, a detail of 100 police, 50 detectives, and 22 mounted police “protected the pier…till the ship sailed.” On board the Bremen  were 60 of the company’s police. [64] In Berlin, the threat of another ‘Bremen incident’ gained the attention of Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo. In a September 19th memorandum to the Foreign Office, Müller referenced the New York newspaper Der Arbeiter article. Müller summarized and quoted from the article, its warning of a “second ‘Bremen’ incident.” He urged the Foreign Ministry to be alert to these warnings, particularly because the crew of the Bremen  had recently learned that “a new action against a German vessel was planned,” for such an action had already been announced in a New York newspaper. Müller urged the Foreign Office to contact the representatives in New York City and ensure they contact the New York City police.  “For these reasons, the New York police officials should take special measures regarding the arrival and departure of German vessels,” Mueller cautioned. [65]  There were, however, no further protests aboard German liners in New York Harbor.  But workers refused to offload German vessels at harbors on the east and west coasts. The animosity among laborers toward the Hitler regime remained strong. Berlin used the protest aboard the Bremen  to shift attention away from the repression throughout the country.  In late July, the Hamburger Tageblatt, one of the city’s daily newspapers and widely read, carried a headline announcing “American Communists Plan New Disturbances in New York.” A week later, the headline read “New Acts of Terror Against German Ships Announced.” Newspapers across Germany carried similar stories which aided Berlin in terming its wave of repression as defensive measures necessary in a hostile world where Communists block shipping and assault the national symbol, the swastika flag. [66]   The hastily organized and improvised action on board the SS Bremen  in New York harbor came as a result of the wave of arrests and imprisonment of labor activists in Germany, a time when the regime also intensified its attacks on the Catholic church. Throughout 1935, the Gestapo in several German cities made arrests to decimate the working-class opposition fully. These hit many of the bigger cities of the Reich, including Hamburg and Bremerhaven, the homeport of the SS Bremen.  The Catholic Church, a few of whose leaders had cautiously spoken out against specific polices of the regime, was also targeted. Now, in September 1935, arrests of priests across the Reich followed, as the regime’s repression of the church intensified. Some clergymen, it was reported in America, were accused of having made critical remarks from the pulpit about measures of the Nazi government.” [67]  As news of the expanding repression reached America, activists and anti-Nazi organizations such as the International Labor Defense, the Anti-Nazi League, the National Committee for Defense of Political Prisoners, the International Seamen’s Union, and the American Civil Liberties Union stepped up their activities. They organized letter-writing campaigns and demonstrations at German consulates. In addition, “demonstrations against the flying of the swastika” continued to be reported across America. On July 26th, 1936, a German Day Festival in Milwaukee, for example, police arrested “two anti-Nazi German-Americans” after a demonstration “during which the Nazi symbol was torn down and trampled upon.” [68] These groups gained further incentive to act as the news of the arrest in Hamburg of a young American sailor, Lawrence Simpson, spread across the nation. Simpson, a member of the International Seamen’s Union and the Communist Party, had for more than a year smuggled anti-Nazi publications, stickers, and materials for the local Communist Party into Hamburg.  Now, across America ,  the public had a figure, one of their own, to rally for, to express their opposition to the repressions of the regime in Berlin. The protest aboard the Bremen  on July 26th came a month after the arrest of Simpson and was a direct response to that.  While the demonstration and the ensuing criminal case gained widespread publicity, it did little to affect the release of Simpson. He remained incarcerated in the Fühlsbuttel Concentration Camp near Hamburg until the spring of 1936. Then, Simpson was taken to Berlin’s Moabit prison in anticipation of his trial before the dreaded Volksgerichtshof . On September 28, 1936, well over a year after his arrest and the action aboard the SS Bremen,  Simpson had a brief court appearance; it lasted less than half a day. The court adjourned and returned to announce its verdict – guilty.  He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. [69]  After further protests in the United States, which pressured the State Department to act on his behalf, and after Simpson’s appeal to Hitler, he was ordered released.  Lawrence Simpson arrived back in New York on January 1, 1937, greeted warmly by those who had protested against the Nazi oppression of the Catholic church, Jews, those in the labor movement, and those who had acted on July 26, 1935, aboard the SS Bremen . In America, the battle against Hitler and his regime of terror continued to grow. [70] About the author: Since 2010, Robert Waite is the Gasthistoriker at the German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin. He spends part of the year in upstate New York. Sources [1]  "Die größten deutschen Schiffe, Düsseldorfer Stadt-Anzeiger Nummer 227 (August 16, 1928). [2]  “Aus der Gesellschafts-Halle des Dampfers ‘Bremen’, ” Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 65(1929-1930).  “Passengers Praise Luxury of Bremen,” New York Times  (July 23, 1929). “Thousands To See Bremen,” New York Times (July 20, 1929).  “100th Round Trip” New York Times  (July 29, 1935).  Peter Duffy, The Agitator:  William Bailey and the First American Uprising Against Nazism  (New York, 2019), pp. 26-29.  James Q. Whitman,  Hitler’s American Mode l (Princeton, N.J. 2017), pp. 18-26. [3]  “Ship Line Defends Itself,” New York Times (July 31, 1935).  “Reds Rip Flag Off Bremen, Throw It Into Hudson; 2,000 Battle the Police; Many Hurt in Wild Melee,” New York Times (July 27, 1935).  Bill Bailey, The Kid from Hoboken.  An Autobiography (San Francisco, 1993), pp. 257-258. [4]  “Reds Rip Flag Off Bremen, Throw It Into Hudson.” “Großschlacht im Hafenviertel,” Dortmunder Zeitung  (July 29, 1935).  Duffy,  The Agitator , pp. 120-123. [5]  “Der Ueberfall auf die ‘Bremen’”, Dortmunder  Zeitung  Nr. 346 Juli 29, 1935. ”Storm Of Indignation Follows Red Attack On Nazi Flag In New York,” The China Press (July 29, 1935). “Respect for National Flag,” American Journal of International Law 29(1936), pp. 662-663. [6]  “Freedom for Sailor Kidnapped from Ship By Nazis Demanded,” 4 (August 15, 1935).  “Neue Terrorakte Gegen deutsche Schiffe angekündigt,“ Hamburger Tageblatt Nr. 214(August 8, 1935).  Bailey,  Kid from Hoboken , p. 258.  [7]  “Germany, “Labor Defender (July 1935), p. 16. [8]  “Neue Terrorakte gegen Deutsche Schiffe,“ Hamburger Tageblatt Nr. 214 (August 8, 1935). [9]  Mike Walsh, The Black Flag of Piracy (New York:  International Labor Defense, September 1935), pp. 3-5.  “Neue Terrorakte gegen deutsche Schiffe angekündigt,” Hamburger Tageblatt , Nr. 214 (August 8, 1935). [10]   Police Department, city of New York, From:  Commanding Officer, Third Division, To:  The Police Commissioner, Subject:  Disturbance at Sailing of S.S.  Bremen  from Pier 86N.R.,” in:  State of New York Public Papers of Herbert H. Lehman, Second Term 1935 (Albany, 1938). p. 710.  [11]  “Reds Rip Flag Off Bremen, Threw It Into Hudson.”  [12]   “CATHOLICS of NEW YORK.  PROTEST NAZI TERROR,” National Archive and Records Administration [NARA], Record Group 50, Department of State, Decimal File 1930-39, Box 6763. “Catholics of New York, Enclosure 2,” in:  The Department of State, Press Releases Vol. XIII (August 3, 1935), pp. 104. [13]  “Demonstrators Condemn ‘Religious Persecution’,” New York Times  (July 27, 1935).  “Catholics of New York,” in:  “Bremen’ Incident,”  “Police Reports in Connection with Bremen Incident, Police Department…July 27, 1935; and “Police Department, City of New York, Third Division, July 29th, 1935, Subject:  Disturbance at sailing of S.S.  Bremen from Pier 86 N.R.,” in:   Public Papers of Herbert H. Lehman, Forty-Ninth Governor of the State of New York, Second Term 1935 (Albany:  J.B. Lyon Company, 1938), p. 708-10. [14]  “Reds Rip Flag Off Bremen, Threw It Into Hudson; 2,000 Battle Police,” New York Times (July 27, 1935).  “Riot In New York At German Ship Bremen,” Forward (July 28, 1935). [15]  Police Department City of New York, July 29th, 1935.  From:  Commanding Officer, Criminal Alien Bureau, To:  the Chief Inspector, Subject:  COMMUNIST DISTURBANCE AT PIER #86 , NORTH RIVER, NARA, Record Group 50, Department of State, Decimal File 1930-39, Box 6763.  “Riot In New York At German Ship Bremen,” Forward (July 28, 1935).  “Reds Rip Flag Off Bremen, Threw It Into Hudson.”  “Riot In New York At German Ship Bremen,” Forward (July 28, 1935). [16]  Police Department City of New York, July 29th, 1935.  COMMUNIST DISTURBANCE AT PIER #86 , Police Reports in Connection with Bremen Incident.  Police Department…July 27, 1935,” p. 2.  “Riot In New York At German Ship.”  “Bremen Demonstration Is Turned Into Riot By Police Tactics,” The Catholic Worker Volume 3, No. 4 (September 1, 1935). Walsh, Black Flag of Piracy, pp. 5-6.  Daniel Czitrom, “’Who the hell worked out a plan like that?’  New Light on the 1935 Bremen Riot,” The Volunteer (February 27, 2018).  “Reds Rip Flag Off Bremen, Throw It Into Hudson; 2,000 Battle the Police.” [17]  “Police Department City of New York, July 29th, 1935.  COMMUNIST DISTURBANCE AT PIER #86 , Police Reports in Connection with Bremen Incident.  Police Department…July 27, 1935,” p. 3.  “Police Ascribe Bremen Riot To Line’s Laxity,” New York Herald Tribune  (July 28, 1935). [18]  “Nazi Flag Downed By Militant Stevedore,” Western Worker  3(March 5, 1934).  “Swastika Torn Down In a Milwaukee Riot,” New York Times  (July 27, 1935), and “Swastika Torn Off Mast In Milwaukee Picnic Riot,” New York Herald  Tribune (July 27, 1935). [19]  „Berlin Is Angered By Ship Riot Here,” New York Times (July 28, 1935).  “The Bremen Incident,” New York  Times  (July 28, 1935). [20]  “Riot In New York At German Ship Bremen; Swastika Torn Down And Thrown Into Hudson River,” Forward (July 28, 1935).  George Grafton Wilson, “Respect for National Flag,” The American Journal of International Law 29(October 1935), pp. 662-663. [21]  "Berlin Is Angered By Ship Riot Here,” New York Times  (July 28, 1935).  “[Enclosure 3], Police Department, City of New York, July 29th, 1935, Subject:  Communist disturbance at Pier No. 86, North River,” in:  The Department of State Press Releases, Vo. XIII (August 3, 1935), p. 105.  “Nazi Press Is Wrathful,” New York Times  (July 29, 1935).  “Nazis Call Halt In Drive Against Jews, Catholics, “Washington  Post  (July 30, 1935).  “Ship Line Retorts,” New York Times  (July 31, 1935). [22]  “Nazi Foes in City Draw Up Program,” New York Times  (July 30, 1935). [23]  “Weitere Herausforderung,” Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten  Nr. 125(July 30, 1935).  [24]  “ TELEGRAM RECEIVED, Albany, New York August 1, 1935, William Phillips, Action, Washington, D.C…Herbert H. Lehman,” National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NARA), Record Group 50, Department of State, Decimal File 1930-39, Box 6763.  Confidential Press Conference #225 , Executive Offices of the White House, July 31, 1935, in:  Press Conferences of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945. FDR Presidential Library and Museum, Series 1, Press Conference Transcripts, p. 65. [25]  “Nazi Press Is Wrathful.” “Amerikas Kommunisten plannen.  Neue Unruhen in New York,“ Hamburger Tageblatt , Nr. 204 (July 29, 1935).  „Neue Terrorakte gegen deutsche Schiffe angekündigt“, Hamburger Tageblatt Nr. 214 (August 8, 1935). „Dr. Goebbels an die Besatzung der ‚Bremen‘, Dortmunder Zeitung, Nr. 346 (July 29, 1935); Hamburger Fremdenblatt  (July 29, 1935); and Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten , Nr. 125 (July 30, 1935). [26]   Deutsche Botschaft,  Washington D.C., den 29. Juli 1935, Herr Unterstaatssekretaer:,” NARA, Record Group 50, Department of State, Decimal File 1930-39, Box 6763.  The German Charge’ (Leitner) to the Under Secretary of State (Phillips), Washington, July 29, 1935; Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Western European Affairs (Dunn), [Washington,] July 29, 1935, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1935, p. 484. [27]   August 1, 1936, Herr Rudolf Leitmer, August 1, 1936, NARA, Record Group 50, Department of State, Decimal File 1930-39, Box 6763; and Herr Rudolf Leitner, Chargė d’Affaires Sir:  ’Bremen’ Incident’ …texts of notes exchanged between Chargė d’Affaires of Germany…and…William Phillips, regarding the flag incident aboard the S.S.  Bremen ,” in:  Department of State, Press Releases Vol. XIII (August 3, 1935), pp. 100-101. [28]  "Reich Anger Rises On Ship Riot Here.  Semi-Official Publication Takes Washington to Task and It Denounces Foreign Press,” New York Times (July 30, 1935).  “Deutschland wartet auf Genugtuung”, Dortmunder Zeitung Nr. 346(July 29, 1935).  “Deutschland wartet auf Genugtuung,“ Hamburger Fremdenblatt  Nr.208 (July 29, 1935).  David M. Esposito and Jackie R. Esposito, “LaGuardia and the Nazis, 1933-193,” American Jewish History 71(September 1933), pp. 38-53. [29]  “Frick Blames N.Y. Jews For Bremen Affair,” The China Press  (August 5, 1935).  “Bremen Episode Laid To Moscow,” Daily Boston Globe  (July 29, 1935). [30]   City of New York Office of the Mayor, July 30, 1935, Honorable Cordell Hull; and Police Department City of New York, Third Division, July 29th, 1935, From:  Commanding Officer, Third Division, To The Police Commissioner (DIRECT), Subject:  DISTURBANCE AT SAILING OF S.S. BREMEN FROM PIER 86 N.R., NARA, Record Group 50, Department of State, Decimal File 1930-39, Box 6763.  “Governor Lehman Receives Communication from Acting Secretary of State Regarding Demonstration Occurring on German Steamer Bremen, Department of State, July 30, 1935,” in:  Public Papers of Herbert H. Lehman, 1935, p. 707. [31]  Ibid.  “U.S. Drafts Reply Toi Berlin Protest,” New York Times  (August 1, 1935). [32]  “U.S. Defends City in Bremen Rioting,” and “Enclosures:  Report of the New York Police Department, July 29, 1935.”  “Text of Police Department’s Report on the Bremen Riot,” New York Times  (August 2, 1935).  “Mayor LaGuardia Replies to Governor Lehman Enclosing Police Reports on Bremen Incident submitted by Him to Department of State,” August 5, 1935, and “Police Reports in Connection with Bremen Incident,” July 27, 1935,” Public Papers of Herbert H. Lehman, 1935, pp. 708-715. [33]  “U.S. Drafts Reply to Berlin Protest,” New York Times  (August 1, 1935).  [34]  “Bremen Incident. U.S. reply to Germany Not an Apology,” South China Morning Post (August 1, 1935). [35]  Bertram D. Hulen, “Nazis Trouble Washington, “New York Times  (August 4, 1935). [36]   LaGuardia and Wagner Archives LaGuardia Community College, Roll 140, Frames 1613ff. [37]  „Aid for Riot Prisoner Asked,” New York Times (August 6, 1935).  “Seamen Continue Anti-Nazi Protest.  Four Seized in Bremen Riot Hold American Crews Resent Sailor’s Arrest in Hamburg,” New York Times  (August 7, 1935).  “Bremen Demonstration Is Turned Into Riot By Police Tactics.” [38]  “Anti-Nazi Hearing Put Off.  Case of Six Men Delayed After Marcantonio Sends Request,” New York Times (August 15, 1935).  Marcantonio to Aid Defense of ‘Bremen 6’ at Trial Monday,” Daily Worker Vol. XII(August 15, 1935).  On the career of Marcantonio, see Gerald Meyer, Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician, 1902-1954 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 24, passim. [39]  “Bremen Rioters Cheered by 20,000,” New York Times (August 9, 1935).  “Crowd at West Side Court Boos as 7 Are Arraigned,” New York Herald Tribune (August 8, 1935). [40]  On Brodsky, see Duffy, The Agitator , pp. 151-124. “Noisy Session Opens Bremen Riot Trial,” New York Times (August 24, 1935). [41]  “Riot Hearing Put Off, “New York Times  (August 29, 1935). [42]  “Bremen Riot Case Heard, “New York Times  (September 5,1935). [43]  People of the State of New York vs. Arthur Blair William Bailey Vincent Mc Cormack William Howe George Blackwell Edward Drolette, Before:  Hon Louis B. Brodsky City Magistrate, NARA, RG 59, Department of State Decimal File 1930-39, Box 6763, pp. 1-2; and NARA, RG 59, Department of State Decimal File 1930-39, Box 6787.  Duffy, The Agitator, pp. 170-175.  [44]  People of State of New York vs. Arthur Blair et. al., pp. 1-2.  Whitman,  Hitler’s American Model , p. 25-26. [45]  People of State of New York vs. Arthur Blair et. al., pp. 3-4. [46]  Ibid., pp. 5-6. [47]  Ibid, pp. 6-8. [48]  Ibid., pp. 9-11. „The Bremen Six,” International Judicial Association Monthly Bulletin, Vol. 4 (September 1935), pp. 1-2.  “Nazis Dealt Stinging Rebuke As Judge Frees Flag Rioters,” Washington Post (September 7, 1935). [49]  „9. September 1935,“ Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, Band 3/1, April 1934-Februar 1936 (Munich:  K.G. Saur, 2005), p. 289-290. [50]  “Newyorker jüdischer Richter beleidigt die deutsche Flagge.  Freispruch für kommunistischen Flaggenschänder;“ "Neuyorker verurteilen das Verhalten des Richters Brodsky.,“ Der saechsische Erzähler (September 9, 1935). [51]  “Protestsitzung der deutschen Rechtswahrer,” General-Anzeiger für Bonn und Umgegend 46 (September 9, 1935).  “Der deutsche Protest Gegen das Schandurteil,” Hamburger Tageblatt Nr. 245 (September 8, 1935).  “Flaggenschänder freigesprochen.  Schandurteil in New York!!  Richter Louis Brodsky beleidigt unser Volk und unsere Flagge,“ Hamburger Tageblatt Nr. 244 (September 7, 1935).  See, for example, “Was ein New Yorker Richter russischer Herkunft zu sagen wagt.  Er beschimpft Deutschland und die Reichsflagge,“ “Protest der deutschen Juristen,“ and “Wer ist der Richter Brodsky?,“ Echo der Gegenwart Nr.209 (September 9, 1935); “Beschimpfung Deutschlands durch einen Newyorker Richter,“ and“ Protestsitzung der deutschen Rechtswahrer,“ General-Anzeiger für Bonn und Umgegend Nr. 15 331 (September 7/8, 1935). [52]  “Flaggenschänder freigesprochen.  Schandurteil in New York!!,“ Hamburger Tageblatt:  Zeitung der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei,  Nr. 244 (September 7, 1935). [53]  “Der deutsche Protest Gegen das Schandurteil.  Wir lassen unser Volk und unsere Fahne nicht beleidigen,“ Hamburger Tageblatt , Nr. 245 (September 8, 1935). [54]  “Brodsky ist – Jude!,” and “New York uber Brodsky empört,” Hamburger Tageblatt,  Nr. 246 (September 9, 1935).  “Eine schwere Schuld.  Newyorker verurteilen das Verhalten des Richters Brodsky,“ National-Zeitung  (Berleburg) Nr. 211 (September 10, 1935).   “‘Insult‘ Arouses Berlin.  Press Lashes At N.Y. Judge For Decision In Flag ‘Slur’,” Washington Post  (September 8, 1935). [55]  “Memorandum of Conversation Between Secretary Hull and the German Ambassador, Herr Hans Luther,” Department of State, Office of the Secretary, September 7, 1935, Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collection, Reel 29.  “Memorandum by the Secretary of State [Washington] September 7, 1935, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers 1935, 488-489. “Bremen Incident,” Department of State Press Releases, XIII (September 14, 1935), p. 196.  “Chronicle of International Events,” American Journal of International Law 30(1936), p. 135. “U.S. Receives Reich Protest On Brodsky’s Swastika Slur,” New York Times  (September 8, 1935).  “Brodsky’s Reference to German Flag Stirs Nazi Protest to State Dept., The American Jewish World, Vol. XXIV(September 13, 1935). [56]  BREMEN INCIDENT. Statement by the Secretary of State,” in:  The Department of State Press Releases, Vol. XIII (September 14, 1935), pp. 196-7.  “DEPARTMENT OF STATE  FOR THE PRESS  SEPTEMBER 15, 1935,” Library of Congress, Papers of Cordell Hull, reel 83. [57]  Memorandum of Conversation Between Secretary Hull and the Counsellor of the German Embassy, Herr Rudolf Leitner, S.S. BREMEN incident, Department of State Office of the Secretary, September 14, 1935, Library of Congress, Papers of Cordell Hull, reel 83. [58]  “U.S. Receives Reich Protest On Brodsky’s Swastika Slur,” New York Times (September 8, 1935).  “Brodsky’s References to German Flag Stirs Nazi Protest to State Department,” The American Jewish World,  XXIV(September 13, 1935).  Duffy, The Agitator, pp. 177-178. [59]  “Magistrate Brodsky Decides,” The Commonweal  XXII (September 1, 1935), p. 483. [60]   “Reichsflaggengesetz.  Vom 15. September 1935, Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt [RGBl], Teil 1, Nr. 100, p. 1145; „Reichsbürgergestez,“ RGBl, I, p. 1146; and “Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre,“ RGBl. I, pp. 1146-7.  Strafgesetzbuch Strafprozessordnung Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz (Berlin, 1935), p. 505.  Max Domarus, Hitler.  Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945, Volume I, 2nd Half-Volume 1935-1938 (Munich:  Süddeutscher Verlag, 1962). P. 534.  See, for example, “Die Beschlüsse des Reichstages,” Wilhelmsburger Zeitung , Nr. 216 (September 16, 1935). [61]   “Old and New,” The Catholic Transcript XXXVIII (September 19, 1935).  S.J. Rappoport, “To the Editor of The New York Times,” New York  Times (August 16, 1935).  “GERMANY.  Little Man, Big Doings,” Time (September 23, 1935), p. 43. [62]  “For the FIRST TIME Charges against THAELMANN,” Labor Defender  (July 1935), p. 10, 20.  Ernst Thaelmann, Fighter Against Fascism and War (New York, May 1935). [63]  Walsh,  The Black Flag of Piracy , p. 3. [64]   “Wollen die Nazis einen zweiten ‘Bremen‘-Fall?,“ Der Arbeiter  (New York City) (July 18, 1936). „Police Guard Bremen,“ New York Times (August 14, 1935). [65]  Politiisches Archiv Auswärtiges Amt, Berlin, R100267, Fiche Nr. 1, E494961-2, Preussische Geheime Staatspolizei, Berlin, 19. September 1936, Betr: Ausschnitt aus der New Yorker Zeitung ‚Der Arbeiter‘ vom 18.7.1936.  [66]  “Amerikas Kommunisten plannen Neue Unruhemn in New York,“ Hamburger Tageblatt Nr. 204 (July 29, 1935).  „Neue Terrorakte gegen Deutsche Schiffe angekündigt,” Hamburger Tageblatt  Nr. 214 (August 8, 1935). [67]  “Further Arrests of Priests Mark Nazi Persecution,” The Catholic Transcript  Vol. XXXVIII (|September 19, 1935). [68]  The Black Flag of Piracy, p. 4.  “Anti-Nazi Protest Flying of Swastika,” Press Service American League Against War and Fascism, July 31, 1936, Swarthmore Peace Collection. [69]  “Reich Convicts U.S. Sailor on Sedition Count,” in: Washington  Post  (September 29, 1936)  [70]   “Urteil”, Bundesarchiv Berlin, R3017/34484, Bd. 2, pp. 1-17.  “90 Cops ‚Greet‘ Simpson, Back From Nazi Jail,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (January 4, 1937).  “Simpson Returns From Nazi Prison.  Welcomed by Ship Strikers. He Signs Up Immediately for Picket Duty,” New York Times  (January 4, 1937).

by Stephen G. Eoannou Copyright ©2024. All rights reserved by the author Wikipedia: Publicity photo of Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger and Silver from a personal appearance booking at Pleasure Island (Massachusetts amusement park) , Wakefield, Massachusetts. Ninety years have passed since the radio listeners first asked, “Who was that masked man?” As the 90th anniversary of The Lone Ranger’s radio premiere is celebrated, an even more intriguing question about one of the most iconic and enduring characters to emerge from the early days of radio lingers: Who actually created him? Was it a struggling freelancer from Buffalo named Fran Striker? A wealthy Detroit radio station owner? Or did a team of writers create one of our most beloved and enduring heroes? Part of the conflict over the Ranger’s “parentage” is attributable to his enduring popularity: radio was just the start of his nine-decade gallop through American pop culture. The "Masked Man" conquered all media: television, movies, books, and comics. Even today, Ranger toys and giveaways remain highly collectible, and franchise reboots occur regularly. Many people were eager to claim the credit—and reap the benefits—from that long-lived success. Consider the Freelancer Francis Hamilton Striker, born in Buffalo, New York, on August 19, 1903, to Frank and Addie Striker, is one of the leading contenders for the title of the Ranger’s creator. By all accounts, Striker had a happy childhood, which he shared with his younger sister, Pauline. He showed a keen interest in reading and writing from an early age. He sold his first article and short story to a Buffalo newspaper when he was only twelve. But far from being a quiet, bookish child, Striker was gregarious and curious and created a scrapbook of membership cards from all the youth groups, church clubs, and science clubs he belonged to. At Lafayette High School, he ran track, played saxophone in the school band, and became interested in photography and science. After graduation, he attended the University of Buffalo and majored in Chemistry. In addition, he was active in theater and played the sax in various jazz bands. He also pledged multiple fraternities because, as he explained, each frat had such great guys he just couldn’t decide on one. University officials, of course, reprimanded him.  Striker’s True Vocation  Striker’s interest in the theater eventually surpassed his interest in Chemistry. Much to his parents’ dismay, Striker dropped out of college. He tried working at Woolworths and Pillsbury, but the theater kept calling him. He temporarily left Buffalo for New York City and was hired by The Harry Miller Production Company, a producer of live stage shows. There, Striker learned to direct, produce, and write scripts professionally. Back to Home Base  Buffalo remained Striker’s true home, and he returned to The Nickel City in 1928, intending to establish himself as a producer and director in Buffalo’s growing theater circle. But Striker always had a curious mind and soon found himself attracted to the exciting new world of radio. His writing and production experience in New York provided the entrée to that world and landed him a position with local station WEBR. The early days of broadcasting were heady and frantic with live productions, full in-studio orchestras, and station owners desperate to fill airtime. At WEBR, Striker wore many hats—director, announcer, sax player, news reporter, and, of course, scriptwriter.  Love and Success  Romance entered Striker’s life when he reconnected with Janet Gisel, someone he had known since childhood. As children, the two didn’t like each other very much. Things were quite different as adults. They dated and were married in April 1929. The following year, Striker was promoted to WEBR’s Station Manager, providing him with a more sharply defined role that enabled him to focus mainly on writing and directing live radio dramas. Striker flourished. He could write quickly and innovatively, pounding away at his Remington 16 typewriter for hours. About this time, Striker borrowed an idea from a New York City-based writer, Phillips Lord, and began offering his scripts to content-starved radio stations nationwide. This approach allowed him to sell a radio series several times in different markets. His fees ranged between two and six dollars per script, income that the newly married Striker desperately needed. Hard Times  The stock market crash had sent the nation reeling into a Depression that grew deeper as the months passed. In 1932, the unemployment rate in the United States was around twenty-four percent. Twelve million Americans were out of work, and over a quarter of a million families had lost their homes. The Strikers were not immune to these economic woes. By the time FDR was elected to his first presidential term in November 1932, Striker had supported a dozen family members who had lost everything since Black Monday, in addition to Fran and Janet’s first child born that same year. Striker was working and writing almost non-stop at WEBR and hawking his scripts across the country. He was under constant financial pressure to provide for his growing number of dependents. Enter George Trendle  One of the radio stations that bought scripts from Striker in 1932 was Detroit’s WXYZ, owned by George W. Trendle. Trendle was born in Ohio in 1884 and graduated from law school in 1908. He was very good at both contract law and negotiation. In addition, Trendle was an astute businessman drawn to the entertainment industry because of its potential profits. Before attending law school, he was an early investor in nickelodeons, the somewhat crude storefront theaters that continuously showed short films. Nickelodeons were the forerunners of the movie theaters and palaces that followed. They were not very reputable, sometimes considered dangerous by local authorities, and were associated with questionable characters. Physically, they were small, smoky, and furnished with uncomfortable wooden chairs. When longer motion pictures began to be produced, Trendle could see that the nickelodeons’ days were numbered. He was convinced that moviegoers would flock to larger, more comfortable venues to watch lengthier films and would gladly pay more for the luxury. And so, Trendle, together with a group of financial investors, built the Columbia Theater, the first large movie house in Detroit. It was an instant success. By 1928, Trendle owned twenty movie theaters. He sold them all for cash just before the 1929 stock market collapse. The Next Big Opp and the Last Word Trendle saw radio as the next big opportunity in entertainment investment. He envisioned potential profits from paid advertising and sponsored programming. And so he bought a Detroit radio station and a Columbia Broadcasting affiliate, WGHP, and changed the call letters to WXYZ, “The Last Word In Radio.” Not even Trendle could escape the Depression, however. He saw his other investments wiped out, and his net worth plummeted from three million to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  Always frugal, Trendle pinched every penny in his new radio venture and would eventually become known as “The Miser of Motown.” He kept two sets of books, using the phony one to show employees and potential hires that he couldn’t afford to pay much. He often threatened to fire anyone who wouldn’t take a pay cut. Since jobs were scarce, his radio station employees had no choice but to accept lower wages. Trendle dropped WXYZ’s affiliation with the Columbia Broadcasting System in another cost-cutting move. This meant that WXYZ could no longer access CBS’s nationally syndicated programming. Trendle sought cheaper productions, relying on local talent and freelancers to supply content. He purchased Striker’s Warner Lester radio series and was impressed with Striker’s storytelling abilities. By 1932, Striker was supplying Trendle with six half-hour scripts per week. In December of that year, Striker received a letter from the dramatic director of WXYZ asking if he would “… write up three or four wild west thrillers…including all the hokum of the masked rider, rustler, killer Pete, heroine on the train tracks, etc.” A New Hero Emerges Striker, now an expert in repurposing and reselling scripts, dug out the tenth episode of a series he wrote called Covered Wagon Days , which had aired two years earlier. He rewrote the episode and introduced a new hero: The Lone Ranger . As instructed, Striker produced a handful of Lone Ranger scripts. Over three weeks, letters and revisions were exchanged between Striker and the WXYZ creative team regarding these first Ranger episodes. Striker would revise as he saw fit, responding to feedback as any author would. On January 21, 1933, Striker received another letter from WXYZ, concluding, “I hope the above suggestions won’t cramp your style. I realize they have changed the character you created, but only in a minor way.” This letter, written before the first episode of The Lone Ranger aired, clearly acknowledges that Striker created The Lone Ranger . The Lone Ranger did not premiere on WXYZ. Instead, the pilot had a special test run on WEBR in Buffalo. Local radio actor John L. Barrett was the first to star as the "Masked Man." A few days later, The Lone Ranger debuted on WXYZ with George Stenius playing the lead role. The thirty-minute show ran on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights. The show did well from the start. Striker polished each script, taking special care with The Lone Ranger . He was paid four dollars an episode. Although The Lone Ranger was moved to the more coveted Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night slot, it failed to attract a national sponsor. Trendle, however, sensed that The Lone Ranger was special and could become a major money-maker. He continued to pursue sponsorship aggressively and finally signed Gordon Bakery as the show’s exclusive sponsor in November 1933. With Gordon’s backing, Trendle was able to syndicate the show. Throughout the winter, more radio stations tied into WXYZ’s broadcast. By the spring of 1934, The Lone Ranger was a national hit and on its way to becoming a cultural phenomenon.  A Double-Edged Offer  Trendle recognized that Striker’s talent and vision for The Lone Ranger drove its success. He was also aware of Striker’s growing responsibilities and financial burden in supporting his extended family. In May of 1934, Trendle offered Striker a full-time position writing exclusively for WXYZ for a salary representing more money than Striker had ever made. The contract also offered job security that would relieve the pressure he was under at home. However, there was a stipulation: Striker had to sell all rights to The Lone Ranger to Trendle for ten dollars. Striker was torn. He needed a reliable income to support his wife and two children, as well as his parents, grandparents, various aunts and uncles, and in-laws who were dependent upon him.  Striker had never signed away the rights to his work before, and the Masked Man’s potential seemed limitless. The Depression, however, was far from over. Because all the family members counted on him and the real possibility that more might soon need his help, he reluctantly signed the contract and sold the rights to Trendle. Striker had to relocate to Detroit in 1934 as part of the agreement. The Detroit newspapers announced this in an article identifying Striker as the “…creator and author of The Lone Ranger dramas.” A New Creed. Later, in 1934, Striker wrote “The Lone Ranger Creed,” a guide for the show’s young listeners on how to lead a virtuous life like their hero. By all accounts from family and friends, the Creed represented Striker’s own values. One of the Creed’s tenets states, “[That] man should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.” Perhaps this is the finest explanation of why Striker sold The Lone Ranger’ s rights for such a paltry sum. Yet, it must have been vexing for him to watch Trendle reap profits from all the Lone Ranger broadcasts, movies, comics, and toys. An Enduring Relationship If Striker was bitter, he never showed it. He continued to work for Trendle, further developing the Ranger character and creating two more classic series, The Green Hornet and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. To Trendle’s credit, he honored their original contract and employed Striker through the Depression, ensuring the well-being of Striker’s extended family. When the Depression ended, Striker asked Trendle for his first raise since signing their 1934 agreement. "The Miser of Motown" promptly fired him. However, the quality of all of Striker’s shows dropped so dramatically in his absence that Trendle’s sponsors forced him to rehire Striker—with a salary increase.  New Claims of Creatorship In the 1940s, Trendle began to allege in interviews and articles that he, not Striker, created the Lone Ranger character. A story also circulated that Striker wasn’t hired to work on the show until after the program had aired. Trendle continued to make these claims until he died in 1972. Even Trendle’s authorized biography written by Mary E. Bickel proclaims on the front cover that Trendle was “The creator and producer of The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Sergeant Preston of The Yukon … .” When asked in private who created The Lone Ranger, Striker shrugged and said that people in the radio business knew the truth. When asked in public, he answered that “only God creates.” Striker never confronted Trendle about the lie. He continued working for him until Trendle sold The Lone Ranger rights in 1954 to the Wrather Corporation for three million dollars, a record sale at the time. Striker’s Final Years After the sale, Striker returned to Buffalo and continued to write, focusing more on young adult action novels. He also taught creative writing classes at the University of Buffalo and the YMCA. Sadly, Striker did not live long enough to write his memoirs and tell his side of the Lone Ranger story: he was killed in a car crash in 1962. Credit Where It’s Due  There’s no doubt that Trendle and the WXYZ staff contributed to The Lone Ranger’s development with their suggested revisions. Trendle certainly had the resources and business acumen to take The Ranger to a national audience and market him in an unprecedented manner. The roots of The Lone Ranger , however, began with Striker’s Covered Wagon Days and continued throughout a career marked by his authorship of seven hundred Lone Ranger radio scripts, eighteen Ranger novels, and a dozen more young-adult books featuring the Masked Man. While Fran Striker never received the acclaim or riches he deserved in his lifetime, he must have been confident that recognition would eventually come. After all, the Lone Ranger Creed states that “truth alone lives on forever.” About the author: Stephen G. Eoannou is the author of the novel Yesteryear . Based on the life of Fran Striker, Yesteryear has been awarded the 2021 International Eyelands Award for Best Historical Novel, The Firebird Book Award for Biographical Fiction, Bookshelf’s ‘Must Read’ for 2023, and Shelf Unbound’s Notable Indy Books of 2023.

by Michael Mauro DeBonis Copyright ©2024 All rights reserved by the author "Give an old ghost what you love most in the form of a prayer. I was a sailor in the open air. I was a dream in a burning star. I am one without a care, sleeping with kelp and songs ajar." -April 17, 2024     About the Author:   Michael Mauro DeBonis is a poet and a historian from Long Island, New York.  A graduate of Suffolk County Community College (A.A. in Liberal Studies) and SUNY at Stony Brook (B.A. in English Literature), Michael's work first appeared in The Brookhaven Times Newspapers.    Michael's latest poetry and prose may be found in  The Lyric Magazine, The New York Almanack,  and  The New York History Review.   Mr. DeBonis is dedicated to studying and learning the history of the great State of New York.

by Harvey Strum Copyright © 2024 All rights reserved by the author. In preparation for war in 1812, Congress passed a ninety-day embargo on trade. When news of the embargo reached New York City on April 3, city residents showed “alarm, hustle, and confusion.” Merchant Jonathan Ogden observed, “a like confusion I have never seen.” Some fifty to one hundred ships hurriedly left port to evade the newly imposed law. Some left half empty, some with crews of two or three men, hurried out before customs officers could send cruisers to block escape through the Narrows. Shipowner Nathaniel Griswold warned Captain H. Smith to “not delay a moment…as there are cruisers after you.” Customs vessels chased ships leaving port as far as fifty miles out to sea to capture embargo violators, but most escaped capture. Because Europe was a major market for New York’s grain, an embargo threatened three million bushels of wheat, corn, rye, and stored flour. Restrictions on trade damaged the economy of New York City and caused serious unemployment. The City would not fully recover from the economic downturn of the War of 1812 until 1820. Seeing political advantage, Federalists organized public protests and petition drives against the embargo. Residents of Albany, Lansingburgh, Troy, Waterford, and New York City petitioned Congress to lift the embargo because of the negative economic effects on New York City and upstate New York. [1] Trying to achieve some economic advantage from the war, New York City emerged as a center for privateers as 102 vessels sailed out of New York to attack British shipping during the war. Within three months of declaring war, 26 privateers left New York. During the war, New York-based privateers captured 275 prizes. For example, on September 9, 1814, the "General Armstrong, "commanded by Samuel Chester Reid, left New York at night to avoid a British blockading squadron. In the Azores Islands, the brig battled a British squadron, delaying its joining the attack on New Orleans. Upon Reid’s return to New York, the state legislature and the city’s merchants honored him for his crew’s actions against the British. Reid served as a harbormaster after the war. Although some New York City merchants prospered because of the city’s role as a major military supply base, the war created hardships and widespread poverty for many New Yorkers. Trade restrictions and repeated British blockades of the harbor and Long Island Sound increased unemployment and inflation. The war produced mass unemployment and sharply increased the prices of flour, sugar, coffee, tea, coal, and firewood. As a local editor of the New York Gazette noted, “These articles are now beyond the reach of the great body of the people.” Many New Yorkers faced food and fuel shortages. The city’s Common Council had to deal with the widespread poverty created by the war. Poorer city residents suffered hardships during the winters of 1813-14 and 1814-15. Conditions reached their nadir in the last year of the war, forcing the city government to provide cash, food, and firewood for 19,000 people, one-fifth of the city’s population. Of those receiving assistance, 16,400 lived independently, getting outdoor relief, and did not reside in the city’s almshouses. Poor relief became the largest item in the city budget during the war. Citizens’ committees of middle- and upper-class New Yorkers distributed additional food and fuel to the needy. Women in several charitable organizations, such as the New York Female Assistance Society and the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows, assumed leadership positions to help poorer women. War-induced poverty lingered as late as February 1817, when 15,000 people in the city relied on public and or private assistance. Because of the embargo of 1807-09 and the War of 1812, the value of the city’s exports did not recover until 1825. [2] At the start of the war, many incidents led Federalists to speculate that Republicans would resort to violence against their fellow citizens. Rumors spread that the Tammany Society, pro-war and pro-President James Madison, planned to storm Federalist newspaper offices in New York City. News of the attack on Federalists in Baltimore provided proof. Ebenezer Foote, a Federalist political leader, alleged there was an administration plan “to silence and put down Federalists and all opposers of war.” Tammany’s warning “Tories Take Heed,” combined with announced plans to create a public safety committee “so wolves will be separated from sheep,” alarmed Federalists. In response, Mayor De Witt Clinton warned he would arrest anyone planning to “suppress freedom of opinion and expression.” His threat stifled Tammany’s urges to follow the example of Baltimore Republicans and calmed Federalist concerns about pro-Madison Republicans. [3] Tammany’s threats and Mayor Clinton’s promise to protect freedom of expression were politically motivated. Tammany, a coalition of several Republican factions in New York City, opposed Clinton’s domination of the New York Republican Party. Leaders of Tammany backed Madison in the hope of destroying the political power of De Witt Clinton. Fearing Tammany’s betrayal, Clinton reached out to the Federalists. At the same time, John Jay, a former Federalist governor of New York, impressed by Clinton’s defense of free speech, wanted him to address a Federalist-sponsored anti-war rally. On August 5, 1812, Clinton met with Federalist leaders Rufus King, John Jay, and Gouverneur Morris. While Clinton assured Federalist leaders of his complete break with Madison and his endorsement of a non-partisan Peace Party, he tried to persuade the Federalists to postpone the peace rally. Clinton worried that too public identification with the Federalists would alienate his pro-war Republican supporters, especially the Irish. Clinton had a close political alliance with the city’s Irish, who were anti-Tammany but pro-war. He risked alienating the city’s Irish if he publicly identified with the anti-war Federalists who made up most of the Peace Party. Some of his previous allies, like Governor Daniel Tompkins, broke with Clinton because he challenged Madison’s re-election. [4] Unable to get Clinton’s public cooperation, Federalists held anti-war rallies around the state. In New York City, in late August, Federalists denounced the war as “waged without just cause” and likely to lead to subservience to Napoleon. Gouverneur Morris did not “suppose Mr. Madison would have hazarded this war without…reliance on French assistance.” If the President made a Franco-American alliance, Rufus King warned it would lead to “civil war.” Themes emphasized by Federalists in the summer of 1812 and throughout the war included opposition to the war as unjust and unnecessary, fear of a French alliance, defense of free speech, the right to dissent during a war, and opposition to sending the militia into Canada. [5] Between September 15-17, Federalists held a secret convention in New York City. Initially, Federalists divided over backing Clinton for the presidency against Madison. Rufus King preferred a Federalist candidate to keep the party united, hoping the disastrous war would lead to a victory for the Federalists in 1816. Most delegates favored Clinton because they hated the war and President Madison. Clinton privately denounced the war. Publicly, he walked a tightrope appealing to pro-war and anti-war opponents of Madison. Most Republican Clinton newspaper editors supported the war and argued that Clinton would be a more effective wartime leader. Clinton’s efforts to create a bipartisan coalition opposed to President Madison failed, as Madison won re-election. Clinton accepted his defeat and moved on to the next election. Meanwhile, the city’s voters elected an anti-war Federalist majority in the November Common Council elections, repudiating Tammany and pro-war Republicans.  [6] In return for their support, Federalists expected Clinton’s supporters to help them in the December 1812 congressional elections, as New York state’s representation jumped from 17 to 27. Running as Friends of Peace, Liberty, and Commerce, Federalists attacked the war since “no possible benefit can result from the continuation of the present conflict.” Pro-Madison Republicans and many Clintonian Republicans justified the war and denounced the Federalists as the partisans of Great Britain, the Tories of the War of 1812. In New York City and Albany, Federalists and Clintonian Republicans cooperated, but elsewhere, they ran separate candidates, costing the election of an anti-war Clintonian, Pierre Van Cortlandt, Jr., in Westchester. Anti-war Federalists won 19 seats, and anti-war Clintonian Abraham Hasbrouck won in the Ulster-Sullivan district, with pro-war Republicans winning seven seats. Votes for Republicans dropped 19% in New York City and 28% in Kings County compared to 1810. In 1812, New York State sent the largest anti-war delegation to Congress, repudiating the decision to go to war. [7] Although New York City was not attacked during the war, it was a period of high anxiety. British warships cruising off New York in early 1813 produced panic in New York. “Hostile ships of war…are cruising within 25 miles of the City,” the Common Council anxiously noted in an appeal to Washington for military aid to defend the city. Furthermore, “with a favorable Wind, Ships of line can come up to our Wharves in two hours.” British warships blockaded the city and settled near Sandy Hook in Monmouth County, New Jersey, but did not attack. Instead, they seized ships trying to enter or leave New York. [8] In March, the city panicked again when a report from Staten Island brought news of a fleet approaching the harbor. Troops manned the forts near the city, and gunboats headed for the Narrows. Instead of British warships, a group of harmless merchant ships arrived. Two months later, the British officially announced a blockade of New York and harassed ships passing through Long Island Sound. When several British ships briefly fired upon American gunboats in Hempstead Bay, a new wave of fear shot through the city. Despite the perceived British threat, Republicans and Federalists continued their war of words. During the Common Council elections in November, the Republican editor of the New York National Advocate, Henry Wheaton, called upon New Yorkers “to wipe off from your city the disgrace of being governed by friends of Great Britain.” Tenth Ward Republicans told voters the election would determine “who is for our country and who is for our enemies.” Federalists in the Seventh Ward countered, denouncing “this cruel and ruinous war.” During the campaign, a riot broke out between “Republican Citizens of Color” and African American Federalists who allegedly tried “to excite confusion and riot” at a meeting of African American Republicans. During the 1813 city election, Republicans, usually not sympathetic to African Americans, made a determined effort to win over their votes, while the Federalists attempted to change the allegiance of Irish pro-Republican voters. Neither succeeded in changing voter preferences, but suggested the intense political activity in New York City during the middle of a war. Ultimately, Federalists retained a one-vote majority, a significant change since their triumph in November 1812. Some Republican editors exaggerated their gains as proof that “the people are determined to stand by their government till…the war” ended. The War of 1812 became the dominant issue in national elections and state and local elections in New York, especially in New York City. [9] In late December 1813, British troops and Native Americans crossed the Niagara Frontier, burning Buffalo, attacking neighboring settlements, massacring citizens at Lewiston, and creating 12,000 refugees who fled to the comparative safety of Batavia and Canandaigua. New Yorkers throughout the state came to the aid of the refugees. At Congregation Shearith Israel, the only Jewish congregation in the state, Gershom Seixas appealed for financial aid for the “12,000 souls…who ,after seeing their houses burnt…nearest connexions massacred by ferocious savages,” faced the winter “deprived of any earthly comfort.” Private individuals, churches, the cities of Albany and New York, and the state legislature raised funds to help the refugees. [10] With the approach of the spring state legislative and congressional elections, Federalists and Republicans battled again, using the war as the primary issue. Because of the destruction of the Niagara Frontier, anti-war Republicans returned to the fold as the united Republican Party won a landslide victory in the state and congressional elections, repudiating the anti-war Federalists. The rivalry between Federalists and Republicans continued and rose to new heights on the night of June 29th. Federalists met to celebrate the fall of Napoleon. Three hundred Federalists attended a dinner party at Washington Hall. Senator Rufus King presided, and many prominent New York Federalists attended, including Nicholas Fish and Mathew Clarkson. Republicans, however, considered the celebration disloyal, even treasonous, and attacked the hall. Editor Charles Holt of the New York Columbian denounced the “strange and unholy rites.” Fellow Republican editor Henry Wheaton of the New York National Advocate considered the festivities as an “incitement to treason.” “They appeared much enraged and used much severe and insulting language,” the New York Spectator reported. Republicans broke several windows and threw stones at the Federalists inside. Before the crowd of 2,000 Republicans could break into the hall, the city watch (police) arrived, dispersed the mob, and arrested 20 to 30 rioters. This riot demonstrated the deep political divisions in New York, exacerbated by the emotions created by the war. [11] On July 6th, news of another British fleet off Sandy Hook spread fear throughout the city. “There are very serious apprehensions for the safety of this city,” William Price informed a friend. The Common Council appealed to Governor Daniel Tompkins and President Madison for funds to complete the construction of fortifications around New York. When news arrived of the British attack on Washington, panic set in. George Brown said the city’s defenses depended on “a few undisciplined…Militia...who could make little or no resistance.” The city created a defense committee and urged New Yorkers to volunteer to work on fortifications at Brooklyn Heights, Harlem Heights, and Hell’s Gate. The Tammany Society held public meetings to encourage people to volunteer their services. Fear of the British briefly united New Yorkers from all walks of life. Members of ethnic, political, fraternal, and neighborhood associations worked together. According to the New York Gazette , volunteers included 250 Italian and French immigrants, 500 Scottish Americans, 1,000 Irish, hundreds of Germans, 1,000 African Americans, and 500 residents of the “English neighborhood.” Fifteen hundred Tammany braves were provided with “a generous supply of …liquor” from Mathew L. Davis, a Tammany leader who worked in Brooklyn Heights. One hundred Columbia College students, along with lawyers, doctors, and merchants, picked up shovels, pickaxes, hoses, and wheelbarrows in defense of New York. Residents of New Jersey joined the team in working on fortifications. Militia men from upstate New York, as far as Saratoga County, came down to defend the city. As fall turned to winter, some New Yorkers, fearful of a British attack, sent their families out of the city for safety. [12] However, on the evening of February 11, 1815, an unexpected interruption halted a concert at the City Hotel. A man rushed in and jumped onto a table. Waving a white handkerchief over his head, he shouted, “Peace, Peace!” This news brought the concert to an abrupt end, and the audience poured out into the street. Within minutes, the city was ablaze with candles. Church bells chimed, and thousands carrying candles, lamps, and torches marched down Broadway. For one night, recalled Samuel Goodrich in his memoirs, Republicans and Federalists buried their differences and publicly embraced each other “the whole night Broadway sang the song of peace, wrote Goodrich, a New York publisher, who attended the aborted concert. Describing the mood, Eloise Payne wrote of “the overflow of popular joy…the whole city was shout and illumination.” Word had just arrived on the Favorite, a British sloop at Sandy Hook, of the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812. A few days later, despite a foot of snow on the ground, cold weather, and rain, New Yorkers once again crowded the streets for an official celebration of the war's end. Transparencies appeared in front of the city’s major commercial and public buildings. Citizens illuminated the city with thousands of candles. Peace brought a sharp drop in prices and the reopening of New York to world commerce, but New Yorkers resumed their deep political divisions in time for the 1815 spring elections. [13] About the author: Professor of history and political science at Russel Sage College. Most recent publications are "Jewish Women's Organizations of the Capital District," August 2023, New York History Review, and "Quebec's Aid to Ireland," December 2023, in Proceedings of International Conference on Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences. Bibliography [1] Jonathan Ogden to Robert Ogden, April 4, 1812, Jonathan Ogden Letter book, New-York Historical Society (N-YHS); Nathaniel Griswold to Captain H. Smith, April 6, 1812, War of 1812 folder, Box 1, Hurd Papers, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut. For copies of the petitions, Petitions and Memorials Tabled, Embargo, 12A-G1.2, House of Representatives, 12th Congress, 1811-13, Record Group 233, National Archives, Washington, D.C. [2] New York Gazette , January 31, 1814. For details about poverty in New York during the war, see Raymond Mohl, Poverty in New York, 1783-1825 ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1971). For the most recent book-length study of the war in New York State, see Richard Barbuto, New York’s War of 1812: Politics, Society, and Combat (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2021).  [3] Ebenezer Foote to Thomas Tillotson, August 8, 1812, Thomas Tillotson Papers, N-YHS’ New York Public Advertiser, August 1, 1812; New York Spectator, August 4, 1812; New York Evening Post, August 3-15, 1812; De Witt Clinton to the Grand Jury, July 1812, De Witt Clinton Papers, N-YHS. [4] Rufus King to Christopher Gore, July 17, 1812, September 9, 1812, Rufus King Papers, N-YHS; Gouverneur Morris to John Jay, September 11, 1812, Jay Papers, Columbia University, New York City; Statement of Rufus King, July 27-August 7, in Charles King, ed., Life and Correspondence of Rufus King (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894-1900) 5:264-71. [5] Gouverneur Morris to Aaron Ogden, August 20, 1812, Gouverneur Morris Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC).; Rufus King to Christopher Gore, July 17, 1812, September 19, 1812, Rufus King Papers, N-YHS; Ebenezer Baldwin to Simeon Baldwin, August 5, 1812, Box 16, Baldwin Family Papers, Yale University. [6] James Kent to Moss Kent, November 10, 1812, James Kent Papers, LC; John Jay to Peter Jay, September 23, 1812, Jay Papers, Columbia University; Rufus King to Christopher Gore, September 19, 1812, King Papers, N-YHS; Account of the Federalist Convention, September 15-17, 1812, King, Rufus King, V, 280-81. [7] Peace, Liberty, and Commerce, December 14, 1812, Broadside, N-YHS; New York Evening Post , November-December 1812; New York National Advocate, December 1812; New York Columbian , December 1812; Brooklyn Long Island Star , December 1812. [8] Minutes of the Common Council, VII, 486-87; New York Commercial Advertiser, January 19-20, March 26, 1813; New York Spectator , January 1813; New York Evening Post , January 1813. [9] New York National Advocate , November 10-18, 20, 1813; New York Columbian , November 10-20, 1813; New York Commercial Advertiser , 10-18, 1813; New York Gazette , 17-20, 1813; New York Spectator , November 20, 1813; New York Evening Post , November 20, 1813. [10] Canandaigua Ontario Repository , December 28, 1813-January 28, 1814; New York Spectator , January 22-February 2, 1814; New York Commercial Advertiser , January 22-February 2, 1814; Gershom Seixas Sermon, February 2, 1814; Gershom Seixas to Sarah Kursheedt, February 4, 1814, Gershom Seixas Papers, American Jewish Historical Society, New York City. [11]New York Spectator, June 30, 1814; New York Columbian , June 20-July 4, 1814; New York National Advocate , June 3 to July 4, 1814; New York Commercial Advertiser, June 30, 1814. [12] William Price to James Clapp, July 30, August 27, September 1814, Kernan Family Papers, Cornell University; George Brown to Erastus Corning, September 1, 1814, Box 1, Erastus Corning Papers, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, N.Y.; Minutes of the Common Council, VIII, 6-11; Minutes of the Society of Tammany, August 15, 22, 29, 31, September 25, 1814, Box 23, Kilroe Collection, Columbia University; Nicholas Fish to Daniel Tompkins, August 29, September 4, 1814, Committee of Defense Records, N-YHS; New York Evening Post , July 6-November 5, 1814; New York Spectator , August 31, 1814; New York War, August to November 1814; New York Columbian , August to November 1814; New York National Advocate, August to November 1814. [13] Samuel Goodrich, Recollections of a Lifetime (New York, 1856), I, 496, 504; Eloise Payne to Catherine Sedgwick, February 15, 1815, Payne Papers, Columbia University; Jonathan Goodhue Diary, February 11, 1815, Samuel Topliff to Jonathan Goodhue, February 15, 1815, Goodhue Papers, New York Society Library, New York; New York Columbian, February 13-15, 1815; New York Evening Post, February 13, 1815; New York Commercial Advertiser , February 13, 1815, New York Gazette , February 13, 1815.