EducationNews.org

An Interview with Charles Aulino: Lesser-Known Giants of the Twentieth Century

Michael F. Shaughnessy - June 29, 2009
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico

1) Charles, first of all what led you to write about these so-called "lesser known giants" of the 20th century?

It really resulted from the first essay, about Ignacy Jan Paderewski.  When I was a little boy, my mother gave me piano lessons and I can still remember her telling me, at about age 7, that if I practiced every day, I would grow up to play like Paderewski.  Growing up, I knew no more than that about the great Polish pianist and statesman.  About 30 years later, my wife and I were on a trip to Paris that included a tour of Versailles.  During lunch we spotted a larger-than-life re-creation of the signature pages of the treaty of Versailles taking up most of one wall,  You could easily recognize the signatures of such famous men as Clemenceau and Lloyd George.  And in the midst of them, clearly written in beautiful script was "I J Paderewski."  

That sparked my interest in learning about his life story which is fascinating and inspiring.  Imagine being the equivalent of a modern rock star and then becoming a head of state of your home country -- all in one lifetime.  That made me think "there must be others."  People who became famous and used their celebrity for the good of society, but whose stars have grown faint over time.

I decided to find a group whose lifetimes spanned "The American Century," who achieved great fame in life, who used celebrity to further worthwhile causes or pursuits, and who are largely forgotten.  As a group, the main characters experienced and influenced all of the most important events and trends of the last century.  They also crossed paths with scores of other famous and fascinating people.  What fun to weave in biographical vignettes here and there.

2) I have to disagree slightly, as I feel that Medgar Evers really is more of an "unrecognized giant" than a lesser known giant. I know of his history, and yes, he was in the shadow of Martin Luther King, but his work was seminal and foundational in terms of civil rights. Your thoughts?

What most impressed me about the story of this great man was his remarkable humility.  He clearly saw himself as a "servant leader," a self-view that I think our new president shares with him.  This is a story of unbelievable bravery.  Evers risked his own life by investigating racist murders, including that of an African-American teenager visiting Mississippi from Chicago, named Emmet Till.  Near the end of his life, he must have known that his own assassination was inevitable, but he just kept up the struggle.

3) Those who have studied boxing know of Max Schemleling, who was in an unfortunate position. Tell us about this giant of boxing, who unfortunately was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 I agree that Schmeling was the victim of circumstances, but his story is so much more than that.  After becoming a very successful boxer while quite young, he threw himself into self-education so that he could carry on intelligent conversations with the society crowd that sought out his company.  Books, plays and art all came within his home-made curriculum.  Before 1936 (the first of the 2 boxing matches against Louis), Schmeling was a beloved figure on the American sports scene, with a legion of fans.  He even got a boost from his remarkable resemblance to a prior heavyweight champion, Jack Dempsey.  Between the 1936 fight and the 1938 fight, everything changed.  

German bombers devastated Guernica, Germany annexed Austria and was threatening Checkoslovakia.  When Schmeling lost "the fight of the century" on June 22, 1938, he became anathema to the Nazi's, who made him a paratrooper despite age and sports injuries that should have disqualified him from service.  He was nearly killed during the invasion of Crete, but somehow survived the war.  Who can say what else the Nazi's might have done if they had known Schmeling hid two frightened Jewish boys in his apartment on Kristallnacht.  

His prospects were bleak after VE day, until James Fagan, a former NY State boxing commissioner who had taken a liking to Schmeling early in his career, looked him up.  By that time, Fagan was in charge of international development for Coca Cola.  The franchise for Germany made Schmeling a millionaire many times over.  He shared generously through philanthropy and, when his nemesis Joe Louis, died broke, Schmeling helped to pay for the funeral.

4) Margaret Chase Smith, is fairly well know among my colleagues that teach American history and social studies. What do you see as her contributions and have they been neglected?

I realize that you and your colleagues are likely to know a great deal about Sen. Smith as well as most or all of the others.  But my most hoped-for audience is young people who are the least likely to know much, if anything, about these heroes and the most likely to draw inspiration from their stories.  I have read a fair amount over the last couple years about the McCarthy era and have come to understand that most Americans were afraid even to think that there was anything wrong with McCarthy's tactics of using fear, innuendo and outright lies to ruin innocent people's reputations for the sake of gaining political capital.  Sen. Smith's speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on June 1, 1950, entitled "A Declaration of Conscience" is as full of meaning today as it was 59 years ago.  She began by suggesting that the Senate was being transformed into a forum of character assassination -- all the more reprehensible because of the congressional immunity afforded to the perpetrator.   

She pointed out that the U.S. Constitution prescribes trial by jury, not by accusation and went on to list her "principles of Americanism":  to criticize, hold unpopular beliefs, protest and have independent thought.  She argued that no American should ever suffer the loss of reputation or livelihood because of the exercise of those rights.  When Smith's name was placed in nomination for the office of President of the United States at the 1964 Republican National Convention, it was an historic first.  As one of her colleagues later lamented "One of these days, you know, you men are going to have a woman for president.  It's just too bad you didn't take this one."  Smith voted her conscience on every single issue, always refusing to toe the party line.  She never accepted a penny of political campaign contributions.  

The New York Times called her a party all by herself.  For her hawkish stance during the cold war, Nikita Krushchev called her "Satan in the guise of a woman," something she considered a great honor.  What a wonderful, inspiring life story. If only more young people would learn about it.

5) Your book was endorsed by the National History Club. That is quite an honor and accomplishment. How did that come about?

I contacted the executive director near the time the book was to become available to see if there was any way I could send information about it to the many chapters.  He was kind enough to read the entire book, he told me he really enjoyed it and so I believe his recommendation is sincere and made after a careful evaluation.

6) Katherine Graham, perhaps worked in the shadow of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. What do you see as her contributions and what is she doing now?

Actually Graham was the Publisher of the Washington Post during Watergate.  She died on July 17, 2001 at the age or 84.  The late William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote in an obituary "She was rich, famous, aristocratic, wealthy by lineage, but convincingly self-made."  I can't top that.  Graham's father, Eugene Meyer, amassed a fortune of $30 million near the beginning of the 20th Century.

Then he devoted himself to public service.  He was once Chairman of the Fed and he bought "The Washington Post" in the depths of The Great Depression.  Katherine had become a stay-at-home mom by the time Meyer recruited her husband, Phil Graham, to be his successor.  Her journalistic training and experienced were nothing compared with what she needed to take over the reins after Phil took his own life.  Somehow she managed.  It was Katharine Graham who showed the courage to order publication of the Pentagon Papers even though it might have landed her in jail.  It was Katharine's decision to hire Ben Bradlee, who in turn kept tabs on Woodward & Bernstein during the amazing adventure of Watergate.  Everybody knew who was in charge.  When Bernstein called John Mitchell in the middle of the night and tricked him into admitting that he controlled a secret fund to gather intelligence on the Democrats, Mitchell yelled into the phone "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat ringer if that's published."  Bradlee approved the use of the whole thing, except for the reference to Graham's breast.  Among other things, I am the father of a young woman who is near the end of a long quest for her PhD.  It strikes me that stories like Graham's can inspire young women to accomplishment.

7) Tell us about the other side of Moe Berg, the famous baseball player.

Berg graduated from Princeton, magna cum laude in 1923 with a degree in modern languages.  He spoke seven.  That is already an amazing accomplishment for a Jewish man in the early part of the 20th Century, when you consider the deplorable treatment of Jews in the day.  After playing his first season for what were then the Booklyn Robbins (later the Dodgers), he spent all his earnings, but not on wine, women, song or gambling.  Berg went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne.  He later graduated from Columbia University Law School and passed the bar exam.

After a total of 19 years in the Major Leagues, mostly as a catcher, his sports career was ending just as WWII was getting under way.  Berg became a spy for the OSS (predecessor of the CIA), went to Europe and obtained important intelligence on the status of the Nazi atomic bomb program from Werner Heisenberg.  When he cabled Washington to report that Germany was nowhere near the ability to let the atomic genie out of the bottle, FDR, briefed on the report, exclaimed "Let's pray Heisenberg is right.  And, General, my regards to the catcher."  

After the War, the CIA wouldn't take Berg, who wanted nothing more than to be a spy.  He moved in with his brother and spent the rest of his life "dropping in" on friends, sometimes staying for weeks.  The ending of the story is sad, but also mysterious and fascinating.  It reminds me of Robert Frost's poetic line:  "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

8) I can remember Paul Winchell and I believe it was Mahoney and Kucklehead Smith, if memory serves. BUT, I did not know of his medical accomplishments. Can you tell us a bit more?

It was indeed Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff (not Smith).  You can see them yourself at the Smithsonian.  Winchell survived polio as a child, suffered from speech impediments, and a physically and psychologically abusive mother.  None of that stopped him; he was determined to follow the lead of his hero, Edgar Bergen, who had risen to fame with his wise-cracking side-kick, Charlie McCarthy.  Winchell's high school principal got him a try out on Major Bowes' "Original Amateur Hour," and he was an instant success.  He left high school to pursue a career in vaudeville and later with the big bands of the 1940's and early 50's followed by great success in TV.  Later, he regretted missing out on education.  

He obtained his GED, then took pre-med courses at Columbia University.  Through the TV show "Arthur Murray's Dance Party," he was introduced to a life-long friend, Henry Heimlich.  At the height of his TV stardom, he appeared as Heimlich's subject for the first public demonstration of the famous "Heimlich maneuver."  Winchell was a devoted tinkerer who received many patents.  Heimlich provided advise, technical assistance and encouragement for Winchell's efforts on the most remarkable of his inventions.  I have actually obtained, from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a copy of Patent No. 3,097,366, issued to Winchell and described as "a double pump, adapted for use as an artificial heart."  How sad, that, if Winchell is remembered at all, it is for his role as the voice of "Winnie the Pooh."

9) Can you  briefly tell us about some of these lesser known giants and why you choose them?

Among my other favorites are Branch Rickey, who, as president of the then-Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940's, made the decision to bring Jackie Robinson up from the minor league Montreal Royals which quickly led the end of segregation in Major League Baseball.  As an undergraduate at Ohio Wesleyan University, Rich had shown such talent for baseball management that the president of OWU hired him as paid coach of the team.  In the season opener against Kentucky, someone yelled from the stands "get that Negro off the field or we don't play."  The reference was to Charles "Tommy" Thomas, OWU's first baseman.  Rickey went eye-ball to eye-ball with the Kentucky coach and threatened to take a forfeit if Kentucky would not play.  

Imagine a brave and righteous act as an undergraduate foretelling the most remarkable event of a very eventful life.  This essay also contains the story of baseball hall-of-fame announcer Red Barber and his struggle to come to grips with the end of segregation in baseball and his ultimate support of it.

My Italian roots made the selection of A.P. Giannini a natural for me.  Giannini gained early success in the produce business in San Francisco, working for his step-father.  When he had driven off all the competition, he became bored and was looking for a new challenge.  He burst into the office of a banker-acquaintance named James Fagan and exclaimed "Giacomo, I'm going to start a bank.  Tell me how to do it."  Giannini opened "The Bank of Italy in America" in 1903 to serve the needs of immigrant working families.  After the great earthquake and fire, he dug through the rubble, rescued the bank's gold and records, set up a temporary office on the San Francisco Wharf and began making loans on a hand-shake to get the process of recovery started.  His bank is still in existence today, now simply known as Bank of America.

The last of my heroes is Edward W. Said, one of the great intellectual giants of the 20th Century.  He had been born in Jerusalem and grew up in the oppressive atmosphere of British colonial school in Egypt.    Said's intellectual awakening began when his father decided to send him to America to complete his studies.  He received degrees from Princeton and Harvard and became professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia.  After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Said became politically active on behalf of his oppressed and dispossessed Palestinian countrymen.  His seminal work, "Orientalism" that is a cornerstone of post-colonial studies, was just one of the results.  In his political writing, he recognizes the need for a Jewish homeland but asks right-thinking people all over the world also to consider the plight of the Palestinians whom he describes as "the victims of victims."  His words are full of anguish and outrage, but devoid of hatred.

10) Who publishes your book and do you have a web site?

"Lesser-known Giants of the 20th Century" is produced by BookSurge and is available through Amazon.com and other on-line book sellers.

11) What have I neglected to ask?

The questions were very thorough and made the responses flow easily and naturally.  This has been a pleasure. THANKS