Jerome Davis (sociologist)

Davis spent 1916–1918 in Russia. He was sent to Russia by the YMCA to work with German POWs. He also set up YMCA centers for Russian soldiers. Upon American entry into World War I in 1917, he was appointed as head of all YMCA work in Russia. For the US Government, he oversaw distribution of more than a million copies of President Wilson's "14 Points" message to German soldiers.

He opposed US military intervention in Russia during its civil war in favor of working with the new Soviet Union. During the 1920s, Davis returned to Russia several times and continued to advocate for Soviet cooperation. His chart of the construction of the Soviet government was published in Workers' Dreadnought.[5] By 1920, however, he had returned to the States, and finished his studies at the Union Theological Seminary. In 1922 he obtained a doctorate in sociology from Columbia University.[1][2][4]

From 1921 to 1924, Davis worked as an associate professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College. There, he also advocated for organized labor. He investigated and published findings on a strike in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Federal Coal Commission asked him to investigate operations of West Virginia coal mines. He also served as chairman of the Social Service Commission of the Congregational Church.[1][2][3][4]

In 1924, he founded the Jerome Davis Research fund to support students at Oberlin who "worked with labor" to facilitate "mutual understanding and cooperation in the field of industry."[6]

From 1924 to 1936, Davis was appointed a Gilbert L. Stark professor of "practical philanthropy" at the Yale Divinity School. He helped organize labor forums for the New Haven Trades Council. He developed labor ideals adopted by the Congregational and Christian Churches of America. He chaired the Social Service Commission of Protestant churches in Connecticut. From 1924 to 1936, he also chaired the Legislative Commission on Jails of the State of Connecticut for twelve years. He used a $50,000 Federal grant to review Connecticut prisoner records, with findings published in 1932.[1][2][3][4]

In 1928, Davis was a member of the American Society for Cultural Relations with Russia, part of VOKS (Russian "Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Kul'turnoi Sviazi s zagranitsei" — Всесоюзное общество культурной связи с заграницей, All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries).[7]

When he did not receive tenure at Yale, the decision was controversial and was widely believed to be a result of his socialism. The National Education Association, the American Federation of Labor, and the American Association of University Professors investigated the case. Yale denied permission to US Supreme Court Justice Ferdinand Pecora and US Senator Gerald P. Nye to speak on campus for fear of their support for Davis.[2][3][4][8][9][10]

From 1936 to 1939, Davis served as president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). During his second term (1936–1937), Davis helped lead the AFT out of the AFL and into the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).[1][2][11]

In the late 1930s, Davis (along with Denis Nowell Pritt, Upton Sinclair, Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, and others) defended the Moscow Trials of the Stalin purge era in the Soviet Union from critics. He claimed that, as a former Chairman of the Legislative Commission on Jails in the State of Connecticut, he had seen hundreds of criminals confess based on overwhelming evidence against them. He compared that experience to the confessions given by defendants in the Moscow Trials. He did note that "there is a lot of false testimony in a trial of this kind."[12]

For the rest of his life, Davis worked on and off as visiting professor at colleges and universities. During the 1940 presidential elections, Davis served as delegate from Connecticut to the Democratic National Convention. During World War II, he headed YMCA POW efforts in Canada. From 1943 to 1944, he served as a correspondent in the USSR. In 1949, he led a peace mission to Europe.[2]

From 1939 to 1945, Davis was involved in a libel lawsuit he filed (see below).

In 1952, Davis founded the organization Promoting Enduring Peace, Inc., in which he remained active through 1974.[1] The group issued reprints of articles in pamphlet form that opposed the militarism of the mid-1940s, and formally formed the organization in 1952. As its first director, Davis organized many trips to the USSR during the Cold War, in an effort to continue communicating with Russian leaders. In 1957, his group met for two hours with Nikita Khrushchev. In 1970, his group met with Alexei Kosygin. In 1973 and 1975, Davis led similar trips for educators to China, which had been controlled by Communists since shortly after World War II.[1][2]

He proposed creation of the Gandhi Peace Award on March 13, 1959. He presented it to the first recipient, Eleanor Roosevelt , the following year.

On December 4, 1939, Davis brought a $150,000 libel suit in Manhattan against Curtis Publishing and Stolberg.[18] Davis testified that, while in Russia, Stalin admitted to him that the USSR supported the CPUSA.[19][20] He also testified that AFL president William Green had asked him to take "decisive action against the communistic influences" in AFT's Teachers Union Local 5 of New York.[21] He admitted that in the past he had not done enough to fight communism in American labor unions.[22] Dr. Sherwood Eddy, former YMCA president, testified that Davis was a "loyal American who has always attacked the evils of communism, as I have."[17] As proof of damage done, National Youth Administration (NYA) head Aubrey Williams testified that he had refused to hire Davis as NYA's educational director based on the Saturday Evening Post article.[23] Hays rested the case for Davis by calling two last witnesses, Reverend Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick of Riverside Church (New York) and Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise of the American Jewish Congress. Dr. Rev. Fosdick stated, based on a 29-year acquaintance, that "Jerome Davis couldn't be a Communist if he tried." Rabbi Wise said, based on more than 30 years of acquaintance, that Davis had "never, never" been sympathetic to communism.[24]

Stolberg testified that the late Dr. Henry R. Linville, who left the AFT to form the Teachers Guild, considered Davis a communist or fellow traveler.[25] The defense introduced evidence from former CPUSA head Earl Browder, AFL president William Green, and others to document how Stolberg developed the allegedly libelous article. Waldman read from a book by Browder that showed that religiosity does not preclude adherence to communism. The AFL letter called on the expulsion of communists from the AFT, implying that Davis had failed to do so. In 1935 there was a split between the AFT and Teachers Guild.[26] The defense argued that Davis had a standing reputation as a communist or sympathizer. Former Saturday Evening Post editor William W. Stout testified to that effect; AFT vice president John D. Connors said that Davis followed the Communist party line.[26] AFL vice president Matthew Woll said that even some communists considered Davis a communist,[27] while Stolberg testified that he still considered Davis a communist.[28] American Mercury editor Eugene Lyons, also a former Moscow correspondent, testified that passages from Davis's book The New Russia (1933) showed a "type of Soviet propaganda" which he called a "whitewash of terror." He also said that in 1939, Davis had the reputation of "a fellow-traveling Communist."[29] Georgetown University president Dr. Edmund A. Walsh testified that Davis "accepts the ultimate objective of communism and belongs psychologically and morally to the group that advocates it," though he falls short of 100% advocacy because he is "not prepared to go the last ten per cent". After hearing Curtis Publishing attorney Bruce Bromley read from several books by Davis, Dr. Walsh upped his estimate to "95 per cent" and then "96 per cent."[30]

Former AFT secretary-treasurer Florence Curtis Hanson stated that Davis was not a communist but instead "motivated by humanitarianism."[30] Rev. Dr. Halford E. Luccock, a professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School, testified that Davis had criticized the USSR for "disregard of the human values of free speech and its intolerance of religion." He affirmed that Davis was "against the use of violence and terrorism" and no "Stalinist, Communist or labor wrecker." Davis shared letters of advocacy from the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church for services rendered to the church.[31] With the court's agreement, attorney Hays added $100,000, bringing the total suit for damages to $250,000.[32]

On June 8, 1943, Hays summarized Davis's lawsuit as a "patriotic service." That afternoon, just before deliberation began, Judge Carew advised the jury that, under the laws of New York State, "no man has a legal right to be a Communist."[33] On June 9, 1943, the New York Supreme Court discharged the jury for failing to reach a verdict. Justice Carew ordered the jury not discuss their deliberations.[34] On June 14, 1943, New York Supreme Court Justice Louis A. Valente denied a second motion for immediate retrial and set October 1, 1943, as the date to assign retrial action.[35]

On January 18, 1945, Davis settled with Curtis Publishing and Stolberg in court for $11,000 of his $250,000 libel suit, before New York State Supreme Court Justice Ferdinand Pecora.[36]