JAY MARTIN
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American philosopher John Dewey, as the best possible choice for chair.
After all, Dewey had been celebrated in the USSR when he went there
in
1928;
he had been asked by the Socialist Party to run on their ticket
for governor of New York State. But he was also quoted every week or
so in the moderate
New York Times;
he was invited to the White House
for dinner; he was the friend of powerful capitalists; he founded the edu–
cation and philosophy departments at Mr. Rockefeller's University of
Chicago; and at Columbia, he was a favorite of President Nicholas
Murray Butler.
Hook was joined by the leading Trotskyist among American writers,
James T. Farrell, in persuading Dewey to undertake the responsibility,
which meant traveling
to
Mexico where the hearings were to be held at
Rivera's house, as well as reading and absorbing a mass of documents.
At first Dewey was adamantly opposed to accepting. He was intent
upon finishing his book
Logic: The Theory of Inquiry.
This book,
which is certainly the crown of Dewey's work in the field of logic-and
is very likely Dewey's best book-had been occupying him on and off
for the previous ten years, in the midst of a mass of other writings on
political and social issues, culminating in
Liberalism and Social Action.
Now he was determined to get the logic book finished. Other people,
too, tried to deter him. His oldest child, Fred, for instance, was
adamantly opposed to the trip, fearful of the effect it could have on his
father's health. Once the word leaked out that Dewey was being urged
to go, Dewey'S friends and acquaintances on the left also spent a lot of
energy urging him not
to
give support to Trotsky, whom they regarded
as an enemy of the Revolution.
In
a letter, Dewey'S close friend, Alex
Gumberg, advised him: "John, my friend, don't go. I feel justified in try–
ing to urge you again not
to
ally yourself with the 'dark forces' of the
Counter Revolution." No discredit, Gumberg argued, should be
allowed
to
fall upon the glorious Soviet experiment. Malcolm Cowley,
the literary editor of
The New Republic,
wrote to Dewey: "I think
American progressives of all shades should stick together-they will
have
to
hang together or hang in some other way. Don't be a Charlie
McCarthy for the fascist press. The evidence is overwhelming that Trot–
sky is guilty. We must not injure the cause of liberalism and democracy."
Dewey also received death threats, which, by the way, continued long
after he returned from Mexico.
Dewey had one more reason
not
to go-he had recently fallen in love
with a young lady journalist in her thirties named Roberta Grant. His
wife, Alice, had died eight years before, and Dewey had had no serious
affairs before this one. But this one
was
serious.
