ABFFE Book of the Month:

Books on Trial: Red Scare in the Heartland by Shirley A. Wiegand and Wayne A. Wiegand

Interview with the Authors

Q: How did you discover the incident that inspired you to collaborate on Books on Trial?

A: The project began when Wayne spotted a one-paragraph article in a 1940 issue of Wilson Library Bulletin that reported the conviction of an Oklahoma City bookseller for violating a state criminal syndicalism law. The defendant in the trial had been brought to “justice” not for anything he did, but for the content of the books he sold. Because Wayne was very interested in censorship issues in American library and book history, and because of Shirl’s litigation background and familiarity with Oklahoma law, he suggested to her that this had the makings of a good article they could coauthor. In the course of our research, we discovered that the story we initially thought was minor had actually received national attention in the early 1940s but had been over­whelmed by the United States’ entry into World War II, and subsequently disappeared entirely from the pages of history. After interviewing surviving witnesses to the events and relatives of participants, poring over trial transcripts and appellate records, and analyzing thousands of pages obtained from FBI files through Freedom of Information Act requests, five years later we had enough information for a book.

Q: Why should readers care about events that happened so long ago in Oklahoma City?

A: The events in the early 1940s represent just one example of government over-reaction to perceived threats. Parallels clearly exist between Oklahoma at mid-century and the paranoid politics of other periods in American history, beginning in the 1790s with America’s near-war with France, and reemerging in the Civil War, World Wars I and II, throughout the Cold War, in the Vietnam era, and, of course, today. In the 1940s, Oklahoma offi­cials and their allies and sympathizers showed a vengeful streak in the book trials that accelerated an already greatly exaggerated sense of threat to national security, and brought with it a flagrant disregard for basic civil liberties. Other government officials have demonstrated similar reactions, and in times of national crisis, free speech often takes a hit. Public opinion, however, can have an effect, as this book clearly demonstrates.

Q: Does this story offer any new information about government efforts to suppress dissent?

A: What’s most interesting about this story is that it received widespread attention from a variety of sources – big city and small town newspapers, the publishing industry, libraries and labor unions, well-known figures like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Langston Hughes, Theodore Dreiser, Richard Wright, even first lady Eleanor Roosevelt – over a period of three years, then disappeared entirely. No one has researched the sources we were able to unearth: interviews with people arrested that day, trial and appellate transcripts, thousands of pages of information provided in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, and the private correspon­dence and other files of the defendants themselves, even including notes sent back and forth from jail cell to jail cell. This rich mine of information provides a very personal portrait of those subjected to government repression in the early 1940s.

Q: How did you locate the specific individuals featured in your book?

A: This was the fun part. The Internet is wonderful. We were able to locate the name of one of our defendants, Eli Jaffe, by an online search. We wrote him and soon thereafter received a phone call from his widow, Wilma. As luck would have it, she figured prominently in the story of the bookstore defendants. Her family was arrest­ed during the 1940 bookstore raid, and then at 16 years old, she was left standing alone on an Oklahoma City street. By the time we located her, Wilma was nearly 80, but her energy and interest was relentless. Shirl spent several days with her, gathering stories and details we could not have gotten anywhere else. Shirl also visited Sis Cunningham, a friend of Wilma’s and another prominent character in this story, and interviewed her shortly before her death. Wilma also led us to her brother Orval, now deceased, who was arrested the day of the raids, and to Timothy Wood, son of Bob and Ina, two of the defendants. Tim had kept a treasure trove of letters, newspaper clippings, and other materials his parents had saved. And through a variety of sources, we were finally able to discover Bob Wood’s real name and background, something even the FBI was unable to do during the many years it tracked him. We interviewed the families of the defense attorneys, as well as the families of all the defendants.

Q: What did you learn from writing this book?

A: We were reminded that history often repeats itself. Especially in the history of book-banning, it seems to repeat itself with greater frequency. During times of national insecurity, politicians, government officials and influential people in the private sector worry about perceived threats to the social order, from which they primarily benefit. In response, they take measures to suppress what they believe are the root causes of discontent wherever they find them, including the books and pamphlets that fix in print the messages they fear most. In the pro­cess they often violate basic civil liberties. Eventually, the threat passes, and efforts to ban books diminish. Seldom, however, are the powerful held accountable – except by history. And that’s what we learned from writing this book. Books on Trial shows that a few courageous individuals can stand up to the arrogance of power, and with persistence and tenacity rally others to defend them.