George Sokolsky
Encyclopedia
George Ephraim Sokolsky was a weekly radio broadcaster for the National Association of Manufacturers
and a columnist for The New York Herald Tribune, who later switched to The New York Sun and other Hearst
newspapers.
, Sokolsky was born in Utica, N.Y. He graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism. In February 1917, Sokolsky was attracted by the February Revolution
and went to Russia
to write for Russian Daily News, an English-language newspaper. After the overthrow
of the Kerensky
government by the Bolsheviks, he became disillusioned with the revolution. His Columbia classmate Bennett Cerf
was to observe many decades later: “Suddenly the flaming radical, Sokolsky, became the flaming reactionary, George Sokolsky, and one of the most important columnists in the United States of America.” http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/nny/cerfb/transcripts/cerfb_1_9_416.html He fled to China, landing with one Yankee dollar in his pocket, to continue his work as a special correspondent for English-language newspapers such as St. Louis Post-Dispatch
and London Daily Express. and acted as an informant and propagandist for sundry conflicting Asian and Western clients, including Cen Chunxuan
. He broke a social taboo by marrying a woman of mixed Caribbean-Chinese blood. Sokolsky became political adviser and friend to Sun Yat-sen
, and wrote for his English-language Shanghai Gazette. He also befriended colorful characters that ranged from “Two-Gun” Cohen
to Soong May-ling
, and identified Chiang Kai-shek
as “the only revolutionist in China who could make the revolution stick.” (See Daniel S. Levy, Two-Gun Cohen: A Biography, St. Martin’s Press, 2002, pp. 117ff.)
Sokolsky’s 14-year long stint in China
enabled him to hold himself out as an expert on Asian matters upon his repatriation to the U.S. His experience of Chinese culture was tinged with ambivalence: “Perhaps in no other city does so much human energy go into the search for amusement as among the foreign population of Shanghai. Ladies go to their amusements with even greater avidity. Work at home can always be done by boys and amahs and club life becomes the center of one’s aims and ambitions. Dinner parties at clubs and hotels, night after night of dancing and jazz, turn the sweet girl who comes here to marry a man out East into a tired matron while still in her thirties: blasé, wearied and uninterested in life.” Sokolsky went on to complain about the corrosive effect of the “foreign exchange” upon the younger Chinese: “It would seem that every foreign vice and extravagance has its votaries among the younger Chinese in Shanghai who, meeting largely with the wider elements of the foreign population, copy their lust for pleasure as though it were the hallmark of modernity.” (Quoted by Stella Dong in Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City, 1842-1949, Harper Perennial, 2001, p. 229.)
It was in China that Sokolsky inaugurated his life-long association with the National Association of Manufacturers
(NAM). After returning to the U.S. in 1935, Sokolsky strongly sided with NAM in touting its conception of the American Way of Life. NAM followed the New Deal
in laying claim to “the greatest good for the greatest number." Sokolsky encouraged NAM to reach out and awaken the passions of the American middle class in opposition to the “collectivistic” current of the New Dealers. In the NBC
Radio Network program America's Town Meeting of the Air
, he argued against Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins
’ defense of the Social Security Act, calling the 10% of the taxes that the Federal Government kept, while remitting 90% back to the states that were compelled to conform to a standard of minimum requirements for administering Social Security set by the Federal Government, “a service charge for coercion”. Sokolsky toured the U.S., writing and making, speeches as an “industrial consultant” on behalf of NAM. The Senate
’s La Follette Committee on Civil Liberties reported in 1938 that for his speaking engagements and other work he was paid nearly $40,000, through publicity firm Hill & Knowlton
, by the NAM and the Iron and Steel Institute. He encapsulated his political philosophy in personalized slogans: “I do not like coercion in any form. I prefer spontaneous enthusiasms.” Sokolsky wrote signed columns attacking the Roosevelt administration for its failure to support Kuomintang
.
Sokolsky became a vocal supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy
, an intimate of J. Edgar Hoover
, and a close friend of Roy Cohn
, who eventually dedicated to him McCarthy, his sympathetic study of his former employer. The Korean War
entrenched him in his suspicions of a vast anti-American conspiracy. In one of his columns he asked, “If our far eastern policy was not betrayed, why are we fighting in Korea?” In his newspaper column Sokolsky supported the right wing of the Republican Party. He wanted either Robert Taft
or Douglas MacArthur
to get the Presidential nomination in 1952, and frequently criticized the Eisenhower Administration.
In 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions of contempt of the United States Congress
against the Hollywood Ten, who had argued unsuccessfully that their First Amendment
protections prohibited Congress from asking about their political activities. Thereupon, American Legion
presented the movie studios with a list of some 300 people, meant as a de facto blacklist. Those listed were given an opportunity to exonerate themselves by answering the charges against them in a letter. If the blacklisted artists refused to write a letter, they were fired. The studios submitted the letters from those who cooperated to the American Legion. The American Legion passed judgment on the acceptability of excuses, referring problematic cases to Sokolsky. As its “clearance man”, Sokolsky worked pro bono
on rendering a final decision on clearing the letter writer from the blacklist, either on his own or in consultation with Hollywood union leader Roy Brewer and/or actor Ward Bond
, respectively the first and the second presidents of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals
. Artists who failed to meet the standards of political correctness were consigned to unemployment. http://comptalk.fiu.edu/blacklist.htm Nevertheless, blacklisting proceeded with a measure of even-handedness. According to Victor S. Navasky, “Newspaper columnists such as George Sokolsky, Victor Riesel
, Walter Winchell
, Jack O'Brian
, and Hedda Hopper
were as happy to fill their spaces by getting the deserved off the list as by putting the blameworthy on.” (Naming Names, Hill and Wang, 2003, p. 89.)
Sokolsky denounced the exposure of McCarthy on See It Now
, broadcast on March 9, 1954 by Fred W. Friendly
and Edward R. Murrow
, in his Hearst newspaper column. Later on that year, Time Magazine characterized Sokolsky in the words of one of his friends, as one who “can be called the high priest of militant U.S. anti-Communism.” Sokolsky never relented in his animadversions against world communism and its self-appointed standard bearer, the U.S.S.R. In February 1962, Sokolsky startled his readers by asserting that “if Khrushchev
falls, we shall have immediate war.” http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,829038,00.html During the Cuban missile crisis
, he advocated a vigorous American response, asking: “Do we have to stand still until Soviet Russia has established a missile and submarine base in Cuba?” At a dinner laid on in his honor in 1962 by the American Jewish League Against Communism, Sokolsky, found a bright side to Russia’s heavy-handed treatment of its Jewish citizens, pointing out: “It is inevitable that a movement based on atheism be anti-Semitic. The Communists must hate us. We want them to hate us. It gives us pride and dignity that we don't count them among our friends.” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895908,00.html
Sokolsky died aged 69, of a heart attack, in Manhattan.
National Association of Manufacturers
The National Association of Manufacturers is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C. with 10 additional offices across the country...
and a columnist for The New York Herald Tribune, who later switched to The New York Sun and other Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
newspapers.
Biography
Son of a Russian émigré rabbiRabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
, Sokolsky was born in Utica, N.Y. He graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism. In February 1917, Sokolsky was attracted by the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
and went to Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
to write for Russian Daily News, an English-language newspaper. After the overthrow
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
of the Kerensky
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...
government by the Bolsheviks, he became disillusioned with the revolution. His Columbia classmate Bennett Cerf
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf was a publisher and co-founder of Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?.-Biography:Bennett Cerf...
was to observe many decades later: “Suddenly the flaming radical, Sokolsky, became the flaming reactionary, George Sokolsky, and one of the most important columnists in the United States of America.” http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/nny/cerfb/transcripts/cerfb_1_9_416.html He fled to China, landing with one Yankee dollar in his pocket, to continue his work as a special correspondent for English-language newspapers such as St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
and London Daily Express. and acted as an informant and propagandist for sundry conflicting Asian and Western clients, including Cen Chunxuan
Cen Chunxuan
Cen Chunxuan was the governor of Shanxi , governor-general of Sichuan , Liangguang , Yungui , and Tibet and chairman of the Governing Committee of the Military Government of China .-Biography:He was under the protection of General Lu Rongting's Old...
. He broke a social taboo by marrying a woman of mixed Caribbean-Chinese blood. Sokolsky became political adviser and friend to Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
, and wrote for his English-language Shanghai Gazette. He also befriended colorful characters that ranged from “Two-Gun” Cohen
Morris Cohen (adventurer)
Morris Abraham "Two-Gun" Cohen was a British mercenary of Jewish origin who became aide-de-camp to the Chinese leader Sun Yat-sen and a major-general in the Chinese army.-Early years:...
to Soong May-ling
Soong May-ling
Soong May-ling or Soong Mei-ling, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang was a First Lady of the Republic of China , the wife of Generalissimo and President Chiang Kai-shek. She was a politician and painter...
, and identified Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
as “the only revolutionist in China who could make the revolution stick.” (See Daniel S. Levy, Two-Gun Cohen: A Biography, St. Martin’s Press, 2002, pp. 117ff.)
Sokolsky’s 14-year long stint in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
enabled him to hold himself out as an expert on Asian matters upon his repatriation to the U.S. His experience of Chinese culture was tinged with ambivalence: “Perhaps in no other city does so much human energy go into the search for amusement as among the foreign population of Shanghai. Ladies go to their amusements with even greater avidity. Work at home can always be done by boys and amahs and club life becomes the center of one’s aims and ambitions. Dinner parties at clubs and hotels, night after night of dancing and jazz, turn the sweet girl who comes here to marry a man out East into a tired matron while still in her thirties: blasé, wearied and uninterested in life.” Sokolsky went on to complain about the corrosive effect of the “foreign exchange” upon the younger Chinese: “It would seem that every foreign vice and extravagance has its votaries among the younger Chinese in Shanghai who, meeting largely with the wider elements of the foreign population, copy their lust for pleasure as though it were the hallmark of modernity.” (Quoted by Stella Dong in Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City, 1842-1949, Harper Perennial, 2001, p. 229.)
It was in China that Sokolsky inaugurated his life-long association with the National Association of Manufacturers
National Association of Manufacturers
The National Association of Manufacturers is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C. with 10 additional offices across the country...
(NAM). After returning to the U.S. in 1935, Sokolsky strongly sided with NAM in touting its conception of the American Way of Life. NAM followed the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
in laying claim to “the greatest good for the greatest number." Sokolsky encouraged NAM to reach out and awaken the passions of the American middle class in opposition to the “collectivistic” current of the New Dealers. In the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
Radio Network program America's Town Meeting of the Air
America's Town Meeting of the Air
America’s Town Meeting of the Air was a public affairs discussion broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1956, mainly on the NBC Blue Network and its successor, ABC Radio...
, he argued against Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins , born Fannie Coralie Perkins, was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition...
’ defense of the Social Security Act, calling the 10% of the taxes that the Federal Government kept, while remitting 90% back to the states that were compelled to conform to a standard of minimum requirements for administering Social Security set by the Federal Government, “a service charge for coercion”. Sokolsky toured the U.S., writing and making, speeches as an “industrial consultant” on behalf of NAM. The Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
’s La Follette Committee on Civil Liberties reported in 1938 that for his speaking engagements and other work he was paid nearly $40,000, through publicity firm Hill & Knowlton
Hill & Knowlton
Hill & Knowlton is a global public relations company, headquartered in New York City, United States, with 79 offices in 44 countries. Hill & Knowlton was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 1927 by John W. Hill and is today led by Chairman & CEO, Paul Taaffe...
, by the NAM and the Iron and Steel Institute. He encapsulated his political philosophy in personalized slogans: “I do not like coercion in any form. I prefer spontaneous enthusiasms.” Sokolsky wrote signed columns attacking the Roosevelt administration for its failure to support Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
.
Sokolsky became a vocal supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
, an intimate of J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
, and a close friend of Roy Cohn
Roy Cohn
Roy Marcus Cohn was an American attorney who became famous during Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into Communist activity in the United States during the Second Red Scare. Cohn gained special prominence during the Army–McCarthy hearings. He was also an important member of the U.S...
, who eventually dedicated to him McCarthy, his sympathetic study of his former employer. The Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
entrenched him in his suspicions of a vast anti-American conspiracy. In one of his columns he asked, “If our far eastern policy was not betrayed, why are we fighting in Korea?” In his newspaper column Sokolsky supported the right wing of the Republican Party. He wanted either Robert Taft
Robert Taft
Robert Alphonso Taft , of the Taft political family of Cincinnati, was a Republican United States Senator and a prominent conservative statesman...
or Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
to get the Presidential nomination in 1952, and frequently criticized the Eisenhower Administration.
In 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions of contempt of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
against the Hollywood Ten, who had argued unsuccessfully that their First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
protections prohibited Congress from asking about their political activities. Thereupon, American Legion
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...
presented the movie studios with a list of some 300 people, meant as a de facto blacklist. Those listed were given an opportunity to exonerate themselves by answering the charges against them in a letter. If the blacklisted artists refused to write a letter, they were fired. The studios submitted the letters from those who cooperated to the American Legion. The American Legion passed judgment on the acceptability of excuses, referring problematic cases to Sokolsky. As its “clearance man”, Sokolsky worked pro bono
Pro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...
on rendering a final decision on clearing the letter writer from the blacklist, either on his own or in consultation with Hollywood union leader Roy Brewer and/or actor Ward Bond
Ward Bond
Wardell Edwin "Ward" Bond was an American film actor whose rugged appearance and easygoing charm were featured in over 200 movies and the television series Wagon Train.-Early life:...
, respectively the first and the second presidents of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals
Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals
The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals was an American organization of high-profile, politically conservative members of the Hollywood film industry...
. Artists who failed to meet the standards of political correctness were consigned to unemployment. http://comptalk.fiu.edu/blacklist.htm Nevertheless, blacklisting proceeded with a measure of even-handedness. According to Victor S. Navasky, “Newspaper columnists such as George Sokolsky, Victor Riesel
Victor Riesel
Victor Riesel was an American newspaper journalist and columnist who specialized in news related to labor unions. At the height of his career, his column on labor union issues was syndicated to 356 newspapers in the United States...
, Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
, Jack O'Brian
Jack O'Brian
John Dennis Patrick O'Brian was a New York Journal American television critic and supporter of Joseph McCarthy.O'Brian was born in Buffalo, New York...
, and Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...
were as happy to fill their spaces by getting the deserved off the list as by putting the blameworthy on.” (Naming Names, Hill and Wang, 2003, p. 89.)
Sokolsky denounced the exposure of McCarthy on See It Now
See It Now
See It Now is an American newsmagazine and documentary series broadcast by CBS from 1951 to 1958. It was created by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly, Murrow being the host of the show. From 1952 to 1957, See It Now won four Emmy Awards and was nominated three times...
, broadcast on March 9, 1954 by Fred W. Friendly
Fred W. Friendly
Fred W. Friendly was a president of CBS News and the creator, along with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program See It Now...
and Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
, in his Hearst newspaper column. Later on that year, Time Magazine characterized Sokolsky in the words of one of his friends, as one who “can be called the high priest of militant U.S. anti-Communism.” Sokolsky never relented in his animadversions against world communism and its self-appointed standard bearer, the U.S.S.R. In February 1962, Sokolsky startled his readers by asserting that “if Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
falls, we shall have immediate war.” http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,829038,00.html During the Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
, he advocated a vigorous American response, asking: “Do we have to stand still until Soviet Russia has established a missile and submarine base in Cuba?” At a dinner laid on in his honor in 1962 by the American Jewish League Against Communism, Sokolsky, found a bright side to Russia’s heavy-handed treatment of its Jewish citizens, pointing out: “It is inevitable that a movement based on atheism be anti-Semitic. The Communists must hate us. We want them to hate us. It gives us pride and dignity that we don't count them among our friends.” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895908,00.html
Sokolsky died aged 69, of a heart attack, in Manhattan.
External links
- George Ephraim Sokolsky Manuscripts 1919-1962 at Columbia University
- Remarks By George Sokolsky against the newly enacted Social Security Act on December 19, 1935
- Self-Evident Subtlety, a note on Sokolsky’s consulting career published in Time on Monday, August 01, 1938
- The Man in the Middle, a profile of Sokolsky published in Time on Monday, May 24, 1954