by Paul R. Spitzzeri
On this closing day of Jewish American Heritage Month, we turn to a letter in the Homestead’s holdings dated 12 May 1929 from J. Perry Worden, the Temple family’s biographer, to Thomas W. Temple II. The five-page missive is filled with fulminations from the fussy and fastidious historian, whose work on the family was never completed, about his seemingly endless general grievances and his specific complaints about not being properly financially and otherwise supported in his book project, more than seven years in the (not) making.
There is, however, a return to a topic that was raised in the 1927 publication of lawyer and banker Jackson Graves’ memoir, My Seventy Years in California, concerning the Temple and Workman bank and assertions from an unnamed source that Los Angeles Jews played a role in the collapse of the bank. A prior post here, focusing on a Worden latter to Thomas from December 1927, soon after Graves’ work was published, discussed what took place then. Worden, in his litany of affronts, took up the matter again.
First, though, the typically expansive and eccentrically expressive missive (with its usual array of capitalization, spacing and underlining) began with the acknowledgment to Thomas, who was ready to graduate with his juris doctorate degree from the prestigious and rigorous Harvard Law School, that Worden received a letter from early April and then averring that “I hardly feel physically and mentally able to answer it, but will try,” before rambling along for five pages! Complaint #1: “our house, most inconveniently small” was such that “friends of fine homes . . . told Mrs. Worden later that she is one of 10,000 women patiently to put up with my awful literary jumble and disorder from our need of MORE ROOM for such extensive headlight glare. Beyond this, there was “locomotive headlight glare and heat,” not to mention the Professor’s battles with seasonal hay fever.
On top of this, Worden recently received news of the death of his only sister and went into a lengthy recitation of the life of his sibling and her adopted children, two deemed by him as “so many mill-stones about her neck” while the third was considered worthy. Still, she “GAVE HER LIFE FOR OTHERS” though, in his judgment, not physically able “to make such a sacrifice.” The prior year, she was to come out to live with Worden and his wife Effie (the couple needing a new car to place their “old” 1924 Chevy), but “all was promising, until the s l u m p of the T e m p l e Estate cut me, suddenly off from A L L pay.” The historian then informed Thomas,
At first, to help out Mr. Temple [Thomas’ father, Walter] and not to appear mean and say, like common folks, that we would not finish the book unless paid, we drew out, and drew out, our savings, always hoping that Mr. Woodruff [Temple’s attorney and representative] would be able to let us have SOMETHING.
Then, Worden went on, his wife feared a loss of her job at an architectural firm, so that “our situation thus became more and more distressingly critical and with “neither a friendly personal visit from Mr. Woodruff, nor a friendly line,” the suffering scholar and his spouse “grew very discouraged and fearful.” Worden also had yet to receive any money for his work on a third edition of Harris Newmark’s Sixty Years in Southern California, appearing in 1930 and which he had a major role in developing. Alas, he asked his sister to postpone her move until summer 1929, but then came the news of her passing after her suffering from dizziness “and cried and cried” over her predicament.
With no subtlety whatsoever, Worden referred to the situation “at this time of the Temple Estate so utterly failing us” and he and his wife feeling “that the Temple Estate c o u l d, if it would, have continued to give us s o m e t h i n g, that Mr. Woodruff could certainly have continued to keep me s o m e w h a t on the pay-roll . . . and i f the Estate h a d so done, we would not to-day be so heartbroken.” The pathos was amplified by Worden giving Thomas a verbatim telegraphic dispatch to someone caring for his sister, in which he stated, “Heartbroken that because of drawing out of our savings to help Mr. Temple finish book, cannot possible come; say affectionate farewell, (etc.) . . .” Capping this off, the historian added that he “had the heart-breaking, H U M I L I A T I N G experience of having” to ask a “MERE UNRELATED FRIEND to bury my only Sister.”
In his typical passive-aggressive mode of operations, Worden then insisted to Thomas that,
I cannot help by f e e l with everybody concerned at the Temple Slump, and of course no one blames everybody or anyone for a l l that has happened; but Mrs. Worden and me [I!] will always fell that it was N O T necessary for Mr. Temple and Mr. Woodruff to c u t m e o f f so abruptly and s o e n t i r e l y, and that IT WAS BECAUSE OF THIS TEMPLE FAILURE TO US, that my Sister and we were denied this great possible pleasure of having her.
Further, pointed volleys of false equivalency were launched at Thomas as Worden questioned why Woodruff would pay for his “gifted daughter” to return home to Pasadena for the last Christmas holiday, while Thomas “had your fine Montreal Xmas trip, that was a l l right” because it was “your ONE LAST CHANCE for such an outing and vigorous bodily and mental experience, [such as] no one will be jealous of you for doing.” Back to that “old” Chevy, Worden compared his plight to Woodruff’s “handsome new Packard or Pierce-Arrow . . . gracefully driven by Mrs. Woodruff.” While acknowledging that the attorney was like “a heavy loser by recent slumps,” Worden wondered if he’d “realized what a P I N C H we have been, AND STILL ARE, subjected to.”
Awkwardly, though this was often par for the course for the perambulations of Worden’s purple prose, he pivoted on a dime to the impending graduation of Thomas’ sister Agnes, matriculating at Dominican College in San Rafael, north of San Francisco. Saying he might write her soon, the historian asked Thomas to congratulate her in the Worden’s stead, and then tossed off some faint praise for Walter Temple that he always loved his children and “ALWAYS WANTED ALL OF YOU TO HAVE EVERY EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGE” and that this concern was “only one of several very a t t r a c t a b l e personal characteristics of your Father that makes it pleasurable to me to still try to hold out and honor him and his family.” Alas, Worden felt compelled to ad, “BUT it also makes feel intensely disappointed that he has so far neglected me that he never drops me a line, never invites me to come to see him.”
Returning to the incomplete tome, the historian insisted that there were “such a number of VERY representative people, in the [Southern California] Hist. Society, universities, etc., who k n o w m y t h o r o u g h, o r i g i n a l w o r k, [who] ARE EXPECTING MUCH, while he professed to believe that, “IF I CAN HOLD OUT,” he would “produce a book MUCH BETTER, MORE IMPORTANT than the very successful Newmark book.” After a brief acknowledgment of Walter Temple’s sojourn, for his health, at Indio, east of Palm Springs, Worden again pulled Thomas back into more on his sister, but, as a matter of course, threw himself front and center in stating that, not knowing what happened with the funeral or what he would do with the administration of his estate, “my inquestioned [sic] wide national and internation[al] reputation,” he was subjected to something “TERRIBLY HUMILIATING.”
So, it was then back again to the Temple book. The scholar reminded his correspondent that it would be one
that will PRESENT EVERYBODY CONCERNED IN THE BEST LIGHT, and so t a k e u p what may eixist [sic] of the unfortunate side, or the lesser known. I have always believe[d] that if, in this book, we make the very best, reliable showing for John Temple, William Workman, F.P.F. Temple, Walter Temple, Mr. Woodruff, etc., we can afford to leave to Posterity the judgment and favorable opinion, [and] fame.
While some aspects of history could not be helped as were “affectin[g] the personal or business or professional reputation of those involved,” Worden reiterated “BUT WE C A N [A] M A S S ALL THE COMPLIMENTARY THINGS, mostly UNknown to the present generation” with this necessitating the continued support of Woodruff and Walter Temple. For the lawyer, a purported incentive for a $500 investment in the work would be “a notice, with a fine portrait,” such as was done for the Newmark book with its dozens of portraits of Los Angeles notables, with Worden adding that Woodruff was a “g e n e r a l l [sic] U N k n o w n” with “NO general reputation” even among the legal fraternity.” For one hardly shy from touting his attainments and knowledge, Worden was uncharacteristically reflective on this point, perhaps yielding too much to the tone of the earlier part of the latter, and commented that “for one of my supposed ability and my unquestionable reputation previously and elsewhere, [I] have been, and am, disappointingly unknown hereabouts—buried from men’s eyes and knowledge.”
Despite his dragging of Woodruff, though, the writer then told Thomas that, of the eight or ten barristers he did know of him, “EVERYONE has said he is a FINE, WELL-INFORMED, HIGHLY ESTEEMED LAWYER, of recognized experience and ability.” Still, “what he wants,” compared to someone like John Steven McGroarty, of The Mission Play and later California Poet Laureate, “i s p u b l i c i t y” and this required a bit of sacrifice “by the getting out of our fine book.” Drawing a parallel with some Eastern businessman he knew, Worden asserted that Woodruff pursued wealth to the level of “a terrible mistake” that led “to grief,” but, if only the lawyer “had a broader vision, he would not have dropped us so” as “ONE OF THE WORSE THINGS THAT COULD HAPPEN TO THE TEMPLE ESTATE WOULD BE THE NEVER PUBLISHING OF THE TEMPLE BOOK.” This, as opposed to, say, the complete financial collapse of Walter Temple’s financial situation which was actually looming.
Still, this master of exaggeration and affect went on to tell Thomas with all the breathless hype he could muster:
I n t h i s c o n n e c t i o n, I m u s t ONCE AGAIN WARN YOU ALL, t h a t U N L E S S T H E T E M P L E B O O K I S A T L E A S T S E T I N T Y P E , (so that the pages can be numbered, and the citations to topics made,)
N O M E N T I O N O F T H E T E M P L E S, WOODRUFFS, etc., can appear in our newmark index and bibliography for library use—all will be lost. It will be A B S O L U T E L Y N E C E S A R Y [sic], therefore, if this TEMPLE BOOK IS TO GET FAME, RECOGNITION, say with G R A V E S’ BOOOK [sic], THAT THE TEMPLE BOOK BE PUT IN TYPE BEFORE THE NEWMARK NEW BOOK FOR LIBRARY REFERENCE IS COMPLETE . . . THE TEMPLE ESTATE M U S T PUT THIS BOOK INTO TYPE . . . O t h e r w i s e, it must be I G N O R E D, as if never written, by us in the making of THE NEWMARK MEMORIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX TO CALIFORNIA AND CALIFORNIANA: History, Biography, etc.
This leads to the point about Los Angeles Jews and the Temple and Workman bank, as Worden sought to answer a comment made by Thomas in his recent letter that led the historian to say “as if I were responsible, in my zeal in defebding [sic] the Temple family, for Mr. Graves’ reflections upon your grandfather, F.P.F. Temple, calling him a Bank-Thief, etc.,” which is not what the attorney-banker wrote in his book. In any case, Worden offered the caveat that he could not divulge everything, but then wrote that “it happened all in this way.”
This involved his criticism to Newmark’s sons, Marco and Maurice, for printing in Sixty Years in Southern California their father’s remark that, in Worden’s words, “John Temple was stingy;
the actual text was that Temple was “one of the wealthiest, yet the one of the stingiest men in all California.” This, Worden wrote, “probably came out of old Mr. Newmark’s competive [sic] experience with him as a merchant,” while allowing that the sons did not have “any anti-Temple feeling, as such” but that they relied too much on their father “as an oracle.” Moreover, he went on, “in the matter of the Temple—Workman bank failure, they sided with I.W. Hellman [former Temple and Workman partner in the prior bank, Hellman, Temple and Company], old, intimate, not merely Jewish friends.”
This said, Worden also called into question the Newmarks’ “references to the Temple—W. bank failure” and, “when they opposed me, I said that I had much evidence to show that the JEWS of that time and locality, in support of I.W. Hellman, had contributed to suspicions agains[t] and a run a run of the T—W bank.” Claiming he never thought “that the controversy would go further than between the Newmarks and myself,” Worden said that Maurice Newmark contacted Graves and asked if what Worden asserted was the case, to which the latter replied, “It’s a damned lie” and followed with a letter that was included in his memoir. Maurice Newmark “claims that he did not know Graves was writing his book” which led Worden to answer, “Graves was NO GENTLEMAN to print letter, without frist [sic] asking your permission.”
As he (mercifully) came to the end of his extraordinary epistle, the historian added, “Now, I am s u r e that I can make a very forcible answer, with all my other T—Workman bank materials, to Graves, esp. by allowing Mr. Woodruff to look critically over that particular chapter.” Worden turned to his attempted buttering up of his correspondent and asserted,
In conclusion, let me say that certain work in connection with the Temple genealogies, family history, etc. can BE VERY MUCH BETTER DONE BY ME W I T H Y O U R H E L P, and you will like to help me, I know, and, while ordinarily, i c a n n o t u s e t h e c o o p e r a t i o n in such work to advantage—I must work alone—I shall be glad of that help.
The abrupt end coming at the end of the fifth page was simply “we are certainly trying to hold out,” but it would only get worse. Five months later came the stock market crash in New York City that ushered in The Great Depression and Walter P. Temple’s reeling finances, like most Americans’, cratered as the disaster worsened. Worden, despite his hype and hysterics at the end of the Twenties, continued correspondence, especially with Thomas, until not long before his death in 1945. The younger Temple became a historian and genealogist of regional note, but a family history went unfinished for some 80 years after this letter. More of Worden’s often-bizarre, but generally entertaining, correspondence will continue to be shared in the “Reading Between the Lines” series.