Max Yergan

by David Henry Anthony III

  The Robeson-Yergan relationship, however, as crucial as it may have been, was not the sole factor in this “second conversion” of the African-American missionary. No less decisive was his receptivity to South African radicalism. By the 1930s an oppositional landscape in South Africa had emerged. Growing Communist Party influence caused Yergan to devote close attention to its activities and led him to make contact with party militants and sympathizers. The root of this lure is based in part upon ideological changes Yergan had begun to manifest during 1931.

  Crisis in the World’s Student Christian Federation

  The upbeat outcome of the landmark Bantu-European Student Conference at Fort Hare should have seemed sufficient to guarantee even greater renown for Yergan and his innovative endeavors. As it happened, however, Yergan’s public triumph only presaged a private trauma with profound professional and personal consequences. In the course of the deliberations undertaken by conference members, Yergan was frequently observed in the company of Mrs. Rena Datta, née Rena Cars-well, a secretary in the WSCF office in Geneva and the spouse of another federation official, author Dr. Surendra Kumar Datta. S. K. and Rena Datta had joined the WSCF after lengthy service in the Indian YMCA, where the Dattas were each well-known leaders.

  Rena Carswell’s connection with the WSCF began in 1911 when she was named personal secretary to Ruth Rouse of the federation. Cars-well, who had previously been prominent in the British Student Christian Movement, toured North America and southeastern Europe with Rouse between 1912 and 1914. She subsequently served as general secretary of the YWCA in India, Burma, and Ceylon before becoming a WCSF official in her own right.69

  Although Yergan and Rena Datta had worked intensely on this and other WSCF business during the months preceding the Fort Hare conference, the official who noticed them began to suspect that there may have been more than merely federation matters on their minds and suggested as much to Dr. Francis P. Miller, the chair of the federation. Miller then undertook what may only be described as an investigation, in order to determine the seriousness of the allegation and, if necessary, devise a remedy allowing the concerned parties to salvage the situation.

  In his autobiography, Man from the Valley, Miller outlined the events that transpired in the wake of the Fort Hare conference.

  I was about to take my departure from Fort Hare when a conversation occurred which introduced me to a personal scandal within the organization whose ramifications eventually reached out to three continents and threatened the very integrity of the World’s Student Christian Federation itself. The crisis continued for the next two years, involving American Negroes, British, and Indians who were all members of the inner group of the Federation. Eventually, it was resolved through the withdrawal of the main characters from Federation work.70

  This reflection, made almost forty years after the event described, indicates the degree to which the WSCF was able to contain the scandal to which Miller referred.

  Max Yergan’s situation was certainly conducive to an affair. As has already been mentioned, he spent significant periods away from home. With the passing of the decades, he came increasingly to be viewed as a valuable addition to interracial ecumenical meetings for both his ideas and the disarming, witty, and nonantagonistic way in which these were usually presented. It must be added that, from the earliest days of his appearance as a public figure, his photographs reveal that Yergan cut a profile strikingly handsome, which made him keenly popular with audiences wherever he went. A world traveler, an articulate speaker, projecting a bright, genial, engaging, ostensibly easygoing manner and winning smile and affecting a glowing, perennially youthful visage, Max Yergan easily drew attention and admirers; little evidence suggests that he did much to discourage either. He used his appearance to wield extraordinary personal power. Even when he began showing his age, this magnetic appeal remained—and surely had an impact on Rena Datta.

  The friendship Yergan and Rena Datta struck up was clearly an out-growth of their work. Both were confronted by the relentless challenges of doing interracial work with moderates and liberals on a daily basis. They saw each others as allies in this often lonely struggle. It didn’t hurt that Rena knew India well and Max retained fond memories of his months in strife-torn Bangalore during World War One. They were both far away from home—she based in frigid Switzerland, he in temperate but culturally alien South Africa—each seeking some respite from the ceaselessly rigorous demands of racial leadership.

  Yergan probably knew S. K. Datta from his Bangalore days, since Dr. Datta was then second in command of India’s YMCA. Yergan appears to have met Rena Datta in 1928 at the time of the Mysore conference. Extremely impressed by her, he communicated this to Chairman Miller in a letter. Yergan asked S. K. Datta to attend the 1930 Fort Hare Conference, but conflicting scheduling commitments rendered this impossible. Both Yergan and Datta were seen as WSCF race relations specialists.71

  However innocently it began, over time hawk-eyed observers within the federation began to speculate about the flowering of an inordinate degree of mutual interest between these two fellow WSCF workers. It is uncertain when this scrutiny started, but it gradually ensnared Edgar Thamae, Yergan’s personal secretary, Fort Hare’s principal, Alexander Kerr, Oswin B. Bull, Francis Miller, John R. Mott, Susie Wiseman Yergan, and others. Thamae was implicated after he revealed that he had been issued instructions to personally deliver any messages from Geneva directly to Yergan. Shortly thereafter, an unusually heavy amount of WSCF cable traffic was perceived as having been exchanged between Geneva and Alice. But it was the offhand remark by the unidentified person at the conclusion of the 1930 Bantu-European Fort Hare meeting that ultimately led Francis Miller to consider taking action.

  For six months, Miller and several associates in the federation exchanged memoranda on the Yergan-Datta affair. Because Miller was WSCF chairman, any disciplinary measures that might be warranted would fall upon him to formulate and enact. Miller had evidently hoped that, upon being confronted with the matter, the principals would recognize the extent to which their relationship might have been misconstrued, would recant, and would go on with their lives in a manner consistent with Christian mores.

  In fact, however, this proved a massive miscalculation on Miller’s part. Far from accepting responsibility for untoward behavior or for permitting others to draw such inferences from detailed observation, both Yergan and Datta launched virulent counterattacks on Miller. In Datta’s case, this was done with the support of her husband, who was personally insulted at what he stated was undue familiarity with his wife, not from Yergan but from Miller, who routinely greeted her by her given name. Yergan’s response was that Miller ultimately proved unable to overcome the prejudice inherent in his aristocratic Virginia upbringing and had leveled at him baseless, racist, personal attacks.

  As Miller’s investigation unfolded, it seemed that the accused had destroyed the evidence. Whatever letters, cables, or printed messages might have been conveyed back and forth between Datta and Yergan, no paper trail could be found. Yet, this was not the end of the matter. Intent upon pursuing his inquiry to the bitter end, Miller constructed what he must have envisioned as an air-tight case against Datta and Yergan, making mention of “divorce” to state what one or the other “estranged” parties would perforce contemplate—a highly charged, ill-chosen term having divergent legal and informal implications in English and American usage and custom. The reality remained that there was no conclusive proof that divorce was viewed as either inevitable or desirable, although it might be inferred that Mrs. Susie Yergan entertained the idea. The divorce reference further incensed S. K. Datta, who then heatedly threatened legal action against Miller.

  The affair became notorious, news reaching Channing Tobias, Yergan’s long-time friend and colleague from his Colored Work Department days, and others in the WSCF’s New York, London, and Geneva offices. Miller is correct in indicating that the situation took two years to resolve, and then only with the depart
ure of the principals from the group. This case was hanging over the head of Max Yergan like some sword of Damocles all the time that he moved to the left. To a great extent, his life and future career within the federation clearly depended upon a successful outcome in this treacherous case—one that could lead either to complete exoneration or abject ignominy.

  For this and other reasons, 1931 contained many challenges for Yergan. As January opened, New York–based Y officials wired Yergan urging a sudden recall stateside, ostensibly to resist the dire straits of steadily deepening Depression and its effect on YMCA finances. Accordingly, Yergan booked passage on a ship that sailed on March 11, on what was designated as a “special trip,” arriving, after some delay, in New York by the end of April. He wrote Phelps Stokes to inform the philanthropist of an upcoming speaking engagement at Howard University slated for the midpoint of the forthcoming month. Telling Phelps Stokes of having received an emergency call home, he sought to arrange an in-person interview with the fund’s director.72

  Within days of Yergan’s New York landing, F. P. Miller also cabled two WSCF officials, Martin and W. A. Visser ’T Hooft. At about the same time Yergan was meeting with Phelps Stokes, Miller zealously pressed his investigation through WSCF channels.73 Meanwhile, Yergan got word from Phelps Stokes that he would try to arrange an appointment for Yergan to meet the South African minister, Eric Louw. Phelps Stokes added that “Louw has recently visited Tuskegee and was impressed.”74 Phelps Stokes was then planning a Carnegie South Africa lecture tour.75

  Max’s status had continued to ascend in the corporate offices of the Phelps Stokes, Rockefeller, and Carnegie funds. A week prior to Yergan’s Phelps Stokes meeting, Rockefeller secretary Thomas Appleget had spoken highly of the young man to Dr. Edmund E. Day, director of social sciences for the Rockefeller Foundation, and urged Yergan to pursue this contact on his own when feasible.76 In short order, Appleget wrote Phelps Stokes in response to a Stokes communication mentioning their commitment to aid Yergan’s work. This occurred close on the heels of Yergan’s Phelps Stokes meeting. Appleget mentioned writing Carnegie Foundation head Frederick P. Keppel along similar lines. Then Appleget shared a compelling idea that may have had a bearing upon Yergan’s future plans:

  Incidentally, I have been wondering lately if Yergan might not eventually be a man to consider as president of some southern educational institution. It seems to me that a man who can deal so successfully with the Dutch and the English and the natives in South Africa might have some hopes of succeeding with a board of trustees, a faculty and a student and alumni body in America. I should deeply appreciate your opinion as to what Yergan should eventually do with himself.77

  Phelps Stokes, preparing to see Yergan again within a fortnight, then received an invitation from three Yergan YMCA associates to attend a special luncheon honoring Yergan and YMCA author Ethan T. Colton.78 Three days later Phelps Stokes replied to Appleget’s career suggestion for Yergan with characteristic tact and promptness. Giving the matter the time it merited, Phelps Stokes declared,

  My impression is that Max Yergan is doing a work of such great significance in South Africa that it would be inadvisable to call him back to the United States unless conditions are such that he cannot wisely continue there. As you know, the race problem in South Africa is probably the most complicated in the world. I make no exceptions. Now Yergan is one of the few Colored men who has tackled the problem wisely and constructively and who has the confidence of the best elements in all groups. I am inclined to think, therefore, that although he would be well fitted for certain types of work in the south, it would be wiser for him to remain where he is if he can continue to carry on in a reasonably effective way.79

  Rockefeller and Phelps Stokes Foundation staff members were present at Yergan’s May 18 luncheon appearance with YMCA partisan and writer-lecturer on Soviet affairs, Ethan T. Colton. Rockefeller’s A. W. Packard evaluated Yergan’s performance in brief but strikingly sensitive minutes:

  Mr. Yergan’s talk covered in general the points already brought out in his presentation here. We were further impressed with the earnestness of his own efforts and the significance which is inherent in his undertaking. We asked him afterwards what success he was having here in raising funds. He seemed to be rather blue and discouraged.80

  It may have been the case that pecuniary problems were not the only problems plaguing Yergan at that moment.

  Yergan remained in the United States through August, when he took leave of his old friend and mentor, J. E. Moorland. Thereupon he quit the country, originally intending to spend a week to ten days in England. Once there, however, he found that he wandered restlessly, lingering a month during which he came into contact with unnamed and unnumbered people who had been to the Soviet Union. So moved was he by having met them that he tried to obtain a visa for himself but was prevented from doing so by bureaucratic delays. That same month Yergan ran into Dr. John Hope, his old Colored Y colleague, whom he had relieved in France in July 1919. Hope invited Max to meet him in Paris. They drove to the Bois de Boulogne, then had dinner. That Sunday they visited Versailles. In the same time frame Yergan and Hope saw France’s Colonial Exposition.

  In April 1932, Yergan communicated with Miss Una Saunders of the Geneva office of the WSCF on the subject of “Bantu” work for girls and women within the YWCA of South Africa. Having already unofficially entered into deliberations along these lines in response to a previous letter from the same correspondent, Yergan outlined his views on the prospect of affiliating a Black branch of the YWCA in South Africa to the World Committee of YMCAs in Geneva. Saunders had visited the country on an ill-fated fact-finding mission with this aim prior to that time, either late in 1931 or early in 1932. From his conversations, Yergan got the impression that “nothing is contemplated whereby a separate YWCA organization will begin to serve Bantu women and girls.”81

  Yergan’s vision of African YWCA work was an extension of his training scheme, devised to address the needs of women and men, rural and urban, as well as boys and girls. Max continued, stating that he saw this as a five- to seven-year commitment by the conclusion of which it should be evident whether the idea was a workable one. He then reminded Saunders that he already had a small fund of a little over two thousand pounds with which to begin the course. As far as Y recruitment work for women was concerned, a woman needed to be sent out as a secretary from overseas, he affirmed.

  Outwardly at least, Yergan’s public relations project proceeded apace. He made profitable use of his time in the next six weeks. Given the way the philanthropic network functioned, informally as well as formally, it is doubtful that rumors about his alleged affair were kept fully under wraps. In any event they seem not to have deterred him. By mid-June, Yergan had sent Patrick Duncan, Carnegie Corporation trustee and minister of mines for South Africa, a memo on his training project, along with a revised proposal:

  The work which we have developed in South Africa and the assets which we have gained have, I firmly believe, reached the point where we are fully justified in utilizing them in the practical service of one of South Africa’s greatest needs, viz: the social and economic improvement of the Bantu population. Indeed I believe that we cannot avoid facing and undertaking to improve these conditions. In the attached memorandum I have barely referred to the situation which the Bantu face and even to that extent I have hesitated to write on a subject with which you are so thoroughly acquainted and for the improvement of which you have such long years of service behind you.82

  In his explanatory remarks to Duncan, Yergan went on to state,

  While I have drawn upon my observations and experience and have put some thought into the preparation of the memorandum, I recognize its limitations. At the same time I believe that it sets forth a scheme which is practicable and, in its development, capable of coming to successful grips with the realities of Native social and economic needs. I believe further that it is in line with tested educational procedure and at the same time w
ill permit of whatever adaptation to our need in South Africa that may be required.

  Here Max was using the humble voice of the lowly addressing the mighty. He knew that Duncan as a minister and Carnegie Corporation official would not react kindly to anything that seemed to threaten his prerogatives, so he adopted a self-effacing, supplicative tone. Even so, Yergan could not conceal what he took to be the singularity of his scheme, revealing this to Duncan in all its grandiloquent glory:

  The proposal will not have a single competitor in the whole of Africa; it will be one effort to provide a leadership which may cooperate with Europeans in helping Africans to face intelligently and solve constructively some of the most difficult human problems that a community could possibly be confronted with in our time.

  But was this, indeed, what Duncan and his fellow White South African men of power really wanted? Did they desire a self-conscious African petit bourgeoisie with whom they might one day find themselves sharing and the next, competing for leadership? Was Yergan naïve about this or was he some kind of radical rascal? Or, worse yet, was he a revolutionary masquerading as a moderate? Answering these questions requires close study of the proposal. What seemed so exciting at first sight now struck some as sinister. This appears to have proceeded along a two-tracked path. On one side stood those like Duncan, who knew Yergan only by reputation; on the other stood Phelps Stokes, F. P. Keppel, Jones, Loram, Oswin Bull, and Fort Hare principal Kerr, who had more intimate knowledge of the man, his mentality, and his local and international career profile.

  Accordingly, as August opened, Charles Loram, upon receiving his own copy of the memo that Yergan posted to Duncan, wrote Frederick Keppel, head of the Carnegie Corporation in New York, enumerating his preliminary responses to the memo: