I
Albert Einstein came to America in 1931 to become a professor in the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He had been world-famous for a dozen years or so, had been awarded the Nobel Prize, and was a doctor honoris causa in fourteen of the world’s great universities. His coming was a prestige matter to Cal Tech and had been announced weeks in advance; reporters swarmed around him, the newspapers made front-page stories of his arrival, the institute gave a banquet in his honor, and one of the town’s many millionairesses contributed ten thousand dollars for the privilege of tasting that food.
I had been corresponding with Einstein for some years. He had read some of my books and had written me: “To the most beautiful joys of my life belongs your wicked tongue.” He had promised to come to see me; and soon after his arrival in Pasadena, Craig’s sister Dolly came in and reported, “There’s an old man walking up and down on the street, and he keeps looking at the house.”
Craig said, “Go out and ask what he wants.” Dolly went and came back to report, “He says he’s Dr. Einstein.” Craig said, “Go bring him in,” and called to me.
Such was the beginning of as lovely a friendship as anyone could have in this world. I report him as the kindest, gentlest, sweetest of men. He had a keen wit, a delightful sense of humor, and his tongue could be sharp—but only for the evils of this world. I don’t like the word “radical”; but it is the word that the world chose to employ about me, and Albert Einstein was as radical as I was. From first to last, during his two winters in Pasadena, he never disagreed with an idea of mine or declined a request I made of him.
Of course, it was shocking to the authorities at Cal Tech that Einstein chose to identify himself with the city’s sharpest social critic. I could forgive Dr. Robert Millikan, president of the great institution, because I knew he had to raise funds among the city’s millionaires and so had to watch his step; but Einstein was less tolerant. He knew snobbery when he saw it, and he expressed his opinions freely. He also recognized anti-Semitism and knew when his loyal and devoted wife was slighted. Said one young instructor at Cal Tech to Craig, “The Jews have got Harvard, they are getting Princeton, and they are on the way to getting Cal Tech.”
Of course, when our friends knew that we knew Einstein, they all begged to meet him; and when I told Einstein about it, he said, of course he and his wife would come to a dinner and meet our friends. We engaged a private dining room in the “swanky” Town House of Los Angeles. Craig and I went a little early to make sure that everything was in order, and we were in the dining room when Einstein and his wife arrived. He always wore a black overcoat—I think a bit rusty—and a little soft black hat. He came into the large room where a table was set for twelve and looked around as if at a loss. Then he took off his overcoat, folded it carefully, and laid it on the floor in an unoccupied corner. He then took off the black hat and laid that on top of the coat. He was ready for dinner. I was too tactful to mention that there is a hat-check room in fashionable hotels.
Another episode: Some labor leader was arrested in a strike. I felt it my duty to make a protest, but I doubted if the press services would pay heed to me. I thought they would pay heed to Einstein, and I asked him if he would care to make a protest. He told me to write out the message and he would sign it. He did so, and I turned it over to the United Press. It was not sent out. Whereupon I telegraphed a protest to Carl Bickel, head of the agency in New York. Bickel sent me a copy of the rebuke he had telegraphed to the head of the Los Angeles office, informing him that he had made the United Press ridiculous and that hereafter anything that Einstein had to say on any subject was news.
Once I mentioned to Einstein that someone had called my social protest “undignified.” The next time he came to our home he brought a large and very fine photograph of himself, eighteen by twenty-four inches, and on it he had inscribed six lines of verse, in colloquial German that calls for a Berliner. Needless to say, that trophy was framed and hung on the wall, and German visitors always call for a flashlight and a footstool to stand on.
People ask for the text of the verses, so I give it here, first in German, then in translation:
Wen ficht der schmutzigste Topf nicht an?
Wer klopft die Welt auf den hohlen Zahn?
Wer verachtet das Jetzt und schwört auf das Morgen?
Wem macht kein “undignified” je Sorgen?
Der Sinclair ist der tapfre Mann
Wenn einer, dann ich es bezeugen kann.
In herzlichkeit
Albert Einstein
Whom does the dirtiest pot not attack?
Who hits the world on the hollow tooth?
Who spurns the now and swears by the morrow?
Who takes no care about being “undignified”?
The Sinclair is the valiant man
If anyone, then I can attest it.
In heartiness
Albert Einstein
There is an amusing story connected with those verses. Life published six pages of photographs of American rocking chairs; and I wrote them a playful note, rebuking them for having left out the most characteristic of all American chairs, the cradle rocker. I enclosed a photo of myself in our cradle rocker and pointed out the photograph of Einstein just behind the chair—which the great man had often sat in. I mentioned the poem, and there came a phone call from Life’s Hollywood office. The editor, an agreeable lady, asked for the text of the poem. I said it was in German, and she didn’t know German. Would I translate it for her? I said I would, but I also said it would be useless, as Life wouldn’t publish it. She asked why, and I answered, “Because it praises me.”
The lady laughed merrily; she thought that was a witticism, asked again for the translation, and wrote it out line by line. Life published the letter and the photograph, April 28, 1961. It did not mention the poem. So I knew Life better than one of its own editors! I had a bit of fun telling her so when next I had her on the phone.
Einstein was surprised to learn that I had never been invited to speak at Cal Tech and had never had the honor of meeting Dr. Millikan. I told him that Bertrand Russell, when he had come to speak at Cal Tech, had made an engagement to have lunch with us at the home of Mrs. Gartz. The lecture took place in the morning, and we had arranged to meet him afterward, but Dr. Millikan carried him off to lunch at the Valley Hunt Club and made no apology to us.
On one of Einstein’s last days in Pasadena, I went to his home to say good-by to him. You entered his house into a hallway, and on one side was a door opening into the dining room and on the other a door leading into the living room. I was saying my farewell to Einstein in the living room; just as I was ready to leave, Mrs. Einstein came in and said in a half whisper, “Dr. Millikan is here. I took him into the dining room.”
I, of course, started to get out of the way; but Einstein took me firmly by one elbow and led me out of the living room and across the hall and opened the dining-room door. “Dr. Millikan,” he said, “I want you to meet my friend Upton Sinclair.” So, of course, we shook hands. I said a few polite words and took myself off.
I never saw Dr. Millikan again, but I will include one more story having to do with him. At the time of our entrance into World War II, Phil La Follette was opposing our entrance and came on a lecture tour to Pasadena. Dr. Millikan’s son was casting about to find someone to oppose Phil in debate, and he came to me. I was in favor of our entrance, as I had been in the case of World War I; in both cases most of my socialist friends opposed me, some of them very bitterly.
When young Millikan asked if I would be willing to enter the lists, I consented. My wife attended the debate and found herself seated just in front of a group of young socialists who were jeering at my speech; when she turned around and looked at them, they recognized her, and got up and moved to another part of the hall. When some of the ardent patriots jeered at La Follette, I got up from my seat on the platform and asked them please to hear him. Some photographer took a snapshot of that moment, and it made an amusing picture.
My friendship with Einstein continued by mail for almost twenty years. And in the course of time I received another jingle from him—he had a propensity for writing them. A pacifist lady, Rosika Schwimmer, worked up a little fuss with me over a story I had told in my book Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox, to the effect that she had gone to Fox with a proposal to finance a “peace ship” to Europe, and he had declined. Rosika claimed that the story was false and employed a lawyer to demand that I state in the next edition of the book that it was false. I was perfectly willing to say that she denied it, but how could I say it was false when it was a square issue of veracity between two persons, and I had no other evidence?
Rosika sued me for libel—the only time that has ever happened to me. Obviously it was no libel, for she had made the same appeal to Henry Ford, and with success as all the world knew. She carried the case to the Supreme Court of New York State and lost all the way. She also carried it to Albert Einstein, and he, friend to all pacifists, wrote me some verses, mildly suggesting I take on more weighty foes. I replied with another set of verses, pointing out that I had taken on the Francos and the Hitlers.
Postscript: When I published an article about Einstein for the Saturday Review of April 14, 1962, Dr. Lee DuBridge, present head of Cal Tech, wrote me a long letter protesting my statements about that institution. In reply I wrote him some of my evidence that I had been too polite to include in my article; for instance, that Mrs. Einstein had complained to my wife that she had never been able to get the use of the bus that was maintained for the convenience of faculty wives. Dr. DuBridge had sent his letter to me to the Saturday Review, requesting publication; but the Saturday Review presently informed me that he had withdrawn his request. I was left to guess that he had read my letter.