The Role of Jews in ERB's Fiction
Part II
by Alan Hanson
Part one of this two-part
overview profiled Edgar Rice Burroughs’ two most prominent Jewish characters,
Adolph Bluber in Tarzan and the Golden Lion and Moses Samuels
in The Moon Maid. This concluding part will discuss Jewish
characters in two other Burroughs novels and will bring in what little
his biographers have revealed about his personal and professional relationships
with Jews.
For some reason Jews most often found their way into ERB’s
stories during the early 1920s. Both Golden Lion and Moon
Maid were written in 1922. Two years later a Jewish character figured
prominently in Marcia of the Doorstep, the only story that
Burroughs wrote during the year 1924. Although the novel was first published
in 1999, its contents, specifically its use of Jewish characters, are considered
here against the backdrop of the early twenties when it was written.
Marcia of the Doorstep
Despite spending months writing the
125,000-word novel, Burroughs himself had a very low opinion of Marcia.
According to Porges, ERB later explained that he had written the story
at a time when he was preoccupied with financial and business dealings,
and his mental attitude during that period contributed to the “rottenness”
(ERB’s word) of the story. The degree to which his mental attitude at the
time may have affected his characterization of Jews in the story will be
addressed later.
In 1966 noted Burroughs bibliographer Henry Hardy Heins
read the Marcia manuscript at the request of Hulbert Burroughs,
who wanted an assessment of the unpublished novel. An abridged account
of Heins’ review of Marcia appeared in ERB-dom in
1967, and the complete version appeared in The Burroughs Bulletin New
Series #1 in 1990. Heins mentioned that the original manuscript contained
some “uncomplimentary terms” in reference to the main Jewish character
but that these had been crossed out and replaced with “softer phrases”
that were racially neutral.
When it first became known a half dozen years later that
Donald Grant would publish the novel, it was rumored that ERB’s original
unkind references to Jews might be removed before publication. In his introduction
to the book, however, Danton Burroughs explained that in the interest of
authenticity these racial references had been left in the text. In 1999
Burroughs fans were finally able to read Marcia of the Doorstep
and judge for themselves how ERB handled the Jewish character in the story.
Certainly the Max Heimer character, an unscrupulous Jewish
lawyer who commits fraud and embezzlement for financial gain, could be
viewed today as an unfair Jewish stereotype. In the dialogue, Heimer is
referred to as a “nice little Jewboy” and a “dirty little kite.”
In addition, the narration contains the following generalization: “Jews
of Heimer’s type are always prone to surround themselves with well favored
employees of the opposite sex, and each of the other four attorneys who
shared the common outer office with Heimer were of his kind.” So, for
those who care to find them, there are slurs and disparaging statements
about Jews in Marcia of the Doorstep. However, considering
Heimer is a main character, there are relatively few such expressions in
the story. There is no disputing, though, that his actions make him a thoroughly
dislikeable fellow.
Toward the end of the story Burroughs added another Jewish
character, this one honorable, to soften the Heimer stereotype. Judge Isaac
Berlanger, a high-principled lawyer of the Chase family, tells Heimer,
“Yes, I’m a Jew, and I’m proud of it; but I’d put you behind the bars,
where you belong, quicker than I would a Gentile, for what he might do
would bring no disgrace upon my race as you and such as you have.”
While the scheming Heimer is a much more prominent character in the story
than Berlanger, at least Burroughs acknowledged in the closing pages that
not all Jews are like Heimer, and that honorable Jews like Berlanger had
a right to be proud of their heritage.
The Kosch Issue
The controversy over Burroughs’ treatment
of Jews in Marcia of the Doorstep does not end there, however.
In 1999, the same year Marcia was first published, John Taliaferro’s
controversial Burroughs biography, Tarzan Forever, appeared.
In it Taliaferro contended that Burroughs had a “personal ax” to grind
when he created the Heimer character in Marcia. “While tinkering with
the manuscript, he briefly considered changing Max Heimer’s name to Louis
Kosch,” stated Taliaferro. “Kosch was the real-life attorney for
Numa Pictures, and someone Burroughs had come to loathe. In April 1924,
as he was beginning Marcia, he was also contemplating suing Numa
for delinquent royalty payments on The Revenge of Tarzan
and The Adventures of Tarzan.”
The lawyer to whom Taliaferro referred was actually Harry
G. Kosch, and Burroughs’ relations with him began six years before he started
writing Marcia. In 1918 Kosch, a New York lawyer, represented
Pliny P. Craft in his $100,000 lawsuit against ERB over the film rights
to The Return of Tarzan. In 1919 Craft assigned his Tarzan
film rights to Numa Pictures Corporation, of which Harry Kosch was secretary.
Numa changed its film title to The Revenge of Tarzan over Burroughs’
repeated objections. In the fall of 1920 Burroughs again argued with Numa
over its choice of Elmo Lincoln to play Tarzan.
After six years of clashing over film rights with the
attorney Kosch and the people he represented, it appears Burroughs had
developed a personal dislike for the man. And as ERB took pen in hand to
write Marcia of the Doorstep in 1924, he clearly had Kosch’s
name in mind. Porges printed a planning page on Marcia from
ERB’s notebook. At the top of the Burroughs’ list of characters is written,
“Louis Kosch – attorney.” Later that name was crossed out and “Max
Heimer” was written above it. Porges reports that Burroughs originally
wrote the entire Marcia manuscript in longhand, but the manuscript
Heins saw in 1966 was typed. In his review Heins stated that in a large
segment of the manuscript the lawyer’s name had been typed as “Louis
Kosch” but everywhere “Kosch” appeared it had been crossed out
and “Heimer” written above in ERB’s own handwriting. Heins, apparently,
had no idea who Harry Kosch was or why Burroughs made the name change.
So, did ERB create the shady Jewish lawyer Max Heimer
in Marcia of the Doorstep as a way of venting his rage against
real-life lawyer Harry Kosch, as Taliaferro accused? It’s impossible to
know exactly what was in Burroughs’ mind at the time. It’s hard to believe
he actually would have let the story be printed with Kosch’s name attached
to the despicable lawyer character. The connection would have been too
obvious, and Burroughs surely knew that it would invite another lawsuit
from Harry Kosch if the story were published. My guess is that “Louis
Kosch” was simply ERB’s working name for the lawyer in Marcia.
It probably gave Burroughs a pleasant feeling of revenge each time he wrote
the name “Kosch” in reference to the evil Jewish lawyer in his manuscript.
I suspect ERB always knew he would have to change the villain’s name before
submitting the story for publication, and so “Louis Kosch” became
“Max Heimer.” In the end, it was a case of Burroughs’ disgust for
the actions of one particular person, and not his dislike for an entire
race of people.
Putting aside this tenuous and obscure tie-in with Burroughs
real life, the creation of the dastardly Jewish villain in Marcia
brought the author severe criticism from his chief biographer, Irwin Porges.
“In the creation of the loathsome villain Max Heimer, the basest caricature
of a Jew,” Porges wrote, “Burroughs reveals his susceptibility to
the racial prejudice of the times and the stereotype that resulted.”
In Defense of DeMond
In his Burroughs biography, Porges
also tells a little story about ERB and the “prejudice of the times”
against Jews. It happened in the early twenties, the same period during
which ERB was using prominent Jewish characters in his fiction. In October
1925 Burroughs received a letter from William V. Thompson of the Hollywood
Athletic Club. It seems a man named Maurice DeMond had applied for membership,
and Thompson wanted to know if Burroughs could shed any light on an allegation
that DeMond was a Jew. The Hollywood Athletic Club did not allow Jews to
become members at that time. In his letter of response, Burroughs praised
DeMond highly and pointed out that he had sponsored DeMond for membership
in another club, The Writers, to which DeMond was admitted after a thorough
investigation into his alleged Jewishness. In his letter, Burroughs continued
his defense of DeMond.
“To the best of my knowledge he is not a Jew, but an
American of French descent and he is an Episcopalian. Whether or not he
is a Jew is immaterial to me, but even if he were, the main objection which
I understand to be held against Jews in the Hollywood Athletic Club could
not apply in his case as his friends, the people he might bring to the
club house, are among the nicest people in Los Angeles and at such times
as I have been entertained in his home I have never seen a Jew among his
guests.”
The key point here is that in his personal relationship
with the man it made no difference to Burroughs whether or not DeMond was
a Jew. This certainly seems a progressive attitude in an era when many
private clubs and organizations openly refused to let Jews become members.
It underscores the supposition that Burroughs’ animosity toward the lawyer
Harry Kosch was based on the man’s professional and business conduct and
not his religious beliefs.
After using prominent Jewish characters in three of his
novels in the early 1920s, Burroughs stopped using them in his fiction
for the next seventeen years. The next, and last, story in which Burroughs
used a Jewish character was I Am a Barbarian, written in
1941.
I Am a Barbarian
In his novel about the rise to power
of the crazed Roman emperor Caligula, Burroughs portrayed Jews as part
of the panoply of peoples who inhabited ancient Rome. “The streets were
filled with that heterogeneous mass of humanity that wages its bitter,
eternal struggle for existence in poverty, in squalor, in vice, in crime,
in riches, or in luxury within the walls of the capital city of the world
… sleek, brown, shifty-eyed Egyptians; bearded Jews; black Ethiopians …”
Britannicus, a slave of Caligula’s family and narrator
of the story, tells of a Jew who wielded great influence over the future
emperor. “At Capri was a Jewish chief, one Herod Agrippa, a man twice
the age of Caligula, into whose companionship the young prince was constantly
thrown,” Britannicus explained. “I believe that many of Caligula’s
excesses after he became emperor were the result of the teachings of this
man who schooled him in the diabolic machinery of Asiatic despotism.”
According to Britannicus, Herod’s teachings led to Caligula’s insistence
on marrying his own sister and to his giving “increasing attention to
young boys.”
Unlike Bluber, Old Samuels and Heimer, Burroughs did not
create the character of Herod Agrippa, who was a real figure of the first
century, as were many others Burroughs included in his well researched
I
Am a Barbarian. Herod was a half-Jew who was raised and educated
in Rome. He was a favorite of the Roman court, and as an agent of the emperor
he ruled Palestine off and on from 37-44 A.D. He fell out of favor and
was imprisoned by the emperor Tiberius, but when Caligula came to power
he was freed from prison and in 41 A.D. was named King of Palestine. He
was a persecutor of early Christians and is believed to have imprisoned
Peter. Burroughs probably took some artistic license in describing the
nature of his influence over Caligula, but historically it is certain Herod
was a favorite of Caligula. The bottom line is that in this novel Burroughs
provided a fair historical characterization of Herod Agrippa, and that
effectively shields ERB from any accusations that he misrepresented this
very minor Jewish character in I Am a Barbarian.
Before leaving I Am a Barbarian, an isolated
comment about Jews that Britannicus voiced in the story is worth a quick
look. “I am a barbarian and I am proud of it,” noted Britannicus,
“but I don’t relish being called barbarian in a certain tone of voice.
The Jews are that way, too. They run around bragging about being Jews;
but if anyone calls them Jew, in that tone, they get mad.” There is
a temptation here to suspect that this might have been a real-life irritation
that Burroughs felt toward some Jews, but there is no support for that
conclusion in any of ERB’s extensive letters and non-fiction articles.
That being the case, it must be accepted as one of those statements about
human nature that Burroughs was fond of inserting in his fiction.
What to Do With Germany
With I Am a Barbarian,
which, like Marcia of the Doorstep, was not published until
years after the author’s death, ERB’s use of Jewish characters in his fiction
came to an end. However, four years later, as the war in Europe was winding
down, Burroughs wrote an article on reorganizing post-war Germany. His
plan included a prominent role for Jews, who were known to have suffered
under the Nazis. As Porges explained, under the title, “What to Do With
Germany,” Burroughs offered what he called a “subtle” proposal.
“I would make Germany a Jewish republic,” he explained. “Under
this plan Jews who thought they were getting the worst of it could move
to Germany.”
He admitted that not all Jews would want to do so, however,
since “all Jews are not fond of Jews.” He based the conclusion on
the comments of a Jewish friend, who, before the war had refused to contribute
to a fund to get Jews out of Germany. Burroughs said his Jewish friend
said, “… he would subscribe twice as much … just to keep the Jews in
Germany … three times as much to send American Jews to Germany, and … double
that if they would send his relatives to Germany.”
Burroughs admitted there was danger in his plan to give
Germany to the Jews. “The Jews are a clever race,” he wrote. “That
is one reason why they are disliked by less clever people. They would build
up a rich and powerful nation that would need ‘living room.’ Then up pops
a modern Joshua, and — bingo!”
Of course, Burroughs never meant that such a preposterous
plan be taken seriously. Again, he was playing with his belief that the
foibles human nature applied equally to all groups of people. He suspected
that Jews, like all ethnic and religious groups, once in power, would act
in their own best interest to the detriment of other groups within their
borders.
Naturally, looking back at the horrors of the Holocaust,
Burroughs’ comments in this article sound terribly insensitive. However,
it must be stressed again, that ERB wrote in the context of his time. At
the time he wrote the article, the extent to which the Jews had suffered
under the Nazis had not been revealed to the American public. In fact,
Burroughs’ article was dated April 15, 1945, just four days after American
troops liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. It’s hard
to imagine that Burroughs would have written so light-heartedly about the
Jews in Germany had he even the slightest notion of the true extent of
their suffering.
Conclusions
It’s time, then, for a final assessment
of the subject at hand — the role of Jews in the writings of Edgar Rice
Burroughs.
First of all, it must be noted that in ERB’s fiction Jews play a very limited
role, essentially confined to three novels during a three-year period in
the early 1920s. It’s a very small footprint in a writing career that spanned
35 years and produced over 90 novels and short stories. Next, the basic
numbers reveal that Burroughs at least attempted to be fair in his characterization
of Jews. The cowardly, penny-pinching Adolph Bluber of Golden Lion
is balanced by the gentle, self-sacrificing Moses Samuels of The
Moon Maid. The cold, scheming Max Heimer is roundly condemned by
the honest lawyer Isaac Berlanger in Marcia of the Doorstep.
The potential problem for Burroughs’ legacy is that his
caricatures of Bluber and Heimer are so extreme, so stereotypical, that
they provide easy targets for those critics inclined to point the finger
of bigotry. However, what the Edgar Rice Burroughs faithful should always
be ready to explain when such accusations arise is that Burroughs always
painted his characters in extremes of good and evil. In his stories there
are very good white characters and very evil white characters. The same
goes for blacks, Arabs, Americans, Europeans, men, women, Christians, and
yes, Jews. In Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fictional worlds, human nature applied
to all people, regardless of their nationality, skin color and religious
beliefs, and he wanted to make it clear that the capacity for good and
evil existed in all groups of people. In his treatment of Jews, he well
may be guilty of a lack of subtlety, but an objective and balanced view
of his fiction acquits him of any more serious charge.
—the end—
