More Than a Crooner: Sinatra Uses Words as Music in Tolerance Battle

MORE THAN A CROONER

SINATRA USES WORDS AS WELL AS MUSIC IN TOLERANCE BATTLE

THERE are people who think FrankSinatra should climb down off his soapbox and stick to swooning the bobbysoxers. Intolerance, they will inform you, is a hot potato which has no business being kicked around as a publicity stunt by a radio crooner. But let all such skeptics be advised the Frankie Boy’s pitch for racial and religious understanding is the furthest thing from a publicity promotion. In fact, any good press agent would have counseled Frank that he’s putting his career in jeopardy to mention tolerance either pro or con.

But Frank isn’t particularly concerned over the threat to his Hooper rating or box office appeal as a result of his campaign against discrimination. He plans to go right on beating the drums for tolerance and if his career crashes as a result, well, let it crash.

The public got its first inkling that Frankie Boy’s emotions ran deeper than casting a romantic spell over teen-age girls when last fall at his own expense he travelled to Gary, Ind., to plead with high school students to call off their strike wasn’t called off and Frank received some bad publicity as a result of his appearance, but it proved one thing: That he will go to bat for his convictions, regardless of the consequences.

Frank has a good reason for feeling as strongly as he does about tolerance. No youngster growing up in the teeming tenement district of Hoboken, N. J., could ignore the daily racial digs that were hurled back and forth in that melting pot of nationalities and creeds. As an underprivileged son of foreign-born parents, Frank early learned the sting of the address derogative: “Dirty Wop!” and “Little Dago!”

“Those things cut,” said Frank, “and cut deeply. Yet none of us is born with any instinct to hate our neighbors. This is something that develops as we grow up and hear men and women or older boys and girls saying ‘Stinky Kike’ or ‘Big Nigger’ or ‘Dirty Catholic.’ Unaware, we absorb a poison. In Hoboken, I used to be called names, too, and I decided to get even. I, in turn, called Protestants, and Jews, and Negroes ugly names.”

Then, one night, Frank accidentally happened to witness a meeting of Ku Klux Klan. Shocked by the ugly, un-American words and plans that he overheard, Frank was appalled that such an organization could exist. His thinking broadened. He realized that he, too, was being un-American.

Now he no longer has to carry on his crusade singlehanded. His fellow artists in Hollywood have rallied to his standard and have arranged a series of school rallies to spread the gospel of goo will in Southern California.

The first caravan that Frank organized was composed of Jack Benny, Lena Horne, and Earl Robinson, composer. They tackled North Hollywood High School with heart-warming results. Now similar caravans will be going out to schools all over the land, and they are the biggest reward of all to Frank for his efforts in behalf of promoting brotherly understanding. He still works just as hard—maybe harder, for now he talks not only to the boys and girls, but to adults to help them in their approach to the children.

One Wednesday afternoon at the CBS Playhouse in Hollywood—the day of Frank’s weekly broadcast—everything was going wrong. A guest trio was fog-bound in San Francisco, a substitute was being frantically sought, and Frankie was practically pulling his hair. He had cancelled all appointments, including an important one with the press. But when the doorman told Frank “a bunch of junior police from Phoenix, Arizona,” were at the stage door to speak to him, Frank wasn’t too busy to see the boys.

The youngsters—four “English descent” Americans, one Chinese-American and a Mexican who had been awarded a trip to Hollywood for leadership in safety and scholarship—told Frank about a jamboree they were planning to raise funds for vacation recreation. In less time than it takes to write it, Frank had agreed to appear at the gathering and to for hating those of a different race and religion from his. He saw that getting even was no solution—or even much satisfaction.

During those boyhood years, he decided that something should be done to keep other kids from suffering the hurts he had suffered. But little did he realize the tremendous influence he would one day wield over the minds of teen-age Americans. As undisputed idol of juvenile America, anything that Frank does or says carries considerable weight with his fans. And he is using this prestige to try and create a happier, more understanding world for them.

Frank admits that his tolerance campaign was largely accidental. Alarmed by the rising tide of juvenile delinquency and aware of his wide influence over teen-agers, Frank began wondering just how he could do something to combat the criticisms being leveled against juvenile America. He wanted to help children appreciate different races and creeds, and in his sincerity started pleading for racial and religious understanding on his radio programs. Thus it was that Frank Sinatra became the first star to utilize the air lanes for the tolerance cause.

Perhaps because he is always on the alert for them, Frank constantly finds opportunity to talk to boys and girls about the advantages of racial good will, and somehow he always seems to hear about district where intolerance flourishes.

Inevitably he turns up there and talks simply and directly about the dangers of intolerance and then—to spice the whole—sings a few songs.

Among Frank’s most cherished possessions are a half dozen plaques and letters from Jewish, Negro, radio, and educational groups that were sent in appreciation for his efforts to promote racial understanding. Although singing commitments tax his health Frank always manages to find time to make an appearance in behalf of racial and religious harmony.

<FRANK’S TOLERANCE CAMPAIGN ATTRACTS MALE SUPPORTERS>

Arrange practically all other entertainment to make the jamboree a success.

Frank cites the Phoenix Junior Police for its promotion of brotherhood. Organized over six years ago, it numbers approximately 1,000 members, including 250 Mexicans and Chinese. It would cost Phoenix $82,000 annually to replace the youths with adult policemen.

“But the city of Phoenix can’t estimate how much the children are contributing to the future by their emphasis on brotherly understanding,” says Frank.

“Most kids,” he points out, “think they are being honest when they pledge: ‘One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ When those Phoenix Junior Police pledge that, I think they do so honestly. They are doing good work.”

Frank loses no opportunity to make his plea for tolerance. Through the radio, through the screen, through writings through meetings, and through casual conversations Frank spreads the gospel. It was a casual conversation with Mervyn LeRoy on a train traveling from New York to Hollywood that resulted in the Academy Award-winning short subject.

“The House I Live In,” which dealt a blow to discrimination.

Shutting his ears to criticism, Frank plans to go right on sewing the seeds of tolerance, confident that some of it will take root and bear fruit. His followers may be chiefly giddy teen-agers now, but within a decade many of them will be parents—and voters. Frank is gambling that through their influence at the hearth and at the voting booth they may make tolerance a going business in America.