Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss Biography. Appendix D: End Your Silence

The final appendix omitted from my forthcoming biography of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss (2012) also chronicles their early opposition to the war in Vietnam and – unusually – has Ruth’s name on it as well.  Why did she sign this one?  I think because she particularly abhorred violence.  One of her friends told me that even cartoon violence upset her.  As the previously posted Vietnam petition did, this one includes friends of Johnson and Krauss: Ad Reinhardt, Kay Boyle, Remy Charlip, Herman and Nina Schneider.

Appendix D

End Your Silence

[April 1965]

We are grieved by American policies in Vietnam.  We are opposed to American policies in Vietnam.  We will not remain silent before the world.  We call on those who wish to speak in a crucial and tragic moment in our history, to demand an immediate turning of the American policy in Vietnam to the methods of peace.

A Protest of Artists and Writers

Lionel Abel

Samuel M Adler

George Abbe

William Alfred

Theodore Amussen

Jack Anderson

Howard Ant

Emil Antonucci

Elise Asher

George Anthony

Rudolf Arnheim

David Antin

Hannah Arendt

Dore Ashton

Eliot Asinof

Edward Auert

Rudolf Baranik

Leonard Baskin

Ed Baynard

Jerome Beatty Jr

Harold Becker

Sylvia Berkman

William Berkson

Carol Berge

Wendell Berry

Elizabeth C Beston

Morris Bishop

Paul Blackburn

Sam Blum

Louise Bogan

Philip Bonosky

Philip Booth

David Boroff

Kay Boyle

Sam Bradley

George Brecht

Harvey Breit

Germaine Bree

Bessie Breuer

James Brooks

Michael E Brown

Robert Brustein

Stanley Buetens

J R de la Torre Bueno

Kenneth Burke

Margaret F Cabell

John Cage

Hortense Calisher

Victor Candell

Hayden Carruth

Emile Capouya

Giorgio Cavallon

Remy Charlip

Alan Churchill

Robert M Chute

Marvin Cherney

Robert Clairborne

Elizabeth Coatsworth

Robert M Coates

Arthur A Cohen

William Cole

J L Collier

Grandin Conover

Jane Cooper

Evan Connell

Philip Corner

M Jean Craig

Robert Creeley

Robert M Cronbach

Robert Dash

Wesley Day

June Oppen Degnan

Dorothy Denner

Elaine de Kooning

Guy Daniels

Babette Deutsch

Alexander Dobkin

Nola L Dolberg

Douglas F Dowd

David Dempsey

Robert Duncan

Barrows Dunham

Joe Early

Galen Eberl

George Economou

Richard Ellman

George P Elliott

Kenward Elmslie

Robert Engler

Sylvette Engel

Barbara Epstein

Jason Epstein

Seymour Epstein

Clayton Eshleman

Eleanor Estes

Gertrude Ezorsky

Howard Fast

Morton Feldman

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Leslie Fiedler

Edward Field

Donald Finkel

Joseph Fiore

Richard B Fisher

Dudley Fits

Adrienne Foulke

Kathleen Fraser

Ronald Freelander

Ann Freilich

Lloyd Frankenberg

Anne Fremantle

Jean Forest

Sideo Fromboluti

Howard Fussiner

Jean Garrigue

Maxwell Geismar

Jack Gelber

Hugo Gellert

Hans H Gerth

William Gibson

Rochelle Gierson

Jean Gleason

Ralph J Gleason

Herbert Gold

Mimi Goldberg

Mitchell Goodman

Jonathan Greene

Jean Gould

Harold Greenfield

Seymour Gresser

Antonini Gronowicz

Chaim Gross

Rene Gross

Barbara Guest

Albert J Guerard

Robert Gwathmey

Yvonne Hagen

Donald Hall

James Baker Hall

Margaret Halsey

Sid Hammer

David Hare

James Harrison

Burt Hansen

Curtis Harnack

Robert Hatch

H R Hays

Robert C Hawley

Robert Hazel

Shirley Hazzard

MacDonald Harris

Al Held

Lillian Hellman

Joseph Heller

Nat Hentoff

John Hersey

Thomas B Hess

John H Hicks

Dick Higgins

Joseph Hirsch

George Hitchcock

Daniel Hoffman

Sandra Hochman

Paula Hocks

Margo Hoff

Henry Beetle Hough

Florence Howe

Irving Howe

Helen Howe

Leo Hurwitz

David Ignatow

Robert Indiana

Emmett Jarett

Paul Jacobs Jess

Eddre Johnson

Crockett Johnson

Matthew Josephson

Don Judd

Mervin Jules

H Peter Kahn

Joseph Kaplan

Allen Katzman

Leandro Katz

Stanley Kauffman

Alfred Kazin

William Melvin Kelley

Calvin Kentfield

Basil King

William D King

Katherine T Kinkead

Galway Kinnell

Freda Kirchway

George Kirstein

Erik Kiviat

Neil Kleinmann

Hans Konigsberger

Karl Knaths

Joseph Konzal

Albert Kresch

Seymour Kirm

Ruth Krauss

Louise Kruger

Katharine Kuh

Lee Krasner

Stanley Kunitz

Tuli Kupferberg

Vera R Lachman

Kenneth Lamott

John Lange

Jeremy Larner

Alexander Lattimore

Richmond Lattimore

Joe Lasker

Sidney Laufman

James Laughlin

Don La Viere Turner

Jacob Leed

Denise Levertov

Harry Levin

Jack Levine

Leonard C Lewen

Si Lewen

Oscar Lewis

Roy Lichtenstein

Betty Jean Lifton

Linda Lindberg

Ron Loewinsohn

Ephraim London

Robert Lowell

Walter Lowenfels

Lois Lowenstein

Robert M MacGregor

Iris Lezak MacLow

Jackson MacLow

Bernard Malamud

Leo Manso

Jack Marshall

David Mandell

Leonore G Marshall

Agnes Martin

David McReynolds

Carey McWilliams

Amy Mendelson

Eve Merriam

W S Merwin

Sidney Meyers

Robert Mezey

Arthur Miller

Edwin H Miller

Warren Miller

Jessica Mitford

Harry T Moore

Frederick Morgan

Ira Morris

Frederick Morton

Martin S Moskof

Stanley Moss

Robert Motherwell

Howard H Myer

Daniel Nagrin

Howard Nemerov

Alice Neel

Mary Perot Nichols

Robert Nichols

Iris Noble

Isamu Noguchi

James L Nusser

Ned O’Gorman

Georgia O’Keefe

Tilly [sic] Olsen

George Oppen

Mary Oppen

Joel Oppenheimer

Peter Orlovsky

Robert Osborn

Barbara Overmyer

Rochelle Owens

Alfredo De Palchi

Raymond Parker

Betty Parsons

Felix Pasilis

David Pascal

Merle Peek

Geri Pine

Paul Prensky

James Purdy

Simon Perchik

Henri Percikow

Prudencio De Pereda

Virgilia Peterson

George Plimpton

James Tenney

Anthony Toney

Edna Amadon Toney

Tony Towle

Paul Ellsworth Triem

Eve Triem

Niccolo Tucci

Marvin Tucker

John R Tunis

Jules Rabin

Philip Rahv

Henry Rago

Robert E Rambusch

Margaret Randal

F D Reeve

Anton Refregier

Ad Reinhardt

Philip Reisman

Kenneth Rexroth

Dan Rice

Adrienne Rich

Carol Ritter

Henry Robbins

Ralph Robin

M G Rogers

Meyers Rohowsky

Ned Rorem

W K Rose

Barney Rosset

Henry Roth

Philip Roth

Jerome Rothenberg

Mark Rothko

Rose Rosberg

Muriel Rukeyser

Arthur Sainer

Joop Sanders

Donald Schenker

Herman Schneider

Steven J Schneider

Nina Schneider

Carolee Schneeman

Armand Schwerner

Richard Seaver

Thalia Selz

Peter Selz

Anne Sexton

Bernard Seeman

Ben Shahn

Wilfred Sheed

Herman Shumlin

Maurice Sievan

Ernest J Simmons

Joel Sloman

Michael Smith

Joseph Solman

Jay Socin

Theodore Solotaroff

Susan Sontag

Virginia Sorenson

Gilbert Sorrentino

Terry Southern

Moses Soyer

Raphael Soyer

A B Spellman

Nora Speyer

Jean Stafford

George Starbuck

Francis Steegmuller

Frances Steloff

Stan Steiner

Emma G Sterne

Brita Stendahl

Ruth Stephan

Daniel Stern

May Stevens

Donald Stewart

Harold Strauss

George Sugarman

William Styron

Elizabeth Sutherland

Harvey Swados

Wylie Sypher

Greta Sultan

Mark Di Suvero

Louis Untermeyer

Constance Urdang

Stan Vanderbeek

Robert Vas Dias

Tony Vevers

Mariusa Ver Brugghe

Esteban Vicente

Elizabeth Gray Vining

Amos Vogel

Ivan Von Auw

Ira Wallach

Theodore Weiss

Nat Werner

Mildred Weston

Allen B Wheelis

Morton White

Dan Wickenden

Theodore Wilentz

Mrs Wm Carlos Williams

Edmund Wilson

Mitchell Wilson

Sol Wilson

Clara Winston

Richard Winston

Israel G Young

Marguerite Young

Jack Youngerman

Adja Yunkers

Louis Zukofsky

Many other signatures were received too late to be included

This statement was formulated three weeks before the President annoucned that he was willing to begin “unconditional discussions” with “the foe.”  Will his speech be followed by action? – peaceful, responsible action, NOT the further use of force?  The American people have begun, in letters to Washington and in the statements published by other concerned groups, to voice their horror at a policy of violence.  The President has replied to this expression of public opinion.  Let us not now relax our insistence on the immediate cessation of bombings in North Vietnam.  Let us support that part of Mr Johnson’s speech which seems to offer hope of negotiations, and at the same time let us persist energetically in expressing our opposition to any but peaceful policies.  WRITE TO THE PRESIDENT.

Co-secretaries: Denise Levertov : Mitchell Goodman : WRITERS AND ARTISTS PROTEST Post Office Box 1356 Church St. Station New York NY 10008.

Source: “END YOUR SILENCE,” advertisment, New York Times, 18 Apr. 1965, p. E5.

"End Your Silence," advertisement, New York Times, 18 April 1965

Posts tagged Crockett Johnson or Ruth Krauss or Biography will all likely lead you to something connected to the biography.  Trust me.  If you don’t trust me (and why would you?), here’s an incomplete list of other posts:

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