Yes. Anyhow, I was ill with this terrible cold when this
Page 23 man arrived, and this was very bad. I was getting myself
doctored and whatnot, and finally I called and found out the hotel where
he was. I couldn't get an answer. Finally I found out that he was
maintaining his room, but he had gone to Washington and was due back at
such and such a time. And in time I got him on the telephone. He was
going out to speak at Emory. And I introduced myself and I said,
"Doctor, I want very much to see you while you're here. I would have
tried to get in touch with you earlier, but I've been down with a cold."
And he said, "Well, Josephine, I'm on my way out to Emory to speak now."
And I said, "Oh, doctor, I do want to see you." Anyhow, he said, "Well,
maybe you can bring me back." So I went out . . . trying to size this
man up. Finally we got going coming back and he said, "Where are you
taking me?" And I said, "I'm taking you to our office." And he said,
"Don't you think this is a little high-handed?" And I said, "Yes, I do,
doctor, but I'm going to bring you right back after you see our base of
operation." So we pulled into the garage there and I said, "I will take
you back." So we went upstairs. I already had it arranged. I had several
coffeepots there and so forth, and didn't he want some coffee? And he
did want some coffee. We had some little cakes and so forth. We sat on
this little couch there and talked. And he said to me, "What are you
trying to do?" He asked me this and it came so quickly and so suddenly
that for a moment I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I said, "I'm trying
to make Georgia discontented." He said, "What do you want from me?" I
said, "I want three thousand dollars." He said, "After all, three
thousand dollars is very little money to make Georgia discontented." He
said, "I can't do that." He said, "The League is political in focus, and
I just couldn't
Page 24 do it. But I am more interested
than I like to admit to myself." He said, "Will you have breakfast with
me?" And of course I had breakfast with him. But before I had breakfast
with him I had this gal who was volunteering down there to go up to the
Carnegie Library and look up all these things about Rosenwald. And so at
breakfast he tried to tell me Mr. Rosenwald couldn't do it, and I would
quote Mr. Rosenwald on something, don't you know, and finally he gave me
the $3,000. But he said it would have to come as a little grant to me,
and it was a residue of a fund that he had and so forth and so on. But I
never was able to get with him anymore to try to get any more money out
of him.
[Laughter] I told him, I said,
"Remember, even if I did kidnap you, I didn't take you across the state
line." But we became very good friends in time. But I had that little
$3,000 to work with, and what I did was I endorsed it over to the
League. And in forming the Fact-Finding Movement I said that we had a
thousand dollars that we could use and draw on in getting this thing
started. And we did.