the imprisonment of henry cowell

The Imprisonment of Henry CowellAuthor(s): Michael HicksSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 92-119Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831729 .

Accessed: 10/06/2014 00:26

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of California Press and American Musicological Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Musicological Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.138 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:26:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=amusoc

http://www.jstor.org/stable/831729?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


The Imprisonment of Henry Cowell*

BY MICHAEL HICKS

FROM HIS CELL AT SAN QUENTIN, Henry Cowell wrote a letter that

mused about an Irish myth he had learned as a boy. It told of a half-tongued god whose words of creation were never more than half fulfilled. Because of this, Cowell wrote, the universe has always been incomplete, half of it revealed and half concealed.' With this observation he might as well have been assessing his own life: despite the attention of many scholars, the facts of that life remain largely hidden. This is nowhere more evident than in the various published references to his years in prison. Taken together, these references consistently obscure the facts and suggest that the biases that condemned him to prison remain.' Yet, in recent years, several of his friends have suggested that his prison experience should be more fully revealed:3 a

*For their assistance with this article the author thanks the many informants and archives cited below, as well as Philip Brett, Joseph Cannon, William Cottam, Steven Johnson, Robert L. Parker, Elbert Peck, and Marilyn Thompson. A shorter version, prepared in part through a grant from the Brigham Young University College of Fine Arts and Communications, was read at the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Austin, Texas, 1989.

' Cowell to Percy Grainger, 23 February 1938, in a collection too narrowly labelled "Letters from Henry Cowell to Percy Grainger," microfilm in Music Research Division, New York Public Library, hereafter cited as Cowell-Grainger Correspondence. Cf. the superscript to Cowell's piano piece "The Voice of Lir" and the poem "Lir's Song of Creation" in John Varian, "Doorways Inward" and Other Poems (Halcyon, California: Halcyon Temple Press, 1934), 53-54-

2 Those who have treated the prison years briefly include Richard Jackson, "Henry Cowell," in Dictionary of Contemporary Music, edited by John Vinton (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974), 152; William Lichtenwanger, The Music of Henry Cowell: A Descriptive Catalog (New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, 1986), xxix; Rita H. Mead, Henry Cowell's New Music, 1925-1936: The Society, the Music Editions, and the Recordings (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981), 354-55, 362; idem, "The Amazing Mr. Cowell," American Music i (Winter 1983): 83; Bruce Saylor, "Henry Cowell," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980), vol. 5, 9. Joscelyn Godwin, "The Music of Henry Cowell" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1969), I4-16, presents a more balanced and accurate view than any of the others cited here. A reasonably fairminded interpretation of Cowell and his musical legacy, this dissertation has been suppressed by Mrs. Cowell ostensibly because it contains too many excerpts from unpublished scores by her husband. She has privately expressed displeasure, however, at its critical tone.

3 Nicolas Slonimsky to author, 28 December 1988; Peter Yates, interviewed by Adelaide G. Tusler, January 1967, typescript in Oral History Program, University



TIHE IMPRISONMENT OF HENRY COWELL 93 -;;?:i:::l:::r?i::,: -:::::: : :?i-i:iiii:':"''''::':: ::l-iiii, iii:iiiiiiii ii-iiiii-::::?:: '-Lii :-:::ili::::::::::-: --:':':::::~':':::::-;:-:::- -':-ii:ii~siiiii; --b :--- _:_-:::_--i . i-i:;~i:i:i :~~ii:i-i.::: -ii:::i:?r.;:-i :::-:*"::::::::: -::i-i:i-iCiili'i- -ii---i:i-i. :?i

~-?~i--iiai?-~ iiC18~f:8i:~ ii:~aiii~~:iiii-ii~-ii::ii ii~~~iiiiiiis;:i?:i-?~--:_- _ ili~~if'il i ;:-:-:-:::::_: -:?:-:_:-:l:i~?::::j:::- : -::::::: ?_-:::::::::: :::':: : -ii;iiiiiiiiiii--: : j,---l:;i.~;i::i? ii:i-::-ii iii-iiiiiii :'-:-'-:-- ^;si'ili--i;:E:i/iiI -i :a-?iiwi -.iiiiBln:_ -:::-: :-i:: :::-:::i ::?::: ::- -:i---:::: a :ii~i:i' i - iiii?i:i~i:i~:i'i's

s.::: ii~iiiiiiii iiiiiiiiii:?i;i?iiiiii-.i~iiii?i-i ii;iiii: -?:'-i'iiii~x::;-:_i:ii i-;iii--: ..:,. :iii::-::- :C;' -'-'-'-'-':'- ':'`'::':': ---'--:::i:-ii?ii'iii~ii~ii -iii:iii:iiiiii:iiiiiii~ìiiiiiiii ~ ; _-::::-:_I:-:.----_:: i i-i?iriiiii]:.:: ::::::::i::::?::::: i. i-~:~-i:::~:~i=:~?~-il.i~:~i ;- -ji-,::?,:i_..:--.?,::i:::- :_--_:~l-:::i_ iiiii~'i:::i-i:i-i;~.i.i-? -i:iiiiiii~~~ii i''::rili::::::lll ij:-l::::-: :':::-:-::--'::-----i--::-: :- :::-~i--_::-~_:::: :::-_:I :-::-::;--:-:::-i:-:i:-: -:-_:.~Y~ji-_~:::::j:i:l -i:i-i-jj;l:ip-iW:: ::~: ~:::~:~

:-~-~-:l:-ii'--:-ll:-i-~;?i-;~---:::::i~ ,iiiii~'~~ii~~--:ns :i:iiii-:-i----~:- ::?:: i::-:::: -- -::-;ln:: ::_:- : : i -:::::::I:::-::: -i:i'i_-:i :: . .-'.: :-:"--:: ::;:':::::': -i:-:~::S :::i?::.:: -::-::::::~::::: --ii:i:iiiiii i: - :::- -:i:i:i:i::. : ..:- ::_:-I:: i:- _:--- _::i i::i::i-i- :: iiiii.::_:::__:: :_ _iijiji-.:iii::.::::::::::::::::.::::::: li:i:i- iiii-i' iii'iiiiii:;~iiii-,-:,iiiii;-_iiiiiii:i- i iii i-i-i iii-i.ici::::: ii iii:i-ii~ iiiiiiiiiiii:iii iiiiiii:i-: ::-i:::::i:::::;: -:':':':-::

ii~~ii~i:iiii~~i-':-ji -:i-_i--~::-ail- :: ::: : i::ii:-~:i?-i- :-- --: ii--:: -;, ~-::--::- ----:::-j--i::-?b::i?iiiii\i;~~s'ii:':i ii-::i:* ~-:-;--__--::~:~:-:: .:- :i: :i:-:-; --::::j::::?: ...... i: --.:--:i~-l- : ,:: :. ::::: i--,:ii-:ly;li_: i:ild:-i-:B;:i-:-'--::r----~~-:-:~rii: ::pa~::A

;BA:::::::::i:::-: - -:?:.:~::.-: :: ;--:--i?-::::: :_-:::::-:::: :_:::::i il:-:-:I?l:jijii:-i-ji-i-i~:-i-~ij~i?:: i-;iii?i~~Z: li~:i-i:i-ii-it:i?i:?':ii.:::: :--:_:- -_:::::::: ::-:i::::::: ..:. --::::--: i:i;iiiii:iiir-;_ iiii:-- i::-:-i'"-'j''i:-i i-.ii:i :-i -:-i:-i ji?i :'-' _:::i:_?*:::_:-:-:-:~i iii:i-iiii~iiiii i .i-i-i:-ii- i:i-i::-iii ----_ i?_ - :::: ? _iiiii:i_::-:-::iiiii_:__:'-i- :ilii:;'liiii:ic:iiii-:iiii-i-:i:iiil~-::liiiir ,il,?ii-;~i:-:-:_:::: :::::::: ::j,:1:::::::; --I :::::::: ::::::::;::-j::-:--:::::;:::::::?:::::::

-:-:--_-:::_: ;:i-:-:i_: : i-::--: ::-i::--i:----::::: :::::::::::: :ii;:i-l ii-ii:i-iii-ii----i:~':i-i: 'I-~ ~~~ --- -:' : . ...::- i ......: ii-i:iiiii i~i?i:iii:i:-:i. l;..: sl'

?i?:,:iii~I- :: :::: -i::--~iiili . iiiiiiiiii-iiii:ii : :: ii-:i-ii-l:::.i: :: i:-i?iiii ii- -i::ii-i-i ' ;-::-- ii:'i:::ii-?:::;i:::i ---:::_;i- -:-' ii;_--i-i:- ii ':.:-l":'li3'i:l:jI:i--:i,:::: ..::. ,.: ~_::::::~-::I: :::: :ji~:: :: ::-:::: --:i.i-_~i~i- -iii-:i:i?:i -..... : ::;-:::- --'":'': '-''--::'i:?:i'ii'~iiiiii iiisj-siiii-~DLii'iiiiii :----: :-::--::-:---:: ::

:: :::-: ii-ii:i-iCdi: : --:--:----ii-i-::-i~_i;-ii.-i:i:i-i-i-~i

r ___:i:iiiiii---:iii _ ' I:: :;: ;:::-::;::-?j'::::::: ::: -:::::::-::: '':~i-iiaiizill:;~ii~:a~i: ;:1-::-:::::::i:-:::i::.:~~Li-ii lil- C~z .:.-_ ii-ci-::i:i::i ii iiii-::-i :i::: -:ii::i-i:: :: :.:. .-. ':-: ,ij:-:S:i-ii-iiiiii_;~iiR -ii-ii-ii::::::.- :_-: i:i:i --i:_~i~-i?:::::_ : IIIl'iI:IiW :i:i:.ii-:::::i4i ::i :: ::'~: ;iii:i

: :-;:i~._-11-~~-_--_-_i~:ijii-iiii-i:i 8-i:::i-~-~-i-:-=: .:.-.-- - .:'-:-:-: '~::ii-:i:-,:_-ii:?ii::-:i:ii ij::i-i-~: ::::: j:-:i _~::-~i::~,,j ::s:;::::: ~-:- ::: : :: ::: .ii- ::::::::i::,_ ::: :::::-:-:--:::--~-:-:--::: :.i:-i:i-,i-:-:--:ii.i -ii'iiiii -,ii? ::_::- .. iiiiiii:-i;:i~~):?iii.? :i::,-::::i:l:i.?~-:::::-:- ?---:::::::---i-ii-:::- ::': - ::'::::-

i-i-ii:ici:i?'::,':~:i i:i-i:Z- i.iiiiiii:' : :::- ::::::::::: : i- i:i;i -. ::::::?-:-i; I'ii-;i-i-il-i:ii'i~ -:i--iii-i~:--ai-i:'ii :: ::: : : :::::---:: : ::::: : ::::::iP_:::*-_ ,,,~ii~:.ili?2Bs-i::-:i?:? ::::::::: --':":"':--:j??::::::i:': :::.-~-'i:a--::: :::::::::::::::: -_-:_: : :: ::: :- :: ::iiii::-:i-::ii_ i:iii:i:--i ::i::-::i-??--: i:--i_-li::: :---i:---:ii:_-:-;------:-i::: i?'~--____,:_::_i:d:_:_ ---;-::::?- ..---- : ::::::::: -:. :: .: _: :j- :-i~~-i--:r :::r::-:- :::::::1- -H.?:::~-:~j:::--i;:??-I::::_;::i:~:-i-: i:i:;~-:-~- ::::: - i ~:.:ii-~JiQ&i-ìii~i-iiiiii-::i::p::_ :-: .;__:_-:_~i:_-i:: _:-:_? ?~i::i :: - . ;:::i:---:)-:::::: -:--i:_i 1.- ?:::: i. _-- ~j --:::.:_:-::_ii i:::::-- ._. .::?- -i:i-::iii---:--:-i:-- i: : --: .....:-:

:7i::/-:,:_i :_::il:'."':::::'::::':-'- ::...Ì _:il:ij_,:,;iii:i.i~i--?i-:- i:- -::--ii:i.: i lii:__ii -i-ii:i--- : -: iii-' ii-_--::i-i:i?:: :::,::::::::::j.:;,_:_:-.li-ii~: :'-:-: ii:ii;-,::i'-:--l--j-i-i,_.._-:'_?-:-:j ___:-:;!::::. :::-ij:-::,:;j::,::i:l_[ -:li"-ii i:::-:::::::::::::: _::::- . -::1:-:::.:;:: ~:--iiii: :::::::::;-::::-- .-. -::i-;:;?i~iii- -I .::--. -.... -... . i :i?::ii, _:__,:i:-:--::': ::: :- :r :;:::: :~:-:-:~;?:_:-:i?i --i-i:- :-i~:i -i-i- _::: ::i~i-:_:ll::-:-ii::::--i:i~-:i-ii:.~ii: :_:i---i--:.8~-'ii?;~I:_ i~::.iji~~'::-:i-:ii:i -~:-_:- -:- : :::- : ::: : - : :.- :-:-:--:-i- : :- :-::: -:: --': : - ---:--: --iii:iii: i:: iii:i:i:ii-ii~i-iii-i- i-iil- - ?:I-: ii:: -ii:--i-:i-i~il:ii:?; : i ii-iii-i*i ..:.:::. i_-i:i-i-i:ii ii:i iiii:i-i-;i-i~i:-i:- :ilii.-: -?i::iil:ii??::-i - -:: -:--:::::::::-:i I-?--iii- :: : -- :i:i:i:i-ir-::i:i: ii:-ii _ii: ii : _x--::i?:~liii-::::: ?i-i-i:iiiiiiiiiii-i: i ii - --:':i'i-'iiiii:i i:i:i::-i' iii:-:i:- :i:? -

j: ~i::ii- : ".."-':'-'-'": -"-:--:- -----.---:'-:":--i ., ii-:::::::::::: __i ii;i:z_:-_:_ :- :::::::;::::i:;__i-;:-::i_:::::::::: :::::: :?:: :::--?-: -::--::-: :1 xlt*a~~--*:??a : - -:: ii: ::::::-~:-__:: ;i-::-_:_::ii:-- ii?i~~l j~?-i~ii : .:::::::: ....:.. ::::- : : - _: i::: ::i- .-.:'.-.' i:i :::-iii::~ : ::i:;-::: :-i:-i~-- ;::':----i;-i::i~si,_ii_:__::_--:-i--i_:: -:: ::.:;.:. ?--:.:::: :j : ::::: : :: : - _ _ :-.i -..:. : :::_: .. -:.: : -: : :ii:i:i:i~?:l:':-iiiii~i-i:ii:iP-:'iiiiB :: ::::::::::::;:::':': :::: : :::: -:::: ::::': :::::: :-:- _:::_: - ..: -' ..- i-?::i--'--i-i::i:i- iiii:--:iiiri-i- :ii::-i :-:iiiii:ii-: ::i i .... : :: :.. :. ':.. :?::;:::::':":: :;:--::-::?? ':?:~?;_llii'iii:~-:i-i-:-ii :-:~i-i-i6-?l'~i-i-:::-:-:-:-:_:-:_-_i- -:_:_::::::- -:::

I ,? :'::i:: . : - : -::i-----ii:'ii:i:ii:-ii:i:ii-i::i -.:.: .::: ::

:i iii___:i-iiii:i:i-i-ii-- -::.i :iiiiiiii:i-:i~:i:iiiiiij:i?-l:?isi -::-:-:- : :: :: ::::::::: - ...:.:. i:::::iiii, i,::;-: i:llxi-:-i:-_::::-~ ?i:-?:i - ?:--:: :::::ii?ii-ii:i- iiiiiiiiiii I:::-~i::iii-i::ii:~:iii:ii:i:i:- ::.:l:'ii_!:i;_:_;:j: ~_:yi i?ii:i-irii:i:~i.iiii;i ?:i . -,,--':-',~':i:--l-.--i: :--i?:::::-::-:i- - ?--::-~ :::::::::_.:?ii--:- --?? :.- :::::~::;-:::::::-:-:: :?: :??::?:::::I:::?: ?i: :-;:::l:i-i-i:~l :i: ::~:::::~:-,iQ~_fi:B~~i ' ~- :::-~i;:l-;il::-:::::":i:i:ii6-:::-:i:: :i!iii-ii~i:i-ii~:-:~..--;I::- ::::~:-:::i::;:i:::::li;::::;::::::--:-:

-i i i i i.i::--i i i-i-i:iiii -::?i:;lf:-:--::- -:-i:--::--:-i-i:-:---:--:i:i-:-i .:::- iii'i'~'i?:-'i--ii-:::::::.i ?i::~-?ii;;?j~:l:i 1-::-1118:1;~1 "-:-"~li:i:.i:iiiiiiil--:l_:_ _~:::---_:_::-;, .:i :::r~ ?i- ::::~----::$i_~:i:::i;i;., :::-~,~~~i-i:- -:::i::-:-:: :.:.h..: :_::_- "-i--~~---i--; ~':i:iii: ~~-::::;:"~~~:::::"-;:.I:---:;-?-;; ::::: -_. --; ii:::::_i~i:::::j- ___.~i~P:::":"""'~::ii; j:l:~j:::i~:-:-:::::-

iiii:iiii:l .... iiiii:iiii:iliii/~:::::::i ::::::::::::::::::::::: :i-i:i_~.i_-ii:ii:iii i-i-iiii-ii?:l'-i-i,_ii-i:i-iii:i:iii:i : iiii --- ?::- l--;':l:::?::?::i?:::::?:::::::::?:?:::: "'--':"' ":'-':'"' ::?8-?':' ,.: ::l-:-:::::i:""''8~;:: :-::-:--?:::::-:---::?8~: :~~i~r::ii~"6 ~~~-:ii_~:i-i:i~: .- -. ; ::::::--::-~

':"""""'?-" :-::i-i:iii i i -- yiii:iii::- ::i:::i_:i- iiii::i~j;i:... ~.: _*:::__:__-j::::i:::-i::-i:?:i: :::::: :::::::i: --::

::::::~~

- -_i:i:i:i:i?'-iii-i?i-i:i':i -ii-i-i:li- i

Figure I. Photo of Cowell taken by a San Francisco Examiner reporter on 22 May 1936, when Cowell was escorted home from jail to retrieve some belongings. (Courtesy of San Francisco Examiner)

careful study of that experience demonstrates both his strength and his vulnerability amid the caprice of American justice and politics.

of California at Los Angeles, 59; cf. the comments in Gerald Strang, interviewed by Vivian Perlis, March 1975, typescript in American Music Series, Oral History Research Office, Yale University, 12. Shortly after Cowell's death, Virgil Thomson asked for Mrs. Cowell's cooperation in writing an account of the prison years, but was refused.



94 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

- ii

::::::-?_i: :..:

:: -i ":-::':: ?::::::i:- ~iiiiii':i':~li:l~iiii:iii :::::?

:::::j :::?:- :- _:i::::- i . i i-i i i-----~:----:- C.---:

~---~l-'~::-:--.i:----/-_-_:: ::__:_:_:_::::_ : ::::::- -':'ii:i'~~li:i:iiiii:-_-::--i:i--_-_il: ::::i:::-:::-:iii ::::--:-:-: ::ii:::i ::::::: :-:: :: -:----: -

~iiiiiii~~co ~s~sssP~~i~___l- I:::::

i : :-: : -ii-i . :iiiiiiii--ii-:-:i-ii-il-:iiib~as~a~aa~~ -~iiii: - -: --ii:i-i-i :

ii-:i~li-i:--:i- i :i:ii .i:i:iii~:_ - i:-:- -- iiiiiii~ji-:iii :-:::.. --

:: :::::: --:::::-ii s:i-i-i:iii-i i--- iil~i-iiiiiiil .i:i- ii-iii-ii-i :-:-:::i:i:::~r::-i:::i:i::: :: -__-:i-- :: -:_:--:-_ _ :--:_-:-:::-: __ii- -:-----.iii:i:iii ii'iii:i'i :',i':-i'.:'-.''iiii:i:iiiii:ii ii --- :: :::::::::::::::::::::: :: : :: 1: . i ::i::: :-__-:::sii::----- ...-:... ::::::: -::. i:ii'i':""''-- il-::--i-::::: _-iii~_:::-i--::iiiiii--;. iii:ii:iii : i:: ::::::jr:::::::::::: ::::::::::-?:::-:::

; .~ 6 ?~? 'II:--::::i:i:: : i-ii ii-iiii i i-iii i .--- ii:-: :.:-- -----: -::-i :---'' ""' : :-:-:----i::-:--:-:l-I:~~-~l:_:_:::::ii- _-r :i i:i::i:i ..-.: i--:i --:i-i:i-:i-i- - i-i:?ii:''a--i-i ii_--i:-_ii-i -:i -~-i-i--~- ii------- -:i--:--l-~~:l--:,i:~::lii-.~iai~in.:~ : ii:_i:i::~i -i:ii-: :iiiiiii~ii-:i:i-:~~,1?:-^- :-::"--':: :-l:i-ii-:-----:?:c~ ::i-i-i:::is:::::::-:l-ii-iiiii-iEi::ii i:-i;l:~:::::___~ "- ::::: :?ii_:--i:i-:;:-::-_:_::ii-_:i-i:i:i ::i

ii:i:::-: :-i~iiii_--;ili:::i--:i:i-i-i-:_i::i-i-: ---:-i-::: -i-i -ii::-: -:-:i:::~:-::---: :::-:_:__-_-::__;;-:_::::i-:::::_-~:l::- : ::-:: ::::i:-:-::::j-:1----_;-:-::::-:::-:-j:: i---: -: ii : ::: i:i:' --::::: :::--,:_~:i--i-il:i':::::::::::::::::: :

::::: :---:: ia- P::::-::: -: :i :- ::: ii:j i _iii_--i i,:,-i i i i::: : iii:i- :i:-::::iii~aiii-i :"::" ::i.,,,,'. :---:- :-ii--:i:i:-i:x:-_- .: ii:i:ii-:-_i--: -i-ii:i-~~;;-g::~~:i".iiii:-i.is':i'iii i-i - I ::::-::::: -:"::ii--i:--1- --ii;i-_ i-i:iiiiig?iii:ili.j_:i__::_ii? :: : -...._ - : '--:---:;::::i ::::-~:i: i-i : :: ---: : :':-i-i:ii'~i:i:i--j-:~~ii::-:::: iii:ilii:iisl:i::-_-. .?:-:::: : i-i .i_ I - ii i iii:i:ii--;:i-i ~iiiii-ii-i:iiii-?i~ :i:i:i--:i.i-~::-ii~i::iiii..:iiii-- B:;:i:- ?.:'ii:iii _i ii-:::: ._.i.:--ii'i-- :::-i-i-iii-ia: ':--::''::--; --:i-:---"i?'''''-':;??':::?:iii-i -'~I: ' i ::::r:jji::::::::::;:::: -ii-iiii- :-:: --::-:-:::i:i--"::: :::::::::::::::::: :::::: ii~iiiii:iiiiiii

i:-ig,::iii~i:i]~:iiiii-i:i : i-ilii-iii;i~ '--'---- ":'

: : -- ~'':'r:iiila-iiii::~i-i-ll:l:: : : :--:----:~ - -::::

Jra,

rl~f8

::ia

iiai:

Fi ure 2. Henry Cowell's prison identification photo, taken 8 July 1936. (Courtesy of California State Archives)

In his recent autobiography, Nicolas Slonimsky provides the first extended published account of Cowell's incarceration, a chapter simply titled "Jailed Friend."4 Although most of the chapter consists of excerpts from letters by and about Cowell, it begins with an account of the events leading to his arrest. The gist of that account is this: in the spring of 1936, while he was in New York, the Menlo Park (California) police investigated him in absentia because of complaints that boys were "running wild" at his homestead. Discovering his leftist affiliations, the police decided to intimidate him by pressuring

4Nicolas Slonimsky, Perfect Pitch: A Life Story (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 161-67.



THE IMPRISONMENT OF HENRY COWELL 95

a local teenage boy into making sexual accusations against him. These accusations led to his arrest on a variety of charges, which were reduced in a plea bargain.

While plausible within itself, this story is not based on scholarly investigation.s Hence, it falters on almost every point. Many available documents show that Cowell was in the Menlo Park area from December 1935 through May 1936, the month of his arrest.6 The prosecuting attorney of the case denies "unequivocally" that Cowell's politics were under scrutiny and insists that "no one was coerced into making charges against him."7 And the warrant for Cowell's arrest contained only one charge: that on 30 April he had violated sec. 288a of the California Penal Code, the law prohibiting oral copulation.8

The warrant charged that he had engaged in the act with a seventeen-year-old, one of a group of working-class teenage boys who liked to swim in the pond behind his house. As Cowell later explained, these young men had played on his homosexual inclina- tions for a period of over three years, engaging with him in numerous intimate encounters. The encounters came to light, according to his doctor, when one of the young men "came to Cowell asking for money to hush it up" and he refused.9 The young man told his family, who brought the matter to County Juvenile Officer Francis Robinson. After investigation, Robinson got the district attorney's office to issue

5 Slonimsky to author, 28 December 1988: "I never tried to investigate the events leading to [Cowell's] imprisonment. .... I had no idea that there was any definite complaint on the part of the alleged victim."

Collections of Cowell correspondence in various archives show that he was receiving mail at and sending mail from Menlo Park from January through May 1936. Moreover, the newspaper clipping file on Cowell at the Palo Alto Public Library contains notices of Cowell recitals and lectures in the San Francisco Bay Area throughout the months in question. Although not treating these matters directly, Mead, Henry Cowell's New Music, 344-48, includes documentation relevant to Cowell's whereabouts during the first three months of 1936.

7 Louis Dematteis to author, 23 November I988. 8 The warrant is in the microfilm file of Superior Court Case No. 25755, San

Mateo County Clerk-Recorder, Redwood City, California, hereafter referred to as County Clerk File. Section 288a was one of the California statutes enacted in 192 I. In order to curb what was generally considered "the crime against nature," the section prohibited "the act of copulating the mouth of one person with the sexual organ of another" and provided a penalty of imprisonment in the state prison for not more than fifteen years. For citations and the subsequent history of this statute, see Deering's California Codes: Annotated Penal Code of the State of California (San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1985), sec. 288a.

9 Leo Stanley to Adolf Meyer, 22 September 1938; Cowell frankly discusses these events in the typescript "Some Autobiographical Notes by Henry Cowell, No. 59182." Both of these sources are in the Adolf Meyer Papers, Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, Johns Hopkins University.




an arrest warrant for a single charge against the composer. The young man who was the consenting partner in the act was named in the warrant, but was not charged along with Cowell.'

Robinson and two other officials brought the warrant to Cowell's cottage in Menlo Park at around II:oo P.M. on 2I May 1936. They were met by three of the boys, who were waiting for Cowell to return; six of their friends, they said, had taken Cowell's car to San Francisco to go skating. When Cowell arrived, about i:oo A.M., he denied the charge in the warrant. But under interrogation he confessed to "improper" relations with several of his young friends and brought forth intimate snapshots he had taken of them. He explained: "Such things never occurred to me when I was working, playing, lecturing, but when I was idle, I just couldn't help myself."" A year later, a friend aptly suggested his state of mind at the arrest: "I believe Henry was glad to have it end, at almost any price.""

,o Stanley to Meyer, 22 September 1938, explains the situation in some detail, noting that "in matter of fact, the boys were equally guilty with Cowell, the only distinctive feature being the difference in their ages. Cowell did not solicit among other boys or spread the knowledge of the act to any outside the small circle of 7 boys." (This statement by Stanley is excerpted in Joseph Wortis, "Memoranda on Case of Henry Cowell," I5 November 1938, typescript copy in the file for California State Advisory Pardon Board Case No. 550-1942, California State Archives, Sacramento, hereafter referred to as Pardon File.) Other sources on the consent of Cowell's partners include Adolf Meyer to Leo Stanley, 30 November 1938, and Edward W. Twitchell to Leo Stanley, 20 January 1940, typescript copies of both of which appear in the Pardon File. As noted in Robert A. Iglow, "Oral Copulation: A Constitutional Curtain Must Be Drawn," San Diego Law Review ii (1974): 523, the statue in question makes no allowance for the consentuality of those violating it; the law prescribes punishment for "any person participating in the act."

" The quotation and details of the arrest appear in "Morals Charges Jail Noted S.F. Composer," San Francisco Examiner, 23 May 1936. Louis Dematteis, the only surviving source witness for this article, sent me a copy of the article and confirmed that it "correctly sets forth the events and circumstances leading to Cowell's arrest as I remember them" (Dematteis to author, 23 November 1988). During the ensuing years, Dematteis's notes made at the time were discarded along with the case file at the District Attorney's office, for reasons of space. The "Summary History" of the crime, prepared for the California State Board of Prison Directors (filed on i I July 1936, in County Clerk File), states that "these facts [concerning his relationships with the young men] were admitted by the defendant at the time of his arrest and he further stated that he was unable to prevent such occurrences." Cowell's appeals attorney, John Douglas Short, confirms in a letter to Adolf Meyer, I2 August 1938, that Cowell indeed had confessed to Francis Robinson, as the Examiner had reported (Meyer Papers). See also Cowell, "Some Autobiographical Notes."

"1 Helen Hope Page to Percy Grainger, 14 June 1938, Percy Grainger Papers, microfilm in Music Division, Library of Congress.




From his jail cell he told reporters that he would not fight the charge and would spare the young men the publicity of a trial." Within a week he had written a frank confession and plea for leniency. In this document he argued that he should be released for several reasons: he was more valuable to society outside of jail than in; he had not been the aggressor in the affairs; indeed, he had been trying to sever relations with the young men; he was not exclusively homosexual but was in fact in love with a woman he hoped to marry.14 These arguments failed to persuade the district attorney's office to drop the charge. When Cowell tried to post bail, the judge raised the amount because he considered the composer so despondent he might commit suicide if freed.I 5

Cowell, however, did not seem despondent to reporters. He spoke cheerfully about the menu of bread and black coffee at the Redwood City Jail and casually speculated on his judicial future. He "practiced" on the bars of his cell window to retain some semblance of his "keyboard touch" and even joked about the absence of a piano in the jail: "I think I'll ask Sheriff McGrath to have pianos installed in every cell, and make it an issue at the next election." Asked if he was suicidal, Cowell replied, "Nothing could be further from my mind."'6

Richard Jackson writes that Cowell was "sentenced . . . without the presence of a defense attorney"; Bruce Saylor writes that he "initially deemed the presence of a defence attorney unnecessary when he was brought to court."'7 It is true that he at first declined to hire an attorney, but only until he had consulted with his father and stepmother, Harry and Olive Cowell. Without counsel, they attempted to obtain Henry's release by promising to remove him from the area, even from the country if necessary. But their effort collapsed under the weight of his confession, and the district attorney's office vowed to prosecute. As soon as it became clear that the charge would not be dropped, Cowell hired Duncan Oneal, the junior member of a prestigious San Jose law firm, to defend him.'"

13 "Morals Charges"; also, "Ban on Bail Faced by Cowell," San Francisco Call- Bulletin, 23 May 1936.

' Cowell, "Insurance Against Return," typescript in Meyer Papers. '15 "Ban on Bail"; also, "Hearing Set for Cowell," San Francisco Chronicle, 24 May

1936; "Cowell Fails to Bail Way Out of Jail," San Francisco Examiner, 24 May 1936. '6 "Cowell Is Resigned To Fate; Cheerful, Scoffs at Suicide," Palo Alto Times, 28

May 1936. '7 Jackson, "Henry Cowell," 152; Saylor, "Henry Cowell," 9. i8 This legal maneuvering is discussed in "Morals Charges," "Cowell Fails," and

"Cowell Is Resigned To Fate."




Although the late Oneal steadfastly refused to discuss the case with scholars, the prosecuting attorney writes that Oneal "ably represented" Cowell. 9 Oneal's tactics began with a plea of not guilty at the preliminary hearing and a promise that his client would not attempt to raise bail but would seek hospitalization. Oneal and Cowell predicated this plea on their argument that Cowell had been seduced into the affairs by the young men, not the other way around. But at some point his reluctance to put the young men on the stand dissuaded him from fighting the charge any further. When the Superior Court trial date arrived, a month after the arrest, Oneal changed the plea to guilty and asked for probation for his client. o

Unfortunately, this left the matter in the hands of Francis Robinson, the man to whom the original complaint had been made.

In his letter of recommendation to Judge Maxwell McNutt, Robinson implied that Cowell would be a likely candidate for probation under California law: he was a first offender, -a veteran, and had not used force in the crime. But Robinson urged against probation on two grounds. He cited the "large number of young children involved in this case" and, perhaps more damning, claimed that in 1922, in Oceano, California, Cowell had been "involved in a similar type case" for which he had escaped prosecution. On both of these counts Robinson misled the court. '

Robinson used the term "young children" in the same erroneous way that several newspaper accounts and the Associated Press had referred to those involved as "young" or "small" boys. The most specific allegations in the press appeared in the Hearst newspapers, which claimed that Cowell had confessed to sexual relations with

'9 Dematteis to author, 23 November 1988. Louis Oneal to author, 2 x November 1988, cites attorney-client privilege as his late father's reason for refusing to discuss the case and for his own unwillingness to furnish whatever documentation still exists on the case. The transcript of the sentencing hearing, however, suggests Oneal's style. Missing from the County Clerk File for almost fifty years, the transcript surfaced in the Meyer Papers while I was conducting research for this article. The transcript apparently was loaned to Meyer while he was working on Cowell's case in 1938 and never returned. The proprietors of the Meyer Papers so far have declined to return the transcript to its owner, the Office of the Clerk-Recorder of San Mateo County, or even to furnish photocopies of this public document.

2o Some details of the legal proceedings appear in "Music Genius Denies Morals Charge Guilt," San Francisco Call-Bulletin, 3 June 1936; "Cowell Enters Not Guilty Plea," San Francisco Chronicle, 4 June 1936; "Prof. Cowell Held for Trial After Plea of 'Not Guilty,"' San Francisco Examiner, 4 June 1936; "Cowell Enters Plea of Guilty," San Francisco Examiner, 23 June 1936; Cowell to Nicolas Slonimsky, 29 June 1936, quoted in Perfect Pitch, 162.

"2 Robinson's letter, dated 6 July 1936, is in the County Clerk File.




twenty-four boys between the ages of ten and seventeen. All available legal and medical documents, however, show that he consistently admitted to physical relationships with about fourteen young men during his life, seven of which were in the period just preceding his arrest; the youngest of these was sixteen and all were consenting."

The Oceano incident of which Robinson wrote bore little resem- blance to those in Menlo Park. Cowell was then twenty-five and staying at the Temple of the People in Halcyon, California, just after the death of his fiancee, Edna Smith.23 At Halcyon (adjacent to Oceano), he entered into a relationship with a man about four years younger than he. When the relationship became known to the latter's family, both men received counseling from the temple's "Guardian- in-Chief," Dr. William Dower. The relationship remained private for fourteen years, until an embittered former member of the Temple read of Cowell's arrest and reported the matter to the Redwood City district attorney's office.24

Predictably, in the absence of investigation into its contents, Robinson's letter swayed the court. Judge Maxwell McNutt denied probation and sentenced Cowell to San Quentin for the standard term of one to fifteen years. The sentence angered the composer's family and counsel, but the judge insisted, "the State has provided no more appropriate method of restraining [sex offenders] than that of placing them in penitentiaries." He added that "the sentence was imposed less perhaps as a punishment than as a means of safeguarding the youth of the country."'5

In this last statement McNutt prevaricated. The evidence had suggested that Cowell was hardly more a victimizer than a victim of youth. In reality, public pressure compelled the judge to send him to prison. Moralists throughout the nation were waging a crusade against leniency for sex offenders. Charles Dutton seemed to speak for a majority of Americans when he wrote in i937 that such criminals were "a perpetual menace to society. Given the opportunity, the sex offender will always repeat his crime. He should never be allowed to regain his freedom. Why free him to commit another crime and die in

22 I rely on "Some Autobiographical Notes"; Stanley to Meyer, 22 September

1938; and Joseph Wortis, "Memoranda on Case of Henry Cowell." 23 Cowell discusses his relationship with Edna Smith and its aftermath in "Some

Autobiographical Notes." On the accident that killed her, see "Two Sisters In Auto Die at Rail Crossing," New York Times, 16 April 1922.

24 John Douglas Short to San Quentin Prison Board, 7 June 1937, Meyer Papers; Stanley to Meyer, 22 September 1938; Cowell, "Some Autobigraphical Notes."

25 Maxwell McNutt to Mark E. Noon, 26 April 1937, County Clerk File.




the electric chair? He cannot be cured. Science has devised no cure for the most unfortunate of all our criminals."" Cowell's international fame had brought unprecedented coverage to the case, even by the Hearst newspapers, for whom sex crimes among less prominent people were almost daily fare. This coverage forced the judge to make an example of him, even if to do so seemed to confirm the errors in the newspapers.

He had been charged, after all, only with a single instance of homosexual contact with a seventeen-year old. Yet the San Francisco Examiner painted him as a promiscuous child molester. It even turned his case into a kind of morality play in which Cowell was reenacting the downfall of Oscar Wilde. "Whether, like Wilde," the newspaper wondered, "Cowell will pursue his artistic studies in prison and perhaps produce something in the musical world comparable to 'De Profundis' or 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' is something for specula- tion."•7 Cowell was bitter about such coverage, which he called "wild," and "scandalous."'8 In turn, he asked friends not to discuss with each other or with the press what had happened to him and to withhold judgment until he could explain his situation in person.'9 If they wanted documentation on the episode, he explained to John Becker, they could go to public files: "The truth, which is now a matter of court record, is easy to obtain."30

Cowell's friends reacted variously to his plight. Either spurred by personal indignation or intimidated by public sentiment, some turned against the composer. Carl Ruggles briefly broke ties with him; Ernst Bacon did likewise, as he later said, "to my considerable shame."'' Charles Ives refused all communication with Cowell between the time

26 "First Offenders," The Commonweal 26 (20 August 1937): 400. Cowell to John Becker, 5 September 1937, comments on "the general campaign on at present against all moral cases," adding that "there is very little distinction made concerning the details" of individual cases (Becker Papers).

27 "Morals Charges." 28 Cowell complains in letters to John Becker, 7 July and 5 August 1936, John

Becker Papers, Music Research Division, New York Public Library; to Percy Grainger, I 3 June 1937, Grainger Papers; and to Slonimsky (quoted in Perfect Pitch, 162). The special objects of his complaints were probably "Morals Charges" and "Ban on Bail."

29 Cowell to Becker, 5 August 1936; to Adolph Weiss, I December 1936, excerpted in William George, "Adolph Weiss" (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1971), 323; to Grainger, 13 June 1937; to Slonimsky, quoted in Perfect Pitch, 162.

30 Cowell to Becker, 5 August 1936. 3' Bacon to Percy Grainger, 21 April 1938, Cowell-Grainger Correspondence.

Cowell comments on Ruggles's disaffection in a letter to Becker, 28 May 1937, Becker Papers.




of his arrest and his marriage in 1941. Cowell was particularly anguished by Ives's response to his situation because, as he wrote, "I regard Ives the same as a father."''3 Other friends remained loyal, but hesitated to know anything about why he was sent to prison. 33 Arnold Schoenberg was troubled by the whole matter, but took it philosoph- ically: "One will understand how distressed I was.when I learned he was arrested and convicted. . . . I could not believe that [he] could be capable of such violations. But when I had to realize it was true, I understood what the great interpreter of the human soul and passions, William Shakespeare, said: 'There are other things in heaven and earth / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' "34

The most vociferous of Cowell's defenders was Percy Grainger, who saw in the case the State usurping the privileges of the Artist. He wrote to Olive Cowell that he did not care about the facts or legal issues of her stepson's imprisonment, because Henry was a man who was "wholly good" and "incapable of evil": "I know in advance that ... in any case where he & mankind or he & the law are in

disagreement that Henry Cowell is right & the others are wrong." To allow courts to pass judgment on Cowell was "an infuriating insult to genius," he insisted, adding that he himself would have been "many times" imprisoned if all of his own acts were known. In the end, Grainger wrote, "our artist-sins do not lead to war or depression, as the sins of 'patriots' & business men do."3s

32 Cowell to Slonimsky, 15 December I936, excerpted in Slonimsky, Perfect Pitch, I65 (and see the other comments and excerpts on that page). Cowell also discusses Ives's response to his situation in Cowell to Becker, 28 May 1937.

33 Among these were Slonimsky, Wallingford Riegger, and Carlos Chivez. Cowell mentions Riegger's loyalty in his letter to Becker, 28 May 1937. Chivez, in a letter to Gerald Strang, io July 1936, remarks, "I am very sorry about all this although I do not really know what is all about" (sic); in a letter to the San Quentin Board of Prison Terms and Paroles, i February 1937, Chaivez writes, "Because of the fact that I live in Mexico City, I cannot estimate the cause for [Cowell's] imprisonment" (both letters in Carlos Chaivez Papers, Archivo General de la Naci6n de Mexico, Mexico City). Some of Cowell's stalwart friends misrepresented the case when trying to rouse support for him. Helen Hope Page, for example, in her letter of 14 June 1938 to Percy Grainger, writes that Cowell's homosexual intimacy was "not over a long period. It was just once." Gerald Strang also exaggerated when he wrote to Carlos Chaivez to "discount" ninety percent of what was in the newspapers about Cowell (2 July 1936, Chaivez Papers).

34 Schoenberg to Olive Cowell, I May I937, carbon of typescript in the Arnold Schoenberg Papers, Arnold Schoenberg Institute, University of Southern California (typography normalized for this citation).

35 Grainger to Olive Cowell, 15 August 1937, Grainger Papers.




On 8 July 1936 Cowell entered San Quentin, the largest prison in a penal system that recently had been rated the second worst in the nation.36 Conditions were severe under the newly appointed warden, Court Smith. Cells were badly overcrowded, the dungeon was still in use, beatings continued, food and water bred disease, medical care was poor, and visits and letter writing were stiffly regulated. Other deprivations would particularly affect Cowell. Radios were forbidden and neither musical scores nor journals could be brought or sent in (except direct from publishers). He would have almost no access to a piano and, with neither desk nor table in his cell, could compose only on score paper laid on a book.7 He had to work the spools all day in the prison jute mill, constantly endangering his hands. After his shift in the mill, he complained, he was too exhausted to do serious creative work. 38

Perhaps worst of all, he had to endure being labelled a "288'r," the term inmates used for sex offenders. The Chief Surgeon of the prison, Leo Stanley, grimly evaluated the place of 288'rs in San Quentin while Cowell was there: "Scorned and despised, they are outcasts in this place of outcast men." Stanley considered such treatment just, grouping homosexuals (and other sex offenders) together with the mentally ill as "a menace and detriment to their fellow prisoners."''39 And Stanley, with whom Cowell was obliged to consult concerning his sexual orientation, held extreme views on the correction of deviancy. His most notorious "treatment" involved the implanting of

36 Kenyon J. Scudder, Prisoners are People (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1952),

17. On the daily routine and inmate restrictions at San Quentin in the period just preceding and during Cowell's incarceration see Leo L. Stanley, Twenty Years at San Quentin (n.p.: i933); Kenneth Lamott, Chronicles of San Quentin: The Biography of a Prison (New York: David McKay, 1961), 201-47; Gerald Breckenridge, "Biggest Big House," Saturday Evening Post 214 (Nov. 8, 1941): 20-21, 95-98; Basil Woon, San Francisco and the Golden Empire (New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1935), 227-28; and the regulations for inmate correspondence, Form SQ 5M 4-37, copy in Grainger Papers.

37 These and other disadvantages are mentioned in Olive Cowell to Slonimsky, 1 3 July 1936, excerpted in Perfect Pitch, 162-63; and Henry Cowell's letters to Ernst Bacon, 29 September 1938, Ernst Bacon Papers, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University; to Carlos Chaivez, 26 November 1936; to Quincy Porter, 5 October 1938, Quincy Porter Papers, Music Library, Yale University; to Carl Ruggles, 8 July 1939.

38 Cowell to Becker, 5 August 1936; see also Cowell to Grainger, 13 June 1937, on his work schedule.

39 For these two quotations see Leo L. Stanley and Evelyn Wells, Men at Their Worst (New York: Appleton-Century, 1940), 57, 63, respectively.




animal testicles into San Quentin prisoners; he also encouraged "asexualization," the sterilization of inmates in order to eradicate hereditary criminal tendencies.40 Fortunately, Cowell was spared either treatment.

From the beginning of his incarceration, Cowell tried to transcend its oppressive circumstances. Introduced as a world-famed artist at the monthly vaudeville night in San Quentin, Cowell played one of his more conventional compositions on the prison's battered piano. "Deeply moved" by the audience's applause, the San Francisco Chron- icle reported, "Cowell raised his eyes [,] tried to speak and failed. He played one more number, heard another ovation and left the stage overcome.'"'4 In the next six months, he composed at least two pieces in his cell, including a band suite based on the personalities of inmates he observed. The Palo Alto Times, a champion of Cowell's artistic exploits since 1914, described the suite enthusiastically: "The well- known prison characters are easily identified. The rat is heard sneaking to an official to squawk, and then cringing for protection from his irate big yard companions. The Indian hums almost forgot- ten songs of the plains. Clack, clack goes the over-zealous screw as he beats his heavy cane against the cement pavement. The Chinese revives thoughts of the ancestors of his native land."42 Cowell also outlined several articles on music during these months and wrote forty-four chapters of a book manuscript he titled "The Nature of Melody," which he was to complete in the spring of 1937.43

Meanwhile, Olive Cowell campaigned to win her stepson's early release. She wrote letters to dozens of people to inform them of Henry's status and to request character references for him. While conceding his homosexual behavior, she cited psychologists to the effect that it had been produced by "delayed ... emotional develop-

40 Stanley and Wells, Men at Their Worst, 107-14, 126, I54-63. See also the profiles of Stanley in Woon, San Francisco and the Golden Empire, 222-23, 232-3 5; and Lamott, Chronicles of San Quentin, 209-I 5

4 "Henry Cowell Wins First Fight in San Quentin-With a Piano," San Francisco Chronicle, 30 July 1936.

42 "Henry Cowell Composes Music Portraying Prison Life Moods," Palo Alto Times, 31 October 1936. Cowell comments on the piece in a letter to Slonimsky, 28 August 1936, photocopy in my possession.

43 Cowell to Slonimsky, 15 December 1936, discusses the melody book and inquires about the possibility of writing for the Christian Science Monitor (photocopy in my possession). Cowell wrote to Grainger, 13 June 1937, that the melody book was "just finished"; the prospectus for the book appears in Cowell to Grainger, 25 November 1937, Grainger Papers. Although Cowell sought diligently to have the book published just after he finished it, the manuscript is now on restricted status in the Music Research Division, New York Public Library.




ment" traceable not only to "his complete absorption in music" but also to "certain personal shocks."44 This latter phrase referred to the frustration of several heterosexual relationships in Cowell's life. His mother, Clarissa, had severed his budding relationship with a young woman when he was about seventeen. A grisly train accident in New York had claimed Edna Smith. And when he persuaded a German woman to marry him and move to the United States, financial and political circumstances obstructed them. It was in the wake of this last relationship that he entered into the liaisons that led to his arrest.4s

Hence, although Olive was able to obtain testimonials of his good nature from eighty-seven prominent citizens,46 she felt impelled to base her campaign chiefly on psychological evaluations. These were correlated by Lewis Terman, the Stanford psychologist who had known and studied Cowell's intellectual achievements for twenty-six years and who was also prominent in the study of sexual variance. In his research, Terman focused on the relative presence of masculine and feminine traits and gender-roles in both "active" and "passive" homosexuals.47 Homosexuality, he believed, correlated with improper gender-role identification. In research published a few months after Cowell's arrest, Terman identified five psycho-social factors leading to this problem: excessive maternal affection, an absent father, a lack of involvement in "masculine" activities, an "overemphasis" on spirituality, and a lack of vigilance in protecting the child against seducers.48 Though all of these these were present in Cowell's upbringing, Terman concluded after interviewing him that Cowell

44 Olive Cowell to Grainger, 9 August 1937; also to Slonimsky, 13 July and 28 October 1936 (excerpted in Perfect Pitch, I62-63, 164); cf. Strang to Chaivez, 30 August 1936. Olive Cowell reminisces on Henry's prison years and her role in the case in her interview with Rita L. Mead, 8 November I975, typescript in Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

4s Cowell explains his various hetero- and homosexual relationships in "Some Autobiographical Notes."

46 Lists of those who recommended Cowell are in the Meyer Papers. As far as I have been able to determine, the original letters of recommendation were discarded in the parole board's routine elimination of old files.

47 The terms refer to the role a person plays in a copulatory act. In these terms Cowell would have been described as a "passive" (i.e., female-role) homosexual. For a discussion of Terman's work in this area and the psychological school of thought it represents, see Henry L. Minton, "Feminity in Men and Masculinity in Women: American Psychiatry and Psychology Portray Homosexuality in the I930's," Journal of Homosexuality 13 (Fall 1986): 1-21. The Committee for the Study of Sex Variants, discussed in Minton's article, offered its help in securing Cowell's release. See their letter to Adolf Meyer, 27 March 1939, Meyer Papers.

48 Lewis M. Terman and Catherine Cox Miles, Sex and Personality: Studies in Masculinity and Femininity (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936), 3 19-20.




was not a true homosexual, but was merely delayed in his "heterosexual adjustment" due to "the feminine influences about him during his childhood."49 That is to say, his unusual attachment to his mother had hampered his masculine development.

Cowell echoed and expanded upon Terman's evaluation, blaming his feminist mother for his troubles. She and his father had separated when he was about five, partly because she had concluded that sex was no longer needed in the modern age. While sex was once a necessary evil for bringing children into the world, procreation should now occur strictly through scientific means. In an enlightened age, Henry recalled her telling him, sexual relations between men and women constituted "absolute wickedness." But because she did not specifically condemn relations between men, he explained, he thought them tolerable to her.50

In this regard, it is important to understand that Cowell grew up in the bohemian circles of intellectuals and artists that populated many parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. Even in his youth, homosexuality had been a more open matter there than elsewhere; the young Cowell could not have escaped hearing of the relationships among Jack London, George Sterling, and other friends of his family. Homosexual relationships were also prevalent in the musical world in which he took part during his twenties and thirties. Through his New Music Society Cowell had published and promoted works by Aaron Copland, Lehman Engel, Colin McPhee, and doubtless other gay composers.5' He also associated with Copland and Marc Blitzstein in the Composers Collective of New York, which he co-founded in

9 Terman to Ernst Wolff, 3 March 1937, typescript copy in Pardon File. 50 Cowell, "Some Autobiographical Notes." Using the same conventional wis-

dom of the day, Wyndham Lewis explained male homosexuality (or the "male-invert fashion") as a natural product of feminism. See his The Art of Being Ruled (London: Chatto and Windus, 1926), 233-46 passim; and Doom of Youth (London: Chatto and Windus, 1932), 206-8 and 218-19.

5' The sexual orientation of these composers is discussed briefly in Eric A. Gordon, Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein (New York: St. Martin's, 1989), 132 and 175. Lou Harrison suggests how societal attitudes toward such composers may have differed from one coast to the other. Speaking of his own young manhood, about the time Cowell was arrested, Harrison says: "At that time, San Francisco was really fairly relaxed already about being gay. I never had any trouble with it at all. None of my friends did either. The first time I encountered that feeling of tightness and constraint, or uptightness, was in New York" (Winston Leyland, ed., Gay Sunshine Interviews; Volume I [San Francisco, Gay Sunshine Press, 1978], 166).



IO6 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

1933.52 Nevertheless, guilt-ridden over his own homosexual relations, Cowell appears not to have sought moral support from the gay men in his acquaintance. Instead, he clung to the sense of absolution that Terman's psychology offered him.

In a letter of recommendation to the parole board, Judge McNutt alluded to what he knew of Cowell's upbringing and social status. Writing that "persons of the class of Cowell are not wholly responsible for the unusual exercise of sex propensities," McNutt attempted to put the composer's behavior into a social context.s3 But the well- known (and widely-feared) pervasiveness of "artist-sins," as Grainger deemed them, urged the California Board of Prison Terms to look askance at the prospect of releasing Cowell. The Board, whose members were appointees of the reactionary governor Frank Mer- riam, seldom granted parole in the first place. Their reluctance to do so in this case was bolstered by the testimony of Dr. Stanley, who pronounced Cowell a "bad bet" for release from prison because, in his observation, sex criminals only tended to get worse.54 Hence, on 13 August 1937, the Board fixed his sentence at the maximum of fifteen years, a term usually associated with repeated forcible sex offenses. Olive Cowell aptly characterized the sentence: "They treated him as

. a degenerate who seduces the young with violence."ss 55 The one consolation was that he would be transferred out of the jute mill in order to work with John Hendricks, the bandmaster in the San Quentin Education Department.56

Quite unexpectedly, Cowell found himself again immersed in music. In the following months he embarked on what amounted to a new career, rehearsing the band, teaching musicianship to about two hundred students a day, correcting papers and correspondence course lessons, composing, arranging, and copying music for both prison and

52 The Collective and its membership have been widely discussed. The most comprehensive treatment is Barbara Ann Zuck Achter, "Americanism and American Art Music, 1929-1945" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1978), 212-59.

s3 McNutt to Noon, 26 April 1937. s Stanley's comments are reported in Short to Meyer, i2 August 1938. 55 Olive Cowell to Nicolas Slonimsky [September 19371, photocopy in my

possession. On the parole board decision, see "Cowell Plea for Parole Rejected," San Francisco Examiner, 15 August 1937; Cowell to Grainger, 24 August 1937, Grainger Papers; Olive Cowell to Grainger, 28 August 1937. The parole board document, filed 19 August i937, is in the County Clerk File.

s6 John Hendricks was a convicted killer whom a subsequent warden described as "a walking encyclopedia of music" (Clinton T. Duffy, The San Quentin Story, as told to Dean Jennings [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950o], 235). Cowell speaks of Hendricks in his letter to Slonimsky, 14 August 1936, excerpted in Perfect Pitch, I63-64-




outside ensembles. He wrote journal articles, completed his book on melody (sixty-five chapters), and practiced solos on the flute, violin, and shakuhachi.57 In his band concerts he programmed a mixture of

popular and serious (though seldom modernistic) music. Although a subsequent warden feared that the programming of serious music

damaged inmate morale,s8 some prisoners developed a strong taste for the repertoire. As Cowell explained it in a letter to Ernst Bacon, "There are some [prisoners] who do not enjoy 'classical' music . . but

among those who do, there is a preference for a rather severe program, and we do not dare to put on what they consider compromises, they resent this."59

On the other hand, he savored the ethnic music to be heard at San Quentin. Mandolins and guitars, he wrote, outnumbered concert instruments by four to one. "It is too bad," he wrote, "that we do not have the opportunity to get a group of them together and rehearse a fine orchestral bunch. I wonder whether American or British folk music ever sported anything comparable to the tamburitza orchestras of the Serbs." He noted as well that he was learning a great deal from the Ozark fiddlers there, "who play the back-land tunes very well, and are a delight to hear."6o His interests were complemented by his growing affection for Mrs. Sidney Robertson, a longtime friend and folk-song scholar, who acted as an escort for Cowell's visitors. With Henry again absorbed in music, Olive Cowell observed that he was "quite himself again.'6'

His letters from this period are enthusiastic, empty of bitterness and full of cheerful resignation. Several events in 1938 fueled his optimism. In June the American Psychiatric Association held its annual meeting in San Francisco. There Ernst Wolff, a physician friend of the Cowell family, conferred with Adolf Meyer of Johns

57 On Cowell's prison work during this period, see especially his letters to Slonimsky, 14 December 1937 and 26 February 1938 (photocopies in my possession); to Bacon, 8 April 1938, Bacon Papers; to Becker, 31 January, 22 June, and 3 October 1938, Becker Papers; and to Grainger, io March 1938, Cowell-Grainger Correspon- dence. Assorted programs of San Quentin band concerts appear in the Grainger Papers.

s8 Duffy, San Quentin Story, 234-35- s9 Cowell to Bacon, 31 March 1939, Bacon Papers. 6 Cowell to Grainger, 24 May and 13 June 1938, Cowell-Grainger Correspon-

dence. 6' Olive Cowell to Grainger [February 1938], Cowell-Grainger Correspondence.



Io8 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Hopkins, probably the best-known psychiatrist in the country.62 At Wolff's request, Meyer collected the relevant documentation and had his assistant, Joseph Wortis, interview Cowell and produce a report on his fitness for release. For Meyer's benefit, Cowell wrote a poignant memoir of his sexual life that, together with his detailed confessions to Dr. Stanley, illumined his mind and habits. Meyer and Wortis concluded that he was not a "confirmed and exclusive" homosexual, that he had never used force with any partners, and that he showed excellent prospects for a heterosexual adjustment. Meyer seemed particularly piqued that the composer had been singled out for punishment: "Mr. C. is treated as the only accused . . . without any evidence of his having been the soliciting agent or seducer, but rather one of the patrons of an existing state of affairs, and he was given the maximal punishment applicable to the worst perpetrator, apparently without any intermediate attempt to regulate the situation for the

community and the individuals concerned, or evidence that might have pointed to special turpitude."63 When he learned of Meyer and Wortis's evaluation, Cowell happily described it as "much better than we had hoped for." In turn, Dr. Stanley decided the evaluation was authoritative enough for him to recommend parole.64

In October Percy Grainger offered to employ Cowell as a live-in secretary and research assistant. In doing so, Grainger solved a crucial problem for him. Although he had made a living as a teacher for most of his adult life, a parole board might well forbid Cowell to teach professionally upon his release. Yet in order to win parole he would need a guarantee of employment. The job with Grainger not only would satisfy these stipulations but also, by moving him to New York, allow him to escape his notoriety in California. He responded with unbridled gratitude to Grainger's offer, calling it "absolutely ideal. "65

But neither the medical evaluation nor the job offer would have accomplished much if California voters had not elected Culbert Olson governor that November. Olson was a New-Deal democrat deter-

62 Terman also had consulted with Meyer on his views about homosexuality. See the letters between the two men in the Lewis Terman Papers, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University.

63 Adolf Meyer to Leo Stanley, 30 November 1938. 64 Cowell to Becker, 14 March 1939, Becker Papers; Stanley to Meyer, 13 March

1939, Meyer Papers. 65 Cowell to Grainger, 3 November 1938, Grainger Papers.



THE IMPRISONMENT OF HENRY COWELL o09

mined to reform the state's outdated prison system."66 Shortly after his election he appointed Democratic State Chairman John Gee Clark and renowned penologist Kate O'Hare to head the state corrections

system. Within a year and a half, they exposed the horrors of San Quentin, replaced half a dozen prison guards, and ousted Warden Smith, along with nearly all of former Governor Merriam's appointees to state prison boards. Henceforth, as the new Board of Prison Directors explained, the prison would subordinate punishment to rehabilitation, which could best be accomplished by eliminating the pervasive idleness of the inmates.67

For this, Cowell proved himself indispensable. In 1940 only about a third of American prisons had music programs of any sort.68 But by then Cowell had created in San Quentin a thriving school of music. As of June 1939, Cowell had had I549 registrations in music classes, 343 registrations in elementary correspondence courses, and 59 more in advanced courses. He was teaching twenty-two hours a week, supervising other classes three more hours, holding two hours of teachers' meetings, rehearsing the band five hours, and playing the flute with them an additional seven and a half hours.69 As if his official work were not enough, he formed a small prison orchestra, about which he wrote to John Becker: "We can only rehearse very easy things, but it is a real step. I have been writing some things for this group, and it has stimulated some of my best composition students to do likewise."7' He also inaugurated a series of chamber recitals in which he played duets with Raul Pereira, a former orchestra leader and virtuoso violinist who had been sent to San Quentin for writing

66 Ernst Wolff brought the Cowell case to Olson's attention within days of the

governor's election (Wolff to Meyer, 23 November 1938, Meyer Papers). In a letter to Meyer, 19 January 1939, John Douglas Short also relished the change in administration (Meyer Papers).

67 The relevant prison reforms during Governor Olson's administration are discussed in Robert E. Burke, Olson's New Deal for California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1953), i81-86; and Lloyd L. Voigt, History of California State Correctional Administration from 193o to 1948 (San Francisco: n.p., 1949), I2-1 3 and 19-20.

68 This estimate is based on Norman M. Stone, "Prison Recreation Today," Recreation 35 (October 1941): 451-54-

69 These statistics are derived from Cowell's letters to Slonimsky, i6 June i939, excerpted in Perfect Pitch, i66; and to Carl Ruggles, 8 July I939, Carl Ruggles Papers,

Music Library, Yale University. 70 Cowell to Becker, 3 October I938.



I IO JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

bad checks.7' During his free time, between dinner and lights out, Cowell continued to write and to arrange for performances of his music outside prison. In a letter to Grainger he summarized his achievements in San Quentin, which included writing the book on melody and eleven journal articles as well as composing more than fifty musical works. With typical self-effacement he noted that "some of it seems to have turned out well."72

His conspicuous good behavior reduced his sentence to under ten years. And in June i940, with less than half of that time served, his family's and friends' lobbying bore fruit: Cowell won his parole and moved to Grainger's house in White Plains, New York.73 Parole restrictions hampered his ability to travel, but he still kept up a remarkable itinerary. In the first four months of 1941, for example, he conducted the New York Civic Symphony Orchestra twice, acted as commentator for a WNYC broadcast of American music, played at least two recitals for civic groups, judged a composition contest for the New York State Federation of Music Clubs, oversaw more than a dozen major performances of his own works, composed seven new ones, arranged another, and wrote five articles. As it turned out, he was also permitted to teach; during these same four months he taught two courses at the New School for Social Research and gave special lectures for Columbia University and the Progressive Education Association. 74Meanwhile, he pursued psychoanalysis with Dr. Wor- tis, visiting him about once a week for the first year of his parole.

By the end of that year, his arrangement with Grainger had deteriorated. In June 1941 Grainger wrote that Cowell's constant presence was making him "jittery" and "addled" and that, in any case, the war in Europe had weakened his financial situation, making him unable to employ Cowell beyond the one year he had promised the parole board.7s Fortuitously, however, the war opened a way for

7' Pereira played the San Quentin premieres of works by Cowell and others. He was not a convicted murderer, as Lichtenwanger asserts (Music of Henry Cowell, 163). His pardon file, which details his judicial history, is in the California State Archives.

72 Cowell to Grainger, 19 September 1939, Grainger Papers. 73 The parole did entail some delays and political struggles. The machinations are

discussed in Ernst Wolff to Adolf Meyer, 17 October 1939 and 17 April 1940, Meyer Papers; and Olive Cowell to Percy Grainger, 29 August, 17 November, and 24 December 1939, Grainger Papers.

74 These details are drawn from the "List of Activities" from January-April 1941, in the Cowell-Grainger Correspondence. His parole restrictions are outlined in his letters to Fabien Sevitzky, 9 October 1940, Fabien Sevitzky Papers, Music Division, Library of Congress; and to Carlos Chaivez, 26 November 1936, Chaivez Papers.

75 Grainger to Cowell, 7 June 1941, Cowell-Grainger Correspondence.



THE IMPRISONMENT OF HENRY COWELL III

Cowell to work for the government on a project that would lead eventually to his pardon.

It is concerning the pardon that chroniclers of his life have most seriously misrepresented the facts. Jackson, Saylor, and Lichten- wanger all claim that the prosecuting attorney in the case came to believe Cowell was innocent of the original charge and that he petitioned Governor Olson for a pardon on that basis.76 All available evidence refutes this claim. The warrant against Cowell and the attendant court proceedings were handled by a young assistant in the district attorney's office, Louis Dematteis, who supervised all criminal prosecutions in the county until June 1944. Dematteis helped serve Cowell's warrant, heard him confess at home and in court, and, as he wrote in 1988, "did not at any time entertain any doubt about the evidence in the case and did not petition Governor Olson for a pardon."''77 Moreover, the pardon board's files show that, of all the offices asked for a written recommendation on the matter of pardoning Cowell, the district attorney's office was the only one that did not provide one.

The aforementioned scholars appear to have relied on the word of Cowell's widow, who identifies "Mr. [Daniel] Sullivan" as the attorney who came to the composer's aid.'" Sullivan in fact had nothing to do with prosecuting the original case; he was an assistant district attorney over civil matters only. A longtime friend and neighbor of Cowell's, Sullivan informally recommended a pardon not because he thought the composer innocent but because he thought him more in need of treatment than punishment.79 Those local authorities who

76 Jackson, "Henry Cowell," 152; Saylor, "Henry Cowell," 9; Lichtenwanger, Music of Henry Cowell, xxix.

77 Dematteis to author, 23 November 1988. Indeed, until I corresponded with him, Dematteis had never heard that Cowell was pardoned.

78 William Lichtenwanger to author, 2 October 1989, identifies Mrs. Cowell as his only source for the pardon story; Sidney Cowell to Steven Johnson and author, 15 May 1989, claims that "local authorities" had come to believe in Henry's innocence. Although her story of the pardon appears to vary slightly with repeated tellings, Mrs. Cowell, in a telephone conversation with Steven Johnson, 15 February 1990, identified "Mr. Sullivan" as the assistant in the district attorney's office who accompanied her on a visit to Governor Olson to persuade him of Cowell's innocence. Mrs. Cowell's own written account of this episode, along with the entire Cowell Collection at the Music Research Division, New York Public Library, is currently barred to all scholars until Joel Sachs completes his authorized biography or until the year 2025, whichever comes first.

79 Sullivan's son Mark recalls well his late father's views on the matter. In a telephone conversation with the author, 25 June 1990, he put it bluntly: his father "felt [Cowell] was kind of sick." Sullivan's only belief concerning Cowell's innocence



11 2 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

made written recommendations to the pardon board concurred with Sullivan's opinion: Cowell's prospects for reform were good and he had paid enough of a debt to society. Indeed, it was chiefly on these grounds that Sidney Robertson Cowell, then married to Henry for fourteen months, pled for his executive clemency late in 1942. Her letter to the governor is unambiguous: "This was a case which might have been handled medically from the beginning, but since it was impossible to be sure of this at the time, it was handled otherwise. Now, however, Mr. Cowell's rapidly expanding professional activities and our happy marriage seem to me to offer every proof that his rehabilitation is complete."8o

Nevertheless, the crux of the pardon was his value to the war effort. In December 1940, while in Washington, D.C., Cowell had learned of a new federal program to be known as "cultural defense." A joint venture of Morton Royse, a professor working for the Justice Department, and Nelson Rockefeller, the Coordinator of Inter- American Affairs, "cultural defense" was designed to combat wide- spread Nazi propaganda to the effect that artists in the United States disdained Latin American culture. By arranging for the exchange of scores among North and South American composers, Rockefeller and Royse hoped to refute the Nazi claims and hence quell their successes in the hemisphere. Cowell's friend and former teacher Charles Seeger, then head of Latin-American Music Relations for the Pan-American Union, suggested that Royse consider hiring Cowell for this work. Overlooking his prison record, Royse deemed him an ideal emissary for the collecting and routing of scores.8' On 3 July 1941 the San Quentin Prison Board restored Cowell's civil rights, enabling him to

was that he "never did anything [sexual] with regard to [Sullivan's own] family"; nevertheless, Sullivan maintains that his father was certain Cowell "did take advantages" with some of the neighborhood boys.

8o I December i942, Pardon File; recommendations from judicial and other authorities are also in this location. In a letter to Grainger, 22 November 1942, Henry explains that Sidney is requesting a pardon on the grounds that the case should be handled psychologically rather than criminally (Grainger Papers).

8' For the information in this paragraph I have relied on Cowell's letters to Grainger, 31 December 1940, 29 May, 7 and 25 June 1941 (all in Cowell-Grainger Correspondence); also to Ernst Bacon, 24 June i941, Bacon Papers. In a telephone conversation with the author, 25 June 1990, Mark Sullivan independently confirmed that the principal motive behind Cowell's pardon was that "Henry couldn't leave the country" without it. Political background to these events may be found in James Desmond, Nelson Rockefeller: A Political Biograpby (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 87-96.



THE IMPRISONMENT OF HENRY COWELL 11 3

be employed by the government.82 Most Latin American music published in the U. S. during the next two years was edited and submitted for publication by Cowell, who used the office of the Pan-American Union to carry out the cultural defense project.83 At the same time, he oversaw the Music Distribution Project at the New School for Social Research, which disseminated the music of U.S. composers to Latin America under a grant from Rockefeller's office.84 Only one thing hindered him in this work: as a parolee he could not travel outside the country. For that he would need executive clemency.

Culbert Olson was then trying to retain his governorship against the challenge of the conservative Republican Earl Warren, who campaigned largely on a law-and-order platform. Warren attacked Olson's parole policy, showing that Olson's administration paroled at a rate almost five times that under the former governor. Warren also observed, just two weeks before the 1942 election, that almost five hundred of the parolees were sex offenders.8s On 4 November, Warren defeated Olson by fifteen points. Eight days later Cowell applied for a pardon from the lame-duck governor. He stated his reasoning thus: "The work I am doing is considered important in the war effort and makes the fullest use of my experience and ability, so I am requesting this pardon in order that my contribution need not be curtailed

unnecessarily.'"86 On I December the governor's secretary sent a memo to the

pardon board, asking them to consider the case because "this applicant has an opportunity to enter government work in connection with our Latin-American

relations.'"87 By their io December meeting the board had prepared a file on Cowell full of doctor's evaluations and letters of support from law enforcement officials and prominent musicians. But, surprisingly, the board rejected his application. Citing "the nature of the crime to which [the] applicant plead guilty,

82 San Quentin Prison Board Minutes, 3 July 1941, California State Archives, Sacramento.

83 Cowell called his authorization to "make use of the name of the Union for our office" a "major victory" (Cowell to Richard Goldman, 22 October 1941, Richard Franko Goldman Papers, Music Division, Library of Congress).

84 This is discussed in a typescript summary of Cowell's employment, Pardon File.

85 Burke, Olson's New Deal, 220. Cf. Olson's comments on the critics of parole in his State Papers and Public Addresses (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1942), 356-57-

86 This quotation is from Cowell's application for pardon, 12 November 1942,

excerpted in Pardon File. 87 Stanley Mosk to Paul Yarwood, I December 1942, Pardon File.



I 14 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

sex perversion," the board urged that he complete his term "and then permit some period of time to elapse thereafter enabling [him] to demonstrate complete rehabilitation."" The same day that they delivered their finding to the governor, Charles Seeger wrote a letter to Olson impressing upon him the importance of Cowell's work in the music exchange program and adding that "he may be nominated at almost any time for a more conspicuous position. Under present conditions this could not be done." With three weeks left in office, Olson overrode the pardon board and granted Cowell unconditional clemency. In doing so he cited Judge McNutt's favorable recommendation, Seeger's letter, the character references of friends, and the evaluations of doctors that "this applicant has been cured of the physical urge which impelled commission of the crime for which he was convicted."89 In 1943, with a full and unconditional pardon in hand, Cowell became Senior Music Editor of the overseas branch of the Office of War Information.

From his arrest to his pardon, the prison experience reshaped Cowell's career. The restricted access to a piano forced him to write for the instrument in ways that depended less on his playing technique and more on abstract musical structure.90 At the same time, his frequent access to wind and string players, especially during his last year and a half in San Quentin, allowed him to experiment with orchestral sonorities. His quest for parole drove him into an artistic circumspection that dissuaded him from some of the radical projects he envisioned.9' Perhaps most important, the damage to his reputa-

88 Advisory Pardon Board to Culbert Olson, 14 December 1942, Pardon File. 89 The official pardon document, which includes the quotation from Seeger's

letter, is dated 28 December 1942 (Pardon File). 90 In a letter to Ernst Bacon, 29 September 1938, Cowell comments that he had

always "tried over" piano works and revised them accordingly; not being able to do so in prison, he explains, made composing for piano far more difficult. Cf. Cowell to Quincy Porter, 5 October 1938, in which the composer laments having had no opportunity to try out a recent work on any instrument.

9' In this context one should understand his comments in a letter to Marc Blitzstein, 6 March 1939: "I do most earnestly wish that I might undertake the writing of similar things [like Blitzstein's] but of course, I am hampered by the situation as far as the texts go" (Marc Blitzstein Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin [Madison]).



THE IMPRISONMENT OF HENRY COWELL I 15

tion in California uprooted him from the west-coast counterculture that had nurtured his most experimental work.92

Olive Cowell repeatedly described her stepson's response to the prison years as both inspiring and tragic. Although he seemed to have transcended his incarceration, she said, "he never accepted it . . . it did something to him-it did something to his music."93 Despite the consistently positive tone of his letters from prison, he never recovered from San Quentin. Peter Yates discerned the change when the composer visited him a year after his parole. As Yates remarked of the visit, "the old forwardness he must have had to drive himself and his purposes before unfriendly and amused audiences has been replaced by a fearfulness and suspicion. He is unlikely ever to lose the prison mark, the expression of something said or felt behind his back, the uncertain secrecy."94

This last, telling phrase suggests how far he had gone from the person Lewis Terman once knew. As Terman described him in 1919, Cowell was fearless and "naively honest" in expressing himself; eighteen years later, with the composer behind bars, Terman still claimed, "I have never known a more honest, truthful, or guileless individual. He is utterly incapable of dissembling."95 One wonders how such a person, unthreatened by the biases of his time, might have recounted his prison experience. All biographical treatments published during his lifetime pass over it.96 Since his death only occasional, sketchy accounts have surfaced, accounts that harbor fundamental errors. Thus, one finds Jackson giving wrong dates for his incarceration and Lichtenwanger ironically crediting his pardon to

92 This will be treated comprehensively in the monograph currently being prepared by the author and Steven Johnson, tentatively entitled Henry Cowell and the American Bohemia.

93 Olive Cowell, interviewed by Rita Mead, 8 November 1975. Cf. her letter to Grainger, 20 February 1940, Grainger Papers: "He has matured so much as a person. All the fine qualities that are in him have blossomed, so that the experience has not materially harmed in the slightest-but the cost in strain, in adjustment, in loss of achievement, etc.[,] that can not be reckoned. But I feel he has grown all that is possible to grow under the circumstances."

94 Peter Yates to Peyton Houston, 29 June 1941, Letters of Peter Yates to Peyton Houston, i931-1976, Mandeville Department of Special Collections, University of California at San Diego.

95 Lewis M. Terman, The Intelligence of School Children (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919), 251; Terman to Wolff, 8 March 1937, Meyer Papers (abridged typescript copy in Pardon File).

96 Citations for these appear in Martha L. Manion, Writings about Henry Cowell: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, 1982), 32-55 passim.



I 16 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Earl Warren.97 The errors that blur accounts of the prison years, however, only begin to suggest how pervasive and beguiling is the mythology that obscures much of the composer's life. The imprisonment of Henry Cowell has become a metaphor for the state of his biography.

Scholars have treated his life in a way that goes beyond tact. Seeking to polish his image in an age of suspicion toward artists, they have repressed the facts of his crucial encounter with the justice system, leaving their readers either to believe untruths or imagine the worst. This kind of repression is, as Foucault aptly expresses it, both "an injunction to silence . . . and, by implication, an admission that there [is] nothing to say about such things, nothing to see, and nothing to know."98 The attitudes that continue to foster such repression threaten any attempt to illumine the lives of men and women, especially if those lives are as labyrinthine as artists' tend to be. Cowell's, then, may serve as a test case on issues that will persist in musical biography: is there something to say about such things, something to see, something to know? A verdict will come only as biographers disentangle themselves from myth and approach their task with the simple candor Henry Cowell once epitomized.

Brigham Young University

LIST OF WORKS CITED

Primary Sources

Bacon, Ernst. Papers. Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University.

Becker, John. Papers. Music Division, New York Public Library. Blitzstein, Marc. Papers. State Historical Society of Wisconsin (Madison). California State Advisory Pardon Board. Files. California State Archives. Chaivez, Carlos. Papers. Archivo General de la Naci6n de Mexico. Cowell, Henry. Letters to Percy Grainger. Microfilm in Music Division,

New York Public Library. Cowell, Olive Thompson. Interview by Rita L. Mead, 8 November 1975.

Typescript in Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Cowell, Sidney Robertson. Letter to Steven Johnson and author, 15 May 1989.

Telephone conversation with Steven Johnson, 15 February 1990.

97 Jackson, "Henry Cowell," 152; Lichtenwanger, Music of Henry Cowell, xxix. 98 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality; Volume I: An Introduction, trans.

Robert Hurley (New York: Random House, 1978), 4.




Dematteis, Louis. Letter to author, 23 November 1988. Goldman, Richard Franko. Papers. Music Division, Library of Congress. Grainger, Percy. Papers. Microfilm in Music Division, Library of Congress. Lichtenwanger, William. Letter to author, 2 October 1989. Meyer, Adolf. Papers. Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, Johns

Hopkins University. Oneal, Louis. Letter to author, 21 November 1988. Porter, Quincy. Papers. Music Library, Yale University. Ruggles, Carl. Papers. Music Library, Yale University. San Mateo County Clerk-Recorder. Microfilm of Superior Court Case No.

25755. Redwood City, California. San Quentin Prison Board Minutes. California State Archives, Sacramento. Schoenberg, Arnold. Papers. Arnold Schoenberg Institute, University of

Southern California Sevitzky, Fabien. Papers. Music Division, Library of Congress. Slonimsky, Nicolas. Letter to author, 28 December 1988. Strang, Gerald. Interview by Vivian Perlis, March 1975. Typescript in

American Music Series, Oral History Research Office, Yale University. Sullivan, Mark. Telephone conversation with author, 25 June 1990. Terman, Lewis. Papers. Department of Special Collections and University

Archives, Stanford University. Yates, Peter. Letters to Peyton Houston, 1931-1976. Mandeville Depart-

ment of Special Collections, University of California at San Diego. Yates, Peter. Interview by Adelaide G. Tusler, January 1967. Typescript in

Oral History Program, University of California at Los Angeles.

Secondary Sources

Achter, Barbara Ann Zuck. "Americanism and American Art Music, 1929-1945." Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1978.

Breckenridge, Gerald. "Biggest Big House." Saturday Evening Post 214 (8 November 1941): 20-21 and 95-98.

Burke, Robert E. Olson's New Deal for California. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, i953.

Deering's California Codes: Annotated Penal Code of the State of California. San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1985.

Desmond, James. Nelson Rockefeller: A Political Biography. New York: Mac- millan, 1964.

Duffy, Clinton T. The San Quentin Story, as told to Dean Jennings. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950.

Dutton, Charles. "First Offenders." The Commonweal 26 (20 August 1937): 399-400.

George, William. "Adolph Weiss." Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 197I. Godwin, Joscelyn. "The Music of Henry Cowell." Ph.D. diss., Cornell

University, 1969. Gordon, Eric A. Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein. New

York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. Iglow, Robert A. "Oral Copulation: A Constitutional Curtain Must Be

Drawn." San Diego Law Review 11 (1974): 523-34-




Jackson, Richard. "Henry Cowell." In Dictionary of Contemporary Music, edited by John Vinton, 152-54. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974.

Lamott, Kenneth. Chronicles of San Quentin: The Biography of a Prison. New York: David McKay, i961.

Lewis, Wyndham. The Art of Being Ruled. London: Chatto and Windus, 1926.

. Doom of Youth. London: Chatto and Windus, 1932. Leyland, Winston, ed. Gay Sunshine Interviews; Volume I. San Francisco: Gay

Sunshine Press, 1978. Lichtenwanger, William. The Music of Henry Cowell: A Descriptive Catalog.

New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, 1986. Manion, Martha L. Writings about Henry Cowell: An Annotated Bibliography.

New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, 1982. Mead, Rita H. "The Amazing Mr. Cowell." American Music i (Winter 1983):

63-83. Henry Cowell's New Music, 1925-1936: The Society, the Music Editions,

and the Recordings. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981. Minton, Henry L. "Feminity in Men and Masculinity in Women: American

Psychiatry and Psychology Portray Homosexuality in the 1930's." Journal of Homosexuality I3 (Fall 1986): 1-2 i.

Olson, Culbert L. State Papers and Public Addresses. Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1942.

Saylor, Bruce. "Henry Cowell." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 5, 8-12. London: Macmillan, i980.

Scudder, Kenyon J. Prisoners are People. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1952. Slonimsky, Nicolas. Perfect Pitch: A Life Story. New York: Oxford University

Press, 1988. Stanley, Leo L. Twenty Years at San Quentin. N.p., 1933. Stanley, Leo L., and Evelyn Wells. Men at Their Worst. New York:

Appleton-Century, 1940. Stone, Norman M. "Prison Recreation Today." Recreation 35 (October 1941):

451-54. Terman, Lewis M. The Intelligence of School Children. Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1919. Terman, Lewis M., and Catherine Cox Miles. Sex and Personality: Studies in

Masculinity and Femininity. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936. Varian, John. "Doorways Inward" and Other Poems. Halcyon, California:

Halcyon Temple Press, 1934- Voigt, Lloyd L. History of California State Correctional Administration from 193o

to 1948. San Francisco: n.p., 1949. Woon, Basil. San Francisco and the Golden Empire. New York: Harrison Smith

and Robert Haas, 1935.

NEWSPAPERS

New York Times Palo Alto Times San Francisco Call-Bulletin San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco Examiner




ABSTRACT

Thus far, published references to Henry Cowell's imprisonment consistently obscure the facts of his case and overlook virtually all of the essential primary sources, including court documents, correspondence, psychological evaluations, and even Cowell's own writings on the subject. Although Cowell acceded to a charge that he had engaged in homosexual activities with a minor, the charge was distorted by newspapers and both exaggerated and minimized by his friends. The extraordinary prison sentence Cowell received resulted largely from a misleading letter by a juvenile probation officer, written amid a political climate of severe antipathy toward sex offenders. During Cowell's incarceration, several leading psychologists evaluated the composer according to then-prevalent theories of homosexuality. These psychologists, along with several officers of the court, expressed faith in the composer's "rehabilitation" and their recommendations helped secure the composer a parole. Political changes in California and the entry of the United States into World War II paved the way for a pardon, which was granted primarily so that Cowell could work on a government project known as "cultural defense." Despite his impressive accomplishments in prison and the positive resolution of his case, Cowell never fully recovered from the experience. Scholarly repression of the facts ensued and led to fragmented, inaccurate accounts of the prison years. Hence, this part of Cowell's life provides a useful test case on some persistent issues in musical biography.



the imprisonment of henry cowell

Documents