The Strangers

To year-around natives of the swanky resort town of Lake Geneva, Wis. "The Strangers" looked queerer and queerer. Lake Geneva enjoys a certain rural isolation but these newcomer Isolationists were a puzzle. Three of them suddenly turned up last week in headlines as witnesses before a Washington grand jury investigating Nazi propaganda. One was a tall, double-chinned brunette named Bessie Feagin, whose memory "failed" when questioned about a master mailing list. Other two--accused of obstructing the investigation--were George T. Eggleston, a balding collegiate type resembling Jimmy Roosevelt in unmatched coat & pants, and Douglas M. Stewart, a stocky, heavy-lidded Boston esthete with a taste for antiques and Aryans.

Lake Genevans knew them as promotion manager, editor and publisher respectively of a magazine and a weekly paper--Scribner's Commentator and The Herald--which six months ago moved into their town from far-off Manhattan (TIME, May 26). The two publications settled down in a remodeled two-story building that used to be the old Sawyer Blacksmith Shop, to spread isolationist propaganda, but the townsfolk grew more & more puzzled.

Though "The Strangers" talked a lot about isolation and "an Independent American Destiny," the townsfolk could rot figure out what kind of Americans they were. They were obviously well-heeled, rented $100-a-month houses in town, traveled by plane; but when the Community Fund called on them, report was that all it could get out of the whole bunch was $2.

It seemed queer to townspeople that the editorial staff should include two watch men. They could not figure out why "The Strangers" moved there in the first place. Some said it was because Lake Geneva is "Restricted to Gentiles"; some said that rich isolationist Lawyer Bill Trinke promoted the deal; Editor Eggleston said they picked the location for its peace & quiet.

In the beginning the townsfolk tried to make "The Strangers" feel at home. They were entertained by the Lions' Club, the Chamber of Commerce, all the "best people." But the Commentator's wives talked too much about New York; their husbands too much about isolationism. Townsfolk simplified it by calling them snobs. By summer "The Strangers" found more congenial company in such homes as the 40-room mansion of Socialite Novelist Janet Ayer Fairbank, ex-Democratic Committeewoman and No. i female America-Firster; the summer castles of the Mortons (salt), the Cranes (plumbing); the $1,000,000 Indian temple transported by the Maytags (washing machines) from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 to Lake Geneva.

By last week, it had become pretty plain that snobbery was not the word. The Government likewise puzzled over "The Strangers," particularly, it seemed, over the Commentator-Herald master mailing list, now said to comprise 500,000 names. Most of its names were supposedly supplied by isolationist Congressmen Wheeler, Nye, Fish, by Lindbergh and Father Coughlin, by America First and "other organizations." After big isolationist meetings the speakers are reported to have baled up tens of thousands of fan letters and sent them along to Scribner's Commentator and The Herald. There is nothing suspicious in having a mailing list--many businesses have them for soliciting business--but the Government was presumably concerned about what purposes it was being used for.

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