An Ugly Anti-Semitic Episode in Newport When a Club Wanted to Throw Out a Jewish U.S. Senator

An Ugly Anti-Semitic Episode in Newport When a Club Wanted to Throw Out a Jewish U.S. Senator

Over the past few weeks, there has been much discussion about U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s association with exclusive private clubs in Newport, Rhode Island. 

Whitehouse has admitted to belonging to four clubs with exclusionary histories, two of which he and his family continue to have membership in — Bailey’s Beach Club and the Ida Lewis Yacht Club.  He has refused to resign from the two clubs. And, there are two that he is no longer a member of — The Newport Reading Room and the Clambake Club.

GoLocal has unearthed a much-forgotten story of an incident of anti-semitism at one of the clubs.

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The story briefly made national news in the early 1970s.

The core of the story relayed to GoLocal was that the late Democratic Senator Claiborne Pell had invited Republican Senator Jacob Javits and his wife to Newport for a weekend sometime in the early 1970s and that Javits had been refused access at one of the private clubs due to his religion. Javits was one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in America at the time.

The actual facts are disturbing and after tracking down and untangling the documentation, what is unveiled is an ugly picture of anti-semitism. 

 

Tracking Down the Incident

Initially, searches online by GoLocal found no traces of the incident. Ultimately, GoLocal contacted the son of Senator Javits. The Senator’s son Joshua Javits, a noted legal mediator, told GoLocal he had not heard the story, but directed GoLocal to contact Stony Brook University on Long Island. The University is the keeper of Javits’ papers, and the curator of the collection found a letter and newspaper reports of the incident that took place in the summer of 1974.

Javits was a top leader in the United States Senate.

The New York Times wrote about Javits at the time of his death in 1986, “Jacob K. Javits, who began life in a Lower East Side tenement and, as a United States Senator for 24 years, became one of the most respected and influential political figures in the nation. Mr. Javits was instrumental in composing and helping to enact legislation on foreign affairs, urban redevelopment, civil rights, organized labor and big business.” 

And, while Javits had earned national and international respect, he received no such respect in Newport.

 

The Incident

The incident was first reported in the Washington Post, “Democrat Senator and Mrs. Claiborne Pell, actually took New York Republican Sen. And Mrs. Jacob Javits to ‘The Reading Room,’ a distinguished, old, men’s club, open to ladies only twice a year and ’never open to Jews and Blacks.'”

“The Pells were asked by Washingtonians Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Clagett to please have the Javitses leave and though they did not, they did seek a different table,“ according to the Post.

According to the Post, Claggett was in the coal industry and lived in the Watergate Apartments. 

The Reading Room's members have included Cornelius Vanderbilt, John Nicholas Brown, Vincent Astor, and Whitehouse to name a few.

The Providence Journal’s Washington Bureau followed on the Post’s article, “Two sources who asked not to be identified confirmed the story as  ‘substantially correct’ in conversations yesterday with the Journal-Bulletin.”

“Another member of The Reading Room, reached by telephone last night, after America’s Cup activities, said, ‘You wouldn’t think anybody could be that dumb. Clagett! I don’t even know that is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him around there,” wrote the Journal.

“Boston stockbroker Barclay Douglas, who is a resident of Hammersmith Road, Newport, and is chairman of the house committee of The Reading Room, told a reporter last night, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I know who I am. I am a member of a private cub, and you are discussing a private matter of no public interest whatever to the public,” reported the Journal.

Among the papers provided to GoLocal from the Javits collection was a letter from a woman named Marguerite Leach who worked in the Turks Head Building in Providence.

She wrote in a letter to Douglas and the other members of the Reading Room's "House Committee" condemning their behavior. She wrote, “I am writing to express my surprise that your chairman [Douglas] did not at least voice the basic premise of your Club, that is, that the incident was unmannerly.”

Leach wrote, “Suffice it to say the Clagett acted in a crass, boorish and ill-bred manner especially in knowing The Honorable Senator and Mrs. Jacob Javits were guests of their fellow Club members, The Honorable Senator and Mrs. Claiborne Pell.”

“Perhaps your Club and its members may take direction in the well-bred and mannerly reaction [of the Javitses] to a crude incident that they did not get up and leave your Club thereby creating an even more embarrassing situation for their hosts,” she added.

After the incident, Pell refused to comment on the incident and is quoted in the Journal in 1974 as saying, “I will give you my complete answer. Quote, I will not discuss this matter, unquote.”

 

Today

Today, Douglas’ son who shares his father’s name is the chairman of the club, according to the most recent IRS documents filed by the non-profit club and his professional bio.

The younger Douglas is a partner in Slocum, Gordon & Co. LLP, a Newport-based investment management firm. He did not return phone calls or emails from GoLocal.

His bio states, “He is currently in his thirty-first year as President of the Newport Country Club and is on the USGA Mid-Amateur Committee. He is also the President of the Newport Reading Room, a board member of the Westminster Kennel Club, a past secretary of The National Tennis Club, and a former Incorporator of BankNewport. Mr. Douglas is a graduate of Fordham University and The Browning School.“

Pell, Javits, and Clagett have all died.

But, The Reading Room's board continues to be all male. 

In two video interviews with GoLocal, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said that Bailey’s Beach Club does not have any minority members. 

The club, in a highly crafted, carefully-worded statement, countered the Senator’s claims. Five days after GoLocal’s most recent interview on June 18th, Whitehouse issued a statement that said in part, “A representative of a local website recently caught me off guard by asking me about diversity at a beach club to which family members of mine belong.”

Whitehouse reportedly left the Reading Room, according to his office, in 1993. They refused to provide a copy of his letter of resignation.

The Newport clubs continue to endure.