The Star-Gazette incident

From: Finnish-Americans In War and Peace. Pages 74-78. St. Magnus Press 2015.  Author: Rainer Langstedt

      The Elmira Star-Gazette was the dominant newspaper in the area. It had a circulation of over 29,000 copies and, on some days, ran around 30 pages. One of their columnists was Matt Richardson who wrote the “Round Town” column. On February 3, 1940, his column was titled “Nearby Finnish Residents Cable Ironical Message to Stalin’s Puppets.” The article follows: 

Up around Spencer, Van Etten and Trumansburg there are settlements comprising approximately 3,000 Finns, these within a radius of a few miles. It has just leaked out that during the holidays from Spencer three cablegrams were dispatched to Josef Stalin’s puppet Finnish government, known as the “Democratic Government of Finland.” . . . This clique of men Stalin recognizes as directing-head of that usually peaceful little country, bordering the Arctic Circle, in preference to the real rulers in its capital, Helsinki. . . . The cables sent from Spencer read: “Congratulations and good wishes”-what a rare bit of irony!       

     They were signed similarly: “Finnish Co-Operative Society,” these words in each instance proceeded by the name of the town from which they emanated . . . . The Spencer boys waited impatiently how the Stalin puppets would take it—weather they could take a joke . . . Nothing happened . . . But finally, there did come a “service message” from cable officials, who stated they had been unable to make deliveries because they could not locate the headquarters of those addressed.” 

One telegram of congratulations was allegedly sent to Josef Stalin and the other to the Kuusinen puppet regime.        

     In the Spencer Needle, a local weekly paper, John Koski, a board member of the Spencer Co-op, wrote the letter to the editor in response to the Star-Gazette column. In the February 14 letter, he wrote:

To the People of Spencer and Vicinity,   

     Just recently, a newspaper widely read in these parts, carried an article stating that the Finnish Cooperative Society (meaning the Spencer Cooperative Society) had sent a cablegram congratulating the Soviet sponsored Kuusinen government in Finland.            

      As a member of the Spencer Cooperative Society, I feel that it’s a duty to me to expose the article as an outright lie. No doubt the person or persons who gave the false information to the paper, would like to see the Spencer Cooperative Society completely wrecked, so as to remove the only obstacle we have in Spencer and vicinity against high profits. Folks, stop to think of those days when Spencer did not have a Cooperative. Are you going to permit a reactionary minority group undermining an organization built up by honest, hard working people, solely for the benefit of the people. Remember, any organization that treads on the toes of individual profit seekers, is the target for lies and slander.

     Cooperatives have democracy as their basis. One member, one vote, regardless of the members’ financial support in the organization.

     Cooperatives are based on human control instead of money control. A good cooperative member is a good citizen of this country

John Koski.

     To further distance the co-op from the Star-Gazette article, the co-op took out an ad in the next issue of the Spencer Needle. The board of directors went on the attack. As their own meeting minutes corroborate, the co-op had indeed sent money to communist activities domestically and to Spain. The current ad denied these actions and threatened to prosecute those who as much as “circulated any statements to the contrary.” While the minutes from the Spanish Civil War era survive in the Spencer Historical Society, the minutes from the Winter War period are missing.

     The Spencer Needle was a small weekly newspaper and could not afford to alienate any segment of their readership. It was therefore important for them to end the battle of words in the paper. In the same issue as the above letter to the editor, we find an editorial decision not to provide a platform to continue the fight. It did cost the paper because the occasional ads for the co-op disappeared from the pages of the Spencer Needle.

Controversy Ended

In this issue will be found a reply to the article in the Needle last week that had to do with a certain article in the Elmira Star-Gazette a short time ago in reference to telegrams sent to a belligerent nation.   

The writer of the first article in the Needle was admonished, when he handed it for publication, that he could have it as written, but in all probability someone would answer it and that would end the controversy as far as the Needle is concerned. The answer appears in another column, and the conflict is ended, we will allow no more opinions on the subject either as paid advertisements or otherwise. The controversial part will have to be settled in some other way than through the columns of this paper.  

We believe in America, in American principles and the Constitution under which America was founded and most emphatically believe that everyone living under American roof and American protection should have and exercise such belief at all times and all places. 148

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