WEVD was the call sign held by three New York City commercial radio stations, with related ownership, from 1927 until 2003. This call sign was formed from the initials of recently deceased Socialist Party of America leader Eugene Victor Debs.
History Original station (1927-1981)
During the first half of the 1920s, radio broadcasting developed as a new form of influential mass media.Nathan Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure: The Socialists and American Broadcasting, 1926-1932," in Ronald C. Kent et al. (eds.), Culture, Gender, Race, and U.S. Labor History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993; pg. 124. The Socialist Party of America saw radio as a potential means of reaching an increasingly apathetic public to aid it financially. At its December 1926 quarterly meeting, the governing National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party decided to erect a radio broadcasting station as a memorial to its recently deceased co-founder, Eugene V. Debs, who had died in October of the previous year.Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure," pg. 127. In March 1927, the Socialist Party of America launched a fundraising drive aimed at generating $250,000 for the purchase of a station."Drive Opens to Build Debs Radio," The New Leader, vol. 3, no. 11 (March 12, 1927), pp. 1, 3. Party leader and head of the League for Industrial Democracy Norman Thomas was chosen as chairman of the board of trustees for the new enterprise and venerated party founder Morris Hillquit was appointed as treasurer.
A total of 21 others from the liberal, labor and socialist community were appointed as a board of trustees including such publicly recognized figures as pacifist minister - John Haynes Holmes, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters founder A. Philip Randolph, Amalgamated Clothing Workers leader Sidney Hillman, novelist Upton Sinclair and American Civil Liberties Union head Roger Baldwin. G. August Gerber, son of New York Socialist Party functionary Julius Gerber, was named as secretary of the board and director of the fundraising drive.
At the fundraising drive's launch, Norman Thomas remarked:
The usefulness of a well established radio station open to full and frank discussion of great economic and social issues is beyond doubt. Past experience combines with common sense in assuring us that the commercial broadcasting stations cannot be expected to give much time or attention to the great vision for which Gene Debs gave his life. I am glad to observe that you have invited and obtained the acceptance of men and women as trustees who are not members of the Socialist Party. Such ... [shall] guarantee that the Debs Memorial Radio Fund will be free from a narrow and intolerant partisanship.
Thomas and Hillquit envisioned the radio station as a memorial to the late Debs. In a joint statement, they called for a "monument" which was to be "a living instrument of social service... to be operated in the interests of all progressive movements and ideas and in aid of all struggles for social justice in the tolerant and broad-minded spirit of Gene Debs."
The Radio Fund's trustees estimated cost of launching a station at $100,000 and hoped to invest the additional balance of $150,000 to generate sufficient interest income to allow for perpetual operations. The Debs Memorial Radio Fund launched its fundraising campaign with a mailing of 15,000 letters soliciting funds for the establishment of a Socialist Party-owned radio station.Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure," pg. 128. However, this first round brought in just over $2,650 – only slightly more than 1% of the goal. While this grand vision of substantial funding proved overly optimistic, the necessary funds for a station acquisition was raised from party members and sympathetic labor unions during the first half of 1927.
Launch Around the first of August 1927 the "Debs Memorial Radio Fund" trustees announced the purchase of WSOM, owned by Union Course Laboratories, which transmitted from Woodhaven in the New York City borough of Queens."Debs Fund Buys Radio Station: Broadcasting is to Begin Soon: Socialist, Labor and Liberal Group is Now Owner of WSOM," The New Leader, vol. 4, no. 7 (Aug. 6, 1927), pg. 3. WSOM had been on the air since 1926; (Guide to reading History Cards) the station had moved into New York City just six months prior.
An immediate application was made to the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) for a change of call letters to WDEBS, as well as for an increase of transmission power from 500 to 1,000 watts, to enable the station to broadcast with less effect from the skyscrapers of New York. The broadcast studio was to be located somewhere in Manhattan, it was reported.
The Socialist Party and its partners received assurances from the FRC that a broadcasting license would be promptly granted. Joining the Socialist Party with the Debs radio project were a number of national and international trade unions, including the United Mine Workers of America, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the United Hebrew Trades. Also joining the fundraising effort were the left wing fraternal benefit society the Workmen's Circle and the financially successful Yiddish language social democratic daily, The Jewish Daily Forward, headed by Abraham Cahan.
While the purchase price of the station was not revealed, August Gerber indicated that the bulk of the $250,000 operating fund – which had still not been fully met – was to be used to cover ongoing operating expenses. Gerber expressed a belief that the station would become self-supporting in fairly short order and indicated a desire to make the new New York station the flagship of a network of "labor radio stations" throughout the United States. Gerber declared: "The purchase of a labor station ... will guarantee to minority opinion in America its right to be heard without censorship. With radio now privately owned and controlled, a station like WDEBS is the only cry in the wilderness... We promise that, as soon as we can proceed with full operation, Station WDEBS will be not merely a chronicler of events, nor a vehicle of music and entertainment, though we hope not to fail even in these matters, but a militant, fighting champion of the rights of the oppressed, of all those who toil by hand or brain to produce the wealth of this world."
The desire for the assignment of WDEBS as the station's call letters was vetoed by FRC, which ruled that only aircraft could have five-letter call signs, while ground radio stations were limited to four letters or fewer. Eugene V. Debs' initials were thus substituted, and WEVD was born.
The Debs Memorial Radio Fund began operating WEVD on August 18, 1927. In addition to English-language broadcasts, one of the organizations providing funding, the widely circulated and financially successful Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, launched what would become what one radio historian called "the most famous Yiddish radio program of all time" — The Forward Hour."The Yiddish Radio Dial," Sound Portraits Productions, 2002, yiddishradioproject.org/ This show was first broadcast every Sunday morning at 11 o'clock, and gained a significant following among the Yiddish-speaking immigrant community of New York City.
Finances were tight throughout the entire period of the Socialist Party's operation of the station.Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure," pg. 129. Operating costs were minimized through the generosity of the ILGWU, which allowed the station free use of the entire 6th floor of its headquarters building in New York City. A network of studios and reception rooms were created in the space, providing a fully adequate base of operations for the station.
Operating funds came from small-scale listener contributions, regular donations from the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations interested in the station's mission, and the left wing philanthropic trust, the American Fund for Public Service, commonly known as the Garland Fund. Station manager Gerber dedicated much of his time to keeping the station's meager revenue stream flowing, although by January 1928 Norman Thomas was opining that the Socialist Party and its radio station "can't go on living like this."Norman Thomas to G. August Gerber, January 4, 1928. Norman Thomas Papers 1904-1967, Microfilm Edition, Reel 1. Quoted in Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure," pg. 129.
Regulatory difficulties
On top of the Socialist Party's financial troubles came regulatory problems with the FRC. Stations were initially issued a series of temporary authorizations starting on May 3, 1927."List of broadcasting stations issued temporary permits", Radio Service Bulletin, April 30, 1927, pages 6-14. In addition, they were informed that if they wanted to continue operating, they needed to file a formal license application by January 15, 1928, as the first step in determining whether they met the new "public interest, convenience, or necessity" standard."Extension of Broadcasting Station Licenses", Radio Service Bulletin, December 31, 1927, page 7. On May 25, 1928, the FRC issued General Order 32, which notified 164 stations, including WEVD, that "From an examination of your application for future license it does not find that public interest, convenience, or necessity would be served by granting it.""Appendix F (2): Letter to and list of stations included in General Order No. 32, issued May 25, 1928", Second Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission for the Year Ended June 30, 1928, Together With Supplemental Report for the Period From July 1, 1928 to September 30, 1928, pages 146-149. Critics saw this as part of a plan to rationalize the distribution of radio assignments by forcing out small stations catering to niche audiences in favor of fewer high powered stations broadcasting commercially to a mass market.
Representatives of WEVD and 109 other threatened stations made their way to Washington, D.C. in July 1928 for two weeks of regulatory hearings on the issue. Station manager Gerber responded with a statement emphasizing the importance of defending free speech and the right of political minorities to submit their ideas to a broad public.Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure," pg. 130. Party leader Norman Thomas echoed this perspective, declaring the value of WEVD and other community stations as a bulwark against a "big chain system" which tended to "standardize — to make robots and Babbitts of the American people."Quoted in Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure," pg. 131.
The efforts of Gerber and Thomas ultimately proved successful, with the FRC approving the WEVD renewal application one month later.Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure," pg. 131. In the FRC's judgment WEVD had followed a "very satisfactory policy" of representing a range of political and economic perspectives befitting "the mouthpiece of a substantial political or religious minority." An editor at the New York Times concurred with the radio regulators' assessment, noting that revoking WEVD's license on the basis of its political views "would be both unjust and stupid."New York Times, August 23, 1928, pg. 20. Quoted in Godfried, "Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure," pg. 131.