My uncle Fred, who was born Fred Herz, my mother's brother, changed his name during the second world war to Fred Harte, the English translation of the German 'Herz'. He was uncomfortable as a Jew. I owe a great deal to my uncle Fred who regularly took me to dinner and let me stay in his rent controlled apartment on 96th St. E. in Manhattan as a college student on vacations from Chicago.
Uncle Fred is the unsung hero of the newspaper published in New York from 1948 until 1992 originally under the name the National Guardian.
Uncle Fred went to Harvard and his close friend, Phil Strauss (later a partner in Neuberger Burman) from school, invested Fred's money for him. By the time the National Guardian had started in 1948, Fred's portfolio was worth several million dollars. Over the next four decades the portfolio continued to grow.
My uncle Fred was the sole funder of the National Guardian from the 1940s until the 1990s. Fred would buy nearly all the tickets to the annual Guardian fund raising bash. The tickets sales were trivial. The total revenue consisted of 95% uncle Fred's money. That was for the entire 40 years of the newspaper's life.
Fred used to go to work at the National Guardian at a menial job every day for 35 years and worked in the circulation department in control of the subscription base. Originally these were metal plates and later became computer tape.
Fred was inconspicuous but he controlled the heart of the newspaper. Fred watched the entire revolution of the 1960s acted out in his offices. First the radical blacks took over the paper, later the radical feminists kicked out the blacks. Little old Fred just kept working quietly in the back room and supporting the entire edifice with his portfolio contributions.
Fred was a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist. We argued and talked for many hours and years. The stunning fact to me, was how often we agreed. Fred taught me a great deal about arguing, about politics and about Leftists thinking.
Fred died in the early 1990’s.