He Had A Karl Marx-Style Beard – So He Must Be a Commie

Walt Whitman and his friend Peter Doyle.
They were believed to have a gay relationship

Back in 1955 people knew a “commie” when they saw one and men who loved other men were “dangerous perverts.”

The commie-pervert that so upset some local people in the mid-1950s was, none other than, poet Walt Whitman, and the proposal to name a new bridge in his honor was galling to some.

The Catholic Church launched and led the attack. Then the Inquirer editorial page, Gloucester City and Philadelphia city councils also went on record as anti- Walt.

An anti-Walt letter writing campaign was started by south Jersey Catholic churches, lay groups and Catholic school kids who copied a form letter.

The Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) had decided to change the name of the Delaware River Bridge to the Ben Franklin Bridge. No problem there. However, the bi-state agency was building a new bridge. Since Ben Franklin was associated with Philly, the new bridge must honor someone from south Jersey.

Now, here was a challenge. Who from south Jersey was famous enough to deserve having a bridge named in his honor?

Well, Walt Whitman was from Long Island but lived in Camden from 1873 until his death in1892. And he is buried in Camden. So, it would be the Walt Whitman Bridge, said a committee of the DRPA.

The first salvos in the Catholic attacks on Whitman were somewhat oblique. Jersey-based priest Rev. James Ryan began with an article in the local Catholic newspaper by attacking Whitman’s talent. Wrote the priest, “Whitman possesses the depth of a saucer and enjoys the vision that extends about as far as his eyelids.”
 
Soon people were made aware that a recent book on the poet described Whitman as “homoerotic.” This was an unfamiliar term for most folks, but they understood “homosexual.”

Letters that poured into DRPA called Whitman “vulgar” “corrupt” “unnatural, “disgusting.” Worse, he was “unchristian” and his work was “contemptuous of religious principles. “

One writer said Whitman’s poetry praising the common man was very popular in Red China. The writer declared: “He is the poet laureate of world communist revolution.”

The bridge controversy got into the New York newspapers and soon there were many pro-Whitman writers. At least, a couple letters said the Catholic church should cleanup its own house in regards to sexual perversion.

The controversy died down in 1956. The bridge opened in 1957 and today most bridge users do not know that the poet was once attacked as a communist, atheist and a shameless queer.