Garland gained fame in November 1920 when it was announced that he had renounced his share of the inheritance, valued at one million dollars. He told newspapers that he had not earned the money, and that he did not believe in private property. Garland indicated to this reporter that he was not refusing to accept these funds because of
socialist beliefs, but rather because as part of his study of the teachings of
Jesus Christ and the works of
Leo Tolstoy and
H.G. Wells, he had come to the earnest belief that the money "is not mine." There were newspaper reports that Garland had refused another million-dollar inheritance from his uncle, but Garland later denied that this was the case.
Establishment of Garland Fund Hearing of the young man's decision to refuse his inheritance and his rationale, the socialist author
Upton Sinclair urged Garland to accept the money not for his personal gain, but rather to put it to a higher use. Sinclair suggested making $100,000 donations to a set of specific organizations seeking to change the economic and social system of which Garland disapproved. These organizations favored by Sinclair included
The Liberator magazine, the socialist daily newspaper
The New York Call, the communist daily newspaper
The Daily Worker, the Federated Press news service, the
Intercollegiate Socialist Society, the
American Civil Liberties Union, the
American Union Against Militarism, and the magazine edited by 1916
Socialist Party Presidential candidate
Allan L. Benson,
Reconstruction. In 1921, Garland was approached by Roger Baldwin, head of the American Civil Liberties Union, probably through ACLU attorney
Walter Nelles, a law partner of
Swinburne Hale, who had recently married Garland's widowed mother. Baldwin convinced Garland to accept his father's inheritance and to establish with it a "national trust fund" which would aid efforts to expand "individual liberty and the power of voluntary associations." On July 5, 1921, the
American Fund for Public Service, colloquially known as the "Garland Fund", was formally incorporated by
Lewis Gannett of the
New York World, Robert Morss Lovett of the
University of Chicago, and Roger Baldwin. The money behind the fund was held in the form of
securities at the First National Bank of New York. He soon clarified that he would give a third of the money to his wife (from whom he was now separated), keep only $500 for himself, and donate the remainder to "about ten persons" in whom he had faith. In July 1922, it was formally announced that Garland would use $800,000 of his inheritance to endow the fund. The fund later made significant donations to the ACLU and the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Garland occasionally communicated with the directors of the Fund. For example, around 1931 he sent a letter criticizing the NAACP's actions in the
Scottsboro Boys case as "anything but advanced or radical", and suggesting that
International Labor Defense would be a more worthy recipient of the Fund's support.
Communes After his separation from his wife, Garland established two successive
agricultural communes, or "colonies of idealists", both named
April Farm. The first April Farm, in which Garland lived from January 1922, was at
North Carver, Massachusetts. In 1924, Garland moved to a new "April Farm" in
Lower Milford Township, Pennsylvania. Police confirmed to the newspapers that they would enforce state anti-
adultery laws against Garland, who was still legally married to Mary. Media regularly featured lurid stories about Garland's so-called "love farm". He fathered three children with Bettina Hovey, a member of the commune. One of these children, a girl named Barbetta, died in 1925 at the age of three months. His wife divorced him later that same year. He lived out the rest of his life in obscurity. He married Ursula Feist, one of the colonists, with whom he already had a child. In 1932, it was reported that he was working at an automobile factory in the
Soviet Union. In 1940, Garland was reported in FBI files to be working for the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1941, the fund was dissolved. It returned a balance of $2,000 to Garland, who was living in
Mount Vernon, New York, with his second wife Ursula and four children. In 1943, he was reportedly working as a machinist in
New York City. He subsequently bought a farm in
New Hampshire, around 1955. He died in
New Ipswich in 1974. He was survived by his wife Ursula, five sons, and four daughters. ==Bibliography==