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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 10, Spring 1946

Page 263

FANTASY COMMENTATOR
263

Attempts were made to get publicity for the organization through the SFL. Gervais' letter to Hornig met, however, with a curt rebuff.

...we are not going to ask our readers to join another science fiction organization when the S.F.L. gives and will receive everything that can be asked for and is open to all---even those who cannot afford the $1.50 dues of your organization (which makes the ICSC look a bit commercial in nature).

We can see absolutely no advantage in your organization over the S.F.L. If you can show us anything that the ICSC can do that the League cannot, we would be willing to go into this further.

This reply was printed above Hornig's signature in the International Observer; it was not commented upon editorially, and the matter was dropped. But it was the genesis of later discord with the SFL. The ICSC quickly and decisively showed that it could indeed accomplish things that the SFL could not---and the first of these was the rocketry experiment noted above. This achievement was begrudgingly acknowledged in the League's column in Wonder Stories. It became immediately obvious that Hornig had taken the wrong tack. The ICSC at this time wad predominately a scientific-minded organization, and could easily have been according an official blessing and recommendation as a haven for science-hobbyists. Hornig's rough handling of the group, which he insisted on treating as a competing one, not only showed a lack of mature acumen but proved to have disastrous results.

The election of February 13, 1935 had raised Sykora to presidency, Gervais having been reduced to the vice president's post and Michel and Goudket being given the respective positions of secretary and treasurer. The leaders thus swept into power almost immediately transformed the ICSC into a militant group. As we have seen, Hornig's attitude had certainly not made relations with the SFL any more friendly. On top of this, personal arguments at local New York chapter meetings made them even less so. But they deteriorated into open animosity when Wollheim recounted to members in all its sordid detail the non-payment scandal he had recently uncovered.

The ICSC, which had previously lent but mildly passive aid to the Terrestrial Fantascience Guild, now cooperated completely in an all-pout mutual effort to smash the Science Fiction League and Wonder Stories itself. ICSC members mimeographed on club equipment the April, 1935 number of the TFG Bulletin, which contained Wollheim's expose of Gernsback's policies, and helped distribute it as well. They emphasized their own democratic constitution with the slogan "the only members' club"---in contrast, of course, to the League, where members had no appeal from arbitrary decisions of the assistant secretary. The issued a fan magazine titled Flabbergasting Stories, obviously a burlesque of Wonder Stories, which bore the byline "a schrechlich publication." In this appeared humerous barbed allusions to the non-payment practice and references to a "Sexy Science-Fiction Soviet Auxiliary," for frustrated fans, caricaturing the SFL.

Michel's "Science Fiction Critic" column in The International Observer printed decidedly unfavorable reviews of the fiction in Wonder Stories. Editorials urged readers to get the TFG Bulletin and learn of the Gernsback scandal. A new column called "Sun Spots" was initiated by Wollheim, and revealed how Gernsback had aided the dissolution of the old Scienceers, first by attempts to make them become the unwilling nucleus of the American Interplanetary Society, and then by not paying (as promised) for their meeting room at the Museum of Natural History---thus inferring that Gernsback spent most of his spare time in disrupting fan organizations. Simultaneously an attack was launched at the editors of Fantasy Magazine, who were labelled as traitors to the fan field for keeping se-

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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 263 Attempts were made to get publicity for the organization through the SFL. Gervais' letter to Hornig met, however, with a curt rebuff. ...we are not going to ask our readers to join another science fiction organization when the S.F.L. gives and will receive everything that can be asked for and is open to all---even those who cannot afford the $1.50 dues of your organization (which makes the ICSC look a bit commercial in nature). We can see absolutely no advantage in your organization over the S.F.L. If you can show us anything that the ICSC can do that the League cannot, we would be willing to go into this further. This reply was printed above Hornig's signature in the International Observer; it was not commented upon editorially, and the matter was dropped. But it was the genesis of later discord with the SFL. The ICSC quickly and decisively showed that it could indeed accomplish things that the SFL could not---and the first of these was the rocketry experiment noted above. This achievement was begrudgingly acknowledged in the League's column in Wonder Stories. It became immediately obvious that Hornig had taken the wrong tack. The ICSC at this time wad predominately a scientific-minded organization, and could easily have been according an official blessing and recommendation as a haven for science-hobbyists. Hornig's rough handling of the group, which he insisted on treating as a competing one, not only showed a lack of mature acumen but proved to have disastrous results. The election of February 13, 1935 had raised Sykora to presidency, Gervais having been reduced to the vice president's post and Michel and Goudket being given the respective positions of secretary and treasurer. The leaders thus swept into power almost immediately transformed the ICSC into a militant group. As we have seen, Hornig's attitude had certainly not made relations with the SFL any more friendly. On top of this, personal arguments at local New York chapter meetings made them even less so. But they deteriorated into open animosity when Wollheim recounted to members in all its sordid detail the non-payment scandal he had recently uncovered. The ICSC, which had previously lent but mildly passive aid to the Terrestrial Fantascience Guild, now cooperated completely in an all-pout mutual effort to smash the Science Fiction League and Wonder Stories itself. ICSC members mimeographed on club equipment the April, 1935 number of the TFG Bulletin, which contained Wollheim's expose of Gernsback's policies, and helped distribute it as well. They emphasized their own democratic constitution with the slogan "the only members' club"---in contrast, of course, to the League, where members had no appeal from arbitrary decisions of the assistant secretary. The issued a fan magazine titled Flabbergasting Stories, obviously a burlesque of Wonder Stories, which bore the byline "a schrechlich publication." In this appeared humerous barbed allusions to the non-payment practice and references to a "Sexy Science-Fiction Soviet Auxiliary," for frustrated fans, caricaturing the SFL. Michel's "Science Fiction Critic" column in The International Observer printed decidedly unfavorable reviews of the fiction in Wonder Stories. Editorials urged readers to get the TFG Bulletin and learn of the Gernsback scandal. A new column called "Sun Spots" was initiated by Wollheim, and revealed how Gernsback had aided the dissolution of the old Scienceers, first by attempts to make them become the unwilling nucleus of the American Interplanetary Society, and then by not paying (as promised) for their meeting room at the Museum of Natural History---thus inferring that Gernsback spent most of his spare time in disrupting fan organizations. Simultaneously an attack was launched at the editors of Fantasy Magazine, who were labelled as traitors to the fan field for keeping se-