Abstract
This 2006 oral history interview documents Bob Lustig's recollections as a longtime member, having joined the club in 1964 and regularly attended forums over a 40 year period. Lustig, a Cleveland-born attorney whose father was also a club member, provides detailed descriptions of the club's former location on Short Vincent, including its dining room layout with three named conversation tables (the Soviet Table, Sanhedrin Table, and Schoolmaster's Table), and discusses the club's transformation from a men's-only organization that became coeducational in 1972 due to political pressure from candidates who refused to appear at segregated venues. He recounts memorable speakers and events, including Bobby Kennedy's eulogy for Martin Luther King Jr. (the only forum without a question period), the famous Metzenbaum-Glenn Senate primary debate, and various political figures from George Wallace to Antonin Scalia. Lustig describes the club's evolution from a locally-focused organization viewed as leftist by Cleveland's business elite to one with national radio distribution and increased corporate support, attributing much of this transformation to members like Dick Pogue, while noting changes in membership patterns, the decline of regular lunchtime attendance, and the successful introduction of a New Leaders group to attract younger business professionals.
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Interviewee
Lustig, Bob (interviewee)
Interviewer
Humphrey, Tom (interviewer)
Project
City Club - Civil Rights
Date
2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
72 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Bob Lustig interview, 01 August 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 807016.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/801
Transcript
Bob Lustig [00:00:00] This in the form of a historical of the City Club. What I know about the history of the club or do you want to do individual remembrances of various and sundry things that went on, or how do you want to do it?
Tom Humphrey [00:00:16] A little bit of both. I’ll ask you questions like why you joined the club, what it was like when you first joined. Who were some of the prominent members when you first joined, maybe who influenced you, who came up and said you gotta do this, seems to be the way many people join.
Bob Lustig [00:00:36] Any organization.
Tom Humphrey [00:00:37] Right. And notable speakers, who stands out, who- And for various reasons, kind of how the club has changed. I’m not sure if you remember what the club was like when it was on Short Vincent or if you could-
Bob Lustig [00:00:51] Yeah, no, I very- I will probably be one of the few you will talk to who actually ate lunch regularly on Vincent.
Tom Humphrey [00:00:59] Okay. Oh, that’s great. That’s great.
Bob Lustig [00:01:02] And before we leave here today, I want to take you back to the mural because believe it or not, the room scene, that is Vincent.
Tom Humphrey [00:01:11] Oh, it is?
Bob Lustig [00:01:12] Yeah. That is the actual room.
Tom Humphrey [00:01:13] Okay. Okay, Gary, I think we’ll start. 10. Are you ready? Okay, so go ahead and start recording. You too. My name is Tom Humphrey. I’m here with Bob Lustig at the Cleveland City Club. This is part of the City Club Oral History Project and the Euclid Corridor History Project. It is August 1, 2006. It’s about 2:00 in the afternoon. And I think we could start by asking you to spell your last name for us so we have it on the record. So later when I transcribe it, I don’t misspell it.
Bob Lustig [00:01:46] It’s L-U-S-T-I-G.
Tom Humphrey [00:01:49] Okay, maybe we could start with- If you could start by telling us a little bit about yourself. Where you grew up, when you moved to Cleveland, if you’re not from Cleveland, things like that.
Bob Lustig [00:02:02] Kind of boring. Born and raised in Cleveland Heights. Went through school in Cleveland Heights schools, graduated Cleveland Heights High, stayed right in town, went bought undergrad and graduate school to Western Reserve. That’s what it was called in them our days. And went on to the University School of Law from which I graduated in 1960. My father was a longtime lawyer in Cleveland. I entered into practice with him after a six month stint in the army and have been practicing law in downtown Cleveland in the Leader building ever since.
Tom Humphrey [00:02:43] And where is the Leader Building exactly?
Bob Lustig [00:02:45] The Leader building is East 6th and Superior.
Tom Humphrey [00:02:48] Okay. And your offices have been there since.
Bob Lustig [00:02:51] So my father moved in there. As near as we can figure out in about 1938. Prior to that, he was in the Standard building.
Tom Humphrey [00:02:58] And where was the Standard-
Bob Lustig [00:02:59] Standard Building is at Ontario and St. Clair.
Tom Humphrey [00:03:04] Okay, okay, I know where that is. I think we can figure out where that is on a map. Western Reserve is different from Case Western Reserve.
Bob Lustig [00:03:13] No, Case Western Reserve or Case or whatever they’re calling it these days is the combination of the old Western Reserve University and the old Case Institute of Technology.
Tom Humphrey [00:03:24] Okay. And so Case divided itself. Case and Western Reserve divided themselves. Were divided separate schools?
Bob Lustig [00:03:30] They were absolutely. They were not only separate schools, they actually at one time had a fence running down between the two campuses, running south from Euclid Avenue almost back to the railroad tracks. And God help the student of one who was found on the other campus.
Tom Humphrey [00:03:49] This separated the scientists from the liberal arts.
Bob Lustig [00:03:52] Something like that. They also had a very, very noted football matchup on right around Thanksgiving Day. It was the last football game of the year and was quite a rivalry. I’m not really sure when that finally expired, but I can actually remember going to one of those games.
Tom Humphrey [00:04:10] Okay. They merged at some point in the 1970s or ’80s.
Bob Lustig [00:04:18] Well, I graduated in ’60. It was, I’d say, 10 to 15 years after that when the two schools merged.
Tom Humphrey [00:04:27] And for a long time. I know you could get a degree from Western Reserve still, even after they had been combined.
Bob Lustig [00:04:33] I’ll take your word for it.
Tom Humphrey [00:04:34] Now, friends who went there. Okay. So you grew up in Cleveland.
Bob Lustig [00:04:40] Yes.
Tom Humphrey [00:04:42] Your father was a lawyer in the city.
Bob Lustig [00:04:44] He was also born and raised in Cleveland.
Tom Humphrey [00:04:46] Was he a member of the City Club?
Bob Lustig [00:04:47] He was.
Tom Humphrey [00:04:48] And how- Any idea how long he joined or how long he was a member of the club? This is unfair.
Bob Lustig [00:04:55] Not really. I believe he joined during World War II or somewhat before that.
Tom Humphrey [00:05:03] And why did- Was there- Were there other members of your firm that joined? Well, let’s go back. When did you join in the City Club?
Bob Lustig [00:05:11] I joined the City Club in 1964.
Tom Humphrey [00:05:13] Okay, so just a few years after you started practicing law in the city.
Bob Lustig [00:05:18] Correct.
Tom Humphrey [00:05:19] And I guess why did you join?
Bob Lustig [00:05:23] Well, of course, my dad was a member. My partner, Morton Nycove, who was a vice president of the club back in the very early ’60s, was also a member. I used to go to City Club functions. I used to go to the forums before I was a member. And as long as I was going, and it was right up the street from where my office was, I could eat lunch there whenever I wanted to. So why not join?
Tom Humphrey [00:05:48] Yeah.
Bob Lustig [00:05:48] Okay. And that’s basically how I came to be a member.
Tom Humphrey [00:05:51] Before we started, before we turned on the tape, as it were, you had mentioned that you used to go to the club at Short Vincent.
Bob Lustig [00:05:58] This is when the club was located on Short Vincent, in a building that looks similar, that looked similar to the present Hermit Club building, if you’re familiar with that. It was just a little two-story building that was sandwiched in amongst the two larger buildings that housed National City Bank and a number of pretty junky buildings that faced East Ninth Street, running from the old Bond Clothiers at the corner of Ninth and Euclid north, including the old Roxy burlesque house and fairly noted for some really cheesy bars and B-girls. And let’s just say it was a very colorful neighborhood. It also housed a couple of the best restaurants in Cleveland. You had the Theatrical Grill right across the street, right down the street you had Billy Weinberger’s place. The name will slip back in just a moment to me. And then across the street and going up Short Vincent, you had Marie Schreiber’s Tavern, you had Monaco’s, you had Fisher Rohr’s, you had the Hickory Grill. I mean, these were the top places to go in Cleveland.
Tom Humphrey [00:07:16] Right, right.
Bob Lustig [00:07:17] And that whole 9th Street down to the square, this was the major part of downtown.
Tom Humphrey [00:07:25] If you can kind of- What was the short. What was the club like on Short Vincent? Say when you walked into the doors, you left your office, you were going to lunch, you walked into the club at Short Vincent.
Bob Lustig [00:07:35] You walked into a set of double glass doors which were of course opaque. After passing the way I came passing the opaque windows, leaded-glass windows that form the front of the building, you walked into a little vestibule and that opened onto a dining room. That dining room had three major tables in it and then a number of tables for two or four. The kitchen was to the left and then there was a second floor. The second floor was generally was a lounge and a card room and billiard room, which was actively used by a number of the members after the lunch hour. There was quite a card game that always went on up there. It was everyday card game, I am told. I never partook of it, but I’m told pinochle was the big game. The big tables were conversation tables. There were two tables that seated about 20 people each.
Tom Humphrey [00:08:49] Oh, so they were really big.
Bob Lustig [00:08:50] Oh, yeah. And a remnant of the one table is here in the club today, the old Soviet table.
Tom Humphrey [00:08:56] And that’s only part of the table.
Bob Lustig [00:08:57] Oh, that’s only part of the table, yeah. As I say, you put 20 and you could squeeze in 22 or 23 seats around that table were both of the tables round? Yes, the other, the second big table was called the Sanhedrin table. And the third table was called, which was a smaller table that only seated about 12, that was called Schoolmaster’s table. And there’s the obvious reasons. The schoolmaster’s table. In the days when Mark Shinner was the superintendent of schools of the Cleveland School District, obviously Short Vincent is a short walk from the school board headquarters, there were a number of the highest staff of the school board who came regularly over to the City Club to sit down, have lunch together and hash over the events that were affecting the school system. The Sanhedrin Table was the conservative table. The Sanhedrin- When you Google this, you’ll find that that was the Council of Jewish Elders, I think, formed by Napoleon to govern the Jewish community in France at the end of the 18th century. And then there was the Soviet Table. And it was interesting bit of history that goes way back before me. Fellows who sat regularly at that table, when I asked them how did it get this name? The story is that in the 20s, first it was always the table at which the liberals gathered and one of the members was a florist who saw that there was always a fresh bouquet of red roses on the table. And at some point this constant discussion, argument, what have you amongst the members. And one of the more conservative members of the club looks at the guys at the big table, of course this was after the Russian Revolution and said, ah, you’re nothing but a bunch of Reds anyway. And somehow Reds got translated into Soviet. And if you look at the remnant of the table, you’ll see in the center is the hammer and sickle. And the names you see that are painted around that circle are the early members of that table. And actually at one time you had to join that table separately. You had to pay extra dues to be a allowed to sit at that table. You’ll also see on that table a number of names are blacked out. And that goes back to the McCarthy era when there was such fear that some people wanted to have their names removed from the table. And that’s how it was done. They were simply blacked out.
Tom Humphrey [00:12:00] I never would have made that connection.
Bob Lustig [00:12:02] That’s the reason for it.
Tom Humphrey [00:12:04] I mean, it’s an obvious correlation. It’s an obvious connection. I guess I never would have thought of that.
Bob Lustig [00:12:09] And one of the names at that table is my old partner, Morton Nycove. He was one of those radical liberal ADA-type Democrats, ADA Americans for Democratic Action.
Tom Humphrey [00:12:22] Okay, so you sit down for lunch. You have lunch.
Bob Lustig [00:12:28] Oh, no, you didn’t sit down for lunch. You sat down to argue with anybody and everybody at the table. It was never the attraction at the City Club. It was the camaraderie. It was the conversation that brought people there. Now, of course, I’m talking during the week. This has- The forms were something else again. But this was a daily occurrence, I would say, when I became a member of the club. The club was roughly composed of three fairly equal groups. A group that came frequently and used the club facilities, whether it was for lunch, whether it was for the lounge, whatever. It was for another group. And of course, obviously these overlapped, was a group that came on Fridays for the Forum. And by the way, at Short Vincent, the Forum itself was in the regular dining room. There was no separate theater seating or anything like that. It was just in the dining room. Obviously very limited. You couldn’t begin to have the crowd that we have here on Euclid Avenue today. The third group were people who almost never came to the club, but who paid dues in order to support what they perceived to be a free speech platform. And that retained itself through the move from Short Vincent over to the time we spent 10 years over in the old Women’s Federal Building, and for a while when we came to what’s now the City Club building, formerly the Citizens Building here on Euclid Avenue. But I would say by the mid-’80s, the idea of going somewhere for lunch just to have something other than business and get your work done, seems to have passed from the scene. And that’s been one of the many changes, and certainly not just in the City Club. I think it’s in all service clubs, other organizations. I think you see it in things like the Kiwanis, the Rotary and everything else, where that type of meeting for camaraderie, for public service, for social activity, just seemed to have passed from the scene.
Tom Humphrey [00:14:55] How do you feel about that?
Bob Lustig [00:14:59] You know, I’m just getting old enough to get very nostalgic for things the way they were.
Tom Humphrey [00:15:04] Right.
Bob Lustig [00:15:04] And, yeah, who likes change? Sure, I’d love to have the old days and be over, to come over here and sit down with the kinds of people who used to come over here and talk BS, do whatever. But that seems to be an era that has simply passed. Almost like the manual typewriter. It just doesn’t exist anymore.
Tom Humphrey [00:15:28] Okay, this is kind of an odd question, somewhat out of the blue. And we’ll come back to other things. The club in the Short Vincent space was a cozier confine.
Bob Lustig [00:15:44] Oh sure. Well, it was entirely different. First of all, you got to remember I’m talking about the early ’60s. Now the club in those days was a men’s-only club. These things don’t exist anymore today. The club became co ed in 1972.
Tom Humphrey [00:15:58] But it’s always been interracial.
Bob Lustig [00:16:00] Oh, again, if you go back and look at the mural that was painted in the ’40s, it was like a WPA project almost. You will see a person of color in the picture. From the day the club was formed in 1912, it was always open to members of all races and creeds. That was never an issue. But we didn’t take them thar women, not until the ’70s, 1972. And a very, very simple reason, and I’ll give you the reason for it. The City Club has always been very, very active in political campaigns in the sense that it offers a platform from which people can make their pitch and be questioned on it. And we’ve always attracted, in the presidential campaigns, we’ve always attracted particularly in the primaries and the run up, pretty good turnout of anybody who’s running. It was made very, very clear to us in the 1971 lead up to the ’72 election that either we were going to change or candidates would refuse to attend, appear at a forum that was segregated in membership.
Tom Humphrey [00:17:18] Who put the pressure on the club to, in other words, who delivered that message?
Bob Lustig [00:17:25] I think every candidate that was running for office was afraid to appear before a group that was. Did not allow members of one group or another to be members. So it was uniform across the political spectrum. You got to remember, I’m talking now, I’m saying 1972. But if you think back, that was the ’60s, right? That was the tremendous upheaval, tremendous social change at that time. And whether it was Democrats or Republicans, they all had the same reaction. So there was a movement within the club by the club’s leadership. Larry Robinson was president at that time and he took the lead as I recall. And there was quite vocal opposition from a lot of the older members. They didn’t want women coming into the lunchroom during the week. Women were always welcome at the Forum. The Forums were always open. That was never segregated. The only segregated event that the club ever had, and we can talk about this later, was the Anvil Revue. The first night of the Anvil Revue was men’s only. And they deliberately had a second night. So those who wanted to bring their spouses or significant others had the opportunity to do so.
Tom Humphrey [00:18:41] Did they kind of vet the show, check it out, make sure it wasn’t too-
Bob Lustig [00:18:44] Oh, Lord, no. Oh, no, no, no. They had nothing to- I mean, the show was nuts. There was an all-male cast, so all the female roles were played by men in drag. But it was never- I certainly can’t recall any of the scripts being in any way that would have been considered racy, politically offensive. Oh, yes, that was the whole purpose of it. But not in any way sexually or any other kind of way offensive.
Tom Humphrey [00:19:15] Going back to the question I was going to ask just a couple minutes ago, the space in Short Vincent was a small space, relatively.
Bob Lustig [00:19:24] Yeah.
Tom Humphrey [00:19:24] And smaller than it is now.
Bob Lustig [00:19:26] Yes.
Tom Humphrey [00:19:26] Oh, do you feel like that kind of in comparison, almost cozier, did it inspire a different kind of Forum than the kind of thing, the different feeling at the Forum than you see in a bigger space today?
Bob Lustig [00:19:43] No, no. The attitude, the atmosphere at the Forum has always, to my mind, been a product of the audience that was in attendance. And we’ve always been blessed with a number of members who take the Forum seriously. We would have guys who would come in and have written their questions out by studying the speaker’s prior pronouncements before they ever came. And the question period is an open period, and the speaker could be talking about X, and the question can be about Y. It’s an open question. So whether the crowd was friendly, hostile, or what depended on who the speaker was, what he was selling and how it was received by the audience. And if he was selling a load of whatever, he would get questions that would challenge him on the accuracy of his statements.
Tom Humphrey [00:20:50] Okay, I’ll take that as a political way of saying, I’m trying to be polite. That’s all right. I’ve interviewed several people and some people who were kind of business businessmen in the community in the city in the 1960s felt that the club was in some respects less relevant to them. It doesn’t seem that you feel like that’s the case. Did you feel like the club was kind of important to your maybe doing business, but also just being a member?
Bob Lustig [00:21:20] Of the civic community as far as doing business was concerned? Certainly in the ’60s and ’70s, membership in the City Club was not membership in the Union Club or the CAC. The City Club had a reputation as a leftist organization. It was roundly looked down upon by the, what I will call the power elite in the city. I’m talking about the upper business class. And it has been a long, hard uphill climb over the last 20 years for the City Club to have achieved the status it now has where it is widely accepted within the business community as an appropriate organization that one should devote their time and attention to.
Tom Humphrey [00:22:13] Okay, well put.
Bob Lustig [00:22:15] I think, and I will give an awful lot of credit for that transformation to Dick Pogue, who has been an absolute stalwart in his activity here at the club. When he first became active at the club, he put up with a lot of this may be rebroadcast. So he put up with a lot and stuck with it. He has his own, obviously his own principles, but he is a believer, I have perceived, in the principles of free speech. And he has actively worked to make the, to bring the club into the mainstream of the Cleveland business community. It always was active in the political community, but not in the business community. And I think he did more than anybody else that I can name to bring that change about in the way the club is perceived in this town.
Tom Humphrey [00:23:19] Okay, if we go back to the ’60s, you joined the club in 1964. You’d been coming for a number of years already.
Bob Lustig [00:23:27] Yes.
Tom Humphrey [00:23:28] Who were some of the notable speakers? I’ll ask you about a couple people, but maybe who jumps out when you think about the City Club? Who is the person who really just leaps out at you? Or a couple of people who just leap out or moments at the City Club that leap out?
Bob Lustig [00:23:46] First of all, unlike many, I schedule my day, my week, so that my Friday noon is- I have an appointment at the City Club. So I attend probably more Forums than any but a very small handful of people who are regulars here and our staff. I probably attend 35 to 40 of the Forums a year. And I’ve been doing that now for a little over 40 years. Who stands out? It’s a long list. One of the obvious ones was Bobby Kennedy giving the eulogy for Martin Luther King, which, incidentally, I’m sure others have told you is the only time in City Club history the question period was not allowed. And that’s out of respect for Bobby for the event that he was there for, which, incidentally, had he not come, would have probably bankrupted the City Club. We had booked him. You know, you didn’t book Bobby Kennedy overnight. We had booked him way in advance. The ballroom at the- Was then, I guess, the Sheraton, the old Cleveland Hotel, today, the Renaissance Hotel. We had 12, 1400 people guaranteed for lunch. And when Martin Luther King was murdered, Kennedy said, I can’t appear at a political Forum like this. And Alan Davis, who was our director at the time, said, senator, if you don’t come, the club will be out of business. We’re on the hook for 1200 lunches. We can’t afford it. And that’s when he said, well, I will come, but it’s going to be a eulogy. It’s not going to be one of your regular events. And he saved us from bankruptcy by coming and giving a speech that has been noted worldwide.
Tom Humphrey [00:25:45] This is in the spring of 1968. March or April, I can’t remember off-
Bob Lustig [00:25:49] The date, I don’t remember the exact date, but yes.
Tom Humphrey [00:25:52] Can you kind of describe both the mood of the other members of the club at that lunch and what this speech was like, what it was like to be in the audience, what it was like to look up at Bobby Kennedy as he delivered this eulogy. Cleveland, several cities experienced after Martin Luther King’s assassination, several cities kind of endured racial violence. Cleveland was one of the few cities that did not, at least in that moment of time, endure the same kind of racism at that moment.
Bob Lustig [00:26:25] But shortly thereafter, shortly thereafter, the Glenville riots.
Tom Humphrey [00:26:29] And much of the credit is given to the fact that Bobby Kennedy was in fact here and gave a speech at the City Club that kind of smoothed the water, at least for a little while and for a very short period of time. So maybe if you could kind of take us through some of that, the feeling of the other members of the club-
Bob Lustig [00:26:45] Boy, oh boy, that’s a tough one. And not only because it’s 40 years ago, the- Generally, first of all, 1200 people there, you obviously had a very wide representation of people who were not members. You had a really wide community there. The mood I would classify as somber. Whether you were a supporter of civil rights or not, whether you were admirer of Martin Luther King or not. The fact of the assassination, you know, this was how many who had been murdered. It was only five years earlier that the President had been murdered. And you’ll notice I used the word murder, not assassinated. You know, the whole attitude in the country was, my God, what’s going on? So, you know, it’s like you stepped out of an icewater shower. And I would say what occurred that day is about what you would have expected if you were in a church attending a funeral. I mean, that’s what you heard and that’s how people treated it, with great respect, with great dignity. And you took away from it whatever you felt. But it was a just a very, very, I’ll use the word again, somber occasion.
Tom Humphrey [00:28:23] Okay.
Bob Lustig [00:28:26] Another City Club performance that I’m sure you’ve heard about already was the famous Metzenbaum–Glenn debate.
Tom Humphrey [00:28:37] I think I have heard about this. If you could explain what happened.
Bob Lustig [00:28:40] Well, this was a primary election campaign in which John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum were competing for the right to run for U.S. Senate. Metzenbaum was a much, much better speaker, a much sharper guy on his feet, and was generally thought, particularly in this town, to have it all over Glenn. Glenn was - and always will, was after, and always will be - a very reserved, very quiet, seeming, unemotional kind of guy. In the course of his address, Howard Metzenbaum charged that Glenn was not competent to be a U.S. Senator because after all, he had never had to meet a payroll. Came Glenn’s turn to talk. And I don’t think anybody ever saw John Glenn more animated, more passionate and more direct. If I can go back to my Army days, if the sergeant, he was the sergeant, he ripped him up one side and down the other, telling him that no, of course he hadn’t had to meet a payroll. He only had to go out and do his duty in Korea, do his duty in the military, risk his life on a daily basis. And when he got done and sit down, Howard Metzenbaum was without a reply. And many people ascribe Glenn’s victory in that primary race to that particular exchange at the City Club. It was quite a remarkable performance. Again, before a very large audience. My recollection is that was in the Cleveland Convention Center. There’s a room there that seats about 2,000 people and I think it was pretty much sold out. It was again a very, very major event. Speakers, speakers- Again, I’ll go way back into the ’60s. There was a woman by the name of Helen Caldicott and if I can spell it, I think, I think it was something like C-A-L-D-I-C-U-T [sic], maybe a double T. And I believe she was a physician from Canada and she was one of the very early anti-nuclear activists who gave a stirring anti-nuclear speech here at the club and I think made about half the audience converts on the spot. Another very interesting one that I can recall- Gee, I don’t remember the first name. Mrs. Allende, the widow of the Chilean president who was murdered in the Pinochet uprising in the question period, was challenged by some of the members because she said it was the CIA who was in back of the murder of her husband. And when she was challenged on that, she became so upset she just walked off the podium and walked out of the club. Interesting way to do things. Another fellow who didn’t much care for the way he was questioned at the City Club was Jim Rhodes, former governor. He got so angry, he thought the questioning was impertinent, disrespectful. And I think this was on his second go at the governorship at which he was successful. He refused to appear at the City Club. And not only did he refuse ever after to appear at the City Club, he was instrumental in seeing that a number of Republican politicians also refused, one early one being one Ronald Reagan. There was a time Reagan came to Cleveland on a campaign tour and the question is, should he appear at the City Club or appear on Public Square? He appeared on Public Square. He did appear subsequently at the City Club as sitting president. Yes, he did, and gave a very, very credible performance. I was there at that one.
Tom Humphrey [00:33:07] Kind of moving, somewhat more local, one of the. Maybe he wasn’t the only member of the club who ran for mayor, but certainly in the 1960s, Seth Taft ran for mayor against Carl Stokes, and they had a-
Bob Lustig [00:33:22] They had quite a go about here at the City Club. Yes, indeed they did. Actually, one of the regulars at the old Soviet table was Tony Celebrezze. He got his start there was an outfit political organization called the Cosmo Club, short for Cosmopolitan Club. Again, back in the ’50s, not exactly your standard political arrangement. It wasn’t a Hungarian club or an Italian American club. It was a Cosmopolitan Club. And Tony was part of that group. And that group got behind him in a big way and was instrumental in his push to become mayor. Ralph Perk was a member of this club. Again, you might not say Ralph Perk, Republican Ralph Perk, but he was a member of the club also and used to come. I’ve met him here a number of times at the lunch table. Very, very decent fellow. Of course, as far as the mayor’s races are concerned. Again, what turned the trick in the primary campaign when Mike White was running? The performance he gave here at the City Club, when he was supposed to be running fifth on a field of five, was given great credit for his winning that primary and beating George Forbes.
Tom Humphrey [00:34:52] And Dennis Kucinich has spoken here, but not recently.
Bob Lustig [00:34:55] Not recently. Dennis has spoken here. I know. Dennis tells me that he’s spoken here more than anybody else has ever spoken.
Tom Humphrey [00:35:02] At the City Club.
Bob Lustig [00:35:03] Of course, he’s run for so many things.
Tom Humphrey [00:35:05] That’s right. That’s right. I have a list. Tell him I’ll check.
Bob Lustig [00:35:09] He may be right. As far as appearances at the club, he may well be right. He has appeared here any number of times. But in the last few years, he doesn’t. He has not chosen to appear. He also hasn’t had any really serious opposition to do so either.
Tom Humphrey [00:35:28] Right. He runs almost unopposed almost every time. Not literally unopposed, but.
Bob Lustig [00:35:33] Right. It’s not a serious race. Right.
Tom Humphrey [00:35:38] Maybe coming up a little bit more to the present. Well, let’s back a little. I’ll come back to that in a minute. The city club has been the kind of focal point of a lot of hot debate, but also the city itself has experienced a lot of hot topics, a lot of hot debate and rioting. How has the club kind of addressed some of the hotter issues that have played plagued the city? Like, for instance, the Glenville riots that we talked about that occurred shortly after Kennedy spoke, Or kind of civil rights in general in the ’60s and ’70s?
Bob Lustig [00:36:14] That’s actually a fairly easy question to answer because you have to look back at the personage of who was the director of the club at that time, and that was Alan Davis. Alan Davis himself was in an interracial marriage. His wife Bernice was here at the club any number of times. Lillian Anderson was our assistant director. A woman of color, very lovely lady, retired, living out in Berea, I believe now. Alan was our director for 22 or 24 years. He had originally been a Methodist minister. He lost his pulpit when he got divorced. Bernice was not his first wife. He was what we would now call the community relations director of the old channel 61. And when we had an opening for director, he was selected. And this has to be back about maybe somewhere in the middle to later ’60s, because I remember at least three directors prior to him. But I would say by ’68, ’69, Alan was the director. He had a small congregation that he was minister for over at 30th and Central. So you had a guy who was instrumental here who was very, very well known in civil rights circles. I know the old complaint about the club was that we always had too many liberals here. And I don’t know, I thought we were fairly balanced over the years. But the situation you’re talking about, I think was addressed simply by looking at the people who spoke here at the club over those years. Matters of race relations, of civil rights, of economic, I don’t want to call it unrest, but disadvantage were all addressed here at the club not once, but frequently over those years. I think we have a little more organized approach to that kind of thing today in that we have a very, very active special programs group that, for instance, right now is running a series of four programs on how we deal with housing in the city of Cleveland and I think we’ve already had two of those programs on and two more scheduled. But we still try to identify issues of importance to the local community as well as the national community and deal with those, whether it’s in a special program. Often we’ll kick off a special program series like that with a speaker at a regular forum or. Or close it with a speaker at a regular forum, trying to tie things together. But many of those special programs or special series are extremely well attended and by people who are very much in the circle that are dealing on a daily basis with those problems. That’s always been the history of the club.
Tom Humphrey [00:39:59] Would it be right to characterize this shift as somewhat not a shift, but- But the club was less formal, less organized in bringing in speakers than it is now. There’s a specific group of people who sit down and they kind of weigh out the speakers to perhaps achieve a bit more balance. So the club maybe doesn’t carry- Doesn’t-
Bob Lustig [00:40:22] No, I think there’s another reason, and that’s the radio network, okay? The radio network of the City Club goes out literally all over the country. With the consolidation of radio ownership, we don’t have the distribution we used to have, but we still have about 200 stations, most of which are NPR stations, that carry the club’s program. Those stations are not interested in hearing about a local Cleveland issue. They want something of more general interest. And that, as much as anything, dictates a large part of what we do on a Friday. We need to have program- I mean, that’s a 52 week a year deal. We need 52 programs during the year that we can put out on the national for national distribution. We do that by having over 60 programs a year that are recorded. And oftentimes where we’re distributing for a Friday Forum, a really local program. That program would be supplanted on the national net by one of the ones, shall we say, of greater interest or wider interest outside the Cleveland area. But when you go back to my early days in the early ’60s and early ’70s, before that radio net became firmly here, we were more interested in filling the room with people. And you fill the room. What’s the old Colonel McCormick’s? We’re going to put in the Chicago Tribune, the dogfight at the corner of Rush street, not the revolution in Bulgaria, because that’s what’s of interest, right?
Tom Humphrey [00:42:13] That’s what people buy papers for or what they’ll read.
Bob Lustig [00:42:16] We were more focused in the ’60s and ’70s on local issues because that was our audience. Today, to get the speakers, the radio audience has to be interested, the radio stations have to be interested in distributing that. So it’s a more national.
Tom Humphrey [00:42:35] So as the audience has changed a little bit, the kinds of speakers who the club has brought in has changed.
Bob Lustig [00:42:42] I would say yes. Although again, we always tried to get, you know, anybody of note that we could, whether it was an ambassador, whether it was a mayor, whether it was a senator, it was Howard Metzenbaum who brought Barry Goldwater to the City Club. That’s not exactly yesterday. That was in the early ’70s.
Tom Humphrey [00:43:07] Right.
Bob Lustig [00:43:10] You know, most of our, I think most of our speakers, there are certainly a good many of our prominent speakers come through personal contact, somebody knows somebody who knows somebody. And when you get the top drawer people who are being importuned all the time to come and speak somewhere, there has to be a reason why they come to Cleveland, Ohio, and not Columbus or not Detroit or not somewhere else. And it’s generally a personal contact. And thank God there are enough people in this town who have those personal contacts and they don’t get-
Tom Humphrey [00:43:46] And the speakers don’t get paid. So there has to be some-
Bob Lustig [00:43:48] The speakers do not pay. Another kind of draw. Yeah. So the draw is the audience we can offer. And today that audience is what’s available on radio and TV.
Tom Humphrey [00:44:00] It seems like, it seems that the club, to a certain extent for many people that I’ve talked to, and this is in part because of their age, the club had a heyday in the ’60s and ’70s as it reached, as you mentioned, a somewhat more local audience and then kind of wrote a kind of downturn for a while in the 1980s and seems to be coming back in prominence. We’ll talk about the rise back to prominence or kind of rise to maybe its former glory, a different kind of glory. But let’s- What happens in the 1980s that you think might lead to a decline in membership, for instance? I think membership drops to, you know, just five or six hundred people, kind of lower than, you know, less than half of what it is now?
Bob Lustig [00:44:53] Well, fortunately, that’s not quite right. The club experienced a significant boost in membership when we moved from the Women’s Federal Building here to the City Club Building in 1982. That continued the effects of the move, the new quarters, the new location continued for about five or six years. In the late ’80s, early ’90s, we had a significant drop in membership. I will tell you that the membership dropped to about a thousand. That’s as low as I’ve ever known it to be. I think at one point it was actually 979 or something like that. Dues paying members, the club traditionally, unfortunately, you can’t really rely on some of the old numbers because the record keeping was not great. But I’m talking about dues paying members were above 1500 today. So obviously there’s been a significant increase. Why was there a drop off? There’s a couple of reasons. I think there was a drop off. One is what we’ve already alluded to is the fact people don’t join clubs anymore. The young lawyers who are across the street in the big law firms or the big accounting firms aren’t going to take two hours off on a Friday to go to the City Club forum when they’re expected to turn in X number of chargeable hours a day. And that pervades business and everything else as well. Change in part has been due to a very active new leaders group, an under 40 group that has grown terrifically. These young people today are looking for something more than a paycheck. They’re looking for something more in life than going to work and making money. They’re looking for social connection, they’re looking for networking. They’re looking for a lot of things. And that group has grown significantly. I mean, it didn’t exist. I’m trying to think, well, 10 years ago it did not exist, period. The group was formed and has grown probably in the last six to eight years. The other reason for the expansion of membership despite the loss of downtown jobs has been this change in the perception of the club and the business community. And we have attracted large numbers of business types who have been, I don’t want to say replacing, but complementing, particularly our older members who are retiring, moving to the, have moved to suburbs and just aren’t able to get downtown as easily anymore.
Tom Humphrey [00:48:07] Some of the people that we talked to talked about the space that we’re sitting in now before the revitalization of it-
Bob Lustig [00:48:15] It was pretty sad. Yeah, the club had gotten terribly run down. You know, we spent a lot of money moving into this place. It was designed for the tastes of that early 1980s. The woods were kind of heavy, the colors were quite a bit darker and well, it was a very attractive club then. If you use it and you’re bringing 100 to 300 people in every Friday and you’re having constant meetings in the place and you’re using the place, it gets worn. And frankly, for about 10 years nothing was put into the club because membership was falling. The money wasn’t there to pay for new carpeting, new wall covering, what have you. The revitalization of the club. There was a serious question whether we should stay here or not. And a very knowledgeable committee looked at every possible location, not only in the downtown area, but in suburban areas. And the decision was this was the best space available. The best thing we could do was raise the money to put this place back together again. And since it has been remodeled, we have enjoyed considerable success. And thank God, financially we are in much better shape today. We are able to do some things on an ongoing basis rather than waiting until everything goes to hell before we start to fix something. For example, the carpeting in here is just put in in the last month. Under the old regime, it would have been absolutely threadbare. You’d have been tripping on it. But we’re trying to keep the place up.
Tom Humphrey [00:50:11] How was the club funded, say when you first joined it?
Bob Lustig [00:50:17] Primarily from membership dues.
Tom Humphrey [00:50:19] And how would you say- And is that continual? Is that, does that continue to be the main source of income, the main revenue-generating revenue stream?
Bob Lustig [00:50:25] It’s the, percentage wise, the largest source. But we have had some modest success in creating an endowment which contributes significantly to the club’s finances. And of course, like any good nonprofit, we have an annual giving campaign that has grown significantly. And of course, the other area, which 20 years ago barely existed on a regular basis, was support from foundations. We have become much more knowledgeable about how to ask and determine what foundations are interested in and get funding for that sort of project, whether it’s new TV cameras, new lighting so that we can better produce our product to get it out to the public. And also we have enjoyed some considerable success in corporate funding in that corporations will pay for tables at various functions or they will make a contribution to a particular Forum to support a particular speaker’s presence here. All of those things put together have- We are no longer reliant on a single revenue source. Let’s put it that way.
Tom Humphrey [00:51:57] Okay, let’s go back to the kind of new, the younger members who are coming in. You’ve mentioned, as others have, that kind of, there’s a change in the demographic of the membership.
Bob Lustig [00:52:09] Thank God.
Tom Humphrey [00:52:11] Also a similar sentiment expressed by others. I won’t name names to embarrass them, to avoid their embarrassment. But also it does seem, as you have mentioned and as others have mentioned, that the younger members of the club seem to be coming from, maybe from a bigger percentage of the younger members seem to be coming from the business community, a community that may have been less represented in the City Club 15, 20, 25 years ago. What draws them to the club? You had mentioned that they feel like they need to do something else. But what else makes the club a more, makes it more accessible for them? Maybe where it didn’t, where it wasn’t or didn’t seem accessible to, say, their predecessors, who maybe are now bosses?
Bob Lustig [00:53:00] I think the answer there is the existence of this New Leaders group with its own board of directors, with its own separate meetings, with its own slate of officers for an individual young person to join the club. And it’s just difficult when you’re 32 years old and everybody around you is in their 50s and 60s, to make yourself known, to make an impression, to get on a committee, to get on the board of directors. This group has provided a base upon which younger people can get together, meet amongst themselves, organize things themselves. One of the things I’ve been particularly happy with is the fact that that group has come up with some speakers, not only for special programs, but for the. For Friday Forums. For example, last year when Peter Lewis came, that was the young leaders group that made the ask, and by God, he said yes. And then it was the young leaders chair who was up here on the podium who was introducing Peter Lewis. That’s quite an honor for that person and quite an acknowledgement of the work of that group. That’s just the one that comes to mind. There have been others where they’re the ones who have said, we think this is a great speaker. They’ve coordinated the date, the person and run the program. It’s an opportunity that didn’t exist 20 years ago.
Tom Humphrey [00:54:46] Okay. It’s interesting that you bring up Peter Lewis. The reason it was so significant is that he is a hard person to get to these kinds of things. Do you remember what he talked about when he was here?
Bob Lustig [00:54:57] Oh, yes, absolutely. He talked about philanthropy. He specifically talked about why he had cut Cleveland off and what it would take to get him back.
Tom Humphrey [00:55:08] And why did he feel that he was cutting Cleveland out from-
Bob Lustig [00:55:13] You really want to get me in trouble now, huh?
Tom Humphrey [00:55:15] With Peter Lewis, there were dozens and dozens of people in the room.
Bob Lustig [00:55:24] What I came away with is that Peter had a number of ideas about how things should be run, that he felt dealing with the boards he was having to deal with in Cleveland, particularly at CWRU, was dealing with something about as resilient as the Michelin Tire, big cream puff kind of thing, that nothing happened, and that they just were not listening to what needed to be done. Apparently he was right. But he said, until things change, until the structure changes, he is not going to change his attitude. He also said something that I found very, very interesting. Basically he says, you want money from me, don’t come and ask me for money. Bring me a program where you have worked out what it is you want to do, how you’re going to do it, and a timeline within which things will be done. If I like what you’re doing, I’ll help you with it. I may even finance the whole thing. But don’t just come and ask me for a million dollars to enhance your endowment or what have you. To me, that’s throwing money away. I want to see what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it, and we’ll set up a time schedule and if you stick with it, I’ll stand behind you. Otherwise, I’m gone. But a very hard-nosed business approach to how to run a nonprofit.
Tom Humphrey [00:57:09] Okay. One of the things that other speakers have said is, as I mentioned, as I kind of alluded to earlier, some of the members of the business community felt that the club was less relevant to them as members of the business community. You kind of have also alluded to what I think some of the people were talking about, that it was the club had kind of a reputation as being a liberal club. But the increase of, the increase of the increased access to business people and that more business people in the community come to the club has coincided with the increase of corporate dollars in the club. Do you think there’s a correlation here between the increase in corporate dollars and the increase in the number of people who may now see the club as somewhat more relevant than say, their predecessors did? In other words, has corporate dollars or has corporate money kind of influenced the club in ways that maybe-
Bob Lustig [00:58:04] I know what you’re saying and let me put it a little less delicately than you. Are we still getting the rabble rousers in here to speak from this platform? No, but I think the reason for that is there aren’t many rabble rousers out there today. And when I say rabble rousers, I’m talking about the kind of guys who wrote the books that said the way you’re handling these welfare programs, you’re just suppressing the poor. This is not the way to do it. You really need to do this, that, or the other thing. I think it was Michael Harrington who appeared here, by the way, and gave quite an address. I mean, to certain people that’s a rabble rouser. To other people, this is a leading light on the left side of the spectrum. You know, we can have Newt Gingrich, we can have Michael Harrington, and we have had Newt Gingrich here. But unfortunately, or fortunately, take your point of view, there just aren’t very many people out here. We had Pat Buchanan here quite recently. Look, I’m a registered Democrat, lifelong, you know, grew up in the city of Cleveland. What else can you be? It was distressing in the question period to see people I know to be Democratic activists asking Pat Buchanan how can the Democratic Party win an election? I mean, if these people got to ask Pat Buchanan how to win an election, there’s something wrong out there on the left side of the spectrum. People aren’t- They’re not coming up with ideas, they’re not speaking out, whatever it is. Are corporate dollars influencing who we have here? No, I do not believe so. If we could get prominent leftist speakers here, we would get them here just as quickly as we have prominent rightist speakers here. The problem is your national administration is a Republican administration. If you want a Cabinet secretary, if you want a spokesman for the national government, you’re going to get a Republican, and he’s going to be somebody that George Bush approved of. So I don’t think the leftists or liberals are going to be too terribly happy with that. If you want to get somebody from Columbus, name me a statewide elected Democrat. There ain’t any other than Alice Robie Resnick, and she’s retiring this year. I mean, they don’t exist around here right now. So how do you get them? I mean, you go to the literary world, maybe you get something there, but the availability just hasn’t been there. And one thing, if our staff didn’t do it, there’s plenty of people around this club who would raise holy hell if they felt the balance was not being maintained between liberal, conservative or any other topic you want to go to.
Tom Humphrey [01:01:21] Okay. Do you think that the expansion to broader radio markets has something to do with that, in other words?
Bob Lustig [01:01:30] No, because if anything, a speaker who wants to get his message or her message out wants an audience. So the fact that you have 200 radio stations that you’re going to be heard on, anybody who has a message is going to want that.
Tom Humphrey [01:01:44] But - I guess I asked the question badly - it seems that the people who have who the club may think would draw listeners would be people from the Cabinet or from the federal or the state administration, those people would be good draws. But they tend to be Republicans at this point.
Bob Lustig [01:02:00] Well, at this point, eight years ago, they tended to be Democrats. That’ll always be a problem. The party in power will always control to a degree who is going to be more listened to. But bear in mind, while the club has always been very committed to. I don’t want to say committed, very active in presenting speakers with a political background. That is not the only thing we do. That is what makes us different from the Detroit Economic Club, for example. We’re not focused on one area. I thought one of the more interesting speakers I ever heard here was Vladimir Ashkenazy at a time when he was principal guest conductor here. One of the most intimidating speaker that I ever heard here was, oh, dear God, what’s his name? English philosopher. Terrific Bob. Yeah, that’s how intimidated I was. I can’t even think of his name. Not Morganthau Morgan. It may come to me when it is. I’ll let you know who it was. But it’s one of the very few times when he got done speaking and he was so frail he couldn’t even stand. He had to sit. Alan Davis was walking around the room to guys like me and a few others who always ask questions. We need a question. He shoves the microphone in your face and ah, da da da ba. I mean, we didn’t know what to ask. I mean, the guy was so far above what was going on. But, you know, we get people from the art world, we get people from the nonprofit world, from the philanthropic world, and again, we make a conscious effort to get a broad appeal. And it’s not just political. It seems that way after you’ve been through a political season, and particularly in Ohio. It was interesting last election cycle, I was out in California. In Ohio, you couldn’t run the TV for 10 minutes without seeing three commercials for political candidates. I didn’t even know there was an election going on out in California that was Democratic. Nobody was spending money out there. There was only about a dozen states in which there was a real contest. Hence you had all this activity. So all these political speakers were concentrated in appearing and reappearing in a very small area because that’s the only things that were up for grabs.
Tom Humphrey [01:04:31] Okay, I think I have so. Well, let me ask you one more question. I’ve asked a lot of people about this, about the Antonin Scalia. The presentation of the first Free Speech Award to Antonin Scalia, which really- Part of the reason why the City Club is well known nationally is because it is- Well, I have two questions. I lied. I have two questions. The first question is, typical politician, right? Part of the reason why the City Club is so well known is because it’s been a bastion of free speech or it’s a citadel of free speech for so long?
Bob Lustig [01:05:01] Yes.
Tom Humphrey [01:05:05] Has the City Club kind of upheld its mission over the last. Say you’ve been a member of the City Club for almost 40. I don’t want to-
Bob Lustig [01:05:12] More than 40 years.
Tom Humphrey [01:05:13] More than 40 years. Has it kind of upheld its tradition in that-
Bob Lustig [01:05:20] As far as Antonin Scalia is concerned, when his name was proposed, I will tell you, I was one of those whose instant reaction was, you’ve got to be kidding me. We, the club, ask the deans of both Reserve and CSU to look into the Justice’s position on free speech, specifically on free speech. And were we putting our proverbial foots in our mouths or somewhere else by inviting Scalia or by offering this award? Recognition. Recognition to Scalia? Much to my surprise, the answer is, I do not read Supreme Court decisions. I have other ways of falling asleep at night.
Tom Humphrey [01:06:10] They’re not page turners.
Bob Lustig [01:06:11] No, they certainly are not. It’s bad enough when you have to read them. The answer we got from both deans was that Scalia has an outstanding record as an absolutist on free speech. That is, he doesn’t believe in virtually any restrictions. Now, you can argue whether that’s a correct view or not, because that’s why he apparently takes the position that you cannot have campaign finance limitations because that’s a limitation on free speech. I mean, he is, you know, short of screaming fire in a crowded theater, anything you say goes. Having had that kind of vetting, I personally was broadminded enough to say, well, gee, I guess he does have a position on free speech. And whatever I think of his other positions, I guess that’s something we can recognize. And the award was offered and accepted. Now, if you’re driving at the fiasco that occurred when he appeared and then said it couldn’t be recorded, that’s a whole other issue. We - that we is the club - were not aware, literally until a couple days before the event that he would refuse to allow it to be released, recorded. And we had the Bobby Kennedy problem. We had 500 people coming, guaranteed to a hotel for dinner. What do you do under those circumstances? Frankly, we found it extraordinarily embarrassing. I will tell you, all these business types on the board of directors, when this was rehashed later on, said, had we known this in advance, we would have withdrawn, that we could have canceled and walked away from it. We would have. But here we were with 500 people coming to dinner, and I forget what the guarantee was, but this was not a ten-dollar-a-head dinner. We were stuck, but we were snookered on that one. We did not know prior to the event. We also had something very, very similar. We had Martin Luther King’s daughter here not so very long ago and she tried to pull something very, very similar like the day before she was coming. And again we had- The room was sold out for her. We had close to 300 people here for her. And she came up with some restrictions about we could not rebroadcast the Forum. We said, what are you talking about? This Forum goes out to 200 radio stations. And we almost canceled her at the last minute until that finally got worked out. But again people come up with this nonsense at the last minute and what do you do? I have no good answer for this kind of thing. Sometimes you have to let the economics rule because you can’t afford to say no. But, but as far as Scalia is concerned, that’s what react. I was not among the group that invited him. I never would have invited him when he was invited. I looked into it. I am not a member of the board. However, as a past president I am invited to attend all board meetings. I am one of the past presidents who does attend passport meetings. And while I don’t have a voice, while I don’t have a vote, I can express my opinions on anything that comes before the board. And I do. So.
Tom Humphrey [01:10:10] Okay, I think our time is about up. Do you have anything to add that maybe we haven’t covered?
Bob Lustig [01:10:16] You know what, I scratched something on here. Let me take a look and see if there’s anything we haven’t covered. No. Well, there’s one cute story I can tell you. It involves my father. Pete Halbin was the director of the club at that time and my father kept. My father was very active in the American Legion. He was a past state commander. And while he himself was as liberal a guy socially as you would want, he was always thought of as a conservative because of his veterans background. And he kept on threatening he was going to get George Wallace to come to speak at the City Club and lo and behold, one day, not my father. But we did get George Wallace to come. And this was at the old club down on Vincent. And true to the tradition of the City Club, various members of the club picketed outside about his appearance and then came inside to hear the program and question him. But the thing I got a kick out of, I told you the wall that faced Vincent was a glass, just glass. And traditionally the speaker’s podium was right in front of that wall. The state troopers from Georgia said we can’t have him here. And they had to move the podium to a side wall so he wouldn’t have his back to a glass wall. That’s how concerned they were for his safety. But our guys marched outside picketing his appearance, then came inside to hear what he had to say and ask him questions. That’s the City Club.
Tom Humphrey [01:12:03] Okay. Well, I want to thank you for coming. I think we’re done. And it’s been a pleasure talking with you.
Bob Lustig [01:12:09] I do want to show you that mural because I think it may mean a little more to you after- [recording ends]
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