The Soviet Table

One of the grandest traditions of The City Club were the luncheon tables. Each day men would gather for lunch and discuss a variety of issues. There were several tables including the Schoolmasters' Table, the Sanhedrin Table and the Anvil Revue table. "But the table that has achieved the greatest fame, or notoriety, has been the Soviet Table.

This table is first mentioned in City Club records in January, 1922, but like other ancient institutions its inception is shrouded in mystery. After the first world war a coterie of those who loved to talk, had strong opinions, and did not consider it heresy to question the utterances or deeds of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge began to gather around a table in the west corner of the dining room. Among the leading members of the group were Peter Witt, Jack Raper, Ed Doty, the twins Dr. W.C. and Dr. W. H. Tuckerman, Don Mills, Saul S. Danaceau, Ned Downer, Ed Byers and Don Knowlton. The revolution in Russia was usually a topic of conversation, if only to shock the hundred-percenters; so one day when Jim McLaughlin, a florist, sent a centerpiece of red roses, the ready-witted Pat Hayes (secretary of the Club) placed them on the west table and remarked, "At last you have your true colors--the Soviet Table." Jack Raper once admitted that "none of us knew the exact meaning but thought it must be something wicked and, like a lot of little boys, we adopted the name." When the City Club moved to Short Vincent this convivial group acquired a baronial-sized round table on which they painted the Soviet emblem and the names of their comrades. Years later during the McCarthy period someone suggested that the name Soviet Table was a source of embarrassment to the Club. Ed Byers, one of the original comrades, dismissed the idea tersely: "It began as a joke, let it stay--now it's even more of a joke!"

The Soviet Table, which even boasts a few "right-wing deviants," has been the center of discussion of political, economic and social issues of the day. For years the acknowledged leader of these discussions was Peter Witt, who would arrive every day at noon and hold forth for two hours. He was joined by his friends Jack Raper, Ed Doty, and Ed Byers, although the others were handicapped by the fact that Witt never ate lunch, but used his spoon to emphasize his points. Witt was an iron molder by trade and became a single-tax advocate by avocation. In 1925 he initiated his famous "town meetings," for which he hired a hall and charged people admission for the privilege of hearing him "skin the skunks." Although he attacked those who violated the public trust with bitter invective, beneath his "sour and irascible exterior" lay qualities of integrity, generosity and courage that attracted many people who became his lifelong friends."

The Soviet Table maintained a prominent presence in The City Club dining room until our renovation in 1999. The table can now be viewed on the west wall of The Pogue Room. While changes in society have eliminated the daily luncheon tables, The City Club still offers monthly Democratic and Republican discussion tables.

Reprinted from, Freedom's Forum: The City Club 1912-1962, by Thomas F. Campbell