Queens Science Fiction League

Fan Club
Name:	The Queens Science Fiction League
Dates:	1937-1949
Founder(s):
Leadership:
Country based in:	USA (New York)
Focus:	Science Fiction
External Links:
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The Queens Science Fiction League was established in 1937. After Donald A. Wollheim and a number of his friends joined in spring of 1938, the chapter name was changed to the Greater New York Science Fiction League. It lasted under this name for less than a year before dissolving.

The Futurians

According to Jack Speer, the Wollheim faction moved in July of 1938 to send a delegate to the American Youth Congress. (Speer, no fan of the Wollheimists, described the AYC as "a Communist Front organization".) Director James Taurasi declined the movement as unconstitutional since it would have required members to contribute special expenses. The Wollheimists tried to impeach Taurasi, and after failing attempted to have William Sykora suspended in absentia for failing to pay his dues. When Taurasi opposed this motion too, they impeached him again and succeeded, leading to his resignation along with a number of other members.

Sykora turned to Leo Margulies, editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Margulies dissolved the Greater New York Science Fiction League. According to Futurian Robert A. W. Lowndes, at the last official GNYSFL meeting (when Taurasi was impeached), Dick Wilson resigned as Secretary-Treasurer. Lowndes himself was elected Acting Director and Secretary-Treasurer. The Futurians expected there to be a next meeting at which a new director would be elected, but the Science Fiction League unexpectedly liquidated the entire club.

Taurasi, Sykora and Sam Moskowitz started the QSFL back up under a new charter, while Wollheim and his friends founded the Futurians. Taurasi, Sykora and Moskowitz also ran New Fandom, and both clubs would continue to feud with the Futurians for the next few years. The conflict peaked when the three "Triumvirs" kicked six Futurians out of Worldcon 1939, including Donald A. Wollheim. (See The Great Exclusion Act.)

In April of 1939, Dick Wilson and Cyril Kornbluth were allowed to deliver a message at a QSFL meeting. However, Kornbluth's request for a joint meeting between the Futurians and the QSFL was turned down, and the two were "bluntly informed" not to show up again, as their presence was counter to the QSFL's by-laws forbidding any association with the "radical elements of fandom". In the same issue of Fantasy-News, the editor was forced to make a public statement denying that Will Sykora had sent any money to Nazi Germany to obtain a copy of Metropolis for Worldcon. The QSFL had received a letter from an unnamed "patriotic communist" after announcing that they were finally able to screen the film after over a year of searching. New Fandom and the QSFL disavowed any association with "Nazism, Communism or socialism."

1941 Scuffle

In 1941, Speer reported in Fancyclopedia I, the QSFL ran a large gathering that included a number of pro authors. An invitation was sent to the Futurians, who declined. Dick Wilson, unaware that the other Futurians had turned the invitation down, brought his Michelist friend Dan Burford to the meeting. Taurasi, Sykora and Moskowitz chased them out, along with Frances Alberti Sykora and Mario Racic. The celebrities were unimpressed, and the hall manager finally kicked everyone out.

Bob Tucker (writing as "Hoy Ping Pong") reported in Le Zombie issue 36, commenting on Futurian Robert Lowndes' version of the incident in Le Vombiteur: "Somebody pushed somebody else's chest. Then somebody else pushed somebody else's chest. No one said 'oh you kid! Woo woo!' when they pushed." The Futurians claimed that Dan Burford had his arms pinned from behind by Sam Moskowitz, after which Sykora "nicked" Burford's ear. Tucker's article criticized QSFL director Hyman Tiger and secretary Scott Feldman for inviting the Futurians in the first place but failing to step in when Wilson and Burford were physically forced out by an extreme minority of the club, pointing out that they were officers supported by "thirty or forty votes".

A communist and a foreign alien is a person invited to a party and who refuses to leave when you tell him to. A Futurian is someone who perhaps used to be one of those things, and who has the gall to insist he was invited to come to your meeting. He is also unAmerican when you are forced to throw him out, bodily. We deplore unAmericans....

Futurians got their side of the story spread around the country the "firstest and the fastest" Maybe they worked all night, in shifts.Must have been waiting at the window for the postoffice to open next morning. They wanted to make sure we got an accurate and unbiased version. The editor of Fantasy-News (Gentlemen! The opposition.) was one of the guys what got pushed. He might be biased.

Bob Tucker as "Pong" in Le Zombie issue 36 pg. 18 (January 1941)

Hyman Tiger wrote in response:

By this time you probably have (as witnessed by the Jan. 41 LeZ) an equally garbled version of the January meeting. I like those Hallelujahs the LASFS always scream when they have an attendance of 35. Our Jan. 5 meeting saw an attendance of 68, ....and if a certain Mr S. and his assistants, Messers T., M., and R. had not committed their horrendous acts, we might have received 60 more. The goings on, as set forth in Le Vombiteur ((Vol. 3, #2)), is substantially correct.

Hyman Tiger in Le Zombie, issue 37 pg. 6 (March/May 1941)

Tucker answered that his version of events had contained "the widest..... oh, positively the widest liberties..." and that it had been intended as a parody of the Le Vombiteur report rather than an accurate version.

According to Julius Unger, who was present for the meeting, Sykora and Taurasi demanded that Wilson and Burford leave as soon as they entered. There was a brief debate, and the QSFL agreed to take a poll later. Wilson and Burford waited outside, and after several guest speeches decided the poll wasn't going to happen. When Sykora and Taurasi stepped out of the meeting hall, Wilson and Burford entered, and the scuffle broke out when Sykora and Taurasi came back in. Unger mentioned that Moskowitz, Racic and Frances Alberti Sykora were present, but made no mention of who exactly was involved in the physical fight.

Frances Alberti Sykora reported in Spaceways that Wilson and Burford had refused to leave, then demanded a vote by the majority of the meeting--even though, according to her, one 'No' would have been enough to bar them. Other accounts had said that the Triumvirs were no longer active members. Mrs. Sykora countered that all three Triumvirs were in fact ready to pay their back dues, but had missed their chance as the usual recess for dues had been postponed, and that none of them had missed enough meetings to be labeled inactive, either. She said that after Tiger and Feldman failed to call the vote as Wilson and Burford demanded, Taurasi and Will Sykora had begun to usher them out, whereupon they began to "punch and kick and throw chairs on the floor to block the door."

Mrs. Sykora confirmed that she hit one of the Futurians over the head with her pocket book after he struck her husband.

Robert Lowndes countered in the next issue of Spaceways that it was absurd for one vote to be able to override majority opinion, that Wilson and Burford had waited for over an hour before coming back into the meeting hall, and that in any case Will Sykora had promised beforehand to get violent with any Futurian who answered the official invitation.

Hyman and Feldman both resigned from the QSFL after this incident, and continued to blame Sykora for the brawl. At a meeting with members of the Stranger Club, they went into more detail:

A discussion then started on the question of how a widespread organization like the NFFF could succeed without the unpleasant occurrence of petty dictators and the like, the sorry affair of the QSFL being brought in as an example.... Dr. Swisher and Widner... asked Scott Feldman and Hyman Tiger... why they had resigned rather than sticking to their guns and rebuilding on the wreckage.

Robert A. W. Lowndes: "Strangers in Boston". Fanfare #6 pg. 21 (April 1941)

Feldman explained that they hadn't ejected Sykora and the others from the meeting because it didn't really matter who'd started the disturbance; the professional guests would've been equally disgusted if "a drunk from the streets had wandered in and started a fight". Feldman said that Moskowitz and Racic were both lapsed members who hadn't been attending or paying dues, and that Taurasi had already resigned voluntarily.

For nearly an hour, the discussion on all aspects of the QSFL business went on, all in agreement as to the guilt of Sykora in breaking up the meeting, and virtually destroying the club when it was in the midst of its most promising meeting....

Robert A. W. Lowndes: "Strangers in Boston". Fanfare #6 pg. 21 (April 1941)

With regards to everyone's hopes for the National Fantasy Fan Federation, Feldman explained that his and Tiger's reservations about joining up along with other members of the QSFL were due mostly to disgust "from their humiliating experiences with the Sykora clique". They loved science fiction and fanzines, and would be willing to attend club meetings in the future, but they were sick of organizing. Robert Lowndes pointed out that the QSFL had fallen apart due to the majority of its members being apathetic and too ignorant of their rights to stop Sykora from doing as he pleased. This, he said, could be headed off at the pass with the NFFF.