Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Newport Sex Scandal

Queer Ancestor Spotlight
Written By White Rose Witching

A forgotten bit of American queer history involves future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the YMCA, and a bunch of Navy men who liked to have sex with each other in the early 20th century. Often referred to as the Newport sex scandal, this episode in American queer and military history shone a light on the underground culture of men who had sex with men long before Stonewall. What began as one man’s moral crusade against homosexuality shortly after the end of World War I turned into a national moral panic that made it’s way all the way to the United States Senate.

The Army and Navy YMCA in Newport, Rhode Island

In February 1919, Chief Machinist’s Mate Ervin Arnold was recuperating in a naval hospital in Newport, Rhode Island. It was here that be first heard rumors about social circles and locations that catered to men who had sex with men, rumors that were ultimately confirmed by a sailor named Thomas Brunelle who disclosed one of these locations as the Army and Navy YMCA. Arnold, who had worked as a detective in Connecticut hunting down homosexuals, took it upon himself to collect evidence of this “moral corruption.”

Arnold stumbled into the world of the “Ladies of Newport".” From ‘The Other Side of Silence’ by John Loughery:

“Thomas Brunelle's "steady," Billy Hughes, was nicknamed "Salome" and had recently appeared in drag as the female lead in a musical at the naval station. Military men in drag for theatrical purposes raised few eyebrows at the time (or even later, during World War II), but Brunelle boasted that Hughes paid him regularly for sex. Arnold also met "Theda Bara," as hospital corpsman Fred Hoage was known, and "Ruth" (John Gianelloni), who were both praised for their oral skills, much like their friend Jay "Beckie" Goldstein, who had, everyone agreed, "a nice chin to rest a pair of balls on." Frank Dye was so good, Arnold was told, that he could draw your brains out through your penis. The Ladies of Newport were often joined in their partying at apartments at Whitfield Court and on Golden Hill Street by an assortment of civilians that included waiters, an area librarian, and a salesman from Providence.”

After collecting proof of cross-dressing, same-sex sexual activity, and use of illicit drugs such as cocaine he presented his findings to his superiors in the Navy. In March 1919 an investigation was approved by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Arnold as the lead investigator. Ultimately, it was the tactics of entrapment used in the investigation that would lead to a national scandal for the Navy and the United States government. Under Arnold’s leadership the investigation recruited young, attractive men in their late teens and early twenties and tasked them with infiltrating these underground social circles to collect names and evidence. Under an assurance they would not be personally punished for lewd or indecent acts in their service of rooting out the homosexual menace these undercover operatives engaged in what some historians might consider a hedonistic whirlwind of cocaine, oral and anal sex. One report indicates a young operative met with another man who performed oral sex on him, but the operative neglected to get his name. After a second encounter the operative again neglected to get his name.

By May 1919 the investigation had rounded up several of the Ladies of Newport who, under interrogation, disclosed the names of other “fairies.” The brig aboard the USS Constellation filled so fast that Lieutenant Commander Foster, the head of the court of inquiry, was worried if the investigation was not soon concluded they would “hang the whole state of Rhode Island.” Foster and the court of inquiry announced their findings and court martialed fifteen men, but Arnold and his team were determined to press on. And, like so many moral panics, their crusade came to an end when they began to target upstanding members of the community.

Reverend Samuel Neal Kent was an Episcopal minister in Newport with a stellar reputation of good works and being an upstanding citizen, and he was arrested by Arnold’s investigation in the summer of 1919 for soliciting sex from sailors. The trial that ensued would become the spark for a national scandal. The trial brought the tactics of the investigation, recruiting dozens of young men to engage in lewd behavior for the purpose of collecting evidence, to light in shocking fashion. Sentiment in Newport quickly turned against the Navy and Reverend Kent was found innocent. Under a statue that prohibited “moral contamination” within ten miles of a military base the United States government brought the Reverend to trial a second time, this time in federal court.

The second trial was a disaster for the government, with the judge and jury aghast at the tactics used. Either the government was providing cover for homosexuals by employing them to sniff out their own, or they were knowingly corrupting young men under their care in this moral crusade. Under publisher John Rathom, the Providence Journal turned this into a national scandal. In response, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels called for an investigation into the tactics used by Arnold which issued a less than satisfactory report prompting an independent Senate investigation.

The report issued by the Senate investigation ultimately condemned the investigation as “ill-advised” and, despite a few embarrassing headlines, would ultimately fade from view and despite being a low point in his political career would not hobble Roosevelt as he went on to become Governor of New York and then President of the United States. The investigation also had two positive outcomes. First, all of the men held at Portsmouth were released due to violations of due process. Second, following the investigation two Senators advocated for a change in the government’s policy regarding homosexuals. The medical community was now beginning to see homosexuality as a mental illness, so their recommendation was that servicemen found to have engaged in homosexual acts should be dishonorably discharged and referred for medical care instead of imprisoned. While this is still appalling and a far cry from equality it does mark a shift in the government’s approach to homosexuality.

White Rose Witching
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