Westminster Decides

The AKC, its member clubs, their members

-- and their delegates -- all reduced to wallpaper

© 1997, Herm David, Ph.D., all rights reserved.

It has taken 113 years but the Westminster Kennel Club has now reduced the American Kennel Club and all of its publicly visible structure to mere wallpaper.

The AKC body proper does not, and can not decide anything of consequence. Only about ten percent, or fewer, of Westminster's limited, approximately 70, all-male, by-invitation-only, secret roster members run the AKC. Those five, six or seven men are determined not to tolerate any meaningful challenge from within the AKC apparatus --especially so in major financial matters.

A bit of background: The AKC was organized in October 1884. It is easily antedated by the Westminster Kennel Club which held its first dog show in 1877. From the latter's unpublished membership list two men, Ronald Menaker and Walter Goodman, hold

Bulletin alert: Further incremental diminution

of democracy within AKC may be shifted to March 10 vote

Do AKC's Westminster-based rulers feel there's still a bothersome chink in their protective armor? And, have they lucked into a well-intentioned assist?

Nina Schaeffer, delegate of the Back Mountain Kennel Club, feels decision day readings of proposed amendments to the constitution, bylaws and rules is superfluous. She considers such bothersome and unnecessary interruptions to orderly delegate meetings. She has proposed that the readings be optional and distribution of printed copies be accomplished well in advance. She feels that early distribution plus publication in two pre-voting issues of the Gazette should provide adequate notice. She believes reform is achievable from within.

When the directors recommended non-passage Mrs, Schaeffer asked why. The answer came back to the effect that: "The delegates might think we are taking something away from them."

The October Gazette's "Secretary's Page" announced the measure would be voted upon in the December delegates' meeting. A subsequent AKC missive stated it would be up for voting in March. If the latter isn't just a typo, The Deciders may have engineered a pocket endorsement.

We're mindful of a device Westminster strategists have used successfully in past years. That tactic: schedule proposed yieldings of delegate responsibilities for March meetings. Critical bylaw amendments have thus, several times, been masked by furor over the election of directors, overlooked by the majority of delegates and pushed through.

AKC directorships. Of the ten remaining directors, seven were elected as Westminster sponsored candidates. Thus on almost all matters Westminster can, currently, count on 75% board support.

Historically, and presently, a preponderance of Westminster members hold influential positions in New York City's financial community. Rather obviously Westminster has thoroughly demonstrated its enduring credo that wealth shall rule.

By whatever means necessary those plotting to grasp full control of a fledgling AKC

managed the resignation of the its first president. That was in late 1885. Major J. M. Taylor reacted to an apparently structured whispering campaign.⁽¹⁾ He resigned before his initial term expired. Westminster immediately seized control of the AKC and, again, through whatever means necessary short of violence, maintained control for the next 109 years. The prize? For the first 85 years or so, power. Since approximately 1967, power and, with the advent of national puppy marketing mechanisms, money! More and more money. For example: just in the month of July, an obscene "$890 thousand income in excess of expenditures! "

Later "official" figures put the August "excess" at $400,000, September's at $699,000. Concurrently with the announcement of those numbers the AKC board "voted to allocate $325,000 to Special Reserve 10."

Daniels drew a line in the sand that Westminster had to erase

Westminster President and delegate Chester Collier realized very early in 1994 that he had so overused his heavy-handed tactics -- the term despotic rule comes to mind -- that he had no chance of being reelected as a director. He, reportedly, said he "wasn't going to give those ----- a chance to beat me."

Concurrently, Director Judith Daniels was offering an alternative to Westminster domination. By means of some astute vote trading she managed to get herself designated as executive vice president. Her contract stipulated that she would train for the presidency under President Robert Maxwell from March 1994, succeeding him upon his retirement in March 1995.⁽²⁾

Daniel's chief qualifications for running what was then a $30 million (now a $50 million) corporation were her own burning ambition and a correspondence school master's degree in business administration. She soon enough made a fatal error. She announced that the entire AKC would be moved to a new and grandiose campus-like setting in Durham, North Carolina.

Daniels had to go. She was moving to permanently cripple Westminster's century-plus dominance. She was about to eliminate one of its key foundations for AKC control.

Westminster, still held four aces. They were, and remain, four of the five original cornerstone devices which have enabled maintenance of almost total control of the AKC for well over a century.

That jealously guarded strategy's first essential is a New York City-based AKC -- preferably in Manhattan -- the very heart of Westminster's home territory.

Second: once in control, maintenance of first access to knowledge of empty delegate slots. (Collier had retained that first access because he still had his own people in several top staff positions.)

Delegate posts become available through resignation, death or new member club acceptance. Whenever it can manage, Westminster, whilst wearing the AKC's cloak, and posturing as a hospitable helper, "recommends" its own people for those slots.⁽³⁾

The anatomy of absolute rule

Third: total absence from the AKC's constitution of any provision for an absentee ballot, even if cast by a majority vote within a member club and certified under penalty of perjury, in a sworn affidavit.

Thus members of member clubs are excluded from any group override of their delegates within the governing process -- and from any option to forego the delegate device for direct participation.

Westminster's fourth cornerstone: quarterly delegate meetings are held on a weekday, currently Tuesdays. This tends to exclude participation by those who lead active, highly productive lives, especially if resident outside New York's commuting area.⁽⁴⁾

As examples: Those folks would, currently, have to absent themselves from their business or professional responsibilities for eight to twelve business days each year. If they are not delegate-qualified, they cannot be eligible to serve on the AKC's board -- where all of the action is. And that would take about a month and a half of business days out of their year. Strong-minded professionals and corporate executive types who might afford challenging opposition are thus shut out by Westminster's in-place controls.

Retirees and dilettantes are a better fit within Westminster's scheme of things.⁽⁵⁾

Further, extra expense is another defining factor. Airline fares are much reduced if an overnight Saturday stay is involved -- and most hotels offer reduced weekend rates. In fact it is more than that. Currently New York City hotels have a 100% weekday occupancy rate. That is a seller's market. The median rate is now $188 per day -- heading for $200.

Again, that expense is a selective factor serving Westminster's purposes. At their September meeting one of the delegates complained that it cost her $1,000 to attend. She added, bitterly, that there was no meaningful agenda open to delegate input. Those weekday meetings, apparently, serve only Westminster's needs and convenience.

Until just over a decade ago Westminster had a fifth ace in its total control deck, Now somewhat fragmented, the nominating committee device saved the bother of counting ballots at the annual election of directors. The board named the nominating committee members -- who well knew who they were to nominate, normally for reelection, as board candidates. At the annual meetings someone would move an unanimous ballot for the nominated slate -- and so much for another year behind a frail façade of democratic operation.

Reportedly, throughout this century no delegate either chose, or dared, to defy the AKC establishment by filing for nomination by petition. Not until 1985. The first petition candidate was a board member who rebelled when he wasn't renominated. He couldn't manage election but he had broken precedent.. Two years later James Holt, Ph.D. did breach that once impenatratable barrier to open ballot election.

There have been years since when nominating committee endorsement was considered a disadvantage.

As of the AKC's June 9 meeting there were 505 member clubs and close around 3,000 additional organizations involved in various AKC "activities." Since 19 member clubs had no delegate that left 484 eligible voters. With only 259 present, only a bare 51% majority of the 505 clubs were represented. More, later, on that tell-tale June 1997 meeting.

Pre-air-travel a proxy delegate offered, for many clubs, the only reasonable avenue to participation. As an example: a New York trip meant three to four days and nights on a train from the west coast -- and the same on the return trip. That was too much travail and expense. None except the idle rich and outright dilettantes could justify attendance at a mere afternoon meeting about show dog affairs.

Westminster's loaded deck

The development of air travel gradually made such trips more contemplatable. Jet planes, starting in the early 1960's, began making some minor dents in Westminster's proxy-delegate strategy.

Even now it's five and a half hours -- if on a non-stop plane -- between Los Angeles and New York. For comparison. between New York and London by conventional jet it's only about 90 minutes longer. From Anchorage, Alaska to New York its nine and a half hours. For a Honolulu-New York flight it's an average of 12 elapsed hours.

Westminster-selected, emplaced and loyal delegates almost all live within reasonable commuting distance of Manhattan. For many it's a matter of cabbing up to the Grand Central area from their Wall Street area offices. There they enjoy a very fine -- free -- and expensive lunch.⁽⁶⁾ Then they have only to remember how they are to vote on which.

Could it be mere coincidence? The hotel selected by the AKC is virtually next door to

Grand Central Station. Meeting over, northward commuters (Westchester and the wealthy Greenwich, Conn. area's residents included) can comfortably board their homeward-bound trains. Grand Central is just steps beyond the Grand Hyatt Hotel's 42^nd Street entrance.

As many as a quarter to a third of the AKC's delegates are Westminster or Westchester designees. Most of them regularly attend the meetings. Let us assume that figure is just

30% and that 85% of those attended the June meeting. That would add out to 128, or 49%, of the meeting's eligible voters. If two opposing delegates were absent en-route to a rest room, Westminster's Deciders would have had a temporary majority in the June meeting. It is easily seen how Westminster's solid-voting block of commuters can dominate the decision process.

Resorting to the old guilt-by-inferred-association stuff

It is worse than that. Westminster recently achieved a kingpin in a continuum of constitutional amendments which have effectively emasculated the other 500-plus member clubs. Virtually eliminated was secret balloting for all except the annual elections. Westminster's man, President Alfred Cheauré, is in the chair. On all votes he is the one who, on key votes, counts -- or estimates -- either the raised hands or the standees. Westminster doesn't much risk losing.

We will see, anon, how that worked for The Deciders during the June meeting.

Through that very visible counting process Westminster and its minions, including those staff members present, are busy noting who is standing up against them. Some will be marked as not going to be eligible for any of those no-cost-to-Westminster AKC goodies. Others may be marking themselves as targets for object lesson disciplines. The intimidation factor is worked hard -- and effectively.

Daniels and her supporters had threatened Westminster with total obliteration from AKC domination. Collier must have been under pressure from those who had, apparently, long had him on something of a financial leash. He and his closest allies within and outside of Westminster had to regain control. To accomplish that they had to wound Daniels and her allies on the AKC's board.

It was, apparently, decided to attack her and her slim supporting board majority by indirection. The basic strategy was resort to the old-guilt-by-inferred-association stuff. It was reminiscent of the Willie Horton TV commercial targeting presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. That spot is widely credited with getting George Bush his winning margin in 1988.

Westminster swept back in -- Daniels swept out within the hour

Perhaps just coincidentally, the man generally believed to be the author of the Horton strategy was, according to my sources, the prime author of the Vicki Abbott strategy. If

those sources were correct Collier is now vice president of a commercial enterprise under that individual as president.

Abbott had retired from her years as a professional handler. As is common for handlers who lose a step or some of their zest, she applied for licenses to judge several different breeds. The board approved her, as I recall it, for seven of the breeds she had requested.

Then came the attack. Its premise was that there had to be something wrong with a the

president -- and any other board member who would approve someone like Abbott as a judge.

The AKC tasked its prime investigator to thoroughly investigate Abbott so she could be brought before a trial board for filing a false application. He found no dirt that could support such an action. Undeterred, the AKC engaged a large New York firm of investigators. That group was no more productive. There was neither trial nor hearing but Dog News reported that Abbott "was found guilty."

Through the weeks before the March 11, 1996 elections it seemed those castigating Abbott were utilizing every reachable platform and medium. Dog News, ever eager to purvey Westminster-supplied gossip, was a prime vehicle.

The campaign strategy worked. Westminster's ticket was swept in on a first ballot. Daniels was voted out of office within the hour.⁽⁷⁾ Abbott was suspended -- effectively barring her from any dog show income, whether from breeding, judging or handling.⁽⁸⁾

All fiercely competitive professional handlers attract critics. Some of Abbott's most bitter enemies within the show world were sufficiently appalled that they have now reversed directions and are supporting her. It's hardly escapable that a number of those show activists must be thinking: "If they can do it to her, they can do it to anyone -- including me."

The 5! Madison gang was not unaware of that intimidation factor. It is, currently, a useful tool. However, it could yet prove very expensive intimidation.

Texas hospitality gets a polite but unmistakable New York brush-off

Our accompanying article on the AKC and the press affords some sense of the clout wielded by the group -- gang -- your choice, currently controlling the AKC. The affair Abbott has been one more illustration of their arrogant tactics.

Raymond T. Mundy, Esq. is the AKC delegate of the Rockland County [New York] Kennel Club and one of three lawyers known to me who has ever bested the AKC in a courtroom. Currently, although "of counsel," he is the lead lawyer in a $30 million lawsuit. It has been filed by Abbott against the AKC, its Chairman David Merriam, Dog News and its publisher, the Harris Publishing Co., and its columnists Matthew Stander and Sari Tietjen. There are four additional named defendants plus ten John or Jane Does.

All are accused of malicious defamation of character plus malicious libel -- and/or conspiracy to commit either or both.

Now, about that tell-tale June 1997 delegates' meeting. Let's recall that a bare majority -- just 51% of the 505 member clubs -- was represented. Also that there is a very high probability that among that slim majority was a sizeable majority of delegates who were Westminster members. Or they were Westminster ensconced and thus obligated to conform -- or they were out and out Westminster sycophants..

As his membership directed, the Houston Kennel Club's delegate, Darrell Baker, proposed a non-binding resolution. It was an invitation requesting the AKC's board to hold either the September or December 1998 delegates' meeting in Houston or -- some city other than New York.

We asked. Did that independent-thinking club realize it was pulling Westminster's chain? "Oh, no! Just some good old Texas hospitality."

OK.

Houston's offer to host was dissected and, bit by bit -- with Cheauré counting -- it was defeated.

The real losers in Westminster's scheme of things are those not-otherwise-involved, pet-owning members of the public who pay the bills with their millions of registration checks. They have no decision process input -- none! That could change with New York's Attorney Dennis C. Vacco sitting as an ex-officio member of the AKC's board. He is there to protect the public's interests. If he determines the public isn't being served in an entirely legal manner he can act. His powers are greater than those of that board -- no matter the size of Westminster's majority -- if its agenda is suspect!

(See our accompanying bulletin. "Like it is.")

1. Westminster remains highly skilled in manipulating people. Too skilled to forego questionable wining tactics. And, just perhaps, too arrogant to stay within legal bounds.

2. When a candidate for the board Daniels' prime platform was registration reform. If she ever pressed for such as president it escaped notice. On the contrary, it was Mrs. Daniels whose name was on the appointment of Paul Firling as "head of quality control...registration..." In early 1993, after an expensive (close around $50 thousand) and painfully secret investigation of the AKC's investigations department, Firling was forced out as department head. He was exiled to the Raleigh office with neither job title nor job description. Daniels, in 1995, amended that situation. Fox in charge of the hen house?

3. During the September meeting of delegates Chester F. Collier was one of four men honored with medallions for 25 years of service as delegates. In December 1971 then-Vice President William F. Stifel, to conform to some new -- and temporary requirement -- had to yield his post as a delegate. He contacted the San Francisco Dog Training Club explaining the situation. He asked if that club would mind if Mr. Chester Collier, who was willing, were to serve them in his stead.

The club members knew nothing of Collier but Stifel's recommendation was accepted. Prior to June of the following year then-Chairman William Rockefeller appointed Collier to a board vacancy effective with the next quarterly meeting.

It was 16 years before the Dog Training group had any communication from or with Collier. He was going to have to run for reelection to the board. He belatedly realized he had an Achilles heel. Those long-ignored strangers could undo him by pulling their sponsorship out from under him.

He wrote expressing a desire to meet with them when he'd be judging at an upcoming Bay Area dog show. At their request that meeting became a two-hour sit down wherein a number of matters were discussed.

Not long after that command performance Collier switched to a safe spot as Westminster's delegate. He has since had the AKC's constitution amended. Now a displaced, even disgraced, delegate can sit until his or her successor is approved and presented as eligible to be seated.

There's an epilogue to this sidelight, The current delegate of that San Francisco training group is Stanley S. Saltzman of -- Westport, Conn. He was once appointed in December to fill a board vacancy -- but couldn't manage to get elected the following March.

4. Commuting to Manhattan is generally considered to. roughly, encompass Amtrac's corridor line from Boston through New York to Washington, D.C. -- and westward for reasonable driving distances. Shuttle planes also service the northeast corridor route on hourly schedules.

5. When women, finally and only resultant from intense pressure from the federal government, became delegate-eligible in 1974 the exclusion of outlanders who might disrupt Westminster rule was diminished. Unfortunately, it has not been sufficient to effect any major difference.

Any significant change in AKC operations can, as in 1974, result only from intense legal pressure.

6. In the context of its June meeting the AKC's chairman volunteered 60% as the percentage of delegates living in the Northeast corridor. If that doesn't confirm a stacked deck, what other explanation can there possibly be.

Let us work from AKC-supplied numbers. If 60% live within reasonable commuting distance of New York City and only 51% of the delegates typically attend, each "Northeast corridor" vote seems destined to have the power of two or three in any balloting.

7. Present incumbent excepted, the AKC has fired three of its last four presidents. Those exited early were Ken Marden, Louis Auslander and Judith Daniels. Only Bob Maxwell served until scheduled retirement.

The new board met in the hotel immediately after the election. It dismissed Daniels but failed to collect her keys. My sources say she promptly cabbed back to the AKC's office and left with papers, some of which might, just possibly, yet prove interesting to federal and state criminal investigators.

8. AKC field reps are tasked to insure that all rules are enforced at dog shows. Quite recently the AKC named a person to that post who had, several years ago, strayed so far off the AKC's path of righteousness that a lifetime suspension resulted. That was after multiple warnings. Within weeks an unnamed insider with sufficient clout interceded. After that brief outing the offender was readmitted on "strict probation." Do we label this total reversal as putting another fox in charge of the hen house, as flexible strategy, double-standard favoritism, forgiveness or just plain, defiant arrogance?