Full text of "The Independent Mind Essays Of A Humanist Philosopher"

Corliss Lament

THE INDEPENDENT Is IB a real

sense a guide for these critical years. It is not
only a penetrating analysis of the questions
which increasingly concern us from day to day.
It is also a synthesis, for in unifying the mean-
ings of so great a variety of subjects, this book
is a persuasive exam pi- >f the value of a con-
sistent persona! pi/' y.

In a tirnt- IJ-.MI i.t:vu- standing is our imme-
diate need, Dr. Lamont, one of America's fore-
most Humanists, shows how an objective outlook
on life radiates light rather than the customary
heat on matters of passionate controversy. Focus-
sing this light in turn on each of today's great
problems, dispelling the dogma of both right and
left, and dispassionately using the scientific
method to arrive at working truths, these vig-
orous, clarifying essays present the hope of a
rational spirit for a peaceful society.

THE INDEPENDENT MIND discusses such
subjects as civil liberties, international .relations,
humanism; marriage, religion, the comedy of
life, the issues of peace or war, the myths that
mislead America. The reader will find these in-
formal reflections helpful on many levels.

As political philosophy, it is a brilliant argu-
ment for the generous humanism inherent in the
idea of democracy as against the inhumanity of
totalitarianism. And to those who in this time of
doubt and skepticism are .seeking some affirma-
tive way of life, to the many who are no longer

(continued on back flap)

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Contents

Preface, 9

I Civil Liberties and Politics

The Independent Mind, 13
Back to the Bill of Rights, 17
The Crisis in Civil Liberties, 28
A Program for Progressives, 87
The Motivations of Dissenters, 42

II The Philosophy of Humanism

The Humanist Way of Life, 47

A Humanist Cosmology or Metaphysics, 55

Equivocation on Religious Issues, 60

Humanizing Religious Experience, 76

Three Humanist Readings, 80

The Appreciation of Nature, 84

The Palisades of the Hudson, 88

A Humanist View of Marriage, 94

A Summing Up of Humanism., 103

III International Relations

Wars Are Not Inevitable, 111
Common Sense and Soviet Russia, 114

The Myth of a National Emergency, 120
The Myth of Soviet Aggression, 124
The Myth of "The Free World " 182
What Would a Third World War Achieve?, 136

IV Impressions of Mid-century Europe

Britain's Labor Government, 141
The Delights of England, 145
Scotland and Brittany, 148
French Neutrality, 152
Geneva and Grindelwald, 154
Pilgrimage to Rome, 159

V The Comedy of Life

Crank Letters, 163

Columnists, 168

Philosophy, 172

Lecturing, 175

Mistaken Identity, 178

The Battle of Squibnocket Beach, 182

Preface

THE PHILOSOPHER, in an intellectual sense, lives dangerously.
For it is his duty, and indeed his natural bent, to be interested
in practically everything; to attain the virtue of sound and
broad generalization while avoiding the vice of general super-
ficiality. He must know much about many different aspects of
life and so, in fulfilling the functions of his profession, runs
the risk of being a dilettante. His occupational hazard lies in
probing for depth and achieving shallowness.

The true philosopher, as Plato expressed it, is "the spectator
of all time and all existence." It is his formidable task, daring
in its far-reaching scope, to work out a valid over-all view of
man, society and the universe; and to suggest the basic prin-
ciples and procedures for an inclusive, coordinated way of
life. The mounting sum of human knowledge has been accom-
panied by its accelerating fragmentation into specialized de-
partments which in turn split into further fields of concentra-
tion. To find some order in the endless pattern of particularized
sciences and arts, to provide a comprehensive synthesis of
creative thought, to offer a panoramic map of reality, is a
function of philosophy which in this twentieth century assumes
even more importance than before.

In the whole gamut of human experience there is scarcely
anything not relevant in some way to philosophy. It is not in-
appropriate, then, for a philosopher to cover a wide range of

subjects in his thinking and in his writingas I have done in
this book of informal essays. What binds these varied pieces
together is a certain philosophy of life, called Humanism, and
a certain philosophic method that of the independent mind
for the solution of human problems. Humanism stands for the
continuous and whole-hearted enjoyment of experience, sen-
sory, cultural and spiritual, in this one and only life; and for
the unceasing progress of humanity toward greater wisdom
and happiness, freedom and beauty.

The key instrument in realizing these aims is the independ-
ent mind of man which by its very nature works through
socially cooperative reason or intelligence. Objective reason
accomplishes the most exact results when it follows the exact-
ing method of modern experimental science. The Humanist in-
sists that this method be applied to every sphere of human
endeavor. The way to handle science's portentous discovery of
how to produce life-destroying atom bombs is not to abandon
scientific method but to extend it, as the authentic voice of
reason, to the realms of national politics and international re-
lations. When that happens, when intelligence prevails in the
affairs of society, we shall see atomic energy utilized entirely
for great peaceful projects of economic development.

But knowledge alone is not enough. Essential to the free
exercise of the independent mind is the courage of non-con-
formity. Men can know the truth and yet be fearful of uttering
it or of putting it into practice. And courage of mind demands
the intellectual stamina to repeat over and over again in the
face of a skeptical or hostile world your conception of the true
or the good or the beautiful; to fail ten times in getting your
idea across, and then to succeed the eleventh time or, if need
be, never to succeed at all.

In his trenchant essay "Intellect" Ralph Waldo Emerson was,
it seems to me, thinking of the independent mind when he said
that every human being has a choice "between truth and re-
pose. Take which you please, you can never have both. Be-
tween these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the
love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the
10

first philosophy, the first political party he meets, most likely
his father's. He gets rest, commodity and reputation; but he
shuts the door of truth. He in whom the love of truth pre-
dominates will keep himself aloof from all moorings, and
afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, and recognize all the
opposite negations between which, as walls, his being is swung.
He submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect
opinion, but he is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, and
respects the highest law of his being."

Although Emerson wrote this more than a hundred years
ago, it is relevant today and will, in my judgment, remain
ever relevant. Seeking and telling the plain truth, in what-
ever field of knowledge or action, is always a career in itself.
It is a career of honor. It has been followed by the greatest
figures in American history. It is open to every man of intelli-
gence and integrity.

Of the essays in this book which were previously published
in article or pamphlet form, all have been thoroughly revised
or rewritten. Many of them appeared originally in the liberal
New York newspaper, The Daily Compass. "A Humanist Cos-
mology or Metaphysics" was printed in The Humanist, bi-
monthly magazine of the American Humanist Association;
"Equivocation on Religious Issues" in The Journal of Religion,
a quarterly issued by the Divinity School of the University of
Chicago; "Humanizing Religious Experience" in The Standard,
monthly organ of the American Ethical Union; and "The Pali-
sades of the Hudson" in the Survey Graphic, authoritative
journal in the field of social work. To the editors of these
periodicals I am grateful for permission to reprint.

I also wish to thank the Indianapolis Humanist Club for
permission to include "A Summing Up of Humanism**; and
the Harvard University Press for permission to use, in my essay
"The Humanist Way of Life," the lines from Theodore Spencer's
poem "Heritage" in his book An Act of Life.

July, 1951 C.L.

I/CIVIL LIBERTIES AND
POLITICS

The Independent Mind

IN THIS ERA of fundamental change and deep crisis the world
over, with increasing difficulties everywhere for the expression
of minority dissent, we need to reaffirm the importance to
society of the free and independent mind.

Throughout the history of the race the independent mind,
viewing both the grave defects and the splendid possibilities of
human nature, has wrought from its creative imagination the
great visions of the future which have led mankind forward.

The independent mind, ever questioning the prevailing
assumptions and dogmas of its time, may be proved wrong;
but more often it has given to men and to nations fruitful ideas
and programs for the achievement of social progress.

It is the independent mind, as manifested in Democritus
and Aristotle in ancient Greece, in Galileo and Newton and
Descartes at the beginning of modern times, which bestowed
upon the world the Promethean gift of science and scientific
method.

The independent mind of Darwin, throwing off the theo-

13.

logical shackles of his century, revolutionized the science o
biology; the inquiring mind o Pasteur effected enormous
progress in medicine; the unfettered mind of Marx shed a
bright, penetrating light over the whole field of economics;
the unorthodox mind of Freud founded an entirely new science,
that of psychoanalysis; the free mind of Einstein brought such
advances in the sphere of astro-physics that we can hardly
begin to evaluate their effect on the shape of things to come.

In the realm of politics the independent minds of eighteenth-
century France, slashing through the social and religious super-
stitions of a benighted past, paved the way for the great French
Revolution of 1789. In the same century bold and brilliant
intellects like those of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine,
challenging the divine right of kings and satraps, laid the
groundwork for the great American Revolution of 1776.

In the nineteenth century Abraham Lincoln carried on the
tradition of the independent mind thinking beyond the tradi-
tional to make men free. And Ralph Waldo Emerson gave the
keynote for the voice of irrepressible reason when he said: Let
it not quit its belief "that a popgun is a popgun though the
ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack
of doom."

In twentieth-century America the versatile mind of Franklin
D. Roosevel^ unbound by the shibboleths of class, party and
narrow nationalism, surged to new heights of idealism and
inspired his countrymen and all peoples of the earth to give
their utmost in the struggle for an enduring world of freedom
and peace.

The clear-thinking, independent American mind knows that
men must work together for the attainment of social goals. It
knows that cooperation is necessary in the form of political
parties, churches, universities, governments and a thousand
other institutions. Naturally it will give assent to many well-
established truths and practices; but it will not surrender its
autonomy, its right of critical analysis, to any party, church,
university or government in the United States or anywhere else
in the world.
14

Tlie eminent English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, once
declared: "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion and
only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would
be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he
had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.* 3 ' That
states an ideal of civil liberties. And it also points to the fact
that the courageous, non-conforming mind may indeed be a
minority of one in its community or in the world at large.

The honest and independent mind, striving for human bet-
terment, must assert from now till the end of time its individual
right, morally and socially, to speak out against any or all
existing institutions; against the policies of governments,
against the crudities of political parties, against the outworn
creeds of religions, against the academic straightjackets of
school, college and university.

The role of the free and critical mind will ever be significant;
its preservation among men is the best promise of future
progress. No matter what advances existing nations may make,
the perfect society will never come into being. There will
always be new problems, new obstacles, new injustices, new
crises, new possibilities of improvement, whether under a
capitalist system, a socialist system, a communist system or
some other system undreamt of at present.

With the vast extension of education, knowledge and cul-
tural techniques in this twentieth century, there is opportunity
for the widest development of truly independent minds. Polit-
ical democracy at its best means precisely that the masses of
the people exercise the prerogatives of free and critical think-
ing in their judgments and votes upon fundamental issues and
between competing candidates.

But down the centuries the independent mind, bringing
forth fresh ideas that disturb and enrage the vested interests
of the status quo, has often paid a high price for giving utter-
ance to its beliefs. Philosophers, teachers, scientists, religious
prophets, political innovators have again and again been
reviled, exiled, imprisoned or done to death for their dissent-
ing doctrines.

Looking at the field of philosophy alone, we find that the
Athenian state, which represented the high point of democracy
in ancient civilization, forced Socrates to drink the hemlock
for ^dangerous thoughts"; that during the Renaissance the
Catholic Inquisition burned Bruno at the stake for his heretical
opinions concerning the nature of God; that in the seventeenth
century the Amsterdam Synagogue excommunicated the great
Spinoza, while pious assassins and the political authorities
threatened his security and very life; that in our own times the
New York City administration drove Bertrand Russell from
his professorship at the College of the City of New York be-
cause of his unorthodox views on religion and sex morals.

In the United States today the tide of intolerance and sup-
pression runs high; government bodies, church officials, private
organizations and even so-called liberals combine to bring
back the spirit of the inquisition and the witch-hunt. The
powers-that-be in general want conformity, not the independ-
ent mind. Millions of our citizens have become silent or sub-
missive on public issues through fear of prosecution by the
government or persecution by their fellows.

Yet at this moment of crisis, when our whole structure of
American democracy is in danger and the menace of a third
world war puts our very lives in jeopardy, it is more than ever
the obligation of independent minds to assert their convictions
and to uphold sanity amid the madness of the age. The written
and the spoken word are still mightier than the sword and the
atom bomb.

Those of the past whom we honor most have risked their
freedom and their persons in times as bad as these. We can do
no less. Neither calumny nor imprisonment nor concentration
camp nor death can stay the march of man thinking or subdue
the will of a people toward democracy.

The free and fearless intellect of the present has an implicit
pact of fellowship and understanding with the truth-seekers
and dissenters of all history. There is our rock of ages and on
it we stand.

Back to the Bill of Rights

I BELIEVE THAT a totalitarian political party ought to have full
legal rights under democratic government, but that the moral
rights of such a party must differ according to the specific
program that it supports. For the purposes of this essay* I shall
concentrate on Fascist and Communist Parties and shall not
attempt to argue over the vague and doubtful meaning of the
word totalitarian.

The important question which this discussion raises relates
to democratic governments throughout the world and to coun-
tries of varying social and economic development. I am of the
opinion that totalitarian parties in any true democracy should
possess the same legal rights as any other party to organize,
publish periodicals, distribute literature, elect candidates to
political office, hold meetings, put on radio programs and
undertake any other activities characteristic of a political party.
Totalitarian parties as organizations and their members as in-
dividuals are of course properly subject to the ordinary laws of
the nation in which they function. If, for instance, a Fascist
or a Communist Party, or an individual Fascist or Communist,
or any other person, violates a statute against treason, espion-

*A paper read December 28, 1950, at a meeting of the American Political
Science Association at Washington, D. C., on the subject of "Has a totali-
tarian political party any rights, moral or legal, under democratic gov-
ernment?"

age, sabotage, murder, inciting to riot, failure to register as an
agent of a foreign power or conspiracy to overthrow the gov-
ernment, then a democratic state has not only the right but the
duty to prosecute the offender to the limit of the law.

But if a democratic government prosecutes a Fascist or
Communist Party, or individual members of these parties,
because of the expression of unpopular or extreme opinions
or goes to the length of suppressing the parties altogether-
then it is violating the long-established principles of free polit-
ical association and undermining the very democracy it is
pledged to uphold. While admittedly there are always difficult
borderline cases, I think that the correct line to draw is in
general the traditional one between words, ideas or opinions,
on the one hand, and overt acts on the other hand. Words,
however, can sometimes become a constituent part of an illegal
action, as when Smith says to Jones: "I will give you $1,000
if you kill Brown." Smith can then be indicted for a con-
spiracy to commit murder, but not for the crime of uttering
certain words.

It is my contention that every democratic government, in-
cluding that of the United States today, can adequately protect
itself against extremists of whatever variety by vigilantly exer-
cising the established police powers of the state and taking
legal measures against political groups, or individuals asso-
ciated with them, when words issue in overt illegal action. As
Mr. Justice Jackson of the United States Supreme Court stated
in his opinion of May 8, 1950, in the case of the American Com-
munications Association versus Douds: "Only in the darkest
periods of human history has any Western government con-
cerned itself with mere belief, however eccentric or mischie-
vous, when it has not matured into overt action; and if that
practice survives anywhere, it is in the Communist countries
whose philosophies we loathe."

The general philosophy that lies behind the ideal of complete
civil liberties is well known. We might all agree that in certain
situations the suppression of free speech could result in some
limited social gain. But the long-run dangers of such suppres-
18

sion, in destroying the public's faith in democratic institutions
and fatally rupturing the fabric of democracy., far outweigh
the temporary advantages of dictatorial expediency. As the
framers of the American Constitution and Bill of Rights made
clear, unabridged freedom of speech with its associated free-
domsis a transcendent social and political value upon which
rests, to a very considerable degree, the collective welfare,
wisdom, order and progress of the democratic community.
There is and can be no more significant value in a democracy
than freedom of speech and opinion. To curtail, mutilate or
negate this freedom is to strike at the heart of the democratic
process.

In times of emergency freedom of speech, freedom of the
press and freedom of assembly are, if anything, even more
essential to the health of the democratic state. For in such
times a nation needs more than ever an alert and critical public
opinion that will help to guide the country through crisis. If,
however, a disastrous flood, a great earthquake or an armed
invasion results in a declaration of martial law, some abridg-
ment of civil liberties is justified. For then the machinery of
democratic government may well have broken down to such an
extent that some of the established rules of democracy may
become temporarily irrelevant. Of course at all times in relation
to free speech there are legitimate non^political qualifications
as embodied, for example, in the laws against libel, obscenity
and false advertising.

In this turbulent era the greatest hope of the American
people and of all mankind is that the voice of reason will pre-
vail. Reason, intelligence in its most precise and successful
form, is nothing more nor less than the modern scientific
method of experimentation and verification. But scientific
method in public affairs can play its proper role only in the
atmosphere of democratic institutions and free speech. New
ideas, even ideas that are considered ludicrous, dangerous or
hateful, must be given a hearing. The crackpot may turn out to
be the trail-blazer; the genius is likely to start his career by
being a minority of one. It is dissenting minorities which

throughout history have usually shown the way to human
progress. In a free society minorities must be scrupulously
protected and guaranteed the democratic opportunity of evolv-
ing into majorities. "We must not forget," asserted Justice
Jackson, then Attorney General of the U. S., in his speech of
April, 1940, "that it was not so long ago that both the term
'Republican* and the term 'Democrat* were epithets with
sinister meaning to denote persons of radical tendencies that
were 'subversive' of the order of things then dominant.*'

The life of reason, the appeal to the supreme court of the
mind, implies in its very essence peaceful persuasion through
the free exchange and competition of ideas in the open market-
place of thought. This social procedure, this combination of
democratic and scientific methodology, is, I suggest, much
more important for the future of the nation and the world than
any other single discovery or achievement made hitherto in
the history of the race. It is a procedure which, as long as man-
kind endures, will enable societies to make fundamental
changes in their structure in a peaceful and orderly manner.

Implicit in the method of science and democracy is the
rejection of a dogmatic attitude and the encouragement of
constant questioning questioning even of the most basic
assumptions. Hence persons and groups in a truly democratic
community have the legal and moral right to argue, if they so
choose, that the nation should substitute for intelligence the
dictates of some revealed, authoritarian religion or for democ-
racy some form of authoritarian, political dictatorship. They
have a right to attempt to win over, if they can, a majority of
the electorate to one or the other of these erroneous anti-
democratic theses. Democratic self-government does indeed
imply, among other things, that the people may make mistakes
and, in fact, terrible mistakes. This is a risk we have to take
in order to remain free. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put
it twenty-five years ago in his dissenting opinion in the Gitlow
case: "If, in the long rap, the beliefs expressed in proletarian
dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces
20

of the community, the only meaning of free speech Is that
they should be given their chance and have their way.**

But can democratic government logically permit totalitarian
parties to advocate the violent overthrow of the state? I am
convinced that the answer is "Yes" and that the right to advo-
cate revolution is a basic constitutional liberty in a democracy.
No doubt practically everyone would agree with me that there
exists in the United States the necessary political machinery
for peaceful and democratic change in a conservative or a
radical direction. But we could be wrong; and as democrats
we cannot legitimately outlaw either legally or morally those
who challenge our position on this issue. In the field of politics
there are no impregnable absolutes. As professional or amateur
observers of the political scene, we surely would not wish to
claim that America has attained such a high state of democratic
development that from now till the end of time no advocacy
of revolution, or actual revolution, could be warranted. To
quote Justice Jackson again in the Douds case: "We cannot
ignore the fact that our own government originated in revolu-
tion and is legitimate only if overthrow by force may sometimes
by Justified. That circumstances sometimes justify it is not
Communist doctrine but an old American belief.**

This old American belief finds clearest expression in the
Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are en-
dowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the gov-
erned. That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter
or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness.'*

The leaders and supporters of a democratic government will
presumably utilize all available techniques of education and

communication to offset the propaganda of totalitarian groups.
But I repeat that the point at which a democratic government
has the right and obligation to take punitive legal steps against
revolutionists is when they concretely plan and conspire to
seize control of the government by force or when through
specific, overt action they violate some law. If a democratic
government arrests, jails, suppresses or executes totalitarian
or anyone else for mere propaganda and opinions, no matter
how repugnant they may seem to established mores, it then
and there ceases to be a truly democratic government.

Certain practical considerations support the principles which
I have been outlining. A democratic government will find it
easier to keep track of and protect itself against totalitarians
and their parties if it does not drive them underground. It is
far better for extremists to rant in public than to plot in private.
Equally important is the fact that when one leftist or rightist
group is deprived of its constitutional liberties, many other
groups in the democratic community are endangered. If the
state takes away freedom of speech and association from, for
example, all acknowledged members of the Communist Party,
then a further witch-hunt is sure to begin in order to ferret
out the secret Communists and the so-called fellow-travelers.
This is certain to include an inquisition into the beliefs of
liberals, progressives and well-nigh all dissenters in the com-
munity.

Justice Jackson has well described the situation in his opinion
of September 25, 1950, ordering that the bail of the eleven
Communist leaders, convicted in the lower courts under the
Smith Act, be continued. He states: "The right of every Amer-
ican to equal treatment before the law is wrapped up in the
same constitutional bundle with those of these Communists.
If in anger or disgust with these defendants we throw out
the bundle, we also cast aside protection for the liberties of
more worthy critics who may be in opposition to the govern-
ment of some future day/' Scientists, teachers, intellectuals,
liberals of every variety should make no mistake about it:
When the bell of suppression tolls, it tolls for thee!
22

Another consideration to keep in mind is that the chief
domestic danger that the American republic has been facing
in this era is that of espionage. In this connection what the
self-confessed spy, Harry Gold, stated at his trial is significant:
"I was told by my first Soviet superior to stay away from it [the
Communist Party], never to read The Daily Worker and never
to read liberal literature or express liberal thoughts." The
way to catch spies, then, is apparently not to follow the com-
mon practice of hounding the Communist Party and banning
liberal magazines like The Nation.

I have thus far referred to Fascist and Communist Parties
without differentiating between them. But at this point I wish
to assert that in my judgment there is a great moral difference
between them. Whatever similarities exist in the means used
by Fascist and Communist Parties to win and maintain state
power, their ends are quite dissimilar. Morally Communist
Parties are on an obviously higher plane than Fascist Parties
in that they have such aims as ( 1 ) complete racial democracy
and non-discrimination; (2) full equality between the sexes;
(3) educational and cultural opportunity for everyone; (4) a
planned socialist economy of abundance on behalf of all the
people; (5) the attainment of political democracy when the
transitional need for dictatorship has passed; (6) the teaching
of an inclusive and integrated philosophy of life; and (7) the
achievement of international peace. In spite of the colossal
blunder and act of international immorality on the part of the
Communist-controlled North Koreans in committing aggression
against South Korea, I am convinced that Communist Parties
are on the whole desirous of seeing world peace established.

In the above seven points I have not tried to cover all the
basic differences between the Communists and Fascists; but
my summary indicates the relevance of the remark once made
by John Strachey, now Minister of War in the British Labor
Government, namely, that Communism and Fascism are like
two express trains going in opposite directions. The notion that
Communism and Fascism are fundamentally the same is a
dangerous untruth. It is my view, then, that Communist Parties

do possess moral rights under a democratic government, but
that Fascist Parties, best symbolized by Hitler's Nazis, possess
hardly any. Frankly, however, I regard most of the arguments
to deprive totalitarian parties of political rights on the grounds
of their lacking moral rights, or of being absolutely incor-
rigible, as fancy rationalizations of a desire to suppress those
whom we do not like.

Turning now to the current condition of democracy in the
United States, I find that our country since the close of World
War II has been continuously violating the principles which I
have enunciated in this paper. The unrestrained behavior of
the House Committee on Un-American Activities and of cer-
tain Senatorial Committees, the loyalty purge of the federal
government, the Attorney General's listing of alleged subver-
sive organizations, the unconstitutional Smith Act, the legisla-
tive monstrosity of the McCarran Bill with its concentration
camp provisions, the extensive drive against aliens, the wide-
spread establishment of loyalty oaths for teachers, scores of
state and municipal laws and ordinances penalizing non-con-
formity, restrictions on freedom of expression in the fields of
journalism, publishing, the radio and die motion picture, hesi-
tation to discuss confidential matters or controversial political
issues over the telephone because of the extensive and illegal
wiretapping by government agents, the sever pressures against
lawyers who take on the duty of defending Communists or
other radicals, the State Department's denial of passports to
American citizens because they oppose the government's for-
eign policy, pervasive fear among professional people and the
population at large of registering dissent from prevailing pat-
terns of thoughtall these things testify to the dangerous in-
roads that have been made upon the American Constitution,
the Bill of Rights and the spirit of democracy.

The present trend in America is to whittle away more and
more of the Bill of Rights in the name of an anti-Communist
and anti-Soviet crusade which has substituted invective, pre-
judice and hysteria for objective thinking on public affairs.
Government bodies, courts of justice, bar associations and lip-
24

service civil libertarians are all engaged in re-writing tibe First
Amendment to read: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridg-
ing the freedom of speech, except for the Communist Party,
its members and its sympathizers." In this drive against left-
wing groups and individuals the new and remarkable concept
of "guilt by association" is increasingly taking the place of the
time-honored American legal doctrine that guilt is always
personal.

Another new and dubious doctrine that has recently been
running wild is the "clear and present danger" rule. As laid
down by Justice Holmes in the Schenck case in 1919, *The
question in every case is whether the words used are used in
such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear
and present danger that they will bring about the substantive
evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of
proximity and degree." In 1927 Justice Brandeis, in his opinion
in the Whitney case, attempted to clarify the matter: "To
courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of
free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of
popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be
deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil
apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is
opportunity for free discussion.**

Professor Alexander Meiklejohn, in his little book, Free
Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government, brilliantly argues
that despite the great contributions of Justice Holmes to a
liberal jurisprudence, his origination of the "dear and present
danger" test was a mistake. I think Professor Meiklejohn may
be right; but what is altogether certain is that recent applica-
tions of the Holmes doctrine are wrong. Thus Judge Learned
Hand of the United States Court of Appeals, in an opinion
handed down on August 1, 1950, affirming the conviction of
the eleven Communist leaders, transformed the idea of a clear
and imminent danger into that of a clear and probable one at
some future time that might be even a hundred years hence.
The lesson is that if we start making restrictions on freedom
of speech, we open the door to congressional and judicial

interpretations that patently thwart the First Amendment.

So far as violent revolution is concerned, we can state that
there is a present and imminent danger of it only when a
conspiracy is under way and actual preparations are being
made for carrying it into effect. But in such circumstances the
United States Government can move at once on the basis of
Section 6 of the Criminal Code which forbids conspiracies to
overthrow the government and conspiracies to resist or obstruct
the execution of any federal law. The Communist leaders have
been prosecuted, however, not for a conspiracy to commit a
crime of conduct, but for an alleged conspiracy to commit an
alleged crime of speech. And there is no conclusive evidence,
in my judgment, that they have actually conspired to advocate
or teach, either in the immediate or distant future, the forceful
overthrow of our government. The prosecution and conviction
of these men runs directly counter to the great American tradi-
tion of freedom of opinion.

Looking at the history of American democracy during the
first half of this century, we must admit repeated failure in the
field of political and civil liberties. The two worst periods in
this respect have been those immediately following the First
World War and the Second World War. We are correct, of
course, in placing a large share of the blame on those mem-
bers of Congress and government officials who, although they
are sworn to uphold the Constitution, so often become leaders
in subverting it, But I must confess my dark suspicion that a
large proportion of the American people themselves, I fear
even the majority, give only lip service to the Bill of Rights.

Without trying to assess all the causes, economic and other-
wise, for this lamentable situation, we can at least assert that
America requires far more education concerning civil liberties.
Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union are
important in this field; yet we need to pay more attention to
tibe subject at the school and college level. At the Yale Law
School, Professor Thomas I. Emerson teaches a half-year course
on "Political and Civil Rights" which is almost unique in
American education. But this course for graduate students
26

comes a little late in their lives. I suggest that every college
should present such a course; and that considerably more
emphasis should be given to this subject matter in high schools
and secondary schools. It ought to be plain that if we do not
educate our youth in the fundamentals of democracy, we shall
not get democracy.

In conclusion, let me state that Karl Marx and his followers
have all along contended that capitalist democracy is insincere
about civil liberties and will throw them overboard in times of
stress and strain. Although in America today resistance to the
trends I have been emphasizing is still very strong and al-
though we have made significant gains in combating racial
discrimination, the fact remains that much is taking place in
this country which gives comfort and corroboration to Com-
munist theory. The triumphs of the reactionary demagogues
paradoxically become the triumphs of the Communist
prophets. There is a simple remedy for all this. That is for the
people, the press, the courts, the Congress and the Govern-
ment of the United States to return to uncompromising sup-
port of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

The Crisis in Civil Liberties

DUBING the past year I have become increasingly concerned
over the prevailing mood of fear, hate and hysteria in the
United States. Having recently witnessed again at first-hand
the calm and mature functioning of the British House of Com-
mons, the Congress that sits in Washington, D. C., seems in
comparison like a group of ignorant and unruly teen-agers try-
ing to legislate on affairs far beyond their intelligence and
capacity. Many of our Senators and Representatives, who are
pledged to uphold the Constitution of this country, have be-
come eager and energetic leaders or participants in the
movement which would subvert and destroy the Bill of Rights.
And so far as investigative procedures are concerned, some of
our congressional committees have truly transformed repre-
sentative government into government by misrepresentation.
There is one point which can hardly be over-stressed in
connection with the Internal Security ( McCarran ) Act of 1950,
the Attorney General's subversive list, the antics of the House
Committee on Un-American Activities, and all the rest. That is
that the governmental and congressional figures who are cru-
sading so fanatically against the alleged danger of Communism
in the United States are themselves doing more than anybody
else to make the predictions of Communism come true. For
it has always been the claim of the Marxists and the Com-
munists that all capitalist countries have within them the seeds
28

of political dictatorship and will attempt to do away with de-
mocracy when its continued existence becomes too embarrass-
ing to them. Now this is precisely what is happening to a
disturbing degree in America at present.

Such thoughts as the above are of course commonplace
among liberals. Progressives are as usual able to criticize and
denounce the forces of reaction in America with intellectual
acumen and literary skill. What they do with less frankness
and effectiveness is to analyze their own weaknesses. For
instance, while most progressives are standing up splendidly
to the repeated crises of this period, I find that the unreason-
ing fear and hysteria of the right has to some extent brought
about unreasoning fear and defeatism in the progressive move-
ment Not a few people who used to support progressive causes
have been frightened into silence and inactivity.

Not long ago I was shocked to receive a letter from one of
the most eminent and enlightened scholars I know in which
he stated: "For years I have not had anything to say in public
or private about any international problem; in short I have
had to surrender my rights as a citizen, and anything that I
might say outside of comments on the wild flowers will be
seized upon as proof that my organization is not worthy of
support or even ought to be opposed." I wonder how many
scores of thousands of formerly articulate Americans, with
wise and worth-while opinions on public affairs, have been
pressured, like my friend, into self-censorship in order to keep
their jobs and safeguard the institutions in which they are
employed.

In May, 1951, The New York Times published two well-
documented articles by Kalman Seigel based on a study of
conditions in seventy-two colleges and universities throughout
the United States. Mr. Seigel reported that **A subtle, creeping
paralysis of freedom of thought and speech is attacking college
campuses in many parts of the country, limiting both students
and faculty in the area traditionally reserved for the free ex-
ploration of knowledge and truth." Important in inhibiting dis-
cussion of controversial issues and unpopular ideas were,

according to the author, social disapproval, a pink or Com-
munist label, criticism by regents, legislatures and friends, and
students' fear of being rejected by graduate schools or en-
dangering their chances of post-graduate employment.

Dean Millicent C. Mclntosh of Barnard College was quoted
as saying: "Girls are becoming afraid to advocate the humani-
tarian point of view because it has been associated with com-
munism/* And Mr. Seigel found in general that students and
teachers were fearful of any association with such words as
peace, freedom and liberal; and were reluctant to speak out
on "controversial" issues. Yet it is obvious that many of the
most significant problems which require discussion within the
college community, as well as in the nation at large, are by
their very nature those which are most controversial.

The Reverend Donald Harrington, successor to John Haynes
Holmes as pastor of the Community Church and an outspoken
anti-Communist, recently told of his extraordinary experience
in lecturing in up-state New York. On two occasions the chair-
man of his meeting took him aside and asked permission not
to introduce him as the minister of the Community Church,
because the audience might confuse the word Community with
Communist, Mr. Harrington refused to grant the permission.

Some of the reactions to the McCarran Act have been most
unfortunate. This Bill is a horrible thing, but to exaggerate its
dangers is to play directly into the hands of reaction. Senator
Mundt, one of the chief framers of this legislation, stated
publicly that he counted more on the immediate fears which
he hoped its passage would engender than on its ultimate en-
forcement.

Actually, if the left and liberal forces will hold firm, there is
a good chance of putting up a successful fight against the
Internal Security Act in the courts and of getting it, or large
sections of it, declared unconstitutional. Presumably counsel
for the defense in tiiis battle will make much of President
Truman's excellent veto message pointing out the various ways
in which this impossible hodgepodge of a law violates the
Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Also very useful will be
30

:he record of the Senate debates in which the Kilgore-Lehman
rroup called the original Mundt sections of this legislation
unconstitutional; and in which the Mundt group called the EO.-
gore-Lehman provisions for concentration camps unconstitu-
tional.

The civil liberties situation in the United States is deplor-
able enough. Yet in spite of the McCarran Bill, the conviction
of the eleven Communist leaders under the Smith Act, and
numerous other inroads on constitutional liberties, in my opin-
ion we are a long way from Fascism in this country. There
are menacing Fascist tendencies and little local dictatorships
here and there; but the strength of democracy, as conceived by
the founders of this republic, and of the civil liberties tradi-
tion is still very great And signs abound of resistance to the
various attempts at thought control.

In a significant decision rendered in April, 1951, the Supreme
Court held arbitrary and illegal the action of the U. S. Attorney
General in putting on his list of so-called subversive organiza-
tions the International Workers Order, the Joint Anti-Fascist
Refugee Committee and the National Council of American-
Soviet Friendship, without giving them any sort of a hearing
and without submitting evidence that they were in fact sub-
versive. On this basis the cases were remanded to the lower
court for retrial. I am glad to say that I was one of five indi-
viduals who, as officers of the National Council, sought to
strengthen its case by instituting personal suit against the At-
torney General in this matter. Our suits won out in the Supreme
Court along with the cases of the organizations in question.

In another decision favorable to civil liberties the Cali-
fornia Court of Appeals unanimously held that the University
of California's special loyalty oath for its employees violated
the State constitution. The Court stated: "Any other conclu-
sion would be to approve that which from the beginning of
our government has been denounced as the most effective
means by which one brand of political or economic philosophy
can entrench and perpetuate itself to the eventual exclusion,
of all others. . . . We are also keenly aware that equal to the

danger of subversion from without by means of force and
violence is the danger of subversion from within by the gradual
whittling away and the resulting disintegration of the very
pillars of our freedom/'

Supporters of civil liberties have definitely lost out on cer-
tain issues. Most important of all here was the 6-2 decision of
the Supreme Court in June, 1951, upholding the constitution-
ality of the Smith Act and the conviction under it of eleven
Communist leaders for conspiring to advocate and teach, at
some indefinite future time, the violent overthrow of the Gov-
ernment As the dissenting opinions of Justices Black and
Douglas made clear, the Supreme Court went far in this case in
abrogating the American Constitution. To quote Justice Black,
**I have always believed that the First Amendment is the key-
stone of our Government, that the freedoms it guarantees pro-
vide the best insurance against destruction of all freedom. . . .
No matter how it is worded, this is a virulent form of prior
censorship of speech and press, which I believe the First
Amendment forbids. I would hold Section 3 of the Smith Act
authorizing this prior restraint unconstitutional on its face and
as applied. . . . Public opinion being what it now is, few will
protest the conviction of the Communist petitioners. There is
hope, however, that in calmer times, when present pressures,
passions and fears subside, this or some later Court will restore
the First Amendment liberties to the high preferred place
where they belong in a free society.**

The lamentable decision of the Supreme Court on the Smith
Act has in effect outlawed the teaching or advocacy by any
group or organization of the very doctrine embodied in our
Declaration of Independence. This revered document states
that when the American people have suffered under some
system of government a long train of abuses, usurpations and
other evils, "it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
government, and to provide new guards for their future
security/* Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I
believe that we possess adequate democratic means for peace-
ful changes, even of a drastic nature, in the social structure.
32

But we surrender this nation's birthright and denigrate its
origin when we deny citizens, however misguided, the right
to say that violent revolution is justified.

The American people can no more afford to accept as final
this 1951 ruling of the Supreme Court than they accepted
as final the Dred Scott decision o 1857, broadening the scope
of slavery in the United States. What the noted historian
Burton J. Hendrick said about that decision in his book, Bul-
wark of the Republic, a Biography of the Constitution, is sur-
prisingly relevant to the current Communist case: "The main
incentive actuating the judges' minds was political. It is a
startling conclusion, but it rests upon definite evidence. The
majority judges clearly abandoned, for the moment, -the un-
biased interpretation of the Constitution and sought to step
into a new arena and solve the great political question of
the time.'*

The Supreme Court's refusal to curb the powers of the
House Committee on Un-American Activities has also been a
severe blow to the Bill of Rights. To cite only one class of
cases involved, various officers of the Civil Rights Congress,
the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee and the National
Council of American-Soviet Friendship were found guilty by
the courts of contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over
important organizational records to the Un-American Com-
mittee. Fifteen of these persons served jail terms. These organi-
zations and those cited for contempt have fought a principled
and courageous battle against the congressional witcii-hunters.

I am proud to have participated actively in the campaign
against the Un-American Committee. In 1946 I testified, under
subpoena before this Committee, as Chairman of the National
Council of American-Soviet Friendship, a position I held from
1943 to 1946. I have never encountered face to face such a
reactionary and intolerant group of men as the Representatives
who were members of this House Committee. During my ap-
pearance before it Chairman John S. Wood of Georgia and his
colleagues spent most of their time trying to trap me into
some careless formulation which would enable them to paint

me as a terrible Red and revolutionary, or to smear the Na-
tional Council as an agent of the Soviet Government.

Thus at one point the Committee counsel, Ernie Adamson,
stated: "It is evident, is it not, Mr. Lament, that the National
Council favors the Soviet form of government and prefers it to
the American form?" I answered, "That is absolutely untrue
and I challenge you to find any statement in our literature that
implies it In any case we take no position regarding various
forms of government or on economic systems as such. Our pro-
gram is simply to give the facts about the Soviet Union and
American-Soviet relations/*

Congressman John E. Rankin of Mississippi literally raved
throughout my testimony, interrupting me frequently in a loud
and angry voice and saying such shocking things that I can-
not repeat them in print One incident, however, I am able to
relate. I was telling the Committee that it had no right to
examine the Council's financial affairs in reference to tax exemp-
tion, but that we would be happy to have the Treasury De-
partment look into the organization's financial records. "You
gentlemen must be aware/* I remarked, *that in our American
Constitution there is what is known as the separation of powers
and that there are certain functions that Congress does not
possess,** At this Rankin leapt to his feet and shouted at me:
"Don't you know that the Congress of the United States is
the greatest power in this land?" Then he yelled, "I think we
should cite this witness for contempt of Congress right now!'*

Shortly afterwards the Reverend Richard Morford, Execu-
tive Director of the National Council of American-Soviet
Friendship and custodian of its records, testified before the
Un-American Committee and refused, on constitutional
grounds a to deliver up the extensive documents and financial
records which the Committee had demanded. Accordingly,
the Committee, and later the House of Representatives, cited
both Mr. Morford and myself for contempt of Congress. The
Government never indicted me because it had no real case
against me, since it was admitted on all sides that I did not
have custody of the records in question. Morford, however, was
34

indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to three months in
jail. He served this term in the fall of 1950; and immediately
after his release renewed his fearless and unremitting fight
on behalf of American-Soviet understanding and world peace.

Many liberals and leftists have been unduly discouraged by
the unhappy outcome of the Morford and other contempt of
Congress cases. ("This is the death of the Bill of Rights**;
This is pure Fascism" ^Democracy is finished.") Actually,
some of America's best lawyers on the civil liberties front have
from the outset taken the position that the contempt defend-
ants, insofar as their refusal to surrender the subpoenaed docu-
ments was concerned, were relying on arguments of doubtful
constitutional validity; and that probably congressional com-
mittees do possess such powers of investigation, however un-
just and outrageous their procedures of intimidation and char-
acter assassination. This opinion, while I disagree with it, serves
to suggest that the courts' sustaining of the Un-American Com-
mittee was not quite the overwhelming defeat for civil liberties
which some pessimists have claimed.

The progressive forces made one blunder in the contempt
cases which ought frankly to be acknowledged. That was the
involvement in congressional contempt citations, trial and jail
sentences of no less than twelve Directors of the Joint Anti-
Fascist Refugee Committee plus its Executive Secretary. This
was an heroic group of people if there ever was one and I
supported them all the way through. But from a legal stand-
point it seemed unnecessary for more than one individual in
the organization to take responsibility for protecting its rec-
ords from the Un-American Committee. So long as no basic
principle is sacrificed, the less legal expenses incurred during
these critical times and the more useful people kept out of jail,
the better.

On the whole, the picture regarding civil liberties in Amer-
ica is a mixed and spotty one, with the forces of repression and
intimidation having the better of it at present The courts of
justice are to a considerable degree acting as a brake on the
more extreme anti-democratic tendencies; yet even they cannot

be depended upon to keep the Bill of Rights untarnished. Only
the citizens of this land, aroused and militant in their demo-
cratic might, can save their own freedom. And we are learning
once more that principles do not automatically defend them-
selves. They can only be preserved by the people.

A Program for Progressives

I HAVE frequently emphasized that the progressive movement
in America, if it is to be more than a sectarian grouping and
have a chance of substantial political success, must as a demo-
cratic organization be constantly critical of itself as well as of
its opponents. Following the outbreak of warfare in Korea, this
movement became considerably weakened, primarily by
disagreements concerning the Far Eastern crisis. As is well
known, its chief political organ, the Progressive Party, was
torn by dissension and resignations over the Korean issue.

During the past months I have talked with a number of
liberals and radicals about the current situation in the pro-
gressive movement. Without trying either to cover all its prob-
lems or to go into much detail, I believe it may be useful to
outline the sort of general program that some of us think pro-
gressives ought now to adopt in order effectively to fulfil their
important function in American life. I am suggesting ten main
points:

First, the progressive movement must uncompromisingly
support the cause of international peace, oppose military ag-
gression on the part of whatever government, and back the
United Nations, always reserving the right of criticism, as the
best instrument for the permanent abolition of war. While re-
maining opposed to the whole manner and extent of U.S.-U.N.
intervention in Korea and knowing full well the rottenness of

the South Korean Syngman Bhee regime, progressives must
frankly recognize the calamitous error of the original North
Korean march southward. This well-planned attack, which, if
really a response to South Korean provocations, could easily
have been stopped after the cease-fire order of the United Na-
tions, stimulated the tendencies throughout the world making
for a general war; strengthened the militarists and reaction-
aries everywhere, but especially in America; and finally re-
sulted in the devastation of Korea, both north and south. North
Korea's aggression stands out as the most terrible mistake made
by the Communist left in its entire history.

Progressives have naturally backed an immediate cease-fire
in the Korean conflict, with mediation based on the re-estab-
lishment of the 38th parallel as the frontier between North and
South Korea and the later withdrawal of all foreign troops from
both sections of the country.

Second, the progressive movement must push for the admis-
sion of the People's Republic of China into the United Nations,
the recognition of this Republic by the United States and the
end of American intervention in the Chinese civil war by pro-
tecting Chiang Kai-shek at Formosa.

Third, as regards the central issue of American-Soviet rela-
tions, the progressive movement must continue to oppose the
cold war and to call for a conference between high-ranking
representatives of the American and Soviet Governments to
reach a peaceful accord on the outstanding problems at issue,
including that of atomic bombs and atomic energy. Pro-
gressives realize that compromises must be made on both sides
and that both the United States and Soviet Russia have made
serious mistakes in foreign policy.

Fourth, the progressive movement ought to support under-
standing and friendship toward all countries and peoples which
are sincerely striving for world peace and cooperation, regard-
less of whether their economic systems are capitalist, socialist
or communist. And it will be sympathetic to genuine progress
in social and economic life wherever it is taking place, whether
in Great Britain or Sweden, Mexico or India, Soviet Russia or
38

Communist China or hard-pressed and maligned Yugoslavia.

Fifth, as -regards domestic affairs in the United States, the
progressive movement must present an intelligent, common-
sense program phrased in simple, down-to-earth language
which will appeal to both the traditional idealism and prac-
tical spirit of Americans, and offer a sound basis for overcoming
our major social and economic ills.

Sixth, in that program the idea of increased social-economic
planning for abundance and freedom must be central. Planning
should become one of the watchwords of the progressive move-
ment. In the long-range planning essential to the well-being of
the American people monopolies must be curbed and certain
basic industries and natural resources nationalized. But in any
steps toward public ownership the progressive movement
would advocate buying out the present owners in accordance
with that section of the Bill of Rights which reads: ". , . nor
shall private property be taken for public use without just
compensation.''

Seventh, the American progressive movement must stand
four-square for democracy and civil liberties. This means free-
dom of opinion and organization under the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights for all individuals and groups, whether
capitalists, trade unionists, Socialists, Communists, Trotskyites,
Fascists, Catholics, Protestants, atheists or anyone else* It also
means complete democracy for the various racial and national
minorities in America. And it means complete reliance on the
democratic procedures provided by our laws and our Con-
stitution for the attainment of social, economic or political
change; and opposition to violent revolution or dictatorship
from any quarter for any purpose.

Eighth, the progressive movement, stressing honesty in
political life and administration and exposing the evils of pres-
ent-day society through the simple expedient of telling the
truth, must face the fundamental issues of public affairs with
clarity and courage, refusing to sidestep or by-pass any, either
on the domestic or international front, that seriously concern
the American people.

Ninth, the progressive movement naturally will criticize
frankly the various political groups active in America, whether
Republican, Democrat, Socialist or Communist Although com-
pletely rejecting red-baiting, progressives should have no hesi-
tation in making honest criticisms of the Communist Party, as,
for example, in regard to its limited conception of civil liber-
ties, its ridiculous position that the Soviet Union has already
become the practically perfect state, and its attempt to white-
wash the North Koreans.

Tenth, the American progressive movement must endeavor
to unite, without compromising on basic principles, the various
kinds of liberals, progressives, radicals, reformers and trade
unionists in the United States today. Admittedly such a united
front is difficult of achievement, not only because of the dif-
ferent political and economic viewpoints involved, but also
because of clashing personal ambitions and idiosyncrasies.

On account of the well-known foibles of human nature, I
suppose that we should not be surprised when certain weak-
nesses of character appear among those noble spirits who are
working for peace, progress, democracy or socialism. Yet I
must confess that I have been repeatedly astonished by the
number of prancing prima donnas in these circles who are
always seeking the limelight for themselves, who constantly act
like petty dictators and who seem to feel that progress can be
made only through the unreserved acknowledgment of their
brilliance and leadership. Almost as annoying are the noncha-
lant ladies and gentlemen who make a conspicuous habit of
arriving an hour late at committee meetings and who ap-
parently take some perverse pleasure in continually keeping
others waiting.

These ten points constitute tentative suggestions and I offer
them in no spirit of dogmatism. Some of them are to be found
in the platform and official statements of the Progressive Party;
some of them are not. These planks must, of course, be more
than mere verbal affirmations and must be constantly imple-
mented from day to day in the political arena. In any case, it is
40

my opinion that they provide a minimum basis for the future
success of tihe progressive movement.

Progressives have made serious mistakes in recent years.
It is true that they have had great obstacles to face and that
the tide of reaction has been running strong. Yet they them-
selves, and not just the general political atmosphere, are to
blame for some of the weaknesses of the progressive move-
ment today.

The Motivations of Dissenters

CONSERVATIVES and defenders of the status quo, ever hard-
pressed in finding logical arguments to support their position,
have long made a practice of attempting to discredit critics
and dissenters, liberals and radicals, by attributing to them
frivolous or disreputable motivations. In the past few decades,
with the growing influence of Freudian concepts in the West-
ern World, apologists for things as they are have more and
more frequently resorted to amateur psychoanalysis in order
to turn public opinion against their opponents.

Thus they claim that those who dissent persistently from
the established order in economic, political or social affairs
must be impelled by some sort of personal neurosis or psycho-
logical complex. Such misguided individuals have, it is argued,
an Oedipus complex, an inferiority complex, a publicity com-
plex, a martyr complex or a revolt-against-authority complex.
They were either unhappy or neglected as children, they
experienced disastrous love affairs as adolescents or adults, or
they became maladjusted or unsuccessful in their work. Dur-
ing the Second World War a group of American psychiatrists
conjured up a theory, serving to discredit conscientious ob-
jectors, purporting to show that it is chiefly psychopaths who
refuse to take part in the mass murder of international con*
flict

Naturally I would not for a moment deny that Freud's work
42

and psychoanalysis in general have a legitimate and important
place in modern medicine and therapeutic techniques, as ap-
plied to those who are in fact mentally ill or disturbed. Nor
would I deny that there are undoubtedly plenty of individual
dissenters who initially joined the ranks of reformers or of
those engaged in social protest because of neuroses of one kind
or another. Every sort of social movement is bound to have its
lunatic fringe of neurotics and cranks. What I object to is the
reactionary use of psychoanalysis to brand an entire group or
class of dissenters as mentally abnormal and to stigmatize them
as actuated by strange, eccentric or reprehensible motives.

Some years ago Professor Goodwin Watson, of Teachers
College, Columbia University, made a study in social psy-
chology which throws considerable light upon this discussion.
His research was based on the records of 745 men and women,
most of them white-collar workers, who came for vocational
guidance to the Adjustment Service maintained by the Car-
negie Corporation through the American Association for Adult
Education. Professor Watson divided these clients into three
main classifications: Radicals, who believed that the economic
system should be drastically changed, that socialism would be
an improvement and that a strong left-wing party was needed
in America; Neutrals, who were undecided upon these issues
or who rejected about as many of the radical theses as they
accepted; and Non-Radicals, who were opposed to all the
beliefs of the radicals and wanted no far-reaching change of
any kind in the economic system. Of the total group studied,
nineteen percent were radicals, fifty-five percent neutrals and
twenty-six percent non-radicals.

Through a variety of tests Dr. Watson separated the group
into five divisions according to their personal happiness and
feeling of satisfaction in life. And after further analysis he
found that there was no significant difference in the distribu-
tion of radicals as between the divisions composed of those
most happy and well-adjusted emotionally and of those least
happy and most badly adjusted emotionally. TEt would seem,"
Dr. Watson concluded, "that the theory that radicals are those

who have had personal maladjustments and who are driven by
their inner conflicts into revolutionary action, has no very sound
basis."

However, when Professor Watson inquired into the educa-
tional background of these 745 persons, he did discover a defi-
nite correlation between education and radicalism. Of those
who had no schooling beyond the eighth grade only four per-
cent were radicals; of those who had some high school train-
ing, ten percent; of those who graduated from high school, six-
teen percent; of those who went to college, twenty-one to
twenty-six percent; and, finally, of those who took post-grad-
uate studies, no less than forty-five percent "There is every
reason to believe,** Dr. Watson added, "that if no teacher ever
expressed a word of his own opinion, but the students in higher
education were given only the simple, bare, hard facts of how
our economic system has been working, the results would be
quite as much 'radicalism' as our study has shown."

Obviously Dr. Watson's study, with its comparatively small
sampling made up entirely of people living in New York City
or vicinity, is not conclusive. But it indicates that the psycho-
analytic approach does not reveal the whole story and that
America's enthusiasm for education is not altogether misplaced.
For these statistics demonstrate that education does make a
difference; that a knowledge of "simple, bare, hard facts" as
taught in the classroom can and does decisively influence the
mature opinions of students concerning public affairs, whether
they become radicals, liberals, reformers or dissenters in some
other sense.

Of course Sigmund Freud himself was once a minority of one
and a daring innovator and dissenter in the field of psychology.
Yet it would be absurd to declare that he was motivated chiefly
by an Oedipus complex in his search for scientific fact and in
his ultimate establishment of psychoanalysis as a new branch
of science. Albert Einstein was equally a dissenter in the sphere
of mathematics and astro-physics, but it would be nonsensical
to claim that his great passion for truth could be explained
and explained away as due to a series of sexual frustrations
44

which he experienced as a child. Now there is essentially no
more reason for assigning neurotic motives to dissenters in the
realms of politics and economics than to dissenters in realms of
science more removed from the day-to-day struggles of men.

We must recognize that in this disillusioned and sophisti-
cated age it has become a sign of realistic thinking among in-
tellectuals to be cynical about human motivations and to be
able to converse glibly in a complicated Freudian terminology.
It is one of their favorite indoor sports to sit around and cast
aspersions upon the motives of their friends, of their relatives,
of their neighbors and of leading citizens who have a reputa-
tion for being public-spirited and high-minded. For the up-to-
date misanthrope, Freudian-inspired theories of human nature
conveniently take the place of the traditional Christian doctrine
of original sin.

Moreover, in present-day America, with its constant stress on
the profit motive and competitive individualism in economic
life, there is a tendency to regard as crackpots those who take
a more liberal attitude on the question of human motivation.
The prevailing view that all normal people must function on
the basis of self-interest, and especially financial self-interest,
makes it tempting to equate social idealism with peculiar quirks
in the personality. Then from the left come the Marxists argu-
ing from their own angle that economic self-interest is the pri-
mary human motivation. What all these theories do is to over-
emphasize some one aspect of man and try, by means of naive
and unscientific over-simplification, to reduce the vast com-
plexity of human motivation to sexual terms, economic terms or
terms of self -interest.

It is clear to me that the motives of human beings are prac-
tically always plural and mixed. Self-interest may well be a
factor in most decisions, but that does not prove that it need
always be the dominant factor. Indeed, I am convinced that
genuine altruism, a regard for the welfare of others, can be and
is the dominant element in much human motivation. The lover
will make almost any sacrifice on behalf of his beloved; parents,
apart from all glory reflected on themselves, wish to see their

children happy and successful; true friends rejoice in the well-
being and good fortune of one another; physicians and other
professional people are eager to do a first-rate job for those
who seek their aid and often forego financial remuneration to
this end; innumerable scientists, scholars and teachers have
given allegiance to tie truth wherever it may lead and regard-
less of the consequences to themselves. These simple examples
point to the fact that human motivation is not always the nasty,
selfish thing which the cynics proclaim.

I like the old phrase "public service"; and I believe that
many men and women, regardless of whether they are con-
servatives, progressives, radicals or revolutionaries, really do
wish above all to serve the public interest. I also believe in the
reality of patriotism and in the willingness of numberless indi-
viduals to give up their very lives on behalf of their country.
And increasingly in this modern era we find persons with broad
international perspectives who hold as their highest goal the
good of all mankind. Such motivations are as real as any which
half-baked Freudians emphasize.

In sincerely seeking to fulfil these larger aims which I have
mentioned, many individuals are sure to dissent from tradi-
tional doctrines, values, methods and ways of life. They have
been doing so, fortunately for the human race, since the begin-
ning of history. There is nothing abnormal, mysterious or ex-
traordinary about this; dissent is just as normal a human atti-
tude as assent. And we may be thankful that dissenters today,
when "adjustment to reality" is so frequently held up as an
ideal, refuse to adjust to the social injustices, the economic
iniquities, the political outrages, the undemocratic practices
and the international madness of our times.

II/THE PHILOSOPHY OF
HUMANISM

The Humanist Way of Life

IN THIS AGE of outworn faiths when men can no longer beKeve
in the old supernaturalist religions and millions of people are
wandering in a sort of no man's land of doubt as to the ultimate
issues of existence, we need a philosophy which will pull to-
gether the different strands of human nature and bridge the
gap between the various branches of knowledge. In an epoch
of growing specialization, it is more than ever the function of
the philosopher to specialize in generalization; to try to work
out those broad concepts of man and the universe which will
give the individual an inclusive view of things and which will
satisfy both intellectual objectivity and fundamental emotional
drives.

Whatever a man's profession and whatever his political
orientation, he will in my opinion be a better and a happier per-
son if he follows an integrated way of life and is able to render
final allegiance to a great purpose beyond his individual desires
and pleasures. The best of the traditional religions provided
for the faithful such a supreme purpose and organized prin-

clple of existence, however unsound that principle was. I be-
lieve that Humanism, in thoroughly modern and scientific
terms, offers a supreme purpose which can bring meaning into
the lives of men and fill the vacuum left by the decline of super-
natural religion.

To define the Humanist viewpoint briefly, it is a philosophy
of joyous service for the greater good of all humanity upon this
abundant earth and according to the methods of reason and de-
mocracy. Up till recently in human affairs, only a small mi-
nority of thinkers have taken this position; yet it goes as far
back in history as Aristotle in the West and Confucius in
the East.

Humanism, in the first place, rejects belief in all forms of the
supernatural and regards eternal Nature, the whole vast uni-
verse, as the totality of being and as a constantly changing sys-
tem of events, existing independently of any mind or conscious-
ness.

Humanists, then, disbelieve in the existence of a Supreme
Being or Divine Providence that underwrites man's future and
guides human affairs to an inevitably successful conclusion.
Nature is simply neutral in relation to what we call good and
evil. Man can use the laws and resources of Nature to achieve
security and build the good life; but Nature as such does not
do anything on his behalf. We human beings bear full responsi-
bility for solving our own problems and winning our own vic-
tories. Humanity must and can be its own saviour and re-
deemer.

As an ultimate aim Humanism substitutes the glory, of man
for the glory of God. It advocates the love of man in place of
the love of God; the ready warmth of human fellowship in
place of divine compassion; the beauty of the visible natural
for that of the invisible supernatural. The keen appreciation of
external Nature of sunsets and waterfalls, mountain views and
the stars in all their splendor fills the Humanist with joy and
wonder. It evokes in him a sense of kinship and oneness, similar
to the feelings of the religious mystic, with the 1 infinite cosmos
in which we live and move and have our being. There is no
48

heavenly Father in or behind Nature; but Nature is truly our
fatherland.

Second, Humanism believes that man is an evolutionary-
product of this great Nature of which he is part; that he is an
inseparable unity of body and personality having no individual
survival beyond death; and that all his efforts should go to-
wards the happiness and progress of mankind here and now.

The sciences of biology, psychology and medicine yield a
multitude of facts indicating the essential oneness of man's
physical organism and his personality, including the mind and
emotions. It is impossible to believe that this complex person-
ality and mind, depending especially on the infinitely intricate
structure of the brain, can survive the death and dissolution of
the body. The traditional Christian theory of the resurrection
of the natural body as a vehicle for the immortal soul recog-
nizes in principle the essential unity of body and personality.
But of course most educated people in this modern age are
completely unable to accept intellectually the idea of a miracu-
lous resurrection.

Death in itself at the end of seventy or eighty years is not
evil; it is premature death due to accident, disease or war that
is the evil. Had it not been for the great institution of death,
giving reality to the principle of the survival of the fittest in the
long course of evolution and ridding the earth of unprogressive
species, man would never have evolved and we would not be
here today or any day. Death, too, is the ally of future genera-
tions. It is Nature's way to scrap the old and failing instruments
of life at a certain point and to bring forth in their place new
and more vigorous individuals.

Since he is convinced that death is the absolute end, the Hu-
manist will fight all the more militantiy for the sort of world in
which everyone can live out at least his three-score years and
ten. Particularly will he wage unending struggle against the
horror of international war which kills off millions of our youth
before they have had a chance to more than taste the joys of
living. The anti-Humanist attitude, and indeed an anti-human
one, was recently expressed to me in a letter from a West Point

graduate. He affirmed his faith in personal immortality and said
that this enabled him to regard the death of soldiers under him
"as hardly more important than if his men had nosebleeds.*

Again, in reporting a Sunday sermon. The New Yorfc Times
of Sept. 11, 1950, stated: "Sorrowing parents whose sons have
been drafted for combat duty were told yesterday in St. Pat-
rick's Cathedral that death in battle is part of God's plan for
populating the Kingdom of Heaven." Humanism utterly rebels
against such a viewpoint.

The Humanist stands for the continuing affirmation of life
upon this earth. He agrees with the philosopher, George San-
tayana, that true "wisdom consists in abandoning our illusions
the better to attain our ideals." He delights in the sweetness of
living rather than lamenting over its brevity; and cherishes the
idea expressed in the beautiful lines of the late Harvard poet,
Theodore Spencer, in 'Heritage":

What fills the heart of man
Is not that his life must fade,
But that out of his dark there can
A light like a rose be made,
That seeing a snow-fake fatt
His heart is lifted up,
That hearing a meadow-lark call
For a moment he will stop
To rejoice in the musical air
To delight in the fertile earth
And the flourishing everywhere
Of spring and spring's rebirth.

Third, Humanism, having its ultimate faith in man, believes
that human beings possess the power or potentiality of solving
their own problems, through reliance upon reason and scientific
method applied with courage and vision.

The Humanist of course accepts the established facts and
laws of science; but he regards as far more important than any
single discovery modern science's method of experimentation
50

and verification. This method constitutes human reason or in-
telligence at its best and most accurate. In the procedures of
modern science man has acquired a dependable way of track-
ing down the truth and ever enlarging the boundaries of knowl-
edge.

This technique of experimentally verifying all hypotheses, of
submitting every idea to a careful process of check and double-
check, gives to men an instrument of infinite power which will
serve them well as long as humanity endures. I do not say that
we shall surely be able to solve all our problems, national and
international, through the use of reason and science. I merely
claim that this is the best and most hopeful method for human
beings to rely on and is a far more sensible one than the old-
time religious methods of revelation from on high or prayer to
supernatural beings.

Scientific method has clearly been most successful in the nat-
ural sciences such as physics, chemistry, astronomy and biol-
ogy. And the Humanist maintains that it is the greatest task of
the present era to carry over this method to the social sciences
such as economics, politics, sociology and international rela-
tions. Scientific intelligence must also be our primary tool in the
sphere of ethical decisions. When we are able to apply the calm
and objective method of reason to the resolution of problems in
these latter fields, then we shall be well on our way toward the
achievement of peace, security and freedom for all the peoples
of this planet.

Because of his reliance on scientific method, the Humanist
necessarily is opposed to dogmatic attitudes on any subject and
keeps his mind open for fresh evidence. He takes a perfectly
definite position concerning the fundamental issues in philos-
ophy or in other realms of knowledge; yet he is always willing
to admit that he might be wrong and is always ready to revise
his opinions in the light of new facts and more rigorous think-
ing. Any present formulation of Humanism must remain unfin-
ished. It is an evolving philosophy which ever seeks a closer
approximation to the truth, but there can be no finality in this
enterprise.

The Humanist way of life, fourth, supports an ethics or
morality which grounds all human values in this-earthly experi-
ences and relationships; and which holds as its highest loyalty
the this-worldly happiness, freedom and progress economic,
cultural and ethicalof all mankind, irrespective of nation, race
or religion.

In the Humanist synthesis there are no supernaturalist or
other-worldly goals to strive for. In place of the negative repres-
sions characteristic of traditional religions seeking to keep the
soul pure for an after-existence, Humanism offers a positive
philosophy of zestful affirmations. It welcomes all life-enhanc-
ing and healthy pleasures from the rollicking joys of vigorous
youth to the contemplative delights of mellowed age. This
viewpoint sets up no confusing and corrupting dualism be-
tween the body and the personality, since it looks upon man as
a living unity, an interfunctioning oneness of mental and spirit-
ual and physical qualities.

At the same time the Humanist is clear that if and when his
own self-interest and that of the community good conflict, he
as a social being will resolve the conflict in favor of the commu-
nity. Beyond his personal happiness, he will naturally work for
the welfare of his family, his city, his state and his country. Be-
yond all that, and consistent with it, he will strive for the well-
being of humanity as a whole. With William Lloyd Garrison he
says: "My country is the world; my countrymen are all man-
kind." In this time of misunderstanding, bitterness and strife
between nations. Humanism stands firm for its international
idealism and global outlook. And it insists that the vision of hu-
manity's happiness and progress over the ten billion years or so
probably left to the race upon this earth is a large enough one
for anybody.

Fifth and finally, Humanism believes in a far-reaching social
program which stands for the establishment throughout the
world of peace, democracy and a developing culture; and
which relies upon the use of cooperative and democratic pro-
cedures, including full civil liberties and freedom of speech.

Humanists do not constitute a political party and their phi-
52

losophy does not pretend to lay down a detailed program of
economic and political regeneration. Humanism as a way of life
cuts across different economic and political viewpoints and sug-
gests general principles and methods which can be fruitfully
applied to all individual and social problems.

However, support of democracy in its broadest sense is a
foundation stone in the Humanist structure. The proper opera-
tion of reason and scientific method can only take place in a
democratic society where all ideas, new or old, have a chance
to be heard, where men and groups think through and talk
through their problems in a peaceful manner and where the
ballot box and parliamentary government finally decide the
controversial political issues. In short, the method of reason,
and the method of democracy go hand in hand and cannot be
separated without dire harm to both.

Of central importance in the Humanist concept of democ-
racy is racial democracy. I think that in the long run the guar-
antee of equal rights in every respect to all racial minorities
within a nation and to all peoples, regardless of race, in the
world community will be considered just as significant as any
other development in the entire sphere of democracy and civil
liberties. The establishment of racial democracy throughout the
earth may well prove to be the twentieth century's greatest con-
tribution to the growth of the democratic ideal. If America and
Americans today would take more seriously this matter of racial
democracy, with special reference to the former colonial and
semi-colonial areas of the East, the international situation
would considerably improve.

Another Humanist principle immediately applicable to the
present world crisis is the reliance on reason for the solution of
problems reason in place of prejudice, anger and force. If
government leaders everywhere had depended on the use of
reason, there would not have been a war in Korea. And reason
would open the gates to conference and compromise for reach-
ing a settlement of the main issues between the Communist
bloc led by Soviet Russia and the capitalist bloc led by America.

In conclusion, I want to stress the point that no matter how

dark the situation looks at any moment, Humanism never gives
up hope for the human race. It is a philosophy of reasoned
optimism which, taking into consideration man's enormous
achievements since the dawn of civilization, believes that he
can do even better in the future. Humanism remains convinced
that we men, of every country and continent, do possess the
ability and courage, the good-will and intelligence to build an
enduring citadel of peace and beauty in this world that is our
home.

A Humanist Cosmology or
Metaphysics

PHILOSOPHY originally meant love of wisdom; and it comes
back to true "wisdom when it is able in some measure to bridge
and integrate the various specialized fields of knowledge,
which develop so intensively that they are continually breaking
up into new specialties.

In line with this, critics of Humanism have frequently criti-
cized it for not sufficiently working out a general theory of Na-
ture, that is, a cosmology or metaphysics which describes the
fundamental characteristics of the universe. I wish to try my
hand at remedying this defect by suggesting what may be
called the ultimate traits of existence as such, the irreducible
aspects of reality. The categories I have in mind point to the
least common denominators of everything that exists and apply
with equal relevance to both non-human Nature and human
beings. They supplement one another, yet cannot be deduced
from each other or from any conception common to some or all
of them. There is no explanation of why these universal traits
exist; they simply are.

Most philosophers of the past, in propounding a cosmology
or metaphysics, have made the mistake of reading human char-
acteristics into the universe; of illegitimately extending the
acknowledged importance of human values on this earth to

existence as a whole. They have conceived of Nature in the
image of man and have taught a superstitious anthropomor-
phism that runs counter to scientific fact and objective think-
ing. So it is that metaphysics has constantly functioned as the
handmaiden of supernatural religion. "Divine philosophy," as
Milton called it, has only too often been the philosophy of
Divines.

I have naturally attempted to avoid such fallacies in my
endeavor to outline the first principles of the cosmos. And I
have relied especially upon Aristotle and Spinoza; upon the
late Professor F. J. E. Woodbridge, of Columbia University,
who gave the most stimulating seminar on metaphysics that
I ever attended; and upon Professor John H. Randall, Jr., also
of Columbia, who gave the best lecture course in the history
of philosophy that I ever took. Without pretending to have
drawn up a complete or final prospectus, I submit the follow-
ing ten basic categories:

1. SUBSTANCE (Matter). This is an over-all term for the many
different manifestations of objectively existing matter or stuff
which constitute the physical universe and which are con-
tinually being converted into one another. This category of
Substance denotes "the primary endurance of being," in the
words of Professor Roy Wood Sellars,

2. ACTIVITY (Event, Motion, Energy, Force). Substance is
always in movement, flux. It is dynamically active. Just as all
activity is the activity of something concrete, so every some-
thing, from the lowliest atom to objects such as men and stars,
manifests unceasing activity.

3. PoiENTtAijrry (Potency). This means the inherent possi-
bilities or powers in every object or form of life acting upon
other things in various ways; and of developing, undergoing
change, becoming transformed in various directions.

4. CONTINGENCY (Chance). This category is not, as so often
claimed, merely expressive of human ignorance of natural
processes. It points to something real and objective in the
universe, namely, the pervasive and continual meetings or
intersections of independent event-streams both in non-human
56

Nature and in human affairs. The existence of Contingency,
in addition to Activity and Potentiality, is sufficient to account
for change and the frequent emergence of novelty upon this
earth and in the universe at large.

5. LAW (Mechanism, Order). Everything in the universe
conforms to and participates in the orderly processes, the
cause-effect laws, die if-then sequences of Nature. Although,
however, events always happen according to law, the laws do
not ordain them. Scientific laws are deterministic only in the
sense that the then surely follows when the if takes place. If
the temperature drops to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, then water
freezes. This sort of conditional necessity leaves room for
Contingency, accident, luck and human freedom of choice at
the moment of making a significant decision.

6. FORM (Pattern, Structure, Organization). All Substance
not only is constantly active, but also possesses a certain iden-
tifiable form or pattern definable as a stone, a tree, a man or
something else. Form never exists apart from Substance or in
some Platonic realm beyond Nature.

7. iNDrsrouALTTY. Every stone, tree, and man is an individual
entity, set off in its discreteness and particularity from all other
things both within and outside of its own genus. Each event
and object possesses a certain irreducible character of its own.

As Professor Woodbridge has said, *The definition of reality
involves numberless points of departure." The existence of in-
dividuality indicates that the cosmos is a vast, complex multi-
plicity; it is pluralistic and not, as the monistic systems daim,
a great over-arching unity. The abstract term universe desig-
nates all of Nature as "one subject of discourse,'* as William
James puts it; but the use of this summary abstraction does not
transform the infinite manyness of the cosmos into an all-
embracing oneness. Thus the old philosophic problem of how
the Many arose from the One disappears, since the universe
never was a One.

8. INTER-RELATION (Relatedness). Every individual event or
entity in the cosmos is related in some manner to some other
thing or things. Nothing exists in absolute isolation. When

things are related dynamically we have interaction. Inter-
relation includes the concept of continuity., which some think-
ers prefer to set up as a separate category.

9. SYNTHESIS (Integration). Everything in the universe, from
the largest star to the smallest particle, is a mixture or com-
pound of various elements; or functions as an integral part of
such a combination. Such a synthesis, a compound or a whole
is more than the sum of its parts and may manifest qualities
Hot found in them,

10. EVENTUATION (Outcome, Culmination). This category
denotes the continuous process of events in Nature in terms
of successive outcomes, culminations and results. (The acorn
eventuates in an oak tree, or in nourishment for an animal.)
In their characteristic means-end procedures, human beings
exercising purpose utilize actual and possible eventuations for
the fulfilment of aims, goals and ideals. Eventuation does not
imply evolution or upward development; outcomes may con-
stitute either retrogression or advance in the light of human
values.

This brief summary of Humanist cosmological categories of
course omits many which other philosophies have included.
Thus Humanism, while recognizing the great significance of
concepts like mind, purpose, love and goodness in human
existence, does not consider them basic traits of the universe
and refuses to elevate them into controlling forces in the
cosmos as a whole. There follow sixteen categories, all fa-
miliar in the history of philosophy, which Humanism does not
find applicable to the essence of reality and which it rejects
as irreducible ultimates:

1. Mind (Reason, Intelli- 6. Will

gence,. Consciousness) 7. Purpose (Design,

2. Idea Providence)

3. Truth 8. God

4. Spirit (Soul) 9. Love

5. Personality 10. Good (Value, Morality)
58

1L Evil 14. First Cause

12. Beauty 15. Time 1 A A , T _
TO T /T T? -i* e s As Absolutes

13. Life (Life Force, Elan 16. Space J

Vital)

Commenting on the last three of these categories, I wish 10
point out that Humanism in its philosophy rules out a First
Cause as necessary and holds with Aristotle that Nature is
infinite in duration, as regards both past and future. This
eternity of the cosmos seems to be implied by the Law of the
Conservation of Energy, or, to use alternate phrasing, the Law
of the Indestructibility of Matter. Science has established that;
although matter is constantly changing from one of its multi-
tudinous forms to another, not an iota of it goes out of exist-
ence in the process. Since, then, it is in essence indestructible,
it goes on forever and the universe is eternal.

As for Space and Time, many thinkers have analyzed them
as irreducible things-in-themselves, as absolutes through which
the world passes. Important as are Space and Time, Humanism
regards them as derivative from and relative to Substance and
Activity (Matter and Motion). What we call Time is a meas-
ured relationship between physical objects between the earth
and sun, for instance, for the calculation of days and years.
Space, too, exists only in relationship to material events or
things.

I offer this outline of a Humanist cosmology or metaphysics
in a tentative spirit; and insist only that Humanism does have
the responsibility of providing a systematic summary of what
are and what are not the ultimate and universal traits of
Nature.

Equivocation on Religious
Issues

EVERYONE KNOWS Professor John Dewey's oft-quoted statement
that, Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for
dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a
method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the prob-
lems of men." This statement has been interpreted and mis-
interpreted in various ways, and perhaps I may be forgiven
for one more attempt to say what it means or ought to mean.
Dr. Dewey was thinking particularly of the artificial problems
of epistemology (theory of knowledge) which have received
so much emphasis in modern philosophy. I do not think he
meant that philosophers are unjustified in concerning them-
selves with certain highly technical and abstruse problems
which are beyond the grasp of most men, but which have an
important bearing on those wider problems which do confront
most men. Hence the statement means for me, first, that those
technical problems should be real and significant and, second,
that philosophers have an obligation to go beyond those spe-
cial problems, to show their bearing on the broader problems
which face mankind, and to attempt solutions of these broader
problems in terms which the layman can understand. This
implies frankness and clarity of treatment, and a definite effort
toward using non-technical terttis.
60

Now, it is my firm conviction that among these broader prob-
lems those of religious belief still remain exceedingly important
among men or at least among a sufficient number of men to
make it the duty of philosophy to deal specifically with them.
Most important of all among questions of religious belief I
consider those of the existence of God and of the existence of
immortality. And by God I mean a personal God and by im-
mortality I mean personal immortality, survival of the indi-
vidual after death. I do not claim that these two problems are
important in the sense that they are constantly on men's minds;
it is rather that until they are settled definitely one way or
another they come back again and again to plague us. And
philosophy is obligated to deal with them, not only because
men in general need guidance, but also for its own philo-
sophical sake. I do not see how any metaphysics can be con-
sidered complete or satisfactory that does not reach some con-
clusion on the problem of God; or how any ethics can be
worked out without reference to the problem of immortality as
well as to the problem of God. While it may be said that
philosophy in the past has tended somewhat to overemphasize
such problems, philosophy has certainly done right in concern-
ing itself seriously with them. The real trouble has been that
philosophy has tended to turn into a mere apology, open or
disguised, for such leading religious conceptions as God and
immortality.

It is the primary purpose of this essay to consider the attitude
of contemporary thought and philosophy toward these two
conceptions. It is possible to distinguish four different groups.
First, there are those, still powerful in strength and number,
who affirm the existence of God and immortality. Second, there
is a lesser group which is sincerely agnostic on these questions.
Third, we have a steadily increasing class of persons who
clearly and openly deny the existence of God and immortality.
They frankly acknowledge their atheism, since that term most
accurately describes their position. Then, fourth, there is that
rather large number who in various ways avoid the issue. The
greater proportion of these do not actually believe in God or

immortality in any ordinary sense of those terms. Most of
them, I feel, belong by rights to the third group and ought to
be supporting that group. It is this fourth and last class that
I wish particularly to analyze. The first three divisions for the
most part know what they think and say what they think about
God and immortality. But I am tempted to believe that the
members of the fourth division are somewhat muddled, and
at least there can be no doubt that they muddle others.

The easiest and most frequent way of equivocating on the
issue and qualifying for the fourth group is by indulging in the
gentle art of redefinition. This procedure has recently assumed
large proportions and is practiced by some of our best-known
thinkers. Let us look first at a few representative redefinitions
of the idea of God. We can do no better than to start with
Professor Whitehead. "God," he says, "is not concrete, but He
is the ground for concrete actuality. . . . He is the principle
of concretion." Very apt is Mr. Walter Lippmann's comment on
this to the effect that "a conception of God, which is incom-
prehensible to all who are not highly trained logicians, is a
possible God for logicians alone/* I might add, however, that
there are even some highly trained logicians to whom Dr.
Whitehead's God does not mean much. It is also interesting
to note that, while Professor Whitehead has discarded a great
many traditional philosophical terms and has invented a whole
new vocabulary to escape misunderstanding, he has seen fit
to confuse his readers with perhaps the most equivocal word
of all, namely, God.

Dr. Kirsopp Lake repudiates anthropomorphism, but retains
a God who is the sum of all ideal values. He appeals to a
tradition that reaches back at least as far as Origen and claims
that it was this same redefinition of the word God which
"made Christianity possible for the educated man of the third
century." Professor Alexander asserts that "God as actually
possessing deity does not exist, but is an ideal tending towards
deity which does exist. ... As an actual existent God is the
infinite world with its nisus toward deity." "For any level of
62

existence," he explains, "deity is the next higher empirical
quality."

Mr. Julian Huxley writes: "I wish you here to agree to my
giving the name of God to the sum of the forces acting in the
cosmos as perceived and grasped by the human mind. We can
therefore now say that God is one, but that though one, has
several aspects." A few years later Mr. Huxley gives a most
enlightening comment on his own definition when he admits
that, "God, in any but a purely philosophical, and, one is
tempted to say, a Pickwickian sense, turns out to be a product
of the human mind/*

Professor Durant Drake, becoming very Pickwickian indeed,
tells us: *I will say that in a very real sense I believe in God,
both transcendent and immanent God as transcendent is an
essence, the ideal Good, bearing much the same relation to
specific goods as philosophy does to the sciences. God as imma-
nent is the Power which is visibly in the world making for
righteousness and all Good. God is the universal self in each
of us, our good will and idealism and intelligence which binds
us together and drives us on by inner compulsion toward that
ideal life for which in our better moments we strive.**

Dr. Jesse H. Holmes describes God as that unifying dement
within, which moves men to unity in a brotherly world. Dr.
Henry Nelson Wieman, who produces a new definition of God
every time he puts pen to paper, says I select at random
"God is that interaction between individuals, groups, and ages
which generates and promotes the greatest possible mutuality
of good.**

Professor John H. Randall, Jr. writes in Religion and the
Modern World that 'There is no room for God save in the
aspirations and imagination of men"; but later in the same book
suggests that "we take the word God as the symbol of man's
supreme allegiance." Then "faith in God may mean faith in
the possibility of sharing ever more fully this vision of the
highest perfection." And faith in Divinity will be "the hope
that men may see more clearly the ideal possibilities of human
life, and, seeing, reweave the tangled fabric of their lives."

In an article in the Christian Century Professor Randall defines
God, in much the same way, as "the totality o that which has
the power to evoke" the vision of "the idealized possibilities of
value and associated human living." And he talks mystically
of the divine as the "order of splendor."

It would be possible, of course, to go on citing indefinitely
instances of a similar nature. I shall call a halt at this point,
however, except to mention in passing the remarkable ideas of
God current among some scientists, such as Arthur S. Edding-
ton and Sir James Jeans, Robert A. Millikan and Edwin G.
Conklin. These men have set forth their views on many dif-
ferent occasions. Perhaps the best place in which to find out
what they and their ilk are thinking about religion and God
and immortality is a symposium called, Has Science Discovered
God? There you are able to find almost any kind of God you
want, depending only on your predisposition to identify Him
with electricity, love, spherical trigonometry, the quantum
theory, or the music of the spheres.

I suppose that the first and fairest question to ask our
redefiners is, What is the purpose and value of this complex
and bewildering game? I imagine that their chief answer is that
they do not wish to cut themselves off from the great and
beautiful tradition that goes under the name of Christianity.
The loss of intellectual precision that results from these many
different conceptions of God is more than compensated, they
think, by the preservation of a community of feeling. They
wish to work within the tradition or within the church and win
people over gradually to a new and more acceptable idea of
God; to evolve a religion relevant to modem conditions while
retaining the hallowed and well-loved words of old. All this
would become impossible if they acknowledged themselves as
atheists. Such an acknowledgment would turn the religious
elements against them in wrath, would wound the sensibilities
of many worthy and pious citizens, and stir up bitter and fruit-
less controversy.

There is the additional consideration that the term atheist
has certain undesirable connotations apart from its primary
64

meaning as simply a denial of theism, It has frequently been
associated with enemies of society and narrow-minded dog-
matists. Herein Professor Morris Cohen makes a pertinent
comment. He says, "I confess that I have never been able to
understand any theism that was not anthropomorphic, . . .
But I do not like to call myself an atheist, because those who
apply that term to themselves seem as a rule singularly blind
to the limitations of our knowledge and to the infinite possi-
bilities beyond us/'

The attitude of the redefinitionists perhaps comes most ap-
propriately under the heading of what is sometimes called
"strategy .^ Direct, frontal attacks on the old ideas do not, we
are told, result in progress. They stiffen the defense mecha-
nisms of the faithful and handicap the critic by making him
appear a crank and a radical. In relation to the term atheism
this argument is closely analogous to the one put forward by
persons who admit privately that they are Socialists but who
refuse to make public acknowledgment of this fact. They say
that it would "destroy their usefulness" to be classed as Social-
ists. Some of them, akin to those who aim to reform the church
from within, plan to win subtly the Republicans and Demo-
crats to socialism, though always being careful to call it some-
thing else.

What these strategists in the fields of both religion and
politics seem to forget is that if they frankly stated their posi-
tions without mincing words, the weight of their names and
their numbers might soon cancel the opprobrium attached to
the terms which they fear to use. They could add honor and
significance to these terms. Professor Cohen, for instance, who
fears that atheism has the connotation of dogmatism, could
have shown that this connection is not a necessary one. Since
science itself rests ultimately on probabilities, it would have
been in order for him to state that he was not absolutely cer-
tain of the non-existence of God, but that the probabilities of
that non-existence seemed so overwhelming that he could not
believe in such a Being and must classify himself as an atheist.

I am aware, of course, that the present is not the only time

in which there have been redefinitions of God and other re-
ligious terms. But I venture to suggest that in the past also,
'especially during the periods of church terror and censorship,
redefinition was often a matter of strategy and indeed outright
fear. It enabled a man to keep his intellectual conscience with-
out losing his physical head. Today, however, there is far less
justification for what seems to me a kind of playing politics
with God. In commenting on Dr. Lake, Mr. Walter Lippmann
remarks "that the notion of adopting a policy about God some-
Tiow shocks" him "as intruding a rather worldly consideration
which would seem to be wholly out of place/* I wonder what
God, if there turns out to be one after all, would think about
these people who damn Him with faint praise. Would not He,
too, be shocked? And I wonder if He would not be justified
in punishing these redefiners for breaking the third command-
ment, that is, for taking His name in vain.

Let us turn now briefly to the matter of hurting people's
feelings. Sir Arthur Keith, former president of the British
.Association for the Advancement of Science, presents what I
have discovered to be a widespread state of mind. He writes:
"Deep in my heart I find a strange reluctance to set down my
innermost beliefs concerning God, man, and the universe. My
Presbyterian upbringing, the fact that I am sixty-four, and have
acquired some degree of worldly wisdom, may have something
to do with it. The real explanation, however, lies deeper: it is
fear cowardice, if you will. . . . We cannot discuss our inner-
most beliefs openly and candidly without committing an as-
sault on persons whose comradeship we desire to retain. Hence
most of us choose to be silent; wrangling is painful, and the
paths of peace pleasant."

This presents to us a truly remarkable picture. Here is one of
the most intelligent and eminent scientists of the age who,
though he has made public acknowledgment of his unorthodox
views on religion, confesses that he dreads to come out with his
-opinions because he will offend the ignorant. But why should
not the ignorant blush for their ignorance rather than the
learned bluish for their learning? And as far as philosophy is
,66

concerned, is it not one of its prime functions to offend, to
hurt, to upset, to pry and pull people loose from vain and
fanciful opinions? The history of intellectual progress reveals
nothing more clearly than that new truths must deeply wound
the sensibilities of those whose economic or psychological
security is bound up with the old falsities. It is for this reason
that, as Professor Cohen puts it, ~the mission of philosophy is
to bring a sword as well as peace,**

My most serious objection, however, to the kind of redefini-
tions that we have considered is that they engender intellectual
confusion and disingenuousness. In the first place, there is the
probability that, no matter how clearly the definition may be
set down, old meanings and associations will come crowding
in upon such a blessed and hypnotic word as God. Indeed,
the fact that it does possess such deep emotional overtones is
one of the reasons why men hate to drop the term even when
its new meaning is as different from its old as black is from
white. In science, it is true, a number of terms are continually
being redefined, but hardly ones around which have been built
up great religions and mass emotional response. In the second
place, and more importantly, as Dr. Sidney Hook has put it,
"The first duty a philosopher owes to the community is a sense
for the ethics of words." I think that most of our redefiners
violate this duty. I do not demand that they should define
God exactly as I do. But surely a line must be drawn some-
where beyond which a word cannot legitimately be used.

There ought to be a minimum definition of God. Perhaps we
could set up as this minimum standard Matthew Arnold's **a
power not ourselves that makes for righteousness" with power
understood not merely as the magnetic quality of ideas and
ideals, but as an active force working for the good totally inde-
pendent of mankind. If this were done, practically all the
redefinitions I have cited would have to be discarded and their
makers classified as atheists, which is in fact what they are.
I am fully aware that this suggestion would include, for ex-
ample, Spinoza and his God and also the many persons, such
as Albert Einstein, who have adopted Spinoza's God as their

own. But such a step would constitute a great gain for clari-
fication and truth. It would directly clarify in an ethical as
well as in a religious and metaphysical sense. For if our highest
aim is, for instance, to actualize on this earth the ideal possi-
bilities of human life, then we shall make far more progress
by stating our goal as exactly that than by mixing people up
by calling it God.

The above remarks find an excellent illustration in the book,
Is There a God? A Conversation, the contents of which were
first published as a series of articles in the Christian Century.
This book consists in a three-cornered debate among Douglas
Clyde Macintosh, a theist, Max Carl Otto, an atheist, and
Henry Nelson Wieman, whose status seems to be uncertain
both to himself and everyone else. Dr. Wieman defines God
alternatively as that which "generates and promotes the great-
est mutuality of good," as "that which rightly demands the
supreme devotion of all human living," and as "a total system
of patterns constituting supreme good and including the highest
possibilities of glory and blessedness that may (or may not)
ever visit this universe/* Professor Macintosh and Professor
Otto, the theist and the atheist, are finally forced in the inter-
ests of truth to take a stand together against the hic-et-ubique
redefimtionist What they say about Dr. Wieman is worth
noting.

Professor Otto sums up for both by stating that "an easy
way to prove the existence of God to the satisfaction of every-
one is to reduce the definition of the term until it means no
more than everyone, even the confessed atheist, will have to
admit. Thus the definition of God virtually proves his exist-
ence. . . . The word God is made to stand for so much that
it loses all distinctive meaning." Professor Otto goes on to ex-
plain that, "Belief bought at this price costs too much. It not
only impoverishes the religious life . . . but it tends to dissi-
pate the mental discipline so laboriously and slowly achieved
by men. . . . TThe one thing needful is not that we should find
blanket terms under which we seem to agree, but that we
should drag out our disagreement into the clearest possible
68

light, and so find out what we are talking about Not only our
language, but our intelligence, suffers from preferring vague
unity to distinct differentiation/ "

These comments apply with aptness to all the redefinitions
and redefiners we have mentioned. And they apply particularly,
we may add, to philosophers, one of whose acknowledged and
most important aims is to achieve for themselves and others a
precise and unequivocal terminology.

That Professor Macintosh should join with Professor Otto
in trying to preserve the integrity of religious terminology
indicates that too much redefinition is as obnoxious to a genu-
ine theist as to a sincere atheist. The redefiners mutilate a
time-hallowed and useful religious vocabulary, yet provide very
little in return for this questionable procedure. For their God
concepts have precious little religious value. Their gods
cannot be worshipped or prayed to; they do not govern the
universe or the earth, or watch over mankind; they do not do
anything, nor do they possess personality or mind or conscious-
ness. I cannot imagine any large group of men becoming
emotionally aroused over such gods. And these gods are so
distant in meaning from the traditional God of Christianity that
I doubt whether a continuity that resides merely in the use
of the same word is worth bothering about.

Redefinitions of immortality and resurrection take place with
the same purpose and the same result. It is often difficult to
tell whether a believer in immortality means survival of the
personality after death, the attainment here and now of a cer-
tain "eternal" quality of life and thought, the permanence of
every man's influence, the biological transference of the germ-
plasm from generation to generation, or the indestructibility
of the material particles of the human body. This matter is
particularly confusing because almost everyone would admit
the existence of the three last-named types of immortality.
The real issue is and always has been whether there is personal
immortality, that is, a life beyond the grave for the individual
human consciousness with its memory and awareness of self-
identity essentially intact. But this issue is only too frequently

avoided, slurred over, or lost in vague generalities. Clarifica-
tion here would seem very definitely to demand that types of
immortality other than that of personal survival be acknowl-
edged as secondary and be described with a proper qualifying
adjective, such as influential, biological,, material, and so forth.

Sophisticated moderns are prone to take the attitude that
it is a waste of time, and even vulgar, to pay serious attention
to the question of a future life. And they are likely to quote
from Spinoza that, "A free man thinks of nothing less than of
death, and his wisdom is not a meditation upon death but
upon life/* But Spinoza, be it remembered, had already con-
cluded that there was no personal immortality. For him the
most significant problem connected with death was settled. It
was comparatively easy for him, therefore, to lean back in his
chair with the satisfying consciousness that he was a free man.
And it seems probable that most of those who cite him as above
have already made up their minds concerning this same issue.
For them further inquiry may indeed seem useless. If they and
Spinoza are free men in the sense of the lines quoted, it is
because they have finally come to understand the meaning and
place of death. The necessary prelude to such understanding,
however, must be for everyone long and careful reflection. And
however emancipated a twentieth-century philosopher may
himself be, it is yet his duty to provide guidance and enlighten-
ment on the matter of immortality, which today as in the past
constitutes perhaps the most vital of all religious problems to
most men.

I might mention in passing that the current redefinitions of
religion seem to me especially pernicious and befuddling, since
they bring under the heading of religion such very different
and in some cases positively irreligious phenomena as national-
ism, communism, and even atheism. Some of these redefinitions
would by implication assign the name of religion to any socially
organized enterprise that succeeds in winning the devotion and
emotions of men. On this basis football, trade unions, and
poetry societies are all forms of religion. Here again, if we are
to maintain sanity, a minimum definition is necessary. And I
70

would suggest that it is illegitimate to call any human activity
a religion unless there is involved in it at some point or other
appeal to, reliance on, or faith in supernatural elements, powers,
or states of being. Incidentally, the widespread redefinitions of
religion, as of God and immortality, indicate clearly to me the
growing weakness of Christianity, especially Protestant Chris-
tianity, with its apologists everywhere trying desperately to
hold the allegiance of intelligent men by die most far-fetched
interpretations of traditional ideas.

Redefinition is not the only way of avoiding the issues of God
and immortality. The position may be taken that those issues
are unimportant or irrelevant In an article in the Journal of
Philosophy entitled "Religion and the Philosophical Imagina-
tion," Professor Irwin Edman writes as follows: The business
of an emancipated philosopher, emancipated, that is, from
literalness in both religion and philosophy, would appear to be
something different from arguing a case for or against what
religion says, and saying rather what it is or does. . . Phi-
losophy must cease to treat as formulas what is really a high
and consequential form of art. It must cease to cricitize on the
ground of truth and falsity what is rather estimable and ap-
preciable as a metaphor. ... It would display a singularly
illiberal lack of understanding to condemn religious doctrine
for literal falsity. . . . The error of religion and of critics of
religion has been to estimate ideal constructions by criteria of
facts. In other words to take metaphors as dogmas,"

I gather that Professor Edman would consider my approach
to religion as old-fashioned and behind the times by reason of
my laying too much stress on intellect and ideology and too
little on emotion and imagination. He would feel that I have
forgotten the heart of man with its ineradicable needs and
yearnings and convictions, that I have neglected the happy
poetic process, to quote him again, *T)y which that heart has
fulfilled those of its longings which nature or current society
denied."

On the contrary, I am only too well aware of those longings;
but well aware also that the heart has frequently fulfilled them

in ways most fanciful, dangerous and defeatistic. Hearts and
emotions do not function in vacuo; they associate their expres-
sion with definite beliefs. While it is true that religion is much
more than a system of beliefs, it is also true that a definite set of
beliefs is necessary to any religion. This is true even of the
new religion that Mr. Edman hopes will develop. It would be
pleasant, very pleasant indeed, if all religious persons today
adopted the attitude of Mr. Edman, Mr. Santayana, and their
school that traditional concepts of God and immortality are to
be taken as metaphors and poetry rather than as truth. But
the fact is, whether we consider the past or the present of reli-
gion, that unless what Mr. Edman calls poetic symbols are
taken quite literally by the great masses of men, those symbols
have little real and moving efficacy. Herein lies a dilemma: the
Gods are believable only as myths, but as myths they are no
longer Gods.

I grant that it is both legitimate and fruitful to interpret reli-
gion as poetry on the grand scale, providing that this interpre-
tation is not made central or exclusive. I am not therefore taking
religious ideas simply in a literal sense. What I am taking
literally is the literalness of the belief in those ideas. Sheer evi-
dence compels me to do that. In dealing with the literal-minded
we must for the nonce be literal-minded ourselves. The only
way to win Fundamentalists, for example, to Mr. Edman's own
theory of religion is to show that their age-old doctrines are
false and absurd in fact. And the only way to do that is to
demonstrate to them specifically why their ideas of God, im-
mortality and so on are unreasonable. Not otherwise will they
ever attach their hearts to the new symbols or to the new mean-
ings of the old symbols belonging to the new religion about
which Professor Edman talks.

In another and later essay, "Poetic Insight and Religious
Truth," Mr. Edman acknowledges that, "The effectiveness of
religion to the believer rather than the student has lain not in
its poetic appositeness and beauty but in its literal truth." He
neglects to state, however, that this is still the case in the world
today for the vast majority of both Christians and non-Chris-
72

tians. He still seems to expect that a modern religion deserving
and receiving the allegiance of modem men can be constructed
on the basis of the same old symbols and formulas purged of
their intellectual absurdities and moral crudities through the
blessed art of redefinition. And he still thinks that it is far more
important and appropriate for a truly emancipated mind to
analyze the moral and poetic significance of religious beliefs
than to show that all emancipated minds must deny the pre-
tensions of these beliefs to truth,

My own conception of the function of philosophy in this field
is somewhat different. I think that its first duty is to point out
the falsity of outworn religious ideas, however estimable they
may be as metaphor. As a matter of fact, there is no reason
why philosophy should not demonstrate the falsity to those
who need enlightenment, and the metaphor to those few so-
phisticates who can appreciate it These two approaches are not
inconsistent and they are both necessary. We cannot act as if
all religion were poetry while the greater part of it is still
functioning in its traditional guise of illicit science and back-
ward morals; we cannot act as if all religion were metaphor
when the most powerful sections of it are still teaching the
metaphor as dogma; we cannot nonchalantly assume that super-
naturalism is a dead issue when it is still one of the predominant
influences in this country and throughout the world.

Another way of treating these issues as unimportant and
irrelevant is to say that, after all, intellectual analysis is not a
very effective method in any case. What has undermined and
will undermine traditional religion, Professor Randall tells us,
is the "intrusion of more and more secular interests upon the
mind and time of man. The unknown and presumably devout
Dutchman who invented golf at the dose of the Middle Ages,
pious Henry Ford, who made motoring cheap and popular, the
reverent Gutenberg whose printing created the Sunday news-
paper, and Lee De Forest who made possible the radio these
men have been more effective and deadly in their contributions
to the destruction of supernatural religion" than all the Lu-
cretius^, Huxley's, and IngersolFs since the beginning of his-

tory. I am willing to grant a certain amount of truth to this
argument; but even so, it does not relieve philosophers from
the obligation, in those spheres where they are influential, of
taking a clear and determined stand on issues of religious belief.

The third way of making these issues seem irrelevant is
.simply not to mention them at all. Herein Professor John
Dewey serves as a rather successful example. Of course as a
thorough-going Naturalist the non-existence of God and im-
mortality is implicit in much that he has written. The trouble
is that those views are not explicit. Let me illustrate. Professor
Roy Wood Sellars, commenting on Dr. Millikan, says: "It does
seem a bit strange to me that a man so long connected with
the University of Chicago does not know that men like Dewey
. . . are pious, socially-minded atheists who are constructive
in that they stress social values." Well, why should Dr. Millikan
know it? Dr. Dewey has never said so in clear and unmis-
takable terms. And if Dr. Millikan should go so far as to find
out that Dewey is a Naturalist, quite possibly he would reflect,
"How charming that this professor should study plants and
animals as well as philosophy "

In his little book on religion, A Common Faith, Professor
Dewey starts out in the first chapter by clarifying his position
to some extent, showing that intelligence must reject all super-
naturalist interpretations of the origin, control and destiny of
the universe and man. But in the second chapter he reintro-
duces considerable confusion by suggesting his own redefini-
tion of God. He states: <c We are in the presence neither of ideals
completely embodied in existence nor yet of ideals that are
mere rootless ideals, fantasies, Utopias. There are forces in
nature that generate and support the ideals. They are further
unified by the action that gives them coherence and solidity.
It is this active relation between ideal and actual to which I
would give the name God. I would not insist that the name
must be given. . . . Use of the words God or divine to convey
the union of actual with ideal may protect man from a sense
of isolation and from consequent despair or defiance/' Dr.
Dewey does not say that he is going to use the term God in
"74

his system; rather he is offering his redefinition to others who
may find it congenial.

The situation, however, remains somewhat ambiguous* The
point is that philosophy should take pains, even great pains,
to make its technical terms clear to the scientist and layman.
To have it generally known that Naturalism implies atheism
and the non-existence of immortality would, I think, consti-
tute a great gain. And if philosophers do not make this impor-
tant fact known, I do not know who will.

I do not mean to imply that all philosophers should neces-
sarily stress the issues under discussion, for they ought to feel
free to emphasize whatever they are especially interested in. In
the field of religion itself, if some philosophers are particularly
interested in the anthropological, the historical or the psycho-
logical aspects of the subject, I do not ask them to desert their
researches in order to debate Methodist bishops on points of
theology. All I urge is that philosophers recognize the impor-
tance of issues of religious belief, their relevance to philosophy
as a whole, and the need of taking, when occasion arises, a per-
fectly clear, frank and dignified position in regard to them.
As far as the metaphysical side of philosophy is concerned, I am
sure that the vast majority of people are still interested most of
all in what this department of knowledge has to say about the
existence of God and immortality. Therein I think their in-
stinct is sound; for, as I stated at the beginning, these two issues
cut exceeding deep, for philosophers as well as for everyone
else. And therefore on these questions it behooves philosophy
to give understandable and unequivocal answers both to itself
and to the world at large.

Humanizing Religious
Experience

IN MAKING the philosophy of Humanism understandable and
acceptable to the layman, I think it is of major importance to
show how traditional religious experience can be interpreted
and explained in completely naturalistic and humanistic terms.
We can start with the simple appreciation of Nature, an art
which depends in particular on the possession of keen sight.
Here it is possible to demonstrate that many of the deep-felt
aesthetic experiences which an individual can know in looking
upon the magnificence and beauty of the external world are
akin to the rapt experiences of religious worshippers and
mystics who believe that they are in touch with the Almighty
or the All or the great Cosmic Consciousness.

I like what Dr. A. E. Haydon, leader of the Chicago Ethical
Society, says: "The Humanist rarely loses the feeling of per-
fect at-homeness in the universe. He is conscious of himself as
an earth-child. There is a mystic glow in this sense of belong-
ing. Memories of his long ancestry still linger in muscle and
nerve, in brain and germ cell. On moonlit nights, in the re-
newal of life in the springtime, before the glory of a sunset, in
moments of swift insight he feels the community of his own
physical being with the body of his mother earth. Rooted in
millions of years of planetary history he has a secure feeling
76

of being at home, and a consciousness of pride and dignity as
a bearer of the heritage of the ages.**

Yet consciousness of the inexhaustible beauties of Nature is
not the only sort of experience indicating that the ordinaiy
healthy and sensitive person can attain a state of what I have
described as "normal mysticism/" With no supernatural ex-
planations in the slightest needful, the spiritually alert and
life-affirming man achieves natural ecstasies and moments of
inspiration similar in emotional tone to those of the professional
mystic. Listening to a Beethoven symphony, looking at Michel-
angelo's Sistine Chapel, wandering through Chartres Cathedral,
viewing the skyline of New York City, reading a beautiful
poem, seeing Shakespeare interpreted by a Laurence Olivier
or a Katharine Hepburn, watching small children frolic on a
lawn, dancing with a skilled partner to a spirited tune, knowing
the thrill of artistic or literary creation, falling overwhelmingly
in lovethese experiences and many others can give rise to
such an intensified sense of life that one indeed feels trans-
ported out of this world.

Again, such moods of exaltation are like the beatific visions
of the mystics in that frequently no words appear adequate
to describe them. They are simply ineffable. They are great
consummatory experiences, altogether worth while in and of
themselves; ultimate fruitions of the spirit possessing their
own power and glory; high moments that light up the
course of human living and give it richest meaning. On these
occasions we rightly dwell in the present, savoring to the
full the joys of the immediate and saying inwardly, with every
mystic, "O moment stay, thou art so fairl**

As Professor James H. Leuba has pointed out in his notable
study, The Psychology of Religious Mysticism, some of the
most prominent mystics, in their intoxicating religious experi-
ences, were probably sublimating frustrated sexual or other
human desires. The constant human quest, in an imperfect
world, for the perfect society is admittedly a powerful motiva-
tion toward belief in supernatural Utopias beyond the grave;
the quest for the perfect individual may lead to a belief in

supernatural gods. The worship of God involves the praise of
a sublime being possessing every virtue. Amid the tensions
of life and the seemingly inadequate characters of the family
and social milieu, the Christian finds in Jesus, the Virgin Mary
and other saints persons without blemish- This, for the faithful,
is a wonderful discovery and provides a valuable emotional
outlet.

Humanism brings all this supernaturalistic hero worship
back to earth. It believes in the secularized admiration (not
worship) of outstanding leaders who may be heroes, such as
Jesus, Socrates, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt
And it holds in high esteem the perennial human search for
the ideal, whether expressed in evaluations of the great or in
romantic love. In this era when true sophistication, and even
wisdom, is so often regarded as proficiency in disparaging,
tearing apart and dragging in the Freudian mud, it is especially
satisfying to be able to praise somebody warmly and sincerely.
Praising is good for the human psyche; it broadens and uplifts
the personality instead of cramping and embittering it. But
Humanism must qualify these statements by warning that the
human quest for absolute perfection in personality is as un-
realistic as the quest for tie absolutely perfect state or for
absolutes in truth.

Another way of humanizing traditional religious experience
is to interpret the sudden awakening or reform of a man,
allegedly due to some divine intervention or vision, in purely
naturalistic terms. I am not referring primarily to the fact that
some of the noted mystics have shown symptoms of epilepsy
or mental abnormality. What I want to stress is that normal
people, under the impact of a great intellectual, emotional or
spiritual experience, can indeed become "reborn" or "twice-
born** men. They can suddenly awake to some profound new
insight or adopt an entirely fresh way of life, so that actually
they do go through a kind of individual rebirth or resurrection
or revolution.

Such experiences are constantly taking place. It may be that
reading a great book, hearing a great speech, meeting a great
78

personality will provide the major stimulus; sometimes a radi-
cal improvement in health will be the dominant factor; or the
change may come as a result of cumulative influences no one of
which can be singled out as decisive. In any event Humanism
tries to weave into or reinterpret for its general outlook aU types
of experience, religious or otherwise, which can deepen modern
man's understanding and happiness.

79*

Three Humanist Readings

The Humanist philosophy or religion, like other great ways
of life, needs beautiful rituals and ceremonies, cast in the non-
supernaturalist Humanist pattern and intellectually accept-
able as well as aesthetically appealing. Humanist wedding and
funeral services have already been written; and Humanist
naming ceremonies are also available.

But there are other important occasions which likewise call
for Humanist treatment. And I have tried to work out three
readings whose general form may be useful for those of a
Humanist turn of mind. They appear on the following pages.

Dedication of a House

We thank all those whose thought and skill and labor went
into the planning and building of this fine new home of ours.

May this lovely house, with its lawns, its flowers and its
trees, ever be used to express and enhance beauty of love,
warmth of friendship, vigor of intellect and all other qualities
which deepen the joy of living.

May those who dwell in this beautiful place ever look be-
yond this family to society, beyond this home to America,
beyond this America to the world. And may they always strive
for the enrichment and ennoblement of human Me.

A Humanist Invocation for Thanksgiving

On this Thanksgiving Day we express deepest gratitude for
the many good things of life that this family shares:

For this plentiful food and drink;

For the beautiful children who grace our lives;

For our dear friends and relatives wherever they may be;

For this beloved home with its treasured associations;

For the health and happiness and laughter we have known
within these walls.

And we are grateful, too:

For earth and sky and sun;

For radiant colors and flowing waters; for singing bird and
billowing cloud;

For the restful night and its great gift of stars;

For our fellow-men who help to sustain us with their work
and who surround us with their warmth;

For good books, good music and good company.

In all these things and many more we rejoice today, and
with the hope that all families everywhere may enjoy an
abundant and happy life.

Christinas

We are celebrating today the birth of one who expressed
magnificently in word and deed the beauty of human love and
the ideal of human brotherhood. Jesus gave up his life to bring
peace on earth and good-will among men. A selfless martyr
for the cause of humanity, he displayed in his teachings and
actions a radically democratic spirit and a deep sense for the
fundamental equality of man; a fearless fighter for his vision
of the true and the good, he died on the cross in moral chal-
lenge to the established institutions and social iniquities of
his time.

In this era of crisis and the crumbling of moral ideals under
the impact of recurring economic tension and world war, we
find wisdom and inspiration in the ethical teachings of Jesus*
Thinking of his great and radiant personality, we rededicate
ourselves this day to the struggle for international peace and
understanding; for equality and freedom among all countries
and races; for a living democracy that penetrates every sphere
of human existence.

Christmas is a time for happiness and love and generosity
among families, among neighbors, among nations, among all
peoples of the earth. On this day, however dark the state of
the world may seem, we say: "Let all those who can feel joy
and give joy fling out their banners, flaunt them amid the grim
crises of these times, and defy with singing hearts the evils
of existence now and evermore.*' And let us recall the poet's
lines:

O happy earthy out of the blood of generations
Life yet will blossom innocent and wise;
And thou, my Planet, shalt be cleansed of lamentations
A jade-green star in the moon-silvered skies.

The Appreciation of Nature

THE SIMPLE ABILITY to appreciate the beauty and splendor of
external Nature is one of the most significant of all arts from tie
viewpoint of deepening men^ sensitivity and increasing their
enjoyment of existence. Such appreciation is an essential part
of any inclusive way of life deserving mankind's allegiance.
In the Humanist philosophy, a keen responsiveness to the
natural beauty of this earth and the universe beyond is par-
ticularly important. For since Humanism rejects belief in any
form of the supernatural, it encourages all the more man's sense
of oneness with the great and eternal Nature that is his home;
his feeling of kinship for all other animals and living creatures;
and his understanding of the intimate interrelations between
him and the cosmic matrix.

The advance of science and our machine civilization has
brought abundant new opportunities for the appreciation of
Nature, in such familiar ways as looking through a telescope
or a microscope and traveling quickly by railroad, steamship,
automobile or airplane to rare havens of enchantment near
and far throughout one's own country and the world. Para-
doxically, however, modern progress has at the same time
created fresh impediments to the awareness of natural beauty,
by leading to the over-concentration of population in cities
and to a daily atmosphere of strain and stress. Too often we
rush from place to place in our streamlined, space-conquering
84

speed-vehicles in such a hurry to arrive somewhere that we
hardly notice the loveliness of the landscape on the way.

The Humanist holds that constant awareness erf Nature's
pervasive patterns of beauty refreshes and enriches the per-
sonality; it is an aesthetic pleasure, a spiritual delight and a
simple, healthy form of recreation. In the world around us
there are an infinity of things for persons with alert senses to
experience and enjoy:

Ocean waves breaking white and foaming along a sandy
beach; a flowing river shimmering in the light of sun or moon;
a rainbow spanning with its arc a wide vista of hills; a cloud-
capped horizon radiantly colored at the close of day; the
star-studded Milky Way on a clear night; a panorama of lakes
and evergreens from a high mountain; the big swirling flakes
of a snowstorm; a hawk or seagull floating gracefully along
the breeze; the gentle swish of a canoe gliding through still
water; the reflection of trees in a quiet pond at any season;
rural churchbells ringing in the distance; sweet-scented violets
growing in a rock garden; the caressing feel of a hot sun or a
warm breeze; the fragrant, spiraling smoke from a bonfire of
autumn leaves.

Here in America we find, wherever we look, Nature's precious
heritage of beauty. We Americans are indeed blessed in our
innumerable rivers, lakes and bays; in our splendid mountains,
valleys and plateaus; in our extensive forests and plains and
rolling hills. No country on earth surpasses the United States
in variety and magnificence of scenery. I know at firsthand
many of the wonder spots of Europe-regions like the Swiss
Alps, the Russian Caucasus, the French Riviera, the Breton
coast, the Rhine valley, the Scotch highlands, the English
countryside and the Bay of Naples, They are all superb and
thrilling places, each possessing its own unique glory. Yet all
the natural splendors of Europe combined cannot outdo those
of America. And nothing in the entire world can equal our
far-flung system of National Parks, twenty-six in number, and
of National Nature Monuments, totaling thirty-eight. Most of

these Parks and Monuments are situated in the Far West; and
during the summer attract tens of thousands of tourists from
every section of the United States.

In July and August of 1948 my wife and I took our four
children on a holiday tour of the Far West to get them better
acquainted with their country and to show them some of
Nature's more impressive creations upon this continent. We
journeyed chieiy by automobile and so were able to* stop
almost at wffl to look at the strange and marvelous sights which
greeted us throughout our trip. Highlights of our ten thousand
miles erf travel and still treasured in our memorieswere the
many glorious days we spent in six outstanding National Parks:

Yellowstone, with its myriad wonders of geyser, waterfall,
river and gaily pigmented canyon; Grand Teton, with its steep
and pointed peaks, sentinels of the sky towering above the
plain; Glacier, with its incomparable formations of ice and
snow mid the rugged Rocky Mountains; Crater Lake, with its
colorful cliffs rising from the deep-blue waters that fill the
ruins of a huge volcano which blew its top ages ago; Yosemite,
with its giant-sculptured, pink-white granite domes, spires and
heights draped with the drifting spray of ribbon waterfalls;
and Grand Canyon, with its vast array of eroded rodk-and-
earthen turrets, ever changing in their brilliant colors, above
the ragptng Colorado River.

The appreciation of Nature, however, is not merely some-
thing for the summer months or vacations; in the Humanist
philosophy it is an art relevant to all the seasons and to daily
Me, and essential to maintaining a dose and vital relationship
with the natural universe. City-dwellers, even if unable to
escape into the country, can find rare beauty in the merging
of man's and Nature's handiwork, as when New Yorkers view
the George Washington Bridge against its background of water,
cUff and sky; or the Midtown skyline, day or night, from across
the lower part of Central Park Yet we cannot say that the
metropolitan millions of the twentieth century, or even the
rural millions, are altogether alive to the inexhaustible beauties

of their environment. This indicates a ladk a defect* in modern

living that tends to cut contemporary man off from one of the

most rewarding sorts of experience and to prevent Mm from
becoming a fully rounded human being at home in Ms worid.

The Palisades of the Hudson

THE PALISADES OF THE HUDSON, one of the most beautiful and
exciting tracts of land open to the public in America or the
whole world, offer unending opportunities for the appreciation
of Nature at its best. Although merely a stone's throw from
the millions of city-dwellers who make up Greater New York,
and easily accessible by bus or automobile, the Palisades still
remain comparatively neglected. At no time has popular use
of this great recreational preserve measured up to its possi-
bilities.

These magniBcent cliffs, with their ninety degree precipice,
stretch for almost thirteen miles along the Hudson River, from
just south of the George Washington Bridge to just north
of the New Jersey-New York State line. They constitute one of
the five main divisions of the Palisades Interstate Park. The
other four divisions are in New York State and run as far north
as Storm King Mountain. Most of the Palisades section itself
falls within New Jersey. A mile across the river from upper
Manhattan, this park, with its infinitely diverse terrain, gives
the dose-packed population of New York City an unexcelled
chance for the most varied outdoor pleasures, amid thrilling
surroundings and near to home.

Born and brought up as I was in Englewood, New Jersey
a mile down into the Hackensadk Valley from the summit of
the PaHsadesI have for over forty years walked with my
88

family throughout every portion of this park
I have never tired of roaming the district, from the heights
of Fort Lee, where Comwallis drove Washington into retreat
during the American Revolution, northward to the famous
Indian's Head cliff at the far end of the Palisades. These walks
have invariably revealed some fresh aspect of woodland charm,
of rocky structure and river grace.

Many New Yorkers have had their chief or only impression
of the Palisades by looking at them across the Hudson from
upper Riverside Drive or from points as far north as Dobbs
Ferry. Countless travelers on the New York Central, from the
train windows, have shared this panoramic view and have
caught glimpses of the grandeur of the great wall of rock. But
only one who has actually tramped the Palisades, who has
hiked along some spectacular section at top or bottom, or
clambered up the steep ravines and trails, can fully coine to
know the variety and wonder of this unrivaled segment of our
natural world.

Along the top of the Palisades, between the edge and Route
9-W (the main highway that parallels the river to the west),
there is a luxuriant forest strip, varying in width from a tenth to
a fourth of a mile. Following a narrow, pine^iarpeted path near
the brink of the cliff, you come every hundred yards or so
upon lovely natural lookouts, often half -hidden in the foliage.
These yield long, leisurely views up and down and across the
river, sometimes taking in the Bridge and the uptown skyline
of New York and on clear days reaching to the other side of
Long Island Sound.

Here, too, there are breathtaking moments as you peer over
the edge down four or five hundred feet to the water level
or admire, to left and right, the sheer drop of precipice and the
lofty stone columns that rise in many a strange and picturesque
shape from the base of the wall. Great oaks and pines rival
these columns in height, while lesser trees grow from every
possible crevice and at every conceivable angle. Even the
dead trees, losers in a plucky fight to survive, contribute to
the living beauty of the place. Grey, weatherbeaten, often gro~

tesque, they protrude from rocky ramparts like gargoyles

from a cathedral

Every lookout cx>mmands a different vista. Some jut out
compressed and pointed the prow of a ship; others afford
a wide shelf with soft grassy turf or satiny moss reaching almost
to the edge. All are places which tempt you to linger for hours,
alone or in company, watching the boats go by on the majestic
Hudson, the long trains glide past on the opposite shore, tibe
restless shift of light and shade on the river below and on the
distant hills.

No more appropriate spot could be found for a modem
Omar Khayy^in to take Ms ease than these quiet watch-towers
on the crest of the Palisades. Lying on your back you look up
at blue sky and white masses of clouds of every imaginable
shape. Behind you, the breeze stirs in the trees, making an
incomparable music of rustling leaves and swaying branches.
Birds call and the chirp of crickets adds a pleasant, lazy note.
A smell of primrose hangs upon the air; and the air itself, so
dear and pure on these heights, is good to breathe. It gives
you a sense of freedom and well-being.

Down on the river small sailboats tack against the wind
and canoes hug the Palisades shore. Busy motorboats leave
them behind, along with the long, slow barges, filled with grey
gravel or reddish stone, some pushed or pulled by puffing tug-
boats* others proceeding under their own power. The biggest
and fastest boats are the regular steamers, usually crowded
with sight-seeing passengers, on the Hudson River Day Line.
These set in motion a mighty, foaming wake and you can see
it fanning out from the center of the river all the way to the
western bank beneath you. At length, miniature waves break
vigorously upon the shore and their faint, familiar sound, remi-
niscent of summer by the sea, carries to your lookout on the
cME.

The bottom of the Palisades is just as fascinating as the top.
So are the slopes. At some point during your explorations you
will surely want to investigate one of tibe huge rock-piles that
extend far up from the waterfront These immense masses of
SO

boulders, one upon the other In profuse way-

splendor, are simply broken-off sections of the cliffs,
pried loose by erosion, sliding down day or night with a
mighty roar and overwhelming trees, underbrush and every-
thing else in their path. Some of these great landslides clearly
occurred in the distant past; others are more recent. One took
place opposite North Yonkers after a storm in 1938 and just
prior to the Munich Conference. It left a configuration of rock
distinctly resembling the face of Adolf Hitler!

For a distance of five miles north of the Yonkexs-Alpine
Ferry slip there lies perhaps the most superb stretch of this
entire Palisades. Along the top in this section are many of
the finest lookouts and views, as well as the cliffs' high point
of 530 feet (three miles above Alpine) where the main highway
sweeps out to the edge, If you walk about a quarter of a mile
north here and then look back, you can see the profile of a
hook-nosed Indian jutting out from the mountain wall. Still
further north you arrive at a small monument marking the
boundary between New Jersey and New York and find nearby a
beautiful path down to the river. This connects with the regu-
lar Hudson trail which goes north for half a mile to Sneden's
Landing, where Major Andre was brought in a boat on Ms
way to be tried at Tappan, N. Y.

The trail along the Hudson south of the state line leads
through the recent landslide (with Hitler's face above it) and
past other rock-piles of even greater size and interest. One
of these extends for a full half-mile along the base of the
Palisades; and through it winds the exciting section of the trafi
known as the Giant Stair. Looking up from the Giant Stair to
the towering precipice itself, rising sheer to its greatest height,
you get an overwhelming impression of Nature powerful and
awe-inspiring in its rugged might This is especially true in
winter when there is no foliage to soften the austere effect of
the cliff.

It is perfectly f easible to stay in the Palisades Park well into
the evening; and to build a fire and cook your supper some-
where along the river. From either the top or bottom of the

cliff you can watch the river soften and deepen in color as
the sun down and twilight its place. The sky gradu-

ally turns a blue velvet All along the New York shore and on
the slope behind, the lights come out, one by one at first and
then, as real darkness falls, in spreading clusters. If you are
somewhere near the George Washington Bridge at night, you
will see one of the finest sights along the Hudson, with this
great steel structure silhouetted against the river and its central
span outlined by electric bulbs.

Is there wild life in the Palisades region? Yes, plenty, though
mostly of the smaller species. Once, however, a few years ago
I saw three young deer in the woods near the state line; and
during the winter of 1945 there were instances of deer being
marooned on ice cakes floating down the river in this same
vicinity. Squirrels and rabbits and birds naturally abound in
the park. One of my favorite pastimes is to sit near the edge
of the cliff and watch a hawk or seagull coast along, seldom
flapping a wing, and wheeling, banking, smoothly gliding on
the currents and eddies of a vagrant wind. Butterflies, too,
yellow and blue and red, like to follow the contour of the cliff.

Occasionally in hot weather you may come across a snake,
almost invariably a harmless species like the black snake which
sometimes climbs a tree if it hears you approaching. Only a
few poisonous copperheads, richly colored like autumn leaves,
still inhabit this vicinity. In all my walks along the Palisades I
have met a copperhead but once. This was when I went on a
special copperhead hunt in the thirties, prying with a walk-
ing stick behind every likely rock and into every sunny glen.
I finally found one innocent copperhead sunning himself peace-
fully and in plain sight near the river; and I have always felt
a little conscious-stricken that I killed him as a trophy.

Until recently the entire range of cliffs has remained almost
as wild and unspoiled as during my boyhood. An important
step in preserving the Palisades area intact was John D. Rocke-
feller, Jr/s generous action in 1933 when he bought for $11,000,-
000 almost the entire strip of land along the top and presented
it to the Interstate Park. Unfortunately, in 1947 the New Jersey
95

legislatures backed by the Interstate Park Commission,
put a bill for the erection of a new Parkway

to ran northward from the George Washington Bridge through
this very strip,, between the edge of the cliffs and the present
Route 9-W.

This Parkway is not only unnecessary for automobile traffic*
since 9-W could have been adequately widened at a far lesser
expense; but also will do away with much of the wildness of
the section., slaughtering in a wide swath right and left the
natural growth of trees, shrubbery and flowers. It seems to me
one of the most foolish and wasteful boondoggles ever to be
perpetrated in this country, bringing doubtful benefit to
motorists and certain detriment to hikers, picnickers and
nature-lovers in general. Meanwhile, the top of the Palisades
is closed to the public while the Parkway is being constructed.

Nonetheless, the greater part of the Palisades* native love-
liness and splendor will remain essentially as built and em-
bellished by Nature throughout aeons of time. And we may be
assured that this incomparable park will continue to be a place
of refreshment and joy for lovers of beauty who come after us.

A Humanist View of Marriage

THE HUMANIST PHILOSOPHY advocates reliance upon reason as
tibe best method of solving human problems. It urges the use
of reason or intelligence not only in the broad spheres covered
by the natural and social sciences, but also in regard to pri-
marily personal difficulties and the formidable problems which
may arise in the day-to^-day living of individuals and families.
Unquestionably no field today needs the application of objec-
tive thinking and scientific method more than that of marriage
and sex relations in general. This critique attempts to bring
the light of reason to bear on some important aspects of the
marriage relationship.

The ordinary liberal attitude on the marriage question today
is well-known and is all right as far as it goes. It favors the
wise use of birth control, lenient divorce laws and scientifically
factual sex education for men and women as well as children.
It does not look on sexual enjoyment as a sin, but demands
the maintenance of definite standards of dignity in sex rela-
tions. It does not ostracize people who have been divorced, but
it regards divorce, as soon as there are children in the family,
as a step to be taken only as a last resort.

There is, however, one assumption that both liberals and
conservatives hold in common. That is the romantic proposi-
tion that somewhere in the world there is just the one man who
is exactly and eternally suited to the one woman who is wait-
94

ing for him for him alone. Certain

are supposed to show themselves when the
the one woman. Neither liberals nor conservatives claim that in
every case the one man always meets and marries the one
woman. Sometimes a mistake is made; the slgas are misread.
In such an eventuality the conservatives say in effect that they
are sorry but it was the fault of the parties concerned and
said parties must now see the matter through till death do them
part, amen!

The liberals say that they are sorry too, that to err is human,
and that they will give the parties concerned a second chance
if possible. But in this attitude the liberals do not question the
assumption that somewhere in the wide, wide world there
awaits everyone a single perfect mate. It is simply that in this
particular case a mistake has been made. The trouble was that
this man and this woman did not hunt far enough and long
enough. Let them separate, argues the liberal, and continue
the search.

Now it is our claim, which represents what may be called
the realistic attitude, that the assumption above described is
over-romantic and sentimental; and that it sets up a false and
impossible and undesirable ideal. What are the consequences
of the one-and-perf ect-mate theory? In tie first place, it teaches
the young a fairy tale in the place of reality. In a world of
more than two billion souls it is absurd to think that there is
only one man particularly suited for any one woman. All mar-
riages, successful as well as unsuccessful, are based partly on
chance meetings, on accidents of circumstance and asso-
ciation. A comparatively few married couples are so splendidly
matched that they seem to exemplify the one-and-perfeet
theory. But what proof is there that five, fifty or 100 other men
would not have been an equally suitable husband for this par-
ticular woman?

As a matter of fact, it is impossible to caU the vast majority
of couples excellently matched. The majority are obviously not;
though the majority are not what one would call an impossible
combination. But to return to the fairy tale: When the newly-

weds wake up and find are living, after all, on

and not in heaven, as had promised In the story

books, they become frightfully disillusioned and sad. That
grumpy and dishevelled man drinking coffee and making such
a mess of the morning paper is quite evidently not die one-
and-perfect mate. That complaining and touchy woman spill-
ing scrambled eggs down her shirt-waist is clearly not the
girl of all his dreams. The easy conclusion is that a mistake has
been made; and romantic disillusion leads to unromantie
divorce.

But suppose the newlyweds get along fairly well for a time,
all the while feeling pretty certain that they are one-and-
perfect mates for each other. In this case other consequences
reveal themselves. If you are a one-and-perfect mate for a
woman, then it is fairly obvious that she needs no other man
to make her happy. The perfect husband should be perfectly
sufficient And vice versa, so should the perfect wife. What
then occurs if such a husband or such a wife finds delight in
the company of some other woman or man and evinces a desire
to see a good deal of her or him? The result is only too likely to
be terrible jealousy on the part of the other partner in the mar-
riage. That partner, following out the implications of the one-
and-perfect theory, reasons that the mate no longer truly loves
said partner if that mate is interested in someone else of the
opposite sex. And the seeds of jealousy once planted, bring
in the tabloids for what wiH happen next!

But suppose again that both of the newlyweds remain abso-
lutely loyal to the one-and-perfect theory up to and far beyond
the time when they are no longer newlyweds. No matter "what
their inner feelings may have been all this while, they have
been faithful to their great ideal. Neither one of them has
ever contracted a close friendship with any member of the
other sex outside of their families. To many respectable moral-
ists such a marriage would be considered ideal and splendid.
To us it would seem essentially narrowing and boring, a high
price to pay for romanticism. The world is too rich in
personalities for married people to limit themselves in such
96

a way. Men do not have just one man friend and no more. Why
should they be compelled to have just one woman friend, their
wife, and BO more? And why should wives have to restrict
themselves to merely one man friend, namely their husband?
I submit that the one-and-perfect theory is an exceedingly
bad compass by which to steer IB marriage. The fact is and
everyone in his heart of hearts knows itthat many men and
women can and do love more than one member of the opposite
sex, not only at different times in a life cycle, but at the
time as well. The hearty and bountiful element in human nature
which makes this possible and true has been unfortunately
portrayed as something hideous rather than as a good and a
beauty to be cherished. Taking our cue from the exclusive and
selfish possessiveness that is the inevitable accompaniment of
the institution of private property, we have chosen to follow
a philosophy of selfishness in sex relations as elsewhere. Of
course during the larger part of history the wife has been con-
sidered as part of the private property of a man. It is only
natural that the wife has hit back by insisting that the husband
is likewise part of her private property. It is easy to see how
this feeling on the part of husband and wife has helped to
develop the one-and-perfect theory. Thus the economic system,
without by any means constituting a complete explanation, has
had an important reflex action on sex relations.

No one thinks of confining his attachments among those of
his own sex to one person. In the same way and for the same
reasons no one should try to limit his close friends among mem-
bers of the opposite sex to one person, his marriage partner.
Contact with varied personalities is one of the richest experi-
ences of life. It should not be narrowed because of a super-
stitious fear of sex. Far from ruining marriage, such contacts
outside of it should beautify and enrich it In most marriages
there is the clear and certain danger of getting bored with
your partner, not because the partner is intrinsically boring,
but because you are liable to get tired of anyone if you spend
too much time with him or her.

Undoubtedly most husbands and wives see altogether too

much of each other. The solution is not simply to spead every
evening calling together on the neighbors or having the neigh-
bors in; there should be occasions on which wife and husband
go off without each other, separately, to enjoy themselves as
they will and with whom they will. Roommates at college, for
instance, may like each other very much; but if they are at
all sensible, hey do not insist on being together every minute
of the time. That husbands and wives should do so, however,
is the accepted convention. And it is most questionable; for as
D. H. Lawrence writes:

Since you are confined in the orbit of me

do you not loathe the confinement?

fo not eoen the beauty and peace of an orbit

an intolerable prison to you,

as ft u to everybody?

Our insistence on bringing into the light of day some of the
usually neglected facts of human nature should not be inter-
preted as a plea for promiscuity, as a cynic's lament or as a
subjection of the ideal to the physical. We believe thoroughly
in the desirability and possibility of a beautiful and happy
married Me. And we believe that some attention to the ideas
we have been suggesting will help that ideal. Furthermore,
though we plainly do not subscribe to the one-and-perfect-mate
theory, we are decidedly of the opinion that some possible
mates are more perfect than others. That is, while favoring the
complete elimination of the impossible one-and-perfect-mate
ideal, we advocate that everyone thinking of marriage should
search hard to obtain as perfect a mate as possible and should
not marry at all unless a mate is found who measures up to
certain definite standards.

While each person must set up standards conformable to
his own particular personality, it is permissible to state with
some dogmatism that love which is to eventuate in marriage
should be based on something more than mere physical attrac-
tionthough physical attraction should always definitely be
98

present. Without taking away from manied love Its emotional
it is possible to give to intellectual and moral qualities
far more emphasis than they usually receive now in the process
of human pairing. The most obvious key to the intellectual and
moral qualities of people is the nature of their interests and
activities. In the happiest marriages husband and wife possess
a set of common interests; and those mutual interests should be
of a more serious sort than a Hieing for bridge, golf or movies.

Working for a common purpose or cause has even been a
great uniting force between human beings. And it serves the
same end in the home. That is why the appearance of children
on the scene so often transforms a failing marriage into a re-
markably successful one. But a mutual interest in children is not
enough in itself to keep a marital partnership functioning;
otherwise there would not be so many divorces in families
where there are children. Besides, some people are not able
to have children; and in any case the children are bound to
grow up. Hence there ought to be some uniting purpose be-
tween a husband and wife besides having and caring for
offspring.

To put the matter in its broadest terms, we would say that
they should have in common the same general philosophy of
life. It is easy to see that a militant atheist and a pious Catholic
could hardly live together in peace; and that a Communist
and a Republican supporter of General MacArthur would not
get along very amicably. Such examples represent opposite
extremes of life philosophies; less opposed philosophies would
result in less friction, but the principle involved would con-
tinue to work in any case. We do not mean at all that wife and
husband should agree about everything; it is simply that they
should agree sufficiently on basic principles to have faith in
each other and to believe in the worth-whileness of each other's
work. This same sort of understanding is necessary for any
real friendship; and surely one's partner in marriage should
be at least a friend, though, to be sure, he or she often is not
even that.

But when all has been said about common purposes and

interests, when all the best advice has been given about how
to the ideal love-mate, we know to what a great extent
pure emotion will rale in the adventure of falling in love; and
that even when some intelligence is used, it wiU not be in-
fallible in regard to this very difficult business. For instance,
people who seem just meant for each other at the age of twenty-
two may well have so changed by the age of thirty or thirty-five
that they are utterly unfit for each other. Conversely, misfit
newly weds may after ten or fifteen years grow into harmonious
partners. While it is impossible to generalize accurately as to
whether there is more growing together or growing apart after
marriage, it may be true that the most understanding and har-
monious love is the result of marriage rather than the prelude
to marriage.

Yet no matter how well fitted for each other husband and
wife may be, we maintain our proposition that both need and
should have abundant friendships from both sexes. No one
woman can possibly combine all the virtues that are character-
istic of women in general; no one man all the excellences of
men in general. Every sensitive and completely alive person
has something unique to give every other sensitive and com-
pletely alive person. It follows that for a man and woman to
be utterly self-sufficient unto their two selves., as demanded
by the one-and-perf ect theory, constitutes an unnecessary and
undesirable narrowing of experience. In personal relations as
much as anywhere else the old proverb holds true that variety
is the spice of life.

And for those friends of the other sex that one may have
outside of marriage the same kind of agreement on funda-
mentals would seem essential as in the wife-husband relation-
ship. In short, friendship for a member of the opposite sex
should be based, whether inside the marriage relation or out-
side, whether before or after marriage has taken place, on
moral and intellectual considerations as well as emotional. In
regard to personal contacts after marriage it has not always
been possible that they should be real friendships; and it is by
no means easy that they should be so even today. In the past the
100

wife has guarded pretty closely IB the it

not the custom for her to become very friendly with
outside of her home and clan. The husband, of course,
taken and had a great deal more freedom. Leaving his wife
at home to wear herself out and bore herself stiff with the
routine of housework and child care, he has gone a-roving.

The course we are advocating would abolish once and for
all the double standard. Likewise it would tend to diminish
restiveness and unfaithfulness on the part of both wife and
husband. The fact is that most married people would be much
better off, and would be better wives and husbands, if they felt
free to go out now and then, dancing, dining, going to the
theatre, walking or skating with gentlemen not their husbands
and ladies not their wives. But formerly there have been no
third persons with whom they could innocently talk, dine, or
dance. The only persons who would do even these things were
men and women of easy virtue who were expected to do a gpreat
deal more.

It is obvious that our idea of marriage is not really very
radical. For it constitutes the formulation of a situation already
existing on a wide scale, and among the most intelligent and
finest people. Many of those, however, who actually practice
the theory of marriage presented here do not consciously under-
stand the implications of that theory and the extent to which
it discards traditional assumptions. It is especially to women
that the theory in question ought to appeal. For women are
more and more rebellious, and should be, against the old state
of affairs in which men monopolized all the most interesting,
exciting and broadening experiences in life. Woman's place,
like man's, is partly in the home, but that is not the only place
where she has a right to be.

Her near-enslavement to the repetitious tasks of cleaning,
cooking, shopping and the nursery is not one of the good old
customs which we wish to see continued. Though a minority
of women in every country have never been exploited in this
way, a majority of the female sex at all times and in all lands
have been. Economic causes have contributed very largely to

101

the recent revolt of women la the Western World; but the
psychological causes have also been important. That is, womea
have been more and more insistent on the opportunity to lead
a richer and feller life than that involved in the recurring and
ever-identical circle of home duties. The same psychological
and marital factors which make it desirable that women should
have broad contacts with persons outside the home make it
desirable that they should have broad contacts with tMngs
activities and interestsoutside the home. The fear that such a
course will have a bad effect on the children is baseless. The
truth is just the other way around. A dull, uninteresting, intel-
lectually suppressed mother is just as bad for the children
as for the husband.

Only in a radically transformed society will marriage and
the home be able to reach their finest flower. For what is re-
quired is that all children be ensured decent health and educa-
tional facilities; that all mothers, before and after the birth
of children, be ensured proper care; that mothers and wives be
relieved of most of the drudgery of household work; that both
parents, working no more than five hours a day in a five-day
week, have plenty of time to see their children; that the choos-
ing of marriage partners be based solely on natural affinities
and never on financial affluence; and that the one-and-perfect-
mate theory be eliminated through the spread of intelligence
and honesty in sex. relations. These various improvements de-
mand a very different sort of world from the one we live im
at present.

102

A Summing Up of Humanism

UNQUESTIONABLY what most distinguishes the modem em
from all past eras in human history is the development and
extension of experimental science over the last 400 years. Sci-
ence and scientific method have enormously extended the
boundaries of knowledge and have given to twentieth-century
man unprecedented powers for both good and evil. Unfor-
tunately, the philosophic and ethical growth of modern man
has not kept pace with the rapid evolution of science.

We can gain some understanding of the enormous changes
wrought by modem science by looking at its impact in various
specific fields.

1. Astronomy. The pre-scientific view was that of a neigh-
borly bandbox universe, created quite recently by the Almighty,
in which the earth was the center of things with the sun and
other stars revolving around it. Copernicus, Galileo and their
successors utterly reversed this conception and showed that
the earth revolves around the sun; that the sun is just a minor
star toward the edge of the great galaxy we know as the Milky
Way; that this galaxy is but one of millions and perhaps billions
of immense star clusters or nebulae scattered throughout a
cosmos of stupendous dimensions; and that galaxies, stars, the
sun and the earth itself are the results of an evolutionary process
lasting over billions of years.

2. Physics. The pre-scientific view was that matter was

103

a base, inert and uncreative thing. Modern physics has proved,
however, that matter In its every manifestation is made up of
unceasingly active units of restless energy. It is a dynamic
substance full of complexity,, versatility and potentiality, as
atomic research has demonstrated more and more in recent
times* And we can no longer consider it mysterious that life
and finally human beings should have arisen out of such alto-
gether remarkable stuff.

3. Biology. The pre-scientific view, and the orthodox Chris-
tian conception until the second half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, was that a supernatural God brought into being all the
myriad forms of life upon this planet through a great magnani-
mous act of miraculous creation. Modem biology, with Charles
Darwin as its outstanding figure, has demonstrated that man
and all the higher species have evolved over aeons of time from
lower forms of Me; and that the relatively greater complexity
of the brain, and especially the cerebral cortex, in man has led
to the incomparable faculty of human thought

4. Psychology. The pre-scientific view, still widely held
today, was that man is a dualistic compound of physical organ-
ism and some sort of supernatural soul, including the mind,
that entered the body at the moment of conception. The science
of psychology has found increasing evidence that the human
being is an inseparable unity of body on the one hand and per-
sonality (soul) and mind on the other. The personality and
mind are functions of a physical organism of prodigious intri-
cacy, its multitudinous parts adjusted to one another to the last
degree of nicety and its billions upon billions of cells normally
working together in perfect harmony. The old concept of a
soul divinely created out of nothing is completely unnecessary
and superfluous for an explanation of the marvelous powers
and accomplishments of the human mind-body in action.

5. Medicine. Relics of the pre-scientific era remained in
the discipline of medicine for a long time. Well into the nine-
teenth century it was commonly accepted that insanity and
hysteria were caused by devils and demons entering into the
human frame. The science of medicine today has banished all
104

conceptions of Intervening supernatural It

broken away from traditional religious controls that
prevented the use of anaesthetics or the practice of dissection
on the vague ground that they were contrary to the will of God.

6. Machine techniques. The pie-scientific era could hardly
conceive of a life of abundance for the masses of the people
because the necessary instrumentalities of economic production
and distribution did not exist. With the advance of science, a
multitude of labor-saving inventions and intricate machines
came into being and changed the face of the globe. Today
mankind possesses the scientific and mechanical means of cre-
ating a relatively high standard of living for every nation,

7. Method of solving problems. In the pre-scientific era
most laymen and philosophers relied upon such methods as
revelation, authority, intuition, prayer, divination or magic for
the solution of individual and group problems. These pro-
cedures were obviously inadequate and untrustworthy. Now
the most important thing of all that modern science has brought
to mankind is a reliable method of discovering truths: the
method of painstakingly checking up on any idea or hypothesis
by experiment and verification. This is modern scientific
method.

8. Social Sciences. Since the pre-scientific era, modern sci-
entific method has attained its most notable successes in the
natural sciences. It has not yet reached adequate precision and
objectivity in the social sciences. The greatest need of the
present critical period in human affairs is to carry over scientific
attitudes and methods into the social sciences of economics,
government, sociology and international relations. The lag be-
tween the natural and social sciences, and in the application
of intelligence and scientific method to social problems, is
dramatically revealed by mankind's failure to control ade-
quately the atomic energy which the advance of nuclear
physics has made available.

As human civilization becomes more and more mature, it
discards philosophic and religious myths which may have

105

been of some use In the childhood of the race but which can
no longer be accepted by informed and intelligent persons.
Those who have vested emotional, ideological or economic
interests IB outworn Ideas naturally resist the social
process which is essential to human growth and progress.

Happiness and progress, for the individual and society, are
dependant upon the courage and intelligence which human
beings demonstrate in continuously adjusting themselves to
changing conditions and making use of the growing stores of
knowledge and new scientific techniques. Millions of Ameri-
cans fall short here because, while utilizing constantly the
complicated machines and technological devices which science
has made possible, they refuse to apply real scientific method
to their daily existence and to the formidable social and inter-
national problems that face them.

At the same time they fail to bring their philosophy or reli-
gion up to date by making it consistent all the way through
with scientific fact and method. Yet they cannot give assent to
the old beliefs based on pre-scientific concepts. So it is that
multitudes of people, having lost the faith of their forebears,
today look about in bewilderment and yet in hope for an
intellectual key to the myriad confusions and problems of the
present world. Humanism provides an adequate key for these
problems and satisfies the philosophic needs of today.

1. The mature man of today needs a dear and consistent
view of the universe, of human nature and of society; an in-
clusive and unified philosophy or way of life which, like the
great religions of the past, will integrate his personality around
a great social aim.

Humanism offers such a philosophy. It fuses into a compel-
ling and consistent whole the chief elements of philosophic,
religious and scientific truth in the past and present and dedi-
cates itself to the attainment of the good life and the good soci-
ety. It is a dynamic, developing, democratic philosophy advo-
cating the methods of intelligence and social cooperation for
106

attaining its ultimate goal of joyous earthly for the

entire human race, present and future.

2* The mature man of today needs a philosophy which lie
can accept intellectually and which is in complete confbnnity
with the facts and principles of science. Furthermore, it must
be a philosophy which weaves together the relevant materials
from the major branches of science and constructs a broad
over-arching synthesis which is understandable by the average
person.

Humanism is such a philosophy. It draws constantly on both
the natural sciences and the social sciences, as well as on reli-
gion, art and literature. And while never closing the door to
fresh knowledge, it has dared to construct a comprehensive
philosophical system. Moreover, the chief points of Humanism
can be simply phrased and are by no means difficult to
understand.

3. The mature man of today needs a philosophy which has
grown beyond the outworn beliefs in supernatural beings
and forces that supposedly control the course of Nature and the
destiny of humanity; beyond the naive faith in Gods who inter-
fere by means of miracles in the cause-effect sequences of
natural law or who provide some sort of cosmic guarantee for
the ultimate triumph of man and his values.

Humanism is such a philosophy. It believes in a naturalistic
cosmology or metaphysics or attitude toward the universe that
regards the supernatural as totally non-existent, and material
Nature as the sufficient, satisfactory and many-mansioned domi-
cile of aU events, creatures, minds, earths, stars, galaxies. There
is no room in this picture for a Divine Providence.

4. The mature man of today needs a philosophy which f orth-
rightly repudiates the otherworldliness of the past that set up
salvation in a realm beyond the grave as the chief end of
human life and called upon men to deny many of their most
wholesome impulses and potentialities in order to keep their
souls pure and undefiled for existence after death.

Humanism presents such a philosophy. Drawing especially
upon the facts of science, it believes that man is an evolu-

107

tlonaiy product of the Nature of which he is part and

that he is an inseparable unity of body and personality having
no personal immortality. It claims that human thinking is as
natural as walking or breathing and is indivisibly conjoined
with the functioning of the brain. Humanism insists that the
true good of man is a greater and greater enj'oyment of happi-
ness and beauty during the only life he has.

5. The mature man of today needs a philosophy which no
longer relies on prayer to an Almighty or on revelation from
some supernatural source for the solution of human problems.
He requires a true and tested method of problem-solving which
is thoroughly objective in its approach and can be applied
fruitfully to every field of human endeavor.

Humanism includes such a method, the method of reason
and modern science that has already so enormously enlarged
mankind's range of knowledge and control over the external
world. Humanism believes that this method gives man the
power or potentiality of solving his own problems. Literally
infinite are the possible achievements of human intelligence
working on behalf of both the individual and society.

6. The mature man of today needs a philosophy which, while
recognizing fully the role of natural law upon this earth and
throughout the universe, does not go to the extreme of contend-
ing that the existence of universal causality takes away from
human beings their freedom of choice*

Humanism offers such a philosophy. It believes, contrary
to all theories of universal predestination, determinism or
fatalism, that human beings possess true freedom of creative
action and are, within reasonable limits, the masters of their
own destiny. The human mind enables men to stand aside
temporarily from the flux of existence, to reflect upon different
possibilities of action and to make genuine decisions where
significant alternatives exist.

7. The mature man of today needs a philosophy which is
fully awake to the myriad forms of beauty and stimulates the
individual both to create and enjoy art and literature.

Humanism responds to this need by helping to make the
108

experience a pervasive reality in the Me of It

believes that this experience properly includes the apprecia-
tion of external Nature in all its beauty and magnificence and
wonder. The Humanist attitude leads to a feeling of kinship
with all living things^ with this earth and with the universe
beyond.

8. The mature man of today needs a philosophy which, while
rejecting any moral system based on supematuralistic stand-
ards and hopes, presents an ethics inclusive of the highest ideals
of past and present and one that continually grows in the light
of new experience and knowledge. This ethics must also make
provision for the emotional life of men and for their psycho-
logical security.

Humanism fulfils this need by setting up as the supreme
ethical loyalty the this-worldly happiness, freedom and progress
economic, cultural and spiritual of all mankind., irrespective
of nation, race or religion. It embodies in its synthesis the
relevant ethical teachings of great religious teachers like Jesus
and Confucius. And it declares that human beings cooperating
loyally together for common ends can feel a mutual warmth
and solidarity that will stand them in good stead in the in-
evitable crises of living.

Humanism insists, furthermore, that each individual, in
establishing his ethical standards and working out ethical prob-
lems, should not only exercise social sympathy and altruism,
but also should follow strictly the method of intelligence. For
Humanism, neither the good heart nor the keen mind is in
itself enough; good heart and keen mind must always function
together for the attainment of the best.

9. The mature man. of today needs a philosophy which offers
a concrete prospectus for the achievement of human welfare
on behalf of the individual, the nation and mankind.

Humanism provides such a philosophy. It believes in the
permanent abolition of all war, international and civil, of all
violence among men; and the extension of democracy and the
basic human rights throughout the globe, on the foundation of
a flourishing and cooperative economic order extending to all

JOS

nations. It is convinced that the greater use of reason and scien-
tific method in public affairs entails a much larger degree of
social-economic planning; and on the international scene, of
course, much closer cooperation between governments and
peoples in such organizations as the United Nations. Humanism
considers that in this twentieth-century world resort to violence
for the settlement of disputes either within a nation or between
nations constitutes a failure of both intelligence and morality.

10. The mature man of today, while willing to strike out
on bold new paths, prefers a philosophy with some tradition
behind it and one that can summon some of the illustrious
minds of the past in its support.

Humanism is such a philosophy, although few apparently
realize this point Since the philosophies of Naturalism and
Materialism are closely akin to Humanism in their general out-
look, we can consider their adherents as coming within the
Humanist tradition. So it is that in this tradition we roughly
include great Naturalists such as Aristotle in ancient Greece,
Spinoza in seventeenth-century Europe, and John Dewey in
twentieth-century America; and great Materialists such as
Democritus in ancient Greece, Lucretius in ancient Rome,
Diderot in the French Enlightenment and George Santayana
in contemporary thought. A number of eminent poets, novelists
and dramatists have also made signal contributions to the
Humanist viewpoint. Humanism, then, possesses one of the most
vital and impressive traditions in the history of philosophy.

The preceding ten points constitute a brief, compact sum-
mary of the philosophy of naturalistic and scientific Humanism.
This philosophy, or religion, as some choose to call it, enables
the mature man of today to face the contemporary world with
intellectual integrity and spiritual assurance; to enjoy whole-
heartedly aH the sweetness of living, all the simple pleasures
of daily existence, all the manifold experiences that art and
culture and science bring; and at the same time to give gener-
ously of himself on behalf of the ongoing progress of his com-
munity, his country and aH humanity.
110

III/INTERJVATIONAL RELATIONS

Wars Are Not Inevitable

INCREASINGLY since the Korean crisis began in the summer of
1950 I have heard the solemn head-shakers say: **War with
Russia is inevitable now. It's only a matter of time.'* This
fatalistic psychology I would almost say psychosis is wide-
spread at present among persons of the most varying political
views. It is current among rightists, centrists, liberals, leftists >
internationalists, isolationists, militarists and even professional
workers for peace.

Prophets of doom always have an appeal to those whose
general attitude toward life is one of pessimism. The Gas-
sandras can count, too, on a certain predilection for the dra-
matic among men and therefore gain some adherents because
the prospect of war is more exciting than that of peace. Also
they win support because they have a definite and dogmatic
answer to the excruciating question of whether we are to have
war or peace; they end the suspense over this issue by saying,
*Tes, it is surely war/* They fan the feeling, "Well, if it's bound
to come, let's get it over with." Finally, those who predict
certain conflict provide a means of rationalization for the tired
men and the sagging women who, overcome by the unceasing
pressures of these times, are ready to give up the fight for peace

111

and conform to what they think is the prevailing pattern of
public opinion and of governmental action.

So it is that the idea of the inevitability of war provides an
excuse for political inertia, for intellectual laziness, for de-
featism. And it gives aid and comfort to the irresponsible
reactionary groups in America who will indeed push the
country into a third world war if they can. Those today who
preach the inevitability of the threatening atom-bomb holo-
caust and those who surrender to this horrible thought are
morally bankrupt. For the American people in general and
progressives in particular there can be no admission that a
global war is unavoidable until the chief governments have
actually made declarations of war and until direct, armed hos-
tilities among them have broken out. Even when Hitler invaded
Poland in September of 1939 a general war was not inevitable,
since it was not a foregone conclusion that France and England,
having foresaken Czechoslovakia a year earlier, would stand
by their commitments.

To apply any theory of inevitability to economic, political,
social and international affairs is a most questionable procedure.
Even in the natural sciences such as astronomy, physics and
biology, modern scientists rarely talk of "inevitability," since
they tend to regard scientific laws only as very, very probable
rather than as expressing absolute certainty. If this is true of
the natural sciences, it is all the more pertinent for the far
less exact social sciences in which scientific method has cer-
tainly not arrived at comparable precision.

The infinitely complex factors operative in the realm of na-
tional politics and international relationsfactors that cannot
usually be isolated in a laboratory for study and analysis
immensely complicate the task of formulating reliable scientific
laws in these fields. Social scientists are making progress, but
they have a long way yet to go. There are many different trains
of cause and effect which combine to bring about an interna-
tional war. Regarding war, peace and international relations we
can at present discern general trends and probabilities, but this
is a far cry from establishing inevitabilities.

In the twentieth century the growing in

on an interpretation of history has encouraged, with-

adequate warrant in my opinion, deterministic interprets-
of public affairs. In granting that economic forces and
relationships, including the class struggle, are in the long run
and the last analysis the most important factors in the objective
explanation of politics, national and international, we do not
need to rule out other factors or to depend on any concept of
inevitability.

Among others, the Marxists and Communists have tossed
around the idea of inevitability in a pretty loose manner. They
still claim, for instance, that, in the words of Karl Marx, the fall
of the bourgeoisie and "the victory of the proletariat are equally
inevitable." Marx's statement can be interpreted as being pri-
marily hortatory in the sense of cheering the working class on.
And many a leader in the political and military spheres, like a
coach or captain in the realm of sports, has stressed the slogan
**We are bound to win** in an attempt to boost morale.

To rely literally, however, upon any such predictions of In-
evitability is to fall back on the old religious psychology of
assuming an advance guarantee of success. Whether a prophecy
of inevitability is optimistic, as in Marxist theory, or pessimistic,
as in the current forecasts of a new world war, it is unacceptable
to the scientific mind and may cut the nerve of effective action
for those who take it seriously. Whaf s the use of working and
striving either against or for some end when the final outcome
is already predetermined in the drift of history or in the mind
of God?

The true freedom of men consists in their utilizing to the
utmost their own intelligence, ability and cooperative efforts
to overcome existing evils and to establish an environment more
productive of the good individual, the good nation and the good
world. In this unceasing task neither peace nor war, neither
socialism nor capitalism, neither progress nor retrogression is
inevitable. Man possesses the power of fashioning for better or
for worse Ms own career in a future that remains open.

113

Common Sense and
Soviet Russia

Two KEQENT newspaper dispatches from the Soviet Union well
illustrate, it seems to me, the unrealistic attitude of American
public opinion toward that country. The first story, cabled by
the Associated Press, was published in the New Yorfc Herald
Tribune of Dec. 29, 1950. It tells us: "Russia's centuries-old
dream of a "waterway linking the great Volga and Don rivers is
to be realized in 1951 with the completion two years ahead
of schedule of a sMy-mile canal, the Soviet Government an-
nounced today. The huge waterway, begun before World War
II, will provide Russian ships with a lane between the Black
Sea and the Caspian, Baltic and White Seasan idea first
cherished by Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century.'*
The second dispatch, written by Harrison E. Salisbury, the
Moscow correspondent of The New York Times, appeared on
page 49 of that newspaper on Jan. 3, 1951. It states in part:
*The year 1950 marked the attainment by the Soviet Union of
the highest level of industrial production in its history, sub-
sjtantiaHy surpassing the goals of the Fourth Five-Year Plan and
laying the basis for considerably greater expansion in the Fifth
Five-Year Plan, which begins this year. Soviet industrial pro-
duction is now running at a level more than 70 percent above
that of 1940, and goals in virtually aU categories have been
114

by rather wide margins. The of this grow-

ing industrial might are readily visible to anyone who saw the
Soviet Union during the war years, and it has
into a comparative abundance of consumer goods.**

These two calmly factual stories in the Tribune Times
show, first, that despite the terrific barrage of anti-Soviet propa-
ganda to the effect that the Russians are cursed by a failing
economic system, the planned economy of the U.SJS.R. con-
tinues to make notable advances, If we link up the Tribune-
Times reports with the generally adverse impression which
American public opinion holds concerning the Soviet Union,
we arrive at the following remarkable proposition: The Soviet
economic system is so horribly inefficient, the Soviet worker so
unproductive and the whole Soviet people so lacking in incen-
tive that Soviet Russia, in spite of the crippling ravages of the
Second World War, has already reached a level of industrial
production far higher than that of the last pre-war year, is weH
ahead of schedule in certain important goals of socialist con-
struction and has become, next to the United States, the most
formidable power economically in the world.

The two dispatches from which I have quoted demonstrate,
second, that notwithstanding aU the hue and cry over Soviet
concentration on plans for war and aggression, the Soviet Gov-
ernment and people are pushing steadily forward with great
peaceful projects directed toward expanding their economy and
raising the standard of living of the entire population. While
it is true that economic development is important for a war
effort, the long-range Five-Year Plans and even a Fifteen-Year
Plan which Soviet Russia has been undertaking to fulfil cer-
tainly give the impression that the nation is not contemplating
the initiation of any world war in the foreseeable future. Al-
though the U.S.SJEL is naturally aware of international tensions,
the prevailing atmosphere there seems to be not one of war
fears and hysteria, but of primary attention to the continuance
of peaceful socialist achievement throughout a territory larger
in size than all North and Central America,

The reports I have cited indicate, third, that despite all the

115

talk about an Iron Curtain cutting off all reliable information
from the Soviet Union, a good deal of valuable factual material
does come through and Is available for those who are inter-
ested. Yet I hazard the opinion that the vast majority of New
York Times readers never got as far as the Salisbury summary
of January 3* And how many of even our specialized news
analysts, columnists, editorial writers, radio commentators and
students of international affairs know that there is issued each
week in New York City by a committee of experts The Current
Digest of the Soviet Press, which translates and prints in full,
or condenses, the more important articles and news items from
over forty of the leading Soviet newspapers and magazines?

Fourth, the Tribune-Times dispatches make clear that, con-
trary to the official line of the American Government and of
ninety percent of the American press, the Soviet Union is
not just one bottomless pit of poverty, misery and iniquity,
but from an economic standpoint, at least, has some genuine
achievements to its credit. The propaganda demands of the
cold war have led American opinion-makers in general to
paint practically everything Soviet in the blackest hue imagin-
able. This extreme and unrealistic view is of course directly
apposite from the equally one-sided position that the Soviet
Russians have already attained some sort of this-worldly para-
dise.

It also has a counterpart in the false and exaggerated picture
which the Soviet Russians in general have of the United States.
In the Soviet Union the anti-American group, which at present
is almost everybody, looks upon the United States with much
the same abhorrence and hostility with which the anti-Soviet
Americans regard the U.S.S.R. Soviet writers condemn Amer-
ican life in sweeping terms and constantly play up the more
unsavory aspects of our culture. Although the Soviet press is
certainly not guilty of the war-mongering and atom-bomb
threats so characteristic of American newspapers, it cannot be
outdone in the hurling of invective at those it considers the
enemies of its country. It would be well if both sides in the
cold war came to the realization that the worst way to arrive
116

at a peaceful settlement is continually to with

you must negotiate.

Unthinking, highly emotional attitudes in the United States
towards the Soviet Union did not originate with the current
post-war crisis in American-Soviet relations. They came into
being on the very day in November, 1917* when the Soviet
Republic was born; and have played a leading role ever since
in the unceasing debate about the U.S.S.R. Fear and hate
combined with ignorance and misrepresentation have always
been dominant currents in American public opinion regarding
Soviet Russia. "Never have so many known so little about so
much 9 * is the way one observer a few years ago tellingly
summed up American understanding of the Soviet Union.

Now that objective study of Soviet affaire which is so ex-
ceedingly important for our generation demands, like the study
of any other subject, reliance on the method of reason in seek-
ing out the facts and reaching dependable conclusions. Reason
or intelligence not only strives diligently to distinguish the true
from the false, but also demands a comprehensive ecoEuafion,
especially when such a vast, complex: and populous country as
Soviet Russia is concerned. Those who are truly pursuing the
method of intelligence remain cool on hot issues. In regard to
the controversial topic of the U.S.S.R. they will not follow the
all too common practice of regarding those who disagree with
them as scoundrels and liars. And they wiU try to get away
from the prevalent habit of thinking of the Soviet Union in
terms of either all black or all white.

The fanatical Russia-haters maintain that the Soviet Union
is a veritable hell on earth, the most monstrous tyranny in his-
tory and the source of all evil in international affairs. They
treat it as a convenient scapegoat for the collective sins of
mankind and in effect assign to it the role of the old-time Chris-
tian devil. The passionate Russia-lovers go equally far in the
other direction and maintain that the U.S.S.R. has achieved a
species of Utopia inhabited by supermen who are beyond all
error. Overlooking the many and serious shortcomings of the
new Soviet civilization, they are indeed more Russian than the

117

Russians, who, particularly in the Soviet press, are often very
critical of living conditions., administrative inefficiencies and
bungling bureaucrats.

The intelligent and common-sense approach does not fall
into either of these extremes. The obvious truth is that Soviet
Russia, Kke the United States, Great Britain or Sweden, is a
mixture of good and bad, of noteworthy accomplishments and
distressing failures and a sincere striving for future betterment
The U.S.S.R. is an enormous country of continental dimensions
with an immense, multi-national population and multitudinous
aspects of economic and social development Yet numberless
Americans have gone to the Soviet Union and apparently seen
nothing but the bad points of the socialist system in process
of evolution there. They then return to the United States and
write exaggerated books or articles that present an altogether
negative picture of Soviet Russia. Of course some, even many,
of their observations may be factually true, but they neglect
entirely the positive side of Soviet life.

On the other hand, there are Americans who seemingly have
an eye only for the good points of the Soviet Union, and who
talk as if the Russians had already achieved the long-sought
heaven-on-earth of human hopes and ideals. These peddlers of
millennium dope, of Utopia opium for the people, build up all
manner of false and idle expectations. But any kind of realistic
study of conditions in the U.S.S.R. quickly exposes these pre-
tensions and makes dear that existence in the Soviet Union
is still rather difficult, that living standards are quite low and
that the Communists are a tough-minded group of revolution-
aries hard on both themselves and others. One frequent result
is that the paradises-seekers become terribly disillusioned and
forthwith take a bitter, anti-Soviet attitude.

It seems to me that the way to avoid the extremes I have
been describing is to take a middle-of-the-road position which
gives honest consideration to both the defects and virtues of
Soviet Russia. For instance it is plain that the Soviet Union lags
lamentably behind the United States in the development of
civil liberty and political democracy, notwithstanding grave
J18

shortcomings and backslidings 10 At the

time the Soviet Russians have forged far ahead of Amer-
ica in the establishment of ethnic equality aad racial democracy
among the more than ISO different minority nationalities and
races that live within the far-flung Soviet domain. It would be
possible to make a number of other comparisons between
American and Soviet life, some of them favorable to the ILS.A*,
some of them favorable to the U.S.S.R.

It is folly, then, to be either completely condemnatory of
Soviet civilization or completely uncritical of it. Specific criti-
cisms of Soviet institutions and policies are more than often
Justified; what I object to are general obsessions about Soviet
Russia resulting in denunciation of practically everything
Soviet and an automatic finding that the U.S.S.R. is always
wrong. (And I object equally to Soviet obsessions about the
United States. ) In the field of international relations the blame-
it-on-Russia habit overlooks, among other things, that large
portions of Europe and Asia are still in the throes of recovering
from history's most destructive war, brought about by Fascist
aggression; and that many peoples, trying their best to recon-
struct their economies and to remedy ills ruinous in the past,
have shown a leftward trend which in some degree or other
would have taken place with or without the stimulus of Soviet
socialism. Socialist developments in Great Britain under the
anti-Communist Labor Government lend support to this point.

The method of reason that I am suggesting for the analysis of
Soviet Russia gets away from the fanaticism of both the Russo-
phobes and the Russo-philes. It weighs objectively the pros
and cons in the never-ending controversy concerning the
Soviet Union. It attempts to assess both the achievements and
failures of Soviet policy, foreign and domestic. It seeks the
whole truth and not just a segment of it In short, this approach
calls for a discriminating over-all view of Soviet civilization
that endeavors to draw up a thorough and honest balance
sheet of both the credits and debits of the Soviet ledger. In that
balance sheet I believe that so far the good vastly outweighs
the bad.

119

The Myth of a National
Emergency

NOTHING for a long time has so appalled me as the pictures
that have appeared in the newspapers showing six- and seven-
year-old school children huddling under their desks in an air
raid drill for a supposed atom-bomb attack. I cannot believe
that the danger of an all-out war is either so clear or so present
as to justify such an extravagant performance, stirring up pro-
found fears and anxieties in many of these youngsters and in
the public at large.

The government officials who have been instigating and en-
couraging these air raid drills in American schools have either
fallen victim to their own propaganda that there is imminent
danger of a powerful enemy launching bombing attacks on
New York and other American cities; or they are consciously
trying to build up further a nation-wide nightmare psychology.

Historically and in their fundamental attitudes today the
American people are peace-loving and non-militaristic. Two
world wars within the space of two generations have been more
than enough for them.

It is clear, then* that only the most constant and extreme
conditioning can overcome their basic longing for peace and
make acceptable to them the new role of the United States as
the blustering atom-bomb swaggerer of the West. Unfortu-
120

the and their Communist

Into the hands of the more at

Washington and given a helpful stimulus to our budding Amer-
militarism.

IE the daily propaganda which American government lead-
ers, newspapers and radio networks Inflict upon the minds of
our people, the function of the myth is of enormous import-
ance. Primitive Man in his tribal society was constantly threat-
ened by the overpowering forces of Nature and tried to regulate
or appease them by prayers and sacrifices to a vast range of
mythical gods and supernatural beings. With the advance of
civilization and especially with the rise of science in modem
times, men came to believe less and less in the old seper-
naturalist myths. But frequently they substituted new myths
dealing with this-earthly affairs; in this sense if you delve deep
into the consciousness of the modern educated person, you
may well find Primitive Man lurking there. A brilliant fellow-
philosopher of mine, Professor Barrows Dunham, some years
ago published a book, Man againsi Myth y analyzing some of
the most influential social and political superstitions of the
twentieth century. A number of these, he pointed out, flourish
in contemporary America.

Today in the United States we are being asked to believe in
the myth of a great national emergency, the myth of pending
Soviet military aggression and the myth of "the free world**
combating Communist tyranny. We have a national emergency,
it is claimed, because of the terrible threat which the Soviet
Union and the Communist bloc constitute to the security of our
nation or to the security of nations essential to our defense.
From where I sit I can find neither the threat nor the emer-
gency. In the seesaw war up and down the Korean peninsula
American combat troops fought bravely for over a year; but
Korea is more than 5,000 miles from our Pacific coast. The
Korean and Chinese Communists have made no threat to in-
vade or bomb the territory of continental United States, of
Hawaii, of the Philippine Islands or of Japan. And in Europe
neither Soviet Russia nor its Eastern European allies have made

121

any military move that can be considered a menace to America
or to any European state.

If during the past year of repeated crises and bitter recrimi-
nations among the Great Powers of aggression, intervention
and wholesale destruction in Korea- a general war did not
break out, there is no good reason to believe that it will do so
in the near future. One of the most explosive situations in the
history of modern times, an armed conflict involving directly
or Indirectly most of the governments of the earth, was local-
ized so far as military hostilities are concerned. And this oc-
curred despite the repeated attempts of General Douglas Mao-
Arthur, the U.S. and U.N. Commander in Korea, to extend
the war.

All believers in peace must be grateful for the restraining
influence which the British Commonwealth of Nations, espe-
cially, has been exercising on the American Government in re-
lation to the Far East. Whatever their sins in domestic and
foreign affairs, India in Asia and England in Europe have been
acting as a brake on the careening speedmobile of American
foreign policy. British public opinion has approached una-
nimity in condemning America's exclusion of the Chinese Re-
public from the United Nations and the provocative role of
General MacArthur in the Far East. The British position affects
tibe American Government not only directly through the ILN.
and other official channels, but indirectly through the influen-
tial American individuals and groups, especially along the East-
em seaboard, who tend to follow British foreign policy as
faithfully as Russo-philes do that of the U.S.S.R. These ardent
Anglo-philes have become increasingly restive over Wash-
ington's bungling and the Anglo-American split in foreign
affairs.

Meanwhile the American people are showing signs that they
are tired of the atomic jag and the brink-of-war headache. A
press dispatch from New Bedford, Massachusetts, tells how a
special Town Meeting of its citizens voted down a $4,000 civil
defense appropriation because "there is no national emergency
which requires one.** This is only one item out of many which
122

reiects what Stewart Alsop in the New York Herald

**the total public apathy toward civil defense.** The popu-
lation in general remains "unconvinced that President Truman
was justified in declaring a national emergency.

Early in 1951 The New Yorker magazine ran a poem en-
titled ""Freedom from Speech 3 * about a man who wore an
anti-hearing device, so that he would not have to listen to aU
the current nonsense. The climax of the poem came when he
said:

And chiefly I may now ignore
"And will there really be a war?"

When The New Yorker starts to spoof the constant talk about
war, war, war, emanating from Washington and its assenting
dhtorus of newspaper and radio networks, we may be sure that
a lot of people are getting bored with the whole business.

Whatever the distant future may bring, the chief national
emergency I see at present is the general inflation and rise in
prices that has been going on steadily since the summer of
1950. However, as responsible economists have shown, the
primary causes of this inflation have not been international
developments, but the slowness and weakness of tibe Truman
Administration in dealing with the situation, its failure prop-
erly to restrain business profits and its Treasury Department's
policy in compelling the Federal Reserve system to keep on
manufacturing billions of new money.

I always like to quote in my support those whose general
political position is at the far pole from mine. Hence I cite
ex-President Herbert Hoover as of February 9, 1951: "There is
no such war hysteria in Europe as there is in the United States,
The European governments have made no declarations of
emergencies and their citizens have organized no propaganda
committees of alarm. . . . An atmosphere of hurry, rush,
anxiety is being developed, the effect of which is to make it
difficult, if not impossible, for the American people to judge
their own situation."

123

The Myth of Soviet Aggression

IN APRIL, 1951, the conservative Wall Street Journal declared:
^Unfortunately, the tactic of the manufactured crisis has been
used so often that neither Congress nor the people know what
they can believe." The fact is, of course, that the Truman
Administration, in order to push its enormous armaments pro-
gram through Congress and to justify the continuation of the
cold war and an ^emergency" psychology, has felt compelled to
resort to the device of keeping the American people stirred up
and fearful over some alleged menace of Soviet or Communist
origin.

The manufactured crisis depends on the manufactured myth.
And of all the myths conjured up by the anti-Soviet forces of
the United States and the Western World, the most far-fetched
and far-reaching is that the Soviet Union is bent on military
aggression. The underlying premise of the North Atlantic Pact
is that Soviet armies will invade and over-run Western Europe
if they get the opportunity. The same premise lies behind the
colossal expenditures on armaments of the American Govern-
ment and was an integral part of President Truman's recent
message calling for an armaments budget of more than 60
billion dollars for 1951-52.

Building up the bogey of Soviet aggression has been a
remarkably convenient and successful means of producing in
America an atmosphere of anxiety and alarm. I am convinced

this anti-Soviet propaganda is false and and as

harmful to the establishment of world as to the main-

tenance of American democracy. Assuming the Soviet Govern-
ment realizes that a third world war would in aB probability
f olow if it attacked any country anywhere, I see at least twenty
reasons why Soviet military aggression is most unlikely, either
now or in the future:

First, the Soviet Russians, remembering poignantly their
terrible losses in property and human life during the First and
Second World Wars, and especially in Hitler's cruel and
destructive invasion, are utterly opposed, from the viewpoint
of simple self-preservation and national well-being, to< under-
going a third and perhaps even worse ordeal in an international
conflict involving use of the atom bomb.

Second, the Soviet Russians wish above all to go on with
their reconstruction of the devastated areas and the building
of socialism, and not to have this program set back for years
through an all-out war.

Third, repeated and reliable reports from Soviet Russia dur-
ing the period of the Fourth Five-Year Plan, 1946-50, indicate
that the Soviet people are in fact preoccupied with tremendous
projects of peaceful economic construction and that their
minds are not dwelling upon dreams of military conquest. The
Five-Year Plan recently completed attained most of its main
social and economic goals. Instead of a serious inflation due to
disproportionate war preparations, as in the United States, the
Soviet Union has put through five general price reductions erf
a sweeping nature since the dose of he war. The last of these
occurred in March, 1951, and lowered prices on a multitude of
consumer goods from ten to thirty percent

Fourth, the Soviet Union, stretching over two continents and
larger than all North America, possesses within its vast domains
practically all the raw materials necessary for its economy. It
needs no new territories to provide it with natural resources.
The U.S.S.R., however, is |$ad to supplement its own basic
wealth through doing business with other countries and at

125

present has particularly active trade relations with the People's
Republic of China and the nations of Eastern Europe.

Fifth, the huge size of Soviet Russia, together with its ma-
terial riches and economic development, means that it has
plenty of room for its expanding population. Over-population,
which has often been a spur to military conquest, is not a prob-
lem in the Soviet Union.

Sixth, the public ownership of the main means of production
and distribution in the U.S.S.R. prevents private individuals
and groups from profiting financially from armaments or any
other war activity.

Seventh, although in the current disordered and threatening
state of the world the Soviet Republic must maintain an army
and armaments for defense, it stands as always for disarmament
agreements between the different nations and has repeatedly
made concrete proposals towards this end, both in the United
Nations and elsewhere. The Soviet people regard armaments
as a necessary evil during the transition to enduring peace; and
they do not in the slightest require them as a stimulus to eco-
nomic prosperity.

Eighth, the Soviet pkn calling for the destruction of all atom
bombs, manufactured by whatever country, and for effective
international supervision of atomic energy demonstrates the
U.S.S.R/s intention of using its atomic resources for peaceful
puiposes and the further economic upbuilding of the nation.

Ninth, Soviet Russia's economic system of socialist planning,
having overcome the great economic depressions, famines and
periods of mass unemployment so characteristic of the past,
makes altogether needless and irrelevant the classic method of
military adventure as a way of temporarily submerging internal
crises and sidetracking the revolutionary discontent of the
population. Furthermore, since the Soviet people always have
title purchasing power to buy back the goods which they pro-
duce, there is no overwhelming pressure to acquire foreign
markets and spheres of influence for getting rid of surplus
products* In brief, what I ain suggesting here is that the Soviet
Russians have eliminated, so far as their own country is con-
156

earned, the cMef economic roots of war-making and war-
mongering.

Tenth, the Soviet Union, despite its relative self-sdBdeney
in an economic sense, desires normal international trade with
the other nations of the earth. It has ever sought to 1 establish
good business relations with the United States and Western
Europe, exchanging raw materials for machinery and finished
goods. The Soviet Russians infinitely prefer peaceful and
mutually advantageous commerce with the West to war.

Eleventh, in line with the last point, the Soviet Govemmeat
has repeatedly stressed the possibility and the common sense
of the capitalist and socialist nations of the world peacefully
co-existing and cooperating on limited but important interna-
tional ends. The Soviet Russians remain militantily opposed to
the capitalist economic system and militantly in favor of their
own; but they believe that war between the capitalist and
socialist systems, especially in this era of atom bombs and other
weapons of fearful destractiveness, may we]] prove ruinous to
both. Although some Marxist and Soviet theoreticians have
occasionally talked loosely and grandiloquently about the **in-
evitability** of war as long as capitalism exists, Soviet foreign
policy actually rejects this idea. Premier Stalin himself denied
the inevitability of a new world war only as recently as Feb-
ruary, 1951.

Twelfth, while the Soviet Russians clearly wish to see world
socialism established, they do not favor trying to extend Com-
munist principles to other lands through the means of armed'
invasion. The Soviets support the thesis that "Revolution can-
not be exported," but must be the outcome of indigenous radi-
cal movements in whatever country is concerned. They gave
moral encouragement, to be sure, to the recently successful
Communist revolution in China, but neither material nor mili-
tary aid. Marxist theory claims that capitalism will eventually
collapse in every nation through its own inner contradictions
and the pressure of the working class. The Soviet Russians take
this theory very seriously and find it pointless to assume the

127

terrific burdens and dangers of war in order to spread socialism
when they are convinced that this new system is bound to come
in due course anyway.

Thirteenth, the idea of military aggression and international
war, except in legitimate self-defense, is contrary to the main-
stream of Marast and Soviet doctrine, from Karl Marx down
to the present time. In the tense days of 1939, when the Second
World War had akeady broken out, the Soviet Union invaded
Finland in order to re-adjust the frontiers for better defense
against the Nari menace. I think this attack was a mistake,
but at least it was understandable in view of the critical inter-
national situation and of Hitler's later invasion of the U.S.S.R.
hand in hand with the Finns.

Whatever opinions one may hold concerning the origin of
the struggle in Korea in the summer of 1950, there is no evi-
dence that Soviet Eussia was responsible. Certainly it has
not intervened in the conflict to offset the cruel and devastating
intervention of the United States and the United Nations. Un-
doubtedly, the Communists of the East considered the North
Korean action justified as part of an inevitable civil war and
as a defensive measure to eliminate the American military
bridgehead on the continent of Asia.

Fourteenth, despite the fact that the Soviet Union possesses
mighty armies and air fleets, no responsible leader in its govern-
mental, military, economic, journalistic or cultural affairs has
once made the suggestion during the troubled years since
World War II that it should initiate a preventive war or bomb
a foreign country. This record compares very favorably with
the statements by many leading public figures in the United
States, some of them government officials, that America should
launch an atom-bomb assault on Soviet Russia; and with
the frequent publication in the American press of detailed blue-
prints for such an attack, pointing out on maps the precise
cities and industrial areas in the U.S.S.R. which are to be
knocked out.

Fifteenth, indicating the basic Soviet attitude toward war,
128

the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S Jt ? corresponding in Its
cal functions to the United States Congress, in March,

1951, a law making any kind of war propaganda ia the

Soviet Republic. The maximum penalty under new law is
twenty-five years in jail.

Sixteenth, the Soviet Government has made no concrete
military moves in any part of the world indicating aggressive
intentions against any country. On the other hand, the Soviet
Union carried out extensive demobilization of its armies during
1945, 1946 and 1947. The continual rumors of threatening
Soviet troop movements have never turned out to have a barfs
in feet. A recent dispatch in the Chicago DcMy Nm&$ from
William Stoneman in Paris stated: **A wave of resentment
swept Paris as the result of what newspapers hint is a deliberate
attempt by the American Government to alarm the public on
Soviet troop concentrations.** Of course, regular army maneu-
vers take place from time to time in the U.S.S.R., as in other
nations.

Seventeenth, if the Soviet Government were really plotting
military aggression against, for example, Western Europe, it
would presumably have started the war before the rearmament
of the Atlantic powers had made such headway and at a time,
such as the fall of 1950 or the spring of 1951, when the Ameri-
can military forces were preoccupied in the Far East. Moreover
the Soviet leaders, if they intended war, would have preferred
to see the United States Army bogged down indefinitely in
Korea. Instead, they initiated the conference for a cease-fire
and negotiated peace.

Eighteenth, Joseph Stalin, Premier of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics, having successfully seen his country
through to the establishment of the first socialist commonwealth
in history and having led the Soviet people to victory in the
Second World War, would in all likelihood prefer to enhance
his reputation as a statesman by helping to ensure an era of
peace for the U.S.S.R. and mankind. Surely he has no desire to
go down in history, like Adolf Hitler, as a notorious leader of

159

military aggression and as one of the most infamous war crimi-
nals of all time,

Nineteenth, if we review the history of Soviet foreign policy
from the birth of the Soviet Republic in 1917 down to the
outbreak of World War II, we find a continuous and consistent
record on behalf of international peace and understanding. In
the early years Lenin as head of the Soviet state did his best
to achieve peaceful relations with the other countries of the
earth, a number of which attempted to effect the downfall of
the Communist regime through armed intervention. In the later
period the Soviet Union, with Maxim Litvinov as its able and
eloquent Foreign Minister, joined the League of Nations and
tried to the utmost to build an effective system of collective
security with the Western democracies against Fascist aggres-
sion. Clearly, it was not Soviet Russia's fault that the League
failed to follow out the commitments of its own Covenant and
thus stop Hitler and Mussolini.

Twentieth, during the period of current history since the
triumph of the allied nations over the Axis Powers, Soviet
Russia, in consonance with its past record, has steadfastly
striven for international peace and reasonable agreements with
the United States. Since 1945 the Soviet Union has made its
own share of serious mistakes in foreign policy, especially of
a tactical nature, and has at times acted in an arbitrary, brusque
and obdurate manner. But on the whole over the past six years
it has shown a willingness to compromise for the sake of world
amity and a desire to make the United Nations a successfully
functioning organization. Soviet leaders have given voice again
and again to the theme of peaceful co-existence between the
socialist and capitalist blocs; and have repeatedly proposed a
top-level conference between the U.S.SJL and the U.S.A. for
the purpose of ironing out the main difficulties between these
two great countries and reaching some sort of over-all
settlement.

In these twenty points I have sought to sum up briefly the
chief reasons why I think Soviet military aggression will not
take place. Of course the Soviet Union will fight back if
ISO

could be provoked into of

action if it felt directly menaced, for Instance, by a
neo-Nazi Germany or if it were convinced that a war

was about to be unleashed against it, I could be wrong, but this
is the way the international picture looks to me.

1S1

The Myth of "The Free World"

A IBDGBD MYTH misleading tihe American people today is that
our Government, the liberty-loving, pure-hearted protector of
democracy, is the head of a coalition which is properly to
be described as "the free world** and which is defending man-
kind against oppression and slavery. While President Truman
and his associates make fine-sounding speeches about this
"free world 3 * which is striving for liberty, the Democratic Ad-
ministration goes farther in the violation of civil liberties and
political freedom than any regime in the history of the United
States. Almost every day we read in the press about some
new suppression of free speech or interference with the right
of political association.

Looking at the international composition of "the free world,"
we find that it embraces sixteen Latin American dictatorships
or semi-dictatorships (I do not include here Cuba, Guatemala,
Mexico and Uruguay); the royal fascist regime of Greece; the
police state of Turkey; the fascist remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's
government; the Union of South Africa, which has the worst
racist laws, discriminating against its Negro and Indian popu-
lations, of any nation on earth; and the potentially neo-Nazi
republic of Western Germany. Franco's Falangist Spain is
also fast becoming a bulwark in the "free world" line-up.

Even the relatively democratic countries in the "free world"
coalition, such as England and France, have shown alarming
132

toward the curtailment of Few

instance, m November, I960, the British
the entry of so many delegates to the of the World

Defenders of Peace at Sheffield that the to

sMft to Warsaw. On January 24 1851, the French Government
crushed by means of armed force a peaceful anti-Eisenhower
demonstration in Paris and arrested 2,500 Cbmrniimsts and
other participants. General Eisenhower* supposedly attempting
to strengthen "the free world** on Ms trip to Europe, did not
protest to the French authorities concerning this episode. He
did not issue a statement that to abridge or destroy freedom
of speeds and assembly is to adopt the methods of dictator-
ship. He did not say: **As an American citizen who believes
in complete civil liberties for all, I demand that those who are
opposed to my mission have a right to express their opinions.**

The "free world" concept, then, crumbles away at the
slightest analysis. A large proportion of the countries in the
so-called free world are actually ruled by governmental dio-
tatorships of one sort or another. And even its democratic
members have gone a long way in abrogating traditional liber-
ties. Since "the free world" is only half-free at best, it is indeed
a palpable myth that the primary issue between the American-
led coalition and the Communist bloc is tihat of democracy
versus dictatorship. Naturally American propaganda tends to
neglect or misrepresent the fundamental economic issues be-
tween capitalism and socialism as represented by the two com-
peting world groups.

The Soviet Union and its allies do not, as the Communists
would have us believe, represent true democracy either. They
constitute another half-free world. But at least in regard to
racial democracy and equality they are a considerable distance
ahead of *the free world" in general and of the United States
and South Africa in particular. This is no doubt one reason
why in many sections of America the idea of racial equality
is looked upon with suspicion as "Communist.*' It is also a
reason why Communist ideology and influence in Asia, where
the colored colonial peoples have for centuries been treated

133

as inferior by the imperialistic Whites, has an advantage over
American ideology and influence.

Neither the American Government nor a majority of the
American people apparently understand the nature of the revo-
lutionary movements which have matured in so many nations
of Europe and Asia since the end of the Second World War.
As Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas put it in a recent
address: *The plain fact is that the world is in a revolution
which cannot be bought off with dollars. There are rumblings
in every village from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. A force
is gathering for a mighty effort. We think of that force as Com-
munistic. Communists exploit the situation, stirring every dis-
content and making the pot boil. The revolutions which are
brewing are not, however. Communist in origin nor will they
end even if Soviet Russia is crashed through war.

"The revolutionaries are hungry men who have been ex-
ploited from time out of mind. This is the century of their
awakening and mobilization. . . . The spirit which motivates
these people is pretty much the same as the one which inspired
the French and American revolutions. . . . The complaints
of the peasants of Asia are just as specific as those in our own
Declaration of Independence- . . . These people, though illiter-
ate, are intelligent The people of Asia have a catalogue of spe-
cific complaints. The absence of medical care always comes first.
The absence of schools is always second. Then comes land re-
form. . . . The right to vote, the right to elect a representative
government, the power to expel and punish corrupt officials
these too are important claims to reform. Finally they have
a new sense of nationalities ... an exultant feeling of inde-
pendence and resentment against intermeddling by outside
powers."

The free world,'* led by the United States and including or
in league with well-nigh every reactionary force on earth, is
dedicated to put down the movements toward freedom so well
described by Justice Douglas. Those popular movements can-
not achieve full freedom for the peoples concerned for genera-
tions; yet in their programs they represent a notable advance
134

over the past system of poverty, starvation, disease, graft, im-
perialistic exploitation and cultural backwardness. The "finee
world" coalition, while repressing more and more liberties at
home, aims to reverse the flow of history abroad and restore
the classic regimes of oppression and misery,

The American people* then, will be making a disastrous
mistake if they let themselves be taken in by the myth erf "the
free world" nobly upholding democracy and civil liberties
throughout the earth. The exposure of this and other commonly
accepted conceits of current propaganda is an important put
of the struggle against war. In these critical days the staundh
fighter for international peace will recall the lines of Matthew
Arnold:

Let the victors, when they come,

When the forts of fotty fall,

Find thy body by the watt.

135

What Would a Third World
War Achieve?

DimiNG the past few years I liave read many prophecies con-
cerning the fearful destruction of property and the horrible
loss in human life which would surely result from a third world
conflict, the Great Atomic War. I have little doubt that these
dire forecasts are in general correct. What I have missed in
most of the analyses of a total war between the Communist
bloc and the American-led coalition is a sound estimate of the
over-all economic, social and political consequences.

In the New York Herald Tribune of June 18, 1951, Mr.
Walter Lippmann, by all odds the most intelligent columnist
of the conservative press in America, made an interesting start
in this direction. Mr. Lippmann believes that the United
States and its allies would ultimately win the global conflict
and would be able to destroy the Soviet Government and de-
molish "the Soviet empire.** But in the process **Western Europe
would sink into anarchy, and North America, victorious but
weary, impoverished and isolated, would find it hard to pre-
serve the remnants of its freedom and harder still to bring back
to life again the stricken civilization of the Western World."

"The war," Mr. Lippmann goes on to say, "would be so devas-
tating and prolonged that in all of the Eurasian continent there
would be left no governments of sufficient power and authority
136

to restore order and to reconstruct the rained world." The out-
come would be **a vast and formless disorder ... for In a
total war we would have to destroy many of the great
and particularly the great centers of administration and com-
munication, in order to achieve victory.** There would be a
breakdown of national states throughout Eurasia, Mr. Lipp-
mann predicts, and in their place local dictatorships and ter-
rorist gangs would take over.

One of the merits of Mr. Lippmann's analysis is its demon-
stration that even an American military triumph over the
Soviet coalition would lead to a situation disastrous for botib
America and the world at large. Instead of saving what is
called Western civilization, the Third World War, with "vic-
tory*' for the West, would be its ruin. Instead of preserving
and extending democracy, this duel with Communism would
bring about dictatorships throughout Europe and Asia, and
quite possibly in the United States as well. Instead of bolstering
the free enterprise system, such a conflict would necessarily
increase and tighten collective controls. Instead of strengthen-
ing capitalism, it would very nearly finish it abroad and greatly
weaken it in America.

Instead of putting an end to Communism, this Third World
War would create on a widespread scale catastrophic condi-
tions of poverty, starvation, economic collapse and political
chaos which would give socialist and communist movements a
unique opportunity for triumphant resurgence. Lippmann does
not even mention the colossal and all but impossible task of
the American-led victors in policing or ruling the vast territories
and populations of defeated Soviet Russia and Communist
China.

There is one point on which I sharply disagree with the gen-
erally realistic predictions of Walter Lippmann. He assumes
far too easily that the American bloc would win over the Soviet
bloc. Although I am no more of a military expert than Mr.
Lippmann, I think it more likely that in the long-drawn-out
struggle of the Third World War both sides would score
brilliant successes here and there, but neither would emerge

137

with decisive victory. The two blocs would probably cease
fighting at last because of mutual exhaustion; or because their
respective peoples would BO longer stand for the staggering
toll of death and destruction.

Granting that present American plans for the rearmament
of Europe turn out successfully, the chances are that in case
of a general war the Soviet armies would still be able to push
westward and over-run both France and Italy. The Chinese
Communists would undoubtedly press south and occupy Indo-
China and Malaya. The Communist forces would then control
an enormous area, including all of its natural resources and
industrial productivity, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean
to the Pacific, and extending southward in Asia to the Indian
Ocean. Under these circumstances, it is certainly most ques-
tionable whether the American coalition, which would have
less manpower at its disposal than the Soviet, could inflict a
conclusive defeat upon the Communists.

Even if the American- Atlantic nations held firm in Western
Europe and were capable of quickly mounting a direct offen-
sive against Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and against
China in the Far East, I cannot see much likelihood of decisive
success. If Hitle/s huge mechanized armies, operating with
some advantages, such as proximity, which an American attack
would not have, could not bring the U.S.S.R. to its knees, I
doubt that any military force of the twentieth century can do
so. And if the hard-hitting Japanese annies could not subdue
a disorganized but stubborn China over a period of some ten
years, it does not seem probable that a new invading force
would get much further against a China far more unified and
far better able to defend itself than under the corrupt and
inefficient regime of Chiang Kai-shek.

Of course* in analyzing what might happen in a Third World
War, we cannot overlook the possibility of victory by the Com-
munist bloc. But I believe this is highly improbable. For it
would be just as difficult for the Soviet coalition to invade and
knock out the United States and Canada as for America and
its allies to invade and knock out Communist Russia and China,
138

If my prediction of a military stalemate in a Third World
War is correct, eveiy state involved would suffer appalling
and incalculable losses. But m the post-war period and the
ultimate course of history, the most likely gainers would be
the Communist countries and the Communist movemmts
everywhere. The First World War gave the great Russian Kevo-
lution its chance; the Second World War, in fundamental
aspects a violent counter-revolution against Communism, led
to the spread of Communist power throughout Eastern Europe
and China; the Third World War might well comparably ad-
vance the cause of international Communism and thus disas-
trously boomerang against the reckless adherents of an aH-out
military crusade against the Soviet-Chinese bloc. The Com-
munist coalition, however, does not in my opinion wish to
run the terrible risks and pay the terrific price of another global
conflict.

The final moral, whether Mr. Lippmann's analysis or my own
comes nearer the truth, is that for all parties concerned for
nations, for peoples, for governments, for capitalists, for Com-
munists, for this alliance and that bloo-a peaceful settlement
of current international issues, with compromises on both sides,
is highly preferable to war, cold or hot, localized or general.

139

IV/IMPRESSIONS OF

MID-CENTURY EUROPE

Britain's Labor Government

BEFOBE taking this trip through Great Britain, France and
Switzerland, we had not been in Europe since 1938. This 1950
visit was primarily for the purpose of acquainting our four
children, so far as is possible in a single summer, with the
culture, geography and peoples of Western ^Europe. We trav-
eled extensively, heard a great deal and saw even more, but
did not attempt to make exhaustive investigations of political
or economic life. Nonetheless, after a tour of almost three
months, we have some definite impressions which may be worth
setting down.

Outstanding in our minds is the domestic development that
has taken place in England during five years of the Labor Gov-
ernment. The coming to power in Britain of a political party
pledged to achieve socialism, and making real progress in that
direction, seems to us the greatest positive change for the better
in Western Europe since the Second World War.

While of course the English Labor Government has been
much helped, at least temporarily, by American financial aid

141

under the Marshall Plan, It has made an impressive record in
Internal affairs, however loudly jeered at by the reactionaries
on the right and the Communists on the left. The fairly efficient
administration of the Labor Government from 1945 to 1950,
and its slow but steady push toward socialist goals, convince us
that Britain is by no means "finished" in an economic sense or
as a world power.

Those socialist goals axe to be thought of not merely in terms
of the nationalization of basic industries but just as much in
terms of the redistribution of income, which in the United
Kingdom has drastically reduced the wealth of the upper class
and has already made the masses of the people better off eco-
nomically than ever before. And this holds true in spite of a
grievously mistaken cold war foreign policy, with its hampering
of lucrative trade with Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe and
its emphasis on increasing armaments which inevitably cut
into the general standard of living.

As to the present situation, anyone with a reasonably open
mind who traveled in England, Scotland or Wales during the
summer of 1950 must have noticed that conditions in regard
to food and other essential consumers 7 goods had improved
markedly since the summer of 1949 and even since the winter
of 1949-50* We found that local fruits and vegetables were plen-
tiful, in large markets, in small neighborhood shops in London
and other big cities, in small-town markets and on the push-
carts. Eggs had also become plentiful and were quite reason-
able in price. They were unrationed, although they have since
been rationed again because of a seasonal drop in supply.

Meat was rationed, and the cuts were not always attractive.
Fish, chicken and other fowl were available and not rationed,
but were rather high in price. There seemed to be enough bread
everywhere, wholesome, crusty bread but not as white as some
of the English would have liked it. However, we enjoyed it
Tea and butter and other fats were still rationed, but were
being distributed fairly according to all accounts.

We heard a certain amount of complaining about the need
of the housewife for more sugar to preserve the abundant straw-
142

berries and other local fruits, and some grousing about the
dimness of the sweets ration in general. But individuals and
families admitted that what with one person not eating sweets
and another being able to use some of his aunt's ration, there
was usually enough to go around, although not enough always
for treats and parties. The scrupulous fairness of the British
rationing system impressed us. A large part of the population is
getting more good wholesome food, with bettor balance and
more variety in content, than it had enjoyed before the war.
This is especially true in the case of babies and cMidren of pre-
school and school age. This is a fact that many Conservatives
would not care to deny.

We were told on all hands, Jubilantly by Laborites, grudg-
ingly by Conservatives, that practically everyone who is em-
ployable in Britain is employed, and so is in the market to buy
consumers* goods and services. A few Conservatives with whom
we talked spoke sarcastically of what they considered an exces-
sive number of pen-pushing or custodial jobs in various govern-
ment departments or agencies, but even they could not make
these bureaucratic jobs add up to more than a few thousand.

The most emphatic and frequent complaint against the Labor
Government was on the score of housing. We heard a great
deal about lumber being in inadequate supply or coming
through too slowly, or in the wrong lengths and widths for a
given job. Naturally the Conservatives were making hay with
this sort of thing. Nevertheless much new housing has gone up>
and other types of building, particularly in war-blasted areas.
Some of the best and most extensive post-war housing we saw
wsis in Clydebank in Scotland where title shipyard workers live.

It was amusing and refreshing to hear an English steel manu-
facturer, an arch-Conservative, explain apologetically every
few minutes in our conversation with him that "although you
may think it odd, I do agree with our wretched government
in this respect. ..." In particular he agreed with the Labor
Party's criticism of the Schuman plan involving supranational
control of the Western European coal and steel industries.

We saw the British people hard at work everywhere, going

143

to and from their factory jobs, cultivating and harvesting in the
fields. They were working with vigor and determination. We
did not sense any attitude of hopelessness on their part, but
rather a realistic, practical common-sense approach. The Eng-
lish are tenacious and patient, and there is ample strength
in these islands still, to meet further adversity or to go on con-
structing in a peaceful world.

As we turn again to the political picture, it becomes dear
that in the British Isles the Communist Party's strength, which
never amounted to much, is now at its lowest ebb. This is pri-
marily because most social reformers and radicals have been
able to find a place in the Labor Party and because the Labor
program gives real hope of attaining a socialist commonwealth
through peaceful and democratic evolution. Here is a most im-
portant lesson for Western Europe in general: the way to pre-
vent the spread of Communist dictatorships is to counteract
the Communist appeal by supporting and speeding up the de-
velopment of socialist economies which will usher out capital-
ism and at the same time fully preserve democracy and civil
liberties.

Insofar, then, as the continental countries follow Britain's
example in domestic affairs, socializing basic industries, rais-
ing the living standards of the workers and putting into effect
large-scale economic planning, they will be doing the chief
thing that can stop the advance of Communism. Insofar, how-
ever, as they resist fundamental economic change and thwart
the people's dream of a better life, they will be encouraging the
Communist cause. Unfortunately it is the latter course that
the nations of Western Europe as a whole have been taking;
and Britain's own socialist progress is now being threatened
more and more by an augmented armaments budget.

We must conclude, therefore, that the American Govern-
ment, which insists that the Atlantic Pact states spend increas-
ingly large sums in a hectic armaments race and which opposes
every socialist tendency in the whole European scene, is pur-
suing a policy which in the long run may further the spread of
Communist regimes.
144

The Delights of England

ALTHOUGH the Korean war starting early in the summer was
disturbing to us, we did not, like many American travelers "who
cut short or canceled their trips, let it affect our itinerary or
change our plans. Despite all tie tumult and the shouting, we
did not think that Soviet Russia would initiate a general war
during the summer by sending its forces to attack any country
in Europe or Asia. We felt reasonably sure that talk of pending
Soviet military aggression against Iran or Turkey or some
European nation was purely fanciful.

In Europe the press and public opinion in general were a
great deal calmer and more restrained than in America; and
this helped us to keep cool. Amid all the alarms, pressures,
obstacles, wars and other catastrophes of these parlous times,
we still believe in the pursuit of happiness and the enjoyment
of life. Driving in our own car, we spent a month each in the
British Isles, France and Switzerland. England was as ever fee
home of quiet beauty, of intimate gardens, of small riveis
gently flowing through a gently rolling countryside. The lay of
the land in England stands in dramatic contrast to the immense,
spectacular projections of Nature in the mountain maze that is
Switzerland.

England is also the country of modest and comfortable inns
off the beaten track, on the edge of small towns and winding
streams. Unforgettable was the day when we drove from Lon-

145

don north to Marlow and discovered a little paradise of an IBB
called The Compleat Angler. This was a hostel right on the
banks of the upper Thames. It had an ample green lawn and a
terrace alongside the river; directly opposite on the other side
were an old church and graveyard. We sat on the lawn or
terrace in the warm sun, watching the shells, canoes and row-
boats go by, and the proud swans drift here and there with the
current.

I took my family to nearby Oxford, where I spent a year of
postgraduate study in the far-off days of 1924-25, and showed
them a few of the most noteworthy colleges in the University.
Oxford's lovely college gardens, with their fragrant flowers,
their spacious greenswards and their groves of ancient trees-
all against the background or grey stone walls, centuries old
have no counterpart in the United States. Strolling through
these gardens, so set apart from human strife, so utterly peace-
ful in their atmosphere, I wondered how men could still be
mad enough to wage wars and murder one another by the
million,

In the lush garden of St. John's College there was a tablet
to fixe memory of a tutor, Henry Jardine Bidder, who also held
the title of Keeper of the Groves. The inscription read: "This
rock garden which he made and loved is his monument** Where
else but in England, I thought, would a man win his immortal-
ity by constructing a rock garden?

From Marlow and Oxford we went on to stay in the Cots-
wold village of Chipping Camden as our base for Stratford-on-
Avon. All of us loved the curving main street of Chipping
Camden with its mellow old stone houses and sturdy open
market hall, practically unchanged since the fifteenth century.
We learned that the town had once been the center of the
wool trade. Even the inn where we stayed, the Noel Arms, had
changed little since earlier, less hurried days.

For me no visit to England is complete without attending
a play at the annual Shakespeare Festival. But all the tickets
had been gone for weeks, except the forty seats which were
available at the box office the morning of each performance.
146

Accordingly, we got up early to stand in line, in a cold
from 6 A.M. to 10 A.M., when the ticket window opened. We
bought our seven seats one extra for an English friend who
was with usand sat in the last row at Julius Caemr that night,
John Gielgud was the best lean and hungry-looking Casshxs I
had ever seen.

Not only Shakespeare's poetry, but poetry in general is a
more pervasive factor in English life than in America. The
British Poet Laureate, John Masefield, with whom my eldest
daughter, Margot, and I had a pleasant tea on this trip, told
me that poetry-reading programs over the radio had much in-
creased appreciation of poetry among the people as a whole.
I was delighted one evening, when we went to London's Hyde
Park to listen to the speeches, to find a young man reciting
poetry to a group from a wooden stand marked TPoet's Comer.**
I doubt whether anywhere else in the world there take place
regular outdoor recitations of poetry with a passing yet at-
tentive crowd as the audience.

A few days later I was fortunate enough to obtain an ad-
mission card to the House of Commons (for various reasons it
has become very difficult to get in to the Commons debates),
And I was charmed to hear a member of the Labor Party* in
commenting on a bill, resoundingly quote these two lines of
verse:

Rugged and bold are CornwaHs cliffs.
Rugged and bold are its men.

I have noted, too, in reading accounts of the House of Com-
mons proceedings, a not infrequent allusion to the poets. TMs
is only one of the reasons why the standard of speakers in
the British Parliament is probably higher than in any other
such democratic body on earth. English MP.'s can be caustic,
and often hit hard at their political opponents in Parliament,
but a note of reasonableness usually prevails.

147

Scotland and Brittany

ONE HIGHLIGHT of the summer was naturally our journey to
Scotland and our walks over the highland moors with their
purple heather. Most interesting of all to me was our visit to the
ancestral haunts of the Lamont family along the west coast
and across the stormy Firth of Clyde from Glasgow. There we
wandered through the poetic and melancholy ruins of Toward
Castle, stronghold of the potent Clan Lamont in the seven-
teenth century.

In 1646 the fiery Campbells swooped down upon the La-
monts, burned their castle and captured over 200 of them. Then
the cruel and faithless Campbells, in complete violation of the
signed articles of capitulation, transported the Lamonts gath-
ered there to nearby Dunoon and killed them off to the last
man by swords, dirks, pistols and hanging (thirty-six on one
tree, so the story goes). For some minutes we stood in the rain
before the granite memorial, which was a Gaelic cross with a
simple scroll below, located close to the site of the massacre
and erected in honor of our slain kinsmen by the present Clan
Lamont Society in 1906.

Unhappily the same sort of bloody, unscrupulous, interne-
cine warfare that once characterized the Scotch clans now
rages on a far greater scale among the far larger social units
known as nations. Historians and philosophers consider the
ancient Scottish clans as barbaric, bloodthirsty and backward
148

in their conduct toward one another. Yet the human casualties
and economic destruction caused by the clan fighting were
infinitesimal compared with the effects of twentieth-century
mechanized conflict And I cannot help concluding that in
respect to the greatest evil which has ever afflicted mankind,
that of group warfare, we citizens of the twentieth century, so
proud of our modern "progress/' have steadily retrogressed in
an ethical sense.

It was a considerable surprise to me again to run across the
trail of my ancestors a few weeks later when we were motoring
through picturesque French Brittany. We spent more than a
week in this province, enjoying its unique characteristics in
countryside and village, discovering its cultural beauties, and
bathing on its sandy beaches. We wished that we had had
more time there. Brittany is a whole little country in itself, and
the distances along its irregular coastline were greater than
we had anticipated.

Our first experience of Brittany was at Mont St. Michel,
which is as superbly beautiful as everyone from Henry Adams
on has said. We decided that it makes its most memorable
effect when seen from a distance rather than close up or inside
it The crowds there are stupendous, and the place has been
grossly commercialized. If you are staying on the Rock, the
early morning is the best time to climb up and down, to explore
and to meditate. Driving back to Mont St. Michel after a day
of exploring the surrounding coast and countryside we could
glimpse as far as twenty miles away the soaring Abbey on the
great Rock. One of the things we remember best from Mont
St. Michel is a sound: the penetrating but pleasant sound of
eggs being beaten for the marvelous omelettes at the Hotel
Poulard.

St. Mlo is a more satisfactory place to stay than Mont St.
Michel and is full of interest, although the ruined center of the
old town brings back unhappy memories of the Second World
War. The Germans made a last-ditch stand against die Amer-
ican forces at St. Mlo; and the resulting bombings and fire
destroyed much of the town both within and outside the old

149

walls. All through Brittany we found traces of the war, not
only in damaged buildings, but also along the cliffs, where we
frequently noticed abandoned German pill-boxes built to pre-
vent Allied landings from the sea. Near Cancale we discovered,
late in the afternoons after swimming, that the Breton fishing
fleets do indeed come scudding back to port in a long ocean
processional, with their gaily colored sails, russet outstanding,
like leaves blown over the blue-green sea.

One of our most exciting days in Brittany was at the fishing
village of Ploumanach on the north coast There we walked
around the harbor and over a jutting promontory which had
the most remarkable and varied rock formations that we have
ever seen. The huge granite boulders, a softer rose in color
than those along the coast of Maine, tumbled over one another
in grotesque array, weatherbeaten by sea, wind and rain into
the most strange and surprising shapes you can imagine. There
was one great pile of stone that for all the world resembled
the head of an ass, another that looked like a human skull,
yet another that distinctly reminded you of a military hat of
the Napoleonic era.

Returning to the theme of ancestral descent, we arrived at
the city of Quimper near the west coast just in time for a great
Inter-Celtic Festival, featuring traditional costumes, floats,
songs and dances reminiscent of early Celtic culture. There
were Breton bands playing fifes and bagpipes with all the ardor
associated with the Scotch themselves. And to this Festival
came special foreign delegations to perform from Scotland,
Wales and Ireland. Some of the French took my family for a
visiting Celtic delegation from overseas.

The explanation for all this is that the Celts were the an-
cestors not only of the French Bretons, but also of the Scotch,
Welsh and Irish peoples. Thus it becomes dear, if we probe
far enough back into history, that I and my family are of Celtic
origin and therefore ethnically related to all these Celtic groups.
By the time the Quimper festival was over, I felt that since I
was obviously a blood-brother of the Bretons, I was practically
a Frenchman! This experience gratified something deep inside
150

me, I am happy about these ancestral ties with the and

these ethnical relationships with the present. They
bring me closer to the humanity I wish to serve, the

brotherhood of man not merely an ideal to work for, but an
actuality in my very lif eblood.

Wherever we went this summer, I liked the individuals whom
I met personally and the people at large whom I saw on the
streets, in the theatres, on the boats, on the beaches and in the
mountains. The English, the Scotch, the French, the Swiss and
the Italians (whom I glimpsed most briefly in a lying trip to
Rome) all have their special virtues and proficiencies. So have
the Russians, whom I last visited in the Soviet Union in 1988. Yet
for me there is no favorite people among the Europeans. The
more I travel in various countries and the better acquainted I be-
come with them, the more I am struck by the fundamental
similarities, in needs, in aspirations and in human feeling^
among the different peoples.

151

French Neutrality

FROM the viewpoint of Americans, the most significant po-
litical question in France today is whether the French people,
as well as the Government, would be willing to fight on the side
of the United States in a war against the Soviet Union and the
other Communist nations. We met a prominent right-wing
leader associated with Gen. Charles de Gaulle after attending
a session of the Chamber of Deputies. He said plaintively: "You
know the trouble is that the French are too happy to fight. You
Americans must persuade them to become more militant."

A French Deputy of the non-XUommunist left, whom we
interviewed in his office the same afternoon, agreed that the
French people did not want to fight, but he gave more substan-
tial reasons. The French, he asserted, having been through two
world wars in the twentieth century, are sick of the whole
business. And they know that an atomic war in which France
is involved, no matter 'who is the victor, will lead to more
complete ruin than ever before. A leader of the political center
with whom we talked a few days later stated that there would
be civil war in France if the Government took the country into
a military struggle between the Americans and the Soviets. It
would not be simply the Communists, he asserted, who would
oppose French participation. This feeling expresses the funda-
mental mood of the vast majority of the French people/*

A leading American official working in Paris lent support to
152

these views. <4 My God," he wailed, "what are we to do

with these French? They just want to lean bade and life

instead of exerting themselves to make the Marshal Plan suc-
ceed and win the cold war. What use they will be in a hot war
I don't know/* He positively wrung his hands over the general
indifference of the French and their insistence on leisurely
enjoying the pleasant summer weather and being so absorbed
in the great "Tour de France 3 * bicycle race.

The neutrality movement in France cuts across all political
divisions from left to right. It is significant that a number of
prominent French Catholics, including the well-known philoso-
pher, Etienne Gilson, are supporting it Professor Gilson has
written several articles advocating neutrality in the conserva-
tive newspaper Le Monde. We also picked up copies of a Cath-
olic newspaper Le Croix and found that it was taking the
neutrality movement very seriously, devoting much space to
answering the arguments of Gilson and other Catholics.

Many Frenchmen who pride themselves on their realism
have concluded that in a war with the Communist bloc, the
United States, faced with the inexhaustible manpower and eco-
nomic resources of Soviet Russia and Communist China, to-
gether with their satellites, cannot win and at best can eke out
a draw in a long struggle of attrition. Naturally the French are
not enthusiastic over being American ^expendables" in the
European front line in such a useless and hopeless conflict. And
there is a growing body of opinion that the greatest contribu-
tion which France can make to a world peace and its own future
is to declare now that it will be neutral in a war between Amer-
ica and the Communist bloc.

153

Geneva and Grindelwald

IN GENEVA, the lovely lakeside city with low mountains in a
semi-circle around it and snow-capped Mont Blanc, rose-tinted
at sunset, in the distance, I inevitably recalled the summer that
I had spent there some twenty-five years ago studying inter-
national relations and working with Professor Manley O. Hud-
son of the Harvard Law School to provide visiting Americans
with adequate information about the League of Nations, Des-
pite the failure of the League, culminating in the calamity of
World War II, we have never regretted supporting it as the
organization having the best chance of achieving international
peace after the First World War.

The spirit of the League lives on, in Geneva as elsewhere,
and in spite of recurring international crises. Today the Palais
des Nations, the splendid headquarters near the shore of Lake
Geneva erected and used by the League, has become the prin-
cipal European office of the United Nations. It is the natural
center of U.N. activities in Europe and the seat of a number
of specialized U.N. agencies such as the Economic Commis-
sion for Europe, the World Health Organization and the Per-
manent Central Opium and Drug Supervisory Committee.

We and our children attended several sessions of the Eco-
nomic and Social Council which was meeting in the Palais des
Nations this summer, and we could not help reflecting once
more that Geneva, with its beautiful surroundings, calm atmos-
154

phere and neutral status, would have made a far head-

quarters for the United Nations than New York City,

Switzerland as a whole, astride the Alpine crossroads of the
European continent and traditionally neutral as between the
great power blocs of the world, has served mankind wel in
providing attractive and convenient meeting places for inter-
national statesmen and organizations, giving to no particular
nation represented any obvious advantage. We heartily wish
there were more Switzerlands on the international scene today
shunning all the mad military schemes for world domkiatioii
and bent on adhering to neutrality in the case of a global con-
flict between the American and Soviet power blocs. Com-
petently armed for defense only, the Swiss in this twentieth
century have pursued a safe and successful course through
two world wars, trading with belligerents on either side and
strictly minding their own business, which of course has been
a flourishing business.

As a prosperous capitalist democracy, Switzerland is natu-
rally conservative, anti-Soviet and anti-Communist, But it is
very probable that in a military clash between the United States
and the Soviet Union, the Swiss would remain neutral, what-
ever their ideological sympathies. If France and Britain and
Italy would follow a similar policy, and proclaim it in advance,
the cause of international peace would immensely profit. That
this idea is not altogether visionary becomes clear when we
realize that in both France and Italy there is a strong move-
ment along these lines; and that in England, too, there is a
growing sentiment against that country being a sacrificial
captive to America's reckless foreign policy. A strong and popu-
lous Western European neutrality bloc stretching from the
English Channel across the Alps and down to the Mediter-
ranean would most certainly go a long way in offsetting Amer-
ican-Soviet tensions in Europe.

In a recent American motion picture, Orson Welles, as oae
of the leading characters, remarked that the chief contribution,
of Switzerland to civilization was the cuckoo dock. Even if we
accept this shallow wisecrack at its face value, it is better, we

155

think, to be a nation concentrating on the production of cuckoo
clocks (and those wonderful Swiss watches) than one concen-
trating on the production of atomic bombs giving off as much
radio-active poison as possible (a goal recently announced
proudly by the United States Atomic Energy Commission) for
the destruction of whole cities and the annihilation of human
beings en masse. So the Swiss, who have stood, it is true, a little
aside from the turbulent mainstream of history and who are
less interested in martial exploits than most of their neighbors,
are not to be scoffed at.

We happened to be in Geneva during the annual Festival of
Geneva in which the population in general and thousands of
visitors participate. There were interesting parades featuring
regional costumes and large floats descriptive of various aspects
of Swiss history, legend, industry and agriculture. But the high
point for us was an evening of fireworks over the lower end
of Lake Geneva. Never have we seen such an elaborate and
thrilling display of what the Swiss call "Feux d'artifice." The
fireworks went up from four or five barges anchored at inter-
vals on the lake; and this made possible a remarkable com-
plexity and criss-crossing of color effects in the sky. The entire
display was a genuine work of art. Here, indeed, in the crea-
tion of patterns of shining beauty against the dark background
of night above and water beneath was an innocent and proper
use for explosives, and one a thousand times less costly than
the dropping of bombs in a minor air raid.

After the fireworks were finished we joined the throngs
along the Quai du Mont Blanc and took active part in the great
Battle of Confetti which mightily intrigued our four children.
This gay and uninhibited affair consisted in walking up and
down the crowded streets and throwing confetti out of a paper
bag at everyone within range. If you could hurl a handful of
confetti down the neck or into the open mouth of a pretty
laughing girl, that was accounted a special triumph. Soon
everyone was positively dripping with the many-colored con-
fetti and the quai was almost ankle deep in it You may call
156

the Swiss unadventurous, but we must say that we pre-

fer the kind of battles they stage.

It was a Swiss named Kubler who this summer (1950) won
the popular **Tour de France** bicycle race, open to competitors
of vaiying nationality. In Switzerland, as in England, France*
and other European countries, bicycling is a necessary means
of getting to and from work as well as a leading recreation and
sport. Cyclists have the right of way over automobiles and
literally swarm through the city streets and over the country
roads. Bicycling seems to us one of the most sensible, healthy
and pleasant of activities; and we wish there were more op-
portunity for it in America.

Grindelwald in the Bernese Oberland is of the very essence
of Alpine life. It is a picturesque town of chalets strung out
along the length of a green valley, with a glacier-fed river
sounding in the distance, and surrounded on all sides by tower-
ing mountains. From the hotel terrace you can see three rugged
peaks, with a huge expanse of snow stretching across the upper
reaches of the middle one and merging with a mighty grey-
white glacier which pushes down the center of the slope to
the edge of the valley. Grindelwald is the hub of a complicated
system of paths and trails that lead in all directions and offer
the most varied opportunities both to simple hikers and trained
climbers. We were out all day long on the mountains, stopping
to eat our picnic lunches at some high spot with a magnificent
view and picking ripe blueberries for dessert.

You do not recall many outstanding Swiss contributicms to
art and literature. Yet their aesthetic sense is highly developed;
in this modern age of the machine and of over-concentration in
dreary cities, the Swiss are notably proficient in the fine art of
appreciating external Nature. It is no mean achievement to
have made this small country into the greatest outdoor recrea-
tion area in Europe, if not the world; to have utilized to the
utmost and with such taste the natural beauty of mountains,
glaciers, waterfalls, lakes, rivers, streams, valleys, meadows and
hillsides; and to have made all this loveliness available through

157

a vast network of roads and trails, even to people of modest
income.

The enterprising Swiss have taken the raw materials fur-
nished by this land and transformed an infinity of hidden and
isolated beauties into an unending reality of visual delight.
They have opened up the vistas and unrolled the panoramas,
making the great drama of Nature in this stupendous setting
visible and accessible not only to their own people, but to
seekers and wanderers from the ends of the earth.

158

Pilgrimage to Rome

TOWARD the end of August I left the family climbing moun-
tains at Grindelwald and went to Rome for a few days. My
purpose was to see a man far more important than the Pope.
There have been over 250 Popes in history, but only one George
Santayana. I had always regarded Santayana as one of the great
philosophers and had been anxious to meet him for many years.

So I arrived one Friday afternoon at four o'clock at the
Convent of the Blue Nuns, home of an English order near the
Colosseum where Santayana moved during World War II. A
Sister announced me to Santayana, and in a few minutes he
came out, in slippers and bathrobe, to greet me. Then he
ushered me into his own room, a moderately sized and simply
furnished apartment with a great many books in evidence.
Santayana talked with a pronounced English accent which at
first was a little difficult for me to understand. His brown eyes
sparkle as he talks. At 86 he seems as mentally alert and dear
as anyone I know.

For an hour and a half we discussed cultural and philo-
sophic topics, with Santayana doing most of the talking. He
remarked that he was much impressed by the poetry of Robert
Lowell, whom he thinks better than T. S. Eliot. Santayana said
that he has recently written a play about Plato in Sicily. Alcibi-
ades in Plato's Dialogues is as real to him as any living charac-
ter. The third and final volume of his autobiography will not be
published until after his death.

159

He has Just finished another book, Dominations and Potom:
Reflections on Liberty^ Society and Government. In it lie has
tried to clarify some of his ideas about the Realm of Essence
and other metaphysical matters. Santayana asserted that this
book on politics was his last, because he had become too old
and slow to write well. I denied this and said that his recent
letters to me were little masterpieces in themselves. He said
that he loved to write and had written for himself rather than
any public. He did some of his best writing, he thought, when
he was much preoccupied, as during the First World War in
England when he composed Soliloquies in England. He would
go out walking by himself all day long, taking a notebook, and
bread and cheese for lunch. He feels his style is inclined to
rhetoric and that this is the reason he has to keep rubbing out
But in Latin rhetoric is all right

I expressed regret that he had not written more poetry.
Santayana then recollected that Charles EHot Norton once told
him that his versification in Lucifer was that of a master. Santa-
yana believes that a certain ability at versification is the Latin
in him. Rhymes come easy to Spaniards and Italians, and it is
natural for them to put an invitation to dinner into verse. When
I happened to mention Lucretius, he recalled that when he
was an undergraduate at Harvard he used to carry around a
pocket edition of On the Nature of Things, which a fellow-
student had given him. He would read the book on the horse
car between Boston and Cambridge. He prefers Lucretius's
analysis of matter as the seeds of things rather than its analysis
in terms of atoms, because it gives more sense of dynamic po-
tentiality. Santayana feels that perhaps Schopenhauer remains
his greatest single inspiration in philosophy. He likes his
pessimism.

Santayana criticized Ira Cardiff's recent anthology of quota-
tions from his work, Atoms of Thought, as over-emphasizing
the anti-clerical aspect of his views. But maybe, he said, this
would serve in the United States as a corrective to the idea that
he had taken refuge in the bosom of religion and joined the
Catholic Church. He insisted that he was no crusader, even for
160

Ms own philosophy. He doesn't care whether people with

him or not and hopes that there will always be a of

different philosophies being presented to the world,

Santayana thought that probably the Pope is making a mis-
take to proclaim the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin
Mary to heaven. Is this any better, he asked, than the propa-
ganda of the Russians, who now claim that they have made
practically all the important scientific discoveries?

I went to see Santayana again two days later on Sunday
afternoon. This time he was wearing a sort of brown cassock
with a cord round the middle. He looked distinctly like a monk,
He began by asking me if I knew how to spell Alexandria in
Greek. I didn't. He is writing a piece for the East-West phi-
losophy group at Honolulu and is rather pleased with Alexander
the Great as a theme. He also wants to include something about
the Moors.

On this occasion we spent relatively more time discussing
technical philosophic questions such as the Realm of Essence,
determinism versus free choice, and epiphenomenalism. I had
brought along an essay on Santayana's work by Daniel Cory in
The Journal of Philosophy and asked Santayana's reaction to
some of Cory's statements. He explained the intuition of free
wiU as the plunge of the psyche itself in this direction or that
in a way that mere motives would not account for. He is pretty
much a determinist all the way through, but comes back to
the self-causation of the psyche as a human being's real free-
dom.

Among other things, Santayana stated that although he had
been brought up on British philosophy, it never really suited
him. Then when he read the Greeks, he knew that was It. He
thinks the way Aristode and the pre-Socratics thought, al-
though he expresses himself in a different idiom congenial to
a different civilization. Socrates, according to Santayana, moral-
ized philosophy too much and prepared it only too well for the
topsy-turvy Christian system which treats moral ideals as the
underpinning of the universe instead of seeing them as a flower-
ins: in the life of man*
S 161

When I told Sanatyana that I had defended him in America
some years ago against the charge of his being a Fascist, he
seemed pleased and agreed that he had never been a Fascist,
However, he thought that there had been some good in Musso-
lini's Italy; Mussolini's speeches were wonderful, but he him-
self was a brute.

As I was leaving, Santayana said he had been glad to see
me and that it served to wake him up. His last words were: 1
shall be right here next year if I am still alive."

165

V/THE COMEDY OF LIFE

Crank Letters

A LONG TIME AGO I discovered that one of the results of writ-
ing and speaking on public issues of a controversial nature was
a considerable increase in my mail. Some of the letters have
been complimentary and heart-warming, but more often they
have been abusive, hurling spicy, full-blown epithets; or just
plain absurd, purporting to reveal the secret of the universe
or the one and only panacea for all human ills. More than a
decade ago I started to keep a special file marked **Crank
Letters." It has grown and grown over the years and now con-
sists of four separate folders overflowing with material.

When I once became used to these curious communications,
I began to see a real element of humor in them. Sometimes I
would open up a letter at the breakfast table and annoy my
family by bursting into mysterious laughter over the colorful
insults which it contained. (Alas, due to the*high costs of the
cold war, the mail no longer comes in time for breakfast!)
Gradually I came to realize that crank letters were not only a
permanent feature of my existence, but that they also added
to the interest and gaiety of life.

Naturally I have received a good deal of drastic criticism

163

because of my active participation in the movement on behalf
of American-Soviet cooperation and understanding. Indignant
citizens have been fond of writing me that I am "knee-deep
in blood," Amorally dead'" or "an associate of murderers." I
always was especially charmed with tongue-twisting accusa-
tions such as that I was a "pseudo-revolutionary with an acro-
batic conscience," Since I had never considered myself a
revolutionary of any sort, this particular charge was not calcu-
lated to hurt my feelings.

There have been the usual bitter invitations "to go back
where you came from/* which for me would mean the dire
fate of returning to New Jersey, where I was born. During the
Second World War when I was urging an Anglo-American
Second Front in Western Europe, a self-styled patriot wrote
me: "By the way I'm for a Second Front, but only to end things
quicker and start the business of driving you skunks out of the
country. . . . What a blessing for America if you'd all decide
to go back." Referring to my "diabolical work/* this gentle soul
suggested that "Uncle Joe Stalin" send all of us "so-called
Americans" free fares to Soviet Russia.

In reply to a letter of mine published in 1946 in the New
York Herald Tribune, advocating the transition to a socialist
system through democratic instead of revolutionary means, an
angry gentleman sent me a postcard saying he absolutely in-
sisted on violence when it came to people like me. He ended
up with the observation: "I would love to see you and your
Communist conspirators swinging from the trees in Central
Park in the gentle October breezes.**

Of course the anti-Semites would denounce me occasionally.
One of them evidently took notes on my pronunciation during a
radio broadcast over the "Wake Up America" program in 1947.
He wrote in as follows: "Dr. Lament used the hard ings (ingh).
He also said wech (which), wat (what), ware (where). . . .
Now my question. Is Dr. Lamont a Jew? This is a legitimate
question, for the name Xamont* is misleading. He also is a
civil liberties advocate, which also marks him. Oh! yes he also
164

says Americer for America, also idear (idea), woik (work).
He also is an East Side, N. Y. Jew to my way of thinking, who
are Asiatics/'

One of the most amazing and amusing letters I ever received
came last April shortly after, as it happened, the publication
of a second edition of rny book, The Illusion of Immortality,
which attempts to refute the basic supernaturalist beliefs of
traditional Christianity. My correspondent stated: "Not since
Heywood Broun threw up his hands and sank was I so shocked
as when I heard that you had fallen to Msgr. Sheen. . . . For
the life of me I cannot see how you could become a Catholic.
. You, with all your scholarship, to finally throw yourself
into the soft arms of Mother Church, I can't understand it

"If this is not a clear case of split personality, even a remote
guess is entirely beyond me. ... I feel that the best I can
wish you is that this is a schizophrenic symptom and that you
will soon recover. . . . The thought of your dropping into the
Church of Rome remains a shock even though my own stum-
blings after truth prevent my feeling complete scorn of another
who temporarily mistakes swampfire for the true light." The
letter went on and on in this vein for eighteen typewritten
pages single-spaced.

I sent a postcard back to this man stating that he was entirely
mistaken about me and asking him where he had picked up
such idiotic rumors. Before long I received a letter from his
son, who revealed he had given all this information to his
father. He claimed that a person purporting to be me had
talked to him for a long time in a bar at Albany a few weeks
previously and had told him not only about my conversion to
the Catholic Church, but about many alleged details of my
personal history. I had not myself been in Albany for several
months.

According to this son, clearly an effusive letter-writer him-
self, my impersonator said "lie wished he could retrace every
word written in a radical vein. The next two hours he
proceeded to tell me a terrific tale of his (your) past with
F 165

special emphasis on Ms recent conversion to the Catholic
Church. He is convincing to someone not familiar with your
personal life. His reference to well-known names is natural and
he particularly emphasized connections with Harry Bridges,
culminating in an intense hatred for him. While we were stand-
ing there the news of Bridges* conviction came over the radio.
He took credit for lining up the witnesses that caused the con-
viction. He also tdok credit for being the supplier of the funds
that enabled Bridges to reach his present power/' There were
pages more of this utter nonsense.

I felt a little concerned over the possibility of someone
wandering around the country and impersonating me. Could
a frame-up begin this way? I wondered. Since false impersona-
tion is a crime in New York State, I made one or two unen-
thusiastic moves towards investigation. But then I decided it
was just another crank on the rampage and dropped the whole
business. It is possible, too, that the father and son cooked up
the entire story just for the fun of writing long letters and feel-
ing a sense of self-importance.

Once in a while I get a letter that brings in other members
of my family such as my father and mother. For instance, one
enthusiastic correspondent wrote: T believe all the Laments
will march in the direction of humanity. I believe the Laments
are the most hopeful family on Wall Street I believe the
Lamonts have the power and the unprecedented opportunity to
save the day for humanity, to turn the tide from the American
Century American Nazismto the Century of the Common
Man, American Socialism. I believe the Lamonts are ordained
by God to help avert further violence in defense of greed. . . .
My sole motive in approaching the Lamonts at all was that
I love every one of the Laments.** In regard to this burst of
eloquence, one must admit that it is better to find love-letters
in the mail than hate-letters.

It is evident that cranks are an integral part of our many-
sided American civilization. I believe that they should have
full freedom of speech and letter-writing. Every so often to-
166

day's crackpot., whose notions may seem nonsensical, becomes
tomorrow's genius. But in any case most of these eccentric
persons are harmless; and it is probably good for them to blow
off steam and express pent-up emotions in epistolary activity.
I hope they will write me even funnier letters in the future.

167

Columnists

IN AN KRA of far-reaching political and economic change, with
revolutionary movements sweeping half the world and inter-
national tensions at their height, we can hardly expect calm,
restraint and sweet reasonableness to hold sway in public
affairs and public debate. Those who take an outspoken posi-
tion on controversial issues might as well realize that they are
practically certain to come in for a large amount of bitter mis-
understanding and extreme invective.

Some years ago I was introduced to an audience as the
person who had had "probably the greatest collection of op-
probrious epithets addressed to him of any man in America.'*
This was clearly an exaggeration on the part of a somewhat
oratorical chairman, but it is true that I have had my share of
smearing. Although I have sometimes thought it worth while
to get a letter printed in reply to some particularly untruthful
or unjust attack, and once even resorted to a libel suit, I long
ago learned that for me personally the most fruitful response
was not to waste emotion and energy in anger or rebuttal, but
to try to laugh the thing off.

Actually in most instances this has not been difficult of
achievement, since I have had to deal primarily with the
crackpot fringe of that curious species of the human animal
known as the Newspaper Columnist. My chief antagonists have
been well-known characters of journalism's jungle-world such
168

as Westbrook Pegler, Cholly Knickerbocker and the late Ben-
jamin DeCasseres, all of whom by a strange coincidence have
been employed by Hearst's New York Journal American,

These particular columnists, as well as various others, have
labored hard to conjure up fancy phrases to describe the sort
of bizarre social phenomenon they think I represent. Thus
Benjamin DeCasseres in the Journal American one day identi-
fied me as "the robotized millennial mind in all its mummified
grandeur/* Westbrook Pegler coined "the voluptuous paradox
of Wall Street and Union Square"; while Cholly Knickerbocker
offered "The Man on the Flying Trapeze."

An imaginative reporter on the Boston American talked of
me as "a young Park Avenue socialite whose palms have never
known the corns and bunions of hard toil, . . . wearing a
spiritual hair-shirt under his satin-lined, hand-tailored duds/'
And other panting phrase-mongers came through with "super-
dupe," "over-reformed blue blood," "silk-shirt Communist'* and
"the barefoot proletarian millionaire of Riverside Drive.'* Since
I, too, like to think of myself as something of a word artist, I
have genuinely appreciated these efforts at creative literature
on the part of my fellow toilers of the typewriter.

For years Mr. DeCasseres, in his column "The March of
Events," took cracks at me as a dangerous Red boring from
within and undermining the American way of life. Finally, he
wound himself up to a tremendous pitch in order to deliver the
knock-out blow. At the end of a column denouncing college
professors and intellectuals for leading America astray, De-
Casseres asserted in all seriousness: "The Intellectuals' from
Plato to Karl Marx and Corliss Lament are the bane, the pests
of the human race." This remarkable pronouncement was not
only funny; unwittingly it paid me just about the highest com-
, pliment I had ever received.

Westbrook Pegler, despite his choleric disposition and a soul
full of poisonous spleen, still lives on. He too, year after year,
has written stirring expos6s of my alleged subversive activities.
Mr. Pegler has been especially exercised over the fact that in
spite of my radical views I remained on good terms with my

169

parents, whose position therefore became "mysterious and
ambiguous." Concerning this theme the inimitable Pegler
reached the heights (or shall we say depths?) of eloquence
in a Journal American column published late in 1947. Telling
about a discussion as to what an innocent father should do
when he sees a son growing up like me, the great defender of
Christian civilization came forth with his solution:

** In Galway/ I said, 'there was a mayor named Lynch. He
hanged his kid. Not,' I added quickly, 'that I am offering a
serious proposal. I am only exploring the possibilities/ I still
think the idea wasn't too bad." Friends claimed this was an
incitement to murder, but I could only regard it as just another
ugly imbecility.

The Journal Americans Cholly Knickerbocker (a pen $ame,
as everyone knows) seems to be a fairly affable person whom
it is easy to laugh at. I was particularly amused over one of
his 1948 contributions when he dreamed up a football team
called *The Ail-American Shucks," composed of publicity-
seeking characters in caf society and captained by Tommy
Manville, to play against The Fatheads, also known as the
Red Socks. Captain of the Fatheads is Noodlehead Wallace.
His team is quite formidable with such outstanding players
as Joe Davies, Frazier McCann, Frederick Vanderbilt Field,
Corliss Lamont, Mrs. Hester Huntington, Sam Barlow, Michael
Straight, Leopold Stokowski, Muriel Draper, Louise Bransten
Berman and Vito Marcantonio as coach." ITiose indeed were
the good old days!

Other columnists of the gossip-and-rumor tribe who have
not altogether neglected me are Walter Winchell, John
O'Donnell, Danton Walker, Drew Pearson, George Sokolsky
and Ray Tucker. What I enjoyed most, however, was the story
which Leonard Lyons ran in the New York Post some years
ago in "The Lyons Den."

Mr. Lyons stated correctly that the Harvard Club of New
York "for the first time in its history will permit women to
enter the sacred portals and dine there," Then he added that
it was none other than I who had "effected this tradition-
170

breaking move." Actually, though I thoroughly approved of the
innovation, I had not even heard about it until the project
was well under way. But after the Lyons report, Harvard wives
congratulated me from all sides for having advanced so nobly
the cause of women's rights.

All I can say is that if, for a change, a columnist insists on
making a hero out of me, I shall not spend much time objecting.

171

Philosophy

PHDDLOSOPHY is not usually looked upon as an amusing subject,
but some of the correspondence I have received during the
past two years following the publication of two philosophic
works of mine has its humorous aspects. Most of the letters
have been cordial and helpful, but there have been a few com-
munications, particularly about my book, The Illusion of Im-
mortality, that have struck me as rather funny; and it is upon
these that I wish to comment.

Naturally there are those who think that my denial of a
personal immortality for human beings makes me into a sort
of anti-Christ Thus a man from Nova Scotia wrote; "To be-
lieve that there is no life after death ... is exactly what Lucifer
or Satan, the evil leader of hell, would have us all believe.**

A teacher at the Southwestern Bible Institute, Waxahachie,
Texas, waxed even more eloquent in a long communication to
my publisher about my volume: "It seems that the author has
dipped his pen in the cesspool of corruption, and has streaked
the pages of everlasting truth with its foul and loathsome
putrefaction. You say 'The book has received high praise in
American philosophical and religious journals as well as from
eminent theologians and philosophers/ I am free to say that
its writing may also be the occasion for high praises in hell-
not, however, from the damned in that dark domain, but from
the demonic host who shall some day inhabit that infernal
region/*
172

Far calmer was the letter from another critic who temper-
ately called my book "another bit of infidel propaganda** and
went on to say, "Surely two million Spiritualists throughout
the world can't be wrong." Now I am always happy to hear
from the Spiritualists, a sincere and active group whose mem-
bers earnestly believe in a hereafter and think they are in
constant communication with the souls of the deceased* I
know of no group that makes a greater contribution to the
comedy of life in this madcap world.

Early in rny study of religion and philosophy I became
deeply interested in Spiritualism. I attended seances where
supposedly the spirits of the departed performed magical feats
like tipping over tables and pulling the hair of eminent pro-
fessors; and I read through lengthy documents describing the
joys of heaven and transmitted by the dead through the "auto-
matic writing" of spiritualistic mediums. One kind medium of
my acquaintance sent me, on my twenty-first birthday, an
inspirational poem of twenty-six lines entitled, "A Man Thou
Art Today!," and allegedly dictated by a dead friend on "the
other side."

Although I am convinced that death is the end of the indi-
vidual conscious personality, I frankly would welcome, as I
have stated many times, any concrete evidence or sound reason-
ing tending to establish the immortality of man. The Spiritual-
ists have taken me at my word and are still making efforts to
win me over to what they consider the true faith.

A few months ago a lady by the name of Shirley Carson
Jenney, calling herself a "Clairaudient Psychic," tried to con-
vert me by sending me a book on immortality entitled "The
Fortune of Eternity/' which she had recently helped to write.
Hardened as I am to the unexpected quirks of the human mind,
I was astonished when I saw that authorship in this instance
was attributed to the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley ( 1792-1822),
whose spirit had supposedly transmitted this work of 124 pages
to Mrs. Jenney by means of "clairaudient dictation." The
volume has a short introduction purportedly by William Ewart
Gladstone, noted Prime Minister of England, who died in

173

1898 and is now apparently active in literary pursuits "over
there."

It appears that in the Spirit World Shelley is known as
Israfel the Prophet and is a close associate of Jesus Christ
and God. Concerning the latter's existence he had grave doubts
when he dwelt in this mundane sphere. Shelley's very talkative
spirit states: The Third Realm of the Seventh Heaven is often
my abode where my skies are Song I must live! The true God-
force of every form is here; we manner ourselves to verity
alone. . . . Steady Time has us in its hours and will help us
ever; a thousand doves are in its bosom for the myriad ways
of Eternity!** It seems to me that Shelley's prose has become
a bit fulsome and ambiguous since he arrived in paradise. As
for the thirty-odd poems in this book, it saddens me to report
that they fall considerably below the quality of the poetry
written by Shelley when he was a struggling earthbound mortal
here more than a century ago.

It all started one evening, according to Mrs. Jenney, when
she was sitting by the fire and Shelley appeared to her in
ethereal materialization. The dreamy, handsome, aristocratic
face was perfectly formed. . . . He was tall, with rather a
small head; wore a palish grey suit something like a tweed.
. . , There was also the same Shelley shirt, with open neck."
(If ghosts have clothes, goes an old saying, then clothes must
have ghosts.)

When Mrs. Jenney at this exciting moment turned to look
for her husband, he was lying on a nearby couch "in a sort of
coma.** I am unable to decide whether he fainted clear away
over the sudden appearance of Mr. Shelley or whether he was
just being discreet

My mind is still open to new facts about the future life,
but I confess that Mrs. Jenney's revelations have not led to
any important change in my opinions.

174

Lecturing

A LONG TIME AGO lectures and lecture tours became an integral
part of my work. Especially exciting and rewarding have been
the tours to the Middle West and West Coast of the United
States and up into Canada. On these trips the audiences have
invariably been alert and appreciative; and I have made many
new and delightful acquaintances. I always come back with a
warm feeling that everywhere there are such wonderful
people.

Strange and remarkable things occasionally happen on leo
ture tours. And some years ago when I was speaking in Los
Angeles I had one of the most amazing experiences of my
life. Among those especially cordial to me in that city were
the individuals associated with the Humanist Society of
Friends, although I did not address them as a group. They
were in general agreement with me in supporting the Humanist
philosophy of rejecting all forms of the supernatural and con-
centrating human endeavor on the happiness and progress of
mankind in this world. While I, however, preferred to call
Humanism a philosophy, this organization regarded it as a
religion and was itself incorporated as a religious body under
the laws of California.

At the end of my last talk in Los Angeles, an official of this
Humanist Society of Friends congratulated me on my lectures
and handed me a big envelope which, he said, contained a

175

testimonial expressing the appreciation of the Society for my
efforts. At this point I was dashing off to catch a plane for
San Francisco and did not have time to read the contents of
the envelope. I thanked my friend of the Friends and hurriedly
went off in a taxi to the airport.

When I took my seat in the plane, I found myself next to
Walter Duranty, tie crack New York Times correspondent in
Moscow for many years and an old acquaintance of mine.
Naturally we had a lot to talk about; and also there was a
lot for me to look at out of the windows. So I did not get
around to opening my envelope until we had almost reached
San Francisco.

Inside it I found a very official looking document inscribed
with fancy lettering, with a gold seal at the bottom, and signed
by no less than four officers of the Society, including the
Director of Credentials. It was headed, in large type, CERTIFI-
CATE OF ORDINATION OF THE HUMANIST SOCIETY OF FRIENDS and

read as follows:

TThis is to certify that Dr. Corliss Lament has been ordained
a Minister of the Humanist Society of Friends. By virtue of the
Power and Authority vested in us by the Articles of Incorpora-
tion and by the Laws of the State of California he is hereby
duly Empowered and Authorized to Officiate at Wedding
Ceremonies and Funeral Services, and to Perform all other
Duties which may devolve upon him in his Capacity as a
Minister. As a Humanist Friends Minister he is Entitled to the
same Courtesy, Respect and Consideration which is customarily
accorded to Ministers of other Religious Organizations. We
hereunto place our Hands and the Seal of this Society/*

I was unable to take this surprising document seriously and
did not immediately wire, as I should have, saying that I could
not accept the great honor conferred upon me. Instead I
showed the Certificate of Ordination to various friends on my
way back to New York and laughed with them over my newly
acquired power to conduct weddings and funerals, and as a
clergyman to obtain a considerable reduction on all railroad
176

fares. Unfortunately, I already had bought a return ticket to
the East.

When I returned to New York City I had a merry time read-
ing the Certificate aloud to members of my family. They were
all amused; but some were also rather pleased, thinking that
perhaps this Ordination out of the blue would make a well-
smeared radical like myself suddenly respectable. My mother
claimed she had always hoped I would become a minister.
When I said that really I must send back the document or
tear it up, one loving relative remarked: 'Tor heaven's sake,
don't do that. Keep it permanently in your topmost desk
drawer. It may save your life some day, because the powers-
that-be don't like to tangle with the clergy!"

I knew, however, that I must send it back. Yet I delayed,
since I had come to cherish my Certificate as something which
brought an element of humor and fantasy into the deep-
pondering life of a philosopher. Then one day I received in
the mail the regular monthly bulletin of the Humanist Society
of Friends. I thumbed leisurely through the pages, glancing
at a sentence here and a paragraph there.

All at once I was filled with dismay, for I saw my own name
spelled out in full at the top of a list headed "Senior Ordained
Ministers." This was more than I had bargained for and served
me right, I suppose, for my flippant attitude.

I immediately sent back the Certificate of Ordination air
mail to the Humanist Society of Friends, with a covering letter
explaining that I could not possibly accept the title of Minister
and that I had regarded the Certificate as possessing symbolic,
not literal, significance. The Director of the Society wrote back
a little hurt, but said he understood my position.

This was the nearest I ever came to becoming a Reverend.
And the episode has permanently alerted me to the dangers
of treating lightly matters of profound religious significance.

177

Mistaken Identity

MY WIFE did not become aware of the vicissitudes inherent in
my very name until after we had set up housekeeping in an
apartment on Riverside Drive. So it was that one autumn day
when I was meeting my philosophy classes at Columbia Uni-
versity, she opened a telegram addressed to me and was startled
to read a message from a company in the Middle West asking
for the immediate delivery of a large consignment of Nestles
chocolate. Since I was not engaged in the chocolate business
or in any other commercial enterprise, she was not able to
fathom this telegraphic mystery.

When I returned home that afternoon and read the wire
myself, I quickly realized that this order the first of many
such communications was meant for the wholesale firm of La-
ment, Corliss & Co., a business founded by my father, Thomas
W, Lamont, and my uncle, Charles A. Corliss, back about
1900. Lamont, Corliss & Co. were dealers in Nestle's, Cailler's
and Peter's chocolate, in Pond's Vanishing Cream, O'Sullivan's
Rubber Heels and other well-known products. It was too late
in the day to telephone the contents of the telegram to Lamont,
Corliss & Co.; so I mailed it to the firm at its downtown address.

Thereafter week by week there kept coming to my apart-
ment so many telegrams, letters and phone calls which were
obviously intended for Lamont, Corliss & Co. that I finally
changed my listing in the Manhattan Telephone Directory
178

from "Lament, Corliss" to "Lament, C." Since, however, the
company's name was very close to my own in the Directory,
my attempt to dissociate myself from the wholesale business
by talcing refuge in an initial was never wholly successful.

The situation also caused considerable confusion at Lamont,
Corliss & Co. at 60 Hudson Street. They frequently had to for-
ward letters to me; and there were repeated cases of people
getting in touch with my cousin, Gordon Lamont, an executive
at Lamont, Corliss & Co. until its recent dissolution, and in-
viting him to speak at a rally on behalf of American-Soviet
cooperation or to attend a protest dinner against Franco Spain.
Various liberals and radicals would call the firm number in all
good faith and ask for Mr. Lamont Mr. Gordon Lamont, who
is a staunch, conservative Republican, would then come on the
phone and spend considerable time in explaining the mistaken
identity without antagonizing a possible buyer. Fortunately,
my cousin is a good-natured fellow and has taken it all in a
spirit of fine sportsmanship.

I can sympathize with his tribulations over the years, be-
cause I, too, receive strange and remarkable telephone calls.
Thus on title afternoon of Wednesday, November 27, 1946, an
urgent call came for me while I was lecturing at Columbia.
My secretary took over and a rather excited lady said to her:

TMy name is Mrs. Davis and I'm in Mr. Lament's class; but
I won't be able to come this afternoon, and that's what I wanted
to talk to him about. You see," she continued, *Tve had a ter-
rible accident. A car ran into me last Saturday and Fm not able
to get out of bed yet. But I wanted Mr. Lamont to know about
it because even if I can't be there he might like to show my
chart for this week.'* My astonished secretary said she didn't
know anything about my using charts and requested Mrs.
Davis please to explain more fully.

"Are you an astrologer?" Mrs. Davis asked. ""No," answered
my secretary. **Well, you know," went on Mrs. Davis, "Mr.
Lamont puts die chart of a member of his class on the board
each week to be studied; and I thought this might be an espe-
cially interesting week for me because of my accident and all.

179

I think he might like to see what the stars show for me, even
if I can't be there."

My secretary asked, "You're calling Mr. Lamont on Riverside
Drive?" "Yes, indeed/* answered Mrs. Davis. "And if s about
his course in philosophy?" "Oh, no!" said Mrs. Davis in a
shocked tone. "It's his course in astrology!"

In this way my household and I made the important dis-
covery that an eminent astrologer by the name of C. W. Le-
mont lived, like myself, on Riverside Drive and was listed in
the Telephone Directory; and that he gave a class Wednesday
afternoons, teaching the influence of the heavenly bodies on
the destiny of men and women in this world, including their
fate amid the terrific traffic maelstrom of Manhattan.

For a number of years now phone calls, both local and long
distance, and mail, both regular and special delivery, have kept
coming to me on the assumption that I am a practicing astrol-
oger. A lady got me on the phone one day and stated that
she represented the American Foundation for Metaphysical
Arts and Sciences. Before I could even open my mouth, she
launched into a lengthy explanation of the marvelous astrology
courses that this Foundation was planning during the coming
year. She was sure I would want to participate and give a
lecture myself every Monday evening. I finally managed to
break in and tell her that it must be Mr. Lemont she wanted.
(This Metaphysical Foundation, I discovered, has offices on
57th Street in New York.)

A few weeks later another lady phoned to say: "This is Mrs.
Prince at PleasantviUe. When wil you send the horoscopes for
me and my son?" Next, a troubled woman, reacting to a certain
coldness in my telephone manner, remonstrated "Oh, you must
remember me!"; and informed me that her chart had gone
down the incinerator by mistake. Another agitated female
recently asked me over the phone please to recommend im-
mediately a good hypnotist. Sensing a probable connection
between hypnotists and astrologers, I explained as usual the
mistaken identity, but also offered some free advice about not
going too far with hypnotists*
180

The most memorable letter I ever received in my role as
astrologer ran like this: The noted horse Whirligig II is going
to race in the Roundtree Handicap two weeks from Saturday.
She was born March 30, 1945. Please send me her horoscope
special delivery.

Despite this enticing suggestion that a little astrological lore
may enable one to predict a winner, I have not yet started to
bet on the races.

181

The Battle of Squibnocket Beach

MY FAMILY and I have spent many a delightful summer on
Martha's Vineyard, that unique and unexcelled island of re-
freshment off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts. The
Vineyard offers all kinds of outdoor sports and natural beauties.
But for our growing children it was particularly desirable
because of its splendid swimming and bathing facilities.

Our favorite place for bathing was in the mild surf of Squib^
nocket Beach near Chilmark. One summer, about a week after
our arrival on the island, I noticed below the surface a large
metal spike about three feet high, sticking up from the bottom,
a little way out from the beach. Its top was pointed and sharp,
and remained about a foot and a half under water at low tide.
It seemed to me that this spike was a dangerous hazard to
bathers, including my own children, and might cause serious
injury.

Accordingly, I began to make inquiries as to who might
take responsibility for removing the spike. I drove up to the
Coast Guard station at Gay Head and talked to the First
Mate there. He said that the matter was not in the Coast
Guard's domain because the spike was plainly not in navigable
waters. However, as a favor he agreed to send down two of
Ms men to try to cut it off with a hacksaw.

So next day two Coast Guard men came down to Squibnocket
Beach at low tide, thinking they had an easy job before them.
182

They tried to saw the iron, going down alternately and bold-
ing their breaths under water. But they didn't get anywhere
at all with this technique and found the regular sea-swell an
enormous handicap. Finally, however., by means of a big ham-
mer, they slightly bent the sharp tip of the spike. They said
they would return in a couple of days and were sure they
could finish the job, because now they knew exactly how diffi-
cult it was. They came back to Squibnocket two or three times
during the next week, but on each occasion they decided the
sea was not calm enough to make another attempt at the spike
worth while. Then they faded out of the picture entirely.

Since a private property-holder owned the beach and kindly
permitted the public to use it, my next move was to approach
the caretaker of the estate. Although I explained to him
graphically the horrible dangers of the spike, he said it was
none of his or his employer's business, because the offending
object was beyond the low-tide water mark and therefore out-
side of the property in question.

Feeling a bit desperate at this point, I went to see the head
of the Chilmark Board of Selectmen. He agreed that the spike
was a very bad thing to have around a bathing beach, but was
sorry the town could not do anything about it because, since
it was beyond the low-tide water mark, the responsibility was
either state or federal. He said that really the Coast Guard
ought to take charge.

But I was tired of the Coast Guard, So I paid a call on the
Martha's Vineyard Shipbuilding Company at Vineyard Haven.
They were very unenthusiastic about taking on the job, even
for good money, and recommended me to an amateur diver
in the vicinity by the name of Dyer. I phoned Dyer. He
offered his regrets on the basis (hat he had only a diving helmet
and confined his diving efforts to the quiet waters of Vineyard
Sound. However, he thought a professional diver called Dave
Curney might be interested. I phoned Curney and he said
"Yes."

The next morning I drove to Vineyard Haven with Josh
Billings, the painter, in his station wagon to get Curney and

183

his equipment. This equipment weighed around 800 pounds
and was mtich more extensive than we had bargained for.
Curney had an assistant with him and a pretty daughter of
seventeen named Adele. We decided to put the equipment in
the assistants battered old truck. Then we started in the two
cars for Squibnocket Beach. About a mile out of Vineyard
Haven the assistant's truck blew a tire. We shifted all the stuff
to the station wagon, though Billings was rather unhappy about
this.

We arrived at the beach about 3.30 P.M., the tide being
quite low. Curney, his assistant and his daughter all looked
very glum. Curney stated that he would fall over and drown
in his heavy equipment, which required complete submerg-
ence to keep him in control. He claimed I had mentioned a
quiet little place on the Sound, although I thought I had
made the situation entirely clear.

Curney assured us he could blow out the spike with dyna-
mite at high tide, but that he must have a fairly good-sized
craft from which to operate. We stored his equipment in the
Billings barn and then phoned the Captain of the Coast Guard
to request the loan of his motor launch. He sent off a radio-
gram to some higher official and informed me next day that
the boat would be available.

We made a date for early the following Monday morning
at high tide. Unfortunately a big Nor'easter broke over the
week-end, and we knew Monday would be impossible because
of heavy seas. When it started to clear Monday afternoon, we
set Tuesday morning as the time. A few hours later, after a
new storm was reported, we postponed the whole business
to Wednesday.

Wednesday morning at 5.30 A.M. I drove once more to
Vineyard Haven to fetch Curney. In the back of my Buick
we put his sailor's bag, in which there were ten sticks of dyna-
mite and some other essentials. I felt somewhat nervous be-
cause Mrs. Curney remarked that she had already attached
the percussion caps to the dynamite; having only the haziest
idea about blasting techniques, I couldn't help wondering
184

whether the dynamite might not go off if we went over a bad
bump. Since the bag was right behind the driver's seat, I
kept leaning forward to try to safeguard the back of my head
in case there was an explosion. Cumey remarked that I was
driving mighty queerly. I answered that I had to keep peer-
ing intently ahead because it was misty and only half light.

We got to Squibnocket Beach at 7 A.M. and waited ex-
pectantly for the Coast Guard boat to appear. We waited
and waited. At 9.30 word came that due to the damp weather
they had been unable to get the launch started. At 10.30 her
engine finally responded, but by then we had lost the tide.
So we made another date for the next morning, Thursday.

By this time, I confess, I was beginning to feel pretty fed
up with the project. People in the neighborhood were mutter-
ing that I was a trouble-maker and that nobody would ever
get hurt by the spike anyway. Some claimed that I was making
all this fuss just in order to attract attention. The community's
psychoanalytic expert, who had had three divorces and one
nervous breakdown, asserted that only an Oedipus complex
could account for so much useless activity.

Thursday morning dawned quiet and clear. Everybody and
everything, including the Coast Guard launch, were at the
beach at 9.15 A.M. Josh Billings and I roamed around in a
borrowed rowboat and helped the Coast Guard launch to drop
its anchor in the right place. Then Cumey, assisted by his
daughter, proceeded to put on his heavy equipment, of course
saving his helmet to the last.

Before putting that on, he asked for his "medicine." This I
provided in the form of some Scotch whiskey, a bottle of which
I had brought along as a general utility measure. While he sat
there drinking his medicine, Curney told us a story about an
English diver who was on a dynamite job. This man came up
after putting the dynamite in place, but stood on a ladder
attached to the boat's side instead of climbing aboard. "Let
her go," he yelled. However, the dynamite he had supposedly
set below had caught in his heavy shoes, and he had brought
the stuff up with him. The explosion tore off both his legs and

185

propelled him right on to the boat. The diver, suffering ter-
ribly, asked someone to loll him quick, but nobody would do
it. They plied him with quantities of rye and he speedily died.

At the end of his story Curney nonchalantly adjusted his
helmet, which had a long hose attached to a large hand-pump
in the boat. Two of the Coast Guard men started to turn the
pump slowly in order to provide Curney with air. He climbed
down a special six-foot wooden ladder he had made fast to
the launch, taking several sticks of dynamite with him. He
couldn't see under water and felt his way to the spike, next to
which he placed the dynamite, covering it up with sand and
stones. There was a wire strung from the dynamite to a battery
on board the launch.

When Curney had come back on board there was a little
delay for the reason that Billings and I had to row his "assistant"
ashore. This assistant had promised his mother that he would
leave the boat before the explosion actually took place. Also
I made the crowd on the beach, composed mostly of children,
move away about fifty yards.

When everything was ready I shouted **O.K." and Adele
Curney turned the switch. A muffled noise, not very loud, fol-
lowed, and a geyser-like spout of water shot up in the air about
twenty-five feet.

Cumey went down again and attached the Coast Guard's
sounding iron to the uprooted spike. In two minutes he
clambered aboard once more and told the boys to haul away.
This they did and quickly brought up the huge iron spike, or
bolt, as Curney called it. It was about five feet long, sharply
pointed at both ends and twisted in the middle from the
dynamite blast. It varied from three to five inches in cir-
cumference, Curney, sipping his medicinal Scotch again, said
that the bolt was one of the most dangerous things he had seen
in his whole life and that he wondered why nobody had been
killed by it already.

Billings and I took the spike ashore and everyone gathered
around it in awe. It was so definitely vicious that no one could
186

doubt its removal was well worth all the trouble. Even the
skeptics were convinced.

Curney was of the opinion that the spike had been in the
keel of a wreck buried far beneath the beach. One of my
friends suggested that it was the stock, that is, the cross-bar,
of a big anchor. Another thought it had been part of an old
fisherman's wharf built on the beach. Nobody really knew.

Curney, Adele and the assistant came to lunch at our cottage;
and my wife took photographs of Curney holding on to the
spike. He sent me a total bill of $40.00 for the entire operation,
adding, <tf ln view of the good time we had, including the
dinner and the nice Scotch whiskey with which you treated the
boys, I could not charge you for the dynamite and detonators.**

187

(continued from front m

at home in the various ' Atonal faiths, THE

INDEPENDENT MINL -rs an exciting
modern fau. nositlve IE sj.. scientific in
thought, joyous . "ensuous peu non of the

physical world.

Corliss Lamont grad-
uated from Harvard in
1924, studied at Oxford
for a year and took his
Ph.D. at. Columbia Uai- f||
versity in 1932. He has **$'
taught at Columbia,
Cornell, Harvard and
the New School He is a member of the American
Philosophical Association and a Director of the
American Civil Liberties Union. Dr. Lamont is
the author of Humanism as a Philosophy, The
Illusion of Immortality and other works; and
editor of Man Answers Death, An Anthology of
Poetry. He is married and las four

HORIZON PRESS inc., 63 W. 44th St., N. Y. 18