Chapter 13
In August 1938, we sold our house at Kidlington, The purchasers would only buy it if we evacuated it at once, which left us a fortnight in August to fill in somehow. We hired a caravan, and spent the time on the coast of Pembrokeshire. There were Peter and me, John and Kate and Conrad, and our big dog Sherry. It poured with rain practically the whole time and we were all squashed up together. It was about as uncomfortable a time as I can remember. Peter had to prepare the meals, which she hated doing. Finally, John and Kate went back to Dartington, and Peter and Conrad and I sailed for America.
In Chicago I had a large Seminar, where I continued to lecture on the same subject as at Oxford, namely, 'Words and Facts'. But I was told that Americans would not respect my lectures if I used monosyllables, so I altered the title to something like 'The Correlation between Oral and Somatic Motor Habits'. Under this title, or something of the sort, the Seminar was approved. It was an extraordinarily delightful Seminar. Carnap and Charles Morris used to come to it, and I had three pupils of quite outstanding ability - Dalkey, Kaplan, and Copilowish. We used to have close arguments back and forth, and succeeded in genuinely clarifying points to our mutual satisfaction, which is rare in philosophical argument. Apart from this Seminar, the time in Chicago was disagreeable. The town is beastly and the weather was vile. President Hutchins, who was occupied with the Hundred Best Books, and with the attempt to force neo-Thomism on the philosophical faculty, naturally did not much like me, and when the year for which I had been engaged came to an end was, I think, glad to see me go.
I became a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. After the bleak hideousness of Chicago, which was still in the grip of winter, it was delightful to arrive in the Californian spring. We arrived in California at the end of March, and my duties did not begin until September. The first part of the intervening time I spent in a lecture tour, of which I remember only two things with any vividness. One is that the professors at the Louisiana State University, where I lectured, all thought well of Huey Long, on the ground that he had raised their salaries. The other recollection is more pleasant: in a purely rural region, I was taken to the top of the dykes that enclose the Mississippi. I was very tired with lecturing, long journeys, and heat, I lay in the grass, and watched the majestic river, and gazed, half hypnotised, at water and sky. For some ten minutes I experienced peace, a thing which very rarely happened to me, and I think only in the presence of moving water.
In the summer of 1939, John and Kate came to visit us for the period of the school holidays. A few days after they arrived the War broke out, and it became impossible to send them back to England. I had to provide for their further education at a moment's notice. John was seventeen, and I entered him at the University of California, but Kate was only fifteen, and this seemed young for the University. I made enquiries among friends as to which school in Los Angeles had the highest academic standard, and there was one that they all concurred in recommending, so I sent her there. But I found that there was only one subject taught that she did not already know, and that was the virtues of the capitalist system. I was therefore compelled, in spite of her youth, to send her to the University. Throughout the year 1939-40 John and Kate lived with us.
In the summer months of 1939 we rented a house at Santa Barbara, which is an altogether delightful place. Unfortunately, I injured my back, and had to lie flat on my back for a month, tortured by almost unendurable sciatica. The result of this was that I got behind hand with the preparations for my lectures, and that throughout the coming academic year I was always overworked and always conscious that my lectures were inadequate.
The academic atmosphere was much less agreeable than in Chicago; the people were not so able, and the President was a man for whom I conceived, I think justly, a profound aversion. If a lecturer said anything that was too liberal, it was discovered that the lecturer in question did his work badly, and he was dismissed. When there were meetings of the Faculty, the President of the University used to march in as if he were wearing jack-boots, and rule any motion out of order if he did not happen to like it. Everybody trembled at his frown, and I was reminded of a meeting of the Reichstag under Hitler.
Towards the end of the academic year 1939-40, I was invited to become a professor at the College of the City of New York. The matter appeared to be settled, and I wrote to the President of the University of California to resign my post there. Half an hour after he received my letter, I learned that the appointment in New York was not definitive and I called upon the President to withdraw my resignation, but he told me it was too late. Earnest Christian taxpayers had been protesting against having to contribute to the salary of an infidel, and the President was glad to be quit of me.
The College of the City of New York was an institution run by the City Government. Those who attended it were practially all Catholics or Jews; but to the indignation of the former, practically all the scholarships went to the latter. The Government of New York City was virtually a satellite of the Vatican, but the professors at the City College strove ardently to keep up some semblance of academic freedom. It was no doubt in pursuit of this aim that they had recommended me. An Anglican bishop was incited to protest against me, and priests lectured die police, who were practically all Irish Catholics, on my responsibility for the local criminals. A lady, whose daughter attended some section of the City College with which I should never be brought in contact, was induced to bring a suit, saying that my presence in that institution would be dangerous to her daughter's virtue. This was not a suit against me, but against the Municipality of New York.1 I endeavoured to be made a party to the suit, but was told that I was not concerned. Although the Municipality was nominally the defendant, it was as anxious to lose the suit as the good lady was to win it. The lawyer for the prosecution pronounced my works 'lecherous, libidinous, lustful, venerous, erotomaniac, aphrodisiac, irreverent, narrow-minded, untruthful, and bereft of moral fiber'. The suit came before an Irishman who decided against me at length and with vituperation. I wished for an appeal, but the Municipality of New York refused to appeal. Some of the things said against me were quite fantastic. For example, I was thought wicked for saying that very young infants should not be punished for masturbation.
1 Information about this suit will be found in The Bertrand Russell Case, ed. by John Dewey and Horace M. Kallen, Viking Press, 1941; and also in the Appendix to Why I am not a Christian, ed. by Paul Edwards, George Allen & Unwin, 1957.
A typical American witch-hunt was instituted against me,2 and I became taboo throughout the whole of the United States. I was to have been engaged in a lecture tour, but I had only one engagement, made before the witch-hunt had developed. The Rabbi who had made this engagement broke his contract, but I cannot blame him. Owners of halls refused to let them if I was to lecture, and if I had appeared anywhere in public, I should probably have been lynched by a Catholic mob, with the full approval of the police. No newspaper or magazine would publish anything that I wrote, and I was suddenly deprived of all means of earning a living. As it was legally impossible to get money out of England, this produced a very difficult situation, especially as I had my three children dependent upon me. Many liberal-minded professors protested, but they all supposed that as I was an earl I must have ancestral estates and be very well off. Only one man did anything practical, and that was Dr Barnes, the inventor of Argyrol, and the creator of the Barnes Foundation near Philadelphia. He gave me a five-year appointment to lecture on philosophy at his Foundation. This relieved me of a very great anxiety. Until he gave me this appointment, I had seen no way out of my troubles. I could not get money out of England; it was impossible to return to England; I certainly did not wish my three children to go back into the blitz, even if I could have got a passage for them which would certainly have been impossible for a long time to come. It seemed as if it would be necessary to take John and Kate away from the University, and to live as cheaply as possible on the charity of kind Mends. From this bleak prospect I was saved by Dr Barnes.
2 The Registrar of New York County said publicly that I should be 'tarred and feathered and driven out of the country'. Her remarks were typical of the general public condemnation.
The summer of 1940 offered for me an extraordinary contrast between public horror and private delight. We spent the summer in the Sierras, at Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe, one of the loveliest places that it has ever been my good fortune to know. The lake is more than 6000 feet above sea-level, and during the greater part of the year deep snow makes the whole region uninhabitable. But there is a three-months' season in the summer during which the sun shines continually, the weather is warm, but as a rule not unbearably hot, the mountain meadows are filled with the most exquisite wild flowers, and the smell of the pine trees fills the air. We had a log cabin in the middle of pine trees, close to the lake. Conrad and his nursery governess slept indoors, but there was no room for the rest of us in the house, and we all slept on various porches. There were endless walks through deserted country to waterfalls, lakes and mountain tops, and one could dive off snow into deep water that was not unduly cold. I had a tiny study which was hardly more than a shed, and there I finished my Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Often it was so hot that I did my writing stark naked. But heat suits me, and I never found it too hot for work.
Amid all these delights we waited day by day to know whether England had been invaded, and whether London still existed. The postman, a jocular fellow with a somewhat sadistic sense of humour, arrived one morning saying in a loud voice, 'Heard the news? All London destroyed, not a house left standing!' And we could not know whether to believe him. Long walks and frequent bathes in many lakes helped to make the time endurable, and, by September, it had begun to seem that England would not be invaded.
I found in the Sierras the only classless society that I have ever known. Practically all the houses were inhabited by university professors, and the necessary work was done by university students. The young man, for instance, who brought our groceries was a young man to whom I had been lecturing throughout the winter. There were also many students who had come merely for a holiday, which could be enjoyed very cheaply as everything was primitive and simple. Ameriicans understand die management of tourists much better than Europeans do. Although there were many houses close to the lake, hardly one could be seen from a boat, since all were carefully concealed in pine trees; and the houses themselves were built of pine logs, and were quite inoffensive. One angle of the house in which we lived was made of a live and growing tree; I cannot imagine what will happen to the house when the tree grows too big.
In the autumn of 1940 I gave the William James lectures at Harvard. This engagement had been made before the trouble in New York. Perhaps Harvard regretted having made it, but, if so, the regret was politely concealed from me.
My duties with Dr Barnes began at the New Year of 1941. We rented a farmhouse about thirty miles from Philadelphia, a very charming house, about two hundred years old, in rolling country, not unlike inland Dorsetshire. There was an orchard, a fine old barn, and three peach trees, which bore enormous quantities of the most delicious peaches I have ever tasted. There were fields sloping down to a river, and pleasant woodlands. We were ten miles from Paoli (called after the Corsican patriot), which was the limit of the Philadelphia suburban trains. From there I used to go by train to the Barnes Foundation, where I lectured in a gallery of modern French paintings, mostly of nudes, which seemed somewhat incongruous for academic philosophy.
Dr Barnes was a strange character. He had a dog to whom ne was passionately devoted and a wife who was passionately devoted to him. He liked to patronise coloured people and treated them as equals, because he was quite sure that they were not. He had made an enormous fortune by inventing Argyrol; when it was at its height, he sold out, and invested all his money in Government securities. He then became an art connoisseur. He had a very fine gallery of modem French paintings and in connection with the gallery he taught the principles of aesthetics. He demanded constant flattery and had a passion for quarrelling. I was warned before accepting his offer that he always tired of people before long, so I exacted a five-year contract from him. On December 28th, 1942, I got a letter from him informing me that my appointment was terminated as from January 1st. I was thus reduced once again from affluence to destitution. True, I had my contract, and the lawyer whom I consulted assured me that there was no doubt whatever of my getting full redress from the courts. But obtaining legal redress takes time, especially in America, and I had to live through the Intervening period somehow. Corbusier, in a book on America, tells a typical story about Barnes's behaviour. Corbusier was on a lecture tour, and wished to see Dr Barnes's gallery. He wrote for permission, which Dr Barnes always accorded very grudgingly. Dr Barnes replied that he could see it at nine o'clock on a certain Saturday morning, but at no other time. Corbusier wrote again saying that his lecture engagements made that time impossible and would not some other time be suitable. Dr Barnes wrote an exceedingly rude letter, saying it was then or never. To this Corbusier sent a long answer, which is printed in his book saying that he was not averse from quarrels, but he preferred to quarrel with people who were on the other side in matters of art, whereas he and Dr Barnes were both in favour of what is modern, and it seemed a pity that they should not agree. Dr Barnes never opened this letter, but returned it, with the word 'merde' written large on the envelope.
When my case came into court, Dr Barnes complained that I had done insufficient work for my lectures, and that they were superficial and perfunctory. So far as they had gone, they consisted of the first two-thirds of my History of Western Philosophy, of which I submitted the manuscript to the judge, though I scarcely suppose he read it. Dr Barnes complained of my treatment of the men whom he called Pither-gawras and Empi-Dokkles. I observed the judge taking notice, and I won my case. Dr Barnes, of course, appealed as often as he could, and it was not until I was back in England that I actually got the money. Meanwhile he had sent a printed document concerning my sins to the Master and each of the Fellows of Trinity College, to warn them of their folly in inviting me back. I never read this document, but I have no doubt it was good reading.
In the early months of 1943 I suffered some financial stringency, but not so much as I had feared. We sublet our nice farmhouse, and went to live in a cottage intended for a coloured couple whom it was expected that the inhabitants of the farmhouse would employ. This consisted of three rooms and three stoves, each of which had to be stoked every hour or so. One was to warm the place, one was for cooking, and one was for hot water. When they went out it was several hours' work to get them lighted again. Conrad could hear every word that Peter and I said to each other, and we had many worrying things to discuss which it was not good for him to be troubled with. But by this time the trouble about City College had begun to blow over, and I was able to get occasional lecture engagements in New York and other places. The embargo was first broken by an invitation from Professor Weiss of Bryn Mawr to give a course of lectures there. This required no small degree of courage. On one occasion I was so poor that I had to take a single ticket to New York and pay the return fare out of my lecture fee. My History of Western Philosophy was nearly complete, and I wrote to W. W. Norton, who had been my American publisher, to ask if, in view of my difficult financial position, he would make an advance on it. He replied that because of Ms affection for John and Kate, and as a kindness to an old Mend, he would advance five hundred dollars. I thought I could get more elsewhere, so I approached Simon and Schuster, who were unknown to me personally. They at once agreed to pay me two thousand dollars on the spot, and another thousand six months later. At this time John was at Harvard and Kate was at Radcliffe. I had been afraid that lack of funds might compel me to take them away, but thanks to Simon and Schuster, this proved unnecessary. I was also helped at this time by loans from private friends which, fortunately, I was able to repay before long.
The History of Western Philosophy began by accident and proved the main source of my income for many years. I had no idea, when I embarked upon this project, that it would have a success which none of my other books have had, even, for a time, shining high upon the American list of Best Sellers. While I was still concerned with ancient times, Barnes had told me that he had no further need of me, and my lectures stopped. I found the work exceedingly interesting, especially the parts that I knew least about beforehand, the early Medieval part and the Jewish part just before the birth of Christ, so I continued the work till I had completed the survey. I was grateful to Bryn Mawr College for allowing me the use of its library which I found excellent, especially as it provided me with the invaluable work of the Rev. Charles who published translations of Jewish works written shortly before the time of Christ and in a great degree anticipating His teaching.
I was pleased to be writing this history because I had always believed that history should be written in the large. I had always held, for example, that the subject matter of which Gibbon treats could not be adequately treated in a shorter book or several books. I regarded the early part of my History of Western Philosophy as a history of culture, but in the later parts, where science becomes important, it is more difficult to fit into this framework. I did my best, but I am not at all sure that I succeeded. I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such a man exists. I regard it as mere humbug to pretend to lack of bias. Moreoever, a book, like any other work, should be held together by its point of view. This is why a book made up of essays by various authors is apt to be less interesting as an entity than a book by one man. Since I do not admit that a person without bias exists, I think the best that can be done with a large-scale history is to admit one's bias and for dissatisfied readers to look for other writers to express an opposite bias. Which bias is nearer to the truth must be left to posterity. This point of view on the writing of history makes me prefer my History of Western Philosophy to the Wisdom of the West which was taken from the former, but ironed out and tamed - although I like the illustrations of Wisdom of the West.
The last part of our time in America was spent at Princeton, where we had a little house on the shores of the lake. While in Princeton, I came to know Einstein fairly well. I used to go to his house once a week to discuss with him and Gödel and Pauli. These discussions were in some ways disappointing, for, although all three of them were Jews and exiles and, in intention, cosmopolitans, I found that they all had a German bias towards metaphysics, and in spite of our utmost endeavours we never arrived at common premises from which to argue. Gödel turned out to be an unadulterated Platonist, and apparently believed that an eternal 'not' was laid up in heaven, where virtuous logicians might hope to meet it hereafter.
The society of Princeton was extremely pleasant, pleasanter, on the whole, than any other social group I had come across in America. By this time John was back in England, having gone into the British Navy and been set to learn Japanese. Kate was self-sufficient at Radcliffe, having done extremely well in her work and acquired a small teaching job. There was therefore nothing to keep us in America except the difficulty of obtaining a passage to England. This difficulty, however, seemed for a long time insuperable. I went to Washington to argue that I must be allowed to perform my duties in the House of Lords, and tried to persuade the authorities that my desire to do so was very ardent. At last I discovered an argument which convinced the British Embassy, I said to them: 'You will admit this is a war against Fascism.' 'Yes', they said; 'And', I continued, 'you will admit that the essence of Fascism consists in the subordination of the legislature to the executive'. 'Yes,' they said, though with slightly more hesitation. 'Now,' I continued, 'you are the executive and I am the legislature and if you keep me away from my legislative functions one day longer than is necessary, you are Fascists.' Amid general laughter, my sailing permit was granted then and there. A curious difficulty, however, still remained. My wife and I got A priority, but our son Conrad only got a B, as he had as yet no legislative function. Naturally enough we wished Conrad, who was seven years old, and his mother to travel together, but this required that she should consent to be classified as a B. No case had so far occurred of a person accepting a lower classification than that to which they were entitled, and all the officials were so puzzled that it took them some months to understand. At last, however, dates were fixed, for Peter and Conrad first, and for me about a fortnight later. We sailed in May 1944.
Letters
To Charles Sanger's wife
'The Plaisance' On the Midway at Jackson Park - Chicago Nov. 5,1938
My dear Dora
Thank you for your letter, which, after some wanderings, reached me here.
I quite agree with you about the new war-cry. I was immensely glad when the crisis passed, but I don't know how soon it may come up again. Here in America, nine people out of ten think that we ought to have fought but America ought to have remained neutral - an opinion which annoys me. It is odd, in England, that the very people who, in 1919, protested against the unjust frontiers of Czechoslovakia were the most anxious, in 1938, to defend them. And they always forget that the first result of an attempt at an armed defence would have been to expose the Czechs to German invasion, which would have been much worse for them than even what they are enduring now.
I had forgotten about Eddie Marsh at the snip in 1914, but your letter reminded me of it. Everybody at that time reacted so characteristically.
Ottoline's death was a very great loss to me. Charlie and Crompton and Ottoline were my only really close friends among contemporaries, and now all three are dead. And day by day we move into an increasingly horrible world.
Privately, nevertheless, my circumstances are happy. John and Kate are everything that I would wish, and Conrad Crow (now 19 months old) is most satisfactory. America is interesting, and solid, whereas England, one fears, is crumbling. Daphne1 must have had an interesting time in Belgrade.
1 The Sangers' daughter.
I shall be home early in May, and I hope I shall see you soon there. All good wishes,
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
To W. V. Quine
212 Loring Avenue Los Angeles, Cal. 16 Oct., 1939
Dear Dr Quine
I quite agree with your estimate of Tarski; no other logician of his generation (unless it were yourself) seems to me his equal.
I should, consequently, be very glad indeed if I could induce die authorities here to find him a post. I should be glad for logic, for the university, for him, and for myself. But inquiries have shown me that there is no possibility whatever; they feel that they are saturated both with foreigners and with logicians. I went so far as to hint that if I could, by retiring, make room for him, I might consider doing so; but it seemed that even so the result could not be achieved.
I presume you have tried the East: Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, etc. Princeton should be the obvious place. You may quote me anywhere as concurring in your view of Tarski's abilities.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
From an anonymous correspondent
Newark, NJ. March 4, 1940
Bertrand Russell
Just whom did you think you were fooling when you had those hypocritically posed 'family man' pictures taken for the newspapers? Can your diseased brain have reached such an advanced stage of senility as to imagine for a moment that you would impress anyone? You poor old fool!
Even your publicly proved degeneracy cannot overshadow your vileness in posing for these pictures and trying to hide behind the innocence of your unfortunate children. Shame on you I Every decent man and woman in the country loathes you for this vile action of yours more than your other failings, which, after all, you inherited honestly enough from your decadent family tree. As for your questions and concern regarding Church and State connections in this country - just what concern has anything in this country got to do with you? Any time you don't like American doings go back to your native England (if you can!) and your stuttering King, who is an excellent example of British degenerate royalty - with its ancestry of barmaids, and pantry-men!
Or did I hear some one say you were thrown out of that country of liberal degeneracy, because you out-did the royal family. HAW!
Yours Pimp-Hater
P.S. - I notice you refer to some American Judge as an 'ignorant fellow'. If you are such a shining light, just why are you looking for a new appointment at this late date in your life? Have you been smelling up the California countryside too strongly?
From Aldous Huxley
Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Culver-City, California 19.111.40
Dear Bertie
Sympathy, I'm afraid, can't do much good; but I feel I must tell you how much I feel for you and Peter in the midst of the obscene outcry that has broken out around your name in New York.
Ever yours Aldous H.
Press statement by the Student Council, College of the City of New York
March 9, 1940
To the Editor
The appointment of Bertrand Russell to the staff of the City College has brought forth much discussion in the press and has evoked statements from various organisations and individuals. We do not wish to enter any controversy on Prof. Russell's views on morals and religion; we feel that he is entitled to his own personal views.
Prof. Russell has been appointed to the staff of the City College to teach mathematics and logic. With an international reputation, he is eminently qualified to teach these subjects. He has been lecturing at the University of California and has been appointed visiting professor at Harvard University before he comes to the City College in February 1941. The student body, as well as the faculty, are of the opinion that the addition of Prof. Russell to the faculty cannot but help to raise the academic prestige and national standing of our college.
Nobody questioned public school teachers or City College instructors about their belief on the nature of the cosmos - whether they were Catholics, Protestants, Jews, atheists or worshippers of the ancient Greek Pantheon - when they were appointed, The American public education system is founded on the principle that religion has nothing to do with secular education and theoretically the religious beliefs of teachers have nothing to do with their jobs. Religious groups are free to expound their views. Why not educators?
By refusing to yield to the pressure being brought to bear and by standing firm on the appointment of Prof. Russell, the Board of Higher Education will be saving City College an academic black eye and doing its duty to the community in the highest sense.
We wish to stress again in the words of President Mead that Prof. Russell has been appointed to the City College to teach mathematics and logic and not his views on morals and religion.
City College has long been subject to attack from various sources seeking to modify or destroy our free higher education; the attack on Bertrand Russell is but another manifestation of this tendency.
Executive Committee Student Council The City College
To Bernard Goltz, Secretary, the Student Council, C.C.N.Y.
March 22, 1940
Dear Mr Goltz
I am very happy to have the support of the student council in the fight. Old York was the first place where Christianity was the state religion, and it was there that Constantine assumed the purple. Perhaps New York will be the last place to have this honour.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
To William Swirsky, a student at C.C.N.Y.
212 Loring Avenue West Lost Angeles, California March 22, 1940
Dear Mr Swirsky
Thank you very much for your letter, and for the enclosures from The Campus. I am very glad indeed that the students do not share Bishop Manning's views about me; if they did it would be necessary to despair of the young. It is comforting that the Board of Higher Education decided in my favor, but I doubt whether the fight is at an end. I am afraid that if and when I take up my duties at the City College you will all be disappointed to find me a very mild and inoffensive person, totally destitute of horns and hoofs.
Yours gratefully Bertrand Russell
From M. F. Ashley-Montagu
The Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital of Philadelphia 31 March 1940
Dear Professor Russell
I owe you so much that I feel I could never adequately repay you for the part which your writings have played in my own intellectual development. Having acquired my share of inhibitions under the English 'system' of miseducation, I have since 1930 gradually relieved myself of what used to be termed 'a natural reluctance' to address people to whom I had not been formally introduced. At this rather trying period in your life I want to reassure you. It was really Mrs Russell's remark (as reported in The New York Times) which is responsible for precipitating this letter. This is a strange land, but you are not strangers here. Your friends here number millions, and as you have obviously known for a long time, this is really the most humane, and fundamentally the most decent land in the world. That is why there is every hope, every reason to believe, that the decision of a single jurist will ultimately be faithfully evaluated for what it is worth, and your appointment to die faculty of City College maintained. When situations such as yours are given a thorough airing I have noted that justice is practically always done. It is only under the cloaca of local departmental privacy that injustice succeeds and may prosper, I have on more than one occasion suffered the consequences of such private tyranny, but you are in far different case. There are many of us who, both as individuals and as members of societies for the preservation of academic and intellectual freedom, will fight your case, if necessary, to the last ditch. I can predict, with a degree of probability which amounts to certainty that despite the barking of the dogs of St Ernulphus, common decency will prevail.
I can well realise how full your mailbag must be, so please don't attempt to acknowledge this letter. Your sense of humour will look after you, and you can leave the rest to us.
With all good wishes,
Ever yours sincerely M. F. Ashley-Montagu Associate Professor of Anatomy
To Mr Hairy W. Laidler, of the League for Industrial Democracy
April 11, 1940
Dear Mr Laidler
The undersigned members of the Department of Philosophy at U.C.L.A. are taking the liberty to answer your letter of inquiry addressed to Miss Creed. We have all attended lectures or seminars conducted by Mr Russell on this campus, and have therefore first hand knowledge of the character and the content of his teaching here. We find him to be the most stimulating teacher we have known, and his intellectual influence upon the student is remarkable. The general effect of his teaching is to sharpen the student's sense of truth, both by developing his desire for truth and by leading him to a more rigorous application of the tests of truth. Also unusual is the influence of Mr Russell's moral character upon the student. It is impossible to know Mr Russell without coming to admire his complete fairness, his unfailing and genuine courtesy and his sincere love of people and of humanity.
We may add that there has not been any criticism of Mr Russell's teachings on this campus. This Department, in recommending Mr Russell's appointment, was aware that there would be some criticism on the part of outsiders of such action by the University. But in no case has there been any objection based upon Mr Russell's work here. In inviting Mr Russell to join us we did so in the faith that the individual instructor is entitled to his individual opinion on political, moral and other social issues, and that unorthodox opinions in such matters are no ground for banning an individual from public life.
You may use this letter in any way you think fit.
Yours sincerely Hans Reichenbach Isabel P. Creed J. W. Robson Hugh Miller, Acting Chairman
From and to William Ernest Hocking, Professor of Philosophy Harvard University
16 Quincy Street Cambridge, Massachusetts April 30, 1940
Dear Russell
I answered part of your letter of April 14 by telegram: 'No possible objection to engagement at Newark.'
For the other part, which called equally for an answer - the part in which you expressed the 'hope that Harvard doesn't mind too much' - I thought it best to wait until I could send you something tangible.
The enclosed clipping from Sunday's Boston Herald gives a statement issued Saturday evening by our governing body ('The President and Fellows', commonly dubbed 'The Corporation'), standing by the appointment. It will also give you a hint of the kind of attack which instigated the statement. The page from Monday's Crimson shows more of the inside.
Please consider what I say in comment as purely personal. Individual members of the department have taken action, as you have noticed; but the department has formulated no attitude, and I am speaking for myself alone.
It would be foolish for me to pretend that the university is not disturbed by the situation. Harvard is not a 'state university' in the sense that it draws its major support from legislative grants (as in Indiana, Michigan, etc.). But it is a state institution, with certain unique provisions for its government set into the constitution, so that political interference with our working is legally possible. The suit promised by Thomas Dorgan, legislative agent for the City of Boston, has some footing in the law of the Commonwealth, though the University is prepared to meet it. But beyond that, there are possibilities of further legislation which might be serious for an institution already an object of dislike on the part of certain elements of the public.
As to the suit itself, the university is not proposing to contest it on the ground of 'freedom of speech' or 'freedom of teaching' (for this would make the university appear as protagonist of a claim of right on your part to teach your views on sex-morals at Harvard, a claim certainly uncontemplated in our arrangements and probably untenable at law), The university is simply holding the ground of the independence of our appointing bodies from outside interference. This is a defensible position, if we can show that we have exercised and are exercising that independence with a due sense of responsibility to our statutory obligations. This line will explain the emphasis in the university's statement on the scope of your lectures, and on the restriction of your teaching to advanced students; under the circumstances we shall have to abide by this limitation.
(The number of lectures mentioned in the university's statement was taken from the words of the founding bequest, which reads 'not less than six': in practice the lectures have run to ten or twelve, partly, I suppose, because of the shift to a biennial plan.)
We are all terribly sorry that this hue and cry has arisen, both because of the distress to you, and because it gives capital prominence to what (I presume) we were both considering background stuff, in which we are definitely not interested; For myself, I am equally sorry that you are making the issue one of freedom of speech in the New York situation. For if you lose, you lose; and if you win, you lose also. And the colleges will lose, too: for the impression already in the public mind will be deepened, that the colleges insist on regarding all hypotheses as on the same level, - none are foolish and none are immoral: they are all playthings of debate for a lot of detached intellects who have nothing in common with the intuitions of average mankind. Personally I am with the average man in doubting whether all hypotheses are on the same level, or can escape the invidious adjectives.
Largely because of this, I have had, so far, nothing to say in public on this question. I have been cultivating the great and forgotten right of the freedom of silence, which it is hard to maintain in this country. If I were talking, I should agree in the main with the first paragraph of the editorial in the New York Times of April 20, which you have doubtless seen, and whose refrain is that 'mistakes of judgment have been made by all the principals involved'.
Your scheme of lecture titles has come, and it looks splendid to me, - many thanks. I shall write again when the department has had a chance to look it over.
Sincerely yours Ernest Hocking
212 Loring Avenue Los Angeles, Cal. May 6 1940
Dear Hocking
Thank you for your letter. It makes me wish that I could honourably resign the appointment to the William James lectures, but I do not see how I can do so without laying myself open to the charge of cowardice and of letting down the interests of the whole body of teachers.
I almost wish, also, that the President and Fellows had not reaffirmed the appointment, since as you say, and as appears in the newspaper quotation you sent me, the opposition has considerable basis in law. From my point of view it would be better to be dismissed now, with financial compensation, than to be robbed both of the appointment and of compensation after long anxiety and distress.
I did not seek the appointment, and I am not so fond of the role of martyr as to wish continuously and without respite to suffer for a cause which concerns others so much more than me. The independence of American universities is their affair, not mine.
Some one seems to have misled you as to the line that I and the Board of Higher Education in New York have taken about my appointment there. I have never dreamed of claiming a right to talk about sexual ethics when I am hired to talk about logic or semantics; equally, a man hired to teach ethics would have no right to talk about logic. I claim two things: 1. that appointments to academic posts should be made by people with some competence to judge a man's technical qualifications; 2. that in extra-professional hours a teacher should be free to express his opinions, whatever they may be. City College and the Board of Higher Education based their defense solely on the first of these contentions. Their defense was therefore identical with that which you say is contemplated by Harvard.
The principle of free speech was raised by other people, in my opinion rightly. I am afraid that Harvard, like the New York Board, cannot prevent popular agitation based on this principle; though ft is of course obvious that in both cases the official defense of the appointment is rightly based on the independence of duly constituted academic bodies and their right to make their own appointments.
I ask now, in advance, that I may be officially notified of any legal proceedings taken against the University on account of my appointment, and allowed to become a party. This was not done in the New York case, because of the hostility of the Corporation Counsel, who handled their defence. I cannot endure a second time being slandered and condemned in a court of law without any opportunity of rebutting false accusations against which no one else can adequately defend me, for lack of knowledge.
I hope that Harvard will have the courtesy to keep me informed officially of all developments, instead of leaving me to learn of matters that vitally concern me only from inaccurate accounts in newspapers.
I should be glad if you would show this letter to the President and Fellows.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
To the Editor of the Harvard Crimson
212 Loring Avenue Los Angeles, Cal. May 6 1940
Dear Sir
I hope you will allow me to comment on your references in the Harvard Crimson of April 29 to the recent proceedings concerning my appointment to the City College of New York.
You say 'Freedom of speech will not be the point under argument, as was the case in the proceedings against City College of New York, when the latter based an unsuccessful defense of its Russell appointment on the assertion that Russell should be permitted to expound his moral views from a lecture platform'.
In fact freedom of speech was not the defense of City College and the New York Board of Higher Education. The Board and College based their defense on the principle of academic freedom, which means simply the independence of duly constituted academic bodies, and their right to make their own appointments. This, according to your headline, is exactly the defense contemplated by the Corporation of Harvard. Neither the Board of Higher Education nor the faculty of City College at any time made the claim that I 'should be permitted to expound my moral views from a lecture platform'. On the contrary, they stated repeatedly and with emphasis that my moral views had no possible relevance to the subjects I had been engaged to teach.
Even if I were permitted to expound my moral views in the classroom, my own conscience would not allow me to do so, since they have no connection with the subjects which it is my profession to teach, and I think that the classroom should not be used as an opportunity for propaganda on any subject.
The principle of freedom of speech has been invoked, not by the New York Board of Higher Education as their legal defense, but by many thousands of people throughout the United States who have perceived its obvious relation to the Controversy, which is this: the American constitution guarantees to everyone the right to express his opinions whatever these may be. This right is naturally limited by any contract into which the individual may enter which requires him to spend part of his time in occupations other than expressing his opinions. Thus, if a salesman, a postman, a tailor and a teacher of mathematics all happen to hold a certain opinion on a subject unrelated to their work, whatever it may be, none of them should devote to oratory on this subject time which they have been paid to spend in selling, delivering letters, making suits, or teaching mathematics. But they should all equally be allowed to express their opinion freely and without fear of penalties in their spare time, and to think, speak and behave as they wish, within the law, when they are not engaged in their professional duties.
This is the principle of free speech. It appears to be little known. If therefore anyone should require any further information about it I refer him to die United States Constitution and to the works of the founders thereof.
Yours faithfully Bertrand Russell
To Kingsley Martin editor of the New Statesman
212 Loring Avenue Los Angeles, Cal. May 13 1940
Dear Kingsley Martin
Thanks for your kind paragraph about my New York appointment. We still hope to appeal, but the Mayor and corporation counsel, from respect for the Catholic vote, are doing their best to prevent it. A similar fuss is promised over my appointment to give the William James lectures at Harvard in the autumn.
Actually I am being overwhelmed with friendship and support, but in this country the decent people are terrifyingly powerless and often very naive. This fuss is serving a useful purpose in calling attention to the sort of thing that happens constantly to people less well known.
The news from Europe is unbearably painful. We all wish that we were not so far away, although we could serve no useful purpose if we were at home.
Ever since the war began I have felt that I could not go on being a pacifist; but I have hesitated to say so, because of the responsibility involved. If I were young enough to fight myself I should do so, but it is more difficult to urge others. Now, however, I feel that I ought to announce that I have changed my mind, and I would be glad if you could find an opportunity to mention in the New Statesman that you have heard from me to this effect.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
To Professor Hocking from John Dewey
1 West 89th St NY City May 16th, 40
Dear Hocking
I have seen a copy of your letter to Russell and I cannot retrain from saying that I am disturbed by one portion of it - especially as coming from you.
Of course I do not feel qualified to speak from the Harvard point of view or to give advice on the matter as far as it is Harvard's administrative concern. But I am sure of one thing: Any weakening on the part of Harvard University would strengthen the forces of reaction ecclesiastical and other - which are already growing too rapidly, presumably on account of the state of fear and insecurity now so general. I don't think it is irrelevant to point out that the NY City Council followed up its interference in the City College matter with a resolution in which they asked for the dismissal of the present Board of Higher Education and the appointment of a new one - the present Board being mainly La Guardia's appointments and sticking by the liberal attitudes on acct of which they were originally appointed - in spite of the Mayor's recent shocking cowardice. Tammany and the Church aren't now getting the educational plums they want and used to get. In my opinion (without means of proof) the original attack on Russell's appointment, and even more so the terms of McGeehan's decision were not isolated events. The reactionary catholic paper in Brooklyn, The Tablet, openly expressed the hope that the move might be the beginning of a movement to abolish all municipal colleges in Greater New York - now four in number. A policy of 'appeasement' will not work any better, in my judgment, with this old totalitarian institution than it has with the newer ones. Every weakening will be the signal for new attacks. So much, possibly irrelevant from your point of view, regarding the Harvard end of the situation.
The point that disturbed me in your letter was not the one contained in the foregoing gratuitous paragraph. That point is your statement of regret that Russell raised the issue of freedom of speech. In the first place, he didn't raise it; it was raised first by McGeehan's decision (I can't but wonder if you have ever seen that monstrous document), and then by other persons, originally in New York institutions but rapidly joined by others throughout the country, who saw the serious implications of passively sitting by and letting it go by default. As far as the legal side is concerned the issue has been and will be fought on a ground substantially identical with that you mention in the case of the Harvard suit. But the educational issue is wider, much wider. It was stated in the courageous letter of Chancellor Chase of NY University in a letter to the Times - a letter which finally evoked from them their first editorial comment - which though grudging and ungracious did agree the case should be appealed. If men are going to be kept out of American colleges because they express unconventional, unorthodox or even unwise views (but who is to be the fudge of widsom or lack of wisdom?) on political, economic, social or moral matters, expressing those views in publications addressed to the general public, I am heartily glad my own teaching days have come to an end. There will always be some kept prostitutes in any institution; there are always [the] more timid by temperament who take to teaching as a kind of protected calling. If the courts, under outside group pressures, are going to be allowed, without protest from college teachers, to confine college faculties to teachers of these two types, the outlook is dark indeed. If I express myself strongly it is because I feel strongly on this issue. While I am extremely sorry for the thoroughly disagreeable position in which the Russells have been personally plunged, I can't but be grateful in view of the number of men of lesser stature who have been made to suffer, that his case is of such importance as to attract wide attention and protest. If you have read McGeehan's decision, I suppose you would feel with some of the rest of us that no self-respecting person would do anything - such as the Times editorial suggested he do - that would even remotely admit the truth of the outrageous statements made - statements that would certainly be criminally libellous if not protected by the position of the man malting them. But over and above that I am grateful for the service Russell renders die teaching body and educational interests in general by taking up the challenge - accordingly I am going to take the liberty of sending a copy of this letter to Russell.
Very sincerely yours John Dewey
Dear Mr Russell
The above is self-explanatory - I know how occupied you are and it needs no reply.
Sincerely, & gratefully yours John Dewey
From Alfred North Whitehead
1737 Cambridge St Cambridge, Mass. April 26,1940
Dear Berrie
Evelyn and I cannot let this occasion pass without telling you how greatly we sympathise with you in the matter of the New York appointment. You know, of course, that our opinions are directly opposed in many ways. This note is just to give you our love and deep sympathy in the personal troubles which have been aroused
With all good wishes from us both.
Yours ever Alfred Whitehead
Controversy over my appointment to C.C.N.Y. did not end in 1940.
From The Times, November 23rd and 26th, 1957, on the publication of Why I am not a Christian:
To the Editor of The Times
10, Darlington Street, Bath
Sir
In a letter to The Times which you published on October 15, Lord Russell complains that in 1940 Protestant Episcopalians and Roman Catholics in New York City prevented him from denying in court what he terms their 'libels'.
The official record of the decision declaring him ineligible for the professorship in question makes it clear that his counsel submitted a brief on his behalf which was accepted by the court. His subsequent application to re-open the case was denied by the court on the grounds, among others, that he gave no indication of being able to present new evidence which could change the decision, which was unanimously upheld by two Courts of Appeal.
He could also have brought an action for libel against anyone for statements made out of court, but he failed to do this.
In these circumstances is it fair to state, as Lord Russell does, that Protestant Episcopalians and Roman Catholics prevented him from denying in court the charges which were largely based on his own writings?
Yours truly Schuyler N. Warren
To the Editor of The Times
Plas Penrhyn Penrhyndeudraeth Merioneth
Sir
In your issue of Novebemer 23 you publish a letter from Mr Schuyler N. Warren which shows complete ignorance of the facts. I shall answer his points one by one.
First as to 'libels'. I wrote publicly at the time: 'When grossly untrue statements as to my actions are made in court, I feel that I must give them the lie. I never conducted a nudist colony in England. Neither my wife nor I ever paraded nude in public. I never went in for salacious poetry. Such assertions are deliberate falsehoods which must be known to those who make them to have no foundation in fact. I shall be glad of an opportunity to deny them on oath.' This opportunity was denied me on the ground that I was not a party to the suit. The charges that I did these things (which had been made by the prosecuting counsel in court) were not based on my own writings, as Mr Warren affirms, but on die morbid imaginings of bigots.
I cannot understand Mr Warren's statement that my counsel submitted a brief on my behalf. No counsel representing me was heard. Nor can I understand his statement that two Courts of Appeal upheld the decision, as New York City refused to appeal when urged to do so. The suggestion that I could have brought an action for libel could only be made honestly by a person ignorant of the atmosphere of hysteria which surrounded the case at that time. The atmosphere is illustrated by the general acceptance of the prosecuting counsel's description in court of me as: 'lecherous, libidinous, lustful, venerous, erotomaniac, aphrodisiac, irreverent, narrow-minded, untruthful, and bereft of moral fiber.'
Yours truly Russell
From and to Schuyler N. Warren
10, Darlington Street Bath 10th January, 1958
Dear Lord Russell
I am writing with regard to your letter which appeared in the Times on November 26th. In this letter dealing with the controversy and subsequent litigation over your appointment as a Professor of Philosophy in the college in the City of New York you contradicted statements made by me in a letter that was published in the Times on November 23rd.
I enclose photostats of both decisions of the Supreme Court for your information, one revoking your appointment and the second denying your application to reopen the case. I also enclose copy of the letter from Mr Charles H. Tut tie, then as now, a member of the Board of Higher Education.
In view of your denials that no counsel representing you was heard, and that no appeal was made on your behalf, the enclosed decisions confirm the correctness of my statements. In the appendix of the volume Why I am Not a Christian, Professor Edwards mentions Mr Osmund K. Fraenkel as having been your Attorney and of his unsuccessful appeals to the Appellate Division and to the Court of Appeals.
Very truly yours Schuyler N. Warren
Plas Penrhyn 13 January, 1958
Dear Mr Warren
Your letter of January 10 with the enclosed photostats does not bear out your stated view as to what occurred in my New York case in 1940. The appeal which you mentioned was not an appeal to the substance of the case, but on whether I should be allowed to become a party. You have not quite grasped the peculiarity of the whole affair. The defendants wished to lose the case - as at the time was generally known - and therefore had no wish to see McGeehan's verdict reversed on appeal. The statement that I was kept informed of the proceedings is perhaps in some narrow legal sense defensible, but I was held in Los Angeles by my duties there, the information as to what was happening in New York was sent by surface mail, and the proceedings were so hurried-up that everything was over before I knew properly what was happening. It remains the fact that I was not allowed to become a party to the case, that I was unable to appeal, and that I had no opportunity of giving evidence in court after I knew what they were saying about me. Mr Fraenkel, whom you mentioned, was appointed by the Civil Liberties Union, not by me, and took his instructions from them.
Yours truly Russell
From Prof, Philip P. Wiener
The City College New York 31, N.Y. Department of Philosophy Oct. 4, 1961
To the Editor of the New York Times
For myself and many of my colleagues I wish to express our distress at the unfairness and the poor taste shown by your Topics' editor's attempted comical rehashing of the Bertrand Russell case. It is well known that the educated world on moral grounds condemned Judge McGeehan's character assassination of one of the world's greatest philosophers, and that the courts did not allow Russell to enter the case. Now that this great man is almost ninety years old and fighting for the preservation of humanity (though some of us do not agree with his unilateral disarmament policy1), we believe your columnist owes him and the civilised world an apology.
1 I advocated unilateral disarmament at this time only for Britain.
Philip P. Wiener Professor and Chairman
289 Convent Avenue New York City Dec. 8, 1940
Dear Professor Russell
After having enjoyed your timely lecture before the P.E.A.1 and friendly chat at the Perm. R.R. terminal, I reported to my colleagues that we had indeed been filched of a great teacher who would have brought so much of light and humanity to our students that the harpies of darkness and corruption might well have cringed with fear of a personality so dangerous to their interests. John Dewey is working on an analysis of the McGeehan decision in so far as it discusses your books on education. That will be Dewey's contribution to the book to be published by Barnes. Our department has offered to co-operate with the editors, but we have not yet heard from Horace Kallen, who appears to be directing the book.
1 Progressive Education Association.
The Hearst papers link your appointment to City College with that of the communists named by the State Legislative Committee investigating subversive political activities of city college teachers, La order to condemn the Board of Higher Education and recommends its reorganisation under more reactionary control. You may have noticed in yesterday's N.Y, Times that President Gannon of Fordham University recommended that 'subversive philosophical activities' in the city colleges be investigated!
I noted with interest your plan to devote the next four years to the history of philosophy. I always regarded your work on Leibniz next in importance only to your Principles of Mathematics and Principia Mathematica. If you made similar analytical and critical studies from primary sources of the most influential philosophers - even if only a few - e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Hume, Kant and Hegel, you would have contributed to the critical history of philosophy what only a philosopher equipped with modern instruments of analysis and a direct knowledge of the texts could do. This would be philosophically significant as a union of analytical and historical methods of investigating pervasive ideas like that of freedom (which exists mainly as an idea).
I should like to have a chance to discuss this matter with you, since the whole subject lies close to my chief interest and activity connected with the Journal of the History of Ideas. I may be in Philadelphia for the Amer. Philosophical Assoc. Symposium, Dec. 28,1940, and should like to phone you if you are free that evening or the next day (Sunday, Dec. 29).
Yours sincerely Philip P. Wiener
P.S. - Professor Lovejoy might be free to come along to see you if I knew when you were free to talk history of philosophy.
To and from Robert Trevelyan
212 Losing Avenue Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A. 22.12.39
Dear Bob
Ever since I got your letter a year ago I have meant to write to you, but I felt like God when he was thinking of creating the world: there was no more reason for choosing one moment than for choosing another. I have not waited as long as he did.
I am established here as Professor of Philosophy in the University of California. John and Kate came out for the summer holidays, and stayed when the war came, so they are having to go to the university here. John has a passion for Latin, especially Lucretius; unfortunately your Lucretius is stored in Oxford with the rest of my books. (I had expected to come back to England last spring.)
Thank you very much for the list of misprints.
I wonder what you are feeling about the war. I try hard to remain a pacifist, but the thought of Hitler and Stalin triumphant is hard to bear.
C.A. [Clifford Allen]'s death must have been a great sorrow to you. I do not know what his views were at the end.
Americans all say 'you must be glad to be here at this time', but except for the children's sake that is not how we feel.
Much love to both you and Bessie from us both. Write when you can — it is a comfort to hear from old friends.
Yours ever affectionately Bertrand Russell
The Shiffolds Holmbury St Mary, Dorking 11 Febr. 1940
Dear Bertie
It was very nice hearing from you the other day, ana to Know that all is well with Peter and you and the children (I suppose they are hardly children any longer now). We are fairly all right here - at present at any rate. Bessie keeps quite cheerful, though her eye is no better. I read to her in the evening now, instead of her reading to me.
We are very glad the children are staying in America, I hope It won't be for ever, though. At present things look pretty hopeless. I have sent you a copy of my Lucretius for John, as it might be a help to him. I have also sent my Poems and Plays, as a Christmas present. Of course, I don't expect you to read them from the beginning to the end: in fact, my advice, is, if you feel you must read in them at all, that you should begin at the end, and read backwards (not line by line backwards, but poem by poem), until you get exhausted.
I don't think I shall write much more poetry. It I do, it will perhaps be Whitmaniac, in form, I mean, or rather in formlessness; though no one had a finer sense of form than W. W., when he was inspired, which he was as much as or more than most poets. I have quite come back to my old Cambridge love of him, of his prose as well as his poetry. His Specimen Days seems to me (especially the part about the Civil War) one of the most moving books I know. I've been reading, another American book, which will hardly be popular in California, I mean Grapes of Wrath. It may be unfair and exaggerated about the treatment of the emigrants, I can't tell about that; but it seems to me a rather great book, in an epic sort of way. We are now reading aloud Winifred Holtby's South Riding, which also seems to me very nearly a great book, though perhaps not quite.
I am bringing out a book of translations of Horace's Epistles and two Montaigne essays, which I will send you some time this year, unless the Cambridge Press is bombed, which hardly seems likely. I have a book of prose too getting ready; but that will hardly be this year. I cannot think of a title - it is a 'Miscellany', but all the synonyms (Hotch potch, Olla Podrida etc.) sound undignified, and some of the material is highly serious. Bessie won't let me call it 'A Faggot of sticks', as she says that suggests it only deserves to be burnt.
Bessie is, I believe, intending to write to you soon, and after that I hope another year won't pass before we hear from you again. We have had the Sturge Moores here since the war began. He is rather an invalid now. We had a pleasant visit from G. E. M. in August. He is lecturing at Oxford to large audiences. Francis Lloyd says a lot of Dons go, and are amused or shocked. She seems to get a lot out of his lectures. We have also an Italian boy, a Vivante, a nephew of L. de Bosis, to whom I teach Latin and Greek. He's just got a scholarship at Pembroke Oxford. It is clear to me now I ought to have been a school-master.
Much love to you both from B. and me.
Yours ever affectionately Bob
212 Loring Avenue Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A. 19 May 1940
Dear Bob
Thank you very much for the fine volumes of your works, which arrived safely, and which I am delighted to have.
At this moment it is difficult to think of anything but the war. By the time you get this, presumably the outcome of the present battle will have been decided. I keep on remembering how I stayed at Shlffolds during the crisis of the battle of the Marne, and made you walk two miles to get a Sunday paper. Perhaps it would have been better if the Kaiser had won, seeing Hitler is so much worse. I find that this time I am not a pacifist, and consider the future of civilisation bound up with our victory. I don't think anything so important has happened since the fifth century, the previous occasion on which the Germans reduced the world to barbarism.
You may have seen that I am to be hounded out of teaching in America because the Catholics don't like my views. I was quite interested in this (which involves a grave danger of destitution) until the present battle began - now I find difficulty in remembering it
Yes, I have read Grapes of Wrath, and I think it a very good book. The issue of the migrant workers is a burning one here, on which there is much bitter feeling.
John and Kate are settling in to the university here, and Conrad (just 3) is flourishing and intelligent. We are all desperately homesick, and hope to return as soon as it is financially feasible.
Give my love to Bessie and tell her it will be very nice to hear from her. John was most grateful for Lucretius.
Yours affectionately Bertrand Russell
The Shiffolds 3 May 1941
My dear Bertie
We were so glad to hear from you about you and yours. I put in this line just before the post goes. Yes Plato was a comic poet. He did also apparently write some none too serious pseudo-philosophical dialogues, which got taken too seriously. Some scholars say there were two Platos; but scholars will say anything.
I am sending you a small book of Leopardi translations. I should never have started them but for you asking me to do that passage from the Ginestra, so you may look upon yourself as their 'onlie begetter'.
Bessie keeps fairly well, though she is getting rather blinder. I go on trying to work, and have lately been translating more Montaigne, not being able to write poetry. Much love to you and all yours.
Yours ever Bob
Little Datchet Farm Malvern R.D.I. Pennsylvania 20 August 1941
My dear Bob
I was delighted to have your Leopardi translations, which I thought very good. I am glad to think I had a share in bringing them about.
A very short time after writing to you, I came across an allusion to Plato the comic poet. He had been till then completely unknown to me.
How does George enjoy his new dignity?1 I have only seen him once since August 4,1914. In old Butler's days I once stayed at the Lodge and slept in Queen Anne's bed. Is it still there?
1 He had become Master of Trinity.
What led you to Montaigne? Do you disapprove of Florio? I was pleased to find that 'Lead Kindly Light', vulgarly attributed to New-man, was really written by Cleanthes in die 3rd century BC. There are whole chunks of the New Testament in the Stoics.
I enclose a letter to Bessie. I hope her eyesight won't go on getting worse.
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
The Shiffolds Holmbury St Mary, Dorking 2 October 1941
My dear Bertie
It was a great pleasure to hear from you again. Bessie no doubt will be writing or has written. She is very well, except for her eyes. I am now reading to her Nevinson's memoirs in the evening, which are not at all bad. We read a Willa Gather novel, which we both liked. I have not written much poetry lately, but what I have written I shall soon be sending you in a volume with some old ones, as all my collected poems were burnt in Longman's fire. There are two or three quasi-philosophical poems among them, perhaps rather too Santayanaish to meet with your approval. I have lately been reading his book on the Realm of Spirit, which, though sometimes a bit wordy, pleases me more than most philosophy - but then I'm not a philosopher. I wish I could understand your last book, but it is rather too difficult for me. I liked, though, your little book of essays (most of which I knew before), and felt in agreement with most of what you say.
As to Montaigne, I wonder whether you have ever compared Florio with the French; if so I think you would see why I think it worthwhile translating him again ~ though I am only doing the Essays, or parts of Essays, I like best. I am also writing some prose myself, short essays and reminiscences; also I want to write about a few of my friends, who are dead such as Tovey, C. A., Goldie and Roger.1 So you see I can't do you yet; but I may come to living friends if they don't disappear soon enough. George2 did not want to be Master, but his nolo episcopari was brushed aside by Churchill, and now he enjoys being Master a lot. The Lodge has been done up, as it was in fearful disrepair, and now is quite pleasant and well-furnished. I slept in the Junior Judge's room. Queen Anne's bed is still there, though I think the bed-tester is gone. We enjoyed our three days visit there. George is cheerful when in company, but often sinks into gloom when alone. He feels the world he cared for is at an end. I don't quite feel like that myself, at least not often. He has written a book on Social England, leaving out wars and politics etc. What I saw was quite good. It will be out soon I suppose. His son Humphrey has written a book on Goethe, which will be very good when it comes out (by which I don't mean that 'coming out' will make it good, though perhaps that's true too). Flora Russell and her sister called last week, and they talked affectionately of you, and Flora said you had written to her, which had evidently pleased her a lot. She is getting older and is rather crippled. I haven't seen Desmond3 since July, but hope he will come to see us soon. He is getting older, and had a bad illness this spring, but he is as charming as ever. We liked Virginia Woolf's Life of Roger very much.
1 Donald Tovey, Clifford Allen, Goldie Dickinson, Roger Fry.2 His brother.3 Desmond MacCarthy.
Well, you must write to us again before long, and then we will write to you. I do hope you are both well, and that you both like America fairly well. G. E. Moore, it seems, likes America and Americans very much. I am very glad he is staying there this winter. I hope the children are both* well. I suppose they are hardly children now. Much love to you both from
* Conrad is an infant, not a child; but I hope he is well too.
Yours affectionately R. C. Trevelyan
Little Datchet Farm Malvern, R.D.I Pennsylvania 9 July 1942
My dear Bob
For the last 6 months I have been meaning to write to you and Bessie, but have kept on putting it off for a moment of leisure. How very sad that your Collected Poems were burnt in Longman's fire. I am all the more glad that my copy is intact. I love getting your poems - if you don't get thanks, please attribute it to enemy action.
I haven't read Santayana on the Realm of Spirit, as I had just finished writing on him when it appeared. I was glad to find he liked what I wrote on him. Philosophers in this country lack something I like, and I have come to the conclusion that what they lack is Plato. (Not your friend the comic poet.) I can't free myself of the love of contemplation versus action.
Did you realise that at a certain time Thales and Jeremiah were both in Egypt, probably in the same town? I suggest your composing a dialogue between them.
I wrote to George about the possibility of my son John going to Trinity after the war, and what would be his standing if he did; he wrote a very kind answer, showing he had taken a good deal of trouble. John is at Harvard, and he is to be allowed to complete his course there (which ends in February) before returning to England to join the British forces. For a long time this was in doubt; we were very glad when it was settled. He will presumably be in England in March. He knows a great deal of history, and reads both Latin and Greek for pleasure. I am ploughing through my history of philosophy from Thales to the present day. When Scorns Erigena dined tête-à-tête with the King of France, the King asked 'what separates a Scot from a sot?' 'Only the dinner-table' said the philosopher. I have dined with 8 Prime Ministers, but never got such a chance. Goodbye, with all good wishes.
Yours affectionately Bertrand Russell
The Shiffolds Holmbury St Mary, Dorking 3 January 1942 [1943]
My dear Bertie
I have long owed you a letter. Your last letters to us were written to us in July. For nearly two months I have been in hospital, as a consequence of my bravery in crossing Hyde Park Corner diagonally during the blackout and so getting knocked over. It might have been much worse; for now, after a month at home, I can walk about much as usual, though I easily get tired. You were only knocked over by a bicycle; I by an army-taxi. An army-lorry would have been more honourable, though perhaps less pleasant.
Ted Lloyd was to have come to tea today, but has influenza, so only Margaret and John came.1 I expect you know Ted is going East. It seems he is sorry not to come back to America. We hope to see him next Sunday and then we shall hear from him about you both. I am very glad you are writing some sort of history of philosophy and philosophers. No one could do it better than you. You will no doubt trace the influence of Jeremiah upon the cosmology of Thales. Yes, a dialogue between them might be well worth doing; but at present I know almost nothing of Jeremiah and his little book. By the way, if you want a really first-rate book on the Greek Atomists, you should have a look at Cyril Bailey's Greek Atomists (Clarendon Press) 1928. But I dare say you know it. It seems to me he really does understand Epicurus, which our friend Benn never2 did. Bailey is, I think very good too about Leucippus, Democritus etc.
1 His wife, my cousin Margaret Lloyd, my Uncle Rollo's daughter, and her eldest son John.2 A. W. Benn, the classical scholar.
I have not written any poetry for nearly two years; and not much prose; though I am bringing out a book of Essays and Dialogues some time this year, which I will send you, if I can manage to get it to you. All the mental effort I have been able to make lately is a little easy 'mountaineering', by which I mean translating Montaigne - not all of him, but the less dull parts. Sometimes he can be really good. For instance, I have just translated a famous sentence of his: 'When all is said, it is putting an excessively high value on one's conjectures, to cause a man to be roasted alive on account of them.'
If you can get hold of a copy, you should read Waley's translation of Monkey a 15th century Chinese fairy story about Buddhism, Taoism, and human nature generally, a superbly Rabelaisian, Aristophanic, Biblical Voltairian book. It came out last summer (Allen & Unwin).
When John comes over here, I hope we may have some opportunity of seeing him. We still take in the Manch. Guardian, so have seen your and P's letters, with which we are quite in agreement.
We wish you could have spent Christmas here with us. Perhaps next Christmas? - but hardly so soon I fear.
There's an amusing Life of B. Shaw by Hesketh Pearson, but mostly written by G.B.S. himself. Yet I got a little tired of Shaw before I came to the end. Raymond Mortimer's Essays are not at all bad (Channel Packet). There's a good review of the Amberley Papers; but I expect you have seen that. It's just on dinner-time, so I must stop. Much love to you both from Bessie and me.
Yours affectly Bob
Desmond was quite ill this autumn; but he seems fairly well again now.
To and from Gilbert Murray
The West Lodge Downing College, Cambridge 3.3.37
Dear Gilbert
Thank you for your letter. C.A. lies in his throat. The speech was against armaments, & it is nonsense to suggest that Tory Peers are against armaments.
Spain has turned many away from pacifism. I myself have found it very difficult, the more so as I know Spain, most of the places where the fighting has been, & the Spanish people, & I have the strongest possible feelings on the Spanish issue. I should certainly not find Czecho-Slovakia more difficult. And having remained a pacifist while the Germans were invading France & Belgium in 1914, I do not see why I should cease to be one if they do it again. The result of our having adopted the policy of war at that time is not so delectable as to make me wish to see it adopted again.
You feel 'They ought to be stopped'. I feel that, if we set to work to stop them, we shall, in the process, become exactly like them & the world will have gained nothing. Also, if we beat them, we shall produce in time some one as much worse than Hitler as he is worse than the Kaiser. In all this I see no hope for mankind.
Yours ever B.R.
Yatscombe Boar's Hill, Oxford Jan. 5th. 1939
My dear Bertie
A man has written to the Home University Library to say that there ought to be a book on the Art of Clear Thinking. There is plenty written about theoretic logic, but nothing except perhaps Graham Wallas's book about the actual practice of clear thought. It seems to me that the value of such a book would depend entirely on the writer; I found Wallas's book, for instance, extremely suggestive and helpful, and I think that if you felt inclined to write something, it might make a great hit and would in any case be of real value. It might be a little like Aristotle's Sophistici Elenchi, with a discussion of the ways in which human thought goes wrong, but I think it might be something more constructive. I wonder if the idea appeals at all to you.
I read Power the other day with great enjoyment, and a wish to argue with you about several points.
Give my respects to your University. Once when I was in New York, there was a fancy dress dinner, to which people went as celebrated criminals. One man was dressed as a trapper, but could not be identified till at the end of the evening he confessed he was the man who discovered Chicago.
Yours ever G.M.
University of Chicago January 15th 1939
My dear Gilbert
Thank you for your letter of January 5th. I think a booK about now to think clearly might be very useful, but I do not think I could write it. First, for external reasons, that I have several books contracted for, which I am anxious to write and which will take me some years. Secondly - and this is more important - because I haven't the vaguest idea either how I think or how one ought to think. The process, so far as I know it, is as instinctive and unconscious as digestion. I fill my mind with whatever relevant knowledge I can find, and just wait. With luck, there comes a moment when the work is done, but in the meantime my conscious mind has been occupied with other things. This sort of thing won't do for a book.
I wonder what were the points in Power that you wanted to argue about. I hope the allusions to the Greeks were not wholly wrong.
This University, so far as philosophy is concerned, is about the best I have ever come across. There are two sharply opposed schools in the Faculty, one Aristotelian, historical, and traditional, the other ultra-modern. The effect on the students seems to me just right. The historical professors are incredibly learned, especially as regards medieval philosophy.
I am only here till the end of March, but intellectually I enjoy the place very much.
Yours ever B.R.
212, Loring Avenue Los Angeles 21.4.40
Mv dear Gilbert
It is difficult to do much at this date in America for German academic refugees.1 American universities have been very generous, but are by now pretty well saturated. I spoke about the matter of Jacobsthal to Reichenbach, a German refugee who is a professor here, and whom I admire both morally and intellectually. He knew all about Jacobsthal's work, which I didn't. The enclosed is the official reply of the authorities of this university. I must leave further steps to others, as I am at the moment unable to save my own skin. In view of the German invasion of Norway, I suppose it is only too likely that Jacobsthal is by now in a concentration camp.
1 Murray had appealed to me on behalf of a German anti-Nazi Professor named Jacobsthal.
Yes, I wish we could meet and have the sort of talk we used to have. I find that I cannot maintain the pacifist position in this way. I do not feel sufficiently sure of the opposite to say anything publicly by way of recantation, though it may come to that. In any case, here in America an Englishman can only hold his tongue, as anything he may say is labelled propaganda. However, what I wanted to convey is that you would not find me disagreeing with you as much as in 1914, though I still think I was right then, in that this war is an outcome of Versailles, which was an outcome of moral indignation.
It is painful to be at such a distance in war-time, and only the most imperative financial necessity keeps me here. It is a comfort that my three children are here, but the oldest is 18, and I do not know how soon he may be needed for military service. We all suffer from almost unbearable home-sickness, and I find myself longing for old friends. I am glad that you are still one of them.
Please give my love to Mary even if she doesn't want it. And do write again, telling me something of what you feel about the whole ghastly business.
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
July 29th, 1940
My dear Bertie
I was very glad to get your letter, though I feel greatly distressed by it. I should have thought that the obviously unjust attack on you as a teacher would have produced a strong and helpful reaction in your favour; there was quite a good article about it in the Nation (American). I still hope that it may have the result of making your friends more active.
I do not suppose you are thinking of coming back here. It would be easy enough if you were alone, but children make all the difference. I suppose this country is really a dangerous place, though it is hard for the average civilian to realise the fact; life goes on so much as usual, with no particular war hardship except taxes, only news every day about battles in the air and a general impression that we are all playing at soldiers. I am inclined to think that one of the solid advantages of the English temperament is that we do not get frightened or excited beforehand as Latins and Semites do, we wait till the danger comes before getting upset by it. I suppose this is what people call lack of imagination.
One development that interests me is this: assuming that the war is in a sense a civil war throughout the world, or a war of religions or what they now call ideologies, for a long time it was not quite clear what the two sides were: e.g. some people said it was Communism or Socialism against Fascism, others that it was Christianity against ungodliness. But now, as far as ideas are concerned, it is clearly Britain and America with some few supporters against the various autocracies, which means Liberalism v Tyranny. I found Benes saying much the same the other day; he had been afraid that the war would come on what he called a false issue, of Communism v Fascism. Now he thinks it is on the right one.
If ever I can be of any use to you, please let me know.
Yours ever Gilbert Murray
(As from) Harvard University Cambridge, Mass. U.S.A. September 6th 1940
Dear Gilbert
Thank you very much for your letter of July 29. My personal problems have been solved by a rich patron (in the eighteenth-century style) who has given me a teaching post with little work and sufficient salary. I cannot return to England, not only on account of my children, but also because I could not earn a living there. Exile at such a time, however, is infinitely painful. Meanwhile, we have spent the summer in a place of exquisite beauty, like the best of the Tyrol, and I have finished a big book, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth - Hume plus modern logic. Sometimes I think the best thing one can do is to salvage as much as possible of civilisation before the onset of the dark ages. I feel as if we were living in the fifth century.
I quite agree with what you say about the war of ideologies. The issue became clear when Russia turned against us. Last time the alliance with the Czar confused the issue.
Sympathy in this country is growing more and more emphatic on our side. My belief, is that if we pull through this month, we shall win. But I am not optimistic as to the sort of world that the war will leave.
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
(Permanent address) Little Datchet Farm Malvern, R.D.1. Pa; U.S.A. January 18th 1941
My dear Gilbert
I was very glad to get your good letter of October 23. I am now established in a small country house 200 years old - very ancient for this part of the world - in lovely country, with pleasant work. If the world were at peace I could be very happy.
As to the future: It seems to me that if we win, we shall win completely: I cannot think the Nazis will survive. America will dominate, and will probably not withdraw as in 1919; America will not be war-weary, and will believe resolutely in the degree of democracy that exists here. I am accordingly fairly optimistic. There is good hope that the militaristic regime in Japan will collapse, and I do not believe China will ever be really militaristic. Russia, I think, will be the greatest difficulty, especially if finally on our side. I have no doubt that the Soviet Government is even worse than Hitler's, and it will be a misfortune if it survives. There can be no permanent peace unless there is only one Air Force in the world, with the degree of international government that that implies. Disarmament alone, though good, will not make peace secure.
Opinion here varies with the longitude. In the East, people are passionately pro-English; we are treated with extra kindness in shops as soon as people notice our accent. In California they are anti-Japanese but not pro-English; in the Middle West they were rather anti-English. But everywhere opinion is very rapidly coming over to the conviction that we must not be defeated.
It is rather dreadful to be out of it all. I envy Rosalind [his daughter] as much as I admire her.
I am giving a 4-year course of lectures on history of philosophy in relation to culture and social circumstances, from Thales to Dewey. As I can't read Greek, this is rather cheek; but anyway I enjoy it. I divide it into 3 cycles, Greek, Catholic, Protestant. In each case the gradual decay of an irrational dogma leads to anarchy, and thence to dictatorship. I like the growth of Catholicism out of Greek decadence, and of Luther out of Machiavelli's outlook.
I remember your description of Sophocles (which you afterwards denied) as 'a combination of matricide and high spirits'. I remember, also, when I besought you to adroit merit in 'hark, hark the lark' you said it ought to go on 'begins to bark'. I disagree with you about Shakespeare; I don't know enough about Sophocles to have an opinion. At the moment, I am full of admiration for Anaximander, and amazement at Pythagoras, who combined Einstein and Mrs Eddy. I disapprove of Plato because he wanted to prohibit all music except Rule Britannia and The British Grenadiers, Moreover, he Invented the Pecksniffian style of the Times leading articles.
Do write again. Goodbye.
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
Little Datchet Farm Malvern, R.D. 1 Pennsylvania June 18th 1941
Dear Gilbert
Thank you very much for your letter of 23 April, which reached me safely. I humbly acknowledge my error about quadruplicity! I agree with everything you say in your letter, and particularly with what you say about the 'Christian tradition'; I have been feeling the attraction of conservatism myself. There are, however, some things of importance to note. First: the tradition in question is chiefly represented in this country by the Catholic Church, which, here, has none of the culture one associates with that body historically. (On this, Santayana writes convincingly.) The Church lost much at the Reformation, more when intellectual France turned free-thinking; it has not now the merits it had. Generally, a conservative institution ceases to be good as soon as it is attacked.
I should regard Socialism in its milder forms as a natural development of the Christian tradition. But Marx belongs with Nietzsche as an apostle of disruption, and unfortunately Marxism won among socialists.
The Romantic Movement is one of the sources of evil; further back, Luther and Henry VIII.
I don't see much hope in the near future. There must first be a World-State, then an Augustan age, then slow undramatic decay. For a while, the yellow races may put vigour into the Hellenic-Roman tradition; ultimately, something new may come from the negroes. (I should like to think St Augustine was a negro.)
It seems to me that everything good in Christianity comes from either Plato or the Stoics. The Jews contributed bad history; the Romans, Church Government and Canon Law. I like the Church of England because it is the most purely Platonic form of Christianity. Catholicism is too Roman, Puritanism too Judaic.
Life here, with the job I have, would be very pleasant if there were no war. The country is like inland Dorsetshire; our house is 200 years old, built by a Welshman. My work is interesting, and moderate in amount. But it all seems unreal. Fierceness surges round, and everybody seems doomed to grow fierce sooner or later. It is hard to feel that anything is worth while, except actual resistance to Hitler, in which I have no chance to take a part. We have English friends who are going back to England, and we envy them, because they are going to something that feels important. I try to think it is worth while to remain civilised, but it seems rather thin. I admire English resistance with all my soul, but hate not to be part of it. Goodbye. Do write again.
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
Little Datchet Farm Malvern, R.D. 1 Pennsylvania March 23rd 1942
My dear Gilbert
I have had a letter of yours on my desk for a shamefully long time, but I have been appallingly busy. You wrote about physics and philosophy. I think the effect of physics is to bolster up Berkeley; but every philosopher has his own view on the subject. You wrote also about post-war reconstruction. I think the irruption of Japan has changed things. Anglo-American benevolent imperialism won't work: 'Asia for the Asiatics' must be conceded. The only question is whether India and China shall be free or under Japan. If free, they will gravitate to Russia, which is Asiatic. There will be no cultural unity, and I doubt whether Russia and USA can agree about any form of international government, or whether, if they nominally do, it will have any reality. I am much less hopeful of the post-war world than before Japan's successes.
In my survey of the history of culture - alternatively, 'Sin, from Adam to Hitler' - I have reached Charlemagne. I find die period 400-800 AD very important and too little known. People's conscious thoughts were silly, but their blind actions founded the institutions under which England still lives - e.g. Oxford, and the Archbishops. There were many lonely men in those days - Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore, educated at Athens, trying to teach Greek to Anglo Saxons; English St Boniface and Irish St Virgil disputing, in the wilds of the German forests, as to whether there are other worlds than ours; John the Scot, physically in the 9th century, mentally in the 5th or even 4th. The loss of Roman centralisation was ultimately good. Perhaps we need 400 years of anarchy to recover. In a centralised world, too few people feel important.
Very interesting struggles are going on in this country. The Government is compelled to control the capitalists, and they, in turn, are trying to get the trade unions controlled. There is much more fear here than in England of 'planned economy', which is thought socialistic and said to lead to Fascism; and yet the necessities of the war compel it. Everybody in Washington realises that a great deal of planning will be necessary after the war, but the capitalists hope then to get back to laissez-faire. There may be a good deal of difficulty then. There is a great deal of rather fundamental change going on here, which is worth studying. But I wish I could be at home.
All good wishes,
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
Little Datchet Farm Malvern, R.D. 1 Pennsylvania 9 April 1943
My dear Gilbert
Thank you for your letter of March 13, which arrived this morning; also for your earlier letter about Barnes. He is a man who likes quarrels; for no reason that I can fathom, he suddenly broke his contract with me. In the end, probably, I shall get damages out of him; but the law's delays are as great as in Shakespeare's time. Various things I have undertaken to do will keep me here till the end of October; then (D.V.) I shall return to England - Peter & Conrad too, if the danger from submarines is not too great. We can't bear being away from home any longer. In England I shall have to find some means of earning a livelihood. I should be quite willing to do Government propaganda, as my views on this war are quite orthodox. I wish I could find a way of making my knowledge of America useful; I find that English people, when they try to please American opinion, are very apt to make mistakes. But I would accept any honest work that would bring in a bare subsistence for 3 people.
It is not growing fanaticism, but growing democracy, that causes my troubles. Did you ever read the life of Averroes? He was protected by kings, but hated by the mob, which was fanatical. In the end, the mob won. Free thought has always been a perquisite of aristocracy. So is the intellectual development of women. I am sorry to hear Mary has to do the housework. My Peter's whole time is absorbed in housework, cooking, & looking after Conrad; she hardly ever has time to read. The eighteenth & nineteenth centuries were a brief interlude in the normal savagery of man; now the world has reverted to its usual condition. For us, who imagined ourselves democrats, but were in fact the pampered products of aristocracy, it is unpleasant.
I am very sorry to hear about Lucy Silcox1; if you see her, please give her my love & sympathy.
1 A well-known liberal schoolmistress.
Our reason for coming home is that we don't want to send Conrad to an American school. Not only is the teaching bad, but the intense nationalism is likely to cause in his mind a harmful conflict between home & school. We think submarines, bombs, & poor diet a smaller danger. But all this is still somewhat undecided.
I shall finish my big History of Philosophy during the summer - you won't like it, because I don't admire Aristotle.
My John is in England, training for the navy. Kate is still at College, at Radcliffe. She wants, after the war, to get into something like Quaker Relief work - She specialises in German, & is unable to feel prescribed hatreds.
Give my love to Mary - It would be a real happiness to see you again - old friends grow fewer.
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
From Sir Ralph Wedgwood, the brother of Col. Josiah [Jos] Wedgwood who was later Lord Wedgwood of Barlaston.
Aston House Stone, Staffordshire 29.7.41
Dear Russell
Jos has now returned safely to this country, and the first thing he did was to tell me that he had seen you, and send me your letter to him as corroborative evidence. It set me thinking of Cambridge days of long ago, - a thing that I find myself rather apt to do now that I have passed the limit of 65 which I had always hoped would be the term of my active life. This was to be the really good time of life, when one's conscience being satisfied, and work done, one could pick up old tastes, and perhaps find old friends. Besides, I have been reading your last book of essays, and that alone made me want to write to you to tell you what a delight they are. Many of them are new to me, and I cannot decide whether I like the new or the old best - only I am sure they are most enjoyable of all when read together.
I should like to meet you again, and to make the acquaintance of your wife. Are you ever likely to be in England again! Not until after the war I suppose in any event. Nor shall I be in America before that (speaking wishfully) happy event. So many of our friends have gone
- and some have become altogether too reactionary! George Moore is the only one who goes on unchanged, and I expect you have seen him in America, He too seems likely to stay there for the duration, but he is a great loss to Cambridge. I stayed a night last month with the new Master of Trinity at the Lodge - not so formidable as it sounds. He is a dear, but one has to avoid so many subjects like the plague. However we discussed old days, and listened to the nightingales, - and so escaped shipwreck. Desmond McCarthy I used to see from time to time, but war-time puts an end to all such social meetings - everybody is left to work or chafe in his own compartment. If you can find time, do write and tell me about yourself. I shall ask Jos all about his visit to you when I see him: he was rather ominously silent in his letter about his visit to USA as a whole. I am afraid the Wheeler episode has rather embittered it all for him. Goodbye, and best wishes.
Yours fraternally Ralph Wedgwood
To Ely Culbertson, the Bridge expert
January 12 1942
Dear Culbertson
After a great deal of thought, I have come to more or less definite opinions about international government and about your scheme.
As regards international government, I think it far and away the most important question at present before the world. I am prepared to support any scheme which seems to me likely to put a large preponderance of armed force on the side of international law; some would please me more than others, but I should support whichever had a good chance of being adopted. The matter will ultimately be decided by Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill (or his successor); or perhaps without Stalin. Roosevelt and Churchill will be much influenced by public opinion in their own countries, but also by their officials. They are almost certain to modify any scheme they adopt.
I feel, in these circumstances, that my job is to advocate the principle of international government, not this or that special scheme. Special schemes are very useful, in order that the thing can be done, but I should not wish to get into controversy as between one scheme and another.
You are, as you must know, extraordinarily persuasive, and I thought I could throw in my lot publicly with you, but reflection has led me, very regretfully, to the conclusion that my points of disagreement are too important for this. The most important are the following.
(1) Your plan of regional federations with leader States has difficulties. You yourself make France and Italy equal in the Latin Federation; South Americans would resent acknowledged inferiority of status to that of the us; Germany ought not to be put above the smaller Teutonic countries, which are much more civilised, and much more favourable to a World Federation.
(2) I cannot agree to your suggestion as regards India. I have been for many years an advocate of Indian freedom, and cannot abandon this just when it has a good chance of realisation. (3) I don't like your fixing the quotas of military power for ever, or even for 50 years; 25 years is the utmost that would seem to me wise. This is part of a wider objection, that you have not, to my mind, a sufficient mechanism for legal change, yet this is essential if violence is to be made inattractive.
You may say that the points I do not like in your scheme make it more likely to be adopted. I do not think so. It seem to me that that nucleus of any practicable plan will be Anglo-American cooperation, and that a number of small countries will quickly join themselves on as satellites. One might hope the same of China and of a resurrected France. I expect therefore, at first, a Federation from which ex-enemy countries will be excluded, and from which Russia will probably hold aloof. As for the ex-enemy countries, there should be no difficulty about Italy, which is not deeply Fascist. Japan, I think, will disintegrate, and need armies of occupation to keep order; behind these armies, a new civilisation could be introduced. Germany, no doubt, will take a considerable time, but could, I think, be brought in within 20 years. As for Russia, one must wait and see.
The upshot is that I don't think we can get everything in the Peace Treaty. Better a nucleus of Powers in genuine agreement, and then a gradual growth, always assuming that the nucleus, at the time of the peace, has overwhelming military superiority, and the means of keeping it for some time.
As I said before, I favour any plan of international government that is not too like Hitler's, and I should be very glad if yours were adopted, though I still prefer the one I outlined in the American Mercury. I should still be very glad, if you desire it, to go over any work of yours, with a view to criticisms from your point of view. There might be details that could advantageously be modified. I should also, as soon as your scheme is public, speak of it as having very great merits, whenever I had occasion to talk or write on international government. But I cannot be paid by you for any public appearance, as I find this would involve too much sacrifice of intellectual independence.
I am very sorry about this, both because I found the prospect of working with you very attractive, and because it will diminish my opportunities for advocating international government. For both these reasons I was anxious to throw in my lot with you, and thought I could; but I am not good at sub-ordinating my judgment to anybody else, and if I tried to do so I feel that it wouldn't answer.
The above applies in particular to a possible lecture at Columbia Teachers' Training College about which I wrote.
I should be very sorry indeed if anything I have said in this letter impaired our personal relations. Our talks have been a great intellectual stimulus to me, and I should like to hope that, by bringing up objections, I might be of some reciprocal use to you. Apart from all that, I should like to feel that there is a real friendship between us.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
My wife asks me to send her regards.
From Pearl Buck, author of The Good Earth and other books
R.D. 3 Perkasie, Pennsylvania October 23, 1942
My dear Mr Russell
I was so impressed with your attitude the other Sunday that I have been thinking of whether I might not write you.
Then Wednesday Lin Yutang spoke of your letter in PM, which he thought very fine indeed. I have not yet seen it myself - I shall try to get a copy - but he told me enough about it to make me feel that indeed I must write you.
I have for a long time - for many months, in fact - been deeply perturbed because of the feeling toward England in the minds of many Americans. I knew it was certain to rise over the India situation. I think I knew that years ago when I was in India, and saw for myself what would be inevitable if war came, and even then war seemed pretty clearly ahead.
You may ask why I have taken my share In discussions about India, if I deplored any lack of warmth between our two countries. I have done so in spite of my devotion to England, because as an American it has seemed to me my duty to do all I could, first, to see if something could not be devised to bring India wholeheartedly into the war effort, and second, because I knew there must be some sort of strong reassurance to China that we were not all thinking along the same old lines. For the latter reason I have welcomed the excellent stand that the English have taken in regard to American color segregation in our armed forces in England.
Now I feel that what has been done in India is done and the question ahead is no longer to discuss who was right and who was wrong there but to plan together, all of us, how to cope with the disaster ahead. I hope that you will read, if you have not already done so, Edgar Snow's article in the current Saturday Evening Post, entitled 'Must We Beat Japan First?' It is so grave that all of us must take thought together.
This alienation between Americans and English, it seems to me, must not be allowed to continue. I don't think we will get over India, especially as our losses of men in the Far East grow more severe, as they must, since India will not be mobilised to help us. I fear both the professional anti-English persons and those who have been alienated by the failure to bring India wholeheartedly into the war. I fear even more those who will grow angry when they see what the loss of India will cost us.
I don't think that Americans are particularly pro-Indian - if at all - I know I am not. But there is just something in the average American that heartily dislikes the sort of thing that has been going on in India, and this in spite of our equally wrong behaviour to our own colored folk. We are, of course, full of contradictions, but there it is. What can be done to mend the situation between our two countries?
I think of one thing which ought not to be too difficult. Granting that Churchill cannot and will not change, it would help a great deal if we could see another kind of Englishman and see him in some numbers and hear him speak. As you know, the liberal English opinion has been fairly rigidly censored. Here in America we have not been allowed to hear dissenting voices in England and the sort of official Englishman we have here, and all his propaganda, does little or nothing to mend the rift in the common man.
What can we do, English and Americans together, who know the necessity of human equality, to make known our unity of thought and purpose?
The time has come for us to find each other and to stand together for the same sort of world. We cannot yield to each other's faults and prides, but we can speak together against them, and together determine a better way and so reaffirm before our enemies and before our doubting allies everywhere the essential unity of our two peoples.
Very sincerely yours Pearl S. Buck
My views at that time on India were that it would be necessary to persuade the British Government to renew negotiations with India. It was difficult, however, to see how this could be done while Churchill remained in power. Also, Indian leaders should be persuaded to end the civil disobedience movement and cooperate in negotiations. Possibly the latter could be done through Nehru. I took for granted that India should be free of all foreign domination, whether British or other.
From and to Mrs Sidney Webb
Passfield Comer Liphook, Hants. December 17th 1942
My dear Bertrand
I was so glad to see in that remarkable book - I meet America - by W. J. Brown MP that you were not only intent on winning the war but wished to reconstruct the world after the war. We were also very much interested that you had decided to remain in the USA and to encourage your son to make his career there rather than in Great Britain. If you were not a peer of the realm and your son a possible great statesman like his great grandfather I should think it was a wise decision but we want you both back in Great Britain since you are part and parcel of the parliamentary government of our democracy. Also I should think teachers who were also British Peers were at some slight disadvantage in the us A so far as a public career is concerned as they would attract snobs and offend the labour movement? But of course I may be wrong.
Sidney, I am glad to say, is very well and happy though of course owing to his stroke in 1938 he is no longer able to take part in public affairs. I go on writing, writing, writing for publication. But I am old and tired and suffer from all sorts of ailments from swollen feet to sleepless nights.
I send you our last booklet which has had a great sale in Great Britain and is being published by the New York Longman firm. Probably you will not agree with it but I think you will be interested and Bernard Shaw's Preface is amusing. Like ourselves the Bernard Shaws are very old and though Shaw goes on writing Charlotte is a hopeless invalid and rather an unhappy one. Shaw is writing a book What's What to the Politicians. He has been writing it for many months and would have gone on writing a longer and longer book if he had not been pulled up by the shortness of paper.
Whether you stay in the USA or not I do hope you and your two clever young people will pay a visit to Great Britain and that we shall have the pleasure of seeing you and your wife. Pray give her my greetings; I wonder how she likes America.
Your affectionate friend Beatrice Webb (Mrs Sidney Webb)
P.S. I don't think you know our nephew Sir Stafford Cripps - but he represents a new movement growing up in Gt Britain, which combines the Christian faith . . . [words missing] - which might interest you. He left the Cabinet over India!
Little Datchet Farm 31 Jan 1943
My dear Beatrice
Thank you very much for your letter of Dec. 17.I was delighted to have news of you and Sidney, and to know that he is well. I am sorry you suffer from 'ailments'. I suppose it is inevitable after a certain age - to which I shall soon attain.
I don't know what gave W. J. Brown the idea that I meant to settle in America. I have never at any time thought of doing such a thing. At first I came for 8 months, then jobs came in my way. Then, with the war, I thought it better for Conrad (now aged 5) to be here. But all these reasons are nearing their end.
John (Amberley) is finished with Harvard, and returning to England in a few days, to go into the Navy if he can, and, if not, the Army. My daughter Kate is at Radcliffe; she always does as well as possible in everything she studies. Her hope, after the war, is to get into some kind of relief work on the Continent. I myself am kept here for the moment by various engagements, but I may come home fairly soon, leaving Peter and Conrad here till the end of the war.
I was much disappointed that India rejected Cripps' offer. People here are ignorant about India, but have strong opinions. I have been speaking and writing to try to overcome anti-English feeling as regards India, which in some quarters is very strong.
Thank you very much for your most interesting booklet on Russia. Whether one likes the regime or not, one can't help immensely admiring the Russian achievement in the war.
I do hope to see you again when I get back to England. Peter sends greetings and thanks for your message.
Yours affectionately Bertrand Russell
From Dr & Mrs A. N. Whitehead
1737 Cambridge St. Cambridge, Mass. Jan. 3. 1944
Dear Bertie
We have just read - in the minutes of the Trinity Council - that you have been re-elected to a Fellowship and Lectureship. The minutes also emphasised that the election was unanimous. Our warmest congratulations. It is exactly what ought to have happened.
Yours ever Alfred and Evelyn Whitehead