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World Order

Winter 1975-76

America:

200 Years of Imperishable Hope

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World Order

A BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE • VOLUME 10 NUMBER 2 • PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE, INSPIRE AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN THEIR SEARCH TO FIND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board:

FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

BETTY J. FISHER

HOWARD GAREY

ROBERT HAYDEN

GLENFORD E. MITCHELL

Editorial Assistant

MARTHA PATRICK

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly, October, January, April, and July, at 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091. Subscriber and business correspondence and changes of address should be sent to this address. Manuscripts and other editorial correspondence should be addressed to 2011 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts should be typewritten and double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should keep a carbon copy. Return postage should be included.

Subscription rates: USA, 1 year, $6.00; 2 years, $11.00; single copies, $1.60. All other countries, 1 year, $7.00; 2 years, $13.00; single copes $1.60.

Copyright © 1976, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, World Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

ISSN 0043-8804

IN THIS ISSUE

2 Two Hundred Years of Imperishable Hope

Editorial

8 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

13 Melting Pot or Boiling Cauldron: The Ethnic

Experience in America, by Nosratollah Rassekh

28 Religion and American Identity: 1609-1776

by James H. Moorhead

37 Declaration for the New World: 1976

a poem by William Stafford

39 Conversations with Americans

Interviews with Dorothy W. Nelson, Robert

Hayden, Shinji Yamamoto, David Villaseñor,

and Mildred Mottahadeh conducted by the

Editors of World Order

Inside back cover: Authors and Artists in This Issue

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Two Hundred Years Of Imperishable Hope

WHEN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO a New England farmer in Massachusetts fired his musket at a soldier of the King, the shot, all legend to the contrary notwithstanding, was heard only by a few. Most of humanity—China, India, Russia, the lands of Islám, Africa—remained unaware of a rebellion destined to result in the birth of a nation which would one day affect the life of every man, woman, and child in the world.

From its very inception the United States was unlike other nations. The country had been settled by pilgrims who sought to build in the wilderness of a virtually unknown continent a new Jerusalem. Yet their pursuit of the Kingdom quickly revealed paradoxes that would plague their descendents ever after. Professing Christianity, they nevertheless dispossessed and massacred the original inhabitants of a land to which they themselves had come in quest of refuge. Victims of religious intolerance, they established a puritan tyranny in their new home. Vociferous champions of human dignity and freedom, they imported hundreds of thousands of slaves whose toil helped clear the woods, drain the swamps, and raise the crops. Fearful of a stern God and wishing to do His will, they produced a government of laws and much lawlessness. Above all they were dominated by a sense of destiny and mission.

Through forests, over prairies and mountains, across forbidding deserts spread the American people, perpetually replenished by millions of immigrants from the old world, hacking, plowing, building, destroying, shedding blood. As America struggled to conquer the continent, the dream of the Kingdom receded before the commitment to the pursuit of happiness which was frequently equated with the striving for private gain and the right of the strong. The old paradoxes remained unresolved. Even a civil war would not suffice to establish in fact the textbook proposition that all men were created equal.

Yet America’s pursuit of wealth and power had an odd quality about it. Below the surface of the struggle for existence, of selfishness and of greed, which were often elevated into principle, there survived the conviction that the country had a historical task to perform, that America was an experiment which would demonstrate that the brotherhood of man was not an illusion, that justice for all was not an idle dream, and that man was not a beast condemned [Page 3] forever to live at war with his own kind. Perhaps it was this inner conviction that impelled the educated to create in this country the world’s first and largest system of mass education, the whites to struggle for the rights of the blacks, and the rich to engage in philanthropy on a scale unparalleled elsewhere.

HOW would America discover her true self? Through what mysterious process would she give up racism, national arrogance, and notions of imperialist manifest destiny? What words would she inscribe on her banners? What ideals would she serve?

In a cynical age of shattered hopes and abandoned ideals the Bahá’ís reaffirm their faith in the destiny of America. They are confident that the history of this nation has a meaning which America’s people, her thinkers, her artists, her poets have always instinctively felt. “The continent of America,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said more than sixty years ago, “is in the eyes of the one true God the land wherein the splendors of His light shall be revealed, where the mysteries of His Faith shall be unveiled, where the righteous will abide and the free assemble.”

While visiting the United States, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was asked by a high government official how he could best serve his country. “You can best serve your country,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied, “if you strive, in your capacity as a citizen of the world, to assist in the eventual application of the principle of federalism, underlying the government of your own country, to the relationships now existing between the peoples and nations of the world.”

On another occasion ‘Abdu’l-Bahá thus defined America’s supreme task:

“May this American democracy be the first nation to establish the foundation of international agreement. May it be the first nation to proclaim the unity of mankind. May it be the first to unfurl the standard of the ‘Most Great Peace’. . . . May America become the distributing center of spiritual enlightenment and all the world receive this heavenly blessing. For America has developed powers and capacities greater and more wonderful than other nations. . . . This American nation is equipped and empowered to accomplish [Page 4] that which will adorn the pages of history, to become the envy of the world and be blest in both the East and the West for the triumph of its people . . . The American continent gives signs and evidences of very great advancement. Its future is even more promising, for its influence and illumination are far-reaching. It will lead all nations spiritually.”

THE BAHÁ’ÍS, therefore, see in America a potential unifier of mankind. The wealth, the energy, the idealism of this nation would find their proper outlet whenever they are applied to this crucial task. Only as a champion of universal peace and unity can America ultimately resolve the paradoxes and contradictions of the past and cure the ills of the present. The longer she neglects her world-historical obligation, the deeper she would sink in the mire of moral and spiritual degeneration.

In a letter penned over twenty years ago, Shoghi Effendi analyzed America’s predicament and indicated its eventual outcome. His words deserve to be quoted at length:

“. . . the country . . . is passing through a crisis which, in its spiritual, moral, social and political aspects, is of extreme seriousness —a seriousness which to a superficial observer is liable to be dangerously underestimated.

“The steady and alarming deterioration in the standard of morality as exemplified by the appalling increase of crime, by political corruption in ever widening and ever higher circles, by the loosening of the sacred ties of marriage, by the inordinate craving for pleasure and diversion, and by the marked and progressive slackening of parental control, is no doubt the most arresting and distressing aspect of the decline that has set in, and can be clearly perceived, in the fortunes of the entire nation.

“Parallel with this, and pervading all departments of life—an evil which the nation, and indeed all those within the capitalist system, though to a lesser degree, share with that state and its satellites regarded as the sworn enemies of that system—is the crass materialism, which lays excessive and ever-increasing emphasis on material well-being, forgetful of those things of the spirit on which alone a sure and stable foundation can be laid for human society. It is that same cancerous materialism, born originally in Europe, carried to excess in the North American continent, contaminating the Asiatic peoples and nations, spreading its ominous tentacles to the borders of Africa, and now invading its very heart, which [Page 5] Bahá’u’lláh in unequivocal and emphatic language denounced in His Writings, comparing it to a devouring flame and regarding it as the chief factor in precipitating the dire ordeals and world-shaking crises that must necessarily involve the burning of cities and the spread of terror and consternation in the hearts of men. . . .

“Collateral with this ominous laxity in morals, and this progressive stress laid on man’s material pursuits and well-being, is the darkening of the political horizon, as witnessed by the widening of the gulf separating the protagonists of the two antagonistic schools of thought which, however divergent in their ideologies, are to be commonly condemned . . . for their materialistic philosophies and their neglect of those spiritual values and eternal verities on which alone a stable and flourishing civilization can be ultimately established. . . .

“No less serious is the stress and strain imposed on the fabric of American society through the fundamental and persistent neglect, by the governed and governors alike, of the supreme, the inescapable and urgent duty—so repeatedly and graphically represented and stressed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His arraignment of the basic weaknesses in the social fabric of the nation—of remedying, while there is yet time, through a revolutionary change in the concept and attitude of the average white American toward his Negro fellow citizen, a situation which, if allowed to drift, will, in the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, cause the streets of American cities to run with blood . . .” The woes and tribulations which threaten America, Shoghi Effendi has further stated, are “mostly inevitable and God-sent, for by reason of them a government and people clinging tenaciously to the obsolescent doctrine of absolute sovereignty and upholding a political system, manifestly at variance with the needs of a world already contracted into a neighborhood and crying out for unity, will find itself purged of its anachronistic conceptions, and prepared to play a preponderating role . . . in the hoisting of the standard of the Lesser Peace, in the unification of mankind, and in the establishment of a world federal government on this planet. These same fiery tribulations will not only firmly weld the American nation to its sister nations in both hemispheres, but will through their cleansing effect, purge it thoroughly of the accumulated dross which ingrained racial prejudice, rampant materialism, widespread ungodliness and moral laxity have combined, in the course of successive generations, to produce, and which have prevented her thus far from assuming the role of world spiritual leadership forecast by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s unerring pen—a role which she is bound to fulfill through travail and sorrow.”

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TWO HUNDRED YEARS is but a short span in the life of a nation. America’s achievement in government, commerce, industry, science, and culture staggers the imagination. No less staggering are the evils which have grown in her soil. These, however, must not blind one to the vast potential she possesses to serve the highest interests of all mankind. Clearly recognizing their nation’s shortcomings, working and praying for its purification and spiritual growth, America’s Bahá’ís of all races, national origins, and religious backgrounds are confident that “Whatever the Hand of a beneficent and inscrutable Destiny has reserved for this youthful, this virile, this idealistic, this spiritually blessed and enviable nation, however severe the storms which may buffet it in the days to come . . . however sweeping the changes” in its structure and life, that great republic “will continue to evolve, undivided and undefeatable, until the sum total of its contributions to the birth, the rise and the fruition of that world civilization, the child of the Most Great Peace . . . will have been made, and its last task discharged.”

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Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

IN A TIRED SOCIETY in which our best hopes and dreams are so often frustrated and turned awry, it is easy to fall into fashionable cynicism and pessimism, especially when confronted with an event such as the Bicentennial of one’s country, gift-wrapped with the inevitable red, white, and blue bunting and shored up with innumerable fairs, parades, and speeches. To be sure, there are, here and there, individuals, citizen’s groups, and organizations who are still trying to find in the country’s Bicentennial some thoughtful way to assess the past and a meaningful direction into the future. But, by and large, the tenor of the discussions about the Bicentennial has changed from the optimistic “How shall we prepare a befitting celebration for our country?” to the cynical “Is there really anything to celebrate?”

Yet the Bahá’ís, almost to a person, are optimistic. There is much to deplore—lawlessness; drunkenness; gambling; crime; inordinate love of pleasure, riches, and earthy vanities; laxity in morals; irresponsible attitudes toward marriage; weakening of parental control; rising divorce rates; deterioration of standards in literature and in the press; theories which negate purity, morality, and chastity. But there is also much on which to build and, therefore, a bright, realistic prospect for the future. Thus the Editors of WORLD ORDER have found it fitting, in this issue, to touch on the religious roots of our country and on our ethnic diversity, the source of so much pain and so much strength. We have also gone to a number of thoughtful people—a lawyer, a poet, an artist, an architect, and a business woman—and asked them a series of questions concerning themselves, the relationship of their work to America, their feelings about America’s shortcomings, its future, its meaning, its destiny. The result is an honest appraisal of areas in which America has failed to fulfill her promise—and an equally honest conviction that America is destined to contribute substantially to the world’s difficult transition from the follies, the irrationality, the rebelliousness of youth to the stage of manhood in which the fact of the “interdependence of the peoples and nations of the earth” becomes the guiding principle of every facet of our lives.

* * *

During the past year we have published a number of articles discussing economics and various aspects of the economic situation of the world: Prime MiniSter Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s “A View of World Order” and William S. Hatcher’s “Economics and Moral Values” (both in Winter 1974-75); John Huddleston’s “The Economy of a World Commonwealth” (Summer 1975); and Robert Muller’s “Some Remarks on the Present State of the World,” Gregory C. Dahl’s “Economics and the Bahá’í Teachings: An Overview,” and Richard N . Gardner’s “The Ghost of the Future World” (Fall 1975). Dr. Hatcher’s article on economics and moral values provoked, in our Summer 1975 issue, a lively response from Dr. Ferydoon Firoozi, professor of economics at Northeastern Illinois University. Dr. Hatcher, in an equally lively vein, replies below.

Our Summer 1975 issue also carried a portfolio of recent American poetry, introduced by Robert Hayden, an editorial on the language of esthetics, and a long essay by a young musician, Ludwig Tuman, exploring the critical foundations for a world culture of the arts. The essay, particularly, has also evoked a warm response from one of our readers which we share with you.

[Page 9] From Cambridge University, where he is engaged in research on nineteenth-century Islám, Mr. Denis MacEoin responds to letters which were evoked by his article “Oriental Scholarship and the Bahá’í Faith,” which appeared in Summer 1974. His letter, as well as those of the commentators, show how difficult it is to arrive at a clear understanding of a complex historical and religious question—the station of John the Baptist. Obviously, the issue is not settled and will continue to attract the attention of inquiring minds.

* * *

Turning to the future, an appropriate stance in a Bicentennial issue, the Editors can promise, in forthcoming issues, interesting reading on a variety of topics: the work ethic and technology, reasons for studying the Bahá’í Faith, the Maroons in Jamaica, the concept of the nations in Islám, medicine, and black Americans.

To the Editor

ECONOMICS

I have read the letter of Professor F. Firoozi (WORLD ORDER, Summer 1975) criticizing what he regards as an “unsubstantiated assumption” in my article on economics and moral values in the Winter 1974-75 issue of WORLD ORDER. I feel that his critical comments are imprecise on several counts.

Clearly, that which the opening statements of my article put into opposition is not two different views of economics as a scientific discipline —that it involves or does not involve value judgments—but rather two qualities of value-judgmental activity in practice, one crassly pragmatic and materialistic and the other basically spiritual and religious. The implicit question is whether or not there is any essential incompatibility between the profoundly spiritual view of man given by religion (“moral” values) and the value judgments that are necessary for the maintenance and development of a vigorous and productive economic system. There is, in fact, a pervasive (i.e., widespread) view that such an essential incompatibility does exist (which view, as the remainder of my article argues, is wrong). Modern Marxist thought and practice, for example, clearly embody such a belief, and Marxism is certainly widespread. Also, I have consistently encountered similar attitudes on this point (from a different philosophical viewpoint of course) among a number of Western businessmen and industrialists. I would be surprised if Professor Firoozi has not.

As refutations to what he interprets to be my view, Professor Firoozi quotes indirectly from the writings of several modern economists to the effect that economics as a discipline deals with value judgments. But this, as I have already indicated above, was never in doubt and was hardly the point of the preliminary remarks of my article. Moreover, the “pervasive” view of anything is not necessarily the view represented by even a majority of professional scientists involved in a related discipline. (One could even argue about the degree of correlation between current economic theory and practice, but that opens another, completely different line of discussion.)

Professor Firoozi is certainly right in saying that the basic tension is between two kinds of value judgments and not between making value judgments on the one hand and not making them on the other. But he is wrong in attributing this latter view to my article.

WILLIAM S. HATCHER

Professor of Mathematics

Laval University

Quebec, Canada

A WORLD CULTURE OF THE ARTS

Each year members of the staff of the Center for the Study of Human Potential review several thousand articles in a wide variety of journals in search of seminal ideas and penetrating insights which will contribute to their own efforts to lay the broadest possible philosophical foundations for the Anisa Model—a new comprehensive educational system designed to help a divided world in its struggle to become unified. We consider ourselves fortunate to find one or two articles out of each thousand reviewed which contains substantially more than a mere reshuffling of inert ideas. Invariably, the best articles are those which include a thoughtful historical perspective on important issues and the presentation of an integrative scheme of thought which arises logically out of the historical perspective and places the issues in the light of a new context where they can be understood more fully.

We found Mr. Ludwig Tuman’s article on the foundations for a world culture of the arts [Page 10] [Summer 1975] to be one of those rare articles which provides a penetrating analysis of issues important to education followed by an illuminating synthesis which has implications for action. We wish to express our thanks to him for his seminal contribution and to WORLD ORDER for making it available to its readers.

Mr. Tuman suggests that “the need to reforge the relationship between society and artist in a rapidly changing world” is at the center of the problems faced by contemporary artists and that dealing with this central problem entails a twofold challenge: determining a philosophical basis through which they can relate their work to a global setting and translating the philosophical terms into a working relationship with society. The philosophy and theory underlying the Anisa Model explains the role of the arts in the actualization of human potential and establishes the conceptual foundations for any efforts to “reforge” the relationship between society and the artists. From our point of view reforging the relationship must be an organic process and can occur most effectively through the experience of children as a fundamental part of their education. For this reason, the Model places the arts at the core of the curriculum and puts the artist in a position of influence where the expression of anything less than universal principles would be morally unjustifiable at a time when the survival of mankind depends upon its finding a basis for unity. Mr. Tuman’s analysis demonstrates that a world culture of the arts is a feasible prospect and thereby strengthens our own conviction of the feasibility of a system of education based on universal principles. His clear exposition makes us feel not only that both are feasible but that perhaps they are inevitable.

DANIEL C. JORDAN

Director

Center for the Study of Human Potential

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

JOHN THE BAPTIST

I have read with interest Mr. William Collins’ letter in the Summer 1975 issue of WORLD ORDER, with reference to the station of John the Baptist. It seems to me that while clarifying several points in a careful and balanced manner, he has, nevertheless, perhaps only served to make the issue more complex in the very process of attempting to simplify. Since this may give rise, in the end, to more misunderstandings than it seeks to dispel, perhaps I may be permitted to comment on one or two points which appear to me of particular importance.

Mr. Collins’ argument revolves chiefly around the distinction between nabí (not, incidentally, nabí‘ as he has spelt it) and rasúl, the former being identified by him with “lesser prophets,” the latter with “Manifestations of God.” It is unfortunate that Mr. Collins has used the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islám as his authority for making this distinction, firstly because it does not represent the most authoritative material, even from the Western point of view, and, secondly, and more importantly, because its basic frame of reference is Sunní and not Shí‘ih Islám, the latter being the only meaningful form of Islám for a comparison between Muslim and Bahá’í concepts.

The distinction made here is artificial and unsound. Mr. Collins writes that “Those [Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muḥammad, the Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh] that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá lists as ‘Manifestations of universal Prophethood’ are those Whom Bahá’ís call Manifestations, and Whom the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islám lists as rusul or ‘Messengers.’ The ‘others who are followers’ are those called nabíyún or ‘prophets’ in the Qur’án.” This is simply not correct. Apart from those mentioned, with the exception of Abraham, the Qur’án also names Ismá‘íl (Ishmael) (19:54), Noah (7:61), Lot (26:160-62), Shu‘ayb (2:177-78), Húd (7:67), and Ṣáliḥ (26:142-43) as rusul. Abraham is nowhere referred to as a rasúl; he is, however, spoken of as an Imám (2:124).

Apart from this, the Qur’án specifically states that the rusul themselves are of different stations: “We have endowed (faḍalná) some of the Messengers more greatly than others. There are those to whom God hath spoken, those whom He hath raised up in exaltation. We gave unto Jesus, Mary’s son, explanatory evidences, and with the Holy Spirit gave him aid” (2:253). Clearly, the nabí/rasúl division raises more problems than it solves, not least with regard to the Bahá’í writings where these terms are relatively little used.

The situation is too complicated to deal with competently in the space of a letter, but, briefly stated, a large part of Mr. Collins’ confusion results from a too-ready identification of certain figures as rusul and the rest as, ipso facto anbiyá. Islám recognizes six major Prophets belonging to the Cycle of Prophecy (dá’iratu’n-nubuwwa —not dá’iratu’r-risála)—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad (with, sometimes, David as a seventh). These, as we have seen, are not distinguished by being [Page 11] rusul, but as bearers of a divine Law, a sharí‘at, as revealers of a Book; they are known as the ulú’l-‘azm, a phrase translated by Shoghi Effendi as “Prophets endowed with constancy.” Bahá’u’lláh refers to these in the Kitáb-i-Íqán when He writes “Hast thou not heard that among the reasons why certain Prophets have been designated as Prophets ‘endowed with constancy’ was the revelation of a Book unto them?” (p. 220).

Even more important in this context is a basic Shí‘ih concept, dealt with at length by Henri Corbin in his Histoire de la philosophie islamique, and in the first volume of his massive En islam iranien (chapter 6). This concept, very loosely stated, is that waláyát, the station of a Walí or Imám, is the essence of both prophethood and messengership (nubuwwat and risálat). A nabí is a walí with the added outward function of nubuwwat; a rasúl is a walí' and a nabí with the additional function of risálat. But in essence they are all one in the station of waláyát—the differences only relate to outward function. It is in the light of such a concept that we can more easily understand such a statement as that of Imám ‘Alí: “Outwardly I am an Imám; inwardly I am the Unseen, the Unknowable” (quoted by Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 112).

It is equally important to realize that Mr. Collins is incorrect in stating that “Bahá’u’lláh, while using these terms [nubuwwat and risálat], has introduced a new idea to describe the Messenger-Lawgivers: maẓáhir-i-iláhíyyih or ‘Manifestations of God.’” The concept and term maẓáhir-i-iláhí (pl. maẓáhir-i-iláhíyya) are basic to Shí‘ih belief, particularly with regard to the Imáms. Both the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh have perpetuated the use of this term, although they certainly clarify its nature and function, without limiting it in any way to the six or seven major Prophets of Islám.

Mr. Collins takes issue with the reference made by Mr. Kazemzadeh to the “dispensation of John.” Whatever the meaning Webster’s Dictionary may give to the English word “dispensation,” the original word used by Bahá’u’lláh is sharí‘at (Persian text of Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 116), precisely the term used to designate the body of laws, observances, and ordinances brought by an independent Messenger of God. As Mr. Kazemzadeh translates from the Kitáb-i-Badí: “he [John] came with laws and commandments.”

In a Persian Tablet Bahá’u’lláh states that “This Manifestation and that of the Point of the Bayán [the Báb] are exactly similar to that of the Son of Zachariah [John] and Jesus, the Son of Mary” (Asráru’l-Athár, vol. 4, p. 233). In the same Tablet—and this I wish to stress— Bahá’u’lláh refers to those followers of John who failed to understand his references to Jesus and “who are even now still on the earth and are known to some as the Ṣábi’ín.” These are the Sabaeans (not to be confused with the Sabaeans of Harran) referred to in the Qur’án along with Jews, Christians, and Muslims, the “People of the Book.” Certain Bahá’í publications have created or perpetuated the myth that the Sabaean religion was the earliest of the Adamic Cycle—it is time it was recognized that it was John the Baptist who founded this religion, and that it still exists in small communities.

It may also be instructive to refer to the passage (section 39 of Gleanings) in which Bahá’u’lláh identifies himself successively with Abraham, Moses, Joseph, John the Baptist, Jesus, the Imám Ḥusayn, and the Báb (see also Directives from the Guardian, p. 58).

What seems clear is that any attempt to simplify things by neatly categorizing the Manifestations and Prophets of God is bound to result in numerous contradictions. The key is perhaps to be found in a passage of Bahá’u’lláh’s from the Kitáb-i-Íqán (p. 181) where, referring to the Manifestations of God, he writes: “In every instance they have voiced an utterance that would conform to the requirements of the occasion, and have ascribed all these declarations to Themselves, declarations ranging from the realm of divine Revelation to the realm of creation, and from the domain of Divinity even unto the domain of earthly existence. Thus it is that whatsoever their utterance, whether it pertain to the realm of Divinity [ulúhiyyat], Lordship [rubúbiyyat], Prophethood [nubuwwat], Messengership [risálat], Guardianship [waláyat], Apostleship [imámat—from the same root as Imám] or Setvitude [‘ubúdiyyat], all is true, beyond the shadow of a doubt” (brackets mine). The crux of the matter lies, not in the outward station to which the Manifestations of God may lay claim, and according to which they may differ, but in the inner essence wherein they are one.

Brief as it is, I hope this statement may at least indicate a more fruitful line of inquiry on this important subject, and illuminate the pitfalls of a too-rigid classification of the unclassifiable.

DENNIS MACEOIN

King’s College

Cambridge, England

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Melting Pot or Boiling Cauldron: The Ethnic Experience in America

BY NOSRATOLLAH RASSEKH

SINCE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS first touched the shores of the New World, some fifty to sixty million Europeans have left their homes and established themselves in the two Americas. They were joined by five to ten million Africans who were brought to this continent by force. This transfer of population was by far the most significant migration in all history; and whether we judge it by the numbers involved or by the results and implications, it was one of the most important events in the history of man.

Establishing himself in America, the European repudiated a part of his inheritance, though the imprint of European institutions —monarchy, aristocracy, and clericalism— and the view of life and habits of thoughts associated with them, remained much deeper and more lasting in the areas colonized by the Spaniards than by the British. In a certain measure Latin America became an extension of Latin Europe. Such was not the case in the United States.

Before 1680, about 90 percent of those who came to the British colonies in North America were of English stock. Later French, Irish, Swiss, and Germans provided new blood. By 1770 of the two and a half million who lived in the thirteen British colonies, one-half were non-English. Scotch-Irish constituted 7 percent and Germans 6 percent. However, the largest single non-English group was the African whose numbers (500,000) accounted for 20 percent of the total population. It is estimated that at the same time almost 100,000 native Americans were scattered throughout the land.

British-American history is largely the result of the vast folk migration, of the society created by the intermingling of the migrants, and of what the country did to them. The intermingling and interaction of various migrants became the source of North America’s strength as well as the root of its social problems.

European colonization, the importation of Africans, and the presence of the native Americans resulted in a conglomeration of cultural entities. These large and distinct cultural groups, each with many subgroups, populated the Atlantic seaboard. The European and the Indian retained a great degree of cultural autonomy, though each was limited in what he could do by the presence of the other and by the political and economic relationships which had been contracted during the colonial period. The Afro-American, though he retained some of his African heritage in more subtle forms, was limited in his attempts at cultural autonomy by the institution of slavery.

Europeans had attempted to “civilize” the natives; but the natives clung tenaciously to their own culture even in the face of military defeat. Europeans claimed, at first, that they wished to assimilate the Indians and the Africans but soon became convinced that the best way to exploit the land of one and the labor of the other was to pursue a nonassimilation policy.

Though the Anglican Church sent a handful of clergymen to Virginia, they made only a token effort to mount a missionary campaign. Conversion was time consuming, expensive, and low in priority. Humanitarian and spiritual desire to assimilate the non-European into the Anglo-American society could not withstand the economic forces which motivated most of the settlers who wanted to make the most of what the circumstances offered.

The colonist wanted from the Indian his [Page 14] cleared land. The Indian himself had little to contribute to the goals of European colonization, and thus he came to be regarded merely as an obstacle. In the clash of cultures the Europeans prevailed because of their continued immigration at a time when the Indians were suffering a population decline and also because of the technological inferiority of the Indians’ weapons. A significant contributing factor was the Indians’ inability to unify against the intruding Europeans. As early as 1646 in Virginia a system of “reserving” certain territories for Indians began to emerge as the white man’s “solution” to the “Indian problem.” The inner need of the white colonists to justify the exploitation of Africans and Indians resulted in the insistence on the wide gap which separated “barbarian savages” from “civilized Europeans.” It is significant that in the Declaration of Independence, among the charges brought against King George by his American subjects, was his endeavor “to bring on the inhabitants of one frontier, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.” Thus the notion of savage Indians was imbedded in the most important of all historic American documents.

White American culture developed the most pervasive negative attitudes toward the cultural minority which was indispensably valuable to it—the Afro-Americans—and held the more positive attitudes toward the cultural minority which stood only as an obstacle to white society—the Indians. The colonists encountered the black man as a slave and thus came to think of him as an adversary or a half-trusted ally. The Indian was free to come and go, to attack and kill, to give or deny support, and to keep his political sovereignty. Though he was hated, he also earned a grudging respect.

The demographic paradox is that the enslaved, degraded, and despised flourished in America, while the Indian suffered gradual decline.

The Open Door: 1776-1924

THE GROWTH of economic activities and opportunities in the United States after its independence encouraged millions of Europeans to come to America. From 1789 on there were many reasons for Europeans to search for new homes. Revolutions, wars, suppression (national, religious, political), and economic depressions were among the causes which made the new world a haven for the people of the old. From the “unsettlement of Europe” (Lewis Mumford’s phrase) came the settlement of America. To come to this “land of the free” no passport was demanded; nor was the knowledge of America’s language or of her customs and institutions requisite for admission.

By 1850 all the important requirements to facilitate immigration were functioning. There was regular traffic between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans and Liverpool, Le Havre, Rotterdam, Bremen, and other ports of Europe. There were improved land and water communication, a wide web of ticket agencies, and in most cases money to purchase tickets. Vessels became larger, safer, and somewhat more comfortable. After 1840 steamboats of two or three thousand tons transported immigrants to the United States. Before the age of steam, few could venture the Atlantic before May or after September. Now the ocean was open to the traveler almost all year round. Because of the volume of trade and the competition of companies, the cost of transportation was becoming cheaper too. The long voyages which during the sailing days had lasted from one to three months could now be undertaken in a rather comfortable ten to twelve days.

After 1815 two forms of immigration to the United States vanished. The Constitution prohibited slave trade after 1808. Though there were violations, they were on a minor [Page 15] scale. Also, no more “indentured servants” came. In the developing nation there was no market for them. The 6 million immigrants who came to the United States between 1815 and 1860, helping to increase its population from 7 million in 1810 to 32 million in 1860, were primarily free individuals or families making their own plans and going their own way after arrival.

Until the 1880s most of the immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe. They accounted, according to the 1880 census, for 87 percent of all the immigrants. Europe’s population had doubled from 1750 to 1850. The increase in England was 300 percent; in Ireland, 400 percent. England’s industrial revolution had radically altered the fabric of social life. Machines made the skills of artisans and peasants valueless. They had no more security and either had to sink to the level of a factory hand or migrate. The termination of the Poor Laws (1834) took thousands off the dole and into the cities and the labor market, where, meeting and competing with the farmers forced off the land by the Corn Laws, they found few opportunities for economic survival. In the Rhineland the 1845 crop was almost totally destroyed by a rot disease. During the same year England and Scotland lost one-sixth of their crop. The case of the Irish was the worst. Ireland had rich agricultural land, but the Irish farmers were forced to sell much of their wheat, pork, and butter to meet high taxes and rents. Most lived on potatoes. Then in 1845 and 1846 the potato crop was ruined by blight. Where peasants had very little else to eat, half of the families died in their cottages or wandered about, half demented, along the road, leaving the dead unburied. Typhus followed. Those who survived begged, borrowed, or got assistance from families overseas or from public authorities to leave the land. In the year 1847 from some parishes from 10 to 17 percent of the population migrated to the United States. By the time of the American Civil War some two million Irish had come to this country. The vast majority of the Irish, though of rural origin, settled in cities. To those with inadequate funds and the memory of the harshness associated with agriculture, the city was a safe haven. There the churches and priests were close at hand. Two-thirds of the Irish settled in mid-Atlantic and New England states, where they replaced native-born workers in factories, the railroads, and canal construction.

Most of the “old immigrants” to the United States derived from the petty bourgeoisie in the English cities or from the yeoman farmers. Few had come from a desire to put into practice dissenting religious concepts or novel political ideas. The majority had come to improve their economic fortunes. Naturally, not all underprivileged Europeans who felt privation and inequality came to America. The American settlement was a selective process which attracted those Europeans who had the appropriate bent and disposition. Immigration to the new land appealed not necessarily to the ablest or strongest, but usually to the most enterprising of the middle and lower classes. From this perspective it can be said that America was from the very beginning a state of mind and not merely a geographic place. The selective process continued in the New World during the entire colonization period.

Those who had the requisite energy, adaptability, and endurance survived and prospered. Others died from disease and starvation or in battles with the Indians. In the course of a few centuries certain qualities became established as suitable to the new environment and as characteristically American. Men born in America were forced both by inheritance and by conditioning to develop [Page 16] them. The later immigrants found it necessary to acquire them. The underdeveloped and almost empty land provided opportunities for self-advancement never equalled in the history of man. This unparalleled abundance of land and natural resources was the cardinal factor in the development of American civilization.

The New Immigrant

FROM 1880 TO 1914 some fifteen million immigrants came to the United States of whom about 30 percent returned to their home lands. But the “new immigrant” was mostly southern or eastern European. The peak year was 1907 in which 1,285,000 newcomers arrived in this country. Eighty-one percent came from the south and east of Europe. In the first fourteen years of the twentieth century one and a half million Jews, almost a third of the total east-European Jewish community, emigrated to the United States.

The new immigrants differed markedly from the old in language, culture, and customs. Most were Catholics, Greek Orthodox, or Jews in contrast to the predominantly Protestant earlier immigrants. Facing an increasingly industrial and urbanized America, they congregated in the cities of the East and the Midwest. By 1900 one-fourth of Philadelphians and one-third of Chicagoans and Bostonians were foreign-born. In New York four-fifths of the population had foreign-born parents or were foreign born themselves.

New immigrants provided an ever-ready reservoir of cheap labor for the mines and factories and filled the lowest positions in society, allowing those who had preceded them to move into semiskilled and skilled trades and businesses. The immigrants speeded the building of railroads and hurried the pace of industrialization. America’s urban-industrial society to a large extent grew on immigrants’ efforts.

The “Nativists’” Response

THROUGH the eighteenth century and much of the nineteenth, Americans believed that European immigrants would be easily absorbed —assimilated into the dominant Anglo-American culture or amalgamated into the new American nationality. “Anglo-conformity,” the most prevalent ideology of assimilation goals in America’s history, assumed the desirability of maintaining English institutions (as modified by the American Revolution), the English language, and English cultural patterns.

However, a competing view, more generous and idealistic had also lingered on from the eighteenth century to the opening decade of the twentieth century. It maintained that conditions in a virgin country were modifying the institutions which the English colonists brought with them. The non-English immigrants, like the English, were exposed to this fresh environment. Was it not, then, possible to think of the evolving American society not as a slightly modified England but rather as a totally new blend, culturally and biologically, in which the stocks and folkways of Europe were indiscriminately mixed in the political pot of the emerging nation and fused by the fires of American experience into a distinctly new type?

Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur (1753-1813), a Frenchman who had migrated to Canada, fought under Montcalm at Quebec, and later explored the Great Lakes region, in 1759 went south to the English colonies. In 1782 he published a series of essays under the title of Letters from an American Farmer in which he paid homage to his adopted country. He saw America as a new land and Americans as a new race. [Page 17] In the letter “What is an American,” he explained his view:

What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or the descendant of an European; hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a man, whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, and new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater.

Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great change in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour, and industry, which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle. The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared, and which will hereafter become distinct by the power of the different climates they inhabit.

A century later, the great historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, claimed that the dominant influence in shaping American institutions and democracy was not its European heritage, nor the forces emanating from the eastern seaboard cities, but rather the experiences created by a moving western frontier. In the crucible of the frontier the immigrants were Americanized, liberated, and fused into a mixed race, English in neither nationality nor characteristics.

In 1901 the British playwright Israel Zangwill expressed dramatically the meaning of the American experience and coined the term “the Melting Pot.” The phrase caught on as a concise description of a society composed of so many different peoples:

It is the fires of God round His crucible.

There she lies, the great Melting Pot—listen! Can’t you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth—the harbours where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,—black and yellow—Jew and Gentile—

Yes, East and West, and North and South, the palm and the pine, the pole and the equator, the crescent and the cross—how the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they all unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God. Ah, Vera, what is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem where all nations and races come to worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where all races and nations come to labour and look forward!

Peace, peace, to all you unborn millions, fated to fill the giant continent—the god of our children, give you Peace.

However, as millions of the “new immigrants” began to crowd the tenement houses of the cities, many began to wonder whether the “urban melting pot” would work as well as the “frontier melting pot.” The “new immigrants” brought gloom as well as gifts. They were responsible, partially, [Page 18] for the urban explosion, the ghetto, disease, and pauperism. Relief rolls were clogged with the foreign born, who also were charged with excess of crime.

In cities the ethnic groups subdivided themselves to ease further the tension of adjustment. Lest their heritage die, they published their own newspapers. Many, particularly the Catholics and the Lutherans, established their own schools. Thus the process of Americanization was for the new immigrant fraught with pain and difficulties. Although they might become American citizens, most continued to speak their native languages, attend their own churches, and maintain their ethnic ties. Their children often felt torn between two cultures; ashamed of the way their parents lived, most of them opted for the “American” way. The second generation, in denying their origins, often felt a lack of identity and were bothered by a sense of guilt.

Meanwhile, many of “the old stock” Americans, pointing to the existence of distinct ethnic colonies throughout the country, questioned whether it was possible to mold so many disparate ethnic, religious, and social groups; others questioned whether it was desirable.

In 1891, proposing restriction on immigration from Italy and Slavic nations, Henry Cabot Lodge complained that immigration was making its greatest relative increase “from races most alien to the body of the American people and from the lowest and most illiterate classes among those races. In other words, it is apparent that, while our immigration is increasing, it is showing at the same time a marked tendency to deteriorate in character.”

In 1916, Madison Grant lamented the passing of the Great Nordic Race in America.

These immigrants [the non-Nordic ones] adopt the language of the native American; they wear his clothes; they steal his name; and they are beginning to steal his women, but seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideals . . .

As to what the future mixture will be, it is evident that in large sections of the country the native American will entirely disappear . . .

One thing is certain: in any such mixture, the surviving traits will be determined by competition between the lowest and most primitive elements and the specialized traits of the Nordic man; his stature, his light colored eyes, his fair skin and blond hair, his straight nose, and his splendid fighting and moral qualities will have little part in the resultant mixture.

In 1910 a government investigation made by the Dillingham Commission, which pretended to be scientific, claimed, in some forty-two volumes of distorted statistics, what the majority of Americans had already concluded: the new immigrants were less assimilable than the old and were, in fact, unworthy of assimilation.

The Door Is Closed

THE PRESSURE was on the United States government to restrict immigration. The desire of some Americans to close the door to certain categories of immigrants goes back to the colonial era. Cotton Mather and John Winthrop did not like the Scots-Irish. Benjaman Franklin complained bitterly about the size of the German immigrant community in Pennsylvania.

After the birth of the Republic, the Federalists suspected Irish revolutionaries of becoming Jeffersonians after arriving in the United States. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were, in fact, the first official expression of the concern of some Americans over the principle of unrestricted immigration. Under Jefferson the laws were repealed [Page 19] (1802), but organized manifestations of the sentiment continued, at least periodically, through the nation’s history. The American Republican Party with the platform to “disfranchise Catholics and the foreign born” was established in New York in 1843. In 1849, again in New York, a secret society, The Supreme Order of the Star Spangled Banner, or the Sons of the Sires Of ’76, was organized and opened membership to those who were the descendants of at least two generations of Americans.

Nativist sentiment became a significant political factor in 1850 with the formation of the Native American, or Know-Nothing Party, whose policies were directed primarily against the Irish and the Catholics. In 1855 the Party elected six governors and in some states controlled the state legislature.

On the West Coast a particularly virulent and racist form of antiforeign sentiment was aimed at the Chinese. By 1852 the 25,000 Chinese in California represented about 10 percent of the total population. In that year the Committee on Mines of the California Assembly called upon Congress to exclude the Chinese from immigration to the United States. But Congress took no action.

In 1854 the Chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Hugh C. Murray, in People vs. Hall, declared that Chinese should be declared legally as Indians, since both were presumed to be descended from the same Asiatic ancestor.

The song “John Chinaman” well expressed the attitude of many Californians:

John Chinaman, John Chinaman,

But five short years ago,

I welcomed you from Canton, John—

But wish I hadn’t though;

Oh, John, I’ve been deceived in you,

And in all your thieving clan,

For our gold is all you’re after, John,

To get it as you can.

By 1860 Chinese labor had become indispensable for the construction of the railroads. In 1868 the Burlingame Treaty guaranteed free Chinese immigration. The result was a sudden growth of Chinese population on the West Coast—and of anti-Chinese sentiment. Article XIX of the California Constitution in effect from 1879 to 1952 prohibited corporations from hiring Chinese and prohibited the hiring of Chinese on “any state, county, municipal, or other public work, except in punishment of crime.”

The decline in railroad construction, the use of Chinese as strike breakers, and the depression of 1873 caused the reversal of the liberal immigration policy. Led by Dennis Kearney in California, the demand for Chinese exclusion became violent. Some Chinese were lynched; others had their pigtails cut by force.

In 1880 both the Democratic and the Republican party platforms called for the restriction of Chinese immigration. In the same year a new treaty with China permitted mutual exclusion of immigrants. Now only teachers, students, merchants, and tourists were to be permitted to come to the new land. Two years later Congress passed a new law excluding Chinese labor for ten years and denying citizenship to the Chinese already in the country. The restrictions were periodically extended until 1904 when they became indefinite.

[Page 20] By the beginning of the twentieth century the “Yellow peril” sentiment was extended to the Japanese, resulting in the so-called “Gentlemen’s Agreement” of 1908 by which the Japanese government volunteered not to issue passports to its citizens for immigration to the United States.

Once the Chinese were excluded, the pressure to extend the principle to other “non-Nordic” stocks increased. In 1894 the Bostonians formed the Immigration Restriction League and campaigned to require a literacy test for all newcomers. Congress passed such a law in 1896, but it was vetoed by President Cleveland.

The American Federation of Labor, too, had long been proposing a curb on the number of immigrants. The immigrants had been flooding the labor market, and some had been used as strike breakers in coal mines and elsewhere. From 1880 on the immigrants as a group were identified with radicalism and anarchism—long beard, long hair, and a bomb in each hand. As far as the public was concerned, it did not matter that the radicals were a minority and that the majority of immigrants were basically as conservative as Americans themselves.

Congress, responding to the pressure, raised the head tax on immigrants from fifty cents to four dollars in 1907. Ten years later it was increased to eight dollars, and Congress approved the literacy test over President Wilson’s veto.

The outbreak of the First World War evoked fresh expressions of doubt regarding the basic assumptions of the assimilative capacity of American society. The drive to “Americanize” all immigrants gained an unprecedented intensity during the First World War. There was no room for “hyphenated Americans.”

America, however, had never been so much a nation of immigrants as it was during the Great War. Of a total population of 92 million, one-third were either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Yet the pressure was on for all to forget even their cultural ties with the old countries and adopt the cultural patterns of their adopted country. Religious, fraternal, educational, and patriotic organizations were mobilized to speed the process of Americanization. The foreign language press was harassed—as was parochial education. The suspicion and the hatred of the German-Americans could now be extended to all the other “hyphenated Americans.”

After the war, millions of disillusioned and suffering Europeans were anxious to leave their old homes and to make a new beginning in the New World. From June 1919 to June 1920 some 800,000 of them came to the United States—mostly still from eastern and southern Europe. More than ever these newcomers were suspected of disseminating revolutionary ideas. The Big Red Scare was in full swing. The postwar economic recession added to the native American worker’s fear of this unwanted competition.

Thus in 1921 nationalism, nativism, racism, and conservatism combined to push through Congress the so-called Emergency Quota Act by which a definite quota was established, restricting the number of immigrants from each nation to 3 percent of the number of foreign born of that nationality in the United States in 1910. When the formula proved too generous to southern and eastern Europeans, quotas were reduced and the date of computation was set back by the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 to the census of 1890, when fewer “aliens” had infected the “pure” American culture. In vain Senator [Page 21] David I. Walsh (Dem. Mass.), himself a son of immigrants, eloquently tried to dissuade his colleagues:

A few facts regarding the population census of 1890, as compared with the census of 1910, give practical assurance that a great American principle would be violated by the change proposed.

Two per cent of the alien inhabitants in 1890 would total about 160,000, whereas the same percentage in 1910 would number about 258,000. This represents a material reduction in the number of aliens to be admitted and indicates a tendency to further restrict the number of admissible immigrants.

The most important aspect of this question, however, is that such a change would inject into the law a very apparent discrimination against immigrants of certain nationalities. The census of 1890 shows that a large majority of out alien inhabitants were then natives of northern and western Europe, while the census of 1910 shows more nearly equal proportions from southern and eastern Europe. In 1890 about 87 per cent of our alien population were people from northern and western Europe, as compared with 56 per cent in 1910. Who can say that it would be fair to abandon a basis of calculation that is very close to an equal division between the races of northern and western Europe and the races of southern and eastern Europe and adopt a basis that will give the peoples of northern and western Europe 87 per cent of our immigration during the coming years?

Mr. President, what is the real driving force behind the movement of basing the quota on the census of 1890? The peoples of the world will attribute it to our belief that the “Nordic” is a superior race. The world will assume that our Government considers the Italians, Greeks, Jews, Poles, and the Slavs inferior to the Nordic, congenitally as well as culturally. It is a dangerous assumption. Millions of people here in America will resent this slur upon their racial character.

With this knowledge of our neglect, of our indifference to the immigrant and his opportunities for assimilation and Americanization, how unfair, how injurious is the opprobrious language used in the references to him in the pages of the Congressional Record and the public discussion of this measure! They have been called mongrels, garbage, riffraff, anarchists, socialists, and Bolshevists.

Have we forgotten that at the time of the Revolution one-fifth of the population of America could not speak the English language? Have we forgotten that more than one-half of the population of America at the time of the Revolution was not Anglo-Saxon?

“Keep America American.” Yes; but do not keep out of America through discriminatory immigration laws any lover of liberty, whatever his accident of birth may be, if he is willing to live in America, accept its ideals, and die, if necessary, for the preservation of American institutions.

In the following twenty-five years fewer European immigrants came to the United States than in the single year of 1907. The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 tightened even further the quota system and provided for more elaborate health, literacy, morality, and security tests. The 1965 immigration law omitted national origin quotas, but of the 350,000 immigrants allowed annually, preference was given to those who possessed skills valuable to the United States and priority to those with relatives in this country.

E Pluribus Unum—“Out of Many, One”

THE WORD “American” was an unambiguous reference to a nationality only when it applied to a relatively homogeneous social [Page 22] body consisting of immigrants from the British Isles. However, when the numbers of those not of British origin began to rise, the word became a far more complicated thing. Today, legally, it means a citizen. Socially, its identifying power has become more and more blurred.

It is a good general rule that, except where color is involved, the specifically national aspect of most ethnic groups seldom survives the third generation in any significant way. As far as the religion of the immigrant is concerned, doctrines and practices are modified to some extent to conform to an American norm, but a distinctive set of values is nurtured in the social groupings defined by religious affiliation, and this serves as the basis of a subcommunity and a subculture. Ethnic groups, then, even after having lost their distinctive language, customs, and culture, are recreated continually by new experiences in America.

Theodore Roosevelt once said that “There is no room in this country for the hyphenated Americans.” But by the 1960s and 1970s, as we approach the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Republic—it is becoming evident that more Americans want to be known as Italian-American, Afro-American, Mexican-American, and so on. The 1960s witnessed explosive riots in black ghettos, militant demands of other ethnic minorities, particularly the Indians and the Chicanos, and a widespread rejection of the integrationist ethic.

Paul Jacobs and Saul Landau in a paper for the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions pointed out that America was witnessing a new kind of clustering together of ethnic groups perhaps because they are frightened of being isolated from that which is familiar and reassuring. “In a society that seems to be spinning apart, one’s own special identity became essential to survive. But while more than 20 million blacks continue to live in ghettos, while Orientals, Mexicans and Filipinos remain in their racial enclaves, while millions of white European descendants also cling to their neighborhoods and their old languages, Americans cling precariously to the idea that their country is truly a great melting pot . . .”

As recently as 1959 a distinguished American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger described the “melting pot” as a great American achievement. Writing in the March issue of the Atlantic Monthly about our ten contributions to civilization, he noted the only failure was the Negro citizen, “now a tenth of our number.”

The immigrant experience over some two hundred years, however, indicates that somehow there has not been enough fire to make the ingredients melt in the pot. Even the “pressure-cooking” attempt at assimilation used during the First World War proved to be a failure.

After the breakdown of prewar values, Americans began a search for political identity, unity, and purpose, in spite or perhaps because of their social, economic, and cultural diversity. Randolph Bourne, who died at the age of thirty-two in the month the war ended, noted this central change in American life with uncanny insight. America had become a “federation of cultures.” Its population was a mixture of ethnic groups with their roots in other cultures, their life in this one, and their allegiance divided—a “dual citizenship” in which local or group allegiance was the mediating agency for participation in national life. In his Whitmanesque vision of the “federation of cultures,” [Page 23] he saw a higher ideal than the melting pot as a possibility within America’s grasp.

We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of “giving themselves without reservation” to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted to. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the “Revolution,” our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England laws developed to meet the needs of the changing times. . . .

If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others, the immigrant has found freedom, and the ruling element has been singularly liberal in its treatment of the invading hordes. But if freedom means a democratic cooperation in determining the ideals and purposes and industrial and social institutions of a country, then the immigrant has not been free, and the Anglo-Saxon element is guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of in every European country: the imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples. The fact that this imposition has been so mild and, indeed, semi-conscious does not alter its quality. And the war has brought out just the degree to which that purpose of “Americanizing,” that is, “Anglo-Saxonizing,” the immigrant has failed. . . .

If we come to find this point of view plausible, we shall have to give up the search for our native “American” culture. With the exception of the South and New England which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is apparently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This we have been for half a century, and the war has made it ever more evident that this is what we are destined to remain. This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least understanded [sic] of the people. If the American note is bigness, action, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its own energy with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts. We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to idealize. But in the finer forms—music, verse, the essay, philosophy—the American genius puts forth work equal to any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, forward-looking drive of [Page 24] a colonial empire, is it representative of that whole America of the many races and peoples, and not of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of the “melting-pot,” our American cultural tradition lay in the past. It was something to which the new Americans were to be moulded. In the light of our changing ideal of Americanism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attacking the future with a new key. . . .

America is already the world-federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun. . . .

Colonialism has grown into cosmopolitanism, and his mother-land is no one nation, but all who have anything life-enhancing to offer to the spirit.

In 1915 Horace Kallen, a young philosopher, also took issue with the idea of the melting pot. In a pluralistic society, ethnic and racial subgroups could educate one another out of their narrow immigrant’s conservatism; each could contribute to the rich and variegated fabric of national life while retaining the best of its own culture.

However, as Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan pointed out in Beyond the Melting Pot, language and culture are very largely lost in the first and second generations. By the third generation the descendants of the immigrants who confronted each other knew they were all Americans, in the same dress, with the same language, using the same artifacts, troubled by the same things, but they voted differently, had different ideas about education and sex, and were still, in many essential ways, as different from one another as their grandfathers had been. The immigrants were transformed, as groups, by influences in American society, and this makes the dream of “cultural pluralism” as unlikely as the hope for a “melting pot.”

During the decade of the fifties a number of intellectuals and artists concerned themselves not about the differentiations in American society, but about their absence, about the disappearance of individuality and the emergence of conformity in American life. William H. Whyte’s typical American was The Organization Man. He described an emerging group of Americans, primarily middle-class junior executives, who had taken the vows of organizational life. These people subscribed to a new social ethic which included a belief in “belongingness” as the ultimate need of the individual. The organization men and women found their natural habitat in the new suburban developments, with their emphasis on participation in community affairs, sociability for its own sake, and conformity to group values. Critics less understanding than Whyte often dismissed suburban life as nothing more than a “womb with a view” or “a sorority house with kids.”

David Riesman in one of the most influential books ever written by an American sociologist argued that Americans were in the process of moving from an “inner-directed” to an “other-directed” society, one in which the peer groups replaced parents as the dominant source of authority and in which those who failed to conform experienced anxiety rather than guilt. Riesman described “other-directedness” as a condition in which the American was ruled neither by tradition nor by inner character but by a built-in radar [Page 25] system receiving blips and charting courses from those around him.

As sociologists found evidence of conformity in the American present, historians discovered evidence of consensus in the nation’s past. Many historians in the 1950s minimized conflict and emphasized continuity.

What the analysts thought they had discovered was not a totalitarian conformity but a bland culture of nearly compulsory happiness and good fellowship. Few suggested social and cultural pluralism as a counter force. However, since the 1960s many critics have emphasized the major disharmonies rather than the surface consensus in American society. They felt that in the “mythical America” the conditions of the Blacks, Indians, and Spanish-speaking minorities were assumed to be gradually but inevitably improving through court decisions and governmental efforts and that education would break down the barriers of discrimination and prejudice. Though it was true that a great many white immigrants and descendants of white immigrants did achieve political power, financial success, and even a measure of social equality, racism per se had persisted, and resistance to change was just about as high as ever. Blacks, browns, and other nonwhites were not going to be welcomed into the great crucible, so they had to fight their way in. The climate was ripe, according to the militant minority leaders, for separatism and ethnic nationalism.

As one spokesman put it: “America has always been a separatist society. Whether by slave code, the lash, the lynch mob, Jim Crow laws, or subtle, covert discrimination, white separatism has held the black man apart from full and equal participation in this society. The traditional wisdom has been that Americans, when challenged with their domestic credo, would ultimately resolve their ‘dilemma’ in favor of fairness. The Movement pondered just such a challenge. . . . In the wake of disillusionment and despair that followed the fragmentation of the movement, America has been forced to acknowledge the truth about itself—it is racist.”

Whither America?

SEPARATISM, HOWEVER, is not the answer to the American dilemma. If ethnic separation may provide selfhood for the ethnic community, it may also threaten the selfhood of the individual citizen in the community. There is no practical way that the continent could be so divided geographically as to accommodate all the major ethnic groups.

The American nationality is still forming; its processes are mysterious, and the final form, if there is ever to be a final form, is as yet unknown. But a common consciousness on one level or another is a prerequisite.

As Henry Bamford Parker has pointed out “totalitarianism is a method of enforcing order upon a people who have lost any genuine sense of unity. Either the Americans will achieve an organic order based on the free participation of individuals, or they will succumb to a mechanistic order imposed by an absolute state. Either they will give a free allegiance to their society as an attempt to realize common rational values and liberal ideals, or they will become merged on a subhuman level in a mass movement of emotionalism and fanaticism.”

Order is required, and the strongest source of “order” is spiritual. Many might think that the very possibility that such an order might still make the United States a nation [Page 26] of nations—E Pluribus Unum—is nothing but a dream. But the genius of American life lies in its unprecedented capacity to release for constructive purposes the energies and abilities of common men and women. Let us hope that the challenge today before the Americans might well awaken within the nation the latent spiritual forces which would make the dream a reality. For upon the results of this American experiment depends, in large measure, the future not only of the Americans themselves but of the whole human race.

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[Page 28]

Religion and American Identity: 1609-1776

BY JAMES H. MOORHEAD

ON 11 JUNE 1775, John Adams rested from the deliberations of the Continental Congress and attended worship in Philadelphia’s Third Presbyterian Church. Later in the day he wrote to his wife Abigail:

I have been this morning to hear Mr. [George] Duffield, a preacher in this city, whose principles, prayers, and sermons more nearly resemble those of our New England clergy than any I have heard. His discourse was a kind of exposition on the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. America was the wilderness, and the solitary place, and he said it would be glad, “rejoice and blossom as the rose.” He labored “to strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees.” He “said to them that were of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you.” “No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, but the redeemed shall walk there,” etc. He applied the whole prophecy to this country, and gave us as animating an entertainment as any I ever heard. He filled and swelled the bosom of every hearer.

Independence lay over a year ahead, the national army was little more than a raggle-taggle militia, and yet Duffield confidently identified the American venture with the realization of God’s rule on earth. This audacious dream was not, as the twentieth-century secularist might wish, the mental aberration of a fanatic. Numerous pulpits echoed the sentiment; and personages no less than Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson later compared the new nation’s struggle to the exodus of ancient Israel from Egypt. Whatever else it accomplished, the Revolution asserted a conception of nationhood richly endowed with religious purpose; and for weal or woe, the marriage of piety and patriotism has deeply influenced the course of the American experiment. In view of the malaise which has afflicted the United States in the last decade, the Bicentennial year brings no task more urgent than a critical reappraisal of the sources of the national faith.

I

As the ship Arbella neared the Massachusetts Bay Area in 1630, Governor John Winthrop reminded the settlers that they came with divine commission. [Page 29] They had entered into solemn covenant promising to establish a Christian commonwealth; and God was, therefore, setting them before the world as a new Israel, as an exemplary model of Protestant society. “The God of Israel is among us;” said Winthrop, “. . . we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people shall be upon us.” This mission acquired an intense urgency, for the signs of the age indicated that the Apocalypse was being fulfilled. After centuries of “Popish” darkness, the Roman Catholic Church—the whore of Babylon foretold in the Book of Revelation—teetered on the verge of collapse; and the victory of the saints loomed in view. The colonists, in short, were participants in no less a drama than the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Although we usually associate this sense of mission with Massachusetts and Connecticut, it betokens a serious misunderstanding of our past to assume that the rhetoric of providential destiny was not heard below Long Island Sound. The orthodox Puritan regimes merely gave the most cogent and thorough expression to a conviction embraced throughout the colonies. The Baptists in Rhode Island, the Quakers (later joined by the Presbyterians) in Pennsylvania, and the Anglicans in the South had been molded in different degrees by the Puritan ethos; and they, too, understood themselves to be undertaking what William Penn called a “holy experiment.” The sermon of the Reverend William Symonds to the Virginia Company in 1609 will perhaps correct a common assumption that the Southern colonies were settled entirely by worldly-wise speculators whose only interest lay in turning a quick profit. Symonds took as his text for the colonial venture God’s promise to Abram: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3) Without question, many Virginians cared more about the cultivation of tobacco than for the work of the Lord; and, on balance, the sense of religious destiny did not acquire in the South the pronounced institutional expression so visible in Massachusetts or Connecticut. When pressed, however, to explain their identity, settlers of all regions found themselves speaking the language of the Bay Colony. The special prominence [Page 30] given to New England by American historians cannot be written off as a case of provincial myopia. If Plymouth or Boston attract undue attention, it is because most Americans, at least until this century, have read in those places their own self-image writ large.

For a long time, this sense of providential destiny existed within the context of attachment to England. Indeed, the idea of an elect nation was a peculiarly British legacy. The colonists shared the devoted patriotism of John Foxe whose Acts and Monuments Most Special and Memorable (1641)—better known as the Book of Martyrs—placed great emphasis upon the role of England in world history. Removed from the British Isles, the colonists yet clung to their national birthright. The emigrants could not depart their native country and church “without much sadness of heart, and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation, we have received in her bosom. . . .” Though alienated by the Stuart monarchy, the colonists stoutly maintained loyalty to what they conceived as the true or essential character of Britain. If they castigated England, it was because they wished her to realize the true genius of her national character. “When England began to decline in Religion,” said Edward Johnson in 1653, “. . . in this very time Christ the glorious King of his Churches, raises an Army out of our English Nation. . . . Christ creates a New England to muster up the first of his Forces. . . .” This extension of England was the place, concluded Johnson, where the chosen seed “will create a new Heaven, and a new Earth.”

One might describe the remainder of colonial history as the process whereby this sense of elect peoplehood was transformed from a species of English patriotism into a distinct American identity. The events between 1763 and 1776 did not perform this task so much as they ratified a change of self-consciousness that began almost as soon as the first settlers disembarked. The ultimate implications of the Puritan impulse were given relative freedom in America to run their course whereas in Britain they were cut short. In that difference lay the original and most basic source of the War for Independence. We should note briefly several aspects of this long-term Puritan revolution.

Puritanism was characterized by an intense interaction between personal piety and civic responsibility. Everyone was summoned to search the heart for signs of saving grace since no external act of morality or of church attendance [Page 31] could guarantee one’s salvation. “All outward privileges,” said Thomas Hooker in 1651, “. . . are not able to make a man a sound saint of God.” This spiritual inwardness, however, was finely balanced against the demand that salvation be worked out through service in the world. The Puritans, following Luther and Calvin, rejected the notion that Christian discipleship was restricted to a religious elite: every occupation, so long as it was honest and socially useful, offered a potential “call” to the believer; and no religious experience was valid unless it issued in the pursuit of a vocation. Thus Puritanism wed individualism to a zeal for the public welfare and nurtured a sturdy, self-reliant people, prepared to assume responsibility in the political and economic spheres. These qualities provided the moral foundation upon which an experiment in democracy could be successfully launched.

The original Puritans were not yet democrats, but their theory of society contained elements capable of a profoundly radical twist. The basis of the state was believed to be a solemn covenant or agreement between God and the ruler, and to a lesser extent between the magistrate and the people. Although the earliest Puritans generally treated citizens as passive spectators whose fundamental political task was obedience to duly chosen leaders, the notion of covenant had potentially democratic overtones. Since he ruled under covenant, the magistrate’s power was implicitly limited. He received a commission to govern according to the common welfare and according to the law of God; but he did not possess a blank check to exert his power arbitrarily. Moreover, the covenant made the governed secondary parties to the agreement constituting the state; and merely a shift of emphasis was required to convert them into active participants in the political process. When these rather suggestive ideas were actually put into practice among the independent, civic-minded Puritan settlers, the republican implications of government by covenant were not long in appearing. Within its first decade, for example, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had extended the franchise to all church members; and as early as 1641 the specific terms of the people’s covenant with the ruler were spelled out in the “Body of Liberties.”

Equally significant in promoting the democratic ethos was the application of covenant theory to the churches. Strictly speaking, the church did not exist in New England. Puritans opposed the concept of a single ecclesiastical hierarchy ruled by bishop, presbytery, or magistrate. Each congregation was an autonomous entity, formed by the voluntary compact of its members, and each was free to elect its own pastor and officers. (This system, we should note in passing, was also used by necessity even in some Anglican parishes of the South.) Congregational polity permitted church people to exercise an unprecedented degree of self-government and was a laboratory for democracy.

The conception of a voluntary church government militated against the official establishment of a particular faith; but orthodox Puritans were notoriously resistant to the efforts of Baptists and Quakers to realize this principle. Complete religious liberty was inimical to the creation of a holy commonwealth, [Page 32] and long after independence the delimitation of freedom of conscience posed an acute problem for a country which styled itself a peculiarly Christian nation. Nevertheless, the logic of the covenant, necessities of geography and politics, and the self-evident advantages of voluntarism had created by the eighteenth century a significant measure of toleration even where establishments existed; and one may thus rightly include religious liberty as part of the colonial heritage.

The revolutionary character of Puritanism is underscored by reference to a summary point. However deep their experiential piety, Puritans were also enamored of law and wished to subject every aspect of life to the regulation of the Bible. Drawing largely upon Puritan sources, Max Weber noted more than a half century ago the impact of this creed upon the economic order. By its devaluation of tradition and its imposition of impersonal rational norms, the Protestant ethic helped to tear loose the remnants of a precapitalist mentality. What Puritanism meant to commerce may be taken as a paradigm of its total impact. The movement was animated by a deep antipathy to any custom or practice whose sole justification lay in tradition. Obedient to the law of Scripture, preachers flayed episcopacy, ecclesiastical vestments, ceremonial pomp, and aristocratic privilege; they dared to call the monarch to account before the throne of God. When reformers avowed their loyalty to James I at the Hampton Court Conference in 1694, he replied caustically: “No bishop, no king.” James saw perhaps more accurately than they that their ideology represented a thoroughgoing repudiation of society as it was; and he knew that the foundations of tradition could not be broken in one spot without endangering the entire edifice.

James foresaw the final overturning of medieval culture, and it was this vision—a nightmare to him—which fulfilled itself in America. In England, the Restoration ended a Puritan epoch which the Glorious Revolution of 1688 only partially revived; but in the colonies, the impulse was allowed to work itself out, unencumbered by bishops, kings, or aristocracy. Admittedly the colonies still enslaved blacks, had numerous suffrage restrictions, and retained ecclesiastical establishments; but America nevertheless set before the world something novel—an essentially middle-class democracy in which prosperity was more general, literacy more extensive, and culture more Protestant than anywhere else on the globe.

II

THE ACHIEVEMENT of a separate American nationality grew primarily out of the long-term success of the Puritan movement, but additional elements were added in the eighteenth century to complete a revolutionary ideology. By the 1730s, the colonists had largely made their own, ideas emanating from the dissenting or libertarian wing of English Whiggery. These British thinkers— preeminently John Trenchard (d. 1723) and Thomas Gordon (d. 1750)— stressed that liberty is a tenuous possession ever requiring watchful defense against the tendency of power to augment itself. “Power encroaches daily [Page 33] upon liberty with a success too evident,” observed one tract, “and the balance between them is almost lost. Tyranny has engrossed almost the whole earth, and striking at mankind root and branch, makes the world a slaughter house.” England had thus far escaped heavy-handed government; but even there political corruption, Toryism, Jacobite plots, and episcopacy threatened to undo free institutions step by step. The moral was plain: a free people must resist the slightest encroachment against liberty because power, once unchecked, strives relentlessly for absolute mastery.

Although radical Whiggery cried a lonely dissent in Hanoverian England, it won an enthusiastic reception from Americans who perceived its timely relevance to their own experience. If their civilization had diverged from Britain’s, it was because the colonists had created a society in which the Whig ideal was more faithfully maintained. Moreover, colonials readily appreciated the libertarian sense of urgency—freedom and despotism locked in mortal combat with the outcome of history in the balance—for they had long believed themselves actors in a titanic struggle to realize God’s Kingdom on earth. Then, too, Americans and their Puritan ancestors had long distrusted many of the same enemies the libertarians denounced—for example, episcopacy, Toryism, and aristocratic privilege. Radical Whiggery, in short, offered a perspective consistent with American perceptions and fused them into an ideology making a cardinal virtue of resistance to arbitrary government.

Devotion to the libertarian ideal must be seen in its intimate relationship to the spirit and ideas of the Enlightenment. Broadly speaking, the Enlightenment represented a heightened confidence in the power of reason and was an effort to apply to the whole of human experience the empirical, scientific revolution that had been under way since the late medieval period. Following John Locke, the movement stressed that government is essentially a social contract, rooted in natural law, designed for the preservation of basic liberties, and limited by the consent of the governed. These theories of society crept imperceptibly into colonial thought. In 1710, for example, the Reverend John Wise defended traditional Congregational polity by reference to the natural law philosophy of Pufendorf; and within the next two generations citations from similar authors swelled into the flood tide of an American Enlightenment whose virtuosi were Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson. We must emphasize again that this rationalistic influx should not be too sharply opposed to earlier Puritan thought. The American Enlightenment, on the whole, lacked the sharp anticlerical bias of its European counterpart—indeed it was frequently clergy who introduced their congregations to Locke and company—and one must not read back into the colonial period the morbid fear of rationalistic excess that gripped the United States during the French Revolution. The new philosophy did, of course, arouse some opposition because of its unorthodox religious implications; but most [Page 34] Americans, whatever their theological persuasion, found the social theory of the Enlightenment essentially congruent with their own political experience. The Puritan notion of society as a covenant had itself evolved in the direction of a social compact between ruler and people, the rights of the latter being spelled out. With considerable justice, the Congregational theologian Horace Bushnell pointed out many years later that Americans enjoyed democratic government and personal liberties because these “were the divine right of their history, from the landing of the Pilgrim fathers downward, and before the French encyclopedists were born.” Both Enlightened and radical libertarian theories achieved their success in creating a revolutionary ideology because their themes resonated with the commitments and practices which had emerged from several generations of Puritan nurture.

One should not infer, however, that the initial religious sense of mission had been completely overlaid with secular theory or had disappeared. Carl Bridenbaugh noted some years ago that the eighteenth century, despite its philosophes, was “far more an Age of Faith . . . than an Age of Reason”; and that observation was nowhere more accurate than in America. In the 1730s and 1740s a series of revivals known collectively as the Great Awakening lit spiritual fires from New England to Georgia. Religious passions were so frenzied that a critic later observed that “Multitudes were seriously, soberly and solemnly out of their wits.” Although its most visible manifestations shortly subsided, the revival left a significant imprint upon American nationalism in the form of a renewed and deepened sense of providential destiny. Many hailed the numerous conversions as the first fruits of the millennium, and with Jonathan Edwards they read in the Awakening signs that the Kingdom of God “will begin in America.” Although the colonists had long cherished a lively eschatological hope, their expectancy left indeterminate the manner of the Kingdom’s advent. Would the heavens be literally rent in twain and Jesus descend on the clouds, or might forces now operative in history usher in the millennium without abrupt supernatural visitation? Edwards—and after him virtually every major Protestant figure until the Gilded Age—answered that question by espousing postmillennialism. That technical term indicated belief that Jesus would not physically return to earth until after the Kingdom of God had been established. In other words, the millennium would not come by way of a miraculous intrusion into history; the ordinary temporal process would bring in the golden age stage by stage. One can scarcely exaggerate the importance of this theory for subsequent [Page 35] American thought. Proclaimed from pulpits throughout the land, postmillennialism taught citizens to expect the signs of God’s Kingdom in the historical progress of their nation. Thus, when the revolution came, the eschatological symbolism with which America had been invested assured that the contest would not be merely political or secular in meaning.

After the close of the French and Indian War in 1763, the Stamp Act, the possibility of an Anglican bishop in the colonies, and other crises precipitated the final break. Spurred on by the “Black Regiment” of clergy, Americans went forth to complete a revolution that had already been largely won in the hearts and minds of the people. In a series of articles for the Boston Gazette in 1765, John Adams gave classic expression to the sense of national purpose for which the colonists were now inching toward rebellion. These pieces, later republished as the “Dissertation on the Feudal and the Canon Law,” marvelously wove together the various strands of American identity. Drawing heavily upon the libertarian and Enlightened theories, Adams warned against arbitrary power and stressed that legitimate political sovereignty must rest upon natural law, inalienable right, and the consent of the governed. Beneath the urbanity of the philosophe, however, lay a Puritan soul nurtured in the conviction that America was the key actor in an apocalyptic drama. The fight for liberty continued the struggle of the “champions who began and conducted the Reformation,” the common enemy in both cases being “the man of sin, the whore of Babylon, the mystery of iniquity.” Lest anyone question the location of the primary battle in this contest, Adams added a footnote: “I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and awe as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.”

Ernest Tuveson has aptly called Adams’ “Dissertation” an example of “apocalyptic Whiggism,” and that designation might be applied as a general description of the Spirit of ’76. Secular notions about equality, liberty, and natural law blended imperceptibly with a fervent sense of providential destiny. The dreams of Enlightened philosophers became the property of the New Israel, the harbinger of the millennium.

Within this conjunction of themes lay unresolved dilemmas long to bedevil America. The cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment, perhaps best epitomized in the appeal of the Declaration of Independence to self-evident principles, coexisted uneasily with the particularistic desire to exalt the United States as a chosen nation. “Americans,” Sydney Ahlstrom observes, “have thus wavered and disagreed about their loyalty: was it directed to a universal republican model always seeking to perfect itself or to an Elect Nation with a providential purpose?” Closely related to that issue was the question of determining for [Page 36] whom the promise of the nation was given. Lofty idealism sought to make the United States an inclusive haven for the oppressed: here any person, regardless of ethnic background or religious commitment, might become a citizen by professing the national creed. On the other hand, America was to be an evangelical empire, the special preserve of God’s holy people; and sainthood was all too frequently depicted as an Anglo-Saxon Protestant possession in which Catholics, Jews, Blacks, freethinkers, and other minorities had at best a meager share. Moreover, Americans might interpret their election in opposing ways. Early in the life of the United States citizens exalted the Federal Union as the sacred ark of the covenant, a transcendent entity before which all criticism must be silent; and yet a chosen people drenched in Biblical lore could never forget entirely that they, like ancient Israel, would be held accountable to a higher moral standard requiring rigorous self-examination. Thus the flag-waving chauvinist and the social critic have both laid claim to the national heritage, and their conflicting interpretations have disclosed a cleft cut deep into the national psyche.

Some years after independence had been achieved, Thomas Jefferson insisted that the American Revolution must be continuous, and the cunning of history made that observation more astute than he could have imagined. Ambiguities within the young nation’s self-identity left the meaning of the American experiment to be defined more fully by succeeding generations. On the eve of the Bicentennial, we have yet to complete this task. The debacle in Indochina has summoned us anew to reconsider the proper role of the United States in world affairs, and domestic strife has forced us to behold an America still promising greater equity than it is prepared to grant. How well we carry forward the unfinished work of our Revolutionary ancestors will determine whether their handiwork merited the hopes reposed in it.

[Page 37]

Declaration for the New World: 1976

We wake together inside a pearl at dawn.

The stars, you know, have

ours at night for another star—

When it sets, the velvet woods receive

this pale hour, and stones then sing

their songs from different worlds,

While the skipping wind carries a self in a little

bag and rattles it at us who

wander near the edge.

We know this life, its treachery,

its ways of change. We can’t be sure

of anyone, or us, or time.

We know the rules. We know. We know

this cruel land. But dawn inside the pearl is here.

Here—take my hand.

—WILLIAM STAFFORD

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[Page 39]

Conversations with Americans

TAKING THE VIEW that beyond geography America is an idea which catalyzes the feelings, attitudes, and work of Americans, the editors of WORLD ORDER felt that readers might like to know what thoughtful citizens think of themselves and their country on the occasion of its Bicentennial. We, therefore, chose a variegated sample of the citizenry, people representing various ethnic, cultural, professional, and economic backgrounds. We wanted to converse with individuals whose voices are informed by outstanding personal experiences and achievements bearing a clear American identity. Thus, tape recorder in hand, we talked to a female dean of a law school, an Afro-American poet, a Japanese architect, a Chicano artist, and a New York businesswoman.

We were armed with provocative questions. For example: What does America mean to you? Has America fulfilled the promise of its past? With whom or what do you identify? What grieves you about America? Does your work relate to America? Where is America going? Our respondents gave equally provocative answers.

The variety of their backgrounds, the dissimilarity of their experiences, and the insights from their different professions belie the unison of the prospects they perceive for the country as a leading entity in what they regard as the challenges of an evolving new world order.

We are especially pleased to present in the following pages the fruits of our conversations with these Americans.

THE EDITORS

DOROTHY NELSON, Dean of the Law School at the University of Southern California, sat at a large desk in the corner office of the new law building. The expected books were there, but also a blue Ming vase, and on the walls a Rousseau and a Dupré. Out of a window one could see thousands of roses, their petals shining with drops of water from sprinklers—and green grass and trees.

Dean Nelson, one of the few women to reach the top of her profession, has achieved a great deal as a lawyer, a citizen, and a human being. She has served on many State and Federal committees which dealt with legal education and legal reform, is a member of the boards of several educational institutions, has received a variety of awards, and has been mentioned in the press as likely to be the first woman to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Recently, she was one of six women lawyers cited by the Center Associates of the World Peace Through Law Center for her contributions toward world peace.

Curious about her origins and the road which led her to her present position, we asked Mrs. Nelson to tell us about her background. Speaking rapidly but clearly, she told us that she was born in San Pedro in 1928 and has lived in Southern California all her life.

“My grandfather,” she said, “was a minister of the Church of England, my mother a teacher and psychologist, my father a building contractor whose parents were Quakers. I went into law, after first thinking I would be a social worker, because I found in dealing [Page 40] with groups of youth with whom I worked when I was in high school that little could be done without turning to the law and that social workers were always being told the lawyers say this, and the judges say that. My hope was always to work with young people and children, and I really began to feel that I would have to have the credentials of a lawyer to be able to do anything significant. This was enhanced when, in high school, I was a judge for a day, and sat on the juvenile court, and realized that I really enjoyed working through the legal system and the justice system. After high school, I went on to U.C.L.A., receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1950, on to U.C.L.A. Law School in 1953, and then to my Master’s of Law at U.S.C. in 1956. As part of my work for my Master’s degree, I worked on a three-year study of the court system which resulted in a book, published with a law professor, which critically analyzed the trial court system of Los Angeles County in comparison to the trial court system of San Diego and San Francisco. This is where I got my interest in what is called today judicial administration, which deals with the improvement of the justice system. This is my prime interest today in my academic life.”

“What was your attitude toward the American legal system?” we asked. “Did you expect great results from it? Did you feel this was a road to the solution of the problems of American society?”

“Yes. At that time, I felt that the only road, the only solution would be through the legal system and working within the system as it was. I had a very naive attitude about how the system was actually working. I thought all judges were saints; I thought all lawyers performed competently for their clients and at reasonable fees; I thought that all people got representation in the courts. None of these things was true, but I thought them at the time, and felt the legal system could produce results that might improve the justice system in America.”

“Did your faith in the legal system reflect your general attitude toward the United States?” we asked.

“Yes. I grew up as a very loyal American citizen, loving America, always finding wonderful opportunities and wonderful rewards. I was not critical of the system at all, although, at one time I thought I would go into politics. In high school I started making lists of things that I would change if I were a legislator, things that I began to notice in high school. I was always active in student political movements, both in junior high and high school and then in college, and felt that if I were a lawyer, I might want to become a judge or a legislator.”

“How did your critical attitude begin to develop? What made you examine the premises?”

“I began to work with youth groups in poverty areas of Los Angeles. My husband-to-be, then a counselor with the Y.M.C.A., was summer director of the Culver-Alms Y.M.C.A., and I became assistant director; and we both had boys’ clubs. As we began to work with the children in the poverty neighborhoods, I noticed in talking with the police that the children’s families were deprived so often, and when they needed help, there was very little response. The educational systems in those areas were not as good as they were in the areas where I lived. It seemed that a large portion of humanity was neglected, and I began to wonder why these people didn’t get more attention and get more help and why no one was paying attention to their educational systems and their health systems, because these systems were terrible, as was the delivery of legal services. I began inquiring around and got virtually nowhere, and began to wonder about how our system was working for great portions of America which didn’t seem to be receiving adequate services.

“The other thing I noticed was the extreme racism in America, even in the Western part of the United States where we supposedly didn’t have such prejudices. As a child I didn’t notice color at all. I began to [Page 41] notice as I came into society as a high school student that none of the black students ever came to junior proms and things of this nature or were even expected to come where the white students were having social affairs. I also noticed it in my own church, in the Episcopal church where I was raised; there were no black or brown people in our church. Once we had an exchange with an all black church, and we were to have square dances, but dances where we didn’t have to touch hands with the black children because it wasn’t considered healthful even to shake their hands if the person was black. This distressed me terribly and made me very angry and caused me to wonder what was developing in America. I grew up with a family where my mother was very unbiased and unprejudiced, at least on the surface. Many years later, when Ralph Bunche came to dinner at my house, my mother was very proud of it, but as for normal, day-to-day relations with people of other races, we simply had none.”

We wanted to know what the philosophical, the spiritual sources of this attitude were. Dorothy Nelson said they came from religion. The Sunday school, the Bible taught her much. “Although I must say I was very upset in Sunday school when I learned that everyone who was not a Christian was supposed to go to hell.” Later she found the teachings of the Bible echoed in the scriptures of other religions. “This led me on my search to find something that would encompass all mankind. At the University of California at Los Angeles my husband’s college roommate, Don Barrett, resigned from a legal fraternity whose national organization refused to sanction the enrollment of a black who was a good friend of mine since junior high-school days. Don Barrett formed a new fraternity that would invite blacks, browns, and women on the theory that no one should be excluded, and this was a big surprise to me, and I inquired what has happened? He said, ‘Come with me to a Bahá’í meeting.’ And that night in West Los Angeles, in Westwood, my husband and I attended our first Bahá’í meeting where we saw people of all backgrounds, religions, races, of all occupations and economic class in the same room discussing the oneness of mankind which I had truly always believed in my heart. This led into the Bahá’í Writings. Four years later (I am ashamed to say it took us that long), after a more detailed study of comparative religion and an in-depth study of the Bahá’í Writings, my husband and I accepted the Bahá’í Faith.”

“How did the acceptance of the Bahá’í Faith affect your understanding of the American legal system?” we wondered. There was excitement in Mrs. Nelson’s voice as she said, “It had a tremendous impact on me. It gave me a sense of assurance that the things in the system that brought about injustice were truly wrong, that there could not be justice without the abolition of poverty, that there could not be justice without universal education, that there could not be justice without the recognition of the oneness of mankind. This gave me a great strength in asserting what should be done to improve the system, what should be done, for instance, to some elements of the Constitution of the United States to make its principles applicable today. Without going into great detail, let me give as an example the Fifth Amendment which provides for the privilege against self-incrimination. Most laymen think of the courts as searching for truth and believe that the adversary system will bring this about when two opposing lawyers represent their clients as well as they can. But it is impossible to discover the truth when the parties are not compelled to speak the truth, or even to speak at all. The reason for the rule was that police were breaking into homes or using torture to compel citizens falsely to testify against themselves. There are modern methods to control this, such as having an attorney or a magistrate present at interrogations. This rule should be reexamined. Moreover, in dealing with young offenders, how can you help them really if the law permits [Page 42] them to remain silent?

“The Bahá’í Faith gave me a direction and a goal in my life that I knew was the path toward something that would fulfill a dream about America’s great destiny in the spiritual realm, even as it had attained in its material endeavors. Materialism had not solved the problems of America. It was lacking a spiritual base, and I had found it at last, and, therefore, could make it the basis for my own research and writing. For instance, in the Bahá’í Faith, there are a number of principles that deal with family life, marriage, and divorce. I have worked on the California divorce law. We have now a no-fault divorce law, and this is based upon the Bahá’í principle that divorce is not concerned with the fault of a particular party; you are trying to bring the family into a working relationship. If you cannot bring the family into a working relationship with the help of experts, with all the help you can get within a period of time, then you should let that family be dissolved. Now we have basically that law in California, and it is better than having recriminations or assessment of fault and terrible charges hurled one at the other, often to the detriment of the children who are hurt the most.”

“Speaking of marriage, divorce, and the fate of children,” we said, “it is inevitable that we should touch upon the question of feminism. Let us begin with yourself. Have you ever felt discriminated against, unwanted, pushed down because you are a woman?”

“I have never had this experience in all of my life, but I do now recognize that this has happened to women. Right now in my own law school, we have 127 women out of 460 law students. Among those women I find those who have felt discrimination, in their own families by the father not wanting the daughter to go on into a profession, whereas the sons are encouraged. The Bahá’í Writings say there should be equality of opportunities for both men and women. They go so far as to say that if you have to choose between educating the man or the woman, you should educate the woman first, because the woman is the first teacher of the child. This kind of teaching is most appealing to the many women who have not been given equal opportunity with men. I find, for instance, that there are firms that will come and interview our students and give precedence to men over women, although things are changing very slowly. There are firms now that want to have at least one woman in the firm to show that they have taken affirmative action. There are times when the firms will say to women in law school ‘What’s a cute young thing like you doing in law school?’ This offends the women, especially when they ask them if they type or whether they take the pill. On the other hand, as I say to the women, you can’t have it both ways. If a woman goes into an interview with a micro-mini skirt, with long dangly earrings, sits with her legs crossed, and blinks her eyes at an interviewer, she cannot claim that the interviewer is not interested in her brains, but simply in how she looks because she is attracting that kind of attention. So I think both men and women have to look at purported prejudice and claims of prejudice and carefully examine their own actions.”

Since we happened to know that Mrs. Nelson was a wife and a committed mother as well as a scholar and a public figure, we asked her how she managed to combine so many careers and to achieve excellence in all of them.

“Sometimes you don’t feel that you are managing very well at all,” she replied, “but I would have to say the choice of your mate is crucial. My husband has had a wonderful career of his own, but as a father, he has no peer, and it has been very much of a sharing experience throughout. When I am going to be home late, he will go home early. When he is going to be home late, I will go home early, and he has always been most encouraging in everything that I have done and most helpful. We have jointly participated; we tend to take our children [Page 43] with us whenever we can, especially when we have to travel. The quality of time that we have with our children, we feel, is very important as opposed to the quantity of time. As a result, I think our children have been able to grow up with a sense of independence, but still with very close family ties. One of the things that distresses me very much about some of the women in my law school is that they say that, since they started law school and are going to have a long career, they are not going to have children. Most of them change their minds, I am happy to say, because I believe that raising children is a very important part of being a woman or a man. One of the great joys of living is to be a mother and to see children grow and develop. It’s possible to do both if you plan it properly.”

Did Dorothy Nelson, the legal scholar, believe that laws would help women achieve their birthright? Yes, she did, but with strong reservations and a clear awareness of the limits of the effectiveness of the law.

“People,” she said, “can accept things intellectually, but not emotionally. I find, for instance, many of my own law students who come to us with very outstanding records, and have developed their intellectual skills to a very high degree, are missing something emotionally. They don’t know how to apply these skills constructively for the benefit of mankind, nor do they know how to express their love for humanity. Laws will not change that. In America we need a spiritual revolution. As a Bahá’í I feel this very strongly. I look at the decadence in morality. We have laws that have nothing to do with the way in which America has gone. We see disobedience to law rampant in many areas of the United States. This is not due to lack of law; it’s due to an attitude, a lack of knowing why we are here and where we are going. So, although laws are important in setting a direction and in some instances changing the hearts and minds of men, I think what is needed far more is a spiritual revolution.”

“America has always been considered a large scale experiment in human growth, and, by some people, in goodness. Do you think that America is a failure?” we asked.

“Oh, by no means!” came a quick and emphatic answer. To Dorothy Nelson social experimentation was indispensable. She was also very much impressed with America’s material and technical achievement. However, she added, “I think America has failed to date to have a sense, an understanding, of its own mission in the world. It has attempted to become isolationist in many respects and at many different times throughout its history, and it is beginning to realize that it cannot. We are interdependent with the rest of the world. As it is said in the Bahá’í Writings, “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” America must now assume the leadership in developing the spirituality of mankind, which sounds sort of odd, looking at the decadence of much of America now. Perhaps some of these terrible things have been necessary to awaken the responsible people in America to the fact that materialism is not the answer. America has not succeeded in its mission, but I think the potential is there.”

“This sounds very much as if you believe America has a destiny,” we commented.

“I firmly believe that America has a very great destiny. This is one of the things that made me overjoyed as I began to investigate the Bahá’í Writings, when I found that my own country had a great spiritual mission, which indeed, was to bring the world to a recognition of the oneness of mankind and to provide the means whereby every human being might have his full human potential released. The destiny of America will be to lead the world spiritually, I believe, as it has done materially to date. Not because America is better than the rest of the world; in fact, it’s my belief that because America is so decadent now this great mission has been delegated to us. It is going to require a great deal of work and training of America’s people to recognize what this mission is all [Page 44] about.

“The greatness of America is to reach out to all of humanity and bring people together in a group, yet recognize differences in culture, the beauty of various cultures and languages. In California we see this with our Chicano brothers whose history is in Spain and Mexico, and yet we can all come together as Americans and recognize the beauty and contributions of the other cultures. I think Americans may find it hard to recognize that they must give up part of their autonomy to bring about the peace in the world. But we have done this within the United States by states giving up part of their autonomy to the central federal government. I don’t think it will be very hard for most Americans if they think about it. Our whole history is in this tradition of giving up something for the good of the whole. I think the moral decadence of America was brought about because we have lost a sense of mission and destiny.”

“If America has such a destiny, and if you discern in America’s past manifestations of this urge to unity, do you believe that the American legal experience, the development and history of American law have a relevance to the world?” we asked.

“Yes. Our legal system has drawn upon the two great legal systems of the world— the common law system which you find in England, and the civil law system, which is the continental system. In America, although we call ourselves a common law system, we have blended the two legal systems together. So, thinking of a world legal system, America’s model is really a leader. Our system needs to be modified by adopting more of the principles of the civil system than we have adopted. And as we trace each step in this direction, we are coming closer to arriving at an agreement on what the world system of law should be. But I should say that a system, a valid system of international law will not be possible until we have a common point of reference, in terms of values— what should and what should not be right and what should and should not be wrong. Often, in our legal education, we talk about returning to natural law and trying to determine what natural law is. This poses some problems for students of law because, for instance, if you turn to the theological theory of natural law, that theory says you look to a Messenger or Prophet of God, and you accept His rules. In the Bahá’í Writings it says the basic spiritual principles and laws of all the Messengers of God, Moses or Buddha, Zoroaster or Muḥammad, or Bahá’u’lláh, are identical. If we can accept that basic proposition, that all of the Messengers have brought the same system of values, the same ethical principles, then we will have a firm foundation to bring all the nations of the world together into one common legal system, because we will no longer argue over what is right and what is wrong; we will turn to these basic spiritual laws which have been revived and renewed and expounded upon with each Messenger of God.”

“These are fascinating ideas,” we commented. “But how many lawyers would accept the notion of natural law, let alone a system based on legal norms anchored in religion? A reviewer of Alexander Bickel’s posthumous essays implied recently that Bickel had settled for a minimum, expecting the legal system to be an adjuster which would achieve, through faithfulness to legal procedure, the least possible disturbance in society. There was no room left even for justice. That position does not show any flight of the imagination, no faith in absolute value, or destiny, or teleology.”

“It is interesting that you raise this about Alexander Bickel,” Mrs. Nelson observed, “because I think he was indeed one of the most brilliant legal scholars, in the United States. Professor Bickel rejected religion early in his life as having nothing to do, for all practical purposes, with intellectual development. As he became older and became quite ill toward the end of his life, he began to go back to his Jewish Faith, to look at it to [Page 45] see whether or not there was something in his Faith that had enduring value. And he was just beginning to grab hold of something dealing with the ethical and moral principles when he died. It was almost as if he was apologizing for being interested in religion, and yet as he felt his death approaching, he felt that there was really something there, that this was the one thing that might have true and lasting value. He illustrates what I find in some of the great legal scholars today. They have developed their minds; but these same very great people have not developed what I call their own loving qualities, their sense of knowing why they are here, why they are developing their minds, which is to serve humanity. They are constantly looking for a way to justify wanting to do good. I find that many lawyers trying to do something which is very good, apologize for doing it. They are apologizing for devoting their lives to giving legal services to the poor because they feel that it is not intellectual enough, that they should be sitting in a library, developing their intellectual prowess, and yet they feel this inner compulsion to get out and help the poor. These basic, these natural desires to improve humanity, to serve humanity should be developed to a much higher degree, and this should start at the mother’s knee, and no one should apologize for wanting to be involved in these so-called nonintellectual activities.”

“You speak about service of humanity as being one of the goals of individuals and of the system of law, as well. Is it not true that more and more people, especially among the young, reject the entire legal system? We hear of Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, of the Manson family, of attempts on the life of the President . . . Many of those are young people who come from the middle class and who have been protected by the legal system, and yet they don’t want any part of it.”

“I think there is a good answer to that. We in America, as odd as this may sound, do not teach our children about our American legal system,” Mrs. Nelson said. “They are taught about the legislative, the judicial, and the executive branches of government, but they don’t know how the system works and how it is necessary to have obedience to law to make civilization progress. In our own law school, we are doing some experiments with teaching about the legal system, even to preschool children. For instance, you sit them in a circle and throw a balloon, and you tell them to play with the balloon. Usually the most aggressive boy or girl ends up with the balloon. You then sit them down and say, now what would make this a better game? Ten times out of ten they will say, ‘Dean Nelson, we need rules to keep him from hitting me, and her from pulling this away from me when I have it.’ This is what basically we teach in law school about the principle of institutionalized settlement: that you have either recourse to institutions and law, or you have recourse to force, and those with the biggest gun and the biggest stick will prevail. I am shocked that in all these years we have taught so little about our legal system. We spend our whole first year of law school teaching things that should have been taught in the first through twelfth grades.”

We found it a bit difficult to accept the notion that the violent rejection of the law by the young was a result of ignorance. “Thirty years ago,” we objected, “the young knew no more about law than they do today, yet they were not rejecting it.”

“They weren’t rejecting it openly; but, of course, many were rejecting it in their own lives. As we see in our American system, a majority of Americans violate a law every day, whether it’s income tax, whether it’s traffic laws, whatever it is. There has not been instilled in humanity, in any country that I know of, the recognition of the rule of law and the importance of the rule of law. So although there wasn’t a violent outbreak, there was still, I would suspect about the people who went to school in the fifties, [Page 46] widespread disobedience to law in business, industry, education, personal lives, and the like. The violent kind of disobedience is much more offensive to most people, and yet the nonviolent breaking of the law that results in pollution, the ruining of the environment, the production of drugs that kill people but bring great profits, the violation of all kinds of laws that perpetuate bad housing, bad schooling, bad environment is just as bad and stems from a lack of commitment to ultimate concerns. People simply have no direction, and direction is the thing that I found in the Bahá’í Faith. There is a blueprint, a plan which encompasses all of mankind, toward which everyone can turn. You haven’t arrived at perfection by becoming a Bahá’í, but you have a certain direction. I think there are just too many people off on paths that lead nowhere. Until they get onto a path that is leading somewhere, that gives them a sense of becoming, or realizing their full potential, they will continue to be disobedient to the law.”

As we listened to her speak, we sensed in Dorothy Nelson a realist who squarely faced the defects of the American system and at the same time an optimist, and the link was the Bahá’í Faith. “Would it be fair to ask you,” we inquired, “what would happen to your optimism if one subtracted the Bahá’í Faith?”

“I would be probably with the people who call themselves liberals, who are looking and testing and not quite sure of the direction they are going, willing to experiment, willing to be open to new ideas; I think I would find myself floundering out there. One of the great joys of being a Bahá’í is that you are neither a liberal nor a conservative because those labels have really no meaning to a Bahá’í. You are interested in what will benefit mankind whether or not the outside world calls it conservative or liberal. For instance, Bahá’ís believe in the unity of mankind and the abolition of all prejudice and racism. On the other hand, Bahá’ís firmly believe that man is here to perform work, and work performed in the spirit of service is elevated to the station of prayer. This means that man has a duty to work unless he is ill or unable to do so, and he cannot beg for a living. My approach to our whole system of welfare laws is influenced by this Bahá’í mandate of work. Before I was a Bahá’í, I might have been tempted to say, ‘well these are poor people who haven’t had a chance; let’s assist them.’ Now I look for solutions that provide a working environment for every able human being. It gives me a sense of assurance.”

The interview had lasted a long time. We had never been interrupted. Though Dean Nelson is an extremely busy person, she gave us her undivided attention. Her secretary must have had a hard time keeping visitors out of the office that morning.

■ ■

ROBERT HAYDEN is a poet. He is also a professor of English at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. As he put it, “I am a poet who teaches in order to earn a living so that he can write a poem or two now and then. I was born and raised in the slums of Detroit. My family was poor, hard working, with no education. But they wanted me to have an education and sacrificed and helped me to go to college. My roots are really very deep in what I like to call Afro-American folk life.”

Mr. Hayden was recently a poet-in-residence at Connecticut College and has read poetry at many colleges and universities, including Yale, Brown, and Iowa. He is a consultant and editor for Scott, Foresman. In 1971 he was awarded the Russell Loines Award for poetry by the National Institute of Arts and Letters and in 1975 received an award from the Academy of American Poets. Mr. Hayden’s works include The Night-Blooming Cereus, Words in the Mourning Time, Kalaeidoscope, Selected Poems, and Angle of Ascent: New and Selected Poems, [Page 47]

[Page 48] recently published. He is included in Interviews with Black Writers and reads his poetry in volume three of Today’s Poets. He and his wife, Erma, a pianist, live in Ann Arbor.

We interviewed Mr. Hayden at a hotel in Evanston, where he stopped for a few days on his way home from a visit to San Francisco. The city had evidently made a deep impression on him. Usually reserved in manner, he became animated in talking about his experiences there. We wanted to take advantage of his mood and deferred questions about himself and his work to ask him about America.

“The country is getting ready to celebrate the Bicentennial of its founding,” we said. “What does America mean to you? Are you proud to be an American?”

“Well, it means a great deal to me,” he said, “and I want to try to answer that question as carefully as I can. I wouldn’t say that I am proud exactly, for I regard racial and national pride as a rather dubious value, as something which tends to be divisive—to exclude. America is home to me, the country in which I can work most effectively. Although, as the poet Claude McKay said, ‘She feeds me bread of bitterness,’ I have a deep love for my country; I feel very much a part of it despite some sense of alienation. It’s an emotional frame of reference for me, and I feel deeply involved with the fate of the country.”

“What is the meaning of America’s past to you?”

“That calls for a rather complicated answer. I am somewhat history oriented and have thought much and written about certain aspects of our past. The past is for most Americans, unfortunately, rather meaningless. But some of us are aware of it as a long, tortuous, and often bloody process of becoming, of psychic evolution—a process continuing today and, as a result of worldwide stress, gaining in momentum. And it has required, in almost every generation, a clarification, a redefinition of the concepts, principles, abstractions, if you will, which we have believed essential to our development as a nation. The concepts of freedom and democracy, the concepts of the individual and individual rights, even the definition of ‘human’ are different now from what they were two hundred years ago. Slaves and Indians in the eighteenth century, for example, were hardly regarded as human. Consider also the status of women then. We, in our times, are obligated to go on with the process of redefinition. We are still struggling with the evils of our past, but we have also inherited ideals which we are obligated to clarify and implement.”

Following a pause, he asked, “Is that too complicated?” We pressed for more comment. “Has America fulfilled the promise of its past?” we asked.

“Well, yes and no. I think it’s too easy to generalize and say no. I should say as a sort of preface that I don’t feel our past is to be honored and revered by restaging the Boston Tea Party or the Battle of Bunker Hill. That seems to me mere jingoism. I should say, perhaps tangentially at this point, that our glorious past was not all that glorious anyway. Imagine the irony of slaves and Indians fighting to free an America which considered them brutes at best, and at worst devils. And how can we overlook the waste and exploitation of human and natural resources in the name of progress and ‘Manifest Destiny.’ But to get on with the question you asked, I would say yes, the promise of the past has been fulfilled in significant ways—most significantly in terms of individual freedom. But I hasten to add that freedom is always endangered, always threatened. Many aspects of the promise of the past have never been realized because we have only paid lip service to the ideals of justice and equality and humanity which we claim are fundamental to our way of life. We have allowed reactionaries to subvert us in too many instances.”

We wanted Mr. Hayden to elaborate on his reference to reactionary forces.

“I don’t want to get involved in name calling,” he said, “but I am thinking of all of those organizations and demagogues that stand in the way of a broader development of our institutions; of those who are opposed [Page 49] to other people and groups of people on the basis of color, religion, national origin, or things of that type; of those who attempt— and today too often succeed—to control and suppress, to destroy in order to shore up a tottering power structure. This is what I mean by reactionary forces: those forces which really do stand in the way of real social and spiritual progress. I think we all know who they are.”

“Do you love the land?”

“Indeed, I do. Indeed, I do,” was his unequivocal reply. “I have traveled extensively throughout the country, and I have lived in several different regions of the country. Physically, it’s a spectacular country, with everything in it from deserts to the most lush gardens. It’s full of dramatic contrasts and is often incredibly beautiful—the Far West, for example, especially San Francisco. I am always impressed with the variety and the individual qualities which the various regions of the country have, and I have tried to write poems about parts of the country I have experienced. It’s a very hard thing to do. The land is as varied as the people, and there is no one thing you can say about it. Parts of it are being ruined, as we know, in the name of industrial progress. I find this highly symbolic of our aggressive utilitarianism.”

We then asked, “With whom or with what do you identify?”

“That’s really a very hard question. Obviously, I identify with Bahá’ís—and with other artists, and with the kind of people with whom I grew up, poor people, working-class people. I tend to identify with anything which is human, drawing the line of course against those people who are cruel and rapacious and so on. I have a very deep feeling about humanity.” He paused, but was clearly not finished with his remarks, and continued. “I’m not a joiner. I don’t get involved with groups. The Bahá’í Faith is about the only organized body I can stand. I cherish my individuality and don’t want to be a conformist except (paradoxically) on my own terms. But I care about people, respond to whatever is human. If I didn’t feel that way, how could I write? What would I write about?”

“What grieves you about America?”

He took a moment to collect his thoughts and, while raising his glance to the ceiling, said, “Oh, there are many things that grieve me. As a matter of fact, it would take me hours to discuss them. But I think that the racial situation grieves me most, because it is so wasteful and frustrating, so vicious and irrational. As an old friend of mine once said, ‘Races are not important, but people are.’ We don’t have a sense of this in America.

“Another thing that deeply grieves me is our worship of power and technology, our belief that more and more is better, and our failure to honor any kind of spiritual vision. For example, the arts in America exist pretty largely as entertainment. The artist in this country has a kind of marginal existence, and unless he is an entertainer or unless he does something sensational and gets his name in the paper, there doesn’t seem to be much place for him. There are no poets in the government that I know of. There are no artists of any kind holding responsible government positions. One reason for this is that there is a great suspicion and distrust of the arts; and, as I say, since the arts do involve the spiritual and do involve spiritual vision, there is not much concern with that.

“I think what it really all comes down to, if you think of the racial situation and the position of the artist in society and you think of our rampant technology—that what it comes down to is wastefulness and exploitation, waste of human and natural resources, and of spiritual resources. This is very terrible, and I think more and more people are feeling this way and that we have got to put an end to it, and the only way we can put an end to it, of course, is to have a brand new vision of what we are.”

“What would you change in America?”

“Attitudes.” He said it with such finality as to leave no doubt that he had pondered the question and drawn his conclusion long ago. “I would hope,” he continued, “that we could [Page 50] achieve new concepts of what it is to be human —a new vision of our relationship to God, to one another. Basically, a change of heart. Everything would follow from that. Anything else, it seems to me, is a stopgap measure. Unless there is an absolute, fundamental change in our attitudes toward one another, present evils will continue, will grow worse. A difficult task, this changing of attitudes, but our survival depends on it.”

“Do you see this fundamental change taking place?”

“In the minds and hearts of spiritually mature people it is. Many of them seem to be questioning accepted ideas and rejecting old assumptions once considered beyond question. I’d say the various liberation movements are instances of this. Everything is under scrutiny today; everything is in ferment. For there has been a new release of spiritual energy in the world, a galvanizing force which nothing can deter. Bahá’ís know its source to be Bahá’u’lláh. It’s impelling all of us toward a new consciousness.

“Now it is very difficult to change, and if the change involves some material object or if it involves the damming of a river or putting up of a building, that could be done with no problem. But when it comes to changing attitudes and when it comes to gaining new concepts, it is very difficult. I think that time is running out, and we are being forced to rethink our values and redefine ourselves, our goals, our country, whatever.”

“Do you think that a redefinition is possible to humanity or at least to America now?”

“I think so. As a matter of fact, I feel that is what the various liberation groups are all about. As wrongheaded as some of them are, they are still attempting to find new ways of solving problems. The way is being prepared for some kind of a change. We are confronted by terrifying dilemmas which, for their solution, demand a redefinition of ourselves. Redefinition will come about as the result of a renewal of transcendent belief.”

“How then do you see America’s future? Where is America going?”

“What can I say? I believe what the Bahá’í teachings tell us about the destiny of America. All I can do is have faith.”

In reply to our request for further comment, he said, “From the Bahá’í Writings we learn that America is to become the spiritual leader of the world. Now if I weren’t a Bahá’í, I could hardly conceive of that, because things are so grim, there is so much corruption, there seems to be so little regard for spiritual values, and we have allowed irresponsible power-hungry men to lead us into a kind of labyrinth. Yet negative thoughts aside, one cannot help seeing the potential greatness of this country, once we are a united people. Throughout our history Americans have believed America has a purpose, a peculiar destiny, have believed in what we may call the new-world mystique. The Bahá’í Faith reinforces this idea but cautions us we are going to have to be purged of our weaknesses—our old-world sickness—before we can achieve our appointed task. Isn’t America as much a spiritual idea as it is a physical entity or geographical unit?”

“You were mentioning the need for a change of heart and for adherence to spiritual ideals and so on,” we said. “Are you referring to a sort of spiritual transcendence?”

“Yes, I am,” he replied, adding, “How else shall we evolve except through commitment to transcendent values? It’s not something which can be programmed, however; it’s a matter of individual consciousness and conscience. Consider that in the past Americans have always been dissenters. Americans have never submitted for long to injustice. They have always gone to the defense of the underdog. Even in the days of slavery there were those people, like the Quakers, and there were the great men like Emerson and Thoreau, who laid it on the line and protested. Thoreau spent a night in jail rather than pay taxes to a slave-holding government. This is something which, during this Bicentennial period we need to remember—that is, we have always been dissenters. There have always been among us people who have some vision of how things ought to be, and they [Page 51] have led the rest of us, the rest of the country, in the right direction. I think that this is true now. There are many voices warning us and exhorting us to live better and be better than we are. So this is something that has been true of America since its inception. If you think of the Indian situation, from the beginning there were those people who wanted to see the Indians treated right, who did not want to rob them and cheat them. It is too easy to generalize and say that America is a great vicious monster. This isn’t true. Elements of the monster are certainly among us, but we have always had the people who have challenged tyranny and spoken for the truth.”

“What would you identify as the destiny of America? What goal are we striving for, sensibly or insensibly?”

“I make the point in a piece I am writing that we don’t really know ourselves, don’t know what we are. We are so many different things, and beyond material advancement we don’t seem to know what it is we ought to be living for. There are exceptions to this, naturally. But I am straying from the question. To answer it directly, let me say that America seems destined to bring together all the people of the world. The country is already a kind of microcosm, and we are more and more international in outlook.

“Let me give you an example. I was recently in San Francisco, and one of the things that impressed me was that San Francisco, like New York, is a very international city. It is possible to meet people from all over the world in either one of those cities. Even though living conditions are certainly not ideal, and the mutual respect among people is not all it should be—despite all that, you have the sense that people live more or less in harmony and that they are interested in one another’s culture. There is a kind of mingling of cultures. We stayed, for example, in a Japanese hotel. We didn’t feel strange in that hotel, which was a combination of Western and Japanese. I get excited when I think about this because nationalism in any form is one of the evils of our times, and nationalism can only bring more and more antagonism and more and more suspicion amongst people. To come again more directly to the question: History, or events, seem to be pushing us toward internationalism, a world view. The Bahá’í Teachings assure us that America will be an instrument for peace in the future. I think that maybe America is being prepared for that as a result of having all the races, cultures, and nationalities of the world in one way or another in the country.”

Following this summary of his thoughts about the country’s future we felt the need to know what place his vocation might have in such a future. “Does your art relate to America?” we asked.

“Well, I hope it does. My experiences as an American have obviously provided me with themes and determined how I look at life. I have never been a flag-waving patriot, but I profoundly believe in democracy, in the sacredness of the individual, in the dream of freedom for all. I am interested in American history, and I have written on historical themes. This does not mean that, as I have said, I do not find much to deplore, much to be angry about in our society. Thus I have written poems which lament or criticize aspects of America. I am not interested in any form of cultural nationalism, clearly. American life is a point of departure for me into an awareness of the universal.

“Looking at the relationship between my art and America from a very different perspective, I do find much in American life which is very exciting and much that is new and untried in the arts. There is great vitality and great energy here, and there is also material which has not yet been used, even by American writers and by American artists. I find all of this very exciting and very challenging.”

“Do you feel that your poetry is American poetry?”

“Well, I don’t know. A flip answer would be yes, because an American is writing it. Seriously, I have been thinking about this [Page 52] point, about what makes a poem American. I don’t know whether American poets know. I once played around with a list of attributes for an American poem, and then I gave it up because I found that the list wasn’t very good. Some poets have tried to write the American poem. Walt Whitman comes to mind first, for he saw himself as the bard of the American people. Hart Crane wrote about the Brooklyn Bridge, a very American theme. William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and others have explored native themes and idioms. But it is difficult, if not downright impossible, to define American poetry. Maybe, it’s a matter of language, the rejection of ‘literariness’ in favor of the colloquial; maybe, a matter of outlook, social vision. The best American poets from Whitman on have very often eschewed the so-called poetic diction and tried to write a poetry that was very close to the English which Americans speak. American poets, I believe, are usually more harshly critical of their country than most other poets are permitted to be. Certainly this is one up for the United States. Though it may seem immodest on the poets’ part, we can’t help believing sometimes that we are the conscience of our people. I hope we never lose the freedom to write as we please—though we might. Some of my poems have been censored by textbook committees in the South. Which brings me back to a statement about my own work. Perhaps it is American poetry in that it often reflects my social consciousness, in that I feel free to write out of my own particular kind of awareness. But, to put it bluntly, I don’t know what I’m talking about at this point!”

“What elements in America have been crucial to your artistic identity?”

“That’s difficult to answer without being trite. I have to admit, though, that the racial situation has been strategic. It has both deterred and stultified me, and provided a kind of negative impetus. But that is not the only element. I have given a lot of thought to this, and I see that my struggles to be worthy as a poet and as a man, my own quest for my meaning as an individual have been crucial. Other artists would say much the same thing, for it is extremely difficult, not to say hazardous, to live as an artist in the United States. Poets are marginal people for the most part and always have been. Americans are a pragmatic people. We like to praise the pioneers and talk about the pioneer spirit, but the pioneers and the pioneer spirit had some very negative qualities too. They tended to be utilitarian. If you could eat it, wear it, or use it to build a fire with, it was good; if not, not. I think that every American artist has to struggle for his identity; he has somehow to survive in the midst of indifference and even downright antagonism. Now I’m not asking that there be no struggle. I think that some sort of struggle is necessary to the artist as it is to any human being, but there is a kind of puritanism in American life, a carry over from the past which distrusts the arts. As I said earlier, we tend to confuse art and entertainment, and we don’t read poetry, for one thing. We have very little knowledge of poetry. There are many fine poets writing today, and the average well-educated person doesn’t know who they are and doesn’t really care. I won’t go into the whys and wherefors of that, because that’s a very long story. But I think that this creates certain problems for the poet, and I might say that I think the situation is better today than when I was a young person trying to be a poet. There seem to be more outlets and a little more interest than there was then.

“But I want to get back to the question. Crucial in my development has been the coming to grips with myself, my own soul, if you will, with my own realities as they have been revealed to me through my dedication to poetry and, yes, through religion. I have had to struggle to be a poet, and in some ways the struggle has been good for me. I am rather glad sometimes that it has been difficult, for it has given me a strength, a toughness of will, I might not have otherwise had. I have gained some sort of perspective that allows me the freedom to go my own way these days, [Page 53] despite the demands made upon my life and art by those who want me to ‘submit to ideology,’ political and racial.”

“What elements of American poetry are universal and why?”

“I think that, with some exceptions, most of it seems to have a universal appeal. Russian poets and Latin American poets are heavily influenced by American poetry. So also are some of the poets in oriental countries, Japan, for example. There are some American poets whose work seems over specialized, geared to ethnic or political criteria; but, as I suggested in an article I wrote for WORLD ORDER [Summer 1975], many American poets today have a world view. There is considerable universality in American poetry, and, ironically, this is often criticized as undesirable by those who want nationalistic rhetoric, and so forth. In the past a great poet like Whitman, while he wanted to be the poet of the American people, hoped that everybody was going to read him and know his work. Of course, his hope was never realized; nevertheless, he was a cosmic poet, and we honor him today for his attempt. Many of us would hope that we too might achieve a degree of universality.”

San Francisco continued to preoccupy Mr. Hayden’s thoughts. At one point he asked whether we had noticed the various shapes and designs of the windows in San Francisco. Without any real need for an answer, he went on to describe what pleased him about those he had seen. We sensed the germination of a new poem, or so we thought.

■ ■

SHINJI YAMAMOTO, State Architect of Wisconsin, is a nisei. “I am classed as a second-generation Japanese in the United States. I was born in this country, in Oakland, California.” His parents immigrated to the United States at the turn of the century and like other Japanese immigrants were called isseis.

Mr. Yamamoto spent three of his childhood years—“from ages six to nine years”— in Japan. “It was a temporary visit, but interestingly enough I learned to speak the Japanese language so well that I completely forgot my English. The result was that, to my embarrassment, I was put in the first grade again at the mature age of nine to relearn the English language.” Nonetheless, he went on to receive a Master’s degree in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley.

We interviewed Mr. Yamamoto on a warm summer’s morning. He is an early riser and had agreed to answer questions before breakfast. He sat on a sofa in the comfortable living room of his two-story house in Madison. The furniture throughout was of American design, but the room abounded with Japanese objects. We could see through a door to an adjoining porch which overlooked a Japanese rock garden nestled under a cluster of tall trees which shaded the house.

“What does it mean to be a state architect?” we asked.

“The State Architect in Wisconsin has the responsibility for the design and construction of all state buildings. He has nothing to do with the highway systems, but as far as structure goes, he has full responsibility.”

Our curiosity about his residency in Wisconsin uncovered memories of his extraordinary experience as an American of Japanese ancestry during World War II.

“I have continuously resided in the state of Wisconsin since 1944,” he said. “My wife, Hifumi, our son, Steve, and I came to Madison as a temporary stopgap from the Relocation Camp at Topaz, Utah. This camp in essence closely resembled a concentration [Page 54] camp, as we were imprisoned behind barbed-wire enclosures (a mile square) with manned guard towers. At that time areas east of the Mississippi River were open to us for relocation whereas the western states were still restricted.”

We found his answer arresting and probed for some background. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 cast a dark shadow of suspicion over the Japanese and the Americans of Japanese ancestry residing in the United States. Suspicion of their complicity, which was never borne out by fact, shaped a national policy of fear out of which grew Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. The internment of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans resulted. They were evacuated from California, Washington, and Oregon and sent to guarded camps in the interior of the country. Mr. Yamamoto was a victim of this instrument. When it was signed, he was already an architect. “At the time I was in San Francisco and employed by an architectural firm concentrating on construction work related to the war efforts for the Navy in the strategic islands of the Pacific and the western states, primarily California.”

Up until the Pearl Harbor incident he was getting along well in his job. “Many strong efforts were made in my behalf to gain exemption from this mass evacuation order. The captain of the Twelfth Naval District at San Francisco gave me a wonderful recommendation for my design work involving the war efforts, the provost of the University of California at Berkeley (a family friend of long standing) vouched for my character, and many other similar requests were made by my employers and friends, but all to no avail, as no exemptions were considered for anyone of Japanese ancestry.” Continuing, he described his predicament: “During this period I found myself in an awkward situation, as, while I was working to help with the war efforts, my freedom was sorely restricted by a curfew imposed to effect national safety. As a result, a nisei colleague and I were required to schedule our own working hours in order to meet the 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew, during which time we were restricted to our respective homes.”

Finally, there came the order to evacuate the Japanese from their residences in California. We asked Mr. Yamamoto how evacuation was effected.

“When the notice for evacuation came, they first took us to the Tanforan Race Track in South San Francisco. We could bring with us only the things we could carry in our two hands. So, unfortunately, with this baggage limitation, unless we had available a safe inexpensive storage place, we were confronted with the choice of disposing of our belongings at less than ten cents on the dollar or just giving them away to friends or the Salvation Army.”

The Japanese were taken by bus from prearranged meeting places to several makeshift camps or evacuation centers like the one at the Tanforan Race Track grounds in South San Francisco. “The accommodations were made over horse stalls,” Mr. Yamamoto said. “My older brother who evacuated with us occupied the enclosed porch area, and my wife and I had the inner sanctum, which was the redecorated horsestall. The two rooms were in tandem with a window and access door in the first room only and a dutch door between the two areas. Redecorating consisted of spraying whitewash over the cobwebs, straw, and remaining manure. There was no ventilation, no heat nor plumbing, and only one bare bulb to each area. Latrines were located sparsely, and food was dispensed via ‘soup line’ at the Racetrack grandstand.”

He continued: “We were in this temporary evacuation center for four to five months, and then we were taken on short notice by train under close security to a relocation center as they called it located in a desert area about 150 miles south of Salt Lake City. Later they named the camp Topaz.”

“What was life like there?” we interjected. “Well, Topaz became a community of [Page 55]

[Page 56] roughly ten thousand evacuees. It was interesting that it became the third largest city or camp in the state of Utah. Next to Salt Lake City and Provo, it was Topaz in size. The camp was surrounded with barbed wire fences and guards so that we could not leave the premises without special permission. For housing they gave us a room in a series of barracks, the size depending on the number of persons in the family. But regardless of numbers it was just one room per family. For example, they provided a room roughly twenty feet by sixteen feet for a couple; the size increased to twenty feet by twenty feet for a couple with a child; and if a couple had two children it would be about twenty by twenty-four feet. The room was completely unfinished. There were no partitions, no closet; walls, ceiling, and floor were unfinished with no furniture except army cots and a pot-bellied stove. There was no plumbing, but central latrines per block and central dining rooms were provided. Privacy was completely lacking.”

He continued: “There were ten of these relocation camps to accommodate the evacuees. Each camp was programmed to be self-sufficient except for raw food supplies, housing, some outer clothing, medication, and so on, but all labor, including professional services were to be supplied by the evacuees. Fortunately, all camps were able to meet this need more than adequately for doctors, dentists, trained nurses, educators, architects and engineers, cooks, truck drivers, and so on. Taking an inventory it was revealed that the proportion of professionals in all fields to the camp’s population far exceeded any city of similar size. The reason for this high percentage was due to the foresight of our parents, the isseis, who valued education for their children as the most important gift they could offer for their welfare and future. These camps were incomplete at the time of occupancy. Essential buildings, such as hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, and ancillary structures needed to be planned and built. We architeCts, engineers, and draftsmen took on these planning tasks.”

“Did the government require you do this?” we asked.

“No, we were not forced to work, but they offered many job opportunities we needed to keep busy, and to keep the camp in operation.”

We asked him whether the government minded residents using their professions in this way.

“No,” he replied. “As a matter of fact, I believe the government encouraged this use of professional talents, since they provided none. Also the government obtained these services practically free. The salary earned by professionals was ten to twelve dollars per month for a five-and-one-half-day work week with other workers receiving six to eight dollars for the same period of work.”

Mr. Yamamoto went on to describe some of the effects of camp conditions on the Japanese families. “The camp life and improper housing conditions brought about serious consequences for the well-being of the family unit and the future lives of the offsprings. The parents soon realized that they lost control and guidance of their children. The confinements of the small room forced the children to seek other places for privacy, for congregating with their friends, and for avoiding surveillance by their parents; they returned home only to sleep. Food was available at any dining hall, and the children soon realized that their parents no longer contributed materially to their daily needs. It became difficult for parents to exercise any needed guidance for their children in their formative years. As a result delinquency became prevalent, and there was a complete reversal of the amazing nondelinquent record established by the niseis in prewar days. The close family unit, the bedrock on which we built our lives, was shaken and mostly destroyed.”

We wanted to know about Mr. Yamamoto’s personal experiences in Topaz and asked him for some details. He explained, “My older brother, my wife, and I were at [Page 57] Topaz, whereas my parents, other brothers, and sisters were relocated to a camp at Gila Bend, Arizona. We became separated when they voluntarily moved out to a ‘white area’ seemingly out of the area where evacuation would take place. I first worked as a design architect in charge of the architectural unit to produce the necessary building plans. In the evenings I taught architectural design and drafting to aspiring young high school students. About the time Steve (our son) was born we had completed most of the needed plans. It was then imperative that I be closer to home because of poor communication facilities, so I left the architectural work and became an assistant cook in our dining hall.”

“That was your first son?”

“Yes. Our first and only son was born in camp.”

“You made yourself busy, you helped with architecture, you trained youngsters in drafting, and you worked in the kitchen. What kinds of things did people talk about? Was there a general sense of depression?”

“Yes, the future was of great concern to all. The young were not too concerned, the teenagers were frustrated with their confinements, we the older niseis were anxious to leave the camps and get back to normal living, but the older adults (the isseis) were depressed and deeply concerned for their future. Most of them had very little education; they had no rights of citizenship; each, through hard manual labor and perseverance, had succeeded in gaining a livelihood. The majority went into farming of various kinds; many did domestic work, and others went into business (both large and small), but after spending three to five years in camp their chances of picking up where they had left off was apparently remote. Since the isseis could not own land for themselves, they purchased it in their child’s name, usually the eldest son’s. In the wake of the war, legislation was enacted to dispossess them of their land so there were many lawsuits and court cases. Many had lost their land and others their businesses, so the older people found it impossible to start all over again. The future of those over forty was extremely dark. The only ones who came out of the camps with hope for the future were the people like myself who had an education to fall back on. Lack of funds was secondary; each resident received twenty-five dollars when departing the camp. The only material resources I had when I left for Madison were fifty dollars, health, and a few personal belongings.”

“So you came to Madison in 1944 straight from Topaz. What was the first thing you did?”

“I had an old school friend, a bachelor, who went to Chicago and finally ended up in Madison. He was going to work for the State of Wisconsin but found a job opportunity with a private firm. Therefore, he wrote to me at about the time Steve was born to suggest that I take the job that he had passed up. I replied that I would at least investigate it, but I could not leave the camp until Steve was at least six months old. Actually, it took about six months to complete the negotiation with the Wisconsin state architect under whom I was to work. The pay was only two hundred dollars a month, but at least it gave us an opportunity to leave the camp and come to Madison.”

We asked whether he had found any particular discrimination against Japanese people as he tried to reestablish himself, in Madison. “Not especially in Madison,” he replied. “The people here were completely unaware of what had taken place. They did not know about the evacuation of the Japanese people from the West Coast. Very few people knew about the details. The architects and engineers I worked with in the state office were completely unaware of what had happened. So I experienced no prejudice. Also there were very few Japanese in this area; thus we presented no problems to the local inhabitants.”

We noticed that Mr. Yamamoto spoke of his experiences without any suggestion of [Page 58] anger or passion and wondered whether he had any residue of unhappy feeling about his past. Anxious to get at the source of his outward composure, we asked, “What kept you together? Was it just your profession, the fact that you did have a profession? How did you handle yourself? How did your family cope with it?”

“While I was at Topaz, a number of people were so disturbed by what had taken place that they wanted to emigrate to Japan and were allowed to do so. There were many others like myself who felt differently. I have not forgotten the injustice. This kind of experience cannot be easily erased from one’s mind, but to dwell on grievances forevermore does no one any good. I think the Bahá’í Faith really helped us. My wife and I realized that we had to be positive in our outlook. Being Bahá’ís we were more interested in working on a positive basis for the future than dwelling on the bad aspects of the past. The way we looked at it was, okay, from here on how do we start to rebuild our future lives?”

“You mentioned that the Bahá’í Faith helped you to cope with your experience. Were you a Bahá’í at that time?”

“Yes.”

“How did you become a Bahá’í?”

“Well, actually, I was raised as a Bahá’í. My father had become a Bahá’í in the early 1900s. He heard of the Bahá’í Faith in 1901. He happened to be the first Japanese Bahá’í in the world. He was quite young when he heard the Bahá’í message in Hawaii en route to the United States and became a believer. He had written to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, and through this letter he was accepted as a Bahá’í. He subsequently came to California where he worked for a Bahá’í family. Thus my two brothers and I were raised in this Bahá’í atmosphere. Instead of going to the churches like our friends we went to the Bahá’í classes, and we were able to have the advantages of a Bahá’í education. I think that in the time of distress the Faith helped us a great deal, and the Bahá’í friends were wonderful to us and my family. The Bahá’ís helped us with encouragement when we were evacuated, and during the time when we were in these camps, we had continuous communication with the Bahá’ís. These contacts gave us spiritual and moral uplifts.”

We commented on our thought that people would want to learn more about the way the Japanese have been able to overcome their internment experience because in so many instances people who have gone through similar experiences have found no peace and continue to complain and worry. The Japanese have been unusually quiet about their past predicament. One does not hear much from them about what happened during the period of their internment.

“I think our generation, the nisei, was very quiet and passive. However, the children of the nisei are creating a stir over the grievances of the past. Before Pearl Harbor, we had many problems breaking into the professional circles. We soon discovered that we had to excel and be at the top of the list in order to be accepted. I think our parents knew this so they continually reminded us that if we were to succeed we could not be just mediocre. Excellence had to be the standard. It was very difficult to find jobs when I graduated in 1934 because of the depression. After trying for two weeks from eight in the morning till five, I ended up one Saturday, before noon, at an office in San Francisco, where I had a friend who had graduated with me. He told me about a job in Palo Alto. To get that first job was not easy, especially when there were no jobs to be had. By offering to work at my own expense and time I was able to get my first job and prove to myself that ‘excellence’ is the key to obtaining employment and ‘performance’ can break the racial barriers.”

“Would this be your advice to minorities having difficulties in our society?” we inquired.

“Yes, indeed,” was his emphatic reply.

“We are about to celebrate the Bicentennial [Page 59] of the United States. July 4, 1976, will mark the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the country. Many people are thinking of the nation and trying to reflect upon its virtues and to see what can be done about its future. You have had a unique experience in America. What do you feel about America? What grieves you about America? What would you tell America if you had the opportunity to speak to the nation on changes that could be made for the better?”

“Can I Start with just a little bit on how I feel about America as we found it?” he asked, but without waiting for a reply, continued to speak. “Of course our fathers, the issei generation, came here because they had heard of this land full of opportunities, as compared to their own rural farm areas in crowded Japan where their future was very limited. So the adventurous ones did come over here, my father being one of those. He was a very open-minded person and a free thinker, and thus he was able to recognize the Bahá’í Faith as a true message from God which no Japanese until then had done. He was forever promoting education in any form and realized the value of our receiving an American education as well as our learning the Japanese language and the history and heritage of the Japanese people. His outlook helped us a great deal to gain a well-rounded education. Of the many things that can be said about the Japanese tradition and heritage, there is one thing that is stressed, and proved to be important to the pioneers who ventured to the West in the early days of America’s development: a close family unit. Where there is a close family unit with the father and mother at the head of it and the children learning from them and being obedient to them, problems of any dimension can be controlled and resolved. This oneness is also important in the Bahá’í Faith because we are striving for unity— unity of the family, community, nation, and the people in the whole world. The family unit as the Japanese experienced it is needed universally today and especially for the future of America.”

Turning from his concern with the breakdown of family life, Mr. Yamamoto said, “Another thing that has happened, and is evident in my profession, is that decisions are made today for political rather than professional reasons. There has been a great deal of negative pressure influencing professional excellence. Good design is often negated by economic or political consideration. For example, decisions in the fields of engineering and architecture are often made on the basis of compromises for political expediency. Those of us who serve in public positions are given guidelines which are not professional but political. Decisions are made by people who have no real knowledge of the technical aspects of a problem. They want alternatives, and alternatives are based on how to please the various parties involved. So I would say that if this trend continues technical knowledge becomes less important, and the profession will be heading in the wrong direction. Another problem is that people are not interested in doing a good job; they are more interested in seeing how much money they can make. However, I know of many contractors and people in business who want to do a good job but find that they cannot do so because of the low quality of work performed by their employees. There seems to be a total lack of spiritual or moral influence today. There seems to be very little in the way of morality and what is right, and the desire for doing good work. People know what is right, but they cannot seem to afford to do it, to stay in business and meet the competition.”

“You have expressed concerns about the present state of the work of professionals, especially in your field,” we said. “Do you feel that there is a future for architecture in America? How does your art, your profession, relate to America?”

“I feel that there is a future for architecture in America and for architects themselves. I think people are inherently concerned about beauty and esthetics, even though at the [Page 60] present time we are overridden by economic depression and political pressures. There seems to be a strong barrier to gaining good architectural buildings. I think America in the long run will be able to survive all of this because we do have tremendous advantages in technical know-how, the ability to innovate, and abundance of excellent building products.”

“Do you feel that your architecture is American architecture?”

“Well, American architecture is very difficult to label. Like the racial composition of our forefathers we have been influenced greatly by the architecture of the past. Modern skyscrapers have helped to develop a purely American architecture. A good architectural solution for a building, say, a school building, is not merely to copy an existing school building, but to creatively solve the program needs for the specific school in mind. A suit of clothing which fits one person perfectly will not necessarily fit or look good on another. Similarly, each building should be a new experience, and be custom-designed to produce true architecture. If you want good architecture, you have to approach each building project on its own individual merits; if the challenges of the project can be met, then honest and good architecture will result. From such efforts, together with challenges to our technical and material resources, will evolve what is needed by the American people, and that will develop the future American architecture. Like customs, traditions, history, and so on, arts and architecture of any country are basically sound, beautiful, and defensible. Copying architecture developed in another country and adapting such architecture into our designs do not make for true native architecture, nor are they generally acceptable or desirable. If we can use the materials we have and our technical knowledge to answer our needs and in the process resolve the natural problems of temperature, surroundings, and space, the outcome will be good American architecture.”

We wondered whether there was a distinct form of architecture that could be called American.

“I think the skyscraper is an example of pure American architecture,” he said. “We set the lead in the world for this kind of structure. However, it does not fit easily into other settings. For example, American skyscrapers do not look too good in Japan, amidst the pure Japanese temples and pagodas. They do not seem to suit the Japanese environment. Unfortunately, Japanese architects have departed from their own style and begun to follow the American style of skyscrapers. But this trend is changing with Japanese architects innovating and creating their own style and design direction. The forms are becoming more oriental as the structures of the past.”

“Do you think that it is necessarily the wrong direction?”

“I do not think that the influence of new designs is necessarily wrong. But I feel that all designs do not fit all needs or environments. A design originating in one country can suggest new possibilities for another country. It could be regarded as an incentive for setting new standards and creating new variations which would suit the new environment.”

“Are there any elements of American architecture which you would consider to be universally applicable?”

“There is, of course, the use of reinforced concrete and steel. We do not use as much wood as the Japanese, for example, for other than residential buildings. We developed highly the technique of reinforced concrete structures and the use of steel. We have the two most versatile building systems that can be universally applied.”

Mr. Yamamoto had indicated that there was a future for American architecture, and we wanted to know whether in like manner he felt that there was a future for the American people. He replied affirmatively.

“I am sure that we have a destiny as a people. I think the problems which we face [Page 61] here in this country are prevalent all over the world. I noticed, for instance, that when I visited Japan in 1968, the problems there were beginning to look like the problems we are having in America: energy crisis, worsening working conditions, lack of jobs, high cost of living, and pollution. We have to have a change to ensure our future. I feel that the only way we can make a change is through reevaluation of our motivation. Motivation has to be more than just material consideration. I think we will have to get back our spiritual values which were appreciated at the time when the country was founded; I feel that the usual results of overemphasis of material values could be disastrous unless tempered by spiritual input.”

“Are you suggesting a spiritual regeneration?”

“Yes. This is the only way we will be able to get America back again on the upward swing.”

“How will that come about?”

“Obviously, being a Bahá’í, I would answer that it has to come through spiritual regeneration, which is turning towards God and His teachings. In this age, the Prophet to which we must turn in order to receive this Word of God is Bahá’u’lláh.”

We interrupted by saying that people are divided enough by their attachments to various denominations. Why do we have to have the Bahá’í Faith? What is so new about it that could not be found in the religions which exist now? He replied, “I think we have a problem of disunity because of the different religions existing today. Actually the Bahá’í Faith is a new faith, and yet it is really the uniting force of all the existing faiths. So I think that as soon as the followers of other religions realize this and see how much the Bahá’í Faith has in common with their faiths and how it can bring about unity of religion and mankind they will find a new direction.”

“How do you feel about the country?” we asked.

“I feel that this is my mother country, and I have a great love, pride, and attachment for this country. We have our basic problems, but in time they will be resolved. I have traveled from coast to coast many times, but each new trip is a wonderful new experience. The immensity of the plains and desert country, the rugged rawness of the mountains and forests, the great cities, the farmlands, endless highways, bridges and buildings, and, above all, the people with different racial backgrounds make America a truly great land of opportunity. Personally, I have been given this opportunity to be appointed as the State Architect of Wisconsin, which could not have happened in most other countries of the world.”

“Is it the size that makes this country great?”

“I think primarily it is great in the way it was first formed. The heterogeneous background, the early history behind the country’s beginning. In fact, when you think of the Revolutionary War and the fight for freedom and independence, you cannot help seeing what that meant not only to this country but to the whole world. It was a struggle of the young colonies against a major power over a basic right. To be successful in this struggle and establish the firm foundation of a just government and a constitution formulated by our forefathers has made this country truly great, and it has continued to play a major role in the welfare of the entire world. Thus the custom, tradition, religious background, and heritage of the people that make up America has truly given this country a structural foundation that cannot be matched by any other country.”

Finally, we asked, “Are you proud of being called an American?”

“Yes, I am. Yes, I would say that I am very proud and happy to be an American.”

The sun had brightened the morning. It was time for breakfast.

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DAVID V. VILLASEÑOR identifies himself as a citizen of the world. His background makes this easy for him to do: Born near Guadalajara, Mexico, he came from Indian and Spanish ancestry—“My mother was Indian; my father was Spanish.” Orphaned by the Mexican Revolution, he attended a boys’ school in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, where about eighty percent of the students were Indians from various tribes. “I was there from the time I was six and a half to about sixteen,” he said, “so my basic training was among Indian people.” In addition to getting academic training from the elementary to high school level, the students had “to grow our own vegetables, slay the animals, tan the hides, make our moccasins and buckskins, our drum heads and our baseball mitts, and so on.”

When Mr. Villaseñor entered the United States at the age of sixteen, he had no knowledge of English, but he was a quick learner and found that “I was greatly in demand by the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Camp Fire Girls, and so on, because I could do all of these arts and crafts which I thought then that everyone else could do.”

Since he is widely known as an artist and an expert in sandpainting, an Indian art in which he has almost single-handedly revived national interest through his permanent adaptation of the age-old, ephemeral form, we asked him whether his first experiences in the United States had awakened his artistic interests. “We thought we were underprivileged,” he replied in an obvious reference to himself and his former schoolmates, “and I came to this country and found that I was the most privileged individual because I had developed all these talents as a matter of course.”

After joining the United States Army in 1942 Mr. Villaseñor became an American citizen. During his stay in the Army, he served as a medical artist and anatomical sculptor, receiving a citation from the War Department for “permanent contribution to medical science”; he was sent as a lecturer to the Universities of New Mexico and Denver and delivered “over two hundred and fifty lectures on arts, crafts, and inter-American relations.” His artistic endeavors won him a first prize in the national Army Arts and Crafts Contest for wood sculpture.

Mr. Villaseñor returned to civilian life a dedicated artist with a particular devotion to sandpainting. Explaining the origins of his interest in this form of native American art, he said, “During the time that I was at school I developed a very deep friendship with two Navajo boys. When they left the school they went directly to their grandfather in Chinle, Arizona, the very heart of the Navajo reservation. So, by the time I arrived in Chinle as a cook for a group of artists doing a sketching tour for the University of Arizona, I searched out these two boys, and they took me to their grandfather, who immediately made a sandpainting for me and welcomed me into the family. This was the first time I saw a master doing a sandpainting.” “Did you actually learn sandpainting from this Navajo artist?” we asked. “Yes, from association,” he replied, explaining, “The Indian does not teach per se. He is the exemplar, and should you follow in his footsteps, he assumes you are actually abiding by your own inner urge to create and recognizes the developing of that natural inclination that all of us have.”

Elaborating on the Navajos’ method of teaching and on his personal experience as a learner, Mr. Villaseñor continued, “The Indians have a very wise way of teaching. They teach by example, and they expose the children to all forms of ceremonials through which they observe the child or individual to determine his natural inclinations. Consequently, when I went to the Navajo Reservation I was so impressed by the medicine man making the sandpainting. In amazement I discovered that it was for me when asked to take off my clothes, leave on my shorts, and sit on the sandpainting, as the medicine man ceremoniously sprinkled corn meal on my head, a ritual of initiation into the family. My intense inner longing was to take the [Page 63]

[Page 64] sand and make lines as they were doing. After the ceremonial I compulsively filled my pockets with sand, as its attraction was too great to be left behind. One of the old medicine men observing said that I would become known as the sand man. What he foresaw, long before my own recognition, has since come to pass.”

Mr. Villaseñor is distinguished for having developed and perfected the medium of “permanent” sandpainting. One-man shows of his work have been exhibited at many places such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Southwest Indian Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the California Institute of Technology. Curious about the meaning of the description of his work as “permanent” sandpainting, we asked him, “What is the nature of your art? What do you do?”

“My art is actually to express or record— I am a recorder more than anything else. I have found great messages in the symbols of the American Indians. Some of them are pre-Columbian, done before the white man arrived, and I find that some of these symbols are the ‘holy books’ with deep messages of brotherhood and oneness. When I began to discover all of this, long before I was a Bahá’í, I did not know exactly what I was dealing with because some of these metaphors, ideas, were not fully expressed by anyone; Consequently, I was fearful that perhaps I was in deep water, until I found the Bahá’í Faith, which recognizes the validity of all cultures. Then I realized that it was a natural area for me to explore.

“You asked me about the Indian work. I was doing this as a hobby and then different elementary schools began asking me to narrate some of the symbols. The college and museum requests followed, and, lo and behold, I found myself in demand by many institutions and groups. I have done considerable research for museums simply because it was less expensive for them to hire me than for them to start all over and spend thousands of dollars to begin research in an area which I had already covered. So much of the symbolism, as it seems to speak to me, has never been recorded. My latest exhibition at the Museum of Natural History here in Los Angeles has been of ‘rain birds, thunderbirds, and flying serpents.’ The rain bird is a metaphor which indicates anything detaching itself from the earth, such as fog, smoke, and mist. A thunderbird encompasses the rainbird plus the formation of clouds, rain, thunder, and lightning. The flying serpent incorporates both the rain bird and the thunderbird. The serpent is a symbol of fertility. When rain comes from the sky to the earth, it collects at the lowest level and begins to move. The spirit of the river is the spirit of the serpent, and everywhere the serpent touches, the earth is fertilized and everything grows. Therefore, the water serpent and the flying serpent are awesome symbols, found in nearly every culture on the face of the earth—for example, the caduceus from the Greeks, the cobra from the Egyptians, and also from the Hindus, and so on. The Mayan Indian of Central America has Kukulcan, which is the symbol of the plumed serpent (the knowledge of earth and sky) and Quetzalcoatl, which is the Aztec counterpart. The water serpent throughout these cultures is a symbol indicating that the power of the sky has come to earth and blessed the earth, which in turn has responded to this loving rhythm and produced the vegetation and all which sustains life.”

“What are the methods of your art?”

“I use sand as my basic foundation, which is a very ancient art of the American Indian in the Southwest. But I have also found that people do sandpainting among many tribes in South America, Central America, as well as in the Caribbean. There are forms of it found in Tibet, India, Japan, and many other places in Asia. A good friend from Australia told me that some of the aborigines in Australia and New Zealand do sandpainting in the bush. They are done loosely on the [Page 65] ground, and are made, used, and destroyed within a twelve-hour rhythm, or period. Among the Navajos it is done in two sequences, known as day chants or night chants. The sandpainting done in the day must be made, used, and destroyed before sundown and, conversely, the sandpainting done at night (begun right after sunset) is finished, used, and destroyed before sunrise of the following day. Sandpaintings are usually done in a sequence of three days and never more than nine days. Nine is a sacred symbol for many Indian people. It is arrived at by incorporating the four elements (air, fire, water, and earth) and the three kingdoms (mineral, vegetable, and animal) plus the two polarities, positive and negative (man and woman, night and day, life and death, and so on), equaling nine. The number nine is used by many tribes as the ultimate number, and all sandpaintings have this rhythm. The Sioux, Comanche, Shoshone, Pawnee, Hopi, Navajo, Papago, Aztec, and oh so many tribes use the number nine, which indicates the fulfillment of the cycle before returning to zero. The concept of zero comes from the seed, the cell, the egg: the basic unit of life returning to the beginning of the cycle.

“What I have done, the only claim to fame, if I have any claim at all, was to figure out how to put glue on a board, on a plywood base, and then sprinkle the sand on top of it. When that dries, I put more glue in very fine lines with a very fine brush, and I pour fine sand on it. Consequently, I have come up with permanent sandpainting through a process of evolvement. My ‘tapestries in sand’ are a whole different thing, involving a canvas backing and another adhesive. For the last twenty-five years I have gone from reservation to reservation donating my services to the Indian people, trying to help them help themselves. In the process of keeping one step ahead of my students I have become known as a sandpainter or a sandpainting artist. Well, this is how I became an artist, keeping one step ahead of my students. Museums, colleges, and television stations are claiming that my work is an example of beautiful primitive art, which is a bounty far beyond what I anticipated. No one is more surprised than I, that I am being acclaimed a sandpainter or an artist. All that I claim is that I am enjoying myself. The Indian says that ‘any work done with dancing fingers becomes a visual prayer.’ And again, I can quote the Bahá’í teachings which say that any work performed in the spirit of service is elavated to the rank of worship. So happily I have been worshiping all of this time.”

“Do you do other kinds of art besides sandpainting?”

“Oh yes, I do sculpture, woodcarving, leather work, and practically every kind of Indian art and craft that you can think of. But in recent years I have done sandpainting almost exclusively. Before that I was a wood sculptor, a whittler, and carved maybe more than five thousand figures, many of which were bought by the Merchandise Mart of Chicago and reproduced in both spindle carving, glass, and ceramics. I have done considerable work in fiberglass also. I have served as art director for a television program and other related fields, as well as done quite a bit of medical art work in the Army and made models for the aerospace industry. In fact, I modeled the first satellite facsimile used in the aerospace industry for lectures and television. But now I am working for myself full time, and happily can’t keep up with the demand.”

“Does your art relate to America?”

“Definitely,” was his immediate reply. “I have concentrated on the symbolism of the early American to prove in different ways that these people had the divine message from the beginning. It is said that when a messenger of God appears on earth, every individual who is tuned in with a spiritual eye and spiritual ear will see and hear this message. The symbols to which I have been attracted are the spiritual messages or ‘holy books’ of the Indian people, recorded by [Page 66] their own methods, and through which I am finding truths corresponding with the teachings of the Bible, the Qur’án, and so on. I can parallel so many things in the holy books of any culture with these symbols. It is said by the wise men that when a Manifestation of God comes on this earth we have to prove His validity through our own culture. In looking at these symbols from this vantage point I have found that the spiritual messages were always here waiting for us, only the ‘books were closed.’ When the new Light comes, He opens the books. According to my understanding, Bahá’u’lláh came to open all of the holy books, and, consequently, the books talk to me, the Indian ‘books.’ So I am proving my belief in Bahá’u’lláh through the ancient symbols of the American Indian.”

Sensing the global reach of his thoughts, we were prompted to ask, “Do you feel that your work is threatened with obliteration? Will it last? Does the Indian work which you are doing have a continuing message? Or will it be lost in the melting pot that is called America?”

“At the beginning, I was afraid of this. No one understood what I was doing. I didn’t even understand it myself. That was long before I was a Bahá’í. I was in a dream world, thinking that perhaps I was wasting my time or didn’t know what I was doing. But from the time I became a Bahá’í, the whole wonderful world of the symbolism of Indian art work came into full focus with new meaning, and it is gratifying to realize that this new understanding is met with acceptance wherever I have taken it, from California to New England, and from Canada to Mexico. I am able to show the Indian people, who have lost contact with their own roots, where the symbols come from, what a beautiful message they contain, and how their ancient wisdom fits into the modern world. Instead of being ignored it is being acclaimed. It is not me; it is the work, because it is dealing with holy principles.”

“So can you continue then to cultivate Indian art?”

“Definitely. As I said, I cannot currently keep up with the demand. In fact, recognition of this new art form has come from Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, France, and now Mexico.”

“Do you consider yourself an American artist?”

“I consider myself a world citizen, a Bahá’í.”

“But as an artist?”

“As an artist, yes. This is where my source of inspiration is. In other words, I am dealing with a technique which is fortunately becoming recognized in this country and filtering to other parts of the world. I have found people using sand as an art medium in many countries. I set out to expose the medium, and this is what I have accomplished.”

“To whom do you speak when you practice your art? Whom are you addressing?”

“I am addressing humanity, trying to bring a better understanding between cultures. There is much similarity between peoples all over the world, and they all cry for understanding, love, and compassion. I think that by using these symbols, I can help. The Indians themselves are doing this form of expression, doing the permanent type of sandpainting, which was not done before the last ten or fifteen years. I have been told by several Navajo medicine men that they are glad to see this technique of sandpainting being adopted by their young people. There is a renaissance of this. So when I address myself, it is basically to the primitive people first and second to the rest of the world.”

As the interview progressed, we could not help noticing the energy of Mr. Villaseñor’s expression, the self-assurance which he exuded, his compassion for humanity. He sat in his living room whose walls are adorned with sandpaintings—an exquisite sandpainting of an Indian woman and child hung in the front entrance way. In a corner of the room stood a cabinet with examples of fine pottery by his wife Jean, herself an artist specializing in ceramics and the co-sharer [Page 67] of his dreams and coauthor of his three books. In such surroundings his words took on forceful meaning. The universal symbolisms which he perceived in Indian art and which in that setting seemed compelling had preoccupied his thoughts. We wondered what his feelings about America might be and posed a question intended to change the trend of his thoughts. “Are you proud to be an American?” we asked.

“Yes. I am proud to be an American,” was his immediate reply, adding after a brief pause, “but I am even more proud to be a citizen of the world, a Bahá’í.”

“What does America’s past mean to you?”

“I think of America’s past in relation to the Indian prior to the coming of the Caucasian and the many subsequent cultures. The Indian of North America was on an ascending scale of spiritual awareness and was living in harmony with a deep sense of appreciation for the rhythm of life among all created things.

“It is said that our founding fathers were inspired by the League of the Iroquois (six strong Indian nations joining together in a confederacy based on spiritual principles) and that our Constitution was patterned after its general concepts. A tremendous spiritual foundation, therefore, was already established here on this continent prior to the coming of all the diverse cultures which we now think of as America.

“Basically, the American Indians are a deeply spiritual people who have been robbed of their heritage and their land. They have very little left except their spirituality. It is true that many are lost in the fog of modern conflict, but basically most of them have roots deep in the realm of the spirit, and I think sooner or later the Indian people will find themselves guided by the light of Bahá’u’lláh and perhaps find the security that I have. Before I was not too sure, but when I became a Bahá’í, I had security in knowing that I was on the right track and that all the time my roots were deep in the heritage of my past. In the Mosaic laws it is stated that we are to honor our mother and father. How can we honor our mother and father if we deny our culture? Impossible! So I say that my basic heritage has given me an inside grasp of the Bahá’í way of life.”

“Would you say then that America has fulfilled its promise?”

“Well, to the Indians it means a dark page in the history of their people. At the same time there is light on the picture, because there are three segments of the Indian people: Those who are traditional and do not want to change—they want the old establishment the way it was before the white man arrived; and the progressives, who want to forget all of their culture. Then you have those who want to take the very best of the ancient culture and the very best of the modern culture. Sequoya is a classical example of this concept which means taking the best and, like the two wings of a bird, making the most of it to preserve the heritage, the beautiful foundation of our forefathers, and bringing it to the point where it will make sense or work for you in this day and age. America’s future depends a great deal on finding this equilibrium, this balance, based on spiritual values rather than material.”

“Do you think America will find the balance?”

“If it can be done individually, it can be done collectively. I think individually I have. To some degree I find that as I have set out to fulfill my basic inner urge for expression I have been able to bridge the two aspects of my own heritage with its diverse cultures through the voice of the Indian and his symbolism. Likewise, America will find this balance through bridging the heterogeneous qualities of her people with spiritual understanding.”

“Is this the hope that America holds out to the Indians?”

“Well, yes. It is true for the Indian; it is true for other peoples who have made peace with their inner selves and have found the security of their ancient heritage combined with the modern culture. It is only through [Page 68] the light of knowledge that we can make progress; and our purpose, according to Bahá’u’lláh, is to bring an ever-advancing civilization. You cannot stick to old, timeworn traditions, for change is an inevitable process. The spiritual values remain the same, but the social values change. Here is where we have to make the adjustment.”

“Do you love the land?”

“Yes. From an Indian point of view the earth is our mother, and we owe it our respect and our protection. It is impossible to violate our environment, pollute, contaminate, desecrate, and strip it of resources, without harming ourselves.”

Still probing for more of his thoughts on America, we remarked that the country is preparing to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of its founding. “Upon reflection,” we asked, “what grieves you about America?” He sat forward in his chair, looked into the distance, and then said, “The rank materialism, the political maneuvering, moral decay, and decay in spiritual values. I think this is a sad observation and feel that unless we do something to reverse this process our spiritual values will be sadly retarded.”

We asked him, then, “What would you do to change America?”

He spoke carefully, “Well, of course, this is only a dream, and this dream is held by many people who are spiritually oriented, and that is to bring about the realization of the brotherhood of man. We are basically united in the fact that we are all the children of father sky and mother earth, which is a concept of all American Indian people. We, therefore, have a duty under this universal parenthood to live like one family and to be deeply concerned with one another and help one another. If someone is hungry on the other side of the world, we are to share with them our abundance. We have the security of the knowledge from education, and we should share it with others. The pioneer spirit is still very desirable if we are to go everywhere in the world and share our latest message of love and divine brotherhood. It is a prophecy of the Indian people that this will be fulfilled. The great peace will come when man learns to be one family.”

“How do you see America’s future?”

“Bahá’u’lláh tells us that America’s future is unbelievably glorious. Unfortunately, what we see too much of now is greed, materialism, and lawlessness. America has a real genius for technology, initiative, and know-how. But the spiritual laws, which are absolutely essential as a balancing factor, must first be recognized and applied before America’s great destiny can be fulfilled.”

His feeling that there is great meaning to America was obvious, and we questioned him further to appreciate the destiny which he perceived for her.

“America is really a melting pot,” he said. “Most of those who originally came here were the discontented of the world—to work out their problems and realize their dreams. In America we have the total diversity of the family of man, along with their feuds and frictions, prides and prejudices. America truly has the advantage of all the nations of the world, for here are all the widely divergent factors within one boundary, to be worked out—whether we like it or not. The challenge is staggering, but if successfully met, America’s great destiny would be realized.

“This dream of the mighty tree of peace which would bring the brotherhood of man is also a foundational prophecy of many Indian tribes of America.”

Out in Mr. Villaseñor’s back yard, there stood an unfinished but sufficiently defined sculpture of Sequoya, the famous Cherokee leader who introduced modern concepts to his people. Its towering aspect dominated the area, seeming to keep the notion alive that in the roots of America’s heritage lie the secrets of her destiny.

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[Page 71]

MILDRED MOTTAHEDEH is a successful business woman. In a partnership that stretches back almost fifty years, she and her Iranian-born husband, Rafi, have built a firm whose activities and reputation have spread from New York’s Fifth Avenue to three continents. But she is much more than a business success. There are more facets to her than to a bowl of Baccarat crystal.

Seated among Chinese vases, Persian miniatures, and a profusion of flowering plants in the library of her Stamford, Connecticut, summer home, we asked Mrs. Mottahedeh about her family and her childhood in Rumson, New Jersey, where she was born sixty-seven years ago. She told us that one of her parents was Austrian, the other German-Russian. Her parents having been divorced when she was five, most of her memories were connected with her mother’s family. “They were a family who were interested in ideas. We used to recite Hamlet. Completely, you know; each one of us in the family taking a part. I know that my grandfather read us the Bible everyday. And so we went through the entire Bible in the course of my childhood. I could say that my whole childhood was a childhood where ideas about the world, about the role America had to play in the world, why it was good to be in America, what contribution the people who came to America had made, were constantly discussed. It was a very rich tapestry of ideas.”

“Were your parents immigrants?” we asked. “My grandparents,” Mrs. Mottahedeh replied. “But so far as my being an American, I never felt I was any thing else. I always felt that I was an American, and this country was my home.”

“What did it mean to you to be an American?” Without a moment’s hesitation she replied, “I was very much interested in the opportunities that America gave for intellectual development.” In the small town where she grew up one had to pay the library five cents to borrow a book. Young Mildred would earn her nickels by trimming grandfather’s beard into the square shape he favored and spend the money at the library. She learned to read at three, and acquired the New York Times habit at six or so. Family conversations, books, and the Times opened before the child’s eyes a marvelous world of unlimited possibilities in which America must play a crucial role, a world in which every person was presumed to have an opportunity to help shape the course of events.

Little Mildred admired a distinguished neighbor, Woodrow Wilson. “I was around seven years old . . . Well, I organized all the children, and we made a big group, and we walked two or three miles, and we went to Shadow Lawn where President Wilson was staying; and I went up to the porch and rang the bell. The butler came out, and I explained that we had come to see President Wilson. He came out, and I remember him sitting on the porch in a wicker chair and talking to all of us. Of course, I don’t think I understood too well what he was saying, but I agreed because I knew his general views.”

Then came the War, Wilson’s moment of glory at Paris when he gave the world the League of Nations, followed by the failure of all his plans. “Considering your admiration for Wilson, how did you feel about the League of Nations and America’s failure to join it?” we asked. “Oh, I fought for his League of Nations. I remember, now with shame, an Italian girl who was against it, how I pulled her pigtails, because I was ferociously angry that she should be against the League of Nations. I felt the United States was leading the world into something that was better and might prevent war. I had lost some cousins in the war, and it was a painful experience to me.”

We asked Mrs. Mottahedeh about her business career. She and her husband, who was importing Persian handicrafts “done mostly by a Frenchman, who had no feeling for Persian art,” decided to “investigate and go deeply into the roots of Persian art, and clean out from the designs all the things [Page 72] that were extraneous, Victorian, European . . . And that began my first designing. That was forty-seven years ago, and I have been designing ever since,” Mrs. Mottahedeh said. She was proud of her achievement and of the reputation of the firm.

“This past year, it’s been very interesting,” she said. “Four of the largest and most important porcelain companies in the United States have come to me and asked me to do their designing for them, because little by little, all over the world the name has become known, because our designs embody a sense of world culture with the national roots, plus the American touch. I have to explain to you what the American touch is. Americans like to be able to wash everything. That means technically that you have to make it washable. They also like different colors than other countries, and so you have to digest the designs of other countries, which is in a sense to digest many, many cultures and bring out something which is no longer theirs and is really ours. This has been the story of art all over the world, just as Chinese culture has been digested by the French and become chinoiserie. Many people do not realize that every country has a different kind of light. Things which are designed, for instance, in Italy are seen in a golden light. Things are seen in the United States in a bluer light. So, in a sense, what I have done is international. In a sense it is also purely American.”

“In speaking of business,” we interjected, “you mentioned your early interest in the world, the bringing together of cultures; but business is considered to be essentially a moneymaking proposition.”

“Well,” Mrs. Mottahedeh said with a touch of impatience, “I had to learn about moneymaking. I remember once my husband sent me down to see a lady who owed us a lot of money, and we really needed it. We were two poor kids. I went to see her, and her story was so sad that I ended up lending her money. I had to learn about the practical angle of business. Our business has always been run in a different way from other businesses. I can remember in 1930 I went to a trade show in Chicago, and the man next door pushed into my room a man from a big company, saying, ‘He is so drunk he’ll buy anything from you. I have just signed him up for three thousand tea sets, now you see what you can get him to sign up for.’ I just said to this man, ‘Sir, I think you’d better go to your room and have a rest, and tomorrow, if you feel like coming to see me, please do.’”

Shifting her weight in the chair, Mrs. Mottahedeh paused for a second, then continued in lower and darker tones.

“That’s a very sad, sad part of business, that there are really so few people who are moral and ethical and who do not do tricks to their clients, to their government, to everybody. This is now reaching a climax in international business. I feel that the whole of business today is extremely immoral. If you go to a supermarket, you see people buying all sorts of junk foods through advertising. It’s very unfair, because these people are, in many cases, not able to afford them, and they’re very impressionable. It’s not good. It isn’t good nutrition, and, in the end, it’s not good for America. I think that there has to be great change. Business is important, and I think people are wrong in saying that you should not be in business. Business is the way of distributing the supplies of the world, the needs of the world. Imagine if you had to go around and barter a chicken for a bowl, every time you needed a bowl, or a chicken. We can’t go on bartering objects. We have to have a symbol for barter, which is money. And also, bartering is impractical, when you think on a world scale. So, we have to think that the food distribution, gasoline distribution, everything, distribution of all the needs of human beings has to be done by business. If business doesn’t have morality, you can see what can happen. We’ve seen lots of trials lately, and we know what can happen.”

“Do you think,” we asked, “that the economic system in the United States, in [Page 73] spite of the recession or depression, is still functional, viable?” The answer was an emphatic no.

“I think the present economic system in the United States is breaking down, for many reasons. First of all, there’s too sharp a swing to control by labor, to the point where a city like New York is becoming bankrupt because its civil servants can draw life pension after twenty years of work. I think that the whole fabric of American life has been, in a way, decayed by too many union demands. I think there’s no balance in our lives. We have the capitalists trying to earn profits for their stockholders, and labor locked in a real death grip with capital. This is not good. It has really just about strangled England, and it’s beginning to strangle the United States. And I don’t see any solution other than the Bahá’í solution. Our system is not functioning. Civil servants don’t have conscience to give a day’s work for what they’re paid. In fact, very few people have a work ethic any more in the United States. This has to be revived if the United States is going to become a world leader. The system as it is now is limping along and not working.”

The mention of a Bahá’í solution led us to ask why, considering that she was in business and doing well, considering her patriotism and the sense of belonging in the American system, did she become a Bahá’í. We were startled to hear her say: “Well, I should say that I became a Bahá’í against my will. I was introduced to the Bahá’ís by an Englishwoman, whom I met by accident at the place I was working before I was married. We became very good friends. I went to several meetings, and I objected violently to everything the Bahá’ís said. Finally, after eight months I realized that I was just arguing against my better judgment, and decided that this really was the future of the world, and that it contained all the essences of all the causes I had really been interested in from childhood. And so I became a Bahá’í.”

“Did becoming a Bahá’í change any of your views about the United States?” we asked. “Did it make a difference in the way you related to the country?”

“I suppose it did. In a way, I maybe became a little less American, in that I was always a very patriotic person, and I believed a lot in what America was going to do and could do, and in the strength of America. When I became a Bahá’í, I realized that the strength came from the amalgamation of many, many people of other countries, and many other ideas, and that the richness of America was its composite, and as a Bahá’í I became more interested in the world and how the world affected America and vice versa.”

“Let us pursue this a little further,” we said. “From 1945 for some twenty years you represented the Bahá’í International Community as an Observer accredited to the United Nations. You became involved with international problems. How did that affect your mentality, and did you ever feel a conflict between internationalism and your American patriotism?”

“No, I did not, and I think it was because I was a Bahá’í. At the first international conference on human rights called for the nongovernmental organizations in 1948 in Geneva, I listened to what was said, but after the first day I realized that the Bahá’ís knew more about consultation than anybody else at the United Nations, because we were well practiced in it in our communities.”

“As a Bahá’í, then, how do you understand America’s role as a world leader?”

Hesitantly at first, then warming up to the subject, Mrs. Mottahedeh said, “I think that she has gone through a very bad period. She’s not finished with it. It’s the purge that Shoghi Effendi spoke of. I think that America has undoubtedly a great role to play in world leadership. That we should remove ourselves and become isolationists is an idea that horrifies many people abroad. Now, why is it? I’ve analyzed this. Because certainly Americans are being extremely immoral in business. Their public life is . . . I don’t know how to say it. It’s shameless. Absolutely shameless. [Page 74] Anything goes. It’s become a loud, sensationalist, pornographic society. But basically, there is something there, a sense of mission, which I don’t find anywhere else in the world. At the very core, there is this sense of mission for the world, and I think it will emerge after America goes through some more internal cleansing, which it badly needs. It has to come in every branch of our lives. Perhaps we have, as they say about the depression, ‘bottomed out.’ But there’s still a long way to go before we can assume the proper role of leadership that all the world knows America has, and that America knows it has.”

“Now, Mrs. Mottahedeh,” we said, “you are personally acquainted with a number of outstanding Americans who are prominent in politics, in government, in business. Do you see or sense among them the desire for moral and spiritual change?”

“Yes. I remember a long conversation that my husband and I had one night coming from Milan to Como. There was a young Maoist, who was in our first-class compartment going out to Como, and he was venturing his ideas about Americans being dirty capitalists and this and that. We began to tell him all the various parts of social life which were funded by Americans with ideals. In medical research, in scientific research, in all sorts of social fields, people who had worked hard and climbed up through their own efforts, and who were giving away, not only vast fortunes, but all of their efforts to making society better. I don’t think that people realize how many idealists there are in the United States, how much work and money, and work or money, is given by Americans to all sorts of social causes. We are fundamentally an idealistic people, and I know many people of great wealth who could, if they wanted to, just enjoy themselves, but their pleasure is really in serving. I say this about people whom I know very well, and I know that they spend all of their time, with very little recreation, for what they think will better society.”

“Have your own efforts to help set up educational, health, and vocational training programs in several underdeveloped areas of the world taught you anything?”

“It seems as though being both a Bahá’í and a person concerned with international affairs has brought me to a conclusion which I myself did not expect. One time, I did a four-month survey of the development possibilities in southeast Asia and the Pacific for the United Nations. I met all sorts of people and made many, many suggestions, some of which I have seen come to pass and been carried out. Now, all of this . . . perhaps it did some good. But it also has changed me. I think that anybody who tries to do something for humanity has to be changed by it. Though I still feel that I am an American, and I have turned down the idea of buying a house in England or buying a villa in Italy, and I do enjoy being with Americans, yet, in a sense, I have become an international person. When I go to another country and I talk to somebody, I do not see him as a person of another nationality. I see him as a human being and a citizen of the world, and that’s how I feel myself, about myself. I suppose that my way of thinking is American, and yet it has been tempered by all these experiences, so I really feel that I can meet anybody in the world as a fellow citizen, and I hope that this is the way that Americans who will travel in the future, and do their great mission in the world, will feel about everybody else, too.”

“On the eve of America’s Bicentennial, what of her future?” we asked. “Can America move to become something better, something greater than she is now?”

“Americans are extremists, and they are very warm and dynamic, and I think that when they espouse a cause, they are really very passionate about it, as you can see in their efforts to clean the American government in the recent year and a half. I think that there is going to be a reform wave in the United States, and it’s going to go in another direction. There is already beginning to be a reaction to not even washing yourself, [Page 75] and just being nature boy. Well, we haven’t really been nature people for thousands of years, and this return couldn’t last very long. So I think that there’s going to be a new direction for the morality of America, for young people, which is the most important thing. I think that they will gradually— and I hope it’s gradual—they will gradually come back to a period of world leadership, but not until they’ve cleaned their own houses. I think they’re in the process of doing this right now. Then, I do think that they will again be the force for assisting the underdogs of the world. Now, I mean this in the sense that Americans have always had a special feeling for people who are less fortunate. I read once that a group of people tested this out, got some boxes, and made little slits in them; and they wrote on the boxes, ‘Please give for two-headed babies.’ And they collected a tremendous amount of money in a short time. It’s because Americans themselves, having come from mostly humble origins, and from having to fight their way up, have a special feeling for people who have less. I think that basically they do have this feeling for the whole world, and it will impel them forward to helping other people. They don’t know too much about other people and other people’s feelings, and they often, in their generosity, do the wrong thing, but they are becoming more—shall I say sophisticated—about the rest of the world in trying to find out about what other people need. They have a natural warm generosity, which leads them to share what they have in material possessions and in know-how. It isn’t very easy to do this, because people are very jealous of them, and they have to learn to do it without arrogance, that we know everything best. They found out, as they went around the world, that they did not know everything best, that local conditions made certain local customs more effective than what they thought they could do. But Americans are learning this, and I think that they will fulfill the great role that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá foresaw for them when He came here in 1912. He was speaking to a country that was largely isolationist, and certainly something turned them around just at that time. They were soon drawn into the war which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá predicted would come in a very short time, and they have steadily become more international. I think that this is reflected in every branch of their lives—their interest in religions of other countries. Americans are really seeking for a new national soul. When they have found some of this national soul, I think they will be ready to take that station that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá promised when He said that they would lead all nations spiritually."

There was a long silence finally interrupted by the click of the tape recorder. Rafi Mottahedeh, gentle and smiling, joined us in the library. Through glass doors we could see blue-faced children who had been swimming too long in a large pool under a cloudy grey sky.

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Authors & Artists

JAMES H. MOORHEAD, assistance professor of religion at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, recently completed his doctorate at Yale University. He has also attended Westminster College in Pennsylvania and Princeton Theological Seminary. Mr. Moorhead specializes in American religious history and has written several articles in the field.

NOSRATOLLAH RASSEKH is a professor and chairman of the Department of History at Lews and Clark College. He holds a B.A. degree in political science, an M.A. degree in international relations, and a Ph.D. in history, all from Stanford University. He twice held the Ray Lyman Wilbur Scholarship in American history from Stanford and since 1970 has been a Fellow of Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Dr. Rassekh makes a third appearance in World Order, his “The Non-Hero in History” having appeared in Fall 1967 and “Of Time, Space, and Man: Reflections on Progressive Revelation” in Summer 1974. His publications also include A Bibliography of Persian Gulf Sheikdoms; his “White Revolution of Írán” is at press at the Hoover Institution.

WILLIAM STAFFORD, professor at Lewis and Clark College, has made previous appearances in World Order. His poems have been published widely in literary magazines, and collections of his work appear in several anthologies, including Some Day, Maybe and Allegiances. Professor Stafford was consultant in poetry at the Library of Congress, 1970-71, and, among other honors, has received the National Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1974 he was named Poet Laureate of the State of Oregon.

ART CREDITS: Front cover, photograph of a portion of the Declaration of Independence, courtesy the Bettmann Archive; p. 1, photograph by H. Armstrong Roberts; p. 7, American Army discharge document signed by George Washington, photographed from the private collection of Mr. and Mrs. James Williams of Wilmette, Illinois; p. 12, photograph of the Statue of Liberty by H. Armstrong Roberts; p. 26, photograph by Joon Chung; p. 27, photograph of the details of a column of the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, courtesy Bahá’í Information Office; p. 38, Mark Tobey’s “Public Market Types”, ink and tempera on paper, 1941, from the Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, courtesy Seattle Art Museum; p. 47, Romar Bearden’s “Mother and Child,” 1970, courtesy the artist; p. 55, Mark Tobey’s “Seated Japanese Figure”, ink on Japanese paper, 1934, from the Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, courtesy Seattle Art Museum; p. 63, David Villaseñor’s “Desert Madonna,” sandpainting, courtesy the artist; p. 69, dinner plate with the imprint of the Badge of the Society of Cincinnati, part of a service purchased circa. 1786 by George Washington, who was first president of the Society, from the Chinese porcelain collection of Rafi and Mildred Mottahadeh; p. 64, pieces of Chinese porcelain belonging to early Americans, including George Washington, from the private collection of Rafi and Mildred Mottahadeh; p. 76, commemorative George Washington kerchief probably released at the time of the United States Centennial, from the private collection of Mr. and Mrs. James Williams of Wilmette, Illinois; back cover, photograph of the Liberty Bell.

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