T. Noel Stern's letter in the March 2000 Bulletin mentioned Jesse Herman Holmes, former professor of religion and philosophy. It brought to mind an anecdote about this interesting man.
As a faculty brat in the 1930s, I had met Holmes and perhaps even seen the plain pine box he kept upright in his front hall. Determined not to be a source of profit for the funeral industry that he frowned on, he had had his good friend Mr. Rawson make him this box. (Rawson, then teaching woodworking at the School in Rose Valley, was the grandfather of Ken Rawson '50.)
Good friends would die, and Holmes' box would be given away. When Jesse Holmes did die, there was no coffin ready for him, so Mr. Rawson went to the shop the next morning and made one.
This tale may be somewhat apocryphal, but it is one I was told and took on faith. It seemed right for the man--and not a bad idea for nowadays.
Carolyn Wilcox '52
Gardiner, N.Y.
Although I agree that the quality of The Phoenix has improved markedly, I think it's unfair to legions of past Phoenix staffers to characterize the paper the way the Bulletin did in its March issue ("The Phoenix gets a facelift" in "Collection").
For many years, Phoenix editors knew exactly what would improve the quality of the paper--money. This is not a recent discovery. Editors did their best, but the writing and staffing pool was not enough to produce large amounts of quality material on a weekly basis without some incentive. Everyone who tried, including myself, was repeatedly told by both the Student Budget Committee and the College that payment for the long hours of Phoenix editors and writers was out of the question.
Only after the College became concerned in 1998 that The Phoenix might not continue, because staff size and interest had waned to a new nadir, did President Bloom provide for the newspaper's future.
It's amazing how people will actually provide content for a publication if they are getting paid. Everybody's arguments, including Min Lee's ['00], Dan Fanaras' ['99], Nick Attanasio's ['00], and mine, were proven to be absolutely correct--pay writers and editors, and The Phoenix will become a real paper. The only question remaining is, why did it take the College decades to realize this?
Patrick Runkle '98
East Petersburg, Pa.
Editor's Note: Patrick Runkle is a former editor-in-chief of The Phoenix. Starting in 1999, top editors of The Phoenix have been paid a salary through funds provided by the Office of the President. Staff writers are also compensated.
I was interested in the article about Quaker matchboxes through the decades ("Swarthmore's Matchbox Flames," March 2000). Just for fun, I glanced through our freshman handbook for the Class of 1946, which listed those students entering in the fall of 1942.
Because of the war, some students stayed for only one year, and many of our original classmates finished in different years, so I have obviously lost track of a few. But, counting to the best of my knowledge, I think that 32 members of our class married fellow Swarthmoreans.
Another statistic that alumni might find interesting is that our family, which now has its fifth consecutive Swarthmore generation in the classes of 1998 and 2003, has three generations of Quaker matchboxes: Eleanor Stabler '18 married Bill Clarke '17; I married Marshall Schmidt '47; and Peggy Schmidt '71 married Bob Clark '71. In addition, I had an aunt and uncle who married classmates as well as three cousins who follow the same tradition.
I think it's fair to say that we are really a Quaker matchbox family.
Kinnie Clarke Schmidt '46
Princeton, N.J.
Arnold Krell '49 writes that the street boys of his youth accused him, a Jew, of being guilty of killing Jesus Christ ("Letters," March 2000). He seems willing to accept and repeat their theology, despite its lowly source. He does the same with the lies of present-day slanderers of Pope Pius XII.
If what Krell says in his letter is true, then why did Golda Meir call Pius XII "a great servant of peace"?
Why did The New York Times editorial of December 25, 1942, state: "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas.... He is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all."
Why did the chief rabbi of Rome, Emilio Zolli, convert to Catholicism based on the holy example of Pius XII, his personal friend?
Why is it that there were 9,500 Jews in Rome, yet when the order was given to round them up, Nazi police squads could find only 1,259? All the rest had found safety, at Pius' orders, in 155 churches, convents, and monasteries throughout Rome as well as in the Vatican. Forty thousand Jews were saved in Italy and 800,000 in Europe as a whole--thanks to the intervention of Pius XII and the Catholic clergy, both religious and lay.
Space prevents me from presenting a full refutation to the vilification found in Krell's letter, but anyone interested in the truth can begin with the Web site www.catholicleague.org/-truth. Pinchas E. Lapide, an Israeli diplomat, wrote Three Popes and the Jews to defend the role of the Church, specifically against the detraction of the play The Deputy. Yet it seems that no amount of scholarship will prevent some who are determined to repeat baseless slanders.
Leila Elmaghraby Lawler '82
Lancaster, Mass.
I enjoyed the article on James Egleson's mural in Hicks Hall, but it appears from the article that the Bulletin did not reproduce all of it. When I was at Swarthmore in the early 1960s, McCarthyism was still rampant, and none of my professors, nor anyone else for that matter, said anything about such a mural--or about this type of art that was common in the 1930s, especially through the Federal Arts Project. I hope you will eventually reproduce the entire mural.
David Morgan '63
Cedar Falls, Iowa
Editor's Note: Despite our gatefold, we didn't have space for all 11 panels of Egleson's mural. We did photograph all of them, however, and readers may see them at www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/archive/00/mar00/backpages.html.
After reading "Religion in the Age of Science" (December 1999), I searched for Professor Barbour's Templeton Prize speech, which he delivered in Moscow, proximate to the tomb of the man who said:
The proletariat of today ... enlists science in the battle against the fog of religion and frees the workers from their belief in life after death ... to fight in the present for a better life on earth. (V.I. Lenin, Socialism and Religion, 1905)
Communism's fight for a better life on earth has so far claimed 100 million souls, and yet Dr. Barbour said nothing about this holocaust in his speech. This is especially interesting in light of his support for Darwin's theory of evolution, which Marx and Engels employed as the "scientific" foundation for dialectical materialism:
[Darwin] dealt the metaphysical conception of Nature the heaviest blow by his proof that all organic beings, plants, animals, and man himself, are the products of a process of evolution going on through millions of years. (F. Engels, Utopian and Scientific, Part III, 1877)
Surely 100 million deaths flowing from communist abuse of Darwin's theory was at least worth mentioning? At the Kremlin? When speaking about science and religion? "Hold on," one might say, "Barbour's not concerned with the misuse of evolution by politicians!" I thought that might be the case as well, but then I reread the last paragraph of his speech, which is very highly political:
The [Bible] can empower us to seek environmental preservation, human dignity, and social justice.... It will take all our efforts together to bring an age of global peace and human fulfillment on God's good earth. (emphasis added)
Sounds pretty utopian, political, and materialist to me! But Jesus said that His Kingdom was not of this world, didn't He? So, what happens to Christ in Barbour's age of earthly bliss? Verily, He has been replaced by a "dynamic universe," where "Science [sic] helps us see the immanence of God." Or, as Professor Barbour said in his speech: "We must give greater attention to God's immanence working within the universe, without denying transcendence."
Well, not denying Christ's transcendence is one thing, but reducing Him to a mere aside in a PC crusade for social justice is quite another and very troubling.
If there is a spiritual reality, then it is transcendent and superior to physical reality and should be acknowledged as such. If there is not, we should resign ourselves to a "might makes right" world and stop talking nonsense about religion, peace, and human fulfillment. Professor Barbour should, therefore, decide whether he lives in Lenin's universe or in Jesus Christ's, because he cannot live in both, and no amount of well-intentioned dialogue can make it so. As for me, I would rather live in Christ's universe, suffering the slings and arrows of right-wingers at the Kansas Board of Education, than surrender to scientific mass murderers with utopian fantasies of creating heaven on earth.
Theodore Hannon '74
Kailua, Hawaii
Some time ago, the alumni magazine featured a cover article [about] philosophy professor Rich Schuldenfrei (June 1998). The caption for his befuddled picture stated, "I have no answers."
May I respectfully maintain that there are no questions? Innocent, childlike, and "full of wonder" are the qualities for the correct, happy, and peaceful outlook on oneself and, therefore, the world.
Who loves Swarthmore? Me. Love and kisses,
Tony Colletti '75
Amagansett, N.Y.
CORRECTION
Keelyn Bradley was identified in "Don't Forget to Write" (March 2000) as a member of the Class of 1999. Bradley prefers to be listed as a member of the Class of 1995. Alumni are reminded that they may choose a "social class year" by contacting the Alumni and Gift Records Office at (610) 328-8408.
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