Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 1995-02-01

ith a large
dose of cooper­
ation from the weath­
er, construction on the
new north campus
academ ic building
remains on schedule.
The foundation was
com pleted in midNovember, and steel
was erected during
Decem ber. In the bot­
tom photo, the build­
ing is swaddled in
tarps to retain heat to
help cure concrete
floor decking. During
this month fireproof­
ing and utility work
was completed. Instal­
lation o f the stone
exterior walls is
scheduled to begin
late this month. When
finished next January,
the three-story facility
will house the depart­
ments o f Economics,
Modern Languages
and Literatures, and
Sociology and Anthro­
pology, plus class­
rooms and labs.

■

PHOTOS TAKEN FROM THE ROOF OF
MARTIN BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY
BY STEVEN GOLDBLATT ’67

COLLEGE BULLETIN • FEBRUARY 1995

10 From Man to M onum ent

Editor:
Jeffrey Lott
Assistant Editor:
Nancy Lehman ’87
News Editor:
Kate Downing
Class Notes Editor:
Carol Brévart
Desktop Publishing:
Audree Penner
Designer:
Bob Wood
Editor Emerita:
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
Associate Vice President
for External Affairs
Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59
Coven Perhaps the best-known
image of William Penn is the rosycheeked Quaker from the oats
box, yet there are no known
paintings or drawings made dur­
ing the modest Friend’s lifetime.
Just how he became an icon is
explored on page 10. Painting by
Julie Berger Hochstrasser ’74.
Photo by Deng-Jeng Lee.
Printed in U.S.A on Recycled Paper

The Sw arthm ore College Bulletin (ISSN
0888-2126), o f which this is volum e
XCII, num ber 3, is published in Septem ­
ber, N ovem ber, February, March, May,
and August by Sw arthm ore College, 500
College A venue, Sw arthm ore PA 190811397. Telephone (6 1 0 ) 328-8401. E-mail
bulletin@ sw arthm ore.edu. S eco n d class
postage paid at Sw arthm ore PA and
additional m ailing offices. Perm it No.
0530-620. Postm aster: S en d address
changes to Sw arthm ore College Bul­
letin, 500 College A venue, Sw arthm ore
PA 19081-1397.

An unw orldly Q u aker a n d c lev er courtier, a d efen d er o f liberties
an d a co lo n ia l lord prop rietor, W illiam Penn rem ain s a study in
contrasts. H istorian J. W illiam F rost lo o k s a t the leg acy o f the
m an w h ose in tellect an d ach iev em en ts sh a p ed a new colony.
By J . W illiam Frost

16 S h a do w s o f an E xe cu tio n
Calling it a “p o litically m otiv ated fram e-up, ” M ich ael M eerop ol
’64 h as la b o red to p ro v e th e in n ocen ce o f h is paren ts, Julius
an d E thel R osen berg. In a n ew b o o k , h e h a s co m p iled letters
written during th eir tw o y ea rs aw aitin g ex ecu tion fo r esp ion ag e.
By Audree Penner

22 G ood S p o rts
Andy D an ilchick ’95 is the founder, director, recruiter, an d c h ie f
p rom oter fo r E ducation Through Sports. C en tered arou n d
team w ork th e program s e e k s to d ev elo p h ealth y p erso n a l
habits, sou n d values, a n d self-esteem in d isad v an tag ed kids.
By B arb ara Haddad Ryan ’59

64 W h y W e S ing
The Sw arthm ore C ollege G osp el C hoir w as b o m in 1971 to h elp
establish b la ck cultural identity on cam pus. O ne o f th e founding
m em bers lo o k s b a c k a t th e group that “lea rn ed to sing the
g o sp el tog eth er” an d rem ain s a p erm an en t fo rce 24 y ea rs later.
By Cheryl Sanders ’74

2

4
28
30
36
56

Letters
Collection
Alumni Digest
Class Notes
Deaths
R ecent Books by Alumni

colleague who edits a big university alumni magazine
likens Mis publication to an in-flight magazine, except that
all of the passengers on his airline are graduates of the
same university. I don’t know about that. He may think he
has a captive audience, but I tend to read in-flight magazines about
as carefully as I watch the explanation of the oxygen mask. I’d rather
look out the window—though I would like to know why the little
plastic bag doesn’t have to fully inflate
My concept of the Bulletin is more like the Smithsonian with class
notes. Sure, it’s an institutional magazine, but we want you to read it
because it’s interesting, not out of some strapped-in sense of obliga­
tion. We hope that every issue will provoke you to think a little, to
learn, and to feel connected with Swarthmore in the process.
Last summer we confirmed that most of you do just that. A ran­
dom survey of 250 recipients of the Bulletin told us that 71 percent
of you read all or most of every issue. (More results of the survey
are opposite, in “Postings.”) Yet you also told us that while you like
the feature articles—and especially
the class notes—you want more
news of the College today. So with
this Bulletin, we introduce a renovat­
Officially sanctioned
ed news section called “Collection ”
College-wide
We couldn’t resist the name and
Collection is back.
all of its historic connotations at the
College. For Swarthmoreans a Collec­
tion is more than a gathering of objects or specimens, it’s a gather­
ing of people. Actually, this sense of “Collection” has a particular
Swarthmore etymology. According to Mary Ellen Grafflin Chijioke
’67, curator of Friends Historical Library, the term—taken as a rough
equivalent of “assembly”—was adopted in the 1920s when required
attendance at Meeting for Worship was replaced with required
weekly Collection. Through this distant association, it took on a
Friendly cast, though in reality it has no origins in Quaker usage. It
was chosen, says Chijioke, because it is “religiously neutral.”
Over the years Collection apparently became more and more like
an in-flight magazine—obligatory, yet only occasionally interesting.
And in 1971, when anything mandatory was anathema, it was aban­
doned. (Its demise, of course, was immediately and widely
mourned, perhaps most especially by those who had caused it.)
Happily, the unveiling of the Bulletin's new section coincides with
another campus milestone: Officially sanctioned College-wide Col­
lection is back. Beginning in March—and largely because of student
requests for it—a monthly gathering of the entire College communi­
ty will be (re)instituted. Though nothing else will be scheduled dur­
ing that Friday afternoon time period, attendance is now voluntary.
Kind of like reading the Bulletin. But we hope that both new “Collec­
tions” are interesting enough to be a success, and that through this
magazine you will remain a part of the gathering.
—J.L .

PARLOR TALK

2

Ûta

L E

The Bulletin w elcom es letters from
readers concerning the contents of
the m agazine or issues relating to
the College. All letters must be
signed an d m ay b e ed ited for clarity
and space. A ddress your letters to
Editor, Swarthmore College Bulletin,
500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA
19081-1397, or sen d by electronic
m ail to bulletin@swarthmore.edu.

“R esp ectfu l Faith”
N ot an O xym oron
To the Editor:
I was very interested in “Saying The
‘G’ Word” (November 1994). Really
the issue is not secular versus spiri­
tual, fundamentalist versus atheist,
or skeptical versus faithful. It is sim­
ple respect for other people. We are
all part of the same “creation,”
wherever that creation happens to
have “come from.” The wonder is
that we are all here at all. Dean Lythcott really has it right when she
says, “I’d like to believe that a wellrounded person has a spiritual
aspect to his or her life.... Not neces­
sarily church-based, or even Godbased, but a sense of the spirit, a
connectedness to the universe.”
Bravo!
The Rev. Leonard Willinger ’58
[whose letter appeared in the same
issue] writes using language that
comes across as bigoted. My dictio­
nary defines “bigot” as “1) A person
who holds blindly and intolerantly
to a particular creed, opinion, etc. 2)
A narrow-minded, intolerant per­
son.” And he has his facts wrong
when he says, “The Lord Jesus put
it all here....” Most thoughtful funda­
mentalists I know believe that God
created heaven and earth in six
days; Jesus was sent by God some­
what later, when problems devel­
oped.
I respect Willinger as a fellow
human, and I certainly respect his
right to say whatever he wishes.
Unfortunately, at this time I have
very little respect for the content of
his discourse, as it evinces no
respect for others. For what it’s
worth, I too believe in God, proba­
bly as strongly as Willinger. If Will­
inger takes the trouble to read any­
thing other than the Bible, he might
discover that many scientists, as
they probe deeper and deeper into
SW A RTH M O RE C O LLEG E BULLETIN

t

i

e

r

the mysteries of quantum physics,
are becoming convinced that there
is some sort of supreme force in the
universe—whether or not they refer
to it as “God.”
Atruly open and inquiring mind
! knows that “respectful faith” is not
aA an oxymoron—and I learned that (at
least in part) at Swarthmore!
ROBERT A. FREEDMAN ’58
New York
7

God Gave Us
Intellect and Tools

i
To the Editor:
y j 1agree with Leonard Willinger and
ri'
believe that God created the uniI verse and our spirituality. However,
m" how He created both of these is
lre truly a mystery. The Bible says only
! that these things were created
0
sequentially, leading us to believe
that there was primordial matter.
If there are ways to piece togeth­
er the events of the past and to fill in
the details of creation, then I sup­
port that work. God gave us the
es‘ intellect and the tools to solve these
mysteries, and so long as we do not
deny God the credit for the creation,
I think He will allow us to continue
to find clues as to just how it all hap­
pened.
ie
GLENN A. SHINGLEDECKER P’96
,
Singapore

311 Faith supports tru th

y To the Editor:
1^ I “Saying the ‘G’ Word” recalled the
religious problems I encountered on
entering Swarthmore as a Methodist
1
minister’s son in 1937.
,a"
My religious beliefs foundered
not because of any “pervasive skep­
ticism” but because of their incom­
patibility with the body of historical,
scientific, literary, and philosophical
knowledge available to me for the
first time. Their loss did not end my
interest in ultimate questions, nor
did I replace what I had lost by
I s°me secular faith in scientific
method. Furthermore I have not
been tempted by William James or,
inlater years, Joseph Campbell, to
redefine truth and knowledge in
terms of what might be comforting
y
or desirable. Faith supports but
does not create truth.
Humanity has always searched

^

POSTINGS

s

e’ve been told that it’s un-Quak~
endar, only 65 percent remembered
erly to brag, so we’ll try to stick
getting the R eport o f Gifts—yet they are
to the facts. But, as actress Sally Field
always mailed in the same envelope.
once sobbed at the Oscars, “You like •We found support for publishing a
us. You really like us.”
new alumni directory (last issued in
•Last summer the Publications
1989), and more than half of respon­
Office conducted a random survey of
dents said they would pay for one (the
425 alumni and 75 parents to find out
old one was free).
how they feel about the College’s vari­
•In testing specific Bulletin articles
ous external publications. Our six-page
from 1993 and 1994, we found that you
questionnaire was returned by 47.6
like stories about the College (duh!).
percent of the survey group.
Five of the 10 most popular features
•Of course, we know that such sur­
concerned student life, curriculum, or
veys tend to be filled out by people
contemporary campus issues. Three
who have positive feelings about the
others focused on Swarthmore history.
College. Perhaps that’s why 85 percent
(Yet all five of the least popular articles
of the respondents said they had made were also about the College.)
a gift to Swarthmore in the past three
•The three best-liked features were
years. At least we learned what our
“Essays That Worked” (student appli­
friends think about us.
cation essays), “Strange Days” (inter­
•The annual engagement calendar
views with members of the Class of
is the most popular item
1969), and “The Chal­
we send out, follow ed
lenge of Change” (about
closely by this magazine,
President Courtney
What are we
with 83 percent using the
Smith and student
calendar at home or in
activism). The biggest
going to do
the office, and 71 percent
flop: “Join the Club,” a
reading all or most of the
with all this
look at club sports.
Bulletin. ■
•What are we going to
information? do with all this informa­
•74 percent of survey
respondents keep each
tion? For starters there’s
issue of the B ulletin for
“Collection,” the renovat­
three weeks or more. “I’ve been known
ed College news section that debuts in
to copy articles for co-workers, superi­ this issue of the Bulletin.
ors, and friends,” noted one kind soul
•Readers told us they liked an infor­
in the margin.
mative, easy-to-read Garnet Letter, so
•Class notes are the most popular
we are redesigning it to be a more
part of the Bulletin: 86 percent said
accessible, interesting, and artful
they read all or most of their own and
newsletter.
nearby notes. Thanks, secretaries!
•The Development Committee of
•50 percent read all or most of the
the Board of Managers has asked for a
Garnet Letter. The P resident’s R eport
new alumni directory to be undertaken
did not fare as well, with only 22 per­
in 1996, and the Alumni Council has
cent reading all or most. Yet 62 per­
lent its support.
cent said that President Bloom’s essay
•We are examining the efficacy of
on multiculturalism was “very interest­
other publications as well. The R eport
ing” or “interesting,” so we know they
o f Gifts, whose cost was reduced by
read this. One person asked that the
about half three years ago, may under­
president focus more on athletics, and
go further change. The contents of the
another said he liked Bloom’s letters to P resident’s R eport, while they provide
alumni on current College issues.
an important document of record for
•The R eport o f Gifts isn’t very wellthe College, are also under scrutiny.
read—or is it? Only 11 percent read all
•The goal? To support the College’s
or most, yet 83 percent admitted that
educational program by better com­
they looked for their names or the
municating Swarthmore’s strengths
names of friends in the listings of
and needs. To extend and renew the
donors. (Ah, vanity—that’s why we
ties that bind Swarthmoreans together.
continue to publish it.)
And, in the words of one respondent,
•Curiously, while 94 percent said
“to represent the ideals that the Col­
they had received the engagement cal­
lege stands for.”
—J.L.

■

P le a s e turn to p a g e 6 0
:

FEBRUARY 19 9 5

3

Current sophom ores m ay apply
to new, more flexible Honors Program

Kyle, Temin, and Ashar are
named to Board o f Managers

T

hree new members were elected to the College’s
Board of Managers at its December meeting. Freder­
ick W. Kyle ’54 and Davia B. Temin ’74 were named Alum­
ni Managers; Sameer M. Ashar ’91
was named Young Alumni Manager.
All will serve four-year terms.
Kyle is managing director of Finisterre Management Corporation in
Philadelphia. After attending the
Advanced Management Program of
the Harvard Business School, Kyle
held top positions in several of
SmithKline Beecham’s international
Frederick Kyle ’54
markets. In 1992-93 he served as
senior vice president of biomedical
services for the American Red
Cross.
Temin is currently vice president
and director of marketing for
Wertheim Schroder & Co., an inter­
national investment bank in New
York. Previously she was president
of her own firm, the Temin Group,
which consulted on marketing, posi­
Davia Temin ’74
tioning, and strategy issues for the
financial and entertainment indus­
tries. She received an M.A. from
Columbia University in 1976.
Ashar is a candidate for J.D. at
Harvard Law School, where he
serves as general editor and sympo­
sium coordinator for the H arvard
Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law
Review . He is a teaching assistant
and co-chair of the Harvard Law
Sam eer Ashar ’91
School Coalition for Civil Rights.

A

t the recommendation of the College’s Curricu­
lum Committee, the newly revised Honors Pro­
gram has been implemented for the current
sophomore class.
Revisions designed to reinvigorate the program were
approved by the faculty last spring in response to con­
cerns expressed by students and faculty members about
limits to the existing program. Key features of the new
program are external evaluation, inclusion of concentra­
tions as sponsors of Honors minors, grading of prepara­
tions (except for theses and other original work to be
graded by external evaluators), and creation of Senior
Honors Study as a credit-bearing element of the new pro­
gram. The new program also provides increased flexibili­
ty in methods of preparation for external evaluation and
in the means by which that evaluation is accomplished.
“Greater flexibility in defining preparations and modes
of assessment will allow each department and program
to set as the standard for Honors the kind of work they
believe their best students should be doing,” explained
Provost Jennie Keith. “This can include experiences such
as study abroad, field research, community-based learn­
ing, and studio or performing arts, which have not been
easily compatible with the traditional seminar format.
The broader term ‘preparation’ indicates the faculty’s
intent to broaden the range of educational experiences
from which students create their programs in Honors.”
The changes come after a year and a half of discus­
sions led by a Council on Educational Policy task force in
response to the steady decline over the past 30 years in
the number of students applying for and being accepted
into Honors. Only 13 percent of the Class of 1995 are par­
ticipating in the existing program.
President Alfred H. Bloom said: “The College has
made the hard choices necessary to re-establish Honors
as its signature program because it believes that the
Honors experience represents the kind of intellectual
and personal stretch that every Swarthmore student
should make. No initiative could have been more impor­
tant to sustaining the high expectations Swarthmore sets
for its students and for itself.”

C om m unity art in the List Gallery
Som e 42 m em bers o f the faculty and staff and their
spouses and partners took part in an exhibition o f arts
and crafts in December. Held in the List Gallery o f the
Eugene M. and Theresa Lang Performing Arts Center, the
opening reception on Dec. 2 drew avid spectators as
w ell as the artists them selves. Pictured here are (from
left) Lenny Wilson, a m em ber o f the grounds crew, who
exhibited shoes m ade o f leaves; George Huber, music
librarian, who presented m arbled paper; and faculty
spouses Valerie Hollister, who show ed printed p aper ties,
and Nancy Rose, who crafted a kaleidoscope quilt. Hol­
lister, who assem bled the show, said it is hoped the
effort will becom e a biennial event.

4

SW ARTHM ORE CO LLEG E BULLETIN

Coi

En|

1
you

new

nee

No

bei

degl
New
Cen
C
ton
{inai
thei
Scie
Julie
brin
ture
fort
C
men
Con
effoi
an h
C
righ
Ame
fists
regi:
ject,

FEBR

It

>
i1
;s

Engineering Professors Art McGarity and Fred Orthlieb display
flakes sorted by the plastics therm al separator.

Conveyor belts and stick y plastics:
Engineers te st a new recycling system

T

here’s a huge market out there for recycled plastics.
But because of transportation and separation
expenses, getting those soda and milk bottles from
your curbside to the manufacturer is a costly enterprise. A
new process being tested by members of the College’s engi­
neering faculty and students may reduce not only the cost

of retrieving the plastics but also the time involved.
Funded by a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Resources to the Borough of Swarthmore,
College engineers have developed a scale model of a
machine capable of sorting different types of shredded
plastic flakes.
Based on an idea conceived by the private firm Recov­
ery Systems Technologies of Horsham, Pa., a plastics ther­
mal separator was built on campus. Because low- and highdensity polymers soften at different temperatures, the
flakes, as they cool, roll off the heated conveyer belt at dif­
ferent points into separate collection boxes. From there
they can be packaged for sale to manufacturers for reuse in
carpets, milk containers, bottles, lawn furniture, landscape
timbers, and a host of other products.
With the scale model up and running, the next step is to
refine the design, build a prototype, and conduct further
tests using actual recyclables collected in the Borough of
Swarthmore.
But don’t look for the new system to be in place anytime
soon. Many questions still loom large: Does the amount of
energy to heat the conveyor belt cost more than the cur­
rent method of manual separation? What kind of heat is
most efficient (the current model uses radiant heat)? Does
the process of heating produce toxic fumes? And what
about cleaning off the milk or syrup still clinging to bottles?
Stay tuned.

Noted civil liberties lawyer and College
benefactor Julien Cornell ’30 dies
ulien Cornell ’30, emeritus member of the College’s Board
of Managers and civil liberties lawyer, died Dec. 2. After
receiving a B.A. from Swarthmore, Cornell earned a law
degree from Yale University in 1933 and practiced law in
NewYork City until 1950 when he moved his practice to
Central Valley, N.Y.
Cornell and his family, including his wife, Virginia Strat­
ton Cornell ’30, have given generously of their time and
financial resources to help support the College. Among
their major gifts are the Julien and Virginia Stratton Cornell
Science and Engineering Library, dedicated in 1982, and the
Julien and Virginia Cornell Visiting Professorship, which
brings professors and lecturers from other nations and cul­
tures to campus. The family also helped provide funding
for the building of the Friends Historical Library.
During his tenure on the board, Cornell was a long-time
member of the Development Committee and the Property
Committee, serving as chair from 1978 to 1982. For his
efforts on behalf of his profession, the College awarded him
an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 1983.
Cornell’s career was notable in particular for his civil
rights work. During World War II, at the request of the
American Civil Liberties Union, he represented young paci­
fists who had refused on moral and religious grounds to
register for the draft. He published two books on the sub­
ject, The Conscientious O bjector an d the Law and C onscience

:s

¡¡81
P

/

ITIN

FEBRUARY 1 9 9 5

STEVEN GOLDBLATT ’67

J

Julien Cornell ’30, a m em ber o f the Board o f Managers for m ore
than 20 years, gave generously in his support for the College.
and the State. In another highly visible case, he defended
Ezra Pound, who was charged with treason for his broad­
casts over Italian radio during World War II. He told the
unusual story of Pound’s trial, confinement, and eventual
release in the book The Trial o f Ezra Pound.
Besides his wife of 62 years, Cornell leaves four children,
Portia Cornell ’59, Martin Cornell ’55, Sheila Cornell Lunke,
and Kevin Cornell ’63; seven grandchildren, including Keith
Julien Cornell ’84, Valerie Royce Cornell ’81, Liam Cornell
McClintock ’88, and Kendall Cornell ’86; and sister Phebe
Cornell Maresi ’34 and brother George Cornell.

5

Church has maintained a strict separation between religion
and science. That debate occurred 134 years ago; and yet
for that senior—and I am sure for some of you in the audi­
ence—evolution remains a scary idea.
n behalf of the faculty, I wish to welcome you to
I have used evolution as an example because it is the
your $100,000 Adventure at Swarthmore College.
clearest case of the conflict between a flawed view of multi­
To put this number in perspective, it is equivalent
culturalism and the purposes of an educational institution.
to 585 “5-Day Super-Passes” to Disney World, which, had
Fundamentalist Christians, who are the strongest expo­
you purchased them, would have entitled you to 2,925 days,
nents of creationism, can be considered a distinct subcul­
or eight solid years, in the Magic Kingdom. To get technical
ture in America. As such they have a plausible claim to
for a moment, $100,000 is the sticker price of a Swarthmore
have their beliefs treated as an integral part of their culture
education. About 50 percent of you have been given a dis­
that must be respected. This, in essence, is what the gradu­
count and the rest of you have an implicit discount, since
ating senior was asking. But if multiculturalism is to be any­
the actual cost of the Adventure is approximately $150,000.
thing useful, it must be people from diverse backgrounds
But no matter how you cut it, a Swarthmore Adventure
engaged in a common enterprise. The enterprise that we
makes Splash Mountain pale by comparison.
are h ere engaged in is the development of
The subject I wish to address is what
standards for judging the truth.
you can expect on this Adventure. First,
By these standards evolution is one of
unlike Disney World, we give homework—
the most supported theories in all of sci­
lots and lots of homework. Second, unlike
ence, while creationism is a myth that
Disney World, which strives to create
finds its origin in one book of unknown
images that conform to your previously
authorship. It is the obligation of stu­
held views of how things should be, we
dents from fundamentalist backgrounds
seek to confuse you.
to recognize the hard truth in these
Orientation week is probably a good
words. We have no right to call ourselves
time to talk about the virtues of disorien­
an educational institution if we accord to
tation. We have no scary rides at Swarth­
myths the same status as science. Each
more. What we have instead are scary
of you will at some time or other confront
ideas—ideas that are scary because they
ideas that you find inconvenient or
are either difficult to acquire, unfamiliar,
uncomfortable. It is your obligation to
or in conflict with familiar ideas. The rides
evaluate these ideas on their merits and
at Disney World disorient your inner ear;
not to reject them out of hand.
here we bore deeper into the skull. You get
After all, what do we really have to
your money’s worth by challenging your­
Economics Professor Mark Kuperberg teach you? We certainly have no particu­
self to confront these ideas.
lar expertise in preparing you for specific
join ed the faculty in 1977. This
Last spring I attended “Senior Speakpositions in the real world. The last time
essay is adapted from an address to
out,” where graduating seniors, having
that I was in the real world was before I
the incoming class in August 1994.
received all the grades that they ever will,
entered kindergarten. What we have to
can feel absolutely free to say whatever
teach is how to acquire and evaluate information. In the
they want. The chosen topic was multiculturalism. At the
process I hope you gain some appreciation for how hardSpeakout, one senior complained that some departments
fought knowledge is and how fragile it is in the face of pre­
had very particular views of their subject and were arro­
conceived notions. I also hope that you gain some appreci­
gant and dismissive of alternative views. At this point I
ation for the courage and integrity that is sometimes
winced, figuring that the Economics Dept, was about to
involved in facing the truth.
take a direct hit, but no, we were spared—the guilty party
Finally, I would like to leave you with a recent New York­
was the Biology Dept, for its opposition to creationism.
er cartoon that shows a couple sitting by the pool at a
In order to discuss this student’s complaint, I am going
resort hotel sipping cocktails. One person turns to the
to burden you with a biography, that of the dead white
other and says, “Sure it’s idyllic but there are fundamental
male Charles Darwin. Darwin formalized the theory of evo­
problems that are not being addressed.” At some time or
lution sometime around 1840, but he recognized that, for
other in your four years here, you will either come to hold
his time, the theory was a “scary idea” and he chose not to
this view or spend half the night arguing with someone
publish it. He might have gone to his grave without making
who holds this view. My own view is that “addressing fun­
his results public if 18 years later another naturalist had
damental problems” is precisely the business we are in.
not sent him a letter describing the theory and in essence
These problems sometimes involve ourselves and our
threatening to publish it unilaterally. Darwin then agreed to
interactions with one another, but more often, and more
a joint presentation of the idea. There was an immediate
important, they involve our understanding of the world
controversy, and in 1860 a debate was held between the
around us.
Anglican church and the evolutionists. The evolutionists
This is the Adventure and welcome to it.
won the debate, and from that time forward the Anglican

Unlike Disney World, at Swarthmore we have
no scary rides. W hat we have are scary ideas.

O

6

SW ARTHM ORE CO LLEG E BULLETIN

Phyllis Raymond ’54 retires from Admissions

“When you work with bright young p eo­
ple, it restores your faith in humanity, ”
says Phyllis Raymond ’54.
hyllis Hall Raymond ’54, associ­
ate dean of admissions and the
mainstay for the College’s
admissions alumni network, retired
Dec. 1. Bill Bickley, former assistant
head and director of college advising
at Wilmington (Del.) Friends School,
has been hired as an assistant dean
on an interim basis to oversee the
alumni network. A search for a per­
manent replacement to assume Ray­
mond’s other duties, including cover­
ing admissions work in the South­

P

eastern United States, will be con­
ducted this spring.
Raymond, who left the College
after 2lA years as an undergraduate,
finished her degree at Indiana Univer­
sity in 1956. Four children later she
came back to the Swarthmore area
and earned a master’s degree in polit­
ical science from the College in 1971.
That same year she joined the staff
as assistant to the dean of women
and in 1978 became assistant dean of
admissions.
Other than spending the winter in
Florida with her lawyer husband,
Richard ’51 (“I’m trying to talk him
into retiring too”), and devoting more
time to her garden and grandchil­
dren, Raymond says she has no plans
except to “pull back.”
“It’s been so inspiring working in
admissions,” she said. “When you
work with bright young people, it
restores your faith in humanity. It’s
so satisfying to interview them, bring
them here, and then watch them
progress as they go through school
and beyond.”
Carl Wartenberg, dean of admis­
sions, said: “All who have been privi­
leged to work with Phyllis appreciate
her gifts and sensibilities. She has
touched the lives of thousands of
young people and her departure from
the staff is a tremendous loss.”

And you thought there w ere no honest politicians ...
n December sopho­
more Joseph Good­
man threw not only his
hat but also his wit into
the Student Council
election ring as a writein candidate. His slo­
gan? “I don’t want to
change anything. I just
want power.”
No, he didn’t win (the
electronic ballot had no
slot for write-ins). And,
no, he’s not a political
science major. More’s
the pity.

I

FEBRUARY 1 9 9 5

Electronic on-ramp ... Infinitely easier
than the Blue Route, the Internet is
making it possible to reach the campus
from afar. To get a friend’s phone num­
ber, confirm the details about a
Swarthmore Connection event in your
area, get an answer to a question
about making a life-income or annual
fund gift, or update your address, you
can contact us on the Internet at alumni@swarthmore.edu. To submit class
notes information, letters to the editor,
or story ideas to th e Bulletin use bulletin@swarthmore.edu. Be sure to
include your name, class year, and a
daytime phone number.
On the World Wide Web you may
view the College’s home page Using the
address http://www.swarthmore.edu/.
You will need to use Web browser soft­
ware such as Mosaic or Netscape. The
home page was put together as a pilot
project to demonstrate the potential of
Webservers. The pages were written
by Swarthmore students last spring
and are unofficial; some information
may be out of date.
Robert Savage, the Isaac H. Clothier
Jr. Professor of Biology, will retire at
the end of this academic year.
To celebrate the “wonderful influ­
ence that Bob has had on this cam­
pus,” the department is hosting a fest
in Savage’s honor on April 1. Nine of
his former students will speak on their
current research in cell and molecular
biology beginning at 1:15 in Kirby Lec­
ture Hall. Following a cocktail hour and
dinner, a concert featuring “cell biolo­
gist musicians” will follow. If you would
like to attend the event and need fur­
ther information, please call (610) 3288628.
Also retiring is Peter Thompson, pro­
fessor of chemistry, and the depart­
ment is looking at the prospect of a
symposium for Thompson during
Alumni Weekend, June 2-4. Letters
with additional information will be sent
this spring to relevant alumni.

“I just want power, ” said the candidate.

Parents, save the dates of April 7,8,
and 9 to come to campus for Parents
Weekend. You will receive details in
early March.

7

1

resource we have available to us is the pursuit of self-inter­
est in the marketplace because no other possibilities have
really been developed.”
Putting a price tag on relationships:
Schwartz, an experimental psychologist who joined the
the erosion of our traditional values
Swarthmore faculty in 1971, is the inaugural holder of the
Dorwin P. Cartwright Professorship in Social Theory and
sychologist Barry Schwartz has looked at the
Social Action. He said the impetus for writing the book was
changes in our society and doesn’t like what he
partly intellectual and partly personal.
sees: a freewheeling market econ­
“I have two children and have ob­
omy that has undermined traditional val­
served the kind of conflict young people
ues of honesty, loyalty, sympathy, and
experience when they are forced to
commitment.
decide whether or not they’re going to
In his seventh book, The Costs o f Liv­
live their lives as good people. Students
ing: How M arket Freedom E rodes the B est
have virtually no constraints on what
Things in Life, Professor Schwartz argues
they can do in any aspect of their lives.
that our market structure demands that
And they believe that the more choices
people behave badly if they want to suc­
you have the better. How could this not
ceed.
be true? The answer is that it isn’t true;
As a society, he maintains, we have
it can be totally paralyzing. It’s what you
developed market-like thinking that has
might call ‘the tyranny of freedom.’”
spread to other areas of our lives. “We
But, he says, he is “guardedly opti­
start thinking about everything in market
mistic” that people who have concerns
terms: ‘What’s in it for me?’ ‘What’s the
about moral issues can band together,
cost?’ ‘What’s the benefit?’ ‘What materi­
and he looks to religious organizations
al things am I giving up?’ We see in rela­
“as a potential source of constructive
tions with our doctors, our teachers, and
social action.
I fear, increasingly with our spouses, a
“Since the language of religious insti­
substitution of contractual agreements
tutions is the language of morality, peo­
Professor Barry Schwartz
for agreements of trust.”
ple don’t look at you like you’re crazy
has a new book.
The consequences, he says, are that
when you raise moral issues. But you
social relations are devalued and that the
have to be willing to be a part of that community for the
moral commitments of people who are close to us are under­
long haul, maintain your obligations to it indefinitely, and
mined. “As those relations turn into economic relations,
act in a way that can transform society.
the source of moral commitment disintegrates. So the only

Fruits o f his labors...

W

hen Bill Pinder ’78 began work­
ing in the greenhouse of the Mar­
tin Biological Laboratory last
summer, things were a bit, well, seedy. A lit­
tle weeding out here, a little repotting there,
a lot of TLC overall, and things began to
blossom. Not the least of which is the resi­
dent banana tree, growing as part of the
greenhouse’s tropical and subtropical foliage
(which includes, among other plants, 50
orchids). A major resource for the Biology
Department, the greenhouse serves to sup­
port courses such as plant physiology, func­
tions as a living laboratory, and plays a role
in research for faculty members and their
students. Pinder works several hours each
evening after his “day” job as a paleontolo­
gist reconstructing dinosaur skeletons at the
Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadel­
phia. Says he, “It’s nice working with living
things after working all day with dead ones.”

When h e ’s not watering the C ollege’s banana tree,
Bill Pinder 78 reconstructs dinosaur skeletons.

SW ARTHM ORE CO LLEG E BULLETIN

opponents, and a slew of tough Division III opponents
including nationally ranked Muhlenberg and NCAA tourna­
ment-participant Johns Hopkins. Junior Len Cuello led the
Garnet in scoring this season, with nine goals and six
he field hockey team had a sensational 1994 season,
assists, and was named as a second-team All-Centennial
remaining undefeated for the first 13 games before
selection. Senior defender Ben Le Cook’s talent and effort
losing to Dickinson on Oct. 6. The women were
were also recognized, as he was an honorable mention Allnationally ranked for a good part of the season, ending up
with an overall record of 15-4. Senior captain Melissa Bon­
Centennial choice.
The women’s volleyball team, under the direction of
der finished out her stellar career by scoring an incredible
first-year head coach Larry Perry, ended the ’94 season with
31 goals and nine assists; she was named Centennial Con­
a record of 15-12. One highlight of the season was sweeping
ference Player of the Year and was selected to play in the
all their matches at the Cabrini Tournament to earn the
Division III North-South Senior All-Star game. Also receiving
championship there. The women concluded the season
postseason honors were Lia Ernst ’97 and Danielle Duffy
leading the Centennial Conference in both team hitting per­
’98, who were chosen as first- and second-team All-Centen­
centage (.250) and team service aces (3.39 per game). Six
nial Conference selections, respectively.
seniors graduate from this year’s team.
Tennis player Chris Pearson ’95 also had a lot to be
The women’s soccer
proud of this fall, claim­
team finished the sea­
ing the championship at
son on a strong note,
the Mid-Atlantic Region­
winning two and tying
al Rolex Small College
one of their last three
Tournament. He began
games. Although the
in a field of 63 other play­
women ended up the
ers and eventually de­
season with a losing
feated Justin Annes of
record of 5-12-1, nine of
Haverford College, 7-5, 6their losses were by two
2, to win the tourna­
goals or less. Swarth­
ment. His championship
more began the season
advanced him to the
with five seniors, but
Rolex Nationals, where
Rachael Johnson suf­
he finished sixth of the
fered a season-ending
eight finalists. Pearson
knee injury. All four of
will enter the coming
the remaining seniors
spring tennis season
were Centennial Confer­
ranked 15th in the nation
ence honorees at the
for Division III and third
season’s conclusion.
in the East region.
Madeline Fraser, who
The women’s cross
led the team in scoring
Football coach Karl Miran talks with his team prior to the start o f
country team finished
with eight goals and five
its gam e with Johns Hopkins. The Garnet posted a 3-7 record.
third at the Centennial
assists, and Heather Mal­
Conference champion­
oney were both second-team All-Centennial picks, while
ships, with its top five runners finishing between the 10th and
Bess O’Neill, second on the team in scoring with five goals
18th spots and within 18 seconds of one another. First-year
and one assist, and goalkeeper MaryCatherine Arbour were
students Danielle Wall and Shoshannah Pearlman were the
honorable mention.
Garnet’s top two finishers at the conference meet. Senior
The football team also ended the season with a losing
captain Kate Dempsey led the way for the Garnet two weeks
record of 3-7, but three of their losses were decided by less
later at the NCAA regional championships. Again, the
than one touchdown. Swarthmore’s 43-17 win over Muhlen­
Swarthmore top five ran closely packed, finishing within 19
berg represented the largest margin of victory since head
seconds of each other. The women finished sixth overall in a
coach Karl Miran began coaching here. Also, although the
field that included eight teams that had been nationally
Garnet Tide lost to Division III powerhouse Dickinson,
ranked at some point during the season.
Swarthmore held the Red Devils 113 yards below their rush­
The men’s cross country team finished fourth at the Cen­
ing average. Also during the season, Dave Reeser ’95 estab­
tennial Conference championships, after also having had a
lished a new college record for most career rushing yards,
successful fall. At the extremely competitive NCAA regional
concluding his four-year stint with a total of 2,205 yards.
championships, Graham Lucks ’98 took on the burden of
Terry Lee White ’80 had previously held the record with
front-runner for the Garnet and finished with a time of 26:53.
1,886 yards.
Lucks’ time was the sixth fastest any Garnet harrier has
In the annual race for the Hood Trophy, Swarthmore and
ever posted on Allentown’s course. The men finished sixth
Haverford are currently tied. Swarthmore came out on top
at the regional championships.
this fall in field hockey, women’s soccer, and volleyball, and
The men’s soccer team finished the season with a record
Haverford defeated the Garnet in men’s and women’s cross
of 11-8. The men faced an extremely challenging group of
country and men’s soccer.
opponents, including Division I Villanova, several Division II

Field hockey finishes 15-4;
senior tennis ace w ins Rolex tourney

T

FEBRUARY 1 9 9 5

9

ONE
MONUMENTAL
MAN

As we celebrate William P enn’s 350th birthday, let us
reflect that the venerable Quaker probably would not have appreciated
the way we turned out—or the way we rem em ber him.

Pei

toe
al,
adì
ed.

bui

Joi

(Ea

ori:

pre

tha

Be,
acc

^

to l
ing
the
10

SW A RTH M O RE CO LLEG E BULLETIN

FEB

n commemorating William Penn’s desire was that his heirs and Friends
3 50th b irth d a y , p e r h a p s we would rule with wisdom, yet his com­
should pause to ask w hether he m itm en t to ru le by c o n s e n t of all
would approve of such homage. rath er than by the virtuous caused
Penn’s w ritings rebuked th o se whohim to design a p olitical sy stem in
took pride in family, money, intellectu­ w h ich Q u a k ers’ and n o n -Q u ak ers’
al, or w orld ly a c h ie v e m e n t. As an votes counted equally. He was well
adult he never had his portrait paint­ aware of the risks of resting goodness
ed. Modest even in death, Penn was on charters, laws, electoral su ccess,
buried in an unmarked grave in the and votes in an assembly, but he was
Jordan’s M eeting H ouse cem etery . too strong a Whig believer in entrust­
(Early Friends did not believe in hon­ ing responsibility to representatives
oring the dead with gravestones.) The of the people to do otherwise.
His great hopes for the colony were
present-day historic marker says only
that Penn, his wife, and several other symbolized by his name for the capi­
prominent Friends are buried in the tal city, Philadelphia. Contem porary
com m entators who stress the Greek
general vicinity.
Yet we celebrate Penn today for his derivation of brotherly love forget or
intellectual a c u ity and w o rld ly are ignorant of the biblical connota­
achievement. Part of our fascination tion that Penn and his contemporaries
with Penn is the contrast between the knew well. Philadelphia in the biblical
unworldly Q u ak er and th e c le v e r
courtier, the defender of liberties and
enn saw his
colonial lord proprietor, the creator of
a su ccessfu l co lo n y and th e failed
colony as a gift
businessm an w ho s p e n t tim e in
from God His Fram es
debtors prison. Which Penn and what
accomplishments did and d oes th e
o f Government
monument on City Hall portray?
He would have had little sympathy
prom ised political
for a ce le b ra tio n of P en n sy lv an ia’s
and religious liberty,
wealth, pow er, or fam e, though he
would have rejoiced to have his name
and he prayed
associated w ith a p la ce w h ere th e
that it would be a
people sought to follow the will of God
and to dw ell to g e th e r in lo v e and
liberty to do good.
peace. Penn argued that how well the
new land turned out would determine
whether he and Q uakers should be book of Revelation is the city where
people do God’s will. Penn named his
remembered; but b e fo re his d eath
Penn was bitterly disappointed in his town at a time when he saw the new
fellow Pennsylvanians. So as we cele­ land as a unique achievement: a his­
brate his legacy, let us reflect th at torical city in which the goodness of
Penn probably would not have liked th e inhabitants might fulfill biblical
p ro p h e cy and u sh er in th e ru le of
the way we turned out.
When h e r e c e iv e d th e c o lo n y ’s Christ on Earth.
If the prophetic Penn remembered
charter, Penn saw the opportunity as
for No Cross, No Crown excoriates us
a gift from God and a responsibility.
His Frames of Government enshrined for shortcomings, remember there is
political liberty, but Penn prayed that another side to Penn: the rationalistit would be a liberty to do good. His moralist who lived plainly but accord­
ing to his rank in society. This Penn
recognized that people did not com e
to Pennsylvania to beggar themselves.
Benjamin West’s Penn’s Treaty with the
He rejoiced in the economic opportu­
Indians depicts ( without much historical
nity that the new colony offered and
accuracy) Penn’s friendship agreem ent
celebrated its capacity to produce the
with the Leni-Lenape. It was com m issioned
ingredients for good b eer and wine.
in 1771 by Quakers who w ere attempting
to polish their political im age by associat­
ing their governm ent o f Pennsylvania with
By J. W illiam Frost
the Great Proprietor.

I

P

FEBRUARY 1 9 9 5

The publicity Penn issued for the new
land did not promise prospective set­
tlers wealth; but it did imply that hard
work would provide a good living.
P en n ’s le g a cy su rv iv es to d a y in
many forms. Those of us who live or
work in P hiladelphia en co u n ter th e
outward physical legacy every day:
th e n am e of th e p r o v in c e and its
m ajor city; the general layout of the
c ity in a grid s y s te m w ith p a rk s,
streets named after trees, and a mas­
siv e c e n t e r s q u a r e (a lth o u g h th e
Quaker m eetinghou se h e envisaged
there has been replaced by City Hall).
There is an enjoyable provincial cele­
bration of William Penn that com es
ju st from living and working in this
city, looking up at the Calder statue,
and reveling in the architectural beau­
ty of Georgian houses and the Statehouse, the latter building used by a
legislature operating under the Frame
of Government granted by Penn.
Penn definitely recast Quaker histo­
ry by providing an area for Friends to
govern. Developing from an obscu re
m inority in England to an im posing
force in Pennsylvania, Quakers domi­
n ated th e P e n n sy lv a n ia A ssem b ly
from 1682 until the American Revolu­
tio n . It is as n a tu ra l to ta lk a b o u t
Q u ak er P h ila d e lp h ia as P u rita n
Boston, although Quakers becam e a
m in o rity in th e c ity b y 1710 and
Roman Catholics becam e a majority in
both cities long before the Civil War.
P enn b esto w ed four le g a cie s on
Q uakers— and, I would argue, on all
who participate in any faith communi­
ty. First, he showed that there was no
innate incompatibility between being
a d ev ou t C h ristia n and e x e rc isin g
p o litica l pow er. He con d em n ed as
unprofitable and cowardly a faith that
enclosed itself in four walls in isola­
tion from the problem s of the world.
“True godliness,” w rote Penn, “does
n ot turn m en ou t of th e w orld but
enables them to live b etter in it and
excites their endeavors to mend it.”
P enn’s political activity grew out of
his religious commitments. However,
he did not exercise political power to
make men and women religious— that
was God’s responsibility—but to pro­
vide th e faithful a p lace of freedom
and refuge.
Second, Penn proved to Q uakers
that accep tin g diversity in religious
faith need not lead to apathy about
11

o n e ’s own re lig io u s co m m itm e n t.
Undergirding th is fren etica lly busy
m an, and key to h is s u c c e s s , w as
Penn’s contention that he had experi­
enced God. He prayed, read the Bible,
attended m eetings, preached, w rote
theology, lobbied the Crown and Par­
liament in favor of the civil rights of
Quakers and other dissenters, includ­
ing Roman Catholics. He debated men
of op p osin g faith and w rote tr a c ts
refuting their ideas. He was a devout
Quaker, yet he worked closely in Eng­
land with the dissolute Earl of Roch­
e s te r , th e R om an C a th o lic
Jam es II, and worldly courtiers
surrounding the cou rts of the
Stuarts.
Third, th e toleration of dif­
fe re n c e s le a rn e d in England
influenced his treatm ent of the
Native Americans and becam e
a testim on y of Friends every­
where in the United States. The
only 17th-century Englishmen
who seem ed to e sca p e Eurocentricity enough to appreciate
American Indian culture on its
own te rm s w ere R o g er W il­
lia m s and W illiam P en n . Of
course, since Pennsylvania had
no militia and was neither pre­
p ared n or w illing to fight, it
made good sense to be concil­
iatory. The Indians appreciated
Penn and used his memory to
tell the colonists of the heritage
of good relations and perhaps
to rem in d P e n n ’s s o n s and
later Pennsylvania authorities
of the cohduct of the first proprietor.
In 1720 th e Indians inform ed Lt.
Gov. William Keith th at Penn at his
first council had promised “so much
Love and Friendship, that he would
n o t c a ll th e m B r o th e r s , b e c a u s e
B roth ers might differ; nor Children,
b e c a u s e th e y m igh t o ffen d and
require Correction; but he would reck­
on them as one Body, one Blood, one
Heart, and one Head.” I can imagine
no other British colonist saying that
to Native A m ericans. (In fact, I can
im agine few u p p er-class A m ericans
today able to say to a ghetto dweller
that they would “reckon them as one
Body, one Blood, one Heart, and one
Head.”)
So P en n gav e to th e Q u a k ers a
d esire to re s p e c t m in orities. In th e
1750s Friends b ecam e defend ers of
12

churches and a Jewish syngagogue. If
you jo u r n e y n o rth to Bethlehem ,
th e re are th e p la ce s of w orship of
Moravians. To the west, in Lancaster
County, there is the Ephrata cloister
and dwellings of the Amish and Menn o n ite s . In th e En glan d of Penn’s
youth, and at the time he received the
ch a rte r for Pennsylvania, only wor­
ship in th e C hurch of England was
legal. All unauthorized worship was
illegal, and everyone paid a tithe or
tax to the established church.
Nearly one hundred years later, in
1770, P en n sy lv an ia was the
o n ly p la c e in th e British
Empire where Catholics legal­
ly cou ld w o rsh ip openly in
c h u rch e s th e y ow ned. Mas­
sachusetts and Virginia main­
tained estab lish ed churches
and harassed dissenters until
1776. Pennsylvania’s tourism
slogan shou ld p roclaim not
th a t A m erica s ta r ts here—
th at’s nonsense, a triumph of
public relations over historical
h o n e sty — but th a t religious
liberty starts here.
Penn’s quest for freedom of
conscience began early. When
as a young man he became a
Quaker, he defied th e social
e x p e cta tio n s for m en of his
c la s s and e n c o u n te re d the
wrath of his father. His father,
England’s greatest 17th-centu­
ry naval h ero, was outraged
by his son’s conversion to an
o u tla n d is h s e c t . (As poet
Daniel Hoffman h as n oted , William
This portrait o f Penn as a young man in
Penn’s joining the Religious Society of
arm or shows a person with a full h ead o f
F rie n d s w ould b e c o m p a ra b le to
hair, but from literary sources we know he
David Eisenhow er becom ing a Hare
was bald as a result o f sm allpox as a child.
Krishna.)
Our only real know ledge o f Penn’s appear­
Penn knew th a t c o e rc io n by his
ance com es from offhand comments in let­
father had not worked. He watched
ters and a drawing m ade from memory
his fellow Q uakers suffer imprison­
long after his death.
m ent rath er than allow th e state to
determine acceptable worship. When
s tr a tin g in n u m e ro u s t r a c t s th a t in the Tower of London on suspicion
appeals made with reason and intelli­ of heresy, he wrote that a person who
gence could be persuasive. Penn was went to a shop was interested in the
quality of the goods for sale and the
not afraid of erudition.
p rice, not th e religion of th e shop­
keeper. W hat was true for business
erhaps th e g reatest m onum ents
to Penn’s legacy, one enjoyed by applied to the wider society. Govern­
all Americans, are close by the Arch m ent originated in a social contract
S tre e t M eeting. W ithin a half m ile, that guaranteed rights to all citizens.
Differences in religion did not, there­
th e r e a re A n g lican , M e th o d ist,
fore, weaken th e bounds of society.
R e fo rm e d , and R om an C a th o lic

two minorities: the American Indians
and the black slaves. Penn’s actions
provided the historical precedent for
later Quakers to support minorities.
Penn’s final contribution to Quak­
ers was his confidence that education
and learning fostered religion. He did
this by example, reading and quoting
from th e ch u rch fath ers; by deeds,
including provision for education in
the first laws and granting land and a
charter for the school that now bears
his name [the William Penn Charter
S ch o o l]; and by argum ent, dem on­

P

SW A RTH M O RE C O LLEG E BULLETIN

Through
History’s Lense

alk about history—junior Rebecca
Smith is the 17th member of her
family to attend Swarthmore, including
her father, Corey Smith ’65. It seemed
almost inevitable for this lifelong Quak­
er to take a campus job in the Friends
Historical Library, where she has
worked for three years. This winter, in
commemoration of William Penn’s
350th birthday, Smith did something
few students are asked to do^-organize a historical exhibit on William
Penn in McCabe Library.
In doing so she learned a lot about
how interpretations of history change
and how figures like Penn can be both
revered and reviled. “A lot of students
today dismiss Penn as just another
colonialist,” explains Smith, a double
major in French and Latin. “While
there’s some usefulness to this, you’ve
got to step back and consider what a
monumental thing he was doing. I tried
to show this in the exhibit.”
The display consisted of dozens of
books, artifacts, and artworks depict­
ing Penn’s life, legend, and influence
today. Included were a Penn letter
from 1708 and a wooden relic of Penn’s
Philadelphia home, both from the col­
lection of the Friends Historical
Library. With explanatory notes writ­
ten by Smith, the exhibit followed Penn
the Quaker, colonist, and historical fig­
ure from the 17th century to the 1990s.
In one glass case, a portrait of King
Charles II sparked Smith to wonder
why the English Crown “bestowed
upon [this] rebellious nonconformist
... the most valuable land grant ever

T

FEBRUARY 1 9 9 5

DENG-JENG LEE

You can’t dismiss
William Penn as
“just another
colonialist, ” says
Rebecca Smith ’96,
who organized a
McCabe Library exhibit

R ebecca Smith ’96 with the Q uaker Oats
given to a private individual.” She
speculates that “perhaps Charles want­ W illiam Penn w ho g reeted visitors to
h er ex h ibit in M cCabe Library. The
ed to get the troublesome Quakers out
pain ter w as Ju lie B erger H ochstrasser
of the country, or perhaps he wished
’74, w ho created the rosy-cheeked
to excuse himself gracefully from his
Friend for a long-forgotten Hamburg
£16,000 debt to the Penn family.”
Show. “They cam e to m e an d sa id they
The view of Penn as a humane
n eed ed a g reat big Q uaker Oats guy, ”
colonist who made peace with Native
sh e rem em bers, “but I c a n ’t recall w hat
Americans—a view enshrined in paint­
it w as for. ” H ochstrasser, still a som e­
ings by Benjamin West and Edward
tim e painter, is now com pleting a Ph.D.
Hicks—has contributed as much to
in art history at the University o f Califor­
myth as to history. Yet today in the
nia at B erkeley, writing h er dissertation
postcolonial era, Smith’s commentary
challenges what she calls “the political­ on 1 7th-century Dutch still lifes. The
painting h ad been sa v ed from oblivion
ly correct interpretation” of his life:
by form er faculty m em ber D aniel Hoff­
“Though in a modern view Penn’s atti­
mann, a Sw arthm ore residen t w ho
tude regarding Native Americans
recently retired from the University o f
seems narrow-minded and hypocriti­
cal, for his time Penn was uncommonly Pennsylvania. H offm ann is author o f the
open-minded,” she wrote. “Adhering to book-length p oem abou t W illiam Penn
titled Brotherly Love.
the Quaker belief that there is that of
God in everyone, Penn saw the Native
account the advances in anthropologi­
Americans as his equals under God....”
cal understanding over the last cen­
She concludes that “when Penn
turies that have shaped the modern
considered all sides of the issue, the
conscience.”
injustice of colonization seems not to
As for Penn the icon—especially the
have so greatly weighed on his con­
cherubic
Quaker Oats Penn—Smith
science as to make him reconsider his
has to laugh. “He’s been used and
project. This seeming hypocrisy must
abused. It’s inevitable, but people also
neither be dismissed nor condemned,
need to see him for the intellectual
but rather thoughtfully examined as a
progressive perspective limited less by contributions he made, for his contri­
butions to our political and religious
the failings of the individual than by
liberties. The icons just show how
the narrow viewpoint of the era.... We
widespread his influence has been.”
must not judge him by our modern
—Jeffrey Lott
viewpoint without first taking into

13

Left: Though he has been enshrined on
everything from tablecloths to oatm eal
boxes, a m ore appropriate William Penn
icon was painted by Edward Hicks in his
many versions of The Peaceable King­
dom. The them e was the prophecy in Isa­
iah o f an age o f p ea ce in which the lion
and the lam b would lie down together and
a child would lead them. Hicks found the
closest earthly approxim ation in Penn’s
treaty with the Indians.
Below: Penn’s statue on P hiladelphia’s
City Hall was once the city’s highest point.

Defending liberty of conscience for all
Englishmen and Englishwomen, Penn
in siste d th a t relig io u s in to le ra n ce
weakened the realm because it result­
ed in the persecution of good people
who by their talen ts con tributed to
the common good.
The first Frame of Government for
Pennsylvania insisted that women and
men had the right to worship freely
and could not be required by govern­
m ent to support any or all religions
fin a n c ia lly . So th e r e w ould b e no
established church, no tithe, and no
church courts here. There was no law
against blasphem y and none against
heresy. Ministers of the gospel had no
special status under Pennsylvania law.
Penn insisted that all worship consis­
tent with good order be allowed. He
divorced moral legislation from reli­
gious belief, arguing that th e postu­
lates of natural law established right
and wrong. The churches might insist
th a t th e Ten C om m andm ents w ere
m atters of revelation; how ever, the
sta te based its outlawing of murder,
adultery, and theft on reason and nat­
ural law.
Y et w hile th e s ta te left relig io n
alone, Penn’s colony encouraged reli­
gious p r a c tic e s b e c a u s e c h u rc h e s
instilled th e m orality n ec e ssa ry for
civilized life. Penn subscribed to the

belief that a dissolute people could
not be free: “Let men be good and the
government cannot be bad: If it be ill,
they will cure it. But if men be bad, let
th e govern m en t b e n ev er so good,
they will endeavor to warp and spoil it
to th e ir tu rn .” A ch u rch cou ld not
expect help from the state in enforc­
ing m atters of dogma, but religious
o rg a n iz a tio n s re m a in e d fre e to
address the Assembly on su bjects of
morality, like gambling or dueling or
slavery.
This pattern becam e
an essential ingredient in
th e A m erican tradition
of church and state. We
can debate prohibition,
abortion , lo tteries, and
o th e r m o ral is s u e s
knowing th a t religiou s
p a ssio n s influ ence our
d e c is io n b u t th a t th e
state will not base legis­
latio n on our religious
beliefs. That’s what sep­
a ra tio n of c h u rc h and
state means.
h e r e is o n e fin al
topic: How did Penn
get to be a monument, a
hero for all Am ericans?
E x c e p t by th o s e w ho

T

thought he was a Jesuit, he was recog­
nized as an extraordinary man in Eng­
land during h is life tim e . T h e first
accounts of him, written by contem ­
poraries who did not share his faith,
s t r e s s e d h is a c c o m p lis h m e n ts in
Pennsylvania and the making of peace
with the Native A m ericans. In 1722,
when Joseph Besse published the col­
le c te d w ork s of W illiam P en n , he
included a 235-page introduction filled
with letters and testim onials, but he
devoted only four pages to Pennsyl­
vania, an indication of how important
P e n n s y lv a n ia w as to th e English!
Besse also printed Penn’s initial letter
to the Indians, com m ented upon the
resulting p eace, and d iscu ssed reli­
gious freedom.
The first pictoral representation of
Penn and the Am erican Indians was
is su e d in E n glan d in 1771. W hen
V oltaire visited England, he stayed
with a Quaker family. In 1733 he wrote
a d escrip tio n of Penn­
sy lv a n ia th a t rh a p ­
so d ized a b o u t P e n n ’s
unsworn but observed
treaty with the Indians.
Voltaire set the tone for
a whole series of favor­
able comments on Penn
and P e n n s y lv a n ia by
F re n c h in te lle c tu a ls
w ho c o n tr a s te d th e
colon y’s religious free­
dom, p eace, and pros­
p e rity w ith th e ir own
country, which was wal­
low in g in d e c a d e n c e
c a u s e d b y a c o rru p t
king, p a ra s itic a r is to ­
c r a ts , and a s u p e rs ti­
tio u s Rom an C ath olic
C h u rch . D uring th e

F ren ch R e v o lu tio n , th e r a d ic a ls
claimed that they were creating a new
state b a sed upon th e p rin cip les of
William Penn.
In Pennsylvania two groups used
Penn’s image for political purposes.
The sons of William Penn owed their
power to th eir fa th e r’s accom p lish ­
ments. Proprietary governors claimed
that the colony derived its peace and
prosperity from the principles estab­
lished by Penn. On the eve of the revo­
lution (and after Benjam in Franklin’s

o one considered

N

whether it
was incongruous
to have a plain Friend
enshrined with a
60,000 pound statue
atop just the kind of
pretentious building
he would have hated.
attempt to get rid of proprietary gov­
e rn m e n t), T h o m a s P en n c o m m is ­
sioned Benjamin W est to paint a pic­
ture of William Penn’s treaty with the
Indians. With Quakers and proprietors
favoring conciliation with England in
1771, the message of the painting was
clear. Those who believed in a peace­
ful, trusting relationship should rally
behind the proprietors and the Soci­
ety of Friends. Praising the wisdom of
William Penn redounded to the credit
of his sons.
T h e Quakers who dom inated th e
Pennsylvania legislature also used the
image of Penn. It legitimized their role
in government because Penn and the
Quakers were founding fathers. They
took the early risks and created a land
of religious liberty, freedom from war,
and low taxes. T h ose who liked this
p o litical p latform sh ou ld keep th e
Quaker party in office.
Both colon ists and Indians found
the image of Penn useful in reassuring
each other of good intentions and the
im portance of keeping th e peace. In
seekin g to r e s to r e p e a c e w ith th e
Native Americans after the French and
Indian War, the Friendly Association, a
FEBRU ARY 1 9 9 5

p riv a te group of w ealth y Q uakers,
issued medals and a gorget with a pic­
ture of Penn offering a peace pipe to
Native Americans. These medals may
have been given to the Indians in an
effort to c re a te good will. In trea ty
negotiations with the proprietary and
later the United States government as
late as 1780, Indians cited th e good
re la tio n s e s ta b lish e d by P enn and
their desire to re-establish peace.
All th e s e p o s itiv e c o n n o ta tio n s
ended with the American Revolution.
The Quakers opposed the Revolution
because they were pacifists. The patri­
o ts, who could not win an electio n
under the proprietary charter in May
1776, subverted Pennsylvania’s gov­
ernment and created a new state con­
s titu tio n . W ith th e r e p u ta tio n of
William Penn in eclipse, he was never
ev en m e n tio n e d in th e e n su in g
d ebates on the Federal Constitution
and Bill of Rights.
Quakers emerged from the Revolu­
tionary era stripped of political power
but with a reputation for good works.
They would preserve the memory of
Penn as the founder of a colony and a
man of faith. Penn would re-emerge as
a defender of religious freedom in the
e le c tio n of 1800. At is s u e w ere
Thom as Jefferson ’s religious beliefs.
The Federalist clergy of New England
charged that Jefferson was a deist and
an enemy of religion. The DemocraticRepublicans identified the policies of
Thomas Jefferson on church and state
with those of William Penn. Both Jef­
ferson and Penn stood for religious
liberty and were, therefore, attacked
by p rie s tly a u th o ritie s . P en n now
stood forth as a Jeffersonian hero.
P enn receiv ed ad d itio n al kudos
from the search by Americans in the
1830s for national heroes. Virginia had
G e o rg e W a sh in g to n and P a tr ic k
Henry; M assachu setts had Sam and
John Adams. Pennsylvania trumpeted
the genius of Benjam in Franklin and
th e p o litical and religious freedom
established by William Penn. Parson
W eam s, well known for his fictional
b io g ra p h y of G eorge W ash in g to n ,
wrote an equally adulatory and inac­
cu rate accou n t of Penn. In a nation
searching for national h eroes, Penn
was a natural. By mid-century W est’s
image of Penn and the Indians becam e
a decorative motif on tableclothes and
china. And in 1877 a ch eru b ic Penn

even becam e a symbol of quality for
oatmeal.
T h e u ltim a te and m o st iro n ic
a p o th e o sis of Penn cam e a fter th e
Civil W ar, w h en m e m b e rs of th e
Republican Party attained ascendency
in Philadelphia. They stressed their
commitment to religious liberty, politi­
cal freedom, and antislavery by plac­
ing a 60,000-pound bronze statue of
William Penn atop the bell tow er of
their new Second Empire City Hall at
Broad and Market. Of course, putting
Penn on th e building was an a fter­
th o u g h t, and no o n e c o n s id e r e d
whether it was incongruous to have a
plain Friend en sh rin ed on ju st th e
kind of pretentious building he would
have hated. For more them a century,
however, Penn gazed from the unchal­
lenged h ig h est sp o t in th e Q uaker
C ity, and o n ly in th e 1 9 8 0 s did a
skyscraper surpass his monument. Its
name? Liberty Place. ■

“P eople who like their heroes to be
men for all seasons aren ’t going to like
William Penn, ” says J. William Frost,
Howard M. and Charles F. Jenkins
Professor o f Q uaker History and director
o f the Friends Historical Library,
“but he is by far the m ost intellectually
sophisticated and attractive o f any o f the
main colonizers o f America—he just
stands out. ” This essay was adapted from
a lecture given at P hiladelphia’s Arch
Street M eetinghouse in October 1994 for
the Friends o f Independence National
Historical Park.
15

t was only last Septem ber, after
m ore than 40 years, that Michael
M e e ro p o l ’64 and h is b r o th e r ,
R o b e r t, fir s t v is ite d th e Long
Island grave site of their parents,
Julius find Ethel Rosenberg. Meeropol
claim s it was practicalities that kept
them from going sooner. He says they
didn’t know exactly where the cem e­
tery was, and on ce there finding the
headstone was difficult. But one can
sense from his voice that there’s more
to it— a p a rt h e ’s k eep in g p riv a te,
something intangible left there at the
grave along with several small stones
placed on th e h ead ston e in keeping
with a Jewish custom of rem em brance
and reverence.
T h e m o re ta n g ib le le g a c y th a t
Michael M eeropol has of his m other
and fa th er, w ho w ere c o n v icte d in
1951 of c o n sp ira cy to com m it esp i­
onage and sentenced to death in the
A Michael Meeropol ’64
electric chair, is their letters. He has
com p iled them in a new book, T h e was just 10 when his
R osen berg L etters: A C om plete E dition
parents, Julius and ►
o f th e Prison C orresp on d en ce o f Julius
a n d E thel R osen berg (Garland Publish­
Ethel Rosenberg, were
ing, 1994). In more than 500 letters, his
p a re n ts s h a r e e lo q u e n t and o ften
executed for conspiracy
em o tio n a l w ord s of lo v e and h op e
with each other, their children, their
to commit atomic
lawyer, and relatives, and they record
p erso n a l and p o litica l th o u g h ts on
espionage. Public
their trial and unsuccessful appeals.
The letters began as private com ­
advocacy of his parents’
m u n ic a tio n s . B u t e a rly on , s a y s
Meeropol, his parents becam e aware
case has occupied
that the only way they had to commu­
n ica te th e ir c a s e to th e nation was
much of his adult life.
through these letters, som e of which
w ere p u b lish e d at th e tim e in th e
small left-wing newspaper T he N ation­
a l G uardian.
T h e b o o k p r e c is e ly fo llo w s th e
form of the original letters, even not­
ing words crossed out, inserted, and
m issp e lle d . “It’s fo r a n y b o d y w ho
wants to do research on my parents
and the case. Since we are still holding
th e o rig in als w ithin th e fam ily, we
thought this was the best way to do it.
You could alm ost call it a sc h o la r’s
edition,” explained Meeropol in a tele­
phone interview.
Most of the prison correspondence

I

Shadows of a
By A udree Penner

SW A RTH M O RE CO LLEG E BU LLETIN

had been saved by th e R osen bergs’
a tto r n e y , E m an u el B lo c h . A fter
Bloch’s death in 1954, the letters were
kept by Gloria Agrin, his assistant and
fiancée. W alter and Miriam Schneir,
a u th o rs of In v ita tio n to an In q u e st,
acquired the letters from Agrin while
research in g th eir 1965 book on th e
c a s e , la ter p assin g th em on to th e
Meeropol brothers.
Another 30 or so never-before-pub­
lished letters from the Rosenbergs to
their sons w ere obtained in the late
1970s from th e d irecto r of th e chil­
d ren ’s sh elter w here th e boys lived
fo r s e v e r a l m o n th s in 1 9 5 0 -5 1 .
According to Meeropol the letters had
been found in a desk used by a previ­
ous director. Eight additional letters
w ritten by his fath er w ere given to
M eeropol in 1974 by Emily Alman, a
founder of the National Committee to
Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.

AP/W IDE WORLD PHOTO

J

u liu s, a New Y o rk engineer and

m a ch in e-sh o p ow ner, and E th el
Rosenberg were charged with organiz­
ing an espionage ring that included
David Greenglass, her younger brother.
In late 1944 Greenglass, who served
as an Army enlisted man, was trans­
ferred to the Los Alamos, N.M., labora­
to r y w h ere th e a to m ic b o m b w as
being developed. He told the FBI that
he had been persuaded by his wife,
Ruth, to gath er inform ation on th e
design of the bom b at th e urging of
Julius and Ethel. At the trial he testi­
fied that by asking questions and nos­
ing around the lab, he had been able
to le a rn en ou gh to draw s k e tc h e s
from memory and produce a written
description of the
atom ic bom b de­
sign that he then
passed on.
Greenglass said
h e g av e so m e
in fo rm a tio n to
Ju liu s; o th e r in form atio n alleged ly
went to Harry Gold, a self-confessed
courier for German-born British spy
Klaus Fuchs. (Fuchs was arrested in
1950 for spying for the Soviets at Los
A lam os.) In a he-said, she-said, thegovernment-said case, Greenglass not

only im p licated his wife, Ruth, but
la te r h is s is te r to o . T h e M eerop o l
b rothers assert that Ruth and David
Greenglass, on whose testim onies the
entire case hinged, falsely confessed,
im p lic a tin g th e ir p a r e n ts . T h e y
believe that information “fed” to Ruth
p rom p ted h er to in crim in ate Ethel
and that lengthy joint interrogations
by th e FBI of David G reenglass and
Harry Gold caused them to falsely cor­
roborate each other’s statem ents.
B e ca u se of his co o p e ra tio n with
th e FBI, Greenglass received only 15
years in prison, of which he served 10.
R u th w as n e v e r in d ic te d . B u t th e
R osenbergs, who always maintained
their innocence, were condem ned to
death. Following the 3K>-week trial and
several appeals, Julius and Ethel, then
35 and 37 years of age respectively,
were electrocuted in New York’s Sing
Sing Prison on June 19, 1953, one day
after their 14th wedding anniversary.
Michael was just 10 years old; Robert
was 6.

W

ith a strong, expressive voice,

M ichael M eeropol recalls both
th e searing ev en ts of his childhood
and the “scads of good tim es” he had
in college. His approach to his life and
the case is straightforward and direct,
e v id e n c e of th e r e s ilie n c y of th e
human spirit. Now 51 he steadfastly
maintains that his parents w ere part
of a “politically motivated frame-up” in
the clim ate of the Cold War with the
S o v ie t U nion, M cC arth y ism in th e
United States, and qu estion able ta c­
tics by th e FBI and federal p ro secu ­
tors.
At th e tim e of th e R o s e n b e r g s ’
a r r e s t, a tto r n e y E m an u el B lo c h
couldn’t find additional legal counsel
willing to help him prepare the case.
“Even left-wing lawyers would cro ss
the street when they saw Manny com­
ing. He w as to ta lly is o la te d ,” sa y s
M eeropol, who adm its with resigna­
tion that his parents should have had
a different attorney early in the case.
But he says he will always love Bloch,
w ho “g av e h is life. He trie d w hen
nobody else was willing.”
In retrosp ect he reflects: “Nobody
17

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover receives an award
from the American Legion in April 1953 fo r his
e fforts in “exposing and combatting communism.”

David Greenglass (le ft) was the key w itness against his
sister, Ethel Rosenberg, and his brotheMn-law, Julius.
He claimed to have given them inform ation on the atomic
bomb while working at Los Alamos, N.M., in 1944. The
Rosenbergs are seen above at their trial in March 1951.
SW A RTH M O RE CO LLEG E BU LLETIN

could have gotten an acquittal. I don’t
care if you put C h arles G arry (th e
attorney who represented Black Pan­
thers Bobby Seale and Huey Newton),
Clarence Darrow, and F. Lee B ailey
together in one person and gave them
the budget that O.J. Simpson is giving
his lawyers. In 1950s America the FBI
was God.”
A ssociate Professor Marjorie Mur­
phy, ch air of Sw arth m ore’s H istory
D epartm ent, a g re e s: “T h e re w as a
need for a sc a p e g o a t in a p ostw ar
society that had given up so much of
its youth. We were the most powerful
country in the world and had saved all
those countries in World War II. But
now that people could once again live
a real life with fam ily and child ren,
they w ere b ein g ca lled on to fight
against communism— and, it seemed,
against people in their own country.
After the disintegration of the World
War II alliance against the Nazis, the
feeling was that cooperation with the
Soviet Union was tantamount to trea­
son. There was a great deal of anger.”
Even p e o p le w ho th o u g h t th e
Rosenbergs innocent might not have
admitted it at the tim e. Sen. Jo sep h
McCarthy’s investigative subcommit­
tee was seeking to rid th e nation of
communists and Soviet sympathizers,
to keep America safe from the Soviet
Union. T h e S o v ie ts had s u rp rise d
most of the world, although not many
s c ie n tis ts , by exp lod in g th e ir first
nuclear weapon in August 1949.
Yet today, as in the 1950s, there is
d iv ision of o p in io n reg a rd in g th e
Rosenbergs’ innocence or guilt. Writer
Jo y c e M ilto n ’67, c o -a u th o r w ith
Ronald Radosh of The R osen berg F ile:
A S ea rch fo r th e Truth [1983], takes
issu e w ith m o st of th e p o in ts
Meeropol makes about the case. In a
recent interview, she said she believes
the Rosenbergs were guilty, that they
were low-level spies who “stum bled
on m ore im portant information than
one would think.”
Meeropol, who holds a doctorate in
economic history from the University
of W isconsin at Madison, con sid ers
himself a serious historian and says
he would not ignore facts indicating
his parents’ guilt if they “hit me in the
fa ce .” But he s e e s no c re d ib le ev i­
d e n ce sh o w in g a d e fin itiv e link
betw een his parents and th e Soviet
Union.
FEBRU ARY 1 9 9 5

“S in ce 1983 I h ave engaged in a
lo n g -d ista n ce d e b a te w ith R onald
R a d o sh and J o y c e M ilto n ,” sa y s
Meeropol. “They have never respond­
ed to the substance of any of the criti­
cisms I’ve made of them, and [exclud­
ing a p an el d is c u ss io n ] th e y h ave
never been willing to debate me faceto-face. In fact, I’ll make an offer right
now to debate them before an audi­
ence at Swarthmore or anywhere else
where we’ll have documents and facts
and we’ll be able to discuss the case
at length.”
In 1986 Meeropol added a 40-page
refutation of the Radosh and Milton
book to the second edition of We A re

M eeropol
maintains that
his parents were
part of a
politically
motivated
frame-up in the
climate of the
Cold War.
Your Sons, an autobiographical remi­
n iscence originally published by the
brothers in 1975. In it Meeropol calls
T h e R o sen b e rg F ile “an in tellectu al
fraud.”
In fact, he points to new informa­
tion that may indicate the existence of
an earlier spy, code-named “Perseus.”
In T h e R o sen b e rg L etters he c ite s a
M a rch 1950 m em o from J. E d gar
H o o v er to R ea r A d m iral S id n e y
Souers, sp e cial con su ltan t to P resi­
d en t H arry T ru m an . It s ta te s th a t
when Klaus Fuchs was arrested at Los
Alamos, he confessed that by 1943 the
Soviets already had information from
an oth er scien tific so u rce inside the
project.
“T h is m ea n s th e S o v ie ts w ere
receiving inform ation before Greenglass allegedly did anything in 1944,

according to the government informa­
t io n ,” M ee ro p o l sa y s . “H oov er, in
effect, was unable to catch [Perseus],
so he went after Greenglass and my
p aren ts.” In the introduction to T he
R osen berg Letters, he writes that “the
FBI may have been covering up its fail­
ure to prevent significant espionage
from ta k in g p la c e rig h t u n d er its
nose.”
Jo y ce Milton agrees that an oth er
spy was likely at Los Alamos before
Fuchs. “I have my own theory about
who P erseu s w as,” sh e says, “but I
can ’t prove it.” She believes it is an
American who is still alive.
Even new information coming out
of R u ssia to d a y c a n n o t sw ay
M e e ro p o l. In th e th ird v o lu m e of
K hru shchev R em em bers: T he G lasnost
T a p es, th e re is m en tion by form er
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev of the
“significant help” allegedly given by
the Rosenbergs in the production of
the Soviet atomic bomb.
“The tapes haven’t even been veri­
fied [as being th e v o ice of K hrush­
c h e v ],” M eero p o l sa y s, “and w hat
actu al help [my p arents] m ay have
given is not mentioned.” He asserts in
T h e R o s e n b e r g L etters th a t ev en i f
K hrushchev made the statem ent, he
w as m istaken* m ean in g in stea d to
refer, am ong o th er p o ssib ilities, to
another American couple who did act
as co u riers for a R ussian op erative
and who had been traded to the Sovi­
et Union in 1965.
Milton cou n ters that “th e bulk of
in fo rm a tio n co m in g ou t of R u ssia
to d ay v erifies th a t th e R o sen b erg s
had helped the Soviet Union. There’s
no file in the Kremlin you’re going to
pick up that’s going to say ‘Julius and
Ethel Rosenberg’ on it; that’s not the
way in telligence sy stem s work. But
b asically everything has confirm ed
what one could already conclude from
the American sources.”

T

ho u g h p u b lic a d vo c a c y o f h is

parents’ case has occupied much
of Meeropol’s adult life, while growing
up he took comfort in the anonymity
of a new last name. Following a cus­
to d y b a ttle in th e New Y o rk s ta te
cou rts after th e death of their legal
guardian, Emanuel Bloch, the Rosen­
berg broth ers w ere adopted in 1957
by Anne and Abel Meeropol. A child­
less couple who shared many of the
19

Seven years
after his parents
were executed,
Meeropol
entered college.
He believed
that few people
knew of his past,
but it did intrude.
R o s e n b e r g s ’ p o litic a l v ie w s, th e
Meeropols can be credited with giving
b ack to th e boys part of their child­
hood. Out of love find respect for their
adoptive parents, Michael and Robert
kept the Meeropol name, although at
one time they considered changing it
back. It also afforded them a measure
of privacy.
In 1960, ju st seven years after the
Rosenberg execution, M ichael Meer­
opol cam e to Sw arthm ore, a college
he says he chose because of the repu­
tation of its annual folk festival. When
he entered college, Meeropol believed
few people knew of his past, but it did
intrude.
O ne of th o s e tim es w as in 1961,
w hen h e w ent in to P h ilad elp h ia to
protest the Bay of Pigs invasion. His
group of friends, som e of whom would
later form th e left-wing Sw arthm ore
Political Action Club, was firmly proC astro. At th e p ro te s t p la in clo th es
police ripped signs out of their hands,
and the next day word spread that the
police had been in Parrish Hall looking
to a r r e s t Jo h n S im o n ’64 and
Meeropol.
“Well, I went crazy,” says Meeropol.
“If I was arrested, that would be expo­
sure and there would be all these ter­
rible consequences. So my friend Carl
Wittman [’64] called my lawyer in New
Y ork and sh e called a lo cal law yer.
Carl then drove me to this law yer’s
house. By the tim e we got there, we
knew this was just a miscom m unica-

tion,” he recalls with a chuckle, “but
th a t sca re d m e. Looking b ack with
20/20 h in d sig h t th e id ea of c o n s e ­
q u en ces ap p ears silly. W hat c o n se ­
quence would there be? But this was a
very different time for me.”
He would also learn of the effect his
p aren ts’ ca se had on oth er p eo p les’
liv e s . “My fre s h m a n y e a r, a fte r
T h an k sg iv in g , C arl W ittm an cam e
back and told our group of friends, all
of whom sh ared th e sam e p o litics,
how he had ripped his parents up and
down because they had not done any­
thing political for the last 10 years. He
told them they’d given him all th ese
values but they hadn’t done anything
themselves. And his parents had said
to him, ‘We looked at you and your
sister running around the house in the
1950s, and we looked at w hat hap­
pened to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg,
and we got scared.’ Carl didn’t know
w ho I w as at th e tim e. I w as really
quite im pressed with that because it
was the first time I’d heard that story,
b u t it is a p p a r e n tly
s o m e th in g th a t w as
repeated in many fami­
lies.”
M e e r o p o l’s
h igh
sc h o o l friend and c o l­
le g e ro o m m a te Doug
Redefer ’65 says: “I can’t
rem em ber talking about
M ik e’s p a s t p u b lic ly
w ith
p e o p le
w ho
weren’t friends of mine.
I would apologize to him
w h e n e v e r I did te ll
som eone, because I felt
it was som ething that I
had to b e v ery carefu l
about mentioning.”
R e d e fe r
becam e
a w a re of M e e r o p o l’s
parentage when he men­
tio n e d th e R o s e n b e rg
c a s e in a h igh s c h o o l
c la s s . O th er stu d e n ts
criticized him for bring­
ing it up. Didn’t he know
who Mike w as? No, he
d id n ’t. R ed e fer w ould
later apologize to Meer­
opol, but he says Meer- g
o p o l n e v e r a sk e d fo r §
an y sy m p a th y . It w as 9
from th a t e n c o u n te r I
th a t th e ir frie n d s h ip |
was formed.
<

Redefer recalls college memories
such as being arrested with Meeropol
w h ile p ic k e tin g fo r c iv il rig h ts in
C hester, Pa.; th e two of them roller
skating with b lack s in a segregated
rink; and having discussions with his
friend ab ou t forging a new identity
se p arate from his birth parents. He
r e m e m b e rs M ee ro p o l as popular,
P lease turn to page 62

Right: At noon on Friday, June 19,
1953, the Supreme Court vacated
Justice William O. Douglas’ stay of
execution. The Rosenbergs’ electro*
cution was moved from 11 p.m. to 8
p.m. so as not to desecrate the Jew­
ish Sabbath. They were together
when this final letter was written by
Ethel sometime that afternoon.
Below: Robert (le ft) and Michael
Meeropol leave Sing Sing Prison with
attorney Emanuel Bloch in February
1953 shortly after President Dwight
Eisenhower denied clem ency.

20

J

trees.

Name<
S t r c 0 j i N o y.lv.t/h.

354 H unter S t -,
Oswining, N. Y ,

^TTi ^ht*r
/.

City

'Number.

Stat
D i t e / ? P : ^ / . V/. . // v r 3 .
V

J§ Q A s i£ * Jr X
Z A 2 ^ ± .& ...

/p h &Ais? t Sh'C X~‘£ $ J.

r y

,j j &

. i

Mr. Emanuel H. Bloch
7 W 16th Street
N ew York, N ew York
* ^ e ;A

L )i

.j f c u

.....^

s ttl

Jju iS ^ o

Dear Manny,
T h e following letter is to b e delivered to my children:

r & t - c jj

Aa^j aV M
a~ & \

r T&.

^

*

¿ f/j

¿fc

/ ! U L&

'¡fat

C flU T u L ^ j j
n s Jh a s & u

Jd -A 'U ?

AA
IC & JL il
U

jt - t V

*
P 7
O c

/& *
/

M

^

-V
/—\

>*Sl
¿ S t

v,.

Dearest Sweethearts, my m ost precious children,
Only this m orning it looked like w e might b e together
again after all. Now that this cannot b e I w ant so m uch for
you to know all that I have com e to k n ow Unfortunately I
may w rite only a few simple words; the rest your ow n
lives must teach you, even as m ine taught me.
At first, o f course, you will grieve bitterly for us, but
you will not grieve alone. That is our consolation and it
must eventually b e yours.
Eventually, too, you must com e to believe that life is
w orth the living. Be com forted that even now, w ith the
end o f ours slowly approaching that w e know this w ith a
conviction that defeats the executioner!
Your lives must teach you, too, that good cannot really
flourish in the midst o f evil; that freedom and all the
things that go to make up a truly satisfying and w orth­
w hile life, must som etim es b e purchased very dearly. Be
com forted, then, that w e w ere serene and understood
w ith the deepest kind o f understanding, that civilization
had n ot as yet progressed to the point w here life did not
have to b e lost for the sake o f life; and that w e w ere com ­
forted in the sure knowledge that others w ould carry on
after us.
We w ish w e might have had the trem endous joy and
gratification o f living our lives out w ith you. Your Daddy
w h o is w ith m e in these last m om entous hours sends his
heart and all the love that is in it for his dearest boys.
Always rem em ber that w e w ere innocent and could not
w rong our con science.
W e press you close and kiss you w ith all our strength.
Lovingly,
Daddy and Mommy

c \

Vs:

fn.

.¿y

m
Y

I

S

f

sn

v

J

I

fH

{ Z C J ^ 7 ¿ U p *7

J

.-S zjl *-

By Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59
I L

I
t ’s not surprising that
a w e ll-m u s c le d 6 '2 "
230-pounder like Andy
D anilchick ’95 en joys
sports. Growing up in
a row h o u s e in B a y ­
onne, N.J., “right next to Jer­
sey City,” he easily held his
own in basketball games at
nearby public housing proj­
e c t s . At S w a rth m o re th e
strapping psychology major
has played football and bas­
ketball.
Over the years h e’s also
developed what he unblushingly calls
“a rea l p a ss io n for e d u c a tio n .” He
regrets that many Jersey City friends
didn’t share his good fortune at hav­
ing a supportive family and education­
al o p p o r tu n itie s an d th a t so m e
couldn’t say no to drugs. He also per­
ceives that the advertised virtues of
athletics— a big attraction in the proj­
ects— don’t always translate into posi­
tive behavior off the court.
All of th is h e lp s e x p la in w hy
Danilchick, 21, is the founder, direc­
tor, recruiter, and chief prom oter of a
small but ambitious summer program
for kids ca lled E d u ca tio n T h rou g h
Sports. It’s designed to help develop
sound values, self-esteem , healthful
personal habits and fitness, communi­
cation skills, and a resp ect for team ­
w ork. And it m ay b e u n iq u e in its
emphasis on conflict resolution.
Danilchick got the idea for his pro­
gram when, as a sophom ore, he was
assigned to design a curriculum proj­
e ct in a co u rse taught by A ssociate
Professor Eva Travers, director of the
Education Program. In the summer of
1993, he transferred it from the realm
of theory to the real world. Education
T hrou gh Sp o rts w as lau n ched as a
one-week pilot program with six vol­
unteer teachers, $1,200 in grants, and
support from the Jersey City Depart­
m en t of R e c r e a tio n and C u ltu ra l
Affairs and community leaders. About
35 boys p articip ated , m ost of them
eighth graders.
B u ild in g on th a t e x p e r ie n c e ,
Danilchick worked with Assistant Pro-

I

22

fesso r C hristine M assey of
the Psychology Department
to turn Education Through
Sports into an independent 1*
r e s e a r c h p r o je c t and to
e x p a n d it to tw o weeks.
After recruiting visits to four
J e r s e y C ity s c h o o ls , he
sig n ed up 110 ch ild ren,
some middle-class and 25 of
th e m g ir ls . T h e y ranged
from sixth to eighth grades,
an age group not served by
existing program s. Most of
th e funding cam e from the
Jersey City Department of Recreation
and Cultural Affairs through its enter­
prising director, Tom Hart, who also
helped arrange for Danilchick to rent |
th e C a th o lic Y o u th O rgan ization
(CYO) com p lex in Kearny, N.J. The
City of Je r s e y City provided trans­
portation.
D a n ilc h ic k w as a b le to h ire 16
s e n io r t e a c h e r s , in clu d in g nine
Swarthmore students and four recent
alums, in addition to four volunteer
ju n io r t e a c h e r s from S t. P e t e r ’s
P reparatory School, his alma mater.
He said its principal, Jack Raslowsky,
who o n ce w as his s c ie n c e teach er,
“p rovid ed g rea t su p p o rt from day
one.” Danilchick had learned innova­
tive teaching techniques as a teacher
in St. Peter’s Higher Achieve-ment Pro- 1
gram (HAP), which the Jesu it school
established three decades ago. “That
was where,” he recalls, “I found that in
my heart I’m a teach er.” He also had
w orked with learn in g-d isab led stu ­
d e n ts a t W e st P h ila d e lp h ia High
School, where students are “as tough
as any kids you can get.”
As D a n ilc h ic k p u lled h is id eas
together, he talked to “probation offi- 1
cers, cops in drug programs, and peo­
ple at cou n ty co u rts, in nonprofits,
and education. I w anted to find out
what the real needs were, not to rein­
vent the w heel.” Staff training was a
key com p onent, funded p artly by a
Sw arth m ore Fou n d ation grant th at I
had been awarded to assistant direc­
to r B eth Green ’97. Chris Henry ’96
was the training facilitator, assisted by

GOOD
SPORTS

Andy Danilchick ’95
runs a summer
sports program
for inner-city youth.
Basketball is out,
teamwork is in, and
conflict resolution
is the goal.

SW A RTH M O RE CO LLEG E BU LLETIN

G reen. And e a c h t e a c h e r a rriv e d
already equipped with useful talents.
For e x a m p le , D a n ilc h ic k sa id ,
Michelle M artinez ’97 is an aero bics
trainer and ten n is whiz. “T h e b oys
would look at h er and se e th a t sh e
could do th in g s th e y co u ld n ’t ,” h e
said. “And she was a real role model
for the girls. Diana [Bieber ’96], Tricia
[Duncan ’9 5 ], and Em eliza [Olim po
’94] are great at volleyball. Joel [John­
son ’96] is really good in theater and
role-playing. Anam [Owili-Eger ’96] is
the Ultimate Frisbee god, and Jo el is
pretty good too. Mike [Rothbart ’94]
could figure out gam es th at 90 kids
can play, like am oeba tag.
“Kesia [Constantine ’96] has had a
wealth of exp erien ce with inner-city
young people, and sh e helped sta rt
APEX [A dolescents Prom oting Excel­
lence] in Chester. Jen [Ekert ’94] is a
model teacher; sh e’s great at interac­
tion with kids. And she and Chris are
good so ccer players. Patrick [Naswell
’92] knew how to manage the equip­
ment. Ricky [Phillips ’96] attended the
Institute for Urban Education, a sum­
mer program at Columbia University,
and was trained to work with innercity youth. And Beth Green— she can
FEB R U A R Y 1 9 9 5

do everything,” said Danilchick.
Although both the teachers and the
c h ild re n w e re e th n ic a lly d iv e rs e ,
Danilchick—who is half Russian, half
Sp anish— said th at ra ce “isn ’t a big
issue in this age group.” What is a big
issue for many of them is basketball.
“Jersey City is the basketball capital of
th e w o rld ,” D an ilch ick said w ith a
sigh. “All the kids ask for it. But to me
basketball is hierarchy: haves versus
have-nots. Although I loved it as a kid,
I don’t want to perpetuate that. The
kids would bring their basketballs on
th e b u se s, bu t I w ou ldn’t let th em

“The secret is to com m unicate, ” says
Andy Danilchick o f “the human pretzel, ”
one o f many cooperative gam es taught at
Education Through Sports, the two-week
summer youth program he designed in Jer­
sey City, N.J. Players lock hands and work
to untangle the “pretzel” into a circle—with­
out letting go. “Once you learn to communi­
cate, you can do it with 10 or 15 people, ”
he says. “It’s not so important to be success­
ful; it’s just going through the process. ”

play. It’s too charged and competitive;
it d eterm ines w ho’s cool and w ho’s
n ot.” Also not on the sched u le were
other sports that focus on individual
e x c e lle n c e , in clu d in g b a se b a ll and
football.

nize their identity,” D anilchick said,
they engaged in “dialogues with them­
selves” through meditation and keep­
ing a journal. At the end of the pro­
gram , th e y w ro te a le tte r to th em ­
selves— which was mailed to them at
h om e— d escribin g th eir asp iration s
n th e fir s t d ay, s tu d e n ts
for personal growth and change.
were assigned to groups of
Som e ex ercises w ere designed to
eight to 12. T h e se groups clarify values. One had th e children
s ta y e d t o g e th e r fo r th e lining up on a spectrum representing
entire two weeks— for sports,where
lunch,they fit on such statem ents as
and other activities. Some developed
“I like to be alone” or “I get into a lot of
so much team spirit that they picked fig h ts.” R ole-playing m ight involve
team names and m ascots.
ste re o ty p in g and em p ath y, like an
Each day featured a ctiv ities th at e x e r c is e in w h ich e v e ry o n e — sta ff
stressed imaginative fun, learning, and included— wore headbands with mes­
coop eration. Team w ork was em pha­ sages they couldn’t see. A sh y child
sized, no m atter what the sport: vol­ got one reading “I’m a leader— follow
leyball, Ultimate Frisbee, soccer, aero­ m e.” A natural leader’s said “I’m inse­
b ics, O lym pic handball. And it was c u r e - c o m f o r t m e.” A quiet ch ild ’s
essen tial in trust-building ex ercises, said “I’m a talker— interrupt m e.” The
like one where a blindfolded child was group would be assigned a task, such
guided on ly by v o ic e s , o r a n o th e r
as trying to get off a desert island. The
where an individual fell backward, to aim of th e e x e rcise was to help the
be caught by teammates.
stu d ents understand oth er p eo p le’s
The children were also introduced
p e rsp e ctiv e s and m ake them thin k
to su ch p ra c tic a l b a s ic s as how to
about being perceived as som ething
read food labels and to eat right. In they aren’t.
addition to physical fitness, there was
Conflict-resolution exercises high­
a s tro n g e m p h a sis on m en ta l and
lighted the need for empathy and psy­
e m o tio n a l f itn e s s . “S in c e m id d le- ch o lo g ical d istan ce and help ed th e
school kids are just starting to recog­ ch ild ren b eco m e m ore se n sitiv e to

O

Building trust in each other is the goal
o f “Wind in the Willows, ” dem onstrated
above by M ichelle Martinez ’97. She closes
h er eyes and falls backward, trusting that
she will be caught. At right D anilchick and
two young friends try the “Human Pendu­
lum, ” a sim ilar gam e w here the person in
the middle plants her feet and is swung
back and forth by two others.
o p tio n s and c o n s e q u e n c e s . D anil­
chick said the teach ers w ere trained
“to le t th e kid s d e c id e w h e re th e
group goes,” and they weren’t told in
ad v a n ce w ho m ight b e d ifficu lt or
d em an d in g . “T h e y d o n ’t w an t to
know,” he said. “It’s a different envi­
ronment, a clean slate. The kids can
red efin e th e m se lv e s. And w ith th e
sm all grou p s, ev ery o n e g ets a tte n ­
tion.”

ot everything w ent ex actly
as p la n n ed . A CYO p r ie s t
who is th e chaplain for the
New Jersey Giants arranged
for a v isit by th re e team m em bers
D an ilch ick h op ed th a t th e fo o tb all
p lay ers would h elp d em yth olo gize
big-time sports for the students, and
he carefully explained the program ’s
goals to th e p lay ers in ad v an ce. “I
wanted them to get off their pedestals

N

24
SW A RTH M O RE CO LLEG E BU LLETIN

,:1 J

and talk about how they take care of
their bod ies and how th ey do what
they do— to be real people. But they
didn’t. T h e y h an d ed o u t s tic k e r s ,
sch ed u les, and team p ictu re s. T h e
kids loved it. And I guess maybe it was
good for som e of them . But in retro­
spect I wouldn’t have done it.”
T rain in g fa c ilita to r C hris H enry
u nd erstand s D an ilch ick ’s re a ctio n .
“The kids did love it,” he said. “But
w h at’s s u c c e s s ? W h a t’s v a lu a b le ?
Andy got passionate about this.” Still,
Henry said, com petitive sports, espe­
cially basketball, loom large in the stu­
dents’ lives, and many play regularly
at the Jersey City Boys’ Club. He said
he w a tch e d th em o n c e , and “th e y
were v ery d isciplined , even though
th e re w e re 70 k id s and o n ly o n e
instructor.”
P ro fe s s o r T ra v e rs said sh e w as
excited by “the fantastic group of peo­
ple from Sw arthm ore that Andy put
together. Most of them had taken edu­
cation co u rses, so th ey had a com ­
mon framework and a lot of the sam e
expectations of what it takes to work
with kids. It’s important that students
w ho le a v e h e r e w a n tin g to te a c h
aren’t limited to middle-class ‘progres­
sive’ experiences.
“Andy isn’t just a wide-eyed idealFEB R U A R Y 1 9 9 5

J

excited by “the
fantastic group
that Andy put
together. Most o f
them had taken
education courses,
so they had a
common framework
and a lot o f the
same expectations
o f what it takes to
work with kids.”
ist— h e ’s v ery determ ined. It was a
sh o e strin g op eration th e first year,
ju s t a gym and a c o u p le of c la s s ­
room s. I wondered if all the arrange­
m e n ts co u ld c o m e t o g e th e r [to
expand it] last summer, and they did.
He and Beth make a great team. She’s
excellent with details and very consci­
entious. She cam e off a heavy innercity project and went right into this.”
Travers said evaluation of the pro­
gram is d ifficu lt b e c a u s e m a jo r
changes in a child would be unlikely in

only two weeks. “We don’t have a recil
h a n d le on w h a t’s g o in g on w h en
they’re in school,” she said, “and they
might not use the conflict-resolution
skills until six m onths later. But we
can do ongoing journal-type evalua­
tio n s in w h ich th e t e a c h e r s th in k
about th eir learning.”
Patrick Naswell, now an admissions
co u n s e lo r at th e C ollege, said th is
happened throughout the program. “I
liked the fact that the program helped
the staff learn as well as the students,”
he said. “All of us did different things,
b u t w e’d s h a r e w h at w as w orking
right.”
Professor Massey said she appreci­
a tes w hat D anilchick accom p lish ed
because she works with the Philadel­
p h ia p u b lic s c h o o ls and is all to o
familiar with obstacles to innovation.
“Andy is a man of action with a lot of
feeling for the kids and a lot of vision
for what he hopes to see happen,” she
said. “He’s amazing in the way he goes
to Je rs e y City and m akes reso u rces
appear. It’s unusual for an undergrad­
uate to pull this off— I’m in awe of the
way h e b ro k ers rela tio n sh ip s. He’s
d o in g th in g s th a t m o st p e o p le
wouldn’t even contem plate until after
graduate school.”
Sh e said sh e and T ra v e rs talked
25

with Danilchick about evaluating the
1993 program by going to th e ch il­
dren’s schools and testing them, but
w hen D a n ilc h ic k c a m e dow n w ith
m ononucleosis, that proved impossi­
ble. “Som e [resu lts] you see on the
spot— the light in a child’s eyes,” she
sa id . “T h is p ro g ra m ‘f e e l s ’ goo d .
Sw arthm ore students really want to
share— they know they’ve had bless­
ings— but it’s really hard to do it in a
way that’s not naive. You have to let
th e c h ild re n tell you on th e ir own
term s what they’ll respond to. Once
you’re with the group in their setting,
theory is only a guide.”
Kesia Constantine, a seasoned vol­
unteer, confirm ed this. “We had two
days of train in g ,” sh e said, “but no
amount of it would have prepared us
for what we experien ced . One high­
lig h t w as w o rk in g w ith th e o th e r
teach ers— we valued each other and
could go to one an oth er. The oth er
highlight was working with the kids.
They’re brutally honest at that age. I’d
ask, ‘Guys, is this conflict resolution
w o rk a b le? A re you going to u se it
when your mom tells you to wash the
d is h e s ? ’ So few a d u lts h a v e th e s e
skills. It’s really hard to put yourself in
s o m e o n e e l s e ’s s h o e s , e s p e c ia lly
when you may be threatened by your
friends.
“It’s rough to watch their growing
pains. T h e y ’re grow ing in different
ways, and other kids aren’t always tol­
erant. ‘Empathy? W hat’s that?!’ W e’d
h ave th em a c t ou t ‘feelin g ’ w ord s,
which are not just words.”
The staff “got great feedback from
th e kids on th e c u rric u lu m ,” B eth
Green said. “They’d talk to us about it.
T h ey knew it related to th e ir lives,
even if they couldn’t actually apply it
in 10 days.”
Constantine said the schedule was
so full that sh e didn’t always “have
enough time to reflect. W e’d have lit­
tle ‘fa c u lty ’ m eetin g s at night, and
everything was an issue. I often felt we
could have solved the problems infor­
mally and individually, but the group
got co m fo rta b le with this ‘n estin g .’
Still, this has been one of my b etter
experiences, and I’m looking forward
to doing it next summer.”
Chris Henry said: “Getting to know
th e kids as individuals, one on one,
was among my fondest memories. We
had to be open and accepting and to
26

he program’s
long days and
nights reminded
Chris Henry ’96
o f his work at
Swarthmore:
“I invested so
much of m yself,
and I fe lt a
great sense o f
accomplishment.”

T

listen. We had to give the kids a chance
to talk. Our s o c ia l o rd e r— re s p e c t
property, take time to listen— doesn’t
work for them. In som e of their fami­
lies, th e p erso n w h o’s heard is th e
lo u d e st, and t h e r e ’s no c h a n c e to
respond. That can lead to conflict. The
kids would make fun of our conflictresolution phrases in the role-playing,
but during sports they would say, ‘You
need to respect each other.’”
He said they were “typical of their
age group on gender roles. There was
so m e h a ra ssm e n t of th e girls, and
they w ere som etim es less willing to

speak up, even in small groups.”
Henry said that Jersey City’s Tom
Hart told the staff, “The m ost impor­
tant thing about your being h ere is
you being h ere.” Hart said getting to
know a m b itio u s c o lle g e stu d e n ts
helped motivate the children to raise
their own aspirations.
The long days and nights reminded
Henry a bit of Swarthmore, he said, in
th a t “th e w ork w as a lo t of fun, I
invested so much of myself, and I felt
a great sense of accom plishm ent. I’ll
b e b a ck n ext su m m er. W e’ll really
fo cu s on sta ff tra in in g , w ith m ore
advance preparation on how to get
into the kids’ heads effectively when
we’re teaching conflict resolution.”
ack Raslowsky of St. Peter’s Prep
said it was “a real pleasure being
around the people from Swarth­
more. You sense the strong com­
m itm ent of th e se stu dents to social
progress and their desire to become
actively engaged in process issues—
the p ro cess for reaching a social goal
is very im portant to them . It’s clear
that the College emphasizes this.
“Andy is working at an extremely
am bitious level— staff development,
the staff’s own skills at getting along,
te a c h in g , m an ag in g e v e n ts . I t ’s a

J

P lease turn to page 61

m M *M

SW A RTH M O RE C O LLEG E BULLETIN

FE

HSE

Hit »mkt
"■■mm

Kids are too young to lift weights, so Patrick Naswell ’92 (top left) dem on­
strates a manual resistance exercise called “upright rowing. ”A sim ilar exercise
has kids in pairs, allowing them to use their muscles while working together.
Role playing in small groups (abov e) is how cam pers spent much o f their
time. They brought in conflicts from their lives or communities and experim ented
with different ways o f resolving them in sessions facilitated by the cam pers them­
selves. “It’s all proactive, ”says Danilchick, “giving them the skills to d eal with sit­
uations before they get in them. ”
There’s no w inner in this relay race (left). B ecause each team ’s path cuts
across the other’s, one object o f the gam e is to avoid hitting m em bers o f the other
team. “You just k eep playing until you’re too tired to go on, ” says Danilchick.
FEBRU ARY 1 9 9 5

A L
iliï

U M

N 1

«

Bloom was a highlight for many North
Carolina alumni, parents, and friends.
President Bloom made some remarks
Upcoming Events
by Walt Cochran-Bond ’70.
and visited a reception organized by
New York: The New York Connec­
Priscilla Coit Murphy ’67.
n March 4, President Alfred H.
tion’s first event of the fall was held at
Philadelphia: Members of the
Bloom will visit with alumni, par­
the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which
Philadelphia Connection got together on
ents, and friends in Naples, Fla. Watch
presented “Interplay.” This look at the
a February evening to enjoy the sounds
your mail for details!
relationship between Emerson and
of Swarthmore a capella groups Sixteen
The Washington, D.C., Connection
Thoreau and Charles Ives was one in a
Feet, Grapevine, and Mixed Company
will see the play R hinoceros on Satur­
series of events that explore music in a
and to sample a variety of delectable
day, March 18. Allen Kuharski, assistant
cultural and intellectual context. Joe
chocolate confections. The almost-annuprofessor of theatre studies, will
al “Chocolate Night” was appro­
g u n k
be on hand for a post-perfor­
priately titled “Chocolate &
mance discussion.
Music.”
The Philadelphia Connection
Seattle: President Bloom made
is planning a March 19 trip to the
a stop in Seattle in mid-January
Philadelphia Museum of Art to
to visit with alumni, parents, and
see the Barnes Foundation
friends. Deborah Read ’87 orga­
Exhibit. Other events coming
nized the reception, which was
up— an April tour of Longwood
held at the Stouffer Madison
Gardens with a Swarthmore Biol­
Hotel.
ogy Dept, faculty member,
South Florida: In December
Swarthmore night at the Phillies
South Florida alumni got togeth­
(we hope.1) in May, and a tour of
er with alumni from peer institu­
Chestnut Hill in June. Watch
tions for a Holly & Ivy Party held
your mail for details.
at the Museum of Science and
In New York an exhibit of Jes­
Space Planetarium in Miami. The
sica Winer’s ’84 paintings, as well
party was sponsored by All Ivy
as a wine tasting with “insuffer­
Clubs.
able wine slobs” Don Fujihira ’69
On Jan. 4 Fernando Changand David Wright ’69, is on tap
Muy, assistant dean and director
for April 12. On April 27 come to
of the Intercultural Center, talked
the Kampo Theatre for a play
to the South Florida Connection
written by Deborah Winer ’83. A
about “California Proposition
post-performance discussion
187, Its Constitutionality and Its
with Deb will follow. Details will
Impact on Florida.” The event
be arriving in your mail soon!
was held at the home of Connec­
tion Chair Mark Shapiro ’88.
Recent Events
St. Louis: Swarthmoreans in St.
Louis got together on Dec. 2 to
Long Island: On February 23 the
Com e on b a c k ...
cheer on the Swarthmore men’s
Long Island Connection gathered
basketball team as they played
and bring the kids!
to hear a presentation by Bonnie
host team Washington Universi­
S ave the dates o f Ju n e 2 -4 fo r Alumni W eekend ’95.
Hall (sister of Lori Hall ’89) about
ty. Monica and Clayton Perry ’73
Catch up on the latest new s from frien d s/
her year working in a Bosnian
and Betty and H. Mitchell Perry
room
m ates/soulm ates, m ingle with faculty
refugee camp in Hungary. The
Jr. ’45 organized and hosted a
m em bers, visit the new est sp aces (o r favorite old
evening was organized by Phil
pregame reception.
p laces). Inform ation an d reservation
Gilbert ’48.
Washington, D.C.: Alumni, par­
form s will b e m ailed in mid-April.
Los Angeles alumni, parents,
ents, and friends gathered for
and friends gathered for an after­
the Washington premiere of the
noon at the Dorothy Chandler
popular and heartwarming
Pavilion in January to hear Swarthmore
Horowitz ’70, executive director of the
Broadway play Conversations with my
Professor of Music Gerald Levinson’s
Brooklyn Philharmonic, arranged for
Father on Jan. 14. Dorita Sewell ’65 and
Sym phony No. 2 performed by the Los
discount tickets for the New York Con­
Ed Farley, father of Blake ’92, organized
Angeles Philharmonic. After the perfor­
nection.
the event. The play was followed by a
mance, Professor Levinson attended a
North Carolina: An October visit
backstage discussion arranged by Serge
post-performance reception organized
from Swarthmore President Alfred H.
Seiden ’85.

m

O

28

SW A RTH M O RE C O LLEG E BU LLETIN

d

i

g

e

s

t

Coolfont Weekend
April 21-23________

Mr. Clinton,
Mr. Gingrich,
the Econom y,
and You
Robinson Hollister

Ellen M agenheim

Bernard Saffron

r. Clinton, Mr. Gingrich, the Economy, and
You” is the timely theme of the fifth annual
Swarthmore Weekend at Coolfont, April 21-23.
Alumni, parents, spouses, and friends of Swarth­
more are invited to join members of the economics
faculty in discussions of the weekend’s theme.
They include Bernard Saffran, Franklin and Betty
Barr Professor of Economics, an expert on taxes
and deficits; Robinson G. Hollister Jr., Joseph Whar­
ton Professor of Economics, an authority on wel­
fare, poverty, and entitlements; and Ellen B. Magenheim, associate professor of economics, who is
conducting important research on public policy
and the changing American family.
Coolfont is the scenic resort and conference
center owned by Sam Ashelman ’37, and his wife,
Martha, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains
of West Virginia. Participants also can enjoy hiking,
indoor swimming, aerobics, bird-watching, tennis,
golf, live entertainment, and good fellowship. Sun­
day breakfast will be followed by an update on the
College today, including campus life and the cur­
riculum.
For information on reservations, please write or
call Alumni Relations at (610) 328-8402, fax (610)
328-7796, or E-mail: alumni@swarthmore.edu

M

Black Alumni Weekend
March 17-18

C elebrate the
BCC’s 25th
A n niversary
ark your calendars for March 17
and 18, Swarthmore’s annual
Black Alumni Weekend. This year is the
25th anniversary of the Black Cultural
Center, and the committee is planning a
special celebration including a Friday
night concert with Vaneese Thomas ’74,
a seminar featuring black faculty mem­
bers, art exhibits, and an evening of
jazz. For more information call the
Alumni Office, (610) 328-8412.

M

At the Colonel’s in Bangkok ...
Don Sw earer (far right), the Charles and Harri­
ett Cox McDowell Professor o f Religion who
was a Guggenheim/Fulbright Fellow at the Insti­
tute for Social Research at ChiangM ai Universi­
ty in Bangkok, Thailand, m et four Swarthmoreans for a snack at the Kentucky Fried Chicken
in Bangkok last July. From left to right are:
Lerkiat Vongsampigoon 72, dean o f engineer­
ing at M ahanakom University o f Technology;
Chulacheeb Chinwanno 72, director o f the
Institute o f East Asian Studies at Thammasat
University; Pranee Tinakom 72, a m em ber o f
the econom ics faculty at Thammasat Universi­
ty; and Siree Bunnag 73, a m em ber o f the for­
eign affairs section o f the Office o f Narcotics
Control Board.

FEB R U A R Y 1 9 9 5

29

Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs
Helen Horn beck Tanner
oon Feather Woman
dances with the others
around the circle in Peshawbestown, Mich., at a powwow
of the Grand Traverse Band
of Ottawa and Chippewa Indi­
ans that honors her work on
Indian constitutional, civil,
and fishing rights. Wearing
her treasured cranberry-col­
ored shawl with four rows of
interlocking knots that is
decorated with a painted fab­
ric loon feather, a beaded
cream-colored rose, and a
soft piece of chamois, Helen
Hornbeck Tanner ’37 almost
feels like a member of the
tribe.
Tanner has spent most of
her career helping Indians
state their cases in Anglo
courts. She has helped them
clarify their history and
secure hunting and fishing
rights granted to them in
treaties, and her influence in
legal cases has meant pros­
perity to many communities.
Tanner estimates that since
she began testifying in 1963,
she has helped bring in more
than $150 million in court
awards from 18 cases.
Tanner’s research in map­
ping and tracking Indian set­
tlements has been instru­
mental to the cases in which
she has testified. Her 1987
book, Atlas o f Great Lakes
Indian History, covers the
Great Lakes north of the
Ohio River, an area the
founding fathers referred to
as the Northwest Territory.
Tanner’s goal was to have
the atlas be more than just a
scholarly tool. And indeed it
is. The atlas is used by Indi­
ans, schoolteachers, and col­
lege professors. It is current­
ly used by Swarthmore Asso­
ciate Professor of History
Marjorie Murphy in the
course Race and Foreign
Affairs and by the Congres­
sional Research Service,
where Congress is consider­
ing legislation affecting Indi­
an tribes. She also received a
high compliment on the book

L

FE B R U A R Y 1 9 9 5

“I ’ve always said that attend­
ing Swarthmore charged up
my intellectual batteries for
life, ” says Helen Tanner ’37.
“Swarthmore m ade graduate
school seem anticlimactic in
comparison. ”
from a Chippewa (Ojibwe),
who told her the book told
the story of his people the
way he had always heard it.
“I think it’s very difficult
to get the views of Indians
brought forth in scholarly
history,” says Tanner, who is
a research associate at the
Newberry Library in Chicago,
home of the D’Arcy McNickle
Center for the History of the
American Indian. “They don’t
usually write their history
down; they speak it through
poetry and stories. So it’s
usually through some inter­
mediary that we find out
what Indian people think
about past events.” She also
says that American Indians
prefer the word “Indian” over
“Native American”: “The
term ‘Native American’ is
artificial and pretentious.”
Much of Tanner’s concen­
tration is on the Ojibwe, a
tribe that spread from On­
tario to Saskatchewan and
across the northern United
States. She, along with col­
league Denys Delage, chair­
man of the Sociology Depart­
ment at Laval U. in Quebec
City, recently edited an 1843
letter by a French priest liv­
ing on Walpole Island, near

secure
treatyseek
rights.
3 7 helps American
Indians
justice,
Detroit, about his debate
with an Ojibwe on the merits
of Christianity. The edited
English translation appeared
in the spring issue of Ethnohistory.
Tanner says the 19th-cen­
tury priests would write their
superiors emphasizing the
positive efforts their prosely­
tizing had on the Indians. But
the letter, from a 900-page
volume of letters, makes
clear that the Ojibwe had
“sound and reasonable ob­
jections to Christianity,” she
says, that had not been re­
ported earlier.
“The Ojibwe figured out
that the white people were
so bad that the Great Spirit
had to send his son to try to
straighten them out,” Tanner
says. “If there was a problem
with the Ojibwe, they be­
lieved the Great Spirit would
have sent someone directly,
not white people from the
other side of the ocean. Fur­
thermore, they had a very
low opinion of Christians
because when the Great Spir­
it sent his son down with a
message for the white peo­
ple, they killed him. The let­
ters make clear that the
priests never made any head­
way with the Ojibwe.”
Tanner’s interest in native
peoples dates back to her
Swarthmore days, but it was
not until the end of World
War II that she began to learn
about them when she en­
tered graduate school at the
U. of Florida. While teaching
extension courses in Latin
American history at the U. of
Michigan, where she re­
ceived a doctorate in 1961,
she began helping lawyers
who were looking for histori­
ans to do background work
on Indian treaties in the De­
troit region. She then began
testifying on American Indian
treaties as an expert witness
in litigation before the Indian
Claims Commissions in
Washington, D.C.
“I do not think Anglo-

Saxon law can achieve jus­
tice according to Indian stan­
dards of law,” she says. “The
value systems are so differ­
ent. The idea of private land
is basic to Anglo law, but
alien to Indian tradition.
They believe land, like air, is
owned in common and that
they have stewardship.
“Every once in a while a
case comes along that looks
to me like some lawyers are
trying to distort the histori­
cal evidence in such a way
that it fits a particular legal
stance, and that gets my his­
torical moral sense at work.
It makes me feel that I have
to protect history from being
warped unreasonably by
legal minds. So I go back on
another case,” says Tanner,
who lives in Chicago and
spends summers at a cabin
in the Michigan countryside
with family and friends.
One of those cases occured in 1975 in Manistique,
Mich., where there was an
injunction to stop an Ojibwe
from fishing. At the trial Tan­
ner testified to the rights the
Ojibwe retained in treaties.
After the trial an agreement
was made between the tribe
fishermen and the opposing
lawyer, whom Tanner had
sensed was out of his ele­
ment. The Ojibwe agreed not
to fish in approximately 80
percent of the bay. Instead,
they would restrict their fish­
ing to only two specific areas
of the bay shoreline. This
agreement was actually a
coup for the Ojibwe.
“I know that since 80 per­
cent was excluded, the law­
yer went driving off feeling
very successful,” Tanner re­
calls. “On the other hand, I
knew and the Indians knew
that in this bay there are
only two fishing grounds
worthwhile to fish, the two
areas they retained. So after­
ward we all went out, had a
big fish dinner, and felt very
happy with the outcome.”
—Audree Penner
35

Taking the Opposite Tack
The art of Maximilian Mulhern ’8 4 is buffeted by literary winds.
s artist Max Mulhern ’84
prepared to move to
London last spring after 10
years, of living in Paris, he
thought of Expulsion from
Paradise, a 15th-century fres­
co by Masaccio. It shows a
distraught Adam and Eve
being chased from the Gar­
den of Eden by a swordwielding angel. Though Mul­
hern had already packed up
his studio, he decided to
draw his own Expulsion—
with his car. That’s right,
with his 1981 Honda Civic.
Mulhern and his wife,
Myriem Haikel, left their 3month-old son with her
mother and drove out of the
city. Mulhern had traced
Masaccio’s Adam onto a
roadmap, and they followed
routes that outlined the
image. “As we drove I said to
Myriem, ‘OK, now we’re
drawing the forearm ... now
we’re doing the leg and the
back... and now we’re not
drawing at all because we
have to change roads to get
to the head,”’ recalls Mul­
hern in a telephone interview
from London. “What was
great about it was that where
the Marne goes down to the
Seine is the line that comes
from between Adam’s fin­
gers. And it’s flowing out, so
he’s actually got his trail of
tears....
“It was sort of like what
Picasso is supposed to have
said: ‘I needed red but I
didn’t have it, so I just used
green.’ I had no drawing
materials, so I asked myself
what I did have, and it was
the car.”
After he got settled in Lon­
don, Mulhern created a book
about the experience. As you
might guess, it’s no ordinary
book. “It’s about four or five
inches thick, and it’s asphalt
on the bottom,” he explains.
“I put in the story of leaving
Paris, then I covered it with a
piece of tire. You lift up the
tire to see the inside.”
This “book,” which he

A

52

Mulhem “drew ” his Leaving Paris-dise (after the M asaccio at
right) on the highways o f northern France with a 1981 Honda.
calls Leaving Paris-dise, and
other sculptural works by
Mulhern will be exhibited in
McCabe Library from April 1
until May 13. Mulhern’s work
has been the subject of three
shows in Paris in recent
years, and he was the recipi­
ent of a 1991 French govern­
ment grant to pursue his
work. An English literature
major at Swarthmore (who
took “a big dose of art histo­
ry”), Mulhern left for France
shortly after graduation to
work as an au pair with a
French family. “I was hanging
out in Paris with this very
cushy job, just picking up the
kids and helping them do

their English homework.”
He was admitted to the
Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1985,
where he received a master’s
degree with honors in 1989.
At the Beaux Arts, he concen­
trated mostly on drawing
and painting, and after gradu­
ating he worked as a carpen­
ter and house painter, par­
tially supporting himself by
doing murals in private
homes.
“I didn’t like to do
murals,” he confesses, “but
when theme and space were
imposed, the limitations
were liberating.” For one
mural commission the client
wanted “something Italian,”

so Mulhern “hijacked” the
story of Romulus and Remus
but changed it into two in­
fants beneath a table that has
“a wolf-like aspect” reaching
up and eating spaghetti from
the tabletop. In it he bor­
rowed liberally from artists
like Michelangelo and Piero
della Francesca. One panel
showed a ship made out of
parts of the famous Floren­
tine cathedral designed by
Brunelleschi.
“My intention was to
throw these things together
and create something comic
in a philosophical context,”
he says. Part of the mural
seemed to have had an unin­
tended consequence in Mul­
hern’s already serendipitous
life: It got him interested in
ships and boats as meta­
phors.
Boats are a natural sub­
ject for Mulhern. He learned
to sail off Maryland’s Eastern
Shore as a boy, and in recent
years he has crewed on
SW A RTHM O RE C O LLEG E BULLETIN

Recent Books by Alumni
We w elcom e review copies o f
books by alumni. The books
are donated to the Swarthm oreana section o f McCabe
Library after they have been
noted for this column.
George E. Andrews, David M.
Bressoud 71, L. Alayne Par­
son (eds.), Contemporary
Mathematics: The Rademacher Legacy to Mathematics,
American Mathematical Soci­
ety, 1994. This book contains
papers presented at the Hans
Rademacher Centenary Con­
ference, held at Pennsylvania
State University in 1992, and
includes such topics as mod­
ular forms, partitions and qseries, Dedekind sums, and
Ramanujan-type identities.
T. Alan Broughton ’62, In the
Country o f Elegies, Carnegie
Mellon University Press,
1995. Dedicated to the poet’s
father, this collection of
poems is composed of five
sections. In language that is
dense with nature imagery,
he talks about experiences
shared by a child and his
parents, about the love
between man and woman,
and about the last moments
together of a son and his
dying father, among other
things.
Diana Lewis Burgin ’65,
Sophia Pam ok: The Life and
Work o f Russia’s Sappho, New
York University Press, 1994.
Sophia Parnok, whose works
include five volumes of poet­
ry, literary criticism, and sev­
eral opera libretti, was the
only openly lesbian voice
during the Silver Age of Rus­
sian letters. This account
draws on biographical mate­
rial and Parnok’s poems—
translated here for the first
time in English.
John Cairns Jr. ’47 and B.R.
Niederlehner (eds.), Ecologi­
cal Toxicity Testing: Scale,
Complexity, and Relevance,
Lewis Publishers, 1995. This
book provides an overview
of the different scales at
56

which problems of toxic
waste can be approached,
including the design and
analysis of multispecies
experiments and the use of
artificial ponds in simulated
field tests.
Elaine Hedges and Shelley
Fisher Fishkin 71 (eds.), Lis­
tening to Silences: New Essays
in Feminist Criticism, Oxford
University Press, 1994. This
book traces for the first time
the genealogy of the Ameri­
can critical tradition of
addressing the problem of
silences in literature first pro­
posed by Tillie Olsen 30
years ago. A group of femi­
nist literary critics re-evaluates Olsen’s heritage to
reassert, extend, redefine,
and question her insights.
Joseph Horowitz 70, Wagner
Nights: An American History,
University of California Press,
1994. A treasury of operatic
lore from the early heyday of
the Metropolitan Opera, this
history traces the American
obsession with Richard Wag­
ner’s life and works that
dominated this country’s
music-making at the close of
the 19th century.
George Hurchalla ’88 (ed.),
The Hell with Politics: The Life
and Writings o f Jan e Wood
Reno, Peachtree Publishers,
1994. This collection of writ­
ings of Jane Wood Reno,
adventurer, activist, and
award-winning journalist
with the Miami Herald and
Miami News, has been gath­
ered by her family and edited
by her grandson. Included
are newspaper features, per­
sonal letters, and family pho­
tographs of this 20th century
female pioneer.
Joseph J. Keenan ’83, Break­
ing Out o f Beginner’s Spanish,
University of Texas Press,
1994. Written by a native
English speaker who learned
Spanish the hard way—by
trying to talk to Spanish­
speaking people—this book

offers tips on everything
from pronunciation and verb
usage to “trickster” words
that look alike in both lan­
guages and inadvertent
obscenities.
Ann T. (McCaghey) Keene
’62, Willa Cather, Simon &
Schuster, 1994. This biogra­
phy explores Cather’s deter­
mination to become a writer,
from her early days at
McClure’s magazine to her
vast literary output that
included My Antonia, O Pio­
neers!, and Death Comes for
the Archbishop.
Mark Kriegel ’84, Bless Me,
Father, Doubleday, 1995. This
novel of crime, vengeance,
and redemption, set on New
York City’s meanest streets,
revolves around one desper­
ate man who will do anything
to regain his honor—and
another who will do anything
to save his soul.
Patricia H. (Horan) Latham
’63 and Peter S. Latham ’62,
Higher Education Services for
Students with Learning Dis­
abilities and Attention Deficit
Disorder: A Legal Guide,
National Center for Law and
Learning Disabilities, 1994.
This guide was prepared for
higher education personnel,
educational consultants,
other professionals, and stu­
dents to promote awareness
of the legal aspects of higher
education services for stu­
dents with specific learning
disabilities and attention
deficit disorder.
Richard Martin ’67 and
Harold Koda, Madame Gres,
The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, 1994. This publication
was produced as part of the
Metropolitan Museum’s Cos­
tume Institute exhibition of
the designs of Madame Gres,
whose draped dresses were
her fashion emblem for twothirds of this century. Orien­
talism: Visions o f the East in
Western Dress, The Metro­
politan Museum of Art, 1994.

Drawing on the Costume
Institute’s unrivaled collec­
tion of Western Orientalist
costumes, this book presents
three centuries of fashions
that reflect the West’s fasci­
nation with and assimilation
of the ideas and styles of the
East.
Michael Meeropol ’64, The
Rosenberg Letters: A Complete
Edition o f the Prison Corre­
spondence o f Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, Garland Publish­
ing, 1994. Meeropol, son of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,
makes available for the first
time the complete and un­
edited text of more than 500
surviving prison letters of his
parents who were executed
for conspiracy to commit es­
pionage in 1953. The volume
also includes the lastest infor­
mation on the case, a chronol­
ogy and appeals for clemency
made by the Rosenbergs.
Robert F. Nagel ’68, Judicial
Power and American Charac­
ter: Censoring Ourselves in an
Anxious Age, Oxford Univer­
sity Press, 1994. Discussing
topics ranging from political
correctness to judicial deci­
sions on pornography and
school desegregation, Nagel
relates modern constitution­
al politics to the moral char­
acter of American culture
and demonstrates how these
decisions embody wider
social tendencies toward
moral evasiveness, privatiza­
tion, and opportunism.
Stephen Nathanson ’65, The
Ideal o f Rationality: A Def­
ense, within Reason, Open
Court, 1994. This book pre­
sents an evaluation of all the
main varieties of rationalism.
Different notions of rationali­
ty—such as means-end con­
ception, hedonism, and the
evil-avoidance view—are
examined and rejected in
favor of the theory that to act
rationally is to “act for the
best,” a theory Nathanson
characterizes as “critical plu­
ralism.”
SW A RTHM O RE CO LLEG E BULLETIN

L E T T E RS

C ontinued from p a g e 3

\Co
for meaning and significance in exis­
tence. Regrettably the search has too
often ended with “revealed” answers
that contradict the reality we have to
cope with. Perhaps the growth of reli­
gious groups at Swarthmore suggests a
common need for mutual reinforcement
of various “faiths” against “secular dis­
missiveness,” but I am glad to note also
that the wide spectrum of these groups
also includes those who want to share
basic questions and who do not claim to
have the answers. In this context it may
be appropriate to quote Gertrude Stein,
who asked on her deathbed, “But then
what is the answer?” and after a
moment added, “But then what is the
question?”
VICTOR MILLS’41
Roxbury, Conn.

the century,” ends his book, A B rief His­
tory o f Time, not only with a sweeping
dismissal of contemporary philosophy
but with the words, “... for then we
would know the mind of God.” Dare I
add: Q.E.D.?
If the reconciliation of subject and
object—or matter and spirit—is beyond
our capabilities, then who cares in
which radiant new vestments our
priests clothe their ignorance?
JEAN-MARIE CLARKE 7 4
Hamburg, Germany
R eaders interested in a further discussion
o f scien ce an d faith will enjoy P rofessor
M ark K uperberg’s essay on p ag e 6 o f this
issue.—Ed.

pole, but I believe those costumed
ladies hunkered down on either side of |i°
wa:
the May Queen’s court are just waiting
son
for their cue to hop up and dance.
One reason the occasion is so clear
lai
in my memory is that I was a cub
ani
reporter on the news bureau, and in the I imp
course of phoning the story of these big Ith
doings to the P hiladelphia Bulletin or
exp
The New York Times, a grumpy news­
in t
man on the other end cut short my flow­ thir
ery description and growled, “What did
I
they d o T I started the laundry list of
tha
events with, “They danced around a
veli
maypole and sang madrigals....” When
resi
he roared, “What the hell’s a madrigal?”
to 1
I decided perhaps I was not cut out to
car
be a newshen.
ket
JEAN WILLIAMS CULPEPPER ’43
Fort Myers, Fla. An<

Cosmological appetites

Am I Missing Something?

To the Editor:
As a student in Dr. Peter Van De
Kamp’s intoxicating introductory
astronom y course, I soon real­
ized th a t th e m ath em atics of
astronomy were well beyond my
left-brained capabilities. Since
then I have had to satisfy my cos­
m ological appetite by reading
whatever tech nically watereddown material came my way and
reflecting on its philosophical
im p licatio n s. I was th e re fo re
very interested in your article on
the impressive results obtained
by John Mather ’68 and his COBE
team (August 1994).
Yet I must object to Dr. Math­
er’s assertion that the issue of a
spiritual force behind the big
bang is “way beyond [his] capa­
bilities.” His response to Jeffrey
Lott’s question was an intellectu­
al cop-out. If science is not a spiritual
activity, especially on this cosmological
scale, then what is it? And what are the
hundreds of m illions sp en t on such
research but a ritual sacrifice to the Sci­
entific Spirit?
The only other value Mather cites in
support of this extravagance is the Spirit
of Adventure. This is philosophically
weak and spiritually dismaying. No won­
der spiritual concerns are beyond his
capabilities. Alas, this was at least an
honest answer.
Dr. Stephen Hawking, who praised
the COBE results as “the discovery of

To the Editor:
In regard to the article on admis­
sions on page 24 of the Novem­
ber Bulletin, let me see if I have
this right: 1) More women than
men apply to Swarthmore. 2)
More women than men are
accepted at Swarthmore. 3) Of
those who are accepted, more
women than men choose to
attend Swarthmore. 4) This is
consistent with a national trend,
i.e., more qualified female than
male applicants. 5) Dean of
Admissions Carl Wartenburg
believes that admitting qualified
women applicants in proportion
to their applications would be a
bad thing: “... it is our aim to
enroll a class that has a more
even male/female ratio ...” Am I
missing something?
JAMES G. SHEEHAN 74
Ardmore, Pa.

60

May Day 1940

Maypole Redux,
With Pictures
To the Editor:
You just think that “here endeth the
maypole chronicles.”
I don’t know who these youngsters
are who claim to have introduced maypole dancing to Swarthmore [“Letters,”
November 1994], but I can assure them
that this was a part of the May Day cele­
bration back in olden times.
Unfortunately the fuzzy pictures
enclosed do not clearly show a may­

D ean Wartenburg replies: “In the entire
student body there are now 642 m en and
683 women. We op erate under an under­
lying assum ption that the C ollege edu­
cates best when there are roughly equal
num bers o f w om en an d men, an d w e are
w orking hard to ensure that our applicant
p o o l includes qu alified students o f both
genders. Three o r four y ears ago, w e were
admitting m ore m en than wom en. An
astute w om an friend poin ted out that
when the trend w as going the oth er way,
no on e seem ed to b e worried. ”
SW A RTH M O RE CO LLEG E BULLETIN

poi
es1

An<
I as I
I he I

I

Sh
To
Wo
dis

IOct

I inr
I for
ted
I ant
I dei
ch<
I eie,
I so
I ind
an<
I ne>

ïïn

bet
use

COL

Uti
th<
To
lai
Bai
pre
fur
the

N0\

good s p o r t s
Continued from p a g e 27
growth experience for them . The staff
was a b rig h t and ta le n te d g rou p ;
something very good happened in the
planning. For som e of the kids, it was
anice two weeks. For others it was an
important two weeks. But for the staff,
I think it was close to a transforming
experience. It clarified things for them
in their own lives. Th ere was som e­
thing magical in their frustration!”
Raslowsky said he was im pressed
that Danilchick used sports “as a real
vehicle, not just lip service in conflict
resolution. Seeing sports as a solution
to urban ills isn’t always realistic. We
can’t just assum e that midnight b as­
ketball will keep kids out of trouble.
Andy asks how to use athletics as a
point of entry and structure. He reach­
es out in good ways and risky ways.
And it was the staffs program as well
as his—he shared the leadership, and
he didn’t micromanage.”

Shocked and disgusted
To the Editor:
Words can barely convey the shock and
disgust I felt when, while perusing the
October 1994 issue of Playboy (strictly
inmy capacity as consumer researcher
for the ad agency where I work), I spot­
ted Miss October, with some young men
andwomen who appeared to be stu­
dents, on a very distinctive Adirondack
chair on Parrish lawn, with Parrish Hall
clearly visible in the background. It was
so disturbing I felt I had to voice my
indignation at this loathsome appear­
ance of Swarthmore in Playboy. I will
never be able to read Playboy again.
BEN ROTHFELD ’91
New York
Think how you w ould h av e felt h ad sh e
been unclothed, which sh e w asn’t. The
use of the A dirondack chairs was, o f
course, unauthorized.—Ed.

Utility of social
theory overstated
Tothe Editor:
Iapplaud the noble gift of Dorwin and
Barbara Weiss Cartwright [both ’37] of a
professorship in social theory and a
fund for social responsibility, but I think
the idea that social theory has the
NOVMEBER 1 99 4

Danilchick hopes to expand Education
Through Sports in the summer o f 1995.
Tom Hart— a St. Peter’s Prep alum­
nus himself—said he has turned down
r e q u e s ts fo r s u p p o rt from o th e r
young men with program ideas. “But
Andy is both a dreamer and a doer,”

potential to bring about a more humane
and ethically responsible society vastly
overstates that potential. It’s not the dif­
ficulty of the task but the inadequacy of
the tools. The refinement of social theo­
ry seems at times to be as much about
the development of ever more powerful
weapons of intellectual combat as about
the exchange of ideas. Swarthmore’s
Quaker pacifism belies a powerful
undercurrent of ideological violence,
and theory (at its worst) dehumanizes
students by training them to justify
their own paralyzing fears.
[Professor] Hugh Lacey once told me
that for him, the purpose of philosophy
is to provide a critique of existing social
institutions. But the purpose of those
institutions is to help us on our jour­
neys through life, and social criticism
loses sight of that when it takes on the
quality of denunciation for its own sake.
Swarthmore will substantially
increase the effectiveness of what Presi­
dent Bloom calls “ethical intelligence”
when its professors realize that trans­
forming existing institutions requires
that one become comfortable with,
rather than afraid of, the exercise of
power.
JOHN HALBERT ’89
Birmingham, Mich.

he said. “You m ust be b oth to stay
ah ea d of th e p a ck on th is p la n e t.
T h ere’s an affinity betw een this pro­
gram and what my office does every
day. My philosophy is that what we’re
abou t h ere is h o listic: building th e
maximum potential of kids as moral,
social, cultural, and physical beings.”
Danilchick hopes to raise enough
money to expand Education Though
Sports this summer to six weeks, with
a full week of staff training. He’s work­
ing closely with Raslowsky, Hart, Hud­
son County Judge Kevin Callahan, and
county prosecu tor Carmen M essano
to plan the program and find funding.
This sem ester Danilchick is work­
ing on his teaching certificate for sev­
enth through 12th grades, and h e ’s
stu d e n t-tea ch in g at Frien d s S e le c t
School in Philadelphia. Although he
checked out the Ivies and other bluec h ip s c h o o ls , h e sa id h e c h o s e
Swarthmore, “because ... I just knew it
was right for me, even though I didn’t
know about the service part. I liked
th e intellectualism . And it’s worked
out.” ■

W ho nom inated Schickele?
To the Editor:
Having worked hard for my degrees, I
feel at least offended by Mr. Peter
Schickele’s [’57] flip bragging about his
honorary degree from North Dakota
State University: “Being awarded an
honorary degree sure as hell beats hav­
ing to work for it.” It would have de­
servedly gone unnoticed had not his
comment been highlighted on page 44
of the November Bulletin.
Not having had the honor of knowing
Mr. Schickele, it is difficult for me to be
well-calibrated on his contributions to
society, but it seems to me that he does
not give the recognition of an honorary
doctorate much respect.
And then that standing on his “hon­
orary degree from Swarthmore” about
does it in. Who, pray tell, nominated
him for that degree?
ALDEN STEVENSON ’50
Augusta, Ga.
Com poser, perform er, teacher, and musi­
cologist P eter S ch ickele ’57 sang his
acceptan ce sp eech when h e was voted an
honorary Ph.D. by Sw arthm ore’s faculty
in 1980. He recalls that his friends at the
C ollege h ad “perfectly g ood sen ses o f
humor. I—Ed.
61

SHADOWS OF
AN EXECUTION
Continued from page 21
warm, and d em onstrative,''a person
w h ose guitar playing and outgoing
nature brought people clo se to him.
During dorm room talks, Redefer says,
he encouraged Meeropol to continue
to a rg u e h is id e a s in p u b lic and
assured him that doing so didn’t mean
putting his identity at risk.
Meeropol says he owes an intellec­
tual debt to Swarthmore, and he cred­
its the late Professor Josep h Conard
for piquing his interest in econom ics
and setting a life example as a Quaker
“with an unswerving com m itm ent to
free speech and liberalism.”
W hen M eeropol cam e to th e Col­
lege, he considered himself a “vulgar
M arxist, w hich m eant I was always
assum ing th a t th e n ext d ep ressio n
w as arou n d th e c o rn e r and would
prove that capitalism was a piece of
c r a p .” T h a t would a c c o u n t for th e
time, he recalls with a laugh, that he
and D ave G e lb e r ’63 d r e s s e d in
raggedy clothes and sang Depression
Era songs while selling apples on Par­
rish porch one afternoon following a
steep decline in the stock market.
Coming of age politically at Swarth­
m ore h elp ed M eerop ol b e c o m e an
“ecle ctic open-minded leftist. It con­
vinced me that the vulgar Marxism I
cam e out of high school with, this sort
of National Guardian/Fellow Traveler/Communist P arty line abou t th e
world that I believed at the end of the
1950s, was nonsense. Elements were
true, but a lot of details weren’t,” he
says.
U ntil th is in te lle c tu a l daw ning,
there was no lack of trying to prove
his poin ts. R ed efer reca lls v erb ally
c o m b a tiv e c o n v e rsa tio n s b etw een
Meeropol and a faculty m em ber who
lived in their dorm during their junior
year.
“He’d com e in and torm en t Mike
and say some fairly cruel things intel­
lectu ally. He’d bring up th e purges
and civil rights violations in Russia,
and this bothered Mike very m uch,”
Redefer says. “Mike absolutely toed
the party line, but it was part of his
coming out. Mike gained confidence at
Swarthmore and really found out who
62

he was so cia lly and in tellectu a lly .”
That confidence continues to lead him
in the search for answers in his par­
ents’ case.

n 1975 the Meeropol brothers

I

sued the U.S. government under the
Freedom of Information Act and have
won, to date, the release of 300,000
pages of documents on their parents.
But there are still 500,000 pages that
are being withheld. In 1982 the broth­
ers requested the release of the Soviet

The fact that
I’m angry about
its being an
injustice is
never going to
be done. Death
will cure that.
My death,”
says Meeropol.
Union’s files on th e R osenberg case
but with no su ccess. Currently they
are asking for a congressional commit­
tee with subpoena power to investi­
gate the case.
“Let them subpoena all th e docu­
ments and all the still-living witnesses
and subject them to the kind of crossexamination that the historical docu­
m en ts su ggest. And th en let a new
jury see it all and decide,” Meeropol
suggests. He believes a new investiga­
tion would address som e of the cru­
cial factual issues that were central to
the original prosecution. Today, in a
more skeptical America where trust in
government is low, he thinks the trial
might well have had a different out­
come.
For in s ta n c e , th e R o s e n b e rg s
repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amend­
m ent when asked about their mem­
b e r s h ip in th e C o m m u n ist P a rty .

Although in the 1930s and 1940s affiliatio n w ith th e P a rty w as com m on
among left-wing social reform ers, in
the 1950s its adherents might just as
well have b een w earing a badge of
treason. Attorney Bloch argued that
since the Rosenbergs were not on trial
for being com m unists but rather for
esp ion age, th e ir p olitical affiliation
sh o u ld n o t b e an is s u e . B u t their
refu sal to an sw er q u e stio n s about
their politics allowed the prosecution
to im ply th e y w ere h iding an allegiance to the Soviet Union.
“When you took the Fifth Amendment, the feeling was you were lying,”
P ro fesso r Murphy says. “T h ere are
instances when people take the Fifth
and do ta k e it b e c a u s e th e y have
something to hide.” Today it is known
that the Rosenbergs were in fact communists, and in a mock retrial held by
the American Bar Association in 1993,
that affiliation was acknowledged and
the Fifth Amendment not taken. But
this time the Rosenbergs were found
not guilty.
A cco rd in g to S te p h e n S h ea , an
a tto rn e y w ho p a rtic ip a te d for the
defense at the mock trial, cases such
as th e R o s e n b e rg s’ h elp ed change
procedures in criminal law. In a letter
to M eeropol th at is included in the
new book, Shea notes that the governm ent m ust now sh a re excu lpatory
information with defense counsel in
order to help “level the playing field
on which the governm ent brings its
aw esom e pow ers to b ear against a
[lawyer] ... with limited a ssets. The
m ock tria l of you r p a re n ts clearly
dem onstrated [that] in the hands of
unprincipled prosecutors the government’s obligation to justice is reduced
to h ollow w o rd s ....” In con clu sio n
Shea asserts: “... the evidence that the
original jury heard and used as a basis
to c o n v ic t w as c o o k e d up by the
Greenglasses and Harry Gold. On that
basis alone, I will always tell people
who ask that your parents were innocent.”
A lso, th e co a ch in g th a t lawyers
now give clients on courtroom perform ance and appearance was nonexistent in the 1950s. “To a large degree,
[Julius] wasn’t portrayed as someone
the American people could embrace,”
says Professor Murphy. “These were
th e days of N orm an Rockw ell, and
Rockwell didn’t draw pictures of Jews
SW A RTH M O RE CO LLEG E BULLETIN

! fro
1
ing
the
tic
tha
an
be
My
*T

onl
pei
Me
| tle<
Ma
of
Nei
his
dre
Gr<
ad(
bat
Re<
! fes
ski
res
mir
the
ics,
< cat
mu
ha^
live
nee
ed
ha^
nee
1
j ad\
bei
bre
Rol
its
fun
tioi
chi
! die
wh
the
Th<
tha
brc
dec
i
mo
, hac
! bin
res
lov

fEBI

ffiliion
, in
: as
I of
hat
rial
for
ion
ieir
out
ion
lle-

ndtg”
are
ifth
ive
iwn

om -

by
193,
md
But
ind

an
the
ich
lge
:ter
the
:rn)ry
l in
eld
its
ta
"he
rly
of
:rnred
on
the
isis
he
hat
pie
nosrs
orrisee,
>ne
:e,”
ere
nd
ws
;t in

|fromthe Lower East Side.
Meeropol say s re s e a rc h ­
ing We Are Your Sons during
the early 1970s was a cathar­
tic experience. “But the fact
that I’m angry about its being
aninjustice is never going to
bedone. Death will cqre that.
My death,” he says.

jg

¡Kill t
Left: In happier tim es around
1942, Ethel and Julius Rosen­
berg sm ile fo r a snapshot.

T

oday, while still politically

vocal (h e c a lls h im self,
only half-mockingly, an unre­
pentant le f t is t ) , M ich a e l
Meeropol leads a m ore se t­
tled life outside Springfield,
Mass., where he is professor
of eco n o m ic s a t W e s te r n 3
NewEngland College. He and g
his wife, Ann, have two chil- |
dren, Veronica Ethel, 26, and ¡¿!
Gregory Ju lia n , 25, w ho is |
adopted. C urrently on sab- &
batical to write a book about £
Reaganomics, Meeropol con- 8
fesses th at his quantitative
skills in doing cutting-edge
research a re “r e la tiv e ly
minor, and that’s not easy in
the p ro fessio n of ec o n o m ­
ics,” he says with self-depre­
cating humor. That gets him
musing about what he might
have becom e had his father
lived. “My father was an engi­
neer. I grew up very interest­
ed in m ath em atics. I m ight
have b een a m ath o r engi­
neering m ajor.”
Meeropol also sits on the
advisory
board of the Rosen­
i
berg Fund for Children, th e *
brainchild of h is b r o th e r , g
Robert, an attorney, who is É
its execu tiv e d ire c to r. T h e O
1
fund provides for the educa- 8
tional and emotional needs of 2
children whose parents have
died, b een h a ra sse d or in ju red , or
who have lo st jo b s in th e co u rse of
their progressive political activities.
The fund is similar in its intent to one
that was created for th e R osenberg
brothers fo llo w in g th e ir p a r e n t s ’
deaths.
According to his p atern al grand­
mother’s w ishes, M ichael M eeropol
had a bar mitzvah, but he considers
himself an atheist. He says he is “very
respectful” of religion but has not fol­
lowed one sin ce his ad o lescen ce. “I
FEBRUARY 1 9 9 5

Below: Michael ’64 (le ft), a
professor o f economics at
W estern New England College,
and Robert Meeropol, an
attorney, continue to argue
their parents’ case. They have
set up a fund fo r the children
o f parents who have died,
been injured, or lost jobs in
the course o f their progressive
political activities.

refuse to take the view of a lot of mili­
tant atheists that religion is basically a
bad thing for hum anity. But I d on ’t
believe in God. I’ve said many times, if
t h e r e w e re a G od, m y p a re n ts
wouldn’t have been killed.”
The c a se isn ’t ju st a family issue.
R eferen ces to th e R osen bergs have
m ade it in to c o n te m p o ra ry m u sic,
television, and film. In Woody Allen’s
film Crimes an d M isdem ean ors, Allen’s
ch a ra cte r is speaking to a producer
filming a documentary on his brother-

in-law: “I lo ve him like a b r o th e r ,”
Allen’s ch aracter says. “David Greenglass.”
“T h a t’s fan tastic. It’s th e stuff of
artists and p oets,” says Meeropol. “I
was watching it with my family and we
just looked at each other like, holy----- !
It makes it clear it’s now way beyond
being th e to rch of responsibility for
my family. This is for American soci­
ety. Americans are going to deal with
it and wrestle with it and argue about
it forever.”*
63

Why We Sing
By C h eryl S an ders ’74
h e S w a rth m o re C olleg e G o sp el
Choir was first organized during
my freshman year, in the fall of 1971.
W h ile in h igh s c h o o l, I had b e e n
involved in th e form ation of a new
gospel ch oir at my hom e ch u rch in
W ash in g ton , D.C., and I th o u g h t it
would be a good thing to start some­
thing like it among my new friends at
Sw arthm ore. T h e several b a sic ele­
m ents needed to sta rt su ch a ch oir
were readily available on cam pus— a
director, a pianist, a place to rehearse,
music, and singers. I was willing to be
the director, Vaneese Thomas 7 4 and
Ja m e s “J .B .” B a tto n 7 2 w ere b o th
capable pianists, and the Black Cultur­
al Center had a piano on the first floor
where we could rehearse almost any­
tim e. T h e th r e e of us d ev elo p ed a
ru d im e n ta ry r e p e r to ir e of g o s p e l
songs and Negro spiritu als, and we
were able to recruit a co re group of
singers from the Swarthmore student
body, mainly from the classes of 1974
and 1975.
T h e o n e p e r s o n w ho h a s b e e n
largely re sp o n sib le for making th is
choir survive and thrive over the past
23 y e a rs is V a n e e s e T h o m a s. S h e
cam e to Sw arthm ore with a rem ark­
a b le m u sical p ed ig ree: Her fa th e r,
Rufus, and her siblings Carla and Mar­
v el w ere e s ta b lis h e d s t a r s in th e
rhythm and blues industry based in
h e r h o m eto w n , M em p h is, T e n n .
V a n eese had m astered th e v ariou s
form s of popular m usic and was an
a cco m p lish ed c la s sic a l pian ist and
v o ca list. M oreover, sh e had honed
her skills as a church musician at St.
Jo h n B a p tis t C h u rch in M em p his,
where hymns, anthems, and spirituals
(b u t n o t g o s p e l m u s ic ) w ere p e r­
fo rm ed in w o rs h ip . So V a n e e s e
learned to perform gospel music after
coming to Swarthmore, largely under
the tutelage of Jam es Batton and Ter­
r e n c e H icks 7 3 . “J . B . , ” as h e w as
known, had had many years of experi­
ence as a gospel musician serving the
ch u rc h e s of his n earb y hom etow n,
Chester, Pa. His main musical interest,
however, was jazz, and J.B. spent the

T

64

rest of his life after Swarthmore work­
ing as a jazz m u sician and p u blicschool teacher. He died from a heart
attack in 1986.
V an eese was a “quick stu d y ,” so
her collab oration with J.B . and Ter­
ren ce in that first year resulted in a
high standard of artistic excellen ce,
cultural authenticity, and spiritual fer­
vor for the new choir— at least in the
area of instrumental accompaniment.
The expertise of the choir m em bers
and director, however, lagged som e­
w hat behind! V a n eese knew ev ery­
thing about using the human voice to
produce wonderful sounds and took
us th ro u g h th e p a c e s w ith re lish :

The Gospel Choir
advanced the core
objective of the black
student revolution of the
1970s, which was to
establish black cultural
identity as a permanent
feature of campus life.
warm-ups, four-part harmony, vocal
dynamics, correct posture, the special
intricacies of timing and syncopation
characteristic of the black idiom. She
worked out and taught all the parts, a
huge ta s k in view of th e fa c t th a t
gospel music generally is not scored,
and parts must be learned by ear.
For rehearsal purposes we would
be given the words to the songs, but
t h e s e had to b e m em o riz ed to o .
V a n e e se and I put th is re p e r to ir e
to g e th e r by lis te n in g to g o sp e l
record s (th o se big black vinyl disks
that have since gone the way of the
dinosaur), deciding which songs we
liked and which ones we thought our
choir could learn. Vaneese would add
h e r own c r e a tiv e to u c h e s to th e
instrumental and vocal arrangements
and w ould te a c h th e so n g s to th e
choir during rehearsals. On occasion
sh e would even teach the choir her
own original compositions. My role as
d ir e c to r w as to a s s is t w ith th e
rehearsals and to lead the choir dur­
ing our performances.

Sometimes we had other singers in
th e ch o ir who w ere accom plished
soloists with phenomenal voices, but
m ost of us w ere drawn to the choir
m o re by in te r e s t th an ta le n t. You
could easily be intimidated by hearing
your choral part or your solo sung by
Vaneese so that you could learn it, but
realizing that you couldn’t make your
voice do the things that hers could.
Yet the outcome was that we learned
how to sing the gospel together, those
w ith p e rfe ct p itch alo n g sid e those
who had no clue as to what the pitch
was, all participants in something ulti­ 0
m ately m o re m eaningfu l than just X
Q.
singing th e right n o tes at th e right
time. We never excluded people from
the choir because they lacked musical
talent. The openness of the choir in
this regard reflected the spirit of so
many other extracurricular activities
at S w a rth m o re , w h e re ta le n t and
expertise were considered to be less
im portant crite ria for participation
than the desire to try out and learn.
From th e b eg in n in g th e Gospel
Choir was a so m ew h at ecumenical
organization, but it was not interra­
cial. A few white students expressed
an interest in joining the choir, but in
the early days we called ourselves the I
“Swarthmore Black Gospel Choir” and
insisted upon preserving our integrity
and freedom in a self-initiated group
th a t a ffirm ed ou r b la c k identity.
Regarding religion I don’t recall that
any of us were Quakers, but it is signif­
icant that m ost of our concerts were
given in the Friends Meeting House, a
place where we always felt welcome.
Som e of us who w ere raised in the
church were well acquainted with the
as
sights and sounds of black worship.
p<
Others cam e from white-oriented high
Cl
church traditions. Still others had lit­
al
tle or no church background and no
ai
in terest in religion. W hat we had in
af
common was our love of this music.
c;
Some of the more political-minded
m
secu larists in th e Sw arthm ore Afroci
American Student Society (SASS) got
In
th e idea th at th e G ospel Choir was
th
prom otin g “cou nter-revolu tion ary” re
m essages and ideas and felt that we
ei
sh o u ld n o t b e allo w ed to u se the
P'
space in the Black Cultural Center. At
W
th e oth er extrem e w ere committed
m
Christians like me, who saw the choir
si
SW A RTH M O RE CO LLEG E BULLETIN

Vaneese Thomas ’74 rehearses the
Gospel Choir in the mid-1970s. Thomas
will perform at the College on Friday,
March 17, as part o f the Black Alumni
Weekend celebration o f the 25th anniver­
sary o f the Black Cultural Center. The
Alumni Gospel Choir, shown in a 1991
20th anniversary photo, will perform at
Overbrook Presbyterian Church in
Philadelphia on Sunday, April 23. For
more information, call (610) 328-8412.

ST*

as an opportunity to evangelize our
peers and spread the gospel of Jesus
Christ. The Gospel Choir was open to
all black students who wanted to sing
and so c ia liz e in a m anner th at
affirmed black Christian identity on a
campus w here we som etim es felt
marginalized on the basis of race, sex,
culture, economic status, and religion.
In my view the Gospel Choir advanced
the core objective of the black student
revolution of the 1970s, which was to
establish black cultural identity as a
permanent feature of cam pus life.
When we started the group at Swarthmore, collegiate gospel choirs were
springing up on campuses all over the

United States alongside the
black student organizations,
black studies programs, black
cultured centers, etc.
Today there are two gospel
choirs at Swarthmore, one for
students cu rrently enrolled
and another for alumni. The
alumni choir first performed in
1986 during the Swarthmore
Black Alumni W eekend under th e
direction of Freeman Palmer ’79. We
had our first opportunity to perform
for all Swarthmore alumni during last
June’s Alumni Collection. Many of the
singers present that day were part of
the group that formed the choir in
1971: Darryl Burke ’74, Ja c k ie
Edmunds Clark ’74, P atrice Harris
Pompa ’75, Chiquita Davidson Hayes
’74, Phillip Hayes ’73, Andrew Hender­
son ’74, Lynette Hunkins ’74, Carolyn
Mitchell ’74, Cheryl Sanders ’74, Karen
Shropshire Yancey ’75, Cindy Hunter
Spann ’75, Vaneese Thomas ’74, and
Jim White ’73. The two selections per­
formed at the choir’s Alumni Weekend

debut, “Why We Sing” and “We’ve Got
a Right to Praise the Lord,” were cho­
sen to give voice to the religious testi­
mony and cu ltu ral p ersp e ctiv e of
black Swarthmore alumni.
Carolyn Mitchell offered the follow­
ing remarks for the occasion, express­
ing th e meaning and purpose this
choir has had for us over the years:
“We serve two very important func­
tions. The first is that we are ambas­
sadors of Swarthmore. The choir has
traveled widely for 23 years, and wher­
ever we go we spread the word of this
great place—its beauty, its traditions,
and the quality of a Swarthmore edu­
cation. Our other purpose is to sing
the praises of Almighty God....
“Like our ancestors in times of trou­
ble, we sang. By day in socio lo gy
class, we talked about the nonexis­
tence of black culture, and by night
we sang “I’ve Been ’Buked and I’ve
Been S co rn ed .” By day in biology
class, we talked about the destruction
of the ecological order, and by night
we sang “He’s Got the Whole World in
His Hands.” By day in psychology
class, we talked about Freudian and
Jungian approaches to our psycholog­
ical disorders, and by night we sang
“Fix Me, Jesus.” And by day in chem­
istry class, we talked about things that
just don’t change, like the equilibrium
constant and the laws of thermody­
namics, and by night we sang “Expect
a M ira cle.” W hen our p ro fe sso rs
seemed like they weren’t sure if we
had a right to be here, we sang “Noth­
ing Can Turn Me Around.” My broth­
ers and sisters, this is why we sing.” ■
Cheryl Sanders ’74 is a sso cia te p rofes­
s o r o f Christian eth ics a t th e H ow ard
University S ch o o l o f Divinity in Wash­
ington, D.C. H er b o o k Saints in Exile,
s c h e d u le d to b e p u b lis h e d by O xford
University P ress n ex t fall, in clu des a
g e n e r a l d isc u s sio n o f th e c o lle g ia t e
g o sp el ch o ir m ovem ent.

Cycling in California, July 9 -1 4

f

mm:H

mirÉìCycle or
Sail with
Swarthmore
Looking for
a summer
vacation with
a difference?
Swarthmore is
offering a
repeat
of our two
most popular
domestic trips.
“The group's common
connection made it
particularly enjoyable
even though we had not
previously known any of
our fellow passengers. ”
—Scott W ashington ’50

Come sample this popular northern California region
that offers variety at every turn. Cycle beneath the
m ajestic redwoods, sample the wares of the large and
small wineries of the Alexander and Napa valleys, spend
a day white-water raft­
ing, dip in hot springs “It was one o f the gre a test bicycle
and mud baths, and treks I have been on. The tour
11V
venture by van into leaders couldn’t have been nicer,
the Sierras to cycle the m ore helpful, and m ore fun. ”
fcw**..«
—Edward M. Clark ’49
Emigrant Trail. Variety
is also offered in the accommodations, from
hot springs resort, lodge, and historic hotel
to camping with gear provided. The fare will range from delicious campfire
meals to sumptuous restaurant buffets and sunset patio barbecues.
Cost for the trip is $625 per person double occupancy, which includes lodg­
ing, meals, tips, the raft trip, and round-trip transportation by van from San
Francisco airport. Bike rentals and sleeping bags are available at a very rea­
sonable rate. A $300 deposit is required by M a y 15. A five percent trip dis­
count is offered for reservations received by April 1.

Sailing in Maine, July 17-20
Follow the wind for four days of sailing in the salt air of Penobscot Bay. We
have reserved space on the 80-foot windjammer M ercantile, which sails out of
Camden, Maine. Built in 1916 to carry cargo, she was converted to a passen­
ger ship in 1941 and was totally restored in
1989 to include modern conveniences. As “A friendly, com petent crew , a
we explore the beauty of the rugged Maine m arvelous sa ilin g vessel, p len ty of
coastline, passengers are encouraged to goodies to eat, and, holding it all
assist the crew and learn about sailing the together, the bay itself, a grea t
cruise schooner or just laze in the salt air, place to sail. ”
—John P. Sinclair ’36
scudding along under full sail. Evenings
often find the M ercantile moored a short
rowboat ride from one of the little villages on the islands of Penobscot Bay,
where we can do some after-dinner exploring.
Cost for the trip is $475 per person double occupancy, meals included. A
$300 deposit is required by M a y 15. A five percent trip discount is offered for
reservations received by April 1.
This is the only m ajor announcem ent o f these tou rs. Tour size s are
lim ited, so don’t m iss this opportunity fo r an exciting tra ve l experience.
For more information write the Alumni Relations Office, Swarthmore
College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081-1397, or phone (610) 3288402, E-mail: alumni@swarthmore.edu. If you wish to hold a space, please
include a deposit made payable to Swarthmore College.