1 Natasha Beck Stafford Studies, July 2014
William Stafford and Maurice Beck: Two Men of Wit and Principle
This project will compare and contrast the lives of two men of conscience and principle, the poet William (Bill) Stafford and my father, Maurice (Maury) Beck. I will focus on the time period 1935-‐45,and have included annotated primary documents and photos. Further, I will offer examples of Beck's sense of humor, and conclude with how this project has been important to me. Born in Kansas in 1914,William Stafford was a graduate student in English when he refused induction into the U.S. military and declared himself a conscientious objector due to his pacifist religious beliefs (Church of the Brethren). He served at camps in Arkansas, Indiana, and California. He met his future wife, Dorothy, when she visited a camp in southern California in 1943,and they were married the following year. He wrote a book about his conscientious objector (c.o.) camp experience, where he performed physical labor but also was part of a community of thoughtful and intelligent young men. After the war he presented the book as his Master's thesis. After completing his doctorate at the University of Iowa, he continued a long career as a professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon and achieved considerable acclaim as a poet. Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1917,he stayed there until he graduated from Brown University in 1939. During his college years, he wrote for the Brown Daily Herald, was a member of the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL),and served as president of the Brown Liberal Club, an organization also affiliated with the progressive multi-‐issue group the American Student Union (ASU). Holding pacifist beliefs when he was ordered to report to the local draft board, he tried as a graduate student in social work to get a student deferment. He was denied his deferment, lost his fellowship and was inducted into the army in September 1941; he served in a number of camps in the American south, and his work involved adult basic literacy curriculum development and administration of psychological tests. After the war, he completed his MSW at the University of Pittsburgh and had a long career in social work planning and administration. Although both men loved literature, Beck didn't write any, considering his relationship to literature one of "consumer." However, he often quoted lines from authors ranging from Dickens to Melville. When my sister and I would ask the meaning of a word, he would often preface his remarks "from the Latin (or Greek), meaning..." When we were older, we would be encouraged to look up words in the dictionary and to consult the encyclopedia. As young men, both Stafford and Beck were outsiders in their political and philosophical beliefs, but they did have community-‐-‐Dad through his memberships in YPSL and ASU, and Stafford through his fellow c.o.'s. Stafford's son Kim has
2 suggested that had the two men met, they would have had interesting conversations. Both men also loved nature and met their future spouses during World War II, and carried on extensive written correspondence after meeting. Bill and Dorothy bonded over their love of literature and nature, as well as their shared philosophical beliefs. My parents met as camp counselors during the summer of 1941,and bonded over their shared interest in helping other people through social work and volunteer community work. They also enjoyed cultural activities such as plays, classical music concerts, and museums.
Photo 1: Student anti-‐war strike, April 12,1935
In 1935,a nationwide strike of 175,000 students involved young people from Boston to Los Angeles, from historically black colleges to City College of New York, from Los Angeles Junior College to Vassar College, and from high schools to professional schools. The main organizations involved in this historic event were the Socialist group Student League for Industrial Democracy, and the Communist group the National Student League. The country was in the middle of the Great Depression; millions of adults were unemployed, schools were closing, and some teachers were unpaid, yet millions of federal dollars were spent on armaments. Students were concerned about the outbreak of imperialist war and the presence of ROTC on college campuses. They had the support of faculty members, clergy, newspapers,
3 several U.S. senators, labor unions, and the Socialist Party. Opponents included conservative students and police.
Photo 2: Pamphlet by Joseph P. Lash, The Campus Strikes Against War, 1935.
Joseph Lash was National Secretary of the Student League for Industrial Democracy, a leader in the American Student Union, and a member of the National Student Strike Committee. Written after the April student strike mentioned above, Lash urged students to continue their peace activism, to sign the Oxford pledge, to continue the fight against fascism in Europe and Asia, to support labor unions, and above all, to work for socialism.
5 The songs reflected the wide-‐ranging progressive views of the American Student Union (ASU): anti-‐war, anti-‐fascist in the Spanish Civil War, and solidarity with workers in general and the AFL and the CIO in particular. They were on the program for an ASU regional conference in Boston.
Photo 4: The Oxford Pledge Card.
Students were asked to sign the Oxford Pledge, which stated: “I refuse to support the government of the United States in any war it may undertake, and pledge my unwavering opposition to war preparations and the militarization of America. “
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Photo 5: Leaflet from the Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL) ca. 1938.
Maurice P. Beck and several members of the Liberal Club were YPSL members. The leaflet offered an urgent call for unity from a broad range of youth and encouraged them to attend regional conferences.
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Photo 6: Letter from Janet Phillips of the Boston District American Student Union
This April 19,1938 letter to Maurice Beck discussed the forthcoming Fast for Spain, in support of the anti-‐fascist Republicans in their war against the fascist Nationalists.
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Photo 7: Call to Strike Against the War, Boston Common, ca. 1930s.
This leaflet discussed an action supported by a coalition of organizations; some of the more notable ones include Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and the Young People’s Socialist League. Notably absent was the Young Communist League, which had abandoned its previous anti-‐war position and pledged itself to support the Soviet Union. (On a contemporary note, the first two organizations soon will celebrate their 100th anniversaries: WILPF in 2015 and FOR in 2016.) The strike supported a number of issues. Chief among them were demands to divert money to be spent on militarism and war preparation towards education, job creation, slum clearance, and public housing. Further, the strike urged the U.S. to boycott Japanese goods, to end the embargo against Spain, and to support the
9 people’s right to have a war referendum. The strike committee pledged themselves to world peace and social and economic justice.
Photo 8: American Student Union Brochure, Boston, How Can the U.S.A. Prevent a World War? This leaflet was written when Europe was on the brink of World War II. The U.S. government hadn’t yet made a break with its isolationist policy with respect to Europe, and its authors urged students to take several actions. First, to write President Roosevelt and Congress people urging them to lift the embargo on Spain, and to further clarify the difference between aggressor and victim in applying government embargoes. Second, to sign a petition from the Youth Committee for Concerned Peace Efforts in support of the above. Third, to donate and collect money for relief aid to support the anti-‐fascists in Spain and China.
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Photo 9: Dorothy and William Stafford, 1945. He was still doing his conscientious objector service. They had met in 1943 and married in 1944.
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Photo 10: Maurice Beck, graduation from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, B.A. in Psychology.
13 Maurice (Maury) Beck’s wit Dad had a dry wit and loved to tell puns and use wordplay. My maternal grandma, Inez Stickney Hagen, once remarked: “Life with Maury will never be boring.” Here are some examples from the late 1930s and during the World War II years: .
1. “Clash with Lash” in reference to a debate between Joseph Lash, national leader of the American Student Union (ASU), and member of the Brown Liberal Club.
2. He referred to a Boston regional organizer for the ASU as a “feminine firebrand.”
3. In spring 1939,he described getting ready to graduate and finishing up his political work and other obligations as “running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”
4. My parents were married on June 29,1943. After a short honeymoon, they went to Durant, Mississippi where Dad was stationed at Camp McCain. He had an erratic schedule, and sometimes would climb into a side window and come bursting into the room they rented and ask, ”Do you think we’ll win the war?”
5. By 1945,he would ask, ”Do you think we’ll win the peace?”
My Personal Thoughts on this Project This project was enlightening in a number of ways. I started out with a vague idea that I wanted to do something with William Stafford's writings on his conscientious objector (c.o.) camp experiences. Then I thought about the inherited files of my dad's letters, leaflets, pamphlets and other ephemera about his college student activist work in the anti-‐war and other social justice movements of the 1930s. Realizing that both Stafford and Beck were contemporaries, shared common philosophical and political beliefs, as well as a strong love of literature, I decided to compare and contrast their beliefs, interests, and lives. As a member of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF),and a former college women's studies instructor, I've had a long-‐time interest in women's participation in social and political movements. I was pleased to see women's involvement in the leadership and staff of several 1930s peace and justice organizations. While I don't know how many were involved in grassroots work, judging by the leaders listed on mastheads, I calculated that women formed between 25-‐30% of the leadership of these organizations, and also held paid staff positions. I was also pleased to note that WILPF was one of the sponsoring organizations for an important anti-‐war rally, and also noted the names Molly Yard, who much later became a national president of the National Organization for Women, and Viola Scudder, who was an important labor union organizer in the 1930s.
14 Works Cited:
Beck, Maurice. Personal papers: political correspondence, brochures, leaflets and photos. McQuiddy, Steve. Here on the Edge: Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2013. Stafford, William. Down in my Heart: Peace Witness in Time of War. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2006. (Originally published 1947.) Tejada-‐Flores, Rick and Judith Ehrlich, Producers. The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It. Paradigm Productions, in association with Independent Television Series, 2000.